Eat at Chili's today, Help St. Jude

Hey, remember, today's the 25th. Have you gone to Chili's yet? You can place a togo order if a sit-down dinner is not on the schedule tonight. You can go to the main page and enter your zip code in the lower right hand corner to find a pdf menu of the location nearest you. So, eat at Chili's tonight and they'll send the profits to St Jude Children's Research Hospital.

Or if you want, just donate to St Jude online.

Thanks for your support of a worthy cause!


UPDATE: I took my own advice and enjoyed a Mushroom Swiss Burger (to-go). I highly recommend it.

Down with Theocracy Propaganda

Joe at Evangelical Outpost posted a list of clarficiations about his own positions. It's certainly interesting and a wise thing to do to head off anyone trying to recast his views in other ways.

This one really caught my attention:

I am indeed convinced that anyone who truly believes the U.S. is on the path to theocracy is a moron.

Indeed. I am also convinced of this. And I wonder how many people "truly" believe it and how many people just say it to cause hysteria. Regardless of the President's views on personal faith, or even on faith based programs, this country is so far from a theocracy, it's pretty ridiculous to even consider that we are anywhere near such a path.

Here are some of his other comments that are full of truth and common sense - two things severely lacking in mainstream media stories - especially those from the AP:

*I don't condone torture or support those who do. I also don't think the word has been properly defined in a way that is useful in clarifying the political debate on the issue. There is a broad spectrum that ranges from undeniable acts of outrage to the type of discomfort that I was subjected to in Marine Corps Boot Camp. Confusing the term in order to bash the President has done more harm than good and may unnecessarily inflame anti-American sentiment .

*Generally speaking, I don't think that the American public is stupid. I do, however, think they (and I include myself in this criticism) tend to be ill-informed and think in clichés. Anyone who thinks the Democratic Party is good for the poor or minorities or thinks that Republicans are for small government hasn't been paying attention.

*I'm honestly not sure what to think about global warming. But what I am convinced about is that the proposed solutions to the problem would be more detrimental to humanity than the effects of climate change.

Now, as a fair disclaimer, I took did not include everything that Joe said, but I didn't exclude things in order to make him look like he believes one thing or another. If you want to know what he said in its entirety, feel free to read it all, I am simply including the things with which I agree.

That's fair isn't it?

Either way, here's the last thing he said, and it's quite possibly something I would say about myself too, though I may increase the figure to about 61% :)

While I'm opinionated and hard-headed, I am open to persuasive power of rational argumentation. I've only thought through about 46% of my opinions so there is still plenty of room for convincing. In other words, if you think I'm wrong, you're more than welcome to try to set me straight.

This Just In: Panda Hugging is Dangerous

Seriously. A guy tried to hug a panda in China. It didn't go well:

An intoxicated Chinese man who tried to give a panda a hug at Beijing Zoo found himself biting it in self defense after his clumsy attempt at affection was savagely rejected, local media reported Thursday.

Zhang Xinyan, a building worker on holiday from China's central Henan province, climbed into an enclosure that held Gu Gu, a seven-year-old panda, at Beijing Zoo after the man had drunk four pints of beer during lunch at a nearby restaurant, the Yanzhao Metropolis Daily said.

Zhang, who couldn't remember the incident clearly, had wanted to hug the panda and shake its hand after having watched similar scenes on television.

"When I was in there, the panda was eating bamboo. Then, it seemed some people shouted, which startled the panda. He rushed over to bite my leg," Zhang said.

Even if he was intoxicated...that's quite a feat. I mean...pandas may be cute, but they're HUGE. Now, I'm pretty aware when it comes to news bites about Pandas, but not once have I seen someone hug a panda. Even a drunk someone.

Sounds like it would make a good YouTube piece though...

"Gee-whiz weapons"

I wonder if the capture of Osama Bin Laden is coming soon. I've been hearing lately from some liberal oriented news show guests that even if we capture/kill Bin Laden, the terrorists who supposedly take their cues from him are splintering and planning their own parties. So even without Bin Laden, they'll still be big mean terrorists. This may in fact be true, and if it is, I would guess it's been true for a long time. My guess is that what would cause the splintering is the fact that Bin Laden had to go into hiding in the caves and then eventually stop using his cell phone and could not longer get on the party line.

Anyway, the point is, do these liberals know something about an imminent capture of Bin Laden that is causing them to backtrack on the "We have to focus on Bin Laden and not Iraq" propaganda?

Maybe, maybe not.

In the meantime, it would be good to consider the previous line of propaganda - you know, the one about how Bush is personally in charge of the OBL hunt?
No Neutrality had opined about this last week:

[F]rom critics of the president's decision to prosecute the war on terror: "He [Bush] (or sometimes even "We") can't even find Osama Bin Laden!"

Last I checked, Bush isn't in Delta Force, Special Ops or anything of the sort. Most of the time, his whereabouts are pretty well known, and it almost always leaves him with little or no time to be off scaling the rugged hills of Afghanistan. After all, this is the guy who is derided for not having the foresight to see 9/11 coming so he was caught in dereliction of duty reading a book to school children when the planes hit the WTC. I guess he was supposed to be piloting an F-15 in the air over ManHattan like ANY decent president would have done.

I might be off here, but I thought we had specially trained guys with knives between their teeth and Gee-whiz weapons in their arsenals who do the really spiffy manhunt stuff? So if that's the case, aren't the armchair S.E.A.L team leaders really slamming the ability of the troops in the field, not the commander-in-chief?

That's right, we usually know where the President is. But...Vice President Cheney on the other hand...

Maybe they'll be blaming him next, figuring he should be getting something done in that undisclosed location of his...

Not enough time or interest

I agree that people have a reason to be concerned that there isn't enough web space devoted to counter-pointing/critiquing Keith Olbermann. But in my view there isn't enough time in the day to adequately do the job justice. Nor am I that interested in listening to him so as to do the job at all. If I know that there is little to no chance that he will say something valuable, why waste my time?

But Media blog is on the case today if you want some anti-olbermann stuff.

Hungry? Eat at Chili's on September 25th!

On Monday September 25th, all profits from all Chili's restaurants nationwide will benefit St Jude Children's Research Hospital.

Of course, I recommend donating to St Jude any day of the week because it is a tremendous hospital that helps so many children every year. They not only do cancer research, they also treat kids with cancer and so they need all the money they can get. So, if you can't donate outright, but you can eat out, then this is the day and place to do it. :)