that other guy’s thoughts

Welcome to your Friday silliness:

…you may now resume your day.

It’s in weeks such as these where we bring out the best of humanity. This week, everyone gets pigeon holed as a liberal-pansy or a crusading racist. There’s no room for compromise now, only alternating salvos of vengeful vitriol and self-righteous indignation, just like the founding fathers would have wanted.

There are plenty of things to be offended at this week. Liberal pansy jackasses, crusading war-mongering racists, even crazy religious murdering bastards.

Me? I’m offended at Islamo-Fascism.

Not the concept, just the word. I’m offended by its conjugation, I’m offended by its construction, and I’m offended by its very parts of speech.

First off, “Islamo” isn’t a word. It’s not a truncation or abbreviation of a word, it’s not a conjugation of a word, and it’s certainly not an acceptable hyphenated prefix. If we are searching for an adjective to describe something as being related to the faith of Islam, then the correct word would be Islamic. Islamo is straight up horrible grammar.

Secondly, enough with the invocation of 20th century Italian political parties already! (Quick history note: Fascism, is oddly enough, named after a sort of roman scepter made out of sticks called a fasces. There is symbolism behind it, but you’ll have to figure that out on your own.) Fascism isn’t an over-reaching philosophically based political theory; it’s merely the brand name for Mussolini’s 1922 power grab. Stop ascribed the term to your enemy de jour.

Pissed at President Bush for invading Iraq? Call it militarism. Pissed at the Attorney General for invading your privacy? Call it Totalitarianism. Pissed as Saudi Arabia for forcing women into wearing a hijab? Call it Statism or Authoritarianism. Playing fast and loose with fake definitions of real words won’t get you where to want to go.

I don’t have a real good word to sum up this week, but “stupid” sounds about right.

Don’t believe it. Not even for a minute.

We can hang a guy upside down by his thumbs, in a 40-degree meat locker, and dunk him in water. Legally.

Because that’s not torture, it’s only an “enhanced interrogation technique.” So sayeth our President, Vice President, and resigned Attorney General.

Bush, she added, “has done everything within the corners of the law to make sure that we prevent another attack on this country.”

I don’t care what we’ve coerced a bunch of low-minded legal minds into believing is “within the corners of the law.” Waterboarding, stress positions, sleep deprivation; these tactics fall outside this administration’s definition of torture.

My concious knows better. So does the International Red Cross and the UN Convention against Torture. A spade is a spade, and torture is torture, even when it’s gussied up as security theater.

I don’t know, but humorous ridicule is a good place to start.