Much Like Religion in General, Pope's Website Remains a Mystery

Apparently, the "Pope2You View" Plug-In Has some Bugs

I'm not religious, but I'm not anti-religious or anything, so I decided to give the Pope's website (Pope2you.net) a look after Il Papa called for a new Christian Army of bloggers on Saturday:

“Who better than a priest, as a man of God,” the Pope said, “can develop and put into practice, by his competence in current digital technology, a pastoral outreach capable of making God concretely present in today’s world and presenting the religious wisdom of the past as a treasure which can inspire our efforts to live in the present with dignity while building a better future?

Unfortunately, the Pope's website has about as much substance and content as a Martha Coakley Facebook page. Maybe my browser is all dicked up, but nothing is working right on this website. That is including the "Piece of Peace" page, which has some graphic of the world that looks like it's from Atari's Pitfall that rotates around spastically when you roll over it with your mouse.

The Catholic Church would be attracting a lot more visitors by posting mash-up videos of the Pope getting tackled or the Pope-mobile riding around set to the Ministry song "Jesus Built my Hotrod".

Unfathomable Hubris

Most amazingly lame and self-serving comment of the day comes from this Senate staffer who writes in to Talking Points Memo:

My background is like probably the majority of staffers I know. I came to DC, from a far superior climate and quality of life, because I wanted to save the world.

If only they had been given more money to dole out than the $787B in the stimulus monstrosity (which was too small of course), we could have really recognized how the new aristocracy in Washington had our best interests at heart.

Some Non-Phonies For a Gloomy Sunday

One of Those Days (Borrowed from Oddlyspecific.com)

Anyone else bummed out about the so-called Tea Party Nation convention taking place next month in Tennessee? Charging over 500 bones to take part in a "populist" movement is about as appropriate as a Massachusetts Democratic Party campaign ad. The whole "We're Just Being Capitalists" argument doesn't really cut it, as politics is supposed to be about what's good for the country, not what's good for your pocketbook. The fact that money gets so involved both in DC and the grassroots leads to a whole slew of corruption and cronyism both at the local and national level. I thought the Tea Party movement was supposed to address this problem, but what do I know, I don't even live in the country anymore.

So here's some non-phonies to clean up your head: Army of Dude has a good description of vets going through college, and Vox Veterana is up and running after a long period of disillusionment.

Who Would've Thought That a Public Official Would Be So Incompetent?

File Photo of Janet Napolitano

President Obama's national security team and the folks that keep America from getting blowed up has been, thankfully, a pretty decent bunch of individuals. However, one official stands out worse than a turd on the Thanksgiving table, and no Marueen Dowd puff pieces on Janet Napolitano's "determination" are going to prevent her from getting inevitably axed for gross incompetence. Here's the latest embarrassing statement to the press, which Jim Hoft has a transcript of, saying that the lone suicide bomber concept was something that caught Homeland Security with its pants down:

Question: What was the most shocking, stunning thing that you found out of the review? And, Secretary, to you, as well...
SECRETARY NAPOLITANO: I think, following up on that, not just the determination of al Qaeda and al Qaeda Arabian Peninsula, but the tactic of using an individual to foment an attack, as opposed to a large conspiracy or a multi-person conspiracy such as we saw in 9/11, that is something that affects intelligence.

Has she been on planet Earth the last 10 years? The typical stereotype of a suicide bomber (the 18-30 year old male who becomes disenchanted and decides to achieve martyrdom through mass atrocity) was the case here. The President promises a detailed bi-partisan review of the matter that will, hopefully, involve some "reassignments" of Napolitano and that other guy who didn't want his skiing vacation interrupted.

As an aside, this could go hand-in-hand with the much needed bipartisan inquiry into why the VA is having so many problems, which Army Sergeant has a great piece about.

Adios to the Ohs

By most standards of assessment, the last decade was more disappointing than the fact that Bill Paxton, essential comic relief to any James Cameron film, did not make an appearance in Avatar. Obviously, war is never a good thing, even if necessary, and a shit economy doesn't help matters either. However, a depressed society usually produces some very interesting culture (think of all the punk bands that started when Jimmy Carter was in office). But unfortunately, even the music in this wretched decade was downright terrible as Wek has already pointed out.

I thought this Seattle Times editorial summarized it all up pretty well. And I recall a quote from Fight Club (a 1999 movie) that was sort of a precursor to this decade:

God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables — slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars, but we won't. We're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.

Well, we got our war and sort-of depression alright, but I'm not sure how it's all going to end up in the end. Maybe we'll turn out alright, and even if we don't, it's more enjoyable to live in the decline of an empire than the rise of one. Just like Caligula.