My dog from “hell”

                This photo is not a photo of the actual dog in my post, I found this photo on the net.  

I have known for several months now that our children had purchased a Basset Hound puppy for their mom; however, I only found out why they had given her the puppy a few days ago. Years ago, I bought her a Jack Russell Terrier pup. When she had seen this pup in the pet store, and she simply fell in love with this dog. So I paid for him, and we took him home. For the first few days, he wouldn’t even get out of his box, other than to use the news paper to do his thing (I thought, what a smart dog, he’s already well on his way to being house trained). He cried for almost a week, I guessed that he missed his brothers and sisters back at the pet store. At first this dog was very antisocial to say the least – then one night he walked into the living room, went over to our son, wagging his tail, and acting like that they were long lost friends, who hadn’t seen each other in years. Our son, ten years old at the time, instantly falling in love with this cute little pup (I guess it was all of the doggie kisses).



This dog didn’t even have to be house trained; he would just go to the door and bark when he needed to go. I noticed that this dog had began developing a different manor of behavior with all of us, he knew which one of our children was the most likely to play fetch the ball with him, and which one was likely to give him a treat – I had a few lap-dogs in the past; however, none of them demanded all of the attention that this dog was demanding.


Then at about 10 months of age, this dog went nuts. Whenever we we’re all at home together, this dog became the center of attention – this was the most hyper dog that I had ever seen; and he always had something to bark about – our children found this cute at first, but it soon got old. When the kids left home for school, he would stand at the window next to door, jump into the air and bark. He would do this most of the day until the children returned home, then the first thing that he would do was come running with his ball- he would even nip at them to get their attention – this dog simply loved to play – he had went from being a family dog, to a dog simply having a family to terrorize. As he got older, he began to mellow out somewhat as well – at about age 7, he was only about half as bad.


When our children had told me that they were getting their mom another Jack Russell pup; I told them that I didn’t believe that their mom would be very happy about that. So we start talking about other kinds of lap-dog breeds – I told them about a friend’s beagles and how nutty that they were, and about my friends basset hound and how she’s the coolest house dog that I have ever met; so they decided on a Basset Hound pup – she instantly fell in love with her new pup


Then a few days ago, my son who lives part of the year out of the country, in an apartment that he shares with his brother, told me that their mom had started coming over to visit them. Sometimes spending at least a week out of every month – she thought that they were getting to thin, so she started cooking and cleaning for them, my son said, this was very embarrassing when his girlfriend would come over, and his mom would be folding his underwear - he said his mom was ruining his sex life as well – so they got her the puppy in hopes that she might just get the message, that their not ten anymore - I just thought that this was kind of funny.

The fall of the middle class and the corporate takeover of our democracy:

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about an argument that I had over the Vietnam War with a Christian friend of mine back in the mid 1980s. At the core of this argument, was whether or not the military arms manufactures, and the military contractors, were in fact highly influential in the decisions that our government made early on in this conflict, and in the subsequent escalation of the war - and if the real reasons for our involvement in this conflict, were primarily about military contracts and profit making (war profiteering).


Our debate centered on whether or not our government would lead us into a war, and would allow US citizens to be placed in harm’s way, based on nothing more than a lie. My friend found the idea so appalling that our democracy could be hijacked in such a way that tens of thousands of our citizens had died, simply so the big corporations could rape our nation, and raid our tax dollars. He said that our government could never be that evil, not in a million years. I contended that these were in fact the reasons for our involvement in the war; and that the main reasons why we were not still fighting this pointless conflict, was because of the strong middleclass that we had at the time – and that was now the main reasons that the puppet masters of his hero (Ronald Reagan) had now shifted their war efforts on the middleclass.

In the times when we have had a strong middleclass, our leaders were directed and driven by the will of the electorate, and not by the interests of the big corporations. Back in the 1970s, the wages were good, and the cost of living was fairly low, and our citizens had more time for both leisure and to express their dissatisfaction with the direction that the nation was headed back then. I argued that if it had not been for the involvement of the hordes of middleclass, who were defiantly protesting this unjust war, and demanding the withdrawal of our military personal; that this conflict would have never ended.

I never could get my Christian friend to understand back then, the direction that our nation was headed; he was only concerned with the shortsighted rightwing agendas like ending abortion and becoming a Christian nation. I argued that these religious issues were simply being used as a ploy by those with their sights set on a complete corporate government takeover, and in doing this, by undermining the middleclass – I argued that if the ignorant Christian-sheep in this nation, didn’t open up their eyes and start seeing just where they were being lead and why, that someday they would wake-up, and everything about this nation which makes this nation the greatest nation on this planet, would all be gone, and gone along with their freedoms and their jobs, and the only thing that we would be producing as a nation, would be wars – and without a strong middleclass, and the checks and balance – we would all find ourselves at the will of the big corporations and their elected cronies.

For years, I pleaded with this moron to open up his eyes, and stop subscribing to the pipedream of a Christian nation that his rightwing heroes were playing to him – I told him, that as these evil motherfuckers came closer to archiving their goals, that they’ll orphan all of your silly Christian asses as well.


Today this guy is homeless – years ago, before he lost his job, his preacher convinced him to refinance his moorage, and pull out the equity, and then donate it to the church – he then lost his home to foreclosure – this was the same preacher who convinced him to vote for Ronald Reagan – he now blames Obama for all of his troubles.


You may not agree with my opinions, about how and why we arrived at where we are today – but the fact is, we’re here. And are we now past the point of no return. And is the split that we are now seeing within the Republican Party over the Tea Party, simply caused by the fact that our democracy is now just for sale to the highest bidder, and for sale, indifferent to which party that they choose to deal with – have the big corporations simply orphaned their base?

A Tea Party Christian so bat-shit crazy, that the nutters on the far right won’t even support her:

From The Washington Times;


You won't find her mentioned on the D.C. Republican website, but activist Missy Reilly Smith constitutes a kind of one-woman "tea party" movement in the liberal bastion that is the nation's capital.


The staunch pro-lifer, running a long-shot campaign against longtime Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat, is trying to wake up the city's lethargic GOP and push the abortion issue to the front of the party's agenda with new, graphic ads airing this week.


The D.C. Republican Party does not support Mrs. Smith's campaign, and local party leaders asked her not to run. In an interview, she said they told her, "You never will be able to win."


Mrs. Smith, who worked in real estate sales and ran an anti-abortion advocacy group, is challenging a popular liberal incumbent who has defeated all comers since 1990. In 2008, for example, Mrs. Norton faced no Republican challenger and won more than 92 percent of the vote in the general election.


Mrs. Smith acknowledged a steep uphill climb, with only an estimated 30,000 registered Republicans in the city versus more than 336,000 registered Democrats. But she said the District's Republicans "blew me off" because of her conservative platform, not the voter registration numbers.


Mrs. Smith said her critics have miscast her as a one-issue candidate because of her uncompromising stands against abortion, which she called "murder," and homosexuality, which she called an "abomination." Fellow Republicans are simply refusing to pay heed to America's Judeo-Christian morals and "Republican principles," she said.


Mrs. Smith's platform rests on many of the issues highlighted by the tea party movement — limited government, support for the military, school vouchers and "pro-family" values.


While embraced by tea party enthusiasts across the country in growing numbers, those positions run contrary to the platforms of many D.C. GOP and Democratic candidates alike.


Mrs. Norton and most of the Republicans running in the Nov. 2 general election support gay rights. Mrs. Norton also is pro-choice and opposes gun rights and federal funding of the city's school voucher program.


Republican D.C. Council candidate Tim Day said the District's electoral landscape has to be prepared before conservatives can take on such hot-button issues as abortion














Ok, my asshole bleeds for this moron – she claims that those evil child killing people, the ones who act just like used car salesman – the ones who just won’t let you back out of the door unless you buy something, in her case, they sold her two abortions.



She said that they told her that she was not killing a baby; (and I agree that she was not killing a baby) however, how can anyone be that naïve and ignorant, she must have not wanted to have a child at the time, and then she sought to have the abortions – so just what in the fuck did she think that she was carrying around in her gut?


Yes, if you kill your fetus, you won’t have a baby, but isn’t that the point of having an abortion in the first place. Now this guilt riddled crazy bitch, wants to take away the rights of every other women to make the same choice that she made – I’d say it would be a safe bet that most other woman who seek an abortion, know that they’re killing the fetus in their gut. This woman is a shining example of the need for children to have comprehensive sex-education at a young age in our public schools. I’ve met Christians who even in their 20’s still didn’t know where babies come from.

An open letter to my Christian friend:

I had one of the weirdest things happen the other day, I had this Christian get in my face and start telling me just how wrong I am about religion, including “jesus.” I don’t remember even talking with this guy before, other than maybe saying hello, or something like that. He told me that I need to stop saying things like: “a ghost raped a girl and made jesus.” He also told me that I better start reading the bible before its too late. He went on and on – about the time when I was about to give this Christian a real piece of my mind, I realized that he must have been reading my blog – I only talk about religious issues with my atheist friends.



So look here Christian, you don’t know anything about me. First, I have written hundreds of stories and posted them on my WEB site back in the 90s, and back then, I used to get more shit from atheists, than I would get from Christians, and over my defense of people’s rights to practice whatever religion that they choose - as a progressive and an atheist, if your religious rights and freedoms come under attack, I’ll be right there with you in the trenches, and fighting with you, not against you. And you wrongly stated that I hate Christians, I don’t! My attitude about what I write, did in fact change after I was in a situation back in 2002 – I was in a drug treatment program, and trying to get my life back on track; while an ignorant fucking Christian moron, was trying to convert me to Christianity, so he could then claim me, as some kind of fucking prize – and after I had exposed what had happened to me, these ignorant fucking morons went on a campaign of hate against me and my friends. These sick fucking morons, were trying to destroy me, and my family, and as a consequence, I still haven’t moved back home with my family; I thought it would be better that I limit the time that I spent with my family, rather than to bring this bullshit home to them – if this had happened to you Mr. Christian, you would be a little pissed off too.


I started blogging as a way to help me recover from all the persecution from these ignorant fucking Christians, and to help me recover my writing skills - and I lost them, along with most of my other memories back in 2000 – today I believe my memory, is about 80% recovered, and I am reading and writing at about 65% of where I was back in the 1990s – so I would guess that it’s working. And Mr. Christian, if you want to know the truth about all of the fucking lies that those ignorant folks have told you about me, simply ask me.


And no, I’m not going to “tone down” the way I write, if you don’t like what you read here, no one’s asking you to come here in the first place – and talk to me yourself, and stop believing all that stuff that my ignorant Christian fan-club is telling you, (pack of fucking liars) and come back and talk to me, my friend.






I was just wondering if anything like this has ever happened to you, and how would you handle something like this, if this happened to you?

My confusion over the proper way of eating jesus:

I had been hearing about this religious knowledge test conducted by PEW for at least two weeks now. The results simply confirmed what I have always known – Christians and most other religious people, don’t know jack-shit about religion, including their own. Most have never even read their own “holy-books,” or have done any type of real research. As someone who has read the bible from cover to cover at least twice, and studied religion and mythology for about 5 years in my teens, I have always wondered just how any half-way intelligent person could read the whole bible, and still walk away believing such utter nonsense. The story of Christ is simply stolen from the stories of the dozens of other solar messiah’s, and all of which, predate Christianity, and some by 1000’s of years. I thought, why should I even waste my time with this test, I thought that I would just ace the test anyway - so why even bother looking for the URL.



Then I was over at Krissthesexyatheist’s blog, and I found the first working link – so before reading his post any further, I clicked on the link. I started taking the test; there are 15 questions, and as I was answering the last one, I realized that I had fucked up on 14. “Which of these religions aims at nirvana, the state of being free from suffering?” well I can blame that one on my dyslexia – I knew the answer was Buddhism; however, I had clicked on Hinduism, I thought, what the hell, I’ll still get 14 out of 15 right anyway. Then the next page which gives you, your score read: “You answered 13 out of 15 questions correctly
for a score of 87%.”

I thought, WTF, I missed 6 too? 6. “Which of the following best describes the Catholic teaching about the bread and wine used for Communion?” I thought, how in the hell did I get that one wrong; I have always thought that eating and drinking zombie-jesus, was just a symbolic ritual derived from the “last supper” story. So I had given this answer: “The bread and wine are symbols of the body and blood of Jesus Christ.” – Wrong answer? WTF – the correct answer is: “The bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Jesus Christ.” I thought to myself: and all of this time that I have been thinking that they were just symbolically eating on jesus, and drinking his blood – when in fact, these sick and deluded folks have actually been gorging themselves on this dead-zombie-jesus – what a sick fucking lot of vampires and fucking cannibals. I have always known that the Catholics loved themselves some jesus; but I never even thought that they were this fucking sick – I guess as long as we don’t close our minds, we can learn something new every day?

Something is just a little fishy up here in Seattle:

I get a kick, every time I read this sign; this sign has been on the wall of Ivar’s fish-bar, ever since that I can remember. When I was about 10 years of age, I ask a lady who was working at the bar just why the 3 cup limit. She said: “it makes guys horny, you guys should try some.” In hindsight, I wonder just what was wrong with her – we were only 10 at the time?


I really don’t know why people believe such silly nonsense, but some folks do in fact believe that this stuff improves sex; and they sell gallons of the stuff.

If you love eating fish, and you are in Seattle, this place is a must visit. The fish is simply the best!

Meet my higher power sheep (sheep’s-us)

                                                   Meet my higher-power stuffed sheep.

                                            Meet my higher-power stuffed-sheep’s ass.

Okay, I’m not a stuffed-sheep theist per se, nor do I worship a stuffed sheep’s-ass, so let me explain – about 3 years ago, after a night of binge-drinking (two bottles of cheep cabernet sauvignon) the next morning, I went to a Safeway store to get some food for breakfast. This was just one of those mornings, when I just couldn’t decide, just what I wanted to eat for breakfast – bacon and eggs? Or some veggies and fruit -- I just couldn’t decide; so I just bought both – and somewhere in that drunken haze, I had placed this stuffed sheep in my shopping-cart, along with two more bottles of cabernet.

When I returned home, I simply decided to drink my breakfast, and then I guess passed out. I awoke to find this sheep looking at me, and with those cold black eyes, which seemed to follow me all over the room. This gave me one hell of a fright. I didn’t even remember buying the stupid thing. I found this sheep so menacing, that I shoved him head first into a shelf – and that’s when it hit me – he can be my higher-power sheep, and remind me, not to drink so much. As a joke, I thought, people pray to “jesus,“ that’s about the same as praying to a stuffed sheep’s-ass – so I named him sheep-us. I started praying to sheep-us (my higher-power stuffed sheep’s-ass) for all kinds of things. When I would pull some money out of my pocket, and buy lottery tickets, I would say: “in the name of sheep’s-ass, I going to win some money,” and I would win – me and my sheep’s-ass, had a real hot streak going on for awhile.

Then awhile back, I was eating dinner at a bar, and there was a guy sitting at the bar playing the pull-tabs. This guy must have had about 300 dollars worth of them in front of him – he was trying to win a 500 dollar one, there was only one of them in the bin. I pulled out a 10, and said: “in the name of my higher-power stuffed sheep’s-ass, I’m going to win that 500 dollar pull-tab.” I opened the first one, it was one dollar, the next one was nothing, and the next one had 500 with a line though it. I set it back in the basket, and picked up my sandwich again, and went back to eating. This guy must have read my face or something; he looked at me and said: “you son of a bitch, you have it, don’t you.” At that point I said out loud: “praise the Lard, and pass the tequila” – boy was that guy pissed. I won over 800 dollars that night, and the next day, I bought myself a new laptop computer.


Now, I know that my sheep had little to do with the fact that I won. But if that had been a Christian, and said: “in the name of jesus,“and then won that 500 dollars, there would be no way of convincing them otherwise.

How do we as atheist deal with life’s problems without God(s):

I was having a tough time over the past few days. This was in part because I learned 3 or 4 months ago that one of my children had joined an outreach organization as a volunteer. This organization helps provide food and medicine to poor people living in places like Africa and in other 3 world nations. As his mom was telling me this story, I started wondering why he didn’t tell me about this himself when I had seen him this past summer; then his mom tells me; Oh by the way, he’s been taking flying lessons in both airplanes and helicopters – apparently this aid organization uses aircraft to reach poor people in remote locations. News of this took me back to all of the stress that a close friend and I was having when his son that’s in the Air force, was learning how to take off and land jets on aircraft carriers – I mean, he wouldn’t even answer his cell phone when it rang, he would let it go to voicemail, and then call and get his messages; his son did in fact survive all of his training, but man, was this ever a stressful time for the both of us – I love his son, just like if he was my own.




In my sons case, I started thinking about the day, when I awoke to the sounds of kids screaming, and then looked out of the window, only to see that my little heathens had built an 8 foot ramp, to jump an old bike into the air, then grab a rope, and swing over to the pool, and then drop into the pool – our kids could be very creative in finding ways in keeping both their mom and me, on pins and needles. When I asked these guys just what in the hell that they thought that they were doing, they said: “this is fun, you should try it dad!” I think for awhile back then, they must have thought that they were part monkey or something.



Then this past week, I learned that the father of this Air Force pilot, who is a Firefighter, was injured when a wall of a burning building fell on him. This guy has been my friend for way over 30 years, and I love him just like a brother. At first I became mad at him, because he’s also been a Firefighter for more than 30 years, and he should have known better than to be standing next to a wall of a burning building – then I discovered that he had walked over to the wall, to warn a rookie Firefighter that he was standing to close to the wall, then the wall fell on him; he probably saved the life of the rookie Firefighter.



I guess that I just don’t handle the stress to well, when it comes to the health and safety of my children and my friends – I spent the past few days thinking about just how wonderful it must be for Christians, who pray to “god” and “jesus” and ask “them” to protect their loved ones and their children; however, to me that’s just the same as doing nothing.



It has taken me a few days to get over this dread that I’ve been feeling over what has happened to my friend, and what my son is doing (the flying thing). I awoke this morning feeling pride over what my friend did at the fire, and what my son is doing so that he can help people in need – I’m sure that he remembers when he was growing up, his mom and I going to the 7/11 and buying money orders, and sending them to those organizations who claimed to be helping the poor in those poor nations like Africa; and I am so proud of him for taking a more hands on approach. But I’m still having an issue with the flying thing – I guess that I just can’t let go of the fact that he’s not a baby anymore.



I’ve been like this for most of my life – how do you as atheist deal with issues like these, just writing this post has made me feel a little better about this – how do you deal with the stresses like this in life – the Christians simply have their god(s) to pass them off too. What do you do in situations like these?