God - again

In Detroit, Michigan, thousands are gathering to restore God to our "Baal-based" country. The forces of Satan, apparently, are about to take over, thanks to humanists, leftists, socialists, atheists and assorted other subversives, including Muslims and anybody else who doesn't share the correct and only view that Christians have a corner on truth, justice, love and humanity.

Meanwhile, Herman Cain has let us in on the hitherto unknown fact that the reason he's running for president is that he was told to run. By whom? Who else? God. Rick Perry's wife has announced that God told her husband to run, too. I'm expecting an announcement from Mitt and Michelle any minute.

It has apparently escaped the notice of most candidates that a president must take an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States, which states, in part, that there shall be no law respecting the establishment of religion. Not just Christianity, folks, religion. Any religion. If a candidate claims to have been told to run by God, that seems to be religion. Are we to believe that a person who gets to be president thanks to God won't be at least a little tempted to repay the favor? Like people who get elected thanks to massive corporate campaign contributions?

So how could a president repay the favor? Perhaps by pushing religious education in the schools. By outlawing abortion - or anything else that conflicts with his (or her) particular take on what the Almighty wants. It's happened before. Check the Inquisition.

Meanwhile, back in the Motor City, assorted religious gurus are fanning the embers of Christ-like love by stirring up hate. The Call, the latest group to summon its followers to lift the cross along with the sword, held a meeting in Ford Field, the home of the Detroit Lions. TheCall is the latest and largest of several groups or individuals to come to the Detroit area with a message that bothered many of its estimated 150,000 to 200,000 Muslims. "As with many other Christian groups, TheCall and its adherents believe Jesus is the only path to salvation. While they consider all other religions false, they have a specific focus on Islam, largely in response to the Sept. 11 attacks, terrorism overseas and fear that Islam, which is also a proselytizing faith, will spread faster than Christianity," according to an article in the Washington Post.

In the dating world, this sounds a lot like jealousy. If Christianity is the answer, why not let the Invisible Hand of the Market decide which one wins? In a democracy, unlike a theocracy like Iran (or the one some members of The Call might prefer), people can pick the faith on which they want to pin their hopes for eternity. What's the matter with The Call? Don't they believe in capitalism?

I'm sick of God. Not God, really, but the legions of dittosouls who think that "love thy neighbor" means "kick his ass out of the country." I'm also sick of the "My Way or the Highway" view of religion in general. Apologies to those religions who practice the kind of tolerance I feel Jesus stood for. Tolerance, that is, except for the kind of mindless bigotry being aired in Detroit and the incredible delusions held by those who would lead our country.

Cheer up. There is hope in the world. Who says so? The NRA.

Yes, the National Rifle Association has a message for you besides the one about guns not killing people. I got it as an enclosure with the a local free newspaper in Portland called The Tribune, perhaps in honor of the brave Roman soldiers who led armies of glory-seeking musclemen in a seemingly never-ending quest to conquer the world.

The message of hope is simple: "Life's too short to shoot an ugly gun."

Think about this. Here you are trying to figure ways to pay the mortgage, put gas in the car and food on the table and the NRA is telling you there's more to life than a roof over your head, a way to get to work or a full stomach. What is life, asks the NRA, if you don't have a good-looking piece to blow away people who are trying to take what you have left away from you?

The piece in question is a .45 caliber art work engraced with a "visual history of modern American military history." It would take the NRA to provide a history of history, I suppose, especially one "plated in a durable nickel finish with custom bluing and 24 karat gold-plated accents." Remember, says the ad, that the NRA remains the oldest civil rights organization in the United States as a protector and educator of gun owners." Brings a lump to the throat, right? So why now? Well, it's the hundreth anniversary of the Colt Model 1911 pistol that, as the NRA reminds us, "has endured the test of time." That news hasn't percolated to the majority of street gangs in the U.S. who tend to protect their civil rights with less artistic reminders like the Glock 9 mm or the Sig Sauer. Gangs really love their handguns. Handguns were used in more than 85 percent gang-related homicides in California, according to a report from the state Attorney General's Office. I'll bet that every one of their owners would just love to have one of the gold-plated products

Unfortunately, only 100 of these "finely engraved and individually numbered pistols" will be available to Oregon, but there will be lots more, I'm certain, available to eager buyers in the other 49 states. The enclosure asks you to mention a Promo Code when ordering, but it leaves out a rather important detail. The NRA tells you its capacity (7 shells plus one in the chamber), the barrel length (5") and the weight (39 oz.), but how much is it? To memorialize "the sacrifices the men and women of the armed forces have made to make the United States the freest nation in the world," all it takes is $200 down and $100 a month. For how long? It doesn't say. I guess if you really value the service of men and women who spent their tours of duty ducking bullets, you won't mind paying for these bullet-delivery systems for years. The patriots at American Legacy Firearms, I trust, will praise your dedication all the way to the bank.

Of course, if you don't want to "join with American Legacy Firearms and the National Rifle Association to celebrate 100 years of a protected America," You can always make a sign that says "Love Thy Enemy" or something similarly wimpy and talk to your local priest, minister, imam or rabbi about the role handguns have had in human progress.

There is nothing illegal about any of this. Selling what someone will buy is the American Way. I'm sure the NRA has spent mucho bucks on this ad and somewhere, thousands of kids are putting it up on their wall and dreaming of the day they'll hold one in their hands.

Cheer up. There's hope in the world.

Read more:http://www.sbsun.com/news/ci_3274277#ixzz1blIrBpLz

9/11 for Fun and Profit

Like most of you, I have sat through at least five "salutes" to the brave and innocent victims of the worst attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor. I saw dozens of people srtruggling to control their emotions and some who simply couldn't. I sympathized with them all, but I couldn't help but notice how long the cameras lingered until either tears came or the survivor controlled him/herself and continued. I remembered the time-honored dictum of the worst of the media - "If it bleeds, it leads."

I watched a program of remembrance by survivors of the attack (between commercials). I remembered the countless souvenirs which were offered at the time (paperweights made from  genuine remainders of the World Trade Center) and I reflected on all that has happened to our personal freedoms since that horrible day that were never mentioned on its tenth anniversary.

Let's assume we really wanted to honor the people killed and the familes devastated by the attack of nineteen fanatic religionists on September 11, 2001. Suppose we were serious about the magnitude of the attack and wanted to demonstrate how deeply we felt the pain, the outrage and the sense of loss 9/11 meant to us. What would have happened if some member of Congress proposed that on that day all television programming would only consist of naming each one of the victims of the bombing as well as the thousands of Americans who have died in the resultant wars caused by those nineteen fanatics?

I can picture the outraged howls of protest from the networks as milllions in lost revenue went up in smoke, much more important than the smoke that rose from the twin towers ten years ago. I can hear the screams from the sponsors of programs that sell deoderant and beer as they see their profits sacrificed to something as non-productive as silent remembrance.

And how about us? Would the American people happily give up the latest episode of their favorite soap opera or reality show just to watch the names or pictures of men and women who gave up their lives for what they believed was what President Obama called "a timeless ideal that men and women should govern themselves; that all people are created equal, and deserve the same freedom to determine their own destiny?"

Can we picture an America that could put the pursuit of the dollar ahead of human sacrifice? If we can't, then fanaticism has truly won and we deserve to become part of the dust of history.

USA - Where Everything's for Sale.

Ever since I put this as my signature on e-mail, I've gotten comments and questions about why I put it there. BTW, not all the comments were polite. This piece is a defense against charges that I am a communist, a fascist, an Islamist or simply anti-American.

I've asked everyone who's questioned the signature to come up with one thing in our society that ISN'T for sale and I've been met with large amounts of silence. One person replied, "love" and this seemed reasonable until I suggested that this meant no one marries for money - and this was obviously the wrong thing to say because the person I was speaking with hung up the phone. I was, however, gratified that no one even suggested our government since even the most trollish of people don't think our respresentatives put the common good ahead of personal or political gain as reflected in campaign contributions. Education is clearly for sale unless you can tell me with a straight face that all kids in this country get an equal shot at a good education. Health? Perhaps you've read that many drugs, including some necessary to support life, are in short supply because they've gone off patent and are in the public domain - which means the drug companies can't make as much money from them and so have discontinued their production.

The last straws, of course, were those who suggested justice as an unpurchasable commodity. This might have been before four San Francisco police, accompanied by two employees of Apple Corporation, invaded a citizen's home without a warrant in order to look for a lost iPhone prototype, which was not found. If a typical citizen tried that, I wonder what the outcome would have been. And let's not talk about high-priced lawyers.

Speaking of justice, does anyone seriously think that money doesn't play a part with folks like Lindsay Lohan, Charlie Sheen or any number of professional (oops, I mean college) athletes who seem to think the law is for "the little people," as Leona Helmsley called them? Is it a coincidence that the great majority of inmates in our prisons are poor or is it just that the poor are fundamantally morally inferior to the people at the top of the income ladder? Everyone knows wealthy people don't do drugs or mess with minors. Ask Roman Polanski. Prostitution? That's obviously something the rich don't do. They marry a number of times and throw exclusive parties in between.

We've mentioned patented drugs, but how about general medical care? Does money have anything to do with how long people live or how well? Why are there so many more doctors per capita in areas with very high incomes? Could it be that the system is rigged a little? Making a doctor go into hock for a couple of hundred grand is a great motivation for that doctor to look for places he can make the most money. Hint: this is not in the poor part of town.

The pat answer for this is that we have to allow free enterprise and "the market" to regulate our way of life. Since Cuba provides free education through medical school and since Cuba is a communist state, the thinking is that providing free medical training is communistic. Never mind that Denmark has a higher life expectancy than we do and its people register a higher level of happiness in life. Denmark is socialist!!!!!! Therefore what they do must be wrong. Look at their taxes!! The fact that most Danes think not having to worry about medical expenses, schooling or elder care might be worth the money has nothing to do with it. It's socialistic!!

O.K. I'm waiting for some blistering replies.

Bllies

There are allegedly three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics. I respectfully disagree. I think there are only two: lies to duck responsibility and lies to get you to buy things. I call the latter “blies.”

Tiger Woods, Anthony Weiner or Daniel Wu told lies to duck the fact that they behaved like idiots and couldn't keep their pants buttoned. Blies are different. They have no morality or ethical component at all. They don't have punitive consequences, since for the most part, they're perfectly legal and, in some cases, specifically protected by the U.S. Supreme Court in the name of free speech. All they want you to do is part with your money.

Of course, blies aren't what they used to be. The old Snake Oil, that could cure everything from hives to tuberculosis isn't around any more, even though a relative, Hadacol, stuck around into the 1950's. This particular snake oil, containing about twelve percent alcohol, was popular in dry sections of the United States, where it was often sold by the shot glass. Appropriately, the majority of money spent on the product was for – you guessed it – advertising. We should also not forget Ronald Reagan's favorite product (besides Borax), the ever-popular Chesterfield cigarettes, for which he was a spokesman at the same time we were hearing the blies for Hadacol. Reagan didn't smoke – he just advertised.

Today, thanks to an active effort on the part of regulators to stop this kind of thing, we find blies getting much more subtle. I recently saw a couple that made my head swim. There was the series from Exxon showing a school teacher, for instance, and an Exxon representative presenting views (with more time for the Exxonite, of course, with each commercial ending with, “We agree.” Well, gee! That's nice. Let's see what they might agree on.

Well, Exxon said it makes “relatively little money” on gasoline despite current oil prices and maybe that's true for the teacher, too. But did the teacher make eleven billion dollars in profit last year, thanks in part to tax breaks that allow it to pay a whopping nine percent on capital investment? I'm sure the teacher didn't “buy back shares and pay bonuses instead of investing in job-creating industries like renewable energy," as Exxon was accused of doing by Sen Ed Markey of Massachusetts.

And then there's Chevron. Their version of a blie is a commercial beginning “We have more in common than you think.” Really? I didn't have the highest income year in my working career while not paying a nickel to my government. And getting sued by Ecuador for screwing up a portion of the Amazon basin or dumping 40,000 gallons of crap into the Yellowstone River or destroying a chunk of the Alaska coast for quite a while doesn't remind me of anything we have in common. So what else?

And speaking of taxes, we don't have much in common there, either. The President proposed reductions in tax breaks for oil companies that would save the taxpayers 45 billion dollars over the next ten years, but that went nowhere. Instead, we're being asked to “sacrifice” by giving up portions of our Social Security and Medicare. What about having things in common?

Bear in mind that these blies were just the ones I heard in one evening of public television. I don't even want to think about what kind of garbage they're spewing on commercial TV.

We live in a nation of blies. They're the foundation of our economy and the basis of what we're told is the American Dream.

Dream on.

Rules of the Game

Well, dang! Just when I thought I'd gotten a handle on the whole free-market thing, they went and changed the rules on me. You see, the way those smooth guys on Fox explained it, when you have something of value, instead of letting the government set the price, you put it on the market and let some invisible hand tell you what it's worth. Sounds good to me.

Let's say I have a copy of "Abbey Road" with all the Beatles' signatures on it. I put it on eBay and let all the people who want it bid on it. When the price gets as high as I think it's going to get, I sell it. Perfect.

So just as I'm getting to understand how it works, along comes Rod Blagojevich.

Now Rod is a firm believer in that ol' invisible hand. He's got something of value. He doesn't want the government to set the price. So he puts it on the market and runs his own private eBay to sell it to the highest bidder. Just like they say on Fox. And along comes that nasty ol' government and nails him on seventeen counts and the guy's liable to spend five hundred years in the clink - for what? Following the same kind of private enterprise that works for dope dealers and pimps - the law of supply and demand. The whole idea of the invisible hand.

When you stop and think about it, what did Rod do that most politicians don't? Every couple of years, these people go out and promise everything under the sun to folks who have lots of money in exchange for television and newspaper ads telling voters why he (she) is better than that lousy rat running against him (her). Usually, the person who gets the most money, wins. That's what the election is about. Listen to the news. Instead of telling people what a candidate stands for, we hear about the size of his "war chest." Money is the invisible hand of the election.

So Rod used the invisible hand without the glove of respectibility. He put a seat in the U.S. Senate up for bids and got caught with his not-so-invisible hand in the cookie jar. Not that he's alone. There's a possiblity that the guy in the cell next to him could be the last Governor of Illinois, George Ryan, who was likewise canned for corruption in 2006. Sort of a transplanted version of the Illinois State House.

Anyway, Ryan said he never did anything wrong. "I simply didn't do enough," Ryan said, "I should have been more vigilant. I should have been more watchful. I should have been a lot of things, I guess." So should Rod.

It's that invisible hand again. You've got to watch the damn thing or it'll sneak and use one of its fingers on you. Rod wasn't vigilant enough.

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The Ultimate Free Rides

In the past few weeks, the subject of the federal deficit has taken up more space than even vital issues like Sarah Palin's e-mails, the NBA finals and the latest doings on reality TV.

The Republicans, always on the prowl for ways to embarrass the President, have pointed out the evils of spending too much money on child care, nutrition, social security, medicare and even NPR. All of these, according to Boehner and Friends, are contributing to the downfall of the USA and the joy of those Muslim devils at Al Queda, the Taliban, the Arab world and anywhere people live who aren't Good Christians.

However, conspicuous by their absence have been other ways to trim the deficit. Since the GOP has already taken off the table any unmentionable tax hikes for their biggest contrinutors, I have a few modest proposals:

First, has anyone come up with a good reason why churches and church-related businesses should not pay the same rate as the people who attend them? The U.S. Constitution says that there shouldn't be any law respecting the establishment of religion. I'd say that giving tax breaks is certainly one way the government recognizes the importance of religion over, say, other forms of entertainment. We have numerous businesses, from wineries to food products, all merrily coasting along because they are run by churches. Why? The same question might be asked about social clubs like the Elks or the Moose.

If I had to rent an apartment instead of owning a condominium, I wouldn't have any kind of tax break on my rent. So why should I get a tax break on the interest I pay for owning a house? Am I better than the renters? Or is the tax break an incentive for those who bought the American Dream argument and went into hock up to their eyeballs to own what turned out to be a depreciating asset? If this loophole in the tax laws was taken away, all people who want to live a comfortable life would be treated the same. We could chose whether to own or rent with no penalties or rewards for one decision over another.

Corporations that move their offices offshore to avoid U.S. taxes account for millions in lost revenue to the Treasury, but why hasn't anyone plugged this particularly egregious act of freeloading? And how about the cruise ships who, although owned by U.S. companies, register their ships in the Bahamas or Cayman Islands and allow all of the non-cruisers to pay their taxes for them? The same goes for most of the tax loopholes in our swiss-cheese tax system. The middle class pays for the rich.

It seems that calling for simple fairness these days is viewed as radical left-wing thinking by segments of the body politic and most of them seem to belong to the legions of the Right. They want lower taxes and less regulation, but they're willing to have anyone except themselves pay for it. And the media don't say a word.

When are the American people going to call for an "American spring?"

The Valley of the Wolves

In a web article from CNN entitled "The No-Vacation Nation," it was pointed out that American workers have less time off with more strings attached when they do than any other industrial nation on earth. There is no law in the U.S., as opposed to other countries, that mandates a set number of days or weeks for leisure by people who work for a living. The article goes on to say "That makes the U.S. the only advanced nation in the world that doesn't guarantee its workers annual leave," according to a report titled  by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a liberal policy group.

This might be a good time to examine this lack of free time in the light of the conservative mantra of individual freedom. Is this vaunted freedom basically the freedom from the burden of being able to take four weeks off to be with one's family or the freedom to choose which cell phone you have to take with you when one is on vacation so that continual contact can be kept with the office? The standing gag in American work places is that a vacation just means you can work from somewhere else.

So, are four or six week mandadted vacations a socialist plot? Well, no. Of course, if you think Germany, France and Switzerland are socialist, you may have a point. A better explanation is that Americans have been so thoroughly brainwashed by the Lords of the Marketplace that they actually like to have less time off. Only 57% of U.S. workers use up all of the days they're entitled to, compared with 89% of workers in France, a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll found. Why?

People who have been taken prisoners often develop the Swedish Syndrome, a phenomenon where the hostages express empathy and have positive feelings towards their captors. Is it possible that we've got the same kind of thing cooking right here at home? Why else could we see the hostility expressed for the company or the boss mixed with the voluntary overtime and weekend work that sometimes results in divorce and parentless kids? Promotion? Ambition? The mystique that the harder you work, the faster you'll advance? Ask the people who busted their butts for years only to find themselves laid off becaise of a corporate merger or an unexplained "downsizing."

The unwelcome truth is that America has become a nation driven by an all-consuming love of money. Nothing, or very little, of honesty, ethics or morals can survive the Darwinian drive for survival, not of the fittest, but the most ruthless. "Dog eat dog" isn't just an accidental turn of phrase. "It's a jungle out there" isn't a joke.

American corporate culture has castrated its labor unions (and is still in the process). It has elevated corporate greed to a religion. It continues to bribe and otherwise pressure governments, both federal and state, to tighten the noose around workers' rights as opposed to increased profits for multinational business. We're now seeing outright attacks on any attempts to organize workers by circulating horror stories about some few (but egregious) abuses of power while ignoring the equally appalling horror stories about corporate tax dodges, arbitrary firings, power grabs and outright purchases of elected officials.

Yes, we're a no-vacation nation. And we'll continue to be as long as we keep acting like sheep in the Valley of the Wolves.

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Justice Song at Twilight

The death of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan on May 2 did two significant things. First, it rid the world of a man who, in my judgement, was a truly dangerous and deranged person. Second, it gave us a terrific opportunity to examine what we mean by the term "justice."

If what we mean by the word is the John Wayne-type of justice we see in westerns or the Old Testament "eye for an eye" justice that is being practiced by Jews and Muslims in the Middle East or the plain revenge killings popular among members of the Sicilian Mafia, then I would unhesitatingly agree with President Obama that bin Laden has been "brought to justice." But if we're talking about the kind of justice discussed in the New Testament, or the Constitution or American jurisprudence, then what happened to bin Laden is as far from justice as Abbottabad is from the World Trade Center.

After World War II, I watched newsreels of some of the biggest scumbags in world history stand trial in Nuremburg, Germany. Among them were people who participated, not in the murder of 3000 innocent people, but over six million. They stood or sat in court, listening to witnesses in front of a judge and were duly sentenced and, in some cases, executed. Later, even Israeli agents, after kidnapping Adolf Eichman from Argentina and taking him to Israel, put him on trial for the murder of hundreds of thousands of their fellow Jews. The key world here is "trial."

Regardless of how heinous a person's actions may be or what kind of person he or she may be, under American justice and, incidentally, the justice system of any advanced nation, a person must be judged. This means arguments for both sides must be heard and a verdict delivered. Here, there must also be a jury to hear the evidence. That's the way American Justice works.

Shooting an unarmed man in the head is not American Justice.

So let's not quibble over whether we're better off as a country - or a world - without Osama bin Laden. Let's instead debate what kind of country we want and be honest enough to admit it when we want it changed. If, for example, we think torture is justified if it results in a desired outcome, then be honest enough to say it. If assassination squads are needed for our country's survival, then change the law to permit it. Don't teach our children about things that don't exist - it's unfair to them.  Justice is justice. Murder is murder. Let's not confuse the issue with flag buttons or shouts of "USA! USA!"

If you believe in justice, then you have to believe in equal justice. If it's OK for us to shoot bin Laden, then why isn't it OK for some member of the Taliban to shoot President Obama? Because Obama is a good guy and bin Laden is a bad guy? You can call this idiotic because everyone knows our way of life is the best in the world, right? Our kind of justice is the best, right?

But you have to be able to back this up with evidence. In America, a person should be believed innocent until proven guilty. In America, a person's color, race or national origin shouldn't matter in a court of law. In America, a person is entitled to a trial before a jury of his/her peers. When Lee Harvey Oswald, accused of shooting President Kennedy, was gunned down by Jack Ruby before going to trial, many of us cheered. But the fact was Oswald was innocent when he died. He had not been proven guilty. Cumbersome, but that's the way our justice system works.

Think of this when we think of Osama bin Laden.

Religions don't kill people - guns kill people.

I just got back from Egypt, Jordan and Dubai and I can tell you that America's got one hell of a mess on its hands.

After backing one crooked bunch of sleazebags after another in the defense of "American interests," which generally turned out to be big oil companies, we're seeing a genuine desire for political freedom in danger of slipping out of control due to our snail-like acceptance of what should be our instinctive desire to advance liberty and self-determination.

To its credit, the Obama administration has been making appropriate noises to Hosni Mubarek, saying in effect that what we've approved of for almost thirty years is no longer nice and it would be better from him to listen to the people for a change. This is after our history of lauding Egypt's  King Farouk and his heavy-handed rule along with Iran's Shah and his secret police in exchange for carte-blanche treatment of petroleum firms and luxury living for corporate executives.

On top of this, despite cash transfusions of eight billion dollars a year of Americantaxpayers' money and Israel's repeated violations of U.N. directives, we've been getting the old thumb in the eye as Israel does whatever it pleases in Gaza. In the minds of many in the Middle East, the U.S. and Israel are the same thing. This isn't doing us any good in the region, althought it may be of great help in Florida and New York elections.

Naturally, both Israel and the Arab states feel that the land they want was given to them by God. If we're too stupid to observe our own Constitution (There shall be no law respecting the establishment of religion), then we should be smart enough to realize that every nation must accept the responsibility for its own actions. If we in the United States decide to back a crooked regime in the name of bigger profits for bigger corporations, then we have to be able to bear the responsibility for being looked upon as hypocrites. If Israel decides that any Jew in the world has the right to call Israel home - which is its right to do - then it has to be prepared to defend itself against a billion and a half Muslims who might be annoyed to see more settlements spring up on land they consider to be theirs.

Therefore, while some dimwits in America and elsewhere might be tempted to blame Islam for the bloodshed in the Middle East or Judaism for its expansionist desires, we have to remember that it isn't religions that account for the dead and the maimed - it's the fan clubs of the various religions, using the weapons provided by good business sense and a healthy desire for profit. After all, a cursory reading of the Bible will provide more gore than Fox News and MSNBC combined as thousands are slaughtered in the name of the merciful Diety that runs things. President Bush's ill-advised use of the word "crusade" brought back painful memories of mass murders in the name of Jesus, whom I recall having said something about the meek being blessed. Whether it be producers of crossbows or Uzis, the principle is the same - war means profits.

Religions don't kill people. In the Quran, Mohammed specifically commands respect for Christians and Jews as "people of the Book." Jews reserve a seat at the Seder table for the stranger at the gate and Christians are instructed to love their neighbors as themselves. This makes things hard for the Haters, but they keep trying.

Don't fall for it.