Hey, GifSters.

I live. My dad’s death kicked the shit out of me.

Thanks to Marcus for helping with email.

Thanks to all the mods for maintaining the q.

More soon.

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Man. Old Bill, usually rather reserved in confrontation, refuses to take any shit in this Fox interview. He must be sick to death of being blamed for 9/11 by the neocons. He has the facts, as always, and is brilliantly articulate. Wallace is a fool to mess with a man of his intellectual power. Watch it and punch your fist in the air. Go, Bill!

Here is part two.

Here is part three.

US Intelligence Report: Iraq War Fuels Terror

A U.S. intelligence report, the first formal appraisal of global terrorism by U.S. intelligence agencies since the Iraq war began and published Sunday by The New York Times, blamed the Iraq war for the surge in global terrorism, adding it helped fuel Islamic radicalism worldwide.

A National Intelligence Estimate completed in April said Islamic radicalism has mushroomed worldwide and cites the Iraq war as a reason for the spread of jihad ideology, the newspaper reported.

“The estimate concludes that the radical Islamic movement has expanded from a core of al Qaeda operatives and affiliated groups to include a new class of ’self-generating’ cells inspired by al Qaeda’s leadership but without any direct connection to Osama bin Laden or his top lieutenants,” the newspaper said.

“It also examines how the Internet has helped spread jihadist ideology, and how cyberspace has become a haven for terrorist operatives who no longer have geographical refuges in countries like Afghanistan,” the Times said.

Accordingly, some of the estimate’s results confirm the predictions in a January 2003 National Intelligence Council report claiming that a war in Iraq might increase support for political Islam worldwide.

It is the first formal appraisal of global terrorism by U.S. intelligence agencies since the war began in March 2003 and represents a consensus view of the 16 U.S. spy services.

Can our right-wing friends now apologize and finally shut the fuck up?

You were wrong, guys. Dead fucking wrong, and the truth is coming home to roost, as I knew it would.

Yes, the old Sean is slowly coming back, folks. Watch out.

I can’t help but post this right now.

My daddy died last night.

He was a poet, an atheist and a genius. In fact, he was beyond atheism. For most of his life, despite being raised Irish Catholic, he said “that silliness just holds no meaning for me; no time for it.” And he died on the floor with a midnight snack in his hand at the young age of 68. He had complained of a cold and gone to bed early, skipping dinner. He got up in the middle of the night for a sandwich and it seems he had a massive heart attack mere feet from returning to his bed.

He was the greatest man I have ever known. His brilliance was on a par with Bertrand Russell, Vladimir Nabokov, Gore Vidal (I dare not say Emily Dickinson, who is beyond mortal ken… But he was a hell of a poet). He just never got that famous. Most people don’t. He taught me everything I know.

My sister stood over his body before they took him away this morning and read one of his poems. It was about how he wanted to die. He said he wanted it to be swift. He got his wish.

They had just gotten him to come live with them in the Midwest. Just a month ago.

As an atheist, he will be cremated and we will save the ashes and have a memorial service that will be fucking awesome back in New York, when the time is right.

Ironically, my sister and I just recovered from serious illnesses of our own and the timing couldn’t be more fucking crazy.

But life’s a bitch, then you die. Ain’t no platitude.

Just tell everyone you love how much you love them before you have to say goodbye.

A part of one of his poems:

My grandmother’s house was fraught with peril.
Tigers skulked in the dark back hall;
snakes writhed, languid, on one wall;
the stairs — a tumultuous waterfall.
Children given to unnatural fright
disappeared sometimes at night,
without a whimper or a scream.
We children lived from dream to dream.

Charities that will be contributed to are most likely the ACLU and Amnesty International. Wish I could hit you guys up, but privacy won’t allow.

Okay. ‘Tis the season, so I’m gonna talk about something that is increasingly pissing me off.

Pastors electioneering in churches. Telling their dumbass flock how to vote.

We have talked about absolute freedom of speech here, but many agreed you shouldn’t be allowed to yell “fire” in a crowded theater.

Why the fuck are these untaxed motherfuckers allowed to stand up every Sunday and tell their ignorant sheeple what political party or candidate to vote for? Sure, let them say it — and they are gonna say the stupidest shit sheerly by virtue of what they do, which is preach bullshit 24/7… But why aren’t they taxed for it?

If I want to start a political organization, I have to pay taxes. But because these monkeys are babbling about their invisible sky daddy, they can both talk about Jeebus and then tell people how to vote? No, motherfucker. You wanna be tax-free and do your job in spreading mass insanity, you have to do it outside of politics, otherwise you are abusing society and democracy as a whole, and we should have the right to penalize you for it. Sure, get up and say to vote for Kenneth Fuckwell because he is a man of gawd. One hundred thousand dollar fine, you piece of shit.

End of rant. For now.

We’ve all been pretty busy it seems… Not much posting going on. So I will go ahead and invite more abuse for my musical interests.

I am an aging Irish boy with mixed punk, rock and classical tastes.

U2 always did me proud as the homeboys who kicked ass on the world stage. I haven’t fallen in love with a song of theirs for a decade, but this one rocks out completely.

But that’s not why it moves me so much. It is this lyric:

Lay down
Lay down your guns
All your daughters of Zion
All your Abraham sons

Considering what we have seen in the world of late, that just breaks my heart.

(The studio version is vastly superior, by the way, but I couldn’t find that online. Although the part at the end of this where Bono throws the headband on and goes apeshit on the standup drum is bravura rock-n-roll.)

Ramen.

Unfinished Tolkien work to be published

NEW YORK – An unfinished tale by J.R.R. Tolkien has been edited by his son into a completed work and will be released next spring, the U.S. and British publishers announced Monday.

Christopher Tolkien has spent the past 30 years working on “The Children of Hurin,” an epic tale his father began in 1918 and later abandoned. Excerpts of “The Children of Hurin,” which includes the elves and dwarves of Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” and other works, have been published before.

“It has seemed to me for a long time that there was a good case for presenting my father’s long version of the legend of the `Children of Hurin’ as an independent work, between its own covers,” Christopher Tolkien said in a statement.

The new book will be published by Houghton Mifflin in the United States and HarperCollins in England.

J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings Trilogy” has sold more than 50 million copies and was also adapted into a blockbuster, Academy Award-winning trio of films. A stage version is scheduled to open next year.

Opportunism, or an opportunity to experience more of this man’s great work?

I got taken to task her once before for making fun of the Silmarillion as such an obtuse piece of work, nobody reads it.

I was wrong.

What do ya think? Something to look forward to?

Hey, gang. Nobody likes a braggart, but I was just talking to Bob today and it occurred to both of us that most people have no idea how this site has grown in traffic in the past year. You have seen the comment boards explode, but I thought it would make some of you — especially our amazing mods — proud to see what the numbers actually look like.

From Alexa.

Fucking cool, huh? To put our ranking in perspective, there are millions of web sites on the internet. You don’t even get ranked by Alexa if you are too low. And we’re a site about the reviled subject of atheism. I think we are doin’ okay.

(Pay no attention to the three-month recent downage… Take it from a pro: it’s summer. Watch what happens when the cold weather comes back.)