Sometimes democracy just doesn’t work. I've been reading a lot lately, concurrent with the primaries and campaigns, about the need for Americans to take back their country. Which is great, if it can be done. Sometimes it can't. Then what do you do?

Take as an example the city and county in which I live. It is economically depressed and both businesses and residents are fleeing due to high taxes and poor government administration. A sensible solution would be… anything other than what they ARE doing, which is adding additional taxes on liquor that will only force more business out to the surrounding counties.

Unfortunately it's too late for new government. The economic situation is so poor that the leading employer IS the local government (the others are non-profits like hospitals and universities). This means a many voters are tied into maintaining the status quo. Not an overwhelming number, but a majority – say, 60% of the whole – either work for the government or have a close relative who does. And they vote as a bloc to re-elect the current government, who won't cut jobs, salaries, benefits, etc.

They're not evil for this – for them, it's sensible, if shortsighted. But it does leave the government effectively a one-party state. In the last mayoral election the other candidate got about 34% of the vote. This was, rightfully, seen as a tremendous victory for the guy, because it means almost all the "free" voters DID support him. But the pro-local government voting bloc, which always does act as a bloc, means they have an automatic majority. And it's in their interest to keep the economy bad and drive out other business, because that means fewer members of opposing voting blocs. They don't need to rig voting machines, they've a much cleverer and legal way to adjust the votes.

You'd think it wouldn't be sustainable, but they've managed to do this even under state supervision (they went bankrupt).

So what the heck is there left to do?

One of the most irritating aspects of communal writing can be when one's writing partners fall prey to total, complete self-aggrandizement. Now, anyone who is writing is entitled to give their personal authorial avatar a number of positive attributes – Caius Livius once half-jokingly commented that all the PCs at Imperium were demigod-like guys in perfect physical health. And if everyone agrees on that it doesn't cause problems.

"Commodus Syndrome" occurs when someone decides their character (and in extreme cases, anyone their character employs) is Just That Cool that they lose any basis in reality and just become impossible to work with. The key sign is when it becomes impossible to cause any permanent harm – the character proves to be such a diabolical mastermind that everything has been calculated and allowed for, and if anyone else seems to get ahead, it's only because this character "allowed" this to happen. If you lock them up, they will have a hidden key, a hidden passage, a hidden spy…. If you attack them with a hundred men, they will have a thousand guys hidden in the bushes – even if there was no way to predict this.

When Commodus Syndrome occurs, there's really nothing to do but stop writing with that person. Which can cause even more problems, sometimes. And it can cause a perfectly good potential story to die.

Commodus Syndrome really sucks.

While watching the overhyped, weird-graphics-using news programs on Super Tuesday I have come to this conclusion: I really think the most serious, unbiased news source on TV has become the Daily Show. And that is neither unbiased nor serious.

And there are these irritating ads that begin "I'm too young to vote but if I could..."

Those really irritate me. I feel if you ask kids who were too young to vote you're more likely to get "I'm too young to vote. But if I could vote, I'd vote for Hannah Montana 'cause she's AWESOME."

This Sunday I went, with certain persons of my acquaintance, to an Olive and Garden-themed restaurant. I had never been there before, although I had heard good things, and so was quite looking forward to it.

I was in for… a slight surprise. That whole "you are family" thing was rather realer than I had expected. We arrived at 9 PM. The restaurant was what can only be described as "overrun" with children. The ones behind us left (thankfully) relatively soon after we were seated, but there were two or three screaming infants left. Who… kept screaming, on and off, throughout the meal. There were kids left, too. And they weren't tired. They were wired. It was obscene. Someone needed to cut their sugar level or something. The parents did not remove the infants until the entire party left – which happened at least twice without ending all the screaming. By the time we finished it was nearly 10 and there was STILL a crying infant.

The food was good, but the children – BLEH. As people who know me are well aware, I particularly LOATHE children. I firmly believe they should be locked up at home until they are Civilized. This experience has not changed by belief an iota, other than to give me the believe infants screaming in public should be shot. Immediately.

I felt very bad for the wait staff – our waitress was clearly not happy, although she did provide rather good service without being surly about it. She said the families with children and infants were Gypsies, who presumably did not need to worry about tomorrow being a school day. I don't know if that was true (the families did look… quite alike in appearance) but if so it would explain that. Maybe. I still think if you go into a restaurant at 9 PM you should reasonably expect it to be child-free.

It was really unfortunate, because the food was VERY good. But the atmosphere was so spoiled we didn't stay for dessert. It really pisses me off, the rude attitude parents often have about children these days. Just because YOU felt the need to reproduce does not mean EVERYONE shares your joy. Other people like to be able to discuss the English Civil War and the decisions of the Stewart Dynasty vis-à-vis the Romanovs in WWI without being interrupted by screaming, shouting, or other antics.

If you have children, they should either behave with manners suitable to a public dining experience or they should be left at home. And if they act up, they should be immediately removed. And beaten.

The whole thing was so… disappointing. Because the food really was very good.

I live in a major city (I will not specify but the name begins with P as does that of the commonwealth). A water main burst, leaving me without running water. This happened around 1pm. For awhile the street running downhill by my residence looked rather like a stream. A large area was and is without water.

By 6 pm they decided to do something… so they set up four distribution points for water. All of them were in rich neighborhoods far, far from my location (and I am two blocks from the break. Of course I'm not rich.).

By 11pm someone must have noticed only rich people were getting water courtesy of the city, because they added another location. This one WAS near me (right across from the broken main actually). Needing water to, you know, live, I went down there. I found a guy from the water authority (actually I recognized him as the guy they'd been interviewing on the news) and asked about water. He said they put 50 cases in the lobby of this building "if I could get in."

I went over to said building and asked the woman standing in the doorway there if they had water. She looked at me VERY suspiciously and said "only for the seniors." She then asked me where I lived, like I'd decided to drive all the way in to steal water (because it's not like, normally, I can't turn on a TAP).

I did manage to get water "courtesy of Councilwoman" some name I can't recall. It was just as well they gave me water because I was about to make a real fuss (and I knew where the television news cameras were too).

But… now I am really fed up with city government. They can't even provide reliable running water. Ancient ROME could provide reliable running water. Augustus knew what the people wanted. Apparently modern city administrators do not.

Even if "the seniors are the sons of bitches with money" (in the words of a friend)… I vote too. My vote should be as good as theirs. Of course… with electronic voting nobody actually COUNTS my vote. But that's another story.

I am quite, quite sick of the current "criticism of the president should not be done in time of war" school of thought; particularly sickening are those who somehow associate criticism with treason. I favor the opinion of Theodore Roosevelt:

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else."

~Theodore Roosevelt, Kansas City Star (May 7, 1918)

And with respect to all the other questions -- Iraq, Gitmo, et cetera:

"No man is justified in doing evil on the grounds of expediency."

~Theodore Roosevelt, The Strenuous Life (1900)

I was watching a man on the telly complain about the “war on Christmas” and how disgraceful it was that retailers were replacing “Merry Christmas” with non-denominational phrases like “happy holidays.” It led to me thinking, “What would Oliver Cromwell say?”

For those whose knowledge of the English Civil War is limited, Cromwell was the Lord Protector of England during that brief period between Charles I and II. In 1645 he cancelled Christmas. Not because he was a grinch, but because Christmas at the time was an occasion for much merrymaking and licentious revelry. Cromwell (like other Puritans) frowned on anything fun, so a bacchanalia was a bit much. It was also “Papist” and thus heathen for that reason too, being a pagan holiday not specifically approved of in the Bible.

The initial settlers of New England were Puritans who thought Cromwell’s England was a little too soft. They arrived around 1620 and celebrating Christmas didn’t become common in that region until the end of the 19th Century. Christmas was actually outlawed from 1659 to 1681 in Boston, a prohibition enforced with a fine of five shillings.

After the American Revolution Christmas was seen as an “English” holiday and fell out of favor throughout most of the nation.

In fact, most Protestant churches didn’t even hold services on Christmas day until they discovered that large numbers of parishioners, inspired by German immigrants, Queen Victoria and her family (including the German Prince Consort Albert) as well as the writings of Charles Dickens and similar period authors, were going down to Catholic churches for Christmas mass. And that couldn’t be tolerated…

So maybe the real question isn’t why are we waging a war on Christmas but, perhaps, why aren’t we waging a war on Christmas? If you want to be an American Patriot and a good Protestant don’t take December 25th off – go to work anyway. Don’t buy presents or visit relatives. Just concentrate on the boring, daily grind. That’s the real American Christmas!

Today is Guy Fawkes Day in the UK:

Remember, remember the fifth of November,
Gunpowder, treason and plot,
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.

This being so, I feel it's an excellent time to unveil my new political party (for US Citizens, I should add). I'm tired of the BS from the two so-called main parties.

So I'm forming my own. The Whigs. "The party who lives in the past and likes it there."

Various political figures have said we shouldn’t “play the blame game” in locating whose failures led to the Hurricane Katrina disaster. So I’m going to point out where the fault lies and save everyone else the effort.

1. God. He either directly caused the creation of the hurricane or allowed the events that led to the formation of the hurricane with the full knowledge of what would happen. This means God is guilty of either felony murder (in that people died while God was committing other felonies such as arson and destruction of property) or negligence. As Creator of the Earth God had a duty of care, which He breached – after all, why would a reasonable person (or reasonable Deity as may be) cause wanton destruction and death? The causation was proximate and the damage foreseeable.

Unfortunately suing God for negligence (or, if Jewish, breach of Covenant) has some difficulties. God is, at least according to common belief, present in every jurisdiction of the United States. Personal service might be difficult, however, since although present God is, oddly, hard to locate. Fortunately many individuals claim to have found God, and one or more might be prevailed upon to serve a subpoena to God. Even assuming personal service, one runs into the problem that God probably has sovereign immunity from suit since, as King of Heaven, He is a monarch of a foreign nation. Of course, since Heaven is an independent kingdom the United States could presumably declare war on it in order to effect regime change. That too might prove difficult, since it is believed the Heavenly Host is more than capable of defeating all armies on Earth combined. Also, the most likely successor is Lucifer Morningstar, a rather shady character believed to have close ties to the Bush Administration. He may also have an interest in Halliburton, but that is pure speculation.

2. That Damn Butterfly. You know which one. It’s down in Brazil, and by flapping it’s wings caused the hurricane that hit the gulf coast. But it lacks any ties to the United States. Besides, as one of ferae naturae it isn’t the property of the owner of the land where it is located, so don’t think of suing Brazil. Probably vicarious liability could be used to hold God responsible for His creation’s act; but see above.

All the news media these days are focused on the election of a new Pope. I am not sure quite what the fuss is; there’s still another one left. Two, really…. Although there’s just one title.

Who is this Pope? The Pope of Alexandria, God’s Temp on Earth.

The Pope of Alexandria is the (nominal) head of the Christian church in Africa (there are two Popes of Alexandria, the Coptic Orthodox Patriarch and the Greek Orthodox Patriarch).

Since the reign of Pope John Paul II (the recently deceased Pope of Rome) the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churchs are “communicating” – they see each other as schismatic but not heretical.

According to a canon adopted by the First Ecumenical Council, the Bishop of Alexandria was ranked second after the Bishop of Rome. The Bishops of Alexandria right from the inception of the Church of Alexandria, however, used the title of Pope. As early as the fourth century, the Bishop of Alexandria also bore titles such as "Shepherd and Lord", "Most Blessed, Father", "Most Blessed Pope" (Athanasius), "Father of Fathers", "Father of Fathers and Chief Priests", "Christ's Locum Tenens", and "Judge of the World". In this way, the Archbishop of Alexandria assumed unlimited powers and his authority was absolute.

There’s one of these titles that’s worth examining: “Christ’s Locum Tenens.” Locum Tenens is a Latin phrase that means “to hold the place of, to substitute for.” A temporary replacement.

So as far as I can tell, what the title “Christ’s Locum Tenens” means is that he’s a Temp filling in until Christ gets back. I imagine a scene rather like this:

St. Peter picks up a phone. “Hello, Heavenly Temporary Services. How can I help you? Ah. Yes, we can supply a temp until your Messiah gets back…”