I agree, posting the word unbiased in quotes was a goad, and I do apologize for the outright pushing of your buttons. I was annoyed at SFMike and not you. I read his posting (and his prior rants) and when I viewed the other blogs you highlighted I viewed them through a different lens than perhaps you do. Either way I shouldn't have pushed and I apologize and will do my best to avoid it in the future.

It's probably not even you, or your choices. It's probably me and my perception of your choices, or maybe it's just the general attitude of the San Francisco Bay Area and I just don't get it.

Am I really that out of step with the rest of the Bay? Don't others not see the hypocrisy and idiocy that runs wild in the Bay Area:

The people driving $100,000 automobiles decrying the "war for oil" with their smarmy little bumper stickers (but if you even so much as scratch that car of theirs...); Protestors in the streets waving their huge signs decrying the supposed limitation of their civil liberties (while they calmly call for the "ousting" of a legally elected government...); People complaining about the "bad" Bush economy as they sell their $900,000+ homes. People screaming about how President Bush is a "murderer" and equating him with Hitler. Hitler...my god, have these people no freaking clue as to how absolutely idiotic and disgusting they are being? Or is it just me?

Am I so wrong to think that the world is a better place without Saddam Hussein in charge of anything (except maybe whether or not Tiger Claw beats paper)? Yes, it's bad that people died. But what if we hadn't done anything? As the phrase goes "Hindisight is twenty / twenty", but don't be fooled. Iraq wasn't the paradise that Micheal Moore and his ilk would have you believe. Oh sure, if you were one of Saddam's cronies you might have it better than everyone else, but heaven help you if you crossed him or his evil sons. He and his bloody regime killed hundreds of thousands of his own people, but I guess the people of Iraq were happy under that kind of totalitarian regime right? I mean, they didn't rise up or anything. And if they did...well, they didn't win so that must mean something right? "But what about the WMD's! Bush lied! People died!" Clue: More politicians than President Bush said that Saddam had WMD's and that he was a threat. You can't revise history or un-ring a bell.

Am I so wrong to think that Osama bin Laden, his ilk and their insane idiology shouldn't be "understood" or "related-to" except in so much as it takes to find them, task a missile or drop a stick and file a BDA?

Am I so wrong to think that Yassar Arafat was just a thug in a suit who somehow was able to morph from a sleazy terrorist into a Noble prize winning "head of state" who double dealt at every opportunity, stole billions from the Palestinians while they live in "slums", and is far more responsible for the suffering of the Palestinian people than Israel is or ever was?

Am I so wrong for not believing BIRFEB?

Am I so wrong for having honest, scientific questions about Global Warming?

Am I so wrong for believing that all of the Amendments in the Bill of Rights should apply and not just the one's that the hippies like (for now...just wait till they get a Cuban style government in control).

Am I so wrong to believe that guns don't kill people, but that people kill people (an object at rest tends to remain at rest...)

I am tired of arguing against idiocy. I am tired of being equated with Nazi's. I am tired of being told that my viewpoint doesn't matter. I am tired of being called / considered a "right-winger", a "Zionist", a "Christian fundamentalist" (ticket for the clue bus for you folks: I don't even go to church, and haven't been to one in decades). In any other part of the country I would be considerate extermely moderate to liberal even, but here I am the fucking devil and that warrants people feeling free to belittle me, my viewpoints and hurl derogatory insults at me.

I support a womans right to an abortion (I just think that women should be better educated to the risks and that abortion shouldn't be used as birth control (and don't freaking tell me that they aren't)) .

I support gay rights (I don't give a shit what two consenting adults do in the bedroom.). But I do believe that with rights comes responsiblity (unlike the domestic partners law in California) and I would also request that the gay community respect the religious peoples viewpoint while they are demanding that the religious people respect gay culture. It's a two-way fucking street.

I believe in peace, goodwill towards men and everything else that the "peaceniks" in the Bay Area say they believe in (except for the communism crap, Castro is just another thug and Che Guevera was his bully boy). I just don't want to get stabbed in the fucking back while singing Kumbyah. No matter how many times some peacenik says "I love you, I understand you and I respect you" to a terrorist, it's not going to stop that terrorist from killing him. The same thing goes for dictators. Fuck 'em. Kill 'em all. Yep, I believe in freedom...for EVERYONE. Totalitarian dictatorships are an affront to all that the peaceniks say they believe in, but the hippies just don't get it. They can't believe that they really honestly and truely do live in the most free country on the planet and that those people in third-world dictatorships don't like being oppressed and shit on. Castro's Cuba is NOT the heaven on earth that they would have you believe. If it were, then why do people build boats out of trucks to try and leave?

De Oppresso Liber, "To Free the Oppressed" is a motto that I like and strongly support and believe in*

Maybe that's why I have been so strongly considering leaving the City I grew up in and heading for greener pastures, to liberate myself from the idiocy and hypocrisy, to free myself from the need to tilt at windmills.

I don't like being Don Quixote.

*Note: I am not claiming to be nor have I ever been in or associated with the U.S. Army Special Forces. I just really like the phrase, the ideology it represents and support and respect the "quiet professionals" who have it as their motto.