You need to read the big book of 'Shut the F*#K Up!'

I like to read through other people's blog postings from time to time.

Admittedly, I avoid most of the 'twitter' stuff, and I don't always follow religiously, so sometimes things slip through my brain. I only got a facebook / myspace account so that I could cyber stalk Rick Emerson and his (hopefully) future pursuits. I'm geeky like that. I'm cool with myself.

Increasingly, though, it amazes me that people read things on the web and take them at face value, or worse, cite the web article as a statement of fact.

People, I can type anything I want on here. I can claim it is true, and no one can debate me. I say it is true, I make the rules on this particular blog, I am infallible. I am the blog god. So to speak.

I have the bestest blog ever for 2009!*

*(According to my dog, Beauregard)

I have bleeding heart liberal hippie pals on the left, and I have some oddly right wing whacko pals. I welcome everyone into my tent of dysfunctionality. I don't exclude someone just because I don't happen to like the fact that they may chew on their own toenails. That is between them, and their own particular deity, goat, chicken, candle, or flying spaghetti monster.

What really grates on me, however, is that people (yes, some of my friends) will blindly follow online articles, work themselves up over same article, email a bunch of other people citing the article and expounding upon it as the new gospel.

Don't ever come to me with something on the web, and that as your only fact to support an argument. I'll shut you down. Or at least, shut you out. Read it. Reflect upon it. Research it.

The days of 'news' being reportage is long gone. News is now entertainment. I really can't find news on television anymore, with the exception of the BBC, and even that is suspect.

Go consult the true book of knowledge, the book that I think I should write someday.

It is the big book of Shut The F*#K Up.

Your ears are not able to adequately hear when your mouth is ejecting noise.

Listening and speaking are mutually exclusive. It is a very binary reality.

One can either be speaking, or be listening. You can not do both simultaneously.