Greetings

Well, I've returned from an extended break. I hope all had a very Merry Christmas, and that all will have a blessed new year.

Perhaps I'm just being paranoid about creeping paganism but I could have sworn that I saw more "Happy Kwanza" messages on TV than I did "Merry Christmas" messages. Very disconcerting, really.

I read _The Da Vince Code_ and saw _The Return of the King_, two things I've been itching to blog about.

First a quick rant about Howard Dean:

I saw a bit of the speech he gave at a Democratic Party banquet in Iowa this weekend. He said something about not having the power to fix everyone's problems, that that was a lie presidential candidates liked to state to collect votes. He asserted that the true power to fix the world's problems lie with the people.

Now for a second I thought Dean was actually going to say something I agree with. Instead, the intensity in his voice rose, his eyes turned beady, and he showed just how little he and other Democrats think of people. People can fix their problems by voting for candidates that support universal healthcare, by voting for candidates that support a woman's "right to choose," etc. In short, people assert their power and responsibility by voting for others to take care of their problems?

What? This is so typical of so many people nowadays. Everything is political. You can live in the most despicable, statist distopia but as long as you retain the sacred right to vote you are truly free. Honestly, does a man who gets taxed to death, is unable to choose who he associates with, and can't truly speak his mind free just because he casts a vote every four years? Yes, I'm being a little extreme but even in America, as free as these United States are compared to most of the rest of the nations on the earth, the limitations and regulations men take for granted would shock even a moderate man living a century ago.