A brief history of Western Civilization hubris

Way back many many years ago, about 475 or so years ago, this guy figured out a way to map the whole world. His name was Mercator. This is one of the maps he made:
Because he knew so much about maps and geography, he speculated, in a book that the poles, both north and south, had to be surrounded by warm seas and that there was a wonderland full of exotic flora and fauna to be found at the poles. One had to only cross the ice and snow that preceded the warm polar seas to get access to these wondrous places.

People figured that because he was a white European guy who wrote that stuff in a book that it was of course true. Many many many people died as a result of Mercator's claims. Most of them froze to death, some got eaten by polar bears, and others died in other horrible ways. It took many many many years and many many many failed expeditions to finally prove to some people that Mercator knew how to make maps but that he did not know shit about the north and south poles.

A couple of hundred years later someone in Europe, most likely a con man, started to spread a story that he had been to a fabulous place called Timbuktu in Africa. He claimed that streets of Timbuktu were paved with gold and that the houses were covered in gold as well. He said the all the men of Timbuktu were learned sages who spent their days learning and lecturing. He said Timbuktu was a paradise of a city and that everyone who wanted to be rich and smart should flock there as soon as possible.

And many many many people believed this guy. Newspapers and magazines out did themselves in making up more stories about how wonderful and great Timbuktu was. Books were written by others who claimed to have been there and they said oh how great, oh how wonderful Timbuktu was. And people believed all of it because no one had been there.

So many an expedition was launched in the late 1700's and early 1800's to find this great city. And many a person and many many many camels and other animals died searching for the great city of Timbuktu. All these people and animals died of exposure to the sun, of thirst, or at the hands of desert tribesman.

Finally one day someone made it to Timbuktu and this is what they found:

A dry dusty dirty city in the middle of nowhere in the desert. No gold paved streets were found, no wise and learned sages were found, and the houses and buildings did not have gold covering them. Instead they were made out of mud, like this one:


So just like all those people who died searching for those warm polar seas, all the people who died searching for the great city of Timbuktu died because someone lied and had made up a story that sounded kind of nice.

Now flash forward to today.
These guys made up a story that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was a danger to the USA and to white Christian people everywhere. They said that Saddam and Al Qaeda were working hand in glove to destroy us and that wouldn't it be great if we used all the weapons that we had built in the past few years to destroy those Muslim terrorists? They said the war might last six months at most and that it wouldn't cost us much and that we'd all be hap-hap-happy once we toppled Saddam and that we'd be safe once and for all.

Then many many many people died as a result of their story. And they did this type of shit to people who opposed them:
Then they denied doing it. They said that no one in command knew what was going on in that prison over there. And then they told the guy investigating it to back the fuck off his investigation.

So they kept the war going and going and they made life hell for the people in Iraq and Afghanistan and when we asked them to please stop it and to please act like men and women who have morals and a sense of right and wrong, they did this:

They continued their war of terror on Iraq and Afghanistan. They said they had to go on with the war in order to find the weapons of mass destruction (the one that were never there in the first place) and because if they did not then the terrorists would come back to the USA and fight us here because they hate us so much.

"I love you man."

"I love you too."

So while these two sucked each others tongues, people like this continued to suffer and pay the price for the war: If it weren't true it'd almost, and let me stress almost, almost be funny.

Since I hate to end this post in such a down beat way, here's a picture of Stirling Gallacher, last week's brunette o' the week.


And one of Salma Hayek for good measure.

And for the ladies, one of me.