So Sunday afternoon I make a quick trip to the supermarket to replace the toiletries I had to leave behind in my hotel room in Dallas. Another day, another foiled terror plot, another $15 on deoderant, facewash and toothpaste.

It's been making me think a lot lately. I mean, yesterday they arrested three guys from Texas for buying 100 cell phones at 3 a.m. from a Walmart. They were captured in their van with over 1000 cell phones, and casing photo's of Michigan's largest bridge. Somehow I don't think they were planning on a mass telemarketing scheme of public transit officials.

If these folks aren't setting off car bombs in Bagdhad, hijacking airliners in the U.K. or funding suicide bombers in Gaza - they're buying cell phone chips for detonators and casing landmarks in the heart of the U.S.

I mean, these guys were 17-23 years old. Young Muslims who have 'grievances'. And if you buy what the media is telling us, this is all our fault. If only we weren't in Iraq, if only Israel wasn't in Palestine, if only the crusades didn't happen... The list goes on and on. And these 'injustices' were not even enacted upon these young men.

There's this idea that any slander or harm done against Islam, or any Muslim person, state or idea is an attack on every Muslim. Remember the whole Muhammed Cartoon debacle? Radical Muslims believed that they should KILL people, because of a cartoon.

According to Steyn, the problem is rooted in identity.

"...a recent Pew poll...asked: What do you consider yourself first? A citizen of your country or a Muslim?

In the United Kingdom, 7 percent of Muslims consider themselves British first, 81 percent consider themselves Muslim first."

I find that the average person finds this idea quite odd. But to me as a Christian, I do consider myself a Christian first and then an American.

But herein lies the difference, the moral and ideological view I hold to, tighter than my citizenship, doesn't compel me to blow up innocent people or national infrastructure.

You can't downplay the seriousness of this situation. Because I'm an American, Christian, infidel - I'm a legitimate target.

This is insanity.

At some point we need to stop coddling these monsters and take a stand against this madness, especially in media and the minds of people around us.
There are groups around the world other than Muslims who have had much greater injustice, insult and harm done to them - but they don't air their grievances by detonating themselves in the public marketplace, at least not literally.

Shame on the liberal media for trying to make us, 'understand the rage' instead of condemn the slaughter.
Shame on the world community for their head-shaking, finger-wagging, resolution-passing inaction.
Shame on moderate Muslims for letting their voices be drowned out by the radicals.

I figured since each post is required to be placed in a Post Topic that I would combine my hello world post with a review on a film I watched last night.

My fiancee and I are on a quest to own and watch every Johnny Depp film.  He may be a isolationist, Frenchy-loving, malcontent but what can I say, he's a great actor and, at least from my better-half's point of view, easy on the eyes. 

You may have never heard of the film, The Libertine and no one would blame you.  This remake of the 1969 film went from theatre to DvD in no time flat due to it's explicit content.

The story of the film is loosely based on the life of John Wilmot the Second Earl of Rochester (Depp), brother to King Charles II (Malkovich).   The film takes the viewer through a murky, muddy 1600's Reformation England wracked by political upheaval and debauchery.  This is the world in which Wilmot revels to the fullest extent, yet finds no satisfaction.  Urged by the King to use his gifts of writing to commemorate and honor the glory of England, he instead scribbles poems and plays pointing out her true depravity of drunkeness and sexuality with harsh cynicism. Wilmot seems both liberated and hateful of the life he is free to live.  Totally nihilistic, singular escape is the theatre which he sees as the last realm of life in which there are consequences to ones actions.  He eventually reaps the harvest of his deeds, but that, at least to me, was not the interesting part of the film.

I found the parallel between then and now to be almost startling.  One needn't take a long look around them to see a culture where every form of self-satisfaction can be justified because nothing truly matters.  Everything's a throwaway, yours to do with as you please, including your life.  And the life of a talent so great as Wilmot's, destroyed by his own doing.

This film was a chance for me to consider a certain emptiness that causes a man to embrace the darkest of side of human nature.  Something to think about anyways.