So, I have one of the coolest web hosts on the planet. Long-time readers may remember what happened last year when my site got nailed by Digg. She does a really great job making sure everyone can read my opinions on video games, military leadership, and vampire survival. Which is great because I feel that the whole world is entitled to my opinions, and you will all thank me when the vampires come for you. (Oh yes, you will.)

Well not only does Jen do a superb job in letting all of you read the babble that spills out of my brain, she also finds to time to work with charities. Not only is she working with a charity, but she picked the first recipient for her help in honor of me. This is great for two reasons. One, she’s helping to feed my ego. Which is pretty close to the most wonderful thing a person can do. (Sing my praises! SING, DAMN YOU!) Also, by honoring me in this way she pretty much obligates me to write about it, which should hopefully drive some attention to her cause. Which just goes to show that she is exactly the kind of smart and canny individual that you want helping your charity. Or being your web host for that matter.

Here’s another fun fact about Jen. Last August she and her son Jacob got to meet Stephen Colbert. And there is an interesting story there.

Jacob has a fairly serious problem with his heart. He has needed multiple surgeries and tons of other kinds of medical treatment. One of the few silver linings of cases like this is that he got to make use of the Make-A-Wish foundation. And through the two of them I got to learn a few things about how it works.

First of all, I learned that George Lucas will not meet with Make-A-Wish kids. He will let them go to Skywalker Ranch. But he won’t meet them. This puzzled me until I thought about it. If I had mangled a beloved science fiction franchise as badly as he had, I might be leery about letting a nerd with a life threatening illness near me. Some kid is going to show up with a dynamite vest screaming, "This is for Jar-Jar you bastard!"

So Jacob decided to meet with a classy celebrity. And thus he got to go visit the Colbert Report. He got to hang out backstage, meet Stephen. His mother even mentioned to my wife and me that they hung out with a journalist who was a guest on the show that day. I didn’t think much of that until I watched that episode later. It turns out the journalist was Tom Ricks. (And this was not long after that incident.)

And I mourned a lost opportunity. I could have gotten Jacob to give him grief. Jacob would make the perfect agent to antagonize Tom. No matter what he said, Mr. Ricks would have to take it. I mean, who’s going to be mean to a Make-A-Wish kid? It would have been awesome.

Of course, it has been pointed out that it would be really messed up to try to subvert some kids special Wish-Day into an attempt for petty revenge for a minor disagreement. "Now jacob, I know that this is your special day and all, but I need you to be mean to the reporter, can you do that for me buddy?" Yeah I’m a horrible person. But I’m funny, so it’s all okay.

Before I get into the second part there is a pertinent fact that bears mentioning. SGT Generic is a black woman.

Because I’m white, I am now obligated to spend a paragraph or so defending myself.

I don’t hate black people; I don’t think all black people are stupid. I have black friends, and coworkers. I understand that as someone who has light colored skin it is frowned upon for me to ever mention someone who is darker than me and any form of negative description. I am deeply and personally sorry for every single bad thing to ever happen to any person who happened to have more melanin than me.

Have I spent enough time on this to avoid racist accusations in the comments section? Probably not, but let’s move on anyways.

About a week after Part One happened we saw another story on CNN, this time about gay marriage.

She felt that it was sad and wrong that gay people want to get married. This in and of itself wouldn’t be noteworthy. Many people these days have the same opinion as she does. The noteworthy part is coming.

Being the way that I am, instead of just ignoring her comments, I asked if she really felt okay with the government telling people who they can or can’t marry. I pointed out that in our parent’s generation interracial marriage was illegal, and people gave pretty much the same reasons to justify that piece of discrimination as they give nowadays to prevent gay marriage.

She conceded that taking away people rights seemed wrong, but that she still thought gays shouldn’t be allowed to marry.

“Marriage is too special” she said. “They should make some other kind of thing that works like marriage for gay people.”

“So they should be treated equally, just kept apart?”

“Right.”

“So would you say ‘Separate But Equal’ is the policy our country should adopt?”

“Yeah ‘Separate But Equal’ is exactly how our country should opera—“

“NO!” Bellowed a very large, ticked off black Staff Sergeant who had been listening to our conversation.

YOU!” He said pointing at me, “You should be very ashamed of yourself. SGT Generic, please step outside.” And off they went, presumably for a crash course in the African-American Civil Rights Movement.

I’m probably going to hell.

The other day at work we were talking about the Supreme Court ruling governing the execution of the retarded. The general belief was that retarded people didn’t understand why they were being executed. And thus killing them was unfair.

I have slightly different take on the subject.

I think stupid is a very poor defense, especially in a capital crime situation. And in this case, the argument seems to be “But they’re too stupid to understand that it’s wrong to kill people.”

To me, that does not seem like a particularly compelling argument to keep someone around.

When I expressed this to my co-workers, I received some shocked expressions. One of them said “Don’t you think that executing someone who doesn’t understand why is cruel?”

Well it doesn’t have to be. It could actually be far less cruel than a regular execution. Just go to their cell, pop a mouse ear hat on their head, and tell them they’re going to Disney Land.

“Dih-Nee-Lan!” He’ll exclaim as he is lead down the hall to the gas chamber. (I’m imagining he sounds like Adam Sandler from ‘Bulletproof’)

“Dih-Nee-Lan!” As he’s strapped down.

“Dih-Nee-Lan!” As gas starts to fill the room.

“Dih-Nee-*!” As he asphyxiates.

Yeah I’m going to hell for that.