I have faith in God and if you think you can shake me up with this parody, well you can't. It is not for me to judge you for your actions. God gave you free will and you still live in a free country, for how long, who knows, but God allows you to shake your fist at Him all you want. So you blame God for everything - I have a news flash for you, you are not upsetting Him and you are far from the first to curse Him - He is quite used to it. So have fun cursing your Creator - I feel sorry for you if you are indeed as miserable as your parodies depict, but then again you could be spoofing us all just to see who you can get a rise out of. I spoke kind words to you when you wrote the Doobies Bros. parody and I actually thought you had some devastingly bad things going on in your life, but to curse God because the weather does not suit you does not seem to me as any kind of show stopping event. Fool me once shame on you- fool me twice... I'm done now. Write whatever and I'll ignore same.

Maybe you should check the weather forecast next time before you go to a festival.

Although perhaps a trivial example, it does raise the larger metaphysical question that's been debated for centuries: If there is a God, and if He is kind and loving, why does he allow all of the evil in the world? ... and it seems that some peeps missed the point of how annoying it is to go to a totally-secular, "fun" event (or even to the airport, for that matter), and have someone trying to ram their religion down your throat, whether it's Hari Krishnas or any other.

You need to hook up with Phil Alexander, who's several times shown that the Bible itself describes God as, in Phil's terms (as best I can remember), "a sadistic, genocidal maniac". ... but have to admit that blaming Him for the weather is a bit of a stretch. Will spot you a set of Fives, not for the weather, but for nailing those who insist on preaching to those who aren't interested in listening. Harassment, pure and simple.

DKTOS, but caught my name in the comments.. As Guy & TT will both tell you, I'm not the sort that would go round cursing God, 'cause I don't think there is one out there to curse. And if there was, I'm not sure cursing Him would be the most practical of life choices.

...though I haven't called him "a sadistic genocidal maniac", at least, not "sadistic". A genocidal maniac on two occasions: http://www.amiright.com/parody/70s/donmclean130.shtml and http://www.amiright.com/parody/80s/thebeastieboys6.shtml :-)

I wasn't sure about "sadistic", but "genocidal maniac" seemed to stick out in my pea-brained memory (it's the kind of phrase that would). Thanks for confirming that I haven't totally lost it yet -- just partially. :)

I'm not even going to look this up, but chance feeble memory again: Isn't your last sentence (first para.), essentially "Pascal's Wager" (or was it someone else's wager)? ... they say that as you get older, your memory is the second thing to go.

TT - It's not quite Pascal's wager, which is a false dichotomy between God not existing, or if He does, then He's likely to be pissed off that you're not a Christian. If, on the other hand, you believe there is a God made to the Judeo-Christian spec, then the choice between cursing and not is a bit more obvious. Having said that, He obviously enjoys the occasional practical joke, and is probably laughing his socks off watching reruns of "It'll be alright on the night" on those quiet times when there isn't enough s**t happening to people in the world.

I've joked that if He does exist, He has a very sick sense of humor. But Woody Allen beat me (you too?) to it by saying that if God exists, He's a gross underachiever. :) Yeah, I think if I were omnipotent, I might have created something other than the mess we look around and see. Cheers!

Do we have another Linda Terhune or Dr. Music in the making here? This is the way they all start out and then they keep on messing with us until someone catches them up in a site rules violation and then they are banned. I feel we may be seeing another one start up here. I hope not.

Ms Manners is obviously a Republican. The easiest way to bust up the First Amendment is start banning everything that you don't agree with. This is the Bush/Cheney Doctrine, in case Sarah Palin was wondering..... I would like to see Ms. Manners face if she saw the anti-Republican posters I have hanging in my truck windows. Let's force Ms. Manners to wear a burka and see if she has the same opinion.

First, not even sure to whom Ms M is referring. The author? A commenter? IIRC, Terhune was a far-right-winger, though it's a long time and I could be mistaken. So, exactly to whom are you referring?

Next question: What guidelines are being violated? Jeff expressed his opinion, which is his right, without using any stronger language than many other songs here. Ditty Guy's opinion, mine, Phil's. Who is it whom you fear, and why? What do you mean by "messing with you"? How?

Jeff: Please don't stereotype. Bush-Cheney hijacked what used to be an honorable Party - the party that ended slavery, remember? "Conservative" used to be an honorable term, meaning to conserve the Constitution and the intentions of the Founding Fathers. (Including George Washington's Farewell Address -- "Avoid foreign entanglements": Too bad no one listened.

"Neo-cons" hijacked that, too, and those are the ones that were ripping the First Amendment -- until a liberal, John Barry, posted four songs on Wednesday 9/30, in which he suggested that someone with whom he disagreed (a staunch conservative TV pundit) should be drugged and lobotomized. Please tell me you don't agree with that.

I don't care what kind of posters you have in your truck. I stuck up for your right to post your opinion on religion. Please show the same courtesy to all others, allow Ms M to clarify what her problem is; and please, let's all keep these discussions civil. Thank you.

Sir, I have no political ties whatsoever - that is your first assumed mistake. Your second mistake is that I didn't even suggest banning anything, only that some people were banned from the site for exceeding reasonable site limits and being general pests. And I would appreciate being talked to not at or about as you are doing by addressing me in the third person. Please give me the dignity of speaking directly to me if you have issues about what I wrote. When I am the subject of your comment as I am here reading your response, addressing me in the third person shows a tendancy of feeling superior to women, besides it being rude. So Jeff, when it comes as you put it "bust up the first amendment" what would you call forcing me to wear a burka? And since I have no political affiliation I doubt that the GOP posters that you say that you have displayed in your truck's back windows would certainly have no effect whatsoever upon me. These posters seem to be something that you are quite proud of and I sincerely hope that they have no effect whatsoever on safety issues. I hope you are not so foolish as to have the posters on your windows a hinderance to your visability. So you are welcome on the site as far as i am concerned, but if you are looking for attention and can only get it by using negativity I will invite you to depart the site immediately

Forgive me for not being as clear as I should have been. My comment is just an observation. Dr. Music and Linda Terhune started out sane enough and non abrasive enough even though a bit bizarre with there parodies and comments. There were some other authors who became pests on the site but right now I can't recall them - one had the last name of Moses and I think he incensed most of us with his dead baby parodies. My observations is that you, Mr. Jeff from Richmond seem to be following the same path as some other authors who became so annoying that they were either ignored to the point that they just went away or in Terhune's case was found to have been guilty of plagiarizing parodies on this site and banned. That was the excuse that they needed to legally ban her because of the disruptive behavior that she created on the site and made the site look bad. I am not saying that you, Jeff will run this route but I have seen this behavior on this site enough to recognise the signs early on. I could be wrong and I sincerely hope that I am. When we have one of these trouble makers on the site it cheapens the quality of the site and irritates almost everyone. That is all I am saying - it is an observation that I hope is incorrect, but the first parody that I saw from you, Jeff was one with the Doobie Brothers OS, "Jesus is Just Alright", and I avoided any comment on that one. Jeff, you seemed in the Doobie Brothers parody that you had some genuine concerns and issues in your life, but when you come back in another parody and curse God about a little rain shows to me that you could possibly become an irritation and spoil the fun we all enjoy because we stay within limits. Again, if I am wrong then I am truly sorry, but I warn you, do not escallate your absurdity. TT, I do not fear anything Guy, Phil or you say and I am sorry if you perceived that idea from me. A burned child fears fire and so since I have witnessed insane behavior that has gone on for months on end I swear one of us, that being you, Jeff or me, will leave this site and I doubt that it will be me. The site ceases to be fun when one or two troublemakers ruin the site with their BS. You Jeff by doing the about face with your back to back God blaming parodies, the first indicating that you were having some genuine problems and then following it up with blaming God for rain is just childish behavior and if you are going to act like a child for the attention then you are not welcome here. It is this 180 between the two parodies that has me concerned about what you may be up to. Guy made sense when he said "Fool me once" and Phil makes a good point about being free to say what you feel within limits and I never said that you, jeff, exceeded any limits. I just don't like the combination of the two parodies where the second contradicts the first in that the first appears as a cry for help and the second is absurd. I hope this answers your questions TT. I have no isssues with you at this time Jeff. Nothing would please me more, Jeff than for you to show me that I am wrong.

Ms. Manners: First, I believe you have a valid legal point there. In most States, AFAIK, it is in fact illegal to block your vehicle's windows, or front or rear windshields, with any sign, poster, or sticker that isn't required by law (like an inspection sticker might be). Usually, tiny things like a parking permit, that are stuck way down or up where they don't block your field of view are ignored, but you're right about posters. Score one point for Ms.. M. :)

OTOH, it seems that your main concern is about what the law calls an "anticipatory breach" -- Jeff hasn't done anything against guidelines yet, but you're afraid he might, or he might become annoying. I have a simple solution for parodists whom I find annoying: I ignore them. Works perfectly, every time. I invite you to try it. No one is forced to read everything or anything that is posted here.
"if you are looking for attention and can only get it by using negativity I will invite you to depart the site immediately"..... OR you could simply not give him that attention. People whose posts are continually ignored usually give up sooner or later. But if other people continue to choose to read Jeff's work, surely you wouldn't deny their right to do so?

As far as whether he might violate site guidelines in the future, we don't know. Like everyone else, he's entitled to post unless and until he does so. You can't have the police arrest someone you think might commit a crime in the future, unless you have solid evidence of their plans to do so (the plans to the bank vault, the explosive, the timer, etc.) Rather than project or guess what Jeff might do, can't you either wait and see, or not read his parodies? If you do read, and he goes over the line, that would be the time to say something.

If you are trying to give him a warning, your intentions might be good, but it could also be interpreted as trying to intimidate him from posting by threatening him. I'm sure that's not what you intended. Let him post; read or don't read; if and when he's out of line, then there's an issue -- keeping in mind that "out of line" does NOT mean "saying things you disagree with." Fair enough?

I agree with you that Jeff should have given you the courtesy of a direct reply. However, please don't always see sexism automatically -- it could be "politicalism" -- he just disagreed with your politics or views or comment, and therefore did not address you directly.

As far as plagiarism goes, that is a completely separate issue, unrelated to political or religious views. People have been caught plagiarizing parodies that had no political, religious, or social point of view at all. That's a very serious allegation if and when it happens, but I see no evidence of it here, so again, let's not worry about it until it happens, okay?

Jeff: You don't *have* to reply to anyone, of course. However, I agree with Ms. Manners that if you choose to express your disagreement with her, it would be more courteous and civil to do so directly.

I had already asked that stereotyping be avoided, and Ms. M. has confirmed my concerns, by saying that she is an independent who is not tied politically to one party. Please keep that in mind in the future. It would increase credibility, whereas stereotyping always decreases it.

Finally, a technical hint for both of you: Although the comment box states "no code allowed", the site admin has very wisely decided to make one exception to this rule: You can put line breaks and paragraph breaks in your comments, so that long comments are easier to read (and more likely to be read, by the way). To start a new line, type [BR], except instead of the square brackets, use the angle brackets. On my laptop keyboard, the left angle bracket is shift+comma and the right angle bracket is shift+period. To make a new paragraph with a blank line in between, just do that twice in a row. < then capital B, capital R, then >, if that came through OK (no spaces in between). Cheers to all!

TT - Thanks for the technical hint - I always wondered how people managed to put open spaced lines in their comments. Are you talking about using the greater than and less than signs instead of the brackets? I was taught in school that these symbols were called greater than and less than signs. If so why didn't you just put the less than and the great than signs in your example? It would help if I could actually see an example of what the line break code actually looks like. Does the "B" and the "R" actually need to be capital letters? I know you said capital but are they necessary? Are there any spaces in the line break things that are inserted in the body of the comment? OK - maybe it was sexist of me to say that me being referred to in the third person showed a feeling of superiority over women. If you were a female you may have understood why I said that. I guess you are right about it. It is rude when it is done to anyone. It was just an observation not a threat and it is not about God or religion as we have established that it is not about politics. I don't like being on the site when one or two people act up and there is no ignoring it because when it starts it gets on a lot of different posts on a lot of different peoples' parodies, so there is no ignoring it. Jeff, if you are reading this, I may have been a bit premature. There was no threat intended and write about whatever you like except hate and dead babies. You may just have issues and for that, parody writing is good therapy. I'll take the advice of TT and back

I'll take the advice of TT and back off. I made my point already.

I know I'm butting in here but the bit about line breaks can't be shown in its proper form because if you type it as such then it automatically just becomes a line break. It would look like this



but with BR instead of VR

Well, that didn't work (help - why didn't it). As TT said It would look like this

[BR]

but instead of the square brackets use the ones that are the shape of a V laying on its side, on a Brit keyboard they're above the comma (left bracket) & full stop (right) . You don't need spaces either side of it, eg. if the last line of a paragraph ended with the word 'top.' and the next paragraph began with 'The', you could type ....top.[BR]The... (no paces) and it would still make them come out as

top
The

Yes, they're the "less than" and "greater than" signs, but not everyone got through algebra or remembers their math. Less than BR greater than, no space in between these four characters. It's varied over time whether it's case-sensitive, but it was at one time recently, so we'll try it lower case: Did it come through?

Andy: Note that is the same position as I described in the US keyboard, the only difference being that what en-BR calls a full stop, en-US calls a period. (No off-color jokes here, ok?) Just a small Pond between us... :)

It didn't show up at all, but didn't produce a line break after the colon in "so we'll try it lower case:" .. So yes, it must be [BR}, substituting the less/greater or left angle/right angle.

This is ridiculous! First, I have no idea how to PM someone directly on this site, so I just posted a reply and hoped they would see it. I guess it worked.... Second, my parody seems to be taking a lot of heat. You people seem to think I am anti-Christian. I probably believe in God more than all of you combined. Why? Because I've seen BOTH sides of His persona. Kind... AND mean!!! I have had more "Trojan Horses" in my life than the Greeks! Every single thing I do, try to do, buy, refurbish, etc, is filled with Catch-22's!!!! Every task I do has to be done twice, for the most unexplainable reasons..... I can't count the times that we have gone to antique car shows and had it "mysteriously" start to rain, even though all the weather channels said NO RAIN IN SIGHT....... Another favorite "trick" is to have it LOOK like rain galore...., then we stay home, and then the sun comes out. This happens week after week. Coincidence?? I think not. I am starting to feel personally responsible for ruining local outdoor events just by opening my garage door!! Thirdly, the above parody was made because the VA Beach incident was the last straw. As mortal humans, we have NO recourse against the "powers that be", the Creator, or whatever else you wanna' call Him....EXCEPT to cuss. (or write parodies) This is my way of keeping from having a nervous breakdown when all the previously mentioned crap happens in my life. Yadig???? Finally, regarding the anti-Republican posters in the windows. I drive a loooonggg 16-passenger van, like the churches & clinics use, and the posters are in the side windows, so there is no obstruction in view. And the next time I have a really really bad day, look for my parody of Daniel Powter's song "(You had a) Bad Day". That will probably curl some people's hair.........

"or in Terhune's case was found to have been guilty of plagiarizing parodies on this site and banned."

Linda was banned for personal attacks, not plagiarism.

Jeff, DKTOS, so no vote, but I do know the weather in VA - it seems like it ALWAYS rains on the weekends, this past weekend was no exception to that (we got a lot here Saturday afternoon).