I have a friend who reportedly once sang "The Rainbow Connection" for Karoke; as if it were being sung by a paranoid schitzophernic.

I had thought that he was just a comic genious.  Now, I know that he is in fact a brilliant intuitive, who saw into THE TRUTH.

Maybe it's that teh gays have already taken over the government, and this is their evil plan.  Maybe it's that the Leprechan agenda is more advanced than we thought.

Maybe Rainbow Bright was just a beachead in our perceptual matrix.

It could be a My Little Pony plot.

WE HAVE TO FIGURE THIS OUT PEOPLE!!!!   AAAAAAHHHHHGGG!!!  TOXIC RAINBOWS!!!

Somebody call Michele Bachmann.  Im sure SHE'LL know what to do!  (off topic, but speaking of idiots, Michele Bachmann, who is a Republican politician, and a Minnesotan, can't seem to remember that the Republican Convention will be held in St. Paul.  This is one of the people leading our country...but at least she's a "fool for Chirst"...right?)

[update:  I don't know what's going one, but if you are here and you don't see a video underneath this update, click on the title bar for this post, and one will appear.]

Here's a link straight to the video:  http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1825469

Some of you might remember that terrible abuse of the Christian religion that was the Life of Brian.

And some of you might be aware that the Life of Brian was banned by a God-fearing community...among other places...

Quote from Wikipedia entry:  "It was also banned for eight years in the Republic of Ireland and for a year in Norway (it was marketed in Sweden as '"The film so funny that it was banned in Norway")"

And some of you might know some trivia about a certain actress that was in said movie and is now the mayor of said town.

Now, she apparently wants to abuse her power in a clear conflict of interest to persecute Christians by unbanning the terrible movie that blythely urged a generation to "always look on the bright side of life".

No doubt inspiring other un-Godly sources of a glib and light-hearted approach to the world that lead us down the primrose path.

Will the horror never end?

(Hat Tip: Pharyngula)

Any of you remember Gilligan's Island?  Remember the depictions of simple native "Polynesian-ish" people brought to a roiling frenzy over the violation of some randomly rediculous "sacred object"?

Remember how silly and funny you thought it was when you were little?  Remember how (if you're a liberal) you later felt a little squeemish over someone representing an entire ethnic group as being so stupid and backwards? 

'cause nobody would really assault someone over a simple representational object.  I mean, there's no "primitive", cannabalistic cult on the earth that actually thinks that representational fetisches are their physical God, right?

Wrong.  Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

That said, I don't have a lot of sympathy for Webster Cook either.  Come on, every good country kid knows, you walk past a hornet's nest, you just keep on walking.  You don't put a stick in it and smash it around.  If they fly into your house or come and sting you, you smash them.  Or if they try to build in your barn, you break out the wasp spray...but you don't go into the woods where they have a perfect right to be, seek them out and stir them up.  That's just dumb.

I know that some are saying its a protest against having public money going to hold a Catholic mass on campus.  But that's not good enough.  I mean, I haven't heard anyone say that Catholics are the ONLY ones allowed to have mass on campus, and I hadn't heard that the group was trying to influence the administration or functioning of the college in any way, nor that students were required by the university to attend the mass.

Also, as one poster pointed out on line, if he wanted to show the Eucharist to his friend and explain it's importance, he should have just ordered a box of wafers online.  Then, he could crumble them up into his bathtub and roll around in them if he wanted to, and nobody would know.

(Hat Tip:  Pharyngula)

So, for those who don’t know about the “Expelled” movie, it’s a movie created by proponents of Intelligent Design intended to do two things.

1)      Promote the idea that God is a fuss-budget failed inventor who has to keep tweaking his creations to get them to work right rather than an all-powerful, all-knowing deity who should be able to get creation right the first time.

2)      Compare tweedy old mild-mannered research biologists to Hitler.

Oh yeah, and one more thing:

3)       Destroy materialist thought and put God back into the center of our social consciousness, and recreate the pre-Enlightenment mindset, where all intellectual effort was required to conform to the religious elite’s world-view.

Three, three things, that the movie “Expelled was intended to do…well, four…

4)      Give an artificial boost to the public persona of several academics who just didn’t have that much notoriety working within the confines of reality.

These four great goals brought forth the movie Expelled…actually, there was the noble goal of having Ben Stein appear in public wearing short-pants…

5)      Get Ben Stein in short pants…oh baby, nothing turns on an Intelligent Designer more than the aging, knobby knees of a Nixon sycophant while his Dulcet voice drones on and on, lifting your spirit heavenward on a cloud of nasal belly-aching about persecution.

Well, it seems that these five noble goals are being shredded, shredded, I say, by the other great materialist evil of our time:  lawyers.  Lawyers and intellectual property laws.

First, the materialists are upset just because we told them that we were interviewing them for one kind of movie concept, for one movie company and then took their interviews and put them in a completely different movie with a completely opposite concept, made by a different movie company.

That’s right! 

And now, these craven materialists are claiming that if you take somebody else’s idea, throw a bell or whistle on it, and then present it as your own…you are cheating!  Can you imagine?  I mean, according to their interpretation of the laws, if I took an iPod apart, built functionally exact but cosmetically different replicas of the workings, and then put it in a different case and called it something else…I’d be breaking the law! 

See, Expelled contains some animation that the Expelled producers made themselves.

It just happens to look almost-but-not-quite-exactly like an animation made by an academic group at a major ivy league university.  It’s purely an accident that the Expelled animation reproduces almost every significant feature of the materialist animation, including significant errors.

But don’t worry, the makers of Expelled are suing the people they copie…uh…independently post-replicated.  We’ll show those materialists a thing or two about reality!  They don’t think it can be bent to the power of human belief.  Boy, are they going to be sorry for their arrogance in persecuting us!  And they would have, too.

They would have persecuted us with a law suit, but luckily, we got to it first, in self-defense.  We’ll see if they back down, or if they are going to further their persecution of us by making us take them to court to defend ourselves against their court case, which we KNOW they would have done, because they are litigious, persecuting bastards.

But they won’t stop!

Now they are claiming that we should have paid money and received permission to use the “intellectual property” of professional musicians!   That’s just silly, besides, there’s no way Yoko Ono would give permission for her husband’s song to be used in a way that shows he is responsible for the crimes of Stalin.

 Disclaimer:  This post, like all of the others on this site, is an act of self-amusement by the author.  It is intended as entertaining parody of the issue, and the unfolding public drama, and is not intended to be seen as making specific charges against specific individuals or entities.

Is the average Joe going to be the death-knell of McDonalds?

Don’t be too sure…

I was greeted with this article this morning over my ordinary cup-a-joe.  It’s all about how McDonalds stock is being dumped by insiders because they are trying to sell better coffee and bill themselves more as a coffee shop where you can get even crappier food even cheaper.

A quote:

Consider demographics and brand personality. Starbucks is urban, born in Seattle, and populated by graduate students looking for single-origin coffees from Africa. McDonald’s is Mainstreet U.S.A., packed full of blue-collar men, moms and kids, and broke teens ordering off the dollar menu. If you can’t picture a truck driver from Wyoming ordering a double-pump vanilla non-fat latté, then McCafé is doomed -- especially with all the competition entering the field.

Obviously, this guy has never been to a Dunn Brother’s in Bemidji and seen a huge guy in Carharts get out of his rusted pick-up, walk back into the store with a stylish paper car cup, and declare that he ordered a skim-no-whip-caffe-caramel-macchiatto, and this one clearly had whip on it.

My neighbor, the professional carpenter and general contractor extraordinaire has a Caribou coffee addiction that rivals his ability to calculate slope, area and volume in his head simultaneously.

I was disabused of this silly notion that the average guy was not into caffeinated novelty drinks when I was in a hotel lobby in Bemidji listening to a trio of hocky dads from the Iron Range discuss the relative virtues of Starbucks, Dunn Bros, and Caribou.

If McDonalds is in trouble, it’s not because the average Joe cannot appreciate the subtle finery of specialty coffee.  

No, I could see an assertion of cultural tone-deafness if they, for instance, insisted on putting little pastel umbrellas in said confections.  There IS some silliness that the Average American Male simply will not put up with.  But adding sugar, cream, and flavored corn syrup to something containing the highest level of caffeine possible simply doesn’t fall into that catagory.

Women!  Take personal responsibility for your own safety.  I know it's tough, but you can do it by starting small.  All you have to do is make some small changes in your dating habits.  Lets start with the easy ones.

1)  Don't date men who describe themselves as "Christian Libertarians". (especially ones who look like they have had someone give their head a bikini wax)

2)  If you do date a self-described Christian Libertarian, and he buys you a diet Coke, assume it is laced with GHB, and don't drink it.  See, a "Christian Libertarian" will view knocking you out and having his way with you as the moral equivilant of stealing a purse you left lying around.  If you are going to date them, it's best to understand their culture and customs so you don't find yourself in situations like this.  See, "date rape" isn't like "Genuine rape".  It doesn't count.

3) Before you engage in innocent flirting, or put on that cute little outfit that shows off all the hard work you did in the gym for the last year, make sure that there will be no Christian Libertarians around where they can see you.  For that matter, consider moving to Berkley or someplace like that where it is toxic for Christian libertarians to live before you join a gym and commit to working out.

4)  Don't flirt with Christian Libertarians.  In their strange culture, flirting is agreeing to have sex...not a preliminary social ritual to gague a potential partner's interest, compatablility, or social acumen.  Also, changing your mind isn't allowed.

5)  Remember, if you put effort into looking good, a "Christian Libertarian" will view it as an invitation to rape you.  See, like the people on the street who overhear your conversation with a friend and interject themselves uninvited, a "Christian Libertarian" doesn't understand that even though you might be sending signals of sexual receptivness, you are not necessarily talking to THEM, and that you do not wave your right to say "no".

6) Actually, if you want to be safe from "Christian Libertarians", forget all of the above.  Just wear a Burqua.

7)  Oh wait, that won't help either.  Then they'll just shoot you.

8)  It doesn't matter what you do, the Christian Libertarians will get you.

9)  It'll be all your fault.

10) They don't need the government or any damn women telling them what to do.  They have all sorts of self-control.

(Hat Tip:  Denialism.com)

Uh oh.  I wouldn't want to be in this guy's shoes.

Apparently, he wrote a court decision about a case where he decided that it was a bad idea to let incompetent, abusive, neglectful parents educate their children at home.

And he wasn't careful to word it so that your average homeschooler would understand that it wasn't meant for them personally, just for incompetent, abusive and neglectful homeschoolers.

So they're all up in arms over it.

It's personal now!  I mean, if incompetent, neglectful, and abusive homeschoolers aren't allowed to educate their children at home...where will it end?

I ask you, isn't it time SOMEBODY drew a line in the sand and said "beyond this we shall not pass?"

My goodness, people, if we require parents to adhere to basic state standards for educating their children, if we (as the father so colorfully put it) force the parents to subject their children to educational environments that expose them to "snitches"...

What will the world have come to then?

Well, anyway, don't worry about it, the Govahnatoh is on the case.  He'll put it right.

Here's the offending opinion.  Basically, it says that religious reasons are fine, but you have to meet certain qualifications.  Kind of like avoiding the draft, you can't just say "it's against my religion", and get out of it.

I think this guy is completely missing the point of the verse in question:

I mean, he rightly gets that you're supposed to pee standing up...but then he goes and complains about not being allowed to pee standing up IN A BATHROOM.

Hello?  Doesn't the verse say "pisseth against a wall"?  (First Kings 16:11 - And it came to pass, when he began to reign, as soon as he sat on his throne, that he slew all the house of Baasha: he left him not one that pisseth against a wall, neither of his kinsfolks, nor of his friends)

How many bathrooms have you seen with a pissing wall?  Very very few.  And the kind of hoity toity places that have those water-fall pissing walls are not a place a real man who is under God's direction should be anyway (so I've heard), unless he's "ministering" to drug-dealing massuers.

One time, I saw one - in France - I'm just sayin', is all.

No.  God wants you to pee standing up OUTSIDE.  AND, if you have any friends that sit down, you better get rid of them...just to be safe (read the whole verse, and remember, it's the WORD of GOD.  You've been warned)

You would think that someone who has done all the work to attain the rank of pastor would know that.

This is what Evilution has brought us to, people.  Men who don't act like men.  Men who act like animals...peeing sitting down on a porceline bowl indoors.

It's inhuman.  Go find a tree like God intended.

Whoa.  I just had a revelation!  Here I had thought that The Full Monty was a Godless filthy issue from a decadent movie industry!

And here it was a CHRISTiAN film!

[update:  The pastor's wife wants you to vote Ron Paul]

(Hat Tip:  Monastic Mumblings)

Hey guys, do me a little favor - K?

Come up with some good turn-down lines that my fellow Kung Fuer - Maggie- can use.

10 brownie points for the best one.

Stuff like "I'd love to call you on the phone, but for some reason my electro-magnetic fields keep getting reversed, and people's phones get hot and explode when I call them".

Or "No, I can't sleep with you.  I shouldn't even be talking to you.  I have projectile herpes.  Oh!  There goes one now.  Sorry."

or "You want to buy me a drink?  No thanks, .  My last trip to the bar, they were all out of the blood of the innocent."

Theobromophile pointed me to this great spoof called "Abstinance Only Driver's Ed"

Basically, the point seems to be that if kids have access to certain...uh...equiptment...and are simply told not to use under penalty of many grave (but fairly vague and distant) threats, but the inherant rewards of using it are obvious, maybe it's a bad idea to deny them critical information about how that equiptment works, and how to use it safely.

Theobromophile counters with a spoof of her own, and you can see how the opposite side would find it fun, because they accept the characterization of comprehensive sex ed that the spoof relies on, and if thats actually how it worked...it would be HILARIOUS.  Well, the spoof would be hilarious.

Personally, the analogies seem a little off to me.

But that could be because I drove cars without training, and without my parent's knowledge or consent long before I got to driver's ed...and comprehensive sex ed clued me in to some things just in time to teach me to make my own decisions based on my own self-interest, and gave me the perspective to be able to say "no" to the advances of adult authority figures.

But I have to say that even though comprehensive sex education helped me a lot, it WAS far from comprehensive.  I mean, sure, they told me "Abstinance is the only way to be completely sure you don't get infected with STDs or pregnant"  However, they never told me "people will know you are not having sex, and you will pay a terrible price."  But my guess is, they didn't want to be discouraging.

I wonder if there is a funny car analogy for everyone knowing you aren't having sex, assuming you are gay, and having straight boys proclaim their determination to "show you the light" some day when you are not expecting them.

But at least abstinance-only education has given us a generation of girls who are afraid to sit on toilet seats, and instead have taken to hovering over them.  THAT'S something we can all be thankful for...row after row of sprinkled toilet seats.  It re-inforces those old-time family values my mom instilled in me:  particularly, "Go to the bathroom before you leave the house!"

And if they think they can get HIV from sweat, I imagine that will make it easier to get on the machines at the gym.

And just a reminder:  If you live in Minnesota, and your kids get quality comprehensive sex ed, it is because your school district told the State of Minnesota to keep their dirty money, and spent their own funds for the curriculum.  So don't forget to thank your local school board and be very sure to vote to re-elect them!

I'm trying to figure out if this guy is being deliberatly obtuse or if he really thinks that scientists present evolution as a concious decision to "suck in" legs and sprout fins?

I'm voting for deliberatly obtuse, myself.

Because the alternative frightens me.

I love how he's so indignant about the evilutionists saying that the waters brought forth life...and then reads the Bible verse about how the waters brought forth life.  And then talks about how the scientists are contradicting the Bible.

Is it bad to think that's funny?

Scientist:  "And the waters brought forth life..."

Bible-basher"  "And GOD SAID "let the waters bring forth life..."

Scientist:  "Uh...the waters brought forth life and..."

Bible-basher:  "GOD SAID let the waters bring forth life!"

Scientist:  "Um...sorry, but I see the waters, and I've got a lot of information about waters and how they work, and I see life, and I've got a lot of information about how life works but the whole God thing is lacking concrete data so..."

Bible Basher (bashing Bible):  "It's all in HERE!"

Scientist:  "Oh I see."  (takes Bible, opens it)  put your face in the book..."

Babylon Five fans can guess what comes next.  :)

(Hat Tip:  Pharyngula)

Theobromophile has asked me for some links illustrating the “Neo-Nazi” support that cause me to cast a jaundiced eye toward the possibility of a Ron Paul presidency.

As Reason magazine points out, it’s a little weird that numerous racist statements appeared in Ron Paul’s newsletter, with his name on them, and yet he seems to have been unaware of the content of his newsletters, and unaware of who wrote them.  You don't find a lot of strenuous opposition to Ron Paul there - but occasionally you can find an opinion piece there or two with some tepid dithering about how much the Neo-nazis love Ron Paul, or the theocrats, or racist statements appearing under his name in his publication that he controls.

For instance Ron Paul on Dr. King Then vs. Now

But, even if you accept his assertions that he isn’t a racist, didn’t write the racist literature, and doesn’t know who wrote it…that’s not a ringing qualification for the presidency…then again, given the Reagan presidency, maybe it IS.  Maybe “I didn’t know what was happening on my watch, and I don’t know who did what, and I can’t tell you who is responsible” is a presidential trait. (Some publications have alluded, based on confidential sources that the writer of the racist statements was Lew Rockwell, whose online website Ron Paul has written numerous articles for…and who WAS Ron Paul’s ghostwriter for a time).

There’s no way to know as long as Ron Paul doesn’t know who did it, or won’t say.  Generally, an overview of the comments found on the internet has been a flurry of fingers all pointing different directions.  Nobody who is in a position to know who wrote a number of racist statements over a period of years under Ron Paul’s name seems to want to go on record as saying who did it.  At lease, not that I’ve been able to find.  And who can blame them? Given the calumny and invective directed against anyone who says anything about it?

But even though racist statements appearing on his newsletter, under his name, going without retraction or correction would be sufficient to nail a liberal…the assertion that he didn’t know what was going on, and didn’t know who did it, seems to be enough for his supporters. On maybe it’s just that the people who would care haven’t given it a lot of thought because they don’t think he’ll actually win, they just want him to keep pounding away at whatever issues specifically affect them.

If you read the comments thread here, you can see that the Nazis expect Ron to do it for them.  He has publicly spoken on almost all of their issues, and come out smelling great to them.  The only thing he has NOT come out and said is the magic 14 words.

Orcinus also covers some of the extra curricular activities of Randy Gray, Ron Paul's Midland County coordinator.  You can see a chummy picture of Ron with him there too.  Randy Gray doesn't seem to mind that Ron Paul hasn't said the 14 words out loud in public.  He's all in.

The promotion of Ron Paul by David Duke don’t seem to get any detraction among his supporters, even with authentic pictures of Old Duke as a young man in a Nazi uniform, and his close personal friendship with George Lincoln Rockwell, the founder of the American Nazi party.

It’s difficult to impress conservatives with references to the “codes” employed by Ron Paul to convince White Nationalists to extend to him this kind of ardent support:

After all, many people who oppose “multi-culturalism” have a laundry list of reasons that have nothing explicitly to do with “race”.

After all, going after the Federal Reserve and the banking system is a favorite of conservatives of all stripes…it’s just the Nazis and neo-confederates who think he really means “The Jewish Monetary Conspiracy”.

And being against our involvement in the U.N. doesn’t necessarily mean that he believes that it is secretly run by a Zionist conspiracy like the Nazis do.  So when he talks against the “New World Order” the fact that THEY think they know what he means is not proof that he means it.

And wanting our government to stop supporting Israel isn’t inherently anti-semitic, lots of people what to stop supporting Israel and have a long list of reasons they can give that doesn’t include the fact that Israel is full of Jews.

And refusing to return the Nazi money (he hasn’t yet, has he?) or donate it to some good cause certainly doesn’t seem like the action of a person who wouldn’t be their man on issues important to him, but it can be explained away if you want to explain it away.

Come on, that’s WHY they call it “code” and “pandering”…because you CAN’T pin a specific attitude on someone with legalistic precision.

But don’t take it from me (following quote from Orcinus):

If you doubt that Paul has the support of our proto-fascists, don't take my word for it -- take theirs. This endorsement, for example, recently appeared on national KKK leader David Duke's website. And I'll let an anonymous commenter from Stormfront, the far right's favorite Web watering hole, have the final word:

Anyone who doesn't vote for Paul on this site is an assclown. Sure he doesn't come right out and say he is a WN [white nationalist], who cares! He promotes agendas and ideas that allow Nationalism to flourish. If we "get there" without having to raise hell, who cares; aslong as we finally get what we want. I don't understand why some people do not support this man, Hitler is dead, and we shall probably never see another man like him.

Pat Buchanan's book "Where the Right Went Wrong" is a prime example of getting the point across without having the book banned for anti semitism. The chapters about the war in Iraq sound like a BarMitzvah, but he doesn't have to put the Star of David next to each name for us to know what he means. We are running out of options at this point, and I will take someone is 90% with us versus any of the other choices.

Not to mention if Paul makes a serious run, he legitimizes White Nationalism and Stormfront, for God's sake David Duke is behind this guy!

After all, Hillary’s claim that she can take gobs of corporate money and never give them preference makes me chuckle a wry, mirthless chuckle.  Why should I feel any different about a guy who does not repudiate the ardent support of neo-nazis?

Her simultaneous pandering to the looniest left of the party and to already over-blown corporate interests is CODE for “I’ll keep running things the same way we ran things before” which to me means that and in eight or twelve years we’ll lose the country to an expansionist Republican government again….and it will be because we pandered half-heartedly to the loony left, without fixing the over-reaching by the right…and the middle where all the work is done and where all the bills are paid gets left out in the cold again.

Yeah, I realize that this is circumstantial evidence, and that it wouldn’t convict someone in a court of law, but a person can’t deny that it seems a little cavalier to shrug and say, as I have heard people say “Nazis have a right to express their opinions too.”

Well…of COURSE they do, and I’m glad.  Otherwise, how would we know what they’re up to?  And when they say “This guy stands for almost everything we want”…I get nervous and think “I’m pretty sure that things that give Nazis hope are not things I want in a candidate.”

But as one commenter said here: http://www.tomgpalmer.com/archives/026647.php

So maybe George F. and Lew Rockwell are "anti-state" collectivists, just as Sam Francis, Neo-Confederates and Neo-Nazis are anti-government statists. So what? They are still not individualists, and therefor NO FRIEND OF MINE, despite George F.'s crude "Jedi Mind Tricks" to prove otherwise.

Now are George F. or Lew Rockwell racist or bigots or just pretending to be racist in order to make allies with racists to achieve a political end? Does it matter?

Is Ron Paul accepting the endorsements and money and promotion of Nazis and neo-confederates and the like without repudiation because he agrees with them?  Or because they will support him in his candidacy, and he needs all the support he can get?  Does it matter?

Does Hillary Clinton unapologetically dismiss her huge corporate contributions as not important because she is a corporatist, or merely needs their help to win?  Does it matter?

So anyway, Theo, you asked for my reasons and I’ve given them.  You have no doubt heard all of this before, and you obviously don’t interpret it as I do, but I guess that’s the way our country works.

I’m glad that Ron Paul can run for president, and get in the debate, and hold the ideas up for scrutiny.  And I’m glad that most people look, and go;  “Oh good lord” and  look for just about anyone else.

At least for now.

Can you believe that some teachers booed a pastor who came to speak at a school?

Poor Ken Hutcherson.

I can’t imagine why they would ever do such a thing to such a nice guy.

After all, he’s just a big bundle of cuddly.

And he has such nice friends, who are also just the sweetest guys.

I can’t believe that the teachers were so brutal, as to “boo” him.  Have they no humanity?  Don’t they know what “booing” can do to a man who is so sensitive and who just wants to be free to work for a world where Christians will be free to preach that it is God’s will for them to kill homosexuals?

I mean, to say “boo” to a guy like that.  It just goes to show what ANIMALS we are hiring to teach our children.  It’s just Christian persecution, plain and simple.

(Hat Tip: One News Now)

Thanks to Erudite Redneck, I don't have to pass on the delicious sugar rush that is Neil Simpson's blog.

Oh, sure, some people find it sacchrine...but not me.

Though Neil asked me to stop commenting on his blog, and though he complained repeatedly about me linking to him, I find that the fascinating blend of "Sound Doctrine" with it's more difficult and disturbing conclusions blunted by a convenient smattering of carefully selected "liberal theology" is also of interest to others! 

Let THEM creep Neil out!

Besides, it's much more fun when he is addressed by theists who disagree with him (and have a big bowl of alphabet soup after their names)

After all, candy is dandy, but soup is just more nourishing. 

Geekgoddess gets all whiney about poor injured people getting their money taken away by legal action by big corporations.

I also used to think like her, all commie pinko like that and stuff.

But I've recently had a conversion to free-market capitalism.

Just imagine the great heights that could be reached by our society if we made the dog-eat-dog world of business more prefectly dog-eat-doggier?

Just imagine how great our country would be if ANY paid service could not only charge you for the cost of operating their business, plus a modest profit, but then could ALSO charge you for anything that you got that was, in any way related to their service!

Like, just imagine what a great world we would live in if you rented a car, and they not only got to charge you for the rental of the car, but could also commondere your reimbursement from your employer or your business tax deductions?

Or, just imagine if you hired a cleaning service, and they cleaned your house, but if a friend happened to do a little cleaning for you in special preperation for a dinner party, they could charge you for the work your friend did!

It's genious!  And anyone who doesn't LOVE it is a commie atheist terrorist who hates our freedoms.

Between jjkaiser and Snideblog.

To bad Snide's too busy to post often.

Oh no you don't, Media.

You don't get to spend the whole LAST presidential election saying that Kerry would be a bad president because he's a stiff, due to his complete LACK of a sense of humor, and because his penchant for precisely answering the question can be percieved as "waffeling"...

...and then turn around and say Huckabee isn't "Presidential" because he's hilarious and has a shoot-from-the hip style.

Pile on one for being academic and humerless, and then turn around and pile on another because he has a quick come-back for almost everything?  Sheesh.

Huckabee wouldn't make a terrible president because he is funny, quick-witted, charming, and takes rhetorical risks.

Huckabee would make a terrible president because his approach to the world is trapped in the middle ages, because he thinks that he has a little man trapped in a book who will give him all the answers, and because he thinks that Chuck Norris (who, despite being a terrible actor, and a horrible judge of politics, is STILL the guy who I looked up to as a young Karateka) is a cherry political endorcement. 

I was over at Uncommon Descent for a little light-headed reading.  I skimmed this silly little number.

It’s not really very interesting, except if you give it a Freudian deconstruction (it’s OK, I’m an English major.  I’m trained for this.  Don’t try it at home.)

Of special interest is this revealing little gem at the end:

“Of special interest would be the flagellar genes.”

Does the obsession with flagellum at the DI seem a tad…well…Augustinian?

I wonder if Dembski et. al. will ever discover tiny biological systems with analogous features to a hair shirt and salt chalice?

If so, it’s possible they’d never leave the prayer closet laboratory again.

I was just watching a History Channel special on China yesterday.  I had to laugh out loud when a Chinese Communist Party Official was shown talking about certain economic woes in his province.  He said:

"What we need is some sort of Social Security System".

I had to pause the DVR because I was laughing so hard.

See?  The conservatives are right!  Social Security IS communist! If it weren't Communist, the Communists wouldn't be thinking about maybe someday getting around to having it!

A friend recently sent me this picture in an e-mail describing it as "The Eye of God."  The e-mail assured me that if I gazed upon the Eye of God, it would change my life (presumably for the better, in a way that I could understand and appreciate).

Laughingly, I responded:  "In ancient times, if you told someone that they could look upon the Eye of God, they would refuse to do it.  They would be certain that someone would be instantly struck dead for such an offense.  Today, we take pictures of the Eye of God, transmit it to our friends through the internet for entertainment purposes, and use it as a charm for granting free wishes...and they say ATHEISTS are arrogant." 

Some people are apparently a little confused about how I can reconcile my love for Daniel Jackson, and my loathing for Eric von Daniken.

Well, it's easy.

Eric von Daniken lives in THIS world, where the pyrmids were build by extraordinary human effort using advanced, but still ancient and very human, ingenuity, math, technology and skills.  All of which we can abundantly demonstrate that the humans of that time had.  Nevertheless, he believes that alien astronauts came to our planet and assembled the wonders of the ancient world with the magic laser beams.  Despite the inability to support these claims with equally extraordinary proof, he continues to promote his ideas as though they are established fact.

Daniel Jackson lives in a fictional world where the pyramids were ACTUALLY BUILT by extraordinary human effort using advanced ingenuity, math, technology and skills which were given them by ancient astronauts posing as gods in order to obtain hosts for their parasitic selves, as well as intelligent, adaptable and fast-breeding slave armies.  Unlike Daniken, when Dr. Jackson went looking for the alien astronauts, HE FOUND THEM.  Then, they pissed him off, and he tweaked their noses, kicked the asses, rolled them in tar and feathers, and kicked them out of his galaxy...with his brain.  He hardly had to flex those nicely proportional arm muscles at all.

Also, Eric von Daniken is a paunchy, dusty old crank who is technically old enough to be either my father or my grandfather, and he spouts enough unsupportable superstitious B.S. to be my pastor.  Anyone creeped out yet?

Daniel, though fictional, is only two years older than me (born THE DAY BEFORE ROCKY), is adorable, and works out on a regular basis.

So, there you have it.  Happy now?

Many entities benefit greatly from Global Climate Change Denialism.

Can you tell the difference between two of them?

ExxonMobile and brain-eating ameobas.

(Hint:  Though they both strive to affect your brain, one funds denialist propaganda, and one is an opportunistic parasite).

[Hat Tip:  Pharyngula]

So I'm on my way to my Wednesday night class,and I'm stopped behind a Ford Taurus at the stop-light, when I notice the vanity plate:

"BM"

That's all it says.

So I look at the "Taurus" logo on the back of the car, followed by the "BM" vanity plate...and I think "Bullshit?"

Am I the only one?

So I'm on the phone with Barb, and we're both drinking.  It's a little thing we do when there's nothing else going on.  She's in Missouri, I'm in Minnesota, so we call each other up at a time when both of our cell-phone plans give us free minutes, and we drink and talk on the phone. 

And Barb starts talking about how one time she went and visited this guy that I had dated, and he was reading her some of his writing and one of the pieces he had written was about me.

And her rememberance of it was that he described me as some sort of epic super-heroin, a cat-like force of nature.  A goddess of potential mayhem and violence.  He just says that because I kicked his ass in sparring.  Repeatedly. Thoroughly. and with more enjoyment than a strictly sane woman would have.

And her response was that this was strange and new to her.  To her, I was just Teresa, who could be sullen and moody; goofy and geeky; a tortured and lost soul with a bit too much drama mixed in to be taken seriously.  I was her kindergarden friend who like playing cars with the boys and moved away and came back years later as a third-grade tom-boy cowgirl with a chip on her shoulder.  The nerdy girl who smoked with the toughies behind the Jet-Mart across the street, and had lots of scary friends, yet never seemed to be scary herself.  Who drank enough to be mouthy when it wasn't wise, but somehow managed to pull off an escape when trouble struck.  Who got arrested on occasion, but was too embarassed to admit it outright and did detention for truancy rather than admit to larceny if she was dragged down to the cop-shop during school hours.  Who showed up at school with spectacular bruises and more spectacular stories that no one really believed or listened to.  Who appeared to make up as much stuff as she told straight, who covered under callousness and carelessness a sense of wonder and responsibilty.

I responded that if she didn't think I was a cat-like super-hero force-of-nature chick, it was probably because she had never been sexually attracted to me, and plus, if she'd never seen me as an epic heroin, she had probably never seen me clean a toilet.

Because me doing battle with the forces of disorder and chaos in a houseful of males is nothing short of the epic battle between Gilgamesh and the Bull of Heaven.  And that goes double after a LAN party where you have at least a half-dozen men who don't live here, have been living on Little Debbies, Doritos and Mountain Dew for 17 hours, and want to get back into play before they get greased by a teenager who has more of a natural tolerance for Little Debbies, Doritos, and Mountain Dew than they do.

Barb called bullshit, as child-hood friends will.  the subject changed, and we moved on.

And I kept my real secrets again.  Hidden in plain sight from those who know me best.

Because you know, don't you dear readers...you're only REALLY dead...when they put you in a box.

>:->

Meet Justin Taylor.

Neil at 4Simpson’s says he has “a profound understanding of God and his control over all things.”

Don’t confuse him with THIS Justin Taylor.

[Update:  Justin Talyor thanks God for the Ministry of D. James Kennedy and his Coral Ridge Ministries.  D. James Kennedy you ask?  Wasn't he all chummy with R.J. Rushdoony and Gary North?  Well, he might have been, but it doesn't matter, 'cause he's dead now, and so is Rushdoony.  And time isn't exactly going to wait for Gary North, if you know what I mean.]

Justin Taylor was interviewed by a guy named Adrian Warnock.

Adrian was thrilled to be interviewing Justin, because he’s apparently known as “John Piper’s right-hand man”.

John Piper is a bad man.  He’ll tell you so himself: