Ah, 'twas nice to be back in my own kitchen cooking up dinner once again... tonight we had Grilled Chili-Rubbed Flank Steak (served on corn tortillas with Monterey Jack cheese, cilantro, and lime juice) with Mexican rice for a side. The wine of the evening was a 2001 Penfold's Bin 389 Cabernet Shiraz.
I've mentioned the Mexican rice before, and you can find the recipe here. The flank steak was from the Food & Wine 2004 recipe collection, available from Amazon.com for $30, but I got mine here for $8 in the Fall.
Now off to finish watching Enemy at the Gates with the wife until it's time for my pants the ball to drop.
Yeah, class act, me - I know.
This is a pretty nifty idea for finding new reading in the blogosphere. Not that you really need anything more than the World Wide Rant, of course.
But, if you felt like experimenting a bit, perhaps. Just don't tell your momma; she'd die of shame!
I've not written anything significant about the Tsunami, partially because I was away from the blog for most of Christmas week and also because, by now, it's pretty much all been said. Besides, if I had to sum up my feelings on the matter, it would have been a rather short post, something like this:
Holy shit.On the bright side, tragedy has once again shown just how humane we can be to one another despite our differences; on the not-so-bright-side, partisanship and international bullshit politics are already creeping into the equation, while millions suffer.
If you want to help, you can visit here for links and pointers.
Here.
From my own experience, the key to finding gainful employment quickly is to tailor yourself to the market rather than waiting for the market to tailor itself to you (which is what many people seem to do). I've found myself unemployed twice: once by choice and once through a lay-off.
In the first case, it took four months to find a new job; in the second, two months. In each, I made finding a job my full-time job, and in each case I've ended up somewhere better, in a position that is more fulfilling, for more money. I could have taken longer; I know my parents wouldn't let me, the wife, and the wee Fiona starve to death, but there's a certain shame in mooching off your folks that isn't really present when you get a check in the mail from a faceless shmoe at some state agency.
Could it be that extensive public social support networks reduce a person's sense of obligation to self and family to earn a living? The effects of more central planning on foreign economies? A little of both - a bit of neither?
Beats me; I just needed to get one post up before we're off shopping, then cleaning, then cooking, then drinking, then... other stuff. Might be back later in the day, but - if not - have a happy new year!
God still does not exist*.
Update: Wow, mock their all-powerful god and they start dingin' you in the website rankings. Too funny.
But, c'mon, you know God's not real, right?
Nevermind all that, there's plenty of good reading to be found all across this blog - click away, 'cause Jesus would.
Update 2: To save you some time, I'm an atheist small-L libertarian with some neocon tendencies when it comes to Pax Americana. Yes, this means I will say something to offend most everyone.
And I wouldn't have it any other way.
* C'mon, surely that's gotta provoke some of you good BlogExplosion folks to comment.
No?
Well, fine. Poo on the lot of ya then.
Just kidding, you know I love you somethin' serious, sweetums.
In which the author details his flights to England.
At this point I should add something: the TSA agent doing the security search was perfectly personable and friendly. It was almost as if he thought having to search me was a stupid thing too - of course, he gets the benefit of a paycheck for it where all I get is source material for a rant and the comforting knowledge that I'm not going to bring down a plane - whew!
Fully recovered from the nonsense of my previous ordeal, I boarded the plane without further scrutiny. 'Twas then that I found myself planted one row in front of an infant.
Being father to a wee one of my own, I realized that - if the 757 were a city - my seat would have sold for slum prices, perhaps even been condemned as uninhabitable. I attempted to console myself with the fact that it was just a jump to Chicago, a mere two hours, surely I'd survive; suddenly, my savior did appear from on high (or down the aisle, but I was seated, and he was standing, so "on high" works too).
A flight attendant - most likely named Bruce and in possession of a catty streak and a penchant for fashion - asked if I would mind moving seats so that another family could all sit together. I kid you not, there was the singing of angels, a holy tabernacle choir of de-balled little boys, rejoicing at this fortuitous bit of news.
I settled into my new window seat, sitting next to a mostly normal-looking couple, and stowed my backpack safely under the seat in front of me. I again beamed inwardly at my good fortune.
Unfortunately, as would be apparent in mere moments, all that previous harmonizing had drowned out a lone trumpet from the Book of Relevation.
As we leveled off at cruising altitude, the mostly normal-looking couple revealed themselves to be (best guess) true-blue Boulderites. Or hippies. Or vegans. Or all of the above. While Mrs. Normal-Looking Couple assumed some sort of Indian-style sitting position (not easy to do in an airplane seat), Mr. NLC pulled out a plastic container that at one time held the substance known as "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter."
I've no clue what it held on that day, but I think "I Can't Believe It's Not Stale Cat Urine" might be close to the truth. They seemed to enjoy it, but they were from Boulder* so that's not a shocker. Damn "progressives" and their cat-piss-eating ways.
Then it started. "It" being the all-too-identifiable thump that comes from a child kicking the back of one's seat. The thump that continues when said child's parents do nothing to stop said child from continuing said thumping as an exclamation to every sentence uttered.
I focused my attention on the seats behind me, listening for any further clue as to with whom I might be dealing. They were an Australian family - possibly New Zealanders, but as they didn't seem to have sheep strapped to their genitals, I felt comfortable going with the Aussie categorization. Their son, he of the kicking leg, seemed to be more reminiscent of the beginning and end of Flowers for Algernon than the middle**.
This was further exemplified when, on approach to Chicago, his parents pointed out the "stadium of the Chicago whatevers, one of their sports teams." I didn't have the heart to tell them that the object of their attention was, at most, a high-school football stadium; coming from Alabama, where football is king, we know what it means to build a stadium***. The whole exchange made me wonder what the Aussie mom and dad had named their own pet mice since Algernon was already taken.
Soon after, we landed at O'Hare International Airport, whereupon our "direct" flight continued after a "plane change." Thankfully it was to a 777, with plenty of room, video at each seat, and I was in the very back of the plane, so no Aussie rugrats to annoy my security-riddled behind. Passing the time with the book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (would have been better if twenty pages shorter), the movie Wicker Park (worth a rent, if you ask me), and more than one glass of red wine, I soon found myself at London's Heathrow airport.
still more to come
Note: You can find Part I here.
* Hey, hey, speaking of Boulder...
** Please note that the child was not really retarded. Making fun of retarded people is wrong. Midgets however are fair game because their giant heads and short limbs make them look like carnival mirror creatures. Seriously though, don't make fun of retarded people or midgets, just stupid people. Stupid people are always fair game.
*** However, some colleges in Colorado still aren't sure.
"When you climb up very high, you can see very far."
In which the author recounts his adventure from the night before departure until the boarding of his flight.
It all started uneventfully, as these things tend to do.
The night prior to my departure, I drove to my friend's townhouse for the night. As it was the holidays, I expected parking at the airport to be an automotive version of Munch's The Scream; thus my friend agreed to drop me off at the airport early in the morning, allowing me to beat the rush of my fellow holiday travelers.
After a night of beer, pizza, wine, and Boggle with my friend and his lovely wife, he and I awoke at 4am for our trek across town to the airport.
I checked in for my 11am flight at 5:30am. It sounds insane, I realize, but - after all - it was the Christmas travel season and every message from the airlines, the airports, and your mother says "Get there early!"
So, there I was, at the airport.
Early.
As I checked in for my flight, even the desk agent commented on my arrival time, agreed with me that it was a "very good thing," but then said that because of it my bag would have to go through an extra security screening. I found it curious, but knowing full well that my luggage contained nothing of an explosive or publicly shameful nature, I let it go.
She failed to mention that it also meant I would get to go through an extra security screening as well, something I found out shortly thereafter. Beaming inside because my plan of early arrival had brought me to a security line with no more than a five minute queue, I was soon dismayed as I was shunted off to a side line. The slow moving one. The pat-you-down, search-your-bag, smell-your-feet line.
This was one of the stupidest things I had ever encountered with airport security; and, having traveled a good bit, I've encountered more than one stupid thing in my lifetime.
You see, apparently a chief terrorist tactic is to get there early so that the TSA has every chance possible to find a bomb in their luggage. There's no possible way that a terrorist would show up as late as possible to pass through without having someone check his waistband for a plastic knife. No, no, it is I - the responsible traveler - who is punished.
Thanks, TSA!
Eventually I made it to my gate, with no outward sign of my previous adventure other than a wobbly walk and a general aversion to sitting on hard surfaces. I took a nap until boarding time and then was off to Old Blighty (well, Chicago first, actually - then a plane change - and then Old Blighty).
More to come
I know I promised you my travelogue, and it's tentatively been written in my head - I just need to type it up. Unfortunately, this has been the day from hell (I seem to have a few each year).
Having arrived home after 18 hours of non-stop go-go-go to get from Gamlingay to Denver, I awoke at 5am to find myself either a victim of a stomach bug or the airline chicken. Regardless, those items in my belly were not content to continue calling it home.
This morning, anticipating going into work and suffering to avoid taking excessive vacation time (after all, I'd rather use it to sit on the beach in Costa Rica next year), we drove over to Lakewood where my car had been sitting in a friend's carport for the last week, as I had spent the night there so he could drop me off at the airport early with no worry of holiday parking.
My car was still there, but it had lost something very important: the ability to start. Jump-start was a no-go, so it was towed to my mechanic and there it sits at this hour.
So rather than enjoying being back at home and getting caught up at work, I sit in bed writing this update so that you don't send out the search parties. However, if they're comprised of hot women with beer, please send them out anyway.
Americans, as a whole, are not stingy:
A suggestion by a U.N. official that the world's richest nations were "stingy" irritated the Bush administration, especially when U.S. aid for Asia's earthquake is expected to eventually rise from the millions to more than $1 billion.....our government officials, however, seem to be pretty cheap (not to mention heartless):
At the airport in Bangkok, other governments had set up booths to greet nationals who had been affected and to help repatriate them, she said.If these charges have substance, then reprimand those officials. Dismiss them. The idiots deserve it.That was not the case with the U.S. government, Wachs told her mother. It took the couple three hours, she said, to find the officials from the American consulate, who were in the VIP lounge.
Because they had lost all their possessions, including their documentation, they had to have new passports issued.
But the U.S. officials demanded payment to take the passport pictures, Helen Wachs said.
(and, yes, trip report coming up soon - bit of a stomach bug at the moment)
There it is again...
...shhhhhh.
It's the sound of blogging returning.
But not just yet.
One more day left here in the UK; just wrapped up a fun- and ale-filled holiday weekend with family. Off to the pub for lunch with my father-in-law in a little bit. The concept of the English pub is almost enough to allow one to forgive their transgressions in the areas of handgun control and dental care. Almost.
Happy Monday.
Hi - am now in England, have been since yesterday morning. Had a great first day, hanging out with family, meeting up with Monica and her man, and then deciding that consciousness was overrated (due to being awake for 26 hours, being jetlagged, and having a few pints in me) somewhere around 5:30pm (local time).
I'll have much more to say in the near future, but only have a sec to say hello at the mo.
Happy holidays!
Greetings from Denver International Airport, where I still have 3 hours before my flight. Yay fun. Here's hoping the weather continues to somewhat cooperate (light snow and sub-freezing temps right now). Will have fun TSA stories and more when I get settled in at the in-laws' sometime tomorrow.
Hey World Wide Rantastics, just letting you know that tomorrow morning I'm off to beautiful Gamlingay, UK to spend the holidays with the in-laws. Mrs. World Wide Rant and the wee Fiona have been over there for nigh on a week now, and it's my turn to join them.
We'll be back in a week or so; we've got someone about the house to keep an eye on the dogs and cats for us.
Assuming the weather cooperates and I actually make my connection out of Chicago to London, we'll be having drinks and assorted edibles with Monica and her husband on Thursday. I plan to feel very short.
More than usual, that is.
Because she's a giant!
Relatively speaking.
Anyway, enjoy your holidays - I'll blog as I'm able, although given that it's Christmas in England, you'll be lucky if I'm sober enough to even find the keyboard.
P.S.: Ho ho ho! (found via Mood Stabilizer)
Wonkette is to the blogosphere as:
(a) Beer : "mmmmm"
(b) Jethro Tull : Hard Rock / Heavy Metal Grammy Awards
(c) Puppies : cute and cuddly
This will go on your permanent record.
Once again, it's probably best that some people give up blogging after just one entry.
Newsweek: What did you think of the bloggers' role in the Dan Rather affair?Whereas, of course, the appropriate response by Bush-backing bloggers to a national news powerhouse pushing forged documents as authentic in an effort to scandalize the Bush administration would have been to... what?Wonkette:I think they did a disservice to the debate because they made the debate about the documents and not about the president of the United States. There was another half to that story that had to do with verifiable events of what Bush may have been up to.
Bend over and take it?
Sorry, Wonky, we'll leave that to you and Jessica.
Update: Bill wasn't as kind as I.
Update 2: Zombyboy was even less kind in my comments. Someone's having a case of the Mondays!
Update 3: Link all fixedy-fixed now, so you don't have to have your eyes glaze over reading about Six Sigma.
...and we're gettin' pretty good at it.
Researchers at Rockefeller University in the US have made the first tentative steps towards creating a form of artificial life.Note to creationists: mind the gaps.Their creations, small synthetic vesicles that can process (express) genes, resemble a crude kind of biological cell.
Try entitlement society:
I am a 20-year-old college student and I am very disturbed by the talk of privatizing Social Security currently going on in Washington. Being so young, most people might conclude that I am for the privatization of Social Security; however, I feel like the government has an obligation to meet my security needs.Sigh.
Maybe we really should be encouraging some people to move to Canada.
Hmmm.
OK, that was weird.
But good. In that "weird good" way.
If you know what I mean.
Just got a spam e-mail from The Davinci Institute (no link, why reward them?) offering a course on blogging. I shit you not. Of course, since their main page makes a point of offering their fabulous line of memberships rather than something of -oh- worth, I shouldn't be too surprised.
So, yeah, a course in blogging.
My first question is: why the hell didn't I think of this first?
And my second is: who the hell would pay for it?
Third: why didn't you people seek me out earlier? Can't you tell I'm a genius!
OK, fine, back to the beer.
It never hurts to ask.
Note: yes, there is a story there. No, I can't share it.
The Parents Television Council, an oddly named organization considering that they only seem to pander to right-wing Christian parents at best - but then again, The Right-Wing Christian Parents Television Coucil doesn't really tumble off the tongue the same way - uh, anyway, those twits are up in arms again about something else:
Television entertainment programs mention God more often than they did in the mid-1990s but tend to depict organized religion negatively, a study released Thursday said.Please note that the headline to this article gave the impression that television was painting a negative image of organized religion - yet the RWCPTC's own study says otherwise. Some 54 percent of the treatments were neutral - and fully 76 percent were non-negative. To imply that television is giving an overall negative image is - well - more lyin' for the Lord.The Parents Television Council watched every hour of prime-time on the broadcast networks during the 2003-04 season and logged 2,344 treatments of religion. They judged 22 percent of the mentions positive, 24 percent negative and the rest neutral.
And Jeebus don't like him no liars, suh.
"Ninety percent of the American people believes in God," said Brent Bozell, the council's president. "It is an important issue to most people. Hollywood is attacking the very thing that they consider important in their own lives. Perhaps Hollywood ought to be changing its world view."Or perhaps these goodly God-fearing viewers ought to be changing the television shows they view. Once again, the RWCPTC shows itself incapable of understanding that people have responsibility for themselves and their families.
Well-publicized scandals about pedophile priests made Catholics particularly vulnerable, the council found.That's right it's all Hollywood's fault. The pee-pee-poking priests had nothing to do with it."Catholicism is in the bulls-eye of the entertainment medium," Bozell said.
Among the positive examples, the PTC cites a "JAG" episode where a character prays to God to say hello to her dead mother,Not quite so positive really if her mother was burning in eternal hellfire because she once fantasized about sex.
...and an "American Dreams" episode where an actor playing a medical student says a surgery is partially in God's hands.Thankfully, all the important parts such as the scalpel, clamps, and anesthesia were in the hands of the surgeons.
Sorry, strayed a bit. My point was this:
The Parents Television Coucil is a big bunch of doodyheads.
There, I said it!
Hullo, me peeps.
Just an FYI that I'll be guest blogging, and on my best behavior, over at A Likely Story for the next few days, as time permits.
Don't worry, you'll still be able to catch me at my worst right here.
I know I might be ridiculed for saying this, but I feel it really needs to be said. And, you know, I've got no shame about saying it either, because I believe it to be true.
More people should make videos of remixes of Steve Winwood songs.
Uh, possibly not work safe, but it's not like that has stopped you before.
Note from my Mom: Don't worry. It's just a phase. He'll grow out of it.
Domestic air travelers could be surfing the Web by 2006 with government-approved technology that allows people access to high-speed Internet connections while they fly.Powell then made clear that by "it" he meant wireless technology and not anything remotely having to do with sex, because sex is evil and dirty and can warp the minds of people who don't understand how to change the channel on their television. In fact, he continued:"We are pushing the frontiers in order to bring the information age to all corners of the world," Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell said Wednesday after a unanimous vote approving the new technology for U.S. airlines. "We want it on the land, in the air, and on the sea."
And when we do have it - the wireless thingamabob, not sex or anything gross like that - we had better not get complaints about boobies or other icky stuff, because we'll shut down this internet contraption with all its magical mind beams and whatever and such.No lie. As always, I don't make up this stuff.Violence however is a-ok.
Amen.
John McCain, ever a man of proper priorities, has been working hard to protect us, the American people.
McCain threatened to hold up every piece of legislation in the Senate while House leaders refused to go along with McCain’s pet project of establishing a national boxing commission.Say, anyone remember when the Republicans were about less regulation of our lives, about less government, about not wasting taxpayer money on frivolous things? Granted, it hasn't been anytime in recent memory, but McCain is asking the same thing:
McCain responded that he fondly remembered a time when Republicans stood for fiscal responsibility. “Apparently those days are long gone for some in our party,” he said.Whereas plonking out my money to regulate a sport is a prime example of... what, Senator McCain?
So I'm going to write an e-mail to Michael Powell (you can, too, right here) and tell him these things:It's a good start, but I think perhaps I'll write in to complain about all the church services being aired. I mean, really, they're reading from a book full of violent smiting, drunken incest, and erotic poetry.-- "I'm a relatively upstanding citizen. I have two small kids. They only watch what I let them.
-- "I know how to use my TV remote. I know how to turn my television off.
-- "On my television, I like violence. I like nudity. I like guns going off. I like people having sex. I like swearing. I like shows with gay people in them. I like shows where gay people have sex. I like shows where gay people shoot guns. And swear. I like stuff that blows up.
-- "I also like 'Little Bear.' And shows about architecture and design. And C-SPAN. If that helps.
-- "I hope this e-mail offsets another from the Parents Television Council. I hope you get a lot more just like this. Because I want the PTC out of my living room. I've got a sneaking suspicion they're going to end up in my bedroom.
"Yours sincerely."
They must be stopped!
(found via Ang)
Second verse, same as the first - just sung by a different idiot.
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — A judge refused to delay a trial Tuesday when an attorney objected to his wearing a judicial robe with the Ten Commandments embroidered on the front in gold.Sigh.
I'd say I'm glad to be out of there, but, hell, I live in the state that is home to Focus on Everyone Else's Family.
Not when facing a monkey attack!
See what happens when you mix a little bit of beer, a little bit of inspiration, sequencing software I've nary a clue how to use, and an hour of my time?
Scary, huh?
And to think - I get paid to do this!*
Update: Bill, ask and ye shall receive.
* OK, not really, but it would be nice.
I've nary an idea where the Garden of Eden might be (aside from sections 209-213 of the Dewey Decimal Classification System), but:
About 1,000 soldiers at this sprawling base in western Baghdad took a break Tuesday from the war's day-to-day grind to be entertained by comedian Robin Williams, former NFL quarterback John Elway, and sportscaster and model Leeann Tweeden.I only bring this up because (a) Leeann is hot*, (b) circa 1995-1996, I learned about HTML by running a site called The Garden of Tweeden (props to Tom for the clever name), and (c) I find it rather amusing that she is making her second visit to an uncertain and dangerous land while John Elway considered not going.
That girl's got some balls.
Uh, figuratively speaking.
Errr... I hope.
* Probably not very work safe, depending upon where you work. For example: a Mormon Church, not safe - any church affiliated with Jimmy Swaggart, encouraged and rewarded.
Three words: I love you.
So, Scott Peterson has received the death penalty. A poor decision, if you ask me (not that the courts did, but, honestly, they should, seein' as how I've got me some smarts and stuff).
I think convicting him for the murder of Laci and Conner was a poor decision as well. To read the reports, there was no physical evidence linking the man to the crime, just a motive that - if it alone were such a great motivator - would show in us having a lot more husbands and wives knocked off on an annual basis.
My intuition is that, yes, Scott Peterson murdered his wife and unborn child and dumped their bodies into San Francisco Bay. However, neither my intuition, nor that of a jury, should be good enough to send a man to his death.
I imagine that a skilled* prosecutor can dig deep enough into your life to find a motivation for just about any crime with which you might be charged. They can paint a negative image of you by only focusing on your lesser traits. And a jury, anxious to find someone to blame, especially in an emotional case like the murder of a wife and child, will want to believe the worst about you.
Despite the evidence - or complete lack thereof.
This week, justice might very well have been served, but at what cost to all of us?**
* Antonym: unskilled, see also "Reasons why O.J. Simpson is a free man."
** If nothing else, we had to endure this.
Album: Hopes & Fears
Commentary: Mix the small toe* of Radiohead's Thom Yorke with a bit of Paul McCartney; throw them into a blender with the lush instrumentation of some late 80s progressive rock bands; puree into a smooth, easy-to-drink musical smoothie.
Best Thing About It: If you like one Keane song, you'll like them all.
Worst Thing About It: If you like one Keane song, you'll like them all.
* Credit for this addendum goes to this guy.
From Jed comes this heart-warming tale:
A British philosophy professor who has been a leading champion of atheism for more than a half-century has changed his mind. He now believes in God — more or less — based on scientific evidence, and says so on a video released Thursday.When asked to explain the origins of the super-complexity of the super-intelligence that created the universe, Flew replied:At age 81, after decades of insisting belief is a mistake, Antony Flew has concluded that some sort of intelligence or first cause must have created the universe. A super-intelligence is the only good explanation for the origin of life and the complexity of nature, Flew said in a telephone interview from England.
"Uh, ok, so maybe I've not gotten that far. And maybe it's not a perfect argument.Looks like the "Sell By" date on Flew's brain has flown by.Wait, I know - Perhaps it's turtles all the way down!"
P.S. Jed, check the date on the article about the apparent denial by Flew; it's dated 2001.
(if you choose to accept it - and, really now, you ought to)
Go buy Loretta Lynn's newest album, Van Lear Rose, produced by Jack White.
OK, now, back to the weekend.
"Wherefore," as in:
Wherefore art thou Romeo?...does not mean "where."
It means "why."
Someone should tell CNN (text under the graphic).
Sorry, pet peeve. Get back to your weekend.
Apparently a foreign concept to some people in England:
When individuals are confronted by intruders there are some actions they should follow. Direct contact should be avoided whenever possible. If unavoidable, the victim should adopt a state of active passivity.Consider this the home-defense version of the unavoidable intercourse advice given to young British women by one Lady Hillingdon:
Close your eyes and think of England.I prefer the American version in which the intruder gets a couple of slugs through the chest, but then I'm pretty big on that whole "property rights" thing too. It'd be even better if you could sue the intruder's family for the resultant carpet-cleaning expense.
Going to bed.
Goodnight John-Boy.
Yes, Raving Atheist, I'm at it again.
Update: Never let it be said that a pretty face can sway me from the truth.
If you absolutely must have something to worship, you could do a lot worse than these.
The Mandinka tribe of Gambia, Africa, adheres to a religious practice completely unique to its people -- they worship actress Salma Hayek's breasts!Sigh, that they do, my African brethren; that they do."Salma's chest globes are magnificent forces of nature," gushes Kianga. "They are large and firm and perfectly formed. Whenever they appear on screen, it is almost as though they are calling to us: 'We're here. We're here for you. Take power from us. Let us be your energy force. Close your eyes and let us engulf you.' "
(Found via Right Thoughts).
OK, so, here I am in lovely cold, rainy, and windy Lansing, Michigan, and nary a person came out to meet me with celebratory dancing and merrymaking and beer-offerings.
I must say, I am a might bit disappointed.
Seriously though, the trip was uneventful, although delayed by an hour. Had a nice dinner out with my colleague and am now settling into the suite for the night (except for a brief sojourn to the whirlpool in the next hour to unwind a bit); and, yes, they have free, high-speed wireless internet. Deity bless'em.
Talk to y'all soon.
Update: Should mention that tonight's beer of choice is Bell's Amber Ale, from Kalamazoo, MI. So far, so good.
The Associated Press reports:
Thugs Still Capable of Attacks in Saudi ArabiaOther headlines we're likely to see today from the AP:
Jelly good on biscuits...and perhaps:
When you climb very high, you can see very far
Witness now the charming tale of a miracle in Indiana!
A woman survived being impaled by a 12-foot metal fence post that pierced through her mouth and came out the back of her neck in a car accident, authorities said....No explanation was given for the apparently inept driving capabilities of said angelic co-pilot."Talk about having an angel as a co-pilot," Fire Chief J.R. Rosencrans said. "On her rearview mirror she had a picture of the Madonna. You can tell she is a religious person."
Earlier Monday, Martinez drove through a stop sign at an intersection...no sign of that miracle.
...and hit another car......nothing yet.
She then lost control...This would be a fine, fine time for that angelic co-pilot to wake up.
...careened off the road...Hello, Angel? Care to do something about this?
...and went through a chain-link fence.The only people being helped by the powers of God at this point are the car repair shop and the fence company.
The car hit a concrete porch, shoving it three feet back...Correction: and the local concrete company.
The metal rod from the fence went through the driver's side of the windshield....And the hospital might make some money too.
A passenger in the back seat was not injured.It's a miracle!
I'm sure the woman with the fence post through the lower portion of her head would have been saying Hail Mary's over and over in gratitude had it not been for, well, the fence post through the lower portion of her head.
Oh, lighten up, would ya?
Not that anyone cares, but I'll be in beautiful Lansing, Michigan on business tomorrow through Thursday afternoon. You know, in case any of you live there and wanted to buy me a beer or just show up to fawn all over me or whatever.
And such.
What do you get when you cross a confused, rambling storyline; terrific special effects; an actor who keeps slipping into his native accent; and one of the cheesiest endings ever to grace the screen?
You get, of course, Van Helsing.
I swear, that final scene with the funeral pyre made me cringe. As I saw the smoke begin to float around and take shape, I sat there thinking "please, please, please don't let it take the form of her face floating in the sky - please?"
However, as the film had been in the can for months and months, my pleas to the screenwriters, directors, and editors were all for naught (remarkably like that whole prayer thing when it comes to an all-knowing God).
That scene rivals the Gary Sinise "Earth in the palm of my hand" monstrosity from Mission to Mars as one of the most cringe-worthy scenes in cinematic history.
Which is not to say that I didn't like watching Kate Beckinsale in her pirate - um - bar wench - um - silly-looking, yet well-fitted, vampire hunter outfit.
Every once in a while, someone - usually a Christian of the "Help, help! I'm being repressed variety" - comes along and says something in my comments that I think is better replied to in a post than in the original comments. Such is the case with a comment by one Patrick Prescott, in response to this post.
Scroll down, click through, whatever. Read it. Come back.
Now that you've appreciated the irony of someone who goes around calling secularists "insecure" and their efforts to separate church and state "B.S." being offended by someone's criticism of his precious religion, let's move on.
Patty m'lad says:
Your condescending "good Christians" line is rude.Excellent. I had intended it to offend just the kind of person I wanted to offend. My Christian friends, and regular readers, probably would not have taken any notice of the line, but - in you - we have a winner. Ding ding ding! What does he win, Mr. Monkey?
You obviously assume all Christains meet your stereotype of them.Once again setting aside the smile that the irony of your typo brings to my face, allow me to reply: anyone who reads this site knows I really only have a true problem with Christians who want to use the power of the government to push their ideological opium on society;and who think that a secular government that represents us all equally is somehow oppression of the Baby Jesus.
In other words: I don't much like theocratic zealots. If this describes you, then - please please please please - be offended to the infinite degree. If not, then, come on, give us a hug.
If I were an atheist I wouldn't care wtf other people believed because if I were an atheist nothing would matter. It's called nihilism.Is it? Wow, thanks for the edification. That's a new word for me*.
Let's address this argument though, shall we?
I'd propose that when we talk of whether or not something matters, we're really saying that it either has or does not have "meaning." That is, things with meaning matter, and things without meaning do not matter. Nihilism argues that life has no meaning (and thus does anything really matter?).
Patrick would probably say that Christianity gives life meaning; that the existence of his God gives his life meaning; that the promise of eternal life gives his life meaning.
Makes ya feel all warm and gooey, don't it now?
Too bad it's a load of hooey.
First, meaning is a construct of the human mind. Nothing has meaning in and of itself; a human mind is required to comprehend the object or the act and then assign meaning to it.
A Christian can argue that his God gives meaning to things. Unfortunately, so can members of all other religions that posit a creator or something higher than this existence of ours. Clearly, they cannot all be right .
If Patrick is right, then all those other religious people are simply deluding themselves. After all, their non-existent deities can't be providing meaning, can they? And if some of those other people are right, then Patrick is wrong, as a non-existent Yahweh would find it hard to hand out meaning as well.
What it comes down to, really, is that Patrick's belief in God gives his life and his experiences meaning. But his belief is, you guessed it, merely a function of his very human mind. Take away the mind, and the concept of meaning becomes - well - meaningless.
Further, the existence of something is not dependent on it existing forever. If something has meaning at a point in time, it has meaning. Meaning existed for the length of time it was given to something by any human mind. Again, remove all the minds from the universe, and nothing has meaning; put those minds back in and, for the duration of the existence of the mind, meaning exists.
Who cares if what I do now won't be remembered a thousand years from now? Who cares if, when the universe dies a heat death, that my actions will be the equivalent of a microscopic pimple on the tail of a hooker being chased by Jimmy Swaggart?
I live the way I do because it matters to me; and it matters right now. It has meaning to me; and it is has meaning right now.
If Patrick is doing things only because he thinks they'll matter some other time than right now, then I'd say he's the one with the lackluster life, not I.
What a miserable existence, indeed.
And, no, I don't know why I keep bothering arguing with people like Patrick. Must be a masochistic streak or something.
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