one more thought on religion

Thanks for all the comments Rob! I replied to most of them and the last one I did made me want to write it up as a post. I didn't reply to the New Yorker one but I will agree that I don't think satire is going away which is great. I also have rethought my stance on that particular case, you know what people who read the New Yorker are going to get it. At least for the most part. I still don't think it was particularly well done satire but again thats all I really think they are guilty of. And I think Poes law comes into play where no matter how outlandish there are those who will think its real and agree with it.

I guess the little talk on religion I wanted to have in this post comes down to why I talk about religion so much. I honestly find it fascinating. At least partially from a historical context, religion for better or worse has played a major impact on world history and therefore understanding the various religions is a critical aspect of understanding history. But honestly thats only a minor part of it. For the most part I find the actual beliefs of the organized religions laughably absurd. Weird violent deadly masochistic egotistical fairly tales that people base their lives around, or at least claim to. To me that is a phenomenon worth looking into, and so I do. I think I worded this much nicer in the comments, but I'm in kind of a bad mood right now. The question still remains of why do people believe what they do? That question is the real reason that I like to study religion and question individuals beliefs. I really truly want to understand how people can be so convinced about something that seems so ridiculous to me. I need to go back to school and I suspect that I will end up taking some classes on world religions, I suspect that I will enjoy them, but I have a feeling the discussions could get interesting. It seems like the people I know who talk about religion the most are atheists, and I'm guessing that this is why. Living in the US I'm surrounded by variously believably pious people. I see an almost constant stream of stupidity coming from the loudest of the religious folks, who I realize are not the norm and I should not blame all religious folks for the actions of those at the extremes. At the same time if the moderate voices didn't enable the extremists then they would be marginalized and would not be a threat to society. In case I slipped that in too quietly I do see that religion and the anti-science folks are a direct threat to civilization. A war with Iran could easily lead to a modern religious war, a prospect I do not look forward to. I also think that by ignoring and fighting against science we are going to run into very serious problems that require scientific as well as political solutions, and when the populace has almost no understanding of science then they will not elect people with scientific understanding and we are left with people having to make world altering political decisions based on science that they do not understand. Climate Change and the energy situation being the current manifestations of that problem.

I could probably keep rambling but you get the point.

Peace!

The New Yorker

Yeah yeah we've all seen the cover, we all get what they were trying to do and we all understand that it didn't work. So why is it that whenever this type of thing happens the only person I can always trust to have an opinion I agree with is the Rude Pundit? This whole thing is just a case of satire gone wrong. Satire has a wonderful tradition, Jon Swift, Mark Twain, and today Steven Colbert show what can be done with satire, but those names are revered (Colbert is at least revered by himself) for the very simple reason that satire is hard. Again, Satire is Hard. It's really easy to get it wrong and thats really all the New Yorker is guilty of, well that and not being funny which is a little different.As for all the other opinions out there about this. Eh.

Beer Blogging! Horseheads Brewing Company

I don't usually blog about beer. While it is a subject that I really enjoy studying it's not one I'm particularly adept at sharing with others. I like good beer but I can't tell you why. Other people go on about the hops and the intricate flavors, I say, "mmm thats good" or "ew, not so good."

So I was dragged to a local brewery/microbrewery that for some strange reason I had never been to before. I got out of work a little early on friday, went and saw a friend and as we sat with nothing to do he suddenly jumped up and said "lets go to the Horseheads Brewing Company!"
"Never been, is it good?"
"Really?oh you're going to love it."

Three of us piled into his firebird and we took of in search of lager. They started us off with some samples of everything they had, after asking for ID, which meant I got to show them my new clergy ID. There was one I didn't really like, I'm just not a pale ale fan, there too... hoppy? This is why I don't beer blog often. The only other one that I really didn't like was a peach beer. First off I want my beer to taste like beer, second I just hate peach. But I tried it, and it was gross, but if you like that sort of thing then give it a shot. They give you samples, just make sure you save one of the good ones for after so you leave with a mouth that tastes delicious.

Then there was the wheat beer, quite good. I knew I was going to be at an outdoor party the next day and it was supposed to be 90+ degrees so this seemed like a great summer beer. It might have been a little too good as I might have drank two growlers in pretty short order. Of course that can't all be blamed on the wheat. There was also a brown ale, simply known as "brown ale" and I really liked this one. I polished off a growler of this on friday night then headed back up on saturday to get it refilled before that party. And seeing as I purchased two growlers, including one cool one with the ceramic flip top and the sweet latch, the other is just a spin on top, I'll probably be back fairly regularly for refills. They also have Sullivan Stout but they didn't have it on tap so I didn't get to try it, but I did pick up a bottle. I hope its good I like me a good stout.

As I said and have shown, I'm quite terrible at describing beers but I think I've given the beer the ultimate capitalist praise, I bought more. What I realize that I left out of this praise is that the people who work there seem really nice, affable and just seem to really enjoy making beer. I had already had a couple when I showed up and we had fun chatting. I look forward to more nights of popping open that big old flip top, and to saying hi to the kind folks who make that joyous beverage.

UPDATE! Ok want proof that these people are serious beer fans? Beer Shampoo anyone? I'm just not sure if I could bring myself to waste a perfectly good beer on hair.

Cracka Ass Jesus

It's because of shit like this that I read Pharyngula almost every day, and have a bit of a man crush on one P.Z. Myers. He's being threatened, the usual threats, you'll go to hell, we'll get you fired, we will kill you from those self proclaimed peaceful folks in the catholic church.

See he wrote a post about a kid who stole a cracker. But not just any cracker this cracker actually contained part of the actual body of christ inside of it. Thats one hell of a cracker right? I mean shit if I had a 2000 year old cracker that contained tissue from jesus I'd be pretty protective of it too, and I'm not even religious. So how did this kid get his hands one such a holy relic? They pass them out every sunday at churches and cathedrals around the world, and he didn't eat his. The fact that they wanted him to eat their savior is pretty fuckin' weird and cannibalistic but thats an issue for another day. Ok so the cracker wasn't 2000 years old but according to catholic dogma when the priest blesses the cracker it becomes the Eucharist and literally becomes the body of christ, it is NOT metaphorical according to their religion.

So the story went that he was handed one and rather than taking part in this cannibalistic ritual he left without eating the cracker, and by cracker I mean jesus. Where do you think the racial slur "cracker" came from anyway? So P.Z..... mmm dreamy.... had the audacity to treat that cracker ass cracka with disrespect, or actually just asked people to send him some so that he could publicly disrespect.

I'm sure there was a point to this post at one time but that time is not now. So I'm just going to say that I'm out and have a great weekend.

Peace! even to the catholics

God Made Me Fall...

So sue the church!
I love people, for all their stupidity I must admit, they are an amusing lot. The guy who claims that god tripped him and then sued the church when their insurance company didn't want to pay, eh fairly amusing. The comment section afterwards? Amazing.

Anytime someone falls under the Spirit of God, that person is NEVER injured because God protects them. I have seen people who were trampled by women in spiked heels while under the Spirit, and they got up with no injuries. I've seen people hit their heads on pews while falling under the Spirit, and they got up with nary a bruise or mark.

If this man was injured during his fall, he wasn't under the Spirit.

Umm... what kind of a church involves falling on the ground and getting trampled by women in spikes... sounds kinda kinky. Where is that again?

A Fittin' Tribute

Say what you want about San Fransisco, but that town has personality. srsly, go check that out.

Ordained Atheist

Yup a guy who loves making fun of religion, god and the followers of both has just become a man of the cloth, but not the molester type. I went with an ordination from the Church of Spiritual Humanism, and while I'm not spiritual I'm perfectly comfortable with the tenets of Humanism and Spiritual Humanism doesn't seem to add any craziness, in fact they tell you you're not to invoke any gods, spirits, demons or anything supernatural. And they adhere to the scientific method. I'm not really certain where the spiritual part comes from but whatever. Then again spiritual actually goes back to the word "to breath" so I guess I am spiritual after all.

Our crazy world

If you like just weird crazy shit, then fuck sci-fi check out science. Theres all sorts of genuinely weird shit going on all around you all the time, even something as seemingly simple as a magnet, or specifically a magnetic field is actually quite odd, and surprisingly beautiful....

Magnetic Movie from Semiconductor on Vimeo.

WikiHow

Ok I've been reading a bit from WikiHow, which is supposed to be the How to Guide to everything. It had how to convert an atheist, and how to deal with religious people if your an atheist, but for some reason it didn't seem to talk about what to do if some fundie wants to convert you and you just want to have a really good time fucking with them... hmmm.... maybe I should write one.....

There was one day the Mormons came around because someone sent them after my former roommate, I had to run otherwise I would have invited them up, I knew I had Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian sitting out. Probably not as much fun as the fundies who protested the punk show right after I finished Sam Harris's The End of Faith, and my Censor Religion T-shirt had just come in from Alternative Tentacles. I think it was divinely inspired... hehe. That was a good night.

Speaking of which this looks amusing. The Uncensored Bible.

Faith Based Crap

First off I'm annoyed because I just lost a post that I had written because my computer locked up before I could publish, and the auto save doesn't seem to actually save it anywhere. grrrr....

So my buddy Rob left a comment saying that he's cool with the faith based initiatives, so I felt like expanding on why I am not. I was only about half way done when I lost my original and it was a pretty impressive ramble. I'd like to start by saying that there are a great deal of wonderful charity organizations that are religiously based, Salvation Army is the first that pops into my head because of its size, but just as importantly are the countless soup kitchens across this nation and the world that provide such a wonderful service for those who need it most. I by no means want to belittle the amazing job done by these groups, usually on a shoe string budget, without them the world would be an even darker place.

Now the new Obama provisions seemingly bring the law to a new place we will call constitutional, or at least pretty close to it. If I walk into a local Salvo, or soup kitchen wearing a yarmulke or a topi (I'm pretty sure thats the name of the muslim skull cap thing that ironicly looks almost exactly like a yarmulke to a goy like me) I'm sure they wouldn't treat me any different, they'd sell me clothes or serve me dinner. They might have a little prayer before dinner, and being that we're in a church and I was just handed a free meal I'd respect their traditions. I wouldn't be surprised if someone realized I wasn't a christian and was therefore interested in talking to me about faith. If I lived in a more religiously homogeneous region where it was considered acceptable to shout about god then I would expect to hear a few psalms thrown at me. Around here most people keep there faiths to themselves. Sure we've got the local "street pastor" who likes to protest against the gays but otherwise religion is a fairly private affair, just like JC wanted. Would I feel comfortable letting it be known that I'm not a christian and I need a meal if I was in the deep south? Especially if I was a muslim (or pretending to be). I'm sure they would feed me, it's what soup kitchens do, I'm not even worried about being made to feel like I should leave (except maybe with the muslim option), no I suspect whether its part of the churches mission or not that I would be proselytized to. Quite possibly to such an extent that I would dread going. Some folks seek religion when they're down on their luck, but its a personal decision. My questioning if proselytizing even works is a separate thing entirely I suppose. If its a private organization that wants to help people but decides they will annoy the hell out of those who come in thats fine by me, but why the fuck should I be paying for them to do that? The problem is there is so much grey area here. At what point is it proselytizing, can they get public funding if proselytizing isn't part of there mission but members volunteer to do it anyway? Public money isn't being spent on it but now public money is being where the proselytizing is going on. I just don't see anyway to keep everyone happy except to say that the government has no business being involved with religious organizations.

I would love to see a break down of where that money goes. How do you decide who gets the money? Do you break it down by followers of the religion or number of people served? We're talking about Billions of dollars that the government is handing out so these details still mean huge amounts of money. People served I supposed. In the non-profit world, especially where I work, we have researchers from (in our case) Cornell testing to ensure that our programs work, and trying to figure out the most effective use of our limited resources. Our agency was far ahead of the curve on this but it is slowly becoming the norm, if you want money you need to prove that your plan works, and show that it works better than the other options. So are faith based groups more effective at what they do?

One thing that I've thought of occasionally while watching a couple different friends battle with drug addictions is how I don't think I could go into any of the major rehab organizations, that is if I was a drug addict. AA, a wonderful program that helps many many people. My best friend would not be the man he is today without their help. He is not christian but he is at least vaguely spiritual so he did just fine. I am not. They don't force you to believe in any particular god but they in no uncertain terms do expect you to believe in something. Research seems to show that this makes it marginally more effective for the majority that are spiritual which is canceled out by the considerably less effectiveness for the minority that are not. I don't have those stats but that is what I was told by said friend who did significant work with AA and is a psych researcher so even without seeing the numbers I tend to believe him. Again AA is a private institution, very private in fact considering the second A is for anonymous, so they can do what they want. But I cannot see giving public funding to a group that disregards a significant portion of the country. I suspect that many faith-based groups are similar. Sure they don't discriminate directly, they leave their prayers very vague so as not to offend other denominations of christianity. But that is not the same as serving the public equally every time. I am sure that many groups do, but it is simply impossible to police such a system. The only reasonable way I can figure to ensure that we are helping those who need it most on a fair basis is with a secular system.

I guess at the end of the day I see the religious charities that have been around for so long and have done so much and I wonder why they couldn't just keep doing what they had been doing? Why not let them do what they do, and give the public money to those we know serve the public equally? Of course the flip side of this is that in many smaller towns soup kitchens may only be provided by a local church, if there is no other option does it make more sense to help the existing charity? Probably. Like most issues of the world I think it's far more complex than most people would like to deal with, but I still firmly believe that the only fair and constitutional thing to do is simply to not use public money to support religious works of any nature.

I hope we can discus this more in the comments. Oh and I'll just throw out there that I did once work in a soup kitchen, I can't remember why, probably a church thing actually. I was in high school and while I was helping to serve food I ran into a classmate who was on the other side of the counter. I didn't know how to react, but I did know that for his sake I did not want to return, ok that might not have been the only reason why. Come on how many high school kids want to go volunteer at the soup kitchen? Sorry I'm just not that altruistic, and I was less so then.

So anyway, what your view?

Waterboarding

Not just for kids anymore! Just ask Christopher Hitchens

UPDATE: they taped it....

WSOGMM

This is the whole sort of general mish mash, politics style. Lots of shit going down, and some of its silly and minor, other stuff is pretty profound. So lets dive in.

This should be important, like really important, John Yoo the assistant to the Attorney General and adviser to the President by extension, educated at Harvard and Yale cannot answer wither or not there is any limit on what the President can have done to a terror suspect. This is the United States of America if someone asks if the president can bury a man alive because he may or may not have committed a crime, the answer SHOULD be real fucking obvious, no, hell no, what the fuck? What kind of country do you think this is, obviously there are laws to prevent anything even vaguely of that nature. At least that would have been the answer during the last century. Today thats a tricky question, do we need to limit the king, er presidents power? Can't we just assume that our glorious dictator will only torture for good?

So what else is going on? Wes Clark said that being shot down in an airplane doesn't qualify you to be the President. Duh. Although that does lead us into an interesting question of what does qualify a person to be president? Yeah I could get into a rant about how stupid it is that the press is making a big deal, or any deal out of this, how it's just retarded because the man with the "offensive" words is a freaking General, does that mean he's better qualified than McCain? But thats would be just as pointless as the debate in the media. No instead I want to focus for a sec on what exactly does qualify someone to be President? Be an American and by 35, thats about all the Constitution has to say about it. Beyond that its actually a lot harder to say than it sounds, no one has really come up with a definitive set of traits or background that make a good President.

Obama said that he wants to expand the faith based crap. I like the fact that he wants to be strict about what the money can and can be used for but the simpler solution to me is stop giving money to faith based organizations. I don't like this move at all but hey the guy can't agree with me on every subject, if he did he'd never get elected. I'm annoyed but hey this is minor breach of the constitution compared to what we've grown used to.

I ran out of time.
thats probably obvious

Thank you to Douglas Adams for the title.

Patriotism

Our next president, and hopefully my new boss, just talked about it so now I'm going to real quickly. First I'll go off subject and say that I'm in talks with the Obama campaign and if that happens I might be really really busy until November. Now back to patriotism, also known as the last refuge of scoundrels. In order to define patriotism I personally believe its important to think about who the patriots were, before they won the Superbowl. Admittedly the ones we think of first Washington, Jefferson, Adams and the rest of the posse were upper class, but like always they were held up by a mass of average people who were willing to die so their children could be free from tyranny. So at least my vision of a patriot, a true patriot is any person who will fight, by any means necessary to protect the ideals of this country. We could then get into what those ideals are, but again my view at least is that those ideals were laid out quite eloquently in the nations first document, which due to a coincidence was signed on Independence Day. They were then refined a bit into the constitution. Those ideals are what defines America, not out borders but our dreams. This is why when taking office the president does not swear to protect the citizens but to protect the constitution. But a patriot has an even greater creed yet, he or she does not simply defend the constitution but must ensure that our ideals are defended for even our constitution is not immune from bad ideals from time to time, like prohibition. This is why the patriot must defend against all enemies foreign or domestic, the original patriots knew that freedom cannot survive if power is allowed to be too tightly concentrated. That is why we have an elected government and not a King, although it is interesting to note that originally only the house was directly elected by the people. Now senators are too, the president is still not elected by the people and I'm convinced thats a bad thing, until I talk to voters who help to structure national policy with their vote and know nothing about either candidate. Scary. Anyway the job of the patriot is critical and I think this entire nation has been so busy waving flags and supporting the troops to notice that there's hardly a true patriot left among us. How many of us have truly challenged the attacks on the constitution by this administration? Who has laid it all on the line to say that the patriot act is illegal? Or the many other illegal acts. Oh sure we march in protests after getting permission from the police, despite the fact that we already have the right by the constitution while the police do NOT have the right to stop a peaceful public gathering. We also write or call our senators, we harass our mayors and our representatives but then we go back to our jobs, our cars and live our lives we may grumble a bit but we've all gone soft. If there were a true patriot alive today they would probably be rotting away in jail right now, maybe they are. I do not mean to challenge what we call the patriotism of any one, I want to challenge what we call patriotism, and I want to challenge us all to live up to that most honorable duty.

Or we could just say that patriotism is defined by lapel pins.

Hypocrites

We all hate 'em, they preach about sins before they commit them, they tell you the company is in great shape while selling off their own stocks, but how about abortion clinic protesters? Yup, it happens.

I had to go up and ask her if her daughter’s situation had caused her to change her mind. ‘I don’t expect you to understand my daughter’s situation!’ she angrily replied. The following Saturday, she was back, pleading with women entering the clinic not to ‘murder their babies.’”

The thoughts in my head are probably already raging around in yours so I won't even state the obvious, so it goes.

The Good, The Bad, and The Stupid

So as you probably know theres about a 50/50 chance that for the first time in recorded history the arctic may be without ice this summer. Alarm bells should be going off. The biggest concern is the fact that this is happening far faster than predicted. Scientists are fairly conservative when they make announcements to the public, they don't want to seem like fools if they give dire warnings only to have them be wrong. So this give conservative estimates, and throw in that it might be worse. If I remember right they predicted this could happen by 2050 in Al's movie, and here it is two years latter happening. What scares me the most is the comments afterwards, those who say that this is just a normal part of the cycle and that nothing we do has any affect on it, and hey there might be oil under that ice! The stupid refers to those who get confused when their drink doesn't over flow when the ice melts. If the ice melts then all the coastal cities should be underwater, and they are so this is a lie.... No offense to anyone with legitimate mental handicaps but are these folks retarded? Listen up, its pretty simple, ice floating on water doesn't affect the sea level when it melts. The Arctic OCEAN is water so when that ice melts the sea level stays the same. Ice on land that melts obviously affects the sea level. Places like Antarctica and Greenland are the most critical land based ice. So no one who pays attention should have any confusion about how the ice can melt and the cities don't drown. Ok I'm outta time, I'll talk more shit later.

Books and Bad Astronomers

I opened the flood gates on this one. I guess thats what I get for asking a group of friendly scientists (and other science enthusiasts) to recommend a good book. I'm rereading The Daemon Haunted World by Carl Sagan. Sagan talks about the joy it brings to a person to suddenly understand what had always been a mystery, once meaningless terms taking grasp. It is a profound feeling. I can't say I felt that way reading the last book, more "ok... I think I got it... maybe sorta." But I recall it distinctly when I first read about self replicators in the primordial ooze, those that replicated the best won the day due to simple numerical advantage because they replicated the best. Suddenly it clicked, the rest fell into place instantly in my mind, it was always the one thing I didn't understand about evolution. I know there are various theories on abiogenesis and this might not be right, but it at least gave me an option of how it could have happened, at that was profound.

The flip side of this is the joy many scientists feel when they get to share their knowledge with others. Sagan called his life a love affair with science, and who doesn't want to shout it from the hills when they are madly in love? When a person says they don't get why something is the way it is, they're standing in the dark not even sure which direction to turn, you can toss them a flashlight and point them in the right direction. Their eyes light up and say "Wow, I've wondered about that for years and now it seems so simply, why couldn't anyone explain it like that before?" Admittedly we were talking about easier subject matter like what causes terrorism.

Also answers like this impress me, I don't know if the math is right but someone put some thought into this reply (not that they were replying to me...)

So here is the list I've been told to check out.

Non Fiction:
Fear of Physics
Stardust by Neil Gaiman
Quantum Computer Science by David Mermin
Schrödinger's Kittens
The Code Book by Simon Singh

Fiction:
Odyssey by Jack McDevitt
Einstein’s Bridge, by John Cramer

I'm not sure I need to say it but thanks again to everybody over at Bad Astronomy, especially The Chemist, Humanist Dad, and Jake Doyle for stopping by, and for Phil.

Water Powered Car

Ok I've seen spam e-mails about this and they're easy enough to delete but when Reuters does a piece about a Japanese company claiming they can drive a car for an hour at 50mph on a liter of WATER it makes me confused. Yeah my first reaction isn't OMG! all our problems are solved! It's much more WTF than OMG. All it says is that,

"Once the water is poured into the tank at the back of the car, the a generator breaks it down and uses it to create electrical power, TV Tokyo said."

You can break water down into Hydrogen and Oxygen and make power from those, unfortunately I recall quite vividly from my chemistry classes in high school that it takes considerably more energy to break the water down than you can get from the separated elements. Did they invent a catalyst that breaks down water? is it a total sham? I really don't know, but I won't say I'm not curious.

People I'm in Awe of

Anyone who can talk about, "pretty basic quantum mechanics." Damn you Phil, er actually guy who wrote to Phil.

Actually I shouldn't insult myself that much, there is a fair amount of the basics of Quantum Mechanics that I understood just fine. I just don't have even close to enough skill in math to be able to fuck with the numbers they're talking about.

C&H

I need to send this a my psych friend...


Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

UPDATE: Ok that one didn't fit on my screen but I think you can just click on it. Anyway heres some more that I'll just leave a links to.
Osama
Cops
Genie
Insurance
It's Ok

Changed my views on God

Yeah I said it. I just finished "In Search of Schrödinger's Cat" and it has completely transformed my views on god.

Sorta.

I still don't think he exists, I need some evidence of the guy for that. But my opinion of the guy has changed if he/she/it does turn out to exist. I grew up christian so that has fundamentally tainted my views on a higher power, I went to a pretty damn liberal church but I still came to the conclusion that god is a prick. He's made up by people but they made him in the image of a brutal dictator. Just like Saddam Hussein he starts off a real ass hole but by the second half of the book he softens up a bit, still willing to send you to be tortured for eternity but at least he stopped with the earthly genocides.

But now that I have a very vague understanding of quantum mechanics I am fully convinced that if there is a god, he is fucking hilarious. God is of course not really a testable hypothesis, I guess we just have to wait till we die to find out and I'm not in any rush for that. But if he is real then I think I fully understand quantum physics - god is fucking with us. He's gotten bored messing with his followers, theres no challenge, no fun at all. So he found himself a new plaything, physicists. I'm not saying that he sits around messing with the spin of every electron and photon in the universe that would be immensely dull even for an omnipotent critter. No I'm saying that he just messes with the science experiments. He's chilling with Gabrielle (he was an angel right?) Mark Twain, Albert Einstein and a few other layabouts, saying, "Yo check this out, now ya see a wave function, now ya don't! Bwahaha!!!.... oh oh that shit gets me every time."
"Twain, I gotta thank you for this one, I haven't had this much fun since the flood"
"No prob god. Hey, does this make us even for the shit I talked about you? To be fair I really only talked shit about your followers."
"Umm.... sure"
"Wanna mess with a Bell test?"
"Nah, today were going after those french know-it-alls over at CERN, I got your Higgs Boson right here!"
"You guys are jerks"
"Still haven't learned how to have fun Al?"
"Arschgesicht"

Yup, so now when I die, if I see I light before me I'm running up to them gates, "Yo Pete! Let me in, come on... "

Reverend Trout?

Hehe... Yeah I'm going to get ordained. Kilgore Trout isn't my real name but you get the idea.

I'll back up real quick, my friend finally decided to marry his girlfriend of the last 10 years, they have two amazing kids already and I'm really not sure why he didn't do it years ago. He took me and another friend to ask us a question, he asked the other guy if he would be his best man, that was how he told us he's getting married, then he asked if I would be another groomsman or whatever they call the other guys. I said of course, then he said oh and we're thinking about having the bridesmaids wear suits and the guys wear dresses, actually tootoo's (I've never written too-too before, how is it spelled?) at which point I said can I be the priest dude? Oh and fittingly we were a little drunk at this point. So I looked into it and I think I'm going to get legally ordained, yeah I know I'm an atheist but I do love irony. Plus I'm going to get ordained from the Spiritual Humanist's. I'm not spiritual but I'm ok with the Humanist title, speaking of title's if I pay extra I get to pick my own. I kinda like the sounds of The Very Esteemed Kilgore Trout. As much as this is going to be a very laid back wedding, I still want to do a good job and make it nice. Yeah we've talked about calling the groomsmen pall bearers and having them carry the groom in a coffin to the "alter" while a punk band plays the imperial march from star wars but I'd like to do my part seriously. It is a wedding after all and I'm pretty sure that it will be the only wedding either of them will have, unless the renew the vows stuff, but unlike some weddings I've been to I really think this one can last, I mean shit they've survived each other for 10 years already, thats gotta be the toughest part.

Ugh, still means that I gave myself the hardest part of the wedding, they just say I do, some short vows then kiss, they can do that drunk, I've gotta talk for like ten minutes and I probably will be drunk. I know what I need...

"My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met." - Rodney Dangerfield.

Everything is better with a little Dangerfield on top. Oh and I heard that George Carlin died. That sucks, he was good, I'll miss him.

Oh wow, here's an unexpected voice, “The total amount of undesired sex endured by women is probably greater in marriage than in prostitution.” -Bertrand Russell. I wouldn't have expected that outta Bertrand.

“I love being married. It's so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.” -Rita Rudner
“The secret of a happy marriage remains a secret.” -Henny Youngman
"The man who says his wife can't take a joke, forgets that she took him." -Oscar Wilde
"Some people ask the secret of our long marriage. We take time to go to a restaurant two times a week. A little candlelight, dinner, soft music and dancing. She goes Tuesdays, I go Fridays."
-Henry Youngman

This should be a fun wedding.

FISA

Man I'm outta the loop these days, I didn't even realize this was going on again, I'm slipping in my old age (26). Anyway Bush is happy therefore the standard drill of folks who like freedom and think that lawbreakers should be held accountable are unhappy.

I don't really know much about this but from what I've read from the various sources, and I do like to check several biases, conservative = yippy corporate immunity, liberal = boo no mo liberties and corps get off after breaking the law, and then objective, which just says it happened bush is happy and Pelosi is not, thanks for the insight.

So from the tiny bit I've gathered the spooks can now tap your phones for a week before getting a warrant compared to the 72 hours it used to be, three days isn't enough time to talk to a judge? come on you're the CIA I think you get to budge in line. And the court then has 30 days to decide so they can tap a phone for 5 weeks without a warrant if I'm reading this right. Awesome. It does provide several levels of oversight, all by the executive branch instead of the judicial where it would be considered oversight.

The other huge part of this is the fact that it give immunity to the telecoms that broke the law by listening to bush. I know its an awkward spot for those companies at the time, do you listen to the president or the law? Seriously back in 2002 I wouldn't have wanted to be the one to tell bush to go fuck himself. Er wait, yes I would, but thats why I'm not a corporate exec. If I was I would have had a tough time telling bush to go fuck himself because I know that if I do I'll be called un-american because I refuse to break the law to sorta kinda maybe help stop the terrorists. Seriously I understand why they did it. But it was still illegal and they should still be held accountable.

Oh and of course it lasts until 2012 so that Obama can't fix it, at least not easily.

Plus the house just spent another $160 billion in order to let more of my friends and the Iraqi people suffer.
Thanks assholes.

Damn you Bohr!

Ok his work was actually really important but it still means I have an almost entirely incorrect theory still in my head because thats what they teach children despite the fact that is wrong. Why do we do that? Oh right cause the Bohr model is fairly easy to understand while the truth... no so much.See that picture makes sense, unfortunately it's not what an atom looks like.

So I just started reading the book "The Search for Schrödinger's Cat" and so far its essentially a history lesson, but its building up to how the ideas evolved into the present (ok 1984) theories. I've known a tiny bit about quantum mechanics, just enough to know that I have no idea whats really going on, so when I was walking through the used book store and spotted this I figured it was worth a shot. BTW I've said it before but man I love used book stores, you can't go in saying I want to buy X which is half the fun, you wander until something sounds good and you head home only a few bucks lighter.

So yeah I'm learning a little quantum physics, just for fun, and I know I'm just at the start because so far it still makes sense.

It's Friday I can't be entirely serious

So heres a quick list of the 10 oldest women I'd still bang. Classy. I would disagree with them on Goldie Hawn because she's kinda scary looking these days, except they won me over by saying, "Just, like, pretend its Kate Hudson." Again, classy.

a little confused / got it - GObama

I probably shouldn't write this yet cause I don't fully understand whats going on, which is what I'm writing about. Ok so our next president has decided that he's not going to take public campaign money. I'm actually all for fully public campaign financing to really keep the lobbyists out, but thats a separate matter. I think. So after a little more reading it makes sense, if he took the money (84.1 million dollars of tax payer money - or roughly 6 hours in Iraq) then he would be limited on his spending. He has already raised freaking 272 million dollars and its thought that he still has at least 200 million MORE than McCain. Why would he want to limit himself? If he was then going to turn around and accept 100 million from Exxon then I would be pissed. Assuming he doesn't do that then yes he still went back on his work to negotiate a deal with McCain on public finance. He's still a politician and he's more to the point he's human, when he made that comment it would have made sense to strike a deal, now when he is massively in the lead monetarily it would be silly to take the money and keep himself from having far far more. McCain will try to make a big deal out of it, hopefully when people then point out that his own campaign has had some questionably legal finances they will shut the fuck up. Or better yet Obama will give him enough rope to hang himself (seems odd to use that phrase here given the racial make up of the parties involved but I don't know another one, plus suicide and lynching are pretty different, anyway...) by letting McCain go after Obama's finances, let him bring them up in a debate, stay on the defensive for just a little while as the talking heads go ape-shit, then chop the legs out from their argument by pointing out that at least his finances were legal, and saved the taxpayers money. AKA- go fuck yourself old man.

I'm happy to see that Obama hasn't attacked McCain's age, old people vote too much for that, and it gives him a big ol' arrow to keep in the back of his quiver, a quiver that must be getting pretty heavy these days. Actually these days what most politicians do is let the groups like MoveOn for the Dems or Swiftboat for the Repubs do the dirty nasty stuff. I don't really want to compare MoveOn with swiftboat but you get the idea.

Cults

Ok cults are generally a bad thing, this one takes things to another level. I'm rarely at a loss for words but right now I'm having trouble putting together any sort of cognitive thought. Good luck to the children, I'm not sure you can recover from this, then again some people are pretty damn resilient, I hope this kid is. Read the article, but its not pleasant....

No i'm not going to blame religious indoctrination on this one, this is just some very very fucked up people, no matter what happens with the world there will always be the sick ones, but damn, thats really sick.

....I can't even imagine......

Spent a little time with a vet last night, and I cannot go on without saying something about it. How he goes on with his life is the title of this piece.

He didn't really talk about what he's seen much, he didn't have to. It was written all over his face, in the figurative sense of looking into the eyes of a man who has seen thinks worse than any nightmare. But also in the literal sense as you see the scar above his eye, or the way he can't move his hands as well as he should from nerve damage due to the shrapnel in one hand and the other that was crushed. He's not a close friend of mine, I went to high school with him we may have had a class or two together. He couldn't recall if we had either but he had the excuse of having taken a round to the face and has forgotten half of his childhood as a result. Then theres the PTSD, which must be exasperated not only by the chaos in the streets, but also by the only vaguely organized chaos that is our own military. Plus the fighting within our own soldiers, he says that they don't even have each others backs anymore, then backtracked and said when shit really hits the fan they are there, but thats it. It's amazing how resilient people are, I would expect them to break long before this point. This war cannot continue, it simply cannot. No one should be asked to live like this, no one.

He is a very good friend of a good friend of mine and she filled in some of the things he didn't say to me. He's a good soldier and he keeps going back, hes done 4 or 5 tours, because its his job, but he suffers no delusions that there is anything to accomplish, that might be the only thing left he isn't suffering from. Good luck my friend

(he'll be back in Iraq in a few weeks, if you think thats as fucked up as I do then do something about it, don't pray for him, write to congress, do something, and most of all be there for the troops, just be there for them)

More Angst: SCOTUS edition

I've got another little rant about how fucked up parts of this country are, and the media's culpability in it all. I'd like to start by saying that Stephen Colbert pretty much summed up this whole situation in one line, (roughly) "Where does the Constitution get off thinking it can tell the government what it can do?" Amazing, but I'll be a little more longwinded than that.

Ok so in spite of all that Bush has done to load the court with ideologues, and the fact that the supreme court usually rules with the administration during times of war the Supreme Court has ruled that the Constitution isn't to be used as a coaster. Habeas Corpus is not some crazy rule invented by leftist commies to help spring terrorists from jail as some asshats would like you to think. So first a quick bit of history on what we're talking about here. It was first used in 1305 but was part of the Magna Carta of 1215 and was common law even before that. Here's what the Magna Carta says about it.

Article 39: "No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned or disseised or exiled or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him nor will we send upon him except upon the lawful judgement of his peers or the law of the land."

I can see why people would be scared to have a law like that around. Who would want a law that stops people from being detained without cause?

I also find it interesting that when the UK suspended Habeas Corpus so they could go after the IRA they latter realized that it actually increased the strength of the IRA, but I'm sure that's not the case when the US does it...

Essentially the Supreme Court has said that you cannot simply create a loophole where a person has no standing in any court of law. Conservatives will press that this decision will mean that terrorists will now be tried in civilian court instead of military court where the belong, this is true, what they fail to mention time and time again is that if the administration had allowed these people to be tried by military courts years ago then we wouldn't be in this situation. The Administration said these people can't be tried as enemy soldiers not the court, the court simply said they have the right to a trial and to know what they have been accused of. The most basic of right a prisoner can hope for. There are times when Habeas Corpus can be lifted and those times are outlined in the Constitution.

What concerns me isn't that the administration has held people without trial or even being accused of a crime for 7 years, ok that does concern me but sadly I've essential come to accept that the country I live in is not the country that I was taught about as a child. Our fantastic ideals about how bad countries would torture people and put up walls around their countries while ours was a nation devoted to peace and would never do such things. Those delusions are a part of my history as well as our nations.

No my real concern is that there are people in this country who think this ruling was wrong. The ignorant masses who watch Bill O'Reilly would annoy me but there are some serious players in the US who think this ruling was wrong including 4 supreme court judges, a presidential candidate (guess which) along with a whole shit load of talking heads that think their opinions matter (and sadly they do). I really wanted to get into how fucked up the four supreme court judges are but it's suddenly occured to me the horrible irony of McCain thinking this ruling was wrong. Here we have a man who was once a POW, who now thinks that its ok to capture people and hold them indefinitely without trial. I wonder what 1972 McCain would think of this? 2008 McCain is essentially saying that his captors had the right to hold him for five and a half years, because how can you say its wrong of them if its acceptable for us? But really its worse than that. See McCain was a POW, meaning wither or not the Viet-Cong acknowledged his rights he did have legal rights in the eyes of the world. What this administration has tried to do, and McCain plans to continue, is that somehow the fighters in this war are different and should have no human rights at all. I'm not even going to get into the fact that many of these people were not soldiers and how the vast majority were not fighters, although I wouldn't blame them if they were feeling a little Jihadish these days. I'm very concerned about the morals of this country, there are the "values voters" which is such a stupid term, who votes based on anything but their values? But the ones labels values voters because they think that banning abortion, keeping they guns, and hatin some queers are the only morals a country needs, oh and ya gots ta love some baby jesus too, can't leave that out. What about my morals? Treat people with respect, violence is wrong (exceptions granted on a case by case basis), equality, protecting the innocent, protecting the environment, and generally protecting those who can't defend themselves, avoiding tyranny. Obviously I have no sense of right and wrong. How can indefinite detention of people without a day in court not be considered a moral issue?

Anyway I gotta run, I hope this is ranttastic enough.

Lara Logan

That last post makes for a good lead in to this one. Last night I saw an incredible interview, and it made me incredibly angry. Lara Logan was on The Daily Show, shes a journalist who's been in Iraq since the start, she's also hot. More importantly she says what needs to be said in no uncertain terms. She's been there, shes lived it and she's not going to take any shit from anybody. I think I'm in love.... anyway watch the vid.




Told you didn't I? Now this makes me sad for a number of reasons. First because she is right. We've become bored with the war and we've become numb to the pain and suffering that we've inflicted. That is a horrible situation. Korea has been called the forgotten war, at least that war wasn't forgotten about until after it was over.

The other thing that makes me sad is the fact that this incredible interview had to be on a comedy show. Yes she works for CBS and has been on O'Reilly and other places but this is the kind of candor we need on a regular basis if we want to have any clue whats going on with the wars that we started.

I'm not really sure what else to say....

Where to start.....

I point out that I've been slacking every time I write nowadays, mostly cause it's true. But today I've got some words that need to get out there. Some of this is old news but I want to say it anyway. I'll start with something old and trivial.

I was at the gym where I don't have control of the TV and Pravda... er Fox News was on, it was a few weeks ago and the devastation in China was still being talked about, well sorta. Instead of focusing on this massive catastrophe they focused on a remark by a celebrity , Sharon Stone I think, who said something rude while on the red carpet. She said that maybe the earthquake was Karma for China's treatment of Tibet. Yeah not a comment I would make while they are still sifting through the rubble, but I don't see how they are any different then Falwell and Robertson blaming 9/11 on liberals and gays. One says god punished us for our "immoral" actions, the other said some other god punished other people for legitimately immoral actions. But really none of that matters. The real question is, who gives a shit what Sharon Stone's opinion is of a natural disaster? Sure the Chinese have every right to be pissed but why does this warrant any more than a 15 second blip on a national news program? Were in the middle of two wars, China had just been rocked by the massive earthquake that was the cause of this incident, Burma was and is in a humanitarian crisis following the cyclone, food riots in Mexico and other places, the never ending horrors in Africa, global climate change, AIDS, the looming TB epidemic, Israel-Palestine, tensions with Iran, tension between Afghanistan and Pakistan, theres also a fairly important election coming up, and I could continue with issues more important than the opinions of a has-been hollywood actress but whats the point? The media cares more about entertainment than well than anything else, ratings over content. Of course we the people are to blame for the fact that content doesn't lead to ratings, entertainment does.