The Only Red Shirt in the Landing Party

Zombiegeddon and the Minor Prophets

2010-01-13T10:34:00.008-05:00

I too have been working my way through the Minor Prophets one by one in one stretch. I assume that since I told mom about this a while back, she let it slip to my little brother, and he is emulating me, which is great. I am about half way through Malachi, and then I have to go back and hit Amos. After that , I will have read and studied them all.

Last month, another blog gave an update on the status of preparation for the coming Zombiegeddon. One of my guilty pleasures just so happens to be Zombie stories, so I enjoyed that post.

God has promised that He will not destroy the world by flood again, but what about a zombie apocalypse? I submit for your consideration Zechariah 14:12-13:

12 And the LORD will send a plague on all the nations that fought against Jerusalem. Their people will become like walking corpses, their flesh rotting away. Their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongues will rot in their mouths. 13 On that day they will be terrified, stricken by the LORD with great panic. They will fight their neighbors hand to hand.

I do my daily reading from the New Living Translation. I keep Biblegateway.com on hand to cross check certain passages which seem a little out there, but for the most part it is all good. To be fair, the NLT is the only one that uses anything synonymous to 'walking corpses'. Even the NLT cross reference to Leviticus 26:16 does not mention walking corpses.

It could just be referring to some kind of rage inducing Ebola and necrotizing fasciitis hybrid, and it really sounds like what happened near the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, but I like to think that one day we will get a good old fashioned zombie shoot out.

Einstein Scooped By God

2010-01-12T09:34:00.003-05:00

In my current daily scripture readings, I'm going through the minor prophets (which I've always felt are good to do all at once, sort of like pulling off a band-aid -- I kid, I kid). Anywho, I finished up Habakkuk this morning, and came across this little gem:

The sun and moon stood still in their place
at the light of your arrows as they sped,
at the flash of your glittering spear.
Habakkuk 3:11 (ESV)

The "your" in this case, of course, is God. Anywho, of what does that sound like a description to you? Light... speeding. Physical objects, relative to the speeding of said light... standing still. Hmmm... did God, through His prophet Habakkuk (which, incidentally, I will name my fourth male child, should I have one) give us an inkling about Special Relativity, which implies, inter alia, that when an object approaches the speed of light, time "slows down" for that object relative to the non-moving object, such that, ultimately, time would stand still for the speeding object, relative to the non-moving objects?

Okay, I'm probably stretching things, and I've taken the single verse WAY out of context, but still, it's a fun thought.

Facebook and the Death of Blogging

2009-12-09T16:04:00.005-05:00

Wow. So my dear brother Sam has shamed me into posting something here, and good for him for doing so. It's been nearly a year since my last post. I could come up with all kinds of excuses (and no doubt will in the near future), but suffice it to say that two kids is a whole lot more than one more than one kid (that sentence does not contain a typo). I've even let my blogging slack off considerably at my other home. Does this mean I'll pick up the slack now? I could promise that, but it would only make me feel slightly bad when I fail to live up to it.

Anywho, it occurred to me that there might be another culprit for my lack of blogging (and others' lacks, as well) (others' lacks? Really?). Let's face it, this past year has been rife with topics for ample discussion, almost more so than the previous year, what with a Democratic congress and the anti-Christ in the Oval Office and all. And yet getting the motivation to post something here or elsewhere has been my major bar to blog-worthy productivity. But then it struck me: I joined Facebook this year.

For those of you who don't use it (good for you!), Facebook allows one to post "status messages" that are visible to a select group of people, typically one's "Facebook friends". For those that actively participate in Facebooking, these status messages represent, for many, the lifeblood of the activity. Many people simply use the status updates to give a short, trite explanation of what they're doing or how they're feeling at that exact moment: So-and-so is baking his shoes. Who's-her-face is integrating Bessel functions. Joe Somebody has a case of the Mondays. And so on, ad nauseam.

Others, however, like to be a bit more declarative and informative in their status updates. For example, this morning, I posted the following status update:

And there we have the problem. From that one post, which was politically relevant, but both pithy and snarky, I received 20 comments in one afternoon. In short, I received all the adulation (such as it is) that blogging garners me, without having to write an in-depth, well-thought-out blog post, and I know it was viewed by many of my "friends", which I can't guarantee in the blog world since such posts would be in the wild-and-woolly blogosphere rather than the nice, contained format of Facebook status updates.

And this is a bad thing, I think.

See, before Facebook, an idea would pop in my head: a witty observation, a clever turn of phrase, a silly remark, etc. With no immediate outlet, that idea would marinate in my brain for awhile, accreting to itself more heft, until the idea turned into an itch. This itch would make itself known to my fingers, who would then go and type it up on the blog. But in the Facebook era, the glimmer itself has the outlet of the status update: and thus, my ideas never get the chance to mature into full posts, remaining in their larval stage.

What is the resolution to this conundrum? I'm not sure. I think I might be verging toward New Year's Resolution territory here. Perhaps I will self-impose a ban on putting anything meaningful in my status updates, to force myself to blog more. Perhaps I'll allow myself to update my status, but only AFTER a blog about the topic. Maybe I should pimp my blog more on my facebook page. But after it's all said and done, I should probably commit something into print so as to be held accountable for my productivity, so: I hereby solemnly swear that I shall put forth some amount of effort into considering the possibility of attempting to reverse the precipitous decline in my blogging output in some manner consistent with my own personal principles, notwithstanding any foreseen or unforeseen circumstances which may or may not hinder said effort. And that's a promise you can take to the bank!

Extreme Shepherding

2009-12-09T11:36:00.009-05:00

At a former job, my boss was a Kiwi of Irish ancestry. He and I were discussing international stereotypes, and I asked him what type of American jokes they told. One of the two most common stereotypes was as John Wayne type cowboys, which I absolutely can live with even though I understand the sentiment to be action without thought. The other stereotype was sort of a Las Vegas, lavish excess lifestyle, which I can understand and agree with.

He then asked me what type of jokes we might tell about Kiwis. I told him that since most of us think New Zealand and Australia are basically the same place, and both places are just part of the British Empire, most of the jokes involved sheep. He humorously told me that he does not judge my orientation, and it is baaaaaad that I judge his.

If this video is for real: Extreme Shepherding, I have an entirely new respect for shepherds of the Empire.

The Last Straw

2009-12-01T19:28:00.002-05:00

I have not written in almost a year, but this really pisses me off. I heard it first from Brother Glenn at Fox. In a nut shell, Obama been Lyin' held a press conference last week to announce that he would be holding a prime time press conference, scheduled for tonight, to reveal and explain (justify) his overdue plan for Afghanistan. That is fine and dandy even though he will not tell any truths while he talks, but he is preempting A Charlie Brown Christmas.

This is a beloved classic as we all know, but more importantly, it presents the Gospel, even quoting Scripture, in popular culture. It is the one time each year the Good News does a Navy SEAL infiltration into the houses and brains of the masses. For all of the children of parents who shield them from the Truth, this may be their only chance to have a question planted into their not yet jaded little minds that compels them to ask the right person, "Who was born in the City of David, and what was so special about Him?"

To quote a fraternity brother of mine (he was there way before I was), "You're a mean one, Mister Grinch." I realize that I am not anywhere near the first to tie those two cartoons together on this, but it really fits.

32 Flavors of AWESOME.

2009-01-20T10:22:00.002-05:00

Robert Ferrigno, author of Prayers of the Assassin, occasionally writes some scathing satirical fiction for NRO. His fantasy meeting between BHO and GWB, here, is one of the funniest things I've read in a good long while. Just one of the many, many great lines:

W. waited for Biden to leave. The veep-in-training tried to slam the door, but it had weighted gimbals so that it closed gently. Clinton had the gimbals installed during his first term when Hillary had cracked the door-frame twice in one week.

But, as usual, read the whole thing.

It's Not News, It's CNN!

2009-01-15T15:47:00.002-05:00

Author's note: this post was originally going to appear at Mazurland, but Marty's most recent post (which I saw as I was visiting the site to write the post) got me so ass-about-face that I decided to put it here instead. Take THAT!

So CNN presumably tells a reporter that they really want to drive home the story that the economy is in the tank, and the average American is totally screwed, redeemable only by the Obamessiah and his forthcoming ~~Socialist New World Order~~ "jobs program". Said reporter then probably decides that trying to find a nice sad-sack sob story of someone who lost their job because of the terrible economy, and is forced to subsist on meager government assistance and ramen noodles while they fruitlessly search for nonexistent jobs would be the best way to go about this. Typical awesome "journalism" that you might learn in a fancy college program that no lousy plumber could ever hope to accomplish, to be sure.

Anywho, said CNN reporter, a dynamo by the name of Jim Spellman, goes out and finds one Laura Glick, who the lede indicates was earning "six figures" before the downturn and now is hoping to get by on a "$7/hr job". But the devil, as they say, is in the details. The first flag to be raised: what was this magical job? She was a mortgage broker.

This should pretty much end the story right there. So somebody who made a lot of money during an economic boom which was based on unsound and predatory lending practices... made that money lending that very same money? And I'm supposed to feel sorry that the boom is over and she's out of a job?

But it gets better. In her misery, she has been without a job for seven months. Seven months! Why, because no one will pay her six figures to put people in homes they don't deserve and can't afford? I can understand the shock of finding your industry obsolete, but seriously, does it take you seven months to realize that "any job" is better than "no job"?

Oh, and she's on government assistance. $1400/month, apparently, in Colorado somewhere. I lived in Seattle-freakin'-Washington not THAT long ago on $1200/month. I paid my rent, I ate my food, I managed all my own personal expenses for that amount. Maybe rent has gone up, but maybe she's living beyond her means, meager though they may be.

And how has this downturn in her life impacted her lifestyle? From the article: "To get by she has stopped eating out, given up cigarettes and has stopped taking her pets to the vet for regular checkups." Well holy crap on a crap cracker, we've really hit rock bottom when we have to stop taking our pets to the vet for regular checkups!!! And notice the plural: how much better would you get by without paying for their food every month? And cigarettes? Not your precious life-shortening heavily taxed drug of choice, no! How on earth will you get by with healthier breathing, a longer lifespan, and a cleaner bloodstream? And the poor, poor woman, as if her pink lungs and unmonitored pet-health weren't a steep-enough price to pay -- now she can no longer afford to pay someone else to cook her meals for her! Oh tragedy of tragedies, the economy has truly sunk lower than the greatest of all depressions!

Seriously, CNN. If you're going to continue to peddle the doom-and-gloom (presumably to make way for the all-hail-the-Barachrist story on the first faint sign of an economic uptick), at least try. Maybe you can find a family that actually had to sell their SUVs, or move to a house that has fewer bedrooms than occupants, or something. But trying to make me feel sorry for a woman who was the cause of the problem in the first place, and got screwed? Not gonna work.

That Time of Year Again

2009-01-08T11:29:00.002-05:00

Once again it's that hallowed time of the year when we celebrate the birthday of a certain someone whose very existence has changed the world for the better (a healthy and hale 31 years, thanks for asking!). Also, something about Elvis Presley. In celebration of that lesser thing, Glenn Reynolds links to an article he wrote some time ago about how Elvis Presley Saved The World From Fascism. The gist is that before Elvis came along and dominated all forms of media, the only way to dress up in funny clothes, see a great light show, listen to somebody who was a master behind the microphone and feel that you were apart of something greater than yourself was to be a fascist. It's worth a read; I think the only tangent he really misses is the tendency of the very "artists" who provide such alternate forms of group-unity expression to support the very fascist regimes that Elvis supposedly "conquered" (or at least averted).

Congratulations Ben!

2009-01-02T18:23:00.003-05:00

The youngster said that I had to wait until he had a boy for this one. Since his woman is a Mexican, and he is a Mexican't, Ike is most properly referred to as a MexiBen.

Congratulations. I am very happy for our family.

I Has A Son!

2009-01-02T12:23:00.004-05:00

Isaac Leopoldo Thompson, born at 8:45 a.m. this very day, weighing in at 2184 drams, and measuring 5,397,000,000 angstroms in length from head to toe! Behold:

Mother and child are doing wonderfully. Father is a bit tired, but obviously alert enough to blog and convert into obscure units of measure.

T-I-S-N-F

2008-12-24T08:50:00.006-05:00

Comments about the 'upgrade' to Windows Vista are plentiful. Microsoft discontinued a workable platform (NT/2000) and replaced it with something with so many bugs in it that are still not worked out after a couple of years. It really is enough to make one consider switching to a Mac.

I regret to inform you that Mac has now discontinued a vital application for their wonderful iPhone. I guess I will stick with the PC a bit longer.

Comment About Ben's Previous Posts that Needs to be its Own Post Because it is Big.

2008-12-18T12:40:00.001-05:00

I was actually working on a similar couple of posts this week. Thanks for scooping me.

We went to Saddleback for several months after we first moved to CA seeing as how it was about a mile from our apartment and (theoretically) similar to our home church back in Little Rock. Rick Warren generally preaches the Word, but you do have to wade through stuff about himself to get to the Word. Without sounding too harsh, it seems that he has been grooming himself for the inauguration prayer and cozying up to Obama, anticipating an Obama victory since well before Hillary Clinton even announced her candidacy to run for the Democratic nomination. This was seen with his warm invitation to and even more heartfelt introduction of Obama at Rev. Warren's own personal international AIDS day summit at Saddleback Church a couple of years ago.

I agree that it appears this leader within the Evangelical Right seems to embrace the left and give the appearance of endorsement of Obama to lemming voters who "lack the skills for critical self-reflection and investigation of the actual issues".

When (I think) O'Reilly interviewed Warren about the Saddleback Debate, Bill asked if Rick gave anything away to McCain prior to McCain's time on stage. Warren commented that, if anything, he let something slip to Obama prior to show time. My thought at the time was that in order to appear 'impartial' he actually had to cozy up to the left.

I hope the youngster (Ben) is right three posts below. I hope God has touched Obama's heart and that he is truly heading to the center or even right. God does place the leaders, even the wicked ones, in power for His purposes. If a Christian Evangelical leader has the ear of a liberal President, so much the better. I hope that both men examine their hearts and motives for Rick Warren praying at the inauguration. I hope that it will lead the hard of heart to Christ by opening their eyes to the word of God.

Last Post On This, I Promise

2008-12-18T11:55:00.004-05:00

But my fingers may be crossed. Anywho, "Atrios" of strident, hard-core lefty Eschaton blog (HT Instapundit) has declared Barack Hussein Obama to be his "Wanker of the Day" (don't you love it when pretentious American twits use Britishisms to sound clever? Bollocks, I say!) in response to the Rick Warren announcement. And the best part? Read the comments to that declaration. A short sampling (all asterisks mine, of course, as it's a well known fact that the left is devoid of any capacity at linguistic restraint or self-censoring):

im done with obama.
i hope we have better luck in 4 years.
euphronius Jenkins | 12.17.08 - 2:48 pm | #

and:

Obama's sucking Warren's c*** is probably the major reason I was never a completely enthusiastic supporter.

F*** you, Barack.
dave™© | Homepage | 12.17.08 - 2:51 pm | #

and:

I just removed myself from any and all Moveon, Plouffe and other campaign email lists. That's it. Has he learned nothing from the GOP announcements of plans to fight Obama tooth and nail? I'm done. Not another dime to the inauguration or anything else.
TK | 12.17.08 - 2:52 pm | #

and:

BTW, Atrios, it took Rick Warren to finally give Obama wanker status?

Not Larry Summers, or Salazar, or Gates, or Jones, etc.?

No, those weren't outrageous enough...
Elias | 12.17.08 - 2:56 pm | #

and the Stockholm Syndrome Award goes to:

Rick f***ing Warren.

Oh, and f*** you, Elias. Twice, b****.

Obama was and is better than anyone else running, and certainly better than any Republican living, to damn with faint praise. I have no problem with that.

That being said, he's a big fan of telling his left to f*** off and die.
~
Meander | Homepage | 12.17.08 - 2:58 pm | #

Seriously, as of this writing, there are well over 500 replies to Atrios' post, and they range from denial to bummed out to frothing at the mouth, with lots of cognitive dissonance at every level. Great way to kill some time with glee if you're bored!

The Silver Lining

2008-12-18T09:33:00.003-05:00

In my last post, I commented on Obama's choice of Rick Warren to lead the invocation at his inauguration. It occurs to me that there is one, genuine upside to the whole thing, regardless of either man's intentions: it completely defangs the whole "anti-proposition-8" backlash. Think about it: any time one of those people throws a hissy fit and tries to boycott a business or smear an individual because of that business's or person's support of prop 8, the response will always be "well, Obama picked a huge prop-8 booster to invoke his God at the inauguration. You gonna boycott the Democratic Party now?" Just make sure to wear protective equipment for when their heads explode.

In the current political climate, I need as many silver linings as I can get.

Political Theater At Its Crassest

2008-12-18T08:42:00.003-05:00

Obama has asked Saddleback Church Pastor Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his (His?) inauguration in January, and if I'm reading the reports correctly, Rick Warren has agreed to this. Without any other information but what I already know, this lowers my opinion of both men.

Rick Warren, as most of you probably know, is ostensibly an evangelical pastor of a very large megachurch in Southern California, and author of The Purpose Driven Life, a well-reputed and oft-studied (at least at evangelical churches) book based on Christian principles. Most recently, he was the host of the Saddleback Debate Forum, at which John McCain and Barack Obama were both asked the same set of questions, separate from each other, and put on the spot for direct answers.

Anywho, Rick Warren is, to his credit, outspoken against both gay marriage and abortion. The former actually surprises me a little, as it seems that opposition to gay marriage is the first to suffer from defenestration when erstwhile evangelicals want to "cross the aisle", so to speak (Ted Haggard, call your office). But my one major complaint about Pastor Warren, up until now, is that he has given the appearance that he enjoys (and seeks) the limelight just a little bit too much. This latest incident only strengthens that assessment. And Barack Hussein Obama, as we all know, is about as far-left on abortion as one can be without actually performing them in front of an audience at birthdays and bar-mitzvahs free of charge. His stance on gay marriage is a bit more "nuanced", as the left likes to describe inconsistent and electorally-motivated stances. But nevertheless, it's safe to say that the Big Gay Homo Community has a sympathetic ear in our president-elect.

What do they have in common? Well, Pastor Warren is very much a "bleeding heart evangelical" -- which may not be a bad thing, really -- in the sense that he prioritizes certain issues that orthodox conservatives tend not to: HIV/AIDS in Africa (as opposed to the bathhouses of San Francisco), the environment, the poor, etc. All of these things we are called as Christians to support, so I can't fault him for that (I think I could write a whole post on this, and perhaps I will). So I think each man perceives a kindred spirit in the other, but perhaps for erroneous reasons.

But again, it is yet another manifestation of the Obama Temptation to be okay with this. Because, again, it all boils down to support for the man, as opposed to support for the office. Rick Warren is in no way obligated to perform the invocation for Obama. But by agreeing to do so, he effectively affixes his imprimatur to the Obama Presidency, as if to say "Hey, Evangelical Christians, it's okay to like this guy".

And, please forgive me, Lord, if I am wrong, but I can't help but believe that this is the exact reason for Obama's choice. He says "hey, Bible-thumping fundies, I picked your #1 celebrity to do my inauguration, so you can trust me!" And many, many gullible dupes, who go to church every Sunday and vote Republican only because their gut (and maybe pastor) tells them to, but lack the skills for critical self-reflection and investigation of the actual issues, will internalize that message, and Obama will have his loyal "bipartisan" army.

Maybe I'm wrong. I am, quite literally, praying that I am. Maybe Pastor Warren had a great heart-to-heart with Obama, and Obama has now seen the light on abortion. Maybe this is a shot across the bow, Obama declaring that his true sympathies now lay (lie? I never get that right) on the right sight of the aisle with regard to genuinely moral issues. If that were the case, as I've said before, it would devastate the two-party system, because it would probably flip a supermajority of the Right's base of "values voters" (ooh, another whole post -- the ramifications and subsequent axial tilt/paradigm shift of such a split!). Alternately, maybe Rick Warren views this as an opportunity to sermonize and rebuke from "the belly of the beast", so to speak. Maybe he will give a rousing, revivalist invocation that will sear the souls of all who hear it, and enrage everyone on the left for decades to come. Either one of those would be an excellent outcome.

But my gut tells me that it's two powerful men seeking to exploit each other. Please, God, let my gut be wrong.

Crap on a Cracker

2008-12-15T10:29:00.003-05:00

Socrates --via Plato--discussed piety and questioned the source of piety. Does something become pious because the gods love it, or do the gods love something because it is already pious?

I seek to modernize, commercialize, and appetize this mystery. Are certain foods considered a prized delicacy because they are expensive, or are delicacies expensive because they are truly tasty? Is it really good, or do we just like stuff because it is 'uppity'?

For the record, I began writing this post before the youngster wrote his previous one.

We will begin with the crustaceans. First up: lobster. It is generally the money item at fine restaurants everywhere. It is a cliche' when picturing an extravagant banquet. Surprisingly, as late as the early 20th century, it was considered the food of the poor. Household servants would specify in their employment contracts a maximum number of lobster dinners per week from their aristocratic employers. They preferred chicken. With this kind of history, it is amazing that you will pay $20 for around 6-oz. of tail meat when you buy a live lobster out of the tank at Kroger. Don't folks realize that it is just a big cockroach from the ocean?

What about oysters? They are little joyful bundles of sputum that live in the mud of polluted bays everywhere. They are known to transmit diseases to diners who consume them raw. They eat poop!

Have you ever seen the water that blue crabs are pulled from? I have. They are the kind of waters that good old Milorad slithered out of. It is no wonder that YHWH put them on the non-kosher list. Crustaceans are just gross.

Yet I can't get enough of them. I have yet to find one that truly disgusts me. I have eaten some bad oysters in my life, but that has not turned me away from them. Why do I like them? Why do I like the various marine cockroaches so much? I may have developed a taste for them over time, but what initially piqued my interest? It would have to be the exclusivity of it. I have grown to enjoy exotic foods, but as a youngster I was not as discriminating. I would eat such things more as a sign of status than for the purest of gastronomic pleasures. I would especially enjoy ordering lobster on my birthday just to annoy the youngster and make him jealous.

Sushi. Again, I can't get enough of it. By all appearances, it is disgusting with respect to pre-1990's American attitudes. Children are repulsed at the very idea of eating raw fish, or any raw meat for that matter. It is instinct to avoid those foods. I also can easily spend $40 or more just by myself at a sushi bar in Evansville, Indiana.

Pâté. I can pass this up. The liver scrubs toxins out of your system. Eating liver is akin to eating the filter from your air conditioner after your family just got over coughing Ebola during a particularly moldy, yet dry summer in Rhodesia. It does not come from free-range geese in the pure Canadian north, it comes from farm raised FRENCH geese who wallow in mud and puddles frequented by pigs, and the FRENCH.

I won't even get into all of the stuff that Andrew Zimmern chokes down each week.

Here is what I propose as the next stage in the evolution of cutting edge cuisine: Scâté. I am not talking about the greenish pile that hoovers* around the solidus/liquidus line of a phase diagram when a cow gets into some bad snake weed at a Superfund site. I am talking about a finely cultivated product that comes only from the hind end of an estrous Arabian mare two evacuations after feasting on a live patch of Kentucky bluegrass growing between the various sprouts and leafy plants lovingly hand raised only in Martha Stewart's very own private herb garden under a full moon after the last frost prior to the budding of the Bradford pear trees in the South. This stuff is going to be huge. The cost will be such that it will be cheap by comparison to shave white truffle over your Caesar salad at Romano's Macaroni Grill like it was the complimentary Parmesan cheese or fresh ground black pepper. The standard preparation will also involve capers and possibly a dash of anise extract for both flavor and medicinal/aphrodisiac effect. It will of course be served on matzoh lightly sprinkled with kosher salt and bitter herbs.

Will people buy it? The Emperor bought his new clothes for an exorbitant price. If it is expensive, it must be good. Once a bargain version of scâté arrives, the thrill will be gone, but until then, at $2750 for a 2.2-oz. loaf (the standard serving), rappers everywhere will be pouring (spreading?) this over their hoochies in their videos like is was mere Cristal.

Bigger News

2008-12-12T19:15:00.004-05:00

Tonight, I purchased, at the crazy-low price of $6.99/lb (thanks, Mr. Wegman!), three live maine lobsters, and cooked 'em up and ate 'em. I wish I were a photo-food-blogger, as then I would have had the foresight to photograph them and post pictures. Turns out the key to awesomeness is to steam them in water with a highers salinity than the lobster itself, to prevent osmosis leaching the precious salty fluids from the lobsters. ~~Fan-lobster-tastic~~ Lobstrawesomeness (ed. -- thought of a better word after the fact) was the result! In celebration, a relevant video:

Oh, and something about having a baby boy in probably the next day or two.

Big News

2008-12-12T17:42:00.002-05:00

The youngster is soon to submit some good news that will trump this, but for the record:

I am now a licensed Professional Geologist in the State of Kentucky!!!!

Oh yeah, and Ben is about to have a baby boy.

If We All Had Grace Like This...

2008-12-10T10:43:00.002-05:00

The primary living "victim" of the F-18 crash in southern California (victim by way of having his wife, two children, and mother-in-law perish because of the crash), a man named Don Yun Yoon, has already forgiven the pilot and, from the article,

"I pray for him not to suffer for this action," Yoon said at a news conference, according to The Los Angeles Times. "I know he's one of our treasures for our country."

It came as no surprise to me when I read that blurb that Mr. Yoon is a Christian, and certainly, this is just about the greatest witness to the grace of Jesus Christ that I have observed in a very long time. This is particularly underscored by the fact that I have spent the last two weeks during my daily readings on the book of Job. Indeed, while Job, a righteous man who lost his family, his wealth, his living, and his health, most notably never curses God, he certainly spends a great deal of time questioning Him, and even doubting Him. But the whole point of the book is to demonstrate not God's caprice, but the way in which God may be glorified by both the success and the suffering of even His most faithful servants.

If Mr. Yoon can have the grace to forgive, and not even blame the pilot for this tragedy, then few of us can ever find cause to resent our fellow man. God bless you, Mr. Yoon, and may His Spirit grant you comfort and peace in the coming days. Amen.

When Liberals "Do" Religion

2008-12-08T09:06:00.003-05:00

Mark Hemingway over at the Corner posts a link to a Newsweek article by "Newsweek's Religion Reporter Lisa Miller", on the supposed "Religious Case for Gay Marriage". Just from that alone, one could probably expect great things, but oh, it gets better. From the aforementioned Newsweek piece:

Let's try for a minute to take the religious conservatives at their word and define marriage as the Bible does. Shall we look to Abraham, the great patriarch, who slept with his servant when he discovered his beloved wife Sarah was infertile? Or to Jacob, who fathered children with four different women (two sisters and their servants)? Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon and the kings of Judah and Israel—all these fathers and heroes were polygamists. The New Testament model of marriage is hardly better. Jesus himself was single and preached an indifference to earthly attachments—especially family. The apostle Paul (also single) regarded marriage as an act of last resort for those unable to contain their animal lust. "It is better to marry than to burn with passion," says the apostle, in one of the most lukewarm endorsements of a treasured institution ever uttered. Would any contemporary heterosexual married couple—who likely woke up on their wedding day harboring some optimistic and newfangled ideas about gender equality and romantic love—turn to the Bible as a how-to script?

Mr. Hemingway does an excellent job of destroying the little blurb about Jesus in there, and you should click on the first link if you're curious (long story short: how can marriage between a man and a woman be meaningless, Biblically speaking, if the ultimate metaphor for the Christian church is as the Bride of Christ?).

But it's the references to the patriarchs and kings that really chap my hide. This is frequently a tactic of liberals who have no understanding of Scripture whatsoever, or even really religion in general: that they point to something in the Bible that paints our religious forebears in a negative light, and use this to discredit Christianity as a whole. And the target is always Christianity. Somehow the black marks don't impugn their Jewish friends; and never will you see a quote done up by some MSM "Religion Expert" from, say, the Koran, painting Mohamed (Propeller Beanies Upon Him) as the violent pedophile that he was.

My particularly favorite example of this tactic comes not from some MSM source, but from a book of historic quotations that we were expected to use in my highschool freshman English course for a writing assignment. Apropos of nothing, it provides the following quote in a section with the heading "happiness": "Happy the one who takes and dashes your little ones against the rock! -- The Bible". That's right. Didn't even provide chapter and verse. Just "The Bible." Wow! The Bible says we should all go out and smash our children against rocks! This must be religious justification for abortion, right? (Aside: even the most jaded abortion proponent would never use this approach, as it gives up the lie that abortion is, indeed, murder, which would just give rise to all sorts of uncomfortable comparisons between heroic abortionists and craven babykilling military personnel). Never mind that this quote, from Psalm 137, is a scathing indictment of the people of Babylon (about whom the Psalmist believes the verse applies).

Perhaps the example I've cited is an extreme one, meant only to malign the reputation of Scripture, and subsequently its adherents. But the tactic is the same in the article I've linked. The Bible, indeed, records that Abraham slept with his servant when his wife seemed infertile. And his action was immediately rebuked by God, and spawned millennia of trouble for his descendants. Solomon's relationship with his hundreds of wives was presented in a negative light. David's biggest sin involved his relations with women, in particular Bathsheba and her husband Uriah, for which David was mightily chastised, not even being permitted to build the temple for his God as a result.

Indeed, Scripture makes it clear that God's ideal is one man and one woman, united for life. Deviations from that ideal, which Scripture records in great plenitude, always result in suffering and punishment in one way or another. But this is indicative of what happens when, as my title indicates, liberals try to "do" religion -- they invariably get it wrong, often in innocuous ways, but more frequently in ways that conveniently support some absurd position that is in actuality antithetical to the very message of the Bible.

From the Social Gospel to Black Liberation Theology (which is a very short distance indeed), from bizarre contortions of scripture to justify everything under the sun from abortion to euthanasia, from gun control to gay marriage, liberals who have no grasp on actual meaning make themselves look foolish (except of course to other liberals, who routinely mistake the foolishness for wisdom) whenever they do this. What appear to me like simple and straightforward narratives of disobedience to God followed by stern reproof are taken by these fools as license to all sorts of absurd and immoral behavior. And thus, I am able to understand passages like this one in perhaps even a broader context than originally intended:

FOR THE HEART OF THIS PEOPLE HAS BECOME DULL,
WITH THEIR EARS THEY SCARCELY HEAR,
AND THEY HAVE CLOSED THEIR EYES,
OTHERWISE THEY WOULD SEE WITH THEIR EYES,
HEAR WITH THEIR EARS,
AND UNDERSTAND WITH THEIR HEART AND RETURN,
AND I WOULD HEAL THEM.'

That's from Matthew 13:15, quoting Isaiah 6:10, with regard to Isaiah's predictions of the Messiah, and Israel's subsequent rejection of Him. But somehow, I think it applies here as well -- people have, either through conscious decision or lifestyle choice, closed their eyes and ears to obvious truths, and instead gain precisely the opposite conclusion than that which was intended from God's Word.

Silly liberals. Please, just stop trying to "do" religion. You're only making it worse for yourselves.

Obama been Lyin', But That's Kool

2008-12-08T00:04:00.000-05:00

I am not saying that politicians are compulsive liars, but they are compulsive non-truth tellers. It seems to extend far beyond just covering things up that are bad. They simply can not utter a truthful statement to save their lives. An easy example is the 'Snipergate' incident with that broad (this is what came up in Wikipedia when I entered snipergate as if it was THE key word for her run) back earlier in the year . She had no reason to even bring it up, yet she did, and it was exposed as the fabrication that it was, and it cost her. She compulsively had to say something false that would give her, at best, no gain, and at worst, a[nother] black mark on her integrity quotient (IQ of a politician). But that is not the point of this entry.

This is. First off, why have I not seen 'Obama been Lyin' printed or said anywhere yet? Am I really that good. (The previous sentance was ended with a . instead of a ? on purpose). Too the point: While being interviewed (hey, look at that, I actually referenced a 'credible' source), Obama been Lyin' was questioned about his smoking. Brokaw specifically asks, "Have you stopped smoking?" OBL replies, "You know, I have, but ...".

In order for OBL's implied 'yes' answer to Brokaw's question to be truthful, OBL must redefine what 'yes' implies, hence the "but".

OBL continues, "...what I said was that, you know, there are times where I've fallen off the wagon." I know that if you are in AA and have a drink, you have to turn in your sobriety chips, and your initial sobriety date resets. Therefore, you were a practicing alcoholic fully up to that date. I believe that this applies to quitting smoking as well.

Brokaw then goes on to say, "Well, wait a minute. Then that means you haven't stopped."

Obama been Lyin's reply is, "Well, the--fair enough." HE DIDN'T SAY YES!!! He semi-capitulated without actually agreeing. Slick. He is one Kool customer.

He goes on to say how terrific he is due to his own efforts. He also implies that the circumstances that he is under are too much for him to do his truthful best.

Obama been Lyin' then concludes this line of question with, "...and I think that you will not see any violations of these rules in the White House." This refers to Madam First Lady Clinton's Executive Order in 1993 banning smoking on White House grounds (what did her husband end up doing with a cigar?). If OBL can't even be firm with his 'yes', what does that tell us about his 'I think'?

I am not at all protesting smoking in this post. I do have a problem when your habit makes me stink, but when out of the line of fire, it is your choice. I implied that OBL smokes Kools because he is partially African American. That is just buying into a racial sterotype. On FOX News this morning, they commented that they believe OBL smokes Marlboros (though probably still menthols). Interestingly enough, it is a fact that there are coded messages within this brand that clearly illustrate some of OBL's intentions. One such is his true stance on Israel. When read upside down and backwards, the title, as printed on the pack, is a homonym for horrible Jew (seriously, one of my fraternity brothers at Tulane who is Jewish pointed this out to me). Next, the Latin phrase in the coat of arms is clearly a reference to OBL's Caesar-like imperial ambitions.

Subtle Hints

2008-12-06T09:45:00.004-05:00

I might just be really paranoid about the political sinister and its influence on all popular culture. You may decide for yourselves. I just witnessed a Pillsbury commercial that by extension appears to be a subtle hint that acceptance of the 'alternative' throughout all seasons of life is the down-home, warm and cozy thing to do.

The commercial series is entitled Home is Calling. It has the full version as linked, but I unfortunately first viewed a clip version featuring a young boy in a library, including extended scenes. That was my first and lasting impression. It features this male child closing his eyes, leaning his head back, and clicking his heels three times. It implies that he is thinking "There's no place like home" just as the young Ms. Gale did in 1939. The viewer is then flashed to a presumably holiday dining table with piping-hot biscuits or crescent rolls as the centerpiece.

The full version features equal numbers of males and females. The oldest female is college age, but only one of the males is a juvenile. Two of the males are apparently under 40 metrosexual businessmen wearing heinous shoes. The 4th male is a grandfatherly factory worker. The younger 3 males tend towards slightly effeminate, where as the oldest male is benign at best, but definitely not ruggedly masculine.

I am stretching a bit with the females, but there is subtle imagery with them as well. One is a professional, young, skirt wearing lassie who sets us at ease. The next is a cute high school aged girl waiting at a train platform in the snow. The click of her heels, however, is the first sign of trouble. The next female is a short haired college student being indoctrinated with ideas fostered in an academic environment. The final female representation is a primary school aged girl in a prep-school uniform standing, essentially alone, on the front steps of her school. She is very serious, even ambitious in her expression and movement while alone, yet, in the end, disarming when in the presence of others. She is the most obvious metaphor of the females.

The links that I have infused tell the sub story. Am I a hater, or am I a prophet?

Betty Crocker Cut the Cheese and it Stinks!

2008-12-05T10:22:00.009-05:00

Theoretically, when you change a commercial product, you do it to improve it. I guess you might also do it to improve efficiency, but when it comes to food, I do not want efficient. I want 'good'.

My wife and I have a number of 'ritual meals' that we do which are tasty and easy to fix and require a minimal number of items to purchase, or can be made from items that will be used in other meals as well. These meals are done on such nights that we either get home late, or have something to do later in the evening (our church group on Wednesday for example).

One such meal is BLT's and pasta salad. We usually have L and T around for other meals including but not limited to tacos, Cobb salad, side salads and similar concoctions. Bread is a staple item, and mustard and mayo are always in the fridge. Bacon is one of my favorite vegetables and is always present as well. The only specialty item that we purchase specifically for the meal is the pasta salad. We really like the Betty Crocker kind that comes with pasta and veggies, dressing mix and topping. We supply only water and olive oil. There are two versions that we regularly use, the Classic, and the Caesar (which should actually be called the Cesar', but I digress).

The Caesar was our favorite. It came with green and white pasta, dehydrated mushrooms, the dressing mix, and toppings in separate packets: croutons and Parmesan cheese. Everything combined to make a delightful dining experience. The 'moist maker' of the concoction are the croutons. These are not the buttery-crispy ones that you get at Outback. They are actually small and have a stale-like hardness to them. The genius is the juxtaposed texture when consumed in the first few minutes of dining. You have the soft pasta with the satisfying crouton crunch in the center. It is kind of like putting Fritos on a turkey sandwich.

The first sign of trouble in paradise was when the mushrooms disappeared from the recipe. It was then that I realized that they too made this a unique dish. The second harbinger was the combination of the croutons and Parmesan cheese into one envelope. I liked to thoroughly mix the Parm into the salad and then sprinkle the croutons separately over each individual serving so that they remained crisp. If mixed into the whole bowl, they loose their crispness by the second helping. The third sign was the disappearance of the product from store shelves.

We decided that we could survive this. We enjoyed the Classic version nearly as much, so we just went with that. It came with the pasta, the dressing mix, a separate packet containing dehydrated peppers and olives, and a packet of Parm (sans croutons). The pasta came in the three colors of the Eyetalian flag and was pleasing to the eye. The veggies added depth to the texture. The dressing was a bit tangier than the Caesar, but good none the less. The Parm, when thoroughly mixed with prepared pasta, soaked up any pooled dressing allowing it to adhere to the pasta.

I do not remember the specific day or instant like I remember November 4, 2008 (wait, that isn't right), November 4, 2008 (that was probably a little over the line), November 4, 2008 (getting warmer), November 4, 2008 (there it is), but when I opened the box, the olives were gone, the dehydrated bell peppers were integrated with the pasta, and that f****** b**** c*** Betty f****** Crocker had cut the m************ Parme m************san cheese out of the recipe s********p********q********r********!!!!

I think that it was a bad day to begin with, and that just capped it off. Why make things worse? Why take the goodness out of little things? Why decrease quality?

About a year and a half later, at a Target store in Foothill Ranch, CA, my wife and I were shopping and we noticed several boxes of the Caesar Salad version on a shelf. Oh joy! Could this be a fluke? Let us not take the chance. We bought the 5 remaining boxes and took them home. That very evening was to be a BLT and pasta salad dinner anyway. I stormed into the kitchen like Ralphie with his prize. I tore open the package, and there it was. It had the pasta (sans mushrooms, but I already knew that). It had the dressing packet. It had!!! That was all that was in there. There was no Parm, no croutons, no other envelopes in the box. I actually opened 2 more of the boxes that we bought just to make sure. What made the Caesar variety special was that stinking pack of croutons and Parmesan cheese. Betty Crocker, you did it to me again.

p.s.

The dressing mix recipe changed too and it sucks.

We have all had little disappointments perpetrated by the man that alone are insignificant, but together can really create a serious problem. What are yours?

Obama Is The Death of Funny

2008-12-02T15:00:00.002-05:00

Before the election, or more importantly, before the Age of Obama, it was very easy to satirize the empty suit that was running for president on the Democratic ticket. How easy? Even I could manage it! There was so much fodder: his absurd lack of experience, his absurd radical ties, his absurdly leftward leanings... well, you get the picture: he was an absurd man.

But now he's the President-Elect of this country. With Slow Joe Biden as the Vice President-Elect. With Hillary "My main qualification was being the wife of a crappy president" Clinton as Secretary of State. Is it still an absurd situation? Yes. But it's gone from comically absurd to gravely absurd, and I'm not sure what it means for the eventual fate of this country.

My point is this: what was once funny-because-it-could-never happen is now terribly not-funny-because-it-did-happen. Seriously. I've been sitting here, trying to rekindle the old Obama-satire magic, and I draw a blank. Now, I think, I understand the media and talk-show-host reluctance to poke fun, however lightly, at their Anointed One. In their minds, well before the election, his ascension was already a reality. QED, they were unable to make fun of him due to the gravity of the situation. Now that the virtual reality in their minds has reified into The Office Of The President-Elect, I am in the same boat, albeit for different reasons.

Wait a second... Office Of The President Elect... absurd presumption that such a thing exists or has any power... hmmm... maybe there's something there... stay tuned...

Hate the Hater Haters.

2008-12-02T13:15:00.000-05:00

I moved from Southern California to Louisville, KY about a year ago. I really miss California even with all of its peccadilloes that just simply piss me off. It is the state of anti-freedom liberties. I am sure that in the future, I will comment on them, but this issue is in the news, so I will comment.

Opponents of Proposition 8 lost 48% to 52%. People showed up and performed their civic duty. They made their choice. The losers are sore. I can relate to that in that goodness in our nation was also defeated by a similar margin in the Presidential election and an even greater margin in the legislative bodies of this once and future great nation. I would like to storm welfare offices and university faculty offices across the nation to protest the lies and hate that have given us the government that we deserve (same link as previous).

On to the point. From what I have read, it is mainly the LGBT community who has singled out the LDS as the primary benefactor and catalyst for the pro-prop-8 victory. That is, 10% blames 1.9% for 52%. Certain deviant behavior rights activists have called for a boycott of anything LDS, including the Sundance Film Festival simply because it is near Salt Lake City.

As I recall, back in the 1930's, a political group was having problems and decided to focus the blame on a specific group to shift blame from the real issues. By blaming a small but visible group for all of the ills of society the rest of us can unite as one people and overcome the hatred of the few. We cure hatred by focusing our hatred on the haters.

I am comparing the deviant left with the Nazis. Should I write a book called Liberal National Socialists? The People spoke in California. I am truly surprised that Prop-8 passed, but it did, and I am pleased. Now it is up to the state supreme court to decide that the will of the people is unconstitutional and overturn the verified and uncontested popular election results.

I definitely think the LDS have some major theological issues. They are a little nuts from what I have learned on South Park. HOWEVER, they are an important ally in the fight for conservative values. They are an opponent of my enemy and are thus my friend. Therefore, a boycott of them is an offense to me.

That is Chucked Up!

2008-12-01T20:58:00.006-05:00

I really like wine. When I moved to the West Coast and discovered Trader Joe's, my special occasion wine became cheaper than what I marinated with in Arkansas. When I moved from there to Louisville, my wife and I bought several cases of a variety of wines to bring with us. We were bootlegging our way across the USA.

Anybody familiar with Trader Joe's is also familiar with Two Buck Chuck. I am stating the obvious for emphasis. It gets its name because it is $2 per bottle. Actually, it is $1.99 per bottle. Even if it was, say, $2.50 per bottle, its moniker would be relevant. It is not great wine, but it is real wine, not Boone's Farm or Mad Dog 20/20. A Shiraz is a Shiraz, and a Cabernet is a Cabernet. I will not comment on the Chardonnay because my favorite white wine is Corona.

The closest Trader Joe's to Louisville is in Cincinnati. My wife and I noticed that our stash was dangerously close to falling under 20 bottles, so we decided to make a trip north. The store was surprisingly easy to find being only 2 blocks off of the interstate. It was a bitter and wet day, the first bad one of the season for us. On the way we stopped at Skyline for lunch. It was awesome, but more on that later.

We entered the store and were immediately aware that not all was right. The set-up was similar to the new store on the former El Toro MCAS in Irvine. I think it was the general dourness of the patrons that threw us off. It was a chore for them to be there. They were not happy to be buying relatively inexpensive semi exotic items exclusive to Trader Joe's.

We made the usual rounds saving the best for last: the wine. For me it is like childhood when I got to pick out a candy bar at the check out line for being good while mom did the shopping. Not that I was ever good, or ever denied. One thing that I have noticed about non-West Coast Trader Joe's is that the California wines are integrated with the general population and not nearly as abundant and diverse. I observed that because there were a couple of Zinfandels that I was looking for that were not where they should have been, but I digress.

Against the back wall was a large display of the various flavors of 2 buck. Also, there was a sign proclaiming a sale on the house hooch. I thought that was odd, because at $24 per case, they would be losing money just on the cost of the glass bottles and foam 'corks'. It never goes on sale. I then examined the sale price. If a patron bought a case of Two Buck Chuck, they could pay as little as $3.49 per bottle. In a wild stretch of the imagination, a politician could redefine $2.99 as 'Two Buck', but I can not abide by $3.49 as an avatar of 'Two Buck'.

I realized why the patrons of an otherwise happy place were not. They have redefined the new normal. They have taken a term that has a traditional and definable meaning and tailored it to suit their purpose. It is good old Two Buck Chuck even though it is really not. This is kind of a tangential segue to the other post that I have been working on for a couple of days that deals with redefining words with traditional meanings.

I Regret To Inform You

2008-11-27T00:18:00.003-05:00

It is with my sincere apologies that I must inform you all that, as cute as you think your own child is, mine is just that much cuter and more adorable. For proof of this claim, please observe the following:

To Name or Not To Name

2008-11-25T21:37:00.002-05:00

I've been agonizing over a particularly sticky issue regarding my own morning "quiet time" with God lately. Namely (to pardon the pun): naming Him.

I'm currently reading through the Bible in haphazard fashion via the English Standard Version, which does a reasonable job of combining the formal equivalence of the NASB (my old standard) that I love so well with the more lyrical qualities of, say, the KJV. Anywho, like virtually all modern, widely-read English Biblical translations, the word "LORD", in all caps, typically in a different font, appears very often when God is referred to in the Old Testament. Whenever LORD appears in that manner, it means that the original Hebrew indicates the Tetragrammaton, YHWH, the name of God. Turns out, even in their oldest scriptures, the most the ancient Israelites could bring themselves to do was spell out the consonants, always omitting the vowels of that particular word. As a result, there is some debate as to how the name of God should be pronounced, although the vast majority of scholarship has settled on "Yahweh" (for which Wikipedia has a very enlightening article, as it happens).

The best reason I can determine for this YHWH --> LORD substitution is deference to traditional Jewish sensibilities. Apparently, naming God, even in Scripture, runs the risk of breaking the third commandment (second for the bloody Papists in the audience), taking the Lord's name in vain. And frankly, and with all due respect to any Jewish readers (let's face it, my lackluster recent blogging has probably reduced my audience to me, Sam, and a coupla Mazurs, so I'm probably not offending anyone), this is simply not a good enough reason to quite literally deface the entirety of Old Testament scriptures. As a result, I've been training myself to reflexively say "Yahweh" whenever I see "LORD" in the text. As a practice, it's one I recommend, as it has helped me to gain a better feel for God as a specific and personal God, not some nebulous all-powerful Force or something equally undefined.

But I'm not sure if I'm fully justified in this practice. The New Testament, written in Greek, makes heavy use of quotations from the OT, most typically taken directly from the Greek Septuagint version thereof. As a result, neither YHWH or any Greek equivalent ever appears in the NT -- rather, what we see whenever the corresponding passages containing YHWH in the OT are quoted is rendered in the Greek as κυριος, kurios, or Lord. Believing as I do that the NT was as equally inspired by God as the OT, it must be the case then that this construction itself, too, was inspired by God. What I am forced to question, then, is whether God Himself, rather than the Jewish scribes, felt that His name was too sacred to be further rendered and/or pronounced in Scripture.

I do not believe that to be the case, although I cannot rationalize this belief. After all, if He did not want His name known, He would not have inspired the authors of the OT to write it so frequently. So until God shows me otherwise, I will continue to read Yahweh where others read LORD.

Incidentally, of all the various Bible translations in my house (can't have too many!), only one, in which I have spent virtually no time at all, ever renders the Hebrew YHWH as Yahweh -- the Holman Christian Standard Bible. Not exactly a "big league" translation. But useful, although it only does so in scant few places, primarily in Exodus.

2008-11-24T20:24:00.002-05:00

Here I am. The youngster has been begging me to come here for a while now. After joining his 'serious' blog, he has had this bromantic notion that a brotherly blogging buddy, a fraternal philosophy friend, even a sanguinary supposing someone would embiggen his spirit. Hopefully I will make that happen. If not, he will change my password, which he chose in the first place.

I am really not like the boy. I am not into sci-fi. I do not study Greek for fun. I have to experience things to believe them and learn them. I suck at math (although I made an A in Diff-E the first time through). I will approach postings and subject matter in a different way.

First: I will not research or cite things that I have heard and am commenting upon if it turns out to be too difficult to do so. If it is in my imagination, but logical, it must be true. I will try to back things up with intellectual truths if not research.

Second: I will get to that some other time. I tend to run out of energy and give up on thoughts. Anyway, one of my goals in posting things is to get my brother on some type of Washington watch list.

Cheers!

New Things a-Brewin'!

2008-11-24T18:32:00.003-05:00

"Last Post October 1st"? Really? That's gotta be a typo. I'll have to have a word with the Google/Blogger people about that.

But seriously, folks, I've had a rather overlong, political-funk-induced blogging drought. I hope I still have a reader or two, but if not, I'll just have to garner a bunch of new ones with unparalleled productivity and rapier wit!

OR, I can do what my dear friends and fellow bloggers over at Mazurland have done, twice now, and bring in some ~~fresh meat~~ new blood to stimulate the blogging atmosphere (how well's that workin' out for ya, guys? Ok, seriously, I'm gonna get my backside in gear over there too, I promise!)! And at long last, my dear, globe-trotting big brother Sam has finally relented against the neverending onslaught of my shrill whining and begging, and agreed to grace this place with his presence! So very soon, we shall see the first of what I hope are many posts from Brother Sam (and me, of course...)!

Enjoy!

Watch and Forward This!

2008-10-01T11:11:00.003-05:00

Marty posted a link to this over in the comments of this post at Mazurland, but I thought I'd embed it on my own front page. Seriously, it may be 10 minutes long, but it's worth watching (er, reading) in its entirety, and forwarding it to anyone who may be buying the "deregulation and the free markets caused this" lines spewing forth from Democrats. It does require your full attention, though, so make sure you're free of distractions.

Marvels of the Modern Age: Or, Adventures In Supreme Nerdery

2008-09-29T11:50:00.003-05:00

Blogging 'round these parts has, admittedly, been weak lately. It's politics -- as in, I'm fed up with 'em, so am suffering from a bit of intellectual fatigue. Don't worry for me; I'll snap out of it soon, I'm sure.

Anywho, this past weekend, I had an interesting experience that I'd like to relate to my audience: I attended the wedding of a friend who I had never actually met. What's that, you say? How could such a thing happen?

Well, Some of my readers probably know that I am a big "gaming" nerd, of both the offline and the online varieties. The offline pursuits are largely isolated engagements, much like reading a book or going for a quiet walk. But the online games are very much social events. The one on which I spend most of my scant gaming time, The World of Warcraft (celebrity endorsements here, here, and for you Europhiles, here), is in particular notorious for this aspect (known in some circles as World of Warchat). Now, I've never been a particularly social creature, so I keep my virtual attachments even fewer than my "real life" (hereafter RL) ones.

However, through a RL good friend and coworker whom I shall call "Jeff" (and for whom I am known as The Enabler, for my tendency to sucker him into addictive pursuits such as online gaming), I met this other guy, Brad, while playing WoW. Jeff and Brad were old college buddies, a perfectly non-nerd way to know one another. Anywho, Brad, single at the time and very much a night owl, quickly surpassed both Jeff and I with his addiction to the game, and was thus on-line at all hours, available for talking and joint playing and whatnot (and by "talking", I actually mean "talking", as voice chat has long been a feature of this game, both through third-party clients and, more recently, in-game as well). And as people talk on long dungeon crawls and raids into the wee hours of the morning, people get to know each other, so that, before long, I could genuinely call Brad a friend as well.

Now, I enjoy (okay, perhaps "endure") a strained relationship with WoW. I began ~~abusing the drug~~ playing the game back in January of 2005 (Mrs. Red Shirt's worst-lack-of-foresight-in-a-birthday-present gift, ever), a scant 3 months or so after its initial release. I played with extreme casualness (which I would define as less than an hour per day) at first. I kept playing intermittently in this fashion through the summer of 2005, until we learned that my wife was carrying the awesomeness that would become The Wee One. Far from stopping my addiction, this served to intensify it, as Mrs. Red Shirt, in the later stages of her pregnancy, would retire around 8:00 pm, enabling me to play to my heart's content (going to bed around 1:00 AM was not terribly uncommon for me). Even after the Wee One was born, I kept playing, although considerably less so. What with frequent naps on the part of both Mrs. Red Shirt and the Wee One, I could spare time here and there.

It became too much of a juggle, however, around the summer of 2006, so that marked my first "retirement", to many fond and understanding farewells on the part of guild-mates (yes, I was in a guild), which lasted all of, say, six months or so. The makers of the game were releasing an "expansion pack", full of new content and abilities and such, so I just had to experience it all for myself. My former guild welcomed me back, and there was Brad (with whom I had uniquely (among all fellow gamers) maintained email contact during my absence), and my habit continued apace. I also note here that my wife again bought me the expansion pack for my birthday. When will she learn?!? Anywho, I continued playing for another six months, through the summer of 2007, at which point, realizing that I could not commit the time to experience what they call "end game content" (which requires hours of continuous playtime and dedication to "grinding" for the more powerful items in the game), I again "retired", having become bored with the game once again.

And like all addictions, I couldn't keep away from it for long. In the winter of this year, I discovered "pirate servers" -- free servers offered by people of varying integrity and malicious intent, often "hacked" to enable players access to free (both in the time and monetary sense) in-game items and money. Of course, these being hack jobs, they only served as methadone to my smack habit, and very soon thereafter I required "the real stuff" in the form of "retail servers" (i.e., those pay-servers officially sanctioned and run by the parent company, Blizzard Entertainment).

Being back on the sauce got me thinking about people, so I emailed Brad to see what was up with him. "I'm getting married!", he says. Mercifully, not to any of the unsightly female trolls that attempt to woo male gamers (I mean that in RL-terms, of course, rather than reference to the fact that one can play as an actual female troll in-game. It's a well-known fact that only ugly chicks play WoW, unlike all us handsome dudes that spend our time there), but to a long-time RL acquaintance of his, with whom he had recently become romantically involved.

So, fast-forwarding to last week, I attended his wedding in scenic (and powerless, thanks to Hurricane Ike) Dayton, OH. The only picture I had to go on was of him in his pasty-chubby years, and it turns out that he had gotten into shape in the intervening years and had recently gotten a tan, so the only point at which I was sure it was him who I was seeing was when the vows were actually being spoken. It's certainly odd to have a first-time face-to-face meeting with a friend at the receiving line of their wedding, but hey, those are the times we live in.

Two final notes: 1) one of his groomsmen was a fellow WoW player I had met online but not in RL. Through him we established that I was "patient zero": I encouraged Jeff to play, Jeff encouraged Brad to play, and Brad encouraged this guy to play, thus completing the delicate chain of nerd life. 2) Brad came over to chat during a respite from dancing at the reception, trying to encourage several of us to dance. I played my "no dance partner" excuse card (Mrs. Red Shirt being with the Wee One in California at the time), jokingly hinting that unless he were available, I would be a no-go, to which he responded with remarkable glibness, "That's fine, I've always thought of you as a female Night Elf priest anyhow!" (playing off the fact that I spent much of my time playing as... yes, a female Night Elf priest). Trust me. If you're a nerd, that little anecdote is high-freakin'-larious.

Color Me Disappointed

2008-09-10T07:35:00.002-05:00

So the Large Hadron Collider is officially now online. Despite fears (or at least fearmongering) that the LHC could, inter alia, create a black hole (er, sorry, Barack Hussein Obama fans, I meant "a hole of no color")that would devour the earth, or give rise to the wonderfully-named strangelets which would render the entire solar system into a puddle of grey strangelet goo, we are still here.

And I am, in a really weird and uncomfortable way that I'm not quite fully prepared to explore, a little disappointed. Wouldn't it be neat to be able to tell the grandkids (metaphorically speaking, of course, as they would consequently never exist) that you were alive when a new and exotic form of matter was created? Or isn't your curiously just a little bit piqued to know what's on the "other side", so to speak, of a black hole? And as a Bible-thumping redneck fundie, I know that any world-ending event must coincide with the Rapture, so I've got that going for me too!

And yet, here we are, mundane as ever, with Wednesday being exactly the same, for all intents and purposes, as the Tuesday before it. Ho-freakin'-hum.

Maybe the SSC down in Texas will come back online in the future, despite the best efforts of time-traveling world-saviors, and I'll get to experience a singular event of Physics then. Lousy Democrats and their lousy project-cancelling. One more reason to resent Bill Clinton!

When Celebrities Make Good

2008-09-09T14:53:00.004-05:00

All of us have heroes. Anyone who says he has no heroes is either lying or a very spectacular narcissist for whom his only hero is himself. And for must of us, some of those heroes happen to be "celebrities", in one way or another. Now I don't just mean "celebrity" in the rock star/hollywood sense, but in the more fundamental sense of the root word, as in someone whose very existence we collectively celebrate.

And of course, as often happens, because those celebrities are in the public eye, they often fall from grace. It might be a politician embroiled in a scandal, or an actor/musician who says/does something remarkably stupid, or sports figure who commits a crime. But what about those celebrities who we see as personal heroes, fearing all the while that we'll learn something about them we find distasteful, some sort of "deal breaker", about whom we then discover even greater things, perhaps unrelated to what made them our heroes in the first place? Such things rarely happen.

Of course, I wouldn't be writing this if it had not happened to me. One of my own personal heroes, for a variety of reasons, is Food Network host Alton Brown, of the show Good Eats. Never seen his show? If you like food, or you like science, you're missing out in a big way. The gist of it, for the uninformed, is that, in each episode, Mr. Brown takes a particular food topic -- possibly a single ingredient, possibly a certain type of dish, or even a method of cooking -- and delves not only into how to cook this particular dish, or how to perform that particular task with utmost care and precision, but also, the exact nitty-gritty science of why the methods he describes are the correct methods. I'm talking physics and chemistry here, not just vague generalizations, including prop models of molecules and chemical reactions. And he does it all with a cheesy irreverence and sense of humor that prevents the show from every being boring to even the most uninitiated viewer.

Since I am a fairly hard-core "foodie", and a big science nerd as well, you can understand how I appreciate such a program, now in its eighth-ish season (too lazy to do a check here). We (Mrs. Red Shirt and I) even own his books, I'm Just Here For The Food, its imaginatively-titled sequel, I'm Just Here for More Food, and the nigh-indispensable Gear For Kitchen. I suppose the only criticism one could level at Mr. Brown is "get a grip, man!" as he tends to be a bit over-the-top in exactitude, but it's all for his art, clearly (one is reminded of the old Phil-Hartman-portrayed "Anal Retentive Chef" SNL skit). But he occasionally adds caveats pointing this out, so all is forgiven.

Anywho. Just last night Mrs. Red Shirt and I were watching his episode on Omelettes (only 10 easy steps to the perfect omelette!). A discussion between us about nitwit celebrities came up, in the wake of the British host of the MTV VMA show the previous night begging us to vote for Barack Obama and ridiculing our "retarded cowboy president" (and you all know how much I value the American political opinions of foreign celebrities!). One of us pointed out that one thing we appreciated about Alton Brown, who happened to be a celebrity, was that he didn't foist extraneous opinions on the audience, sticking to his subject matter of expertise. I followed that up by saying something to the effect of "Yeah, I assume he's probably a liberal twit, since he's on TV. But he treats the audience with respect, so it wouldn't bother me if he was."

Of course, not knowing whether he was a genuine liberal twit or not wouldn't stand, so I hopped on that most trusted and respected source of all celebrity biographical information, Wikipedia, and pointed by browser (seriously, how did "pointing one's browser" make its way into our lexicon, anyhow? It makes no sense!) to Alton Brown's entry. In the text, under "Personal Life", what do my eyes behold?

Brown is a born-again Christian and a member of Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in Marietta, Georgia.

. Didst mine eyes deceive me? Fortunately, the entry contained a reference after this factoid, which led to a 2007 article in "Atlanta Magazine" featuring an interview with "AB", as he is sometimes known. Buried down at the bottom of the article, which is totally worth a read to any fan of his:

In 1992, Brown says, he found God, or maybe God found him, but he blundered away until he became a born-again Christian. "The single biggest life-changing thing for me is I just got baptized last year. Everything else pales in comparison to acceptance of Christianity. That's number one." He keeps a Bible in his dressing room now, not to show he's pious but because he needs the help. "At Johnson Ferry Baptist Church, baptism is a full-immersion thing, and we joke that the water didn't spit me back out."

Although he was on the cover of the August 2006 issue of the inspirational magazine Guideposts for a story about the connection between food and faith, Brown is not about to start a career as a celebrity proselytizer. "I keep praying I'll be able to do my job and I'll be useful," he says.

Wow. Not only is one of my biggest heroes "Christian" in some sense, but he's an authentic, born-again Christian (a Baptist, no less!), full of the newness of life in Christ. That explains why he hadn't offended my oh-so-delicate sensibilities! He's One Of Us! I was actually excited by this revelation, so much so that I even had a difficult time sleeping (well, the tea I had had right before bedtime probably contributed to that just as much, but still).

So yeah, I'm pretty jazzed about that.

A Trifling Thought On Palin and Obama

2008-09-05T08:48:00.002-05:00

I'm glad that Barack Obama was nominated over Hillary Clinton in this election cycle. Sarah Palin's nomination to vice president has been a shot in the arm of a movement with rapidly waning (visions of arterial bleeding come to mind...) enthusiasm or even interest. Many, many pundits and wonks were talking about looking forward to "time in exile" to re-energize the cause of conservatism, much like the Carter-induced calm before the Reaganite storm. And what's great about it is that, for true conservative enthusiasts, Palin's womanhood is really secondary to her exciting persona and "proper" (and genuine!) stance on so many issues. Yes, we're excited about "hockey mom", but I think it's more hockey and less mom that gets us going. She's got an authenticity unlike so many other politicians that is very refreshing.

And had the Democrats nominated Hillary Clinton, none of this would be happening. A move by McCain to select Sarah Palin as his running mate in the face of a female presidential aspirant on the other side would have been seen (rightly so) as a crass move to shore up the old-white-male weakness of a McCain headline. Any enthusiasm for Palin would be underscored by the fact that she was a woman and was only there to compete with Hillary, and such comparisons would have caused her to be dead-on-arrival. So of course McCain would have been forced to nominate someone else (it's hardly the "maverick move" to put a woman in the number two spot against a woman in the number one spot), and it's hard to say how he would have reacted. Assuming Hillary wouldn't have picked Obama as her running mate, but went with another Bidenesque choice, McCain might (a very fragile "might") have picked someone like Bobby Jindal -- again, for many of the same reasons as he picked Palin in the first place: outsider, young, strong conservative credentials, and not an old white male. But Jindal is still young, and I think he's got more good to do in Louisiana before hitting the national stage. (This gives rise to the question, which is a whole topic unto itself: if I think Jindal wasn't ready yet, why do I think Palin is? I need to dwell on that one more).

And if Hillary had won the nomination, and picked Barack Obama as his running mate, I'd certainly be packing my bags for political exile right now. I'd say the same thing about Obama if he had picked Hillary as his own running mate, of course; and all the above arguments apply there as well. But I think a Hillary/Obama ticket would have been deadly to GOP prospects in an already dismally prospected year.

So to wrap things up: thank you, Democrats, for picking Obama. You've given us a new lease on life. And thank you, Barack Hussein Obama, for picking Biden. You might have given us the election with that one.

Funny For All the Wrong Reasons

2008-09-03T12:53:00.004-05:00

The above video was, to me, laugh-out-loud funny. High-frickin'-larious, in fact. But I don't think it was devised with the intent that I, a hard-core conservative voter with no intention of voting for the Barachrist Obamessiah, would enjoy it. First of all, it starts out with the currently popular canard among the left that McCain's choice of ~~Susan Pollen~~ Sarah Palin was an act of desperation. (Brief rebuttal: I have yet to see a single pundit not already completely and totally in the sack for Obama say that last week's Democratic Convention was somehow devastating to the Republican race; and although there was barely any gap between Obama's Thursday night acceptance speech and McCain's Friday morning announcement, there wasn't any discernible "bounce", however mitigated, for Obama. Moreover, most non-Obama-Zealots have indicated that Obama's speech was more or less Democratic boilerplate rather than the stirring, earth-shattering oratory for which Obama is (fallaciously, and I'll have more on that in a later post) reputed. Why then would McCain be suddenly thrust into "desperation mode"?)

But I digress. Like I said, I don't think the video was meant to be flattering, but to me, and I think to most conservatives, it comes across that way: that McCain really did pick someone who was ready, willing, and able to serve the role for which she has been selected, considerably more so than the guy the Democrats want in the front seat. It's going to be an exciting two months, if I can keep my lunch down from all the nauseating attacks, er, "journalistic duties" the MSM has been launching at Palin that they somehow forgot to do for Obama and Biden while the spotlight was on them. Minor clerical oversight, I'm sure.

For some clarification on Obama's "experience" and "readiness" versus Palin's, please watch this as well:

(HT: Instapundit via Ann Althouse)

The Platform Position That Really Matters

2008-08-29T09:51:00.003-05:00

Forget the Iraq War. Forget the economy. Forget gay marriage, abortion, taxes, unions, foreign policy, domestic policy, and everything else.

I need to know, and I need to know now, what the next President will do about giant foreign spiders killing our family pets.

GIS for the spider in question here. Sweet Lord, deliver us from this evil.

A Little Part of Me Just Died

2008-08-28T14:44:00.001-05:00

Sounds like Fred! is out for VP. The tiny, burning ember has lost its spark.

Wisdom of the Ages

2008-08-28T13:08:00.004-05:00

Jay Nordlinger posts the following quote, in response to Slow Joe Biden's execrable remark that "these times require more than a good soldier, they require a wise leader" (directed at McCain, of course), courtesy of Thucydides*:

"The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools."

I'm not terribly well-read in the Classics, and I consider this a major failing of my own education (the other being the lack of any "shop" type classes, although both of these are failings of modern pedagogy as a whole, I think). In fact, apart from some high school Homer and some Julius Caesar, I'm not "read" at all in that realm. But clearly there is much wisdom to be gained from such an exposure, so perhaps it's time I rectify that glaring omission in my own studies.

As for the content of what Biden said: okay, show me one genuinely wise thing Obama has done or said in his vast, expansive career. Just one! Please! That's all I'm asking...

*Update: Okay, maybe it was more recent than Thucydides. But I think my points still stand.

How Does That Happen?

2008-08-22T12:35:00.006-05:00

The latest (and boy do I mean late!) buzz in the VP race is now pointing to Chet Edwards as a potential pick by Obama. Interesting Red Shirt Fun Fact™: Edwards was my congressman for four years while I was at Baylor. And we at Baylor really didn't like him despite his incredibly conservative (for a Democrat) record, for a single reason: he is staunchly pro-choice. Apparently the rest of his central Texas district thought that was just fine and dandy, though.

So he's pro-choice; that's hardy surprising for a Democrat. But he's also very much anti-gay-marriage. And that's where confusion really enters into it for me, so I pose the question: how does one become pro-abortion and anti-gay-marriage? I don't see the logical path. I can certainly see the reverse path. One could easily approach a pro-life position from a "sanctity of all life" approach that is not necessarily informed by religious values, and extend that to a sort of "do what thou wilt and harm no other" sort of philosophy, thus being hunky-dory with gay marriage as well.

And of course the other possibilities in this matrix are evident in everyday politics: for cultural and religious reasons, people tend to oppose both abortion and gay marriage; for libertarian or "empowerment" reasons, people tend to support them (see attached illustration). Everyone knows where I stand on these issues, and I certainly make no effort to conceal my thoughts thereupon (and far from the "There's room to debate these issues, of course" line, I think anyone who differs from my opinion (Cartesian quadrant IV) is either evil (Cartesian quadrant II) or ignorant (Cartesian quadrant III). Take THAT!). But I am really at a loss to understand any personal ethos that would convince someone that killing babies is okay, but damn those queers and their legitimated sodomy! So to my dear readers: please, if you can justify (if not believe yourself, I hope!) such a logical connection, however speciously, please illuminate me in the comments!

Pithy And Powerful

2008-08-22T09:50:00.003-05:00

Over at The Corner, Peter Kirsanow deconstructs the central myths of the Obama campaign and its appeal. I don't normally repost entire articles, but this is so brutally effective that I will make an exception, both here and my other blog. For your enjoyment:

When the Obama campaign was at it's apogee six months ago, its narrative— and Obama's appeal— consisted of the following components: 1) he transcends race; 2) he has superior judgment; 3) he's a post-partisan, non-ideological moderate; and 4) he's a nice, decent guy.
For most of the primary season, the narrative filled the voids in Obama's resume and experience. The claims underlying the narrative have now evaporated —-primarily due to Obama's self-inflicted wounds :

* Claim: Transcends race. Obama's a post-racial healer; he doesn't count by race.

Reality: 20 year membership in Rev. Wright's church; staunch supporter of racial preferences in public employment, contracting and school admissions; profligate insinuations of racism; even the New York Times notices he fails to transcend race.

* Claim: Superior judgment. Obama's lack of experience is more than offset by superior judgment. See, e.g., his opposition to the Iraq war.

Reality: Spectacularly and obstinately wrong on the surge; associates with Wright, Ayers, Rezko,Pfleger; his position on withdrawal from Iraq would've resulted in chaos, defeat and a resurgent al Qaeda.

* Claim: Post-partisan, non-ideological moderate. He bridges the partisan divide; not a knee-jerk ideologue like Bush/Cheney/McCain; thinks through issues; appreciates nuance.

Reality: Most liberal member of the senate; doctrinaire Democrat who rarely crosses the aisle; has perfected the technique of claiming to "listen" to the other side while almost invariably ending up on liberal/ Democrat side.

* Claim: Nice guy. Obama's an ordinary, reasonable Joe with Midwestern—"Kansas"—values.

Reality: Voted against the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act and issued four false explanations regarding same; calls those who point out the truth liars; repeatedly implies opponents or critics are racists; condescends to rural, blue collar Americans.

The Born-Alive vote and Obama's mendacity regarding the vote are, perhaps, the most devastating blows to the narrative. Obama hasn't been able to explain the vote because it's inexplicable.
With the narrative extinguished, the war being won and Bush/Cheney leaving office, what's left of the Obama appeal?

Forward this, or at least the link I've provided above, to everyone you know who's buying into this bunkum.

My VEEP Picks

2008-08-22T08:50:00.002-05:00

I go on record about my official VEEP picks here. Long story short, Obama/Bayh and McCain/Cantor.

Obama Declares Self as VP Pick

2008-08-20T12:03:00.003-05:00

Denver, CO -- Amid much speculation and anticipation, presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama has finally unveiled his selection for the Vice Presidential candidate slot: himself. Coming as a shock to his supporters, and almost no surprise at all to his detractors, Mr. Obama's campaign staff was quick to explain the decision to reporters. According to one highly-placed campaign staffer, "Barack Obama has demonstrated time and time again that this campaign isn't about experience, it isn't about who fought in what silly little wars, and it definitely isn't about an established track record on issues that matter to Americans. No, it's about judgment. And if we're saying that Obama has the best judgment ever, then why would he sully that judgment by picking a lesser being to run alongside him?"

Barack Obama himself, when questioned about the startling revelation, responded, "Well, I am "The One", after all. How can The One be Two? That just doesn't make sense, you see. And I'm not going to let my Republican detractors make an issue out of my short time in office. If I were to pick someone with more experience than me, they'd be quick to point out that I was trying to shore up deficiencies. And, let's face it, there is nobody with less experience than me, so that leaves... just me!"

A Constitutional scholar, who asked not to be named because he is supporting the Obama/Obama ticket and did not want to give the appearance of bias, offered up this opinion: "Many folks have been trying to object to this move on the grounds of no clear line of succession should some tragedy befall Mr. Obama as President. I don't think there's really much concern for that. After all, from what I hear, if he should be struck down, he'll just rise again in three days".

This Is Sad News

2008-08-20T07:48:00.004-05:00

LeRoi Moore, saxophonist for the Dave Matthews Band, has died of complications stemming from injuries sustained in an ATV accident back in June.

As some of my readers know, back when I was in college and graduate school, I was a die-hard fan of the Dave Matthews Band. I attended so many of their shows that I actually lost count (including all three nights of their historic "Gorge at George" performance),was actively involved in "tape trading" (DMB was one of the few bands around who actively encouraged fan-taping and trading of their shows, up to and including the selling of special "taper tickets" near the sound boards), and possessed somewhere in the range of 250 thus-taped "bootleg" shows. Hell, I even picked up a guitar for the first time just to play their songs. Everybody needs a hobby.

One of the side effects of listening to show after show after show is that, in some way, you get to know the performer. This is especially true of Dave Matthews, who engages in what fans call "Davespeak" quite often in between songs, particularly during his own solo (or duo with guitar-god Tim Reynolds) shows. So it became increasingly clear that the lead singer, and the band itself, drifted leftward from an already considerably left-ish starting point, following the WTC attacks on September 11th -- clearly Bush Derangement Syndrome at work. It was never as shrill as most lefties; Mr. Matthews and the band were always adamantly supporting the troops, and not even in a "...by bringing them home" way, so they have that in their favor. But clearly they were never "mugged by reality" in the way that most sensible converts (read: "dreaded neo-cons") were. And unfortunately, this drift began to pervade their music, made manifest in particular with their 2005 release "Stand Up", many of the songs on which contain not-so-thinly veiled jabs at the Bush administration and the situation in Iraq.

This "social conscience" also seemed to effect the quality of their music, which had been in steady decline since the "Lillywhite Sessions" debacle of the previous few years. In short: the band had produced a stellar album full of crowd-tested songs back in 2001, which was then completely scrapped, and their long-time producer, Steve Lillywhite, was sacked. Then the band got together with uber-pop-producer Glen Ballard, who churned out an "album" of all-new material in less than a month, which was uniformly reviled by all long-time fans. Shortly thereafter (or maybe shortly therebefore; I can't recall the exact timeline), a fan illicitly obtained a copy of those originally scrapped studio sessions, which were then swiftly released onto the internet as "The Lillywhite Sessions" -- an amazing compilation of great, soulful songs in the finest tradition of DMB. Two years later, "Busted Stuff" was released, which was a soulless re-mastering of many of those same songs, by a different producer. At any rate, I mostly stopped listening and completely stopped attending concerts and tape trading around 2004. Their music has been total dreck since then (the rumor mill reports that their current tour is, albeit missing LeRoi Moore, back to form), and I have not been bothered to listen to them or follow their career for several years because of these factors. Of course, I still listen to the "good old stuff" from time to time.

But despite having "fallen off the wagon", this strikes me as very sad news. My thoughts and prayers go out to his family and friends.

I Want This

2008-08-19T13:44:00.002-05:00

Behold: the Meat-Cake. For Weddings.

I want to divorce Mrs. Red Shirt, and then re-propose to her, and get married again, for the sole purpose of letting that be my wedding cake. Screw that "groom's cake" nonsense. I'm thinking... multiple tiers. And G.I. Joe figures on top. Baroness and Destro, probably.

A Priesthood of One

2008-08-15T12:03:00.004-05:00

In my daily Bible readings, I'm currently going through the book of Hebrews. As Hebrews could be considered one of the more weighty and controversial of the books of the New Testament in terms of its dense theological pronouncements (up there with Romans and James in my own estimation), it's certainly no small task to make one's way through it (I'm very much a one-book-at-a-time, all-the-way-through-it kind of Scriptural reader). Anywho, today I read from chapter 7, which discusses Christ as a high priest from the order of Melchizedek (in short, a non-Levitical King/Priest ordained directly by God rather than by birthright). What stood out to me was the following passage:

[23] The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, [24] but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever. [25] Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

It struck me that, as Christians, we are differentiated from the Jews in that we have no need of a formal priesthood to intercede for us or provide access to God, because Christ fulfills this role wholly and perfectly in a way that the human High Priest only incompletely did for the Jews. Now, don't misread what I'm saying to be a knock at formal orders of clergy per se -- there is certainly Biblical precedent for some kind of hierarchy and dedicated Church leadership. Perhaps referring to it as a "priesthood" is part of the problem, however, given the context of these verses. Human beings yearn for human shepherding, which is comprised in part by teaching, comforting, leading, training, etc.; and I believe that is the role fulfilled by pastors, priests, deacons, bishops, and other clergy members across all denominations. But only Christ alone provides us with unfettered access to God the Father, and in a way that is far more glorious than any human ever could.

There But For The Strokes of Phelps Go I

2008-08-14T13:24:00.007-05:00

Much is being said in the blogosphere about the complete lack of interest in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Typically, and somewhat surprisingly given the blogs I haunt, it's more a matter of total lack of interest rather than any sort of anti-ChiCom political statement. Or at least that's what the avoiders claim, perhaps in an attempt to seem iconoclastic. Well, I'm largely in their boat, AND the other boat -- I detest the atrocities of the Chinese Communist regime and the entire political ethos for which they stand, so that takes away any potential interest I might have in watching them perform; but on the other hand, there was virtually no interest in the various Olympic competitions in the first place, so it's a move from infinitesimal to zero, really.

The one exception to this, though, is Men's Swimming, and in particular, Michael Phelps' performance therein. I defy anyone to watch the video of the Men's 4x200 or 4x100 relays (available currently here), or any of Phelps' individual events, and not feel the spark of American dominance and competition somewhere in their cold, "Citizen of the World" hearts. Just look at this already-classic photo of Phelps upon realizing that his team just beat the famously cocky French team ("The Americans? We're going to smash them. That's what we came here for.")in the 4x100 relay to win the gold:

That's America. Victorious and unafraid to show it. His enthusiasm during that match is a great sight to see as well; I advise you all to go seek out that video (no embed for dumb ol' NBC so far -- maybe they'll wise up eventually). It's also great to be a part of his epic chase for the all-time inter-Olympic gold medal record (now accomplished) and the all-time intra-Olympic gold medal record (5 down, 3 to go, and the "hard" events are behind him), and to watch him score a world record in Every. Single. One.

But antagonistically-godless Buchananite curmudgeon John Derbyshire (linked above, and oh how I do so love calling him increasingly descriptive names!) made a pretty good point, effectively raining on my parade:

If you are real good at running, jumping, throwing, basketball, etc, you may get a gold medal. If you are real good at swimming, however, you can get a dozen or so. How is this fair?

I don't really have an answer to that. Darn you, Derb!

Update: I posed the quote to Mrs. Red Shirt. Her (strong, I think), point, which dovetails into Marty's comment in the comments section, is that it's a matter of training choices. A gymnast, for example, could spend time training in each and every event (pommel horse, rings, bars, floor exercise, spring board, etc.). It would be insanely rigorous, but it's been done before. Same with track & field, as Marty says. Nothing is preventing a stand-out runner from competing in multiple T&F events of a similar nature; there's lots and lots of races that are almost exact analogs to the various swim events. For whatever reason, they don't, and swimmers do. Mrs. Red Shirt argues that mastering different strokes is possibly even more difficult than different running events, for example. In fact, many many events have multiple "flavors" in a similar vein: fencing has epee, saber, etc., shooting has single trap, double trap, prone, pistol, etc., weight lifting has multiple weight classes, etc., etc... The mechanics within a single grouping are all very similar, so perhaps it IS (as per Marty) a matter of over-specialization in all but the one field of swimming.

It's A Boy!

2008-08-13T10:54:00.003-05:00

Mrs. Red Shirt and I just got back from her 20-week ultrasound this very morning. And the news is in: we're having a baby boy! We're very excited about it. I know my brother is upset, as he wanted to have the first boy, being the eldest himself, but the early bird gets the worm, as they say! (that was a none-too-subtle jab at you to start makin' babies, bro!).

A confession: I'm glad my first child was a girl, as I was able to get all ooey-gooey with her in completely unrestrained fashion. I have a bit of trepidation when it comes to boys, as my interests veer heavily toward "geek", away from the traditional "masculine" outlets of sports, hunting, fishing, fixin' things, etc. Thus, I am concerned that I will not be able to properly "butch up" my son in a way that I think is proper. Fortunately, my son will have no fewer than six uncles, including a couple grizzled war veterans, some stellar athletes, at least one gung-ho outdoor sportsman, and all of them great, doting uncles so far. So little Isaac Leopoldo will be the manliest super-geek you ever did see!

I provide the following snapshot as evidence of overwhelming butchness on at least the part of my brother: his gun collection, posted with his permission (it's smaller than I remember it being, but living in Commiefornia for a couple years will do that to you):

Economics and the Holy Spirit

2008-07-28T16:37:00.003-05:00

I was just sitting there watching my two-and-a-half-year-old daughter veeery slowly eat dinner, regretting having given her a lollipop about half an hour before her meal, and the thought struck me how well my daughter understands the economics of incentives. Sure, it's easy enough for even the smallest child to grasp the concept of reward, and act to earn that reward. But she already earned her reward in this case, apropos of nothing. Thus, she was no longer motivated to eat a good dinner, because she had nothing to gain from it (well, except tasty chili-cheese mashed potatoes, but apparently that's not her cup o' tea). Had I only showed her the sucker and told her that it would be given to her after she ate a good dinner, she would have eaten much faster.

What does this have to do with the Holy Spirit? Well, everything. We as Christians have received a free gift of eternal life from God through Christ Jesus. It is not the result of works or deeds which we have done in righteousness; Scripture is clear on this matter. Thus, our motivation for doing good and living moral lives is gone; we have received and been guaranteed our reward simply by faith in Jesus Christ. Sure, we are told to do good works, repeatedly and at great length. But because of this guarantee, there is no explicit incentive to do good. Both the carrot and the stick are removed; we already have eternal life, and Hell no longer awaits us.

Sure, there are groups among the Body of Christ who perhaps make too much of certain passages of Scripture, but now is not the time for that particular debate. Still others assert (and this I would vehemently debate to my last breath) that indeed our good deeds, our moral lives are indeed what save us; this is a debate that has unfortunately reared its head throughout the Church's history. But let us take it for a given that Scripture does indeed teach that eternal life is a free gift, and move on.

So stripped of all incentives, Christians by and large ought to be an indolent, loutish lot, right? After all, all they have to do is hurry up and die, and eternal bliss is theirs. Well, apparently the research is in, and this is not so. Now the article linked there, and the corresponding book by Arthur Brooks, focus more on the political divide, but let us make the assumption (which the liberal and secular left do on a daily basis, so why can't we?) that "conservative and religious" correlates quite highly with "orthodox Christian". I'd have to read the book itself to really see how it breaks down along specific religious lines, but since there are only so many hours in the day, I'll just say it's a safe assumption.

Thus, normal, human, natural incentives are stripped away from the Christian, and yet he continues to do good. Therefore, there must be some inhuman force at work in the life of the Christian that compels him to do good, not for a reward, but as an end unto itself. This force, of course, is the Holy Spirit, statistically writ large across Christian culture in comparison with others.

And this brings the argument of grace-based salvation full circle: if we include works as a necessary act for salvation, we can attribute man's good works to his own interal desire for eternal life; on the other hand, if the incentive for doing those works is taken away, the motivation to do good works is based solely on the indwelling and outpouring of the Holy Spirit. In the former, man is glorified along with God; in the latter, the glory belongs to God alone.

Great, now I feel all Calviny again. But I'm really more of an Arminianist, I swear!

post script: The Wee One, sure as the day is long, didn't finish her dinner. When is that age of spiritual accountability again?

Batman as Cypher

2008-07-26T20:22:00.003-05:00

Now that The Dark Knight has indelibly etched himself in our collective social subconscious, articles and blog posts are aflutter with news of the newest "deeper meaning" of Batman (not the Batman. NEVER the Batman). First was this article trying to guess various superheroes' political affiliations, with this to say of Bruce Wayne's alter ego:

Bruce Wayne is pro-gun-control and against the death penalty, which places him among left-wing Democrats.

Source: Chicago Tribune. Very telling. Next we have Kyle Smith's review, wherein:

Liberals live in a world of “and.” Full security and full civil liberties. Universal health care and the best quality with no waiting. A dynamic economy and full welfare and unemployment benefits. Liberals, in other words, live in that scene in “Spider-Man” in which Spidey, forced to choose between saving a tram car full of innocent civilians and saving his girlfriend, chooses both. Liberals live in a fantasy.

Conservatives, though, live in a world of tradeoffs, of either/or. For having this relationship with reality, conservatives are caricatured as grumpy, stingy and negative. Surely all it takes is a bump in taxes on the wealthy and everything will be affordable? Where’s the Hope? Where’s the Dream? Yes, we can!

“The Dark Knight” lives on a razor edge of tradeoffs. In the coin flips of Harvey “Two-Face” Dent there is a message that not only can’t you choose both heads and tails, but sometimes you’re up against a trick coin that ensures you lose either way.

Innocents get killed, civil liberties are infringed, and Batman ardently defends lies over truth in the pursuit of propaganda. Extremism in the defense of liberty is Batman’s virtue, and he ventures much farther into the wilds of lawlessness than any politician would dare. Moreover, his Gotham is a place where some believe that chaos can be managed, that giving into a simple demand from the Joker that Batman turn himself in might be a workable alternative in the long run.

In other words, Batman serves as a justification of the George Bush administration and the whole GWOT. Further thinking along this line here. Finally, this very evening, I come across an article by Ilya Somin in which libertarian aspects of Batman are detected and dissected, with quotes from the comments:

"Superman seems like more of a cultural conservative superhero, someone who has supernatural powers in whom to grant authoritarian trust. Batman seems libertarian, a private party using his skills and intelligence to overcome wrong, outside the government." Plus: "The only villains Batman goes after are those who have themselves violated the harm principle (usually by killing innocent people). He doesn't go after perpetrators of purely victimless crimes or people he dislikes because disapproves of the way they live their private lives."

(Quotes dragged up via Instapundit).

So there you have it. Batman is both a liberal scion, a conservative hero, AND a libertarian crusader! Now where have I heard this before: a lone hero with amazing powers and capabilities beyond normal human capacity, changing the world for the better, in whom everyone sees something of their selves, and projects their own hopes and beliefs onto the blank slate of his personality?

Holy projection, Batman! You're Barack Hussein Obama!

Okay, okay, now I feel bad, because Batman is totally awesome, and I just compared him to someone who may well yet prove to be the Antichrist. Ugh.

Beside Myself With Nerd-Joy

2008-07-18T12:58:00.004-05:00

Now, I've never been much of a Joss Whedon (Firefly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) follower, and I know he's got those in droves. But the following is just so chock-full of super-duper, amazing, geeky awesome that I'm truly at a loss for words. As a social conservative, I can't say I'm thrilled with Neil Patrick Harris' recent coming-out, but I must say I'm quite enjoying his career renaissance, as I'm a big fan of How I Met Your Mother, particularly with regard to his character, and his cameo in Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle was comedy gold. Anywho, I give you, without further ado:

Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.

He may bat for the other team, but he sure plays straight pretty well.

The Lighter Side of Derb

2008-07-17T12:44:00.002-05:00

Much light has been made recently of Barack Hussein Obama's almost total humorlessness, on both sides of the aisle, in fact. Well, increasingly shrill and unreadable (due to his steadfast godless stick-in-the-muddery) John Derbyshire over at The Corner has provided some much-needed relief (both in the comic sense, and in terms of my esteem for him) by posting this little bit:

Since Obama humor seems to be this week's topic, I suggest we have a contest. Readers are invited to supply the punch line to any or all of the following Obama-joke openers. Prizes to be announced.

How many members of the Obama household does it take to screw in a light bulb?

"Knock, knock."
"Who's there?"
"Barack Hussein Obama."
"Barack Hussein Obama who?"
[The "Hussein" can be omitted if necessary to improve the punch line, or for contestants who are actually members of the Obama campaign staff.]

A priest, a rabbi, an imam, and Barack Obama are in a plane when the engines fail and the plane begins to go down. Opening the emergency locker, they find only three parachutes.

Arrested and imprisoned by a racist criminal-justice system, Barack Obama finds himself in the maximum-security wing among a group of lifers swapping jokes. "43," says one lifer. The others all roar with laughter. "17," says another. More laughter. Obama: "Excuse me, I don't get it. What's so funny about those numbers?" One of the lifers explains: "We've been here so long, see, we all know each other's jokes. So to save ourselves trouble, we've just numbered them. Everyone knows which joke is which number." Obama: "I see. All right, may I tell a joke?" The lifers nod agreement. "Um, 89," says Obama. Nobody laughs. Obama: "Why is nobody laughing?"

Barack Obama's sitting at a bar when a man comes up to him and says: "Wanna hear a Barack Obama joke?" Obama: "Er, hold on there, buddy — I am Barack Obama."

Of course, never give readers an inch, or they shall take up the whole room. So that they don't fall down the memory hole, here are a set of his first-responders:

Entry #1

How many members of the Obama household does it take to screw in a light bulb?
— What light bulbs? The house is illumined by the light of his countenance.

Entry #2

Barack Obama's sitting at a bar when a man comes up to him and says: "Wanna hear a Barack Obama joke?" Obama: "Er, hold on there, buddy — I am Barack Obama." "Oh. all right then, I'll tell it in Spanish."

Entry #3 (For Monty Python fans)

"Knock, knock."
"Who's there?"
"Barack Hussein Obama."
"Barack Hussein Obama who?"
"Barack Hussein Obama Gambolputty de von Ausfern- schplenden- schlitter- crasscrenbon- fried- digger- dingle- dangle- dongle- dungle- burstein- von- knacker- thrasher- apple- banger- horowitz- ticolensic- grander- knotty- spelltinkle- grandlich- grumblemeyer- spelterwasser- kurstlich- himbleeisen- bahnwagen- gutenabend- bitte- ein- nürnburger- bratwustle- gerspurten- mitz- weimache- luber- hundsfut- gumberaber- shönedanker- kalbsfleisch- mittler- aucher von Hautkopft of Ulm."

Apparently Derb is posting more comprehensive results on a joke-by-joke basis. First up is the lightbulb joke, the cream of the crop of which may be found here, along with the requisite obscure turn-of-phrase by which Derb presumably measures his self-worth. My favorite so far? "None. They just declare the sudden darkness to be The Change We've Been Waiting For."

I Really Don't Get It

2008-07-17T12:33:00.004-05:00

Glenn "I Link To The Redshirt To Boost My Own Readership Numbers" Reynolds just recently posted a link to a story describing the state of crime in Chicago post-gun-ban (which ought not stand in the wake of the Heller decision, but we shall see), the point being that things are so bad that Illinois Gov. Blagojevich is thinking of calling in some troops to help out. As expected, post-ban, only outlaws will have outlawed guns.

Now, to fully understand the dimensions in any policy debate in which I'm interested, I always try to get inside the head of the opposition, and understand how they may have arrived at their conclusions -- either to better refine my own position, or to be able to neutralize their arguments. Even if I find fault in the logical progression that might lead to alternate conclusions, I at least try to see their side of the issue. I am able to perform this analysis satisfactorily on many controversial issues -- abortion, religion, the free market, the death penalty, the war in Iraq, etc. But on the issue of gun rights, I am truly at a loss in this regard -- I truly cannot fathom a rational line of thinking that would lead one to believe that outlawing firearms in a society already laden with them could ever be a good idea, for the simple reason outlined above: regardless of the penalties, criminals have virtually no impetus to "give up" their guns, unlike law-abiding citizens. And surely no one on either side of the issue is unfamiliar with that objection.

So my question to any readers (preferably liberal, if I have them) is as follows: what is a logical line of thought that could lead one to the conclusion that banning guns is going to make non-criminal people safer? Of course, the obvious follow up is "how does this line of thinking stand up in light of conditions everywhere that guns have been banned, most notably England, Washington D.C., and now Chicago?"

Thoughts from the Wilderness

2008-07-07T19:26:00.005-05:00

Author's note: this post was written about a week ago while I was sitting offline at the airport. Please excuse the lateness in my getting around to posting it.

I'm sitting here in the Seattle Tacoma International airport, reading from the Gospel according to Matthew, and I've just finished the following passage:

[4:1]Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. [2]And after He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry. [3]And the tempter came and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread." [4]But He answered and said, "It is written, 'Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.'"
[5]Then the devil took Him into the holy city and had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple [6]and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down, for it is written, 'He will command His angels concerning You'; and 'On their hands they will bear You up, so that You will not strike Your foot against stone.'" [7]Jesus said to him, "On the other hand, it is written, 'You shall not put the LORD your God to the test.'"
[8]Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world [9]and he said to Him, "All these things I will give You, if You fall down and worship me." [10]Then Jesus said to him, "Go Satan, for it is written, 'You shall worship the LORD your God, and serve Him only.'" [11]Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and began to minister to Him.

It is important to note that immediately (vs. 12, in fact) following this dialogue, Jesus Christ begins His earthly ministry. What struck me as particularly noteworthy about this passage was the nature of the three temptations that Satan offered Jesus. First (v. 3), Satan appeals to Christ's physical needs and desires: make food, and eat it. Christ, of course, rebuffs this temptation through the use of Scripture. Second, Satan appeals to Christ's intellect: logically, Scripture says this, so you're set. Again, the judicious application of Scripture provides the way of escape from this temptation. Finally, Satan makes an appeal to Jesus' pride and glorious nature: follow me and the Earth can be yours. And finally, Scripture once again comes through in a pinch.

My first insight (undoubtedly an unoriginal one) was the apparent necessity for Christ to overcome His fragile, temptation-prone human Self before truly beginning His ministry. He did this by defying the physical needs of the body, the "rational" intellectual pursuits to which man is prone, and the desire for earthly glory in the place of glory in the hereafter. In fact, in Matthew's Gospel, it's our first glimpse of Christ in action. Very telling indeed.

Secondly, this occurs immediately after Christ's baptism at the hands of John the Baptist (3:13-17). This demonstrates the very Christian notion that justification precedes sanctification, in that Christ was baptized and declared "good" by God the Father prior to His rejection of typical human failure. A common stumbling block to those who might otherwise seek Christ's love is a sense of unworthiness that must somehow be overcome prior to conversion rather than after (one of Satan's most powerful tools, no doubt). This demonstrates the fallacy of that thinking.

Finally, and perhaps this is a bit of a stretch, but it appears to me that this might be prefiguring the three aspects of the Trinity. First is the physical, human aspect, which is the Christ made manifest in the flesh. Second is the intellectual side, which I see as the Holy Spirit: that aspect of God who inspired men (lit. "God-breathed", from the Greek πνευμα, breath, also spirit, as in Holy Spirit, Αγια Πνευμα) to use their intellects to create Scripture and great, God-glorifying works. Third, there is the idea of the greater Glory, rulership of Heaven and Earth, and that Glory comes from the Father alone. Thus Satan attempts to co-opt or subvert each aspect of the Trinity, each of which Christ perfectly deflects in turn.

Oh, and since He used Scripture and Scripture alone to accomplish this, score one more point for sola Scriptura. Booyah!

This post was cross-posted at Mazurland.

More Like InstaDummy!

2008-07-07T12:54:00.004-05:00

Author's note: read this, and then read this. Then the following will make a little bit of sense.

That Glenn Reynolds is up to his pathetic lies again: "They told me that if George W. Bush were re-elected, the palace of Liberty would be shuttered. And they were right!", with an attendant picture of a boarded-up "Liberty Building". Why do you have to lie so much, Mr. Reynolds? I have half a mind to determine whether or not that building actually has anything to do with the abstract concept of "Liberty" at all! Why, I would even wager that George W. Bush had nothing to do with those shutters! And who are "they", Mr. Reynolds? The space aliens? Your neo-con handlers? I demand to know who this "they" really are! I am calling you out!

Update: Welcome, Instapundit readers! Please, kick up your feet and stay a while! <shameless plug>For more of my parodic stylings, check out this or this. There's also more serious stuff lying around if that's your bag. I also blog over at Mazurland, which you're welcome to check out as well.</shameless plug>

O Canada Where Art Thou?

2008-07-07T12:38:00.004-05:00

For some reason, the other day, I got the first couple of bars of the Canadian National Anthem stuck in my head. Only the first couple, mind you, because that's all I know (which is probably way more than any self-respecting American patriot ought to know, so please don't tell anyone). Of course, I only knew the first line lyrically speaking (i.e., "O Canada"), and was trying to remember the second ("our home and native land", the closest to which I got was "our dear and sainted land", which I knew wasn't right). Anywho, I looked up the lyrics to at least get it out of my head. For those of you non-Canadians out there, the lyrics, for future reference, are:

O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!
From far and wide, O Canada,
We stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

Typical feel-good patriotic nationalism; nothing to complain about, really. But then I read the English translation of the official (and original, as they predate the English lyrics considerably) French lyrics:

O Canada!
Land of our forefathers
Thy brow is wreathed with a glorious garland of flowers.
As in thy arm ready to wield the sword,
So also is it ready to carry the cross.
Thy history is an epic
Of the most brilliant exploits.
Thy valour steeped in faith
Will protect our homes and our rights
Will protect our homes and our rights.

Wow! Talk about your bold statements! Those French-Canadians must really be some violent backwoods fundies! Sign me up!

Seriously though, what happened, Canada? How did you go from unabashed zeal for the "cross" and the "sword" to our nice-but-wimpy brother to the north? And how of all places did the original sentiments arise from the French? My mind... wobbles.

It's interesting to see the lyrics go from historical significance ("Thy history is an epic...") to mere geographical significance ("The True North strong and free!") and the (almost) total secularization and pacification from French to English. Also, the last bit may be noteworthy as well: from the collective valor of the nation protecting people's (individual, as I impute it) property and rights to the people acting to defend the collective? Maybe I'm reading too much into that. Is there some latent Conservatism within the Quebecois subconscious that we ought to be tapping, perhaps? Any Canadians reading this? Please comment!

In Praise of Mystery

2008-06-21T00:02:00.002-05:00

I am, if not first, then at least foremost a man of science and reason. It pervades everything I do, particularly considering that Science (or at least its go-getting and more useful older brother Engineering) is what I get paid to do for a living. Even in pursuit of my faith, it informs my thoughts, my theology, and my walk with God, as long-time readers of mine can attest to. Given a few simple axioms, I should be able to justify virtually everything in my system of beliefs, and when I cannot, those beliefs ought to be subject to further scrutiny and potential revision.

One of my own bolder statements regarding the nature of God is that I believe it is perfectly reasonable that nearly all of the miracles described in the Old Testament might be explicable as natural occurrences. Moses’ parting of the Red Sea may very well have been due to a freak, but not impossible, shifting of currents coinciding with some sort of tectonic event. The fall of the walls of Jericho may have been the result of a perfectly-timed earthquake. At least nine of the ten plagues that struck Egypt very well could have rational explanations as well (aside: if Scripture reveals that the Angel of the Lord really did pass over the houses of Israel, then, well, by God, I believe it. So plague number ten gets the proverbial asterisk). I have the sometimes-annoying tendency (particularly to the wife) to view God as, in some part, the Great Engineer. Far from the Deist view of an impersonal God Who created the universe and let it proceed randomly from there, I believe my God is so great that He could create a universe tailored down to the last subatomic particle such that every event He needs to occur would occur right on cue – so from the beginning of Time, He very well knew that the choices made freely by His people would put them, for example, at the shores of the Red Sea with the Pharaoh’s army at their backs at precisely the moment when an earthquake would cause the waters to part long enough for a massive group of people to cross, and then immediately close in on the pursuing force. This diminishes neither the free will of His people (I don’t want to digress into an argument about free will, so suffice it to say that knowing the outcome of an event a priori is not the same thing as causing that outcome to happen) nor the miraculous nature of the event itself (if one ascribes to the view of the miraculous as something which, when quantified as the ratio of the serendipity of an event to its probability of occurring, results in a very large number – but more importantly, to any engineer who has ever managed a project large or small, expecting something to occur as planned with any precision after any significant amount of time has elapsed is foolhardy at best).

Of course, there are a few things within the realm of Christian belief that simply are inexplicable or unknowable. Chief among these is none other than Jesus Christ Himself. This is the first thing with which I always qualify my “every miracle is a planned coincidence” thesis. Jesus Christ, being both God and man, cannot be considered in any way a “natural convenience”. He is, was, and always will be, and was thus a direct, divine intervention into the affairs of man – according to my thesis, the direct, divine intervention, through which mankind has been redeemed and reconciled with God. And this is the Great Mystery – that which is unknowable by us, but only to be accepted on faith.

And far from frustrating me as a “man of science”, the Great Mystery that is Jesus Christ fills me with incredible joy. Accepting Him as an unknowable mystery unburdens my meager and grasping intellect, and uplifts my spiritual self. Knowing (as well as anyone “knows” anything by faith, at least) that I can never rationalize or explain His existence, His life and His death, as a product of the well-designed natural world gives me and the entire world hope that we are not, in the long run, subject to the forces that wear us down, and that we have the actual and miraculous prospect of eternal life ahead of us in Jesus Christ our Lord. And I praise God for that Mystery by which we are all saved.

This is not to say that we can not in any way know Christ. Quite the contrary, through God’s revealed will in Scripture, and through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we can know Christ quite intimately. Part of the mystery of the Christian faith has, in fact, been revealed to us as followers of Christ, in part in the form of a fuller and more complete understanding of Old Testament Scriptures and God’s promises in light of Christ’s role as the fulfillment of millennia of prophecy. This is, in fact, the very essence of a religious “mystery”: the revelation of previously unknown or unknowable things from the Priest (in this case, our High Priest Jesus Christ) to the Initiate (a new believer in Christ).

Still, though, there are those intangibles which cannot be fully understood by us mortals, because God has not chosen to fully elucidate it through Divine Revelation. Take, for instance, the Trinity: a cornerstone of orthodox Christian belief which professes the triune nature of God as three Persons in one God. Much is made by dissenters over the fact that Scripture never uses the word “trinity” (or whatever the Greek/Hebrew analog might be, at least); nevertheless, it repeatedly and (to my own mind at least) clearly establishes divine coexistence of a Father, a Son, and a Holy Spirit as the One True God. And yet I do not believe that anyone can truly understand precisely what this entails until we go to meet our Heavenly Father and all is made clear.

Similarly, the dual nature of Christ as fully man and fully God is something scholars still spend endless hours and pages of writing debating and parsing from scripture and philosophy: the point being that even the best and most brilliant among us still don’t know. It’s not that it’s a mystery because we haven’t yet figured it out; rather, we haven’t figured it out yet because it is a Mystery. Therefore, we must take on faith and faith alone that Jesus Christ did indeed come in the form of a man (I’m speaking inexactly here, so please don’t parse that statement too deeply) and yet still retained His Godhood. The entire birth, life, and death of Jesus Christ is suffused with similar Mysteries, and He is glorified because of it. It is these Mysteries that separate Christ from the rest of Scripture, and what define Him as the unique and singular turning point in God’s relationship with man.

This post was written at Washington-Dulles International Airport and somewhere above the continental United States, and has been cross-posted at Mazurland.

News FromThe Front

2008-06-20T23:55:00.000-05:00

Blog posting from the airport! I doubt some other jokers I know are so awesome and jet-setting… Well, okay, you called me out. While I’m writing this from the airport, I'm not about to shell out the six bucks for two hours of wifi that the airport is “offering” me. I use that word advisedly, as a Mafioso might “offer” protection to a poor street vendor.

Anywho. As fans of My Hero Jonah Goldberg™ are probably aware, there is much reportage of the various sales, positions (both in the charts and quite physically), and availability of his first (and super-awesome) book, Liberal Fascism. A recurrent theme of said reportage is the general lack of availability, or conspicuously poor placement, of the book at typically liberal-leaning booksellers such as Barnes & Noble or Borders Books.

Well, I can now provide some similar “news from the front”: Here in Dulles International Airport in Washington, DC, the tide appears to be turning. In the most-prominently featured section of the store is the “Social Science & Politics” section of books, directly in front of the register. Most of these books are in hardcover or large-size trade paperback form. To conserve space, of course, most of these books are stacked spine-out, although a selection of books are featured cover-out, presumably to jack up sales of those titles. At any rate, the choice of which books are emphasized thus provide insight into the political bents (or lack thereof) of the bookseller. And what books do I see cover out? Well, as you’ve probably already figured out, there’s Liberal Fascism, smiling mustachioedly in all its mock-Hitlerian glory. Of course, directly above it was Richard A. Clarke’s presumably execrable new book, the overly-wordy title of which was some generic slamming indictment of the current political regime that I forgot as soon as I read it. But two rows down? Douglas Feith’s book. One row above Clarke’s book? John Bolton’s. Scanning the spine-out books, too, I discovered a fairly and remarkably well-balanced selection (Bill O’Reilly’s book was directly adjacent to Keith Olbermann’s. I felt like warning the poor sales clerk of the impending rift in the space-time continuum that might arise from such a prolonged juxtaposition of two opposing bombasts, but decided against it. The black hole would probably gain critical mass during off hours anyhow).

Finally, my eyes spied my intended objective: My Other Hero Mark Steyn™’s America Alone, in trade paperback form with new introduction and super-awesome cover blurb “Soon To Be Banned In Canada”. Spine-out, of course, but we can’t win every battle. I purchased it more for the sake of buying a book of conservative importance at an airport Borders than any other reason, although I have been wanting to read it since it first came out. I’ve only read the first paragraph of the brand-spankin’-new introduction, and already given it several hearty internal guffaws. Hopefully it’ll give me plenty to blog about, if perhaps a bit behind-the-curve.

Experimental Food Diary

2008-06-16T10:00:00.005-05:00

Mrs. Red Shirt has been out of town along with the Little Red Shirt, visiting her family while I slave away during our busy time getting ready for a field test. Whenever the missus is out of town, I get creative in the kitchen (Mrs. Red Shirt doesn't like it when I cook not because the food isn't tasty, but because I'm a messy cook). It was from these experiments that I learned last year to cook Thai Red Curry, which is now one of my personal specialties (one the wife even lets me cook from time to time!), so it's all for the better.

Anywho, what follows is a post facto diary about my current series of experiments.

Wednesday: Pepper-crusted salmon with green beans. Best. Salmon. Ever. I take one salmon filet with the skin still on one side. I liberally coat each non-skin surface with finely ground black pepper, and a dash of kosher salt. Then, in a small non-stick pan, I heat a couple tsp. of oil on medium heat. I drop in the salmon, skin-side down, and let it just sit there for about 6-7 minutes. Then I turn, and let each of the other three sides cook for 1-2 minutes each. The pepper crusts up and seals in all the tasty flavor. I garnish with lime, which adds just the right bite to each... well, bite. I like doing this one while the wife is away because she prefers her salmon a bit more well done than I like mine, and I have a hard time getting more than one piece "just right" if the criteria are different. The green beans, with a light asian sauce, were courtesy of Wegman's. Complemented very nicely with a Pete's Wicked Strawberry Blonde (don't laugh; they're tasty!).

Thursday: Pho Bo, a Vietnamese rice-noodle soup. This was a favorite of mine when I lived in Seattle, and there's only one place in town that serves it here, where it is under-portioned and over-priced. To do it "for real" requires the boiling of beef bones for many hours to produce just the right broth. Having neither beef bones nor many hours available, I found a recipe online that called for properly-seasoned beef broth instead, and tried this. Let me just cut this little story short with two words: culinary fiasco. Actually, it was the worst thing I've ever cooked. I couldn't find completely unseasoned beef broth, so the resulting mixture did not even really approximate the desired result. Way too salty, AND I apparently ran out of hoisin sauce, which is typically served in Pho restaurants as an add-in which sweetens the typically salty broth a bit. So the result tasted pretty awful. Which makes me sad, because I was hoping to use this to provide myself with Pho on a regular basis.

Friday: Left-over stir-fry. Actually very tasty. I combined some chili-garlic paste, cilantro, and scallions as the base, and stir-fried that with some soy-sauce-marinated thin-cut sirloin, and served it over rice with a side of kimchi (I always buy kimchi, a spicy Korean fermented cabbage dish, when the wife is out of town, because she can't stand the way it smells, which is, admittedly, quite pungent). This turned out vastly better than the previous night's meal -- actually, worth preserving in recipe form. I ended up not using the cilantro the previous night (cilantro is a common Pho garnish), so it flavored the beef quite well. I only had a small amount of the chili-garlic paste left, so it didn't overpower. The scallions and cilantro were the primary flavors, which complement each other very nicely. Accompanied by Spaten Optimator (pardon my lack of umlauts), a nice dark German beer.

Saturday: Pizza and beer. Papa John's "All the Meats" and some more Optimator. (Sorry -- "guy's night in", with pizza, beer, and Settlers of Catan -- no time to cook!).

Sunday: Italian-breadcrumb-encrusted fried "fresh" mozzarella slices. I took one of those big logs of "buffalo" mozzarella (the kind you typically find as big balls floating in water), sliced off some "medallions" of cheese, coated them in Italian-seasoned breadcrumbs (using buttermilk as the binding agent -- I swear by the stuff for all my frying needs!), and fried each side in a relatively small amount of oil for maybe 30 seconds apiece. Very tasty, although I had the oil too hot, which had the two-fold effect of a) setting off my fire alarm, and b) causing the outsides to get very hot while leaving the innermost cheese still slightly cool, which was not a particularly pleasant effect. Next time I'll lower the oil temperature and let them cook longer to yield thorough heating without meltage.

Monday: Sushi! I've never tried to make sushi before, so this will be interesting. It's what I had planned the previous night, but the rice I had had gone stale, AND the sushi-vinegar was expired. Oh, and the local fishmonger was all out of sushi-grade fish. That's still a factor, but I figure, for my first attempt, I ought to take it easy, so I'll be making avocado and cucumber rolls. I'll update if all goes well.

Update: Sushi was a rousing success, and surprisingly easy. I bought a bamboo roller and some sushinori (the seaweed wrapper) (chef's note: buy the cheap, separate ones (about $2 each for the roller and a pack of a dozen or so wrappers), NOT the "sushi kit", which is a pathetic ripoff). I used some pre-made "sushi rice seasoning" that Wegman's sells over by their sushi section, which is really just rice vinegar, sugar, and salt. Anywho, I cooked the rice, about 2 cups uncooked, and spread it out in a glass dish and poured about half a cup of the vinegar mixture over the (approx) 4 cups of cooked rice and let it cool. Then I sliced up some cucumber, avocado, shrimp, and shallots and combined them in varying ways in about 5 or 6 rolls. I even made a spicy shrimp roll with a squirt of Sriracha that turned out to be very tasty. My favorite, though, was the shallot-and-avocado roll, which had a creamy and subtle flavor thanks to the avocado, with the shallot adding a nice oniony kick. A dash of soy sauce and a pinch of wasabi later, I was stuffed, with lots of leftovers.

Thus we are at an end to my temporary bachelorhood (I fly out to the field test in a couple days), and my culinary experimentation. Final score: 3 hits, one miss, and one old standard that never fails (the salmon). And pizza-and-beer.

Another Milestone of Thirty!

2008-06-06T07:22:00.004-05:00

So almost exactly five months ago, I commented upon a milestone in my life involving the number 30. Well, 30 must be my lucky number, as today I've hit another milestone: Over the last year, I have finally reached my goal and lost (as of this morning) 30 lbs! That's right, the Only Red Shirt was formerly something of a porker, but now I'm down below even my svelte college (and subsequent wedding) weight.

I'll probably go a few more lbs. I'm going out on a field exercise for work, which means a per diem, which means eating rich food every night. So I'll need a bit of a buffer. But still, this marks the first time since college, and only the second time of my adult life, that I've been within "ideal weight" ranges by any reckoning. And since it took me a full year and an actual lifestyle change (eating smarter and getting some light exercise routinely), I can probably keep it off. And now I don't feel like such a fat white lump around my hot wife.

Next stop: the Chinese Buffet!

Light Blogging

2008-05-30T16:03:00.002-05:00

Just to let my loyal readers know, blogging will probably be light for the next few weeks, relatively speaking. And no, not because of my other engagement, where blogging will also be light. Work and home life (moreso work) are pretty much brewing a perfect storm (not necessarily in a bad way), so something's gotta give. I'll try to stick to my at-least-once-a-week rule, though, so fear not! Feel free to browse my older posts (comin' on 3 years worth now!) and leave some comments in them. It's fun in a completely narcissistic way to go back and read what I wrote a while ago anyhow!

Those Big Nerds @ NRO

2008-05-28T14:05:00.004-05:00

The Indispensable Geraghty™ discusses yet another hagiographic description of President-Presumptive Barack Hussein Obama in this post, with the glowing description from a piece in Esquire:

“And in this corner,” she begins.

(Oh, dear Lord, no.)

“The candidate of the people. Skinny young man. Big ears. Funny name. Armed with the experience of humble beginnings. Educated in Ivy League suites. Trained in legislative seats. Toughened in inner-city streets.”

(Okay, this is more like it.)

“Wearing the helmet of good judgment.”

(Uh-oh.)

“The breastplate of hope. Wielding the shield of unity. Carrying the sword of truth. And feet marching to the beat of change!”

Typical pap from the media and Obama-cultists. What cracked me up was Geraghty's follow-on:

Other magical items carried by Obama include the Aura of Inevitability, the Cult of Personality, the Complex of the Messiah, the Cloak of Invisibility for Unsavory Associates and Mentors, the Wand To Declare Unfavorable Issues 'Distractions' and most powerful of all, the Amulet of Journalists' Devotion to a Heroic Narrative, which adds +2d6 to all saving throws against scrutiny.

Pure. Comedy. Gold. Apparently all the coolest NROniks played (still play?) D&D. I wonder if there's a Vorpal Sword of Audacity in the latest 3.5 ruleset...

And if you don't get any of the above, don't worry; it just means you're not yet as big a nerd as I am.

I'm Famous Again!

2008-05-21T11:28:00.006-05:00

Longtime readers know that I have, sporadically, enjoyed a two-way correspondence with one of my heroes, Jonah Goldberg, author of Liberal Fascism. Well, I didn't elicit a response from him with my latest missive: rather, I got it posted to his book-blog! Hooray!

And once again, I failed to plug the blog; moreover, he has a standing policy of redacting correspondent names unless express permission is given in advance, which of course I didn't think to do. Drat!

And to prevent this post from being completely content-free, here is my email, also available at the link:

Mr. Goldberg,

That email you posted today reminds me of something I recently concluded as I plod through your book (I'm the plodder -- your book is actually quite enthralling). Particularly in regard to your discussions of Nazism and Italian Fascism, it seems to me that there are two possible honest reactions to the book: either a rejection of modern progressivism because of its ties to fascism, or -- and here's a helluva unintended consequence for you -- the rehabilitation of Fascism in the eyes of the Left! I could particularly see them latching onto your own observations that Mussolini didn't start mistreating the Jews until the very end, or learning to disassociate the Holocaust from Hitler's social and economic agenda ("We all agree the Holocaust was a horrible, horrible thing, BUT...")

On the plus side, if they did take the latter path rather than the former, it'd be all that much easier to ridicule them. Of course, that's like transforming shooting fish in a barrel to shooting fish in a smaller barrel with a bigger gun.

My only regret is that I wish I had written "...shooting dumber fish in a smaller barrel with a bigger gun". That would have been funnier.

The Stupidest Man Alive

2008-05-20T10:10:00.002-05:00

Fugly movie producer Robert "Mutt" Lange and Only-Reason-To-Ever-Listen-To-Country-Music Shania Twain (above) are splitting up, apparently due to his infidelities. Can I just take this opportunity to declare Mr. Lange to be the most amazingly stupid and blinkered individual to ever walk the face of the earth?

Ms. Twain, Canadian though you may be, you'll always have a place in my heart, ever since I as a young lad saw you in this.

(Disclaimer: Mrs. Red Shirt is fully aware of my sad little life-long crush. At least mine tend toward the stereotypical-male sort. Hers are a bit weirder.)

Obama Rewrites Corrects History

2008-05-20T08:22:00.005-05:00

(note: this piece of news was inspired entirely by Marty, so I must give credit where credit is due. Also, what follows below is a pre-publication edited draft copy I dug out of the AP's trash bin.)

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Senator Barack ~~Hussein~~ Obama, in trying to distance himself from ~~life-long pastor~~ casual acquaintance Reverend Jeremiah Wright, has begun incorporating images into his campaign reflecting his ~~newly minted image as a man of conviction~~ genuinely pious and faith-filled life. Most recently, this includes a flier to Kentuckian ~~God-clingers~~ voters (pictured), outlining the message of Obama's campaign: "Hope. Faith. Change". When asked for comment, Obama himself said "Well, as you know, I have been a Christian ever since I was a Musl -- ever since I was a child. And one of my favorite verses from the Kor -- the Christian Bible (redact Mr. Obama's accidental and completely meaningless stutters, since we all know he's much more articulate than this -- ed.) has always been First Corinthians 13:13, which says 'But now faith, hope, change, abide these three; but the greatest of these is change.' And I'm really just trying to be the living incarnation of everything the Bible teaches. You know, like Jesus, only more so."

~~President-Elect~~ Senator Obama's statement of Christian scripture riled many individuals on grounds of inaccuracy, according to some ~~obscure whackos~~. The Associated Press sought comment from the most conservative religious thinker on file. When asked for comment, a spokesman from the Union Theological Seminary said "Clearly, Mr. Obama takes a righteously progressive view of scripture, which is a living document. And living things grow and change with the times. And the liberties he has taken in re-writing the Bible just show that he is, indeed, a man who loves Liberty."

Other ~~changes~~ corrections proposed by Barack ~~Hussein~~ Obama (why are you trying to smear Obama by daring to state his middle name? -- ed.) include:

-Matthew 5:9, "Blessed are the appeasers, for they will be called Sons of God"

-John 1:1, "In the beginning was the word Obama, and the word Obama was with God, and the word Obama was, for all intents and purposes, God"

-Revelation 3:20, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and dine with him, and he with me, on a suitable, low-fat, low-carbohydrate, fair-trade, organic, vegan meat-substitute."

-Revelation 22:13, "I am the Omega, and the Beta, and the Alpha, and the Mu, and the Alpha again, the beginning, middle, and end"

Reaction from the media and intellectual classes include "Bold", "Daring", "Courageous", "Timely", and "Downright Jeffersonian".

Obama Declares Own Candidacy Off Limits

2008-05-19T11:19:00.003-05:00

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- After declarations that his middle name, personal history, close business associates, friends and neighbors, life-long spiritual mentors, and now even his wife are all "off-limits" when discussing the merits of his candidacy, U.S. Senator and Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama today announced that, in fact, his whole campaign, the fact that he is running for President, and his entire legislative career are now officially banned topics in both the media and Republican circles.

"I think I've made it clear that my candidacy is about Hope and Change and Faith," declared Senator Obama in a press conference Monday, "and it's just unfair for the Republican Hate Machine to smear that message with irrelevant facts about my voting record, my stand on the issues, or my complete lack of legislative accomplishment."

When asked for further comment about the chilling effect this might have on free speech during a vital political contest, an Obama spokesman who asked not to be named because his name was irrelevant to Obama's campaign said "Obama's non-record speaks for itself, so why should other people speak for it? That would be putting words into Obama's record's mouth." When pressed for more details, the unidentified spokesman immediately fell into a trance, chanting "hopechangefaithobaaaaaamaaaaa" repeatedly while standing in a Zen-like meditative pose.

An Open Letter To A Geographical Region

2008-05-15T12:30:00.003-05:00

Dear California,

In light of the recent ruling of the Supreme Court of the people who live in you, would it be too much trouble to just go ahead and fall off into the ocean?

Sincerely,
The Only Red Shirt

p.s. Please give my in-laws time to flee.

Stop the Presses!

2008-05-13T20:22:00.002-05:00

Straight from our friends in the mainstream media: "Experts: 'Indiana Jones' Pure Fiction". Oh holy crap on a crap cracker, I get down on my knees and thank the Good Lord by whom I am fearfully and wonderfully made that brave, intrepid reporters over at CNN are on the ball on that one!

Folks, we can all sleep soundly tonight without fear that any of the Indiana Jones movies are actually based on real historical events. God speed you, CNN!

Obligatory Means Fun!

2008-05-09T16:46:00.005-05:00

In fulfillment of my promise to post at least one post here per week, here we go: I'm sick, hence my lack of recent posts. Been sick since Monday. Miserable, sore-throat, funky-sinuses, chronic coughing, strange-colored-phlegm sick (one particular phlegmular event reminded me of nothing short of wet bacon). Not that that prevented me from going to work each day, where I am particularly busy and will be for the next five weeks (not that that typically slows my blogging down, but in this case...). Anywho, hooray for NyQuil, and hopefully I'll be a bit more chipper and productive by Monday.

The most interesting part of this particular sickness is that, as of today, I can taste nothing, despite being able to breath just fine. I drank a Coke that, literally, tasted like soda water (Mrs. Redshirt assured me that it tasted fine to her). The sweet sweet tamale-rito* that I concocted for lunch was a big log of mush in my mouth. On the plus side, I also cannot taste the Corona left over from my in-laws recent visit that I am drinking as I write this (strictly for self-medicating purposes, I assure you).

So to prevent this blog from completely devolving into some sort of kiddie livejournal piece of frippery, here is a fascinating and amusing story told in pictures, involving the Wee Redshirt and the family cat, Newton (after the scientist, not the fruit bar). Feel free to add your own captions, or even create a stirring plot:

*Instructions for a tamale-rito: Step 1: Get Mexican In-laws. To accomplish this, either a) marry a Mexican, or b) persuade a sibling to marry a Mexican. Adoption may be another avenue. Step 2: Have them bring you some hand-crafted tamales and fresh flour tortillas when they visit. The best way to get them to do this is by ensuring that, of their six children, only one of them has happened to have any progeny yet (who you helped create), and thus, they owe you, man. Step 3: Heat the tortilla on a griddle. Step 4: Spread sour cream, Tapatio hot sauce, avocado (or guacamole, if made by an Authentic (or Honorary) Mexican), and, if available, refried frijoles on one side of the tortilla. Step 5: Place the tamale on the sauced-up side of the tortilla. Step 6: Wrap it up and eat it! Amazing that, after centuries of culinary development, it took a juero like me to invent this divine creation.

A True Conversation This Very Day

2008-05-02T14:04:00.003-05:00

Here are some (almost) completely unedited snippets from a series of emails I exchanged with one of my oldest and dearest friends today, who I will call "Cliff", because that's his name:

Me:

<snip>

Oh, in other news, thanks for reminding me to tell you something: WE'RE PREGNANT AGAIN!!!

And based on <Mrs. Redshirt>'s calculations, the baby will be due at almost precisely the new year. I'll induce on Dec. 31 if I have to for tax purposes. Interestingly, that means that the baby could be born on Christmas, New Years Day, my birthday, or even your birthday, depending on how things go. Craziness.

Cliff:

Congratulations! And by the statement, "we're pregnant" I assume you mean Yoanna and not you because if you're pregnant too, then I'm really frightened.

For what it is worth, my mom still reminds me to this very day that I was due on December 26 and I cost her the 1977 tax deduction. She just won't let it go…

Me:

Well, that's a funny story involving a rare radioactive isotope... on the plus side, though, I can also shoot laser beams out of my eyeballs.

Cliff:

You need to stop hanging out in the nuclear chemistry lab…especially now that you are pregnant.

Me:

Actually, I was bitten by a radioactive female wombat. Fortunately, as a marsupial, I will carry the new child in my pouch until it turns 18. AND I can fight crime! I shall call myself Wombat(wo)man!

But seriously, please keep us in your prayers. <snip>

Cliff:

We'll be praying…

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that my friends are almost exactly as weird as I am. Funny how we gather around ourselves people of similar dispositions, whether consciously or not.

Oh, and also, I'M GONNA HAVE ME ANOTHER WEE ONE! Yeeee-HAW!!!
Only 1 more and I get my "Propagating the Species" merit badge!

By My Own Hand

2008-05-02T12:05:00.004-05:00

I made the above image all my myself in Windows Paintbrush, shamelessly ripping some freely available internet "art", for use in this post over at my other home. Being the self-indulgent narcissist that I am, I'm just so tickled at it that I decided to post it over here too, for all to revel in. Enjoy, and please, print it out and slap it on your favorite ronpaulian crank!

This Is Heartening

2008-04-30T14:24:00.004-05:00

My man Fred! is back on the campaign trail for John McCain. At the risk of committing a bit of sacrilegious paraphrasticism, if Fred be for him, who can be against him?

In other news, it took me about 10 tries to spell "sacrilegious" correctly. Also, from now on, I will only pronounce this in the correct manner as "sac-ril-LEE-jus". Maybe, just to be pedantic, I'll even throw in that last "i" as its own syllable and say "sac-ril-LEE-gee-us".

Obama and Wright

2008-04-29T13:29:00.004-05:00

I haven't said much about the whole Barack Hussein Obama/Rev. Wright thing here; others out there in the blogosphere are doing a vastly more thorough job than I could ever hope to do (just peruse The Corner, The Campaign Spot, Hugh Hewitt, or a whole host of other blogs for a small sampling). But here's the big kicker for me: as previously noted many times over, Obama has had 20 years with this pastor, and plenty of time to reject his radical preaching, and yet he has not. Currently, there are calls for him to publicly "disown" Rev. Wright in what could be the Mother of All Sister Souljah Moments. Some are saying this could be effective in repairing his downward-spiraling campaign.

But I must disagree. One of the things I have mentioned here in passing is that I have, in the past, had slight misgivings about my own pastor, who by all accounts is a fantastic and inspiring preacher (frankly, the most inspiring pastor I've ever had the privilege to listen to -- one day I'll have to post about my esteem for him). Part of this has to do with his occasional citing of questionable theologians and sources; another part is his subject matter, which is more oriented toward societal betterment through acting out Christ's teachings, rather than focusing on sin and its consequences. Now typically, many of these quotes are used not to score some theological point, but merely to illustrate a principle with anecdotal evidence. Likewise, I think it's my own background as a Southern Baptist congregant that has me missing the hellfire and dalmatians to which I was formerly so accustomed.

But my point is this: I am constantly on guard that a) my pastor, and by extension, my church, is teaching orthodox Christianity, and that b) the pastor is not using the pulpit as his own personal soapbox for advancing a political agenda that is contrary to my own views (after making sure that my own views are reconciled to Scriptural authority, of course). I filter everything I hear him say through these lenses. The minute I theoretically find that a line has been crossed, it would be my duty as the spiritual head of my household to move us to more appropriate place. I have a responsibility to ensure that the spiritual nourishment of my own family is not tainted milk, after all (Aside: I don't want to give the impression that I go to some hippie liberal church or anything. To date, my pastor has passed my scrutiny resoundingly).

Mr. Hussein-Obama has just such a responsibility with his own family, and doubly so as an aspiring, wannabe-shrewd politician. And in 20 years, either a) nothing impacted his ears that sounded so bombastic or radical as to require him to disassociate himself with such rhetoric, or b) he lacked the spiritual courage to stand up for his own personal and familial well-being upon hearing such fiery speechifyin'. And either way, that says a terrible lot about him that no "Sister Souljah Moment" can rectify.

Addendum: This is my 200th post! Not bad for 2.5 years of blogging... that's a post every 4.5 days or so, on average, just for you, my dear readers! And that doesn't even factor in my recent productivity elsewhere in the blogosphere...

Mere Words Are Not Enough

2008-04-29T11:21:00.003-05:00

The above I post without comment, just because it's been a while since I've really geeked out over here. It's not an election year in California, is it? Because I'd hate to be accused of giving an in-kind contribution or anything...

This Isn't The Candidate You're Looking For

2008-04-29T11:13:00.003-05:00

...said with all the flourish of a true Jedi master. But I digress. Just this morning on the way to work, I was telling my wife (being a one-car family, we "carpool") that I, and I think many if not most Republicans, would love the opportunity to vote for serious a black candidate -- if only he were, you know, a true conservative, and not crazy. Alan Keyes is not that man. And now it looks like he's not even the man for the (please try not to laugh) "Constitution Party"!

Seriously, Double-Yew-Tee-Eff?

2008-04-29T10:59:00.004-05:00

Yesterday I commented on, inter alia, the relatively recent rash of female-teacher-with-student trysts in the media as a possible portent of the Eschaton. Another day, another story. This time, though, I've got a different angle: the woman in this article was arrested a second time!!!, while out on bail, for returning to one of her former precocious lovers, and of course getting the proverbial "it" proverbially "on", as it were. So my angle? If this were a man involved with a younger female (or, even ickier, a younger male?), he would be locked up tight in a jail cell with no possibility of coming within a few parsecs of the preteen paramour. And yet, this woman was free on her own recognizance to not only visit the kid, but had the opportunity (where are this child's parents? Seriously?) to make that visit a bit more than just a chance to "talk about the crime", as the article indicates. Double standard much?

The Restrainer Restraining No More?

2008-04-28T11:05:00.004-05:00

My current daily Scriptural readings are from Revelation (those who call it "Revelations", please leave now), so the End of Days are, naturally, on my mind. Now, I'm of two minds when it comes to eschatology. The backwoods fundie in me (which, I confess, is no small part) is just waiting for the first signs of an impending astronomical encounter of meteoric proportions (and for the first crackpot to dub it "Wormwood"), and wouldn't be too terribly surprised to see a new and particularly nasty breed of insect in my lifetime. Meanwhile, my rationalist side keeps insisting in a Dawkins-esque tone that the entire book was simply a coded message relevant primarily to the First Century church about the Roman Empire (note: fortunately, my faith is strong enough that the obvious third way of "ravings of a madman in exile on a penal island" doesn't enter into it). My rationalist side can be a real jerk sometimes.

But this post isn't about Revelation or the prophetic words therein. Rather, it's about a somewhat uncharacteristic passage in an otherwise standard, if short, Epistle from Paul to the church in Thessaloniki. In whole, the passage reads:

1 Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, 2 not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. 3 Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, 4 who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. 5 Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? 6 And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time. 7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. 8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming. 9 The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, 10 and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. 11 Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, 12 in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

Now, there's a whole treasure-trove of theological and eschatological gold in there, but what I really want to focus on are the parts I emphasized above. Before the coming of the "man of lawlessness" (generally viewed to be the Antichrist), some entity who restrains this lawlessness must be removed. Generally, I've always understood this to be the Holy Spirit as applied to humanity as a whole (keeping us from engaging our basest instincts on a regular basis) rather than just to believers.

Why does this come to my mind? Well, I frequently read stories in the news like this, in which an Austrian man kept his own daughter secretly imprisoned in his basement for 24 years, repeatedly subjecting her to the worst forms of sick abuse, or this, one of many sad stories of late in which a teacher treats the students under her care as her sexual playthings, and they keep appearing with increasing frequency. And like most sane people, I begin to wonder "why on earth would people do something like that? Why would they think it's okay to do it? Where would they even get that idea?". And then that passage pops into my mind.

What if this cycle of sick perversion is a manifestation of The Restrainer being removed? What if that safeguard instilled by God to keep us from complete moral, cultural, and societal destruction is being "phased out"? It would certainly go a long way in explaining why these genuine atrocities keep cropping up.

On the other hand, perhaps these sorts of things have been happening throughout human history. Perhaps the recent prevalence of them is merely a byproduct of the 24-hour news cycle. Cable News has got to fill every hour, so suddenly what was once relegated to the local police as a domestic situation, and heard about only through the local gossip-mills, now makes national and international headlines in an otherwise slow news day. After all, the last century featured some of the worst and unrestrained degradation ever seen by mankind, and we're still here.

Whatever the answer is, the backwoods fundie in me is keeping his eyes peeled for a man of lawlessness.

This post was cross-posted at Mazurland.

It's Come To This

2008-04-24T14:53:00.002-05:00

If the hard Left calls conservatives "baby killers" and equates George W. Bush with Adolph Hitler, can't we at least now refer to all lefties as "cripple punchers"?

This Concerns Me

2008-04-23T12:31:00.004-05:00

Rising sea levels? I live inland. Increasing temperatures? I used to live in Texas, and now I live in Pennsylvania. Bring it on! Food scarcity? Not in this country, at least in my lifetime. Chaos in the street? My family has more guns than it could possibly need, and a remote cabin (tree farm/deer camp) with indoor plumbing in SW Arkansas. So Global Warming Alarmism, so far, hasn't scared me, even if the most worrisome jeremiads of The Goracle come true.

But overwhelming infestations of poisonous spiders? Holy freaking crap, now I'm terrified! Head for the hills! Carbon cap-and-trade! Buy a Prius! Eat more tofu! All hail our new supreme overlord Albert Gore!

Lord help me, I HATE spiders.

Update: Whew, I'm safe. New Ice Age instead! Which ought to keep me safe from everthing... except ICE SPIDERS!!!!!

Well, I Dun It

2008-04-23T07:33:00.003-05:00

Well, yesterday was the big day in PA, so with somewhat mitigated pride I pulled the now-metaphorical level (actually, pressed the flashing red button on the fancy-shmancy e-leck-tronical DEE-vise). Despite my threats to switch parties for strategic reasons, or write in a certain other someone, I performed my democratic duty with no small portion of party loyalty and solidarity, and pressed the button for Senator John McCain, may God bless him and give him victory.

Voter turnout was surprisingly sparse at my precinct. Granted, I left work a bit early, and got there right at 5:00, but there was only one person ahead of me in line. And since a friend of mine was working the check-in table, that was pretty swift as well. While Obama signs throughout my town were plentiful, Obama support at the polling places seemed very light -- no sign-holders anywhere to be seen, and in fact local races dominated the signage. There was a crowd of Hillary demonstrators at the entrance to the neighborhood in the morning, and two sad, lonely Obama-supporting college students holding up pathetically small signs near the entrance to the University where I work, but apart from that, the rabble was not particularly roused.

Locally, the only race of any importance was the nomination for the fifth congressional district of PA. I voted for the family-values/pro-life Baptist preacher/former lawyer with 9 kids (7 adopted from troubled/abusive homes). He ended up with about half as many votes as the winner, who based on his scant biographical information smells like a career politician. The weekly email from our pastor indicated that he too voted for my choice, which made me feel a lot better about my pastor (I suppose Baptist preachers gotta stick together). He rarely mentions a pro-life message in his sermons (mostly because he likes to stay apolitical to the extreme), so the fact that he picked the guy who made it his own platform speaks well on that front. AND it indicates that my pastor is a registered Republican, since PA has a closed primary. Which also alleviates some concerns of mine, since he sometimes quotes some shaky theologians (Tony Campolo, Slick Willie's personal, and apparently wholly ineffective "spiritual counselor" while he was President, for example). So, hey, that's good.

A Real Laff Riot

2008-04-22T10:17:00.003-05:00

That bastion of independent, unbiased journalism, the BBC, has written up a great howler of a "news article" (note I did not say "opinion piece", but, in fact, an objective, ostensibly fact-based news article). The subject matter is the call by a Muslim group for the world to adopt "Mecca Time" as the standard for all timekeeping rather than Greenwich Mean Time. The article itself digs a little deeper and also discusses the phenomenon of Ijaz al-Koran, the attempt to point to the Koran as preceding and confirming modern scientific findings.

Now, this can certainly be a newsworthy piece of factual information, particularly in our information-obsessed age where any tidbit is worthy of a quick and painless post on the Web somewhere. But here's the greatest screamer of all, right at the end:

But the movement is not without its critics, who say that the notion that modern science was revealed in the Koran confuses spiritual truth, which is constant, and empirical truth, which depends on the state of science at any given point in time.

Yes. The only mistake of the "scholars" is that they dare muddle the absolute truths of the Koran with the silly little flights of fancy that science has to offer*. And this was the only criticism the author could find, or even imagine. This, in a news item. Hey BBC? Next time you want an unbiased piece about something like this, hire somebody just a teensy sconch less committed to Islamic Supremacy.

*Far be it from me to pull a Derb here -- I don't think true faith and science are incompatible at all

I Review "Juno"

2008-04-21T09:13:00.001-05:00

Here!

Movin' On Up...

2008-04-21T07:44:00.002-05:00

Big news for the Redshirt: I've been invited to become a co-blogger/peon over at Mazurland! The Brothers Mazur have decided that, once again, it's time to expand their authorship roster, and have extended the offer to me, since I like to comment there, rather copiously. That, and I work with one of the brothers. And of course, since they have like TENS more readers than I do, I accepted the offer, so as to expand my audience all that much more.

But fear not, loyal Redshirt readers! I don't intend, just yet, to forgo the proprietorship of this fine blog! As readers may recall, one of the founding principles of this blog was that of my love of sci-fi and its ilk, and I certainly intend to keep posting on that here. Similarly, all personal and family-related posts (maybe some day I'll get to do more globe-trotting-Sam-blogging!) will remain here. I'll also probably cross-post a good number of my political and social comments between the two. As for my Christian-themed posts, well, I haven't yet decided which would be the more appropriate venue yet. Mazurland is certainly not afraid of the occasional God-blogging, but as Marty's imprimatur tends to cause the place to veer Roman Catholic (not that there's anything wrong with that, and Sam, if you don't have anything nice to say in the comments, don't say anything), I may leave the more evangelical-centric comments here. Time will tell.

So again, fear not, loyal reader(s?)! This is not a departure, merely a stage of growth.

Birds of a Feather, Doing What They Do

2008-04-17T11:47:00.002-05:00

Some fellow (or gal, I can't tell) named "Cuffy" over at a neat little (and by "little" I mean "still bigger and probably more widely read than this blog") blog called Perfunction has posted this interesting compilation of quotes regarding the "pulling of licenses" from various broadcasters for the crime of (politcally) offensive speech, running the gamut from DailyKossacks reacting to last night's sad little cockfight, predictably through latter-day former-Soviet nation states, all the way back to our own dear actually-in-power Democrats. Go give it a read.

The thought that struck me the most was how, despite being so different in presentation (e.g., the smiley-faced socialism of the US versus the gray bureaucracy of the former USSR, versus the stark militarism of present-day Cuba and North Korea), Leftists always display a remarkable, even admirable consistency in thought, rhetoric, and tactics.

A Stunning Realization

2008-04-15T10:24:00.002-05:00

After meditating on the meaninglessness of Barack Hussein Obama's rhetoric, and reading more about it from other sources, I was just struck with the sudden realization: somehow, Mr. Hussein Obama planted the seeds for his own fame years ago, as the voice and writer of Zombo.com.

Turn your speakers on and listen.

(For the uninitiated, zombo.com has been around for YEARS. It predates the end of the internet boom, even. It was especially funny back then in the milieu of unrestrained optimism about the potential of the internet. I know a joke is often a lot less funny if it has to be explained, but otherwise the connection would just be too random.).

Tax Day!

2008-04-15T08:41:00.004-05:00

Just some idle musings about taxes on this most obnoxious of days:

I'm not the first to say this, but I really wish national elections were held on April 16. Then again, PA's primaries are a week from today, and it doesn't seem to make a lick of difference about whom the parties select for November, considering our already outrageous tax burden.

When, as a people, did our collective consciousness finally become okay with the concept of a government who takes our money willy-nilly, and keeps claiming the right to more and more of our property? And why aren't we outraged at this?

The above complaint outrages me even more at the state and local level. Local jerks who up and decide that they, too, deserve a slice of our pie just mandate that we have to pay a certain percent in tribute to them. It's aggravating.

I'm also not the first to say this, but I think tax software and automatic tax withholding are bad things, despite the fact that I use both. They make the taxation process practically transparent to all but the most careful of observers, making it less likely that we'll sit down and realize just how big a slice the government is taking from our pie, and how complicated they make the procedure! We should be forced to write a check for our entire tax burden, either monthly or yearly. That way we'd know damn well just how much the government is garnishing our wages for their stupid pet projects. And itemized proportionate list of where our tax money is going, provided by the government as a receipt, would also be handy. And the tax software, God bless it, just enables the IRS to create all-the-more complicated tax rules that only computer software can handle! The more complicated the tax code, the less able we are to complain about specifics...

Despite all my complaints, tax resisters are fools at best and charlatans at worst. Going to jail for a cause can be good, but not when it's based on ridiculously flawed argument.

Also despite all my complaints, I know that I am Biblically required to pay taxes, whether the burden be just or not. So I will do so, without cheating, for the rest of my life. But I see nothing wrong with taking every legal remedy to reducing that burden!

I got a rather large "refund" this year. I did last year too, and could have increased my withholding allowances to "break even", which is supposedly the ideal way to do things. Nevertheless, I did not do so -- I like the psychological effect of receiving a large check of my money from the government. Hooray for a mortgage, a kid, and a tithe!

The logic behind "breaking even" on tax day is that you received all "your" money with each paycheck, thus being able to invest it at the time, rather than after tax day -- gaining potential interest on that income rather than allowing the government to do so. Wouldn't it be more optimal, then, to withhold NO money, and invest all the surplus (that will eventually be "harvested" on tax day) into some sort of safe investment account, only to withdraw the principle and "give it back" to the government on April 15, keeping the interest profit for yourself? Wouldn't that be something akin to a short-term, interest-free loan? Is there a flaw in this logic? Maybe a tax rule that prevents this? Because I'm thinking about it...

I take my tax refund and pay my real-estate taxes with it, which in turn reduces my tax burden for the following year. It's a vicious (and stupid) cycle. Sort of like robbing Peter to pay Paul, down at the microscopic level.

More than that, I will also use my upcoming tax "rebate" (Thanks, Dubya!) to pay down my real-estate tax burden, thus totally and completely defeating the point. Am I screwing the economy? Probably, but oh well.

Obama's Beautiful Blunder

2008-04-15T08:07:00.004-05:00

So by now you've read it, had it parsed, sliced, diced, julienned, and rehashed a hundred times over. But for the sake of discussion, here's his famous quote in all its smug, out-of-touch, ~~elitist~~snobbish glory (as quoted by Tim Blair):

"They get bitter," said Obama of the poor people, to an audience of millionaires, "and they cling to guns, or religion, or antipathy toward people who aren't like them, or anti-immigrant sentiment, or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

From all that I've read about this infamous quote, nobody has really taken it to task for its utter lack of significance, at least in parts.

Let's take it in parts, since the "or" implies that each constituent component of this litany of redneck-isms may be treated individually. From the very start: "They get bitter, and they cling to guns... as a way to explain their frustrations." Just what is this supposed to mean? Guns... explain their frustrations? Huh?

Next we have "They get bitter, and they cling to ...religion... as a way to explain their frustrations." I think this is the component that has produced the most furor, so I'll just say what's already been said: maybe some people actually, you know, already have faith and don't need an excuse of joblessness to turn to it. Just maybe (although I think this quote says it all).

Following that, "They get bitter, and they cling to ...antipathy toward people who aren't like them... as a way to explain their frustrations." Ok, this is the least disease-ridden fly on Barack Hussein Obama's massive turd. I'll grant him at least that racism is a bad thing. Do people become racist when they lose their jobs, though? Somehow, I don't think so, unless you couple that with the following "anti-immigration" statement, and then it's only racism directed toward immigrant laborers -- and considering Obama's racial focus as The Black Candidate, I think that's unlikely. Racism is a learned behavior, and then most often learned in childhood, not after a bitter job loss. And if the "people that aren't like them" are, say, Islamic radicals, then maybe, just maybe, it has more to do with the chopping-of-the-heads, and less to do with their current unemployment.

Then we have "They get bitter, and they cling to ...anti-immigrant sentiment... as a way to explain their frustrations." I won't say more than has already been said here except to point out that, by and large, it's the anti-illegal-immigrant sentiment that is really being discussed here. Why is that word always omitted? Can it be that it might somehow diminish their arguments to state them truthfully?

Finally, "They get bitter, and they cling to ...anti-trade sentiment... as a way to explain their frustrations." Wait, what? According to my sources, Barack Hussein Obama is currently *shakes Magic 8-Ball* FOR protectionist measures. Maybe he's cycled back into free trade this week? Has he laid off another advisor to account for this? Seriously, if Mr. Hussein Obama were a principled free-trade advocate, he'd at least have a strong point here. But we know that he's not, so, down to the last point, he's speaking pure gibberish.

God Bless 'Em

2008-04-10T10:40:00.002-05:00

Fox News currently has the following headline running on the front page: "Terrorists Confirm Carter Meeting". Following the link therein, we come to the actual article title, "Hamas Confirms: Carter To Meet Terrorist Leader".

This, folks, is why conservatives, including myself, love Fox News so much: they're willing to call a thug a thug, and a terrorist a terrorist -- oh, and to point out the foibles of America's Worst Ex-President™ while they're at it!

The More You Know

2008-04-10T08:58:00.006-05:00

Despite having a two-year-old well-progressed into the vaccination calendar, I have largely let the recent "antivaccination" "movement" fall under my radar -- that is, until very recently. The general, and completely unsupported, claim is that there is a link between vaccination and autism -- typically explained by the "toxic" ingredients that serve as preservatives, binding agents, antibacterials, etc., in the vaccines. Originally, Thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative, was blamed as the culprit -- until it was removed in 2001 and autism continued unabated in the population.

Well, recently, it came more to my attention, when I found out that a friend who had recently had a kid was considering not getting all the vaccinations -- at the urging of his wife, who absorbs daytime TV like a sponge, where this movement is unfortunately attracting a considerable audience.

Anywho, I could rant and rant and rant about the mortally dangerous stupidity of this so-called "movement", using terms like "herd immunity" and "diagnostic broadening and substitution", and concepts like "correlation does not equal causation" or "the plural of anecdote is not data" or "the dose makes the poison", and I could even point out that autism incidence only began to rise when it became its own category of diagnosis for federal funding purposes. I could, but I won't, because it'll just make me angry and upset, and I haven't had my coffee yet this morning. So instead, I'll just link to this article here speaking out against the idiocy of antivaccination advocacy at the execrable Huffington Post, and another one, pointing out the sheer stupidity that occurs when one has Jenny "Yeah, I Remember Seeing Naked Pictures Of Her Back When I Was In College" McCarthy as a primary spokes-mom.

A Quick and Superficial Thought on the Second Amendment

2008-04-07T11:04:00.002-05:00

A good friend of mine, who is a lawyer, and who is thoroughly familiar with "Con-law", has made it clear to me that the one thing that words in a statute CANNOT mean is "nothing". That is to say, if the words find their way into law, those words must, necessarily, contribute to the meaning and interpretation of that law (said friend illustrates this point with an amusing anecdote about how a trivial, one-word, and almost certainly inadvertent difference in a state law compared to its federal equivalent resulted in all sorts of activist judicial shenanigans -- wish I could remember the full story).

Well, this point of legal interpretation seems to be very important, considering the potential of the upcoming ruling in the D.C. vs. Heller case. Hinging on the SCOTUS' interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, it is widely thought that this ruling will settle, somewhat finally, whether the 2nd Amendment grants a collective (boo!) or individual (yay!) right to bear arms. One of the points that the arm-chair gun-grabbers (that is to say, the non-professionals) like to think they make is the first few words of the amendment, which reads in whole:

A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.

(yes, I removed the superfluous commas), is that those pesky first few words, since they must mean something, mean that the right to bear arms only applies insofar as it applies to a "well-regulated militia", which is then taken to be the modern-day National Guard. I'm not going to get into a debate about the soundness, or lack thereof, of that argument.

However, since it looks like the SCOTUS might very well come down 5-4 in favor of the individual right, the notion that those words give the amendment its collectivist meaning is blown right out of the water (presumably with a Constitutionally-sanctioned firearm, no less). Based on my premise above, however, those words cannot be meaningless. So what, then, do they mean?

Well, let's (rightly) assume that the 2nd Amendment does indeed confer an individual right to keep and bear arms. The opening nominative absolute clause points out that the reason we have that right is that a well-regulated militia is necessary. And what arms, pray tell, are required such that members of a militia might be considered "well-regulated"? I can't imagine a legion of well-equipped, well-trained, well-regulated militiamen with a bunch of .22 plinkers, short-range handguns, and a variety of mismatched hunting rifles of varying calibers. Far from being well-regulated, that would be a chaotic mess from a logistics and supply point-of-view!

No, you see, if the Second Amendment confers an individual right to keep and bear arms, then the opening clause tells us nothing less than this: we have a Constitutional right to keep and bear nothing less than professional U.S. Military-grade weaponry!

This, of course, dovetails nicely with my own pet theory that if we all owned and were trained to competency on military-grade assault rifles, this country would be a lot safer and crime-free. Now there's an entitlement program I'd vote for!

Fascinating Image

2008-04-07T09:53:00.004-05:00

Check this out. I came across it while looking some things up for my last post. It's a "red/blue" county-by-county map of the US over the last 40-ish years. Extremely fascinating to watch the progression of this country from one hue to another, and then try to remember what political event or character influenced the trends in a given year. One twist to this map: rather than a continuum of shades between red and blue with purple in between, there is a triangular palette here, with "green" being a stand-in for "other". Makes it very very clear just how much of a spoiler H. Ross Perot was in 1992 (and how important Bill's Southern charm was), as well as some before-my-time Southern chaos in the 60's. (Wallace, I think? One of you old ex-hippies can fill me in here so I don't have to google it).

My Town Turns Blue

2008-04-07T09:34:00.003-05:00

The local fishwrap reports that Centre County, where I live, officially has more registered Democrats than Republicans for the first time in more than 30 years. While this makes me sad, I am hardly ready to pack up and move to redder territory. First of all, I acknowledged the general "blueness" in my inaugural post on this blog, and the title itself pays homage to the principle that I'm surrounded by ~~idiots~~ Democrats at all times anyhow.

But more importantly, I am confident that this surge does not reflect any sort of political paradigm shift among residents of central PA. To its credit, the article I linked, at the very bottom, points toward the trend of formerly registered Republicans switching parties due to Pennsylvania's "closed" primary system, in order to make waves for Democrats come November. Where would anyone get a silly idea like that?

Finally, the state of the primary election has played a big role in this shift too. If the Democrat ticket had been set by now, like the Republican one has, who would be rushing out to register to "have their voices heard"? You can bet that, if the situation were reversed and, say, Mike Huckabee and John McCain were neck-and-neck right now, while Hillary was sitting comfortably at the top of the Dem ticket, Centre County would be solidly red yet again.

I'm not worried about this come election time, though. Once past the primary, central PA will once again become unimportant "flyover country", and all those riled-up college students who turned out for various Clinton or Hussein-Obama rallies in town the last couple weeks will once again become lazy, disaffected, indolent losers like they always were when there wasn't some charismatic speaker to tell them how special they were. Hillary or Obama's suicidal 20% will stay home or switch sides, El Rushbo's Army of Chaos will properly revert and vote McCain, and things will be just peachy. I must say, I'm more enthused about the GOP's presidential prospects in November than I have been in a very long time.

Good Ol' CNN

2008-03-27T13:00:00.003-05:00

So in coverage of the current clash between Moqtada al-Sadr's shiite militia against the US and Iraqi troops, CNN is referring to the militia members as "outlaws". Not outlaws, mind you, but "outlaws". Members of an illegal militia dedicated to the overthrow of the legal government of Iraq are "outlaws". Meanwhile, mostly-foreign al-Qaeda-in-Iraq members are boldly proclaimed as insurgents, rebels, guerillas, fighters, or any host of names other than "terrorist". With or without the scare quotes.

Disgusting. Predictable, but disgusting.

Update: Here's a screen capture of it for when this inevitably goes down the memory-hole:

Veep Shenanigans

2008-03-26T07:56:00.002-05:00

So let's see... we trade eight years of a Bush and a Dick for the prospect of... a John, and now, possibly Cox? Do we really need to give the late-night talk-show hosts more fodder?

That's why I support Penis Van Lesbian for Vice President. Nothing to make fun of there.

A Beautiful Bind

2008-03-25T10:13:00.003-05:00

According to this post over at the Corner, the Supreme Court has ruled in Medellin vs. Texas (background, as linked in that post, here), and that ruling serves as both a victory for states' rights and a repudiation of the Bush administration.

This presents a rare and wonderful opportunity for the Left to make a complete ass of itself in trying to "spin" this. If they attack the Court for its effectively anti-International-Court ruling, they implicitly support President Bush's foreign policy and his views of a stronger Executive office. If they hail it as the repudiation of Bush's overreaching that it is, then they must concede that the Roberts court (indeed, the opinion was written by the Chief Justice himself) is neither a rubber-stamp for the Bush administration, nor is it "tilting rightward" to some deleterious effect, as certain court reporters would have one believe.

This ought to be fun to watch. For those of you with seats up front, bring a plastic sheet. Some heads are gonna a-splode.

Stupid IATT Bulletin 1147...

2008-03-19T18:40:00.003-05:00

From "Wikihistory", by Desmond Warzel:

11/15/2104
At 14:52:28, FreedomFighter69 wrote:
Reporting my first temporal excursion since joining IATT: have just returned from 1936 Berlin, having taken the place of one of Leni Riefenstahl's cameramen and assassinated Adolf Hitler during the opening of the Olympic Games. Let a free world rejoice!

At 14:57:44, SilverFox316 wrote:
Back from 1936 Berlin; incapacitated FreedomFighter69 before he could pull his little stunt. Freedomfighter69, as you are a new member, please read IATT Bulletin 1147 regarding the killing of Hitler before your next excursion. Failure to do so may result in your expulsion per Bylaw 223.

At 18:06:59, BigChill wrote:
Take it easy on the kid, SilverFox316; everybody kills Hitler on their first trip. I did. It always gets fixed within a few minutes, what's the harm?

At 18:33:10, SilverFox316 wrote:
Easy for you to say, BigChill, since to my recollection you've never volunteered to go back and fix it. You think I've got nothing better to do?

Read the whole thing. Heheh...

(HT: Fark)

On Second Thought...

2008-03-19T08:04:00.004-05:00

Recently, I commented whether or not it would be wise to switch parties (I still have six days!) and vote for Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary here in Pennsylvania. At the time, it seemed like voting for Clinton would be the wise maneuver, for the primary reason of keeping the Democratic primary race open until the actual convention, thus fomenting chaos and tearing apart the Democratic base, bolstering McCain's chances in November.

That was before the "Reverend" Jeremiah Wright came along.

Now polls indicate that Hillary has a huge lead over Obama (we're talking in the 10-20 point range here). If these numbers hold true, would there be any reason to vote for her at all? Does she need a complete blow-out to stay in the race, or only a solid (say, 5 point) victory?

That leads to the next question: would my vote be better spent, then, on Obama, to keep Hillary's apparently inevitable lead down? Or should I just salve my conscience and stay Republican, and vote for John McCain (or even write in Fred!) in April? I have some serious thinking to do.

Somebody Pinch Me

2008-03-17T14:09:00.002-05:00

Okay, I totally forgot that today was St. Patrick's Day. Fortunately, since I'm not Irish (as far as I know -- the Thompson clan might have some green blood in there somewhere), that doesn't matter. But, in honor of this virtually-irrelevant-to-99%-of-those-who-celebrate-it-in-this-country holiday, I present the following:

(HT: Jonah Goldberg)

On My Way To The Courthouse Now...

2008-03-13T09:56:00.003-05:00

"Bull Dog Pundit" over at the Ankle-biting Pundits enumerates the reasons why he has already switched his party affiliation in his (and my) home state of Pennsylvania (it's a closed primary here) so as to vote for Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary. Some highlights:

1. If Hillary Clinton wins the Pennsylvania primary then it is almost certain that she and Obama will continue their fight for the nomination until the August convention.

and

4. In the event that Hillary does end up winning the nomination because of the superdelegates, the fracture in their party coming out of that convention (even if Obama takes the #2 slot, which I don’t think will happen), will make divide we witnessed in the GOP primary seem minor.

Read the whole thing. I know at least a few of my readers live here in PA too. Maybe I'm not 100% convinced, but with the deadline approaching (anyone know what it is? BDP indicates that it's "soon", but doesn't say when), it's given me a LOT to think about.

Update: The Indispensable Geraghty™ has done some of the leg-work for me: I have until March 24 to switch registration. On the other hand, he also indicates that Hillary's lead is already quite impressive, on the order of 14-19%, so it may not make much of a difference.

Schadenfreude, cont.

2008-03-10T12:54:00.003-05:00

It's funny how such an inconsequential rube with such a silly platform can stir up such passions in people -- both for and against. And yet, Ron Paul manages to do just that in so many people. Now that his Presidential aspirations are once again thwarted, it's time, I'm sure, for the ronpaulians to hunker down and lick their wounds. As is typical with all cults once their raison d'etre has been removed (be it the untimely death of a leader, failure of prophecy to materialize, or, as in this case, reality sinking in), it seems likely that a whole host of rationalizations of their over-exuberance and commitment will begin. In the coming months, if we care enough to pay attention (which may be hazardous to one's health), I expect the following (with considerably worse grammar and spelling, of course):

"Well, we knew we were doomed from the start, but we got out the bigger message!"

"It's not about winning -- it's about shaping the arguments!"

"We were Swift-Newslettered by McCain's neocon goons! Otherwise we would have won!"

"First the twin towers, now Dr. Paul's campaign! How much more do the nasty neo-con jooooos have to destroy before their bloodlust is quenched????"

"That's it, I'm moving to <insert country that, upon closer inspection, actually has nothing in common with Ron Paul's actual politics and is actually demonstrably less free than the USA here>, where at least they have freedom!"

"Super Tuesday was an inside job!"

"In my meticulously internet-researched YouTube documentary, I prove beyond all doubt that through voter fraud, manipulation, and suppression, the Ron Paul vote was stolen, and that he should have won by at least 90% of the electorate, Democrat and Republican alike -- by using the same cluster analysis techniques perfected by The Lancet to prove that 600,000,000 people died in the first four hours of Bushitler's War on the Innocent Iraqi Babies and Puppies!!!!!!"

Now of course I'm using the smallest bit of hyperbole in a few of these, but in particular, the first couple of them I've already begun to see, and I'd like to comment on how completely and utterly wrong they are: how did Ron Paul's candidacy and exuberant support shape the overall campaign? Did John McCain moderate any of his positions due to pressure from the Ron Paul camp? Of course not. One might argue that McCain and Paul had similar views on government spending, through McCain's anti-pork stance and Paul's status as "Dr. No", but Paul himself has always been a considerable porker, ill-fated and obviously doomed no-votes aside, but those positions existed well before Primary Season.

Have Barack or Hillary taken up the mantle of 9/11 "trutherism", or stepped up their anti-war rhetoric to try to capture the vote that Ron Paul's supporters claim is burgeoning on both the right and the left? Hardly. If anything, the Democratic candidates have begun to moderate their own positions, recognizing the realities on the ground regarding the successes of The Surge and the "Anbar Awakening", facts the ronpaulians have had to steadfastly deny or obfuscate over the last year.

As for the now-common "admission" they they already knew he didn't have a chance "all along": liars. You don't call someone "The Only Man Who Can Save America" with the understanding that he can't win. And I've heard it directly from the lips of his most fervent local supporters that a) he's the only person who stands a chance of beating Hillary/Obama (with no evidence, statistical or otherwise, to back this up, of course), b) silly transient "trends" in his polling numbers indicates that he'll run away with the nomination, and c) that he's got a "very strong chance" in both the primary and general election (this last one I heard both before Iowa, after Iowa, and even after New Hampshire).

So what did the Ron Paul campaign accomplish in the way of "getting the message out"? Well, by refusing to prune the undesirables from their ranks (a lesson the late great WFB taught us re: The John Birch Society), they managed to marginalize and "fringe-ify" even the facets of his platform that genuine conservatives might have found appealing -- sound money, states' rights, individualism, limited government, etc. So to all you "true believers" out there, through whose lunacy of zeal and fervor for a ~~dark~~dead-horse candidate with kooky ideas and kooky supporters you managed to drive several important planks of the conservative platform farther into obscurity: Thanks a whole f***ing lot. Jerks.