Yup, working from home again today, aren’t I? I don’t ordinarily get to do it so frequently, but Lowe’s is delivering our new gas range today sometime between 11:30am and 1:30pm which of course means they’ll show up either shortly after 9am or just as we’re sitting down to dinner. But just in case, I need to be on site all day to, you know, quickly herd cats and tell Tosh and Marley not to eat the delivery people.
Bought Zachary a laptop yesterday – this one, to be specific – and I’m proud to report that he is currently upstairs cleaning the living room in preparation for the afore-mentioned stove delivery. He could be hiding in his room playing with his new computer, which I fully expected, but is instead repaying me by allowing me to get my work done without having to stress over all the clutter and dog hair that abounds. He’s a great kid.
Well, much work to do, so here is some more eyecandy for your Hump Day. None of the images are mine; I found them all on the 'net. If you missed them, the other EyeCandy posts are here and here. Have a great day, peeps!
Yeah, that last one got you, didn't it? Heh, heh, heh.
Another way to word the sign at right might have been:
GOD STOLE OUR BRAINS! BLIBBITY BLABBITY BLOOBITY BLUT!
Seriously, how much crack would I have to smoke to get on board with the fucked-up string of logic expressed here? This is such a perfectly accurate example of the thought processes adopted by fundamentalist religionists the world over: backwards, anti-intellectual convictions based on nothing but fear and ignorance. Christians like Roger Byrd – the jackass responsible for the sign’s message – are every bit as hateful and scary as the Muslim extremists they’re so obviously terrified of. It would be funny if it wasn’t so goddamned grievous in its implications.
But enough of my bombastic mud-slinging! Let’s have a more critical look at the issue, shall we?
Putting aside that “Osama” and “Obama” are different names and ignoring the fact that one is a first name and the other a surname, I’d like to look at Byrd’s own words surrounding this controversial sign. Let me show you how his message and the mentality behind it are proof positive that organized religion is often the refuge of insipid, deceitful windbags.
“Byrd said that the message wasn't meant to be racial or political.”
In other words, this Christian pastor is also a blatant liar. The sign’s message is the very epitome of political! How on earth could a sign comparing a known terrorist with a presidential candidate NOT be political? Byrd’s lie is so crystalline his conviction boggles the mind. One starts feeling like a Monty Python sketch is about to transpire:
(knock)
Roger Byrd: Come in!
Reasonable Man: I say, that sign outside is rather political!
Byrd: No it isn’t!
Man: But it is!
Byrd: Is not!
Man: It compares a terrorist to a politician!
Byrd: No it doesn’t!
Man: Oh, I’m sorry. I thought it did.
Byrd: Well, let’s get things clear: it is neither racial nor political.
Man: I believe it is.
Byrd: But you would be mistaken.
Man: Is that all you can do is contradict me?
Byrd: I’m not contradicting you.
Man: Argument is an intellectual process. Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of any statement the other person makes.
(short pause)
Byrd: No it isn’t.
I really shouldn’t have to go any further. In a perfect world, I could stop right here and we’d all be in agreement that Byrd and his ilk are completely deluded simpletons who deserve no acknowledgment except maybe from pigeons looking for a toilet. But I sense there are still a few kind people out there who want to give them the benefit of the doubt, so I will struggle on.
"It's simply to cause people to realize and to see what possibly could happen if we were to get someone in there that does not believe in Jesus Christ," he said.
When asked if he believes that Barack Obama is Muslim, Byrd said, "I don't know.”
Catch that? Once again, Byrd’s duplicitous motives become clear. He admittedly doesn’t know if Obama is a Muslim but says the sign’s message is to get people thinking about the consequence of having a non-Christian in the White House. Gah. Does he even listen to himself?
Despite some criticism, Byrd says that the message will stay on the sign.
He took the issue before his congregation Sunday night, and they decided unanimously to keep it.
Unanimously. As in: every single nutjob in the place voted to continue promoting an uneducated, misleading, and unmistakably inflammatory message from the marquee of their “House of God”.
Byrd also said he doesn't want it to look like controversy forced him to take the sign down.
Yeah, wouldn’t want doing the right thing to get in the way of pushing your agenda of ignorance and prejudice. It would truly suck if Byrd actually had to follow the advice given in his Bible.
“If anyone teaches false doctrines… he is conceited and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction…”
1 Timothy 6:3-5
So I got tagged for a meme some time ago and it’s taken me a while to come up with eight different interesting facts about myself. I wish it had been only five or six; the last few were really hard to come up with (so hard, in fact, that I considered making some shit up). I’m putting them all out there randomly, though, so you have to choose the lamest ones on your own. Also, I haven’t bothered to go back and look at previous posts that were similar in nature to this one, so I might very well repeat something I’ve already said before. Life’s cruel in ways we never expect.
1. I voted for George HW Bush in ’88. My vote didn’t really matter, though, since Washington’s ten electoral votes went Blue, so my guilt over it is next to nil.
2. I get very high on nostalgia and just the other day got a major fix by purchasing four old Godzilla movies on DVD, bringing my total Godzilla movie collection up to six. W00T!
3. McDonald’s recently got me to break my five-year boycott of their shitty restaurants by putting four piece Chicken McNuggets on the dollar menu. What can I say? Two bits a nugget is a hell of a deal.
4. I don’t much care for these meme exercises and this will probably be the last one I do.
5. My most perpetual habit is bouncing my left leg. I’ve been hyperactive for all 41 of my years and there is, as of yet, no sign of a cure. It’s a fun little disorder: keeps me thin while giving off the impression I’m about to fly apart at any moment.
6. I once tried to play a cleric in AD&D who, at around 11th level, switched his devotion to Great Cthulhu. Playing the character eventually became impossible. I found it exasperating – continually manipulating my companions to meet my insane, selfish ends – and I imagine for the rest of the adventure party, it was like having one of their best friends suddenly become a Scientologist.
7. I have a tough time following exacting rules if I see no significant purpose to them. To wit, I’m not tagging anyone else for this meme. :-P
My best friend is not feeling well. Poor Marley seems to have acquired some lousy stomach bug. He’s such a trooper; the only indicator that he’s sick is that he isn’t quite as persistent that you throw his hedgehog.
Well, that’s not entirely true.
He came into the bedroom last night as he always does and settled down to sleep on his bed. We’d all been up late watching LOST (which the fuckwit network execs moved to 10pm ostensibly due to all the orgy-sex they’ve added to the plot*) and so I was pretty well crashed out when Marley came to wake me up at around 2am.
Having finally acknowledged that it was my dog and not a Shakira/Karin hybrid that was licking me, I dragged myself out of bed to let Marley out of the bedroom.
My foot found the puddle of poo before my nose did. Of course, each and every toe immediately awakened both members of the slumbering Nostril Guard with cries of “AAAAAH! WE’RE UNDER ATTACK! WHERE WAS OUR OLFACTORY EARLY WARNING!? SOMEONE’S GONNA PAY!”
Of course, once Nasal-L and Nasal-R were aware of the situation, they immediately felt compelled to inform Commander Gag who, being a rather edgy guy anyway, threw a tantrum that pretty much incapacitated me.
So there I am, standing on my one unsoiled foot, convulsing violently, and Marley’s waiting by the door doing the “You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet” dance. In between dry heaves, it occurs to me that after I open the bedroom door, I must make a hard decision: Do I hop behind Marley to the back slider and let him outside or do I make a pitstop to boil my toes first?
The thought of Karin finding me at the bottom of the stairs dead, naked, and with shit all over my left foot was enough to steer me toward the bathroom.
Having washed up, I went to check on Marley, fully expecting him to have made even more work for me. Thankfully, he was lying on the couch and I could neither see nor smell evidence of another accident. I asked him if he wanted to go outside, but he only sighed and gave me a forlorn look. I think he felt bad about the revolting manner in which I learned of his offense.
It was easily close to an hour before everything normalized and I found my way back to bed. But as is common after experiencing unexpected and bizarre trauma in the wee hours of the night, it was quite impossible to go back to sleep with any sort of quickness. My mind just bounced around between everything from “Did I get the water hot enough?” to “I really should have taken the recent rise in Marley’s flatulence more seriously”.
Anyway, that was all a very long-winded and disgusting way of informing you that I am hella tired today and having a rough go of it. I could have just said that to begin with, but what kind of blog post would that have been?
*No, not really. SPOILER ALERT! What I meant to say instead of "orgy-sex" was "ruthless killing".
Man, I couldn't stand that sickening image being above the fold any longer. I don't need the first thing people see when they come to CimC to be that hateful crap. So, I had to get another post up with something fun and light.
And after a post about Nazis, even Dubya seems fun and light.
So, anyone got a good caption for this photograph?
I'll start:
Bush ad libs after being asked to be more specific on a question regarding "presidential briefs".
What would you say if I told you an Indiana lawyer who is currently running for Congress on the Republican ticket gave a speech Sunday at a Nazi gathering in celebration of Hitler’s birthday on the topic of the subjugation of white women at the hands of Jews in the porn industry?
Would you balk? Would you roll your eyes and think I’d finally lost my left-wing marbles?
Regardless of your answer, it would behoove you to have a look for yourself. Here’s another source. And another.
Yes, Tony Zirkle is a name you’re going to hear a lot of in coming weeks (though you may already know him as the guy who wants to bring back segregation of blacks). You’re going to hear all about how he spoke at such a gathering only because he wants to speak to any who will listen. You’re going to hear right-wingers defend him as someone who is willing to break the barriers of hate to get his message out. You’re going to be expected to believe that just because he shredded a rare copy of Playboy (for which he paid a reported $1200) he’s somehow an authority on the porn industry and human sexuality in general.
But mainly, you’re going to have to ask yourself if anything good can come from a man who would happily give an anti-Semitic speech to a bunch of Nazis at a birthday party for Hitler. I mean, I have a lot of things I want to say to the world – good, productive things – but I have absolutely no desire to say anything to Nazi shitheads.
There was a time when an American politician having any association whatsoever with Nazism would have deftly ended that politician’s career. It would seem that ever since we learned of the Bush family’s connection to that selfsame fascist organization, it’s become all the rage to buddy up to them. Lovely.
But do continue to be suspicious of anyone wearing a turban. You never know when a humble Sikh is going to smile at you too widely!
Alright, can someone explain to me once more how Evolution is just a wad of improvable nonsense? Because based on the newest evidence, it would seem that the most logical explanation is continuing to play out perfectly.
Lizards Rapidly Evolve After Introduction to Island
Italian wall lizards introduced to a tiny island [called Pod Mrcaru] off the coast of Croatia are evolving in ways that would normally take millions of years to play out, new research shows.
In just a few decades the 5-inch-long (13-centimeter-long) lizards have developed a completely new gut structure, larger heads, and a harder bite, researchers say…
Gee, sounds like textbook Evolution to me. But couldn’t they just be a new species we hadn’t discovered yet?
Genetic testing on the Pod Mrcaru lizards confirmed that the modern population of more than 5,000 Italian wall lizards are all descendants of the original ten lizards left behind in the 1970s…
OK, then it’s clearly a contrived experiment. The scientists hate Creationism so much they set it all up to look like the lizards evolved, right?
While the experiment was more than 30 years in the making, it was not by design…
After scientists transplanted the reptiles, the Croatian War of Independence erupted, ending in the mid-1990s. The researchers couldn't get back to island because of the war...
In 2004, however, tourism began to open back up, allowing researchers access to the island laboratory…
The transplanted lizards adapted to their new environment in ways that expedited their evolution physically...
Pod Mrcaru, for example, had an abundance of plants for the primarily insect-eating lizards to munch on. Physically, however, the lizards were not built to digest a vegetarian diet.
Researchers found that the lizards developed cecal valves—muscles between the large and small intestine—that slowed down food digestion in fermenting chambers, which allowed their bodies to process the vegetation's cellulose into volatile fatty acids.
In layman’s terms, that means that the lizards adapted to their new environment rather than starve to death. That is, by definition, Darwinian Evolution.
So, you science-minded folks out there who have a rough time of proving to Creationists that Evolution is a reality, simply point them to this National Geographic article.
And you Creationists out there who can’t accept the idea that maybe, just maybe, God decided to make everything in a logical, methodical manner, well, I don’t know what to tell you. All viable evidence contradicts the notion that we just appeared here as we are. You can choose to keep denying it, but that doesn’t change the fact that the lizards on Pod Mrcaru evolved.
Working from home today and must remain focused, so I'm going to fall back on posting some pictures and call it good. (If you've sent me a post recently and I have yet to comment or PM you, I will. I promise.)
A lot of people seemed to really like the paint splash banner from last week, so here are some more time-stopped liquid images, including the original paint photo.
NOTE: I didn't take any of the above images; I found them all on the 'net.
"What do you do EVERY day to take care of the earth's environment?"
Well, one significant thing I do is listen to scientists with regard to scientific matters. It would be so much easier to stick my fingers in my ears and squeeze my eyes tightly shut and shout “LA LA LA LA LA!” than to actually have a critical look at the plight of the planet. It would take a lot less intellectual effort to embrace a bunch of unsubstantiated and misleading rhetoric than to educate myself on the undeniable facts about Global Warming. There’s absolutely no doubt I’d be a happier person if I shut myself off from images like these:
One step at a time, I guess.
Things I Hate:
1. Child molestation, no matter how you sugar-coat it
2. The idea that putting a ribbon-shaped magnet on your car is in any way meaningful
3. Software that asks me repetitive questions without providing a “Do not ask me again” checkbox
4. Waking up more than once during the night
5. The pinched nerve in my left shoulder that’s making my elbow burn and my fingers numb
Things I Love:
1. That cute thing Karin does when she’s really excited about something
2. Lipton Iced Black Tea – Sweetened, No Lemon
5. The infinite shades of grey that lie in between the black and white so many people focus on
