Michael Newdow Is At It Again...

and I, for one, salute him. All the fundies want to make such a stink about him trying to take away peoples' religious freedom, or make the US an athiest nation, but I see it differently.

Michael Newdow just wants things to be neutral. He's probably the greatest fighter for religious NEUTRALITY and FREEDOM in recent years. He just wants government to govern and stay out of the religion business. I always like to note how religious fundamentalist governments have done SO well, like Iran or Afghanistan, or how about the local government in Massachusetts in the 1600s.

Fundies can say that, "Oh, an Islamic prayer at a president's inaguration would be just fine" because they know they'll probably NEVER live to see it themselves. It's like making a bet with someone that they can't throw a rock and hit a pin 100 ft. away. They can afford to talk big about how "tolerant" they are because they know they'll never get called on their bluff.

People say this country was founded on religious principles, which with I agree only in part. There are a great many laws stated in the Christian bible that are natural laws anyways and shouldn't require religious faith to recognize their validity. However, the illogical argument that the religiously oppressed in Europe came to America to set up an equally oppressive religion-driven government is ridiculous.

My thanks to you, Michael Newdow, for fighting for the real principles this great nation was founded upon.

Rusti, if you're out there in cyberspace...

This is a great article written by Janis Cortese about the basics of handguns, calibers, and self-defense. It'll get you up to date on terminology, too. This will give you a good primer to work from when choosing your first handgun, and since it's written from a woman's perspective probably easier to understand versus my ramblings (though I can probably answer most questions you have as well, just not as succinctly).

If you want to look at some guns and get an idea on price, check out GunBroker.com and AuctionArms.com.

As you probably already know, I have several guns and would be glad to take you to the range to try some out whenever you get a weekend day off. Nothing puts a smile on my face like introducing new people to the world of firearms and personal responsibility!

Nuke Alert

...no, not NOW. Unlock the two-ton steel door and quit salivating over the dog. You've only been in that bunker an hour.

Does anybody REALLY think a geiger counter keychain is going to save them from a nuclear disaster? The only warning you're going to get in a nuclear attack is a sunburn worse than an hour-long session in a tanning bed in about 2 seconds unless you're wearing SPF 1000.

Capitalism, fear-mongering, and fuzzy logic at its best.

My Best To You, Comrades.

China is sending up its second manned space flight this year in September or October.

No real commentary here, just a "good on 'ya" to China for doing their part in helping mankind get off this rock.

For Me But Not For Thee

Michael Moore's bodyguard was arrested in a NY airport for trying to declare a firearm at the counter.

Perhaps it would have been good to peruse NRA-ILA's New York laws page before entering a state that doesn't recognize his 2nd Amendment rights his employer has fought so hard against.

He could have even talked to the friendly people over at Packing.org and checked into their NY state page.

Maybe he'll get to ponder the irony of the situation at Rikers Island.

Airbus A380 Revealed as Largest Passenger Jet

Just what we need; the fucking French helping to develop bigger planes to fly into our buildings.

With friends like these...

24 Usable Hours In Each Day

A Ukrainian man hasn't slept in two decades. Medical doctors say there's nothing wrong with him.

I've got a solution:

Take some Ambien.
Read the CBS report on Rathergate.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.......

Text-to-Binary (and binary-to-text) Translator...

...or rather:

01010100011001010111100001110100001011010111
01000110111100101101010000100110100101101
1100110000101110010011110010010000000101000011
000010110111001100100001000000110001001
1010010110111001100001011100100111100100101101
011101000110111100101101011101000110010
1011110000111010000101001001000000101010001110
010011000010110111001110011011011000110
0001011101000110111101110010

So I'm going to write a post in binary...

0101011101101000011110010010000001100
100011011110110010101110011011011100110000001110
10000100000011000010110111001111001011000
10011011110110010001111001001000000110001001
101111011101000110100001100101011100100010
0000011101000110111100100000011100000110111
1011100110111010000100000011000110110111101
101101011011010110010101101110011101000111
001100111111001000000010000001000001011011
0100100000010010010010000001110100011010000
110000101110100001000000110001001101111011
1001001101001011011100110011100101100001000
0001101111011100100010000001101001011100110
010000001101001011101000010000001110100011
011110110111100100000011011010111010101100
0110110100000100000011011110110011000100000
011000010010000001110000011000010110100101
1011100010000001101001011011100010000001110
1000110100001100101001000000110000101110011
011100110010000001110100011011110010000001
1001110110010101110100001000000110000100100
000011000100110110001101111011001110110011
101100101011100100010000001100001011000110
1100011011011110111010101101110011101000011
111100100000001000000100100100100000011011
0101100101011000010110111000101100001000000
110100101110100011000000111001100100000011
0011001110101011011100010000001110100011011
110010000001100100011011110010000001101010
0111010101110011011101000010000001100110011
0111101110010001000000110110101111001011100
110110010101101100011001100010000001100001
011011100110010000100000011000010110110001
1011000010110000100000011000100111010101110
100001000000100100100100000011011100110010
1011001010110010000100000011000100110000101
110100011101000110110001100101001000000111
0111011010010111010001101000001000000110010
101110110011010010110110000100000011000110
1110010011000010110001101101011001000000111
101001101111011011010110001001101001011001
0100100000011100100110111101100010011011110
111010000100000011011010110111101101110011
0101101101001011001010111001100100000001010
0001101001011011100010000001110000011011110
110110001101001011101000110010100100000011
1010001100101011110000111010000100000011000
110110111101101110011101100110010101110010
011100110110000101110100011010010110111101
1011100010100100100000011101000110111100100
0000111001001100101011000010110110001101100
011110010010000001100110011001010110010101
1011000010000001110011011000010111010001101
001011100110110011001101001011001010110010
000101110

...and leave it for you assholes to decode. Have fun!

Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Prince Harry?

Prince Harry dressed up in a Nazi uniform for a costume party last weekend. It has Brits and Jews everywhere in an uproar. I could see the horrified looks if he dressed up like Hitler, Eichmann, Hess, or Himmler, but he was dressed as Gen. Rommel. Probably one of the least-controversial Nazi leaders. Seriously, though, it WAS probably in bad taste.

His brother William dressed up like a lion for the same party...But lions have killed probably many more people than the Nazis in Africa, Asia, and elsewhere. I think it is Prince William who should apologize. Think of all the people throughout the millenia who have lost family members to those prowlers in the night. Be more sensitive, people!

Should nobody dress up like Ghengis Kahn or Saddam Hussein or Osama Bin Laden, or any other mass-murdering fuckhead for a costume party? Should Christians be offended when people dress up in Roman togas? Aren't they all in bad taste?

Have Spacesuit, Will Travel: The Movie

No, seriously. David Reynolds, of Finding Nemo fame, has been hired by Warner Brothers to do a screen adaptation of Robert Heinlein's book Have Spacesuit, Will Travel. I hope it's better than Starship Troopers, and the even more inaccurate and awful Starship Troopers 2. Maybe it had something to do with the fact Heinlein never wrote a sequel to ST.

Luckily titles aren't covered under US copyright laws. At least I don't think I'm going to be sued.

If I have to change the name, I'm thinking of The Rational Robot or Welcome The Machines, both refering to the coming Great Robot Wars.

By the way, don't expect any mercy.

But I'm getting ahead of myself....

The SS Has Seen Too Much Trigun

Crosses are officially banned from Bush's inaguration parade.

If you've ever watched Trigun, you figure they might have a point.








Nicholas D. Wolfwood is one bad mamma-jamma.

Some Religious Humor

A couple of jokes I picked up in the comments over at The Raving Atheist:

**1. A priest and a rabbi on a plane, discussing the various fine points of their respective faiths, the priest on celibacy and the rabbi on dietary laws, etc.

At one point the priest says to the rabbi: "Were you ever tempted to violate one of your tenets?"

Rabbi: "Yes. Once at the home of some gentiles, I found myself alone in the kitchen. There was a plate of ham sandwiches, so, with no one looking, I ate one. It wasn't bad, and nothing happened to me as a result. What about you? Ever violate a tenet of yours?"

Priest: "Yes. Once as a young man, I gave in to the desires of the flesh with a young woman."

Some time passes, and then the rabbi says: "Better than a ham sandwich, isn't it?"


**2. A priest, a rabbi, and a minister are on a boat with a troop of boy scouts. The boat springs a leak and starts to sink.

The rabbi cries, "Hurry, we must save the children!"

The minister snaps, "Fuck them."

The priest replies, "Do we have time?"


**3. A Priest, a Minister and a Rabbi from one city were taking a car ride to a conference on world religions. On the highway they were in an accident.

First the Priest steps out, makes the sign of the cross and says, "Oh, God, thank you for letting us survive."

Then the Minister crosses himself and says, "Thank you dear Lord for protecting us."

Finally the Rabbi steps out and likewise makes the sign of the cross. The Priest and Minister look at each other.

Baffled, the Minister says, "We thought you didn't believe in that."

To which the Rabbi responds, "Hell no, I was just checking to make sure I have everything -- spectacles, testicles, wallet, and watch!"


**4. An atheist dies and goes to hell. After suffering years of torment, he approaches the devil.

"Please, Satan, let me out of here! I'll do anything!"

The devil raises an eyebrow: "Anything?"

"Anything!!!"

"OK, follow me!" The devil leads the atheist into a little steaming cave, and shows him a 600-lb woman all covered in boils, pus and syphillitic sores.

"If make love to this woman, I'll let you out!"

The atheist gulps, closes his eyes, and using every inch of his willpower, finally manages to make love to the woman.

As the devil is leading him out of hell, the atheist notices another little cave, and there is Jerry Falwell, in the process of making love to two beautiful 21-year old blondes.

"What is this!" the atheist exclaims. "Why do I get the 600-lb woman covered in boils, and Jerry Falwell gets the two beatiful blondes?"

The devil calmly replies: "We've got some women that want out of here too, you know."


**5. Jesus and Peter are out fishing on the sea of galalee after the resurection, Peter suddenly exclaims "Shit! I left the beer cooler on the beach". "no problems Peter" said Jesus, "I'll go get it" and he confidently stands up and steps off the jon boat. Jesus sinks like a stone seconds later he comes back to the surface coughing and spluttering and Peter drags him back into the boat, Jesus recovers as Peter heads the boat back to the shore and says" Bastards! It worked perfectly well until they put these damn holes in my feet"

__________

I Know More History Than You

So I was playing Call of Duty: Finest Hour the other day on PS2 and had a real problem. I was playing some of the British missions in North Africa (I had already completed the Russian missions at and around Stalingrad...TONS of fun, comrades) and kept getting creamed by this German tank. What the hell was I supposed to do? I and my team were on foot and all we had were light weapons and a couple of grenades.

So I swallowed my pride and got on the Internet.

...and the walk-through told me to use grenades.

Grenades? ON A PANZER TANK?! WTF?! Might as well be using spitballs.

Then I remember not everybody has seen every History Channel special on the weapons of the 3rd Reich. So I used the grenades, and to my astonishment the tank exploded. Then I laughed my ass off.

I knew I couldn't use grenades against a tank in real life, but the game didn't. It must have been the first time a geek has out-geeked game developers.




"What you must learn is that these rules are no different than the rules of a computer system. Some of them can be bent. Others can be broken. Understand?"

Tsunami Blues

Have you turned on the TV lately? Every friggin 24-hour network is doing NOTHING but tsunami coverage. Before you get your panties in a wad, I'm not being callous towards the tens of thousands that have died in the Indian Ocean. I'm not saying we shouldn't be covering the developing relief crisis there.

All I'm saying is that the world hasn't stopped. There are important things going on in the world right now. Most leaders are going about the business of their countries pretty much as usual. Important decisions are being made, wars fought, speeches given, negotiations conducted, elections held, and we aren't hearing about any of it.

The media likes to beat a story to death (no pun intended) during their news cycles. I understand the gravity of the tsunami situation, but jesus christ! If you're only watching TV for your news, you've got a blackout on what's happening in the rest of the world.

Funny how ANYthing else could happen and most people would be completely oblivious.

Oh, south America was taken over by the Swedes? Kim Jong-Il and Eminem had a rap-off? Bush took over the known world? Well, no shit!? I was watching video of puddles and dead babies for the twentieth time today and they didn't say anything about it.

Have they fried our little brains with cathode ray tubes? Are the Internet and the blogosphere our only hope?

Viva la revolucion, indeed.

Radical Islam Isn't Our Only Problem

It amazes me that people somehow equate all Muslims with jihadists and suicide bombers. This article is just one small example of the problems with radical Christianity. There are just as many religious nutcases in this country as there are over there. Of course since Westboro Baptist Church's website is www.godhatesfags.com, I'm not that surprised at the content. This guy actually calls Bush a "fag pimp". Here's a taste:

__________
BT [BlackTable]: Well, do you agree with what's going on [in Iraq]?

[Pastor] FRED [Phelps]: I agree it has to go on, but it doesn't reduce the evil and the animus of that insane little monster, Bush. I mean you've got a creature walking around with the mentality of a gnat with his hands on all that party.

BT: Had you ever met him when he was a governor of Texas?

FRED: No, but I don't know why. We've certainly been in his face enough, we went down twice to Crawford with signs saying he's a fag pimp and all we ever see is a whole gaggle of secret servicemen.
Laura Bush came here to Topeka because one of the leading proponents of same-sex marriage was one for her high school chum, named Marge Petty. She's the only member of the Kansas senate to vote for same-sex marriage -- that's Laura's bosom buddy. She's touted as the number one alumnus of Southern Methodist University and we've picketed them twice. That campus is fag infested, top to bottom, warp and woof.
__________


As much as I hear about us wanting Muslim clerics to denounce radical Islam, even more would I like to see Christians denouncing radical Christianity. Should be easy to do...their lives aren't at stake like the clerics in Iraq.

Ok, So I've Been Gone Awhile

so sue me. Honestly, the holidays had me unplugged for a week or so. It's back to business today.