Tonight was the annual Morehead Memorial Hospital Foundation fundraising gig, and this year's festivities had a North Carolina beaches theme. And since the Carolina coast was once where Blackbeard and other buccaneers practiced their trade, I got asked to help give pirates their due representation. So here's me in a pirate costume. I've been practicing my "Arrrr"s for the past couple of weeks. It was enough to not run out of idiom and let me stay in character for the entire three-plus hours that I was there. 'Twasn't the only pirate: a lady named Shannon from the hospital was also there standing up for the fine tradition of female piracy. For the most part our job was to sell raffle "tickets" that came in these little pirate chests (they're in the big one that I'm guarding in the photo). The fundraiser enjoyed a large turnout and was by all measure a huge success!Friday, May 29, 2009
Yo-Ho-Ho, A pirates's life for me!
Tonight was the annual Morehead Memorial Hospital Foundation fundraising gig, and this year's festivities had a North Carolina beaches theme. And since the Carolina coast was once where Blackbeard and other buccaneers practiced their trade, I got asked to help give pirates their due representation. So here's me in a pirate costume. I've been practicing my "Arrrr"s for the past couple of weeks. It was enough to not run out of idiom and let me stay in character for the entire three-plus hours that I was there. 'Twasn't the only pirate: a lady named Shannon from the hospital was also there standing up for the fine tradition of female piracy. For the most part our job was to sell raffle "tickets" that came in these little pirate chests (they're in the big one that I'm guarding in the photo). The fundraiser enjoyed a large turnout and was by all measure a huge success!Remember when Bqstqn won the Stanley Cup?
The Fox Sports site has an amusing article about the Stanley Cup, and how it has come to be rife with spelling errors and other goofs over the years. Among the typos that have become part of hockey's highest prize: "Bqstqn" (supposed to be "Boston") and how one assistant manager is forever known as the "ass man". Quite an interesting read whether you're a hockey nut, a sports fan in general or are into things like history and the art of engraving.Is Obama Admin punishing Chrysler dealers who donated to Republicans?
Longtime readers of this blog know without me having to remind anyone: party allegiance doesn't exist in this dojo. Personally I'd rather see a country full of citizens who are beholden to no political parties at all. And I like to think that one of the end characteristics of that drastic un-affiliation is that this blog and its peculiar proprietor are equally hard on both Democrats and Republicans.
But I also believe absolutely in the right to expression, whether in speech or belonging to the party of one's choice, if one chooses to belong to one at all. I just try to do my best to encourage people to think about it before they commit to something, but that's beside the point of this post...
WorldNetDaily was the first to report that there is apparently a disturbing pattern among the Chrysler dealerships that have been targeted for closure as part of the company's bailout by the federal government. One-fourth of its dealerships will be shut down... but as WorldNetDaily discovered, 90% of those to be closed were owned by donors of "substantial sums" to Republican candidates.
I'm not going to automatically jump on the "bash Obama" bandwagon on this, 'cuz... well... 'cuz if something like this was politically motivated it seemed too brazen. Then I started hearing about how many of the dealerships scheduled for closing had been some of the most profitable to the company.
And then I discovered that one group that donated heavily to the Democratic Party was getting to keep SIX Chrysler dealerships that it owned while its local competitors who gave to GOP candidates are getting shuttered.
Could Obama's White House be so brazen?
I'm starting to now think... yeah, it could.
This not only merits some formal investigation, it demands it. Like, congressional hearings with everyone involved in this hauled before the lights and cameras. If for no other reason than to apply the scrutiny this incongruity calls for and clear the air one way or another.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
San Diego demands permit for house Bible study
I wonder how much of an issue this could become over the next few years. From the Fox News website...
Couple Ordered to Stop Holding Bible Study at Home Without PermitThis almost sounds like what many Christians face in China, or how it used to be in the old Soviet Union when a church wasn't permitted to have worship services unless it was first "registered" with the state.Pastor David Jones and his wife Mary have been told that they cannot invite friends to their San Diego, Calif. home for a Bible study — unless they are willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars to San Diego County.
"On Good Friday we had an employee from San Diego County come to our house, and inform us that the Bible study that we were having was a religious assembly, and in violation of the code in the county." David Jones told FOX News.
"We told them this is not really a religious assembly — this is just a Bible study with friends. We have a meal, we pray, that was all," Jones said.
A few days later, the couple received a written warning that cited "unlawful use of land," ordering them to either "stop religious assembly or apply for a major use permit," the couple's attorney Dean Broyles told San Diego news station 10News.
But the major use permit could cost the Jones' thousands of dollars just to have a few friends over.
For David and Mary Jones, it's about more than a question of money.
"The government may not prohibit the free exercise of religion," Broyles told FOX News. "I believe that our Founding Fathers would roll over in their grave if they saw that here in the year 2009, a pastor and his wife are being told that they cannot hold a simple Bible study in their own home."
"The implications are great because it’s not only us that’s involved," Mary Jones said. "There are thousands and thousands of Bible studies that are held all across the country. What we’re interested in is setting a precedent here — before it goes any further — and that we have it settled for the future."
The couple is planning to dispute the county's order this week.
If San Diego County refuses to allow the pastor and his wife to continue gathering without acquiring a permit, they will consider a lawsuit in federal court.
The reason for my earlier statement about this becoming an issue again is that the "house church" movement is growing profoundly in the United States. We're not talking about an evening during the week where Christians meet for Bible study, but believers coming together on Sundays for times of praise and fellowship when many others are congregating in more "traditional" places of worship. I've taken part in a few of these services and other than the drastically smaller number in attendance, it's not really different from a "big" church. There is music and singing, there is praying, there is an edifying message from the Word (usually more than one even, 'cuz in house worship everyone is encouraged to share with others what God is showing them as an individual).
Does it rest within the jurisdiction of any organ of state to demand that such worship - or any worship for that matter - must only be conducted in places with the "proper zoning permits"?
The South will writhe again: Perversely funny FALLOUT 3
What I would give to have a brain gifted enough to handle stuff like math and software coding (and I've tried folks, believe you me). 'Cuz then I could maybe work for a company like Bethesda Game Studios, who not only are very talented at making video games like Fallout 3, but also have a twisted sense of humor.
So I've been working my Fallout 3 character through the Capital Wasteland, 200 years after the nuclear exchange between the United States and China. Just levellin' him up more or less. Well tonight I wound up in the ruins of Arlington National Cemetery...
Out of curiosity I went looking for Arlington House, which was the pre-Civil War home of Robert E. Lee and his family. It wasn't hard to spot and I gotta give serious props to the Bethesda staff for including such a nice historical location...
Guess what? You can go inside of Arlington House in Fallout 3! There's even a queen-sized bed (presumably in the Lees' private chambers) that you can sleep in and recover from in-game injuries.
But look at what's down in the BASEMENT...
A shrine to Abraham Lincoln?!? What the heck?!
Okay, that is so way wrong. But awfully hilarious just the same :-)
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Just watched NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
Hmmmm...
I'll say that I liked it, even though right now I'm still trying to figure out everything that it was supposed to be about. But most films by the Coen Brothers are like that with me: a two-hour headlong crash through striking visuals, original characters and eclectic dialogue that entertains even as you're trying to suss out the meaning of it all.
And that ending! Was not prepared for that. Because that's not like any movie with Tommy Lee Jones that I've ever seen! I... ahhh... I won't spoil it for you if you haven't seen it yet. I spent the first few moments after it a bit frustrated, then realized it was because I was demanding an expectation to be fulfilled and that wasn't what this was about.
Okay, guess I'll be watching this again :-)
Cancer drug wipes out man's fingerprints
Rather bizarre story from WebMD.com...
Cancer Drug Erases Man's FingerprintsAnyone else think that this drug will soon be in high demand among bank robbers and safe crackers? :-PTraveler Was Stopped at Border Because of a Side Effect of Xeloda
By Bill Hendrick
WebMD Health News
Reviewed by Louise Chang, MDMay 27, 2009 -- A 62-year-old Singapore man was temporarily denied entry into the U.S. because a cancer drug he was taking had made his fingerprints disappear, according to a letter published in the Annals of Oncology.
Eng-Huat Tan, MD, a senior consultant in the medical oncology department at Singapore's National Cancer Center, says his patient, identified as "Mr. S," had been taking the drug Xeloda since July 2005 to prevent recurrence of advanced cancer that had responded well to chemotherapy.
The cancer patient was detained by U.S. Customs officials for four hours in December 2008 because they could not detect fingerprints. The Customs officials later determined that the man was not a security threat.
Tan says people being treated with Xeloda, described as an oral chemotherapy drug, should carry a letter from their doctor that they are taking the medication if they want to travel to countries that require fingerprints for identification.
According to the letter in Annals of Oncology, other cancer patients taking the drug have reported similar side effects.
Foreign visitors have been asked to provide fingerprints at U.S. entry points for a number of years. The images are matched with millions of visa holders to detect whether the visitor has a visa under a different name; visitors' fingerprints are also compared to fingerprints of criminals, Tan says in the letter.
"Mr. S" did not know his fingerprints had disappeared, according to Tan.
National sales tax? Yes. In addition to income tax? SCREW THAT!
At long last, some in Washington are saying that it's time to have a national sales tax, which is something that I've been advocating for years.
The problem is that these same people want the sales tax in addition to the pre-existing income tax.
Common around the world, including in Europe, such a tax -- called a value-added tax, or VAT -- has not been seriously considered in the United States. But advocates say few other options can generate the kind of money the nation will need to avert fiscal calamity.This is fiscal insanity without any clarity of vision.At a White House conference earlier this year on the government's budget problems, a roomful of tax experts pleaded with Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner to consider a VAT. A recent flurry of books and papers on the subject is attracting genuine, if furtive, interest in Congress. And last month, after wrestling with the White House over the massive deficits projected under Obama's policies, the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee declared that a VAT should be part of the debate.
"There is a growing awareness of the need for fundamental tax reform," Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) said in an interview. "I think a VAT and a high-end income tax have got to be on the table."
Here's what should be done: scrap the income tax completely. Doing so would boost the economy in ways that hardly anybody can possibly imagine. It would free up a massive portion of the individual and small business sectors to re-engage in private enterprise. Then have a national sales tax, which is equitable across the board and with no regard to "income brackets". And for good measure, slash corporate tax rates so that more American businesses will be enticed to bring their industries back to the United States.
If those things are done, there will be a domestic financial renaissance the likes of which has not been seen in recent memory.
But to pile new taxes upon those which are already too burdensome for most Americans is to invite inevitable disaster.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
INCREDIBLE fan-made trailer for a GREEN LANTERN movie with Nathan Fillion that you'll never see!
Some dude sliced and diced up a bunch of motion pictures, and ended up with this AWESOME trailer for a Green Lantern movie with Nathan Fillion as Hal Jordan.
Supreme Court feeding frenzy begins anew
A few weeks ago I arrived at a sobering conclusion, that no doubt better minds than my own have long ago already come to: that the United States government and the political processes associated with it have become a by-product of the lack of enlightenment on the part of collective America. The ability to self-govern was something that only a mature and more noble mind could take responsibility for, the Founders recognized. And for awhile, it worked pretty well... before Joe and Jane Six-Pack decided that voting for American Idol was of more pressing concern than having to worry about whether their elected officials deserved to be in office to begin with.
Anyhoo, President Obama has nominated Sonia Sotomayor to replace the outgoing Justice David Souter on the U.S. Supreme Court. I ain't crazy about her one bit, 'cuz she's already said that the courts are "where policy is made" and that is the absolute last thing that I ever want to hear a prospective Supreme Court justice admit. But that ain't what this post is about...
The process of nominating and confirming a new Supreme Court justice has become everything that is wrong about American politics, and I believe it affirms the notion I mentioned earlier: that it reflects how un-enlightened we have become as a people. Regardless of who is being nominated or by which president, the process of filling a vacant Supreme Court seat has become too politicized, too partisan, too emotional, too ideological, and plain ol' flat-out illogical. And why?
Because the entire concept of who it is that gets to choose who fills a Supreme Court seat has become a mad prize for the power-mad. And in the end, that is all this is about: raw, naked power and being the one to boast about having it.
Dare I or anyone ask aloud: "Are we so civilized as to carry on in this way? Are we really the enlightened people?"
Anyone wanna come back in a few weeks when we're way into the Sonia Sotomayor nomination process, and be able to say that we are?
Monday, May 25, 2009
A thought for this Memorial Day
Freedom is only always purchased at the highest of cost...
...and it's left to each and every one of us to make sure that it's never lost.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
The Star Trek reboot that could have been
With Star Trek still going warp speed at the box office, it's hard to grasp a time not long ago when the entire Star Trek brand had been written off by many people as a thing that had completely run its course. The previous few movies in the series had been severely lackluster and Star Trek: Enterprise failed to garner appreciable ratings on television.Such was the state of Trek five years ago in 2004. And at the time J. Michael Straczynski (the creator of Babylon 5 and writer of the recent film The Changeling on top of many other terrific endeavors) and television producer/writer Bryce Zabel (The Crow: Stairway to Heaven, Dark Skies), recognizing the franchise's foundering, conceived of an ambitious plan to "reboot" the entire shebang. A few years later Paramount handed Trek over to J.J. Abrams and Bad Robot. We already know how much of a stellar success that has been... but what about Straczynski and Zabel's treatment?
Bryce Zabel posted the entire "Star Trek: Re-Boot the Universe" treatment on his blog a little less than three years ago. It's quite an interesting read, especially how he and Straczynski re-defined the "Prime Directive" into something much more proactive and driving as a plot element, along with the entire rationale for needing to relaunch the series to begin with.
The Brick Testament does the Apocalypse!
Brendan Powell Smith's The Brick Testament is one of my very favorite websites ever. Guess it's because I'm a student of the Bible, and also a lifelong LEGO geek. The Brick Testament is devoted to illustrating the scriptures with the classic building blocks. The wildly popular site has been around since 2001... but only now has Smith gotten around to LEGO-rendering the Book of Revelation! If you don't mind some harsh language for dramatic effect, this is definitely a must-see. I think my favorite part of it might be Smith's take on Revelation 12 and the war in Heaven.So is it humorous? Heretical? An indication that Smith has finally gone too far? Whatever it is, his concise and rollickin'-fun technique with LEGO makes for a far more interesting and thought-provoking examination of Revelation than what the Left Behind novels turned into. For that reason alone, I'm compelled to make The Brick Testament's Book of Revelation recommended reading.
Pew poll: Independent voters are on the rise
Bad news for both of the major U.S. political parties: Pew Research Center reports that thirty-nine percent of voters now identify themselves as independent: a dramatically sharp increase. Thirty-three percent preferred to be identified as "Democrat" and twenty-two percent wished to be known as "Republican".
So yesterday morning I wrote that politics has become a dreary bore to this blogger. And I can't help but think that this poll by Pew reflects that a lot of Americans share that sentiment also. The Democrats and Republicans are each bleeding away voters... and it's not likely that either of the parties will substantially gain them back in the foreseeable future.
Oh heck, let's call it for what it really is: the Republicans and Democrats are fast becoming marginalized.
Now, I have to wonder how long will it be before the mainstream press finally starts to get a clue. Will it keep portraying the Democrat and Republican parties as "the status quo" even as both parties drive themselves to the fringe of the people's interests? Or will outfits such as Fox News, CNN and the like finally stop "playing it safe" and start doing some semblance of real journalism before getting possibly relegated to the pile of increasing irrelevance like their newspaper brethren?
Hey, it just makes small-time bloggers like me look all the more awesome. "I was unaffiliated when unaffiliated wasn't cool" :-P
Friday, May 22, 2009
"Mancow" gets waterboarded, decides it IS torture
Chicago radio host Erich "Mancow" Muller had maintained that waterboarding could not possibly be considered torture. And he set out to prove it this morning. Mancow submitted himself to the procedure, which was broadacast on his live show and recorded by a television crew.
What did Mancow say afterward?
"It is way worse than I thought it would be, and that's no joke," Mancow said, likening it to a time when he nearly drowned as a child. "It is such an odd feeling to have water poured down your nose with your head back... It was instantaneous...and I don't want to say this: absolutely torture."Here's the video. Gotta give Mancow some serious props for both going through with this, and having the strength of character to admit that he had been wrong before..."I wanted to prove it wasn't torture," Mancow said. "They cut off our heads, we put water on their face...I got voted to do this but I really thought 'I'm going to laugh this off.'"
"Life finds a way."
This is the nest that some birds have made in the satellite television box on the back of my house!Nevermind all those cables and wires and other potential hazards to wildlife. I'm just astonished that they were able to open the box to begin with... and then build what otherwise looks to be a comfortable avian domicile inside of it.
While I was taking this picture a startled bird flew out. I was able to count a number of eggs within the nest. There is another built atop an outside light beneath the overhang of the roof.
I suppose that wherever there is found a niche - whether left by God or man - that nature is quite adept at filling it.
FCC can enter your home without warrant if you have a wireless router
If your home network uses a wireless router, or if you have a cordless phone or baby monitor or cellphone or anything that emits radio waves, the Federal Communications Commission has asserted it has the power to enter your property WITHOUT a warrant in order to "inspect" said equipment.
That’s the upshot of the rules the agency has followed for years to monitor licensed television and radio stations, and to crack down on pirate radio broadcasters. And the commission maintains the same policy applies to any licensed or unlicensed radio-frequency device.There's more on the Wired.com story linked above, including how this crazy "right" first came to light.“Anything using RF energy — we have the right to inspect it to make sure it is not causing interference,” says FCC spokesman David Fiske. That includes devices like Wi-Fi routers that use unlicensed spectrum, Fiske says.
The FCC claims it derives its warrantless search power from the Communications Act of 1934, though the constitutionality of the claim has gone untested in the courts. That’s largely because the FCC had little to do with average citizens for most of the last 75 years, when home transmitters were largely reserved to ham-radio operators and CB-radio aficionados. But in 2009, nearly every household in the United States has multiple devices that use radio waves and fall under the FCC’s purview, making the commission’s claimed authority ripe for a court challenge.
“It is a major stretch beyond case law to assert that authority with respect to a private home, which is at the heart of the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable search and seizure,” says Electronic Frontier Foundation lawyer Lee Tien. “When it is a private home and when you are talking about an over-powered Wi-Fi antenna — the idea they could just go in is honestly quite bizarre.”
George Washington University professor Orin Kerr, a constitutional law expert, also questions the legalilty of the policy.
“The Supreme Court has said that the government can’t make warrantless entries into homes for administrative inspections,” Kerr said via e-mail, refering to a 1967 Supreme Court ruling that housing inspectors needed warrants to force their way into private residences. The FCC’s online FAQ doesn’t explain how the agency gets around that ruling, Kerr adds.
And if any of our friends from the FCC are reading this, I can only say this:
You can have my Linksys router... when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers!
