Scattered Papers

Jesus is The Better Jonah

2010-08-27T15:04:00.000-04:00

During the maritime storm in Jonah's story, he was asleep in the boat. The deck hands came and charged him to implore his God to save them. The result was that Jonah was thrown overboard to bring God's wrath off the boat.

When Jesus was asleep in a boat during a maritime storm, the sailors (disciples) came and did the same thing -- but Jesus rebuked the storm and it obeyed.

Christian Persecution

2006-07-06T15:26:00.000-04:00

24-year-old Sahar Mohammad Shafi has fled her home, the city of Karachi with her husband and two young daughters after being attacked and raped for changing her faith. As long as she and her family remain in Pakistan, they must hide the truth of her conversion. Her family was not aware of her conversion, but sometimes they would beat her when they found her singing Psalms to herself. Once they ripped up a Bible they discovered her reading. In January, Shafi contacted her parents and told them that she had married a Christian man. One sunday evening a month later, a large mob attacked the convert's home. Resettling elsewhere in Karachi, the convert called her parents from a local payphone and asked them to stop harassing her. After hanging up, her parents called back to the phone booth owner and told them that their daughter had converted to Christianity. The booth owner, whom Shafi only knew as Rana, followed the Christian woman to her home and then informed her parents of her whereabouts. Later that night while Paul [Shafi's Husband] had gone back to check his e-mail at an internet cafe, Rana forced his way into Shafi's home. The phone booth owner told Shafi that he was going to punish her for committing the unpardonable sin of apostasy, and then raped her at gunpoint. According to Pakistan's top cleric, if a state is truly islamic, it would have to kill the apostate.

As reported on Way of the Master Radio, June 27, 2006 Hour 1 (15:17 on the Podcast)

Quoth the Raven:

2006-06-14T13:20:00.000-04:00

A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.

- Joseph Stalin

The Mark of a Christian

2006-05-30T11:47:00.000-04:00

The mark of a Christian is the ever increasing sensation of his wretchedness, producing an ever increasing gratitude to Jesus for his work and sacrifice, producing ever more participation in his work.

This is the necessary product of what is called holiness.

Obedience in flower

2006-05-24T20:03:00.000-04:00

When a child becomes an adult, obedience remains obedience, but becomes obedience out of freedom instead of restraint.

The Weak Christian

2006-05-24T20:01:00.000-04:00

The worst of all tyrants in the world today is the American Christian. The North Korean dictator, the now-fallen Hussein dynasty, the oppresive islamic governments -- none of these are as cruel and vicious as the American Christian. We, of all people in the world, are the worst because we, of all people in the world are the only tyrants threatening our Father from within his house to usurp his power and foil his will. Every believer who has not spoken out to save the lives of the unborn slated for massacre, Every believer who keeps silent to save his life -- or worse yet his "business" or his "liberty" -- is a rebel in arms, fighting to overthrow his father and usurp his power; fighting to destroy his father's kingdom in order to establish or preserve his own. We are the worst of all tyrants because we are seeking to overthrow the One who rightly has dominion. We are the worst of all tyrants because the world is already our inheretance, but we seek to take it by force. Other tyrants are bad enough because they oppress people. We may not opress them, but we are worse because we see their oppression and fight a rebellion against their Liberator. We are the worst not because we oppress the weak, but because we -- who have been freed from oppression -- wage a war against our own Liberator in His efforts to free others like us. God help us.

Insanity -- Part I

2006-05-16T12:19:00.000-04:00

More and more lately I keep hearing this fun quote from Albert Einstein in which he gives us a definition of insanity:

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

I have to confess that I don't find this particularly compelling. Actually I find it a little insipid -- lacking in truth and insight. In fairness, the first time I heard it (about two or three years ago) I thought something like "Huh. I guess that could make sense..." and didn't think about it again. But then I heard it again several months later and, because I had been having a growing interest in the notions of insanity and disorder (whug), I decided to examine the idea closely. Of course, the best (that is, only) way to test something is to give it adversity: put its feet to the fire and see if it cracks. As an aside, I try to do this with all of my ideas -- at least, before I use them as foundations from future reasoning or exposition. There's a faux form of "reasoning" that seems to be growing either in popularity or my awareness in which the person tests a theory by testing to see if they can think of any (or many) examples that seem to validate it. This isn't, itself, folly. It's a decent test for certain kinds of notions, but it will never lead to a principle. It will never illuminate a principle of reality, it will (at best) illuminate a taxonomical kind for phenomena. The folly comes when people use this technique and confuse the elements of their taxonomy with principles of reality or reason. So, I did some cross-referencing of my experiences and came upon the parable of the persistent widow. I should note that I don't catalog the actual content of such things in my internal catalog of experiences. I "record" a summary, as well as a "stack" of references to various principles (and proven notions). There are also some other bits of ancillary information stored within each of these, btw. It makes reasoning much faster and more solid.

Now, in the parable of the persistent widow, Jesus depicts a lady going again and again to the unjust judge, each time getting the same result, and each time expecting a new result. Eventually the new result comes. The notion he was emphasizing is of "petition" or "persistence" when praying to God. It was an implicit (in the case of the parable) proscription for our behavior. The same principle shows up in lots of other places around the Bible. So the basic premise of this is that it is good for us to keep doing the same thing over and over again ("persistance" or "petition"), each time expecting a new result ("hope").

There are two lessons to be learned from this:

God wants us to do stuff that sometimes looks crazy to the world.
Einstein's notion presupposes a "simply" mechanical world.

I started inquiring about the actual psychological definition of insanity after this. I have some things to say about that too. I'll post it later.

Sentenced to frustration in prison ... with no chance for parole.

2006-05-04T10:43:00.000-04:00

Zacarias Moussaoui, one of the guys who apparently was involved in the September 11th, 2001 plot to crash airplanes into the world trade centers, was sentenced to life in prison. Interestingly, he is sentenced to life in prison with no opportunity for parole -- with 23 hours per day of lockdown (that is, he's alone in his cell, and has no interaction with others) and one hour a day of "recreation" -- time when he can use the basketball court, or whatever -- during which he will still be alone.

Two things strike me about this punishment:

From Moussaoui's point of view, this is a worse penalty than the death sentence. Moussaoui was earlier recorded to have said (while in custody) that the death penalty would mean to him the chance to die a martyrs death for Allah. By the way, did you know that Allah is a demon? It is a real spirit, not just some invention of someone. I think that it is a common misconception that the Islamic teaching is that the reward for martyrdom in the name of Allah is the receiving of 72 perpetual virgins to deflower at will in the afterlife. The Quran seems to differ from this on two important points:
- Nowhere does it mention the number 72. This seems to be an Imam teaching that came about afterwards:
  The specific Hadith in which the number of virgins is specified is Hadith Al-Tirmidhi in the Book of Sunah (volume IV, chapters on The Features of Paradise as described by the Messenger of Allah, chapter 21, About the Smallest Reward for the People of Paradise. The same hadith is also quoted by Ibn Kathir in his Quranic commentary (Tafsir) of Surah Al-Rahman:
  "The Prophet Muhammad was heard saying: 'The smallest reward for the people of paradise is an abode where there are 80,000 servants and 72 wives, over which stands a dome decorated with pearls, aquamarine, and ruby, as wide as the distance from Al-Jabiyah [a Damascus suburb] to Sana'a [Yemen]." Some liberal theologins have tried to use selective reasoning and dubious evidence to suggest that the Houris (most commonly translated "virgins") here means "white" as in "white grapes" from the Aramaic "hur" which means "white" and was (apparently) commonly used as a nickname for "white grapes" during the time of Mohammed. This is dubious for a number of reasons, not the least of which I will mention, but I'll make you click a footnote link for it, since the content is a little graphic.
  The classic teachings of Islam (according to the Encyclopaedia of Islam) say that Mohammed intended to be describing "sensual pleasures into paradise" (al Ghazali (died 1111 AD) and Al-Ash'ari (died 935 AD), for example). One description by the teacher Al-Suyuti (died 1505 AD) of this is that "each time we sleep with a houri we find her virgin. Besides, the penis of the Elected never softens. The erection is eternal; the sensation that you feel each time you make love is utterly delicious and out of this world and were you to experience it in this world you would faint. Each chosen one [ie Muslim] will marry seventy [sic] houris, besides the women he married on earth, and all will have appetising vaginas."
  Reading "houri" as "white grape" produces very bizzare effects. I realize this isn't actually Quranic, but it demonstrates the traditional teachings, and shows the modern liberal interpretations to be a little to ... well, liberal ... with the language
- This reward is not granted only to martyrs, but to all muslim men who enter paradise. The bonus of martyrdom is the garauntee of entering paradise that comes with it.
I can't see any way in which this could be seen as a "rehabilitation" rather than a "punishment." This is a very good thing. The slide from thinking of prison as "punishment" for crime to thinking of it as "rehabilitation" for criminals is a dangerous one that we ought to try (however futile) to avoid. It is good that we are still issuing clear punishments. Stem the tide.

Below is the CNN article about Mousaoui's sentence.

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (CNN) -- Zacarias Moussaoui blasted the United States one last time, minutes before he was was formally sentenced to life in prison on Thursday for his role in 9/11.
"God curse America. God bless and save Osama bin Laden -- you will never get him," he told a packed federal courtroom that included family members of people killed in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
"You think you rule the world -- you are wrong. I will prove it," he said of the U.S.
U.S. District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema then followed the decision of the jury and ordered the al Qaeda terrorist to spend the rest of his natural life in prison.
Once in prison, Moussaoui will be in lockdown for 23 hours of every day, with one hour of recreation daily. He'll spend that one hour alone, also.
CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said Moussaoui most likely will be locked up inside the federal Supermax prison facility in Florence, Colorado, which is sometimes known as the "Alcatraz in the Rockies."
"It is a place of extraordinary security, 23 hours a day in cells, one hour of recreation," Toobin said. "It is as close to permanent solitary confinement as exists in our prison system."
A federal jury of nine men and three women decided Wednesday that Moussaoui should spend the rest of his life in prison for his role in the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. He will not be eligible for parole.
The verdict came on the jury's seventh day of deliberations after reliving the September 11 attacks through weeks of harrowing testimony and evidence.
Jurors were stone-faced Wednesday as the lengthy verdict form was read in court. Spectators, including some 9/11 family members, fell silent and Moussaoui showed no immediate reaction.
But as he left the courtroom, Moussaoui clapped his hands and said: "America, you lost. I won."
The jury had two choices -- death by injection or life in prison. The jury's rejection of the death penalty was viewed as a setback for the government.
"I certainly believe the verdict should have been death," said former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who testified against Moussaoui during the trial's penalty phase.
It was during the monthlong penalty phase that jurors twice heard from an unrepentant Moussaoui, who said he is willing to kill Americans "any time, anywhere."

I'm not a huge Adam Sandler fan but ...

2006-04-27T13:29:00.000-04:00

I'm not a huge Adam Sandler fan, but he has done a few quality pieces. Some of his songs are both funny and clean. Some of his movies has some clever bits (I have only seen two or three, actually ...). But there was one part of a movie called "Billy Madison" that was quite funny. It was also funny to see a court judge make reference to the movie in a ruling.

Check it out here: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0306061billy1.html. Look for the second page (there's a link at the bottom of this page).

Nietzsche

2006-04-25T12:10:00.000-04:00

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.

- Friedrich Nietzsche

I have an idea. Let's let this guy revolutionize societies and tell us about morality and God. I wonder what his definitions of "love" and "hate" were.

When a mother's life is on the line ...

2006-04-12T10:42:00.000-04:00

I've often heard that an abortion is acceptable when a pregnancy seems to put the mother's life in jeopardy. There is a subtle -- but serious -- flaw in this thinking.

For the sake of illuminating the point, let me make an analogy. Let's say there's a car accident. Two people are trapped in the car by a fallen telephone pole. The pole is laying in such a way as that it is crushing both people and resting on the gear-shift area between the two front seats. Someone calls 911. EMS arrives, along with the firemen and police. It looks like neither of the people is on the verge of death, so they take time to examine the situation closely and see how best to proceed. They give the driver and passenger some mild drugs to help with the pain. The passenger, though not more seriously injured than the driver, has lost a little more blood -- and is also a little smaller -- and so becomes a little light-headed and incoherent... not in danger, but not able to interact with the EMS workers as the driver is.

After much examination, it turns out that the situation is very dire: the telephone pole has crushed both causing major damage to their abdomens. As it turns out, the part of the car on which the pole is resting is acting as a fulcrum. If workers save the driver, it will require such damage to the passenger that he dies. If workers save the passenger, it will cause the same damage to the driver. If the workers try simply to remove the massive timber (creating supports, cutting it in the middle and lifting it off, for example) it will kill them both. Both the driver and passenger have equal ability to survive the rescue treatment if they are the one chosen to be saved; either one will make a full recovery eventually, so there's no medical reason to choose one over the other.

So, the emergency response people are left with a dilemma: whom to save? If one is not saved, both will die. If one is saved, the other will die. What ought they to do? This has all the appearance of being a problem directly out of classic situational ethics. My answer will seem to be the same as the one generally posed by existentiallists; actually, it will be merely coincidental with theirs, but approaches it with different meaning. We'll get to that later, perhaps ... This case is analogous to the situation originally considered: a pregnancy jeopardizing the life of the mother (let the baby live, the mother dies; saving the mother causes the baby's death).

What would usually happen in such a case as the car accident is that somehow the people involved would come to a decision as to which to save. There is much discussion and the driver and emergency crews talk for as long as they need to -- as long as they dare -- and come to the decision to save the driver, even though they know that it will mean the death of the passenger. The EMS workers prepare everything to move quickly and efficiently at the right time. Everyone is aware that rescuing the driver will mean the death of the passenger (except the passenger, who isn't lucid). Everyone is poised and ready. Someone gives a command and the fire crew moves the telephone pole exactly as decided -- they do a terrific job. The emergency crew tending to the driver rushes to stem the flow of blood and to administer appropriate aid. The crew assigned to the passenger move in and work fast and furiously to save his life -- even though they know it is futile. Every movement is practiced and deliberate ... every motion careful and calculated to save the life of the patient. Minute after minute passes. When ten minutes have gone by, the driver is stable enough to be transported by Ambulance to the nearest hospital. The passenger has passed away. With a feeling of both accomplishment and loss, crews pack up their equipment, clean up the mess, patch of highway as best they can, and leave, while the police officers wait for the tow trucks to arrive to drag off the twisted wreckage.

Did you notice what happened here? Did you see how this was different than an abortion? The EMS crew assigned to the passenger worked hard to save his life, knowing full well that it was futile. It would be reprehensible for them to move in with a crow bar and impale and dismember the passenger, remove him from the car piece by piece, and then proceed to care for the driver. This choice is unheard of and fully offensive. But this is exactly what happens when the decision is made to save the mother at the cost of the baby. The decision is a difficult one, to be sure, but once the decision is made, the medical staff does not need to abort the baby -- just the pregnancy. What should happen in such a case is to fight hard for the life of the baby -- even if it is futile. Have the mother go in for a cesarian section and do whatever you can to gently ... so carefully ... remove the baby and put him in some kind of incubator... try to care for the baby -- even find a surrogate mother if possible? Whatever it takes to save the baby. Even if it seems to be completely futile. If the mother will grow more and more sick and die when she is 26 weeks pregnant, then carry the baby until week 23 or 24 before trying to remove the baby from the womb -- to maximize the baby's ability to survive. The recovery may take longer for the mother -- even much longer -- but how much better to be ill for a longer time, but to save your child?

In a "medically necessary" abortion, this is not what happens. The doctor uses forceps and other tools to reach in and dismember the baby, then remove her piecemeal from the mother's body. It is horrible, but it is true. Below is a link that has photos and videos of abortions and their aftermath. Please be VERY cautious when going to the site. It is very gory.

CAUTION: This link will take you to a site that has VERY GORY content -- photos and videos of abortions and abortion-related material. PLEASE DO NOT FOLLOW THIS LINK WITHOUT SERIOUS CONSIDERATION OF WHAT YOU ARE DOING. THE IMAGES ARE DISTURBING AND GROTESQUE.

The Abortion Gallery ... is a site that ministers to the unborn and to churches who do not oppose this abominable act. They describe themselves as "Missionaries to the UNBORN : Ministering not only to Unborn children - but to the churches that refuse to hear their cry."

One more try ...

2006-04-12T10:40:00.000-04:00

I think because of time constraints it's going to work better for me to write shorter, more terse posts more frequently. While I like to be thorough and rigorous and to make my arguments robust, I don't really have time to do that with any frequency. So, I'll try this new tack =)

Some thoughts on global warming...

2006-04-07T14:32:00.000-04:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4419880.stm Why isn't global warming good news?

On Abortion (revamped)

2006-03-31T12:56:00.000-05:00

For a variety of reasons, I've decided to begin again with the abortion post, writing in a somewhat different format. Among the reasons are that

Conversational tones tend to muddle thought on high-emotion issues;
For now, I am interested in concision; and
the other post was taking too much time.

What follows is the logical content of the previous post of the same title.

In the original post (of which this is a renovation), I depicted a generalized amalgum of conversations I've had with a number of people. Basically it came down to a list of reasons for which some particular person might be persuaded that a fetal abortion is an acceptable choice to make. By "acceptable" here, I just mean people in this position will vocalize an opinion that having an abortion is "morally permissible." There's a whole lot of smudge room inside that, but I'm not concerned with that here. I'm more interested in their opinions regardless of the basis for moral judgements (or lack thereof). That list basically ended up looking something like the following, in which I've described a representative sampling of the spectrum of reasons people have told me abortions are not morally wrong. Each of the points in this list should be read as completions of the sentence beginning: "I believe than an abortion would be acceptable in the case that ..."

... the mother does not want the baby (for whatever reasons).
... the child is the product of a rape of the mother.
... testing reveals some crippling flaw in the baby (retardation, physical handicap, etc.)
... the mother is a very poor inner-city teen for whom a baby will limit her options and cause her to raise her baby in squalor and poverty that would only increase suffering in the world.
... the pregnancy is the result of incest [especially incestuous rape].
... the mother's health / life is in jeopardy if she tries to carry the baby to term.

Obviously these six are not all the possible reasons people say, they're just representative samplings from the spectrum of responses -- (1) being least restrictive to (6) most restrictive.

Watch this video in its entirety (with sound, preferrably)

2006-03-30T13:29:00.000-05:00

Watch this whole video, with sound, preferrably.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6379146923853181774

It's cool.

Blog History ...

2006-03-29T10:21:00.000-05:00

The first recorded use of a blog dates back to 1774, when Samuel Adams detailed his account of the Boston Tea Party in a little known journal which he titled "The Boston Log." Amongst friends and colleagues he would refer to it as his "blog."

On Abortion

2006-03-21T12:43:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking a bit about abortion lately. Partially because my own baby is now seven months old. Johanna and I have been reading books that describe the progress and development of the baby as weeks pass. Obviously it's not the progress of our baby =) But apparently (so goes the claim) all babies develop with surprising regularity in the womb, regardless of a great number of factors like race, diet, or whatever else, barring some kind of severe health problem in mother or child. The point is, at 14 weeks a baby tends to be a specific size and weight -- which makes sense because cells divide at a certain rate in general; tends to develop certain parts; and tends to develop certain faculties. The baby is 31 weeks old right now (a baby usually gestates for 40 weeks, for those who don't know) and can already recognize my voice, as of a couple of weeks ago. If my baby can recognize my voice that means that he can, right now cognize -- that is, he has memory, at least (though it may not be rational memory, it's memory nonetheless). The reason I have been thinking about abortion is that I am confronted with the interesting notion that it is currently legal for my wife to kill my baby -- my baby who can recognize my voice and who already moves and jumps when he hears my voice (in ways different than other people's voices and other men's voices). Friday, March 24, 2006I should note here that when I started thinking about all this (6 months ago!) it was legal for Johanna to kill our baby (without my knowledge!). Now that we're in the later part of the term, she no longer has the same "freedoms" that she used to have. I'm writing along with my musings, which cause some minor anachronisms. It's not unnoticed, and is preferred. =) He will also play rudimentary games with me: sometimes we can see a bulge on Johanna's tummy where the baby is pushing outward with his foot or hand or elbow or head (we can tell the difference, sometimes). I'll tap the place where he's pushing, and he'll withdraw for a few moments, then bump me back. We'll go back and forth for a short bit and it is obvious (to anyone who has ever played with a baby) that he's reacting. So, however it comes about, the government permits that my wife can slay my baby, who knows me and whom I know and love, without my consent or even knowledge (interestingly, I can't do the same).

In fairness, I suppose that I should say that the government hasn't exactly legalized abortion ... it has just illegalized the illegalization of abortions. That was the thrust of Roe vs. Wade (and those others that followed that allowed for such things as late-term abortions and partial-birth abortions). Various local governments had made abortions illegal, and the thrust of the Roe vs. Wade decision was that it was illegal for those governments to do so.

So, I've been thinking a bit about abortion lately.

There are a couple of interesting things here. When I've spoken with people about abortion, I have tended to get four kinds of responses:

Those who are universally against abortion (an abortion is never ok)
Those who are moderately against abortion (it might be ok in some circumstances ...)
Those who are moderately for (the 'freedom' to have an) abortion (it might not be ok in some circumstances ...)
Those who are universally for (the 'freedom' to have an) abortion (that choice is never wrong)

Of course, it shouldn't be strange that those are the four I've gotten (nor that there are four); these are just the matrix of possibilities that arises when we take a couple of positives and combine them with their simple negations:

	Permissible	not Permissible
Always	1	4
not Always	2	3

Anyway, as it turns out, there seem to be a whole heck of a lot more people in groups 2 and 4 than in groups 1 and 3. That is, Most people seem either to think that it is ALWAYS PERMISSIBLE, WITH NO EXCEPTIONS for a woman to (be 'free' to) choose to have an abortion, or else that it is NEVER PERMISSIBLE, WITH SOME EXCEPTIONS. Now, this is a little surprising for a few reasons and isn't surprising for other reasons.

The main reason it is surprising is mostly just an interesting side note. Well, it's interesting to me, anyway, because I'm interested in the notion of self-reference (recursion, meta-dialogue, etc.). It is, namely, that when you actually ask people to categorize themselves according to these categories, and then when you subsequently press them on the matter, it turns out that there's a pretty high rate of self-miscategorization. Strange, no? In particular, many of the self-miscategorized find themselves in category 2 though they will tell you that they are categorically against abortion (1), whereas a fair number of the people who claim that they are in category 3 actually slide into category 4 when pressed. Before I move on to the main point of this article, I'll quickly describe the phenomena associated with this self-miscategorization.

When it comes up in conversation that someone is either for or against abortion, I often like to press the point -- not so much because I'm interested in where they stand on the matter, but more that I am interested in whether or not they have thought out their own stance thoroughly. This is all part of a greater objective (a long-standing, long-term objective of mine) to push for the ubiquity of (thorough) critical thought among men. I suppose it's worth mentioning here that I am not particularlly extolling the notion that height or depth of thinking are the pinnacle of human achievement. I realize that there are people who are more or less capable in regards to thinking capacity (retarted kids, for example, may not be able to deal with certain subtleties that Aristotle seemed to be able to grasp and articulate). Nonetheless, critical analysis is a necessary function of man to the extent that he is able. That is to say, if you are not working to examine things to the best of your ability, then you are guilty of forwarding what is base and low in the world. Whether your capacity is "low" or "high" in such matters, this is one of those areas in which a sliding scale applies. Work towards your peak and you will be among the best of men. Basically, I'm just saying the same thing as Jesus said in that whole poor lady and rich guy story (he had tons of cash and gave a couple thousand dollars each week at the offering plate; she had next to nuthin' and gave her two cents. Jesus said she gave more. You get it. There are two basic paths that conversations take (very rope-like, of course -- lots of threads you could follow to get to the same basic end (a la Wittgenstein, no?)) one characterized by a generally pro-life stance and one characterized by a generally pro-abortion stance. What about the apathetic? Look again... remember these are discussions that arise "when it comes up in conversation that someone is either for or against abortion." (Top of this paragraph)

The basic pro-life conversation goes something like this:

Me	So are you for or against abortion?
Person	Against!
Me	Why?
Person	It's killing babies! Innocent lives are being taken when abortions are performed.
Me	Is there any good reason for an abortion? I mean ... one that would make it ok? Are there any circumstances in which it isn't murder of a baby?
Here I've separated out the people who categorize themselves into level 2. From here on out we're in the the class of people who call themselves category 1. It's a pretty small fraction we're losing; most "pro-life" people tend to put themselves in category 1.
Person	No.
From here on out, I'm going to be offering the person a series of ideas that people often cite as a good reason to have an abortion. They are in (what appears to be) an ascending order of offensiveness. That is, the first question I'll ask someone is whether or not an abortion would be ok in the case of serious inconvenience (such as not wanting a baby). Almost everyone will say that this is an unacceptable reason to have an abortion. From there, the reasons for an abortion will become more and more persuasive to people (this is just from observation). I'll list the questions and assume that the person is not one of those who is falling to this particular thing.
Me	What if the woman really doesn't want the baby? Is it ok then?
Person	No; if she didn't want a baby, she shouldn't have had sex. (A very few will say yes here.)
Me	What if she were raped? She didn't have sex of her own will... it was a violation, and the child is a tragic reminder for at least 9 MONTHS of the horrendous ordeal.
Person	No. Sometimes in life terrible things happen. It's not the baby's fault, he Interestingly, I've noticed that people tend to be considerably less willing for the abortion to happen if you refer to the baby as a girl instead of as a boy (use "she" and "her" instead of "he" and "him"). I'll write about this some other time. doesn't deserve to die. (A few people will say "yes" here. I'm putting together all people who change their stances and will deal with that at the end.)
Me	What if testing reveals that the baby will be crippled or retarted or something? You'd be sparing the baby from a hard, hard life full of frustration and ridicule and pain.
Person	No. A person is still a person. Like shakespeare said, "'Tis better to have lov'd and lost than never to have loved." (Quite a few will change their minds to this question. As a matter of fact, it turns out 35% of mothers who find out their babies have some kind of major disease (through amniocentesis, for example) abort them.)
Me	What if the mother is very poor, and a teenager living in the inner-city. The baby would limit her options and would just grow up in squalor that would perpetuate the endless cycle of suffering.
Person	No. It might have been a mistake to get pregnant, but you have to lie in the bed you make. (Here an astonishing number of people will agree that an abortion is acceptable. Strange that this is so high on the list...)
Me	What if the girl was raped incestuously ... by her father or uncle or brother? What a horrible thing! And the baby could be deformed and wretched.
Person	No. The baby is still a human being. (VERY many will switch over here. Almost everyone.)
Friday, March 24, 2006 (begin)
Me	Ok, how about this then ... what about the case in which it is pretty obvious that only either the mother or baby will survive the pregnancy? What if the father has died and the mother is trying to take care of four kids, and if she were to die it would leave four (five counting the baby) children orphaned. Surely in that case an abortion is acceptable ... after all, it's the only option!
Person	No. There's still a chance for the baby to survive, even if it takes a miracle and much prayer. There's never any excuse to kill the baby. (There are very, very few who will take this stand. Almost everyone I have encountered concedes that this is a point at which an abortion may be necessary.
Friday, March 24, 2006 (end)

Now, if someone has made it this far, he's pretty much a category 1 person straight up. But the vast majority (in my own experience) will have slipped into category 2 at some point during the conversation. Whenever someone moves into category 2, the conversation becomes pretty much the same for all of them from there on out... an examination of why it is acceptable in one case but not in another.

Friday, March 24, 2006Some of you may have noticed that there are a few little date stamps popping up here and there like the one to which this note is attached. I realized the other day that I am tending to write a single post in multiple installments, so I'm going to be date-stamping the sections of my blog for now. If it seems to be a good thing, I'll keep it. As a quick note -- I may or may not date-stamp a correction to previous sections or previous posts ... it will generally depend on the nature of the correction. If it was merely typographical, probably not. If it was a change of idea, then probably. If it was somewhere inbetween, then I'll make a judgement. Also, if I am merely progressing along the post, I will use the following sort of Time Stamp:
Friday, March 24, 2006
but if I am making a correction, I will use a Correction Time Stamp:
Friday, March 24, 2006
My hope is that this will make it easier for people to skim an article and tell what they should re-read and, generally, just to have more and better information.

Anonymous (correctly) commented below that I have left out one important reason that one might choose to have an abortion. In fact, it wasn't exactly an oversight, but might have been poor design on my part. The case in which it seems that only either the mother or baby will survive the pregnancy is actually the primary point of this blog post. I excluded it from the conversation above because I was going to treat it in a different manner entirely. I've decided to go ahead and introduce it into the conversation above (you'll see my correction time stamp marking it above), and I'll continue with my plan to treat it separately. Thanks, Anonymous!

... more in the next post ...

With Bated Breath

2006-03-09T17:55:00.000-05:00

I know you've all been waiting with bated breath for me to finish my fiddlings with the footnotes system I've been playing with. Johanna was teasing me just today that I would lose all my readers if I didn't start posting about something besides the blog! I told her I was surprised I had any readers in the first place...

Anyway, I got the whole footnotes thing up and running in both Mozilla FireFox and Microsoft Internet Explorer. Whug! What an ordeal! Most of the difficulty seems to have lain in non-standard implementations of things in IE. Now, I'm not a huge standardizing nut -- that is, I know that the W3C has no actual authority over anyone, but there are some basic things that seem like they ought to be common sense. The problem I was having was (basically) that Internet Explorer can't correctly manipulate certain page elements after they've been modified by JavaScript. Specifically, IE seems to have a significant flaw in determining a particular objects upper-left corner (the standard layout reference point for web page elements). It keeps exaggerating the Y-coordinate, (but not in a regular way, so I can't just compensate by, say, dividing by 4 or whatever).

But, I did figure out a nice little work-around for it: I have two functions that tell me the X and Y coordinates respectively of the layer that's acting as the "guide layer" for the footnote. It's the little link you click to make it open. Internet Explorer is reporting a wildly inaccurate Y coordinate (even though I'm following the outlined standards). What to do?! Well, I realized that since I don't have the footnotes marked up as links in the HTML of them (that is, I'm not using <a> tags to surround them), the tags were not part of the tab-order Didn't you know? You can navigate web pages very well without using your mouse! the "Tab" key cycles you through all links on a page. "Backspace" is the equivalent of clicking on the "Back" button, "space" is like scrolling down a bit, "Page Up" and "Page Down" do what they seem they ought, etc. Have fun! of the page, so I then realized that the only way to open the footnotes is to click on their links (those problematic little things that Internet Explorer can't find). But IE can tell where your mouse is during a click! So, I have a tiny li'l furcation of the code in a strategic spot: If you're using any browser OTHER than IE, just grab the top-left corner of the footnote link. If you're using IE, it grabs the mouse click at the moment of click and uses the values from that! It's not a perfect solution; I can't include the footnotes in the tab order (or else I'll get funny results for the few people who do tab through pages as I do, sometimes), and the position of the footnote can vary by as much as the height of the footnote link text, but neither of those is much of a big deal.

So, to make a long story slightly longer, it's all working now (should be fine in all major browsers... if not, let me know!). This is the end of my footnote posts for a while on the blog; I'll get back to more important things now.

The End

... or is it?

Well, crud.

2006-03-05T17:29:00.000-05:00

I think I speak for us all when I say, "Well, crud." It turns out that Blogger's "preview" option doesn't render things the same way as the live blog. The footnotes are getting offset by something in the live version. I'll try to figure it out. Later.

So! News &c.

2006-03-05T16:30:00.000-05:00

I've been having fun last night and tonight taking care of some things on the blog. I had something like insomnia. I think "insomnia" is a word like old-school-style "leprosy"; that just means "I couldn't sleep" -- in (not) somni (sleep) a (thing)... I had a non-sleep thing. I'm vaguely aware that there's a clinical condition called "insomnia" but that there's also a psychological one, and probably a bunch of other fields of study would claim at least some form of insomnia to be a disorder of their domain. Huh. I was up and down a lot last night.

Anyway, I had been irked by the previous template for a couple of reasons:

It was ugly.
It rendered differently in IE and FF (enough so as to cause me consternation).
It was left-aligned, not centered.
Other miscellany.

So, I re-vamped it. Previously -- some time last week or so -- I had been entreated by Kristi to craft a blogger template that emulated a WordPress template. I did a pretty good job, if I say so myself! So, inspired by that a bit, I created this blogger template as a variation on a different WordPress theme (that they were both WordPress was a coincidence ... I was perfectly willing to use a color scheme and layout from any source as inspiration). The template of which this is a spin-off is called "Bananna Smoothie" (or something very similar). I'm sure you could find it, if you wished, with a simple web search for something like "WordPress Bananna Smoothie".

With some considerable effort, I got it to render pretty nearly identically in FF and IE. The switch from a left-anchored layout to a central layout caused a kink in the footnote code. I knew it would, because I knew when I was developing it for the previous layout that it was a hack. That was actually part of the reason for the re-design: motivation to make a more robust and elegant footnote system. This new version has some notable feature improvements:

It works on a centered layout.
It re-sizes the notes to fit the window size.
Now, all the notes close when you re-size the window so that you don't have wierdly floating notes open. As an interesting quirk in FF, this seems to close the open notes when I switch between tabs. This could be because of a particular FF extension I've installed (I suspect so). Let me know if it's tiresome. I figured that most people don't change their window sizes terribly much while reading a blog.
Spacing is fixed inside the notes.
The code is more robust. I've still got some hacks in it, but I'm satisfied for now. I'll probably end up going back and fixing them at some point, but it won't require any kind of layout change, just more elegant implementations of some of the code. For example, I'm still using the innerHTML technique for writing to divs instead of the standard DOM methods. But I'm ready to stop for now =)

You may also note that comments now appear on the main page. I like this much better. It makes the blog more of a dialogue (though the pun "diablog" just occured to me). I may add code later that allows visitors to choose whether to show the comments or not... It would take about 5 minutes to implement that, I think. Uber-easy.

I'm still a little dissatisfied with the side bar to the right. I want space between the yellow elements. I'll fix it later (mayhap).

This has generally inspired me to create a brother-blog to this one. It'll be a place for me to write up some of the JavaScript and CSS sorts of things I've been doing. I'll link them to each other, so they'll appear to be pages on a bigger blog-system. I haven't done it yet, but I'll let you know.

That's it for this post. I've got more to say (sort of), but not here.

Re-structure; Footnotes working in IE

2006-02-23T12:23:00.000-05:00

Hey, everyone. As you've probably already noticed, the pages has been restructured a bit. Also, as I was exploring the problem with the footnotes in IE I decided to re-vamp to make them cooler (because I haven't found a job yet =)

Unfortunately, for reasons currently beyond my understanding, the formatting doesn't look as good in IE as it does in FireFox (apparently, IE doesn't add the same way FF and I do ... When you take the widths of all the elements and the spacings between then and what not, it comes out on paper (and in FireFox) that all the parts of the page come together in a nice, smooth rectangular block. For some reason the same numbers don't add up right in IE -- or, more likely, they just don't display correctly. Hrm... I'll work on fixing it some other time. It will probably require some kind of browser detection and JS correction. C'est la vie, non?).

Anyway, all the mechanics are functioning well -- see the footnote in the previous paragraph, and the page is pretty in FireFox. If you aren't using FF, I highly recommend it. It's more secure, less buggy, faster, and doesn't have this weird problem. All the words "FireFox" and "FF" in this post have been linked to the download site. You'll also want to pick up IE Tab, a handy plugin for FireFox that allows you to open an Internet Explorer tab within theFireFox main window. Other useful plugins can be found at their general plugin page, such as:

AdBlock (blocks all kinds of things (you can pick) from pages you visit, including ads)
FasterFox (some acceleration tweaks)
TabBrowser Preferences (enhances tabbed browsing)
...and more...

Ciao for now!

StickyNotes problem

2006-02-20T11:36:00.000-05:00

Well, I figured out what's wrong with the stickynotes (sort of). I don't know what the mechanical reason for failure is yet, but my computer just downloaded a new "critical update" for Internet Explorer and the stickynotes don't work in IE any more. They still work in FireFox, which is my primary browser, so I didn't notice. Thanks for letting me know! I'll fix it as soon as I get a chance.

Mob Mentality

2006-02-16T18:08:00.000-05:00

My internet access was out for a few days, so I didn't get a chance to post anything.

This was originally begun as a response to a comment in the previous post (read them to get caught up to where this one begins) but it got longer and more interesting (to me =) so I decided to make it into a full-fledged post.

(in response to comments to the previous post ... )

Yes, that's something like what I mean. The paraphrase is pretty good, although my original intent wasn't particularly to address any one group (not even muslims particularly).

I don't think this thing that happened is a Muslim thing. That is, the Islam angle is accidental to the whole situation, not essential. In particular, I have been studying (lightly) the phenomenon of so-called "mob mentality" for about 10 years. The violence that has erupted in these particular protests are the same as the violence that erupts at soccer matches, environmentalist protests, and other events in this vein. The key to it seems to be that when a group of people who have taken offense I emphasize that they took offense rather than that they were offended because when the offense was offered, it could have been (and always could be) humbly refused. gather together, sometimes (for reasons as yet opaque to me) the ratio of psyche to space (physical space) gets so high that people begin to indulge in the apparent anonymity of the situation.

Anonymity, of course, is a modern word meaning "Gyges's Ring" -- when someone is given anonymity, he can do whatever he wants without accountability for his actions. In this kind of case, you're going to have a group of people who are already gathered for the expressed purpose of demonstration of conflict.Not all conflict is violent conflict, of course. In the case of a peaceful protest, there is still a conflict between the wills, desires, ideas, or any other number of things between the two parties involved. The conflict becomes violent when one takes it upon himself to violate the other (violence is violation).

Of course, in this case the protest rally isn't the protest itself; it is the rally that demonstrates the protest occuring within one's mind. Similarly, the conflict of wills already exists, it is the demonstration of it that is accomplished when a party gathers "to protest." Now, when those who have gathered to voice their grievances, and when they are futher given the (apparent) invisibility afforded to members of a crowd, the economy of Society breaks down and actions are unfettered by considerations of personal accountability. This being the case, one person takes the bold step of acting out and whoever else in the crowd then sees this as an implicit declaration of the permissibility (and even necessity!) of such actions. The fire spreads.

This same kind of thing happened at "Woodstock 2000" when the bands went to play and there were riots, fires, gang rapes, and beatings -- after dark.

The offensiveness of the cartoon is entirely irrelevant to the violence of these few demonstrations (as an effective cause) -- as evidenced by the fact that only SOME of the protests turned violent. The only factor related to the violence of some of the protests was the protestors willingness to commit violence. Similarly, the offensiveness of the cartoon is entirely irrelevant to the protests, peaceful or otherwise as an effective cause. The error that was made here (in some people's minds, I mean) is a very old one: the equivocation of causes. In these cases, someone mistakes the formal or final causes for the efficient cause. (I realize that this is a rather dry and logical look at the interplay between passions and will, but that is permissibile because will is the mediator between passion and action).

That's all for now... maybe more later.

Look before you leap!

2006-02-10T18:30:00.000-05:00

UPDATED!

CNN.com - Kenyan anti-cartoon protester shot - Feb 10, 2006

Apparently some newspaper (political?) cartoonist printed some cartoons recently in a Danish newspaper that depicted, among other things, the Islamic false prophet Mohammed with a bomb for a turban. Crowds (coincidentally called "turba" in Latin) have been gathering to protest the publication and re-publication of the cartoons, apparently claiming that they are sacreligious (not the same as blasphemous, btw).

Ironically, a number of the protests have, it seems, turned violent. That is, violent protests have erupted to denounce cartoons that portray Islam as a violent religion. Obviously, since Mohammed himself didn't do all these recent bombings, this portrayal of him is a synecdochal portrayal of Islam.

Update: Political Addendum

It was brought to my attention in a comment (read comments on this entry to see) that people who don't know me might think I was in some way slamming Islam unfairly (or worse yet, that people who know me slightly -- that is, enough to know I'm a Christian -- might think this mere bigotry). Though my lack of reference to other religions and other such cases does not imply anything of that sort, it also doesn't exclude such an inference. Therefore, in the interest of clarity and in order to ward off the possibility of off-ending whoever is easily tipped, I will make explicit what is logically implicit:

It is the abstract principle that is intended to be employed here, not the concrete particulars. Any concrete particulars should be seen as accidental to the main idea, and not essential. I would be willing for the same comments to be made should they apply to any other category of whatever item is in discussion here (whether race, religion, creed, color, gender, or any other such classification).

This will, at some point, be one of my standard disclaimers (which I will invoke explicitly when possible).

To this point, I will re-post the initial entry here, alluding to an imaginary similar cartoon, but one spoofing Christianity. I've italicized the appropriate modifications I've made, so that it can be seen that I've been completely reasonable. If this were the actual news story, I would be fine posting the following:

Apparently some newspaper (political?) cartoonist printed some cartoons recently in a Danish newspaper that depicted, among other things, Jesus with a cross made of swords. Crowds (coincidentally called "turba" in Latin) have been gathering to protest the publication and re-publication of the cartoons, apparently claiming that they are sacreligious (not the same as blasphemous, btw).

Ironically, a number of the protests have, it seems, turned violent. That is, violent protests have erupted to denounce cartoons that portray Christianity as a violent religion. Obviously, since Jesus himself didn't do all these recent violent acts by Christians, this portrayal of him is a synecdochal portrayal of Christianity.

Moving Day is almost upon us!

2006-01-27T11:13:00.000-05:00

Well, it's Friday and we're moving to North Carolina tomorrow! Doing a lot of packing today. We're going to pack up the computer tonight, and we don't have network access set up yet in the new place, so I won't be posting for however long it takes to get it =) I've got a job interview Monday. If you think of it, and feel inclined to, please pray for me to get this job!

Underworld: Evolution [Movie Review]

2006-01-27T10:20:00.000-05:00

Johanna and I just went to watch the new vampire/werewolf movie, Underworld: Evolution. It's the sequel to Underworld, which we both found pretty entertaining. Underworld (the original) had a neat mix of vampires and werewolves in a convincing urban setting, with the cool twist of one character that was bitten by both vampire and werewolf within a very short time, and was becoming both. Also, Kate Beckinsale (the lead actress) did a good job as a vampiric femme fatale with a troubled past dealing with close betrayal. The sequel had all these elements of the first, and was enjoyable for that reason, but unfortunately it isn't quite as good as the original. The visual effects were very good, and the basic story arch was plenty rich, but the movie had a few significant flaws:

The movie was too short for its content. Now, I don't mean exactly that it just wasn't long enough. I mean that the movie didn't give quite enough time to its elements as they deserved (and needed). In a number of cases, it was just shy enough. For example, in a few instances, a number of names were bandied about without quite enough setup for a reasonable expectation that the names could be heard and understood without mentally mapping things out. This generally happened when referring either to one of the main families, or else a cluster of new vampires. Sometimes several names would be introduced (or re-introduced after a while) and a fairly dense conversation would describe a somewhat intricate web of relationships just a little too thick to be able to follow easily. If they had just protracted the scene by three or four minutes, and laid things out more clearly, the whole movie would have appeared more cogent.
Gratuitous Elements: Nudity & Sexually explicit content. There are two main scenes with nudity and explicit sexual content that are completely gratuitous. In the first, Kate Beckinsale, whose character obviously has romantic interest in Steven Mackintosh's (the leading man's) character, has a sex scene with him. Within 30 seconds (or so) the audience completely understands what's happeneding -- they're about to have sex. They're kissing, caressing, and he begins to undress her. It's clear. But then there's a needlessly long sequence of the two of them laying together naked, one atop the other, miming sex. It's just a prolonged scene to show off thier two bodies. This is particularly unfortunate because I like Kate Beckinsale a lot already and it is a blot on her (not that I think less of her particularly, though she obviously has culpability to the extent that she agreed to it, but that kind of blot that is akin to the sorrowful and empathic shame you feel for and with someone of whom others have taken advantage). At least in this case, they didn't quite bare all ... unlike in the next case The second scene has one vampire guy having sex with two vampire women. The purpose of the scene was to show that this one vampire, who had been exiled from vampire relations and confined to a remote mountain prison, was actually living it up from within his prison, without much hardship other than his liberty. This was accomplished by means of showing him with relative luxury and comfort -- enough for decadence. For some reason (not very mysterious, but very unfortunate) the director decided to make explicit what was already clear and had the imprisoned vampire having sex with two vampiresses, who apparently were desparate enough to be in a movie that they were willing to do the scene and bare nipples and all in the process. Too bad for them, too bad for us.
Minor Gratuitous Violence. Some of the violence was a little over-the-top and in such a manner as that it didn't particularly benefit the movie. Nonetheless, it also didn't particularly harm the movie other than the inherent harm of useless elements in movies. Again, pretty minor.

Having said this, I'll give the movie a 6 out of 10. What does this mean in practical terms? Well, basically it means that I wouldn't buy the DVD. In a number of movies with gratuitous nudity or violence, I might still buy the DVD then take it home and rip it to my computer, chop out the gratuitous elements in an editor, then burn a new CD to keep in a family library. This is not illegal! The dubious legality of such things in recent law suits is because of companies doing this and then selling the product. Once you've bought your own copy of a movie, you can do with it what you'd like and you're fully within your rights -- even the movie industry people don't object. In this case, I can't quite justify buying the movie because even without the gratuitous elements the movie just isn't paced quite well enough.

Update!

2006-01-23T11:40:00.000-05:00

Well, Johanna and I are getting ready to move! Things have been up in the air a bit lately and I haven't posted much in the past couple of weeks. I've been spending much of each day making phone calls changing addresses, taking care of various here-and-there things, you know.

Our lease is up at the end of January. We've rented a U-Haul truck (despite the use of the letter "U" to mean "You") for Saturday. I'm going to go down to NC and get us all unpacked and such. Johanna's going to stay here for a couple more weeks at her job. It's not the best of all possible worlds, but it's definitely the best of all possible worlds. We'll see each other on weekends for the next month-ish, then she'll come join me down in NC. That's the plan, anyway, and God willing it will go that way or better (that's a perfectly safe bet!).

I'm working on getting a job in NC still ... right now I am trying to get an temporary job as a math school teacher for a semester until I can do what I really want to do... but that's a different post =) If I get that job, it will give me a few months to get my ducks in a row. Should be fun.

In case anyone is reading this who doesn't already know, Kristi is planning to do full-time missionary work in Belarus for two years. You should ask her about it, and better yet, pray for her and faithfully send her a donation (however small!) every month. C'mon, don't be [].

Mayhaps I'll post again soon. Working on a few things that are taking much time. Packing this afternoon.

WARNING: POTENTIALLY OFFENSIVE MATERIAL

2006-01-18T11:14:00.000-05:00

WARNING! Contained in this article is material that could be offensive to some! PROCEED WITH CAUTION!
THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS SOME PROFANITY AND OFF-COLOR COMMENTS. THESE ARE QUOTATIONS LIFTED DIRECTLY FROM ANOTHER PAGE.

If you think that it might be offensive to you, please choose not to read it. If, after having read it, it turns out to have been offensive to you, please choose not to have read it.

So, I came across one of the funniest web sites I've ever seen. I will give you the link at the bottom of this post, but for now, here's a quick set of terms and definitions relating to blogging taken directly from the site. The following has been reproduced here because of its DIRECT relevance to you and me.

Blog: The word "blog" is literally shorthand for "boring;" a vulgar, overused word that strikes your ear with the dull thud of a cudgel to the soft spot of a child. It's an abbreviation used by journalism drop outs to give legitimacy to their shallow opinions and amateur photography that seems to be permanently stuck in first draft hell. Looking in the archives of the blogs, one would expect someone who has been at it for years to slowly hone their craft and improve their writing and photographs, since it's usually safe to assume that if someone does something long enough, he or she will eventually not suck at it. Even with lowered expectations, you'll get a shotgun blast of disappointment in your face.

It's an unspoken rule that every blog must use the same layout as every other blog: long, slender columns of annoyingly condensed text, thousands of links to other blogs, plugs for shitty political books, and more links to yet more blogs:

The problem with this layout is that there's too much shit to click on. Seriously, who's ever going to click on all those links? The worst blogs are the ones that make every other word a hyperlink to another website so by the time you finish reading this sentence, you've forgotten what you were reading, or why you were reading it in the first place. Hey, this article is great but you know what would make it better? If I could read another article in the middle of it. Great design, morons.

If the thousands of mid-sentence links don't annoy you, the long slender columns of text will. Most of the screen on a blog is blank for an imaginary populace of readers still using 640x480 resolution. I didn't buy a 19" monitor to have 50% of its screen realestate pissed away on firing white pixels, you assholes. They don't print books on receipt paper for a reason. Every time I see this layout, I want to choke the creator with my dry, crackled, and bleeding hands for making my fingers so calloused from having to keep scrolling the mouse wheel to read your dumb "blog."

Blogger: Term used to describe anyone with enough time or narcissism to document every tedious bit of minutia filling their uneventful lives. Possibly the most annoying thing about bloggers is the sense of self-importance they get after even the most modest of publicity. Sometimes it takes as little as a referral on a more popular blogger's website to set the lesser blogger's ego into orbit.

Then God forbid a blogger gets mentioned on CNN. If you thought it was impossible for a certain blogger to get more pious than he was, wait until you see the shit storm of self-righteous save-the-world bullshit after a network plug. Suddenly the boring, mild-mannered blogger you once knew will turn into Mother Theresa, and will single handedly take it upon himself to end world hunger with his stupid links to band websites and other smug blogger dipshits.

Blogging: If minds had anuses, blogging would be what your mind would do when it had to take a dump.

Blogged: What you call a trivial or largely inconsequential topic once bloggers have processed through every tired detail. For more on this, look into: every minor news story.

Blogosphere: The "blogosphere" is the new buzz word that has replaced "information super highway." It's what idiots like to call a collection of "blogs," otherwise known as a tragedy.

Blogomania: Like all other manias, except relating to the infatuation of blogs. It's one step above the more caustic phrase "blog-o-rama." Thankfully the latter hasn't caught on to the extent of its brethren, but that doesn't stop me from punching anyone who says it in the dick.

Blogroll: A long list of links that nobody will ever click on. Bloggers not only link to their friends and fellow bloggers, but their eventual goal is to link to every linkable document on the Internet. Most "blog rolls" are so full of links that it can bring even the mightiest of search engines to a crawl as they sort through all the frivolous bullshit bloggers link to.

Thankfully, since most blogs are shallow in content, it won't take you long to load, and in turn, to close the browser quickly if you're duped into clicking one of these links. If you shut down quickly enough, you may be able to avoid downloading the mandatory 2 gigs of political banners on every blogger's website.

Blogshare: An imaginary share of a blog's worth, which is ironic, since most blogs have an imaginary share of readers.

Blogstorm: A zany phrase news anchors like to use any time they think there's an abnormal amount of posts on blogs regarding any particular topic. Of course, they fail to consider any amount of posting to a blog is abnormal since people who are well adjusted usually have better things to do, i.e., work, or failing that, anything else.

Blog Swarm: Stupid.

Blogging community: Losers, goths, bedwetters, and journalism dropouts.

Blawg: Some prick thought it would be clever to spell "blog" phonetically using the word "law" in the title. It's a phrase used to describe blogs primarily dealing with the law and legal issues. Wow, real clever, dipshit. How did you come up with that one?

Blogumentary: There was recently a bit of a feud regarding this word among two bloggers. Apparently some guy decided that they had exclusive right to use the word, not realizing that similar words (docudrama, dramedy, rockumentary, etc) have been free to use for all people since you can't just copyright an entire genre, and more importantly, that it's stupid. Who cares? Blogumentary? Really? Eat shit you morons.

Blogebrity: Wow, guess what this one stands for? Too easy. Hey, anyone can do it: take a blogger who's a chef, and you get: BLEF. A blogger who's a dentist? BENTIST. A female blogger with an itch? You guessed it: a BITCH.

Photoblog: Photoblogs make me yearn for the day when cameras weren't digital, film cost money, and it took time to develop pictures. I remember back when it wasn't easy for any random asshole with a camera to go out take countless pictures of nothing. Nothing is exactly what these pictures are of. No focus, no theme, no message, no posturing. Just countless pictures of Denny's at 2 AM. We don't care that you went to Denny's. You're not an artist. You're not deep. Get a new hobby.

Podcast: Someone had the revolutionary idea of taking a compressed audio file and putting it online. Yeah, doesn't sound so sexy when I describe it for what it is, does it you morons? It would have been a great idea if streaming audio wasn't already around for over a decade before the word "podcast" entered the lexicon. Man, I can't stand the word "lexicon." Talking about all these shitty words has made me start using shitty words. I'm so pissed, I just slammed the door shut on some kid's nuts.

Podcasting: It's snob for "streaming audio."

Podcatcher: Any idiot with an iPod, web browser, or ears.

Warblog: A blog that primarily deals with war. Filled with whiny blow hards who are fixated on their stubborn ideas and conspiracy theories. For example, there are countless hours pissed away by conspiracy theorists who think the WTC towers were demolished by bombs planted by the government. These armchair engineers write endlessly about how the physics of the collapse was impossible, how the temperature wasn't hot enough to melt steel, and how the planes were carrying missiles. Of course, the one thing they don't postulate is a REASON.

My personal favorite warblog was one that had a flash animation with people who were quoted as saying "it didn't sound like a plane to me... it sounded like a missile." Thank you Joe Nobody for giving me your expert opinion on what missile sounds like, because gas station superintendents are usually the best people to ask about the sonic signature of ballistic missile thrust.

Warblogger: Like all other bloggers, an idiot. Usually a self-righteous prick with a political axe to grind. Tragically, these dullards fail to realize that nobody cares what they think. And no, the 2 comments per post you get on average doesn't count. Get some real opinions, then maybe you'll get some real feedback.

Warblogging: The act of writing amateur, unfounded, and borderline illiterate opinions about war and war strategy.

iPod: This is one of those inventions that makes people say: "why didn't I think of that?" On news shows anyway. One of the anchors on FOX News said "now the music industry is waiting for someone to come along and invent the next iPod." Wow, if only I had thought of the bright idea of putting an mp3 player on a portable hard drive. Damn that's brilliant. I had that idea years ago. I also have another idea: a car that can fly. I will sue anyone who makes it.

iPodder: A pompous ass who thinks he's eclectic. Wake up asshole: you're not living in an iPod commercial. You can't dance. Everything you listen to sucks. Get a job.

e-nable: E-nable? How about I e-nable my foot to your mouth?

URL (as pronounced "ERL"): Few things invoke more contempt for humanity than someone who pronounces URL as "erl." It's an acronym, not a word you douche! Between people who say "erl" and programmers who pronounce char (an abbreviation for character) as "chär" (with the "ch" pronounced like in "chart"), I get so pissed that I just want to saw my arms off.

The suffix "pundit:" Stupid.

The prefix "pundit:" Stupid.

Liberal media: Whiny, bitching, cry-baby conservatives love to prattle on and on about the "liberal media." To be fair, except for FOX News (Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, John Gibson, Neil Cavuto, Steve Doocy, E.D. Hill, Brian Kilmeade, Brit Hume), Clear Channel, Laura Ingraham, Dr. Laura, Rush Limbaugh, Hugh Hewitt, Ann Coulter, Newsmax, G. Gordon Liddy, Michael Reagan, Michael Savage, The New York Post, Sinclair Broadcast Group (WLOS13, Fox 45, WTTO21, WB49, KGAN, WICD, WICS, WCHS, WVAH, WTAT, WSTR, WSYX, WTTE, WKEF, WRGT, KDSM, WSMH, WXLV, WURN, KVWB, KFBT, WDKY, WMSN, WVTV, WEAR, WZTV, KOTH, WYZZ, WPGH, WGME, WLFL, WRLH, WUHF, KABB, WGGB, WSYT, WTTA), David Horowitz, Rupert Murdoch, PAX, and MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, they're right.

The suffix "gate": Watergate, Filegate, Rathergate, eat shit already.

Xanga: The bottom of the barrel of blogs. It's incredible that the user base is able to write so much, yet say so little. I have to give a bit of kudos though, considering the fact that many of the users have the reading comprehension of a bowl full of pubes.

LiveJournal: Here's a little trick you can use to find out whether a link someone sends you is worth checking. If it contains the words "live, journal," or any combination thereof, you can safely ignore the link without missing out on anything.

Content Management System: A pretentious way of saying "text editor."

The acronym CMS: Man, it's like you guys create these words, then you turn them into acronyms to make this shit even cornier.

Killer App: I can't stand this phrase, mostly because it's applied so loosely. App is short for "application," but that doesn't stop people from using it every chance they get: "the fast food industry needs a killer app." What? What does that even mean? An application?

Webmistress: You're not a webmistress, shut up. It's a word used by uppity women who, in spite of a woman's inherent flaws, has been able to land a job as a webmaster. Then they have to go and piss all over years of civil rights they've wrestled away by calling themselves "webmistresses."

trackback: It's snob for "referrer."

travelblog: Guess.

Emo: An abbreviation for loser. Emo is the new goth, except goths are still around, so it's becoming almost unbearable.

Metrosexual: A gay guy still in the closet. This word is so contemptible that even the man who coined it has since apologized for being such a douche. I cringe every time I hear this word.

Retrosexual: This word wouldn't exist if "metro" didn't happen to rhyme with "retro." It's supposed to mean the opposite of a "metrosexual," which makes it another superfluous word since we already have a word for the opposite of a metrosexual called "straight."

Friendblog: None are known to exist since bloggers don't have friends.

Watchblog: Let's not.

Videoblog: Another idiot who had the bright idea of coining a term for posting a file online, except instead of music, it's crappy home videos.

Vlog: I don't even know if this is being used yet, but I suspect it will be used soon if it hasn't, so preemptive strike, bitches.

Vog: I

Vloggers: CAN'T

Vlogging: GO

Vlogged: ON

Moblog: ANYMORE.

In observation of all these shitty phrases and acronyms, I've decided to coin another phrase that can be used for "blog" called: comment-log or CLOG for short. What users do is labor over documenting their inconsequential lives, trivializing man's greatest invention, the microprocessor, until the Internet is so CLOGGED that commerce comes to a screeching halt. Anyone contributing to the congestion would be known as a CLOGGER. I hate blogs.

Now the link: TheBestPageInTheUniverse.net

Post-Note Widget

2006-01-13T16:57:00.000-05:00

So, I just finished my note-post widget. Basically, it allows me to post little asides and comments into the body of a blog post without disrupting the main flow of the post. For an example of this in action, click on the little "note" button that appears in the following Lorem Ipsum paragraph. Here's a feature list:

It runs with CSS and JavaScript -- there are no images or files to upload.
Clients without JavaScript won't be hindered -- it will leave your comments inline!
There's a (practically) unlimited number of notes that can be on one page
Very long comments scroll within the note boundaries.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Cras nulla. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Quisque augue quam, mollis vitae, lacinia nec, pulvinar quis, metus. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae. Nullam euismod posuere ante. Ut eros. Donec posuere semper nisl. Donec semper sodales metus. Sed feugiat. Nullam posuere, odio tincidunt pretium mollis, mauris dui malesuada sem, eget accumsan augue diam id massa. Vivamus vulputate sapien imperdiet lorem. Cras convallis dolor vel justo. Maecenas quis quam a mi iaculis fringilla. This little Post-Note will appear within the main body of the text if your browser doesn't allow (or support) javascript, but will be sucked into a Post-Note if it does! It should be fully cross-browser and is pretty simple.Proin tempus, orci eu egestas placerat, metus nunc blandit turpis, ac vehicula velit risus congue nunc. Etiam tincidunt iaculis mauris. Morbi nonummy volutpat purus. Mauris iaculis purus ac massa. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Proin nunc. Morbi dolor. Sed est risus, auctor at, congue vitae, malesuada a, eros. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. In at diam vitae libero tempus venenatis. Donec aliquam erat non libero. Quisque facilisis rhoncus. Mauris quis sem vel nulla blandit pharetra. Etiam rhoncus mauris eget felis. Praesent gravida, neque quis vestibulum ornare, quam nisl facilisis ligula, vel sodales lorem magna et elit. Nunc congue ante ut nunc.

Baby Photos!

2006-01-13T15:46:00.000-05:00

We got our 20-week sonogram this past Wednesday. It looks like the baby is doing well. We have empirical evidence of what we knew in the Spirit: the baby is a boy! Here's a picture of the kid ... he's a good guy. He was squirming and wriggling throughout the sonogram -- just generally being hard core, baby style. The picture is of the head & face region (a profile view). This photo has been modified from it's original version. It has been formatted to fit your mind. I have just brightened it a little bit, so you can see details more clearly (more black-and-white and less grey-and-lighter-grey). I also have a short (5-second) video of the baby. He's not doing much squirming in it, but a little. It's only 5-seconds because it was 5-seconds into it that the nurse told me (a little sharply) that photos weren't allowed . I turned off the camera and asked why no photography -- does it interfere with the machinery in some way? No. She said it was something about law suits... so that if something shows up on one of my photos that they miss (too many arms, or whatever) we could possibly sue. Whug. Anyway, I'll see about posting the video clip (which is much easier to see than the photo) when I find my camera cable.

Tarot Card Commercial

2006-01-10T02:43:00.000-05:00

I recently saw a tarot card commercial in which the announcer promised psychic insight into your life in the following areas:

Love
Money
Romance

My question: What's the difference between 1 and 3? Aren't these generally considered the same thing in our pop culture?

Google Ads

2006-01-06T16:34:00.000-05:00

Today I searched on Google for the phrase "how to change google talk options." I happened to glance to the right-hand side where the "Sponsored Links" reside and noticed that this was the list of sponsors:

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Learn Options CBOE Options Institute has trained more than 140K investors since 1985 www.CBOE.com

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Chat in your ZIP code It's free to chat with men and Women around you. Live and free www.webcamchatrooms.net

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Find Women for Sex Meet 3,277,782 Single Girls between 20 & 30 that want to meet for Sex ! www.SexSearch.com

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So I downloaded a FireFox extension I had seen a while back that turns off Google ads. Bummer to have to.

Working on some formatting and scripting

2006-01-04T14:11:00.000-05:00

I'm working on some formatting and scripting, so for a while things are in an "in development" phase. What does that mean to you? Well, in particular it means that some of the features of the blog that are ... unusual (such as my method of commentary in which my comments appear in blocks as you pass over certain words/phrases) will be a little buggy until I work them out. Thanks for being patient!

A judiciary for the people?

2006-01-04T10:38:00.000-05:00

A short while ago the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a law suit against Mercer County, Kentucky for having a copy of the Ten Commandments displayed among a number of other documents of historical legal significance to the United States. The ACLU's claim was (again) that this was a violation of the establishment clause Amendment I: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. of the first amendment. The judge who heard the case ruled in favor of the ACLU. When the case was appealed, however, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Mercer County, overturning the previous verdict. The following is a snippet from the ruling. I've added emphasis and commentary occasionally (emboldened text) and the citations have been removed (by the web site from which I copied the text). It is expected that this will be appealed to the Supreme Court by the ACLU. Bravo, 6th Circuit Court.

The ACLU’s argument contains three fundamental flaws. First, the ACLU makes repeated reference to “the separation of church and state.” This extra-constitutional construct has grown tiresome. The First Amendment does not demand a wall of separation between church and state.No kidding. Call me crazy, but if the first amendment states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion," then it means that Congress (which has a clear and obvious meaning of the congregation of elected officials representing the various sovereign states of the union -- the only reason a definition is even possibly necessary here is that the word "congress" has passed from a logos to a nomos from frequent usage, so many have forgotten what the word means) shall make no law (which has a clear and obvious meaning that they shall pass nothing into law) respecting an establishment of religion (the meaning of which should be clear, but is being called into question by a certain equivocation that comes up later). Our Nation’s history is replete with governmental acknowledgment and in some cases, accommodation of religion. “There is an unbroken history of official acknowledgment by all three branches of government of the role of religion in American life from at least 1789.” After all, “[w]e are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.” Thus, state recognition of religion that falls short of endorsement is constitutionally permissible. This is extremely important. There is a tendancy among people (myself included) to want to polarize things into antipodes with no middle ground. Sometimes this is helpful (and even necessary) -- such as in the case of a simple negation. Frequently, however, this causes a whole realm of middle ground to be swept away (or, worse yet, to one side or the other, incorrectly). The problem boils down to a taxonomical error: We have two (relevant) ways of speaking of actions with respect to the establishment clause. On the one hand, we can take a nominative approach, speaking of actions according to their relevance to the undefined phrase "respect the establishment":

actions that do respect the establishment of a particular religion
actions that do not respect the establishment of a particular religion

The reason I am referring to the phrase "respect the establishment" as an "undefined phrase" is that the definition of this phrase is, of course, what is being questioned. There is a particular action that is being considered by some to be the respecting of the establishment of a particular religion, and by others not to be. Therefore, the meaning of the phrase is in question. On the other hand, we can take a definitive approach, in which we speak of some of the essential characteristics of an action:

actions that do include things related to a particular religion
actions that do not include things related to a particular religion

Second, the ACLU focuses on the religiousness of the Ten Commandments. No reasonable person would dispute their sectarian nature, but they also have a secular nature that the ACLU does not address. That they are religious merely begs the question whether this display is religious; it does not answer it. . . . “Simply having religious content or promoting a message consistent with a religious doctrine does not run afoul of the Establishment Clause.” . . . In short, “proving” that the Ten Commandments themselves are religious does not prove an Establishment Clause violation.Unlike in the previous taxonomy, none of the terms here are in question (immediately). "Inclusion" is clear, "things" is clear (though broad), "related" is clear, etc. Traditionally, the ACLU has wanted to say that these two taxonomical groups are identical. That is, the ACLU has claimed (essentially) that any action that does include a thing related to a particular religion is an action that does respect the establishment of that religion, and that any action that does not include a thing related to a particular religion does not respect the establishment of that religion. (These could be easily pluralized to accomodate multiple religions at a time). The court is here saying that these two modes of classification are not identical -- and the court is correct.
Third, the ACLU erroneously–though perhaps intentionally–equates recognition with endorsement. To endorse is necessarily to recognize, but the converse does not follow. Because nothing in the display, its history, or its implementation supports the notion that Mercer County has selectively endorsed the sectarian elements of the first four Commandments, we fail to see why the reasonable person would interpret the presence of the Ten Commandments as part of the larger “Foundations” display as a governmental endorsement of religion. We will not presume endorsement from the mere display of the Ten Commandments. If the reasonable observer perceived all government references to the Deity as endorsements, then many of our Nation’s cherished traditions would be unconstitutional, including the Declaration of Independence and the national motto. Fortunately, the reasonable person is not a hyper-sensitive plaintiff. Instead, he appreciates the role religion has played in our governmental institutions, and finds it historically appropriate and traditionally acceptable for a state to include religious influences, even in the form of sacred texts, in honoring American legal traditions.

A funny thing happened...

2006-01-03T13:13:00.000-05:00

So, a funny thing happened this yuletide. My mom and Genevieve were at home (our house in Austin, TX) on Christmas eve day. It was early o'clock (the sun hadn't come up) and they were doing last-minute Christmas stuff... you know, writing cards, wrapping gifts, that sort of thing. Anyway, so they were wrapping gifts and writing cards, when suddenly the house burned down! Thankfully no one was hurt (physically). Apparently my mom asked Genevieve if she smelled something funny, and Genevieve said yes, and that she would go look. She went down the hallway and saw in the laundry room that the wall behind the washer and dryer was engulfed in flames! According to Genevieve, she ran back into the livingroom where she and my mom had been making merry and said something about a fire; but (what!?) faster than dasher and prancer can get santa from New York to New Jersey a number of walls burst into flame! My mom and Genevieve ran out into the yard with only t-shirts and their pajama bottoms and watched the Yule Log that was our (late) childhood home burn into the wee hours of the morning. They got a phone from a neighbor (or something) and called 911. As you may be able to see from the (Google) map below, we live(d) in a fairly rural area. Though there are some neighbors nearby, it's not terribly urban and not even terribly suburban.

They didn't have to get anything before they fled (not even shoes!) except that Genevieve had apparently left her purse right by the door, and had the presence of mind to grab it on the way out -- unfortunately she hadn't left her wallet in it!

Well, wouldn't you know it, for a variety of reasons my mom doesn't have fire insurance. That means double-plus ungood things for a little bit. God is for us, though, of course, so no real worries =) But it is what it is. Anyway, we made a quickie site at burbridgefire.com on their behalf -- as an informational site and with means of support should anyone be inclined to offer any. Our most pressing need has been met: long ago God already gave us his good grace =) Whatever other prayers (first and foremost!), well-wishes, or monies that are donated by people are gladly accepted -- the site talks about that =) A couple of local news stations interviewed my mom and Genevieve. There's a link to one of them on the site. That's all for now, I am going to do something else for a while that is more cheerful =) (http://burbridgefire.com)

Organon

2005-12-22T16:39:00.000-05:00

Kant was right about the significance of the "organizing principle" in what we call "alive." Hmm...

I just remembered a dream I had once...

2005-12-22T03:14:00.000-05:00

Just tonight I remembered a very vivid dream I had when I was 16 or 17 years old. I'm surprised to find that it doesn't seem to have faded much in the past dozen(ish) years. The essence of it was that I stepped on something and when I sat down and looked at the bottom of my foot, there was a little hole in it. I stuck my finger in the hole and my foot was hollow and cavernous! I leaned way over to take a closer look .... ... ... and fell into my own foot! To make a short story shorter, I started spelunking in the caverns of my foot. Along the way I met a few alien-like friends (one bore an interesting resemblance to Cousin It from The Adam's Family) who went exploring with me. I have no idea how far we got, but it could have been as high as my knee. Anyway, it was one of those dreams that felt like it went on for days, weeks, or months. It was a pleasant dream. Among the several most peculiar dreams I've had. Good times... Good times.

Heterosexuality, Homosexuality, Pedophilia

2005-12-21T02:56:00.000-05:00

A question struck me today: What's differences and similarities are there between heterosexuality, homosexuality, and pedophilia? Now, obviously I don't mean the definitional difference. I mean what's the difference in abstraction? The most common idea I've heard addressing this sort of notion is that it is because having sex with children is not having sex with a consensual adult. When referring to the two acts, this response is fine, but it does not address the proclivities, which are (obviously) properly internal to the one person alone. Comparing the act of homosexuality with the act of pedophilia is an endeavor entirely distinct from comparing the propensities towards those acts. For the sake of rhetorical flow (that is, to make the arguments more visible) I am going to normalize the -phile suffix for the rest of this post. This ought in no way to be construed as a slur on any group, nor an attempt to degrade anything by associating it with pedophilia: it is just harder to normalize -sexual and -sexuality than -phile and -philia for purely phonetic reasons. Note also that "homophile" is already a valid synonym for "homosexual." In regards to these two proclivities, then, it is clear that the issue of consent is not at play here. Why? Because the erotic desire of the homophile is not for the other person qua consensual person; and neither is the erotic desire of the pedophile for the child qua consensual person. The issue of sexual preference for another person as "consensual partner" is an issue of rapist or non-rapist; a rapist could be called a nonconsensuaphileand someone who has erotic desire for a consenting partner as such could be called a consensuaphile. This scheme of nomination should be abundantly clear by now: we will attach the suffix -phile to a root that contains the essential characteristic of the object of the erotic desire. By using this (very simple) scheme, we can isolate the desire as such, which is (obviously) desirable to answer the question at hand. Now, when we are looking at the object of desire -- having excluded its non-essential characteristics -- we can take sets of such desires and determine their similarities and differences. As a sample excersize, let's take the set:

blondephile
brunettephile
germanophile

We can ask about the differences here, we can ask about the similarities, and we can try to introduce some categorical distinctions. The first distinction is categorical: the essenses of the objects of desire in the first two cases are both "hair color," while in the third case, the essense of the objects of desire is "race." Another distinction can be made, this time between the two items in the first category: one particular hair color vs. another particular hair color. The distinction between these two is not categorical but instantial; the "blonde" and "brunette" are both instances of the category "hair colors." So now we can turn our attention to the set in question:

heterophile
homophile
pedophile

As with the sample, in this case there is an obvious category distinction between the first two and the third: the first two deal with gender, the third with age. As such, one of the lines of division we can draw is between the categories of "gender" and "age." Members of the category dealing with "age" might be:

pedophile (children)
seniphile (the elderly)
septophile (those in their seventies)
etc.

Members of the category dealing with "gender" could possibly be:

heterophile (opposite gender)
homophile (same gender)
duophile (both genders -- as in the chimeric "simultaneous hermaphrodites")
etc.

Using these categorical distinctions, homophilia is obviously like in kind to heterphilia and both are precisely equally distinct from pedophilia. Interestingly, this is not the only categorical division that can be drawn. While this is the only distinction to make with regards to sexual proclivity as it relates to the act of sex, there is an additional consideration in matters of sexual activity: the consequences of the act of sex. This is important because sex does, in fact, have some (very well known) consequences. Because one of the consequences of pedophilia can be harm to the object of desire, it may be tempting to consider "harm to object" vs. "no harm to object" a valid categorical distinction in the set in question, but it is not. The reason is that the former two are not always unharmful -- since the object of desire in a heterophillic or homophillic relationship may be harmed by the act of sex. (I am completely ignoring the question of whether or not the act of pedophilia always harms the object of desire because only the previous consideration is necessary to debunk the validity of this categorical distinction). It is the same with every other consequence of sex (pleasure vs. non-pleasure, etc.): they will not draw lines that cleave the list into categories along the lines of the instances listed, but the instances will be divided. There is one exception, though: viability (of offspring). ------------------------------- First, a quick set of definitions to facilitate this next section:

viable offspring: offspring that can survive and produce other viable offspring (barring other, external influences such as disease).
pedophilia: erotic desire for a prepubescent person (or the act of engaging in sexual relations with the same).

------------------------------- Interestingly, when this possible division is brought into consideration, the three instances are divided in the following manner:

heterophilia

------------

homophilia
pedophilia

In this case, the "viable" category contains only heterophillic instances, where as the homophillic and pedophillic are instances of sex that produces "non-viable offspring." The objective conclusion to be drawn from this is that with regards to the act of sex itself, heterosexuality and homosexuality are abstractly similar and indentically distinct from pedophilia, but that with regards to the consequences of such acts, heterosexuality stands alone and in juxtaposition to homosexuality and pedophilia (and a host of others). It is worth noting that, despite the inclusion of pedophilia in the "non-viable" category, the category of "age" is not a valid determinant for inclusion in the "non-viable" category: neither category is a subset of the other, nor are they the same category (draw a Venn diagram to explore it). Obviously, neither is this true of the "viable/non-viable" and "gender" categories.

Literally literal

2005-12-18T23:27:00.000-05:00

There's this odd trend that's been going around for a little while in which people use the word "literally" to mean "figuratively." This is surely one of the strangest linguistic distortions I've encountered. The first time I noticed this was in 1993 when I was in my High School Latin class. We were watching TV for some reason (the classrooms of my school all had televisions) one day -- it was the day before a break or something along those lines. The show on was something like Cops (but I don't think it was Cops). Anyway, this police officer was driving around nabbing some criminals etc. when he saw some teen kid on drugs. The policeman chased the kid and caught him, found out where he lived, then took him home to his mother. The mother wasn't very loving or kind and berated the kid for being in trouble, but when the policeman spoke to her about the kid (whom he had caught huffing paint) she denied that he had done anything of the sort, and would hear nothing of it. The policeman left and, on the way to the next engagement, treated everyone to one of those penseés that policement like to give on such shows (a perhaps?). In it, he said that he was mystified by mothers like the one he'd just encountered "who literally stick their heads in the sand" so they won't hear bad news. Now, this woman had not literally stuck her head into the sand. Of course, he meant that she had figuratively stuck her head in the sand; but somehow he replaced the word with it's antonym. I didn't encounter it again for a couple of years (not until my freshman year of college -- at least, not that I recall). Encounter it I did, though, and recently with ever-increasing frequency. At first I thought it was a simple inversion of meaning -- like "bad" in the Michael Jacksonian sense. But having encountered it again and again, I think that it isn't being used to mean "figuratively" after all. I think the word is shifting (in usage) to mean, rather, something like a parenthetical "if you can believe it" (or something like that). I just saw it again on a commercial for a deoderant spray (called Zero Odor). Some guy is telling us that this spray deodorizes his cat's litter box saying, "It literally killed the odor." I'm really skeptical that eliminating odor is literally killing. I think this is a cousin of the mutation of the notion of graduation that allowed it to move in this way over the past 70 years or so: Pre-1950s: "I was graduated from college this spring!" Pre-1980s: "I graduated from college this spring!" Present: "I graduated college this spring!" I'm referring to common usage in both of these, of course. The concept of graduation obviously doesn't particularly make sense in the last usage. When you complete your college courses, the college marks you as having attained a certain degree of education; thus, you are graduated (measured and marked). I am able to say that I graduated, but I must use the verb intransitively (which means "I have attained the level of graduation"). To use it transitively here means that I recognized the college for its attainment. The implications of this are ... unflattering at best ;)

Mary Sin-less?

2005-12-18T21:31:00.000-05:00

If Mary is without sin (as has been suggested to me by those in certain denominations of Christianity), then what does this mean: Luke 1:46-47 And Mary said, 'My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant!" The interesting part of the verse is where Mary calls God "my savior." Savior, of course, means that He saves her from something. From what? The obvious answer is death, but death is the wage for sin. Thus, Mary seems to be claiming knowledge of herself as a sinner. It would be different if the posessive pronoun here were plural -- at least, I could see an argument that she's speaking for man instead of herself. But she calls Him her savior, not their savior. Hmm...

A slashdot article ...

2005-12-10T05:04:00.000-05:00

There was a slashdot article today with the headline:

Kansas Anti-Creationism Professor Resigns

The article read:

An anonymous reader writes "A Professor of religion at University of Kansas has resigned from his position at the university because of his anti-creationism views." From the article: "Mirecki had planned to teach a course in the spring that examined creationism and intelligent design after the State Board of Education adopted science standards treating evolution as a flawed theory. Originally called 'Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies,' the course was canceled last week at Mirecki's request." The article goes on to explain that Mirecki evidently sent poorly worded email with anti-Christian sentiments around to people interested in the class, and was subsequently beaten for his troubles.

The actual article (from CNN) read as follows:

Anti-creationism prof quits department chair

Thursday, December 8, 2005; Posted: 10:38 a.m. EST (15:38 GMT)

Paul Mirecki resigned as chairman of the religious studies department. He still teaches at the university.

TOPEKA, Kansas (AP) -- A University of Kansas professor who drew criticism for e-mails he wrote deriding Christian fundamentalists over creationism has resigned as chairman of the Department of Religious Studies.

Paul Mirecki stepped aside on the recommendation of his colleagues, according to Barbara Romzek, interim dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

"This allows the department to focus on what's most important -- teaching, research and service -- and to minimize the distractions of the last couple of weeks," Romzek said in a statement Wednesday after receiving Mirecki's resignation.

Contacted by The Associated Press, Mirecki declined to comment about his decision, only saying he was still a member of the university faculty and planned to continue teaching.

Mirecki had planned to teach a course in the spring that examined creationism and intelligent design after the State Board of Education adopted science standards treating evolution as a flawed theory.

Originally called "Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies," the course was canceled last week at Mirecki's request.

A recent e-mail from Mirecki to members of a student organization referred to religious conservatives as "fundies" and said a course describing intelligent design as mythology would be a "nice slap in their big fat face." Mirecki apologized for those comments.

Later, other e-mails written by Mirecki that surfaced were deemed "repugnant and vile" by Chancellor Robert Hemenway for their views toward Catholics and other Christians.

On Monday, Mirecki was treated at a Lawrence hospital for head injuries after he said he was beaten by two men on a country road. He said the men referred to the creationism course. Law enforcement officials were investigating.

Mirecki, who joined the university in 1989, is an expert in ancient Mediterranean cultures, languages and religions.

The responses were (of course) a mixed bag, but there were a fair number of anti-Christian statements in it (mostly in the guise of anti-Christian Fundamentalist buzz, but seemingly without a clear idea of what it is). In response to some of the responses (none in particular) I wrote:

The general response to this article seems a little strange to me. If the statement is that ...

"The article goes on to explain that Mirecki evidently sent poorly worded email with anti-_________ sentiments around to people interested in the class, and was subsequently beaten for his troubles."

In which the blank above is left variable, then it could be seen as grounds for punishment (even dismissal). Doesn't that seem to be the usual trend? I mean, if it says any of the following

"Mirecki evidently sent poorly worded email with anti-BLACK sentiments around to people interested" "Mirecki evidently sent poorly worded email with anti-JEWISH sentiments around to people interested" "Mirecki evidently sent poorly worded email with anti-MUSLIM sentiments around to people interested" "Mirecki evidently sent poorly worded email with anti-CHINESE sentiments around to people interested" "Mirecki evidently sent poorly worded email with anti-MEXICAN sentiments around to people interested" "Mirecki evidently sent poorly worded email with anti-HINDU sentiments around to people interested" "Mirecki evidently sent poorly worded email with anti-HANDICAPPED sentiments around to people interested" "Mirecki evidently sent poorly worded email with anti-ELDERLY sentiments around to people interested"

(or any number of other groups) wouldn't we expect some kind unrest over it? Why are the Christians (or whoever) treated so poorly in some of the responses to this article (as in posts with content like "Of course, the local fundies had a stooge on the email list, and used their normal right-wing media outlets to stage a bogus controversy." What's the difference between something like this and wanting to prosecute some CEO or Congressman over comments perceived to be prejudiced on an internal memo?

The content doesn't have to be *intended* to be anti-GROUPOFYOURCHOICE, it only has to be *perceived* as such -- e.g.: When an aide to the mayor of Washington D.C. was "encouraged" to resign after offense at his using the word "niggardly" in a speech because it sounds like "nigger" -- even though the words are unrelated in definition AND etymology (read: it's completely unrelated, and comes from a different language it just sounds similar -- check the Wikipedia entry if you're curious). Irritating, sure, but would anyone be willing to say, "stupid blacks!" over it? Surely not. Whoever reacted against it was just a little overly sensetive. Same with the Christians who over-reacted to some unintentional "anti-Christian" sentiments. Same with any group that does that.

Give 'em a break -- they're just people doing their best to do their best, like most everyone else.

To which I got this response:

The answer to your argument is quite simple.

Fundamentalists are to Christianity as the Black Panthers are to Civil Rights. Very few people would oppose an email deriding the Black Panthers for their militarism, while the world would obviously throw a fit over criticising civil rights in general. The situation is the same here. Mirecki's email singles out the fundamentalists in the state legislature. There are moderates, mind you - an overwhelming majority of Christians (including the entire Catholic church) see little or no tension between creationism and evolution. Those in our state legislature looking to change science until it is no longer science, however, are in that looney minority who believe things like the world is only a little over 4,000 years old and that Genesis is to be taken literally word for word.

I further replied:

There's a really big difference between the Christian Fundamentalists and the Black Panthers that makes the analogy (Fundamentalist:Christianity::Black Panther:Civil Rights) fail -- viz. the Black Panthers were seeking to affect their ends through violent, illegal means. This is not the case for the Christian Fundamentalists (or at least the ones to which Professor Mirecki was objecting). Thus, the idea that "the situation is the same" between the idea that "very few people would oppose an e-mail deriding the Black Panthers for their militarism" and "email[s that] single out the fundamentalists in the state legislature" is incorrect.

There are no valid grounds for exclusion from the legislature except: popular opinion (they can't get enough votes) and illegal activity (such as the Black Panther's violence). Objections based on "'Unscientific' beliefs" (or any other set of beleifs) is simple bigotry. However right or wrong someone's beliefs are the having of them ought not to be grounds for keeping them out of legislature.

You said that "There are moderates, mind you - an overwhelming majority of Christians (including the entire Catholic church) see little or no tension between creationism and evolution. Those in our state legislature looking to change science until it is no longer science, however, are in that looney minority who believe things like ..." The supremecy of "Science" is not a right garaunteed by the constitution or any other legal document. What is garaunteed is a right of the people to legislate as they see fit (via the vehicle of voting). If the people want to vote on policy based on the idea that cybernetic chihuahuas from the inner core of the sun are responsible for gravity, that is their perogative. If more level heads prevail in the voting arena, then good for them. If a "Christian Fundamentalist" gets in office by winning enough votes, then he is the duly elected representative of the people and, as such, he speaks for the majority (of those who excersized their right to vote for an elected representative in the government). The minority of Christian Fundamentalists among Christians in general is irrelevant; if anyone of any minority -- no matter how small -- gets elected, then that minority has earned its representation. "Christian Fundamentalists" (and, indeed, any group) can have any power they can sieze.

Thus, Mirecki's comments are not directed towards a group that has violated some portion of the social contracts of our nation (i.e. violated the constitution or particular legislation). He simply diagrees (whether rightly or not is irrelevant) and spoke against their being in the state legislature on those grounds. This is identical in principle to complaining about any religious or philosophical group being permitted to be involved in the state legislature. There is no difference, except that more people seem to dislike these particular ideas and choices of law than those of other groups. Nonetheless, they were able to be elected and to enact their laws legally, and their right to do so ought to be respected.

"Gun" for PS2

2005-12-08T23:12:00.000-05:00

I just finished playing a game for PS2 called "Gun." It's a western about a young man seeking justice old-west style. It's a terrific game. I highly recommend it (with a few notices).

There's some fairly graphic and realistic violence. If you're affected by that, be careful!
Every so often there's some profanity. Mostly it's someone calling someone else a "dirty bastard" or something like that (in a "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" sort of way).
There are a couple of scenes in brothels and a couple of background elements that are unnecessarily explicit.

Those three things aside, I give it an intuitive (meaning no explicit, objective criteria) a 9 out of 10 stars. Compare this with GTA3: Vice City's 8 stars and GTA: San Andreas's 7.5 stars. Gun is a good game. Gun is considerably more simple than the GTA series games. But it's just as smooth, it's got a great gameplay, feels as though it has a very high production value, and is just fun. Speaking of the west, here are the Good, Bad, and Ugly of the game. The Good Look and Feel

Great Graphics
Excellent design interpretation of the "old west"
Maps were attractive and functional.
It's a western! A highly under-represented genre.
Gorgeous scenery

Gameplay

Smooth gameplay
Excellent, Intuitive controls
Good menu layout
Innovative missions.
"Quick Draw" (bullet-time) is implemented well. It allows for you to be a quick-draw legend without having to be super quick in real life.
Scinematics can be skipped! (Very important!)

Storyline

Terrific storyline
Surprise twists and turns in the story.
Lots of side missions that exist nicely within the gameworld, but that don't interfere witht he story.
Interesting and attractive cinematics

The Bad (things in the game that do not look accidental that I would change)

A few little background elements in the brothel that are unnecessarily explicit (it doesn't add to the game particularly to have them, and it is mildly unpleasant -- and inappropriate for anyone unmarried to see)
There's a fairly limited number of guns and equipment
You can't buy ammo anywhere, you have to find it (it's not hard for most of the weapons, but for a few it's a little tiring).
The game is not short, but I wish it were longer =) Note: This last "bad" is just me saying "The game is so good I wish there were more of it")

The Ugly (glitches and accidental effects)

When you look through the scopes of your guns (effectively zooming in) while hiding behind a rock or other object, if your scope is pointed at the rock (or something else very close) instead of something far away, for some reason the scope tilts way upward. Sometimes as much as 20 degrees or so. You then have to look at something else, re-align, then go back to where you were. There's no apparent reason for it. Note: Ultimately this is a very minor annoyance.
Every so often one of the bots in the game (your accomplices on some mission or other) participate in a scripted action such as running ahead to engage the enemy. When they do, they have the power to push you aside. This means that if you are hiding and are in their way, they will push you out into the open -- and you cannot push back to keep your place. A better solution would be to make them either unable to push you (and have to go around you or through you) or else allow you to push back -- and win.

Final Analysis: Excellent game. Play it. Support NeverSoft (of Tony Hawk fame!). Maybe they'll make an even better sequel =)

PS2 Lord of the Rings game

2005-12-01T17:02:00.000-05:00

So I recently started playing the PS2 Lord of the Rings (LoTR) game that came out after the first movie. I like the game, they've done a good job with the look and feel of it, the storyline is nicely adapted from the movie, but I am terribly, terribly frustrated by the game for two reasons:

The cut-scenes and scinematics that interrupt game play make the game almost unplayable after the first time through. What a terrible idea not to allow the player to skip those scenes! You have the option of replaying a level after you've completed it once, which is great, but you have to wade through all the scinematics and cut scenes! Only about half of them can be skipped (usually the movie clips that are interwoven into the game). WHUG! That's one of my top 3 irritations about games (especially games made after about '94).
You play each level with a cadre of cohorts from the movie. If you play as Legolas, you'll be accompanied by various characters from the movies/books on various levels. The problem is, the bots are TERRIBLE! I don't particularly care that they don't do much good in combat, but the worst part is that they get in the way when you want to move through some narrow pass (and they follow you, so you can't get them to move easily... you've got to push them along until the path widens -- and they move VERY SLOWLY when pushed!). Also, they kill indiscriminantly, which means that they constant steal your kills -- which matters for levelling!

I'm going to rate the game using the following scheme (each score is out of 10 points): ======================= Graphics: 7.5 (I've seen better, but they're good for a quick hack-and-slash focusing mainly on mirroring the movie.) Game Play: 8.5 (taking into account that it's a hack-and-slash, it fits the genre well. Many of the combos are useless, but there are some good ones.) Plot: 10 (It's the LoTR plot, so obviously ... ) Bots: 3 (whug) Cut Scenes: 0 ( A-R-G-H-! ) AVERAGE: 5.8 Would have been 8.6 if not for those two MAJOR annoyances!) ======================= So there you have it: My review of LoTR (the first one... or maybe it was the second one).

Primes

2005-11-21T05:13:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking about prime numbers again (especially twin primes) lately. It's been a long time since they've been on my mind. For a couple of years (when I was 13-16, about), I would usually fall asleep with them running through my mind. Not just a list of them, but just thinking about them in different ways, different sequences, different patterns. I thought it was just a phase (and maybe it was/is), but for the past few nights -- unexpectedly -- they've been on my mind again. Twin primes are the important ones, I think. Those are primes that are consecutive, odd numbers. Obviously no primes can be even numbers (except 2), because all even numbers are divisible by two -- "even" and "odd" are just names for the descriptions "divisible by two" and "not divisible by two." We could just as easily make names for numbers divisible by three or four or five or ... etc. . Twin primes are the primes like 3 and 5 (5-3=2); 5 and 7 (7-5=2); 11 and 13 (13-11=2); 17 and 19 (19-17=2); and so on. Twins get more and more rare as the numbers get higher.

7? 77!

2005-11-16T15:27:00.000-05:00

So, I noticed something yesterday. Johanna and I were talking about something in Genesis (Cain's wife, it was), when I commented that it was Lamech, Cain's descendant who made the statement that if anyone harmed him, he would be returned the harm seventy-seven times (or, according to some translations, apparently, "seventy times seven" -- or 490 -- times). Anyway, Lamech was specifically alluding to God's decree that if anyone hurt Cain, that person would "suffer vengence seven times over" (Genesis 4:15). So Lamech basically said that if God decreed that vengence was appropriate for anyone who hurt Cain, then that vengence was multiplied many-fold for himself, who was related to Cain by blood. But then it occured to me that Peter, at some point (Matthew 18:21) went up to Jesus and asked him, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?" -- but Jesus answered that he should forgive his brother "not seven times, but seventy-seven times" (Matthew 18:22). The numbers aren't coincidental. Remember that the decree of vengence over Cain was due to the first human murder. Jesus, who knew that he was about to become the victim of a parallel first, was, in a fashion, undoing what the Father had decreed over Cain. But that was already (a little bit at least) implicit in Peter's question... What Jesus actually did was to make a parallel to Lamech's decree! He said, in essense, that "anyone who is related to me by blood" -- all who are cleansed by his blood, and who take the communion of the belivers -- "is to forgive seventy-seven times." I haven't worked out all the parallels here, but it's clearly an allusion to it. There are a lot of little quirks, but ironing them out will surely be enlightening =) I'll update the 'blog when I churn through more of it. Time for me to head out to Hebrew class =)

Frabjous Day!

2005-11-15T14:17:00.000-05:00

Been having some technical difficulties here in pleasantville. Two CD drives and two HDDs with a combined four drive failures in the past two weeks! Whug! All three of the drives that crashed were between 5 and 10 years old, so they were ticking time-bombs anyway. Unfortunately, lots of significant data was lost (web sites I was working on, photos, etc.). It wasa 13GB drive and an 8GB drive (for a combined 15GB (approx.) after Windows installation, and about 10GB after applications). The HDD that failed was the tenth (or so) time it has failed in the past couple of years, and it's been grinding pretty badly. But what can you do? Fortunately, I just got a little money from one of my jobs and some wedding registry money we had left over allowed us to fix the problem =) It cost a few hundred dollars -- and we were honor-bound to spend it on something from our registry! -- so we got a new one of those computers at Best Buy that costs only a couple hundred dollars (not cutting edge but 10+ times better than we had -- and enough for me to rejoice and thank God, who is generous and gives me all good (and sometimes merely pleasant!) things. Our monitor and keyboard and mouse were fine, so we just got the box. I'm especially grateful that the vehicle of his generosity this time was Johanna. Because of it, I've given the computer the network name, "Generosity" in tribute to Him and her. Even better, I was able to get the old hard drives running just long enough to extract all the old data! I hooked it up to the new computer, and when I thwacked the hard drive in certain ways and held it at a certain angle, the disk could make contact with the reader. It died again multiple times during the extraction, but, in the end, after a number of system crashes and hard reboots, I was able to get all the data off, a few files at a time! In other (much more important!) news, the baby is several inches long by now! I can hardly wait to meet him. If you'd like, please pray for him to be healthy and strong, and for God to incline his heart towards Him even now. Johanna and I pray for him every day that he'll have a better heart for God than either of us, and that he'll be smarter, stronger, kinder, gentler, and more loving than either of us. Thanks for your prayers! I'm not sure how to add images to the blog, but when I can figure it out I will... We have an ultrasound picture of the baby =) I'm grateful that Jesus has interceded for me, and that our dad won't punish me even though he knows I'm guilty. =) Frabjous Day!

In the beginning ...

2005-11-09T20:34:00.000-05:00

Just started this 'blog. I'm planning to use it to write a little each day. Things of note today:

Johanna and I announced to our parents last weekend that we're having a baby! Due date: May 24, 2006. Apparently that's a very rough approximation.
Talked with Rigel today on gChat. That conversation was the inspiration for this 'blog (my first ever).

If anyone has anything in particular that you'd like me to write about, feel free to let me know at any time. There's a good chance I'll respond =)