Lost World - The Museum

Humans and dinosaurs living together - mass hysteria!

Don't these people have something better to do with the silly amounts of money people donate to them?

A Christmas Song

Bow Down

Bow Down

Before the power of Santa

Or

Be crushed

Be crushed

By

His Jolly Boots of Doom

Christmas Plans

So, like...are we having a get together or something?

I'll be in Hagerstown on the 24th and 25th and can come up more or less whenever the following week as well.

What's the plan my peeps?

Chronicles of Narnia

Enjoy.

War On Christmas

Apparently, there is a War on Christmas by the liberals. I wasn't aware of this, but the guys that run the liberal agenda meet in some darkend room smoking cigars and talking about how they destroy Christmas. It's quite impressive.

Some of the attacks are forcing retail stores to say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas! Nevermind that perhaps these stores want to switch to Happy Holidays because there is more than Christmas going on this time of the year.

In any case, the counter attack has been swift. Why, check out this House Resolution our protectors in the House passed today. Thank god they are looking out for us and Christmas.

What load of crap. Anyone thinking there is any sort of organized War on Christmas has a victim complex they need to get professional help for. That House Resolution bill is real and was passed today. An attempted amendment was to include Chanukah in the bill as well but that was turned down. Fucking hypocrites.

Here is a history of Christmas so you can be sure of just how much of the holiday isn't Christian.

Merry Christmachanukwanzakah to you and yours.

Random Laughing

Read this first.

So can you think of anytime when you just laughed because of your thoughts? I do it all the time, usually because I'm picturing something in my head that's funny. When I think of an example I'll stick it up here.

Comment damn it.

Cult vs Organized Religon

Short post, two quotes.

"Just because a religion has millions or billions of people doesn't mean it's not a cult" - John Kautz (my brother)

"A cult is a religion with no political power" - Tom Wolfe

Discuss.

Worship the Resulting Singularity!

Can someone please tell me just what the hell this guy is talking about?

After your head explodes, this should fix it. It's worth the wait.

Doubt = Death

That is one of the points that a movie I just watch about Christianity makes that I found very interesting. Basically, what it boils down to is this: Jesus will forgive you for any sin except one, and that is denial of the holy ghost. The holy ghost is all around you and if you don't feel it, if you don't believe it is there, if you ever start to doubt in it's existence then you may be committing the one eternal sin. Put another way, you go to hell if you think. Convienent.

On a more historical note, I found something else in this movie interesting. It talked about the beginings of Chirstianity and how Christians are very fuzzy on just what happened in the early years after jeebus's death. In particular, there is a four decade long span between his death around 33 AD to about 70 AD when the bible first mentions something that can be dated. So what happened in the 40 years between the two? The only record comes from Paul who doesn't seems to know about anything that is 'common knowledge' about jeebus's life such as his birth, the miracles, the wise men, etc. In fact, the only things he does recongnize about jeebus's life is his death and rebirth and all of that happened in a mythical plane of existence. And if that isn't great, other stories of the day about other religious figures (i.e., Pagan) follow very similiar story lines. How very very interesting.

Another thing it points out during Jeebus's life is what the heck was he doing between the ages of 18 and 30? He like disappears. Living with wolves I guess.

All in all the movie is very good and the music is great. It is pretty educational and asks some questions I wouldn't mine seeing attempted answers to in the Biblical scholar community.

In any case, on June 6th, 2006 a movie called The Beast is coming out exploring a lot of these same ideas by the guy that did the documentary I've been talking about. What a great release date for a movie called The Beast! 6-6-06. Nice.

Anyway, check out da trailers. First, we have The God Movie which is the documentary.

Check out the short clips about the movie here. The clips raise some good points on there own.

Secondly, we have The Beast.

Comment!

Christmas, Christianity, and Social Control

For a long title, a short post.

Basically it goes back to the earlier post about moving Christmas. Christmas is actually a bastardized version of two celebrations, the birth of Christ for the Christians, and the Unconquered Sun celebration for the pagans. Here is a short history of Unconquered Sun and why the birth of christ was actually moved from Jan 6th to Dec 25th.

And the Yule Log has nothing to do with Christianity.

So if you don't put up a nativity, and you don't sing the religous x-mas carols, you can celebrate Christmas and divorce the christian references all together. I find that interesting and oddly comforting.

The Veal of the Sea

Since no one commented on HuFu, here is a picture that might get your attention.




Comment biatches.

BTW, you can click on the picture.

Perspective

“Man is in the world as if in a pure optical and sound situation. The reaction of which man has been deprived can be replaced only by belief. Only belief in the world can reconnect man to what he sees and hears. The cinema must film, not the world, but belief in this world, our only link...Restoring out belief in the world — this is the power of modern cinema (when it stops being bad)...we need reasons to believe in this world.” — Gilles Deleuze, Cinema 2, p. 172


Have I writeen about perspective yet? The above quote is in regards to films but I think it deals with perspective as the way I see it. When you start talking about truth and morality and things like that I don't think you can really say there is any real truth or morality that is absolute. I think you can believe in an absolute truth and morality in regards to a particular culture, but outside of that culture that abolsute truth or morality isn't necessarily absolute anymore. I think I just lost myself on that.

What I'm getting out is the way you experience the world and what you believe is all a matter of perspective. You view things through the lens of your experiences. Those experiences are what you rely on to determine what is true, what is moral, what is right. Your experiences are going to be different from mine, thus a different lens and a different perspective on what is true, what is moral, and what is right. We probably agree on a lot of the same things, but not all, because we come from the same American culture. However, if you sit down with an Iraqi fundamentilist, or hell, and American fundamentilist, the perspective different between you and them is going to be HUGE. Suddenly, what is true, what is moral, and what is right is very different for the two of you. Who is to say whose truth is absolute? I think saying your truth is more right than theirs is the height of arrogance and is the root of most misunderstandings.

Jeebus, what the hell have I been smoking?

Glowing Meat

Where can I get some of this?

Good

Ok, the House isn't completely brain dead. They rejected the measure that including cutting out $8 billion in funding for bird flu research.

Hopefully it'll stick around this time.

The Birds!

Uh oh, two political posts in a row. Sorry.

I was trying not to post anything about the bird flu 'pandemic' because it isn't. But something caught my eye today that pissed me off so I thought I'd chirp in.

First, some facts. The bird flu, H5N1, has been around for awhile. This particular straing first popped up in 1997 and killed six people in Hong Kong. It came up again in 2003, only killing one person. Second, in it's current form it can only jump from birds to humans, not from human to human. It would have to mutate to do that and the chances of it mutating in such a manner are slim. In fact, it's been watching since 2003 for just such occurance. So why is it a big deal all of a sudden? Who knows. For more facts about the bird flu, go here.

Now, the avarian flu, bird flu, H5N1, whatever you want to call it, is not pandemic since it doesn't transfer from human to human. It's not even endemic for the same reason. And if it were to start transfering from human to human, there is nothing that says it will certainly turn into a pandemic. In my opinion it is just a bunch of hype to increase rating and to distract people. So the government should take some steps, maybe put out a website addressing avarian bird flu, to calm people down, right? Sure, but why on EARTH would you call it www.pandemicflu.gov?? Jesus H Christ, what the fuck is that?

But that's not what really pisses me off about that. What really really really gets my goat is this: Lawmakers reject emergency bird flu funds. Are you fucking kidding me? It's the one thing Bush did right in this mess was to ask for $7.1 billion dollars so we could start producing vaccine and the like in case a flu ever became pandemic. It takes time for this stuff to ramp up and the flu vaccine shortage last year just screams we need more infrastructure in place. What the hell is wrong with these people? If you want to cut money from somewhere so you can fund responsibilities that are the federal government take money from pork programs that make no sense like The Bridge to Nowhere.

And don't even get me started on the f'ing tax cuts for the wealthy that these dipshits are still trying to push through at the expense of social programs that could actually help victims of the hurricanes this year.

Big Money and the Dem Party Realignment

Eek, big words.

Anyway, there is a realignment going on inside the democratic party that has been a long time in coming. What it boils down is that the Republican party started something called the 'K Stree Project' which was an effort to woo the big money guys on K Street (lobbiest and that sort) over to the Republican party and starve the Dems of a major source of funding. Pretty good idea and with the repubs winning both chambers of congress and the WH the K Street Project was working.

Unfortunately for them and good for us, this happened after the Internet revolution and not before it. What the Dems found after 2000 was that they could actually raise more money from lots of small donors than they were getting from a few big money donors. As a result, a lot of the leadership in the dem party and, in particular, state and country boards and the like are starting to distance themselves from the lobbists.

Any major change or realignment in a political party has to come from the base and that means the states, counties, cities, etc. The big story from the elections last week isn't that we picked up the Governerships in both NJ and VA, although that was important. The big story is that we won in almost every small election country wide that isn't in Ohio. Ohio is a different mess and it will be interesting to see what turns up there.

Big money and lobbiests in general in politics is a bad thing. I don't care how pure you are going into public service, if someone is offering you quite a bit of money or access to their private jet whenever you want it or whatever, it would be hard not to let that influence you to some degree. Lobbiests get the ears of the representatives that should be listening to us, not them.

Anyway, to wrap this all up. I've come to believe that in order for change to happen and for the country to get back to being true to what the people want, one or both of the parties need to separate themselves from the big money lobbiests. I don't care what party does it, it just has to happen. It finally looks like it is going that direction.

Here is a link about the Dems distancing themselves from K Street for anyone who made it this far. Click me!

It's People!

Ok, well, not really. But check this out: HuFu

I've known about this for a few weeks, but I kept forgetting to post about it. No, its not a spoof or satire, it's real. The FAQ and the Receipes are the best.

Move Christmas!

Christmas is the wrong time of the year. It's too early in the winter to be of any use. It needs to be moved to the end of January.

You see, the Christmas season is fun. Most people are cheerfull and the lights are pretty. With Christmas being where it is now you have it out shining Turkey Day. But more importantly, once Christmas ends you still have two months of winter to deal with. It's just too fricken early. Now, if it was at the end of January, you would already be halfway through winter. Wouldn't that be great!

Also, what's up with Christmas being so dang close to New Years. We need some breathing room here. Move it, dang it.

Political Compass

Ok, here is a good test to figure out where you stand in politics. I was actually pretty surprised where I turned up. I know I may come across super hard core lefty but that's only in reaction to the crazy religious righties that managed to sneak there way into government. I actually agree with a fair amount of traditional conservative values, although I'm left of center.

Anyway, you all should take a few mintues and take this so we can all compare.

My scores are:

Economic Left/Right: -5.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.46

That sticks me near Nelson Mandela, The Dalai Lama, and Ghandi. :) Ok, so I am a lefty. Actually, according to this thing I am a Libertarian Lefty. I can live with that. Power to the people!

Talking To Myself

Well, since it looks like I'm just posting for myself I figured I'd just stick a link in every now and then that I find funny or disturbing. This one's both, so I can remember it.

Landover Baptist