Posted on June 30, 2004 …

Jun 30 2004
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General

Jesus loves you!

Scary pic of the day:

“God, I and he knows what he did,” [Paula] Jones [of Clinton-impeachment fame] told CNN on Tuesday. (read more)

Good. I don’t think anyone else needs to know. And I’m pretty sure God’s kicking himself for peeking. (And check your grammar next time!)

“Bill Clinton pretends to be contrite, but he continues to bear false witness against his neighbor. He is a national disgrace.”

…and you thought people in the *current* administration were religious.

“He talked about it as though I had laid it all out there for the taking. I was the buffet, and he just couldn’t resist the dessert.

Ew. Just … ew.

Alright, the man was the most powerful person in the world for a time, and he’s human. Jeez, do people seriously not have enough going on in their own lives that they have to pry into the private details of someone else’s life? Oh, and he’s acknowledged that what he did is ‘wrong’ according to the majority moral opinion (snicker). And he apologized. The case is closed, except for the emotion-starved losers that try to live vicariously by latching on to stupid stuff like this.

I was driving to lunch today, and I saw a license plate frame with little smiley faces that said “Jesus loves you!”. I sort of wanted to bump them with my car and yell “Thanks for sharing, Mr. Crazy!”, but my insurance rates just went down, so that would be unwise. So I began thinking of fun snarky ways to deal with people that put “Jesus loves you!” stuff on their cars. Obvious solution — other license plate frames:

  • “Buddha hates you”
  • “Vishnu doesn’t know you exist”
  • “Jesus may love you, but everyone else thinks you’re a [jerk]” (saw it somewhere actually…)
    and my favorite, suggested by a (cool!) professor of Religious Studies:

  • “Jesus was not a Republican”
    Which is good, because I am (yes, I am, shut up) and we wouldn’t agree on a whole lot.

    It sort of bothers me that these “Jesus loves you!” license plate frames are considered quasi-normal. I’ve even seen cars covered with crazy things like “He is risen!” and quotes from the Bible. True, it’s typically nutjob-looking folks that drive them, but still. If I started writing Buddhist or Hindu or Islamic or Confucian stuff on my car, people would think I was crazy, or blow up my car.

    And, if “He is risen!”, could you ask Him to wake me up for work in the morning? Thanks…

    • Jun 30 2004
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    General

    Unsettling States of America

    So, the Coffee’s kicked in (Starbucks Kenya Blend — yum) and I’ve gotten over the minor disappointment that Starbucks ran out of Summer Fruit Cobbler (WARNING: Addictive), and I’ve trawled the news sites and I’m ready to go.

    Item One: The Justice Department decreed that it would not comply with a Freedom of Information Act request for information on foreign lobbyists because copying information from their database could destroy it. Yes, these people run your government. There are a few explanations for this, according to sense and slashdot:

  • They’re using a quantum-state database that cannot be observed without being changed (Hey, Dr. Schroedinger, I found your cat… I think…)
  • Something happened and the database is already trashed (“You mean the ‘rm * -r‘ thing was a joke?!”)
  • They don’t have enough free drive space to copy the database (plausible — these things must be insanely huge)
  • They’re lying sacks of bits.

    I could go off on all the geeky things to say about it, but I’ll spare you that (check the relevant slashdot forum if you’re daring) In short, no matter how powerful the system, some lackey will always argue that the system is to blame instead of himself. Remember Heinlen’s Razor — ‘never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by sheer incompetence’. Also equally important, Occam’s Razor — ‘the simplest explanation is most often the best’. Slice.

    Item Two: Six puppies were killed by fireworks, placed in their mouths by teenagers, and 18 children were taken away from a pair of foster parents who allegedly locked them in cages and the like. And likely these are people who say America is great. It is, but it would be better without these folks. Fence off a square state and put all the jerks there. Then televise it. Oh, wait, no one would watch it except the folks in the fenced-in square state. Hm.

    Item Three: Only in America do public schools need to be told to spend their money. Two billion dollars, or just under nine bucks per citizen of the Republic, has gone unspent since 2002. The cash was intended for disadvantaged students (which, I argue, is anyone subjected to the public school system — my kids are going to private schools). At the same time, schools complain about a lack of funding. Teacher salaries are being cut. Schools are in disarray. And there are two billion smackeroos out there that administrators refuse to spend. If it weren’t for a few good teachers, friends, my parents and the internet, I don’t know how I could have got through the public school system as anything other than an indoctrinated clod.

    And such.

    Ambient album that happens to be amazing to listen to while driving to work on a cool summer morning: BT – Escm

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