I probably didn’t use the right gender in the subject, but, oh well. =)

So last weekend the family and I went to Quebec for my brother’s wedding. Actually, L’isle-Verte which is a small villiage about 20 minutes north of the town of Riviere-du-Loup which is about an hour or so north of the City of Quebec which is about three hours south of the North Pole. *grin*

But seriously, once you pass Quebec on highway 20, you are in complete and fantastic wilderness punctuated by the odd modern villiage bordering the St. Lawrence River, which is actually wide enough to be a huge lake. (Take a look on Google maps. It really looks like you should be in total desolation.) Here’s the crazy thing. We’re driving along the very well maintained highway 20 through landscape that looks like a perfect setting for a Middle Ages Viking movie, and we come upon villiages nestled against the hills. I would expect that these villiages, WAY way up this far north and in the open land would be like Arkansas villiages, reveling in their decrepitude. Nope! Every villiage we saw was modern, clean, well maintained buildings, modern stores, even art and theatre festival venues.

(My brother, who has been living in Montreal for about two years now if I recall, makes this observation: In Quebec (province in general,) there is no silly over-attachment to the old. Unlike places like Aurora, Missouri where people fight to keep the old run-down main street and town square the way it is, if something in Canada is getting run down, they tear it down and rebuild something modern. Not everything that’s old is “historic.”)

That said, the wedding was held in a historic courthouse in the villiage. In fact, much to my shy brother’s chagrin, it’s not only the first wedding held there since the couthouse became “historic,” but the first one there ever! And it was great! My brother and his fiancee (sp) worked HARD getting everything set up, and it all went off great. The music, the catering, the timing, was fantastic. A great start (from this wedding witness, in both ways,) to what I hope will be a great marriage!

(Warning! Religious discussion in this paragraph! Skip this paragraph to avoid diatribe.) Something I found interesting, every town and villiage appeared to have one church from what I could see, and they were Catholic churches. (Quebec is primarily Catholic.) According to my brother, Riviere-Du-Loup just got its first Baptist Church, and that’s mainly because it’s a pretty popular tourist town. But mainly, while Catholicism is the primary and nearly sole religion in Quebec, most people are not religious at all up there, like most western European countries. But the thing is, all but maybe two people I encountered in Quebec were extremely and sincerely friendly, nice, and welcoming. In contrast, most people I encounter down here in the Bible Belt tend to be arrogant, self-righteous, and insincerely friendly, like they’re compelled to be nice because they’re supposed to be, and not because it’s simply the best and “right” way to be. Perhaps it’s a Protestant vs. Eruopean Catholic thing. For example, at the wedding reception, most everyone was gregarious, outgoing, affectionate, and almost stereotypical of what you see people being like at Catholic wedding receptions with some kind of direct European heritage. It was a blast!

(Sorry, the religious diatribe continues for one more paragraph….) The point I’m getting at, and should be addressed in its own entry, and acknowledging that this is a generality and there are certainly exceptions!, is that it seems the American Protestant culture with its carrot-and-stick morality, encourages a very insincere morality where you do what’s right and good for your selfish desire for salvation and heavenly reward and avoidance of punishment. But non-theist cultures (of which Quebec is nearly one–while they have a heavy Catholic history, the people themselves are not really religious,) their sense of morality is more mature and gregarious. People are moral, friendly, treat each other well and kindly, because that’s simply the best way to get along and live life, not from fear of an eternal spanking.

(OK, religious babble over. Back to vacation talk.) So, we drove up and back, and each way took about 32 hours. I’m still exhausted! But 7-year-old daughter was fantastic throughout the entire trip! Never a complaint and always a good mood. (Although she was a little disappointed when she found out one of the surprises we got her was a “Garfield” book in French. She hid it well, though.)

Oh, speaking of French, man I love being immersed in a culture and language! In Montreal nearly everyone we met (this trip and the week we spent there last year,) was nearly completely bi-lingual. In Quebec and the northern regions pretty much everyone spoke only French. And that was cool. Me, I only know a few phrases, a dozen or so words, and thanks to my rather large (*arrogant grin*) volcabulary I can generally suss the meaning of any written French that contains words that are cousins to English words. Although I couldn’t conjugate a verb if my life depended on it. But in any case, I love having the oppotunity to try out what very little French I know and listen to conversations and figure out what they’re saying. I’m pretty sure that if I lived in Quebec I could become vaguely fluent in about a year. I’m not afraid to make a fool out of myself when it comes to labguage. *grin* (The fact that I post by blogs without ever spell-checking or proof-reading ought to be evidence of that!) Although, if I had my druthers, I’d rather my brother fell in love with a nice German girl. Thanks to college German classes I can still talk to a German pre-schooler reasonably well.

The landscape, as I mentioned, was incredible! Lower Quebec is of course just like upper New York which is very similar to Minnesota in that there are some hills, some grasslands, lots of pine and shrubery, lots of trees. But then you get up past Montreal and things start looking a little odd, but in a cool way. The hills take on weird shapes. There are some long tree covered ridges, but then there will be plains for a while and then one single hill shaped like an upside-down dixie cup out of nowhere. Copses of jagged yet tree covered hills here and there, and the huge river always to one side. More like a Great Lake that got pulled and stretched into a river going out to the Atlantic, really. Large islands, some a hill itself, some low with a hill or two stuck in the middle of it, here and there. It’s really hard to describe. I don’t have my pictures off our camera yet, so I can’t show you what I saw, but here’s a few pictures on someone’s site that show a little. Not quite as cool looking as some of the scenes I saw, but an idea: http://www.scenicsensations.com/galleries/gallerylocation/northernquebecimg.htm .

Oh yeah! Mosquitos! Holy mother of God they were everywhere! I was too young when I lived in Alaska to remember the mosquitos there, but I’m told they’re virtually Alaska’s state bird. I guess it must be the same on the other side of the continent because I was eaten up nearly literally. You almost have to wear clothing made out of Deet to avoid them. Gah!

But one of the most amazing things about the trip (aside from getting through it without hitting a deer, moose, or small woodland creature,) was the night sky! Oh. Man! The first night we were there, getting ready for bed, my wife had stepped out and came back saying “You have GOT to come out here!” To which I grumble, “Grumble grumble.” “No, seriously, you want to see this!” So I trudge my way outside into the mosquitos, and look up, and I don’t even need my glasses to see the sky literally filled with stars! The Milky Way so vibrant and clear, it was almost as bright and thick as a cloud!

Now, I live in the Ozarks, in the edge of a medium-ish town trying to be a city. We have light pollution and a scant amount of real pollution, but I never really thought it was that bad. But up there on a farm a couple miles outside a villiage away from a town and hours from a city, the sky was about as perfect as you could ever hope to see it. You could see nebula and smudges of galaxies with the naked eye! Not to mention of course our own galaxy, as I mentioned a moment ago. You couldn’t find a piece of sky where you could make a circle with your thumb and finger and hold it at arm’s length and not have the circle filled with stars bright and sharp and vibrant. It just completely makes it obvious how massive and infinite the universe is. How so very small and insignificant and isolated and amazing our little planet is.

I could so live in Canada.

Who knows, depending on how this November and then November two years from now turns out, I very well may!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four#Technology :

Orwell explains that, in the latter part of the twentieth century, technology has been driven by only two things: “war, and the desire to determine against his will what another human being is thinking.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four#The_Party :

The three slogans of the Party, on display everywhere, are:

• WAR IS PEACE
• FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
• IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

Phil Plait at Bad Astonomy blog has a post today called: Ann Coulter: deranged creationist liar?

He discusses how Coulter’s new book, Godless, has a section in which she argues against evolution as there is supposedly no evidence for it. In addition to a great analogy involving coctail weenie toothpicks as to why he no longer tries to engage such debates any more, he links the site and article: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/06/ann_coulter_no_evidence_for_ev.php for anyone who would like to wade through the mountains of evidence for evolution.

That site has some discussion in the comments regarding whether or not Coulter actually believes the neo-con crap she spews, or if she’s like Limbaugh and many other extreme-right conservative Republican cheerleaders who have such contempt for their audience, they know what they say is full of lies and realize there are two types of people they speak to: Those who are in on the “joke” with them, and those who believe their BS.

Politics, the church of the famous, the almighty dollar. I actually feel bad for the regular, ordinary, middle-America conservative as their “leaders” are using them, pandering to them, doing everything they can to get their votes and money, and it works. They feed middle-America extreme versions of the conservative beliefs, convince them to believe the crap in the name of God, patriotism, faith, security, then extort that belief to get more votes and money, using power and influence to perpetuate the corrupted and twisted lies and deceit.

I don’t know which is worse. The neo-cons who know what they do is political manipulation, like Cheney and Limbaugh and Rove, or people who believe the crap and are self-righteous about it. I don’t know which bush is yet, and I’m afraid it’s both camps.

For Father’s Day this weekend, my wife and daughter gave me a book I’d been wanting since it came out a year ago, and have been keeping an eye out at used book stores for, and trying to remain patient for until it comes out in paperback this fall: David McCullough’s “1776″.

I’m trying to be good and saving it for the 36 hour drive to Quebec City this week, but I couldn’t help myself and already read the 1st two chapters. It technically begins in Spring of 1775 after the battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill, and King George’s address to Parliment encouraging it to vote to put down the young rebellion. And I was struck with how incredibly, amazingly, strikingly similar the attitudes and tone and very words of the King and members of Parliment were to today’s bush administration. I don’t think McCullough intended to make the resemblance, it’s not pointed out in the least (nothing of modern politics is mentioned at all–the focus is entirely on 1775 and 1776,) but I read passage after passage of description of the King’s speech, the all night debate at Parliment, the following actions and decrees by the King and his generals, mouth agape at how similar they were to the arrogant, bombastic, self-righteous, absolute, and extremely imperialistic modern American neo-con politics.

It’s a shame that one of the reasons for the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights, the right to bear arms and maintain a militia, can no longer be possible:

“That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

–U. S. Declaration of Independence

(By the way, notice how the spirit and technically the beginning of our nation decrees that the power of the new government comes from the consent of the governed, not by any religious belief or system.)

It’s an exciting and fascinating read. I’m really looking forward to diving into it!

CNN.com - Divided House rejects Iraq pullout date - Jun 16, 2006

I don’t know which pisses me off more: The lies and propaganda and manipulation the GOP and Administration is putting out there, or that people fall for it!

the GOP-led House approved a nonbinding resolution that praises U.S. troops, labels the Iraq war part of the larger global fight against terrorism and says an “arbitrary date for the withdrawal or redeployment” of troops is not in the national interest.

I’m all for praising the troops! But this labeling the Iraqi war as a fight against terrorism?! Can they revision history any more?! Let’s see:

a) Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with terrorism before we invaded, and our presence there is increasing the threat of terrorism both against us, and as a training ground for new terrorists.

b) The publicized intent for the invasion was WMD’s which did not exist.

Does this labeling the war as a fight against terrorism change the reality of it? The GOP must think it does. We didn’t need to label the war against the Talibahn and Afghanistan as a fight against terrorism. Everyone knew from the liberalist Democrat to the French that that was a legitimate fight against terrorism. The Iraq invasion needs to have a Congressional label on it to try to legitimize the war for the future.
And how about this:

“Retreat is not an option in Iraq,” declared House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio. “Achieving victory is our only option … We have no choice but to confront these terrorists, win the war on terror and spread freedom and democracy around the world.”

‘The hell?! See point (a) above. We created the terrorists! And exactly, when it comes to Iraq, how does people who are fighting to get invaders and occupiers (us!) out of their country become “terrorists”?

And unless we’re planning on conquering Iraq completely and taking it over completely and running it, leaving Iraq is NOT “retreat”! We (illegally) overthrew a soverign forgein government that has done us no harm and are now occupying it. It’s time to leave. Our welcome is more than worn out. The job is done. It’s time to go. Making the smart decision of de-occupying a country is not retreat, it’s not “cutting-and-running.”

At what point do we finally leave the country when it’s not going to be spun as retreat? It’s sure as hell not going to be when people stop fighting out troops because that will NEVER end so long as we’re there. Never! Of course the answer is that the administration has no plans of ever leaving. President Haliburton wants to maintain a permanent presence in this Middle Eastern country indefinitely.

Still on a science bent:

CNN.com - Hawking: Space key to human survival - Jun 14, 2006

In a connection to my last post: The War on Science Gains More Ground - Welcome to America, Lysenko, the science, a lot of it being repressed by the oil barron Bush administration, shows we’re on a quick track to an ecology not friendly to the survival of the human species. There’s a handfull of other probable ways for the human race to go bye-bye. It’s happened before, a few times, it will again.

What kills me is one of the few pro-discovery science proclomations the White House has made, that we need to go to the moon and Mars, was an empty gesture. A speech-filler that was intended to make him sound like a progressive president–but it would help if instead of not only not giving some funding for his mandate he wouldn’t take away money from science.

Phil Plait over on Bad Astronomy has an entry today regarding a 100% partisan House vote in which all the voting Republicans sent a message that the supression of science for political and ideological reasons can and should continue:

House Republicans won’t stop science suppression

This is utterly disgusting and downright scary. That such a culture of political fear can be generated within the science community that dissent from “the party line” can cost people their jobs, funding, their careers. The (p)resident doesn’t like the idea of global warming? Suppress the scientific findings instead of supporting methods to overcome it. Don’t like the idea of evolution? Make sure to minimize it publicly by singling it out as “only a theory” even within the very science community that uses the properties of evolution to come up with increased food production and improved medicine.

Phil is right, “this is creeping Lysenkoism, pure and simple.”

I’m giving it two more years. But I swear to god if the religiously controlled Republican party retains Congress this year, and the White House in 2008, I’m moving to a more modern and intelligent country like Canada or the Netherlands. The amount of damage this administration has wrought on our country in 6 years is massive, yet not undoable. But if they get yet another 4 years to entrentch their anti-middle class, anti-science, anti-liberty and freedom beliefs, the damage may be too great and we could be witnessing the beginning of the fall of the American Empire.

Mark over at NewSojourn made a post today:
Sojourner: For the Love of Pete…and Paul…and…John…and…

regarding his top reasons for loving the Bible. We have a… not a rivalry per se, but we often discuss our rather different views on philosophy and religion in occasionally heated tones. But in that post he makes a comment:

Mechphisto would likely drop by to remind us of the 1,790,326 contradictions contained within the Bible, peppered with 36 links to the Skeptics Annotated Bible. Please M, not this time…take the day off. There is no need to slice and dice the Scriptures today

“Mechphisto” is me. And I have to say, I take offense at this. I’ve made my share of unasked for comments and observations and challenges on his blog, but when the original post has more of a personal tone and less an authoritative one, I leave well enough alone.

In fact, on his previous post: The Reality of Christ, I actually gave support and encouragement on his observations of The Church as an institution and his desire to bring Christianity back to a faith rather than a religion.

But when you’re going to directly assume I’m going to be a cad before I’m a cad, I have no choice but to be a cad! =) Though taking his “request” to heart, I’ll be a cad over here instead of over there. So the 2.5 of you who read this, enjoy.

7. The Bible is utterly relevant.

“7 When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. 8 If she does not please her master, who designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed; he shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has dealt unfairly with her. 9 If he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her as with a daughter. 10 If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish the food, clothing, or marital rights of the first wife. 11 And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out without debt, without payment of money.”

Exodus 21:7-11

“22 Of them you may eat: the locust according to its kind, the bald locust according to its kind, the cricket according to its kind, and the grasshopper according to its kind. 23 But all other winged insects that have four feet are detestable to you.
24 By these you shall become unclean; whoever touches the carcass of any of them shall be unclean until the evening,”

Leviticus 11:22-24

“36 Fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 And as for what you sow, you do not sow the body that is to be, but a bare seed, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain.”
(Unfortunately in reality, a seed must be alive in order to germinate.)

1 Corinthians 15:36-37

It’s REALLY tough keeping this short! The Bible is so full of rules regarding slavery, selling daughters, keeping multiple wives and concubines, rules and advice for nomadic and patriarchal ancient living.

Oh sure, it’s also filled with stories of love, betrayal, forgiveness, romance even, politics, all kinds of themes and stories that deal with the basic aspects of human nature and desire and faults…but then, so does nearly every religious tome and fiction novel. How much utterly irrelevant material must exist side-by-side with relavent material before it’s determined the book is no more relevant en toto than say “The Lord of The Rings”?

“Are the 10 Comandments Relavent Today?”

6. Unmatched Theology.

Check this out:

1. All worldly life is unsatisfactory, disjointed, containing suffering.
2. There is a cause of suffering, which is attachment or desire rooted in ignorance.
3. There is an end of suffering.
4. There is a path that leads out of suffering…
   The path…

1. Right View - Realizing the Four Noble Truths
2. Right Intention - Commitment to mental and Ethical growth in moderation
3. Right Speech - One speaks in a non hurtful, not exaggerated, truthful way
4. Right Action - Wholesome action, avoiding action that would hurt others
5. Right Work - Ones job does not hurt oneself or others; directly or indirectly (weapon maker, drug dealer, etc.)
6. Right Effort - One makes an effort to improve
7. Right Mindfulness - Mental ability to see things for what they are with clear consciousness
8. Right Concentration - State where one reaches enlightenment and the ego has disappeared

That’s the core of Buddhism. Pretty impressive theology to me.

5. The Bible declares Relationships as the ultimate value in life.

Well, I can’t argue against that, really.

But, how good can relationships be if one or more people involved are too materialistic or abusive or never does anything to improve themselves….

4. It is consistent with self-evident truths.

Please refer to:

Absolutely Relative (the theme continues)

Why The Very Basis of Orthodox Christianity is Absurd and Cruel

Faith or Delusion?

Trilemma Dilemma

These address the fact that Christianity is fundamentally contradictory due to its nature as a “revealed religion.“

That the Bible is filled with contradictions in logic, self-contradictions that require an extreme amount of interpretation and imposed assumptions and use of metaphor and allusions to make sense of which undermines any concept of fundamentalism or literal interpretations.

That when you are dealing with statements of philosophy and not mathematics, semantics and proper premise and conclusion statement and formation does affect whether a premise is self-contradictory or not.

3. The Bible puts forth an Objective Morality.

Proverbs 25:21

“If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink:”

yet

Psalm 58:6-7

“Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth…. Let them be as cut in pieces.”

and

Luke 6:35

“But love ye your enemies, and do good.”

yet

1 Corinthians 16:22

“If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema.”

Here’s some nifty parts:

1 Samuel 15:2-3

“Thus saith the LORD of hosts … go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.”

Numbers 31:18

But all the women children that have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.

Exodus 20:13, Deuteronomy 5:17

Thou shalt not kill.

And yet…

Exodus 32:27

Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side … and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor.

Numbers 15:35

And the Lord said unto Moses, The man [who was found picking up sticks on the sabbath] shall be surely put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones.

Mt.25:1

Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom.

1 Kg.11:2-3

Solomon … had seven hundred wives … and three hundred concubines.

Exodus 20:4, Derteronomy 5:8

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath.

although…

Exodus 25:18, 20

Thou shalt make two cherubims of gold … And the cherubims shall stretch forth their wings on high, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and their faces shall look to one another.

Numbers 21:8

And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole.

Here’s a good objectivity:

Exodus 34:21

Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest.

yet…

Matthew 12:2

Behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the sabbath day.

Psalm 12:1, 3

Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord …. Wealth and riches shall be in his house.

Proverbs 15:6

In the house of the righteous is much treasure.

And yet…

Luke 6:24

Woe to you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation.

James 5:1

Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.

(Problems with the 10 Comandments and their objectivity.)

2. I love the Bible because it is supernatural.

The problem with accepting the supernatural, is how can you accept reality if there are no concrete rules of reality if they can be broken by the supernatural? How can the world operate based on such laws of nature as exothermic reactions and terminal velocity and the nature of pi and carbon decay, if the supernatural exists? How valid are the decades of successful developments in medicine and gene therapy and space exploration all based on the understanding of strict aspects of natural reality?

A skeptic is different from a cynic in that a skeptic believes “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” Meaning anything is technically possible but extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. When you dismiss concrete naturalism and accept supernatural, you open the door to all kinds of things like ghosts and crystals and theraputic touch and chakras and magik and curses and the like. And so far, there’s no hard evidence that any of these things that are contrary to what we know about the natural world exists or works.

It’s interesting that a literal acceptance of the Bible and unquestioned acceptance of the supernatural events in the Bible didn’t really explode until early 20th century. For the last 6,000 years of the existance of Christians and Jews, the supernatural has been taken with grains of salt. It was understood that Hebrew mythology used supernatural events to tell a story, proivide a moral, teach a lesson. The creators of the ancient Hebrew myths, many coming from pre-Hebrew myth, fill their stories with supernatural events not as an attempt to deceive or trick or lie! But a method of storytelling, and colorful expression of understanding the world as they could.

How is it people today can hold onto ideas of supernatural Biblical events when as time goes on more and more of what we used to see as observations of the natural world are being explained or dispited?

The ancient Hebrews have a burning bush as a supernatural event, but we know now that there are plants that pruduce volitile oils that can catch fire on hot days. When they believed the moon produced its own light, not knowing it was reflection of light from the sun. When they put bats in the same family as birds. When the Bible is filled with exactly the level of understanding of the natural world other cultures of an ancient time have, and misunderstand natural processes and events as supernatural.

It’s fun to believe in the supernatural–it allows anything to be possible, and who doesn’t want that?

I had a friend in college who was Wiccan. Her mother was Wiccan and her grandmother was whatever Wiccans refered to themselves as before the religion was created in the 50’s. And she heartily believed in magik and spells and the supernatural. And of course the occult is appealing as it gives yo a sense of power, control, mystery, adventure. I can understand that. But one day I got tired of her constant talking and professing of the world of magik and I told her “Prove it.” If magik REALLY works, it should be proveable. I told her I’d give her any and everything she wants to help her. I’d give her my birth name, any fluids or hair or nails she could want, would do anything to aid her, if she could perform a spell that would have obvious and undeniable observable results. Something that couldn’t be confused with coincidence and syncronicity and chance.

She just got mad at me.

1. I love the Bible because it offers hope.

Here is what I have hope in:

• A conviction that dogmas, ideologies and traditions, whether religious, political or social, must be weighed and tested by each individual and not simply accepted on faith.
• Commitment to the use of critical reason, factual evidence, and scientific methods of inquiry, rather than faith and mysticism, in seeking solutions to human problems and answers to important human questions.
• A primary concern with fulfillment, growth, and creativity for both the individual and humankind in general.
• A constant search for objective truth, with the understanding that new knowledge and experience constantly alter our imperfect perception of it.
• A concern for this life and a commitment to making it meaningful through better understanding of ourselves, our history, our intellectual and artistic achievements, and the outlooks of those who differ from us.
• A search for viable individual, social and political principles of ethical conduct, judging them on their ability to enhance human well-being and individual responsibility.
• A conviction that with reason, an open marketplace of ideas, good will, and tolerance, progress can be made in building a better world for ourselves and our children.

– The beliefs of the secular humanist.

Almost three years ago I bought a cell phone that was real kick-butt, as blogged in: “New Phone, and what I’m listening to”
Nokia 6800

Now, it was, and in some ways still is, a great phone. Always clear, almost never dropped a call, a real nice phone. And the best part, they full qwerty keyboard! That has made writing text messages (which I tend to do a lot) a zillion times easier!

But pretty quickly it developed a few problems: Because the keyboard unclicks and unfolds, it started developing stress fractures near the hinges. Fortunately, nothing worse than flecked off paint has come from that. But the other problem which has given me no end of problem is the belt holster for it has a magnet that constantly unlocks the keys and causes the phone to send endless text messages to the first number in my contacts. And other related issues.

Plus, as good of a phone as it is, being a 3-year old phone, its features are pretty slight.

So, finally, contract timing has allowed me the opportunity to get a new phone, and boy am I (so far) happy!

Here’s the cool thing, and most people may not know this, but you don’t have to go through the local cell phone company stores to buy a phone. For example, we went to: Wirefly.com. An online cell providor that allows you to sign up for new service, port your number to a new carrier, or (as in my case) extend your existing contract. And the best part, the phones are rediculously less expensive!

My wife and I got the Sony Ericsson Z520a and if we went though the Cingular store, we’d have had to pay I around $90 each or at best $50 from Cingular online. But through Wirefly, not only did we pay nothing (except a Cingular contract extension fee) but we got two $20 mail in rebates.

How was the process? Well, I was afraid it’d be confusing, full of problems and countless phone calls to support. But alas, the process went perfectly smoothly! The number transfer went flawlessly and quickly, the phones (in case you’re wondering) are perfectly new retail phones from Cingular, not some refurb or something.

So, I highly recommend using Wirefly to set up, change, or extend your cell service, and I highly recommend the Sony Ericsson Z520a as a phone. Great little camera, good sound, and great features.

But man, I am SO going to miss having a keyboard!

St. Pauli Girl Special Dark

overall: 3.05
appearance: 3.5 | smell: 4 | taste: 2.5 | mouthfeel: 2.5 | drinkability: 3

First, I’m wondering if I didn’t enjoy it as well as I could have because the date on my bottle was for next month. I don’t know what the life of one of these are, but that seems to cut it pretty close.

The pour was very much like a cola. It was a dark brown but see-through; not opaque at all (which is my personal preference.) It looked carbonated like a soda, and the head was a tan and short-lived with no lacing.

The smell wasn’t bad at all, though. It was a kind of toasty caramel. Sweet. I think hoppy, but to be honest, I’m not sure if I have a good handle on “hoppiness” yet.

The taste was a little sour. Like it had a tinge of pineapple, but not good pineapple. Toasted pineapple maybe. A touch of sweet on the initial drink but it leaves that sour aftertaste. Not that I couldn’t drink it, in fact, I’d still take this over a Bud. But I wouldn’t ask for it directly, that’s for sure.

[ serving type: bottle ]

Over on Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy blog, he has an entry:

NASA admits Deutsch muzzled scientist

In which he discusses how a Bush political appointee as NASA’s press officer intentionally prevented science regarding global warming from being made public. Also, his attempts to insert the word “theory” in all references to evolution on the NASA Web site, among other political maneuvers.

Of course, this shouldn’t be surprising when the guy Bush puts into NASA as their head of their public message is a 24 year old campaign worker and loyal party member with no college degree.

How much more obvious is it that the Bush administration has no intention of running the country? He’s running it just like he did his failed companies. He doesn’t put qualified people in any positions, he gives jobs to loyal members of his campaigns. FEMA, NASA, intelligence, Deffense, people loyal to him and his family who are corporate buddies and have no qualifications for the job they’re appointed to.

God we need these people out!

Some rather scary information on the site: Theocracy Watch.
This is the site’s thesis:

Twenty-five years ago dominionists targeted the Republican Party as the vehicle through which they could advance their agenda. At the same time, a small group of Republican strategists targeted fundamentalist, Pentecostal and charismatic churches to expand the base of the Republican Party. This web site is not about traditional Republicans or conservative Christians. It is about the manipulation of people of a certain faith for political power. It is about the rise of dominionists in the U.S. federal government.

An investigation and tracking of the phenominon inspired by such inflamatory stances like:

The theocratic right seeks to establish dominion, or control over society in the name of God. D. James Kennedy, Pastor of Coral Ridge Ministries, calls on his followers to exercise “godly domininion … over every aspect … of human society.” At a “Reclaiming America for Christ” conference in February, 2005, Kennedy said:

“Our job is to reclaim America for Christ, whatever the cost. As the vice regents of God, we are to exercise godly dominion and influence over our neighborhoods, our schools, our government, our literature and arts, our sports arenas, our entertainment media, our news media, our scientific endeavors — in short, over every aspect and institution of human society.”

That’s all I’ll say. I encourage you to look into it on your own.