The Army Corp of Engineers have begun pumping the lake formerly known as New Orleans dry. The process will take three months. It will take another three or more months to scrape up the toxic sludge left behind. I assume after three months of soaking in water, every wood-frame structure (meaning most of the houses) will be condemned. In my mind, that raises a question: I'm in a shelter in Texas or Michigan or one of the other couple dozen states taking in refugees. My house is either already destroyed or will be condemned and demolished. Most likely, I don't have flood insurance, or it is not adequate to rebuild my house. Every single physical object that I owned, other than what little I have with me, is gone. Most likely, any means of making a living, doing anything other than shoveling toxic muck, is non-existent and will be for six months, maybe longer. Why would I ever go back? I can't be the only person asking that question. I wonder what the population of New Orleans will be two years from now. I'm guessing substantially less than what is was prior to Katrina.

Some of the people who stayed in their homes continue to refuse to evacuate. One case caught my eye: a man who refuses to leave his dog behind. As a dog lover, that would be a hard call. I do wonder just what these people expect from the government. Daily food and water deliveries brought out by boat? Does any of them have enough food and water to last six months? Many of them are staying on the second floor of partially flooded homes. Are any of them aware of what months of soaking in water will do to the structural integrity of their house? On the other hand, how do you just leave a pet knowing the best you can hope for is that thirst will drive it to drink contaminated water and die relatively quickly, rather than slowly starve to death?

Here is a news site that understands that words are useless to describe just how bad things are. Thousands of photos, each more eloquent than any talking head.

Now that everyone is good and depressed.

Not much happening over the weekend. Debbie is dog sitting at the home of one of her co-workers in Kalkaska. Nestina is settling into her job. I tried to have a couple soccer practices over the weekend, but everyone was out of town. It did give me a chance to work with our new goal keepers, so it was useful. Other than that, not much to report.

Except that on Sunday, Debbie and I went to see the Power Team at the Kaliseum. If you have never seen these guys, they are a traveling evangelical outreach ministry that uses feats of strength to draw in people. It's pretty impressive, especially when they use white gas to set the stage on fire. Our pastor reported over 400 decisions of various types prior to the final program on Sunday. If I had to guess, they probably got another 100 or so from Sunday night. I remember seeing these guys when I was in high school. It was pretty much the same gig, other than I don't recall the stage being set on fire.

I will probably be sticking my head in another hornets nest, but I'm sure there are one or two of my readers that I haven't managed to offend in some way, and I wouldn't want anyone to feel left out. The following comments are based on first-hand experience, either from the show Sunday, or from seeing the Power Team when I was in Jr. High (the primary target) and similar programs over the years, not hearsay from others.

How sincere are decisions made at these events? I saw several dozen kids rush the stage on a dead run the second the invitation to come forward for salvation was given. Many of them were wearing autographed t-shirts from previous shows. Maybe this was arranged so no one would have to be first, but I have my doubts. I saw many that were no doubt sincere. I also saw many that, having spent my entire life in evangelicalism, I would tag as "repeat performers;" those that can't seem to ever pass up an opportunity cry in front of a crowd. I also saw many that were literally being dragged to the front by friends. If anyone thinks that peer pressure only works in a secular setting, you have obviously not spent much time around "church folk." That isn't always bad when we are talking about some self-destructive habit like alcoholism, but, based on the number of teens I have seen get "saved" then drop it like a ...well... bad habit as soon as their peer group changes, I have some doubts as to their sincerity.

What sort of follow-up is planned? I couldn't keep up with a dozen kids in youth ministry. Where is this flood of Christians willing to disciple 400-500 people going to come from? If our entire adult church membership suddenly took on a half dozen each, it still wouldn't be enough. And without follow-up, I can guarantee that most of these decisions won't last until the end of school today, if they make it that long. Cynical? You bet; cynicism born of much experience, including personal experience.

Who will be doing the follow-up? This is related to the previous question, but from a different direction. The Power Team announced the names of a dozen area churches that helped put this thing on. Who gets those 400-500 names? Are they just divided up evenly amongst the churches? Apportioned based on average Sunday morning attendance? Is the entire list given to all the churches so they can duke it out in the "religious market" like McDonald's and Burger King competing to see who can clog my arteries the fastest? Just who are we getting in bed with? Most of the churches involved differ more in practice than theology, but I know a couple disagree with us on what I would consider to be basic doctrines that define the very term "Christian." Just who are we climbing into bed with for what amounts to a marketing campaign?

Are big, one-shot campaigns better than sustained, long-term effort? This is probably one of the most contentious issues in evangelism. Historically, churches suffer a partial or complete loss of identity when they assimilate a large lump of new members. This can sometimes be positive, sometimes not, but the assimilation process always results in a significant fraction of the new members just walking away because they never feel accepted, as well as a loss of existing members that can't make the transition. What if the resources devoted to this one big event were instead used in a sustained, years-long campaign of evangelism? What if the same number of people "made decisions" over the course of one or two years, rather than being concentrated in four days? In terms of long-term impact, would this be a better strategy than the Big Bang approach? On the other hand, is there a congregation anywhere in North America that would devote the time and money, evenly spread over the course of an entire year, that can be brought to bear on a single event? Is it easier to convince someone to put 40 hours of work in one week to bring about 400 decisions at a single, large event, or to put one or two hours a week indefinitely towards a sustained goal of maybe one decision a week? Again, my experience is that the former is much easier than the latter. Not that either one is easy, but people prefer a big, short-term splash for their effort over long-term results. If you doubt that, compare the money spent on the lottery vs. the national savings rate, which was negative the last time I looked.

Does that mean that The Power Team and their like should be disbanded? I'm not prepared to say that. Does that mean that no one has ever truly become a believer at this type of event? That is most assuredly a false statement. I guess I'm just saying that some thought needs to go into how these events are conducted and promoted. There certainly needs to be better preparation of Christian kids that attend these events. It isn't about the personalities on the stage, and rushing the stage during the invitation to grab your souvenir chunk of broken concrete is, at best, a distraction.

And that is probably more than enough for now.

Zoey Nicole

Zoey Nicole joined the Frost clan and the world yesterday, September 1 around 3:20PM. She is 9 pounds 1 ounce and approximately 20 inches long. I don't have any pictures yet, but I hear she's a real cutey.

Congratulations Nicole and Jeremy!!

I am a Wiggly Worm!!! Maybe I'll be a crustacean some day.

Thanks for all the traffic, even those of you from distant lands that I have no idea why you are here. I can only assume there is a market for the rantings of a lunatic Yank.

The lake formerly known as New Orleans continues to descend into chaos. The physical mess will take months to clean up, but, like the LA riots, the repercussions from the looting, rape, beatings, and general lawlessness will last far longer. A civilization rests on the premise that ordinary people are decent and will do the right thing the majority of the time. Once again, this assumption has been shown to be false, at least in our larger cities.

Under the headline of Depot Explosion Over Lawless New Orleans, we find these gems:

Gov. Kathleen Blanco called the looters "hoodlums" and issued a warning to lawbreakers

Yea, Gov; name calling and warnings are going to stop the looting. How about a shoot-to-kill order? Oh yea. I forgot. Your one of them womyn that are so superior to us men. Maybe you should cry some more on national television.

Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said FEMA just learned about the situation at the convention center Thursday and quickly scrambled to provide food, water and medical care and remove the corpses.

How can this be? I knew about the lack of water and sanitation, and ever-growing piles of corpses at the convention center on Tuesday. Does the head of FEMA not watch the news? Or maybe he just has his head so far up his ass that it took two days for the sound waves to penetrate. Maybe Michael Brown is a good guy outside of his job, but he is a complete waste of human skin as director of FEMA. He should be fired, then charged with one count of negligent homicide for each person that has died since Monday. Should be, but we all know he won't. Instead he will receive an award and a promotion.

Tourist Debbie Durso of Washington, Mich., said she asked a police officer for assistance and his response was, "'Go to hell - it's every man for himself.'"

....

To make matters worse, the chief of the Louisiana State Police said he heard of numerous instances of New Orleans police officers - many of whom from flooded areas - turning in their badges.

"They indicated that they had lost everything and didn't feel that it was worth them going back to take fire from looters and losing their lives," Col. Henry Whitehorn said.

The thin blue line seems to have thinned to the point of non-existence. We have taught the last two generations that society exists only for MY benefit; to provide ME with everything I could ever want and little or no cost to ME. When society stops supplying MY every whim, why would anyone be surprised that I would walk away?

On a brighter note: it seems that the citizens of Texas at least still cling to some old fashioned notions of what a civilization is. Of course we all know that as soon as the Feds show up, the hot dog griller will be charged with violating food safety laws and operating a vending cart without a permit.

Ponderables

Debbie sent me this at my work e-mail a while back. It got buried in all the messages that built up while I was off, and I just stumbled onto it.

Can you cry under water?

How important does a person have to be before they are considered assassinated instead of just murdered?

If money doesn't grow on trees then why do banks have branches?

Since bread is square, then why is sandwich meat round?

Why do you have to "put your two cents in," but it's only a "penny for your thoughts?" Where's that extra penny going to?

Once you're in heaven, do you get stuck wearing the clothes you were buried in for eternity?

Why does a round pizza come in a square box?

What disease did cured ham actually have?

How is it that we put man on the moon before we figured out it would be a good idea to put wheels on luggage?

Why is it that people say they "slept like a baby" when babies wake up like every two hours?

If a deaf person has to go to court, is it still called a hearing?

If you drink Pepsi at work in the Coke factory, will they fire you?

Why are you IN a movie, but you're ON TV?

Why do people pay to go up tall buildings and then put money in binoculars to look at things on the ground?

How come we choose from just two people for President and fifty for Miss America?

Why do doctors leave the room while you change? They're going to see you naked anyway.

If a 911 operator has a heart attack, whom does he/she call?

Why is "bra" singular and "panties" plural?

Do illiterate people get the full effect of Alphabet soup?

Who was the first person to look at a cow and say, "I think I'll squeeze these dangly things here, and drink whatever comes out!"

Or watch a white thing come out a chicken behind and think, "that ought to taste good."

Why do toasters always have a setting that burns the toast to a horrible crisp, which no decent human being would eat?

Why is there a light in the fridge and not in the freezer?

When your photo is taken for your driver's license, why do they tell you to smile? If you are stopped buy the police and asked for you license, are you going to be smiling?

If Jimmy cracks corn and no one cares, why is there a stupid song about him?

Can a hearse carrying a corpse drive in the carpool lane?

If the professor on Gilligan's island can make a radio out of a coconut, why can't he fix a hole in a boat?

Why do people point to their wrist when asking for the time, but don't point to their crotch when they ask where the bathroom is?

Why does Goofy stand erect while Pluto remains on all fours? They're both dogs!

What do you call male ballerinas?

Can blind people see their dreams? Do they dream?

If Wyle E. Coyote had enough money to buy all that ACME crap, why didn't he just buy dinner?

If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from vegetables, what is baby oil made from?

If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?

Is Disney World the only people trap operated by a mouse?

Do the Alphabet song and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star have the same tune?

Why did you just try singing the two songs above?

Why do they call it an asteroid when it's outside the hemisphere, but call it a hemorrhoid when it's in your butt?

Did you ever notice that when you blow in a dog's face, he gets mad at you, but when you take him for a car ride; he sticks his head out the window?

Do you ever wonder why you gave me your e-mail address in the first place?

I finally got around to cleaning up the comment spam. There were eight messages in total, all posted within an hour of each other. One of them used a form of social engineering I haven't come across before. The entire comment was abusive, then challenged me to click on some link if I didn't agree that I was scum. The thing is, he probably gets 10x the hits from that spam than the guy that tells me how great my web site is then tries to sell me a vase, or Viagra, or whatever.

Not much going on with us other than the kick-off of soccer season. (Get it? Kick off? Soccer? Get it? Huh? Huh? Get it?) We lost a lot of seniors, so I will be changing the strategy some, but we should still have a good team.

I didn't find much that caught my attention running through my usual web stuff. However, I am starting to get annoyed by something I keep seeing repeated on the internet and in the print media: headlines along the lines of "Police Helpless to Stop Looters." Sorry, that is a lie. The police and National Guard could end the looting any time they wanted, but choose not to because those organizations are controlled by womyn and neutered males. Until the last few decades, looters have always been considered outlaw in the original meaning of the term. Their actions literally put them outside of the law. They are no longer fully human and can be (and historically have been) dealt with as you would deal with a rapid animal: shoot them on the spot. There would be the need for some discretion. There is certainly a world of difference between someone breaking into a grocery store for food or water, and someone carting off consumer electronics and jewelry. But I suspect that the later far outnumber the former, and it wouldn't take too many dead looters for the rest of them to get the idea. But it doesn't matter because it won't be done in the United States of Political Correctness, and New Orleans will not only be the set for Water World II, it will more and more resemble Beirut in the 1970's.

I would love to know what was going on yesterday with my web stats. I had 81 first-time visitors (over 100 total) yesterday alone. Understand I normally get about 20 hits a day. That combined with the flurry of comment spam leads me to believe that Blogger was under some sort of attack. Given the similarities in the comment spam, I suspect some sort of new tool kit made its appearance on the spammer warz sites. Things seem to be somewhat more calm today, although I have had dozens of referrals from other Blogger sites that have no links to this site that I can find. For those who are interested, if you click on the Last 100 Visitors link under my Quick Links, you will see a map of the world with the location of my last 100 visitors marked. If you hover your mouse pointer over the dots, they will show you some details. All I know is that there must be a lot of very bored people in the world.

Well, back to work.

And my last post just got slammed with four comment spams in a couple minutes. I don't want to turn off anonymous commenting, but I did turn on word verification. That will display a picture of some letters that you then have to type into a text box when you post your comment. Comment spam is almost always automated and word verification at least requires that a human is leaving the comment, not some script.

If you find word verification a problem or have issues trying to leave a comment, let me know.

More on my web stats (you know you care): I just did some more digging and realized I had hits from all six inhabited continents in the month of August. I didn't think I had anyone from South America, but I just found a hit from Ciudad Universitaria in Tucuman, Argentina and another from Distrito Federal in Brazil. Cool. I guess endlessly repeating the phrase "debbie's boob job" really made a difference.

This is a recreation of my post. Blogger ate what I had typed, which of course was the most brilliant writing I have ever done. The worst part is that Blogger works just enough to inspire the confidence to not copy/paste every post to Notepad before hitting the publish button. Then it does you in. I think part of it is the junk computer I have at work, but I don't think that is the entire story.

Anyway.

Maybe I shouldn't have whined so loudly about paying 2.999 for a gallon of gas. Prices have gone up another dime or so today with no end in sight. I probably shouldn't be complaining; at least my house isn't under 20 feet of water like most of the residents of the lake formerly known as New Orleans. Of course, it isn't likely I would ever find my house sitting in 20 feet of water as I had the foresight to not build it below sea level. But that is a topic for another time; after the bodies have been found and buried, at the very least.

I do get a kick out of the damage estimates on the news. Call me a skeptic, but how can anyone think they have any idea of what it will cost to rebuild an entire modern city? Estimates are based on past experience. Now someone please remind me of which American city has been reclaimed from the bottom of a lake and rebuilt. All the news media needs to do is show the photographs and/or video of New Orleans. Made-up damage estimates cannot in any way increase the impact of just seeing what has become of the city. So please; people in the news media, shut your pie holes. Your drivel adds nothing.

In any case, the thoughts and prayers of the Frost household go out to all those trying to deal with this ...well... I can't think of an adequate word for it.

Bob Thompson has an interesting proposal to deal with the recidivism rate of child molesters. I find little to argue with, except for what the law considers a "child" (anyone old enough to obtain a fake ID, use it to obtain entrance to an adults-only establishment, then go home and have sex with someone is not a child even if they are chronologically 16 or even 14 years of age). If anyone thinks this is being overly harsh, rent the movie The Woodsman. All will become plain.

It looks like after ten years, the antibodies are starting to kick in. President Bush did no favors to the Intelligent Design movement by his advocacy. I think this will be viewed as the beginning of the end of ID's little flash in the pan. The money quote:

All over the country we see both communities, scientists, religious people, educators and media people come to the realization that not only is Intelligent Design scientifically vacuous but also theologically risky.

ID is nothing more than a God-of-the-gaps hypothesis with God being confined to an ever-shrinking array of unexplained phenomenon. Is this really what Christians want to do to God? Not just put Him in a box, but a shrinking one besides? If you want to believe God poofed the universe into existence 10,000 years ago, or 6,000 years ago, or last Wednesday; fine. That is a miracle and science won't touch it. (Aside: I think this belief raises other serious theological issues about the nature of God, but I will leave those for some other time.) But if you advance that belief as a scientific hypothesis, whether ID or "Scientific" Creation, expect to get pummeled from every direction, because that is what happens to every scientific hypothesis. I've watched this in action. It is brutal. A guy spent years writing up a paper, tossing it out, watching as it got completely shredded, go back and rewrite it, toss it back out, and so on. Toss, shred, rewrite. Toss, shred, rewrite. And that was just to get his paper in shape for initial publication for peer review where the whole process would start again with a larger group. At first, I thought people just didn't like the guy, until I talked to a few of the people involved. They told me it wasn't personal; everyone gets treated like that. If the situation were reversed, they would be disappointed if he were any less ruthless with their own work. But the ID/creationist camp wants to bypass all that and get their ideas taught in high school science classes. Not going to happen.

And that's probably enough for today.

Pucker up, boys!

I feel violated. I just paid $2.999 for a gallon of diesel. That's $94.50 to fill up the truck. That's also a 30 cent per gallon increase from when I left for work this morning.

Squeal!! Squeeeeal like a piggy!!!

I forgot to mention that according to my stats I have had visitors from Australia and Switzerland. If this keeps up, I'll have visitors from every permanently inhabited continent. Most of them get here through Yahoo searches that have absolutely no relevance to anything on this site. But I'll take the hits in any case.

That's it.

First, thanks to all who continue to visit even while I haven't been posting much. I'm back on a schedule now, so maybe I will get something posted on a more routine basis. I don't really have much to report from the last week other than I nearly killed myself working outside on a variety of projects. I got a lot done, but not nearly as much as I would have liked. Cleaning out and organizing the garage and the shed took most of the two weeks. That also includes debris disposal, which involved keeping a continuous fire going for over two days. But I can now focus on other things.

Jerry Pournelle has a lot of good stuff up last week. The entire week is worth reading and thinking about.

More on the Lawrence Summers flap. There are many important lessons to be learned. One of which is to make sure that what you think you know is actually true. One good test is to find out if the person speaking has even a passing familiarity with what they are yapping on about. The squealing from the female part of Harvard's faculty is very much like the criticism of The Bell Curve by those who bragged of having never read it.

Paul Graham takes on attempts to eliminate economic inequality. It isn't possible. That's the short version. Go read his article for the somewhat longer version.

And just a little something to go along with my response to Lindsey's comment on Wednesday's post.

And that's about it for today.

All Done

My new phrase is All Done. I am All Done dealing with the incompetent hicks at places like Brown Lumber and Lark Lawn and Garden. All Done. They have wasted enough of my money and enough of my time. I will not even extend them the courtesy of a phone call because that would take time and I am All Done. I have a feeling that phrase will come up again and again over the next few weeks. I'm tired of dealing with the slackers and retards that make up what most days seems to be the bulk of the Northern Michigan population. I see now why so many people drive the hundred-plus miles downstate to make major purchases.

Anyway, it's 3:30AM so this will once again be short. Here is a good an explanation of the scientific method and what does and does not use it. Of course the people that need to read it won't, but, whatever.

I'm going to bed.

Another quick post just to let everyone know that we are still alive. I have been spending most of my days outside cleaning out the garage and shed. I am making good progress on both, but I will need to keep a large fire going for several days to be rid of all the stuff piled in the back yard.

The big news since I last posted is that Nestina has a job at a local video rental place. She is very excited, and so are we. I'm really hoping this works out for her. The person that hired her seems to think she will do well.

This weekend, we were down in Burt, Michigan for Debbie's younger brother's retirement party. It looked like it would be raining, but everything cleared up just as the party started. Lots of people, food, etc.

While we were there, we took Nestina to her first-ever Catholic church service. She really enjoyed it, which I expected. The church itself was more visually interesting, and she really enjoyed the verbal give-and-take between the congregation and the priest. This will likely be the first of a series of visits to a variety of churches and traditions.

The Onion weighs in on the origins debate with this wonderful article. If the Intelligent Design folks could just open their eyes to how their arguments sound to those with even an average education, they would be shamed into silence.

And more on the shooting in London of a suspected terrorist. It seems that the official version of the story had very little truth to it. I'm shocked. To think that any government would shoot and kill someone, then lie to make themselves look better. I'm completely stunned.

My statistics continue to accumulate. Thanks to all who continue to check in even though I have not had much in the way of updates lately. It makes the effort of writing more worthwhile knowing a couple dozen individuals check this place every day or so.

And that's all I have for today.

Before I hit the sack, I wanted to leave some reading assignments for everyone.

This is important. Which, of course, means it will be ignored. The short term effects are bad; the long-term effects could be unimaginable.

And Fred Reed takes on our "anti-terrorism" measures, which of course, aren't.

And that's all I can keep my eyes open for.

Hold on to your bippies folks. I know the excitement and tension in some of our posts here are hard to take, but they pale in comparison to what's been going on in the Frost household the last five days or so.

I've been working on the property.

woo hoo.

Cutting, hauling, burning, stacking, arranging, digging. And that's just the beginning. I have all these and more looking at me every day until I go back to work on August 29th. That's right. I gave Munson the ol' heave ho for two full weeks so I can cut, haul, burn, stack, arrange, dig, etc.

Here is wishing all you could be here to share the joy!!

P.S. I do get a three-day break from all the excitement to attend Debbie's brother's retirement party next weekend. Just so no one thinks it's all just fun and games; I have a very serious party to attend.

Today I had a visitor from Canada. Who knew there was such a vast, untapped international market for reading about boring people...

And another search term:

earliest known mathmatical depictions

Note the misspelling of "mathematical." Our site is now home to bad spellers everywhere.

Last night was another night working the phone. It looks like we will have enough girls for a team, assuming everyone that said "yes" actually follows through. I watched Dancer in the Dark as well. "Different" is pretty much the only thing that comes to mind. "Leisurely stroll" is another. And "odd." Definitely "odd."

From today's skim of the internet:

Another retired NASA engineer calls for the grounding of the shuttle and the development of a new vehicle. Money quote: "The United States is presently fourth in the ability to put humans reliably into space, behind Russia, China, and Burt Rutan." Ouch!! That's going to leave a mark.

FedEx demonstrates how to create a public relations nightmare. A guy who cannot afford real furniture uses FedEx shipping boxes to build his own, then publishes pictures of it on the internet. FedEx threatens legal action under DMCA. Huh?!?!? I would think FedEx could afford lawyers that know the difference between copyright and trademark infringement. I would also think that FedEx could afford PR people that had the balls to smack down the lawyers before they do something monumentally stupid.

Speaking of a public relations nightmare, this is what a corporation looks like when it acts the part of a two-year-old child sticking his fingers in his ears and saying "La la la la la la la la la I can't hear you!!"

That's all I have time for today.

I was just poking around in my stats so far. I've been running fairly consistent at 25 hits a day. I received another hit from Tokyo yesterday. I'm not sure why I'm so popular in Japan. Is checking in on American nutjobs' blogs the new hobby there? Anyway, I took a peak at the search terms that people have used to find this place through Yahoo or other search engines. So far we have:

rdfrost.com
debbie's boob job
tokyo steve
teen-sex

Yep. That pretty much sums up the contents of this blog.

That's it for now.

Not much to report. Last night was just phone calls to potential soccer players, the rest of a movie I had started yesterday (the original Dune), then bed.

And just to beat a patch of grass where a dead horse used to be, I want to restate one point that I have made before, but maybe not as explicitly as I should have. In the whole evolution vs. creation debate, I'm not looking to make any converts. If someone asks, I will tell them that I have been convinced after years of studying the evidence, that the earth is ancient and all living things on earth are related via common decent. If someone wishes to believe God poofed the world into existence 6,000 years ago, I really don't mind. If someone wants to believe in a global flood and all living things on earth in a big wooden ship, I really don't mind. Try to use my tax dollars to teach it as science? That I mind a great deal and will fight to my dying breath. Creation Science and its bastard offspring, Intelligent Design are frauds. Every "evidence" they cite to support their case is bogus. Every "flaw" they point to in evolution, geology, cosmology, or whatever branch of science has caught their attention, is bogus. Intelligent Design is not science. Creation Science is not science.

That's all I have the energy for.

Thursday, I had a soccer meeting after work. The meeting had a lot of information, most of which completely went past me. There seems to be some issue with lost registrations and such, so this whole thing ought to be interesting. Leaving the meeting, I had a pleasant little shouting match with Dick-Head Paul, the director of the Kaliseum. He was upset with me for turning him in for violating child labor law as a matter of organizational policy. So it is all my fault, see, because I expect an organization supported by my tax dollars to obey the law. Silly me.

Friday, I went in for an eye exam and to get my glasses on order. Great news!!! I get to wear bifocals!!! Woo Hoo!! Nestina promptly started calling me Bifocal Man, instead of just Old Man. Great. Debbie had to take me to work because my eyes were dilated and I didn't have glasses. Debbie, Nestina, and Debbie's two nieces met me in Traverse City after work for dinner and dessert.

Saturday was a work day. Debbie took her nieces back downstate to drop them off at home, and Nestina and I hauled around rocks, cut up trees blown down by the various storms over the last few weeks, and did some cleaning and organizing in the garage.

Sunday, Debbie drove me to Houghton Lake for another soccer meeting. That went much better and I feel like things are getting on track. I got to meet several of the other coaches and was able to get a much better picture of how AYSO works.

Monday was just work, shopping, then home for dinner, a movie, and some internet browsing. Tonight will likely find me working the phones trying to put together a soccer team. We need to start practicing pretty soon, so I don't have a lot of time to mess around.

Speaking of internet browsing, Vox Day has a new column up that is sure to start some screaming. My contention has always been that feminism was a bad deal for women in many ways, and is a flat out disaster for our children. I'm sure many will disagree. He has some follow-up statistics on his blog that show just what women in the work force has done to individual and household income.

And we have a pair from Kip at A Stitch in Haste. The first takes on the contention made by creationists and IDists that evolution can only be accepted by faith. The second one takes on an issue I have mixed feelings about. Schools have pushed since I was in the elementary grades, to drop the summer break and go to all-year school. It is logical in one sense, but I think my ambivalence stems from my complete distrust of public schooling. I view summer as a time to de-program all the PC, historical revisionism, moral relativism, etc. that gets shoved down the kids' throats. On the flip side, I do know that most of the school year is just review of the last year because everything fell out of the kids' heads during the three-month break. I also know that August has the highest incidence of vandalism, petty theft, shop-lifting, teen drinking and drug use, teen sex, etc. In other words, by August, most school kids are going stark raving mad with boredom. But probably the worst result of the three-month break is the expectation it breeds into teens when they enter the real world. In generations past, summer break was a time of back-breaking work on the farm or some other job. Now it's a three-month vacation. Who, other than teachers, gets three months off work a year?

Anyway, I'm still hungry and now it is way past time to start for home.

Almost a week has slipped by without a post. Sorry about that. It's not that I've been busy so much as just distracted. I can't seem to write a coherent paragraph. So I apologize in advance for what will likely be a bit of a mess.

First, I have continued to play with the links over on the right hand side of the page. You will notice a distinct change from serious to not-so-serious. Every politician from the dog catcher (or in the case of Kalkaska, the director of the Kaliseum) to the President is a liar and a thief, and considers himself above the law. I know that, you know that, everyone knows that, yet we as a nation continue to elect the same liars and thieves to public office. I guess I've grown weary of reading about it and would rather read about Waiter Rant's latest rude customer or a bouncer's Guido stories.

I also registered with a traffic statistics site about a week ago. It's interesting the number of people that read this blog that I do not know. I even have a reader from Tokyo. I would have never believed that this site would get over 100 hits in five days. That completely blows me away. Some of the site traffic is obviously members of Debbie's or Nestina's or my family (one thing Web-Stat does for me is to show me a map of the world with little circles on the cities that my traffic comes from). But many of them are truly a puzzle as to how they found this place.

A while back, I promised a reply to Eric after I had some time to think about what I wanted to say. Others have since posted comments, sent me private e-mails, or had private conversations with me. I would have to write a 500-page book to address every question, comment, or concern. I will pick out a few that I think raise key points and answer them here. By no means can I cover everything. Not only do I not have enough time (or bandwidth), I don't necessarily have everything figured out in my own head yet. There are things I know. There are things I believe. There are things I really don't have an opinion about.

Let me repeat: I don't pretend to have everything figured out at this point. I truly envy those of you that are completely assured of your beliefs. (There is no sarcasm in that statement; probably a first for this blog.)

Which leads nicely to my first point: The tone of this blog has been described (not by me) as sarcastic, cynical, know-it-all, and, most recently, flippant. Honestly, I'm not trying to be any of those, and if that bothers you, I am truly sorry. But this is how I write, and at 40 years of age, I don't foresee any change. If it bothers you to the point of offense, all I have to suggest is that the internet is a big place and I'm sure there are others that say much the same things you read hear, only in a tone that is more to your liking. I'm not saying that to be a jerk; I don't intend to anger people (at least not most of the time), but PC I'm not, nor will I ever be. If reading this blog angers you, might I recommend a more constructive use of your personal time?

2: I have no illusions that anything said here is going to change anyone else's mind on much of anything, be it the value of the King James Version of the Bible or the validity of evolution. I will state my views (this is my blog) and anyone reading them can accept them, reject them, or whatever. But understand that the converse is also true. I have spent every moment I could spare (and many that I really couldn't) in reading, prayer, and not a few tears while considering the origins question, and all that followed from that. Please don't insult me by thinking I am going to abandon my present stance and come running "back into the fold" because someone quotes a verse or tosses a factoid or hurls a few insults.

3: Many have communicated their support in various ways. Thank you. You have no idea (and I hope you are never in a position to find out) how much that helps, especially after being "voted off the island" by members of my own family.

4: Several people have expressed sadness at what has happened to me. Don't be. I'm not, even though this has cost me in ways I cannot even think about right now. If you truly believe that God is in control, then this is happening for a reason. If He isn't, then ...well... (shrug) none of this really matters, now does it?

5: As far as being flippant about people going to hell, it is true that I made a flippant comment about people going to hell; that is not necessarily being flippant about individuals going to hell. If I were, I doubt I would have spent as much time over the last few years in ministry. I doubt I would have voluntarily cut my hours (and my pay) by 20% to be more available. I doubt I would have spent nearly $20K on a Christian education. I'm not saying that to brag, but only to point out that it isn't likely that I am casual about hell.

I do have to wonder about just how serious the average evangelical takes hell. (Understand this isn't directed at Eric, Steve, Tom, Mike, Jon, Lindsey, etc.; all of whom are active in ministry.) How much money and resources are spent on politics by the average evangelical? How much is spent on cable and satellite TV? How much is spent on politics to try to clean up what comes in on cable and satellite TV? How much on movies? How much on politicians who denounce movies? I could fill, pages, but I think my point is made: if anyone is flippant about people going to hell, it is an attitude picked up in the church.

Taking another shot at this from a different direction: I have spent 40 years listening to Christians casually condemning millions of other professing Christians to hell because they are Roman Catholic, or Pentecostal, or attend a church with a woman pastor, or use the NIV Bible, or accept evolution (and yes, I've been told I'm going to hell). Again, if anyone is being flippant, including myself, it is a learned behavior. Hell is where you put anyone you don't like, or holds a view you don't like, or makes a point that you don't have a good refutation for.

6: Bible translations (actually, English Bible translations). Here, I will address a number of sub-points.

a: All English translations of the Bible have problems. Every. Last One. Of. Them. None are inerrant.

b: All of the existing manuscripts, including those used to create the Textus Receptus, have errors. Every. Last. One. Of. Them. None are inerrant. There are over 5,000 copies of the New Testament, but only 50 are complete, and no two are the same.

c: The KJV has one major deficiency completely apart from translation issues or what manuscripts were used; for anyone that has not grown up in the church using the King James, it may as well be written in Latin. I guarantee that it is unintelligible to anyone currently in the youth group. Many of the words used have had significant shifts in meaning since 1611, and several have actually reversed meaning. The Apostles wrote the New Testament in common Greek, rather than the scholarly "high" Greek to ensure that it was available to average people. What has changed in the intervening 2,000 years that we must use an English version of the Bible that is unapproachable by the average person?

d: The New Testament KJV is not based on the Textus Receptus, which was first published in 1624. It was based on the Stephens of 1550, which was used, along with other manuscripts, to create the Textus Receptus.

e: The original KJV had over 8,000 marginal notes, including alternate translations and indications of disagreement between the manuscripts. In the preface to the 1611 KJV, the translators defended this practice, as well as calling for continuous updates as new manuscripts came to light and the English language continued to evolve. Oddly, this preface has been removed from subsequent versions.

f: The original KJV included the Apocrypha. It began to be omitted around 1769.

g: The first Bible to make landfall in the Americas was the Geneva version. The KJV was considered a "Papist" translation, and was shunned by evangelicals in favor of the Geneva version.

I could go on, but the alphabet is only so long and I'm getting carpal tunnel. My point is that no translation is perfect, and every translation involves interpretation. In my previous post, I mentioned the word translated as "created" in Genesis 1:1. Here we are five words into the Bible and we have a serious problem with a literal translation: as Eric mentioned, the verb in the Hebrew text is in the infinitive form. But that makes no sense in English: "In the beginning God to create the heavens and the earth." So interpretation comes into play, and we have the past tense, "created," in most English Bibles. But how true to the original text is that given that Hebrew does not have a past tense?

One could easily write a book on this (and many, many have) so I'll just stop at an arbitrary point. If you want to read more, just Google "KJV problems" (or "NIV problems" or "NLT problems" or "NKJV problems" or "NASB problems" or...). You will find sites for, against, and everywhere in between on every English version of the Bible back to Wycliff. Many contain extensive bibliographies that could keep you reading for years to come.

7: The statistics you find tossed around casually in creationist literature are simply bogus. They are based on complete ignorance of chemistry and biology. DNA, amino acids and proteins are not the precise, fragile things that creationists like to present them as. There is wide variation that is possible (and in fact is found in nature) while still retaining their function. The whole process of transcription from DNA to protein is far messier, flexible, robust, and interesting to study than any description from creationist literature (or, unfortunately, most high school biology text books) would lead you to believe.

In addition, even if I grant that the odds are anything more than just random numbers pulled out of thin air, creationists completely ignore the number of "tries" that are possible. An example: the odds of me rolling 1,000,000 5's in a row with a single, six-sided die are astronomical. But if I roll 1,000,000,000 dice, it is a near-certainty that 1,000,000 of them will be 5's. How many molecules are in a gallon of sea water? in a billion gallons of sea water? in the Pacific Ocean?

I could obviously go on and on, but life is short, and I'm getting hungry. I will likely make a more typical post later today to update everyone on all the stuff going on in the Frost household.

There is a very long response that took some thought that Eric made to yesterday's post. It deserves a well-thought response, which I cannot supply today on my 4 hours of interrupted sleep. So instead, today will be another link-fest.

Paul Graham has a new article up that discusses what business should be learning from the open source phenomenon. Note that he doesn't believe they will learn, just that they should.

Fred Reed, who has spent more time inside a squad car than anyone other than cops and some career criminals, takes on community-based policing (CBP). The short version is that CBP handicaps the police while avoiding the root problems. Definitely worth reading and thinking about.

Here is a bit from The Panda's Thumb on President Bush's remarks in support of the teaching of Intelligent Design in the classroom. I will say it again: Intelligent Design is not science and has no place in a public school science class. It is politics with a dash of bad theology, and its very foundation is flagrant dishonesty.

Vox Day explains better than I could why I got out of libertarian politics. The whole enterprise reminded me of trying to sell spinach-flavored ice cream. You can not sell what people do not want to buy. Most people living in the United States do not desire a republic and are terrified at the very idea of living in one.

And a hat trick from A Stitch in Haste:
Guns in Parking Lots, Revisited
Don't Blame Fund Managers for Pension Shortfalls
Bush, Intelligent Design and "Totalitarian Libertarians"

Here and here are a pair of very sad posts. At a loss for a reason, indeed.

In other news, it's been a crazy couple of days. As I have previously mentioned, Tuesday was my debut as a soccer coach. We won, but I can't take any credit whatsoever. I just let the girls do their job. I was mostly a spectator. Of course we picked the second hottest day of the year to play.

Yesterday, the hottest day of the year, we took the youth group out to North Bar Lake in the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes National Park. It was great; lots of surf and it felt really good to be in Lake Michigan. The only downer was that I lost my glasses to a rogue wave. I was just wading in the shallow water keeping an eye on the bobbing heads that I was responsible for when I got smashed by a wave that was easily eight feet high. I tried to grab for my glasses, but it was too late. The surf literally sucked them right out of my hands. Ah well; I'm about two years over-due for a new pair anyway.

Tonight is another soccer meeting, so maybe I will finally get the word on what is happening for the fall season and what I will be coaching.

That's it.

I haven't checked my e-mail in a while, so I missed an anonymous comment posted to an entry that had already slipped into the archive. I'm posting the response here because a) it will likely be too long as a comment, b) no one is likely to read it because the entry itself is no longer on the main page (Yes, in fact I am vain and I want people to read what I write; otherwise, why have a blog?) , and c) this is a very good example of the sort of "logic" that True Believers (tm) think is devastating to science.

Eric:

While you are giving history lessons, allow me to throw out a few historical facts of my own.

Charles Darwin was studying to be a minister when he began the field research that led to his most famous work Origin of Species. He was hardly an "unbeliever." He became estranged from his church largely because the church leaders didn't like his work.

The Bible says many things that have in the past been taken literally which are then reinterpreted to match science, usually after a bit of struggle between scientists and clergy. Google "Sir Isaac Newton" for details of one such incident. [I will leave this as a perfect example of what happens when I write a post in a hurry. Of course, I actually meant to type "Galileo Galilei."] I haven't heard many preachers in my lifetime arguing that the earth is set on a foundation and doesn't move. (Bonus points for knowing who said that). Of course we still have the Flat Earth Society.

You claim that believers have a rock to stand on that never moves, then suggest I read church history. I have. It is one long litany from day one (some say, "I follow Paul", some say, "I follow Apollos") of divisions and factions all proclaiming themselves to be the keepers of Absolute Truth (tm). Evangelicals are the new-born babes in this process with a history that only goes back a couple centuries. They are also the new Flat Earth Society denying what is obvious to everyone else, including fellow-believers. Oh. Sorry. I forget that Evangelicals are the only ones going to heaven. Too bad about all those poor souls burning in hell for eternity because Evangelicalism didn't exist prior to the 1700's. It seems God's perfect plan has some flaws.

You claim kinship with Luther, a Catholic priest who was merely attempting to reform the priesthood and had no intention of starting a break-away church. Speaking of which, have you been to a Lutheran church? Have you ever read a Lutheran doctrinal statement? Are you aware that the Lutheran church, like the Roman Catholic Church, and nearly every mainstream Protestant denomination, accepts evolution? Are you aware of the vast chasms of disagreement between Lutherans and Evangelicals on such basic doctrines as salvation and baptism?

You claim that fundamentalism has been undermined by bad Bible translations. I agree. The King James Version is an abomination to the original text. The person for whom the KJV is named had some pretty ...um... radical doctrines that he had no intention of seeing undermined by the Bible translation that was to bear his name. Here is an exercise for the reader: what tense is the Hebrew word that is translated "created" in Genesis 1:1? I'll give you a hint: it ain't the simple past tense used in the KJV and every other English translation I've seen used in an Evangelical church.

You claim "Darwinists are moving". This reflects a basic ignorance of science. Science (including biology) is constantly "moving" and it's a good thing that it is, otherwise, I would be chisling this on a rock rather than typing it on a keyboard and publishing it for every literate person on the planet to read. I thank God that science is "moving" every time I start my truck and drive the 70-mile round trip to work instead of walking it like my great-grandfather did during the depression. I thank God that science is "moving" everytime I open my refrigerator door and see a literal cornucopia of food, some of it produced thousands of miles away. And I thank God that science "moves" every night around 10PM when I fill a needle with Lantus, without which I would likely be dead in a very short time, and inject it into myself.

One more time: science is tentative, not dogmatic like, say, religion. There is no revealed Absolute Truth (tm) in science. There are theories that fit the currently known data. One of these theories says an inherent property of all matter is mutual attraction. It has grown from observations made repeatedly, in a wide variety of situations both in the lab and in nature, over a period of centuries. Another says that time is not absolute, but rather varies with a person's frame of reference. It, too, has grown from observations made repeatedly, in a wide variety of situations both in the lab and in nature, over a period of decades. Another says that all species are descendents of a common ancestor. It, too, has grown from observations made repeatedly, in a wide variety of situations both in the lab and in nature (both before Darwin and since), over a period of decades. All of these have been attacked by Biblical literalists, who have (mostly) given up on the first two, and are rapidly losing ground on the third. Good thing Christianity is such an immovable rock.

And I will never give up beating Creation "Scientists" and Intelligent Design "Scientists" over the head until they stop propagating outright lies to gullible Christians and school children who would never suspect a fellow-believer or authority figure capable of intentional deceit. It is disgusting. It is embarrassing. It is sin. It must stop and it must be stopped by believers. There is no moral difference between a deacon using his position of trust to steal from the church, a youth pastor using his position of trust for sex with teens, and Kent Hovind peddling lies that he knows are lies so he can live a lavish lifestyle while claiming zero income on his federal taxes. The first two would never be tolerated for one second in any church I've been in, yet Hovind is treated like some sort of rock star by Evangelicals all over North America.

I simply will no longer stand idly by while this goes on, no more than I would turn a blind eye to a youth worker having sex with a 14-year-old. I have become the enemy of the Kent Hovind's of the world.

Enough. I have to run.

Last night was just relaxation time. Debbie had her Bible study at the church, so that left me at home with three teen-age girls. We watched movies and played a very serious game of Cranium. I ended up getting to bed over an hour late.

Tonight will not be relaxing, although I expect it to be fun. I will be coaching my first-ever soccer game. Tonight is just a scrimmage game with the Kalkaska women's team (self-identified as the U-50 club team...). If everyone shows up that said they would, we should have 15 or so players. It will be kind of interesting to see how I do as coach. It will also be somewhat of a preview of what the fall team will be like.

SCO is dead. Novell just ran a stake through the heart of the vampire. SCO has degenerated into nothing but a parasite on the computer industry; a vehicle for collecting money to which it has no claim and using it to hire lawyers to extract more money to which it has no claim. It's time to die, SCO. At the least, the company will be sued out of existence. At best, some or all of the upper management will get hit with criminal charges (that's the Lanham Act claims mentioned near the bottom of the article). Now I feel safe in taking the garlic cloves off of my Xandros box.

And that's about it.

No posting this weekend as things ended up being a bit of a blur, so we will start off with the Friday movies.

The two movies we saw were easily our favorites. Based on the description and the dress of the actors in the promotional still, I expected The Baxter to be British. Personally, I enjoy British comedy, but I was afraid that Nestina and her friend would hate it. As it turns out, the movie was actually American, and very funny. Typically, when the credits start to roll, most people get up to leave. Not this time; no one moved. It was like everyone was waiting for more. The best part was that there was more. After most of the credits rolled, the final scene (which was "awww" instead of "ha ha") is re-played from the point of view of a different character. Everyone walked out of the theater cracking up.

The second movie we saw was Grizzly Man. It was funny, sad, terrifying, awesome, and whatever other adjectives you can think of. The movie is based on video shot by Timothy Treadwell while he lived with grizzlies in Alaska. There isn't much I can say without giving too much away, but we were laughing most of the way through the movie, yet there are two thoughts always in the back of your mind: first, Treadwell and his girlfriend ended up being killed and eaten by a rogue grizzly, and second, that the funniest parts of the movie are the result of Treadwell essentially documenting his own slide into insanity.

Both of these are due for official theatrical release soon. If you want to really get the full impact, Grizzly Man needs to be seen on the big screen. Either one would be worth the money to see in the theater and to buy on DVD.

Saturday, Debbie was down state to pick up her nieces that stay with us for a week every summer. Nestina and I just hung out at the Alden Days festival for most of the afternoon. Debbie came home around 3 or 4PM with her nieces. The five of us swung through Kalkaska to pick up Nestina's friend (whom I had just dropped off that morning) on our way to the last graduation open house of 2005. We didn't stay very long, but we did get to talk to a lot of people that we haven't seen in a while. The next stop was back in Alden for a band that was playing at the Depot. We only stayed for one set, then headed home for the evening.

Sunday was the annual church picnic, so we didn't get home until around 4PM. We had a housefull, with the three of us, Debbie's two nieces, Nestina's friend, and Nestina's friend's boyfriend. Debbie cooked dinner for everyone, then Nestina and her entourage headed into Traverse City to watch Casablanca at the open space on West Bay. I guess these big blowup screens and after dark viewings are becoming the new big thing. I knew I had to get up for work in the morning, and we needed to get Debbie's nieces settled in, so the four of us stayed home and caught up on things.

From the net:

First up, this from Wiley and the Non-Sequitur. Given recent events in my life, it almost isn't funny.

And a little classic courtroom humor from Kip at A Stitch in Haste. It makes you wonder how much courtroom questioning is just pro forma. In spite of nasty comments I routinely make about lawyers here, the weeding out process pretty much guarantees the anyone passing the bar has at least above-average IQ. Some of these remind me of those times when I am driving to work and "wake up" in the parking lot with no idea how I got there or how many fudgies I ran over.

And still more evidence that the "law enforcement" industry is completely divorced from the real world. One marvels at the restraint in only issuing a ticket. I am shocked that this obviously dangerous 73-year-old terrorist wasn't tackled to the ground, handcuffed, then shot in the back of the head.

And from the pouring salt in wounds department, there has been a series of reports from the 2005 Creation Mega Conference over at Panda's Thumb. This is why I have no respect for Creation Science. If you want to believe that God poofed everything into existence 6,000 years ago, while making everything look like it is billions of years old, then OK, but stop talking about the scientific proof that this happened. You just make Christians, the Church, and ultimately God look stupid.

Anyway, here is the lineup:

Introduction
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six

The actual articles are fairly short. The comments are a lot of fun to read, but are very long and, without the background on the various personalities, not that easy to follow.

That's it; lunch is over and it's back to my exciting job.

I'm running on nothing but caffeine today. The series of movies last night kept us out until 1AM, then we had to recap when we got home. I think I finally fell into bed around 2:30 or 3AM. I'm supposed to get up for work at 6AM. Needless to say, I was late.

Today was a day destined to be unproductive. Not only was I dog-tired, but I spent the entire day cleaning up messes created by network problems last night while all my jobs were running. I love doing scut work. Of course, I don't know that I'm fit to do anything else today given the lack of sleep.

The movies: overall, about what you would expect from this type of festival. There was a range of quality and enjoyment with only one that I regretted spending the money on. Details:

The Axe - a French film with subtitles. It was one of those films that shouldn't have been funny, but it had everyone rolling. At least those that could keep up with reading the subtitles and watching what was going on. Out of the four, I'd put this one at number three.

Mondovino - This was supposed to be some sort of documentary about the wine industry and the fight of the little guy against the big, multinational corporations. I only know that because National Geographic did an article last month that covered the same ground far more coherently than this film did. There was so much jumping around interviewing different people that I lost complete track of who was arguing what with whom after the first hour. We left about an hour and a half into the movie because we were hungry and because none of us understood what the point of the movie was. Obviously, this was our least favorite.

My Summer of Love - British, so no subtitles (woo hoo!!), but in parts I wish there had been. British idiom can get pretty thick sometimes. This was Michael Moore's contribution to the festival, so he was hanging around the theater before the movie. I had a chance to talk to him for about two minutes. It was pretty cool. He gave a little speech before the movie started, and he was pure Michael Moore. Anyway, about the movie. It was certainly British with a good story with a lot of depth. Typical of European films, there was little violence, and a lot of nudity. There is just something about Euros that makes them want to scamper around nude a lot. At least the subjects of the film were pretty easy on the eyes. Of all the movies, all three of us enjoyed this one the most, although personally I would not say it was "best."

The Woodsman - Kevin Bacon plays a child molester just released from prison. The movie is disturbing on several levels, the most significant for me being that by the end of the movie you are sympathetic for the guy. Because of the subject matter, I can't say we really enjoyed this one, but I don't think that was the intention. I walked out disturbed and conflicted, so in that sense it was probably the best of the four in its ability to impact the viewer, but I can't really say any of us enjoyed the movie.

A note for Traverse City merchants. All I hear is this incessant whining from you about how everyone goes to the mall instead of downtown. This four-day film festival was your chance to show off. You are blowing it big time. I mentioned we left our second movie early to find something to eat. Because we were downtown where the parking is a complete joke, we had ditched the vehicle in front of someone's house and were on foot. We had limited time, so that ruled out a regular sit-down restaurant. I had a minor with me which also ruled out most of the bars-with-food places. No problem; while walking from place to place, we noticed several small sandwich shops. Only one problem; they all close by 4PM. Lucky for us, there is a Subway tucked into Front Street, otherwise, we would have had to walk to the car, drive to some fast food place out on the highway, eat, drive back, repark the car, walk to where the movie was showing, most likely arriving late. This is one of the most-hyped things to happen in Traverse City since we moved here, and the local merchants didn't think it was important enough to stay open later. Nice move, idiots. And while Subway was open, the management there wasn't much smarter. There were only two people working, which meant they both were making subs as fast as possible, with no one to clean tables or restock anything. So we felt like we were literally in a New York subway trying to find a place clean enough to sit down and eat.

All I can say after spending over ten hours in downtown Traverse City is that a lot of businesses there seem to want to fail. And I will continue to shop at Meijers and WalMart, which at least are open hours other than the ones I work.

Tonight, we only have two movies on tap: The Baxter and Grizzly Man. I'll report on those tomorrow at some point. The problem is that it looks to be a very busy day tomorrow as well, with a lot of stuff going on. We want to hit everything, but that is not possible without violating physics. I will try to get something posted, but no guarantees.

From today on the web, another call to ditch the shuttle. This won't happen until NASA destroys the remaining orbiters in launch and/or landing failures. There is too much pork in the shuttle for Congress to ever kill it, and NASA's shuttle operations have become too entrenched. They will literally have to crash every last one of them with the full loss of the crew before anything changes.

From the part of NASA that still knows how to do things, we have more water on Mars. This time, it is a large frozen lake in a crater. It just keeps getting better and better. And the rovers are both still chugging along more than a year after they were supposed to die. NASA can do some things well.

Speaking of Europeans shedding their clothes, here is one for the weird file: a clothing-optional museum. If it's anything like a nude beach, it will mostly be an argument that clothing is a very good idea for the vast majority of the population.

And Vox takes on another touchy subject: why women treat their friends like crap. I can't claim vast personal experience here, because neither Debbie nor myself have friends (inside joke; please don't flood our blog with comments). Seriously, I see this mostly in the context of the office. Most women (not all) that I have worked with don't seem to understand how to get along with co-workers. Sure, guys argue constantly, but it almost never escalates to the level of personal attack. Any time I see two women in the office going at it, there is nothing but personal attacks. Every guy I have ever worked with is endlessly amused by this, and some will even throw gasoline on the fire by encouraging one (or both) sides to keep escalating. I have no explanation. It seems very illogical.

And that's all I have today.

Lots of good stuff over at Jerry Pournelle's place:

It seems that the flap over Microsoft data mining was the result of a mix up of what data would be collected for software activation and bug reports. Still, the whole activation scheme is nothing more than Microsoft going to the model of software rental rather than the one-time purchase of a software license. I could care less; I will be Microsoft-free by the end of this year. Uncle Bill can do whatever he wants.

An interesting quote:

How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.

A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities - but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.

Sir Winston Churchill (The River War, first edition, Vol. II, pages 248-50 (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1899).

And more on the politics of Global Warming and other scientific pursuits.

Today will be a short day at work and a long day of movies. Nestina, one of her friends, and I will be hitting the first full day of the Traverse City Film Festival. We will be seeing The Axe, Mondovino, My Summer of Love, and The Woodsman. All of them sound like they could be really good or really bad. I'll report on them tomorrow.

That's all I have time for right now.

Not much going on so today is just a linkfest:

Fred Reed reports on the Maribel Cuevas stupidity. It's called anarcho-tyranny. Look it up if you don't know what that means.

This is amazing. It isn't Photoshop, even though it looks like it. If you scroll all the way to the bottom, you see the trick. The image only works when viewed from eye level at a certain point. Of course, I'm sure he is breaking a dozen laws. We can't have random people drawing on government property with chalk.

And as one would expect, there is a lot of chatter about the shooting in London. Again, I'm not all that clear on what should have been done given recent events there. And, of course, the agendas are still very clear, even if the facts are not. In any case, you can read up on it here and here.

Vox Day seems to share my opinion of "law enforcement." Not that it will change anything as our course seems fixed by history, but it is nice to know that I'm not completely alone.

Microsoft is completely shameless. Hey Bill!! Up yours! :-)

There is an old joke about what you call 100 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean (a good start). This is no joke. What do you call a spammer beaten to a bloody pulp in his own apartment? A good start.

Kip over on A Stitch in Haste scored a hat trick plus one:

On "Consenting" versus "Submitting" to a search
AMT Liability to Explode in 2006
New Pope Has His Priorities Straight
New York Diabetics May Lose Privacy Rights

And that is all I have time for right now. I have to hit the road here pretty quick. I will probably post later tonight.

Another busy weekend. Thursday on the way home I got a flat tire. I was able to air it up enough to get home, but that meant I would at least be late to work if I made it at all. I needed an oil change anyway, so I had Nestina follow me into Kalkaska so I could dump the truck at the garage, then spent all day just running errands. We didn't get home until around 5pm. Nestina went to Traverse City for a couple hours with a friend and I called the soccer team about a scrimmage in August. That was pretty much the day.

Saturday, I hauled old lumber out of the garage and set it on fire. I managed to clear a decent-sized hole in the garage and got rid of most of the wood. There is still a pile left out by the fire ring, but I should be able to make that go away the next time I burn. It started raining just before dark, which always makes me feel better when there is a pile of hot coals in the fire ring.

Sunday, it rained most of the day, so Debbie and I stayed home in the morning and worked on indoor stuff. I think I have finally found and put covers on all the outlets in the basement. That doesn't sound like much of an accomplishment until you consider that the boxes are recessed into the cement block wall. Most are crooked, recessed too far for the screws to reach, have blobs of mortar blocking the screw holes, etc., etc. It usually takes about an hour or so to get each one situated. Also, several have gotten buried behind bookcases or file cabinets that have to be emptied and moved. But in any case, we are done. Sunday evening we did church and hung out with the teens at the pastor's house. We got home around 9:30 and everyone just chilled out until bedtime.

Random things from today's internet browsing:

Vox Day has an interesting proposal after the London police shot a Brazilian tourist on suspicion of terrorism. First, a few thoughts on the shooting. Were the police a little fast on the trigger? Under ordinary circumstances, yes. A couple days after the second bombing attack in as many weeks? The answer isn't so clear. I only know what I read, and much of what I read is contradictory, and most of the authors I have read show more concern for agenda over facts. But as a male, I have no issue with Vox's proposed policy. Unlike women, men have no problem deluding themselves into believing women want to see them naked when they are hairy, fat, forty, and bald.

And Bob Thompson offers his take on the terrorist/tourist shooting. There is great logic in the thought that two days after a bombing attack is not the time to run from the police. Maybe we just write this off as evolution in action. He is spot on with regards to our own anti-terrorism efforts. No matter what, no law enforcement officer must ever search young, Middle Eastern males carrying suspicious packages. Instead we strip search 80-year-old Catholic women.

And another one for the stupid file. Monty Python would never do a skit like this because satire has to be at least plausible to be funny. The best line: "One sympathizes with the reader from a non-legal point of view, but property rights often trump civil liberties. There is no human right to read." Only a lawyer could say something so stupid with a straight face, and only a modern J-school graduate could report it as serious news.

This article outlines the importance of basic research. Bell Labs used to be the R&D department for the human race, but we decided that .03/minute long distance was more important. De-regulation has certainly been an economic boom in the short term, but what are the long-term costs? Understand that I am libertarian enough to support the Bell break-up, but I also understand that the drive for short-term profit pretty much eliminates much of the answer-seeking described here. One of my co-workers once said that we could accomplish so much more for our organization if the ten biggest problems were posted on a wall. Everyone would be allowed to work on them individually, in small groups, on campus, off campus, at midnight, on Sunday, whatever. The problem is that management is about budgets and schedules and efficiency, and this route is sure to create a lot of dead ends and false starts that look very inefficient. But it can also offer brilliant solutions by bringing unique perspectives to the problem. Motorola used to be famous for allowing this sort of ad-hoc work, but I'm sure the shareholders have killed that. Microsoft and Apple also used to encourage it, and Apple still shows signs that such activity is allowed to some extent. As far as I can tell, it has been completely beaten out of Microsoft. Any my employer doesn't even allow us to work from home because we might not be really working. We could be doing all kinds of other things, like surfing the web or blogging.

(Doh!)

Ah well. In ten years, the Chinese will be have a permanent habitat on the moon. But I'm sure that will have no effect whatsoever on the US GDP.

Last night was youth group. I didn't teach this week, and started to wrap things up as far as Debbie and I being involved with the group. I expect to be out of things completely by the start of the school year. Maybe sooner.

I'm continuing to add and delete links. There are a couple blogs that may disappear if I don't see some activity. I know I sometimes go a week without a new post, but a couple haven't been touched since May. I'd rather keep a short list of active blogs than a long list of abandoned ones.

Anyway, from the daily skim of my contacts:

More indications that "law enforcement" officers are doing a great job of convincing the nation that the whole lot of them are morons. First, a meter maid is handcuffed for ticketing an illegally parked car. The police union rep has no immediate comment. Of course not. There is simply no excuse for this sort of stupidity. Next up, the Denver police are killing domestic dogs at a rate of about 3 a day. The dog's crime? Looking like a pit-bull. I understand the need to destroy vicious or dangerous dogs regardless of breed, but there is no such thing as a vicious breed for one, and second, there is no recognized breed called "pit-bull." So the Denver police are combing the city looking for and killing any dog with pit-bull-like markings. Undefined, of course; that way it is impossible for the police to make a mistake. If there is no objective standard, no one can be held accountable. Welcome to post-modernism. The last time I checked the FBI crime statistics back in 1999 or 2000, about half of all murders in the United States were unsolved. I would think the police would have better things to do than bust meter maids for doing their job and killing pets based on their appearance.

And on a more serious note, James Doohan died yesterday morning. Based on the above stories, all I can say is "Beam me up, Scotty. There is no intelligent life here."

Speaking of no intelligent life, Nestina is all done working for Avalanche Bay. It's a rather long story that I may go into later after I have an opportunity to talk to Nestina tonight. But this much I do know: right now I have a lot of doubts about my faith. One of the primary reasons is the attitudes and actions of individuals that claim to be Christians, including some in Calvary Baptist Church of Kalkaska. As of this moment, I am prepared to severe all ties immediately. That may change after I calm down, but probably not.

Explanation of Life

I just got this from one of Debbie's cousins:

On the first day God created the dog. God said, "Sit all day by the door of your house and bark at anyone who comes in or walks past. I will give you a life span of twenty years." The dog said, "That's too long to be barking. Give me ten years and I'll give you back the other ten."

So God agreed.

On the second day God created the monkey. God said, "Entertain people, do monkey tricks, make them laugh. I'll give you a twenty-year life span." The monkey said, "How boring, monkey tricks for twenty years? I don't think so. Dog gave you back ten, so that's what I'll do too, okay?"

And God agreed.

On the third day God created the cow. God said, "You must go to the field with the farmer all day long and suffer under the sun, have calves and give milk to support the farmer. I will give you a life span of sixty years." The cow said, "That's kind of a tough life you want me to live for sixty years. Let me have twenty and I'll give back the other forty."

And God agreed again.

On the forth day God created man. God said, "Eat, sleep, play, marry and enjoy your life. I'll give you twenty years." Man said, "What? Only twenty years! Tell you what, I'll take my twenty, and the forty the cow gave back and the ten the monkey gave back and the ten the dog gave back that makes eighty, okay?"

"Okay," said God, "You've got a deal."

So that is why the first twenty years we eat, sleep, play, and enjoy ourselves; for the next forty years, we slave in the sun to support our family; for the next ten years, we do monkey tricks to entertain the grandchildren; and for the last ten years, we sit on the front porch and bark at everyone.

Life has now been explained to you.

We had people over for dinner last night. Nestina had a friend over, and Debbie and I had asked over the other couple that works in Sr. High youth group to hash out a transition. I tried to cook steaks on the grill. Everyone said how great they were, but I thought they were tough. I don't have a lot of luck with steaks on our grill; the heat is too uneven for one thing. I should probably invest in lava rock and see if that spreads the heat more evenly. In any case, there was way more food than anyone could have eaten, so I guess it was OK. More importantly, I think the transition will be as smooth as transitions ever are. I've seen these done badly a number of times, and we are all trying as best as we can to not repeat history.

That obviously took up the entire evening, so there isn't much else to report.

I have been working with my links over on the right side of the page. If something disappears that you use or there is something you feel should be there that isn't, let me know.

Some items from skimming through my usual sources:

I know I sound like a broken record, but everyone needs to realize that school isn't about learning. Schools are a tool for union featherbedding and brainwashing children with whatever political views are held by the "leaders." If some knowledge happens to fall into a kid's head along the way, that's OK as long as it doesn't interfere with the indoctrination process. Now we have the Florida legislature equating a person's patriotism with the size of their flag. I wish I were making it up.

And another black smacks down black "culture." I'm sure if the schools recognize Ebonics as a legitimate language, it will fix everything in the black "community." It couldn't possibly be that the people living in black neighborhoods are just disfunctional.

On a lighter note, I have never seen clouds like this. They are called Mammatus clouds for the obvious reason. Here is an explanation of how they form.

And that is all I have for now.

Cleanup time: This is just a bunch of random stuff sitting in the queue.

Wearing a mask in public is not protected speech. Understand this guy was just walking down the street, minding his own business, while wearing a Grinch mask.

A judge decides parents cannot take their own child to the religious service of their choice. The most distressing part of this story is that most Christians would agree with the judges ruling and not have any clue as to why they should be vocally opposed to this.

I received this through back channels. I post it just in case people think I'm exaggerating how bad our schools have become. The name and location have been obscured to protect the intelligent from school administrators.

Hello. I am Khruv S, a high school sophomore from Riutoh, ZZ, whose school year just ended -- meaning that anything I write to you will not come back to haunt me until the end of August. I've been following your education discussions for about a year and a half now, and (perhaps unsurprisingly) many of the conclusions reached on your site were the same conclusions I came to during my freshman year.

For example, reading, writing and math seem de-emphasized, while science is gradually dumbed down for the hordes of students who enter ninth and tenth grade not knowing d=r*t or how cells divide. Some of this may seem like trivia, but there are many students I have spoken to who do not know the basics of evolution, can not explain cancer more than two months after the cancer unit has passed, and who have no concept of what science (repeatable, demonstrable) is or is not.

And that, sir, is from a GATE-level classroom. At Edison, one of the top 100 high schools nationwide (at least two years ago), there are about twice as many non-GATE or Prep students as there are GATE students, and these know far less. I have spoken with P students who have not read a book in their lives, who are stumped by basic algebra, and who have no knowledge of politics, government or history. Their grammar and spelling fall anywhere from middling to atrocious. Some of the teachers seem to have given up, while others do the best they can to teach classes full of 'students' who bring neither paper nor pencil to school. Many of the parents do not seem to care. And discipline is also an enormous problem; profanity and general rudeness is the rule rather than the exception.

(An aside: There is a running joke about how an observer can pick out P-students from a distance. They wear sports jerseys, have tiny backpacks or small sports bags, and swear a lot.)

In the meantime, teachers bend over backwards to fulfill 'the standards' and to teach what should have been taught before. I have one English teacher in mind as a prime example of this. We read two books and two Shakespeare plays in his class, one book/play per quarter. The rest of the time, we read stories of various types aloud in class. (! Isn't that for elementary school kids? Never mind; certain kids read very slowly, so this may have been necessary. Unfortunately.) During the entire school year, we did only three forty-minute essay-type writing assignments. On Thursdays the teacher brought out one of his old orange grammar books and retaught the basics."This is a noun/verb/apostrophe/semicolon." I lost interest in his class rather early in the school year; perhaps from my writing you can see why. But many other students liked his class. One of them said that he taught her 'a lot' that she hadn't really learned before. What he was doing ought to be taught in the third or fourth grade, not tenth. Am I missing something?

The smartest students are seeking out AP-classes to cover the loss. I switched to AP Biology midyear because we were repeating seventh grade science. (Many of my former classmates had forgotten the material, because the schools of today train students to have short-term memory. The math classes are going ballistic over this; students keep forgetting the basics over summer vacation.) Now three or four freshman want to take AP Bio as sophomores. Others are reaching out for AP English and AP European History. One or two take AP Psychology. Why? My guess is, they aren't being stimulated enough in their regular classes. This is No Child Left Behind, in all its macabre glory.

One last lament. The way certain schools are run has become ridiculous. My sister, a seventh grader, asked if she could paint out graffiti on her locker when the school was closed. The administrators kindly informed her that to do so would be a violation of the Janitors' Union or some such. And when debate started over soda machines, her middle school (Computech)replaced the soda machines with ice cream machines. Edison did the same, but replaced two machines instead of all of them. If this is an improvement, I must have missed it.

Thank you for listening. Part of this felt like a rant, but I thought you might be intrigued by a student's perspective.

Sincerely,
Khruv

New medical diagnosis: Power Point Disease. Everyone knows it isn't how much work you actually do, just how busy you can look while not really doing much.

Well, got to go. I will probably do more house cleaning later.

Last night, I attended another school board meeting. Kalkaska schools are considering adding soccer as a varsity sport. I had attended last month's meeting when it was initially proposed, and the resulting committee fact-finding meeting a couple weeks ago. Last night was the final decision to make it a varsity sport or not. I got to the meeting and there were cars everywhere. I couldn't believe it was all about soccer. I was right.

The fun started with some guy and his twenty-slide PowerPoint about a new student health service that would operate in the schools. It basically uses tax dollars to duplicate all the health services already available, only make them more convenient and free, thus guaranteeing over-utilization, leading to calls for expanding free services with more tax dollars, leading to more over-utilization, and so on. Economics 101, and everyone with a job gets to pay for it. After his 45-minute presentation, he had several members of the student and parent advisory boards get up and give their little speeches. Here, I have to go on a bit of a rant. Why do people do this fake question/answer format (ala Miss America) when you know the whole thing is scripted? Just let the person do their blah blah and get it over with.

Anyway, that little dog-and-pony show was followed by a question-and-answer period dominated by some woman asking over and over why the State of Michigan allows minors to seek certain medical services without parental consent. The guy presenting tried to explain about four different ways that teens can already get abortions, mental health counseling, birth control, etc. without a parent's knowledge or consent. Whether anyone agrees or not, that is already established law and has nothing to do with putting free medical services in the schools. In fact, abortion and abortion counseling were specifically excluded from these clinics.

In any case, another 15 minutes of my life dribbled away.

The next controversial item was the school board putting out bids for private contractors to do maintenance and janitorial services. This was the reason why most of the people were present. The union has already hired some down-state loud-mouth who insists that he isn't here to spread fear or propaganda, but if the school board out-sources janitorial services, the private company will immediately hire every sex offender in 100 miles and send them to clean the elementary school. Not that I think that contracting out the school janitorial and maintenance services is automatically a great idea, but this is just typical union fear-mongering, propaganda, and disinformation. There are very good reasons to not out-source, and concerns about the quality of the people who will be sent into the schools is certainly one of them. But you know when the first words out of this idiot's mouth was to pull out the number of registered sex offenders in Kalkaska county that facts will have nothing to do with this debate and inflammatory BS is what will rule the day.

Oh yea. Two hours later, soccer was voted in as a varsity sport with no discussion or comment. They will have to post the coaching positions internally for two weeks, then I can apply for them (I think; I'm not sure what the qualifications are other than "warm body"). Speaking of which, I forgot about the 15-minute rant from some guy that failed to get elected to the school board about how the board wasn't putting out enough effort to find the best-qualified candidate for basketball coach. Yea. Right. The school has lost a half-dozen teachers that I know of in the last year, with one new-hire and the school board is supposed to drop everything and go on a nation-wide search for the most qualified basketball coach. Sometimes, I think Kalkaska has just the schools it deserves.

In any case, I remember now why I got out of local politics years ago. I do have to give the school board credit for at least acting like they were dealing with intelligent adults. I would have been a lot harsher with several people.

Speaking of schools that don't teach, Ebonics is back. Why don't we just give the blacks a couple states. California and Massachusetts come to mind. All the whites leave, all the blacks move there. They can be completely autonomous provinces with their own language, culture, whatever. We can rename them Quebec II and Quebec III. I mean, having two nations inside one set of boarders has worked so well for Canada, why should we miss out on all the fun?

I ran across this one today. Once again, if the goal is to convince the nation that anyone who wears a badge is a complete assclown, then our "law enforcement" industry is doing a wonderful job. They have certainly convinced me. Every person involved in this "prosecution" should be chained spread-eagle to a wall and beaten in the nuts with a nightstick until they pass out.

The country I was born into is dead. I feel no loyalty whatsoever to the monstrosity that has replaced it.

And enough.

Another hot and humid day. Massive lines of thunderstorms are rolling through which triggered a Code Weather here at the hospital. During a Code Weather, we have to keep all drapes pulled on all windows, even in non-patient areas. So today, I am basically working in a cave. If I want to see any of the excitement, I have to walk to a window without drapes or blinds. It is supposed to reduce the risk of injury from flying glass or something. I figure if this building gets hit by high enough winds (or debris carried by said winds) to bust out the windows, flying glass will be the least of my concerns.

My favorite game growing up was chasing dust devils and running in front of them or just jumping inside and getting pushed around. The small ones (typical) were no big deal and did little more than mess up our hair. The larger ones (rare; at least in mid-Michigan) would knock us down and fill our eyes and mouths with dirt. It seems this wouldn't be a good move on Mars. The photo sequence from the Spirit rover is just too cool for words. I want to go!!

Vox Day has an interesting article, especially given recent ...er.... conversations here. The money quote: "What are the chances God's will for you is to sit numbly in your cubicle and mindlessly pay your taxes and your mortgage while you wait for the sweet release of death?" Interesting question. Vox also takes so-called Christians to task for putting more faith in George Bush than in God.

Then again, maybe they are on to something. My parents have a coffee cup that says "If Mom says no, ask Grandma" that was bought for them shortly after they became grandparents for the first time. Maybe Christian bookstores could carry one that says "If God says no, ask George Bush."

At that is all I have time for right now.