September 25, 2006
Very Brief Weekend Nonsense
Alright, I was wrong. Chavez didn't call the president the devil for a third time. But you know he was wanted to do it oh so badly!
As expected, I did indeed crack under the pressure of all that tasty anodized aluminum sleekness and ordered The Shuffle. I couldn't help myself--it's delicious, Jerry!
Quick movie notes: Born Into Brothels and Tsotsi are both very good. But very depressing. And in the case of Brothels, very, very real. I'm talking about the kind of really real that would make you happy to work at 7-11 for $10.50/hour, or whatever they're underpaying those folks these days. And do it with a huge, toothy grin from the time you start that shift until it ends. Dang, man. That's all I gots to say about that.
Dang.
As expected, I did indeed crack under the pressure of all that tasty anodized aluminum sleekness and ordered The Shuffle. I couldn't help myself--it's delicious, Jerry!
Quick movie notes: Born Into Brothels and Tsotsi are both very good. But very depressing. And in the case of Brothels, very, very real. I'm talking about the kind of really real that would make you happy to work at 7-11 for $10.50/hour, or whatever they're underpaying those folks these days. And do it with a huge, toothy grin from the time you start that shift until it ends. Dang, man. That's all I gots to say about that.
Dang.
// posted by wayne @ 9/25/2006 05:17:00 AM 
September 24, 2006
Well, Here Goes Nothing.
As most of you know, I am just about as conservative as you can get in this day and age. I don’t support elective abortion or gay marriage, but do support the death penalty for capitol offenses and think every single house should have at least 2 firearms on hand at all times. I'm a card-carrying Republican and I voted for George Bush--twice. To this day, I firmly believe that we should've dethroned Sadaam when Bush Senior was in office and I was in the Persian Gulf. There is, however, one sticky issue where I will always break ranks. This may surprise some of you, others not so much, but I am absolutely dumbfounded that alcohol is legal and pot is not. No, I’m not joking.
Pot is generally 100% natural, requires no special processing like fermentation or distillation, has myriad medical uses (outside the obvious recreational attributes) and not one soul has EVER overdosed on pot by itself. Go ahead--try to find a recorded, verifiable death caused by cannabis overdose. You won’t. What you may find is that people who are really high do very stupid things leading to a very untimely demise. The same can also be said of people on booze, prescription meds, other ‘recreational’ drugs, and even those BASE jumping idiots who are high on life. Yes, people, here in the really real world if you strap 100 Roman candles to your butt and roller skates to your feet in an ill-conceived effort to prove that Wile E. Coyote was actually an under-appreciated genius, then it doesn’t matter if you’re high as a kite or drunk as a skunk. You are probably going to die regardless.
Getting back on track here, cannabis could easily be grown by farmers who we’re currently subsidizing, thereby saving lots of tax dollars, while at the same time putting the American family farm back on the map. Then, we regulate and tax the crap out of it just like the hooch or a pack o' smokes. After a while, even the antis are happy to see loads of new tax dollars just waiting to be misappropriated!
I know what some of you must be thinking. "But Wayne, there is a reason Uncle Sugar is waging a war on drugs. It's because drugs are bad and drug dealers are even worse." True, and true. Drugs are bad. But then again, "drugs" covers a lot of territory. Heroin, meth, coke, crack, etc., etc. are all bad, but I just don't see pot as being in the same class. And, as we all know, anything is bad if you're an addict, and that is even true of food or sex. As for those drug dealers, when you get right down to it pushers today aren't any worse than the gangsters of the 20's during those good ol' days of prohibition. There's a reason they called it the "great experiment" folks and even back then, without the help of a single PC or the internet, they were smart enough to see that it was failing. Miserably. Crime rates skyrocketed as the drinking, and all that came with it, was driven underground and lost all hope of any proper regulation. Not that it really needed it, mind you, but I think I'd rather have the "revenuers" breaking my still than the local goons breaking my kneecaps if you know what I mean. So, in my loud-mouthed, internet raving opinion, this "war on drugs" is at best wasteful and misguided, and at worst it's exactly what we have today.
My solution is quite simple: legalize the pot and then regulate it, tax it and establish a legal "smoking age" of 21. Make it illegal to smoke and drive, ban smoking in the workplace, and transfer responsibility for federal law enforcement from DEA to ATF. I say we treat it just like the booze, even making it permissable to grow a predetermined amount for your own personal use--just like homebrewing beer. I'm sure the law enforcement folks have plenty to do without arresting good folks just for smokin' a bone in the privacy of their own home. If we're really lucky, we might even be able to curtail a large portion of the foreign stuff growers are constantly pumping into our country and start putting all that hot cashahol back into our pockets!
Mine may not be the most popular view; but this isn't a popularity contest and I think Uncle Sugar is missing a HUGE opportunity to more effectively utilize valuable law enforcement resources while increasing tax revenue. Strange, isn't it?. A person would think we could get bi-partisan support for making money off something people are going to continue to purchase anyway. I guess what pot really needs is a better PR agent and more lobbyists.
Pot is generally 100% natural, requires no special processing like fermentation or distillation, has myriad medical uses (outside the obvious recreational attributes) and not one soul has EVER overdosed on pot by itself. Go ahead--try to find a recorded, verifiable death caused by cannabis overdose. You won’t. What you may find is that people who are really high do very stupid things leading to a very untimely demise. The same can also be said of people on booze, prescription meds, other ‘recreational’ drugs, and even those BASE jumping idiots who are high on life. Yes, people, here in the really real world if you strap 100 Roman candles to your butt and roller skates to your feet in an ill-conceived effort to prove that Wile E. Coyote was actually an under-appreciated genius, then it doesn’t matter if you’re high as a kite or drunk as a skunk. You are probably going to die regardless.
Getting back on track here, cannabis could easily be grown by farmers who we’re currently subsidizing, thereby saving lots of tax dollars, while at the same time putting the American family farm back on the map. Then, we regulate and tax the crap out of it just like the hooch or a pack o' smokes. After a while, even the antis are happy to see loads of new tax dollars just waiting to be misappropriated!
I know what some of you must be thinking. "But Wayne, there is a reason Uncle Sugar is waging a war on drugs. It's because drugs are bad and drug dealers are even worse." True, and true. Drugs are bad. But then again, "drugs" covers a lot of territory. Heroin, meth, coke, crack, etc., etc. are all bad, but I just don't see pot as being in the same class. And, as we all know, anything is bad if you're an addict, and that is even true of food or sex. As for those drug dealers, when you get right down to it pushers today aren't any worse than the gangsters of the 20's during those good ol' days of prohibition. There's a reason they called it the "great experiment" folks and even back then, without the help of a single PC or the internet, they were smart enough to see that it was failing. Miserably. Crime rates skyrocketed as the drinking, and all that came with it, was driven underground and lost all hope of any proper regulation. Not that it really needed it, mind you, but I think I'd rather have the "revenuers" breaking my still than the local goons breaking my kneecaps if you know what I mean. So, in my loud-mouthed, internet raving opinion, this "war on drugs" is at best wasteful and misguided, and at worst it's exactly what we have today.
My solution is quite simple: legalize the pot and then regulate it, tax it and establish a legal "smoking age" of 21. Make it illegal to smoke and drive, ban smoking in the workplace, and transfer responsibility for federal law enforcement from DEA to ATF. I say we treat it just like the booze, even making it permissable to grow a predetermined amount for your own personal use--just like homebrewing beer. I'm sure the law enforcement folks have plenty to do without arresting good folks just for smokin' a bone in the privacy of their own home. If we're really lucky, we might even be able to curtail a large portion of the foreign stuff growers are constantly pumping into our country and start putting all that hot cashahol back into our pockets!
Mine may not be the most popular view; but this isn't a popularity contest and I think Uncle Sugar is missing a HUGE opportunity to more effectively utilize valuable law enforcement resources while increasing tax revenue. Strange, isn't it?. A person would think we could get bi-partisan support for making money off something people are going to continue to purchase anyway. I guess what pot really needs is a better PR agent and more lobbyists.
// posted by wayne @ 9/24/2006 03:51:00 AM
September 21, 2006
I've figured it out!
Remember when Chavez was hangin' with Castro last month? I guarantee you Castro made him a bet that he couldn't come to the US and call Bush the devil 3 times! That has to be it. Which, of course, means there is one more coming.
Mark my words, people.
Mark my words, people.
// posted by wayne @ 9/21/2006 09:56:00 PM
The Devil Stole My iPod.
My, my, my, what a lot has happened since last we spoke. I guess I'll start at the beginning (always a good place) and bring you right around to today.
The first week of September was VACATION TIME! Yes indeed, we survived another bout of the summer doldrums which always end with vacation time. Where did we go, you ask? Simple--nowhere. We had plans to visit the new baby niece and make some pro-quality photos but that was cancelled at the absolute last minute. Since that was our only real plan, we just took it easy. And I mean easy. I only made it to the range once, which is almost shameful to admit in public, and the rest of the time was spent on The Workbench. Planning, purchasing and building, to be exact, and now that it's 99% done we have an 8' x 37" work surface that is probably the most solid, plumb level and square thing I have ever built. Aimee did all the original leg work, then I designed a custom size that fit our needs, borrowing from two sets of plans found on the internet. Perhaps when it is 100% finished, I'll even take a few quick snapshots for you.
Something else was happening while I was on vacation, but it occurred at work. Now I don't usually blog about work for obvious (and sometimes not-so-obvious) reasons, but this one is a doozy and literally brings to fruition just over 3 years of serious planning. Well, almost 7 years if you go all the way back to the very first time we spoke of this at the staff meetings. While I was on vacation our little helpdesk rolled out our new call-logging software. It is truly the end of an era. We had been using Expert Advisor since I've been on the desk, but as of 00:01 on 5 September we've been using Remedy! Remedy is pretty much industry standard, or so we were told, and it isn't a bad program but it is 100% different than our trusty EA--in every respect. I heard the first week was quite the trial, but it's (or actually we're) getting a bit better each day and I genuinely believe it will eventually seem just like we'd been using it all along.
The week after that was pretty ho-hum, all things considered. But the really real deal was last weekend. Sunday, to be exact. We drove down to Arlington, TX to see Aimee's "favorite band of all time": Massive Attack! Yeah, boiiiiiieeee. Sunday we drove down, checked into the hotel, went to the show, crashed at said hotel then drove home Monday. I even took the day off work, which is something I told Jason I wouldn't do until Iron Maiden got back together. (Little did I know they've been back together for more than a few years now.) We didn't initially plan on taking Monday off, but it made more sense to do that than to get up at some ungodly hour, drive like maniacs, then spend 9 or so hours at work. No thanks. We took it nice and easy on the way home, stopped where we wanted when we wanted and got home in enough time for me to get the oil changed in the truck, get a tire plugged and pick up a scrip at the Walgreens. But about the show: it was every bit as good as anything I've seen, even though MA is Aimee's band more so than mine. If you haven't heard them, they're kind of like...well you can't really say what they're like. It's practically impossible to categorize. Sometimes they're a bit raggae, others there a bit electronica. Sometimes a bit techno (and even that's not 100% correct) and sometimes a bit chill. Their stage set was pretty sweet, consisting of two full drum kits, a guitar player, bass player, full-time keyboard player, 4 different vocalists and more sample pads and electronics than you could count. Which makes me very happy. There's nothing worse than going to see a band, and you get 3 dorks posing on stage with microphones. And nothing else. The absolute best part of the show? Aimee got to see her favorite band. Doesn't sound like that, in and of itself, would be the high point of the night, but think about it this way: MA has been around in one form or another since the mid-eighties, but when was the last time you heard of them? They don't usually do a US tour so to be honest we got lucky on this one, simply because they were in NYC (which really means "in the states") working on their new album. Sure, Arlington is a long shot from the NYC, but I will not complain about this at all given that we genuinely thought we were going to have to fly to Bristol to ever be able to see them. I tried to get some pics, but they were mostly...uh...not so good. They weren't allowing flash photos, and since they were NEVER lit by regular spots, I had to rely on ambient stage lighting and it didn't really work out. All in all, a very good show and you should've been there.
***
And in world news, it would seem the devil is alive and well--and is called George Bush! Or so the Venezuelans would have you believe. I tell you what, I seriously don't know what is up with Senor Chavez but I'm betting at some point in his life his head was cracked open, they scooped out his brains and filled the void with dryer lint. For him to get up in front of the generally assembly (whom I like to think of as "the gasworks") and call my boy "the devil" is practically begging for a tactical nuke. Not because I'm upset that he called my president the devil, but because the boy is quite obviously off his nut and they're just a bit too close for that kind of rhetoric. Seriously. They're right there at the bottom of the Gulf and if the Cubans can make it to Floridia in a Bel-Aire, who knows what a motivated idiot like Chavez could pull off with a couple commandeered cruise ships. And don't even get me started on Iran's head nutjob. There is not a single word coming from his mouth I'm going to believe. Unless, of course, he happens to stand up one day and say "Hello, my name is Mahmoud, and my dreams are to climb Everest, swim the English channel and build a nuclear program so I can destroy Israel. Then, I'm going to try my best to get a suitcase bomb into the US". Right now, all I hear is "I'm lying, lying, telling lies and more lies upon lies upon deceit." That the world community isn't united in trying to get this guy out of power is beyond my comprehension. Do Russia and China really believe that a nuclear Iran is a good thing in any way--aside from the money they'll make? Do they really think they can come away from that squeeky clean? As far as I'm concerned, Iran with a nuke is a danger to any country that isn't Iran. See? You got me started!
And finally for tonight, I think I have finally been assimilated. Yes folks, I'm considering the purchase of an iPod. But don't tell my MD player. Jason hipped me today to the new and oh-so-friggin'-sweet iPod shuffle. If you haven't seen it yet, you need to get right over to www.apple.com and check it out. I think I actually felt a tear at the corner of my eye while gazing upon its beauty earlier tonight. That thing is ridiculously sweet. I can't get over it and that is something I never thought I'd be saying about any Apple product. But, in my defense, it is anodized aluminum (which is always dead sexy) about the size of a match book (or the small posty note, for my fellow office geeks) and carries a full gig of your favorites! Un-(insert your own expletive here)-believable. I don't know if I can wait 'til October. Well I guess I have to, because I will definitely be ordering it from Apple so I can get the free laser engraving--which will of course read "brazenly stolen from wayne w." I figure if you can get it from me, you deserve a trophy!
The first week of September was VACATION TIME! Yes indeed, we survived another bout of the summer doldrums which always end with vacation time. Where did we go, you ask? Simple--nowhere. We had plans to visit the new baby niece and make some pro-quality photos but that was cancelled at the absolute last minute. Since that was our only real plan, we just took it easy. And I mean easy. I only made it to the range once, which is almost shameful to admit in public, and the rest of the time was spent on The Workbench. Planning, purchasing and building, to be exact, and now that it's 99% done we have an 8' x 37" work surface that is probably the most solid, plumb level and square thing I have ever built. Aimee did all the original leg work, then I designed a custom size that fit our needs, borrowing from two sets of plans found on the internet. Perhaps when it is 100% finished, I'll even take a few quick snapshots for you.
Something else was happening while I was on vacation, but it occurred at work. Now I don't usually blog about work for obvious (and sometimes not-so-obvious) reasons, but this one is a doozy and literally brings to fruition just over 3 years of serious planning. Well, almost 7 years if you go all the way back to the very first time we spoke of this at the staff meetings. While I was on vacation our little helpdesk rolled out our new call-logging software. It is truly the end of an era. We had been using Expert Advisor since I've been on the desk, but as of 00:01 on 5 September we've been using Remedy! Remedy is pretty much industry standard, or so we were told, and it isn't a bad program but it is 100% different than our trusty EA--in every respect. I heard the first week was quite the trial, but it's (or actually we're) getting a bit better each day and I genuinely believe it will eventually seem just like we'd been using it all along.
The week after that was pretty ho-hum, all things considered. But the really real deal was last weekend. Sunday, to be exact. We drove down to Arlington, TX to see Aimee's "favorite band of all time": Massive Attack! Yeah, boiiiiiieeee. Sunday we drove down, checked into the hotel, went to the show, crashed at said hotel then drove home Monday. I even took the day off work, which is something I told Jason I wouldn't do until Iron Maiden got back together. (Little did I know they've been back together for more than a few years now.) We didn't initially plan on taking Monday off, but it made more sense to do that than to get up at some ungodly hour, drive like maniacs, then spend 9 or so hours at work. No thanks. We took it nice and easy on the way home, stopped where we wanted when we wanted and got home in enough time for me to get the oil changed in the truck, get a tire plugged and pick up a scrip at the Walgreens. But about the show: it was every bit as good as anything I've seen, even though MA is Aimee's band more so than mine. If you haven't heard them, they're kind of like...well you can't really say what they're like. It's practically impossible to categorize. Sometimes they're a bit raggae, others there a bit electronica. Sometimes a bit techno (and even that's not 100% correct) and sometimes a bit chill. Their stage set was pretty sweet, consisting of two full drum kits, a guitar player, bass player, full-time keyboard player, 4 different vocalists and more sample pads and electronics than you could count. Which makes me very happy. There's nothing worse than going to see a band, and you get 3 dorks posing on stage with microphones. And nothing else. The absolute best part of the show? Aimee got to see her favorite band. Doesn't sound like that, in and of itself, would be the high point of the night, but think about it this way: MA has been around in one form or another since the mid-eighties, but when was the last time you heard of them? They don't usually do a US tour so to be honest we got lucky on this one, simply because they were in NYC (which really means "in the states") working on their new album. Sure, Arlington is a long shot from the NYC, but I will not complain about this at all given that we genuinely thought we were going to have to fly to Bristol to ever be able to see them. I tried to get some pics, but they were mostly...uh...not so good. They weren't allowing flash photos, and since they were NEVER lit by regular spots, I had to rely on ambient stage lighting and it didn't really work out. All in all, a very good show and you should've been there.
***
And in world news, it would seem the devil is alive and well--and is called George Bush! Or so the Venezuelans would have you believe. I tell you what, I seriously don't know what is up with Senor Chavez but I'm betting at some point in his life his head was cracked open, they scooped out his brains and filled the void with dryer lint. For him to get up in front of the generally assembly (whom I like to think of as "the gasworks") and call my boy "the devil" is practically begging for a tactical nuke. Not because I'm upset that he called my president the devil, but because the boy is quite obviously off his nut and they're just a bit too close for that kind of rhetoric. Seriously. They're right there at the bottom of the Gulf and if the Cubans can make it to Floridia in a Bel-Aire, who knows what a motivated idiot like Chavez could pull off with a couple commandeered cruise ships. And don't even get me started on Iran's head nutjob. There is not a single word coming from his mouth I'm going to believe. Unless, of course, he happens to stand up one day and say "Hello, my name is Mahmoud, and my dreams are to climb Everest, swim the English channel and build a nuclear program so I can destroy Israel. Then, I'm going to try my best to get a suitcase bomb into the US". Right now, all I hear is "I'm lying, lying, telling lies and more lies upon lies upon deceit." That the world community isn't united in trying to get this guy out of power is beyond my comprehension. Do Russia and China really believe that a nuclear Iran is a good thing in any way--aside from the money they'll make? Do they really think they can come away from that squeeky clean? As far as I'm concerned, Iran with a nuke is a danger to any country that isn't Iran. See? You got me started!
And finally for tonight, I think I have finally been assimilated. Yes folks, I'm considering the purchase of an iPod. But don't tell my MD player. Jason hipped me today to the new and oh-so-friggin'-sweet iPod shuffle. If you haven't seen it yet, you need to get right over to www.apple.com and check it out. I think I actually felt a tear at the corner of my eye while gazing upon its beauty earlier tonight. That thing is ridiculously sweet. I can't get over it and that is something I never thought I'd be saying about any Apple product. But, in my defense, it is anodized aluminum (which is always dead sexy) about the size of a match book (or the small posty note, for my fellow office geeks) and carries a full gig of your favorites! Un-(insert your own expletive here)-believable. I don't know if I can wait 'til October. Well I guess I have to, because I will definitely be ordering it from Apple so I can get the free laser engraving--which will of course read "brazenly stolen from wayne w." I figure if you can get it from me, you deserve a trophy!
// posted by wayne @ 9/21/2006 01:23:00 AM
September 01, 2006
Liars and Racists and Bigots, Oh My!
Now didn't I say there was something wrong with Mark Karr? I knew that boy was off the first time I saw him. And could someone please tell me what happened to the charges the Thai government was supposed to bring? Think back to when they first started talking about this guy. Remember? He was going to be charged by the Thai officials with some type of deviant sexual behavior. Mysteriously, those charges disappeared once Uncle Sugar became involved. Which means one of two things. Either this cat is genuinely certifiable and should be tucked safely away in the nut hatch, or he is the smoothest operator since D.B. Cooper. Think about it: he was most likely facing the kind of prison time that would make sane people swim through shark infested waters wearing chum underpants if given the choice between the two, but this guy managed to get Uncle Sugar to pay for a first class ticket on a big ol' jet airplane back to the land of the free and the home of the Whopper. And what is he going to get for all this hullabaloo? Misdemeanor kiddie-porn charges in Kali. I always thought The People's Republic of Kalifornia provided grants to those people because they are a "minority" and as such qualify for all kinds of aid. Well, maybe not, but let's just say the possibility of him ever seeing a Thai prison are long gone. And all he had to do was say "I did it!" But (he asked with a puzzled expression) why did he send years and years worth of stuff to that Colorado author/professor guy? Surely he could not have planned this all along. Or could he? He's the only one who knows for sure, and I'm guessing he's not going to be sharing anytime soon.
Well, that covers the Liars portion of our show, so let's talk about the racists and bigots for a minute. I saw a pretty extensive piece on that Warren Jeffs character and alls I gots to say is that he is the reason polygamy is illegal in the first place. The level of abuse and mind control required to convince young women that they should ignore men their own age and shack up some 'elder' who already has 7 other wives and 40 kids must be staggering. It would have to be on a level you could call systematic and, according to the report, I would say even ritualistic. They played an audio clip of one of this guy's 'sermons' and I was honestly taken back just a bit. The crap this guy was spewing was the kind of racial hatred and bigotry you'd expect to hear at a Klan meeting, only without the southern drawl. The report went on to say that their group (keep in mind this group is around 10000 strong) would routinely run off the young men so the women wouldn't have any other marriage options. The piece wrapped with footage of the reporter trying to get statements from the members of his community and church. No one would even acknowledge the reporter was there, let alone talk with him. In fact, a sheriff's deputy showed up and threatened to cite the news crew for soliciting if they didn't pack up the camera gear and leave. Rumors abound that the sheriff's office is essentially Jeffs' personal security force, and I'm inclined to believe that--given the amount of time he was able to stay 'on the lamb'. It's relatively easy to stay out of jail if the local law enforcement isn't looking for you, now isn't it? Granted, he wasn't in his home town the whole time, but it's fairly obvious he popped in from time to time.. The thing that really burns my biscuits about this whole sordid mess is that these people are so loyal to him that they will probably continue to obey his commands, even from prison. Unless, of course, someone even worse stages a hostile takeover and runs him out of town, Metaphorically speaking, that is. Actually, that's not the sole point cooking my grits. The real sticking point is that he was using God as an excuse for all of his crap. Don't get me wrong, I fully understand that some of the greatest injustices ever committed were undertaken by those who believed they were acting in the name of God. But I think if you really do your homework, you'll find these people were almost always acting on their own behalf because they have either misunderstood or blatantly twisted the Scripture for their own benefit, and I see this case as no different. But if you look on the other side of that coin, you'll see that some of the most caring, compassionate and selfless acts have been undertaken by those genuinely working in the Spirit.
On a completely different and entirely unrelated note, how about that gold-plated baby turd? I've heard of bronzing the kid's first walking shoes, but that is just too dang far.
Too tacky? Oh well, you pays your nickel, you takes your chances.
Well, that covers the Liars portion of our show, so let's talk about the racists and bigots for a minute. I saw a pretty extensive piece on that Warren Jeffs character and alls I gots to say is that he is the reason polygamy is illegal in the first place. The level of abuse and mind control required to convince young women that they should ignore men their own age and shack up some 'elder' who already has 7 other wives and 40 kids must be staggering. It would have to be on a level you could call systematic and, according to the report, I would say even ritualistic. They played an audio clip of one of this guy's 'sermons' and I was honestly taken back just a bit. The crap this guy was spewing was the kind of racial hatred and bigotry you'd expect to hear at a Klan meeting, only without the southern drawl. The report went on to say that their group (keep in mind this group is around 10000 strong) would routinely run off the young men so the women wouldn't have any other marriage options. The piece wrapped with footage of the reporter trying to get statements from the members of his community and church. No one would even acknowledge the reporter was there, let alone talk with him. In fact, a sheriff's deputy showed up and threatened to cite the news crew for soliciting if they didn't pack up the camera gear and leave. Rumors abound that the sheriff's office is essentially Jeffs' personal security force, and I'm inclined to believe that--given the amount of time he was able to stay 'on the lamb'. It's relatively easy to stay out of jail if the local law enforcement isn't looking for you, now isn't it? Granted, he wasn't in his home town the whole time, but it's fairly obvious he popped in from time to time.. The thing that really burns my biscuits about this whole sordid mess is that these people are so loyal to him that they will probably continue to obey his commands, even from prison. Unless, of course, someone even worse stages a hostile takeover and runs him out of town, Metaphorically speaking, that is. Actually, that's not the sole point cooking my grits. The real sticking point is that he was using God as an excuse for all of his crap. Don't get me wrong, I fully understand that some of the greatest injustices ever committed were undertaken by those who believed they were acting in the name of God. But I think if you really do your homework, you'll find these people were almost always acting on their own behalf because they have either misunderstood or blatantly twisted the Scripture for their own benefit, and I see this case as no different. But if you look on the other side of that coin, you'll see that some of the most caring, compassionate and selfless acts have been undertaken by those genuinely working in the Spirit.
On a completely different and entirely unrelated note, how about that gold-plated baby turd? I've heard of bronzing the kid's first walking shoes, but that is just too dang far.
Too tacky? Oh well, you pays your nickel, you takes your chances.
// posted by wayne @ 9/01/2006 03:15:00 AM
