One of the reasons to use a blog rather than another format is that blogs naturally sort articles chronologically. And one of the reasons to create your own blog is so that you can post articles chronologically, even if the blog did not exist when they were written. So as promised I've begun adding some old writing of mine, back-dating it to its creation. I'm creating this post to indicate when I added it to this blog.

So, by order of controversy:

Lookin' Out My Back Door (2007)

"Barak Obama Exposed!" Exposed (2008)

Abortion (2003)



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Now, many of you who know me may know that I see gay marriage as legally vital to a free society, because denying basic liberties to any minority is unacceptable.

You may also know that I have been uncertain where this fits into a biblical framework, and while this does not bother me excessively (I'm not manning any pearly gates) it is still a bit unsettling.

So, I came across a rather interesting discussion on Catholic radio the other day.
The guest was saying that the mistake those opposing gay marriage make is in allowing those who are pro-gay to define the bounds of the discussion. She pointed out that if you accept the premise that marriage is about the happiness of the individuals, then it becomes difficult to argue that gay marriage should be illegal. However, if you back up a bit, and recognize that marriage is not about the happiness of the couple, but about the commitment to having and raising children, then her position for protecting heterosexual marriage becomes (in her view) inevitable. This is quite compelling.

But these things have a way of sticking in your mind, and the next morning I was mulling it over again and I realized that her new premise is invalid.

1 Corinthians 7: "¹Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good for a man not to marry. ²But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband. ³The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. ⁴The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. ⁵Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. ⁶I say this as a concession, not as a command. ⁷I wish that all men were as I am. But each man has his own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that."

So to summarize Paul: Want guilt-free sex? Get married.

I cannot imagine how that concession from Paul could not apply to homosexuals.

And I'd like to thank Catholic Radio for helping me resolve this properly.

Peace,
Changa

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I actually asked an astronomer once why he would say "approximately 2 light years," when he could've said "approximately 2 petameters" and have it be more universal -- a light year is not a universal measure since different countries use a different length of base time for the year. He said, "Oh, I've never heard anyone use that prefix on meters before."

...

It's the metric system people, you memorize 10 measures and 15 prefixes and you're good for life as a scientist. English majors only need 7 units and 5 prefixes. Shorter than the alphabet. Why don't they teach this in America schools yet?

And no, memorizing 25.4mm == 1" is not learning the metric system. And no, kids don't actually have to know even that to graduate high school.

I could memorize how many inches in a hand, hands per foot, feet per yard, yards per furlong, furlongs per mile, miles per knot, knots per league, leagues per light second, lights seconds per light minute, light minutes per AU, AUs per light year, and light years per parsec... (hint: none of those are powers of ten). Also, length is measured in inches, but width is measured in gauges?

But that's already as complex as the entire metric system, and I haven't even hit ounces yet! Quick, do I mean volume or weight?

Peace,
Changa

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I've been gathering articles about the Cordoba House community center being built in New York, NY, because there's been so much bile stirred up suddenly.

This article is a good intro: http://insideoutthebeltway.blogspot.com ... teurs.html

1. Bunch of Sufi Muslims want to build a community center in New York city to promote religious understanding and peace.

2. Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin notice that it's somewhat near the location of the WTC attacks, pretend this is relevant to use this to gain political traction for themselves by denouncing it. They claim if it were further away, perhaps another state, that would be more "tasteful."

3. Americans across the USA start muttering about whether Muslims should be allowed to build mosques, or whether religious freedom means we should force them to become Christian in order to keep their citizenship.

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/08/02/tex ... vandalized

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/08/09/te ... ound-zero/

4. Barack Husein Obama notices this crazy anti-freedom movement building momentum, and steps in with a truly noteworthy pro-freedom, anti-oppression speech. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/14/us/po ... ef=general

5. He notices that the bigots didn't like his speech, so he clarifies it by explaining that he actually didn't say anything at all, carry on. http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/ ... fense.html

6. Osama bin Ladin tacks up another tiny victory flag.

Here's to the many people who have been ranting against this Mosque, in the name of freedom, or in the name of "good taste." I know that y'all have never lived outside of the bubble that is the USA, so I try to forgive your fear based in ignorance. This is enough.

I DO know many Muslims, I HAVE lived where "they" control the government. They tend to be very annoying, like Southern Baptists or Mormons. They don't drink, they don't smoke, and they won't eat improperly prepared meat. They're basically identical to Jews to any outsider, down to their worship of the Jehovah of the Torah, missing the aspects of His character explained in the NT -- the same ignorant distortion of God that most "Christians" worship. He is not who the Old Testament leads you to think He is, and your guns and burnt offerings are not pleasing to Him.

Unless your cowardice would also lead you to advocate for the rounding up of all Jews and Hindus and Taoists, your arguments against Islam are incoherent. I won't allow any of them to control my government, and neither will I allow you.

I would far rather die free than live in the terror state your fear is creating all around me now. I wish that I could believe the same of you.

Peace,
Changa

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I see people beginning to blame Obama for the current economic downturn, and I wonder how much historic perspective those people have.

George H W Bush spent 4 years using a slip and clutch technique to try to get the economy to simply stop heading downhill. His success cannot be measured in economic growth, but rather in lack of economic shrinkage. He prevented America from failing in a truly dramatic way, and should be recognized as a great American leader for that success -- a success that cost him the presidency unfortunately.

Clinton took over with the economy no longer simply failing less quickly, but actually starting to succeed. He took that success, and he built on it. He turned welfare into work-fare, pushing more people into the worker pool than ever, while simultaneously helping businesses create more jobs for those new workers. America became recognized again as the world leader in hard work and production. He also built up the US military to unprecedented levels, having far more standing peacetime troops and equipment than any other president. He began the war on terrorism that has defined our military for the past 2 decades.

Then Clinton was termed out, and the American people rewarded Bush for the success they now realized he had allowed Clinton to bring, by electing his son. Bush Jr. spent 8 years alternately sitting on his thumb and sticking it in his ear, letting the well-oiled machine of American military and economics to run themselves without new filters or spark plugs. As is inevitable, there were breakdowns -- militarily in sept of 2001, economically in 2006. Bush responded in each case by running around like a chicken with his head cut off, getting a great deal of motion happening in no particular direction. Then he termed out, leaving two wars and a failing economy with incoherent policies to handle both -- "the Bush Doctrine."

Obama took over, running a slip-and-clutch triage at both ends, letting the economy fall in a controlled manner in order to stabilize, and slowing military action in order to hold ground rather than merely capture and then release it back to the terrorists. This is incredibly frustrating to watch, and it feels like he could be doing so much more to fix Bush's messes more quickly. I share the anger at the disaster all around us, and I too want to lash out at someone for allowing Bush to damage our country so much, but I think that that person is not Obama, it is ourselves.

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I have twice managed to pick up infections, the first time due to my actions, and quickly resolved by my antivirus. The second time though...

So, sometime about a year ago I inserted my flash drive into an infected computer and picked up a rather nasty virus. Yes, I know -- I've heard them all. Fortunately I had a solution on hand -- the antivirus on my laptop picked it up immediately, and I managed to track down and remove it from a computer I had infected and the original infected machine. No real harm done, just a nuisance.
But today I clicked on a link from a comment in a technology blog -- and clearly this indicates trouble, because what was I doing trusting a post in a comment? And it was also dumb because my whole reason for clicking was that I wasn't quite sure how the bot-generated fake comment related to the original topic. Still, to blame me is to ignore that this was arbitrary code that I in no way authorized, that took over my computer without any intervention from me. That is a broken operating system, without doubt.

But I digress.

I noticed the page taking a while to load, and the tab flashed a couple times--also a "java loading" splash screen had appeared, which I've never seen before, so I closed it quickly. I then got a little security notice down by my clock and immediately forced-off the power. Still, when I booted into safe mode, windows security popped up and told me I had no antivirus and I should install "them." And then another warning, and another. All fairly authentic looking, from a slight distance.

That's all it take to compromise my computer now? I'm genuinely amazed, and somewhat disappointed in Firefox and Vipre both. I'll be re-imaging my machine, and then scanning all my documents thoroughly. I'm also adding no-script to my standard extensions. And recommending Ubuntu to anyone who'll listen.

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Much like young boys who pee everywhere but the potty, Arizona's legislature has missed their mark again. Trying to prevent people from entering your state for work without addressing the supply of jobs and demand for paperless workers is like trying to pee without cheerios.

States that actually object to illegal immigrants coming in and taking jobs from citizens all have (and enforce) a law that fines employers $10K per employee per week for hiring someone without proof of ID and legal residency.

Anyone? Any one state?

No, that would bankrupt the many businesses that depend on paperless workers, endangering our entire economy. And admitting that would in turn imply that these paperless workers are actually in some way adding to our economy by doing work I wouldn't do for wages I wouldn't touch. So we can't admit that it's the businesses clamoring for these workers who are the largest part of the problem.

Far more practical: harass anyone who looks Mexican. And surely much more in line with what our founding fathers envisioned.

Peace,
Changa

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The definition of marriage varies widely across cultures.
If you're old-school-Mormon, it's multiple women, one man.
If you're southern African before the Christian massacres, it's also one man multiple women, except sometimes it was multiple women and no men at all. One of the women would be the "husband."
While in South American cultures there were men who would take on feminine roles.
Very ancient Greeks had multiple men in committed relationships, although the latter part of that period they would take wives and then just sleep around with men.
Meantime I know several people in open marriages, some of which are closed circle -- effectively polygamous marriages in small mixed gender groups.

The revisionist idea that marriage is normally between one man and one woman is naive at best, outright dishonest at worst. People are complicated, and so are their relationships.

Peace,
Changa

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