Hello again loyal readers. I hope everyone is doing well.
Today's post concerns a variety of topics and the thoughts I've had about them. None of the topics or thoughts is/are enough to fill an entire post, so I thought that I'd combine them.
First up is something I just read about in the EFF Effector newsletter. It would seem that late last week the US Senate passed a Cybercrime Treaty. The treaty would, ostensibly, bring US laws into line with other countries laws as they relate to things like hacking, copyright infringement, kiddie porn, and the like. Now that doesn't sound bad except that the treaty requires the US to help in enforcing other countries' laws here in the US. So if you do something online that violates another country's laws but isn't a crime here in the US, you could still be arrested for the crime and extradited to the country whose laws you broke. So much for US national sovereignty. It also doesn't bode well for this blog (or any blog that is critical of governmental actions). In theory, since I have been critical of China from time to time, and since Chinese law doesn't allow for the criticism of its government, I could be arrested and shipped to China to stand trial for exercising my (US) Constitutionally guaranteed right of free speech. Thanks alot guys! In one idiotic action you morons in the Senate have not only proven that you don't have the sheer intelligence necessary to run a complex government, but you've signed away everything that the people of this country have tried to preserve for the last 230 years. From now on, I think that an intelligence test should be part of the process for qualifying to run for public office. If you don't have an IQ of at least 150, you should be summarily disqualified from running. This would at least keep the morons we have now from gaining reelection and screwing up the country even more!
The second item concerns the recent BP announcement that a major oil pipeline in Alaska is going to be shutdown for repairs. According to BP, the pipeline has some corrosion issues and it will take several months to repair them. Now I like the fact that BP is being (somewhat) environmentally conscious and trying to keep the pipeline from rupturing and spilling oil all over Alaska. However, I have to question their timing for shutting down the pipeline. It is obvious that they had to know about the corrosion for sometime (as evidenced by their [BP's] statement that corrosion inside the pipeline had cause a few minor oil spills several months ago). So why, then, is it that BP waited until the price of oil was high before shutting down the pipeline? According to their own figures, BP estimates that shutting down this pipeline will decrease US supplies by 400000 barrels per day. The also estimate that it will drive the price of oil up by roughly $10 per barrel. So why then, when oil is in short supply and demand is at its highest (during the summer) would you turn off a major supply? Is it to drive oil (and gasoline) prices higher? What, you're not making enough money, is that it? Or do you just want to see gas top $4 per gallon? My advice to anyone who wants to get rich quick is start buying cornfields. I have a feeling that alcohol (for vehicular consumption) is about to become real popular, real quick. Just remember not to drink up all of your profits.
The third subject I want to address is the issue of preachers rewriting history to suit their religious agendas. It would seem that the guy I was taking care of (during my temporary work assignment) wanted to go to church. Since part of my job is to aid the consumer in fulfilling his spiritual needs/choices, I was obligated to take him to church. Knowing that I have a problem with organized religion, my girlfriend volunteered to help me out and invited me to attend her church. Her church is a very small non-denominational congregation. Since the service follows no set order that I can discern, I have taken to calling her church "disorganized religion". The Sunday that we attended was the Sunday closest to the 4th of July, so, of course, the preacher had a sermon concerning the direction that the US is heading. The sermon started out ok, with the usual admonition that this country needed to "return to God", but quickly deteriorated from there. The preacher launched into a tirade about how homosexuals were ruining this country and how they were child molesters. He also started ranting about how all of the journalists in this country were "secular humanists" and how the founding fathers would be turning over in their graves at the state of religion in the US because they were all good church-going folks. The sermon also contained other items like how George W Bush was the greatest and most righteous president since Lincoln, how the liberals in this country were destroying it, and how he (the preacher) now had a choice between paying for his car or paying for his Medicare part D. The tirade lasted for about 45 minutes. During this time I had no chance to respond to the preacher's errors and inaccuracies, so I sat there boiling mad. If there is one thing in this world I cannot stand, it is a preacher who deliberately lies and distorts the truth just to advance his agenda. Since I had no chance to respond to him then, I will respond to him here and now.
First of all preacher man, I have no problem with you call for people to go to church...if that is their choice. Religion and state were separated for good reason by the Founding Fathers. The reason that they separated the two was that they had seen what happens when religion is intertwined with government. They lived under a system (before independence) that excluded Catholics from holding governmental offices. They had read about the religious persecution conducted in England against Catholics, Puritans, and others by the king on behalf of the zealots who controlled the COE at the time. They also read about the persecutions conducted by the Puritans under Cromwell during England's time as a Commonwealth. All this weighed heavily on their minds as they set to separating church and state. As for your statements against homosexuals, well, everyone's entitled to their opinion no matter how uninformed it is. However, if you wish to argue facts, then I might refer you to any one of numerous studies that show that homosexuals are no more prone to molest children than heterosexuals. In fact, heterosexuals have been shown to be more prone to such molestation. You may be confused by the fact that, while most molesters are heterosexual, the acts that they commit tend to be homosexual in nature. Oh, and if anything is to blame for the downfall of this country, it isn't homosexuals, it is hate spewing demagogues like yourself. As for the Founding Fathers being good Christian folks, wrong. Most of the Founding Fathers considered themselves to be believers in God, but a great number of them fall into the category of "Secular Humanist". You know, the one you despise so much. The most notable of these secularists was Thomas Jefferson. You might remember him, he's the guy who wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, not to mention that he was the third president. He was more influenced by the works of Rousseau, Locke, Hobbs, and Voltaire than the Bible (you may want to note that Voltaire was an outspoken critic of religion, not the type of person you would call a "good Christian"). I guess the fact that this country was founded on what you would call "secular humanist" values is just another fact that you will choose to ignore in your future tirades because it doesn't fit your agenda. One last thing, your assertion that George W Bush is the greatest president since Lincoln just doesn't wash. Objectively, Bush is the worst president we've ever had. Prior to Bush, Buchanan was cited as being the worst because of his inability or unwillingness to address the growing issue of secession in the south prior to the start of the Civil War. Bush has far surpassed Buchanan in inability to form consensus among the people. In fact Bush has been more divisive, more power hungry, and more deceptive than any president in the history of this country. But, then again, these facts don't fit your agenda, so they will conveniently be ignored. As for Medicare part D's high cost making you unable to pay for your car, what did you expect? Welcome to the club preacher man, you just join millions of other working Americans who have been screwed over by the Republican led government, the same Republican led government that you so wholeheartedly support! My advice to you preacher man is to stick to the things you know, like religion and the Bible, and leave politics and history alone, otherwise you risk showing your ignorance of those subjects and you risk having someone like me point out that ignorance to you (and the rest of the world)!!
Well, that about wraps it up. As always, I am Chuck and this has been my rant.
Editor's Note: This post was revised @ 0419 hrs EDT on 9 AUG 06 to remove a section that could have been construed as a threat.
