Creepy internet image of the day.

Creepier if he was still holding the knife he used to carve it.

Notice that the rest of the family isn't in the picture. What’s up with that? …Oh yeah.

Cool video of the day.

It was impossible in Vacaville to keep up with the podcasts I usually listen to. Trust me, you don’t want to download a simple 11MB show over dial-up. So I figured I’d wait until I got back to Santa Cruz, and hopped back onto the high-speed. Man, a week’s worth of podcasts is a lot to catch up with.

One of the cool things is this video from RocketBoom. It’s of someone who went a little nuts with the Xmas lights this year. Very cool-looking… but it’s gotta annoy the neighbors. Download it here.

Update, 12/7/2024: Carson Williams of Mason, OH synced his house’s lights to Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s “Wizards in Winter,” and after the video went viral, TSO made it their official music video. So now you can watch it on YouTube. Or, of course, right here:

Back from Vacaville.

Vacaville was fun. Good food, good family. As I’ve said before, I don’t tend to rant when I’m on vacation because I’m enjoying myself too much.

I did avoid the Friday Xmas shopping, which most of the family decided to put up with anyway. So while they were out, I watched the news and some movies, ate leftovers, and polished off the rest of the pumpkin ice cream. Then the others showed up to eat leftovers too.

Saturday I came back so that I could go to church and do my part to keep the service going. With all the Bethany kids missing for Thanksgiving, I was also curious to see how much the service would shrink… but we actually had a decent turnout, and it’s nice to have Willy Snow back.

He preached today. I don’t know that I agree with his interpretations of Jesus’s parables; I’ve been studying them myself for my devotional blog (which I’ve also not been posting to). He made the common presumption that Jesus was speaking in code; fr’instance when “seed” means “the word of God” in one parable, it means “the word of God” in every parable. Thus, since in the parable of the seeder [Mt 13.3-9] “the birds of the air” represents the devil [Mt 13.19] if we follow the code, “the birds of the air” in the parable of the mustard seed [Mt 13.31-32] also represents the devil, which nests in the mustard tree’s branches. Thought-provoking; it’s quite true that when a church reaches a certain size, the devil tries to tempt its members to apathy. But I don’t know that this is what Jesus was trying to say in that parable. I think, rather, he was pointing out how a tiny plant from the herb garden can get big enough for birds to nest in it.

I’ll tell you though; I see plenty of apathy in small churches too. But that’s another rant.

𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 wasn’t the way to stop global warming.

Just some more evidence that causehead entertainers don’t know what the hell they’re doing.

Over the weekend I watched Earth to America, a celebrity-filled special on TBS about global warming. ’Twas another example that celebrities really don’t know what the hell they’re doing when it comes to big causes. They only know how to entertain, so in this special, they entertained. The song-and-dance number at the beginning of it was stupid; the stand-up comedians were funny; the actors did some announcing (except Tom Hanks, who also played guitar)… and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. came out to talk about how you, too, could get involved.

How? With a “virtual petition.” Hop on the internet and add your name to the bloody thing, and people will therefore know that you are against global warming. Even though you still drive a car that gets 12 miles per gallon, still use incandescent lights (and those ever-popular halogen torch lamps), run the heater whenever the temperature drops below 60° and the air conditioner whenever it’s above 80°. (And I won’t even talk about the overuse of Christmas lights.) Add to this that the special was taped in Las Vegas, a city that uses so much electricity that the sun becomes irrelevant. The irony wasn’t lost on a few of the comedians.

The reason it’s called a “virtual” petition is because it’s not a real one. And even real ones are worthless. Honestly, nobody cares that a lot of people have signed a petition for something… unless it actually carries political weight, like a recall petition or signatures to put a proposition on the ballot. I’ve covered many a government meeting where petitions were presented and subsequently ignored. Besides, everyone knows that talk is cheap. Internet talk is even cheaper. (Including, and perhaps especially, this blog.) So I’m not linking to it.

If celebrities actually want to do something against global warming, I would recommend a few things they could do. They have the money, so they can afford to do all these things. But they won’t, because they’re hypocrites.

1. If a Las Vegas hotel can’t show that its electrical output is decreasing every year, boycott it. Do no shows there. Don’t stay there, don’t go to events that are staged there, don’t even gamble there. And tell everyone why.
2. I don’t care that they drive expensive stretch Hummers; but they should customize every last car so that the engines get at least 45 miles per gallon. And carpool. It makes no sense to have your entourage follow in a caravan when your limo seats 12 comfortably, even in the hot tub.
3. I don’t care that they have giant houses. In fact, that makes it more effective to install solar panels on the roof. And if they get cold, wear sweaters, dangit. Bill Cosby shouldn’t be the only sweater-wearing celebrity in America.
4. Stop heating the pool. Move it indoors.
5. Stop using private planes. Part of the reason why the airline industry isn’t doing well is because too many rich people are switching to private planes. That’s the worst form of not carpooling. I don’t care if your precious schedule is inconvenienced; talk the airlines into more direct flights, and offer them more money to do it. They’ll accommodate you. (And what’s with the idiots who gave John Travolta his own personal 747?)
6. Stop using drugs. You realize how much energy it takes to produce a kilo of cocaine? And that all the money is going towards a drug lord who pollutes more than you do? (Notice how polluted their countries are.) Unless the drug lords cut down their own electrical and gas output, boycott them too.
7. Scientologists need to get audited less. E-meters use electricity, people.

Joking aside, one of the interesting bits in the special was where Triumph the Insult Comic Dog (really, Robert Smigel with a terrible French accent, with his hand up a rubber dog’s ass) interviewed a bunch of Republican congressmen who weren’t big on this global warming idea. They described it as questionable science. However, none of them being scientists, I think they perceive the difference between good science and bad science is that “good” science contributes a lot of money to their political campaigns, and “bad” science asks them to do inconvenient things without paying them to do anything. Or at least giving them a free vacation disguised as a symposium, like the pharmaceutical companies do.

Ever hear of Pascal’s Wager? It’s a bit of logic that Christians try to use on non-Christians, forgetting that humans aren’t logical:

• If God exists, and hell is for those who don’t follow him, then you should follow him.
• If God doesn’t exist, and there is no hell, then you don’t need to follow him.
• But since you don’t know for sure, it’s better to act as if God exists, since following him is a good way to live anyway. Because if you don’t, and you’re wrong, you’re going to hell.

I bring this up because I think these congressmen need a version of the Wager for global warming.

• If global warming exists, and chaos is the result of pollution, then you shouldn’t pollute.
• If global warming doesn’t exist, and there will be no chaos, then you can pollute.
• But since you don’t know for sure, it’s better to act as if it does, since not polluting is a good way to live anyway. Because if you pollute, and you’re wrong, there’s going to be chaos.

Since some of them think of themselves as Christians (which is odd, because Christians are required by God to take care of His planet) this argument might work on them. Or it might not, in which case they’ll realize how ineffective Pascal’s Wager is. It’s worth a shot.

Back in Vacaville.

I had no pressing responsibilities at school this week, so I went to Vacaville. May as well start Thanksgiving early.

This means, unfortunately, that I am back to using dial-up. Ah, dial-up, how I loathe thee… let me count the ways.

• Gmail has gone from being instantaneous to a thirty-second wait between screens.
• A five-minute podcast now takes 25 minutes to download. Forget about the half-hour ones.
• Oh, yeah, I started subscribing to a video podcast. The latest episode is available tomorrow. Guess how many hours that one’s gonna take?
• Forget using Skype, my internet phone service.
• Forget multitasking on the internet: Reading news sites while downloading news podcasts.
• The news sites likewise take 30 seconds. Unless I open more than one page at the same time. Then they’re longer.

All the minimal wait times that I used to ignore… now are multiplied by 50 or more. Dial-up sucks. Guess I’m going to the coffeehouse a lot this week.

But that is my only real complaint about being in Vacaville. Thanksgiving should be fun… except they’re talking about playing board games as part of the Thanksgiving entertainment. Games? A nice idea, but I expect to do what I usually do for Thanksgiving: After eating three desserts and telling the family and assorted guests what I’m thankful for, I get to sit in a big armchair and watch a few movies in a L-tryptophan-induced stupor. Oh well; maybe my brain will be active enough to answer a few low-intelligence trivia questions.

On freedom of speech... in the church.

Pastors should be able to talk politics without outside retribution. (Inside retribution is kind of up to you.)

“If Jesus debated Senator Kerry and President Bush” was the title of George Regas’s sermon on Oct. 31, 2004. I don’t care for the premise.

Both Kerry and Bush claim that Jesus is Lord. The idea that Jesus would debate them implies that Jesus is on the same level as they are, and that either Kerry or Bush could refute, critique, or oppose his comments. You have not accepted his Lordship if you tell him no. I think American Christians tend to forget what the title “Lord” means. Well, that got the mini-rant out of the way up front.

Regas is the rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, CA, and in his sermon he critiqued the then-presidential candidates two days before the election. As is his right as the shepherd of a church. Pastors should critique the wider culture we live in. I wish they would do it with as much fervor as they critique their Christian subculture… or that they’d even do it in the first place. In my experience, they either preach about the nature of God, or they exegete a passage and don’t bother to relevantly apply what they’ve learned to anything that’s currently happening. Regas’s sermon is a proper critique of the attitudes behind the candidates. True, he’s coming at it from the position of the Religious Left, but so what? The Religious Right has said worse… and said it with much less compassion.

I bring this up because the IRS is threatening the church’s tax-exempt status because of that sermon. Supposedly Regas endorsed Kerry in that sermon. I read it; I don’t see that he has. Most of Regas’s critiques have to do with the Iraq war and the fact that neither candidate discussed poverty in their elections. Regas is pro-choice, but if you consider that an endorsement for Kerry by default, then you’re a single-issue voter, and out of touch with reality by default. (Besides, though I don’t agree with all of Regas’s positions on abortion, I do agree in this: This nation’s poverty rate and its abortion rate are connected. If we do something to decrease one, it decreases the other. And it is much easier, and more Christian, to help the poor than to change people’s minds about abortion. Save the born children, not just the unborn.)

Churches preach on politics all the time, and pastors regularly endorse candidates in everything but the literal words, “Vote for [CANDIDATE] this Tuesday.” I say since freedom of speech and freedom of religion are in the same amendment, pastors should be able to say the literal words. If Regas thinks Jesus would vote for Kerry, he should be able to freely say so.

The argument is that pastors shouldn’t be able to do so because they unduly influence their congregations. This idea obviously comes from someone who doesn’t attend church. My pastor has been preaching on evangelism for the past month, and how many people showed up for the evangelism outreach last Saturday? Five. Including him. The rest, including everyone else (but one) involved in the church’s leadership, didn’t show; and some are actually grumbling that he’s been preaching about evangelism too much. If that’s their attitude about something that Jesus obviously makes a priority, does anyone seriously thinkthat a pastor’s interpretation of Jesus’s politics is going to sway anyone?

Well, the IRS does. And I hope this thing goes all the way to the Supreme Court, and the IRS’s gag rule on churches is declared unconstitutional.

Read the sermon yourself here. Listen to it here.

Stupid Internet Survey: Which revolutionary am I?

What Revolutionary Movement Leader Are You?

Nelson Mandela. You are Nelson Mandela. Your rise from prisoner to President in the long struggle against South African apartheid is an inspiration to the world. You prefer non-violent methods like boycotts, marches and other direct action, but you will use sabotage and other acts of violence when forced to do so.

What Revolutionary Movement Leader Are You?
created with MyYearbook.com.

Phooey. I was shooting for Gandhi. Oh well. Mandela’s not bad.