Laughing last, laughing best

Eternal Earth-Bound Pets is an atheist-operated business that will rescue and adopt ("save") the pets of those who are called to heaven during the Rapture. They charge $135 for the first pet and $20 for each additional pet. And the best part is, all sales are final and no refunds honored, for any reason. From their web site:

"If subscriber loses his/her faith and/or the Rapture occurs and subscriber is not Raptured (aka is 'left behind') EE-BP disclaims any liability; no refund will be tendered."

Wait, I was wrong. The best part is, they already have 259 clients, which means they've made at least $35,000. I'm sure they'll sucker--I mean, comfort--plenty more between now and Saturday May 21st, the latest alleged Doomsday.

From the AFP article via Yahoo News:

When judgment day happens, Eternal Earth-Bound Pets co-founder Bart Centre "will notify all of our rescuers to go into action and they will drive to the homes of anyone who's signed a contract with us, pick up their pets and take them home and adopt them as their own, keeping them happy and healthy for the rest of their lives.

"This will happen only if and when the Rapture happens. So we do not expect to have to do anything on Saturday," Centre told AFP.

I can't stop laughing about this.

The Fire of Time

T.D. Mischke expresses his ambivalence towards humanity in his latest column for City Pages.

Over one billion people are expected to vote [for the Seven Great Wonders of the Natural World], and they say not a single one will be opting for my candidate.

The global poll to determine the seven natural wonders of the world is underway—seven natural wonders to go alongside the seven manmade wonders. The finalists include the Amazon rain forest, the Dead Sea, Mount Kilimanjaro, and Ecuador's Galapagos Islands. Millions have weighed in already, online and by phone. But they tell me my vote has been wasted because my candidate was never nominated...

I nominate you, the creature I see out my car window shuffling past the convenience store, picking the quarter off the sidewalk. You with the fanny pack emerging from Walmart with your lawn ornament.

I nominate myself and my brethren—we the people. I nominate us as the greatest wonder of the natural world. We've only been around 200,000 years, yet look at us. We're something to write home about.

Mountains, trees, and waterways are sites to ponder, but what subject dominates bookshelves everywhere? Human life, that's what. We're not just standing there looking pretty. We're on the move. We're going places. The ancient Egyptians were something, but the ancient Greeks were better. And I like Martin Luther as much as the next guy, but have you read Ken Wilber?

Yes, we rape and torture, but it only makes the Minnesota Orchestra all the more startling. We have the dark and the light in us like nothing this universe has ever seen. Even night and day don't have such stark alter egos. Night is as sweet and soulful as any summer afternoon. Our dark side, however, is too horrific to fully comprehend (see Nanking, 1937). So when we walk on the moon and build the St. Paul Cathedral, there is every reason to ask, who the hell are these freaks?

We are the world's greatest show, for better and for worse. We offer jaw-dropping surprises when you least expect it. When the savagery of South Africa's apartheid leaves you ashamed and aching for that isolated cabin in the woods, along comes the staggeringly mature civility of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and damned if we don't outdo ourselves again.

We can vomit on a park bench holding a cheap bottle of brandy and give our lives to save a child we've never met. We can stand with our shirt half untucked, needing a shave, smelling of old cigarettes, and deliver a sentiment that cracks open a steel heart. Our capacity for love is boundless, but we can die moaning of some half-cent sales-tax increase.

What else touches our depravity and nobility? What else comes near our fascinating complexity? We are dust, and we are gods, peerless in our paradox.

|Humankind snubbed on Seven Wonders of the World List (hyperlinks omitted)|

I've been reading the Tao of Physics lately and Mischke's article makes me think about the yin and yang and how several schools of eastern spirituality believe that all people possess light and darkness in their souls, the yin and yang.

So very different from the Christian conception that we're born with the corruption of "original sin" and have to be baptisized, only to later struggle with "sin" our entire lives.

I prefer to think everyone has the potential for light and darkness within them.

Deep thought

It takes someone as shallow as Matt Taibbi to make Terry Eagleton look deep.

Adding: I was going to just do a short post about the fact that Taibbi doesn't seem to know the difference between atheism and agnosticism, but having read his post on the topic, it's clear that this is but one of many, many, many, many distinctions that Taibbi can't be bothered to understand.

And, to answer Taibbi's question about Eagleton's use of the phrase a priori, he used it there because it was fundamental to his argument. To miss this, and then go on to write, "As for the actual argument..." is to reveal yourself to be an ignorant fool.

Sunday worship

Item: Hand of God for sale. Key quote: "The purpose is to spread the story of God and eBay is just a vehicle." -- Paul Grayheck, who says this formation resulted from a Lenten rockfall in his backyard:


The terms of the sale look to be the same that Aaron set for the bush before selling it to Moses:

However, the winning bidder on eBay should not start clearing out his backyard. Grayhek is not planning to part with the formation.

The buyer will "basically be buying the rights, complete and exclusive rights" to the rock, including literary and movie rights, according to Grayhek.

---

Item: The Rev. Edgar Vann, Jr. raises an important theological point. How can we trust the promises of God? Steps are advised. In an earlier, unrecorded segment, Vann confronted the epistemic question of discerning the voice of God from the other voices echoing in our heads.

---

Item: Hear a joyful noise.

Polarization II

Judgment Day is on its way. We cannot stop it. We don’t know when it will come, but just as surely as the sun rises daily, the Son of Man will come when we least expect.
...
Judgment Day is on its way. When my time comes, I will be measured by my Savior for the decisions I have made. I will either be acknowledged by Jesus or denied by Him in the presence of our heavenly Father. The question I need to ask myself is this: What kind of witness will I give to Him when I go into the voting booth this election day?
...
The right of our children to be protected from destruction is greater than my right to a thriving economy. I am living proof of this, since I am here because my parents believed this priority and lived it. My desire for a good economy cannot justify my voting to remove all current restrictions on abortion. My desire to end the war in Iraq cannot justify my voting to remove all current restrictions on abortion. |Source|

What saith you Mr. Clark?

"LittleBigPlanet," described by review Web site IGN.com as an "instant classic," has been pulled from warehouses after it was noticed that one of its music tracks contained words from the Islamic holy text, the Quran.

The move is a blow to the Sony PlayStation game, seen as the console's first launch of an icon to match Nintendo's ubiquitous Mario, in which rag doll character Sackboy negotiates a lavishly designed world of platforms and challenges.

"We're sure that most of you have heard by now that one of the background music tracks that was licensed from a record label for use in the game contains two expressions that can be found in the Quran," a statement on the game's Web site said. |CNN|

Item: In virtue of what, exactly, might Muslims be offended? Ignorant Americans like me want to know! Is quoting the Quran blasphemous in the same way that depicting the prophet is blasphemous, or is this more of a robot-armies-attack-while-shouting-allahu-akbar type situation? CNN does not relate.

Predictably: The situation has created a speculative LittleBigPlanet bubble. At least I assume it's speculative. I invite anyone who disagrees to explain the fundamentals of the market to me.

Better than legos; or, More research than CNN saw fit to do:

Yesterday a reader sent us a link to a music file containing the two offending phrases, which can be found here. Hit the jump for the translation of the offending phrases.

The words are:

1- In the 18th second: "كل نفس ذائقة الموت" ("kollo nafsin tha'iqatol mawt", literally: 'Every soul shall have the taste of death').

2- Almost immediately after, in the 27th second: "كل من عليها فان" ("kollo man alaiha fan", literally: 'All that is on earth will perish').|Kotaku"|

A final note regarding our linguistic practices: Can't speak for anyone else, but I like seeing the wikitastic XxxxxYyyyyyNnnnn convention grow in prominence.

Ahhh, Kansas!

Speaking of Kansas, one of the less appealing things about the state is that it is home to Fred "Got Hates Fags and I'm going to hold up signs saying so at the funerals of Iraqi vets" Phelps and his noxious Westboro Baptist Church.

On the brighter side, Kansas also has folks who will go to Westboro's rallies and do this:

Holy crap!

This isn't going to go over well at Headquarters...

L Ron Hubbard plagiarized Scientology

Jesus and Satan are brothers?

If you are wondering what this Hucakbee hullabaloo (or Huckabaloo!) is all about, this anti-Mormon propaganda piece lays it out:

This is a total hit piece, so I wouldn't be surprised to discover that it is a wild distortion. And yet... I find myself hoping that this is indeed what Mormons believe, because it is really funny. Also, it casts Satan in a sort of Prometheus role. Neat!

(via TNR)

Hey, I came up with a new motto for the the Catholic League

"Christianity: An idea so fragile that it is threatened by a fantasy movie for kids!"

Only 128 shopping days until Christmas

Get your camo Bible at the Christian Outdoorsman.

Via Boing Boing.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster would never make this mistake

Heh.

Home-grown terrorism strikes Austin, TX

First, a little framing: One of the most annoying things about hawkish pundits and bloggers (and Presidents of the United States) in our country is their attempt to elevate terrorists (who are mostly powerless idiots) to Hitler-esque levels of threat. You know what I'm talking about: "The battle against Islamic terrorism is the calling of our generation." That sort of garbage.

The problem is simply that it's so intellectually dishonest that it actually undercuts the real threat of terrorism. If the threat were put in context and treated appropriately, we'd actually do a much better job of fighting terrorism... but probably a worse job of electing crazy warmongers.

not a pipe bomb by Jim Dyer.

Why is it intellectually dishonest? Well, for one thing, every single incident of violenc by muslims that hits the news is held up as evidence of a deep sickness in that religion. Other random acts of violence, such as the Virginia Tech shooting? Just tragedies, without any larger message. We all know that if that crazy gunman had turned out to be a muslim, we would still be enduring another round of fevered bloviating about how Islam is not a religion of peace.

Furthermore, and to get to the actual news of the current post, Christian terrorism is never used as evidence of issues with that religion. Incidents like this:

A 27-year-old man has been arrested on three charges related to a pipe-bomb that was found near an Austin, Texas abortion clinic last week. The Austin Police Department has announced that Paul Ross Evans has been charged with use of weapons of mass destruction, manufacture of explosive material, and violating the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, the Associated Press reports.

The bomb, which was found last Wednesday, consisted of explosive powder and two pounds of nails packed into an insulated container. Video surveillance cameras showed Evans buying a package of 9-volt batteries, electrical tape, and a copper tube, matching the items used in building the bomb. Also, investigators matched Evans' credit card with the purchase of the insulated container at an Austin Wal-Mart, The Daily Texan reports.

Evans is currently in federal custody without bond. He was previously convicted of breaking into cars and robbing a convenience store and fast-food restaurant with a pellet gun. Evans was paroled in 2005 after serving the first three years of a 15-year sentence.

I don't think this is evidence of a deep problem with Christianity as a religion. It may be that religion of any kind has a slight problem in that it can be too easily hijacked by violent extremists, but clearly I don't think that a few sociopathic freaks should be used to smear an entire population, as the warbloggers routinely do with Islam.

Anyway, now we've got another piple bomb incident here in Austin, that's even more curious. It seems to have been left in an alley, not near any understandable target:

A woman found an explosive device near her home on Guidepost Trail in South Austin (map) about 10 a.m. Monday.

But don't worry...

Austin police are stressing that the device found Monday and the one found last week are completely unrelated.

Yeah, I feel much better.

To close the post on a lighter note, this is from that photo's flickr page:

A band named "this bike is a pipe bomb" makes similar stickers, but some Keystone Kops saw one on a bike and had the bomb squad come destroy it. (I'd love to make "my other bike is a pipe bomb" stickers.)

It's not all about unions

Kevin Drum reads Megan McArdle and concludes that here, finally, is confirmation that advocates school-voucher programs have only one real goal: The destruction of teacher unions.

He may be right about McArdle, but I can tell you with some certainty that many lay-folk who like vouchers are more interested in providing alternatives to "liberal" public education than they are with the alleged icy death-grip of teacher unions. Just look at how agitated people get about what goes into science textbooks.

I'm not sure of which issue has more emphasis across the nation, but the Kansas-style republicans I have met don't think about unions a lot, they just want to get some more Jesus up in there. Vouchers, they think, will allow them to shift the fight about how we indoctrinate our kids to more local, quieter battlegrounds, where they feel they can win more often.

Texas Tech?!

I apologize for interrupting the normally high-minded political discourse of this blog with something as low-brow as the NCAA men's basketball tournament. But ...

Can anyone possibly explain to me how Texas Tech (21-12 / 9-7 in-conference), who finished 5th in the Big 12, is a 10 seed and K-State (22-11 / 10-6 in-conference), who finished 4th in the Big 12, doesn't even get in?

Add to that craziness the fact that K-State DESTROYED tech in the quarterfinals of the Big 12 tournament ....

Discuss.

I don't know jack about Mike Huckabee

I titled the post this way to deter anyone from thinking that I'm about to become a "Huckabee Democrat." It's a sad state of affairs, but my starting assumption about any politician is that she will say anything, anything, to get elected. It is, in fact, his job to do so.

Policy does matter, however, and the rhetoric that politicians use to get elected ends up shaping the policy, often more than the politicians might have hoped.

Firstly, the rhetoric constrains the winner of the political contest, at least a little, as the winner may have future contests and needs to avoid flagrant hypocrisy to win down the road.

Second, and probably more significantly, the rhetoric can take on a life of its own and move the center of the debate in one direction or another. This latter effect can immediately undercut a politician's favoured course (example: Bush and the Dubai ports deal), but can also ripple down through the years, shaping entire political platforms (example: Barry Goldwater).

Thus, it is heartening to see a Republican candidate for president staking out these sorts of positions, no matter what his motivations may be:

Here is a piece of Salon's profile, as quoted by Yglesias (with our patent-pending Bellman bolding):

"If I really know what it means to follow Jesus, it means no kid goes hungry tonight," he said, at one stop in Iowa. "It means no wife gets the daylights beat out of her by some alcoholic abusive husband. It means no kid lives in a neighborhood where he is scared to death of some child predator that is going to pick him up and carry him off. It means not one single elderly person has to make the choice between food or medicine." Unlike former Sen. Rick Santorum or Sen. Sam Brownback, Huckabee does not spend time pounding the pulpit over baby murder and sodomy. He's a self-styled "compassionate conservative," a poll-tested concept that worked once before. But while President Bush discarded the slogan like a prom queen's sash, Huckabee wants to convince America that he is the real deal.

Leading off with poverty? That's the starting position of the so-called "Religious Left." Taken seriously, it implies all sorts of positions that are far closer to my left-wing nutjob socialism than the policies pursued by any Republicans in my lifetime.

Here is another bit of the Salon profile, as quoted by Ezra Klein:

[Huckabee] has refused to take the predictable path by talking tough on crime to deflect the DuMond criticism. Instead, he campaigns on a compassionate approach to wrongdoers, especially those whose crimes are the result of drug or alcohol addiction. At Philly's Finest, he condemned the "revenge-based corrections system," sounding every bit the sort of squishy liberal that the Bill O'Reillys of the world long ago scared into the shadows. "We lock up a lot of people we are mad at rather than the ones we are really afraid of," he said. "We incarcerate more people than anybody on earth." As governor, Huckabee pushed for drug treatment instead of incarceration for non-violent offenders. He pushed for faith-based prison programs, and was critical of governors who "gladly pull the switch" on death penalty cases, an apparent knock on President Bush, who was criticized as governor of Texas for being cavalier about capital punishment.

This is the exactly the kind of position, written into platform after platform of the Democratic party, that makes me a Democrat. However, our Dem Congressfolk and Presidents haven't acted on this position--or even tried very hard to shape the debate--for some time. Our highly-paid inside-the-beltway consultants tell us that hammering on this sort of thing will lose us votes rather than gain them.

And they might be right. But at some point somebody has to actually fight to fix the clusterfrak that is our prison-industrial complex. And if that person turns out to be a Republican, that person might just gain more votes than he loses for doing so. He might just get mine.

At the very least, I'm happy to see anyone out there pushing on my side of the envelope.

James Cameron claims to find the coffin of Jesus

Seriously! Of course,

Crucially, he is not denying the resurrection - as there were no bones in the caskets.

...and hilarity ensues.

Weird news roundup!

According to new research, the Moon affects not only the tides of the oceans but also people, producing a range of symptoms from flare-ups of gout to bladder problems. It may even lie behind the causes of car crashes and affect people's hormonal balances.
| The Independent |

Oh come off it, scientists. Next you'll be telling us that astrology can assess the risk of car accidents.

Meanwhile, in India, a court has determined that, in at least one legal category, elephants enjoy the same legal status as humans. If that were to happen here, imagine the stress on our education system!

Lastly, in Greece, Zeus worship is on a comeback.

A tiny group of worshippers plans a rare ceremony Sunday to honor the ancient Greek gods, at Athens' 1,800-year-old Temple of Olympian Zeus. Greece's Culture Ministry has declared the central Athens site off-limits, but worshippers say they will defy the decision.

Unfortunately, even in revival of an ancient religion, the first thing you get is sectarian conflict:

Those who seek to revive the ancient Greek religion are split into rival organizations which trade insults over the Internet.

Sweet zombie Jesus, where will it end?