Random news reactions

Michael Savage is a talk show host of the obnoxious variety- but even so, it came as a shock when British Former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith publicly banned him from ever traveling to England. I'll let the Mail Online pick it up from there: "The Right-wing radio presenter, whose hardline views on Islam, rape and autism have caused outrage in the US but whose show, The Savage Nation, has eight million listeners, was identified in May by Ms Smith as one of 16 people barred due to their political views. Mr Savage, who had not even applied for entry to Britain, claimed his name had been 'plucked out of a hat' because he was 'controversial and white'. He has since served a £100,000 libel writ on Ms Smith, who announced his ban on television."
Typical right wingnut trying to play victim... except he was right! Memos obtained under the Freedom Of Information act show that the British government was worried about how it looked with all the banned lowlifes being Muslim: "We will want to ensure that the names disclosed reflect the broad range of cases and are not all Islamic extremists... with Weiner, (Savage's real name) I can understand that disclosure of the decision would help provide a balance of types of exclusion cases."
　
"Obamacare" is really warmed-over "Hilary care". How do I know? First clue: if there hasn't been time to read the bill, I can't imagine there's been time to write it from scratch. Second clue: Even President Obama wasn't clear about all aspects of the bill in a press conference. Clincher: the bill makes special provisions for the retarded. Yes, it says "retarded" How many years has it been since anyone used the term "retarded"?

‘Triad’: Polyamorous Lifestyle of WA ‘Family’ Inspires Web Sitcom Wouldn't it be ironic if, because of shows like this, the public came to accept polyamorous relationships after we went to the trouble of ditching the entire UU Affiliates program to get rid of them because they were an embarrassment?

Women getting more beautiful, say scientists
"Evolution has led to women, but not men, getting progressively beautiful, according to scientists." Well, duh... men my age and older have been saying "High school girls didn't look like that when I was in high school!" for years. But I thought everyone knew human male evolution peaked out in 1955. And evolution of lower species has peaked out as well; after all, we have laws intended to never let any species of anything go extinct if we can help it- that must mean that no further evolution is needed or desired

The oddest quiz yet...

The web is full of fun quizes, but this one is a bit... outre. Would you eat your buddies? Don’t look at me like that- you know you’re going to take the quiz too. I was rated at 44% likely to.

Reminds me of a juvenile joke from decades past- make a reservation at a restaurant for five under the name of Donner. When they call “Donner, party of five,” you tell them “It’s just four now- it was a long wait.”

Joel the prankster

CC posted her results fromThe 3 Variable Funny Test
- so I had to run off and take it, too.

Your Score: the Prankster

(23% dark, 30% spontaneous, 10% vulgar)

your humor style:
CLEAN COMPLEX LIGHT

Your humor has an intellectual, even conceptual slant to it. You're not pretentious, but you're not into what some would call 'low humor' either. You'll laugh at a good dirty joke, but you definitely prefer something clever to something moist.

You probably like well-thought-out pranks and/or spoofs and it's highly likely you've tried one of these things yourself. In a lot of ways, yours is the most entertaining type of humor because it's smart without being mean-spirited.

PEOPLE LIKE YOU: Conan O'Brian - Ashton Kutcher




The 3-Variable Funny Test!
- it rules -

If you're interested, try my best friend's best test: The Genghis Khan Genetic Fitness Masterpiece

Link: The 3 Variable Funny Test written by jason_bateman on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Installing Love

Here's an oldie, but a goodie:

Customer Service Rep: Can you install LOVE?

Customer: I can do that. I'm not very technical, but I think I am ready to install now. What do I do first?

Customer Service Rep: The first step is to open your HEART. Have you located your HEART?

Customer: Yes I have, but there are several programs running right now. Is it okay to install while they are running?

Customer Service Rep: What programs are running?

Customer: Let me see.... I have PASTHURT.EXE, LOWESTEEM.EXE, GRUDGE.EXE, and RESENTMENT.COM running right now.

Customer Service Rep: No problem. LOVE will automatically erase PASTHURT.EXE from your current operating system. It may remain in your permanent memory, but it will no longer disrupt other programs. LOVE will eventually overwrite LOWESTEEM.EXE with a module of its own called HIGHESTEEMEXE. However, you have to completely turn off GRUDGE.EXE and RESENTMENT.COM. Those programs prevent LOVE from being properly installed. Can you turn those off?

Customer: I don't know how to turn them off. Can you tell me how?

Customer Service Rep: My pleasure. Go to your Start menu and invoke FORGIVENESS.EXE. Do this as many times as necessary until GRUDGE.EXE and RESENTMENT.COM have been completely erased.

Customer: Okay, I'm done. LOVE has started installing itself automatically. Is that normal?

Customer Service Rep: Yes it is. You should receive a message that says it will reinstall for the life of your HEART. Do you see that message?

Customer: Yes I do. Is it completely installed?

Customer Service Rep: Yes, but remember that you have only the base program. You need to begin connecting to other HEARTS in order to get the upgrades.

Customer: Oops...I have an error message already. What should I do?

Customer Service Rep: What does the message say?

Customer: It says, "ERROR 412 - PROGRAM NOT RUN ON INTERNAL COMPONENTS". What does that mean?

Customer Service Rep: Don't worry, that's a common problem. It means that the LOVE program is set up to run on external HEARTS but has not yet been run on your HEART. It is one of those complicated programming things, but in non-technical terms it means you have to "LOVE" your own machine before it can "LOVE" others.

Customer: So what should I do?

Customer Service Rep: Can you find the directory called "SELF-ACCEPTANCE"?

Customer: Yes, I have it.

Customer Service Rep: Excellent, you are getting good at this.

Customer: Thank you.

Customer Service Rep: You're welcome. Click on the following files and then copy them to the "MYHEART" directory: FORGIVESELF.DOC, SELFESTEEM.TXT, REALIZEWORTH.TXT, and GOODNESS.DOC. The system will overwrite any conflicting files and begin patching any faulty programming. Also, you need to delete SELFCRITIC.EXE from all directories, and then empty your recycle bin afterwards to make sure it is completely gone and never comes back.

Customer: Got it. Hey! My HEART is filling up with really neat files. SMILE.MPG is playing on my monitor right now and it shows that WARMTH.COM, PEACE.EXE, and CONTENTMENT.COM are copying themselves all over my HEART!

Customer Service Rep: Then LOVE is installed and running. You should be able to handle it from here. One more thing before I go...

Customer: Yes?

Customer Service Rep: LOVE is freeware. Be sure to give it and its various modules to everybody you meet. They will in turn share it with other people and they will return some really neat modules back to you.

Customer: I will. Thank you for your help.

Alternative Buddhist meditations

With the cover article of the latest UUWorld being about UU Buddhism, I thought I’d pass along these meditations from a Jewish Buddhist.

Sayings of the Jewish Buddhist

If there is no self,whose arthritis is this?

Be here now.
Be someplace else later.
Is that so complicated?

Drink tea and nourish life;
with the first sip, joy;
with the second sip, satisfaction;
with the third sip, peace;
with the fourth, a Danish.

Wherever you go, there you are.
Your luggage is another story.

Accept misfortune as a blessing.
Do not wish for perfect health,or a life without problems.
What would you talk about?

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single Oy.

There is no escaping karma.
In a previous life,
you never called,
you never wrote,
you never visited.
And whose fault was that?

Zen is not easy.
It takes effort to attain nothingness.
And then what do you have?
Bupkis.

The Tao does not speak.
The Tao does not blame.
The Tao does not take sides.
The Tao has no expectations.
The Tao demands nothing of others.
The Tao is not Jewish.

Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Forget this and attaining Enlightenmentwill be the least of your problems.

Let your mind be as a floating cloud.
Let your stillness be as a wooded glen.
And sit up straight.
You'll never meet the Buddha slouching like that.

Deep inside you are ten thousand flowers.
Each flower blossoms ten thousand times.
Each blossom has ten thousand petals.
You might want to see a specialist.

Be aware of your body.
Be aware of your perceptions.
Keep in mind that not every physical sensation is a symptom of a terminal illness.

The Torah says,
Love your neighbor as yourself.
The Buddha says,
There is no self.
So, maybe we're off the hook.

I'm on a liquid diet right now,

but not to lose weight. My posting has been a bit erratic lately, and I've not commented on all the fascinating entries all of you have made as I would have liked partially because my already complicated life has recently included tests that have involved drawing twelve vials of blood, an overnight hospital stay, and a transfusion. The liquid diet is in aid of a colonoscopy tomorrow- the closest thing to "solid" I'm having is Vicodin. I admit to being just a bit scared. If you think of me tomorrow, please chant "negative" three times- it would be much appreciated.

UPDATE:
Cancer, polyps, etc., all negative! Which, of course, means more tests; but on the other hand, almost all the really bad possibilities have been eliminated, and the probability is that what's left can be treated with outpatient surgery.

Glitch

For some reason, "comments" turned themselves off on my last two posts, and I had to go into each one individually and turn them back on- if it happens to you, just "edit draft", and "post options" in the bottom left corner of the box has comments options.

Thanks to Kitty and CC for the heads-up!

Truth or dare...

We all in the UU blogosphere have recommended to each other blogs and websites that make you think... places where important discussions take place... places where we can learn new outlooks, new thoughts. But these aren’t the only places you check daily! You know what I mean... come on, there are websites you check every day that you would try to cover the screen if someone you knew walked up on you suddenly- don’t try to tell me otherwise. Well, I’m going to admit to a few of them right now - dare ya to match me!

The DM of the Rings . Yes, I am one of those nerds who have been playing role-playing games since their inception more than thirty years ago. This web-comic is made by another long time role-player, and if you’re a gamer, it’s coffee-through-the-nose funny.

Oh My Gods! . Another web-comic... if you are, or know, a Pagan, you will see yourself and all your friends in this strip.

This one is a real guilty pleasure... even though I check it every day, I cannot bring myself to comment. Or even to admit to the title- just look .

Get rich blogging

I’ve figured out how we can all get rich off the blogosphere! No, this is not a pyramid scheme; it involves the sale of a real product we all use, that is valued differently under different circumstances- a difference we can leverage into riches!

I’m talking about intellectual property, our thoughts. Thoughts have a universally agreed upon value- they are worth two cents. However... it is also understood that those receiving them need only give a penny for your thoughts. Thus, for every thought transaction, there is a loose penny in the system, unaccounted for. Currently, these loose pennies float until they finally attach at random to fees, credits, or payments somewhere- this is why it’s nearly impossible to balance a checkbook to the penny nowadays.

I propose that when each of you post a new thought, you send those pennies to me, (I accept PayPal), and then post a comment to this post with your name and dream goal. When I reach my dream goal, paying off the mortgage, (as a starving artist, that would take a lot of pressure off me), I will start forwarding them to the blogger at the top of the comment list. A penny a thought may not sound like much, but think how many blogs there are- and a lot of them at our end of the blogosphere are actual certified thinkers! If we can get this system working smoothly, we should all be rolling in dough in no time!

P.S. Don’t look at me like that- this is at least as workable as most of the proposals that will be floated by Presidential candidates between now and November 2008, and people give millions of dollars to them.

Update to “Not in my day”

A couple weeks ago I posted about some 12 year olds who had sex during class in my local school system; I had been surprized that A. They had the nerve, B. The teacher never noticed. Well, after seeing this story , my school system appears to be just average. I quote from the story: “Four students - two 11-year-old girls, a 12-year-old boy and a 13-year-old boy - were arrested on charges of obscenity, a felony... The investigation showed that two males and two females had sex in the classroom while the 11-year-old boy acted as a lookout, Buckley said.”

What makes this story more interesting, though, is that the kids had a perfect diversion- they were screwing during a special school assembly. The purpose of the assembly was to discuss a stabbing death involving one of their students... I guess the school officials were under the illusion that the kids might have been upset. Evidently, they were more resilient than the school administration imagined.

Write me off as an old fogey if you will- I just don’t remember grade school being like that forty years ago.

Not in my day

Usually when an old curmudgeon like myself notes how the younger generation is going to Hell in a handbag, we are told that old fogies have been saying that for thousands of years, and a quote by Aristotle is brought up to demonstrate it. I still say what’s going on today is different from what went on in my day.

OK, perhaps I was a bit backwards not having had my first kiss yet by the 6th grade- but even the most forward of my classmates weren’t having sex during computer lab, as recently occurred in a local school. I can’t even decide which is the most important of reasons why this could not have happened when I was 12 years old.

Did you have a party for your 15th birthday? In my day such a party would have broken up and all gone home by 10:00- but this past weekend one 15 year old girl’s party here in town had a fight break out around 1:00 a.m., that ended up as a three car running firefight that left two dead . Again, I can’t even begin to state on how many levels that is wrong.

Now, I will admit that occasionally after a high school ball game a fight would occur... but I sure don’t remember it becoming a major riot that could tie up Times Square, with a subway firefight as happened Sunday . We’ve gotten used to the idea that winning an NBA championship requires a riot afterward; (I got some “what rubes” type ribbing from friends over the fact that Indianapolis had a polite Dome Rally after winning the Super Bowl), but for a high school game? What’s next- will shots be exchanged following a foul during the “hokey pokey” in kindergarten?

Missing a bet on Fox

The Nevada Democratic Party had scheduled a debate for the announced Presidential candidates in August, to be hosted by Fox News- until MoveOn.Org got wind of it, and raised such a ruckus that the debate has now been cancelled. Two different versions of the story are here and here .

It seems to me that the party is missing a bet here- the problem isn’t that Fox is involved, but that it’s the wrong division of Fox. What we have here, counting both major parties plus the Greens and the Libertarians is over a dozen candidates that have to be winnowed down to four for the final election. Fox has in place the best mechanism yet devised for doing just that- what they should have done is scheduled a special “Presidential Edition” of American Idol!

Look- more people vote for Idol candidates than for President- and they pay extra to do so. Make those 866 charges into campaign contributions; 30 or 40 million calls an evening add up to a lot of money- it could even the playing field for the less well financed candidates. People would actually hear more from each candidate on the “Idol” format than they do in standard debates, especially as the numbers of candidates get smaller each week; we’d have better informed voters. It would save the parties and the taxpayers a fortune; primaries are not paid for by commercials. And a lot of the candidates could well use advice from Simon Cowell!

Missing in Action

Does anyone know whatever happened to The Happy Feminist ? I really miss her.

I'm still alive

It's been a while since I've posted, but it wasn't for lack of opinions. (strangely enough, I seem very well equiped with those) No, there have been a number of "real life intruding" incidents in a row, such as losing the furnace with real temperature 5 below, windchill 25 below; Imbolc, Superbowl preparations, coffeehour duty at church, game and victory celebrations (you do know I write from Indianapolis), meeting with book dealers, etc. I expect to resume my normal blogging pace shortly.

Thank you

For nominating me for best new blog at the
Third Annual UU Blog Awards . That is such an honor that it feels greedy to ask for your vote as well- but I am doing so anyway. Make an old man happy!

Reflections on my first year blogging

I started this blog on January 11, 2006 with some hopes but few expectations- which was a good thing, as 2006 proved to be a kidney stone of a year- it did pass, but there was pain. Friends and regular readers know that this past year I have dealt with death in the family and the collapse of my business, plus many lesser blows I haven’t bothered my readers with. I’m proud that with all that has gone on in my life I managed to keep the blog going at all- it would have been so easy to let it go, to drop this least important of my burdens when I was feeling overwhelmed. And yet, for reasons I don’t truly understand myself, I did not- I even managed some essays that I’m quite proud of.

Here are some of the posts that have meant the most to me this past year, even though not all of them are my best work, and in no particular order:

Two cat anecdotes, A genuine act of faith , and I wonder

Some thoughts on the UUA: Why I love UU , How UU can grow... , What is to be the UUA’s role in the world? , and Does UU have a center?

Some personal philosophy: Reason in religion , What gets me through the night , My favorite word of reverence , My musings on Moral Authority , and Holiday musings from an Earth centered perspective

And some random moments: Thoughts on food , Lay off of Hammurabi already! , "Think as I think," , In the Midst of Life... , Michael Moore parody , Dark laughter , U.S. energy use , and The myth of overpopulation .

I’m proud of these moments, but there were too few of them- I vow to do better in 2007!

A minor accomplishment

I finally had a couple hours today, so I sat down and labeled my posts. Now if anyone is sick enough, they can search my insane ramblings by category!

Station Break

We interrupt this program to bring you a special message from our sponsors:

Happy New Year!!!!

Greetings to all

The reason I've been unable to post or comment the last week is that I was in the south of France- I'll be writing about it in the near future, as well as catching up with the work of my fellow bloggers. until then...

Merry Christmas to All, and to all a good night!

The new Cuumbaya Code of Conduct

Recent events in various blogs and forums I frequent have made me aware of the necessity for a code of conduct for those who will comment here. At this moment, it’s a moot point- those few readers I have, have higher standards than I do. Nonetheless, the day may come when this code of conduct is needed, so I wanted to be prepared. The act of posting here will be considered as acceptance of this Code of Conduct.

I. Pseudonyms are sacred.
A. Thou shalt not blow someone’s cover. I don’t care how thinly veiled their disguise is, I don‘t care how many people “know“- you do not reveal it on my blog. You have no way of knowing how much damage may be done, or to whom; some people adopt pseudonyms to protect family or employer, not themselves. I don’t care what your reasons are- don’t do it. First offense: if you publicly apologize, and if your victim pleads your case on your behalf: suspension of posting rights until I cool off. Without the apology: my driving over there and punching you out is unlikely, but not impossible.
B. One pseudonym per customer. If you change pseudonyms, announce the fact. If you feel you cannot announce it publicly, email me.

II. Language is sacred.
A. We do not use George Carlin’s seven words. Yes, everybody uses them today. Yes, I have used them myself. But I’m a stiff-necked old coot, and those are my standards on my blog. Offenders risk my editing their post until I like it.
B. We do not use netspeak here. Reason: see above.

III. No spamming.
A. No advertising of products or websites, including the flogging of a story on your own blog, unless it is directly pertinent to the thread.
B. No referencing of other blogs- positive or negative- unless what they’re saying is pertinent to the thread.
C. No repeated posting of the same story, even if you can find a way to tie it in to the current thread- once is enough for any tale to be told.

IV. Unblogsmanlike conduct. The catch-all for incivility below and beyond what was called for in context, for Googlebombing or other techie assaults (including ones not yet invented), for anything that I just don’t feel fits the tone of CUUmbaya. Penalty: whatever seems appropriate at the time.

V. Environmentally responsible blogging. This blog uses only 100% recycled electrons; I ask all others to do the same.