‘I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one:  “O Lord, Make my enemies ridiculous.”  And God granted it.’
   Voltaire

That is the only response I can think of to this bit of news:

A former Southern Baptist Convention officer who on June 2 called the death of abortion provider George Tiller an answer to prayer said later in the day he is also praying “imprecatory prayer” against President Obama.

The pastor, Wiley Drake, then elaborates that he is in fact praying for the death of the president.  He follows that up with a whole bunch of horse shit that would, in a civilized society, result in him spending some time in a psychiatric ward.

Well pastor, allow me a prayer of my own.  I’ll send this prayer out to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the Tree of Inifuss and whoever else is listening.  Please grant this moron a clue and some humanity.  He clearly needs both.

Found the link on Shakesville

from the big picture.  I’m not sure why but #29 is my favorite.

The astronomy nerd inside loves this stuff.

found this link on the Bad Astronomy Blog

Just listened to the most recent podcast The Watchmen and I thought I’d post links to the 3 shows that I think do the best job of explaining what the hell happened to the economy.

355 – The Giant Pool of Money

365 – Another Frightening Show about the Economy

382 – The Watchmen

Each podcast is an hour long but they are worth it.  I’ve learned more about what happened and what’s happening to the economy from these than from any other source.

From the LA Times:

Manny Ramirez has tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs and has been suspended 50 games starting today, Major League Baseball confirmed.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by this stuff anymore but I bought into the idiot-savant persona that Manny projects.  I enjoyed his years in Boston and accepted his antics and occasional absences in return for his consistent, outstanding hitting.  At this point, I have to accept that everyone in the sport of baseball is tainted. 

Now, I can either turn a blind eye to it and pretend that the current testing regime catches most of the cheaters.  Let’s face it, we already do that with the NFL.  Or, I can tune out the sport entirely.  Both choices suck.  

On a completely unrelated but much more positive note:

Sasha Cohen just confirmed she will be back to contort her body for America at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

For no reason what so ever I’m including this video of Sasha doing Yoga. 

I recently started doing a little yoga myself thanks to the Wii Fit and I think it’s a good exercise, although I’ve got a long way to go to match Ms. Cohen’s flexibility.

Whence came the links

If Frank Rich is even 50% correct is his Op-Ed Column from this Saturday, then it’s 50% too much.  Here is the money quote:

Five years after the Abu Ghraib revelations, we must acknowledge that our government methodically authorized torture and lied about it. But we also must contemplate the possibility that it did so not just out of a sincere, if criminally misguided, desire to “protect” us but also to promote an unnecessary and catastrophic war. Instead of saving us from “another 9/11,” torture was a tool in the campaign to falsify and exploit 9/11 so that fearful Americans would be bamboozled into a mission that had nothing to do with Al Qaeda. The lying about Iraq remains the original sin from which flows much of the Bush White House’s illegality.

I wish I could say I was shocked by this, but the truth is there isn’t much I would put past the Bush Admin.  Obama is wrong on this one.  This must be examined.  We, as a nation, have to ask how we allowed ourselves to become a nation which tortures.  We have to examine what motivated those who crafted this policy.  Only then can we banish the myth that torture saved lives or made this country safer.

Came across this in my internet travels, from PR Newswire:

IBM today unveiled details of an advanced computing system that will be able to compete with humans on Jeopardy!, America’s favorite quiz show. Additionally, officials from Jeopardy! announced plans to produce a human vs. machine competition on the renowned show.

For nearly two years, IBM scientists have been working on a highly advanced Question Answering (QA) system, codenamed “Watson.” The scientists believe that the computing system will be able to understand complex questions and answer with enough precision and speed to compete on Jeopardy!

I propose a Jeopardy battle between Watson and Ken Jennings to determine the fate of humanity.

I was on vacation last week, took a cruise with my wife and her family.  Great cruise, great company, always a bummer to go back to the grind but I’m managing.  I still haven’t gotten my land legs back, as every time I stand up it seems like the boat is still moving under me. 

Upon returning home, I noticed that they are now selling compilations of early 90’s rock tunes.  This tells me two things: 

1 – I’m fucking old.  Seriously, I was in college when these songs were out and now they’re selling them like Freedom Rock.  WTF!?!? 
2 – Music from the grunge era is virtually impossible to dance to.  Not like we were interested in dancing back then.  We were all too busy wearing flannel, not shaving and not having a whole lot of sex. 

There was one song on the commercial that I had forgotten about and I liked hearing again.  “One Thing” by Finger Eleven came out in 2003 (why was it on a compilation of early 90’s music is anyone’s guess) around the same time my daughter was born.  I loved the song at the time because it reminded me of how I felt about her.  Here was this new arrival in my life and I literally would have done anything for her.  Fortunately, all she required was love, food and regular diaper changes.  Anyway, here’s the song on YouTube.

Cause I’m famous and all. 

Natalia Antonova sent me the following interview questions as part of an interview meme going round the web.  Naturally, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to talk about myself.

That’s about all I have to say about this story:

The Catholic Church has excommunicated the mother of a nine-year-old girl who had an abortion after being raped by her stepfather.

They also excommunicated the doctors who performed the abortion.  This little girl was raped.  She was pregnant with twins as a result.  She’s nine years old and weighs eighty pounds.  Asking her to carry the pregnancy to term is not only a moral outrage, it’s medically impossible and puts her life at tremendous risk. 

So for anyone keeping track at home, you can rape alter boys without being excommunicated.  You can deny the holocaust without being excommunicated.  But allow a 9 year old rape victim, who almost certainly couldn’t carry a twin pregnancy to term, to get an abortion, now that’s bad. 

I grew up Catholic and I still allow myself to get dragged to Catholic mass from time to time, but I don’t think I can allow that anymore.  These actions in Brazil are vile and hateful and I’d rather not associate myself or my family with them.