More Sunday Random Meanderings

Day o' rest:

RELIGION

I was reading my parents-in-law's Guidepost magazine (March 2005) when I came across the name Len Wein. He was described as a "comic book writer and creator of the new X-Men." I don't have the magazine, but Googling, I found this quote attributed to him: "A friend is someone who is there for you when he'd rather be anywhere else."

I saw spray-painted on the wall of a church parking lot last weekend: "Blinded by Patriotism, Silenced by the Dollar."

On a church sign on Route 28 between Oneonta and Cooperstown: "There's no point being a pessimist, because it won't work anyway."

TRUTH

A radio talk show pundit said on the air that he thought that the reference of Karl Rove as Turd Blossom in Doonesbury was verisimilitude, when in fact W actually DOES call Rove Turd Blossom.
Verisimilitude. I love that word.

Someone recently turned me on to the The Borowitz Report. Where else could you read:
July 28, 2005 KIM JONG-IL DEMANDS IPOD
Latest Twist in Nuke Talks Raises Eyebrows, Concerns
July 27, 2005 DEBRIS FALLS OFF CHENEY
Scientists Study Videotape of Vice President Disintegrating
July 24, 2005 SWIFT BOAT VETS MISS ATTACKING KERRY
Life Without Negative Ads Devoid of Meaning, Vets Complain
July 21, 2005 ROBERTS PROMISES STRICTER CONTROLS ON FOUR-YEAR-OLD SON
Child’s Rampage Through D.C. Prompts Nominee’s Conservative Stance
July 18, 2005 NEW HARRY POTTER BOOK DESTROYS PRECIOUS RAINFOREST
652-Page Tome Ignites Ecological Catastrophe, Sierra Club Warns
Of course, these are "humorous" stories, but they COULD be true! They have verisimilitude!

These postcards ARE supposed to be true.

SEX

I went on a "next blog" meanering. Usually, they're new sites that pop up, but this week I came across the blog of Marshall Brain. He is the founder of one of my favorite websites, How Stuff Works. He has some insights into porn. And it's clean! Honest!

NOT CLEAN: One of my least favorite people is U.S. Senator Rick Santorum. The readers of sex columnist Dan Savage came up with a new term, and they named it after the junior senator from Pennsylvania. You may find it crude, but it seems to have caught on.

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

I saw this on a news program, and then Brother IH sent me the info:
Store the word " I C E " in your mobile phone address book and against it enter the number of the person you would want to be contacted "In Case of Emergency".
In an emergency situation, ambulance and hospital staff will then be able to quickly find out who your next of kin are and be able to contact them.

Remember that Mars is getting closer. If the Martians are going to launch the invasion, this would be a good time.

Blogger Greg seems to think the current President isn’t all that bright. I mean he REALLY thinks W is dumb. I don’t know how he could say such a thing. Just last month, he acknowledged that global warming exists and that it is at least partially a function of human behavior, only a year after his own administration had reached that conclusion, and only several years after just about everyone else had.
So this is what I’m trying to figure out:
If global warming is human-made,
and if global warming heats the oceans,
and since hurricanes thrive on warmer waters,
so that more hurricanes will occur,
are hurricanes still acts of God or, increasingly, acts of human insensitivity to our environment?

Which takes me back to
RELIGION, which is where I started this.