I suggest veiling women and silencing them in accordance with the good Apostle, Mr. Perry:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2011/06/rick-perry-god-caused-bad-economy-so.html

As we know now that God's causal nature takes precedence in matters of economics over human causation, I'd be curious which Biblical Principles Governor Perry thinks we need to return to. Outlawing interest, greed, theft, booze, slandering, con artistry, and particularly adultery (sounds like Newt Gingrich might have some problems with that verse....until one of his latest squeezes gets cancer and then he leaves) seems like a good start. The bible prohibits interest, calling it the sin of usury, and it prohibits revolution. I suppose by the exact application of Governor Perry's idea we'd best start appealing to the House of Windsor to return to the British Empire as the Dominion of North America.

Or we could recognize the flaws in secular policies that created the economic crisis, and work to fix them and leave God out of it. I accept the existence of God, but I'm quite nervous about bringing in the Almighty to explain a crisis whose nature was apparent to people years before it actually happened.

Friday Lulz: Miles Gloriosus!

[paft.livejournal.com]

My bride!
My bride!
I've come to claim my bride,
Come tenderly to crush her against my side.
Let haste be made!
I cannot be delayed:
There are lands to conquer, cities to loot and peoples to degrade.

In this number from the 1966 musical, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Leon Greene is playing a stock character who’s been around for well over a thousand years, going back as far as Plautus. Miles Gloriosus is the essence of the boastful, arrogant, and brutal soldier.

I’ve always loved the cynicism of this scene of Gloriosus marching into town. It skewers the flipside of the grandeur that was Rome (or for that matter, the “grandeur” that is any other empire.)

(And yes, that is the great Zero Mostel near the end)

( Video after the cut )

Rendering unto Caesar: Barton's Views on Unitarians

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

David Barton's "Original Intent" speaks volumes about the attitude of fundamentalist Christians toward liberal religion. As he discusses the evolution of Unitarian thought during the nineteenth century, he insinuates that modern Unitarians are "cultists" for embracing "transcendentalist views and practices." What he does not say is how the older Unitarian views on the Trinity had resulted in religious persecution at the hands of religious bigots such as himself.

Barton makes ante-Emersonain Unitarianism appear to be acceptable to Christians by excluding those aspects of the faith that would cause a fundamentalist to reach for the kindling wood. This is important for his efforts to harmonize revolutionary Unitarians with the bigots of their day despite essential differences. The Unitarians of the era of John Adams would not have qualified as "Christians" in the Roman tradition because of their rejection of trinitarian dogma. Barton forces them into the Christian camp through some hocus pocus of his own devising.

Not only does he fail to see the way old Unitarians distanced themselves from Christian dogma, he also brands modern Unitarians as "anti-Christian." This is a tactic that has been used by religious bigots to instigate violence against heretics. If you fail to sacrifice to the statue of Caesar, you oppose Caesar. Because they distance themselves from idolaters, Unitarians are tarred by fundamentalists as a threat to "true" religion.

If Barton had been around to witness the work of Jesus, he would have been a Pharisee calling for the execution of Jesus on the grounds of blasphemy. If anyone could be considered "anti-Christian," it is those people who incite violence as they wrap the shroud of Jesus about their own rabid persona. Barton's canine character is pretty obvious.

A possible solution for nuclear waste

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

You've probably heard the news. Germany has initiated a schedule for getting rid of all its nuclear power stations within the next decade. All the arguments for and against nuclear energy aside, I'm going to mention another one which is often being cited as a big ecological concern: the deposition of used nuclear materials. The main problem with it is that it requires hundreds, even thousands of years for radioactive materials to dissolve.

Scientists have been working on a way to possibly accelerate the process and shorten it to "just" a few centuries. But would that solve the problem? Seems like a good idea but still too expensive. That was actually the verdict which this idea got when the so called "transmutation" process was proposed for the first time - that is the reaction which turns heavy radioactive elements into harmless substances. Yes, sounds like alchemy, and in a sense it really is. But most call it just nuclear physics.

( Read more... )

It's Friday, where's the fun?

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

Since we are halfway through the day for me, and have no official Friday Lulz post I am taking on the job.

From tumblr:

people on facebook who think stories from the onion are real:

 

( Link to more behind the cut )

Some lulz from north of the border

[tridus.livejournal.com]

So today, Canada had a throne speech. That's where the new government lays out its plans. It's a very ceremonial event, where the Governor General sits in the throne and reads a speech in the (unelected) Senate, and guys with black rods go pound on the doors of the House of Commons to get them to stand outside and listen (since there isn't enough room for them in the Senate even if they were allowed past the door).

The media narrative at these things is supposed to be all about the agenda of the government. Instead it's about a young page who in the middle of the thing walked into the middle of it with a "Stop Harper" sign.

Part of the entertainment value here is that this happened in itself, but the rest is in this picture of it:



Here you've got the protester page. You have the appointed Governor General and his wife sitting in the thrones, and the Prime Minister in the tiny little chair to his left looking like a servant. The people on the floor in the Santa-esque outfits are the Supreme Court. Then there's the guy on the right with the black rod. Not seen in that picture but in attendance is the Mace.

Democracy sure is strange, eh?