pass the popcorn!

This seems to be the movie that has Muslims with their burkas in a bunch. I have no issue with it whatsoever. You may need to log in to You Tube first - not sure.

But first a trailer!



And now for our feature presentation:



Why should it bother me? Below is a movie with a real Muslim speaking his mind.



If people can portray Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell as extremists and thereafter declare that they are not condemning all Christians, then I have no issue with condemning some acts by some people done in the name of Islam.

Pretty clear to me.

Post Script - been spending a little on the net searching over FITNA issues. Seems the screamers are screaming loudly. Like they can actually control information? Are they from the Dark Ages? Oh, yeah. Dumb question. Withdrawn. Well, just in case ...

Here’s the Wikipedia write-up. Good parsing of the movie.

Wikileaks will probably ensure access to the movie forever, but just in case, here is the link to the torrent.

I have downloaded the movie and will post it on my own if needed.

God is.

My twin found this for me. Amazing new movie coming out.

I've always had a lot of respect for Ben Stein. I enjoy people that are both intelligent and humorous. Seems like a nice guy, too - I wrote him once about a fight I got into when Nixon was accused of Watergate. I was in the 6th grade, and some liberal kid wouldn't shut up, so I kicked his ass. Ben was one of Nixon's speechwriters. I actually wrote him just to say I appreciated his work and the story came with it. He wrote back! Nice guy.

He has a movie coming out in April 2008, called "Expelled." Watch the trailer here. He investigated and now reports on the professional difficulties of people in academia and the sciences that look at Intelligent Design as a scientific theory. Seems their careers are being destroyed. I never understood why. Well, not unless you look beyond Darwin's theory and assume a more sinister agenda: the denial of God. Do you think?

No need to dwell on it, but have you noticed that being politically correct means that you have to agree with the liberals? If you disagree, then speech is no longer free. Everybody has to be happy and treated with respect - unless you disagree. Then you get pummeled.

That's the issue in Expelled. If you disagree with some guy that drew birds over a hundred years ago and knew nothing of DNA - who thought that a cell was filled with this protoplasm icky stuff which itself was the lowest form of detail in life - then you are committing ... wait for it ... heresy! How ironic, eh?

I read a well-reasoned refutation of Darwin in Biochemist Micheal Behe's Darwin's Black Box. (I'm not going to honor it with a link - but if you google the book title, you get a whole lot of nasty scientists trying refute the book. If only they would spend that energy on Algore.)

Darwin said that if a system in nature is irreducibly complex, then Evolution as a theory does not work. That is, since the theory is one of incremental change forward and we are presently viewing evolved systems, we must be able to work those systems backward to their original state. If an evolved system cannot be reduced because the removal of one part would make the entire system not work, then that system is irreducibly complex. Behe started with the example of a mousetrap. Remove any one part and it won't catch mice (which seems to be its purpose for existing). Work it forward and the same conundrum arises - a metal bar can't be held back without a piece of wood which itself doesn't need a hook. There are evolved pieces in a mousetrap that had to be designed.

Behe uses several examples from the human body. I love the blood coagulation example. The proteins involved in coagulating blood are remarkable. And think about it - if blood flowed to provide oxygen but never coagulated in the earliest life forms, every member in a species would have bled out and died before being able to evolve. Then when coagulation did begin, why didn't the entire body gum up and the host die? But dig into the biochemical reactions at the site of an injury and learn how coagulation begins and ends, and it becomes clear that there is no reasonable manner except scientific bullshit ("there is so much unused stuff in the system that it just ... it just ... um, it just happened because all the precursors were there!") to refute it.

But, ah, therein lies the issue. Instead of giving Intelligent Design it's fair run (which they would do if, say, we ignored solar activity and its effects on the icecaps of Mars, and instead blame us for Global Warming), they put up impossible obstacles - Intelligent Design? That's a GOD. That's RELIGION. Then they break out the stakes and kindling.

So now Ben has joined the argument. Can't wait to see the film. Will it get as much play as Algore's piece of unscientific garbage on melting icebergs?

Here's the Blog that Ben is keeping. Here's a few-page Press Kit.

Should be fun.

And now a self promotion. I wrote a piece some time ago - October 2005 - Evolution and Intelligent Design - and reproduced here:

Evolution theory works something like this: there was, you see, this big BANG!, then like, WHOMPF! all this stuff was just screaming outward at incredible rates of speed and then somehow or another some of it started spinning really, really fast (instead of continuing outward as a result of the original propulsion, some of it started to circle back!) and that spinning stuff caught on fire, well, nuclear fusion kinda sorta that starts at the core of this spinning thing where the pressure is so great that hydrogen is like smashed into helium-4 (the loss of mass creates energy – ever hear of the theory of relativity, duh?!?) and then the energy becomes a photon and starts moving outward and does this photon-gas-photon-gas thingey to like 10 to the 25th times and finally it reaches the surface (like 100,000 to 200,000 years after the hydrogen pressure thingey) and then there’s this convection of hot and cooler gas – anyway, light and heat is spit outward and while all this is happening other stuff started to spin around those firey things and on one of them a cell emerged – quite by random chance, mind you, well maybe the saline solution helped but that just kinda appeared, too – and that cell split into two pieces and then, and then it evolved (!) to optimize its in situ experience and then, and then eventually it evolved into us (and monkeys, too!): each cell in our body contains a copy of our DNA; each dual strand of DNA in each of our cells is made up of 3,000,000,000 (three billion) molecules; each human body contains 100,000,000,000,000 (one hundred trillion) cells. One hundred trillion multiplied by three billion (btw, 300 sextillion; unless you are in Europe where it is called 300 trilliard because what the Brits call a sextillion we call an undecillion; confusing, I know – let’s be clear, we’re talking 10 to the 21st, not 10 to the 36th; if it were a hard disk, it would be 300 zettabytes – ok, I’ll stop) and with all that evoluting goin’ on there is only one form of humanoid on our planet – go figure – what a glorious random chance event we are!!!

oh, btw, that stuff preceding the BANG!, the stuff in the first instance, was sumptin' outta nuttin'.

And you people think I'm the one going on faith?

stepping towards God

There’s some conversation on the net I breezed through concerning god (little “g” on purpose for the moment). No links, not needed. This woman is going through 12-steps as a spouse – husband’s a heroin addict trying to pull his life together.

I know from discussion that God is and through the 12-step program because of my teaching. Atheists have tried to can the government support of the program based upon the Separation and Establishment Clauses, but to no avail – the government just cannot do the job without them (AA, Nar-Anon, etc). I have never read the program or even a description of it. Alright, FINE. HERE. A description of the 12 Step program. Happy?

These are the original Twelve Steps as suggested by Alcoholics Anonymous (Narcotics Anonymous changes in parentheses).

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol (over the Addict)—that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Were [We’re?] entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His Will for us and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics (to others), and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Well, seems the God-less out there have a point – sure be a lot of God being established and not separated in them thar steps. Bummer that, eh?

Where was I? Oh yeah, I was marginally in this conversation. This woman is going through the program for the support she receives. Tough situation for her, but seems dedicated. So she is on Step 3 (I don’t know, but I believe that she completed the program before) and she writes, “I gotta figure out what god is, give my life to that person, place, or thing, and render some writing about it fit to show folks at tomorrow's meeting.” (Step 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.)

Fair enough. But I was struck by two things. First, she presented God as a common noun. Elsewhere, same post, “… it isn't always so goddamned complicated.” I always cringe when I see God’s name slapped around like that. I know it’s common, I know most people doing it really do not mean it as insulting to God – I know all of that, but it doesn’t lessen my reaction.

So I left a comment: “the first step in understanding god is to spell it with a capital g ... God.”

Comment from an interested 3d party comes in, and I respond with, “i consider God to be a discrete entity - although you are correct in that He may not be classified as a person, place, or thing. but isn't that a noun? can we not use a capital to denote honor, or to suggest a specific entity, like a name which just so happens to also be a common noun? there are, afterall, many competing gods through history. my point, … is that, for me, the first step to understanding God is to remove this entity from a common designation, and thereby begin to give Him a shape, a form, a physical presence in my life. i then can learn and attribute to Him qualities. i am not making those up out of convenience - i am searching the Bible to understand. in the end result, yes, i have imbued quite a human form upon God - but i can't relate to a cloud, i don't feel responsible to an ethereal mist.”

Another poster adds, in part, “Have you ever read the Bible? I am not being rude, just curious.”

The owner of the site then writes, “It's good you've found your God, Clyde. Mine is more of that ethereal mist kind...and that disembodied thing isn't interested in capitalization.

“Just so you folks know, all further debate in these comments is stopping...looks like it's going in a direction that my god isn't interested in having me go.” She was nice about it. Even added, “Love you guys!”

No hard feelings, but I was struck by something. It felt as if her quest to identify God was truly because she has to due to Step 3. There doesn’t seem to be any open inquiry, unless the inquiry leads to information consistent with her pre-existing feelings. Will that persist through Steps 5, 6, 7, and 11 as God makes more appearances?

I remember when, as an adult, I heard a sermon and let it resonate for months. It finally struck me. God finally got through my objections. Here’s the summary of it.

I spent lots of time reading about the alleged contradictions in the Bible, reading the “lost books,” comparing Greek translations and dismissing the entire KJV because the Lord’s Prayer is presented twice in identical English but the original Greek differs (somebody wrote what they wanted to write!).

Then this sermon comes along. The guy points out that no major religious figure ever claimed to be the Son of God except Jesus. Good point. Now, he went on, you can spend all the time you want working to disbelieve, working to find the faults, but let me ask you this: What if He (Jesus) is right? Can you really afford to be wrong?

It was a complete “duh” moment for me. I decided to stop fighting – just for the meantime – and focus purely on believing. The Bible began to talk to me. I saw through the parables, understanding their meaning before I ever read supporting materials to ensure my understanding was correct. I felt Paul in the Roman prison: the cold, damp cell, his hunger; his moments of loneliness.

You want to find out who God is? Quit arguing, quit applying your standards, drop your preconceived images. Open the Bible. I started with the NIV New Testament, but I avoided the Gospels. I didn’t feel it appropriate to Jesus’ words. I wanted the other guys. I read Galatians through Jude, skipping Hebrews.

The bottom of this page gives you full text chapter by chapter.

By the time I was done with those books, I found myself spiritually prepared to read the words of Jesus. It was the most amazing thing. So I read the Gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Acts feel into place. I continued through the rest of the NT, re-reading the books I had finished not too long before, and then read Revelation.

Here’s the homepage to that link above with all different Bible versions in full text plus references to supplement your understanding.

What’s the best version? Whatever one speaks to you. No such thing as “one best one.” I just like the NIV.

Read a chapter or two a night. Ask God to help you understand it – before you start and after you are done. Night after night after night. After a month, you’ll already be several books into it.

I always find that reading an intro to a book sets the stage nicely. Here’s the same introduction I use for Galatians, and you can select any book under the drop downs for OT and NT.

mixed mood

Not sure how to proceed through the day, if at all. So let's spend time in the extremes ...

Here are the first three verses of Genesis:

1. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

2. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

3. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

Pick any word in the first verse, count its letters, and move ahead by the corresponding number of words. For example, if you start at beginning, you'd count 9 letters and move ahead 9 words, landing on the in the second verse. Count that word's letters and continue in this manner until you've entered the third verse.

You'll always arrive at God.

Qyotes from Friedrich Nietzsche :

One should die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly.

If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends.

Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.

Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.

To predict the behavior of ordinary people in advance, you only have to assume that they will always try to escape a disagreeable situation with the smallest possible expenditure of intelligence.

dots on a uke

I’ve been working on accreditation docs all day and night. Like chewing aspirin. Been blogging on the side to stave off my desire to blow my brains out.

There is something I’ve known deep inside of me for some time, but couldn’t admit. I think the time has come. Wait for it … wait for it … I have concluded that at 48 years of age, Mason Dots are my favorite candy. I’m comfortable with it. And sharing this with all the world is liberating. I feel free to be what I am: a Dot-aholic.

I buy the movie-theatre size boxes (8.5 ozs. of loving) for $1.00 at (where else) the Dollar Store. I get four boxes at a time. I horde them in my room. Each box lasts two gorging sessions.

Did you know that Dots come in five flavors? Strawberry (the pink ones), has a light floral and fruity taste, kind of like cotton candy; Cherry (red), with just a hint of FD&C Red #40; Orange (orange), that actually tastes like orange, with a slightly bitter zest that comes a little later; Lemon (yellow), a mellow presence with a very slight tartness that makes me think at once of puppies and roadkill; and Lime (green), which presents an unexpected Scrubbing Bubbles taste (yes, the bathroom cleaner).

I usually woof them by the handful, so I get the impression of flowers that have been pissed on by a puppy that then darts across the road, gets pancaked, and some fool is on his knees cleaning the stain in the macadam. With that said, how could you not love Mason Dots?

How is this cornucopia of mouth experiences achieved? Thusly: Corn Syrup, Sugar, Modified Food Starch, Malic Acid, Artificial and Natural Flavors, Sodium Citrate, and Artificial Colors (Including FD&C Red 40, Yellow 5, and Blue 1). The best thing? There’s no gelatin, so they’re suitable for vegetarians and vegans.

Dots have been in production since 1945, and ne’er a gram of fat or nutrition has passed through a box. Packed inside each 3.5 gram morsel of sin is 12 calories, 1 mg of sodium, 3 grams of carbs, and 2 grams of sugar.

Dots make me happy.

My thoughts wandered to music after the Dot-buzz wore off. I was listening to a radio broadcast from 1974. Seems John Lennon sat as DJ in some LA station. I was surprised that he played Jet by Macca, and afterward said it was one of Paul’s better ones, and he would have played Monkberry Moon Delight (from Ram) but ran out of time. Then he played My Sweet Lord and praised the song as well.

That took me to listening to All Things Must Pass.

One of my favorite songs of all time is Awaiting on You All. What amazes me is the incredible wall of sound that Phil Spector (before he started shooting B-grade actresses in the head) created.

I have two versions of it below. The first is Hari singing it at the Concert for Bangladesh. The presentation is great – I love the song, but it is not the full force he achieved in the studio.

The second video is the studio version. Someone posted on You Tube a collage of pics that are nice to watch.

For me, the studio version just stops me in my tracks. I always think, “a moment ago, the studio was silent. And now a dozen people are playing together, and the room is alive.”

Another thing I love about the song is the lyrics. I’ll put them in full later in this post. But I doubt a more insightful and biting two lines were ever written by a musician than the following:

And while the Pope owns 51% of General Motors
And the stock exchange is the only thing he's qualified to quote us

Here’s the clip from the Concert for Bangladesh:



Here’s the studio version with some pics someone posted:



You don't need no love in
You don't need no bed pan
You don't need a horoscope or a microscope
The see the mess that you're in
If you open up your heart
You will know what I mean
We've been polluted so long
Now here's a way for you to get clean

By chanting the names of the Lord and you'll be free
The Lord is awaiting on you all to awaken and see
Chanting the names of the Lord and you'll be free
The Lord is awaiting on you all to awaken and see

You don't need no passport
And you don't need no visas
You don't need to designate or to emigrate
Before you can see Jesus
If you open up your heart
You'll see he's right there
Always was and will be
He'll relieve you of your cares

By chanting the names of the Lord and you'll be free
The Lord is awaiting on you all to awaken and see
Chanting the names of the Lord and you'll be free
The Lord is awaiting on you all to awaken and see

You don't need no church house
And you don't need no Temple
You don't need no rosary beads or them books to read
To see that you have fallen
If you open up your heart
You will know what I mean
We've been kept down so long
Someone's thinking that we're all green

And while the Pope owns 51% of General Motors
And the stock exchange is the only thing he's qualified to quote us
The Lord is awaiting on you all to awaken and see
By chanting the names of the Lord and you'll be free

One of Hari’s childhood friends was Joe Brown. They apparently maintained their friendship throughout their lives. Hari’s favorite instrument was the ukulele. I’ve read that it always came out after dinner.

I bought the Concert for George DVD immediately upon its release. The last song is Joe Brown playing a uke and singing, “I’ll see you in my dreams.” I sat on the couch and cried. I haven’t been able to focus on that song since – I think it played two more times in my presence. I always distracted myself. When I was getting the above videos, this one came up. So I watched. And cried again.

t-rex, girl, from electric warrior

O God
High in your fields above earth
Come and be real for us
You with your mind
Oh yes you are
Beautifully fine

O Girl
Electric witch you are
Limp in society's ditch you are
Visually fine
Oh yes you are
But mentally dying

O boy
Just like a boat you are
Sunk but somehow you float you do
Mentally weak
Oh yes you are
But so much speak

river stones

There’s an old Jewish story – old being before the Maccabees – about the flat stones found in the southern foothills of the mountains. The stones were clearly river stones, but no river was there, nor had one ever been there to anyone’s knowledge.

In the mountains beyond the foothills were eagles that were particularly vicious hunters. They were patient and nothing escaped their attacks.

As the cold weather came to the regions north of the mountains, the geese would fly south over the mountains. As they honked to each other in flight, their honks also told the vicious eagles of their presence. The eagles would soar to the heights of the geese, and drag their bodies back to the eagles’ nest to be eaten.

Over time, the geese learned to stop and rest before crossing the mountains. They would each take a stone from a riverbed north of the mountains into their mouths. They would then fly over the mountains silently, as the river stone filled their mouths and they could not honk. Since they flew so high and so quietly, the eagles were never aware of their presence.

As the geese cleared the mountains, they would drop the river stones from their mouths. Hence, the river stones in a place where no river ever flowed.

The direct interpretation of the story was that there was a time to speak and a time not to speak. Speaking at the wrong time could have dire consequences.

I like to step back from the story and find a more general meaning. There is a time when some acts are appropriate, and a time when those same acts are not appropriate. Doing an act out of its proper time can have, indeed, dire consequences.

Even more generally, there is a season for acts. Sometimes those seasons end and never come back. Continuing to do an act beyond its season can have dire consequences.

“Dire consequences” can never be looked at too narrowly. Effects can be direct to the actor, direct to those acted upon, or indirect to those two or others beyond that limited group.

This discussion reminds me of teaching Ethics. No act ever occurs in a vacuum. It is as if every act creates energy. The energy of every act ever performed lingers to this day. A bad act today can affect perceptions and decisions decades from now.

I always liked the simple ethics test called, “newspaper headline.” What if your acts were fully described on page one of the newspaper for all to read – friend, family, and foe alike. Would you still do the same act in the same way? Could you defend your actions to your harshest critics? What will you say when the dire consequences become public?

I think I shall be reminded to review my own acts every time I find a flat stone.

Evolution & Intelligent Design

Evolution theory works something like this: there was, you see, this big BANG!, then like, WHOMPF! all this stuff was just screaming outward at incredible rates of speed and then somehow or another some of it started spinning really, really fast (instead of continuing outward as a result of the original propulsion, some of it started to circle back!) and that spinning stuff caught on fire, well, nuclear fusion kinda sorta that starts at the core of this spinning thing where the pressure is so great that hydrogen is like smashed into helium-4 (the loss of mass creates energy – ever hear of the theory of relativity, duh?!?) and then the energy becomes a photon and starts moving outward and does this photon-gas-photon-gas thingey to like 10 to the 25th times and finally it reaches the surface (like 100,000 to 200,000 years after the hydrogen pressure thingey) and then there’s this convection of hot and cooler gas – anyway, light and heat is spit outward and while all this is happening other stuff started to spin around those firey things and on one of them a cell emerged – quite by random chance, mind you, well maybe the saline solution helped but that just kinda appeared, too – and that cell split into two pieces and then, and then it evolved (!) to optimize its in situ experience and then, and then eventually it evolved into us (and monkeys, too!): each cell in our body contains a copy of our DNA; each dual strand of DNA in each of our cells is made up of 3,000,000,000 (three billion) molecules; each human body contains 100,000,000,000,000 (one hundred trillion) cells. One hundred trillion multiplied by three billion (btw, 300 sextillion; unless you are in Europe where it is called 300 trilliard because what the Brits call a sextillion we call an undecillion; confusing, I know – let’s be clear, we’re talking 10 to the 21st, not 10 to the 36th; if it were a hard disk, it would be 300 zettabytes – ok, I’ll stop) and with all that evoluting goin’ on there is only one form of humanoid on our planet – go figure – what a glorious random chance event we are!!!

oh, btw, that stuff preceding the BANG!, the stuff in the first instance, was sumptin' outta nuttin'.

And you people think I'm the one going on faith?