Posts from — April 2010

Mid January there was the 7.0 in Haiti. At the End of February it was the 8.8 in Chile. Earlier this week there was a a 7.2 in Baja. And now we have a 7.7 in Northern Sumatra.

While there is no way of knowing for sure, it seems logical that a major quake in one part of the world can trigger other quakes in other regions. The crust that we exist on floats on molten rock. Where the various chunks of the crust, plates, make contact, pressures build. When there is a release of the pressure due to an earthquake, it has to cause a ripple in the magma that is broadcast. That ripple is one additional bit of pressure added to all of the other factors, and can be logically assumed to cause earthquakes on other fault lines.

I would have thought that the Boxing Day 9.0 in 2004 would have relieved all of the pressure on that fault for a long time to come, but apparently even surviving the “Big One” is no guarantee there won’t be another big one in the same decade.

I was out and about most of the day and happened upon an actual paper copy of the Local Puppy Trainer. I immediately turned to the Letters because it is always entertaining to read the rants of the locals verbally beating people to a pulp with Bible verses. These people believe that if you can find a quote that can be construed as supporting your point of view, you have won the argument, which is usually about something that has nothing to do with desert nomadic tribes, as there is a dearth of both deserts and nomadic tribes in this area.

Apparently last week someone made the outrageous claim that the Bible supports helping the poor and it is a good thing that tax dollars are used in this way.

Obviously that couldn’t be allowed to stand, so this guy claims that since you aren’t directly helping the poor, you derive no benefit from this act of “Christian charity”. As this individual went on to list all of his personal charitable donations, I got the feeling that he believes that “Judgment Day” is like an IRS audit, and you get no credit unless you have your receipts.

I realize that I am probably the member of an extreme minority, but I have never taken a receipt for anything I have given, and have never taken a tax deduction for it. I have always felt that doing that devalued the spirit of giving. I have had to explain this a couple of times when there were questions as to where money went during the years when I was making good money and it drove my tax guy crazy, but that’s the way I interpreted what I was taught.

I think Mr. “You Need A Receipt” may be in for a surprise on the “Final Exam”.

To All Subsidiaries:

There have been numerous complaints received regarding the services provided under the current regime and we would like to take the time to respond to these complaints and to help those of you in the outlying areas understand the true situation.

It has been noted that several individuals purporting to be the “Easter Bunny” do not seem to be authentic. Of course they’re not authentic. We don’t do personal appearances or take requests. As the anthropomorphic personification of a blended holiday we are entirely too involved in attempting to fulfill the unreasoned expectations of various groups. Besides which, we noticed that many of the requests came from people with French surnames, and I don’t think it is necessary to remind people what happens to rabbits in France: in Britain bunnies are found in children books; in France in cookbooks. [See also North Korea.]

We had what we thought was an excellent solution, but then discovered that due to his existence as a pookah, Harvey was not visible to major segments of the population and, to be honest, he had a problem staying away from the tipple for any major block of time.

[Read more →]

The Miami Herald reported that Crist requests probe of GOP ‘mess’

TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Charlie Crist asked federal authorities Friday to investigate the Republican Party of Florida amid growing concerns about secret deals and misspent money.

“It’s a mess,” he said. “This thing stinks.”

In an interview, Crist said the U.S. attorney’s office needs to take over the criminal investigation of former Chairman Jim Greer and examine the use of party credit cards by top GOP lawmakers.

“A federal comprehensive investigation is . . . fully appropriate,” the Republican governor said. “Particularly because of the significant IRS implications throughout this thing.”

OK, everyone has been reporting on all of the dubious uses of the RPOF [Republican Party of Florida] credit cards, which looks bad and is embarrassing for individual politicians, but the real problem is Jim Greer’s consulting firm, which Jim neglected to tell people was his firm. That’s where this drifts away from the normal stupidity of politicians with credit cards and access to campaign funds, and enters the domain of the IRS.

Charlie was a major backer of Greer, and this certainly isn’t going to be good for him, but if the RPOF doesn’t clean this mess up, a lot of donors will stop contributing. Charley didn’t have a party credit card, so he was golden on that problem, but Greer’s consulting firm is definitely a negative for Charlie.

It’s time for more popcorn.

A Classic [based on searches]

Sort of Christian matzo, in the sense that they are baked goods tied to a specific holiday that generally occur at the same time.

Recipe and background

Note – April Fools Day was yesterday. These are real stories, at real news sites.

Over at CNN you will find: Karzai blames foreigners for election fraud.

So, the President of Afghanistan says that his re-election was the result of a fraudulent election, but the fraud was committed by the UN, not his supporters. He doesn’t really explain why the UN wanted him re-elected enough to game the system, but he knows they did it.

This doesn’t bother him enough to call for a new election.

The CBC has a nice “good news” story: Microsoft’s i4i patent appeal denied.

M$ ripped off a tiny Canadian software company, i4i, and their premier product, an XML-based document system. M$ has been using the pirated software in Word since version 2003.

I don’t doubt that M$ is seriously considering appealing to the Supreme Court, but it would have been less expensive to have just licensed the i4i software in the beginning. M$ has been pulling this garbage for years. i4i is one of the few companies that has had the resources to fight back and haul them into court.

The ABC says that Christian leaders use Easter to attack atheism.

Excuse me, but making Easter, the most important Christian holy day, a launching pad for attacks on atheism is rather brain dead. The day is about the foundation of the Christian faith, so why divert attention from that to talk about people who don’t believe.

I think these “Christian” leaders might want to spend some time with the parable of the good Samaritan found in the Gospel of Luke, and then deal with the real importance of the day.

CC Wants Loose

Come on, unhook the leash.

[Editor: CC hates the leash because it reduces her ability to beat up the young cats. The juveniles deserve a beating, because they do taunt her, but CC doesn’t know about cars and roads.]

Friday Ark

If you like or are neutral about the Catholic Church, you might remind them “It’s not the crime – It’s the cover-up!”

The Church really needs to get DonoWho off of people’s TV screens. His “blame the victim” schtick is really annoying and not helping anyone.

I covered the Pedophile versus Ephebophile conflict of definitions during the Mark Foley debacle, but it is irrelevant because those are definitions from the Social Sciences. To quote myself:

It might surprise people, but the penal [criminal] law generally breaks the population down to two groups, adult or child, and the age of differentiation is 18. The age of consent is almost always limited to the definition of a specific crime, statutory rape, and not a determining factor in other crimes where the 18 year-old standard is used.

Puberty doesn’t occur at any particular age, it occurs at different times for different people, although most endure it during middle school/junior high. It is not a factor in throwing your tail in jail if you have sex with someone younger than the age of consent, usually 16.

The Church is not doing itself any favors by attempting to stonewall these problems, or by attacking those reporting on them. They are only digging themselves into a deeper hole, having retreated from the moral high ground.