Monthly Archive for January, 2007

Freedom

When a child's parents allow him/her to do more things than other children, is he/she more free? I believe the answer is no. This merely indicates that the child's parents have a different raising method in their minds than most other parents. It might indicate that the parents are more open-minded towards allowing their child to experiment and experience things. But it doesn't say anything about the child's freedom.

Freedom, as I see it, is about having the choice to do a certain action, not about doing the action itself. When people fight for freedom, they fight to have the choice, to have control. I believe freedom is revealed when people disagree about the action. For example, if a child wants to do something, and his parents think he/she shouldn't, and yet he/she gets to do this thing, then that can be called a free person.

It might be trivial that a child has little freedom, but what about adults? Logically, as people grow up, they should be given more freedom gradually, until they get it completely. There's no clear line as to when this full freedom should be given, but it's obvious that this can only happen when the person can make conscious choices and can handle the consequences of any action he/she does.

This is one of the situations where I see how deep sexism is rooted in our societies. Even though it's a well-known fact that females mature 4 or 5 years earlier than males, we find that most males have full freedom before they reach 20, while most females never get it at all. It saddens me beyond words when I see how lucky a girl in her twenties is considered when her parents allow her to do more things than other girls because they're open-minded, and I cannot help but wonder: How many great minds do we have to lose to oppression and sexism before we realize how silly and stupid this whole thing is and decide to do something about it?

Boxing in school

What a brilliant idea. The newest initiative to deal with fat kids, is to make them fight to the death in a boxing ring. Only one will make it out alive. Bets will be placed on who's heart will explode into a fountain of cholesterol and chip fat first. Sadly of course they wont take it that far. But getting the already brain debted majority of our current education system to beat the hell into each others' brains, is definitely a good idea. I mean, how can it go wrong?

Lord Levy Arrested

Breaking news. Lord Levy, friend of Tony Blair and Labour fundraiser has been arrested again. No charge has been made, but surely it can't be long before the net tightens. This on top of the arrest of Ruth Turner a top aide to Tony Blair, really shows just how corrupt this government is. Of course you could say that there's nothing wrong with the Government accepting money for peerages, after all its gone on for years. The Tories, who made such a fuss of the cash for honours scandal, had actually made more money out of it than Labour. Mind you, the Tories are hardly reliable now a days. And they still haven't got any policies except, of course, opposing everything the Government does.

Shilpa wins

So Shilpa Shetty has won Big Brother. Big surprise. The country could not take 'alleged racism' so seriously without doing so. Ironic though that last time Jade was voted the winner, and has since fallen out of favour with the public; can the same be expected of Shilpa? Will she incense the nation by, perhaps, barbecuing a Battersea dog, and eating it? Somehow, I think she might.

I want to keep this particular post short, as the vacuous waste of tabloid drivel that seems to constantly take up air time on Channel 4, deserves to have its oxygen forcibly ripped out of its lungs. However, looking at the tabloids this morning, it was interesting to see that nearly all had pictures of Shilpa on their front pages. All that is except the Daily Express. Again no surprise there. Nice to know that the ever "respectable" Daily Express is taking a completely unbiased view.

Duck rises from the dead

A duck in florida has risen from the dead after being shot, locked in a refrigerator and dying twice on the operating table. Perky the duck, was found alive in a hunter's fridge two days after being shot. I think a better name for this duck would be Jesus, Lord of the Ducks. I mean, Jesus was only resurrected once, and this duck has done it twice.

However this could be a part of a bigger problem. What if all animals start coming back from the dead? One day your biting into you burger, and the next its biting into you. As I see it we only have a few months left. Start stocking up on all the vegetables you can, and hide yourself away from the meat. It's now survival of the meatiest.

Link:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6309159.stm

The obesity Tsar

A parliamentary watchdog has called for an 'obesity Tsar' to tackle the explosion of fat children. Yes, every year over a hundred fat children explode from overeating, and the Government has finally decided to something about it. However is a Tsar really what we need? Do we want to see after a couple of years a bloody uprising, fat children being rolled into the Tsar's palace and his family being killed, only to be replaced by a new Socialist Dictator, who says he will redistribute food to those who want it, whilst secretly betraying his Communist ideals, and keeping all the food to himself? I think not.

The solution however is obvious.

We attach fat children to the front of our cars and make them run. Not only do we turn our children into lean, mean, Olympic winning machines, but we also beat climate change by getting rid of fossil fuels. I can't imagine why this hasn't already been done.

Lies to lead to salvation

I remember very clearly the day I was “saved”. I especially remember the drive back to my apartment with my then-girlfriend (now my wife). But more than anything I remember the week after I was dunked.

A church deacon came to me and asked me to take up some task in the church. This particular time it was to sit out in the parking lot during the service and make sure that the cars stayed safe. But the requests kept growing both in time and money required.

What it left me with was a feeling of betrayal. The entire time I visited that church as a pre-Christian I was told that I just needed to accept Jesus and everything would be good. Now I was being told that I also needed to donate to the church in addition to the 10% that God required me to give, join a class or even better teach a class, and help out with other tasks around the church. Worst of all I was told that I should do so happily because it was “for God”.

No. I felt lied to. I felt that they had told me of the simplicity while leaving out all the other works, the entire time telling me that works wouldn’t save me.


Jokes on 666

I saw this on a ChristianForums thread and thought it was too good not to repost here.

660: Approximate number of the Beast

DCLXVI: Roman numeral of the Beast

666.0000: Number of the High Precision Beast

0.666: Number of the Millibeast

/ 666: Beast Common Denominator

666 ^ (-1): Imaginary number of the Beast

1010011010: Binary of the Beast

6, uh… what was that number again?: Number of the Blonde Beast

1-666: Area code of the Beast

00666: Zip code of the Beast

$665.95: Suggested Retail price of the Beast

$699.25: Price of the Beast plus 5% state sales tax

$769.95: Price of the Beast with all accessories and replacement soul

$656.66: Walmart price of the Beast

$646.66: Next week’s Walmart price of the Beast

Phillips 666: Gasoline of the Beast

Route 666: Highway of the Beast

666 F: Oven temperature for roast Beast

666k: Retirement plan of the Beast

666 mg: Recommended Minimum Daily Requirement of Beast

6.66 %: 5 year CD interest rate at First Beast of Hell National Bank, $666 minimum deposit.

Lotus 6-6-6: Spreadsheet of the Beast

Word 6.66: Word Processor of the Beast

i66686: CPU of the Beast

666i: BMW of the Beast

DSM-666 (revised): Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the Beast

668: Next-door neighbor of the Beast

665.9997856: The Number of the Beast on a Pentium


“Creation”

If we put the parts of a million watches in a big box and shake this box randomly for billions of years, isn't it possible that one watch would come together and work accurately? If there was a watchmaker who knows the design and has the ability to make the watch perfectly the first time, why would he take billions of years and leave so many traces of trial and error before making it?

For most people, the idea that natural selection and evolution are the real creators of our race is ludicrous even though there is so much evidence to support it. I think this is in part due to the fact that 3.5 billion years is a time so long that most people can't even begin to imagine it. When compared to our relatively short lives, a person tends to mistakenly underestimate such a long period and the amount of events that could take place during it. When this is added to humans' desperate need not to feel lonely, their inherent feeling of extreme superiority to other creatures, and the religious brainwashing almost every person has been undergoing since he/she was a child, I find the outcome quite expected.

Sometimes, I find myself wondering if our race (and especially our society) will ever be able to dig itself out of the comfortable hole of denial and ignorance it's so determined to stay in, consider the facts subjectively, and face reality.....

On Joy and Sorrow

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you
shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

The Prophet
Khalil Gibran

Jesus is Lord of Metropolitan DC, MD, VA

Yes, I know I'm supposed to be on paternity leave from blogging, but I could not resist sharing the following creed, which I spied on a bumper sticker in the parking lot of the local CVS:


The only theory I could come up with was that this is some sort of starter doctrine for new converts to Christianity. You know, for those people who really want to join up, but are finding the Lord-of-the-entire-universe thing a little hard to take on all at once? I guess the churches figured, "well, let's start them off with something manageable; something still pretty vast and important, but nothing the layman can't flip through in his ADC Road Atlas."

I'm hoping to see that car again--I hear there's an opening for Lord of the entire Mid-Atlantic Region, and I'm pulling for Jesus to get the promotion.