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Those wacky christians are at it again! In a rather ironic turn of events, the same uptight christian asshats that call the police everytime a group of teenagers use colloquialisms were ticketed for violating noise ordinances. The pastor said that, “it was church music. It was nothing crazy.” Apparently, he doesn’t understand that if it was Marliyn Manson music, or perhaps Rave music, that the organizers of the event would have likely been ticketed. Is god exempt from the law? Well, the pastor went on to say, “we don’t want any problems, we just want to worship the lord.” Isn’t that phenomenal! Well, they just want to worship the lord. Shiat, I just want to make sure god could hear me all the way up there, I don’t want any problems. Or, wait — I don’t want any problems, I just want to get to work on time so that’s why I drive so fast! The police officers claimed that they felt bad that they had to issue the ticket, but their position is quite simple. If the police are receiving noise complaints, then they’re obligated to respond. I applaud the police for ignoring the potentially politically charged situation and performing their job. Kudos.

Meanwhile, halfway around the world, there are other asshat christians that are trying to keep culinary students from practicing their trades with real alcohol. These are culinary students, folks, not students at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Seriously though, I fail to see how the prohibition of educational uses of alcohol can be beneficial. Well, while we’re at it, we might as well prohibit the use of sherry wine, since it does contain alcohol. Hell, we also might as well ban scientific uses of denatured alcohol. Even though it would make a person sick upon imbibation, the potential for abuse exists. We as humans must do all that is possible to stave off these heathenous behaviors! Oh, that was sarcasm. We live in a global society with a preventitive attitude. What ever happened to the concept that a person would commit a crime and then be held responsible? Now we hold people responsible for crimes that haven’t been committed yet by making virtually everything a crime and preemptively making their behaviors socially unacceptable.

If I’ve learned one thing, it’s that religion and politics are best left apart.

Today on FARK I picked up an article about a letter that was delivered a mere 37 years after it was sent. The letter was lost behind a machine at the post office, and when the machine was moved, they discovered the ancient post. This made me feel like telling a story at story time.

I used to deliver mail as a work-study job in college. I was always amazed by the sheer amount of stuff that was just routinely tossed without further thought. The problem is, some stuff is sent via the wrong class of mail. Many people don’t realize that, for example, presorted standard mail (although far less expensive than first class) is not the correct medium for mailing, say, a bill or pseudo-important letter. Standard mail does not get forwarded. Meanwhile, I would see driver licenses, credit cards, and other highly important documents just get tossed in the recycle bin because they couldn’t be forwarded or returned to sender. Now, someone reading that might say, “Well, why did you just throw those things away?” I would never throw them away, I would meter them and send them back when I found them, only out of concern for potential identity theft. My supervisor permitted the miniscule monthly expenditure of postage (it was, after all, the ‘right’ thing to do). [Read more →]

I got a few things to talk about today. I’m going to start off with two silly news articles that have little to do with the headline today. I know that very often, I find myself pondering the question, “Do I bash the Catholic Church enough?” Lately, the answer I’ve been giving myself is a resounding no. But then again, very often the dioceses and other church officals go through extraordinary measures to ensure that everybody knows how foolish and corrupt they really are. Catholics are a radical bunch in a global society such as that which exists right now. For example, people generally do not consider photos of clothed females to be pornographic. I, however, know that even writing about telephones on a website could be considered pornographic *COUGH*TOTALLY-TRUE*COUGH*. Excuse me, I have pneumonia and so I have quite a cough. Anyway, the diocese in Pittsburgh is outraged because it has discovered that for the last 10 years or so, the local newspaper has included ads for escort and massage services (which, of course, are widely known as fronts for organized prostitution). Discovering that people have been selling their bodies since the beginning of recorded history, the church has come out and suggested that the paper take the only reasonable course of action and include a disclaimer on the front page stating the newspaper contains sexual content. The newspaper responded by saying, “OMGWTFLOL u r teh dumbass,” and has essentially ignored the church’s comments (probably because they were pretty unrealistic).

Speaking of unrealistic, how about that wacky Orrin Hatch character.

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In case you had been wondering why the so-called liberal news media had not been asking the Bush administration for concrete answers, there is finally a woman ballsy enough to do the job. As it turns out, the fightin’ Irish whipped out their beer muscles and slammed George W Bush with a hard hitting interview. The interview went so badly for Curious George that his handlers said that they were “furious” at the woman, who had been the first Irish reporter to interview an American president for the last 20 years. If you don’t feel like reading the article, read the transcript, and watch George W Bush make an ass out of himself. Best part: “Can I finish? Can I finish?” a la the South Park movie.

Here is today’s coolest news story though: SUVs are now banned on the Washington Crossing Bridge near Philadelphia. It should be quite interesting to see how effective this is, or for that matter how they’re going to post a sign about such a regulation. I wonder, though, what about fire trucks, or ambulances, or even pickup trucks that weigh over 3 tons? The choice of the few vehicles listed in the article is quite strange considering that there are so many other vehicles with high curb weights as well. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to work so that I can afford to fill the gas tank in my Hummer H2.

Actually, I probably shouldn’t be joking about gas problems, because my car happens to be having a problem right now. It idles at about 400-500 RPM and subsequently has been stalling in the last couple of days. My father thinks it might be the fuel filter, so we’re going to try replacing that later tonight and seeing what happens.

UPDATE: As if anyone didn’t know that all high school principals were sexual predators, celebrity Jeffrey Jones, better know as the Principal from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, was arrested for failure to register as a sex offender. What I fail to understand about Megan’s Law and similar legislation is that… if someone is dangerous enough to the community that they could go and break the law again, then why are they allowed back on the streets in the first place? We are jailing people guilty of drug possession (mostly blacks are the ones going to jail for this, by the way, which is interesting since statistically more white people do hard drugs). If someone should stay in jail for possessing drugs, then certainly sex offenders should stay in jail until they are no longer a threat to society. It’s time to think about prioritization of our prison populations. Who really belongs behind bars? Who is being held because of the color of their skin, or, in the case of the Gitmo detainees, their religious beliefs?

In other news, anyone that saw Fahrenheit 9/11 should recall the scene in which representatives from Florida, one after another, ask for an investigation into the 2000 elections. What’s funny about this is that this time, it looks like they’re taking preemptive steps to prevent a repeat. They’re calling for the UN to oversee the 2004 presidential elections. I highly doubt that the UN will get involved, and if they do, you can rest assured that they’ll do virtually nothing to stop any potential election fraud – mostly because the United States has pretty much already called the UN their bitch and demonstrated their powerlessness. Remember that whole “war in Iraq” thing that they didn’t give us permission for? Hopefully no other global superpowers will decide that the United States is in violation of UN sanctions.

That’s all well and good – we all know that the war in Iraq really was justified (sarcasm). The disgusting truth about the American involvement in the UN is that the United States owes over $1 billion in indebted dues, while the rest of the world combined owes a little under $1.5 billion. This is disgusting, considering that we’re dropping $87 billion on a whim on reconstruction contracts in Iraq which, coincidentally, are mostly going to Halliburton. Meanwhile, Halliburton is charging $125 per case of Coca-Cola, and $1,758 per case of Snickers bars. If you do the math on this, that works out to a little over $10 per can of Coca-Cola, and a little over $73 per Snickers bar. Thank you, American taxpayers! Oh, does anyone remember that story about Iraqis paying $.05 per gallon of gas? They pay $.05 per gallon of gas and we pay $73 per Snickers bar? BULLSHIAT!. Ok, I’m done with today’s rant.

This photo was taken at nighttime at Camp Bluefields, in Blauvelt, NY. Yes, the inside of the tunnel was pitch black and I light-painted the inside with my mag-lite during a 15 second exposure.

Tonight, Ally and I infiltrated the NVOT parking lot, the holding facility where hundreds of students cars were left overnight while they enjoyed a cruise around Manhattan for Project: Graduation. Our mission? To decorate her younger brother’s car in such a way as to generate both laughs and significant amounts of embarrasment. Here is the debriefing:

16:00 — Ally leaves work; goes to store and buys “car marker”
17:00 — I leave work; rock out to music in car during commute home
17:40 — I arrive home; draw pictures using unlined papers/crayons.
19:00 — Ally comes to my house; we go to Palisades Center mall for dinner.
19:30 — Annoy Best Buy employees by making them re-ring transaction for Father’s Day gift a third time; employees become intensely pissed, but inadvertently give me an undeserved rebate reciept for a $10 gift card (+10 bonus points)
20:00 — Eat dinner
20:30 — Leave Palisades Center; head to NVOT
20:50 — Arrive at NVOT, locate DK’s car.
21:15 — Decoration is complete. Photos posted below.

Today was also an interesting news day, too though. The first civilian space shuttle was launched today, and successfully exited the atmosphere. Note that the article says that the pricetag for this mission was something in the ballpark of $40M. Note, also, that NASA spends roughly $40 billion on failures like Challenger. [SARCASM] I consider this proof that republican economic policies work [/SARCASM].

But here is proof that the republicans actually have a chance at winning the 2004 election. Ralph “I-Ruin-Elections” Nader has named his running mate, not like anyone knows who he is. I’m sorry, but normally, I wouldn’t mind voting for a third party. I’m a registered libertarian (because of rather radical stance on the legalization of illicit drugs), and so I am not new to the thought of ‘wasting’ my vote. But you know what? This year, there is only one person that I am voting for: “Not Bush”. That’s his name. If he’s “Not Bush”, I will vote for him. That means voting for Kerry. I liked Dennis Kucinich, personally, but I think that we all knew that without the funding of the Heinz Ketchup fortune that Kerry’s wife enjoys, or the governmental recognition that Howard Dean screams loudly about, that he stood no real chance. That’s too bad. Remember folks, don’t put Bush back in office unless you really hate the Bill of Rights, and you really like supporting large, evil corporations bent on world domination and the advancement of the neo-conservative agendas.

Or just forget it all, and become a toll collector. The Smoking Gun has two sections about those lovable change-jockeys that they have available for public viewing. They’re filled with complaints from incensed travellers. They are also absolutely hilarious. Check out the New York State Thruway complaints, and the Mass Pike complaints.

This is DK’s car after we went absolutely nuts writing all over it and tying ribbon all over it. We also colored in the headlights and reverse lights with the car marker, so they will now appear blue when the car is running. We also wrote “Congratulations Jordan!” on a random car.