... last night that the $700 billion bailout of Big Business had been converted to a lottery, and that I had been awarded the entire shooting match, lock, stock, and barrel. After pinching myself repeatedly upon waking, I immediately scribbled a to-do list. I'd like to share that list with you.
What to do with $700 billion:
1. Buy the NBA.
Not just one team, all of them. And since I will own everything from the arenas (including the chewing gum I left underneath seat 4, row H, section 21 at Staples Center during a game in 2005) to the team mascots to each player's shoestrings, I will decide what happens and when. That said, all games will be canceled and rearranged to fit into a more disruptive schedule. Rather than beginning each season in October and wrapping things up the following June with the celebrated NBA Finals, I'm going to schedule all regular-season games to coincide with Major League Baseball playoff games and the World Series. The new NBA Finals will consist of a single sudden-death match between the Eastern and Western Conference champions. Naturally this winner-take-all game will be broadcast simultaneous to the Super Bowl. I'll call the regular season "October Madness," and the Finals will be renamed "January Surprise."
If any TV networks cry "foul," I will buy them and convert their format to continuous commercial-free reruns of I Love Lucy and Get Smart.
2. Buy the moon and rename it.
3. Buy the presidency, first of this country and afterward any country that comes to mind.
4. Buy Australia. I've always wanted my own island-continent-nation, and I love to watch toilets flush backward. Plus, I'd get to learn a cool accent by hanging out with my favorite blokes and sheilas down at the pub.
5. If there's any money left over, buy the crappiest Major League Baseball franchise and fire all players, coaches, and the manager. This year's winner will be the San Diego Padres. While I realize Seattle and Washington were actually a wee bit crappier, I like having the Mariners around, and the poor Nationals just relocated from the dregs of baseball in Montreal, purely a hockey town. I've never found anything useful to do with the Padres anyway. They will be replaced by the prettiest, most buxom female college softball players I can find, and their new name will be the Madres. Wait. I hear you protesting this one. Listen, I guarantee my team will draw more than the previous occupants who were overpaid, fat, lazy cry babies. Though my new team will surely lose all one-hundred and sixty-two games, no one will care. The team's new home will be in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
5a. If Major League Baseball complains, buy them and replace all twenty-nine remaining teams with pretty, female buxom college softball players.
5b. I get to manage the team.
6. Hell is still free.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Sunday, September 28, 2008
That Peaceful, Easy Feeling
Islam is a religion of peace.
If you're naive and believe this mistranslation in light of daily headlines that scream the contrary, then you may close this window now and pick up a copy of your favorite daily Dead Fish Wrapper (I'd recommend the NY Times, suitable for cat boxes, bird cages, and lighting camp fires). Or perhaps you'd feel more at home with the National Enquirer on your lap.
The correct translation, which President Bush miscommunicated to the American people in his nationally televised address on 9/11/01 (whether this was a deliberate act or not, I do not know), is submission, not peace. As long as you submit to Allah or Mohammed or some turbaned hate-spouting fool, you're alright in their book.
Peaceful Muslims might take me to task for saying theirs is not a religion of peace. I would remind them that the Quran states that true Muslims are to take jihad to the enemy in three increasing stages. We in the West are now in the crosshairs of their third and final stage, which is one of judgment and death, since we apparently have ignored the first two warnings. Those who stole airliners and slammed them into buildings, for example, killing thousands of innocents in the process, were the true Muslims according to the Quran.
No "good Muslim" is peace-loving. This is neither an exaggeration nor a misstatement.
Late last year (2007), for several days, a Jewish high holiday overlapped a Muslim high holiday. During this period of time, the crowd on the left "celebrated" with more than seventy-five deaths, most of whom were fellow peace-lovers. The infidel Jew on the right did nothing other than earned a Nobel Prize in chemistry.
If you're naive and believe this mistranslation in light of daily headlines that scream the contrary, then you may close this window now and pick up a copy of your favorite daily Dead Fish Wrapper (I'd recommend the NY Times, suitable for cat boxes, bird cages, and lighting camp fires). Or perhaps you'd feel more at home with the National Enquirer on your lap.
The correct translation, which President Bush miscommunicated to the American people in his nationally televised address on 9/11/01 (whether this was a deliberate act or not, I do not know), is submission, not peace. As long as you submit to Allah or Mohammed or some turbaned hate-spouting fool, you're alright in their book.
Peaceful Muslims might take me to task for saying theirs is not a religion of peace. I would remind them that the Quran states that true Muslims are to take jihad to the enemy in three increasing stages. We in the West are now in the crosshairs of their third and final stage, which is one of judgment and death, since we apparently have ignored the first two warnings. Those who stole airliners and slammed them into buildings, for example, killing thousands of innocents in the process, were the true Muslims according to the Quran.
No "good Muslim" is peace-loving. This is neither an exaggeration nor a misstatement.
Late last year (2007), for several days, a Jewish high holiday overlapped a Muslim high holiday. During this period of time, the crowd on the left "celebrated" with more than seventy-five deaths, most of whom were fellow peace-lovers. The infidel Jew on the right did nothing other than earned a Nobel Prize in chemistry.
Note how the gentlemen on the left are clearly experiencing the joy and love of Allah, while the lowly Jew is wasting every civilized human's time by expanding the horizons of knowledge. Had he had a brain, clearly he would have been destroying life rather than trying to save it.
Idiot.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Woolly Bear Watch 2008
In about two hours, autumn will return to earth's northern hemisphere. Here in the US Pacific Northwest, the dwindling sunlight spells Prozac for many people as Seasonal Affective Disorder rears its ugly head once more.
Rather than toying with my brain's delicate chemistry, I choose to hole myself up at a local coffee shop with my laptop and ride things out. The ride can easily last six or seven excruciating months, with a sunny day or two occasionally thrown in to break up the monotony.
At about the time once-green leaves turn to gold and then to red before littering the grounds with their own corpses, another head rears itself, this one belonging to the banded woolly bear caterpillar, the larval stage of the Isabella tiger moth.
I've never found moths to be of any particular interest, but this one, at least in its larval form , takes the proverbial cake. Legend has it that the relative size of the orange band will herald the severity -- or mildness -- of the upcoming winter. Although I have been woolly bear watching for a number of years now, I have yet to make any such correlation. Still, the critters are fun to see, and cuter than a -- well, than a moth.
Thus far this year, I have come across only two isolated caterpillars of unknown species, neither of which are the genuine woolly bear. In some ways, Mr. Bear's appearance is akin to that of the ground hog and all the attendant hoopla surrounding dubious prognostications regarding the remaining days of winter. Mr. Bear, who toils under the anonymity of having no official counterpart to Ground Hog Day, allegedly (in the minds of many) makes his yearly forecasts nonetheless.
With the use of high-speed computational monstrosities, the National Weather Service is calling for a nearly normal winter in every respect -- with slight possibilities of warmer-than-average temperatures, as well as a scant likelihood of less-than-average rainfall. Their ninety-day forecasts are currently running as committal as the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
We will have to wait for Woolly Bear Day to concur -- or rebut -- what the weather service has had to say on the matter. Until then, drink lots of coffee, bundle up, and throw an extra log on the fire.
Welcome to autumn.
Rather than toying with my brain's delicate chemistry, I choose to hole myself up at a local coffee shop with my laptop and ride things out. The ride can easily last six or seven excruciating months, with a sunny day or two occasionally thrown in to break up the monotony.
At about the time once-green leaves turn to gold and then to red before littering the grounds with their own corpses, another head rears itself, this one belonging to the banded woolly bear caterpillar, the larval stage of the Isabella tiger moth.
I've never found moths to be of any particular interest, but this one, at least in its larval form , takes the proverbial cake. Legend has it that the relative size of the orange band will herald the severity -- or mildness -- of the upcoming winter. Although I have been woolly bear watching for a number of years now, I have yet to make any such correlation. Still, the critters are fun to see, and cuter than a -- well, than a moth.Thus far this year, I have come across only two isolated caterpillars of unknown species, neither of which are the genuine woolly bear. In some ways, Mr. Bear's appearance is akin to that of the ground hog and all the attendant hoopla surrounding dubious prognostications regarding the remaining days of winter. Mr. Bear, who toils under the anonymity of having no official counterpart to Ground Hog Day, allegedly (in the minds of many) makes his yearly forecasts nonetheless.
With the use of high-speed computational monstrosities, the National Weather Service is calling for a nearly normal winter in every respect -- with slight possibilities of warmer-than-average temperatures, as well as a scant likelihood of less-than-average rainfall. Their ninety-day forecasts are currently running as committal as the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
We will have to wait for Woolly Bear Day to concur -- or rebut -- what the weather service has had to say on the matter. Until then, drink lots of coffee, bundle up, and throw an extra log on the fire.
Welcome to autumn.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
The Joy of Insomnia
Saturday morning.
My neighbors, who live about 5 acres away, got a new puppy yesterday. I know you can't measure linear distance with squared units, but if you consider the parcels to be nearly squared-off rectangles, you'll get the idea that they're a comfortable distance away. I'd guess their house is 500 feet from where I lay me down to sleep.
Only I didn't.
My landlady, you see, is a sucker for a sob story, and has accumulated six cast-off dogs of her own, five of which love to bark. The sixth is senile and ready to kick the dog food can, so she's not much of a problem.
The five who bark did so nearly incessantly at the new puppy, which was a huge contributing factor to why I slept only a short while last night. And there's no way I can take a nap now since, well, you know how puppies can be. And barking dogs.
Injecting a little dark humor into my sleepless scenario, I call to your attention David Berkowitz, the legendary Son of Sam murderer of the 1970s. Sometime early this year, I watched a compelling interview with him (actually it was an interview and a documentary rolled up into a nice sixty-minute package). Granted, this man had underlying psychological issues (considering my insomnia, don't I as well?), and his problems may have included schizophrenia (I'll take a rain check on that one). But what I found nearly hilarious about the story was his account in which he explained what had driven him to the brink and made him snap.
His landlord's barking dogs.
*sigh*
My neighbors, who live about 5 acres away, got a new puppy yesterday. I know you can't measure linear distance with squared units, but if you consider the parcels to be nearly squared-off rectangles, you'll get the idea that they're a comfortable distance away. I'd guess their house is 500 feet from where I lay me down to sleep.
Only I didn't.
My landlady, you see, is a sucker for a sob story, and has accumulated six cast-off dogs of her own, five of which love to bark. The sixth is senile and ready to kick the dog food can, so she's not much of a problem.
The five who bark did so nearly incessantly at the new puppy, which was a huge contributing factor to why I slept only a short while last night. And there's no way I can take a nap now since, well, you know how puppies can be. And barking dogs.
Injecting a little dark humor into my sleepless scenario, I call to your attention David Berkowitz, the legendary Son of Sam murderer of the 1970s. Sometime early this year, I watched a compelling interview with him (actually it was an interview and a documentary rolled up into a nice sixty-minute package). Granted, this man had underlying psychological issues (considering my insomnia, don't I as well?), and his problems may have included schizophrenia (I'll take a rain check on that one). But what I found nearly hilarious about the story was his account in which he explained what had driven him to the brink and made him snap.
His landlord's barking dogs.
*sigh*
Sunday, September 14, 2008
When Churches Die
"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall never pass away." -- Jesus Christ, Matthew 24:35.
If you subscribe to the teachings of Jesus, you've probably already accepted the fact that no one who dies without being reborn of the Spirit of God, through Christ, is getting off this merry-go-round alive. Even the atheists, agnostics, and New Agers know this to be true, though they may cling to some hope that there is someone, somewhere, in some distant galaxy, who will be alive in a trillion years. Or that, upon death, they will simply reappear in some mystical la-la land, sans a benevolent God.
For a church to die is no great revelation. The ways in which they close their doors for the last time is the subject of this post. Some fall victim to attrition -- members slowly stop attending, the demographics of the neighborhood change, and the church no longer fits in with the backdrop. While this is sad, it at least can be understood.
But a church is more than a mere building: a church is the people that comprise the congregation as well as the particular doctrine espoused therein. Ideally, since Jesus did not preach duplicitously, we should be able to heed His teachings and agree on the fundamentals, pointing to a single Christian church. In many cases, we do.
Pastors who deviate from God's word in order to keep attendance figures up and place the fiscal health of the church ahead of its spiritual health, do a great disservice to the name of Christ.
When clergy fall victim to the shifting sands of societal norms and capitulate to ideologies which clearly and blatantly run contrary to God's teachings (as is occurring in nations such as Canada and parts of Europe where pastors are silenced by vigorous hate crimes laws), an even larger threat looms.
In your wildest dreams, would you ever have regarded the Bible to be a book of hate?
Many will never learn of Jesus's words and will fall into error by way of false religions and false teachers, even perversions of the simplicity of the Gospel. The world is replete with such people. "You will know them by their fruit." -- Matthew 7:20, again the words of Jesus, in which He warns of false teachers.
But what does this have to do with dying churches?
The enemies of Christ take on many forms. In some countries -- most notably but by no means restricted to those under the tyranny of Islam -- Christians are denied employment, shunned, stoned, their homes and places of worship burned to the ground, and in countless cases, believers are routinely martyred -- simply for believing in Jesus. Oddly, in spite of such horrific adversity, Christians take their faith underground, where their churches and faith flourish.
Other forms taken by Christ's enemies are perhaps more subtle: acceptance of homosexuality, murdering of the unborn, political correctness, the hammer and sickle of communism, even look-alike gospels which fly in the face of Scripture. While one might smugly take the position that such issues are best kept out of the pulpit, it is essential that they be included and addressed.
The openly homosexual Reverend V. Gene Robinson should not be teaching God's word to anyone until he repents of his sin and forsakes his lifestyle. Why? Because he cannot teach what the Holy Spirit does not give him, and he will receive nothing from the Holy Spirit as long as he is practicing sin. (Has this man ever truly been saved?)
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, who today apologized to Charles Darwin for having doubted the author of the most flagrant anti-Christian doctrine ever propounded, needs to recant such beliefs. How he can reconcile evolution with the book of Genesis is beyond my comprehension. God didn't need evolution, Creation did the job just fine.
Trinity Broadcasting Network of southern California continues to sell air time to charlatans of Scripture who bastardize God's word beyond recognition. Teachers of the "prosperity gospel" twist Scripture to fit their own misguided desires, believing that perfect health and abundant wealth should belong to every true believer in Christ, and that anyone who is lacking is doing so due to some secret sin. (I could go on for days about this lie.)
The Word of God is a beacon to all, and its teachers must be beyond reproach, not living in sin. False teachers dim the beacon, and congregants of these fallacious churches will leave in search of anything that will tickle their ears. More often than not, what tickles their ears will pave a highway straight to hell.
We in the land of plenty should take note. Hate crimes legislation, and all the freedoms it has to offer, might only be months beyond the horizon here in the United States. Further such chipping away at our free speech rights will hasten the death of the church. And when churches die, whole societies quickly follow.
If you subscribe to the teachings of Jesus, you've probably already accepted the fact that no one who dies without being reborn of the Spirit of God, through Christ, is getting off this merry-go-round alive. Even the atheists, agnostics, and New Agers know this to be true, though they may cling to some hope that there is someone, somewhere, in some distant galaxy, who will be alive in a trillion years. Or that, upon death, they will simply reappear in some mystical la-la land, sans a benevolent God.
For a church to die is no great revelation. The ways in which they close their doors for the last time is the subject of this post. Some fall victim to attrition -- members slowly stop attending, the demographics of the neighborhood change, and the church no longer fits in with the backdrop. While this is sad, it at least can be understood.
But a church is more than a mere building: a church is the people that comprise the congregation as well as the particular doctrine espoused therein. Ideally, since Jesus did not preach duplicitously, we should be able to heed His teachings and agree on the fundamentals, pointing to a single Christian church. In many cases, we do.
Pastors who deviate from God's word in order to keep attendance figures up and place the fiscal health of the church ahead of its spiritual health, do a great disservice to the name of Christ.
When clergy fall victim to the shifting sands of societal norms and capitulate to ideologies which clearly and blatantly run contrary to God's teachings (as is occurring in nations such as Canada and parts of Europe where pastors are silenced by vigorous hate crimes laws), an even larger threat looms.
In your wildest dreams, would you ever have regarded the Bible to be a book of hate?
Many will never learn of Jesus's words and will fall into error by way of false religions and false teachers, even perversions of the simplicity of the Gospel. The world is replete with such people. "You will know them by their fruit." -- Matthew 7:20, again the words of Jesus, in which He warns of false teachers.
But what does this have to do with dying churches?
The enemies of Christ take on many forms. In some countries -- most notably but by no means restricted to those under the tyranny of Islam -- Christians are denied employment, shunned, stoned, their homes and places of worship burned to the ground, and in countless cases, believers are routinely martyred -- simply for believing in Jesus. Oddly, in spite of such horrific adversity, Christians take their faith underground, where their churches and faith flourish.
Other forms taken by Christ's enemies are perhaps more subtle: acceptance of homosexuality, murdering of the unborn, political correctness, the hammer and sickle of communism, even look-alike gospels which fly in the face of Scripture. While one might smugly take the position that such issues are best kept out of the pulpit, it is essential that they be included and addressed.
The openly homosexual Reverend V. Gene Robinson should not be teaching God's word to anyone until he repents of his sin and forsakes his lifestyle. Why? Because he cannot teach what the Holy Spirit does not give him, and he will receive nothing from the Holy Spirit as long as he is practicing sin. (Has this man ever truly been saved?)
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, who today apologized to Charles Darwin for having doubted the author of the most flagrant anti-Christian doctrine ever propounded, needs to recant such beliefs. How he can reconcile evolution with the book of Genesis is beyond my comprehension. God didn't need evolution, Creation did the job just fine.
Trinity Broadcasting Network of southern California continues to sell air time to charlatans of Scripture who bastardize God's word beyond recognition. Teachers of the "prosperity gospel" twist Scripture to fit their own misguided desires, believing that perfect health and abundant wealth should belong to every true believer in Christ, and that anyone who is lacking is doing so due to some secret sin. (I could go on for days about this lie.)
The Word of God is a beacon to all, and its teachers must be beyond reproach, not living in sin. False teachers dim the beacon, and congregants of these fallacious churches will leave in search of anything that will tickle their ears. More often than not, what tickles their ears will pave a highway straight to hell.
We in the land of plenty should take note. Hate crimes legislation, and all the freedoms it has to offer, might only be months beyond the horizon here in the United States. Further such chipping away at our free speech rights will hasten the death of the church. And when churches die, whole societies quickly follow.
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