CalvinDude.com

FALSE HOPE, NY — Just hours after State Sen. Carl Kruger introduced a bill to ban electronic gadgets in the crosswalk, the False Hope City Council voted to ban all forms of electricity.

“We need to send a message to the young people of today,” said Councilman Seymour Shady. “Right now they have this idea that they have rights to private property. It’s something the city council needs to fix.”

The bill, if passed, would outlaw anything with electronics from entering the city, enforced by periodic EMP charges.

“Devices such as the internet, iPods, cell phones–these are all distractions,” Shady said. “People who are distracted can walk into each other, causing bodily harm. Furthermore, since most of our manholes are missing, it is possible for someone to fall into them, thus ruining the delicate ecosystem of the sewer environment.”

The best results, experts say, is to live like the Amish do. Their care-free lifestyle of churrning butter, milking cows, or sowing wheat are “just what we need to keep gang members from walking out into traffic while listening to rap,” Shady said.

Not all were convinced, however. “This bill is nothing more than a vague attempt to obfuscate the real situation,” said Bill Pounder. “Are we really going to criminalize cell phone users without also penalizing non-users? Not on my watch!”

To compensate for this disparity, Pounder introduced a secondary bill that would make it illegal to breathe within city limits. “It will go along without our anti-smoking campaign,” he said.

Note: Staff reporters did try to get input from the Amish to comply with the spirit of the Fairness Indoctrination, but none of our calls went through.

You know, I think if I were ever to begin to doubt my faith in God, all it would take is reading this crap from the Debunkers to solidify my faith.

In that article, Zac Taylor makes many offensive comments (click at your own risk, if you’re not fond of profanities). But basically, his “argument” (that’s being generous) amounts to this:

1) People who were killed in the storm in Florida didn’t deserve it.
2) Therefore, God doesn’t exist.

Yeah, I don’t follow the logic either. But let’s ignore the offensive aspects of his post for a minute and really examine his argument. First, let’s look at it from his perspective.

From the atheist’s viewpoint, these people did deserve to die. Why? Because storms are a fact of life that people knew about, yet they chose to live in a location where there could be storms. They decided to seek refuge in a church when they did not have to do so. Yes, they most certainly DID deserve what they got in atheism.

The only way to say these people didn’t deserve it (from an atheistic perspective) is to make it as mechanicalistic as saying, “An apple doesn’t deserve to fall simply because I drop it.” But gravity, of course, requires that it do so. Storms are facts of life in the world, regardless of what people do. These people “didn’t deserve” this storm only in the sense that the trees that blew over didn’t deserve it either.

Now look at the Christian view, which includes the concept of sin. Zac knows all about this–he even mocked it at the end of his screed:

I’m sure there’s a myriad of philosophical arguments and discussions about how God has the right to allow this kind of stuff, and how man is sinful and deserves it, blah, blah, blah. I’m not so sure. In fact, I don’t buy it at all. If God is there, he’s sick and twisted.

But that doesn’t change the fact that due to sin, these people did not deserve life. They did deserve death; and God can deal out His justice whenever He sees fit.

So, look at Zac’s original argument once more:

1) People who were killed in the storm in Florida didn’t deserve it.
2) Therefore, God doesn’t exist.

Neither atheists nor Christians believe in the validity of 1). Zac’s “argument” is a non-argument. It’s emotional blustering masquerading as thought. In that regard, his point of view amounts to the equivalent of the big celesitial “pile” Zac says God dumped on the church.

A few months ago, I was criticized for being “paranoid” when I pointed out on a blog comment that scientists were not published, faced reprisals, etc. for not towing the consensus line. Of course, I was simply quoting other scientists who have claimed to have experienced that…but who needs logic at a time like this?

In any case, those who think there aren’t political consequences (and I use the term “political” loosely) should read this article. It’s about George Taylor, the “State Climatologist” in Oregon.

He doesn’t believe Global Warming is caused by man. Therefore, the Governor (and others in the state government) is seeking to strip him of his title.

We read:

Governor Ted Kulongoski confirmed he wants to take that title from Taylor. The governor said Taylor’s contradictions interfere with the state’s stated goals to reduce greenhouse gases, the accepted cause of global warming in the eyes of a vast majority of scientists.

Hurrah for scientific freedom. But we read even more!

Sen. Brad Avakian, (D) Washington County, is sponsoring the bill [to strip Taylor of his title]. He said global warming is so important to state policy it’s important to have a climatologist as a consultant to the governor.

In other words, Taylor is a heretic who must be gagged lest his heresy spread.

The governor concludes by stating: “”I just think there has to be somebody that says, ‘this is the state position on this.’” Of course, he forgets that HE is actually “somebody that says, ‘this is the state position on this’” and thus this statement is not justification.

The bottom line is that science is not science; it is religion. And woe to the heretics who question the orthodoxy and “interfere with the state’s stated goals to reduce greenhouse gases.” And make no mistake: THAT, not the science of global warming, is what this is all about.

I just finished reading Cell by Stephen King. It was an okay novel, but certainly nowhere near King’s best. Basically, it’s a shorter version of The Stand set in modern day, only instead of a virus killing off everyone it’s a terrorist act using a cellular “pulse” to reprogram the minds of cell users.

As I said, the book is okay. Indeed, I probably would have enjoyed it more if I had not just re-read Bag of Bones (which is, in my opinion, the best literary work King has ever done).

I think one of the biggest problems with the book layout is the fact that for a King book, it’s very short. King’s at his best when he develops his characters, and this does take some amount of verbage (the way King writes). Cell felt like King was attempting to do a Dan Brown-esque rapid, short chapter feel (although Dan Brown is such a horrible writer that King’s attempt still puts Brown to shame, despite not being up to King’s normal standards). As a result, the novel felt very disjointed in places. Something would happen, you’d get to a chapter break, and then it picks up again several minutes (or in cases, hours) later. The only problem is that skipping the time required King to do a brief explanation of what happened in that time frame at the beginning of the next chapter segment.

In short, he fell into the classic trap of “telling” instead of “showing” the story; something one wouldn’t expect of King.

The over-all story concept was good, although not as compelling as it could have been. The story really wasn’t “scary” in the classic King sense–indeed, parts of it were fairly predictable. Sooooo….

Overall, I have to give it a B. If you’re a King-phile, then you’ll want to read it. If you’re introducing yourself to King, stick with Bag of Bones. And if you absolutely have to read one of his apocalyptical end-of-the-world stories, The Stand is better. In essense, while this novel is better than most stuff being published, it’s one of King’s worst.

Not as bad as It…but in the same cellar.