I tried to stop myself from responding, but not very well. “I hate to break it to you, but you’re completely useless in a non-post-apocalyptic world too.” And since my zombie-destroying skills are up to snuff, there wasn’t anything he could do in response to that (note to self: remember to come up with plausible excuse for Human Resources about why I needed that 12-guage at my desk again—“I blame Bush” might not cut it this time.)

In any case, it reminded me of my previous post about the so-called eclipse that I have decided was a myth because EMPRICISM™ (and if you doubt me, then you’re a RACIST™!). Since I concluded that this means the Mayan Apocalypse is true, and since my aforementioned coworker was talking about a post-apocalyptic world, then obviously correlation = causation (or some such) resulting in yet more affirmation that the end of the world will be in December of this year. There is no longer any reason at all to deny it. I mean other than logic and reason in the first place, but seriously, who are you going to believe: me or your own lying brain?

And no, this isn’t just a way for me to try to get more money from you. In fact, I don’t want your money anymore. Money is worthless. That’s why I’m asking that you first convert your money to gold before you send it to me. Actually, silver might be even better than gold since in the coming apocalypse I surmise I will probably need a lot of silver bullets. (Zombies are like werewolves, right?)

Now some people tell me that I’m being a little bit paranoid here. To those people, I say, “Mom, Dad: it isn’t being paranoid if they really are after you.” I mean, look at it this way. My coworker just today made it necessary for me to have to come up with an excuse for HR for why I was using firearms at my desk again. Don’t you see what I have to put up with here? If it wasn’t for Congress requiring them to keep me hired because of DISCRIMINATION™, I’m certain they’d even try to fire me now! It’s almost as if they haven’t even heard of GLOBAL WARMING™!

Sheesh. You know what? I think a good apocalypse every now and then is actually PATRIOTISM™. Didn’t Thomas Jefferson once say, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of zombies and vampires”? He didn’t cross the Delaware River on Christmas to conquer New Jersey simply to have his great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandchildren give away the country! And you shouldn’t either.

Friends, there is only one way to avoid the coming apocalypse. And I will tell you that way after just six easy payments of $9.95, payable in gold or silver only, because RON PAUL™. Simply send your e-mail address to ISwearIWontSpamYou@thisemaildoestooexist.info.com.net.org and get my newsletter today. For the children!

Today it was 29.

That’s enough for me to declare “correlation”!

Speaking of correlation, along a similar thread, it’s been a couple of months since school started, and I have to ride by one on the way in to work. And my conclusion, having been past it nearly every school morning for two months, is that people who drop their kids off at school couldn’t drive to save their life. Like, there’s a 2-way stop sign there that magically becomes a 4-way stop because people just decide to not drive through it and block traffic, and then everyone else stops–even though there is clearly no stop sign at the intersection.

But this brings a dilemma too. What do I correlate that to? Is it that parents dropping off kids are poor drivers, or is it more general, since roughly 80% of the drivers there are female. So maybe it’s women make poor drivers. But then, I have to acknowledge that every single person I’ve seen there has been white, so maybe white people just make poor drivers. Finally, there was an over-representation of SUVs and minivans, so the correlation clearly is that drivers of said vehicles are poor drivers.

Clearly, all of these things are correlated. And therefore, Global Warming is true. Proof of Global Warming is found in the fact that it was 29 degrees this morning when yesterday it was 36. Clearly such a wild swing in temperatures can only be caused by massive global climate shifts….

Okay, so a 51-year-old guy, Doug Hutchinson, marries a 16-year-old girl named Courtney Stodden. There’s a lot of weirdness that could be pointed out here. For instance, she claims to be a Christian but acts like…um, well, sadly, 90% of Christians in mega-churches. And she’s the oldest looking 16-year-old I’ve ever seen.

But she is actually just 16. She has, after all, shown her birth certificate to some news agencies, and if there’s anything that liberals and the media (but I repeat myself) has taught us regarding our current president, it’s that birth certificates can never be faked.

So I have wonder about Anderson Cooper here. Because when you boil this video down, all it really is, is a “news” anchor mocking a 16-year-old girl on national television. I mean, it’d be one thing if he was poking fun at Doug Hutchinson and calling him a pedophile or something (even though he broke no laws in marrying her); or Cooper could go more after the girl’s parents for letting this happen. That would be fair, because these are adults that are being skewered in the news.

But instead, he goes out of his way just to mock the 16-year-old. Now, I’ve never been one who actually cared much for Cooper, so my bias against him makes me presume that he had to go after the 16-year-old because he’s not sophisticated enough to go toe-to-toe with an adult…but hey, this video gives me more confirmation for my confirmation bias, Cooper!

But you know, as I think about it a little further…maybe it’s not that big of a deal after all. I mean, sure, Cooper went out of the way to mock a 16-year-old girl, but it was on CNN. It’s not like anybody saw it.

Then I remember who’s in the White House.

The machines are right.

Of course, any whacko can start a cult. That takes some of the fun out of it. See, cults in America have become so stereotypical that they get kinda predictable. Essentially: some ugly man wants to have plural wives, invents a religion where he’s the authoritative figure, provokes the establishment, dies horrifically. Death can be anything from Kool-Aid to spontaneous combustion due to government tanks shooting gas through your plywood fortress.

But I’ve decided all of that stuff is too cliché for someone as awesome as I would be, if I were an authoritative figure. I want my cult to be special and unique, something you can’t find every day. So I’ve thought about it for at least 2 minutes, and have come up with my solution.

My cult has one rule for membership: Anyone who does not want to be in my cult is automatically a member of my cult until such point as he or she wishes to be in my cult.

I have one rule of behavior for members in my cult that is compulsory for all members: you must give me all your money.

For those who no longer wish to be a cult member, then it’s simple. Anyone who wishes to be a member of my cult is no longer a member of my cult. To prove that you want to be a member of my cult, all you have to do is willingly give all your money to me—the willingness to do so constituting proof that you want to be in my cult, and therefore proving you are no longer a member. If you do not wish to give me your money, it is constituted as proof that you do not want to be in my cult, which necessitates your membership in my cult, therefore requiring you to give me all your money.

Now this is a cult I can stand behind.

I think this proves beyond all doubt that the non-existence of bird men proves the existence of God…

To demonstrate that five-paragraph essays stifle creativity, one only need to examine the fact that our greatest heroes in literature are precisely those authors who manage to break the mold, transcend the rules, and demonstrate their greatness through the application of style. This is the essence of creativity, the genius inside a man or woman that enables him or her to soar to heights only slightly lower than the angels can attain. Yet if one attempts to do this in a five-paragraph essay, one finds one’s grade significantly lowered, thus stifling any creative spark that the author may have originally carried.

This follows through to the fact that some subjects simply do not have three points and attempts to add in the third point come across as being ham-fisted or, what is worse, nonintellectual. The fact of the matter is that some subjects can fully be explained in only two points, while others require four or more points to develop. Adherence to the strict guidelines of the five-paragraph essay therefore result in forced attrition via the deletion of relevant data (i.e., the fourth, or higher, points) or, more commonly, forced inflation via the insertion of a third point that stands out like a hippie in a Presbyterian church.

It is inevitable that five-paragraph essays are used by school administrations, therefore, simply to force adherence to dictatorial norms. No concern is given to the fact that students did not decide what these norms should be, or why their essays must be five hundred words in length, or why they must contain five paragraphs arranged in a specific manner. Obedience is demanded, like an anti-proletarian government decreeing obedience from its subjects, where any nonconformity is punished swiftly by various actions of the administration (viz., the reduction of grades, public mockery in the classroom, detention after hours, and sometimes the forced repeating of an entire year’s worth of schooling). Such tactics belong to political dictatorships, not to the realm of academia.

All of the above makes it quite obvious that the five-paragraph essay format is prone to abuse and should be abolished as soon as humanly possible. It is time to evolve. Indeed, there is nothing that is stated in a five paragraph essay that could not be stated without stifling creativity, rigid adherence to three points, or the use of dictatorial tactics.

That is all.

Truth be told, my granddaughter, who is but 3 years old, has a higher IQ than I.

On the other hand, your average band of “scare quote” websites which specialize in reason and rationality instead of hating on James White, has this to say:

But the Bell kerfuffle was just a trap which Schultz cleverly set to ensnare the grand muftis of modern Arminianism: Ben Witherington, Peter Lumpkins, Scot McKnight, and Roger Olson. He knew they’d take the bait, rushing to the defense of Bell.

What is there to say? Some people read to understand and write to clarify. Others–unfortunately, like so many Internet apologists named Peter Lumpkins–read but do not understand and write but only confuse. But just because a post starts pretending to be from the National Enquirer as reported by Mitty Muckraker in no possible way could indicate this column could possibly be satire.

We know who is really behind it. James White*.

With that, I am…

Peter

* Some unaccomplished theologians** insist White embraces what is known as historic Hyper-Calvinism

** These are collectively known as “Peter Lumpkins.”