Not bad
12 miles in about 50 minutes, averaging 15mph for the ride. The first time I rode to Falls Bridge and back I was dead tired by the time I got home. Today was a good hard ride and I was ready for more!
Moved…
FYI, if you go to the old address http://blagomatic.wafflehouse.org/ you should now be redirected to http://mattstocum.com/. Hopefully this will work without any problems.
What’s that strange yellow fruit again?
I’m watching part of the twin dumbasses of Ray and Kirk debate with the Rational Response Squad here, and one of the arguments Mr. Banana uses is essentially “everything has a creator, so god did it”. When he is asked, however, “what created god?” he’s perfectly comfortable with god being eternal, and having no beginning and no end. I’ve heard this same argument from countless Christians.
“Something had to have created the universe, therefor it was my specific god!”
“What created god?”
“God is eternal, he has always existed.”
“Why can’t the universe be eternal then?”
“Because everything needs a creator.”
I don’t understand how you can accept an eternal god, but not an eternal universe, especially when you consider how unbelievably complex god would have to be. The early days of the universe were incredibly simple, just a huge mess of energy. No matter, no light, no god, nothing but unsane heat. How do you rationalize the creation of something so simple with something as complex as an all-knowing, all-powerful being?
I just don’t get the argument, it’s amazingly weak. I’d have a much easier time if they just stipulated that their god was the god of Earth, or even just the god of Christianity. But for some reason, they need their god to be the god, the only god (ignoring the fact that the bible makes it pretty plain that Yahweh was the god of Israel, but not the only god).
If you want to believe in myths and fairy-tales, go for it, I’ll never change your mind. Just, please, don’t try to pretend you can prove your religion is true. You can’t, it’s not possible. Jesus could come back tomorrow, raise the dead, heal the sick, and show the Vatican what gold’s for. It still wouldn’t prove the existence of god, just a being more powerful than we are (or that I’ve gone completely insane).
Computer Service Fee Schedule
With the recent economic downturn, it’s been hard for people to afford my standard rate of $100/hr. In an effort to make my services a bit more affordable, I present the following revised table of computer service rates:†
ETA: I thought this went without saying, but this list applies to female clients only. Sorry Phil.
On Smoking and Killing Kittens
The talk about the new cigarette tax (which I’m having an amazingly difficult time finding a story on) has me thinking about vice taxes. The general rationalization is that you put a tax on naughty behavior, that you can’t outlaw, in the hopes of decreasing demand.
What happens when it works though?
What makes sense to me is you take tobacco taxes and use them to fund smoking cessation programs. That way when the tax pool dries up from people quitting, the demand for the programs dries up.
So what are they going to spend the new tax money on? SCHIP, a program that has nothing at all to do with smoking.
What you’re left with is the government saying, “smoking is bad, so we’re going to encourage you to quit,” but whispering, “please don’t, we really need the money.”
Are they trying to lose followers?
Vatican backs abortion row bishop
A 9 year old girl is raped by her step-father, becomes pregnant with twins, and then has an abortion. I don’t care where you stand on abortion, there is no way a 9 year old can be expected to carry twins to term. The pregnancy would have killed her, and the fetuses.
Of course the Catholic church does what it always does, freaks out in the most absurd way. The local bishop excommunicated the girl’s mother and the doctors who performed the abortion, but not the girl because she was too young. So she’s too young to be excommunicated, but not too young to be a mother, got it. Also missing from that list is the man who raped his 9 year old step-daughter. And the Vatican is backing the bishop’s decision.
How fucking detached from reality are these assholes?
“Life must always be protected, the attack on the Brazilian Church is unjustified.” How about the life of a fucking 9 year old rape victim? That’s not worth protecting?
I can’t wait until these assholes have gone extinct.
In other news…
I think I recognize about 50 kanji. Half way to JLPT 4. Neat!
Socks!
I’d just like to inform everyone that I now own 6 more pairs of socks. This is after running out of black socks three days in to the week.