Category: Touchy Subjects

The things that should never be discussed much less published by non-professionals.

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CORRECTION: TN Does Not Separate Church and State Either

Earlier I posted that Arkansas does not allow Atheists to hold government office nor testify as witnesses. I went on to suggest that TN had been out done in their efforts to live backwards by legislating beliefs and morals. I was wrong. Per Article IX Section 2 of the TN State Constitution.

Section 2. No person who denies the being of God, or a future state of rewards
and punishments, shall hold any office in the civil department of this
state. [Source]

As a matter of fact, religion [implied Christian] is so important to the state of Tennessee that Article IX Section 1 specifically excludes ministers from holding office since their duties are far more important.

Section 1. Whereas ministers of the Gospel are by their profession, dedicated
to God and the care of souls, and ought not to be diverted from the great
duties of their functions; therefore, no minister of the Gospel, or priest of any
denomination whatever, shall be eligible to a seat in either House of the Legislature. [Source]

Arkansas and Tennessee are in good company. Apparently, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Texas all require the believe of a supreme being and/or afterlife and in some cases you must specifically be a Christian to hold office or be a witness.

So, not only are Atheists going to Hell (a place they don’t believe exists) but they cannot hold one of the most corrupt jobs known to man for which they would go to Hell anyway.

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A recycled continent

Bob Grimac, Al Gore, and Ed Begley Jr should get excited over a floating mass of garbage almost twice as large as Texas! We could move hordes of environmental nuts to their very own recycled continent in international waters away from the non-environmental nuts in the White House.

I still like Al Gore; Bob Grimac is one of the nicest people you will ever meet (and the only Rocky Hill teacher to get a standing ovation during parent orientation); and I think of Ed Begley’s house with every home renovation I make asking myself, "Can I do this more environmentally sound?" Let’s keep these guys and move the White House people to the floating mass of garbage.

The largest dump in the world isn’t outside New York or London or Shanghai but in a desolate stretch of the Pacific Ocean nearly a thousand miles from the nearest island. Held together by a slowly rotating system of currents northeast of Hawaii, the Eastern Garbage Patch is more than just a few floating plastic bottles washed out to sea; the Patch is a giant mass of trash-laden water nearly double the size of Texas. [Source]

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Fly Half Way Around the Globe, See Atlanta Airport, Go Home!

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

Exerpt from The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus as found on a bronze plaque inside The Statue of Liberty [Source]

Except for you and you and, hey, yes, you–the Asian guy.

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Separation of Church and State..except in Arkansas

So, in TN we are doing stupid things with our constitution like dictating morals, telling people whether or not they can get married, and forbidding people from buying dildos. But in Arkansas they have an article in their constitution forbidding Atheists from holding public office or testifying as a witness! I’m calling my state representative! Our stupidity has been one up’d! (See the correction)

Article 19, section 1 of the Arkansas Constitution: Atheists disqualified from holding office or testifying as witness.

No person who denies the being of a God shall hold any office in the civil departments of this State, nor be competent to testify as a witness in any court. [Source]

The Arkansas constitution is available online.

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Bush asks Mom, “How do you know his life would have been good?”

Did Bush really say this?!

Dolores Kesterson’s son died in Iraq. She was granted a private meeting with the President.

Dolores tried to give Bush a sense of what type of person Erik had been. She described her son as a “comedian” whose favorite saying was, “Life is good.” The president replied, “How do you know his life would have been good?” [Source]

He followed up with some enlightenment.

Before he concluded their meeting, Bush proclaimed to Dolores, "We won’t know in our lifetime whether or not Iraq was a success." [Source]

In our lifetime?! I can tell now.

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Explosive Plot Was Ridiculous

The day they announced that terrorists were planning on blowing up airplanes and were thwarted I devised a wonder conspiracy theory. I love making up conspiracy theories but I don’t take them seriously regardless of how plausible they sound. (I have to link to this amateur video of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center because I opened it in a tab while looking for reopen911.org so all I was getting was sound and I thought I had opened porn…try it. Close your eyes and see if you don’t find yourself turning the speakers down!)

Anyhow, this computer security specialist says the liquid explosive plot was implausible. Think about how much fuel the airlines will save by the reduced weight of not carrying bottled milk, water and shampoo!

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Olga Goes Down

On July 15 I said it was coming. Tom Maszerowski shows us it is here!

OLGA.net, The On-Line Guitar Archive has been served a take-down notice from the NMPA and MPA (whatever the hell they are) referencing the DMCA as grounds. OLGA’s crime: making text files with the chords of songs available for download. How this violates the DMCA beats me. [Source]

For those that have have never visited OLGA, it has been around for ages and is an incredible resource for aspiring musicians. For all practical purposes, it is an education site more than anything else. Regular people interpret, not copy, songs showing the guitar chord changes, riffs and lyrics. The site has inspired me to buy CDs by the artists so that I had the actual music to play along as I learned the song.

This is an atrocity in the name of a lawyer pocketing some dough because the idea that OLGA deprives any artist of revenue is ridiculous. OLGA is a easy target to set a legal precedence in order to tackle the sites that actually make a profit from selling lyrics online.

ogla offline due to legal takedown notice

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The USA Does Not Do World’s Fairs Anymore

There was a World’s Fair in New Orleans in 1984. That was the last US participation. In 2002, the USA had its membership in the Bureau of International Expositions (BIE – the sanctioning body of the World’s Fair) withdrawn due to non-allocation of funds by Congress. Can you say war funding? The US quietly becomes more egocentric and disconnected from the world. I know I as a citizen did not realize until today that we, as a country, no longer participate in the World’s Fair which dates back to 1851. Way to be a world leader!

Look for further discussion at Atomic Tumor.

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Abstinence education in place of Sex education won’t work

Just say no! to naive school boards that try to do away with sex education in favor of abstinence education.

An Ohio school board is expanding sex education following the revelation that 13 percent of one high school’s female students were pregnant last year.

There were 490 female students at Timken High School in 2005, and 65 were pregnant, WEWS-TV in Cleveland reported. [Source]

I wonder how many guys were involved in this?!

Oh, the school board’s response in Ohio?

…the new curriculum moves beyond the "Just Say No" approach…

No kidding!

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Big holes!

So I was reading about the biggest hole in Russia

The gaint hole is actually a diamond mine in Eastern Siberia near the town Mirna. It is 525 meters deep and 1.25 km in the diameter.
…
The suction above the hole resulted in several helicopter crashes, so all flight above the hole is prohibited now.

and learned about Bingham Canyon Copper mine via the post comments. The facts about the mine are fascinating. And the pictures are impressive. I wonder if this is what the West Virginia mountains will look like in 100 years. (see also)

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Watch me shave!

Cathy and I were pondering ways to get our sponsorship commitments above $1000. Latte Man has offered to do anything. We both concluded that perhaps offering to have sex on camera if someone committed $1000 would do the trick! Of course, in the name of decency and the fact that our family and possibly children reads our blogs, you would only be seeing our clothed top halves. Of course, if you have been reading us for any length of time, I am certain you have already seen my wife’s breasts.

Upon further consideration, we decided that if we made such an offer, someone would rapidly make a $1000 sponsorship and simply never pay. So we decided that if we were going to have sex on camera that it would have to be for someone serious which meant we would do it if the sponsorships totalled $10,000. But they we realized the same person who would lie about $1000 would also lie about a $10,000.

So! I am going to shave on camera! That’s right. You heard it. At 9:17am I will shave on camera in the name of Farm Aid!