This has to be one of the best articles I’ve read on the subject of the total ineffectiveness of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) at airport security. Whether you want to believe it or not, they haven’t helped security one bit. However, they’ve certainly made a once proud nation of jet-setters into an efficient police state.
I consider myself a biker, as I’ve spent 27 years in the saddle almost non-stop and I’m still here. Over those years I’ve seen some crazy things done by others on two wheels that have made me shake my head and wish that they’d not give the rest of us a bad name. Never have I been so ashamed of one of my fellow two-wheeled enthusiasts, than I am with this.
I’m ashamed, because this unbelievable mentally deficient jackass, has post-facto earned the Moron of the Year for 2008.
We can laugh it, only because as far as we know, no one was hurt. That said, this has to be one of the most brain-dead stunts I’ve ever seen.
I’m also a bit embarrassed that this didn’t come to my attention when it was first posted, three years ago. Oh well, I can’t keep up on everything.
On a side note: If he had smashed up during this stunt, I wonder if the news would have mentioned that he was wearing a helmet?
Though it is often difficult to decide who wins the Moron of the Year Award, this year we have a strong contender in Ken Ham at Answers in Genesis – a creationist Web site. The exact Web page in question is here.
The question asked of Mr. Ham is simple enough. “If God created the world 6,000 years ago or so, why are stars millions of light years away?”
The answer, according to Mr. Ham: “Brendon, what a question! Yes, we know from the dates God gives us in the Bible that He did create the whole universe about 6,000 years ago. When we hear the term light-year, we need to realize it is not a measure of time but a measure of distance, telling us how far away something is. Distant stars and galaxies might be millions of light-years away, but that doesn’t mean that it took millions of years for the light to get here, it just means it is really far away!”
Ladies and gentlemen, this is the kind of answer you get from people who have never taken a class in physics, but instead base their view of reality on an anonymous book, written by a bunch of Bronze Age sheep herders. In short, you get profound idiocy.
Mr. Ham is correct, in that a light year is a measure of distance. It is the measure of how far light travels in one year! Hence the name. So, if a star is say, 20 million lights years away, it will take 20 million years for the light from that star to reach us.
A special nod of thanks to irReligion.org for finding this gem!
I’ve been trying to come up with some kind of assessment of this mess in my head, but the news seems to change with the wind and there is so much information to process on it, that I still feel like I’m floundering around without direction. Perhaps an apt metaphor might be, that I feel like a sea bird in an oil spill.
The situation is certainly worse than what is being stated and eyewitness reports from those not associated with BP are saying as much. BP proves time and again that they are lying sacks of horse manure, with no integrity of any measurable kind.
Still, with the deluge of data, I can’t seem to come up with a distinct and succinct way to verbalize my assessment of it all. I guess I’m suffering writer’s block.
Thankfully, Washington’s Blog has managed to write an article on the subject, rife with links to all the data, to save me from my current stupefied verbal impotence. It manages beautifully to summarize the situation and all that is wrong with it.
I received another email today with a bold footer exclaiming the email’s confidentiality. I have to laugh every time I see one of these utterly moronic banners.
NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.
Think about what this notice is claiming. Putting aside for the moment that the recipient has not signed a confidentiality agreement, you don’t even get to this notice until you’ve already read the previous material! How in the world can one be held responsible for reading the material, when the notice not to is at the bottom of the message? Furthermore, if you contact the sender, you have also reviewed the material, as the sender’s identification is not in the disclosure statement. In responding to the sender, you have proved that you broke the supposed agreement.
Such are merely minor points, however. That you never signed a confidentiality agreement of any kind is enough to utterly render this notification legally null and void. You cannot insist that someone has entered a contract agreement simply by receiving email from you.
Imagine having a footer which stated, “NOTICE: This email is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential information. If you are not one of the intended recipients and you read this email, you owe Boneheads, Inc. $20,000,000 in contract fees and must pay this amount immediately.”
Any such ludicrous attempt at establishing a contract with a non-signing recipient would be laughed out of court and end up as a footnote on Failblog.org.
To be fair, sometimes it is not the end user, but the email server of the corporation in question which appends these notices. If you work for a company which appears to have its fair share of litigious idiots, you might email yourself to see if this is the case. If so, contact your IT department and demand to know why it is that they want you to look like a blithering idiot with every email you send.
Because that is all these confidentiality notices really say.
Lars Vilks is no stranger to controversy involving Islamic imagery. His images portraying the prophet Muhammad as a “roundabout dog” earned everything from international condemnation (read as Islamic nations whining like little girls) to the Islamic State of Iraq (a terrorist organization) issuing a $150,000 reward for his assassination. (One of Vilks’ original drawings is shown at left. If there was any doubt that religion is insanity, realize that this image alone is motivation for the faithful to kill!)
Mr. Vilks was giving a lecture at Uppsala University in Sweden, when images in his lecture display set off the Islamic nut cases in the audience to attack him. He was head-butted in the chest and punched in the face, but did not suffer serious injury.
I have to applaud the Swedish police in this incident, for showing a remarkable level of restraint when dealing with these delusional, violent nuts. Even the one individual who had to be taken to the floor, was not abused in the process. Once he was down and immobile, there were no further actions taken against him. I wish our police could hold the same level of professionalism, but that breed of officer seems few and far between in the US these days.
I also feel that this video shows that at least a portion of the Islamic faithful simply cannot be reasoned with and when even slightly offended, they behave worse than animals in thrashing out at the ones they feel have “attacked their dignity”.
I have news for these people, you have no dignity. You are hollow and worthless and your actions demonstrate it.
Blasphemy is insanity at its worst. The very thought that a god or even a prophet cannot stand up for himself, but that he requires his followers to commit violent acts to defend his honor, is the epitome of delusional thinking. If such a god or saint does exist, he doesn’t need you to defend him.
Just to keep the record clear, there are Christians and Jews who will behave the same way, “protecting” their faith. This isn’t just a Muslim expression. The Muslims simply have the lion’s share of public violent lunacy, as the advent of science has tamed the monster that the Christian movement once was in the west and Jewish lunacy has mutated into Zionist lunacy, with Israel promoting their ire in military focus against Islamic nations, rather than mob violence to scattered events.
However, no matter how you look at it, the equation is pretty obvious: Middle Eastern religions are religions of violence. Read the Koran. Read the Bible. The gods portrayed there are selfish, petty, tyrannical, murderous monsters – and they command, right within the pages of their holy books, that their followers behave the same way.
Religion is insanity and it is very difficult to negotiate or reason with the insane.
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