It’s about time…

It looks like the place detention center we all know so lovingly as “Gitmo” may finally be closing its doors. The Bush administration is denying all reports of this nature so I guess we shouldn’t get our hopes too high, but this would be a good move for us to make if we have any hope of regaining any respect around the world. After this group’s reign of terror is over in January of ‘09 we are going to have to do quite a bit of work to restore our reputation so it sure would be nice to try and get a head start while they’re still in office. Check out this link for the article on CNN. Keep your fingers crossed that this chapter in our history is about to come to a close.

This could be a problem

John Edwards may have met a new challenger to his bid for the Democratic nomination in the upcoming election — it turns out that the nonprofit he started after losing the ‘04 election as Kerry’s running mate may have crossed a few ethical and possibly legal lines.  I don’t have any problems with John Edwards, but as a Democrat I must admit that I’d feel better with someone other than him representing us in the upcoming election because we need somebody who can win and actually has the experience to make a difference.  Check this link out for the article.

SiCKO

I’m sure by now that most everyone who spends any time in front of a computer each day has seen that a pretty high quality version of Michael Moore’s new movie SiCKO has been leaked onto the net. I must say that when I first saw the torrent file pop up I was torn between my desire to see the film and my desire to not rip off something that I didn’t have the right to. I have been waiting with much anticipation for this movie ever since I heard the first rumblings about it because I have a father with Parkinson’s Disease. He doesn’t take all of the medicine that is recommended by his doctors because insurance doesn’t cover but a certain amount and disability income isn’t as much as some might think. It has always troubled me that he has to even consider this, especially since I’ve never considered our family one to have to go without. We have always been fairly well-off financially as far as I am concerned, so I can’t even begin to imagine how difficult these types of situations must be for people with less means than we have.

I guess that I say all of this as a basis for my decision. My girlfriend and I have decided that we are going to sit down and watch the movie tonight and regardless of what we think of the movie, on June 29th we will be purchasing two tickets because regardless of your views of copyright laws, I just don’t think that it is okay to take something without paying for it. I guess I’m justifying my decision, but to me it is like I am writing a post-dated check for the tickets…If by some chance Michael Moore stumbles across this I want him to know that I have every intention of paying him for his services by purchasing those tickets as soon as they become available, but like a kid on Christmas eve I just can’t wait any longer for the payoff. I want to post a review of the movie, but I believe I will wait until the theatrical release to do so, just to prevent giving anything away before someone gets the chance to see it for themselves. I’m sure I will post some thoughts on the movie before then, but they will be very non-specific..

Mailin’ it in…

It’s been quite a long week so I’m mailing it in this morning, but here’s a couple of my all-time favorite clips from the Chappelle show…

Ladies and gentlemen, Ron Paul

I had lunch with my grandparents and some of their friends today and we got to talking about the election.  It was disheartening to hear how little faith they have in any of the candidates in the upcoming election.  They are all quite conservative folks, so they were intrigued by some of my liberal opinions and they were shocked to hear that I agreed with them that there doesn’t seem to be a decent man running.  Two ends of the age spectrum, and none of us feel good about the election process — can that be a good sign for our country?  Let me try to get to the point though…we all agreed that Ron Paul truly seems to be the only honest and consistent candidate.  I don’t necessarily agree with all of his opinions, but you’ve got to give a politician credit when he’s honest or at least consistent (2 for 2…wow). I wish he had a better chance at the nomination, but the Republican nominees treat him like persona non grata every time he’s around. The third video is a montage of Mr. Paul’s remarks at the latest Republican debate, and you’ll notice that the audience sure does seem to like him, once again displaying the disconnect between other politicians and the people whose votes they are unashamedly courting. Enjoy…

If only a good and decent man could actually win the Presidency…

the morning bongload

I’m not quite ready to guarantee this as a regular occurrence each morning here on this site, but I do know that it will be popping up at least from time to time….for those of you not familiar, this is just a collection of links to things that seem interesting or newsworthy. enjoy

• The only person to make science truly enjoyable for many generations passed away on Tuesday. We’ll miss you Mr Wizard…

• Scientists made quite a surprising discovery when they unearthed the remains of a massive bird-like dinosaur in Northern China.

• I’m glad my parents weren’t aware of this phenomena when I was in high school. Apparently, sleeping in on the weekends can lead to jetlag like symptoms and thus poor performance in school.

• The House of Reps apparently passed a worthless “gun control” bill. Somebody let me know when we actually decide to begin to seriously limit the number of guns people in this country are allowed to have. Aside: You’ve got to better than this if you say the bill is in response to the shootings at VT.

• When they start suspending kids for saying they think marijuana is safer than alcohol or tobacco,you know we’re in trouble. Especially when they’re doing this in Canada of all places.

• It’s nice to see that the NFL came to their senses along with Reebok and have decided that 49ers coach Mike Nolan as well as Jags coach Jack Del Rio can wear suits to their home games this season. It’s nice to see a couple of coaches reaching back to the old school of coaching.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by…have a great day.

Really?!? 50%?!? In America?!?

I recently saw an article on CBS that discussed the results of a Gallup poll released Monday which says that our country is roughly split down the middle on whether or nor the theory of evolution is true. It stuns me that fifty percent of the people in an advanced, educated country like ours can find a way to ignore science with reckless abandon like this. However, if you think that stat is frightening you may want to close your eyes now so you don’t see this next poll number: 68% of Republicans polled do not believe in the theory of evolution. How is this even possible? I’ve known for as long as I can remember that evolution was something that some folks didn’t believe in, but I had no idea that the ignorance was this rampant throughout our society. But, going back to my question of how this is possible…the answer may lie in this next statement found in this CBS News article:

“The poll also said that those who go to church often are far likelier to reject evolution than those who do not.”

This statement isn’t so much shocking as it is just plain disheartening. I spent the better part of my time while I was in college working as an intern in the youth ministry at a local baptist church, as well as devoting a large portion of my time to a “coffee house” style ministry aimed at young people and college students. These experiences taught me quite a bit, but I began to realize that a lot of my ideas and core beliefs were under siege by the people I worked for and with because I wasn’t conservative enough. Since I was unable to make some of what they wanted me to communicate to this kids jive with what I thought were the truly important aspects of Christianity I decided after about three and a half years that it was time for me to move on…My fear for the church in general as a result of this movement away from science and logic and reason is that they will run off any of the intelligent members until Christianity has become nothing but a mindless army of drones looking to the likes of James Dobson for guidance.

I wish that people would take the time to see that having religious faith and believing in the validity of the scientific process are not mutually exclusive endeavors. But, when the question that determines whether or not you are a Christian in the eyes of folks like Dobson and his lackeys changes from not only “Do you believe that Christ died for your sins?” but also begins to include the question “Do you believe the Bible is the inerrant, literal word of God?”, things start to get a bit hairy for me.

Either our churches are filled with some of the dumbest folks the world has ever seen, or people have just become intellectually lazy.  Is it easier to just believe what people tell you without looking to other sources for their side of the story?  I’ve got news for you — God didn’t create the world in the way the story is told in Genesis and to believe otherwise is just silly!  That was simply the best way the author of that particular portion of Genesis could describe it.  I’m going to get off of this issue for a while so my blood pressure can begin to fall back down to a more enjoyable level, but y’all have a great afternoon.

Back in the saddle again…

Well, what started as a week off to refocus my efforts for this blog turned into a month long hiatus as I tried to figure out why it is so difficult to keep this up…and I think I finally figured it out—I tend to set up unreasonable goals for myself at times and in between work and everything else going on in life I just never could find the time to reliably add x number of posts per day.  Someone recently reminded me that I started doing this for myself in the hopes of seeing if I couldn’t develop a knack for writing.  So here I am again……this time I don’t have any preconceived notions with how I’m going to do this, only that I will post something when the mood hits.  I hope this mood will hit regularly, but time will tell

site news

the morning bongload is going to be missing for the rest of the week so that I can effort to write more original posts that are more than just compilations of interesting links.  I’m still trying to find that niche where I’m comfortable writing and posting original thought.  That’s not to say there won’t be the occasional simple post with a link I found interesting, but the purpose of this blog, for me, was to try to actually motivate myself to spend some time writing and I don’t seem to be doing that quite like I want.  I’ll keep tinkering with this ’till I get it right.

the morning bongload

These west coast NBA games are killin’ me…I can’t believe how hard it is to stay up through an entire game because they are so late. It seems like just a couple of years ago I would’ve been able to last through the entire game and the first 30 minutes of whatever Sports Center was on at the time. Sorry for the lack of links this morning — multitasking is not gonna be my thing today.

• Interesting article on Christopher Hitchens’ new book, “God is not Great” from Jerry Adler at Newsweek. I would like to take a read through this book, but Hitchens seems almost too cynical and negative, even for me.

• A massive star explosion has the scientific community all geeked because this may be similar to the explosions that took place at the dawn of time. Nice little write-up in the Washington Post.

• I know I would’ve been here if I was still in Raleigh. (via NORML)

• A must read entry on Wikipedia about Sean Baker, a member of the 438th Military Police who was beaten senseless during a training exercise.  Hat tip to cannablog for pointing this out.