United Press International - NewsTrack - Rapper DMC says Adidas no longer his

NEW YORK, Nov. 19 (UPI) -- Run-DMC's Darryl McDaniels has kicked his Adidas aside after 20 years and jumped into the Upscale French brand, Le Coq Sportif...[go]

Now I know we're living in the end times. Time to go lace up my Sambas.

A belated Happy Thanksgiving to all one of my loyal readers...

Things have been a bit busy around here, what with finishing up the semester (and hence my graduate degree!) and getting a new not-for-profit e-commerce site up and running (more on this in a later post) and working and doing the holiday thing. But here's an image that captures one of the few tranquil moments recently, down at my brother and sister-in-law's place in Alabama. As the sun went down, we built a small bonfire and had some coffee. All I had was my cell phone camera, but I think the shots have a certain dreamlike quality, like hazy memories. That was some good coffee, too.

That's my daughter, in the bottom image, recovering from a broken wrist and finger (skating mishap) with her groovy green cast. She has become the coolest thing in my life - it's going to suck in a few years when she hits adolescence full-speed and figures out that I'm "Dad" - the lame guy who thinks he's cool, and all his music is dumb and his clothes are weak and his jokes - oh great Lord the jokes! Right now, she's still my biggest fan. I'm thankful for that, most of all.

Falwell fighting for holy holiday / He'll sue, boycott groups he sees as muzzling Christmas

From the SFGate - this is a pile. Period.

Jerry Falwell is once again whipping his flying monkeys into a frenzy, this time over the "War on Christmas." The war, if there is such a thing, has been waged for years by retailers who start the big push in October. I've worked retail; I've unloaded the trucks full of ornaments and holiday glassware in August. I start getting the retail willies this time of year.

Jerry Falwell, pardon my French, doesn't give half a crap about Christmas, or Jesus, or anything other than Jerry Falwell. As long as the money flows in from the faithful, he's just fine. If it takes a phony War on Christmas, then that's what he'll do. He's accusing people of spreading "misinformation" about Christmas, and he's telling lies about Target's Christmas policies, urging a boycott.

His group objects to the term "holiday tree." Well peep this, jackass:

The Christmas Tree (tm), as you call it, evolved from pagan tradition of expressing hope for the new year by placing evergreen trees inside the doorway of your home.

The date, December 25th, is concurrent with a pagan holiday - Saturnalia (actually December 17th or 21st, depending on the calendar you're using). Encyclopedia Britannica (told y'all I was a librarian, didn't I?) has this to say:

One widespread explanation of the origin of this date is that December 25 was the Christianizing of the dies solis invicti nati (“day of the birth of the unconquered sun”), a popular holiday in the Roman Empire that celebrated the winter solstice as a symbol of the resurgence of the sun, the casting away of winter and the heralding of the rebirth of spring and summer.

Christmas. (2005). Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved November 21, 2005, from Encyclopædia Britannica Premium Service http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9082431

If anything, Christians are corrupting a perfectly good pagan feast! (Kidding, Mom...).

So my point in all this is that Falwell is a modern-day Pharisee (look it up), a charlatan and a snake-oil salesman who has found a willingly ignorant audience to keep him all oiled up and well fed. And well fed he is.

Corruption Inquiry Threatens to Ensnare Lawmakers - New York Times

You know, the cynical reaction to this is, "Wow - Congress is corrupt! Whoda thunk?!"

But then I think about how sad this is all is, how we're at war, and how this pack of clowns did all this while they hid behind the flag and their Bibles.

To paraphrase an old bumper sticker, the Christian Right is neither.

A few quick cross-platform notes on a Sunday morning

1. Rumors are flying that Apple will introduce the first Intel laptops in just a few weeks, at Macworld SF (I just hope Shrill O'Reilly doesn't level the city before then!) I know what I want in my after-Christmas stocking!

2. Note to Blogger - your Windows interface is way ahead of your Mac one. Fix it. I like to post from my iBook.

3. I've spent more time recently helping Windows users with their iPod experience, from making the most of iTunes to just getting the dad-blamed thing to work in the first place. I don't know what the dilly is here, but the whole installing-an-iPod-on-XP thing needs some attention. You get cryptic errors because things don't seem to load in the right order, and it just ain't smooth like it seems like it should be. Micro$oft needs to suck it up, recognize the ascendency of the iPod, and build one of those Wizard thingies that goes, like, "Hey there, iPod, let me search for your drivers and what all..." and then you're done.

4. Note to Google - give us Google Earth Mac! Enough already.

Okay, I'm done. Time to read the funnies. I heard Dagwood eats a big sandwich.

RIP Jan Cox

Atlanta's prophet of truth impenetrable has passed.

"A forgotten version of a favorite myth concerning the first man says that god threw Adam out of the peaceful garden because he wouldn'’t turn his radio down. (The story lost favor because of what many saw as a fatal flaw (to wit): it had to have been the big guy who gave Adam the radio in the first place.)"

So say we all.

CNN.com - Robertson warns Pennsylvania voters of God's wrath - Nov 10, 2005

Saw this over on CNN.com and all I can think of is a quote I once heard attributed to Gandhi: "I could have been a Christian, had it not been for Christians." I have no idea if he actually said it, or not. But Pat Robertson did just warn an entire city to "Look out! Else you get smote!" because they dared repudiate the creationist sham that is ID.

Look, folks, take your kids to church. Put them in a Christian school. Teach them that this rock is 6000 years old, despite all the physical and observable evidence to the contrary. I have no issue with that. If you are dead set to teach ID in schools, make it part of a philosophy curriculum, or even a comparitive religion-type setting. Unless, of course, you're afraid that your flimsy, willfully ignorant version of Christianity can't stand up to that kind of study.

Pat Robertson is a twisted, evil man who defiles Christianity every time he opens his mouth on television. If you follow him and send him money, then God help you.

Evolution Slate Outpolls Rivals - New York Times

Mad, mad props to Dover, PA for standing up to the crypto-creationists.

Many people have made the case, and I'll reiterate here. If you want to discuss intelligent design, do it in a philosophy class. It's religion and metaphysics - it ain't science. I'm all for having a "big ideas" class where students can read Hume's Dialogues and St. Anselm's Proslogium and all that other great stuff.

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Darkness singer tackles eBay leak

From over at the beeb

But what got my attention was this little tidbit:

'The band sacked bassist Frankie Poullain while recording One Way Ticket To Hell... And Back because he became too "negative" and "suspicious" of Hawkins' relationship with the band's manager Sue Whitehouse, the singer said.'

Hmmm...I wonder how long 'till these blokes are playing puppet shows?

Slashdot | Vatican Rejects Intelligent Design?

Yet again, the Catholic Church proves it really has moved on from its earlier habits of rejecting science and persecuting innovators (Copernicus, Galileo, Mad Magazine). Right on.

I have bird flu

I knew it this morning - I went outside to get the paper, and instead I climbed up on the hood of my car and crapped on the windshield. Then I ran headlong into the glass front door.

BBC NEWS | Americas | Rabid vampire bats kill in Brazil

Sweet Mother of Hugo Chavez! Yet another sign of the impending PockyClypse...

The hits just keep on coming

Saw Zell write something in the AJC this morning, something about Joe Wilson being a big fat liar and his wife being a scaly-skinned harpy...I was still getting my coffee on, so I may have misread some of it. But it was the usual thin-skinned wingnut rant about "the media" and how we all hate Bush and on and on. Just go read it.

Here's the thing, y'all. Bush wanted Iraq - period. They tried to kill his daddy. He said so himself. So he really didn't care why went. The marketing team came up with a compelling narrative: mushroom clouds, anthrax, blood in the streets, the whole shebangabang. When that story came apart, they switched gears and went into liberator mode - we're spreading democracy, deposing tyrants and despots, remaking the Middle East. Well, to that I say, why start with Iraq? Why not Saudi Arabia? Oh, right - because their oil wealth and their history with the Bush fam outweighs their tyranny and despotism. And they didn't try to kill W's daddy.