The Nova Experiment
Posted by bpopp @
02:11 AM - 703
reads.
Ever since the engine in my Explorer ate itself, I've been getting into working on stuff (especially cars). There's a really unexplainable pleasure in fixing something that seemed hopelessly broken. Just doing something trivial like changing out a set of spark plugs can make the whole car seem new again. It's a weird, very addictive sense of accomplishment. And then like any high, it starts to wear off so you have to find something else to fix.
So a few months ago I decided I wanted to take it to the next level and get an old car to fix up. I looked at Camaros, Mustangs, and Chevelles, but the car that just really seemed to speak to me was the Nova. What's odd about the Nova is that it seems to be a love it-or hate it kind of car. It has this uber-cult following, but at the same time, everybody I've showed it to just kinda gives me this look like, "why?!" (which, true to my character, actually adds to the appeal).
It's Very Tiresome
Posted by bpopp @
09:09 PM - 173
reads.
This is what absolutely drives me crazy about Glenn Beck and his friends on the right. Of all the things that they could be bitching about, they choose to bitch about stupid sh*t like death panels and birth certificates. There are so many genuinely boneheaded things we could be talking about w/ regard to our government and Obama and instead all I've heard about for the last week is some dumbass Acorn "scandal".
Let's look at what's in my inbox this month:
1) Dave Kaiser supposedly compares Obama to Hitler
2) DC Tea parties are ignored by the Mainstream Media (even though that's all I heard about for 3 days)
3) Series of Comics criticizing Obama for having the nerve to apologize to the middle east (for needlessly killing millions of people)
4) A critique of Obama by the Russian magazine, Pravda, featuring a painting of Obama straddling a U..
The Free Market
Posted by bpopp @
06:08 PM - 237
reads.
I hear a lot of my friends who used to be conservatives calling themselves libertarians now. Glenn Beck has made it all the fad. They espouse the virtues of small government and claim that bureaucrats need to stay out of the market. They claim that this government intervention in the market is unconstitutional and is the real cause of economic disasters like Enron, the tech-crunch bubble, and our recent housing-market/credit fiasco.
What they are missing, I think, is that the "communists" over there in China have exactly the kind of system they are asking for. Government does not regulate what businesses can and can't do. In fact, they seem to encourage their businesses to do things as cheaply as possible in order to boost their economy (at the expense of the people). The consequences of this "hands-off" policy has been disastrous.
The police acted stupidly
Posted by micah777 @
04:07 PM - 215
reads.
This is one reason why racism will never end in this country. Any reasonable person in the world would have supported thie police officer in the instance but because Obama is racist, as he was taught by his preacher, he said the police acted stupidly. The cop did his job the blacks in this country will always through crap like this in their defense. Go Mr. President!!
Father Barron
Posted by bpopp @
09:06 PM - 497
reads.
I saw this clip of a catholic priest named Father Barron on Reddit the other day. Reddit wasn't too excited about what he had to say (of course), but I was really impressed with the guy. He's very eloquently criticizing this new Harris/Dawkins-led Atheist "movement" that is all the fad right now. At the end he uses CS Lewis' argument (which he unfortunately doesn't site) that people seem to have a hard-wired need for God (or a god) which perhaps wouldn't be there unless there was God. Ie. we get thirsty-- there is water. We get hungry-- there is food. We get horny-- there is sex. It not an argument that is going to convert anyone from their disbelief, but it is an interesting observation.
Tonight I started listening to some of his other stuff and I really like him. It's very odd (and refreshing) to see a catholic priest reviewing "No Country For Old Men" and saying "I'm a big fan of th..
Intolerance Should be a Sin
Posted by bpopp @
02:06 PM - 363
reads.
A few months ago the Department of Homeland Security put out a document that basically classified certain groups of people as potential terrorists. One paragraph reads:
Quote: Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.
When this came out, I started getting lots of emails from conservative friends and family complaining that Obama was unjustly "targeting" them as terrorists for their conservative belie..
Memnock the Devil
Posted by bpopp @
01:05 PM - 309
reads.
I'm listening to Anne Rice's Memnock the Devil again. It's such a great book. It's part of her vampire series, but really has very little to do with the rest of the books. The vampire protagonist, Lestat, meets the devil and God and is forced to pick between them. You'd think this would be a relatively easy decision, but the devil presents a very different story of the struggle between heaven and hell.
In his account, he and his followers rebelled against God because they couldn't accept the suffering and brutality of the physical world God had created. They watched in horror as simple organisms evolved into god-like humans who's life depended on the death and decay of everything around it.
It's such a great story because she intertwines all these stories from the Bible and Catholic theology. For example, when God first casts Memnock out of heaven, he and his minions, in order to better understand humanity, take human form and began living amongst the tr..
It's insane to me that with all the stuff we have going on in the world, this woman would pick this to get up and talk about to Congress. If you really care, talk about it in church. The founding fathers were pretty clear and their reasoning was sound: when you mix government w/ religion you corrupt them both. When people like Bush and Backmann use their government-mandated position of power to promote their own personal religion, they are turning droves of people away from God.
Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration. 