Thursday, May 31, 2012

sheet happens


in parallel rows
of future speculations
lie sci fi spinors


Wednesday, May 23, 2012

If you were a God what kind of a God would you be?



"And so the question is this: If you were a God what kind of a God would you be? What would your philosophy of creation be?"

"What kind of God would I want to be? Ooh."

"Like a screenwriter is like a deterministic God. They control the outcome of events."

"Oh, I see, yes…I would try to be a God that surprised himself. I think being the all-knowing God would be, you know, hell."


Jon Lawhead
plus.google.com/u/0/103315650425474752023/posts/W5WqXhcBZmr


I would be a god
who would only create universes in which no suffering ever occurs.
(I don't know if that's possible.)

I therefore could not be any god of this universe,
if one exists (which I doubt).
One should hope there is none.



Monday, May 21, 2012

Rednecks vs. Hipsters 2012


It's 24 weeks before the 2012 election and it really comes down to a race between the rednecks and hipsters.

The rednecks will vote Republican of course and the hipsters Democratic, and that's a problem for the Democratic Party. Hipsters have a reputation for laziness.

A big wave of rednecks swept America in 2010 and it looks like another swell is building. Mitt Romney got his full-fledged redneck baptism at Liberty University — a little Baptist water to chlorinate the Mormon — and that should be good enough.

So far there's been one big trial balloon floated to see if short, selected videos of black pastor Jeremiah Wright could be brought back to scare the bejesus into rednecks to get them agitated. But there is a redneck-targeted movie coming out in June called 2016: Obama's America that will have the same effect.

Rednecks suffer from having one type of brain, although it might be said that hipsters suffer from having another. A little more gray matter here and an less there. Rednecks like stability, simplicity and certainty. They are suspicious of or even hate people who are curious, different, and challenging. Hipsters are the opposites. Intellectual rednecks read David Brooks. Hipsters, Paul Krugman.

But rednecks tend to be dedicated and will get out to vote and hipsters may tend shrug the whole thing off. And that's the challenge for the Democratic Party.


"Diagnosing the Republican Brain" Mother Jones Fri Mar. 30, 2012 (Chris Mooney)
2016: Obama's America


comments on g+

Thursday, May 10, 2012

first law


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_LGBT_history

342 – The first law against same-sex marriage was promulgated by the Christian emperors Constantius II and Constans.

The rest, as they say, is history.

What determines what is moral is what happens in history.






Wednesday, May 9, 2012

imax 3d 48fps


It seems like films in the future will be have to be in (at least) 8 different formats:

imax (yes, no) | 3d (yes, no) | 48fps (yes, no)

I don't know how people will decide which theater to choose.


Saturday, May 5, 2012

Savage exegesis


The Bible is filled with bigotries: It's anti-gay, anti-woman, anti-foreigner (killing everyone of another tribe is God's command), anti-freethinker (kill all those who don't believe the right thing), etc.

Anyone who has read the Bible knows this.

The problem is people are told from childhood that the Bible is all-good book. It isn't. That's why some liberal Christians try to twist the bad stuff (primarily the anti-gay stuff) in the Bible and try to make it look not-so-bad. But they look ridiculous in the process.

Dan Savage said the right thing: The Bible is full of bullshit.


Accurately Describing the Bible Is Not Oppression