Notre Dame Invitees

Pat Buchanan poses the question, “Is Notre Dame Still Catholic” in his commentary piece this week. I’d link to it, but I can remember Mr. Buchanan breaking my pseudo-11th commandment policy, so you can find it over at Human Events.

Mr. Buchanan asks because of Obama’s forthcoming commencement speech, as was Notre Dame’s tradition of inviting newly-elected Presidents to give it since at least Carter. At least a couple of commenters pointed out that Mario Cuomo, another pro-infanticide politician (though, not as pro-infanticide as Obama), was invited to speak at Notre Dame way back in 1984. It was amongst the first major “privately anti-infanticide, publicly pro-infanticide” argument. I still do not know what to think about the situation Notre Dame put itself into, but seeing as this will not be the first time the university allowed prominent politicians espouse anti-Catholic beliefs on their stage, I thought a little historical perspective might help make up people’s minds about it.

Note on PETA’s War Against Pets

I celebrated Earth Hour by turning on all my lights last night, giving my pet snake a tour of the apartment while I was at it.

This caught my attention tonight. If you actually followed my link to PETA last night, you would have saw that they call for the phasing out of pet ownership and that you only get spayed/neutered pairs of pets from local adoption centres instead of pet stores or independent breeders. One would think that would mean “adopt from us!” One would be wrong. PETA feels that killing them wholesale is the quickest way of phasing out pet ownership.

This is the animal version of Sanger’s eugenics programs. Makes a sort of logical sense when you look at it that way. Pets are the undesirables amongst the animal populations that PETA represents. Removing them though sterilization and “genocide” (to use a hyperbole) improves the genetic stock of wolves and lynxes.

Twisted? Yes. Evil? Also Yes.

Think about that next time PETA tries to insult you into complying with their eco-cultism.

Read a Book!: A Practical Guide to Racism

A Practical Guide to Racism

by C. H. Dalton

I saw this book in hardcover in the humor section of book stores occasionally, and thought the idea was hilarious. Once I saw it in paperback I went and bought it. And, boy, do I have the buyer’s remorse.

I realize that humor is subjective; what one person finds funny, another finds stupid. From the title, I expected the book to be a farce detailing how to be a racist against the 9 races in the book (Hispanics, Jews, Whites, Indians/Injuns, Blacks, Asians, Merpeople, Arabs, and Gypsies). The book actually is a farce of a moral relativist anthropologist trying to explain the quibbles of those races, poorly. The vast majority of the jokes fall flat. In fact, outside of the glossary in the back (stupid explanations of racial slurs abound), I cannot actually remember if I laughed at all.

In conclusion, this book is a potentially funny concept ruined. The Jon Stewart blurb should have been a hint. “Read it with someone you hate”, indeed; reading it with a friend would give you a new enemy (like recommending Atari’s E.T. game). Read a Different Book!

(Very Belated) Annunciation Musings.

Guess what I just realized whilst hangin’ with the church? That Annunciation was Wednesday and I forgot!

25 March (or Annunciation) is the traditional day to celebrate Jesus’ conception! Huzzah:

“And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name [was] Mary. And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, [thou that art] highly favoured, the Lord [is] with thee: blessed [art] thou among women. And when she saw [him], she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end. Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren. For with God nothing shall be impossible. And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.” – Luke 26:38

Speaking of Operation: Yearly Rejection…

…I finally cleaned up the formatting inconsistencies of it’s status page. The new, cleaned-up version (featuring the current year!) is located where the old hyperlink on the Operations page used to be.

Life of LEM: Snags in Gun-Totin’ Career?

So, if you have been following the status page for Operation: Gun-Totin’ Career?, you must have noticed that I am making slow, steady progress towards losing the weight of a small child. But some recent developments may make that weight loss moot (other than, of course, the health benefits of weighing one less small child).

First off, the boss-man is trying to move me over to the other shop; if his attempts are successful, that means no more night-person life for me (plus a small raise)! My rut will be broken and I can begin to attempt to build a social life of sorts. Whether those attempts would amount to anything is a different matter, but it might be enough that I can be content, career-wise.

Secondly, my tutoring pupil let me know that his high school alma mater might have an opening and be willing to take a chance on me, even after seeing my resume. That would get me out of my night-person rut, plus (I assume) a hefty raise, a shot at a real career, and a daily commute! This is what I am ultimately looking for, assuming they think my potential is worth the investment of time (I still feel young, stupid, and needing some guidance to become something better than a mediocre teacher). That would be the escape route over the dead end I feel my attempts at getting an actual teaching job would result in.

I am denied the opportunity to serve until I lose this weight (assuming, of course, that the army does not have objections they have yet to voice). If either of the aforementioned opportunties come to fruition before then, I might just try for the Reserves instead of the full-time army. But, it is nice to see multiple lights at the end of the tunnel; hopefully, I make the right decision when the time comes.

And, as expected, there is still no progress on Operation: Yearly Rejection, for those of you are still keeping track on that.

Anti-Facebook Statement o’ the Day!: Twitter Widgets

I have not done one of these in a while, so…

WordPress now allows me to incorporate my (completely imaginary) Twitter account onto my blog site via a new widget. If Facebook was where it is at, would WordPress not design a widget to incorporate my so-called “Facebook status”? I mean, as far as I can tell, Twitter is just a glorified Facebook status bar that you can update via (prohibitory expensive on my cell phone plan) texting.

In other words, this is evidence that Facebook is becoming passe, soon only to be used by elitists who think themselves above a streamlined version of what they are using with cutesy jargon. It will be the Linux of social networking. So why jump on the  bandwagon right before everybody jumps off? Seems ridiculous.

Update on “Earth Hour”

So, apparently they moved the “Earth Hour” “festivities” of foregoing delicious, delicious lights to today. Probably so the eco-cultists do not miss their PBS sermon (Nature comes on at 8 PM in the DFW market), assuming PBS has pulled itself enough out of debt to begin the usual Sunday night programming. Or maybe so the general liberals do not miss their model of proper liberal child-rearing, Family Guy (which is on at 8:30 PM here). Oh well.

This means that “Earth Hour” was during work. I kept my kitchen light on before heading to work so do something during the “official observation”. Sorry, the sanity of my pet snake is more important to me than a symbolic gesture to stick it to the eco-cultist man. And, in a way, owning a pet snake is a bigger way to irritate those hippies, if PETA speaks for them [ed note: massive stupidity at link]. Especially since snakes are not “cute”. Especially, especially since I use paper towels as substrate (eek, waste!) and all the snake furniture is artificial (and I just added a giant stick-shaped hunk of plastic today!).

I am still going to go forward with my plan for tomorrow; that way, I can celebrate properly while still keeping my job. And provide supervision in case whatever I use to cover my snake cage starts to smolder.

Imagine This as a Fox Special

When Taxes Attack!

Tip of the Hat: imao

Delayed Pun Reaction

I noticed something yesterday. “Norris Snot” sounds an awful like “No,It’s Not”. Imagine the argument between Chuck Norris and Crayola executives over his diluted phlegm:

Crayola Executive (CE) #1: “We’re going to call it Silly ‘Putty’”

Chuck Norris: “Norris Snot!” [Chuck Norris roundhouse kicks CE #1 into several pieces]

CE #2: “No, I believe he was right when he said it is to be called ‘Silly Putty.’”

Chuck Norris: “Norris Snot!” [Chuck Norris punches CE #2's face off]

And so on and so forth.