entombed in the shrine of zeroes and ones

Pope Benedict said on Monday that gay marriage was one of several threats to the traditional family that undermined "the future of humanity itself".

torkington: RMS: "Copyright a tyranny that is intolerable, unenforceable, and must be changed."
ronebofh: we really need an RMS bingo game. or drinking game. probably both.

Fap on! *fap* *fap* Fap off! *fap* *fap* Fap on, fap off... the Fapper.

I think that the Kindle is a complete failure.  How the hell do you start a fire with this thing?

If you ever wondered how Jeph Loeb got a job writing Batman, Warren Ellis found his submission letter.

During the "don't ask don't tell" repeal hoohah back in March, i learned a new historical tidbit: the US Civil War started because the Union wanted to station gay soldiers at Fort Sumter.

The Vatican is a rogue nation run by people who systematically protect pedophiles worldwide; it's time to invade and provoke regime change.

When i see the iPod silhouette ads, i amuse myself by thinking that they depict people who've just been shot.

How to get from Wank to Fucking in about 3 hours.

analogue n. a conversation that originates from the talker's behind.

To the woman in the red Volvo station wagon with the "A GODLESS NATION CANNOT REMAIN FREE" bumper sticker: die in a fire.

Imagine that when you're born, you receive a gift.  However, the only way to open it is certainly lethal.  You carry this gift with you all of your life, and your brain is wired to wonder, at times to the point of obsession, what's inside.  Now imagine that there are many around you who assure you that certain actions, behaviors, or thoughts will increase or even maximize the odds that the gift will be something awesome when you finally open it, and they prey on your uncertainty to make their point.  But the fact remains that they have their own box, and they don't know what's in it, and nobody who's ever looked inside has survived.

You know what i say?  Stop worrying about your fucking gift and get on with your life.

Whenever i try to write up what currently passes for my personal philosophy, it starts looking suspiciously like i'm trying to reinvent Taoism.

While cruising through Wikipedia, i found this:

Pahawh Hmong was the product of a native messianic movement, based on the idea that, throughout history, God had given the Hmong power though the gift of writing, and revoked it as divine retribution.

If i told you that a bunch of Christians prayed in front of a golden bullock for money, you'd think i was just being a bigoted asshole, right?

Thanks to Joe Bay for the link.

Jason Elam, the kicker for the Denver Broncos, and his pastor have written a novel titled "Monday Night Jihad".  The protagonist is a veteran who plays pro football after his tour of duty, but is pulled back into fighting in the Middle East.

• Warren Ellis brings us a disturbing answer to a troubling question.
• iayork could've been the coolest Dad ever.
• E. Howard Hunt died three months ago, and talked about LBJ's involvement in the assassination of JFK.
• "I have a great idea.  Let's rebuild the Internet from scratch!"
• Baseball might be getting rid of its longest-used performance enhancer, but in the meantime, the one undetectable performance enhancer might not be all that enhancing.
• Fox News never fails to disappoint: "Could [Seung-Hui] Cho have been possessed by the Devil? Could that explain the massacre at Virginia Tech?"
• The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit has decided that the bit in the Second Amendment about "a well-regulated militia" was just fluff.  This is a complicated one, because i don't disagree with the decision, but i'm not crazy about the way they got there.  I wonder about how laws like Minnesota's Personal Protection Act can help Americans be responsible gun owners, and what the effect of these laws are (and, Seth, if you happen to be reading this, you're still a douche).
• This one's a real corker: Jundallah, a wholly owned subsidiary of Al-Qaeda, has been receiving carefully funnelled financial support from the United States and is fighting the Iranian government.  Follow all the links.  You know what?  Nothing surprises me anymore.  All of my predictions have come true.  At least we have the liberal media hammering the ... oh, wait, a Blue Angel crashed.  Sorry, where were we?

Fundamentalists are crazy.  They're the real world equivalent to the evil geniuses of our spy fiction and our superhero comics.  They want to mold the world into a specific shape that they really believe in, and if you don't believe in that, if you can't relate to that, it just seems crazy.
        — jacksonpublick, in Reason Magazine

Publick goes into a few of the reasons why i despise the DC and Marvel universes. I should take advantage of this interview and ramp up my anti-DC/Marvel rant.

What was the religion of the various Arab peoples before Mohammed brought them Islam?