The Blog of Lon

I keep trying to avoid writing a lot about religion on here since I’ve decided to set up a separate blog to cover that vast topic. Whenever I get the urge to attempt to teach someone about God, I simply write it in a notepad for future use on that blog. Why? Well, for one reason, I intend to try to hold myself to a higher degree of civility in the discussions regarding religion. This blog tends to be me in my “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore” mood, a place where I can vent my frustrations at the world as I see it now. Unfortunately, I can’t resist a good religious discussion debate argument, and the rest of the world doesn’t have the courtesy to wait for my nuggets of truth and understanding which I will be authoritatively presenting on the new blog. *grin*

Case in point: Over on Very Important Stuff, Dr. Dunning has a recent post addressing some of the most common atheist arguments. This post isn’t really a response to his, which is itself personal opinions in a post inspired by someone else’s post on their personal opinions (God bless the blogosphere!), but rather a convenient excuse for me to make another post for which an arguably suitable response is tl,dr. Despite that these supposed arguments against God are nothing new, and I’ve got reams of material already written to attack these arguments, I find myself compelled to jump in with my own opinions. People who know me just chuckled at that last phrase, probably saying “that’s nothing new either”. Anyway, without further ado, let’s get down to the four main arguments: Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s one for the “School Administrators are Idiots” file: A 14 year-old, honor-roll student gets suspended, and then expelled, for accidentally bringing a butter knife to school. (Note: for fun, read my post first, then go back to the article if you’re interested. In my post, I refrain from indicating the student’s race and gender while presenting the case so as not to contaminate any conclusions based on irrelevant things.)

This one goes a little deeper than the “does a butter knife actually reasonably qualify as a weapon” debate. I’ll get to that in a moment, but even if we accept that strict, literal claim, it can still be easily argued that the administration of Goose Creek High School and the wannabe leaders of the Berkeley County School District are mentally challenged simply by examining how they interpreted their own policy in light of the facts of this issue. Read the rest of this entry »

Sigh. During my latest period of not having enough time to pay attention to my blog here, I totally missed one of the events I had planned to report and celebrate. As you can guess, and most of my friends already know, one of my most hard-line stances is taken relative to the issue of free speech and open access to information. Thus, the American Library Association’s yearly observance of Banned Books Week is something I’d planned to mention on here. Preferably, it would have been in advance, but hey, I guess arriving late is better than not arriving at all. Besides, it’s not like this is an issue which only happens once per year; the real problem exists continuously. Read the rest of this entry »

Here we go again, another fine example of a irrational zero-tolerance policy being applied by some brainless wonder who happens to be in charge of a school.

Executive summary (because, once again, this post qualifies for the tl;dr tag): Seven year-old boy draws a sketch of a stick figure holding a water gun. This drawing is judged to be in violation of the school’s zero-tolerance policy for guns, and the boy is suspended. Read the rest of this entry »

As some of you know, I produce the Battle of the Bands competition for the Five County Fair here in Farmvegas. Last year’s show was nothing short of awesome; I wrote a couple of entries about it on my Myspace blog, and more details of that show are in the Battle of the Bands section on the Five County Fair website (which we at MoonStar develop/sponsor, being in the web design and web hosting business as we are) .

This year’s show is shaping up quite nicely indeed, although it was after considerable hair-pulling and gnashing of teeth. First we had issues with the entire FCF website as we were attempting to switch to the newest version of Joomla (content management system). Then I found out this morning that my spam filter was eating all the Battle of the Bands entry forms, and was only able to recover the three submitted since yesterday. Add to this that Dana, the sound guy who has provided the equipment and expertise in sound reinforcement for the past three shows was unavailable due to prior commitments. A shame, we really liked working with that guy.

As of this morning, I was a producer of a show, already with committed sponsors, on the highest attended night of the fair, with less than two weeks to go. No entries to put on the stage and no sound system to hear ‘em even if I did. The fact that the sponsors were on board, the venue has been reserved, advertising dealt with, and all the other successes so far paled in comparison to the looming threats. Read the rest of this entry »

I hesitate to post this lest people think that I’m yet another one of the chorus of people who obviously hate Mormonism, but I can’t resist because it’s rather humorous. Personally, while I think there’s a good amount of error in Mormon teachings, I have to add that of the Mormons I’ve personally known, they’ve shown themselves to be good, upstanding people. I’m sure there’s plenty who aren’t, but hey, that goes for any given group.

Anyway, on to the funny bit. I confess that I’d never heard of Mormons having magic underwear. And I find the masonic symbols on same fairly interesting as well. Check it:

The only thing that comes to mind is John Winger’s (Bill Murray) famous quote from Stripes:

Chicks dig me, because I rarely wear underwear and when I do it’s usually something unusual.

Hmm, ya think he was talking about magic Mormon underwear? Unusual indeed.

Here’s the first installment of what will become a regular feature around here. The precise reason that education in the USA is in a major decline compared to the rest of the planet is that the administrators we allow to reign are insipid, vapid, stupid assholes. Some have good intentions, to be sure, but when an idiot approaches you with the intention of helping you, I’d advise a flight response. Run away. Quickly.

Read the rest of this entry »

As of next month, China is going to begin regulating “the procedures by which one is to reincarnate“.

As the article states, it’s really simply so they can gain more control over the selection of the next Dalai Lama. Of course, that’s if the current Dalai Lama chooses to reincarnate at all. He has already said he would not reincarnate in Tibet (or any Chinese-controlled land), and has expressed thoughts that the work of the Dalai Lamas may complete, thus no further need to return.

The article also mentions the possibility of having two concurrent Dalai Lamas; which would be an interesting repetition of Christian history during periods when more than one Pope claimed authority. Let’s hope that if there’s two Dalai Lamas, they’ll treat each other with a higher degree of civility and morality than the Popes did.

I frequently argue that scientists who start putting forth notions that are outside their field of specialty, especially when their notions are significantly divergent from the experts in the field they are venturing into, should sit down and shut up.

Imagine a marine biologist, for example, putting forth the claim that the theory of relativity is wrong because physicists misunderstand basic optics. Of course, they are free to do so, but the burden of proof is upon them. Given that this is a field of hard science, they will find it difficult to do so (although, even if they can show some evidence, it is highly doubtful that the scientific powers that be, i.e. review boards, would allow them to publish the conjecture).

So, you only find scientists publicly putting forth universally rejected notions in fields where they are confident that nobody will be able to issue a formal proof that the the notions are blatantly wrong. Hence the spate of atheistic scientists spewing their anti-religion bullshit in the popular press. No need for peer review within the field of theology, no danger of being proven to be a raving lunatic, just sit back and let the profits from publishing bestsellers roll in. Any game that has the ability to provide positive benefits without any risk of loss is a good game to play. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m sure everyone has heard that Alberto Gonzales,  head of the US Justice Department, has announced his resignation.

Y’know, many times throughout his tenure, Gonzales has been suspected or accused of deception and outright falsehoods. Typically, falsehoods if he’s not under oath, diversion and deception (or sudden amnesia) when he is under oath.

It is no surprise to the people who accuse the man of deception when they hear that Gonzales’ press secretary insisted, on Sunday afternoon, that Gonzales had no intention of leaving his post while noting that Gonzales handed in his resignation to Mr. Bush on Friday.

Wonder if he’ll ever be truly brought to Justice? Although, we need to wait until Bush is out of office before any conviction, or watch him skirt the demands of justice via the flurry of presidential pardons.