Of COURSE women never lie about rape.

(AP) Four New York men were released from jail Wednesday and authorities dismissed charges that they gang-raped a Hofstra University student after the 18-year-old woman recanted her story.

"I'm so happy the truth finally came out," said Stalin Felipe, 19, outside the Nassau County Jail in East Meadow where he and the other three had just been released Wednesday night.

Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice said in a statement late Wednesday that the woman told law enforcement officials that the sex encounter in a dormitory men's room was consensual.

Rice said a county judge then dismissed the charges against the four men and ordered their release. She said her office has launched a criminal investigation into the woman's statements.

The woman had accused five men, including a Hofstra student, of taking her cell phone at an on-campus nightclub and luring her into a dormitory men's room and sexually assaulting her early Sunday.

I heard this from the corner of my ear yesterday, and it has been percolating. I like what Vox suggests:

One hopes that the lying woman will be prosecuted and jailed, as crying rape harms the interests of innocent men and real female victims alike. A woman who lies in an attempt to press rape charges should not only be prosecuted and jailed for years, but her picture should also be distributed as widely throughout the media as were the pictures of those she falsely accused.

Of course, it must be stated in all fairness that men never lie about sex either.

Happy 9/11 DAY!


You remember September 11, 2001. You know, the day when the US Government condemned and razed some real estate in NYC, added a door to the Pentagon, and attempted aerial plowing in a Pennsylvania field. That MUST be what happened, 'cos an actor and a Communist rabble-rouser both agree that it did. Don't forget, too, that today has been determined by some tool-or-other to be a National Day of Service. Find a member of Al Qaeda and polish his Quran.

I have fussed about the uselessness of psychological scab-picking at celebrations like the Oklahoma City Bombing, letting the wounds heal for a year, then reopening the thing with One More Remembrance. It would be like a wife buying her husband a Happy Adultery Day cake each year to commemorate his indiscretion. I don't have much patience for this kind of psychological self-injury.

That said, 9/11 is different. Our nation, and our fellow citizens were attacked by Muslims. Not Swedish Lutherans, nor Southern Baptists. Whack-job Muslims incited to murder, and then financed with Saudi money. Ron Paul AND Osama bin Laden have stated that the reason for the attacks was the US's involving itself in the Middle East and elsewhere. I trust Dr. Congressman Paul far more than I do bin Laden, and believe the the most prudent course for the US is to bring back our troops from every locale where we have overstayed our welcome, which is almost everywhere, except for one task: hunt everyone down who was involved with the attack on the US with extreme prejudice. For those unaware, that doesn't mean make fun of their clothing, coloring, or mode of speech. It means take them out. Kill them. Period. Then, get on with our lives.

Muslim extremists plotted, some acted, killed our people, and destroyed our buildings. That bunch needs to be made to go away. All Muslims are not murderous jihadists. There are many who do not accurately follow the Prophet's teachings. They likely make good neighbors. I am not worried about them, but the culpable jihadists still living need to be not living anymore.

Remember 9/11. Remember who our enemies are. Remember that they are out there still, and that they have made promises.

NOTHING has gone right today, and now The Prexy is talking on about his sorely needed healthcare revamp that is being begged for by millions whom I never see.

Nancy Pelosi is reacting to naysaying noises from the Right like the psycho mom in the Rollover Minutes adverts. Scary.


One salvo of applause from the Right: a promise of a measure of tort reform.

Obama beat the drum of TeddyCare, invoking the Ghost of Kopechnes Past. Lets win one for the Tedster.

I'm so reassured. I'm also waiting for the Givemint to start paying my mortgage. I mean, he's been President seven whole months.

Czar Van Jones is lookin' for work, and should be thankful that this is not 1917. Unknown Forces have promulgated "lies and distortions" about him, so he is pouting and taking his Fair Trade ball, and his eco-friendly bat, and going home. I'm not sure which cheeses me more, that he was in an unConstitutional "Green is the new Red" unvetted position in the first place, or that he weeniely folded after Glenn Beck and WorldNetDaily started digging out the truth about him. "They lied about me, so I'm leaving!" Wow, how loser. He could at least have identified the truth, and let the facts be known...

Awwwwwwwww....

Because I said so, that is why.

I had talk radio on as room noise whilst doing laundry - the Dread Dormomoo is recuperating nicely from her surgery, but still may not do much aboot the hoose - and heard Mark Steyn parrying a female caller who was claiming that conservative talk hosts were anti-ObamaCare because they are in the pockets of groups like Big Pharma (which oddly is supportive of nationalized healthcare here). What bugged me was her naked assertion that Limbaugh, Beck, Hannitoad, and the rest are bought-and-paid-for by Eeeee-vil Corporate Forces. No proof, no footnotes, just her insistence that This Is So. It has nothing to do with thoughtful opinion derived from study, or forensic digging into public records...just making a statement, 'cos she heard it from NPR, or heard it from a friend, or read it on HuffPo, or got an ACORN email, or merely pulled it from her nethers.

Ergo, it is all true.

When did we all become sixth-graders parroting gossip about The New Girl? Wait...most of us WERE in public school sixth-grade! From K through Twelve, we are prudently not taught how to think, nor how to effectively look into a matter. I mean, Wikipedia is now accepted as a legitimate source for term paper research. In college, liberal arts education is more about fitting in, and trying to be cool for the popular profs. Rather than the avowed raison d'etre of teaching one how to think, and how to learn, modern liberal arts education methods ultimately teach one what to think, whether through indoctrination, or peer-pressure. This was true when the Aardvark was in college; moreso now.

President Obama relies upon his charisma, more than even did President Clinton. (Have I mentioned lately how much I miss Bill Clinton?) The drum-bangers and tambourine-janglers in Congress support razing our vast healthcare system and building a Rube Goldbergesque structure to distribute inadequate care equally claim to support it "because the Peeeee-pul demand it!". The poll numbers do not support this claim, and a bit of reading will show it to be a top-down effort like HillaryCare, and is just as loved by the Peeeee-pul. Seen any good Town Hall meetings lately?

Tortured Logic


Much of the fuss about the "torture" of terrorists, or non-military combatants, comes from the fuzzy thinking of the religious - both right and left - who somehow conflate the State with the Kingdom of God. This is not a biblically tenable position, for while the State "is a servant of God to you for good" (Romans 13:4), it is not presented as the Kingdom of God. This distinction is important. Were I to be a Roman householder with bondservants, they would be the servants of the household, not members of my family. While individual members of the government may be Christian, the government is not. While individual citizens of the country may be Christian, the country is not. A "Christian consensus" may hold sway in the Body Politic, but this does not make it Christian. The Kingdom of God is wholly Other than the kingdoms of mankind.

I believe that it says much of our society, and the echoes of former Biblical influence upon it, that so much effort has been put into finding non-lethal, non-maiming methods of persuading terrorists to part with intel. Torquemada and his ilk had quite an arsenal of effective persuasion; we could have gone with those, but instead, we have developed methods that leave the subject perhaps wet and breathless, perhaps emotionally shaken, but still whole. War is a nasty business, terrorism worse still, and that we still seek not to cross the line into Inquisitionville must needs be recognized and trumpeted.

Ooooooh, I'm wet.

Ooooooh, there is dog breath, and I'm scared.

Ooooooh, they shot the guy in the next cell, so I'll talk....Ah, they didn't really. Boy is my face red.



Ooooooh, they say that they will take out my family if I kill another three thousand of their citizens.

Seems rather tame, doesn't it? But even if it doesn't, the State, the governing authority HAS the authority to do that, and worse:

For if you practice evil, be afraid, for it does not bear the sword in vain; for it is a servant of God, a revenger for wrath on him who does evil. (Romans 13:4)

Much of the torture teapot-tempests are brewed from emotional squeamishness, not the accurate intel from God's Word. That said, what our interrogators do does not approach what has been ID'd as torture historically: beatings, maimings, burning, impromptu surgery, rape. Read some history, then maybe you will understand. The name "Club Gitmo" isn't as far-fetched as you thought.

The Dread Dormomoo keeps the yoks coming:



Q: How are the American people like Astroturf?


A: Neither of them needs government healthcare.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, the convicted Lockerbie bomber, arrived in Tripoli to a hero's welcome. Playing the strings of (very) nominally Christian Scottish sentiment won him his freedom. Confronted with combined Brit and American ire at Al Megrahi's being released on compassionate grounds because of his terminal prostate cancer, Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish justice secretary grumped about Scotland not having a "vigilante" justice system. Al Megrahi was convicted and sentenced by a Scottish court, not exactly what I would call vigilante justice. His release is blamed on "compassion". Read: he is dying of cancer, so he should do so in the bosom of his family. Not to release him would be mean, not compassionate. It is kindergarten reasoning. Likewise, the retort thet "He didn't show any compassion toward the victims of Pan Am Flight 103.". Well, DUH. Of COURSE he didn't, and the sky is blue, and water is wet. Kindergarten again.

The feelgood fairness of releasing the bomber is a foolish shadow of Christian justice. When you remove a culture and justice from the direct influence of Biblical teaching and discipline, as is evident in the UK and Europe, all that remains is silly sentimentality in the guise of moral certitude. His malady does not exonerate him. It does not mollify any of the victims' families, nor resurrect any of the dead. His having prostate cancer changes nothing, beyond the actual duration of his sentence.
Shucks, I'll bet that NHS Scotland offers better healthcare than does Libya, except that the Libyan reaction of Local Boy Makes Good might bode for preferential end-of-life care for the Hero Come Home.

Frankly, the Scottish justice minister makes me, a MacLeod, want to hang up my kilt.

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

Finding their inner bigot.

Your Aardvark has been a civil rights proponent all his life. (It is rumored that the placards he waved about in utero were responsible for his premature birth. That, and the auto accident.) Thus he looks askance at the race-baiters and Klan types alike, if for no other reason that we all of us have sinned, and are in need of rescue, whatever one's hue. But it remains difficult to maintain a pristine reputation of Tolerance (what an awful thing, to be merely tolerated ...) when one disagrees with the President, and opinion has it that ANY disagreement is base bigotry: "You just don't like him 'cos he's BLACK!".

Perhaps your Aardvark should consider a run for the Maison Blanc, campaigning as the first 'Varky President. Mr. Obama's fans certainly raised the bar with the hosannas over the first black president, or African-American, or somesuch. I thought that Martin Luther King, Jr. expressed the ideal of content of one's character, rather than the color of one's epidermis, but then, Mr. Obama is from Chicago politics, so the character issue may be moot. Certainly much of the bigotry charged by his followers against detractors of his blatantly ruinous and unConstitutional programs is imputed rather than inherent in "them wot disagrees wiv 'im". While there are sheet-wearers and cross-burners out there, for the most part they do little more than hang around each other and indulge in paranoid conspiracy talk. ("If it ain't the blacks, then it must be th' Joos!")

The biggest problem is this imputed bigotry thing. If you are unjustly accused of being intolerant or bigoted for your disagreements with the first President of Color, is there a point where one throws up one's hands and says " if everyone says it, it must be true" and dons the figurative hood for oneself? Perhaps finding one's inner bigot is possible because others helped put it there.

This is not a thing to be concerned about:

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

Surely sign up as an informant now! You could become the head of your Neighborhood Security Unit. It's a ground floor opportunity. Unlike MLM's, the payoff for taking advantage of this is POWER!

OH, THE PAIN !



Your Aardvark is 52, has (controlled) high blood pressure, is somewhat overweight (no longer a svelte 165, but certainly not needing a piano-crate coffin, either), and has no health insurance.

Oh, the pain!

That's right, kiddies. When your Aardvark has pollen-impacted sinuses, or the galloping bronchitis, or has his arm yaw when it should have pitched whilst carrying a heavy piece of equipment, he goes to a local clinic, where he pays cash, either then, or in thirty days.

He is often prescribed pharmaceuticals, and more often than not, at least part of the scrip is in the form of free samples of the drug. When he thought he was having a heart Event at an out-of-town convention, the pain eased, and (we perhaps foolishly drove back to AL)) upon arriving home, to the local clinic he went, fast as he could caper. The nurse practitioner did an EKG, then asked about insurance. None. He went "Whoops" or somesuch, trundled the EKG out, and pretended he had not run the test, which had shown normal. Finally after much pokery and proddery, he put his palms on your hero's breastbone, and all but did a handstand. "Did it feel like this?" "Yessss" came the reply. Turns out the 'varky sternum had been strained from overmuch t-shirt printing, and himself was told to lay off for awhile. Your Aardvark was treated, and well, and paid in cash.

Your Aardvark has Health Care. No insurance, but health care.

The Dread Dormomoo, now, has insurance. She will be going in for a Small Procedure in a few weeks - nothing dramatic or to be flailing arms about, but needful. There will be a Deductible, which we will pay out over a few months, but the bulk will be paid for by insurance. She has Health Care, and insurance.

We both of us have Health Care.

A woman of our acquaintance does not work. She was kept out of school by her well-meaning parents because of "nerves". She has zero marketable skills, and I do mean zero. Both of her parents are dead, so now Everyone is her parent. She is on welfare, buys food with an EBT card, and lives in subsidised housing. When she is ill, she goes to the Clinic. If there were no clinic, she would likely go to the ER, where she would be treated.

She has Health Care. No insurance, but she DOES have Health Care.

Seems the ObamaCare argument uses the wrong terms. Everyone in the nation has Health Care available. By law.

The Aardvark drives Dodge minivans, firstly because they are so-o-o-o-o sexy, secondly because nothing gives him more pleasure than zooming past a Camaro on the Interstate in one, and thirdly because he is cheap, and refuses to pay Escalade prices. There are many such vehicles on the market, and each has its fans. So too health insurance. Some pay for insurance, some pay more for insurance, some cannot afford insurance, and some choose to use their money in ways other than paying for insurance. Some drive Vespas, some VW's, some Beemers, some bike, some walk. The market is filled with -dare it be said? -diversity. The Obama administration is proving that it does not truly believe in diversity, but in Tapioca. Very, very expensive Tapioca, that no-one really wants, and which purports to fill a need that does not truly exist.

Bite My Shiny
Metal Daffodil

The new FUTURAMA episodes are on order from Comedy Central...26 whopping episodes, due in 2010. i09 offers a disturbing twist to the gladsome tidings:

Excited about the return of Futurama to our television screens? Prepare to lose that feeling: Fox have apparently cut the original voices of Fry, Leela, Bender and many other characters from the revival and are about to recast the roles.

Meh. It's like casting Ben Stiller as Captain Kirk.
A move to write to the casting people is in the works, and is detailed in the comments for the i09 article. Here is mine:



Dear Mr. Moller:
The excitement over the restart of the FUTURAMA franchise is palpable in our household...or at least was until we heard of the announcement of the recasting of the main characters. We are hoping that this is a pro-wrestling type promo for a staged San Diego Comic Con dustup between the cast and FOX executives. If, however, the recast news is true, I predict major fan unrest, unpleasant faux audition CD's, and possibly dogs marrying cats in the streets.
FUTURAMA without its classic cast will not be FUTURAMA. It will be unwatchable, and thus, we will not watch it. Nor buy merchandise, nor DVD sets, nor purchase from show sponsors.
I strongly urge that you push for the original cast, and pass this on to the Powers That Be.
Thank you,
Weatherly Hardy

Photo by Loen (c)2009

This lovely bit of plating is from Loen. My youngest son made real croissants from scratch, the eighty-one buttered layers kind. The blackberry jam was made by the Dread Dormomoo, from our home-grown blackberries, and Fuji apples. The berries of the lovely garnish are what our homegrowns look like, pre-jam. The sugared mint sprig is a variety we brought from my home in SC. Butter by Sam's Club.

A lovelier num num I have never had.

Well-done, son.

Trot out the little carts, and those adorable little hats; the dog-and-pony show is set to begin Monday. Supreme Court la-TEEN-a nominee Sonia Sotomayor-r-r-r-r will be bunting softballs for a few days next week. (I am reminded of a rarity: a funny SNL skit from years ago, showing TV news reporters ordering Mexican for lunch, very white, very American newsreaders pronouncing the dishes as though they were reporting from Central America- Nee-ha-RAH-WAH, chee-mee-CHONG-ah.) Rightists are fulminating that a liberal woman will be on the Supreme Court, not realising that she will merely be replacing one.

I am headed to 'Bamaburg on Thursday. G-Fest is held right outside of Chicago in Rosemont. Hello, Crowne Plaza! A Godzilla convention is great fun, and J.D.Lees and crew ALWAYS do it up right. We print their convention shirts, and take our own super-cool and groovy kaiju (giant monster) designs, which the con-goers buy with gusto! Here is our latest design, a take-off of the "Yo Gabba Gabba" show on Nick, with a kaiju flavor. The Mothra makes me so happy! Marty Whitmore did the art for us, which we printed four-color process on pastel shirts. We will have 12-14 kaiju-related designs this year, besides the other pop-culture stuff we do. Check the Aardvark Tees link to your right and check out our goodies!

Phony headlines that would not surprise us

"Obama Administration Implicated in Michael Jackson Death"

Hey, who's the King NOW?

Sure is taking the minds of the dumb masses off of Cap and Trade, and the Bernanke Follies, idd'n it?

I must make a new tinfoil bowler.
--------------------------------------------------------

I emailed AND called our local Congressman Parker Griffith Friday. The poor, sweet lady who answered was bumfuzzled as to why they were being hammered so, so I gently 'splained it to her. She was still surprised at the fuss since "Congressman Griffith had sent a letter out in April presenting his opposition" to this carbon energy tax thingie. I thanked her gave my "Vote NO!" message, and left her to figure out that congressional opinions are only exceeded in lifespan by the Mayfly.
-------------------------------------------------------

Do you hate the product name "Salonpas" as much as I do?

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!

We have some pretty neat kids, the Dread Dormomoo and I. The boys and we went out to Jose' Pepper's (a new Steakhouse/Mexican restaurant in Ardmore) after church for nom noms, I had the 12 oz NY strip, rare, and everyone else had fajita-type goodies, 'cept for Loen, who had Pollo Vallarta, a chicken, cheese, rice, and pineapple plate of yum. Very good, after which we adjourned home, where I was gifted. Mr. McLeod gave me his at the restaurant parking lot: a brown paper bag twisted closed. It was two hundred rounds of .22 gun candy, for the plinking. Thank you. Loen and Riatsila, who know my fondness for kitsch, got me a Slap Chop, so I can now slap my troubles away, and not have a boring life.
Gothgeek had seen me earlier in the week, and gave me Invasion Iowa, the Shatner "reality" show where he fools the town whose claim to fame is being the birthplace of a Starfleet Captain, except that now he isn't because of the movie so why does J.J.Abrams hate Iowa boy I hate time travel stories. Thankee kindly!
Then Loen gave me a dodgeball to the ballocks. Lookit, tearing my throat out to establish his dominance would have been more elegant than that.

Happy Fathers Day!

It has been a frightfully busy few weeks! I am ending a four-week stint on the road, where I have done Animazement, Mobicon, Wrath of Con, and now Anime Alabama.

Animazement, in Raleigh,NC. What can I say? It is my favorite con...period. April is the dealer room Queen of Queens, and has my huckster's heart! Sabrina, Jenny, and the rest of Crew AZ: you ALL rock. The AZ Powers that Be always put on a boffo show, with Japanese guests and artists. We print the con shirts, and Koichi Tsunoda always does great art for the shirts and program books. It's a joy to print them. Domo arigato, Tsunoda-san! The attendees are...enthusiastic about our shirts, and despite Washington's best efforts, this year was record-breaking sales wise. AZ love from the Aardvark.

And there was Tir Na Nog, a most excellent Irish pub. Riatsila, Loen, Zoomerdog and I went with Frank and Lisa of Frank's Cool Stuff (Anime DVDs, new and used). The hangar steak and the fish & chips are so very good, and they have a great selection of import beers, and local brews on tap. And then there's Amanda, our server on Saturday night. She was amazing, efficient, winsome, pretty, full of personality, pretty...we all kicked in for a primo tip for her. We had a sparkling evening. Sunday night, we had another server who was entirely adequate, but Amanda was there with her mother, saw us, ran over and side-hugged Riatsila and me. Sweet. We decided that she MUST be there for us next Animazement!

Raleigh has rickshaws. Tricycle rickshaws, run solely on tips. We took those Sunday night to dinner. We tipped. Our driver even slalomed around facade columns. He earned his tip.
I really believe in tipping well for good service, especially as a Christian. I've been a waiter, given attentive service, and been rewarded with...

A tract.

It is fortunate that I was already a disciple when this occurred, because it would have surely driven me away. As it was, I wanted to chase him down, return it, and tell him that he needed it more than I. I chose instead to keep my job.

Lookit. Jesus said "the laborer is worthy of his hire". If someone does an adequate job, tip them adequately. If they are extravagant in caring for you, then tip them commensurately. As to evangelizing a server, get a tract that doesn't read like it's from the 1940's, and remember, the idea is to earn their reading time, as well as thanking them for a job well done, so slip a nice tip inside. The horror stories of the "great witness" that churchy types present at restaurants are epic. Most waitresses quail at the prospect of the Sunday-after-church crowd, who are generally the rudest, most demanding, least-tipping demographic out there. As I said, great witness. Behavior like that really earns the gospel a hearing, especially because others really want to be just like you! Jesus also said "I came that you might have life, and have it more abundantly". That abundance does not come from stiffing the help. Be a blessing to the people who serve you. You may claim to be a King's Kid, but if you act like a b*st*rd, then your legitimacy may be called into question.

Here endeth the Lesson.

-------------------------------------
MobiCon was a huge success...for a scifi con. I say this NOT as a slam, but as a comparison. At an anime con, we normally do on Friday what I do in the whole weekend at a scifi con. It's a matter of scale, and the rabidity of fandoms. Anime is where the Fan Dollar is.

Mobicon was a fun relaxacon this year, AND was rewarding sales-wise. The guys always put on a faboo show, tho' it is a decidedly adult con. I have some good friends down there, and they seem to tolerate me right well.

I posted from Wrath of Con whilst there. That is all that need be said. The high point of the con was going out to eat on Saturday night with Herb, Chris, Joe, and Tim Riley, dealers all. Such Harrowing Tales of Commerce there were. Bootleggers Undone, like that.

I am currently at Anime Alabama, and having a good time, as well as making sales. They have close to double the attendees of "Wrath", and they love our shirts. Marc Yu, the con organiser, has a felicitous knack for getting luxury venues, and wrangling two-star prices for his attendees. We are at the VERY plush Renaissance Riverview Plaza Hotel.

Marc does Anime South as well, at the Hilton Sandestin Resort. VERY nice. If Marc did a con in the middle of the Mohave in August, I would be inclined to go. He ALWAYS does a great job, by my observation. Thanks, Marc!

Toward An Evangelical Theology Of Cussing

This is amusing, and while humorous, seems to fit Pauline concerns better than the standard take on Colossians 3:8: ( But now, put off all such things as anger, rage, malice, slander, abusive language from your mouth.)

Every
Ferengi
needs a
Dabo girl!


Your Aardvark with Chase Masterson, of Star Trek DS9 fame. A sweet lady, who does jazz as well. I am at Wrath of Con this weekend, warehousing shirts.

The term for small, intimate sci-fi cons is "relaxacon". I dub this one a "comacon", but one with an impressive guest list. Kevin Sorbo (Hercules), Jerry Doyle B-5's Mr. Garibaldi), Andrea Thompson (B-5's Talia Winters), Chase, John Billingsley (Enterprise's Dr. Phlox) and his wife, Bonita Friedericy. A friendly lot. J.G. Hertzler, the Klingon Chancellor Martok from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, is a personable soul, and actually bought our "KlingON-apply directly to the forehead" shirt. He HAD to have it! Yaaaay! Tim Russ, (Voyager's "Tuvok) is here, looking older but good!

My buddy Starbase Atlanta's Herb McCaulla is a fellow huckster, here. Fellow fan and now publisher Tim Riley is here. I see a CAO or Macanudo in the offing!

I'm glad there are so many old pals here, 'cause camaraderie is all I'm gettin' out of this one.

And no, Vidad, she won't be at G-fest. All you get is a guy in a green rubber suit.

The perception of point-of-view offers a new dimension in understanding behavior.

Could that sound any more boring?

A Certain anime voice actor, Vic Mignogna - who is also a music minister at his church - catches a great deal of grief on the more Belial-oriented web forums. He is openly Christian, and offers a "chapel service" on Sunday mornings at anime conventions, a voluntary get-together for believers who wish a church service away from home. A sweet young miss of my acquaintance took umbrage upon hearing that he had said at one such meeting that someone might go to hell., Now, I know this artist, and have been to a couple of the meetings, and have never heard a tart utterance in his presentations, himself making a case for reconciliation with God through Christ. Now, if I go to a happenin' dance club, I do not get offended by the techno beat, because I expect it in that context. If you go to an as-advertised Christian meeting, you should not be surprised or offended by hearing Christian ideas.

Now, if I am a marathon runner, and upon approaching a treacherous mountain path, a man with a light baton starts waving wildly and shouting that if I continue on that path, I will fall to my doom because the bridge is out, I can either 1) be thankful that he cared enough for me to warn of the impending peril, or 2) I can get angry that he interrupted what I was doing, and tried to force his wacky ideas on me. Number one is my only reasonable response.

In Christian teaching, we have the concept of a loving Father God, who sent his very Son to be born a human, who taught us how to live lovingly, and was killed for his trouble. His death atoned for, paid the blood-price for our sins, and through faith in and obedience to Jesus Christ, we are reconciled to God, and to one another. But God is a gentleman, and does not force himself upon anyone. If we do not wish His company, we may go elsewhere. That is hell. It is the ultimate in Choice. So, if a Christian perceives that you may not have chosen company with God, and recognises the alternative, he is caring for you, showing you love by warning you of the consequences of your choice. That is his point-of-view, that is his motivation. Eternity in God's company, or a gnawing eternity of regret. One should always make informed choices.

I do not discount that there are hateful people (*cough*Westboro) who buttress their own insecurities and self-righteousness by verbally consigning people whose actions they do not like to Eternal Grilling. Their motivation and message are both horribly flawed. It is not their job to punch anyone's ticket. Judgment is above their pay grade. But the committed Christian believer is commanded to point the way to the Father, and to warn of the alternative. Each is a side of the same doctrinal coin. Whether YOU agree or not, please recognise that the major motivations are care and loving concern for you.

Lying Liars and the Imbeciles Who Vote for Them


Dear Varksters, I have been remiss in maintaining my efforts here. We are still percolating along with our business, with record-breaking sales at the anime conventions, and excellent local biz as well, for which we are profoundly thankful. Busy-ness abounds.

Policy people in Washington DC are looking at VAT or a National Sales Tax to goose the flagging income of the givemint.

Please read the piece. Also, please note that the FairTax is prominently not mentioned. The Europhiles are wanting to ADD additional taxes to the income tax, and all the extant invisible taxes we are so blessed with. The FairTax will disband the IRS, repeal the Sixteenth Amendment which established the income tax, and set up a national retail sales tax which will be offset by the reduction in retail prices due to the embedded hidden taxes disappearing in retail goods. You keep your earnings: no witholding, no FICA. You just pay a tax that YOU control by your spending habits. Please read the FairTax info linked above.

This is NOT what the Washington wonks are discussing. They want to ADD a VAT or sales tax to all the rest of the taxes we are burdened with, but I'll bet you credits to Navy beans that they will wrap it in FairTax clothing. It will be a dodge, and a lie; in other words, SOP.

PUSH the FairTax locally, to your friends, write and email your representatives, and teach them this is the ONLY national sales tax to consider. If you value your income, and the financial future of our children, don't be fooled by the liars who spend money to look good for re-election, and forget that it is YOUR money they are spending.

...and then I'm driving to Mobile for MobiCon, with a LOT of thinking time, and beaucoups of ideas for the blog come to mind. Many, many cogent and pithy remarks on The Human Condition, The Whole State of Christ's Church, and How Pocky Just Isn't Special Anymore.

None of which come to mind now.

The predations of, if not age, then sheer busy-ness, drives the best ideas away over sadly brief periods of time. Perhaps I should carry an actually useful version of those digital recorders the TV box flogs to an ever-senescent population; I do need one that can carry more than "Butter...eggs...milk...." I refuse to nod with obvious satisfaction as I listen to the replay of my prior thoughts and instructions.
---------------------------------

I am in the second phase of my BPH trials. I have a bum full of the Real Deal this time: three shots of Whateverol to reduce testosterone production, and so shrink the prostate. Side effects are lethargy, a tendency toward flash depression, decreased libido (hmmm...could there be a connexion?) and oddly enough, hair-trigger anger. The pluses are freer ability to urinate, ability to sleep through the night without having to get up and go, like that. There must be a better methodology.

Isn't Transparency a hoot ?

STAR TREK is BORN AGAIN!

I repent in dust and ashes. Srsly.

J.J.Abrams and company have dood it, and well. The new Trek movie is a hit, even without a James Horner score, he said waggishly. I shan't do spoilers as the movie is brand-new, but suffice it to say, the proto-crew of the indomitable USS Enterprise is as close to spot-on as I can imagine without a bunch of Trekkie impressionists doing the job. The actors caught the spirit of Kirk, Spock, Scotty and all, without scenery-chewing and mugging. You can begin to see the James Tiberius Kirk ot TOS fame in Pine's portrayal, and I did not see a speck of Sylar in Spock. The io9 crowd complained about Simon Pegg apparently beaming in his portrayal, and appearing to be in a different movie than everyone else. Pish and tosh. Pfui, even. Other expostulations as required. Simon Pegg is Scotty a-borning..

This movie even has Deep Roy. How keen is that?

I have devised a Star Trek movie drinking game. Every time you see a lens flare, you take a drink of a Potent Potable. Sadly, you will not last beyond the first 30 minutes without acute alcohol poisoning. It is a bright and sparkly film, except for the dark bits.

I have only one quibble, and it's not huge, and dammit, I'm a screenprinter, not an engineer, but you don't build a starship in Iowa or wherever. You build it in geostationary orbit above Iowa, or wherever. (BTW, Carl Urban is a great "Bones" McCoy.)

If you are a Trek fan, go and wallow in the Trekness. If you are not, go and enjoy a ripping action movie, with some old friends you didn't know you had.

Y'know, I'm increasingly of the opinion that most Christians are pansies (and I am a believer). We read of a Savior who stilled the seas with a word, and who told the storm "BE MUZZLED!" and got results; then we hear a bad weather report and close up shop. "There are bad storms rolling in from the West! We have to close the Event!!" We SAY we believe, but our belief seems not to extend beyond the comfort of our pews. Rather than stand with the faithful and pray in faith, expecting God to be faithful, we fold like Chinese cardboard in a drizzle.

If we do not behave like we believe God is faithful to His Word (and faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God - Romans 10:17 ), then the world can derive no other "truth" than that espoused by Mark Twain: "Faith is believin' what you know ain't so." .

"But..but...but...It's a liability issue!" God forbid that the young ones see anything about the faith that is outside their current experience, or their comfort zone. The churches surely would not want to be liable if the young faithful were to be censured in the public square, or jailed for teaching an unpopular Biblical truth to a hostile society. Let's teach them "Jesus loves me, this I know...", and how to get in out of the rain. That'll be enough. Their atheist college professors will surely respect that.

Liability? That sounds like you would expect fellow believers to sue you in court, even though Paul explicitly said not to, and shamed the litigious Corinthians for doing so. What? Christians doing what the Bible says not to?

The faith is about daring , daring to believe God, no matter what, daring to take the unpopular stand just because God says. The First Century church dared the weather, robbers, being stoned by enemies, dared the condemnation of religious leaders, and the very might of Rome to proclaim and live the Gospel. Two thousand years later, the American church dares...to be safe.

The Glutting of America

"In my day", he began in a crotchety tone, "we had one meal every three weeks! Di'n't hurt us none...." Here he trailed off as drool began to collect on his bib.

When I was in college, doing environmental studies things, I developed an intense loathing for McDonalds. The idea of perfectly good burgers being thrown away after a few minutes incensed me to no end, especially as there were the Poor and the Homeless to be fed. Vacuum-sealing the older burgers and having the homeless shelter pick 'em up seemed a perfectly reasonable solution to me. Of course, all the other burger mills do the same thing, tossing out perfectly good food after X minutes in the name of Quality Control.

At the same time that BK or Micky-Dee's are tossing food into the trash, they are feeding overstuffed Americans a cheap diet of fat-infused potatoes, fatty burger 'n' bun combos, and syrupy soft drinks. Oh, and apple sticks, with caramel dipping goo. That makes it a healthy, balanced meal.

Cap'n D's, has a new product line: Biscuit-battered fish and shrimp. Not merely breaded; biscuit-ized, and served with white flour and grease-based sawmill gravy. And mashed potatoes. You CAN order green beans....So, you get fried biscuit dough coated fish, over which you pour peppery biscuit-goo, with a side of green be...no, I can't even say it.

We have a world filled with the hungry, some even in our country, yet we have ad campaigns like the above "Fourthmeal" abomination. People who may get a single poor meal a day are rife on the planet (primarily due to the unrighteousness of their ostensible leaders), yet we have advertisements here that tout "the meal between dinner and breakfast". Three meals are not enough in America. A single hunger pang at 10PM, and hey, presto, FOURTHMEAL!

In 1983, a spinoff of M*A*S*H, AfterM*A*S*H featured Klinger's Korean wife Soon-Lee. One of the amusing bits featured her being taken to a restaurant, where she refers to the appetizer as "the meal before the meal". Very apt. When I was a kid, desserts were sparse...one serving,as were snacks. Three Oreos and milk.
Now, who stops at five or six cookies? We get peckish, and eat a half-a-bag of chips. At Tuscaloosa last weekend, I was amazed at the number of buffet restaurants. There was one called "Buffet City". The ad writes itself:

"It's not just a Buffet...IT'S A CITY!!!! "

Look at the people walking down the street. How many are reasonably proportioned?
How many look like the poster child for Golden Corral? ( I say this as more grocer-than-burglar-like, meself.)

The unrestrained appetite of Americans for food food FOOD is troubling, and seems symptomatic of a general emptiness...lack of quality relationships, meaningful work, creativity, community. We try to fill the God-shaped hole with all sorts of other things; why not Twinkies amd Big Macs?

Ommmmmmm-nom-nom-nom.

The Obamster states:

We need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom, the empathy to understand what it's like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old--and that's the criterion by which I'll be selecting my judges."

Of the Choosing of Supreme Court Justices:

"Now, the process of selecting someone to replace Justice (David) Souter is among my most serious responsibilities as president, so I will seek somebody with a sharp and independent mind and a record of excellence and integrity. I will seek someone who understands that justice isn't about some abstract legal theory or footnote in a casebook; it is also about how our laws affect the daily realities of people's lives, whether they can make a living and care for their families, whether they feel safe in their homes and welcome in their own nation. I view that quality of empathy, of understanding and identifying with people's hopes and struggles, as an essential ingredient for arriving at just decisions and outcomes. I will seek somebody who is dedicated to the rule of law, who honors our constitutional traditions, who respects the integrity of the judicial process and the appropriate limits of the judicial role. I will seek somebody who shares my respect for constitutional values on which this nation was founded and who brings a thoughtful understanding of how to apply them in our time."

The law is now a matter of feelings. What was a profession of dispassion, is now being redefined as a realm of the touchy-feely. This brings to mind the things the Scriptures say about the poor and governance.

If a king judges the poor with truth, His throne will be established forever. Proverbs 29:14

He who oppresses the poor to make more for himself Or who gives to the rich, will only come to poverty. 22:16

One who is gracious to a poor man lends to the LORD, And He will repay him for his good deed. Proverbs 19:17

Poor is he who works with a negligent hand, But the hand of the diligent makes rich. Proverbs 10:4

Vindicate the weak and fatherless; Do justice to the afflicted and destitute. Psalm 82:3

The righteous is concerned for the rights of the poor, The wicked does not understand such concern. Proverbs 29:7

Like a roaring lion and a rushing bear Is a wicked ruler over a poor people. Proverbs 28:15

[Commandment to kings.] Open your mouth for the dumb, for the rights of all the unfortunate. Open your mouth, judge righteously, and defend the rights of the afflicted and needy. Prov. 31:8

A useful investigation would be to see how MUCH the Scriptures have to say regarding our responsibilities to the poor, as well as their own responsibility. But unlike the Administration's revelation, God's way does not revolve around feelings, but around purposeful action. And God does not call on governments to do the Good...he calls on the king to act, personally and he calls on the people to act, personally.

He does not call on the King to pick the people's pockets and give it to the poor. Whenever a left-leaning politician begins to talk about "justice", he is really talking about robbing the "rich" to give to the "poor".

Strangeness.


The Dread Dormomoo was doing number things in The Red Room, and felt a...thing...on her leg.
she reached down and picked up a sizeable ant. It screamed.
----------------------
Loen and I were at a surprisingly good convention this weekend. The otaku at the University of Alabama-Tuscaloosa put on Kami-Con. This was the first year for the con, and the keeds loved our shirts. The con putter-onners had about double the attendance than they had expected.

We arrived Friday night (it was a Sat, Sun. con) and delivered the convention shirts. On our way back to the La Quinta, we saw a Chipotle Grill, and pulled in for supper. Their offerings taste good, but come on, the burritos look like they are pregnant to bursting with ANOTHER burrito, like some fat larval...something, or a mutated termite queen. As far as investment strategies go, forget gold and silver: guacamole is the commodity to trade. At $1.80 for a couple of tablespoons, it has real growth potential. I bet Glenn Beck could get behind this one.

If you go to Tuscaloosa, you MUST try The Snappy Tomato. This is a pizzaria for those who prefer tomato sauce to the normal corn syrup sludge that passes for sauce at, say, Papa John's. Sweet pizza is an abomination. The Snappy Tomato has a tomato-ey, peppery sauce made of win. It is not hot...but spicy. Om nom nom nom. Even their Hawaiian pizza is Not Sweet, though it has lots of pineapple. It is not a huge chain, but it's growing, deservedly so!

Meh...now I need to write about death. One of the reasons that I'm "not a minister" is that I do not relate to it well: read: "at all".
 Here's the thing: when someone dies, they are out of my life. That's all. I do not grieve, as a rule, whether friend or family. No, I am not a tight little bundle of neuroses; I do not suck my thumb, nor cry myself to sleep at night. The departure of a person in death affects me as little as a person leaving town on a trip. Maybe this means I am very well adjusted insofar as death is concerned. I have not shed a tear over my father's murder, nor the death of my wife's mom and dad, both to cancer. I lost it when my mom died, but I was only four or five. I found my eighty-six year old grandfather dead in his bed when I was in eighth grade, and had the presence of mind to call the hospital and get the arrangements rolling, only then going upstairs to awaken my grandmother. No tears. I have cried over The Dread Dormomoo's sister's death, years after the fact. As to Public Figures, there is one whose departure affected me deeply. Beyond that, nope. They are gone, and my attention is now elsewhere.

The obsession with Death and Heaven in many churches is beyond me. There is an amazing amount of work right here to occupy us 24/7, without cow-eyed singing about "over there", and "crossing over Jordan". Ummmmm, people, nowhere in Scripture is the Jordan River a metaphor for Death, and Going to Heaven. It is an entry into Kingdom life, either in a figure, as in Israel crossing Jordan to enter the Promised Land, or in the image of baptism in the Jordan. Jesus has defeated death in the Resurrection, period. For the believer death is a Customs counter as we move from one realm to the next. The Bible is relatively quiet about our life in eternity, sufficiently so that we really don't need to yammer on about it. Jesus came that we might have life, and that more abundantly. That's what the Kingdom is about. Let's work with that.
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This week also brings us to celebrations, that of the Oklahoma City Bombings, and Columbine. These masochistic parties are also beyond my ken. Everyone burbles on about closure and healing, but every year that rolls around, we give the lie to that. We tear off the bandage of closure, and peel off the scab of healing. Pointless. Shall we get on with our lives, please? This cannot be healthy. Oh, Happy Holocaust Awareness Day!
Because I surely wouldn't remember the Holocaust without video of traffic stopping in Israel in memory of it.

----------------------------------------------------

A local custom which eludes me, but which does bring in some shekels, is remembering the Dearly Departed by purchasing shirts with their picture on them. Add to that the "In Loving Memory of (insert name here)" vinyl lettering on back car, truck, or SUV windows. It's just creepy to me, and does not seem conducive to getting over it. I guess tearing off psychological scabs is just so deliciously painful and rewarding.
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One more thing: I DO NOT GET these execrable roadside displays where fatal road accidents have occurred. You know the ones: a white cross with the decedent's name on the patibulum, with faded plastic flowers draped thereon. They make me consider legislation. To echo a Scroogian sentiment, "Are there no cemetaries?". That's what they are for, you know, the whole gravestone and flowers thing. My belief is that they are a sufficient distraction to cause MORE road accidents. The writing is sufficiently small to cause inattention to the road as you squint to read it. They either need to be a billboard (you have to pay for the sign, which stimulates the economy, too), or they need to be gotten rid of. If you care enough to vomit your grief on the public roadways, then you can pay for the privilege.

Hmmmm...no takers.

Humbug.

I have tasted
the future,
and it is
YUK!














Kellogg's latest foray into merchandising is sub-par. Sweetened oat swirls (Just flip 'em to face the right way for your hemisphere) with gold Starfleet insignia marshmallows, and blue-and-white swirly galaxy-thingy marshmallows (also hemispherically adaptable). The cereal I had hopes for. It is the standard sweet Alpha-Bits-type* sweetened oat cereal, apparently basted with space-y industrial waste, trilithium resin or somesuch, which leaves an icky aftertaste...or is it foretaste, since time-travel plays an important part in the new Trek movie? The marshmallows are the expected dense singularities of artificially-flavored what-they-call-FUN in the Trade. This is the Star Trek V of movie-related cereals.

Gothgeek gave me a box as a giggle, and Loen asked to open it and try it. So much for collectability (wink). I had to taste it. I wish I could go back in time.

Thanks for the fun gift, though. The package graphics are excellent!

Maybe the movie will be better than the cereal.

*I know that Alpha-Bits are a Post cereal. Take your lateral lisp elsewhere.

Oot-fray Oops-lay
Ea-tay Arties-pay













This is REAL Tea Party season. with this week being the watershed. This tax protest movement a-borning is really taking on, and it has me worried. ACORN, it is reported, plans to crash Tea Parties across the nation in an attempt to make them appear kooky, fringe-y and well, Froot Loop-y. A local talk radio guy, Dale Jackson, is taking part in the Huntsville, AL event, and has warned of loopiness crouching at the door. He played an excerpt from a tea party speaker elsewhere in the Union who began by sounding sane-if-excitable, then spectacularly moved off-message, swerving into CrazyTown with a rant about "Obama's hypnotic mind-control speech techniques". Maybe true, maybe not, but irrelevant to the event at hand, and made me squint from the glare of his aluminum-foil hat. The idea is that the ACORN types and Huffingtonians will infiltrate and do weirdnesses to turn the rallies into media circuses crying for cartoon sound FX and a laugh track on the evening news. The leaders of these Tea Parties need a firm hand to keep the events on-track. Area bloggers like this are rattling on about "Violence on Twitter" and "Hate Speech" coming from the tea party movement. My response:

Hate speech? HATE SPEECH? Come on, now. Being angry at being robbed by non-representative government is anger, not hate. Let's get a refresher on our emotions. Throwing around inflammatory terms like "hate speech" is not helping dialog at all, unless of course "hate speech" really means "doesn't agree with us".

The lunatic fringe and crazies have always been around. The Dread Dormomoo ID'd this follower of Jesus:

Luke 11:27 And it happened as He spoke these things, a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice and said to Him, Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts which You have sucked.

Jesus had been teaching, and this lady was so emotionally charged that she...yelled...THAT at Jesus. (Though frankly I'm surprised it never happened at an Obama rally....)

Jesus proceeded to get the situation back on track. He did not scold, but merely said:

Luke 11:28 But He said, No; rather, blessed are they who hear the Word of God and keep it.

(Read the chapter for the whole event.)
Jesus retained control, and prevented the thing from becoming a Springer Moment. I would encourage the leadership of the several Tea Parties to

1) Know your people.


2) Have some SANE people to work your security (hint...the ones who volunteer specifically to work security...don't use 'em.)


3) Be prepared to remove a speaker from the microphone IF he strays too far from the message and starts huffing ozone. Have an "announcement" ready in case you need a "reason" to reclaim the mike (don't lie, I'm not saying that, but have an announcement ready as a contingency plan. You don't want to appear to "limit free speech" on-camera!)
*NOTE: keeping the message focused is NOT "censorship". It is staying on-topic. The left would portray it as "censorship". Don't give 'em the chance. Imagine the preacher interrupting his Easter sermon to give out his grandmother's Sally Lunn bread recipe. Yummy, but inappropriate. The tea party is not a time to debate, say, FairTax vs. Flat tax. Unite the hearers.

Enjoy the events, beat the drum, stir up the Vital Fluids of the Body Politic, but don't let the day be hijacked by well-meaning loons. Stay on-message, and make this Mean Something, and Lead Somewhere. The Tea Party is not the point...holding Washington accountable IS.

Happy Easter to all!

The Dread Dormomoo has assembled the requisite calorie-laden celebratory fare for the kinder tomorrow, the sacramental sweets. The littlest 'Vark, the grand-Vark, has the traditional pail-and-shovel thing happening.

Several of my Easter memories of a yout' are getting a Junior Detective kit in my Easter basket, complete with ink for taking fingerprints. My cousin Shawn and I did inkblots. I got a pastel-colored duckling, which my cousin's dachsund killed. Never have had much to do with the breed since.

The Sisters of St. Mary, the religious order which ran the St. Eugene hospital in Dillon, SC, would bake a lamb-shaped cake, iced and colored, and send it over to us. They were sweet ladies, those nuns.

One year I received a spun-sugar egg with a window in one end, with a pretty scene inside.
----------------------------

As a child, I could never understand how Jesus' declaration of "three days and three nights" in the earth could be fit into Friday evening through Sunday sunrise. It's the sort of thing that must have led Mark Twain to say "Faith is believing what you know ain't so.", except I didn't believe it. I preferred to believe what Jesus said over what a cleric said. I figured it was merely representational, that Friday evening through Sunday sunrise thing.
Years later, Lowell Blankenship, one of our elders, and a REAL rocket scientist, explicated it clearly and plainly and Scripturally, the three days and three nights thing. I will find the notes and show a diagram one day.

It is fascinating what people will believe traditionally, in the face of the clear statements of the Bible.

It's the First Day of the week. Please consider going to commemorate the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. Plastic eggs and candy are optional.

Courtesy of Dept of Special Collections/UCLA Library, A1713 Charles E. Young Research Library, 405 Hilgard Ave, Box 951575, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575; http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/special/scweb/

Give Me Your Huddled Masses, Yearning To Work Cheap.

All the pro-illegal crowd, and lionizers of the Humble May-hee-can sans carte verte , listen up. The Aardvark is now a victim.
He has LOST work, specific shirt-printing work, to a shop that uses "undocumented workers". A convention promoter who "wanted to give the opportunity" gave a quote for us to meet-or-beat. I know shirt prices, labor, and the rest. The only way to charge that little for multi-color printing on decent quality shirts is to have the work done by workers who can be paid very little. Your Aardvark told him in essence that if he wanted shirts from Planet Pedro, that was fine. He got offended, somewhat. No moreso than your servant. This is work that an American WILL do, does do, being taken by those who do not belong here, and that frankly are being victimized themselves.

To add insult to injury, the Voxster reports thus.

Makes me ponder the truth of a Remo Williams quote about Public Service.

Love affairs are fascinating to witness. The news media are ardent in their infatuation, nay, their lust for the economic meltdown we currently enjoy in the You-Ess-of-Ay, and true to the dynamics of amorous fixation, they ignore the obvious bad dentition, warts and hunchbacks on their intended. Case in point: the report on ABC radio news today trumpeting that a GOOD thing has come out of "the recession" - fewer traffic deaths. Higher gas prices and lower disposable incomes have synergised into a life-saving force of nature. The recession has saved lives! YAAAAAY. What's not to love? After all, Hitler brained out the Volks-Wagen, too! People cannot (or will not) drive as needlessly, thus reducing their chances of a close encounters with the illegal, the unlicensed, and the inebriated motorist. The Recession is doing GOOD for us!


BUT, does it have a grrrrr-eat personality?

Gentlesouls, this is the Christmas season for our biz, and your Aardvark is running ragged. This weekend past, the indomitable Dread Dormomoo and I were in Ft. Lauderdale, FL (this ain't Arizona, kiddies). This geographical state of being is far less fun than it sounds. Really, now, whose idea was it to make Florida so lo-o-o-o-ong? Driving to Orlando is just a tad farther than Birmingham by my lights. South Florida is somewhere off the orbit of Ganymede. We were not visiting the Mecca of the Discipleship Movement or anything. We were there for Naruto Trek. , a convention combining the two most despised sectors of anime and SF fandom into one huge Reese's Cup of Doom. The cast of the Star Trek, Phase 2 fan films were there, being grimly earnest. Walter Koenig was as well, looking like a 60's Teen Beat cover boy in 2009. The picture above is W. Morgan Sheppard with Your Humble.
He is a sweet man, and delights in his craft, which is experiencing a renaissance from anime and video game voice jobs. I first saw him as Blank Reg in the Max Headroom series. Not to come across like the drum major of the suck-up parade, but finding Morgan Sheppard in a role is like picking an especially yummy sweet from a Whitman's Sampler.

None of the anime voice actors apparently deigned to walk through the huckster room. (Kudos to con founder Ray, who used the correct term for sellers of fannish goodness.) Ray has a love for the fans, and a real desire for the show to be fun. I would encourage him to broaden the scope from "Naruto" to "anime" in general. We did not have a huge business weekend, but did OK. If he broadens the scope of the con, I'll do it again. Even if it's in South Florida.

This is from 1999, from a list I used to participate in.
Gentlesouls:
I've been thinking.....I've been meditating.....(no,....REALLY!) and
I am
moved to testify........I said TESTIFY. To speak ex cathedra, even.
(Hey, I AM sitting in a chair....)
There is a concept being bandied about on the list, and throughout
the world, that if not explicitly spoken makes the conversation appear
intellectual, urbane, sophisticated, and (the Holy of Holies) open-minded.
However, once spoken, this concept is so scintillatingly stupid that the
hearers should heave a collective "DUH". Simply put the concept is:

*********** God is so incredibly inept, so dismally dull, so
impossibly IMPOTENT, that He is incapable of
protecting His Message from the predations
of sleazy ecclesiastics, and politicos with doctrinal
agendas. *********************************************

There. It's said.

Truthfully, I cannot imagine giving the time of day, much less love
and worship, to such a loser of a Deity.
Can you?

But thankfully, God is an Awesome God, an omni-potent God,
a God who makes promises, AND KEEPS THEM. Who speaks His will and word, and
needs not to revise it. Who makes Covenant, and everlastingly honours it.

The Word of God as contained in the Bible (no, I don't CARE "which
version". Compare 'em all, ask the Holy Spirit to guide you into the stratum
of truth you need at that time, and you'll be on the way) is not a mere
intellectual exercise. It contains the 6000 year covenant history of God,
and His extraordinary love to a humankind who rejected Him for slavery under
a 2nd string fallen angel .

John 3:16-21 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have
everlasting life.
For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the
world through him might be saved.
He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is
condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only
begotten Son of God.
And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men
loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the
light, lest his deeds should be reproved.
But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made
manifest, that they are wrought in God.


God the Father of the Bible and his Son, by the Holy Spirit have made
" unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be
partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the
world through lust (unlawful desire)." 2 Peter 1:4

By the promises of God, I have a sound mind, rather than being in a State
Hospital ** For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and
of love, and of a sound mind.2 Timothy 1:7**

By the promises of God, and following His "handbook" I will celebrate my
22nd anniversary with my only wife. Joyfully! No "ball & chain" jokes here!

By the promises of God, my wife & I have been healed of chronic back
problems. No magnets, no , "Well, I felt good for a coupla days." Immediate,
lasting, physically evident healing in the name of Jesus.
8 years and counting.....

By the promises of God, I have been delivered of demonisation.
Cast out in the name of Jesus Christ.

and have gone on to minister the same to others, seeing personalities change
before my eyes ( NOT a brag.... Zechariah 4:6 ...., Not by might, nor by
power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts)

Mark 16:17-18
And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast
out devils; they shall speak with new tongues;
They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall
not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.

( No,.....no snakes, scorpions, or strychnine,yet, tho' I am sure that
should the need arise in His service, that promise would also apply...)

Philippians 4:6-7 Be careful (worried, anxious) for nothing; but in every
thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made
known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding,
shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

It works.

God's Word is Kinda like the subject of abstinence
It works every time it's truly tried......

Y'see God is a covenant-making God. The nature of covenant is such that
should one partner in the blood-covenant Break the covenant, that partner's
life is forfeit. ( This is why adultery is the scriptural reason for
divorce. The adulterer is "dead" to the marriage covenant, the victim is
thus a covenant "widow(er)", and may thus remarry. (PLEASE don't get hung
up & start posting me on this; I include it merely to aid in getting a
handle on covenant) Thus, if God breaks his covenant, WHICH HE INITIATED,
He would have to die!! How Nietzche would GIGGLE...

With this in view, I am amazed at the ease with which folks reject, not a
BOOK,but 6000 years of covenant history, 2000 years of scholarship,
myriads of archaeologically and textually sound documents, on the strength
of a handful of books written 1900 years after the fact by disaffected
disbelievers, agenda-driven haters of so-called "organised religion" or von
Danikenesque scholars. ( I withstand the idea that the Gospel is a religion
at all. Not even the Pauline epistles, which were primarily trouble-shooting...)

God is QUITE able to protect and preserve His word, because it is His
covenant word. On the strength of that a may simplistically say

"Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so..."


(and He loves you, too...)


en agape
Weatherly

HMH Photo by Jeff Vespa - © WireImage.com - Image courtesy WireImage.com

And why precisely does Seth Rogan have a movie career?

--------------------------------

The "Miss March" teensploitation flick features Hugh Hefner as himself.
I'm glad he chose to end the charade as his alter-ego Ernest P. Worrell. Srsly.

Your Aardvark has discovered the wonderful world of Facebook. I guess I'll get my first Model-T next.

Must be Italian. Fah-CHAY-book.

I was IMMEDIATELY discovered by 5 high-school chums and my speech teacher. Very neat.
So I have yet another way to wast...spend time on the net! It is lovely to be in touch with these people again. It is good to know that there are good memories from my life back then. That may sound all tragic and drama-ey, but I have a LOT of baggage from back then. It is good to see, well, good from the high school days.

Alabama is headed toward the poor paying Their Fair Share with a move to tax legal bingo games (to fund education and health care). Next we will have a state lottery as another savior of education. The next stage will be legalised hemp, well-taxed (though a good way down the pike). I no longer have a problem with any of these moves. The state is not a church, and if people are going to do things, and the state needs money, well....

The lottery would be a true move toward True Equality, and the beauty is, it is a truly voluntary tax. I used to brandish a broken Welch's bottle with Baptist friends over issues like that, but no more.

Truth is, the state needs money. Here is a sentence from the State Treasury website:

The Alabama Prepaid Affordable College Tuition (PACT) program and the Alabama Higher Education 529 Fund offer savings and investment opportunities for families planning for future college expenses.

The latest news on the "investment" program:

Economy Crisis Impacts Alabama's PACT Program

Letter to purchasers talks of stock market's impact on program

Amber Stuart WHNT Reporter

HUNTSVILLE - The Alabama PACT Program is offered to parents to help them pay college costs for their children. This week, parents received letters saying the program was in trouble.

After receiving a letter about the PACT program not escaping the economic crisis, Don Phelps sat down with his son.

He explained to him what the future holds for his dream of going to college.

"After we got this thing we sat down and I just said you know, your grades have always been important, now they've become even more important," said Phelps. "I said we'll get you to college one way or the other. It may not be the way you imagined or I imagined. Maybe you might have to go to junior college or maybe a community college a year or two. What really counts is where you finish up."

The letter informed parents the PACT program has been affected like other investments because of the stock market dropping roughly 50%.

"They also said because of that their viability is a little bit in question but they're going to start talking with the different universities and the leaders of those universities to see if they can work out a plan," said Phelps.

When Phelps enrolled his son in the PACT program, he expected four years of college.

"When we got into the program, yes, that was our anticipation. Yes, at least the tuition and fees would be paid for, but we also knew there was a risk with it, too. They were very up front about that because it is based on investments. Like anything else you do. That's always been one of those things we've had back that we paid for a very long time ago, and it was like we've got this covered."

Now, Phelps will wait to hear from the state treasurer what the next step will be.

The PACT Program has not advised people to cancel contracts.

State Treasurer Kay Ivey will hold a news conference Friday at 10:00 at the state capitol to discuss the future of the PACT program.

PACT is also urging people on their web site, 800alapact.com, to give the board time to work through this situation. PACT promises an update on the web site every Friday at 2:00pm.

In addition, PACT has added this email address, alapact@treasury.alabama.gov, for individuals to use to send in questions or comments.

State Treasurer Kay Ivey will hold a news conference Friday at 10:00 at the state capitol to discuss the future of the PACT program. These will be shared with PACT board members.

Expect a scramble for new and interesting ways to make up the various state shortfalls looming. I'll keep you posted.

A Prophecette:


I claim no divine power of fore-seeing, but here is my take. There is no threat implied, merely extrapolation from the present.

I seriously doubt that Pres. Obama will last his first term. I do not think some supremacist yahoo will take him out or anything like that. Rather, when he sees that all of his efforts to wrestle an obstreperous economy into submission are coming to nought, and that his approval ratings are lower than the Fed's interest rates, Humpty will fall, and no-one will be able to put the pieces together again. I see breakdown in his future. I do not wish for it. I harbor no animus against the man. I object strenuously to his policies, and I think that he is wired tight, on top of which is the burden of living up to his press.

Just some thoughts. W'll see within four years.