So the cries of outrage begin. Abby Sunderland, the 16-year-old sailor who attempted to sail around the world solo, ran into equipment malfunctions and had to be rescued, has a cadre of supporters coming to her aid.

The parents should be charged with child endangerment!!! (commentor on NBCSports)

Geraldo has proclaimed her homeschooling parents as "kooks", and divined that she was seeking escape from her parents' control. Where's that Psych degree, G.?

Abby, whom I do not know, even though the Dread Dormomoo and I are part of the same kooky homeschooling thing, is apparently a self-starting ambitious person, with a strong sense of competitiveness. Oh, if only she had used her skills in a meaningful way, like wresting the captain of the football team from the clutches of the head cheerleader. Wait...she would probably be the head cheerleader, if only she had been public-schooled.

Alas, she was homeschooled, and had kooky ideas, ideas above her station, ideas like SAILING AROUND THE FLIPPIN' WORLD ON HER OWN! And she tried it. And she failed. And she wants to try again.

Idiot. She COULD have been hanging around with gang-bangers and drug peddlers in the halls at school, but NO. She and her family think that they are BETTER than everyone else, and that being able to read, and do sums, and navigate the globe have some intrinsic worth. Heck, she probably knows the meaning of 'intrinsic'. Uppity thing.

Kiddies, let me be clear: if you do NOT want your kids to be self-motivated, intelligent, willing and able to take risks and rise above their failures, by all means, do not be a kook.

Send 'em to government schools. I'll guarantee, you won't have to worry about their accomplishing anything out of the ordinary.

Word to your mother.

Your Aardvark has been in the thick of it. We are in our "Christmas season" business-wise, and are just this side of gibbering.

Last weekend we attended Animazement, the wonderful Raleigh convention I have gushed over in years past. We print their convention shirts each year, several hundred of them, and have prodigious dealer room sales, besides. This year, we also did the concert shirts for a band that appeared at the con! Uchu Sentai NOIZ is the band, and we were privileged to do their shirts. Very cool.

The weekend was marred by Fellow Dealers Not With Us.. Frank and Lisa, of Frank's Cool Stuff, purveyors of used anime DVDs, are our normal neighbors. They could not make it this year due to a scheduling conflict. We had Loen, Riatsila, James, Micah, and Your Humble staffing the AardBooth, and we ate well! We re-visited Tir Na Nog, the Irish pub with wonderful food. We were ably served by Victoria, a lovely lass who did a faboo job. We found that we five did not form the critical mass necessary for Maximum Enjoyment. We did not have Frank and Lisa with us, and missed them mightily. Next year in Raleigh!

Ragazzi's in Cary, NC was our Sunday night dinner. They have marvelous Italian food, and creme brulee to boot!

The Animazement staff did their usual outstanding job of putting on the con. Thanks, guys and gals!

I have been a science fiction fan for almost as long as I have memories. I remember "It Came From Beneath the Sea" being shown on TV, along with the Ivan Tors series "The Man and the Challenge". Of course, "SUPERCAR" goes without saying. Later, I became a voracious reader of everything from The War of the Worlds and the SF short stories in "Boys Life" magazine. It wasn't until college that I became introduced to fantasy as a genre.
(I include McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern series in that pigeonhole, though she has science elements in the stories. Go ahead and complain.) Lewis, Tolkien, Charles Williams all contributed to my fondness for both types of story. Heinlein was my favorite hard SF author, followed by Bradbury, for his glorious evocative prose. College found me in the clutches of Niven and Pournelle. I did not, however, discover SF fandom until 1980, when I attended my first convention: PhilCon 80. It was our first foray into the world of huckstering (the selling of fannish goodies at a con). It was that which introduced me to the wild and wacky world of SF fandom, and SF conventions (would that be SF Con-dom?)

The Dread Dormomoo has been an artist most of her life, and picked up the airbrush in 1980. We took her t-shirt painting setup all the way from the Grand Strand of SC to Philadelphia, in our little blue Monza wagon. She was a hit, but we learned the quirkiness of SF fans right off while she was painting unicorns and rockets on shirts when a lady came up and asked if DD could paint a portrait of Johnny Mathis on a shirt.

Johnny Mathis??!?

The DD could, and did. Later on at MunchCon, held at Marshall University in Huntington, WV, we had a lass combine her interests by having the saucer of the USS Enterprise, with a unicorn rampant, put on a shirt. Then came the endless string of D&D players who had her paint their game characters on shirts: elves, dwarves, orcs, you name it.

MUCH later, after we began screenprinting our own designs to sell, the guys popped out of the woodwork to fix our shirts, to make them O so much funnier. One of our earliest designs was the "classic":

C:\DOS
C:\DOS\RUN
RUN\DOS\RUN

For those educated after the Seventies, this was a takeoff on the Dick and Jane readers:

See Dick.
See Dick run.
Run, Dick, run.

Now, the helpful souls, usually bearded and stooped, would sonorously intone: "You need to add a fourth line: 'RUN\DAMMIT\RUN'."; never mind that it completely misses the syntax of the original first grade reader quote. Admittedly, that is more annoying than anything, but the modern trend is far worse. The old-school SF cons were built around the science in science fiction. panels about space travel and even time travel abounded.
Today, the shift from science to psy-ence has taken its toll: fans of the "telepathic lesbian were-seal"-type stories are numerous, as are their preferred plotlines, shaky on the hard sciences, strong in agnostic or a-theist mysticism. One of the last SF cons I attended featured at least one author of that ilk, and in the dealer room (one is not a huckster any more) there was a nice lady with a webcam, and "video aura" software, which would visualise your chakras. (Now, I remember a couple of conventions years ago where the guys had a Polaroid camera with a diffraction grating over the lens, which gave you a lovely rainbow "aura" from the backlight. Ooooooh, lookit my aura!) This modern version spits out a printed book with your image, and various interpretations of the picture. The lady then gave a 15-20 minute counseling session. The customer paid real money to a total stranger to advise him about his life. Another woman, a guest of the con, offered Tarot readings to the infidel faithful.

Hmmmm...let us step back and examine the context. These women are not advising Heads of State, nor the Crown Princes of Europe. They are doing fortunetelling at a science fiction convention. A small one. In the huckster room.

Current science fiction fandom has abandoned its science for credulity, its Western skepticism for non-theistic open-mindedness. The "thump" you hear is its collective brain falling out.

The WiFi at our aging Holiday Inn was not as reliable as some, so reportage about our triumphal Animazement sojourn will be up tonight sometime. I hope this explanation protects me from Murder Most Vile!

I was looking through the worst website in the world, and found this jewel of profundity.

CALLING INTERNATIONAL RESCUE!

The oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico has brought the EEEEE-vils of offshore drilling to the fore. I cannot help but marvel at the timing: the day before Earth Day (Hail Gaia!!), and scant weeks after President Barry O' Bama announced initiatives to begin the process of thinking about studying the feasibility of considering resuming talking about offshore drilling. The seafood industry is about to be damaged terribly in Louisiana, an area that is already still reeling from Katrina. Knowing that groups like the ELF have no compunction about doing short-term environmental damage to ultimately restore the Earth to her pristine glory, by burning SUV dealerships and such, I have ZERO problem thinking that this was sabotage.If we can show the deadly peril presented by oil drilling , we are one step closer to the goal of an agrarian planet, where we can gum our yoghurt and roasted grain around (small) campfires

This is actually dialectical thinking, by which through taking an apparent two steps forward, they take a step back by (secretly) causing an eco-catastrophe. They still win that single step forward (decreased offshore drilling). Too bad for the mom-and-pop seafood businesses in the Gulf. It's all for a Great Cause! Besides, the seafood businesses are doing it for profit!

I am fascinated by the talking-points reflected in all the news reports, especially the consistent use of the word "fragile" to describe the marshlands and estuaries. Now, a single shrimp is fragile, and will not take much pummeling, but the environment as a whole is tough. Remember the Cuyahoga River bursting into flames? Remember Lake Erie, and its extreme pollution? All have been rehabilitated in record time; great news for the environment, bad news for those who should be happy about it. Now as an Environmental Studies person, and a believer in stewardship, I don't think that we should cavalierly mistreat our terrestrial ball by pumping out bilges, or doing sloppy oil drilling, or dumping barges-full of noisome garbage in mid-ocean. We should care for our home, but agonizing over every erg of power or drop of oil wasted will turn you grey. Ask Ed Begley, Jr.

Bottom line: I do not have a bit of trouble believing the Gulf oil rig explosion to be the result of eco-terrorism. The ends justify the means. You gotta break a few oil rigs....
(The convenient invoking of "Halliburton" also gives me pause. They are pushing all the buttons on this one.)

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Now to International Rescue. Why hasn't some billionaire industrialist actually created such an organization? (I know there is an SAR group in the UK by that name, but that's small potatoes by comparison.) The well-capping scheme currently in play resembles a THUNDERBIRDS episode, where a dome is maneuvered into position and anchored to the ocean floor. We really need an independent rescue group with uber-technology for the hard stuff like this oil spill. It would be so sweet. Oh well, we've got no space program to draw from anymore. Sigh.

Well, here we are at Anime St. Louis, which is in Collinsville, IL. There is an enthusiastic crowd of otakus who are demonstrating their mania in part by buying our shirts. The Twilight fad is on the wane...at least until the next movie...but the polarization that we help foment, the dyspepsia the non-Twilight fan feels at the mention of scintilla-laden creatures-of-the-night is helped along by our small efforts: our "Vampires don't sparkle" shirts are still a big hit, along with "Team Alucard".

We are doing well here, as are the other two teams we have out at Anime Detour in MN, and KamiCon in Tuscaloosa, AL. We are set for MTAC in Nashville next weekend.

It is important to Belong. Being the loner can be an unenviable situation, so providing a fellowship of point-of-view is an asset. "He believes like I do." offers a sense of place, and uncomprehending their own motivations, they purchase, or join, or convert.

I am not trying to be cynical. People are motivated to do all that they do by their programming. They can choose alternative programming (see conversion), but normally people do not recognize the why of what they do. They merely do. And I go to the bank!

Evangelism as Lifeboat

Our preacher gave these projections yesterday:

5 years - Europe will be majority Muslim

`18 years - US will be majority Muslim


Evangelism is no longer merely an option for the church in America, sandwiched in amongst the youth retreats, church league games, and 'pot bless' dinner get-togethers. By 'evangelism, I mean disciple-making, not just leaving a newsprint tract on the lavatory at Wal-Mart or Waffle House, where it will rapidly turn into papier-mache. (Why do people leave tracts on top of the urinals? I sure don't want to collect reading matter from there!)

Muslims are not shy about their convert-making, and are not scattershot in their efforts. They target the underclass: prisoners, the poor, the disenfranchised (rather reminds me of Jesus' methods), sharing a vision of power and worth, of being on top when they are the majority, wielding Sharia to subjugate 'the man' who put them down. The jackleg theology of many black churches, misapplying the Exodus story to their own history of slavery from a century and a half ago, has prepared a backslidden group for assimilation by the adherents of Islam. White teens, privileged and spoiled, with no good roots in Biblical knowledge or history, are prime candidates for Muslim 'evangelists' They are offered discipline and meaning for their lives, along with a vision of a subjugated corrupt West.

The UK is almost gone. The combination of the rejection of the historic Christian faith, with the concomitant non-breeding of the European stock (sacrificing their potential progeny to the twin gods of Gaia and Selfishness), along with a kindergarten concept of 'fairness'; opening the door to unlimited immigration has torpedoed Merry Olde.

The U.S. is in moderately better shape, hence the longer time-frame. The left/Gaia/tree-hugger crowd are talking themselves out of breeding, but the evangelicals and other theologically conservative Bible-believers are breeding more. The homeschoolers are just wacko about it!. The Dread Dormomoo and I had four children, doubling our replacement, and people thought we were out of control.("You DO know what causes that, right?"), as did her parents. Six and eight kids is not unusual for believing homeschool parents; generally being good at reading comprehension, they take "be fruitful and multiply" to be a given in the Christian life. "The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof" is an article of faith; it forms the basis of my own views of stewardship of our lovely ball of mud. That the Christian faith is the most potent defense against the predations of Islam ExtremeTM is also a given; mere reproduction is not the key. We must do other things, harder things, less-fun-things than making new children. We must make disciples, teaching our zombie neighbors, the dead-in-sin-but-walking neighbors the life-giving Gospel, Not just John 3:16 amd Acts 2:38, but also Matthew 5-7...teaching them day-by-day how to live the life, just like Jesus taught his disciples. That will result in more of God's kids in the country, who are taught to teach more disciples, so that we will be able to form a spiritual bulwark against the onslaught to come. I do not see an alternative, not one that will work. We must do this Jesus' way, or all will be lost. Do it His way, or break out the burqhas, and learn what dhimmi means.

Your Aardvark, at fifty-three, is flexing his maturity. As a callow yout', he used to view submitting to Emily Post as equivalent to durance vile. The bondage of societal niceties was a burden not to be borne.He would read Miss Manners later in life for the entertainment value. Today, he is still unlikely to write a thank you note, but that is his being boorish, or at least busy. This blogging thing, both reading and writing, consumes time, as does the working.

What brings this up is TV. Chez 'Vark is enthralled by the smorgasbord of history and science shows served up on Charter Cable. A commercial came on, breathlessly touting an upcoming something-or-other on the National Geographic channel.

Wait. "Nat Geo".

When a very young callow yout', your Aardvark was nominated by some kinsman to be a Member of the National Geographic Society. No, it was not a mere subscription, nosireesir. Your Humble had the feeling that when the magazine arrived, he should have donned safari jacket and pith helmet. It was An Event, participating as a Member of the National Geographic Society, whilst reading of Kon Tikis, bathyscaphes, Biblical archaeology, Telstars and Sputniks, safaris on the Serengeti, like that. The International Geophysical Year, for cri-yi! The Dust of Ages on every page. The National Geographic TV specials were "put your homework away 'til this is over" programs. Alexander Scourby narrated them, and he recorded the whole Bible four times!

And your Aardvark was a Member.

To quote Commodore Decker: " But not 'nymore". Now, any rube with a couple of shekels to rub together can buy a subscription, and revel in well-crafted articles supporting politically-approved articles on Climate change, rainforest predation by indigenous farmers, and the amazing strides forward in Sustainable Energy.

The venerable National Geographic Society has been stripped down to "Nat Geo", to feed the fast-food brains of the fast-food fed and bred.

Faugh. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find appropriate times and places to wear a pith helmet?

SEXTING...ONOES!!!

Now that all our healthcare woes are solved, we can turn our attention to the true causes of all ills in our Great Democracy! Yeppers, I'm talking about sexting.

We're talkin 'bout Trouble, right here in River City,
With a capital "T" and that rhymes with "T", and that stands for.......

Oh, never mind. There are new laws being considered to deal with teen sexting, because in many locales, as one Ohio State rep reports:

with the current law, teens could be charged with a felony and forced to register as sex offenders, which he felt was an “extra burden” they didn’t need.

So for (stupidly and naively) texting a boy or girlfriend with a sexy message or picture, you can get a felony charge, and get a sex offender rap. Sweet. I was listening to a cable news report on the issue, and one woman was committing verbal hand-wringing: "What can we do about this problem?" The underlying question is "What can the Government do about this problem?".

Too late, honey! There is nothing that can be done now, outside of Mommy and Daddy actually giving a rip. and teaching their now-almost-too-old kinder what is right, and what is inappropriate. And maybe taking their kid's phones away, or giving them bottom-of-the-line TracFone that has only basic phone services. If these kids have no clue that sending naked pix over the cell waves is a bad idea, the problem is FAR deeper than what they are doing.

Mommy, Daddy, RAISE YOUR KIDS!! Teach them right from wrong. Quit treating them like special pets. Train them. Take time with them. Your kids are more important than your job, your hobby, your team, your pals, American Idol, or People Magazine. They aren't just a side-effect of sex. You will be held accountable for how you raised them, both now, and in the age to come.

Lulululululululululululululululululuuulu !!!!!

Allahu akbar !!!!!!!!


Well, our Fearless Leader Barack Hussein Obama has taken his clothy-headed followers, and flown passenger jets directly into the home offices of every health insurer in America. The carnage will be devastating when totted up, because he has effectively destroyed the health insurance industry. By removing risk assessment from the equation, he has turned insurers into mere funnels through which very finite money must trickle to quench an infinite demand for care. (The obscene profits trumpeted by the opponents of what is laughably called the Free Market in the US amount to 2 - 3%. Such obscenity!) Ben Bernanke does not have enough helicopters to ferry the funds necessary to supply the hemorrhage. Commander Brotherhood cannot come to the rescue.*

Your Aardvark is not being over-the-top, nor is he disrespecting the lives lost on September 11th, 2001. No, he is drawing a distinct and deserved parallel. Every nation that has gone down the road toward a National Health single-payer plan (and no, we are not quite there yet, but the first domino has been pushed.) has, within short order, begun massive cutbacks on military spending, in order to stanch the flow of the fiscal fistula.
Anyone who has been used to paying their own way medically, and then begins receiving health insurance as a job benefit knows the score. Things that previously were taken care of with bandaids and Neosporin suddenly become cause for a doctor visit. If you HAVE health insurance, you will USE health insurance.

So, with military cutbacks in the offing, we will see withdrawals from theaters of operation, probably overseas base-closings, most likely troublesome ones.

Bin Laden wins!

Aerospace contractors and materiel support companies will contract, laying off workers, closing offices. With no effective space program in the offing, there will be no place to take up the slack.

Things may not bode well for Huntsville, AL and similar cities.

Insurance companies, aerospace, the military. Three big dominoes right there.

Enjoy your "free health care" while you are looking for work.



(*Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke played the character "Commander Brotherhood", the head of a commune, in the Dillon High School Senior play production of Hip-Hippie-Hooray .)

1Ki 12:12 And they came, Jeroboam and all the people, to Rehoboam the third day, as the king had appointed, saying, Come to me again the third day.
1Ki 12:13 And the king answered the people roughly, and left the old men's advice which they advised him,
1Ki 12:14 and spoke to them according to the advice of the young men, saying, My father made your yoke heavy, and I will add to your yoke. My father whipped you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.
1Ki 12:15 And the king did not listen to the people, for the cause was from Jehovah, that He might perform His saying which Jehovah spoke by Ahijah of Shiloh to Jeroboam the son of Nebat.
1Ki 12:16 And all Israel saw that the king did not listen to them, and the people answered the king, saying, What part do we have in David? Yea, there is no inheritance in the son of Jesse. To your tents, O Israel! Now see to your house, O David! And Israel went to its tents.

Neither in the House of White.

During Nancy Pelosi's "Proud Humility" speech tonight, The Dread Dormomoo noted that the Congressional Majority Leader's snicker is unsettlingly like Major Arnold Ernst Toht's insane snigger in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Personally, I find Toht to be more attractive...or maybe it was his Nazi nunchuck-coathanger.

No, he's definitely more attractive. Not as predatory.

Have I said how much I miss the Clinton Years lately?

The drama in Washington persists in hurting my head. The moral high ground is being staked out by representatives who are paining themselves to "vote their conscience". I weep tears of blood for them, but wait a minute...If I am elected (hired) to represent the folks back home, then have I not in a sense hired out my conscience? Put another way, if I am elected to represent the home-folks, is their will not therefore my conscience?

A hireling is a hireling, and must do the will of his masters.

It amuses me that Pretty Lady was a Young Republican in college, and that I was a Mother Earth News, Organic Gardening-reading Environmental Studies major.

I feel a need to burn some tires, now.

Over at Vox's a commrnter hight "Damagehold" opens a can:

Ok, I have to go and open up the can of worms.
I get from Bane and Nate and various sources that demons are here, they're queer, and for the most part we can easily send them packing. Like Jesus said, some can only be driven out through prayer and fasting, fine. But certainly they can't bother us when they're just floating around in the ether. It's game over. Nate's hinted at "what happened to Baal and his buddies" and I can guess, but I'd love to hear that thought expanded.
On to the can of worms:
What about miracles? Why so few and far between? Are we supposed to be doing them?
What about the Holy Spirit? Speaking in tongues, baptism, etc?
I'm not asking about end times or any of that flamebait, I just want to know if there's some massive portion of ministry we're supposed to be doing RIGHT NOW that's been almost totally neglected in my churchian experience.
It occurs to me that I should look up the name of Vox's former pastor and that minister who co-authored the christian video game with him. Someone I can recommend is Dennis Peacocke, not as an author really but for his recommended book list.
As personal background, I'm mid 20s and in the past spent a fair amount of time studying the Bible, mostly through E-Sword and the Dennis Peacocke Foundation series, and whatever books were around the house. Right now my syntopical reading cycle is focused on secular matters, but I'd like to build a good list of resources because I'm sure I'll come back to this topic. I did already see Vox's recommended reading path culminating in GK Chesterton's Orthodoxy, although last time I tried it I was too much of a sci fi snob to endure more of Lewis' Perelandria. Perhaps having read A Wrinkle In Time since then I'll be more forgiving.

I think the major flaw in my churchian education has been studying only the Bible itself and filtering that study through a modern churchian lense. Christianity is a pre-Biblical religion... duh. I guess I assumed that since Jesus Christ was the truth, therefore my religious education in my upbringing had to be also substantially true. WRONG.

A #10 can, at least, shading toward a 55 gallon drum. I replied in a place-holding manner:

One point: Modern Charismania tends to put a "three miracles before breakfast" gloss on NT Christian life. Outside of spiritual gifts in the assembly, there appears to be a minimum of the miraculous showcased in the first century church (the NT covering a period of some 40 years. Certainly, it is not likely an exhaustive catalog of charismata and the miraculous, but still, it isn't all raising the dead by elevenses, either.

I learned a wonderful word this weekend: "presentism". It is a History term, referring to the error of viewing the past through the lens of today. It reminds me of the fuss made by Darwin otaku who reject the Bible out of hand because it classifies "bats" with "birds".
Holy St. Linnaeus on a stick, the Bible does not use a system of taxonomy developed some 1700 years after its writing was complete! Into the dustbin it goes! Unless, of course, it is using a different taxonomy, like lumping non-insectoid things having wings together. My understanding then is to allow the Scripture to instruct me from its time, rather than instructing it pridefully from mine.

Jesus said at the end of Mark's Gospel:

¹⁵And He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.

¹⁶ He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned.

¹⁷"These signs will accompany those who have believed: in My name they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues;

¹⁸they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover."(NASV)

This opens several cans, as well. His commission did not stop at "preach". Jesus then proceeded to meddle with Evangelical theology by saying "He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned.". Jesus (apparently) held baptism (Greek for "immersion") to be of some importance, as He linked them (He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved). "He who has disbelieved shall be condemned"does not negate the previous sentence, since it is faith in Christ that validates baptism. What, you gonna get baptised without believing first? So baptism is important, and part of Christ's salvific instructions. Not mine.

Once in the church (Acts 2, f'rinstance) Other Things happen.

¹⁷"These signs will accompany those who have believed: in My name they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues;

¹⁸they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover."

Casting out demons, and other manifestations and protections of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12) would be in evidence, a sort of spiritual toolbox with which to do the work of the church.

Contextually, that all these things are together in one small context leads me to believe that they are to be together historically.

(More to be added)

Here's an amusing way to waste some time.
The Warning Label Generator

Flaming Carrot (C) Bob Burden

I'm late on resolutions. Srsly. I am beginning a three-week meatless regime. The bod is really craving fruits and veg, and has a serious need to drop avoirdupois. We shall see. I will allow bare amounts of dairy or egg to maintain sanity, but the leafy and globular is the thing. Our local Publix has 25 lb. bags of organic carrots, which run nicely through the juicer. Fresh carrot juice is an oddity. It has no fat content, but it has the mouth-feel of milk.Mix it with a little fresh Fuji apple juice for the yum factor.

I'll continue report along the way.

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Overall, I like Chuck Jones' work. I LOVE his Looney Tunes at Warner Bros., but his later work seems a tad self-absorbed, and ultimately self-caricaturing. His Tom and Jerry work is loathsome to me, taking a second to the Gene Deitch East European cartoons. Much of my issue with those is the oddball sound design. I fondly remember Deitch's Tom Terrific cartoons from my childhood. (There was a Jones T&J on TV, which jogged my rant.)

Sharktopus concept art by Matt Leach

The Loen asked a potent question whilst watching Mike Rowe collect giraffe poo.

"I wonder if SyFy is going to make Giraffetopus?"

Using his Adam's Apple as a trigger,
Nidworth activated his Phlegm-Ray.

Yet another reason it ain't easy bein' green.




This blatant ripoff of John Kricfalusi hurts to watch. Some find John K to be an acquired taste, but this horror is like zombie Ren & Stimpy, or The Ripping Friends. All the life has been sucked out of the cartoon, with only slavish form remaining. Sadness.

I am relieved.
Balance is restored to the Universe.

I'm sorry. I was Googling Fair Tax stuff, and noticed a number of anti Fair Tax blogs out there. The all seem to revert to the tired old arguments, first referring to "the so-called Fair Tax". This is just kindergarten-level grumping, almost on the level of saying "Neal Boortz is a poopy-head".

"So-called". Yes. It is so-called, because it is called so. "Fair Tax" is the name of the plan. So? The effort to prejudice the reader before any substantive arguments are made is disingenuous and low. It is the sign of a weak argument."It is called the Fair Tax, but it's not REALLY fair, so nyahh nyaaaahhhh."

"We can't afford another so-called economic 'expansion' like the one from the last decade—what some call the 'lost decade,'" Obama explained in his State of Obama address. An expansion that had a max of 5.6% unemployment, heady halcyon days, compared to the 10% unemployment we currently enjoy.

So-called. Man up, people. Range your arguments. Get out of play school.

The FairTax has far more pros than cons. I have trouble dredging up even one con.
To date, all the objections to the FairTax I have heard are from people who haven't read up on it, or who have an axe to grind. Mrs. P once expressed a concern relative to her hubby's business, as I recall, and many people wax horrified when they contemplate that "I won't be able to deduct interest on my mortgage!!" We have all been schooled in the importance of taking advantage of ALL the legal outs so lovingly provided by our benevolent Uncle Sam. Thus, we quail when our favorite loophole is unaddressed or eliminated in discussion of the FairTax. I would have to say that ALL objections to the FairTax stem from a single misapprehension of the facts; not recognizing one salient point:

Under the FairTax, there will be NO I.R.S. Period.

The most important part of the FairTax is the repeal of the Sixteenth Amendment. There will be NO withholding, No FICA, no need for deductions. No I.R.S. No government bullies holding a gun to your head, robbing you of your pay to hand to some bureaucrat to disburse.

You will take home your entire paycheck. Your first check after the enactment of the FairTax will be like getting a raise.

You won't need deductions, because the government won't be taking your money.

"But Mr. Aardvark, sir, isn't the FairTax still a tax?"

Yes. Yes it is. But it is truly a voluntary tax.The FairTax is a national retail sales tax, a tax you pay when you purchase something at retail. If you buy a new car, 23% of the cost of that car is what you pay as FairTax. (NOT 23% added to the price of the car. It is a part of the sticker. The lying liars in Washington like to accuse the FairTax proponents of wanting to add 23% tax ON TOP OF all the current taxes. This is NOT TRUE.

Every can of beans, DVD, or automobile that you buy already has 22% of its price as tax. Each time a raw material is changed, at each level of manufacture, a tax is levied by the government, so that by the time it hits the shelf or the showroom, 22% of its price consists of tax. At the abolition of the I.R.S., all of those taxes will vanish in a puff of justice. The FairTax will then be made a part of the price of your beans. Your $1 can of beans will remain your $1 can of beans (it may go up a penny, but with the business cost of manufacturers' compliance with I.R.S. regs vanishing, their cost of doing business decreases dramatically, and they may choose to eat the penny. I would.)

Considering that your take-home pay has increased by a third or better, you could afford a penny on the dollar.

You will have no tax forms to fill out, no accountants or tax preparers to hire, no headaches. You pay your tax when you buy your beans, your steak, your new car.

Golly, Madge, let's go to Target and pay our tax!

You even get a check or credit at the first of each month, a prebate check, to cover whatever tax would be paid up to the poverty line, meaning that the poor will pay no tax on the necessities of life, and neither will you.

If you buy a used car, no national retail sales tax. Buy a used TV, no FairTax. Only new, retail sales will have the FairTax.

All this, and no I.R.S.

But what about the Flat Tax?
You will still have the I.R.S. You will still have to file. The Givemint will still be in your bidness.

Go HERE to read the basics of the FairTax, including answers to the most popular attacks used against it.

The FairTax will truly make April 15th just a pretty Spring day.

Iran is now a 'nuclear state' says Ahmadinejad

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1250127/Iran-Revolution-day-protests-Islamic-Republic-nuclear-state.html#ixzz0fFFqFd0h

Oooooooh, he gave us such a PINCH!

I shudder, I reel.

Big deal. This is news? We didn't know this was coming? If Mr. Ahmadinejad and the mullahs rattle their Aladdin swords a little too loudly, Israel will take the job and deal with it. All the US will have to do is wag our Big Finger at Israel and admonish them to never EVER do that again.

Bad Israel. You need a time-out.

And that will be that.At least until some Jafar wannabe mines the Strait and dams it with a supertanker or two. Start saving your pennies. You'll need it to buy gas to go to the store for milk, bread and eggs to tide you over during the Global Warming-generated snowstorms.

Mmmmmmm...snow day French Toast!
-------------------------------------------------------

Incidentally, Go to Flying Buffalo, and order Nuclear War. It is a HI-larious card game, great for whiling away those blizzard days.

OK, so I was listening to the talking heads at Faux News (I say "Faux News" because it is terribly chic to dump on FOX News, and I do so want to be terribly chic.), and someone began burbling about Social Security. Boortz has also been ranting on Social Security. There is no lock-box. No-one has "their own Soc. Sec. account". There is no money in Social Security, because the PEE-pul's honored representatives have plundered it for decades for pet porcine projects. Our kids, and their kids, will have to pay for Sen. Phogbound's roundabout back in Dogpatch. All of the money you pay in to Soc.Sec. is already gone. You lose.

Then, I was struck by A Thought. This being an unaccustomed sensation, I sat down and gathered my Thought.

Social Security was never about the money at all.

It is about Keeping Up With You. It is the pecuniary carrot to the Government's Big Stick. You have a number, and you are not a free man, Number 6.

Have a nice day.

Be Seeing You.

This book appeared at the shop. I do not know of it, nor the author, but I DO recognise the ship. You know, the little teeny ship in the upper right corner....


















Let me help you....















Hmmmmm. Somebody watched cartoons as a kid. The ship is clearly the Starduster from Space Angel, only with added jet engine housings in the wings. Air-breathing jet engines.

In space.

Maybe somebody should have studied his science when he got home, instead of watching cartoons.

Well, here we are. Happy Sunday. A cold has sidetracked me today- to my way of thinking "Do unto others" includes not sharing The Virus in public meetings- so I am home instead of being at church.

Our local AM talk station, the birthplace of the Loathsome Toad, runs radio preachers on Sunday morning. Some are good...Arvid McGuire does a yeomans job of sharing the Bread of Life, some are nominal, and some make me think of Samson- how many conversions are slain with the jawbone of an ass? I got a surprise this morning: a preacher whose voice and style make me think that Pat Buttram is preaching from Beyond The Grave, began talking about Brit Hume. I do not know how we missed even hearing about the Hume / Tiger Woods Christian faith/Buddhism debacle, but we did! Not a word did I hear.


So Hume makes the earth-shattering gaffe of daring to suggest that if one's belief does not provide forgiveness and redemption, then maybe one should look into one that does, especially if one is in apparent need of those commodities. Oh, mercy! How insensitive, how closed-minded, how very FOX! Let the kneejerks begin...and such jerks there were.


The Dread Dormomoo (whose natal-day is today, so Happy Birthday!) said that what Hume did was perhaps the most altruistic act on the planet. All the Christian wants is to bring someone along on the way to Eternity. He wants to share the good things in his life with another. As Lisa Miller wrote in Newsweek: "I'm not at all sure why the liberal left is always so shocked that evangelical Christians want other people to become Christians."

The Sturm und Drang over Hume's comment betrays a complete ignorance of either Buddhism OR faith in Christ, which I'm sure comes as a shock. Hume was correct in his comparison: Buddhism offers a karmic balance sheet, with paybacks for all. The Gospel offers forgiveness, cancellation of debt, and a restored relationship with the God Who made the universe. The newsies of the MSM would look at a comparative religions course and scream "religious bigotry!!", except that the course would likely be taught by a bearded agnostic with suede patches on his elbows.

I have issues with back pain, because I tend to do stupid things with it, most of which involve not lifting with my knees- they hurt, too! - so I take OTC pain relievers from time-to-time. Tylenol is as effective as water to me, so I checked out a generic version of Doan's pills (I LOVE the old brands that identify their pills by their inventor: Doan's pills, Carter's little liver pills...) which are specific for back pain, They work, so the next time I hurt my back, I'll go back to Tylenol, because I don't want it to feel bad. Behold the reasoning of the MSM.

You can comparison shop ANYTHING except belief-systems.

Barry McGuire, the Eve of Destruction cat, was converted in the '70s, and said on a live album: "If you drop a rock on your foot, you don't go 'Oh, Buddha!'." The name of Jesus Christ is divisive and potent. The man who said "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me." leaves no room for anything but contention in the religious marketplace. The world therefore does its best to make the name of Christ Jesus an empty thing, either an expletive, a punchline, or just another religious thing.

Brit Hume found this out, and was surprised. I am very happy that he was man enough, disciple enough, to make a clear statement, a prescription that would do Tiger naught but good.

(I was more than amused, and less, to read comments on Tom Shales WashPo piece about this. They were divided between "attaboys" to Hume, and jerks who repeated the tired old, phony gossip that Hume had carried on with a Fox newsbabe, and then accused him of being a hypocrite. Tell the lie enough....)

Being a Christian today is much like being a red shirt in the original Star Trek. To be one in the news media is to have a bullseye printed on the red shirt. Pray for Brit Hume, and other men and women, disciples of Jesus all, who labor in the thorny fields of the news.

OK, back to normality.

Vidad can Google his own panties henceforth.

Massachusetts...I'm praying for Brown to win, srsly.

The President Tweeted for the first time today. Yay. The smartest man in the world is Social Network savvy. Maybe he'll friend me on Facebook. *sigh*

My head is an unpleasant place to be, now. I see the country I was born in, grew up in, rotting before my eyes. Men and women who have care for naught but there own political careers are mortgaging my children's, and their children's futures, and I feel RAGE. Seething fury. Utterly impotent fury, with no outlet. What can be done in the flesh?

Just saw an article about the new Planned Barrenhood facility being built in a mostly black and Hispanic area of Houston. The pro-lifers are out in force, countered by the lovely and articulate pro-choicers. High school otakettes with signs proclaiming "It's my body, not YOURS!", and shrike-voiced women accusing the pro-lifers of "not wanting women to have access to health care". I mean, I think they REALLY believe that. There are two pluses to the pro-abortion crowd: their aborted progeny are likely enjoying time in heaven, and these intellectual powerhouses are not breeding replacements for their tragically stupid selves.

The Dread Dormomoo and I had four kids. We are neither Catholics nor Mormon, though we did homeschool the lot of them, K-12. We saw the Scripture that
says

Psa 127:3-5 Lo, children are the inheritance of Jehovah; the fruit of the womb is a reward. As arrows in the hand of a mighty man, so are the sons of the young.
Blessed is the man who has his quiver full of them; they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.

is a challenge to all seeking to live godly. Our kids are time arrows that we fire into the future to affect it for good. We endured the odd glances and catty remarks by people who should know better - "You do know what causes that...?". I have a friend

(there is a chorus: "YAAAAAAYYYYYY, he has a friend!")

I have a friend who is expecting a fifth child with his sweet wife. They REALLY get the looks and comments, but if believers don't have kids, what hope have we? I mean, the churches aren't evangelizing effectively in the US...in fact, they are effectively vaccinating people against contracting a case of faith in Christ. (I will not substantiate this...figure it out.)

We need kids.

pic by leadervance

Here, Vidad.
Are we happy, now?

"Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it," Robertson said on his Christian Broadcasting Network show. "They were under the heel of the French . . . and they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, 'We will serve you if you'll get us free from the French.'

"True story. And the devil said, 'OK, it's a deal,' " Robertson said. "Ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after another."

God is punishing modern Haiti for something done by slaves in 1791. Well...Robertson did not exactly blame God. Exactly. But there will be abundant mouthpieces come Sunday more than happy to make the Almighty complicit in this horror. Haiti has voodoo. Haiti has corruption. Haiti has CATHOLICISM!!! Every independent church crank pulpiteer will point the Bony Finger and proclaim "God's Judgment - HUH!".

Jesus made a cogent point to his disciples:

Luk 13:1 And some were present at the same time reporting to Him of the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices.
Luk 13:2 And answering, Jesus said to them, Do you suppose that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans because they suffered such things?
Luk 13:3 I tell you, No. But unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.
Luk 13:4 Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were sinners above all men who lived in Jerusalem?
Luk 13:5 I tell you, No. But unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.

Stuff happens. Sometimes, REALLY BAD stuff happens. We live in a fallen, bent world, a world that does not require God to take his finger and *FLICK* the tower at Siloam over, nor huff and puff and blow New Orleans down. However, we should view this tragic event as an opportunity to pray, and to give. Here's an opportunity: http://www.foodforthepoor.org/

Please consider giving. ANY amount is better than none. Food For The Poor is VERY efficient: 4% of donation dollars goes to running the operation. 96% goes to helping the hungry. Not bad at all.

SarcMark website.

Another in the rather short line of novelty punctuation. Remember the Interrobang?

I thought not.

The design of the sarcasm mark is uninspired, and the roundness of the glyph utterly fails to convey the sharpness of the sarcastic - sarcasm coming from the Greek "to tear the flesh".

No, this mark speaks to me of things passive-aggressive, going around to make your point. Sure seems to be the way most "sarcasm" plays out in blog comments. Not anyone here...I'm thinking more international sites.

Of course, Vidad haunts some of those , too....

The SarcMark should be something sharp, like an exclamation point made from a lightning bolt. I dub the current incarnation the PasAggMark.

They are asking $1.99 for the privilege of loading it into my computer. Only if they get it right.

The Grand Experiment has ended. The saga which began here is a wrap. Abbadee, abbadee, That's All, Folks!

My latest doctor at Medical Affiliated Research Center called a couple of days ago and told me that the BPH study was over. The pharmaceutical company had gathered enough data to determine that this mode of treatment is made of fail. Injecting testosterone-inhibiting brews is not a helpful modality in remedying enlarged prostate issues. Back to the drawing board.

I would not be averse to participating in other medical studies. It's a good way to keep tabs on one's basic medical state.

This is overwhelmingly cute.
(Fumiko's Confession)




The dialog (from the Anime News Network forum)

"Umm, umm. Please go out with me!"
"Sorry! Right now, I want to concentrate on baseball!"
--------------------------
"Takasu-kun, you idiot!"
--------------------------
"I'll make miso soup for you every morning!"
"Sorry! I want to concentrate on baseball!"

I found this on Jerry Beck's and Amid Amidi's excellent Cartoon Brew blog. If you like animation, PLEASE budget some time and visit the place!

The Aardvark has been blessed with a number of things in his life...the Dread Dormomoo, the other denizens of Chez 'Vark, friends, a business which is tottering along reasonably well, a lovely church family where he is loved AND tolerated, and an IQ somewhere in the genius stratum. No, I am not bragging, as will become evident (obvious from my inability to maintain the third-person pose). If nothing else, I serve as the poster child of high-IQ non-exceptionalism. My mind is like a Formula One racer being used solely to go to the market and back. IQ represents potential, and not much else. Vox Day's touted (and much-maligned) Mensa-approved cyber-intelligence has much the same stiff bloody lard between his ears as I, the major difference being training. He has been well-trained in the use of his biological Calculation Engine.

Your Aardvark has, alas, not been.

As a child, he was often admonished by his paternal grandmother that "God has given you a wonderful mind. It is a sin not to use it." His first-grade teacher got a mini Real School Desk to keep next to her desk, to more easily keep him fed with work to keep him occupied and thus less-disruptive. Lesson learned: If you are smart, you get to do more work. Your Aardvark even did reading aloud for the THIRD GRADERS to show 'em how it is done. (Imagine how his popularity skyrocketed amongst the other kiddies!) Even skipped the second grade - Vox and John Taylor Gatto can detail precisely how much that is worth. By sixth grade he was a confirmed under-achiever; blowing off homework was normative, even de rigueur . It was only his rescue by Christ that got him on a righteous road of nominal intellectual rigor, but the damage was done. By college, he blew off attendance in some classes, and aced them (c'mon...philosophy?) The predations of Late-Great-Planet-Earthism (now Left-Behindodoxy) took their toll, and I dropped out of college, did not finish my Environmental Studies major, so the Earth was not saved through his efforts, because, hey, you don't polish brass on a sinking ship.

So, your Humble could possibly qualify to hand out cards like Wile E. Coyote's (if not quite) if native ability were the measure. Training is the key, however: how to reason, how to think , logic.

All that said, the point of this screed is not to be a paean to himself's smarts, rather the opposite.... On Christmas Eve, Loen and Riatsila ran across this atheistic YouTube tour-de-force: Why god won't heal amputees.

This Dawkins and Harris approved video is part of an Evangelistic Atheist effort to dissuade nominal believers from their folly by Embarrassing Them For Their Putative Beliefs, primarily by showing How Loathsome Is the Bible, and What A Jerk God Is, and You Are a Delusional Nutcase for Believing.

Some people won't believe in God until pasta flies.

I have no desire to go point-by-point on his entire sales-pitch, for that is what it is: a series of points, questions and answers to lead the viewer ineluctably to the conclusion that There Is No God, and I Need Therapy For Having Believed In One. Generally, the author's arguments consist of claiming that historical exegetical Biblical answers to his shaming questions are mere Excuse-Making for the putative Almighty. I work for a living, and have no time for the task. I have my own answers which satisfy me, but his format and program make it clear that he is interested merely in axe-grinding rather than truth-seeking. The one point which does interest me is this:

Chapter 13: Why Does God Love Slavery?

All of us know that slavery is abhorrent. Slavery involves the loss of free will and the subjugation of one person to another. Slavery is a form of imprisonment. Slavery turns human beings into a type of livestock that can be bought and sold as the property of another person. As described by Frederick Douglass above, slavery is often accompanied by remarkable brutality. No human being would want to be enslaved. This is what makes the concept of slavery so repugnant.

Now that you have a clear image of slavery in your head, here is an important question: How would you imagine that God feels about slavery?

As the all-loving creator of the universe and of each human soul, you would expect God to be violently opposed to the enslavement of human beings. Our all-knowing God would certainly despise slavery in the same way that any normal person does. What other position could a perfect God take?

It is surprising, therefore, to discover that the Bible tells a different story. If we read the Bible, we find instead a God who embraces slavery wholeheartedly. The Bible is so supportive of slavery, in fact, that it was frequently used as a justification for American slavery prior to the Civil War.

We ALL know that slavery is BAD, and are universally repelled by it, but God really LIKES it! We are morally superior to God!

Stupid, stupid God.

This whinge is as fallacious as any I have read, which of course surprises me, since he would have no anti-God bias, a priori . To state that God embraces slavery, that He condones it, is like saying that the US Government condones cigarette smoking because they regulate and tax its sale. No industry has been more publicly reviled by Washington than the tobacco, so much so that the Givemint has cut its own throat, tax-wise.

Likewise slavery, vis a vis God. The historic church understanding is that we live in a bent, a fallen world, made so by mankind's rebellion. Thus the world is filled with bent, fallen activity, which God seeks to regulate by Laws, establishing His will, while also maintaining man's free will. People will fornicate; God regulates sexual practice covenentally for man's ultimate good. Some still choose to fornicate.

Rebel mankind enslaves one another. God provides behavioral guidelines to make the practice more humane. Some choose to abuse their slaves anyway. If they were in covenant with God, there were punitive actions to be taken against the slave-holders.

There is an important distinction between chattel slavery (A civil relationship in which one person has absolute power over the life, fortune, and liberty of another), and indentured servitude (a person who signs and is bound by indentures to work for another for a specified time especially in return for payment of travel expenses and maintenance). God regulates both, establishing what is and is not allowable in the master/slave arrangement.

First off, an admission: the Bible does not prohibit slavery. Let not the wrath of liberals fall upon my head. Sorry, it doesn't, which makes me wonder at the modern allergy to the subject. Few movements have been more set in fiction than the popular abolitionist movement which fueled the War Between the States. Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe presented theatrical caricatures of slave AND slaveholder, which drummed up popular support for war. Perhaps more ire should be leveled at the black Islamists who sold (and still do) their fellows than currently is. Contrariwise, New Testament Christian doctrine (first century and beyond) did more to eliminate slavery than anything else. The day-to-day living out of the faith renders it uncomfortable for me to call "slave", whom I also call "brother". The Letter that Paul wrote to Philemon lays down the groundwork for that change.

No, the Bible regulates the practice of slavery, establishes ground rules for treating a slave or an indentured servant and preventing their abuse. A cursory reading of the applicable passages will reveal a message 180 degrees from the one claimed by the YouTube Evangelistic Atheist.

Lev 19:20 And whoever lies with a woman with semen, and she is a slave-girl, betrothed to a husband and not at all redeemed, nor freedom given her, there shall be an inquest. They shall not be put to death, because she was not free.

Levitical law prescribed death to the fornicator or adulterer. In the case of intercourse with a slave-girl, there shall be an investigation, the parties shall not receive the death penalty, because she was not free. This protected the slave.

Please take time to read the passages quoted here.

Deu 15:12 If your brother, a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you and serves you six years, then in the seventh year you shall let him go free from you.
Deu 15:13 And when you send him out free from you, you shall not let him go away empty.
Deu 15:14 You shall richly bestow on him from your flock, and from your grain floor, and from your winepress; with what Jehovah your God has blessed you, you shall give to him.
Deu 15:15 And you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and Jehovah your God redeemed you. Therefore I command you this thing today.
Deu 15:16 And if he says to you, I will not go away from you, because he loves you and your house, because it has been good for him with you;
Deu 15:17 then you shall take an awl and put it through his ear to the door, and he shall be your servant forever. And also to your slave-girl you shall do so.
Deu 15:18 It shall not seem hard to you when you send him away from you free, for he has been worth a double hired servant in serving you six years. And Jehovah your God shall bless you in all that you do.

This is written in the context of the seventh-year release (or Sabbath year). All loans were to be forgiven, including indenture contracts. Please note: "And when you send him out free from you, you shall not let him go away empty." This proviso insures the indentured servant a fresh start, a chance at not having to resort to that situation again. If, however, the indentured servant loves his master, and is loath to leave, he may then sign on for life, by his own choice.

Deu 16:10 And you shall keep the Feast of Weeks to Jehovah your God with a measure of a free-will offering of your hand, which you shall give according as Jehovah your God has blessed you.
Deu 16:11 And you shall rejoice before Jehovah your God, you, and your son, and your daughter, and your male servant, and your slave girl, and the Levite inside your gates, and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, those among you, in the place which Jehovah your God has chosen to place His name there.
Deu 16:12 And you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt. And you shall be careful to do these statutes.
Deu 16:13 You shall keep the Feast of Tabernacles seven days after you have gathered in your grain floor and your wine press.
Deu 16:14 And you shall rejoice in your feast, you, and your son, and your daughter, and your male slave, and your slave-girl, and the Levite, the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow inside your gates.
Deu 16:15 Seven days you shall keep a solemn feast to Jehovah your God in the place which Jehovah shall choose. Because Jehovah your God shall bless you in all your increase, and in all the works of your hands, therefore you shall surely rejoice.

Even slaves were included as part of the feasts of the covenant community.

Deu 21:10 When you go forth to war against your enemies, and Jehovah your God has delivered them into your hands and you have taken them captive,
Deu 21:11 and see among the captives a beautiful woman, and have a desire to her, that you would take her for your wife,
Deu 21:12 then you shall bring her home to your house. And she shall shave her head and dress her nails.
Deu 21:13 And she shall put off the clothing of her captivity, and shall remain in your house, and shall sorrow for her father and her mother a full month. And after that you shall go in to her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife.
Deu 21:14 And it shall be, if you have no delight in her, then you shall let her go where she will. But you shall not sell her at all for silver, you shall not make a slave of her, because you have humbled her.

This regulates the treatment of women taken as spoils of war. The idea is abhorrent to modern sensibilities, but the point here is that the victor is not given carte blanche to do as he wills. He is to grant her a time of adjustment, and then take her as wife. He may not thereafter sell her as a slave.

Deu 24:7 If a man is found stealing a person of his brothers, the sons of Israel, and makes a slave of him, or sells him, then that thief shall die. And you shall put evil away from among you.

Kidnapping for slavery was punishable by death.

Deu 24:14 You shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy, of your brothers, or of your strangers that are in your land within your gates.
Deu 24:15 At his day you shall give him his hire, neither shall the sun go down on it. For he is poor and sets his heart on it; lest he cry against you to Jehovah, and it shall be sin to you.

Clearly God had NO interest whatever in the welfare of the hireling, whether Israelite or no.

1Sa 8:10 And Samuel told all the Words of Jehovah to the people who asked a king of him.
1Sa 8:11 And he said, This will be the privilege of the king who shall reign over you. He shall take your sons and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and his horsemen. And they shall run before his chariots.
1Sa 8:12 And he will appoint commanders over thousands, and commanders over fifties, and some to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and make his weapons of war and weapons for his chariots.
1Sa 8:13 And he will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers.
1Sa 8:14 And he will take your fields and your vineyards and your olive-yards, the best, and give them to his servants.
1Sa 8:15 And he will take the tenth of your seed and of your vineyards, and give it to his eunuchs and to his servants.
1Sa 8:16 And he will take your male slaves and your slave girls, and your finest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work.
1Sa 8:17 He will take the tenth of your sheep, and you shall be his servants.
1Sa 8:18 And you shall cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, and Jehovah will not answer you in that day.

God is showing here that slavery is not a thing to be desired, yet He recognises the thing exists, and that the government's propensity for taxation, conscription and slave-taking is a bad thing, not to be borne.

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

There is much more, but should I go through it all, this will never be published, because of my time constraints. A simple Old Testament concordance search for "slave" will show that the video atheist is utterly canted and incorrect in his opinions about the Biblical topics of slavery and indentured servitude, that the God of the Old Testament limits slavery, and mitigates the abuses and harm which are potentials in the master/slave relationship through regulating what may-or-may-not be done to a slave.

This is me being shocked .

Merry Christmas!

Chez 'Vark has been full of happiness, lovely things to nosh, goodies, and fun.

It is a great day to be thankful for the matchless present the Father gave to mankind.

The (grown) kids are playing Dark Tower in the kitchen, and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is on the DVD player.

Oh, and I forgot to press "PUBLISH".

Have a blessed and prosperous New Year!

OK, I am tired of it. (He didn't say "Merry Christmas!) I am weary beyond words with the
"culture war" foofooraw about NOT saying "Merry Christmas". We are in a season chock-full of holidays: Thanksgiving, Hannukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, New Years. When I hear "Seasons Greetings". "Happy Holidays", Merry Christmas, Cunning Kwanzaa, no problem.
The wishing of kind sentiments is inoffensive to me. Come on, people, is the season celebrating the birth of the Prince of Peace really the time to rattle sabers, and mutter darkly about the culture war ?

I am reminded of a poem by Victor Buono which he recited on Johnny Carson in the mid-70's at this time of year, ending on the irony of giving Mattel toy guns to celebrate the Prince of Peace. (I even prowled YouTube to find it, to no avail.)

It is time to lighten up, I believe. Laugh at the foolishness of the Christmas Haters, for it is not your lights and Nativity decorations that they disdain. They just hate The Light, period. So Merry Christmas, Cool Yule, Happy Hannukah, Kewl Kwanzaa, Scintillating Solstice, and all that.

Happy Holidays!

The vast purple MP3 widget to the right has our latest Aardvark ad, to be run in January.
Listen, and enjoy! Also, your comments would be appreciated. The ad was written and voiced by Your Humble, tweaked and produced by Vidad, who is also the Interviewer.

The McHorror.



Micky-D's has a new advert flogging their Breakfast Burrito. It shows a string of Little-League types swatting the ball a mighty swat, but not with the resounding *CRACK* of a Louisville Slugger. No. They swing, and a tooth-piercing *TINK* signals the connection.



I hate aluminium bats. Postmodern baseball, all rules, no soul.

Depression Glass is back in vogue!




















Signs of the times, kiddies. Depression glass was given as a premium during the Great Depression at movie theaters, stores and such. It was a classic loss-leader item to get people into your place, with a something-for-nothing cachet.

McDonald's is re-introducing the concept in the second photo: free Coke glasses as a premium!
They are pretty, stylish, and a sign of our current times.

Drink up!

WEEABOO!