Been getting a greater-than-usual flow of comment spam recently. In clearing out some of this, I may also have deleted some legitimate comments from Saturday. My apologies if your recent post has disappeared, and please feel free to repost it.
One of the more annoying recent spammers has been advertising an "Online Casnio." Is it too much to ask that spammers at least use spell-check?
I'd advise you to avoid betting at online casnios. You'll lose all your omney and wind up in povtery.
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Here's one of my favorite recent headlines from the sports section:
"Gryffindor takes Progress Pace at Dover"
The horse won $394,120, plus 50 points — which will help to make up for the points Professor Snape took away to punish Hermione for giving the correct answer.
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I missed it when she originally posted it in 2003, so I was glad Julia directed us back to her retelling of the story of Jonah — which is every bit as funny as the original.
That may seem like faint praise if you're not familiar with the actual Book of Jonah or if you didn't realize that the Christian and Jewish canon includes a wicked, over-the-top satire.
The Book of Jonah is included among the "minor prophets," but the prophet here is not the titular character of the story. The real prophet was the ancient satirist who penned this savage ridicule of self-righteous, exclusive, friend-or-foe religiosity.
It still baffles me that parents don't realize how cruel it is to name their children after this buffoon. Might as well call the kid "Tartuffe" or "Catalano."
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"… the impious Galileans support our poor in addition to their own …"
— from a letter by Emperor Julian, "The Apostate"
Julian, a devout believer in the gods of the Olympian pantheon and an opponent of the early Christians, was ashamed that the Christians of the Roman Empire were caring not only for their own poor, but also for the poor who were not members of their sect. Nowadays, unfortunately, our magnanimity to those outside of our sect/subculture is less pronounced. Sometimes, in fact, our "faith-based" charity can be downright stingy.
Avedon Carol points us to this letter posted at Bartcop. The correspondent is a senior citizen who was looking for help dealing with the recent increase in heating oil prices. She recounts the following exchange with a "fellow" whose number she got "from a government Web site":
… He suggested I ask my church. … When I told him I didn't go to church his reply, in a stern, somewhat angry voice — more of a command than a suggestion — was, "Well you had better start!"
Thanks for the tip, there, Jonah.
Christians, I guess, should only help elderly Christians with their heating bills. Let the Ninevites freeze.
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Another thing that baffles me: President Bush's failure to increase funding for LIHEAP (the Low Income Energy Assistance Program).
Yes, yes, I understand that our president dislikes public welfare programs. But he also loooves corporate welfare programs. And LIHEAP, after all, is essentially a government subsidy for Bush's buddies in the oil industry. The federal funds spent on LIHEAP all wind up in the pockets of the energy companies that heat the houses of the poor. The felicitous side-effect, of course, is that the poor families through whom these funds are laundered get to enjoy warm homes during the winter.
I can't imagine Bush opposing yet another huge subsidy for the oil industry. I can only conclude then, that he opposes this one just to spite the poor and working-class families it would tangentially assist.
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Susie caught this remarkable post from Neddie Jingo, which juxtaposes text and photos so brilliantly that I won't attempt to excerpt it here. Just go read the whole thing.
(The subject is McMansions, and it includes this jaw-droppingly candid statement from one of the treadmill rats: "Bigger bigger, better better. … It's just a part of life.")
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