Christianity is Persecuted

Would be funnier if it weren’t so dead on.

I recently read how Adobe is pushing it’s digital book format as the new standard for digital publishing “to allow copyright holders to manage access rights blah blah blah.” I’d give you a link to the article, but the “blah blah blah” ought to tell you how much of an impact it had on me. I don’t remember where I saw it.

Have you ever heard the phrase “Stop throwing effort after foolishness?” Apparently corporate American doesn’t have anything better to do with their money. I don’t know how to make this any more simple for corporate wonks who are supposedly well educated. There are two reasons DRM is a losing battle.

1. It. Does. Not. Work. No matter how complex the scheme, how new and fancy the technology a crack is going to be posted to the net within a few months. That’s just reality. Like it or not.
2. The only thing manufacturers succeed in doing is pissing off legitimate customers.

A case in point

I get that people want and need to protect their revenue stream. However, until you can find a way to make the process invisible to your customers, it is doomed to fail.

So the Republican won in MA. Sad. I’m really starting to lose faith in the people of this country. If I had a dime for every politician who decried “business as usual” on the campaign trail, I’d have a lot more money to my name than is currently the case. Why aren’t the American people saying, “Yeah. Yeah. Heard that before. What else ya got?”

Everyone’s talking about The Nebraska Health Care Deal. Business as usual, blah, blah, blah. Folks, that is the business of politics. It’s never going to change. If you think congressmen are there to do what’s “right,” think again. They are there to broker influence and votes to get money for themselves and their campaign contributors.* The “good” politicians are actually working for their constituency, you know, like getting them a sweet deal on something that really matters to them. It is the favored tactic of the minority party—regardless of which one it is—to cry foul when “business as usual” doesn’t work in their favor. Just wait until the shoe is on the other foot.

Mitt “I don’t have anything meaningful to say” Romney is crowing about the repudiation of liberal arrogance. Who is he kidding? Anyone remember the Bridge To Nowhere? You going to tell me Coburn’s little stunt and subsequent fall wasn’t hubris? Get real. Eight years of Republican non-leadership got us into the mess we’re in. One of the primary planks of the Republican party is “Leave big business alone to do whatever it feels like and let the market decide.” Well the market has decided and is correcting itself. Everyone happy now?

From the day Obama took office Republicans have done nothing but whine “we need to keep doing what we’ve been doing.” And apparently the American people are buying it. They are freaking out about spending money on health care, but have no problem shoveling cash into the money pit that is the Middle East. We have spent billions in the middle east since 9/11. We are no safer than we ever were. The Middle East is no more stable than it ever was. I don’t know if being shredded by a car bomb is better than torture at the hands of a despot. You’d have to ask an Iraqi about that. Even if we somehow manage to off Bin Laden, do you really think Al-Qaeda will just shrivel up and die? Puhleeze. But we keep shoveling. Isn’t that what’s called a bad investment?

Business as usual indeed.

*I like Jay Leno’s suggestion that congressmen should have to wear their sponsors on their suits just like Nascar drivers.

There’s no reason that the government should prevent homosexuals from entering civil marriages because some religions object to the concept, any more than the government should ban atheism because some religions object to it.

Lisa Pampuch

I don’t know who Lisa Pampuch is. There are dozens of her on the Net. I couldn’t find the original source of the quote either, but it’s everywhere. I’m thinking it has something to do with how eminently reasonable it is. Of course, as this Lisa Pampuch points out, reason has little to do with the religious experience.

When asked what he would do if Camping* is wrong again, Rick LaCasse, who witnessed Camping’s 1994 failure, said: “I can’t even think like that. Everything is too positive right now. There’s too little time to think like that.”

UPDATE:This Lisa Pampuch, cited above, is the Lisa Pampuch who has thoughtfully provided links to the original article in the comments. Thanks, Lisa.

*Camping is currently predicting the rapture will occur on May 21, 2011. Obviously, it wasn’t 1994.

To say that life has been stressful the last couple of months would be an absurd understatement. My primary client unexpectedly lost his funding, leaving me several thousand in the lurch. New work has been slow in coming and my savings is evaporating at an alarming rate. Not to mention I just spent several thousand on a shiny new degree only to graduate in the worst economic conditions of my life. In other words: no. one. is. hiring. I’ve started applying for employment as a web developer, even though the thought makes me want to cry. Not exactly the best frame of mind for a job interview.

So when I found Molly Muses this morning and this little gem, a good laugh felt very nice.

If masturbation, alcohol, caffeine, premarital sex, smoking, sexy underwear and rated R movies are all verboten (and let’s add married sex in anything but missionary position to that list for many folks), sugar and fat are the last vices left to you. Part of the reason Mormons tend to get so tubby is that you need a lot of rice krispy treats to compensate for all that purity. But it does mean that if you ever get dragged to a Mormon gathering, head straight for the dessert table because wow.

Stopped into the gym today. It’s been a while, so I wanted to make sure my membership was still active before I walked in there thinking I was going to work out. I thought I had only signed up for two years and figured it was getting pretty close to being up, if not already passed. Turns out I’m good until 1/2012. And it’s paid for, so that’s one thing at least that won’t vanish with my income.

Frodo failed. Bush has the ring.

Not exactly timely, but still funny.

Apparently the Mormon church set an official spokesperson to a public hearing on a non-discrimination ordinance that would protect LGBT people from housing and job discrimination. In a nutshell,

The Church supports this ordinance because it is fair and reasonable and does not do violence to the institution of marriage. It is also entirely consistent with the Church’s prior position on these matters. The Church remains unequivocally committed to defending the bedrock foundation of marriage between a man and a woman.(Deseret News

Oh, gee, thanks. In other words, we’ll let the gays live and work as long as their presence doesn’t threaten our “standards.” We still oppose society officially recognizing their relationships, we can still call them sick and mentally disturbed any time we feel like it and we can still kick them out of BYU if the mood takes us, so it doesn’t matter. Oh, and (bonus!) we have just upped the ante on our victim role because: See how nice we really are?

Oh, and Michael Otterson? The Managing Director of the LDS Church’s Public Affairs? In other words a hired PR gun. Where was Monson? Packer? Anyone from the Twelve? Well, except Oaks. I’ll bet you won’t see him in the public spotlight again any time soon. Hell, even someone from the warm and fuzzy arm of the church, The General Relief Society Presidency, would have been better than Otterson. By sending Otterson the Church was making another statement. “This is just policy. This doesn’t carry the weight of doctrine, so you can ignore it if you want.” What do you bet most True Believing Mormons do exactly that?

Case in point: This isn’t anything they haven’t said before. The Mormon church said essentially the same thing during the Prop8 stupidity as well, but when it came time to actually pass legislation on the Hill in Utah, did Utah Legislators take statements of PR arm of the church as evidence that passing non-discrimination and equal protection laws was the right thing to do? Nope. Did the Mormon church send an spokesperson to the Hill to give legislators permission encourage legislators to enact said laws? Nope.

. . .I think he’s serious.

Hatch asserted that the health bills, which he believes represent a “step-by-step approach to socialized medicine,” will lead to Americans’ dependence on Democrats for their health and other issues. “And if they get there, of course, you’re going to have a very rough time having a two-party system in this country, because almost everybody’s going to say, ‘All we ever were, all we ever are, all we ever hope to be depends on the Democratic Party,’ ” Hatch said. . . .(TheHill.com)

It boggles the mind that he can say that with a straight face. If I had time, I’ll bet I could find at least a dozen similar quotes regarding the New Deal. Well, 70 years later we’re still not a socialist state and we still have a two-party system. True to conservative form, if facts aren’t on your side, try hysteria.

From Joe McNalley’s Blog:

Visited the Apple store on 5th, and shot a pretty typical up looking view of the spiral staircase there. Liked the graphics of it, until of course an Apple employee stepped up and told me I couldn’t shoot up at the stairs cause somebody might be wearing a skirt. Now in Manhattan the array of people who could be potentially wearing a skirt is widely varied, so I could understand their concern. But really–all you see are the bottoms of shoes. Do I look that desperate? The guy who complained to me musta had the nuns.

“Musta had the nuns.” I like that. Oh, and don’t you think someone had already thought of that which is why the glass is frosted? Sounds to me like someone can’t think of any other reason to be looking up . . .