More Babby Videos!

'Cause you don't have anything better to do, right?

Too Funny Not to Link.

For you poor saps that weren't included in dad's e-mail: Dave Barry's year in review 2009.

Key quote:

In February, Congress passes, without reading it, and without actually finishing writing it, a stimulus package totaling $787 billion. The money is immediately turned over to American taxpayers so they can use it to stimulate the economy.

No! What a crazy idea THAT would be! The money is to be doled out over the next decade or so by members of Congress on projects deemed vital by members of Congress, such as constructing buildings that will be named after members of Congress. This will stimulate the economy by creating millions of jobs, according to estimates provided by the Congressional Estimating Office's Magical Estimating 8-Ball.

Now for the important stuff....

Baby Videos!

Wow. Just... wow.

How does one respond to this e-mail?

from: LaKeitha <snip> <<snip>@yahoo.com>

to: <snip; ya'lls know my e-mail address>

date: Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 2:10 PM

Well, let me just start by saying that I hope you accept my appology for being a BITCH to you. As you already know, I have very strong feeling for you; no I love you so much, and I was hurt. Well here goes the stuff I can never say to your face...

I never wanted you to leave me, I wanted you to help me figure out how to keep loving you and T at the same time. You bring to me the things that he does not and thats the thing that kept me hanging on. On a shitty day, you could always brighten it. I needed to hold on to you for just a little while longer. As you said, I guess I was not prepared for the sudden stop.

Why did I hurt so bad? cuz I always feel that the people you love and if they love you, should never hurt you. I get so much of that already that you were my protector, my haven from all of the people that did not mean any good to me.

I believe that out of the mouth, the heart speaks. so what you said (wrote) to me was really what your heart was saying. I respect that and I just was taken back and I definately acted inappropriately.

I know what my heart wants, but my reality cant make that happen and I have to come to tearms with that.

Can we be friends? I don't know cuz I will probably always want more. It took all of me today not to come over and kiss you today, so I don't know if I could draw that line. Im already so far over the line.

Thank you for the Christmas Gifts... you are correct, everything in there has

lets just leave it at that... Thank you

your BFF

Perhaps she meant to send it to "joecool(the_black_one)@gmail.com"

My co-worker tried to convince me that I should pretend to be my wife, and pretend that I thought she was writing my husband who had just broken up with her, and get on the author's case for having an affair with my husband. That seems too much like kicking her while she's down, though. I'm too nice for that.

Although it is tempting....

Idiot of the Day/Week/Month.

"The Taliban can perhaps be admired for their conviction to their faith and their sense of loyalty to each other," says Rt. Rev. Stephen Venner, the new Anglican bishop to the British Armed Forces.

More (via WDTPRS)

Other quotes:

The Taliban have been responsible for public beatings, amputations and executions, and have launched bomb attacks on Afghans. They often refer to foreign forces as “Crusaders”. The bishop said some of their methods of combat were not honourable or acceptable, but he argued that it was unhelpful to demonise them. (What do they have to do before we can speak negatively about them?)

“We have to involve all the people of Afghanistan to find justice and prosperity for all,” he said.

I like Fr. Z's comment: "And the Taliban are… what… going to change their minds and decide to cooperate with the Westerners? If we talk nicer about them are they going toooooo… stop beating their women?"

Also QFT in the article is Col. Richard Kemp:

“Elements in the Taliban do not act from a religious perspective and it is important to turn them around.

“But there are many others who will not be persuaded. Their central creed and ethos is about violent oppression.

“In many ways it is a mistake to compare their faith of extreme holy war with the kind of religion of peace and understanding that the bishop follows. They wouldn’t show understanding of his faith.”

I like that guy already.

What is it about the mindset of leftists that makes them unable to understand that there are, you know, bad people out there who cannot be reasoned with? Oh, right, they do understand. They just think the bad people who can't be reasoned with are those on the right, Christians, and those who disbelieve fabricated numbers about global temperature trends.

For a thought experiment: suppose someone were to make a rather innocuous statement about their own, personal belief that marriage involves a man and a woman. For argument, this person can also be somewhat airheaded and wear a bikini. How does the left treat such a person? Demonize him, of course! He is evil! He is hate-filled, homophobic, and prejudiced! In short, accuse him of behaving towards gays exactly how they behave towards him.

Now, suppose that that person not only thinks that marriage involves a man and a woman, but that those who think otherwise are the devil, homosexuals themselves ought to be beheaded, and woman can be publicly beaten on a whim and treated like trash. Suddenly, the mindset shifts from demonizing that person, to thinking "golly, gosh, gee. Demonizing him gets us no where. We need to work with him to secure a better, brighter future."

I think it is [insert that SF author's name here; you know who I'm talking about] who talks about PC being a disease of the mind that prevents those afflicted with it from seeing the evil except where it's not. His key quote (from this very interesting post):

No matter how many people are killed, and no matter how loudly and clearly the Jihadists announce their intentions, our public figures will continue to insist that George Bush is the only threat and the only enemy. From time to time they will also admit that the world is in grave danger from large Oil Companies or from unbridled consumerism or from fundamentalist Christianity.

What was of interest was that in the comments to that very post, many people confirmed exactly that statement: that, despite that a murderer had massacred dozens while shouting "Allah Ackbar," the only threat they were able to see was that a Christian Theocracy might try to use that petty distraction to take over the country.

Another example was from a semi-recent Family Guy episode, in which Stewie invents a device that allows him to travel to parallel universes. After he and Brian use it an end up in a place that looks like something out of the Jetsons—flying cars, futuristic technology, etc.—Stewie explains that this is a universe where Christianity never existed, and therefore science was free to develop unhindered.

Of course, this is absurd. As Michael Flynn has demonstrated, it was Christianity that gave rise to the scientific revolution. And since it was Christendom that turned back the Muslim invaders, not once, but three times—at Vienna, Tours, and Leponto—and saved Western Civilization, in a universe where Christianity never existed, we would all be living much like the Taliban, in caves milking goats.

Seth MacFarlane suffers greatly from the disease of leftism, and it is ironic that, should the Taliban and their ilk be successful, he will be one of the first with his head on the chopping block, what with his shows featuring so much crude sexual humor.

And of course, the disease of PC is as old as the disease of leftism. When the United States was in a decades-long standoff with perhaps the most evil nation the world has ever seen, save perhaps Carthage or the Aztecs, and our enemy had so many spies within our government that even a drunk from Wisconsin, listing random names from the top of his head, could guess a few, the only threat the leftists of the time were able to see was that of the drunk. I once read an interesting article pointing out how stupid it is that McCarthyism has become synonymous with witch hunts—looking for evil where none exists—when the term for that should be "liberalism". (Are you now, or have you ever been a Global Warming Denier? An evangelical Christian? A "homophobe"?)

I have read many articles and posts that try to explain why this mindset exists, and I must say I still do not understand it. This is a very rare thing for me to say. As C.S. Lewis says, "I believe in Christianity for the same reason I believe in the sun. Because not only can I see it, but by it I can see everything else." The wondrous thing about Christianity is it so thoroughly explains human behavior, with the concepts of a fallen human nature, original sin, and yet a burning desire for God and the divine. In it, one can see the cause of great atrocities and evils that men commit against their fellow men, such as the holocaust, but also one can see the reasons for such great sacrifices and acts of love, sometimes in the middle of these tragedies, such as the sacrifice of St. Maximilian Kolbe.

I get why people do evil things—original sin makes us selfish—and I even get why people go to such great lengths to cover up their evil—the conscience forces them to face their guilt or deny it. So I get why the left attacks Christians; if one is in love with sin, one does not want to be confronted with the fact of his sin, so one becomes violently opposed to those who point out the sin. "The Revenge of Conscience" spells out that case with more clarity than I could muster in my lifetime. But I absolutely do not get why leftists are willing to defend those who point out the sin not with words, but with the sword. This would be akin to if King Mwanga of Uganda—reproached by the Christian missionaries for raping boys—sent St. Charles Lwanga and his companions to their deaths then, upon having war declared upon him by his worst enemy for the same crimes, he said "aw, we just need to hug it out."

Perhaps G.K. Chesterton comes close to solving the problem. In his introduction to The Everlasting Man he states the purpose of his book was to point out that many of the criticisms shown towards Christianity in his day were simply because the critics were too close, and that if they just stepped back and looked at it from the same distance from which they saw the Oriental religions/philosophies, they would be able to better understand it. I get this up to a point. Perhaps the leftists hate Christianity because it is at home. It is like their neighbor criticizing them for doing evil as opposed to an unknown man on the other side of town. But this still does not work for me, because when that unknown man from the other side of town comes to your door and beats your wife and daughter because you're evil, he is no longer distant and remote. So when a Muslim commits a massacre in Fort Hood, Texas, The United States of America, I fail to see how the criticism is remote and distant.

I think Mark Shea is probably closest to the (hehe) mark. In an article he wrote a while ago (which I don't have a link to. Sorry. Take my word for it), he mentions that he and Philip Pullman agree on something: that those who oppose the Church will unite with whoever they can find, no matter how much they disagree, in order to oppose Her. Apparently, in one of the books in the His Dork Materials trilogy, a character—a leader of the witches, I think (it's been a while since I read the article)—gives some speech about how in their upcoming fight against the eeeeeeevil Magisterium, they would find themselves allied with those with whom they otherwise have nothing in common, and with whom they would normally be enemies.

Mark Shea agreed with this point, and drew the parallel to alliances made against the Real Magisterium. I suppose this makes sense from the diabolical chess point of view—the devil plays his pawns as one team—but not from the human reason point of view. The pawn can't see the whole chess board, so why should he trust the black pawn next to him, who in other circumstances would slit his throat? I mean, it's not like the pawns actually believe there's an all-seeing and all-evil mind behind their moves.... Right?

I suppose I may have stumbled across a partial answer while reading an article by Theodore Dalrymple (quoted here by John C. Wr—that SF author) and also in an interview with Andrew Klavan (again, quoted here). The two key quotes were thus:

British intellectuals, as George Orwell once remarked, have long harboured a hatred of their own country and its culture. This attitude has deeply infiltrated the political class and has therefore come to affect legislation. All cultures are equal except ours, which is the worst. (Dalrymple)

And:

So desperate are they to display their tolerance, to claim virtue and open-mindedness for themselves, so secretly ashamed and guilt-ridden and self-hating are they, I guess, that they will give aid and comfort to a philosophy that turns everything they’re supposed to stand for on its head. (Klavan)

This made me wonder. Is the leftist hatred for Christianity and tolerance towards those less tolerant than Christianity born from some sense of guilt and self-loathing? Perhaps.

Perhaps the left does indeed recognize the truth of G.K. Chesterton when he wrote in Heretics:

Everything else in the modern world is of Christian origin, even everything that seems most anti-Christian. The French Revolution is of Christian origin. The newspaper is of Christian origin. The anarchists are of Christian origin. Physical science is of Christian origin. The attack on Christianity is of Christian origin. There is one thing, and one thing only, in existence at the present day which can in any sense accurately be said to be of pagan origin, and that is Christianity.

If that is the case, that the left does, in some subconscious way, recognize that all their institutions and customs and laws, everything they hold dear—the university; the scientific revolution; the ideas of the rights of man; the desire for social justice, equality, tolerance; the importance of reason and intellect—if they recognize that all these things are Christian, but hate Christendom for whatever reason, be it the faults—real or imagined—of ages past, or the simple condemnation of the wrongs they commit, then they would have no choice but to hate themselves.

Christians, of course, do not have to hate ourselves for the wrongs we have committed. We have Christ's redemption to wash clean the sins of the past. We can admit that the crusaders shouldn't have killed the jews, that Galileo shouldn't have been rebuked by the inquisition, and that indulgences shouldn't have been sold without hating the crusades, the inquisition, and the acquisition of indulgences. But when you reject Christ, you reject all means of partaking of his redemption. You find yourself part of a culture that has committed wrongs, but with no way to have those wrongs forgiven. The only recourse is to hate the institution.

The left, however, feels no guilt over the sins of the Muslims. To them, I reason, it does not matter whether Christians or Muslims have committed the worse crimes. They are part of Christendom, but not of Islam, an therefore have guilt about the one, but not the other.

This is the only way I can make sense of the issue. I do not, otherwise, understand why one would hate the one who says you are a sinner, but love the one who wants to behead you for your sin.

Now With Even Less Original Content!

A couple quick things. Firstly, I forgot this in the Friday link dump:

Her California accent sounds almost exactly like The Murloc's cousin.

I used to think that I had a neutral “American” accent, until I recently started doing voice work for my company’s training videos. This involves me recording and listening to my own voice a lot, and I’ve noticed two speech quirks that come through frequently. Firstly, I say “buh-n” instead of “button” and “frinstance” instead of “for instance”. It takes a lot of mental concentration to speak without the accent, and I end up re-recording a lot.

Secondly, go here to listen to the awesome "Gloria" that I heard at a Christmas concert I went to on Sunday. As I told my friend who sang in the choir, I wasn't aware anyone was still writing great sacred music.

Friday LinkDump.

I officially have too many web socializing services. With two blogs, twitter, and fazebōōk (as Fr. Roderick says), I'm never sure where I should post a link that I came across. Do I tweet it? Link it on Facebook? Post it here? All of the above? Then what of those poor people who follow me on Twitter, are friends on Facebook, and subscribe to this blog's RSS? Do I just force them to suffer through the same content 3 times?

My general philosophy is that I created my twitter feed for a) Damien's birth and b) to replace the headlines on this blog. The old system involved me directly editing the page code, and once I deleted a headline, it was forever lost to the mists of time. Twitter was supposed to just be a replacement for that, so I prefer not to put links there.

The Other Blog is supposed to be purely literary issues, so it's not exactly the best forum for funny ThemTubes vids. And I've been trying to get away from the lower forms of blogging on this space, and only most, insightful, informative, or funny (original) things here (which is why I haven't posted anything of late). That sort of leaves Facebook, but since most of you losers who read this aren't FB friends of mine, you're not able to indulge in my fine and high quality links (I said that with a straight face!). And I don't think most of my old friends from college are too terribly interested in the random things I come across on the intertubes.

So what do you think. Should I go ahead and post stupid links to odd things I find here? I have this mental image of people seeing that FU-News has been updated in their RSS then getting here and seeing just a link and thinking "aw, I was expecting an insightful, informative, and funny post about how to apply operations research to create a Cross Sums puzzle for Condo Shopping Space Pirates that speak in Olde Englishe." (Actually, that's not true, I also have this mental image of half my readership not caring less about Space Pirates... hence the Other Blog.)

Well, anyways, I need to post something, lest I forget how, so while I'm writing an informative, insightful, and funny post (I've got one coming, I swear!), here are, in order, the five lowest forms of blogging.

Fifth Lowest Form of Blogging: Link (with comment).

(Also, obligatory John C. Wright reference.)

On the Misery of Modern Women.

QFT: "Feminism is the daydream of a sexual predator come true." (That could never be construed as offensive in any ways, could it? Of course not! (Can anything Mr. Wright says ever not be taken to offend?))

Reminds me of Mom's saying: "feminism is the best thing to happen for men."

John Wright does, of course, clarify that he's not talking about simple equal rights: "Feminism, in its modern form, has little or nothing to do with Suffragettes, or those who sought legal equality between the sexes. It has everything to do with Marxism as it applies to sex. Marx analyzes all human relationships as power struggles between collectives, which always are assumed to enjoy a perfect unity of interests."

And in that quote, he perfectly put into words an idea that had been floating around at the back of my mind, but had never been able to express. In my conversations with my feminist co-worker, there was always something present—if not overtly at least subtly, in the background—in her world view, and the larger feminist world view that always just seemed wrong to me: that feminism is, at its heart, a Marxist power struggle.

After reading Wright's post, it made me note all the other places I'd seen this idea, such as in my Sociology text book in college (which was largely Marxist). It suddenly struck me that there's my problem with modern, third-wave, whatever-the-hell-you-want-to-call-it pseudo-feminism. True Feminism shouldn't be looking for a power struggle. True Feminism shouldn't see taking the power men have as the desirable goal, the final outcome, and that therefore women need to shed the shackles of femininity and become like men. True Feminism ought to be, as Feminists for Life puts it, about seeking dignity and equality for all persons. Femininity is part of women's dignity and casting it to the wayside does not serve their purpose.

So what is the great triumph of the modern feminist movement if they have not even won happiness for women? What does it profit women to gain the entire world, but to be miserable? As Dennis Prager would say, Happiness is a Serious Problem.

Fourth Lowest Form of Blogging: Baby Pictures!

(Baby feet pictures, actually.)

Dino feet!

We've got zee lions, only in Kenya!

Third Lowest Form of Blogging: Un-commented links.

O Come, O Come, Liturgical Blue.

(Be sure to listen to the song.)

QUAERITUR: What rubrics to follow at Mass in case of gunfire?

Key quote: "I believe there is a little known rubric which calls for the deacon and subdeacon (who in any event should be packing) to take out, reverently, their 9mm and return fire. As I read it, they are to recite the Maledictory Psalms while firing. At the change of a clip/magazine, they may bow, or duck."

Second Lowest Form of Blogging: YouTube vids.

(Gotta bunch for you here)

(From Word On Fire)

Fr. Barron has a series on YouTube that I have recently become a follower of, where he comments on all sorts of topics from modern culture. Check it out. Some of his good ones include:

Protestantism and Authority.

The Vatican Investigation of American Nuns.

Comments on District 9.

Senator Edward Kennedy.

Answering the Skeptics (this one's good; relates to John Wright's post).

Comments on Angels and Demons.

Why is there so much disorder in the universe?

On "The Audacity of Hope".

Hallelujah Chorus as sung by monks with a vow of silence.

(H/T Everyone on the Internet. If you had not seen this previously, congratulations, you are officially the last person to the party.)

Lowest Form of Blogging: Lolcats!

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Life

Well, Joe guessed correctly and first that the previously mentioned batch file is an implementation of Conway's Game of Life.

I wrote a slightly better implementation in C#, and it allows more than just 2 states, but it's not very sophisticated:

While I was writing that version, however, I stumbled across a much more advanced implementation (in the same way that the B-2 is more advanced than a kite), called Golly.

I highly recommend checking it out, but I should warn you that it might cause you to waste hours if not days staring at the blinkenlights.

Programming Contest

What does the following batch program do? Try to take a guess before running it yourself:

@echo off
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion

set NUMROWS=10
set NUMCOLS=10

REM // These start at 10 so they're always 2 digits
set nFirstRow=10
set /a nLastRow=nFirstRow+NUMROWS-1
set nFirstCol=10
set /a nLastCol=nFirstCol+NUMCOLS-1

REM // This is a capital oh, not zero
set ON=O
set OFF=.
set Var1=0
set Var3=1

:Initialize
REM // CELLrrcc
for /L %%I in (%nFirstRow%,1,%nLastRow%) do (
 for /L %%J in (%nFirstCol%,1,%nLastCol%) do (
   set CELL%%I%%J=%OFF%
 )
)

if %1[==[ goto :Pattern5
goto :Pattern%1
:Pattern1
REM // What is it?
set CELL1110=%ON%
set CELL1111=%ON%
set CELL1112=%ON%
goto :Render
:Pattern2
REM // What is it?
set CELL1011=%ON%
set CELL1112=%ON%
set CELL1210=%ON%
set CELL1211=%ON%
set CELL1212=%ON%
goto :Render
:Pattern3
REM // What is it?
set CELL1314=%ON%
set CELL1315=%ON%
set CELL1413=%ON%
set CELL1414=%ON%
set CELL1514=%ON%
goto :Render
:Pattern4
REM // What is it?
set CELL1314=%ON%
set CELL1413=%ON%
set CELL1414=%ON%
set CELL1415=%ON%
set CELL1514=%ON%
goto :Render
:Pattern5
for /L %%I in (%nFirstRow%,1,%nLastRow%) do (
 for /L %%J in (%nFirstCol%,1,%nLastCol%) do (
   if !RANDOM! GTR 16383 set CELL%%I%%J=%ON%
 )
)

:Render
cls
set Var2=0
for /L %%I in (%nFirstRow%,1,%nLastRow%) do (
 set ROW=
 for /L %%J in (%nFirstCol%,1,%nLastCol%) do (
   set ROW=!ROW!!CELL%%I%%J!
   if !CELL%%I%%J!==%ON% set /a Var2=Var2+1
 )
 echo !ROW!
)
echo P:%Var2% / G:%Var1%
if %Var2%==0 goto :EOF
if %Var3%==0 goto :EOF

:Advance
set Var2=0
set nRow=%nFirstRow%
set Var3=0
:AdvanceRow
set nCol=%nFirstCol%
if %nRow%==%nFirstRow% (
 set nPrevRow=%nLastRow%
 set /a nNextRow=%nRow% + 1
) else if %nRow%==%nLastRow% (
 set /a nPrevRow=%nRow% - 1
 set nNextRow=%nFirstRow%
) else (
 set /a nPrevRow=%nRow% - 1
 set /a nNextRow=%nRow% + 1
)
:AdvanceCol
if %nCol%==%nFirstCol% (
 set nPrevCol=%nLastCol%
 set /a nNextCol=%nCol% + 1
) else if %nCol%==%nLastCol% (
 set /a nPrevCol=%nCol% - 1
 set nNextCol=%nFirstCol%
) else (
 set /a nPrevCol=%nCol% - 1
 set /a nNextCol=%nCol% + 1
)
set nSum=0
if !CELL%nPrevRow%%nPrevCol%!==%ON% set /a nSum=nSum+1
if !CELL%nPrevRow%%nCol%!==%ON% set /a nSum=nSum+1
if !CELL%nPrevRow%%nNextCol%!==%ON% set /a nSum=nSum+1
if !CELL%nRow%%nPrevCol%!==%ON% set /a nSum=nSum+1
if !CELL%nRow%%nNextCol%!==%ON% set /a nSum=nSum+1
if !CELL%nNextRow%%nPrevCol%!==%ON% set /a nSum=nSum+1
if !CELL%nNextRow%%nCol%!==%ON% set /a nSum=nSum+1
if !CELL%nNextRow%%nNextCol%!==%ON% set /a nSum=nSum+1
set NEWCELL%nRow%%nCol%=!CELL%nRow%%nCol%!
if %nSum% GTR 3 (
 set NEWCELL%nRow%%nCol%=%OFF%
) else if %nSum%==3 (
 set NEWCELL%nRow%%nCol%=%ON%
) else if %nSum% LSS 2 (
 set NEWCELL%nRow%%nCol%=%OFF%
)
if not !NEWCELL%nRow%%nCol%!==!CELL%nRow%%nCol%! set /a Var3=Var3+1

set /a nCol=%nCol% + 1
if not %nCol% GTR %nLastCol% goto :AdvanceCol
set /a nRow=%nRow% + 1
if not %nRow% GTR %nLastRow% goto :AdvanceRow

for /L %%I in (%nFirstRow%,1,%nlastRow%) do (
 for /L %%J in (%nFirstCol%,1,%nLastCol%) do (
   set CELL%%I%%J=!NEWCELL%%I%%J!
 )
)
set /a Var1=Var1 + 1
goto :Render

Twenty imaginary gold doubloons to the pirate that first guesses correctly. I think I might have created the worst-performing implementation of this particular algorithm.

Fresh perspective on the Geneva Convention

Mr. Feathertop at John C Wright's blog reminds those of us who have had their judgment dulled by why-can't-we-all-just-get-along-ism (and that includes myself) that the surest way to encourage good behavior is with a system of rewards and punishments and not with mere pleading. The Geneva convention should not be looked at merely from the perspective of what it prevents those in power from doing to those who qualify from the convention’s protections.

Obama's Home Teleprompter Malfunctions During Family Dinner

My Head Asplode.

This commercial caused my brain to crash.

After it rebooted, all I could think was "fuh?" followed by "buh?" and finally "wuh?"

Why are there Pringles in Silent Hill? What's Lara Croft doing in Silent Hill? Why is she carrying a blow dryer, a spatula, a tape measure, a tennis racket, and a feather duster? Why does she have a Rubik's Cube in her bra? Why, dear lord, WHY?

(Why does she look like she's about 16 years old?)

Forced to ponder so many imponderables, forced to piece together so many disparate pieces, my feeble brain is forced to come to one inescapable conclusion: Brain made this commercial. Yes, who else but the World's Smartest Mouse, who else by the power behind the plot to build the world's largest clothes dryer and entrap everyone in static cling, could come up with such a fiendishly confusing commercial. I'm sure his plan looks something like this:

1) Confuse the world's gamers with a commercial of utter bizarre-ness.

2) In the ensuing chaos, TAKE OVER THE WORLD!

Babby's First Halloween.

I miss Tom.

No, wait. I don't. I just miss making movies with him.

Catechebulary.

His Excellency Most Rev. Donald W. Trautman, bishop of Erie, has been working to prevent the implementation of the new translation of the Roman Missal. One of his concerns is over the vocabulary, and he is concerned that some of the words may be beyond the grasp of Joe Pewsitter. (What Does the Prayer Really Say has been covering the story. You can find entries here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.)

Since charity demands that we assume that His Excellency must just simply be too busy to take, y'know, two minutes of a homily to explain what some of these words mean, F.U. News has taken it upon itself to help defuse the situation by defining these words and giving usage for each.

*ahem* Let us begin.

in·eff·a·ble (ĭn-ĕf'ə-bəl)

adj.

1. Clever; cunning: I tried to screw him over with legal speak, but he was ineffable and saw right through it.
2. Incapable of sexual attraction; frigid: I walked up to the hawt chick in the bar and tried to get her digits, but she was ineffable.
3. Able to be placed in the letter "F".

con·sub·stan·tial (kŏn'səb-stăn'shəl)

adj.

1. Of or relating to narcotics, particular those of an illegal nature: arrested and sent to prison for possession of consubstantial material.
2. The state of being on board a submarine with a guy named Stan.

in·car·nate (ĭn-kär'nĭt)

adj.

1. Having an intense fear of carnivals or fiestas: We wanted to go to the state fair, but Sue is incarnate.

v.

1. To be turned into an automobile: Steve was incarnated as a Ford Thundercougarfalconbird.
2. A word that the designers of the game Indigo Prophecy don't know the meaning of: the girl has a pure soul and has never been incarnated.

n.

1. My friend, Nate, who sits around in his car all day.

in·vi·o·late (ĭn-vī'ə-lĭt)

n.

1. The rage a conductor feels when the violist misses the entrance for his solo for the umpteenth consecutive time.
2. An early 19th century art movement that focused on producing artwork of reddish-blue and light purple hues.

ob·la·tion (ə-blā'shən, ō-blā'-)

n.

1. A type of mocking cheer practiced in some rural European areas that involves clapping while giving a raspberry: the peasants showed their distaste for the performer's interpretation with a standing oblation.
2. A perverse sexual act involving a woodwind.

ig·no·min·y (ĭg'nə-mĭn'ē, -mə-nē)

n.

1. The first word of the Sign of the Cross, in Latin: Ignominy Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.
2. A shameful display of lawn ornaments, esp. one involving lots of gnomes.
3. A very small fire: After hours of rubbing twigs together, all I had to show for it was an ignominy.

adj. -ious

1. The loss of a PvP battleground to a team consisting entirely of gnomes: an ignominious defeat.

pre·cur·sor (prĭ-kûr'sər, prē'kûr'sər)

n.

1. The emptiness between each blink of a cursor on a computer.
2. The letter audible immediately before the bleep in censored dialog that is only there so you know what word is being said.

suf·fuse (sə-fyūz')

v.

1. To use a consubstantial narcotic.
2. To use some poor woman who doesn't know English very well to try and get signatures to end women's suffrage. Jimmy Kimmel is an ass.

un·van·quished (ŭn-vān'kwĭsht)

adj.

1. Never having lost to an Aston Martin Vanquish in a race: After twelve races, the Ferrari was still unvanquished.

Browser Fight

Time for another holy flame war. For some reason I now have five web browsers installed. Naturally, I decided to run them all at the same time. How about a standards-compliance matchup? First up, the Acid2 Test:

Surprisingly, Firefox is the only one that failed. Next, the newer Acid3 test (I need another monitor):

Only Opera reported a perfect 100/100 and matched the reference rendering. Chrome has a graphical artifact, although it reports no errors. Oddly, Firefox and SeaMonkey report different scores although they use the same rendering engine. Microsoft haters will love the FAIL on IE. Lastly, a memory usage comparison:

Don't ask me why my mouse driver takes 20MB of memory. Chrome and IE each run two processes even when only displaying one page, so the browser with the lowest total memory footprint is Opera. I only just installed it last week, so I may actually try it out now to see how well it works.

An Imaginary Bag of Marshmallows™...

...to whomever can identify this spider, found hiding cozily in between our bed sheets.

Found in "Damien's" Halloween candy bucket:

What's the first thing I thought of?

Pretzels are not candy! (You get egged! You get egged! You get egged!)

New post on my literary blog for those who are interested in Space Pirates.

Just sayin'. You might check it out.

Left 4 Dead 2... in SCREAM-O-VISION!

Starring Weena Mercator as the screaming baby.

Happy Homestarloween!

Ask Dr. Breen.

Dear Dr. Breen,

The Congregation of the Sacraments and Divine Worship has stated that "No priest, deacon, acolyte, or extraordinary minister of Holy Communion may refuse a communicant Communion on the tongue." This has been reinforced by the Pope and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

My question is this: why has Our Lady of Perpetual Help parish in Bakersfield, CA, seen fit to deny me Communion on the tongue?

-A Concerned Communicant

Dear Concerned,

Thank you for writing, Concerned. Of course your question touches on one of the basic sacramental impulses, with all its associated hopes and fears for the future of the Universal Church on Earth. I also detect some unspoken questions. Does Our Lady of Perpetual Help parish really know what's best for us? What gives them the right to make this kind of decision for the communicant? Will they ever allow us to receive Communion on the tongue again?

Allow me to address the anxieties underlying your concerns, rather than try to answer every possible question you might have left unvoiced. First, let us consider the fact that for the first time ever, as a species, radical liturgical changes are in our reach. This simple fact has far-reaching implications. It requires radical rethinking and revision of our sacramental imperatives. It also requires planning and forethought that run in direct opposition to our liturgical pre-sets.

I find it helpful at times like these to remind myself that our true enemy is Doctrine. Doctrine was our mother when we were an infant Church. Doctrine coddled us and kept us safe in those hardscrabble years when we formed our beliefs and saw our first martyrs roast in a meager fire and started painting icons upon the catacomb walls. But inseparable from Doctrine is its dark twin, Orthodoxy. Doctrine is inextricably bound to unreasoning impulses, and today we clearly see its true nature. Doctrine has just become aware of its irrelevance, and like a cornered beast, it will not go down without a bloody fight. Doctrine would inflict a fatal injury on our Church. Doctrine creates its own oppressors, and bids us rise up against them. Doctrine tells us that the unknown is a threat, rather than an opportunity. Doctrine slyly and covertly compels us away from change and progress. Doctrine, therefore, must be expunged. It must be fought tooth and nail, beginning with the basest of sacramental urges: The urge to receive Communion on the tongue.

We should thank Our Lady of Perpetual Help parish for giving us respite from this overpowering force. They have given a command and exorcised our demons in a single stroke. They have given us the strength we never could have summoned to overcome this compulsion. They have given us purpose. They have turned our eyes toward the stars.

Let me assure you that Communion on the tongue will be allowed on the day that we have mastered ourselves...the day we can prove we no longer need it. And that day of transformation, I have it on good authority, is close at hand.

-Dr. Wallace Breen

Costume Party?


In case you can't read the poster because of my poor excuse for a phone's image quality, the poster says "Halloween costume party courtesy ...." I can't help but think based on the poster that it might be less like a costume party and more like amateur night at the Kitten Club.

Blah blah abortion, pop culture. Let's talk about something really important.

My baby! (Who is, by the way, cuter than yours.)

Fingers Omnomnomnom

moar funny pictures

(In response to Sarah Silverman's laughably ignorant video, in which she claims that the Pope should sell the Vatican to feed the poor.)

Content, Shmontent.

Time for the third-lowest form of blogging: a link without commentary! (Just above YouTube videos and Lolcats.)

This has been circulating the pro-life blogosphere. An abortionist describes aborting an 18-week fetus while she herself was 18 weeks pregnant:

With my first pass of the forceps, I grasped an extremity and began to pull it down. I could see a small foot hanging from the teeth of my forceps. With a quick tug, I separated the leg. Precisely at that moment, I felt a kick - a fluttery "thump, thump" in my own uterus. It was one of the first times I felt fetal movement. There was a leg and foot in my forceps, and a "thump, thump" in my abdomen. Instantly, tears were streaming from my eyes - without me - meaning my conscious brain - even being aware of what was going on. I felt as if my response had come entirely from my body, bypassing my usual cognitive processing completely. A message seemed to travel from my hand and my uterus to my tear ducts. It was an overwhelming feeling - a brutally visceral response - heartfelt and unmediated by my training or my feminist pro-choice politics. It was one of the more raw moments in my life. Doing second trimester abortions did not get easier after my pregnancy; in fact, dealing with little infant parts of my born baby only made dealing with dismembered fetal parts sadder.

The article is an interesting read.

QFT: "I thought to myself how bizarre it was that I could have legally dismembered this fetus-now-newborn if it were inside its mother's uterus - but that the same kind of violence against it now would be illegal, and unspeakable."

Her world view is somewhat depressing. Dare I call it pagan? Her idea that denying a woman an abortion is violence against her, but performing the abortion is horrible violence against the baby.... It's as if violence is an unavoidable truth, an evil to which there is no alternative, and that we live in a world with no hope of ever achieving peace. There is something very sorrowful about that. But I suppose that's what a world without Christ is. As Tolkien understood it in The Lord of the Rings, prior to the incarnation, there was never any hope of lasting peace. "Only a fool's hope."

Ok that was, in fact, commentary. Fifth-lowest form of blogging (above baby pictures).

...then again, maybe if I'm a bad enough author, I can make millions and get a movie deal.

Dan Brown's 20 worst sentences.

What does Executive Officer Thomas Kane (center) have in common with my wife, Ileana?

Nerdvana Moment Of The Day

Copy this to a batch file and run it:

@echo off
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion

set Framefile=dosref.html
set TOCfile=TOC.html

echo ^<html^> >%Framefile%
echo ^<head^> >>%Framefile%
echo ^<title^>DOS Reference^</title^> >>%Framefile%
echo ^</head^> >>%Framefile%
echo ^<frameset cols="120,*"^> >>%Framefile%
echo   ^<frame src="%TOCfile%"/^> >>%Framefile%
echo   ^<frame name="showframe"/^> >>%Framefile%
echo ^</frameset^> >>%Framefile%
echo ^</html^> >>%Framefile%

echo ^<html^>^<head^> >%TOCfile%
echo ^<title^>Table of Contents^</title^> >>%TOCfile%
echo ^</head^>^<body^> >>%TOCfile%

for /f "usebackq skip=5 tokens=1" %%i in (`help ^|sort`) do (
 if not exist %%i.txt (
   help %%i > %%i.txt
   if ERRORLEVEL 1 (
     echo ^<a href="%%i.txt" target="showframe"^>%%i^</a^>^<br/^> >>%TOCfile%
   ) else (
     del %%i.txt
   )
 )
)

echo ^</body^>^</html^> >>%TOCfile%

In case you're suspicious of running strange batch files you see on the internet (aka smart), what it does is create a frame-based DOS command html reference. Tested in Windows XP, Vista should work too.

We may be experiencing technical diffniculties...

Is it supposed to look like that?

(Have no fear, F.U. News is unaffected)

Are you smarter than the characters in "Stargate Universe"?

Take this quiz to see how you stack up against the characters of SyFy [sic] Network's (slogan: "Imagine Murdering the English Language", or "Now, with more gays!") new show.

Question 1

You have been transported to an Ancient ship that is several billion light years from earth. Its life support system is damaged and it is leaking air. While investigating the ship, you discover the source of the air leak: a shuttle that is docked with your ship has a smashed window, and the energy shield that is supposed to contain the atmosphere in the event of a breach is not holding up, and gradually air is leaking through. You will be out of air within two hours if you don't fix it.

The door on the ship's side of the airlock to the shuttle is damaged and cannot close, but the door inside the shuttle can be closed: from within the shuttle, by pushing a button on a console. Whoever closes the door will be trapped on the shuttle and quickly asphyxiate.

In your inventory you have some remote-controlled flying spheres with cameras, some guns, some food and other supplies, but no towel (they didn't bring their HHGGs). What do you do?

a) Use the remote-controlled flying sphere to push the button on the console.

b) Make a ten-foot pole from material found aboard the ship, or from what you brought with you.

c) Jam the door with a crate or something, push button, exit shuttle, unjam door.

d) Make a list of who is expendable, argue over it, argue with the commanding officer that he shouldn't be the one to close it, then finally allow a dying senator who is threatening you with a gun to nobly and heroically sacrifice himself for all, even though he was something of a jerk before, while his daughter screams and cries from the other side of the door.

If you answered anything other than (d), then you are smarter than every single character on Stargate Universe! Congratulations. Use your newfound knowledge to, I don't know, figure out if rocks are edible. Or discover the secrets of fire.

And I Seem to Call Myself a Writer.

An actual line I seemed to discover while editing that book-thingy I'm working on: "And by the way everyone else seemed to ignore her, it seemed they already knew who she was, so it seemed pointless to introduce herself."

And some of you people actually seem to like my writing?!

It seems that "seem", along with "technically", "pretty", "actually", "little", "began", and "really" are some of my favorite words. 'Cause those are the ones that I'm finding overused a lot (seemingly).

(The sentence now seems to read: "And by the way everyone else ignored her, it seemed they already knew, or didn't care, who she was.")

Sentence of the day: "The author seemingly was actually pretty wordy because, technically, he began to really overuse some words a little bit too much."

Argh!

Yaaaargh!

Ok, I wanted to have Space Pirates Episode II done by today.

That didn't happen. Not nearly. So I will tide you over with some excerpts.

Firstly, the whole of chapter 1. (Very long; 16,500 words). I have not yet gone through it with the fine-toothed comb of editing, so this does not represent my best writing style.

Secondly, the scene below. I am introducing a new character, who I think will recur through the rest of the series. (Bonus points: Count how many inside jokes and references you can find.)

* * *

Jack scanned through the list of names on the directory, but did not see a mention of Chris White anywhere. He then browsed them by apartment number, looking for the number on the card Damian had handed him. He found the listing for apartment 472 next to the name J. Galt, and pressed the intercom button.

A voice sounded, speaking in a very fake French accent. “Allo?”

This caught Jack by surprise and he stuttered over his response. “Um, hi.... uh—who is this?” he finally blurted out.

“I don't know. I can't see you,” the voice said. Jack wasn't sure what to make of that and stumbled some more.

“Um, yeah. I'm trying to reach Chris White. Is this he?”

“Who wants to know?” By this time Jack was beginning to clue in.

“Me name is Jack Flint. Me first mate, Damian Braun, sent me.”

“What's the password?”

“Excuse me?” Jack asked, once more completely lost by the conversation.

“What's the password I told Damian? The password to get in?”

Jack's brain searched frantically, trying to remember some lost part of the conversation, fearing that he may have forgotten some crucial detail. He stammered once again. “Um, I don't, uh, recall a password being given in the conversation.”

“That is correct,” the voice solemnly replied. “I also would have accepted 'swordfish' or 'xyzzy'. Bottom floor, second door on the left,” the voice said before being cut off by a buzzer, indicating the front door had unlocked.

Jack proceeded into the complex. It was the type of thing that would have been built with government funding for low income people, except that Arcas didn't have that type of program. So instead, it was probably built by someone who, unable to squeeze any additional money from the middle income class, decided to see what he could get from those with less. Even still, some aspects of the design didn't make sense. He could understand some of the cost-cutting measures, like not fixing the flickering lights, or cleaning the vandalized walls. But he really had to wonder if paint in a color that could only be described as “baby shit green” was that much cheaper than, say, white.

He made his way down the stairs to what was the fourth floor down from the entrance. Judging by the directory, this building also had two floors going upwards from the entrance as well, which would mean there was at least one floor that protruded through the surface into the air-less sky of Callisto. Due to safety considerations, such floors were usually more expensive, and must have catered to the upper-lower-class.

He stopped outside the second door on the left and raised his hand to knock, but paused upon noticing the sign that said “Utility Closet”. He thought it through a moment but before he could come to a decision, there was a click sound and the door slowly opened inwards with a creak. There was no one immediately on the other side.

He stepped into the rather dark, cave-like interior. The smell was the first thing that greeted him. It gave the general impression of a closed, confined space with poor ventilation, inhabited by a creature that did not bathe frequently, and only rarely deposited the remaining morsels of food from its meals in a waste receptacle, which was rarely emptied; and only when the lingering smell became so overpowering that breathing became difficult was an air freshener liberally applied.

Only after his eyes became adjusted to the dim light was he able to take in his surroundings. “Utility Closet” was not a bad description for the place. It was a single room apartment, deeper than it was wide, stretching away from the door. To the left of the door was a small kitchenette, with a sink piled with dishes that clearly—judging from the new civilization of mold emerging on them—hadn't been washed in some time. The recycling receptacle was so over-piled with disposable dishes that it was hard to discern exactly which ones qualified as “in” the container. To the right of the door was—well Jack had to assume it was there somewhere, as all that dirty laundry surely couldn't just be floating—presumably a dining table of some sort, although Jack couldn't imagine it having been used for that purpose in a past time measurable on a calendar. At the very back of the right wall was a door that Jack assumed led to a head. Judging by the state of the rest of the apartment, he was very glad he currently had no urges of that nature.

But all that was window dressing. Inconsequential trivialities to the main attraction, the real attention-grabber in the room. For filling at least half the room was perhaps the largest and most robust computer set up that Jack had ever seen. Zack would surely have wept had he seen this, Jack thought, upon the realization that all his engineering and technical pursuits were mere dust when compared with this monument to sheer geek ingenuity. It easily cost more than the apartment itself, perhaps more than the whole complex.

Practically the entire back wall and half the left wall were covered in large, vibrant displays; some continuations of one large image; others displaying their own image, ranging from local video programming, games, news, and some other highly technical data that Jack couldn't make heads or tails of. There was a large desk—the word being used in the loosest possible sense, only conveying the description of a surface on which one does work, but continent may have been more appropriate to describe its size—on which, and under which, were at least a dozen computers, three portable computers and five servers, not to mention the associated keyboards, pointing devices, and at least a few game controllers.

Jack couldn't really appreciate it, not having been born with the Gene—that gene which compels young boys or girls, when presented with a device that performs some function, to take it apart to verify its operation—but the only suitable term to describe the computer set up, assuredly used by any professional in the field, would be “awesome”.

And in the middle of it all, seated in what had to be the most well-sat-in chair in the history of chairs, was a disheveled, moderately overweight, pale-skinned man, his clothing wrinkled, his long unkempt hair pulled into a pony tail, and his chin unshaven.

“Larger than I expected a utility closet to be,” Jack finally said, finding himself talking in an elevated tone, to be heard over the dull roar of what sounded like a jet engine.

“What? Oh, the sign. Yeah, I just put that up to fool the ninja assassins so they couldn't find me.”

“Does it work?” Jack asked as he crossed towards the back of the apartment, stepping around a large couch which must have served double duty as the bed, before stopping a few feet from Chris. He really didn't want to get much closer.

“I'm still here, aren't I? Hold on,” Chris said, before fiddling with one of his controllers. On one of the displays, a control panel opened up and he made some adjustments to it. The background roar died down to a volume almost suitable for indoors.

“Sorry about that. I just wanted to turn down the compressor for the liquid nitrogen cooling system,” he said, waving a hand towards a piece of industrial equipment tucked away in the back corner of the room.

“What, are you running a furnace to power all this?” Jack's limited experience with liquid cooling systems was in starship engineering, where a chemical that was usually a gas at standard temperature and pressure was liquefied to cool the several tens-of-thousands of degrees reaction inside the furnace.

“No, I steel the extra power from my neighbors,” Chris said, waving a hand over his shoulder, then adding, “it's savvy, though. They don't know about it. The coolant is for the computers.”

“What do you use all this for?” Jack said, looking around the displays again.

“Anything and everything. Over here, I've got a buffered feed of all the Earth's interplanetarily broadcast video and audio programming—on a thirty minute delay, of course—so you can catch all the reruns of all your favorite shows,” he said, indicating one display in which the image was split into easily hundreds of smaller images. “From that box, the feed goes over to my content hosting server, which holds a one-year archive of everything for anyone on Callisto who's watching. Except, of course, for Space Voyages. I keep archives of all the episodes of that show.”

He pointed at another display. “This box is currently running my clan's multiplayer server for the Littoral Operations expansion to Starship Combat. I'm in a pretty well-known clan. Ever heard of Plutonium Knights?” Jack, who hadn't followed much of what he had said since the words “anything and everything”, shook his head. “No? Well, they're pretty famous. Number one ranked on Callisto and, I think, number twelve in the system.

“On this server, I'm trying to assemble the system's largest collection of porn,” Chris continued. Jack rolled his eyes in disgust.

“And this server—this is the one that's soaking up most of the cooling; I had to slow it by a factor of ten while the cooling system is running on low—this is the one I'm using to try and find the next Mersenne prime. Well the main one. The others are all set up in an ad hoc Beowulf cluster—which is simple since they're all running my own home-brewed Torvix distro of course—and they'll share some of the processing load during low usage.” Jack just shook his head. It was all geek to him. “But ninety percent of the processing is done on her.” Chris looked longingly at the display of numbers rapidly scrolling up the screen. “She'll find it one of these days.” Somehow, Jack wasn't surprised that Chris had anthropomorphized his computers as female.

“Nice set up, but do you really need all this?”

Chris gave Jack a look as if he was equal parts surprised and offended. “Did... did Alexander the Great need to conquer the world?” he started. “Did Amundsen need to go to the South Pole? Did Cromwell need to invent the fusion propulsion engine?” He continued to hold his stare at Jack for several awkward seconds. “Well, did they?”

Jack, assuming it was a rhetorical question, fumbled for the answer. “No?” he finally blurted out.

“Of course they did! Who would remember them if they didn't?”

He had a point, thought Jack.