Monthly Archives: April 2010

Biblical Obama Bashing

Biblical anti-Obama slogan: Use of Psalm 109:8 funny or sinister?

There’s a new slogan making its way onto car bumpers and across the Internet. It reads simply: “Pray for Obama: Psalm 109:8”

A nice sentiment?

Maybe not.

The psalm reads, “Let his days be few; and let another take his office.”

Presidential criticism through witty slogans is nothing new. Bumper stickers, t-shirts, and hats with “1/20/09” commemorated President Bush’s last day in office.

But the verse immediately following the psalm referenced is a bit more ominous: “Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.”

OSSOUS computer code

This was expected:

THE US GOVERNMENT has released open source code that it has been working on.

In an unusual move for government transparency, the White House is letting developers get their mitts on its open source code. The US executive branch has been working on its custom code as part of its ongoing efforts to “develop an open platform for Whitehouse.gov.”

“This code is available for anyone to review, use, or modify. We’re excited to see how developers across the world put our work to good use in their own applications,” it announced.

More

H/T/ Virgil Samms

(That was Open Source Software of the United States)

The Plank’s Constant

… continued …

In the US, political parties have what is called a “platform” which is a list of assertions … “we want this” and “we want that” sort of assertions. The “platform” is made up, quaintly, of “planks” with each plank being about one issue. Like for my local Democratic Farm Labor party unit, one of our Planks is to get the damn road fixed over at Devil’s Triangle, a particularly bad intersection down on Route 169. That’s a local plank, but if we go to a party event, and a gubernatorial candidate is answering questions, she or he is expected to know what the heck is being talked about if someone brings up “Devil’s Triangle.”

Continue reading The Plank’s Constant

Arlo Guthrie Falls Through the Ice

… continued …

So, it seems that Arlo Guthrie was hauling firewood or something with his tractor out on his place in western Mass, and he took the usual shortcut across the pond. The pond was too deep for the tractor to drive in unless, of course, it was frozen, as it always was in mid January. And, as Arlo drove his tractor across the pond, in mid January, the ice gave way bit by bit, in stages, and his tractor went in. Somewhat comically, or so he tells it.
Continue reading Arlo Guthrie Falls Through the Ice

Pete Seeger joins the Nature Conservation Club (NCC)

… continued

The flames were so hot that we could feel it on our faces over 300 feet away as we stood near the corner of Delaware and Whitehall avenues. At first we gawked at the burning factory from about 100 feet away, but a large explosion caused us all to turn and run. But not too far. While watching from some 200 feet away, the police came by and pushed us back to the 300 foot mark just before several explosions in a row came along. The stuff that came down on us out of the sky was cooled enough to not burn, and some of the bits were recognizable as small fragments of colored billiard balls.

Continue reading Pete Seeger joins the Nature Conservation Club (NCC)

Earth Day has special significance this year

The first Earth Day was a red letter day in the long, hard struggle to make being good to the environment … to the Earth … normal instead of a fringe idea held only by quirky college professors and stoned-out hippies. This year, the first significant health care insurance reform bill was passed and it will be a red letter event in a long, hard struggle to make universal quality heath coverage and care normal instead a fringe idea held only by Kenyan born socialist Negros from Chicago. Or whatever the teabaggers are calling it now. So today, at the beginning of a true change in how we do things, we can look back and reflect on another, similar (yet different) change in the way we do things.
Continue reading Earth Day has special significance this year

Reminder: Skepchicon in Minneapolis in July

The venue, Minneapolis, is well chosen as it is very hard to get an earthquake going on this nice stable bit of crust.

I know it is a bit early, but I’ll remind you of this now and then … as you are making your plans for the summer, consider attending the Skepchicon track at the Convergence thingie in Minneapolis this July.

There will be many other things going on a Convergence. It’s one of those fantasy/sci fi conventions where you wear the Star Wars suit. Well, you don’t have to wear the suit if you don’t want to. And the Skepchicks have a series of things going on:
Continue reading Reminder: Skepchicon in Minneapolis in July

Did you experience McAfee Rebot Syndrome?

NEW YORK (AP) – Computers in companies, hospitals and schools around the world got stuck repeatedly rebooting themselves Wednesday after an antivirus program identified a normal Windows file as a virus.

McAfee Inc. confirmed that a software update it posted at 9 a.m. Eastern time caused its antivirus program for corporate customers to misidentify a harmless file. It has posted a replacement update for download.

McAfee could not say how many computers were affected, but judging by online postings, the number was at least in the thousands and possibly in the hundreds of thousands.

Details are somewhere on the internet but I lost the link. Sorry.

I wasn’t. Because I …. well, never mind.

H/T: Somebody, deleted email by accident. Sorry.

New Anti-Evolution Pro-Fundy Christian Book, Reviewed

C.E. Cupp is Ann Coulter before the bottle-blond crap is poured on her head, but maybe slightly less vile.1 She just came out with a new book: Losing Our Religion: The Liberal Media’s Attack on Christianity, which explains everything you had wrong if you were a progressive liberal in the education business. The book even comes with forward by Mike Huckabee.

Continue reading New Anti-Evolution Pro-Fundy Christian Book, Reviewed