Surreptitious Opinionation

After being busy tue & wed evenings, I have caught up on livejournal.

Well, except for the 40 posts that I’ve opened in tabs to review at some later point, for now it is sleep time. ciao.

I really ought to trim my subscriptions, but I don’t wanna. *pout*

Apparently, Bush has declared his support for teaching religious psuedoscience, in particular, intelligent design, in public schools. Additionally, we the American taxpayer are funding fundamentalist indoctrination electives in our public schools (though that is generally paid through local property tax, so not so much _our_ money, but still violating the first amendment like a cheap whore on roofies in a back alley in thailand).

I occasionally feel the urge to throw Bible bits back in the face of fundamentalists. Particularly Jesus’s words. Ask ’em how they think Jesus would have felt about taking away from the poor to give to the rich. Ask them what he said about proclaiming one’s faith at high volume, or on the street corners. Perform a bit of religious Judo. Because, fundamentally, I view religion as an arbitrary, ad hoc, internally inconsistent set of explanations for the world which put adherence to doctrine above perceived reality. Basically all religions fall into that categorization for me. Religion also reminds me of the practice of saying what you believe then claiming it’s your religion, regardless of how you came to believe whatever you came to believe, see also north African female genital mutilation.

I’ve been bitten in the ass by this attitude of mine from time to time. Backed myself into a corner, whatever. Using tools I don’t believe in to convince people who do believe in them that they’re wrong seems pretty dumb to me. And yet, how else to get through? I’ve played this game with a Wiccan or two in my time as well as with Fundies. (The Wiccan was trying to say that the 3-fold rule made it okay and safe for him to engage in acts of revenge, he dismissed me as ‘not even a broomrider’ when I started criticizing his actions based on my understanding of it, under which he was smoking crack. Small loss, in retrospect).

recently posted a copy of an essay on the subject of misapplying christianity in the realm of politics. Not that this is new, Crusades anyone?

So, what are your thoughts on atheists (or adamant agnostics) talking bible with theists? And, for that matter, how should any person deal with whackjobs of other religious persuasions in discussing matters of state? Particularly when the whackjobs can’t even keep their own religion straight?

So, half the time when people ask me what my major is, my answer is immediately followed by the question of “What is public policy?”.

So, in random stumblings around the net today, I found out that wikipedia has a much more articulate, if long winded, explanation than most of what I’ve come up with off the cuff.

I went to the apple store, got my express-service-with-blowjobs for $99, and a huge external hard drive for $160 or so. Plus a little ipod protector. Woo. Soon I will backup my hard drive’s beautiful uniqueness to the external hard drive, and then turn the laptop in to them for 1 day service to replace my fucked up hard drive and jammed disk drive. Yay?

Then over to ‘s place. We went skating on the lakefront all the way north just past hollywood and all the way south to downtown (well, as far as the trail goes as a trail, per se). Afterwards, showers, then dinner at Penny’s noodles (good + cheap = yay).

At lunch, I also introduced my fellow interns to King Missile’s Gay, Not Gay. They graciously deferred on pressing sexual harrassment charges and were distinctly amused.

Last night, late at night, my roomie buzzed off damn near all my hair. It looks soooo much better.

Standard day at work. Had our weekly intern lunch at the AT&T cafeteria next door. Spotted walking in. Subjected him to mild harrassment. Introduced him to my fellow interns on the way out. It occurred to me later that it’s quite possible Joel isn’t out at work. Hrm. Hope that wasn’t an awkward moment for you.

Then PowerGrid in the evening. I was a little too slow about building the cities, and a little too fast to upgrade the plants. Bit me in the ass in the end. But I played asshole kingmaker anyway. =)

So, there’s a $140 flight to nyc this weekend. I have a day and a half of non-transferrable time off. I’m feeling the urge to travel again. NYC or toronto would be good. In either case, lodging and connecting with people to hang with ahead of time would be the main issues.

But, and are coming in to town this weekend, if I’m not mistaken. And I am going to be gone for traveling for 2 weeks starting on the 23rd. The “work optimal” time to take off would be on either the 8th or the 12th. Because everyone else who is working on this project is on vacation at that time. Ditto for the 17th, but a random wednesday does not make for a good vacation. *shrug*

Apparently Elder Aaron Davis (as played by Steve Sandvoss) has become the voice of my inner queer. Or at least he was the persona lecturing me about how to lead the gay good life in my dream as I woke up. Not clear whether it’s fortunate or unfortunate that I don’t recall the dream and thus the lecture.

Well, my media & public affairs class was canceled. That left me with community economic development, science & state, resource & environmental economics, program evaluation and a dance class which I’m auditing.

Program evaluation is a little too perfect a fit to GAO for me not to at least check out the syllabus. Resource & Environmental economics and science & state are both required for the science & environment focus, plus they’re damn cool. Community economic development, I dunno about, but may be worth checking out. On the other hand, there are a couple of classes that seem very intriguing to me. Specifically intro ecology and intro soil science. I’m sure many of you (other than ) think soil science sounds bizarre. But having read as far as I have into Collapse, Jared Diamond’s successor piece to Guns, Germs, and Steel, I’m starting to see just how significant the soil factor is. And just how much of it I don’t get. It’s something for me to consider, anyway.