You Cannot Outsmart Crazy

America's most important political commentator, Jon Stewart, says everything I wanted to say and several wise things I hadn't thought of regarding the tragedy in Arizona.

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A Little Family Update From Afghanistan

I just wanted to share this picture of my cousin, Sgt. Hughes, at Forward Operating Base Gardez. Her husband is also serving in Afghanistan, as is her brother. Recent news from that front in the Global War on Terror Overseas Contingency Operation leads me to be both cautiously optimistic and increasingly concerned.

I am proud to be associated with such people.

I Don't Care if it Rains or Freezes, Long as I Got My Plastic Jesus

Until last night a 62 foot statue of Jesus rose from a large baptismal pool at the Solid Rock Church along I-75 in Ohio. While the church may be built on a solid rock, the statue was made of styrofoam on a metal frame, and covered with fiberglass. It cost about a quarter of a million dollars.

Touchdown!

Last night it was struck by lightning and consumed by flame.

While some may be tempted to suggest that the Lord was expressing his opinion of the church's theology, I will not. Certainly I disagree with some of their tenets. I don't accept that the Bible is the expression of the mind of God. No book, no matter how revered, can capture the mind of God. Doctrinal and style differences aside, I'm sure that the Lord has a lot more to be angry about than one megachurch in Middle America.

I do think God has a sense of humor. Perhaps he noticed that the number one seller at the church's online store is a CD called Worship on Fire by the Fire Choir.

God may indeed be speaking here, and perhaps I can attempt to interpret what the He is saying.

While it is true that the Bible contains much wisdom and many of God's laws, it is not the alpha and omega in itself. There is other wisdom and there are other laws. For example, if you build a tall metal structure on a flat plain or in a pond, and you locate it in a place that has occasional electric storms, you can be pretty sure that it will eventually be hit by lighting. If that metal structure is covered with flammable material, the result will be flames. In other words:

And the Lord created the laws of physics and probability, and you ignore them at your own peril. And the Lord looked down upon the graven image and spake.

“Shazam!” sayeth the Lord.

Boom

This essay on oil booming has been around for a couple of weeks now, but I don't think it is getting the attention it deserves. Oil booms are those bright orange barriers that BP is putting down near the shore to protect the coast from their oil spill. They don't seem to be doing much good, and this article, written by a guy called “Fishgrease,” explains why, clearly and concisely . Oil booms, it seems, need to be set up in a very particular way. Do it right and they work. Just lay them down parallel to the coast, as BP has been doing, and they are useless. But they are bright orange, clearly visible to the media and the press, and do an excellent job of making it look like something is being done.



Fishgrease makes some great points here. First, BP knows they are doing it wrong. They know and the Coast Guard knows, and no one is saying anything about it. That hurts, because I'm a big fan of the Coast Guard, but the point seems to be irrefutable. Second, this stinks all the way to the top. President Obama, a smart guy, should know by now that the booming that is being done is only for show, a salve on salve on BP's reputation, but he says nothing about it. Third, there is simply not enough booming material to protect the entire endangered region. That may be the most damning point. If you are doing something that is inherently dangerous, and if the worst case scenario is even remotely possible, you have an obligation to be prepared for it. If it wasn't already obvious, BP did not meet this obligation.



Members of the press and our political leaders should read this. Some of them might skip over it, because it is on a liberal website, is written by a guy with a funny name, and is punctuated with a lot of vulgar language. That's a pity, because people really ought to know.

Perfectly Ordinary

Please pay no attention to the radioactive fish near the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant.  Just an ordinary fish, nothing to see here, move along.