I’m a generally live-and-let-pray kind of guy. I have no personal interest in worship, but if you do, great. As long as you don’t burn science textbooks, blow up people, or show up at my front door to save me, we’re cool.

Unless you say things like this:

The first seminary class graduated in 2002. "They walked down the aisle in their rented caps and gowns, and their families cried," Cain says. "One mother came to me and said, 'I can't understand my emotions. My son came to prison and found Jesus, and he's graduated from seminary. He had to do this terrible crime to get to here.' I told her maybe the victim didn't die in vain."

No, of course not. He didn’t die in vain, he died in fear and pain so some vicious thug could become a minister. I feel so much better now. I’m sure the victim’s family does, too.

A quick note to the folks who are pointing at the prisoner abuse scandal as proof that America is no better than Saddam Hussein: when his people did these things (and far, far worse), they were doing their master’s bidding; when some of our soldiers do it, they’re investigated, as high up the chain of command as the rot goes. Then they’re punished.

That is, Hussein ordered torture for punishment, while we order punishment for torture. Big difference.

Update: timeline of events surrounding the incidents.

This list of Superfund reports covering the somewhat unpleasant contents of the Powell Road Landfill in Huber Heights, Ohio will not be of interest to many people, but it does matter to me.

Y’see, the landfill is located at 4060 Powell Road, and I spent the first seven years of my life living at 3970, approximately 200 yards away. I wasn’t surprised to hear that it was a Superfund site; one of the former owners quietly admitted to having received “suggestions” from obvious Mob types on what sort of dumping to allow. Since he had grandchildren, he kept his mouth shut and sold the place as soon as possible.

Coincidentally, this happened at about the same time that he encouraged us to move.

…more rust.

Spent the weekend at the Motorcycle Safety Foundation’s Basic RiderCourse. After an oddly compelling dream and the subtle prodding of a certain Mr. Lion, I felt the need to at least investigate riding a motorcycle again.

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If the Fundies are going to insist that science is just another religion, I think it’s only fair that we have our own religious art.

Update: hubblesite.org finally has a page up with details and more images, so I updated the link.

I guess I’m just an Internet Lemming at heart:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

The Tōkyō Metropolitan Area 首都圏 in particular, although less than 2.0 percent in terms of area, has a concentration of 23.4 percent of the national population.

This is from Japan: Profile of a Nation (Kodansha International, 1999). Surprisingly readable, despite the high information density.

Food magazines are usually about food. Gun magazines are usually about guns. Computer magazines are usually about computers. Some of them creep over into “lifestyle” territory, but not as far as many car or motorcycle magazines. Mags like Cigar Aficionado are clearly about the lifestyle its readers would like to be living, making only a token effort to actually discuss cigars.

What brought this on? Yesterday, my mailbox included a stiff brown envelope containing the latest issue of Lexus, a free magazine sent to Lexus owners. The contents are equal parts lifestyle and advertorial: organic oysters in Scotland, what to do in the Maldives, concept Lexi, titanium bicycles, overpriced gadget “reviews”, wine-making classes, etc.

But the best part was a non-ad for one of the cooler features in new Lexi: the backup camera. Since they already had a color LCD display in most of the new models for the GPS navigation system, they went ahead and added a small digicam just above the rear license plate, to transmit video to the dash when the car’s in reverse. Very handy for getting in and out of parking spaces.

But how do they lead into the “story”?

Anyone who's ever backed up over a hand-made Italian racing bike left casually in a driveway knows that awful crunchy sound, and equally awful feeling.

Just in case the table of contents had left me with any doubts, this confirms that I am not in their target demographic. I’m not sure which aspect of their opinion of their readers is worse: that they’re prone to conspicuous consumption, or that they’re stupid enough to leave a “hand-made Italian racing bike” behind a parked car.

No, not that way. This way.

There are a lot of things I could say about parents who ship “troubled teens” off to special camps where trained professionals promise to supply some actual parenting, but that’s way out there in After-School Special Land, and I don’t want to go there.

No, I want to question the incredible idiocy of schlepping a bunch of suburban teens around for six weeks in bear country in Alaska (redundant, I know) without so much as a goddamn cap pistol. Nothing but pepper spray and a flare gun, with who knows how many kids under their “protection”. Blech.