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Archive for December, 2006

On death

Henry Imler December 18th, 2006

Death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate.

I once made a hat out of clay,

Henry Imler December 18th, 2006

I kept it all to myself,
but then one day,
as I was reaching for the top shelf,
the baker’s son stole it away.

Terrible huh? How did I come up with it? Sometimes I wonder the same
about some of the songs I sing at Church. There is an air of
over-familiarity about them. It seems I might have come across the
answer:

Evangelical Mad Libs

How many songs can you write?

O (Title) of my (Noun)
(Title), when I (Verb) your (Noun)
Something in my (Body Part) just (Verb)
And I can’t (Verb) anymore
When I’m in the (Noun)
I know your (Body Part/Noun) (Verb) me
And I know I’m gonna (Blank) (Title) (Period of Time)

(Title), You’re so (Adjective)
(Title), You’re so (Adjective)
(Title), You’re more (Adjective) than anything I’ve ever (Verb) before
And I’m gonna (Verb) You (Period of Time)
I’m gonna (Verb) You (Period of Time)
Because you’re (Adjective), you’re so (Adjective)
I wish I had the words to say

That I’m (Reaction) by Your (Divine Attribute)
I’m (Reaction) by Your (Divine Attribute)
I can’t (Verb) that You would (Verb) for (Title)
And even if the (Noun) can’t (Verb)
And I can’t (Verb) Your (Body Part)
I’ll still (Verb) You with all my (Body Part/Noun) for (Period of Time)
(Verb) with all my (Body Part/Noun) for (Period of Time)….

ht: Relevintage

I promise I won’t be cynical tomorrow.

Only 5.9 years too late.

Henry Imler December 18th, 2006

Bush seeks to halt Congress pet projects - Yahoo! News

WASHINGTON -
President Bush said Saturday that his administration will outline a
series of changes that would clamp down on the common Capitol Hill
practice of slipping pet projects into spending bills.

These projects, called earmarks, are spending provisions that often
are put into bills at the last minute, so they never get debated or
discussed, Bush said in his weekly radio address.

“It is not surprising that this often leads to unnecessary federal
spending, such as a swimming pool or a teapot museum tucked into a big
spending bill,” he said.

Favorite four words: “These projects, called earmarks…” This phrase, called redundant…

But seriously Mr. President, while nice now, would have been great
when you began office. Too bad you wanted to play nice with your own
party. And the dems already beat you to it:

Democrats, who will take control of Congress on Jan. 4,
already announced their plan to wipe out billions of dollars in
lawmakers’ home-state projects in unfinished spending bills. On Monday,
the incoming Democratic chairmen of the House and Senate Appropriations
committees announced that they would eliminate earmarks from the nine
unfinished spending bills for the budget year that began Oct. 1.

Update: I took a basic math course, double checked my subtraction and modified the title.

AI

Henry Imler December 17th, 2006

ESPN.com: Page 2 : Don’t question The Answer

The Sports Guy takes on the Allen Iverson situation; I concur with
him. Whoever nabs AI is getting a heck of a steal. In my hope of hopes,
I want him to get traded to Miami and be the back-up point guard. I
would love to see Wade and Shaq backed up by AI and Zo. I don’t know if
there would be enough ball to go around if all three started. Then
again, Miami would have to have a healthy starting point guard. (They
are just too old in the PG and SF positions.) Iverson would be the
ultimate spark plug off the bench. It won’t happen, but it would have
been pretty cool.

In classic Sports Guy fashion, he is able to pull in a absolutely hilarious and accurate description of an off topic athlete:

Barkley: A 6-foot-4 power forward with a weight problem
who somehow doubled as a dominant rebounder and low-post player, as
well as the greatest runaway train on fast breaks there ever was.
Nobody took a charge from Barkley from 1985 through 1996. It never
happened. Nobody ever caused more players to cower for their lives than
Barkley on a fast break.

HT: 21stCenturyPalidin

Quote of the Day

Henry Imler December 16th, 2006

“It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.”

Links for Today

Henry Imler December 15th, 2006

As I stand next to the precipice that is the turning in of my
last paper, I am wasting time going through my feeds. Here are some
articles that I came across this morning.1

1) The inclusion of any particular article does not necessarily mean that I whole-heartedly adhere to everything in the article.

Almost there…

Henry Imler December 13th, 2006

I am half a week away from finishing up my first semester of grad school. Here are my tasks from the last two weeks of school:

  1. 8 Page paper on Augustine’s letter to Simplician

  2. Presentation on final paper on Augustine

  3. 22 Page paper on the use of miracle stories in Luke and Nag Hammadi

  4. 18 Page paper on the development of predestination in Augustine

  5. 12 Page paper on criticisms of Said’s Orientalism (just have to go over my draft and make final adjustments.)

  6. Grade 44 Extra Credit Assignments

  7. Grade 44 3-5 page papers

  8. Talley final grades

Oh, the freedoms you’ll enjoy!

Henry Imler December 13th, 2006

Filibuster Cartoons

Oh Canada, the land of the tolerant.

True, True, True.

Henry Imler December 11th, 2006

In honor of final’s week:

Piled Higher and Deeper: Productivity Graph

Cheap iPod Charger

Henry Imler December 9th, 2006

I love my iPod, but the accessories are a pain (i.e. expensive). Today at slickdeals, I found the following deal.

Go to HandHeldItems.com and look up their iPod charger for the standard fare of 30.01. Use Google Checkout to pay for it ($10 off of $30 = $20.01).

Now that you have it in your google cart, enter the following code:
“superprice.” That code is good for $20 off of a HandheldItem product.
Shipping is about $2.84.

Final tally: $30.01 - $10 - $20 + $2.84 = $2.85. No rebates or anything to mess with.

Not too shabby.

This has been a pretty good shopping week for me. So far I have saved $40 on a PSU that cost me 0; saved $40 on a computer case that cost me $0; saved $50 on a mouse
that cost me $0.91 and saved $27.16 twice on iPod travel chargers. All
of these things (besides the mouse) are things that I needed to buy.

Total Before Savings: $190.02

Total Paid (Taxes, Shipping ect…): $6.61

Total Saved: $184.32

Collection of Links for Today.

Henry Imler December 8th, 2006

Here are some things I found interesting this week. There are some
that I have read and some things that I want to read, but have not had
the time. I hope to revisit them after I turn in my papers and grades
this next week.

Tte--Tte-Tte Science & Religion: The Most Definitive Article You Will Probably Never Read

Communication professor examines media bias in president’s speeches

This goes beyond reporting alternate points of view. “In
short,” Kupyers explained, “if someone were relying only on the
mainstream media for information, they would have no idea what the
president actually said. It was as if the press were reporting on a
different speech.”


Ben Witherington: Misanalyzing Text Criticism–Bart Ehrman’s ‘Misquoting Jesus’

In
sum, Ehrman’s latest book does not disappoint on the provocative scale.
But it comes up short on genuine substance about his primary
contention. Scholars bear a sacred duty not to alarm lay readers on
issues that they have little understanding of. Unfortunately, the
average layperson will leave this book with far greater doubts about
the wording and teachings of the NT than any textual critic would ever
entertain. A good teacher doesn’t hold back on telling his students
what’s what, but he also knows how to package the material so they
don’t let emotion get in the way of reason. A good teacher does not
create Chicken Littles.

The Puritan’s Sword: A
Commentary on Philosophy and Theology: A Brief Defense Of the Doctrine
of Original Sin From Its Modern Opposition (Part I)

The Economist :: The [Iraq Study Group's] report in brief, Details, details

HE
Iraq Study Group (ISG) admits that “there is no magic formula to solve
the problems of Iraq.” But it has 79 recommendations it hopes will
help. They divide into three strands, which the authors say must all be
pursued at once…

…Some recommendations under this head are banal: one is that
George Bush keep in touch with Iraq’s prime minister. Others are
striking: members of the Baath party, who all lost their jobs after the
war, could now be allowed back into government. The 2003
de-Baathification was America’s most terrible blunder in Iraq. And it
would probably do no harm for Mr Bush to restate, as the report
suggests, that “the United States does not seek to control Iraq’s oil.”

The Economist :: Don’t do it

The Baker-Hamilton analysis of what has gone wrong feels
right… But the group strays on to much more treacherous ground when
it proposes a way to correct this… He should not ignore it. The
report contains many useful recommendations… What will not help is
scuttling from Iraq before exhausting every possible effort to put the
country back together.

What is going on…..

Henry Imler December 8th, 2006

The following is a bit of retrospective that I wrote almost four
years ago. I want want to make sure I moved this over here from the Web
Archive. This post is from January 2003. I have taken out personal
references, but tried not to import the present me into the me of 4
years ago.

=> Read more!

Augustine’s Letter of Semi-Predestinationism

Henry Imler December 8th, 2006

This paper will seek to plot out the relationship between the will, the salvific process and predestination in Augustine’s letter to Simplician, “De Diversis Quaestionibus Ad Simplicianum :”(I am using the translation by John H. S. Burleigh, Regius that was published in Augustine: Earlier Writings, Volume VI of the Library of Christian Classics, Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1953. I have taken this translation from “Aggiornamento” on 10/5/2006. From here on out in the paper I will refer to this document as “Letter to Simplician.” )”: . ” The letter was a response to Simplician’s questions on the content of Romans 9.10-29. In Augustine’s exegesis, he wrestled with the question of why Esau was rejected and Jacob was accepted by God. There was a sense that Augustine is troubled by his conclusions; this was evident by his careful back and forth of objections and explanations. While a bit troublesome, it did lead to his final formulation of several important doctrines, or at least laid their foundations. His conclusion changed the way he and as a corollary, the Catholic Church and many of the Reformers, viewed salvation and free will. While his conclusions may have seemed in contrast to some of his earlier works:”(Augustine’s earlier work, On the Free Choice of the Will, suggests a libertarian view of free will that says that in order for there to be true love of God, there must be a choice to love or reject God. When this precept is taken to its conclusion, it excludes a pre-determining of human salvation.)”: , Augustine was committed to discovering the truth, even if it means admitting he was wrong:”(This is evidenced by the very existence of his work, Reconsiderations, where he goes through all of his previous works and makes corrections.)”:. This paper will show how Augustine came to modify his stance on libertarian free will and come to the conclusion that there was a consequence to Adam’s sin, namely that the will was unable to choose God. God selected some to have their wills amended so that they are free to choose him or not; of those enabled few, God had the foreknowledge of who will choose Him and who will not.
Continue Reading »

Do NOT floss your Neck with the Wii

Henry Imler December 8th, 2006

Honestly folks.

Also, don’t try to get lucky with your wii:

Also, remember your wii is a weed fiend because both words begin with the wiggly letter:

You see, if the Wii gets high, it will get sick and get the chills. I love the look on this dumb kid’s face. Never take the bag off of your head.

Crazy Theory of the Day

Henry Imler December 7th, 2006

I heard on a local radio station that the Russian Ex-Spy could have been working on a suitcase nuke for terrorists.

It sounds damn crazy, but, according to the host, the Russians don’t
use that kind of radioactive poison when they want to kill people, but
it is used to set off a suitcase nuke. Also, the dead spy was a
sympathizer and collaborated with Chechnya’s separatists.

I have not looked into the story, but was just wondering if any of you have heard of this possible explanation.

I am no off to my last class of the semester!

43 Things

Henry Imler December 6th, 2006


Google Reader Update

Henry Imler December 6th, 2006

For those of you that are still on the bloglines’ or livebookmark’s
train due to a lack of folder control on Google Reader, it is time to
hop off at the next exit and take a gander at the latest changes they
have made. It is so much easier to manage folders now. Every time you
add a feed you can select what folder you want it to be in. Also,
anytime you view a feed you can change what folder it should be in. As
a matter of fact, they have also made applying bulk changes of feeds
and folders a (
almost) snap.

Just a side note - why the frack does UPS try to deliver stuff at
12:50, 12:19, and 12:39pm and wonder why no one is there to sign for
the package? Just leave it there or leave a sticker on the door asking
what to do with it. Now I have to said another week to get the post
card, mail it back it in, and hopefully get my 2 1GB SD cards that I
got really cheap on Black Friday. Gorram UPS.

Add the Fair Tax and you have four good ideas

Henry Imler December 4th, 2006

neoconned: 3 simple starts

1. Bush is about to give his newest supplemental for the
Iraq and Afghanistan wars. I want the Democrats to approve what ever he
asks for plus an additional 500 million. There will be 1 paragraph
added to it that says:

Starting immediately War and Natural Disaster profiteering is
illegal. The extra money will go into funding investigations of illegal
profiteering. If 1 person gets injured or killed in any conflict or if
a natural disaster is declared their will be a 115% fine on every
dollar of profit. Any company that accepts any American money will have
to follow this rule. The only exception would be a company from a
country that employees 95% or more nationals are exempt in conflicts.

2. Immediately cut off all tax breaks and giveaways to
the oil industry. Take that money and invest it in grants to
individuals, schools and business to create new technology that will
get us off of oil. That helps our national security, creates good jobs
and helps the world environment.

3. Our voting machines are all created by the ATM
makers. ATM machines all have paper receipts. Democrats should require
and fund paper receipts on all voting machines. The computers prints
out a receipt that the voter can look at and then drop into a box. The
vote count that night comes from the machines but the official count
isn’t done until the paper receipts have been hand counted. They also
needs to do public funding of our elections. If companies can no longer
pay to get people elected there would be no reason for our elected
officials to let them write our laws. It would also do a lot to end the
corruption problems this country has.

I love all of the ideas (and the fairtax or something similar) but
in regards to #3, I think that it is paramount that no person can give
a reciept to someone that has intimidated the voter. With that said, it
is also paramount that there is a paper trail to verify the votes.

I myself really like the paper ballots that are scanned as a way to count them.

Ridiculous.

Henry Imler December 4th, 2006

Think Progress Right-Wing Radio Host Fabricates Controversy To Attack First Muslim Congressman

Right-wing
radio host Dennis Prager wrote a column earlier this week claiming that
Rep.-elect Keith Ellison (D-MN), the first Muslim elected to Congress,
had “announced that he will not take his oath of office on the Bible,
but on the bible of Islam, the Koran.” Prager claimed this “act
undermines American civilization,”and compared it to being sworn in
with a copy of Hitler’s “Mein Kampf.”

More awesome deals

Henry Imler December 2nd, 2006

At SlickDeals.net, I found a couple of Ultra products that were free after rebate, an ATX case and a 500W power supply.

I have a bit of an affinity for Ultra products. The case and power
supply I have right now for my gaming desktop are Ultra products. They
have been rock-solid since the day I got them. And I have had my share
of bad power supplies. I have had two of them blow-up in my face this
past month. Even typing about it sends shiver through my skin. Also,
when I built Grant’s computer a few years ago, the PSU that came with
the bare-bones kit kicked it not three weeks after XP was installed for
the first time.

If they are rock-solid, then why are you getting new ones Henry?

Well, my left-brain, I might be building a system for my parents and
free is awfully cheap for a decent case and an good power supply.

If you don’t have a good (read: if you have a stock or cheap-o)
power supply in your computer, you should really consider getting the
PSU.

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