Hither and thither 5/14/10

Busy week. I am bound and determined to get that Proverbs manuscript gone over finally today. God willing. So, I'm getting HT right out. There may be updates, but if you check back at noon PT, you should see them all.

Still, I've a few things for you to chew over.

• Just... can't... take... eyes... off... of... that..... Must try!
• You know, seriously? I have the same reaction when I see someone chewing gum while I'm preaching.
• And while I'm on that, at some point this year, I had a first: a preacher, chewing (presumably) gum as he preached.
• I have no opinion about this list of the six worst Christian bands, ever. [WARNING: I don't know whether that site had inappropriate pix of scantily-clad women in the sidebar originally and I just missed it, or whether they were added after I grabbed the link. Either way, they're there now. Sorry. This is a constant problem, and I can't use a lot of neat things I find for that very reason. It's as if 3/4 of The Intrawebs is run by a poorer class of 13-year-old boys.] Mostly I recognize "The Killer Bees" (aka Stryper). I was "there" at the start of Christian rock, going to Calvary Chapel's Saturday night concerts in Costa Mesa. That was a lot of fun. We all wanted these bands to make albums. To most of them who did, something happened between the live concert and the studio. Something bad. My feeling was that the "something bad" was old white guys who didn't understand rock and said "You know what this needs? Strings! Strings and... and less guitar! And less drums!" Before you know it, all the crackle and pop and sizzle of the live performance was produced out. Result: elevator music. (Hi Justin!)
• One of the best bands I remember seeing was one called "Aslan." Their configuration and music were reminiscent of Kansas, down to the rockin' violin. Recorded one song on one multi-musician album, as I recall, which was nothing like what we got in concert. Pity.
• Ooh — reader Yurie Hwang found a three-level Imperial walker bunk-bed!

• Chan-watchers: make sense of this.
• Ask me for a list of ten best science fiction movies, ever, and the  list will probably change with each telling. But one movie will always be on the list: Forbidden Planet. If you like scifi, and haven't seen it... well, first, dude, where have you been? See it. Duh. But second, as I've mentioned, the creator of Babylon 5, the best / one of the best scifi TV series, ever, has been tasked with scripting a prequel. That would be J. Michael Straczynski, an atheist who is very interested in religion unless you try to persuade him of anything. (I speak from experience.) I don't now how reliable he is, but this guy claims to have the script in his possession. It's quite spoilery, so I skimmed.
• And now... The Pietrix.

• My dear wife doesn't much like going to Golden Corral, because it's so danged noisy. I'm wondering whether this might be the answer. Then Da Boyz and I can get all our meat!
• Liquid mountaineering. (It's a joke.)
• From everything I see and hear and read, I really like this guy. Now, how can I get him come be the governor of my state? Schwarzeneggar talked like this is what he did... but he didn't do it, much.
• Oatmeal lists out seventeen things worth knowing about your cat. I already knew... er, a few. (Dear Wife will say she knew them all.)
• Ohhhh, dude. About this, I can only say: EPIC WIN.
• Good to know our congressmen are hard at work. Potty Parity Act. (Thanks to reader Aaron.) See also here.
• Trying to break the Goldfish habit? Here, thanks to reader Berry Davis, let me help:

• Got five bucks? Then you might be able to win a day with Bill Clinton. Gotta say, I'm tempted. But I'm pretty sure that, after an hour or two, he'd be begging me to take my $5 back.
• Reader Tim in Minnesota has solid rocket fuel for the paranoids in the audience.
• In a hard-hitting editorial, Jeffrey T. Kuhner explains why Obama Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan is a horrid choice for the court. He notes that she is "a radical leftist who would rubber-stamp Mr. Obama's transformative socialist agenda, and she "is not an independent, serious nominee, but an Obama ideological clone," and "incompetent apparatchik, whose only purpose is to blindly advance Mr. Obama's revolutionary progressivism." Then he says some really critical things. Would to God voters had sobered up and heeded the warnings in time.

• Jacob Sullum specifically (and euphemistically) notes that Kagan "looks wobbly on freedom of speech." He notes her assertion, in a case argued before the Supreme Court, that "Whether a given category of speech enjoys First Amendment protection depends upon a categorical balancing of the value of the speech against its societal costs." In other words, if the government decides that a given speech (editorial, blog post, sermon) has no "value," it may Constitutionally forbid it. Chief Justice John Roberts replied that this claim was "startling and dangerous," and added that "The First Amendment's guarantee of free speech does not extend only to categories of speech that survive an ad hoc balancing of relative social costs and benefits," and that "Our Constitution forecloses any attempt to revise that judgment simply on the basis that some speech is not worth it."

• Today's Title of the Week is: Have aliens hijacked Voyager 2 spacecraft[?]. Well... it was sent out before the Arizona law....
• Last week I linked to a creepy, Orwellian tax collection commercial. Since then, some creative Republicans (—oxymoron?) used it as a model for a pretty sharp ad. Check it out.
• I link to Challies just about as often as he links to me. But this is a terrific idea and a good read. Tim selects quotations from Joel Osteen and from fortune cookies, and asks readers to guess which is which. (I only got six right.)
• Reader Trogdor thinks the good Admiral should have known better.

• Only a few will care about this one (maybe Frank). Artist Frank Frazetta just died. Frazetta most famously did artwork for book covers, among other media, including the Conan books. He had a very distinctive style. Unfortunately, a lot of his art would have to be rated PG-13 or mildly R. Below are a couple of fair examples of what was distinctive in Frazetta's paintings: sharply-focused center, fading out to chaotic edges. Very vividly gave the "feel" of the fantasy-universe in which the stories were set. As a young teen, he inspired me to try oil painting.

 

• Introduction of "contraceptive methods" was not entirely good, leading to irresponsible promiscuity, and making faithlessness too easy an option. Marriage is the cornerstone of society. A supportive husband can make the difference between abortion and giving birth. But hey, it's not me saying that. It's Raquel Welch.
• This is a heartwarming video from over at our Rachael's place (as opposed to my Rachael, the DAOD).
• Once you get past the too-common offensive acronym in the title, this is a pretty funny series of pictures of guys ironing in various bizarre situations. Like these:

• IMPORTANT SAFETY TIP. Summer is coming, I imagine many of my readers own guns. Here's a little tip you should memorize, and make all your family memorize. If you ever hear, coming out of your mouth or anyone's mouth, the words: "Don't worry, this gun's not even loaded!" — consider that a Sign from God that you should stop everything, and seriously reconsider whatever you were about to do. Ask late gangster Phillip Collopy. Or, for that matter, one of the most talented guitarists ever, Terry Kath. Except you can't ask them.
• Reader Al Sends thinks he may have found the worst web design, ever. I think he may be right.
• Aaand...