The Blog with No Name

“Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step towards political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers.” - George Orwell in his essay “Politics And The English Language”

I get home from work today, and there must be at least 25 news items related to The Passion. Heck, one of the blogs I read consisted almost entirely of Passion related items. Most if not all of the stuff out there is either re-hashing the used-up, hackneyed arguments against the film or is a boring, read-it-a-billion-times defense of the film. In protest, I’m not going to add to the junk already out there. I can’t say anything that hasn’t been said by a dozen other people already. Just go see the film and decide for yourself. I’d be interested in any comments you might have though. See, I actually care about my readers opinions. Not some journalist’s or East-coaster pundit’s opinion.

I do have one thing though for anybody who takes their Christian faith seriously. If you have already seen the movie, reflect on the following verses in light of the movie. If you have not seen the movie, remember these verses as you watch it.

Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. (John 15:20a NKJV)

Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” (Matthew 16:24 NKJV)

I did see The Passion last night. I need some more time to think through some things before I post any comments on it. I can say this: it is gory. Exposed bone, spurting blood, and flayed skin are shown up close and personal.

Alright, people, go buy lots of guns, even more ammo, get some camo, a mountain stronghold, and get ready for the end of the world as we know it! Luckily you have until 2020 to do all this. Get further briefing here and here. Get a move on, soldier!

UPDATE: Foxnews.com now has an article about the same Pentagon report. It includes a nice bulleted list of possible calamities, and the admission that the report did “dramatize the impact climate change could have on society if we are unprepared for it.”
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Currently listening to The Second Wrong Makes You Feel Right from the album “The Fiction We Live” by From Autumn To Ashes

Mere moments ago I found out one of my oldest friends just got engaged. I know of another friend who will be getting engaged shortly.

They’re dropping like flies, and I’m going to be the only one left standing pretty soon. I never ever thought I’d say this, but I feel left out.
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Currently listening to Creating Something out of Nothing, Only to Destory It from the album “Bless The Martyr & Kiss The Child” by Norma Jean

Everybody knows the drill. You get back from a vacation or something similiar, and all your friends and acquaintances ask how the trip went. Most likely they genuinely care and are curious, but it can get tedious after you’ve detailed your trip about a dozen times. However, because I am such a spectacular guy who goes an extra step for his faithful readers, I will submit myself to describing my trip yet one more time. Am I not selfless? Look I even got picures. Okay, enough of me, let’s talk about my trip.

Pepperdine (location and campus): The primary purpose of this trip was to scope out Pepperdine and see for myself whether or not this uncharacteristic and sudden desire to move to Southern California was groundless. It turns out it is not groundless. On my previous trips, when blasting through the greater Los Angeles area I only saw the cruddy parts. My own eyes have beheld that L.A. ain’t that bad. However, Malibu, where Pepperdine is located, isn’t in L.A, so let’s talk about Pepperdine. The campus (a gated campus) is nestled in some small hills that are in a state park. So, half of the campus is buttressed by undeveloped hills, and the other half is bordered by the Pacific Coast Highway and not much else besides the Pacific Ocean. The campus isn’t beachfront property, but it’s close enough. The campus is beautiful, there really is no two ways about that. It’s got a bunch of tennis courts that are actually maintained. I’d have more pictures of the campus, but the first time I was there it was dusk and the second time I forgot my camera. As it stands, I don’t have many good shots.

Pepperdine (Law School): Don’t have too much to say about this because I wasn’t able to get any type of tour or more information. The students there seemed nice enough, though I’ve been warned by several to watch out for the “rich snobs.” My only concern with going to Pepperdine (assuming I’m even accepted) is the cost. They tell you to plan for a cost of $47k a year just for tuition, room, and board. That alone will put my debt at around $150k when I leave. But what about other living expenses? I do need some type of cash for having a little bit of fun and such. However, debt is something everybody eventually deals with, and millions of people have done what I want to do. I have to comfort myself with this fact.

Drew introduced me to a fabulous new drink. It’s called rice water. It’s good, so I’m going to find a place to buy it and drink lots of it. Tom didn’t like it, but he’s strange.

All in all, the trip was good just to get away from Seattle and all that’s going on here. It was nice to see the parental figures and my bros too. I’ll be seeing my parents and little brother again in a week or so when we go to Whistler.

There is nothing like a break-up to make one a playwright who scripts happily-ending one-act plays soaked in sentiment, romance, and, most importantly, hope. Unfortunately, none of mine will ever be enacted but only painfully rehearsed over and over again.

Defend the White House! Are you a patriotic American?! Then hone your terrorist fighting skills and DEFEND THE WHITE HOUSE! I did it, achieving a score of 253,834. Beat THAT!

Here’s an interesting read about a Muslim cleric, Maulvi Mohammad Mouzzam Ahmed, who was brought over to visit the U.S. by a State Department program. A few things caught my attention (otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this post, right? Right.)

I did enjoy the American people, though. They were not as virulently anti-Muslim as their government.

What? “Not as” anti-Muslim? So, we’re anti-Muslim but not that bad. I wonder what this guy’s scale is for hatred and all that garbage? I’d say we were far and away from being anti-Muslim in our civilian and governmental spheres, let alone virulently anti-Muslim. It seems to me, we as a country go out of our way to make sure we aren’t anti-Muslim.

An Indian anthropologist made this claim:

On issues such as moral values, people aren’t very rational. It’s what they do, it’s what they’ve always done, and they don’t change.

Apparently he hasn’t met very many philosophers, but this isn’t important. I found it humorous though.

Mouzzam also said this:

The respect for teachers was missing. I told them the religious education they are giving is insufficient, the children are learning their religion but they aren’t learning what is right and what is wrong.

I couldn’t agree more. But to add a little bit of nuance, I would say that our religious schools should be teaching right from wrong if they’re doing their jobs. But if our secular school system isn’t going to teach our children right from wrong, then the parents better be doing it. They should be doing it anyway regardless of the school and how successful it is.

Final quote:

“You have to go to the source, to the roots of terrorism,” says Mouzzam. “You say you are against people picking up arms, and yet you allow Ariel Sharon to pick up arms and kill the Palestinian people. When you are attacked during 9/11 you retaliated against the terrorists.” But when India’s parliament was attacked by terrorists on Dec. 13, 2001, “we were told not to react. It is not a level playing field.”

I don’t think we’re against people picking up arms. We’re just against evil men picking up arms. I wasn’t aware of our advice to India after that attack, but I do know we said something similar to Israel, and that, my friends, is lame. If we are picking up arms to stop terrorism and other evil men, other countries should be encouraged to do the same if they are in the same situation. Both Israel and India have dealt with long-standing militant Islamic violence.
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Currently listening to Please don’t go out tonight by Spitfire

What’s this? They’re working on a movie of Ender’s Game? I had heard rumors before, but this seems to be a lot more substantiated. Ender’s Game is one of the very few books that I’ve read twice.

I just have this sinking suspicion that the movie is going to misrepresent the book much like how Starship Troopers the movie was only a faint, wretched shadow of what the book was.
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Currently listening to Informer by Snow

Why Firefox is the best browser for OS X (or any other OS):

1. Tabs: Single window browsing is so lame.
2. Favicons: Cute icons for all your favorite sites!
3. Keywords: Why type “www.thisisafreakinglongURL.com” when you can just type “long” and get to the same place?
4. Search shortcuts: Search multiple engines straight from your menubar!
5. Themes: Have your browser look the way you want it to
6. Pop-up blocking: Only see pop-ups you want to see
7. Ad-blocking: With the installation of a simple extension you can block any and all ads!
8. Open-source: Support free, community built software
9. Extensions: Add to and extend your browsing experience by installing extensions
10. Find-as-you-type: Got a long page of text and looking for a specific word? Just start typing and Firefox will find it automagically!

“Most people, and Christians in particular, are thermometers that register the temperature of majority opinion, not thermostats that transform and regulate the temperature of society.” - Martin Luther King, Jr.

U.S. faces decline in engineers as student programs grow overseas. When I read articles like this it almost makes me wish I stuck it out in the hard sciences. I wasn’t bad at them, I just didn’t excel at them. I really enjoyed chemistry, except for the stoichiometry part of it.

Anyway, so we have a brain drain in the U.S., and it needs to be stopped. More kids need to be pushed into the hard sciences and not allowed to cop out by taking the weak stuff (e.g. philosophy :razz:). Maybe I should breed a big flock of kids and make them all into elite scientists.

One of the funnier funnies I’ve seen in awhile. And it poses a very interesting question too!

My church rented out an entire theater for a private screening of The Passion of the Christ. It had 450 seats, and they were selling tickets immediately after the service. I was interested, so I went to go buy a couple. On the way, I stopped to talk to one person and then got in line. They sold all the tickets three minutes later, leaving me without a ticket. That means in a span of about 5 minutes about 450 tickets were sold.

Some people think this movie will be the death of Mel Gibson’s career. That’s pretty naive. The evangelical and Catholic communities alone will make this a blockbuster movie. Time and time again, the evangelical community has shown that if you give it what it wants, it will reward you richly. They will buy your product and buy lots of it. They’ve also shown they can command some serious clout when it comes to boycotts. So, even if Mel’s Hollywood career tanks (which it won’t), he will still be a hero to millions of other Americans.

I still haven’t decided when I’m going to watch this movie. I’m almost afraid to see it. Figure that one out.