An Abomination (Or Two, Or Three) Unto The Lord?

Alberta is about to become home to Canada's first permanent "creation science" museum.

As someone who believes in God, I am deeply and profoundly offended by this. I'm not here to pick on Christianity, specifically... based on my reading, Jesus seems like my kinda guy. And (as anyone who voted for a religious pro-war neocon could tell you) there's a huge difference between The Message and The Messenger.

I consider it blasphemous that someone could believe that The Universe was built as-is by a Divine Intelligence who would be cruel enough to give you a well-developed prefrontal cortex and would then expect you to use it to IGNORE the profound wealth of evidence that everything is, in fact, Running According To A Scheme.

Part of that scheme involves what happens when atoms interact and form groups, as they are prone to doing. God designed a marvelously flexible, durable, changeable Universe. Every bit of evidence going seems to point to this kind of thing happening all the time... and if you don't believe me, ask a snowflake.

A lot of people reject evolution because it denies the Literal Truth of The Bible. Which is a shame, because The Bible itself has clearly evolved, from original manuscripts to the Council Of Nicea to King James to today. And the argument that if ONE thing in The Bible is true, it all has to be true doesn't wash with me either. Or, put another way, will the new museum also offer free Witch-Burning service (Exodus 22:18)? Will I be allowed in if I had bacon for breakfast (Leviticus 15)? And is there a display demonstrating that the Earth is, in fact, flat (Job 38:12-14)?

Museum owner Harry Nibourg, according to the Calgary Sun, is having a hard time finding a scientist willing to debate him. Well, Harry, I'm a total scientific amateur, and I'm willing to debate you, here and in public. Also, I'm a professional astrologer, and I can defend the Biblical merits of that, too. A two-for-one deal like that ought to have you salivating.

I'd love to talk about my old buddy Tiktaalik. Or Eohippus. Or Archaeopteryx. Or our common relative, Australopithecus. Or any of the other known, established precursors to you and me and the things running around on your lawn.

In the meantime here's ten things I really doubt you'll see on display at the new museum.

Please rise for today's hymn:

Lou Dobbs Vs. The Mexican Menace!

Apparently, CNN has decided to compete with Fox News for the all-important Dangerous Crackpot demographic.

If you're in the habit of watching Lou Dobbs, you may have noticed he's turned into Johnny One-Note of late: Mexicans, Mexicans, Mexicans. Illegal immigration seems to be catching on as a popular subject in the States lately, and should we be surprised? Xenophobia with a Salsa beat is a hell of a lot sexier than boring crap like spying on innocent civilians, Medicare reform, and that thing with the guns off in the desert somewhere (the Good Guys are still winning, right?).


I honestly don't understand the American attitude towards immigration. Whenever the subject comes up, I am reminded of my Amazing But True real-life experience with the subject.

I lived in Minnesota once, for a while. The population there is heavily skewed to the Scandinavian... as a matter of fact, I recall encountering more black folks in Saskatchewan. For various reasons, my girlfriend at the time and I spent a great deal of time in restaurants. After a while I noticed that every place we ate at, whether high-end or an IHOP, had a lot of people of Latino descent there. They weren't customers though... they were cleaning the tables and washing the dishes and (occasionally) flipping the burgers.

One day I commented on this to my girlfriend. Specifically, I had noticed that all the customers that day had blonde or red hair (other than her, her two kids, and me), and that the employees were all black-haired. I mentioned this the same way I might notice a preponderance of tall people or left-handers in a room. It seemed like a statistical anomaly.

"They're Mexicans," she said, poking the contents of her overstuffed club sandwich back into place with her finger.

I sat there and thought about this for a few seconds. "Mexicans get preferred employment?" I ventured. Silly Canadian...

She looked at me like I was some sort of Silly Canadian. "They're Mexicans. What else would they do?" she said in the same gentle tone she would use if she were explaining to a beloved but brain-damaged child why policemen wear police uniforms.

I paused. This woman wasn't an idiot: in fact, one of the reasons I was first interested in her is that she was an intelligent person. I looked at her for a few seconds. Then I looked at her kids, who were, ahem... a little more tanned-looking than the average person who had lived through a Minnesota winter. Then I pointed out that her last name by marriage was, in fact... Fuentes.

"Oh," she replied dismissively in that brain-damaged-child tone, "he (the ex-husband) was from Texas."

Maybe CNN understands its viewer demographics better than I thought.

Anyway, here's a clip of CNN using a white-supremacist group as a source of information on "militant Latino activists"...

I Attempt To Whore Myself To The Machine

I always dreamed this day would come.

I'm an old-fashioned guy at heart. In a world where people are always giving themselves away for trivial or temporary reasons, I've always wanted to hold out for The One. And I have finally found My Heart's Desire.

My buddy Faith and I were loafing around the other day watching TV... some mundane reality show or another, as I recall... and I saw the most amazing commercial for Benefibre. The commercial itself wasn't the most ground-breaking thing in terms of the script, or the actor, or the effects or anything. It presented itself very naturally, comfortable with its own appeal.

Naturally, I was intrigued.

Benefibre is a soluble dietary fibre supplement extracted from chicory root. It is completely flavourless, dissolves completely in water, won't thicken, and is essentially a stealth dietary fibre additive to any food or drink.

I've been impressed with a lot of things in my time... microwave ovens, genetically modified organisms, lasers, water-skiing squirrels... but this left me silent. Stunned. Like Keanu Reeves memorizing his lines, stunned.

Let's say your boss is a jerk. Every day you phone in the lunch order, and every day he orders the won ton soup. Hell, screw that: you could dose his coffee all day long and he'd never notice.

Imagine the hell you could raise that way.

It was love at first sight.

So: being a true romantic, I am ready to make my formal declaration of love and intent, right here before your very eyes. So many out there give themselves away through cynicism or fear.

I've found something I can really, truly believe in.

It is my intention to make Benefibre... sorry, Benefibre... the Offical Corporate Sponsor of "The Further Adventures Of Chironboy." In future entries you will see my attempts to woo and win this most beautiful and gifted child of Novartis... formerly Ciba-Geigy and Sandoz... as my One True Sponsor!

Isn't it romantic!

Oh, by the way Novartis, best of luck with that leukemia-drug lawsuit in India. Let the lazy bastards pay full price! Fuck 'em. You're the good guys.

Veterinery Gynaecology And TELUS: A Comparison

This is a duck uterus.

You may recall from high school Biology class or the Discovery Channel or that last Pussycat Dolls video that the human uterus is a smooth, regular shape... kind of like a pear. A duck's uterus, on the other hand, is a twisty labyrinth of dead ends, false leads, and fool's errands for sperm.

Here's a quote from "Coevolution of Male and Female Genital Morphology in Waterfowl"... don't worry, I'll provide a translation afterwards:

"Most birds have simple genitalia; males lack external genitalia and females have simple vaginas. However, male waterfowl have a phallus whose length (1.5–>40 cm) and morphological elaborations vary among species and are positively correlated with the frequency of forced extra-pair copulations among waterfowl species. Here we report morphological complexity in female genital morphology in waterfowl and describe variation vaginal morphology that is unprecedented in birds. This variation comprises two anatomical novelties: (i) dead end sacs, and (ii) clockwise coils. These vaginal structures appear to function to exclude the intromission of the counter-clockwise spiralling male phallus without female cooperation."

In other words, there is a long-standing sexual-evolutionary civil war amongst ducks. Male ducks have developed a distinct taste for forced copulation. Females ducks have become more internally convoluted to help prevent reproduction with rapist ducks. The more rape-prone the species of duck, the more complex the uterus... and the longer and twistier the penis has become in response.

As you may recall from here it took me a long, long time to get my tax forms out of Telus. One thing they still haven't straightened out is the three years or so worth of employee discount that should have been applied to my phone and Internet. And please keep in mind that, as someone who used to work there, I have a better-than-average idea of how the system works there. Nonetheless... no results.

Based on the above information about duck uteruses, I confidently predict that within a few hundred thousand years the average Telus customer's wallet will be twelve feet long and shaped like a nest of garter snakes.

And now you know why every month when I look at my phone bill, I shout "fuck a duck!"

Shrek: Big Green Screaming Monkey Whore

I haven't seen "Shrek The Third" yet. Almost no one has, in fact. But I've got Shrek on the brain, like so many others across North America. Why? Not because I'm a raving loony fan -- I liked the first two, but am in no hurry to charge out and see the new one. As a matter of fact, I've decided to NOT see it. Not because the premise has likely been stretched thin, and not out of fear that Mike Myers et al phoned in their performances... although those both seem like reasonable probabilities.

Shrek is in my head because of the damned advertising.

Not ads for the movie itself, mind you... I'm talking about the M & M ads. And the Dodge ads. And HP. And McDonalds. This is all prior to the movie's release date... imagine the deluge of action figures and cereal and toys and candies and clothes and cleaning fluids and novelty condoms yet to come.

I have this theory about advertising. Although I think we have magnificent intelligence, I don't think our nervous systems are terribly unlike those of monkeys. If you're a monkey in the jungle, your very life (and that of your species) depends on being able to recognize food, a mate, and potential threats. It also follows that survival depends on what signals you are able to ignore. If you overstress a monkey that way, he has a breakdown.

The study of the human mind is called psychology. The application of psychology to the goal of making you think you need things you don't is called advertising. I am convinced that we are turning our psychological environment into a cluttered landscape of eat/fuck/kill/LOOK OUT! signals that would drive any monkey batshit crazy... except we are just smart enough to do it to ourselves, and NOT smart enough to realize we're doing it. Like all those coal-fueled factories in Britain in the 1800s, we are destroying our environment and blackening our lungs and we don't even realize it... and maybe (like in Britain in the 1800s) we won't realize it until the day we notice all the white moths are dead and the dark ones have taken over.

I fear we have all unwittingly become monkeys, screaming silently in an unsupervised laboratory of our own design.

What would Futurama have said about all this...?

Tony Rosato: A Comedian's Unfunny Fate (Updated)

Former SCTV star Tony Rosato has been in jail for two years without a trial.

Life is full of surprises. Crazy or not, I'm sure Tony didn't expect to be locked in the slammer for this long without a trial. He's in there... supposedly, maybe... because he's mentally ill. Maybe.

Tony Rosato apparently suffers from Capgras Syndrome: a rare but intriguing mental disorder where the sufferer becomes convinced that one or more loved ones or close associates have been replaced by lookalikes, Body Snatchers-style. It reminds me a little of one of my favourite mental disorders: Alien Limb Syndrome, in which a person becomes suddenly convinced that their left arm, for example, belongs to someone else. This is the sort of thing that should be treated in a hospital, by doctors... not prison guards.

Tim Kazurinsky -- proud American -- had this to say about the matter: "Canada: socialized medicine – they really care."

You probably know by know how I hate this... but I have to agree with him.

Why on Earth do we keep putting up with all the bad logic and outright lies about Canadian health care being such a tax burden? We spend 8.5 percent of our GDP on health care... the neighbors spend 11 percent. Our care is as good as theirs. Imagine how much better it would be if we actually gave enough of a rat's ass about our fellow humans to do something about it.

When did I wake up in a world where the Almighty Buck was the driving force behind everything? By my estimation, about twenty years ago. It makes me mad enough that I could hit someone... but I hate the thought of someone bleeding to death while they're sitting around waiting six hours for an emergency-room doctor.

If anyone reading this is taking a trip outside of this Mirror Universe, can I please hitch a ride?

UPDATE August 28/07: Tony is still being jailed for the crime of having a mental illness, or so it seems. However, the wheels of justice are beginning to turn... slowly.

Pineapples From Hell!

Please watch this brief educational film in which Kirk Cameron -- best known as the teenage son and (apparently) Chief Evolutionary Biologist from "Growing Pains" -- has a friend show us why the banana proves the existence of a Supreme Being.

I myself do believe in the existence of God. However, using the same logic presented above, one could prove that since a pineapple isn't easy to open, isn't conveniently shaped, isn't covered by a user-friendly surface, and doesn't fit well in your hand or mouth... that God did not create the pineapple as He did the banana. I knew there was something vaguely unholy about that Hawaiian pizza I had a couple of days ago...

The nifty thing about this is that the banana as we know it today is an excellent example of Intelligent Design. To prove it, I have included a photo of a wild, unmodified banana at the top of this entry. This is what all bananas looked like before hundreds of generations of selective breeding and modification... by humans.

(By the way, a banana is easier to open from the non-stem end. Pulling on the stem is a human convention. Try it yourself. Or watch a gorilla have lunch some time).

The lesson here? Whatever your Dogma is, don't let it become your Truth. At best you may end up being right for the wrong reasons. At worst... you might invade Iraq.

Canary In A Coalmine, Wearing A Tinfoil Hat (Updated)

Meet the electromagnetically over-sensitive.

This is Sarah Dacre of London. She claims to be affected by the electromagnetic noise being generated by modern living. That's not a beekeeper's mask: it's a fine metal mesh designed to block radio-frequency signals.

I admit I'm torn by this story: I'm not a technophobe, but I'm also aware of how technology has affected our lives in ways we didn't anticipate. I'm all but ready to dismiss this woman's story, based (if nothing else) on the notion that she thinks a tinfoil-lined home is going to be letting any signals in at all. These things are pervasive, but unless you live right next to a power station or a cell phone tower, they're pretty weak.

But it would be easy to laugh and dismiss her, and people like her, when the truth is that the overall safety (or lack thereof) of the constant radio-wave bath we're all taking 24/7 hasn't been nearly proved yet.

All I know is that a voice signal on a cell phone takes up a LOT more bandwidth than a text message ever could... and yet I'm still charged for every text message I send, whereas my voice calls are "included". At the risk of sounding like an old fart: people (especially teenagers) really DO have more money than sense these days...

Why haven't you heard more negatives about cell phones? Follow the money. As long as people are just alive enough to keep spending money, everything's gonna be just fine.

Besides, only crazy people wear tinfoil hats, right?

***

UPDATE, August 30/07: Most people seem to agree cellphones are harmless. At least, most people act that way. Maybe not the staff at Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel where a recent study indicates that using a cell phone for as little as ten minutes can trigger changes in the brain leading to cancer.

This Little Piggy Ate The Market

Once upon a time there was a fine little piggy named Walton. Of the many pigs on the farm, he was easily the smartest and the most efficient. Pigs are a good thing to have around, after all... they produce so much more protein than a bean stalk usually will. So naturally, the farmer loved him. Walton gained weight better than any of the other pigs.

One day Walton had a brilliant idea. He decided that he could get plumper if he ate the feed for the other pigs while they weren't looking.

And he did.

Then Walton decided he could get even larger if he started eating the chicken feed too... which he did. He even cut special deals with the manufacturers of the pig feed and the chicken feed so that he could get more of it than anyone else for less. And Walton got bigger.

Then Walton started eating chickens one by one. There were an awful lot of them, so no one noticed if a few went missing. Even as more and more chickens (and the occasional pig and cow) went missing, no one asked any questions. Everyone simply marveled at what a huge, fine, powerful, gigantic pig Walton had become.

Then one day Walton ate all the chickens. Then he the farmer. Then he ate all the other male pigs, mated with the females, and produced thousands of piglets. The piglets moved to other farms where they ate all the feed and the chickens and the other pigs and the farmers too.

Soon the planet was overrun with huge greedy pigs, and everyone was forced to bow down before them.

In a related story, Wal-Mart has announced it is planning to open 6600 in-store medical clinics in the US in the next five years.

The News From Sirius

Our world sits inside an ever-expanding ball of electromagnetic noise. Some of it is manufactured by us -- radio, television signals, cell phones -- and some of it is merely the stuff reflecting off of us. All of it travels at a finite speed: the speed of light. Incomprehensibly fast in mundane human terms, but finite nonetheless.

Everything that has ever happened here, from the perspective on an observer elsewhere, is happening right now... provided someone is listening with the right equipment.

On an undiscovered iceball in the Oort Cloud, I am watching an earthworm make his way through the rain. Tau Ceti is just now receiving word of my marriage. Near Epsilon Eridani, it's Grade Six and I'm kissing Julie Raisbeck. Somewhere around Wolf 359 I am being handed my divorce decree. Near Proxima Centauri I am giving my heart away again. Around Capella I am in an incubator.

On Europa the idea to write this is just now occurring to me.

Whenever I start to feel small and sad and alone, I remember that things are going much better for me somewhere else. It's just the "here and now" part that's so challenging sometimes.

I live my life in ever widening circles
that reach out across the world
Perhaps I shall never succeed in reaching
the final circle, but I give myself to it.

I circle around God, that ancient tower.
I have been circling for a thousand years,
and I still do not know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?

-Reiner Maria Wilke

...and as The Smiths once asked: how soon is now?

Vaya Con Marijuana?

"... the law that we have in place has created an entire underground system of smugglers, inn keepers, and document forgers. And that's not the American way, by the way."
-George W. Bush, on immigration reform

I've never really understood what to make of the American fascination with illegal immigrants. Having a hugely wealthy nation just north of an incredibly broke one certainly provides the motivation for the immigrants. But Americans -- you know, the ones who had the common sense and planning skills to be BORN there -- always seem to be up in arms about it.

I don't see what the fuss is all about. Every time I've been in the States I've seen a lot of Mexicans, and they always seem to be terribly busy, clearing tables and sweeping floors and nannying babies and such. And apparently Dubya seems (unlike others I've heard from) to grasp that these immigrants are much-needed human beings.

The one thing that puzzles me about his comments on illegal immigrants today? Given that these immigrants are human beings responding to natural human motivations, it's nice that Bush is concerned about the huge underground economy and crime that such a thing naturally generates if it's made illegal.

But what about the billions of dollars in associated crime and thousands of lives wasted by the "War On Drugs"? Just as people have a natural urge to feed themselves and their families (and will take risks to do so), people also have a natural urge to get messed up in the head. Alcohol, THC, nicotine, caffeine, cocaine, chocolate, Ecstasy... all mood-altering substances.

The Republican Party may finally be ready to recognize that illegal immigrants are human beings. That's a step int he right direction. Maybe if they can keep up the momentum and finally recognize human nature, America will be a saner and wiser place.

Nah... I must be stoned.

An Open Letter To My Buddy, Cliff Hesby

Dear Cliff:

Remember the good old days when you and I used to walk in circles around the Telus Tower, wearing signs and letting everyone know that things were going to go straight to hell with the phone company if we voted to approve the company's offer?

I hate to say it, but I think we were right.

This is a picture of the phone pedestal behind my place. It's an older one, but should still work just fine. I've lived here since last summer, and every time it rains water gets into a huge gaping hole near the base and makes the phone and Internet connection bad and/or useless for a couple of days afterwards.

I make my living on the phone. Did I mention that, Cliff?

Anyway, as you can image I have called Telus a few times about this. And as you can well imagine, the problem hasn't been taken care of. Had you heard that Telus has installed a system to prioritize your calls based on how much money you're worth to them? Man, technology is cool. It can replace so many people, and do it so efficiently! If only I had Telus TV and a Telus cell phone and Homesitter and such, I'd be up to my eyeballs in service, service, service!

I know a lot of these people personally. They are, for the most part, decent hard-working people. They just seem to be trapped in a place where that hard work and decency is being thwarted by the structure of the corporation they are working for.

Despite all these kind and talented and wonderful people, after ten months I finally had to go out back and seal the pedestal up with a garbage bag and tape, as you can see in the picture. It seems to be working just fine now.

My question to you, Cliff: should I feel bad because I went out and did a Union job myself, rather than waiting another ten months for the van to show up?

Yours in righteous fury,

Matthew

Less Than Human

Someone, somewhere, wants you to die. Right now. Someone you haven't even met is more than willing to push a button or pull a trigger or sign a document to kill you simply because you were BORN.

Specifically: because you were born Jewish. Or Kurdish. Or Bosnian or Hutu or Tutsi or Armenian or Gypsy or white or black or...

A few pebbles acting in concert can start an avalanche. A few malcontents can gather over beer and form a political party. Add some organization and some motivation, and you have Hell On Earth.

Today is Yom HaShoah... Holocaust Day. Remember.



Dedicated to my great-grandfather, a Zigeuner, made to wear a brown badge and devoured along with ten million others in Europe during the Holocaust. There, but for the grace of human decency, go all of us.

I Lost A Hero Today: Kurt Vonnegut,

"Once upon a time on Tralfamadore there were creatures who weren't anything like machines. They weren't dependable. They weren't efficient. They weren't predictable. They weren't durable. And these poor creatures were obsessed by the idea that everything that existed had to have a purpose, and that some purposes were higher than others.

These creatures spent most of their time trying to find out what their purpose was. And every time they found out what seemed to be a purpose of themselves, the purpose seemed so low that the creatures were filled with disgust and shame. And, rather than serve such a low purpose, the creatures would make a machine to serve it. This left the creatures free to serve higher purposes. But whenever they found a higher purpose, the purpose still wasn't high enough.

So machines were made to serve higher purposes, too. And the machines did everything so expertly that they were finally given the job of finding out what the higher purpose of the creatures could be. The machines reported in all honesty that the creatures couldn't really be said to have any purpose at all.

The creatures thereupon began slaying each other, because they hated purposeless things above all else. And they discovered that they weren't even very good at slaying. So they turned that job over to the machines, too. And the machines finished up the job in less time than it takes to say, 'Tralfamadore.'"

-Kurt Vonnegut, 1922-2007

"I've had a hell of a good time. I tell you, we are here on earth to fart around and don't let anybody tell you any different."

Stem Cells Save The Day, Again

Science marches on!

Okay... why were you opposed to stem cell research again, exactly...?

Oh. Right. You were afraid it was going to lead to THIS...

An Earthworm Spoke To Me

"If worms have the power of acquiring some notion, however rude, of the shape of an object and of their burrows, as seems to be the case, they deserve to be called intelligent; for they can act in a manner as would a man under similar conditions."

-Charles Darwin, "The Formation of Vegetable Mould, through the Action of Worms with Observations on Their Habits" (1881)

It rained in Calgary last night, and the earthworms came out.

I've seen a lot of worms in my time, having spent my first eight years of life in the temperate rain forest climate of British Columbia... and of course the ages of four to eight are The Golden Years Of Invertebrate Studies.

I encountered one particular worm last night... huge by local standards, about 25 centimetres at least in its relaxed state, and fat. This struck me as unusual, because although worms can have a natural lifespan in the wild of four to eight years one doesn't usually see nearly as many big ones here as you would in Kelowna, for example, and I always presumed this was because a prairie winter is hard for a dormant earthworm to survive.

This lead to a lot of worried amateur speculation on my part about global warming.

But even more remarkable was the performance to follow. Please refer to the above diagram. And no, I'm not an artist.

The lot slopes down to the sidewalk and has some drainage issues, as does most of the block. There is one particular step out front that is askew. It is a standard old school 30 inch by 24 inch (76 by 60 cm) cement block, with a drop of 15 centimetres.

I discovered the above described Superworm (whom I immediately dubbed "Shai-Hulud") with his front end at point number two on the diagram. Following his trail, he had emerged from the mud at point one and was headed in a straight line, roughly northwest, towards where I found him.

The worm tested the 15 cm drop by extending himself slowly downwards and feeling around. He came close to touching down, but stopped and retracted. He then slid along the edge to the north a bit and tried it again. I watched the worm repeat this process, and realized that he was following some sort of fairly simple algorithm -- "extend 30 percent of your mass this way, and if you don't find anything pull back, because you might fall otherwise" or something like that.

The rule still applied when Shai-Hulud hit the ledge at point three, which could have been confusing for him. He pressed on to the north end of the step and found the same conditions. So he proceeded along the north edge. Here the slope soon picks up and eventually I thought he'd poke his way along to the first spot he felt comfortable with and take the leap, so to speak.

However, once the worm had made three attempts and had encountered dirt at ever-increasing closeness, he then RAN (by earthworm standards) to point four on the step and climbed down from there. By my very informal calculations, point four is the closest point the worm could have lowered himself to the ground where he could still have more than 30 percent of his total mass on the ground and the rest above.

To summarize: it appears that this earthworm was able not only to hold in his blind, deaf, almost literally brainless head (hell, he doesn't even have a head!) an image of the terrain around him, but also to project the best destination based on incomplete data. He had calculated a slope as surely as a surveyor.

This sent me off to the Internet to look up "earthworm intelligence." As you might expect, there isn't a lot out there. However, I discovered that one of Charles Darwin's lesser-known works was on earthworm intelligence. It seems he was ahead of his time -- again -- with the notion that earthworms partake of a certain intelligence.

I've done some reading about animal intelligence. It's fun stuff, teaching chimps to gamble and such.

Then I got all mystical with it, wondering about whether all living things, or all things with complexity, or all things period partake of some kind of universal consciousness. By this point everyone reading this should be an adult enough to form their own opinions on such things, so I won't bore you with my beliefs. But they're pretty wacky, let me tell you.

There was some comfort in the notion of Shai-Hulud and I both feeling our way along, blessed with the gift of Life Itself, both part of a Grand Design.

Or, of course, the worm and I could simply both be deaf and blind things stumbling along without Clue-Fucking-One, except for our (probably wildly inaccurate) speculations about what the Grand Design is... or whether there is one at all.

Either way, Shai-Hulud and I have questions.

"Freude trinken alle Wesen
An den Brüsten der Natur;
Alle Guten, alle Bösen
Folgen ihrer Rosenspur.
Küsse gab sie uns und Reben,
Einen Freund, geprüft im Tod;
Wollust ward dem Wurm gegeben,
Und der Cherub steht vor Gott"

(All creatures drink joy
At the breasts of nature;
All the good, all the evil
Follow her roses' trail.
Kisses gave she us, and wine,
A friend, proven unto death;
Pleasure was to the worm granted,
And the cherub stands before God.)

-Schiller, Ode To Joy

Attention Paramount: The Real Trek Awaits

You may have heard recently that Paramount intends to "reboot" the Star Trek franchise, with the producer of "Lost" at the helm. I am, as all good Trek fans are, terrified at the thought. Matt Damon as a young Captain Kirk? I don't think so. No, not even Kiefer Sutherland... who I suspect would be the best possible name-brand choice for the part.

The best and cheapest move Paramount could make? Buy up the film rights to "The Secret Of Vulcan's Fury," a computer game that was almost released in 1998. It's directed by an old-school Trek director, written by classic series author D. C. Fontana, and (best of all) features the voices of all the original cast.

Add CGI and stir...

Pants Of Paranoia! (UPDATED)

There is an RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification) chip somewhere in my new pair of jeans, and everywhere I went yesterday the alarms went off whenever I entered or left a store. This is the doing of either an underpaid Old Navy employee or possibly The Government. Logic would dictate that it's the former, rather than the latter.

"Perfect paranoia is perfect awareness" -G. Gordon Liddy

I went out again to do my consumerly duty, and wore completely different clothes other than my jeans, and didn't take my cell phone. And once again I set off every alarm I walked through.

Here's the punchline: I realized while I was out today setting off alarms that I've had these jeans about a month and a half. I've warn them and washed them a few times. They didn't start setting off alarms until yesterday.

My reading on the Internet would seem to indicate that the only RFID-style identification Old Navy uses is a passive system... one that doesn't store data, but simply sits there in an on/off mode. You buy the thing, they deactivate it, end of story. Besides, that thing is a big square patch that you'd find soon enough. It wouldn't be there after repeated washings if you had somehow missed it.

And what the hell would turn a deactivated RFID device BACK ON? I don't recall being electrocuted recently...

I have a long history of electronics karma. And as the world advances, this sort of thing seems to come up more and more often.

I may have discovered The Disability Of The Future.

Day Three:

I found the RFID tag rolled up in a seam in the inside left leg of my jeans. Yes, it's a passive-type anti-shoplifting/inventory control type RFID... on/off only.

This still doesnt explain how the thing became charged again... or maybe is doesn't explain why it became discharged for a limited period of time, if you prefer.

I must call Old Navy about this. I'm sure they have a phone bank of intelligent customer service people who are dying to answer this and any other Old Navy questions. Like, for example, why do they have the lighting in there so damned bright that you'd think you were having a near-death experience?

UPDATE

August 27/07: I still have no idea why an RFID chip would re-start itself. It remains an interesting question. Mostly, these days, I save my paranoia for the government. And squirrels.

The Heart Of America: 1941-2007

Captain America is dead.

For all the screaming I do about the shape of things in the US, part of me loves the place beyond words. Not because I grew up in Vancouver and went down to Seattle a lot, not because I can genuinely say I've liked most Americans I've met, but because of one man: Steve Rogers. Captain America. The Living Legend of WW II. The guy other superheroes look up to.

When I was young enough to read comics without putting them in a Mylar bag when I was done, Cap was my hero. Sure, we could all empathize with Spidey, and Batman was cool... but Cap was the only one who could preach about civil liberties while punching a Nazi.

From now on, America is going to have to punch its own fascists, which is scary: I've always been half-convinced that's really The Red Skull wearing a Dick Cheney mask.

Please rise:

Ann Coulter: Born To Suck

Some self-destructive people drink themselves to death, or cut themselves, or binge out on drugs. Me? Every once in a while I read Ann Coulter. It did my heart good to read her February 28th column, though. No, I'm not going to link to it, because I don't want to contribute to her hit count in any way. Here's the quote:

"There are more reputable scientists defending astrology than defending 'global warming,' but liberals simply announce that the debate has been resolved in their favor and demand that we shut down all production."

Global Warming isn't my field of expertise, but I certainly understand it well enough to know we are in trouble. Don't "believe" in Global Warming? Look it up for yourself. But, Astrology? That's MY ballpark, baby.

Ann Coulter (Born December 8, 1961, time unknown, New York, New York) has a Sun-Mercury-Mars conjunction in Sagittarius, all squared by Pluto... with Pluto squaring Mercury within two degrees. This as any astrologer can tell you, makes Ann a raving bitch.

Don't believe in Astrology? Again, look it up for yourself. Here's what astrologyweekly.com says:

Mercury Square Pluto:

"The square can give you a harshness of temperament and expression, where your direct, blunt style can often create conflict and confrontation between yourself and others. Even though you prefer to reflect yourself as one capable of handling the 'real situation', you tend to lack a sensitivity towards possible reactions to your potentially penetrating insights. You rarely 'wrap' them up in socially acceptable packages for consumption, but offer them raw. "

Sun Square Pluto:

"The Pluto tendencies of ambition, force, power, domination, aggression, and extremism can also stimulate similar tendencies in an assertive Sun, and will exist as motivating and compulsive factors in your character."

...And Mars Square Pluto? Don't get me started.

Ah, the simple pleasures of reasoned political debate...