Want to know what happens when a resident gets so sick of traffic chaos that they erect their own road sign?
The police fine people for breaching it. That’s what.
Category: Culture
Theological Smackdown: All’s fair
WCF classes took a new turn this week as we looked at the issue of Government. As long time readers will be aware, I get a bit excited about the subject of church and state. I don’t think it’s an issue the church handles particularly well, generally speaking. And it’s to our detriment.
My thoughts in a nutshell are that the church should let the state be the state and we should make sure our own house is in order. Who are we to complain about the legalisation of gay marriage when the global church is ordaining gay ministers? This sort of inconsistency is unhelpful. People will ultimately choose whatever lifestyle they like. That’s their decision. Not the government. The church needs to be free to be the church, we particularly need to be free from state oversight on particular matters (like who we can employ). But gay people should be just as free to be gay, and atheists should be just as free to be atheists, and so on, and so forth. The WCF was written in a time where the predominant social paradigm was “Christian” and the complexity of a modern liberal democracy is too much to bear – but there are some good points in the chapter about war, respecting government, and being part of government.
The best part of our discussion on Tuesday was about war. Just war vs pacifism. We were talking about when it’s “right” for a nation to invade, what makes a nation’s claim to nationhood legitimate, and whether leaders who are obviously on the nose with their people (eg Mugabe) should be removed. And then we talked about whether popular but evil leaders (eg Hitler) should be removed. While Germans got behind Hitler and his cause this couldn’t be said for the nations he invaded. We talked about whether Bonhoeffer (K-Rudd’s hero) was right to join a plot to assassinate Hitler. I was surprised that people could consider that wrong.
I came to the conclusion that pragmatism and pacifism are binary opponents. You can’t be both. The pragmatic solution to questions of international relations and human rights will almost always require an exercise of force.
I am a pragmatist.
Microsoft invades Poland
There’s a suitably sensationalised headline. All Microsoft really did was photoshop out an African American business man when they went to sell their product in Poland – via Slashdot.
The photos are a triumph of politically incorrect revisionism.
A series of 4chanate events
It seems nobody can safely enter the world of online Christian dating. Cyber bullies from 4Chan have stolen a bunch of login details from a Christian dating service’s database and used them to hack the people’s corresponding Facebook profiles, posting all manner of nasties and shocking family members. I’d seen a couple of their escapades pop up on a couple of the humour blogs I subscribe to. They’re not nice. And I can’t imagine having to explain that sort of thing to friends and family. Here are some examples – don’t believe your friends if they claim these things without talking to them first…
“Status updates posted on other hacked Christians’ Facebook profiles included racist hate messages and messages pretending that the poster had contemplated suicide or had accidentally killed a homeless person.
The hackers also caused trouble between the users and their friends, writing on one user’s photo that their baby was “ugly” and on another woman’s photo that her teeth matched her skin.”
The message here – other than “don’t always believe what you read on someone’s Facebook account” is “don’t use the same password for all your sites across the internet”… oh, and “don’t have a stupidly simple password” and on that point I’m speaking from experience…
I’d also suggest not keeping all your passwords in your email inbox. That’s a recipe for disaster
Yawn of a new era
Ben has posted a little bit of conspiracy theory driven speculation over on Vanishing Point which suggests that his blog’s nominally inferred prophecy may come about as the result of a yawn.
The yawn, unlike the sneeze is a subtle evil. Where the sneeze is loud, and produces a certain amount of tangible outbound traffic (spittle), the yawn sneaks under the radar. It is silent. There is no wetness to be felt. And yet the damage can actually be of a similarly devastating magnitude.
I have some of my own theories about yawns, which according to my site search thing I’ve never actually written about. Which is a situation that must surely be rectified. Here. Now.
Yawning, as we all know, is a contagious disease. One person yawns, and in the right circumstances it could set of a perpetual motion loop where everybody in a circle yawns, one after the other, dooming them to a harrowing oxygen fuelled existence.
I have a theory about why yawns are contagious. When we yawn we draw more oxygen into our lungs than a normal breath. To yawn in an enclosed space is to hog oxygen. Which, because we are selfish individuals, explains why everybody else in the vicinity also yawns. We don’t want anyone having more than their fair share.
This could one day pose a problem. If a group large enough gathers, and a yawning epidemic spreads, there will not be enough trees in all the Greenpeace wheelbarrows of the world to photosynthesis enough oxygen to replace the catastrophe that would follow.
Once you understand and embrace this underlying understanding of the nature of yawning you are on the path to enlightenment. You are equipped to deal with and understand life in a way that you have not been before.
This new, secret, knowledge gives you an unfair advantage over your fellow man. So use it carefully. Here’s an example.
If you are a single person and you are sitting in a room full of eligible people of the other gender – and you think that a particular member of the opposite gender has quite literally "caught your eye", if say, you think they are engaging in a little bit of casual "checking out" – just yawn. If they were checking you out your yawn will be irresistible. They’ll respond. If not, well, there’s no reason to get your hopes up and have them cruelly dashed.
There’s nothing so painful as unrequited cross auditorium/lecture theatre/church/conference centre love. Harness the power of the yawn and you’ll never feel that pain again.
Bumbling Awesomeness
This is quite literally the best fancy dress outfit ever. I say that with confidence because like Warren the word over use watchdog – I hate it when the word literally is abused.
Check it out.
No dogs go to heaven
The first movie I ever saw on a cinema screen was All Dogs Go To Heaven. It was in the little cinema in Grafton, 40 minutes from our home town in Maclean. It’s a Disney cartoon with really bad theology. There’s no Biblical reason to expect your pet to be in heaven with you (except perhaps for the Biblical illustration of lions lying down with lambs… but I’d say that’s more an allusion…).
Even the atheists know this. In fact. In the same vein as the service that sends post cards to your unsaved loved ones post rapture comes a new service offering to care for your pets.
We are a group of dedicated animal lovers, and atheists. Each
Eternal Earth-Bound Pet representative is a confirmed atheist, and as such will still be here on Earth after you’ve received your reward. Our network of animal activists are committed to step in when you step up to Jesus.
For those who doubted – this is proof that atheists can be moral people after all.
Which is sweet. We’ll have two very appreciative turtles – which is lucky – because apparently turtles are impervious to fire.
Plane Truths
Have you ever wondered why cheap airlines are so much cheaper than the others? They must cut corners right? Of course they do. Some of the corners are more obvious than others. But they make cuts just about everywhere. Check out this infographic on Flickr for proof…
Found via Gizmodo.
YouTube Tuesday: Super Mario Bros – Directors Cut
If only the original (and terrible) Mario movie had production values like this. It’s not really a director’s cut – but I imagine the director of the original would have cut the whole lot with the benefit of hindsight.
Zombie Pandemic
Zombies are going to get you. One day. Possibly. So it pays to be prepared. Luckily hard earned government research dollars are funding important studies at universities to help us cope with our impending, zombie fueled, doom.
The conclusion of the study (available in PDF form here, complete with mathematical modelling) is that:
An outbreak of zombies infecting humans is likely to be disastrous, unless extremely aggressive tactics are employed against the undead. While aggressive quarantine may eradicate the infection, this is unlikely to happen in practice. A cure would only result in some humans surviving the outbreak, although they will still coexist with zombies. Only sufficiently frequent attacks, with increasing force, will result in eradication, assuming the
available resources can be mustered in time.
Scary stuff. I’d suggest buying the “In Case of Zombies” shirt from Threadless for instructional purposes.
And then perhaps checking out this instructional video (starring Robyn’s little sister) for further tips for dealing with the zombie apocalypse.
ZOMBODY TO LOVE from Speedy Badger Films on Vimeo.
Brave new 1984
Orwell v Huxley – one of the great philosophical literary battles of our time – a tale of two writers, both with grand visions of a terrible future. This battle, this age old dispute, has been recreated in comic book form featuring arguments from a book called”Amusing Ourselves To Death” so that you can better understand it…
Pea-ping Toms
No doubt there was a guy named Tom in this competition. And I’m sure when you hit a metallic target it makes a ping. No matter. I think I’d like to travel the world attending obscure championships. Last week it was the cardboard roll fighting league – this week it’s the annual World Peashooting Championships… and yes, that is a laser sight on that guy’s peashooter…
Car Fu
If you thought the best bit about Transformers 2 was the kung fu robots then you just have to check out this trailer for a Chinese movie that’s coming out this year. It looks awesome.
Conspiracy convergence
I haven’t really watched much stuff from CollegeHumor – but the stuff I have seen tends to be really awesome, or really quite crass – take that on board if you’re going to follow any links from this video – which fits into the earlier category.
If (boring) games were movies…
We’ve all seen what happens when popular games become movies. Like Hitman. And Doom. And Super Mario Bros. They never live up to the hype.
Crap games*. Or not particularly complex games. Make for awesomeness.
*These games are not technically crap.