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New icony goodness that I whipped up last night. tersa, Aelf and ravenmb should get the joke, and of course feel free to snag it if you like it.

Had kind of a slow day yesterday, took care of my cat sitting duties right after work then got home and did a bit of puttering. Burned a couple of copies of the DDF morning performance so I can bring the original back to Alyne tonight, washed many dishes, played with the cats, then started to work on a new mix I want to put together. I think I have all the tracks worked out, but not the order quite yet. If I get home in time I'll try to work on it a little more tonight.

Class tonight, and a long drive in the rain that I'm not looking forward to. The way people drive around here you'd think there was 3 feet of snow on the ground rather than a light rainfall. It'll be unpleasant, but tonight's my only chance for class before Saturday...and that's only if I get out on time, which isn't a certainty these days.

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I wish I could argue with this, but sadly I find myself nodding in agreement:

I felt dread during the buildup to the war not just because I knew the war was going to happen; I also felt it because I knew the war was going to be embraced. I knew those of us who opposed the war weren't just going to lose -- we were going to be seen as the enemies of all that is good and decent and brave and noble and American.

If you manage to persuade the American people that an enemy is out there who can only be dealt with by means of war, the vast majority of them will see fighting that war as ennobling; they'll see it as a means to walk in the footsteps of those who fought at Valley Forge and Antietam and Normandy -- and nothing will ever really dissipate that belief, not casualties, not revelations about the duplicitousness or stupidity of the leaders who brought the war on. Fatigue might set in, polls might show public dissatisfaction with the way the war is going, but Americans will always focus on the fact that those are our boys (and girls) fighting over there, that's our honor (and manhood) at stake -- and they'll never really see the war any other way. (Clinton's wars were an exception because he never told us we were fighting evil bastards who threatened our way of life.) Even in a quagmire, the majority of Americans will never truly believe that the war was an exercise in futility, a waste of their time; they'll never say, "We were led astray by our leaders, and so we fought and bled for nothing, and it's their fault, the bastards." Not even after Vietnam did most Americans think that. Ronald Reagan called Vietnam "a noble cause" in an election year and then won in a landslide. He understood Americans.

What this means is that the time to stop the war was in the earliest possible stages of the buildup; when opponents failed to do that in the case of Iraq, when the opposition party failed to oppose, it was too late -- the die was cast, and as a nation we would never truly reject the war, because rejecting it would mean rejecting our own manhood and our own sons. We'll leave Iraq having accomplished little of what we said we'd do there, but jingoist leaders of the future will call Iraq "a noble cause," and the response will be a swell of pride, because we Americans, who claim to hate politicians, can't bring ourselves to hate the politicians who identify a Satan and send us to die smiting that Satan, even when the battle plan is rotten and the rhetoric is nothing but lies.

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Regarding my post yesterday on the openly misogynistic rantings of one Vox Day, TBogg lays the ultimate verbal smackdown:

At the risk of calling attention to a booger-eating spaz who says profoundly stupid things just to get people to pay attention to him, here we have Vox Day, the "Christian Libertarian commentator from WorldNetDaily" on rape (I refuse to link to the post)
[...]
Normally we would make a glib comment that Vox isn't getting much, or has "issues", or some other one-liner that is supposed to diminish him to, if not fringe status, a base object of ridicule. But it's pretty obvious from reading other posts on his blog that he's doing it for the attention. He has nothing to say, he's not particularly bright, he's a waste of time and bandwith which is why I didn't post the link. Day isn't stupid, but the fact that he isn't stupid doesn't make him any less of an idiot.

And he is an idiot.

Amen, brother.

And oh dear gods his bitch slapping of Christian Underground is too funny for words:

Apparently there is a movement afoot in America to rould up all the Christians and nail them to crosses and then feed them to lions and then burn their bones in bonfires made of confiscated Bibles... and I never got the memo.

At least that's the impression I get from christianunderground who are all, like, "bring it unto me, man" and I'm all, like, "who are you? Stop bothering me. Go away." and they're all, like, "I mean it, man. You're in for a world of peril cuz we're not gonna be kept down by the dominant atheistic culture", and I'm all, like...well, walking away because I don't give a shit.... and then they go out late at night for drive-by proselytizing.

But seriously you need to read Mike Sewell's response, which I should like to print verbatim on t-shirts:

Hey,

Pray to your gods wherever you want. Just don't make me do it, or tell me about it. I don't find it as interesting as you do.

Also, try not to pray in the middle of the street or in major throughways. A recent report has stated that traffic jams cost the Ontario public 4 billion per year in lost income, gas, etc. Delaying everyone isn't very productive.

Please don't pray in libraries, unless you do so silently. People are trying to read.

Prayer in subways or on major transit is not reccomended, neither is falling asleep. You should keep an eye on your belongings.

Depending on your job, prayer may not always be welcome there, either. For example, if you are a telemarketer or working in a phonce centre, asking your client if you can take 5 minutes to pray while they're on the phone is not considerate. As well, if you're an airline pilot or a bus driver, taking a timeout to pray may shake your passengers' faith in your ability to drive.

Rules for praying in movie theatres follow the rules for praying in libraries.

Please to not stop to pray while filling your gas tank. People are waiting behind you.

Prayer in prison may make you a target for rape. Just saying.

Praying in the middle of class could get you kicked out, and rightly so. The prof needs your full attention.

If someone asks you if you could pray somewhere else, keep in mind what it looks like you're doing. It appears that you're talking to yourself, which can put a normal person at unease. At all possible, try holding a cellphone while praying. That will definitely help with the creepiness factor.

Also, if asks you if you could pray somewhere else, or not to pray, or says that prayer is stupid because you're only talking to yourself, they are not persecuting you. Feeding you to a lion is persecuting you. Asking you to pray in your church or home is not. I, personally, enjoy singing showtunes. If I did it in the middle of a church, I wouldn't feel persecuted if someone asked me to stop.

Please don't tell non-religious people thay your praying for them or their souls. It's silly. Plus, we all know it's actually a veiled insult.

Your corpse nailed to a board is disturbing, and I don't necessarily think kids should see it. Again, just saying. Worshipping it is all well and good, but don't be surprised if other people feel the same way as I do.

Have fun with your website,
Mike

So of course they asked people to pray for him...