Their Greatest Accomplishment

Herr D assures me that human brains CANNOT be reimplanted.
He therefore must mean bipartisans who have had strokes after
arguing too much. --Hairy Deewon                                                  

There are times when I am surprised that America's Capitol building doesn't split in half physically from top to bottom like this story I just read: "The Fall Of The House Of Usher."  Of course, sometimes I'm even more amazed that anything was ever accomplished in the history of passing the buck bills.

What would you say has been the greatest accomplishment of Congress? I would have said raising their own pay. Any other people doing that would have gotten in a lot of trouble.

Why Some Clergy Might Be Holding Their Tongues

Shelob pointed out to me last neap tide that I should address some more current issues. Probably a good plan. So I had him cull some newsfeeds for me and redirect till I understood what was going on.

I ran into this dilemma. Shelob? Correct me if I get these numbers wrong:

1. 1 in 10,000 or more clergy are involved in publicly protesting the lifting of the same-sex marriage ban in Virginia.
2. 100% of declared religious groups have an official stance on same-sex marriage.
3. The clear majority of religious groups are officially against same-sex marriage, but growing numbers of congregations are taking the path of tolerance with and sometimes without approval by their clergy
4. The numbers don't match up.

Point 1: No way to collect exact number at this time. Small percentage.
Point 2: If 'no comment' is official stance, then this is correct. (One instance.)
Point 3: Apparently correct. No sociological variance data.
Point 4: Correct. Subjective interpretation to follow?

You betcha.
I'm all for tolerance and avoiding condoning what you can't approve of, but this interesting idea leapt out at me. There ARE other motives for clergy staying silent. What I'm curious about is how many people agree with my rating of commonness. Let me explain after showing you this graphic.

Herr D, heromachine.com. He's started referring to these as 'snap-works.' I'm going to be sending some small crawlers back through here, because he noticed some crediting errors. My goal is to fix all those by 8/31. --Hairy Deewon

The first motive I'm defining is 'PR-moderate image' or PRmi. I'm sure a lot of clergy are worried that extremists and fundamentalists are depicted as way too common. Frankly I haven't given Shelob the kind of processing power it would take to determine if religious protesting in America completely fell off after the unfortunate events of 9/11. But I think it's moderately likely. Clergy of every kind probably want to distance themselves from the kind of [roughly translates to hypocrite] that would kill other people or even act extremely hateful in the name of a supreme being. Like a supreme being would allow humanity to survive at all if it was hateful! You Humanity would be SO toasted. Too many victimizers by far.

The second motive is the 'sin reduction ratio' or srr. Clergy who believe, or at least profess to believe, that same-sex relations are sin have this interesting problem. If more people who like that kind of thing are in monogamous relationships, they aren't encouraging more people toward it. That might be looked at as encouraging less sin. Now THAT'S a dilemma. Clergy with this on their mind can't comment on same-sex marriage at all if they are trying to follow both their religion AND their own conscience.

I'm suggesting that the clergy who aren't publicly speaking out most commonly have BOTH srr and PRmi in mind, that second most commonly have just srr in mind, and third most commonly have just PRmi in mind.

How many of you think a different order is more likely?

Editorial Smack

Okay, so I made a mistake. I listened to political commentary again. I actually heard rival anchors accusing both sides of every issue I listened about of "playing politics," "partisan politics," etc.

Herr D, heromachine.com. He didn't title it 'Duh.'

THAT'S THEIR JOB. I've PAID attention. It's the job of every politician to fight the other side while blundering about trying to solve their jurisdiction's problems. Professional boxing IS still a sport--do you criticize them for fighting THEIR opponents? Yet, repeatedly, while spitting out loads of disinformation and more obvious examples of bias than examples of good grammar, they criticized everyone they didn't like in public office for treating their opponents like opponents.

I think I figured out why they're called 'anchors.' They block the light from above by stopping the boats they're rocking and trying to drag them down among the bottom feeders for some mudslinging.

Not correct etymology.

That was another example of sarcasm, Shelob. It was a frozen concentrated pureed metaphor.

Poetic license?

Yeah, let's call it that for now . . . what's the least sensible thing YOU'VE heard a news person say?

No Comment

Herr D was good enough to only ask me one time how I ended up here with damaged transportation and equipment.

. . . I'm continuing not to comment on that.

But today's question is, who would like to tell us (as vaguely as you like) about something bizarre that happened to you that changed your life?

What You See Is What Someone WANTS You To Get

Herr D developed this piece on heromachine.com. All rights reserved. --H.D.

Shelob has been studiously finding dozens of examples of how Catholicism absorbed traditions and obscured the original meanings of things. So that entry yesterday? I guess I misunderstood. Zombies were what the original source material was about, and modern people have no idea, apparently.

How many of you believe the history you were taught without question? How much do you question it?

Incomplete Religious Beliefs

Yikes. Okay. I owe any of my atheist readers an apology. I actually thought modern funerary practices were RELIGIOUS in nature. Shelob's research straightened me out. It's about zombies! No wonder it makes no sense, religiously.

Explain. Inconsistency disrupting program.

Your research, Shelob. It's about zombies. The gravestone, as you pointed out in your report, was originally a weight to keep the body in the ground. The epitaph was a charm to be spoken to keep the body in the ground. The coffins are heavy-lidded and used to be nailed shut to keep the body in the ground. Religious services held graveside with clergy were originally to keep the body in the ground. That reference you brought me about the rhyme about six feet under?

This was to keep the body in the ground, also?

Yes. So obviously, funeral practices are about zombies.

So, why referred to historically as a "Christian burial?"

That must be another aphorism. Obviously zombie beliefs are just too strong.

I couldn't contact Herr D in time. Luckily this was an easy one.

I mean, embalming fluid was a good clue. Poisoning the bodies so that they can't replenish the Earth clearly is as anti-religious as it gets. Every major religion and most of the more responsible secular movements declare some version of  "ashes to ashes, dust to dust," but embalming fluid is clearly against that.

More inconsistency. The Bible given to you mentions the dead walking.

Oh, you mean in that last section? Revelation? That's a specific event and believed to be unpreventable. I don't know if they count as zombies or not, but that can't be avoided by funeral practices according to their beliefs.

So atheists believe in zombies?

. . . I don't know? I think that's the question of the day. Do atheists believe in zombies? I do wonder when humanity will start giving back to the Earth. Many religious people believe in the soul after all. They should be okay with the bodies taking their rightful place in the ecosystem. Let me know, guys.

Just Correcting Another Lie We've Been Taught

Herr D made this on heromachine.com. He said the figure was premade, one
of the many useful features of the program. --Hairy Deewon                            

Okay, this one took me a while to figure out. The buzzword "nonrenewable" is not an example of inferior science. It's a LIE.  The fact is that humanity CAN prepare new sources of fossil fuel, you just aren't fast enough or wasteful enough or awful enough to do it successfully. Some more accurate terms might be "unconserved," "inconveniently reproducible," "inefficient," or perhaps "foolish." But I've begun a recipe for you--Shelob? Repeat those facts for me?

Approximately 13 billion bushels of corn at an average of 48 ears of corn per bushel per year produced in the United States according to various sites available to Google.com.

Therefore the shuckage?

At minimum of one pound of external leaves to be shucked per ear, that makes 624 billion pounds of potential foliage for petrocomposting.

Okay, that's the foliage. But it has to be composted in a tar pit, right? Did my chemical suggestion pan out?

No, Hairy. But net did.

I . . . what?

Also available to 'casual research' parameters, tar pit source.

Oh! Go ahead.

2.65 million miles of paved road in United States.

Doh! Very good, Shelob. Okay. If you take all the asphalt being broken up whenever roads and maybe the parking lots get maintenance, that should be enough to build a tar pit. Petro-compost the corn husks in it for a mere ten thousand years. Congratulations, you just renewed the crude, dude! Some people plant gardens in window boxes. The same general idea could be done for crude oil. Produced locally, no one would be dependent ON the oil to transport the oil to them.

Animal proteins necessary for best petrochemicals.

Yeah, Okay. Why not bury all the atheists in it? If they don't have a religious reason for a funeral, why not let them contribute to future generations?

Solution complete.

Great! Somebody get right on this, okay? I gotta go take another break. Had a bad case of oxygen narcosis yesterday. Overslept and ate WAY too much plankton. Digestion's still not quite right. [belch] Gotta go!