ARGH! NO!!! Don’t pay any ransom! The Abu Sayyaf cannot be trusted or negotiated with. A ransom payment to these brigands is no guarantee that they’ll release their hostages: the only bargaining chip they have left. And even in the unlikely event that they do free the hostages, ransom payments will only enable them to kidnap even more victims, locals and foreigners alike.
Timmorgan’s brownpau javascript
Tim Morgan has made a cool snip of javascript which links you to my random blog layouts without going through the initial redirect page. Neato! I’ll consider his suggestion of saving it here as a .JS file for easy link access. Thanks, Tim!
Update: With my PHP randomizer in place, the aforementioned code is no longer necessary.
Britney S-PEE-rs
Irate Residents Bombard Britney with Buckets of Urine. Somewhere, somehow, I’m pretty sure this is someone’s kinky sex fantasy.
Old Smoking Adverts
Funny old cigarette print ads I’ve stumbled across at work: (Part of my job involves doing web stuff for a tobacco document archive)
- “I’d walk a mile for a Camel.”
- “Blow some my way.”
- “They were smoked continuously from Trespassey to Wales.”
- “Avoid that Future Shadow.”
- “Dawn-to-Dusk Smokers! Keep Mouth-Happy!”
- “Do you inhale?”
- “Now you can smoke as many cigarettes as you want to!”
- “Smoke like a chimney? Who cares?”
- “More doctors smoke Camels.”
- “Gee, Mommy, you sure enjoy your Marlboro!”
You can dig for more in the TDO Advertising archive.
Christianity and Smoking
Ah, is that smoke I smell? Spinning off from the debate on the Bible and alcohol, Razormouth has an article on Christians and Cigarettes. Of special interest to me, in my current position as anti-tobacco activist. And sure, Spurgeon smoked, but was he aware at the time of the addictive and carcinogenic properties of those heady vapors? More importantly, if even a moderate Christian smoker were to cause his brothers to stumble because of his habit, would it not be better for him to quit?
Somewhat ironically, I discovered yesterday that the Chairman and CEO of Philip Morris is named Bible.
TweakUI
No installation of Win9x is complete without TweakUI. Download it for extra GUI control.
Orisinal
The games at Orisinal are best enjoyed with a high-speed connection. Wow.
Freedom Farce
Pedophiles and Thomas a’Beckett
Church sex scandals aren’t big news in Rome. I didn’t think they would be, having come from a country which suffered under oppression and abuse by Catholic friars during the centuries-long Spanish colonization. I’m not saying, of course, that pedophilia was then or is now the Catholic ideal or norm, God forbid; but certainly we cannot assume that these controversies are new or unique to the Church. Priests, bishops, pastors, and even some popes through the years have committed sins of sexual immoderation — as well as other crimes — and likewise there have been attempts by the higher clergy to cover and compensate for those guilty of such indiscretions.
The great martyr Thomas a’Beckett comes to mind. He maintained that a priest accused of murder be tried under the religious courts rather than the royal, despite King Henry II’s insistence to the contrary. That’s a deficient analogy, of course: Cardinal Law and Archbishop Beckett face vastly different historical contexts for different crimes. Certainly Rome does not have the influence it had back then, nor would any such standoff now result in a martyrdom by execution.
And yet, we do have here a situation where the people cry for priestly offenders to be submitted to secular courts of government rather than to the discipline of their mother Church. What is one to make of this, were one to speak in defense of Catholicism? And the question must be asked, (and not begged ;) is this more a matter of media hype than it is one of ecclesial discipline?
(Heh. “In defense of Catholicism…” Can you tell I’m not your average everyday Baptist?)
Netan-yahoo!
Ariel Sharon didn’t come over to Washington today, but Benjamin Netanyahu is at the Hilton right now, with several thousand demonstrators outside, clamoring for the establishment of a Palestinian state. All this just a few blocks from where I am currently sitting.
Just in case you didn’t know, my sympathies are with the demonstrators. I am no dispensationalist, and I do grieve for innocent refugees killed by Israel’s military operations. Just as I grieve for those innocent Israelis killed by suicide bombers. More on that from this fence-sitting moderate, some other time.