De Doc's Institute for Memetic Engineering And Polymaths' Pursuits

Today’s Latin Lesson:

Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam. – I have a catapult. Give me all the money, or I will fling an enormous rock at your head.

And I can, too…

Very OLD school WMD, eh?

This beauty comes out every other year or so at the SCA’s regional gathering and mock-war in Mississippi. You can barely see a rim of my bald pate, behind the crew member in blue, just front of the engine. More fun that you can shake a pilum at…

Kim? Frank? Sir John? Eat yer hearts out…

Kensho Godchaser…

is shifting his primary focus to The Zero Boss. His reasoning is sound, and I’ve done him the courtesy of shifting the weblog pointer to his new digs.

I *still* think he’s going to be talking about spiritual matters, though. Of course, that may simply be a fellow parent talking… during Lent.

My position on the proposed FMA:

It’s THE CONSTITUTION,

NOT A Thesaurus!

NO.

The details are different, the timescale is compressed, but I continue to feel prescient:

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Miami attorney Ellis Rubin will file a lawsuit Wednesday to challenge the Florida law barring same-sex marriages.

Rubin claims the law discriminates against his clients, two gay men who want to get married in Broward County. …

The move is not the first in Florida to take advantage of the momentum created by a Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling barring the state from prohibiting same-sex marriages, and unilateral action by the mayor of San Francisco to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Two weeks ago, two Pensacola men tried to obtain a marriage license, saying they were trying “to make a point.”

The men failed to get the …

Oh, Rosie?

When you get back from the honeymoon, kindly look up Mr. Prather, and borrow a cup of clue:

There is an upside to this: we’re debating whether gay people should be able to marry – we’ve already established that they have rights and should be left alone – while we’re battling Islamofascists that would kill homosexuals long before considering whether they should be allowed to marry. This distinction will go unnoticed by gay activists.

That hissing sound you hear is the air being let out of the O’Donnell Pretentiousness Balloon.

In comments on an earlier post, a friend of mine raised a cogent point, which I promised to get back to…

What is particularly distasteful about this whole affair is that the hardliners on both sides are not interested in cultivating social change… they are interested in compelling it, forcing others to bend to their beliefs by adroit use of the courts to set their preferred religious and philosophical beliefs in civil law.

On the other hand, Doc, civil liberties for Blacks really got rolling when people began ignoring the law and sitting at the lunch counters and in the front of the buses. And civil liberties for women really got rolling when people began ignoring the law and walking in demanding …

President Bush has frustrated and confused a lot of people in the last couple of years. His decisions and policies simply refuse to fit into the “left"/"right” spectrum of conventional political discourse. War and internal security policies anger “liberals"; marked increases in government spending and entitlement programs incense “conservatives"; and live-and-let-libertarians find common ground for irritation with both sets of decisions. (Meanwhile, the Libertarian Party practices doctrinal purity–and political irrelevance.)

And then, of course, there’s his recent statements about the Constitution and gay marriage. (GAHHHHHHHHHH.)

What do we make of all this?

Out in the “conservative” and libertarian biomes of the blogosphere, there’s a persistent grumbling that Bush is more-or-less opportunistic, not “really” conservative, and isn’t …

Honest. This is GOOD news:

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (CNN) – Tapes attributed to Osama bin Laden’s top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, have warned that more terror attacks are coming and criticized France’s push to ban Islamic head scarves in schools.

The messages – also heavily criticizing U.S. President George W. Bush – were aired on the Al-Arabiya and Al-Jazeera Arabic-language TV networks Tuesday, but it was unclear whether the tapes were the same.

Why is it good news?

Because the tapes make topical references, cite recent news events, are therefore very unlikely to have been prepared and stored before the fall of the Taliban regime…

and do NOT feature bin Laden.

The remnants of the Al-Qaeda organization have all but admitted that bin Laden …

and my nose is still stuffy; from pollen rather than colds, but still.

This is getting tedious.

Time to start taking zinc and vitamin C, and dig in. There’s stuff to write about.

The battle lines are hardening in San Francisco.

Conservatives have sued the city of San Francisco, seeking to bring an end to Mayor Newsom’s policy of performing civil marriages for gay and lesbian couples. They claim the law is on their side – to wit, sections of the California Family Code, which ban recognition of same-sex marriages.

In return, San Francisco has now countersued the state – they claim that the California Family Code is unconstitutional, citing equal protection and due process concerns.

As California does not require residency in order to issue marriage licenses, it is all but guaranteed that federal lawsuits will follow.

Some time ago, I predicted federal lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of both state and federal …

as soon as I finish shoveling loads of Real Life ™ off the countertops.

Gah.

Venomous Kate weighs in on the upcoming Presidential election – and it’s not good news for GWB.

…daily emails arrive asking why I haven’t come out and declared my preference for Bush. The fact is, I’m not ready to do so. Yet.

Why not? To readers of recent “Tidal Shifts” entries, some of the reasons will sound altogether familiar…

… The Republicans re-entered the White House under the guise of “compassionate conservativism” and yet compassion seems to stop where Administration members’ personal morality begins, to-wit: the President’s notion of a Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage while planning a billion-dollar drive to promote heterosexual marriages…

The level of deficit-spending over the past four years shocks me, and the recent reigning-in is tardy, to …

Ah. Over there, by my iMac….

Tip of the biscotti to darlin’ Margi, for sticking it to The Pretentoid of Kuro5hin.

Note to His Precious Pretentiousness: You are, in fact, being mocked.

Just sayin’.

Just …gah.

Suffice it to say that Real Life can, in fact, be the anti-blog.

Though it hasn’t been ALL dealing with idiocy in realspace. I’ve been a bit busy helping a friend. (BTW, anyone who thinks that Snarks, or LOTDs, are easy, ought to petition Herself for permission to guest-blog one, some week. I hope my efforts measure up).

BoiFromTroy graciouslyd his weblog to group postings today, on the subject of the Massachusetts Supreme Court’s “advisory ruling” which stated that nothing less than gay marriage would do in Massachusetts. I’ve taken his offer up, and shared my misgivings here.

Frequent visitors to this site will not be surprised at my conclusions.

I’ve posted this entry to allow readers to comment on my post – where I won’t miss them…

of pretentious bloggage, there’s very little that can compare with this little gem of ever-so-precious elitist claptrap.

The author goes on at great length about the dangers that MT blogs present to the internet, and how Google is in imminent danger of collapsing under the weight. No mention of how much Internet traffic goes to prOn, as opposed to blogging… but who wants to be bothered by tiresome things like *facts*? They would detract from the vigor of his tantrum, as he pouts about the common people sullying his precious internet playground with THEIR thoughts.

Horrors! The serfs might actually be learning things, and speaking for themselves! They are no longer content to let the Wise And Learned Souls …

for domain changes to propagate

and for this entry to be replaced by “You Made It!"…

so I can read more pretentious verbiage high-grade Venom.

Kelley passes on this disturbing news:

… Preliminary tests on a white, powdery substance found in the mailroom of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist indicate the presence of the deadly substance ricin, a Homeland Security official said Monday.

48 hours, and let’s hope this does NOT pan out. Ricin is a damn sight more lethal than anthrax…

On screen, aboard the USS Clueless: a story with a sense of proportion.

A year ago today…

Shuttle Columbia was lost with all hands, minutes from home.

Dale Amon remembers, as does Bill Gawne.

If you’re half the spacer I am, this link will make you want to cry… and then, buy.

Unfortunately, there’s some bad news on that front…

It turns out that the hard drive on which this project was stored is irreparably fragged.

That has to be the best single argument for frequent backups I have ever, EVER heard.

Inexplicably, there’s no link on the Man Conquers Space homepage for contributions. I wonder if I can get them to rethink that policy…

We’ll just have to cultivate patience, apparently.

Until the MCS movie’s redone, though, go to the MCS site; browse about the galleries; listen to excerpts from the soundtrack…

And wonder, with me, just what COULD have been, today, had we had more vision …

I may be slow, but I generally catch up…

It’s come to my attention that I am on fellow space enthusiast Rocket Jones’ blogroll. He’s a spacer; we’re something of an age; and we both spent a fair chunk of our growing up in the pre-"Silicon Valley” San Jose. He’s also a damn fine read, with an entertaining taste in Googlebait… so it’s off to the templates for me.

This is an excellent opportunity, I think, to add a section to my links, highlighting Spacer weblogs and sites of interest. Time to break ground on Port Goddard…

Welcome aboard, Ted!

My Dad was quoted once as saying, “It’s easy to make decisions, once you know what your values are.” That speaks volumes about what’s gone wrong with the company.

Roy Disney