BunkBlog

You just have to wonder about the priorities of the Catholic Church.

1. Male priest has romantic relationship with a woman.  Reaction from the Catholic church:

Father Cutie’s actions have caused grave scandal within the Catholic Church, harmed the Archdiocese of Miami — especially our priests — and led to division within the ecumenical community and the community at large.

2. Over 800 priests abuse thousands of children for decades, with the aid and collusion of the Irish government. Church reaction: silence.
3. Priests sexually abuse thousands of children in the United States. Church reaction: move priests around and threaten anyone who speaks out with expulsion.

I tried out Wolfram Alpha today for the first time. The new search engine did not impress me. It found no notable events for my birthday (I’m notable!) and then the amazing thing: a search for July 20, 1969 said the most notable event was Josh Holloway’s birthday. Huh. I think something else may have happened that day.

This has been a great year for fossils (ironic, as it’s the International Year of Astronomy, not paleontology). Now we have a new adapid, Darwinius Masillae. Perversely, the fossil was uncovered over 25 years ago, but was kept away from paleontologists and biologists until 2007. What a delay!

Of course, the whole “missing link” discussion is so much nonsense.  It presupposes that evolution is a simple chain of events one after the other, and that we merely need to look hard enough to find every single species that led from amoeba to human. Gibberish, in other words. Darwin described a tree of life, with many branches that wandered and sometimes were pruned. Biologists since then have expanded this into more of a web of life, as there are examples of hybridization and DNA transfer between branches of the Darwinian tree. But, good luck getting a scientifically-illiterate journalist to discuss the latest in a long series of puzzle pieces that have made the theory of evolution one of the best-supported and most solid scientific theories of all time. No matter that my office mate just made some disparaging remark about how Ida is a big deal for those “Darwin believers” – I assume he meant, “any educated person.”

Although I question the existence of a “date-aversary” as much as I question the existence of “Sweetest Day,” I have to point out that my bride is fabulous. It’s hard to believe that it’s only been two years since we first met, as we seem to be perfectly compatible at all times. This level of consistent happiness is something I wish everyone could experience.

Remember, when people say, “relationships are hard,” they’re lying. Only bad relationships are hard.

Now, just five more months until our first anniversary. That’s paper, right? Ooh, origami!

From Kat:

Although my husband pretends to object to both a dateversary and an anniversary, I still make out like a bandit on both days. Our anniversary is October 31st, while our dateversary is May 14th. 2 years ago on May 14th we met for the first time. All has been perfect ever since. Still no fights, no name-calling, no belittling- It’s bliss with an excess of smooching and cuddling.

We had a 50$ limit for our gift exchange. I bought him two books, a shirt, a Cross pen and pencil set and a gorilla tripod for the camera. He got me a beautiful bouquet of flowers AND A NETBOOK. Obviously he added a zero to our money limit. It is an Asus Eee in blue. I also got a remote mouse and a fabulous carrying case. Love Rocks! Thank you Gary.

Editor’s note: date-aversery is not and should never be a word.  Webster said so. I’ll go along with the day though.

I realized that I may have mentioned a new job here and there through cyberspacewebland, and yet I haven’t said anything about it since taking the job.

So, here we go… My new job is running a simulator for a war game.  I make airplanes and tanks move around in virtual reality, and send messages that pretend to be from those planes and tanks to other planes or bases.  Troubleshooting new scenarios is a fun little puzzle, ensuring things happen when they’re supposed to and that no aircraft remain in the air without forward motion (hovering C130 anyone?).  It’s fun, at least for me.

And, there’s an RPG propped in the corner of my office.  I’m pretty sure there’s a scene in a Daniel Keys Moran novel like that.

The GIs in the office I’m currently working from all have an abiding love of Fox News, leaving the television stuck on that channel all day long, and (regulations be damned) speak against President Obama quite freely.  One of the officers asked if I’d seen some headline on Drudge Report (after having a discussion about my Skeptic magazine). As if that’s not bad enough, they just decided to turn off the television (too much Obama made them ill) and turned on some music. First request, not with any sense of irony or mockery: Got any Nickelback? 

Fortunately, I don’t need to worry about fitting in, as I’m expecting to move to a different office in a month.  Nickelback and Faux News, yay.