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I don't have a lot to say about the accidental death of all those civilians in Lebanon. It's an awful tragedy. Our administration putting all its eggs in the basket of Iraq, and now using platitudes about needing "sustainable peace" as an excuse not to get in there and do something, as if there's some magic fix waiting to be applied, and any stopping of hostilities in the meanwhile would just get in the way of that.

I had to scoff at the latest cover of Time magazine that had a picture of Bush in an Air Force One top and the caption "The Weight of the World". Given how famously he's ducked losing a night's sleep during his watch, it's hard to take the idea of him being restless and troubled seriously. Some props to him for using the term "Terrible" in regards to Iraq.

Christian Fundies who are eager to look to the current Israel/Lebanon conflict as a harbinger of the events of Revelation are an odd lot. One theory I've heard is that the antichrist might come as a peace bringer, maybe the man who manages to bring peace to Middle East and solve the Gordian Knot of all the conflict there. The whole Fundie view of Israel, then, is kind of weird, because these are people who root for things that hasten the coming of the end of the word, not against, like most non-insane people. The dangerous bit of thinking is "pre-Tribulation", that all the faithful will be sucked up into heaven before the crap really hits the fan. I think if more Christians assumed that they'd be around for the 7 years of tribulation, they'd be less excited about end-of-days events.

Of course, that's all part of the fun of prophecy, it's abilities to be self-fufilling, self-negating, or happen anyway even when you try to prevent it.

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Shirt of the Moment
The other day I did a literal double take at this incredibly crass T-shirt, claiming, in more graphic terms, that the wearer's ability to assemble a computer indicates an ability to grant the reader sexual satisfaction. Assuming that the shirt was intended to be about the female orgasm... yeah, that's exactly what women are in on the hunt for, physical human sexuality brought to the leve a geekish hobby. While I think there is something to that "Revenge of the Nerds" idea that "Jocks only think about sports, nerds only think about sex" and that that intense interest can help create thoughtful and skillful lovers, that shirt is still just r,o,n,g RONG.

Tangent: they're remaking Revenge of the Nerds? Yeesh. Though it is hard to believe that its been 22 years.

Secondary Tangent: I love quotes, and I used to regularly visit IMDb's frontpage to get their "Movie/TV Quote of the Day". But then thet stopped attributing it in the page, and instead have a teaser "From which TV show/Movie?" link. That subconciously really bugs me, turning it from a quote appreciation thing to a dumb movie trivia game, and I dropped the daily visits to the site. Of course it's still the canonical movie information source, Trivia, Goofs and Quotes especialy.