If the Catholic Church really wants to protect and promote heterosexual marriage

One way they could do so is to return the phone calls of heterosexuals who call them to ask what they need to do to get married. Just a suggestion. Though I'm sure fighting against gay marriage is also a really good way.

Tips for stalkers

I came across this website today, ZabaSearch. It's useful for cyber-stalking people whose names are so common they are un-googleable. It's not perfect--the free search doesn't give out my current address, for example, but it does have my last several addresses and names several of my family members. It is fairly creepy. You can also get e-mail alerts when someone searches for you.

The weirdest part of the site is that you can check to see if anyone has left a message for you on the web. For example, someone the following message for me:

Hello, i am looking for the biological father of [John Panda], now John _____ born in ___, 19__. If you know someone or are someone who could provide assistance please e-mail me.

It's odd.

Sometimes I love George Will

George Will, a very smart, conservative columnist with whom I usually disagree, has written a good piece on McCain's reaction to the Supreme Court's recent decision in Boumedienne. In that decision, the Supreme Court ruled that detainees at Guantanamo are entitled to seek habeas corpus review (basically, to ask the government to either release them or show, through fair legal processes, why they should be kept in prison).

McCain says this is "one of the worst decisions in the history of this country." George Will points out, among other things, that

(1) there have been many decisions far worse, so stop being ridiculous.

(2) this decision DOES NOT LET ANYONE OUT OF PRISON, so stop being ridiculous.

(3) if you're supposed to be a conservative, maybe you should have a little more respect for a right that has been at the heart of the centuries-long struggle to constrain governments.


Read it.

I don't understand online flight check-in

On most airlines, you can now check in online for your flight up to 24 hours prior to the scheduled departure time. I thought checking in was a way of telling the airline, "I have arrived at the airport, and I am a mere few hundred yards away from the gate. My plans have not changed, and I have not been delayed by traffic. Rest assured, I will be ready to board that plane when my row number is called. So please do not give my seat to a standby passenger." Those are not things you can confidently tell the airline the day before your flight. Am I missing something, or does online check-in largely defeat the purpose of checking in?

How I spend my time

I've been spending a fair amount of time commenting/arguing on internet forums lately, and this makes me laugh.

John Hagee

In light of keychainfroggy's recent post on inflammatory pastors, I thought I'd post this.

For those who don't know, John Hagee is the pastor of a large megachurch and the head of an televangelism company that broadcasts his sermons across the world. John McCain sought his endorsement and got it, but later rejected it when some of Hagee's more controversial statements about Catholicism and Judaism came to light. The quiz keychainfroggy posted describes him as follows:

Rev. John Hagee -Your friends think you’re pretty intense, but as far as you’re concerned, Hitler was a hunter who was sent by God to hunt down the Jews and send them running to Israel. Additionally, you think the Catholic Church is a “great whore,” though it’s not clear whether you mean “big whore,” or “very skilled and attractive yet reasonably priced whore.”

Anyway, I recently realized that John Hagee's Cornerstone megachurch is about 10 minutes away from my house, so naturally, I decided to go. The church was enormous, and it seemed more like a modern concert hall than anything else. Everyone was super-nice; I think about 17 people shook my hand on the way in. There was singing for what seemed like forever (very good singers, lame lite-pop-style music). Then John Hagee spoke. The sermon was fine, but disappointingly innocuous for someone interested in controversy; the topic was "Stop worrying." There was one line that was questionable, where he seemed to suggest that the Jews made a career of worrying because they wandered in the desert for 40 years, whereas Jesus was more of a problem-solver because he only did so for 40 days. Other than that, pretty inoffensive.

But when I got to my car, I noticed someone had placed some flyers and newsletters on my windshield from this guy, who believes the Pope and the U.S. are part of a Satanic conspiracy. (One contained this headline: "Evil International Roman Catholic Government Agents Are Claiming To Be United States of America Government Agents.") I guess he thought Hagee's church members would be a friendly audience.

Also, here's a story from a reporter who went undercover at a Cornerstone retreat, and it was way more interesting than my experience.

Be a meanie, go to jail

Largely as a response to the horrible Megan Meier incident, the Missouri legislature recently passed a bill expanding the definition of criminal harassment to include the following:

[E]ngaging, without good cause, in any other act with the purpose to frighten, intimidate, or cause emotional distress to another person, cause such person to be frightened, intimidated, or emotionally distressed, and such person's response to the act is one of a person of average sensibilities considering the person's age.

If the perpetrator is 21 or older and the victim is 17 or younger, or if the perpetrator has committed this crime before, it's a felony that could result in four years' imprisonment.

The Governor hasn't signed the bill yet, but he's expected to. This law is ridiculously overbroad. Is there anyone, ever, who has not intentionally caused emotional distress to another person without good cause? I fear that Fuzzy alone could identify enough instances to get me imprisoned for life. (But she should not mention them in the comments section, because to do so would cause me emotional distress and could land her in jail too.)

Welcome, keychainfroggy

Let's welcome keychainfroggy to the blogosphere! I think you will find that she is extremely hip and with it.

We had the $240 . . .

and we had to have the pudding. As some of you know, I love sketch comedy. I just came across this: Nerve's list of the 50 greatest comedy sketches of all time. It's a great list because it has full videos of almost every sketch. So unlike the usual top whatever list, where you read it and say, "Oh, yeah, I've been meaning to watch that movie" or "Maybe I'll download [/buy/steal] that album sometime," you can just watch everything right there.

I was happy to find many of my favorites on the list (Argument Clinic! Porcupine Racetrack!) and troubled by a few of the choices (I know people like the chicken lady sketch, but as Kids in the Hall sketches go, it's just not as good as girl drink drunk, the bad doctor, the axe murderer, Gavin painting a chair, or anal probing aliens, just to name a few). I also found some sketches I'd never seen that were quite good.

Enjoy!

I never get tired of fake memoirs

Most of you have probably seen this, but in case you haven't: a 33-year-old white woman named Margaret Seltzer recently wrote a critically acclaimed memoir, Love and Consequences, about growing up in a black foster family n South Central Los Angeles and getting involved in drugs and gang life. Except that she wasn't ever in a foster family, in South Central or elsewhere, and she didn't get into drugs or gang life. She grew up in the suburbs with her biological family and went to the same private school as the Olsen twins. She was found out when her sister called a reporter and said Seltzer was lying. Here's the story.

This takes some guts. This isn't James Frey embellishing and adding details to a real-life story; it's totally, completely made up. Just imagine what it must take to go on book tours and interviews, telling person after person all of these lies. How could you do it? And how could you think that you wouldn't be found out? Think of all the people who know you--all it would take is for one of them to see your picture in a book review or media appearance, and it's all over. I would like to meet this woman.

Notes on hotels

Last week, for reasons beyond my control, I stayed for a few nights at a hotel that is far nicer than I am used to--one of the best and most expensive in the city where it is located. The hotel was extremely elegant, the rooms lovely, and the service excellent. However, I barely noticed any of this. Instead, I spent my stay there in a constant struggle to obtain cold Diet Coke. This was caused by the fact that the hotel has no self-service ice machines, no vending machines, and no in-room refrigerators. Perhaps this is comforting to patrons who turn up their noses at the vulgar idea of consuming food and drink not presented on an actual silver platter. To me, it was annoying.

At this hotel, a person who wishes to enjoy a Diet Coke in her room must either (1) pre-purchase some Diet Coke, store it warm in the room, call down to room service, request that ice be sent up, wait up to 20 minutes, allow a person into her hotel room, and give them a tip; or (2) call down to room service and request that a can of Diet Coke be sent up for the reasonable price of $3.50 plus an 18% gratuity and a $2.50 delivery charge. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Particularly when you want to do it two to four times per day.

Also, a hotel that costs $60 a night can give me a free buffet breakfast and phone calls, but the hotel that's hundreds of dollars a night charges $12 for a bowl of Cheerios and $1.50 for a local call? Stupid.

It's two stars max for me from here on out.

Happy 30th Birthday Fuzzy!

Dewey Defeats Truman

In an effort to avoid some of the intrusive graphics and over-the-top commentary of the cable news channels, I tried watching campaign coverage on PBS tonight. Two things happened:

(1) PBS, apparently relying on the AP, called Missouri for Hillary Clinton pretty early in the night. When it did so, most of the precincts had reported and Hillary had a three-point lead. But St. Louis City, St. Louis County, and Columbia (home of the University of Missouri) still had nearly all their precincts outstanding! Unsurprisingly, the call ended up being wrong. It's not good when a news outlet makes a prediction that anyone with access to the county-by-county vote totals on cnn.com could tell was wrong.

(2) PBS cut away from Obama in the middle of his speech to show us a bunch of random pundits blathering on about the same things they'd been talking about all night.

PBS is now dead to me, campaign coverage-wise.

Also, MSNBC is now noting that a Missouri statute provides for a recount in elections as close as this one, but wouldn't that be incredibly silly in a state with proportional delegate representation?

Vote!

Those of you in Super Tuesday states should go vote tomorrow. Or, if you're lucky, caucus, because caucusing is awesome.

My state's primary isn't until March, so I will be sitting at home and watching punditry all night, flipping between the sane, thoughtful commentary of Mark Shields and David Brooks on PBS and the enthusiastic, incoherent ranting of Chris Matthews on MSNBC.

New Hampshire thoughts

• What the hell goes through your head when you talk to pollsters, New Hampshirites?
• Everyone needs to stop being mean. Obama and Edwards, no more ganging up on Clinton, because it's hurting you. Bill and Hillary, no more calling Obama's vision a "fairy tale," because it's pissing me off and making me hate you.
• McCain's speech (boring, long, read with his head down the whole time) was the worst of the night. He made Huckabee shine by comparison, and he even somehow made Romney seem like an authentic, likable idealist.
• Clinton is sort of growing on me, but she's no Obama.
• This is the greatest primary season ever for political junkies. There is no front-runner in either party after Iowa and New Hampshire!

Happy caucus day!

The Iowa caucuses are tonight! Coverage starts at 7 pm EST on CSPAN. Never have I been more sorry I didn't focus my job search on the Des Moines area.

Some stuff to get you in the mood:

A really excellent article by Andrew Sullivan about Why Obama Matters.

A David Brooks column about why Romney's old-school Reagan Republicanism could make him unelectable in the fall (NY Times free registration required)

In case you haven't seen it, Mike Gravel has given us the single greatest political ad ever made.

Microloan

I guess this has been around for a little while, but I just heard about it, and I think it's cool.

Kiva is a website that lets you lend small amounts of money ($25 or more) to small entrepreneurs all over the world to help them grow their businesses. The website has profiles of the entrepreneurs, including descriptions of what they want the money for. Most of the people are only trying to borrow a few hundred dollars. When you lend to someone, you get updates about how the business is doing, and as they pay the loan back, you get paid back. (Kiva's repayment rate to date is over 99%). Then you can cash out or reinvest in another business. Right now, you don't get any of the interest the borrowers pay, so it's a charitable act and not an investment. Here's how it works.

I've only heard bits and pieces about microfinance, and I know there are downsides. But for the most part, I think Kiva's model is really interesting. The loss of the interest on $25 or $100 for several months is not something most middle-class Americans would even notice, but that money could make a massive difference in someone's life. And unlike most traditional giving programs (which I also support), it could help build economies and sustainable occupations. And it's easy. And it encourages people who might not otherwise give to get involved.

Automatic Take-my-money Machine

Today, I pulled up to the ATM with some checks to deposit, put them into the envelope, and stuck the envelope into the machine. It made that grinding sound that it does when it's sucking in your envelope, and the envelope disappeared into the machine. But the grinding sound did not stop. The ATM screen asked if I needed more time to complete my transaction. More time? My envelope was already gone--what more did I need to do? But there was no way to communicate this to the cold, inflexible machine. It told me that my transaction was incomplete, gave me a "receipt" that in no way reflected the fact that it had just received $1000 worth of my checks, and sent me on my way with nothing.

For years, I have resisted making deposits at ATMs. I figured that if I was going to hand over my valuable negotiable instruments, I wanted some human person to see them, take them, and give me a receipt. But everyone told me I was being ridiculous. "I make ATM deposits all the time!" they said. "It works fine!" they said. Well, I've done it four times now, and one in four times it has taken my checks without giving me credit. I don't like those odds.

Christmas Pandora plug

As most of you know, I love Christmas music, and commercial Christmas radio stations sort of suck. So I've taken to listening to Pandora. I think someone (fuzzy?) may have posted about this a while back. The way it works is, you type in a song title or artist, and it generates a custom radio station for you with stuff it thinks you will like. You can guide it along the way by giving thumbs up or thumbs down to certain songs, and you can skip ones you don't like.

It is amazingly effective for Christmas music. I typed in "Hark the Herald Angels Sing," selected a version by a choir, and since then have been treated to a beautiful series of traditional carols. There's not a "Christmas Shoes" or "Holly Jolly Christmas" in the bunch, and the well-known songs are mixed in with lots of lesser-known but awesome songs like "Once in Royal David's City" and "Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming."

You have to register after you listen to a few songs, but it's free and easy and worth it.

Romney's faith speech

I heard Mitt Romney's speech, and I think he gave the best possible speech he could have, given his audience of Christian conservatives. I also respected that he basically said that he was a Mormon and he wasn't going to distance himself from that to get elected.

Two problems, though:

(1)Disturbingly, there was absolutely no suggestion anywhere in his long speech that he has any respect for non-religious citizens--their rights, their potential contributions, or their morality.

(2) A key component of his message is incoherent. He thinks:

(A) it is illegitimate to "have a presidential candidate describe and explain his church’s distinctive doctrines" because doing so "would enable the very religious test the founders prohibited in the Constitution"), yet
(B) it is legitimate for a candidate to proclaim in his campaign speeches that he believes that "Jesus Christ is the son of God and the savior of mankind." (as he did in this speech).

He won't answer questions about his Church's doctrines, but he will answer questions about what he believes about Jesus? The implicit message is that a belief in God and Jesus is not a "doctrine"--rather, it's the baseline faith we all agree on, the standard. But to many people--Buddhists, Wiccans, animists, Shintoists, people who consider themselves "spiritual," agnostics, atheists, doubters, questioners, and adherents of traditional American Indian and non-Western religions--even the belief in God is a distinctive doctrine, not a given. When he talks about God and Jesus, Mitt IS talking about the distinctive doctrines of his church. So I don't see how he can get all self-righteous if people ask him to get more specific about what he thinks about Jesus and God.

Mitt wants to draw the line between "faith" (what a you can ask a candidate about without it meaning you're imposing a religious test) and "doctrine" (what you can't) exactly where it best suits his political goals: right next to Jesus. I don't see that as a principled position.

Note: I just found this article by Andrew Sullivan and this one by E.J. Dionne, which make essentially the same points as I do. And David Brooks has a really good piece too.