River of....FIIRE!!

Any good parish priest will tell you that the typical Catholic has gotten gobsmackingly lax in the practice of his/her faith. Well "typical" is an exagerration, I guess. But even so, many Catholics have, as I said, become very lazy when it comes to practicing their faith, if they haven't dropped it altogether. Why is this?
That same good parish priest will probably tell you this is because most people over-emphasize the merciful side of God, to the point where His just side is nearly totally ignored. Therefore, people worry less about sinning, Hell, and all that other lovely stuff.
Now back in, say, the Middle Ages, the problem was entirely different. People were morbidly fascinated with Hell, and God was much less of a loving creator to them than He was a merciless judge. And, funnily enough, now that the former misconception has had its spin, the latter may be coming back. At least, perhaps among more consistent Catholics. This isn't a good thing.
I've found a very interesting article, in one of the forum threads linked to above, that explains what is wrong with this picture of God (as merciless tyrant in the skies), and, also, how it has contributed to the popularity of atheism. Quote do I:

I have the suspicion that men today believe in God more than at any other time in human history. Men know the gospel, the teaching of the Church, and God’s creation better than at any other time. They have a profound consciousness of His existence. Their atheism is not a real disbelief. It is rather an aversion toward somebody we know very well but whom we hate with all our heart, exactly as the demons do. We hate God, that is why we ignore Him, overlooking Him as if we did not see Him, and pretending to be atheists. In reality we consider Him our enemy par excellence. Our negation is our vengeance, our atheism is our revenge.
But why do men hate God? They hate Him not only because their deeds are dark while God is light, but also because they consider Him as a menace, as an imminent and eternal danger, as an adversary in court, as an opponent at law, as a public prosecutor and an eternal persecutor. To them, God is no more the almighty physician who came to save them from illness and death, but rather a cruel judge and a vengeful inquisitor.
You see, the devil managed to make men believe that God does not really love us, that He really only loves Himself, and that He accepts us only if we behave as He wants us to behave; that He hates us if we do not behave as He ordered us to behave, and is offended by our insubordination to such a degree that we must pay for it by eternal tortures, created by Him for that purpose.
Who can love a torturer? Even those who try hard to save themselves from the wrath of God cannot really love Him. They love only themselves, trying to escape God’s vengeance and to achieve eternal bliss by managing to please this fearsome and extremely dangerous Creator.
Do you perceive the devil’s slander of our all-loving, all-kind, and absolutely good God? That is why in Greek the devil was given the name of diabolos, "the slanderer."

So, all you hardcore atheists out there, you really do believe in God, even though you may not know it yet. Give me a minute to go off and laugh at the irony of it all.

An old bumper sticker comes to mind

Another interesting tidbit in today's paper:
Apparently, the percentage of children making up the population of San Francisco (and other big cities) has gone sky diving lately. Right now, 14.5% of the population of SF is made up of people younger than 18.
Who's surprised?
Schools in San Francisco are now half full, the park is populated more by dog owners than by chilluns, and the kids that are still there can't be sure their friends will be there the next day. No, I'm not saying SF's totalitarian (totalitarian....right, this is California were talking about) government is sending out snipers to systematically pick off the kids. Actually, families, and the kids in them, are vamoosing faster than they can be replaced. Again, who's surprised?
This kid-loss has been attributed to several things. It's been suggested that part of this is becuase 20% of San Francisco's population is homosexual (now, you gotta admit that's weird--more homosexuals than kids. When's the last time that happened?), however, this idea has been somewhat debunked, as more and more gay/lesbian couples are adopting.
It seems that the city itself is scaring people away. Most of the families that have been running away haven't been going to Alaska or anything, they've just been running to nearby residential neighborhoods; places that aren't suffering quite so much from the city's claustrophobia and general nose-in-the-air-ish-ness.
Anyway, just thought I'd share that.

We got Death Sta, we got Death Sta...

While the eye candy of the previous two movies was certainly a lot of fun, it's nice to see that George Lucas is still able, when the need arises, to eke some emotion out of his (otherwise cardboard-y) characters.
Episode III is an interesting movie, to say the least (By the way, here's a big, fat SPOILER WARNING for those who have yet to see the film *gloats*).
As with the other movies, the special effects in this movie (and there are tons) are frequent and very well done; it's hard not to sit through one of the many battle scenes in this film without feeling somewhat high. Unlike the last two prequels (well, Episode II, in any case), there's a bit more to this movie than eye candy. The plot is much more interesting and easy to follow than that of Attack of the Clones, and is emotionally more complicated than either PM or AC.
Something else interesting: All of the previous movies, without being necessarily fluffy, have been very...safe. In many of the past movies, Lucas hasn't really done anything really unusual, or shocking. In this movie he does, however. For example, in this movie he has the guts to kill off kids, and many of them. That's certainly not the sort of thing you'd (or at least I) expect from something like Star Wars, something that everyone goes to see and more or less expects the usual Lucasfilm fare (of course, the movie's rated PG-13, so people probably knew something was afoot. But several of the rather frightening tricks that were pulled in this movie I wasn't expecting at all). Anyhoo, summing up these last few paragraphs: This movie takes more risks and is certainly more frightening and thought-provoking than the other SW movies.
Now for another side: The ideas behind this movie. I noticed several interesting things while watching. Of course, perhaps this is just a case of me seeing what I wanted to see, but, well...anyway.
First off: The movie seems rather pro-life. Padme and Anakin are secretly married, something not good for either of them (Padme holds a fairly high position in the government, and Anakin is a Jedi and therefore more or less sworn to celibacy), and if this fact was to become public, it would be good ol' scandal 'n' ruin for both of them. Then, guess what: Padme gets pregnant. Another guess what: Despite the fact that this is a pretty ruinous thing to happen, Anakin and Padme choose to keep their baby (babies, as it happens). Of course, I've no idea whether the galaxy has abortion methods on hand, but you catch my drift.
Second off: The bad guys in the movie appear to be moral relativists. A speech Darth Sideous gives Anakin while trying to convert him to the Dark Side distinctly reminds me of the type of psychobabble often given by the liberal, atheist, anti-Christian crowd. Also, during Obi-Wan and Anakin's climactic lightsaber duel towards the end, Obi-Wan says something to Anakin to the effect of "The Sith are evil, why did you join them?" and Anakin responds: "From my point of view you're evil." (emphasis added)
Hmmmm...

Buckle up or die

Yesterday, Ye Olde Merry Washington (not D.C.), started a statewide crackdown on all those nasty-wasty people who don't wear seat-belts. Now, if a copper catches you with passengers (or yourself) without a seat-belt, you get the usual old $100 dollar ticket...for you. If there's more than one person in the car without a 'belt, however, you get ticketed for them, as well. So, if you're lucky, a trip to the grocery store can cost you $500 (for a family like ours, anyway)!!! Oh, goody!
And as an added bonus, cops can now pull you over for exactly zero reasons, just to make sure you're clickin' it.
Why am I so ticked about this? It's just a stupid seat-belt. Precisely, it's just a stupid seat-belt. You'd think our state's government would have more important things on their minds than seat-belts. Their train of thought seems to be going somehwhat like so: "Why worry about meth labs or embezzlers when we can get those meanies who don't buckle up?" Yeah, why worry?? Goodness knows that people who don't buckle up are more of a threat to society than those who are crankin' out crack by the bagful, or killing kids by the jarful.
So remember, all you Washingtonians: Click it or ticket.

The Ultimate Cure for boredom

Why sit around and be bored when you can click here and make yourself look as you would "South Park"? Personally, I have no interest in the show itself, but I've always admired the general look of the characters, and when that site was shown to me on BlogHogger, I couldn't resist (and I'm sure you can't, either).
Here be me:

Of course, I took some "artistic license" with this, but I have a feeling most people would. In fact, the only thing about this that is accurate at all is the hair, skin color, and the color of the (almost invisible) pants.
Although you never know--I might have a lightsaber. So it would be best not to get on my bad side, eh? ;)