Almost certainly not. Almost certainly, he never actually existed. I say that since the edvidence for either of those notions is the same: none.

Yet that hasn’t stopped some Scots loon from going on about the notion that Jesus visited Britania at some point.

The loon in question talks about how it’s not out of the question that Jesus would’ve come to England, and I suppose it’s technically possible. But it’s highly unlikely. Most people even in Roman times, heck, even up until just a few decades ago, didn’t go more than a few miles from where they were born.

Favorite quote:

“He needed to go around to learn bits and pieces about ancient wisdom, and the druids in Britain went back hundreds if not thousands of years. He probably came here to meet the druids, to share his wisdom and gain theirs.”

Yes, because if there’s one thing that we know about the Romans, it’s that they just loved the druids. I seem to rememer Julius Caesar, in particular, was a great fan. Plus we all know how much Jews and Christians have loved learning wisdom from other religions.

This concept is not just bad history, it’s not even good theology.

I’m largely indifferent to Adam Lambert. Sure, he’s hot, he’s gay and I’d totally hit that, but I probably won’t ever get the chance to, so who cares?

I'd hit that up one side and back down the other!

That said, I do find the recent fufurrah about his performace at the AMA’s to be really amusing.

See, he was performing on stage, singing some song or another, and started doing things like kissing one of the other (male) people on stage, doing some crotch grinding and the like. It was all fairly tame, frankly, by the standards of what goes on at such performances.

Ah, but in this case it was a gay man… with other men! Think of the children!

Adam Lambert did think of the children. He was asked by someone on CBS’ The Early Show if he thought he needed to apologize to his fans in general and the children (won’t someone please think of the children?!), to which Lambert replied with “Nope“. Good on him!

Lambert doesn’t have anything to apologize for. He didn’t do anything worse that someone like Madona, Brittney Spears or any of the other, generally female, singers out there. They do it and no one really minds (or they just get turned on). But when an openly gay man does it? Horror!

Oh, well. I’m sure that somehow our nation will find the strength to move on. We managed to survive the Crisis of Janet Jackson’s Nipple. If we lived through that, we can handle this.

Be strong, America!

Not bothering to post much today. I have to work. I get what amounts to double-time-and-a-half, though, so that helps. Having to be there at 7am when I normally don’t even wake up until 9:30 does not help.

I am making dinner! I’ll be having a tasty turkey, some mashed potatoes and gravy, corn, Jell-O for desert and the usual snacky things like olives, some veggies and deviled eggs. Most importantly, I’ll have my friend Rob over for dinner!

So a bit of today, but mostly ! Meantime for a bit of fun, check this cute article on Snopes about some of the problems some turkeys have had making their turkeys.

Yeah, not much to say about this, other than if Robert Pattinson actually opened his eyes all the way at any point, I think his career would end.

A police station in Belfast was attacked by Christian terrorists recently. They were part of a “rogue” Irish Republican Army group. For those keeping track, that’s the main Catholic group of terrorists there, as opposed to the various other Catholic groups and their enemies, the various Protestant groups. They’re the sides in what the British simply refer to as “The Troubles“.

Of course the MSM won’t refer to these terrorists as “Christian” terrorists. Because we all know Christianity is a religion of peace (or pieces, if you’re in the IRA). But when something that may or may not be about religion, like the Ft Hood shootings, happens, they can’t talk about the suspect’s religious background fast enough, since, after all, he’s a Muslim!

Now I do think the Ft Hood shootings were likely motivated by religion, but so was this Belfast attack. The IRA were, and this rogue group are, Christians and terrorists. Always remember that. The Muslims aren’t the only ones with evil, petty, cruel jerks out there.

This is perhaps just a little on-the-nose for me. It’s Quagmire from the most recent Family Guy explaining to Brian exactly why he dislikes him so much.

“You are the worst person I know. You constantly hit on your best friend’s wife. The man pays for your food and rescued you from certain death, and this is how you repay him? And to add insult to injury, you defecate all over his yard. And you’re such a sponge. You pay for nothing. You always say, ‘Oh, I’ll get you later,’ but later never comes! And what really bothers me, is you pretend you’re this deep guy who loves women for their souls when all you do is date bimbos. Yeah, I date women for their bodies, but at least I’m honest about it. I don’t buy them a copy of Catcher in the Rye and then lecture them with some seventh grade interpretation of how Holden Caulfield is some profound intellectual. He wasn’t. He was a spoiled brat. And that’s why you like him so much—he’s you. God, you’re pretentious! And you delude yourself by thinking you’re some great writer, even though you’re terrible. You know, I should have known Cheryl Tiegs didn’t write me that note. She would have known there’s no ‘A’ in the word ‘definite.’ And I think what I hate most about you is your textbook liberal agenda, how we should ‘legalize pot, man,’ how big business is crushing the underclass, how homelessness is the biggest tragedy in America. Well, what have you done to help? I work down at the soup kitchen, Brian. Never seen you down there. You want to help? Grab a ladle! And, by the way, driving a Prius doesn’t make you Jesus Christ. Oh, wait, you don’t believe in Jesus Christ, or any religion for that matter, because ‘religion is for idiots.’ Well, who the hell are you to talk down to anyone? You failed college twice, which isn’t nearly as bad as your failure as a father. How’s that son of yours you never see? But you know what? I could forgive all that, all of it, if you weren’t such a bore. That’s the worst of it, Brian. You’re just a big, sad, alcoholic bore. I’ll see you Brian. Thanks for the fucking steak.”

Ouch, indeed.

To be fair, I’ve never tried to seduce one of my friend’s wives (girlfriend or boyfriend, maybe, but does it count if me and he and she have a threeway?), and I’ve never read Catcher in the Rye. Oh, also, I don’t have a Prius. As for yard defecation… well…

*shuffles feet, looks awkward*

I do hope I’m at least not a bore.

We all know that everyone gets very creeped-out by robots that look and act human. We know this, despite the fact that 99% of us haven’t ever seen robots that look and act human, because the media tells us it is true. They talk about the concept of the uncanny valley and how it explains this discomfort.

The concept basically runs like this: things that look almost totally humand but aren’t, and things that act almost totally human, but aren’t, are something that’s going to creep us out for reasons we can’t quite explain. This concept was basically just made-up by a Japanese robotics guy named Masahiro Mori.

From what I can tell there’s no real evidence that this is true, but it appears to be accepted without any skepticism from the masses (bearing in mind that these are the same masses who believe in creationism rather than evolution and the lack of understanding perhaps makes sense). Evidence often cited includes poor box office receipts from movies like Beowulf (which I rather liked), The Polar Express, and Final Fantasy – The Spirits Within, (though one of my favorite whipping boys, Final Fantasy: Advent Children, did quite good in sales and is left off the list). What’s not usually mentioned is that these, frankly, weren’t very good movies and that might’ve played a larger role than anything else in their failure.

I think the uncanny valley concept is basically an excuse people like to use for why various products, including those movies, failed. It also doesn’t explain why other products, like Disney’s Hall of Presidents, are a success.

Ultimately this appears to be something that someone made up without any real evidence and that the media now accepts without any question. With the rise of things like Poser porn (you can search for that on your own; I’m not linking to it while at work!), I think this concept is pretty-well debunked.

Just about as pleasant as you’d expect. Bad though the treatment of Maziar Bahari was during his time in prison in Iran, I can’t help but wince when I realize that they treated him better than the US government has treated terror suspects. They didn’t waterboard him, they gave him some eventual contact with the outside world, etc.

As for what they did do to him, how can we have any moral high ground on this issue now? How can we as a nation complain about mistreatment of a prisoner when we’ve done far worse? Sure, the guy was innocent of what they were accusing him of, but so what? There’s been innocent people we’ve tortured, too.

It’s hard to have the moral high ground when you’re wallowing in a sewer.

So I see that the Catholic church has decided to deny Communion to Patrick Kennedy due to his stance on abortion rights. Well done, guys, well done. In return, I hope the Kennedys turn Anglican and stop donating money to their local churches. After all, Patrick Kennedy earns his money by being a Congressman and campaigned in part on abortion rights, so there’s no way the church would want money that dirty, right?

Here! An elegant and entertaining, point-by-point refutation of the idiocy surrounding 2012 (the year, not the movie). Look and enjoy!