Archive for October, 2008
I must have missed the memo
Posted by CyberLizard in Education, Me, Religion on October 22, 2008
The memo that said that in order to homeschool your children you had to be a bible-thumping, dinosaur-riding, right-wingnut. Somehow, in our decision to homeschool, Mrs. CyberLizard and I missed that obvious fact. Apparently a large majority of homeschooling families are doing it out of a desire to save their children from that secular cesspool known as public education. You know, that place where they try to turn your kid gay and force them to become socialists and allow old washed up terrorists to participate on boards who’s whose goals are to improve the quality of edumacation.
Anyone who knows me or Mrs. CL knows that in our homeschooling we are bucking the trend. We’re trying to bring that gay-friendly, secular, skeptical thinking mindset out of our public classrooms and into our home. I’ll be damned if I let some bureaucracy turn my kid into a gay socialist terrorist sympathizer; I’m gonna do that myself.
So we completely missed the memo and are only now being confronted with our nonconformity. It is becoming more difficult to disentangle ourselves from the tentacles of the religious whackaloons grip on homeschooling. Most recently, in a completely secular home education co-op group we belong to, the nutjobs are trying to jump in with their propoganda in support of Amendment 2, the proposed amendment to the Florida constitution to define marriage as a union between one man and one woman. Amazingly, this person thought that it was perfectly acceptable to post their screed on the dangers to our rights as homeschoolers if teh gays were afforded the same rights and responsibilities as the rest of us.
In a twofer on the religion front, Stephen Colbert has on his show Michael Ferris, president of Patrick Henry College. This school is apparently primarily a place for religious homeschoolers to send their kids to college after preventing their children from actually learning anything factual about the nature of the world around them.
All I can say is, we’re not all like that. Some of us not only have brains, but use them and encourage our children to do so as well.
It’s a God-off!
Posted by CyberLizard in Religion on October 22, 2008
Nation, once again Stephen Colbert has proved to the world that not only is he a political genius, he completely understands the true nature of spirituality and faith in America. Personally, my money’s on Cthulhu.
Nailed it!
Posted by CyberLizard in Politics on October 22, 2008
Jon Stewart and his crew over at the Daily Show have managed to hit the nail squarely on the head. And then pound it in. Until it hurts so much you laugh. After working up a righteous indignation by watching Keith Olberman, it is a welcome relief to view the ridiculous side of this clusterf#@k.
Who hasn’t done this?
Posted by CyberLizard in Local & State on October 21, 2008
From the Orlando Sentinel:
An Orlando man faces two counts of exposure of sexual organs, accused of twice driving through the Lake Jesup toll plaza on State Road 417 with his pants pulled down and his genitals exposed.
Michael John McDonnell, 39, was arrested this morning at his residence. According to an arrest affidavit, he is a delivery driver for beer distributor Wayne Densch Inc. in Sanford.
Seminole County deputy sheriffs were called to the toll plaza in the early morning hours of last Wednesday after a toll collector went to hand a motorist change and saw that he was exposing himself. The toll collector told deputies the same thing happened Oct. 9 and at the time she warned him never to come through her lane like that again, Deputy Nelson Pitre wrote in the arrest report.
Maybe he was just trying to get a discount. After all, this particular toll is $2. Can’t blame a guy for tryin’, can ya’?
The Silence Is Deafening
Posted by CyberLizard in Blogging, Stuff on October 21, 2008
In case you’ve been wondering where I’ve been, I recently have been suffering from a bout of severe information overload. I’ve recently subscribed to feeds from Daily Kos, FiveThirtyEight.com, NPR Blogs: Vox Politics, The Orlando Sentinel and Central Florida News 13. I’ve got about 18 science-related feeds in my Google Reader plus many, many, many other blog feeds ranging from Legos to funny pictures. I spend more time parsing through my feeds than I do reading email. As far as email goes, I have a compulsion to not leave any unread items in my inbox. I must process them.
I think a confession is in order:
My name is CyberLizard and I am an information addict.
Whew, I feel so much better now that I got that off my chest! Now let’s see if I can actually bring myself to click “Delete” on any feeds. I think this blog will be much better if I can actually think and write my own thoughts.
Dirty Old People
Posted by CyberLizard in Uncategorized on October 15, 2008
Props to Scott Maxwell of the Orlando Sentinel for bringing this to my attention.
Fishnets and flu shots? Seniors don’t bat an eye at strip club
Norma Smith was a little apprehensive about stepping inside Rachel’s for the first time Tuesday afternoon.
Smith, after all, is 77. And while she has often passed by this adult club, she never had the slightest desire to go inside.
But on this day, in addition to dancing women, Rachel’s was offering free flu shots to seniors.
So Smith cautiously stepped inside this dimly lit Casselberry club, allowing her eyes to adjust from the midday’s beaming sun. When they did, Smith paused.
Standing before her was a woman in fishnet stockings whose smile was winning and whose bustier was losing — the battle with her cleavage, that is.
Smith returned the smile but later confided she was thinking: “Oh, dear. Is she the one giving me the shot?”
She was not. In fact, if naughty nurses were anywhere in the joint, they were pretty much ignored.
Today, the women in the spotlight were medical professionals. And the only thing they flashed were needles.
Still, the offering was enough to entice dozens of elderly residents: Retired couples. Daughters with their octogenarian mothers. Even a shuttle-load from a nearby Catholic church.
Forget the stock pages. Anyone wondering how deep our economic woes are running needed look no further than the Rachel’s dance area, where a lonely negligee-clad performer shimmied for a nearly nonexistent audience — while dozens of seniors lined up in side rooms for free flu shots. And a pot-roast lunch.
The club ran out of vaccinations after giving 300 last week — twice as many as years past — and decided to do so again Tuesday.
“People need the help,” said club owner Jim Veigle. “That’s why we do it.”
Smith, who lives alone on a fixed income, confirmed as much. “If I’d had to come up with fifteen dollars,” she said, “I would’ve missed my shot this year.”
Likewise, Bonnie Grillakis jumped at the chance to bring her 87-year-old mother.
“Has my mother ever been here before?” Grillakis replied with a laugh. “Oh, no. I mean, I know people who have. But not my mother. No. No. Really. No.”
Still, Grillakis’ mom, Edith Kantor, a great-grandmother and former opera singer, became a fast fan of the club that’s better known for scantily clad women, MBI raids and political headaches. Besides the shot being painless — “Honey, if you can stand arthritis, a flu shot’s easy.” — Kantor said the stages reminded her of her performing days in the ’40s.
“What time can we come back for the show?” she asked her wide-eyed daughter.
The Volovskis weren’t quite as excited about the possibility of catching a late-night show. But this retired couple didn’t have any qualms about coming to Rachel’s, either.
Sixty-seven-year-old Robert Volovski, a retired armored-truck driver, took a practical approach: A free shot at Rachel’s was less hassle than dealing with his insurance company or doctor’s office.
And his wife, Rita, a recently retired nursery-care worker, said that anyone who dislikes dirty dancing is free to stay out, whether they were offering flu shots or not.
“It’s really pretty simple,” said Rita, 63. “If you don’t like it, don’t come in.”
Plus, the dancing hasn’t really been all that dirty since Seminole County residents voted to ban nudity at the clubs in 1998.
Still, some of the elderly folks who came to Rachel’s for flu shots admitted they were a little curious about the club’s other offerings. Recalled Veigle: “One woman brought in her 93-year-old mother and told me her mom had always wanted to see a pole dance.”
Nobody Fucks With John McCain
Posted by CyberLizard in Politics on October 15, 2008
Nobody fucks with John McCain
Hat tip:: Liberals Must Die
RUA Christian?
Posted by CyberLizard in Politics, Religion on October 14, 2008
This is the kind of thing I get to see on my drive home from work. 
The flip side was just as good.
You’re seriously going to hold up Sarah Palin as an example of hope and change? Seriously? Sarah Palin, who abused her power as governor, who made women pay for their own rape kits, who wanted to ban books from the library, who makes incindiary and fraudulent remarks about her opponent? That Sarah Palin?
Watching Obama climb in the polls was beginning to give me hope that we might be actually moving past the stupidity and small-mindedness of the right-wing xian garbage that has seen such a resurgence in the last 8 years.
Then I see this and realize that we have a looooong way to go.
Identity Theft!
Posted by CyberLizard in Atheism, Religion, WTF on October 13, 2008
All right, maybe not quite identity theft. But it’s still disturbing. I stumbled across a post on a Christian forum by someone called “cyberlizard” (I admit it, I’m not ashamed: I Google myself sometimes). Now, I’m not so full of myself that I imagined that I would be the only one to come up with that moniker, but did the other person have to be a religious whackaloon? Here is what he was wondering:
any insight
the bible is at times full of obscure verses which do not appear to make any sense, or get a brief mention but never get another look in.
here is a good example…. coming from Matthew’s gospel.
At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people.
ZOMG, zombie attack!!! Quick, grab your shotguns and baseball bats! Where’s the nearest S-Mart?!?
does anyone else ever read this verse, scratch their head and wonder why the verse is never mentioned anywhere else, or what happened to them after that. The bible does not say they ascended, nor does it ever speak of them again.I am open to ideas…..
Steve __________________
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Blessed is the one coming in the name of ha’shem – בּרוּךְ הַבָּא בְּשֵׁם יְיָNow to Him who is able to keep you from falling….. be glory, majesty, dominion and authority for ever. (Jude)
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Yeah, Steve, there’s a whole lot of things in the bible that do not appear to make any sense. But rather than truly examine them and try to come up with a rational explanation, your kind immediately just accepts them as truths. I’m actually quite surprised at even this superficial level of questioning. But your compatriots are there to save you with their responses:
A powerful example of the effects of Jesus’ resurrection. The history of where they went is not revealed except that they went into Jerusalem and appeared to many.I would think they had much to testify about the power of God having been in the reality of “life after death” and the truths of it.
And:
I read a teaching around that passage which supposed that there were so many supernatural things happening in those few days, that the dead coming out of their tombs was just another.
Like ‘ the day turned to night, the temple curtain was torn in two, there was a massive earthquake.. oh yeah and some dead people came back to life’
I’m surprised that no-one wrote about it in a book, Josephus or his peers. It would have been fascinating to read.
Hey, if your looking for good zombie fiction, check out The ULTIMATE Zombie Book List.
But this reply by Angeloffire enters into WTF-land:
There actually is more on what happened in the bible, but it doesn’t refer directly to what you quoted verbatum. Let me explain:Paradise use to be near Hades. I can even prove it scripturally but before I do, several have had dreams and visions and seen it too. Mary k. Baxter I think…if memory serves me correctly was one such person.
God moved paradise! He set those who were in prison in paradise free.
Matt. 12:40 For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
This is the location of hades….the heart of the earth.
Now look what he says to the guy hanging beside him on the cross:
Luke 24:43 And Jesus said unto him Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.
He took the man with him to paradise in the belly of the earth where for three days and nights he preached the gospel!
When he went to preach to those who were in a spiritual prison 1 Pet. 3:19 and conquered death, that is why the people were climbing out from the graves and preaching.
He preached to those who died in the flood and removed paradise to a different location….now the third heaven 2 Cor. 12:2-12:4….
It is amazing that nowhere does it mention what happened to the dead guys who were walking. I personally believe that as the bible says that Jesus is the firstfruits of the dead, whether these people dead people continued to live, I don’t know.
I have also wondered what the effects of preaching to those who died during the flood would accomplish….odviously the purpose was to save them and give them a chance at salvation. Whether they were able to leave hades then or not I do not know.
God is wonderous and His ways past finding out….I so love every little bit of truth he shows me and I long for more daily. What a wonderous God we serve…..
I am sooooo tempted to sign up and post, just for the lulz. At least there are enough differences between us to tell the difference, right?
That was HOT!
Posted by CyberLizard in Uncategorized on October 10, 2008
This comic is a must read every M,W,F. Especially for us geeky types.
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