Wild Tangents
Marc talks about life in Nashville, life as a Catholic and life as a geek.

Since I’ll be out of town on voting day, I went out to “rock the vote” today doing early voting. Now I want to say this loud and clear. I don’t care who you are, or what you believe. I have two requests.

The first is for everyone who is eligible to go out there and vote. I don’t care who it is you are going to vote for, whether you vote for the same folk I did or not does not matter to me. What matters to me is that you exercise your right to vote. Many people who have gone before us have fought and died for you to have that right. Don’t let them down.

The second is that you make an informed decision based on your own set of values. In my case, my decisions were based on the information at hand about the ballot items (candidates and/or initiatives). I took this information and based on my values (largely dictated by my faith), I made a decision. If there was a ballot item I was uncertain about, I left it blank and berated my self for not being better informed. Most of the blank were the local races here in Gallatin. I just haven’t lived here long enough to get a good feel for the local politics. So take that as an example of who you can make an informed decision.

Again I beg, please consider voting next week.

One of my favorite priestly blogs is written by a Fr. Martin Fox in Ohio. I just had to mention this post. It presents a (note a “a” and not “the”) Catholic perspective on the history of the spread of Islam. Here’s the start of it:

Sadly, all was peaceful and a garden of delights for the peaceful prophet and his followers until suddenly, one day in the 7th century, the armies of Byzantium, led by the pope, landed at Acre and marched to Arabia, and at the point of the sword, demanded the prophet (blessed be he!) comply to their outrageous demands. The peaceloving followers of the great prophet gathered around to witness the shocking scene:”You are the prophet of Islam?”

“Yes.”

“We demand that you invade our lands; form armies and sweep across North Africa; then we will gladly renounce our faith and become Muslim,” bellowed Pope Leo the Great.

It only gets better..

Go give it a read.

Hosting for this website, FoxySuzy, Thicke.org, Repomen.org and My Favorite Commercials is though Bluehost. Bluehost is a hosting company that’s based out of Salt Lake City. I’ve been with them for a little over a year and I love them. There have been service problems in the past, but Matt Heaton, the CEO of Bluehost keeps a blog where he updates everyone on the latest news for Bluehost, including what’s being done to prevent problems that have cropped up in the past. Well, his most recent post said this:

Bluehost does not and will not tolerate adult material of any kind on our servers. Sometimes profit comes second and personal responsibility and ethics come first. I am not telling other hosts to not provide adult hosting services, but I wish that they would come to that conclusion on their own.

What do I say to that? I say kudos to Mr. Heaton! It’s wonderful to find someone out there that will not let the almighty dollar dictate how he runs his business. Don’t get me wrong, I know thaat Mr. Heaton is in this business to make money. It’s just that I am proud to be the customer of someone that refuses to compromise his own moral judgement in order to make a dollar.

Bravo Mr. Heaton! Bravo Bluehost!

Not only has a government agency admitted to finding aliens in Roswell, they’ve put out a press release on it…

Breakfast with toast, eggs, bacon and sausage - $7.95

Lunch with pork and beans from a can - $0.79

Dinner with a pepperoni pizza - $15.95

Being a jerk international terrorist and all round sour puss without ever having to skip a meal - priceless…..

Suzette and I have an appointment with the USCIS (formerly INS) in Memphis on Thursday. Since she got here in October of 2003 we have worked tirelessly to legally get her status as a resident alien formalized. I have spent over a thousand dollars in pursuit of this goal, as well as spent hundreds of hours filling out paperwork, standing in line and performing other tasks.

Now, after a US Citizen has gone through all that trouble to get his wife’s status in the US permanent, can you understand why he might be a little pissed off that somewhere near eleven million people in the US might get the same result by simply breaking the law by illegally crossing the boarder?

I found this page on del.icio.us this morning. It’s really amazing to see all the prolific diseases that some of our presidents went though, in some cases whiel serving their country.

From George Washington’s toothlessness (he has no teeth left by middle age), to Grover Cleveland’s gout, to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s polio, to Ronald Reagan’s Alzheimer disease, and finally to George W. Bush’s colon polyps, presidents throughout history suffer from the same diseases and ailments like the rest of us.

Of course then you get to Jimmy Carter, the healthiest president according to this page. What is his single illness? It’s “severe chronic hemorrhoids”.

[Presidential Diseases - Diseases of the Presidents of the United States]

I’ve always been a big fan of good news satire. Unfortunately, there’s not much out there that’s good. But this story has got be one of the funniest things I’ve read in weeks.

Senator Hillary Clinton has come under fire from conservatives for laughing out loud during last nights State of The Union Address when President Bush, referring to Al Qaeda, said “we will not sit back and wait to get hit again.” A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton said that the Senator was not laughing at what President Bush said, but rather was caught at an inopportune time by the camera as she was daydreaming about…..

You’ll have to click on the link below to get the full story and laugh out loud…

[Political Satire Fake News - The Nose On Your Face : Hillary: "I Was Mis-Photoed"]

ZAGREB, Croatia - An ethnic Serb seen killing Muslims in a nationally televised video was convicted of war crimes Thursday and sentenced to 15 years in prison, with the judge saying he had shown “no mercy or compassion” for his victims.

Serbian paramilitary member Slobodan Davidovic “actively participated in inhuman treatment, humiliation and liquidation” of six young Muslim men from Srebrenica in 1995, Zagreb district court judge Miroslav Sovanj said in his ruling.

He was seen in the video %u2014 shown by prosecutors at the trial of former Yugoslav President
Slobodan Milosevic and then broadcast across the former Yugoslavia %u2014 helping kill six young Bosnian Muslims who had their hands tied behind their backs.

Only 15 years? ONLY 15 YEARS???? I saw this video. The actions of the Serbs in it were barbaric and inhuman. This guy should be put in a damp dark cell for the rest of his life with no contact with the outside world but three cold meals a day.

[Serb Convicted for Videotaped Killings - Yahoo! News]

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