Monkey's are ALWAYS funny!

Tee hee.

Easy

See MB, It's that easy. Awwwww....

The Difference Between Us and Them

After reading the above Pearls Before Swine strip, how did it make you feel? I giggled pretty hard at it. But then I wondered how others would take it. I’m not practicing any religion at the moment, but I grew up in the Baptist church and know plenty of other Christians and I can’t think of any that would be offended by it. I’m sure there are some that will, but over all, I don’t think you are going to hear calls for Mr. Pastis’ head.

Now consider the recent plight of Gillian Gibbons, the British teacher who merely allowed a student to name a teddy bear Muhammad while teaching at a school in Muslim Sudan. She was arrested and immediately sentenced to 15 days in jail. If the British Government had not stepped in, the sentence would have included lashes and could have been punishable by death.

So which is worse, illustrating your Savior as a comedic crocodile or naming a teddy bear after your chief profit? Either way I think the reaction speaks for itself. This is just another reason why Western cultures are seen as superior to others. We don’t want to kill people for making a joke.

Personally, I would have slapped some boxing gloves on the bear and said I was just a big fan of 1970’s boxing.

Love Advice

So we're sitting at a Mexican food joint when Kyle declares that the waitress is "hot". Now for those of you that know him you aren't surprise. The in issued this bit of love advice...

"You have to make them FEEL cute before you tell them they are. If you just tell them they are first, it will ruin your whole relationship. They have to feel it first."

1. He is eight
2. He is right
3. I'm in big trouble when he starts dating.

Ahhhh Traffic

Since I have nothing better to do but blog while sitting in this crap, I thought I'd send this in. I used to get really uptight in traffic but either age or just getting used to it has calmed me down. Often I just thing that the poor slop that is causing this jam is worse off.

Blogging

 Tee hee

 

Why I live in Texas

Just a little proof that we do have some color here in the fall, and unfortunately my little camera just can’t capture the colors very well.

A lot of people think Texas does not have a fall, actually they are wrong, we have a very long fall, we just don’t have a winter. Not a long one anyway, about a day or two is plenty for us. Y’all can keep the snow, if I want snow I know where to find it.

Seriously, I know it gets too damn hot in Texas during the summer which also last too damn long, but when you have days like today I can’t honestly see why someone would live anywhere else.

Antwerpen 1.5

Did I mention the narrow, yet historic roads and alleyways?

 

 

 

 

Antwerpen 1.4

Most of these photo’s came from personal walking tours and a guided tour that our host, Post Belgium, conducted for us as we did a progressive dinner. You know what I mean, drinks in one place, appetizer in another, main dish in another and so on. Six stops in all, I think this one was appetizers. It was really kind of neat, even if all we really wanted to do was drink (hey, we are mail guys and gals, it’s what we do).

 

 

 

Antwerpen 1.3

“Hey, what are you staring at? Not every part of my body can be GIANT!”

 

Cute statue of drunken sailors looking at the giant. Just very unfortunate positioning of the little guys.

 

 

 

Antwerpen 1.2

At first I thought this was yet another gruesome statue, which of course it is, but it really does fit. This is the top of a statue that is found in the main square. It tells the story of how Antwerpen got it’s name. Apparently during the medieval times they found some whale bones near the river… being medieval type people with medieval sized brains, they just figured it was the bones of a giant and thus had to come up with a story. So I guess the one that stuck was that there was a giant that would make boats pay a toll to come this way up the river. If you didn’t pay the toll, it would cut off your hand and toss it to river. Apparently there was a Roman hero that came up there river and battled the giant, cutting off his had and tossing it in the river thus ending his reign of terror. Werpen was the Roman word meaning “to throw” and thus “Hand – werpen” became Antwerp.

 

Hey, I don’t make them up I just tell them.  

 

 

Antwerpen 1.1

I was fortunate that our meeting was being held at the Hilton in the historic district of Antwerpen because believe me my company would never have approved the cost had I not threatened to take a taxi every day from the other side of the city. (What they don’t know, is that probably would have been cheaper).

 

Old Antwerp is dominated by its Cathedral and indeed it proved very useful while marching through the narrow and winding streets and alleyways of the city. If ever I wondered where I was I only had to look up or listen for the bells that rang every 15 minutes. The cathedral has a much storied history. Started in the 15^th century it latterly took centuries to finish. In fact, some would tell you that it is not yet finished as it only has one tower. You can see it’s stubby, unfinished, sister just this side of the finished tower the photo here. Indecently, I tried taking many many photos, but being that most of the time I could be out and about the city it was dark, this is really the best I had. The one thing I was told by locals is that everyone can remember how tall the tower is because it is an even and easy to remember 123 meters high. I guess because it is the 1-2-3 it is easy to remember, but I thought it would have been easer to remember if it was 100. I guess they didn’t ask me.

 

Back to the history… I’m doing this from memory, so don’t sue me if I get it wrong in a few places. After the Romans left town the Vikings decided to take a turn at Antwerp (something that apparently happens a lot) and being Vikings, they burned the place to the ground. After the Catholics came a conquering they found, in the ashes, a statue of what appeared to be a Madonna, which was most likely the Roman Fertility god, but it was burned and when you’re looking for a miracle, who’s counting. So they figured this was where God was telling them to build a church, they did. The decorated it with a lot of great art, most of which can now be found somewhere in Madrid, because of course the Spanish had to have their turn with Antwerp.

 

 

 

Antwerpen

If you have ever been to Europe you know that the Train stations are magnificent. Of, course they were the latter day “airports” and nobody does them better than Europe and Antwerpen is not the exception. Never caught when it was built, but the façade is at least 18^th century. After some much needed sleep it was time to wake up and shake the cob webs from my head. Unfortunately, being nearly winter, the sun went to bed early and with was dark by 5 o’clock.

 

 

 

Something new

OK, I’m going to try blogging about the trip and since I like this new email interface so much, I’m going to use it to get this accomplished. So you will see multiple posts instead of one long one. Oh, and I’m doing this because my little TV. screen on my flight home is busted and I can’t watch movies. Arghhh.

The posts I made from my phone should be posted by now so you know how I got there, but you don’t really know the story of my getting home. Ah the trials and tribulations of airline employee travel. I can’t just buy a ticket like a normal person. No I have to fly stand by on any carrier but mine. I have been pretty lucky, but that luck ran out and I couldn’t get on the flight from BRU to FRA so my best option was hopping the Eurostar to London. With the new high speed tracks now on the English side and the new arrival terminal at St. Pancras (pictured) I was there in two hours! Then a short tube ride to Victoria station and then on the Gatwick Express. From the time I made the decision to abandon hope getting to FRA to the time I was at LGW was less than 4 hours. Not too bad.

Sleeeeeepppp

It is 10.47 am on 28 Nov and I have been traveling for over 13 hours. I went through FRA this time and barely got on the LH flight to BRU but here I am. Now an hour train ride with connections to Antwerp. A short taxi (hopefully) to the hotel then some glorious sleep for a few hours.

Back on the road again.

Well that was quick day and a half. I will write more about Antwerp when I am less mobile, but for now it is back on the train to BRU after only 3 hours of sleep.

OFF again

As you know I have come to the point where I hate to travel. But it is always a good feeling when I have to and I get to turn left after entering the airplane.

More Fun

Now I'm just getting silly. I took some more video on my camera, but blogger rejected it saying the file was too big. We will see if I can do it this way.



These people are leaving work early for the Thanksgiving weekend. Unlike us dedicated employees who just stay here and use company resources to blog :-)

More Fun

And now some video. View from one of my office windows.

Having fun now

Well, more like testing how far I can go. I just sent an attached photo to see what it would do.

Woohoo it worked.

Now I just have to follow through and actually send the emails. Incidentally, this is what I did...

http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=41452

Have a great Thanksgiving.

If this works...

Some really good suggestions were received from my post yesterday which means that you people are actually reading this. Amazing!

So per one suggestion I am sending this from my phone. Apparently Blogger has this feature already enabled, so if this works I may be able to rant much more often. Lucky you.

It is what it is

I am a terrible blogger. But you knew that and yet here you are reading it anyway. Get a life freak… :-)

But seriously folks, I don’t do this enough. As those of you that know me know, I like to rant about things. Most of the time I will throw facts in to support my position, but they really are just rants. But as I get older I find that I just don’t care much anymore. I guess that is not unexpected but I find it disappointing. I hope it is just maturity and the realization that there are truly important things to care about and everything else is just crap you need to deal with.

So, what to do about blogging? I wish there were a chip I could embed in my brain that was hooked to a device that would just record my every thought. Because mostly what I do today is react to the current situation and move on. These situations, other than work shit, rarely happen while I’m near a computer and I fail to jot down my thoughts on the situation. Then either because I’m too old to remember or I just don’t care enough, I never write them down when I do get back to the computer.

Well, it is what it is.

I haven’t ranted in a while so I’m over due. This fact is aided by the fact that I was upgraded on my flight back from Sacramento and have had a few malt whiskies. Anyone that knows me knows how philosophical I get when I drink scotch. So here I am with my scotch somewhere near the Four Corners catching up with my email and RSS feeds and I read this…

http://krmb.wordpress.com/2007/10/03/rld-book-edia/

Now most of you are (or should be) subscribed to the KRUMB and know how much I enjoy it. I mean absolutely no disrespect to Kyle for what follows.

Sometimes a duck is just a duck. The above entry makes a fantastic symbolic statement on knowledge and the loss of it by a mass media world. I agree with Kyle in his acieration that it is sad to see a book filled with such knowledge destroyed because of that symbolic statement. But that is all it is, symbolic. The true sad fact is that whoever felt the need to dump the books couldn’t be bothered with taking them to the local library and donating them, but I don’t think it is a loss of knowledge.

In fact (and here goes the rant) I think we are smarter and more knowledgeable than we have ever been. I can’t tell you the last time I picked up an Encyclopedia. Today I just double click my CTRL button and Google Desktop is there at my fingertips ready to open the world to my request. I am not sad by that nor should anyone else. I know that there are those out there (including my lovely wife) that think that there is a lost art in reading books and writing letters but I don’t. To my credit, I have been trying. I have even joined a book club, but to be honest, I don’t really see the point. I will admit that it makes me read things that I would not normally read, but I’m beginning to discover there is a reason I only read the things that interest me… the rest of the world I boring. OK, so that is a bit of an overstatement, but still, I have tons of crap I want to read and here I am spending time reading crap someone else selects. I will probably continue if for no other reason than I might find something new I like, which I desperately need. I suppose all things have a purpose and book clubs are no exception.
Geeze… didn’t expect the rant to go that direction. I hope the book club folks don’t subscribe.

Back to the photo and loss of knowledge. Again, I think it is fantastic photo and I’m sure if Kyle had connections he would probably get a NEA grant to expand on the dirty book photo art form, but really I think thy guy was just too lazy or stupid to actually take the books to a library or school. Sad, but somewhat innocent of the charges of destroying knowledge. Let’s face it, the WWW offers a thousand times the knowledge the World Book every did and could. What is truly sad is the countries that sill restrict the internet. If Kyle could capture that in a photo, he would win the Pulitzer.PPPPP

Atheism, Agnosticism, Religion, and Scott Adams

A friend of mine sent me Scott Adams recent blog on Atheism and asked how it fit into my theocratic arguments. The basic premise of the post is that since you can not be 100% certain of anything isn’t it better to believe in God just in case there is one because not doing so will damn you to Hell for all eternity. It also says that if you are 100% certain that there is no God then you yourself must be God because to have that kind of knowledge you must possess God like knowledge of the universe.

I don’t subscribe to Adams' blog, but if these are the types of topics he discusses then I will start. First let me just say that his argument is silly. He is attempting to apply scientific proof logic to a theological problem. “You can’t prove God does not exist therefor he might” is no more valid an argument than “Show me proof there is a God and then I will believe.” Perhaps that is who Mr. Adams is attempting to reach with his post.

But that is not why I write today, today my friend asked how it fits in my theocratic arguments. I think he is referring to my proclamation that there are no agnostics only athiests and people who believe in different “gods”. I don’t think I have written about this in the past so I will attempt to explain. I came to my conclusion by attempting to figure out why people claim to be agnostic. I did so while trying to figure out my own beliefs and thought that I might possible be “agnostic”. First I think it is important to know that I am basing this off of conversations I have had with numerous self proclaimed agnostics using their definitions of agnosticism. I know the Oxford/Webster’s/Wikipedia definition of the word so please don’t send them to me.

“I can’t find any proof God exists so I’m not sure there is a god”

To me this is a compelling argument but one that is easily taken apart in most of our lives. Every one of us believes in something that we can not prove. I believe I am a good father and my son will be prepared for what life throws at him. I believe I am a good husband because my wife tells me I am. I believe that I am secure in my employment because I work hard and my bosses seem pleased. I believe my car will start tomorrow because it started today. I can offer no scientific proof of any of these things but I believe them.

“I believe in some kind of higher power, but I don’t think it is God”

Then what is it? Figure that out; see if there is a group of people like you that think that way; build you a church and call it a religion. Poof, you’re not agnostic. Seriously, I think this is the category most people who have a problem with modern organized religion fall into. They believe that something unexplainable has influence in the universe, just not your god.

“I just don’t know much about religion”

You are just lazy. Go out a learn something. This is important stuff. You can’t go through life not interested in the way things came to be and the way things are going to be for the rest of eternity. If you do, then you are doomed to either be blissfully happy but stupid, or you are going to be miserable. Regardless, you are not agnostic you are uninformed.

“I believe in a god, but not Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhist, etc”

OK, fine… but you believe in a god. Therefore you have defined it in your belief system and therefore know about a god. You’re not agnostic.

There are of course variations of each of these categories, but for the most part this is what I have observed. I would love to hear others but I think I can shoot them down.

Oh, and you’re right. I did not address the “I’m sure there is not a god or higher power or a flying spaghetti monster” argument. You’re right… they are atheist. For more on that see Scott Adams.

May God/Alah/FSM/Zeus/nobody bless you.

Something Special In The Air

I know I have written about this in the past, but this whole travel thing needs to be reworked. As you know I work for an airline so my customers, who are as demanding as all customers, expect you to be wherever at the drop of a hat. Take today for instance, I went to Los Angles for a 45 minute meeting. I was up at 04:30 this morning to catch a 06:45 flight. A 45 minute meeting then back to the airport for the flight home that gets me in at 19:00. Now I could have stayed overnight, but to be honest I just can’t stand the thought of another hotel bed not to mention another night away from the family. “But Terrill, don’t you get upgraded?” Yes, when pigs fly. To be fair, I have been lucky with the over seas trips and have been upgraded most of the time, but domestically… no f*&#ing way. Even though I travel enough to be triple platinum gold sapphire diamond, I don’t get miles so back with the working class I go. But the worse thing about it is that my company expects me to save seats for the paying passengers so they don’t allow me to book my flight more than 7 days in advance and then even then I can only book in a class that is just above the class they allow virgin flyers and convicted felons to book in. So even though I may know I absolutely have to be somewhere 3 months in advanced, I never know if I can actually get a flight. If, at the last second, a seat does not materialize that is likely in the middle of the last row or actually in the john I then am expected to beg the president of Cargo to grant me a seat if and only if he deems my trip worthy. That is a bit unfair to my Pres, because he is a great guy, but really should I have to bother an officer of a Fortune 100 company for a seat on a plane that we own? As much traveling as I do I should have my name tattooed on a first class seat.

Enough for this rant. I’m sure there are those of you out there that think I am way off base and would love to travel like I do. To you, I wish you never have the need to think otherwise.

Geeks Who Drink

I first heard about this group while listening to Coverville. It is an apparently local phenomenon in Denver where, as the names suggests, geeks get together to drink. But it seems to be centered around trivia. It seems to be a great idea that I would love to get started in the DFW area despite my inadequacies in all things trivial. But good news, I am currently sitting at the Irish Snug near downtown Denver. It was a pleasant surprise being that it was literarily right across the street and tonight they host the gang. So I was graciously paired up with a couple of guys who were short a crew and I did my best to help out. They were not easy questions. But as I write this it is only half over, so here’s hope.

More later.

Hang on Snoopy...

In the spirit of the Krumb (http://krmb.wordpress.com/feed/) I took this photo on my way to Fort Worth. I traveled about 45 miles with speeds in excess of 75 mph and this little guy managed to hold on the entire way. It was fascinating seeing him position himself behind the mirror for the least wind resistance. But what was truly interesting is when I made several stops (including a long one to get gas) he never left the window. I half expected, and was disappointed when it wasn’t there for my trip home.

Philosophy, Science, and Religion

Question about Science, Philosophy (Oliver Leaman responds): There's an article in The New Yorker this week (Feb. 12) about two philosophers-turned-scientists who, in the course of their studies, developed a strong distaste for the philosophical way of things (one of them bashes Thomas Nagel's bat thought-experiment as an incompetent way to approach the mind-body problem).

Is it true, as the article asserts, that philosophy is continually ceding its territory to the sciences (philosophy of the mind may be rendered obsolete by neuroscience), so that less and less is left to philosophers over time? Could science make philosophy obsolete?

Response from Oliver Leaman on February 15, 2007

I don't think so, although this is often claimed. The links between philosophy and science are complex and easy to get wrong. Philosophers are not looking for answers to problems in the same way that scientists are, although the difference is quite subtle. With the mind-body problem, whatever scientific developments on this occur, the issue of how to best characterize the relationship remains a conceptual problem, and no scientific discovery would force the philosopher's hand to come down on one approach or another.

________________________________________________________________________

This was from AskPhilosophers.org and I found it to be an intriguing. What is the relationship between philosophy and science? Is there one. Mr. Leaman indicates that there is but that it is complex. I’m not sure I agree. Although the definition of philosophy is itself a great philosophical question, most would agree that it involves reasoning, debate, and critical thought but rarely can produce physical evidence to support its arguments. I think most would agree that science involves both theory and physical evidence to support or prove the theory, not just the theory.

Now to be fair, Mr. Leaman did not call philosophy a science, only stating that there is a relationship between the two. This would, it seems, suggest that philosophy sort of takes care of the things that can not be proven by science. A great example would be the fact that the human animal kills for enjoyment. Science can’t (not yet anyway) offer evidence as to why we do that but philosophy can certainly offer theories on the subject. So if philosophy does take care of the nonscientific realm of the universe the how is it different than religion? I know this too is a great philosophical debate but I fail to see the difference. To say that philosophy isn’t religion because it does not have a supreme being controlling the universe doesn’t cut it in my eyes. It only shows that philosophy fails to make the next leap and explain the unexplainable with a god. Perhaps that is the definition of religion, philosophy with an answer. Even if it can’t be proven.

Summer Gas

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2374

A good article that anyone concerned about gas prices, pollutions, global warming, or corn…. Yes corn should read.

Mr. Anonymous Sticks it to Terrill

There was an anonymous comment on my "Perry Sticks it to Young Girls" entry. Boy am I sorry I didn’t see this comment earlier. Apparently I need to check my own blog more often.

A quick review is in order. I had commented on Governor Perry using executive powers to force girls to be vaccinated for the human papilloma virus (HPV) before entering school. As most of you know, HPV is most commonly contracted through sexual contact. But read the full article if you want to know more. The comment that was left was…

“But have you studied the information on vaccine injuries to children? Adults too for that matter. Merck is considered one of the biggest culprits in the contamination of its vaccines. Please inform yourself before you support such a drastic approach to dealing with a potential problem for some girls.”
Posted by Anonymous | April 25, 2007 12:56 PM

First, the author apparently does not know me well because if he did he would know that I do research my subjects before I comment. (Quick side note - I suspect the author is a woman but I am using the literary “he”). On the rare occasion that I comment on a subject with out thinking it through, which includes doing a little research, I will always inform the audience that I “don’t know much about the subject, but on the surface…”

Admittedly his reason for disagreeing with the policy did not make it my originally list, but there is a reason for that. To withhold a vaccination from a child due to safety concerns about the vaccine itself is asinine. I am assuming that the author has never taken any medicine of any kind for the same reason. No aspirin, cold pills, polio vaccine, smallpox… etc. Now before the rest of you go off on me too, I realize that caution is needed for new vaccines, but the HPV vaccine has been tested extensively and has been used effectively for years. Unfortunately it does not protect for all forms of Cervical Cancer, but it does for some very common ones.

So not to go on a rant… (I know, I know), the answer to your question Mr. Anonymous, if that is your real name, is yes, I have considered it and I think I will keep taking medicine despite the risks and my child will be vaccinated (once it is approved in the States for boys). (Huh? Do some research.)

Off again

Once again I am off on another trip. This time it is a three country world wind tour. I fly to Frankfurt (hopefully in the front of the bus). I will get there and do my customary 2 hour nap, get up find a pub, or in this case a bier garden, have dinner and be back in bed by 8 pm. Get up really early and run around on the ramp at FRA airport. Then I fly on Iberia (my first time) on Monday to Madrid. Spend the night there and wake up early and run around the ramp at MAD and meet with Correos (Spanish Post). Then on BA to Heathrow and do the same thing there, but for two days.

Glamorous huh?

It's Official

Febuary 19, 2007

Its official, I hate to travel. At lease I hate to travel the way I have been traveling… on business. This hatred has manifested itself over the last couple of months but really took off in the last couple of weeks when I have been traveling at least one day each week. It feels kind of silly writing this right now since I have sitting in first class on my way to Miami, but even getting upgraded doesn’t make the time I spend away from my family worth it. I miss my wife and my son terribly. I know many of you are wondering what kind of nonsense I am speaking and wish you had the opportunity to travel. I did too, but as they say, be careful what you wish for.

I’m sure things will be different once things settle down a bit at work, but I have no idea where that will be. It would also be different if my family could travel with me. In summer that may be possible but since my son is in school and my lovely wife must stay at home with him that will have to wait. But even in summer it might not be worth it because I generally only travel no more than three days at a time and mostly just overnight. So it usually would not be worth the hassle. So for now I will just stare out the window at the puffy white clouds and think of the smiles of my wife and son until I can see them in earnest soon.

Perry Sticks it to Young Girls

Rick Perry, Texas Governor, and staunch conservative shocked most folks when he signed an executive order forcing Texas girls to be vaccinated for the human papillomavirus (HPV) before entering the sixth grade. HPV is the sexually transmitted virus that is the leading cause of cervical cancer. Initial reaction has been controversial at best. Criticism is coming for the religious sector stating that giving the vaccine to girls will tell them that it is O.K. to have unprotected sex. People who just hate Perry point out that the maker of the vaccine, Merck, was a contributor to Perry’s campaign. Parent rights advocates point out that the state is removing their right to decided how to medically care for their children.

I want to go on record saying I didn’t vote for Perry and I don’t usually like his policies and unless this is your first time reading you know that I am not exactly a liberal either. All this aside I somewhat agree with Perry but I have a few qualifications (you knew I would). But let me address the critics first.

The religious right’s argument that getting a shot will cause young girls to run out and have sex is the same old argument against the pill and condoms. Do I really need to go into why this is wrong? Even if you buy this argument it is not really applicable here because apparently the vaccine is most affective if taken before the subject becomes sexually active. Despite what most fathers would love to believe, some day their daughters are going to have sex.

As for Merck’s “contribution” to Perry’s campaign… it was $6,000. Not even a drop on a drop in a bucket of water. Perry’s raised hundreds of millions of dollars; I hardly think six thousand is going to make him feel obligated.

Perhaps the most compelling criticism is from parents who believe that the government isn’t very good at raising children and should leave important decisions up to them. I tend to fall in this camp but I also know that this can’t be absolute. Otherwise we would have parents keeping children home from school without bothering to educate them at home just because some yahoo who never finished the 4th grade was able to make a baby and figures “hell, I’m doing all right”.

On a less cynical note, the state has the right to protect its investment. In other words, it can require it’s citizens to perform certain tasks that will help protect them from becoming a social and financial burden to the state at some point in the future. This is the basis behind tax funded education. The problem with this is that I could not find anywhere that said that the state will pay for the vaccine. Perhaps that is to come and if so, then I’m all for it. At the minimum the state needs to assist those that can not afford to take the vaccine just as they do today on other vaccinations.

In the end, I think this is the right move. If nothing else, it will encourage more insurance companies to cover the vaccine or it will make it easier and cheaper for those that can’t get access to the vaccine to get one.