Random Nuclear Strikes

And they are conservative, with the liberal ones giving the police whatever power they want.

Presented without comment.

Since Phil mentioned it

Picture your neighbor’s pool.  Unless you live in Malibu, it’ll contain about 6,000 gallons.  That’s the “Gulf” for purposes of discussion.  Now go to your garage, get a quart of oil and pour it in when he’s not looking.  Pretty good sense of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, right?

Nope, not even close.  Put a drop of that oil onto a sheet of paper and carefully cut it in half.  Now do it again and toss that quarter of a drop into the deep end.  Even this quarter droplet (about the size of the comma in this sentence) is about 10% too large, but NOW you have a sense of what 4.9 million barrels of oil in the Gulf looks like.[1]

Now that we’ve grappled with the issue of scale, let’s look at the aftermath of this ‘catastrophe.’  According to the government scientists, seventy-five percent of that sliver of a droplet has now evaporated, been eaten by microbes, skimmed or burnt. (This estimate is in dispute, but every day the released oil is being reduced to get to that figure, if not beyond it.)

Now, you’re going to need to borrow your kid’s microscope for the rest of this exercise….

In regards to my post yesterday, I get WHY people are upset.  I can easily see how the Cordoba House could be built as a giant poke in the chest at America.  However, I can also easily see how it can be a place to show that mainstream American Muslims are a different breed from the mainstream Middle East Muslims, and a completely different animal from the violent radicals.  The guy building it might not be the nicest person, but he is just one man, and the Muslims of NYC could very well find his rhetoric to be wholly undesirable.  Regardless, we can not abandon core principles because feelings might get hurt.  We’ve already abandoned the 4th amendment, and all that’s has gotten us is Big Brother.

Growing up, I was raised in the United Church of Christ.  I remember church as being a nice place, full of friendly faces and thoughtful sermons about respecting your fellow man and trying to live in peace with them through Christ.  Then our minister left, and the new guy that replaced her came to the pulpit with sermons of sin & hell & damnation.  I’ve never seen a congregation abandon a church so completely.  Within 6 months, the place went from being packed every Sunday, to having just enough people to fill the first three pews.  People generally want to be good & live in peace.  They won’t always flock to someone preaching hate & violence.  The Imam may want a place to radicalize people, but he may not get it even if he builds it.

Now, my personal hope is that they build Cordoba House, and the people of NYC take it as a poke in the chest, and instead of bombing the place, they do something better.  Something that show’s just how great this country is.  They can build something big & new & shiny in that stinking hole in the ground where the towers once stood, instead of the ego masturbations they’ve been doing for the past nine years or so.  I mean, I just can not believe it’s taken this long!  That site should have a bustling gleaming tower of glass, steel, and concrete, a symbol of the massive industrial might this country can muster, and that tower should have 4 smaller towers all facing East & designed & arranged such that it looks we are giving those radicals a giant goddamn middle finger!

But no, we have to bitch about a Mosque while we go broke.