Torturer of Countless Christians

I watched part of Gladiator while eating dinner. And it made me think of Marcus Aurelius.

When I went to my first college (I was in Obama’s class at Columbia, two years before Obama transferred in), we had a compulsory class called Contemporary Civilization, in which we read authors like Macchiavelli and Epictetus. I don’t think Marcus Aurelius was on the list. I wouldn’t know, because I read virtually nothing. I felt bad about that tonight. After all, Hannibal Lecter referred to Marcus Aurelius, and he was a very smart, albeit fictional, guy.

I grabbed a copy of the Meditations, which is the book Aurelius wrote. It seemed to espouse such wonderful values; I had to marvel that a pagan could be so moral. Maybe I had been wrong to skip all those classes.

I got on the Internet and checked him out. And here is what I learned. Under his reign, persecution of Christians increased dramatically, and they were often tortured to death. Some of the more popular methods included putting Christians on iron stools which were then heated over fires, and throwing them into the arena to be torn apart by hungry predators. And sometimes various tortures were inflicted consecutively, until the victim died and ruined the festivities.

Marcus Aurelius was an evil man. He didn’t have a particle of compassion, as we know it. He considered himself moral, but he wasn’t troubled by human suffering. So much for Ridley Scott’s version. I shouldn’t be surprised. Mary Poppins wasn’t real, either.

Marcus Aurelius wasn’t even a good pagan. He didn’t believe in an afterlife. No wonder he didn’t think suffering was significant. It doesn’t really matter how much pain you endure, if in the end, it’s fleeting and has no lasting repercussions.

I can’t understand why the Romans hated Christians so much, but then I can’t understand why leftists hate us, either. A lot of misguided priests and pastors are hardcore leftists.

I don’t see any reason to finish the book. This man was clearly a hypocrite and maybe a bit of a psychopath.

He Didn’t do so Bad, for an Amateur

I did something I hate to do, today. I marked up a Bible. I know the Bible is a tool, and you have to mark it up if you want to make good use of it. But the notion of defacing books makes me uncomfortable.

I was reading the book of Proverbs, and as usual, I thought to myself how great it would be if I didn’t have to read the stuff that wasn’t particularly useful. Proverbs is full of valuable things, but not everyone needs every verse. For example, I don’t plot against the righteous and seek to pull them down to the pit. I don’t even know where I’d find a pit in my neighborhood. And I don’t have diverse weights and measures. You can’t be guilty of everything that is condemned in Proverbs. You would be busy all day, every day.

I decided to put a little box around every verse I thought was helpful. Now when I read Proverbs, I can avoid re-reading the things that take up time but don’t carry much benefit. I was thinking I might take an online version, do a cut-and-paste job, and create my own tailored edition.

Of course the big down side to this is that I would lose all those verses that confirm my greatness. For example, I would no longer be able to say, “oppressing the widow? I never do that! I’m fantastic!” Instead, I’d have a book full of reminders of all the reasons why I’m a hopeless idiot.

It would be a lot like having a wife.

I think it was a good idea. I have been reading the book of Romans and then comparing it with The Jewish New Testament Commentary, and the going is incredibly slow. The chapter 11 commentary goes on forever. I needed something with a faster pace, to keep me from going crazy. Now I have it.

Not Fond of Tents

Since beginning my practice of observing the Sabbath, this may be the first weekend when I didn’t feel completely prepared for it. Yesterday I beat the garage into shape again, and it would have been great to devote today to other areas in need of organization. I have parts for shelves I haven’t put up. I have a sick pest tree I need to chain to a bumper and rip out of the ground. I also want to try my ant remedy on the bees. I know bees will slurp down sugar water if you give it to them, and I’ve been annihilating ghost ants successfully with a syrup of sugar and boric acid, and I think I would be smart to put a dish of it up where the bees can find it. But it’s Sunday. I have other obligations.

Almost every Sunday, I think a little about things I could be doing. Trips to the gun range. Barbecuing. Fishing. Contacting radio stations about the book. But this weekend is worse than usual. Doesn’t matter; Sunday is Sunday. I’m going to behave.

I’m not sure how strict to be. I’m not bound by all the Jewish commandments. I don’t get hysterical if I find myself running an errand in the car, or buying something I need. But I want the main purpose of the day to be clear.

Sometimes I just plain get tired of reading the Bible and so on, and I do something else for a couple of hours. I don’t think that’s a problem, although I won’t do anything business-related.

I’ve been reading more of Brother Andrew’s books. I’m very impressed by this man, but I can’t help suspecting that his version of Christianity may be too demanding for most believers. Or maybe I misunderstand his message. On the one hand, he talks about giving without reserve, and he encourages former Muslims to stay in countries where they are likely to be martyred (some of them are already dead), and he writes about crossing borders with contraband Bibles in plain view in his car. On the other, he seems to have had a fair number of Christian friends who led normal lives and didn’t live in tents. I can think of more than one who were well-off, although some of them lived modestly in order to support evangelism and charity. And he seems financially secure, personally. His organization has a big, reliable income, as it should. He lives in a house, not a cell. The president of Open Doors makes $135,000 per year, which is a reasonable but substantial salary.

It is possible to be overly proud of your faith, and of the things you do because of it. It is possible to show off, as a Christian, and to hold yourself up as an extreme example for other people to follow, when in reality, they’re probably doing fine already. It’s a danger that has to be considered. You don’t want to be a fat worldly slob who only pretends to believe, and who never denies himself anything. But poverty is bad, and being martyred is only a good thing if God demands it, and the super-righteous can be extremely tiresome and hypercritical.

One of the things that drove me away from the church was the constant repetition of the claim that if Christians didn’t have perfect lives, it was because they weren’t doing it right. TV evangelists said this all the time, and the message made its way into a lot of churches. If you were sick or poor, or if your family was a mess, you weren’t praying enough. Or you weren’t praying the right way. Or you weren’t giving enough. Or you were giving enough, but with the wrong motive. Or you were giving enough, with the right motive, but you were giving it in the wrong way. Or you weren’t claiming what you wanted and “maintaining your confession.” Or there was sin in your life! Apparently, God only helps people who are totally free of sin. When God failed to back the somewhat heretical promises of the TV evangelists, they had more defenses than O.J. Simpson, and they all boiled down to, “It’s your fault.” What they really meant was, “We want to keep taking your money so we can live in luxury beyond Solomon’s wildest dreams, so keep blaming yourselves and writing those checks.”

I have no doubt that some people are called to lead lives of austerity and deprivation, but there were plenty of Jews and Christians in the Bible who had good jobs and lived in nice homes. And you can’t call yourself to be an apostle or a martyr. It doesn’t work that way. And making Christianity overly burdensome discourages other believers, so it’s counterproductive. That’s especially true when the person making religion burdensome is a hypocritical TV evangelist with his own jet. “Keep cutting coupons and patching your kids’ clothes, so my Gulfstream can have a better home theater.”

It’s hard to know where to draw the boundaries. All I know for sure is this: you have to be in the world, but the world shouldn’t be in you. I suppose that if you’re honest with yourself, you’ll know which earthly things pose a danger to you and which don’t. For example, some people can be warped by modest wealth, and others can have millions and be uncorrupted.

I want to be clear; I would never compare Brother Andrew to the TV guys. Not based on what I know now. I started out writing about him, and then I went off on a tangent.

Anyway, the books are good reading.

Seriously

Here they are.

Only Obama can Condescend to Obama

I just figured out why Obama picked Joe Biden, a grizzled old white authority figure and archetypal DC insider.

For two years, the condescending Obama has been patronizing us. He patronized his constituents. He patronized the press. He went on to patronize the entire nation. Then he went to Europe and patronized all the foreigners. Then there was nobody left to patronize.

So he came back home, and he picked a guy whose nature reflects Obama’s real opinion of his own experience and ability.

And thereby completed the circle. By patronizing himself.

Obama’s Pick to Counter Conceited Demeanor: Humble Joe Biden

How do all my fellow fascists feel about Obama picking Biden as his running mate? I’m pretty comfortable with it, although I was really hoping he’d go with Jeremiah Wright.

It’s an obvious gravitas move, but I don’t think it will work. George Bush did it in 2000, successfully. But he picked a very distinguished guy who was deadly in a debate. A guy who donated millions to charity, in a year when Al Gore donated about four hundred bucks and Bill Clinton donated his used underwear. George Bush picked a guy Americans respected. Remember, this was before the media maligned him and turned him into Freddy Kruger. I am still amazed that they succeeded. Far as I know, they have never proven that Dick Cheney has done anything bad. Can you think of anything, except for getting overly excited on a quail hunt? He didn’t get nailed for the Libby nonsense. He didn’t lie about WMDs. He pays his taxes. He hasn’t committed any crimes. And his daughter is a full-throttle lesbian, which, if anything, ought to please the press. He has a hell of a reputation, for a guy who has never been shown to be guilty of a single bad act.

Biden has a disagreeable manner. He’s condescending, which is probably not a good thing, when you’re trying to counterweigh the supreme arrogance of Barack Obama. They should call the ticket “the Ego Twins.” And he has told some truly hilarious lies, which will make for great 527 material. Remember when he stole Neil Kinnock’s “coal mine” speech, nearly word for word? I can’t wait to see that on Youtube.

On top of all that, he bleaches his teeth until they’re blue, and he has obvious hair plugs. I realize those things aren’t important, but because our liberalized education system turns out voters who don’t have the analytical skills to vote intelligently, a Presidential election is a popularity contest. And Biden is not charming. He has the mien of a car salesman. I’m pretty sure he even practices smiling.

Biden comes from a tiny state, and no one cares if he carries it. That’s a big plus. And he’s very rich. Today on Fox, while he was leaving his home to join Obama, they showed video of a mansion on Biden’s property. And it’s not his! It’s a separate house his mother lives in! It looked like 10,000 square feet to me. Imagine how big the main house is. Since Democrats have taken the position that they hate anyone who owns houses, Biden will have to be a big liability. But it could be worse. He could own a giant house AND have a love child in San Francisco.

The Washington Post says he has a damaging sound bite. At one point, he said this: “I’ve had a great relationship [with Indian Americans]. In Delaware, the largest growth in population is Indian-Americans moving from India. You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I’m not joking.” That will be fun to explain away.

Truthfully, I don’t care about that remark at all. It’s only offensive to Indians with absolutely no sense of humor. There is nothing insulting about being associated with hard-working entrepreneurs, and as it happens, Indians really do run a lot of convenience stores and franchise restaurants. As stereotypes go, that one is pretty flattering. I can see how Democrats would consider it an insult, however. Suggesting that members of a fairly prominent minority choose to work for a living instead of relying on socialist handouts from the Mommy Dearest state.

The impression I have is that most Indians have a good sense of humor about themselves and realize they can be funny without intending to. They lampooned themselves pretty mercilessly in Monsoon Wedding and Mississippi Masala. And who cares if you work at a convenience store, if you own it and you drive to work every day in a Mercedes? We need more people with that attitude.

I just wish they would open more Indian restaurants. Here in Miami, the Indian food situation is bleak.

I’ll give Biden a pass on the 7-11 crack (just like Hillary’s Gandhi gas-station joke), but I have a feeling Obama just put a Denver Boot on the wheels of his campaign.

Another Biden gaffe mentioned by the Post: he said Obama was the first clean, articulate black man. More or less. It was undeniably demeaning to blacks; Biden implied that no other black man in history was mature or responsible enough to be President. We’ll be seeing that footage a lot in the weeks to come. You have to wonder if this is Obama’s message to voters: “It’s okay to vote for the young black man, because we have a stiff old white guy on the job, making sure he doesn’t act up.” In 2000, we were told it was okay to vote for Curious George Bush, because Dick Cheney was the Man in the Yellow Hat. Now we’re being told it’s okay to vote for Arnold Obama, because Joe Biden is Mr. Drummond.

One more good thing about the Biden pick: it will assure that Obama has to run against two candidates. John McCain, and Hillary Clinton. The Clinton smear machine just went into high gear; the flying monkeys have been released. We are going to learn things about Obama and Biden that will curl our hair. It’s too bad Clinton attack stooge Anthony Pellicano is in jail. He could have been a tremendous asset. I’m sure Hillary will do a bang-up job, though. By this time next month, Barack Obama will turn out to have been conceived from Hitler’s frozen sperm, and we’ll have an enhanced version of the Zapruder film, showing Joe Biden beside the Grassy Knoll, holding a spotting scope while exposing himself to handicapped Girl Scouts.

I Did Not Understand the Way it Worked

You know, I have judged Hillary Clinton too harshly. Maybe this “redistribution of wealth” business isn’t such a bad idea.

Hillary and her husband are overweight White Anglo Saxon Protestants with millions in the bank, and they earn millions every year. And they’re nearly eligible to collect Social Security and get free medical care. But Hillary went way into debt, financing her failed Presidential campaign, and she wants shoeless, toothless Democrats on welfare to take the money they earn collecting cans and selling blood, and send it to her. Even though she will still be rich whether they send money or not.

I can’t see anything wrong with that! Poor people should do everything they can to make a rich old white lady and her even richer old white husband MORE RICH. As a conservative, I think it makes complete sense. Conservatives love redistribution of wealth, as long as it goes in the direction Hillary suggests. If I had realized I could be a Democrat and support robbing the poor to pay the rich, I would have signed up years ago.

Is there any law that says I can’t ask the poor to send me money, too? I mean, I’m not a politician or a TV evangelist, but I have needs, just like everybody else. Shouldn’t I have a mansion in Chappaqua, just like Bill and Hillsy? Of course I should. And if you’re poor, you’re never going to have anything anyway, so if you send twenty or thirty bucks to me, it won’t make your life any worse.

I’m more deserving than Hillary. She’s way richer than I am! Studies have shown that the gap between her net worth and my net worth gets bigger every year. Is that fair? Hell no. Redistribute a little of that wealth in my direction, to relieve this disgraceful inequity. In return, I promise to donate two percent of all net proceeds to Donald Trump.

That’s NET, now. Not gross. Whatever I have left over after I get done shopping.

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Moxie, the queen gun-totin’ capitalist of the world, has beat me to the idea. Go send her Paypal bucks just because she wants them.

One Day These Things Will Rule the Earth

The bees have won. Just when I felt cocky about defeating the incredible ghost ants, I went outside and found that the bees in the chimney are doing very well, after numerous attempts to plug their escape holes.

I can’t believe how tough bees are. Any hippie who tells you we’re wiping out our bees needs to be punched in the mouth. Cockroaches are wimps compared to bees. I have killed maybe twenty pounds of these things, and they keep coming back. They’re like tiny Hillary Clintons with wings. And I don’t just mean the queens.

A nut who makes his living hacking up houses and removing bees has been called. This will be fun.

I should really take up beekeeping. How can I lose, with animals that refuse to die when you do your best to kill them?

It’s on a Sandisk Card in Silicon Valley

For a few years, a question has been rolling around in my mind. I’ve been wondering what would happen when CGI got so good audiences were no longer able to distinguish animated characters from actors. Think about it. Why would you pay an aging, grey, saggy George Clooney 20 million dollars to make a movie, when for a fraction of the price, you could get a perpetually toned and tanned CGI character who is never late to the set, doesn’t go to rehab, and doesn’t have to be insured?

We just saw another Indiana Jones movie hit the silver screen. It was pretty bad, but it made money anyway, and because Harrison Ford looked old even when he was young, the 27-year hiatus didn’t completely ruin his credibility. But clearly, the movie’s makers would have had more and better options had he not aged. And think about James Bond. Sean Connery was fired because he looked awful in Diamonds are Forever. Then we suffered through Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton. It wasn’t until Pierce Brosnan was hired that the series became watchable again. What if they had had a CGI Bond on a hard drive somewhere? Forty years of top-quality Bond, without interruption. Something to think about.

Enter Emily. Have you seen her? She’s completely artificial. And she’s hot. She’s a pretty young actress who will never wrinkle or go gray, and she was created by a company called Image Metrics. You can see her here.

Emily never gets sick. She never sleeps. Her body is amazing. She doesn’t charge extra for nudity. She can dance. She can play any instrument. She can fly; no wires. If she can be taught to act–not that lofty a goal–she’ll be superior to 95% of Hollywood’s flesh and blood actresses. She may never have the charisma of a top-flight actress, but then neither does Angelina Jolie. Whose naked body was recently replaced by that of a CGI character, in Beowulf. She’s a nice-looking woman, but she never saw the day she could compare to the body the nerds made for her.

Men won’t care if male actors are replaced. That’s how men are. We’re not threatened by idealized role models. In fact, we prefer them. Feminists, however, will howl like never before, when Emily’s descendants start populating movie screens. Their tiny waists and perfect breasts will draw shrieks of rage from female liberals everywhere. If you think they were mad when Barbie was nine inches tall and came in a box, wait until she starts making movies. Wait until spoiled actresses find themselves competing with teams of mostly-male programmers. And what if they’re outsourced Indian programmers, who work for twenty bucks a day? Oh, man.

In a fairly short time, movies with completely realistic all-CGI casts will be within our reach. It won’t happen next week, but it won’t take twenty years, either. What’s going to happen to SAG? How are you going to force studios to pay extras and supporting cast members well, when they can be replaced with sprites? In long shots, it has already been done, many times. They did it in Titanic, which is an old movie now. In a few years, they’ll be able to do it for every character in a movie. Think of all the black, red-shirted ensigns who got vaporized on Star Trek. In the future, those guys will be clip art.

One of the sad things about Hollywood is that writers, who are chiefly responsible for all the magic, are cheated and underpaid. Stars, who are usually fungible, are overpaid. Will that situation continue to exist? In a hundred years, it may be possible to replace a writer with a machine. But actors are going to have real electronic competition much sooner.

Another question: how liberal will Hollywood be, if the population of performers is dramatically reduced? Imagine Hollywood without its hordes of far-left fringe nuts. Hollywood’s politics would be dictated by management. Are the executives, directors, and producers as uniformly liberal as the actors? I wonder.

Here’s a funny thing to consider. Using CGI actors is incredibly green. They don’t fly in private jets. They don’t ride in limos. They don’t have giant portable homes on wheels, the way real actors do, to keep them happy between takes. They can do many types of scenes without expensive, carbon-intensive sets. Why, it would be immoral to continue using real actors. It would be an environmental atrocity. Like Barbra Streisand’s house. Think of all the mansions that would no longer need to exist!

I’m all for CGI. Anything that takes power and money away from venal, toxic people is fine by me. Now if they start replacing audiences with CGI characters, all bets are off. Then I’ll be concerned.

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Here’s a link to the real Emily’s site.

Do we Dare Hope?

Here is my .17 HMR situation. The rifle will be in my sweaty paws next week. Midsouth has Hornady V-Max ammunition for under ten bucks a box, so I’m getting some of that. And I found a good deal on a Burris Fullfield II 4-14x scope, so that’s on the way. If it turns out to be more magnification than I want, I’ll put it on the K31 and move the 3-9x to the .17. Picked up a .17-caliber Boresnake when I ordered the rifle, so I’m all set RE cleaning.

I found a strange thing at Midsouth. They charge $33.00 for 500 9mm LRN Speer bullets. This is the size I use for the .38 Super. How is that possible? Oregon Trail, which is usually cheap, charges $52.75 (including shipping, before 10% Internet discount). Speer bullets are jim-dandy. I’ve shot billions of Blazers. I can’t figure it out. Is the price of lead tanking?

I’m checking. Lead has plummeted in price. Over the last year, it has gone from around $1.75 per pound to a present level of 86¢. Damn, maybe we’re in for some relief. That would sure be nice.

Now copper…hmm, it’s dropping, but nothing like lead. Maybe cast-bullet reloading is getting cheaper, faster than the price of finished ammunition, which includes brass casings, which are mostly copper.

I wonder if the lead drop is reflected in the price of finished lead ammunition, which has no copper jacketing. Doesn’t look like it. Cheaper Than Dirt’s lowest jacketed and non-jacketed .45 ACP prices are about the same.

I can’t find out how hard the Speer bullets are. That’s a problem. Laser-Cast bullets work fine in a .38 Super, but the speed may be too much for Speer’s bullets.

Crap.

Anyway, the information might be useful to some of you.

Capoeira Guy Lacks CHI

Seems like the older a person is, the more likely he is to forward funny material to you via email.

Here’s one my dad forwarded today:

.17 HMR

I did it. I bought myself a rifle. Not used. Not a milsurp. A totally new, supposedly super-accurate bolt-action rifle. I picked a Savage .17 HMR with a varmint barrel. You can see it at this link. I decided to go for stainless. Not sure why. I just felt like it.

Finally, I should be able to get a grip on rifle shooting. I won’t have to worry about putting a weird mount on a gun not made for a scope. I won’t have to worry about Romanian trigger slap or the flexing of a nylon stock. Just point and shoot.

I think I’ll get a Burris Fullfield II scope, with a maximum magnification of 14. That ought to be about right, and it’s not obscenely expensive. I already have a Fullfield on my K31, and it seems very nice.

Hopefully next week I’ll be able to get to the range and wring this thing out.

I don’t know what the .17 HMR is good for. I mentioned Varmint Al, the guy who shoots ground squirrels with .17 HMR rifles. I don’t think they’ll make a prairie dog pop in a satisfying way. But it should be a very good and economical range gun.

By da Gubbermint Uh da United Nations

I have stuff to do today. I have to mail a CD to a television producer. I have to mail books to a radio station, because they gave them away to listeners and my publisher hasn’t managed to get copies to them. I need to poison everything on this entire parcel of land, except for humans and parrots.

But I’ve decided I have time to do one more thing. I am going to get me a new gun.

The only question is, .22 or .17 HMR?

Tried to get my kitchen-table dealer to get me a .22, but he never got back to me. I have waited long enough.

It’s MEDICINAL

You won’t believe what Sondra K. is growing.

But I Think Baldilocks is Real Worried About her Bills

As you know, Baldilocks created a nonprofit and put up a site to benefit the Senator Obama Kogelo Secondary School, in Kenya. That’s the school Obama said he would help, but did not. Well, she just got herself interviewed in LA Weekly. Go take a look.