Comment of the Day – but not because it’s good

This kind of thing is a pet peeve of mine:

I don’t know all, but God does. He and his gifts belongs to all people, including atheists & muslims, IF they repent and choose Him. He’s not an enabler so we have to be responsible for our choices. He’s given us free will which is hard to manage without Him.

We are like automatons, squandering our free will on stupid things. Like alcohol, or excess in anything. But God is merciful and redeems. Mr. Schmuck got the chance to prove his integrity with $26.

He chose excess alcohol so he reaps alcoholism. Still he has integrity, which many “high ranking” men don’t. And all of these things are His blessings and teachings and gifts!

Growing up Catholic

My family is Catholic. They aren’t very religious, but that’s what they put on government forms. We didn’t attend church regularly. We went to holiday mass (such as Christmas and Easter) when I was a child and up to the age of 14 I was forced (I use this word intentionally) to go to Catechism. My mother prays to St. Anthony when she loses something, but otherwise I’m not aware of her praying. In later years (as recently as 2 years ago) my father claimed to be an atheist, but throughout my life he did not intervene when I was trying to get my mother to understand that I was an atheist. As recently as this past summer, my mother told me that she thinks an atheist worships the devil.

This is how I grew up.

This was possibly the hardest letter I’ve ever had to write

Unfortunately there is some concern about SickKids and to whom it has decided to award its hard-earned money. This otherwise fine organization has decided to give Autism One, an autism group that has been vocal about the “questionable safety” of vaccines, a $5000 grant for an upcoming conference at the University of Toronto. That may seem like small potatoes, but the prestige and legitimacy that their association with SickKids will bring is worth much more than that.

I have written a letter to express my concerns. Respectful Insolence and Science-Based Pharmacy are also following this, among others, where you can find more details. If you have the time, and are concerned about the way SickKids is spending their grant money, please write them (I contacted them under “National Grants Program) a letter politely outlining your concerns.

WoW PVP Gear

Edit, 22 Sep 09: MASSIVE EDITS DUE TO END OF ARENA SEASON AND SUBSEQUENT CHANGES TO GEAR AVAILABILITY.

So I quit WoW because I was bored/pissed. But recent loneliness-inducing life events have motivated me to go back to the parts of the game that didn’t piss me off – PVP. Aaaahhhh, killing things. Intelligent things controlled by real people instead of dumb shit AI with bullshit rules and player QQ (i.e., PVE). Not that people don’t whine in battlegrounds, but it’s usually more amusing and doesn’t results in a complete wipe that costs a bunch of gold and may or may not make the difference in a successful campaign. Also no gear fights.

PVP – So. Much. Fun.

Anyway, I was messaging my absent husband over Facebook to describe the awesome of what I did today and it occurred to me that it’s actually a pretty good tip for Level 80 hunters (well any casual-to-moderate player looking to gear up really, but I’m a hunter so the information will be hunter-centric) so I decided to post my ramblings about PVP gear and battlegrounds here.

The Odd Phenomenon of Hurricane Behaviour

I don’t mean the behaviour of the hurricane itself, I mean the behaviour of the people in the affected areas. Something interesting happened over the course of the day today that I want to talk about.

Obama = Hitler?

Words cannot express my anger.

Friday Puzzle Answer

Since I’m in the mood and because I’m not allowed to post answers there, I’ll take a crack here at answering Richard Wiseman’s Friday puzzle this week, which reads thusly:

There’s a standard filament-type light bulb in a closed room upstairs. It is controlled by one of three standard on-off switches downstairs. You are downstairs. How can you discover for certain which switch controls the light by operating one or more switches and then taking only one trip upstairs into the closed room?

Answer after the fold.