The Eternal Gaijin

Non-Sequitur http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2007/02/25/ Hat tip to Bad Astronomy . -- From: The Eternal Gaijin Lost Somewhere in Wandsworth, London "Words Cannot Describe What I Am About To Tell You."

The last of our decorating is now finished and I'm doing the touch ups. Next on the list is to sort out the unaccompanied air freight. Last night however wasn't a complete something on my list night. I hooked a train out ot Ashford, Kent and caught up with friend JDF, who I hadn't seen since our trip to the UK in February two years ago. It was good to sit down, joke, and generally catch up on things from jobs to mutual friends still in Japan. And of course fatherhood. About 11 months back friend JDF joined the ranks of the breeders (hooray, a legally recognized marriage in Washington. No wait. He's been married for 8 years or so. Never mind, he'd have been annulled years ago) Anyway, he and his wife made a Mini-me. Things are going well with him, despite the sleepless nights and stuff like that. I do like that fact that with his new job he uses expressions like 'on an op' as if it didn't sound like some serious-ass 'Gitmo shit. Things have changed si...

Dispatches from The Culture Wars has a post with some great YouTube links to everyone's favourite PhD in Flintstone Paleontology, 'Dr' Kent Hovind. So for our Hovind-a-palooza. Dispatches: http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2007/02/youtube_gems_kent_hovind.php Carl Sagan vs Kent Hovind on the Speed of Light Someone went through Hovind's age of the earth bullshit My favourite Ali G. bit ever: Somehow, Matt at Pooflingers managed to sit through all of Hovind's bovine backside extrusions and come up with the Hovind Files . I really don't know how the fuck he did it. Surely there should be an Order of Canada or US Medal of Freedom or something else for doing it. Clearly the bravest man on the web.

A link from Boing Boing : And that's how the world got to be here. Just one of those True-cause-it's-funny things. -- From: The Eternal Gaijin Lost Somewhere in Wandsworth, London "Words Cannot Describe What I Am About To Tell You."

Last week I was walking along somewhere in town when I saw an interesting headline on The Times front page. Churches back plan to unite under Pope Which got me to thinking about Carol Pope. But I thought that High School Confidential wasn't a big enough hit in Canterbury to really warrant this kind of sea change. And of course it couldn't really mean uniting the Catholic Churches under the Pope because, well, I'll just say 'Duh..' So I bought the paper. (a radical step in a city where approaching the station means getting a small Malaysian rain forest's worth of free newspapers. Most of the main papers have a 'Lite' version they chuck at you on the way in and out of the Tube.) And it turns out that some guess I had about the headline was right. Anglican and Catholic bishops have agreed to a plan in 42 pages that would re-unite the Anglican Communion (which is the least 'reformed' of all the Protestant denominations coming out of the Reformation...

Sunni vs Shia vs Hightower < http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/dailydose/index.html?uc_full_date=20070218 > -- From: The Eternal Gaijin Lost Somewhere in Wandsworth, London "Words Cannot Describe What I Am About To Tell You."

HT to Dispatches from the Culture War Link < http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches > Ernst Zundel has been sentenced to 5 years in jail in Germany for Holocaust Denial. Link to Dispatches Post < http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2007/02/holocaust_denier_gets_5_years.php > Again, I'm left with mixed feelings. I won't miss him. I wasn't upset when he got the boot out of Canada; I don't really support these sorts of laws. To paraphrase the once funny Dennis Miller: Is it fair to have these people screaming this hateful bile anywhere they like? Sure, because when you can hear them, you know where the fuck they are. -- From: The Eternal Gaijin Lost Somewhere in Wandsworth, London "Words Cannot Describe What I Am About To Tell You."

A little link love to Justin and his blog .

Okay, now this is kinda strange... Article Link Over at the World Net Daily there's a great headline: Research: God did speak world into existence Okay, so there's a science student in Kentucky who says that he can scientifically prove that god spoke the world into existence. To quote: "If God spoke everything into existence as the Genesis record proposes, then we should be able to scientifically prove that the construction of everything in the universe begins with a) the Holy Spirit (magnetic field); b) Light (an electric field); and c) that Light can be created by a sonic influence or sound," Samuel J. Hunt writes on his website . Now the first thing that I don't understand is that the Holy Spirit is a magnetic field. Does that mean that the little kitten saying "Hang in There!" holding my hydro bill to the fridge is imbued of the Holy Spirit? "There are several documented and currently taught laboratory experiments that accurately portray the ev...

27 million days a year in the UK are missed due to booze. I know this is anecdotal evidence but I sure as hell thought it would be a bit higher than that. I mean just judging by the trains every Monday. Link: The Sun < http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2007060590,00.html > -- From: The Eternal Gaijin Lost Somewhere in Wandsworth, London "Words Cannot Describe What I Am About To Tell You."

Link to Boing Boing's article on the Washington state ballot initiative requiring married couples to have children. -- From: The Eternal Gaijin Lost Somewhere in Wandsworth, London "Words Cannot Describe What I Am About To Tell You."

From Fark ( http://www.fark.com ) How do you top this headline? Psychic Museum Closes Due to Unforseen Circumstances Link to The Register -- From: The Eternal Gaijin Lost Somewhere in Wandsworth, London "Words Cannot Describe What I Am About To Tell You."

I found this somewhere along the lines. I can't remember how or when now. It was a couple of days ago and I was drunk a lot. It was really interesting that someone would finally come along and take all those whackadoodles at their word. I've been saying that there are two things that would be the logical extension of the marriage debate: 1) if marriage is about bringing a man and a woman together to have children for the glory of God (I can't remember who I heard say that little tidbit) then that would bar my wife and I, seniors, the infertile, the impotent and so on. 2) If gay marriage devalues marriage then divorce does a much better job of doing that so divorce has got to go. So the text and commentary: An initiative filed by proponents of same-sex marriage would require heterosexual couples to have kids within three years or else have their marriage annulled. Initiative 957 was filed by the Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance. That group was formed last summer after...

Here are the final comments available from the God FAQ < http://www.400monkeys.com/God/ >. -- From: The Eternal Gaijin Lost Somewhere in Wandsworth, London "Words Cannot Describe What I Am About To Tell You."

I read Bad Astronomy < http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog > occasionally. Phil Plait is one of the rock stars of the Skeptic world. He's like...okay I don't really have a handle on the music scene anymore. He's not going to get mobbed at TAM to the same level as the Mythbusters, but he'll have a crowd around him. Friend DEG recently was at TAM; I was painting the living room getting the flat ready to rent. He played poker with Plait; I read the BABlog. Anyway, my minor gakkari aside, Plait in this post links to a YouTube Clip from the Al Murray show featuring Buzz Aldrin. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BadAstronomyBlog/~3/88195512/ Do check it out. It's got its funny moments. And if the HTML is correct in this bit, I'll have a link to Aldrin punching that aho in the chin. Look up the word 'aho' at Jim Breen's online dictionary < http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/%7Ejwb/wwwjdic.html >. Use the second definition. You'll agree. Oh and there...

In the absence of any particular nonsense about Scientology and after having spent the weekend doing DIY, I'm just going to post this. You know, that seemed longer when I recorded it... Oh well.

Ken's getting a bit more animated. Mostly so he can get himself trouble. Or on my nerves. It's darker than it looked on the camera, but I'll post it anyway. I don't know if my youTube account has a space limit. I'll find out eventually. So the countdown is on. I leave the UK on the 2nd of March and arrive in Japan on 10 Mar. Just to complete the circle of life that's 13 years to the day after I first arrived in Japan. So I will have the exact same visa day as I did for the first 9 years I spent there. How do you like that? While there I'm hoping to post a few videos a week to give an idea of what's up in the Okamoto area and Osaka in general. Stay tuned.