This morning the United States of America marked the seventh anniversary of the 9-11 attack on our country, our people, and our freedom. It’s been a few years since I touched on this, but I felt compelled today to reiterate that the perpetrators of this barbarous act against everything good we stand for were cowardly, gutless, sac-less, spineless, dog-molesters who are presently writhing in an afterlife of pure, unimaginable pain… devoid of virgins.

I read today that Europe isn’t in agreement on who perpetrated the attack 7 years ago… with some saying the United States set it up, and others blaming Israel for masterminding the act. All hail the mighty European education system. Let there be no doubt that if the politically correct pansies in Europe and the US had their way, we’d all be offering our infidel children up to be sacrificed to Allah in the name of tolerance.

And today I get to fly from California to New York. I get to be wanded, poked, and prodded. I get to remove my shoes… because they could be bombs. I get to pack toiletries in my checked luggage, rather than my carry-on’s, because my cologne and body gel could be bombs. I get to watch all ages and all genders of law-abiding, lifelong United States citizens get treated as if they were Muslim males aged 18-35 traveling on temporary visas and acting twitchy. May God have mercy on all our souls.

I, for one, would rather initiate flurries of high-velocity lead than let myself forget what happened, or forget that we’re always at war… whether politically, spiritually, or militarily. May God deal with us be it ever so severely if we ever forget… and may God bless the USA.

We stopped at Rock City Park while we were there. Here’s some details from their website:

Rock City Park, located in the Enchanted Mountains of Cattaraugus County, south of Olean, New York on Route 16, is sometimes called one of the Eighth Wonders of the World. This prehistoric ocean floor is the World’s largest exposure of quartz conglomerate (also called ocean spar or puddingstone) and attracts thousands of visitors yearly.

Visitors are astounded by gigantic boulders several stories high with huge crevices sometimes referred to as “streets.” Rock City Park is believed to have been a fortress for the Seneca Indians at one time. “Three Sisters”, “Balancing Rock (a 1000 ton boulder), and “Indian Face” rock are just some of the natural rock formations found along Rock City’s scenic trails. From “Signal Rock,” once used as a signaling point by Indians, visitors enjoy the 1,000 square mile panoramic view of the Enchanted Mountains.

Rock City Park features a three quarter mile natural trail consisting of various steps and paths necessitating comfortable clothing and good walking shoes. During spring and summer you will see a variety of wildflowers, ferns, moss, Mountain Laurel (which blooms late in June) and of course enjoy the quiet serenity of the forest nestled among this geological wonder. Leaf peepers enjoy Rock City Park’s spectacular fall foliage.

On the trek back to Albany we spent a few relaxing days in the Finger Lakes… including Watkins Glen and Taughannock Falls.

As always you can view all my recent pics on my online photo gallery.

Now, that GGW guy Joe Francis is scum for sure… but Dupré is suing him for $10 Million dollars partly for falsely advertising that she performed for their cameras. Except that – wait for it – she DID perform for their cameras. In fact I read that he has TONS of footage she willingly did for GGW (for some cash) back before she was infamous.

Anyways, Dupré’s lawsuit says that Francis “ruined her reputation”. What? Are you serious? Gee… I would have thought that it was taking your clothes off in front of a camera (and a crowd of drunk guys, also with cameras) and dancing around naked groping yourself that would have ruined your reputation. I would have thought that getting busted prostituting yourself out to strangers would have ruined your reputation… but what do I know? I think Francis (the scum) said it best:

It’s hard to imagine how anyone could actually ruin a hooker’s reputation.

This almost reminds me of Monica Lewinsky who after the VERY famous Bill Clinton scandal found refuge from various media questions by saying that comment on it wasn’t “appropriate”. Hmm… I wouldn’t have thought for her propriety was on the table… apparently neither would she, having spent so much time under it.

Now I’ve used some straight-forward language here… and it’s not because I think I’m immune to the pitfalls of this rock. But what I am big on is personal responsibility. My libertarian leanings tell me that we should be free to make choices, and then be responsible for the consequences… whether gain or pain, treasure or pleasure, shame or fame, embarrassment or harassment. [admit it, how many of you just pronounced harassment like the Brits so that it rhymed! ...I love this too much] Well, since I’ve taken so much flak for not being compaaaaassionate lately I’ll add the following disclaimer.

Compassionate Disclaimer: Jesus loves everyone mentioned in this post.

Here’s the short version: Spitzer serves as NY Attorney General and gets the reputation of being a jerk to the business infrastructure… earning him the admiration of leftists and the ire of taxpayers and business-minded citizens. Time Magazine once named this guy “Crusader of the Year”… he was also known as the “Sheriff of Wall Street” and “Eliot Ness”. He was elected Governor of NY in 2006 on a platform of ethics reform and “cleaning up” state politics. His election win was a landslide, and he quickly enjoyed approval ratings of 75%.

Well… he got caught with his hand in the cookie. A federal wiretap got him wiring money to, and coordinating appointments with, a high-priced prostitution service called Emperors Club VIP. Federal investigators believe he paid $80G for prostitutes while Attorney General, and later as Governor.

I guess “cleaning up” is relative.

I was surprised at how many folks were shocked by this. Perhaps I should be surprised that I was NOT shocked. You see… I fully believe that attorneys-turned-politicians are lying to get where they are. I fully believe they blow sunshine at me to try and get my vote. As attorneys, they spend their time twisting the truth and contorting the facts to fit into legal loopholes and litigious tap-dances… scoring them mad cash from both the winners and the losers.

So, becoming a politician seems the next logical step in an attorney’s career path – that way they can start taking money from larger groups of people (called taxpayers). And isn’t it easier to lie to a camera than face-to-face to twelve jurors? Even better… lying to a camera while being flanked by people who know what you are saying may or may not be true – but who are going to benefit somehow – so they smile wide, nod at appropriate times, and clap frequently.

Well… it’s all over for our horny ex-Governor.

The identity of the young, attractive, and misguided girl he was caught with was also outed this week. Her name is Ashley Alexandra Dupré, a New York City singer/model/student/hooker who ranks as 3 out of 7 stars using the Emperors Club VIP rating system (whatever that means). And guess what… this scandal may be the luckiest break this girl could have ever gotten. [AP] She was previously a complete unknown… now her songs are playing on the radio… she is being courted by some modeling (and porn) outlets for work… she will doubtless be paid mega-mullah for a book deal, after which she’ll go on Oprah and be showered with sympathy.

And in the end I’m not surprised by any of this. This has all happened before. Politics/life/sin as usual.

My wife, the nurse-type, has taught me to initially give grossly obese humans the benefit of the doubt… because it is conceivably possible, however unlikely, that their condition is from a freak “gland” issue or some other medical condition that they either did or did not bring upon themselves. The aforementioned fellow definitely appeared to be a self-infliction.

But I also believe in freedom. I think everyone is free to eat however they choose to within their means. I say “within their means” because I think there is something fundamentally flawed with being obese AND collecting public assistance. I’ve covered this before including the sometimes non-usefulness of WIC.

For instance, does it make any sense to give food stamps to obese people? Okay, there could be the extreme exception for medical reasons, loss of a provider, natural disaster or other misfortune. But I mean, really… on the whole is someone who is obese really in need of assistance getting food? Aren’t those people’s layers of lipo-love-flesh a testament to the fact that they have a ready supply and are indeed eating very well, thank you?

So if you have your own money then you should be able to use it to buy whatever food you like (healthy or unhealthy) and eat it in whatever quantities you like (dainty or super-sized) however often you like (first breakfast, second breakfast, elevensies, and so on). My communist state of New York has already banned trans-fats from restaurant use in some areas – even though this has problems of its own.

And recently we find that misguided (read authoritarian) politicians in Mississippi want to ban fat people from restaurants!? How insane is that? Granted, I’ve seen some of the largest people anywhere at the local Chinese buffet squatting in a booth and scarfing down every fried morsel they can get their greasy, stubby fingers on. But so what? It’s a free country, right? Or at least it WAS.

Here’s the rub… to be a FREE country you have to enforce two very important principles. First, people must have free choice. Second, people must bear the consequences of their choices (both good and bad) . This is tremendously important. Consequences to one’s own actions is a feedback mechanism that must not be tampered with or the delicate balance that allows for free choice will be disrupted.

If people want to eat gluttonously, that this their free choice. Then, if they want to fly somewhere, and their large torso won’t fit into a normal airplane seat, then they can buy two tickets for adjacent seats or choose another form of travel. If their morbid obesity causes severe medical problems, they need to figure out how to pay the upcoming medical bills or go without medical attention. If they are wealthy and can pay medical bills without batting an eyelash, good for them. If they used their free choice to acquire health insurance, good for them. If they used their free choice to blow their money on non-essentials, then they should rely on family and friends to help pay their bills (NOT the government).

If the government stepped in and “cushioned” everyone whose gluttonous lifestyle caused huge medical bills, then that combined with finite resources would create the need to start dictating to people what they can and cannot eat. This is bad, but is necessary in a socialist state where health care is “provided”. The UK is already projecting huge costs to the public over the next few decades due to the terrible obesity “problem”. Who knows what further behavioral restrictions will be put in place there. That is exactly why I’m 100% opposed to ANY form of universal healthcare.

My state, New York, wants to give legal state driver’s licenses to illegal aliens. Yep… you heard me correctly. That should be a twisted joke, but it’s a twisted reality. Among the ir-rationale is the standard drivel about “they’re just here to work” and “this will let us keep better records on them”. Better records? Why would we need better records… are we going to be using these “records” to arrest them? Then why not just arrest them when they apply for the license? How is it that the laws requiring known illegal aliens to be detained and deported don’t apply at the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles)? This is lunacy… yet elected cronies taking in high salaries (compliments of the taxpayers) support this madness because it BUYS THEM VOTES.

And of course this issue runs much deeper, but let me say that there is no comparison between a United States citizen from Mexico, and an illegal alien. They are two totally different people. They both may be hard workers, but one is duly and lawfully eligible for all the rights, freedoms, and opportunities of every other American citizen – while the other has not only disrespected our borders, our immigration rules, and broken our laws, but is also stealing health care, welfare, and pretty soon driver’s licenses. Mexico doesn’t tolerate illegal border crossings INTO Mexico (just as no country does, nor should they)… but Mexico gets on us for protecting our border. And why? Follow the money… Western Union money transfers from the US are Mexico’s third highest source of income!

Al Gore wins the Nobel Peace Prize. For what? A documentary? A movie of questionable science? For parading an entourage around the globe in private jets to talk about the dangers to the environment from parading around the globe in private jets? And the rationale why global warming would have ANYTHING to do with peace is that global warming will “eventually start conflicts”? How about the conflict between “An Inconvenient Truth” and the actual truth? How about Al Gore preaching that society needs to start living more simply and efficiently – while Al goes and buys another mansion to visit in his private jet (read mega-petroleum-guzzling sky-beast). The Nobel prize has become a bit of a joke, I guess. I actually think Borat was a much more accurate documentary… we should have given the peace prize to Sacha Cohen.

I’m already done with the Presidential campaigns. They have used up my entire allocation of bicker-absorption. I can’t listen to it any more. Does that make me “disenfranchised”? I think it does. I think in the name of all that is good and right I shouldn’t have to see Hillary’s, Osama/Obama’s, Rudy’s, or McCain’s face for another 12 months. At the very least I want to see the candidates actually work for their air-time… like perhaps in a “Survivor: Washington DC” or “Fear Factor” style reality show where Hillary would have to drink monkey snot while wearing a slinky little bikini in order to earn 5 minutes of sound bites. Obama and McCain would have to wrestle in a tub of broken glass while eating scorpions to see who gets to speak next. Or how about the Price is Right? That would be sweet… watching politicians who haven’t shopped for their own groceries in decades try and guess the price of baking soda or cooking spray. Ha!

And again… on my recent trip to Chicago… I got to watch airport screeners hassle aged World War 2 vets and little old Asian ladies so that the TSA doesn’t look “insensitive” towards male 18-34 year-old Arabic-speaking non-US-citizens who have legal support agencies ready to sue the city, county, state, and federal government at the drop of a Koran. Another example of how not having the moral courage to be a jerk to non-citizens means having to be a jerk to EVERYONE… which then quickly erodes into usually just being a jerk to people who you know aren’t carrying bombs (e.g. World War 2 vets and little old Asian ladies).

Fatigue.

On the way home there were several traffic signals without power… and in New York negotiating busy intersections freeform – without any signals or traffic cops – is always a social experiment worthy of its own 500-page exhaustive commentary featured in Psychology Today. When I got home my pool was an inch from overflowing! Several branches (the big kind) had been knocked down off my neighbors’ multiple maple-leaf machines.

And as I feared, when I walked in the house – no power. Of course, I’ve been without power before… but this time it was cramping my routine a bit. I’m used to hopping on the ‘puter and catching up on all my emails I can’t read at my top secret laboratory job. But the power was out for a little while and I actually had to occupy myself with other household diversions… odd.

My modern-day electro-junkie dilemma reminded myself of a quote I like:

Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
~Susan Ertz, “Anger in the Sky”

Being from Western New York, and solidly in “Bills Country”, I and everyone else in my hometown know exactly where we were the fateful Sunday afternoon of January, 1993. When I get together with my High School buds we still speak of the day in hushed whispers of reverent awe.

It was great to hear Frank Reich speak and to the shake the man’s hand. He’s a strong man of God and a Buffalo legend.

Full coverage from our local paper, the Albany Times Useless Union, can be seen by clicking here.

Here is a Flickr photoset chronicling the event.

So I walk into my mall through Best Buy, as I always do… but I don’t buy anything at Best Buy this time. Why not? Because Best Buy lost its testicles. As a proud owner of a pair of testicles… and as my infatuation with Best Buy was directly proportional to its placation of my testosterone driven electronic interests… I shall not shop their during the “holidays”. This is decidedly inconvenient as my friends and relatives always had an automatic gift for me in the coveted Best Buy Gift Card. So if you’re listening (reading)… this year make it a Wal-Mart card, as they seem to be not having as much trouble accepting the December 25th hubbub.

So I walk out of Best Buy and am immediately accosted by young slutty girls holding big empty containers asking me if I “want to support cheerleading”. What? Do I want to support the CONCEPT of cheerleading? Do I want to support more coverage for NFL teams’ cheerleaders? I knew what she was asking… she wanted my money. But for what? Uniforms? Pom-poms? Shouldn’t she buy her own? I mean really… what possible cheerleading costs are there? And why should I pony up Hamiltons to this little tart wearing a slut shirt from Abercrombie & Fitch ($55), a slimline cellphone ($180), and slut skirt from Rue 21 ($48) asking ME for money just so her father standing behind her wearing the Tagheur watch ($330), gay Express Men pants ($45), and holding his new putter ($68) doesn’t have to pony up himself?

So I walk into the Apple store. Now, I am admittedly a PC guy… partly because my brain and motor coordination can handle more than one mouse button. Actually, I even PREFER more than one mouse button and find myself using the so-called “mousewheel” very frequently. I’m walking into the Apple store to pickup a little hard case for my new fancy red 8GB iPod nano. It’s my first iPod and I’m diggin’ it. My choice of red was because I greatly preferred it over black (the other choice), and not because it’s part of the product red movement which is a somewhat leftist dick-dance of an effort to fight AIDS in Africa by donating $10 of your red iPod purchase in the name of Oprah and Bono. This inexplicably satiates the little activist hearts of the young Starbucks demographic and relieves them of the drudgery of actually doing something to help Africans.

Going to the mall is like going to the zoo… and I like watching animals so both are a good fit, but the mall does’t help my cynicism.

It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door. You step into the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.
- Bilbo Baggins

No, really… these past nine days have been a pungent combination of a full-time job (software engineer), various social functions and groups, and a slew of guitar activities and events. Last weekend (October 14 and 15) one of my bands, MCCLAINE TRIBE, played three times for the worship services at Grace Fellowship church. Then on Tuesday I played for a special Acts 29 Boot Camp event in Troy, NY. Then on Thursday another of my bands, Hundred Monkey Theory, played for an event at Russell Sage College (my wife’s alma mater) called Artists for Social Justice (never have I heard so many “positives” of communism). Then on Saturday both Hundred Monkey Theory and MCCLAINE TRIBE played for an event called Shine to benefit arts in the schools. Then Sunday (today) I played for the worship service at Terra Nova Church.

So, when I say I’ve been busy… I mean it. I’ll post something meaningful soon.

I find her show to be a wealth of information. Much of it is basic and the people who call in don’t always ask the hardest questions… but even somebody like me… who lives and breathes computers (and who has a graduate degree in the stuff) can learn a bunch just by listening to her. She always has tons of tips of helpful hints on about any computer related topic you can think of. And her website is loaded with info and links to preferred software.

I get asked a lot of computer questions by people… people from all my circles of life… because they think of me as “the computer guy”. Quite frankly, many times the questions I get asked are simple… not just simple by my standards… but even simple for a layman. People ask me these questions because they want a quick answer and don’t want to take the moment to look up the answer on their own. In fact, you should see the disappointment that falls over someone’s face when I tell them which website has the answer to their question. Now you may say – what do you mean… shouldn’t they be excited to have a website to find their answer. Yes, they SHOULD, but they aren’t… they are disappointed that they actually have to GO to the website THEMSELVES… and they don’t feel like writing the URL down and/or committing it to memory so they usually never go there. Isn’t that crazy?

On Kim’s website and you’ll find much, but the real gem to most people is her downloads section with great links to shareware and freeware applications to perform some of the most important functions on your computer… like spyware detection and virus protection.

I highly recommend to anyone who wants to learn more about their computer (and is not into lots of geek-speak) to listen to Kim Komando’s show. I especially recommend this if you find yourself constantly asking help for routine and basic questions regarding commonly used software and features. I super-mega-recommend this if you know me!

…except…

…there was this one lady in front of me. She had to get checked out at the cash register twice. Why you ask? Well, the first time was for all the junk food that she paid for with her WIC vouchers (which of course comes from taxes out of my paycheck)… and the second time was to buy a National Enquirer and two boxes of cigarettes with a huge wad of cash!

From the WIC website:

The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children – better known as the WIC Program – serves to safeguard the health of low-income women, infants, & children up to age 5 who are at nutritional risk by providing nutritious foods to supplement diets, information on healthy eating, and referrals to health care.

Can you believe this? About the only nutritious thing I saw her get was a carton of eggs, and the rest was a sugar-feast capable of reanimating a dead elephant. And I paid for it because she was “at nutritional risk”? First of all, she didn’t look at nutritional risk. Second, how the heck are my tax dollars supposed to be “providing nutritional foods” when the recipient lacks the requisite common sense to buy nutritious food in the first place? I don’t understand the part where my money needs to get involved.

And the best part of it all was when I saw her, with her manicured hands and gaudy custom painted nails (the expensive kind), reach past her cellphone into her pocket to produce a wad of greenbacks nearly the size of a toilet paper roll (like you see pulled off drug dealers on cop shows)… to buy a friggin’ National Enquirer and two boxes of cigarettes! It was like being stuck in the Politically Correct Twilight Zone.

I can remember when one of the earlier versions of Microsoft Office came out, and it included a new font entitled Wingdings… there was much attention given to the fact that the letters NYC, when converted to the font Wingdings, appeared as a skull & crossbones (symbol for death), a Star of David (symbol for Jews), and a thumbs up (symbol for approval). Thus, Microsoft approves of the killing of Jews, at least according to some with too much time on their hands.

Of course hits was coincidental, but it didn’t stop the theorists. Although Microsoft did do quite a bit to squelch the rumors that this message was put in there intentionally, they definitely didn’t try and defuse the wild imaginations of the conspiracy theorists when they issued their Webdings font with the letters NYC appearing as an eye, a heart, and a city skyline…. I love NY.

Now just recently I got an email from a good Iranian chap who had a blog with the letters Q33NY spelled out in Wingdings, and apparently this depicts a plane flying into tower-imaginable objects with the symbols for killing Jews next to them. Oh yes, this fed MUCH fervor about the Wingdings font prophesying the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. There were all sorts of theories that Q33 was the designator of one of the planes that struck the towers… or that Q33 was the air bus route… or that Q33NY was the model of the planes that hit. None of these are true.

Anyways, I had never seen this before (incredibly enough) so I had asked this fine Iranian fellow what it meant… and he, in his weak English, said that if I changed Q33NY to Wingdings it would “show me something nice”. *ahem* Needless to say it took a couple more emails for me to learn that he didn’t mean nice in the same way we would think, and that he indeed was sad about the whole event. And as an aside, he also said that the Iranian government totally doesn’t speak for the people… and that the people can’t stand their government and are waiting for it to fall so they can have freedom. Hmm…

Here is the Snopes article on the Wingdings stories.

Here is a website that you can use to test your own name, city, initials, or anything else in Wingdings to see if there’s another conspiracy brewing.

Now you may want to know why a liberal, left-hugging periodical not known for being faith-friendly would take front-page notice of a conservative, Biblically-based church? Let me suggest that Terra Nova was noticed just as much for what it is NOT as for what it is. Terra Nova is not suits and ties… not felt pews and purple thrones… not smile-all-the-time-or-go-to-hell. This may seem very strange and foreign to many church-folk so stick with me. Terra Nova, quite simply, ventures to be everything of substance the true Biblical church is supposed to be while shedding any non-Biblical ideosyncrasies that traditional “church” has picked up along the way. Indeed, most Christians think that their traditions made popular in the 17th century (and subsequently converted into doctrine in the 1950′s) have their foundation with the very roots of Paul and Peter themselves! Many Christians think that singing songs not older than two centuries and not sung to pre-America drinking tunes are… *gulp*… of the devil.

Aghast! By what demon doth thou curseth me, oh wretched and horrible ghost, that thouest hath wrought my ruin upon the face of this leftist propaganda?!
- Any of the lesser Albany pastors after hypothetically being featured in the Metroland

Terra Nova is just a group of people who know they don’t have all the answers and are seeking Christ for those answers. And while we’re at it, let’s not pretend we live in a different century or on a different continent. Perhaps that’s just what makes Terra Nova stick out a little bit… we’re Christians who’ll readily interact with the rest of their own culture. Christians who see their church featured in Metroland and go “Cool!”

Oh yeah… it doesn’t hurt that the worship totally rocks, too. [Thank you Scott Womer]

Here’s some excerpts from the well-written article by Chet Hardin:

I was told before the service that the band would rock. That 800-year-old songs written by St. Francis of Assisi would be brought up to speed and the windows would rattle. That people passing on the streets would wonder what on earth could be going on inside Revolution Hall on a Sunday morning.

“It’s just Terra Nova,” Phil Taylor, executive pastor, said and laughed.

[...]

Taylor tells me they chose Revolution Hall because of its size (it can accommodate 800 people), its acoustics (it’s been billed as upstate New York’s “most advanced musical venue”) and because it’s just cool.

And that’s Terra Nova. A cool, confident, Generation X church that has come of age. The teaching pastor, Ed Marcelle, looks like an average Gen-Xer. He is dressed casually in worn jeans and a pullover zipper-neck sweatshirt. His hair hangs a little long, a little curly and a little out of control. Up on the stage, while he preaches, he paces slowly back and forth, like a college professor, feeling his way through his teaching with modesty and charisma. It is my first church service in 19 years, but I find myself completely engaged.

[...]

Stephen Bugler and his fiancée, Kim Cahill, in their early 30s, have been coming to Terra Nova since it started up four months ago. Bugler says he has spent years searching for a church that he could connect to.

“I went to a traditional church where everyone wore robes,” Bugler says. “And they had all these rituals that were completely dead to me. With Terra Nova, they are taking those ancient traditions and making them relevant to my life.”

Relevance is key at Terra Nova, says Cahill, who is the director of the Albany chapter of Campus Ambassadors, a national Christian fellowship organization. “I feel comfortable inviting a student to Terra Nova,” she says. “It’s like, they’ve been in Revolution Hall before. It’s not a church; it’s a bar. They are like, ‘Oh, I can do a bar.’ ”

“It’s nice to have a church where you can wear whatever you want and you can go and feel comfortable,” she adds.

But most important, they say, it is the core values of Terra Nova that keep them coming back. Terra Nova might be cool, but it is fundamentally, Biblically grounded.

[...]

[Ed Marcelle] says, “We are pretty boring and orthodox, in terms of ancient Christian belief.”

It’s true. Theologically, Terra Nova is nothing new; its core beliefs would appeal to any conservative evangelical. For all the guitars and the come-as-you-are aesthetic, this is not a liberal church.

Terra Nova members believe that the Bible is the unerring truth, the infallible word of God. They believe in original sin, wine from water, the virgin birth and the resurrection of Christ. They believe that there is only one God and that there is only one way to salvation . . . and that there is a Hell waiting for the unsaved and that a hell of a lot of people are headed that way. They believe strongly in marriage between a man and a woman. They believe that homosexuality is a sin, though they are quick to point out that persecuting homosexuals is just as much of a sin, and, for that matter, everyone is a sinner. And they believe that God’s truth is irresistible.

[...]

Terra Nova belongs to a large and growing movement of churches trying to break down [barriers] by reaching out and relating to the 18- to 35-year-old crowd. It is a movement of Gen-X pastors who listen to Radiohead, Matisyahu, Green Day and Death Cab for Cutie and drop quotes from Fight Club, Marshall McLuhan and The Matrix. They hold services in bars, coffee shops, dance clubs and auto-parts stores.

It is a movement in which authenticity is a coveted word. A quick scan of any of the thousands of blogs, Web sites and books dedicated to the Gen-X church movement, also known as the emergent or post-mod movement, shows just how important a marker for success authenticity is. It can make or break the reputation of young churches and pastors. Being in touch, being culturally relevant is vital. Be a member of your own community, and your community will be your congregation: This is the equation the guys at Terra Nova are operating upon. And their message seems to resonate.

[...]

The institutional church, Marcelle argues, has become so enamored with tradition it has become a preservationist society.

“It’s the fundamentalist and evangelical Amish of our day. It doesn’t look that weird now, but give it 100 years. I went to a church where they handed me anticommunist literature, like it’s 1955. I was like, ‘I don’t know how to tell you guys this, it might shock you. . .’ ”

There are so many people who want to have a dialogue about God, he says, “who were me when I was hanging out on Lark Street. And the Christian church, who is supposedly the keeper of those truths, isn’t talking.”

[...]

[Scott Womer says] “People are looking to something beyond this world.”

The church leaders at Terra Nova and in Acts 29 are touching a nerve in a seemingly secular and skeptical generation, a generation I have always thought was moving beyond religion in favor of science and relativism. But it seems I’ve been exactly wrong. Gen-Xers haven’t given up on religion; they’ve been waiting for it. And in the meantime, they have been using popular culture to express the same sort of wrought emotional outpouring, desperation for meaning and finality of action that now some of them are expressing every Sunday morning at Revolution Hall.

Amen.

New York gets new laws faster than we can enforce the old ones. Lawmakers come up with these grandiose ideas that sound good for votes, but most people don’t realize that they are making citizens pay for these laws they impose on us. When they say no cellphones while driving… how much do you think those lawmakers actually drive themselves around (as opposed to being chauffeured)? Probably not as much as you or I. Seatbelts? I need them to require me to wear a seatbelt? Where do we draw the line? You can’t legislate good and safe behavior. Idiots will find new forms of idiocy despite the laws. The litigious and political tyranny drives this downward spiral, but I digress.

The real point is… this past week I was faced with a personal conundrum. In NY you can’t smoke inside any public or commercial building except by extraordinary exception (more laws). But I found myself in Nevada walking in airports, casinos, hotels, restaurants, and train stations smelling the foul odor of cigarettes and (even worse) cigars. It’d been a while since I had the pleasure… [I'm not counting coworkers oblivious to the fact that their clandestine five-minute absence climaxes with clouds of stench following them back into the office].

What a picture some of these folks were, too. Middle-aged bleach-blonde in a dirty tank top with a beer in one hand, the other hand slapping buttons on a slot machine, and a cigarette dangling out of the mouth… I just knew some poor Carolina trailer park hound dog was missin’ his mama. And every non-smoker knows how this stuff gets into your clothes… I’d forgotten how rotten everything smells after walking through tobacco alley. I began to realize that my oppressive NY regime has actually provided me with clean air and that Nevada (with it’s freedoms) has not.

So then… which one is the greater freedom? Being able to smoke cigarettes in public around everyone and anyone else without the government telling you what you can do and where you can do it? Or having the government impose behavior controls that enable the breathing of cleaner, fresher air and not stinking afterward?

All information is here: www.microsoftnysettlement.com.

If you’re not from New York, better fortune elsewhere. I’m no fan of Spitzer (our Attorney General) but this is the second check he scored me… the first was against the RIAA which, despite the meager $20, was a sweet smelling rose of a little dagger thrust into the belly of an evil organization of greed and artistic destruction. May the Lord deal with the RIAA be it ever so severely! More on that.