Very tolerant...

Evidently, some poor sap who was idiotic enough to convert to Christianity in Afghanistan now faces the death penalty. Under Afghanistan's Islamic law, converting to Christianity is punishable by death (what about other religions? or is Christianity singled out?).

A quote:

"'Rejecting Islam is insulting God. We will not allow God to be humiliated. This man must die,' said cleric Abdul Raoulf, who is considered a moderate and was jailed three times for opposing the Taliban before the hard-line regime was ousted in 2001."

This is a moderate cleric. I wonder what the conservative/hard-line clerics are like... I think we already know what they advocate, it's just that nobody wants to admit it.

Link to the article:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060323/ap_on_re_as/afghan_christian_convert

LOL

Ripped shamelessly from http://www.overheardintheoffice.com.

Incidentally, go to http://www.overheardinnewyork.com. Greatest site EVER, especially if you're from the Big Apple, which I'm not.


Co-worker #1: Hey, do we need to dress up when the Japs show up next week?
Boss: Don't ever refer to them as Japs! That's racist and very offensive. Please refer to them as Japanese instead.
Co-worker #2: Hey, while we're being all culturally sensitive and shit, can I show up to work dressed as a ninja to welcome them to America?

Just to piss people off

Go here and here.

Check it out, I was able to piss about at least half of the world's population. Pretty impressive huh?

I found these links off of ESPN Message Boards of all places, how those two sites became part of the Lakers forum I'll never understand.

I hate Cable

Is it just me, or are cable companies and their employees the most worthless firms/people in the world? Ever try calling a cable company to start service? You would think that they want to pick up their phones within 45 minutes when it's a new customer. Once they sign you up, then the dicking over should begin.

Time Warner Cable in San Diego is the WORST company I have ever dealt with, and the sad part is that I still haven't been able to get cable. Their phone is BUSY all the time. Who the hell owns a legitimate business meant to serve thousands and allow their phones to be busy??? To top it off, when I was able to get through, they just put me on hold FOREVER, and there's no music!!! It's just dead silence, it's not like I enjoy the crappy music but it lets me know if I'm still on hold when I put it on speaker.

What really pisses me off is that I have no choice in the matter. I can moan and complain and go raise hell at their office, but I'm still stuck with their horseshit service. Maybe I should do DirecTV instead. To go off on a tangent, situations like this really demonstrate why deregulation of cable must be allowed. Cable companies bitch and moan that this would somehow drive up prices. What a bunch of crap. They know that with deregulation, there would be competition and then they'd actually have to hire people who aren't complete degenerates or retards (hell, maybe that's where all the sub-50 IQ indivduals work). The next Time Warner installation truck I see is getting its tires slashed.

There you go, I hate TIME WARNER. Just imagine if I actually was a customer, I'd be ready to take out their CEO. That company is full of the biggest bunch of losers EVER. Too bad nobody reads my blog...

Deferred success ?

Have we (well, the Brits but it's not so different here) gotten so pathetic that the term "fail" can't be used, and has to be substituted with "deferred success"??? WTF is deferred success anyways? Has it gotten so bad that we have to coddle the next generation to the point where they can't even learn the all-important life lesson and failing and picking yourself back up? The most successful people in history will tell you that learning how to pick him or herself back up after a setback was probably one of the most valuable lessons they have ever learned.

I mean, how many more excuses do we, as a society, have to make for others? Does anyone even take responsibility for their own actions anymore? Have parents gotten so lazy that instead of actually parenting their kids, they'd rather change the term failure to deferred success?

To anyone here who reads this and watches the Simpsons (I know, it's no one), there's a quote from a episode that fits quite aptly. Homer, the lazy selfish dad, is told by a rather angry co-worker (Frank Grimes, who subsequently electrocutes himself) that he "freeloads off of the people who actually work in America, and that if this were any other country, he'd already be dead." I can think of SOOO many people who this applies too... and most of them agree with replacing the term "fail" with "deferred success"

New Supreme Court Justice

Looks like W picked John Roberts, a well-respected federal judge for the position on the Supreme Court. He is a conservative, so a fight is to be expected during the confirmation hearings. It appears that the fight will center around Roe v. Wade. Roberts has stated in a brief that there is no fundamental right to an abortion in the Constitution. Like it or not, that statement is true. Roe v. Wade was decided on a right to privacy basis. The Constitution doesn't say anywhere that abortion is a right. However, reading the Constitution in such a strict fashion is counterproductive. I tend to think that unless the Constitution (or laws passing Constitutional muster) says you can't do it, it's fine to read it as an unwritten right. That said, I do think women should have the right to choose, but I also think abortion should probably done as a last resort and not some form of birth control after a crazy weekend.

I think the main problem with the Democrats concentrating on Roe v. Wade is that it's really a minor issue in the overall number of cases Roberts is going to hear. Chances are pretty good that nobody will bring a Roe v. Wade issue before the court for a really long time. I don't think abortions will ever be made illegal because the majority of Americans support it. Any court decision overturning Roe v. Wade will simply itself be overturned by Congress in response. I do realize that Roe v. Wade was almost overturned a few years ago but in the end, I still think most Americans support that right and Congress will act accordingly.

The Lakers select...

Andrew Bynum...

I don't know much about this kid, all I know is that he's a legit 6-11 and 285 pounds, so he is probably the biggest 17 year old kid running around since Shaq was that age. It's a given that he's not going to do much for at least a year or two, anybody expecting Amare Stoudemire or LeBron James (i.e. immediate) type contributions are probably going to be disappointed. This kid has the size but is really young (remember, Amare was 19 when he came in and LeBron is basically a once-in-a-lifetime talent). On the plus side, he's relatively well-spoken and actually did well in school (a supposed 3.6 GPA and favorite class is physics). Therefore, character won't be an issue, if he works hard he should become a good center. What I'm concerned with is that by the time he gets good, his rookie contract will have expired. It would really suck if Bynum ends up being the next Eddy Curry, fat and often-uninspired.

I understand why the Lakers went with size over immediate help or even uber-athletic high school kids like Gerald Green, but most fans want immediacy, nobody wants to wait three years to see a draft pick pan out. As far as the 2nd round goes, I'm pretty happy with the Ronny Turiaf pick, that was one solid pick for the second round. That dude is basically a clone of the young Brian Grant. I don't know much about Von Wafer but it is the 2nd round after all..

What day is it?

So I'm at work and this lady calls. Normally I don't answer phones but since the entire office is away, I'm doing everything now (the beauty of a one-person law firm who hires his wife as the secretary) and I have to answer the damn phone calls. This lady asks when the boss dude will be back (this happened on Monday by the way). I tell her he should be back Wednesday (incidentally he is NOT back yet so I'm stuck answering the phones again). She then says "will he be back tomorrow?", I tell her tomorrow is Tuesday and no he won't be. Then she says, "so he'll be back Wednesday?" and I respond "yes." For the next minute or two she basically repeats the routine of "will he be back Tuesday?" followed with "so he will be back Wednesday?" and then unceremoniously hangs up. Two minutes later she calls back and asks me the same question...

Useless waste of time

Anybody think what the Chinese customs officials are doing is completely ludicrous? Seizing textbook for a Japanese school because it showed China and Taiwan as different colors on the map sounds like a monumental waste of resources to me. It amazes me how petty the world is becoming. Anybody out there actually believe there will be world peace is crazy because it seems to me everyone everywhere is only interested in holding on to grudges (and yes i know why China, Japan, and Taiwan have problems...). Add to the fact that people in other countries (yes, even the supposed "enlightened" Europeans) really don't like individuals from other different backgrounds, ethnicities, and so forth.