O Lord, deliver us from the elements

The weather last night really got me down. I mean, there were tornadoes in places not far from me, and flooding on the Schuylkill Expressway. I take that road some nights, so it was scary to see the news report where the traffic there stuck in waist-deep water. I guess I'm lucky I didn't have to go that way last night, and even luckier that I don't live in one of the areas that was hit directly by the recent hurricanes. I mean, all we got here was some of Jeanne's aftermath. Still, it's disturbing when that kind of stuff happens near you. I often wish there was something we could do about the weather, but that would probably upset the balance of Earth even more than we've done already, or something like that. Maybe I should just move to another planet. {g}

( Holy quiz result, Batman! )

Tomorrow night is the They Might Be Giants concert in Philadelphia. Probably the last one Beth and I will see for some time, since I hear the band is planning on taking a break after that one and their two Irving Plaza shows.

At the End of the World

Sometimes, when there's nothing good on the car radio, I listen to Family Radio, one of those crazy Religious Right stations at the end of the dial. I have to say, if you haven't listened to this kind of radio, you've missed such things as:

• The host on a call-in show (where they find answers "from the Bible, not our own minds") backpedaling when called on the fact that he had said the world would end in the early nineties, and was now saying it would end in 2011. I think he eventually hung up on the caller.
  
• A "creationism moment," where some guy talked about how bees provide evidence for intelligent design. The amusing thing was that he sounded kind of like Sterling Holloway, which, combined with the fact that he was talking about bees, made me think of Winnie-the-Pooh.
  
• Another creationist type saying something like, "If birds and mammals have similar structures, that's because they were made by the same God." This guy kept saying that humans couldn't have evolved from "lower animals." Now, the general ridiculousness of his argument aside, why "lower"? I mean, I'm not a hardcore animal rights type, but isn't it pretty insulting to refer to other creatures that way? (I'll refrain from making a joke about many species of bird are actually "higher" than humans most of the time. [1])
  
• As an example of what not to say if your son says he wants to drop out of school, the words, "Do you want to grow up to be a dumbbell?"
  

On an unrelated note, I left for work early today because I was expecting heavy traffic due to wet roads, but it looks like most of the roads have cleared up. I had time to stop at Coconuts, where I bought used copies of Sloan's Pretty Together and the Fastbacks' Answer the Phone, Dummy. (For those of you who don't know, Kurt Bloch, the lead guitarist of the Young Fresh Fellows, was in the Fastbacks.)

Hotmail just had some weird problem where it kept showing me my mail backwards (i.e., with the newer messages at the top). I think it's always been possible to set it that way, but I never did (I have no idea why anyone would, really, but it's the default on some mail programs), so I don't know what was happening. I sometimes think I should switch to a different e-mail program, but is there any free server that DOESN'T have problems that are just as bad or worse? I tend to doubt it.

[1] Okay, so I DID make the joke. But I made it in a non-traditional and mildly self-deprecating manner, which makes it clever instead of lame, right? {g}

With Libertarianism and justice for all

For more radio fun, I listened to Michael Badnarik, the Libertarian Presidential candidate, being interviewed on NPR. I thought he came across as fairly rude and not too bright. (Brighter than Bush, I suppose, but then so are most potted plants.) Really, he struck me as being pretty similar to the Family Radio fundamentalist types, only instead of "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus," it was "private property, private property, private property." Yes, there are areas in which I think the government has too much control. The thing is, though, who doesn't? I'm sure if you asked Democrats, Republicans, and even Socialists, most of them are not going to say, "Yes, I want the government interfering in every aspect of my life!" There's certainly some disagreement among the different political parties in terms of exactly when the government SHOULD be allowed to interfere, but not wanting a lot of interference isn't an idea on which the Libertarians have a monopoly. Libertarianism, as least as explained by Badnarik (who might not represent the views of all people who consider themselves to be libertarians), seems to be based on easy answers and buzzwords. For instance, he said that criminals are people who don't respect private property. Also, Columbine was apparently caused by Ritalin (something with which the host of the program actually took issue), and a lack of restrictions on gun ownership would result in less crime. In addition, Badnarik used the word "steal" so often, you'd think he was a representative of the RIAA. It's a word that gets a reaction, even when used in a fashion that might not be entirely appropriate. So, yeah, even if I thought Badnarik had a chance of winning, I wouldn't vote for him.