barnson.org Half-baked opinions, served lukewarm.

Now I know everyone on this page will think this woman is either a loon or a misguided soul, but Laura Mallory is trying to remove Harry Potter from the classroom because it promotes Wicca and other non-Christian things. To quote:

Today's generation faces evil like no other in history with the bombardment of violent, sexual and occult images of our modern mass media. I think perhaps we are so desensitized, we couldn't recognize it even if on the plate in front of us. This case addresses only one facet of that evil, being spoon-fed to our children, even in the public schools. With the deceptive, exciting, children-friendly packaging of witchcraft in the Harry Potter series, our youth today view witchcraft not only as good and fun, but harmless fantasy. I'd like to clear up some misconceptions about the case and then just share my heart for a minute.

All,

Matt, forgive me. I know this is a kid friendly site, so please tell your kids not to watch this unless you say it's okay. I'm willing to risk Barnsonian wrath because this is that funny:

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/uncensored.shtml

Whoda thunk Justin Timberlake had such a great sense of humor?

My $.02
Weed

Weed Version 2 Release 3 was made available to the public today at 10:44 AM. The release weighed in at 6lb 7oz and was 17" long. He is doing wonderfully, as is his main programmer and power supply. Weed Version 2 Release 1, which has been available for over 4 years now, is ecstatic about this current release and wants to interface with him all the time. Weed Version 2 Release 2, out for the past 2 years, could not care less, as he's got sofas to climb and messes to make!

Soooo I heard some interesting banter yesterday on talk radio. The slightly right-wing host ('slightly'
as in Shag is slightly tall) was discussing the topic of Maryland's courts hearing testimony on the constitutionality of restricting marriage to a man and a woman. He had a guest come on who has written a book about marriage and the new American caste system (http://www.city-journal.org/printable.php?id=1921). The synopsis is that in the past three decades, women who go to college have followed the traditional "woman meets man, women marries man, they have baby" scenario in life, while women who don't go to college more often have babies out of wedlock. As you can probably predict, the college-educated women who marry are better off than their single-mother counterparts.

Mormonism, kidnapping, everything that makes a great Barnson.org read:

No wedding for you!

My $.02
Weed

• If two hermaphrodites marry, are they able to do their taxes "Married Filing Jointly"?
• If God is omniscient and omnipotent (meaning knows-all and all-powerful), how can free will exist? We're all part of his plan, so he must already know what we're going to do. And since he made us all, we're only doing what he made us to do? So how can I be blamed if I'm only becoming what God made me? Basically, how can free will co-exist with an all-powerful God?

Is it possible for barnson.org to have a RSS feed? My new Yahoo Mail Beta only supports RSS, not XML feeds.

Just asking
Weed

I'll throw one out for the MBAs in the hizzou:

On the Tuesday Morning Quarterback blog on ESPN, Gregg Easterbrook writes a column about the weekend's NFL action as well as other random topics. This week's blog has two points I think we all would enjoy:

1) There's the story of former CEO of HP, who stepped down amidst allegations she hired PIs to find a leak on the HP board. Who cares? Well, the PIs called the phone company, gave personal information claiming to be members of the board to get phone records, and then used that info to determine who was the leaker. Problem is, this is against the law. So now she had to step down and may also face legal action.

Matt,

If a blog gets more than 50 replies, it creates a second page. However, if I go to recent posts and click the "x new replies" link on a blog with more than one page, it takes me to the first page. When I click to the second page, the "*new" posts aren't new anymore and I can't just to them.

Is there a way to prevent this. The simple solution is not to have page breaks, but that's a server resource issue.

So I was strangely compelled to watch Paris Hilton's new music video. A few thoughts:

1) The song's not bad for pop drivel. It's catchy and listenable. I'm not putting it into the Pantheon along with U2 during the late 80s early 90s, but it's ok.
2) The actual video is not what I'd expected at all. Paris did the "Can't Buy Me Love/The Girl Next Door" route where the poor, picked on boy has the hot girl raise his status in school. Why can't anyone make a good, funny movie these days without ripping off the 80s? Is it because the 80s covered all possible good teen coming of age type movies? Did John Hughes ruin it for everyone for the rest of eternity?