Lost my job on Friday

Wow, gee!

Well, I accepted the job (20 years ago) so that I could help people have better lives (psychiatric social worker). For many years, that was true. However, over all of those years, the job slowly turned into being a paid asshole. So I was not really happy there.

So the head asshole gave me my pink slip the other day. So, wow, was he trying to do me a favor?

The official reason was that somebody spilled some gravy after all the cleaning was done. Wow! Gee?

The real reason is that I must be punished for not doing something that was probably illegal.

Kind of sucks to be me but I can now get back to doing things that are actually good. For both me and for other people.

OK I need this recorded for general use.

I just met my building super in his bathrobe.

He asked me if the exterminator showed this morning.

Well, the fact is that he did not do so. I told him truthfully that I have his phone number on my cell phone and I will call him later.

OK first, let's get one term out of the way: TEPCO=Tokyo Electric Power Company.

That being said, here is the deal from a science junkie:

TEPCO pulled some large screw ups. The Soviets pulled some huge screw ups. I shall post a longer analysis once we know better what is going on but what TEPCO did was not even in the same league as what the Soviets did. Time will tell on this.

Right now, the real difference is that TEPCO is dealing with a potentially huge disaster. It may get much worse. In fact, it probably will. Bad things will happen that have not already.

Now, as it stands, TEPCO has called for nuclear engineers and reactor staff from around the world to help them get this situation under control.

What needs to happen on an hour by hour basis is to let TEPCO get their game on. Anything other can only make people who do not know what is going on panic. None of which will have any bearing on TEPCO doing what needs to happen.

 Why does Iran need thousands of centrifuges?

Well, I don't think that it is too hard to figure this one out. Iran is open about having a nuclear power industry. They have a bunch of reactors and eventually, they are going to need industrial level production of fuel.

The rub here is that they have thousands of centrifuges. Pardon me but if only one of them could produce militarily significant material is a few days, then my uncle Larry could hide a nuclear weapons program.

Granted, you need other stuff. Machine tools that are good enough to build telescopes and so on. You get the idea. It is the stuff that is needed to handle radioactive material that we can find and possibly deal with.

Really though, you need the facilities to do industrial level fuel production in order to do military production as well.

What if god is an extraterrestrial being?

Seriously, let me posit the idea that there is some species on some planet “out there”. They have solved all of the problems that they will ever face.

Ecology? I tend to think that we are going to get a hold on the matter in a century or two, if we survive that long.

Sociology? We are already pretty tightly packed as a species. That and we have the internet. We all know each other and we all deal with people around the planet daily. If we survive, we will figure shit out some how.

So the ET/god drops by earth to tell us what the deal is...

So the OT basically says that if you are a good jew, nobody will get hurt.

The NT says (apart from the crap that was added in the middle ages) that you should be nice to people.

Wow! No shit!

If god had not happened to drop by, we would not have figured this much out on our own?

I am not perfect, nor is anyone else.

In the past few months, I have paid my rent a bit late twice and had my check bounce twice. So this month, I knew for a fact that I was going to actually see my landlord on the first of the month and there is plenty of money in my account. Well gee whiz...

In fact, my landlord is my GF's father and I saw him in the context of him dropping her off after her brother's birthday party. So I had the check written and handed it to him. If nothing else, I should get points for the act of contrition.

Of course the real world is never simple enough to actually make sense.

My landlord used my rent check as a book mark. Then he returned it to the library.

I tend to think that my bank has probably heard everything by now. Heck but every time I use an ATM, I stand informed of the fact that they have existed for 168 years and have enjoyed zero bailouts. Yah, that is important to the economy in general but fails as far as humor goes.

Even so, this one made the guy on the phone remark that this is one that has never happened before.

OK, you obviously need this broken down into simple steps.

Step 1: Your genes define who you are biologically. Sex is hereditary. If your parents did not have it then neither will you.

Step 2: Your genes do not define who you are sociologically. The idea that there are gay genes is a political idea. It is born not of any fact but rather from those who have the specific agenda that gay is identical to black or Asian or whatever. Because of this theory, if one is gay, then one deserves to have rights which are at least as powerful as those who can't think of a reason why they should have more rights than others.

Step 3: Your genes tell you that having orgasms is a good idea. Past that, the idea that there are genes for liking men's butt holes makes about as much sense as there being genes for liking blow jobs and genes for compulsive beating off.

Step 4: There is no such thing as “gay”. There is such a thing as normal human sexual expression. Some people like some things. Other people like other things. Still other people think that something else is hot.

I have been asked to speak at a church.

No, seriously, they are going to give me time to make a presentation on rationality.

Well, truth be known, this is a Unitarian church. Back when I was Anglican, we used to make jokes about the Unitarians.

Anyway, I have an informal invite and now I can make this happen if I take the time to develop a plan for what I am going to do. The only thing is that this was kind of dropped on me yesterday, so I don't have much apart from my general leanings ready. If I am going to do this, it should be rather more developed.

The one idea that I have that comes to mind would be to bring a pint of bourbon with me and do a Hitch' on them. Apart from that, I really don't know where this is going.

Catholic Church Excommunicates A Nun Who Approved An Abortion

I found this one on the news tonight. Apparently, they are even further out of control that I suspected.

Summarizing from a few articles on the case, what happened is that a nun who served for many years on the ethics board of a catholic hospital ended up in a position where she had to decide whether to allow an abortion to happen or not.

Specifically, the case at hand is that of a 27 year old woman and mother of four previous children who was 11 weeks pregnant and had a serious medical condition that would have killed her if she had not had an abortion. OK, let's consider this seriously:

The unexplainable mysteries explained.

OK, I live in the southwest part of new england. That sets up the location. Now let me set up the time and situation.

Back in the late 1970's, my older brother joined the local volunteer fire department. So growing up, we had an old style tube radio that would scream loudly when something important was happening.

Well, I do not know dates with certainty but a bunch of times I was woken up in the middle of the night because of an explosion. The fire department would go all around the area to look for the house that blew up but they never found one. That was around thirty years ago. I never paid a whole lot of attention to that but it was a mystery.

Fast forward to modern times...