God Versus Nature

So just a bit of disgusting guy humor to chew on for a few minutes. Now I know you all usually come here for up to date serious discussions that I introduce which will inevitably change the world, but I figured I'd lighten things up from my usual all-business-all-the-time posts...

So I had some greasy foods and some fiber loaded foods over the course of a few days. Eventually they came back to haunt me while I was working. Before you ask, no I did NOT soil myself while driving the patrol car. I did however go to a familiar facility that I am comfortable using. It also happened to be a church, an episcopalian one at that, that I lock up and do security checks at. I had a copy of the Sunday paper and took it in with me. 20 minutes and 10 pounds later, I ran out of that bathroom. You know its pretty bad when your own stuff frightens your sense of smell to the very core.



Surely I thought I will burn in hell for having destroyed the facilities. So naturally I asked a female friend. She assured me that "Jesus always forgives." That's nice, but also one opinion from someone who doesn't exactly regularly attend church, and keep up to date on the Sin/Not a Sin list.



So I asked a male coworker. He assured me that "Blowing up a Sh***** in the House of God is one of those unforgivable sins like suicide and that surely you will burn."

So, in order to break the tie I went to my lovely sister for her opinion. I told her the basic story and the answers I received from my two friends. She then informed me most assuredly that "God is an angry God. The New Testament and Jesus love stuff was just to co opt the tenderhearted people into worshipping God. And that you will definitely burn in hell." Again this opinion is from a non churchgoing person....but awfully harsh coming from a new age hippie liberal type. That and she is my sister... she probably relishes the day to find out whether I burn in hell or not, hoping for the former. Lot of love between her and I.


I asked her that if I destroyed an Episcopalian bathroom with all their tender loving God ways being a falsity in the name of the true angry God, that I might get leniency for helping to take down his false church. She said I'd be lucky if that were the case... she's probably still hoping for the hellfire and brimstone option for me.

Then I began to wonder... Angry god or not, he made me and he made the stuff to make the food I ate, and he should've foreseen the problem of the nature of my body reacting to this stuff and known that sooner or later, a church would be bombed out by my #2 stinky business. So ultimately this is God's fault (this is purely satire...don't go getting in a huff over this statement, you religious fanatics!) for making me this way...after all He created me in His image....So maybe I'm just trying to achieve His goal of becoming more like him. Maybe this production of Smoke On The (Holy Toilet) Water, is more of an homage of His greatness? Has God destroyed a few spiritual toilets in an effort to exalt Himself in front of the angels as an All-Powerful God among Gods?

Discuss amongst yourselves, and proffer your opinions.... Was it a Holy Sh*t, or a fast track to Hell?

Legislating From The Bench or Doing Their Job

Here in Iowa, our election day was not only for representatives, senators and a governor. In fact, a huge issue getting a lot of the play was on the retention or rejection of 3 Iowa Supreme Court justices. After all was said and done, Marsha K. Ternus, the chief justice; Michael J. Streit; and David L. Baker — received about 45 percent of the vote, making this the first time members of the state’s high court had been rejected by voters.

“I think it will send a message across the country that the power resides with the people,” said Bob Vander Plaats, an unsuccessful Republican candidate for governor who led the campaign. “It’s we the people, not we the courts.”

“What is so disturbing about this is that it really might cause judges in the future to be less willing to protect minorities out of fear that they might be voted out of office,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the University of California, Irvine, School of Law. “Something like this really does chill other judges.”

A massive portion of the campaign to oust the judges was funded by out of state groups, helping to support the efforts led by Vander Plaats, and heralded by Representative Steve King.

A lot of the arguments put forth by pundits and regular citizens alike was that the ouster was the result of Iowans being displeased with the state Supreme Court legislating from the bench. Now I may be a conservative, but this is one area where I break ranks with our so-called standard bearers.

For one, I personally think the idea of gay marriage is a non-issue and therefor irrelevant in regards to government oversight, save the license issuing process that heterosexual couples go through. Secondly, I personally believe the process behind letting citizens decide to stop homosexuals from being allowed to marry or not is ludicrous. Since the state Supreme Court said the legislation was essentially flawed and struck down as unconstitutional, gay marriage opponents and politicians have taken to their soapboxes to proclaim the injustice of an opinion differing from theirs. Boo-friggin-hoo!

I believe when allowing citizens to vote on the rights of other people's lives you have to look at a couple things. One- does there allowance to participate in some activity truly harm you? Two- Is the vote on an amendment to allow a freedom or restrict a freedom.

Personally, I know gay people, and have some people related to me who have chosen (or are naturally?) the homosexual lifestyle. Am I for gay activities? Not really. I have always and will always prefer women for romantic relations. But in regards to homosexuality I don't have to participate in, condone, or suffer from their lifestyle, or choose to associate myself with anyone who does. Whether or not two gay people decide to get married will ultimately never affect me personally, and I highly doubt it will affect any of the other straight people living around here.

Conservatives are always bitching about how they want the government to stay out of their personal lives and let them live and operate freely as they see fit. But then all of a sudden, hoards of queers appear on the horizon, in full war paint ready to charge on in and ruin their idea of civilization, and now they want to use our system of governance to prohibit the activities of individuals.

Look I get the God-fearing church crowd being dismayed at homosexual activities and lifestyle, I really do. Say what you want, let your heart be filled with all that hate you wish to hold, but remember a couple teachings from the Good Book. Do not judge, for that is the role of God. Hate the sin, love the sinner. Pull the plank out of your own eye before removing the speck from your brother's.

In other words, you aren't perfect, so who the hell are you to tell other people how wrong they are. Fix up your own house and let others fix their own house as they see fit. Again, you don't have to hang out with homosexuals or people who accept homosexuals as friends for that matter. You don't have to engage in homosexual behavior or gay marriage. Your church does not have to recognize anything related to homosexuals. In the same moment, keep your government out of it as well.

Quit pissing and moaning about how the government is trying to legislate your activities, and then turn around and do the same thing to someone you disagree with. That only makes you a hypocrite. And while everyone is entitled to their own wrong opinions, the rest of those around you are equally entitled to disagree with you and tell you to stuff it where the sun don't shine.

So, unlike many of my conservative friends, I voted to retain the three judges. I voted for the losing side. That doesn't make me wrong, just makes me in the minority at the polls. The judges did NOT legislate from the bench, contrary to popular opinion, but merely did their job in not restricting the freedoms of citizens under their jurisdiction.

A Family Together...With Your Help!

My friend Jay, and his wife, Naomi are in the process of adopting children from Ethiopia. They have cleared the first set of major hurdles towards realizing their dream of having a family. First off I would like to thank everyone who has already helped contribute towards their cause. You can only imagine how much your help means to them.

They now have some last steps to complete while awaiting their referral for their future children. For a basic breakdown in how you can help click this link: http://burnsadoption.blogspot.com/2009/12/dossier-completed.html


As it mentions in the link, you can donate via Paypal by clicking on the PayPal link on their page, or if you do not have PayPal you can send any and all donations directly to the address: 822 Jonathon Rd. Powell, WY 82435
Please make any checks payable to "Ethiopia Hope Fund". All donations are tax deductible, as they are run through Harvest Church.

Every little bit helps out Jay and Naomi, as they scrape together their own funds as well to make their dream of having a family come true. They thank you very much for any help you can provide!

While Married, I Find This Advice To Single Guys Hilarious, AND TRUE!

Found this through a pastor friend of mine who sent me a small snippet of the talk. If for nothing else, watch it for it's entertainment value.


Beautiful_02- Single Guys Outtake from NewSpring Media on Vimeo.

A Thought On God

This could also be titled, "Man's Thinking On How To Operate With God"

I'm pretty sure more people than just myself have noticed, the bathroom can also be called the Reading Room. Don't worry, that's as graphic as it gets. The current book sitting in the bathroom is titled An Enemy Called Average by John L. Mason. It's basically one of those self help/positivity books written by a christian author. Overall, it serves its purpose, but I noticed in one of the mutliple short chapters covered in this book, a list on how to attain godly wisdom.

Most of them are pretty standard: Please God, Follow his ways, look to Him, Pray, etc etc. But to top the list I noticed something I found contradictorily odd. FEAR GOD!

Many churches I have been in attendance of at one time or another, tell me that God is good, and that all things good come from God. That negative things in our life are a result of our humanness, or influences of Satan. Fear appears to be a pretty big negative thing, and it is something that oftentimes holds us back.
God commanded us to move forward, to take dominion over the earth.

Many issues I have had with the churches, are that many of them are just loaded with certain human oddities, do this, don't do that. If you did what you werent supposed to do, confess to another guy and he can wipe it out for you, but if you dont, somehow you arent as good a member of the church as those who do, and so on and so forth. The basic core message we are taught as kids in Sunday School is that God is good, He is our God, he sent his Son, Jesus Christ to die for our sins, and if we believe that, we're good as gold and looking forward to our trip to Heaven. As we get older, suddenly a whole litany of rules and regulations get introduced to us, through whatever church we attend, and how these are how we should act to be a good christian.

Anyways, I'm rambling... So if God is good, and fear is bad, why would I combine the two? Why should I fear Goodness? If its good, I should like it and embrace it. If its bad I should shun it. At least this is the message I have gotten from multiple sources. Maybe I'm just not understanding things clearly. If I am gripped with fear of goodness, what motivation is this move forward and accept all that God has to offer me? Do good unto others is big teaching, but the whole message of "fear God" now suddenly adds an addendum to this: Do good unto others, ...OR ELSE!

It all seems to be one big mess to me. Do I operate with love in my heart, or fear? Courage or trepidation? Strength or weakness?

Big Brother Coming to a Neighborhood Bake Sale Near You

Thanks to Linda WHOOPS...I mean LYNDA (sorry) at What Is Going On? for reprinting this, and to Sandy at the Junkfood Science blog, for providing this to us:

It’s already being called Posole-gate.

“The more we look to the government to protect us, the more freedoms we lose,” said one resident. This became a reality today when government health officials went after an 84-year old tradition and told the nuns at St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Albuquerque, New Mexico, that their church dinner of homemade posole, tamales and biscochitos was against the law. Every December 14th, after the Our Lady of Guadalupe procession, church ladies have served traditional posole and biscochitos for parishioners and the public. The Environment Health Department, however, determined the potluck was a threat to public safety and a violation of the city’s food ordinance.

“Our concern here is only about public safety,” John Soladay, Albuquerque’s environmental health director, told the Albuquerque Journal. Homemade food doesn’t comply with city law, which is intended to protect the public from contaminated food, he said. It’s no different from homemade cupcakes and cookies, nachos and popcorn no longer being allowed in schools because they might put children at risk of foodborne illnesses.

I wasn’t aware that there have been far too many people poisoned, made ill, by participating in Community Pot-Luck style meals.

Schools and churches and community centers of all kinds have been holding/hosting pot-luck dinners, bake sales, picnics for decades………..all of them open to the public. I’ve never seen any news reports of outbreaks of illness because of this. The only stories like it I’ve seen have been from cruise ships/restaurants/produce we buy in the stores!!!

According to the story in the Albuquerque Journal a city official states:

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

No Home Cookin’ at Festival

COPYRIGHT:Copyright 2008 Albuquerque Journal

By Olivier Uyttebrouck
Journal Staff Writer

A city official said Tuesday that because the event is open to the public, the church must abide by city laws for food handling and distribution.

“Our concern here is only about public safety,” said John Soladay, Albuquerque’s environmental health director.

City law “stipulates that food prepared for distribution to the public must be prepared in an approved kitchen,” he said. “Food prepared at home does not meet that criteria.”

The city ordinance is intended to protect the public from contaminated food, he said.

So, food prepared at home doesn’t meet the cities safety standards? Then why are people allowed to poison themselves? I mean if you don’t trust the people to cook for their friends and neighbors for a block party, then why trust them to cook for themselves?


All this “safety” nonsense is going way too far now if you ask me. This festival has been held for more that three-quarters of a century and NOW the city wants to pull this crap? Talk about government going too far. It’s enough to make me want to cook up a storm and offer the food on my front lawn to anyone who passes by!!

What’s next? Can’t feed your guests because you might have contaminated food? Well guess what? THERE IS NO GUARANTEE THAT THE CHEMICALLY LADEN FOOD IN THE STORES IS ANY SAFER!!!!