Affiant

It's not often that I come across a word that I have not heard. It is even less often that when I do see a new word that I can't at least roughly discern the meaning of it's root.

Someone today wanted to know what the word 'affiant' meant. I didn't hear it in the context of a sentence so I couldn't even begin to define it. In fact, the spell checker built in to Firefox didn't even know what the word was.

From Dictionary.com here is the word 'Affiant'

af·fi·ant /əˈfaɪənt/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[uh-fahy-uhnt]

–noun Law.

a person who makes an affidavit.

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[Origin: 1800–10, Americanism; obs. v. affy to confide (afier; see affiance) + -ant]

A Really Bad Joke

In light of the battle going on in the comments of the circumcision thread below, I couldn't help but remember a joke I heard years ago.

If this joke is offensive to anyone I apologize in advance that you are so easily offended (i.e. too bad).

A very odd, but prominent Rabbi was about to retire. As it turns out, he collected and preserved the foreskins of all the boys he circumcised. He decided to have something made for himself from his collection.

He went to a leather crafter that he knew, showed him the collection and asked him to make something very special to commemorate his years of service in the Temple. The craftsman said, "I have just the thing for you. I will not tell you what it is right now, come back in two weeks, you shall not be disappointed."

The Rabbi waited patiently for two weeks. In the mean time he had his retirement party, received the well wishes of all those that looked up to him over the years. Free now from his duties, he strolls in the leather shop with the gait of a man who has no more worries. "Well my friend, I am anxious to see your excellent craftsmanship! What did you make for me?"

The old craftsman bends down and pulls out a small box and sets it on the counter before him. "Go ahead and open it."

The Rabbi looked very concerned. He opens the box, and takes out the contents. It's a wallet. "A wallet?! A WALLET?! A commemoration of my life's work and all I get out of it a stinking wallet?!" Of course there were plenty of "Oi vey's" cast about as well.

"Please my friend," said the shop owner and put up his hands in a calming gesture. "Calm yourself for a moment."

The Rabbi took a deep breath and calmed down. "I am calm."

The man looks at the Rabbi, picks up the wallet and when he rubbed it vigorously for about 30 seconds, it turned in to a set of luggage.

Nothing To Worry About

As a Bible believing Christian, I have no doubt in my mind that the tomb of Jesus, the son of the Most High God is NOT what filmmaker James Cameron claims it is. Jesus didn't live out his natural life, get married and have child.

Other than the obvious implications for Christianity if it were true, there are plenty of other reasons to doubt the efficacy of this claim. As much 'trouble' as Jesus was during his time, there is no doubt that he would have continued to be a popular and/or much despised public figure for the rest of his natural life had he not been crucified. Furthermore, I have little doubt that a son would not have garnered as much attention or more. There would be some historical records of this. As it is, there seem to be none. I realize that the absence of evidence is not proof so I'm walking on thin ice here but logic dictates that if Jesus was indeed a public figure as historical records show, there would be some recording of a family. Jews were meticulous about genealogy.

My biggest problem with this is that for many, many years to come, unbelievers will throw this back in our faces as incontrovertible proof that Jesus did was not who history says he was.

There are a couple of rebuttals for that.

1. The Gospel is dependent on Jesus dying for our sins. It is not dependent on whether or not Jesus ascended in to Heaven. Obviously if he didn't that contradicts other parts of the Bible. But if you're going to respond to an unbeliever, they need to understand this about the Christian faith. There is nothing about those tombs that can prove either way that Jesus didn't die and was resurrected; only that he did not ascend to Heaven or at least that he didn't stay there.
   
2. Most of the same people who will throw this in your face never believed that Jesus existed to begin with. They tend to believe that he was a purely fictional character. If they don't believe any of the previously discovered extra-biblical evidence of his existence, why would they believe this? Turn their own doubts back on them.

This should not be anything that in any way shakes your faith. Read the link included and do some of your own research; there appears to be a number of holes in the theory. It is definitely enough to create more than reasonable doubt that it's not really the grave of Jesus of Nazareth.

Good Decision - Bad Science

I've already noted my opinions about global warming in other posts, which is to say that I am not a proponent of that theory.

That being said, I think that Oregon, California, Washington, New Mexico and Arizona have taken a step in the right direction in terms of proper government even if I don't agree with their conclusions.

These states have formed a pact to bypass the Bush administration and make some of their own environmental law.

Why do I support this? Because it's the way government is supposed to run. This is how the states are supposed to work. I don't like what they are doing in this particular instance; I think it's bad for the economy, commerce etc. But at least the citizens of any given state can make changes to their law through the initiative process; at least we can here in California.

More states need to cooperate and leave the Fed out of the loop. I just want it to be for better purposes than this stupid global warming crap.

Freaking Barbarians!

Just one more reason we should have no positive dealings at all with Islamic countries. As a rule, they simply have no respect at all for life.

Circumcision - Half Off

Now that I have your attention...

It is being reported that there is highly conclusive evidence that male circumcision significantly reduces the risk of contracting HIV.

But... but... Circumcision is just a barbaric tradition started by them there Joos a long time ago. It's no longer necessary. It's an anachronism. We don't need to do it any more.

Apparently there has been a significant movement over the years to put an end to the practice of circumcision. The Bible has been advocating it all along. Gee, go figure.

Since the state of Texas is going to force girls to get vaccinated against HPV, shouldn't they now require all boys to get circumcised to offset the threat of HIV? If you believe it's ok to make that judgment call for girls, there is no reason you shouldn't accept it for boys too.

A Twist On The Abortion Debate

While reading the comments over at Pandagon wherein Amanda actually argues that "abortion is a moral good" I came to the conclusion that any atheist and just about every liberal should have no problem at all with the concept of state forced abortions.

To an atheist, the only possible place that rights can come from is the government. They can try to argue for some "natural rights" all they want but they cannot possibly acknowledge any authority higher than government. If government is the highest authority, then government essentially owns us.

Every government of every type has one prime directive; self preservation. If government is the highest authority, then anything that government does is moral. If the atheist wants to argue that he is is own highest authority, ask him why he bothers obey the law. In practice, the atheist acknowledges the government as the highest authority.

Now that we have defined our authority, why would it be the least bit immoral for the state to make a choice for a woman that she should have an abortion? The state has the authority and it granted to you the right to choose for yourself. It can also revoke that right or demand that you have an abortion. Just this week in Italy, a judge sentenced a 13 year old girl who did NOT want an abortion to get one because it's what her parents wanted. The parents obviously acknowledged the state, through the court to be their authority. The girl had no choice; this is a state forced abortion in a supposedly free country.

Likewise, no atheist should complain if abortion is forbidden for the same reasons. Obviously the state thinks it's in it's own best interest to deny abortions and they are the authority.

Supremacy of the state at it's finest.

The Left Must Be Envious

A Pakistani minister and woman’s activist has been shot dead by an Islamic extremist for refusing to wear the veil.

I know the people on the left wish they had the balls to do stuff like this to those that they oppose. Fortunately for us, they are all spineless weenies without the courage of their convictions.

Even the radicals from ELF (Earth Liberation Front) that burn up car lots, etc. are really only making token gestures of protest.

Difster Was Right

In my last post I said:

This is a situation which can easily be dealt with in the free market. Just based on this incident, the airlines are going to start falling all over themselves coming up with their own Bill of Rights. Hopefully this will obviate the need for Congress to act and we can forget the whole mess.

JetBlue has just announced their own Passenger Bill of Rights.

Good for them. I didn't know if they would be the first to do this, but I knew it wouldn't take too long for someone to do it.

The provisions of their program look pretty good. Let's just wait and see what their competition is going to do. It's a race against the clock for these companies to come up with something also.

Even though the companies took action on their own, Congress may still try to intervene and put minimum Federal standards in place. Hopefully this issue has now lost momentum.

Passenger Bill Of Rights

Lately there have been calls for Congress to pass a "Passenger Bill of Rights" in order to protect passengers from ordeals such as what passengers of JetBlue suffered this weekend when they were forced to sit in a plane on the runway for 10 plus hours.

The idea of Congress passing legislation to solve a problem that very rarely happens is just insane. There are ways of dealing with this problem without invoking the heavy hand of government. This is a situation which can easily be dealt with in the free market. Just based on this incident, the airlines are going to start falling all over themselves coming up with their own Bill of Rights. Hopefully this will obviate the need for Congress to act and we can forget the whole mess.

Lest you think this is one of those cases where government really should get involved, let's look at a few other idea and see if you think they would be good laws too:

• Internet Users Bill Of Rights - Congress could pass a law that websites must provide a minimum standard of usability and availability. Don't users have a right to access their favorite sites whenever they want to?
• Highway Users Bill Of Rights - Every major highway, freeway, turnpike, etc. should be forced to maintain a minimum traffic flow so as not to keep drivers waiting in traffic. Who cares how much money it would cost to build roads to accommodate this requirement.
  
• Movie Goer's Bill Of Rights - With the crap that's been coming out of Hollywood, studios should be forced to submit their films to a government oversight committee so that bad movies never make it to the big screen. All of the bad movies out there waste the time and money of the patrons as well as the electricity, etc. that it takes to show a film.

Those are just three examples of other places government should interfere with private businesses. Isn't it great that the government is there to help us with even the tiniest of problems?

Banned From Pandagon

I have been officially banned from the left-wing blog Pandagon. This brings a tear of joy to my eye.

You may know of Pandagon from the discussion at Vox's where he discusses the crazy rantings of Amanda Marcotte who was pulled away from Pandagon along with another woman to work on the blog for Presidential aspirant John Edwards. Because Amanda writes with a toxic pen, Edwards was taking a lot of heat for hiring her.

Please keep in mind, all of my comments at Pandagon were civil relevant to the conversation. Ultimately I got banned for "dominating" some threads. I'll let you be the judge of that.

The first thread I got really involved in is Edwards Camp: caving in to the right wing never works. I suggest you hit Ctrl+F after the page loads and search for Difster then scroll down from there.

I guess my Nixon comment in the previous thread inspired this thread: For the love of Richard Nixon. Sadly by the time I found the last comment in this thread I had already been banned and could not respond. My answer to that question though is that I have had very little opposition to the opinions I express on my blog. I have had a few trolls that come in and call me names and mouth off but no serious debate of my positions from anyone on the left.

Here's where I ended up getting banned; off all places, it was post about tolerance. Apparently the other comments I made in that post were deleted.

Here is what I would like all of you to do if you have time. Go over to Pandagon, and begin commenting. Make innocuous comment at first because you will have to go through the moderator until the first few. Then start engaging them in debate of their ideas. Don't be rude, don't cuss, don't foam at the mouth. In other words, don't be like them. Let me know how long it takes you to get banned.

A History Lesson

I just talked to Little Dif. I usually ask her what she learned in school that day. Today she told me she learned that Abraham Lincoln was the greatest president because he freed the slaves.

It's a good thing she couldn't see my face because I was rolling my eyes so far back in my head it probably looked like I was possessed. I hesitated to try to explain the truth of the matter to her. Is she old enough to understand? I decided to go for it.

The first thing I asked her was, "Do you know what a slave is?" She wasn't very clear on the concept. She knew it had to do with people working but she didn't understand the part about one person owning another person so I explained that.

Then I proceeded to explain to her that even though Lincoln did sort of free the slaves that they would have been free anyway because more people were starting to realize it was wrong. I told her that the real reason for the was wasn't because the states in the South wanted slaves. They wanted to be their own country and the states in the North didn't want them to and so Lincoln started a war with them so to prevent them from being their own country. I explained to her that Lincoln didn't free the slaves in the North right away either.

We talked about this for about 15 minutes. She asked me some very intelligent questions such as, "How do they decide who wins the war?" I explained the concept of force and surrender and resources. By her questions and comments I could tell she understood.

I didn't go so far as to say that Lincoln was a tyrant and a dictator; that will come later when she can understand more. I'll let this sink in. Since it's Black History Month I'll let her go to school tomorrow and she'll try to tell the teacher that history is mistaken and Lincoln really wasn't the greatest President. She knows that he didn't want the South to be their own country and that's why there was a war. I hope she shocks her teachers.

As always, I'm proud of my little girl.

Breast Enhancement

A woman was standing in front of the mirror after her morning shower. She let out a deep sigh and said to her husband of 10 years, "I really don't like my breasts, I wish they were bigger."

The husband was tired of hearing her complaints, he was happy with the way she looked, why shouldn't she be? He decided to respond a little differently this time.

"Honey, if you want your breasts to grow, you need to rub some toilet paper in between them for a a few minutes each day," the man said from the bedroom.

She was willing to try anything so she grabbed some toilet paper and started rubbing. "How long will this take to work?" she asked hopefully.

"It's a slow process, it will take a couple of years at least," he replied.

She began to question the wisdom of this advice. "Do you really think that rubbing toilet paper between my breasts is going to make them bigger?"

"Well, it worked for your butt didn't it?"