Libertine

Reading the webpage of one of my local TV stations, I came upon a story about a man who had been arrested for bigamy.  He'd married his first wife in 2005, and had married a second woman this past October.

Neither wife had been the wiser until the first wife intercepted a text message for their husband from the second wife.  After texting back to the second wife and determining who she was, the first wife called the police to report him for bigamy.

After an investigation, police arrested him and charged him with bigamy.  The man is now out on bond awaiting trial.

Arresting someone for bigamy boggles my mind.  First of all, I don't think the government has any business meddling in the private relationships of consenting adults, except for cases of domestic violence.  If it were up to me, I'd abolish marriage as a legal category altogether.

Knowing that this isn't likely to happen any time soon, I think that as long as legal marriage exists, it should not be limited to monogamous couples.

That being said, with the law as it stands now, bigamy should not be a criminal offense.  At the most, it should be a civil matter.  In fact, I'd thought it was something that had been decriminalized -- that when discovered, the second marriage would merely be annulled and the offender given a fine.

The police have much more important things to do than being in the business of enforcing monogamy.  They should not be involved in the personal relationships of private citizens if there is an absence of domestic violence.  In my opinion, the first wife should have handled the situation herself, perhaps by contacting a divorce lawyer, rather than calling the police and keeping them from doing more important things.  Sue the guy for breach of contract or some such thing, but don't put him in jail.

Thoughts.

The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way.
--Bertrand Russell

While trying to come up with something to write about today, I visited a quote site where I found the quote above.  The first thing that popped into my mind was that of religion.   Wars have been fought over differences of opinion about religion and evangelicals of different faiths, particularly Christianity, attempt to convert others to their faith, believing that uniformity of belief to be a worthy goal to strive for.  Not merely content to share their beliefs with those who ask, some attempt to enforce their beliefs by changing laws to conform to such beliefs, while more extreme members of various religions will use literal force to impose their beliefs on others in what they believe is service to their faith.

In contrast, I read an entry on Wilford Tibbetts' blog today about the Amish.  Unlike many religious people, whose faith is largely a matter of securing their ticket to heaven, for the Amish, their faith isn't merely a belief, it's a lifestyle.  The Amish do not proselytize or spend a lot of time talking about their faith; they quietly live it, while content to allow their neighbors to live according to whatever beliefs they have.  They are content to coexist peacefully with their neighbors with different beliefs and lifestyles and have no desire to impose their beliefs on others.

It's too bad that more religious people don't follow the example of the Amish.

I've often considered what attracts different people to religion and what purposes religion has served in society.  Recently, I've been thinking of the converse: what makes people reject religion and the different reasons why people are either atheists or agnostics.

I think there are several reasons, often depending on each particular person's personality and outlook on life.  A few types immediately came to mind:

First, are the scientific types, who reject religion because there is no proof as to its claims, because it defies reason and logic.

Second, are the "pull yourself up by your own boostraps" types, who view religion as a crutch and a haven for the weak who refuse to stand on their own two feet.

Third, are the hedonists and non-conformists who view religion as a series of lists with arbitrary and outmoded rules about moral behavior that are negative in nature.  To them, religion can be summed up as "Don't Do This" and see religion as a way to suck all the joy out of life.

These are the three types that most readily come to mind.  Personally, as an agnostic, I'm a mixture of reasons one and three.  I'm not so much the second reason, because I have no problem with whatever gets people through the night, as it doesn't affect my freedom to do differently.

Feel free to chime in with more types of skeptics and unbelievers.

Can you imagine this bimbo explaining this one to her grandchildren forty years from now?  That is, if she can get laid to bear any children in the first place!

Another “classy” tattoo

Bible verses and tramp stamps — the perfect combo!

This last one isn’t a tramp stamp, but I’m guessing the owner of these tattoos has absolutely no desire to ever get laid again:

The other day while out driving, I was monitoring the Neal Boortz show, looking for ranty blogging fodder.  And, as is almost always the case, I found what I was looking for.

Because it was Veteran's Day, he was relating anecdotes with that theme in mind.  He told a story about a man attacked by four muggers in an alley in Milwaukee.  They stripped all his belongings from him, but when the gang's leader went through his wallet, he found the man's military ID card.  Seeing this, he told the other muggers to give everything back to the man.  After this had been done, the leader apologized to the man and thanked him for his service before leaving him to go about his business.

I'd thought this was a nice feel-good story -- and it was -- until Boortz had to open his big mouth at the end and turn it into a political opportunity.

I don't recall the exact words, but he said something to the effect that wasn't it something that these criminals had more respect for our troops than most liberals did.

What a fucking moron.   Many liberals may not support the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it doesn't mean we don't support the people over there putting their lives on the line every day.  Many of us have family members serving in the military and who have previously served or have served themselves at some point in time.  My father served in WWII, as well as several of my uncles.  I had cousins and younger uncles who are Vietnam era veterans.  The fact that I am proud of their service doesn't make me any less of a liberal, nor does my being a liberal make me any less proud of their service.

I did find it interesting, however,  that on the highlights of November 11th's show on his website that the reference to this story did not include the crack about liberals that went out over the air.  Instead, it said:

  This story caused me to think ... to wonder if all of us give our men and women in uniform and our veterans the respect these criminals did.  I think that generally we do ... I certainly hope I'm right.

If he'd said exactly this on the air, I'd have had no problem with him and I'd not be reporting about it today on my blog.

The difference was that the printed version was inclusive and the broadcast version was divisive.   But Boortz doesn't gain listeners by simply reminding everyone that our veterans deserve respect; rather, he appeals to the lowest common denominator by appealing to their baser instincts, thus throwing the jab at liberals in so his listeners could project their feelings out onto some group they could be self-righteously against.  He doesn't inspire people to think, but rather he whips up the amorphous outrage of the masses.

What follows is a trivia quiz about American Presidents:

1. Who was the shortest president?

2. Which two presidents share the tallest president title?

3. Who was the last president not to have a college degree?

4. Who was the only bachelor president?

5. Who was the only two-term president not to serve consecutive terms?

6. Which president published his own version of the New Testament?

7. Who was the last president not to leave the White House at the end of his term as a millionaire?

8. Who was the first president to be born in a hospital?

9. Who was the last president to be born in the 19th century?

10. Which president was married to a woman young enough to be his daughter?

11. Which president was married to his cousin?

12. Who was the only president who wasn't elected to be either president or vice president?

13. Which president sired an out-of-wedlock daughter with his mistress in the closet of his office when he was a senator?

14. Which president was the cousin of one president and the uncle of a first lady?

15. Who was the heaviest president?

As soon as this post has several comments, I will post the answer key in a comment at the bottom.

I don't really have anything much to say.  I've been kind of down in the dumps in recent weeks as finances have become increaingly tighter.   I'm hoping that finally paying my car off by the beginning of the year will help to improve my outlook.

So, this entry will be random thoughts cobbled together.

Yesterday, I went to Wal Mart to do my weekly grocery shopping.  I normally go to Aldi, but I was in a hurry and figured Wal Mart would have comparable prices, as they have in the past.
 
It seems as if I was wrong.  Wally World has raised prices on nearly everything, where some of the items were even higher than in the regular, full-price grocery stores.  I ended up spending more than ten dollars more than I pay for the same items at Aldi. Next week, it will be back to Aldi's for me.
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It's been raining all day here today and is supposed to continue until tomorrow evening as my area is subjected to the backlash from Hurricane Ida.  I'm glad it happened on my day off.  We've had a lot of rain in the last few months and I'm sick of it.
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If I had the money, this is what I'd get myself for Christmas:

I want the big flute in the middle that looks a bit like plumbing, otherwise known as a bass flute.  The flute to the right of it is a standard flute.  I've heard the bass flute before, usually in background movie music, and it has a deep, mysterious sound to it.  I've only seen a bass flute "in the flesh" once in my life, as a fifteen year old high school freshman visiting Manny's Music in New York City in 1973.

But this will likely remain a "pipe dream", as I'd likely not be able to touch even a used student grade for under fifteen hundred bucks.  But I hold out that one day I might find one for a steal.

AIRLINE LUGGAGE VIRUS - You're in Dallas, but your data is in Singapore.

ALZHEIMER'S VIRUS - It makes your computer forget where it put your files.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER VIRUS v 1.0 - It terminates and stays resident. It'll be back!

BILL CLINTON VIRUS v 1.0 - It has a six inch hard drive and no memory. Freezes entire system due to unresolved memory conflicts.

BOB DOLE (aka Viagra) VIRUS - Makes a new hard drive out of an old floppy.

DISNEY VIRUS - Everything in the computer goes Goofy.

FRENCH VIRUS - garbles some files and then displays a message asking you for help. If you click OK, it just garbles more files and asks for help again. If you click Cancel, it displays the message, "I surrender!" and shuts down your computer. If you click Ignore, it scans your computer for the German and Russian viruses. If the French, Russian, and German viruses find each other, they merge into a single virus that conflicts with the George W. Bush virus, slowing it down.

GEORGE W. BUSH VIRUS v 1.0 - Doesn't do anything, but you can't get rid of it until November.

GEORGE W. BUSH VIRUS v 2.0 - Tells you it's going to eliminate all other viruses from your computer but that it may take a long time. Then it actually does scan your computer and eliminate viruses. It also scans for Programs of Mass Destruction (PMD), which are programs that destroy a lot of files if they are run. PMDs may be caused by a number of other viruses, such as the Saddam Hussein virus. The only problems with the George Bush virus are that it uses up a lot of your computer's resources while it's scanning, it never seems to find any PMDs, and it keeps switching the background color on your computer screen back and forth between yellow and orange.

HILLARY CLINTON VIRUS v 1.0 - Files disappear, only to reappear mysteriously a year later, in another directory.

HILLARY CLINTON VIRUS v 2.0 - sets the "hidden" attribute on all your accounting files and tells you your computer won't run in 2004 or 2008. Many experts believe this virus may become its most dangerous in 2008.

HOWARD STERN VIRUS - One of the dirtiest viruses around. It writes 4 letter words to all of your files just to annoy the operating system. It also installs an X-rated GIF on your hard drive. Very popular.

HURRICANE VIRUS - It blows away all your files, then tells you the government will help you rebuild them.

MAFIA VIRUS - You don't want it, but you're afraid to get rid of it.

MARTHA STEWART VIRUS - Takes all your files, sorts them by category and folds them into cute little doilies to be displayed on your desktop.

MOM VIRUS- Places a phone call to your mother every time you click on an adult website.

MONICA LEWINSKY VIRUS v 1.0 - It sucks the juice out of your system, but only affects laptops. Then, it emails everyone about what it did. This later activates the Independent Counsel virus.

NEWT GINGRICH VIRUS - It repartitions your hard disk into two volumes yet allocates most of the available resources to the 'Right' partition. When attacked by anti-virus software from the 'left' partition, it terminates and restarts to continue its work as a background process.

NIKE VIRUS - Just does it.

O.J. SIMPSON VIRUS v 1.0 - It claims that it did not, could not, and would not delete two of your files and vows to find the virus that did it.

O.J. SIMPSON VIRUS v 2.0 (Often accompanied by the Johnny Cochran Virus.) – You know it's guilty of trashing your system, but you just can't prove it. Every time you try to search for a file, it runs "Pro Golf Tour 2000" instead.

OPRAH WINFREY VIRUS - Your 200MB hard drive suddenly shrinks to 80MB, and then slowly expands back to 200MB.

PAUL REVERE VIRUS - This revolutionary virus does not horse around. It warns you of impending hard disk attack- Once, if by LAN; twice if by C.

POLITICALLY CORRECT VIRUS v 1.0 - Never calls itself a "virus," but instead refers to itself as an "electronic microorganism."

POLITICALLY CORRECT VIRUS v 2.0 - Rephrases the "Abort, Retry, Fail" prompt as "Choice, Retry, Success-Impaired".

PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION VIRUS - Makes your browser stop at every website.

RICHARD NIXON VIRUS - Also known as the "Tricky Dick Virus", you can wipe it out but it always makes a comeback. Popular in China.

RIGHT TO LIVE VIRUS v 1.0 - Won't allow you to delete a file, regardless of how old it is. Prints, “Oh, no, you don't!”, whenever you choose Abort from the "Abort, Retry, Fail" message.

RODNEY DANGERFIELD VIRUS - Gets no respect. Only allows data do be displayed as one-liners.

DAVID DUKE VIRUS - Makes your screen go completely white.

RUSH LIMBAUGH VIRUS v 1.0 - Probably the most dangerous virus we've ever seen. It occupies 50Mb, complains about all the other files, than eats them. It's so stupid you don't take it seriously until it's too late.

TEENAGER VIRUS - Your PC stops every few seconds to ask for money.

TEXAS VIRUS - Makes sure that it's bigger than any other file.

TITANIC VIRUS - Makes your whole computer go down. You get a sinking feeling when your system crashes.

TOBACCO INDUSTRY VIRUS - It contends that there is no reliable scientific evidence that viruses can harm you computer or that it targets adolescent computer users.