I was reminded of the line from Ghostbusters, when the leads have been ejected from their jobs on campus, Ray Stantz says “Personally, I liked the university. They gave us money and facilities, we didn’t have to produce anything! You’ve never been out of college! You don’t know what it’s like out there! I’ve *worked* in the private sector. They expect *results*. ”

I realized that the ID snake oil salesmen have found the perfect niche.  They don’t have to actually produce any scientific work.  They can dump out their pop science books aimed at the ignorati, lecture, etc., without having to actually accomplish anything.  Their followers don’t have a clue about science, in the first place, so they don’t have a clue about how research actually occurs; if, like Michael Behe, they actually admit, under oath, that there is no more scientific merit to their fluff than to horoscopes and atsrology, their followers will ignore it and blame the evil atheistic, activist judge (who they were, of course, praising at the onset opf the trial).

No work, no worries.  Much cushier than actually accomplishing anything.

From the article:
Speaker Dennis Hastert said he accepted responsibility for any earlier failures to investigate former Rep. Mark Foley’s sexually explicit computer messages to teenage pages. But he resisted pressure to step down.

“Ultimately … the buck stops here,” the Republican speaker said, borrowing the famous phrase of a Democratic president, Harry Truman.

I am getting sick of politicians “taking responsibility”, when all the phrase means to them is “trying to look good”.  Taking responsibility means doing something, or accepting a negative condition, not just “maintain the status quo”.  From the evidence we have seen so far the buck didn’t just stop at Hastert, it may well have gotten a quick laundering and then was hidden, forever, in the hopes of the GOP leadership that seemed to have been told about the problem years ago.

I feel the same revulsion I did when I heard that people were voting for George II because he was the “moral choice”.  If Bush and his GOP slimebuddies represent “morality”, then I will do my best to be immoral.

I noticed, this week, that the neocon talk shows were in full attack more, with Rush Dimbulb saying:

I’m just thinking out loud here. What if somebody got to the page and said, you know, we want you to set Foley up. We need to do a little titillating thing here. Keep it and save it and so forth. How would you get a kid to do that? Yeah, who knows? You threaten him or pay him. There’s any number of ways given the kind of people that we’re dealing with and talking about here.

Hannity claimed that Clinton’s actions were equivilent because Monica Lewinsky was “barely 19″ when she was with Clinton.  According to the Starr report, Lewinsky was over 22 when she first met Clinton.  If Hannity cannot tell the moral difference between having sex with a college graduate in her 20’s and trying to seduce a 16 year old, I cannot pretend I am surprised, but it certainly reinforces my earlier opinion about neocon “morality”.

Periodically I have to remind myself that not all Christians are represented by the moral vacuum that is neoconservatism.  In the tragic story about the slaying of the Amish children, we find that:

(From an AP news story:)
In the aftermath of Monday’s violence, the Amish have reached out to the family of Roberts, 32, who committed suicide during the attack in a one-room schoolhouse.

Dwight Lefever, a Roberts family spokesman, said an Amish neighbor comforted the Roberts family hours after the shooting and extended forgiveness to them. Among Roberts’ survivors are his wife and three children.

“I hope they stay around here and they’ll have a lot of friends and a lot of support,” said Daniel Esh, a 57-year-old Amish artist and woodworker whose three grandnephews were inside the school during the attack.

I guess there are still a few Christians who remember “turning the other cheek” and realize that there is more to “Christian morality” than being pro-war, anti-abortion, and anti-gay marriage.  I must have missed the pro-war, anti-gay parts of Christ’s teachings when I was still attending church.  I remember a lot of passages about the poor, about abandoning your possessions, and about loving your enemy, but I missed the “Capitalism is Holy, Science is Evil, Gays Must Burn” passages.  Must have been a defective Bible.

A 2+ hour drive gave us time to listen to Gojira and Opeth, to get in the mood.  A little rain couldn’t dampen the spirits.  The doors opened and we headed in.

The show started with a 20 minute set from The Smash-Up.  While some might (and one metalhead in front of me did) complain that The Smash-Up are not really metal and they would be right.  However, they put up a selection of blazing songs that set things off well (a definite step up from Bobaflex last year).  Good energy on the stage, even if their guitarist reminided me a bit of that Jedi kid video from a few years back.

Following The Smash-Up were a new band from North Carolina called Sanctity and they were the highlight, for me, of the second stage bands.  Their first CD will be coming out next year and I am looking forward to it.  Zeff Childress on guitar  was tight and fast; Jared MacEachern on vocals raged and blazed through their songs.  I headed up to the signing booth to meet the band afterwards and can’t wait to get their CD when it comes out.  Check out their song Zeppo at http://www.myspace.com/sanctity .

I didn’t get a good listen to Into Eternity, as I was at the booth meeting Sanctity, but what I heard sounded good.

Back to our seats in time for Overkill, who closed out the second stage bands.  Overkill showed why they have been around for 25 years.  Blazing energy, some great guitar work, and a vocalist that both taunted and encouraged the crowd.  I have their recent RelixIV album, and it is a great listen.  Listening to some of their earlier work also shows why they were a second stage bands, even after 25 years.  Not a lot of variety.  I doubt that I will pick up any more albums, but I would certainly love to see them live again.

I was not particularly excited about Arch Enemy.  I have Doomsday Machine and while I like the band, I don’t care much for the growled vocals.  It didn’t take long for my attitude to change.  Two excellent guitarists are never a bad start, and while I still don’t care for Angela’s vocals, she has an amazing stage presence, and not because she is a hot blond (well, not just because she is a hot blond.)  She stalks the stage and rages at the crowd, gives the guitars room to shred, and shred they did.  Definitely will be giving Doomsday Machine another listen.

Next up was Opeth, a massive change in direction.  Almost totally static on stage, I don’t care if you call their music Nordic, Death or Prog, but they are amazing.  Intricate musically, alternately growling and blazing, then clean and almost Pink Floyd-esque, I am ready for a 3 hour show.

Now it was time for the two headliners.  Lamb of God was probably my least favorite band of the evening.  They were not awful, their guitars were fast, if not terribly interesting, Randy Blythe was all over the stage, delivering unintelligible lyrics with rage and energy, but, in the end, they were a bit ‘meh’.

Finally Megadeth capped the evening.  Pyrotechnics, great songs, great guitars and a crowd ready for them was a perfect combination.  The crowd was shouting along, every solo was greeted with a roar from the crowd.  Dave mentioned the 11 o’clock curfew, then proceeded to blaze past it.  Peace Sells was a highlight, with a Angela of Arch Enemy and some of LoG’s guys belting out the close along with Dave and the crowd.  Holy Wars was also great.

In the end, I thought that this years show was more solid than last years.  There wasn’t a bad band in the bunch, start to finish, while last year’s show had 2 awful bands (Bobaflex and DEP) and another that I could do without.  This year’s second stage bands were great, Arch Enemy was much better than I expected, Opeth was fantastic, LoG was not great, but I still enjoyed their set, and Megadeth was…well…Megadeth. ’nuff said.  Already looking forward to next year, and bookmarking the pages of a couple bands to see if they will be playing nearby in the future (Overkill and Sanctity especially.)

BTW, thanks to tysdaddy for clueing me into Mastodon.  I downloaded their newest album and it sounds great. 

http://books.google.com/googlebooks/banned/

This has been a problem for a while.  Anymore, I tend to treat football on TV as a radio broadcast, with video highlights.  I can do something else, then look over occasionally when a play actually occurs.  If I mistime it, I have five or six more chances to see it on replay!  I cannot just sit down and watch.

Last week, for the FSU-Miami game, ESPN played around with something on ESPN2, where they had 8 different cameras on the screen at once (it looked like one of the Star Trek 2.0 broadcasts on G4.)  All it showed is how little is going on during a football game.  We got to watch both head coaches stand and occasionally yell into their headsets; the quarterback, whose team is actually playing, listening into his headset; the quarterback, not on the field, standing and doing nothing; a central shot of what is being broadcast on ESPN; a smaller shot of the same thing from another angle; and a couple attempted isolations on what they hope will be important players on the upcoming play (or occasionally nice pictures of the turf.)  In all, it was an excellent example of why a 3 1/2 hour game can be watched easily in 15 minutes, if you tape it.

We like to have one around (we rent through Netflix), most of the time, so I am always on the lookout for another good series, so any suggestions are welcome!

This post is just to let you know a little about me.

I am in my late 40’s, married for 25 years this November, the father of 2 teens, one in college (currently in England, and not a teen for much longer) and one in high school.  I enjoy games, roleplay, miniature, board and computer; movies, books and music; arguing politics, religion or sports; British sit-coms, heavy metal music, science fiction and fantasy books and movies; surfing the net; good food (preferably spicy); good coffee and good beer (not wanky flavored versions of same); basketball, baseball, American football and soccer (as I write this, I am watching Man U play Tottenham and am becoming increasingly convinced that it is wrong for one person to be as young, as talented, and as %$##%^ good looking as Cristian Ronaldo).

I have been an atheist for about 30 years; an Indiana University fan for almost as long (I don’t think there is a connection); I have recently signed up for Setanta sports on DirectTV and am becoming intrigued by rugby (both Union and League) as well as Aussie and Irish football (of course, once the new TV season begins, I will lose control of the remote to my wife, but that’s life!) I don’t consider Country to be music, nor racing to be a sport.  I think that reality TV is the latest and greatest sign that the “end is upon us”.

 Oh, well, enough babbling for now, I need to work on finishing up an album of my daughters pictures from school, for the family to see, and I need to get some sleep, so I will get back to work.

Oops, one last comment.  On a team as talented as Man U, I am becoming very impressed with Giggs, a player I was unfamiliar with 2 weeks ago.