The World According to Nozz

Open wide and say "ah". Its Wednesday, January 4, 2011, I got the date right on the first try, and this is The Side. Last year saw the exponential growth of the amount of people who follow this blog. Rest assured I value every page view, even the ones that just show up for a the pictures of Pocoyo.

That's honestly the main reason most people come here. I checked.

But, with such a wide array of people here from so many backgrounds I find that really I have to be careful. Its risky enough putting things online that family or potential employers could see. The internet is a wonderful place for sharing ideas, but it can leave a person very open and exposed. Generally online its pretty much safe to stick to the same rules as having a polite conversation so that you don't offend anybody.

So with that in mind, hide the kids and grab your ankles. Its time to light this candle.

RELIGION!!

I sit in an odd seat. I was raised believing in God. Went to church regularly. I am a Christian, albeit not a terribly good one because I swear a lot and enjoy doing horrible things. I'm also a hard science guy. While my skills at crunching numbers, memorizing theorems, and running equations have atrophied quite a bit, I still try to keep up a bit. So here I sit in a lonely spot of a guy who has made studies into the universe and its origins and how the work around me works and functions, and a firm belief in a divine creator. Typically, its not a problem, but it sticks me in a nasty position on Creationism versus Evolution.

Creationism just doesn't add up. That's just population wise. I'm not even getting into the kooky stuff about where blacks and asians supposedly come from or that dinosaurs are some conspiracy myth. Most Christians and Creationists don't subscribe to that garbage. The biggest bone of contention seems to be if God made us in his image then there's no need for us to evolve, that and the whole monkey thing.

Scientists don't believe we evolved from monkeys. It was a whole other species that happened to have a little in common with monkeys. Any creationist who does believe that scientists believe we evolved from monkeys really should have stayed awake in class.

But that bigger bone of contention is one that I'm baffled is even a problem. If God made us in him image then why do we all look different? Its a body. Its the most amazing bio-mechanical machine on the plant. Work it hard, and it becomes stronger. It repairs damage to itself. It can be trained to do amazing things. However, our bodies are not who we are. What is more important than the body? The mind and soul.

Here's a thought. God did indeed create us in his image, and it was the important stuff that he replicated. It was the ability to think and feel. It was the flame inside all of us that is our selves. He took that in put it in a machine that could house it and allow it to thrive. This machine has many different aspects, but it is one thing above all others: adaptable.

Its not God versus Science. Science is our way of understanding the miracle. The more I learn from science the more amazing I think God's creations are.

And for any militant atheitists who read this and start thinking "HA, I knew Chrisitians were all stupid", shaddup, you douchey pricks. Unlike you assholes who just got done with your annual fuming and bitching every time you see a Christmas tree, I'm not out to attempt to crush anyone's spiritual journey. I'm hoping to give them a different perspective.

Behold: Theologian Nozz! You are free to throw Bibles at me now.

POLITICS!!

Political leanings are pretty flat. You lean one way or another depending points of view on various topics. And its easy when you have something that's measured on a flat scale to confuse the two sides, those being liberal and conservative, with good and evil. It reality these things aren't good or evil. They're merely points of view, and both of which have their place.

Conservatives (the real ones, not the ones who spend buckets of money) should be running things with the regular business of the country. The federal government is there to do what regular citizens can't, like pave roads, protect our borders, and maintain our military. They typically like to keep taxes low and create an economic environment in which individuals can succeed and thrive. We've had the federal government overstep its bounds to the point that people are expecting the government to take care of them. This isn't good for anybody, as we can see by the state of things now.

Liberals do have their place. They are very good about whining about things. We need them around. They can't run much of anything bigger than a soup kitchen effectively, but they do draw attention to social problems and concerns that we should be aware of. The problem is while they're great for drawing interest and awareness to issues that do warrant it is good, their methods of addressing these things tends to be bad. Throwing money at problems doesn't really help in the long run. You can't find a problem and expect it to get fixed just because you turn it over to the government and think they'll have the funds and power to handle it.

Really, we should have conservatives running the day to day business of the country, and keeping an objective ear open to the liberals. When they whine about whatever cause they have that week it should be discussed and if necessary addressed. There's plenty of things that people can handle themselves without the federal government stepping in.

Let's take the environment for example. The environment is important. However, all the fret and worry about the climate and the global warming nutters aren't. Is this a problem that's going to fixed by the government? Nope. What they can do is apply more ecologically friendly business practices in their own day to day running. They can also do things like offer tax incentives to companies that explore cleaner energy options. If you make it advantageous for people to do something they will usually do it. That and it might actually do some good, because those moron hippies buying Priuses to save the planet is a freaking qualification to ride a short bus if I ever saw one.

Its pretty easy. Government has its place, and it should stay in its place. The country wasn't made great by the government. It was made great by the people. However people can tear a government and a country down. That tends to happen when they figure they can vote for free stuff for themselves. There were a lot of people out there that voted for our Pop Star-in-Chief, because they thought he was going to provide for them. Look how that turned out.

I am The Nozz, and I approved that message.

TO INFINITY AND BEYOND!!

As far as space sci-fi goes, Joss Whedon got it right. You know what you don't see in FIREFLY or the movie SERENITY? Aliens. Its just us. Humans. Going out to explore and settle the universe. There's no advanced alien civilization helping us along. There's no one out there waiting for us. There's something called Fermi's Paradox which put bluntly is if there's all this room out there in space and there must be intelligent life out there somewhere, then where the hell are they?

Let's look at the factors involved in there being intelligent life out in the universe. The need a planet capable of sustaining life of some sort. That's tough enough. On top of that you need enough time for that life form to develop that skills and technology necessary to space travel. That's a big toughie. Earth has already had at least one extinction event. One of the main reasons we don't have more it we've got the gas giant planets in the right spots to catch a good chunk of the nasty planet killers flying around out there.

So you can have an alien civilization on the verge of getting something good going. They may have developed tool, simple machines, domesticated animals, and gotten a good handle on agriculture then WHAM an asteroid hits the planet and wipes everything out. Its not like this process takes place in a matter of years. It takes millennia.



We can't look to the skies and wait for beings to usher us into an age of space travel. They aren't going to show us the stars. There's a pretty good chance that they're out there looking to the skies as well and waiting on us. You see, its not that I don't think that there's life out there on other planets. I just think that we're better than them.

Space Nozz is coming to find the blue women before Captain Kirk bangs them all.

MUSIC!!

I pondered what song would be fitting with my post, and it didn't take a whole lot of pondering.



That's it for today. If I haven't offended you all horribly with this, come on back Friday. I'll be sure to try harder.

The Cosmic Joke

An e-friend of mine made a little post on Google Buzz, which was amusing, and yet sparked moral outrage from someone. God, you see, is srs bzns, on this here intarwub, and you're not supposed to make fun of God or Jesus. Nobody tell Denis Leary.

And it seems I'm not supposed to laugh at monkeys either now. God was not trying to be funny when when he created monkeys. Now, I'm not going to sit here and try to say that I have any understanding of the Lord Almighty and his master plan for creation. I grew up going to church, and I am a Christian, although not a very good one. However, that is why it is called faith. We believe in God. We believe in his plan.

And I believe God has a sense of humor and monkeys are inherently funny.

You know who doesn't think monkeys are funny? Communists. That's who.

Even dear ol Gran'pa Monkeyman who "don't like monkeys! They stink!" must admit that monkeys are funny. Especially when wearing fun outfits.

And the word "Monkey" is funny as well. Put the word "monkey" with a word that isn't funny. IT BECOMES FUNNY!!

Monkey holocaust.

Monkey audit.

Monkey Bill Maher.

Monkey terrorism.

Monkey oil spill.

So you see: God loves us, and wants us to smile, because he gave us monkeys. Thanks, God.

Responding to nuts with third grader tactics.

Draw Muhammad Day is approaching and if you haven't heard of this yet you may very well be hearing a lot about this soon. This is a response to Comedy Central editing a South Park episode "depicting" the Prophet Muhammad after death threats were posted online by a bunch of nutters known as Revolution Muslim. The episode in question dealt with the Islamic ban on depicting Mohammad visually in any medium. They also never show Muhammad in the episode having him hidden an a giant cuddly bear suit. South Park is a comedic show and pokes fun at everything, and while they did take jab at this ban they also technically didn't break it. However Comedy central did edit the episode when it aired in a move which I think was pretty wussy, but I understand it because they were legitimately worried about the well-being of two of their own.

The great thing about free speech is that it lets us know who the nutters all. Revolution Muslim spoke up and now we all know that these guys are douchebags and potentially violent ones. However, Revolution Muslim does not include nor represent the views of all Muslims. That's important because now we have a whole new problem.

Someone had the brilliant idea to have so many people draw Muhammad that it would "destroy" the ban. The reason the ban is there is because Islam does not approve of idolatry, which is something it shares with Christianity. They don't want there to be images of Muhammad because that may encourage people to worship him when they should be worshiping Allah. So obviously issuing death threats and killing a Dutch cartoonist is the work of extremists, but the principle against idolatry is held by most in that faith.

So where did this idea to draw Muhammad come from?



Yes, Atheist Barbie there looks quite smart with her glasses, take-me-seriously hairstyle, and general demeanor; but it doesn't change the fact that she's advocating douchbagery. This is the equivalent of taking a knock at Jesus just for the sake of getting a jab in at Fred Phelps. Groups like Revolution Muslim and the Westboro Baptist Church are indeed a blight and I've got no qualms about taking shots at them, however there's no regard here for the collateral damage. This concept is going to appeal to those looking to count coup and safe money says that most of the images will be derogatory.

Face it, when I'M getting concerned about cultural sensitivity something is definitely wrong.

So obviously I won't be participating and I encourage my friends in the artistic community not to either. Freedom of Expression is wonderful thing but this is an abuse of it. Its also ridiculously juvenile. Jon Stewart telling Revolution Muslim to "go fuck yourself" backed by a gospel choir is pure genius compared to this. Note that Stewart specifically targeted the offending group with no undue venomous overflow.

Grow up. Revolution Muslim got its ass handed to them by the public at large and their website is pretty much shut down. They've lost. They lost because they are losers. Don't go doing something intentionally being an asshole and claim you're being morally right because of Freedom of Speech. And you know what? I fully defend anyone's right to take part in this. I also defend people's right to burn the American Flag in protest, although I do feel I should have the right to punch them straight in the mouth for it.

Having the right to do something does not mean that you should do it.

Ah-HA! You're all goin' to HELL!

I knew it! I knew I was right! People always thought it was weird that I lived so close to the ocean and yet don't go anywhere near seafood. Well, I was completely right to be skeeved out by the nasty stuff, and through that brilliant display of foresight I have assured my eternal salvation! And its nice to see people rising up and taking the Lord's message to the people!



Can I get an "AMEN"?