malada

Oklahoma now requires that teachers incorporate the Bible and the Ten Commandments in their curriculum, effective immediately,

Oh no. You don't want to do that.

Starting with Genesis we have not one... but two versions of creation. They're different. They're both correct since they're both in the Bible... right?

Moving on to the Flood where God kills everyone but Noah and his family. God kills everyone: the men, the women, the children, the unborn bay-bees, the sheep, the dogs - so God is a mass murderer - of children and unborn bay-bees.

We'll skip over the part where Sarah hides the 'idols' by sitting on the box she's hidden on them when she's having her 'unclean' time.

And why is Sarah marrying all those foreign kings who then shower Abraham with money when they find out he's her husband? Sounds kind of pagan to me!

Funny about Abraham the All-Father. He has lots of kids after Sarah dies but they're only mentioned once. The Bible only follows the children of Sarah. Sounds Matriarchal to me!

Don't get me started on the Ten Commandments because there's lot of commandments afterward. That delicious bacon cheeseburger? Forbidden! Two ways! It says so in the Bible!

Okay - just one commandment: "I am the Lord they God they shall not have strange gods before me." GOD ADMITS THERE ARE OTHER GODS! Anyways, these commandments where given to the Jews. I'm not a Jew. Not my god.

The book of Numbers is a lot of fun. Basically their god gives the Jews full permission to slaughter their neighbors but take the virgin girls as 'wives'. Yeah, the 'virgin' sheep, goats and cattle too. (Not as wives - get your mind out of the barnyard.) Burn their cities but keep the gold and silver.

Wasn't there something about not killing and not coveting a few pages back?

Oh wait... god gave that land to them, but didn't clear out the inhabitants? Isn't he... you know... GOD? All powerful? He could have wiped out the inhabitants with a thought or just changed their minds and have them just walk away. I guess he needed someone else to do the dirty work. Or maybe he wasn't all powerful?

King David sang and danced before the Arc of the Covenant in praise of god. David had a boyfriend. Sounds pretty Gay to me!

How many wives did those kings have? And pagan ones at that! And 'concubines'? You know... royal whores?

It's in the Bible!

I put aside a banana to eat with my bagel and cheese for dinner last night. I forgot about the banana until later that evening and ate it all by itself. It had a few bruises and was a little sweet but it tasted fine.

Until a few minutes after I ate it. My stomach *hurt*. A lot. I tried to sleep but could not.

Later that night I vomited it out. Just the banana. It took two tries about half an hour apart. Yikes. I tossed out the rest of the bananas.

So I stayed home today. I was in no shape to drive let alone work. I did work about an hour remotely with one of my spare systems but I was too sick and tired and stomach hurty to get much done. Also, the system at home was missing a few passwords so I couldn't to certain things. I'll copy the passwords tomorrow when I head back to work.

It's been quite some time since I had such a bad reaction to food. I'll be avoiding bananas for awhile.

If anything shows we have a two tiered system of justice, it's Trump getting a probation hearing via Zoom - WITH his lawyer and NO urine test.

Any bone headed shoplifter would have gone into the hearing alone, then been handed a Dixie and ordered to fill it up. This guy has 34 counts of basically pulling money out of a dedicated account and spending it on hookers and (diet) Coke.

Come on.

After jumping through hoops I've taken delivery (it's mail order only) of a new script for my psoriasis. The medicine is called Sotyku (Deucravacitinib) and it apparently works by suppressing my over active immune system.

I'm not sure I like this. The drug may cause increased chances of infections, colds and some cancers like lymphoma. My parents and my aunt all had lymphoma. Good grief.

The list of side effects puzzles me since they include rash, hives, red itchy skin, blisters or peeling skin. Geeze, that what my psoriasis looks like.

I've been messed up by medication before. I really hope I don't have side effects with this one.

I recently found a computer that had been tossed in the garbage. The motherboard was dead, some of the RAM was bad, the power supply weak, but the graphics card was fine! Free case, free graphics card! Since the card was better than some I'm already using I've been swapping graphics cards among my systems: my daily driver, my editing rig, one I planned to flip but found no buyers, and my basement spare which was once my daily driver.

Everything was going well when until I was pulling the graphics card out of my basement spare when one of the screws holding the card in place slipped off the screwdriver and fell... somewhere.

Ooops.

Thinking that it had fallen into the case I turned it upside down, shook it, started removing cables, shaking it some more, removing the power supply.... eventually I had the motherboard half unplugged and still - nothing. The screw had completely vanished. I decided I needed a small break and cleared some more space on the table. I moved the graphic card I just removed...

*rattle rattle*

...it was in the graphics card all along.

Ooops.

I removed the long lost screw, put it safely aside and began reassembling the system.

I'm still not done - I need to reconnect all the power supply cables - but I need a break. I just hope I didn't break anything horsing the system around. It's not a new system or a great system, but it has worked just fine for 14 years in one configuration or another and I'd hate to lose it.

UPDATE:

It's all re-assembled and back in action. The motherboard layout wasn't designed to take larger graphic cards and the RAM slots are too close to the graphics card for comfort. It's too easy to unseat the RAM which happened multiple times. The card swap failed as it needs an eight pin power connector and my power supply only has six.

I think I'm going to avoid trying to upgrade this old box - it's a pain in the neck.

Reading the complete works of Thomas Paine has been enlightening and amusing. (His open letter to General Howe was a chuckle fest.) Digging into The Rights of Man - he states that after abolishing the parasites known as royalty and their wasteful, inefficient, corrupt government, so much money could be saved that taxes could be slashed and money put aside for the education of children (gasp), the housing and retraining of the homeless (horrors) and the dedication of funds for the worn out or aged out workers so they're not begging in the streets!

Socialism! Communism! Welfare state!

I'd like to think that today Mr Paine would see the billionaire fat cats and their "think tanks" - I'm looking at you Federalist Society - as the new royalty to be gotten rid of. Like the kings of old they seek to manipulate the levers of power to their own benefit, not the country's benefit - and like the royalty of old, power will be handed down to their children and nobody else's.

Wasteful. Inefficient. Unjust.

We need a man like Thomas Paine again.

The hostas I planted last year are mostly coming up and doing well. I'll be planting a few more this year.

My mother-in-law moved into a new housing complex and she needs some outdoor decoration and plants. I think I'll plant some hostas for her - they need zero attention. However, there are deer in the area and they likc hostas so I may need to do more research.

At work they're going to redo my office! It's been long overdue with the previous occupant having two walls painted dark maroon. Also, I'll be getting some real off-air monitors instead of the 3 dollar TV I brought in. It's given me incentive to do a good cleaning which the place sorely needs.

In medical news, my insurance company has rejected the latest medication my dermatologist has offered me. I think this is the second or third script they've given the thumbs down on. Having psoriasis sucks.

My standard answer to the question, "Can I have your cellphone number?" is usually, "No."

Early in my use of a cellphone whenever I gave out my number I would get spammed. The most common was the *ship horn blast* "You have won a free cruise!" Yeah, right.

But more than that, I think a large number of people expect you to have your cellphone on and with you at ll times of the day and night. They expect instant access to you 24/7. Now, a lot of people *are* joined at the palm with their cellphone (yeah I know what you're thinking you dirty minded people). Everywhere I go I see people with their heads bowed as they stare at their screens: talking, texting, gaming. It's not just the instant access - it's the tracking. That's bothersome.

I usually check my email once a day, early in the morning. Yesterday, my financial folks sent me some important emails after I had left for work. They also called me to let me know I had important emails to look at. While I appreciate them double-contacting me - because the information was important and time sensitive, it also suggest they too, want instant access to me.

I filled out the forms after supper.

I'm sort of busy, you know. I understand that important messages need to be received quickly. One of my early cellphones was faulty and I missed an important call from my mom. Fortunately, she called my work number and left a message so it all worked out. But this concept that anyone, anywhere can contact anyone, at any time is disturbing.

I've been working from home since late December to take care of housemate. Now that they're mostly recovered I'm back in the office. It's strange being back in the windowless hole that's my office. I'm actually less productive but I'm more connected with my fellow employees - many of whom welcomed me back warmly.

They've also promised me some useful upgrades! The former inmate had two walls painted dark maroon - which I ignore - but they're offering to repaint the walls. Get rid of the maroon! Since I'm also supposed to be monitoring the air signal - four channels worth - they're *finally* going to replace the broken system that was installed ages ago. Right now I can only check one channel with a TV that *I* brought in. It was from a garage sale and cheap so I'm not complaining too hard.

In another sense, it's good to clear up a space at home that was taken up by work computers. On the down side, I'll be using up more gasoline driving to and from work. It's about 10 miles but it still adds up.

The important thing is my housemate is recovering.

Ukrainian railways are a wider grade matching the old Soviet sized tracks and trains.

They're starting to redo some of the lines to the narrower Europeans Union's standard. This will increase the speed at which supplies can be moved from the EU to Ukraine and deny the system to Russian trains.

This does mean that Ukraine will need new locomotives and train cars... but they probably need to be replaced anyways. Hey, more jobs for European workers. I am including Ukraine as European.

I've also heard that Norway will be donating 22 F-16 fighters to Ukraine. Only 12 are airworthy and the rest are parts machines. It's a start and long overdue.