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I went to Sunday school.  I own a Bible and have read it cover to cover.  I don’t believe in God.

Creationists are quite arrogant, in a lot of ways, very insulting to their own faith. Even if you do believe that some Supreme Being created the Heavens and the Earth, the fact they put a time line on it all is basically like saying you’re in on God’s Plan. How could you possibly know? Why the heck would He tell you? Any serious Christian should be telling you this is impossible because God is the LORD and you are just little old you.

I shall now prove Creationists have no idea what they are talking about and I’m going to use the Bible to do it. The current Creationist estimate for the age of the Universe is around 6000 years, it’s based on the various family histories in the Bible (and other apocryphal works). This number is not actually mentioned anywhere in the Bible, but the Bible does say this:

“A thousand years in Your sight are but as yesterday when it is past…” (Psalm 90:4)

Thus, a year to God is 365,250 years to you.  So right away, the theory is blown away, Bible even says so.

Issac ben Samuel of Acre, a dude far more pious than modern folks, was convinced the Hebrew tradition of a 6000 year old universe was also off by a factor of 7.  He became convinced of this because of the Shmita and recalculated the various Biblical family histories based on that. One has to admit there are a heck of a lot of references to ‘7 years’ in the Bible.

At the end of seven years ye shall let go every man his brother that is a Hebrew, that hath been sold unto thee, and hath served thee six years, thou shalt let him go free from thee… (Jeremiah 34:13)

Is one of many examples (it’s also a fairly obvious reference to slavery; funny, never taught me about that in Sunday school).

6000 x 7 = 42,000 Divine years

42,000 x 365,000 = 15.33 billion Human years.

15.33 billion years is actually pretty close to the scientifically estimated age of the Universe. So there you have it. Remember, Creationists, the Bible never lies. You just aren’t reading it right.

The G8/G20 summit is quickly becoming one of the most expensive meet-and-greets in history.

I’m not an expert, but hosting anything like this in Toronto is the stupidest thing you can imagine, from a security standpoint. A city of millions, many of whom hate the leaders of the G20 and their general mismanagement of the world economy. Protests? Gosh, do you think? No wonder the security budget is so high.

1.1 billion is fucking ridiculous. That is around 0.5% of the entire federal budget burned up for three days of ‘meetings’. And for what? Seriously, what actually ever gets decided at these things? Obviously the last ones worked out so nicely, what with us all rolling in cash and prosperity today.

But… not wanting to be a Debbie-Downer, I humbly offer a solution for the next ‘G’ summit (are you listening world leaders): cruise ship. I’ll bet you can rent an entire cruise ship for a week for around 10 million. Call up Norwegian or Royal Caribbean and just tell them you want to rent a whole ship for an event. Easy. Add to that some improved security (15 million, tops) and you have yourself a very affordable G20 conference. Think of the bonuses:

• No protesters.  How are they going to get out to you?  Swim?
• Simplified security.  It is next to impossible to sneak up on a ship with a round-the-clock security detail.
• Built in hotel.  Means less commuting.  Much better for the environment; meetings start on time.
• Places to meet.  Cruise ships have numerous venues in which to meet and discuss whatever it is that one discusses at a G20 summit.
• International waters.  All manner of laws and treaties can be bent and broken and no one can do shit about it.
• Good food and booze.  Cruises have lots of this and if it greases the wheels of the great and the good then fine.
• Love.  Exciting and new.  Come aboard, we’re expecting you!  Could do wonders for international relations.  (nudge, nudge.  wink, wink)

See?  Problem solved, money saved, world leaders happy.

My mad consulting skills are always available for hire, BTW.

Around every May 24, I plant my crops, like many do in Canada.  I don’t plant enough to feed a family, but I plant certain foods the purity of which I prize.  I grow herbs all around my house; oregano, thyme, parsley and sage all survive the winter nicely.  So do chives and carrots (an experiment of mine from last year, I want to know if good tasting carrots will result before the thing bolts).

I’ve been into organic farming for years.  I use manure for fertilizer, plant compost to bulk up the soil and cover crops to deter pests (I’ve found that radishes work great).  The strongest pesticide I’ve employed in the last five years is diatomaceous earth, which is all natural.

It is the tomato which is my passion.  I’ve grown seedlings myself, but it is so much more convenient to buy seedling plants at the local garden centre.  Problem with that is invariably you’re going to get artificially hybridized plants and in the coming years, full-on genetically engineered plants.  I’m more about doing it the old-fashioned way.

I just went to a gardening place and noticed they sell heirloom tomato seedlings.  This is cool because normally you have to order these things from seed catalogues.  Yeah, sure you pay two bucks a plant, but I’m willing to try it to see it I can up my organic game a little.

Heirloom plants are basically plants where nature is allowed to call the shots by naturally pollinating them.  Seeds from the desirable natural hybrids are kept and passed down through generations of farmers.  New, interesting hybrids that arise are also selected.  The is opposite of industrial cultivation which tends to inbreed to ensure conformity, often at the expense of flavour.

I’ve never heard of the name “Amish Paste Tomato” but heirloom varieties often have so many different names, it is difficult to know.  But if the seeds for the plants were indeed obtained from the Amish, it is very possible I’ve got the real deal.

Obtained a pair of “Bush Beefsteak Tomatoes”, another heirloom variety, known for pushing out fruit in less than 70 days and a pair of “Italian Marconi” sweet red pepper plants.  I’ve never heard of these Marconi ones either, so I’m kind of curious to see what the fruit is like.

If it works out, when the season is over I’m going to do what my ancestors did.  I’m going to take some of the fruit from plants I liked best and save the seeds for next year.

one of the problems with nice weather is that people think less about their computer and more about other things

so as a result, i’ve been kicking around the shop, rather bored.

yesterday the phone rings and someone has a problem and i think yes!  but it quickly becomes apparent i can solve that problem on the phone.

“how much do I owe you?”

for five minutes work?  i dunno, $20?

deal.  i wish i could make that all the time for five minutes of labour but it never seems to work out like that.

i think i need to go to law school.  i could do lawyer.  those guys never seem to be hurting for cash.

The closer you get to blindly accepting dogmatic beliefs in anything, the closer you’re going to get to hating those who disagree.  Faith isn’t the problem, it’s religion.  Religion is like nitrous oxide in the engine of hatred.

thought it was a cool quote.

I’m kind of curious to see if the whole world will become screwed up because of a system humans created to shift wealth around.  The global economic system is obviously quite fragile, particularly if a simple typing error by some nobody trader can eradicate billions of dollars of market capital in a day.  Think about that.  How on Earth does that work in any kind of real, tangible way?

The global economic system is a strange beast.  It’s not a tangible thing like, “That volcano just destroyed your house.”  It’s more like, “someone in Greece took a big dump and now you are 10% less rich.”  Very little rhyme or reason to it.

Kind of makes you wonder who’s in charge, but as near as I can tell, no one is.  No one ever was.  Even though humans created the system, even though we run it, we don’t seem to have much control over it.  The current economic crisis seems to be proof of that.  I think that the global financial system has evolved and become sophisticated to the point where it runs itself.  We are enslaved by it, and yet we can’t fully explain why.

This isn’t to say that humans aren’t making the decisions, but there are so many humans making so many different decisions that the whole thing is chaos.  The system itself becomes sort of self organized, a strange artificial thing with complexity and reach so great that no one human can understand it or control it.

What is fascinating to me is that billions of people could suffer because of this thing we created, but collectively we will have done it to ourselves and for no reason.

Try doing that with Rogers or Bell.  The only reason it’s not going faster is because the old kit I use simply can’t go any faster.  When Mornington said “unlimited” they weren’t lying.