I have been quoting this strip for a long time, ever since I read it in a Peanuts anthology as a kid. Sadly, dryers now have cool-down cycles, so you have to stop it prematurely if you want a drawer-full of warm socks.
Maybe that's what's wrong with society. No warm socks, therefore no security...
Personally, this comes as no surprise. When you fail to teach religion, or teach it in the context of multiculturalis, or fail to teach the fact that religion imposes real obligations, then you end up also teaching that it doesn't matter. And if being Jewish doesn't matter, then there is no impetus to bother remaining Jewish.
It's only in the Orthodox community where parents make a point of giving their children a thorough Jewish education (Jewish day schools typically teach 4 or more hours of religious instruction in addition to secular studies) and where religious obligations are taught and enforced. This doesn't guarantee that the kids will want to be that observant, but it does guarantee that they know all about their heritage and culture and what they will be discarding if they choose to leave.
But that having been said, I think some of the problem is also the fact that the orthodox community sets up massive barriers that prevent less-observant Jews from joining the community. The attitude there (not universal, but common) is that if you don't do everything 100% perfect, then you shouldn't belong to the community at all. And the definition of "100% perfect" gets stricter every year, for reasons that (to me, a non-orthodox Jew) don't seem to make any sense.
And woe unto someone who converts to Judaism. Not only do the orthodox not recognize non-orthodox conversions (which I understand), they also don't recognize many orthodox conversions. For a variety of reasons (including pressure from groups in Israel), the standards for orthodox conversion are much stricter now than they were even 20 years ago. In some places, fully-observant orthodox Jews who converted in the past are not considered Jewish for no reason other than the fact that the conversion happened before the new rules were set up.
With an atmosphere like this, it is quite understandable that those who are not orthodox are just throwing up their hands in disgust and saying "F!@(#& it all". If a non-Jew approached me today asking about conversion, I would tell him not to bother, and it would have nothing to do with Judaism itself, but everything to do with the associated politics. Why would anyone study for years and completely uproot his life, only to find that the community he is allegedly joining thinks it was all worthless and will forever treat him as an outsider? Or that at some point in the future, they will change the standards and make him start all over again?
It seems to me that they should get burnt up when he flies at ludicrous speed. At the very least, when he is shot, the fabric should get damaged as the bullets bounce off of his body. I suppose the question of whether or not it requires dry cleaning would just be silly, though.
Did his little spacecraft from Krypton come with a lifetime supply of super-clothing? And in his size? Or did it perhaps come with bolts of super-fabric and super equipment that can cut and sew it? Was it the same outfit he got as a baby, stretching to size like some kind of super Lycra? Maybe that explains why he wears tights?
I can't be the first person to ask this question. In all seriousness, is this something comic fans have asked before? Is it something that ever had an official answer?
I've had this conversation with myself on several occasions. But paper financial records are a real pain in the neck compared to Excel spreadsheets. And solitaire really is more fun on a computer.
It is, however, a bit sobering to realize that the only things I need a computer for could be satisfied with what was state of the art in 1995. If I can run Excel, some simple puzzle games, and a web browser, the rest really doesn't matter. And the web browser is primarily just to pay bills, read comics and go shopping on Amazon. I could probably replace it all with an iPod Touch, if not for the fact that I really love my 24" monitor.
I think a hearty midnight brunch would be the perfect way to finish an evening after seeing a Broadway show.
How embarrassing.
Even more embarrassing that Fairbanks airport apparently does not (or at least did not) have a gate or guard at the service entrance. I guess it wasn't an issue until now.
For those unfamiliar, you get a phone call from someone (often with a Russian accent) claiming to be an employee of "Windows". No, not Microsoft, they are very clear to point that out. They claim your computer is full of viruses and that you need to install their software to let them clean it up.
If you're dumb enough to do this, their software locks your computer. You then have to pay these people several hundred dollars every months in order to use your computer. When you stop paying, their software bricks your computer.
So far, I've been threatening to report these people to the FBI, but unfortunately, they are using spoofed caller ID numbers (the most recent one is from 474-475-1328 - which is a non-existent area code. As a result, the national do-not-call list is useless, as is Verizon's service for tracking down criminal abuse of the phone system.
Does anyone have a clue what else I can do to find the bastards and nail their balls to the floor? If you know someone in the FBI or other appropriate government agency and can forward this to them, please do so. I'll testify in court. Heck, I'll flip the switch if they can be given the death penalty.
It's part of Midtown in Motion, an initiative to feed information from lots of sensors into New York's traffic management center. A spokesperson for the New York Department of Transportation, Scott Gastel, says the E-Z Pass readers are on highways across the city, and on streets in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Staten Island, and have been in use for years. The city uses the data from the readers to provide real-time traffic information, as for this tool.
Maybe so, but, as the article cites, the EZ-Pass terms and conditions do not state that this is a permitted use of the device. And if one agency is using it for one purpose, you can be sure that in the future, more agencies in more jurisdictions will use it for more purposes, and some may be a lot more intrusive than dynamically adjusting on-line traffic maps.
I never got EZ-Pass, because I don't travel through toll booths that often, and I don't like the idea of paying a monthly service fee to have the device. With this piece of news, now I think I've got a much stronger reason than "I don't want to pay for it."
