Most Linux distributions have a neat little program that can be installed called fortune. It will give a short little inspirational quote, a saying, poetry, a joke, etc. The pool of fortunes is over 16,000 with a base install on Debian Etch.

Now the interesting thing is that there is another fortune package called fortunes-off. Offcolor, offbeat, offensive. Use your imagination. Being immune to all manner of inappropriate material, I of course installed it, and lo and behold, the first "offensive" (and randomly chosen) quote was as follows:

jamonation@scarab:~$ fortune -o
"Then there are those who really do believe, but take very good care to separate their religion off in a separate part of their mind. They don't let clashing thoughts ever literally clash. Either they do it by only thinking about religion on Sunday, or they somehow manage to keep their religious thoughts separate from their scientific ones. Those are the ones I find least easy to understand. And then, of course, there are those who just aren't very bright."
[Richard Dawkins, "A Trick of Light:
Richard Dawkins on Science and Religion"]

So I've done a little freeloading, using a directory at churchdirectory.ca. It is not an authoritative directory by any means, but at least it is fairly comprehensive. The site gives us an idea of the number of churches in Canada. Assuming that each Church is worth, on average, $100,000, not a large figure, I think it is overly conservative, the following table shows how much property churches hold in Canada:

I got to thinking, if Marijuana is America's largest cash crop, how much money does organized religion take in per year in the good o'l US of A.

I took a quick look around and found a survey of 50,000 or so Americans, you can view the PDF here. Of the 208 million adults in 2001 in America, the survey says that 37% are "religious." Another 38% "somewhat religious."

So doing a quick calculation, we arrive at some interesting numbers:

God certainly is a persistent omniscient being, and has been at work here in Canada on multiple fronts. We now have, thanks to God, our very own Big Valley Creation Science Museum, located in Big Valley, AB. So God definitely isn't on vacation from smiting, he's just busy giving people outlets for their personal religious agendas in Alberta.

I saw this article, The Case for Teaching The Bible, by David van Biema, a few weeks ago in an office, had a cursory glance at it and decided I had to write something about it. Being on the front page of Time Magazine, that's definitely a lot of eyeballs, so I've got to say something...

At the risk of angering the acolytes of conventional wisdom, it's time someone pointed out the obvious: Maybe Stephen Harper isn't so damn smart after all.

Of course, in Ottawa these days, such an utterance passes for sacrilege. Those who dare question the Prime Minister's infallibility are called names like heretical, bedlamite or Garth Turner.

Been quiet for a while, what with the work thing and all. I'm going to be working on a new theme for the site since it has been a while since I did one from scratch. I like this theme though, so I'll leave things as they are and change my theme as a user when logged in. It is easy to select a theme as a user, so if the new one is better than this, it is a single checkbox.

Spring cleaning or fever of some such thing has hit, time for a little shakeup.

I do not know anything about .:The River Pilots:. except that I like their song Vesper.. Ok, well, I met one of their members which is how I found out about the group, but still...

Listen to the spatial depth and rhythmic complexity of the track. The clarity of each instrument is remarkable and the group sound very well accustomed to playing challenging but memorable songs together.

From Foxnews via Associated Press:

Danish police braced for more demonstrations Friday after some of the worst street clashes in recent years in Copenhagen, sparked by the eviction of squatters from a building, officials said....

More than 200 demonstrators were arrested and 25 people were treated for injuries Thursday when protesters threw cobblestones, lit fires and overturned cars in the Danish capital.

As unfashionably behind the times as I always seem to be, I can't resist posting about last week's band of the week, Montreal's The Besnard Lakes who released a new album called "The Besnard Lakes Are The Dark Horse."

largeheartedboy posted a link last week to a Paste Magazine article (based out of Decatur Georgia) that describes Besnard Lakes' latest album as something of a mix of influences, mostly drawing on Roy Orbision, The Beach Boys, and Pink Floyd.

Intrigued by the prospects of a shoegaze mashup of the three distinct sounds, I searched about for a while and found this track from their album: And You Lied To Me, linked to from alternapop.