No problem here; move along.

Chief Justice John Roberts said Saturday that he has "complete confidence" in his colleagues' ability to step away from cases where their personal interests are at stake, and noted that judges should not be swayed by "partisan demands."

Phew! Now I can rest easy. 

On this brain-dead holiday . . .

New Year's Day is one of my top-two brain-dead holidays. The other is July 4th. Neither of these holidays means a thing. They're just opportunities to pig out and drink. Since I've already destroyed Xmas with the book Xmas Carol, I'll probably move on to either New Year's Day or July 4th with my next holiday-destroying book. They both heartily deserve all the negative attention I can send their way.

Bishops' Orwell-speak

You've got to hand it to the Catholic bishops. They've got this Orwell-speak thing down pat.

The headline over at the NYT is "Bishops say rules on gay parents limit freedom of religion". I burst out laughing every time I see this Orwellian statement. Allow me to translate for you.

Here's the expanded version of that angry statement by the bishops:

Bishops say rules that limit their ability to discriminate against gay parents and deny them services available to everyone else infringe on their god-given right to act viciously and hatefully to one segment of society.

Meanwhile, back at the salt mines

In the earliest days of this blog, I wrote a few posts that outlined my approach to novel-writing. I'm not the sort to heed other people's advice so I invented the process from whole cloth.

I had questions and I questioned everything. First person or third person? Must I include an antagonist? How would I avoid the boring pitfalls most novels fall into (like sci-fi novels including evil government agents in every single story)? How should I write dialogue? And how the heck do you structure a scene? It was all new to me. When I started writing, I didn't know a thing.

In the end, I just dove in and wrote the book. I like to figure things out for myself and the best way to learn is by doing the thing you want to master. Xmas Carol is the first book I've taken all the way through the process, from initial idea to completed book. It's been a learning experience every step of the way, including right now.

The recent Big Question is "when is it done?" How do you know? Part of me (and most of my friends) said to let go of the book. Yes, I could always improve it further but it was okay, so just publish the damn thing. That's basically been the advice. And to this I say, "Nuh-uh."

Right now, two friends are proofreading the book for me. They offered and it would have been foolish to say no. In the meanwhile, I'm reading the book. And yes, I'm changing things here and there. But you know what? That's what you're supposed to do. I finally figured out that you don't let it go until you're happy with every word. I always thought so, but now I know this in my heart. You have to be proud of every sentence in your book.

For those anxious to buy Xmas Carol, have no fear. It won't be long and I promise it will be worth the wait. This book is fun.

You know who makes me mad?

Ron Fouchier, that's who. Each time I bump into a story about what he's done, I'm newly furious. If you read between the lines in the linked article, it tells us that there's a decent chance that over 50% of the world's population will be dead in ten years -- directly because of this guy's work.

In case you're not aware the story, Fouchier took bird flu (H5N1), one of the most dangerous flu viruses ever known -- but one that doesn't spread readily -- and made it airborne, thus creating the greatest viral danger humans have ever faced. H5N1 is nasty but it rarely spreads beyond the infected individual. However, now that Fouchier has given the virus wings, it can travel around the world with ease and infect virtually everyone it comes in contact with. We have absolutely no immunity to this thing.

A world lit by science

In Ross Douthat's idiotic op-ed on Hitchens' death, duly eviscerated by many bloggers, he used a phrase I've heard before. It's wingnut phrasing, meant to disparage atheists:

". . . the bloodless prophets of a world lit only by Science."

I love how they call reliance on science "bloodless" or "hollow". These people are so totally confused that they think scientists miss out on the awe factor, something they say their religion provides in spades. Indeed. How strange are these people?

Foolishness seen in HuffPo

Once in a while I read HuffPo's religion page, just for laughs. So what did I find there today? This gem:

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Europe's economic and financial crisis is the consequence of an "ethical crisis" and a "crisis of faith," Pope Benedict XVI said Thursday (Dec. 22), resulting in the triumph of selfishness over social responsibility.

Can you believe this popey guy? He literally engineers the massive cover-up of the priest-rape scandal for the selfish reason of wanting to protect his church -- and then has the nerve to talk about "the triumph of selfishness over social responsibility." It's mind-boggling. And these people will tell you that they own morality.

And what is the cure that he suggests for this selfishness? Why, faith of course. Faith in what? The child-raping priests! These people have no irony filters. None.