liz_marcs | Fuck me. It's happening again.

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Fuck me. It's happening again.

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ad_kay has offered to help people fleeing the Texas Gulf Coast and Rita. She'll be opening her Austin home to those in need. Please visit her LJ or contact her for more details.

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Not even a month after Katrina screwed with the Gulf Coast, along comes Hurricane Rita

And guess what!

The federal response is as shit as it was with Katrina. Don't take my word for it. Take the Houston Chronicle's Hurricane Blog

People are being left behind (again). Just for shits and giggles, anyone wanna guess who before they click on the link? If you guessed: "People in the same social class as those that got stuck dying in NOLA," you would be oh-so-right. Welcome to the "yer on yer own society" (aka, "The Ownership Society") where the people with the dosh own your ass and your ass is grass if you require anything resembling help from the government.

There's a word used to describe people who don't learn from their mistakes. Considering that Katrina happened less than three weeks ago, we need to find an extra special word for our lovely federal government. It's beginning to look like they're going to fuck this up almost as badly as they did in Mississippi and Louisianna. Wonder who'll the Bush administration blame this time? They don't have Brownie to kick in the nuts any more and the Texas governor is a Repug.

Raise your hands if you're starting to think that deadly hurricanes pounding the southeastern U.S. may well become a regular feature in our very near future. This is sounding like the start of the global warming scenario that we've been warned about for years. And don't tell me that global warming is a "myth." It's actually scientific consensus, unless you're a scientist bought and paid for U.S. industries with an interest in sticking their fingers in their ears and going "la-la-la-la."

Global warming is scientific fact (the link doesn't exactly go to a nutjob environmentalist site, in case you're wondering). Evolution is a scientific fact. Smoking causes all sorts of health problems is a scientific fact.

Creationism, Inteligent Design, Revelations, and The Rapture? They're a myth.

I feel the urge to point this out so that we can be clear on the difference between science and myth. Anything that requires an ounce of faith to make it work? Myth, myth, myth. Anything that can be proven by they scientfic method? Fact, fact, fact.

I guess you can say I'm sick to death of a "faith-based government" that believes Armageddon is coming any day now, because it seems to me that faith-based anything ain't no way to run a railroad. It does, however, seem to be a damn fine way to get people killed at home and abroad. The breathtaking inability to face facts on any level would be hilarious if:

1) It was someone else's country

2) The results weren't so tragic

This all leaves me wanting to say to every single person who believes in the myth of Revelations and decide that governmental policy should reflect some kind of twisted version of, "eat, drink, and be merry today because we may be raptured tomorrow:" Dude, please rapture your ass already so you can stop screwing up the world for the rest of us. Kthnksbi.

Sorry. I know this is not supposed to be a ranty post. This is supposed to be a helpful post. But I'm soul sick at this point. I'm soul sick in advance of the political screeching to come and the false expressions of piety that will be no doubt paraded before me in the coming weeks. Maybe it's my inner Catholic girl screaming to get out, but I feel it needs to be said:

Faith means shit. It's all about the works, asshole. So shove the public praying and pick up a goddamn shovel and do something. And no, awarding no-bid contracts to buddies like Haliburton does not count as "doing something."

If you need an illustration of what I'm talking about, please read the opening lines of this entry again. Thank you.

But I digress because of my anticipatory anger.

Right now, let's focus on the problem we've got: evacuating the fourth largest city in the U.S.

And it is a problem to behold. We have already reached the nightmare scenario of Texans being forced to turn back to their homes because every road out of town is clogged. Some people trying to leave Houston today have concluded that it's too late to leave and are fearful of being on the road out of town when Rita makes landfall Saturday in the early morning hours. That's how bad the bad is.

Ladies and gentleman: it looks like Boston during rush-hour traffic.

All I can say is: thank god I live in the Northeast. What few hurricanes make it up here generally drop down in strength and speed before it landfalls on us. I'll take nasty-ass, midwinter, back-to-back nor'easters any day of the week over this kind of horror show.

I'm already getting a headache anticipating the finger-pointing over this one. I know it's useless to hope that no one dies as a result of Rita or federal incompetence, but I hope for it just the same.

I don't think after witnessing the destruction wrought by Katrina on the Gulf Coast, it would be out of line to say that the Houston/Galvaston axis is pretty much fucked barring a last minute dodge and weave from Rita. Granted, Houston's on higher ground, and not in a "soup bowl" like NOLA. However, there are sections of the city that are prone to flooding even in what would pass for normal rain in my wet-wet-wet part of the country. Let's not forget that Houston is one of the largest cities in the U.S. and the second largest economic zone on the Gulf Coast.

Oh, and if anyone wants to check out what a tropical storm did to Houston back to 2001, the Wikipedia entry on Tropical Storm Allison has the skinny.

It's at this point that I feel like I need to point out the obvious. We couldn't afford Katrina taking out what is, essentially the eastern portion of the Gulf Coast and the oil refineries. If Rita takes out the western Gulf Coast and its oil refineries...well, let's just say we could be looking at gas at $5 a gallon.

Have I mentioned lately that I adore my 2000 Saturn SL? Have I mentioned that I went three weeks on 11 gallons of gas doing my normal driving routine? Of course, I'm still wrapping my head around the fact that it cost $30.00 to fill my tank on Monday. I'm pretty sure my head will explose when it costs $50.

I think that now is the time to start considering alternative energy. Because when Rita blows through Texas and puts a double-plus-bad hurt on our ability to refine oil, we're all going to learn that we are all oil junkies in desperate need of a 12-step program to wean us off the stuff.

I can only offer this at this point:

To Everyone on my FList in and around Houston and Galveston: Please be safe. Take care of yourselves. Do whatever you can to get out of the area. Barring that, do whatever you can so that you're protected both during and after Hurricane Rita. As Katrina taught us: the aftermath can be more deadly than the during.

Please be careful one and all. I will cross my fingers and toes for you and hope that the feds defy my dim expectations and actually do something useful to help you in the before, the during, and the after.

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Thanks for the kind wishes for Houston and Galveston residents. I grew up in Houston. All of my family and friends are there. My best friend tried to leave--and couldn't. My parents are still on the road. I've been pretty much sick with worry all day.

Also, I've been trying to publicize that our home is open to people fleeing Rita--if they can actually make it to Austin.

And this is why you're three times the Christian of anyone I know.

{{hugs}}

All the best to your family and to you. I'll be sending my good hopes and wishes your way that you and yours are safe.

Thank you so much!

I don't think offering a place to stay is such a big deal. We have room, how could we not offer? Anyway, it's about the only thing that would motivate me to clean my house. :D

Faith means shit. It's all about the works, asshole. So shove the public praying and pick up a goddamn shovel and do something. And no, awarding no-bid contracts to buddies like Haliburton does not count as "doing something."

I read a book on the Reformation while at work this past summer. Believe it or not, but one of the...not tenets, but sorta like a tenet is that Protestants don't believe in doing good works. Or rather, that doing good works will get you into heaven, since a lot of it is simply faith and predestination. Doing good works with false intentions is kinda like trying to bribe God. Which obviously is not cool.

Or that's what I got out of it. Which was really interesting when I thought about it in light of the debates last year, where Catholic Kerry was all "faith without works is a dead faith" and Protestant Bush was kinda snickering.

Still, I find it hard to believe Senor Bush is above bribery.

It's a fascinating debate. I have one (former) Evangelical friend and we used to debate it back and forth.

I agree, there is nothing greater than doing good works simply because it is the right thing to do. I'm a little more flexible on the faith issue. You can have faith that things will get better if everyone pitches in. You can have faith in your fellow man. You can have faith because Jesus told his followers once upon a time: "What you have done for the least of my brothers, that you've done on to me."

Doing good works just to make yourself look good is a hollow thing. But I have to wonder: does it matter to the people you're helping?

This faith for the sake faith, but walking by the people in the ditch has strong historical overtones for me. Some of the worst social aspects in colonial New England was as a result of a theocracy running the show that believed in predestination and that the downtrodden were downtrodden because they somehow deserved to be.

Never mind that women without husbands had no alternative but to turn to illicit ways of making money or to live in poverty in colonial society. Never mind that ill health, catastrophic financial disaster, or even the suspicions of your neighbors was enough to make you pariah. That didn't figure into the picture. The prevaling belief was that if you were among "the select," you would want for nothing. The people who were down and out stayed down and out because very few people were willing to do anything for people who obviously weren't among "the select."

This is why we need to make history a more important subject in our schools, IMHO. It's a lesson that there's zero new under the sun.

The former Evangelical friend finally came around to my way of thinking on the issue. After years of putting up with people in the circles she traveled doing nothing more than "pray" and bitch about the world, she walked into a mainstream Lutheran church that was big on doing charity and serving the community.

She's involved with so many things to help with the services now that she doesn't have a whole lot of free time. And she's never been happier with her faith, especially now that she doesn't have to pretend to believe in the Rapture any more.

I grew up with zero tradition for something like the Rapture. The first time I heard about it was when I was somewhere in my early 20s, and I thought the guy telling me was making a joke. It took a me a few years to catch on that people actually believed in it. (The history of belief in the Rapture is a fascinating one to read. It strikes me as about as biblical as most space opera science fiction stories, especially given its dicey origins.)

Of course, I knew it was a matter of time before my friend would walk. She has a PhD in microbiology and she was starting to get into fights over evoluton vs. intelligent design. She was and still is an evolutionist who really can't see how faith in God and evolution cancel each other out.

A few years ago, a couple applying to rent one of my sister's properties said that they would sign the lease only if she added a clause that said should the Rapture occur, they would be released from the lease and all related responsibilities, including any rent owed. Basically, they explained, you can only be beamed up into Heaven during the Rapture if you have no earthly ties, including debts, responsibilities, etc.

My sister, having never heard of this Rapture thing before, did a little research and decided that because the Rapture allegedly occurs when the moutains are shaking, the seas are boiling, and the world is pretty much ending, she'd probably have a few other things on her mind at the time besides collecting rent. So she wrote the clause into the lease. The couple and their family were very good tenants, although with about four kids, they put a lot of wear and tear on a house with only one bathroom.

As an ex-science journalist, I am absolutely with you on the faith vs. science issues. Gravity doesn't care if you're an evangelical Christian, a reform Jew, a Buddhist, a Muslim, an agnostic, whatever. It just works. I find comfort in the idea that, in a way, it's irrelevant whether we believe in evolution. It continues to occur every millisecond of every day. Time is truly on our side.

While we're talking 'bout evolution: Not sure where I got the first link--hell, it may have been here--but you have to visit the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Check it out at http://www.venganza.org/ (I gotta get one of those T-shirts.)

On the praying vs. doing something issue: It is worth noting that many churches and faith-based groups have done some wonderful work helping the Katrina victims, from converting their churches into shelters to providing food and supplies to relocated families to taking families into members' homes. There have been some non-faith-based groups that have done so as well, but it seems like the churches have been at the forefront, picking up much of the miles of slack the Feds left.

One last hurricane-related note: Most of you have probably seen the news reports about the literally thousands of animals abandoned in the Katrina zone. Of an estimated 50,000 animals in the greater NOLA area, rescuers have managed to pull out only about 6,000 alive so far. They still have 3,000 unfilled requests from evacuees to search homes for pets left behind. About half of the animals the rescuers find are still alive, miraculously, but that percentage will probaly drop pretty quickly in the next week. These animals have been without food and water for three to four weeks.

Many of them were left behind because no provisions were made for them during disaster planning. Texas authorities have, thankfully, been more enlightened, particularly the mayor of Galveston, who encouraged people to bring their pets on the evacuating buses. Read more here: http://tinyurl.com/bfp4v (this is a link to the Best Friends site, one of the best resources for animal-related Katrina news.)

Reps. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), and Barney Frank (D-Mass.) have introduced a bill that would require Federal disaster grants to state and local authorities to include pets in their evacuation plans. While it's far from a perfect bill, it's at least a positive first step. If you agree with the substance of the bill, please contact your Congressional representatives to express your support for HR3858, the Pets Evacuation and Transportation Standards (PETS) Act.

If you can bear a truly heart-breaking picture, check out this story on the Best Friends site about an elderly poodle that somehow survived in St. Bernard Parish until rescuers reached her on Tuesday: http://tinyurl.com/9wwb2

Like the groups assisting human evacuees, animal-rescue groups need of monetary donations. Their work will also need long-term support, as the displaced animals are spread out to shelters across the country that must care for them until their owners are found or they are considered to be abandoned and therefore up for adoption. Most of the major news sites have lists of the active groups on site in the Gulf.
--BaileyTC

See, should have figured you'd be way more on top of that than I am.

This is why we need to make history a more important subject in our schools, IMHO. It's a lesson that there's zero new under the sun.

Oh lord, there is nothing that will ever be done about history in the schools. The powers that be prefer us stupid and docile and good corporate drones--not that I expect to teach kids theory such as Weber's Protestant Work Ethic, but the economic and social theories make sense of history, and that's anathema to those in charge.

I'm not even convinced more schooling is the answer, since schools don't teach kids to think. Although I'm not sure that schools have ever been about thinking skills....

As a Houstonian who's staying put, thank you for your concern and your anger. I won't be staying in my home as it is a mobile home, but I will be staying with a friend who's not leaving anyway and it makes her family happier. She's older and married, but her husband has health issues as well. Right now I'll just be happy if she doesn't come up 45 like Alicia did.

It does seem to be pretty much a cluster fuck with the evacuating. I'm more concerned about the people who are homeless or are unable to take care of themselves because of health issues. Don't leave Beaumont of your prayers because it looks like she's moving more in that direction. We will feel the effects of the storm.

I liked your rant about faith too btw. I'm a life long Methodist and faith does only get you so far. At some point you have to act on that faith. But I do have faith everything will be okay in the long run which is not to say it won't be ugly before then. It will, but I think by staying I'll be in a good position to help, even if it is just my friend and her husband.

On a side note, when I have to replace my 1996 Geo Metro in a year or so, I'm planning on a Honda Insight.

I'm finger- and toe-crossing for everyone in Texas. Up here in Massachusetts, I can't offer a whole lot of help because of geography. And I feel like a dope only offering you my hope that things will be okay.

Best of luck and please take care of yourself. Best of luck to your friend and her husband, as well.

The funny thing is, I'm reading that the feds are already starting to point fingers over the clusterfuck that is the evacuation. They're saying that people are panicking unncessarily because of Katrina.

Do0d! Rita is as strong, if not stronger than Katrina. I don't think people are packing unnecessarily at all.

AAARRGGGHHH!

Don't feel like a dope at all. I'm a firm believer it works.

As for the evacuation, what worries me is if she does move further to the east with only minimal effect on Houston/Galveston, that the next time a storm comes through, people won't be as willing to evacuate. On the plus side, the weather people have pointed out that it seems Texas, or at least Houston/Galveston, seem to be on a 22 year cycle for hurricanes. Carla hit in 1961, Alicia hit in 1983 and now Rita in 2005. Three may be enough to establish a pattern. Though with global warming, that may throw the whole thing off and that's never good.

Yay, Insight! Go, Insight!

I bought my 2001 Insight in August 2004, to replace my 1991 Honda Civic CRX. The little CRX usually got about 40-45 MPG, and even though gas didn't cost all that much (comparatively), I just couldn't see getting a car with worse MPG.

At first, I got a few snickers around town (I live in a pretty rural part of Maine). Some folks said the car looked like a spaceship. Others said it looked like a suppository.

But now? With gas prices being what they are, no one says anything about the look anymore. I even had some young kid driving a jacked-up pickup with a sideways baseball cap lean out of his window at a stop sign last week and ask me what kind of mileage I got. When I told him about 60 MPG, he gave me a goofy grin and a double thumps-up, then said, "cool!" just before he roared off.

I hope Rita peters out for you, but if not, I hope you stay safe and come through it well.

Let me know if you need anything, OK? I have family in NW Houston. Sister has a big-ass house with hurricane-rated construction. 512 470 7266.

This is why I like living in the Northwest. If the big one(s) ever strikes, it'll be, essentially, without warning. Certainly you don't get a week of looming incompetency before earthquakes or volcanoes. ;-)

True dat.

The other day, I came up with a list of why I like living in the People's Republic of Massachusetts:

• Two hurricanes in the past 40 years
• Lots of woodland and states that get frown-y if you log too much of their forrests
• Two hurricanes in the past 40 years
• No volcanoes
• Two hurricanes in the past 40 years
• So much water that we have to sell it to other states or it'll go to waste
• Two hurricanes in the past 40 years
• Earthquakes aren't all the common
• Two hurricanes in the past 40 years
• Not too many tornados
• Two hurricanes in the past 40 years
• Nice and close to the Canadian border

I think you see a pattern here...

Hmm, reading through your list, it sure sounds like you were talking about Maine, not the People's Republic of Massachusetts. Having lived in both states, I feel qualified to say that Massachusetts is a lot like Maine, just with less coastline, fewer trees, fewer mountains, and way more people.

Oh, and we're a lot closer to Canada, too.

:-P

Don't care what anyone says: the New England Conference rocks like a rocking thing.

So shove the public praying and pick up a goddamn shovel and do something.

Personally, I feel there is room for both- if one has faith, which is, of course, not necessary. But *stopping* work to pray should only come when every human resource has been exhausted. There isn't any reason you can't pray in your mind while shoveling with your hands.

Hear, hear.

Last night I decided to leave my apartment, near the Galleria area in west Houston, to spend the next couple of days at my parents' house up in northwest Harris County near Tomball. The drive up Hwy 290 normally takes between 45 and 60 minutes, depending on traffic.

It took me 6 and a half hours. We get some pretty bad rush hour traffic in Houston (Mass transportation? That's for sissies!), but this was like nothing I've ever seen before. The news this morning said that the major roads out of the city were backed up for 100 miles out. Roughly a million people left town yesterday.

I saw on the news a little while ago they are now opening up the inbound lanes of I-45, I-10 and 290 to outbound traffic. They are also supposedly bringing in fuel trucks to help people who ran out of gas on the highways. Here's hoping nobody is still stuck on the roads when the storm hits.

Thanks for your thoughts, and for all the coverage you did on Katrina, Liz. And for the Acme Heartbreak Repair Kit, too. I look forward to reading more after the storm passes, if we get electricity back. Adios for now.

I'm glad that you've moved inland and before the worst of the traffic.

I suspect that I'll be once again cruising for news post-Rita because I already have the urge to read up on everything that's going on.

Please take care of yourself.

I think the difference between Katrina and Rita hasn't been so much the actual response, but the PR response. This administration has always been incredibly adept at using the mass media to its advantage, which is part of why its response (or lack thereof) to Katrina was so surprising. Based on what I've heard in the media so far, it seems that the administration learned its PR lesson. Shame it didn't learn a more useful lesson.

During your very useful Katrina posts, you commented a couple of times about how your journalistic tendencies were coming out. Liz, I don't think you are a frustrated journalist. Or, at least, not entirely. I think you are a frustrated columnist. I can totally see you doing the leg work a journalist should about whatever bad thing is going on, but then crafting a fine column putting the events in context.

So, if it turns out that circumstances warrant it, I'd be very happy to see some Rita columns out of you.

One advantage of LJ over a syndicated column: you'd never get to use the head "Fuck me. It's happening again." in a syndicated column.

*snicker*

You're right about the headline.

I'm desperately hoping that Rita doesn't warrant my obsessive research gene. I'm still recovering from the lack of sleep I got with Katrina.

As for the links, it's more like me wanting to show that I've got proof for thinking the way I think (or within reason for me) instead of just popping off like a loudmouth.

Some people use LJ to vent frustration about their personal lives. I vent about the other crap.

Have I mentioned that I want another presidential election? Like right now? I miss having adults in the White House.

Not to be too negative, but I don't think we've had a true adult in the White House since Eisenhower (pre-heart attack), and I'm afraid we never will again. I guess it depends on your definition of "adult." For me, it's someone who does what needs to be done, even if he/she doesn't want to do it. Or the inverse, someone who doesn't do what he/she wants to if it is something that shouldn't be done.

Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush the Elder, Clinton and Bush the Younger all were/are flawed individuals, which isn't really that surprising because I've yet to meet the perfect person. The difference for those nine men, though, was that the flaws each had led him to fail to do what needed to be done at some point in his administration, with differing degrees of disaster coming about as a result.

As for why we won't have an adult in the White House again, I think it's a combination of the election process and the complacency of the voting population. Why would any sane adult volunteer to go through the election process? How could an adult effectively combat a media manipulator like Karl Rove?

[quote] Faith means shit. It's all about the works, asshole. So shove the public praying and pick up a goddamn shovel and do something. And no, awarding no-bid contracts to buddies like Haliburton does not count as "doing something." [/quote]

God helps those who help themselves, they say. As a Leno guest said, "You're waiting for a sign from God? Well, sometimes, the sign from God is a weatherman telling you that there's a cat 5 hurricane headed to your house..."

This whole religion in the schools thing is silly. People want *atheists* teaching their kids about God? Isn't that what Church is for? What the hell, ever? Next thing you know, they'll be claiming that men in dresses who've never known the touch of a woman will be the best sources of guidance on love, sex and marriage... Oh wait...

[quote] Some of the worst social aspects in colonial New England was as a result of a theocracy running the show that believed in predestination and that the downtrodden were downtrodden because they somehow deserved to be. [/quote]

That's not even a Christian thing. It's a control thing. Buddhism and Hinduism are strongly about, 'accept your lot, your life may suck, but it's because you were a bad man in a previous life, so suck it up, accept your crappy life and don't you dare try to fight it or complain about it, or you won't get a better life next time...' The Bhagavad Ghita is particularly unsettling in this aspect (not that the Bible hasn't been interpreted to justify horrific things as well, such as the Inquisitorial practice of killing Jews the second they crack under torture and accept Christ to ensure that they don't backslide into damnation).

Once upon a time, a wise man said not to covet material riches on earth, but to amass spiritual riches in heaven through good works. When a sect of French Christians began to loudly proclaim these good words, and speak out against the Church's habit of hording wealth, seizing lands and building armies, from their luxurious quarters in Rome, the Pope of the day, Innocent, declared them heretics and sent a mercenary army to expunge them. When the leader of the mercenary army wrote back saying that he could not tell the heretics from the French peasantry of the region, Innocent wrote back, "Kill them all. God shall know his own." The words of Christ, and the lives of His followers, didn't matter to the Church as much as the preservation of their right to hoard material wealth and dabble in secular politics...

I'm a big fan of *personal* faith. I'm an equally strong foe of organized religion, of men in $2000 dollar suits on my television telling me that they know better than the Bible what God means for me to do with my life, and that I need to send them money to help God's work. Newsflash. You aren't getting my money, 'cause *my* God isn't poor.

So, short version, faith = good, priests telling me what God 'really meant' = the sin of pride in the *worst* way. Jesus spoke out against the construction of temples, against a priestly caste. And yet, here they are, enormous gothic cathedrals, towering over people who don't have enough food to feed their families. Gold-encrusted miters and ornamental staves and crosses, while millions of Christians live in poverty.

[quote] Have I mentioned that I want another presidential election? Like right now? I miss having adults in the White House. [/quote]

I do miss the days when the biggest scandal was that the President enjoyed a blowjob.

Don't forget about the refugees from NOLA who went to Houston for safety. I know my sister volunteered to help out this week, and I doubt all or most of them can get out. My grandma is going to my aunt's in Dallas and my sister came home to Austin with six of her Rice friends, but my aunt and uncle are still there. Thank you so much for your good wishes.

I feel the urge to point this out so that we can be clear on the difference between science and myth. Anything that requires an ounce of faith to make it work? Myth, myth, myth. Anything that can be proven by they scientfic method? Fact, fact, fact.

While I am in complete agreement with you on the political issues concerned here, and on the moronic scariness of the Christian Right's theology, I must take issue with your absolute dichotomy of faith vs scientific method, which seems to represent a rather outdated, 19th century understanding of the latter.

Scientific method rarely proves anything, or at least to say that it does is highly problematical. The question of what exactly is the scientfic method, and what sort of knowledge and degree of certainty it gives or doesn't give us is probably the biggest controversy in the philosophy of science.

I think it's fair to say that it's generally recognised that scientific truth is always provisional and open to change and development. Karl Popper, one of the greatest philosophers of science of the last century, went further and argued that the scientific method can only falsify, never establish a scientific theory. I don't quite go with that idea, but the point that previously established truths can be revised or overturned by subsequent research stands.

I would argue that the practical use of scientific discovery, and indeed the whole edifice of scientific theory, actually requires a degree of faith to make it work, namely faith that the universe exhibits regular patterns that are amenable to discovery and analysis by scientific experimentation.

In short, I don't believe faith and scientific 'fact' should be placed in total opposition, but rather should be seen as complimentary, and that scientific, social, philosophical and theological ideas lie along a spectrum of ways of 'knowing', within which only mathematical/logical knowledge carries absolute certainty, and that ultimately only gives tautologies!

That said, I would argue that Creationism is both bad science and bad theology, and that the 'Rapture' and related Millenarian ideas takes us into the realms of pure lunacy. In fact It's sometimes occured to me to attempt a fic where Buffy and the Scoobies have to stop a group of fundamentalist Christians who are trying to bring about the Apocalypse.

But, once again, kudos for keeping us all informed on what's happening in Texas. I'd not been following it very carefully and had been vaguely getting the impression from the BBC that this time the government was being more-or-less prepared for things. I mean, surely they couldn't be so stupid as to let the same thing happen a second time when they've already been rumbled for it once? I'm not cynical enough. Actually, I think I am cynical enough, it's just that these guys are really, really stupid.

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