Because they’re not a serious organization:

In France, the shrine at Lourdes is surrounded by hundreds of hotels and has received as many as 45,000 pilgrims in a single day. Our Lady of Guadalupe, in Mexico, draws millions of fervent worshipers a year.

Now, a little chapel among the dairy farms here, called Our Lady of Good Help, has joined that august company in terms of religious status, if not global fame. This month, it became one of only about a dozen sites worldwide, and the first in the United States, where apparitions of the Virgin Mary have been officially validated by the Roman Catholic Church. (emphasis mine)

Oh wow! If the Catholic Church says it’s real, it must be legitimate, right? Let’s examine their meticulous reasoning process.

1. In 1859, a woman claimed she saw the virgin Mary appear three times.
2. Serious theologians spend two years “investigating,” to determine there was no fraud or heresy.
3. The church declares with “moral certainty” that this is the real deal!

Uh huh… I see. What would science have to say about this?

1. Anecdotal evidence is no kind of evidence at all, especially when it’s over 150 years old and not even first-hand. Not to mention the witness describes Mary’s “flowing blond locks,” which seems pretty unlikely. Sounds like a clear-cut case of religious delusion.
2. Let’s have a snack!

A lamentation on computer programming:

The things they did do, they did wrong. They found bugs. They found ways to circumvent all of your carefully constructed system rules and validations. Not because they were master hackers or brilliant technicians… but because they were just stupid. They clicked on things they shouldn’t click on. They typed things in that they shouldn’t type in. They didn’t read simple instructions. They didn’t listen in training. They were personally insulting you by being terrible at using your software.

via Benny

I just read Stephen King’s The Running Man. It’s set in a future, post-apocalyptic world (as envisioned in the early 80′s), where the world’s most popular TV show involves hunting people for sport. It’s not a bad book, largely about class and racial tensions, and television’s effect on society.

I also watched the movie “based” on the book. The plot is almost unrecognizable (i.e. the main character goes from a scrawny black man to Arnold Schwarzenegger). The movie is mostly an excuse to watch the Terminator kill people and deliver absurd one-liners.

But the best part though? It stars both Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura, who, after years of starring in over-the-top action movies, are later elected to the highest executive offices of California and Minnesota, respectively. Lesson learned: the future is always way weirder than you think it will be.

So, I am a hiring manager now (in addition to my regular duties). I read resumes and do interviews. This is a terrible idea. Basically because I have thoughts like:

“This resume has too many paragraphs in it. I hate you.”

“A hotmail email address? No, we’re not doing that.”

“You have a British accent! Hired!”

Emma and I made a gingerbread village!

Quite bit of effort, but lots of fun. Easily the best Christmas-themed arts and crafts project ever.