The House of Zot

Forget being perfect. I’m just trying not to be worthless.

(TE)DC

“Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.” – Benjamin Franklin

(TE)DC

I’ve seen pro wrestlers who performed suplexes and brain busters that weren’t performed this admirably:

Read more »

“If you tell the truth you don’t have anything to remember.” – Mark Twain

(TE)DC

(Image courtesy of Cectic.)

It shouldn’t be an issue, but it still is an issue. Via MSNBC:

Most U.S. states have child abuse laws allowing some religious exemptions for parents who shun medicine for their sick children, but a few recent cases highlight thorny legal issues for parents following less-recognized faiths.

Existing laws have gradually accounted for more well-known and established faiths, such as Pentecostalism, Christian Science and Jehovah’s Witnesses.

But recent cases in the news have judges and child care advocates dealing with parents who claim adherence to lesser-known faiths, such as the Minnesota family following an Internet-based group’s American Indian beliefs, and an independent church in the western state of Oregon that has been investigated in the past for the deaths of members’ sick children.

This, of course, leads to the problem:

Read more »

“If we don’t succeed, we run the risk of failure.” – Dan Quayle

(TE)DC

Well, in case you were hopeful that Blizzard wouldn’t join Activision in screwing customers once they merged, too bad, because your hopes were just dashed. Via Gamespot:

As part of Activision Blizzard’s pre-2009 Electronic Entertainment Expo tele-press conference, Blizzard Entertainment executive Michael Morhaime confirmed what many had suspected: Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty is expected to launch for the PC alongside the newly redesigned Battle.net online networking service before the end of the year. However, when Starcraft II does see release, it will do so without a hallmark of the real-time strategy genre: a local area network multiplayer option.

Blizzard today confirmed for GameSpot that LAN functionality will be absent from Starcraft II’s multiplayer component, as both a piracy prevention mechanism and a quality-assurance initiative.

“We don’t currently plan to support LAN play with Starcraft II, as we are building Battle.net to be the ideal destination for multiplayer gaming with Starcraft II and future Blizzard Entertainment games,” a Blizzard representative said in a statement. “While this was a difficult decision for us, we felt that moving away from LAN play and directing players to our upgraded Battle.net service was the best option to ensure a quality multiplayer experience with Starcraft II and safeguard against piracy.”

“Several Battle.net features like advanced communication options, achievements, stat-tracking, and more, require players to be connected to the service, so we’re encouraging everyone to use Battle.net as much as possible to get the most out of Starcraft II,” the statement continued. “We’re looking forward to sharing more details about Battle.net and online functionality for Starcraft II in the near future.”

Read more »

“We are never so defenseless against suffering as when we love.” – Sigmund Freud

(TE)DC

You really can’t trust the Jews regarding anything, can you? Vorjack writes on Unreasonable Faith:

I’d thought I heard them all, until I ran across this parenthetical comment in Amy-Jill Levine’s The Misunderstood Jew:

I have twice been asked, each time by nice, silver-haired Protestant women, where I had my horns removed. The women, neither of whom had ever met a Jew before but both of whom had read John’s Gospel and seen pictures of Michelangelo’s horned Moses, asked in all innocence. They were both surprised and relieved to know that Jews don’t have horns. I also mentioned that we don’t have tails and cloven feet, just in case they thought that as well but were too embarrassed to ask. (p. 102-103)

Do you laugh or cry? I have no reason to doubt Levine, but the notion that there are people who are so sheltered and ignorant that they think Jews are hiding horns underneath the yarmulke just blows my mind. Can anyone confirm this from their own experience?

You can look at Michelangelo’s horned Moses here.

Here’s the funny part, though. When I heard about Jews with horns, it immediately made me think of Borat, which helped foster lots of other insane (and funny) “beliefs” about Jews. Everyone realizes Borat is fiction, though.

(TE)DC

“The only thing that hurts more than paying an income tax is not having to pay an income tax.” -Thomas Robert Dewar

(TE)DC