10 Thoughts for March 2, 2014

1. A municipal bond is going to defray costs of building a "replica" of Noah's Ark in Kentucky. (I say "replica", because there is no physical or pictorial evidence of what the Ark looked like.)  Apparently people are unclear on the purpose of the separation of Church and State.  So, when a primarily Muslim town in America decides that it wants to use municipal bonds to fund a Center of Islam, will people protest? 
2. Separation of Church and State is just one part of the problem.  Even after reducing the need for private fundraising they're only halfway through; attendance projections are vastly rosy for a project that will be completed in stages; and you have to wonder why they couldn't garner up the funding through the corporate bond markets or directly from investment banks.  So many red flags.
3. Wouldn't it be funny (in a "I'm going to Hell for this one" kind of way) if they built the project in a flood plain, they hit the 100 year flood and the Ark sank?  There are a several rivers and floodplains subject to the 100-year flood within the city, so it's not entirely out of the question.  
4. You know how sometimes you come across someone who writes and speaks with such odd English grammatical construction as to seemingly appear as gibberish?  I have always believed that lazy people simply accept this complexity as proof of higher intelligence while less-intelligent people fall for herd mentality out of fear of being embarrassed that they could not understand what was said or written.  And now we might have such proof.  I think that if you don't understand something, you demand that the person explain it better.  Of course, sometimes when you have to BS your way through an argument, building complex grammar can fool people, so there is that side of the coin.  I admit that I have done this before.  Heh.
5. I would dig this Chromebook, if it were leather-wrapped, not just for the novelty of it, but because of the feel of the texture every time I pulled it out.  I'd be willing to pay a $20 premium, I suppose.  But if the internal specs aren't up to par, the leather isn't worth it.
6. Someone has already rooted and installed the Google Now Launcher onto a Nokia X phone.  It was inevitable, but I'm guessing that the low margins on these phones will only make Microsoft more unhappy with the Nokia X family, Nokia fans notwithstanding.
7. Well, I knew it would end at some point.  The price of my Clear WiMax $35 / mo for unlimited internet access increased in price...by $5.  Sure, I'm paying less than others, including other people with Clear accounts, but when the price hits $45, I'm leaving -- that's Sprint's signal that they really want you off the WiMax network so that they can shift its bandwidth to LTE.
8. Russia went ahead and entered Ukraine's borders, into Crimea.  In trite fashion, people immediately pointed to economic sanctions.  I don't see the point.  It's a weak threat to begin with and takes a substantial amount of time before its effects are felt.
9. If the international community is concerned about Russia's actions, then the United Nations should issue a simple statement: Because of the lack of diplomatic consultations, the UN has no choice but to exert energies into establishing in-field personnel to carefully investigate any and all deaths for possible war crimes and human rights violations, which may result in charging of Russian officials at the International Criminal Court.  Doing so threatens severe travel restrictions for Russian officials and puts them on notice that they need to clarify ahead of time what their intentions are, with the requirement that they place limits on their militaristic actions.
10. Listening to ET in the background -- it was just a carryover from having the news on in the background -- I was sucked in at the commentary over Robin Thicke's marriage, in that open marriages don't work for a simple reason: jealousy.  I've spent a lot of time trying to remove feelings of jealousy.  Jealousy lacks logic; it feeds equally off fear and self-loathing.  It is a mostly useless emotion which probably dates back to cavemen and the need for men to establish their progeny and spread their DNA.  Yeah,  I read a lot of David Buss.