The Agrinautica

   So we survived our adventure in Porto Nueva, Mexico. Our 12 person expeditionary force consisted of C-Bunch (entries, pics), his cousin SirPsychoSexy, their friends Byron Tyrone Tyrel Tyrice Bison Tyson & Branch, Kim Bowles (entries pics), Little Colleen (entries), Colleen Milton (entries, pics), C.Milton's cousin Elise, Lyrakeet (entries, pics), Sashakeet (entries, pics), Kristykeet (entries, pics), & myself (entries, pics). We stayed in two six-person suites, which were built in a vertically oriented manner, not-unlike a cat-tower. A narrow spiral staircase led up to the highest rooms, which being the highest parts of the buildings were quite tower-like.
   In the nearby lobster-oriented village, every restaurant seemed to have the exact same $12-16 lobster special (of corresponding amounts of lobster). It was really difficult to distinquish between the restaurants... and not only that they need to learn how to come up with more creative names, there was Porto Nueva Lobster Restaurant I, II & III, and Restuarant Del Mar I, II & III, etc etc!


Meanwhile Elsewheree
   Elsewhere apparently, Saddam Hussein had a rather unpleasant end to his New Years eve countdown . In Somalia, the Ethiopian and Transitional Government forces crushed the final Islamic Courts Union (ICU) stronghold between the evening of New Years Eve and the early hours of New Years Day. Local clan elders asked the ICU to leave the city (Kismayo) to prevent the city from being destroyed in the fighting, when the ICU refused, fighting broke out behind the front lines between the ICU and local clan militias. ICU commander Sheikh Yusuf Hassan stated "are not going to surrender. We will fight to defend Jilib and Kismayo until we die," shortly before there was a mutiny within the ICU forces and they began a disorganized flight from the battle area. Kenyan forces were seen moving towards the nearby Kenyan border to prevent ICU forces from crossing over, and the United States fifth fleet patrolled the coast to prevent ICU forces from escaping by sea. This appears to be the end of the ICU. The transitional government has announced weapons collections and amnesty programmes for former fighters.

   So it turns out that bees can sting.

   Normally bees in migratory swarms are very docile. Normally under any conditions one would be safe three floors below bee activity. However, one of the bees today apparently didn't get the memo on that and dive bombed my face and stung me in the eyebrow.
   Normally stings to one's head actually less bad than other areas. I imagine its because one's body puts a very high priority on keeping things under control around one's head. Stings near one's eye can cause ridiculous swelling, but this one was pretty much in my eyebrow, so I figured I'd forget about it in ten minutes.
   In ten minutes I noticed it was getting unusually puffy. After this job we had an hour until our next job so we parked in a park and I took a nap.. when I woke up I could only open one eye!
   For two or three hours I had to make do without depth perception until the swelling started to subside again for my left eye to come back on line.

see also

   When I first started working at Bee Busters there was another assistant technician who got a similar sting. The next day he didn't show up for work and we never saw him again.


   Sometime while I wasn't around between last year and this they had an assistant technician named Raoul. Raoul made sure his uniform was always several sizes too large, and refused to ever wear a veil because he thought he was hardcore. No one liked him very much.
   One day he got one of these eye-swelling stings. When one of the technicians asked boss Dave what happened, Dave said "oh he mouthed off to me so I decked him." And knowing how things are, the technician believed this for a week until he was told otherwise (there's a hole in the wall of the garage from when Dave got mad about something - not one of us though)
   Shortly, Raoul got fired. He now works for our competitor, "the Bee Man."


Previously on Emosnail
   Year Ago Today: A Wee Possum - Seriously is that not the cutest thing ever?

Premise
   This past weekend, Thursday the 25th through Sunday the 27th, the Reverend Kris Fricke¹ may have been at the eleventh annual convention of the Atheist Alliance International. Then again he may not have been there (after all, if he WAS there, it could realistically be anticipated to open him up to religious persecution before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee some day), but pictures have surfaced of him with several famous people who happened to be there as well. This entry will suppose that he was there however.

A Theological Disclaimer
   There seems to be universal revulsion to the concept of atheism. Many essentially atheist organizations avoid the name completely, for example many of the affiliated organizations go by other names like "freethinkers," "skeptics," "humanists," "secular humanists" and "secularists," among others. Many of these names I think slightly misrepresent the point, and as to "freethinkers" and other such names, I don't think a name is going to succeed that is composed of words with a wide degree of superior connotation; only a word made of latin or greek roots that accurately describe the philosophy will succeed.
   But why does the current negative connotation exist? Fricke's own parents, fairly liberal and agnostic individuals themselves, reacted with "thats disgusting!" upon learning Kris was to attend the convention -- reacting possibly with more revulsion than they did to his mohawk. I can only imagine that the image is that atheists all sit around "hating god," not unlike the Grinch. That atheists are a people filled with bitterness, resentment, hatred and a concoction of other deplorable emotions. In fact however, its a belief with appreciably less acrimony than other religions, that simply does not include a god. Its "holy texts" are all those scientific reports that are supported by reproducable experiments and scientific method. That they "hate god" of course is patently false for obvious reasons; and whereas other religions believe that those who don't believe in their religion aren't merely wrong but have developed defective souls; atheists certainly go no further than believing that the theistic hold incorrect ideas.
   Kris Fricke incidently does not consider himself to be an atheist however, but agnostic. Moreover, he sometimes claims to be an agnostotheist, a term he may have coined himself, which holds that not only is it unknowable as to whether or not God exists, but if God were to exist, supposing God was supremely enlightened, and having given man free will and extensive powers of reasoning, God would prefer that man did not commit himself to so narrow and arbitrary a belief system as most religion. If God intended to test mankind to determine which of us is Worthy and which is not, the test is not rigorous adherence to arbitrary religious tenets, but that those who submit to severe religious conviction are the ones God actually finds deficient. But this is just Kris' idea of the most likely scenario if God exists at all, as usual Kris prefers to remain unaffiliated.
   But this entry is not intended to be a theological thesis. The above is given merely in an endeavor to dissuade the reader from thinking that attendance at an atheist convention is tantamount to being part of a vast atheist conspiracy of grinch-like hatred.


Narrative
   After the usual intellectual overload of finals, Fricke was taking everything one step at a time. He took the train back to Orange County (a 13 hour adventure!) without anyone to pick him up in Irvine (coming in two hours later than scheduled though his father was able to pick him up), and the next day drove down to the convention at the Crowne Plaza hotel next to LAX without knowing where he was going to sleep that night. As luck would have it, the presidential suite had been booked as a command and control post for the convention, but no one official was scheduled to sleep there (perhaps lest it appear convention funds were being used to put top officials in the presidential suite?), so the ten or so college students present occupied the room both nights.
   This college faction consisted of Fricke and another girl from Davis (one Jessica), and eight people from Cal Poly Pomona, led by none other than Misha Novini an individual Kris had gone to junior high and high school together. The second day they were joined by a contingent of about five persons consisting of one from Davis and her friends from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, who were also easily accomodated by the luxurious presidential suite.
   The convention consisted of a number of prestigious speakers interspersed between various discussion groups. The speakers included renowned scientist Richard Dawkins, as well as the man behind the lawsuit over the presence of "under God" in the pledge of allegiance (Dr Newdow, whom Kris got his picture taken with), and actress Julia Sweeney, among others. Also appearing, though not presenting, were the famous magicians Penn & Teller, whom Kris also had his picture taken with.

   One noteable speech was by one Dr. Robert Price, a former fundamentalist Christian scholar, who essentially studied the bible and its origins so extensively that even coming from the perspective that it was true he convinced himself that it was not. Aside from the extensive inconsistencies, he found that nearly every story in it was suspiciously close to existant myths and legends at the approximate time of its origin, in particular the story of the resurrection closely mirrors myths about Dionysis and Osiris that were popular at the time.

   In his speech, Michael Newdow mentioned that he tries to use the word "interlard" in all his legal briefs because it is an excellent word, and also that "spatchcock" is the verb form of interlard. Also he mentioned to me that he would be speaking at Davis sometime soon (the 20th of next month?) and I intended to find the particulars of this event on the internet but have been unable.

¹Yes Kris is a legally recognized reverend of the Universal Life Church


Other Encounters
   One of the Davis people I didn't know said she had read this livejournal before; One of the Pomona kids noted this livejournal's name looked familiar; three of the pomona kids indicated they had livejournals; one of the other affiliate group leaders, a professor at Stanford, in the meeting of affiliate group representatives, said he intended to create a wiki for his group, in response to which several others in the room demonstrated understanding of the concept, and at the mention of wikipedia significantly more indicated recognition; Kris later wikivangelized to the Stanford professor on the sublime creation that is Daviswiki.
   In addition to seeing Misha Novini, Kris ventured forth from the hotel Saturday evening to visit his friend Marianna Kotcharian who attends to Occidental College in LA; back in MV Kris randomly ran into elementry through high school acquantance Geoffrey Nicholson outside of Diedrichs off La Paz and then later had an extensive conversation with high school friend Nadia Ahmed, who attends UCI and as it turns out knows Chonchol Gupta.

Previously on Emosnail
   Two Years Ago Today: The Kyrgyz Flag - As you ought to know, protestors recently overthrew the corrupt Kyrgyz government. This strongly contrasts the Ukrainian government overthrow, despite the parallels the newspapers like make, in that wheras in the Ukrainian case the protestors accomplished their goals through protesting, in the instant case the protestors accomplished their goals by physically storming the capitol building. What ho! Guess who's next and win a twinkie: Turkmenistan or Kasakhstan?
   Year Ago Today: Showdown in Corona - Quality adventures with Oi Kelly and Alex.

One day Fricke will learn to be a man. Until then, he will continue to exercise his perceived divine right to 'correct all wrongs' and inflate an already bloated ego, which is only representative of his own insecurities. It all comes down to self-image...

-Anonymous comment, IP address 67.182.174.115.

   Two more things about Ms Johnson's claim that I'm a privileged white man: (1) I'm a first generation immigrant from Brazil! (bet you didn't see that coming); (2) Just the other week I was being accused in the Opinion Section for being a COMMUNIST, and now I'm accused of the opposite?!


   Tomorrow at 9am as mentioned I have an appointment with the CFC Program Director (to "correct all wrongs!"), at 11:30 I will be speaking during the Coffee House forum in favour of the "Judicial Reform Act," a ballot measure for next week's election (how I've missed the campaign speeches!), and during the Senate meeting in the evening I'm going to speak in favour of the bill I wrote which would allow Court members to join everyone else on campus in the ability to write legislation (its our "divine right!"), on the condition that if challenged such legislation goes to Campus Judicial Board, not us.


Picture of the Day

Kris & Kristy

   I finally got the film that was in my pentax for literally around two years out and developed, and then decided to live cheaply and just scan the negatives on campus. They were all grainy, including the unexposed sections, which leads me to believe its either from the film being in the camera so long, the scanner, or otherwise not my fault. I really wish I could get the graininess out of this picture and others but alas I lack the skills.

Previously on EMOSNAIL
   Two Years Ago Today: Cake or Death -or: adventures with shrimp -- listening to Therion and kickin it in Bixby
   Year Ago Today:
      Being Unforgiving -RECENTLY DECLASSIFIED -- and fishing for parking
      Related -Kristy and I have dinner at Ben & Bev's.


Related
   Jesus thinks I am divine.
   Alternate versions of todays picture. (it was originally b&w, not sepiatone)
Tonight DCR endorsed their former archrivals, the Lead ASUCD political party. Another clear sign of just how weird things are getting. (Last I heard DCR was making their endorsement contingent upon Lead expunging Tiqula "the Black Caeser" Bledsoe from their party)

   Kristy left me this awesome messege the other day. I had to play the messege from my cell phone into the other phone to phone post it so you'll have to turn up the volume to hear it and the phones interfered with eachother or something creating this weird noise but yea I STONGLY recommend you listen to it if you can.


   Or maybe those background noises are her being pinged by an invisible ghost spider spaceship ("Con! Sonar! OMG WTF - its a burrowing squirrel Admiral Flap Flap!" "What strange sauce. Attempt to decipher their communications leftenant!")


Picture of the Day

I'm a unicorn I'm a unicorn!

   Today we here at Emosnail have decided to interview Kris Fricke, often mistaken as the author of this livejournal. Read on as we explore the very nature of this livejournal and its associated insanity.


( schizophrenia? )

Making News Again
   THIS article about me in the aggie tomorrow (Thursday) is not altogether pleasing to me. I got rather the impression that the reporter, having already talked to Sara Henry and Paloma Perez, was already rather hostile towards me, the court, the cases, and the green party, before talking to me. I hoped that after sitting through a Court meetings and seeing that we were nice people she would soften towards us, but apparently not.

   Article Summary: Paloma Perez & Sara Henry expressed to the aggie their intention to question my ability to be unbiased on Case # 24. To avoid controversy I have removed myself from that case.

   When I first got the email monday that the aggie wanted to take my picture for an article, I knew it wasn't going to be a good thing. Over the course of the week I became more concerned about this, particularly once it was confirmed that the whole thing was about whether or not I should sit on the case.

   Court meetings always cheer me up though. I get piles of crap from everyone about court stuff, and then I finally meet with the other justices, all of whom have stood together in every major decision of my administration. It was very nice to hear them joking about how they won't be able to do cases without me and if I ever was removed they'd all resign in protest. I was hoping the respect the court members have for me would have some effect on the reporter, but apparently she was unphased by it.
   Also I agreed to do the administrative work to put on Case # 24, even though I won't be party to it. It would have been nice to get out of it, but I just cannot picture the case being put on adequately without my involvement. I'd like to work on training others to do that though so that when I'm gone things don't fall apart.