They are friggin sweeeeeeet! The wifey bought a pair a couple of months ago and loved them; so I tried a pair on. They are the most comfortable shoe that I have ever worn. As you can see, the toes have individual compartments; at first, it does feel weird to have your toes separated, but after a couple of minutes you get used to it. The shoes are very snug and they give you the feeling of walking barefoot. I love it! The only downfall to these shoes is that they are not waterproof. Also, they are not insulated (so don't go running around in the snow, unless you want cold, wet feet!). I suspect that Vibram, the maker of Five Fingers Shoes will eventually release a pair with gortex, but who knows. I highly recommend these shoes. However, I must warn you, the current demand for these shoes is very, very high. I suggest that if you are interested in these shoes, check out the Vibram website to find a local vendor (you can order online, as well) to see if they have some in stock. Also, you should know that the Five Fingers do not come in regular shoe sizes, you will have to be measured.
If you have been following the news at all over the past year, you have probably heard about the Ugandan "Kill the Gays Bill," a piece of legislation that will criminalize homosexuality (I wrote about this legislation earlier this year). Under the proposed bill, the maximum penalty for homosexuality is the death penalty (for serial offenders). Other penalties include three-years in prison for knowing a homosexual and life imprisonment for being a homosexual.
Recently, Rachel Maddow interviewed the author of the Ugandan "Kill the Gays Bill," David Bahati.
Part One
Part Two
What I find highly disturbing is the lack of admonishment from the faithful in this country. Even more frustrating is the indoctrination of youth, those 13-25, by supports of David Bahati's warped world view. One of those groups is "The Call," run by Lou Engle who, according to the Call's website:
"Lou Engle is the visionary and co-founder of TheCall solemn assemblies, a movement of prayer, gathering two generations, but primarily targeting young people to pray and fast for justice and spiritual awakening. Since 2000, TheCall has gathered hundreds of thousands of people to pray both nationally and internationally."
The Call is a group which is hellbent on bringing the world and, especially, America back to the Lord:
"SOLEMN ASSEMBLY In the Bible assemblies were appointed by God as the divine prescription to return to Him in times of apostasy. These gatherings were for the purpose of prayer, fasting, and repentance from individual and national sins. They were also used to call upon God for protection in times of crisis. Many times on these days the Israelites ceased from working and offered sacrifices to the Lord. There was always a promise of great blessing if the nation returned to the Lord with wholehearted devotion and the renewal of their covenant vows of love to the Lord. [Leviticus 23:36, Numbers 29:35, Deuteronomy 16:8, 2 Chronicles 7:9, 2 Chronicles 20:3-4, Joel 1:14, 2:15]"
And
"Our nation is in desperate need of the mercy of God and another great spiritual awakening, which will only come forth as the Body of Christ gathers together in prayer. When there is no hope for a nation, when there is no remedy, God has a Holy prescription. We must drop every barrier that divides us and unite in urgent, humble fasting and prayer with the promise that afterward God would pour out His Spirit (Joel 2)."
"TheCall is committed to mobilizing three generations, every ethnicity, and every denomination from across America to join in petitioning God for His undeserved mercy and to return to acts of justice that would satisfy His heart." It appears that the members of the Call are too occupied by prayer and humble fasting to be outraged at the possibility that Uganda may make it legal to kill people for being gay. At the very least there is no mention of it on their main website (to be fair they don't mention much on their website, they are rather vague, in a strange way). Even Stonewall, one of their associate websites, doesn't make mention of the bill, which is odd since Stonewall is one of their official anti-gay websites.
Stonewall, like the Call's main site, is rather vague in the details, but I have found is nothing new:
" StoneWall Now! is a prayer movement. We are lovers of God and lovers of people. We are filled with compassion for the pain of those bound in homosexuality. We are impassioned to protect the young from the indoctrination of iniquity in the education system as well as families and society from the legislation of the same. Therefore, we are: 1. Calling the church to REPENTANCE for our own broken marriages, moral compromise and cowardly tolerance of iniquity. 2. Praying for the salvation and RELEASE of 100,000 gays & lesbians by the love of Jesus. 3. Raising up 24/7 prayer to resist and restrain the spiritual powers behind the radical homosexual agenda. 4. We are gathering and publishing testimonies of the 100,000 ONES who are being WON!"
Aside from the antiquated and ass backward views on homosexuality the sight is quite chic. It appeals, as I am sure was the intent of the authors, to the youth. It has a very energetic, fight-the-establishment kind of feel to it. You can be a rebel for Christ by telling homosexuals that they are dirty sinners and deserving of death (that is the wage of sin, after all). Want an example? Check out the pic below:
By now you might be thinking: "Dave, so what, it's alright if they have a difference of opinion and want to express it;" normally I would agree with that general premise (it irks me that they are indoctrinating impressionable young people, but what is one to expect: if religion didn't indoctrinate the young, they would cease to be). My problem here is that Lou Engle, the founder of the Call, has come out in support of the "Kill the Gays Bill."Now we can see why the Call and Stonewall are so silent about Uganda: they want to cleanse the earth of sinners; namely, homosexuals. If they can't convert and heal the gays (which time and time again it has been shown that you can't cure someone of homosexuality, it's not a disease), then the gays should be imprisoned and/or executed. These sound like the kind of good ol' fashioned morals that the world needs to get back to: hate those who are different from you and kill them if necessary.
I found this pic here. And yes, we ABSOLUTELY could have. At this rate, I believe that there may be a Democrat primary challenger in the 2012 election. The odd thing here is that I didn't vote for Obama; frankly, I don't find him to be liberal enough; considering that, I find it irritating that anyone believes that he is a socialist: he's not even close. In matter of fact, he is one of the more moderate Democrats that we have had in office in a long time.
A suggestion to Mr. Obama: If you are going to promise change, then you had better be prepared to have a fight; it appears that you were and are not prepared.
Oh, and some more bad news, Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT) failed to be repealed today. God knows that you don't want fags (I am only using this word to make a point) around while your killing little brown people. ARGGGGGGHGHHHH! This leads me to leave you with thoughts from the late, great Bill Hicks.
I didn't realize, but it appears that I have eight followers of my blog. Trust me, I don't mind, spread the word. With the number of hiatuses that I take, I just assumed that I wouldn't have too many folks wondering what was going on in my noggin. To all of you who are "new," welcome! Thanks for reading and bearing the brunt of poor, but improving, punctuation. Welcome, again. And don't forget to leave comments, concerns and/or swear words. In celebration of this auspicious occasion, I present to you, 8stops7 and their song titled, appropriately enough, "Question Everything." It's a generic video, but I like the song (plus, being the sneaky person that I am, there is an eight in the band's name).
PZ Myers found this thought-provoking cartoon and posted it on his blog; I, of course, had to reproduce it here. It's not fair to say that all Muslims react or feel the same as depicted in the cartoon, but it is safe to say that there is a segment of the Muslim population that does.
So much and so little has happened over the past three-months, and some of it I will be sharing over the course of the next couple of weeks before I head back to school. Today, I present to you Keith Olberman's special comment on the most recent retreat of President Obama to the Republican party, the tax cuts. Keith articulates perfectly my frustration over the past two-years. I could not have said better, thank you Keith.
I hope all is well with all of you in internetland!
