IHOP vs IHOP, Pancake House has No Sense of Humor!

It's IHOP versus IHOP in a battle of trademarks!

It seems the International House of Pancakes (IHOP-pancakes) is out to get the International House of Prayer (IHOP-prayer) for trademark infringement! A religious group in Kansas City made the foolish decision to use a long-established trademark as its own logo.

What the heck were they thinking? Did IHOP-prayer think maybe Jesus would intervene and convince IHOP-pancake to ignore this deliberated infringement? That maybe IHOP-pancake would just love to have their pancake house associated with a Christian prayer group?

Or maybe they didn't even bother to check the law books about trademark rights, brand-name dilution and so forth.

Whatever their reasons, it was a dumb move. The law is crystal clear: IHOP-prayer is going to get hammered on this one.

Tea Party: Living in an Alternate Reality

I finally figured the Tea Baggers out. The problem isn't that Tea Baggers are wrong or stupid. They're not an evil mob hell-bent on returning us to the dark ages, even though that's exactly what their agenda would achieve.

No, the problem is the internet and cable TV, which have allowed them to build a new reality, a different reality than the one in which the rest of us reside. They live in one world, we live in another. Unfortunately, our two worlds occupy the same physical space.

We used to interact with our neighbors. We went to a few churches and schools, shopped at our local stores, and maybe joined a club or took dancing lessons. We had to rub shoulders with our neighbors, many of whom had political views quite different from our own. We were immersed in the diverse mainstream political culture. It was unavoidable.

On top of that, our TV and radio stations numbered just a few, and they were required by law to provide access to all viewpoints. Our newspapers might be liberal or conservative, but they never were radical.

In other words, we couldn't avoid hearing our neighbors' viewpoints.

But in a weird twist of irony, the information age has spawned a new new cultural phenomenon: deliberate ignorance. Instead of two or three TV stations and one newspaper, now we can select from hundreds of sources for our information. Why is that bad? Because we can listen only to what we want to hear. We can choose to be ignorant of other views. We can find a news station, a web site, and an online group of friends who will do nothing but reinforce and even amplify our world views.

It doesn't matter how nutty, outrageous or even factually wrong our views are, we can find a dozen web sites of self-congratulatory friends who will supply us with "facts" to strengthen our position and with moral support to make us feel good about ourselves. Worse, we can avoid encountering anyone who might have a different view of the world.

The internet and information age were supposed to bring the world together,

Republican Hypocrisy: Christine O'Donnell's Witchcraft More Important than Politics!

Once again we're learning that Christianity is a virtual requirement for elected officials in the United States.

Christine O'Donnell, the Delaware candidate for United States Senate, is homophobic, she refuses to give interviews to anyone but Fox Noise, she recorded an anti-masturbation video that's downright creepy, and she was a media consultant to the sado-masochistic Mel Gibson movie The Passion of the Christ. She's never served as an elected official, and in fact has no relevant political experience.

But none of these glaring problems would disqualify her from serving in the upper house of Congress of the most powerful country in the world. She can be a crazy, inexperienced, air-headed Sarah Palin clone and still be a viable candidate.

But when an episode of Bill Maher surfaced where O'Donnell admitted to dabbling in witchcraft in her youth, the proverbial smelly stuff hit the fan. Now even the likes of Karl Rove are calling her to task and questioning her viability as a Republican candidate.

Why is it that religion is still a requirement for office in the year 2010? This is the home of religious tolerance, the country where government and religion are supposed to be separate, where no religious test is allowed for any public office.

I find it deliciously ironic that Christine O'Donnell's own party is turning against her

Kicking the Pope Around ... Again.

After losing the California governor's race in 1962, Richard Nixon gave his famous reply, "You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore..." He blamed the media, rather than his own arrogance and poorly run campaign, for the loss.

When is Pope Benedict XVI going to give us the same pleasure? When is modern history's most unloved Pope going to do the right thing and resign his corrupt reign of indifference? Even Santa Claus wants Benedict to resign!

The Pope's remarks to a UK audience yesterday in which he compared modern atheists and secularists to Hitler are so pathetic it challenges my ability to make a witty remark. Doesn't he know about Godwin's Law? By mentioning Hitler, he automatically lost the debate and he doesn't even know it!

What seems to concern Benedict today? Could it be the safety of our children?

New Zealand Earthquake: God Thanked ... for Building Codes!

Reader "JJJ" sends this little tidbit.

Most of Christchurch, New Zealand city officials were praising engineers and architects last week after the city was hit by a massive earthquake that shifted the ground by fourteen feet. In decades past, the city's building codes were updated and many buildings were reinforced to better withstand earthquakes, and this foresight paid off big time. There was very little loss of life; the retrofitting was a huge success.

But the Angelican Dean of Christchurch, Reverend Peter Beck, had a different view:

"Thank God for earthquake strengthening ten years ago."

Wait a second ... thank God for the building codes? What about the earthquake itself, wasn't that God's work?

Church Members and Gangs: Prove it with Tatoos!

A Christian Church in Anaheim, California (just a few blocks from where I was born!) has discovered what gangs have long known: you can get more loyalty from your members if they tattoo themselves with your gang sign. Or in this case, with a Christian tattoo. It seems the minister and several others promised that if 200 people came to an event they were holding, they would go under the needle and get tattoos.

As one man put it, "... two previous tattoos required years of reflection, but that the City Church ink was a no-brainer. 'I said, you know what, you're my pastor, got to show my support.'" I'll agree with that, it's a no-brainer!

I have a ... let's call him a really good friend ... who has some very elaborate tattoos, some of which are very Christian indeed. Unfortunately, this gentleman has become quite the atheist. He has a pretty laid-back attitude about it, his past is a still a part of him and always will be even though he's moved on. But it illustrates, so to speak, why body art might not be the place to write your girlfriend's name ... or your commitment to Jesus!

Here's a little clip for fun...

The Scandal of Atheism

Atheists are facing a grave scandal today that threatens the very roots of atheism.

It is almost identical to the one that enveloped philosophy itself around the end of the nineteenth century. Back in the early 1900s, the question was this: How do I know that you really exist? Maybe you're just a dream of mine, maybe the whole world is a dream. I claim the external world doesn't exist. You say you're real, not just my dream? Prove it!

And so you try ... and it turns out to be impossible. No matter what you say, I can counter by pointing out that in my dream, that's what you'd be likely to say, that it's just my own mind dreaming up answers to my questions.

To most people, it seems like a silly question, but philosophers were very perplexed. Immanuel Kant famously called it "the scandal of philosophy" that philosophers couldn't even prove the existence of the external world.

But the great philosopher Martin Heidegger saw this "scandal" for what it was: a made-up problem. He famously wrote:

The 'scandal of philosophy' is not that this proof has yet to be given, but that such proofs are expected and attempted again and again.

Heidegger's view was that the question was essentially useless (not his words, but that's the idea) – one can make up all sorts of impossible questions, and the only scandal is when you take them seriously and waste whole careers, decades and centuries trying to find answers.

Atheism faces an almost identical scandal today. We've been sucked into a silly argument that has no answer,