In the Chicago Tribune I found this link: Courtney Love rapidly losing weight

Is it bad that my first thought was, "Oh, so she's doing speed now"?

Coffee cup empty. Woe. Must find more. Maybe stab coworker and steal his coffee.

First they came for the pirates

Weaverville – When you’re a pirate, some dangers just come with the territory: scurvy, grog hangovers, a walk down the plank at sword point.

But being kicked out of school for a day?

Bryan Killian doesn’t think that’s a fair reaction to his decision to come to North Buncombe High School wearing an eye patch and an inflatable cutlass.

The sophomore spent Wednesday at home after an administrator took issue with his accessories.

Buncombe County Schools says the eye patch was disruptive to classroom instruction. The student’s refusal to take it off after four warnings led to discipline, the district said.

“I feel like my First Amendment was violated,” Killian, 16, said. “Freedom of religion and freedom of expression. That’s what I tried to do, and I got shot down.”

Freedom of religion?

Yes, Killian says, his “pirate regalia” is part of his faith — the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

The parody religion, whose “Pastafarian” members worship a sentient, airborne clump of noodles and meatballs, originated in a letter to the Kansas school board urging it to add the religion to its plans to teach evolution and intelligent design side by side.

It became an Internet phenomenon, spawning a belief system that holds pirates to be divine beings and blames global warming on the disappearance of the buccaneers.

Satirical though it may be, Killian isn’t laughing.

“If this is what I believe in, no matter how stupid it might sound, I should be able to express myself however I want to,” he said.

An eye patch is no more disruptive than a Christian cross around one’s neck, he said.

PZ Myers is not happy: [link]

Someone posted this interesting comment on PZ's blog:

Well, the worst thing about stuff like FSM and certain neo-pagan nature-worshiping types, is that by discriminating against some and not others, it puts the government in charge of actually determining what is and isn't a "religion", which in itself is something the government simply shouldn't be doing.

This is particularly a crazy when it's not a "traditional" religion but one where the history is actually quite modern. If you can say that FSM is not a religion because we know who made it up and why, what does that say about Scientology? (yeah, a question that can be answered both ways, work with me here. :) )

How does the government decide what's a religion and what's not? Religions have to achieve a certain popularity? What if the Jedi religion becomes popular?

But I just saw a non-Donohue rep of the Catholic League on TV saying something like, "Would they do this with other religions? Would they make a chocolate Mohammed??" OK, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure Muslims don't wear Mohammed jewelry, either! I mean, for crying out loud, people. That's the stupidest argument against this I can imagine -- Christians love creating art images of holy figures. Muslims, not so much.

I must have seen the same report as you-- I got so annoyed at the most ginned up controversy EVER. Jesus can't be naked! He must be barely covered by a loincloth! And the whole thing about how Catholics are MORE discriminated against than other religions. And come ON NY1, there's no way that gallery is considering taking down newsworthy, controversial art, even if the idea is kind of stupid (oh, it's chocolate, just like the Easter bunny, and My Sweet Jesus is a pun!) Needless to repeat, I was so annoyed.

A while back Texas (or I may be misremembering) decided Unitarian wasn't a religion.

So annoyed.

Nah, it was on purpose, because of the Tom Waits song. Not sure if that humor worked, though.

Well, not on me, because I don't know the song! But other people yes.

I think someone broke my coffee this morning,'cuz it's not working, which is bad, because I have a meeting today, so coherency might a necessary part of my day.

Chocolate Jesus lyrics:

Well its got to be a chocolate jesus
Make me feel good inside
Got to be a chocolate jesus
Keep me satisfied

I love the part about the parfait.

GF and I had BLTs for dinner last night. Not sure if they're grown-up food or not, but they were yummy.

ION, we've almost got our living room back following the move-in. It's only taken us three weeks. We packed up a lot of my empty boxes yesterday (I hadn't realized just how many of the boxes on my shelves were empty) and took them out to the storage unit to make room for gf's stuff. Another week and we may actually be able to see the game table again.

I remembered that the vending machine still has mocha frappuccinos, so I didn't have to stab any coworkers for their caffeine.