In which I blame the coffee manufacturer for making bad coffee

This morning, I was contemplating whether to go downstairs and buy a cup of coffee for $1.25 from the coffee shop on the first floor, or whether to take a cup of free coffee from the kitchen on the 4th floor where I work. I like to have things that are free because then I do not have to work for them. Besides, I can spend more time watching TV if I don’t work as hard to buy the pay-coffee.

I was pretty sure that coffee that is sold by the small business on the first floor for profit would taste the same as coffee that is based on a community of coffee drinkers on our floor who just contribute whatever they want to out of the goodness of their hearts. To tell you the truth, it’s not something I really want to put that much thought into, I just expected that the world would conform to my intuitions and emotions.

So I snuck into the kitchen and poured myself a cup of the free coffee and snuck out again. I skulked back to my desk and sat down to drink the free coffee.

Imagine my horror at finding out that free coffee tastes like raw sewage!

Imagine! Free coffee doesn’t taste as good as coffee you have to pay for! How unfair! I hate this coffee! It’s weak! It’s cowardly! It’s lazy! It isn’t meeting my needs and expectations! It isn’t making me happy! It’s to blame for all of my problems! I want to sue this coffee manufacturer in court! I want everyone to condemn them! I demand justice! This coffee is to blame for my tires being underinflated! This coffee is to blame for me not going to the gym! Why is this coffee judging me? Why am I being marginalized and excluded?

Why, oh, why did God make coffee that is so bad? How could a loving God allow me to suffer from this bad coffee that I freely chose instead of pay-coffee? Shouldn’t God give me free coffee that doesn’t taste like sewage? Oh, woe is me! Why doesn’t anyone care about my needs? Why do other rich people have coffee that tastes good, and not me? Why are all my friends drinking good coffee, while I am forced by evil corporations to settle for sewage coffee? We should have a government-run social program to provide me with good coffee for free!

Do you know what I should do? I’ll tell you. I should take control of this coffee corporation. I should force them to give me free coffee for the rest of my life! After all, they are to blame for making the bad coffee. I shouldn’t have to pay for coffee! It’s my right! I have a right to the same coffee as people who go further away and who work hard and who pay for their coffee! I’m being discriminated against! There is no way that I should have to be. There is nothing that I should have to do. I should just get all the goodies in life and never have to give anything back to anyone, if I don’t feel like it.

Do you know what would be really good? A faucet that poured hot coffee with Splenda and cream. I think i’ll go see if we have that in the kitchen. I know we have water, so how hard can it be to get hot coffee with cream and Splenda, too?

Hey, I wonder if I could also get free back rubs? And free candy? I like candy! So I should get candy, too, right?

Christian preacher arrested for saying that homosexuality is a sin

Story from the UK Telegraph. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

Dale McAlpine was charged with causing “harassment, alarm or distress” after a homosexual police community support officer (PCSO) overheard him reciting a number of “sins” referred to in the Bible, including blasphemy, drunkenness and same sex relationships.

[…]Mr McAlpine, who was taken to the police station in the back of a marked van and locked in a cell for seven hours on April 20, said the incident was among the worst experiences of his life.

[…]Mr McAlpine was handing out leaflets explaining the Ten Commandments or offering a “ticket to heaven” with a church colleague on April 20, when a woman came up and engaged him in a debate about his faith.

During the exchange, he says he quietly listed homosexuality among a number of sins referred to in 1 Corinthians, including blasphemy, fornication, adultery and drunkenness.

After the woman walked away, she was approached by a PCSO who spoke with her briefly and then walked over to Mr McAlpine and told him a complaint had been made, and that he could be arrested for using racist or homophobic language.

The street preacher said he told the PCSO: “I am not homophobic but sometimes I do say that the Bible says homosexuality is a crime against the Creator”.

He claims that the PCSO then said he was homosexual and identified himself as the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender liaison officer for Cumbria police. Mr McAlpine replied: “It’s still a sin.”

The preacher then began a 20 minute sermon, in which he says he mentioned drunkenness and adultery, but not homosexuality. Three regular uniformed police officers arrived during the address, arrested Mr McAlpine and put him in the back of a police van.

At the station, he was told to empty his pockets and his mobile telephone, belt and shoes were confiscated. Police took fingerprints, a palm print, a retina scan and a DNA swab.

Sounds like this was a police sting operation in which a Christian acting as a Christian in public was targeted by the state-run police force for holding views that are incompatible with the ruling elite. He was put in jail for disagreeing publicly with his elected officials on a question of morality.

VA attorney general demands that university account for AGW research grants

From Watts Up With That.

Excerpt:

No one can accuse Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli of shying from controversy. In his first four months in office, Cuccinelli  directed public universities to remove sexual orientation from their anti-discrimination policies, attacked the Environmental Protection Agency, and filed a lawsuit challenging federal health care reform. Now, it appears, he may be preparing a legal assault on an embattled proponent of global warming theory who used to teach at the University of Virginia, Michael Mann.

In papers sent to UVA April 23, Cuccinelli’s office commands the university to produce a sweeping swath of documents relating to Mann’s receipt of nearly half a million dollars in state grant-funded climate research conducted while Mann— now director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State— was at UVA between 1999 and 2005.

If Cuccinelli succeeds in finding a smoking gun like the purloined emails that led to the international scandal dubbed Climategate, Cuccinelli could seek the return of all the research money, legal fees, and trebled damages.

“Since it’s public money, there’s enough controversy to look in to the possible manipulation of data,” says Dr. Charles Battig, president of the nonprofit Piedmont Chapter Virginia Scientists and Engineers for Energy and Environment, a group that doubts the underpinnings of climate change theory.

The Attorney General has the right to make such demands for documents under the Fraud Against Taxpayers Act, a 2002 law designed to keep government workers honest.

More at The Hook.

Cuccinelli is a Republican, of course. I hope he starts a trend! I also note that he is a graduate of the George Mason School of Law, one of the best places for conservatives to do a law degree (or an economics degree).

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