"Trying to 'argue religion' with someone who is doing fine with their beliefs... is pointless and cruel." -- Kathy Tessin on soc.religion.unitarian-univ, 22 February 1996

...but sometimes it just feels so good to let one rip. Don't attribute an opinion on these pages to anyone else in the family besides the author unless they sign up to it. We support free speech at home, not just on the net.

Some of these rants (the newer ones are toward the bottom of the list) are oldies but goodies, and I've added some footnotes to the older ones as time has gone by. See how cloudy my crystal ball turned out to be.

• Some folks (do we really have to name them?) are saying that evil Satanists (or perhaps Democrats or -- gasp! -- Secular Humanists) are using "backward masking" to (what else?) corrupt our children. Find out why this is a fraud.

• Has it occurred to anyone else that there's something seriously wrong with people who are selling psychological theories that have been discredited for 50 years? These same people are also hoping to convince you that biological, astronomical, and geological theories that are at least half a century out of date are the state of the art in evolution (and therefore pitifully easy to disprove). The only conclusion that makes any sense is either (a) their ignorance is of such magnitude that their qualification to be plain citizens, much less religious leaders, is in doubt; or (b) they're deliberately trying to fool you. -- Bob

• Our great religious leaders and their devoted followers quote scriptural authority after scriptural authority to prove why you shouldn't suffer a teenage headbanger to live, etc., etc. You want authority? Here is some authority! And it don't say nothin' about shooting doctors or making other people's lives miserable with your incessant preaching. -- Bob

• Microsoft won the browser war, but -- lest we forget -- they had more in mind. Remember ActiveX all over the Web? Here's why it didn't happen (a fearless prediction from 1996). -- Bob

• "Intellectual property" is yet another fraud. -- Bob

• OK, I will now join the ranks of the officially uncool. I just don't like Java.. -- Bob

Got a problem with any of this? Tell us.