Trump Is Not Just Incompetent - He Is Also Lazy

The folks over at Axios.com got hold of Donald Trump's official schedule between November 7th of 2018 and February 1st of 2019. The schedule was leaked by a White House insider. The results were shocking at the very least.

The top chart shows the activities and the actual amount of time doing each. The bottom chart shows the percentage of time for each activity.

Trump spent 15.3% of his time in meetings, 7.6% at events, 10.7% traveling, and 7.8% at lunch. But the largest block of time (59.1%) was spent in "executive time". "Executive time" is Trump-speak for his down-time -- the time he spends alone (watching TV, tweeting, and calling Fox News and other supporters to whine about how he is being covered in the media).

To be blunt, Donald Trump is our laziest president. Maybe that's a good thing. Considering his utter and complete incompetence at doing his job, it's probably to the country's advantage that Trump spends so little time doing his job.

Job And Biblical Literal Truth

This is the weekend where christians celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus. It is supposed to represent the action of a just and loving god -- the fact that god so loved mankind that he sent his son to die on the cross so their sins would be forgiven. Now I've never understood why this sacrifice had to be made before forgiveness could be given by god. After all, if he is truly all-powerful,why could he not just forgive anyway?

But that is not the point of this post. I was not always an atheist. I was born and raised in a fundamentalist christian sect, and even went to a fundie college to become a preacher at one time. But that didn't last long. All I really learned in those studies, was that I could not believe in both the literal truth of the Bible and the concept of a loving and just god. The two simply do not go together.

If every word of the Bible is literally true (and this is what fundamentalists profess to believe), then there are many times in the Bible where god is neither loving nor just, but instead looks fickle or just downright mean and vicious. Just a few examples are god choosing to favor Abel over Cain, even though both had given what they had, god striking a man dead just for trying to keep the Ark of the Covenant from falling, god killing the firstborn of Egypt and god commanding the Jews to completely exterminate all inhabitants of cities in the "promised land" (and in fact, promising them land already owned by others).

But the faith-breaker for me was the book of Job. After god brags about how pious Job is, satan says it is just because he is prosperous. Now a truly loving and all-powerful god could have laughed that off and went on, but he didn't. He let satan goad him into proving Job's piousness (although why an all-knowing and all-powerful god should have to prove anything is unexplainable in itself).

In order to basically win a bet with satan, god allows satan to take all of Job's wealth and possessions, kill his family (except his wife), and then finally cover his body with itching horrible boils. Job refuses to curse god even after all his tribulations, so god wins his bet. He goes on to reward Job with new possessions, children and wealth.

But Job's first family is STILL DEAD -- sacrificed to win a bet (or argument). That does not sound like a loving or just god to me. It sounds more like a vain and uncaring god. And yet, if every word in the Bible is literally true, then that is what happened.

Personally, I don't even want to believe in a god that could act in such a capricious way toward those who believe in him. And I really don't understand why anyone could believe in a god who would kill off a man's family just to test or prove his faith.