30 Sep 2005
Norway criticized for Christian quota

New from the homeland of Heathenry (as well as my favorite atheist)...

Norway's Constitution requires that over half of the government cabinet are members of the state church - the Norwegian Helsinki Committee says this provision is a violation of human rights.

(link) [Aften Posten [English Edition]]

00:00 /Asatru | 0 comments | permanent link

Consumer spending, incomes fall

Would anyone care to bet against an imminent recession at this point?

Reuters - U.S. consumer spending dropped a larger-than-expected 0.5 percent in August, the biggest fall since November 2001, according to a government report on Friday that also showed a surprise decline in income that may have reflected Hurricane Katrina.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

00:00 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

29 Sep 2005
Greenspan: US lost deficit control

Here's something that wasn't widely reported in the MSM here... wonder why?

U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told France's Finance Minister Thierry Breton the United States has "lost control" of its budget deficit, the French minister said on Saturday.

(link) [Reuters]

00:00 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

eDonkey Tells Congress It's Throwing in the Towel

Another case of "death by lawyer" ... and here I thought the party that controls Congress and the White House was all in favor of "tort reform", to save businesses from the depradations of "liberal trial lawyers". Wrong again!

An anonymous reader writes "Sam Yagen, President of eDonkey, testified at the Judiciary committee's hearing 'Protecting Copyright and Innovation in a Post-Grokster World'. It was there he told the committee that he is throwing in the towel. 'The Grokster standard requires divining a company's intent, the decision was essentially a call to litigate. This is critical because most startup companies just don't have very much money. Whereas I could have managed to pay for a summary judgment hearing under Betamax, I simply couldn't afford the protracted litigation needed to prove my case in court under Grokster. Without that financial ability, exiting the business was our only option despite my confidence that we never induced infringement and that we would have prevailed under the Grokster standard.'"

(link) [Slashdot]

00:00 /Copywrongs | 0 comments | permanent link

Danish Air Force Compensates Santa

Good thing this happened in September - at least Santa will have some time to get Rudolph up to speed ...

AP - The Danish Air Force said Thursday it paid 31,175 kroner ($5,032) in compensation to a part-time Santa Claus whose reindeer died of heart failure when two fighter jets roared over his farm.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

00:00 /Humor | 1 comment | permanent link

The Downed Animal Protection Act

At least there are a few Congresscritters who "get it" regarding our food supply ... let's hope this passes quickly.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Downed Animal Protection Act goes further than the USDA temporary ban in that it also covers sheep, swine, goats, horses, mules and other equines who cannot stand and walk unassisted. It also calls for immediate humane euthanasia as soon as an animal becomes non-ambulatory.

(link) [The Prairie Star]

00:00 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

Mind the Gaps

This is a simply superb editorial by Dahlia Lithwick on the whole "intelligent design" movement and it's real goals ... read it and grow in wisdom.

I must add that this points out a real difference betwixt the "revealed", monotheistic religions and the polytheistic, Heathen/pagan faiths (from hard core Asatrurar to the fluffiest Wiccan). The former claim to have all the answers to every question, and are consequently (and fundamentally) hostile to the very idea of science. The latter tend to see life itself as a question, and to accept that each individual must answer it for him or her self. Various varieties of heathen/pagan belief may have different (and often set) parameters for seeking the answer, but our theology implicitly recognizes the diversity of those answers. By their very nature Christianity and Islam are "one size fits all" faiths - the fact that we heathens and pagans believe in a multiplicity of gods and goddesses insures that we accept learning (and science) as vital signposts on our religious walk.

The problem with science has always been that each new discovery unleashes thousands of new questions and ambiguities. So really, the more we discover new stuff, the stupider we get. Clearly, that isn't working. ID says we shouldn't bother ourselves with resolving scientific inconsistencies or untangling puzzles. We should recognize that what God really wants is for us just to stop learning.

(link) [Slate]

via MyAppleMenu

00:00 /Asatru | 4 comments | permanent link

28 Sep 2005
No Green Acres? Try Skyscrapers

It's shit like this that makes me distrust the "organic" label:

"This is a factory, not a farm," says Hessel, whose own background is in the chip industry. "We just build lettuce instead of CPUs."

Well, at least he's honest about it. He can "build" all the "organic" lettuce he wants to: but I for one will not consume it. I prefer my veggies to be grown, in the ground, under the sun. If that makes me a "Luddite" or a "throwback", then so be it. I contend that we are monkeying about with things we don't really understand - with systems that are too complex to be reduced, and that, eventually, we will pay a terrible price for our hubris.

And guys like this are gonna get the first bill.

Organic farms don't have to be in bucolic settings. They could stand alongside skyscrapers in the middle of Tokyo or Los Angeles, if a Delaware company has its way. By Sam Jaffe.

(link) [Wired News]

00:00 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

Dog flu: widespread but treatable

More scary stuff - note that this one jumped from equines. Apparently this has been making the rounds of various e-lists of late, and was brought to the attention of Snopes.com, who verified it and published more detailed information.

A new canine influenza has sickened dogs at greyhound racing tracks, boarding kennels, and animal shelters in as many as 11 states, killing some animals, causing respiratory infections in others, and striking fear in the hearts of pet owners nationwide. From January to May 2005, reports of outbreaks of a new, respiratory disease primarily in racing dogs came into the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from Florida, Texas, Arkansas, Arizona, West Virginia, Kansas, Iowa, Colorado, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. Not all of these are confirmed cases of canine influenza. However, since this spring, scientists say they've confirmed cases of dog flu in pets in Florida, New York, and Massachusetts, and calls are coming in from veterinarians, shelters, and kennels elsewhere.

(link) [U.S. News & World Report]

00:00 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

Free the Cell Phone!

DMCA madness.

At least one company hopes to outlaw software that unlocks your phone so you can use it on a competing network. But since when is consumer choice a crime? Commentary by Jennifer Granick.

(link) [Wired News]

00:00 /Copywrongs | 0 comments | permanent link

Gas Prices Blamed for Late Credit Payments

Well. Just wait until these new "delinquents" get next months bill.

AP - The percentage of credit card payments that were past due shot up to a record high in the second quarter as surging gasoline prices strained budgets and made it difficult for some people to pay their bills.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

00:00 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

27 Sep 2005
Don Adams of 'Get Smart' Dies at 82

RIP, Agent 86.

AP - Don Adams, the wry-voiced comedian who starred as the fumbling secret agent Maxwell Smart in the 1960s television spoof of James Bond movies, "Get Smart," has died. He was 82.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

00:00 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

25 Sep 2005
Folkways

Lot's of good links in this piece, including to a book I've just added to my "must-get" list: Albion's Seed.

Froma Harrop, a liberal opinion writer, has an interesting article today in the Providence Journal. She compares New York on September 11 (she happened to be there) and New Orleans after Katrina and makes the point that the cultures of the two cities are different.

(link) [U.S. News & World Report]

00:00 /Asatru | 1 comment | permanent link

23 Sep 2005
USDA moves to close four Montana processing plants

I don't know the exact specifics in this case, but it seems to be pretty typical of the way that food "safety" inspections are done nationwide, on a state or federal basis. For example ...

A certain creamery with which I'm associated sometimes buys milk from another local farmer when their own herd doesn't produce enough for their needs. This farmer had hung a washing hose up on a rack in his dairy backwards (yes, that's right - it was facing the wrong direction) and was slapped by the state inspectors with a violation.

This happened on a Friday, and the violations consequences trickled to the creamery, since they had a tank full of his milk. They were told that any products they produced from any milk whatsoever, not just the milk from the "unsafe" dairy, after Saturday at midnight could not be labeled "Grade A" (fit for human consumption). Until midnight it was just fine ... but after that it was "unsafe" and potentially deadly!!! Curiously enough, all of the milk from the "infected" farm was used up at the creamery before this insane order was even issued - so their was absolutely no risk to anyone from anything (as if a such a silly infraction produced risk in the first place).

I've come to view "random" and "arbitrary" as synonyms for "regulations" in agriculture.

BILLINGS, Mont. - Montana Cattlemen's Association (MCA) is outraged over the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) targeting of Montana beef processing plants for enforcement actions or suspension of operations.

(link) [The Prairie Star]

00:00 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

The Digital Dark Age

This has been talked about for a while now: this book from 2001 was my first encounter with the whole idea. And it's only getting worse - truly a 'Copywrong', even if no laws (other than those of nature) are involved.

zygan wrote to mention a Fairfax Digital article about the possibility of a digital dark age, as a result of the increasingly short-term lifespan of digital storage. From the article: "It is 2045, he suggests, and his grandchildren are exploring the attic of his old house when they come across a CD-ROM and a letter, which explains that the disk contains a document that provides directions to obtaining the family fortune. The children are excited. 'But they've never seen a CD before - except in old movies - and, even if they found a suitable disk drive, how will they run the software necessary to interpret the information on the disk? How can they read my obsolete digital document?'" (link) [Slashdot]

00:00 /Copywrongs | 1 comment | permanent link