12 Sep 2006
Pope Assails Secularism, Adding Footnote on Jihad

News flash! Pot calls Kettle Black! Crusades Good, Jihad Bad!

While his predecessors were certainly concerned about Mohammad ordering conversions by the sword, they certainly didn't believe that violent conversion is contrary to reason and thus “contrary to God’s nature”. As long as it was conversion to Christianity, and specifically the Catholic variety. On the off chance that this is not an intentional blind spot, I'd suggest a bit of a history refresher for the good Pope. There's lots of material to cover, but he could start here. After this refresher, maybe he'd consider an apology.

Don't hold your breath.

In a speech on Western science and philosophy, the pope said jihadi violence is contrary to reason and God’s plan.

(link) [New York Times]

22:23 /Asatru | 1 comment | permanent link

Air Force chief: Test weapons on testy U.S. mobs

Lovely. What can I say - he's worried about bad PR if he fries an Iraqi mob, but apparently he'd feel better about it if he was toasting Americans.

Note that this is not a military officer, it's Bush's appointee as Secretary of the Air Force. And I suppose it's just part and parcel of this Administration's political strategy to blind, deafen and fry our brains before we regain the good sense to send them packing.

Unbelievable.

Nonlethal weapons such as high-power microwave devices should be used on American citizens in crowd-control situations before being used on the battlefield, the Air Force secretary said Tuesday.

(link) [CNN.com]

22:06 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

Black-Bone Silky Fowl: An odd bird with meat to crow about

Black-Bone Silky FowlIt may be nutritious, but what a look! There's no way you could get American consumers to eat that, no matter how good tasting!

Reminds me of the nutria problem. They're a major introduced pest in Louisiana, and they look like large rats with orange teeth! Part of the control effort has been to encourage people to eat them - they're allegedly pretty tasty, like rabbit. But despite several noted Cajun chefs developing nutria recipes it's not quite caught on. And I'd venture a prediction that it never will.

Chemists have developed a simple and effective method to measure the levels of carnosine in chicken, and have used it to show that unusually high levels of carnosine exist in Black-Bone Silky Fowl. This odd-looking chicken is revered in traditional Chinese medicine, and the finding may help to establish a scientific basis for long-standing beliefs about the healthful nature of Black-Bone Silky Fowl.

(link) [EurekAlert!]

21:55 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

Chaplain enters plea at court-martial

A press conference is not a religious service, no matter how you cut it. And his orders were clear: when offering prayers in a context outside of his specific calling's religious services, he was to offer them in a non-denominational and non specific manner. That's not too tough - I've lead prayers before very mixed religious groups and managed to avoid offending anyone.

But not only is his insistence on praying "in the name of Jesus" contrary to his specific orders, can you imagine the can of worms that would be opened if the military allowed all chaplains to offer faith-specific prayers in public forums? Imagine the howls from this fellow were he subjected to a prayer in the name of Allah. Or Odin. Hel, the military caught all kinds of grief just for allowing Wiccan services a few years back.

If this guy can't follow orders this simple, and understand the reasoning behind them, he doesn't belong in the chaplaincy at all.

AP - A Navy chaplain charged with disobeying orders by wearing his uniform at a White House protest pleaded not guilty at his court-martial Tuesday.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

21:42 /Asatru | 0 comments | permanent link

Zap!

Lightening will do that, you know. And we lost our new Cisco router during one particularly nasty storm tonight. But ...

I was able to get the case off of it, which I could never do with the Netgear boxes, and see exactly where it blew - it was in the ISDN circuit. Which led me to investigate the surge suppressor for the line. Which showed it to be a two wire job, while ISDN uses all four wires.

The problem will be solved tomorrow, even if I have to scratch build it myself.

And I'll have to buy another backup router, but, oh well - I really think I've finally got a handle on this.

20:44 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

Future Be Warned: Keep Out!

An interesting thought ... kinda like the plaque they put on Voyager, but a bit easier in that I think we can safely assume that our audience will be the same species! Be that as it may be, how do you communicate effectively across the eons?

My first thought was that the "skull and crossbones" design would be a universal indicator of "poison" or "danger" but then I got to thinking a bit about history - if I happened across an obviously old skull and crossbones design on a stone on a Caribbean island, would I have found toxic waste or pirate gold? Hmmmm...

Say you sealed tons of radioactive waste half a mile below the New Mexico desert. Assuming the facility survived for 10 thousand years, what sort of "danger" sign would you need? By Vince Beiser.

(link) [Wired News: Top Stories]

17:04 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link