30 Aug 2007
Mother Teresa's Struggle

I've commented on Mother Teresa before, expressing outrage and disbelief that such a person could actually be considered for any sort of "sainthood". But this latest revelation about her "spiritual struggle" has actually caused me to revise my opinion of her somewhat: she wasn't merely evil, she was monumentally stupid as well, and ignored the lack of evidence apparent in her own life for her religious convictions.

I'm not trying to be cute or trite here: this is a real point of theological divergence between monotheisms, which are based on faith in revelations, and heathen religions, which are based on experience in the world. If I stopped feeling the presence of a god, or if heathenry stopped "working" for me, I'd find another deity or another way of working on the double.

The author of this article takes Christopher Hitchens, an atheist, to task for "trivializing the experience of faith beyond all recognition". I would suggest that he's right: Hitchens does indeed trivialize faith, because the experience of faith is in fact trivial, and dangerous to boot!

If faith is "the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen...", then I have none. In fact, that whole statement is an oxymoron. Evidence is that which can be sensed: seen, touched, smelt, felt or tasted. Hope is purely a construct of the sentient mind - it has no substance at all.

In reality, faith works out to little more than zealous loyalty and blind trust. "Trust me - I know what's best!" "You've stuck with me this far -- have a little faith, you know I'm on your side!"

Faith leads to things like the Inquisition, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Perhaps more topically, it leads to equivocations like "I know there weren't really any WMD's in Iraq, but that doesn't matter! Bush was right to go in there and clean Saddam's clock, because he's our President and I'm a loyal American!".

There is no concept of "faith" in heathenry. I expect that if I do certain things and behave in certain ways, results will follow. I don't know what the results will be: expectation is not the same as faith, because expectations may fail, and are recognized as having that potential from the get-go. If my expectations fail, I change my practice, attempting to get results.

If monotheists are the idealists of the religious world, we heathens are the pragmatists. And I've never really understood idealism at all...

Admiration for a woman who accomplished great things in the face of spiritual despair.

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

07:01 /Asatru | 5 comments | permanent link

29 Aug 2007
Toy recall highlights rife corner-cutting in China

There is no doubt that there are "quality issues" with Chinese made products: from toothpaste to dog food to this latest fit over leaded toys. There's no way to defend these practices by Chinese manufacturers, but we shouldn't be surprised by them, either. Every nation in the throes of rapid industrialization goes through a period like this:

The world has seen its iron age, its silver age, its golden age and its brazen age. This is the age of shoddy. The new brown stone palaces on Fifth Avenue, the new equipages at the Park, the new diamonds which dazzle unaccustomed eyes, the new silks and satins which rustle over loudly, as if to demand attention, the new people who live in the palaces and ride in the carriages and wear the diamonds and silks: all are shoddy. From devil's dust they sprang, and unto devil's dust they shall return. They live in shoddy houses. They ride in shoddy carnages, drawn by shoddy horses, and driven by shoddy coachmen who wear shoddy liveries.

They lie upon shoddy beds which have just come from the upholsterers and still smell of shoddy varnish. They wear shoddy clothes purchased from shoddy merchants who have erected mammoth stores, which appear to be marble, but are really shoddy. They set or follow the shoddy fashions, and fondly imagine themselves a la mode de Paris when they are only a la mode de shoddy. Their professions and occupations are pure shoddy. They are shoddy brokers in Wall Street or shoddy manufacturers of shoddy goods, or shoddy contractors for shoddy articles for a shoddy government. Six days in the week they are shoddy business men. On the seventh they are shoddy Christians...

And that's from an editorial in the New York Herald, dated October 6th, 1863.

Reuters - Boxes stacked in the factory window are labeled clearly: "Fisher-Price," "toys," "preschool." The future of the plant, though, is not so clear.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

06:23 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

28 Aug 2007
Copyright Advocacy Group Violates Copyright

Too much ...

Commercial scholarly publishers are beginning to get afraid of the open access movement. They've hired a high-priced consultant to help them sway public opinion in favor of copyright restrictions on taxpayer-funded research. Funny thing is, their own website contains several copyright violations. It seems they pulled their images directly from the Getty Images website — watermarks and all — without paying for their use.

(link) [Slashdot]

06:21 /Copywrongs | 1 comment | permanent link

27 Aug 2007
Fencing News

Yesterday we set 9 wooden line posts, 12 tee posts and 90 yards of fence across the east pasture. For each line post we used the power auger (the Earthquake) to bore a three foot hole, finishing it off with a shovel and post hole diggers. For each tee post I became a human pile driver, using a tee post hammer. 25 strokes each.

We set 47 inch cattle fence, and the stretching itself was done with a manual come-along from the south corder post.

We started at 8:30 am and ended at 8:30 pm. But it's done - we took advantage of the beautiful weather. Next weekend, more fencing. And maybe I'll mow the yard. Maybe.

06:37 /Home | 2 comments | permanent link

Two Articles and a Blog Post

for your monetary policy education. Read in order ...

Fed bends rules to help two big banks

If the Federal Reserve is waiving a fundamental principle in banking regulation, the credit crunch must still be sapping the strength of America's biggest banks. Fortune's Peter Eavis documents an unusual Fed move.

(link) [CNN/Money]

Subprime may be hitting credit cards, too

The credit crunch has begun to affect consumers' wallets in areas other than housing.

(link) [CNN/Money]

Top 8 Ways Hard Money Would Change Your Life

If I had to pick the single biggest reason why I'm a Ron Paul fan, it would be his monetary policy.

(link) [LewRockwell.com]

via Brad Spangler

06:18 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

In Nature’s Casino

Long but fascinating article on insurance, math and catastrophe.

It was Aug. 24, 2005, and New Orleans was still charming. Tropical Depression 12 was spinning from the Bahamas toward Florida, but the chances of an American city’s being destroyed by nature were remote, even for one below sea level.

(link) [New York Times Magazine]

06:12 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link

NYC raid yields counterfeit cigarettes

The way we're treating tobacco, the next shipment will be from Columbia ... and the same folks who brought us the "War on Drugs" will bring us the "War on Tobacco".

Authorities seized nearly 600,000 packs of cigarettes with brand names like Marlboro and Newport, half of which are suspected of being counterfeits from China, prosecutors announced Monday.

(link) [Boston Globe]

05:54 /Politics | 1 comment | permanent link

26 Aug 2007
Windows Genuine Advantage Servers Out

Reading through the forums this primarily affected Vista, and in many cases actually "de-functionalized" the operating system.

Why anyone wants to install a system that demands access to the net to function, and can be taken down by a remote server at will, is beyond me.

Users of both Windows XP and Windows Vista were writing to say that they could not validate their installations using WGA, and one user even said that his installation was invalidated by the service.

(link) [Slashdot]

07:14 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link

25 Aug 2007
Surly Stew

Who stuffed my surly stew in her belly?
Peevish sheep?
Sodden weasel?
Brazen goat?
None but the pestiferous cat!
That insolent knave!
The rudeliest creature,
she is a dull-witted slave to her guts!

This is what I get for having Shakespearean refrigerator magnets.

09:58 /Home | 2 comments | permanent link

24 Aug 2007
Out-of-body experience recreated

Well, this headline doesn't quite get it straight - the experiment induced an out of body sensation, it's didn't recreate an out of body experience. Subtle, but vastly important, difference.

Scientists have found a way to trigger an out-of-body experience in healthy volunteers.

(link) [BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition]

06:28 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

US customs bust coke-smuggling 'submarine'

Well, the vehicle used is certainly interesting and innovative, but there's another aspect to this article that struck me, and it's one few people think about. Talk a historical jaunt with me for a moment ...

If the year was 1718, and Edward Teach had stopped this vessel it would've be listing as one more reason for the King's Navy to hunt him down and hang him.

If this was 1811 and British forces had seized this vessel looking for "deserters", it would've been listed as one of the causes of the War of 1812.

Yet in 2007, warships routinely stop and search merchantmen on the high seas, sometimes seizing their cargo and crew, without being accused of either piracy or running press gangs.

The crime here wasn't "smuggling", which requires actually bringing "contraband" goods across an international border. The crime here was piracy, and the criminals weren't on a submarine.

US Customs are feeling pretty pleased with themselves after busting a stealthy "semi-submerged smuggling vessel" packed with $352m of Bolivian marching powder.

(link) [The Register]

06:25 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

Infectious diseases spreading faster than ever: U.N.

Why are we surprised by this, given the increased numbers (and mobility) of the human population?

Reuters - Infectious diseases are emerging more quickly around the globe, spreading faster and becoming increasingly difficult to treat, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Thursday.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

06:11 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link

22 Aug 2007
A new e-mail scam

The real value of this little gem isn't the warning it issues. It's the link it provides to an earlier series from the same author on a little application from Microsoft called DropMyRights.

This guy (Michael Horowitz) "gets it", security wise. Read and learn.

Yet another e-mail-based scam, reminding us of the importance of always be skeptical about e-mail messages, and not to judge them based on the from address.

(link) [CNET News.com]

06:40 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link

21 Aug 2007
Much Needed Rain

No blogging yesterday because, well, we set about 50 yards of new fence, and by the time we got in and ate and got cleaned up and I sat down at the computer, it was starting to storm. We had one power loss, so I shut down the systems, not wanting to risk any damage.

We had a gentle drizzle most of the night, along with copious amounts of thunder and lightening. Not nearly enough moisture, but some is better than none, as my momma always said, and I'm grateful for what we got. It looks promising today, too, with 80% chance of rain all the way through the wee hours of tomorrow morning.

We might get lucky.

Update: We got lucky, indeed!!!

06:53 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

Little bear harbouring isolated neutron star

Well I'll be ... did they find the Dragon's Egg?

A group of American and Canadian astronomers have spotted what appears to be an isolated neutron star relatively near to Earth, the BBC reports.

(link) [The Register]

06:50 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link