tsujigiri

The editorial comments of Chris and James, covering the news, science, religion, politics and culture.

"I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day." -Douglas Adams

Saturday, July 03, 2004

Son of Sam meets Son of God

Whether you're an alcoholic son of an oil magnate or a Watergate burglar or a notorious serial killer, once you drink the blood and eat the flesh of a 2000-year-old undead Jew, and say the magic prayer, then thanks to His perfectly voluntary sacrifice, God will let us all be friends again. Yay God! Except for you non-believers. We need to stop you at all costs. Serial killers in, Atheists OUT.
Family.org - CitizenLink - FNIF News - Berkowitz Interview Draws Criticism: Are there stories of redemption that should not be told? Focus on the Family is under fire for sharing the salvation story of David Berkowitz. In the 1970's, Berkowitz, who was known as 'Son of Sam,' murdered six people and wounded seven others. He was sent to jail, where, after a number of years, a fellow prisoner shared the Gospel. Said Berkowitz, of his conversion: 'I deserve to be in Hell right now for the things I did. But, in spite of that, God, Who is rich in mercy, reached out to me in my darkest time and lifted me up.'

Bush and Church-State Separation, yet again.

Bush and Co. continue with their cynical drive to reunite church and state. This time, they are soliciting volunteer efforts directly from churches. It amazes me how much Bush has begun to look like some Marxian caricature of a war-profiteering robber-barron oil tycoon, pimping churches and government policy. They do it in such a public, obvious way. It is as though they studied their techniques from critiques of church-state collusion. I say they studied it from critiques, because the function of a critique is to make clandestine relationships appear obvious. If Bush Co. had studied from actual learned masters in this art, we wouldn't be hearing about it so much.
Yahoo! News - Churchgoers Get Direction From Bush Campaign: The Bush-Cheney reelection campaign has sent a detailed plan of action to religious volunteers across the country asking them to turn over church directories to the campaign, distribute issue guides in their churches and persuade their pastors to hold voter registration drives. ... But tax experts said the campaign is walking a fine line between permissible activity by individual congregants and impermissible activity by congregations. Supporters of Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, charged that the Bush-Cheney campaign is luring churches into risking their tax status. ... The instruction sheet circulated by the Bush-Cheney campaign to religious volunteers lists 22 "duties" to be performed by specific dates. By July 31, for example, volunteers are to "send your Church Directory to your State Bush-Cheney '04 Headquarters or give [it] to a BC04 Field Rep" and "Talk to your Pastor about holding a Citizenship Sunday and Voter Registration Drive." By Aug. 15, they are to "talk to your Church's seniors or 20-30 something group about Bush/Cheney '04" and "recruit 5 more people in your church to volunteer for the Bush Cheney campaign." By Sept. 17, they are to host at least two campaign-related potluck dinners with church members, and in October they are to "finish calling all Pro-Bush members of your church," "finish distributing Voter Guides in your church" and place notices on church bulletin boards or in Sunday programs "about all Christian citizens needing to vote." The document was provided to The Washington Post by a Democrat. A spokesman for the Internal Revenue Service (news - web sites), Frank Keith, said, "It would be inappropriate for the IRS, based on a limited set of facts and circumstances, to render a judgment about whether the activities in this document would or would not endanger a church's tax-exempt status." He pointed out, however, that the IRS on June 10 sent a strongly worded letter to both the Republican and Democratic national committees, reminding them that tax-exempt charitable groups "are prohibited from directly or indirectly participating or intervening in any political campaign on behalf of, or in opposition to, any candidate for public office." That warning came one week after The Post and other news media reported on a Bush-Cheney campaign e-mail that sought to identify 1,600 "friendly congregations" in Pennsylvania where Bush supporters "might gather on a regular basis." The IRS letter noted that religious organizations are allowed to sponsor debates, distribute voter guides and conduct voter registration drives. But if those efforts show "a preference for or against a certain candidate or party . . . it becomes a prohibited activity," the letter said. Milton Cerny, a tax specialist in the Washington office of the law firm Caplin & Drysdale who formerly administered tax-exempt groups for the IRS, said there is nothing in the campaign instructions "that on its face clearly would violate" the law. "But these activities, if conducted in concert with the church or church leadership, certainly could be construed by the IRS as the church engaging in partisan electioneering," he said. "The devil is in the details." Rosemary E. Fei, a tax specialist at the San Francisco law firm of Silk, Adler & Colvin, said the campaign checklist "feels dangerous to me" not just because of what is in it, but because of what is not. "There's no mention whatsoever that churches should be careful to remain nonpartisan," she said. Holt suggested such warnings are unnecessary. "Why would we warn one citizen about the boundaries of their political discussion with another citizen?" he said.

Rabies and Organ Donors

Two things I wish I hadn't learned this week:
  • You can get rabies from an organ transplant.
  • It can take up to a year to develop symptoms of rabies after being bitten by a rabid bat.
Sound implausible? It happened:
The New York Times > Science > 3 Fatal Cases of Rabies Are Linked to Ill Donor: In what federal officials said was the first case of its kind, three people who received organ transplants in May from a single donor in Texas died from rabies in June. The donor was not suspected of having rabies at his death, which doctors attributed to a stroke, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said yesterday. It was not until this week, after a pathologist in Dallas who was puzzled about the deaths asked the federal agency for help, that the connection was made, Dr. Artun Srinivasan, a C.D.C. physician said in a telephone interview. ...A year can pass from when a person is bitten by a rabid animal or exposed to a bat before rabies develops. ...health officials at the disease control centers and in four states, Alabama, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas, are seeking to identify quickly anyone who had contact with the four patients to determine who needs immunizations. People exposed to patients' saliva are those most likely to need treatment. ...Although rabies has never been transmitted from an organ donor, eight people - one in the United States and seven elsewhere - have developed rabies after having corneal transplants.

Friday, July 02, 2004

Anonymity as Technicality

This is fascinating:
The secret history of Anonymous -- The author of Imperial Hubris is unmasked and says he fears for his job at the CIA, not for his life at the hands of Al Qaeda BY JASON VEST A Phoenix investigation has discovered that Anonymous does not, in fact, want to be anonymous at all — and that his anonymity is neither enforced nor voluntarily assumed out of fear for his safety, but rather compelled by an arcane set of classified regulations that are arguably being abused in an attempt to spare the CIA possible political inconvenience.

Burning

What Chris said, but in the Times:
Paul Krugman -- And for all its flaws, "Fahrenheit 9/11" performs an essential service. It would be a better movie if it didn't promote a few unproven conspiracy theories, but those theories aren't the reason why millions of people who aren't die-hard Bush-haters are flocking to see it. These people see the film to learn true stories they should have heard elsewhere, but didn't. Mr. Moore may not be considered respectable, but his film is a hit because the respectable media haven't been doing their job.

Monday, June 28, 2004

How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must)

From Amazon.com: note the pattern. Unimaginative formula: simplistic book-titles that catch the conservative eye. Poor short term memory: the reason why simple phrases need to be preceded by an irreducible adjective and a colon.
Amazon.com: Books: How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must) : The World According to Ann Coulter: Customers who bought this book also bought:
  • Deliver Us from Evil : Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism by Sean Hannity
  • Arrogance: Rescuing America From the Media Elite by Bernard Goldberg
  • A National Party No More: The Conscience of a Conservative Democrat by Zell Miller, Smyth & Helwys Pub Stroud & Hall Pub
  • Slander : Liberal Lies About the American Right by ANN COULTER
  • Persecution: How Liberals Are Waging War Against Christianity by David Limbaugh

Release

The Coulter Challenge, by Mark Ames.
So here is my public challenge to Ann Coulter: I propose that you and I spend a night together in a four-star hotel. We will wine together, we will dine together, we will harden each other's nipples with erotic pillow talk about Sen. Joe McCarthy, and yes, Ann, we will fuck. Ann, here's the dare: I am betting that no matter how much you try, no matter what prostate-massaging tricks a John Birch Prom Queen like you possesses, you, Ann Coulter, cannot make me come.