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No Communion for Pro-Choice Politicians
Apparently they have some issue with women having control over their own bodies so they'll deny communion to pro-choice politicians.
Hey, isn't John Kerry a pro-choice Catholic? This couldn't have anything to do with him could it?
Isn't a divisive move like this more likely to result in more people leaving the "faith"?
comment posted at 4:14 PM on Apr-23-04
comment posted at 5:24 PM on Apr-23-04

"The Conscientious Objector Policy Act" just passed the Michigan Assembly, and awaits voting in the state Senate. The bill legalizes the right for a doctor, or any health provider, to deny treatment based on "ethical, moral, or religious grounds." In addition to the obvious notion of restricting abortion, in the most extreme example the bill technically allows doctors to deny treatment to gays simply for believing that homosexuality is immoral.
comment posted at 5:29 PM on Apr-23-04

Red vs. Blue and Political Self-Segregation:

“Republicans and Democrats joke these days that they can’t understand each other, that they feel as though they live on different planets. It’s no joke. They do. One of the reasons American politics is so bitter is that Republicans and Democrats are less likely today to live in the same community than at any time in the last 55 years.”

The Austin-American Statesman’s Bill Bishop begins a series of articles on the increasing political segregation across the US—a variety of segregation that has surprisingly increased while others (for example, racial) have declined. Timothy Noah of Slate has some thoughts. For background, it’s been discussed elsewhere that the traditional 2000 election red vs. blue state map is misleading and that a gradated county map might be more enlightening. Here’s one. Here’s an analysis with a different take on the data. And here are some other interesting cartograms of that election’s results. [Alternative Links Inside]
comment posted at 7:28 AM on Apr-22-04

What kind of quiz-taker are you? Find out what kid of Internet quiz-taker you are. While you're at it, find out what Hummel figurine you are and which industrial solvent you are.
comment posted at 1:41 PM on Apr-17-04

HR 3077 - "unprecedented federally mandated intrusion into the content and conduct of university-based area studies programmes."

"There is a great deal at stake for American higher education and academic freedom. If HR 3077 becomes law - the Senate will review the bill next - it will create a board that monitors how closely universities reflect government policy. Since the legislation assumes that any flaw lies 'with the experts, not the policy', the government could be given the power to introduce politically sympathetic voices into the academic mainstream and to reshape the boundaries of academic inquiry. Institutional resistance would presumably be punished by the withdrawal of funds, which would be extremely damaging to Middle East centres especially."

you didn't have reason to call your congressperson tomorrow? you do now. frightening.

via the excellent openbrackets.com
comment posted at 2:44 PM on Apr-17-04
comment posted at 2:52 PM on Apr-17-04
comment posted at 1:47 PM on Apr-18-04

Jesus Christ: Choose your own savior.
Everyone claims their Jesus is the "real" one, the only authentic Christ unperverted by secular society or religious institutions... Nowadays, even nonbelievers assert a superior understanding of who the actual Jesus really was and what he stood for.
comment posted at 11:09 AM on Apr-15-04

This is a message to our neighbours north of the Mediterranean, containing a reconciliation initiative as a response to their positive reactions. Osama bin Laden's latest message to the world. (more inside)
comment posted at 9:05 AM on Apr-15-04

Once more, with hobbits... A Lord of the Rings / Buffy the Vampire Slayer adventure, heralded by the folks at the Z+Partners blog as "rip, mix culture" incarnate... offered here for your delectation.
comment posted at 2:49 PM on Apr-12-04

The year to fear for Taiwan: 2006. The Taiwan correspondent for Jane's Defence Weekly speculates on how China might go about the conquest of Taiwan.
comment posted at 3:17 PM on Apr-10-04

What, me worry?
comment posted at 11:33 AM on Apr-8-04

What America Can Learn From Its Atheists -- by Leon Wieseltier. Taking the Supreme Court case being decided on the "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, he wonders what happens to God and religion when it's pressed into service and has all meaning bleached away. For the argument that a reference to God is not a reference to God is a sign that American religion is forgetting its reasons. The need of so many American believers to have government endorse their belief is thoroughly abject. How strong, and how wise, is a faith that needs to see God's name wherever it looks?
comment posted at 7:53 PM on Apr-6-04

"The OSCE focuses only on establishment of democracy, the protection of human rights and the freedom of the press. I am now questioning these values." -Uzbek President Islam Karimov
Can we really wage an effective war on terrorism by aligning ourselves with villains? Does it strike anyone else as silly that we've justified our invasion of Iraq with the removal of Saddam while pairing with his Uzbek counterpart? Lack of political freedom and rampant poverty has tensions mounting in Uzbekistan(1 2 3 4).
comment posted at 12:08 PM on Apr-1-04
comment posted at 1:18 PM on Apr-1-04

Google redesigns.
Got rid of their colored tabs, added Froogle and lost DMOZ on the front page, and tweaked the search result pages with a new layout (sans colored boxes) for Google's AdWords. Still using font tags and with minimal use of internal CSS.

To top it all off, Google Labs adds personalized Web search and Web alerts. Wow.
comment posted at 12:01 PM on Mar-30-04

Still looking for Rosebud. Nine Years after sending a copy of a radio programme he made to Stanley Kubrick, Jon Ronson, is invited to the late Kubrick's "secret lair". You drive through rural Hertfordshire, passing ordinary-sized postwar houses and opticians and vets. Then you turn right at an electric gate with a "Do Not Trespass" sign. Drive through that, and through some woods, and past a long, white fence with the paint peeling off, and then another electric gate, and then another electric gate, and then another electric gate, and you're in the middle of an estate full of boxes. [...] Tony takes me into a large room painted blue and filled with books. "This used to be the cinema," he says. "Is it the library now?" I ask. "Look closer at the books," says Tony. I do. "Bloody hell," I say.
comment posted at 10:38 AM on Mar-27-04

I thought Bush liked to give off to the public that he was serious about WMD.
Guess I was wrong.

America. Get rid of him, for all your own sakes (and I include conservatives in this. He has to go. This European isn't asking; he's begging.
comment posted at 9:22 AM on Mar-26-04

The Great American Man-Dog Marriage Panic. Muttrimonial bliss could be yours, now that the gates of hell are opening!
comment posted at 3:53 PM on Mar-24-04
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comment posted at 9:58 AM on Mar-25-04
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comment posted at 5:47 PM on Mar-25-04

Buy His Future $59,965.90 owed, $245.75 donated.
"In exchange for your donation, I will from time to time write to you about what I've done with the life you've made possible. Make a gift, and free me to do good things with my life for this world."
It struck me as funny: have we come to a point in society where a man's future is worth the amount of his student loans?
comment posted at 3:55 PM on Mar-22-04
comment posted at 7:07 PM on Mar-22-04

Interviewing with an Intelligence Agency (or, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Fort Meade) is a really fascinating read of one fellows experience while attempting to pass a security clearance for employment with the National Security Agency. Ironically enough I have to wonder if perhaps you need to be just a little bit crazy to do it. But of course crazy in a NSA/DOD friendly way, as opposed to standing on a table clucking like a chicken...
comment posted at 9:04 PM on Mar-15-04

Political life in the Western world has become so infantilised that even eight-year-olds can share its brilliant insights... It appears that how you feel, rather than what you believe in, has become the defining feature of political protest. Via Arts&Letters Daily.
comment posted at 11:00 AM on Mar-11-04
comment posted at 11:43 AM on Mar-11-04

Portland joins other cities in offering gay marriages. Multnomah County didn't consult the state Attorney General before they started issuing licenses, though, which is a bit unusual. Forgiveness easier than permission? There's also a Unitarian Church in downtown Portland that is performing same-sex marriage ceremonies, if you're interested in a church wedding.
comment posted at 2:26 PM on Mar-3-04
comment posted at 3:09 PM on Mar-3-04
comment posted at 3:17 PM on Mar-3-04

Sorry, you've flunked. This gave me the best laugh I've had all week. I love the way you can tell the teacher marking the paper is getting more and more pissed off by the increasing ferocity of the red pen strokes. Heheheh. Give the kid an A.
comment posted at 11:30 AM on Mar-3-04

Webmonkey to close down
Ave, Webmonkey, old friend. You were a great source of new tricks for self-taught old dogs.
comment posted at 5:51 PM on Feb-29-04

"XD38" - Nexus Personality A site for multifaceted people who are technical and artistic, verbal and mechanical, rational and intuitive; who are interested in everything; who find themselves to be a kind of natural link between far-ranging, diverse areas of human endeavor.
comment posted at 3:43 PM on Feb-28-04

A Californian's Conception of the Continental US. (Scroll down a bit for the funny fun.) In the tradition of the United States of my Racist Aunt, the World According to America, and perhaps the Aussie Projection. (Link via Anil.)
comment posted at 2:44 PM on Feb-26-04

In 2000, 18-year-old Matthew Limon was tried for having sex with a 14-year old. Under Kansas state law, the consensual, though illegal, act merited a maximum 15-month sentence. Except the 14-year old was also male. Last week, the Kansas appeals court ruled that because of this, Limon posed a "greater danger to the sexual mores of society," and ruled as such it was fair to sentence Limon to 17 years in prison. State prosecutors applaud the decision as a victory against "the potential attack on Kansas' ban on gay marriage."
comment posted at 1:31 PM on Feb-2-04
comment posted at 8:12 PM on Feb-2-04
comment posted at 8:16 PM on Feb-2-04

Did belief in extraterrestrials pave the way for today’s general belief in global warming? Is the blending of public policy with science creating junk science? Michael Crichton drew out an intriguing connection in this lecture at Caltech. Via Arts & Letters Daily.
comment posted at 9:22 PM on Jan-3-04

Winamp 2 + Winamp 3 = Winamp 5 (download lite or standard) . After it's admittedly dissapointing and rushed effort with Version 3 of their popular media player, the Nullsoft team seeks to make amends with their newest release, combining the stability of 2.x with the extras of Winamp 3, adding several new features while they're at it. Though already long-considered the standard for Windows machines, Winamp 5 puts more pressure on other competing, low memory-footprint audio players that have cropped up like Foobar and QCD. More cheerleading/zealotry inside...
comment posted at 6:44 PM on Dec-15-03
comment posted at 6:45 PM on Dec-15-03
comment posted at 6:48 PM on Dec-15-03

A Flash-heavy "Illustrated Complete Summary of Gravity's Rainbow". Includes an Episode Guide and a gallery of related art. See also the Wikipedia entry if you want some background, including a link to an online concordance.
comment posted at 11:06 PM on Dec-14-03

A Canadian reporter looks at Texas healthcare.
comment posted at 10:35 PM on Dec-8-03
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comment posted at 8:01 AM on Dec-9-03