Monthly Archives: December 2006

One Man’s Religion… Under Attack?

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In America it seems that numerous Christian leaders claim that Christianity is under assault, in a war even. It would also seem this war is being fought on many fronts. For example; The War on Christmas & the “Battle” against “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, the forceful removal of “God from the public square” and the forced removal of “God from our public schools,” and of course the “Hidden Gay Agenda”…

Source: FortBendNow: One Man’s Religion… Under Attack?

Long, but well worth the read.

Iraqi Court Says Hussein Must Die Within 30 Days – New York Times

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BAGHDAD, Dec. 26 – An Iraqi appeals court on Tuesday upheld the death sentence against Saddam Hussein and ruled that the man whose brutal reign began in 1979 and ended with the American-led invasion in 2003 must go to the gallows within 30 days.

It was the court of last resort for Mr. Hussein, who received his death sentence on Nov. 5 from the Iraqi High Tribunal, a court set up specifically to pass judgment on his years in power. No further appeals are possible, and his final legal recourse appears to be a clause in the Constitution stating that the Iraqi president must approve all death sentences.

That clause offers Mr. Hussein only the slenderest of hopes. Jalal Talabani, the Iraqi president, has said he is formally against the death penalty, but he has permitted the hangings of many Iraqis convicted of capital crimes. And the Constitution may be trumped by an article in the charter of the tribunal stating that its sentences may be commuted by no one, not even the president. …

Source: Iraqi Court Says Hussein Must Die Within 30 Days – New York Times

The Code of Hammurabi lives.  You’d think, after three thousand years and at least two “merciful” gods, we’d have managed better, but two wrongs still make a right, it seems.

Literary Trivium

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In its history, 7 authors have reached #1 on both the New York Times Fiction and Non-fiction lists. Six of them are Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, William Styron, Irving Wallace, Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss) and Mitch Albom (Tuesdays with Morrie). Who is the 7th?

See the comments for the answer.

The plot thickens for Hemingway’s cats

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The legendary American novelist Ernest Hemingway lived in Key West for a decade in the 1930s, in a stone mansion on Whitehead Street with his wife, Pauline, and a six-toed cat named Snowball.

Hemingway divorced Pauline in 1939, but Snowball stayed on. Today, about 50 of Snowball’s descendants roam the grounds, to the delight of many tourists who visit the Hemingway Home and Museum. But the cats won’t be roaming much longer, if the federal government has its way.

Source: WZZM 13 Grand Rapids, Michigan – The plot thickens for Hemingway’s cats

That’s what happens when you have an illiterate president.

Steve Irwin Doll To Be Introduced

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In honor of the late Irwin’s dedication to nature conservation and education and his love of animals, Wild Republic, the nature brand of K&M International, has teamed up with the Irwin family and the Australia Zoo to bring a new line of toys to the USA. Among the line’s 39 products: an Irwin figure ($22) that spouts Steve’s trademark phrases – “Crikey!” among them, no doubt – play sets and plush toys. They will be unveiled at the International Toy Fair Feb. 11-14 in New York.

Source: WZZM13.com – Irwin doll unveiled

A Red Flag for Jet Lag – washingtonpost.com

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A study at the University of Virginia released during the height of Thanksgiving and Christmas travel seasons showed that a majority of elderly mice died while being subjected to the equivalent of a Washington-to-Paris flight once a week for eight weeks. More intense forms of jet lag sped up the death rate in the elderly rodents, the study found. …

…The study has focused new attention on the problem and raised questions about whether severe jet lag can be harmful to health. It also has drawn attention to work by other researchers looking into ways to help vacationing families and business travelers avoid jet lag. The study is one of the first hard scientific looks into the health effects of jet lag, experts said. …

More: A Red Flag for Jet Lag – washingtonpost.com

Audits fault AIDS program

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WASHINGTON – President Bush’s ambitious AIDS-fighting program in poor countries has pushed so hard for fast results that basic record keeping and accountability often went by the wayside, making it hard to judge the true success, according to government audits and officials.

[Bidness as usual.]

Investigators found the three-year-old, $15 billion program has significantly miscounted patients it helped or was unable to verify claims of success by local groups that took U.S. money to prevent the spread of disease or care for people with AIDS and their children.  The Bush administration says it has worked to fix the problems that were found in multiple countries and outlined in several audits.

[It's pretty hard to verify successes when you don't subscribe to the protocols that produce them -- like condom use.]

“It’s not good enough for the auditors to hear from the mission that we did A, B and C but we can’t prove it to you, or there’s no documentation to prove that we did it,” said Joe Farinella, a top watchdog inside the U.S. Agency for International Development.

[Must be former Halliburton staff.]

 Farinella is the assistant inspector general who oversaw the investigations into how U.S. AIDS money was spent overseas in 2004-05. He said many recipients failed to keep records that would provide “reasonable assurance that what they say was done was in fact carried out.

More: The Seattle Times: Health: Audits fault AIDS program

U.S. deaths in Iraq exceed 9-11 count

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BAGHDAD, Iraq – At least 36 Iraqis died Tuesday in bombings, officials said, including a coordinated strike that killed 25 in western Baghdad. Separately, the deaths of six U.S. soldiers pushed the American toll beyond the number of victims in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Source: U.S. deaths in Iraq exceed 9-11 count | Chron.com – Houston Chronicle

Let’s see: they toppled a country that was no threat to the US, captured a dictator who was no threat to the US, found no WMD’s — whether or not threats to the US, destroyed a country’s infrastructure, killed at least a hundred thousand of its citizens, drove it into civil war, spent nearly a trillion dollars.  Let’s see — what else?  OH YES…bolstered the finances of the military-industrial complex and big business in general (while running up a debt of two trillion dollars — about $2,450,000,000,000 more than the $450,000,000,000 SURPLUS we had in 2000.)

Oh, I forgot: they also drove the Taliban into hiding and gave a leg up to the opium-growing warlords.  Now the Taliban, who formerly opposed the opium trade, are getting into it themselves.  (But they secured — perhaps — the gas pipeline rights that they needed.)

And Saudi Arabia, the home country of all but two of the 911 conspirators, is still our good buddy (and the world’s largest oil producer).

Diabetics in the Workplace Confront a Tangle of Laws – New York Times

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Even an outspoken advocate for diabetics like Fran Carpentier, a Type 1 diabetic and a senior editor at Parade magazine, understands the implications for business. “Knowing what it’s like to live with the disease hour by hour, day by day, I wonder if I owned my own company if I would hire someone with diabetes,” she said. “I’m being bluntly honest. And it kills me to say this.”

Doctors, though, say that with improved medications and methods of self-testing blood sugar, most diabetics can do almost any job if they properly manage their illness. Yet myths about the disease persist, advocates say, leading many companies to shun diabetic employees.  …  Diabetics in the Workplace Confront a Tangle of Laws – New York Times

British Troops Raid Iraqi Police Station, Killing 7 – New York Times

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The discovery of the fetid dungeon added to a string of abuses by the Iraqi security forces, highlighting the continuing struggle to combat the infiltration of the police and army by militias and criminal elements – even in a Shiite city like Basra, where there is no sectarian violence.  …  British Troops Raid Iraqi Police Station, Killing 7 – New York Times

There’s no civil war, the police can handle things with a bit of help, and if we just stay the course we’re sure we’ll win.

The Man on the Table Devised the Surgery – New York Times

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In late afternoon last Dec. 31, Dr. Michael E. DeBakey, then 97, was alone at home in Houston in his study preparing a lecture when a sharp pain ripped through his upper chest and between his shoulder blades, then moved into his neck.

Dr. DeBakey, one of the most influential heart surgeons in history, assumed his heart would stop in a few seconds. “It never occurred to me to call 911 or my physician,” Dr. DeBakey said, adding: “As foolish as it may appear, you are, in a sense, a prisoner of the pain, which was intolerable. You”re thinking, What could I do to relieve myself of it. If it becomes intense enough, you”re perfectly willing to accept cardiac arrest as a possible way of getting rid of the pain. … The Man on the Table Devised the Surgery – New York Times

At Axis of Episcopal Split, an Anti-Gay Nigerian

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ABUJA, Nigeria, Dec. 20 — The way he tells the story, the first and only time Archbishop Peter J. Akinola knowingly shook a gay person’s hand, he sprang backward the moment he realized what he had done.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/25/world/africa/25episcopal.html?th&emc=th

Oh Lord, please protect us from your Men of God! And what’s equally unsettling is the fact that congregations in the US are willing to follow such an unskillful leader. The cup of ignorance and hate runneth over.