podpolia

Just when you think Americans have come up with all the possible excuses to relieve themselves of any possible guilt from any action they do, someone comes up with a new one.
There are just SO many things wrong with this… the first, and probably most important, is that the entire concept of law is based on the assumption that people are free agents, at least to a limited degree (this has been undermined more and more as of late with things like insanity pleas for cases in which the defendant had no real history of mental disturbances) and therefore are responsible for their own actions. Claiming that something that happened to your ancestors almost 150 years ago caused you to commit a crime today completely goes against that. Saying that you were impacted by something that happened to YOU is one thing, and understandable (although in all but the most severe cases the individual should be assumed to be able to overcome circumstances and make decisions for themselves) but something that happened to ancestors sevenor more generations back is just stupid. The article does say later on that the lawyer's job is to try every possible defense, and so it's possibly worth a try if there is absolutely NO other way to defend what your client did, but it should definitely not pass muster with the judge.
In today's victim society, however, that's by no means a guaranteed thing.

New Pew Research Center Report

None of this really suprises me. It's really no wonder that the media is continually releasing articles discussing their 'amazement' that Bush isn't polling as badly as they thought he should be, given the 'disasters' that he's been dealing with in Iraq and with the economy.

read this. it's very good… part one and part two
a bit long though.

48 Catholic Congressmen Warn Bishops on Bigotry”

I don't even know where to begin on this one.
First of all, I suppose, is the “latent anti-Catholic prejudice” that they are afraid might be awakened by the Catholic church if they deny communion to Catholics who vote in support of “abortion, euthanasia, stem-cell research, or gay marriage.” While this might strike one as being a legitimate concern, we elected a Catholic President in 1960. Which was before the civil rights movement. So I think it's safe to say that taking that and the fact that denominational fissures are less important in today's society than they used to be, this is not really a major concern.
As far as it impacts on politics… the Catholic church has every right to say who can and cannot participate in the eucharist. If I were a member of, say, a libertarian club and I started publicly supporting totalitarian ideals, the club would be completely in their rights to toss me out and not let me come to their weekly libertarian picnic and yodeling contest. Or, they could simply say that i was ineligable for the yodeling contest, and allow me to show up as a lapsed libertarian. The whole freedom of association thing says that they can DO that, if they want.
The Catholic church is an organization based on the propagation of moral and religious beliefs. If their members are publicly flouting the designated moral beliefs of the organization, they are free to deny any priveledge they deem necessary as a punishment. From the religious standpoint, what they are doing by voting for all of these topics (the most important of which these days are abortion and gay marriage) is supporting sin. According to Catholic dogma, if supporting abortion is condemned as sin by the Pope, it's sin. The Church is to “admonish the undisciplined” (1 Thess. 5:3), and if anyone partakes of the eucharist “in an unworthy manner” “eats and drinks judgement to himself” (1 Cor. 11:27,29). Likewise, “Reject a factious man after a first and second warning, knowing that such a man is perverted and is sinning, being self-condemned.” (Titus 3:10-11) I do not know the official Catholic position on refusal of the eucharist, but this sounds fairly definitely in support of it to me.
As far as the interaction between politics and religion, that's covered as well. “Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority, or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right.” (1 Peter 2:13-14) However, blind subservience to the government is by no means demanded in situations such as in the United States, where the individual can freely participate in government, whether by voting or being elected to make laws, like these congressmen have been. “Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God.” (1 Peter 2:16) [The word "bondslave" can be meant literally or figuratively, and indicates voluntary subjection to something or someone. It does NOT mean literal slavery. Just a clarification of the meaning of the original Greek term.]
Overall, I think the position of the Catholic church on this issue is actually correct. While these congressmen may be right to a minor degree about sparking anti-Catholic sentiment (most likely only in those who already dislike the Catholic church for one reason or another), the Catholic church has every right to enforce their own rules. Indeed, they would be hypocrites if they accused people for breaking the rules, and then broke their own rules by not delivering the mandated consequences.
Oh well. This is likely to not go much of anywhere, really. Unless somebody DOES decide to cause a confrontation at the alter rail. That could quickly become intense political theatre.

as beth stole a link from me, i shall feel no remorse for stealing one back from her.
with 16 million views, i'm sure some of you may have seen this already, but it's definitely worth a re-read.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=4146756343

reading the news and various weblogs today has made me realize how much of a masturbatory act debating partisan politics with people is. in today's political landscape, most people already have their minds made up, and nothing anyone will say will sway them one way or the other, so it's useless to try to persuade people. the breathtakingly narrow view that the mass media provides of everything going on in the world essentially only gives you a view thru the sensationalism keyhole into what the nightly news can use to attract viewers and sell commercial time. news is superficial, sensationalized, and skewed to shock and to get attention. jammed into half-hour slots (minus commercials), the news available to most people isn't worth the electricity being used to run their television. i've been spending hours online lately reading as much news and analysis as i can get my hands on, and i'm only beginning to realize how complex some things are, and how there's no way that anyone who isn't actually there and involved can have any idea of what's truly going on. jamming one day in the life of all six billion people on this planet into 24 minutes (if you're curious, it comes out to 250 million lives per minute — to be proportional, the news should give the activities of everyone in the united states in just under 70 seconds) is just impossible.
and this isn't even going into any biases that may be extant in the media — an entirely different can of worms. (yes, these are important, because those few who have NOT already made up their mind are generally swayed by emotional responses to what they've seen in the news before they go vote.)
political discussion as debate is equally futile. while it may be enjoyable to watch an expert go at it, in the end nothing other than theoretical and perceived wins or losses are changed. true, the audience may be somewhat better informed about a situation, or how some people view it, but it effects no real change.
really, the only way political debate ISN'T pointless is if it's framed as a philosophical discussion of one type or another (such as, 'what is the essence of good government?') — and very few people can separate partisan reality from philosophical underpinnings. the only really good philosophical debates about politics is with people with whom i really had very few disagreements politically. unfortunate, really, because it would be better to learn with/from people who have opinions different from your own.
of course, these views are shaped somewhat by the fact that when i debate politics, i get very into it. as far as i'm concerned, it isn't a debate if you don't disagree. however, i do NOT get emotionally into what i'm discussing. intellectual disagreements should NEVER be taken personally, and i work very hard to make sure i don't do so. i view debate as a fencing contest, to the point where i intuitively sense what offensive or defensive moves are being made, and react to the dance of attack and riposte as well as the intellectual subject matter of the debate.
i suppose it's just general orneryness that makes me enjoy debating people. my great-grandfather barner did much the same thing, and various other relatives (barners, mostly) have always enjoyed confrontation. and while i know that the debate is futile, i'll still do it.
but i'll still loathe that i never get anywhere.

in other news, i have a snoopy band-aid.

http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/breaking_2.html

further news on the syria/north korea front. turns out that it wasn't chemical/biological/nuclear weapons, but missile parts. this explains the haz-mat suits that the military responded to the accident with — depending on what parts of the rockets these were, they might have let out some toxic fumes. nice to know, however, that these particular missiles will not be going to syria.
now, it's just too bad that kim-jong il wasn't inspecting these when they got themselves blown up.

so i was trying to decide what book to read next, and i thought about it and realized i have probably about 20 cubic feet of books that i haven't read.
it's sad when you start reckoning by cubic feet instead of numbers of books.
anyhow, since the last time i wrote about what i was reading, i've read these books:
we never make mistakes by solzhenitsyn
man vs. the state by mayer
reason in history by hegel
shippensburg township in 1800: a portrait by barner
buffalo bill's wild west by kasson
armageddon averted by kutkin
the story of language by pei
the lucifer principle by bloom
where's dan quayle? by becker
guns, germs, and steel by diamond
the metamorphosis, the penal colony, and other stories by kafka
the meditations of marcus aurelius by (suprise) marcus aurelius
man and number by smeltzer
i really should update my reading list on here more often so i don't have vast lists. i'd like to summarize each of them (which means this is going to be a long post. and i don't know how to do the cut-link or whatever it's called. so all of it is going to appear here. HA!)
solzhenitsyn, as usual, is good. short stories, these, and good portraits of 1930s/1940s life in the USSR. man vs. the state is rather boring. interesting dialog at the end between youth radicals in the 1960s/1970s and older just-plain-libertarians. as expected, the latter group makes the former group look like a bunch of morons. reason in history is VERY difficult to understand i think it's fascinating, but i only got about half or so of it, and i'm not sure that some of what i got was what hegel intended. then again, this being hegel, i suppose that's fairly good.
shippensburg township in 1800 (as you may be able to tell by the author's name) was my dad's master's thesis. it's not really a coffeetable book, but if you're interested in the history of shippensburg, it is an interesting portrait (as you may have gathered from the title as well). buffalo bill's wild west was… um… about what you'd expect from a book entitled 'buffalo bill's wild west.' after reading it i knew more than i ever wanted to know about buffalo bill and… er… his wild west. this was for my 'west in american history' class. armageddon averted is about the soviet collapse. it provides a background from about 1970, covers the collapse in detail (the author talked to many of the high ranking officials before and after the collapse) and the slow move towards recovery of Russia and the CIS after the dissolution of the union. this book was kinda dry, but really interesting to me as a poli sci major (and yes, i got an A on the 8 page paper i had to write about this book.)
the story of language is a VERY detailed book on linguistics. although it was written in the late '40s, much of it is still more or less current (most of what is dated is his predictions about the future of languages, which is kinda amusing in spots). i now know quite a bit about all kinds of languages all over the place.
the lucifer principle gets it's own paragraph. basically, it's an analysis of evil from an evolutionary biologist's perspective. it goes into great detail on evolutionary purposes behind such things as societies, cultures, religions, states, and so on and so forth. there are a number of assumptions that are made that i disagree with, but on the whole the book is fascinating. it uses short stories from history all over the globe to illustrate points, and really gives the reader a new perspective on society. however, one drawback to the book is that i don't believe that it fully defines 'evil.' bender and i were talking about this, and discussing evil that is committed by individuals as compared to 'evil' (which i'm not quite convinced is actually evil, agreeing as i do with spinoza) that is perpetrated on humans by nature (there are official philosophical terms for these two types of evil, but i've forgotten what). in any event, it's a good book. reading it has made me even more bull-headed about fuzzy, mushy liberalism as taught in schools. you know, the kind that wants to assign random things as values and such. anyhow, this paragraph is long enough.
where's dan quayle? isn't really on a par with the previous books. it's like 'where's waldo' but you're looking for dan quayle in cartoons of places like the senate, aspen colorado, and the golf courses. more amusing for those of us who follow politics, however (the vultures staring at a sleeping strom thurmond really cracked me up, personally). guns, germs, and steel is an interesting history book. well, interesting is debatable. some of the material it discusses is fascinating, but unfortunately it exceeded my attention span a bit. as in, it took me about three weeks to read, and it's only about 450 pages. admittedly, those three weeks were over finals, but with my easy finals schedule, that was a bit much. quite a worthwhile book, but not as fascinating as the lucifer principle.
the metamorphosis, the penal colony, and other stories was an absolutely incredible book. kafka immediately became one of my very favourite writers after that one. i really like his short fragments of stories more than the long ones (like the metamorphosis), and i think that a lot of my writing from now on will reflect kafka a good deal. there's something absolutely incredible how he can take a simple narrative, give it a good twist, and make a realistic sounding story turn bizarre and surreal — almost threatening, sometimes. the characters take these occurrances as being completely natural (like in the metamorphosis when the main character is transformed into a giant bug) and just deal with them as they continue on with their lives.
the meditations of marcus aurelius was allright. interesting how many of the things he discussed advocated christian values, even the one that disparaged christians. it really makes one wonder just how much of stoicism snuck into christianity, and just when it did it. man and number is the last one on this list (yes, yes, i know you're quite pleased to hear that). it's like the story of language, only it's about numbers instead. while some of the ideas that the author has conflict strongly with other things i've read lately (guns, germs, and steel in particular), it's still fairly informative about when and how numbers arose. and as it was written in 1958, i can see how he'd think that the society he was living in was vastly superior to those morons banging rocks together (after all, by this point the USSR had launched a beeping chunk of tinfoil into SPACE! amazing technology.)
allright. now that i've subjected you to all of that, i'm going to go read some more. so later i'll have more to torture you with.
-evil laugh-

So today, a roadside bomb went off in Iraq. An improvised explosive device (IED) made out of a 155mm artillery shell.
Containing sarin gas.
Iraq had no WMDs, eh?

In lighter news…

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_957945.html?menu=news.quirkies.sexlife

Syria has shown up in the news again.

http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/breaking_10.html

“Syrian technicians accompanying unknown equipment were killed in the train explosion in North Korea on April 22, according to a report in a Japanese newspaper…
The source said North Korean military personnel with protective suits responded to the scene soon after the explosion and removed material only from the Syrians' section of the train.”
anyone wanna guess what the material was? I have my suspicions, and I'm sure others have theirs as well, but it's not sounding good. After the chemical attack that was foiled by the Jordanians (the chemical weapons that are estimated to have been able to kill upwards of 80,000 people in Amman came into Jordan from Syria) and Syria's refusal to shut down their border with Iraq and general pig-headedness in the war on terror (which is why they are currently under sanctions from the US) I'm afraid that all of these things are related.
Sure, we knew to begin with that Syria was a problem. It's just becoming more and more obvious that they're a bigger problem than was at first apparent. In all likelihood, Syria received what of Saddam's WMD programs the Coalition hasn't found in Iraq (the CIA suspects this, and various other intelligence agencies support the theory, but there's not enough conclusive proof yet to justify confronting them about it).
Just a note to cheer everyone up.