“Sue the bastards!”

Too rich to pass up…
 
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) – Afghanistan’s government said Tuesday that Newsweek should be held responsible for damages caused by deadly anti-American demonstrations after the magazine alleged U.S. desecration of the Quran, and it suggested that foreign forces may have helped turn protests violent.
 
Pakistan joined the international criticism of the magazine’s article and said Newsweek’s apology and retraction were “not enough.”  – MyWay News
 
 
And from the Daily Star, a Lebanese paper, this statement,
“They (Newsweek) should understand the sentiments of Muslims and think 101 times before publishing news which hurt feelings of Muslims.”–Pakistani Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad
Well, pardon me, bubba, but how about sentiments of Christians when Islamic camel lovers used pages from Bibles as toilet paper after taking (and trashing) the Church of the Nativity in 2002? Oh.  No riots and murders by Christians as retaliation?  Maybe that’s because one of the differences between Islam and Christianity is that the normative influence of Christianity is toward more civilized behavior and the normative influence of Islam is toward brutality and barbarity.
 
Gee, I’m really concerned about the sensitivity of Islamic barbarians who murder women for walking without a keeper or for having been forceably raped. Blech.  Let them eat cake.  Made with pork fat.  (And may they choke.)
 
[UPDATE: more sympathy for the devil(s)]
 
The Wall Stree Journal’s Claudia Rossett offers a little perspective:
 

“Let’s pause right there. We are hearing that Muslims, infuriated by a report of blasphemy, went on violent rampages that resulted in . . . dead Muslims and burned mosques. Meanwhile, not only is Newsweek apologizing and retracting, but the U.S. government is regretting the loss of life.”

 
Yeh.  Concerned about desecration of their so-called “holy book” Muslim savages… kill other Muslims and burn mosques (in which we must assume no Korans were kept, eh?). Here’s a little sympathy for these devils: Give ’em all C4 suppositories.
 

The Wicked Witch of the West Hexes Jeff Jarvis

Do not walk, RUN to Dan Riehl’s Riehl World View for a look…
 
…at Arianna Huffington “hexing” Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine.
 
And while you’re at it, bookmark or blogroll Dan’s site and make it a daily read, ‘K?
 
(For the next few days, expect some of these short or canned posts. Probably not much over next few days’ll be current events related. Time. Other things.)

Google-Bomb Newsweek with “Korangate”

No commentary from me, just a reproduction of the post from Cao’s Blog

There’s commentary aplenty all over the blogosphere.  Just follow Cao’s instructions and Googlebomb NewsweAk with Korangate

+++++++++++++++++From Cao’s Blog+++++++++++++++++

John C.A. Bambaneck

Newsweek needs to be held accountable that’s why I’m asking that everyone link (i.e. Googlebomb) to Newsweek with the word “ Korangate ” in the text.

Korangate
Korangate
Korangate
Korangate
Korangate
Korangate
Korangate
Korangate
Korangate
Korangate
Korangate
Korangate
Korangate
Korangate
Korangate
Korangate
Korangate
Korangate
Korangate
Korangate
Korangate

OK, an update: Whizbang! has an interesting observation in “Newsweek’s Hail Mary?”  Yeh, I wouldn’t put it past NewsweAk trying to incite some Koran burning…  

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 
 
(For the next few days, expect some of these canned posts, written up, saved and ready for posting with a few mods thrown in like this one. Probably not much over next few days’ll be current events related. Time. Other things.)

The Cows

  This isn’t new, but it’s… cropping up again.  heh

For those of y’all who’ve experienced the so-called “worship wars” in your local churches, this lil cautionary tale:

 
“The Cows Are in the Corn”

(“First Verse”)

What is a chorus?

An old farmer went to the city one weekend and attended the big city church. He came home and his wife asked him how it was.

“Well,” said the farmer, “It was good. They did something different, however. They sang praise choruses instead of hymns.”

“Praise choruses,” said his wife, “What are those?”

“Oh, they’re okay. They’re sort of like hymns, only different,” said the farmer.

“Well, what’s the difference?” asked his wife.

The farmer said, “Well it’s like this: If I were to say to you: ‘Martha, the cows are in the corn,’ well, that would be a hymn. If, on the other hand, I were to say to you:

 
‘Martha, Martha, Martha,
Oh, Martha, MARTHA, MARTHA,
the cows, the big cows, the brown cows, the black cows, the white cows, the black and white cows,
the COWS, COWS, COWS are in the corn,
are in the corn, are in the corn, are in the corn, the CORN, CORN, CORN.’

Then, if I were to repeat the whole thing two or three times, well that would be a praise chorus.”

(“Second Verse”)

What is a Hymn?

A young, new Christian went to his local church usually, but one weekend attended a church in the city. He came home and his wife asked him how it was.

“Well,” said the young man, “It was good. They did something different, however. They sang hymns instead of regular songs.”

“Hymns,” said his wife, “What are those?”

“Oh, they’re okay. They’re sort of like regular songs, only different,” said the young man.

“Well, what’s the difference?” asked his wife.

The young man said, “Well it’s like this: If I were to say to you, ‘Martha, the cows are in the corn,’ well that would be a regular song.

If, on the other hand, I were to say to you:

‘Oh Martha, dear Martha, hear thou my cry.
Inclinest thine ear to the words of my mouth.
Turn thou thy whole wondrous ear by and by
to the righteous, inimitable, glorious truth.

For the way of the animals who can explain;
There in their heads is no shadow of sense.
Hearkenest they in God’s sun or his rain
unless from the mild, tempting corn they are fenced.

Yea those cows in glad bovine, rebellious delight,
Have broke free their shackles, their warm pens eschewed.
Then goaded by minions of darkness and night,
they all my mild Chilliwack sweet corn have chewed.

So look to that bright shining day by and by,
where all foul corruptions of earth are reborn,
where no vicious animal makes my soul cry
And I no longer see those foul cows in the corn.’

“Then, if I were to do only verses 1, 3, and 4, and do a key change on the last verse, well, that would be a hymn.”

(For the next few days, expect some of these canned posts, written up, saved and ready for posting. Probably not much over next few days’ll be current events related. Time. Other things.)

On biblical illiteracy

[BUMP!—see update, below]
If the cornerstone is crumbling, what of the building it once upheld?
 
Interesting piece in The Weekly Standard . In his article “ Bible Illiteracy in America ,” David Gelernter outlines the historical impact the Bible has had on America and hints at what the future may hold for a biblically illiterate people. Thought-provoking.  A taste:
 
“THE GENEVA BIBLE became and remained the Puritans’ favorite. It had marginal notes that Puritans liked–but King James and the Church of England deemed them obnoxious. The notes were anti-monarchy and pro-republic–“untrue, seditious, and savouring too much of dangerous and traitorous conceits,” the king said. Under his sponsorship a new Bible was prepared (without interpretive notes) by 47 of the best scholars in the land. The King James version appeared in 1611–intended merely as a modest improvement over previous translations. But it happened to be a literary masterpiece of stupendous proportions. Purely on artistic grounds it ranks with Homer, Dante, Shakespeare–Western literature’s greatest achievements. In terms of influence and importance, it flattens the other three.”
 
Oh, and Gelernter also briefly points out where to lay the axe to the common lies about Puritans, as well.  Of course, since most Americans are as historically illiterate as they are biblically illiterate, little of what Gelernter says will have much context for most folks.
 
A society with no sense of its own history will lurch from one faddish thought to another without any genuine critical faculty to assess what is good or ill. Gelenter’s article points out one of the important anchors we have cast away, resulting in just that very cultural character: rootless, we are “blown by every wind of teaching…”
 
Monday doldrums or simply recognizing the fact that my children will have to survive as adults in a land of illiterate pagans?
 
*sigh*
 
Buried deeply in the (very lengthy) afterward to the article are gems like this one:
 
“College students today are (spiritually speaking) the driest timber I have ever come across. Mostly they know little or nothing about religion; little or nothing about Americanism. Mostly no one ever speaks to them about truth and beauty, or nobility or honor or greatness. They are empty–spiritually bone dry–because no one has ever bothered to give them anything spiritual that is worth having. Platitudes about diversity and tolerance and multiculturalism are thin gruel for intellectually growing young people.”
 
Indeed.
 
[UPDATE] See Romeocat’s post today touching on this subject.

Kipling Tuesday Today

A few thoughts not comprehensible to DUmmies and Moore-ons
 
Justice
Rudyard Kipling
October, 1918
 
Across a world where all men grieve
And grieving strive the more,
The great days range like tides and leave
Our dead on every shore.
Heavy the load we undergo,
And our own hands prepare,
If we have parley with the foe,
The load our sons must bear
.
 
Before we loose the word
That bids new worlds to birth,
Needs must we loosen first the sword
Of Justice upon earth;
Or else all else is vain
Since life on earth began,
And the spent world sinks back again
Hopeless of God and Man.
 
A People and their King
Through ancient sin grown strong,
Because they feared no reckoning
Would set no bound to wrong;
But now their hour is past,
And we who bore it find
Evil Incarnate hell at last
To answer to mankind.
 
For agony and spoil
Of nations beat to dust,
For poisoned air and tortured soil
And cold, commanded lust,
And every secret woe
The shuddering waters saw —
Willed and fulfilled by high and low —
Let them relearn the Law:
That when the dooms are read,
Not high nor low shall say: —
“My haughty or my humble head
Has saved me in this day.”
 
That, till the end of time,
Their remnant shall recall
Their fathers’ old, confederate crime
Availed them not at all:
That neither schools nor priests,
Nor Kings may build again
A people with the heart of beasts
Made wise concerning men.
Whereby our dead shall sleep
In honour, unbetrayed,
And we in faith and honour keep
That peace for which they paid.

SF-180 SF-180 SF-180 SF-180 SF-180 SF-180

C’mon, now.  Give the guy a break, eh?
 
I mean, Jean Fraud sKerry‘s just like any other working stiff, right? He’s got a job, ya know.  He has priorities.  First, he has to get his Senate attendance record above it’s usual 22%, and then he’ll have time to dash his signature off on an SF-180 like he promised on national tv 107 days ago!!!
 
All in good time…
 
 
I wonder why the good senator hasn’t made good on his promise yet. Perhaps he’s having trouble getting the form ? To help him out, you could fax him a copy of the form. It’s only 3 pages, and is available online here .
 
Here are the fax numbers for the senator’s offices:
 
Washington D.C. – (202) 224-8525
Boston, MA – (617) 248-3870
Springfield, MA – (413) 736-1049
Fall River, MA – (508) 677-0275
Just download it , print and fax.  And check the suggestions for a polite cover letter.
 
 

Ahhh! What a difference!

NPR vs. “Anybody else”
 
The Anybody Else I have chosen for my classical music radio is… not American.  Yup.  Check it out at 103.7 FM on your dial… if you happen to be in Queensland, Australia. Otherwise, stream their entire programming day via 4MBS Classic FM.
 
One really cool program I’ve missed on the radio stations available here in America’s Third World Countyâ„¢ is “Adventures in Music with Dr. Karl Haas”—a really fun (for me) music history and critique program.  Not all that taxing, but still fun.  Available at 9:00 a.m. Queensland time (work out the time differential to where you may be; for me it’s minus 15 hours from program time there).
 
If you have broadband and good sound card/speakers, it’s as good as FM radio.
 
Who needs NPR? (OK, they don’t carry Car Talk, so? 🙂
 

Coincidence

That these stories appear in the Britpress on the same day is coincidence… isn’t it?
 
First this story telling of the link between a woman having an abortion and risks to later children she may want to carry to term. “Revealed: how an abortion puts the next baby at risk”.
 
Now this one describing an interesting phenomenon (or is it just a statistical blip?): children in developing countries beginning puberty at earlier and earlier ages. “Why puberty now begins at seven”.  Huh.
 
The first seems a case of cosmic justice, the second seems more like a case of cosmic balance of the first.  (But of course, that’s just me doing the human thing: looking for meaning… or creating it where there may be none.)
 
Story #1: h.t. Carol Liebau.
 
Story #2: h.t. Harry Irwin, posting at Jerry Pournelle’s Current Mail.

Dandelions

A brief exposition on Matthew 6: 28-29
 
“Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”
Weeds are mostly in the eye (and heart) of the beholder. Let me submit for your consideration the lowly dandelion.  Was there ever a more beautiful yellow, a more deliciously luscious green? What a feast for the eyes!
 
And yet, our culture considers the dandelion to be a pest plant; not merely useless, but something to be eradicated. *sigh* Useless? Every part (excepting the seed puffball) of the dandelion is edible.  The greens cleaned and steamed or boiled are not only tasty but highly nutritious.  The root, after cleaning, peeling and then blanching, boiling or roasting is also highly nutritious and useful in many ways. And even the yellow bloom is nutritious and a treat for both the eye and the tastebuds in salads.
 
And what can I say of dandelion wine?
 
🙂
 
And, as much as our society spends to eradicate this nutritious food and lovely flowering plant, it thrives in spite of all the poisons thown its way.  And have you ever attempted to pull a dandelion to get rid of the “weed”?  Unless you get every last piece of the root, it’s more than likely to simply grow back.
 
Lilies of the field? Nah. 
 
“Consider the dandelions how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”
 
No matter how our society’s warped values may deem the dandelion to be an obnoxious weed, children who are as yet unpolluted by the depraved value system that would deem such a radiently bold and beautiful flower a weed, bring their mothers glad bouquets of dandelions every spring.
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