…The single largest anti-Constitutional contribution to the Bush Regime by the PAA is its effective cancellation of legislative and judicial oversight on warrantless wiretapping. When this bill was signed into law, the Constitution’s separation-of-powers principle had its arms ripped off…
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Muslim students’ conference, the Sixth Dalai Lama’s erotic poetry, the actual Jesus you find in the Bible, the unknown authors of the Gospels, the musical legacy of nonbelievers, the non-legacy of the Ten Commandments, anti-Semitism in the "Left Behind" novels, sexy Hindu sculpture, atheism, exorcisms, Confucius, the Tibet myth, dung gods, Osho, snake-handlers, Magdalene Asylums, Mark Twain’s little-known takedown of Christianity, and much more, plus 50 images (including a photo of three little girls smoking pot as part of a church service) and a comic (by Neil Gaiman). (More information is here.)
‘"Good Books" contains definitely informative and hopefully entertaining reviews of thirteen religion books, most of which are unfortunately hard to find. Over half were published by university presses and carry hefty price tags, so they typically are spotted only in university libraries, but the info they contain is simply too fascinating to let molder on dusty shelves.… Read the rest
The following is a small portion of H.G. Wells’ "The Failure of Jesus of Nazareth," one of 41 articles in Disinfo’s new anthology, Everything You Know About God Is Wrong: The Disinformation Guide to Religion, edited by Russ Kick. Other contributors include Richard Dawkins, Neil Gaiman, and Douglas Rushkoff. All major religions, and some minor ones, are covered. Specific topics include: attending a Muslim students’ conference, the Sixth Dalai Lama’s erotic poetry, the actual Jesus you find in the Bible, the unknown authors of the Gospels, the musical legacy of nonbelievers, the non-legacy of the Ten Commandments, anti-Semitism in the "Left Behind" novels, sexy Hindu sculpture, atheism, exorcisms, confession, Confucius, the Tibet myth, dung gods, Osho, snake-handlers, Magdalene Asylums, Mark Twain’s little-known takedown of Christianity, and much more, plus 50 images (including a photo of three little girls smoking pot as part of a church service) and a comic (by Neil Gaiman).… Read the rest
‘In 2004 bloggers discovered the online sex diary of a Republican Senator’s staffer. Now three years later, and facing a vindictive lawsuit from one of her "outed" lovers, blogger Jessica Cutler has declared bankruptcy.
‘But in this new interview, Cutler says that ironically, she’d started her anonymous online sex diary because she naively thought it would protect her anonymity more than emailing her friends. (Since the emails might eventually be tracked back to her.) And she says she came forward and identified herself to spare her co-workers from the harassment of the press. "I thought taking responsibility was the right thing to do."’ (10 Zen Monkeys article).
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‘Yahoo is preparing to launch Mash, a whimsical and quirky new social-networking service. The company claims it’s the first one to let you mess with your friends’ profiles.
‘The site, which is in invitation-only beta, gives you the option to leave your profile open to your friends, allowing them to make changes and add modules like widgets or games.
‘We played with the service at the Wired News office, and took turns jokingly adding pictures of unicorns and kittens to each other’s profiles. This setting is the default for all new profiles, and when you invite a friend to join, you’re encouraged to design a page for the prospective member by adding colors, text, RSS feeds and content modules. This can lead to some serious shenanigans. For example, it’s possible to load up friends’ pages with embarrassing background images, glittery text and garish color combinations before they even log in for the first time.’ (Wired News article).… Read the rest
‘Psychokinesis, or the ability to manipulate objects with the mind, is a notoriously difficult to prove ability. Most famously Uri Geller achieved fame in the 1970′s with his seemingly amazing ability to bend spoons with nothing other than the power of his mind. Early on in his career, a number of scientists concluded that Geller does indeed posses psychic and psychokinetic abilities, however controversy over Geller’s power developed after a number of stage magician’s, most recently Criss Angel, claimed that Geller’s abilities are simple stage magic tricks. Whichever is the case, Geller remains the most public individual claiming to have these powers.
‘More obscurely, and more defiant against attempts to debunk, is the case of Ninel Kulagina. A female soldier in the Soviet Red Army, Kulagina found that whenever she became angry poltergeist activity would manifest in the room around her. After some time, she began to sense that the force that was responsible for the moving objects came from within her, rather than from a spirit.… Read the rest
‘Though one cannot have direct knowledge of one’s own amnesia, there may be ways to infer it: from the expressions on people’s faces when one has repeated something half a dozen times; when one looks down at one’s coffee cup and finds that it is empty; when one looks at one’s diary and sees entries in one’s own handwriting. Lacking memory, lacking direct experiential knowledge, amnesiacs have to make hypotheses and inferences, and they usually make plausible ones. They can infer that they have been doing something, been somewhere, even though they cannot recollect what or where. Yet Clive, rather than making plausible guesses, always came to the conclusion that he had just been "awakened," that he had been "dead." This seemed to me a reflection of the almost instantaneous effacement of perception for Clive… Read the rest
‘A new book chronicles how one school seeks to "prepare Christian men and women who will lead our nation and shape our culture with timeless biblical values."’ (MotherJones article).
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‘Democratic Presidential frontrunner Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) outlined her health care plan on Monday. "I believe that everyone… Read the rest
‘British ministers are refusing to cooperate with the US criminal investigation into allegations of corruption against BAE, Britain’s biggest arms company, the Guardian can disclose.
‘More than two months after an official request for mutual legal assistance (MLA) was received from Washington, the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, has not yet allowed it to be acted upon. The US investigators believe the British are being obstructive.
‘But legal sources said yesterday that the inquiry team had not been deterred by the UK government’s hostile attitude. Some have already begun taking statements from key British witnesses.’ (Guardian article).
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