Au Revoir Sealand!

The Principality of Sealand has been destroyed by fire. Apparently one of the generators blew, causing a conflagration. No injuries, (there was only one person within the Principality at the time), except to a nation's pride...

Huge Entity

For the 5-6 folks that occasionally pass though here: the Huge Entity site is closing in August for an undetermined period. If you haven't checked it out - you need to.

Life in America (an ongoing lament)

10-Year-Old's Bandana Causes Controversy

"A 10-year-old girl got in trouble while shopping with her mom, because she had on a bandana...decorated with peace signs, smiley faces and flowers.

A security guard approached her [and] said the bandanna violated the mall's code of conduct, which is "wearing apparel which is likely to provide a disturbance or embroil other groups or the general public in open conflict..."

Who Owns Your Data?

“while your account information may be personal to you, these records constitute business records that are owned by AT&T. As such, AT&T may disclose such records to protect its legitimate business interests, safeguard others, or respond to legal process."

Gee... this doesn't have anything to do with this, does it?

Of course privatizing surveillance is a swell way to avoid the strictures of the 4th Amendment*... not that there was much of it left.

*The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Evangelicals Against the Bleeding Obvious

"It is past time for evangelical Christians to remind our government and our society of perennial moral values, which also happen to be international and domestic laws. As Christians, we care about moral values, and we vote on the basis of such values. We care deeply about human-rights violations around the world. Now it is time to raise our voice and say an unequivocal no to torture, a practice that has no place in our society and violates our most cherished moral convictions..."

Suprisingly, (and its unfortunate that it would seem so), there is a growing consensus amongst Evangelicals: There is something indecent about torturing people. Its interesting to see conservative arguments in favor of basic human rights. It would have been nice had these arguments been made some 25 years ago when our proxies in Central America were perfecting the art of torture. But we should probably take what we can get.

The author makes 5 points regarding torture, all of which sound strangely quaint - but do form an unbroken line with the pro-life, "character" obsessed essence of the Christian Right.

1. Torture violates the dignity of the human being.
2. Torture mistreats the vulnerable and violates the demands of justice.
3. Authorizing torture trusts government too much.
4. Torture dehumanizes the torturer.
5. Torture erodes the character of the nation that tortures.

"...we say—and we say it even of detainees in the war on terror— [that] a human being sacred in God's sight, made in God's image, someone for whom Christ died. No one is ever "subhuman" or "human debris," as Rush Limbaugh has described some of our adversaries in Iraq..."

Link

Creating Consensus on Torture

If the entertainment industry, not least Hollywood, reflects a prevailing state of mind in the United States and the West in general, torture may be steadily gaining acceptance as a means of extracting information from suspects...

Fun with Prophecy

This is what the king who will reign over you will do: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots.
Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots.
He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants.
He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your menservants and maidservants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves.
When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the Lord will not answer you in that day.

- 1 Samuel, chapter 8:11–18

“Maybe we should have Supreme Leader Bush. I kind of like the sound of that.”
- Bill Kristol, FOX News

"You denigrate the leader that God has placed over you."
- Some right-wing Christian's response to my observation that Bush lied about WMDs in Iraq.