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-Aldous Huxley
-Aldous Huxley
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Full Article (Denver Post via Arizona Central)
Full Article (Women’s eNews)
Doesn’t sound like heaven to me: Newsweek
He’s one of those Mel Gibson type Catholics. I haven’t ordered Dominos in years on principal (and besides there’s much better pizza out there.)
There was a lot of this kind of thing that went on in 18th century America; typically they lasted 20-50 years or so and then either faded away or became secular towns. And of course there were the communes of the 1960’s-’70’s.
Some people can’t wait to get to heaven to be rid of interaction with the heathens, and gotta do something about it now, I guess. I suppose it’s a better reaction than going on a crusade. I’m not losing sleep worrying about the possibility of an Amish jihad.
BTW, we once visited one of these communities in your neck of the woods [Didn’t you say you lived in PA?], at Ephrata, PA; it was really interesting:
Also dragged Mrs. K.P. up to visit Amana, IA when we lived in Kansas City. But for myself, I prefer to admire such piety from a distance, thank you very much…
I just choked on my coffee at the words Amish Jihad.
LOL
The pitchfork is mightier than the sword!
…or at least it has a longer handle.
Obviously, anyone moving into Monaghan’s town would know what they were buying into. Insisting on a pharmacy that promises not to sell contraceptives seems a little odd tho. You would think no one living there would ask to buy them — just to keep up appearances if nothing else. Afterall, they can drive over to Naples and get their birth control pills on the sly if they are so inclined.
I’m sure Monaghan plans on using county, state and federal services in his town and therefore he can’t legally expect to avoid respecting the Law of the Land. Instead, he should have set the whole thing up as a private country club and left out having public spaces like drug stores.
If we wants the entire town to be Catholic, has he built lower-income housing, too. If not, won’t the drug store and grocery store end up being staffed by people from out of town who might be, um, Baptists?!
Hmm…Yahoo
Can you imagine being 8 years old and having your parents fighting about this in court?
Can you imagine how you’d feel about your mother if she won this case and had you circumcised at age eight (or probably 10 – 12, by the time appeals are done)? They better keep an eye on this young man if the mother wins; he’s gonna have some issues down the line…
Well, it sounds to me like there might actually be a medical reason for needing the circumsion now (adhesions?), although it isn’t clear from the article. Which would be traumatizing enough, without all the court hoopla attached. What are they thinking?
Adhesions are places where the skin heals to itself in a bridge where there shouldn’t be a connection.
“I’m not a doctor, but I can goggle one or two or three…” And I’m not going to spend my day off debating this issue, but here are some references for those interested.
A study on the frequency of foreskin problems in uncircumcised children.
There are less radical alternatives to address adhesions.
Adhesions can also happen as a result of circumcision, so I’m not buying that argument at face value.
I can google as well as goggle.
Thanks for the refs, I had to run out shortly after I posted this.
I don’t want to debate it either. I’m pretty sure we all think it’s awful for parents to be battling over their children’s genitalia.
You can always find doctors who will recommend circumcision “for medical reasons” if that’s what you want them to say. They’ll cite studies on cervical cancer in the wives of uncircumcised men, or “cleanliness” reasons. Generally it’s a bunch of bunk and circumcision is largely a matter of personal preference rather than a health issue.
I’m not disputing that there may be adhesion issues with this boy, but they’re not common. However, you’d think the parents would have worked this out at the poor kid’s birth.
I agree. I also know that sometime there is such bitterness between parents that medical decisions about the children wind up in court all the time. I wonder what the real story is there.
I thought it was interesting to see how much the circumcision rate has dropped in this country since the early 90s.
It was an issue with me and my ex. He wanted them to “look like him” which I never really understood because they don’t stand around comparing penises and he was the private sort anyway. I won, naturally. 🙂
(psst…my boys are intact too.)
Wouldn’t they all just die if they knew we were telling everyone? Shhhh.
Yes, they would! LOL… never know what’s gonna pop up in the news bucket. Actually I read this the other day, and positively marveled at the callowness of these selfish parents… squabbling over this, affecting their son’s well-being (psychological and possibly physical), in what’s probably nothing more than a “pissing match” between two bitter, divorced people. Poor kid!
“because they don’t stand around comparing penises “
on what planet have you been living?
I mean father and sons.
[Circumcision- and Domino’s Pizza-Free Edition, although some would say our first story features a couple of conservative Catholic pricks]
On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in Keith Carabell’s two-decade fight to build condominiums on his 19-acre property in suburban Detroit. Regulators say it’s among the last forested wetlands in Macomb County and should remain intact for wildlife habitat and erosion control. The court also will consider the case of John Rapanos, a Michigan landowner whose feud with regulators led to a criminal conviction after he illegally filled wetlands with dirt. Dozens of interest groups have filed briefs in the cases, the resolution of which could affect millions of acres of swamps, marshes and bogs across the U.S. It also could signal whether the Supreme Court will veer rightward on environmental issues with the arrivals of Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito.
The British moth population is in rapid decline, according to the most comprehensive study of its kind. A report by Butterfly Conservation says the number of common moths has fallen by a third since 1968. This has serious implications for animals such as birds and bats which feed on moths. It also raises concerns about the state of Britain’s natural heritage since moths are an important indicator of biodiversity.
For first time in 21 years, the famous recurrent nova RS Ophiuchi has erupted into naked-eye visibility. As late as February 10, 2006, the star was still magnitude 11.0, where it spends most of its time with only minor fluctuations. But on the morning of February 13th, there it was shining at magnitude 4.8. RS Ophiuchi, like other cataclysmic variable stars, is a close binary. A red giant star is spilling gas onto a small, dense, blue companion star. The hot blue star erupted in 1898, 1933, 1958, 1967, and 1985, and it may also have had an outburst in 1945.
Development of former farmland can disturb lead- and arsenic-containing pesticides spread nearly a century ago and contaminate nearby water sources. The findings mean communities may need to take additional precautions at former orchards and farms when the soil is disturbed for development or new agricultural uses. The problem is that the pesticides remain in the top 10 inches of soil, and do not degrade, potentially eroding into streams and lakes.
Concentrated development has significantly raised the risk of New Orleans-style flooding in flood-prone parts of Missouri, California and other states as people snap up new homes even in areas recently deluged, researchers said Saturday. Around St. Louis, where the Mississippi River lapped at the steps of the Gateway Arch during the 1993 flood, more than 14,000 acres (5,600 hectares) of flood plain have been developed since then. That has reduced the region’s ability to store water during future floods and potentially put more people in harm’s way. Similar development has occurred around Dallas; Kansas City, Missouri; Los Angeles; Omaha, Nebraska, and Sacramento, California.
Astronomers appear to have solved the long-standing mystery of what produces the diffuse glow of X-ray emission that permeates our galaxy. To the surprise of many, the background glow originates from huge numbers of white dwarfs – the dead cores of roughly solar-mass stars – and the hot outer atmospheres (coronae) of ordinary stars.
Phytoplankton can bounce back from abrupt climate change: The majority of tiny marine plants weathered the abrupt climate changes that occurred in Earth’s past and bounced back, with new species filling niches of specialists that went extinct. Details here.
On the lighter side: British science journalist Emma Marris’ blog from the American Association for the Advancement of Science convention in St Louis.
And that last line now explains to me why all the recent science postings have come out of St. Louis. I kept noticing it, but I couldn’t figure out why.
I should pay more attention to the conventions and association meetings in town.
Thank you, I can sleep at night again.
I thought her comment was amusing that she had always imagined the gateway arch was white, and was surprised to find it was stainless steel.
Although if you’ve only seen it on TV it is an easy mistake to make. My favorite part was about their trip to the Botanical Gardnen
and the “enormous geodesic dome containing a tropical rainforest-the fantastically-named Climatron. That sounds to me like a very large robot that terrorizes humanity by causing hailstorms or heat-waves. But it’s just a greenhouse.”
See, global warming is really due to that evil gigantic robot, Climatron. We need to install a space-based laser defense system – then we can fight him out there, so we don’t have to fight him down here.
The Japanese have offered to contribute Godzilla and UltraMan to the coalition of the willing
If anyone really wanted to enact election finance reform they would forbid elected officials from raising money for campaign warchests during their time in office.
Consider this article on the fundraising of Republican Jim Talent and his challenger Claire McCaskill.
In the final three months of 2005 Talent took in more money than McCaskill BUT it was close: Talent raised a reported $1.11 million while McCaskill raised about $919,000. So, pick a good candidate and just start raising money right?
Wrong. Talent has raised a total of 6.1 million.
Anyone working to remove a coldhearted Republican (or a disliked Democratic) congressman or senator from their district or state faces the same obstacle. Incumbents have a built in advantage in the money race.
Read the article and see the long list of contributors from business interests.
“emotional commitment”
Emotional commitment from business interests usually mean the avoidance of the emotion they would feel if they gave a candidate a lot of money only to see them vote in an adverse way.
This is not, as some will say, yet more evidence that corporations and businesses are evil. This is evidence of laws that are meant to protect the incumbent.
If someone really wanted to change the dynamics of the American electoral process and also change the dynamics of the American legislative process, they would change campaign finance law to eliminate this situation.
But I for one am not going to hold my breath.
This from the WaPo:
“Such a request is completely beyond the pale of what is acceptable,” said the Rev. Richard Land, head of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.
During the 2004 presidential race, the Bush-Cheney campaign sent a similar request to Republican activists across the country. It asked churchgoers not only to furnish church directories to the campaign, but also to use their churches as a base for political organizing.
The tactic was roundly condemned by religious leaders across the political spectrum, including conservative evangelical Christians. Ten professors of ethics at major seminaries and universities wrote a letter to President Bush in August 2004 asking him to “repudiate the actions of your re-election campaign,” and calling on both parties to “respect the integrity of all houses of worship.”
I am pleased that some local pastors are speaking out against the practice of mixing politics and religion, even here in the south where it is not uncommon to find “voting guides” on tables in the church lobby.
Doesn’t sound like Republicans are going to stop this practice until and unless more moderate Christians speak out against it. It’s been very successful for them in the last two elections…and you do what works.
Mears said the “Republican National Committee has completed a study on grass-roots activity that reveals that people who regularly attend church usually vote Republican when they vote.”
“In light of this study’s findings, it is imperative that we register, educate and get these potential voters from the pew to the ballot box. To do this we must know who these people are,” the memo continued.
“I am requesting that you collect as many church directories as you can and send them to me in an effort to fully register, educate and energize North Carolina’s congregations to vote in the 2006 elections,” it said.
It added that the “North Carolina Republican Party holds your church’s directory in strict confidence” and will not use it “to solicit church members for any other reason.”
William Peaslee, the party’s chief of staff, told the Greensboro newspaper that Republicans also gather lists of gun owners and military families. “In doing voter registration, you always go to where you base is,” he said. Peaslee did not return messages from The Washington Post yesterday.
Small businesses get big tax breaks for SUVs but not hybrids
That makes sense – subsidize the gas-guzzlers more..
Give-aways help the auto-making? Yes, helps them continuing manufacturing environmental time-bombs.
It all makes sense now, doesn’t it?
I have no idea of the actual numbers, so I’ll make them up to illustrate the point as I go along…
Suppose that Ford or GM corporate headquarters clears $1000 net profit on an SUV, and makes 20,000 of such vehicles a year.
That would be $20,000,000 profit per year for making the SUVs.
Now suppose I’m Bill Gates or Steve Jobs and want to protect the environment.
Why don’t I get together with my rich buddies and a bunch of “little” environmentalists who want to chip in as well, raise $20,000,000, and tell Ford or GM “Here’s the money you would have made in profit free and clear in exchange for a legally-binding agreement to NOT BUILD ANY SUVs this year.”
Or offer just enough of a fraction of the profits to get them to buy in. Or tell them that for every SUV they don’t build, you’ll donate the $$$ to a charity (say, rebuilding New Orleans – that will take big bucks on this scale). Some clever lawyer might even be able to structure it in a way that it becomes a tax deductible donation for both the original donors and for Ford or GM, especially if there were carbon dioxide emission credits involved in the trade that Bill Gates would get title to but never cash in.
After SUVs are off the market a few years, folks would have adapted and the program can be phased out. No, I don’t expect another company to gear up to fill the gap, as the startup costs for a new car line are huge, and presumably we’re doing this with all the SUV producers at the same time.
You Decide:
Am I being tongue in cheek?
Is there the kernel of a good idea here, perhaps applicable to other, smaller industries?
Suppose we bought out the world production from mercury mines, for instance, so everyone would have to go to digital thermometers instead of mercury thermometers?
Suppose we bought out the annual catch of the Virginia menhaden fishery?
Is this the future of environmental protection in the US with the current composition of the Supreme Court?
I just want to make sure that you really have access to Bill’s cell phone number and are authorized to draw on his bank account before I expend any real effort thinking about this.
Actually they are great ideas.
If the legal framework is shifting so that the government cannot protect endangered species, for example, because it’s some kind of “taking” from a landowner without recompense, this may be the approach we have to take to protect the environment.
Unfortunately, the economic score-keeping system is skewed to make the profit in environmental depletion look bigger than it really is, so we’re going to end up paying more than an appropriate amount to the polluters under such a scheme. I don’t know if it’s an amount that we can realistically afford, if we tried to address all our environmental issues this way.
We need to insert some definitions into our legal structures to balance the playing field, as it were.
Food for thought along these lines, if folks haven’t read it, is “Should Trees Have Standing?” Some online resources are here, here, and here.
Assuming that you are, indeed, being facetious, I won’t bother you with the unpleasant fallout that would accompany such an action; vis-à-vis, the loss of jobs, and the continued rewarding of corporate malfeasance.
Tom Friedman [NYT] had a similar proposal several months back ti initiate a $2/gal. gas tax with the proceeds going to “buy back” these behemoths, at market rates, over a five year, IMS, period.
What’s wrong with these pictures?
Neither one addresses the “Energy Problem” in a appropriate fashion, and both reward the continuing cycle of greedy consumption at the expense at those most unable to afford it.
Peace
I think the kernel of a good Idea is for Knoxville Pro to run for congress, then pass laws controlling the epa/mpg of vehicles to make it impossible to sell gas guzzlers to the public. Gates could do something else, equally eco-saving with his Billions if he was so inclined.
Without getting into the various beliefs of members of my family, let’s just say we’re hardly the kind of good conservative Christian family the electorate of east Tennessee sends to DC, LOL!
Didn’t think so, but it’s still a kernel of a good idea, imo!
Speaking of paying people to do the right thing, check this out (from the 2/22/06 “science headlines” over in the news bucket):
From Grist this morning: What’s the best way to get people to recycle? Same way you get them to do anything: pay them for it. Patrick FitzGerald and Ron Gonen founded RecycleBank in 2004 on the notion that economic incentives would motivate recycling more effectively than green principles. Their system rewards households with up to $400 a year in credits to national chain stores based on the weight of the recyclables they generate — tracked when sanitation crews scan “smart waste” tags in specially supplied recycling bins. In a six-month Philadelphia pilot project involving 2,500 households, recycling rates jumped from 35 to 90 percent in well-off Chestnut Hill, and from 7 to 90 percent in more moderate West Oak Lane. Now RecycleBank has sold its services to several mid-Atlantic and New England municipalities, guaranteeing clients they’ll make back the $24 paid per household — or better — by averting trash-disposal fees. Slightly cynical, maybe, but hey, we’ll take it. Story in NY Times here.
Over at Firedoglake, ReddHedd posted a good piece on the need to rebrand the Democratic Party.
Here,‘On Point’, indeed, gets to the core of it.
Selected excerpts
Thanks, I’m on way there now…
Thanks for posting these snippets … I’m following CG over there too, since it’s been a few days since I’ve read the reddhedd.
This touches on some thinking I’ve kicked around for several years now as well, and could basically be summed up as the Dems need to “play as dirty as they do.” I agree that branding them is as important (if not more) than re-branding the Dems as more than milquetoast … they need to be Habanero/Scotch bonnet peppers, and burn them like hellfire! I know, that’s a stretch, but it would be fun to see :-).
Scotch bonnet peppers. Now ya talking.
A 4 for you. Couldn’t agree more that Dems need to play mean and “dirty as they do” Sometimes fight fire with fire still rules. Enough of going along to get along.
What gets to me is the role of wingnut Christian radio, the churches spewing the GOP lying talking points.And still blaming Clinton. The RNC and Rove have the districts covered very well.
One more quote:
Churches urged to back evolution