A dog pic or two
These pics are for Philly Chief at You made me say it . Showed you mine. Gotta show me yours.
Posts
So might this
The introduction of a compulsory national DNA database has been ruled out on ethical and legal grounds, the Home Office said today. Oh, thank fuck for that . The Brits can't hang onto anything private any better than a gossipy neighbour on truth serum in a confessional hooked to a polygraph. Britain already has, per capita, the largest forensic DNA database in the world. Approximately 4m samples, or 6% of the population are registered on it. Fuck.
This is not, not, not promising.
I have a real problem with the whole brown-people paranoia thing running rampant. Half of the immigration issue in the States, I am convinced, stems from the fact that Southerners can't tell the difference between May-hi-cans and teh Mooslems cause their necks ain't red enough. I don't know if you've noticed, but I have mentioned in my own teeny voice, in just a teeny little way, what I might consider to be a small and creeping little tendency in the UK towards mildly encroaching surveillance. Maybe you noticed. Dunno. Easy to miss. An anti-terrorism campaign by London’s police forces is exploiting the public’s paranoia in the hope of catching would-be terrorists in the act. It will also have the effect of making life even harder for press photographers. But maybe the erosion of press freedom might be seen as a bonus by the Metropolitan Police. Yeah, that's good. Read the article. It's good and I have little if anything to add.
The Pagan Christ
Tom Harpur is an Anglican priest in Canada. His book The Pagan Christ came out maybe two years ago. At the time it was fairly controversial, though it's main thesis, that the supernatural aspects of Jesus were drawn out of other Mediterranean traditions, wasn't super offputting to me the idea that there therefore was no historical Jesus may be a bit of overreach. I've gone back and forth over the years, from accepting that there was indeed a man named Jesus of Nazareth to accepting the opposite and then, currently back to the fence. (A really, really good summary is here . The Evangelical Atheist is using his iPod to download the exact same stuff from iTunesU that I am). Harpur may have a bit of overreach at times but certainly an important point is that there are similar traditions and stories of virgin births, demi-god births, resurrection, et cetera. Embellishment of someone's life would certainly draw on native traditions, undercutting the idea that Jews wouldn...
That's for Effort, right?
Somebody who clearly doesn't actually read this blog but has it half ignored in his RSS reader has given me a rating. Hunh. What do you know? In the interest of paying it forward, I must pass this on to people I read on a regular basis that meet the criterion of excellence-ish-ness. The Uncredible Hallq The Nicest Girl 900 ft. Jesus Barry Eisler Pooflingers Anonymous AiGBusted There's no point in nominating Pharygula or Dispatches from the Culture Wars or the Bad Astronomer or... you get the point. My 7 1/2 readers will definitely have noticed them long before ending up wondering what I've got to say about anything. So, I've fallen back on blogs that I think have either a great take on things (like old judo compatriot Barry) or charm (Nicest Girl) or the guts to bluntly say that which needs saying (Pooflingers) Oh: Save Ferris .
The value of human life sinks again on the open market
Torture and human rights abuse. Lovely. Glad I've had my morning coffee already. British troops ‘tortured and killed Iraqi civilians seized after battle’ The Attorney-General was urged yesterday to call in Scotland Yard to investigate allegations that British troops tortured and killed a number of Iraqi civilians seized after an ambush at a checkpoint in southern Iraq in May 2004. Two British lawyers, Phil Shiner and Martyn Day, said there was evidence from Iraqi doctors’ certificates, following examination of 20 bodies, that bodies had been mutilated and that there were signs of torture having taken place. They cited two cases where Iraqis had an eye “gouged out” or “pulled out”, and another where a penis had been severed. The two lawyers, who are acting for five Iraqis who were detained by soldiers and held in a military camp at Abu Naji, provided details of their witness statements for the first time yesterday. The Iraq...