Worthy causes of the day: “Take Action for Polar Bears and Lower Gas Prices” and “Tell the Bush administration to stop the slaughter of gray wolves!”
Relevant to Divine Misconceptions:
- “Review Finds Slurs In '06 Saudi Texts”, which demonstrates the Islamic practice of taqiyah, i.e., lying to unbelievers. Years from now, the school administrators will “still” be working on removing incendiary language from textbooks, with no evidence of progress. This is much like the Saudi government “still” making progress towards freedom and democracy, with zero evidence of progress.
- “Saudi king opens Spain interfaith conference with call for unity”: This would be much more convincing of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia held the conference in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is well-known to have extremely low tolerance for any religion other than strict Sunni Islam, and apparently King Abdullah has no plans to change that.
- “Mormon Church and polygamists battle over language”: The names groups use to describe themselves are not arbitrary labels. Names represent how groups view themselves and how they want others to view them. In this case the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) and the other Latter-Day Saints movements (“fundamentalists”) are arguing who gets to describe themselves as “Mormon”, a term indicating being part of the tradition that stretches back to Joseph Smith, Jr. Both parties to the dispute do have some claim to being part of that tradition. The LDS Church has been the biggest faction ever since there was a schism in the tradition, while the fundamentalists may hold fast to aspects of the tradition which the LDS Church abandoned, particularly polygyny. Since the LDS Church considers the fundamentalists heretics, it is quite understandable that the former does not want them generally considered Mormons. However, this is coming off as something comparable to Catholics trying to claim that Anglicans are not Christians.
- “Big Tobacco Lures Young Smokers With Menthol Cigarettes: Study” (Shame! Shame! Shame! Let’s just ban tobacco and get it over with. There is no point in leaving tobacco legal unless one actually wants people to get hurt.)
- “Consumers go online for cheap fuel” (I am not surprised.)
- “Send It Somewhere Special”
- “Hit by a flying saucer? Here's your medical billing code”
- “Cancer Survival Rates Vary by Country”
- “Boy, 11, tracks speeders with toy radar gun”
Aaron
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