8 ’Elul 5768: Star Trek Day/National Boss-Employee Exchange Day

Greetings.

Worthy cause of the day: “Demand Quality, Affordable Health Care for All”.

Relevant to Divine Misconceptions:

1. “Massive Takedown of Anti-Scientology Videos on YouTube”: Summary: The Church of Scientology threatens YouTube with legal action of material if anti-Scientology material is not taken down, allegedly over copyright violation of material belonging to other people; YouTube users make counter-threats and the material is largely back up. It should be noted that fighting free speech is a warning sign that a belief system is wrong. After all, a decent belief system should be able to survive in the face of fair criticism; that is a principle that science is based on. That the Church of Scientology would rather suppress information rather than give an actual defense of itself indicates that either whoever is in charge is incompetent with regard to public relations or they are incapable of justifying their actions.
   
2. “Palestinian Crimes against Christian Arabs and Their Manipulation against Israel” and “Remembering the Forgotten Jews”: This is Islam in action: oppression of non-Muslims living under Muslim rule. This is nothing new, and little attention is paid to it. Note the Worldwide Christian failure to do much, if anything, about the suffering of Christians caught in such a situation. Also note it has taken about 60 years for the eradication of most of the Jewish communities in the Muslim world to garner a non-trivial amount of attention.  With so little attention being paid to the victims of Islamic terror, it is no wonder progress against the jihad is so sluggish.
   
3. “Islam group urges forest fire jihad”: There is no wisdom in such actions. Devastating the Earth might work for planetary conquest, but who would want to be the ruler of a ruined planet? Then again, this sort of thinking explains a lot about why the Fertile Crescent is now largely desert.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “The Sun Will Eventually Engulf Earth--Maybe”
  
• “UN says eat less meat to curb global warming” (Interesting idea. Here in the US we tend to eat too much meat anyway.)
  
• “Algae-dyed polar bears puzzle Japan zoo visitors”
  
• “Why Women Should Vote”
  
• “Cloud-seeding ships could combat climate change”
  
• “Wanted: Ride to Mojave Desert for wayward tortoise”
  

Today’s weird thing is The Long Now Foundation. Someone please remind me to register some theologically based predictions into their system. Live long and prosper.

Aaron