Greetings.

Jewish date:  24 ’Elul 5769.

Today’s holidays:  Twenty-Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Feast of Leila Waddell.

Today’s quasi-holidays:  National Grandparent’s Day, Fortune Cookie Day, Helicopter Day, Defy Superstition Day.

Worthy causes of the day:  “Inspire America to End Mountaintop Removal” and “Go to Africa”.

Relevant to Divine Misconceptions:

1. “Buddhist Bhutan warns felling trees a threat to happiness”:  Thus it is written:
   
   
   

   Bhutan has warned its citizens over cutting down thousands of young trees every year to make prayer flags, a threat to the tiny kingdom's lush scenery and the government's duty to bring "Gross National Happiness."
   
   Himalayan Buddhists put up prayer flags for good luck or to help the dead find the right path to their next life. The more flag poles put up for the departed the better, and Buddhist monks say fresh poles must be used each time.

   Thus there is a dilemma between preserving trees and putting up prayer flags, and rather than hide from the problem the government of Bhutan is trying to find a solution which is both religiously and ecologically acceptable.  (They could always ignore the problem, but reality has a stubborn habit of not conforming to the way we want things to be.)  Steel flag poles have been rejected because they take the effort out of the ritual.  The solution the government is trying now is bamboo, which is more easily renewable than trees.
2. “Archaeologists find early menorah depiction near the Kinneret”
3. “Those Children of Israel”
4. See today’s weird thing below.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “The Problem with Risk Aversion for NASA Manned Space Flight - Augustine Commission Analysis”
• “Hispanics Face Higher Cancer Risk from Breathing Household Chemicals”
• “Mice Levitated in Lab”:  No, I am not making this up.

Today’s weird thing is “I need a new minion…”:

And, yes, I will have to keep posting pictures of Basement Cat until someone tells me how this equation of black cats with evil got started.  Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

Beware of the future

Greetings.

Jewish date:  16 ’Av 5769.

Today’s holidays:  Transfiguration, Feast Day of the Magi: Tahuti

Relevant to Divine Misconceptions:  More religious intolerance and oppression:  “UZBEKISTAN: Registration a weapon against freedom of religion or belief”, “Blasphemy laws, a pretext to attack Pakistan’s religious minorities”, “Vietnam moves on outspoken sage”, “Council of Churches: Pakistan failing to protect Christians”
Today’s news and commentary:

• “Obama's Birth Certificate: Why the controversy won't go away (hilarious)”:  (Submitted by Barry.)  I have been trying to stay out of the (manufactured) controversy of whether there is any doubt that Barack Obama is an American citizen, but this this dialog is a testament to the true absurdity of the arguments “birthers” use.
  
• “Not All Evictees Are Palestinian”
  

Today’s weird thing is “The Future”:

Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

Beware of the wrong hat

Greetings.

Jewish date: 10 ’Av 5769.

Relevant to yesterday’s holiday:  “Temple Altar Construction Begins on Day of Destruction”.  I had no idea the Temple Institute had started work on the main altar for the next Temple, and I am curious as to how they plan to move it.

Today’s holidays:  Feast of Saint Ignatius Loyola, Forefeast of the Holy Cross.

Today’s quasi-holiday:  Sysadmin Day.

Worthy causes of the day:  “Stop Walmart's War on Free Speech”, “Stop the race baiting:  Call on advertisers to drop sponsorship of Glenn Beck” and “Find a Lasting Solution to Medicare Doctor Payments: No More Cuts!”

Relevant to Divine Misconceptions:

1. More religious intolerance (by people who do not wish to give me a day off!): “Azerbaijani Police Detain Followers Of Unregistered Sect”, “Death threats against believers in Dong Hoi, as the police arrest a Catholic”, “Vandals deface synagogue, slash vehicle tires”, “Hanoi denies attacks on priests. The diocese of Vinh publishes photos”, “Attack on a Vietnam monastery”, “Cover heads, hide the mannequins; Hamas rulers launch campaign to make Gaza more Islamic”, “Gaza judge tells female lawyers to wear headscarf”, and “Turkey: Christian Murdered On Busy Street in Istanbul”.
2. Governmental thoughtlessness on religion:  “Selective Service Is Sued by Quaker”, “Row over religious poster rules”.
   
3. Introspection of one’s own religious community—the sort of exercise every religion should engage in, lest they fail to recognize their own mistakes and correct them:  “When Rabbis Fail their Communities”.
   

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Cashing In On Fear: The Danger of Dr. Sears”
  
• “Pregnant women and children first? CDC announces H1N1 vaccine recommendations”
  
• “Snake oil or fish oil? Americans shelling out $33.9 billion a year on alternative health treatments”
  
• “Burning Bush (1989)”
  
• “New Facebook application helps you bum a ride”
  
• “A bat that crawls as much as it flies shows ancient lineages”
  

Today’s weird thing is “Moshiach’s Hat (A Poem To Ponder)” by Anonymous ben Kolonymous. Enjoy, share the weirdness, and Shabbath shalom.

Aaron

The meaning of life

Greetings.

Jewish date:  15 Tammuz 5769.

Today’s holiday:  Tuesday of the Fourteenth Week of Ordinary Time.

Today’s quasi-holiday:  Father and Daughter Take a Walk Day.

Worthy cause of the day:  “A NUCLEAR FREE WORLD”.

Relevant to Divine Misconceptions:

1. “ISNA's Reform Hasn't Shed It of Radical Ideologues”:  Whether or not the “true” Islam, is pro-terrorism, people who are pro-terrorism are not our friends and should not be treated as such.
   
2. “World's oldest Christian Bible digitized”:  (Submitted by David.)  The Codex Sinaiticus, a copy of the Christian Bible in Greek from the 4th century, has now been made freely available on-line.  This should be a boon to scholars.
   
3. “TV gameshow offers atheists 'salvation'”:  This is at best in poor taste.  Religion is about the truth, not a contest for followers.
   
4. More intolerance:  “Three die in Karnataka violence” and “Faisalabad, a Christian tortured and detained on false charges of blasphemy”.
   
5. For those of you who were wondering about the Ethiopian Orthodox Church revealing the Ark of the Covenant, they claim they were not going to do that.  See  “Ethiopian Ark of the Covenant Not To Be Revealed After All”.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Collision Course (1989)”
  
• “10 Business Lessons I Learned from Playing Dungeons & Dragons”
  
• “No Holds Barred: The Eulogy you won't hear for Michael Jackson”
  

Today’s weird thing is a little religious humor:  “LOLZ, Cheezebugers and Naps?”.

Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

Beware of mind-bogglingly stupid aliens

Greetings.

Jewish date:  7 Tammuz 5769.

Today’s holiday:  Feast of Simon Magus.

Today’s quasi-holidays:  Camera Day, Please Take My Children to Work Day.

Relevant to Divine Misconceptions:

1. More people dying needlessly due to bad religious thinking:  “Horror of Kenya's 'witch' lynchings” and “Trial in death of infant raises questions of parental rights, religious freedom”, and “Man sees subtle victory in fight against Jehovah's Witnesses”.
2. It is unsurprising that Buddhists would find this offensive:  “Footwear store in Geneva uses Buddha statue to hang shoes”.
   
3. More oppression:  “AZERBAIJAN: 'Why shouldn't we bring order to this?'”.
   
4. Political irony:  “Atheist China promotes Buddhism”.
   
5. “Video of church's 'casting out' gay 'demon' in teen sparks anger”:  While demons are probably the least likely cause for homosexuality (as no one seems to have demonstrated yet why anyone specifically ends up with the sexual orientation they have), they are at least the most original suspected cause.  Some solid data supporting the existence of demons and an actual test of whether casting out gay demons actually works would be nice.
   

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Escape Attempt”
  
• “If It Bleeds, It Leads: An Exception to the Rule”
  
• “Lost Apollo 11 video tapes found?”
  

Today’s weird thing, submitted by Barry, is “40 Things I Learned From ID4 That I Never Knew Before”.  Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

Beware of the Commodore 64

Greetings.

Jewish date: 2 Tammuz 5769.

Today’s holidays: Birth of John the Baptist, Feast of the Lesser Mysteries.

Worthy causes of the day:  “Iran: Stop the Crackdown” and “Send a United Message to Siemens and Nokia”.

Relevant to Divine Misconceptions:

1. More lack of freedom of religion: “China's 10-year campaign to crush Falun Gong drives movement underground”, “Virulent new strain of anti-Semitism rife in UK, says Chief Rabbi”, and “Burmese jailed for Suu Kyi prayer”.
   
2. “Warren prayer booth under fire”:  A Church of God congregation has erected a “prayer booth” in city hall in Warren, Michigan.  Putting aside the question of what anyone needs a “prayer booth” for—I pray multiple times a day, and I have never needed one—there is an obvious question of separation of church and state here.  However, what really drew my attention is this paragraph:
   
   

   "This is ridiculous. Prayer should be private," said Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Wisconsin-based nonprofit [The Freedom from Religion Foundation]. "A government is supposed to be neutral when it comes to religion."

   Boldfacing for emphasis is my doing.  Since when was prayer something done only in private?  Many (if not most) religions hold services in which people gather together to pray.  In some religions, such as Islam, people will even pray out in the streets.  Why should anyone expect others not to pray simply because there are other people around?
   
3. “Night patrols by street pastors”:  Interesting tactic.
   
4. The Church of Scientology is in trouble again, this time for physical abuse of staff:  “FLORIDA: Sect accused of violence”.
5. Yes, I am tardy again in reviewing the latest episode of Kings, “The Sabbath Queen”.  The moral reasoning of various characters in this episode is severely wanting.  Cross causes a blackout because his son is not invited to a party, and Michelle, David, and Jack take advantage of the blackout to behave as they would not otherwise, as if no one can see their sins in the dark.  What Michelle and David do is likely to come back and haunt them in a future episode.  More interesting is the backstory revealed during the blackout.  A few years previously, Michelle was deathly ill, and with no medical intervention left to try, Silas was determined to keep her alive by keeping her spirits up.  (This is not rational, but it is human.)  To this end he read to her from one of her favorite childhood books, Harlow, Seven Dumplings, and the Sabbath Queen.  (If this is a real book, it is rare enough not to be even mentioned on Amazon.com.)  It is the story of a small girl, Harlow, who falls into the hands of the beautiful, yet evil Sabbath Queen, who refuses to let her go home.  (Which gives me wonder what the writers were thinking, considering that the Sabbath Queen is just a personification of the Sabbath in Jewish metaphor and in Qabbalah the Sefirah of Malkhuth and cannot be considered evil.)  Silas artificially draws out the story for days.  Finally Silas (perhaps in a hallucination) meets Death and strikes a deal with her “signed” in blood:  in exchange for Michelle’s life, he has to give up his kingdom once a better man for the job of king comes along.  This is frankly the most unusual variant on the Faust legend I am aware of.  But Silas is not alone:  Michelle, too, makes a deal.  She promises God that she will dedicate her life to serving Him if He lets her live.  Hence her determination not to marry anyone.  So at the end of the episode we are left wondering which of the two deals really saved Michelle’s life and which is valid.  We are also left wondering what the real requirements of the deals really are.  How is Silas to know who the better man for the job of king really is?  And is eternal spinsterhood really something Michelle needs to serve God.  (David does not think so.)  We are left with a moral cliffhanger, and I am very curious how it will be resolved.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “on and Kate Plus 8’s Announcement”
  
• “Alt med still making me sick”
  
• “Galloway Censured by Ofcom”
  
• “Borne on a Black Curren:  For thousands of years, the Pacific Ocean’s strong currents have swept shipwrecked Japanese sailors onto American shores”:  Submitted by Barry.  I was not aware of this phenomenon, and I cannot make something like this up.

Today’s weird thing is “The Commodore 64 vs. the iPhone 3G S: The Ultimate Showdown”.  Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

Beware of spag-worm

Greetings.

Jewish date: 25 Siwan 5769.

Today’s holidays: Wednesday of the Eleventh Week of Ordinary Time, Feast of Marvel “Jack” Parsons.

Today’s quasi-holidays: Watergate Day, World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought. (Intuition is suggesting that the United Nation gives its observances depressing names so that people avoid observing them and thus dealing with serious problems.)

Worthy causes of the day: “Tell Obama to Protect the Gulf Coast” and “Global Warming Action”.

Relevant to Divine Misconceptions:

1. More intolerance: “Female teacher killed in Thai south”.
2. I am late on posting on the latest episode of Kings, “Brotherhood”, which aired on Saturday night (inconvenient for me), but also viewable on the Internet (very convenient for me, except during thunderstorms). This one has a two-pronged plot. In prong one, David/Dawidh and Jack/Yonathan are sent into Gath to take out a terrorist called Belial. This name comes from the Biblical Hebrew term ben beliyya‘al, which translates roughly as “someone worthless”; the Qumran sect and Christians have interpreted beliyya‘al as the personal name of a demon. Going into combat against Belial is a bonding experience which helps move Jack away from the notion that David is a threat to him. They are not friends (as Dawidh and Yonathan were) yet, but they may get there by the end of the series. In prong two, Michelle/Mikhal, looking into her healthcare reform project, finds out that in the hospital are a mother and son sick with a plague. Besides being an opportunity for Michelle to engage in some noble self-endangerment, Silas/Sha’ul takes the plague as a sign that something is wrong with his administration—which he finds. (I will not spoil the surprise of who it is.) I am not getting the impression that the writers have a good grasp on how prophecy is supposed to work.
3. I have gotten my hands on a copy of Bill Maher’s Religulous and expect to post a review of it soon. So far it lives down to its reputation.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “the Great Negotiator”
• “Do People Want Freedom, Or Someone to Make their Decisions for Them?”
  
• “Armed Maine woman, 77, teaches intruder a lesson”: Don’t you hate it when you try to do something wrong and it goes horribly wrong for you?
  

Today’s weird thing is “Dan Webb: HSV-7 "Spag-Worm" April Fool news story hoax”:

Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

Beware of humans

Greetings.

Jewish date:  2 Siwan 5769.

Today’s holidays:  Day 46 of the ‘Omer.

Today’s quasi-holidays:  Memorial Day, Towel Day.

Worthy causes of the day:  “Join Obama and Support the Employee Free Choice Act”, “Hold KBR/Halliburton War Profiteers Accountable”, and “End Child Trafficking, Exploitation in Haiti”.

Relevant to Divine Misconceptions:

1. “Did You See The Cheney Speech? Watching The Bizarro-Buddha in Action”:  This has to be the most unusual characterization of Richard Cheney ever—and one with some logic to it, too.
   
2. “Liberty U. Drops Democratic Club”:  Thus is it written:
   
   

   Liberty University will no longer recognize its campus Democratic club because, officials say, the national party's platform goes against the conservative Christian school's moral principles.

   So... are they saying that they approve of the moral principles (or rather lack thereof) which the Republican Party has demonstrated for the last nine years?  Are divisive politics, lack of compassion, torture, and treating the poor like dirt what Jesus was really about?  Or are they falling into the moral cliché of reducing all morality to opposition to abortion and homosexuality?

Today’s news and commentary:

• “FCC’s Warrantless Household Searches Alarm Experts”
  
• “Israelis, Palestinians must seek a true and lasting peace” by local Charleston rabbi R. Ari Sytner
  

Today’s weird thing is Earth Speaks, which asks the question of what we should say to extraterrestrial civilizations.  Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

The Cardboard coffee table

Greetings.

Jewish Date:  7 Nisan 5769.

Today’s quasi-holidays:  April Fool’s Day, International Dadaism Month.

Worthy cause of the day: “Cutting Emissions is a Bargain - Support Cap and Trade!”

Relevant to Divine Misconceptions:

1. More government violation of freedom of religion: “Morocco expels five Christian missionaries for proselytizing"”, “China cracks down in Muslim west”.
   
2. Government hypocrisy on freedom of religion: “China turns to Buddhism to calm Tibet, Taiwan tensions”.
   
3. “Plea Deal Includes Resurrection Clause: Mother to Testify Against Alleged Cult and to Go Free if Son Rises From Dead”: Interesting religion-based clause in a legal deal.
   
4. I would like to speak a bit about one of my latest acquisitions, The Other Bible, edited by Willis Barnstone.  The Other Bible consists of religious texts which are not part of the standard Christian Bible from a variety of sources spread over something on the order of 1,500 years:  Jewish apocrypha, pseudepigrapha, mystical, and sectarian texts (including the Dead Sea Scrolls), Christian apocrypha, Gnostic texts, Mandaean texts, Manichaean texts, and even pagan texts.  The groups whose works were utilized are not a single religion, and these works thus form a rather artificial collection.  Also the Pharisaic/Orthodox Jewish contributions, listed under “Haggadah”, “Kabbalah”, and “The Zohar, the Book of Radiance (Kabbalah)”, were never intended to be taken as scripture.  As such, “The”, “Other”, and “Bible” are all rather inappropriate for reference to this collection.  In the introduction, the editor conceives of these works being part of a Judeo-Christian “greater bible” which we now have easier access to.  While I have to agree with the editor that these works are valuable for investigating the development of religious thought, I find the notion of a “greater bible” rather repugnant.  Religion is not a free-for-all with texts playthings to delight in.  To accept a book as scripture is an explicit endorsement of its content.  This is why the New Testament is not part of what Jews consider “Bible”:  they view it as a separate, detached collection and not a continuation of the Hebrew Bible.  Bundling together works from multiple religions under a single rubric to imply they are really part of a greater whole, a collection not endorsed as scripture by any single religion except maybe Bahá’ís (and that is a maybe) is an even worse mistake than bundling the Hebrew Bible together with the New Testament.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Strings of Peace”
  
• “Abbas Waltzes With Bashir”: Exactly why is anyone quick to support ‘Abbas or call him a “moderate” again?
  
• “Urban Beekeepers Keep Cities Abuzz with Pollinators”: Extreme pets!
  
• “Sausage without the Squeal: Growing Meat inside a Test Tube”
  
• “Jobless gather for 'Unemployment Olympics' in NYC”
  
• “Rose water: Malfunction turns Ohio tap water pink”
  
• “Fact or Fiction: Raw veggies are healthier than cooked ones”
  

Today’s weird thing is the “Cardboard coffee table”. Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

9 ’Adhar 5769: Bridge Players Day/Name Tag Day

Greetings.

Worthy cause of the day: “Protect Tigers and Humans, Stop Illegal Logging in Jakarta”

Relevant to Divine Misconceptions:

1. More failures of freedom of religion: “India: ‘Anti-Conversion’ Law Considered In Karnataka"”, “Scientology protests prompt new Riverside County law”, “Church Fights for Right to Drink Tea”
   
2. “End of the world that never was”: When an alleged prophet predicts the World is supposed to end and it does not, this is a good sign that the alleged prophet is a false prophet.
   
3. “Leave God a message at his Dutch answering service”: This seems to be an art project and fairly pointless. Deities have never needed telephones before.
   
4. “Japanese Buddhist steals statues "to pray"”: Shouldn’t this be bad karma?
   

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Money For Gaza”
  
• “Kibbutz Bailout Package (1989)”
  
• “Recipe for Disaster: The Formula That Killed Wall Street”: General rule: Never rely on a model which makes questionable assumptions. Also: Never rely on a model which you do not understand.
  
• “"Bionic" eye restores vision after three decades of darkness”: May it be YHWH’s will that the researchers working on this be successful in improving this technology and getting it to the people who need it!
  
• “We Like a Winning Face”: This is rather disappointing.
  
• “Astronomers spot two black holes in an orbital dance”
  
• “Can "Assisted Migration" Save Species from Global Warming?”
  
• “Ask the Experts: Can Babies Be Made-to-Order?”
  
• “It's our history, stupid”
  
• “Study: 86.7 million Americans uninsured over last two years”
  
• “Wyeth Vs. Levine: Joe Six Pack Trumps The FDA”
  

Today’s weird thing is “Prototype wireless, robotic vacuum cleaner: hamster-powered”. (No, I am not making this up.) Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron