23 ’Elul 5768: Checkers Day

Greetings.

Worthy causes of the day: “Main Street before Wall Street”, “Open White Spaces for Everyone”, and “Tell the government to protect sea turtles from trawls.”

Relevant to Divine Misconceptions:

1. “Mean girl”: There is a lot of dirt on Sarah Palin and her exploitative, un-Christian behavior in this article, but the item I want to discuss is:

   Even though Palin knew that Stein is a Protestant Christian, from a Pennsylvania Dutch background, her campaign began circulating the word that she would be "Wasilla's first Christian mayor." Some of Stein's supporters interpreted this as an attempt to portray Stein as Jewish in the heavily evangelical community. Stein himself, an eminently reasonable and reflective man, thinks "they were redefining Christianity to mean born-agains."

   (Emphasis mine.) Palin is not alone in narrowing the definition of Christianity; a parody from a few years back, “Consumer report: Which religion is the best?”, considers Christianity and Catholicism to be two different religions.  It should go without saying that the claim of Protestantism or one section thereof as the One True Claimant to the Name of “Christianity” is untenable.  Everyone knows that historically Catholicism preceded Protestantism.  Orthodox Christianity, Syriac Christianity, Coptic Christianity, and Ethiopian Christianity also preceded Protestantism.  These older groups were what everyone referred to as Christianity long before Martin Luther.  Therefore, claiming that any younger group is the “real” Christianity is an attempt at changing the definition of the term and not legitimate.
   
2. “Beyond the Israeli-Palestinian problem”: This is historical background for the Jihad. Note that the real offense of the Jews behind the Arab-Israeli War is that the Jews refuse to live by the rules that Islam sets for them, that they should be helpless second-class citizens.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Happy New Year (1976)”
  
• “More Smears By Hari”
  
• “Exposed Untruths Continue to Shape Voter Impressions” (This is worrying.)
  
• “'I'm a PC' ad pictures made on a Mac” (Very ironic.)
  
• “German radio station to air show in Latin” (Yes, Latin is alive and well. If you do not know how scary this is, look over the Wikipedia articles “Latin grammar”, “Latin declension”, and “Latin conjugation”.  And this is a language I am seriously thinking of working on for my Divine Misconceptions project after Ancient Greek due to it being the original language for some source materials and it periodically popping up in all manner of places, its big contender being Classical Arabic.)
  
• “Israel Unleashes First 'Skunk Bomb'”
  
• “Palin lawyer meets with investigator in probe” (Note the opening sentence: “Less than a week after balking at the Alaska Legislature's investigation into her alleged abuse of power, Gov. Sarah Palin on Monday indicated she will cooperate with a separate probe run by people she can fire.” (Emphasis mine.)) and “Palin's town charged women for rape exams”
  
• “Fish Gave Us the Finger” (Not what it sounds like.)
  
• “Where Have all the Gentleman Gone?”
  
• “Why the Oil Crisis Will Persist”
  
• This Modern World 2008-09-22
  

Today’s weird thing, submitted by Emily, is GIANTmicrobes. Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

19 Tammuz 5768: The Three Weeks/Pi Approximation Day

Greetings.

Worthy causes of the day: “Tell the House Judiciary Committee to hold Karl Rove in contempt and send him to jail” and “Power America with Cheap, Clean Energy in 10 Years? Yes We Can!”

Relevant to Divine Misconceptions: “Jewish-Muslim spat sours Saudi interfaith meeting”. The spat centers on Zionism. (Anyone with a link to the relevant video, please let me know. The details given are few.) But apparently at least some people are seeing through the sham nature of the Saudi interfaith conference held unimpressively outside of the arch-intolerant Saudi Arabia:

Rabbi David Rosen of the American Jewish Committee had said earlier the event would be little more than a photo opportunity unless it led to a follow-up in Saudi Arabia with Israeli Jews.

The article also notes that no followup conference is currently planned.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Bulldozing the Headlines”
  
• “Lawmakers Urge Bush to Halt Abortion Proposal” (Trust Bush to try to force his constituency’s beliefs on other people.)
  
• “The death penalty for terrorists”
  
• “Antibiotic Resistance: Blame It on Lifesaving Malaria Drug?”
  
• This Modern World 2008-07-21
  
• “Warning: Climate Change Is Hazardous to Your Health...”
  
• “Fishing Bans May Save Corals from Killer Starfish”
  
• “All Wet? Astronomers Claim Discovery of Earth-like Planet”
  
• “Lonesome George may end bachelor days on Galapagos”
  
• “The once and future child murderer”
  
• “McCain Owns First Foreign Policy Gaffe During Obama's Iraq Trip ” (And McCain is allegedly stronger on foreign policy?)
  

In lieu of a weird thing, today’s Lovecraft story is “The Hound”, with the review below.

Aaron

---

WARNING:  SPOILER ALERT!

Theological review of “The Hound”:

This is the story of two people who rob graves for kicks and receive posthumous retribution when they steal an unusual jade pendant.

This is a variation on “The Doom That Came to Sarnath”, only on a smaller scale. Instead of an offended god manifest in an idol, there is an offended dead magician. And instead of leveling a whole city, the magician sends bat monsters after any of the living in whose possession the pendant is. The story comes off just as lame, only more theologically unbelievable. There is nothing intrinsically impossible about a god acting self-centered and cruel. The dead acting self-centered and cruel is another matter entirely. Someone dead acting in this world as a dead person is a cliché out of ghost stories which is never satisfactorily explained when the dead are supposed to be compelled by a deity, karma, or the laws of physics to go on to an afterlife, be reincarnated, or disappear into oblivion. One could claim that the dead magician uses magic to keep him out of Hell or from becoming truly nonexistent, but if he has such phenomenal powers, why does he remain as a corpse lying in a grave rather than living a presumably more pleasant human existence?

More notable is that this story, unlike “The Doom That Came to Sarnath”, securely links itself with the Cthulhu Mythos by claiming that the pendant is decorated with symbology from Abdul Alhazred’s Necronomicon, the dreaded book of dead names which recurs in Lovecraft’s stories. At the moment the Necronomicon is just morbid reading for the grave-robbers; only in other stories do the dangers of this book manifest themselves.

Theological rating: D (for lack of originality, plausibility, and mechanism).

Scariness rating: My pants remained firmly in place.


Next up for tomorrow: “The Festival”.

17 Siwan 5768: Take Your Dog to Work Day/Ice Cream Soda Day/World Refugee Day

Greetings.

Worthy causes of the day: “Save the Ocelot from Border Fence”, “Tell Gov. Crist -- Comply with the law and register voters”, and “Take Action: America's Heritage for Sale”.

Relevant to Divine Misconceptions:

• “The New Israel and the Old ”
  
• “souls. i eets them.” (I know full well this is completely unserious. However, it is not unprecedented. Soul-eating appears in some form in at least two Star Trek episodes, and intuition insists it happens elsewhere. Maybe I need to read more H. P. Lovecraft... In any case, there is the serious question of why and how anyone could eat a soul which merits investigation.)

Today’s news and commentary, some of which Barry is responsible for:

• “How to Keep Cool without Running Your AC”
  
• “Carbon nanotubes: Microscopic menace or misunderstood mini miracle?”
  
• “Can the "Amphibian Ark" Save Frogs From Pollution/Extinction?”
  
• “Thief breaks into donation box, steals fake money”
  
• “In South Africa, Chinese is the New Black”
  
• “Physicists Explain Mentos-Soda Spray”
  
• “Previous cease-fires with Palestinians paint a bleak picture”
  
• “Hawaiian group demands restoration of the monarchy” (Not surprising, considering I have heard horrible things about how Hawaii became part of the United States.)
  
• Perot Charts » Charting Government Fiscal Irresponsibility (Not news per se, but a potentially useful resource.)
  
• “Barge floats 2-story home from Wash. to Canada”
  
• “Sderot, A Love Story”
  

Today’s weird thing is Tom Sepe's Steampunk Motorbike. Enjoy, share the weirdness, and Shabbath shalom.

Aaron

18 ’Iyyar 5768: Day 33 of the ‘Omer (Lagh ba‘Omer)/World Turtle Day/Declaration of the Bab

Greetings.

Worthy causes of the day: “Support the Coal Plant Moratorium”, “What You Don't Know CAN Hurt You”, and “URGENT - Protect Utah Wilderness from Oil & Gas and ORVs”.

Divine misconception of the day: “McCain Backer Hagee Said Hitler Was Fulfilling God's Will”. Basically Hagee claimed that the Holocaust occurred because the Jews failed to return to Israel en masse, the point of Hitler being to drive the Jews there. Based on my meager knowledge of history alone, this does not work. As far back as the 1920s, during the British Mandate, in an attempt to appease violent Arabs, the British severely limited immigration to Mandatory Palestine for Jews. Even though a few Jews did manage to get in, legally or illegally, many did not. Indeed, few countries were willing to accept Jewish refugees at all and none in sufficient numbers, and the disastrous results are well-known. As a candidate for a Divine tool to promote Zionism, Hitler fails miserably. Hagee is also wrong theologically. It is true that suffering may be Divinely inflicted for one’s actions. However, the Book of Job (accepted by Christians as scripture) makes it clear that bad things can happen to even a perfectly righteous person. As such, there are no grounds for assuming that the Jews (or anyone else) who suffered or died in the Holocaust are responsible for what happened to them. It is no wonder that once this scandal hit, McCain rejected Hagee’s endorsement.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Olmert's One Man Show”
  
• “Report says nation's wildlife refuges underfunded”
  
• “Killer app: Game consoles contain hazardous chemicals”
  
• “Obama tries to reassure Jewish voters” (It only makes sense to be opposed to someone based on their actual beliefs and actions, not rumors and lies.)
  
• “Audit finds lax oversight in contractor payments”
  
• “Every $10 oil rise ups US Air Force costs $610 mln”
  
• “Dinosaur Tracks Discovered on Arabian Peninsula”
  
• “Boars help German cops capture auto theft suspect”
  
• “U.S. corporations massively read employee e-mail”
  
• “Failure to Kick Smoking Habit May Put a Drag on Social Life”

Today’s weird thing is a mathematical cartoon. Enjoy, share the weirdness, and Shabbath shalom.

Aaron