ca_chick

Finally.

Brushing aside the government's arguments that the detainees were enemy combatants being held at a time of war outside the US, the court said they had "the constitutional privilege of habeas corpus".

Justice Anthony Kennedy said: "The laws and constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times. Liberty and security can be reconciled; and in our system they are reconciled within the framework of the law."

Is he out of office yet?

"Surveillance efforts will not cease when the law lapses. Administration intelligence officials said agencies would be able to continue eavesdropping on targets that have already been approved for a year after the initial authorization. But they said any new targets would have to go through the more burdensome standards in place before last August, which would require that they establish probable cause that an international target is connected to a terrorist group."
— The New York Times, February 15, 2008

Maybe I don't understand because I'm not employed by a government security agency, but why would one choose a target to eavesdrop unless there was probable cause to listen to that particular person/group out of the billions of people/groups one could wiretap? Or do our agencies need a way around the "burdensome standards" of probable cause because they arbitrarily select targets? Hmm... I think I want to listen to Bob Jones today. Why not? Rather ineffective tactics, no? If this is about terrorists, and one had a suspicion, presumably somewhat realistically based, wouldn't a judge issue a warrant even on highly circumstantial evidence? What judge wants to be the one who let the next big terrorist group into the country/successfully attack? So how hard is it, with reasonable suspicion, to get a warrant? And why the living hell would anyone select a target without reason? Unless we're listening for other reasons... In which case, there are other government agencies that don't seem to be subject to judicial review, so why aren't they handling the government's special interests?

Bottom line, if there was probable cause, this law would be superfluous. If it's a slow bureaucracy issue, fix the system.

Alanis Morissette is God. Don't know how in ## years I missed that...

Cardinal Glick: Christ didn't come to Earth to give us the willies... He came to help us out.
***
Nun: You don't believe in God because of Alice in Wonderland?
Loki: No, "Through the Looking Glass". That poem, "The Walrus and the Carpenter" that's an indictment of organized religion. The walrus, with his girth and his good nature, he obviously represents either Buddha, or... or with his tusk, the Hindu elephant god, Lord Ganesha. That takes care of your Eastern religions. Now the carpenter, which is an obvious reference to Jesus Christ, who was raised a carpenter's son, he represents the Western religions. Now in the poem, what do they do... what do they do? They... They dupe all these oysters into following them and then proceed to shuck and devour the helpless creatures en masse. I don't know what that says to you, but to me it says that following these faiths based on mythological figures ensure the destruction of one's inner-being. Organized religion destroys who we are by inhibiting our actions... by inhibiting our decisions, out of... out of fear of some... some intangible parent figure who... who shakes a finger at us from thousands of years ago and says... and says, "Do it — Do it and I'll fuckin' spank you."
***
Serendipity: I have issues with anyone who treats faith as a burden instead of a blessing. You people don't celebrate your faith; you mourn it.
***
Rufus: White folks only want to hear the good shit: life eternal, a place in God's Heaven. But as soon as they hear they're getting this good shit from a black Jesus, they freak. And that, my friends, is called hypocrisy. A black man can steal your stereo, but he can't be your Savior.
***
Metatron: This is who you are.
Bethany: Everything I am has been a lie.
Metatron: No... knowing what you now know doesn't mean you're not who you were. You are Bethany Sloane. Nobody can take that away from you, not even God. All this means is a new definition of that identity. The incorporation of this new data into who you are. Be who you've always been. Just...be this as well...from time to time.
Bethany: I guess this means never cheating on my taxes.
Metatron: To say the least.

A few gems from an uneventful evening spent with Bob, sparkling wine, and Dogma.

I don't know if every local government between Redding and Yreka is bored and hurting for money, but they sure have a ridiculous amount of CHP camping out in the medians with radar. I just want to know if they seriously don't have anything better to do than to slow down the flow of traffic.

In an effort to keep myself awake during my 12-hour drive after only 2 hours of sleep, I played a radio game that, among other things, involves quickly flipping through every FM radio station. I learned that in the vast wasteland from Bakersfield to Sacramento there are only 4 types of stations: country, "Christian," Spanish-language (most specifically those genres I have not fully warmed up to), and hip-hop/rap. I suppose there are 5 if you count the full 20% that are dedicated to ear-bludgeoning renditions of every poorly written Christmas/Holiday song. Speaking of both Christmas music and hip-hop, I discovered this gem at about 3 hours into the drive. Certainly not the worst cover created.

Ah, home... before my parents left to run an errand and after I'd already had a glass, my mother made sure to explain to me exactly where the wine and champagne are located (surely, the way my mother was acting, one would think I'd never been to their house before nor spent any amount of time without them to care for me). Don't get me wrong, I like alcoholic beverages as much as the next, but they're only going to be gone a couple of hours.

Child's Mother: "I'm hoping that when Child goes to visit my parents, Child will learn some manners."

As a parent, isn't that your job? Certainly, other input is vital in reinforcing lessons and behavioral patterns taught in the home. But putting the onus on the grandparents? I think not, especially when the child sees them infrequently. Maybe I say all of this because I'm not a parent...

 

Mini Review (halfway through the book): The Sins of Scripture, John Shelby Spong

1) Too few citations. I imagine that a lot of his claims have been assimilated into his common knowledge during his years at seminary and through his studies thereafter, but these aren't common knowledge to everyone, and some scholars would disagree. I'd like to know who his sources are.

2) Inflammatory rhetoric. If an idea is ridiculous, its ridiculousness should be evident to all once you're done with your counter arguments. Telling me time and again — with exclamation points — how absurd someone's position is only makes yours more suspect.

3) Stop repeating yourself. Reiterating your conclusion instead of providing evidence for it makes everything you say seem less credible.

4) I think he falls into the same trap as so many others: throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I am in full support of questioning, critiquing, and deconstructing our presuppositions, assumptions, conclusions, symbols, metaphors, evidence, traditions, methodology, hermeneutics, etc. Question everything. But if you find something to be ‘problematic,' re-imagine and reconstruct before you dismiss it entirely because it doesn't fall within your world-view or favored epistemology. Just because some have used the Eucharist to reinforce guilt and thereby maintain power doesn't mean that this beautiful, symbolic tradition can't also be used to bring life and a deeper understanding of community. Ridding ourselves of traditions that have been misused doesn't solve the problem of their abuse, and, in many cases, makes us poorer for having lost rich spiritual metaphors. We should examine oppressive doctrines, but do we have to essentially throw out Genesis 1–2 because it's been (mis)used against women for centuries? Instead, couldn't we question the androcentrism of the passage (in both the reading and the writing)?

I (currently) believe that "the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testaments...contain all things necessary to salvation," so I'm quite comfortable with calling some of Paul's assessments of women, slaves, and nonheteronormative individuals ignorant and wrong. I'm not, however, comfortable with saying that the Pauline corpus should be dismissed (which he has not yet suggested, but a position some academics have taken).

5) Despite all of this, he does have some valid conclusions.

 

...and now back to work...

Finland moves to tighten gun laws

I don't disagree with their proposed legislation. Why should a 15-year old be allowed to purchase and license her or his own gun? But if only 14% of all homicide is gun related, and they have the 3rd highest per capita gun ownership in the world (according to a BBC stat, 56 guns per 100 people), they must be doing something right.

Really, my question is about their logic. If the student was 18, how does preventing minors from owning guns solve the problem? Even retroactively, he would have had legal opportunity to purchase and use the weaponry. I'm not familiar with Finish crime rates, but because they don't mention a large incidence of 16-year olds shooting people, I imagine that population isn't a particular problem unless otherwise severely provoked. Why not deal with bullying?

 

EU far-right bloc faces collapse

I suppose it's my own prejudice that isn't surprised that Mussolini's grand-daughter is being accused of xenophobic remarks. I'm more saddened however by the Romanians' apparent shortsightedness. They are upset that they were compared to the despised Roma (gypsies), which is almost exactly like calling a male a "fag" or "girl" (or calling a Latino an "illegal alien"). And instead of questioning why being nonheteronormative or being female is something horrible, we question the comparison. How dare you compare me to them! But isn't that just furthering the problem? If you allow for anyone to be put down based on social categorization, you're not dealing with the root issue (yes, males and females are biologically different, but why one would respond in disgust to being called the other isn't based in biology but in society). Why do we value idealized masculinity? Why is anyone better than a Roma?

"The Greater Romania party has itself campaigned on a fiercely nationalistic, anti-Roma platform."

Why expect the Italians to behave any differently? If you encourage xenophobia, there's not much room to complain when the system turns against you. "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" (MLKJ).* When society changes the ideal, and inevitably it will, you may be the next target. If nothing else, protecting the least in society is prescient self-preservation.

 

*Have you ever noticed that MLKJ backwards is alphabetical?

"In the book of Isaiah the bible tells us to defend the cause of the fatherless. We are committed to doing just that every summer."

You only defend the fatherless during the summer? I suppose that's more than a lot of people.

(I know the source, and he probably has no idea what he really said. But still...

You've got to be kidding me: "The August expedition planted the Russian flag on the seabed below the North Pole." Countries still do this? Seriously?

Starin' down the stars
Jealous of the moon
You wish you could fly
But you're stayin' where you are
There's nothin' you can do
If you're too scared to try

“Jealous of the Moon,” Why Should the Fire Die?, Nickel Creek

I should listen to the lyrics of the music I own more often.

 

I think my pizza-making skills are improving. My dough was the best it’s been by far. Now if I can just figure out a way to evenly spread the spices, I should be golden.

Her question caught me off-guard. It shouldn’t.

I’m not sure I want to be salaried. At least with hourly you’re paid for every hour you work. If you’re exempt, it really sucks to be you.