Daily Archives: 23 Nov 04

Pray for Us, George

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This is doing the rounds:

Dear President Bush:

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God’s Law. I have learned a great deal from you and understand why you would Propose and support a constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage. As you said “in the eyes of God marriage is based between a man a woman.” I try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination… End of debate.

I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other elements of God’s Laws and how to follow them.

1. Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can’t I own Canadians?

2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanness – Lev.15: 19-24. The problem is how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

4. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord – Lev.1:9. The problem is, my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

5. I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2. clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should I ask the police to do it?

6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination – Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don’t agree. Can you settle this? Are there ‘degrees’ of abomination?

7. Lev.21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle-room here?

8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27. How should they die?

9. I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

10. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev.19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? Lev.24:10-16. Couldn’t we just burn them to death at a private family affair, like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively and thus enjoy considerable expertise in such matters, so I am confident you can help.

Thank you again for reminding us that God’s word is eternal and unchanging.

[Feel free to copy this, paste into a blank email message, and send here.]

Lots of Robots

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is an incredible 3D animated creation myth being entirely created by solo animation and sound artist Andy Murdock (a longtime FmH reader) at home. A new LOR Quicktime and DVD release is out; it can be viewed only several clicks away from the page at this link. LOR, a work in progress, will eventually be a feature length film. Unfortunately, I found viewing it a work in progress as well. With a DSL connection, I could get neither part I or part II to play all the way through without freezing (using the Quicktime plug-in in either IE6 or Mozilla). It would be better if Andy would let us download the .mov files and play them offline.

Here is an interview with Andy Murdock.

Addendum: Here, courtesy of Andy, is a link to download the film if you are having trouble with streaming.

Thinking of using Google Scholar?

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Think again, says Edward Champion:

“Google Scholar is a very helpful resource. Say you need to find an obscure or out-of-print book. Well, punch it into Google Scholar, type in your ZIP code, and, shazam, a listing of libraries shows up. Even so, given that Google is the top dog search engine and has been criticized for its very serious privacy concerns, one wonders why Google would introduce a feature that bears such a striking correllation to related attributes within the PATRIOT Act.

The PATRIOT Act authorizes the Department of Justice (and its related entities) to keep track of booklists that citizens check out at libraries or buy from bookstores, presumably based on the silly logic that anyone who reads A Catcher in the Rye (which would include a sizable cluster of high school students) is going to transform overnight into Mark David Chapman.

But Google Scholar fits the bill so exactly that one wonders what relationship the company might have with the government. If Google’s infamous cookie (which resides on a system until 2037) remains in play through Google Scholar, the big question is why does Google need this data? To service its users or to profit while compromising an individual’s privacy? What happens when a teenager trying to come to terms with his sexual orientation looks for a book on the subject to see if his urges are biologically normal? None of these very sizable concerns is addressed in the FAQ. ” (Return of the Reluctant )

Computers as Authors?

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Literary Luddites Unite! “A computer program known as Brutus.1 is generating brief outbursts of fiction that are probably superior to what many humans could turn out.”

“That no computer has yet written the Great American Novel may be because computers are subject to some of the same handicaps that afflict human writers. First, writing is hard! Although computers can work unhindered by free will, bourbon or divorce, such advantages are outweighed by a lack of life experience or emotions. Second, and all too familiar to living writers of fiction, there is no money in it. Unable to teach creative writing or marry rich, computers have to depend on research grants. And why would anyone pay for a computer to do something that humans can still do better for peanuts?”

(New York Times )

Medical Journal Calls for a New Drug Watchdog

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“The United States needs a better system to detect harmful effects of drugs already on the market, and it should be independent of the Food and Drug Administration and the drug industry, medical researchers and journal editors said yesterday.

Arguing that it was unreasonable to expect the same agency that approves drugs to ‘also be committed to actively seek evidence to prove itself wrong,’ the editors of The Journal of the American Medical Association recommended that the nation consider establishing an ‘independent drug safety board’ to track the safety of drugs and medical devices after they were approved and in widespread use.” (New York Times )

I said this last week in my response to FDA officer David Graham’s criticisms of the agency.

F.A.O. Schwarz to Reopen

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Timing Is No Coincidence: “The store, shuttered since January – when the remnants of the failing company were purchased for $41 million by D. E. Shaw Laminar Portfolios – is scheduled to reopen on Thanksgiving at 10 a.m., a day ahead of the usual kickoff to the holiday shopping season.

Redesigned by Rockwell Partners, the store will offer 65,000 square feet of catnip for children and all but the most Scrooge-like of grownups. Tons of plush – an F. A. O. hallmark – is to be expected. But the look of the store will be totally new. Like a child mindful of the countdown to Christmas, F. A. O. Schwarz has cleaned up its act.” (New York Times )

Ready for Second-Term Skullduggery??

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Negotiators Add Abortion Clause to Spending Bill. The language buried deep inside the new piece of legislation expands various protections to doctors and healthcare institutions which refuse to give patients access to abortion counselling or abortion procedures.

Senate majority leader Frist, interviewed today, gave lip service to being outraged someone had slipped this into the omnibus spending package, but pleaded ignorance about who could have made the edit. Given the way legislators approach their jobs, it could very well have gone unnoticed until the bill is passed. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D.-Cal.) vowed to use ‘procedural tactics’ to slow Senate business to a crawl if the clause was not removed from the bill.

And:

Lest you think this was an isolated transgression of legislative ethics, there’s this:

“Representative Ernest Istook, the chairman of the appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over the Internal Revenue Service budget, said on Monday that a measure allowing some lawmakers and their staffs to examine Americans’ income tax returns had been inserted in a huge spending bill by a staff assistant without his knowledge.” (New York Times)

Josh Marshall is all over the story of who’s trying to pull the wool over our eyes on this one.