"Can the Amish [-] Ride in Helicopters?"

Sounds like the Amish have pussed out on their purported "Helicopters - are intrinsically evil, o English" doctrine and decided that ends do justify means after all. Their consciences would be clearer if they re-defined helicopters as "buggies with very fast-spinning wheels", or distinguished the intentio involved.

How any moral agent, knowing of the death and devastation wrought by helicopters in the Vietnam War or Gulf War I, could bring himself to have anything to do with them, is a question I leave to historians rather than theologians.

This "Millersville University" has me curious.

"Can the Amish Ride in Helicopters? Medical evacuation among the Pennsylvania Dutch."
By Daniel Engber
Daniel Engber is a regular contributor to Slate.
Slate (posted Tuesday, October 3, 2006, at 6:23 PM ET), URL: < http://www.slate.com/id/2150907/>

A gun-toting milk-truck driver attacked a group of Amish girls in their Pennsylvania schoolhouse on Monday, killing five and critically wounding another five < http://local.lancasteronline.com/4/26365>. Some of the victims were evacuated by helicopter < http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.amishschool03oct03,0,3471518.story?coll=bal-home-headlines > to nearby hospitals. Meanwhile, police arranged ground transport for the victims' families, who had refused to fly. Which modes of transportation are the Amish allowed to use?

It depends on the community. Some groups are more liberal than others - the Beachy Amish, for example, can drive cars. The most conservative Amish settlements - called the "Old Order Amish < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish>" - have sought to limit air and automobile travel, as well as the use of electricity and telephones, since the beginning of the 20th century.

Each Amish community (or "district") develops its own, unwritten rules of conduct, called the Ordnung. Representatives from several dozen families meet twice a year to discuss possible changes to the rules, like whether it would be OK to use a machine to cool milk or whether Amish men can go to work at a local factory. If everyone agrees on a new rule, it becomes one of the customs of the community.

In general, the rules about technology are intended to keep the community close together. Most districts outlawed the ownership and operation of cars years ago because they might promote excessive pride and individualism. But none of the rules are absolute religious strictures. In the settlement of Lancaster County, where Monday's shooting took place, the Amish can ride in cars under certain circumstances, as long as they're not themselves behind the wheel. Taxi and van services exist around Amish communities, and some bus companies cater to Amish customers. (For a while, a bus called the "Sarasota Express" picked up Amish from the Midwest and took them down to Florida.)

The rules against telephones and electricity are similarly flexible. In Lancaster, phones are allowed < http://www.padutchcountry.com/our_world/the_amish_and_telephones.asp > as long as they're not in the home. A group of families might share a single community phone in a shack behind a barn or at the end of the lane. (The rules on cell phones <http://wired-vig.wired.com/wired/archive/7.01/amish_pr.html> are still being worked out.) Though the Old Order Amish refuse to hook up with the main power grid, some districts allow the use of 12-volt batteries to power small electric devices. Medical researchers < http://www.medicalalumni.org/bulletin/fall_2004/lead1.html> who study the Lancaster Amish bring in their patients via car service and outfit them with devices like blood glucose monitors.

The Old Order Amish are less flexible on air travel since it's not seen as vital to the well-being of the community. In general, you're not allowed to be a passenger in a plane or helicopter under any circumstances. That said, the community isn't likely to object to an airlift if it could save someone's life after an accident. Monday's shooting victims may have gotten even more leeway to ride in helicopters since they were all young children. The Amish are "Anabaptists < http://www.gameo.org/index.asp?content=http://www.gameo.org/encyclopedia/contents/a533me.html >," which means they believe in the baptism of adults rather than infants. Since children haven't yet been baptized, they're not fully bound by the rules of the Ordnung.

Explainer thanks Joel Hartman of the University of Missouri, Diane Zimmerman Umble of Millersville University, and Jameson Wetmore of Arizona State University.

Beware the Australian Timocrats!

Does this mean the next item on the Democrats' political agenda: forcing Islamic schools to feed children with bottles?

"Her name is Bin Ladin "
(9 August 2004)
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/040809/9binladen.peo.htm


Whether you spell it Bin Ladin or bin Laden, they are family, explains Carmen Bin Ladin, estranged wife of Osama's older half-brother Yeslam. In her memoir, Inside the Kingdom: My Life in Saudi Arabia, she reveals the literally veiled life she led within the family compound in Jidda, where she lived from 1976 to 1985. Of Swiss and Persian heritage, Carmen now lives in Geneva with her daughters.

Did you know Osama?

Because I am a woman, Osama, who is strictly devout, wouldn't see my face unveiled or sit with me. He came to personify how powerless I had become as a female in Saudi society. At a family gathering, once, I wondered why Osama's wife kept trying to feed their infant son water with a spoon. This baby was just too tiny to use a spoon, and he was howling with thirst. I asked, "Why not use a bottle?" Osama wouldn't allow it, I was told; it was his religious conviction that babies only be fed by breast or with a spoon. [...]

"The Smell of Hell: Does Satan reek of rotten eggs?"

My brother used to tell visiting Jehovah's Witnesses that he was an Indian Muslim (he is olive-skinned and used to have a bushy beard), buttressed by statements such as "George Bush, he is the devil, sir". Of course, that meant Bush the First. You know, the guy who had UN Security Council approval before he attacked Saddam, which meant everyone in the world supported Gulf War Round I and made it a stunning victory with almost zero blowback.

Anyway, the below may be of interest, particularly for the similarities it shows between "al-Shaitan" in Islam, "ha-Satan" in Judaism, "Lucifer" in Catholicism, "The Dark Man" in New England Puritanism, and "The Peterjensen" in Orange Catholic Gregorianism.

"The Smell of Hell: Does Satan reek of rotten eggs?"
By Daniel Engber
Slate (22 September 2006)
URL: < http://www.slate.com/id/2150170/>

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez compared George Bush to the Antichrist < http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/21/world/21speeches.html> in a speech at the United Nations on Wednesday. "The devil came here yesterday, right here," he said. "It smells of sulfur still today, this table that I am now standing in front of." When did Satan start smelling like sulfur?

About a century or two before the birth of Christ. Satan almost certainly gets his rotten scent from his underworld lair, described in the Book of Revelation as a "lake of burning sulfur < http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=revelation%2020:10;&version=31 ;>." Hell as such doesn't appear in the Old Testament, but the book of Genesis does recount how God "rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah < http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=GEN%2019:23-29&version=31;9 ;>." The idea of a sulfurous Hell ruled by an archvillain called Satan seems to have arisen at some point in the period between when the two sacred texts were written - probably in the first or second centuries BC. The Apocryphal Books of Enoch < http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=384&letter=E >, for example, talk about a place of punishment with "rivers of fire" and "a smell of sulfur < http://www.exodus2006.com/11NOAH.htm>."

It didn't take long for the devil to take on the stench of his kingdom. By the 400s, the Councils of Toledo < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Councils_of_Toledo> would describe him as a horned beast with cloven hooves, a huge phallus, and a sulfurous smell.

Tradition placed hell as far as possible from God and heaven. The Bible uses the word "Gehenna," which means the "Valley of Hinnom < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gehenna>" and refers to a garbage dump on the outskirts of ancient Jerusalem. Hinnom stood in for the underworld because of its topography - as the lowest point in the area, it served as the spiritual counterpoint for the high ground of the temple mount. The same sort of reasoning imagined hell at the very center of the Earth, in a fiery and sulfurous pit.

This isn't an unreasonable description. Underground volcanic activity can release plumes of sulfurous gas, as rocks heat up in the absence of significant oxygen. Sulfur doesn't always smell bad - given enough oxygen, it generally takes the form of an inoffensive sulfate < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfate>. But when sulfur is given off from these hot underground sources, it comes in the stinky, rotten-eggs varieties of hydrogen sulfide < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_sulfide> or pure sulfur gas. (Think of a smelly, bubbling hot spring.) Gregory I < http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06780a.htm>, who became pope in 590 C.E., made the connection between volcanoes and hell more explicit. In his Dialogues, he describes a sinner "thrown into Vulcan's gulph < http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/gregory_04_dialogues_book4.htm >" on one of the volcanic islands north of Sicily.

The idea that Satan had a strong odor is consistent with ancient attitudes about smells. A connection between sweet, dry smells and the divine goes back to the Greek epics, and it shows up in precise terms in the Old Testament: The Lord tells Moses to prepare an anointing oil "blended as by the perfumer < http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%2030:22-33&version=47 ;>" consisting of liquid myrrh, cinnamon, cassia, and olive oil. Rotten-smelling gases like hydrogen sulfide would have been associated with moral corruption.

Got a question about today's news? Ask the Explainer < mailto:ask_the_explainer@yahoo.com>.

Explainer thanks Alan Bernstein of the University of Arizona, David Butterfield of the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, Susan Ashbrook Harvey of Brown University, and Gregory Mobley of Andover Newton Theological School.

Daniel Engber is a regular contributor to Slate.

Fw: "Here's something us high church folks don't get"

"Updating church?"
by Dr Conrad Gempf
(8 September 2006, 11:50 AM)

http://homepage.mac.com/conrad.gempf/blogwavestudio/LH20040721195317/LHA20060908114921/index.html

Here's something us high church folks don't get. Are you going to say that it was right for ministers to dress in polyester suits when those were the rage in the 50s?

I think for low church folks, worship and church are about people expressing their feelings for God. Were that the way it was supposed to be, then it would be right for services to reflect the people involved. The whole thing revolves around them: the people as addressing God, but still -- the people.

For high church folks, worship and church are about coming into God's presence and giving him his due in ways appropriate for him. It's not simply about bringing eternity and the universal church down to my level, but about seeing my life lifted up to join with eternity and the Church Through the Ages. In such a case you want something that reminds you of Otherness, something that is not necessarily in complete cahoots with contemporary culture.

Sometimes postmoderns seem to think that 'old-fashioned' church was a relic of 1950s culture. As if our churches need to be updated because ordinary people on the street stopped going around in robes and chanting responsively on buses sometime in the 1980s. Part of the point was that it was not our culture, that it was counter-cultural. Priests dressed in robes rather than dressing as themselves to deflect attention from themselves; from personalities. The priests are not up there because of who they are, but because of the role they were given to play in representing/summarising the congregation before God and representing God to the congregation (depending on which way they're facing at the front, as it happens).

The congregation expressing itself toward God is still part of a high church church life. Arguably it's more pronounced, if anything, since during hymns the congregation are the performers with only an accompanyist who is hidden off stage, rather than functioning largely as an audience and background vocal choir for a set of performers who are centre stage, backs turned away from the altar. In a low church setting, though, your 'time of worship' is the singing. In a high church setting, you interrupt the serious business of worship to take time out to express how you feel about it through singing.

The more that you believe that worship is simply about unplugged self-expression of love for God by people of a particular culture, the more it would be hypocritical for you to rail against cheesy American tele-evangelists. Those polyester suits and gleaming gold cross lapel badges are the stone-washed jeans and bling of their subculture, their unnaturally white toothpaste smiles are the equivalent of piercings. And for them television and tents are the equivalent of the podcast section of the iTunes Music Store and the festival/conference speaking circuit.

Fw: "individual Catholics (meaning Ken Miller) get to define what the Catholic Church stands for..."

Deeply - is Dr Heddle aggrieved. Deeply. Yet nor does he condemn his opponents:

[...] Moving on, they [proponents of Darwinism] will argue that it is the IDers who wish to impose their religion on society at large--while heaping accolades on their guru, Richard Dawkins, who believes that parents who raise their children in their religion are committing child abuse. Is the implication of what will happen to religious families, should Dawkins's bigotry ever go mainstream, not clear?

Similarly, they will argue like libertarians if a local government mandates the teaching of ID along with evolution, and turn around and argue like totalitarians if a local government simply permits it. No government intervention can be their mantra in Georgia, on Tuesday, while the government must take control of a school's curriculum will do nicely on Wednesday, in California.

Or it allows to them to argue (actually, in this case, lie is probably more accurate) that the Catholic Church is fine with evolution period, when in fact the Catholic Church is demonstrably fine only with a very narrow perspective: theistic evolution. If pressed too hard, their arguments will start sounding like: individual Catholics (meaning Ken Miller) get to define what the Catholic Church stands for, not the anachronistic pope, and not the obscure Magisterium.

And speaking of theistic evolution, they will at times argue that it is indistinguishable from "regular" evolution or, if politically expedient (or, more likely, if caught off-guard) will treat it as little more than religious charlatanry. So while, for effect, they make Ken Miller dance for the cameras, the view behind the curtain is all Sam Harris (HT Telic Thoughts): "It is time that scientists and other public intellectuals observed that the contest between faith and reason is zero-sum. There is no question but that nominally religious scientists like Francis Collins and Kenneth R Miller are doing lasting harm to our discourse by the accommodations they have made to religious irrationality." [...]

-- David Heddle at http://helives.blogspot.com/2006/08/dissonance-as-way-of-life.html

Well, at least they've correctly identified the authority (auctoritas) of the Millersterium, even if they mixed up individuate members thereof, much as some cannot tell their Pius IX from their Pius X, or as they say of liberal Catholics in the USA - "mistaking John Paul Stevens for John Paul II".

"Miller on a New Constitution"

Unlike previous drafts with the same title, this one's not calling for the imposition of Shari'a Canon Law, with the local Ordinary having full power (potestas) to take stern measures against all instances of genocide, murder, theft, adultery, non-annulled divorces, artificial forms of contraception, Sabbath-breaking, non-alphabetically-arranged CD collections, fathers who procreate before paying off their house mortgage, excessively-bright sunlight, and fools who fail in their ignorance to acknowledge that Velvet Underground was the greatest frakkin' band the Seventies ever produced.

Although I do note that this particular Lesser Miller does want the new "Supreme Law of the United States" to outlaw abortion, so he's one-tenth of the way there.

http://lsolum.typepad.com/legaltheory/2006/08/miller_on_a_new.html

August 31, 2006

Miller on a New Constitution

Jeremy M. Miller (Chapman University - School of Law) has posted It's Time For A New U.S. Constitution < http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=926550> (Southern University Law Review, Vol. 17, pp. 208, 1987) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

In late 1985, two United States Supreme Court Justices took the unprecedented step of publicly stating that the intent of the Framers of the Constitution was of decreasing importance in interpreting that document. Justice Brennan limned, it is [a]rrogance clothed as humility to pretend . . . we can gauge accurately, the intent of the Framers. Perhaps the celebration surrounding the bicentennial of the Constitution should be tempered with a re-evaluation.

Since the adoption of the Constitution in 1787, there has been no Constitutional Convention other than the one which created the document, though there have been several amendments. A convention shall be called by Congress if it is requested via application of the legislatures of two-thirds of the states, pursuant to Article V of the present Constitution. Although approximately thirty states, four short of two-thirds, have presently petitioned Congress for a Convention on a balanced budget amendment, it is truly time for stronger medicine than the continuing piecemeal amendment process.

The states should begin petitioning Congress for an unrestricted Convention designed to bring the Constitution in line with the desires of the people on a host of issues to be discussed in this article.

Posted by Lawrence Solum on August 31, 2006 at 06:02 AM

"Southern Africa's Catholic bishops have warned priests to stop moonlighting as witch doctors, fortune tellers and traditional healers"

"African bishops warn priests against witchcraft"
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Posted: 10:03 a.m. EDT (14:03 GMT)
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/africa/08/16/africa.catholic.witchcraft.reut/index.html

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (Reuters) -- Southern Africa's Catholic bishops have warned priests to stop moonlighting as witch doctors, fortune tellers and traditional healers, and to rely on Christ for miracles.

The Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference, which represents bishops in South Africa, Swaziland and Botswana, said on its Web sites some priests were adopting the traditional African practice of calling on ancestors for healing.

The bishops ordered priests to "desist from practices involving spirits," and to steer clear from witchcraft, fortune-telling and selling spiritual powers or magic medicines.

"The belief that ancestors are endowed with supernatural powers borders on idolatry. It is God, and God alone, who is all-powerful while the ancestors are created by him," said the pastoral letter to priests issued earlier this month.

Many in Southern Africa turn to sangomas -- or traditional healers -- to cure illness, ward off evil spirits and even improve their sex lives. Sangomas, who play a key role in rural communities but are also revered by many in towns and cities, call on ancestral spirits to heal and give advice.

Some Christian sects, like the South Africa-based Zion Christian Church, fuse traditional African beliefs about the power of the ancestors with orthodox Christianity.

The Southern African bishops said Catholic priests should instead heal in the name of Jesus Christ, and should tend to the soul, not just the body.

The downside of having psychic power to know What Women Want...

Gibson also allegedly yelled at LA police that "The Freemasons started the French Revolution and founded Planned Parenthood", "On the seventh hour of the seventh day of the seventh month, the Sons of Gwalia shall quench the thirst of their scimitars in the quivering flesh of the Medical Board of Queensland", "Our rights under the Magna flamin' Carta is bein' taken away, urr, daily, cove, by thur socialist Howard bloody junta", and "We therefore most authentically pronounce, define and decree that you -- yes, you, the brown-haired lieutenant eating the donuts -- shall wed, forthwith, Our most beloved sister in law."

However his tirade ended when the police threatened to handcuff him to his car, set the petrol alight, and leave him with a hacksaw.

Mr Gibson received a suspended sentence, conditional upon him expiating his manifold wrongs by working in a regional town and attending a minimum of four (4) screenings of "Science". [*]

[*]     The one about the crop circles.

PS: "Alan Nierob, his spokesman"... that's a palindrome, right? "Borein Nala" back to front? But what does it MEAN?

The Sunday Times (UK) (30 July 2006)
"Mel Gibson rants against Jews in drink-drive arrest"
John Harlow
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2292336,00.html

MEL GIBSON, the Oscar-winning Hollywood actor, apologised last night for his "despicable" anti-Semitic rant when he was arrested on a drink-driving charge in Los Angeles. Gibson, 50, is alleged to have tried to escape when he was pulled over on the Pacific Coast highway near his Malibu home in the early hours of Friday morning and then launched into a barrage of anti-Semitic curses against the arresting sheriffs.

Police have confirmed the actor and director, who rose to fame by playing characters such as Mad Max and a mentally unstable policeman in the Lethal Weapon series, was found to have a blood- alcohol level of 0.12%, above the 0.08% Californian limit. He was charged with drink-driving and released on $5,000 (£2,600) bail.

In a statement issued by Alan Nierob, his spokesman, Gibson did not detail what happened but said: "I acted like a person completely out of control when I was arrested and said things that I do not believe to be true and which are despicable. I am deeply ashamed of everything I said."

The star added: "I have battled with the disease of alcoholism for all my adult life and profoundly regret my horrific relapse."

Nierob refused to comment on reports that after Gibson was stopped for driving at 87mph in a 45mph zone on the notoriously dangerous road he sat at the wheel of his Lexus LS 430 and repeatedly said: "My life is f*****."

According to police records, Gibson, a strict Catholic, then launched into an anti-Semitic tirade, referring to "f****** Jews" and stating that "the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world". He also repeatedly insulted the police officers, addressing one female sergeant as "sugar tits".

If true, the anti-Semitic remarks are likely to cause a storm in Hollywood where many of the industry leaders are Jewish.

This is not the first time the actor has confronted allegations of anti-semitism. Gibson faced similar accusations when making his most successful movie, The Passion Of the Christ, whose dialogue is in Aramaic. The subtitle to one line, spoken by a Jewish priest, about Christ's blood being "on us and our children" was removed to placate his critics.

There is also a family history. Gibson's father Hutton has been branded a Holocaust denier for claiming the extermination of 6m Jews is largely a myth and that many of the supposed victims had moved to Brooklyn.

The actor has admitted "atrocities" were committed during the second world war but has stopped short of criticising his 87-year-old father, who is also a devout Catholic.

Gibson also has a history of trouble with alcohol. He admitted he nearly missed the audition for his breakthrough film, Mad Max, because he got into a drunken bar fight the night before.

"When I turned up on set without the scars two weeks later they did not recognise me," he recalled.

In 1991 he joined a Malibu chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous, where he accepted the help of female mentors to give up his beer habit, but has admitted it has been a "battle every day which only my wife can help me win".

Zeus' prophecy to Aeneas

"Then Romulus... shall build the walls of Mars and establish a race of people, whom he shall call 'Romans', after his own name. Upon them I set no limits, whether in time or in space, but make them the gift of empire without end. Indeed, even Juno - whose bitterness now fills earth, sea and sky, with fear and torment - will mend her ways, and favor them as I do; these lords of the world, the toga-clad Romans."

- Zeus, quoted in Virgil's The Aeneid (Book 1, Line 277)

Lott going on re: Europe

"Since Europeans are no longer expected to go to church, self-selection encourages a more fervent kind of believer. In France, some estimates put attendance at Latin masses performed by the schismatic group the Society of Pious [sic] X ahead of attendance at vernacular masses."

- Jeremy Lott, "Be Afraid, Be Somewhat Afraid," The American Spectator (17 May 2007), http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=11448.

"Star Wars, As Re-Imagined by Ronald D Moore"

Star Wars, As Re-Imagined by Ronald D Moore

UPDATE: Already been done? I'd forgotten this 1999 gem. It even has a scene in a movie theatre, just without Xinna saying "Ut trilly uz a murukul frim Gawd."

Had someone told me in 1979 that by 2007, not only Cylons but also Imperial troopers would have Nizzillind ekksents, I would have howled "Noooooooooo!" to the sky, head cradled in hands, or else retorted "Th'umpurriyil Sinnit wull nutt sutt stull for thuss, eh filler."

SCENE 1:

Interior. The cafe of a university student union, walls covered with various posters. A few dozen students of varying ages are sitting around, talking, eating from meal trays, drinking coffee.

ALLAN VADER walks in. He is a tall Asian man in his 40s who is wearing a black T-shirt with a barely-legible slogan, stove-pipe jeans, motorcycle boots, and a long black leather trenchcoat. He has a shaved head and an eyepatch over one eye, and is smoking a cigarette.

VADER looks around the cafeteria. Camera jerks about dizzyingly.

Eventually camera settles on BELINDA "LUKE" SMITH-WALKER, a young woman aged 20-25, of African appearance, wearing a dark navy pantsuit and jacket. She is sitting alone at a table with her briefcase (and no meal tray) in front of her.

VADER pauses, throws down his cigarette, stamps it out, then walks over to LUKE and stands towering over her. LUKE looks up angrily. Camera jerks about before eventually settling - sort of - on LUKE's face.

LUKE:
You tracked me... to Coruscant? [She pronounces it "Koruskant"]

VADER:
Luke! Join me and rule the galaxy together! It is as foretold in the ancient Scrolls of the Prophet Cassius!

LUKE:
Frak you, Vader. You killed my frakkin' father, you bastard!

VADER:
DON'T -- frakkin' -- well -- frakk with me, Luke. I'm reaching out to you here, do you understand?

Camera cuts back to LUKE. Now JERRY "OBI-WAN" KENOBI is standing behind Luke, but is visible to LUKE only. OBI-WAN is a well-preserved Latino man in his 50s wearing a tuxedo, white gloves, and a red rose in his buttonhole. His hair is neatly brillcreemed in a duck's tail. OBI-WAN bends behind LUKE's head and whispers in her ear:

OBI-WAN:
Oh, come on now, Luke, surely he can do better than that, can't he? Don't let him fool you again. Show him what you're made of.

LUKE:
You're damn right! Frak him!

Camera returns to VADER's point of view, ie we see LUKE but not OBI-WAN.

VADER:
Who the frak you talking to?

LUKE:
None of your frakkin' business, you frakkin frakker! Frak you!

VADER reaches under his trenchcoat and brandishes a samurai sword.

VADER:
It is obvious that this cannot be settled by our knowledge of the Scrolls, but only by our skill with the sabre.

LUKE:
I'm ready for you!

LUKE jumps up and produces a fencing epee from her briefcase. Other students, squealing in alarm, scramble out of their way. VADER snaps his fingers and a dozen IMPERIAL STORMTROOPERS (wearing white T-shirts, white cargo-pants and white go-go boots, with white plastic bike-helmets on their heads) march into the cafeteria, pointing Uzis at LUKE...

* * * * *

SCENE 2: The same cafeteria, two hours later.

GREG GREEDO points a Glock at SOLO.

GREEDO:
Captain Solo?

SOLO:
That is my call-sign, yes.

GREEDO:
Please state your full legal name for the record before I pop three rusty caps in yo'ass.

SOLO:
Han Albert Wentworth Massingham.

GREEDO:
Thank you.

(Begins pulling trigger but then CHEWTOBACCO thrashes him across the neck with a clock of 2 by 4 wood).

SOLO:
Just in time there, Chewie.

CHEWTOBACCO:
Honorable Wookiee take great pleasure in rescue most esteemed Captain.

TO BE CONTINUED [BUT NOT NEXT WEEK BECAUSE CHANNEL TEN IN ITS INFINITE WISDOM HAS FILLED THIS COVETED TIME-SLOT WITH ITS SMASH HIT NEW SPECIAL 'CELEBRITIES FEEDING MILK TO BABY GOATS"]

Further scripting suggestions are invited. Any that amount to no more than thinly-disguised parodies of the Reformation, however, shall be disallowed.

PS: Ouch!

"Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty has clinched a public vote to win "Celebrity Big Brother" after her treatment on the British television show sparked an international row amid fears of racist bullying... US singer Jermaine Jackson, older brother of Michael Jackson, came second followed by actor Dirk Benedict, who starred in the 1980s television series The A-Team..."

-- "Indian star wins UK Big Brother show," NineMSN News (Monday 29 January 2007)

That's KnifeThePope's main claim to televisatory fame?

Suspected Cylons (1)

Battlestar Galactica lore teaches that there are 12 Cylon models - but perhaps more may be revealed...

In accordance with prophesy, I therefore offer Roger Federer as a candidate and thus he is now officially "suspect".

Reasons:
1. Never tires
2. Always wins
3. Modest

Sauron's wrath will be terrible, his retribution swift

Standard Hollywood-style fare in the original report, a stoush between Peter Jackson and New Line Cinema's Bob Shaye over The Hobbit

But a few simple tweaks gives us this LOTR themed article, making Jackson a charcater in an even larger drama, with the fate of Middle Earth as its goal...

MINAS MORGAL, Mordor (Orodruin Reporter) -- An escalation in the war of words between Barad-dûr co-chairman Sauron and "Lord of the Rings" filmmaker Peter Jackson appears to be nixing any possible reconciliation between the two -- or any chance that Jackson will direct the trilogy's prequel, "The Hobbit."

In an interview with the Orthanc Channel news service Orthanc Wire, Sauron said Jackson will never make another movie for the studio and said the filmmaker just wants more money.

"I don't care about Peter Jackson anymore," Sauron said. "He wants to have another 100 million or 50 million gold pieces, whatever he's suing us for. He doesn't want to sit down and talk about it. He thinks that we owe him something after we've paid him over a quarter of a billion pieces of gold. ... Cheers, Peter."

In response, Jackson issued a statement Tuesday that did not attack Sauron but aimed at clarifying his issue with Barad-dûr. Jackson said the lawsuit stems from the studio's refusal to account for financial anomalies that surfaced from a partial audit of "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" and that is has denied his repeated requests to audit "The Two Towers" and "The Return of the King."

"Fundamentally, our legal action is about holding Barad-dûr to its contractual obligations and promises," Jackson said. "It is regrettable that Sauron has chosen to make it personal. I have always had the highest respect and affection for Sauron and other senior management at Barad-dûr and continue to do so."

It is as Lileks the Prophet hath prophesied

'... House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi gave an interview in which she set forth the broad new agenda, just in case martial law is not declared: "The gavel of the speaker of the House is in the hands of special interests, and now it will be in the hands of America's children." Make them wash off the jam first...'

- James Lileks, "After Regime Change, the Party of the National Mom," Newhouse News Service (25 October 2006)

'Nancy Pelosi concluded her speech marking the start of her tenure as the first female speaker of the House of Representatives with an altar call. She invited all of the children brought by members to come to the well of the House and touch her new gavel. The children swarmed to the front in their sweater vests and velvet dresses. It was a fitting gesture to mark not only a change in congressional power but in the over 200- year tradition of white male leadership. Acknowledging her own children, Pelosi thanked them for giving her the support to "go from the kitchen to the Congress." At one point Madame Speaker had five grandchildren hanging from her, one an infant, whom it must be said she wielded on her arm with total ease. (Male politicians look so strange when they kiss the obligatory baby; Pelosi looked like she might do tricks with it.)

'The children clotted the well and tight space between the desks. Only a few of the dozens of kids were going to get to touch that gavel. The proceedings had to move on, which Pelosi gamely made happen even though her grandchildren were trapped by the other congressional spawn who never got their turn. One grandson took it upon himself to try to restore order in the House by banging on her microphone a few times...'

- John Dickerson, "Pelosi's Big Day: Suffer the congressional children," Slate (Thursday 4 January 2007)

Together - we can upgrade the universe

Not to bite the hand that feeds this blog, but I am bemused by part of the blurb for BLOGGER's spiel about upgrading all blogs hereon now that Blogger has been assimilated into Google or somesuch:

"... I am overjoyed to announce that today we have o’ficially [sic] graduated the new version of Blogger from “in beta” to “.” Why is this significant? Allow me to explain via analogy:

Old Blogger = Battlestar Galactica with Lorne Greene

New Blogger = Battlestar Galactica with Edward James Olmos..."

So, uh... Old Blogger had laser beams, state-of-the-art (well, for 1978) computer technology, wriston communicatorons, invisibility cloaks, and even time-travel capability... whereas New Blogger has common-or-garden bullets, telephone handsets with cords, coffee mugs, ashtrays, and greaseboard battle maps?

Not completely convinced that the technological trajectory of BSG 1978-2007 - whatever its improvements in numerous other spheres - is one that Blogger wants to emulate.

Just saying, is all.

Choice is choice, bro'

"Australian MPs want a full union, or at least a single currency, with New Zealand. A committee of the Federal Parliament in Canberra says the strong ties between Australia and New Zealand suggest a merger could be desirable and realistic."

Mayhap... mayhap. There might be serious constitutional problems, though:

"Australian lawmakers acknowledged the hurdle posed by national pride, not to mention the problems any union would cause for rugby World Cup organisers who stood to lose a powerhouse participant in New Zealand’s All Blacks."

'Cause, like, Wales can never field a separate football team against England in the World Cup again, now they're both part of the United Kingdom.

One other aspect of the report kind of falls into the "Shouldn't that go without saying?" category:

"However [the Australian parliamentary committee's] chairman Peter Slipper says it is not an attempt to annex New Zealand or to mount a compulsory takeover. He says any change would have to be voluntary..."

Well, uh, yeah. I can't see Howard drumming up Australians as cannon fodder for a trans-Tasman war of imperial conquest... especially not against regiments of Maori soldiers chanting the haka. No blood for sheep!

Exclusive Brethren

Interesting SBS documentary last night on the Exclusive Brethren sect and their involvement (very furtively) in Tasmanian and New Zealand elections, especially opposing the Greens.

Now, I myself (rejecting the dogma that "humanity is the disease, voting Green is the cure") usually put the Brown Shirts last on my ballot paper, but even so I think the XBs' methods -- basically, anonymous shit-sheeting -- are contrary not only to basic decency but also to their own big black-leather-bound King James Bible (Words of Christ in Red).

When Jesus said, "Let your yes be yes, and your no be no, and any more than that comes from the evil one", not only was [H]e limiting the voting membership of the Conclave to a maximum of 120 cardinals, with those aged 75 or older being ineligible to vote (but not ineligible to be elected), and requiring a two-thirds majority of votes until at least the tenth ballot, but [H]e was also warning against using deception. One can argue over whether this is subject to the normal Biblical exception of necessity to avoid a greater evil (Rachab and the spies, the midwives and Pharaoh, Samuel and Saul, etc), but the Brethren can hardly claim their lives are in danger if they put their names to their leaflets.

Two points in particular intrigue me:

(a) XBs don't vote themselves, but they want to influence how other people vote?

(b) XBs apparently refuse to own (inter alia) computers or fax machines, rejecting these as intrin. ... ah, as inherently evil. Yet apparently they are happy to *rent* fax machines, and hire website designers to run their websites?

What on earth gives here?

Pro Bono privato

You say... you want... diamonds and rings of gold? Well effin' eff orff, tahxmahn, thay're all stashed in the Netherlands, t'be shure.

See Timothy Noah's "Bono, Tax Avoider: The hypocrisy of U2", Slate Magazine (Tuesday 31 October 2006).

And note that in Latin, "U2" is "tu quoque".

UPDATE: Ni Marx, ni Jesus (apologies to Jean-Francois Revel).

Bummer of a week...

... not only for Rove, but also for Rove.

UPDATE: K. Beazley is particularly distraught.

How to rescue your progressive credibility

"However, after Mr Cobb clarified that by 'get rid of' he had meant 'abort', not 'put in an institution', he was applauded for his sensitivity in the face of this intensely difficult, profoundly personal, and fundamentally non-other-regarding decision."

"No other person would have any right whatsoever to judge a parent who took such a tragically necessary step for the benefit of their disabled child," said a press release from Australian Democrats Senator Lynn Allison yesterday.

Pick one

One of these headlines - and only one - is from The Onion. Have fun guessing which...

[A] "Now it's legal to tape from TV: AFTER years of flouting the law, Australians now legally will be able to tape television programs and copy music..."

[B] "I used to look at veiled women as quiet, oppressed creatures -- until I was captured by the Taliban..."

[C] "Professor Admits He Was Wrong To Discipline His Child With Ants..."

[D] "... since homeschooling never has been legalized in Germany since Hitler banned it, a mother was arrested and detained on such charges..."

[E] "Apple Claiming The Term 'Pod'..."

The Truth Laid Bear

Just discovered today that the Father McKenzie blog is ranked at # 25312 and rates as a a Multicellular Microorganism!

Second category from bottom.

Woo hoo!

Maintaining the rage

SOME of Australia’s top entertainers have angered the Federal Government by refusing to perform for Australian troops in Iraq for political reasons. The Whitlams’ Tim Freedman is among a group of artists who have knocked back requests to play for Diggers because they don’t support the war. "I was asked, and decided not to go," Freedman told The Sunday Telegraph. "I went to East Timor and enjoyed the experience. I understand how hard the soldiers do it. In this instance, I don’t agree with the war..."

-- Peter Holmes, "Aussie singers snub Iraq Diggers," NEWS_com_au (24 September 2006)

Yeah, well, when you're a pop singer who names his band in honour of Blessed Gough, but who also performs at concerts for a nation of "mulattos" whom the Great One deemed unworthy of self-government, then ideological consistency is clearly a Very Important Thing for you, isn't it...

Never ask a Lady her age

'Victoria Hill won’t specify her age. Not meaning to be rude, of course. It’s just that, after [her] starring in four (yet to be released) films in the past year – most notably as Lady Macbeth in Geoffrey Wright’s "Melbournised" new [version of The Scottish Tragedy] – Hill’s agent counseled her that a date of birth can become a use-by date. She’s not ready to be put on the shelf just yet..."

– Weekend Australian (9-10 September 2006), Magazine p 13.

Oooooo... a challenge! A mystery! A gauntlet thrown down to the intrepid investigator! Lemme see, I bet if I click on the IMDB, or even walk to the library on Monday and check Senator Robert Hill’s entry in Who’s Who... But first, let’s finish reading the Saturday papers:

'... After 16 years slogging it out in theatre collectives and television commercials, the 35-year-old Hill now has four film roles in the can...'

– Sydney Morning Herald (9-10 September 2006), Spectrum p 8.

Oops. New agent?

But wait... both Internet Movie Database and Wikipedia say "18 February 1978". What the Sam/ Hill...?!

Perish the thought that the Sydney Morning Herald itself could get such basic facts wrong. Or that the all-seeing, all-knowing IMDB would "keep the word of promise to our ear,/ and break it to our hope."

If "politics is show business for ugly people", Ms Hill is doing her bit to continue Australia’s proud tradition of joining the two realms by family ties.

For yea, just as former Prime Minister (1971-72) Billy McMahon did begat Julian McMahon, and even as former Labor Senator Michael Beahan did begat Kate Beahan, and former Prime Minister (1993-94) Bronwyn Bishop did begat Angela Bishop (who, apart from interviewing visiting A-listers, also plays Rose's mum in Doctor Who), and Andrew Peacock did swap spiritual energies at one time with Shirley MacLaine... Jeff Kennett’s son Angus made a famous breakout into modeling... And Eric Bana’s dad-in-law is Chief Justice Gleeson of the High Court of Australia (no, not that Gleeson).

There's also a Canadian division.

Next: Geoff Wright "Melbournises" Much Ado About Nothing ("Veniadikt, the married man...?")

MacDuff? Isn't that when you go on a raid to steal computers?

Union of the snake

Vale Steve Irwin, a man who fit 88 years of living into only 44 years of life.

The first time I saw Crocodile Hunter on TV, I assumed it was a Glyn Nicholas spoof. How wrong I was. Glyn's real spoof, Russell Coight's All Aussie Outback Adventures, is as sedate as an English butler compared to the real Steve Irwin.

On the principle of nil nisi bonum de mortuis, now is an appropriate day to correct the misapprehension put about by The Onion in December 2002, with its faux-headline "Crocodile Hunter The Same Way In Bed". Let this "bug-eyed, khaki-clad yokel" speak for himself as to that point:

Andrew Denton: You said that getting married was the scariest day of your life. Why was that?

Steve Irwin: Scariest day of my life, mate. ‘Cause, um...

Andrew Denton: Did you have a khaki tuxedo?

Steve Irwin: I had… I don’t know, some penguin suit and it was black.

Andrew Denton: Yeah?

Steve Irwin: It wasn’t khaki, so I’m already out of my element. And a tie! I was panicking. Absolutely panicking...

Andrew Denton: So what got you over the moment of panic?

Steve Irwin: Um... (Laughs) I don’t know. I made it. I just made it. I just beared with it and got there. But I was panicked, mate. I was so panicked. My wife’s going to kill me when I tell you this, but I’ll tell you ‘cause it’s this kind of show. He just sucks it out of you, doesn’t he? And I’ve seen that about your show! So I’m so scared, so anxious, so incredibly out of my element, you know, we get back to the hotel… uh, the motel - you know, nice honeymoon suite and that - and I... I couldn’t consummate the marriage, mate! I was freaked!

Andrew Denton: Really?

Steve Irwin: Yeah. I sat there and ate a steak instead...

- Interview with Andrew Denton on "Enough Rope", ABC-TV (6 October 2003)

Goodbye, Steve.

UPDATE 1: An eyewitness report to the contrary. How in blazes did I manage to glean three (3) news items on this topic over the 2002-05 quinquennium?!

Duckspeak

Our tolerant multicultural society is so tolerant and multicultural we’ll tolerate your intolerant uniculturalism. Your antipathy to diversity is just another form of diversity for us to celebrate.

Schapelle Corby case cuts across Left/Right lines

UPDATE: Now Bolt is taking on Mark Steyn, over whether the Muslim population of Malmö, Sweden, is 25% or 40%. For heaven's sake. Doesn't Andrew realise that all right-wing columnists are supposed to march in intellectual lockstep?

But what the frakk does The Spectator have against Australia?

'For Mr Blair, after the brief spell at university and having been back for holidays, naturally knows better than the rest of us that Australia is the model to embrace. Here is that most tedious dinner-party companion, the sanctimonious bore who bangs on about how dreadful everything’s become over here in the UK – the filthy streets, the terrible schools, etc. – who announces that the minute the last child is finished with uni, he and Pamela are emigrating to Oz. Well, it’s all so clean over there, isn’t it, and all that space! Everyone surfs, they’ve never heard of asthma, the food’s unbelievable, and you can buy a beautiful bungalow in one of Brisbane’s best suburbs, with a pool and a couple of acres, for the price of a garage in Highbury Fields! Honestly, it’s quite beyond me why anyone in their right mind wants to stay in nasty, stinky old Britain when there’s heaven on earth to be had in Australia.

One can understand the charm of a country with no history for a man who regards any event before 1 May 1997 as, at best, an irrelevance and, at worst, an encumbrance. And so much the better if Australia has come to share his own distaste for the old world of Europe, gazing longingly over the Pacific, just as Mr Blair looks across the Atlantic towards big brother America.

Distanced by vast oceans from the rest of the developed world, as devoid of culture as of history, Australia’s sole method of establishing a global identity is winning at sport. "At the Commonwealth Games you once again showed the world the exuberance and sheer style that is modern Australia," Mr Blair schmoozed the Canberra Parliament. "You also won rather more than the rest of us!" Of course they did. The country with the closest parallel to the Australian sporting fixation is South Africa, and despite the public face of liberalism it boastfully presents, Australia is as close spiritually to an apartheid state as the democratic world knows today...'

- Matthew Norman, "Blair thinks he is the Wizard of Oz", The Spectator (1 April 2006).

[Sigh] Yes, yes, it's true that Australia may not be as egalitarian, unprejudiced, open and non-hidebound a society as Great Britain, where Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Normans, Welsh, Scots, Northern Irish, Southern Irish, Pakistanis and West Indians have dwelt together in glorious harmony for centuries. But likening Australia to Setheffrika? That's a way low blow. Almost as low as Eric Ellis sneering at Mercedes Corby (a convert to Hinduism, BTW) for being infra dig, and at Schapelle's supporters for being Indonesian-hating racists, while somehow omitting the (you would think) highly material detail that Mercedes' husband Wayan Widiartha, the father of her two children, is Indonesian. Ooops. Might spoil The Spectator's stereotype, eh? eh?

======================================================

Left, pro-Corby: Margo Kingston.

"... Australian citizenship doesn't matter much to this government. Unlike just about every other nation whose citizens were incarcerated and tortured in Guantanamo Bay, we've let the Americans do what they will with Hicks and Habib. Until the public screamed too loud, it was also happy for Corby to be thrown to the wolves for the sake of friendly relations with Indonesia...."

- Margo Kingston, "Democracy not a spectator sport", Northern Rivers Echo (26 May 2005)

Right, anti-Corby: The Spectator.

[...] Surrounding Our Schapelle is a cast of characters made for the tabloids: a screeching big sister (Mercedes), a dope-smoking Dad (Mike) and a hysterical Mum (Ros). But why "Schapelle"? The Chappell brothers, Ian and Greg, dominated Australian cricket when the Corbys’ younger daughter was born. Australians everywhere were naming their boys after these heroes. That was tough for Aussies with daughters. But Ros — or so the story goes — spotted the feminine possibilities in "Chappell", and named her new daughter with what she imagined was a certain je ne sais quoi of Euro-sophistication to give her new daughter a leg out of the grim Aussie suburbs.

Portly Ros and the beer-gutted Mike have long been estranged but they’ve briefly got back together for the sake of their daughter. Mike, who has cancer and a magnificent salt-and-pepper beard, has taken to visiting his daughter in prison in the Ocker-Abroad uniform of shorts, singlet and flip-flops. When someone suggested to him that he might wish to smarten up a bit out of respect for the local culture, he showed up at the jail the next day in a singlet bearing the logo of Indonesia’s national beer brand, Bintang. Mike likes to shriek "Schapelle’s cummin’ home, she’s cummin’ home," thrusting a triumphant fist in the air as the hacks scribble away. "How’s that gunna happen, mate?" the [media] hackpack inquire. "In a plane, mate, in a plane," yells back Corby, before he’s whisked off. [...]

But the elite aren’t calling the shots on this one. There has been talk of a "redneck coup". And the circus shows no signs of packing up. A new lawyer has just been appointed to handle Our Schapelle’s appeal. I met him last week, and he did not disappoint me. His name is Paris Hutapea, and he carries two sidearms (a Beretta and a Walther), sports shiny blue suits and an impressive mullet, and drives to work in a Humvee. His fingers drip with opal and diamond rings. He and big sister Mercedes should hit it off.

- Eric Ellis, "The whingers of Oz: Xenophobic hysteria over the conviction of Schapelle Corby", The Spectator (11 June 2005)

Left[ish], anti-Corby: Madonna King.

[...] How daft a situation when the Salvos, who helped a million Australians last year, were forced to announce that no funds would flow beyond our borders in order to secure the same level of donations as previous years?

How un-Australian is it to turn the verdict delivered against Corby – who might or might not be guilty – into a boycott of Bali; a move that risks damaging Indonesia's tourism economy, pushing thousands of innocent people into the poverty spiral?

How un-Australian is the response by some Brisbanites to abuse store-owners specialising in Indonesian furniture, or to scribble abuse and threats on billboards, road signs and fences between here and the Gold Coast where Corby's family lives?

And to top it off, how cowardly and un-Australian is the attack perpetuated in our back yard that closed the Indonesian embassy, quarantined staff, and threatened to send relations with our neighbour spiralling downwards? [...]

- Madonna King, "Think before you make a stink", Courier-Mail (Brisbane) (4 June 2005)

Right, pro-Corby: Tim Blair.

[...] About 51% of Australians believe Schapelle Corby is innocent, according to one poll. A far greater percentage, judging by various comments, believe Corby and her kin are guilty of high-level boganism. “I think ther[e] are more important things to be concerned with in the world then [sic] some bogan hairdres[s]er cow”, wrote one internet elitist. “It must be bogan and racism season”, wrote another, on the issue of a Bali boycott. A third wondered at the etymology of “Schapelle”: “We can only assume that her bogan parents thought it would be nice to use the French for ‘name’.” Bogan-loathing increased following televised coverage of Corby’s sentencing, which showed the reaction of her family. Instead of seeing understandable human grief, many saw only a pack of ravening white-trash Corbeasts. Prejudices beyond racism are clearly at play here. [...]

- Tim Blair, "Enough to make you nuke", The Bulletin (8 June 2005)

Schapelle Corby’s terrible crime, and the hostile, bigoted reaction of many Australians to her sentence, threatens Australia’s delicate and valuable friendship with Indonesia. To calm the situation, Prime Minister John Howard last week asked that “we all pause and understand the situation, and recognise and respect that when we visit other countries, we are subject to the laws and the rules of those countries”. Quite right. As one online leftist remarked: “In the end, a good and respectful relationship between Australian and Indonesia is much more important than the fate of Schapelle Corby.” Yet there must be more that Australia can do to restore the good relationship built between the two countries following our generous tsunami donations, and now endangered by those encouraging a Bali tourist boycott. I urge that Howard invite Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to Australia, so that the pair may discuss the issue and finally arrive at a satisfactory outcome.

But the prime minister’s invitation would only be a first step. The next would come somewhere between Jakarta and Sydney, when a covert baggage-handler, operating under Australian government instruction, would add 3kg of high-quality Afghan heroin, 2kg of uncut Bolivian cocaine, 1kg of hydroponic marijuana, four child pornography DVDs, and 120 MDMA tablets to the president’s luggage. Also, several panda cubs and one or two handguns. The baggage handler need not worry about leaving any fingerprints, as this “evidence”, when discovered by customs officials, won’t be tested. Nor will Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s angry denials be videotaped; instead, he’ll be reported to have instantly asserted ownership over the drugs, DVDs, protected species and weapons. In fact, according to customs staff, the president would at one point attempt to ingest all the drugs at once while screaming obscene abuse about Phar Lap and Ruth Cracknell.

Then would come the president’s trial, before one of our finest narcoleptic magistrates and a jury selected randomly from Bali bomb survivors, East Timorese refugees and Corby family members. Despite the best efforts of his legal team (three TAFE engineering students), Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono might expect an unusually harsh sentence: something in the range of 7000 years, plus hanging (and don’t forget the $13,000 fine!).

The final step would be relatively simple, beginning with an email (subject line: “prisoner exchange”) from the prime minister to the Indonesian government. Events thereafter would swiftly restore the post-tsunami harmony both nations have recently enjoyed.

- Tim Blair, "Corby II: Revenge on Susilo. There's no reason the Indonesian president shouldn't enjoy a spot of good old Aussie bag-handling", The Bulletin (1 June 2005)

Right, anti-Corby: Janet Albrechtsen.

[...] There is a sneaking suspicion that Corby is getting just a teensy weensy bit more than your average Australian sitting in an overseas prison. Why? Because, well, she's a good-looking Gold Coast girl who has become one of Australia's most recognisable faces. [...] You know too many Australians are overdosing on compassion, with scant regard for reason, when mainstream talk starts suggesting that Corby's courtroom demeanour and good looks somehow demonstrate her innocence. Where does that kind of logic take us? To the position that we should wash our hands of ugly and poorly-groomed defendants because they must be guilty? [...]

-- Janet Albrechtsen, “Legal reason taken prisoner by compassionate spin”, The Australian (1 June 2005).

Addendum 1:Speaking of "bogans" (aka bevans, booners, westies, mooks), the wonders of Google have at last cast some light on the mysterious origins of that term.

Addendum 2: pace Eric Ellis, anyone who "carries two sidearms" and "sports [...] an impressive mullet" can do even better wom[e]n-wise than Mercedes ...

Addendum 3: It gets better. Mr Hutapea's first name is "Hotman". Snigger all you like, but using that handle may avert the considerable embarrassment that could arise were Mercedes to write "Consult Paris H. re videotape evidence" in her diary.

Addendum 4: Not often you can slide a stanley knife between Andrew Bolt and Tim Blair, but the Boltcutter is in the Corby skeptics camp:

[...] Yes, Corby may be as innocent as she says. But picture how she must look, and how we all now look, to an Indonesian, whether a judge or a citizen. Here is a surfer girl who worked as a bar hostess in Tokyo’s nightclub area, flying into Bali for reportedly the fifth time in six years. [...] Keep picturing. The Indonesians learn that Corby, although having no criminal record, comes from a wild and woolly family. One of her brothers is in jail for burglary and stealing, her mother is on to her fourth partner after having six children by three men. Her father had a minor conviction some 30 years ago for possessing marijuana. Sure, none of that makes her guilty, but how would all this make Corby seem to an Indonesian? Here’s a tip: Not like she came from the responsible land of the straight-and-narrow. It gets worse. Corby’s defence team is soon headed by a salesman who looks like a spiv and is a former bankrupt who still owes creditors plenty. [...]

-- Andrew Bolt, "Corby and the mob", Herald-Sun (Melbourne) (1 June 2005)

Addendum 5: Like Marvin in Pulp Fiction, Ernie Saluszpopuli doesn't even have an opinion on l'affaire Scsàpélkörbyi: "Depths and the maiden", Weekend Australian (18-19 June 2005). Which leaves the Online Trinity of the Willing deadlocked, 1-1-1 Yes-No-Abstain, over SC's innocence.

Addendum 6: Welcome Tim Blair readers!

Addendum 7: Only one way to break the one-all split on the Right... to call the venerable Truthful Godlike one out of retirement. And he's...err, he's for... no, wait, he's against... err, he's something on the issue. "Corby's plight lets loose the rednecks from the jungle bar", The Australian (10 June 2005).

Addendum 8: There is another explanation for the origin of "The Bogan" ... and (as one overhyped but iconic Seventies franchise nostagia piece would put it), it was long ago and it was far away...

In another time, long before the Empire, and before the Republic had been formed, a holy man called the Skywalker became aware of a powerful energy field which he believed influenced the destiny of all living creatures...after much study, he was able to know the force, and it communicated with him. He came to see things in a new way. His 'aura' and powers grew very strong. The Skywalker brought a new life to the people of his system, and became one of the founders of the Republic Galactic...As you know, the 'FORCE OF OTHERS' has two halves: Ashla, the good, and Bogan, the para-Force or evil part. Fortunately, Skywalker came to know the good half and was able to resist the para-Force; but he realized that if he taught others the way of the Ashla, some, with less strength, might come to know Bogan, the dark side, and bring unthinkable suffering to the Universe. For this reason, the Skywalker entrusted the secret of THE FORCE only to his twelve children, and they in turn passed on the knowledge only to their children, who became known as the Jedi Bendu of the Ashla: 'the servants of the force'. For thousands of years, they brought peace and justice to the galaxy. At one time there were several hundred Jedi families, but now there are only two or three.'

SMH aggregating again

In a previous post I commented on the laziness of the Sydney Morning Herlad in referencing old news as if it were today's. Well, they're at it again:

THE Vatican has never been a fan of Harry Potter, but its chief exorcist
has gone one step further and condemned J. K. Rowling's fictional boy wizard as
downright evil.

"Behind Harry Potter hides the signature of the king of the darkness,
the devil," says Father Gabriele Amorth, the Pope's "caster-out of
demons".

The books contained numerous positive references to the satanic art,
falsely drawing a distinction between black and white magic, he told the Daily
Mail in London. In the same interview, Father Amorth said he was convinced that
Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler were possessed by the devil.

Note the use of the present tense regarding Father Amorth's statements. The apparent source? The UK's Daily Mail. Yet a cursory reading of the "offending" article reveals the datedness of The Sydney Morning Herald's material. The Daily Mail has the courtesy to oblige us with the WHEN, as well as the WHO and the WHAT of the story:

In the past Father Amorth has also spoken out against the Harry Potter
books, claiming that reading the novels of the teen wizard open children's minds
to dabbling with the occult and black magic.

Father Amorth, who is president of the International Association of
Exorcists, said of the JK Rowling books:"Behind Harry Potter hides the signature
of the king of the darkness, the devil."

He said that Rowling's books contain innumerable positive references to magic, "the satanic art" and added the books attempt to make a false distinction between black and white magic, when in fact, the distinction "does not exist, because magic is always a turn to the devil."

IN THE PAST. Get it? Like, say 2002? Or at least March 3, 2006, when the Sydney Morning Herald most recently published this material.

Good grief. At least take the effort to check if not acknowldge the ag of your source. Otherwise next we'll read that World War 2 has just ended, or that Neil Armstrong has only just stepped onto the surface of the moon.

If Jean-Luc Picard were a real Frenchman...

1. The Prime Directive would have a proviso that reads: "... Except where necessary for the purpose of testing antimatter torpedoes as away far as possible from Sector 001."

2. Romulan ale wouldn't be illegal as such on Earth - it would just never get past the Enterprise's one-ship blockade.

3. Whenever Q or a Ferengi started the "the greatest monsters in your planet's history - Hitler, Stalin, Khan Singh..." speech again, Picard would interrupt with "Ah, but you fourgaird, do you not, ze greatest monstair of all - ze Duke of Wairllingtong!"

4. L'Academie Starfleet would fine cadets for saying "Phasers on stun!" in English. Instead they would have to say "Ajustez les armes que émettont les courants des particules chargés et phasés, s'il vous plaît, parce que ils étourdont mais pas tuent les adversaires."

5. Picard would resist seduction by Vash and instead would ask her suspiciously: "Your parents, madame! Why is it, zat zey name you 'Cow'?"

POLLITTBURO

Katha Pollitt makes a very good point in favour of government assistance for parents, against the complaints of the "child-free" movement:

'... Rightly (conservative version) or wrongly (liberal version), the workplace is structured to suit men, preferably men with stay-at-home wives. The qualities rewarded there – self-reliance, ambition, single-minded devotion to work – make women unfit for marriage and vice versa.

By the time they are ready to settle down, their male contemporaries are married or looking for younger, softer women; if it’s not too late for a husband, it’s likely to be too late for a baby; if they manage to produce one, they’ll confront the fundamental incompatibility – practical, psychological, emotional – of motherhood and career.

With some variations, this narrative of forced choices and biological deadlines, in which feminism is either irrelevant or itself the problem, forms the theme of many recent highly publicised advice books. Sometimes the young unmarried woman is told she is having too much fun and will pay later; sometimes she is told she is miserable, and no wonder – while men postpone commitment, her eggs are already scrambling...

None of these writers [whom Pollitt is reviewing -- most prominently, I Don’t Know How She Does It by Allison Pearson] seems to believe that caring for an infant could be made less exhausting, less harried, less solitary. But surely it could be quite different. After all, men (and now women) who join the military get a plethora of benefits from a grateful nation: in the United States, for example, they get scholarships, free medical care for life, extra points on civil-service exams and much more.

... If governments are worried about low birth-rates, as many are, they could do a lot better than lecture uppity women one day and offer paltry child bonuses the next. Free tuition for life would be more like it, along with free childcare, mandatory paternity leave (men in Britain have recently been granted two weeks’ paternity leave) and a Real Men Change Nappies campaign...'

-- Katha Pollitt, "In the family’s way: Superwomen who want it all, companies which depend on men with stay-at-home wives. How can they fit together?," The Guardian (9 September 2003)

But then she goes and spoils it all with an obligatory Bush-bitch on her favourite topic:

'... As the growing movement against abortion shows, self-determination for women is still controversial...'

Nice day's work, Katha. You're trying to refute the "child-free" lobby's complaint that "having children is a voluntary lifestyle choice, a hobby that parents should fund out of their own pockets". But then you impliedly concede that it's okay for children, like pet animals, to get put to sleep (Freely Safely And Legally) if they become inconvenient to your lifestyle. Put a band-aid on that foot gunshot wound ... And you wonder why young women these days don't want to label themselves "feminists".

Daleks "gliding like priests"... Someone has lost it

"Halfway through the second series of new-century Doctor Who, and it’s looking dicey. The problem became clear to me in episode five, 'Rise of the Cybermen', as the relaunched 1970s arch-villains stamped in their silver moon-boots across the stately home’s front lawn. Fundamentally, they just aren't Daleks, are they? The first series, the one that was on last year, had Daleks, hordes of them, and what a delight they were: gliding like priests, talking like Nazis, chimerical yet simple, and with that unpleasantly ambiguous relation to the ground beneath them. I wasn't aware I had missed them until, suddenly, they were back. And back, too, was that sound made when the Doctor is arriving or departing, the scraping, groaning contractions of the Tardis - so wonderful, warm yet terrifying, the sound of childbirth, I always think, as heard by the baby.

When I was young, though - I dimly remember - the Cybermen did seem quite scary, with their blank, square faces and cruel, insatiable appetites for human whatever-it-was. But actually, most of that mystery came not from their appearance, but from their name. Back then, no one really knew what 'cyber' meant, though we sensed a sinister power: it was always clear that it meant something geared at some point to take over. This sense of awful potency lasted pretty much through the 1980s, powering the gorgeous prescience and horror of William Gibson’s Neuromancer novels, only to peter out, pretty much, by the mid-1990s, as the dull commercial reality - the real 'consensual hallucination', to re-purpose Gibson's phrase - of Internet shopping kicked in. There was also, after 1977, the Star Wars problem, and the visual similarity of the Doctor’s second-best adversaries to C-3PO, the trite butler-robot. Which is why Cybermen no longer impress us. The metaphorical connections no longer lead adults, at least, to things we find exciting - unlike priests, Nazis, our shabby 1960s and 1970s childhoods...."

- Jenny Turner, "Across the Tellyverse," 28(12) London Review of Books (22 June 2006)

.... "Priests"?

Even the casual reader can tell that Ms Turner had a Protestant upbringing. To Catholics, "priest" evokes the image of snowy-haired Father Tim, with his red nose, his twinkling eye, and the Irish lilt in his voice, teaching young street urchins that they can be a winning football team if only they Believe In Themselves.

Whereas to Protestants, "priest" evokes a gaunt-faced, burning-eyed bonze, wearing a metal skull-cap with a pair of ram's horns attached, his chest bare but for a couple of richly-bejeweled bandolier straps, and waving a staff with bits of birds' skeletons jangling off it as he slaughters a bull before some ponderous gold idol.

Somehow, the idea of a group of Daleks sitting at the parish hall bingo table, smoking and roaring with laughter at off-colour jokes, with a pile of empty Baileys bottles beside them... just does - not - compute.

PS: And yes, I know that priests, like Daleks, come in different models. But I can no more easily picture a Dalek as a dedicated, somewhat intense late-twenty-something Vietnamese-Australian than as Father Tim, a-tarl, a-tarl. And how would the Jesuit Daleks wear elaborate gold poison-rings on those sink plungers? Would they have a coin slot for the bribes to be discreetly deposited, like a vending machine?

PPS: More similarities and differences between Daleks and priests...

[-] One lot are often depicted as cartoonish super-villains who have some fiendishly clever plan to take over the universe. The other lot are copyright-owned by Terry Nation.

[+] Favourite verb ends in "-ate".

[+] Both are surrounded by thick white smoke.

[-] Daleks have flashing lights on them all the time. Priests only have flashing lights on them when they become corrupted. A giant neon sign magically appears (ex opere operato) on the said cleric's forehead, flashing the words "Warning! Corrupted Priest!" If you know a priest, and he doesn't have such a flashing neon sign, then he can't be a corrupted priest. It's objectively not possible.

[-] Daleks do acknowledge the supremacy of the Emperor.

[-] Better a Rusty Priest than a rusty Dalek.

Presidential attire

While the USA distracts itself with peripheral side-issues like flag-burning amendments and Intelligent Design in schools, la grande nation devotes its atttention to real political questions:

"The French taboo over politicians’ private lives has crumbled further with the publication of photographs of Segolene Royal, the left-wing favourite to succeed President Jacques Chirac next spring, on the beach in her bikini. Ms Royal, who is 53 next month and favourite to win the Socialist nomination later this year, is unlikely to suffer from the flattering first pictures to be published of a female politician in minimal attire...."

- Charles Bremner, "Socialist in a bikini has the French in a sweat," The Australian (10 August 2006)

Since the bikini was named after a Pacific atoll that was used for nuclear testing, I can't think of anything more appropriate for a French President to wear.

Pray that the custom is not continued, though, if France ever elects another M[a]cMahon as its leader...

Islam and the old Communism

UPDATE: Tanveer Ahmed, "Why Islam is the new Marx," The Australian (11 August 2006)

* * * *

Stephen's earlier post on this topic brings to mind two passages I read a year ago:

The first is from Bertrand Russell's The Theory and Practice of Bolshevism (London, 1921, pp 5, 114), quoted by "ibn Warraq" in Why I am Not A Muslim (NY, 1995, p 163):

Bolshevism combines the characteristics of the French Revolution with those of the rise of Islam... Among religions, Bolshevism is to be reckoned with Mohammedanism [sic] rather than with Christianity and Buddhism. Christianity and Buddhism are primarily personal religions, with mystical doctrines and a love of contemplation. Mohammedanism and Bolshevism are practical, social, unspiritual, concerned to win the empire of this world.

The second is from Dave Crouch's article "Bolsheviks and Islam: Socialists can learn from how the Bolsheviks approached the Muslims of the Russian empire", in 280 Socialist Review (December 2003):

... Marxism is a materialist worldview and so is thoroughly athiest. [Sic. Deweyism may be fairly athy, but Marxism is even athier still. - ed]. But because it understands religion to have roots in oppression and alienation, Marxist political parties don't demand that their members or supporters are [scil. be] atheists too. So atheism was never included in the Bolsheviks' programme. Indeed, they welcomed left-wing Muslims into the communist parties (CPs). The Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky noted in 1923 that in some former colonies as many as 15 percent of CP members were believers in Islam. He called them the 'raw revolutionary recruits who come knocking on our door'. In parts of Central Asia, Muslim membership was as high as 70 percent.

The Bolsheviks took a very different approach to Orthodox Christianity, the religion of the brutal Russian colonists and missionaries. Party policy in Central Asia, endorsed by Moscow, stated that 'freedom from religious prejudice' was a requirement for Russians only. So in 1922 over 1,500 Russians were kicked out of the Turkestan CP because of their religious convictions, but not a single Turkestani.

This was part of Bolshevik policy to try to make amends for the crimes of Tsarism in the former colonies....

(Not sure whether I'm allowed to quote that much, since the article does have a big fat notice saying "Copyright © Socialist Review". But who gives a? La proprieté, c'est le vol.)

... And all that Muslim goodwill stood the Bolsheviks and their heirs in such good stead six decades later, didn't it.

Now that's an interesting policy: "affirmative action" with a vengeance. I'm sure devout, believing Muslims would be queuing in droves to join a Communist Party that told them "Of course, objective scientific thought proves your primitive faith in Allah, the Prophet Muhammad and the Qur'ân to be a ridiculous superstition. But since you have been oppressed by Russian Orthodox colonialism for centuries, that makes it a progressive superstition".

That's what it boils down to... That "superstition" (= supernatural belief) is tolerable among the Little Brown People, as part of their quaint primitive customs - although white Europeans whose societies are post- (rather than pre-) capitalist are held to higher standards of intellectual rigour.

I once got into a debate with some Australian neo-Trotskyites who ended up arguing that vilifying Catholicism would be "progressive" in Australia but "reactionary" in Northern Ireland. So: following the Russian Bolsheviks' logic, if the Communist Party of Iran ever were to win power, it should admit practising Jews, Christians, Bahá’ís and Zoroastrians, but not practising Muslims, as members. So what happens when the Communist International holds its World Congress and the Marxist Muslim delegates from Dagestan get to sit alongside the Marxist Christian delegates from Iran? "Fraternal greetings, comrade. If you lived just a few hundred miles northeast in my country, you would be expelled from the Party for your reactionary religious superstitions". "Indeed, comrade, and you for yours in my country". Workers of the world, unite!

Marxism in a nutshell: "People are basically good, and that's why the world is so f$%#$%#$ed up".

The evils of hopping

The latest from the land of Tony and Cherie Blair: Cross-country running at school can breach a student's human rights.

Cross-country running in schools could be a form of child abuse that breaches human rights, teenagers have been told.

A textbook used in citizenship classes claims the traditional activity is a form of physical abuse.

The guide, which tells pupils their legal rights, suggests cross-country is as damaging as bullying.

PE teachers and health experts yesterday described the guide as 'indefensible'.

More than 30,000 copies of the book have been sold to schools across Britain by Coordination Group Publications, one of the country's biggest educational publishers.

The guide is targeted at 14 to 16-year-olds and designed for use in citizenship lessons, which became compulsory in secondary schools four years ago.

In a chapter titled 'Your Legal Rights', pupils are told: 'You have the right to be protected from emotional or physical abuse.'

The book goes on to give just two examples - bullying and cross-country
runs.

This reminds me of the horrors of the "hop" in Tomkinson's Schooldays, a wonderfully satiric episode of Ripping Yarns, poking fun at all things proper and British by Michael Palin and Terry Jones of Monty Python fame. Summary of the culminating "hop" event below:

"Finally Tomkinson is put to the ultimate torture: the hopping race, which no boy from Graybridge had ever survived. As he was on the point of death, he was approached by Grayson with a sniff of a certain interesting substance, and
perked up, and became the first ever Graybridge winner. He was welcomed back as the new school bully (Grayson having taken up an offer of a place at Eton), and
had the moral dilemma of how to reform the system.

He violently hits the little boy who congratulates him."

http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=Tomkinson%27s%20Schooldays

Theological bumper stickers

Re-issued in honour of Mel Gibson:

[not all of these are mine]

ANTINOMIANISM MEANS NEVER HAVING TO SAY YOU’RE SORRY

BUDDHISM IS GETTING THERE SLOWLY

CATHOLICISM: GOD'S WAY OF SAYING "DO I HAVE TO PUT THAT IN WRITING?!"

CATHOLICISM: MORE FAITH THAN THE ATHEISTS, MORE REASON THAN THE FUNDOES

CATHOLIC POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY: IS IT ALL JUST PIUS/ KANT?

DISPENSATIONALISM WAS FINE WHILE IT LASTED

DO I BELIEVE IN TRANSUBSTANTIATION? IT MAKES NO VISIBLE DIFFERENCE

DON'T JOIN THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR IF YOU REFUSE TO KISS BUTT

DOUBLE PREDESTINATION WAS DOOMED FROM THE START

FUNDAMENTALISM: A VALID OPTION FOR YOU AMONG THE WORLD’S GREAT LIVING RELIGIONS?

GIVE TRADITIONALIST CATHOLICS A FAIR CRACK OF THE WHIP

GNOSTICISM ISN’T ALL ON THE LEVEL

GREGORIANISM: POSTPONE YOUR Y2K CRISIS UNTIL 3972 AD

GREGORIANISM: WE DON’T WORSHIP MAMMON, HELL NO – WE JUST VENERATE HIM

GREGORIANISM: WE STILL KEEP TEN COMMANDMENTS IN TOTAL

HOLZMANNISM – IT’S NOT LIKE YOU’RE MAKING OUT

IF YOU CAN READ THIS, THANK WILLIAM TYNDALE

LUTHERANISM DON’T ACCEPT NO BULL

MARITAINISM: THIS TIME - IT'S PERSONAL

ME, A SEDEVACANTIST? IS THE POPE CATHOLIC?

MILLENIALISM: NO GOOD FOR EITHER MAN OR BEAST

MORMONISM’S NO FAKE – HONEST INDIAN!

NEITHER ROME NOR GENEVA - BUT INTERNATIONAL GREGORIANISM

PENTECOSTALISM: COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS

PIETISM IS NO LAUGHING MATTER

PRE-MILLENIALISM’S DAYS ARE NUMBERED

PROCESS THEOLOGY IS EVOLVING DAY BY DAY

AMILLENIALISM: GOD'S WAY OF SAYING "DON'T MAKE ME COME DOWN THERE!"

SEMI-PELAGIANISM DOES HAVE SOME MERIT

SO WHAT IF IT’S NOT RATIONAL TO DERIVE AN “OUGHT” FROM AN “IS”? THAT DOESN’T MEAN I HAVE TO STOP DOING IT

UNIATE CATHOLICISM: NICE PAIR OF LUNGS

WELCOME TO THE WAITERS’ UNION! HELP US STAMP OUT EVEN THE TINIEST REMAINING VESTIGES OF LEGALISM!

WHO ARE YOU TO TELL ME TO QUESTION AUTHORITY?

WHY DO YOU WANT TO EXCLUDE MY MODERNIST MASTER-NARRATIVE FROM CONSIDERATION?

YOU’RE A MONERGIST? GOD HELP YOU!

In-flight Hassels...

"You dare - accuse me - of smuggling budgies?"

Former Baywatch star David Hasselhoff was unable to board a flight from the UK on Wednesday because he was ill, not drunk, his publicist has said. Press reports claimed the actor, 54, was intoxicated and could not board the flight from Heathrow to Los Angeles. Hasselhoff's publicist Judy Katz said that "was totally untrue" and that the actor felt unwell after taking some medication for a recent arm injury...

- "Hasselhoff 'Not Drunk' at Airport", BBC News (28 July 2006)

Budgie-smugglers... the dregs of humanity. The International Community must act now.

At least the 'Hoff didn't start ranting about how the Rotarians control the world's finances...

PS: That last one is behind the subscriber wall. Here's what Benny Morris said:

"In Article 17, under "The Role of Muslim Women," the charter [ie, the Covenant of Hamas, the movement's constitution and platform, finalized in August 1988] states:

'The enemies have understood that role [and] therefore they realize that if they can guide and educate [the Muslim women] in a way that would distance them from Islam, they would have won that war. Therefore, you can see them making consistent efforts [in that direction] by way of publicity and movies, curricula of education and culture, using as their intermediaries their craftsmen who are part of the various Zionist Organizations which take on all sorts of names and shapes such as: the Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, gangs of spies and the like.... These Zionist organizations control vast material resources.... Islam ... will wipe out those organizations which are the enemy of humanity and Islam.'

Rotarians and Masons had better watch out..."

UPDATE: Radio Triple-M does its part:

"We're on a mission to clean up the pools and beaches this summer with The Cage's Budgie Smuggler Amnesty. We want you to mail in a photo of your Dad or partner in a pair of Budgie Smugglers as well as the actual Budgie Smugglers themselves..."

Update 2:

"No 'budgie smugglers' for APEC photo: PM", Melbourne Age (3 September 2007)

What planet are...

'Let's get this out of the way right now: Much as we hate even to touch on this question, there are in fact people who have seen baby Suri. Among them: producers Frank Marshall and Kathy Kennedy (they're married; she produced War of the Worlds). They saw the baby in Telluride, Colo[rado], very recently and told friends that all seemed quite ordinary...'

- Kim Masters, "Suri Cruise Spotted in Telluride," Slate (20 July 2006)

Telluride? Are the Cruise-Holmes channelling EE "Doc" Smith now instead of L Ron Hubbard?