Dribs and drabs of bits and pieces.
- Bush: Telecom Immunity More Important Than Surveillance… – You know that HORRIBLY IMPORTANT and CRITICAL TO OUR NATIONAL SECURITY surveillance bill that the President keeps lambasting Congress for not passing, leading to HIGHLY DANGEROUS GAPS IN OUR SECURITY and the HIGH LIKELIHOOD THAT TERRORISTS ARE GOING TO KILL PEOPLE and it’s ALL THE OBSTRUCTIONIST DEMOCRATS’ FAULT? That one? Yeah, Bush says he’ll veto it if it doesn’t grant immunity to the telcos that let allowed warrentless wiretapping. Guess we know what’s important about it now.
- Dispatches from the Culture Wars: McCain’s Free Speech… – Strictly speaking, it’s a problem with his campaign security … but if he lets it stand, it does become his problem. To be fair, I’d be interested in hearing what the Obama campaign does under analogous circumstances.
- The Child Brides of Islam – I don’t care what holy book you use or what holy man you point to, it’s just wrong.
- Atheist soldier sues Army for ‘unconstitutional’ discrimination… – I suspect (or at least hope) that this is mostly a grass-roots intolerance — but those roots sink pretty deep, and the grass is growing awfully high. You can have de jure regulations at the top but de facto discrimination and harassment at the bottom … and if there’s no real push from the top to stamp it out, it just gets worse (see race relations in the military, etc.). Allow me to say that the folks involved are goons and not acting in accord with my understanding of what Jesus would want them to do.
- The Pit of Life and Death – A fascinating article on polution, the tenacious diversity of life, and why I don’t want to live in Butte.
- A Glass Half Full – I like the MillerCoors corporate logo. Clean, neat, fun.
- Gmail blog turns 1: Looking back at our 10 most read… – I need to re-read through this list of tips, since I’m such a heavy user.
- Tip: Set Gmail as your default email client in Firefox… – This tip didn’t actually work on my machine (though most folks seemed to have success). This one did.
Re: Army as Christian organization.
Reports of a mother whose son went through boot camp recently were that the drill sergeant told him “There are two things you have to be grateful to, Jesus and your momma.”
My understanding from people at work is that the atheist’s case is pretty typical.