Thursday, May 26, 2005

I've heard talk that blogs are the way of the future - the new "mainstraeam", that will replace newspapers and conventional news programming.
The one thing that sets blogs apart from any mainstream, or professional, media, is their anonyminity.
A blog is a name out of nowhere, a stream of data from the other side of your cable connection. It could be that it is the confidential outlet of a Washington insider, slipping you facts that he dares not attach to his name.
It can just as easily be some guy in his parent's basement, spreading the contents of his imagination all over the screen.
There is no accountability, no way to check the facts. And no way to get a retraction, or to shut down a bald-faced liar.
Without such checks and balances, blogs will never be anything more - can't be anything more - than a personalized Letter to the Editor.

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

I have been visiting my wife's grandmother recently. She watches a lot of evangeleical programs. So, recently, I have been watching a lot of evangelical programs.
I have stopped.
Boy, talk about spreading hate and fear! Oh, and asking for money. All these people asking just 29.95 for a vial of gar-un-teed Jordan River water, in its own crystal vial with 18 carat gold chain, really should re-read the part where Jesus kicked the moneychangers out of the temple.
Puh-lease! And the people who feel that we should obey EVERYTHING written in the Bible should re-read the parts banning usury (lending money and charging interest - hello there, banks and credit card companies!), or wearing clothes made from more than one kind of fibre (cotton polyester weaves are the work of the Devil, and your jockey shorts are evil.)A 991 page book (King James edition) does not have all the information in the world stored within it - especially considering that most of it is history. Heck, even the Brittanica has more pages, and it only touches on most subjects.
I'm only a Small Town Hick, after all, but it seems to me that its asking a little much to expect a book writrten for a bunch of Bronze Age herdsmen to contain information on genetics, atomic theory, and astrophysics. Even if God's original version did contain that information, it wouldn't have been passed along.
"Uh, Moses? How do you spell 'molecular biology'?"

Jesus gave his disciples only one command - to preach the Gospel. Not to interpret it, not to enforce it. And certainly not to use it as justification for your own little quirks. If you've got a moment, read Mark, Chapter 7, the first 13 verses. And repent.

Friday, May 06, 2005

Pardon me a moment. Can we get back to the UK embassy bombing?
Somebody carried out a terrorist attack within the United States.
A Terrorist attack.
Six years after 9/11, six years after the Department of Homeland Security was created to prevent future acts.
George Bush was re-elected on the premise that he could defend the country better against terrorists than Kerry - he would have been dumped otherwise.

So where's the outrage? Where's the raised color level?