Blogworthies XXXVIII

Because The Blog from the Core simply can't cover everything.

Noteworthy entries @ Catholic Light, BeldarBlog, open book, The Horserace Blog, C-Log, The Kerry Spot, The Corner, Southern Appeal, Dappled Things, Hoystory.com, Christianity Today, That Liberal Media, Belmont Club, The Fly Bottle, I love Jet Noise, Let's Try Freedom, and HerbEly.

Saint Lawrence statue found @ Catholic Light:

Jeff, an American living abroad, has located a statue of St. Lawrence for my newly-renovated kitchen. But first I'd like to tell you about a trip to Europe I took with four friends 14 summers ago, after we all graduated from high school....

Mackris/O'Reilly et al. litigation settles with a whisper, not a bang @ BeldarBlog:

This is a very interesting and cryptic press release from counsel for Bill O'Reilly, Fox, and their codefendants, about which several of my readers have already emailed to ask for my interpretation: ....

Amazing Gall @ open book:

.... So — why does Margaret Carlson get to pull the big bucks at CNN and Time for being stupid, and the rest of us do our valiant, slighly more nuanced work for free?...

The Scoop on Polls @ The Horserace Blog:

This evening, I found myself becoming genuinely frustrated with all the polls. Part of this is my fault. I decided to iron out the statistical problems inherent to predicting a presidential election — and just not worry about the methodological problems.

I regret having done that. I am inclined to discontinue my statistical analyses. The reason for that is, upon doing some research, I am shocked at the number of polling outfits that are generally unreliable. I plan to make my living as a political methodologist, and it was foolish of me to take my methodological cap off. It is what I am best at....

The Political equivalent of a Bank Run @ C-Log:

Our electoral, democratic system of politics is based fundamentally on trust. No one can check every single ballot in every single precinct in America, to be sure that every single voter's will was accurately registered. Even if we expect politicians to bend the rules in their own favor, we have to trust the underlying system....

Do You Know the USA? @ The Kerry Spot:

It's time to pass on to Kerry Spot readers the highlights of another conversation with one of my favorite sources, a longtime GOP operative who has been around politics longer than I have been alive. (I've nicknamed him "Obi-Wan Kenobi," which brought the response, "He's not the funny looking one, is he?" I promptly assured the operative that I was not comparing his appearance to Yoda's.)

Specifically, I want to focus on two topics of the conversation. The first was on the polls....

Something About Our Country Today @ The Corner:

I’m afraid I have a more pessimistic take on Jim Geraghty’s good piece today. It’s not that I think America won’t ultimately reelect the president. I think we will reelect George Bush, and for just the reasons Geraghty says. But what does it say about the changes in this country that the battle is so close?...

Kerry, Religion, and the Politics of "Respect": Why "Article of Faith" Is Just Proxy for Irrational Stuff that Religious Folk Believe. @ Southern Appeal:

.... Beneath what is often called the “culture wars” is a division of philosophical labor which tells us that moral beliefs that are derived from one’s religion or theology are not really items of knowledge. Rather, they are on the same level as mere opinion, matters of personal taste, and/or deeply held spiritual beliefs that may not be extended as normative for others. So, this is why Ron Reagan, the son of the late U. S. President Ronald W. Reagan, can tell a national television audience in his speech before the 2004 Democratic National Convention that many who oppose embryonic stem cell research “are well-meaning and sincere,” but this is based on nothing more than belief, “an article of faith,” to which of course they “are entitled.” However, asserts Reagan, “it does not follow that the theology of a few should be allowed to forestall the health and well-being of the many.” ....

Living in Imperfect Communion @ Dappled Things:

I wrote recently about the high number of deaths we've suddenly had in the parish. One man was speaking to me a couple days ago about how spiritually well prepared a number of these people were for death, and how he started thinking about his own children and how they wouldn't be quite so ready to meet their Maker. In a subsequent conversation with one of his grown sons, he challenged the son to re-think his own practice of the Faith....

California is loony-toon land @ Hoystory.com:

California's saner, senior senator, Dianne Feinstein, demonstrates that you can be to the right of Barbara Boxer and still be a nut. In a letter to The Wall Street Journal, Feinstein takes the paper's editors to task for supporting research into a bunker-busting nuke....

Episcopal Church Officially Promotes Idol Worship @ Christianity Today:

Imagine for one moment that you're a leader in the Episcopal Church USA. You know that within the next few days, a global commission is going to release a report on how the global Anglican Communion should respond to your church, and is likely to be critical of the ordination of an actively homosexual man as bishop. You know, and have said yourself, that the debate isn't just about sexuality: It's about how one views the Bible. And you know that all eyes will be on your denomination over the next few weeks. What do you do?

What the real leaders of the Episcopal Church did was to take an action that makes ordaining a homosexual man as a bishop almost a non-issue. They started promoting the worship of pagan deities.

This is not a joke nor an overstatement. In all truth and seriousness, leaders of the Episcopal Church USA are promoting pagan rites to pagan deities. And not just any new pagan deities: The Episcopal Church USA, though its Office of Women's Ministries, is actually promoting the worship of idols specifically condemned in Scripture....

Voting Dogs and Democratic Fairy Dust @ The Fly Bottle:

A thought: Could it be that the sort of person likely to be "intimidated" out of voting isn't in general the sort of person who you want to be voting?

A lot of the coverage, both formal and informal, of the forthcoming apocalypse in Ohio strikes me as implicitly accepting a really quite stupid bit of democratic romanticism: that it is better that 100 illegitimate votes be counted than to let one legitimate vote go uncounted....

A Case Study @ That Liberal Media:

Chase is a liberal, a budding journalist, and a new semi-regular to the comments on my individual blog, The Spoons Experience. Chase read a poem I printed about the MSM, printed here, and took umbrage at the suggestion that the media was biased to the left.

In the e-mail exchange between us that followed, Chase gave just about the best illustration of the media's liberal blinders that I have ever seen: ....

War Plan Orange @ Belmont Club:

In retrospect Saddam's plan to defend Iraq may bear a resemblance to War Plan Orange's retreat into Bataan. Since reinforcements could not come to the aid of US divisions in the Philippine Islands in time to repel an anticipated Japanese invasion, the plan called for the abandonment of the capital and a concentration of forces and supplies into the Bataan peninsula, where MacArthur's forces could hope to hold out until relief eventually arrived. MacArthur attempted to change the plan at the last moment, attempting to fight near the beaches and was belatedly forced readopt the strategy of withdrawing into Bataan, a mistake which cost him thousands of tons in supplies. Still, by skillful rearguard actions at the Agno and Pampanga Rivers, MacArthur slipped 80,000 men into his defensive redoubt and held out for four months. Three years later, Tomoyuki Yamashita, facing the same strategic problem against superior forces, moved his 272,000 troops into the mountainous spine of Luzon where he held out for a little over eight months....

Illegitimi Non Carborundum @ I love Jet Noise:

On the eve of the election, Foreign Affairs serves up yet another overwrought jeremiad. Tragically, George Bush has single-handedly destroyed our legitimacy in the eyes of the world.

Give it a rest, guys. It's a bad sign when even the URL needs its own executive summary.

In the halcyon days before the rise of the BushReich, peace and harmony were the order of the day and lovely Lady Liberty was universally loved and respected by all. This dewy-eyed view of history required the authors to gloss over that unfortunate Southeast Asian escapade that had all the world throwing roses at our feet... But no matter. The formation of academic theories often requires a few facts to be sacrificed upon the altar of Eternal Truth....

Why I Am Pro Life @ Let's Try Freedom:

I used to be pro choice. It's a choice, not a baby. It's just some cells. Fetal rights are just an excuse for fundamentalists to oppress women and control their sexuality.

I can't believe that anymore.

This is why....

Political Campaigns: An Exercise in Functional Atheism? @ HerbEly:

This afternoon I was reading Dark Night of the Soul by Gerald May and ran across a definition of functional atheism: "the belief that ultimate responsibility for everything rests with me." For an extended discussion of its impact on leadership go here.

This presidential campaign is making functional atheists out of most of us. Here is how it happens....

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sat. 10/30/04 08:50:08 AM
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