Category: Odds & Ends

Biologists inject ‘fidelity’ gene into voles
These guys have good timing for publicity: with the remake of The Stepford Wives coming out, I suppose this is the right time to talk about love, fidelity, biology, and freedom.

For the last week or so, I’ve been aggressively commenting on Mark Shea’s blog, basically arguing that people should refrain from rash judgement about a Justice Department memo (a memo! not a policy! a memorandum!) I’ve also said that some foreign detainees are not entitled to the protection of the Geneva Conventions, and that all forms of coercion are not torture.
Not for the first time, this revealed the worst tendencies of blog commenters. If you say X, somebody yells at you because although you said X, you “really” mean Y. Your motives get questioned, even though the people don’t know you. Insults get thrown that would never be directed toward me in person.
And then there is my least favorite aspect of Internet commentary in general: rank hyperbole. As a part of the continuing torture discussion, Mark compares this memo to the statute giving Hitler plenary powers over the German state. Here’s the exact quotation:

Taken seriously, and aggressively pursued and enforced as a course of actual action by the American State, I can see small difference between that statement and the Enabling Act of 1933 which gave Hitler the power to do Whatever He Deemed Necessary for the Security of the Reich.

Please read it in context, as well as his other statements elsewhere on his blog.
The memo argues that a law enacted by Congress is superceded by the president’s constitutional authority as commander-in-chief. You can debate that point. You can question the substance of the memo. What you can’t do — logically, at least — is translate a legal opinion written by a bunch of government lawyers into the birth of an American Third Reich.
Mark asks: “…how ready will we be to sell basic human rights down the river to the first Man on Horseback who promises us bread and safety should things get worse?”
I’d ask: if you’re going to wail and moan about a *memo* you don’t like, how will you be able to warn people of *real* dangers to society, when people have already inured themselves to your hyperbolic rants?
All I’m asking for is a sense of proportion. Because if you don’t have a sense of proportion, you’re worse than Hitler, Stalin, and the people who write computer viruses.

Michael Moore Kicking Self For Not Filming Last 600 Trips To McDonald’s

Combinaton spoon and torch? A burn mark from cigar? A stain that won’t come out no matter what you do? Nope. You’re all wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

SPORCH is the Society for the Preservation Of Roman Catholic Heritage. And they have a link to a website that has a pattern for a cassock. Does Steve’s mom know about this?

“You have suffered the passion of the cross and have received grace. There is a purpose to this. Because of your suffering and pain you will now understand the suffering and pain of the world. This has happened to you at this time because your country and the world needs you.”
— Mother Teresa of Calcutta, addressing Ronald Reagan in June 1981, quoted here.