by liberal japonicus
This post starts with the juxtaposition of the Olympic Opening and my surgery for a detached retina, please skip it if you are squeamish about things going poke in your eye. However, no gross pictures below the fold.
Month: July 2012
Redeeming God in Canaan
by Doctor Science
Last weekend I noticed two religion blogs, one Jewish and one evangelical (though not fundamentalist) Christian, discussing the same passages in the Bible: the ones commanding the Israelites to fight, slaughter, enslave, and dispossess the Canaanite inhabitants of the Land of Israel. To commit genocide, in fact.
The two ministers come across as reasonably similar in personality and emotional tone — I suspect they would get along quite well. Both read the Bible in historical-critical context, but they insist that it is necessary to read the Bible, not to just follow your bliss. Neither is willing to accept the “genocide commandments” as-is, but neither is willing to just throw them out or ignore them, either.
And they approach this text from different perspectives: asking different questions, using different tools. I was brought up as a Christian (in a Catholic/Lutheran family) but am now a practicing Jew, so I find a compare/contrast very illuminating. In this case, the Christian asks about the character or personality of God; the Jew asks what we Jews should *do*.
I am cutting this because it’s almost 2500(!!) words. A lot are quotes, thank goodness, but even so I may have gone a trifle overboard for many tastes.
Your Olympic opening thread
by liberal japonicus I'm assuming that those of you who aren't either questioning or defending your 2nd amendment rights (and for you outlanders, wondering WTF it all means) were watching the opening ceremony apparently conveniently time delayed by NBC. Because of my surgery, I couldn't watch, but was greatly amused by the Guardian's live blog … Read more
The decline of Western civilization Friday open thread (the real one)
by liberal japonicus True to form, the real open thread material was waiting until I made some ill advised attemp at a post, whereupon it leaps out. Fortunately, my surgery isn't until this afternoon, so, from Nation, here it is in an effort to more deeply understand Pompeii, researchers have delved not only into the … Read more
an Unamuno (very early) Friday open thread
by liberal japonicus
Unfortunately, tomorrow, I need to have a second operation on my eye, so I'm posting this Thursday evening. (One can do a timed post, but I'm feeling a bit lazy) I brought Antony Beevor's The Battle for Spain to read, which uses newly opened archives in the Soviet Union to help create a full history of the Spanish Civil War and have just finished it. A great read, and Beevor tells the story of Miguel de Unamuno's last speech. which I share below the fold:
Paranoid delusion as marketing strategy
by Doctor Science
In the wake of the Aurora movie massacre, I noticed a couple of things about the firearms market in the US:
1. The proportion of American households owning a gun has been dropping since its 1977 high, and is especially low among people under 30:
Graphs from TYWKIWDBI — “Things You Wouldn’t Know If We Didn’t Blog Intermittently”. Data from The General Social Survey.
2. Firearms are extremely durable goods:
While the automotive industry also has to compete against its own products over on the Used Car lot, no other industry—not even the jewelry business—has products with such longevity as the gun business.
A shrinking customer base for very durable products should mean that the market is contracting, right?
Yet,
3. Since Obama was nominated, firearm sales have surged to record levels:
Graph from Robert Farago, who says:
The last time American firearms sales spiked like this (1994), Uncle Billy’s Boys were about to implement the Federal Assault Weapons Ban. Also worth noting: during the period when the AWB was in effect, long gun sales far outpaced handgun sales. In the last three years, the gap between sales of the two genres has narrowed considerably. Thanks to liberalized concealed carry laws, it looks like handguns will outperform long guns (sales wise) in 2010—for the first time since these records were collated by the National Shooting Sports Foundation. No wonder Ruger’s stock is on a high.
What this all says to me is that the gun market is being driven by buyers who are stockpiling weapons. They probably don’t represent a very large proportion of all gun owners, but they are a large — and, I suspect, growing — proportion of all gun *sales*.
Flames out of the Side of My Head: Guantanamo and Torture Plea Agreements
–by Sebastian Apparently the Administration is leveraging torture victims into plea bargained fact witnesses. This article reveals some of the details (I know it is from February, but I somehow missed it. And the fact that it hasn't been all over the news suggests that worrying about it hasn't gained much traction). When a … Read more
your eye pad open friday thread
by liberal japonicus Unfortunately, not a misspelling. My vision went blurry yesterday, went to the eye doctor at 10 am, was diagnosed as suffering from a detached retina, on the operating table at 4, and getting this open thread up at 9, though I wish I didn't have such a strong anecdotal example of why … Read more
Walking in the past
by Doctor Science
The Kensington and Chelsea Library system (in London) has been posting clandestine street photos taken by Edward Linley Sambourne in the early 20th century. It’s not clear if Sambourne had a fetish for taking pictures of women who didn’t know they were being photographed or if these were intended as reference photos for his cartoons, but they are *fascinating*. What really strikes me is how women’s postures and gaits are much more modern than I expected.
A young woman reading and walking. I’m not sure, but I believe the sleeve-thing on her left arm may be to protect her clothes from ink stains. Taken June 30, 1908.
Evil Overlord List Addendum: 101. All super-secret web pages will be set to “noindex, nofollow, noarchive” and password-protected
by Doctor Science Eric Lichtblau and Scott Shane of the NY Times reported yesterday: A wide-ranging surveillance operation by the Food and Drug Administration against a group of its own scientists used an enemies list of sorts as it secretly captured thousands of e-mails that the disgruntled scientists sent privately to members of Congress, lawyers, … Read more