micah holmquist's irregular thoughts and links |
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Welcome to the musings and notes of a Cadillac, Michigan based writer named Micah Holmquist, who is bothered by his own sarcasm. Please send him email at micahth@chartermi.net. Holmquist's full archives are listed here.
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Sites Holmquist trys, and often fails, to go no more than a couple of days without visiting (some of which Holmquist regularly swipes links from without attribution) Aljazeera.Net English Blogs that for one reason or another Holmquist would like to read on at least something of a regular basis (always in development) Thivai Abhor |
Wednesday, October 29, 2003
I've posted at least one entry to this blog every day since June 1. That's 151 straight days and 51 days longer than my previous record (June 30, 2002-October 7, 2002). During this period I believe I've produced a number of entries that stand up as essays even though they often involve blockquotations that wouldn't work in traditional prose pieces. So perhaps blog essays is the correct term. (I have not intention of creating a combo word.) Posts like "Laughter," "Blair and Shock and Awe" and "More of the same" are amongst those I put in that category. At the same time I feel the need to mention that I regularly wonder if blogging is the most effective use of my time, or even an effective use of my time so it certainly zaps many hours and I often think I would like to pursue other things with more energy. Does this mean that I plan to quit blogging or even cut back significantly? No, but you might see some changes. *** "[O]ur analysis suggests that as few as 11,000 Iraqis may have been killed in the war or as many as 15,000. It is likely that approximately 30 percent of the fatalities were noncombatants -- that is: civilians who did not take up arms," writes Carl Conetta of the Project on Defense Alternatives in an October 20 report. The "Iraqi Combatant and Noncombatant Fatalities in the 1991 Gulf War" is also worth reading. *** *** In an October 23 story entitled "What does the Bible actually say about being gay?" the BBC writes about contested verses from the Bible: The most famous of them is probably from Leviticus: "You shall not lie with a man as with a woman; that is an abomination."What I want to know is how the "PRO-GAY"S are able to say that the Bible shouldn't be understood as forbidding sex with a woman who is having a period. UPDATE: In today's Telegraph, David Rennie writes: The United States is failing in its mission to create a secular, overtly pro-Western Iraq, a leading adviser to the American administrator Paul Bremer said yesterday.The story also quotes Feldman as saying, "Any democratically elected Iraqi government is unlikely to be secular, and unlikely to be pro-Israel. And frankly, moderately unlikely to be pro-American." *** Common criminal al Qaeda member Iyman Faris got 20 years yesterday. Click here for more. *** No changes are planned for the Iraq Survey Group a Department of Defense official said today, Kathleen T. Rhem of the American Forces Press Service reports today. 6:53 p.m. 10/29/03 UPDATE #2: Alex Hannaford reports on the Branch Davidians in yesterday's Guardian. *** On a similar topic, Mike Wazowski has alerted me to this interesting press release from the Barna Research Group on a survey they conducted about the religious beliefs of people in the U.S. I'd be interested in knowing what actual quetions were asked because of grafs like this: The California-based researcher indicated that born again Christians are not the only ones confused about what happens after death. Many of those who describe themselves as either atheistic or agnostic also harbor contradictions in their thinking. “Half of all atheists and agnostics say that every person has a soul, that Heaven and Hell exist, and that there is life after death. One out of every eight atheists and agnostics even believe that accepting Jesus Christ as savior probably makes life after death possible. These contradictions are further evidence that many Americans adopt simplistic views of life and the afterlife based upon ideas drawn from disparate sources, such as movies, music and novels, without carefully considering those beliefs. Consequently, the labels attached to people – whether it be ‘born again’ or ‘atheist’ may not give us as much insight into the person’s beliefs as we might assume.”It isn't clear how someone gets to be included in these categories and since it is very possible for a Buddhist to say they don't believe in "God" and yet to also believe in reincarnation, which is, for most intents and purposes, life after death. That isn't something that could be seen as a "contradiction" but is part of a very historic belief system. Maybe part of the problem is that "religion" is too broad of a term for the wide variety of "faiths" that are put in that group. 8:18 p.m. 10/29/03 |