Jim Rittenhouse's semidaily journal of news, commentary and reports
Take a look at the gravestone to the right; that’s from one of my family members; translated from the German, it reads “Born in the year 1736: Heinrich Rittenhouse…” and trails off into the grass. Wikipedia’s entry on the Mennonite church / movement notes: Persecution and the search for employment forced Mennonites out of the [...]
Is the controversy over building a mosque near ground zero a grand distraction or a grand opportunity? Or is it, once again, grandiose demagoguery? It has been said, “Nero fiddled while Rome burned.” Are we not overly preoccupied with this controversy, now being used in various ways by grandstanding politicians? It looks to me like [...]
America is not a “Christian” nation in the way we think of “Muslim” nations. If it were, birth certificates would automatically indicate “Christian” as the “faith of birth.” It would be illegal to convert to another faith. Jews, Native American religions, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Mormons and atheists would be unwelcome. They would need to practice [...]
“When we think of Islam we think of a faith that brings comfort to a billion people around the world. Billions of people find comfort and solace and peace. And that’s made brothers and sisters out of every race — out of every race. America counts millions of Muslims amongst our citizens, and Muslims make [...]
Rampaging red squirrels in France Kashmiri militants, meet bear. Bear, eat militants. Dead bison stink really bad: South Dakota meat producer abandons meat storage locker full of 44 tons of kosher bison, and the power gets cut for nonpayment.
The Federal Protective Service, tasked to provide security to US government office buildings (like the one that Susan and I work out of in downtown Chicago) is in trouble; the Government Accountability Office ran teams through and past the security at several such buildings, bringing in bomb materials. Numerous US government web sites were downed [...]
The governments of Mali and Algeria are teaming up to smush a local Al Qaeda spinoff in the western Sahara. Of course, Algeria has been sponsoring Polisario in the Western Sahara for decades, but *that’s* the terrorists that they like. The endless ethnic nationalist guerilla war against the central Burmese government goes on, as noted [...]
…and I also find the idea of political murder and terror repugnant. I understand that you find Dick Cheney a sadistic MF, or a Army recruiter someone who is hurting your co-religionists by supporting the war, or you find Dr. Tiller a baby-killer. Fine. Then work constructively to bring people to justice, or to outlaw [...]
…from Think Progress. Give it a look for a summary of why it’s major bad news, if you didn’t know that already…unless you think you’re Jack Bauer or something. As Jesse Ventura said on The View: “If waterboarding is OK, why don’t we let our police do it to suspects so they can learn what [...]
I’m beginning to think that Dick Cheney and company can’t tell the difference between repeats of 24 and reality. Of course, it’s coming to look a lot like he had the idea from the beginning that there had to be a pony at the bottom of that dungpile – er, that there had to be [...]
Some GIS professor thinks that by using his systems for tracking flora and fauna that he’s figured out where Osama bin Laden is. I think it’s crap, but he might find the ghost of Marlon Perkins.
Article about Michael Isikoff of Newsweek’s latest investigative direction: that the internal DOJ oversight office delivered a report to the Attorney General under Bush that said, essentially, that the DOJ’s legal papers from John Yoo and others that backed up torture with a film of legal justification were BS that were way off the line [...]
Gitmo: People reviewing the cases of prisoners are finding out that there’s really no solid files as such on anyone, and that a lot of material is suspect or worthless – and scattered, disorganized and fifth-hand. The realization is coming through that people were supposed to get confessions and information first and worry about anything [...]
Secret Service agent in nearby Naperville notes the terrible, snowy weather and all sorts of reports of terrible commuting situations this morning, and decided to take the commuter train this morning. Never took the train before. Suddenly realized ‘hey, I have a gun on me, I should figure out about train security’, so he says [...]
..of the Bush administration, a casualty of the war on terror, troubled and victimized soul that he is.