Dan's Monday links, etc.
Roxanne: How can the non-hip and uncool proclaim the death of cool hipness? Or as one commenter wrote: "if uncool is the new cool, then that makes the old cool uncool, which makes it cool..." (I'm not sure how I'm going to fare in this debate, but if cool uncoolness is on the rise, then I get the impression this can only help my image. Cool!)
E-mailer: I DON'T CARE! An e-mailer who regularly sends me bits of online backlash sociology unwittingly contributes this glimpse into their particular state of mind: "Are we
fighting a war on terror or aren't we? Was it or was it not started by
Islamic people who brought it to our shores on September 11, 2001? Were people
from all over the world, mostly Americans, not brutally murdered that day, in
downtown Manhattan, across the Potomac from our nation's capitol and in a field
in Pennsylvania? Did nearly three thousand men, women and children die a
horrible, burning or crushing death that day, or didn't they? And I'm
supposed to care that a copy of the Koran was 'desecrated' when an overworked
American soldier kicked it or got it wet? Well, I don't. I don't care at all." (The full text is below the "Continue reading" link.)
MoJo: Apparently, some senior military lawyers did care about those interrogation policies back in 2003. And then there's Newsweek chiming in with an FBI memo warning that administration directives sending prisoners to other countries for torture could be a violation of U.S. law (...but you know, they probably just hate America).
HAPPY LAMMAS! Today is Lammas, or Lugnasadh, The First Harvest, one of the cross-quarter holidays of the pagan year. It's the moment when we start the slide down from high summer to the cooling days of fall. (It seems to me that Lughnasadh and Imbolc get less attention and love than the other pagan holidays, and I wonder if that has something to do with the weather around here: cotton-patch hot in August, swamp-bog dismal in February. Or maybe it's because there isn't a Christian analog.)
RealClimate: Are record temperatures and other anomalies evidence of global warming? Ehh... "... how does one distinguish between the behaviour of a stable system
to one that is undergoing a change in terms of record-events? This kind
of question has traditionally not been discussed much in the climate
research literature ... perhaps because it has been perceived that analysis
on record-breaking events is difficult if not impossible." (A reminder to all those media people trying to do stories on whether their local heat wave is proof of a coming thermal apocalypse. It isn't. But that doesn't mean global warming isn't real.)
Richard Posner on bloggers and journalists: "The legitimate gripe of the conventional media is not that bloggers undermine the overall accuracy of news reporting, but that they are free riders who may in the long run undermine the ability of the conventional media to finance the very reporting on which bloggers depend." (This is actually a fine distinction and an issue well worth considering.)
Cosmic Variance: Clifford tries once again to predict the future of string theory using an iPod on shuffle mode and a Celtic Cross Tarot spread and gets... HOMELESS. "I’m sure there is a positive spin on that somewhere…. Maybe strings
have no natural home, for they are of great facility and application in
many fields. Yes, yes….that’s it." (It's all in the interpretation, baby...)
Full text of the "I don't care" e-mail:
I don't know this lady but I could not agree more!
The lady who wrote this letter is Pam Foster of Pamela Foster and Associates here in Atlanta. She's been in business since 1980 doing interior design and home planning. She recently wrote a letter to a family member serving in Iraq. Read it.
Subject: I don't care!
WHAT'S ALL THE FUSS?
"Are we fighting a war on terror or aren't we? Was it or was it not started by Islamic people who brought it to our shores on September 11, 2001? Were people from all over the world, mostly Americans, not brutally murdered that day, in downtown Manhattan, across the Potomac from our nation's capitol and in a field in Pennsylvania? Did nearly three thousand men, women and children die a horrible, burning or crushing death that day, or didn't they?
And I'm supposed to care that a copy of the Koran was "desecrated" when an overworked American soldier kicked it or got it wet? Well, I don't. I don't care at all.
I'll start caring when Osama bin Laden turns himself in and repents for incinerating all those innocent people on 9/11.
I'll care about the Koran when the fanatics in the Middle East start caring about the Holy Bible, the mere possession of which is a crime in Saudi Arabia.
I'll care when Abu Musab al-Zarqawi tells the world he is sorry for hacking off Nick Berg's head while Berg screamed through his gurgling, slashed throat.
I'll care when the cowardly so-called "insurgents" in Iraq come out and fight like men instead of disrespecting their own religion by hiding in mosques.
I'll care when the mindless zealots who blow themselves up in search of nirvana care about the innocent children within range of their suicide bombs.
I'll care when the American media stops pretending that their First Amendment liberties are somehow derived from international law instead of the United States Constitution's Bill of Rights.
I'll care when Clinton-appointed judges stop ordering my government to release photos of the abuses at Abu Ghraib, which are sure to set off the Islamic extremists just as Newsweek's lies did a few weeks ago.
In the meantime, when I hear a story about a brave marine roughing up an Iraqi terrorist to obtain information, know this: I don't care.
When I see a fuzzy photo of a pile of naked Iraqi prisoners who have been humiliated in what amounts to a college hazing incident, rest assured that I don't care.
When I see a wounded terrorist get shot in the head when he is told not to move because he might be booby-trapped, you can take it to the bank that I don't care.
When I hear that a prisoner, who was issued a Koran and a prayer mat, and fed "special" food that is paid for by my tax dollars, is complaining that his holy book is being "mishandled," you can absolutely believe in your heart of hearts that I don't care.
And oh, by the way, I've noticed that sometimes it's spelled "Koran" and other times "Quran." Well, Jimmy Crack Corn and -- you guessed it -- I don't care!" -I don't care!
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