Another reason to dislike Scientology

I have found yet anoth enlightening jewel from the corner. This alos explains why the Scientologist always have to recruit from the outside and never grow from within;).

RISKY BUSINESS [K. J. Lopez]
Okay, now I'm on the Cruise Must Be Stopped kick; from today's Page Six:

Abort-happy folks

THE new religion embraced by former Catholic schoolgirl Katie Holmes — unlike her original faith — actually encourages abortion. As The Post's Philip Recchia has re ported, the Church of Scientology assigned Tom Cruise's fiancée a full-time handler, Jessica Rodriguez, 29, who is a member of the sect's elite corps, the Sea Organization. Like all Sea Org members, Rodriguez is discouraged by the sect from ever giving birth. And if she does get pregnant, chances are she'll have an abortion. A former high-ranking Sea Org member now tells Recchia: "It is estimated that there have been some 1,500 abortions carried out by women in the Sea Organization since the implementation of a rule in the late '80s that members could not remain in the organization if they decided to have children. And if members who have been in the Sea Organization for, say, 10 years do decide to have kids, they are dismissed with no more than $1,000" in severance. Our source's ex-wife was also a Sea Org, and she was pressured by the church into having an abortion.

Katie, come home!

The Big Enchilada

I found this article in the Strange News section on My Way on this 13lb newborn. Being 8 months pregnant I hurt for this woman. I have never had a child over 9lbs and I feel huge! I did find it shocking that less than 1% of all newborns weigh more than 11lbs at birth.

The Browncoats Rise Again

Failed TV shows don't get made into major motion pictures--unless...: I'm looking forward to this one.

Here's proof

Update: NerdMom's score, almost as nerdy!

Why indeed

Why Everyone Should Learn to Program

The answer consists of two parts. First, it is indeed true that traditional forms of programming are useful for just a few people. But, programming as we the authors understand it is useful for everyone: the administrative secretary who uses spreadsheets as well as the high-tech programmer. In other words, we have a broader notion of programming in mind than the traditional one. We explain our notion in a moment. Second, we teach our idea of programming with a technology that is based on the principle of minimal intrusion. Hence our notion of programming teaches problem-analysis and problem-solving skills without imposing the overhead of traditional programming notations and tools.

from How to Design Programs: An Introduction to Computing and Programming

Wiesenthal Center decries lawsuit by Nazi suspect against informant

Basically how it sits is this.... One man accuses another of being a Nazi and then provides researched documentation. Then the accused Nazi sues his accuser for libel. This is all in Zagreb. You can read the Jerusalem post article here. How is this being tolerated in a court to begin with. How can it be libel if there is proof(whether or not it is true)? There would be no proof of intent. Yet another person with unbelievable chutzpah. We all know what chutzpah is right? A great example is killing your parents and then throwing yourself on the mercy of the court as an orphan.

I GUESS THERE'S NO WORD FOR CHUTZPAH IN ARABIC

I just couldn't come up with a better title that Jonah Goldberg at the Corner. Then I found the article in the Jerusalem Post:
A would-be female suicide bomber who planned to blow up at the Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba on Monday, the same hospital where she received treatment for burns this past year, was caught at the Erez crossing wearing explosives stitched to her underwear. She said she wanted to kill up to 40 or 50 people, including as many youngsters as possible.

Call me heartless(you wouldn't be the first). Lock the Palestinians out!!! When you have a group that tries to destroy your country it is a declaration of war. At that point you must conquer and destroy. To steal a phrase from Colin Powell, "Overwhelming force" is appropriate here. None of this touchy feely, try to help them destroy you junk.

Tomacco

Who knew how truly brilliant Homer was with his invention of Tomacco. Not only for it's obvious addictive qualities;). According to National Geographic genetically engineered tomato and tobacco plants are being used for a
SARs vaccine.

A criminal in every home!

I belive Congress has finally create a piece of legislature that can efficiently criminalize the population. I found an article on how the VP of Intel unknowingly violated the federal Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
Donald S. Whiteside said

“I used a program to copy a few seconds from the DVD of the movie Rudy,” he said. “It’s the scene showing the final game of the Notre Dame season with Rudy’s family in the stands cheering wildly when he got to play. I then spliced in some snippets of pro players doing a touchdown dance from NFL Films, and I overlaid it with audio from ‘Who Let the Dogs Out?’

"I stitched this all together with video of my son, and it turned out to be the piece of home video that gets watched the most in our house. When relatives or members of the football team come over, we pop it in and we just laugh. The added scenes and music really bring it all to life.”

There was just one problem. “It turns out to do this, I violated the DMCA. I used the DeCSS program to circumvent the encryption and access the movie clips on the DVD that I own,” Whiteside told the aides. “The end product is a DVD that I don’t sell or distribute but is considered a derivative work under copyright law.”

To their credit, none of the congressional aides flipped open their cell phones to call the attorney general. (When I described Whiteside’s home movie to Jack Valenti, he said, “He’s committing a violation of federal law.”)

This is ridiculous. I realize that we want to stop piraters from ripping off entire industries but the only people this will really catch are the home ameteur.

Cooking defines humanity

I love it! All you people who say you don't cook read this
. While many things seperate us from the monkeys this is one of the best!

Science Fiction...Should it be real?

I saw this interesting post on Slashdot called Is Science Fiction the Opiate of the Geek Masses?. Now while I am a nerd I am not a geek but being a Science Fiction fan I read on. I was introduced to the Mundane SF. This is a movement that says Science Fiction should be based on legit science. The details are somewhat laid out in Why Play These Tropes and Not Those Others. I find this very interesting but, I have a couple concerns. SciFi geeks already focus on the details of current scifi and how things should work. An example....Questioning the warp drive in Star Trek or the beaming technology. Since it is science infused fantasy there isn't any point and they still do it. Now being type A myself can you imagine the neurotic mess scifi fans would be in trying to make sure the true science always agrees. And how long would it take to get up to speed on a new series. Would I have to buy a book on whatever science discipline it was based on? Now the other side. I was raised in a law enforcement family (mom's a criminoligist and stepdad was CHP) and I love the Law & Orders and CSi's. A big part is I understand a lot of procedure and the thinking. I love science so would I enjoy true scifi even more? Could this get a whole generation more science literate? If so, can that BE a bad thing?

Nobody Puts Baby in a Corner

Add Dancing With The Stars to the list of shows my wife and children make me watch.

"Taking away a livelihood"

I cut my own hair, and my son's hair. Luckily I do it in the privacy of my own home. Iowa firemen have been ordered to stop barbering on duty because their "taking away a livelihood from professionals who are trying to make a living". (From The Corner)

Canadian Supreme Court Chips Away at National Health Care

How did they do it? By striking down a law banning private medical insurance. New York Times

Kitchen Table Math

Kitchen Table Math is a blog/wiki about doing math with your children.

One thing that caught my eye was a Russian textbook example: "Two cars leave simultaneously at 9 a.m. heading toward one another from different cities that are 210 km apart. The average speed of one car is 50 km/h while the other car averages 70 km/h. Come up with an appropriate question and answer it."