As Thomas Jefferson said, "Freedom is overrated. Way overrated. Like Zack Braff level overrated."

Thanks to Brass.

Posted by: Ace at 11:13 AM | Comments (11)
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Not sure who posted this in the side-bar (probably Dave In Texas), but it seems weird and geeky enough for the main page.

The mysteries of the Order of the Knights Templar could soon be laid bare after the Vatican announced the release of a crucial document which has not been seen for almost 700 years.

A new book, Processus contra Templarios, will be published by the Vatican's Secret Archive on Oct 25, and promises to restore the reputation of the Templars, whose leaders were burned as heretics when the order was dissolved in 1314.

The Knights Templar were a powerful and secretive group of warrior monks during the Middle Ages. Their secrecy has given birth to endless legends, including one that they guard the Holy Grail.

...

[W]hen Jerusalem fell to Muslim rule in 1244, rumours surfaced that the knights were heretics who worshipped idols in a secret initiation ceremony.
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In 1307, King Philip IV "the Fair" of France, in desperate need of funds, ordered the arrest and torture of all Templars. After confessing various sins their leader, Jacques de Molay, was burnt at the stake.

Pope Clement V then dissolved the order and issued arrest warrants for all remaining members. Ever since, the Templars have been thought of as heretics.

The new book is based on a scrap of parchment discovered in the Vatican's secret archives in 2001 by Professor Barbara Frale. The long-lost document is a record of the trial of the Templars before Pope Clement, and ends with a papal absolution from all heresies.

Prof Frale said: "I could not believe it when I found it. The paper was put in the wrong archive in the 17th century."

The document, known as the Chinon parchment, reveals that the Templars had an initiation ceremony which involved "spitting on the cross", "denying Jesus" and kissing the lower back, navel and mouth of the man proposing them.

The Templars explained to Pope Clement that the initiation mimicked the humiliation that knights could suffer if they fell into the hands of the Saracens, while the kissing ceremony was a sign of their total obedience.

The Pope concluded that the entrance ritual was not truly blasphemous, as alleged by King Philip when he had the knights arrested. However, he was forced to dissolve the Order to keep peace with France and prevent a schism in the church.

I dunno. Still seems pretty weird. They spat on the cross to remind themselves what they'd be compelled to do if they lost to the Muslims?

And what the hell is this with ass-kissing?

Maybe it's a compromise document, seeking a way around papal infallibility by stating Clement's finding of facts were correct, but merely his interpretations were flawed.

Because, you know, denying Christ in an occult homoerotic ritual is sort of blasphemous. That would be a big one on the list. I'm not religious but even I manage to restrain myself from that. It reminds me of Exodus (this may not be a verbatim recollection):

33: And Moses returned from the mountain to find the Israelites celebrating, holding aloft a Golden Calf;

34: And this angered Moses, who shouted out, "What the hell, man? I mean what the hell? Didn't we just talk about this like two seconds ago?"

35: But the Israelites continued worshipping their false god, for they had become wicked, and were a bunch of knuckleheads to begin with anyhow.

36: How they eventually took control of the media and banking systems is beyond me.

Posted by: Ace at 10:34 AM | Comments (48)
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Wrenching stuff as Hitchens confronts that fact that it was his columns that persuaded a young man to fight for his country, and that man ultimately died due to an IED blast.

Hitchens never got to meet Lt. Mark Daily, but he now at least gets to speak with his parents. Who seem chiefly concerned with consoling Hitchens:

In the midst of their own grief, to begin with, they took the trouble to try to make me feel better. I wasn't to worry about any "guilt or responsibility": their son had signed up with his eyes wide open and had "assured us that if he knew the possible outcome might be this, he would still go rather than have the option of living to age 50 and never having served his country. Trust us when we tell you that he was quite convincing and persuasive on this point, so that by the end of the conversation we were practically packing his bags and waving him off." This made me relax fractionally, but then they went on to write: "Prior to his deployment he told us he was going to try to contact you from Iraq. He had the idea of being a correspondent from the front-lines through you, and wanted to get your opinion about his journalistic potential. He told us that he had tried to contact you from either Kuwait or Iraq. He thought maybe his e-mail had not reached you Â… " That was a gash in my hide all right: I think of all the junk e-mail I read every day, and then reflect that his precious one never got to me.

A pity.

Here's one of Lt. Daily's last letters home:

I was having a conversation with a Kurdish man in the city of Dahok (by myself and completely safe) discussing whether or not the insurgents could be viewed as "freedom fighters" or "misguided anti-capitalists." Shaking his head as I attempted to articulate what can only be described as pathetic apologetics, he cut me off and said "the difference between insurgents and American soldiers is that they get paid to take life—to murder, and you get paid to save lives." He looked at me in such a way that made me feel like he was looking through me, into all the moral insecurity that living in a free nation will instill in you. He "oversimplified" the issue, or at least that is what college professors would accuse him of doing.

From a love letter to his now widowed wife:

One thing I have learned about myself since I've been out here is that everything I professed to you about what I want for the world and what I am willing to do to achieve it was true. Â…

My desire to "save the world" is really just an extension of trying to make a world fit for you.

I have nothing to say that isn't glib and inappropriate to the moment so I'll just say read the whole thing.

Thanks to CJ.

Posted by: Ace at 10:12 AM | Comments (22)
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Another 110,000 jobs, which isn't gangbusters, but is still pretty good considering we've had, what, five or six years of consistent job growth.

Stocks jumped sharply and bond prices tumbled Friday after the government reported strong September job growth and revised August's weak data upward, cooling fears of a recession. The Dow Jones industrials at times rose more than 100 points and the Standard & Poor's 500 index broke into record territory.

The Labor Department's report that employers added 110,000 jobs in September -- essentially what analysts had expected -- reassured Wall Street that the job market wasn't pulling back sharply as was feared a month ago.

...

Much of Wall Street's collective exhale Friday owed to a revision in August payrolls, which were updated to show a gain of 89,000 jobs compared with an earlier estimate of loss of 4,000 jobs. The release of the August figure -- when economists had predicted a rise -- sent the Dow down nearly 250 points in a single session and, market watchers say, played a role in the Fed's decision to cut its key interest rate by a larger-than-expected half-percentage point last month.

"We're not seeing a weakening of the labor market. There's no indication that the wheels are falling off," said T.J. Marta, economic strategist at RBC Capital Markets. He contends that while the employment figures make it less likely the Fed will cut rates this month, many on Wall Street were relieved to see the economy forging ahead.

"It looks bad compared with the rip-roaring days in the housing sector but this is called normalcy."

Nothing says cowbell like Whitesnake and Tawny Kitaen:

Posted by: Ace at 09:51 AM | Comments (22)
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I'm no fan of Pete Dominici, and I'll concede that dementia, even in its early stages, isn't really something one would want in a Senator. But then, no one complains much about Robert Byrd.

Still, as AndrewF. points out, the MSM has done nothing but reassure us that Tim Johnson is on his way to a full cognitive recovery (something they can't know for certain, and definitely doesn't seem true at the moment), but immediately recruits experts to tell us that Pete Dominici cannot possibly serve for another few months so dire is his mental degeneration.

Four prominent neurologists say they cannot see how Sen. Pete Domenici can continue his work as a U.S. senator given his diagnosis with frontotemporal lobar degeneration, a type of dementia.

September tests showed Sen. Pete Domenici's brain disorder had progressed since an April checkup.

The disease attacks the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain, which control judgment, complex decision-making, communication, mood and behavior.

None of the four doctors is treating Domenici, nor is any familiar with his case, but all have treated patients with frontotemporal lobar degeneration, or FTLD.

Dr. David Knopman, a neurologist at the Mayo Clinic, says when his patients learn they have FTLD, he tells them it's best to stop working.

"They would be prone to have poor judgment and make mistakes," Knopman said. "I would encourage them to leave their employment."

...

A source close to Domenici, 75, says his physician at Johns Hopkins University Hospital "has a comfort level with his ability to finish out the term."

The source added, "Those of us who work with him have not seen much deterioration."

Dr. Bruce Miller, a neurologist at the University of California-San Francisco, says that of the 500 patients he's treated for FTLD, very few have been able to keep working.

"At times they can shift to a different style of work that doesn't require making big judgments, like being a paper boy," he said.

They found four experts demanding he resign immediately to become a paper boy. Did a single expert disagree? I sort of think the answer is "yes," but of course they don't tell us that.

Meanwhile, all the experts the media consults -- to the extent its willing to inquire at all -- are perfectly sure that Tim Johnson can do a bang-up job as Senator as he struggles to recover from his aneurysm despite, you know, not really being a Senator anymore.

I wonder if this casts doubt on some of the MSM's previous gushings for Dominici when he expressed doubts over the Iraq War. I suppose those were his last lucid moments.

Posted by: Ace at 09:40 AM | Comments (27)
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As everyone knows by now, Giuliani used to host a talk show during his years as Mayor, offering advice, listening to complaints, talking about the Yankees, and sometimes ripping into constituents.

The NYT reports on the old show.

If Mildred from Queens talked about clogged storm sewers or Juanita from the Bronx complained that a center for the elderly was treating her grandmother badly, the mayor became a municipal Mr. Fix-It, listening patiently and delivering services.

But talk smack to him? He’s right back at you. On Aug. 8, 1998, Marvin from Brooklyn complained that the mayor talked too much about the Yankees. (Mr. Giuliani opened summertime programs by examining the Yankees’ prospects and closed with: “Go Yankees!”) Marvin got off the line but the mayor was not finished with him.

“Marvin, where’d you go? You go back into your hole, Marvin? Listen, I enjoy sports, Marvin — you think that makes me a bad person? Marvin, get a life.”

Then there was David from Oceanside, who was president of FerretsÂ’ Rights Advocacy. He was furious that the city health code had just been changed to bar ownership of ferrets.

The mayor was outraged that David was outraged. They went back and forth during the summer of 1999.

“David, your compulsion, your excessive concern for weasels is a sign of something wrong in your personality,” the mayor said. “I am giving you the benefit of 55 years of experience — having handled insanity defenses, you need help.”

Mr. Giuliani often put the city’s denizens on his couch, the better to psychoanalyze their discontents. Sounding like a mayoral Dr. Ruth, he advised a caller: “Usually new ideas scare you because of your fear of inadequate performance.”

When Bob from Manhattan asked in 1999 about a report linking a mayoral friend to ethical wrongdoing, Mr. Giuliani butted in.

“Why don’t you seek counseling somewhere, Bob? I think you could use some help. I can see the direction we’re going in — there are people so upset and so disturbed that they use radios for these sick little attacks on people,” Mr. Giuliani said. “I hope you take this in the right spirit, Bob.“You should go to a hospital. You should see a psychiatrist.”

Some may be troubled that the Mayor consistently found his critics to be in dire need of psychiatric confinement. Having blogged through the rise and triumph of BDS, I sort of think that would be good training for the presidency.

Posted by: Ace at 09:24 AM | Comments (11)
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Boy I sure didn't see that coming.

Posted by: Dave In Texas at 08:59 AM | Comments (14)
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After all the noise bashing the electoral college in 2000, the irony here is so thick you need a jackhammer to cut it.

A Republican push to change America's historic voting system is faltering after a fightback by Democrats fearful that it could cost them the 2008 presidential election.

Republican activists in California, the most populous state in the country, have set in motion a proposal to change the law to end the winner-takes-all electoral college system.

The change, if it went through, would effectively hand the next election to the Republicans...

...Two Democratic senators from California, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, in a joint statement, said: "This power grab orchestrated by the Republicans is another cynical move to keep the presidency in Republican control."...

...The Democrats attempted to introduce a similar reform in North Carolina earlier this year in the hope of picking up seven electoral college votes. But they quickly abandoned this when they realised they would be establishing a precedent.

They did the arithmetic and realised the gain in North Carolina would be swamped by the losses in California...

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 08:48 AM | Comments (19)
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Fifth Circle of Hell? Ro-Ro and Baba chatting amiably about vaginal creams and jellies.

Forever.

Posted by: Ace at 08:38 AM | Comments (12)
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So they keep saying. They're saying that Serenity: The Special Edition DVDs are selling so well the studio is thinking about doing another one, but that sounds like an Alliance trick to get us to buy more DVDs.

Posted by: Ace at 08:29 AM | Comments (25)
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