Scribal Terror

Happy New Year!

Would anyone care to propose a toast?

Colossians 3:12-17

From the Lectionary for the First Sunday after Christmas:

Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.

Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.

And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Something pretty for New Year's Eve

You can never go wrong with Mozart and Frederica von Stade.

Never stand under a falling cow

That's only one of the hard lessons learned by Turkey's "amateur butchers" during a holiday spate of bungled animal sacrifice:

Hundreds of Turks spent the first day of the Muslim feast of Eid al-Adha holiday in emergency wards today after stabbing themselves or suffering other injuries while sacrificing startled and agitated animals. . . .

In Turkey, at least 1,179 people - dubbed "amateur butchers" by the Turkish media - were treated at hospitals across the country, most suffering cuts to their hands and legs.

Four people were severely injured when they were crushed under the weight of large animals that fell on top of them, it was reported. Another person was hurt when a crane, used to lift an animal, tumbled onto him.

Note to Westerners: don't laugh so hard you forget to point the champagne cork AWAY from you tonight.

We have an African policy

Oddly enough, it's rarely mentioned in the press, but the Washington Post  actually pays attention to it here:

President Bush's legacy is sure to be defined by his wielding of U.S. military power in Afghanistan and Iraq, but there is another, much softer and less-noticed effort by his administration in foreign affairs: a dramatic increase in U.S. aid to Africa.

The president has tripled direct humanitarian and development aid to the world's most impoverished continent since taking office and recently vowed to double that increased amount by 2010 -- to nearly $9 billion. . . .

Beyond increasing aid to Africa, Bush has met with nearly three dozen African heads of state during his six years in office. He visited Africa in his first term, and aides say he hopes to make a return visit next year.

Although some activists criticize Bush for not doing more to end the ongoing genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan, others credit him for playing a role in ending deadly conflicts in Liberia, the Congo and other parts of Sudan. Meanwhile, Bush has overseen a steady rise in U.S. trade with Africa, which has doubled since 2001.

"He should be known for increasing -- doubling development assistance and tripling it to Africa after a period in which U.S. development assistance was essentially flat for decades," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in a recent interview with the Associated Press. "He should be known for the largest single investment in AIDS and malaria, the biggest health investment of any government program ever."

Headline of the day

Woman Charged With Malicious Castration

CONUNDRUM OF THE DAY:

What is the opposite of malicious castration?

Landscape gardening in Birmingham

These Buddhist monks are making rubble for Eileen Sullivan's patio. From the Daily Mail via Arbroath

Bowling for Teeth

Best ad placement ever. Via Neatorama

Theocracy: Good for them, bad for us?

Some mourn the passing of sharia in Somalia. This quote from an article in the Guardian is representative of the wistful sentiments:

'Nobody expected the Islamists to show this little political resilience,' said Matt Bryden, a consultant to the conflict-monitoring body, International Crisis Group. 'They were the first movement to pacify southern Somalia for 16 years, yet they crumbled like a pack of cards.'

Fascists are so good at pacifying. If only we were all under the thumb of some cracker with a whip and a holy book, maybe there would be world peace at last. But wait . . . that would be . . . theocracy, and theocracy is for dusky foreigners who need pacifying, innit?

Lungs that float and lungs that don't

Cheers follow jeers for the New York Times, which has given itself a well deserved public spanking for misreporting the 30-year sentence of an El Salvador woman as punishment for an abortion when in fact she had strangled her full-term newborn after its lungs had filled with air:

THE cover story on abortion in El Salvador in The New York Times Magazine on April 9 contained prominent references to an attention-grabbing fact. “A few” women, the first paragraph indicated, were serving 30-year jail terms for having had abortions. That reference included a young woman named Carmen Climaco. The article concluded with a dramatic account of how Ms. Climaco received the sentence after her pregnancy had been aborted after 18 weeks.

It turns out, however, that trial testimony convinced a court in 2002 that Ms. Climaco’s pregnancy had resulted in a full-term live birth, and that she had strangled the “recently born.” . . .

The physician who had performed the autopsy on the “recently born” testified that it represented a “full-term” birth, which he defined as a pregnancy with a duration of “between 38 and 42 weeks,” the ruling noted. In adopting those conclusions, the court said of another autopsy finding: “Given that the lungs floated when submerged in water, also indicating that the recently-born was breathing at birth, this confirms that we are dealing with an independent life.” (Via Hot Air)

So we have a distinction between lungs that float and lungs that don't. Now, then, what's the difference?