Speedlinking 8/29/06

~ Image of the day is from AidensAttempt at deviantART.

~ Greenpeace offers the green guide to electronics. Nokia and Dell are moving the closest to green, while Lenovo, Motorola, Acer, and Apple not so much.

~ Apparently Hitler and Stalin were possessed by the devil -- so says the Vatican. Well, of course. Why else would they have done those things?

~ Apparently, if you are worshipping in the wrong religion, it will make you fat.

Ferraro's study also found that about 20 percent of "Fundamentalist Protestants," (Church of Christ, Pentecostal, Assemblies of God and Church of God); about 18 percent of "Pietistic Protestants," (Methodist, Christian Church and African Methodist Episcopal), and about 17 percent of Catholics were obese.

By contrast, about 1 percent of the Jewish population and less than 1 percent of other non-Christians, including Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and others), were tipping the scales with commensurate gusto.

~ The raccoons are rampaging in Olympia, WA. Well, not so much, but they are getting blamed for killing cats, though it's much more likely that the culprits are cars, poison, coyotes, or dogs.

~ GenNext is changing life on the family farm -- think computerized weather models and GPS. Gotta love the technology.

~ Largest Muslim group in America elects female president. That's cool.

~ Gareth at Green Clouds muses on the angel of death, and how he relates to the idea of death.

~ David Jon at Zaadz seeks more authenticity -- he's deleting "friends" who are not really friends. He wonders if this may be a Zaadz first -- but, alas, Kira (my partner) has deleted several not-quite friends in the past weeks.

~ James at Buddhist Blog has a nice post on The Teaching of the Poisoned Arrow. This is relevant to me as I contemplate my relationship to integral theory.

~ Dave Pollard at How to Save the World has a very interesting post on getting things done. Check it out.

~ The Zero Boss has lost his zest for the bottle. Welcome to old age my friend! Naw, not really. Here's the deal: the healthier you are, the less your body wants or efficiently processes alcohol. It's the price you pay for visible abs.

~ Also from Jay, but at the Pagan Bodhisattva for some reason, Posts Like Poetry: Paying Attention to How Your Writing Sounds. Good advice.

~ Mike at Unknowing Mind blogs on Ordinary Is and Is Not Ordinary -- another good post.

~ Ryan Oelke at Anxious Living has a good post on Focus of Attention and Social Anxiety.

~ Tom at Thoughts Chase Thoughts posts on an article from the Atlantic that claims we have won the war against terrorists (which, to this reader, appears to have nothing to do with Bush's "war on terror").

~ Colmar posts an article from the London Times -- with no commentary -- that suggests multiculturalism was entirely evil and is now dead in England. I read a similar article last night, from the Telegraph, and was going to link to it this morning in a separate item, but I'll do so here as another take on the issue. The Telegraph article is substantially longer, but the message is similar.

For what it's worth, it seems appropriate to integrate students (and immigrants) as fully as possible into their new home nation. However, it is also appropriate that they retain their cultural identity and their values. Finding the balance here is the real issue.

~ The Zero Boss has a fun post on some poor kid who advocated bong hits for Jesus (while off campus) during a school event. He was subsequently punished and took the whole thing to court and won. Now the case is going to the High Court with none other than Kenneth Star representing the school. You gotta read it to believe it.

~ Check out ~C4Chaos' post on the Theory of U -- cool diagram. Another book added to my "want" list.

~ E. J. Dionne, writing at Real Clear Politics, thinks that August will be remembered as the month when the GOP abandoned Bush on Iraq. He says:

August of 2006 will be remembered as a watershed in the politics of Iraq. It is the month in which a majority of Americans told pollsters that the struggle for Iraq was not connected to the larger war on terror. They thus renounced a proposition the administration has pushed relentlessly since it began making the case four years ago to invade Iraq.

That poll finding, from a New York Times/CBS News survey, came to life on the campaign trail when Rep. Chris Shays, R-Conn., one of the most articulate supporters of the war, announced last Thursday that he favored a time frame for withdrawing troops.

[emphasis added]

If it is indeed true that America is beginning to wake up from the Rove/Cheney/Bush-induced stupor that allowed this whole Iraq mess, the GOP could be in some serious trouble. Even more troubling, though, is that the Dems have no leader, no plan, and nothing to offer in terms of getting us out of this mess with our safety intact. Damned if we do, damned if we don't.

~ George Monbiot challenges (after much deliberation) a Nobel scientist's plan to alter the atmosphere to slow global warming in his post, No Quick Fix.

And that's more than enough stuff to help you avoid work today.

Tags: speedlinking, global warming, Iraq, war on terror, free speech, multiculturalism, social anxiety, ordinary, blogging, getting drunk, Teaching of the Poisoned Arrow, Buddhism, angel of death, Islam in America, family farm, GenNext, raccoons, religion will make you fat, Satan, Green guide to electronics