| Monday
September 18, 2006 I seem to be nearly caught up. The
column is done, the mailbag is done, I managed to do some fiction, and I
have caught up on registering the new subscribers. Now to get Inferno
finished. I do not intend to let a few joint problems slow things down.
http://www.despair.com/viewall.html
ought to cheer you up. After which
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/
article/2006/09/15/AR2006091500368_pf.html
will depress you, but that's the way things are in this era of free trade
and open borders. Alas I know no way out of that. Regime change to more
regulations and even more open borders does not seem to be a remedy.
Perhaps we will find a Caesar who thinks first of the welfare of his own
people. There does not seem to be such in sight.
Probably not a remedy...
=========================
Yesterday we had breakfast with friends after church,
and then I had to get the column out. I also wasted some time reading
nonsense about the The Great Harlan Ellison Incident, which turned out to be
none of my business and thus a big waste of time. The result was that I
didn't read either newspaper yesterday at all.
This morning's papers have a week's worth of material on Monday Morning.
First, we find that the Pope decided to apologize to the Muslims. He
began his speech on a nice summer day at Castel Gandolpho (Google
under that name for a picture) but no sooner had he begun than a sudden
thundershower drenched him and his listeners. Perhaps there is a lesson in
there? Meanwhile, in order to demonstrate their steadfast devotion to peace
and justice, Muslims continue to burn down Christian churches, including
Greek Orthodox churches that have no allegiance to the Pope, and at least
one Protestant Church. Way to go!
==
Next item: various newspapers including
the Wall Street Journal are carrying stories about new announcements from
Intel and the University of California at Santa Barbara: they have developed
new means for gluing indium phosphate to silicon chips so that the chips can
now communicate by lasers. This sounds enough like the
Starswarm life form computers I dreamed up in my novel that I am tempted
to preen.
Some references:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=
/c/a/2006/09/18/MNGRBL7JE51.DTL
http://www.intel.com/pressroom/kits/laser/index.htm
The implications are said to be profound. On the broader view, it's one
more driver toward faster and better hardware, with more complex
communications between and among computer systems. Over in Chaos Manor
Reviews we've been having an on-going discussion of what we will do with all
this new computing power: our software at the moment doesn't really take
advantage of what we already have.
==
Also from the Wall Street Journal: although it's not
precisely news, Microsoft is gunning for Apple's iPod revenue stream in a
big way. Apple gets 75% of the market, and it's a third of their revenue,
and Steve Ballmer wants Microsoft to get its fair share, which is a 95%
market share. (That's the way IBM used to think, back in the old days.)
Having blown it with "Won't Play for Sure", Microsoft is now taking
control of hardware as well as software, and is betting on its new Zune.
Whatever the technology, Zune has to be one of the least fortunate name
choices I ever heard. Zune was designed by the leaders of the XBOX team, and
will move Microsoft further into the business of making and marketing
hardware. Until recently many pundits promoted the conventional wisdom that
Apple chose the wrong model: they wanted to be IBM when they should have
tried to be Microsoft, hardware being inherently less profitable than
software. We're nowhere near the end of this story. Zune will be made by
Toshiba and marketed by Microsoft under the Microsoft brand name, with the
goal of cutting deeply into Apple's iPod business.
It's probably just me, but I don't use iPod for much other than, with the
Griffin adapter device, a splendid little pocket voice recorder. I also put
lectures on it for listening to at odd times, but I usually forget to
listen to them. Maybe it's because I have so much else to do, but I have
never had the slightest temptation to fill my life with noise. My radio is
tuned to KUSC Classical Music, but I have no particular wish to take it with
me on my hikes. Apparently there is a segment of the latest generation that
simply cannot bear to be without auditory stimulation, even for short
periods: I noted with horror at CES that I could buy gadgets to allow me to
use my iPod while SCUBA diving or water skiing.
I already have too much to read, so I seldom watch video podcasts, and
while once in a while an audio podcast can be interesting, I don't usually
remember them until they are too old to be interesting. Perhaps the latest
generation grew up with MTV and TV all the time instead of books and
newspapers? In which case I suppose this site is doomed, since it's mostly
text.
===
No good deed goes unpunished.
In Houston they are arming against "Katricians". Katricians are defined
as Katrina refugees who still don't have jobs and aren't looking for them
after a year. A spokesperson for the Katricians -- at least he said he was
speaking for them -- recently threatened riots and disruption if the free
rent programs are not continued. Meanwhile, crime rates and gun sales rise
in Houston.
Houston took in more Katrina refugees than any other city. Why they
thought that people fleeing the most corrupt and least orderly city in the
US would be good visitors is not entirely clear, but I guess hope springs
eternal; or perhaps Jacobinism has taken deeper root than many believe.
===
A First Amendment Case
And finally, just before the Presidential Election the pastor of All
Saints Pasadena, the most liberal Episcopal parish church in California,
heard their rector deliver a fiery anti-war sermon. This is perhaps as
astonishing as the news that the minister of a Four Square Gospel Assembly
delivered a sermon against idolatry. Last week, the IRS demanded that All
Saints Pasadena turn over all its financial records, membership rolls, and
just about every other record that it has, on the grounds that the rector,
in preaching his anti-war sermon, was partisan, and anti-Bush, which is
again about as astonishing as that the Four Square minister would be
anti-Satan.
All Saints is considering defying the order to turn over its records.
There will now be a big hullabaloo about defiance of the law and so forth.
I would call this an important issue. Surely the pastor of a religious
congregation has the right to preach sermons denouncing the government, the
President, the Congress, and all their works? If not, then precisely what
does it mean, "freedom of speech" and "no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"?
Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or
abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the
people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a
redress of grievances.
Now it is as certain as anything can be that churches and organizations
posing as churches will find ways to use tax exemption in pernicious
fashions to evade tax laws, and that some will be formed for this purpose
and no other. It is a delicate matter, deciding what is a "real" church and
what is not, and whether certain organizations are serious in believing what
they purport to believe. That being said, I think no one would question that
All Saints Pasadena, a long established church with well known beliefs, is a
genuine church espousing "religion" well within the meaning intended by the
Framers, and as deserving of the protection of the First Amendment as any
religious organization in the United States.
If the pastor of All Saints Pasadena cannot preach an anti-war sermon
without being persecuted by Federal authorities, I dare say there is no
longer any freedom of religion in these United States.
Tax exemption is a tricky matter; but John Marshal was correct in saying
that "the power to tax is the power to destroy," and we all know it; which
is why we have always erred on the side of letting crooks in religious garb
get away with what looks very like a scam, rather than coming down hard on
those who hold religious beliefs we don't agree with. All Saints Pasadena
isn't even very radical in these matters. True, they once held an ordination
ceremony in which their litany included the lines "Bounce through the
mountains on beach balls!" as a proclamation of joy or something like that
(I never have found anyone who can explain that line to me); but that hardly
removes them from the protection of the First Amendment.
States have some rights regarding the regulation of religion, including
the power to establish churches with a tax-paid clergy. This was well
recognized by John Marshal at the time of McCullough v. Maryland. But
Congress shall make no law means just that, and it includes laws that allow
the IRS to persecute the very liberal parish of All Saints Pasadena.
You may find the discussion at
http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/law/lwsch/
journals/bclawr/42_4/02_TXT.htm
provocative and informative.
REMEMBER: TOMORROW IS INTERNATIONAL TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY
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