Tuesday, October 15, 2002

Pope to add prayers to Rosary. John Paul II is to mark the 24th anniversary of his election to the papacy by making changes to one of the Catholic Church's best-known prayers. [BBC News | WORLD] "Oh Holy Father, let the media not find out about any other abusive priests..."
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Oh, f'n wonderful - witnesses are describing having seen an olive-skinned man in a white van near two of the recent shootings in the DC area. Which means that we're going to hear punditry and racist crap about Arabs until they catch the guy. The sniper-as-terrorist meme seems to be getting some traction already - after this, it's going to get overwhelming.
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When you think Republican, what color do you think? Red, right? Isn't that the traditional setup - blue=Democract, red=Republican? Well, Mitt Romney, Republican death penalty advocate and candidate for governor of Massachusetts, has a TV ad out where his picture and positions are contrasted with the Democrat candidate, Shannon O'Brien. The weird thing is that Romney's pic and catchphrases are on a blue backdrop, while O'Brien's are on a red backdrop - a reverse of the normal color-coding. Is this an attempt by the Romney campaign to subliminally reach out to Democrat voters, since they have their Republican base pretty well locked in? Or is it just a coincidence?

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posted by Blubble at October 15 3:51 PM. Military may take part in DC Sniper Hunt The Pentagon is making some noise about possibly using military personnel and equipment in the hunt for the DC area sniper. I am normally not a paranoid conspiracy type but... Would it be unthinkable that the government could be behind the whole thing. First they put out trained snipers to kill random victims and scare the hell out of the public. Then the military come in and save the day. At the same time they set a precedent for using the military to "fight crime" in the country. While I don't think this is the case, would you put it past the current administration? [MetaFilter] I highly doubt even this corrupt and moraly bankrupt administration would go *THAT* low. But they're surely the most likely to do that kind of thing since Nixon, so who knows?

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I mentioned last night that I'd been sucked into reading up on the Lost Tribes of Israel online - and believe it or not, I actually found some info that doesn't look entirely fictional. Two years ago, Nova did a show on the Lost Tribes. In the accompanying abbreviated history of the Lost Tribes, we're introduced to the Lemba (bottom of the page), a south African tribe that claims descent from one of the Lost Tribes. Not that big a deal on the face of it - there are plenty of other groups that either claim that for themselves, or are annointed with that role by others. The difference with the Lemba is that they have potential genetic evidence to back them up, rather than just the cultural similarities that support such cases as the Pathans or Japanese. Traditionally, Jewish priests came from a specific clan, the Cohanim, who are supposedly all descended from Aaron, Moses' brother. Modern studies have shown that 50% of men among the modern Cohanim share a common set of markers on their Y chromosome - a set of markers that are rare among the non-Jewish world. (more info on this here) Since the set of markers shows up in both Ashkenazic and Sephardic populations, we can assume that it dates back reasonably far - to pre-Christian times, at least. As it turns out, the same set of markers is present in approximately 10% of Lemba men. This doesn't definitely prove that the Lemba are descended from natives of Israel, but it's a real possiblity. Interesting...

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yay! Oz Season 2 is only a few months (January) from being released on DVD. This is a Good Thing - it'll only be about 10 months since they released Season 1, which is a decent turnaround. Now they just need to release Homicide: Life On The Streets on DVD ASAP.
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Eyes Off The Prize? Losing Focus In The War On Terror. Plastic::Politics::Terrorism: Too much focus on Iraq and too little on Al-Qaeda? Or is the balance right? [Plastic: Most Recent] What with the recent spate of terrorist attacks (Yemen, Kuwait, Bali), I'd say the former - way too much attention on Iraq, way too little attention on the guys actually causing trouble.
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Re: Why Berkeley Rules I can get a miniature Albano-Waite Tarot deck, a Pedro Almodovar movie, and palak paneer (with a side of nan and a mango lassi) all at 11 pm, and I don't have to be anywhere near New York City to do it. [She's Actual Size, Nationwide, Believe] Otherwise known as, Why Lowell Kinda Sucks. Because I can't get any of those things at 11pm.
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