Lent Reading: Quote of the Day

Sean, who has largely left Mod-Blog for his own personal blog posting-wise, has put out a challenge to his friends. To read thru Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Meditations on the Cross over the season of Lent. I am not sure how each of us will share the journey with Mod-Blog... if at all. But I thought I'd start off with a "quote of the day" from the book. Something which got me thinking. Feel free to respond, react, and make fun of me in the comments.

What is the peculiar thing you are doing? The extraordinary - and this is the most scandalous thing - is something the disciples must do. It must be done - just like that better righteousness - and must be done visibly. [Emphases his]

Reminds me of James 1:22: "Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says."

Scientists rejest use of their study to justify "Enhanced Interrogations"

It is perhaps no shock that many of the people whose work was cited in the recently declassified memos supporting torture methods at Gitmo are furious. One group of scientists are already saying their work was misinterpreted and that the memos are citing work that has no bearing on the topic of interrogation techniques.

The study in question by Kundermann, which was published in 2004 in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, found that people who were deprived of sleep for one night had an increased sensitivity to certain types of pain. Two Justice Department memos, dated May 10, 2005, cited this study as justification to conclude that severe sleep deprivation of up to 180 consecutive hours might cause some increased pain but not "severe physical pain" when used in conjunction with facial slaps, stress positions, water dousing and walling, in which a detainee is slammed against a flexible wall.

"Because sleep deprivation appears to cause at most only relatively moderate decreases in pain tolerance, the use of these techniques in combination with extended sleep deprivation would not be expected to cause severe physical pain," wrote Steven Bradbury, a principal deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel, who authored the memos.

Of course, this is the problem with classified analyses like this - no peer review, little oversight. I can't imagine being quoted in one of these memos, and hope that those who have been are not penalized for those who took their work out of context.

Quote of the Day

A Great Quote on Neal Bortz' Blog today. This is by Neal himself in response to a sign a listener saw hanging in a public school.

"The rich keep getting richer because they keep doing what it was that made them rich ... ditto for the poor." - Neal Bortz

Failing At Fatherhood

I got the following quote a few days ago. Other than being speechless, I'm really not sure what else to say other than his priorities are obviously messed up. It's sad that someone who should be a role model for others isn't even willing to be a role model for his son. Quote edited to make it more family friendly.

"He's how I was when I was younger-but a little sharper... I wanna be [a good father], but it's hard because of the things that I say and the things that I represent. I can only imagine how his teachers feel. Even though I'm talking to him, I'm still just off the other end of the phone. I tell him every time I talk to him that I'm not ashamed of who I am. My son's seen me locked up, [messed] up. I lay around and think maybe I'm sacrificing the wrong end. Maybe I should have sacrificed this for him. It crosses my mind a lot, but I don't know."

- Rapper Jay "Young Jeezy" Jenkins, Vibe, August 2008, pg. 86.

Funny Line from James Carville

From here.

"For both you Democrats out there, I got good news for you. We have to literally talk our way out of wining this election.

For the Republicans, being a lifelong member of the Democratic party, I can assure you we are perfectly capable of doing that."

Interesting Thought

There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers.

- Richard Feynman

From quotationspage.com