evolution

Justice Robert Gernon of the Kansas Supreme Court died (KMBC-TV) late last night at the age of 61 after a battle with cancer.

Interesting reading from today’s Kansas City Star via the AP wire — the man who shot and seriously wounded Pope John Paul II in 1981 says that he had help - from a Vatican official. The Vatican, for its part, denies such claims, citing Mehmet Ali Agca’s penchants for obfuscating the truth in the past.

It turns out the the East German Stasi had planted a mole inside the Vatican living as a Benedictine monk. A report by an Italian newspaper alleges that Stasi and the Bulgarian Secret Service helped plan the attack on the orders of the KGB, certainly no fans of John Paul II.

You may also recall the stunning act of forgiveness displayed by John Paul II after he recovered from the gunshot wounds when he visited Agca in his Italian prison cell and forgave him personally for his actions.

Winners have been announced in the Wordpress Theme Competition.

There were over two hundred weblog designs submitted, and Wordpress 1.5 hasn’t even been out that long. Check out the winners, and while you’re at it, check out the ones which didn’t win. There are some incredible designs out there.

I am listening to this week’s edition of “The Citizen Journalist Report”, hosted by Jeff Goldstein and Bill Ardolino on Rightalk Radio.

They come on while I am at school, so I have to catch the replay when I get home. Their guests were Jeff Percifield of Beautiful Atrocities and Glenn Reynolds.

I wonder if Goldstein and/or Bill has to hold the phone away from his face every so often, to stifle the laughter.

You can listen to this week’s show tonight and all through the weekend over at Rightalk.

I was ready to write something concerning the political actions of a few stadium-church pastors, the somewhat-worshipful remarks made to me by several fellow teachers about condescending elitist author Thomas Frank, and the constitutional gay-marriage ban, which will appear on the 04.05 ballot.

Not tonight, though. I’m utterly exhausted. My motivation has been drained by this week’s events, which I’m not ready to write about yet.

UPDATE: Where are my manners? A hearty congratulations to evolution contributor Michael and his family. His younger sister (who is 24) is engaged to be married.

UPDATE: I guess I can sleep when I am dead, which is apparently going to be very soon.

While doing some back-end upgrades for evolution, I decided to update my computer’s operating system.

As you know, I ditched Windows some time ago for Ubuntu Linux; I updated to the version 5.04 “Hoary Hedgehog” release. Its official release date is 04.06, but I decided to check it out a week early.

If you are thinking about making the move to open-source, you could do a lot worse than Ubuntu. I’m happy with this operating system, and I have no plans to switch back to Windows anytime soon. It does everything my Windows 2000 machine did, only faster, and it gives me a better platform for Web development (which I may have plenty of time upcoming to do; more on THAT later).

If this report by Roger L. Simon is accurate (and I have no reason to believe that it isn’t), then Kofi Annan and his profligate son are in a load of trouble.

The small Central Asian kingdom of Bhutan released yesterday its first cut at a new constitution, which changes the form of government from a traditional hereditary monarchy to a democratic constitutional monarchy. The king or queen can bestow titles and name Supreme Court justices, but most affairs are handled by a prime minister and a democratically-elected parliament.

You can take a look at an English translation of their efforts (in PDF format), courtesy of Bhutan News Online.

Just for comparison’s sake, here’s a copy of the US Constitution.

While everyone’s back is turned, news media in Iran are pulling another Eason Jordan.

Jordan, you’ll recall, was the CNN news director who suppressed reports of mass murder in Saddam’s Iraq so that his journalists wouldn’t be expelled.

So here it is: the incredible disappearing mass protest in Iran. Hint: It wasn’t just a soccer riot.

Some final thoughts: Now the media ghouls and half the country will take part in the official death watch. I’ll be damned if I’m going to take part in it.

What does it hurt for the husband to wash his hands of the whole situation and sign her care over to her parents? If we make a mistake, shouldn’t it be the one that leaves the most people alive?

Another thing, concerning the husband’s vile lawyer:

“She is calm. She is peaceful. She is resting comfortably,” Felos told reporters Saturday as four sheriff’s deputies stood by to protect him.

Terri Schiavo’s brother, Bobby Schindler, called that “absurd” and challenged Felos to allow videos and photos to be released, so the public can see Terri’s condition. “They’re mischaracterizing the condition today, just as they have been … It’s sick. It’s heinous,” he said.

Felos said earlier that allowing videos to be recorded inside Terri Schiavo’s room during her death process would violate her privacy rights.

Pig. Yanking her food and water doesn’t violate her rights?

Note: If this or any other post about this subject pisses you off, that is your right. However, you need to take a deep breath before you comment here. I will not have the sort of ranting invective that is on full display elsewhere.

UPDATE: This is going to be the “big one” — the one that puts the divisions in this society so far apart that it will be a generation or more before they may be healed.

UPDATE [03.27 09:46]: Christopher Cross has one theory on why the blogosphere (or at least the normally level-headed majority of it) seems to have taken leave of its senses. I think he’s onto something.