Special rights for religions

A school in Virginia was threatened with a lawsuit by the Christian legal group Liberty Counsel if they didn't permit a Baptist church to send home flyers with students. The school permitted this to happen, and in order to comply with the First Amendment, they permitted other religious groups to do the same. Now that a local Unitarian Church has sent home a flyer advertising a look at the history of December traditions (apparently including the contributions of Christianity, Judaism, and pagan religions) and "a Pagan ritual to celebrate Yule," there is outrage.

It's hypocrisy to suggest that gays who seek to be able to marry and not to be fired because of their sexual orientation are demanding "special rights," while actually demanding that one religion be given special privileges that others must be denied. That hypocrisy is on display at the WorldNetDaily.

There are two reasonable, constitutional policies for the school--permit all religious groups to submit flyers for distribution, or not permit any of them to do so. (In my opinion, schools shouldn't be sending home anything with students that isn't from the school itself.)

More at Dispatches from the Culture Wars.

Kids say the darndest things

(Via Bitchasaurus.)

Democrats plan to remove earmarks from spending bills

The Republicans dumped the job of straightening out the government's remaining spending bills for 2006 on the Democrats, who have responded by declaring that they will remove all of the earmarks from them:

"'There will be no congressional earmarks,' Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., and Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., said Monday in a statement announcing their plans, which were quickly endorsed by incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and soon-to-be Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev."

Looks like the Democrats are, for the moment, going to be more fiscally responsible than the Republicans. Not hard, given how the Republicans have spent money while they've been in power, but this is great news.

Another closeted gay evangelical leader in Colorado resigns

Paul Barnes, founding paster of Grace Chapel in Denver, resigned on Sunday in a videotaped confession shown to members of the church. Grace Chapel has about 2,100 members.

(Hat tip to Talking Points Memo.)

Orac uncovers the real cause of the WTC tower collapses on 9/11

Over at Respectful Insolence, Orac has followed up a post about those who believe that the Towers were taken down by missiles disguised as planes by flying hologram generators with one in which he identifies the real cause of the building collapses--loose trains. The evidence is at least as compelling.

(But seriously, if you're curious about 9/11 conspiracy theories, read this, and check out the further sources at the bottom. Also check out Popular Science's book on the subject, and Skeptic magazine's vol. 12, no. 4 (2006) issue.)

Kolbe suggested former page not reveal incriminating information about Mark Foley

A former House page who was sent an instant message by Mark Foley asking him his penis size forwarded it to Arizona Rep. Jim Kolbe back in 2001. When the scandal broke, that former page called Kolbe and asked him what he should do. He says Kolbe told him that "it is best that you don't even bring this up with anybody.... There is no good that can come from it if you actually talk about this. The man has resigned anyway."

The House ethics committee found out about it anyway, prompting Kolbe to call the former page and leave a message saying, "it looks like you did some talking."

More detail and excerpts from the House ethics committee report at TPM Muckraker.

UPDATE (December 9, 2006): Here's Kolbe's response.

Time to stop using Microsoft Word

For the second time this year, Microsoft has issued a notice of a remote code execution vulnerability in Word for which there is no patch. Their suggested workaround is "Do not open or save Word files that you receive from un-trusted sources or that you receive unexpectedly from trusted sources. This vulnerability could be exploited when a user opens a specially crafted Word file." If you rely on exchanging Word documents for your business, this means shut down your business or risk infection with zero-day malware that can compromise your systems.

Secunia has rated this as "extremely critical," their most serious vulnerability rating.

The last time this happened was in May, and it took Microsoft 26 days to come up with a patch, during which time there were attacks on various enterprises from systems in China.

This problem affects Word 2000, 2002, and 2003 for Windows, Microsoft Works 2004, 2005, and 2006, Word Viewer 2003, and Word 2004 for Macintosh.

I recommend switching to OpenOffice and Macintosh. If you must use Windows in a business environment, this presents a strong argument for not giving users administrative rights on their own machines (or at least not on the user they login as to use Word) in order to limit what damage can occur from the exploitation of a vulnerability like this.

UPDATE (December 15, 2006): There have now been three such Word vulnerabilities discovered in the last two weeks!

DefCon goes off the deep end about Left Behind game

The "Campaign to Defend the Constitution," or "DefCon," describes itself as "an online grassroots movement combating the growing power of the religious right. We will fight for the separation of church and state, individual freedom, scientific progress, pluralism, and tolerance while respecting people of faith and their right to express their beliefs."

They just sent out a mailing calling for people to ask Wal-Mart to stop selling the game "Left Behind: Eternal Forces."

What Wal-Mart sells in its stores is irrelevant to defending the U.S. Constitution. The fact is, this is a crappy game that won't sell well, despite some initial media attention due to its absurd premise. As GameSpot reviewer Brett Todd observes (in a review that rates the game 3.4--bad--on a scale of 10), "Don't mock Left Behind: Eternal Forces because it's a Christian game. Mock it because it's a very bad game."

Let the market handle this one, DefCon, and stick to issues that actually have relevance to your mission. Giving it more attention and treating it as a threat is likely only to sell more copies.

UPDATE (December 13, 2006): DefCon's campaign has successfully created more media coverage for this game.

UPDATE (March 21, 2007): Looks like the market has spoken. Left Behind Games' stock peaked at $7.44 in November and closed today at $0.31 (up from $0.18 yesterday). Their financial auditors' 2006 report questioned their "ability to continue as a going concern."

UPDATE (October 9, 2007): Left Behind Games is now sending out cease and desist letters to bloggers who have given the game negative reviews. (And their stock closed today at $0.11.)

Mike Newdow, the pledge, and the presidential oath

Mike Newdow, the atheist doctor/lawyer who has been working a new case regarding the Pledge of Allegiance up to the Supreme Court since the Court sidestepped the key issue in the case last time around, has put together a song and video about the presidential oath of office and "so help me God" being appended to the end of it. He's also recently had an article printed at WorldNetDaily responding to former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore about whether "In God We Trust" on money violates the First Amendment (hat tip to Ed Brayton). Here's the video:

FBI eavesdropping via cell phones and OnStar

Declan McCullagh reports on the FBI using remote activation of cell phone microphones to eavesdrop on nearby conversations. He comments on a few models that are particularly vulnerable to exploitation:

Nextel and Samsung handsets and the Motorola Razr are especially vulnerable to software downloads that activate their microphones, said James Atkinson, a counter-surveillance consultant who has worked closely with government agencies. "They can be remotely accessed and made to transmit room audio all the time," he said. "You can do that without having physical access to the phone."

Nextel says that they didn't participate in the eavesdropping on a couple of mobsters who were allegedly listened in on using this technique--both using Nextel cell phones.

The same story reports that a 2003 lawsuit revealed similar monitoring of conversations occurring in cars featuring OnStar.

UPDATE (December 5, 2006): Bruce Schneier has commented on this story, and his readers have some interesting comments.