Iranian authorities have banned the Kargozaran newspaper after it published an article critical of the Palestinian group Hamas. A government spokesman said the article "portrays the Palestinian resistance as terrorists who cause the deaths of children and civilians by taking up positions in kindergartens and hospitals." (Source)

If people get paid to write stuff like this, I really am in the wrong field. A CNet writer writes a ~2 page article about how it's much harder to switch to MacOS X from Windows, and 90% of his complaints revolve around the fact that there are a lot of differences between the apps written for the respective platforms. A perfect example of what I'm talking about:

On the other hand, Office 2008 for the Mac bears little resemblance to Office 2007 for Windows. I've just gotten used to the new Windows version of Word and Excel. Now I have to learn a new suite for the Mac?

Imagine that. Microsoft actually adapted the interface of Office 2008 to be mostly compliant to Apple's user interface guidelines. What's ironic about this complaint is that MacOffice 2008 is pretty similar to Microsoft Office 2003 and earlier in its interface.

One thing I've learned along the way, so far, is that there is little meritocracy involved in people getting published like this. I've written submissions that were very well-received by an editor, but then turned down because it came a little too late, only to find later that they published a few more articles on a similar subject from more prominent writers.

On the other hand, software engineering tends to pay a lot better than writing >:)

-Liberals supported giving some land to the Jews out of guilt for the Holocaust, in spite of the normal left-wing tendency to engage in hatred of the Jews.

-Liberals felt like they could wash their hands of the Jews by giving them this land to assuage their guilty, and then looked on in horror as the Jews actually, *drum roll* defended their territory and then conquered more territory when invaded by the Arabs.

-Liberals now look on in horror as a nation founded by millions of survivors of state-sanctioned genocide, theft, rape and plunder defend themselves against their barbaric neighbors who wage war behind civilian human shields.

-Liberals look on in rage as many of their fellow Westerners and the majority of Israel don't feel bad that thousands of Palestinians get killed in the process in every "intifada" or resumption of hostilities because the Palestinian civilians allow themselves to be used as human shields.

Israel wasn't supposed to be a success. At best, it was supposed to end up like Liberia with a Jewish elite in an arab-dominated region living tenuously together. Realistically, the Jews were supposed to be wiped out by the 1948 war, so that the left could see them finally exterminated and have that subconscious pleasure, while being able to consciously feel solace in the fact that "they tried to make things right" by giving them 3 marginally connected scraps of land.

From What's Wrong with the World:

If Jerusalem and the West Bank were the site of enormous crowds of entirely unarmed, peaceful protesters under the leadership of an Arab Ghandi figure, imploring Tel Aviv to establish a peaceful political arrangement--in front of the ceaseless watch of CNN, BBC, Reuters, etc.--the Israelis would completely unravel and wither under the political and moral pressure.

I think it's no coincidence that the hearts of so many Palestinians have been hardened against Israel. Using the biblical precedent, it's clear that God has hardened the hearts of the Palestinians to make them violently hate Israel for Israel's protection against world opinion. It is incredibly hard for any rational, reasonable, decent person to ever be sympathetic to an organization that promotes the total genocide of the Jewish people, and the population that wildly supported them as demonstrated by election results.

Population of Chechnya: 1,103,686

Over the holidays I confessed to my father-in-law that I am starting to come to grips with the fact that the predestinationist doctrines I was taught in the church that I got saved in have actually hurt me dearly as a Christian. Between them and the struggles that I have experienced with life in Northern Virginia, I have come to realize that they have left me feeling weak and powerless in the face of the devil and my own sin. As I look at the fruit that they have born inside me, I realize that they are tainted and rotten.

Unlike a lot of people who are strongly libertarian in their sentiments, I support the right of private, law-abiding citizens to violate the wishes of land and property owners by carrying weapons on their property against their will. The reason is that I believe that the right to life is so fundamental that it supercedes all other rights. Now, here's a situation for the libertarians who give the property owner unlimited rights in this regard.

From Digg:

25 Year old man + 18 year old girl = ok
35 year old man + 18 year old girl = icky but ok
35 year old man + 17 year old girl = icky and illegal
35 year old man + 14 year old girl = sick and illegal
35 year old woman + 14 year old boy = AWESOME!

Thomas Sowell on why black civil rights was a cause morally superior to gay rights:

Despite heavy television advertising in California for "gay marriage," showing blacks being set upon by police dogs during civil right marches, and implying that homosexuals face the same discrimination today, the analogy is completely false.

Blacks had to sit in the back of the bus because they were black. They were doing exactly what white people were doing-- riding a bus. That is what made it racial discrimination.

I agree wholeheartedly with Sowell. The primary difference between gay rights and black rights is that homosexuality is a behavior that can be controlled when necessary. A flaming homosexual can "act normal" in mixed company. A black person cannot conceal their blackness unless they hide it physically or are so light-skinned that they can pass as a white person.