it seems like just the other day there were so many links on my desktop that i had to update in order to clear them off, and there’s already a whole pile of new links, and i have to update again.
i finally got in touch with moe’s friend kim, who set me up with a counsellor to help me deal with PTSD, and she re-encouraged me to apply for SSI disability again, despite the fact that they’ve already turned me down twice. she says they always deny everyone three times. i wonder how the people who really can’t work end up getting through the whole thing. also she says that they start accumulating money for you starting the first time you apply, so when they do actually accept your application you get a large lump sum that’s all the accumulated money from the first time you applied… and it’s already been two and a half years since the first time i applied… if i apply again, and again (emphasis on "if"), i’m going to buy a computer or something with my first check… although it would be a good thing for me to consider, because i can work while on disability, and there’s free health care coverage which i don’t currently have. of course i’ve never actually needed health care coverage, except for that one time… but half a million in medical bills for 2 months of brain surgery and hospital care is a pretty big exception…
work is work… massoud had to go back to iran for something or another, and he left the network in a workable, but different and not entirely put together state. there’s no word when he’s going to be back. i left at noon yesterday, and at 3:45 today because there wasn’t anything for me to do. also i spent a whole bunch of time doing bindery and cutting jobs because there was no typesetting. majid has been being really nice to me, but he’s been arguing with greg when he thinks i’m not listening. today greg said that he couldn’t do a job because of restrictions caused by the press, and majid said that he was tired of hearing greg’s excuses and he would be hiring a new press operator soon, and training them himself… <shudder> the mere thought of having to break in a new press operator, especially one who has been "trained" by majid, is enough to make me want to quit now.
tomorrow i’m running sound for the hurricane survivors’ benefit concert.
Societies worse off ‘when they have God on their side’
By Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent
RELIGIOUS belief can cause damage to a society, contributing towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide, according to research published today.
According to the study, belief in and worship of God are not only unnecessary for a healthy society but may actually contribute to social problems.
The study counters the view of believers that religion is necessary to provide the moral and ethical foundations of a healthy society.
It compares the social peformance of relatively secular countries, such as Britain, with the US, where the majority believes in a creator rather than the theory of evolution. Many conservative evangelicals in the US consider Darwinism to be a social evil, believing that it inspires atheism and amorality.
Many liberal Christians and believers of other faiths hold that religious belief is socially beneficial, believing that it helps to lower rates of violent crime, murder, suicide, sexual promiscuity and abortion. The benefits of religious belief to a society have been described as its “spiritual capital”. But the study claims that the devotion of many in the US may actually contribute to its ills.
The paper, published in the Journal of Religion and Society, a US academic journal, reports: “Many Americans agree that their churchgoing nation is an exceptional, God-blessed, shining city on the hill that stands as an impressive example for an increasingly sceptical world.
“In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies.
“The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so.”
Gregory Paul, the author of the study and a social scientist, used data from the International Social Survey Programme, Gallup and other research bodies to reach his conclusions.
He compared social indicators such as murder rates, abortion, suicide and teenage pregnancy.
The study concluded that the US was the world’s only prosperous democracy where murder rates were still high, and that the least devout nations were the least dysfunctional. Mr Paul said that rates of gonorrhoea in adolescents in the US were up to 300 times higher than in less devout democratic countries. The US also suffered from “ uniquely high” adolescent and adult syphilis infection rates, and adolescent abortion rates, the study suggested.
Mr Paul said: “The study shows that England, despite the social ills it has, is actually performing a good deal better than the USA in most indicators, even though it is now a much less religious nation than America.”
He said that the disparity was even greater when the US was compared with other countries, including France, Japan and the Scandinavian countries. These nations had been the most successful in reducing murder rates, early mortality, sexually transmitted diseases and abortion, he added.
Mr Paul delayed releasing the study until now because of Hurricane Katrina. He said that the evidence accumulated by a number of different studies suggested that religion might actually contribute to social ills. “I suspect that Europeans are increasingly repelled by the poor societal performance of the Christian states,” he added.
He said that most Western nations would become more religious only if the theory of evolution could be overturned and the existence of God scientifically proven. Likewise, the theory of evolution would not enjoy majority support in the US unless there was a marked decline in religious belief, Mr Paul said.
“The non-religious, proevolution democracies contradict the dictum that a society cannot enjoy good conditions unless most citizens ardently believe in a moral creator.
“The widely held fear that a Godless citizenry must experience societal disaster is therefore refuted.”
Rep. DeLay Calls Indictment ‘Baseless’
By LARRY MARGASAK, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON – A Texas grand jury on Wednesday indicted Rep. Tom DeLay and two political associates on charges of conspiracy in a campaign finance scheme, forcing the House majority leader to temporarily relinquish his post. A defiant DeLay insisted he was innocent and called the prosecutor a “partisan fanatic.”
“I have done nothing wrong. … I am innocent,” DeLay told a Capitol Hill news conference during which he criticized the Texas prosecutor, Ronnie Earle, repeatedly. DeLay said the charges amounted to “one of the weakest and most baseless indictments in American history.”
In Austin, Earle told reporters, “Our job is to prosecute abuses of power and to bring those abuses to the public.” He has noted previously that he has prosecuted many Democrats in the past.
Republicans at the Capitol selected Rep. Roy Blunt (news, bio, voting record), R-Mo., the current Republican whip — No. 3 in the leadership ranks — to fill the vacancy temporarily.
Reps. David Dreier of California, the chairman of the House Rules Committee, and Eric Cantor of Virginia, the chief deputy whip, will assist Blunt with some of the majority leader duties.
Republicans expressed their backing for DeLay, the first House leader to be indicted in office in at least a century.
“He will fight this and we give him our utmost support,” said Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois following a private GOP meeting.
DeLay said he was certain the indictment would be dismissed and shrugged off the charges as a “political witch hunt” designed to drive a wedge in the Republican ranks.
“If the Democrats think we’re going to go crawl in a hole and not accomplish our agenda, I wish they could have been a fly on the wall” of the closed-door meeting, DeLay said after the session.
The indictment accused DeLay, 58, of a conspiracy to violate Texas election law, which prohibits the use of corporate donations to advocate the election or defeat of political candidates. Prosecutors say the alleged scheme worked in a roundabout way, with the donations going to a DeLay-founded political committee, then to the Republican National Committee and eventually to GOP candidates in Texas.
The indictment stems from a plan DeLay helped set in motion in 2001 to help Republicans win control of the Texas House in the 2002 elections for the first time since Reconstruction.
Indicted with DeLay were two of his associates, John Colyandro, former executive director of a Texas political action committee formed by DeLay, and Jim Ellis, who heads DeLay’s national political committee.
The grand jury’s foreman, William Gibson, told The Associated Press that Earle didn’t pressure members one way or the other. “Ronnie Earle didn’t indict him. The grand jury indicted him,” Gibson told The Associated Press in an interview at his home.
Gibson, 76, a retired sheriff’s deputy in Austin, said of DeLay: “He’s probably doing a good job. I don’t have anything against him. Just something happened.”
The Texas Republican temporarily stepped down from the No. 2 leadership post that he had held since 2002, as required by House rules.
Blunt said he was confident DeLay would be cleared of the allegations and return to his leadership job.
Criminal conspiracy is a state felony punishable by six months to two years in a state jail and a fine of up to $10,000.
At the White House, press secretary Scott McClellan said the president still considered DeLay — a fellow Texan — a friend and an effective leader in Congress.
“Congressman DeLay is a good ally, a leader who we have worked closely with to get things done for the American people,” McClellan said. “I think the president’s view is that we need to let the legal process work.”
The indictment puts the Republicans — who control the White House, Senate and House — on the defensive. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., also is fending off questions of ethical improprieties. And less than a week ago, a former White House official was arrested in the investigation of Jack Abramoff, a high-powered lobbyist and fundraiser.
The indictment accused DeLay of a conspiracy to “knowingly make a political contribution” in violation of Texas law outlawing corporate contributions. It alleged that DeLay’s Texans for a Republican Majority political action committee accepted $155,000 from companies, including Sears Roebuck, and placed the money in an account.
The PAC then wrote a $190,000 check to an arm of the Republican National Committee and provided the committee a document with the names of Texas State House candidates and the amounts they were supposed to received in donations, the indictment said.
The indictment included a copy of the check.
The charge against the second-ranking, and most assertive Republican leader came on the final day of the grand jury’s term. It followed earlier indictments of a state political action committee founded by DeLay and three of his political associates.
DeLay’s attorney, Dick DeGuerin, said he preferred a trial as soon as possible, at least by the end of the year. Asked when DeLay would turn himself in, DeGuerin said, “I’m going to keep from having Tom DeLay taken down in handcuffs, photographed and fingerprinted. That’s uncalled for.”
The grand jury action is expected to have immediate consequences in the House, where DeLay is largely responsible for winning passage of the Republican legislative program.
Democrats have kept up a crescendo of criticism of DeLay’s ethics, citing three times last year that the House ethics committee admonished DeLay for his conduct.
“The criminal indictment of Majority Leader Tom Delay is the latest example that Republicans in Congress are plagued by a culture of corruption at the expense of the American people,” said Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
Democratic chairman Howard Dean cited the problems of DeLay, Frist and Karl Rove, the White House deputy chief of staff at the center of questions about the leak of a CIA operative’s name.
“The Republican leadership in Washington is now spending more time answering questions about ethical misconduct than doing the people’s business,” Dean said.
At the White House, McClellan bristled at a question about Democratic claims that Republicans have grown arrogant in their use of power after years of controlling the executive and legislative branches of the federal government.
McClellan said the Republican Party has made policy that has improved the lives of Americans, and the White House stands by that record.
DeLay retains his seat representing Texas’ 22nd congressional district, suburbs southwest of Houston.
As a sign of loyalty to DeLay after the grand jury returned indictments against three of his associates, House Republicans last November repealed a rule requiring any of their leaders to step aside if indicted. The rule was reinstituted in January after lawmakers returned to Washington from the holidays fearing the repeal might create a backlash from voters.
Associated Press Writers Kelly Shannon and April Castro in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report.
Do Unnatural Acts Cause Natural Disasters? Or; Why Pat Robertson’s an Idiot
on a different note, sledgehammer-operated keyboard