Ah, peaceful Saturday morning. It is the Saturday of Eric (not to be confused with the Summer of George, but dang close to the same thing).
What's on my schedule today? Blog, buy a CD organizer, read, clean the kitchen floor, study, nap, research, exercise, write, decorate my study for Christmas, read, and watch the USC/ND game while I clean the house. I have only 15 hours to get it all in. It's 4:34 a.m. as I type this. I was so excited, I couldn't sleep.
Great opening story line: "Turkey's religious-affairs minister has announced that during his visit next week, Pope Benedict XVI should declare that Islam is a religion of peace. Ali Bardakoglu told the Reuters news agency that the Pope should make it clear that violence is caused by 'fallible and misguided humans,' not religious beliefs."
I look forward to seeing B16 finesse this. A religion of peace? I know a lot of people buy into it, but I don't. Violence is advocated in its holy book, it initially spread by violence, and currently it makes its biggest splash by violence. Granted, it has had peaceful components, but primarily a religion of peace? I find that hard to accept. Christianity, on the other hand, seems to be the mirror opposite. Its holy book does not advocate violence, it initially spread by peace and love and the persecution such things bring, and it currently makes its biggest splash by love (the neocons aren't Christians, but the Pope is). Granted, it has had violence components, but it is primarily a religion of peace.
The Russian spy "poisoning" fascinates me, but only in a harnessed way. I entertain two assumptions:
1. There's a lot of James-Bond stuff that Joe Public never hears about. How much? I have no idea. I'm part of Joe Public, and even if I held part of the Bond information, I couldn't tell you (I'd be killed).
2. There's a type of spy decorum, even among enemy nations: when something in covert land takes place, it's addressed in covert land, not in the press.
So when I hear anything that takes place in covert land, I'm suspicious. Why are we hearing about this? If this type of stuff takes place frequently, why is this one item hitting the press? In this instance, the British Home Secretary told the press that the police were looking into the poisoning, and now the poisoning is linked to Putin. But if this is the case, why is the Home Secretary going public with it? Surely, there's something we're not being told, since we're not told stuff all the time.
The bottom line is, I find such stuff fascinating, but I never know whether we're getting 2% of the information or 98% of it, and whether 10% or 90% of the information is a lie or otherwise bogus. How does a person form an opinion, knowing that the information he's relying upon is unreliable? Trash (the information) in, trash (your opinion) out.
Meanwhile, Spike TV is holding a Bond celebration. I like the irony.
Until next week, may your waistline hold its own.
