Stage 10 of the 2005 Tour de France is in Grenoble, and the route passes below the windows of my apartment, and I have a unique perspective. Here is a map of the route, with my apartment marked by a black X:

I’m delaying going into work tomorrow so I can hang my US flag from my window, cheer on Lance Armstrong, and take some photos of this unique perspective.

Check in tomorrow evening for the photos!

Technorati Tags: bicycling, general

Leading Cardinal Redefines Church’s View on Evolution

An influential cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church, which has long been regarded as an ally of the theory of evolution, is now suggesting that belief in evolution as accepted by science today may be incompatible with Catholic faith.

The cardinal, Christoph Schönborn, archbishop of Vienna, a theologian who is close to Pope Benedict XVI, staked out his position in an Op-Ed article in The New York Times on Thursday, writing, “Evolution in the sense of common ancestry might be true, but evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense - an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection - is not.”

In a telephone interview from a monastery in Austria, where he was on retreat, the cardinal said that his essay had not been approved by the Vatican, but that two or three weeks before Pope Benedict XVI’s election in April, he spoke with the pope, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, about the church’s position on evolution. “I said I would like to have a more explicit statement about that, and he encouraged me to go on,” said Cardinal Schönborn.

He said that he had been “angry” for years about writers and theologians, many Catholics, who he said had “misrepresented” the church’s position as endorsing the idea of evolution as a random process.

Opponents of Darwinian evolution said they were gratified by Cardinal Schönborn’s essay. But scientists and science teachers reacted with confusion, dismay and even anger. Some said they feared the cardinal’s sentiments would cause religious scientists to question their faiths.

I think we have to be careful here not to equate this with the creationists 16th century views. This statement seems compatible with the work of Jesuit Priest and paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. There is a big difference between the literal interpretationion of the creation story in the Bible and the belief that evolution is not random. It appears to me that Cardinal Schönborn is not questioning evolution but the randomness.

I am not a Christian and suspect that the mechanics of evolution are for the most part random but I can see how a Christian would have to reject the randomness. I don’t see this as a victory for the creationists.

I read with interest this guest commentary by Pennywit on Random Fate. He seemed to go out of the way to criticize me for pointing out the hypocrisy of those who strongly advocate the war in Iraq, but are unwilling to sacrifice anything to the cause.

In his post below, Mr. Anderson assays a chickenhawk lite argument, that is:

Rhetoric is rhetoric, and while I agree that it can get a bit ridiculous at times discussing this issue, I believe the assumption that those most strongly advocating something, should be willing to sacrifice themselves for the cause they advocate… Is not an unreasonable position.

The problem with chickenhawk lite is that it’s really no better than the usual “chickenhawk” ad hominem. It’s just another attempt to shut down debate by asserting that the opponent’s point is invalid because the opponet himself doesn’t behave a certain way. Only instead of calling his fellow belligerent “chickenhawk” or “coward,” Mr. Anderson would simply call him “hypocrite.”

Unfortunately, name-calling, of whatever stripe, is not reasoned debate or discourse, but rather an attempt to choke off the same.

He conveniently ignores the venom evident in the comments to my post. Which go a long way toward demonstrating the smug arrogance many on the Right, (And the ones I am addressing with my post, have)… Whatever…

I am not into name calling, but for the sake of argument I will venture to look at the last line of his post.

“Unfortunately, name-calling, of whatever stripe, is not reasoned debate or discourse, but rather an attempt to choke off the same.”

First off, Mr. Pennywit obviously knows nothing about me or my blog, and obviously has made no attempt to educate himself. My Blog is probably the most open to debate in the Blogsphere. (Eh, take a look at my Guest Bloggers PW.) My position is simply part of the debate, and I find it interesting that so many are trying to CHOKE OFF that position, while claiming that my position is the one trying to eliminate debate. So I call out Pennywit, and any one else who took offense to my position. I offer you an opportunity to guest blog on ISOU and explain your position as you will. You see, in reality, I believe in discussion, not sarcasm or personal attacks. Like I said in the original post, I walk the walk IN ALL of my life’s endeavors.

I think my issue with War Supporting Bloggers is pretty clear. I am not insisting that anyone strap on a gun and go to war to support their argument, or to have a voice in the discussion. I am simply saying that I find it most ironic that the ones who are most vehement in their support for the war, are often the ones who have made no sacrifice for the cause of winning it. I stand by the position…

Crossposted to ISOU

The complete and total delusional miscalculation of what would happen in Iraq by the Bush administration became obvious once again this week. It has become obvious we are not being greeted with flowers.
The True Cost of War

In anger and embarrassment, Congressional Republicans are scrambling to repair a budget shortfall in veterans’ medical care now that the Bush administration has admitted it vastly underestimated the number of returning Iraq and Afghanistan personnel needing treatment. The $1 billion-plus gaffe is considerable, with the original budget estimate of 23,553 returned veterans needing care this year now ballooning to 103,000. American taxpayers should be even more furious than Congress.

Rather than being a case of cold hearted callousness on the part of Republicans, as many on the left have claimed, it appears that underfunding the Veterans Administration may simply be another example of gross incompetence on the part of the administration and the unwillingness of Republicans to go against the administration.

The Capitol’s Republican majorities have shown no hesitation in signing the president’s serial blank-check supplemental budgets for waging the war, yet they repeatedly ignored months of warnings from Democrats that returning veterans were being shortchanged. One Republican who warned of the problem - Representative Christopher Smith of New Jersey - lost his chairmanship of the Veterans Affairs Committee after pressing his plea too boldly before the House leadership.

But partisan resistance melted in a flood of political chagrin once the administration admitted the budget error, which was first discovered in April but only now disclosed. The explanation offered - the gaffe was due to using dated formulas based on prewar calculations - left Republicans sputtering all the more.

Take note of the reason: “the gaffe was due to using dated formulas based on prewar calculations“. The prewar calculations were off by an order of magnitude. There is a word for that, incompetence.

It’s always weird hanging in someone else’s digs, but I told Jack that I would at least put up one post before I skipped town myself.

And I’ve been meaning to link Ophelia for over a week now on her gay stereotype bashing post. A young one in blog years, and yet, she’s got the idea.

It’s interesting to gain a new perspective.

Pam discussed this several months ago, and I linked her on it. We wondered why so many homosexuals have seemed to define themselves by their homosexuality.

Ophelia blames Hollywood for handing down that definition, rather than the gay community. And I say: How can you not blame Hollywood? Those feather-muckers.

I will say this, at least of late, the movement seems to have gotten away from the “nasty, sickly, disease-ridden” stereotypes, and more towards the JUST JACK! overly animated type from Will and Grace.

That’s our fault. As humans, we find comfort in stereotyping, almost as much as we are enraged by it. And as an audience of this generation, we seek comedic relief as a refreshing contrast to the world’s coming to an end! mentality of the late 80’s.

And so here we are…

Regarding our position on the bell curve of balance - on ALL of the issues - I have to question where we stand.

I can’t help but wonder how close we are to “as good as it gets.”

President George Bush’s speech is all over the news — but did you know there are two versions of this speech?

On my own blog I ran THIS POST that analyzed the speech we saw on television.

But then we leared about the REAL speech and did THIS POST.

But didn’t:
“The young people who support me and support the war effort should put their money where their mouth is and join the military.”

The ARG poll yesterday showing that the Bush administration has all but lost the middle has already resulted in a great deal of blog activity. I gave my thoughts and the thoughts of a couple of others over at Middle Earth Journal but today I want to discuss what the Democrats should and more importantly shouldn’t do to take advatage of it.
The Bush administration cannot improve their approval rating based on their policy. In spite of continued rosy assesments from the administration the majority have figured out that things are not going well in Iraq and that the economy is not really as great as the moronic John Snow would like us to believe. As a result expect the Rovian slime machine to kick into full gear. The only way the administration can hope to come out of this is to make the Democrats look worse. There are indications that it may backfire this time. It is essential that the Democrats are very careful not to give the appearance that they are climbing into the same slimy gutter that Rove resides in. There was nothing inaccurate about what Dick Durbin said about GITMO but he could have avoided the inflammatory references to gulags and the Nazis. Howard Dean should continue to criticize the Republicans but should avoid the Rovian inflammatory generalizations that may inspire the base but turn off everyone else. If you fight Rove using his tactics you will lose.
My advice to the Democrats is you can win this round; the polls show that not nearly as many are drinking the kool-aid now. But you won’t win if you you try to out-slime Karl Rove. Take the high road, it’s a winner this time.

The interview of Joe Gandelman, The Moderate Voice, is in the extended entry below, to allow for my regular posts to have some visibility on my main page. The title of this post will also be updated with the most recent question number, so check back.

I will add each question and answer pair in the interview as they are finished to this post, which will be kept at the top of the site until the interview is completed. Please send suggestions for questions to me at jack -at- randomfate -dot- net, although I reserve the right to modify or not use any suggested questions, depending on how the interview develops.

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