Energy Dept. to Narrow Polygraphs' Use
By ROBERT GEHRKE, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The Energy Department plans to use fewer polygraph tests to detect espionage at energy labs after a study said employees could be unjustly accused — in effect reversing a policy that grew out of the Wen Ho Lee investigation.

The department will continue to use the so-called lie detector tests to screen a smaller number of workers with access to the most critically sensitive material — roughly 4,500 instead of more than 20,000 — Deputy Energy Secretary Kyle McSlarrow told members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

An ancient icon depicting Christ has been removed from display at the Hermitage museum in St Petersburg after claims that its "energy field" is killing staff.

The icon has led to the deaths of several supervisors, an official at Russia's foremost art museum, on the banks of the River Neva, said yesterday.

Boris Sapunov, of the Hermitage's Russian section, said: "It's an inexplicable phenomenon and it started long ago. Three or four people died of diseases and the coincidence began to make me wonder. When the custodians' seats were moved away all the trouble stopped. It won't be exhibited any more.

2003-08-27-12:52 p.m.
Only three more days and I am leaving the country. Perhaps none too soon. The Victory Act is a new government policy, lifted straight out of the novel 1984, giving the government more power over the people.

US Citizens are scared, true, but whether or not we want this or not is irrelevant, since we are not allowed to choose this imposition on ourselves - it's another stone placed on our chests.

I'm getting out of this chicken outfit. I never in my life thought I would ever be saying this. I believe in the United States Constitution, and the administration is pretending it never existed. I never thought I'd be truly considering comparing this administration with 1930's Germany, either. I always thought people who did that were juvenile. How dare we compare ourselves with the kind of suffering germans went through back then? However, everything that's going on feels like it has a soundtrack written by Bernard Hermann.

I am getting my ass out of here!

On a lighter note, I would like to recommend, for the first time, an "As Seen On TV" product, the "Space Bag." I was actually able to pack all of my clothes. It was pretty cool seeing everything shrink like that, and turn into this bizarre, solid mass. I just hope it is allowed in my luggage, since American airports are like Gulags now with the pilots ready to shoot you in the chest if you make a false move. I swear I feel like I'm in a movie going through those places.m I'll let y'all know if something weird happens in the airport, or if the Canadians don't want me anymore. I will have to turn into Bridezilla if that happens, and cry, "b...but my wedding is in a few d...days!!!"

I'm very nervous. I am having much digestion problems.

2003-07-28-11:18 a.m.
Monday, July 25

Sunday's Movie
Seabiscuit
I went to see this movie with my mother. I haven't done that in maybe fifteen years. I still haven't shaken that teenaged shame about it. It makes me feel like I'm some kind of geeky loser. I'm too old to be feeling like that. So are most of the people that attended the movie. It was definitely the blue-haired set. I wonder if some of them are old enough to remember 1938? Come to think of it, there were several old enough. I only remember the racehorse from Warner Brothers cartoons, only the horse was swaybacked and called "Teabiscuit." Which is a common name for racehorses these days; go figure.

But, since I'm a fan of old-time radio, jigsaw and crossword puzzles, I'm not complaining.

2003-07-16-2:25 p.m.
Wednesday, July 16
Monday's Movie
Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) Directed by Gore Verbinsky
I included a photo of the ride, because, quite surprisingly to my delight, the movie had scened directly posed from the Disney ride. I usually hate that kind of thing, but this time it made me smile.

Not that this was some kind of great movie. It really wasn't. But I ask myself, what pirate movie is great? We wax poetic about the Fairbankses, Errol Flynn, even Gene Kelly in The Pirate. But truly, those films were Saturday afternoon, get-out-of-the-heat and munch on some popcorn fare. After you got your free salt and pepper shakers. It was great to see men dressed in bright colors and makeup, showing their booty to god and the world. It's very sexy. It's kind of like Hair-metal music. Guys can dress up in makeup, earrings and bright colors, and still exude masculinity. Both a female and male fantasy.

That's what this movie is. Besides being sexual, it is the same kind of movie as The Black Pirate, Captain Blood, The Black Swan, and Against All Flags. And it is endlessly more fun than Roman Polanski's Pirates, and quite a bit smarter than The Pirate Movie, which took away everything good about The Pirates of Penzance and put in bad eighties music.

The best thing in the movie is Johnny Depp, the egoist hero (all pirate leads are egoist heroes) who fashioned his character after Keith Richards. I kid thee not. He does sway around a bit, and that's disconcerting. He's scary in a sexual way, which is perfect. It seems that Depp "got" the point of the film better than Geoffrey Rush, who could have Captain Hooked it up a bit more. (However, he did utter plenty of "ARRRRs.") Fun. And not a bit too long, unless you're seven years old.








Book of the Day
The Battle for Christmas: A Social and Cultural History of Christmas that shows how it was Transformed from an Unruly Carnival Season into the Quintessential American Family Holiday.

Anyone who ever sneered, in a discount store, at the aisles full of red, green and tinsel the day after Halloween should read this book. Anyone who eschews Christmas because he is not a christian should read this book. Anyone who has ever uttered, "They are taking the Christ out of Christmas: Christ is the "Reason for the Season." should read this book. Anyone who, like myself, has always loves decorating a tree and wrapping presents, but is not christian and feels guilty for celebrating should read this book.

And I'm only a couple of pages in!

I'll give you a sample:

There is no biblical or historical reason to place the birth of Jesus on December 25. True, the Gospel of Luke tells the familiar story of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth - how the shepherds were living with their flocks in the fields of Judea, and how, one night, an angel appeared to them and said, "For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord." But nowhere in this account is there any indication of the exact date, or even the general season, on which "this day" fell. Puritans were fond of saying that if God had intended for the anniversary of the Nativity to be observed, He would surely have given some indication as to when that anniversary occurred. (They also argued that the weather in Judea during late December was simply too cold for shepherds to be living outdoors with their flocks.)

It was only in the fourth century that the Church officially decided to observe Christmas on December 25. And this date was chosen not for religious reasons but simply because it happened to mark the approximate arrival of the Winter Solstice, an event that was celebrated long before the advent of Christianity. The Puritans were correct when they pointed out - and they pointed it out often - that Christmas was nothing but a pagan festival covered with a Christian veneer. The Reverend Increase Mather of Boston, for example, accurately observed in 1687 that the early Christians who first observed the Nativity on December 25 did not do so "thinking that Christ was born in that Month, but because the Heathens Saturnalia was at that time kept in Rome, and they were willing to have those Pagan Holidays metamorphosed into Christian ones."

Most cutures (outside the tropics) have long marked with rituals involving light and greenery those dark weeks of December when the daylight wanes, all culminating in the winter solstice - the return of sun and light and life itself. Thus Chanukah, the "feast of lights." And thus the Yule log, the candles, the holly, the mistletoe, even the Christmas tree - pagan traditions all, with no direct connection to the birth of Jesus.

But the Puritans had another reason for supressing Christmas. That holiday they supressed was not what we probably mean when we think of a traditional Christmas. As we shall see, it involved behavior that most of us would find offensive and even shocking today - rowdy public displays of excessive eating and drinking, the mockery of established authority, aggressive begging (often involving the threat of doing harm), and even the invasion of wealthy homes.

It may seem odd that Christmas was eevr celebrated in such a fashion. But there was a good reason. In northern agricultural societies, December was the major "punctuation mark" in the rhythmic cycle of work, a time when there was a minimum of work to be performed. The deep freeze of midwinter had not yet set in; the work of gathering the harvest and preparing it for winter was done; and there was plenty of newly fermented beer or wine as well as meat from freshly slaughtered animals - meat that had to be consumed before it spoiled. St. Nicholas, for example, is associated with the Christmas season chiefly because his "name-day," December 6, coincided in many European countries with the end of the harvest and slaughter season.

Prologue. Ira with Stephen Nissenbaum, author of a history called The Battle for Christmas, which explains when people started believing in a Santa who arrives Christmas Eve, carrying presents. It was in 1822, and incredibly, the poem that created our modern idea of Santa is still around, known by heart by tens of millions. (8 minutes)

Typical socialist bullshit. Then again, I do enjoy reading the whining and moaning of liberal losers. --Dubya Won (12/18/2000)