Magic Statistics

The title may be a bit of an exaggeration, since the StatWife and I haven't stopped at every single café on the Alaska Highway to sample their java. But we've had an abundance of lousy coffee along the Highway on our many car trips Outside. (For non-Yukoners, Outside means anywhere south of our little territory.) So, it is a great pleasure to recommend a spot for its coffee: The Poplars Campground, near Toad River, B.C. The Poplars is found at km 623, just inside the south entrance to Muncho Lake Provincial Park. Here's a map.

If anyone knows of any other places on the Alaska Highway that serve palatable coffee, I'm all ears.

In the sidebar I've added a list of relief agencies that are working to help those struck by Hurricane Katrina. The blogroll code and a brief description of its rationale are available here. If you have a blog, please consider adding the Relief Roll to your blog.

Tomorrow, Thursday, 1 September has been designated Hurricane Katrina: Blog For Relief Day. StatGuy's family is supporting the Canadian arm of Samaritan's Purse, which is sending supplies and relief workers to the affected area. Please donate the charity of your choice in this time of dire need. This is also a time for prayer.

via Rebecca Writes.

This notice appeared on the website of WWL-TV earlier this evening:

****ALL RESIDENTS ON THE EAST BANK OF ORLEANS AND JEFFERSON REMAINING IN THE METRO AREA ARE BEING TOLD TO EVACUATE AS EFFORTS TO SANDBAG THE LEVEE BREAK HAVE ENDED. THE PUMPS IN THAT AREA ARE EXPECTED TO FAIL SOON AND 9 FEET OF WATER IS EXPECTED IN THE ENTIRE EAST BANK. WITHIN THE NEXT 12-15 HOURS****

The "entire East bank" includes all of the city of New Orleans.

From the Washington Post: "The worst-case scenario, or something close to it, has befallen southern Louisiana and its Gulf Coast neighbors, Alabama and Mississippi."

The death toll is climbing, about 80% of New Orleans is under water and the water level is still rising, electricity has gone out, there is no drinkable water. It will be months, if not years, before the city returns to anything resembling normalcy.

Public order is presently breaking down in New Orleans: looting is widespread, one police station has come under gunfire. Prison inmates are rioting.

The Governor of Louisiana has declared tomorrow a day of prayer in the state of Louisiana. Here's a prayer I found online:

Father in heaven, as events unfold, it seems that the City of New Orleans is unlikely to survive in anything like its current form. Many there and in the surrounding regions have already either died or lost everything they have. Although, in your inscrutable designs, you have chosen not to stay this catastrophe, I beg you to extend your merciful hand now over all affected so that anarchy does not victimize the innocent further. Send your Holy Spirit to inspire the authorities and all decent folk to act as your Son’s hands and thus embody your mercy as well as your justice.

We ask you this through that same Jesus Christ Our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit as one God, now and for ages of ages. Amen.

More information from Christian bloggers here and here.

Here's a list of recommended relief organisations from a US Government agency.

via Dawn Eden.

Is Pope Benedict XVI about to announce a policy banning homosexually inclined men from admission to Catholic seminaries? If so, expect a firestorm of outrage. More here.

My view, FWIW not being a Catholic, is this is overdue. In fact, it turns out that this policy was instituted by Pope John XXIII in 1961 but never observed. The Roman Catholic Church could have avoided a lot of pain and suffering if it had been enforced.

via Pontifications.

The family of Che Guevara says it's tired of seeing the famed photo of Fidel Castro's revolutionary comrade used without their permission. According to the news reports, the family doesn't actually come out and say they want control of the revenues generated by the sale of t-shirts, baseball caps, cigarette lighters, hoodies, posters, and Swatch watches with the pop-culture icon's picture, but one doesn't have to read too deeply between the lines to see that's the underlying issue here. The family's legal action was inspired by a successful lawsuit brought by Korda, the photographer who took the famous photo, against a Smirnoff Vodka ad that used the picture without authorisation.

I'm not a lawyer, so I venture no authoritative opinion on the outcome of the family's quest, but I would not be surprised if the family succeeds in gaining authority over the photo. In that case, they will almost certainly shut down this online store as too disrespectful to the beloved Che's sacred memory. So, if you haven't yet purchased your "Murdering Communist Bastard" t-shirts, better get 'em now.

By the by, in a previous e-mail discussion of Che's blessed legacy, I was consternated to discover that some leftists maintain that Che was in fact NOT a Communist. This view seems to be based on a definition of Communist so narrow and overly scrupulous that it is doubtful whether anyone other than Karl Marx qualifies. The authors of this exhaustive and indispensable history of Communism, by contrast, include Che in the chapter "Communism In Latin America". The Che they describe, based in part on his own words, was a terrorist and mass murderer utterly lacking in human compassion—the diametric opposite of his fashionably romantic image.

via Let It Bleed.

A chilling account from the trial of a Chechen Muslim charged with terrorism and murder for his role in the Beslan Massacre. At least 330 people died after terrorists occupied the school in Beslan, North Ossetia, last September. The children who survived their horrific ordeal are giving testimony about the abuse and threats they endured.

A 14-year-old boy broke down in tears while testifying.

As the boy tried to stop sobbing, the courtroom spectators, mostly women wearing black clothes and black headscarves, swore at [defendant Nur-Pashi] Kulayev. "Give this terrorist to us! We will tear the bastard apart!" the women shouted.

Fortunately for the defendant, he is behind bulletproof glass.

via Midwest Conservative Journal.

The collect for today, the 14th Sunday after Trinity, from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer:

Almighty and everlasting God, give unto us the increase of faith, hope, and charity; and, that we may obtain that which thou dost promise, make us to love that which thou dost command; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

You are Athanasius! You are willing to fight a losing battle, just to make sure that the truth is told. But don't get discouraged; sometimes it takes more than one lifetime for truth to triumph.

Which Saint Are You?

brought to you by Quizilla

via Orthodixie.

The Collect for today, St Bartholomew's Day:

O almighty and everlasting God, who didst give to thine apostle Bartholomew grace truly to believe and to preach thy Word; Grant we beseech thee, unto thy Church, to love that Word which he believed, and both to preach and receive the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The apostle Bartholomew, named in all three synoptic gospels, is generally identified with Nathanael, who is named only in the Gospel of St John. (For more details, see here.) If this identification is accepted, we have a great deal of information on Bartholomew’s calling (John 1:45-51). Jesus described him as an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit.

Nothing is known for certain of his post-New Testament ministry. There are conflicting accounts of his missionary activity in Asia Minor, Armenia, Mesopotamia, Persia, India and Egypt. Of these Armenia has the strongest support, where he was said to have been flayed alive before being beheaded.

Following this account, Michelangelo, in his painting The Last Judgment, portrayed Bartholomew holding in his hand his own skin.

The photo at the right shows a closer view. Michelangelo gave Bartholomew a new and perfect skin, while he painted a self-portrait on the old skin.

One of London’s oldest churches is named after him. The oldest parts of The Priory Church of St Bartholomew the Great date to 1123, when the English throne was held by King Henry I, son of William the Conqueror. St Bartholomew’s Hospital, located beside the church, was founded at the same time.

UPDATE (31 Dec.): Post on The Priory Church of St Bartholomew the Great here. 

The Daily Telegraph opines that the decision of the Very Rev Alec Knight, Dean of Lincoln Cathedral, to allow filming of The Da Vinci Code in the cathedral is an exceedingly short-sighted and foolish one. Here's the DT editorial of last Saturday, 20 August, and here's my post of last Tuesday, 16 August, in which I express a similar view. Charles Moore, the editorialist, says it far more eloquently than I, of course. A small sample:

The not Very Reverend Alec Knight thus calculates that filming "a load of old tosh" on his premises is a price worth paying for £100,000 for the fabric. But is it? That old tosh states that Dr Knight's fellow clergy throughout history have propagated a lie which the novel calls "the greatest story ever sold". So millions and millions - far more than will ever visit Lincoln - will now watch this tosh that undermines Christianity, with the cathedral making it all look pretty in the background. The film will be trying to tear down all that fabric of faith which is "not built with hands."

Exactly so.

The collect for today, the 13th Sunday after Trinity, from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer:

Almighty and merciful God, of whose only gift it cometh that thy faithful people do unto thee true and laudable service; Grant, we beseech thee, that we may so faithfully serve thee in this life, that we fail not finally to attain thy heavenly promises; through the merits of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

According to Editor and Publisher, Mr Bill Keller, executive editor of the New York Times, has written a letter to his own newspaper attacking a book review his own newspaper published. The objectionable essay was a review by legal scholar Richard Posner of several recent books on the media. Keller charges that Posner "weirdly" makes almost no distinction

within the vast category of American media, between those that are aggressively partisan and those that strive to keep opinion sequestered from news, between outlets that invest in serious reporting and those that simply riff on the reporting of others, between the sensational and the more high-minded, between organizations that hasten to correct errors and those that could not care less, between the cartoonish shout shows on cable TV and the more ambitious journalism of, say, the paper you are holding in your hands.

It's pretty obvious which side Mr Keller thinks the New York Times is on. Unfortunately, there's this and this and this and this and . . . well, you get the idea.

What's really weird is the juxtaposition of Mr Keller's vehement criticism and the New York Times book review editor's introduction to Mr Posner's essay:

In an essay on the credibility of the news media, Bad News, Posner weaves his way through the arguments of left and right with his predictable unpredictability, providing a surprisingly nonpolitical perspective on a very political subject.

Based on Mr Keller's intemperate and self-righteous letter, I'd guess that Mr Posner's essay is well worth reading—and ASAP before the Times removes from its website. Check it out.

Finally, I am peeved at Editor and Publisher for calling Richard Posner a conservative legal scholar. He's not a conservative: he's a libertarian. No wonder Bill Keller got his dander up.

via Drudge.