China convicts 3 for printing Bibles

This is sickening:

A Chinese court on Tuesday sentenced a Protestant minister, his wife and her brother to prison terms of up to three years for illegally printing Bibles and other Christian publications, one of their lawyers said. The conviction of house church minister Cai Zhuohua, 34, and his family by the Beijing People's Intermediate Court came days before U.S. President George W. Bush arrives for a state visit.

It's sad what the Chinese government pushes people to:

A fourth defendant, Hu Jinyun, Xiao Gaowen's wife, was exempted from criminal punishment on charges of "secretly storing illegal goods" because she made contributions by informing against her sister-in-law, the lawyer quoted the verdict as saying.

Here's my favorite part, though:

The prosecutor, in the bill of indictment, accused the defendants of illegally printing 200,000 copies of the Bible which were found in Cai's warehouse but the verdict did not mention a figure. In July, Hong Kong's Beijing-funded Ta Kung Pao newspaper quoted Ye Xiaowen, director of the State Bureau of Religious Affairs, as saying Cai illegally printed 40 million copies of the Bible and other Christian publications.

So the guy was able to subvert the Chinese with 99.5% success. Sweet.

Election 2005: VOTE!

Tomorrow is Election Day. Whether you're a school-lunch-slashing, puppy-stomping conservative reactionary or an America-hating, granola-munching bleeding-heart liberal, this is when it counts.

Click on the proper county to find your polling place:

• Harris
• Fort Bend
• Waller
• Montgomery
• Galveston
• Brazoria

Vote!

Vatican official defends evolution theory

In the whole debate over evolution vs. creation, a third possibility has been widely overlooked: the notion that they're not mutually exclusive. It's always seemed perfectly plausible to me that God may have set evolution in motion, knowing where it would end up. Or maybe He gave evolution little divine nudges over millions of years.

I've just never bought into the idea that either evolution or "poof"-style creation tells the whole story. Rome isn't buying it either:

The Vatican has issued a stout defence of Charles Darwin, voicing strong criticism of Christian fundamentalists who reject his theory of evolution and interpret the biblical account of creation literally. Cardinal Paul Poupard, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, said the Genesis description of how God created the universe and Darwin's theory of evolution were "perfectly compatible" if the Bible were read correctly.

"The fundamentalists want to give a scientific meaning to words that had no scientific aim," he said at a Vatican press conference. He said the real message in Genesis was that "the universe didn't make itself and had a creator". This idea was part of theology, Cardinal Poupard emphasised, while the precise details of how creation and the development of the species came about belonged to a different realm - science. Cardinal Poupard said that it was important for Catholic believers to know how science saw things so as to "understand things better".

Catholic readers might want to take a look at Fides et Ratio, Pope John Paul II's 1998 encyclical dealing with the relationship between faith and reason.

Numa Numa Redux and much, much more

Fans of LST will recall that we've closely followed the Numa Numa Saga as it progressed from Internet novelty to mainstream pop culture to Edd Hendee's morning show. Well we're still on the ball, closely monitoring the Internet's disturbingly prolific dancing scene. Here are the late-breaking developments:

• More Numa, bird flu-style, thanks to an anonymous tip from Squawkbox.
• Two Chinese Backstreet Boys, via MeMo.
• Officer down! Well, officer getting down, anyway.

Have a good weekend, folks.

Dangerous killer still on the loose

ESCAPED.

Sorry I haven't gotten to this before now, but there's an escaped murderer on the streets, and he has nothing to lose:

Authorities continued to scour downtown Houston and the surrounding areas late Thursday for a death row convict who used a fake badge and a change of clothes to walk out of the Harris County Jail's Baker Street facility. Charles Victor Thompson, 35, convicted in the shooting deaths of his ex-girlfriend and her boyfriend in 1998, escaped about 3:30 p.m. while being held inside the high-security J Pod unit at the County Jail at 1200 Baker, officials said. Thompson, described as 5' 11" and weighing approximately 230 pounds, was last seen wearing a dark blue shirt, khaki pants and white tennis shoes. Sheriff's officials said Thompson may be in a gray-colored 2003 Nissan Frontier truck with Texas license plate 8WLX62. The truck is listed in an online database of motor vehicle records as belonging to his father, Stephen R. Thompson III, 59, of Tomball.

He's also got a hit list. On a completely unrelated note, I found a sweet "intelligent bullet" the other day.

VodkaPundit nails it: 'Boobs and bombs'

Steven Green of VodkaPundit points out a story in the Sacramento Bee:

Mendocino County women who have been baring their breasts at various venues to protest the war in Iraq are in Sacramento federal court seeking an order prohibiting the California Highway Patrol from arresting them during a planned noon demonstration Monday at the Capitol.

The women's group, Breasts Not Bombs, is suing CHP Commissioner Mike Brown and two of his officers over a warning that if the women demonstrate while topless, they will be arrested and charged with indecent exposure and disorderly conduct.

And now for some VodkaPunditry:

Seriously, though, the police need to cool it - and the women need a buy a clue. If they wonder why a misogynist culture wants to blow up Americans, maybe someday they'll understand that protests like these are part of the reason.

Me, I'm a big fan of breasts. Which is why the answer is and must be "boobs and bombs."

Amen.

Is Castro buying off Latin America?

It looks like Cuban dictator Fidel Castro is trying to buy off Latin American democracies and convert them into fellow socialist paradises, according to Investor's Business Daily:

Brazilians are rightly angry over allegations of illegal campaign donations from Fidel Castro. True or not, they coincide with an alarming weakness in foreign policy that benefits the Cuban dictator. Was there a connection? We wonder for two reasons. First, Castro in recent years has aggressively sought influence across Latin America on a scale not seen since the 1960s. Second, Brazil has been oddly passive in response.

We've already noted how Castro has cranked up pork-barrel spending in Brazil's neighbor, Bolivia, in the heat of its own presidential campaign. The largess is conditioned on votes for Castro's favored candidate, Evo Morales, who wants to nationalize Bolivia's energy. If Morales wins, the biggest victim of his expropriations will be Brazil's state oil firm, Petrobras, which supplies a major part of Brazil's economic powerhouse, the Sao Paulo region, with natural gas. Petrobras' investment is so large it makes up 20% of Bolivia's economy.

With its interests threatened, Brazil should have the diplomatic muscle to force Castro and his allies to back off. But for some reason, it's held back, choosing silence when what's required is leadership.

I know we've got some astute oil types and risk-analyst types in the crowd. What do y'all think? I know this sounds scary, but how plausible is it?

[Hat-tip: Byron]

Gimme gimme gimme!

Ladies and gentlemen, I just came across an amazingly great t-shirt that y'all desperately need to see buy for me:

He kinda looks like Benzion.

Here's the text:

Oh hell yes. Anyone who would like to reward my long hours, hard work and single-minded diligence on behalf of the voiceless, feel free to email me. In addition to t-shirts, I also accept alcohol, tobacco and firearms.

GOP discusses major immigration reform

This is pretty huge:

House Republicans are looking closely at ending birthright citizenship and building a barrier along the entire U.S.-Mexico border as they search for solutions to illegal immigration.

"There is a general agreement about the fact that citizenship in this country should not be bestowed on people who are the children of folks who come into this country illegally," said Rep. Tom Tancredo, Colorado Republican, who is participating in the "unity dinners," the group of Republicans trying to find consensus on immigration.

Amen to that! However, they're going to try and change this by statute. Seems to me that the 14th amendment is pretty clear:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States

But we're still -- unfortunately -- in the very early stages of this debate, so we'll see how it pans out. Meanwhile, Republicans are also kicking around the idea of a border fence or other barrier:

At this week's "unity dinner," House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Illinois Republican, said he supports a barrier system of fences in some places and electronic surveillance or vehicle barriers in others, one participant said. Mr. Hastert's spokesman said the speaker would not talk about the private meetings.

Come on, Mr. Speaker! This is the kind of bold initiative that Republican voters want! They don't want to see wishy-washy "we'll look into it" proposals. They want decisive action! At least put a mention about the idea on your little blog!

Chirac sounds off on Muslim violence in France

Let's hear from French president Jacques Chirac on the Muslim punks who are hard at work burning Paris:

"Please, stop zee violence! We surrendare!"

Thanks, Jacques.