Freyburg

So, not to trample on anyone’s religion or anything, but it boggles the mind that the Catholic Church debates things like whether or not unbaptized babies end up in limbo or go to heaven. You’d think with child-molesting priests and a ban on condom use that essentially condemns many Africans to a long slow death, they’d have more pressing matters to discuss, but apparently not.

It’s times like these that you remember that inside the walls of the Vatican, it’s still the 15th century.

One of my favorite parts of the TWIT podcast is John C. Dvorak, the crankasaurus who injects a needed dose of realism and “yeah, right” into the proceedings whenever people get a little too utopian about the future of the Internet. He recently went to the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco, and he chronicles the quest for exit strategies and overall frothiness of the proceedings in his latest Marketwatch column.

If Final Fight‘s wrasslin’ mayor isn’t just the thing we need to lead the free world in these troubled times, I’ll eat my hat. Destructoid leads the charge.

Blogging gave everyone with access to a computer the chance to express their opinion. Some people chose to use this newfound power to record every mundane detail of their lives in excruciating detail. With the rise of online video, this trend has reared its ugly head again.

I’ll give Justin.tv the benefit of the doubt, as he started the trend and is a young guy who delights in giving the Today Show a hard time. But when perpetual blowhard and ubernerd Robert Scoble decides I should watch every minute of every day of his life…that’s when I get off the train. But wait….he just decided to get off the train himself Oh, these A-List bloggers…so fickle!

Warren and Steven are back and waxing lyrical on the brilliance that is “Gridlock”, an episode that had every appearance of being a throwaway bit of fluff but instead turned into a slam-bang roller coaster ride, with one of the finest bits of acting David Tennant’s put into the role thus far. Great effects, imaginative characters, humor and some genuinely moving moments make for one of the best bits o’ Who in the new series. Lovely! Next week, the Daleks invade Manhattan, as does Warren. We’ll probably skip the podcast next week and double up to cover both Dalek episodes at once. (feed, web, direct download)

In a word…don’t. But if you’re insane and crave the adrenaline rush only jihadis and a nicely bubbling civil war can provide, here’s some travel tips from one of the Lonely Planet founders, along with a tale of karaoke night in Baghdad.

“The Moustache of Undertanding” is known for wildy mixed metaphors, lots of corporate name-dropping and a propensity for handwaving not seen since the heyday of Wired Magazine. Despite all that, he usually makes some very good points about the society we live in, and he continues to do so in “The Power of Green,” an article in the New York Times Magazine that advocates America retake the scientific lead it once had, and eliminate its need for fossil fuels, by leading the charge with sustainability research and development. A great idea, though it’ll probably put the brakes on globalization, Friedman’s other favorite talking point.

I don’t put much stock in Rolling Stone’s prognostications on music, but I have to give them credit for some fine political reporting over the last few years (and decades, because we don’t want to forget Hunter S. Thompson.) Their latest bit of goodness is an interview with uber-investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who broke the My Lai massacre, Abu Graihb and who still functions of the chief thorn in Dick Cheney’s backside.

George W. Bush is such a terrible, incompetent leader that even people you’d normally never expect to oppose him think he’s the worst thing to happen to the U.S. in a long, long time. Lee Iacocca, not known as a raving leftie, has a new book coming out called “Where have all the Leaders Gone?” which lambastes Bush and Co. for incompetence, lack of character and general villainy. There’s a great excerpt from the book on the Borders website that you can check out here.

Dunno how much stock I put in this deathbed confession by noted villain E Howard Hunt, though I’ve always felt there was a little more to the Kennedy assassination than we’ve actually been told. Of course, Hunt could have been delusional, and his son, who is currently schlepping this story around, is noted to have been a long-time drug addict, so….your mileage may vary.

When it comes to conspiracy theories, my barometer is “could this be pulled off, why would they do it, and does the evidence point to it having happened?” In the case of JFK, there are so many holes in the Warren report, odd coincidences and overall “sumthin’ ain’t right” that it begs further investigation. But there are other events where conspiracy theorists seem to be shaping the facts and events to fit their theory, with “9/11 was an inside job” being a notable example. And if you want way, way out there speculation, how about the claim that the US military used a neutron bomb on the Baghdad airport? Riiiiiigggght.