Techcordance

Buzz

by Jennifer Leggio
By even writing this post I am breaking a promise to my friend Mack Collier. Earlier today I publicly promised to him on Twitter that I was going to wait a while before posting any opinions on Google Buzz until I got a firm grasp on how to use it. Yet, after only toying with it on and off for a handful of hours, there are a couple of issues I can’t help but call out now, primarily around the intrusiveness of the way this thing works. Mack, I am sorry.
If you haven’t tried it yet, Google Buzz integrates with your Gmail account (and other Google services) and turns it into a social experience. A “buzz” is a threaded conversation not unlike what FriendFeed tried to be (with pictures and video and blog links and more) and you can either post publicly (which shows up on your main Google profile) or selectively choose who in your friends list sees your buzz.

Athiest Delusions

Upon seeing the title Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies (Yale University Press), I confess to having suspected it would follow the formula of other debunkings of the “Bright brigade,” decrying the illogic and inaccuracy of the New Atheists’ arguments. Instead, I found someone (in this case, theologian David Bentley Hart) taking a step back from the carnage of the current (pop) culture war to ask bigger questions about how we ended up here in the first place.
Hart, a visiting professor of theology at Providence College, begins by looking at the New Atheist phenomenon, lambasting Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett et al. for their carelessness with and rhetorical manipulation of philosophy, theology, and history. But that is quickly left behind; in the book’s second half, we begin to see the Orthodox theologian’s real intent: to offer a counter-narrative of religion’s role in human history.

Nominee

In a vivid display of President Obama’s diminished clout, the Senate’s newest Republican and two veteran Democrats Tuesday helped block Mr. Obama’s bid to fill a key labor post with a nominee they considered too cozy with unions.
With newly seated Sen. Scott Brown, Massachusetts Republican, voting to sustain the filibuster, Senate Democratic leaders failed to muster the 60 votes needed to force a vote on the nomination of Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board, which resolves disputes between unions and management.

Tebow Ad

The national director for Generation Life says it comes as no surprise that liberal groups are upset over a Super Bowl ad featuring Tim Tebow and his mother.Focus on the Family produced the 30-second spot, which is slated to run during the CBS broadcast on Sunday and reportedly will feature Pam Tebow recounting her decision to carry Tim to full-term, despite a doctor’s advice to have an abortion due to health concerns. Liberal and feminist groups were quick to denounce the ad, even though it has yet to be previewed, and Brandi Swindell, founder and national director of Generation Life, contends the heated opposition shows the liberal groups’ true colors.

Moon No Go

(CNN) — American astronauts will not return to the moon as planned if Congress passes President Obama’s proposed budget.
Obama’s budget — which aims to tighten the nation’s purse strings in certain areas while increasing money used to create jobs — would cancel NASA’s Constellation Program, which had sought to send astronauts back to the moon by 2020.
Constellation also intended to study the idea of establishing a moon colony. The program was set to follow the U.S. space agency’s shuttle missions, which are due to end in September.
On its Web site, the White House Budget Office says the program to send astronauts to the moon is behind schedule, over budget and overall less important than other space investments.

The Book of Eli

The new motion picture, The Book of Eli, is still filling up movie theaters.The Bible is at the center the post apocalyptic film. But there is some debate about whether it’s a Christian film.Actor Denzel Washington portrays Eli, a man who survives a world war and holds the one remaining Bible. Eli is on mission to protect the book as he takes a 30 year westward walk across the country.

Apple

Will the iPad flourish or fail? On the eve of the tablet’s release, consider Apple’s fallen fruit before making up your mind.  See the slide show…

Big Melt?

The world’s most famous climate change expert is at the center of a massive controversy as the leading environmental science institute he heads scrambled to explain its assertion that the Himalayan glaciers will melt completely in 25 years.
Rajendra Pachauri, head of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and director general of the Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in New Dehli, India, said this week that the U.N. body was studying how its 2007 report to the United Nations derived information that led to its famous conclusion: that the glaciers will melt by 2035.
Today, the IPCC issued a statement offering regret for the poorly vetted statements. “The Chair, Vice-Chairs, and Co-chairs of the IPCC regret the poor application of well-established IPCC procedures,” the statement says, though it goes short of issuing a full retraction or reprinting the report.
Pachauri told Reuters on Monday that the group was looking into the issue, and planned to “take a position on it in the next two or three days.”

March

While pro-life supporters marched in Washington, D.C., on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Friday, an abortion-related trial began in Kansas.Scott Roeder confessed to killing Dr. George Tiller who was one of the few late term abortion providers in the country.As Roeder’s murder trial gets underway on the 37th anniversary of the ruling that legalized abortion, activists on both sides of the issue focused in.The prosecution began by playing 911 calls from witnesses.Police say Roeder walked into a Kansas church last May, and shot Tiller at point blank range and threatened two others.”I saw out of my right vision. I saw a flash and I heard a pop, to me sounded like a balloon popping,” witness Kathy Wegner recalled. “Then I just saw Dr. Tiller just fall flat on his back. I just saw him flat on his back and I thought, ‘why is he there?’”

Disarray

Scott Brown’s shot heard ’round the political world left congressional Democrats stunned and befuddled about what to do next in the yearlong push to overhaul the country’s health care system.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and his top lieutenants emerged from a Wednesday morning strategy session with no clear path to proceed in the health care fight, while Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) could only repeat her well-worn promise that Congress “will move forward.”
“People just have different feelings about this,” said Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.). “This was obviously not a good day for us. To be honest, you have to sit back and reassess and move forward.”