[Quote]:

They say there are no atheists in foxholes. There’s one on the front lines here, though, and the chaplain isn’t thrilled about it.

Navy Chaplain Terry Moran is steeped in the Bible and believes all of it. His assistant, Religious Programs Specialist 2nd Class Philip Chute, is steeped in the Bible and having none of it.

Together they roam this town in Taliban country, comforting the grunts while crossing swords with each other over everything from the power of angels to the wisdom of standing in clear view of enemy snipers. Lt. Moran, 48 years old, preaches about divine protection while 25-year-old RP2 Chute covers the chaplain’s back and wishes he were more attentive to the dangers of the here and now.

It’s a match made in, well, the Pentagon.

"He trusts God to keep him safe," says RP2 Chute. "And I’m here just in case that doesn’t work out."

[..]

“No matter what situation you find yourself in on planet Earth, God will protect you,” he said after the patrol returned safely to base. “All He asks is that you trust and believe what He says. So, if I find myself in a combat situation, His promise of protection is still valid.”

In order for that to be true, he must assume that every battlefield death must be a result of a lack of or at least imperfect faith. Implicitly, “they had it coming”, they brought it on themselves. He, however is superior.

At the same time his illusion of protection causes him to put himself and his human protectors in additional danger.

He’s a fucking asshole.

[Quote]:

Today, NOAA reopened 5,130 square miles of Gulf waters to shrimping and fishing. I took a look at the data on which NOAA based their decision and was surprised to find that their data included only 12 samples of shrimp, consisting of a grand total of 73 individual shrimp, caught from an area about the size of the State of Connecticut.

Does that reassure you that they’ve really found whatever contamination might be out there?

[Quote]:

The explosion on a production platform Thursday in the Gulf of Mexico has intensified an already spirited national debate about offshore oil and gas development.

Thirteen workers were rescued from the water after evacuating a fiery production platform in the Gulf of Mexico, 100 miles off the Coast of Louisiana. No injuries were reported among the thirteen workers and the owner of the platform, Houston-based Mariner Energy, Inc. (NYSE:ME) says the automated shutoff equipment on the Vermillion 380 platform safely turned off the flow of oil and gas from the platform’s seven producing wells "before the fire occurred and the crew evacuated."

[..]

And in a moment of unfortunate timing for the company on Wednesday–just one day before the fire on Vermillion 380–a Mariner Energy official called out the Obama administration at a rally in support of lifting the moratorium in Houston.

“I have been in the oil and gas industry for 40 years, and this administration is trying to break us,’’ said Barbara Dianne Hagood, senior landman for Mariner Energy, The Financial Times reports.

[Quote]:

Only 24 hours after the launch of Apple’s new social network, Ping, the service has been overrun by spammers. The fraudsters have created iTunes profiles and are posting links to a number of online scams, including ones that promises "free iPhones" or "free iPads" in exchange for filling out online surveys. For the most part, these suspicious links are being posted in the comments sections of the most popular artists on Ping, like Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, U2 and others, all of whom are among the recommended accounts linked to from the Ping homepage.

Remember this from yesterday? Well, you’re not going to see her like that ever again:

[Quote]:

If at first you awkwardly stumble through your opening statement, why bother trying again?

Gov. Jan Brewer (R) has put the kibosh on all future debates with her Arizona gubernatorial opponent Terry Goddard (D), after her rather embarrassing display at Wednesday’s debate. "I don’t believe that things come out in proper context in an adversarial atmosphere," she defended herself.

[Quote]:

The security company Blackwater Worldwide formed a network of 30 shell companies and subsidiaries to try to get millions of dollars in government business after the company faced strong criticism for reckless conduct in Iraq, The New York Times reported Friday.

The newspaper said that it was unclear how many of the created companies got American contracts but that at least three of them obtained work with the U.S. military and the CIA.

Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has asked the Justice Department to see whether Blackwater misled the government when using the subsidiaries to gain government contracts, according to the Times.

Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vaccuum tubes and perhaps weigh 1.5 tons.

– Popular Mechanics, March 1949