A journalist with the Monroe, LA News Star wrote an article about faith and blogging this week, and used me as a source:

Justin Baeder, who helped start Seattle Metro Church, started blogging around five years ago.

“I had been using some message boards and I noticed that blogs are becoming a better way to go into more detail — they’re a little bit less discussion-oriented and more of an opportunity to write at length and get feedback,”said Baeder, who blogs at www.radicalcongruency.com.

Baeder sees blogging as an opportunity to explore new ideas and get responses from people who may think along the same lines. That applies to the blogs he chooses to read as well.

“People who are doing the same kind of thing as far as being involved in a church that is nontraditional — I try to keep up with those blogs,” he said.

Baeder feels one advantage of a blog is the feedback feature that can be used if someone posts something that’s incorrect.

“What I like about blogs is you can find someone who will take that person to task,” Baeder said. “If you’re in church and the preacher says something off base, nobody is going to stand up and say, ‘Hey, wait a minute,’ but on a blog someone will.”

Read the whole story

My favorite depressing band, Radiohead, has released their newest album, titled In Rainbows. The CDs come out in December, but you can download it from their website now.

What’s different about this album is that you get to choose your own price. Radiohead does not currently have a contract with a record label, so they have some freedom to experiment with models such as this. Word is, most people are paying what they’d normally pay for an album in a store. I’m paying £9.00.

The website isn’t exactly a paragon of e-commerce, but it’ll do, bugs aside. It’s pretty slow right now, probably because a million people are downloading the album at once.

No review; I’m still downloading, and I’m terrible at writing about music. Try it for yourself if you have at least $3 and a credit/debit card (but really, you should pay more than that).

Short review from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer

BoingBoing: Radiohead’s new downloadable album: DRM-Free! and Radiohead lets fans pick price for new album

I posted rather gloatingly a few months ago that Left Behind Video Games, publisher of the horrid Left Behind: Eternal Forces PC game, is not doing too well. Their stock is currently at about the same point - 10 to 20 cents per share - and they’ve lost $26,000,000 this year. I think the premise of the game and the company is deeply flawed, so I’m not shedding any tears over its poor performance, though I’m sure there are many good-hearted people who lost money on what they considered a faith-based investment, and that’s a shame.

That’s not the reason for this post, though. It appears that the company’s founders are still around and are keeping themselves busy not with publishing more video games, but with sicking their lawyer on people they don’t like. Today, I became one of those people.

I received two separate letters via certified mail telling me to remove this post and this post, as well as their comments. I’m not sure whether they found this post, in which I post Lyndon’s own words correcting some of the mischaracterizations that appeared in early reviews, which my post was based on. At any rate, they’re not happy I still have anti-Left Behind: Eternal Forces stuff on my site, and they sent me a nasty letter telling me to take it down.

It reads, in its entirety:

The Law Offices of Gordon D. Katz
452 Brookhurst Ave.
Narberth, PA 19144
PH: (610) 275-9000, Fax: (610) 672-9789

September 20, 2007

radicalcongruency.com
2907 S Byron St
Seattle, WA 98144

RE: False information posted on your site about the video game LEFT BEHIND: Eternal Forces

To whom this may concern:

I represent Left Behind Games Inc., the developer and publisher of the LEFT BEHIND series of video games. Your organization hosts a website that has information posted about this game. Unfortunately, there are many statements on your website which appear to be false and misleading. This type of misinformation may cause significant and irreparable harm to Left Behind Video Games Inc. and must be removed.

Left Behind Games Inc. generally supports free speech in the media and understands how important it is to have various opinions presented for public consumption. It will not, however, tolerate the publication of information regarding its products that is false or misleading.

Left Behind Games Inc. is demanding that you immediately remove any and all information contained on your site about the above stated game that is false and/or misleading, including any such statements or commentary and the responses thereto. This includes posted comments made by others in the context of reading the incorrect or misleading statements.

If you do not comply immediately, the company will be forced to pursue additional legal action which will include claims for damages, costs of suit and attorney’s fees. This may subject you and your organization to significant legal and financial damages.

If you need to discuss this further, please do not hesitate to contact my Administrator on this matter, Robilyn Lyndon at (951) 816-0901.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Very truly yours,

Gordon D. Katz, Esq.

I’m no lawyer, but I can play one on TV as well as the next guy, and I can tell this letter is nothing more than sore-loser bullying.

First off, I understand that LBG is not too happy their game got bad initial reviews, and they tried admirably to recover after the demo was released. Jeffrey Frichner, the company’s president, even left some comments here in his company’s defense. I listened carefully to what he and the newer reviews said, and responded at length here.

But you simply can’t go around suing people who say things about your product that you don’t like. All of the initial misinformation I posted on this site was corrected with follow-up information, which is easy to find by searching for Left Behind: Eternal Forces using the box at the top of the page.

What’s more, I made it very clear that I was speculating in much of what I said in my post, and I gave links to the sources I was using. There was no playable demo at the time, and when one became available, I posted my new findings. I did not, and will not, delete the original posts and comments, even if they don’t shed a good light on Left Behind: Eternal Forces.

Second, Mr. Katz, Left Behind Games does not publish a “series of video games.” There’s just one game, plus the expansion pack. I think you need more than one title, or at least a few games with the same name plus a roman numeral, to call it a series.

Third, Mr. Katz, you know very well that if we took this to court, your client would be the one to pay my legal fees, not vice-versa. If ever there was a frivolous lawsuit, this is it. The posts on this site are not slander, and not libel, and I have taken great pains to be fair as more information became available in this matter. If you can tell me exactly what basis you have for suing me, perhaps I will further consider your request.

Otherwise, stop bullying people with your fancy letterhead and get a client with a real case.

Inspired by my friend Lukas and by Mark Elrod’s Signs of the Impending Apocalypse (which is basically wacky Friday news), I am starting a new serial feature called the Kick In The Neck Awards (or KITNA, archived here), celebrating those whose accomplishments/antics are worthy of nothing less than a kick in the neck. Think of it as an ig-Nobel Prize.

Our first winner is Mike Leavitt, Secretary of Health & Human Services, who said recently that expanding the S-CHIP program, which provides health care coverage for children from low- and moderate-income families and is currently up for debate in congress, would be bad because it would cause longer lines at the doctor’s office:

If you increase the … number of people who are covered by government insurance, you’re ultimately going to see higher taxes, you’re going to see long waiting lines, and you’re going to see lower quality. link

The expansion would be funded by a $0.61 per pack cigarette tax, in case you’re wondering exactly which taxes Mr. Leavitt is talking about.

Let me get this straight: If we provide free healthcare for more children, the children of America will suffer because the lines will be longer, and doctors will magically reduce the quality of treatment they provide, presumably because they are being paid by the government instead of a private insurance company or the parent.

Let’s sharpen that comparison a bit: Mr. Leavitt is saying it would be better for some kids to receive no medical care at all than to wait in longer lines due to the increased number of people with access to medical care. I assume he means the lines will be longer for those who currently have medical coverage, since the rest can’t even get in the line.

It sounds like Mr. Leavitt subscribes to Richard Nixon’s theory of healthcare: the less, the better. You can hear the audio tape of Mr. Nixon discussing the benefits of private health insurance in Michael Moore’s film SiCKO.

It seems as if people assume that medical care is like candy - if you make it free, people will take too much, and it will be bad for them as well as too costly for taxpayers. Is that really what medical care is like? While I realize that there are hypochondriacs who may seek unnecessary medical care, the DSM-IV says that only 1-5% of the population suffers from this disorder, and at any rate, the medical decisions are made by competent doctors. We should never have a goal of minimizing the amount of medical care we provide; we should provide what is necessary according to sound medical judgment, not economics.

So, Mr. Leavitt, congratulations on being the first person declared by this website to be worthy of a kick in the neck.

*Disclaimer: I am not actually advocating violence against any public figure; I am simply pointing out that if an action movie were made about a KITNA laureate’s life, and Matt Damon were to kick said individual in the neck, I would enjoy watching that particular scene.

Note: If you were to make a logo for the KITNA, I would be most amused.

For the first time ever, Democratic presidential candidates debated by answering questions submitted through YouTube. The questions were vetted by CNN, and the debate was moderated by Anderson Cooper. Predictably, some questions were wacky, some a biting critique of politics in America, and some just pretty good.

NPR had a ton of sound bites, and interviewed an enthusiastic blogger who said this was basically the best thing ever to happen in the history of the world. I agree that it’s nice to have questions coming from everyday people, but I think it’s important to keep in perspective the level of discourse that is possible on YouTube. Have you ever read YouTube comments? They are to blogging what the National Enquirer is to the New York Times.

Defective Yeti imagines what it would have been like if the candidates had responded like YouTube commenters:

SEN. CHRISTOPHER DODD: omg that video was totaly gay

SEN. BARACK OBAMA: Shut up Dodd thats offensive when u say gay like that.

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: to answre your question bush is a facist who only wants more power. hes not even the president you knopw, cheny is. i would b different because i would have a vice presidant that doesnt just try and control everything from behind the seens/

link

I think this was a cool way to do the debate, since everything will be online for easy reference later (e.g. to follow up on campaign promises). I don’t know that it’s revolutionary, since CNN still screened the questions they way they would in a live debate. Since the level of discourse on YouTube is generally so low, I don’t think you could do it any other way. CNN did seem to have a fairly high tolerance for goofiness, as long as a substantial question underlay the snowman or folk song or whatever appeared in the video.

What do you think? Will the republicans do it, and how will their constituents react?

Update: Mark Elrod, an actual political scientist (and one of the few vocal democrats at my alma mater) says:

Overall, I think the novelty of the event detracted from the substance of what the candidates actually had to say. link

I was on TV today.

I hate it how, whenever we have a national tragedy, journos just eat it up. The TV stations make logos for it, and slogans like “Massacre at Virginia Tech” that become ominous jingles as the anchors and announcers repeat them as a story unfolds.

We’re watching Dateline NBC now (for the first time ever), and the exploitation of the V Tech tragedy is enraging. Matt Lauer is just getting too much mileage out of it.

They take every aspect of the story and make it into an entertainment event. They interview grief counselors and find out how that works. They pull out footage of previous shootings. They interview paramedics and enlighten us about their work. It’s all for entertainment and to create viewership for the network.

The other people who infuriate me when we have a tragedy is the “expert” morons who get on the tube saying how this could have easily been prevented. Their hindsight is perfect, and they get to promote themselves as experts every time an unpreventable tragedy happens. There’s a guy on Dateline now talking about how they should have sent in a massive anti-terrorism response team after the first two people were shot. Come on. We’re going to send in the ATF or the army or whomever every time there’s a shooting? Ten thousand people are shot to death each year in this country. We can’t treat each incident like an act of terrorism as this guy is suggesting.

The other thing I hate about the “if only” experts is that they implicitly blame everyone involved. If only the campus police had done something different. If only the email had gone out sooner warning people to stay in lockdown. None of this was foreseeable - who could have known a campus shooting (like the one that happened in Seattle a few weeks ago) would turn into a massacre?

I say, mourn with those who mourn, and stop exploiting them for publicity and our need to know.

If that weren’t enough, they’re now doing a story about a guy who survived the Columbine massacre but lost his sister, Rachel Scott. Emotional aftermath and all that. Ugh. “Soon, even prayer was no match for the terror…”

In case you forgot, read this long piece from the Washington Post about one of the world’s greatest violinists giving a free concert in a DC subway station during the morning rush hour. On a $3 million Stradavarius violin.

There was no ethnic or demographic pattern to distinguish the people who stayed to watch Bell, or the ones who gave money, from that vast majority who hurried on past, unheeding. Whites, blacks and Asians, young and old, men and women, were represented in all three groups. But the behavior of one demographic remained absolutely consistent. Every single time a child walked past, he or she tried to stop and watch. And every single time, a parent scooted the kid away. link

Via Brent.