On Earth, as it is in Heaven .... two bits of good news

[unixronin]

On Earth .... the Christian Science Monitor reports that a group of five Islamic judges in Yemen are successfully "reforming" militant Islamic terrorists by showing them that terrorism is not justified by the Quran and, in fact, violates many of its dictates.

For example, he quotes: "Whoever kills a soul, unless for a soul, or for corruption done in the land - it is as if he had slain all mankind entirely.  And, whoever saves one, it is as if he had saved mankind entirely."  He uses the passage to bolster his argument against bombing Western targets in Yemen - attacks he says defy the Koran.  And, he says, the Koran says under no circumstances should women and children be killed.

Meanwhile, that heavenly part:  ESA successfully launched the Ariane ECA heavy-lift booster just after 2100GMT on Saturday.  With a payload of ten tons, the ECA can put multiple satellites into orbit in a single launch.  Saturday's launch carried three satellites totalling over seven tons weight, though only two were placed into orbit (the third was ballast and booster telemetry, and was not intended to be orbited).

Comments

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

The problem is, that would invalidate their model of how the world works and their role in it. Most people are enormously resistant to acknowledging anything that would suggest that they could have made a mistake, or worse, that their entire approach to a problem has been completely wrong from the beginning.

(Try as I might to avoid this particular mental pitfall, I don't doubt I'm gulty of it at times myself.)

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

Yeah. We keep beating our heads over how to deal with Goose. But we do change tactics every time we see what we're doing isn't working. But still I can't help but feel we're missing something vital here.