Daily Blend: Friday, July 30, 2010

Sarah Palin’s new book: America by Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith, and Flag Read and cringe. Or better yet, don’t read [source: The Washington Post]

How to tell if you’re reading a book that was authentically written by Sarah Palin: If the numbers of smilies, fractured grammar, run-on sentences and general gibberish exceed the number of legible paragraphs.

• Anne Rice, author of Interview with the Vampire (amongst others), publicly severs ties with the Catholic Church and organized Christianity itself over severe disagreements with their generally anti-gay, anti-feminist, anti-abortion, anti-scientific stances, despite remaining “committed to Christ”. I do think Hemant Mehta at Friendly Atheist went way too hard on her. As far as I’m concerned, whatever silly beliefs she may still possess, what really matters is how she acts and treats others, and publicly distancing herself from the Church’s stances on such issues is a laudable start.

• Are all of your friends dead?
  (via The Agitator)

• Government plans to launch two new investigations into the country’s role in the Afghan War. That is, the British government, of course.
  (via @wikileaks)

• Sarah Palin’s newest attention-whoring venue revealed. Or whosever wrote it for her, that is.

• Obama administration pushes for warrantless access to ISP records. Looks like they’re bored with shredding the Fourth Amendment and are breaking out the flamethrowers.
  (via @todayspolitics)

• Quiz: How do your views on various socio-legal rights and issues compare to those of the general American public and the Roberts Supreme Court? As usual, I’m a doggone liberal.
  (via @todayspolitics)

• Top US Military official Admiral Mike Mullen: WikiLeaks and founder Julian Assange may have “blood” on their hands. Look, I agree that disclosing secret documents that reveal the identities of undercover agents and informants is dangerous, but you can’t proclaim that a whistleblower organization is now responsible for the deaths of innocents when you just got busted, by that very same group, for covering up hundreds of cases of abuses and murders of civilians without coming across as a massive hypocrite.
  (via @todayspolitics)

As always, if you have any story suggestions, feel free to send them in.

Tags: Anne Rice • Christianity • Catholicism • websites • All my friends are dead • government • Britain • Afghan War • Sarah Palin • Obama administration • Internet • Supreme Court • SCOTUS • Mike Mullen • WikiLeaks • leaks • hypocrisy