Glenn Reynolds makes the point again that Dick Cheney is more of a liability than an asset this time around:

I still think that they should get rid of Cheney in favor of Condi Rice. Cheney’s contribution to the ticket the first time around was (as we heard over and over again) gravitas. Bush doesn’t need him for that now. Cheney also has a lot of baggage, which Bush also doesn’t need. And his role in the Administration is open to question — I’ve recently spoken to a couple of current and former Administration folks, with no particular axes to grind, who think that Cheney’s doing considerably more harm than good.

I still think that such a move would be very wise and may in fact happen at the convention in September. It would a great boost for Bush going into the final eight weeks of the campaign. Cheney could step down honorably, citing health and family concerns, and allow Condi to step in. She wouldn’t have to endure the rigors of the campaign trail and could bask in the spotlight of the media attention. I mean, who could Kerry pick that would garner more attention than Condi? It’d be spectacular!

The Vatican weighed in on John Kerry and the Holy Eucharist:

A top Vatican cardinal said Friday that priests must deny communion to Roman Catholic politicians who support abortion rights, but he stopped short of saying whether it was right for John Kerry to receive communion.

Cardinal Francis Arinze spoke at a news conference to launch a new Vatican directive clamping down on liturgical abuses in Mass that bars lay people from giving sermons, non-Catholics from taking communion and rites of other religions from being introduced in the service.

Mr. Kerry’s campaign said that religion should not be an issue in U.S. politics.

I think this is such a great story because it serves to illustrate a problem that exists in American politics today. Kerry would have us believe that politics and religion should not mix, but at the same time, I’m sure he’s used his Roman Catholicism as an asset during his political career in Massachussetts. I have no problem if he did, but I think the Catholic Church has a problem with him trading on their religion when he openly flaunts one of the church’s longest held beliefs.

Kerry is trying to have it both ways. He wants all the advantages of being a Catholic when it comes to courting Catholic voters, but he doesn’t want to adhere to the authority and discipline of the church. I encourage the Vatican and all American bishops to continue their eucharistic boycott of Kerry. If he doesn’t like what the Catholic church believes, then get out.

This is a cool project that attempts to create a visual representation of a live Google News feed. The result is pretty impressive.

Jimmy Carter told The American Prospect that he thinks the Christian right really isn’t Christian at all:

And Christ reached out almost exclusively to the poor, suffering, abandoned, deprived — the scorned, the condemned people — including Samaritans and those who were diseased. The alleviation of suffering was a philosophy that was enhanced and emphasized by the life of Christ. Today the ultra-right wing, in both religion and politics, has abandoned that principle of Jesus Christ’s ministry.

He also says that opposes abortion and gay marriage, but doesn’t explain why he is supporting John Kerry.

I also find it curious that Carter has no problem throwing right-wing religious conservatives out of the church, but has no problem embracing Mormons. Seven years ago, Carter blasted Southern Baptist leaders for their efforts to evangelize Mormons. Carter said:

“I think the worst thing that we can do, among the worst things we can do, as believers in Christ, is to spend our time condemning others, who profess faith in Christ and try to have a very narrow definition of who is and who is not an acceptable believer and a child of God.”

So Mormons are Christians but Southern Baptists aren’t, according to Carter.

Meanwhile, Alan Jacobs (more from him here and here) suggests that the idea that President Bush’s evangelical Christianity has an impact on his politics is really a misunderstanding of Bush, fundamentalists, and evangelicals.

How easy is it to get a table at New York’s finest restaurants? Apparently, very easy, if you’re willing to slip the right person a few neatly folded bills:

Increasingly, I was struck by how much impact the experience was having on me. Surmounting this challenge night after night was actually giving me a certain self-assurance, a feeling of having grown up. Some might find this disillusioning: “You mean life is not first-come, first-served?” I found I had a different reaction: “You mean all it takes to crack one of New York’s most daunting thresholds is fifty bucks?” Even if I chose not to do it on a regular basis, just knowing how doable it is brought the whole puffery of New York restaurants into perspective. Bribing, it turns out, has as much effect on the briber as it does on the bribee.

It didn’t surprise anyone, I’m sure, that the FCC hit Clear Channel stations that carry Howard Stern with nearly half a million dollars in fines today.

I haven’t written much about the recent FCC crackdown, but I think a couple of things need to be considered. First, we’re talking about the PUBLIC airwaves in these cases. If we are to accept the classical thinking about broadcast policy, then because radio stations use the electromagnetic spectrum, then they must be licensed to use the people’s airwaves by the government of the people. The same is true for boradcast television. These are public properties that are being licensed to private companies for their commercial use, with a few provisions. I think the obscenity provision seems like a fair compromise. You get to use my airwaves, just keep it relatively clean.

I know there are plenty of free speech zealots out there who will moan and complain about the First Amendment, but I think we’re comparing apples to oranges. In my mind, the public airwaves are analagous to the front steps of city hall or a public sidewalk. If I want to sell hot dogs on that street, I need to get a vending license from the local munucipality. I have to abide by some rules about how and when I can sell those hot dogs. If in the process of selling those hot dogs, I decide to violate those provisions (by hiring topless women to sell the hot dogs), I shouldn’t be shocked when the government comes in and fines me. It’s the way business is done.

Now, if I rent or buy a private building and want to sell hot dogs from the inside of that building, then I should be able to use all the topless women I want to sell hot dogs, as long as they aren’t in view of the public and I take proper precautions to ensure that children don’t wander in.

Stern and can complain all he wants, but he’s made millions of dollars fur himself and his bosses and affiliates using the people’s airwaves to peddle his brand of crass humor. It’s not political speech. He’s not telling fart jokes to make a political point. He’s not interviewing strippers because they are running for office. This isn’t C-SPAN.

My suggestion to Stern is to get over himself. If you don’t like the FCC, then go to satellite radio and give XM or Sirius a HUGE boost. Or put the show on-line. We live in a world with many options. It’s not like 30 years ago when you had a limited amount of media options. If Stern is really as popular as he thinks he is , then his legion of loyal fans will follow him wherever he goes. Just like Opie and Anthony, right?

I got a memo about this on Monday, and it looks like a very worthwhile event. If you’re in the Chicagoland area, this might be worth attending:

2004 Evangelism Roundtable
sponsored by the Billy Graham Center
in conjunction with InterVarsity Press

Theme: “Issues of Truth & Power:
The Gospel in a Post-Christian Culture”
April 22-24, 2004

Presenters include Brian McLaren, Lon Allison, and Rick Richardson. Respondents include Duane Litfin and others.

Some interesting speculation about what Google is up to:

…the story is about seemingly incremental features that are actually massively expensive for others to match, and the platform that Google is building which makes it cheaper and easier for them to develop and run web-scale applications than anyone else.

I’ve written before about Google’s snippet service, which required that they store the entire web in RAM. All so they could generate a slightly better page excerpt than other search engines.

Google has taken the last 10 years of systems software research out of university labs, and built their own proprietary, production quality system. What is this platform that Google is building? It’s a distributed computing platform that can manage web-scale datasets on 100,000 node server clusters. It includes a petabyte, distributed, fault tolerant filesystem, distributed RPC code, probably network shared memory and process migration. And a datacenter management system which lets a handful of ops engineers effectively run 100,000 servers. Any of these projects could be the sole focus of a startup.