But money is the root of all evil!

Fear of hell makes us richer

Researchers say, all else being equal, belief in eternal damnation reduces corruption, strengthens the rules of law and raises per capita income.

[...] The St Louis Fed's researchers took a two-step approach to linking religion and the economy.

"A belief in hell tends to mean less corruption and less corruption tends to mean a higher per capita income," they wrote. It correlated the belief in hell findings of the World Value Series with a measure of corruption produced by Transparency International.

It then looked at the relationship between corruption and per capita gross domestic product and found "a strong tendency for countries with relatively low levels of corruption to have relatively high levels of per capita GDP."

"Combining these two stories ... suggests that, all else being equal, the more religious a country, the less corruption it will have and the higher its per capita income will be."

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Anti-abortionists famously claim that the Constitution doesn't include a provision for the right to privacy.

Who wants the right to sexual privacy? What is freedom, anyway?

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Slate suggests someone at USA Today should be fired for hiring Ann Coulter to cover the Democratic convention. (Apparently, they're not using her stuff anyway.)

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I like Slate.

Their report from the Democratic convention is basically right on-target. Especially this segment dealing with Al Sharpton's speech:

"If George Bush had selected the [Supreme] Court in 1954, Clarence Thomas would have never got to law school," Sharpton thunders. The hall explodes. Then Sharpton turns to Bush's claim that the GOP is the party of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglas. Sharpton recalls that the Emancipation Proclamation's promise of 40 acres and a mule was never fulfilled. "We never got the mule," he says. "So we decided we'd ride this donkey as far as it would take us."

What follows is the longest standing ovation of the whole convention. The place goes absolutely nuts.

And this:

Bob Graham comes to the podium immediately after Sharpton. This is an offense against God, nature, and every delegate in the hall.

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Francis Crick Dies

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I've sent out two job applications and thirteen submission packets of poetry this week. This was fairly productive. However:

1) I should have sent my resume to more places. I could still accomplish this tomorrow.

2) My poetry submissions were blind--I've not read the publications in which I'm attempting to be published. This is generally a no-no. However, it's my opinion that the more editors see a work in particular, the more of a chance that work has to actually be accepted for publication. I'm only submitting to places that accept simultaneous submissions. So we'll see.

I have a meeting tonight I don't want to go to. *whine* I'd rather laze at home, like I pretty much did yesterday. I'm very tired, for some reason.

In my dream last night, I was sitting with a friend of mine, and while we were talking a man went up to my car (which isn't my car in RL) and removed my CD collection (which was in a suitcase for some reason). While I watched him, I thought that maybe he was going to try to steal them, but instead he put the suitcase on the ground and started to jump up and down on it. Then when my friend and I confronted him, he went into a nearby house (friends of his, I suppose) and claimed to them that we were crazy and that he never did such a thing.

Very odd.