NEW YORK (Reuters) - Would you pay $175 for a pound of coffee beans which had passed through the backside of a furry mammal in Indonesia?

Apparently, some coffee lovers wanting to treat themselves to something special are lapping it up.

Kopi Luwak beans from Indonesia are rare and expensive, thanks to a unique taste and aroma enhanced by the digestive system of palm civets, nocturnal tree-climbing creatures about the size of a large house cat.

"People like coffee. And when they want to treat themselves, they order the Kopi Luwak," said Isaac Jones, director of sales for Tastes of The World, an online supplier of gourmet coffee, tea and cocoa.

Despite being carnivorous, civets eat ripe coffee cherries for treats. The coffee beans, which are found inside of the cherries, remain intact after passing through the animal.

"I say, did that palm civet just relieve himself?"
"Hmm, I believe he did."
"What are you doing down there?"
(sniff, sniff) "It smells like...yes, I do believe that once you get past the abominable smell of dung, it has the slight scent of...coffee!"
(sniff, sniff) "By jove, I believe you're right!"
"How do you suppose it tastes?"
"I don't know. Wait! I know, I'll eat some and find out!
"Splendid!"
(nibble, nibble) "It's Su-PERB! I have a brilliant idea: Let's see if we can get some poor, dumb saps to pay for this. We'll tell them it can be ground and drunk just like regular coffee! We'll make millions!"
"Brilliant!"

Labels: David C. Price

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For generations, scientists have searched for the "missing link" between ape and man. But not only is that link still missing, no links between species have been found. As Bethell writes, bats are the only mammals to have mastered powered flight. But even the earliest bats found in the fossil record have complex wings and built-in sonar. Where are the "half-bats" with no sonar or unworkable wings?

Their absence does not prove -- but does suggest -- that they do not exist. Is it not time, after 150 years, that the Darwinists started to deliver and ceased to be taken on faith?

Labels: David C. Price

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The largest democracy in the world doesn't
get 70% voter turnout. Naysayers believe
this fledgling democracy in Iraq won't last.

Me? I think these people are
serious about their freedom.

Labels: David C. Price

A French MP faces jail and a heavy fine after being accused of offending homosexuals by saying they represent a "threat to humanity".

In France's first criminal prosecution under a year-old amendment of an 1881 law on press freedom, Christian Vanneste was taken to court by gay rights groups.

The modified law outlaws insults based on gender or sexual orientation and allows for up to six months' imprisonment and a £15,000 fine.

Labels: David C. Price

The saying "lucky to be alive" is anything but a cliché when it comes to Shayna Richardson.

She began skydiving when she turned 21 in May. Two months ago, in Siloam Springs, Ark., the Joplin, Mo., woman was making her 10th dive and first solo jump with a brand new parachute when things suddenly went wrong.

Her main chute and her reserve failed to open properly, and she spiraled out of control, falling thousands of feet.

Labels: David C. Price

, has unleashed a scathing attack on the new movie, "The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe." Actually, in reality, her beef is with the Christianity behind the story.

I must admit, I have heard many reasons that people have offered against believing Christianity to be true, but I'm not sure that I have ever heard the heart of the opposition rest on the very fact of Christ offering himself as a sacrifice for the sins of man. She really seems mad that he did that. How dare he take the blame of the world without being asked! Surely, many have doubted the veracity of the event, though it can hardly be contested historically, but I don't recall hearing someone express anger over the fact that He did it. Nevertheless, that seems to be the case here:

Of all the elements of Christianity, the most repugnant is the notion of the Christ who took our sins upon himself and sacrificed his body in agony to save our souls. Did we ask him to? Poor child Edmund, to blame for everything, must bear the full weight of a guilt only Christians know how to inflict, with a twisted knife to the heart. Every one of those thorns, the nuns used to tell my mother, is hammered into Jesus's holy head every day that you don't eat your greens or say your prayers when you are told. So the resurrected Aslan gives Edmund a long, life-changing talking-to high up on the rocks out of our earshot. When the poor boy comes back down with the sacred lion's breath upon him he is transformed unrecognisably into a Stepford brother, well and truly purged.

So Lewis weaves his dreams to invade children's minds with Christian iconography that is part fairytale wonder and joy - but heavily laden with guilt, blame, sacrifice and a suffering that is dark with emotional sadism.

Children are supposed to fall in love with the hypnotic Aslan, though he is not a character: he is pure, raw, awesome power. He is an emblem for everything an atheist objects to in religion. His divine presence is a way to avoid humans taking responsibility for everything here and now on earth, where no one is watching, no one is guiding, no one is judging and there is no other place yet to come. Without an Aslan, there is no one here but ourselves to suffer for our sins, no one to redeem us but ourselves: we are obliged to settle our own disputes and do what we can. We need no holy guide books, only a very human moral compass. Everyone needs ghosts, spirits, marvels and poetic imaginings, but we can do well without an Aslan.

HT: Tim Ellsworth

Labels: David C. Price

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Machines will perform euthanasia on terminally ill patients in Israel under legislation devised not to offend Jewish law, which forbids people taking human life.

A special timer will be fitted to a patient's respirator which will sound an alarm 12 hours before turning it off.

Normally, carers would override the alarm and keep the respirator turned on but, if various stringent conditions are met, including the giving of consent by the patient or legal guardian, the alarm would not be overridden.

Similar timing devices, known as Sabbath clocks, are used in the homes of orthodox Jews so that light switches and electrical devices can be turned on during the Sabbath without offending religious strictures.

Parliamentarians reached a solution after discussions with a 58-member panel of medical, religious and philosophical experts.

"The point was that it is wrong, under Jewish law, for a person's life to be taken by a person but, for a machine, it is acceptable," a parliamentary spokesman said.

"A man would not be able to shorten human life but a machine can."

This clearly demonstrates the difference in a faith that is guided by and built upon legalistic adherence to laws and a faith which is built upon an internal, revelatory set of guiding principles which does not look for nor allow for "loopholes" in which to bring about evil results.

Labels: David C. Price

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An appellate court yesterday reversed a lower court ruling that would have permitted same-sex marriage in New York City.

By a 4-1 majority, the appellate panel not only rejected the lower court's ruling that state law forbidding same-sex marriage was unconstitutional, but said that the state had a legitimate and rational interest in promoting heterosexual marriage.

The majority's 20-page decision offered a ringing defense of heterosexual marriage, which the court portrayed as an important way of ensuring child welfare and social stability.

Justice Milton Williams, writing for the majority of the First Department of the Appellate Division, in the case called Hernandez v. Robles, found that the current state law's prohibition of marriage to anyone other than male-female couples 'expresses an important, long-recognized public policy supporting, among other things, procreation, child welfare and social stability--all legitimate state interests.'

Labels: David C. Price

THE Hawaii Supreme Court has overturned the manslaughter conviction of an ice-addicted mother for causing the death of her newborn son by smoking crystal methamphetamine in the days leading to his birth.

In an unusually quick turnover, the justices issued a majority decision yesterday agreeing with mother Tayshea Aiwohi that her unborn child was not a "person" as defined under state law, and that her conduct did not meet the requisite elements of manslaughter.

The decision means that in Hawaii, pregnant mothers cannot be prosecuted for harmful prenatal conduct -- whether it be failure to seek prenatal care, or abuse of alcohol or drugs -- when a child is born alive but later dies, said Deputy Prosecutor Glenn Kim.

I would like to feel some compassion for this young lady had she committed this act out of some kind of ignorance. However, the wording demonstrates her attitude by stating that the court agreed with her that her unborn child was not a person.

The overall debate is over the issue of when life begins. Many question those of us who believe that life begins at conception, claiming that it is impossible for us to know when life begins and, since it cannot be known for certain, it should be a matter of logic that when the "breath of life" enters a fetus, it becomes a child; a breathing human being.

Besides the fact that my worldview is based on a sovereign God who created life and declared it good, I would answer by stating that it is logical to choose the path of humility, realizing that it is better to "err" on the side of respect for human life than to haphazardly and arbitrarily take the stance that one knows beyond all doubt that an unborn fetus is not, in fact, a human being (simply beyond we don't want it to be). That is what this court and the "fetal egg generator" have done in this case. That, it would seem, is the depth of arrogance and the absence of logic.