Journal 4: SUV’S SUCK TERRORIST OIL
Jesus HATES Your SUV
SUVs Suck Terrorist Oil
SUVs [heart] Terrorist Oil
1.26.7
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2003 –
www.sylvia.org, get daily email messages; book: Phenomenon
Sylvia Browne predictions:
Sarah Jessica Parker leaves Matthew Broderick!
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Dissent is the American way!
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Google: Grannies Brigade
www.grannypeacebrigade.org
QUOTE
Jun 24, 2006 8:04 pm US/EasternGranny Brigade Bringing Anti-War Message To D.C.Seniors Poised To Ruffle Feathers Over Next 10 DaysMagee HickeyReporting(CBS) NEW YORK They're back. Those opinionated octogenarians who made headlines last fall by trying to enlist in the military to stop the War in Iraq.Now, they're heading to Washington D.C. for the Fourth of July. With wheelchairs, walkers, canes and pictures of their grandchildren on their backs, the Granny Brigade was back in Times Square, the scene of their arrest last fall for blocking the entrance to the Military Recruitment Center to stop the war. This time, they're kicking off a 10-day trek to the nation's capital. "We want to wake up an apathetic American public," Joan Wile, the Brigade's founder said. "Maybe they're against the war, maybe they're not. But they're totally indifferent."LINK
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1.2007 –
Judge Judy is worth $95 Million!
1.26.7
80% of American’s oppose Bush’s handling of the war in Iraq, & disagree with the “Escalation” Plan of Bush’s.
1.26.7
This isn’t just about an increase/”escalation” of troops (in Iraq)! It’s an “agenda” to KILL, KILL, KILL; killing innocent Iraqi’s & innocent Iranian’s, killing Iranian agent’s/operative’s, killing everyone who doesn’t deem a “threat!”
The “response” of Iranian’s will be an “escalation!”
This is about Terror, War, Violence, Death, Injustice; Bush doesn’t care!
It’s an “induction” of Nuclear War and Violence “Not Yet Known!”
This is about Billions, Billions, Billions, Billions, Billions, Billions, Billions, Billions, Billions, Billions, Billions, Billions, Billions, Billions, Billions, Billions, Billions, Billions, Billions, Billions, Billions, Billions, Billions, Billions, Billions, Billions, Billions, Billions, Billions, Billions, Billions, Billions, Billions, Billions, Billions, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY in the pockets of those who are in POWER: George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, & the Bush Regime!
1.26.7
Today, the 26th of January, Bush say’s that not Congress or anyone will stop him from what he wants to do (in his “Escalation”-Plan), for he is “The Decider!” “I’m The Decider; I Decide What’s Best”
1.25.7
Bush say’s that, because of a lack of “advanced-weaponry,” it’s American’s fault for the “insecurity” & the “unsuccess” in the war, in the world, and in America!
“They” already use their “advanced-weaponry”, & Bush is the World’s #1 Terrorist, the most feared, hated, despised, violent, & dangerous person on this Earth; Bush is the Creator/Manufacturer of Terror, & Terrorism!
1.24.7
67% of American’s oppose Bush’s handling of the war in Iraq, & his handling of everything!
At the start of the war in Iraq, March of 2003:
57% of black men were for the war in Iraq!
70% of Americans were for the war in Iraq!
67% of black women were against the war in Iraq!
1.23.7
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 12 to 9 a “Resolution” condemning Bush’s war-in-Iraq Troop Surge/“Escalation!”
A majority of Congress, also, oppose a troop “escalation!”
A majority of Americans oppose a troop surge/“escalation!”
Dick Cheney tells Reporters that the Resolution WILL NOT change the President’s mind on how to handle “things” in Iraq! WHAT A SURPRISE!!!!!!!
Nothing, & no one, will stop Bush from getting what he wants!
Bush is creating more terror, death, violence, “escalation,” more likelihood/probability/possibility/chance of nuclear war, more world-hatred of America or American Gov’t!
1.2007
Israel, India, Pakistan, & Jordon all have Nuclear Weapons, currently, all because the American Government helped them to develop and attain them (the Nuclear Weapons)!
1.23.7
John Kerry decides that he’s not running for the 2008 Presidential Election!
1.2007
Protect Southern Methodist University (SMU); Highland Park (Dallas), Tx
www.protectsmu.org
Bush is forcing his Presidential Library on SMU!
The Southern Baptist Convention is THE ONLY religious organization that/who supported Bush’s Iraq War; no other religious organization supported Bush’s Iraq War!
The Methodist’s & religious leaders& students & professors do not want the Presidential Library on the SMU University Campus because they do not want to honor G. W. Bush. Moreover, the Library would be filled with “lies” & “deception” in its books!
1.23.7
Bush wants Democrat’s (& Congress) to:
Balance the Budget!
Deal with Global Warming!
Raise Taxes, in order to Pay For Health Care!
Everything he can not & has not dealt with!
Bush wants Congress to create their own Iraq-War “Plan!” (And he wont listen to anybody but to what he insists & intends!!!!!!!)
1.23.7
We have Anarchy in Iraq, & it’s getting worse!
1.23.7
We have an American Government of fascism, totalitarianism, despotism, dictatorship, repression, oppression, tyranny, absolutism, autocracy, authoritarianism, absolute rule, unitary executive supremacy, subjugation, domination, monocracy, power, control!
1.23.7
There is no sign of the violence & death diminishing in Iraq!
What principles does the Bush Doctrine stand for!!!???
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1.23.2007
By a majority of American’s, currently, G. W. Bush is NOT trusted in a time of war! And he is not trusted in his handling of the Country, & World!
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http://www.guerillastickers.com/christian_right.htm
Jesus Hates Your SUV
SUV’s Love Your Terrorist Oil
SUV’s Suck Terrorist Oil
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Tell Congress:Stop the Escalation - Stop Funding the War!
On January 4th , Congress began the 2007 session with new leadership ready to take the reins. The problem is, the new Congress doesn't look very different than the old Congress that we supposedly voted out of office. Nancy Pelosi said that she won't defund the war, President Bush is asking for at least $127 billion more to waste on our failed venture in Iraq, and now Bush is proposing an escalation of US troops. Although voters expressed a clear mandate to end the war in Iraq, our leadership is continuing the violence in our name and with our tax dollars.
We think this is an unacceptable betrayal of American voters, so VotersForPeace is working with several peace organizations to remind the new Congress that we will no longer tolerate destroying lives and wasting money for war.
We have the power to prevent war!
We have the power to act!
We have the power to end occupation!
Humanize the earth!
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Plan your trip to DC for the MARCH ON WASHINGTON, January 27-29, 2007: Join tens of thousands of Americans in this act of solidarity! Go to www.unitedforpeace.org to connect with people in your area who are attending, sign up on ride boards, volunteer on the day of the event, or assist the outreach effort.
Bush-lovers bow down to the altar(s) of religious tyranny, & fascism, totalitarianism, oppression, despotism, repression, & dictatorship; the Antonym is Democracy!
January 22, 2007
Another DUMB@$$ AWARD wiener
Souza: F.D.R. ‘Indirectly Responsible’ For September 11
Eyeing the Enemy: Dinesh D’Souza looks left
D’Souza in the sky with diamonds
DUMB@$$ AWARD wiener #511: Dinesh D’Souza
Prominent conservative intellectual Dinesh D’Souza has released a book titled “The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11.”….[O]n The Colbert Report, D’Souza repeated the right-wing attack that President Bill Clinton “did absolutely nothing” to fight global terrorists. Stephen Colbert jokingly asked, “Doesn’t some of it lie at FDR’s doorstep? Doesn’t things like Social Security and Medicare and LBJ’s Great Society, doesn’t some of that send the wrong message to our enemies?”….D’Souza answered, “Indirectly, yes,” explaining that “FDR gave away Eastern Europe through Yalta, and then the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, the Muslims had to fight back and that’s where bin Laden got his start.”
Man, I do not possess the vocabulary to express the depths of my disgust with the latest TPRS DUMB@$$ AWARD wiener. There are few things more reprehensible than stooping so low as to place the “blame” for 9.11 on a segment of the population whose ideology and political philosophy you happen to disagree with.
Dinesh D’Souza is one of the (not so) new breed of Conservative intellectuals (think Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Laura Ingraham, etc., ad nauseum, ad infinitum) who not only see themselves as intellectually superior to Liberals, they’re also completely convinced of their own moral superiority. In D’Souza’s mind, Liberals are responsible for the ills of the world, and only Conservatives have the moral and intellectual wherewithal to clean up the mess. This is just about the worst sort of self-righteous egotism imaginable.
When last I checked, 9.11 was carried out by 19 Islamofascist thugs determined to strike a blow against the Great Satan. As far as I can tell, no Liberals were involved. Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton and Barney Frank weren’t involved, and I was also otherwise engaged. Yet D’Souza sees no hypocrisy in blaming what he calls “cultural Liberals” for 9.11…as if support for gay marriage, abortion rights, and a fair, workable Medicare drug plan for senior citizens means we deserved what we got.
Continue reading "Another DUMB@$$ AWARD wiener" »
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January 22, 2007
If you need me, I'll be playing "frogger" in rush hour traffic on Hwy. 146
Blue Monday: The unhappiest day of the year
If you are feeling a little down then you can take solace in the thought that things are unlikely to get any worse. Today, say experts, is the unhappiest day in the entire year. Unpaid Christmas bills, nasty weather, and failed New Year’s resolutions combine to make January 22 the gloomiest in the calendar.
OK, so the weather’s been grey, cold, and dreary. We haven’t seen the sun in what seems like dog-years. Christmas is over, the next decent holiday (at least one that I get off) is Memorial Day, and I need a vacation. Other than that, life’s a &^%$#@! cakewalk.
This time of year, with the short days and the long holiday-bereft span, things seem a bit bleak. Combine that with the cold, dreary weather, and the fact that today is Monday…and I probably don’t have to elaborate, since I seriously doubt I’m the only one feeling this way.
At least now I can blame my malaise on something other than my own ennui, lethargy, and inertia. Thank God for science, because now I no longer have to take personal responsibility for my crappy frame of mind. Yes, now I have something I can attribute all of this to. This doesn’t necessarily make me feel any better, but at least I can defer actually doing something, because I can piss and moan about unseen outside forces conspiring against me.
Man, I just LOVE science….
Posted by Jack Cluth at 6:30 AM Permalink Comments (0) TrackBacks (0)
I had to look at the calendar over the weekend, just to remind myself that it’s still January, 2007. What with Presidential candidates busting out all over, you might have thought that primary season is just around the corner instead of more than a year away. I can’t help but wonder what all of these erstwhile Presidents-in-waiting are going to do for the next 15 or 16 months to maintain any interest and/or momentum? By the time primary season actually gets here, most of the electorate will be bored stiff.
Just over this past weekend, you had Kansas Republican Sen. Sam Brownback throwing his hat into the metaphorical ring. Brownback’s primary goal seems to be to turn back the clock to a time when women were property and recognized that their place was cranking out children to build the Glorious Reich. If you need something to scare the Hell out of you, try this phrase on for size: “President Sam Brownback”.
At the other end of the ideological spectrum, Sen. Hillary Clinton (R-NY) announced that she’s in…or at least that’s she’s forming an “exploratory committe”, which seems to be politico-speak for easing gracefully into the Presidential race. Clinton’s candidacy comes as no great shock, though I imagine that she would have rather waited awhile to fire up her machine. The good news for the legions of Hillary-haters and haters of all things Clinton is that they’ll have extra time to come up with all sorts of attention-grabbing conspiracy theories. (Hillary’s a lipstick lesbian who preys on sorority girls and drinks their blood? Say it ain’t so….)
Continue reading "Isn't it a little early for this kind of feeding frenzy?" »
Posted by Jack Cluth at 6:44 AM Permalink Comments (6) TrackBacks (0)
January 22, 2007
Isn't it a little early for this kind of feeding frenzy?
January 22, 2007
Bloody Saturday...and for what??
20 U.S. service members killed in Iraq
25 Americans die in Iraq attacks
Over the next few days, you’ll be hearing glowing (and deserved) tributes to those 25 brave Americans cut down during their prime on Saturday. The local and national media will fall all over themselves lionizing the dead and lauding their sacrifice for freedom…and while that’s by no means a bad thing, it will entirely miss the point and the question that should be asked: WHY? Why did these 25 (as well as the other 3000-plus) have to die? What did they die for? What has been accomplished, what has been gained through their deaths? How does the senseless murder of these 25 brave young Americans protect their country from anything- except perhaps from the self-created terrorist threat that Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader’s © war in Iraq gave birth to ?
Continue reading "Bloody Saturday...and for what??" »
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In Memoriam- Vaya Con Dios
In memory of: Tim Haviland, class of 1982, Marsh & McLennan, 96th floor, 1 WTC
9.11.01 You were a good person.
You were my friend.
You will be missed.
America Remembers 9.11.01September 11: A Nation RemembersWe Will Not Forget
And to the Republic
Disclaimer
They love me!!!!
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The People's Republic of Seabrook is best viewed with an open mind, an appreciation for Progressive ideals, and a healthy sense of humor. Lighten up, y'all!!
The People's Republic of Seabrook
No matter how cynical you become, it's impossible to keep up
www.intellectualize.org
BUSH IS THE #1 TERRORIST!
Well...if they weren't beating the drums of war, we'd have...peace
(via Jesus’ General)
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http://intellectualize.org/
This week in Jesusland, 1.21.07
(As ever, many thanks to my friends at The Sinner’s Guide To The Evangelical Right and DefCon)
2007 has continued it’s slow and uneventful start here in (not) sun-kissed, God-blessed Jesusland. Thankfully, though, it appears that things are about to pick up. With the Presidential race off to an early (and heated) start, this week found (God-tested, Jerry Falwell approved) Sam Brownback, (closet Muslim and anti-American terrorist) Barack Obama (minion of Satan and renowned feminazi) Hillary Clinton, and (closet fondler) Bill Richardson all throwing their metaphorical hats in the ring. By the time we’re done, it appears that half the US Senate could be hanging out in Iowa and New Hampshire, which begs the question: Who’s minding the store on Capitol Hill? And when will Jesse Helms and Virgil Goode announce that they, too, harbor the dream being the next Emperor Augustus President of our Great Nation?
· Writings show King as liberal Christian, rejecting literalism: The collection includes documents from 1948 to 1963 - the years covered by the book - and “gets us closer to King’s true identity” because they shed new light on how he viewed the Bible— Damn, no wonder Richard Nixon and Pat Buchanan ordered that King be assassinated, eh? No good, God-fearing paranoid President during the late ’60s could have been expected to countenance some hippie-dippie, non-violence-espousing, God-loves-everyone, America-hating, Librul preacher. Not with America under siege from Communists, the Viet Cong, and Merv Griffin?
· Kansas Senator Announces Bid for Presidency: Senator Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas, on Saturday announced his candidacy for president. Mr. Brownback, an evangelical Protestant turned Roman Catholic and a former Kansas agriculture secretary, said he would focus on reviving faith and families in America; combating abortion, poverty and wasteful government spending; opposing same-sex marriage; and revamping Social Security and the federal tax system….“The last thing we need in America is to take God out of our public lives and institutions,” Mr. Brownback said during his speech in Topeka, Kan. “We need to embrace our nation’s motto, ‘In God we trust,’ and not be ashamed of it….“To walk away from the Almighty is to embrace decline for a nation,” he said. “To embrace him leads to renewal, for individuals and for nations.”— Besides, anyone American worthy of the name KNOWS that Jesus votes Republican…and that Democrats and their Liberal ilk are going straight to Hell…which, come to think of it, looks a lot like Topeka.
· Pat Robertson Calls Iraq War A “Failure”: You know that Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader © is in BIG trouble when his wingnut Evangelical base starts leaping off the bandwagon in a thinly-veiled attempt to save their own hide.
· Methodist Ministers Launch Petition to Stop Bush Library: A group of Methodist ministers from across the nation launched an online petition drive Thursday urging Southern Methodist University to stop trying to land George W. Bush’s presidential library. The petition, on a newly created Web site, http://www.protectsmu.org, says that “as United Methodists, we believe that the linking of his presidency with a university bearing the Methodist name is utterly inappropriate.”….”Methodists have a long history of social conscience, so questions about the conduct of this president are very concerning,” said one of the petition’s organizers, the Rev. Andrew J. Weaver of New York, who graduated from SMU’s Perkins School of Theology.— It’s comforting to see that that there are at least a few Christians out there willing to admit that Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader © is as much about the teaching of Jesus Christ as Machiavelli was. Christianity is a belief system and a way of life, NOT a cover for megalomania and the desire to remake the oil-producing world into an Evanagelical American protectorate.
· McCain hopes to make amends with Dobson: patch things up with conservative Christian leader James Dobson, who recently said he wouldn’t support the Republican’s presidential bid under any circumstances. In a radio interview with KCBI, a Dallas Christian station, Dobson argued that McCain didn’t support traditional marriage values and said he has prayed “we won’t get stuck with him.” Dobson is founder of Focus on the Family….”I’m obviously disappointed and I’d like to continue and have a dialogue with Dr. Dobson and other members of the community,” McCain said Tuesday during a stop in Columbia. McCain has said gay marriage should not be legal but has angered some conservatives with his opposition to a constitutional amendment banning same-sex unions. The Arizona senator said the issue should be left to the states.— McCain also said that he has no problem with tailoring his messages and campaign promises to his audience, because he wants people to know that he will do or say whatever it takes to win the White House in 2008. Apparently, honesty and integrity are no longer part of the GOP platform.
· Influential Evangelical Lobby Attacks Obama’s Christian Credentials: Barack Hussein Obama was born in 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii, to a Kenyan Muslim father of the same name and an American secular humanist mother named Ann Dunham. While Obama’s father was raised in Islamic culture, he had become a functional atheist by the time he reached college. Despite his parents’ lack of religion, young Obama received his early education in both Catholic and Muslim schools.— Ergo, Obama is clearly a closet terrorist and al Qaeda acolyte working behind the scenes to destroy Our Way of Life © . No true patriotic American should fall for his transparent act. Glenn Beck was right- Obama needs to prove to Americans that he’s not secretly working for the terrorists.
Posted by Jack Cluth at 8:28 AM Permalink Comments (1) TrackBacks (0)
January 21, 2007
This is what happens when a man will do ANYTHING to be President
[John] McCain may still hear the applause of small crowds — he has somehow inured himself to the hypocrisy, and the tragedy, of a man who considers himself the ultimate realist, courting the votes of those who support the government telling visitors to the Grand Canyon that it was caused by the Great Flood. That McCain is selling himself off to the irrational right, parcel by parcel, like some great landowner facing bankruptcy, seems to be obvious to everybody but himself.
· Keith Olbermann
January 20, 2007
Your tax dollars at work...or not
U.S protesters found in Defense database: ACLU questions entries in tracking system
A Defense Department database devoted to gathering information on potential threats to military facilities and personnel, known as Talon, had 13,000 entries as of a year ago — including 2,821 reports involving American citizens, according to an internal Pentagon memo to be released today by the American Civil Liberties Union. The Pentagon memo says an examination of the system led to the deletion of 1,131 reports involving Americans, 186 of which dealt with “anti-military protests or demonstrations in the U.S.” Titled “Review of the TALON Reporting System,” the four-page memo produced in February 2006 summarizes some interim results from an inquiry ordered by then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld after disclosure in December 2005 that the system had collected and circulated data on anti-military protests and other peaceful demonstrations.
This story reminds of something I saw scrawled on the wall of a men’s room in a truck stop just outside Houston a few days ago: I LOVE MY COUNTRY. I FEAR MY GOVERNMENT. Indeed. I’m not normally one to take my philosophical and/or ideological cues from restroom walls, but this got me to thinking, and I haven’t been able to stop since. With each passing day, I’m beginning to realize the simple truth contained in those two sentences.
When our government can listen to our phone calls, read our mail, and malign our patriotism if we don’t unquestioningly go along with these and other nefarious methods, who, really, are the terrorists? When government can label someone a “terrorist” and by doing so hold them indefinitely, deny them their habeas corpus and Constitutional rights, have not the terrorists already emerged victorious?
Over the past six years, we have sat idly by while Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader ©: and his neocon thugs have installed a state security apparatus that would have made Nazi Germany proud. The simple act of getting on an airplane now involves checking any sense of propriety and dignity at the airport door. Travelers must now endure a security protocol that involves just about everything short of a strip search and a digital rectal exam. Yes, in order to fly to your destination, you must willingly and unquestioningly check your dignity at the door.
What have we allowed our country to become in the five-plus years since 9.11? I’m not certain that I have a name for it, but it’s not a democracy. A democracy does not put 350,000 people on a “no-fly” list with no explanation or mechanism for appeal. A democracy does not label everyone named “Dave Nelson” a potential terrorist, thereby subjecting them to extra security searches/invasions of privacy. A democracy does not use 9.11 and the never-ending War on Terror © as justification for imprisoning human beings indefinitely, without charges and without access to any sort of legal representation. A democracy does not slap the “terrorist” label on an American citizen, hold him indefinitely and without access to counsel, and break that individual psychologically because they can.
After giving it some thought, I’ve realized that the restroom philosopher was onto something. Like him, I love my country. I’m proud to be an American, but damn, I detest and fear my government and what they’re doing to the country I love.
Somewhere, Josef Goebbels and Hermann Goering are smiling….
Posted by Jack Cluth at 6:56 AM Permalink Comments (0) TrackBacks (0)
January 20, 2007
Good morning, Vietraq!!!
Posted by Jack Cluth at 6:24 AM Permalink Comments (0) TrackBacks (0)
January 20, 2007
Silence = death (yes, really)
School officials say edition with sex articles not approved
DANBURY — School officials said they did not distribute the high school newspaper, which included articles about sex, because the content was not reviewed beforehand by the principal. The Panther Press was scheduled to go out just before the holiday break. It had already been printed when the decision was made to hold it back. The newspaper contained articles written by Danbury High students about the consequences of teenage sexual activity, sexually transmitted diseases and teenage parenting, and editorials making abortion rights and anti-abortion arguments, said journalism teacher Kristi Piper.
I don’t know which upsets me more about this story: the appalling ignorance shown by the alleged adults trying to “protect” children, or the fact that in this day and age, sex is still viewed as dirty, nasty, and wholly inappropriate for schoolchildren to even think about, much less discuss.
How do we expect our children to develop anything resembling a healthy understanding of and appreciation for sex if we don’t allow them the opportunity to discuss it in a safe forum? It’s not as if the school newspaper was printing Dan Savage columns or lessons on bondage and S&M. As these students graduate and move into the adult world, they will have to deal with issues regarding sex and their own sexuality. How do we expect to do this honestly and safely if we deny them the opportunity to discuss sex in an attempt to better understand the issues surrounding the topic?
I would think that, especially in this day and age of HIV/AIDS, when a lack of knowledge and understanding can get you killed, that schools would be fostering and encouraging the open and frank discussion of sex. Schools should be teaching students that responsible sexual behavior is a good, safe, and respectful thing. They should also be teaching students that sex is not something to be ashamed of or discussed in hushed tones.
Yes, I understand that the Supreme Court has ruled that students have no free speech- or really, any- rights. I understand that schools have the right to censor speech and expression by students. What I don’t understand is why Victorian prudishness still rules in small-town Texas. Shouldn’t this sort of ignorance and repression have been deemed passe with the onset of the threat of HIV/AIDS?
When it comes to sex, silence really does equal death. If we do not teach our children, nor allow them to discuss, responsible sexuality and sexual behavior, how do we expect them to learn these important and potentially life-saving lessons? Or are we so wrapped in our hide-bound 1950s Victorian morality that we’re willing to force our children to assume those risks unencumbered by the burden of knowledge?
Apparently so.
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January 20, 2007
Ah...if only this could happen....
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DUMB@$$ AWARD wiener #510: Frank Hargove
On the topic of an apology for slavery Delegate Frank Hargrove said: “Are we going to force the Jews to apologize for killing Christ?…I personally think that our black citizens should get over it,”
Regardless of how you happen to feel about the issues of governmental bodies issuing blanket apologies for past reprehensible behavior, you’ve got to be offended by Delegate Frank Hargrove, a Republican in the Virginia House of Delegates. Virginia was built on the backs of slaves- literally- and there are those in the state who honestly feel that it would be an appropriate step for Virginia to apologize for it’s heritage of slavery. Hargrove is not one of those wooly-headed Libruls burdened by a sense of collective historical guilt. In fact, one might wonder if Hargrove doesn’t in fact feel that slavery was simply the natural order of things.
I’m not going to get into whether or not Virginia needs to issue an apology to anyone for anything. My dog in this fight is with Frank Hargrove, whose cluelessness and insensitivity is certainly not going to make resolving this issue any easier.
Hargrove may not agree with the idea of an official apology, but would it be too much to ask for him to recognize that there are people THAT HE REPRESENTS for whom this is an important and significant issue?
Some delegates believe an apology is unnecessary and a sign of too much political correctness.
“The present commonwealth has nothing to do with slavery,” said Del. Frank D. Hargrove, R-Glen Allen, whose ancestors were French Huguenots who came to America in search of religious freedom.
No, but Virginia is where it is today largely because of slaves. It’s history and heritage were created in large part by those whose forced labors built Virginia’s economy and social structure into what it is at this point in history.
How far do these calls for apologies go, wondered Hargrove, a member of the House Rules Committee that could take up McEachin’s resolution as early as Wednesday.
“Are we going to force the Jews to apologize for killing Christ?” Hargrove wondered. “Nobody living today had anything to do with it. It would be far more appropriate in my view to apologize to the Upper Mattaponi and the Pamunkey” Indians for the loss of their lands in eastern Virginia, he said….
“I personally think that our black citizens should get over it,” Hargrove said of slavery, which existed in Virginia from 1619 until the Civil War. “By golly, we’re living in 2007.”
While there may be a grain of truth in Hargrove’s words, a little sensitivity and compassion would go a long way. “Get over it” merely demonstrates how little you know of or care about the sensitivities of those for whom this is a serious issue.
“Nobody can justify slavery today, but it’s counterproductive to dwell on that,” Hargrove said. “Political correctness has kind of gotten us into this area.”
Any pollster would learn that “you couldn’t find a tenth of 1 percent [of Virginians] who said slavery is a good institution,” said Hargrove, who has represented Hanover County in the House of Delegates since 1982.
Just a hunch, but I’d be willing to hazard a guess that Hanover County is majority White. Virginia is never going to be able to move past the issue of slavery until Whites and African-Americans can sit down and speak to each other in the same language. African-Americans need to stop living in the past and Whites need to understand and accept that slavery is still an issue almost 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation. DUMB@$$E$ like Frank Hargrove are certainly not going to make the process of reconciliation any easier.
People like Frank Hargrove are why exactly NOTHING will change when it comes to race relations in Virginia and the rest of this country. Congratulations, Del. Hargrove…you’re a DUMB@$$!
Posted by Jack Cluth on January 21, 2007 7:39 AM
Look at what I found on my front door this morning
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In the first 100 hours of the new Democratically-controlled Congress (in January, 2006),
Congress to:
Eliminate tax breaks for Oil Companies
Roll back oil subsidies
Reduce student loans interest rates
Lower Medicare costs
Federally funded stem cell research
Institute 9-11 Commission Recommendations
Raise the Federal Minimum Wage
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Geov Parrish WorkingForChange.com 01.09.07
The escalation of a dictator
Bush defies American voters, world opinion, common sense in final years of sad presidency
So this is what a dictatorship feels like. Tens of millions of Americans deliver an absolutely unequivocal message on November 7: Get our troops out of Iraq. And the Generalissimo, who cares more about his Daddy issues than he does about respecting democracy (in the U.S. or anywhere else), responds by ordering an escalation, purging the military command of anyone who disagrees, and illegally executing the guy who (supposedly) tried to kill Daddy. On a Muslim religious holiday. While onlookers chanted the name of the cleric whose U.S.-sponsored death squads have helped tear Iraq apart.
I'm going to be sick.
Polls tell us that up to 70 percent of Americans want our troops out of Iraq. But since there is no mass movement on the streets threatening to shut down business as usual in this country until our participation in this war is ended (and why not?), our only recourse as citizens has been to express ourselves at the ballot box. Which we did. And which is now being ignored, just as it would be in any other country where the whims of the Dear and Beloved Comrade Leader trump all else.
How sad (and frightening) it is that our only hope of mitigation, let alone prevention, of Bush's planned escalation rests with Congressional Democrats who have already pledged not to use their only weapon -- the blocking of budget requests -- to interfere with Bush's war. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi can (correctly) blow all the hot air they like about what a horrible idea Bush's escalation is, but unless they and their colleagues back it up with legislative action, their words and press conferences and letters to the White House are meaningless posturing.
The most repugnant piece of this -- aside from the death of American democracy and the additional deaths of more U.S. soldiers and, no doubt, many thousands more Iraqis -- is that the Bush "surge," like every single other aspect of his Iraq policies over the last five years, is solely a PR campaign designed for American audiences. It doesn't matter that it will be militarily counterproductive and deadly. Trying to resuscitate poll numbers here is apparently far more important than living, breathing human beings there. Or, in the longer run, national security, the ability of our military to defend against genuine threats, or America's standing in the world.
In this case, the Rovian "product" is a New! Improved! War in Iraq!, and the feel-good product rollout began with the execution of Saddam, expedited so that it would come just before New Year's Day: out with the old, in with the new, get it? Next, replace those annoying old generals who think escalating U.S. troop presence in Iraq is clinically insane with some new, agreeable apparatchiks, and this week, voila! The big product launch. Full color ads to follow.
The question is, why bother? The American public has seen this all before, and isn't buying. And who cares what the public thinks, anyway? Bush will never run for office again, and legislators and presidential aspirants in both parties are generally running from this stunt as fast as they can. In the end, Bush is only amusing himself. Apparently, in Dubya's Democracy 2.0, that's enough.
Meanwhile, the Bush rollout strategy, like every other time before, has made things infinitely worse, in Iraq and around the world. The Saddam lynching was a particularly disgraceful stunt. The hanging of Saddam Hussein was, in both the near and long terms, a costly exercise in vanity for a White House that controlled every step of the farce that was Saddam's trial, sentencing, and death.
Some of those reasons have been mentioned -- in passing -- in American media. Most have not. They include:
· The timing of the execution for Eid, a holiday celebrated by all Muslims as a time of peace, joy, and reconciliation. By carrying out his act of vengeance at this time, Bush managed to insult and enrage Muslims around the world. And, no doubt, recruit more than a few new jihadists.
· It's not easy to turn a brutal, hated ex-dictator into a region-wide martyr. Dubya just accomplished it.
· Because the U.S. has consistently (and wrongly) held that the Sunni insurgency is motivated by loyalty to Saddam, as loathed as the ex-dictator was, his execution became a stand-in; Sunnis saw not Saddam but themselves as the targets of Bush's lynching. Way to pour gasoline on the fire, guys.
· Saddam's trial was in gross violation of Iraqi, American, and international norms. It was a kangaroo court, set up with American rather than Iraqi structures (e.g., adversarial prosecutor and defense teams) and controlled at every point by the U.S. embassy. In other words, we invaded a country -- illegally and without provocation -- and now, to compound the crime, have arbitrarily executed its leader.
· The deaths Saddam was "convicted" of were actually carried out within the Iraqi legal system. After a plot against Saddam's life, 152 people were tried as accomplices in a preordained legal proceeding, and then executed. In other words, Saddam was executed in exactly the same capricious way as his victims were, an "irony" lost on no Iraqi (or other Muslim). Nice advertisement for American democracy. (Oh, never mind. We don't do that any more.)
· The glee with which the execution was carried out -- by loyalists of Moktada al-Sadr, the radical anti-American Shiite cleric who the U.S. has inexplicably allowed to seize control of much of the country -- and the leaked video of the hanging underscored the barbarity of this lynching in particular. One result: an enormous global backlash against capital punishment. The scheduled execution of two more Saddam aides last Thursday has been postponed due to "international pressure," and Italy, a new Security Council member, has introduced a measure in the U.N. General Assembly calling for a global halt to executions. The unmistakable subtext is widespread global revulsion over America's barbarity.
All this for a product rollout. And so George W., who always enjoys a good execution, could avenge his Daddy.
Now, Junior is in the process of thumbing his nose at Daddy's advisors and trying to prove that Daddy was wrong for not invading Iraq in 1991. In the process, he has so completely divorced himself from reality that it makes one yearn for the days when Richard Nixon was walking the halls and talking with paintings. Unlike Bush's chats with God (or whomever is providing those voices in his head), at least the paintings weren't talking back, let alone directing a war effort in defiance of an overwhelming majority of military experts, the political establishment, and the American public. (That was Kissinger's job.)
Rather than Nixon, the better analogy for Bush's Iraq behavior is the last years of Mao Zedong. Mao's Iraq was the Cultural Revolution, a successful gambit to maintain his grip on power (as Bush did in 2004) that threw his country into chaos and resulted in the deaths of countless millions of Chinese. As the country unraveled, Mao staved off a number of challenges to his policies, including what was probably a coup attempt by his designated successor, Lin Biao, in 1971. As Mao's health declined, various factions, including the more radical elements Mao had increasingly surrounded himself with, vied for power. The Cultural Revolution didn't officially end until Mao's death in 1976 and the expulsion of the radicals, led by the so-called Gang of Four. (Think Cheney et al.)
Mao, in other words, wielded absolute power, was oblivious to the real-life consequences of his policies, was surrounded by acolytes, and was impervious to criticisms from even his closest allies. As a result, he is today thought of as one of the great butchers of the 20th century, and these days is rarely mentioned even by the government he founded and ran for 27 years. So how appalling is it that his story now seems so vaguely familiar?
In a parliamentary system -- the kind most of the world's democracies outside the U.S. use -- Bush would have been expelled from office two months ago. Had that somehow not happened, his "surge" plan would surely provoke a vote of no confidence, and at this point his government would collapse.
But instead, we live in the United States, with a chief executive who believes in his own unlimited "unitary" power and a single "opposition" party that rarely provides any true opposition. How many more Iraqis, and Americans, will die as a result? Or, as Emma Goldman noted nearly a century ago: "Poor as we are in democracy, how can we give it to the world?"
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Matthew Shepard Online Resources – Religious Right Hate Speech
http://www.hatecrime.org/subpages/hitler/hitler.html
Religious Right Hate Speech
http://www.hatecrime.org/subpages/hatespeech/hate.html
Hitler Was A Christian
http://www.evilbible.com/hitler_was_christian.htm
Jesus and Hitler
http://zeppscommentaries.com/Religious/jesusnhitler.htm
Crossroad – Kjos Ministries
http://www.crossroad.to/
Community – True Truths
http://www.truetruths.com/COMMUNITY.htm
The Most Famous Christian of the 20th Century
http://www.somareview.com/blogcomment.cfm?datekey=20050808
Hitler’s Christianity
http://www.nobeliefs.com/speeches.htm
Nazi Photos
http://nobeliefs.com/nazis.htm
Hitler’s Religious Beliefs & Fanaticism
http://nobeliefs.com/hitler.htm
Hitler: The Christian Evangelist
http://www.jews-for-allah.org/messianic-jews/christianhistorywithjews/hitler.htm
Adolf Hitler’s Positive Christianity
http://atheism.about.com/b/a/209954.htm
Hitler & Christian Nationalism: Nazi’s Program of Positive Christianity
http://atheism.about.com/od/adolfhitlernazigermany/p/NaziChristian.htm
The American Religious Right
http://www.webpan.com/dsinclair/rright.html
Hitler – Christian, Atheist, or neither?
http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/mischedj/ca_hitler.html
Was Hitler A Christian?
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mhitlerchristian.html
What’s Wrong For America Is The Christian Right
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/1818/3_1ChristianRight.htm
Adolf Hitler, Nazi Germany: Christian Nationalism, Anti-Semitism
http://atheism.about.com/od/adolfhitlernazigermany/Adolf_Hitler_Nazi_Germany_Christian_Nationalism_AntiSemitism.htm
American Fascists
http://www.calendarlive.com/books/bookreview/cl-bk-wiener7jan07,0,7107958.htmlstory
Creationism versus Scientific Evolution Theory: Atheist Morality
http://www.creationtheory.org/Morality/Hitler.shtml
The Christian Right
http://www.guerillastickers.com/christian_right.htm
Repressed gay, meth-snorting preachers would really go for a hot stud – Jesus, eh?
Can you prove that Zeus does not exist? Of course not. And yet, just imagine if we lived in a society where people spent tens of billions of dollars proclaiming the gods of Mount Olympus, where the government spent billions more in tax subsidies for pagan temples, where elected officials did their best to impede medical research out of deference to The Iliad and The Odyssey. This would be a horrific misappropriation of our material, moral, and intellectual resources. And yet that is exactly the society we are living in. -Sam Harris in "Letter to a Christian Nation." (here)
How can you vote Republican AND be a Christian? You'd have to be in favor of torture, incarceration without charge or trial, wars started under false pretenses, stuffing the pockets of the rich, and causing suffering to the poor. Is that what you want? None of that bears much resemblance to Jesus' teachings, does it? I just don't get it, Christians. Do you ever open your Bibles and read them, or is it just too much trouble? Too busy worshipping in your mega-churches?
Maybe you can clue me in to the truth of your ways.email me, Christians. Enlighten me.brandonqwerty@hotmail.com
Then, get your nose out of Leviticus and read this article: Christ Among the PartisansThen Take Your Sorry Christian Ass to "Jesus Camp"
Christian Republican Values? This is what Christian Republican "values" look like: torture and sexual perversion.
Real Family ValuesVideo: "When the President Talks to God" Nice Graph Showing How Idiotic Christians Have Put Us (almost) Last In ScienceInsanity Defense for Nutball ChristiansChurch of the Flying Spaghetti MonsterMark Twain on the BibleCool U.S./Christian Flag Here!Extreme Testimonies Here! Official "God" FAQ" Site Bible Thumpers Thump Their Kids
Dear Christians: time to take your religion back. It's being run by people that would make Jesus throw up. Like the morons in Kansas who asked that the definition of science in their science books NOT include these words: "...a search for natural explanations of observable phenomena." Hide your head in the sand. (here)
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts."Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, author, Nobel laureate (1872-1970)"When the theologian governed the world, it was covered with huts and hovels for the man, palaces and cathedrals for the few...the poor were clad in rags and skins--they devoured crusts, and gnawed bones. The day of science dawned, and...there is more of value in the brain of an average man of today--of a master mechanic, of a chemist, of a naturalist, of an inventor, than there was in the brain of the world four hundred years ago.
These blessings did not fall from the skies. These benefits did not drop from the outstretched hands of priests. They were not found in cathedrals or behind altars--neither were they searched for with hold candles. They were not discovered by the closed eyes of prayer, nor did they come in answer to superstitious supplication. They are the children of freedom, the gifts of reason, observation and experience--and for them all, man is indebted to man." Ingersoll's essay "God and the Constitution."
Real Family Values: A letter to the Minneapolis Star/Tribune 10/04/06REAL FAMILY VALUESThey're not Dobson'sAs an ordained member of the clergy, I read with great interest James Dobson's suggestion that Minnesotans vote for family values (Star Tribune, Oct. 4). I certainly agree.With the Republicans controlling the House, Senate and the White House for much of the past six years, we have benefited from efforts to legislate the support of torture, spy on U.S. citizens, allow Vice President Dick Cheney's Halliburton to rip off billions of tax dollars, eviscerate our environmental protections, spurn the survivors of Katrina, demonize healthy dissent, discredit the intelligence reports from our own agencies, and support the clandestine operation of hidden prison camps that are definitely a reflection of values that most Minnesotans reject.Those who support tax cuts for the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans while cutting student aid, housing for the homeless, education programs for children with special needs, and veterans benefits certainly are violating true family values.Those who formulate lies to send our sons and daughters to war are not living a moral life. Those who cover up corruption and deception on such a massive scale are not following the way of Jesus Christ.With leadership from the likes of Duke Cunningham, Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff, Bob Ney and now Mark Foley, we need to elect men and women who reflect true Christian morals.From "The Speeches of Adolph Hitler Vol. 1"
"The national government will maintain and defend the foundations on which the power of our nation rests. It will offer strong protection to Christianity as the very basis of our collective morality. Today Christians stand at the head of our country.We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit. We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theatre, and in the press--in short, we want to burn out the poison of immorality which has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of liberal excess during the past few years." (more here)
(How about Scientology?)
Read how Noah got dinosaurs on the Ark! (here)
(OK, here's your choice: Heaven or Hell. Heaven, right? Wrong! In Hell you get to hang out with atheists and non-Christians like George Harrison, the Dalai Lama, Jean-Paul Sarte, Bertrand Russel, Jimi Hendrix and John Lennon. In Heaven you're sitting on cold metal folding chairs at a church basement table with Jerry Falwell, Pat Buchanan, Pat Robertson, and Tammy Faye Bakker eating cold tuna-fish casserole. Your choice!) Christian Reconstructionism: Be Very AfraidForce Ministries: Be Even More Afraider God's Plan for AmerikaUnintelligent Design What Would Galileo Do?Slavery: In Accord With Christianity, sort ofGay: Satan?Satan: Microsoft?Pentecostals: Head Injury?Calling Sen. Houdini!Onward Christian Soldiers!Hitler and ChristianityFun QuotesWhat Would Jesus Do?Don't Pray? No School 4 U!Have a Nice Armageddon!Gay PlagueNice ReligionMore God In Government, PleaseGotta Have FaithInternational CondomsInternational Family PlanningNo Damn References to SexOh No, It's the Bible!
Links We LikeA Fine Reply to Dr. Laura Schlesinger's Homophobia HereTheocracy WatchGod Hates Shrimp (It's the Bible's Holy Word!)Bush's War Against Women Founding Fathers Christian? Not Exactly..
Thomas Jefferson was not a Christian. He was a Deist.
God's Plan for America
Arnold Guyot, a nineteenth-century scientist and professor of geology at Princeton University, noted that God had arranged the structure of the earth to assure that the Chain of Christianity would move not south into Africa or east into Asia but westward into Europe. That which originated in Asian and developed in Europe has had its greatest fulfillment in America. Now, in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, travel and climatic barriers are being conquered by air travel and air-conditioning. It appears that the internal preparation is taking place so that the Chain of Liberty and all its external blessings might continue their westward march from America around the globe. (here)Galileo: Intelligently Designed?The Holy Office found Galileo "vehemently suspected of heresy" for "having held and believed the doctrine which is false and contrary to the Sacred and Divine scriptures, that the Sun is the center of the world and does not move from east to west and that the Earth moves and is not the center of the world." Galileo was shown the Inquisition's instruments of torture. Galileo then, in his hand-written statement, recanted, saying he "abjured" any such beliefs. "I curse and detest the said errors and heresies and will never again say nor assert in speaking or writing such things." The trial of Galileo was a terrible wielding of ideology and power against science and open inquiry. The effect of the trial and of the imprisonment was to put a total stop to the scientific tradition in the Mediterranean. From that point on the Scientific Revolution moved to Northern Europe. From The Ascent of Man J. Bronowski(Read the text of the accusations against him here!) Slavery: A Life of "Plenty" According to a Christian SchoolStudents at one of the area's largest Christian schools are reading a controversial booklet that critics say whitewashes Southern slavery with its view that slaves lived "a life of plenty, of simple pleasures."Leaders at Cary Christian School say they are not condoning slavery by using "Southern Slavery, As It Was," a booklet that attempts to provide a biblical justification for slavery and asserts that slaves weren't treated as badly as people think.Principal Larry Stephenson said the school is only exposing students to different ideas, such as how the South justified slavery. He said the booklet is used because it is hard to find writings that are both sympathetic to the South and explore what the Bible says about slavery."You can have two different sides, a Northern perspective and a Southern perspective," he said.Some book excerpts:* "Slavery as it existed in the South was not an adversarial relationship with pervasive racial animosity. Because of its dominantly patriarchal character, it was a relationship based upon mutual affection and confidence." (page 24)* "Slave life was to them a life of plenty, of simple pleasures, of food, clothes, and good medical care." (page 25)* "But many Southern blacks supported the South because of long established bonds of affection and trust that had been forged over generations with their white masters and friends." (page 27)* "Nearly every slave in the South enjoyed a higher standard of living than the poor whites of the South -- and had a much easier existence." (page 30) (here)Gays: Satan's Evil Spawn? Or Not?Percentage of the 958 same-sex unions granted to Vermont residents since July 2000 that have since been dissolved: 3Percentage of U.S. heterosexual marriages that are dissolved within five years: 20 (here)Product Support Question: Satan on Screen!
John Debney, composer of the music for Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ said that Satan kept appearing on his computer screen while he was writing the score for the film. "I got really mad and I told Satan to manifest himself and I said, 'Let's go our into the parking lot and let's go...' I knew that this was war." (here) Pentecostals: Head Injury?
Two preachers grounded a flight leaving Buffalo, New York, after they frightened passengers by declaring the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were a good reason to pray, officials said. One preacher told fellow passengers as the Continental Airlines plane taxied down the runway, "Your last breath on earth is the first one in heaven as long as you are born again and have Jesus in your heart," according to FBI spokesman Paul Moskal. Passengers on the Wednesday flight to Newark, New Jersey told a flight attendant, who alerted the plane's captain, officials said. The captain turned the plane around. "They were sincere in their beliefs and were not malicious," Moskal said by telephone from Buffalo. "In the context of 9/11 it may not have been the best way to promote their religion."The two Pentecostal ministers were questioned by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and later released and put on another flight, the spokesman said. They were traveling to attend a convention in Baltimore, Maryland. (here)Onward Christian Politicians!Calling Sen. Houdini!"People viewing this thought they were witnessing a séance or an exorcism as they watched these people move about the chamber." Checks & Balances, the online state politics newsletter, on May 3, describing the scene in the Senate chamber as Minnesota state Sen. Michele Bachmann led supporters of her proposed amendment banning gay marriage to the unoccupied desks of senators who oppose her amendment. They stood and prayed over each desk.Onward Christian Soldiers!Lt. Gen. William Boykin, the moron who, last year said, "We're a Christian nation, and the enemy is a guy named Satan" is still head of military intelligence at the Pentagon. Question: If we're looking to extract intelligence from prisoners, and they're definitely in the service of Satan, how do pliable Christian soldiers treat their subjects? Pictures, anyone?Senators were told on May 11 that Boykin "briefed a top Pentagon civilian official last summer on ways military interrogators could gain more intelligence from Iraqi prisoners." Anybody think he brought a dog's leash to the meeting?Fun Quotes"Their innards and entrails gushed to the desert floor, and as those around them turned to run, they too were slain, their blood pooling and rising in the unforgiving brightness of the glory of Christ." (from Tim LaHaye and Jerry P. Jenkins' 12th book in the "Left Behind" series.)"If a gay man ever looks at me like that, I'm going to kill him and tell God he died." --Televangelist Jimmy Swaggart (here) "The trouble with our Texas Baptists is that we do not hold them under water long enough." William Brann, Texas newspaperman (here)
"If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it ought to be good enough for the children of Texas."" (Republican Governer Ma Ferguson of Texas regarding bilingual education initiatives) (here)
Pat Robertson asks his good buddy God to remove 3 (unnamed) members of the U.S. Supreme Court so they can be replaced by conservatives. "We ask for miracles in regard to the Supreme Court," Robertson said on the Christian Broadcasting Network's "The 700 Club." (here) It didn't work.Asked asked if judges were a more serious threat than terrorists, Robertson responded, “It depends on how you look at culture. If they look over the course of 100 years, I think the gradual erosion of the consensus that's held our country together is probably more serious than a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings. (here)
Robertson also said the widespread practice of homosexuality "will bring about terrorist bombs, it'll bring earthquakes, tornadoes and possibly a meteor.'' Robertson has twice attempted to divert hurricanes by prayer from Virginia Beach, Florida, where he has his headquarters. Both times the hurricanes slammed squarely into Virginia Beach. (here)
"Our culture is superior because our religion is Christianity." Pat Buchanan (more here)
"I hope to see the day when, as in the early days in our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will ha be taken them over again and Christians will be running them. We must never allow our children to forget that this is a Christian nation."--The Reverend Jerry Falwell (here)
"Well you know what I knew, that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God, and his was an idol." --Evangelical Christian Lieutenant-General William G Boykin, recalling speaking to a Muslim fighter in Somalia, addressing church congregations in full uniform. (here)(Regarding Boykin) "...it sounded like something that got through the morning e-mail spam filter. 'Click here if you want your God to be three inches bigger.'" --Ellen Goodman"Here's a fact I couldn't find anywhere in George W. Bush's $1.5 billion plan to prop up American marriage: The pro-Bush red states, especially those in the rural South, have a far higher divorce rate than Al Gore's blue states." Columnist Ellis Henican in Newsday (here)Scalia/God/Government"Courts have gone overboard in keeping God out of government," Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said at a religious ceremony in Fredericksburg, Va. He said the constitutional wall between church and state has been misinterpreted by the Supreme Court and lower ones. (here) What would Jesus do -- in the time he'd have?By Frank ReillyMinneapolis Star Tribune
The religious pop culture question "What would Jesus do?" has been pressed into service for so many causes, and has yielded so many predictable answers, that many of us long ago grew tired of it. And now comes the war on Iraq, an event that has raised the question with unique urgency. All Christians, and all those who have to live with them, should want to know as clearly as possible what Jesus would do: before the war, during it, and after its completion. We should face the truth, and in its light face the future.The truth is that Jesus would die. He would be killed, probably executed. As a terrorist. By one side or the other.The Jesus of history was a Palestinian Jew, a Galilean peasant. He hailed from the poorest part of a land occupied by the world's great superpower. In his 30s, he spent some time as the disciple of a radical nationalistic and religious zealot called John the Baptist. Then he became a wandering preacher, exorcist and healer, setting out to change his world.Jesus told whoever would listen that the kingdom of God was coming. It would belong, he said, not to the rich, the powerful and the well-connected, but to those who almost certainly were his audience: the desperately poor, the powerless and the outcasts. People struggling to survive. He proclaimed what one scholar calls "a kingdom of nuisances and nobodies."The message of Jesus was neither openly anti-Roman nor directly anti-Jewish establishment, and apparently nonviolent. But it was incredibly revolutionary. Proclaiming a new world order brought about by God, he implicitly repudiated all religious and political power. He also had little success, getting few others to believe that what he proclaimed and stood for could become reality.So he went to Jerusalem, the seat of power, at Passover: a time of year when the city was flooded by pilgrims, and the guardians of the Roman Occupation were intent on crowd control. Visiting the Temple, he became outraged at what struck him as a moneymaking tourist trap run by religion vendors. By men who collaborated with the occupation. He acted up, caused a scene, and proclaimed that God would bring the building down. He was arrested by the Romans, accused and quickly convicted of making terroristic threats, and hung up to die a horrible death as an example to the people. The last place such a Jesus could be found today would be in the White House or in a Baghdad palace, either as ruler or adviser. He would not be a military leader, or a soldier. He would not fall in line with the wartime policy of any political power, or support the troops of either side. He would be one of the poor, the oppressed and the marginalized; or at least someone who believed that God is on their side. He would consider religious and political power at best irrelevant; at worst, something getting in God's way.This Jesus would be dead before this war even began, executed in Baghdad for a show of rage. He would be killed during it, in this country or elsewhere, with or without a trial, for inciting a riot during an antiwar protest. He would be assassinated after the war, somewhere in Iraq, for crying out that the powerful among his own people, collaborators with the American Occupation, were standing on the necks of the poor. Our world is filled with people who do what they want, or what they think they need to do, and try to tell themselves and us that it is what Jesus would do. Even if they are Jesus' kind of people -- poor, oppressed and marginalized -- they can be mistaken.And they can be right even if they are rich, powerful and well-connected. But for them it is especially challenging. They must be able to show themselves and us that they are with somebody totally unlike them, somebody who could consider them at best irrelevant, at worst in God's way. Somebody who would die opposing what to them comes naturally and seems right. Those who have planned, begun, and now direct the war on Iraq, and who claim allegiance to Jesus, must accept the challenge.
Don't Pray? Get Lost!
NY TimesGeorge Bush promised to revolutionize public education when he signed the No Child Left Behind Act. But his failure to finance the law properly has discouraged recession-strapped states from embracing it fully. His administration has further endangered the reform by emphasizing peripheral parts of the law that win points from religious conservatives while ignoring vital provisions. The Department of Education seems more interested in promoting prayer in the schools — and giving religious groups access to federal education dollars — than in pursuing the most crucial part of the reform, which is providing every child with a "highly qualified" teacher by 2006. The federal government took the unusual step of warning schools that get federal aid for the poor that they could lose that money if they did not permit students to exercise "constitutionally protected prayer." (here)
Armageddon! Hurray!By BILL KELLER (NYT) Two weeks ago, a group of senior intelligence officials in the Defense Department sat for an hour listening to a briefing by a writer who claims -- I am not making this up -- that messages encoded in the Hebrew text of the Old Testament provide clues to the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden. One of the officials told me that they had agreed to meet the writer, Michael Drosnin, author of a Nostradamus-style best seller, without understanding that he was promoting Biblical prophecy. Still, rather than shoo him away, they listened politely as he consumed several man-hours of valuable intelligence-crunching time. Apparently he has given similar briefings to top officials of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency. (here)
Heifers for the End-time
U.S. Christian fundamentalists are attempting to breed a "red heifer" to sacrifice in order to hasten the Apocalypse and return of Jesus. (here)Fix Me, Jesus
Minneapolis Star/Tribune -- The Bush administration asked Jerry Thacker, a Pennsylvania marketing consultant who has characterized AIDS as the "gay plague," to serve on the Presidential Advisory Commission on HIV and AIDS.
Thacker, a former Bob Jones University employee, has described homosexuality as a "deathstyle" rather than a lifestyle and asserted that "Christ can rescue the homosexual." (here)Christianity vs Islam
(Molly Ivins) Ken Adelman, a member of Bush's Defense Policy Board announced "The more you examine Islam, the more militaristic it seems. After all, its founder, Mohammed, was a warrior, not a peace advocate like Jesus."
Another member of the Pentagon advisory board, Eliot Cohen, says, "Nobody would like to think that a major world religion has a deeply aggressive and dangerous strain in it." Rev. Jerry Falwell called Mohammed "a terrorist," Rev. Franklin Graham said Islam is "evil" and so forth.
Let's see, where does that leave Christianity, the religion of peace and love, founded by the Prince of Peace? Among the more notable Christian crimes were the unbearably bloody Crusades, the Thirty Years War, the Inquisition, innumerable pogroms, regular slaughter of Protestants, counter-slaughter by Protestants, genocide against Native Americans (featuring biological warfare), slavery, the Holocaust, ethnic cleansing, Northern Ireland ... and the list goes on and on and on. (here)
God/Government
House job training bill would allow religion to be reason for not hiringAssociated PressWASHINGTON, D.C. -- Religious groups that receive federal funds to provide job training services could refuse to hire workers with different beliefs under legislation the House passed.It is part of the reauthorization of the 1998 Workforce Investment Act, which grants $6.6 billion in job training programs and services to more than 19 million people through One-Stop Career Centers. They are federal, state and local partnerships.That law now prohibits religious groups that receive grants from discriminating in hiring based on religion; Republicans removed the provision in the new plan. (here)Gotta Have Faithby Paul Krugman/New York Times
The media were shocked, shocked to discover that prominent Republicans have a soft spot for segregation — something that was obvious long before Mr. Lott inserted his foot in his mouth. One of these years they'll be equally shocked to discover that prominent Republicans have a soft spot for theocracy.
Last spring Tom DeLay told a church group that: "Only Christianity offers a way to live in response to the realities that we find in this world — only Christianity." He also said he was on a mission from God to promote a "biblical worldview" in American politics.
By the way, one piece of that biblical worldview involves scientific education. After the Columbine school shootings, Mr. DeLay suggested that the tragedy had occurred "because our school systems teach our children that they are nothing but glorified apes who have evolutionized out of some primordial mud." (here)Guns don't kill people; Charles Darwin kills people. (full article here) International Agendas
New York Times
At an international conference on population that was held in Thailand, the United States said it would withhold $34 million for United Nations programs because some promote birth control. (here)
Amount the U.S. withheld from the U.N. Population Fund last year, citing links to forced abortions in China: $34,000,000. Months after the State Department had cleared the U.N. of such connections that the funds were withheld nonetheless:3 (here)
The Secret War on CondomsBy NICHOLAS D. KRISTOFOver the last few years conservative groups in President Bush's support base have declared war on condoms, in a campaign that is downright weird — but that, if successful, could lead to millions of deaths from AIDS around the world.
I first noticed this campaign last year, when I began to get e-mails from evangelical Christians insisting that condoms have pores about 10 microns in diameter, while the AIDS virus measures only about 0.1 micron. This is junk science (electron microscopes haven't found these pores), but the disinformation campaign turns out to be a far-reaching effort to discredit condoms, squelch any mention of them in schools and discourage their use abroad.
"The only absolutely guaranteed, permanent contraception is castration," one Catholic site suggests helpfully. Hmmmm. You first.
Then there are the radio spots in Texas: "Condoms will not protect people from many sexually transmitted diseases." A report by Human Rights Watch quotes a Texas school official as saying: "We don't discuss condom use, except to say that condoms don't work."
Last month at an international conference in Bangkok, U.S. officials demanded the deletion of a reference to "consistent condom use" to fight AIDS and sexual diseases. So what does this administration stand for? Inconsistent condom use?
Then there was the Condom Caper on the Web site of the Centers for Disease Control. A fact sheet on condoms was removed and, eventually, replaced by one that emphasized that they may not work.
"The Bush administration position basically condemns people to death by H.I.V./AIDS," said Adrienne Germain, president of the International Women's Health Coalition. "And we're talking about tens of millions of people."
One study by the University of California at Berkeley found condom distribution to be astonishingly cost-effective, costing just $3.50 per year of life saved. In contrast, antiretroviral therapy cost almost $1,050.
Yet the U.S. is now donating only 300 million condoms annually, down from about 800 million at the end of the first President Bush's term. Consider Botswana, which has the highest rate of H.I.V. infection in the world — 39 percent of adults. According to figures in a report on condoms by Population Action International, the average man in Botswana gets less than one condom per year from international donors.
In the time it has taken to read this column, 28 people have died of AIDS, including 5 children. An additional 49 people have become infected. It's imperative that we get over our squeamishness, accept that condoms are flawed but far better than nothing, recognize that condoms no more cause sex than umbrellas cause rain, and ensure that couples in places like Botswana get more than one condom per year. (here)CONDEMNING CONDOMS: In a comprehensive report prepared for Rep. Henry Waxman, last updated in November 2003, the Administration's manipulation of scientific information for political purposes is considered in great detail. One of the most disturbing examples: suppressing and distorting the truth about condom use. In October 2002, the CDC altered a fact sheet on condom use – removing a section on proper condom use, emphasizing failure rates and removing evidence that sex education does not lead to increased sexual activity. (here)
U.S. Raises Abortion Issue At Conference On Families New York Times Taking its fight against abortion overseas, the Bush administration opened a sharp debate over a landmark family-planning agreement during a United Nations conference, angering several of its allies, European and Asian diplomats said.
The United States has threatened to withdraw its support for a 1994 family-planning agreement reached in Cairo that called for bringing population growth under control by improving the legal rights and economic status of women, as well as broadly expanding access to health care.
Administration officials contend that some phrases in the Cairo agreement--including "reproductive health services" and "reproductive rights"--can be construed as promoting abortion.
The battle in Bangkok began on Wednesday, the first day, when some delegations moved for a consensus reaffirmation the Cairo agreement--as United Nations conferences have done at least seven times in the past. When the United States objected, a heated debate over the meaning of consensus ensued, with delegates searching for competing definitions in separate dictionaries.
Over the next two days, American officials objected repeatedly to any efforts to move the discussion away from their concerns, and spoke at length about the dangers of abortion and the effectiveness of "natural" family planning methods, participants said. (article here)
U.S. Revises Sex Information, and a Fight Goes On
New York Times The National Cancer Institute, which used to say on its Web site that the best studies showed "no association between abortion and breast cancer," now says the evidence is inconclusive.
A Web page of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention used to say studies showed that education about condom use did not lead to earlier or increased sexual activity. That statement, which contradicts the view of "abstinence only" advocates, is omitted from a revised version of the page.
Critics say those changes, far below the political radar screen, illustrate how the Bush administration can satisfy conservative constituents with relatively little exposure to the kind of attack that a legislative proposal or a White House statement would invite.
Fourteen House Democrats, including Henry A. Waxman of California, senior minority member of the House Government Reform Committee, have written to Tommy G. Thompson, secretary of health and human services, charging that the new versions "distort and suppress scientific information for ideological purposes."
Gloria Feldt, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said the new statement on abortion and breast cancer "simply doesn't track the best available science." "Scientific and medical misinformation jeopardizes peoples' lives," Ms. Feldt said, adding that any suggestion of a connection between abortion and cancer was "bogus."
The earlier statement, which the National Cancer Institute removed from the Web in June after anti-abortion congressmen objected to it, noted that "recent large studies" showed no connection. In particular, it approvingly cited a study of 1.5 million Danish women that was published in The New England Journal of Medicine in 1997. That study, the cancer institute said, found that "induced abortions have no overall effect on the risk of breast cancer."
The Danish research, praised by the American Cancer Society as "the largest, and probably the most reliable, study of this topic," is not mentioned in the government's recent posting, which says the cancer institute will hold a conference next year to plan further research.
Dorie Hightower, a press officer at the cancer institute, attributed the revision to the institute's periodic review of fact sheets "for accuracy and scientific relevance." Asked whether the institute now thought that the Danish study failed on either count, Ms. Hightower said no. But she said there was no scientist available to explain the change.
The new site also omits a passage on sex education and condom use that appeared in the earlier document. "Studies of specific sex education programs," the earlier version said, "have shown that H.I.V. education and sex education that included condom information either had no effect upon the initiation of intercourse or resulted in delayed onset of intercourse."
In an interview, Dr. David Fleming, the disease control centers' deputy director for science, defended the new version. "We try as hard as possible," Dr. Fleming said, "to state objectively what is known about condom efficacy without nuancing language beyond what is supported by the science."
The letter to Secretary Thompson from House Democrats said that by alteration and deletion, the disease control agency "is now censoring the scientific information about condoms it makes available to the public" in order to suit abstinence-only advocates. And it said the breast cancer document amounted to nothing more than "the political creation of scientific uncertainty."
"Information that used to be based on science," the lawmakers said, "is being systematically removed from the public when it conflicts with the administration's political agenda." (full article here)
Oh No! It's the Bible!Seven of the nine founding fathers did not accept Christ's divinity. (here) Mark Twain on the Bible"...noble poetry...some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; ...a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies."
(His take on the Almighty Father) "...the portrait is substantially that of a man--if one can imagine a man charged and overcharged with evil impulses far beyond the human limit; a personage whom no one, perhaps, would desire to associate with now that Nero and Caligula are dead. In the Old Testament His acts expose His vindictive, unjust, ungenerous, pitiless and vengeful nature constantly. He is always punishing--punishing trifling misdeeds with thousand fold severity; punishing innocent children for the misdeeds of their parents; punishing unoffending populations for the misdeeds of their rulers; even descending to wreak bloody vengeance upon harmless calves and lambs and sheep and bullocks as punishment for inconsequential trespasses committed by their proprietors. It is perhaps the most damnatory biography that exists in print anywhere."
Women's Rights
"...it is not permitted unto your women to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home."(1 Corinthians 14:34,35)
"...let the woman learn in silence, with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, to be in silence." (1 Timothy 2:11,12)
"..ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands..while they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear." (1 Peter 3:1-7) "...but if this thing be true, and the tokens of virginity be not found in the damsel, then they shall bring the damsel to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die...so shalt thou put evil away from among you." (Deuteronomy 22:20,21)
Women and Children's Rights "Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up." (Hosea 13:16)"...this our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die, so shalt thou put evil away from among you, and all shall fear." (Deuteronomy 21:18-21) "...now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him, but all the women children that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves." (Numbers 31:17, 18)
"...withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell." (Proverbs 23:13,14)
"...and Jephthah vowed a vow unto the LORD, and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands, then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the LORD's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering...and Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances...and her father did with her according to his vow. (Judges 11:30-39)
Gay Rights"...and if a man lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them." (Leviticus 20:13) and (Romans 1:26-32)
Slave's Rights
Then thou shalt take an awl, and thrust it through his ear unto the door, and he shall be thy servant for ever. And also unto thy maidservant thou shalt do likewise. (Deuteronomy 15:17)
No Comment
There she lusted after her lovers, who's genitals were like those of donkeys, and who's emission were like those of horses. (Ezekiel 23:20)
My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him. (Song of Solomon 5:4)
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