Friday, May 25, 2007
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
The Assault on Reason
The Gore Book: Sweeping Indictment, Rousing Challenge, Massive Best-seller
Brent Budowsky
The real presidential campaign begins now with the publication of Al Gore’s sweeping, passionate and uncompromising indictment of Bush, Bushism and American politics in the Bush era.
This book will be a massive and gigantic best-seller as Americans vote with their book-buying bucks. This book will have dramatic impact on the presidential campaign by setting the gold standard for what a Loyal Opposition should stand for.
The rest of the review is here ...
The book, "The Assault on Reason", is here ...
and for those who are still severely misinformed and who actually believe Rush Limbaugh's assertion that Al Gore "claimed" to invent the internet ... because they're gullible ditto-heads... read this.
Brent Budowsky
The real presidential campaign begins now with the publication of Al Gore’s sweeping, passionate and uncompromising indictment of Bush, Bushism and American politics in the Bush era.
This book will be a massive and gigantic best-seller as Americans vote with their book-buying bucks. This book will have dramatic impact on the presidential campaign by setting the gold standard for what a Loyal Opposition should stand for.
The rest of the review is here ...
The book, "The Assault on Reason", is here ...
and for those who are still severely misinformed and who actually believe Rush Limbaugh's assertion that Al Gore "claimed" to invent the internet ... because they're gullible ditto-heads... read this.
Bomb plot thwarted at Falwell funeral
Police have arrested an American university student over a bomb plot connected to the funeral of controversial American evangelist Jerry Falwell, US media reports say.The rest of the story here ...
The arrested man, 19-year-old Mark D Uhl, reportedly told police he had made the bombs to prevent protesters from disrupting Mr Falwell's funeral, held in Virginia yesterday.
The reports said Uhl is a student at Liberty University, a Christian institution founded by Mr Falwell, who referred to it as a "Bible boot camp".
Personally, I think it would be appropriate for the Department of Justice (DoJ) to start busting Christian jehadist sleeper cells who are apparently armed to the teeth with IEDs and who are prepared to field their own suicide bombers for their ayatollahs.
Our fundamentalists are sounding more and more like their fundamentalists every passing day.
In the meantime, the bomber says he was preparing for "protesters" who he anticipated disrupting Falwell's funeral. If you liked Falwell, you wouldn't be protesting and if you didn't like Falwell ... you wouldn't have anything to protest, either ... maybe Falwell's passing might be something to celebrate with a couple drinks at the local pub ... but certainly nothing to protest. Perhaps an ironic toast ... "God rest ye merry gentleman!"
Frankly, prepping for protesters at a funeral sounds a lot like projection to me.
The only people I'm aware of who have been disrupting funerals have been fundamentalist Christians disrupting the funerals of fallen servicemen ... in their ill advised tactic of protesting gays. Boy, there must be logic in there somewhere!
Saturday, May 19, 2007
They Are Not Like Us:
Stoning Death Sick Form Of Honor Killing
By John David Powell
May 14, 2007
They are not like us? I submit that's pure baloney. They are just like us. The only difference is that their laws are governed by their fundamentalist religion while our laws are separated from our religion.
If we removed the separation of church and state, allowing laws generated by our religious fundamentalists to become the law of the land, we'd see doctors executed with impunity in family planning clinics. Jerry Falwell's ilk would gleefully stone gays to death.
Historically, there is certainly ample precedent demonstrating that our fundamentalists can be just as blood thirsty as their fundamentalists. Witch hunts of the Inquisition are only one example of just how blood thirsty our religious fundamentalists can be. The Spanish imposition of Catholicism on the native peoples by the sword in the Americas is another example.
Closer to home and to our time, some of our religious fundamentalists believe it's alright to kill "abortion" doctors, execution style and run afoul of the law as a result of that fervently held belief. In spite of laws to the contrary, they believe they are answerable to a higher authority, that the murders are justified, and that they are acting as an agent of God (how arrogant to imagine one is picked by God to take the life of a fellow human being!).
Honor killing on religious grounds is small thing when compared to the wholesale death meted out by other fundamentalists at other times.
They are just like us - only we have the shield of secular law to protect us from ourselves.
By John David Powell
May 14, 2007
The appearance on the Internet this week of a video showing the stoning to death of a teenage Kirdish girl in Iraq underscores this writer's long-held contention that "they are not like us."More here ...
Here's what happened as reported by London's Daily Mail. Hardline religous leaders and male family members of Du'a Khalil Aswad condemned the 17-year-old girl to death by stoning because of her relationship with a Sunni Muslim boy. Aswad's family belongs to Yezidi, a Kurdish religious group in Iraq. The religious leaders and family members claimed she dishonored the family by failing to return home one night. Other reports suggest the "honor killing" had a lot to do with her apparent conversion to Islam.
Regardless of the reason, on or about April 7 of this year, eight or nine men dragged the girl into the street and stoned her for half an hour until she died, as a large crowd stood around and watched in the predominately Kurdish town near Mosul.
They are not like us? I submit that's pure baloney. They are just like us. The only difference is that their laws are governed by their fundamentalist religion while our laws are separated from our religion.
If we removed the separation of church and state, allowing laws generated by our religious fundamentalists to become the law of the land, we'd see doctors executed with impunity in family planning clinics. Jerry Falwell's ilk would gleefully stone gays to death.
Historically, there is certainly ample precedent demonstrating that our fundamentalists can be just as blood thirsty as their fundamentalists. Witch hunts of the Inquisition are only one example of just how blood thirsty our religious fundamentalists can be. The Spanish imposition of Catholicism on the native peoples by the sword in the Americas is another example.
Closer to home and to our time, some of our religious fundamentalists believe it's alright to kill "abortion" doctors, execution style and run afoul of the law as a result of that fervently held belief. In spite of laws to the contrary, they believe they are answerable to a higher authority, that the murders are justified, and that they are acting as an agent of God (how arrogant to imagine one is picked by God to take the life of a fellow human being!).
Honor killing on religious grounds is small thing when compared to the wholesale death meted out by other fundamentalists at other times.
They are just like us - only we have the shield of secular law to protect us from ourselves.
"Religion is an abomination. With or without it, good men will do good things and evil men will do bad things but, for good men to do the most evil things ... that takes religion!"
~Unknown
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Jerry Falwell's Hit Parade
The Right's holy fool.
By Timothy Noah
Posted Tuesday, May 15, 2007, at 6:56 PM ET
God, they say, is love, but the Rev. Jerry Falwell, who died May 15, hit the jackpot trafficking in small-minded condemnation. The controversies Falwell generated followed a predictable loop. 1) Falwell would say something hateful or clownish about some person or group associated with liberalism. 2) A public outcry would ensue. 3) Falwell would apologize and retract the offending comment. 4) Falwell would repeat the comment, slightly rephrased.
More ...
By Timothy Noah
Posted Tuesday, May 15, 2007, at 6:56 PM ET
God, they say, is love, but the Rev. Jerry Falwell, who died May 15, hit the jackpot trafficking in small-minded condemnation. The controversies Falwell generated followed a predictable loop. 1) Falwell would say something hateful or clownish about some person or group associated with liberalism. 2) A public outcry would ensue. 3) Falwell would apologize and retract the offending comment. 4) Falwell would repeat the comment, slightly rephrased.
More ...
No, no ... tell us how you REALLY feel ...
Christopher Hitchens expresses a few extemporaneous opinions about the late tower of morality and ethics, Jerry Falwell.
I cannot agree with Hitchen's opinions about the war in Iraq ... but his point of view regarding Falwell rings true.
I cannot agree with Hitchen's opinions about the war in Iraq ... but his point of view regarding Falwell rings true.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Brazil's Indians Offended by Pope Comments
By Raymond Colitt
Reuters
Monday, May 14, 2007; 3:15 PM
(Emphasis added)
Read the rest here ...
It's said that everyone is welcome to have their own opinion but not their own facts. One must keep in mind that Herr Ratzinger is a former member of the Hitler-Jugend and, therefore, quite predisposed to living in a racial fantasy.
It seems to me that in many cases, confronted by conversion by the sword, indigenous people took the approach "How Christian do I have to be for you to leave us alone." That would be why, throughout Yucatan (and MANY other areas, as well), one can find offerings to the old gods right along side the church.
My god, it must have been marvelous for the native peoples of the Americas to have all those wonderful people come all the way from Europe to help them cope with problems then never had!
Reuters
Monday, May 14, 2007; 3:15 PM
BRASILIA - Outraged Indian leaders in Brazil said on Monday they were offended by Pope Benedict's "arrogant and disrespectful" comments that the Roman Catholic Church had purified them and a revival of their religions would be a backward step.
In a speech to Latin American and Caribbean bishops at the end of a visit to Brazil, the Pope said the Church had not imposed itself on the indigenous peoples of the Americas.
(Emphasis added)
Read the rest here ...
It's said that everyone is welcome to have their own opinion but not their own facts. One must keep in mind that Herr Ratzinger is a former member of the Hitler-Jugend and, therefore, quite predisposed to living in a racial fantasy.
It seems to me that in many cases, confronted by conversion by the sword, indigenous people took the approach "How Christian do I have to be for you to leave us alone." That would be why, throughout Yucatan (and MANY other areas, as well), one can find offerings to the old gods right along side the church.
My god, it must have been marvelous for the native peoples of the Americas to have all those wonderful people come all the way from Europe to help them cope with problems then never had!
The stone is cast
by Alan Wolfe, salon.com
Jerry Falwell spent a career demonizing others. Upon his death, what else could he expect in return?
One never wants to speak ill of the dead, but in the case of Jerry Falwell, how can one not? Falwell will always be remembered for his "700 Club" comment in the wake of Sept. 11: "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America, I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'" Even though Falwell later apologized, the damage had been done: A sacred moment had been used for profane purpose.
And that, really, is Falwell's legacy. To the religious life of the United States he made no significant contribution. But to the political life of the country, he made one: He founded the Moral Majority. In so doing, Falwell managed to take something holy -- one does not have to be a Christian to admire the life and teachings of Jesus Christ -- and turned it into something partisan and divisive. Falwell, the quintessential conservative Christian, was always more conservative than Christian. To the extent that history will remember him, it will be as a politician, not as a preacher.
Finish the thought ...
Jerry Falwell spent a career demonizing others. Upon his death, what else could he expect in return?
One never wants to speak ill of the dead, but in the case of Jerry Falwell, how can one not? Falwell will always be remembered for his "700 Club" comment in the wake of Sept. 11: "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America, I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'" Even though Falwell later apologized, the damage had been done: A sacred moment had been used for profane purpose.
And that, really, is Falwell's legacy. To the religious life of the United States he made no significant contribution. But to the political life of the country, he made one: He founded the Moral Majority. In so doing, Falwell managed to take something holy -- one does not have to be a Christian to admire the life and teachings of Jesus Christ -- and turned it into something partisan and divisive. Falwell, the quintessential conservative Christian, was always more conservative than Christian. To the extent that history will remember him, it will be as a politician, not as a preacher.
Finish the thought ...
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
the church of stop shopping
Statement of Belief ::
Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Gospel Choir believe that Consumerism is overwhelming our lives.
The corporations want us to have experiences only through their products. Our neighborhoods, "commons" places like stoops and parks and streets and libraries, are disappearing into the corporatized world of big boxes and chain stores. But if we "back away from the product" - even a little bit, well then we Put The Odd Back In God! The supermodels fly away and we're left with our original sensuality. So we are singing and preaching for local economies and real - not mediated through products -- experience. We like independent shops where you know the person behind the counter or at least - you like them enough to share a story.
We ask that local activists who are defending themselves against supermalls, nuke plants, gentrification -- call us and we'll come and put on our "Fabulous Worship!" Remember children... Love is a Gift Economy! — The Rev
Right HERE, Right NOW ...
Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Gospel Choir believe that Consumerism is overwhelming our lives.
The corporations want us to have experiences only through their products. Our neighborhoods, "commons" places like stoops and parks and streets and libraries, are disappearing into the corporatized world of big boxes and chain stores. But if we "back away from the product" - even a little bit, well then we Put The Odd Back In God! The supermodels fly away and we're left with our original sensuality. So we are singing and preaching for local economies and real - not mediated through products -- experience. We like independent shops where you know the person behind the counter or at least - you like them enough to share a story.
We ask that local activists who are defending themselves against supermalls, nuke plants, gentrification -- call us and we'll come and put on our "Fabulous Worship!" Remember children... Love is a Gift Economy! — The Rev
Right HERE, Right NOW ...
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