Bush, Hagee, Osteen, Copeland, Delay - Is It the Water in Texas?

And They Think California Is Wierd!

The state of Texas has tried to pass amendents to its constitution 342 times without success.

It was the last Confederate state to be readmitted into the Union after the Civil War (it never did conform to all the requirements).

It has given us President George W. Bush, Rep. Tom Delay, Pastors James Hagee, Joel Osteen and Ken Copeland. And let's not forget Karl Rove.

Now its 7300 Democratic delegates are battling it out on a decision between Sen Barak Obama and Sen Hillary Clinton.

(From UPI)

Early results tallied by The Associated Press showed that Obama had 839 delegates selected to go on to the state convention, compared with Clinton's 833 delegates. That's out of about 7,300 delegates expected to be selected at senate district meetings across the state. Because of the huge Democratic turnout in Texas' primary and caucuses on March 4, just registering delegates took hours at some conventions. ... Hundreds of increasingly irritable and bored delegates at the Senate District 23 convention in Dallas stood in lines snaking around four hallways as they waited to receive a delegate credential. Police kept people from jumping out of turn. Several called the process "chaos." "People are so confused," said Michelle Powell, 18, five hours after she arrived at the convention. "Nothing is organized." Jacqueline Bell, a precinct chair, said, "The democratic process is messy."

In the Old Days, fights would actually break out between delegates. And don't forget: practically everyone in Texas owns a gun! Will there be bloodshed? Hell, it's all in a good cause (I guess)

Nobody's civil anymore. Will Obama and McCain duke it out like these two Czech officials? No need to have a translation for what's happening here!

And Now a Tribute to a WONDERFUL Lady

Six years ago a truly unique lady passed out of our realm. She was born Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon at Glamis Castle in Scotland (featured in Shakespeare's Macbeth) a daughter of the Earl of Statford. We are referring, of course, to Her Majesty Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. But she'll always be known as "Queen Mum." She loved her family and her people and showed her love in extraordinary ways: during WWII when part of Buckingham Palace was hit by a bomb, her only reply: "Well now we can look the East End in the face." She never gave up her hope for the best under any circumstanes. She was a very great lady.

Parsley, Hagee and The Fellowship: "Obama, Clinton and McCain Can Stay - But The Rest of You UN-CHRISTIAN FOREIGNERS Have to GO!!"

DIVERSITY = PERVERSITY

OK, that's one talk show host's rant targeting gays and lesbians, but to some people it includes everyone who's been in this country less than 50 years. It was only 100 years ago that the U.S. seemed to have another serious immigration problem which the press labeled "The Yellow Peril!" The Chinese immigrant was reviled on an unprecidented scale: he took jobs that nobody else seemed to want (thousands of Chinese died building the Union Pacific Railroad), but his families grew at a faster rate than most of the country. And of course there was also his strange "sinister" culture and "heathen" religion.

Last year, NYT gave a great comparison of the candidate's views and actions on immigration, which, on the surface sounded pretty much alike.
There are some little sound bites, however...



Obama:

Supports a path to legalization for illegal immigrants that includes learning English and paying fines; toughen penalties for hiring illegal immigrants; voted for fence along Mexican border.

Create system to verify employment eligibility. Supports guest worker programs but would like immigrant workers to be less dependent on employers to stay in the country. Supports granting driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.

"[We] have to recognize that we've got 12 million undocumented workers who are already here. Many of them living their lives alongside other Americans. Their kids are going to school. Many of the kids, in fact, were born in this country and are citizens. And so, it's absolutely vital that we bring those families out of the shadows and that we give them the opportunity to travel a pathway to citizenship. It's not automatic citizenship. It's not amnesty. They would have to pay a fine. They would have to not have engaged in any criminal activity. They would have to learn English. They would have to go to the back of the line so that they did not get citizenship before those persons who had come here legally."

Clinton:

Supports a path to legalization for illegal immigrants that includes learning English and paying fines; toughen penalties for hiring illegal immigrants; voted for fence along Mexican border.

Make it easier for immigrants to bring families. Supports agricultural jobs program; opposes guest worker program that can lower wages of American workers or exploit immigrants. Create new system to verify employment eligibility. Opposes driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants.


"After 9/11, we've got to know who's in this country. And then giving them a chance to pay a fine, pay back taxes, learn English and stand in line to be eligible for a legal status in this country."

McCain:

Supports a path to legalization for illegal immigrants that includes learning English and paying fines; voted for fence along Mexican border.

"We need to have a guest worker program. ... Our proposal is basically you can get a tamper-proof visa after your job has been proven that it cannot be filled by an American citizen. ... What do you do with the 11 million people that are already here? ... Make them earn citizenship because they have broken our laws. My friends, thats not amnesty. Amnesty is forgiveness. We're not forgiving anything."

Since the enormous flap over spiritual mentors, shouldn't we also take a look at what they, the mentors and endorsers think about immigration? Aren't there moral questions to be answered? Immigration reforms will effect not only Catholic Hispanics, but Asians and Arab and Pakistani Muslims as well.

Obama's Jeremiah Wright:


Even though there is little evidence of Wright's thoughts on immigration, my guess is that a look at his past sermons will reveal someone who supports "sanctuary cities" (like San Francisco). Today's black churches are struggling with diversity issues, trying to encompass people who are not necessarily in the black community.

McCain's Rod Parsley:

Rod Parsley is one of a group called the "Patriot Pastors". Firebrand Parsley's sermons are not only anti-gay, they're anti-everything - except prosperity. "Patriot Pastors" and its offshoot "Let Freedom Ring" have spawned another group called (overtly) WeNeedAFence.com. “Patriot Pastors”is considered a “vanguard” of a church-based political “awakening.” Can anyone here say the words white Christian theocracy?

Hillary Clinton's mentor, "The Fellowship" (aka "The Family" and "The Foundation")


According to Mother Jones, Clinton has been meeting regularly with The Foundation's women's bible study groups since 1993 and moving up through its ranks. Clinton herself has written in Living History about Doug Coe (the group's leader) and her first encounter with him at The Foundation's estate and how deeply he impressed her. According to one of Mother Jones' sources, a Coe supporter, Clinton "has become a regular visitor to Coe's Arlington, Virginia, headquarters, a former convent where Coe provides members of Congress with sex-segregated housing and spiritual guidance." The article goes on to report that "These days, Clinton has graduated from the political wives' group into what may be Coe's most elite cell, the weekly Senate Prayer Breakfast." But, despite the words she has written about Coe and the reports of her deepening involvement with the Fellowship, Clinton has refused requests by the press for interviews about Coe and her membership in The Fellowship. "But clearly, she is not as scrupulous about her association with religious figures in her life as she claimed when attacking Barack Obama for remaining in Pastor Jeremiah Wright's congregation."

Almost sounds like some kind of "vast Christian-wing conspiracy" to me. And being oddly secretive is not good.

So, which candidate do you think is going to support diversty the most? Ethnic diversity, racial diversity, sexual diversity, religious diversity, culural diversity. They're all in the mix. If you don't approve of just one of them, does that make you a hypocrit?

How easily they forget

Abu Graib - Iraqi Style: Even the Guards Have to Beg for Food!

What?! No Beer?!!

It's 9:45PM (PT) and I'm beat, but in my email was a release from Wikileaks Press. It hasn't been verified and I've scoured the news and blogosphere and haven't seen anything remotely related to it. Hell, maybe it happened several months ago, but I sure as hell didn't see anything about it, so here goes:

Wikileaks Press Release
Thu Mar 27 00:00:00 GMT 2008
SECRET MILITARY MEMO CONFIRMS "UNBELIEVABLE" FALLUJAH GULAG

Excerpts (my own editing) from a memo by Maj. Gen. John Kelly:

I spent the entire day inspecting the Fallujah city jail. I found the conditions there to be exactly (unbelivable over crowding, total lack of anything approaching even minimal levels of hygiene for human beings, no food, little water, no ventilation) to those described in the recent (18 February) FOX news artickle by Michael Totten entitled the "Dungeon of Fallujah".

...First, there is zero support from the government for any of the jails in Anbar. No funds, food or medical support has been provided from any ministry.

...Second, the police that run Anbar's jails are the same personnel responsable for investigating crimes. These jailer/investigators are undermanned and more often than not spend most of their time out begging and scavenging for food than investigating crimes. (It is unlik ely the prisoners will eat today).


... Third, Anbar lacks trained Iraqi correctional officers (ICOS) to run the jails in Anbar. The development and employment of trained ICOS would enable the IP to focus on criminal investigation rather then jail supervision. I believe the Iraqi police are doing the best they can, and they literally begged me on humanitarian, moral and religious grounds to help them help the prisoners by somehow moving the government to action.

No, it's not Abu Graib, but let's just say it's the Iraqi version. It smacks of the time those orphans were shown under abused circumstances, remember? No, it's not exactly torture, but it's quintessentially neglect. I wonder how the Iraqi government will react to this one. Will Al Jazeera have a conservative talk show host telling people that it's no moe than some wierd college initiation prank?

Remember Rush Limbaugh on Abu Graib:

"This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation, and we're going to ruin people's lives over it, and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired at every day. I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You [ever] heard of need to blow some steam off?"


Of course, starvation and neglect are not the kind of pranks you do to "blow off steam" unless it takes you a very very long time to party. Now here's a thought: will the Bush administration slap the wrists of the Iraqi government?

Doubt it. George needs a more diplomatic legacy.

Good night.

Send In Condi!!

11:45 update:

This jail has supposedly been "fixed". Check it out:

http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/2008/03/the-dungeon-of-1.php

Why didn't the military report it? (well, duh!)

More to the point: Why don't I believe it? And why did it (again) take a journalist to point it out?

Benedict XVI Is Being A Passive-Aggressive Crusader (Again)

And the Apocalypticists are having a Field Day!!

By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor Reuters

PARIS: The Easter baptism of an Italian Muslim by Pope Benedict was a provocative act that raises questions about the Vatican's approach to Islam, a leading participant in Christian-Muslim dialogue said on Monday..."The whole spectacle... provokes genuine questions about the motives, intentions and plans of some of the pope's advisers on Islam," Nayed, who is director of the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre in Amman, said in a statement.

There's something sinister behind those sunken eyes and wan smile. Yes, that's very disrespectful of me. But, like many people in the country, I'm a recovering Catholic. I had more than 12 years of very intense theology rammed down my throat - so much that my grandmother hoped I might beome a priest. Sorry grandmother, but the nuns of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Dominican Priests encouraged me not to be hypocritical. So I turned away from Catholicism alogether.

I've lived under Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI, John-Paul I, John-Paul II and now Benedict XVI. Three of them tried to bring the church to some semblance of relevancy, while the other three longed for the old days of the Dark Ages. The "progressive" period was way too short.

In the wake of the Easter baptism of a Muslim journalist who has excoriated militant Islamists, maybe we should question the motives of Benedict: Mike Tippit, in an editorial to Wake Up America probably said it best:

The Pope has kicked off the modern Crusades.That's right, you read it right. The Pope has given his blessings for it, the Holy Church is behind it.God wills it.

NEWSMAX (a conservative monthly magazine) has featured Benedict on its April issue cover under the title: "The Great Crusader"


The word "crusade" means many things to many people, but to the people with long memories, it means a time when Christians launched a full-scale attack against Muslims.


For the first decade, the Crusaders pursed a policy of terror against Muslims and Jews that included mass executions, the throwing of severed heads over besieged cities walls, exhibition and mutilation of naked cadavers, and even cannibalism, as was recorded after the Siege of Maarat. (Wikipedia)


These are the words of Pope Urban II which ignited the First Crusade:

"[...] this land which you inhabit, shut in on all sides by the seas and surrounded by the mountain peaks, is too narrow for your large population; nor does it abound in wealth; and it furnishes scarcely food enough for its cultivators. Hence it is that you murder one another, that you wage war, and that frequently you perish by mutual wounds. Let therefore hatred depart from among you, let your quarrels end, let wars cease, and let all dissensions and controversies slumber. Enter upon the road to the Holy Sepulchre; wrest that land from the wicked race, and subject it to yourselves. [...] God has conferred upon you above all nations great glory in arms. Accordingly undertake this journey for the remission of your sins, with the assurance of the imperishable glory of the kingdom of heaven."


Or perhaps Benedict is more like Innoent III, who called for the fourth Crusade in order to enact the extermination of a Gnostic sect (who still considered itself Christian) as a result, setting off the first real genocide in Western civilization (100,000 dead)

Of course, if we want to be more to the point about Benedict XVI's character and motives we should keep in mind that he was the head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Why should that matter to us? Because:


(CDF) (Congregatio pro Doctrina Fidei), previously known as the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, is the oldest of the nine congregations of the Roman Curia. Among the most active of these major Curial departments, it oversees Catholic doctrine. The CDF is the modern name for what used to be the Holy Office of the Inquisition.

In other words, Benedict decided who was a heretic and (as theologian Hans Kung can tell you fro first-hand experience) who could teach what within the Catholic Church.

"Nobody Expects the Inquisition"

The Religious Right and its pundits are, of course, gleefull about the commotion the baptism has caused. Parsley, Robertson, Limbaugh, Coultergeist must be dancing in the streets with the notion that this overt action will hasten the Apacalypse. Hagee may even stop calling the Catholic Church "The Great Whore".


Here's what Michelle Malkin had to say:

"Allam’s conversion will set off the usual promptings of apostasy fatwas from the Religion of Perpetual Outrage."

Ah, Christianity! The "love 'em or hate 'em" religion.

Did it originate in Isreal or ...Texas?

"We will avenge our God!"
This is based on the human tendency to attach spiritual meaning to world events and the use of religious rhetoric to justify violence. In March 2003 American forces attacked Iraq triggering one of the bloodiest wars of the modern age. Both sides of the war ascribe to opposing religious dogma and the situation is reminiscent of the Crusades that took place between the 11th and 13th centuries. The year also saw the planet Mars make its closest approach to earth in 60,000 years. Mars has long been associated as the god of war. (Shane Crotty's Fotostream, posted on Flikr)

Just a Quick Few Lines

TO ALL THE NEW READERS WE'VE HAD IN THE LAST THREE DAYS - THANK YOU!!

Please feel free to tell me what drove you to the site!

After all, Statfinder can't tell me everything.

Was it Obama?

Was it Michelle Malkin?

Was it Mel Gibson?

Was it the Easter Photo?

Thanks again! Remember: you CAN put us on your homepage for regular feed. We'll give you the VERY BEST posts involving religion and politics.

Dan Vojir

Happy Easter! Barack Obama's in St. Thomas & Michelle Malkin is Barbequing at Manzanar

... or at Mel Gibson's new "church"

While on the net for some research on the Japanese Internment Camps, I happened upon the site/blog of the nation’s official Japanese Internment Supporter, Michelle Malkin. She, like Ann Coultergeist, is a professional hater. She unequivocally adheres to racial profiling. She is the darling of Obama-bashers. So, this was the heading of her Mar. 22 post:

Where Will Obama Be For Easter?

There then followed an article that implied Obama was physically distancing himself from Rev. Jeremiah Wright, by planning to spend 3-4 days with his family in St Thomas, US Virgin Islands.

“Wonder if there are any black liberation theologians holding services on the islands this weekend?"


And since M is an equal opportunity professional hater, she hates everyone in the City of San Francisco:

“Maybe he can make a little room on his plane for those San Francisco America-haters. They need one-way tickets.” This was accompanied by an African-American woman holding a sign that said “Wright is Right!”

More SF bashing:

[On San Francisco’s stance opposing military recruitment] “Good job to the Navy, I say Go Navy Go. Don't stop and, ahh, I think that this should really be the first step in sending a strong message to San Francisco—that if you are going to dishonor the military—the military will not grace your hate filled city with its presence." (The O’Reilly Factor, Dec. 7, 2006)

Ms. M (definitely NOT the “Divine” one) is probably the only person to imply that that Sen. John Kerry’s Viet Nam wounds were self-inflicted:

Another guest on the program (O’Reilly Factor), former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown, noted the absurdity of questioning Kerry's service. "He volunteered twice in Vietnam. He literally got shot. There's no question about any of those things. So what else is there to discuss? How much he got shot, how deep, how much shrapnel?"


"Well, yes," Malkin replied. Her inflection implied that this was not so much a "Well, yes," as a "Well, DUH!" She continued. "Why don't people ask him more specific questions about the shrapnel in his leg? There are legitimate questions about whether or not it was a self-inflicted wound."


Malkin’s idea of a great Easter might be a barbeque at Manzanar, the most infamous of the Japanese internment camps.

So where is the illustrious Malkin spending Easter? As a Catholic, is she a sedevacanist?* Is she spending Easter with Mel Gibson at his Malibu church? Will she get to see altar boys suffering through recitations in Latin they don’t understand?

M loves to see people suffer.

Some people have all the fun.



*Against the spirit of Vatican II, sedevacantists do not believe in the validity of succeeding popes and practice the Latin mass only. So, M might go so far as to hate Pope Ratzinger.


Below are some photos in memory of Manzanar and evidence that San Francisco has something that Malkin seems to lack: heart.

From top left: A Japanese family prepares to enter Manzanar, site of the old morgue, a memorial garland made up of hundreds of paper origami cranes festooning a fence, the gravesite of Sgt. Leonard Matlovich (who successfully sued the US Army for his discharge) and three of the dozens of "hearts" left in San Francisco.

This Easter Christ (and Hypocrits) Will Rise Again - CINO Style!

I will be taking some time off to devote a post to that darling of the poison pen, Michelle Malkin. Stay tuned for a very bumpy ride...

Conspiracy! Conspiracy! Conspiracy! (Yawn)

But By WHO?

And For WHOM?
We Already Know WHY

When it rains, it POURS! At least in the world of racial disrimination. Yesterday was the 156th anniversary of the publiation of Uncle Tom's Cabin. The day before, we listened to Barak Obama's "To Form a More Perfect Union" speech tackling racism and his connecton with a firebrand minister. And before that, was the anniversary of the march from Selma to Montgomery. Today (last night actually), we've learned about government contract employees peeking illegally at Barack Obama's passport.

....And today (ta da!) is the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Disrimination (United Nations).

About the passport-peeking:

"This is a serious matter that merits a complete investigation, and we demand to know who looked at Senator Obama's passport file, for what purpose, and why it took so long for them to reveal this security breach." (Obama campaign spokesman)

Admit it: the timing is too bizarre. Either these last four days have been someone's idea of a joke or there really is something going on with race being the prime mover.

And the professional conspiracy theorists will be out in full force. Pat Robertson will publishing a book about it very soon (in print-on-demand paperback).

Is George Bush hiding something from us AGAIN? Is this George's OBAMAGATE?

Is this a VAST RIGHT-BUT-YET-A-LITTLE-MORE-TO-THE-LEFT WING CONSPIRACY?

Is Obama really an ALIEN?

Politics, like the church, never ceases to entertain the proletariat. And whoever is caught up in this melee will no doubt prove to be an idiot.

The REAL Obama!!

Obama, Wright and ...Uncle Tom

THE SPEECH! and Uncle Tom

"The rhetoric is convincing, but it's just coming too late"

"We can tackle race only as spectacle," he said, or "we can come together and say, 'Not this time.'

Yes, I know that I'm jumping into the blogosphere along with hundreds of thousands of other blogs covering the same subject, but the beauty and wonder of blogging is that maybe someone out there will read it and think "well that's a bit different!"

I find it ironic that Obama's speech fell on the eve of the 156th anniversary of the publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. I looked up the synopsis (hey, it's been about 45 years!) and I realized that my copy of The Complete Idiot's Guide to American Literature made a valid yet thought-provoking point: one of the book's main messages is that "The slavery crisis can only be resolved by Christian love."

The same could be said about discrimination and other social ills: the racial-ethnic-gender-sexual orientation-healthcare-economic-immigration crisis can only be resolved by love - Christian or otherwise. But what has America embraced instead of love? The answer may be a form of Righteous Hatred.

It spewed forth from the pulpit of Rev. Wright. It was sanctioned by his pulpit. Just as righteous hatred against Jews (e.g. radio superstar Father Coughlin in the 30s and 40s), hatred against homosexuals (McCain's televangelist mentor Rod Parsley) and hatred against Muslims (Pastor John Hagee) have all been presented as the inspired words of God by "men of God." In effect, hatred has been given a kind of Star Trek force-field shield in both churches and media across the country.

Getting back to Harriet Beecher Stowe's classic, I came across an interesting reaction from a contemporary British critic as to the reason why it sold oer 200,000 copies in England: "The evil passions which 'Uncle Tom' gratified in England were not hatred or vengeance [of slavery], but national jealousy and national vanity. We have long been smarting under the conceit of America—we are tired of hearing her boast that she is the freest and the most enlightened country that the world has ever seen." (emphasis my own).

Doesn't this sound a bit ....contemporary? No wonder Bush Buzz-Bombs ("Freedom!" "Democracy!") don't work in foreign diplomacy.

OK, I'll get off that soapbox (for now).

Let's look at some of the speech and some of the reactions (mine in red):

It’s a story [his heritage and upbringing] that hasn’t made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts – that out of many, we are truly one. That may be true, but try telling that to some big-time discriminaters: the Southern Baptist Convention, Bob Jones University, the up-and-coming Jesse Helms and Jerry Falwells of our country.

[on Rev. Wright] But the truth is, that isn’t all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God’s work here on Earth – by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS. In other words, he's a walking contradiction: a "progressive" Christian who makes use of the bully pulpit when he's angry about something. Isn't he being just a bit hypocritical about "our obligations to love one another" when he says "God damn America"?

... anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. (True) That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races." Possibly, but to give vent to it means you're not following the Golden Rule. And if you give vent to it at all, it should be outside the pulpit.

Reactions:

"The speech drew praise across the political spectrum, though some on the right questioned Obama's assertion that his liberal agenda could unite different races. But many who heard the speech wondered whether it would be enough to calm the anger generated by the Wright videos. Gerald Shuster, a political scientist at the University of Pittsburgh, found the speech "stylistically persuasve" but thought Obama should have moved aggressively to distance himself from Wright months ago, when reports of his harsher sermons first surfaced. "The rhetoric is convincing, but it's just coming too late," he said.

"He didn't shirk any of the issues -- he attacked them head-on," he said. The speech "will shore up what we can do to help him and say to people, 'This guy is for real.'

J. Alfred Smith, the senior pastor at Allen Temple Baptist Church in Oakland, Calif., and a friend of Wright's, clapped in his living room as Obama lauded Wright for "housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day-care services and scholarships and prison ministries.""There's a lot of anger, but Reverend Wright is a human being, and Obama finally showed that," he said. "All of us from that generation had to go around through the back door, had to ride in the segregated portion of the train. That anger can keep us marred down in the mud, or it can be creatively used. Brother Obama has called for our higher selves to rule over our animalistic selves."

-"As a long-standing and firm conservative, and admittedly an old white guy, I have to say that I’m for divisiveness, because that’s what wins elections for us. America is about winners and losers. WSJ readers should ignore Obama’s speech precisely because he’s a black Democrat. I’m making a lot of money in this economy, and I’m not going to let the Dems take away my advantages."

"My forefathers were peasants, persecuted by Franco, emigrated to the U.S., worked their butts off at menial jobs, every generation after has done better. That’s America. Barack’s part of that picture, not a descendant of slaves. He’s right about black fear and prejudice, just like white fear and prejudice. The elders in my family had their prejudices too…as do I but he’s right. We have to stand together…or fall apart."

Hopefully, that's what Obama is really means beyond his uplifting rhetoric. And, hopefully, he can be up to the monumental task of uniting us.

"God's will would be followed if each person sincerely examined his principles

and acted on them."*

*Bellin, Joshua D. "Up to Heaven's Gate, down in Earth's Dust: the Politics of Judgment in Uncle Tom's Cabin" American Literature 1993 65(2): 275–295. Issn: 0002-9831 Fulltext online at Jstor and Ebsco.

The Last 100 Days - Oh For a Napoleon!!

The Emperor NEVER Had Any Clothes!

Oct 12th - Columbus Day - will kick off the last 100 days of the Bush Presidency until another person takes office in Jan 20th 2009. We all know that George is rushing about frantically to secure a "legacy" - a better presence in history. So what will this lamest of lame ducks do? What will happen until he can bask in his "100 days" of glory?

Let's look at what Napoleon did in order to GET those last hundred days before Waterloo: (From wikipedia)

In France, the royalists had taken over and restored Louis XVIII to power. Meanwhile Napoleon, separated from his wife and son (who had come under Austrian control), cut off from the allowance guaranteed to him by the Treaty of Fontainebleau, and aware of rumours that he was about to be banished to a remote island in the Atlantic, escaped from Elba on 26 February 1815 and returned to the French mainland on 1 March 1815. Louis XVIII sent the 5th Regiment of the Line, led by Marshal Ney who had formerly served under Napoleon in Russia, to meet him at Grenoble on 7 March 1815. Napoleon approached the regiment alone, dismounted his horse and, when he was within earshot of Ney's forces, shouted, "Soldiers of the Fifth, you recognize me. If any man would shoot his emperor, he may do so now." Following a brief silence, the soldiers shouted, "Vive L'Empereur!" With that, they marched with Napoleon to Paris. He arrived on 20 March, quickly raising a regular army of 140,000 and a volunteer force of around 200,000, and governed for a period now called the Hundred Days.

From now until Oct. 12th Bush has to muster enough faith in the Iraq War, the War on Terror, The Economy and ...whatever, to be able to march out onto the White House Rose Garden, approach a battery of media and say: "Are you with me?" In other words, prove he can bounce back to an approval rating of at least 60%.

I hope not. Because if he does, this country has no self-respect and it will have deserved the last bloodsoaked, hypocritical and diplomatically disasterous 71/2 years.

Goya's "Execution in Spain"

TO: Julia, Mary, Murphy, Angels, Sheena and Xena - LADIES, YOU STILL HAVE A WAY TO GO! (and a tiny memorial to Arthur C.Clarke)

WHY IS THIS WOMAN SO JOYFUL?

It's hard to Hate Mary Tyler Moore, but the intro of that "you're gonna make it on your own" girl probably kicked up the ire of evangelicals every time she threw her hat up into the air.

Here are some snippets from our favorite moralizers, The Southern Baptist Convention's STATEMENT OF FAITH:

Article VI. The Church. While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.

Article XVIII. The Family. The husband and wife are of equal worth before God, since both are created in God's image. The marriage relationship models the way God relates to his people. A husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church. He has the God-given responsibility to provide for, to protect, and to lead his family. A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ. She, being in the image of God as is her husband and thus equal to him, has the God-given responsibility to respect her husband and to serve as his helper in managing the household and nurturing the next generation.

And that was their latest "liberal" statement! As the song in Little Shop of Horrors goes: "I'd cook like Betty Crocker and I'd look like Donna Reed!"

And you don't think the MEN of the SBC think the same way? Here are some of them speaking out about the role of women:

[From Southern Baptists and the Role of Women by Austin Cline - Ask.com]

This hostility towards women is not something which is being imposed upon the members by an unthinking leadership. Instead, it is something shared by large numbers of Southern Baptists and its effects are already being seen. In Waco, Texas there were reports of tussles and protests over the appointment of a woman as senior pastor at a Baptist church. A large crowed of mostly male protestors (big surprise) gathered outside the church and one man told reporters “We’ve already believed that women’s place is in the home, and certainly, in the house of the Lord, she has no place pastoring.”

Signs reflecting similar sentiments were visible among the protesters. Among the messages were “Women have no authority” and “Working women equal moral corruption; working mothers equal child abuse.” Julie Pennington-Russell, who was to become that first female senior pastor in any Baptist church in Texas, had moved from San Francisco where people were a bit more tolerant. Some greeting, wasn’t it?

And a NOTE TO HILLARY: you KNOW that there are 16 million voters out there who think that women should not hold public office at all. Geraldine Ferraro should have told you that. Think of the Janet Reno jokes and even the Condi jokes. You (and Bill) would become stand-up comedian fodder for a good long time. You actually started the enity with the "cookies and cupakes" remark. And think about the SBC, Focus on the Family, Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America. Not to mention the KKK, skinheads and Neo-Nazis

This election time, you may have to wear a partiular shade of fingernail polish: JUNGLE RED!

In memory of a great thinker:

Clarke made us think of mankind's evolution in a whole new way. The concept of a computer evolving on its own HAS ACTUAL EVIDENCE in the studies of AVIDA - a project of Michigan State Uniersity where digital entities are being observed in their random evolution.

He also had a sense of humor

Politics: Still the Greatest Show on Earth - But Bush Made a Better Clown Than a Ringmaster

And the new crop of campaigners promises one helluva show!

Or at least their politial baggage does!

Politics if nothing else, is entertaining: it supplies stand-up comedians with almost all their material, it's an endless supply of plots for TV shows, The Seven Deadly Sins never had it so good: politics is the lust-greed-envy-sloth-gluttony-wrath-pride monster showing off his tricks in the center ring of the world's circus.

Bush made a good clown but a bad ringmaster- to the detriment of the country's image. Cheney was a poor sharpshooter, but was entertaining nonetheless whenever he told someone to "go f*ck" themselves. Old Ashroft wowed us with his magic tricks - making obscene art disappear. Gonzales did a spectacular highwire balancing act by telling people that he didn't recall anything. Condi Rice danced on horses asses - a lot..

So what are Clinton, Obama and McCain? They really haven't proved themselves as yet but give the time. What they have featured so far is their supporters: like that little car that spews out all the clowns: Hagee, Parsley, Wright, Farrakhan ... and they're still coming out!

But will Nany Pelosi be up to the job of Lion tamer?

Isn't show business wonderful?

Nah! Washington could NEVER be that artistic!

From My Lai to Anbar Province - Why We NEED Winter Soldiers

But Hey! These Young Kids NEED Some Senseless Carnage To Let Off Some Steam! They're Just Having a Little Fun!

WARNING!: This is a VERY long post. I tried to pare it down, but I kept coming up with things that really needed to be said. Sorry!

Look at the left bar, This Day in History. Sorry, I couldn't help but base this post on that information especially when Iraq's "Winter Soldiers" are now beginning to testify. West Point, The Scarlet Letter and My Lai Massacre seem to fit together somehow. Maybe it's just my imagination.

West Point:

Even though they get a comission upon graduation, less and less West Point graduates are signing up to go gto Iraq. Part of Iraq's "Winter Soldiers" is a website titled: West Point Graduates Against the War Their purpose (I think) is eloquently stated:

Instilled by the Cadet Honor System with a fundamental, longstanding respect for truth, we graduates of the United States Military Academy believe that honor is a basic attribute of character. That we are no longer cadets is irrelevant. We stand appalled by the deceitful behavior of the government of the United States and, in particular, its widely known malefactors. Lying, cheating, stealing, delivering evasive statements and quibbling not only has demeaned these deceivers and the United States of America, but has placed vast numbers of innocent people in deadly peril. We will not serve the lies.

The war in Iraq was launched illegally. It has since killed tens of thousands of innocents, causing incalculable damage to Iraq and the Iraqi people, as well as the reputation of the United States of America. We will not serve the lies.

Comments on the site:

THANK YOU I would like to thank you for your courageous and righteous stand.As a citizen of South Vietnam, I served with the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) in the last year of the war (1974-75).

If there is for sure a God, he could not possibly bless what the current Administration is trying to sell as "America." .... and who calls out pleas of "support the troops"... when, in fact, they hope the ignorant will convert their call to .... "support the Administration."There is a "real" America out here that is not yet dead.... and that your organization is showing the signs to defend. Keep up the good work.

From the initial testimonies of Iraq War's Winter Soldiers
Washington Independent (Spencer Akerman - 3/14/08):

Jon Michael Turner’s tattoos cover his arms almost entirely. They peeked out under the rolled up sleeves of his crisp blue shirt, on which were the medals and ribbons he earned as an automatic machine gunner with the 3rd Battalion, 8th Marines in Anbar Province in 2006. One of them is more like a scar. On his right wrist is the black Arabic lettering for FUCK YOU. It’s on what he called his choking hand, and it was what he looked at to let the anger wash over him when he choked Iraqis.On April 18, 2006 he had his first confirmed kill. "I don’t know his name. I call him the Fat Man," he said. He’s innocent. The Fat Man walked to his house and Turner shot him in front of his friend and his father. "Afterward he started screaming and he looked into my eyes," Turner testified at Winter Soldier. Turner, a handsome young man with a blond beard, turned to his friend and said, "I can’t let that happen." So he shot and killed him. At the conference center in Silver Spring nearly two years later, six giant screens displayed a photograph of the Fat Man with much of his skull missing and his brain exposed. "My company commander personally congratulated me," Turner continued. "That same individual said, ‘Whoever gets his first kill by stabbing them to death will get a four day pass when we get back from Iraq."Turner reminded the audience of the Marine credo: Once A Marine, Always A Marine. But he invoked another expression. "Eat the apple at its core." With that, Turner stripped his medals and ribbons off his chest and threw them into the audience. "I don’t work for you no more."He showed videos of a Marine bragging "I think I just killed half the population of northern Ramadi."... Fighting back tears, he showed images of memorials to five of Kilo Company’s fallen Marines. "With that being said, that is my testimony," Turner said. "I wanted to say I am sorry for the hate and destruction I have inflicted on innocent people and others have inflicted on innocent people. At one point it was ok, but the reality is, it is not. ... I am sorry for the things I did. I am no longer the monster that I once was."

The Scarlet Letter:

Should George Bush wear a Scarlet Letter? What would it be? L -Liar? F- Failure as a President? T - Torturer? Or maybe Dick Cheney should wear: LHB - Lying Halliburton Beneficiary!

My Lai Massacre

This next quote says a good deal:

[From Donald Dzagulones, Viet Nam/My Lai veteran]

"We gathered not to sensationalize our service but to decry the travesty that was Lt. William Calley's trial for the My Lai Massacre. The U.S. had established the principle of culpability with the Nuremberg trials of the Nazis. Following those principles, we held that if Calley were responsible, so were his superiors up the chain of command — even to the president. The causes of My Lai and the brutality of the Vietnam War were rooted in the policies of our government as executed by our military commanders."

So there you have the thread: Students of War - Cause(r)s of War - Aftermath of War.

McCain and his RASPUTIN UPDATE:

I was wrong in stating that Pastor John Hagee was a leading spiritual minister to John McCain. That title goes to one Rod Parsley, a classic among televangelist hate mongers. He too wants the total annihilation of Islam.

Mr. Parsley has called upon Christians to wage a "war" against the "false religion" of Islam with the aim of destroying it. He urges his readers to realize that a confrontation between Christianity and Islam is unavoidable: "We find now we have no choice. The time has come." And he has bad news: "We may already be losing the battle. As I scan the world, I find that Islam is responsible for more pain, more bloodshed, and more devastation than nearly any other force on earth at this moment." He also claims that Christopher Columbus shared the same goal: "It was to defeat Islam, among other dreams, that Christopher Columbus sailed to the New World in 1492…Columbus dreamed of defeating the armies of Islam with the armies of Europe made mighty by the wealth of the New World. It was this dream that, in part, began America." Parsley claims that Islam is an "anti-Christ religion" predicated on "deception." The Muslim prophet Muhammad, he writes, "received revelations from demons and not from the true God."

If this guy can drag Columbus into his thinking, he'll focus on anything. Next sermon: Kermit the Frog as Anti-Christ and how "The Power Rangers will destroy all of false Muppetry."

The idiocy of the man is presented well in Keith Olberman's Countdown (BTW, notice how Parsley is never granted the status of "Reverend"):

The New Rasputins Lurking Behind McCain and Obama

Czar Nicholas Had His Rasputin, Andrea Yates her Woroniecki

and now Obama his Rev. Wright.

Pastor John Hagee had better watch out!

Ah, how religion can make a fool out of any man! How mesmerizing are those titles of "Reverend" "Preacher" "Father" "Rabbi". They place the title holder above and beyond mere mortals. To follow them and their words will surely help them on the right path. To go against them means loss of soul.

Rasputin, that greasy, nasty-smelling "monk" had a hold on the Romanovs that was fatal. Andrea Yates - the woman who drowned all five of her children - believed what preacher Michael Peter Woroniecki told her: to defy her serious post-partum depressions and have as any babies as possible. George Bush may have had Karl Rove to look to in dire times, but he also turned to the likes of Pat Robertson for guidance. Ronald Reagan paid heed to his wife's astrological warnings.

Now, after distancing himself from Nation of Islam's Louis Farrakhan, Barack Obama's spiritual support comes to light in the form of one Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr.

(Wall Street Journal):

During the course of the 2008 presidential campaign, Wright has also attracted controversy for his association with Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam. Wright travelled to Libya with Farrakhan in the 1980s. In 2007, Wright addressed this by saying "When [Obama’s] enemies find out that in 1984 I went to Tripoli to visit Colonel Gadaffi with Farrakhan, a lot of his Jewish support will dry up quicker than a snowball in hell." In 2007, Trumpet Magazine (published and edited by Wright's daughter) presented the Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. Trumpeter Award to Farrakhan, whom it said "truly epitomized greatness." Wright is quoted in the magazine offering praise of Farrakhan "as one of the 20th and 21st century giants of the African American religious experience" and also praised Farrakhan's "integrity and honesty. Obama, on the other hand, has strongly criticized Farrakhan.

The upcoming Presidential ecletion might become an outright holy war between Pastor John Hagee and Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Jr.

Pastor Wright:

"We've got more black men in prison than there are in college," he began. "Racism is alive and well. Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run. No black man will ever be considered for president, no matter how hard you run Jesse [Jackson] and no black woman can ever be considered for anything outside what she can give with her body."
...His voice rising, Mr. Wright said, "We supported Zionism shamelessly while ignoring the Palestinians and branding anybody who spoke out against it as being anti-Semitic. . . . We care nothing about human life if the end justifies the means. . . ."

Great, now we have two MENTORS who want to kill each other! Now, if we could just get Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Rush and David Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Al Franken, Michael Moore, Benedict XVI into the fray, we'd have a most entertaining war. Forget the Presidential candidates, we'll give these guys all the prime time they want!

Jesse, You've Escaped Some Bad News: PWAs Can Travel Again

You Are Now Free to Roam About the Country
(BUT NOT THE ENTIRE WORLD - YET!)

It has been over 21 years since HIV+ people were banned from traveling to our country. But President Bush needs a "legacy." PEPFAR (President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and a pet project of GWB's) needs to continue its funding and Congress has attached some much-needed "compassionate conservatism" to its bill: overturning the ban on HIV-positive people traveling or migrating to the U.S.

This just in:

Federal government policy that for more than 20 years has barred nearly all travel and immigration into the United States by HIV-positive individuals may finally be overturned if legislation working its way through the Senate is approved by both houses of Congress and signed by President George W. Bush.In a press conference call convened on March 11 by the Human Rights Campaign, the Capitol Hill gay lobby, Massachusetts Democratic Senator John Kerry and California Representative Barbara Lee, also a Democrat, spoke confidently about the prospects for such an amendment being added to the reauthorization of PEPFAR, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, Bush's global HIV initiative.

Bush first voiced a willingness to revisit the HIV ban on World AIDS Day in 2006, but according to Kerry, when the issue was turned over to the Department of Homeland Security for implementation, its proposed regulations actually represented a step backward.

The HIV ban dates to a 1987 amendment sponsored by the late North Carolina Republican and anti-gay foe Jesse Helms that directed the Public Health Service to add HIV to its list of "dangerous contagious diseases" that preclude people from entering the country. When immigration reform legislation in 1990 gave the Health Service the authority to revise its approach toward such medical conditions, it proposed ending the bar on those living with HIV. In a backlash in 1993, Congress approved a measure sponsored by Oklahoma Republican Don Nickles that codified the HIV immigration and travel ban.

The director of the Public Health Service has discretion to adjust its list of communicable diseases that preclude entry into the US based on specific epidemic conditions, but HIV is the only condition that always disqualifies a person from coming into the country. Though waivers can be granted, the conditions are onerous and usually prohibitive. Since 1993, the International AIDS Conference has refused to hold its meetings in the US, other LGBT and human rights organizations have boycotted, and of course numerous international gay gatherings, such as the 2006 Gay Games in Chicago, have been hobbled by the ban.As of 2007, only 12 other nations-including China, Libya, and Saudi Arabia - have similar policies on the entry of people living with HIV. (Paul Shindler - Gay City News)

The height of hypocrisy: Jesse Helms Center

(From website): The Jesse Helms Center exists to promote the principles of free enterprise, representative democracy, traditional American values, and a strong national defense upon which former U.S. Senator Jesse Helms built his life and career. The work of the Helms Center involves education, historical preservation and public policy promotion through a variety of programs for students, scholars, and the general public.

Now that's scary!

Of course for almost two generations, Helms has stood for racist and homophobic bigotry:

From: FAIR (2001) :

One exception [to handling Helmms with kid gloves] was Washington Post columnist David Broder, whose August 29 column, headlined "Jesse Helms, White Racist," offered a glimpse into the public record that many other reporters were side-stepping. Broder offered a few examples of Helms' bigotry. There are many.

Ancient history? No. Helms remains unapologetic to this day. Forty years after the Smith campaign, Helms would win election against black opponent Harvey Gantt with another ad playing to racist white fear-- the so-called "white hands" ad, in which a white man's hands crumple a rejected job application while a voiceover intones, "You needed that job…but they had to give it to a minority." In columns, commentaries and pronouncements from the Senate floor, Helms sowed hatred and called names: The University of North Carolina was "the University of Negroes and Communists." (Capital Times, 11/22/94) Black civil rights activists were "Communists and sex perverts." (Copley News Service, 8/23/01) Of civil rights protests Helms wrote, "The Negro cannot count forever on the kind of restraint that's thus far left him free to clog the streets, disrupt traffic, and interfere with other men's rights." (WRAL-TV commentary, 1963) He also wrote, "Crime rates and irresponsibility among Negroes are a fact of life which must be faced." (New York Times, 2/8/81)Over the years Helms has declared homosexuality "degenerate," and homosexuals "weak, morally sick wretches." (Newsweek, 12/5/94) In a tirade highlighting his routine opposition to AIDS research funding, Helms lashed out at the Kennedy-Hatch AIDS bill in 1988: "There is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy." (States News Service, 5/17/88)

When a caller to CNN's Larry King Live show praised guest Jesse Helms for "everything you've done to help keep down the niggers," Helms' response was to salute the camera and say, "Well, thank you, I think." (Wilmington Star-News, 9/16/95)

Like Mike Huakabee, Jesse Helms knew full well that AIDS was not tranferred by casual ccontact, but he knew that he could count on national hysteria to override that fact.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, for Helms), the former Senator is now in a private nursing home suffering from dementia.

Some would say that he suffered from this malady a very long time ago. But no, such hatred and bigotry becomes modified and rationalied under such a diagnosis. Helms' ideologies were always hateful and tinged with megalomania, but never completely insane.

Nations still enforcing the ban:

Armenia, Brunei, China, Iraq, Libya, Moldova, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Sudan.

Sex! Murder! Bible Banning!! Hagee Banning!!!

Banning The Theory of Evolution but

NOT the Violent Crimes of the Bible or Apocalypticists

"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize humankind." - Thomas Paine

We've all seen films and read stories about the famous "Monkey Trial" the Scopes trial - how a teacher in a Tennessee was charged with breaking the state law about teaching evolution. Today is not the date on which the trial ocurred but the date on which the law was passed banning the teaching of evolution. It was the day the state of Tennessee decided to take a stand against "Modernism" and move backward to the Dark Ages, banning books published more than fifty years before and accepted by scientists around the world.

Banning books, burning books is a passion of mine. I correct myself: researching banned and abused books is a passion. I can think of no crime higher than censorship to further explicit ideologies. Withholding knowledge willfully is terribly cruel and inhumane. All knowledge should be available to man at all times. Yes, I'm getting into some pretty deep doo doo here: what about pornography? What about state secrets? Knowledge of any kind is NOT evil in itself. What man DOES with knowledge is an entrely different matter. If that knowledge is used to harm someone in any way, it is used wrongfully. True, some knowledge can be relatively insignificant while other knowledge can be vitally important.

One of the greatest crimes in history occured in 391 CE: the burning of the great Library of Alexandria - burned by an angry mob because it contained books that were not considered "Christian". It was in fact, western civilization's first "book burning" party. As many as 100,000 scrolls went up in flames. It was a time when a person could be imprisoned for owning a copy of Plato's works. Rather than give them up, some people buried their libraries. (Hence, the discovery in 1947 of the Nag Hammadi Library of Gnostic books.)

Other book burnings followed suit. Centuries later, it was almost sinful to be literate: only clergy were allowed to read and write (in Latin). Princes and kings could not even sign their own names.

Only one book, of course, escaped censorship: the Bible. And the irony: only the censors were literate enough to read it. Translating the Bible into the vernacular was punishable by death.

Book banning (and burning) is still with us today, mostly in the form of semi-literate school boards. Some books banned within the past 50 years:

Hamlet - The Merchant of Venice - Macbeth - King Lear - Tom Sawyer - Huckleberry Finn - To Kill a Mockingbird - Gone With the Wind - Canterbury Tales, and...

An illustrated edition of "Little Red Riding Hood" was banned in two California school districts in 1989. Following the Little Red-Cap story from Grimm's Fairy Tales, the book shows the heroine taking food and wine to her grandmother. The school districts cited concerns about the use of alcohol in the story.*

Some over-zealous people have attempted to ban the Bible! (Gasp!) But, if you take a REALLY close look at it, much of the Bible is God-sanctioned violence and murder!

"If your own full brother, or your son or daughter, or your beloved wife, or you intimate friend, entices you secretly to serve other gods, whom you and your fathers have not known, gods of any other nations, near at hand or far away, from one end of the earth to the other: do not yield to him or listen to him, nor look with pity upon him, to spare or shield him, but kill him. Your hand shall be the first raised to slay him; the rest of the people shall join in with you. You shall stone him to death, because he sought to lead you astray from the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery. And all Israel, hearing of this, shall fear and never do such evil as this in your midst." (Deuteronomy 13:7-12 NAB)

Suppose you hear in one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you that some worthless rabble among you have led their fellow citizens astray by encouraging them to worship foreign gods. . you must attack that town and completely destroy all its inhabitants, as well as all the livestock." (Deuteronomy 13:13-19 NLT)

So much for Islam being a violent religion and chastizing unbelievers!

In fact this is what Pastor John Hagee says about Islam in his book, Jerusalem Countdown:

The Islamic religion is a rapidly growing religion that is often controlled by militants who want to impose their beliefs on the rest of the world. Their three in goals are to:

Drive all westerners out of the Middle East
Exterminate Christians and Jews
Establish a one-world Islamic government and religion

"Impose their beliefs on the rest of the world." Doesn't that sound like a Reconstructionist? Hmm.... God sanctions hatred, of course, but only when it's in HIS name. Of course, Hagee is an apocalypticist (dare you to say that ten times real fast) who becomes enraptured when he thinks of the calamities that befall mankind in the End Times.

Hagee must LOVE this quote from Deuteronomy:

Anyone arrogant enough to reject the verdict of the judge or of the priest who represents the LORD your God must be put to death. Such evil must be purged from Israel. (Deuteronomy 17:12 NLT)

We simply must put out a "Stoning Alert" the next time Hagee gets mad at someone!

* From: Online Books, edited by John Mark Ockerbloom (onlinebooks@pobox.upenn.edu) OBP copyrights and licenses

The Qur'an, The Bible and "Two Fu*king Muslims Too Many"

I Swear, I Swear, I Swore

(AP) The grandson of the late U.S. Rep. Julia Carson won a special election Tuesday to succeed her, keeping the seat in Democratic hands and becoming the second Muslim ever elected to Congress. Democrat Andre Carson had a 4,000-vote lead over Republican Jon Elrod out of nearly 49,000 votes counted. With 73 percent of 445 precincts reporting, Carson had about 53 percent of the vote compared with about 44 percent for Elrod. Carson will represent a district that covers most of Indianapolis for the remainder of the year... Carson, whose grandmother raised him in a Baptist church, converted to Islam more than a decade ago. Carson will join Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., as the only Muslims in Congress. His religious identity has drawn little attention during the campaign, and Carson said he doesn't believe it hurts him politically.

Good luck, Andre. The article also pointed out that Carson would be the second Muslim in Congress, the first being Keith Ellison of Minnesota. One of the (mostly positive) comments to the AP article was posted by someone with the tag "grazingoat":

"That is two fu*cking Muslims too many.The last thing we need is this cult of death slowly but surely creeping into our political mainstream. www.jihadwatch.org"

Yes, I checked out http://www.jihadwatch.org/. It purports to be somewhat tolerant of non-jihadists, but the rhetoric is way too harsh for any tolerance whatsoever.

The big question now will be if Carson will want to swear on the Qur'an for his inauguration. When Ellison stated that he intended to do that, the "Christian Nation ONLY" CINOs were out in full force. Dennis Prager (KRLA radio- Los Angeles):

"America is interested in only one book, the Bible. If you are incapable of taking an oath on that book, don't serve in Congress," And: "This has nothing to do with the Qur’an. It has to do with the first break of the tradition of having a Bible present at a ceremony of installation of a public official since George Washington inaugurated the tradition."

And the rest of the CINOs joined in: The American Family Association in Tupelo, Miss. sent out an "action alert" to its 3.4 million members urging them to write their congressmen "to pass a law making the Bible the book used in the swearing-in ceremony of Representatives and Senators."

Prager was wrong, however, about Ellison's Qur'an being the "first break of tradition".

• Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., took her oath in 2005 on a Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible.
  
• Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle used the Tanakh when she took her oath in 2002.
  
• Madeleine Kunin placed her hand on Jewish prayer books when she was sworn in as the first female governor of Vermont in 1985.
  
• In 1825, John Quincy Adams took the presidential oath using a law volume instead of a Bible, - In 1853, Franklin Pierce affirmed the oath rather than swearing it.
  
• Herbert Hoover, citing his Quaker beliefs, also affirmed his oath in 1929 but did use a Bible.
  
• Theodore Roosevelt used no Bible in taking his first oath of office in 1901, but did in 1905.
  
• House members are sworn in together on the House floor in a ceremony without any Bible.

For all I care, politicians an swear all they want on MY Bible. It would be odd, of course, placing one's hand on The Joy of Cooking.

In Creme Brulee We Trust