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