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April 30, 2007

Screw the Goat

Have I just been transported to another dimension? I mean, in the world I know, if a major company held a press event to launch it's latest product geared toward teenage boys (despite its claims to the contrary), and that press event was themed as a Greek orgy complete with topless women and a dead goat, severed head and dripping blood and all, as the centerpiece, people wouldn't be arguing over whether it was alright to kill a goat. But that is exactly what is being argued about over Sony's launch party in Athens for God of War II.

I first read the event description published by the Daily Mail, and apparently it was written by someone who did not actually attend. According to Sony that description was wrong about people reaching into the goat's corpse to eat its still-warm entrails, as reported in the newspaper. Rather, guests ate warm soup that was billed as offal. Various sites disagree on whether it was or was not actually offal, but in any case, it was not offal from the bloody goat corpse on the table at the event. Furthermore, Sony says it did not butcher the goat on-site. It was killed off-site by a butcher, and after the party it was returned to the butcher.

I have a hard time believing Sony, and here is why. Its latest official PlayStation magazine features photos of the event and asks readers how far they would go to get a PlayStation 3 (the magazines have since been recalled and the spread containing the photos removed, though 2,000 copies were already in the mail).

How about eating still warm intestines uncoiled from the carcass of a freshly slaughtered goat? At the party to celebrate God Of War II’s European release, members of the Press were invited to do just that.

Animal cruelty groups are crying foul over the way the goat was killed (apparently by near-beheading) and their assumption that it was killed solely for this event (though it went back to the butcher). I understand their view, but I don't share their opposition to eating goat or any other commonly eaten meat. What I find repulsive is the mixture of topless women feeding grapes to the guests, a bloody goat carcass, and a focus on the Fear Factor-style eating of disgusting, make-you-vomit items. Death and sex and vomit do not belong together.

Slasher movies featuring the murders of hot young women are horrible. Engaging young men in the scenario by selling killing games featuring sexy women is even worse. When that sex/bloodlust combo is transported out of the game and into reality at a party, we're most definitely on a speedy downward slide. I don't even want to know where we go from here. I just know I'd like to find my way back to Kansas.

(For any animal rights people who may find my analysis callous, I refer you to my earlier posts explaining my views on the matter of animal rights: Fur Defender Says Animal Pain Doesn't Matter, Don't Let the Door Hit You on the Way Out, Take Responsibility for Your Food Choices, and Pro-Hunting Animal Lover.)

(Oh, and I didn't mean "screw the goat" literally, in case anyone misunderstood.)

Posted by Becky at 01:24 PM |

Richard Perle is a french loving traitor

Neocon extraordinaire Richard Perle was skewered in George Tenet's new book entitled At the Center of the Storm. In the book, Tenet accuses Perle of urging attacks against Iraq as early as 9/12--the day after the attacks by Al Qaida against the US.

Perle's neocon compadre Bill Kristol has lept to Tenet's defense, saying that the encounter Tenet describes didn't happen because Perle was in France at that time.

France??? Richard Perle was hunkered down with those traitorous cheese-eating, freedom-hating, wine-swilling, World War 2 surrendering FRENCH on the day of the worst attack against America since Pearl Harbor?

Well...I think that tells us everything we need to know about Richard Perle.

(For those of you who don't get satire--think of this as tongue in cheek)

Posted by Carla at 12:24 PM |

Hirrary is Rike Godzirra

Everyone's having fun with Hillary Clinton's fake Southern accent. The Arkansas News calls it "Sensational, sappy and stupid," the New York Post is reporting that Hillary thinks America is ready for a multi-lingual president, and WorldNet Daily has a hilarious editorial entitled, "Repubricans are rike Godzirra. As for me, I can't help but think of another obnoxiously phony woman, whom I dislike nearly as much as I do Hillary – Madonna, who has also been ridiculed because of her "pseudo-English, rich snob, 1930's film star" fake accent. And it's not just the phoniness that bugs me about Hillary. It's the total self-absorption that it betrays.

I don't have a problem with fake accents per se. I can put them on myself and have on a number of occasions. I learned how to do it when I spent a year teaching English in Zimbabwe during college. The day I arrived on campus I was called before an assembly of students to introduce myself. I gave my little hello speech to roars of laughter. I was terribly embarrassed because I couldn't understand what I had said that was so funny. When I sat back down my guide explained to me that they were laughing because they didn't understand a word I had said. I learned during the time that I was there that laughter also comes more freely to Zimbabweans – they don't view laughing at someone as the insulting thing that we do. They seem capable of recognizing that people are just plain funny, and that's OK.

Anyway, within a few months I was speaking English with a distinctly Zimbabwean accent, and the reason for it was because I was trying to teach these kids and they flat out couldn't understand me any other way. To this day, when I'm speaking with foreigners, which I often do because I travel quite a bit and meet a lot of people from other countries, I speak more slowly and with greater enunciation so they can understand me. I've had a number of people tell me they understand me better than just about anyone else they've met since arriving in the country. My point is, taking on an accent for the purpose of helping your audience understand you better is a good thing. But that isn't what Hillary is doing.

Hillary is trying to go the next step and make her audience believe she is one of them so they will support her and vote for her – it is entirely motivated by selfish interests. And the fact is that she isn't one of them and she doesn't understand them. That's why she makes mistakes like this:

On Monday, Hillary Clinton likened Harriet Tubman's legacy to her struggles with a malfunctioning microphone.

"There may be some bumps along the road," Hillary said at a fundraiser. "You know this reminds me of one of my favorite American heroines, Harriet Tubman. For when she made it to freedom after having been a slave and she got to New York and she could have been so happy to just stay at home and just breathe a big sigh of relief, but she kept going back down South to bring other freed slaves to freedom. And she used to say, 'No matter what happens, keep going.'"

And then there was this beauty:

Her latest offense occurred while trying to rev up the crowd at Al Sharpton's National Action Network Conference in New York last weekend. "When I walk into the Oval Office in January-two-thousund-and-nine, I'm uhfraid I'm gonna lift up the rug and I'm goin' to see so much stuff under thar.

"Ya - ya know, what is it about us, always havin' to clean up after people? I ask ya to join me on this journey. But this is not just going to be pickin' up socks off the floor. This is going to be cleanin' up the guverment," she told the crowd.

I suspect that she's got a very skewed view of African-Americans and she doesn't even realize it. In trying to "connect" with them she is vocalizing some truly degrading stereotypes. And it's really odd because frankly, she sounds more like the blue blooded Barbara Bush than someone who wasn't born into privilege.

And typical of Hillary, when asked, she comes up with a whopper to explain it, saying her Southern drawl is the result of having spent a good deal of time in Arkansas, as opposed to being intentionally cultivated for political purposes (and someone needs to tell her that fake accents aren't her forte - she's no good at it).

Which brings me to the "Godzirra" editorial, which begins by accusing her of doing "an incredibly insulting political version of 'Mammy'" and trying to "till more plantations than Robert 'King' Carter." And it asks – and answers - the question we all want to know: "Who is Hillary Clinton really? Why, she's whatever you are, unless you have a well-oiled B.S. detector."

Apparently, the Left is going to let all this phoniness slide. Hillary's implication that black people all clean up after white people should have prompted outrage from Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, but it didn't. Like so many prominent religious leaders on the right, these two are simply partisan hacks, playing their loyal followers for all they're worth. As this editorial asks, if Hillary can say to a black audience, "What is it about us always havin' to clean up after people?" would it be OK for her to say to a Hispanic audience, "What is it about us always having to care for peoples' lawns?" or to a Japanese audience, "Repubricans are rike Godzirra – they must be stopped." Of course, not (at least not since 1946).

Posted by Becky at 09:42 AM |

April 29, 2007

Where's the pro-life love?

All across America folks are participating in the March of Dimes' annual Walk for Healthy Babies. Meadville PA raised $36,000, Glens Falls NY expects to almost meet their $75,000 goal, Victoria TX raised $33,000 and 1,700 other communities across the nation. But the star appears to have been Chicago, IL where $2.2 million was raised. All to help meet the March of Dime's mission to prevent birth defects (120k born yearly), premature birth (1/2 million born yearly) and infant mortality (30k per year).

Seems like a no-brainer for pro-life groups to support, right?

Wrong.

The Illinois Family Institute ("upholding marriage & family, life & liberty in the Land of Lincoln") does mention the March of Dimes on it's main page, but only to attack them with the insinuation that "for political reasons alone" they are turning a blind eye to some study suggesting a link between abortion and premature birth.

The Christian Newswire, which regularly carries statements from a wide variety of pro-life groups doesn't even mention the Walk for Healthy Babies.

I did find a pro-life blog which mentioned the March of Dimes. Apparently Lauren can't support the March of Dimes because they "are huge proponents of amniocentesis and are quick to support 'options' when the results are not positive."

So I'm wondering where is the love? Where is the professed value for life? Surely these "pro-lifers" don't cease to care once the infant has been born, do they?

Posted by Kevin at 08:38 PM |

April 27, 2007

Extremes in the First Amendment

Three free speech issues caught my eye today. In one, Philadelphia suddenly decided to enforce a 30-year-old law barring psychics, astrologers, phrenologists and tarot-card readers who charge money for their services. In the second, a case eerily similar to that of Seung-Hui Cho, an Asian high school honors student wrote a violently disturbing essay for school that so upset his teacher (understandably so) that she reported it to authorities. The boy was charged by the police with disorderly conduct. In the third, a man unhappy with the construction of the tram in Portland has placed a big sign on his roof, clearly visible from the tram, that reads, "Fuck the Tram."

What is really most interesting to me is that it is likely that the expelled psychics, who probably are offending almost no one, may have very little protection under the Constitution, whilst the high school student and the disgruntled public cusser, who have greatly offended a number of people, probably have quite a bit of protection. Do you agree with that assessment? Are you fine with it?

Posted by Becky at 01:11 PM |

Illegal Immigration: A Tool of Satan

Utah County District 65 has itself a most interesting Chairman named Don Larson. He has submitted a formal resolution that will be discussed this weekend at the Utah County Republican Convention. The resolution, in a nutshell, states that Satan is trying to set up a New World Order and destroy our freedom, but to do this he must first destroy the country. To defeat Satan, Larson says, we must stop the slow invasion that is occurring via illegal immigration.

I've studied all the conspiracy theories on the New World Order and the North American Union, and I grew up believing Satan was a real, living being, so I understand how Larson arrived at this conclusion. But never have I heard anyone actually say such things out loud in public. Wow.

Fortunately, the Republican Party is disavowing any responsibility for or agreement with the resolution. And of course, we are talking about Salt Lake City, where 48% of the population is Mormon and believes Satan is real. So Larson probably did not realize how crazy his statement would sound to outsiders. Like members of Utah's Latino community, who were, shall we say, taken aback by his comments.

"It sounds like someone who is way out in left field, living in some fantasy world," said Tony Yapias, director of Proyecto Latino de Utah and former head of the state's Office of Hispanic Affairs. "He is just an extremist, radical right-winger."

Rolando Murillo, a volunteer for ACELA (the Latin American Cultural and Education Association of Utah), is startled that anyone would believe such a plot. "Everyone can have whatever beliefs they want to have," Murillo said. "In the state of Utah, we're grateful that the vast majority of people do not embrace these ideas."

It isn't the first time that a Salt Lake City Republican has fingered Satan as the cause of some big problem. Last year, congressional candidate John Jacob said that he believed Satan was destroying his campaign by interfering with his business dealings so that he didn't have enough money to run properly.

It's interesting to me that we often will allow ourselves to think things in private that we would never say out loud in public because they would sound crazy. But laugh as we may when people say things like this, the fact is a lot of people believe Satan is as real a living being as Jesus Christ or God himself. So while we're laughing publicly, a lot of people are no doubt nodding their heads in agreement in private.

The belief in a personal God and the belief in Satan serve to satisfy the a desire for a concrete explanation as to why good things and bad things happen – it is not mere luck, but rather the intentional and meaningful acts of an unseen being that caused it. These beliefs offer us a sense that life is not merely a matter of chance and luck, but of providence and blessing, punishment and intentional provocation. They satisfy our desire to believe that we have some control over our own destiny by being good and pleasing God and thereby winning his favor, but that when we don't do what God wants, it surely must have been because Satan tempted us. We know we have a good side and a dark, animal side. Belief in a personal God and Satan personifies this and makes it easier to grasp and more comfortable.

And the relatively wide-spread acceptance of these beliefs is a fact of life. Though almost never uttered in public, they greatly influence the public debate on many issues. Unless you realize that, you will not be able to understand either the fervor or the thinking behind much of what the Christian (or Mormon) Right believes.

Posted by Becky at 12:22 PM |

In Abortion Debate, Words Mean Something

Those crazy Texans. Some overly-enthusiastic pro-lifers in Austin left a live bomb in the parking lot of the Austin Women's Health Center Wednesday, forcing the evacuation of the center and a nearby apartment complex while the bomb squad detonated it. The bomb was described as "capable of inflicting serious injury or death." Considering the crazy tone of the anti-abortion crowd in the area, I'm not at all surprised by this.

Austin Abortion Exposed features the center on its website, where it describes the doctors as "serial killers" and the clinic a "killing center." Red River Church describes the clinic as a "death chamber" that is engaged in "killing children." The doctors are called "roving serial killers" and "contract killers." They even accuse clinics of killing "children whose mothers are poor" because it is "cheaper" than paying "the hospital to deliver a live baby." It is a short step for a true believer inspired by such outrageous, highly charged language to deciding that God wants them to snipe abortion doctors or blow up clinics. Particularly in a state where the abortion rights battle has been so hard-fought.

Posted by Becky at 12:06 PM |

April 26, 2007

Right-Left Alliance Against the War is Possible

I found this very thoughtful article by Jon Basil Utley entitled, "A conservative makes the case against the War Party," and I hope you will read it. It looks at who is backing the war and who is opposing it – and why, where war opponents' political goals match and where they diverge, and how the various war opponents can overcome their differences and work together to end the war. Utley is a writer and advisor for Antiwar.com and a chairman of ConservativesForPeace.com. You'll probably not agree with everything he has to say, but I think you will agree with a lot of it.

Posted by Becky at 12:15 PM |

Christians Who Hate Liberals

How often have you heard Christians claim that liberals hate them? Of course, liberals know that accusation is patently false and that Christians who believe it are simply ignorant about liberalism. But that doesn't stop them from their fearmongering. If you look around at what Christian commentators are saying about politics you can find copious examples of Christians writing hateful things about liberals. Marsha West is a repeat offender in this regard.

Recently, she wrote about how "Christian Kids are too Gentle to Live Amongst the Wolves" (the "wolves" being liberals who have their "bony fingers" in everything). The article is now available on literally hundreds of websites. Other past articles, also widely disseminated, have included, "Radical Feminism: The Kiss of Death," in which she says liberal educators are corrupting children; "Parents, Listen Up!," in which she calls liberals "barbarians" and public schools "government-run-institutions-of-indoctrination" and says that "liberals are grooming school-aged children to become good little anarchists"; "Will Same-Sex "Marriage" Impinge on Religious Liberty?," in which she calls liberals "the enemy" and says that "A good drenching of truth could cause liberals to melt into a steaming puddle of sludge like the Wicked Witch of the West did when Dorothy tossed a bucket of water in her face"; and "Values Voters – Head to the Polls!," in which she says that "liberals are far and away the most morally challenged primates on the planet." She has written many others that contain equally outrageous statements about liberals.

Her latest piece, "Liberals [are] More Concerned About Bears than Babes," has also been widely published on the Internet, including at News With Views, Renew America, News By Us, The Conservative Voice, Renaissance Women, and MichNews.com (a conservative news service). In it she entirely ignores the legitimate arguments and thought processes of liberals in the partial birth abortion debate, choosing instead to see the matter in its simplest terms as one pitting good conservative Christians against evil liberals who think it is perfectly OK to poke a hole in the head of a baby and suck its brains out.

If this gruesome procedure were done on, say, an Arctic polar bear and the public got wind of it, radical animal rights groups such as PETA would bleat louder than a flock of sheep in a shearing shed. Cable news and the three network morning shows would have grist for the mill for days, perhaps weeks!

This begs the question, “What’s up with humans who “love animals” but wouldn’t lift a finger to save precious babes in the womb?” Babies are completely helpless, they can’t speak for themselves, plus they’re members of the human race, so it’s perfectly rational to consider putting the rights of animals before the rights of human beings patently absurd. (Incidentally, Jesus Christ came to Earth to save HUMAN BEINGS, not animals! Certainly Jesus was fond of critters, but He loved PEOPLE. In truth, He willingly laid down His life so that MANKIND could be reconciled to God.)

She then goes on to say that Christians must control the courts to prevent more of this sort of travesty. She has before mischaracterized the liberal view of partial birth abortion in her article, "Hang 'Em High," in which she calls for execution of late term abortionists and generally denigrates liberals.

How does the liberal media react when a Federal court judge strikes down the Constitutional ban on the uncivilized partial-birth abortion procedure? They praise the gods, clink their glasses together and celebrate another victory. In the old west if a baby had been partially delivered then clobbered with a mallet, the killer would have been given a speedy trial and taken to the nearest tree and promptly hanged. And the punishment would have fit the crime. Back then folks knew right from wrong. They also knew a thing or two about justice. When someone decided to commit a heinous crime, they could expect to pay dearly for it. "Fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; as he has injured someone, so shall it be done to him" (Leviticus 24:20).

There are countless examples of other conservative Christians whose lies, half truths, and slander foment blind hatred of liberals across this country. Meanwhile, you can also find countless examples of Christian liberals, as well as secular liberals teaming up with Christians as allies in humanitarian efforts and fighting to protect religious freedom, even that of evangelical Christians, repeatedly.

Conservative Christians like to say that liberals hate Christians because they do not understand Christians. I would say that many Christians hate liberals for the same reason. Ignorance naturally begets fear, which begets hatred. When someone like Marsha West continually writes ignorant articles about liberals, articles that are designed to inspire fear in her readers, the result is – naturally – hatred.

Posted by Becky at 11:58 AM |

April 25, 2007

Hart Williams Kicks Ass and Takes Names

Hart Williams has just posted a scathing rebuke of the Archbishop of Boston for his response to the supposed "anti-Catholic" bigots who dared to notice that the recent Carhart decision appeared to be based on the religious beliefs of the five Catholic Supreme Court justices. It is lengthy, as is typical of Hart, but it is truly delicious. He points out numerous contradictions in the Archbishop's public statements, including the fact that he first credited the justices' Catholicism for their decision and then criticized those of us who were less pleased than he with the Catholic influence.

Posted by Becky at 10:57 AM |

Suffering Over Worm Dirt

Laura Bush may think that "No one suffers more than their President and I do," but one very rude Lieutenant Colonel is sure doing his best to pile on to the suffering of the Tillman family. Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich, the Army officer who directed the first official inquiry into football star Pat Tillman's death, has blamed the Tillman family's lack of religion for their inability to let Pat go and trust the government.

"His parents continue to ask for it to be looked at," Kauzlarich said. "And that is really their prerogative. And if they have the right backing, the right powerful people in our government to continue to let it happen, then that is the case.

"But there [have] been numerous unfortunate cases of fratricide, and the parents have basically said, 'OK, it was an unfortunate accident.' And they let it go. So this is — I don't know, these people have a hard time letting it go. It may be because of their religious beliefs."

…In an interview with ESPN.com, Kauzlarich said: "When you die, I mean, there is supposedly a better life, right? Well, if you are an atheist and you don't believe in anything, if you die, what is there to go to? Nothing. You are worm dirt. So for their son to die for nothing, and now he is no more — that is pretty hard to get your head around that. So I don't know how an atheist thinks. I can only imagine that that would be pretty tough."

Asked by ESPN.com whether the Tillmans' religious beliefs are a factor in the ongoing investigation, Kauzlarich said, "I think so. There is not a whole lot of trust in the system or faith in the system [by the Tillmans]. So that is my personal opinion, knowing what I know."

Asked what might finally placate the family, Kauzlarich said, "You know what? I don't think anything will make them happy, quite honestly. I don't know. Maybe they want to see somebody's head on a platter. But will that really make them happy? No, because they can't bring their son back."

…Mary Tillman, Pat's mother, … casts the family as spiritual, though she said it does not believe in many of the fundamental aspects of organized religion.

"Oh, it has nothing to do with the fact that this whole thing is shady," she said sarcastically, "But it is because we are not Christians."

After a pause, her voice full with emotion, she added, "Pat may not have been what you call a Christian. He was about the best person I ever knew. I mean, he was just a good guy. He didn't lie. He was very honest. He was very generous. He was very humble. I mean, he had an ego, but it was a healthy ego. It is like, everything those [people] are, he wasn't."

As I wrote last week, religious believe is not a necessary prerequisite to being a good person, and sometimes religious people are bad people. I think Pat Tillman, who could have been a multi-millionaire star for the rest of his life and gave that up to serve his country, and the Christian Lt. Col. Kauzlarich, whose callous statements have stabbed Pat's parents in the heart, have proved my point. I would add that logic tells you that someone who believes death opens the door to heaven will value this life less than someone who believes this life is all you have. Perhaps that's why this Christian Administration is so willing to sacrifice so many and why it believes its "suffering" is superior to the suffering of the families whose sons and daughters have died and become "worm dirt."

Nods to Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy for first bringing this sad story to my attention.

Posted by Becky at 10:03 AM |

Thank God for Nerds

Slashdot, a website billing itself as "Politics for Nerds," has posted an amazing bit of information – a smoking gun - that only nerds would ever discover. Not being a nerd myself, I can't say as I fully understand how they figured this out, but they have links and I'm sure other computer nerds will be able to follow it. But in a nutshell, what they've found is that the same out-of-state server that mysteriously froze up on election night in Ohio in 2004 during the highly contested and controversial voting scandal there (and again in 2006) also hosts the Republican National Committee's email system, from which all those mysterious Karl Rove emails were deleted and which are supposedly irretrievable.

I'm more than a little amazed at this whole other world out there of data and servers and all that nerdy stuff that is sadly beyond most of us to easily grasp. But a surprising amount has been written on this stuff and you can start finding some of it for yourself by doing a Google search, like I did, using the terms server rove emails ohio. It's all too techie for me to take the time to figure it out in the limited time I have to devote to such things, but I can see it's going to become increasingly important and I'm very grateful that some nerdy geniuses out there are busy working on it.

Posted by Becky at 09:53 AM |

Giuliani Kissing Up to Pro-War Faction of GOP

As horrible as the President's approval ratings are, and as much as the American people have lost faith in this war, it amazes me that Rudy Giuliani is kissing up to the pro-war faction of the Republican Party. He's actually saying that if America elects a Democratic president in 2008, we can expect another 9/11-type attack because the Democrats don't understand what we're up against and will take us back to our "pre-9/11 attitude of [playing] defense." If, on the other hand, we elect a Republican, he says, we will be able to anticipate and prevent such an attack.

It is more than vaguely reminiscent of Vice President Cheney's comments in early September of 2004, when he said if voters put John Kerry in the White House, "we'll get hit again, and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States." He also warned America would "fall back into a pre-9/11 mind-set."

There's an up-side to having a Democrat in the White House, though Giuliani doesn't see it as a positive: "We will cut back on the Patriot Act, electronic surveillance, [and] interrogation." He thinks that's bad because we won't have as good an idea about what's going on out there in the effort to attack us. Clearly, Giuliani is not big on the Constitution.

Here are a couple of other mind-bogglingly stupid quotes by Giuliani:

“This war ends when they stop coming here to kill us!” (They haven't come here to kill us in almost six years.)

Terrorists “hate us for the freedoms we have and the freedoms we want to share with the world.” (No, they hate us for our imperialistic advances over the past century on their territory and our refusal to let them live their lives as they want to.)

“If we are on defense [with a Democratic president], we will have more losses and it will go on longer.” (No, it is Democrats who are calling for an end to this war and being berated by people like Giuliani for doing so.)

Posted by Becky at 09:43 AM |

Iraqi Police Show Incredible Patriotism

Call me naïve or ignorant, but I can't help but admire those brave Iraqis who continue to sign up to serve as police officers despite the frequent suicide bombings, armed attacks, hatred and distrust by their own people, distrust by the Americans, horrible working conditions, and sectarian political landmines thrown in their way. In Baghdad alone, 67 of them have been killed and 376 wounded in the past six months and in the past two years, 8,123 Iraqi soldiers and police have died and 18,236 others been wounded. Yet they keep signing up to serve in the ranks. You've got to really love and believe in your country to put yourself at risk like that. Am I misreading this situation, or are these men as amazing as they appear to me to be?

Posted by Becky at 09:24 AM |

April 24, 2007

Bottom of the barrel scraping

Its got to suck to be a conservative and/or Republican these days. Especially when the party sociopaths trot themselves out in front of TV cameras for this week's version of "Treason Talk".

Every time these two get in front of a camera I swear that the Democrats in Congress get a two point uptick in the polls.

Posted by Carla at 07:45 PM |

God Really Messed up with this One

Somebody needs to sit God down and have a talk with him because he wasn't very nice to Pfc. Brett Walton. Walton was killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad after having been in Iraq less than a month. At the age of 37, he left his wife and 5-year-old daughter to volunteer for the war because he believed God told him to do it. Walton was a good man and a good representative of the United States. Immediately upon arriving in Iraq, he began showing his concern for the Iraqi children and doing good works. It was downright awful of God to take a man like that away from a family who needed him and then not even allow him to do the good things he could have done for our country and for Iraq while he was there.

Dislcaimer: I sincerely apologize to anyone who is offended by my lack of belief that God actually sent Pfc. Walton to Iraq, as well as my unwillingness to accept the rationalization that God moves in mysterious ways, and to anyone who views my opportunistic commentary on conceptualizations of God as tasteless. This post is not intended to denigrate Pfc. Walton, whom I respect as a brave and dedicated American patriot, for believing otherwise.

Posted by Becky at 11:28 AM |

I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means

Can someone please explain to me how a bill that would allow employees to skip prayer breakfasts and political pep rallies is the equivalent of banning prayer in the workplace? Because that's the claim of the religious right nutcases in Oregon. A group calling itself "Restore America" is carrying on an email campaign trying to convince legislators that HB 2893 is an assault on Christians in the workplace and "will prevent employers and employees from praying or worshiping together - even if it's their own choice!"

It's just another example of the persecution complex in the Christian community. Rep. Bruce Hanna of Roseburg is even distributing an action alert saying the bill "specifically targets Christians in the workplace, whether they are employers or employees." The truth is the bill is simply protecting the rights of workers to not be coerced into listening to things they don't agree with.

The bill says an employer cannot require an employee to attend an employer-sponsored meeting or to participate in any communication with the employer if the purpose is to "communicate the employer's opinion about religious or political matters." The bill also prohibits employers from firing or otherwise penalizing workers to force their participation.

But Hanna is completely paranoid, saying that employers would be so fearful of being sued by employees who willingly attended that they won't even have such meetings anymore.

Here's what I suspect is really going on. The bill was introduced by a labor union. It might be because it's a workers' rights issue, but I think it's more realistic to believe a union would only introduce a bill if it had something to gain organizationally by doing so. I'm betting that this bill is actually intended to ban mandatory meetings in which the employer tries to convince employees not to unionize, or to vote or take some other action contrary to what their union wants them to do. And I think the right-wing is very upset about this. The only thing they could come up with on short notice was this ridiculous nonsense being peddled by Rep. Hanna and "Restore America." And why not? Bring up Christian persecution and you have a huge constituency ready to speak out loudly on your behalf.

If you ask me whether employees should be forced to go hear their employer's religious or political views, the answer is a resounding, obvious "no." But if the issue is whether an employer with a stake in an employment dispute should be able to force employees to sit down and listen to his or her views relating to the dispute, then we have something reasonable and interesting to debate. The real question in my mind, then, is why the union that introduced the bill and the Republicans who oppose it aren't debating that issue, but instead are resorting to a sham debate that capitalizes on the persecution paranoia of the Christian right.

Posted by Becky at 11:18 AM |

Rush Reveals His Immaturity

Have you ever noticed when you catch your kids saying something really awful that ought to embarrass them, to save face they'll say they were just joking when they said it? It's very typical for an immature person to not own up to their own ugliness. Which is why Rush Limbaugh has just revealed himself to be very immature indeed. Last Thursday he said on his radio program that Seung-hui Cho (the possibly autistic and definitely psychotic man who was somehow able to buy weapons and shoot 32 college students in Virginia) was a liberal (a lot of other conservative talk show hosts also blamed liberals). But in order to avoid taking responsibility for what he said, he's saying his repulsive comments were just a joke on the liberals.

According to Rush:

If this Virginia Tech shooter had an ideology, what do you think it was? This guy had to be a liberal. You start railing against the rich and all this other -- this guy's a liberal. He was turned into a liberal somewhere along the line. So it's a liberal that committed this act. Now, the drive-bys will read on a website that I'm attacking liberalism by comparing this guy to them. That's exactly what they do every day, ladies and gentlemen. I'm just pointing out a fact. I am making no extrapolation; I'm just pointing it out.

Newt Gingrich got in on the act, too, blaming "liberal" video games and even campaign finance reform:

Newt Gingrich declared that 40 years of liberalism has caused society to get mean and nasty. Liberalism is responsible for young people losing their souls by playing violent video games. "We don't have any discussion about what's happened to our culture because while we're restricting political free speech under McCain-Feingold,(The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 that regulates campaign financing) we say it's impossible to restrict vulgar and vicious and anti-human speech," proclaimed Gingrich.

Of course, Gingrich also blamed Susan Smith's drowning of her three children on liberals, as well as the school shootings at Columbine. Getting back to Rush, he also said that future school shootings could be prevented if we banned political correctness (nobody helped Cho because, he said, they were afraid of being called "racist") and stopped spending so much time thinking about global warming that we didn't notice the "real threat."

Michael Savage also blamed "liberal scum" because they have "for 30 years handcuffed the police," and Neal Boortz blamed the victims for "standing meekly waiting for this guy to execute them. Waiting for what? The government to come save them" – a description any conservative listener would readily link with a blaming of liberals. And in case they didn't quite catch his intent, he said this was due to the "wussification of America." It's so easy to stray from Rush Limbaugh to other conservatives here, it's disturbing - in fact, there's at least one blog collecting quotes from various people laying blame for the shooting. One particularly egregious example, in my opinion, is the American Family Association blaming the incident on a lack of prayer in schools, lack of spanking, the teaching of evolution, abortion, condoms, etc. (this in a video they are selling for $5).

But let's get back to Rush and what exactly he said that reveals his immaturity. While all the other conservative talk show hosts dumped their horrible comments about liberals onto the public airwaves and simply moved on, not caring that they had offended people, Rush wanted to say those awful things without having to bear the moral responsibility for them. So yesterday on his show he took it all back and claimed his repulsive comments were all just a big joke on liberals.

On the April 23 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, host Rush Limbaugh claimed "I was making a joke" when he said on his April 19 broadcast that Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui "had to be a liberal, " and "it's a liberal that committed this act" before adding on April 23, "I do believe that it was liberalism that got a hold of this guy and made him hate things, professors and this sort of thing." Limbaugh also lashed out at Media Matters for America, claiming that he had made the comments about Cho "as a means of illustrating on this show how the words of conservative talk show hosts are twisted and taken out of context," before adding, "And sure enough, Media Matters fell for it hook, line, and sinker. They had it up all over the place."

I've long thought the man was an immature jerk, but this just proves it to me.

Posted by Becky at 10:37 AM |

April 23, 2007

Georgia School Enters the Modern Era at Last

Color me surprised. I thought segregation ended around the time I was born. At least that's what I've been telling my kids (who were surprised I was that old). But lo and behold, all these many years segregation was still alive and well in Georgia. Until this past weekend, that is. That's when, for the first time black and white students at Turner County High School went to the same prom. I'm not making this up!

The county's school superintendent said he was proud that the kids decided to finally end their segregated proms and said, "The changes needed to come from the student body.''

Say, what? Unless I am misunderstanding what he said, it sounds as if the "adults" in the high school decided to let the kids wait until they were ready to party with their brothers of another color. I thought adults were supposed to lead kids in the right direction, but apparently in Georgia they let the kids lead the way. Or so the superintendent would have us believe, because in fact it was only last year that the county finally crowned a single homecoming queen instead of crowing separate white and black queens. I can accept that the school let the kids organize and raise funds for their own proms, but the homecoming queen election is an official school activity. So it looks to me as if the adults down in Georgia set the tone for racism in the kids. And judging by the success of the first integrated prom, that racism won't be going away overnight.

Only about two-thirds of the school's 160 upper-class students purchased tickets for the prom, blacks still easily outnumbered whites at the dance, and many whites still attended their own private party a week earlier.

"Last weekend was more like tradition. It wasn't racist, or prejudice," said Calvin Catom, a white senior who attended both parties. "This weekend is about the whole school getting together and having a party.''

Tradition? A bunch of white kids get together for an annual school party to which only white kids are invited and this is tradition, as opposed to racism? I'm glad the school is finally entering the modern era, but it sure looks to me as if they have a long road ahead of them.

Posted by Becky at 02:29 PM |

Happy Fifth Anniversary, Ms. Hughes

It was five years ago today that Karen Hughes decided to leave President Bush's side and go back to Texas to be with her family. She wrote about it in her book, "Ten Minutes From Normal." Interesting, then, that today when I stopped by the Dollar Tree to buy a Coke, I saw copies of her hardback book on the racks, having dropped from a cover price of $25.95 to just $1.00. I thought about picking up a copy for kicks, but it wasn't worth the price. I already know that any book praising Bush for his "laser-like" mind is trash, even if her publisher was willing to pay the bubbly optimist spin-meister more than $1 million for the propaganda piece. The fact that it's now selling for a buck tells me America has largely wised up about this Administration, seeing the book as the worthless tripe that it is.

Posted by Becky at 02:02 PM |

April 22, 2007

My life is non-negotiable to me

The SCOTUS decision earlier this week to uphold the ban on so-called "partial birth abortion" has sparked discussion in many quarters, including here at PK.

The views of folks who adhere to a set of specific religious beliefs have been well represented in comments, on multiple sides of the issue. One view not apparently represented is that of the feminist--which I find not only fascinating, but enlightening.

One such feminist view is beautifully articulated in a diary at Daily Kos by Natasha, who strongly articulates why she feels such rulings are degrading to women. The whole thing is well worth reading. But here is a powerful excerpt:

Feminists are often singled out as a type of single-issue voter particularly deserving of demonization at this site. Our adamance, our insistence, it just gets right up some people's noses. Right up there. We are accused often, just as the anti-choicers and the Supreme Court have conspired to have us declared in the law, of not knowing what's really in our best interests. Accused, in the most loaded and demeaning of ways, of being crying hysterics who blow things out of proportion.

Screw that. Let me tell you just a little bit of why we're such demanding, whiny nags, such angry, raging bitches. And let me tell you why a refusal to join with us in our petition for justice and equality hurts everything this site claims to stand for.

This society spends an enormous amount of time working hard to make women afraid. It works. We are.

We can be forced to have c-sections against our will, invasive medical procedures with not insignificant risks to our future health. If we should become pregnant due to contraception failure, we may be given the run-around by medical professionals until it's too late to avoid pregnancy, and then if we talk publically about wanting an abortion we can get death threats and worse. A woman can be dragged to her death like James Byrd without creating any more public controversy than how best to cover up the blood stains on the road. As insult on top of all this injury, and more infuriating things than anyone has room for in a single post, Congress and the Supreme Court got together to declare us less valuable than female farm animals.

Than farm animals? Yes. Because not only is an unborn fetus apparently worth more than I am, an unborn fetus that can't live outside my body and a dead, decaying fetus that's been strangled by its own umbilical cord is worth more than I am. Worth more than my health and future ability to bear children. And a life exception?

If something that might only threaten my health turns out to be fatal to me, well it's too bloody late to grant me an exemption.

I fully expect that there will be irrational tossing of stupid pixels about the "angry feminist" in comments--while blithely ignoring Natasha's very important point: there is an effort in certain areas to devalue women. There are a lot of people in the US that see women as nothing more than breeding stock and laborers. Some of these people are in positions of power and wealth--and some of them may be sitting on the SCOTUS bench.

Continuing to ignore what folks like Natasha are saying is only going to lead to a serious backlash and then a revolt to a place of greatest extreme. Continuing to devalue her and debase her will simply add fuel to that fire.

Posted by Carla at 09:14 AM |

April 20, 2007

Poor Alec Baldwin

There's just nothing worse that making a huge, horrible mistake and then having everyone find out about it. It's even worse when you have worked to develop the image that you are a smart, thoughtful, politically-astute person and your mistake unravels every one of those carefully cultivated public attributes. So I've got to say I'm feeling pretty sorry for Alec Baldwin today. Here he clearly cares very much about his daughter, but has this witchy ex-wife trying to alienate her from him, and apparently pretty successfully, and then he goes and has a terribly immature moment in which he blows up about it and says awful things, and the ex-wife releases a tape of it to the press, and now the whole world is hearing him call his daughter a pig. I've got a few thoughts about this, for what they're worth.

First of all, if anyone didn't know that Alec, or for that matter, any of the Baldwin boys, had a bad temper, you've been living in a cave.

Second, if you didn't realize his ex-wife had major bitch potential, you've been living in a cave.

Third, if you expected that movie stars would behave any better than regular people just because they have money, and you thought that this sort of interaction between regular parents and their children was unusual, then sadly, you've been living in a cave.

Fourth, if you thought hot-blooded people like these two could have an amicable divorce and custody battle, or that any divorce and custody battle could occur without horrible, humiliating, heartbreakingly cruel moments, you've been living in a cave. Trust me on that one.

Fifth, I'd any day rather have had my dad get really made at me if I was avoiding him than what I actually did have after my parents' divorce, which was my dad seeming to forget I existed at all.

Sixth, none of this is any of our business in the first place. The only reason it has legs is because Alec has come off as being so arrogant in the expression of his political views.

Seventh, I'm presently feeling a tiny soft spot for Alec, despite seeing him as an arrogant, puffy hot-head, because I just watched him host a truly great and thought-provoking show on cave men last weekend and I really loved it (gee, at least I can admit I'm emotionally swayed by such things). I guess my point is, we're all pretty weak and wretched creatures at times. But we also all can do great things. So I say, since it's entirely unfair that we ever even knew about this phone call in the first place, let's let Alec get back to inspiring and infuriating us with his commentary and opinions and let him and his bitchy ex-wife sort their problems out in private.

Posted by Becky at 02:31 PM |

Frustrated Over Initiative Reform

Reactions on the right to the potential passage of an initiative reform bill in Oregon have me thinking about how we got to the point where we are today and why the two sides in the initiative reform debate seem unable to hear each other. For instance, Rep. Kim Thatcher, who opposes the reform bill, said, "Oregonians should not have to get permission from their government before they exercise ... free speech." Rep. Diane Rosenbaum, who supports the bill, defends her position, saying, "I would never support any bill that diminishes those rights." See? They're talking right past each other. And it frustrates the hell out of me.

Everyone seems to have forgotten how we got to this point. Here's how I remember it. The right wing succeeded in passing some ballot measures the left, particularly the public employee unions, did not like. Then the right proceeded to try to pass some more. The left and the unions desperately wanted to overturn what had been passed and prevent further passage of measures it did not like, many of which were directly targeted at their ability to be politically engaged. Not only did the left begin to use the court system to try to achieve its goals (ask yourself why Measure 5 was never even challenged on the single subject rule, but Measure 7 was overturned on it), but it also engaged in backroom deals and started looking for dirt to try to discredit those who were proposing the ballot measures. Bill Sizemore handed them their wildest dream on a silver platter.

All the rest of the crap that has been pulled by the left over the years still disgusts me (so does the crap on the right), but I can't see how any reasonable person could argue with the need to clean up the process now that Sizemore and a few crooked petitioners showed us how inadequate our safeguards actually were, particularly since we've seen how the Howard Rich measures all across the country last year involved much of the same sort of unethical and even illegal activity. That mess is such that those who initially focused on blocking measures they did not like now have something righteous to claim as their own so they can feel good about changing the initiative process. I agree that it needs to be changed, but those who are changing it should at least be honest with themselves about what they really feel and make certain that their political leanings aren't coloring their decision-making on this bill. They need to acknowledge where they have fueled the fires of their opposition.

That said, the right is so incredibly entrenched in their victim mentality and anti-left hatred that they cannot see the errors on their own side or the need for change. While those on the left have conveniently forgotten their own faults upon finding a righteous cause, those on the right have conveniently forgotten the errors and crimes their side has committed and see only that which reinforces their feelings of victimhood. If both sides would recognize their own contributions to this mess, set all of it aside, and look at the very narrow problem of initiative fraud discovered by the unions and agree to fix it, we might actually be able to make some progress an a greater scale. As it is, the left has enough power to fix the narrow problem, but the larger matter of distrust and dirty politics and self-delusion on both sides will continue on unrecognized and uncured.

Yesterday, Jason Williams at Oregon Catalyst, whom I know personally as a kind and decent human being, posted an editorial on the initiative reform bill that really disappointed me. He complained that it would make it more difficult to sort petitions because rather than being sorted by 36 counties, petitions would have to be sorted by 20,000 petitioners. This is really a sad argument. The right has been wanting to get rid of sorting by county for many years. They ought to be thrilled by this revision. No more crossing off otherwise valid signatures because someone signed on a sheet from the wrong county. No more having to carry 15 different clipboards at statewide events. One petitioner -- one clipboard. How convenient. But instead, they focus on sorting by petitioner name. I would not be surprised if they have 20 or so petitioners who collect multiple sheets, and those can easily be filed by petitioner name as they come in. The rest will all be single sheets collected by volunteers who had a few minutes to spare, and no sorting will be necessary.

Jason also complained about the problem of disqualifying signatures because circulators make a mistake. Again, the left has created this sort of victim mentality by rabidly throwing out signatures on a whim. Doe-eyed assertions to the contrary are bullshit and just piss me off, so don't even bother to make them. Nonetheless, this bill is not going to add to that problem. If a petition circulator has an ID card on his person listing the initiatives he is approved to carry, then it should be easy for even the most brain dead human being to compare the petitions in his hand to the numbers on his card to see whether he is authorized to carry them. And it should also be very easy for someone signing the petition, if that person is fearful that her signature may be thrown out, to ask for the circulator's ID to check whether that circulator is authorized to collect signatures on the petition that person wishes to sign.

Tim Trickey added his own comments to Jason's post, and he carries on with the victim mentality by claiming that the bill is all about whether the power in this state rests in the hands of the voters or the public employee unions. According to Trickey, the public employee unions who hate right-wing ballot measures have teamed up with the legislators who hate implementing ballot measures, and together they are scheming to destroy the initiative process. In fact, he says, these two groups are responsible for "the only abuses I've seen on the initiative process." Again, we have a member of the right who refuses to see the actual problem and instead prefers to focus on the ongoing battle between the left-leaning unions who found the serious problem and the right-leaning proponents of right-wing ballot measures.

Trickey points out that the bill started out "so blatantly anti-democratic that it scared even the most liberal Dems." For this reason, we are to believe that it still is intended to destroy the process. The logic, however does not hold up. If it was the "Dems" who "watered" the bill "down" to what it is today, then how could they be in bed with the anti-initiative extremists? It makes no sense, but for the right-wing it apparently does not have to. That is why fellow Oregon citizens who work in the Secretary of State's office are "tricksters" and fellow Oregon citizens whom we elected to represent us in the Legislature are "elitists" who "don't trust the voters" in Trickey's world.

And here is the best part. Trickey owns a paid "professional" petitioning company. This bill will hold him accountable for his employment paperwork and force him to hire and train ordinary Oregon citizens to circulate petitions. It will also make petitions available for free on the Internet, cutting out the paid petitioner – and his company – in the process. Yet he has the nerve to claim that the bill "will only serve to strengthen the 'professional' petition circulators, and put the goal of collecting signatures and qualifying initiatives even farther out of reach for the average grassroots campaign." My understanding of the bill is precisely opposite of that.

The entire subject flat wears me out with frustration over the childish behavior and manipulation for political gain on both sides. Can't we all set party aside for once and talk to each other like fellow citizens sharing the most beautiful, wonderful state in the Union?

Posted by Becky at 11:26 AM |

April 19, 2007

GOP Presidential "Kingmakers"

Religion News Service (RNS) today released a list of what it sees as the ten most influential “King Makers” in the Republican race for the Presidency in 2008. The ten are people who RNS believes have sufficient influence with Republicans that they could "make or break a candidate’s campaign for the GOP nomination." Reading through the list is very helpful in understanding the positions taken by some of the GOP candidates.

The RNS list includes:

Broadcaster and psychologist James Dobson, whose Focus on the Family radio show attracts some 220 million listeners who tune in for his views on the merits – and failings – of various candidates. He recently made headlines when he questioned whether Fred Thompson was a Christian because Thompson didn't "talk openly about his faith."

Michael Farris, founder and chairman of the Homeschool Legal Defense Association, who one observer said had "a network of home-schoolers that will do anything for him." Farris was in the news recently when he called police to prevent the gay Christian "Soulforce Equality Ride" group from entering Patrick Henry College, which he founded. Two members of the Soulforce group were arrested.

Richard Land, the go-to political guru for the nation's 16 million Southern Baptists, who has been outspoken in declaring what is acceptable (Mormonism) and what is not (infidelity). Land supports the War and is outspoken on immigration, supporting both strong borders and a process toward citizenship, and his recent appearance with Sen. Ted Kennedy on this issue has upset several of his fellows. He also has flatly rejected Giuliani as a Presidential candidate.

Pam Olsen, president of the Florida Prayer Network, and a mother of four who set up a network of pastors and organizers in each of the state's 67 counties. She gave up sweets for the Lord, believes God gave President Bush Florida's electoral votes because he is pro-life and is a close friend of Jeb Bush.

Rod Parsley, pastor of the 14,000-member World Harvest Church in the battleground state of Ohio, who can use his network of pastors to help a candidate fine-tune his message to reach conservatives. He recently commented on Rep. John Conyers's Hate Crimes Prevention Act saying it "represents the intense culture war between those who trust the Bible as a manual for life and those who reject it."

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, the most powerful Christian lobbying group in Washington whose e-mail alerts reach 200,000 people each day. He and his group have just joined with Concerned Women of America and other conservative groups in a lawsuit to try to force the FDA to reverse its decision to allow the morning-after pill to be available over the counter.

Steve Scheffler, head of the 4,000-member Iowa Christian Alliance, the most active – and credible – religious group in the Hawkeye State. Originally part of the Christian Coalition, his group broke off last year in light of all the scandals in the organization. All the major GOP candidates have taken turns parading past Scheffler seeking his approval.

Tamara Scott, Iowa leader of Concerned Women for America, who has talked with nearly every GOP candidate and is willing to back a candidate who's "truly conservative," even if he's a longshot. CWA recently said that the 140 sexual-orientation hate crimes in America last year, of which more than 90 involved physical violence, were "too few" to justify federal hate crimes legislation.

Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the pro-life legal group, American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), and national radio host, whose blessing on Mitt Romney's campaign was a huge stamp of approval for the Mormon candidate. ACLJ had filed amicus briefs in the "partial birth abortion" ban cases decided yesterday by the U.S. Supreme Court and recently urged President Bush to veto the Senate bill that allows federal funding for stem cell research. The group is also working to convince the Supreme Court to lift its ban on "issue advertising," a popular means by which to avoid campaign finance disclosure, in the days immediately prior to primary and general elections.

Don Wildmon, chairman of the influential Arlington Group and head of the American Family Association, pontificates about politics and society on the 185 radio stations that his group owns across 36 states. Wildmon has been leading a year-long boycott of Ford Motor Company because of its ads in gay magazines. Wildmon also asked Christian activists to withdraw their Evangelical Climate Initiative, which he, James Dobson, and Chuck Colson believed would threaten the Christian movement's core anti-gay marriage and anti-abortion agenda.

Posted by Becky at 11:29 AM |

April 18, 2007

Do We Really Need Religion?

Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe wrote a piece today entitled, "Why we need religion." And despite the fact that I wrote recently about the benefits of "mass illusions," in which I pointed out my concerns over the loss of a unifying belief system in American culture, I'm still having quite a difficult time with Jacoby's conclusion. He writes that atheists like Christopher Hitchens would find "unfathomable" the notion that Boston law enforcement officials would turn to ministers to pave the way in their efforts to reach out to residents of neighborhoods afflicted with crime. He says that religion is indispensable and only those who believe in God will, when it is most needed, reach into the gutters, stick their necks out, be allies of the police, exercise decency and loving-kindness, rise above themselves, love the unlovable, and exercise compassion.

Can ardent secularists, firm in their belief that there is no God to whom we must answer and no morality except that which human beings devise, be good and loving people? Sure they can. And yet when acts of charity and goodness are most needed, it isn't generally groups of New Atheists who are seen answering the call. Who is more likely to care for paupers dying in the streets of Calcutta? Secular humanist associations? Or Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity, who take God's word -- "Therefore love the stranger" -- as a binding obligation? When Boston's police need moral and trustworthy intermediaries, do they find them in an organization that campaigns against religion? Or in the Black Ministerial Alliance?

This is an argument that is made far too often without any sort of substantiation and simply accepted as true at face value. Yet it is not true. First, until recently, atheists were pretty much forced to stay in the closet, so how would one know whether they historically were more or less likely to be involved in community service? Second, as anyone who has ever been involved in volunteerism knows, many people in a community who are charitably involved are neither church-goers nor overtly religious, so it is not fair to assume that they believe in God. Third, religious organizations have fostered a culture of expectation of community service, both because they believe God wants them to engage in it and because it is excellent public relations that also happens to provide a tool for recruiting new members. We should not be surprised when members of any group exhibit volunteerism when it is something their group fully expects of them, and that is why many schools today are requiring volunteer work in order to graduate - the expectation is that these kids will become community-oriented adults.

Anyway, I found a wonderful essay by Dale McGowan entitled "Atheist Virtues" that specifically addresses atheism and charity. She points out that in fact people simply volunteer because, as part of a community, they want to help others and not because they believe God wants them to do it whether or not they are so inclined.

[A]s it turns out, 82% of volunteerism by churchgoers falls under the rubric of "church maintenance" activities -- volunteerism entirely within, and for the benefit of, the church building and community. As a result of this "siphoning" of volunteer energy for the care and feeding of churches themselves, most of the volunteering that happens out in the community -- from AIDS hospices to food shelves to international aid workers to those feeding the hungry and housing the homeless and caring for the elderly -- most of that comes from the category of "nonreligious" volunteers -- not all strictly atheists, of course, but the church monopoly on community service is clearly debunked.

McGowan also explains the faulty logic that is involved in accepting the notion that charity is necessarily inspired by Christian belief:

A fairly mainstream reading of the Christian worldview could easily endorse an entirely hands-off approach to charity. God is all-just, after all. He will provide for the needy -- and if not in this world, in the next. Yet Christians -- not all, of course, but many -- are out there doing for others as a direct and visible expression of their values. So much so, in fact, that the word "Christian" has found life as a synonym for "good," as in "He's such a Christian young man," or "Are you being Christian in your dealings with others?" …

Is the reverse true for atheists? Do we renounce an interest in the good? Not exactly -- we simply frame truth as a non-negotiable highest value.

Again, I'll suggest atheists should be better at living out certain values than Christians. We should be up to our elbows in charitable work, for example, since no one knows better than we do that WE ARE ALL WE HAVE. There is no safety net, no universal justice, no Great Caretaker, no afterlife reward. We have the full responsibility to create a just world and care for the less fortunate because there's no one else to do so. The answer to the question of how on Earth an atheist parent might instill values in his or her children is plain: the human moral mandate is, if anything, clearer in the atheist worldview than in the Christian.

I actually found several atheist groups that serve their communities by acting as an organizational tool for charitable community service. Such service included blood drives, roadside clean-up, and all the other usual community volunteer work. I dare anyone who believes that a belief in God is a prerequisite for compassion and loving-kindness to survey those who deliver meals on wheels, volunteer in soup kitches, participate in walk-a-thons, clean up beaches, etc. as to their beliefs. I will bet that the percentage of atheist volunteers is at least the same as the percentage of atheists in the community as a whole. Because I think people are just people, and their belief in God doesn't really change who they are. Some are good. Some are not. Join any church and after awhile you'll see what I mean.

Jacoby concludes his op-ed by saying a world without religion is an "evil" thing, as we've already seen in the visions of Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot. Pol Pot was an atheist, to be sure, and Stalin waged war on religion. But Hitler was a God-fearing Christian who actually denounced atheism. Granted, he eventually went off the rails so far it's hard to know exactly what he ultimately believed, but I don't think it's fair to use him as an example of what the world would be like without religion. And even in the case of Communism, it was not the lack of belief in God that caused the destruction. It was the desire to control and suppress others, including the forcing of non-belief on believers, that resulted in the evil that we so despise. We see those tendencies in human beings who believe in God just as often as in those who do not. And we see goodness and kindness in those who do not believe in God just as often as in those who do.

Posted by Becky at 02:12 PM |

Catholics on the Court

I'm not really clear on why so-called "partial birth abortion" is ever a necessary procedure and find it utterly repulsive and inhumane, but I can recognize when religion is intruding on a decision, and that is obviously the case in today's U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding a ban on the procedure. When all five Catholics – and only the five Catholics – on the Court vote in the same way on an issue like abortion, what else can you assume is going on? And when one of those, Justice Clarence Thomas, authors a concurring opinion in which he is joined by another Catholic, Justice Antonin Scalia, saying that Roe v. Wade "has no basis in the Constitution," you know something fishy is afoot, and it isn't about partial birth abortion as a specific procedure.

The Catholic influence on this decision is flat out unmistakable and I find myself inadvertently humming the tune, "Every Sperm is Sacred" from Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life." The Catholic reproduction skit is particularly relevant here:

I've got no option but to sell you all for scientific experiments. [The children protest with heart-rending pleas.] No no, that's the way it is my loves... Blame the Catholic church for not letting me wear one of those little rubber things... Oh they've done some wonderful things in their time, they preserved the might and majesty, even the mystery of the Church of Rome, the sanctity of the sacrament and the indivisible oneness of the Trinity, but if they'd let me wear one of the little rubber things on the end of my cock we wouldn't be in the mess we are now.

Interestingly, the Protestants and the Jew on the Court, who worship the same God, were not compelled to impose their theocratic views on the rest of us. With the religious right continually pressing for political domination in this country, we're very fortunate that that is the case.

Mr Blackitt: Look at them, bloody Catholics. Filling the bloody world up with bloody people they can't afford to bloody feed.

Mrs Blackitt: What are we dear?

Mr Blackitt: Protestant, and fiercely proud of it...

Mrs Blackitt: Why do they have so many children...?

Mr Blackitt: Because every time they have sexual intercourse they have to have a baby.

Mrs Blackitt: But it's the same with us, Harry.

Mr Blackitt: What d'you mean...?

Mrs Blackitt: Well I mean we've got two children and we've had sexual intercourse twice.

Mr Blackitt: That's not the point... We *could* have it any time we wanted.

Mrs Blackitt: Really?

Mr Blackitt: Oh yes. And, what's more, because we don't believe in all that Papist claptrap we can take precautions.

Mrs Blackitt: What, you mean lock the door...?

Mr Blackitt: No no, I mean, because we are members of the Protestant Reformed Church which successfully challenged the autocratic power of the Papacy in the mid-sixteenth century, we can wear little rubber devices to prevent issue.

Mrs Blackitt: What do you mean?

Mr Blackitt: I could, if I wanted, have sexual intercourse with you...

Mrs Blackitt: Oh, yes... Harry...

Mr Blackitt: And by wearing a rubber sheath over my old feller I could ensure that when I came off... you would not be impregnated.

Mrs Blackitt: Ooh!

Mr Blackitt: That's what being a Protestant's all about. That's why it's the church for me. That's why it's the church for anyone who respects the individual and the individual's right to decide for him or herself. … But they... [He points at the stream of children still pouring past the house.]... they cannot. Because their church never made the great leap out of the Middle Ages, and the domination of alien episcopal supremacy!

I have nothing against Catholics. It's just that I resent their efforts to drag us back into the Middle Ages with them.

Posted by Becky at 11:39 AM |

April 17, 2007

It's All About Community

Yesterday's massacre at Virginia Tech has a lot of people wondering how this happened and what we can do to prevent it in the future. Some blame "gun mania," the glorification of gore, and the pressure to succeed without asking for help. Some say it is part of a conspiracy by government operatives to convince Americans that now is the time for strict gun control – and the next step is a clamp down on the freedoms of unarmed Americans. And some say bad things just happen and sometimes you can't explain them. I have a very different opinion.

I think it is a symptom of the fact that too many of us feel we aren't, or don't have to be, part of a community. Whether we are loners or rugged individualists or ruthless entrepreneurs or, dare I say it, libertarians, for too many of us community is something we do not value or understand. It is there to serve us. We don't think about how the products or services we buy came to be or the people who brought them to us. We resent the taxes we pay that provide the infrastructure that we all use because we don't think about life without that infrastructure. We're too busy doing our own thing to take the time to volunteer to help the less fortunate and we don't appreciate those few dedicated souls who make personal sacrifices to care for the weak, the elderly, the sick, and the dying. Unless those problems affect us personally, they don't exist in our minds. The result of this massive disinvestment in community is that a few of us become so alone and so disconnected from others that the thought of taking others' lives is not the abhorrent, inconceivable thing it ought to be.

Think about it on a larger scale and you'll see what I mean. Spend a moment feeling your own pain and fear as an American whose security has been shaken a little bit by what happened yesterday. Now imagine the pain that is being experienced every day in Iraq. Yesterday, for example, 66 people died horrible, shocking deaths in Baghdad and Karbala. Did you know that? Twice as many people as died at Virginia Tech. And that sort of death is occurring in Iraq daily - in a country that never experienced suicide bombs before this war began.

We fear for our children and worry how the senseless school shootings affect them. But do we spend even five seconds thinking about the children in Iraq? Are they less human? Are they less important? According to yesterday's news report about the bombing in Baghdad, they are paying a terrible and inconceivable price:

State television aired footage from the scene, in which rescue workers could be seen evacuating casualties. The charred body of a child laid motionless on a stretcher. At least six children were among the dead, according to an official at Al-Hussein Hospital.

The deaths and physical injuries are just the beginning. We have school counselors to help our children deal with the stress of yesterday's attacks. But what do the Iraqi children have? USA Today reports that a study of primary school students in one Baghdad neighborhood found that 70% of them are suffering symptoms of trauma-related stress. These symptoms include bed-wetting and stuttering. Has the trauma of your child over the school shootings reached such a level? Do we suffer anything even remotely similar to what is occurring daily in Iraq?

Many Iraqi children have to pass dead bodies on the street as they walk to school in the morning, according to a separate report last week by the International Red Cross. Others have seen relatives killed or have been injured in mortar or bomb attacks.

"Some of these children are suffering one trauma after another, and it's severely damaging their development," said Said Al-Hashimi, a psychiatrist who teaches at Mustansiriya Medical School and runs a private clinic in west Baghdad. "We're not certain what will become of the next generation, even if there is peace one day," Al-Hashimi said.

Over the weekend, USA Today published another report on the traumatic effects of the war on Iraqi children. The paper told of a six-year-old boy who often will not eat and who refused to even leave his house for a year after permanently losing the use of one arm and suffering burns on both legs in a mortar shell attack. It told of a five-year-old boy who will no longer speak after having watched his father bleed to death in his home. One psychiatrist calls the traumatized Iraqi children "time bombs" and laments that few mental health care workers are available to help them.

We Americans are part of a much larger community – a world-wide human community that is increasingly interdependent. It astounds me that we can separate the violence in Iraq from the violence at Virginia Tech, that we can ignore or disregard the one and be outraged and terrified by the other. I believe that evil acts perpetrated on others are the direct result of an inability to empathize combined with self-absorption, disillusionment, and rage. What happened at Virginia Tech was likely the result of that lethal combination of personality problems in one person. What is happening in Iraq is the result of that lethal combination of personality problems in our entire country.

Taking people's guns away won't fix this problem. Blaming a secret government conspiracy won't fix it, either. The only real solution is to refocus ourselves and our children on building community through promoting volunteerism, respecting all people, paying attention to the needs of those around us and striving to meet them, and truly appreciating the contributions and gifts of every member of the community, both here and abroad.

Posted by Becky at 11:42 AM |

April 16, 2007

Feminized Fish, Boys with Breasts, and Mitt Romney

Those who think it doesn't really matter who sits in the Oval Office would do well to read this. The article is talking about the feminization of fish and enlarged breasts in young boys – and why those two things may well both be the result of chemicals found in detergents, cosmetics and other products that disrupt the endocrine system. The specific endocrine disruptors are called NPEs. Researchers suspect NPEs increase the risk of testicular, breast and ovarian cancers, and may cause early puberty in girls and underdeveloped genitals in some boys. NPEs have been banned in the European Union but not in the U.S., though the National Institutes of Health is advising doctors to look to cosmetics as the potential cause if they have patients experiencing these problems.

But what does that have to do with whomever we elect to serve as the next President?

The three main manufacturers of NPEs are Huntsman Corp., Dow Chemical and Rhodia (a French company). Huntsman Corp. is a chemical company located in Salt Lake City that produces about 90 million pounds of NPEs every year. Company executives, naturally, say the chemical is safe and they intend to continue to manufacture it. Huntsman Corp. is owned by Jon M. Huntsman Sr., a Mormon who is one of the top eight donors to Mitt Romney's political action committee – having given more than $100,000 to it. Huntsman is also the father of Utah's governor and a finance co-chairman of Romney's presidential exploratory committee. There's quite a personal relationship between Huntsman and Romney, too.

Huntsman said his late father-in-law, Elder David B. Haight, who was a member of the LDS Church's Quorum of the Twelve, grew up in Idaho with Romney's late father, former Michigan Gov. George Romney.

Romney's father and mother were family friends for half a century, Huntsman said. "They were almost like my own parents," he said, adding he was one of the earliest supporters of George Romney's brief presidential bid in 1972.

Huntsman said he and Romney became close after Romney took over the scandal-tainted 2002 Winter Games. As head of the Olympics, Huntsman said, Romney restored Utah's reputation around the world — including countries where the Huntsmans have plants.

"It meant a lot to me," Huntsman said, because until that turnaround, every time the Huntsmans made an investment overseas, the local press described Utah as the home of the Olympics scandal. "It really impacted our family's name and our family's corporation," he said.

Huntsman said he and some of his family contributed about $250,000 total to the political action committees organized on behalf of Romney before he created the political exploratory committee for a presidential race the first week of January.

Do you think a President Romney would help get rid of harmful chemicals being manufactured by someone like Huntsman? I really doubt it. You know, it kind of reminds me of the whole tobacco thing, the denials of harm and the massive political contributions to Republicans. And wouldn't you know it, Romney has a Big Tobacco connection, too. His former consulting firm had at least three contracts with Philip Morris. Later, when Romney was Governor of Massachusetts he refused to endorse efforts to ban smoking in workplaces and under his leadership, the state received an F grade in tobacco prevention and control spending in 2006 from the American Lung Association, which said the state was spending only a sixth of the amount needed and as a result, children were finding it far too easy to buy cigarettes.

I'd say his connection to Huntsman Chemical is far stronger than his connection to Philip Morris; therefore, I doubt he would be willing to do anything about NPEs. Just a little reminder of why campaign finance reporting is so important.

Posted by Becky at 02:48 PM |

Ooohhh... Romney is a CULTIST!!

(PK reader Spyder emailed this to the crew here.)

Frank Pastore writing at TownHall.com has his priorities straight and in full public view. At issue is the Mitt Romney candidacy for the presidency. Or rather the fact that Romney is a cultist.

Though I could vote for Romney, my ballot should not be seen as an endorsement of Mor-monism. Conservative Mormons are among the finest people I've ever met, and they are critical allies in the culture war. I appreciate their contribution to advancing our shared values. Yet as we make common cause, I should not be asked or feel pressured to compromise, weaken, or di-lute my theology. Allies need not obfuscate distinctives. We can unite politically and socially to advance our cause, but we must not blur the lines between our distinct religions.

Just as Christians and Jews, by definition, cannot ignore their differences over the resurrec-tion and the New Testament, so too Christians and Mormons cannot ignore the differences be-tween the Bible and the three books of Mormonism: the Book of Mormon, Doctrines and Cove-nants, and the Pearl of Great Price.

Yet many Mormons in recent years have taken to calling themselves Christians, and a grow-ing number of Christians are willing to speak of Mormonism as something akin to another Chris-tian denomination. But, Mormonism is not a Christian denomination, nor is it merely "a non-Christian religion." To be theologically precise, though perhaps politically incorrect, Mormonism is a cult of Christianity (www.apologeticsindex.org/c09a01.html) – a group that claims to Chris-tian while denying one or more central doctrines of the Christian faith.

What difference does it make if Mormonism is a cult if, as Pastore claims, he could vote for Romney? Either it matters or it doesn't.

What Pastore has done here is to very clearly spell out what is most important to the religious right and why they have stuck by morally and ethically challenged Republicans like Tom DeLay and our own Dubya.

Understand that all of the rhetoric about policy positions by this faction of the far right is just that... rhetoric. If you talk like they do and belong to the "correct" church then nothing else really matters.

Posted by Kevin at 12:56 PM |

Kulongoski v. Lakoff

Just read Lakoff & Budner's article on why progressive taxation is morally just at tompaine.com.

First thing that went through my mind when I started reading it was Governor Kulongoski's regressive taxation scheme for funding child healthcare.

The second thing that went through my mind was all of the self-described progressives who seem to approve of this particular regressive tax.

Posted by Kevin at 12:51 PM |

Why Rove Flopped in Portland

Karl Rove was in town to speak at a Republican fundraiser over the weekend, but despite all the hubbub and publicity leading up to the event, it turned out to be a bomb. Tickets cost only $60, but turnout was sparse and the group probably only raised in the neighborhood of $6,000. Thom Hartmann this morning reported that he counted a mere 109 people, not counting press and security guards. The Times reported that 150 showed up, along with a couple dozen protesters. The Oregonian was more generous, saying 200 attended and 50 stood outside protesting. But no matter how you count heads, it seems nobody wanted to pay to see Bush's Brain.

Some have expressed surprise that Rove came here at all, considering he is "probably the second most reviled member of the Bush Administration" (Vice President Cheney begin the first). But popularity doesn't seem to have ever hampered these guys' fundraising efforts before. For example, back in 2004 Cheney visited Portland and attracted 350 people at $1,000 a ticket. Last year, Rove spoke to a Texas crowd and managed to draw 300 people to an August event with ticket prices starting at $200 per person, raising a total of $250,000. He raised $60,000 at an event for the New Hampshire state GOP that month, as well. In fact, during the 18 months prior to and including those August fundraisers, Rove spoke at 70 events and raised $9.6 million, making him one of the leading GOP fundraisers. So what happened in Portland this weekend?

To hear Democrats talk about the Republican Party, you would think right-wingers would be flocking in droves to support their party, but Democrats would predict these things more accurately if they actually heeded their own stereotyping of Republicans. For many years now, I've been impressed by how impressed Democrats seem to be with the Republican Party's organizational machine – and by how little their awe is deserved. Democrats are far better organized at the grassroots level. Unlike Democrats, who have both wealthy contributors and masses of grassroots people who will turn out for an event if they can afford it, Republicans have big contributors and astroturf (fake grassroots) groups. Their real grassroots don't get involved (except for the Christians, which is why they are used by people like Jack Abramoff, Ralph Reed, and Howard Rich). If you don't believe me, just look at what happens to turnout at Republican fundraising events when they are designed to attract ordinary people and the ticket prices are affordable.

Posted by Becky at 11:30 AM |

April 15, 2007

Sorcha Faal Tickles the Imagination

Reporter Sorcha Faal of Pravda, a Russian tabloid, is offering the theory that Don Imus was fired for threatening to reveal secrets about 9/11, not for making racist comments. I, for one, have been baffled why his thirty years of offensive comments suddenly now exploded in his face. The notion that we’ve finally just grown tired of it, that we’ve reached a tipping point, just doesn’t ring true. Surely, something else was at play here. Plus, as I’ve said here a number of times, I absolutely love a good conspiracy theory. So this one is just too good to ignore.

According to Faal, “US War Leaders” grew concerned when Imus told Tim Russert he would start revealing 9/11 secrets in retaliation for the government’s hiding of information from the public about soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s just so juicy a notion, you’re practically driven to lap it up.

[W]hile decrying the state of care being given to American War wounded [Imus] stated, "So those bastards want to keep these boys secret? Let's see how they like it if I start talking about their secrets, starting with 9/11."

Unable to attack such a powerful media figure as Don Imus, directly, the US War Leaders, and as we have seen many times before, resorted to a massive media attack against him using as the reason a racial slur against a US woman's basketball team, but which has been pointed out by other media outlets was not by any means a rare occurrence for the legendary radio icon to make.

But, to the US War Leaders, Don Imus represented the most serious threat, to date, of the growing assault against them by America's media personalities threatening to expose the truths behind the events of September 11, 2001 and the Iraq/Afghanistan Wars; and to such an extent that another American media personality, Rosie O'Donnell, has expressed concern that US Military Leaders could actually imprison Mr. Imus.

Sorcha Faal is herself an enigma, one that is probably far more interesting than her conspiracy theory about Don Imus’s firing. Little did I know when I decided to Google the name of the article’s author that I would be stepping into the world of the bizarre. She seems on the surface to be the imagined focus of some sort of Christian cult with a belief in prophecies of gloom and doom for the United States and Israel. In fact, the conspiracy theories surrounding her run so thick that a reasonable person quickly feels like a schmuck for having taken the slightest interest in anything she said in the first place – and wondering whether, indeed, she even exists or is merely a pseudonym for some whacked out nutcase or maybe someone with a perverse sense of humor.

Getting back to Imus’s supposed threat to start revealing secrets of 9/11, and being bored with the Sorcha Faal mystery, I next turned to seeing whether Imus really said it. He didn’t. Some other people had the unmitigated joy of re-listening to all his conversations with Russert and could not find where he said any such thing.

And what about the Rosie O’Donnell assessment that Imus was headed for prison? What she actually said is beyond me. Her blog posts are interesting, but I don’t see anything about Imus going off to Gitmo. Maybe she was just trying to say his firing represents a clamping down on free speech for everyone, and if so, I agree. If I may stray for a moment, it reminds me of the Cohen case, in which a man’s anti-war message (“Fuck the draft”) was ruled by the U.S. Supreme Court to be protected by the First Amendment because, the Court opined, “one man’s vulgarity is another’s lyric.”

So you may be wondering why I’m even writing this post. It’s because I just wanted to emphasize that lots of things we hear don’t make sense, but in searching for explanations we have to remember that people are out there who will make shit up for whatever reason. And too often, it isn’t anywhere near as easy to spot as this bit of nonsense was. It’s vulgarity, all these lies, but if you step back and look at them in a detached way, they really are a rather lyrical commentary on the human mind – a mind that loves the imaginary.

Posted by Becky at 04:14 PM |

April 13, 2007

Positive Changes Proposed for Initiative Process

House Bill 2082, which reforms Oregon's initiative process, is headed out of committee and ready for some serious debate by the Legislature and the public. If it is passed and signed by the Governor, it will certainly make it difficult for initiative campaigns utilizing paid petitioners to conduct business as usual, but having read the entire bill through and pondered a bit on it, I can only come up with one complaint and a lot of praise.

Let me say right up front that I don't know how Tim Trickey runs his petitioning business because he stepped into the scene after I had stepped out of it, but I do know a few things about how paid petitioning was done in the recent past (at least until Oregon voters ended payment by the signature). Petitioners could show up from out of state and hit the streets the same day with a fist full of petitions, knowing nothing about Oregon or the issues they were circulating. Their relationship with the Chief Petitioner could be very informal. Treated as independent contractors, they bore sole responsibility for paying taxes and they received no benefits. If they didn't pay their taxes, nobody followed up on it because nobody knew who they really were, where they really lived, or how many hours they really worked. If John Doe was being paid $1.50 for every signature and he could find ten other people willing to collect signatures for $1.00 each and give him their sheets to sign, he could do it and no one would be the wiser. If he just got out of prison for identity theft, nobody could stop him from gathering the signatures and addresses of thousands of Oregonians. Chief Petitioners could pay cash out as they saw fit with little, if any, record-keeping, make up out of whole cloth whatever they wanted to report to the Secretary of State, and nobody ever checked to see whether they were reporting factual information. Measure 36 put an end to some of the abuses, but not all. HB 2082 will really clamp down on the problem.

If the bill passes as written, paid petitioners will have to complete a training program and register with the Secretary of State before they will be allowed to collect a single paid signature. Registration will include providing a street address, list of petitions the individual will be circulating, photograph of the petitioner, sample signature of the petitioner, and criminal background information (those convicted for fraud, forgery or identity theft will not be allowed to collect paid signatures).

The one point on which I strongly disagree with this bill is that registration will also require submission of a statement, signed by a chief petitioner of each petition that individual will circulate, acknowledging that the chief petitioner is liable for violations of law or rule committed by the person collecting the signatures. I just don't see how that is fair unless it can be shown that the chief petitioner allowed or encouraged that behavior.

In any case, the petitioner will then receive some sort of identification showing that he or she is registered. That identification will include a photograph of the petitioner and must be carried whenever the person is gathering signatures. If the person collects signatures when they are not registered, all their signatures will be thrown out. And when it comes time to turn signatures in to the Secretary of State's office, the signatures will be sorted by petitioner, rather than by county.

These changes will make it much more difficult for initiative campaigns to attract the out-of-state petitioners because those individuals tend to want every day to count and will not be very willing to come to Oregon if they must spend several days passing a training course and obtaining registration identification before being allowed to begin work. They are already threatening not to work in Oregon because of the hourly pay requirement, as opposed to per-signature payment. Somehow I don't believe they will be missed all that much by most of us.

All around it seems the bill is making changes aimed directly at encouraging volunteer signature gathering. For example, signature sheets for volunteers will now be a different color from sheets circulated by paid petitioners. People signing a petition will be able to discern immediately whether the circulator is a volunteer. And sheets will now be available on the Internet for downloading and signing by anyone who supports the measure. A person won't have to go looking for someone carrying the petition. If they want to sign it, they can print it out themselves, sign it, and mail it in to the Chief Petitioner. This will be a great tool for legitimate grassroots groups. I can see the potential for someone to collect sufficient signatures without ever stepping foot on the street with a clipboard.

Of course, if the Chief Petitioner is actually just someone who has lent his or her name to the effort so as to obfuscate whose initiative it really is, that person will have to be willing to receive a heck of a lot of these individually signed petitions in the mail at his or her home.

The most sweeping change to the initiative process that this bill proposes is the record-keeping that will be required and the review of those records. Here are some changes that are long overdue. Detailed records will have to be kept pertaining to all contractors and subcontractors, employment or training manuals, payroll records that include hours worked, number of signatures collected and amounts paid (I would have given my left arm for such records when I was trying to do Sizemore's reports), payments made by the chief petitioner or contractor, and copies of all paid signature sheets. The records must be kept current to within 7 days at all times and be reviewed regularly by the Secretary of State. The Attorney General and Bureau of Labor and Industries may also inspect the records. All these records must also be kept for two years after the deadline for filing the signatures or the date the last statement of contributions and expenditures for the drive has been filed. If the records are not made available for inspection and review as required, then no more signatures may be collected on the initiative until they are made available.

The bill also increases the number of signatures needed to file a measure from 25 to 1,000. I think that is a fair compromise – any more would be problematic in the case that the Attorney General's office plays politics with a ballot title, thereby forcing a re-write (this does happen, heartfelt assertions to the contrary notwithstanding). This provision will prevent some of the whimsical filings by certain prolific writers (we all know who) who don't actually intend to pursue all those ideas, unless they happen to get a surprisingly uncontested and awesome ballot title, as occurred with what became Measure 7 back in 2000.

Another change would be to allow minor, unsubstantial changes to the wording of the measure without having to re-collect the 1000 signatures, so long as the deadline for written comments has not passed. This will allow for things like spelling, punctuation, and grammar changes, fixing legalese, or whatever other minor changes the Attorney General agrees will not "substantially change the substance of the measure." I'm a bit concerned about the level of discretion there, but not being an attorney I can't say whether it's legally permissible or not.

Finally, the wording of the affidavit on the petition has been changed so that the circulator signs a statement that he or she actually witnessed the signing of the petition, rather than that the petition was merely signed in his or her presence. This will prevent some of the carelessness that has occurred in the past with signature sheets being left out on counters or tables to be signed.

If the Legislature will dump the liability of the Chief Petitioner for whatever a signature gatherer does while out gathering signatures, then I can give my full support to this bill. I think it will make a very big difference in the process, making it far more difficult to continue with the sort of unscrupulous petitioning practices by some in the business while avoiding killing the process for everyone else. I'm pleasantly surprised by it and congratulate the committee for coming up with some substantive changes that will really make a positive difference.

Posted by Becky at 04:18 PM |

The Benefits of Mass Illusion

I think probably the primary reason I am so interested in both religion and politics is that both involve belief systems that are so fervent that people are readily willing to toss aside facts and reason if either challenges their belief system. I personally have never believed in anything so much that my belief was impervious to fact and reason. I've certainly been stubborn enough that it took some time to break through, but a break-through has always been possible. So I am fascinated with the mindset that would lead someone to remain loyal to a belief system - an illusion - no matter what logic and evidence tell them.

I think it was out of fear of people who think like I do that the Bible was infused with repeated admonitions to set aside one's own wisdom and trust in scripture, as well as predictions of wiley deceptions on the part of the Devil. Such admonitions are common in most religions, serving to prevent people from straying from the shared illusion, and thereby helping retain the cohesiveness and strength of the group.

Right now, American society is going through a fundamental cultural shift based on factual challenges to its traditional belief systems, both political and religious. The shift is creating a good deal of discomfort because we are less and less culturally unified. People who are traditionalists are doing their best to scare people back into the fold and prevent others from straying out of it. To be more blunt, in response to science and massive communication, the world is steadily letting go of its mass illusions, and political and religious traditions are increasingly feeling out of sync with the cultures where they are based.

At the same time, others who perceive the momentum is building behind a cultural shift are working to find a way to moderate their belief systems so as not to lose them entirely. This, in my opinion, is where we get the more progressive approach to Christianity. Episcopal bishop John Shelby Spong is, in my opinion, one of those who is helping preserve the Christian tradition in a time of massive cultural changes by carving off the fundamentalist edges and making it more of a malleable belief system. He says he is embarrassed by religion in America today and says that "If that's what Christianity is all about, then I'm not really interested in that."

I don't have any objection to people making their theories, but when somebody says, 'This is the only way you can be a Christian,' that this is what the resurrection means and there is no other possibility, I think that becomes not only ill-informed, but biblically arrogant. And that's what fundamentalism always comes down to being, that we have the only truth.

Of course, this perspective is heretical and frightening to the fundamentalist. Religious and political beliefs have a lot to do with security. Some people just feel better if they think they have it all figured out. Change and uncertainty are feared. In the past, these fundamentalists had an easier time blending in with society at large. But America's modern mobility and pervasive, rapid technological advances have created a huge cultural shift among the younger generation, who, unlike their parents, embrace change and are stimulated by the possibilities in the face of uncertainty. So religion that teaches there are many approaches to God, or that we can't totally figure God out, or that each of us must find our own spiritual path are growing in popularity with the young, while fundamentalism is increasingly out of step with the culture.

This cultural change seems to be occurring on a worldwide basis. One of many examples of this is a new poll in Ireland that finds that 82% of parents will allow their children to choose their own religion. Thirty years ago, only 7% of Irish parents said they would not force their children to join the Catholic Church. If these people fervently believed in their religion, they would raise their children to believe it, too. After all, who wants their children to burn in Hell? But with knowledge has come a loss of blind, fervent belief - and with it, a loss of a unifying element of culture.

People are right to be concerned when the culture lacks a core set of beliefs, no matter how delusional they may be. I myself am very concerned about the damage to our national unity as a result of President Bush's having pushed credulity so far with regards to our self-image as a light in the world that our national identity has, for many, been shattered. A lot of us have realized with horror that our self-perception does not match the perception that others have of us, and that makes it hard for us to rally around the flag with the same fervor that we did before (not for lack of love of country, but for uncertainty about what, precisely, we are supporting). Too many people set adrift at once makes us vulnerable. With such massive shifts in religion and politics, it is no wonder we're all feeling uneasy and confused. We have no unifying illusions.

Regis Debra, who worked with Castro, fought with Che, and advised Mitterand, said something very interesting that fits in with this issue:

Debray sees illusion not as personal shortcoming, but as a profound historical force. Returning to university at 54, he completed a doctorate on the religious instinct throughout history. “Men have to choose between a lucidity which immobilizes, and movement driven by illusion. The moment there is action, collective action, the imaginary has taken hold. All great illusions, be it Christianity, or Communism, the last great Christian heresy, pull us upwards.” He adds: “Politics is a religion. Science may be truth, but no society, no nation has ever been founded on it. As Nietzsche said, ‘Rather perish truth than life’.”

The real question in my mind is how long it will take for us to find some unifying cultural belief system, whether real or imaginary, that will enable us to regain and hold on to our place in the world. If we aren't able to pull together, I'm concerned that other cultures that are more unified will find us relatively easy to topple. I suspect this fear, though not understood by traditionalists, is the real driving force behind their own strident efforts to resist cultural change.

Of course, I could be delusional.

Posted by Becky at 12:14 PM |

April 11, 2007

Perhaps I'm just jaded...

But the first thing that ran through my mind when I read this news story about an AP photographer who has been imprisoned for a year in Iraq without charge is that he must have seen something that BushCo and their Iraqi allies would prefer to keep under cover.

Posted by Kevin at 02:43 PM |

We Love to Hate

I'm flabbergasted at how far this Imus thing has gone, really. He's been spewing this crap for a really long time, and all of a sudden you'd think someone dropped a nuclear bomb on downtown Los Angeles by the amount of coverage of his comments. What the heck? Have people just finally had it with this sort of talk? Just think about all the racist, bigoted, homophobic, sexist, hate speech that we've heard and to a large degree overlooked through the years and then someone explain to me why this level of outrage is being exhibited right now:

Michael Savage has called Arabs "inhuman," referred to non-white countries as "turd world nations," accused Latino immigrants of "defecating" on the country and "breeding like rabbits," said that "as soon as America starts to look and stink like the Third World, they'll feel more at home," poked fun at what he called the "Million Dyke March," said American children killed in gun violence are "not kids, they're ghetto slime," said student volunteers giving food to the homeless did it because they wanted to "be raped in a dumpster while giving out a turkey sandwich," called the homeless "living rats," called Asians "little soy eaters" and "little devils," called Mahatma Gandhi a "diaper-wearing moron," and called Charles Barkley "a dumb basketball player" who "couldn't shine my shoes." He's still on the air.

Rush Limbaugh once told a black caller to "take that bone out of your nose and call me back," commented that "all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson," said the NAACP "should have riot rehearsal" and "get a liquor store and practice robberies," assigned the "Movin' On Up" theme song from the Jeffersons as the theme song for Carol Moseley-Braun, uses the word "ax" instead of "ask" when talking about black leaders, called the Latino father of Madonna's first child "a gang-member type guy" simply because of his race, and once told a caller that black people are "12 percent of the population" and "who the hell cares" what they think. He's still on the air.

Bill Bennett once said, "I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could – if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down." He explained himself and was allowed to put the incident behind him.

Adam Carolla last year referred to the Asian Excellence Awards as a joke and mockingly used the sounds "ching-chong" in recreating a segment of the awards which were actually done in English. I guess making fun of Asians is still socially acceptable.

Star (Troi Terrain), of the "Star and Buc Wild" radio show spewed an amazing bit of venom at an Indian woman who was answering the phone for a product marketed on television. He asked her "what the 'F'" she would "know about an American white girl's, hair," called her a "bitch" repeatedly, threatened to "choke the 'F'" out of her, and called her a "filthy rat eater." Did you ever hear about it?

Of course, there's no need rehash Bill O'Reilly's sexist issues. And he's as popular as ever.

Dennis Prager opposed Rep. Ellison's swearing in on the Koran "because the act undermines American civilization." But he's a pillar of moral virtue in the eyes of the right.

No doubt there's a ton more of this out there. And you have to wonder why. Why do we flip out over some hateful comments and think nothing of others? I mean, is Ann Coulter's having called Muslims "bipolar" and "ragheads" inherently worse than her statements that "liberals are always against America. They are either traitors or idiots"? Was it worse when Neil Boortz said Cynthia McKinney looked like a "ghetto slut" or when he said teachers' unions were "much more dangerous than al Qaeda" and were "destroying a generation," and Sean Hannity agreed?

I've been thinking about this a lot over the past couple of days because that's all anyone is talking about. And I've come to the conclusion that this current uproar over Imus's highly offensive comments is not about racism or sexism at all.

People like Imus and Savage and Rush and Coulter are still around because truth be told, Americans love to hate, but we do it vicariously through our favorite hate spewers. And now here, all of a sudden, we've been handed this golden opportunity to openly gorge ourselves on hatred and feel morally superior all at the same time. We're all satisfying our addiction to hatred by participating in a massive hate-Don-Imus orgy. And as with any addiction, this indulgence won't do a damned thing to cure the problem. In fact, it just may make it worse.

Posted by Becky at 01:43 PM |

Give 'em hell, Howard!!

Speaking to a Christian college audience of evangelicals in Pennsylvania Howard Dean exhibited the trait that made me into a Deaniac. Howard bluntly warned the new Democratic Congress:

"You don't get a free pass," Dean said.

"Our object was not to get you into power because we are Democrats - our object was to get you into power so you actually do something," he said. "And if you don't, we are not going to stand up and keep you.

"We want change. It wasn't about the Democratic Party. It was about the country."

(hat tip to Blue Oregon)

Posted by Kevin at 12:53 PM |

Suggested Reading

Sometimes, people write editorials that stand out all on their own, no commentary necessary. I've run across several such pieces today and recommend the following to you:

First, Peter Schrag offers a lesson in Bush scandals. Go test your own knowledge with his Bush-era trivia contest.

Second, it is always interesting to try to understand the evolution of the evangelical movement and its impact on politics. Learn more about this in Frances FitzGerald's "The Evangelical Surprise."

Finally, if you're not Imus'ed out, you'll surely enjoy reading why Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, as Christian ministers, are in the wrong in their handling of Imus. While you're at it, find out why they are evil, too.

Posted by Becky at 10:40 AM |

Who's Using Who?

When I came out to the kitchen to pour myself a cup of coffee this morning, my husband was watching Fox News. I found myself tightening up immediately because the topic of discussion, once again, was Don Imus (please, please make it go away!). Then the station went to a commercial break. And that's when I about swallowed my teeth. The commercial was for the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews and was urging Americans to sign a petition asking the President to protect Israel from its enemies, who, it said, are swarming like bees. But the clear visual subtext was that Iran is an imminent, dire threat to Israel – and in today's political climate, that means the ad is asking for an outpouring of support for war against Iran. You can watch the ad yourself here.

So I decided to find out what I could about this IFCJ group and its leadership. What I found was quite enlightening. Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, who founded the group, was profiled a couple of years ago by the New York Times. The story is well worth reading in its entirety, but here is a choice bit:

Unemployed, Eckstein established his own organization, which he grandly dubbed the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. Soon he was making the rounds of fundamentalist and Pentecostal churches, preaching a gospel of Jewish-evangelical solidarity. By this time, American Jewry had been thoroughly worked over by enterprising fund-raisers. But Eckstein found himself in virgin territory. Evangelicals badly wanted to express their love for Israel in a personal way. It was Eckstein's insight that nothing is more personal than a personal check.

Rabbi Eckstein is clearly reaching out to the Christian Right with his advertisement, but the interesting thing is that he is a Democrat. Very interesting, considering his associations:

Eckstein is generally somewhat to the left of his American political allies. As a Democrat, he considers himself ''a Lieberman moderate.'' But while he voted for Al Gore and Joe Lieberman in 2000, he voted for President Bush in 2004. And there is no doubt that Eckstein's evangelical friends and followers are mostly Red State Republicans. Eckstein says that he has never met the president himself, but two years ago he took a delegation of evangelicals to Washington for a meeting with Condoleezza Rice, who was then the national security adviser. The delegation, which according to Eckstein was the only Christian group ever to lobby the White House specifically on behalf of Israel, included Jack Graham, then the president of the Southern Baptist Convention; Richard Land, the Southern Baptists' chief Washington lobbyist; and Ted Haggard, leader of the National Association of Evangelicals. Other luminaries of the Christian right like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell appear in Eckstein's infomercials. He runs his advocacy group, Stand for Israel, with Ralph Reed and the former G.O.P. presidential aspirant Gary Bauer. And he recently sent out a mass mailing offering a prayer of support for the embattled Republican House majority leader, Tom DeLay.

Other associations of his are also questionable.

Everyone here is clearly using everyone else for something. Israel and its supporters are using evangelicals to pressure the U.S. into protecting its interests. The Bush Administration and its corporate backers are using the manipulation of evangelicals' beliefs to support our imperialist efforts in the Middle East. What makes it all work is the gullibility of American evangelicals who blindly follow along because they truly believe it is all part of God's master plan. It's a classic example of the inherent danger when political power teams up with religious fervor. It leaves me feeling more than a little uncomfortable.

Posted by Becky at 09:10 AM |

April 10, 2007

Is Newt Really Going Green?

Everyone's buzzing about Newt Gingrich's new book, scheduled to be released November 1, on the environment and global warming. Entitled, "Contract with the Earth" and co-written by Terry L. Maple, the book is being billed as advocating a bi-partisan effort to take action on global warming by utilizing the free market. People on the right are wondering WTF is up with that (global warming is a scam, remember?), while people on the left are feeling hopeful that maybe the right will finally come around. I hate to be a naysayer, but I think the lefties are about to be burned. I think they should expect something more in line with what Kenneth Green of the American Enterprise Institute wrote in the National Review Online. Something very libertarian.

Gingrich is saying that we "urgently" need to do something to "reduce carbon-loading of the atmosphere", but I think it would be a mistake to jump to the conclusion that his sense of urgency includes doing whatever it takes immediately to get the job done. That may be what you and I view as an appropriate response to an "urgent" crisis, but I think we will find that Newt wants to take the approach of "encouraging" the free market to willingly do the right thing rather than using any form of coercion.

Besides, how urgent can he perceive the crisis to be when he is sitting on his book until November? I've been involved in publishing long enough to know that it doesn't take that long to print a book. He is busy racking up the endorsements from prominent environmentalists (though none are climate scientists), so it must be already written. Coincidentally, it is in November that Gingrich will be announcing whether or not he intends to run for President. Could he be preparing for a "bipartisan" candidacy on an "environmentalist" platform – a platform that sounds good to everyone because it uses all the right words, but in truth is all about the free market, or rather, about giving the wealthy some powerful money-making incentives to save the earth? Say it isn't so.

The book will present a ten-point plan of "market oriented policies that will lead to a 'bipartisan environmentalism.'" In it, Gingrich says he calls for America to focus its energy policy in four areas: "basic research for a new energy system, incentives for conservation, more renewable resources, and environmentally sound development of fossil fuels." These sound great in the age of sound bites, but the devil is always in the details, especially with Gingrich.

Let me conclude by saying that Terry L. Maple may be a good person and even a good conservationist, but the fact is he is an anthropologist with expertise in zoo management and animal psychology, and not a climate scientist. So why Gingrich chose him to co-author a book about global warming is a mystery to me and merely adds to my skepticism about the authenticity of Gingrich's motives. His track record in the honesty department just isn't that good.

Posted by Becky at 02:42 PM |

We're Ignorant About Religion

Stephen Prothero, chairman of the religion department at Boston University, has found that Americans are deeply ignorant of world religions – including their own. And this ignorance, he says, is dangerous. I agree. And that's why I think his new book, "Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know - and Doesn't," might be the perfect addition to the American high school curriculum. Prothero goes even further – he says education about world religions should begin in middle school.

"More and more of our national and international questions are religiously inflected," he says, citing President Bush's speeches laden with biblical references and the furor when the first Muslim member of Congress chose to be sworn in with his right hand on Thomas Jefferson's copy of the Quran.

"If you think Sunni and Shia are the same because they're both Muslim, and you've been told Islam is about peace, you won't understand what's happening in Iraq. If you get into an argument about gay rights or capital punishment and someone claims to quote the Bible or the Quran, do you know it's so?

"If you want to be involved, you need to know what they're saying. We're doomed if we don't understand what motivates the beliefs and behaviors of the rest of the world. We can't outsource this to demagogues, pundits and preachers with a political agenda."

My kids have throughout middle school been learning about ancient Egyptian religion, ancient Greek religion, and many other ancient religions because those religions explain so much about the culture and history. The information is clearly relevant to understanding the past. So why do we shy away from its importance in understanding the present?

It's time to recognize that separation of Church and State does not mean we must remove anything flavored by religion from studies of modern history, current events, social sciences, and the arts. Just as knowledge of ancient religious beliefs brings ancient cultures to life and stimulates the imagination, so knowledge of modern world religions adds tremendous flavor to everything in the world today. By denying our children instruction in this area, we are in essence withholding the salt that would make their education and interaction with the rest of the world truly flavorful.

Posted by Becky at 12:28 PM |

I'd Rather Cry Tears of Joy

It is so easy when reading or listening to the news these days to assume that Iraqis are entirely divided along religious lines – that Sunni and Shia absolutely hate each other and all hope for a unified Iraq is pointless. But that certainly is not the feeling one would get from reading this blog post about the Middle East's version of American Idol – "Star Academy" – which was won last night by Iraqi contestant Shada Hasson. In fact, one might get the feeling that Iraqis are just like us, tired of the constant infighting between political factions and clamoring for something beautiful and light-hearted to discuss with their neighbors, something to lift their hearts and unify their people. (That, by the way, is why I believe American Idol is so popular.)

Across the Middle East, there has been a buzz about this young talented singer, as she bring together not only Sunni and Shiite but Iraqis living abroad and within the war torn country. Falling to her knees, draped in the Iraqi flag, Hassoon celebrated her big win a little before midnight in Baghdad, when many in the city were suffering from widespread power outages. Although many fans were not able to watch the finale, the very dedicated invested in generators in order to watch the affair.

One fan wrote on the Al-Arabiya Web site, "We voted for Shada without asking if she were a Shiite or a Sunni," according to CNN.

As Iraqis heard the news through text messages and phone calls, sounds of gunfire were heard throughout many cities, a familiar sound, though carrying different meaning, perhaps symbolizing peace amidst violence and war.

Despite social, political, and religious differences, Hassoon has managed to win the hearts of the Iraqi people, despite her untraditional modern attire and the fact that she does not wear the hijab. Since it has not been made clear whether she is a Sunni or a Shiite, her win carries a strong message for millions of Iraqis. Both have embraced her, one fan sent a text message that was displayed on the televised show reading, "You are the one who unites all of Iraq, from the North to the South, from the Tigris to the Euphrates!"

Despite another week of bloody headlines out of Iraq come some with a promise for a future filled with life. Across Iraq, people are still celebrating her win as she wept through a rendition of the song “Baghdad,” originally sung by the famous Lebanese singer Fairuz, about the beauty of the ancient city.

I've often heard that the young people of Iran like much of Western culture – our music, clothing, etc. – and that they could and should be our friends, not our enemies. It would seem that Iraqis, too, are potential friends of ours. Why are we so intent on pushing these people away? Why are we allowing the extremists on both sides to destroy peace for the rest of us? Would it not be ever so much more satisfying to cry tears of joy for the Iraqis because a talented young woman sang so beautifully than to cry tears of shame and sorrow because of the damage inflicted upon their beautiful country?

Posted by Becky at 12:12 PM |

April 09, 2007

Weenies Deserve to Get Roasted

I've come to the conclusion that Oregon Republicans are weenies. I don't know how else you can explain the fact that they're all too chicken to take on Gordon Smith. I've been out of the loop for awhile, but it seems to me that any number of Oregon Republicans have the credibility and name recognition to at least float the idea: Greg Walden, Brady Adams, Gene Derfler, Ron Saxton, Jason Atkinson, Bruce Starr, Roger Beyer, Lynn Snodgrass, and Lynn Lundquist all leap to mind. But all of them are keeping mum while only Bill Sizemore seems willing to stick his toe into the water.

The same thing happened back in 1998 when nobody had the balls to run against John Kitzhaber, and Republicans ended up with Bill Sizemore. I remember the angst in the Party over Sizemore's candidacy, and the backroom efforts to get someone with some credibility to run in that race, but no one would. We all know how embarrassing that turned out to be for Republicans – people wondered whether that was the best the party could do. Now the Club for Growth is sending out signals that it's ready to spend some serious money to oust Gordon Smith, and yet once again, all these Republicans sit on their hands.

Why? Smith isn't that well-liked by anyone. It seems to me that with Smith out of the picture in the general election, the race is winnable for the right Republican. After all, speaking as a somewhat conservative independent voter, the Democratic field of potential challengers is itself pretty weak, TJ's efforts notwithstanding. I don't see any more Ron Wydens on the horizon.

Russ Walker of Freedomworks, who is a good friend of Sizemore, was asked what he thought of a Bill Sizemore challenge to Gordon Smith. His response was that it would be a "suicide mission." That's just silly. Sizemore doesn't need to win the election. He just needs to boost his credibility. Running against Smith will give Sizemore a steady stream of microphones that will enable him to tell people over and over that he has been exonerated and that he was simply a martyr for the conservative cause. It's all good for him. But Republicans ought to be asking themselves whether it's good for their party.

Sizemore has nothing to lose, but the other Republican candidates do (though only for the short term). They risk making certain people in the Party angry with them for rocking Smith's boat. Apparently, they find this more repulsive than the possibility that Sizemore will be treated by the media as a credible candidate that actually represents the Republican Party, or even worse, the possibility that he could knock Smith out in a primary and open a wide door that almost any Democrat could drive a Mack truck through, come November.

If you were a Republican and you had the current scenario laid out before you: hide away and allow Sizemore to challenge Smith, thereby discrediting the GOP, OR take on Smith and risk the ire of his allies, what would you do? I guess that depends entirely on whether you are a weenie or have some guts and gumption to do the right thing.

Posted by Becky at 09:43 AM |

April 07, 2007

An Egg of Gigantic Proportions

James Dobson “doesn’t get it,” but Chuck Baldwin does. Chuck Baldwin, in case you haven’t heard, was the Executive Director of the Florida Moral Majority and has spent 30 years as part of the Religious Right. But that doesn’t stop him from seeing the obvious: James Dobson “laid an egg of gigantic proportions” recently when he said Fred Thompson was not “a Christian.” The gaffe, he says, “represents the kind of shallowness and naïveté that has come to dominate the Religious Right.” And he says a lot more, too. Stuff you really want to read because it’s such a juicy slam on the shallow, phony rhetoric that the “Religious Right” laps up like drooling dogs who aren't getting enough to eat. He flat destroys Newt Gingrich.

But setting aside the juiciness, Baldwin’s editorial actually asks a very important question:

How is it that Christian conservatives have come to put so much stock in the religious rhetoric of a politician on the campaign trail?

And he comes to a conclusion that makes a lot of sense, whether you’re religious or not:

It would be far better to have an honest, God-fearing man in the White House who is more concerned about faithfully following the Constitution than he is about giving a bunch of religious lip service. And that means we need to pay far more attention to his record than to his rhetoric. The day that our conservative Christian leaders and pastors wake up to that truth is the day that we can begin to restore this constitutional republic.

I wouldn’t in the slightest mind the religion of a president who concerned himself first and foremost with upholding and protecting the Constitution.

Posted by Becky at 07:37 PM |

Christians Beware of Imam's Prayer!

A Texas senator is paying the price for daring to invite a Muslim imam to pray at the state senate. The uproar began before the prayer was even offered, but once the imam in question opened his mouth, the gates of hell were unleashed. The reason? The imam dared to ask Allah to “guide us to the straight path, the path of those whom you have favored, not of those who have earned your wrath or of those who have lost the way.” The words may seem innocuous, but to Muslims they hold special meaning. Islam teaches that Christians and Jews have "earned Allah’s wrath" and "lost the way." Oops. It seems Islam has as many code words as Christianity.

"Imagine the outcry if a Christian or Jew had offered a prayer that excluded all other religions to open the state Senate!" said S. Newman. "This state and nation were established and have been sustained on a foundation of Biblical principles and practices. The only reason to attack the foundation of any structure is to initiate the process which leads to ultimate destruction."

What a lovely example of two things: First, paranoia about the supposed destruction of this country through the abandonment of Bible-based “principles and practices,” and second, complete denial of the obvious fact that Christians would love nothing more than to shut out other religions, especially Islam, from government (inclusiveness legitimizes them, don't you know). But the problem with the Imam’s prayer wasn’t just the admonishment to Christians and Jews.

The imam concluded "with an Islamic chant that sounded eerily like it was coming over the loudspeakers in Tehran," according to a statement from the U.S. Pastor Council.

Ah, the cardinal sin of sounding ethnic.

Pastor Ross Cullins, of the executive committee for the Houston Area Pastor Council, said Christians should let legislators know their concerns.

"Appreciation of diversity in people is not tantamount to acceptance of their gods," he said.

That’s very interesting. Pastor Cullins seems unaware that the “gods” (plural with a little “g”) to which he refers “are” really the one God that is worshipped by Muslims, Jews and Christians.

It seems pretty clear to me that we need to either get over our issues with different religions' prayers or give up prayer before legislative meetings. I really don't see any way to split this baby.

Posted by Becky at 05:01 PM |

April 05, 2007

Leave the Homophobes Alone

I don't know why gay rights advocates continue to try to bring fundamentalist Christians around to their point of view. It ain't never going to happen. The latest round in this ongoing pointless endeavor involves Soulforce activists who were arrested for trespassing at Bob Jones University after officials there refused to "dialogue" with them over the issue of accepting homosexuality. Hello! It's Bob Jones University, people. Did you really expect them to care what you had to say?

Fundamentalist Christians don't care any more about what gay rights have to say than gay rights activists care about what fundamentalist Christians have to say. I mean, what is so hard to understand about the statement "God requires us to come to Him on His terms"? And yet gay rights activists do not seem to understand what that means. These people are absolutely glued to their interpretation of the Bible and that's the end of the matter for them. They're more concerned about what they believe God says than they are about science, common sense, human rights, or anything else. It's really no different from the position of gay rights activists who are absolutely glued to their belief that their cause is the moral equivalent of abolishing slavery, and that ideology matters more than the deeply held religious beliefs of vast portions of the world's population.

Gay rights activists have penetrated Christianity at many levels and for those who are interested in the faith, many churches welcome them to join in worship. Why can't they leave the fundamentalists alone? They're not barring homosexuals from living their lives as they choose. They're not harassing homosexuals. They're not enslaving homosexuals. They're not doing anything to them at all. And I really cannot believe that a gay person would want to go to school at Bob Jones University. You can't rationally get to the point where you accept your own gayness and at the same time have a fundamentalist Christian interpretation of the Bible. The two are mutually exclusive.

As a comical side note, here is an interesting new definition of the word "homophobic".

Posted by Becky at 10:43 AM |

Honk Three Times for the First Amendment

Two shopkeepers have been engaged in a free speech battle between each other that tickles my funny bone - and touches on something extremely important all at the same time. One of the shop keepers, a Christian who views Jesus as her "business partner," put up an Easter sign asking motorists to honk for Jesus. In response, the owner of a neighboring tattoo parlor, who viewed her sign as offensive to non-Christians, put up a sign asking motorists to honk twice for Satan. Sign officials ordered the temporary signs down, saying the businesses could only have signs related to on-site commercial activity. The tattoo parlor owner promptly obeyed the order and removed his sign. Jesus's business partner, however, has decided to defy the City and leave her sign up. Guess who's doing the right thing?

If you guessed the Christian, you're right. The reason is that when the City ordered the signs down because their messages were non-commercial in nature, it was giving greater protection to commercial speech than to non-commercial speech, which is the most protected form of speech under the U.S. Constitution. It was an unlawful order. The Christian is holding her ground on her right to speak, thereby taking a stand for the First Amendment. Meanwhile, the tattoo parlor owner gave up his right to speak in order to avoid trouble. Shame on him.

Posted by Becky at 09:51 AM |

April 04, 2007

Global Warming, the Economy, and Bratty Siblings

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the government must regulate greenhouse gases – a win for those who subscribe to the theory that global warming is caused, or at least enhanced, by humans. Yesterday, the President said he took the decision "very seriously." He said he recognized that "man is contributing greenhouse gases" but that he was concerned about the economic impacts of dealing with the problem, as well as the need for China and India to do their part.

Meanwhile, right on cue, William F. Buckley, son of an oil man, wrote today that "human enterprises have an effect on climate," but called the rhetoric over global warming "heavy condemnatory breathing" and likened the current political climate over the issue to the Inquisition. Like the President, he expressed grave concern about the economic impact of doing our share on our economy and asked that China and India make "a complementary sacrifice." He then went on, in quite an interesting bit of rationale, to dismiss concerns over the validity of opinions coming forth from members of the greenhouse gas-generating fossil fuel industry.

Which was very interesting in light of this article about Bob Murray, a self-made CEO of a big coal company, who calls Al Gore "the shaman of global doom and gloom" and "more dangerous than his global warming." His argument is very similar to the Presidents and to Mr. Buckley's – the economy must come first. Mr. Murray's concern, he says, is "the little guy that nobody cares about," that being the coal worker who will lose his job if "elitists' ill=conceived 'global goofiness' campaigns" to save the planet are successful. For him, it is a "human issue not an environmental issue."

Which, as I understand it, is true for most of us. We'd like to have a planet where humans can live.

I think Al Gore illustrated it best with his graphic of a scale with a bar of gold on one side and the earth on the other. If you can have one or the other, which do you choose? Well, if you choose the earth, you may lose your gold. But if you choose the gold … I think everyone gets the point.

That's not to say we shouldn't be careful here. The economy actually does matter tremendously. The tremendous cost of responding to this issue is not something to be taken lightly. That's why we need to let the scientists do their jobs without pressure from either side to hold to one philosophical point of view or another. We have to know what we're really dealing with here - and we have to respond appropriately. Scientists on both sides have claimed to be receiving discriminatory treatment, strong pressure, and even death threats for their views. With so much in the balance, this attitude is absolutely insane.

With all of this going on, I was quite amused yesterday to receive an email about how Al Gore's house stacks up against George W. Bush's house, in terms of environmental responsibility. Heading straight for Snopes.com, I found the email to be accurate. Apparently, George W. Bush's residence puts Al Gore's to shame. You can argue all day about whether that means anything or not. For some it validates everything they believe, others like me will find it humorous, and still others will be very angry. And that's how it is with this entire debate. It makes me wonder whether humans are even capable of addressing the matter, or whether we're destined to fight incessantly between ourselves like the unhappy, bratty little siblings we are while Mother Nature has her way with us.

Posted by Becky at 02:03 PM |

Pro-Life Message on "House"

If you watched "House" on Fox last night, you may have been as intrigued by the episode as I was. As has been noted by others, the episode had a clear pro-life bias, but it nevertheless was engaging. As anyone who has watched the show knows, Dr. House is a pain-wracked, mentally tortured genius doctor who nearly always is proved right in finding the obscure causes of life-threatening conditions, in spite of others' tendencies to believe he is wrong. Last night's episode dealt with his reaction when his patient was a woman who was determined not to abort her baby despite the threat it posed to her own life.

House was rude, as is predictable, in his ongoing insistence that the 21-week-old baby was not a baby, but was a fetus - in fact, he even called it a "tumor." The mother was a 40-something single woman who had tried unsuccessfully for years to have a baby and who was not about to give up on this one despite the fact that it had several problems that were causing her own liver and kidneys to shut down. After the usual searching for a cause and running of tests, House and all his crew decided there was no hope and the pregnancy must be terminated. But the Director, a woman who could relate perhaps a little too much to the patient, refused to allow the termination and continue to push to save the baby. Finally, House performed open-womb surgery on the baby. During that surgery, and reminiscent of the famous photo of the real thing, the unborn baby's hand reached out and grasped House's finger.

Of course, the baby's life was saved, as was the mother's, and she went on to a normal full-term delivery. In the mean time, the Director and Dr. House had a brief conversation in which he insisted the positive outcome was highly unusual and that the baby should have been aborted. Nonetheless, he went home and pondered the experience, obviously deeply touched by the interaction he had with the unborn baby.

I feel very strongly that shows like this are good and important because they cause people to debate issues that are difficult. My view of this matter is that this sort of situation should be left up to the mother. If a woman flat-out refuses to terminate a pregnancy despite the risk to her own life because she is morally opposed to abortion under any circumstances, so be it. But I also believe that if a mother is in a position like this and chooses to terminate the pregnancy, she should not feel guilty or be subjected to criticism and second-guessing, and neither should her doctor. The real problems creep in when the situation gets more complicated.

For instance, if a couple learned at 24 weeks that their baby would have Downs Syndrome or mild spina bifida, conditions that don't necessarily impair their survival, are those reasons sufficient to justify terminating the pregnancy? I would say if parents are not prepared to deal with those problems and they can live with their decision, even though I'm not terribly comfortable with it I would not bar them from doing it. But if someone doesn't get around to getting an abortion until that point and wants to terminate a healthy pregnancy, I have a real problem with it. That's my position. I know others have a different position, and the issue has been argued incessantly for years, but if you're up for more discussion, here's your opportunity.

In any case, how do you feel about Fox having done this show?

Posted by Becky at 12:37 PM |

Presidential Candidate Selector

James over at my other blog has posted a very interesting Presidential Candidate Selector post linking to a quiz. Predictably enough the only candidate choices are from among the Big Box frontrunners, but since one of them is most likely to end up our next President I suppose it's not unreasonable.

Take the quiz and post your results in the comments. I'll go first.

Posted by Kevin at 10:21 AM |

April 03, 2007

The Octopus Lives!

Wendell Cox is coming to town tomorrow to talk to the Executive Club about public transit, urban growth boundaries, and regional planning. In case you don't know, Wendell Cox is one of the arms on the libertarian octopus that has invaded Oregon, and he isn't coming to help Metro. He's coming here to help kill Metro. Which is, of course, what we would expect from an invited speaker at a conservative political club event. And what we would expect from a group that has been trying to kill Metro for at least ten years. I'm no fan of Metro myself, but something I dislike even more is this corrupt libertarian octopus that just doesn't want to die.

You can actually attend this event if you like. In fact, it will provide you with a golden opportunity to put a face to a lot of names you have probably heard. Attendees are likely to include Lars Larson, Don McIntire, Jason Williams, Gregg Clapper, Ruth Bendl, Eric Winters, and more. I know these people personally, and can tell you they are all actually very pleasant individuals, so if you go please be nice to them and use this as an opportunity to find out where they're coming from, rather than to engage them in nasty debate. As a favor to me.

The meeting starts at 6:00 pm at the Shilo Inn Suites Hotel at 11707 NE Airport Way. If you want dinner, you'll have to pay; otherwise, it is a free event. If tradition carries on as it did in the past, the party will move to the cigar room after the meeting for more cozy discussion.

What really interests me most about Cox is how neatly his visit fits in with my own recent discoveries about the likely source of all our ideas when I was working at Oregon Taxpayers United. All this time I thought Bill Sizemore was the genius behind our efforts on light rail, Metro, union-busting, tax limits, and property rights. But the more I learn about the individuals and organizations that were involved in the efforts leading up to the founding of OTU, as well as its funding during the time I was working there, the more I am beginning to think Sizemore was a worker bee and not the brains behind it all. I could be wrong, but the indicators are all there. Links to the same libertarians whose web was uncovered during last year's initiative campaigns. The same funding mechanisms. The same issues. It's all quite fascinating.

Particularly seeing as how Sizemore is to this day being protected and funded, by all accounts, by individuals with very strong links to the same libertarians who are still working on the same issues and using the same funding mechanisms – links I am only just beginning to realize ran deeper than I had earlier guessed.

Wendell Cox is linked in with these groups, these individuals, and these issues. He serves as a senior fellow at Howard Rich's Heartland Institute. His work is featured on the National Center for Policy Analysis web site, another libertarian group. He also works with the Reason Foundation, yet another libertarian group, and served with several of those libertarians on an "advisory" committee for the Republican transition team of US Presidential designee George W. Bush. Oh, and he is a former Director of Public Policy at the American Legislative Exchange Council – a right-wing group with more libertarian ties. All of these ties lead right back through Howard Rich to the Kochs, who, by all appearances, are the head of the octopus. I would also add that the issues and people and organizations also are intertwined with the Cato Institute, Cascade Policy Institute, Freedomworks, and Club for Growth. Ted Abram and Jeld-Wen, long-time Sizemore allies and backers, are right in there with them.

And here's a little more news from another branch of the same octopus: apparently, Grover Norquist's K Street Project isn't dead yet, despite claims to the contrary. Two years ago Norquist hired up-and-comer Sarah Smith to manage the effort and she has been ever since. Smith, like Norquist, comes from the College Republicans. She also worked on the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign.

In case you thought any of these guys could actually be permanently defeated.

Posted by Becky at 10:53 AM |

April 02, 2007

In Christian love

When I die--if it turns out that there is in fact a Heaven and a Hell, I'm wondering how many marshmallows I'll get to roast off the burning soul-carcass of Fred Phelps.

What a vile piece of worm ridden filth.

Posted by Carla at 03:24 PM |

A Reality Check for Christian Activists

Being that it was Drudge who linked to this article, probably a lot of conservatives will point to the story as an example of "liberal political correctness" run amok. With any luck, they will notice that it was a "liberal" government education department that uncovered the issue.

And here is the issue: several British schools are dropping the Holocaust and the 11th century Crusades from elementary and middle school history curriculum because they want to avoid offending Muslim students whose religious teachings contradict those subjects. Not to be left out, Christian parents are strongly challenging the history curriculum in at least one British school because it teaches about the Arab-Israeli conflict and the state of Israel in ways that contradict their churches' teachings.

American Christian activists who are constantly raising a fuss about the teaching of evolution, human reproduction, and other such issues that they find offensive in public schools should heed this development as an important wake-up call. Theirs is not the only religion in this country. And once we open the door to accommodating the beliefs of one religious group, it's only a matter of time before we'll have to start accommodating those evil Muslims, as well.

Posted by Becky at 02:59 PM |

Mother Nature Seems to "Bee" Winning

While bee populations all over the world are taking a nosedive, one bee-keeper has found that her "organic" free range bees are thriving. Dee Lusby, the owner of Lusby Apiaries & Arizona Rangeland Honey of Arivaca, has 900 hives of "free range" organic bees. While other bee-keepers' hives are mysteriously disappearing, she claims to have lost only "one or two, maybe three out of every 30 or 40 hives." Among the causes of bee deaths, she believes some are the use of "bee-growth formulas, artificial food supplements, breeding for size, inbreeding — all or some of which may make them susceptible to mites, viruses and fungi." The problem is that commercial honeybees, which are now larger than Mother Nature intended, can no longer feed on some of the plants that used to protect them from diseases and parasites.

Everyone is focusing on the potential environmental causes of the demise of bees. Is it the weather? GM crops? Pesticides? Herbicides? Researchers have even coined a new name for the problem: Colony Collapse Disorder. Kind of reminds me of that reality-denying term "Gulf War Syndrome." This is the first time I've heard anyone look at the genetic modification of the bees themselves. It is all the more reason to refuse to support the entire GM industry and buy organic. It just isn't nice to fool with Mother Nature.

Posted by Becky at 10:01 AM |

Republicans Invent Another Great Money-Saving Budgetary Device

Republicans enjoy believing they are the party of fiscal responsibility, always looking to get rid of the pork and save some money. So they should be very proud that their leaders at the Pentagon have come up with an ingenious new way to save money. When one of those troops they claim to support ends up getting injured in Iraq, they just discharge the soldier on the grounds that he or she has a "personality disorder," a pre-existing condition that absolves the Pentagon of having to pay for their medical care and benefits. 22,500 lucky soldiers have been honored to save their country money this way.

A six-month investigation by reporter Joshua Kors for the April 9th “The Nation” magazine learned of “multiple cases” in which “soldiers wounded in Iraq are suspiciously diagnosed as having a personality disorder, then prevented from collecting benefits.” …

With an average disability payment of about $8,900 a year and a medical cost of about $5,000 per year over a 40-year period per soldier, separating 22,500 of them would save the Pentagon $8-billion in disability pay and $4.5-billion in medical care over their lifetimes, the article says.

Whatever you do, don't read the article, though. We can't be having people feeling too much pity for the suffering of these budget-busting heroes.

Posted by Becky at 09:49 AM |

Bush: Loudly marching out of step with the American people

When Democrats took over the House and Senate in January, there were impatient calls for them to immediately de-fund the Iraq War/Occupation. I read pieces from the very far left peace movement who couldn't wait and the hardcore Bush supporters who wanted the Dems to stumble.

Harry Reid listened to neither, demonstrating a wily political skill that's causing a slow squeeze to the rhetorical neck of the President's disastrous Iraq policy.

The next link in the chain of pressure comes today:

SENATE MAJORITY LEADER COSPONSORS FEINGOLD BILL TO REDEPLOY TROOPS FROM IRAQ April 2, 2007

Washington D.C. -­ U.S. Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced today that they are introducing legislation that will effectively end the current military mission in Iraq and begin the redeployment of U.S. forces. The bill requires the President to begin safely redeploying U.S. troops from Iraq 120 days from enactment, as required by the emergency supplemental spending bill the Senate passed last week. The bill ends funding for the war, with three narrow exceptions, effective March 31, 2008.

There's a consistent and methodical approach to these efforts. Bush is going to veto the appropriations bill that sets a timetable for withdrawal and he'll surely veto this as well, should it make it to his desk.

These series of legislation is forcing the President to very publicly announce how genuinely out of step he and his party are with the American people.

The more Reid and Pelosi force the President to defend himself in front of the electorate--the harder he and his supporters will fall in the next election.

Posted by Carla at 09:40 AM |

Global Warming Stubbornness

Have you ever noticed how pushing someone in a debate who is willfully ignorant of the facts typically causes them to increase their stubborn commitment to their ignorant view, rather than to consider an alternative position? It's a phenomenon we've witnessed increasingly since talk radio became so widely popular that it exploded into an ideological war for the mind of the country. Sometimes I think that we Independents form the last remaining group of real thinkers.

Anyway, it seems that the debate over the causes of global warming is yet another important issue that is following this predictable route: the more the topic is discussed, and the more conclusive evidence is produced, the more Republicans disbelieve human activity has anything to do with it.

Last year, the National Journal asked a group of Republican senators and House members: "Do you think it's been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the Earth is warming because of man-made problems?" Of the respondents, 23 percent said yes, 77 percent said no. In the year since that poll, of course, global warming has seized a massive amount of public attention. The U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a study, with input from 2,000 scientists worldwide, finding that the certainty on man-made global warming had risen to 90 percent.

So, the magazine asked the question again last month. The results?

Only 13 percent of Republicans agreed that global warming has been proved. As the evidence for global warming gets stronger, Republicans are getting more skeptical. Al Gore's recent congressional testimony on the subject, and the chilly reception he received from GOP members, suggest the discouraging conclusion that skepticism on global warming is hardening into party dogma. Like the notion that tax cuts are always good or that President Bush is a brave war leader, it's something you almost have to believe if you're an elected Republican.

Is this because the GOP is, to a large extent, owned and controlled by the very industries thought to be causing the problem? Actually, probably not.

Your typical conservative has little interest in the issue. Of course, neither does the average nonconservative. But we nonconservatives tend to defer to mainstream scientific wisdom. Conservatives defer to a tiny handful of renegade scientists who reject the overwhelming professional consensus.

But then again, many of the scientists stirring up this doubt are funded by those polluting industries.

It isn't just the handful of "renegade scientists" who are the problem. A handful of ideologues are also controlling the Republicans' message by denying those who believe the legitimate science any roll in crafting public policy or legislation.

Reps. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., and Vernon Ehlers, R-Mich., both research scientists, also were denied seats on the [Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming]. Normally, relevant expertise would be considered an advantage. In this case, it was a disqualification; if the GOP allowed Republican researchers who accept the scientific consensus to sit on a global warming panel, it would kill the party's strategy of making global warming seem to be the pet obsession of Democrats and Hollywood lefties.

Kind of makes you want to just have a drink or two and watch American Idol, doesn't it?

Posted by Becky at 09:36 AM |

God Save Us From Hillary Clinton

Matt Drudge this morning proudly displayed as his top headline, "America loves Hillary; Top Fundraiser for Round One: $36 Million." Hillary is reporting that she has raised $26 million since January 20 and has transferred $10 million from her senate reelection account, for a total of $36 million. 80% of the 50,000 contributions she received were for amounts of $100 or less, and $4.2 million was raised in the Internet for a total of $6 million in "grassroots" donations. To put this into perspective, she has raised more than three times the amount that the top candidates raised by now during the last Presidential campaign. How the hell did that happen?

For one thing, it seems the big money people like Hillary a LOT. The little people seem to prefer Barack Obama. According to his Web site, while Hillary has received contributions from 50,000 people, Obama has received donations from 83,531 people. Sadly, though the little contributions are an interesting indicator of popular support, they won't buy you a campaign. I would like to think that grassroots enthusiasm would be sufficient to push an underdog all the way through, so that the people would actually get a real opportunity to choose their own candidate. But money really does seem to be able to change people's minds. So somehow, Obama will need to get the big guys to jump in and support him, too.

On the other hand, Hillary is fighting an uphill battle to win votes. Women don't like her. Both Rasmussen and Zogby find that approximately 42% of women dislike her so intensely that they would NEVER vote for her under any circumstances. And 18% of Democrats "would never cast a vote in Clinton's favor." A Harris Poll released last week showed half of adults would not vote for her at all, ever, and only 36% indicated they would. The rest, 11%, clearly did not like her, but might vote for her. Harris's numbers showed 21% of Democrats refusing to vote for her ever, along with 48% of Independents. 45% dislike her personally and 45% dislike her political opinions. And only 37% would be happy to see both Bill and Hillary back in the White House.

Something interesting to keep an eye on here is what Hillary does with all that money and how well she is able to convert it into increased popularity. We won't know for another two weeks how much she actually has left or how much is earmarked for use solely in the general election. My guess is she is going to have to burn through a tremendous amount of money throughout the entire campaign to create an aura of invincibility around herself. Otherwise, I foresee Democrats staying home in large numbers on Election Day, 2008. If you ask me, that's the entire reason why Rupert Murdoch is supporting her. It may well be why Matt Drudge is also continuously puffing her up as the inevitable choice. The real question is whether Democrats will allow these manipulative right-wingers to get away with tanking their Party's chances at the polls next year.

Posted by Becky at 09:19 AM |