The World Since 4004 BC

Sitting here at the computer, having morning coffee, listening to Joe Scarborough and Pat Buchanan agree with each other that it is imperative that "the government" bail out the auto industry. It brings me smug satisfaction to hear these two professional Republicans defending the nationalization of the auto industry against the customary dogmatically correct, Republican / conservative stance taken by Niki B. (who sounds like she's repeating something she just read) and a young female pro-McCain... Sign in to see full entry.

As the “news” channels have fixated on the killings at Virginia Tech of Monday, April 16, 2007, for the last four days the thought I can not get out of my head is how self-centered we must seem to the rest of the world. The pain and hurt and despair the families and loved ones of the fallen are experiencing is terrible and real and very personal. The memorial services held were fitting and proper and necessary but when MSNBC, CNN, CNN Headline News and FOX News dwell on America's pain around the... Sign in to see full entry.

How much more "human life" is George Bush willing to sacrifice for his noble cause? He claims to be spreading democracy around the world because, he says, “democratic nay-shuns” don’t make war on their neighbors – or as he likes to put it, “on their neighbor.” What is it that makes Bush immune to the irony of such words coming from his lips – from him of all people? How is it that he is blind to the contradiction between his rhetoric and the fact that even as he speaks his own democratic nation... Sign in to see full entry.

Saturday, October 8, 2005 Excerpts from an email to a friend Hello Randallez… I was watching GWB uh, uh his way through answers to reporters in Utah yesterday, spewing the same old immutable drivel about his war in Iraq being a noble cause and a key part of the war on terror, saying Cindy Sheehan had the right to her “position” on the war – showing that in his mind everything is defined in terms of politics and political positions. She lost her son, for Christ's sake, you miserable self-centered... Sign in to see full entry.

The other night on "Meet the Press," Tim Russert held a “special roundtable” to discuss “the moral and cultural divide of Red State & Blue State America.” His guests were a gaggle of preachers, to whit: Dr. Jerry Falwell of the Faith and Values Coalition, Dr. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention, Rev. Al Sharpton of the National Action Network, and Rev. Jim Wallis of Call to Renewal and Sojourners Magazine. I was listening rather than watching, and my attention was not that undivided... Sign in to see full entry.

Will the defeat of GWB strengthen the resolve of the fundamentalists who seek to destroy our way of life? If GWB is voted out, will the superstitious and vicious corruptors of what many consider a noble and benevolent religion continue undaunted in their obsessive quest to convert the world by force of arms to their self-righteous versions of truth and justice? If GWB goes, will the fanatics redouble their efforts to bring death and destruction upon those whom they see as evil. And will they... Sign in to see full entry.

Cheney’s New Mathematics Well, it is now gospel. President de facto Cheney has decreed it so. Collateral damage is no longer a negative thing – politically speaking. A high collateral casualty count is not always a bad thing. Before Cheney changed the mathematics, it appeared that the US of A was suffering 90% of “coalition” causalities and fatalities in the occupation of Iraq. However, when you factor in the deaths of those Iraqis nominally (by whatever criteria) allied with the “coalition” you... Sign in to see full entry.

No matter what Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Franklin Graham, and/or other professional know-it-alls like your local pastor tell you, Muslims worship the same God as the Christians and the Jews. Just think about it for more than a second. What deity created the universe in six days about six thousand years ago? What deity created the first man and woman and put them in a garden with a subtle archangel who deceived them and set them on the path to perdition? What deity, after failing to create a... Sign in to see full entry.

In the last sensationalized episode of American superstitious silliness Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore refuses to remove a three-ton granite edition of the Ten Commandments from the Judicial Building in Montgomery. He contends that the monument is a constitutionally protected acknowledgment of God. It makes me think back to the last “separation of church and state” flap when everybody was giving atheist Michael Newdow hell because he sued the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to have “under... Sign in to see full entry.

H. L. Mencken once said – I’m paraphrasing – that a moron behind a pulpit deserved no more respect than a moron behind a plow. I'd say that's right. The problem is not all the lawyers. It’s all the preachers. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying all preachers are dumb, nor was Mencken saying that. We're just saying a lot of morons apparently wind up in the preaching business. But who am I to talk? They’re driving Cadillacs and got people sending them money. Remember back in 1987 when the Lord... Sign in to see full entry.