Apparently Bush is a bad president because of atheists. WTF?

From the Salt Lake Tribune:

In his Dec. 27 letter, Steven Fehr says he believes President Bush is the worst president he has seen. Whenever I hear someone complain about the president, I ask them, “Do you pray for the president of the United States daily?” Is that too much trouble?

There used to be a custom of praying for our president. Perhaps too many people in the United States believe this would be mixing politics and religion. If the majority of the people are agnostic and atheistic, it may be that they are partly to blame for the problems we have. To think one man is responsible for the war and the problems we face in our nation is about as foolish as to not believe in the power of prayer. We all share in the burden. We all need to live and teach the truths upon which our country was founded. The world is made up of two types of people: critics who are negative, fearful and have no plan, no vision, no faith, and authors who are positive, visionary builders. Which kind are you?

Vera B. Ivie
Ogden

I would like to refute this ridiculous statement but it was so stupid my head exploded.

New York Times laments the loss of our country.

Out of panic and ideology, President Bush squandered America’s position of moral and political leadership, swept aside international institutions and treaties, sullied America’s global image, and trampled on the constitutional pillars that have supported our democracy through the most terrifying and challenging times. These policies have fed the world’s anger and alienation and have not made any of us safer.

In the years since 9/11, we have seen American soldiers abuse, sexually humiliate, torment and murder prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq. A few have been punished, but their leaders have never been called to account. We have seen mercenaries gun down Iraqi civilians with no fear of prosecution. We have seen the president, sworn to defend the Constitution, turn his powers on his own citizens, authorizing the intelligence agencies to spy on Americans, wiretapping phones and intercepting international e-mail messages without a warrant.

We have read accounts of how the government’s top lawyers huddled in secret after the attacks in New York and Washington and plotted ways to circumvent the Geneva Conventions — and both American and international law — to hold anyone the president chose indefinitely without charges or judicial review.

Those same lawyers then twisted other laws beyond recognition to allow Mr. Bush to turn intelligence agents into torturers, to force doctors to abdicate their professional oaths and responsibilities to prepare prisoners for abuse, and then to monitor the torment to make sure it didn’t go just a bit too far and actually kill them.

The White House used the fear of terrorism and the sense of national unity to ram laws through Congress that gave law-enforcement agencies far more power than they truly needed to respond to the threat — and at the same time fulfilled the imperial fantasies of Vice President Dick Cheney and others determined to use the tragedy of 9/11 to arrogate as much power as they could.

If I could have one wish granted in this new year I would like to see the Bush regime grind to a halt and all of its members hauled off to serve time for their crimes against this nation.

And then I would like to have Jessica Alba give me a hot oil massage.

Which one do you think is the least likely to come true?

New video shows that Bhutto was shot. Pakistan government caught in obvious lie.

At first I could not imagine why the Pakistan government would try to fabricate a cause of death for Benazir Bhutto in conflict with the eyewitness reports.

But then I came to realize that they are desperate to keep her from being named a martyr which will dramatically increase her influence with the Pakistanis, and give her party much more influence.

However in the future I suggest that the Pakistan government take some lessons from our government in how to lie to its people. She died from hitting her head on the door handle? That is the dumbest lie I have heard in a long time.

I don't know what happens in Pakistan next, but I would be willing to bet that it is not going to be a safe palce to visit anytime soon.

A post for the conspiracy theorists. Is this the man who killed Osama Bin Laden?

I have said for quite some time that I believe Osama Bin Laden to be dead.

Did this man kill him? I have absolutely no idea, but it makes as much sense as any other theory I have heard.

Someday I hope we learn the truth and I believe it will have very little in common with what the Bush administration has been telling us.

New poll shows Edwards in first place. This is so much better then watching sports!

John Edwards has clawed his way into contention to win Iowa's caucuses on Thursday in the first vote for the Democratic presidential nomination, gaining strength even as rivals Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have lost ground, according to a new McClatchy-MSNBC poll.

I enjoyed taking a week off, but damn this stuff is in my blood now!

EDWARDS/OBAMA IN 2008.

Come on, if we dream it then it might come true!

Taking a page right out of the Republican playbook Hillary tries to frighten us into voting for her.

Barack Obama and John Edwards might want to change the world. But Hillary Clinton wants to protect you against it.

That's the unmistakable message that Senator Clinton is pounding out in this final phase of the campaign to capture the Iowa caucuses. In a world brimming with danger and uncertainty, she argues as she blitzes the Hawkeye State, there's no time to waste daydreaming about pie-in-the-sky promises of reform.

Instead, the American people must choose a leader ready to immediately start fixing the problems that already exist and one who is immediately ready to face the inevitable and "unpredictable" crises looming right over the horizon. And that would be Clinton.

"We know some of the challenges that await the next president," Clinton told a packed crowd at a junior high school Saturday morning. "But no matter how much we know, we can't possibly anticipate all the problems."

The razzamatazz cheerleading, sloganeering style that punctuated her earlier campaign events has now been replaced by a sedate, somber, even grave tone coming from the podium.

Clinton never raised her voice, never elevated the mood, and at times sounded like a concerned, responsible parent telling the kids that something terrible was taking place outside the door but not to worry because Mom and Dad - or in this case Hill and Bill- would take care of it.

Becoming president, she said in a hushed tone, is "an awesome responsibility. And it was thrown into relief with the events last Thursday with the assassination of Benazir Bhutto."

If you read these words without knowing who they were attributed to wouldn't you automatically think Rudy? Or Romney? Or Duncan Hunter?

What is next?

Will Hillary choose Joe Lieberman as her running mate?

I would not put anything past her at this point. But I, for one, have absolutely no confidence in anybody who plays the fear card in this election. Hillary just shows her true colors by going for the cheap shot. I doubt seriously that Obama or Edwards would resort to such pathetic tactics. And it is clear this is no accident since Bill has been using the same threat laden speech. I can only hope that this is just as transparent to my fellow Democrats as it is to me.

Time to dip into that book buying budget.

Well I really have no choice with this one.

You simply cannot be a serious liberal blogger and not read everything that Keith writes.

It is the "liberal blogger law".

The penalty for not following this law is to spend a week watching "Hannity and Colmes" on FOX. Oh the humanity!

Vermont activist threatens President Bush and Vice President Cheney with arrest. I swear I just got a chill.

“We’re planning to arrest, detain and extradite him,” said Kurt Daims of Brattleboro, an activist who has sought to impeach President George W. Bush and is now trying to up the ante. “There’s a fundamental question here. If Congress doesn’t do this, shouldn’t it be done anyway?”

Daims hopes to gather the 440 signatures necessary to place an article on the Town Meeting warning that would call for the Brattleboro Police Department to arrest Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney and cart them off to unspecified foreign entities.

“Shall the Selectboard instruct the Town Attorney to draft indictments against President Bush and Vice President Cheney for crimes against our Constitution, and publish said indictment for consideration by other municipalities?” Daims’ proposed article reads.

“And shall it be the law of the Town of Brattleboro that the Brattleboro Police, pursuant to the above-mentioned indictment, arrest and detain George Bush and Richard Cheney in Brattleboro and extradite them to other authorities that may reasonably contend to prosecute them.”

I simply do not understand why this is not something that most of the country would not endorse at this point.

I mean is there anybody who is not yet aware of just how many laws this administration has broken?

Starting an illegal war based on lies. Signing statements which completely gut new laws and rules. Outing a CIA agent. Secretly and illegally spying on our own citizens. The list is almost endless.

If any ONE of these would have been done by a Democratic President, the Republicans would have had him tarred and feathered. But we cannot get up the gumption to even slap George Bush's hand.

My most fervent desire is to see George Bush and Dick Cheney in a court of law being charged with treason. And in my opinion it would be an open and shut case.

And afterward I would have the biggest party that you ever saw. And you are all invited.

I'm Baaaackk!!!

Man was that an interesting trip!

I spent the holiday with the loudest, most eclectic, most passionate, most argumentative, most loving family that I could possibly have spent Christmas with.

They are wonderful!

My sister is funny, mercurial, and an amazing mom.

We fell back into old patterns of loving insults and attempts to make each other laugh (I win).

And Waterford, Maine is quaint (the color white is really the ONLY choice to paint your home in Maine), it is quiet (except at my sister's house), and it is like stepping back in time a hundred years or more. (For god's sake my sister had dial up!)

So now I am back and it is time to start talking about the important issues of our time. Who really killed Benazir Bhutto? Who is Iowa going to send to the top of the Presidential field? How bad is our economy? What lies has the Bush administration told this week?

My visitor numbers on this site are down to the numbers I saw during my first year, it is time to start writing something that fires up the imagination and makes people come back for more.

So much to do, and there is only one of me. I know I gained a few pounds during the holiday, but I am pretty sure I can still only be counted as one.

The good news? Atheists may be increasing in number. The bad news? We still cannot get elected dog catcher in this country.

Neport breaks it down: "51% who said they were Protestant, 5% who were "other Christian," 23% Roman Catholic, and 3% who named another Christian faith, including 2% Mormon."

Coming in at 11% were those who claimed no religious identity at all, and another 2% didn't answer.

Okay so there are 11% those with NO religious affiliation whatsoever.

That is more then there are Mormons, or "other Christians".

However the poll does not even seem to consider the number of Americans who are Hindu, or Buddhists, or Muslims, or Taoists, etc..

That certainly does not seem like a very comprehensive poll to me.

Why do most people in this country act as if Christianity is the only REAL religion and that all of the others are in the "also ran" category?

I have to wonder if some of those who identified themselves as "non-religious" might have been of an eastern religion, but did not feel like taking the time to explain themselves to the clearly prejudicial poll taker.

I think it is well past time that Americans began to open their minds to the fact that there are numerous faiths with carefully defined rituals that are just as beautiful and spiritual as the ones enjoyed by the Christian community. Some perhaps even more so.

So as much as I would like to believe that 11% percent of my fellow Americans think like I do, I have serious doubts that this is true.

My impressions of Maine, and why flying is for the birds.

Okay so here I am.

After over eight hours of flying, four hours of waiting, and a three hour white knuckle bus ride, I am in Maine.

In the country.

Staying in an RV next to my sister's 150 year old house.

And my daughter has been delayed until sometime this afternoon(I am hoping).

Well honestly the RV is quite nice. I did get a shower and feel better. I met some nice people in the restaurant across the street.(People who know EVERYTHING about me, isn't that frightening?) And I have been teasing my sister mercilessly. So there are definitely some pluses.

Really the only thing missing is my kid. So when she finally gets herself here this should really start to be a party.

I hope you all are having a little Christmas adventure as well. I will Check back as time permits.

Merry Christmas!

I am leaving on a jet plane.

I am going to Maine to spend Christmas with my sister's family and my daughter.

I will try to update a few times if possible, but I do not expect to be anywhere near as prolific as usual.

Perhaps this break will be helpful and I will come back with new drive and inspiration to make this the best little political blog on the internets. Or not.

So Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you all have a great holiday.

Bishop warns of "Atheistic Fundamentalism". WTF?

The Archbishop of Wales, Dr Barry Morgan, has described a rise in "fundamentalism" as one of the great problems facing the world.

He focused on what he described as "atheistic fundamentalism".

He said it led to situations such as councils calling Christmas "Winterval", schools refusing to put on nativity plays and crosses removed from chapels.

In his Christmas message, he said: "Any kind of fundamentalism, be it Biblical, atheistic or Islamic, is dangerous."

The archbishop said "atheistic fundamentalism" was a new phenomenon.

He said it advocated that religion in general and Christianity in particular have no substance, and that some view the faith as "superstitious nonsense".

Well I agree with the Bishop that fundamentalism is dangerous in all of its forms. But he is way off in describing any kind of "atheistic fundamentalism". That is just another attempt to place a religious label on a group who does not believe in religion.

It is the same disingenuous approach that Creationists used in blurring the line between science and religion by saying that there were two types of "science". There are not.

Atheists do not believe in God. Any God.

Agnostics simply don't know what to believe.

And Fundamentalists are out of their ever loving minds.

Get it?

Giuliani has surrounded himself with advisors who think the Bush Doctrine didn’t go nearly far enough.

It looks like many of the conservatives are not exactly warming up to Giuliani.

I don't really spend much time worrying about the Republican candidates for President. They seem like the crappy fighter that the boxing champion lines up so that his fans can see him beat the man into a bloody mess.

The Republicans are just not contenders this time around.

But if they were, have you ever seen a more motley crew?

You have Giuliani, and his constant banging of the 9-11 drum.

Then there is Mitt Romney who simply cannot tell the truth, whether it be about his NRA endorsement (Did not happen) or his recollection that his daddy marched with Martin Luther King (Also did not happen).

Or Fred Thompson who seems to plan his press appearances around his rigorous napping schedule. (Perhaps having a hot young trophy wife and running for President is a little too much stimulus for a man of his age.)

John McCain who without a doubt has the best resume of any other candidate (On both sides actually), but whose unwavering support for the Iraq war has crippled him beyond all possible hope.

Mike Huckabee, who apparently has the endorsement of God, is currently enjoying a surge in Iowa. But I think that after anointing George Bush in 2000, God's judgement is seriously being questioned. And as I have said before, President Huckabee? Really?

Then we have Duncan Hunter, who claimed that it was impossible that we were mistreating the prisoners in Gitmo based on the great menu selection they enjoyed. "Here is your Fillet Mignon with a side of waterboarding. Would you like to see the wine list?"

Last but not least we have Ron Paul. Ron Paul raised the most money EVER in a single day. I love to watch the pundits act like they just don't understand how Paul gets so much support. Could it be because he is the MOST outspoken opponent of the Iraq war? On either side? Fortunately he is a little too "Ross Perot" to be taken seriously.

But none of this matters one little bit since not one of the Republican candidates has a snowball's chance in hell of being elected. Quite literally the Democrats could run a ticket of Mickey Mouse and Goofy and walk away with this one.

Unless we totally screw up and nominate Hillary. She is our weak link.

Former CIA analyst says that the evidence for impeachment is overwhelming. Do you hear that Congress?

The evidence for impeachment of the president and vice president is overwhelming, former CIA analyst and daily presidential briefer Ray McGovern told a room full of people at the Portsmouth Public Library Monday night.

McGovern, who provided daily briefings for former presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush as well as other high ranking officials during his 27 year CIA career, said he has witnessed a “prostitution of his profession” as the Bush administration lied to the American people about the evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

“Don’t let anyone tell you the President was deceived by false intelligence … they knew,” McGovern said.

For the next 40 minutes, he relayed a series of events leading up to 9/11 which illustrate the President’s desire to go to war with Iraq well before 9-11, that reliable CIA evidence showed that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction and was presented to the administration and the “facts were fixed” in order to legitimize the invasion.

“The estimate which said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction was prepared to the terms of reference laid down by Dick Cheney in a speech on Aug. 26, 2002. It was the worst estimate of intelligence and came to the wrong conclusions, but it was designed to do that,” McGovern said.

I made the point in an earlier post that the CIA owes it to the American people to tell us the truth about this administration and the lies that were told to get us into Iraq.

I am very happy to see that there are a few brave ex-CIA agents, at least, who feel the same way that I do.

I know exactly how this guy feels.

You know I thought about drawing a comic strip for a while but realized that I flat can't draw.

Perhaps that was not such an impediment.

Religious intolerance raises its ugly head for the holiday. If you guessed the perpetrators were Christians, you must have visited here before.

Teachers banned a nine-year-old schoolboy from attending his class Christmas party - because of his lack of religious beliefs.

His parents were told he wasn't welcome at the celebration because they had pulled him out of religious eduction earlier in the year.

Headmaster Ian Davidson said that because the boy had no interest in religion he couldn't celebrate the birth of Christ.

Douglas's mum Dawn Riddell, 38, was furious with the decision. Yesterday she said: "It doesn't make any sense to me.

"I've helped out at the Christmas party before and it's got absolutely nothing to do with Jesus. It's all about the kids getting excited about Santa and enjoying themselves.

"Douglas was heartbroken he couldn't go. It was cruel. There was no reason for him to be excluded."

Once again I feel it falls on me to point out that Christmas is really a celebration that was usurped by the Christian religion and started off to be a pagan festival.

But beyond that we have modified Christmas in this country to be much more inclusive so that even those who do not necessarily believe in the myth of the birth of Jesus can still enjoy the holiday.

It is really the intolerant among us, both Christian and secular, who seem to miss the true magic of the holiday. It does not stem from a connection to God, in my opinion, but to the reminder of the connections between all of us.

It is a time when we celebrate giving and humanity, and for that reason it is my favorite holiday.

And people need to stop fucking it up by insisting that there are those who cannot be included.

I would like to see Christmas, or something like it, opened up so that people of ALL faiths could feel included and respected. Wouldn't it be the greatest holiday ever if Muslims, Christians, Atheists, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Rastafarian's, Pastafarians, Jain's, etc.., could be included?

I mean just think of the number of presents alone!

Young Republican's claims of Liberal violence a hoax.

With President George W. Bush only a year away from departing the White House and the Republican succession in turmoil, some of the most prominent conservative intellectuals and activists have gathered together for one last great crusade. Movement icons from Robby George of Princeton to Harvey Mansfield of Harvard, from David Horowitz to Brit Hume, raised howls of persecution when they heard reports that two masked men allegedly attacked a conservative Princeton University student. They insisted that the right-wing acolyte was beaten up "for his conservative views," as Horowitz put it. And they accused Princeton of failing to protect conservatives and upholding a hypocritical liberal double standard. Unfortunately, the trumpeted cause collapsed when the victim turned out to be a hoaxer.

Liberals don't usually resort to violence to make our point.

We will overwhelm you with reason, not our fists.

However that does not mean that we are weak or defenseless. Quite the contrary. We are powerful, and bright, and inspired.

But attacking people with violence is the province of the un-evolved conservative, not the highly evolved liberal thinker.

Stephen Colbert is the AP celebrity of the year.

While most TV characters remain boxed inside the frames of our sets, Stephen Colbert has routinely injected his on-screen persona into everything from the presidential race to ice cream.

Colbert failed to get onto the primary ballot in his home state of South Carolina, dooming his hopes for the White House. And his show went 0-for-4 at the Emmy Awards, including an especially painful loss to Barry Manilow.

But Colbert did win one honor: He was voted AP Celebrity of the Year by newspaper editors and broadcast producers who said Colbert had the biggest impact on pop culture in 2007.

This would be joyful news if it did not immediately remind me that I have gone over three weeks now without seeing any new Colbert Reports or Daily Shows, which just makes me feel very, very sad.

Dear Santa, guess what I would like for Christmas.

Hillary creates websites whose sole purpose is to attack Barack Obama.

ABC News has learned that the campaign of Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., has registered the names of two Web sites with the express goal of attacking her chief rival, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.

It's the first time this election cycle a presidential campaign has launched a Web site with the express purpose of of launching serious criticisms on a rival.

Votingpresent.com and Votingpresent.org are domains hosted by the same IP address as official Clinton Web sites, such TheHillaryIKnow.com, which was launched with much fanfare this week.

The Clinton campaign intends to use these new Web sites to paint Obama as cowardly.

Well now we know where Karl Rove ended up.

But seriously, is this the kind of person we want to be representing our country for the next four to eight years? Haven't we learned just how damaging it is to have somebody who will stoop to anything to win and keep their hold on power?

This kind of sneaky underhanded garbage is an embarrassment to the Democrats and anybody else who may have been thinking of voting for Hillary.

We deserve better.

Karma takes Giuliani out of the Presidential race.

Earlier today, Mayor Giuliani experienced flu-like symptoms campaigning in Missouri. The symptoms worsened as the day wore on and shortly after taking off from Chesterfield, Missouri for New York the Mayor became uncomfortable enough that our plane returned to the airport in Chesterfield. To be on the safe side, the Mayor consulted with his personal physician in New York and made the decision to go to the Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis for routine tests.

"The Mayor will spend the night in St. Louis and we will provide another update in the morning."

Giuliani's poll numbers have been falling fast for the last several weeks. I am pretty sure allowing a simple flu to send you to the hospital is not the kind of tough guy image that Rudy was hoping to represent.

Let's face it, he had a one note campaign and the note turned out to be flat.

Good bye Rudy.

Just for fun. The top ten quotes of 2007. Senator Biden gets a twofer!

1."Don't Tase Me, Bro!"--the plea made by University of Florida student Andrew Meyer on September 17

2. "I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because some people out there in our nation don't have maps and I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and Iraq and everywhere like such as and I believe that they should our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S. or should help South Africa and should help Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future for us."-- Lauren Upton, the South Carolina contestant in the Miss Teen America contest in August.

3. "In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country."-- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's October comment at Columbia University in New York.

4. "That's some nappy-headed hos there!"--Shock jock Don Imus comments about the Rutgers University women's basketball team.

5. "I don't recall." -- Former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' repeated response to questioning at a congressional hearing about the firing of U.S. attorneys.

6. "There's only three things he (Republican presidential candidate and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani) mentions in a sentence: a noun and a verb and 9/11." -- Sen. Joseph Biden, speaking at a Democratic presidential debate.

7. "I'm not going to get into a name-calling match with somebody (Vice President Dick Cheney) who has a 9 percent approval rating." -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat.

8. "(I have) a wide stance when going to the bathroom." -- Idaho Republican Sen. Larry Craig's explanation of why his foot touched that of an undercover policeman in a men's room.

9. "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man." -- Biden describing rival Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

10. "I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history." -- Former President Jimmy Carter in an interview in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette newspaper.

My favorite will have to be the Biden quote about Giuliani, but the one that never failed to make me laugh was the Larry Craig quote.

There are an awful lot of good ones the list to be sure.

ALL Iraqi groups blame United States for the violence in their country.

Iraqis of all sectarian and ethnic groups believe that the U.S. military invasion is the primary root of the violent differences among them, and see the departure of "occupying forces" as the key to national reconciliation, according to focus groups conducted for the U.S. military last month.

I am guessing that the United States won't be able to blame this on al-Qaeda. Though they may try.

More good news about the destruction of those CIA tapes.

The House Intelligence Committee threatened on Wednesday to subpoena two top CIA officials to testify about the destruction of interrogation videotapes, rejecting a Bush administration request that the panel's inquiry be deferred while the executive branch investigates.

Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, said he wants acting CIA general counsel John Rizzo and Jose Rodriguez, the former head of the National Clandestine Service, to testify to the committee on Jan. 16. Rodriguez is the official who directed that the tapes, which document the harsh interrogation of two al-Qaida suspects in 2002, be destroyed.

Reyes told reporters the CIA had agreed to begin providing documents regarding the 2005 destruction of the tapes this week. If that doesn't happen, the committee will subpoena them, too, he said.

Perhaps watching Senator Dodd stand up to these bullies has inspired the rest of the Democrats to find their spines and decide to do their damn jobs!

I would say I was proud if I wasn't terrified they will drop the ball again.

I don't usually post scandalous gossip, but this was too good to let pass.

Jamie Lynn, who is the star of Nickelodeon's hit show Zoey 101, on which she plays a schoolgirl, turned 16 on April 4 and is a high school junior. She tells OK! Magazine, on newsstands in New York and LA Wednesday and nationwide Friday, that she and (possibly ex) boyfriend Casey Aldridge are expecting a child, that she is 12 weeks along, and that she is keeping it.

"It was a shock for both of us, so unexpected," she tells OK!. "I was in complete and total shock and so was he."

As for Lynn Spears, Jamie Lynn and Britney's mom, she was shocked. "I didn't believe it because Jamie Lynn's always been so conscientious. She's never late for her curfew. I was in shock. I mean, this is my 16-year-old baby."

Now I am not being insensitive to the difficulty that this young woman faces raising a baby when she , in fact, still a baby herself. (I am the product of a teenage pregnancy myself) But this little tidbit just made the story irresistible to me.

Meanwhile her mom Lynne Spears' book on Christian parenting, due in Spring 2008, has been indefinitely delayed.

That is too rich! We are constantly being told that teaching your kids "good Christian values" and to abstain from sex until marriage will keep them from making these kinds of mistakes. But the evidence clearly demonstrates that to be completely untrue.

And if Britney Spears is a product of "Christian child rearing" I think I would feel much more comfortable taking advice from a crack whore on the Sunset Strip. I mean these people are an absolute train wreck.

This does not mean that there are not great parents who consider themselves Christians, because there are. But the idea that it is their faith that makes them good parents is a crock of shit! Good parents are that way because they learned patience wisdom, and to ask for advice when they are unsure. They may have learned that at home, in church, or on the streets like I did.

Just kidding Mom!

Edwards takes lead in Iowa.

John Edwards has leapfrogged over his rivals Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and leads the Democratic field in Iowa, according to the latest InsiderAdvantage/Majority Opinion poll. In the Republican caucus race, Mike Huckabee continues to hold a narrow lead over Mitt Romney.

The race among the three top Democrats is extremely close, with the potential for any of them to finish first – or third.

Edwards leads with 30 percent in a poll of Democratic voters who said they intend to participate in the Jan. 3 presidential caucuses, followed by Clinton with 26 percent and Obama with 24 percent. When the sample was narrowed to the most likely caucus-goers, based on several questions, Obama leads Edwards by less than a percentage point with 27 percent, with Clinton in third place at 24 percent.

Damn this thing is starting to make me seasick.

Obama is in the lead. Hillary is on top. Edwards leaps to first place.

I don't care who wins anymore.

Just as long as it is not Hillary.

The best Doonesbury strip I have seen in a while.

The FBI and CIA disagree on the effectiveness of waterboarding on Abu Zubaida. Who do you believe?

In legal papers prepared for a military hearing, Abu Zubaida himself has asserted that he told his interrogators whatever they wanted to hear to make the treatment stop.

Retired FBI agent Daniel Coleman, who led an examination of documents after Abu Zubaida's capture in early 2002 and worked on the case, said the CIA's harsh tactics cast doubt on the credibility of Abu Zubaida's information.

"I don't have confidence in anything he says, because once you go down that road, everything you say is tainted," Coleman said, referring to the harsh measures. "He was talking before they did that to him, but they didn't believe him. The problem is they didn't realize he didn't know all that much."

Abu Zubaida's captors first spoke to him in Arabic, but he began responding only when they addressed him in English, Kiriakou recalled. Abu Zubaida explained that he would not talk to infidels in what he said was "God's language," Kiriakou said.

During his first month of captivity, Abu Zubaida described an al-Qaeda associate whose physical description matched that of Padilla, leading to Padilla's arrest at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago in May 2002. A former CIA officer said in an interview that Abu Zubaida's "disclosure of Padilla was accidental." The officer added that Abu Zubaida "was talking about minor things and provided a small amount of information and a description of a person, just enough to identify him because he had just visited the U.S. Embassy" in Pakistan.

A rift nonetheless swiftly developed between FBI agents, who were largely pleased with the progress of the questioning, and CIA officers, who felt Abu Zubaida was holding out on them and providing disinformation. Tensions came to a head after FBI agents witnessed the use of some harsh tactics on Abu Zubaida, including keeping him naked in his cell, subjecting him to extreme cold and bombarding him with loud rock music.

"They said, 'You've got to be kidding me,' " said Coleman, recalling accounts from FBI employees who were there. " 'This guy's a Muslim. That's not going to win his confidence. Are you trying to get information out of him or just belittle him?' " Coleman helped lead the bureau's efforts against Osama bin Laden for a decade, ending in 2004.

FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III eventually ordered the FBI team to withdraw from the interrogation, largely because bureau procedures prohibit agents from being involved in such techniques, according to several officials familiar with the episode.

Well I have to say that the FBI makes the more compelling argument.

I have noticed that the even though it seems clear that the CIA did everything the White House asked of them, that this administration has no compunction about blaming them for everything that went wrong.

They blame them for the "bad intelligence" that led to the Iraq war, which is just bullshit. And they blame them for the numerous leaks to the press, which we should all thank them for.

It seems as if this White House uses the traditional secrecy and patriotism of the CIA against them. In my opinion the most patriotic thing the CIA could do is to tell us the truth.

And it would do much to improve their reputation.

I hate to say I told you so, but I did.

Former President Bill Clinton said Monday that the first thing his wife Hillary will do when she reaches the White House is dispatch him and his predecessor, President George H.W. Bush, on an around-the-world mission to repair the damage done to America's reputation by the current president — Bush's son, George W. Bush.

"Well, the first thing she intends to do, because you can do this without passing a bill, the first thing she intends to do is to send me and former President Bush and a number of other people around the world to tell them that America is open for business and cooperation again," Clinton said in response to a question from a supporter about what his wife's "number one priority" would be as president.

This is just more evidence to support my contention that Bill and George Sr. made a deal back when they were doing tsunami relief together. Bill promised that Hillary would not allow a criminal investigation of George W. in exchange for the Republicans easing the way for Hillary to get the Democratic nomination.

The Republicans did this by attacking her early and trying to convince the Democrats that she was the one that they really feared.

But this is bullshit! The Republicans want Hillary because she will continue to support the "War on Terror" and allow the oil companies and defense contractors to do business as usual.

The Republicans are flat terrified of Barack Obama and John Edwards. They have no defense against their election and no confidence that they will let George W. get away with his criminal behavior. And that is why we should ALL be supporting their nomination.

They represent the REAL hope for the future of America. Not Hillary Clinton!

Chris Dodd shows the Democrats how it is done!

After nearly 10 hours of discussion Monday, the Senate decided to delay a final vote on a controversial domestic spying bill until the new year, under the threat of a protracted filibuster from Sen. Chris Dodd.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid spent the afternoon Monday huddling with Senate leaders and fellow Democrats to try to work out a deal over an update to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. As the FISA update was written, it included a provision for legal immunity to telecommunications companies that facilitated a warrantless wiretapping scheme that Dodd and other Democrats said was illegal.

"We have tried to work through this process, and it appears quite clear that on this bill we are not going to be able to do that," Reid said around 7:30 p.m. Monday, after senators had spent the day debating propositions of the FISA update.

Dodd, a 2008 Democratic presidential candidate, canceled campaign events in Iowa and spent the day urging his colleagues to block a proposal to shield phone and Internet companies that gave the National Security Agency private call and e-mail records from an unknown number of Americans under the program President Bush authorized after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"Today we have scored a victory for American civil liberties and sent a message to President Bush that we will not tolerate his abuse of power and veil of secrecy," Dodd said in a statement released after Reid pulled the bill. "The President should not be above the rule of law, nor should the telecom companies who supported his quest to spy on American citizens. I want to thank the thousands of Americans throughout the country that stood with me to get this done for our country."

Senator Dodd is definitely the hero of the day. If he had not shown such courage and integrity we would be watching the Bush administration winning yet another battle to protect their criminal enterprises.

But what happens the next time? Will the Senate finally find their backbone and stand up to the administration for once?

Judge rules that White House visitor logs must be made public.

The White House must release its visitor logs and cannot hide behind a shield of privilege, a federal judge ruled Monday. The Bush administration has resisted public disclosure while it fights a lawsuit over alleged political influence by conservative Christian leaders.

U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth concluded the information is part of the public record and is subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act as "agency records."

"Because the Secret Service creates, uses and relies on, and stores visitor records, they are under its control," said Lamberth.

He ordered the Secret Service to produce records within 20 days.

Well now we can finally find out just how many times Jeff Gannon spent the night. Then the only question remaining will be, with who?

Obama to open campaign office in Anchorage.

Barack Obama is opening a campaign office in Anchorage. Ron Paul's national campaign manager is planning a trip to Alaska sometime in the coming weeks.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Barack Obama is the first candidate with plans to open a campaign office in Alaska, including a single paid staffer. Moving the state's Democratic caucus up to Feb. 5 made the Obama campaign take a closer look at Alaska, said Ray Rivera, the Western states caucus director for the campaign. The outcome was already decided by the time of Alaska caucuses in past years, he said.

Rivera said winning Alaska would help the Obama campaign show geographical diversity in its support.

Obama has raised more campaign cash from Alaska -- $21,224 -- than any other Democrat. His contributors include Anchorage School District Superintendent Carol Comeau and state Sen. Kim Elton of Juneau.

I have to tell you that as I try to decide who to support in the primary (currently I am torn between Edwards and Obama), this certainly helps push me toward Barack.

I mean who knows first we get a headquarters, then perhaps an actual visit.

But will Obama visit Alaska?

"There's probably not a good chance," Rivera said.

Well at least we get a headquarters.

Ten Things Atheists and Christians really should agree on.

Nice list that actually makes a lot of sense.

How many laws has George Bush broken?

Dan Abrams, who must be drinking the same ball inflating water that the heroic Keith Olbermann has been chugging, takes the administration to task for their criminal activity.

MSNBC is kicking CNN's ass when it comes to challenging the obfuscations of George Bush and his minions.

Keith Olbermann explains to Bill Moyers why it "became necessary" for him to start the "Special Comments" segment of his show.

It’s not often that two of the journalism’s biggest stars discuss defense contractors, liberal bias, and the 1971 Baltimore Orioles in the same interview. But that’s just what happened on PBS’ Bill Moyer’s Journal Friday, when the host sat down with anchor Keith Olbermann for a wide-ranging interview.

Moyers was interested in Olbermann’s “Special Comments,” which the MSNBC Countdown host says “became necessary” after former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld equated war opponents with Nazi appeasers.

“I [read] this ridiculous remark and I waited to see somebody respond to it,” he said. “And no one did. I’m thinking, well, you know, somebody with a platform ought to be talking about this. Somebody with a– with an avenue to respond should be– oh, yeah, I have a platform.”

Now, Olbermann’s Special Comments have become one of the most popular segments of the show. But originally, he was nervous about the public’s reception.

“I didn’t know what their reaction was going to be. I didn’t know if I was going to be gunned down as I came out of the building or put in a black car or, you know, or lauded or whatever,” he said. “People, for the most part, were ecstatic about this. And our ratings went up immediately.”

Moyers pointed out that General Electric, one of the top defense contractors in the world, owns MSNBC. But Olbermann said the network did not censor him in the least.
“The one advantage to it is the people who own television, commercial television will do whatever makes them money,” he responded. “And I make GE money.”

The esteemed journalists also talked about the motivation behind a new feature on Countdown, “a list of the top three Bush administration scandals you may have forgotten about because of the latest Bush administration scandals.”

“It occurred to me that this had been bothering me for some time, that we had had so many scandals, so much scandal fatigue that literally people were going, ‘What was the name of that attorney general who was– who was– who was– what was– didn’t he get fired? Did he fire somebody? What was his name? What– I can’t remember. Who was it? Was it Ashcroft? But after Ashcroft? Who was it?’ I said, ‘Well, look, this is– this is– this is literally a problem.’ I began to ask friends and people that I work with: How many scandals have we covered in this administration?”

“Amnesia sets in immediately,” Moyers added, and Olbermann quickly agreed.

Someday my grandchild will come to me and ask if I know who "Keith Olbermann" was because they are learning about him, and how he helped to expose a corrupt President and stop a war, in history class.

I will explain, with reverence, how I sat giddy with excitement as Keith Olbermann issued forth with his "Special Comments" in August of 2007.

I will tell my beloved grandchild how proud I was to watch "Countdown" and hear this brave man call our corrupt leadership out over its obvious lies and disinformation.

I will explain how long we had thirsted for somebody, anybody, to finally tell us the truth about what was being inflicted on us by our very own government.

And I will explain how inspired many of us were to be a small part of the machine that helped to get the truth out to our confused populace. And though there were many of us, working hard. There were only a few giants. And Keith Olbermann was one of the giantest of them all.

American military members stationed overseas may find that their votes are not counted, again.

Nearly 500,000 Americans are abroad, defending our freedom as members of our armed forces. In standing their post and protecting the rest of us back home, they make enormous sacrifices. They live in tiny compartments aboard submarines and in tents on the gritty desert. They spend months, even years, away from their families. Some give up their lives in service of their nation.

Usually, the process works something like this: A soldier abroad fills out an application for an absentee ballot and sends it to his local election official. The official processes the application and mails a ballot to the soldier a few weeks before the election. Once he receives it, the soldier must fill out his ballot and return it to the election official. Usually, it must arrive by Election Day. In some states, it may arrive up to two weeks later as long as it was postmarked or signed prior to Election Day. A few states even require that absentee voters have the signature on their ballot notarized — a difficult task when voting from a temporary camp in Iraq.

Needless to say, problems abound. The most critical of these is the shameful condition of the military postal system. Mail from the United States to overseas military posts usually takes about three weeks. Aside from being a disgraceful disservice to the troops, the lengthy delivery period for international military mail poses major problems for soldiers trying to vote because some states do not even distribute ballots until 30 days before Election Day. This makes it virtually impossible for the overseas military voter to fill out the ballot and have it back to the proper election authority on time.

This is an unbelievable failure in our election system, not that it is not a complete mess no matter how you look at it.

But the very least you should be able to provide for our military members is the opportunity to participate in the election process. I mean the next Presidential election probably effects them more then just about anybody else and they have every right to have their vote counted.

My belief is that in this 2008 election cycle we will see the military vote show a distinct preference for the Democrat presidential candidate for the first time in many years.

Which of course means that the current administration and Pentagon will probably not rush to fix this problem anytime soon.

Israel does not recognize good news about Iran when it sees it.

Israel's public security minister warned Saturday that a U.S. intelligence report that said Iran is no longer developing nuclear arms could lead to a regional war that would threaten the Jewish state.

In his remarks — Israel's harshest criticism yet of the U.S. report — Avi Dichter said the assessment also cast doubt on American intelligence in general, including information about Palestinian security forces' crackdown on militant groups. The Palestinian action is required as part of a U.S.-backed renewal of peace talks with Israel this month.

Dichter cautioned that a refusal to recognize Iran's intentions to build weapons of mass destruction could lead to armed conflict in the Middle East.

Do you know how we bring peace to the Middle East?

We tell Israel that if they attack Iran they are on their own!

I guarantee that all of this chest pounding and blustering will end overnight.

There is no need for anymore military interventions in this region, and America must not allow Israel (or the Bush administration using Israel) to start another unnecessary conflict. And, on their own, they won't.

Christians might be surprised to learn that Christmas is a relatively recent celebration.

In researching his book, "Christmas: A Candid History," Forbes discovered that major American denominations--Presbyterians, Baptists, Quakers, Methodists and Congregationalists--either ignored the holiday or actively discouraged it until the late 19th century.

That rejection was rooted in the lack of biblical sanction for Dec. 25 as the date of Jesus' birth, as well as suspicion toward traditions that developed after the earliest days of Christianity. In colonial New England, this disapproval extended to actually making the holiday illegal, with celebration punishable by a fine.

"Some somehow observe the day," wrote Boston Puritan Samuel Sewall on Christmas Day 1685, "but are vexed, I believe, that the body of people profane it, and blessed be God no authority yet compels them to keep it."

With so much focus on the so-called "War on Christmas" each holiday season it is kind of funny that for much of history the churches themselves were against it.

Especially considering that the day we now celebrate as Christmas really started out to be a pagan celebration.

Now personally I love Christmas. I don't even mind all of the religious trappings of the holiday. In my family, no matter how hard the year had been, we always got together for Christmas and there were plenty of presents and food for all.

This year I am going to visit my sister in Maine. My daughter is coming up to meet me there and I expect to have a great time. This will be my first Christmas away from home, and I am a little nervous. But just getting to see my daughter will make it all worthwhile.

Democrats jump through Bush's flaming hoop again. They did not burn their tails because they were carefully tucked between their legs.

The Democratic-led Congress authorized more Iraq war spending on Friday, sending President George W. Bush a defense bill requiring no change in strategy after failing again to impose a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawals.

You know I was very excited when the Democrats won all of those seats in the House. And thrilled that they had a tiny majority in the Senate (depending on how Joe Lieberman feels from day to day.) But I am rapidly losing every ounce of enthusiasm that I once enjoyed.

The Democrats have become so pussy whipped that they don't seem to realize that they are in charge! The whole country supports getting us out of Iraq, but the Democrats are still terrified of being blamed for losing the war there.

We already won the war. And then we lost the peace. But more importantly, the majority of us know we NEVER SHOULD HAVE GONE IN THE FIRST PLACE! That is the main point. There is no victory when you attack a nation that poses no threat to you. That just makes you a bully.

Our country would like very much to earn back the reputation we enjoyed BEFORE Bush destroyed it. And the first step toward doing that is getting us out of Iraq!

So Democrats get us out of Iraq!

Is that really too much to ask?

Top scientists would like to ask the Presidential hopefuls some questions, about science.

A Who's Who of America's top scientists are launching a quixotic last-minute effort this week to force presidential candidates to detail the role science would play in their administrations -- a question they say is key to the future of the country, if not the world.

"Right now we have a confluence of issues facing candidates: embryonic stem cell research, global warming, science and technology education, biotechnology and energy policy -- it's just becoming an avalanche," says Lawrence Krauss, a physics professor at Case Western University, and author of the bestselling The Physics of Star Trek. "I think at some level, you have to get some insight into what the candidates know, or what they're willing to learn."

Behind the call is a growing fear that the United States is falling behind in science and technology education, and that a leader who is scientifically illiterate won't be able to keep the United States ahead in the global economy.

Okay now THIS is the debate that I REALLY want to see!

You just know the Republicans would steer well clear of this Q & A.

UN Rights Envoy suspects United States of torture at Gitmo.

A United Nations investigator said on Thursday he strongly suspected the CIA of using torture on terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, suggesting many were not being prosecuted to keep the abuse from emerging at trial.

“Bringing them to court would bring to the court’s attention the method through which the evidence, including the confessions, were obtained. So this is one further affirmation of the conclusion that the CIA or others have been involved in methods of interrogation that are incompatible with international law,” he said.

U.S. President George W. Bush insists that the United States does not engage in torture but has refused to disclose what interrogation methods are used at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere.

The truth is coming my friends. No matter how hard the Bush administration struggles to keep it from us, the truth IS coming.

Armed Forces Journal condemns Giuliani and Mukasey for their support of torture.

For their tacit support of waterboarding. In an interview, Giuliani was asked for his views on using “enhanced interrogation techniques,” including waterboarding. He responded that in a hypothetical scenario that assumed an attack, “I would tell the people who had to do the interrogation to use every method they can think of.” Prompted again on the specific use of waterboarding, he repeated “every method they could think of.” Mukasey said he found waterboarding to be “repugnant,” but he wouldn’t answer whether it amounted to torture.

Let AFJ be crystal clear on a subject where these men are opaque: Waterboarding is a torture technique that has its history rooted in the Spanish Inquisition. In 1947, the U.S. prosecuted a Japanese military officer for carrying out a form of waterboarding on a U.S. civilian during World War II.

Waterboarding inflicts on its victims the terror of imminent death. And as with all torture techniques, it is, therefore, an inherently flawed method for gaining reliable information. In short, it doesn’t work. That blunt truth means all U.S. leaders, present and future, should be clear on the issue.

It is important to note that this comes from the Armed Forces Journal. These guys could certainly not be accused of being soft on the enemy or non-patriotic. But they do know what right from wrong is and they are certain that waterboarding is torture, and torture is wrong!

And anybody who agrees with those tactics is agreeing with criminal behaivor and has no right to be running for President or serving as our Attorney General. Period!

Be careful about discussing evolution in Australia. Because some people make their counterpoint with a knife.

English backpacker Alexander Christian York, 33, was today sentenced to a maximum of five years jail for the manslaughter of Scotsman Rudi Boa in January last year.

Mr Boa, 28, died on January 27 after being stabbed by York at the Blowering Holiday Park, near Tumut.

Mr Boa and his girlfriend Gillian Brown arrived in Australia from Scotland at the end of 2005 and went to Tumut to pick fruit as their first port of call on a round the world holiday.

The Scottish couple and York, neighbours at the caravan park, were becoming friends and spent the night of January 27 drinking at the Star Hotel in Tumut.

However, towards the end of the night, an argument between York and the pair about creationism versus evolution escalated into a shouting match at the pub.

The couple, both biomedical scientists, had been arguing the case of evolution, while York had taken a more biblical view of history.

Isn't it a shame that when people find that their argument is illogical and easily torn down they feel the need to resort to violence? How unevolved of them.

President Bush will veto a bill that threatens take the joys of torture away from him.

The House approved an intelligence bill Thursday that would prohibit the CIA from using waterboarding, mock executions and other harsh interrogation methods.

The 222-199 vote sent the measure to the Senate, which still must act before it can go to President Bush. The White House has threatened a veto.

The bill, a House-Senate compromise to authorize intelligence operations in 2008, also blocks spending 70 percent of the intelligence budget until the House and Senate intelligence committees are briefed on Israel's Sept. 6 air strike on an alleged nuclear site in Syria.

I think that, in some way, this was a practice run before attacking Iran. I find it amazing that no sufficient explanation for this has ever been provided. Of course we all know that this was done with the full support of our White House. Israel doesn't even dare to fart without our permission.

The White House threatened to veto the measure this week in a lengthy statement, highlighting more than 11 areas of disagreement with the bill.

Look for Dick Cheney to have another heart attack when this thing gets through the Senate.

Another of the Bush administration's attempts to keep us frightened does not stand up to legal scrutiny.

One of seven men accused of conspiring to blow up Chicago's Sears Tower was acquitted Thursday, and a federal jury in Miami failed to reach a verdict on six others arrested in the alleged terror plot.

The U.S. Attorney's Office announced that the six whose cases ended in mistrials would be retried starting on January 7.

Lyglenson Lemorin, who also goes by the name Brother Levi, was acquitted in the "Liberty City 7" trial, U.S. District Judge Joan Leonard's office told CNN.

The men were arrested in June 2006 and charged with a homegrown terror plot that officials said may have targeted not only the 110-story Chicago tower -- the tallest building in North America -- but also the FBI's Miami offices and other sites.

At the time, sources told CNN that the suspects were dealing with a man they believed was an al Qaeda operative but who was actually a government informant. Senior federal sources told CNN that the men were "not related to al Qaeda" but "possibly" were al Qaeda wannabes.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that ALL of the people who have been accused of planning terrorists activities in this country will have to be released due to insufficient evidence or verdicts of not guilty. With the exception of Richard Reed the "shoe bomber", who was clearly not quite right in the head.

I have serious doubts that there has ever been a real organized plot to attack America, beyond possibly a few malcontents and lunatics who are most likely working alone or have some loose affiliation with poorly organized groups that just want to make a name for themselves.

And no I have not forgotten about 9-11. But I have serious doubts about just what happened on 9-11 and who was actually involved. I will predict that when, and if, the whole story ever comes out we will discover that it is nothing like the official version.

Time magazine's photo essay of military deserters and why they deserted.

This is very powerful stuff.

The Dems have Rove and Bolton in their crosshairs.

The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee voted on Thursday to hold two top aides to President George W. Bush in contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate in its probe of fired federal prosecutors.

On a largely party-line vote of 11-7, the Democratic-led panel sent contempt citations against White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove to the full Senate for consideration.

I am so happy to see the Democrats finally starting to do their jobs.

"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,Or close the wall up with our English dead!"

A little melodramatic but you get the idea.

Representative Robert Wexler suggests the only way to get health care for our kids is to put impeachment back on the table. Now we are talking!

"The way we pass stem-cell research, the way we get implemented a children's health care plan, the way we get higher CAFE (corporate average fuel economy) standards to bring our energy debacle into a better condition for generations to come is to have impeachment hearings," Wexler said. "Because that'll get the president's eye. That'll get the vice president's eye. That for the first time will show that the Democratic majority is here and that in fact we have the courage of our convictions."

Not only will impeachment protect our children with better health care, it will also help to end the war that keeps our brave Americans in harm's way, and will also allow the world to move forward on dealing with climate change.

I mean let's face it, everything will be better once we get Bush and Cheney out of office.

The Pope claims that global warming "prophets of doom" are scare mongering.

Pope Benedict XVI has launched a surprise attack on climate change prophets of doom, warning them that any solutions to global warming must be based on firm evidence and not on dubious ideology.

The leader of more than a billion Roman Catholics suggested that fears over man-made emissions melting the ice caps and causing a wave of unprecedented disasters were nothing more than scare-mongering.

This is one of the things about the issue of global warming that had me very confused at first.

Why were very religious Christians to against blaming humans for the obvious climate changes? I really could not figure it out at first.

It even showed up in the truly frightening documentary "Jesus Camp" in a scene where a mother is homeschooling her son about the subject.

But then after I thought about it a little longer it became obvious why many Christians were not exactly embracing the concept.

You see one of the main selling points for Christianity is that this planet was created for God's people. He made it so that it would meet all of humankind's needs. So the concept that the plan was flawed or that God was not prepared for our technological progress and how it would impact the planet, goes against a very fundamental pillar of the monotheistic belief.

I also came to realize that the more simple belief systems like spiritism, animism, Buddhism, or Taoism, which promote living in harmony with nature have had much less of a destructive impact on the planet as a whole. It really is the religions which preach that all natural resources have been placed here for our exploitation that have caused the greatest harm.

Just a little food for thought on this Thursday morning.

George Bush is hating on our kids again.

President Bush vetoed legislation Wednesday that would have expanded government-provided health insurance for children, his second slap-down of a bipartisan effort in Congress to dramatically increase funding for the popular program.

It was Bush's seventh veto in seven years - all but one coming since Democrats took control of Congress in January. Wednesday was the deadline for Bush to act or let the bill become law. The president also vetoed an earlier, similar bill expanding the health insurance program.

Bush vetoed the bill in private.

Seven vetoes in seven years and two of them were to keep children from getting health coverage? My he is a compassionate conservative.

And the coward did it in private too.

I hope that everybody who voted for this giant pile of shit feel overwhelmed with shame every single day.

Christians attack Jews for yelling "Happy Chanukah". Who would protect them? A Muslim that's who. No really!

A suspected bias attack on four Jewish subway riders has resulted in a friendship between the Jewish victims and the Muslim college student who came to their aid.

Walter Adler is calling Hassan Askari a hero for intervening when Adler and three friends were assaulted on a subway train in lower Manhattan on Friday night.

The altercation erupted when Adler and his friends said "Happy Chanukah" to a group yelling "Merry Christmas" on the Brooklyn-bound train.

I think that I have established very effectively in the past that I am not religious. To put it lightly.

But I have to admit that a miracle like this almost makes me believe in God.

Now if I could just decide on which God.

Clinton camp reveals evidence of drug use in Obama's past. Of course Obama already admitted this in a book in 1995.

A top adviser to Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign said Wednesday that Democrats should give more thought to Sen. Barack Obama's admissions of illegal drug use before they pick a presidential candidate.

You know in this day and age, 40 years after the "Summer of Love", I would be suspicious of anybody who DID NOT admit to some experimentation with drugs.

I mean if you are a relatively social person you are going to be confronted with the opportunity to try a little pot, peyote, heroin, cocaine, or acid. You may skip the opportunity, which is fine, or you may imbibe, which is understandable as well. If you become an addict and engage in a criminal activities to support your all consuming habits, well that is Darwinism at work. But if you try it and then decide to stop and become a productive member of society, then you have demonstrated a strength of character that sets you apart from a large number of the population. And that is to be applauded.

Far from being a negative, I feel Obama's past drug use should be placed front and center in his campaign literature. Especially since he did not swap out an addiction to cocaine for an addiction to fundamentalist Christianity.

I mean a crutch is a crutch.

Christianity is bringing harmony and tolerance to Africa. Just kidding they are burning children and babies as witches.

Evangelical pastors are helping to create a terrible new campaign of violence against young Nigerians. Children and babies branded as evil are being abused, abandoned and even murdered while the preachers make money out of the fear of their parents and their communities.

Almost everyone goes to church here. Driving through the town of Esit Eket, the rust-streaked signs, tarpaulins hung between trees and posters on boulders, advertise a church for every third or fourth house along the road. Such names as New Testament Assembly, Church of God Mission, Mount Zion Gospel, Glory of God, Brotherhood of the Cross, Redeemed, Apostalistic. Behind the smartly painted doors pastors make a living by 'deliverances' - exorcisms - for people beset by witchcraft, something seen to cause anything from divorce, disease, accidents or job losses. With so many churches it's a competitive market, but by local standards a lucrative one.

But an exploitative situation has now grown into something much more sinister as preachers are turning their attentions to children - naming them as witches. In a maddened state of terror, parents and whole villages turn on the child. They are burnt, poisoned, slashed, chained to trees, buried alive or simply beaten and chased off into the bush.

Some parents scrape together sums needed to pay for a deliverance - sometimes as much as three or four months' salary for the average working man - although the pastor will explain that the witch might return and a second deliverance will be needed. Even if the parent wants to keep the child, their neighbours may attack it in the street.

This is what happens when you introduce a difficult religion filled with contradictions to a simple and superstitious people.

The really sad thing is that the only reason that Christians vilify "witches" so much is that during Christianities formative years it found itself competing with established healers and other religious beliefs for the money and attention of the population. Calling everybody who practiced pagan home healing methods or alternative religious beliefs "satanic" was a quick and dirty method for getting rid of the competition.

And due to that kind of labeling, which we still see the Christian church using today, millions have been put to death with the last thing their ears heard being "Kill the witch"! In my opinion this particular religion has much to apologize for, especially since it is still allowing it to happen today.

This is unforgivable.

(I need to give a hat tip to AMERICAblog for this story)

America can now proudly declare itself a debtor nation. Okay well maybe not "proudly".

America has become more debt-dependent - - than ever before with total debt of $48 trillion, or $161,287 per man, woman and childand each added dollar of new debt produces less increased national income!

I don't think I am going to be able to pay my part of this.

Do you think they will let me charge it?

Iraq's National Security Advisor says "thanks but no thanks" to having permanent American bases in Iraq.

Iraq will never allow the United States to have permanent military bases on its soil, the government’s national security adviser said.

“We need the United States in our war against terrorism, we need them to guard our border sometimes, we need them for economic support and we need them for diplomatic and political support,” Mowaffaq al-Rubaie said.

“But I say one thing, permanent forces or bases in Iraq for any foreign forces is a red line that cannot be accepted by any nationalist Iraqi,” he told Dubai-based al Arabiya television in an interview broadcast late on Monday.

I am not sure that the Bush administation got this memo.

Perhaps we can use that money to fix some of the problems we have around this country for a change.

Universal health care anyone?

New CNN poll says that John Edwards would destroy any Republican opponent in a general election.

On the Democratic side, Edwards performs best against each of the leading Republicans. In addition to beating Huckabee by 25 percent and McCain by 8 percent, the North Carolina Democrat beats Romney by 22 percentage points (59 percent to 37 percent) and Giuliani by 9 percentage points (53 percent to 44 percent).

The poll also points out that ANY Democrat could be ANY Republican if the election were held tomorrow. With exception of John McCain who would beat Hillary, tie Obama, but still lose to John Edwards.

This just provides more weight to my contention that if Obama and Edwards were to combine forces they would walk away with the 08 Presidency.

I still think that Edwards should lead the ticket though.

Obama can have the job in 2016.

Wow I think my heart beat a little faster for a moment there. Can you imagine having these two running our country for the next 16 years? What do you think America would look like then? Could we be proud of our country again? I am betting everything that America would be the greatest country in the world, and we would not be the only ones calling ourselves that either.

Video of the Obama/Oprah political rallies.

I have to say that if I were in that audience I have little doubt I would be volunteering to work for the Obama campaign.

These two put on a hell of a show!

Halliburton has been raping our country for years. Now they are gang raping our women.

A Houston, Texas woman says she was gang-raped by Halliburton/KBR coworkers in Baghdad, and the company and the U.S. government are covering up the incident.

Jamie Leigh Jones, now 22, says that after she was raped by multiple men at a KBR camp in the Green Zone, the company put her under guard in a shipping container with a bed and warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she'd be out of a job.

"Don't plan on working back in Iraq. There won't be a position here, and there won't be a position in Houston," Jones says she was told.

I n a lawsuit filed in federal court against Halliburton and its then-subsidiary KBR, Jones says she was held in the shipping container for at least 24 hours without food or water by KBR, which posted armed security guards outside her door, who would not let her leave.

"It felt like prison," says Jones, who told her story to ABC News as part of an upcoming "20/20" investigation. "I was upset; I was curled up in a ball on the bed; I just could not believe what had happened."

Finally, Jones says, she convinced a sympathetic guard to loan her a cell phone so she could call her father in Texas.

As a father of a twenty year old daughter I can only imagine what receiving this phone call must have done to this father. I would have been out of my mind with worry.

I think as Americans we thought our country could never stoop to the kind of attitude toward rape victims like the ones in Saudi Arabia.

But if that was true then this women should be able to receive justice against Halliburton. So let's pay attention to see if this is the outcome, because if it is not then we know that justice has truly died in this country.

Huckabee: "All this country needs is more Jesus".

Government may have dropped the ball in modern American society, but religion dropped it first, Gov. Mike Huckabee told Southern Baptist pastors Sunday night.

"The reason we have so much government is because we have so much broken humanity," he said. "And the reason we have so much broken humanity is because sin reigns in the hearts and lives of human beings instead of the Savior."

"Government knows it does not have the answer, but it's arrogant and acts as though it does," Huckabee said. "Church does have the answer but will cowardly deny that it does and wonder when the world will be changed."

I am always amazed at how well this ridiculous argument works with the bible belt voter.

As if the complexities of our modern world could be solved by an increase in church attendance, and a conversion of the "heathens" in our country. Of which I am obviously one.

Huckabee ignores that fact that it was a devout Christian who brought the country to this unfortunate state. That there are priests that molest children. That there are devout church goers who are caught visiting prostitutes. Or that there are famous televangelists involved in huge scandals involving sex and lavish spending.

In other words the idea that people who are Christians are less likely to do bad things is demonstrably untrue. And the only people who believe that are those who hope that accepting Jesus Christ into their hearts will keep them from doing the "bad things" they feel compelled to do. But it won't.

Simple solutions for simple people.

Another possible reason the CIA destroyed the torture tapes might be to cover up the fact that they tortured a mentally ill prisoner.

This is from the Washington Post's review of Ron Suskind's book "The One Persent Doctrine":

Abu Zubaydah, his captors discovered, turned out to be mentally ill and nothing like the pivotal figure they supposed him to be. CIA and FBI analysts, poring over a diary he kept for more than a decade, found entries "in the voice of three people: Hani 1, Hani 2, and Hani 3" -- a boy, a young man and a middle-aged alter ego. All three recorded in numbing detail "what people ate, or wore, or trifling things they said." Dan Coleman, then the FBI's top al-Qaeda analyst, told a senior bureau official, "This guy is insane, certifiable, split personality."

Abu Zubaydah also appeared to know nothing about terrorist operations; rather, he was al-Qaeda's go-to guy for minor logistics -- travel for wives and children and the like. That judgment was "echoed at the top of CIA and was, of course, briefed to the President and Vice President," Suskind writes. And yet somehow, in a speech delivered two weeks later, President Bush portrayed Abu Zubaydah as "one of the top operatives plotting and planning death and destruction on the United States." And over the months to come, under White House and Justice Department direction, the CIA would make him its first test subject for harsh interrogation techniques.

And it is Abu Zubaydah who is confirmed to be the subject of torture in at least one of the tapes that the CIA were instructed to destroy.

In an article published on Friday, the New York Times cites several unnamed current and former government officials in reporting that “at least two videotapes” were destroyed. The tapes showed the 2002 interrogation of two prisoners, one of whom was Abu Zubaydah, considered a top member of Al Qaeda. The other individual was not named.

Although the government has never officially acknowledged it, Zubaydah, captured by the CIA in March 2002, was subjected to water-boarding, a form of torture involving the near drowning and suffocation of the prisoner. One can only assume that the tapes depict water-boarding or worse forms of torture.

Why don't we torture? Because it makes us appear to be animals! Animals that are willing to torture a person of diminished capacity who could have been convinced to tell all that he knew simply by being kind to him.

But instead we showed the world what American justice is all about.

Is it any wonder they hate us?

(By the way I have to give a tip of my hat to AMERICAblog who brought this story to our attention.)

British Prime Minister tells troops "Merry Christmas! The Iraq war is over"!

Gordon Brown yesterday delivered a stirring festive message to Our Boys in Iraq: “Happy Christmas – war is over.”

The PM was cheered as he praised UK troops and revealed combat operations in Basra will end “within two weeks”.

Iraqi forces will take over as the 4,500-strong British force switches from front-line duties to a training role.

By early next year, our contingent in Southern Iraq will be cut to 2,500 – and may be withdrawn completely in March.

Oh why wasn't I born in the United Kingdom?

We are alone in this nightmare scenario now.

Where is our Christmas miracle?

Walter Cronkite on the Iraq war.

The American people no longer support the war in Iraq. The war is being carried on by a stubborn president who, like Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon during the Vietnam War, does not want to lose. But from the beginning this has been an ill-considered and poorly prosecuted war that, like the Vietnam War, has diminished respect for America. We believe Mr. Bush would like to drag the war on long enough to hand it off to another president.

The war in Iraq reminds us of the tragedy of the Vietnam War. Both wars began with false assertions by the president to the American people and the Congress. Like Vietnam, the Iraq War has introduced a new vocabulary: “shock and awe,” “mission accomplished,” “the surge.” Like Vietnam, we have destroyed cities in order to save them. It is not a strategy for success.

The Bush administration has attempted to forestall ending the war by putting in more troops, but more troops will not solve the problem. We have lost the hearts and minds of most of the Iraqi people, and victory no longer seems to be even a remote possibility. It is time to end our occupation of Iraq, and bring our troops home.

This war has had only limited body counts. There are reports that more than one million Iraqis have died in the war. These reports cannot be corroborated because the US military does not make public the number of the Iraqi dead and injured. There are also reports that some four million Iraqis have been displaced and are refugees either abroad or within their own country. Iraqis with the resources to leave the country have left. They are frightened. They don’t trust the US, its allies or its mercenaries to protect them and their interests.

We know more about the body counts of American soldiers in Iraq. Some 4,000 American soldiers have been killed in this war, about a third more than the number of people who died in the terrorist attacks of 9/11. And some 28,000 American soldiers have suffered debilitating injuries. Many more have been affected by the trauma of war in ways that they will have to live with for the rest of their lives - ways that will have serious effects not only on their lives and the lives of their loved ones, but on society as a whole. Due to woefully inadequate resources being provided, our injured soldiers are not receiving the medical treatment and mental health care that they deserve.

The invasion of Iraq was illegal from the start. Not only was Congress lied to in order to secure its support for the invasion of Iraq, but the war lacked the support of the United Nations Security Council and thus was an aggressive war initiated on the false pretenses of weapons of mass destruction. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Nor has any assertion of a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda proven to be true. In the end, democracy has not come to Iraq. Its government is still being forced to bend to the will of the US administration.

What the war has accomplished is the undermining of US credibility throughout the world, the weakening of our military forces, and the erosion of our Bill of Rights. Nobel Laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz calculates that the war is costing American tax payers more than $1 trillion. This amount could double if we continue the war. Each minute we are spending $500,000 in Iraq. Our losses are incalculable. It is time to remove our military forces from Iraq.

We must ask ourselves whether continuing to pursue this war is benefiting the American people or weakening us. We must ask whether continuing the war is benefiting the Iraqi people or inflicting greater suffering upon them. We believe the answer to these inquiries is that both the American and Iraqi people would benefit by ending the US military presence in Iraq.

Moving forward is not complicated, but it will require courage. Step one is to proceed with the rapid withdrawal of US troops from Iraq and hand over the responsibility for the security of Iraq to Iraqi forces. Step two is to remove our military bases from Iraq and to turn Iraqi oil over to Iraqis. Step three is to provide resources to the Iraqis to rebuild the infrastructure that has been destroyed in the war.

Congress must act. Although Congress never declared war, as required by the Constitution, they did give the president the authority to invade Iraq. Congress must now withdraw that authority and cease its funding of the war.

It is not likely, however, that Congress will act unless the American people make their voices heard with unmistakable clarity. That is the way the Vietnam War was brought to an end. It is the way that the Iraq War will also be brought to an end. The only question is whether it will be now, or whether the war will drag on, with all the suffering that implies, to an even more tragic, costly and degrading defeat. We will be a better, stronger and more decent country to bring the troops home now.

I am pretty sure that it is a tradition in this country that when Walter Cronkite turns against a war we are then obligated to end that war.

It is in the Constitution, look it up.

Oprahpalooza!

Oprah Winfrey said worry about the direction of her country and a personal belief in Barack Obama pushed her to make her first endorsement in a presidential campaign, invaluable support in a tight race for the Democratic nomination.

The weekend "Oprahpalooza" lends A-list star power to Obama's campaign, drawing huge crowds that Obama hopes will turn into his fans. Tens of thousands were expected to turn out for the media diva's Iowa stops and her Sunday visits to South Carolina and New Hampshire with Obama and his wife. In South Carolina, the campaign ran out of the 18,000 tickets originally available for the biggest event and moved it to the 80,000-seat University of South Carolina football stadium.

In Iowa, spectators lined up hours early. Cameras flashed in the capacity crowd during Winfrey's speech, which opened to loud applause and was frequently interrupted by cries of "We love Oprah."

Winfrey said she felt nervous and "out of my pew" as she addressed a gathering hall packed shoulder-to-shoulder in the largest gathering of Iowans in the campaign this year. But she did not hide her political convictions, making an argument for change from the Bush administration other than another Clinton in the White House.

The talk show queen did not mention the current president or Obama rival Hillary Rodham Clinton by name, but was not subtle about her feelings for Clinton's argument that Obama doesn't have the experience to be president when she voted to authorize the war in Iraq.

"The amount of time you spend in Washington means nothing unless you are accountable for the judgment you made," Winfrey said. She said from the beginning Obama "stood with clarity and conviction against this war in Iraq."

"There are times that I even worry about what happens to our country," Winfrey said, standing on a small stage before a sea of people in the 100,000-square-foot hall. "That is why for the very first time in my life I feel compelled to stand up and speak out for the man who I believe has a new vision for America."

I have heard some of the derogatory remarks made by others about having "Hollywood" get behind a candidate. But Oprah is so much more then just a celebrity. She is a force of nature.

And to have that force of nature feel compelled to break her silence for the first time and use her vast influence to support a candidate that she has complete confidence in at a time when our country is in desperate need of healing, speaks to all of us who have watched the destruction of our once great nation through tear stained eyes. Oprah feels the same despair that we have all felt and if she thinks the antidote is Barack Obama then I have every confidence that she will energize the voting base like never before.

I am fine with Obama being the Democrats choice in 08, I just hope that he offers John Edwards a partnership, as I still feel that is the best possible ticket the Democrats could possibly offer.

And there is no Republican or combination of Republicans that would stand a chance. And you can take that to the bank.

It looks like CIA's destruction of those torture tapes is really going to screw up a lot of people's Christmas.

The Justice Department and the CIA's internal watchdog announced Saturday a joint inquiry into the spy agency's destruction of videotaped interrogations of two suspected terrorists as the latest scandal to rock U.S. intelligence gathered steam.

The review will determine whether a full investigation is warranted.

Well so far the President has claims he did not know about it until just recently.

Ex-deputy white house chief of staff Harriet Miers, told them not to destroy the tapes.

So, apparently, did ex-CIA chief Porter Goss.

Others who asked them not to destroy the tapes include Rep. Jane Harman and Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, yet they were in fact destroyed.

They are trying to scapegoat this Jose Rodriguez fellow, but I think we can all conclude that this came from much higher up.

Has anybody bothered to ask Dick Cheney?

50 things you are not supposed to know.

I visited this site expecting nothing but the usual comedic take on things we actually DO know or a conspiracy theorists playground.

But this list is very impressive!

It covers religion, 9-11, witches, Hitler, the law, cloning, etc.

But my favorite one was that the Ten Commandments that we all think we know is not the REAL Ten Commandments in the Bible.

Here are the ten we all believe to be accurate.

ONE: 'You shall have no other gods before Me.'
TWO: 'You shall not make for yourself a carved image--any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.'
THREE: 'You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.'
FOUR: 'Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.'
FIVE: 'Honor your father and your mother.'
SIX: 'You shall not murder.'
SEVEN: 'You shall not commit adultery.'
EIGHT: 'You shall not steal.'
NINE: 'You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.'
TEN: 'You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.'

Here are the REAL Ten Commandments:

1. For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God: Lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go a whoring after their gods, and do sacrifice unto their gods, and one call thee, and thou eat of his sacrifice; And thou take of their daughters unto thy sons, and their daughters go a whoring after their gods, and make thy sons go a whoring after their gods.

2. Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.

3. The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep. Seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread, as I commanded thee, in the time of the month Abib: for in the month Abib thou camest out from Egypt. All that openeth the matrix is mine; and every firstling among thy cattle, whether ox or sheep, that is male. But the firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb: and if thou redeem him not, then shalt thou break his neck. All the firstborn of thy sons thou shalt redeem. And none shall appear before me empty.

4. Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest: in earing time and in harvest thou shalt rest.

5. And thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year's end.

6. Thrice in the year shall all your menchildren appear before the LORD God, the God of Israel. For I will cast out the nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders: neither shall any man desire thy land, when thou shalt go up to appear before the LORD thy God thrice in the year.

7. Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven.

8. Neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the passover be left unto the morning.

9. The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring unto the house of the LORD thy God.

10. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk.

Well there you go. What the hell is all of this about thrice in a year all of your menchildren must appear before the Lord stuff? Does this mean that men only have to attend church three times per year? I think that there are lot of guys who would appreciate this loophole. Especially during football season.

I just love scientific research!

Two young women researchers are calling for a new form of sexual ethics that would allow women to have casual sex without feeling that they're "sluts".

They say the popular view of women as either promiscuous or passive victims has failed to reduce incidents of rape and sexual assault.

Instead, they want both women and men to think about what each of them really wants out of a sexual encounter, and negotiate how to get it.

You know I don't feel that I have supported scientific research enough.

I am going to send these two young women a check.