Just A Thought

“Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.”
Pascal

Define Faith Based Politics

Faith-firm or unquestioning belief in something for which there is no proof.
Based-to make or form a foundation for.
Politics-the relations between people concerned with governing or with influencing or winning and holding control over a government.

So let me get this right. Faith based politics is wanting to influence or hold control over others based upon ideas which have no proof. Does this seem like a good way to govern?

Revisiting "Mission Accomplished"

More Americans dead in Iraq than killed on 9/11. Involvement in Iraq War longer than involvement in WWII, with no end in sight I might add. No weapons of mass destruction found. Iraq never tied to Al-Qadea. Democracy building replaced by civil war. Now President Bush wants to be compared to President Truman. Fat chance.

Of Couse It's Not A War On Terror

"I don't think I would have called it the war on terror. I don't mean to be critical of those who have. Certainly, I have used the phrase frequently. Why do I say that? Because the word 'war' conjures up World War II more than it does the Cold War. It creates a level of expectation of victory and an ending within 30 or 60 minutes of a soap opera. It isn't going to happen that way. Furthermore, it is not a 'war on terror.' Terror is a weapon of choice for extremists who are trying to destabilize regimes and (through) a small group of clerics, impose their dark vision on all the people they can control. So 'war on terror' is a problem for me."
-- Donald Rumsfeld, 12/12/06

Also from Rumsfeld, the following:
(T)here has been comment in the press of late about whether or not we’re even engaged in a war on terror, or whether our purpose might be better explained in a different manner. Let there be no mistake, we are a nation at war, against terrorist enemies who are seeking our surrender or our retreat. It is a war." 8/2/05

"I would like to say that Iraq is really one of the battle grounds in the global war on terror." 4/24/06

"Iraq is the central front of the global war on terror." 12/16/05

Q: My argument is that we are fighting the war on terror in Iraq. Back me up a little bit on that, Mr. Secretary.RUMSFELD: Well, you're absolutely right. 8/3/04

"(Iraq is) part of the global war on terror; let there be no doubt." 9/10/03

Q: Do you feel that the Administration by turning its attention onto Iraq would be leaving the job undone a bit too soon?RUMSFELD: Oh, no. Indeed that’s part of the global war on terrorism, Iraq. 12/4/02

As Bad As It Gets

Bush conceded this week for the first time that the U.S. is not winning the conflict in Iraq.
This is almost as bad as President Reagan not mentioning the word AIDS for more than six years in office. I'm coming to the conclusion that the House Democrats may need to use not only the power of the purse but the threat of impeachment to stop this man who seems by all accounts completely out of touch along with those in his administration.

The Definition of Mental Illness

Doing the same thing over and over and thinking you are going to get different results.

Bush wants to send more troops into Iraq. 'Nuff said.

Atheist = Evil?

Had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine last night where I was less than reticent about my views on Christianity in particular and religion in general. He was aghast to find out that I did not believe in a god to the point that he was sure I was doomed to hell. I'm not talking about a "religious-right" nut case here, rather an ordinary working class guy.

I never know where to go with these conversations because those holding other beliefs are unable to understand that outside of faith their arguments are rather silly from a scientific viewpoint not to mention the fear they have for my everlasting soul. Yet I'm not going to be as quiet about this topic any more. I believe too many of the Christian faith are attempting to legislate and make policy from a belief system that has as its foundation a man-god who like a zombie rose from the dead and while alive walked on water, changed water into wine, single handedly calmed ocean storms, raised people from the dead, with some help from spit and dirt made a blind man see and had direct conversations with the devil amongst other things. Not to mention the fact as the great CSN once sang, "Too many people have died in the name of Christ for anyone to heed the call". No, I think I'll speak up and challenge more often.

“It is a short walk from the hallelujah to the hoot.” —Vladimir Nabokov

Powell Says U.S. Losing in Iraq, Calls for Drawdown by Mid-2007

By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer

Former secretary of state Colin L. Powell said yesterday that the United States is losing what he described as a "civil war" in Iraq and that he is not persuaded that an increase in U.S. troops there would reverse the situation. Instead, he called for a new strategy that would relinquish responsibility for Iraqi security to the government in Baghdad sooner rather than later, with a U.S. drawdown to begin by the middle of next year.

Who are these neo-cons and hyper-Christians who continue to support this debacle?

Is That Working For You?

Women in Iraq and Afghanistan are losing ground. The Taliban are back in force. Iraq and the Palestinians are in or moving toward civil war. The government of Lebanon is being co-opted by Hezbollah. Saudi Arabia funds the Sunnis in Iraq. Iran is developing nuclear weapons.

Now President Bush is studying new options. Of course he is already ruling out anything that might change or improve the situation. Good work Bush.

Nurses Top List of Most Honest and Ethical Professions

As a nurse and a college professor who was once in the clergy and an engineer I had to post this latest Gallup Poll on honesty and ethical standards. Pardon my gloating.

GALLUP NEWS SERVICE
PRINCETON, NJ -- Someone seeking a job that commands high respect need look no further than nursing. For the eighth consecutive year, nurses top Gallup's annual list of occupations rated for their honesty and ethical standards, earning high marks from more than four in five Americans. A combined 84% of Americans describe nurses' ethics as "very high" or "high." What's more, only 2% of Americans say nurses have low ethical standards. The worst any sizeable proportion (14%) says about the integrity of nurses is that it is "average."

The clergy, engineers, and college professors are also all in the top eight of this poll.

Silence is George Bush

The American people have repudiated him, the Iraq Study Group has repudiated him, the Secretary General of the UN has repudiated him, and his own party now sees him more as a liability than an asset. This is what it took to silence GWB. Is he being reflective? Let's hope. Is he running scared? I can't imagine. Or is he just taking cover thinking he can wait this out and resume the same old same old? Sadly I think this is more in line with his thinking. I truly believe the man does not have the capacity to change. Probably all a part of his evangelical, literal bible believing born-again Christian self. I will continue to count the days to the end of this debacle of a presidency.

Rock And A Hard Place

The Republican Party is caught between Scylla and Charybdis. On the one side is the beast they have fed for so many years, the religious right. On the other is the more traditional libertarian, Rockefeller/Goldwater sort who continue in their fiscal conservativism yet are not so keen on conservative social issues.

This great divide will not be easily forded. It would seem the Party is headed for what was always considered a Democratic predicament, that of infighting. Oh to be sure this does not signal a united opposition from the Democrats, but maybe now the Republicans will finally get a taste of the more unseemly public battles once reserved only for the Democrats. I hope I can contain my glee.

Progress Marches On

Conservative Jews as well as the Episcopal Church of the US have moved toward greater acceptance of gays and lesbians. Though controversial it is important to remember that most decisions relating to greater acceptance of the other within religious organizations began on a small scale, were controversial, created schism, and eventually became de rigueur. I believe we shall see the same in this case within the next 100 years.

If It Sounds Like A Nazi.......

In U.S., fear and distrust of Muslims runs deep.

WASHINGTON (Reuters)- When radio host Jerry Klein suggested that all Muslims in the United States should be identified with a crescent-shape tattoo or a distinctive arm band, the phone lines jammed instantly.

The first caller to the station in Washington said that Klein must be "off his rocker." The second congratulated him and added: "Not only do you tattoo them in the middle of their forehead but you ship them out of this country ... they are here to kill us."

Another said that tattoos, armbands and other identifying markers such as crescent marks on driver's licenses, passports and birth certificates did not go far enough. "What good is identifying them?" he asked. "You have to set up encampments like during World War Two with the Japanese and Germans."

At the end of the one-hour show, rich with arguments on why visual identification of "the threat in our midst" would alleviate the public's fears, Klein revealed that he had staged a hoax. It drew out reactions that are not uncommon in post-9/11 America.

"I can't believe any of you are sick enough to have agreed for one second with anything I said," he told his audience on the AM station 630 WMAL (http://www.wmal.com/), which covers Washington, Northern Virginia and Maryland

"For me to suggest to tattoo marks on people's bodies, have them wear armbands, put a crescent moon on their driver's license on their passport or birth certificate is disgusting. It's beyond disgusting.

"Because basically what you just did was show me how the German people allowed what happened to the Jews to happen ... We need to separate them, we need to tattoo their arms, we need to make them wear the yellow Star of David, we need to put them in concentration camps, we basically just need to kill them all because they are dangerous."

Boy This System is Working........NOT.

U.S. Prison Population Sets Record

Associated Press

A record 7 million people -- one in every 32 U.S. adults -- were behind bars, on probation or on parole by the end of last year, a Justice Department report released yesterday shows. Of those, 2.2 million were in prison or jail, an increase of 2.7 percent over the previous year, according to the report.

"Misguided policies that create harsher sentences for nonviolent drug offenses are disproportionately responsible for the increasing rates of women in prisons and jails," Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, a Washington-based group that supports criminal justice reform, said in a statement. From 1995 to 2003, inmates incarcerated in federal prisons for drug offenses have accounted for 49 percent of total prison population growth.

Security Of Electronic Voting Is Condemned

Paper Systems Should Be Included, Agency Says.

By Cameron W. Barr Washington Post Staff Writer

Paperless electronic voting machines used throughout the Washington region and much of the country "cannot be made secure," according to draft recommendations issued this week by a federal agency that advises the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

The assessment by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, one of the government's premier research centers, is the most sweeping condemnation of such voting systems by a federal agency.

In the wake of the stolen presidential elections of 2000 I hope this is a wakeup call.

Free Sex Zone? I Think Not.

Pakistani Islamists protest as new rape law signed.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Religious party activists held small protests on Friday in several cities around Pakistan as President Pervez Musharraf signed into law a bill curtailing the scope of Islamic laws on rape.

Islamist opposition lawmakers have threatened to resign from parliament over the issue, but protests held after the National Assembly passed the Women's Protection Bill earlier this month have failed to generate much public support.

The passage of the bill was seen as a test of Musharraf's commitment to his vision of "enlightened moderation," and a major battle in a long struggle between progressives and religious conservatives to set the course for this mainly Muslim nation.

The act takes the crime of rape out of the sphere of the religious laws, known as the Hudood Ordinances, and puts it under the penal code. Under the Hudood Ordinances, which were introduced by a military ruler in 1979, a rape victim had to produce four male witnesses to prove the crime, or face the possibility of prosecution for adultery. The change does away with that requirement and will allow convictions to be made on the basis of forensic and circumstantial evidence.

An Islamist opposition leader said it would turn conservative Pakistan into a "free sex zone."
Liberal groups and human rights activities have hailed the amendment, although they want a complete abolition of the Hudood Ordinances.