Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

This morning, I came across the web site of an organization that specializes in creating marketing campaigns for churches. They call themselves: Church Marketing Sucks. That name leaves me wondering whether this company understands its niche. Expert marketers, huh?

“Church Marketing Sucks exists to frustrate, educate and motivate the church to communicate, with uncompromising clarity, the truth of Jesus Christ. Started in 2004, Church Marketing Sucks is a part of the Center for Church Communication, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping the church matter.”

Helping the church matter? First of all, where is this church - THE church? I thought there were churches all over the place. Secondly, why does a church need a bunch of marketers to help it matter? That doesn’t speak too highly of that church, does it?

This whole silliness promoted by Church Marketing Sucks begs a bigger question: Why do churches need marketing at all?

They claim to have the divine, immortal, all-powerful, all-knowing, ever-present, super benevolent creator of the entire universe on their side. They claim to be able to give people true happiness and salvation. They claim to give eternal life.

Well, if all that’s true, why do churches need marketing campaigns?

Church Marketing Sucks says, “We’ve got the greatest story ever told, but no one’s listening.”

Maybe it’s time to consider that churches do not have the greatest story ever told. Maybe, it’s just a good story among a lot of other good stories. Maybe the only reason that Christianity was able to dominate Europe during the Dark Ages is that people didn’t have printing presses so that they could find any other book to read.

Besides that, even if you do have the greatest story ever told, but you tell it over and over and over and over again, week after week for almost two thousand years, it gets boring, doesn’t it?

Maybe what churches need is not a new marketing campaign. Maybe it’s time for churches to get a new messiah, to stand alongside Jesus, so that they can have another story to tell when the first one gets old.

John McCain is electable, but he is more than that. John McCain is a war hero. John McCain was tortured, but he didn’t break. John McCain could have left his VC prison cell early, but he chose to remain behind with his unit rather than betray them. John McCain knows what sacrifice is. John McCain stands his ground. Do you want a president who will stand his ground? Vote John McCain for President!

Visit the official John McCain 2008 website and do your part by contributing a donation today! Mr. McCain suffered for this country! The least you can do is open your wallet to help this fine man and help our nation find truly courageous leadership again.

A post was made here earlier today at the Irregular Times Diaries by someone calling herself lilmiss. Lilmiss wrote that we ought to vote for John McCain for President in 2008 because McCain is a man “who will stand his ground”.

Stand his ground? John McCain? Sadly, Senator McCain is more like a man who ground his stand.

Senator McCain’s stand used to be that he was against torture. Sadly, in 2006, John McCain ground that stand to a pulp when he voted for the Military Commissions Act.

John McCain did a classic flip flop when he supported the Military Commissions Act. You see, John McCain was against it, before he voted for it.

First, John McCain made a big deal about how he could never support the Military Commissions Act because it legalized torture, and he would never, ever support that. Then, he Mccain met with George W. Bush to negotiate an acceptable compromise. McCain emerged with what he said was a compromise that would not allow torture, but then, over the weekend, the Senate Republicans changed it all right back so that torture would be legalized by the new law once again.

Then, John McCain voted for it anyway. John McCain voted for torture.

John McCain talks about principles, and doing what’s right, but talk is cheap. Watch what John McCain actually does. When the going gets tough, John McCain grounds his stand.

John has a good suggestion:

“I have an idea I like to call Volunteer Russia. It means that those Americans who want to have their postal mail and email read, who will allow themselves to be placed under surveillance, have their phone conversations listened to, those Americans who are willing to give up some of their rights in order to be detained and interrogated and not charged with anything in the name of national security have the right to submit their names to the government as open citizens. If they want to live in the Soviet Union, why should any of us stop them?

I think that’s fair.”

Any takers?

CNN recently reported on the discovery of previously unknown species that were living underneath Antarctic ice shelves - but what aren’t they telling us about this discovery?

What the scientists found would shock anybody - if only they had the full story. In the entire CNN story, only two sentences mentioned the scientists’ discoveries about sea cucumbers. Why?

Here’s what CNN decided to include: “groups of sea cucumbers were observed moving together, all in one direction.”

What CNN’s editors decided not to tell you is where those groups of sea cucumbers were going. All those groups of sea cucumbers, all moving in a single direction, were on a path that leads, eventually, straight to Manhattan!

Anyone who knows anything about marine biology knows that sea cucumbers are scavengers. Call me excessively curious, but when huge hordes of ocean-going scavengers start heading toward the most important city in the United States, all at once, I’ve got to wonder why. Those sea cucumbers have obviously got some pretty clear ideas about what’s going to happen to New York City in the near future, and have decided, with their cold little invertebrate minds, that there will soon be a lot of food for them in gotham waters.

What do those sea cucumbers know that we don’t know, and why aren’t we being told about it?

I have had it up to here with the Democratic wishy washy wimpy whining about Republicans and the war in Iraq.

I read the headline today: Democrats to push for Iraq timetable.

Oh, the Democrats are going push now? Oh really? Gee, but haven’t they been saying that for a long while now? As I remember it, the Democrats started doing what they call “pushing” for a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq way back in 2003.

Here’s what the Democratic Party’s version of “pushing” is: Hey, President Bush, you really ought to not have the war in Iraq be quite so big, so could you please not send so many American soldiers to die in a vain cause? Oh, ten or twenty thousand less would be okay with us, and we’d probably negotiate on that. We’re offering a non-binding resolution to officially make this request, not that there will be any consequences if you decide to say no. Did we mention impeachment is off the table? We wouldn’t want to be divisive or anything, after all. We’d hate to actually have to take action to end the war, so we’re writing you yet another mutli-billion dollar check to pay to continue the war. Do you need more? If so, just ask. So, in short, let’s Support Our Troops and Win the War on Terror. Yippee!”

With this kind of “pushing” to end the war, my grandchildren might see American soldiers leave Iraq.

I am sick and tired of hearing Democratic politicians tell me that we can’t really push too hard right now, and that we just need to wait until after the next election. It’s a broken record, and out of tune.

I’m issuing a timetable of my own: A timetable for the Democrats to get some backbone. If the Democrats in Congress won’t actually do something to end the war in Iraq by the end of this month, I’m leaving the Democratic Party.

I would like to create a database of people who are connected.  These people are the ones who feature in our press.  These people seem “connected” and seem to have special treatment.  People like Cherie Blairs relations and friends or Tony Blairs relations and friends.

It would be very interesting to find out information about these people as they are at the top of the tree in our society. We could use them as role models or hate models depending on your particular system of values.

I would like this database to be a visual one with little spidersweb joining each one to others.

Just how connected are the likes of Paris Hilton and Gordon Brown

The people connected through business would be interesting.

What do you think of this idea.  I will be able to contribute to the computing aspect in June (presently enrolled in a study course) but require a connected person to supply the content.

I wish I could say that I heard the news this morning with disbelief. Sadly, it’s become all too believable.

The Democrats in the House of Representatives have come up with a plan to end the war a year and a half from now.

Look, this plan is better than not ending the war at all, but why have it end a year and a half from now? I mean, if the Iraq War needs to be ended because it isn’t working now, what good will it do to have the war go on for another year and a half? What possible good could be accomplished from that?

Nothing good for the soldiers trapped over there. Nothing good for Iraq.

Something very good for the Democrats. See, the deadline to have American soldiers out of Iraq would be September 2008. Think hard now. What else is happening in the autumn of 2008?

That’s right: The elections. It’s not just the presidential election time. It’s also time for congressional elections.

So, the last American soldiers would leave Iraq just in time for Democrats to get credit for ending the war, but not with enough time for the Democrats to be blamed if things go to hell in a handbasket as a result.

This plan is an example of political maneuvering of the worst kind.

I want the war to end, just like most Americans do. I do not want the war to be stretched out a year and a half more by the Democrats for the sake of political gain.

Nancy Pelosi ought to be ashamed of herself.

Learned this the other day in one of my Hort. classes….very disturbing to a certain extent. My little house is a 748 sq ft bungalow with a 2 car garage about the same size. When I got done with this equation, my total water shed for 1 in. of rain was 932 gallons, times that by my areas total rain fall and we got roughly 26,000 gallons for the whole year. How does your home/workplace fair? Plug in your numbers below and you’ll have a jaw dropper just like I did.

Okay,

An article from the Associated Press reports that the diplomatic delegations from Iran and the United States hurled insults at each other during an international conference about the mess in Iraq.

“In their first direct talks since the Iraq war began, U.S. and Iranian envoys traded harsh words and blamed each other for the country’s crisis Saturday at a one-day international conference that some hoped would help end their 27-year diplomatic freeze.”

I think this is great!

It’s three decades overdue, but it’s definite progress to get representatives of the governments of Iran and the United States in the same room, getting peeved at each other.

Better to hurl an insult than to hurl a spear. Better to drop an innuendo than to drop a bomb.

Maybe we could replace war with a new kind of international conflict - a put-down battle. Whichever side was able to insult the other side with most originality and wit would win the conflict…

… and then both sides could sit back down and have a more civilized discussion of the problems between them.

That, or a tournament of laser tag between the top leaders of the competing nations.

For what seems like years, NPR has been broadcasting a series of commentaries entitled This I Believe. It’s supposed to be an opportunity for people to write about, and then read on air, what they believe.

The trouble with This I Believe is that the people who contribute commentaries for the series affect a writerly indirectness that manages to sound contrived and vague at the same time.

This morning, for example, the This I Believe segment was about the writer’s widowed mother, who learned to pump gas, and her friend, who sat waiting for her dead husband to drive the car for a few minutes before driving herself, and the writer herself, who proudly declares that she knows how to pump gas because she didn’t get married until after she turned 40 - as if women who get married in their 20s don’t pump their own gas.

The point was… uh… I have no idea what the point was. I don’t know what the writer really believes, and I don’t think that the writer does either. The whole thing was memoirish, skirting towards suggestions of issues, and then racing away from them just as fast.

This I Believe feels like a self-absorbed pose. It might as well be entitled This I Like To Think About Myself.

I’m going to start my own series, I think, entitled, This Makes Me Want To Turn Off NPR

You may not have heard a lot about it here in the United States yet, but over in the United Kingdom, it’s whopping big news: Prime Minister Tony Blair, before he leaves office in disgrace, is trying to push legislation through Parliament that would build a new generation of nuclear weapons for the British government to use.

It’s bizarre psychology, isn’t it? Tony Blair gets so hyper about rumors that Saddam Hussein is trying to develop nuclear weapons that Blair joins with kook-in-arms George W. Bush to go to war in Iraq, even though there is no good evidence to substantiate the rumors, which turn out to be bogus. But then, a few years later, Tony Blair engages in exactly the same behavior that he said made Saddam Hussein an unacceptable danger.

Many Britons are expressing their outrage at Tony Blair’s efforts to build a new generation of Trident nuclear missiles. The outraged include members of Parliament in Tony Blair’s own political party. Two Labor MPs, Jim Devine and Nigel Griffith resigned from their positions in Parliament in protest of Blair’s nuclear weapons plans.

The vote in Parliament’s House of Commons over whether to build new nuclear weapons is scheduled for tomorrow, but today, Greenpeace UK sent a clear message today, unfurling a gigantic banner outside of Parliament today that reads, “Blair loves weapons of mass destruction.”

Among those British celebrities opposing the vote to build more Trident nuclear weapons is Emma Thompson. Golly, isn’t she great?

It wasn’t too long ago that I broke the story of massive formations of Antarctic sea cucumbers advancing on Manhattan. Many are still in denial of the threat, but even as they struggle to accept the new reality, another natural anomaly has struck the United States.

The honeybees are all disappearing from their hives. No dead bodies. No signs of disease. The honeybees are just disappearing.

Where did they all go? The honeybees must all have gone somewhere?

Use your critical thinking skills. For almost all the honeybees in the United States to disappear simultaneous, across huge distances, suggests a high degree of planning in advance. In otherwise, there has been a honeybee conspiracy.

The honeybees did not disappear. They went into hiding - all at once - together.

Is it a coincidence that honeybees from across North America have left their hives and converged all in one single undisclosed location at the very same time that Antarctic sea cucumbers have entered into formations advancing toward Manhattan? What are the chances of that?

Those of us who are not afraid to open our eyes can see what’s going on. Invertebrates from different continents are collaborating in an attack on Manhattan that could come at any time, without warning, probably with the coming of the Spring.

Why do they hate our backbones?

I just came across a web site called Unity08 today, and they say they that:

Unity08 is committed to presenting a third presidential ticket and platform – one that addresses the issues and challenges of the 21st Century – to the American voters in 2008.

We will not waste time pointing fingers. Instead, we will focus on how America can find common ground on critical issues – to give the overlooked moderate majority a voice and a choice in 2008.

Yes! We need a movement that addresses the issue and challenges of the 21st Century! The Republicans are in the 20th Century, and the Democrahates are back in the 19th Century!
Yes! We need someone who will not waste time pointing fingers! Those stupid finger pointers! Moooorons.
Yes! We need to find common ground! Unity! Agreement! Disagreement is so overrated. So is discussion!

I say we all Unite behind the Truth, and Do The Right Thing, and not to do the Wrong Thing, and agree with each other! If everyone will agree with each other, this country will be fixed! Hooray! Yipppeeeee! Get in Line!

Unite! Salute! Forward! Onward! March! Get in Line! Shut up! Listen to your elders! Duct Tape the Peaceniks! Go Unity08!

Foreclosures on homes are at their highest levels in 40 years, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. These are due to people getting home loans with very high interest rates, while their wages do not go up. Also, some very tricky loan terms are out there that end up hitting people with extra charges if they do not pay all their bills on time — even bills that are not for your house! If you are part of Oprah’s Book Club and don’t pay her the regular fees on time you could get your mortgage kicked up under this very bad fine print.

I am spreading the word on this because my brother and sister-in-law have been taken in by real estate scammers and they are going to lose their home. Where will they raise their kids? I do not know. Please. If you are buying a home, read every word of all that fine print they say you don’t need to read. It could save you some real heartache down the road.

I have declared myself to be the new President of Life of Unity08. Don’t disagree with me now — you wouldn’t want to engage in partisan bickering, would you? Don’t you think we all should unite and stop arguing and go ahead to solve the problems that face our nation? You think so? Good! Then shut up and follow me! Good doggie. Heel.

I just read a short divine advice column in which the person asking for advice responds to a book entitled The Bible Cure for Headaches by pointing out that the Bible doesn’t mention headaches, or a cure for headaches, anywhere. How can there be a Bible cure for headaches when there aren’t any headaches mentioned in the Bible?

Well, that person got it half right. It is true that the Bible does not mention any cure for headaches, and never uses the word headache as such. However, in the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah, chapter 30, verse 23 declares, “Behold, the whirlwind of the Lord goeth forth with fury, a continuing whirlwind: it shall fall with pain upon the head of the wicked.”

So there we are. The Bible says quite clearly that God is the cause of headaches. What is the Bible cure for headaches, then?

Simple. Avoid God.

Stupid! CBS TV just announced that the Xavier - Ohio State (Go Xavier!) game was “Sold Out, with a Full House!” But the TV camera at just that moment showed rows and rows of empty seats.

CBS: Basketball Idiots!

Some people ask what the liberal vision for America is. I have a simple image for them to consider: Replacing weapons of mass destruction with wild animals.

That’s what’s happening in Colorado, at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal Wildlife Refuge. Where there once was a factory at which the United States government manufactured chemical weapons, a small herd of bison has been released by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. There, they will help to restore the land to something close to its former productivity.

We don’t need weapons of mass destruction. We do need our land to be rich and productive. The liberal way is to restore America’s lands and provide refuge for free and wild creatures instead of crafting poisons to kill in new, gruesome ways.

It isn’t just America’s prairies that can benefit from this healing approach favored by liberals. All America, city and countryside alike, is in need of rejuvenation. Let’s turn toward a program of renewal in 2008, and vote in a liberal candidate for President.

Justifying the White House’s demand that White House officials, including Karl Rove, only testify for Congress without swearing an oath to tell the truth, and behind closed doors, Press Secretary Tony Snow said that “behavior changes when cameras are off.”

Oh, yes, behavior changes when the cameras are off. When the cameras are off, and the doors are closed, and the public can’t see what’s going on, and no one is under oath to tell the truth, then people in the Bush Administration lie, and they break the law, and they make plans to ruin people for political gain.

Then, when they come out of those private meetings, behind closed doors, with no oath to tell the truth, and the cameras off, they tell us that it’s none of our business to know what they’re doing. They tell us to buzz off.

Democrats in Congress, please don’t lose your backbone on this, as you so often do. Demand open, public hearings, with Bush Administration officials testifying under oath, in front of cameras.

We all deserve to know the truth, and if White House officials won’t tell the public the truth voluntarily, then they must be legally compelled to do so, under punishment of going to prison.

Hell, subpoena Bush! We have already waited to long for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Recent news has put the spotlight on Rove, Gonzales, and the rest of the White House aids……has anyone put this one together yet?

Haliburton has just moved or is moving its headquarters to Dubai……Dubai is in the United Arab Emirates……..the United States does not have an extradition treaty with the United Arab Emirates……..hmmm…has anyone checked Cheney’s passport, bank accounts, realty holdings?

 http://www.usextradition.com/bilateralex.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_extradition_treaties

Right wingers, loathe to accept the idea that people will need to exercise self-restraint in order to continue to thrive on Planet Earth, are lashing out at the science of climate change much as many people once rejected the idea that the Earth is round. At the 60 Minutes site on Yahoo, one such person comments,

“There is no global warming and sea levels are not rising. This is coming from the communist Left, which is incompetent at science and hates technology. Yes that’s what has always been behind 60 Minutes. They won’t let you hear the other side. Do not worry. Global warming is not proven by localized events.”

The fact is that global warming is already causing sufficient increases in sea level to cause localized events around the world. Coastal communities in the south of England, for example are already being forced to make decisions about which areas will receive sea wall protection, and which areas will be allowed to flood.