Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

Deep down in the most patriotic bones of my body, I feel betrayed by God tonight. I thought, as George W. Bush said, that God was on our side in the struggle against evildoers. Now I can see that God is nothing more than another Islamofascist!

I was reading my Holy Bible, which all American patriots must do, when I found a disturbing, anti-American verse in the book of Leviticus. Take a look at what it says:

“These are they which ye shall have in abomination among the fowls; they shall not be eaten, they are an abomination: the eagle..”

God is saying that eagles are abominations! As Stephen Colbert has rightly showed us all, anyone who loves the American bald eagle is a good, patriotic citizen. It logically follows that if someone does not love the American bald eagle is anti-patriotic and anti-American.

Here is Biblical proof that God hates all eagles! He calls them an abomination!

George W. Bush spoke the truth when he said, “If you’re not with us, you’re against us!” We see that God hates eagles, and therefore stands against America.

We all know who stands against America. It’s the evildoers - in other words, the Islamofascists! Thus, I have arrived at the unavoidable conclusion that God is an Islamofascist!

Why did God attack America on September 11, 2001? Why does God hate America?

November 2, 2007 - Friday

1678 days into the war

U.S. MILITARY DEATHS IN IRAQ: 3845
U.S. MILITARY WOUNDED IN IRAQ: 28385

IRAQI CIVILIAN DEATHS
(MINIMUM): 75971
(MAXIMUM): 82776
(LANCET ESTIMATE) 600,000

COST OF THE WAR SO FAR (ROUNDED TO THE NEAREST MILLION): $465,145,000,000

Please note that the above figures, from the IBC website, are NOT estimates of total Iraqi civilians killed as a result of the US invasion and its aftermath. Rather, they are a count of Western-reported verifiable violent deaths, and likely to be a small percentage of the true figure. Les Roberts, author of the Lancet Report, believes the actual number may now be as high as 1,000,000.

RED DAVE

‘lo and behold, what do I find when I wake up and log into Yahoo this morning?

(link)

Bush vetoes water projects bill
By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer 22 minutes ago

An increasingly confrontational President Bush on Friday vetoed a bill authorizing hundreds of popular water projects even though lawmakers can count enough votes to override him.

Bush brushed aside significant objections from Capitol Hill, even from Republicans, in thwarting legislation that provides money for projects like repairing hurricane damage, restoring wetlands and preventing flooding in communities across the nation.

This level of opposition virtually assured that Bush would have a veto overridden for the first time in his presidency. He has used the veto very sparingly for most of the time he has been in office, but has made more use of it recently.

“When we override this irresponsible veto, perhaps the president will finally recognize that Congress is an equal branch of government and reconsider his many other reckless veto threats,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

“More than two years after failing to respond to the devastation and destruction of Hurricane Katrina, he is refusing to fund important projects guided by the Army Corps of Engineers that are essential to protecting the people of the Gulf Coast region.”

The $23 billion water bill passed in both chambers of Congress by well more than the two-thirds majority needed to vacate a veto and make the bill law.

Bush objected to the $9 billion in projects added during negotiations between the House and Senate. He hoped that his action, even though it is sure not to hold, would cast him as a friend to conservatives who demand a tighter rein on federal spending.

But Bush never vetoed spending bills under the Republican Congress, despite budgetary increases then, too. Attempting to demonstrate fiscal toughness now, in the seventh year of his presidency, carried the risk being criticized for doing too little, too late or as waging a transparently partisan attack against the Democrats who now run Capitol Hill.

The president took the gamble, making it part of a broader effort to more pointedly and frequently take on Democratic leaders.

The legislation originally approved by the Senate would have cost $14 billion and the House version would have totaled $15 billion. Bush and a few Republicans complained that the final version was larded with unneeded pet projects pushed by individual lawmakers — sending the overall cost of the bill much higher.

“Only in Washington could the House take a $14 billion bill into a conference with the Senate’s $15 billion bill and emerge with a compromise that costs taxpayers over $23 billion,” said White House press secretary Dana Perino.

She also said Bush vetoed the bill because it is “fiscally irresponsible” and falls outside the scope of the Army Corps’ mission.

Critics noted that the bill piles more work on the Army Corps of Engineers, which already has a backlog of $58 billion worth of projects and an annual budget of only about $2 billion to address them.

If Bush is overridden, the measure would give a green light to projects in virtually every state. It only authorizes the projects; the actual funding must be approved separately.

The authorizations include:

_$3.6 billion for major wetlands and other coastal restoration, flood control and dredging projects for Louisiana, a state where coastal erosion and storms have resulted in the disappearance of huge areas of land;

_nearly $2 billion for the restoration of the Florida Everglades;

_nearly $2 billion for the Army Corps of Engineers to build seven new locks on the upper Mississippi and Illinois rivers;

_$7 billion for various projects related to hurricane mitigation in Mississippi and Louisiana, including assuring 100-year levee protection in New Orleans;

_hundreds of smaller dredging, wetlands restoration and flood control projects across the country.

The Congressional Budget office says the bill includes projects that, if fully funded, would cost $11.2 billion over the next four years and $12 billion in the decade after that. The bill also calls for increased oversight of the Corps, requiring an outside review of water construction projects.

The veto was Bush’s fifth. Four of those have come since Democrats took over Congress in January, but this one was unusual because it also pits the president against a sizable number of lawmakers from his own party. Previous Bush vetoes include two of bills allowing expanded federal research using embryonic stem cells, and a spending bill that would have required troop withdrawals from Iraq.

Last month, Bush vetoed a major expansion of a children’s health insurance program, also over objections from some Republicans. But he has far more partisan unity on that issue than on the water projects bill. It was the first time Bush went into a veto knowing it was a futile effort. This turns the tables somewhat on him, as he has been criticizing Democrats almost daily for wasting time by passing legislation they knew he would not accept.

Isn’t it funny that now that there’s a Democratic majority in Congress Bush is finally taking the packaging off his veto pen? Ain’t it also funny that Bush considers things that will cost around 14 billion over the next 14 years to help fix some badly needed things is “fiscally irresponsible” and yet I just found an article that report economists are speculating that the war in Iraq could balloon to over $1 TRILLION dollars. Whether that is true or not that same article is reporting that the daily cost is over $200 million a day.

Which is fiscally irresponsible? Adding in things to help protect American citizens from natural disasters and restore the environment for $14 billion, or continue an occupation of a foreign nation that serves as nothing but a black hole for the economy and is turning this into the most expensive military campaign in American history?

You want to be fiscally responsible? Pull troops out of Iraq and STOP GIVING TAX BREAKS TO COMPANIES FOR OUTSOURCING AMERICAN JOBS!

I’m participating in the National Novel Writing Month challenge for this year, in which the goal is to write 50,000 words of a fictional novel between November 1 and November 30, 2007. The goal is quantity, not quality, something that is designed to smash down the perfectionist’s writer’s block. I’m giving it a shot for the first time in my life. I’ve never so much as written a fictional short story, so this will be a real challenge and growth experience.

Here’s a fragment from yesterday’s writing:

“Why did he have to give me a name like ‘Bingley?’” asked the boy over a dinner of chicken drumsticks, jasmine rice and green peppers an hour and a half later.

With a teenager in the house, Carl had learned the value of maintaining what he called “meal sets” at the ready for deployment at a moment’s notice. Not only could a kid in high school be occasionally too moody to come down for a scheduled dinner, but there were the second breakfasts, the midnight snacks, and the unannounced visitors who seemed to have a way of nudging a space open at the dinner table. Carl didn’t mind this challenge; on the contrary, he seemed to savor it as a test of his abilities as a parental surrogate not just for Bingley but for all the kids who found their way to his kitchen.

When he was growing up, Carl’s mother on occasion would tell him stories about his grandfather, who would bring all sorts of what she’d call “characters” home for dinner without so much as a phone call. Grandma would complain around the edges, but she always seemed to be able to pull a meal together out of the contents in the pantry, no matter how meager they were. Any complaints by Carl as a boy when he was denied a wanted toy were met by his mother’s story about the potato – one large russet potato split six ways to feed a family of four and two homeless guests.

Even now, the bare mention of the potato story would prompt Carl to roll his eyes. Nevertheless, the tale’s repetition had accomplished its intended purpose in setting a standard for Carl to meet in his domestic life as an adult. “Just in case,” Carl would mutter to himself at the grocery store when he encountered an unnecessary item that might prove useful in the future. A pork tenderloin that surely would fit in the basement freezer. A head of cabbage; now that would keep from wilting or rotting longer than most other fresh vegetables. Packets of ramen would do in a pinch, too, as long as there was some green onion, some leftover chicken to shred, and maybe an egg to scramble into it.

Carl didn’t stock his kitchen like this for the hobos. Really, Carl had no idea how he would even find people to help out like that. Maybe homeless travelers didn’t make themselves public like they used to; almost nobody hitchhiked any more or stayed in the parks past dawn. Maybe Carl’s grandfather’d just had the knack, or maybe he’d had an open face. Or maybe it was Carl who had an unusual deficit in that regard. Carl had joked more a few too many times to his friends that he wouldn’t know how to find recreational drugs if he’d even wanted to try them, or how to find a prostitute if he’d been feeling lonely and inclined. His friends would to pause a few uncomfortable seconds before bringing up another more wholesome subject.

No, Carl wouldn’t know how to find such people to bring home for dinner. The way it had worked instead was that the kids found Carl. He’d stocked his kitchen well-enough, and treated area kids to delicious snacks and meals at odd times of the day for long enough, that eventually one of those kids would get locked out of the house accidentally and just know where to go until mom came home with her extra key. From there it was a combination of word spreading from friend to friend and the acceleration of events. From a kid getting locked out accidentally, to a kid who’d gotten drunk and didn’t want to face the music at home just yet, to a kid needing refuge from fights at school, to a kid getting locked out on purpose, to a kid finding refuge from getting knocked around at home. Because Carl worked from home, his kitchen was pretty much always open, and he just wasn’t the kind of man to say no to someone with a need. With some of the kids, he’d never even get to know their name; they’d just come in on the trails of someone else and drift out before anybody noticed. Some of the kids would stick around a while longer.

If I can write this dreck, surely you can write something better. Go ahead, give it a shot.

New York’s senior US Senator, Charles Schumer, just lost my vote. He is supporting the nomination of Michael Mukasey to become Attorney General of the United States, even though Mukasey flatly refused to tell the U.S. Senate whether he will regard waterboarding is a form of torture.

The problems are twofold:

1. Michael Mukasey directly insulted the right of the Senate to practice oversight and to be anything but a rubber stamp in the confirmation process
2. Michael Mukasey has implicitly endorsed a form of torture. That’s illegal. The new Attorney General of the United States is going to be endorsing, if not directing, criminal behavior on the part of the government.

Thanks to Charles Schumer, this will pass. Senator Schumer makes a weak Senate the new status quo.

This is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. It started with Chuck Schumer’s decision to help George W. Bush start a war in Iraq, and goes downhill to this point.

Senator Chuck Schumer is now on the record as supporting torture.

Thanks for nothing, Senator Schumer.

I will support any progressive who runs for Senate in 2010. I will not support Chuck Schumer. He does not represent the values of New York State.

I’ve discovered myself during National Novel Writing Month. The exercise has helped me figure out with a bit more detail exactly who I am. I am… a person who is not really interested in writing fiction. I love to read fiction, and I love to write non-fiction. I thought the two would somehow combine into an interest in writing fiction. But no, no dice! I’ve been writing fiction for the past three days and it’s like driving a car with a really messed-up alignment. I keep on veering back into non-fiction. I’m writing little non-fiction passages from fictional non-fiction books inside my novel, and those are the parts of writing my “novel” that I enjoy the most. Getting back to the story and the plot and character development is so boring to me compared to that.

Up until right now, I’ve countered that tendency by taking a deep breath and diving right back in to the fictional parts. But why do that? I want, I very clearly want, to write non-fiction. I think I’m going to do that instead. Am I limiting myself? Maybe. Might I want to give fiction writing another shot some other year? Sure. But the situation is akin to my “new food” policy with my children; I won’t let them complain about and refuse food without at least trying one bite of it (I mean, you know, unless it’s horribly burnt or infused with radon or something like that). I’ve had my bites for now, three days’ worth of them, and right now I don’t like the dish. When my kids say they don’t like a food after tasting it, I’ll take it off their menu for a few months and then maybe try it again. Sometimes they like the food on the second go. Maybe I’ll enjoy writing a novel with my second attempt, even though I didn’t like it this time. We’ll see — next year.

November 4, 2007 - Sunday

1680 days into the war

U.S. MILITARY DEATHS IN IRAQ: 3849
U.S. MILITARY WOUNDED IN IRAQ: 28385

IRAQI CIVILIAN DEATHS
(MINIMUM): 76075
(MAXIMUM): 82883
(LANCET ESTIMATE) 600,000

COST OF THE WAR SO FAR (ROUNDED TO THE NEAREST MILLION): $465,712,000,000

Please note that the above figures, from the IBC website, are NOT estimates of total Iraqi civilians killed as a result of the US invasion and its aftermath. Rather, they are a count of Western-reported verifiable violent deaths, and likely to be a small percentage of the true figure. Les Roberts, author of the Lancet Report, believes the actual number may now be as high as 1,000,000.

RED DAVE

Tonight I was researching various topics on paganism and ancient revivalism when I came across a Wikipedia article about a group of pagans in Greece who were trying to gain equal rights in the eyes of the Greek government. It seems that prior to 2006, all religions except Christianity, Judaism and Islam had been banned. An Athenian court seems to have overruled that.

The story regarding this can be found here (I may post a separate diary entry about this later).

When I read about their desire to be allowed to worship in the Parthenon, I looked it up on Wikipedia for clarification. The article listed pollution hazards and I found myself curious enough to read on. It seems that acid rain from the growth of Athens and the exhaust from cars has caused irreparable damage to the sculptures in the Parthenon.

Pollution is a bad thing, not only for the harm it does to ourselves and our environment but for the harm it does to our history. When historical landmarks and wonders of the ancient world are threatened by our pollution, isn’t it time to do something?

I see this and then I see conservatives calling for less restraints put on pollution control and I find it hard to believe that they could be so caviler and arrogant not to see the harm that is already happening. Is there nothing at all more important than grabbing for that extra dollar?

Hi. I’m God. I live up on a cloud that crosses many countries and continents, and so I guess you could say that I’m a citizen of the world.

I just wanted to let you all know that I’ve started an advice column because I think I have had some experiences that other people might find informative. Go ahead and ask me whatever you like, and I’ll try to respond.

Well, as they say, I just wanted to put that out there in the universe.

George W. Bush and his Republican followers love to talk about the value of good hard work. They hate people just sitting around unemployed, they say. Their message to Americans having hard times is: Get a job!

It’s an odd thing, then, that Republicans actually oppose programs that help people get work. In the federal budget the Republicans have proposed for 2008, the funding for vocational and technical education programs is cut in half.

Those programs help give students the skills that will make them valuable to employers, keeping the economy strong. The programs encourage and enable people to get a job, just like Republicans say everybody ought to.

Republicans may talk about the value of hard work, but they don’t back up their talk with action. They show the low regard they have for working people in the funding cuts they hurl at the pro-work programs in the federal budget.

November 7, 2007 - Wednesday

1683 days into the war

U.S. MILITARY DEATHS IN IRAQ: 3857
U.S. MILITARY WOUNDED IN IRAQ: 28385

IRAQI CIVILIAN DEATHS
(MINIMUM): 76226
(MAXIMUM): 83042
(LANCET ESTIMATE) 600,000

COST OF THE WAR SO FAR (ROUNDED TO THE NEAREST MILLION): $466,567,000,000

Please note that the above figures, from the IBC website, are NOT estimates of total Iraqi civilians killed as a result of the US invasion and its aftermath. Rather, they are a count of Western-reported verifiable violent deaths, and likely to be a small percentage of the true figure. Les Roberts, author of the Lancet Report, believes the actual number may now be as high as 1,000,000.

RED DAVE

Read this one. Last week, on “60 Minutes,” one of Bush’s LIES, that’s LIES, not faulty intelligence, LIES, was clearly exposed. Three weeks before the invasion of Iraq, the primary source for “intelligence” about chemical weapons of mass destruction was exposed. Not after the invasion but before.

Faulty Intel Source “Curve Ball” Revealed

60 Minutes: Iraqi’s Fabricated Story Of Biological Weapons Aided U.S. Arguments For Invasion

(CBS)*Did Saddam Hussein have weapons of mass destruction? No, he did not. We’ve known that for some time now. So where did the intelligence come from that he was building up his arsenal? Fantastically, the most compelling part came from one obscure Iraqi defector who came in and out of history like a comet. His code name, ironically, was “Curve Ball” and his information became the pillar of the case Colin Powell made to the United Nations before the war. Who is Curve Ball and how did he fool the world’s elite intelligence agencies?

…

U.N. inspectors in Iraq visited a suspected WMD location — Djerf al Nadaf, Curve Ball’s secret site. And what did they find there? A wall — the very wall that had appeared on the overhead imagery back in 2001. Curve Ball had claimed the mobile bio-weapons trucks entered through doors at one end of a warehouse.

“When the inspectors examined the facility, they found that this was an impossibility,” explains Jim Corcoran, whose job it was to relay intelligence to the inspectors in Iraq.

Corcoran learned the wall blocked any entrance to the warehouse. As for Curve Ball’s hidden doors at the other end that would allow the trucks to exit?

“Again, there was a wall there, no doors. And outside there was a stone fence that would have made it impossible for this to have occurred,” Corcoran says.

Corcoran knew Djerf al Nadaf was of great importance, so he sent inspectors back 20 days later to take samples, to see if any traces of biological agents were there. “They proved negative,” Corcoran tells Simon. “There was nothing there.”

But the inspectors’ findings in Iraq made no impact; the war began three weeks later.

RED DAVE

They all thought that I was just kidding, or that I was some kind of crazy conspiracy theory kook, but who’s laughing now?

New Scientist is reporting that the collosal volcano underneath Yellowstone National Park has begun to swell, and swell, lifting the entire land up, as a gigantic mass of molten rock rises, as a bubble of death, toward the surface. It’s just like I said it would happen.

When it reaches the surface, the inevitable will happen: An immense explosion that will set the United States on fire, burying half of North America under red hot burning ash, suffocating us, murking up the entire northern hemisphere with clouds of acidic sulfur rain that will poison the seas and cause everything but the smallest slimiest bottom dwellers to plunge into agony as they die, never to breed again, entire trunks of the tree of life withering with a fungus that cannot be contained, and on the land, here and there, miserable, zombie-like children watching the dogs pull the corpses from the earth because the Alpo factories have all burned down, and nobody is left to make them new Barney videos to watch as the world falls down!

Laugh at Disaster Dan, if you will, laugh, if it makes you feel better. I understand that you all need someone to pick on, to cast your anxieties at, as my worst predictions come true before your eyes. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

          History of the human race, so far it is available, says that people always were in debate on religion. Because, always there were people who were denying the existence of God and hence rejecting the necessity of religion and others were claiming the existence of God or more than one god. On the other hand those who were trying to prove the existence of God were differing about definition of His existence and attributes. Even followers of one religion were differing each other regarding the same and more than that regarding religious injunctions.

            Sometimes we see that people of different religions debate regarding one or more particular religious injunctions of a religion. It is not a wise method. Rather we should try to solve basic differences. If we can solve those then solving subsidiary questions will become easy.

The Standard or Criterion

            But before entering the debate we have to decide about the standard or criterion. This standard or criterion must be acceptable to all irrespective of religious faith and even to the atheists. Otherwise it will not be possible to reach a solution. We think, the only criterion that may be and should be acceptable to all, however to solve the basic queries of life, (not the queries related to expertise), is the reason.

            Now we have to serialize the questions according to logical preferences. When the first question is solved then we can enter the second one.

Is the Truth Attainable?

            Now the first question:

            To us the first question that must be solved is that whether the truth or the reality is attainable or not. This question always existed throughout the history. Always there were some people who used to argue that truth or reality is not attainable. Their argument is like such: When we are asleep we dream, but in dream we can’t understand that it’s a dream; we think it true or real. Then wake up and can understand that it was not real. May be also our present life is like something like dream and after death we would understand that it is not true or real. Another one of their argument is that our senses are not reliable means of collecting information; sometimes we can clearly understand that those are giving us wrong information. For example, we see a plane in the sky as small as bird, but when it lands in the airport we see that it is a large thing. So we can not trust our eyes. Then if I put one of my hands into a buckets of water having 60 degree temperature and the other in a bucket of water having 30 degree temperature, then I put both of my hands at the same time into a third bucket of water having 45 degree temperature then one of my hands will inform me of hot water and the other will inform of cold water, though the temperature of the water is same.

            The solution:

            Beyond doubt that we can not attain the truth or reality regarding every phenomenon, but we can attain the truth or reality regarding many. For example, may be that the reality of my existence is as I feel or may be actually it is otherwise, but at any condition I can not doubt about my very existence. Because, I feel, I observe, I think, so I have existence (1). I have five senses and five physical organs, so those are true or real (2), though may be those are giving me all the wrong information or some wrong and some correct information. There are some external phenomenon (beyond my existence)(3), though may be those are as I observe or those are different than my observation. I sleep (4), I dream (5) and I awake (6) and I will die (7), I eat and drink (8), I talk and debate (9), I live (10); may be real nature of these phenomenon are different than that I observe, but I can not deny very reality of those. I have an analysis power in me (11) other than my physical senses that can analyze information collected by the senses and detect at least some the wrong information. If we proceed in this way we must find that we can attain the truth or reality regarding uncountable number of phenomenon, though there remain other uncountable number of phenomenon that we know nothing about those or our knowledge is fully or partly incorrect regarding those.

            Human experience says that through sincere effort with truth-seeking mind one can attain the truth or reality at least regarding basic queries of life that are not related to expertise.

Is there any Creator?

            Now the second question:

            Is there any creator behind our existence?

            To reach the goal through a shortest possible way we should try to find the solution through philosophical argument based on reason:

            Any existence may be either essential or possible. A possible existence comes into existence when all the conditions of existence are fulfilled, otherwise not. All kinds of existence within the domain of our “experience” are possible existences which are depended upon causes and effects. The causes that brought a thing into existence are in fact effects of some other previous causes. Thus if we go back and back and back then we must reach to the starting point where there must be a cause or some causes which is or are not effect or effects of other causes. Or in other words there is no other cause or are no other causes before that. In other words, this cause is or these causes are the first cause or causes, or cause/ causes of all causes. Then this cause is or these causes are essential existence or existences which the followers of religions call God or gods.

            However, many material scientists tried to explain the beginning of the existence of material world, though it is not their subject, but it is beyond the jurisdiction of their experience and experiment. Previously in the name of science it was claimed that at the beginning there was motionless primary mater, then accidentally the motion was created and the process of change in the matter started. Recently
Stephen Hockings claimed that the creation started from the primary particle. But none of these theories told us wherefrom did that motionless primary matter or the primary particle come? If there would be nothing before that how did it get its existence? Then who created motion in the primary matter or explosion within the primary particle? When the primary matter or the primary particle was void of cause and effect process or in other words natural rules wherefrom it came? The strange and mysterious collection of causes and effects or natural laws transformed this complex world; who or what did form those laws? Can those come into existence accidentally? The natural rules are many time more complex than the rules conducting a super computer; but also the rules conducting the super computer are part of the natural rules of the world; scientists only discovered and utilized those. Yet the super computer has come into existence after hundred year’s restless efforts of dozens of top-ranking scientists, not accidentally. Then how can these natural rules come into existence accidentally? Moreover, what does the accident means? Does it mean that something may happen without any cause? Only ignorant people may believe it? We face accident due to our lack of previous knowledge about a happening, but no accident is void of cause or causes. When there was no cause and effect process or natural rule then how accident may occur in the primary matter or primary particle? So any reasonable human being must accept that the beginning of the creation started by a willful and conscious essential existence or an Everlasting Great Scientist, whatever may you name Him, Allah, God, Jehovah, Ishwar or any other name.

Oneness of the Essential Existence

            Now the third question:

            Can such essential existence or the primary source of all existences be more than one? The reply of the reason is negative. Because for being essential existence and primary source of all existences that existence must be everlasting, all-knowing, all-powerful, willful, sovereign, free of any need or imperfectness and beyond time, space, change, division or analysis. So He must be void of equals, partners, helpers, spouse or and children. We need those due to our weakness and imperfectness; the essential existence must be free of those weakness and needs. If there would be more than one perfect and sovereign essential existence then all the creations would be destroyed. Because, we know that having two sovereign kings in a kingdom and their peaceful coexistence is impossible. (However, may be two persons termed as ‘king’ may coexist in one kingdom under constitutional bindings, but it is quite clear that none of them is sovereign beyond constitutional bindings.)

            So it is beyond doubt that the essential existence is essentially one.

            Let us discuss about this subject with sincere and truth-seeking mind and arguments based on reason.

            Then we can discuss regarding attributes of the Essential Existence.

As I wrote earlier, I have failed in my first attempt to write a novel during National Novel Writing Month. The goal was to write 50,000 words during the month of November. I burned out on the task on just the third day, finding it to be un-fun and feeling the need to accomplish other tasks.

I’m not going to jump back on the NaNoWriMo bandwagon for this year. But I have been thinking about why I fizzled. I think the answer is that I didn’t structure the attempt enough. I just had an idea in my head and jumped right in, flailing around for a few days and getting really tired in the process. I’m not ashamed to say I failed, big time. OK, maybe a bit ashamed. I’d like to do better.

So I’m going to start again at the beginning of next month, but I’m going to do things differently. December will be Figure Out the Parameters of How I’m Going to Structure My Novel Month. January will be Compose the Particulars of the Structure for My Novel Month, and the rest of the year will by my Novel Writing Year. It’s a longer period of time for a long project. I think this is more realistic, less rushed and panicky than National Novel Writing Month, and so I think I’m more likely to succeed. I will try again, at a less manic pace.

Wish me luck! I would appreciate any advice anyone might have to offer.

I’ve been browsing through some fundamentalist religious quotes on Fundies Say The Darndest Things and from what I can tell most of those quotes can be broken up into five basic categories:

-Anti-Evolution
-Anti-Homosexuality
-Anti-Abortion
-Anti-other religions
-Miscellaneous

Now, while I could go and tackle each and every one of those points and their reasons behind them, I want to focus on the Anti-Homo part of it during this entry.

I’ve heard many justifications for this type of bigotry and they’ve come in many forms from calm explanations to near hysterical SHOUTING IN ALL CAPS-LOCK!!!1!111!!

But whatever form it takes on it always seems to come back to one thing: “Its an abomination against God” and to support this stance and their own bigotry they’ll site Leviticus 18:22. However most of these same people, when you point anything else out they’ll say that the New Testament did away with the Old Testament and therefore the Old Testament is now invalid. Except, just now to confirm what I was already pretty sure of, I looked up the book of Leviticus, and guess what I found?

Leviticus is a part of the Old Testament.

Now, rather than use the point of eating shell-fish to counter their argument and show them as hypocrites, I’m just going to start pointing out what they already believe; that Jesus’ sacrifice rendered the Old Testament obsolete (seeing as they seem so intent on ignoring Matthew 5:18-19 and Luke 16:17 when it suits them) and that therefore Homosexuality must be just fine so long as those damn homos except Jesus as their savior. After all, the Old Testament is invalid according to them, right?

Now, if they somehow claim that homosexuality is a sin and yet the Old Testament is still void, I feel I’d be well justified in pointing out their hypocrisy.

Through the Military Commissions Act, right wing Democrats and Republicans in Congress have helped George W. Bush revoke the writ of habeas corpus, which requires governments to provide specific information about the reason that prisoners are being held. Habeas corpus is an essential tool in the prevention of arbitrary imprisonment.

What would America’s founding fathers think of the Military Commission Act’s removal of this protection? Alexander Hamilton certainly wouldn’t have approved of it. In the Federalist Papers, Hamilton wrote that “arbitrary imprisonments have been in all ages the favourite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.”

Hint to Young Republicans: Tyranny is a bad thing.

A new report out by the Democratic congressional joint economic committee says that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could end up costing America 3.5 trillion dollars, not 2.4 trillion dollars as the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says.

You know what my reaction to that is? So what?

It has to do with the psychology of numbers. People regard their burdens in terms of relative, not absolute, scales. When the country is in debt 2.4 trillion dollars, what’s another 1.1 trillion dollars to add on?

Peregrin Wood tries to put these trillions of dollars into perspective by breaking them down into gumballs. That helps, but there’s only so far that the mind can stretch. What’s the difference in a line of gumballs stretching to the sun and back eight times and a line of gumballs stretching to the sun and back twelve times?

Who in their right mind would not be bothered by the loss of 2.4 trillion dollars, but then when 3.5 trillion dollars is lost, freak out? No one. If 3.5 trillion dollars is bad, then 2.4 trillion dollars is bad too. If 2.4 trillion dollars of burden won’t bother you, 20 trillion won’t either.

This game the congressional Democrats are playing, of saying, “No no, it’s 3.5 not 2.4″ shows a profound deficit of understanding of effective communication.

November 16, 2007 - Frinesday

1691 days into the war

U.S. MILITARY DEATHS IN IRAQ: 3865
U.S. MILITARY WOUNDED IN IRAQ: 28451

IRAQI CIVILIAN DEATHS
(MINIMUM): 77213
(MAXIMUM): 84128
(LANCET ESTIMATE) 600,000

COST OF THE WAR SO FAR (ROUNDED TO THE NEAREST MILLION): $469,081,000,000

Please note that the above figures, from the IBC website, are NOT estimates of total Iraqi civilians killed as a result of the US invasion and its aftermath. Rather, they are a count of Western-reported verifiable violent deaths, and likely to be a small percentage of the true figure. Les Roberts, author of the Lancet Report, believes the actual number may now be as high as 1,000,000.

RED DAVE

Every so often I’ll see something that can fill me with such disgust and outrage it becomes difficult to express my feelings. This is one of those times.

And to anyone who claims that the members and writers of Irregular Times give Islam a free ride while harping on Christianity, I’m about to prove you wong.

Female rape victim gets 200 lashes and jail
From correspondents in Riyadh
November 16, 2007 07:15am

A COURT in the ultra-conservative Islamic kingdom of Saudi Arabia is punishing a female victim of gang rape with 200 lashes and six months in jail.
The 19-year-old woman - whose six armed attackers have been sentenced to jail terms - was initially ordered to undergo 90 lashes for “being in the car of an unrelated male at the time of the rape,” the Arab News reported.

But in a new verdict issued after Saudi Arabia’s Higher Judicial Council ordered a retrial, the court in the eastern town of Al-Qatif more than doubled the number of lashes to 200.

A court source told the English-language Arab News that the judges had decided to punish the woman further for “her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media.”

Saudi Arabia enforces a strict Islamic doctrine known as Wahhabism and forbids unrelated men and women from associating with each other, bans women from driving and forces them to cover head-to-toe in public.

Last year, the court sentenced six Saudi men to between one and five years in jail for the rape as well as ordering lashes for the victim, a member of the minority Shi’ite community.

But the woman’s lawyer Abdul Rahman al-Lahem appealed, arguing that the punishments were too lenient in a country where the offence can carry the death penalty.

In the new verdict issued on Wednesday, the Al-Qatif court also toughened the sentences against the six men to between two and nine years in prison.

The case has angered members of Saudi Arabia’s Shi’ite community. The convicted men are Sunni Muslims, the dominant community in the oil-rich Gulf state.

Mr Lahem, also a human rights activist, said yesterday the court had banned him from handling the rape case and withdrew his licence to practise law because he challenged the verdict.

He said he has also been summoned by the ministry of justice to appear before a disciplinary committee in December.

Mr Lahem said the move might be due to his criticism of some judicial institutions, and “contradicts King Abdullah’s quest to introduce reform, especially in the justice system.”

King Abdullah last month approved a new body of laws regulating the judicial system in Saudi Arabia, which rules on the basis of sharia, or Islamic law.

This is the kind of people who the USA supports. We’re allies with Saudi Arabia even though the majority of the terrorists who hijacked the planes on 9/11 were from there and we’re even sending them military equipment.

When I first read this, I admit, I found I could easily renounce an anti-violence ideal if it meant I could deal some Old Testament type punishment on the people involved with this story, but right now it’s making me feel sick to my stomach.

Religion of peace my achin’ ass.

November 17, 2007 - Saturday

1693 days into the war

U.S. MILITARY DEATHS IN IRAQ: 3867
U.S. MILITARY WOUNDED IN IRAQ: 28489

IRAQI CIVILIAN DEATHS
(MINIMUM): 77225
(MAXIMUM): 84140
(LANCET ESTIMATE) 600,000

COST OF THE WAR SO FAR (ROUNDED TO THE NEAREST MILLION): $469,377,000,000

Please note that the above figures, from the IBC website, are NOT estimates of total Iraqi civilians killed as a result of the US invasion and its aftermath. Rather, they are a count of Western-reported verifiable violent deaths, and likely to be a small percentage of the true figure. Les Roberts, author of the Lancet Report, believes the actual number may now be as high as 1,000,000.

RED DAVE

Pentagon Cover Up

By MIKE WHITNEY

The Pentagon has been concealing the true number of American casualties in the Iraq War. The real number exceeds 15,000 and CBS News can prove it.

CBS’s Investigative Unit wanted to do a report on the number of suicides in the military and “submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the Department of Defense”. After 4 months they received a document which showed–that between 1995 and 2007– there were 2,200 suicides among “active duty” soldiers.

Baloney.

RED DAVE

I guess Beth Hafer, the leading Democratic candidate to take on Tim Murphy in the PA 18th Congressional is having an online 72 hour fundraiser on November 27th to the 29th.  Help western PA with a 72 hr version of small change for bigger change.

The link is: http://www.gecturf.com/bhafer/

Seems like there has been alot of excitement and a great reponse for Democrat Hafer, who has great views on immediately changing course in Iraq and supporting working families instead of the large interest groups and CEOS (like Tim).  Tim Murphy recently voted against the Bridge fund to change course in Iraq from occupation to transition, as well as a program geared at providing assistance for those workers who lose their jobs as a result of bad trade agreements such as NAFTA and CAFTA.  This war has costed Pennsylvania alot and we’ve lost over 202,000 good paying manufacturing jobs because Tim Murphy chose to rubber stamp President Bushes anti-worker policies.  Hafer’s successful first quarter was comparable to freshmen Congressmen Altmire and Murphy. 

Jesse

Westmoreland Co. PA

I have decided to come unhinged. Over the last few years, as things have gotten worse and worse, I have become increasingly serious, and dedicated to getting the word out.

I’ve watched as more and more Americans just tune out. The more outrageous the abuses of our government get, the less they pay attention. The more blatant Bush’s crimes have become, they less they care. The more bizarre the distortion of our democracy becomes, the more they pretend that nothing has changed.

I’d say that it seems that Americans are in training for living under totalitarian rule… except that tonight, I’m too tired to say that.

My sense of normalcy has been shredded by the way that most Americans shrug off what it has meant to be an American, and accept a monstrous replacement. The new normal is insane, and so tonight, I am insane.

I feel that my efforts to communicate warnings to other Americans have been about as effective as the voice of a microscopic organism. So, in this video, I speak in my true voice for these irregular times: The voice of Herman, the Activist Protozoan, who clamors in vain in the effort to convince multicellular organism to take action. That’s about as effectual as I’ve been, in my little bitty marginal pool of slime.

November 20, 2007 - Tuesday

1696 days into the war

U.S. MILITARY DEATHS IN IRAQ: 3873
U.S. MILITARY WOUNDED IN IRAQ: 28489

IRAQI CIVILIAN DEATHS
(MINIMUM): 77305
(MAXIMUM): 84222
(LANCET ESTIMATE) 600,000

COST OF THE WAR SO FAR (ROUNDED TO THE NEAREST MILLION): $470,210,000,000

Please note that the above figures, from the IBC website, are NOT estimates of total Iraqi civilians killed as a result of the US invasion and its aftermath. Rather, they are a count of Western-reported verifiable violent deaths, and likely to be a small percentage of the true figure. Les Roberts, author of the Lancet Report, believes the actual number may now be as high as 1,000,000.

RED DAVE

A follow-up to the story of the Saudi government punishing a rape victem located here.

News Article

Saudis defend punishment for rape victim
Wed Nov 21, 9:19 AM ET

The Saudi judiciary on Tuesday defended a court verdict that sentenced a 19-year-old victim of a gang rape to six months in jail and 200 lashes because she was with an unrelated male when they were attacked.

The Shiite Muslim woman had initially been sentenced to 90 lashes after being convicted of violating Saudi Arabia’s rigid Islamic law requiring segregation of the sexes.

But in considering her appeal of the verdict, the Saudi General Court increased the punishment. It also roughly doubled prison sentences for the seven men convicted of raping the woman, Saudi news media said last week.

The reports triggered an international outcry over the Saudis punishing the victim of a terrible crime.

But the Ministry of Justice stood by the verdict Tuesday, saying that “charges were proven” against the woman for having been in a car with a man who was not her relative.

The ministry implied the victim’s sentence was increased because she spoke out to the press. “For whoever has an objection on verdicts issued, the system allows an appeal without resorting to the media,” said the statement, which was carried on the official Saudi Press Agency.

The attack occurred in 2006. The victim says she was in a car with a male student she used to know trying to retrieve a picture of her. She says two men got into the car and drove them to a secluded area where she was raped by seven men. Her friend also was assaulted.

Justice in Saudi Arabia is administered by a system of religious courts according to the kingdom’s strict interpretation of Islamic law.

Judges have wide discretion in punishing criminals, rules of evidence are vague and sometimes no defense lawyer is present. The result, critics say, are sentences left to the whim of judges. A rapist, for instance, could receive anywhere from a light sentence to death.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack avoided directly criticizing the Saudi judiciary over the case, but said the verdict “causes a fair degree of surprise and astonishment.”

“It is within the power of the Saudi government to take a look at the verdict and change it,” McCormack said.

Canada’s minister for women’s issues, Jose Verger, has called the sentence “barbaric.”

The New York-based Human Rights Watch said the verdict “not only sends victims of sexual violence the message that they should not press charges, but in effect offers protection and impunity to the perpetrators.”

I’m sorry, but you can try to make any excuse you want to explain away this type of behavior but I can’t view this sort of thing as anything less than the most outrageous, disgusting, immoral perversion of justice that I’ve seen in a very, very long time.

November 23, 2007 - Friday

1699 days into the war

U.S. MILITARY DEATHS IN IRAQ: 3874
U.S. MILITARY WOUNDED IN IRAQ: 28530

IRAQI CIVILIAN DEATHS
(MINIMUM): 77323
(MAXIMUM): 84240
(LANCET ESTIMATE) 600,000

COST OF THE WAR SO FAR (ROUNDED TO THE NEAREST MILLION): $471,065,000,000

Please note that the above figures, from the IBC website, are NOT estimates of total Iraqi civilians killed as a result of the US invasion and its aftermath. Rather, they are a count of Western-reported verifiable violent deaths, and likely to be a small percentage of the true figure. Les Roberts, author of the Lancet Report, believes the actual number may now be as high as 1,000,000.

RED DAVE

Get ready, folks! The Golden Compass is almost here!

The movie, which looks to be an absolutely stunning fantasy, will be released on December 7, 2007 - just a couple of weeks. Of course, I’m just judging that opinion on the trailer and secondary items I’ve read. I have not yet been able to get my hands on the book - stuck in the house with Thanksgiving guests and all that.

So, I’d like to hear from people who have read the book, The Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman. In the United Kingdom, it’s entitled Northern Lights.

What did you think of the book, and what do you think we can expect of the film?

Right wing extremists are all busy getting in a tizzy again about fictional books daring to not be fawning tributes to the old, moldy stories of Christianity. This time, they’re complaining that Philip Pullman, the author of The Golden Compass is a “militant atheist”.

How do they know? Have the read the book? Have they spoken to the author? Have they even gone to visit the author’s web site?

No, no, no, they haven’t bothered to do any actual research on the subject. They’re just accepting the propaganda that religious leaders pass out to them. They accept that propaganda on faith, as is their habit.

If they bothered to do a little research, they’d see that Philip Pullman is not really an atheist. He’s an agnostic. That means that he says he doesn’t know if there’s a God or not.

Here are the words right out of the man’s mouth: “I don’t know whether there’s a God or not. Nobody does, no matter what they say. I think it’s perfectly possible to explain how the universe came about without bringing God into it, but I don’t know everything, and there may well be a God somewhere, hiding away.”

If you call Philip Pullman a militant atheist, you just don’t know what you’re talking about. Also, if you find yourself whipped into the frothy furor of outrage against The Golden Compass and you haven’t even read the book, you are agreeing to be a tool of the Religious Right, a voluntary ignoramus.

November 25, 2007 - Sunday

1700 days into the war

U.S. MILITARY DEATHS IN IRAQ: 3875
U.S. MILITARY WOUNDED IN IRAQ: 28530

IRAQI CIVILIAN DEATHS
(MINIMUM): 77327
(MAXIMUM): 84244
(LANCET ESTIMATE) 600,000

COST OF THE WAR SO FAR (ROUNDED TO THE NEAREST MILLION): $471,621,000,000

Please note that the above figures, from the IBC website, are NOT estimates of total Iraqi civilians killed as a result of the US invasion and its aftermath. Rather, they are a count of Western-reported verifiable violent deaths, and likely to be a small percentage of the true figure. Les Roberts, author of the Lancet Report, believes the actual number may now be as high as 1,000,000.

RED DAVE

Hello Everyone,

The online fundraiser for Beth Hafer, leading candidate in the PA 18th District starts at midnight tonight and lasts until 11:59pm on November 29th.  Please consider giving 5, 10, or 25 dollars to help us get the change we sorely need in leadership in PA-18.  Check out the challenge BELOW! With your help we can keep the great momentum going:

http://www.gecturf/bhafer

Also, for those of you who want to check out her webpage: www.haferforcongress.com to read about her recent CWA endorsement as well as events coming up in the Keystone state.  Your help is greatly appreciated! 

I’ve just finished reading the first 100 pages of The Golden Compass. No spoilers in this review of those pages - you should discover the book for yourself.

I will tell you, however, that if you’re letting some ratty old email church lady email keep you from reading the book, you’re missing one hell of a treat. It’s a great read, with lots of action, really interesting characters, great settings, and rich language.

I have not seen one single “militant atheist” line in the book so far. I am seeing a lot of undercurrents of struggles against social class hierarchies and sexism, as well as xenophobia, however.

If the film is half as good as the book, you’ll really be missing out if you decide to stay home and sing “What A Friend We Have In Jesus” instead.

That’s your choice to live in an impoverished literary world, all centered around one jealous book, letting other people tell you what to think, I guess.

I’m not trying to tell you what to think. I’m just suggesting that you let the Fox News commentaries take a back seat in your mind for a minute, and read the first hundred pages of the book to see what it’s all about yourself.

Walking down Michigan Avenue here in Chicago this morning, I had a pleasant experience around The Golden Compass. I was carrying my copy of the His Dark Materials Omnibus, which contains The Golden Compass and three different people went out of their way to compliment the book.

There was a specific theme in their comments. Each person commented to me that I ought not to take things for granted, and that the characters change as the books progress. It wasn’t with disappointment or annoyance that they made this point. It was with appreciation.

There seems to be a trend in the sort of person who appreciates The Golden Compass: They value change and ambiguity, and complexity.

Is this what the religious authorities who send out email alerts against The Golden Compass really have a problem with? Is their true protest against complex understanding of character, as opposed to the tediously simple good and bad split of tales like The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe?

Witch good. Lion bad. Some people like that kind of absolute judgment, and they’re refusing to even read The Golden Compass.

 

            The primary source of this universe and everything within it, those are possible existences, is an Essential Existence according to the verdict of reason. This is a simple matter, yet a section of people do not accept it. They blindly deny the existence of a conscious, wise and all-powerful Essential Existence though they are unable to show any reasonable substitute to the Essential Existence or explain the primary source of the universe. Beside the logical conclusion our experience and observation of the nature too prove the existence of a conscious, wise and all-powerful Essential Existence.

            If we simply look to the nature we must be astonished seeing its unique discipline, complexity and wide range of creation. But the mysteries and complexity of the nature the scientists have so far discovered make us perplexed though they acknowledge that they have discovered only a part of it.

Scientists have done so many things. But they have not created natural elements or natural rules. They have only discovered natural rules, intervened in the nature and given new shapes to matters according to natural rules. Still they have so many wonders of the nature to discover, but so far those they have discovered shows that natural rules dominating the world is very complex to the extent that it is not imaginable that the world may have developed to the present state accidentally, even in billions of years. Accidental emergence of natural rules is more impossible than emergence of the world. Some example may help to understand more clearly and deeply the complexity of the creation and natural rules.

Smallest and Largest Creations

            The range of this universe so far scientists have been able to discover is billions of light-years. They acknowledge that there may be more undiscovered and also may be that there are other universes of separate dimensions.

            But creation of smallest creations is more wonderful than the vastness of the universe and largest creations such as stars and galaxies. So far the scientists have been able to discover the smallest creations are electrons, protons and neutrons those form atoms. On the other hand among living beings smallest beings are some kinds of germs and viruses and largest beings are some kinds of whales.

            We see material things in three forms: Solid, liquid and gaseous. We see solid things as consolidated, but in fact particles of a solid thing are not consolidated; there is space among particles and the quantity of matter is unbelievably less than space to the extent that if it would be possible to really consolidate this earth perhaps it would become like a football.

Who is this Artist?

            Creations are not only evidences of their wise Creator; even there are evidences that the Creator has the sense of beauty and artistic outlook. We are charmed of the overall beauty of the nature, particularly of trees and plants. But some trees and plants are extraordinarily beautiful. Have you observed that leaves of traveler’s tree are expanded to two opposite sides, not around it? There is one kind of small flower when it blossoms it seems that a butterfly is sitting on it. Is it possible that such kind of artistic creations accidentally evolved from the lifeless nature? Or the conscious wise creator wanted to create beauty? What about the beauty of he-peacock? What’s its utility? Has the blind lifeless nature created it only to attract the she-peacock to the he-peacock? There are some small fishes; people do not eat them. They keep them in aquariums only to enjoy their beauty. What is the utility of their beauty for themselves? Has the Creator created them so that people be attracted to their beauty and keep them in aquarium to satisfy their thrust for beauty?

Is it possible for the lifeless blind nature to create such beauty? If it would be necessary then why didn’t it create such for other animals? Or the wise Creator wanted to create beauty not for themselves, but for other viewers (human beings)?

            A firework is thrown into the sky; when it explodes it becomes a bunch of flowers of colourful fire. But when there is an accidental explosion in a store of ammunition there is a fire without any artistic outcome. Why do we see difference between these two? Because the first explosion occurred according to plan of a planner (fireworks-maker) and the second one is a mere accident. It proves that above-mentioned beautiful things in the nature are result of a skilled and wise planner, not result of accident.

Ant: Wonderful Creation

            Among smallest living beings those we can see with our eyes, perhaps the smallest kind of ants are the most wonderful. This kind of ants is not more than one-tenth centimetre in length and not more fat than a hair. When it walks rapidly seems a piece of cotton-fibre driven away by breeze. But it can carry weight many times more than the weight of its body, so perhaps it is the most capable carrier animal. On the other hand it moves so swiftly, perhaps in comparison to the length of one’s body it is the fastest animal in the world.

            Ant is a social animal. Quality of their social discipline is, perhaps, nearest to that of human society. They have labours, soldiers & patrol squads and a queen as the centre of the society. They store food items for the bad season and store it for the community. They carry poison to defense themselves and also for aggressive wars. They use this poison for hunting too. This poison is dangerous to the extent that if an ant bites a man once that can transfer its poison to the victims body only the quantity of a needlepoint, it creates unbearable burning. If a needle-back quantity of that poison were transfer to a human body perhaps he/ she would die instantly. But the ant carries this poison in its body and it does herm itself. Moreover when it uses the poison to hunt then use it to the quantity that the hunt would not die, only become senseless. Then they store it and take it in appropriate time or season. If the quantity of poison is not accurate then the hunt would die and when they take eat (because they take dead animals too) they would die, or at least suffer from poison. So they never use the poison in the body of the hunt more than the necessary minimum quantity.

            If one pays attention to its body he/she must become perplexed. The smallest kind of ants has all the physical parts in its body as the biggest ant has. It has 6 legs to move, mouth to take meal, two teeth to bite, two horns (antenna?) to see and hear, breathing system (though may be simple), belly to contain food, digesting system to digest food, anus to oust undigested portions of food and sexual organ to enjoy the spouse and reproduce future generation; the female ant has special organ in the body to develop eggs. We shouldn’t forget that this ant is less than one-tenth centimetre in length and land its diameter is not more than that of a hair.

            One of the most wonderful products of scientists is computer that is the output of decades’ continuous effort of hundreds of scientists. But still they have not been able to produce an ant, even one of the biggest kind in their laboratory. Perhaps they will be able to do it in future. But it proves that creation of an ant is more difficult than that of a computer. Then is it possible that such a difficult creation would be created by the lifeless blind nature?

Human Being: Most Wonderful Creation

            Perhaps the human body is the most complex creation in the world. Latest discoveries of genetic science have exposed a new horizon of wonders.

            Scientists have discovered DNAs, RNAs genes (component parts of both) and many chemical elements in each of animal-cells. There are 150 to 6,000 nucleotides in a single gene. DNA of a small virus has 5,386 pairs of nucleotide-bases. In a cell of a human body there are 46 chromosomes (23 inherit father’s and 23 inherit mother’s characteristics). In a cell there are 100 thousand genes and 6.6 billion nucleotide bases and 3 billion bio-chemical elements. There are similarities and differences among human genes and over all there are nearly 3 billion kinds of pairs of genes in human body. Structures of DNAs are like ladders or zippers. DNAs are so narrow and long that if half a gram of genes are connected each other at their length they would create a 93 million miles long string (equal to distance between the earth and the sun). Every DNA of a person contains all the history (thinking, character, experience) of his/ her ancestors until separation of its earlier sources from their bodies and these information are recorded in every DNA as codes some of which have been traced out by scientists. But

 

 

The existence of this complex world and more complex set of natural rules is the undeniable self-evident proof of the Wise Initiator, the Essential Existence.

Had cancer? Got multiple sclerosis? How about diabetes?

If you’ve had any medical troubles in the past, and we get a Republican elected President in 2008, then you’re out of luck. People with pre-existing conditions just wouldn’t be covered under the health care plans proposed by the top Republican presidential candidates.

“People with preexisting conditions would not be able to get coverage or would not be able to afford it,” says economist Paul Fronstin of the Employee Benefit Research Institute. “Unless it’s in a state that has very strong consumer protections, they would likely be denied coverage.”

There’s only 24 hours left to help Beth raise funds for her PA 18 race against naughty Tim, whether it be 5, 10, or 25 dollars to help Tim start packing. Please consider helping out PA-18 because this is sadly our current Congressman in action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUT3BEfcl-s

oh wait and also here on KDKA news:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hwh-OCFCOTc

You can help us change direction and priorities by donating the the Hafer campaign at:
www.gecturf.com/bhafer

Your donation is greatly appreciated in these last 24 hours!!!
Check out Beth’s recent labor endorsement at www.midatlanticlabor.org

Hello folks,

I’ve appreciated all  interest in my blogs over the past few days.  I am proud to say this forum has already helped make a difference in a campaign to help towards the people of western pa get a Representative in line with their voice instead of the “rubber stampism” and deaf ears of the Bush Administration.  About me, im a first time blogger and new, and folks like Jim have helped give me some tips.  I ain’t that good at using a computer, but because of my cause, I promise to get better with helpful suggestions such as Jims.  http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07081/771398-56.stm

This campaign SEE ABOVE is about the workers over at the Sony Plant in Greensburg, PA who lost their jobs… a workforce drastically cut so that their jobs could be sent elsewhere so that the company and ceos wouldnt have to face the duty to care for employees and thier families.  The ceos and company chose to personally benefit while thousands were laid off and families sent into limbo.  These workers are only a few of the many workers who have since lost their jobs in the PA-18TH and elsewhere (over 202,000) in the state alone to date.   I PLEA TO STAND TO STOP THIS NOW!!!

Our troops and veterans have served valiantly in Iraq and elsewhere.  Where is Rep. Murphy to check in on THE FOREFRONT and see as a consencus as to how our military familes are holding up and what this conflict is collectively doing to them?  Where is Rep. Murphy to stand up on THE FOREFRONT to whomever it requires as an advocate to ensure that the veterans, military families, and our troops receive the benefits, care, MILITARY PAY INCREASE, and a policy that is equal to their sacrifice in the field?

It’s simple folks: from what i saw on the internet http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6UmpL1MRyM he’s may be busy sending xmas cards to his supporters, and rubber stamping the policies of the Bush Administration that have NO GOALS, and merely a “wait and see” approach to the continued sacrifices of our military in Iraq.

People say, oh what alternative do we have?  What did Obey and Murtha’s bridge fund bill try to do??? Tim recently chose voted against the bridge fund and promoted an unending blank check Bush-Iraqi commitment instead of encouraging a transition of responsibility, while FULLY FUNDING OUR TROOPS.  http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/110/house/1/votes/1108/ That vote, TIM MURPHY voted against.  Even Phil English (R) PA voted for it to change course and complete our victory by TRANSITION!!! That is unacceptable…. without goals, gettin tough, and some damn backbone we won’t ever be able to transition in Iraq. 

Tim Murphy… a lead member of the original member of the CAFTA 16 was responsible for voting against the interests of families from PA-18 and nationally.  He should not hide, but should stand by his vote and “principles” on merit. 

This campaign is about those including Tim who refuse to follow the wishes of their constituents.  Heck, his staff even locked them out and called the cops: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUT3BEfcl-s

Finally, aside from repeatedly being and “advocate” for CEO compenstaion without a shareholder vote… while he has a 14% pro-worker rating… it is clear Tim may have some other unethical strategies for maintaining his control according to KDKA:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hwh-OCFCOTc

Well, i hope you ain’t sick.. but we sure are fed up and could use your help on the grassroots level to can Tim.  Volunteer like me in exposing naughty Tim as he is: someone concerned about “hiding votes” now conveniently and about voting against the interests of district families a majority of the time.  It’s all fun and games until you mess with FAMILIES. That’s why I’m proud to support Beth Hafer in 2008!  Someone who will truly stand up with way different priorities for MIDDLE CLASS families, veterans, and troops.  I thank you all for support of my fundraiser and please help now, or whenever you can IN THE FUTURE! AT:  www.gecturf.com/bhafer