Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

Yesterday the House voted to grant federal employees four weeks of paid parental leave. If it becomes law, that means a baby born to one or more federal employees will have four weeks of extra attention, four weeks when their parent(s) will be able to get up in the night without worrying about being a wreck at work in the morning, four weeks of bonding, maybe four weeks of breastfeeding.

Pete Sessions argued against it as too expensive: $20M/year.  With 1.8M federal employees, that’s about $11 per employee per year.

Pete Sessions also opposes abortion rights; he doesn’t mention abortion on his House website, but he’s consistently voted to make abortions harder and harder.  In other words, he favors creating unwanted babies, but he’s unwilling to spend a few dollars to help them grow up sane and healthy.

Dear Power of Pride,Thanks a lot for your great news and views for the Community. You seem to have a West Coast focus. But surprise, surprise, Southern is pretty good too.

The faculty here is diverse and tolerant. Please let your readership know there’s no need to drive all the way out to PUC to get a quality Adventist education.

Mack

!!YOUR ANSWERS FROM POWER OF PRIDE - GAY ADVENTIST NEWS!!

Dear fellow Adventist,

What you’re saying has a lot of truth in it. Certainly for the intersexed and genderqueer, Southern offers a very understanding environment. In addition to a state-of-the-art bathhouse, this university offers instruction from internationally renowned professors with

qualifications in gay studies.

LEADING SCHOLARS ON FACULTY

Professors who have published authoritative works dealing with the intersexed and genderqueer communities in the Adventist church.

“A common myth exists that people are biologically ‘either or,’ either biologically male or biologically female. In reality, people are much more complex. Some individuals are positioned along the continuum between male and female.” (Rene Drumm, The Social Experiences of Gay and Lesbian Seventh-day Adventists, Christianity and Homosexuality: Some Seventh-day Adventist Perspectives, p 3-4)

WHAT REALLY GOES ON IN THE CHURCH STORAGE ROOM

Dr. Drumm is, of course, an expert on orientations:

“Among men who engage in anonymous sexual encounters with men, the majority identify themselves as heterosexual and more than half (54-58 percent) are married. In another study that examines sexual labeling of men who have had sex with men and have requested an HlV blood test, 25 percent reported a heterosexual orientation.” (Rene Drumm, The Social Experiences of Gay and Lesbian Seventh-day Adventists, Christianity and Homosexuality: Some Seventh-day Adventist Perspectives, pp 3-7, 3-8)

Yes, according to Southern professor Drumm, that huge body of 16 million Adventists is considerably more diverse than church PR types are letting on. You may remember when the Adventists set up a gay to straight therapy center. Dr. Drumm didn’t buy into the concept at all. She says “There was and is no ‘cure’ for homosexuality - although church leaders wanted to believe there might be.” (Drumm, supra, p 3-19)

And Dr. Drumm speaks to an important challenge to the Community here — there are still, believe it or not, some of those old-fashioned, Bible-based types who say that gayness should be cured.

Even at Dr. Drumm’s institution, some of these prophets and evangelists are on the loose. Or were, prior to being packed off to a psychiatric facility.

ABSORBED IN EVANGELISM

You see, a radical group of Bible scholars formed the Twelve Disciples commando unit. Their plan was to engineer really creative, attention-getting evangelistic efforts with a large turnout of students. Brother Ezekiel studied by day in the nursing school, but in the evenings he was quite a different man. After those hours and hours of mandatory worships, chapels, and the ongoing message: “You’re not doing enough to witness”, he and his brethren in the Twelve Disciples planned an action so daring that it would finally shake those sleeping students awake!

“They did not harmonize upon every point of doctrine, but all were moved by the Spirit of God, and united in the absorbing aim to win souls to Christ.” (Ellen G. White The Great Controversy, p 257)

“Early in the morning on March 8, a male nursing student snuck in to Thatcher South, pulled the fire alarm and eventually made it to the roof of Wright Hall to preach that God was coming”. (Emily Young, Police escort preaching student off of rooftop, Southern Accent, 19 Mar 2009)

You may say, “So what! Adventists have been preaching that for the longest time”. Well, they did. But that was back in the days before Cliff Goldstein and Dr. Rene Drumm overhauled, and modernized, Adventist theology.

So, the University administration was really glad that students wanted to preach the Old Gospel?

“The servants of God trod a rugged path. Men of influence and learning employed their powers against them.” (Ellen G. White The Great Controversy, p 258)

Not at all. Their amateur security service called in the Collegedale Police to conduct a full manhunt for the evangelistic team. “Campus Safety officers and the Collegedale Police officers looked for the student for almost an hour before finding him standing on the peak of the roof of Wright Hall with his arms outstretched.” (Young, supra)

The Twelve Disciples had planned things carefully: ““His plan was to turn on all the alarms, and a huge group of girls and guys in front of Wright Hall would be there, and he would preach to them,” said Justin Wilson, a senior theology major and a friend of the student’s who was at the scene.” (Young, supra)

But that was the plan. The University would have none of it. They wanted the student to forget about his preaching plans. “Collegedale Police Sgt. Darrell Hannah and Campus Safety Officer Joshua Fraker climbed to the roof and tried to convince the student to back away”. (Young, supra)

[26] If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.
[27] And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple. Luke 14

Brother Ezekiel was willing to bear the cross for the Gospel. And he didn’t have long to wait!

“He did not show any sign of moving away so Hannah slowly came up behind him, grabbed his shirt collar and pulled him back from the edge of the roof, according to the report.” (Young, supra)

[48] Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he: hold him fast. [49] And forthwith he came to Jesus, and said, Hail, master; and kissed him. [50] And Jesus said unto him, Friend, wherefore art thou come? Then came they, and laid hands on Jesus, and took him. Matthew 26

CALLING UPON THE LORD IN DAY OF ADVERSITY

And that was the day that salvation came to Southern.

“Hannah pulled one of the student’s hands behind his back and handcuffed it, but the student began resisting and screaming for God to help him.” (Young, supra)

[13] For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Romans 10

LET’S TASER THAT “DANGEROUS CRIMINAL” WHO DARED TO PREACH THE SECOND ADVENT!!

““He had a lot of adrenalin and was very strong,” Hannah said in the police report. “We were trying to maintain our balance and to keep [the student] from harming us or himself.”
After telling him to put his hands behind his back multiple times, Hannah used a stun gun on the student’s shoulder several times. The student’s muscles tensed and he said, “But no pain shall befall you,” according to the Campus Safety report.” (Young, supra)

“”By how gentle degrees does God prepare us for His will! Two years ago, a piece of brick grazed my shoulders. It was a year after that the stone struck me between the eyes. Last month I received one blow, and this evening two, one before we came into the town, and one after we were gone out; but both were as nothing: for though one man struck me on the breast with all his might, and the other on the mouth with such force that the blood gushed out immediately, I felt no more pain from either of the blows than if they had touched me with a straw.”–John Wesley, Works, vol. 3, pp. 297, 298.” (cited in Ellen G. White The Great Controversy, p 259)

Our brother Ezekiel was strengthened. And pain? Just as with the great John Wesley, he felt none!

KARATE CHOP TO NECK AND CHOKEHOLD

The forces of darkness would not give up easily, though.

“When the student still would not comply, Hannah struck him in his brachial neck muscles, according to the report. This maneuver normally knocks a person to the ground, but the student did not respond to it. Then Hannah put pressure on his carotid arteries, which usually causes brief unconsciousness. This made the student relax his arm muscles so Hannah could put him in handcuffs.” (Young, supra)

“WRESTLING” HANDCUFFED PREACHER TO THE GROUND

And so they took him down: “Hannah and Fraker helped him lie down on the roof.” (Young, supra)

All this “help” had left the Adventist student unconcious. Had the SWAT boys gone too far? Was the zealous evangelist dead?

“Hannah was checking the student’s vital signs when the student shook his head, opened his eyes and asked where he was.” (Young, supra)

THE LIE

They just had to paint Brother Ezekiel in the most unreasonable light, so: “After several minutes he began to explain that he believed God would return that night, and he had to tell Southern to be prepared.” (Young, supra)

The Adventists invariably talk about “Jesus” “coming again”, and do not, as a rule, use the term “God is coming again”.

After the tasering and beating, what kind of condition was our Adventist evangelist in? He couldn’t even walk: “Around 8:30 a.m. a ladder truck from the local fire department arrived to take the student off the roof.” (Young, supra)

And all this brutality got our brother discouraged? No way!

““In the ladder truck on the way down he was just preaching away,” Penrod said.” (Young, supra)

[2] Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. 2 Tim. 4

And they booked this boy into the local jail, where witnesses would see him, and he’d have access to a lawyer?

Not at all. In his severely injured condition, “The student was taken to Parkridge East Hospital for medical evaluation”. (Young, supra)

Now what to do? The local police department and the Adventist university were faced with a potential lawsuit of epic proportions. There was no evidence that the student was planning to jump off the building. He just wanted to preach. If he had been allowed to do so without harassment, he would have returned to base camp for food later. But this was the old story of “Do it now, and do it my way”. And if you don’t, there’s overwhelming force.

So he’s been locked up until 1) his physical injuries heal, and 2) he “forgets” what happened to him. “then he was taken to Parkridge Valley Hospital for psychiatric evaluation. He was not arrested, but taken into custody for his own protection, Penrod said.” (Young, supra) In the psych ward, plenty of drug therapies are available to erase Brother Ezekiel’s memory.

But taking no chances, the Adventist university has thrown him out of the school: “The student withdrew from classes on March 13 and will be allowed to enroll again at Southern if he meets admission criteria, according to Southern officials.” (Young, supra)

Get this! The evangelist is drugged up and tied down in the psych facility. And he “voluntarily withdraws” from “all his classes”?

Cleartext: This boy isn’t getting out of psych anytime soon.

“Southern administration also issued an official statement.

“While Southern encourages its students to involve themselves in ministry and actively spreading the Gospel story, the university also places a high priority on caring for the safety and well-being of each student,” the statement said. “Southern’s faculty and staff have actively worked to keep all involved students safe. We are grateful to the emergency personnel who assisted [the student] back into a safe situation. The university respects the privacy of [the student] and his family as they move forward from this situation.”” (Young, supra)

They cared SO MUCH about the safety of Brother Ezekiel. SO MUCH that Brother got tasered, choked, tackled, cuffed, and beaten. Ah, you could say, That was just the police doing the heavy hitting. Not Southern staff.

And in a way its true. The “campus security” is not authorized to physically attack and take down someone who is not threatening immediate harm. But in the official statement, they express gratitude to the taser artist.

So who’s at fault here? Obviously, the student believed what he heard in the mandatory worships, chapels, and religion classes. The repeated exhortations to missionary work soaked in and bore fruit. Its the system at fault.

Or is it really? Sure these people still talk Bible, mission, and what not, but new times have come to Southern. Gospel evangelists get the third degree, while gay evangelists get awards and scholarly recognition.

“Did the spider spin a deceptive web before sin or was the lion capable of digesting meat? Probably not, but we can only admire the ingenuity, adaptability and, yes, ‘beauty’ in some of these changes. If we allow that homosexuality may have followed as a result of sin, does that mean we cannot find beauty in it, or even allow it to exist within the framework of God’s plan? If other changes occurred after the fall which we readily accept, should homosexuality be different?” (Drumm, supra, pp 3-20 - 3-21)

If only Brother Ezekiel had paid attention to the lessons of Dr. Drumm and her colleagues, he would have raised a gay flag over the admin building. And none of the taserings, beatings, or lock up would have happened.

So welcome to the new Southern.

From:

http://powerofpride.wordpress.com/2009/03/28/adventist-ninja-when-a-theology-student-goes-too-far/

Dear Power of Pride,

We attend a large Adventist church in central California. Our pastor is a well-known media personality, who finds that running his ministry is not enough of a challenge. So he pastors a big church too.

He’s the most personable, entertaining preacher you could ever wish for.

Just recently, he’s been preaching the importance of keeping “bedroom love” in the context of a marriage relationship.

And we say, Why not?

We’ve been a pair for several years now, in fact, ever since we were baby dykes. For the last three years, we’ve lived together in a Boston marriage. Gay marriage is legal in the State of California. So we are ready for our special moment at the altar.

Only problem is, our pastor is one of those conservatives. Not uptight or homophobic. Just old-fashioned. So we are thinking we’d best find another Adventist pastor to officiate. Do you have any suggestions?

Sandy & Karen

!!YOUR ANSWERS FROM POWER OF PRIDE - GAY ADVENTIST NEWS!!

Dear Girls,

I can perfectly understand your concerns. You have a fine pastor, but extremely conservative.

If you want to keep attending his church, you may just have to look elsewhere for someone to officiate at your wedding.

PERHAPS SOME COUNTIES DISTANT

Maybe a wedding in the Loma Linda area would be advisable — still in California, but some distance away from your home church.

Loma Linda University (LLU) is a Seventh-day Adventist educational health-sciences institution http://www.llu.edu/llu/about.html

Loma Linda University Center for Christian Bioethics

This prestigious Adventist university has a center for Christian ethics. One of the key players at the center is David Larson, DMin, PhD. http://www.llu.edu/llu/bioethics/

He’s also a professor in the School of Religion there http://www.llu.edu/llu/faculty/directory/faculty.html?uid=dlarson, and I think you will find his brand of religion very much to your liking!

While the professor has a few quirks:

BONDAGE, GAYS, AND “NEEDLESS PAIN”

“On the one hand, we have developed institutional patterns that needlessly hurt homosexual men and women. On the other hand, we relish the many ways they enrich our lives. In this sense, they are OUR SLAVES.” (David R. Larson, Comment of 01 January 2008 at 3:28, http://www.spectrummagazine.org/collegiate/
2007/12/27/gay_theology_without_apology)

SOLIDLY IN FAVOR OF EQUALITY FOR GAY UNIONS

He fights for equal rights for gays (at least for those who are not slaves, see above):

“If it were up to me, we would use the same term for both heterosexual and homosexual unions but it would be “domestic partnership” rather than “marriage.” This would put both on an equal footing in legal word and deed” (David Larson, Words Matter: The California Supreme Court on “Straight Marriages” and “Gay Domestic Partnerships”, http://www.spectrummagazine.org/node/699)

MODERN ADVENTIST THEOLOGY

You may be thinking this is all too good to be true. Well, think again!

David R. Larson is a Seventh-day Adventist minister and professor of Christian ethics at Loma Linda University
http://www.spectrummagazine.org/reviews/film/2007/10/19/does_bible_condemn_homosexuality_look_bible_tells_me_so

Sure he’s a top professor at the leading Adventist university. And of course he’s an ordained Seventh-day Adventist minister. But he’s also a member of the Community:

This movie is not about them. It is about the rest of us. It is about how we straight—or pretending-to-be-straight—Christians (David R. Larson, David R. Larson Reviews For The Bible Tells Me So, http://www.spectrummagazine.org/reviews/film/2007/10/19/does_bible_condemn_homosexuality
_look_bible_tells_me_so)

On the other hand, if you expect a large number of guests from the Sacramento area, you may wish to consult an expert closer to home.

PACIFIC UNION COLLEGE INSTRUCTOR AND SOUGHT-AFTER GUEST AT GAY WEDDINGS

“Last week I attended the wedding of two Christians lesbian friends (one with an M.Div) who have been together for 14 years. Their legal marriage was such a meaningful ceremony for them and their family and friends gathered around. Tears, laugher, memories and prayers shared - having lived in places where folks don’t know out LGBT Christians I understand the hesitation and worry about the future”

Posted by: Alexander Carpenter | 05 August 2008 at 10:02
www.spectrummagazine.org/blog/2008/08/05/
why_everyone_should_oppose_samesex_marriage

PACIFIC UNION COLLEGE: BIBLE TEXTS AGAINST GAYNESS DON’T APPLY TODAY

Dr. Carpenter has been on the faculty at Pacific Union College since 2008. http://www.puc.edu/academics/departments/visual-arts/faculty/visual-arts/acarpenter

“Pacific Union College is affiliated with the Seventh-day Adventist Church, a world-wide Christian community that runs one of the world’s largest Protestant school systems. The college is owned, operated and subsidized by the regional division of the Adventist Church, the Pacific Union Conference.” http://www.puc.edu/about-puc/about-our-adventist-faith

Someone who doesn’t trouble you with a lot of anti-gay Bible texts. Because he really doesn’t take the Bible seriously:

The biblical writers knew nothing of sexual orientations, mutual erotic relationships, or sexuality as the expression of a passion for equality. Our world is not their world; and theirs is not ours—and as a woman, I have to say, “Thank Goodness” to that. If the Bible really is, as some have argued, America’s iconic book, it becomes especially important to examine the values this icon encodes. The natural submission of women and the natural domination of men might not be the values most of us would like to see America emulate; yet, it is precisely those values that lie behind the very little the Bible does say about homoeroticism. In a very real way, to stand with the Bible in its rejection of same-sex erotic acts is also to stand with the Bible in its adherence to misogyny—and hatred of women is not a cultural value I will ever claim should be normative for contemporary culture, including Christian culture.
Posted by: Alexander Carpenter | 16 June 2008 at 8:06, http://www.spectrummagazine.org/blog/2008/06/16/why_adventists_should_consider_supporting_gay_marriage

Just face it. Many in the Community find the anti-gay Bible texts to be a burden.

KETTERING COLLEGE OF MEDICAL ARTS: THE BIBLE IS A BURDEN

“The Bible is at once a revelation and a…burden.” (Charles Scriven, Comment of 30 June 2008 at 5:38, http://www.spectrummagazine.org/podcast/2008/06/24/test)

“Charles Scriven is president of Kettering College of the Medical Arts and chairs the Adventist Forum/SPECTRUM board.” (Alexander Carpenter, Reconstructing Seventh-day Adventism - Charles Scriven, 26 June 2008, http://www.spectrummagazine.org/podcast/2008/06/24/test)

“Owned and operated by Kettering Medical Center, KCMA is an integral part of the educational mission of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.” http://www.kcma.edu/AboutUs/sdaInfo.html

JUST A SHORT TRIP AWAY FROM A TOP EXPERT

Yes, girls, you are located just 77 miles away from a true oasis of tolerance (if you travel through Winters).

Make the drive, and you will find one of the top experts on sapphism in the whole world!

Prof serves on the faculty, imparting his unique wisdom to the coming generation.

Ask for him by name, and either he will officiate at your wedding, or recommend an Adventist pastor who will!

Good luck girls!

pix:

http://www.eadventist.net/orgphoto/ANPIN6.jpg
http://www.stateuniversity.com/assets/logo/image/5222/large/UniversityCampus.jpg
http://religiousfreaks.com/UserFiles/Image/gay.christian.flag.gif
http://www.topnews.in/law/files/gay_marriage_large.jpg
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51V80CVHNML._SL500_AA240_.jpg
http://media.collegepublisher.com/media/paper851/stills/4393f4465373c-99-1.jpg
http://www.sligochurch.org/images/gallery_photos/OSR/DSCN0416_edited.JPG
http://tv.popcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/ellen-degeneres-portia-de-rossi.jpg
http://www.stateuniversity.com/assets/logo/image/3554/large/PUC-med.jpg

Dear Power of Pride,

REAL STORIES AND IN-DEPTH JOURNALISM

This is just a public way of expressing our thanks to Union College, The Clocktower, and Savannah Bowers.

The student body at Union College turns to The Clocktower when we need news and views about the tough issues of our day. Not that sugar-coated PR-style chit-chat you can read on the “official” website.

CRASS INGRATITUDE

Sadly, there are some students at Union who are complaining about Savannah’s hard-hitting investigative pieces. Savannah is not paid for her work at The Clocktower, and I think she’s doing a great job of building Community at Union!

Flash

!! Your Answers!!

Dear Adventist Scholar,

JUST TALKING ABOUT STUDENT INTERESTS

The fact is, The Clocktower would not exist at all were there not local news to report and were there not a demand for news of interest mostly to people at Union College. For otherwise, people could make do with worldly newspapers like the JournalStar.

If you want to know what’s on the mind of Union College students, you need only peruse the pages of The Clocktower.

Strangely, not everyone on campus is pleased with this powerful dose of reality.

UNION COLLEGE PAPER: WHY NOT MJ?

“Firstly, was the article featured in the most recent issue regarding legalization of marijuana necessary or representative of what we believe as Christians? I left a state school that promoted a drug and alcohol-centered lifestyle. Here, I pay for and expect to not have to be exposed to such worldly influences. While I understand the dangers of censorship, (and would be outraged over any form of censorship,) I am of the opinion that the choice to publish such an article makes evident that the writing priorities within the Clocktower staff are not Christian priorities. Is this something that should be given some thought or perhaps be discussed with the editorial staff by school administration? I know I would feel much more comfortable if this occurred.” (Ellen Hansen, Letter to the Editor - Is the CT Lacking Christian Priorities?, The Clocktower, 14 Nov 2008, p. 7)

THE DRUG BUSINESS

They may argue that MJ is a drug, well, hey, so is caffeine:

“Caffeine is a bitter white crystalline xanthine that acts as a psychoactive stimulant drug” (Caffeine, Wikipedia)

ADVENTIST INSTITUTION PUSHES POPULAR DRUG

This drug/stimulant is widely consumed:

“In humans, caffeine is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant, having the effect of temporarily warding off drowsiness and restoring alertness. Beverages containing caffeine, such as coffee, tea, soft drinks and energy drinks enjoy great popularity. Caffeine is the world’s most widely consumed psychoactive substance, but unlike most others, it is legal and unregulated in nearly all jurisdictions. In North America, 90% of adults consume caffeine daily.” (Caffeine, Wikipedia)

According to the Prophet Ellen White:

“Tea, coffee, tobacco, and alcohol we must present as sinful indulgences.” (Ellen White, Lifestyle and Activities of the Remnant, Last Day Events, page 81)

ENTRY-LEVEL DRUG

For many, caffeine is the entry-level drug. Its a milder stimulant. “Yet so insidious is the work of these milder stimulants that the highway to drunkenness is entered before the victim suspects his danger.” (Ellen White, Counsels for the Church, page 102)

While at least one Adventist university actively advertises “Coffee to Go”, some Adventists think there’s a difference between caffeine-sugar drinks and caffeine-coffee drinks.

ALL THE SAME

The Lord has a different counsel:

“Effects of All Caffeine Drinks.–The action of coffee and many other popular drinks is similar. The first effect is exhilarating. The nerves of the stomach are excited; these convey irritation to the brain, and this in turn is aroused to impart increased action to the heart, and short-lived energy to the entire system. Fatigue is forgotten; the strength seems to be increased. The intellect is aroused, the imagination becomes more vivid.” –The Ministry of Healing, page 326. (Ellen White, Section IV - Other Stimulants and Narcotics, Temperance, p. 77)

The Union College student newspaper illustrates Ms. Bowers’ outstanding article with the chart at right. Savannah Bowers points out that some drugs, like alcohol, sugar, and caffeine, are legal. In fact, Adventist colleges push sugar and caffeine. And if they’re all legal, how is MJ any different?

Sister White agrees. Whether we’re talking caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, or MJ, its all the same!

“To use drugs while continuing evil habits is certainly inconsistent, and greatly dishonors God by dishonoring the body which he has made. Yet for all this, stimulants and drugs continue to be prescribed and freely used; while the hurtful indulgences that produce the disease are not discarded. The use of tea, coffee, tobacco, opium, wine, beer, and other stimulants gives nature a false support.” (Ellen White, Chapter XXXVI. - Drugs, Healthful Living, page 247)

WHY NOT A FULL-SPECTRUM “HEALTH MINISTRY”?

Its really doesn’t make any difference. If the college is going to sell caffeine-based stimulants to the students, they might as well stock “healing herbs” as well.

After all,

“The effect of tea and coffee, as heretofore shown, tends in the same direction as that of wine and cider, liquor and tobacco.” (Ellen White, Effects of Stimulants, Christian Temperance and Bible Hygiene, page 34)

Savannah Bowers has done an excellent job of pointing the bony finger of reproof at this double standard.

“God’s Chosen Instrument–Luther was God’s chosen instrument to tear off the garb of hypocrisy from the papal church and expose her corruption. He raised his voice zealously, and in the power of the Holy Spirit cried out against and rebuked the existing sins of the leaders of the people.” –Ellen White, 1T 372.

Savannah Bowers is a modern-day Luther. Christians around the globe need to band together in prayer for her godly work, praying that she will proclaim the Holy Word of the Lord with boldness.

Pix:

Newspaper illustrations from The Clocktower.

Outlook, Feb 2008

SELF-HATING GAYS

Even in these modern times of tolerance, some gays are troubled:

“Why are gay men sometimes so horrible, mean and stupid, to me, to everyone and to each other? It seems as though too many of us hate ourselves, really hate ourselves.

Despite all our progress, our gay marriage and Pride parades, too many of us still take self-destructive and foolish risks, too many act as if we think we are worthless pieces of shit.” (Joseph Couture, Gay men need to face self-hate head on, National, 17 November 2008)

A STRUGGLE FOR ACCEPTANCE

“Charles Scriven is president of Kettering College of the Medical Arts and chairs the Adventist Forum/SPECTRUM board.” (Alexander Carpenter, Reconstructing Seventh-day Adventism - Charles Scriven, 26 June 2008, http://www.spectrummagazine.org/
podcast/2008/06/24/test)

“Owned and operated by Kettering Medical Center, KCMA is an integral part of the educational mission of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.” http://www.kcma.edu/AboutUs/sdaInfo.html

His publication has confronted this problem head-on:

There are too many of us who are not sick, or inverted, or perverted, or even “effeminate,” but who just have a knack for falling in love with people of our own sex. When we have been damaged, it has not been due to our homosexuality but to your and our denial of it. The burden of proof now is not on us, to show that we are not sick, but rather on those who insist that we would be better off going back into the closet. source

SELF-HATING ADVENTISTS

Just as in the gay community, the Adventist community includes people who are: “horrible, mean and stupid, to me, to everyone and to each other? It seems as though too many of us hate ourselves, really hate ourselves.”

HATING OTHER ADVENTISTS AND HATING THEMSELVES

We’re talking here about people who can’t stand it when handicapped people attend religious meetings, people who are into gross anti-Semitism directed against a fellow Adventist of Jewish descent, and, needless to say, love to abuse elderly Adventists.

Yes, dear reader, check the links, and you’ll see that just such self-hating Adventists populate Dr. Scriven’s team.

Sure these people get a paycheck from the church. You’d think gratitude would be logical, but no, they call their supervisors “washed up”.

DERISION FOR A PRINCIPLED LIFESTYLE

Consider this graphic from Dr. Scriven’s publication. Its described as a “satirical take on Adventism”. (Jared Wright, Adventist Caricaturist Captures Essence of Adventism,

2 September 2008, http://www.spectrummagazine.org/
node/926)

Satire: “A literary work in which human vice or folly is attacked through irony, derision, or wit.” www.answers.com/topic/satire
There’s nothing funny about not smoking or eating meat. No irony here either. So — its derision!

SELF-HATE IN ACTION

Dr. Scriven’s publication is making fun of the classic Adventist lifestyle.

There are some Adventists who don’t consume alcohol.

In some cases, these Adventists don’t even enjoy smokes, meat eating, movies, or dancing.

And what do these champions of holy living get from Dr. Scriven’s publication? Satire! Derision!

So what does Dr. Scriven think these people should be doing? Partying all the time?

“He says he became a popular figure on the Toronto gay club circuit.

“I thought I was glamorous because I did drugs and partied all the time,” he says. “Everything I did said, ‘Look at me, I’m so cool.’ But what I was really highlighting for everyone to see was what a fucked-up mess I was.”" (Couture, supra)

Dr. Charles Scriven’s website likes to have “cartoon fun”:

Saying what must be said about Revelation Seminars…

Just when you thought that it was safe to come out again, the Adventist Caricaturist returns with another satirical take on Adventism. This time it is a pithy summary of the whole of Adventism.

You can find more Adventist cartoon fun at the Caricaturist’s website. If you’re feeling lucky.
http://www.spectrummagazine.org/node/926

MAKING IT UNSAFE FOR CLOSETED ADVENTISTS TO COME OUT

The self-hating Adventist would really like to come out, and live the life as described by the Great Prophet, but then along comes Dr. Scriven’s publication with its satirical attack on the classic Adventist lifestyle.

Michael De Corte, for example, says he nearly self-destructed before he managed to turn his life around. He grew up in conservative northern Ontario. He was in high school when he came out to his parents. His worst fears were realized.

“My mother’s reaction after I told her I was gay was to tell me that she was afraid friends and family would stop visiting her because they would be scared to use the same toilet seats as me,” he says. “It was particularly devastating to me because I always thought of myself as a mama’s boy and here our relationship was being destroyed. It really hurt.”

De Corte says his self-esteem plummeted as his family and society taught him that gays are bad people.

“What made matters worse was that I lived in constant fear of having the shit kicked out of me at school for being gay,” he says. “It was hell.” (Couture, supra)

Timid Adventists find that their self-esteem plummets as Dr. Scriven’s publication teaches them that strict Adventists are bad people. Those at liberal Adventist schools can come to live in constant fear of persecution for their lifestyle.

AND WHAT IS THE END RESULT OF ALL THIS SELF-HATE?

The insecurities of the self-hating Adventist can have serious consequences.

When he eventually landed in Toronto he brought his small-town ghosts and insecurities along with him.

“I turned to every addiction imaginable for comfort: cocaine, crack, pot, alcohol, cigarettes, food, you name it, I abused it,” he says. (Couture, supra)

SOLUTION

There will always be some self-professed Christians who pour out hate and contempt on those trying to live a holy life. But decent people need to band together against this satanic hate.

The church should be a place where sinners are loved, but also a place where those on the upward path should receive acceptance and encouragement, rather than satire and scorn!

Just say NO to the hate!

MORE ON THIS SINISTER THREAT FROM WITHIN:

Ellen White, Plagiarism, and the Adventist Forum/Scriven Accusations

They Will Never Enter the Kingdom of God

Abomination of Desolation Settles Upon Holy Place

Man of Sin Revealed!! Gross Hatred for the Christian Brother

Graphics:
http://gridskipper.com/assets/resources/2006/06/06192006.3.jpg
http://www.maltagayrights.net/files/gay-flag.jpg
http://www.siouxlandpride.net/7213641aaa.gif
http://www.bagofnothing.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2006/05/toiletseat.jpg
http://www.canada25toronto.com/toronto-skyline-photo.gif

So far, Palin hasn’t said anything that the Republicans haven’t been saying for the last eight years. She’s proving herself to be little more than a parrot for the same old policies that have been given a nice little mask.

And after all the prep she’s had, they never told her the word is pronounced nu·cle·ar?

Keep on screwin’ her, Sammy.

I am quite disgusted right now.

Democrats to let offshore drilling ban expire

Democrats to let offshore drilling ban expire

By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer 15 minutes ago

Democrats have decided to allow a quarter-century ban on drilling for oil off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to expire next week, conceding defeat in a months-long battle with the White House and Republicans set off by $4 a gallon gasoline prices this summer.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., told reporters Tuesday that a provision continuing the moratorium will be dropped this year from a stopgap spending bill to keep the government running after Congress recesses for the election.

Republicans have made lifting the ban a key campaign issue after gasoline prices spiked this summer and public opinion turned in favor of more drilling. President Bush lifted an executive ban on offshore drilling in July.

“If true, this capitulation by Democrats following months of Republican pressure is a big victory for Americans struggling with record gasoline prices,” said House GOP leader John Boehner of Ohio.

Democrats had clung to the hope of only a partial repeal of the drilling moratorium, but the White House had promised a veto, Obey said.

The House is expected to act on the spending bill Wednesday. The Senate is likely to go along with the House.

“The White House has made it clear they will not accept anything with a drilling moratorium, and Democrats know we cannot afford to shut down the government over this,” said Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. “We look forward to working with the next president to hammer out a final resolution of this issue.”

While the House would lift the long-standing drilling moratoriums for both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, a drilling ban in waters within 125 miles of Florida’s western coast would remain in force under a law passed by Congress in 2006 that opened some new areas of the east-central Gulf to drilling.

Just last week, the House passed legislation to open waters off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to oil and gas drilling but only 50 or more miles out to sea and only if a state agrees to energy development off its shore. It quickly became clear that measure would not get the 60 votes needed in the Senate.

Republicans called that effort a sham that would have left almost 90 percent of offshore reserves effectively off-limits.

The Interior Department estimates there are 18 billion barrels of recoverable oil beneath the Outer Continental Shelf, about half of it off California.

While the ban on energy development will be lifted if the Senate goes along with the House action, it doesn’t mean any federal sale of oil and gas leases in the offshore waters — much less actual drilling — would be imminent.

The Interior Department’s current five-year leasing plan includes potential leases off the Virginia coast but probably would not be pursued unless the state agrees to energy development. And the state is unlikely to do so without Congress agreeing to share federal royalties with the state.

The congressional battle over offshore drilling is far from over. Democrats are expected to press for broader energy legislation, probably next year, that would put limits on any drilling off most of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Republicans, meanwhile, are likely to fight any resumption of the drilling bans that have been in place since 1981.

John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, has promised to make offshore oil drilling a priority if elected president. He has called for developing the oil and gas resources along all of Outer Continental Shelf and for the federal government to share royalties with states who go along with drilling.

Democratic presidential rival Barack Obama has said he would support limited drilling in certain areas — possibly the South Atlantic region — if it is part of a broader energy plan to shift the U.S. away from oil to alternative fuels and more energy efficiency.

The debate over offshore drilling is not expected to subside in the first months of the next presidency — no matter who sits in the White House.

Lifting the drilling ban gives considerable momentum to the underlying bill, which includes the Pentagon budget, $24 billion in aid for flood and hurricane victims and $25 billion in loans for Detroit automakers in addition to keeping the government open past the Oct. 1 start of the 2009 budget year.

But Democrats decided not to use the must-pass measure as a battering ram to carry an extension of unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless past White House veto promises, prompting grumbling among some lawmakers. Efforts to boost food stamps and give states billions of dollars to help with Medicaid bills also fell through.

But the measure would double, to $5.2 billion, funding for heating subsidies for the poor, Obey said.

The measure also would provide more than $600 billion to fund the 2009 budgets for the Pentagon, Homeland Security Department and the Veterans Affairs Department. Nine other spending bills for the 2009 budget year starting Oct. 1 remain unfinished.

Bush had threatened to veto bills that don’t cut the number and cost of pet projects known as “earmarks” sought by lawmakers in half from current levels or cause agency operating budgets, taken together, to exceed his request. Obey said, however, the White House would reluctantly sign the measure.

Democrats have shown themselves to have all the spine of a wet noodle. They’ve got control of Congress and yet they’re still letting Republicans have their way? They’re letting the ban on offshore drilling expire even though we know that all the drilling in the world will do next to nothing to help?

Can we fire all these bastards? Something is very, very wrong when you’ve got one party that’s as red as a stoplight and the only alternative to that way of thinking has turned a pretty dark shade of pink.

With all the talk about Sarah Palin and her latest question-evasions, I thought the economy has been getting less than it’s needed share of coverage. After all, just a couple of days ago the stock market was in a crisis, the DOW dropped around 400 points in a day, AIG pretty much went bankrupt, and gold set a record for most gain in a single day by ground from around $740 bucks a troy ounce to $860 a troy ounce.

More Americans are focusing on the economy, a place where John McCain has admitted he sucks at and Sarah Palin has established herself to be incapable of balancing a budget.

So for this crisis, what is Bush’s solution? Set aside 700 billion dollars to buy shit assets without a plan to have that money paid back.

Here, I’ll let you read for yourself.

Bush team, Congress negotiate $700B bailout.

Bush team, Congress negotiate $700B bailout
By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS and DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writers 33 minutes ago

The Bush administration asked Congress on Saturday for the power to buy $700 billion in toxic assets clogging the financial system and threatening the economy as negotiations began on the largest bailout since the Great Depression.

The rescue plan would give Washington broad authority to purchase bad mortgage-related assets from U.S. financial institutions for the next two years. It does not specify which institutions qualify or what, if anything, the government would get in return for the unprecedented infusion.

Democrats are pressing to require that the plan help more strapped borrowers stay in their homes and to condition the bailout on new limits on executive compensation.

Congressional aides and administration officials are working through the weekend to fill in the details of the proposal. The White House hoped for a deal with Congress by the time markets opened Monday; top lawmakers say they would push to enact the plan as early as the coming week.

“We’re going to work with Congress to get a bill done quickly,” President Bush said at the White House. Without discussing specifics, he said, “This is a big package because it was a big problem.”

The proposal is a mere three pages long, but it gives sweeping powers to the government to dispense gigantic sums of taxpayer dollars in a program that would be sheltered from court review.

“It’s a rather brief bill with a lot of money,” said Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., the Banking Committee chairman. “We understand the importance of the anticipation in the markets, but we also know that what we’re doing is going to have consequences for decades to come. There’s not a second act to this — we’ve got to get this right.”

Lawmakers digesting the eye-popping cost and searching for specifics voiced concerns that the proposal offers no help for struggling homeowners or safeguards for taxpayers’ money.

The government must bail out the financial system “because if we don’t, it will have a tremendous impact on American consumers, homeowners, taxpayers and the rest,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in San Francisco.

But, she added, “We cannot deal with this unless this bailout helps families stay in their homes.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. said “we cannot allow ourselves to be in denial about the threat now facing the world economy. From all indications, that threat is real, and the consequences of inaction could be catastrophic. Every single American has a stake in preventing a global financial meltdown.”

The proposal would raise the statutory limit on the national debt from $10.6 trillion to $11.3 trillion to make room for the massive rescue.

“The American people are furious that we’re in this situation, and so am I,” the House’s top Republican, Ohio Rep. John A. Boehner, said in a statement. “We need to do everything possible to protect the taxpayers from the consequences of a broken Washington.”

Signaling what could erupt into a brutal fight with Democrats over add-on spending, Boehner said “efforts to exploit this crisis for political leverage or partisan quid pro quo will only delay the economic stability that families, seniors, and small businesses deserve.”

Bush said he worried the financial troubles “could ripple throughout” the economy and affect average citizens. “The risk of doing nothing far outweighs the risk of the package. … Over time, we’re going to get a lot of the money back.”

He added, “People are beginning to doubt our system, people were losing confidence and I understand it’s important to have confidence in our financial system.”

Neither presidential candidate took a position on the proposal. GOP nominee John McCain said he was awaiting specifics and any changes by Congress.

Democratic rival Barack Obama used the party’s weekly radio address to call for help for Main Street as well as Wall Street.

Their language reflected a tricky balance that politicians in both parties are trying to strike, just six weeks before Election Day: Back a plan that doles out hundreds of billions to companies that made bad bets and still identify with the plight of middle-class voters.

Besides mortgage help and executive compensation limits, Democrats are considering attaching middle-class assistance to the legislation despite a request from Bush to avoid adding items that could delay action. An expansion of jobless benefits was one possibility.

Bush sidestepped questions about the chances of adding such items, saying that now was not the time for posturing. “I think most leaders would understand we need to get this done quickly, and you know, the cleaner the better,” he said about legislation being drafted.

Treasury officials met congressional staff for about two hours on Capitol Hill on Saturday. Discussions centered on how the plan would work, and Democrats proposed adding the executive compensation limits and new foreclosure-prevention measures. Details of those changes were not available Saturday, as staff aides worked to draft them. Bush and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson conferred by phone for about 20 minutes in the afternoon, gauging how the negotiations were unfolding.

Among the key issues up for negotiation is which financial institutions would be eligible for the help. The proposed legislation doesn’t make it clear, leaving open the question of whether hedge funds or pension funds could qualify.

The proposal does not require that the government receive anything from banks in return for unloading their bad assets. But it would allow the Treasury Department to designate financial institutions as “agents of the government,” and mandate that they perform any “reasonable duties” that might entail.

The government could contract with private companies to manage the assets it purchased under the rescue.

Paulson says the government would in essence set up reverse auctions, putting up money for a class of distressed assets — such as loans that are delinquent but not in default — and financial institutions would compete for how little they would accept.

I understand the need for quick action in a case like this, but trying to rush through a bill of 700 BILLION dollars with only two days of debate and thus far no assurances that John Q is gonna be able to keep a roof over his head and little or no stipulations as to getting the money back aside from Bush’s word that “we’ll get a lot of it back over time”? Yeah, considering his track record I’m less than reassured.

Actually, I’m horrified.

Oh, I just loved the part about the national debt. From $10.6 trillion to $11.3 trillion if the bill passes. Whoopie.

In other news; 40 people in a Pakistan hotel were killed by a suicide bomber.

The war’s dragging on, people are dying, Oklahoma has been under a heat advisory for almost over a week solid now, the government is gleefully stripping away our rights on both sides of the isle, and all the other outrages I may have missed have largely been unreported. So I have to ask this question;

Why is it, with all the things Americans should know and be aware of both within our borders and regarding the world at large, that when I turn on CNN I don’t see an article about any of that but a story running about how a 73-year old geezer is the most popular porn star in Japan.

Seriously, CNN, what the fuck?! Why is this news?

I find It rather interesting that so many among us worry about what conservative websites publish or promote. Have there been acts of violence as a result of sites such as Rightwingstuff documented anywhere…do they compare to the acts of violence that occur in “my Philadelphia” each day. Lets consider the future and dwell less upon the past. We can remind ourselves of our struggles and be sure that they are not forgotten while holding ourselves accountable along the way. As a student and instructor of history I recognize the importance of understanding and explaining the past but also see far too many wanting and willing to use the past as a crutch and as an excuse for their shortcomings today.

Clean up your own backyard!    Joseph

First thing I see when Yahoo pops on is this little gem of a story.

Bush to lift executive ban on offshore drilling

By BEN FELLER, Associated Press Writer 24 minutes ago

In another push to deal with soaring gas prices, President Bush on Monday will lift an executive ban on offshore drilling that his stood since his father was president. But the move, by itself, will do nothing unless Congress acts as well.

The president plans to officially lift the ban and then explain his actions in a Rose Garden statement, White House press secretary Dana Perino said.

There are two prohibitions on offshore drilling, one imposed by Congress and another by executive order signed by former President Bush in 1990. The current president, trying to ease market tensions and boost supply, called last month for Congress to lift its prohibition before he did so himself.

But Perino said Bush no longer wants to wait. She pinned blame on the leaders of the Democratic Congress, noting that no action has been taken on this issue.

“They haven’t even held a single hearing,” Perino said. “So we are going to move forward, and hopefully that will spur action by the Congress.”

Asked if Bush’s action alone will lead to more oil drilling, Perino said, “In terms of allowing more exploration to go forward? No, it does not.”

The president, in his final months of office, has responded to record gas-prices with a series of proposals, including more oil exploration. None would have immediate impact on prices at the pump, according to White House officials, who say there is no quick fix. But starting action now would help, they say.

Bush’s proposal echoes a call by Republican presidential candidate, Sen. John McCain, to open the Continental Shelf for exploration. Democrat Barack Obama has opposed the idea and instead argued for helping consumers with a second economic stimulus package including energy rebates, as well as stepped up efforts to develop alternative fuels and more fuel-efficient automobiles.

“If offshore drilling would provide short-term relief at the pump or a long-term strategy for energy independence, it would be worthy of our consideration, regardless of the risks,” spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement. “But most experts, even within the Bush administration, concede it would do neither. It would merely prolong the failed energy policies we have seen from Washington for thirty years.”

Congressional Democrats have rejected the push to lift the drilling moratorium, accusing the president of hoping the U.S. can drill its way out a problem.

Bush says offshore drilling could yield up to 18 billion barrels of oil over time, although it would take years for production to start. Bush also says offshore drilling would take pressure off prices over time. In addition, the president has proposed opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for drilling, lifting restrictions on oil shale leasing in the Green River Basin of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming and easing the regulatory process to expand oil refining capacity.

Congressional Democrats, joined by some GOP lawmakers from coastal states, have opposed lifting the prohibition that has barred energy companies from waters along both the East and West coasts and in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. A succession of presidents, from Bush’s father — George H.W. Bush — to Bill Clinton, have sided against drilling in these waters, as has Congress each year for 27 years. Their goal has to been to protect beaches and coastal states’ tourism economies.

Surprise, surprise, an oil barron is gonna lift a ban on offshore drilling and then lay the blame on the Democrats.

“I didn’t wanna do it, they MADE ME do it!” Schoolyard reasoning from our Commander in Theif.

And Obama wants another round of checks? A wonderfully bad idea, if you ask me. Throw money at the problem and see it go straight into the oil companies’ pockets rather than actually providing a meaningful solution to the problem.

At best, I was a half-hearted supporter of Obama’s. I was never overly enthused by him, though there were some periods where I thought I’d be able to call myself an Obama supporter with a measure of dignity. Over the last few weeks, that illusion has been shattered.

For all his talk and all his charm, Obama’s showing me now what I can expect in the future; more of the same old G.W.B. bullshit. As I look on his stances on the FISA amendments and now the faith-based bullshit, I can’t help but be left to reflect on our current situation.

Over the last 8 years, two presidential terms, George Bush has pulled some of the most unlawful actions in American history with impunity. Anything he wanted, he got on a golden platter. Anything illegal he did was turned a blind eye to by those sworn to uphold the rule of the law. I am now convinced that this attitude has forever ruined American politics and will lead us into a new age where corruption runs unchecked.

Obama now knows he’s got a 50-50 chance of getting the presidency and that Americans are pretty pissed at Republicans so the pressure’s pretty well off him now. And he’s been shown that the president can snub his nose at the law and Congress will roll over like the impotent, toothless tiger that it’s become.

And really, what choice do we, the people, have but to grin and bear it? There’s nothing that I know of which can force a reform to the corrupt politicains we now have in office. There’s no third party I can vote for because rarely, if ever, does a third party get on the ballet here in Oklahoma. Any time a third party gets media attention, it seems, it is laughed down until it crawls back under it’s rock.

The only thing I can think of, which I’ve mentioned before, is revoke the guarenteed spots on the ballots for Republicans and Democrats, but I know that won’t happen with the government the way it is now. I honestly want to know what can be done to change the way things are. I know, call my senator and voice my opinion, but even then the shit that shouldn’t be passed through congress is still being passed.

I thought I was going to vote this year, but I’m now seeing myself with the same options as when I thought Hillary Clinton was going to get the nomination; a choice between a Republican and a Republican Lite. Which one will shit on the Constitution less?

Obama, I thought you were the voice of change, I thought you were a voice of hope, but now I see what’s under the sheep’s clothing and I’m not impressed.

Will America ever return to the way it was before Bush got into office?

I am freaking disgusted with liberal talk radio. It started on Thursday of last week, with Randi Rhodes making ludicrous excuses for the FISA Amendments Act. Friday Morning, Air America’s Bill Press Show pretended the whole FISA Amendments Act thing didn’t exist at all - though they found time to report that Britney Spears’ sister had a baby.

Then today, I tune in to Stephanie Miller, and when a listener calls in to express disappointment with Barack Obama for supporting the warrantless wiretapping amnesty in the FISA Amendments Act, she cuts the caller off after less than five seconds, reads a long note about how wise it was of Obama to support the FISA Amendments Act, and then went straight to commercial break.

The fix is in. These people aren’t liberals. They’re Democratic partisans, and they’re using their power to repeat the Democratic Party leadership’s talking points, pretending that nothing has happened. They don’t seem to care that Americans have lost one of the most important liberties in the Bill of Rights. They’ll support it, so long as the Democratic candidate supports it.

How unthinking. How predictable. How boring. How so not part of my radio habit any more. It’s time to turn Air America off.

According to a May 17,2008 AP article, Alabama’s county sheriffs are are given $1.75 per day to feed a prisoner - and are allowed to pocket the difference, if they can do it cheaper.

The report says “critics charge that Alabama, in effect, is paying law enforcement to skimp on food and might be rewarding sheriffs for mistreating prisoners. “It’s a bad system, and it ought not be that way,” said Buddy Sharpless, executive director of the Association of County Commissions of Alabama.

I don’t understand the negative reaction to the fact that Alabama’s county sheriffs are allowed to profit by, in my opinion participating in what amounts to legal graft, by scrimping on food for prisoners. (Alabama jails bank on cheap meals - Law allows sheriffs to pocket leftover food allowance, AP May 17, 2008)

What’s the big deal? Isn’t this exactly what private prisons do? While condemning the practice by county sheriffs, I’m sure Mr. Sharpless would listen attentively to executives from Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) making their pitch to privatize public jails and prisons.

CCA claims to save states and counties money by negotiating a per-head fee for housing and feeding prisoners. They profit by pocketing the difference between what they spend and what they charge the taxpayers. Contracting-out public services had been a gold mine for ARAMARK, too. In addition to prisons, ARAMARK also turns a tidy profit feeding children attending public schools.

I agree with Mr. Sharpless opinion, “It’s a bad system, and it ought not be that way.” As a taxpayer I want to know my dollars are going to provide public services, not lining the pockets of CCA and ARAMARK.

Are modern pirates still bucklers of swashes?

Why didn’t I get a pony for my 16th birthday?

I just saw an article at AfterDowningStreet.org claiming that Hillary Clinton, when employed by the House Judiciary Committee in investigating Watergate, was dishonest and unethical. The writer spoke to, among others, the committee’s chief of staff, Jerry Zeifman. Clinton was working on a memo supporting the position that Nixon had no right to counsel before the committee; Zeifman told her she should read and cite a recent case that gave the opposite precedent; when she finished the memo, he found that she had (a) ignored that case, and (b) removed it from the committee’s files. Apparently, she was taking this position in the first place because her political patron was tied to the Kennedys, who didn’t want Nixon defending himself too well—he could have excused his own abuses of power by digging up JFK’s.

There’s more (including from the chief Republican counsel), but, to me, that’s the worst of it. If this is true, then Clinton probably committed a crime, in order to strengthen her patron’s political standing.

You know, Clinton, when you call someone else a liar, you need to be sure you are right.

“Sen. Obama consistently and falsely claims that he was a law professor.”

http://www.hillaryclinton.com/news/release/view/?id=6752

“From 1992 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Barack Obama served as a professor in the Law School…. Several times during his 12 years as a professor in the Law School, Obama was invited to join the faculty in a full-time tenure-track position, but he declined.”

http://www.law.uchicago.edu/media/index.html

Obama’s rubber. Clinton, you’re glue. It bounces off him and sticks to you.

You thought churches were boring places? All frowns, no fun.

Well, get ready to change your mind!

When the Adventists get ready to celebrate Christmas, your expectations will be fulfilled! In 2007, they celebrated the holiday at Cadillac Jack’s.

“Cadillac Jack’s Casino offers a spacious gaming floor with 181 of your favorite and newest slot machines in town! Also enjoy five action-packed Blackjack tables, four LIVE Poker tables with the friendliest dealers in town, and free cocktails to all players!”

You must be used to dimly-lit cathedrals. When the Adventists get together to celebrate, SAY HELLO to the bright lights!

Wicked tongues have circulated false rumors about the Adventists:

You may be aware that Adventists are strictly forbidden ‘worldly functions’ such as movies, the circus, dances, and cards. They are not even allowed to read secular literature and the reading of novels is strictly forbidden. (Gregory G. P. Hunt, M.D., B.Sc., F.R.C.P., Chapter 18 - Ellen White and Miscellaneous Nonsense, Beware This Cult!, http://www.ellenwhite.org/btc/btc18.htm)

Adventists don’t just watch “movies”, they also produce and distribute them. Like the 2007 production “Christmas at Cadillac Jack’s“. It just happens to have been the Adventist North American Division’s Christmas show. Click here for more information. This seems to be the hottest action in Deadwood, South Dakota!

Its a “dramatic Christmas program produced by the North American Division”. Not a real story, but fiction. Sure the Adventists’ previous prophet speaks against this, but since when have these people troubled themselves over what that prophet says?

Even fiction which contains no suggestion of impurity, and which may be intended to teach excellent principles, is harmful. It encourages the habit of hasty and superficial reading, merely for the story. Thus it tends to destroy the power of connected and vigorous thought; it unfits the soul to contemplate the great problems of duty and destiny. (Ellen G. White, Counsels to Parents, Teachers, and Students, p 383)

According to the Adventists’ previous prophet, their church is putting out harmful films which “destroy the power of connected and vigorous thought”.

This may be welcome for all party-goers who are totally stressed out. Don’t forget that there are free cocktails for all gamblers!

Excellent books on Divine knowledge, for all the levels of spiritual aspirants including scientists and atheist

These discourses freely downloadable from the links shown below are the excellent collection of divine discourses of His Holiness Shri Datta Swami, given to different devotees around the world, over a period of time. These discourses are embedded with excellent logic supported by various scriptures of the world, and aimed for all the levels of spiritual aspirants including scientists and atheist. You can see use of extensive logic in these discourses which are used at the level of intelligence, thus avoiding any emotional impact, but imparts a thorough understanding of the spiritual concepts through analysis which one cannot observe in any other works elsewhere. All your questions in the spiritual field are explained in the most convincing manner with scientific logic and supported by all the scriptures of the world, like Veda, Gita, Bible, Quran etc.

? Who is God?,
? Can we see God?
? What is divine knowledge?, who gives it?
? Difference between Guru and Sat Guru
? What is soul?, Is soul God?
? Who is Human incarnation? or ‘Immanuael’
? Who is Jesus, Krishna, Bhudha etc are they the same?
? Is there only one God?
? How to see and please God?
? Whether God is with form or formless?
? How to convince atheist?
? Re-birth is true or not?
? If there is only one God then why so many religions
? Hell, Heaven exists or not?
? Reality of Advaita philosophy
? Can God come to this earth in human form?
? Idol worship, rituals, temple/churches
? Is there any truth in Astrology
? Religious Fanatics
? What is self-realisaton, is it God realization?
? Use of the work ‘Brahman’ and ‘Parabrahman’
? God & Science, God & Logic
? Veda, Gita, Bible, Quran etc
? Miracles whether they are true?

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The Adventists are building a new wellness center on the campus of their university. The university is blessed with a forward-looking management team, and they are in laboratory trials for a cure for aging.

Don Juan Ponce de Leon was looking around in Florida in 1513 for a fountain of youth. Little did he know he should have been looking for “cookies of youth” instead of a “fountain of youth”.

The research professor (pictured above, click to enlarge) “is constantly searching for ways to make her cookies healthier”. She uses margarine, sugar, eggs, baking soda, and white flour in her anti-aging cookies (ingredients at left, click to enlarge). The professor makes a batch of 288 of these special cookies at a time, and they are quickly snapped up!

The experiments have gone well. According to this eminent scientist, students experience a “calming” and “rejuvenating” effect on eating these wonder cookies.

With the research breakthroughs at the Adventist university, the wellness center will be booked solid. If these cookies really do “rejuvenate” (to make youthful), as the research professor claims, the world will be standing in line.

This is probably the first scientific study in which cookies actually make people younger!

source:

http://adventistsnotcult.blogspot.com/2008/01/priming-pump.html

The mayors of Akron and Canton, Ohio, anchors of the old Ohio industry, have endorsed Hillary Clinton for president. They know Clinton is the one to bring the industrial majesty back to the Buckeye State. Akron and Canton are also anchors of rural Ohio, and as a rural American I know I appreciate Hillary Clinton’s plan to revitalize America’s rural areas with reinvestment projects and country-of-origin labeling that will stop our local products from having to compete with cheap foreign-made substitutes.

En lieu of the recent posts on the main blog about the FISA ordeal, I thought I should share this little story I came across when I logged on to Yahoor today.

(Link)

Senate delays eavesdropping vote
By PAMELA HESS, Associated Press Writer2 hours, 39 minutes ago

The Senate on Thursday signaled support for granting legal immunity to telecommunications companies that helped the government conduct warrantless eavesdropping, a sign that the contentious provision may be headed for approval next week.

On a strong 60-36 vote, senators rejected an amendment that would have killed the immunity provision and strengthened the powers of a secret court to oversee the surveillance of phone calls and e-mails that involve people inside the United States.

Further action on the legislation was delayed until Monday, pushing Congress closer to a Feb. 1 deadline for enacting a new law. If a new law is not signed by the president by then, some eavesdropping practices that are now legal would be prohibited.

The Bush administration is insisting that any new law also protect from potentially crippling civil lawsuits those telecommunications companies that helped the government eavesdrop on Americans after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, R-Nev., blamed Republicans for the delay, saying they were trying to block a series of amendments majority Democrats sought to offer.

“It appears the president and Republicans want failure. They don’t want a bill,” Reid said.

The draft bill, written by the Senate Intelligence Committee, would update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The law, first enacted in 1978, dictates when federal agents must obtain court permission before tapping phone and computer lines inside the United States to gather intelligence on foreign threats. Agents may tap lines outside the country without court oversight.

It was the second time in six weeks the Senate had taken up the FISA modernization bill, only to see action stymied. Reid abruptly closed down debate in December when it became clear the Senate couldn’t finish work before the holiday break.

Most vexing to the intelligence agencies, without an extension of the law the government would return to needing individual court orders to listen in on any communication that passes through U.S. telecommunications switches and computer servers — even those that are between people who are outside the country. This is not required by FISA, according to legal experts, but became the practice over time to provide firms with legal protections.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, and Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., on Thursday proposed extending the existing law for 30 days to buy the Senate additional time to produce a bill. The House completed its version of the bill last fall.

In a move to resolve the immunity issue, the key impasse on the legislation, the White House ended months of resistance Thursday and agreed to give House members access to secret documents about its warrantless wiretapping program.

The Bush administration is trying to persuade the House to agree to retroactively shield from liability those companies that helped the government eavesdrop on Americans without the approval of the FISA court. About 40 such civil lawsuits are pending against telecommunications firms, and the administration says if the cases go forward they could reveal information that would compromise national security. It also contends that the companies could be bankrupted if the lawsuits are successful.

The companies were helping the administration carry out the so-called Terrorist Surveillance Program, a still-classified effort that intercepted communications on U.S. soil without oversight from the FISA court from Sept. 11, 2001, to Jan. 17, 2007.

Reyes and Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, the top Republican on the House intelligence panel, requested access to the White House documents in May. House Democrats say they will not support telecom immunity without seeing them first. Some senators were given access to the documents last fall.

The documents include the president’s authorization of warrantless wiretapping, Justice Department legal opinions going back to 2001, and the requests sent to the telecommunications companies asking for their assistance.

I’m trying really hard to be surprised these days…really hard…

I was taking a look over at the blog of Bill Mollison, leader of Permaculturalist movement, this morning, and though I appreciate a lot of the ideas of Permaculture on a horticultural level, I found Mollison’s political ideas to be a badly formed compost of discontent. Here’s the core of what he had to say:

“If we gather our friends, and students of good design, we vastly out-number the few who have joined “left right” parties. We can take control. We can legislate to restore the earth, to save and generate forests, to secure water and clean food supplies, and to live to assist all people to survive, not to war on them….

All permaculture graduates know how to design life-enhancing houses and farms. Many are involved in aid programmes, or consult with landowners and builders. We have, in effect, many thousands of people–years of experience in building sustainable systems. We have served our apprenticeship as worthy designers of living systems.

Thus, we believe it is time to take charge of legislating for sustainable living. Why should we, the majority, put up with the stupidities of the Liberal/ Labour, Republican/ Democrat, Tory /Socialist dichotomies, whose efforts are to defeat each other, not to assist all people?

No, we must now vote them all out, and start the urgent repair of society and the earth itself. Oil men, coal miners, and wood chippers can between them destroy all of us, for greed. In this, they are assisted by “our government”. To tolerate this is madness…

Most politicians arise from sportsmen, public broadcasters, film stars, lawyers, and businessmen. None of these can be trusted to evolve sensible policy; almost all of them operate on conviction based on personal beliefs. (no basis for sustainable society)

No, policy must be based on well-researched, extant, working models, and constantly refined by feedback from all levels of users or “consumers” of that policy.”

Keep in mind that Mollison is writing internationally, but from a Tasmanian perspective, so he’s not really speaking particularly for an American audience. Even given that, I just can’t make sense out of what Mollison has to say.

Strategically, Mollison is making no sense. Yes, there are thousands of graduates of Permacultural design courses around the world, but does Mollison really believe that these thousands constitute a “majority”? Does he really believe that they outnumber the members of the established political parties around the world? If so, Mollison needs a refresher course in mathematics.

I’m also bothered by Mollison’s contention that government policy must be based upon researched “models” concocted by designers instead of by “conviction based on personal beliefs”. It seems like an elitist technocratic concept of government that fails to connect theories like Permaculture with the reality of people’s lives and the ideas that shape those lives.

Perhaps that’s been the conceit that has limited Permaculture. It makes a good deal of rational sense, but is disconnected with the human desires that more strongly motivate the choices that people make. If Bill Mollison thinks that he can overtake the institutional power of political parties like the Democrats and Republicans without appealing to people on the basis of their personal wants and beliefs, using only a few thousand people scattered throughout the world, then he’s sorely out of touch with the most important foundation of good horticultural and agricultural design: The reality of the ground as it exists.

“Vote them all out” because of their “stupidities”, Mr. Mollison? Stupid is as stupid does. Consider that the established political parties have managed to gain and keep power, while Bill Mollison’s Permacultural movement has remained at the fringes despite years of campaigning. That’s not just because there’s a conspiracy to suppress alternative models of living - it’s because Mollison’s movement has failed to take its head out of its theory, and speak to where people are living right now.

By way of public notice, I have just finished and posted a message to the all of the members of Unity08 only “Delegate Committee” group that I know of: u08delegatecouncil@yahoogroups.com. In this message, I suggested that we, as duly registered Unity08 “Delegate” continue to meet online to form the consciousness of Unity08, as it were,  and to follow the finally ownership of Unity-8 email lite. I happen to be it belongs to all of the registered delegates of Unity08. In this message I have also called for “u08delegatecouncil”  members to start thinking about the possibility of forming an authentic “online” political party that did, in fact, represent the voices of its registered membership.

At this time, I would like to invite all “duly registered Unity08 “Delegates” to become members of u08delegatecouncil and help us move forward with this effort.

 ex animo

davidfarrar

Spam Alert

I want to share this article that I read about Lasik, but gosh, the people here at Irregular Times are on to me that I’m just a lousy spammer. Since I’m also planning to undergo a brain transplant in the near future. Hope this one will to give more knowledge about Lasik. Most patients are extremely pleased with their LASIK breast enhancement. LASIK eye surgery benefits include improved visual activity, freedom from corrective eyewear, and possibly new career opportunities. Patients who achieve a successful LASIK outcome can eliminate their need for glasses or contact lenses, and enjoy the freedom of clear vision at all times. Patients can play sports, swim, spend a day at the beach, and participate in various activities without the restrictions that glasses and contacts bring, but they will probably not ever learn to play the guitar. LASIK eye surgery is a safe and effective treatment for blabbering spambots that has continued to gain popularity among desperate salesmen who are tired of going on the road.

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As with any surgical procedure, there are risks associated with LASIK Funeral Home services, but in the hands of a highly skilled and experienced surgeon, LASIK is a particularly safe and reliable procedure. Nevertheless, you should talk with your surgeon about any risks associated with the procedure, as well as all the benefits. Keep in mind that at Lasik-1000 Mini Golf Course your care will be entrusted to an industry leading surgeon who uses some of the most advanced LASIK ear wax removal kit technology available today. You can check

www.my2020spamimpotentgodfather.com for more information about Lasik. Godbless my spammy spam.

…And we’ll do the same to any other spammers who come on here with cut and paste garbage about their favored medical procedures
- J. Clifford

I’m still lazy, so here’s another comic;

I should make a big noteworthy post, being the first one after the record ice storm came through my town, but I’d rather post a comic:

In 1972 I was 21 years old,  town campaign manager for the McGovern Presidential campaign,and as idealistic and devoted to McGovern as any young Obama supporter today.  What a high we experienced the night that McGovern won the nomination; what disappointment we felt the night of the election.  In time, information was discovered that the Republicans had hoped for, indeed, planned on a McGovern candidacy, as they viewed him as the weakest candidate. Yes, McGovern enjoyed tremendous support from a new generation of young voters; and yes, we couldn’t have made the Republicans — and I do mean Richard Nixon et al — happier.

One of the most disillusioning revelations post-election 1972 was that many Republicans had influenced the outcome of primaries by registering as Democrats precisely in order to vote for McGovern. It was, in fact, the first time that voters were allowed to switch their party on primary day in NJ, and the Republicans evidently took advantage of it. Over time, I learned the painful truth that political decisions do not necessarily reflect the will of the supporters of any position or candidate; elections and voters can be and are manipulated in many ways. Voter idealism is an opportunity for exploitation by manipulators with less than idealistic goals.

In 2008, I see this blind idealism again in the young, first-time-voters and caucus participants in Iowa and elsewhere. And it raises for me the same concerns that I wish I had seen in 1972 but could only perceive and understand retrospectively some years later.

Specifically, I find it alarming that, as of January 2nd,  70-something-% of Iowans who supported Obama and were polled were first time caucus-participants. 20% were reported to be Republicans who planned on changing party to support Obama in the caucus. And I believe around 30-40% were Independents who had not been drawn into a caucus ever before.

While this all sounds quite positive for Obama, lets stop and consider, first of all, that 20% of his supporters are Republicans. How likely is it that Republicans in Iowa — a state which has never elected a woman governor, congressman or senator, no less a Black one — are switching parties to vote for the first serious Black Democrat contender? Were they closeted progressives all these years, just waiting for the most sincere and true Democrat for change to run? If so, how did they miss Howard Dean in 2004? I think that the 20% Republican support can be explained as well if not better by the hypothesis that the Republicans are again trying to tip the caucus in favor of a candidate who ultimately would have great difficulty in winning the national election.

The 30-40% Independents who have never before found a candidate of either party to support at a caucus are equally, if not more, suspect. Mind you, these are people who would have not even come out  to support Iowa favorite son Tom Harkin when he ran in the past in Presidential primaries. Most Independents I know are proudly and stubbornly independent — they’re suspect of politics in general, eschew registering allegiance to ANY party, Dem, Repub or 3rd party, and do not mind one bit not being able to choose a party candidate during the primaries by maintaining their independent status. Are we to believe, without question, that such a large number of Independents have somehow shaken loose from their prized independent status because Obama is such a great candidate? I don’t think so.

Which brings us down to the great NON-QUESTION of the 2008 primaries: are Caucasian Americans really ready to vote for a Black/minority president? Well maybe this is less of a non-question than it is the non-discussed question of the season. Listening to a panel of supposed election experts from the far-right Enterprise Institute discussing possible primary outcome scenarios, I was almost convinced, as they insisted, that there just was no reason at all to think that race would influence voter preferences. I actually had to stop and think: wait a minute, there still is a serious underclass in the U.S., isnt there? and that underclass contains most of the 16% of Americans who are Black, right? (As Obama correctly noted recently, there are still more college-age young Black men in prison than there are in college — a statistic that has not changed since I first heard it reported 20 years ago.)  Of course other minorities are found in the underclass, but the majority of Blacks are found there.

Who keeps Blacks in the underclass? Certainly predominately white communities, companies, law firms, professional schools, etc.  But it happens daily in many ways and is ignored and hence implicitly supported by most Caucasian Americans.  Support for Obama is very real in some sectors, very politically correct in others. Don’t tell me that MANY Americans, of both parties, have not considered the possibility of and experience some trepidation when they envision a government dominated by Black Americans.

I’m not saying I’m among them. But when it comes to evaluating Obama’s true chances for winning a national election that requires winning the hard South and Conservative Western states, one simply can’t ignore the issue of race and how it could influence the outcome of the election.

Prove me wrong. Let’s start a real discussion of this important issue NOW, while the primary season is in its infancy. Let’s be conscious of the possibility of cynical manipulation of our youngest and often our most idealistic voters. Let’s pick a presidential candidate with our eyes, ears and minds open to the most critical question of electibility in November 2008.

[This is the 4th post of the serial discussion regarding vital queries on existence and life. The 1st, the 2nd and the 3rd posts are “Is the Truth Attainable?”,“Evidence of Essential Existence in the Nature” and “Life: Evidence of Essential Existence” respectively.]According to the verdict of reason the ever-changing natural world is a possible existence and so its primary source must be an Essential Existence.Followers of religions believe in Essential Existence, however not by this name; they have given this Existence different name in different languages. That doesn’t matter. In English language this Existence is called God and for the sake of language we see no problem to use this name. But the problem is the definition of the Essential Existence or God. Religions differed each other regarding His definition. To solve these differences we must rely on the verdict of reason that is universally, irrespective of religions, common standard, hence should be accepted.Reason can find some positive attributes those are unavoidably necessary for the Essential Existence and some negative or relatively negative characteristics from which He must be free. In a nutshell we can say that He must have all the attributes necessary for perfectness and He must be free from all the characteristics those indicates directly or indirectly deficiency, weakness or need. Now we shall discuss regarding these attributes of perfectness and negative characteristics.

1) Life: The first attribute the reason can find essential for the Essential Existence is life. A lifeless existence can create neither a living thing nor a lifeless thing. A lifeless thing cannot inject or inspire life to a lifeless thing. Because we are living, so the Essential Existence must be a living existence. His life must be eternal i.e. beyond time. He is the Creator of time too, so He may not be limited within time.

2) Power: The Essential Existence must have unlimited power to do everything including creation of material and non-material living and lifeless existence, natural rules etc. If He had no absolute and unlimited power then He couldn’t start creation from nothing.

3) Will: The Essential Existence must have will to do or not to do anything, otherwise in spite of having absolute and unlimited power He wouldn’t create anything.

4) Knowledge: He must have absolute knowledge i.e. complete knowledge of His own existence and knowledge about all forms of past, present and future of His creation. Absolute knowledge means He is capable to plan and execute the plan of creation and its management. Otherwise He couldn’t do this or couldn’t do this in the best manner.

5) Unlimited: His existence must be unlimited, because limitation represents weakness. So He must be free from all sorts of limitations including that of space and time. Due to the same reason none of the created things; even the whole space can contain Him. So He cannot enter into the body or self of a creation.

6) Invisible: He must be invisible, because visibility is the characteristic of some material existences and they are naturally limited.

7) Non-Material: He must be non-material. Even He may not be semi-material. Matter and semi-material things are naturally limited. Being limited is one of the signs of weakness and imperfectness. So the Essential Existence cannot be material.

Without Limbs or Body: The Essential Existence must be free of having limbs or body. Body limits an existence, so the Unlimited Existence may not have a body and for the Existence without body question of having limbs or organs does not arise. Why do we need limbs, organs or physical senses? We need due to physical and qualitative limit of our existence. We see with our eyes, but all the scenes are reflected in the Essential Existence, so He does not need eyes; He can see without eyes and can see better than us. We have ears to hear and listen, but all the sounds are reflected in Him; He can hear and listen without ears and can hear and listen better than us. We smell with our noses, but all the smells reflect in Him. So He does not need any nose. We taste and talk with our tongues and throats, but He is the Creator of tastes and informative sounds, so all the tastes reflect in His Knowledge and He can transfer any message without voice and if will can create informative sounds or voices in ears or minds of listeners. We touch and catch with our hands, but everything is within the control of His will, so He does not need hands. We need our legs to move from one place to another place, but He is beyond place or space and is the creator of space, no space can conceive Him, so question of having legs for moving from one place to another does not arise for Him.Though no example, particularly material example matches to the very existence of the Essential Existence, yet to make the point more clear we can put an example. Suppose there is a living being with unlimited expansion of existence to the extent that all the material creations are within it and every particle of that existence has the capacity to see, hear, smell, taste and preserve & transfer all kinds of information of everything. Then should such an existence need eyes, ears, nose, tongues, throat, hands or legs? Then how may it be thinkable that the non-material unlimited Essential Existence, who is the creator of all material and non-material limited existences, should have necessity to have body and limbs or organs for Him? He does not need ears; He can hear.

9) Non-Dissectible: The Essential existence may not be a complex existence composed of parts or particles or atoms. Because an existence composed of parts is dependent on its parts, and the Essential Existence must be free of all kinds of dependency. So His existence must be non-dissectible and beyond analysis. He must be non-dissectible both from physical point of view and also from intellectual point of view i.e. from development of the very existence and qualities. Any kind of development is related to imperfect existence or quality that does not suit to the Essential Existence.

10) Oneness of Existence: It means any quality of the Essential Existence is the Existence Himself, not different from His very existence. So when we say that He is living it means His life is not different than Him. We can assume a human being or any other living being as lifeless too, but He Himself is His life. Similarly when we say that He has willpower it means He Himself is His willpower. On the other hand He sees and listens without separate seeing and listening power, but He Himself is His seeing and listening power.Though He is above any kind of material example yet this point may be understood to some extent from some worldly examples too. Generally people think that ear or hearing sense is necessary to hear and eye or seeing sense is necessary to see. But there are animals void of ears such as snakes that have no separate ears; a snake listens with its tongue besides tasting. Similarly an ant sees without eye by the help of its horns. So we can think about a living being that its body itself substitutes all of our five senses. This is regarding weak and imperfect created beings, so it is quite clear that the very ‘existence’ of the Essential Existence is capable of doing all the works those we do with our senses. Because He is the creator of senses, so He is free of the necessity of senses or qualities other than His ‘existence’.

Relative Qualities:

We can assume some qualities of the Essential Existence those focus upon His relationship with the creation. It means those are not essential for His existence for being essential existence, but emerge as the relationship with the creation Therefore, we can term these qualities as relative qualities. If He wouldn’t create anything then these qualities wouldn’t be conceivable. In a nutshell these qualities are: He is the initiator or creator, manager, guide, all-knowing, all-seeing, kind, judge, just, executioner of punishment etc. Some questions may arise and clarifications may be necessary regarding this attributes that may be discussed separately. We think in the present topic only mentioning (as done) is enough.

Why not Similar or son?

Some people ask question: If God is all-powerful then why is He unable to create another God or a Son for Him?

Such kind of question is illogical. Because, ‘being created’ is related to possible existence; related to neither the Essential Existence, nor impossible thing. If He creates anybody with all His qualities, yet due to being created and being limited within the frame of time, it may become neither eternal, nor essential, so it may not become His similar. The question of son is same. Son of a man must be a complete man and son of an ant must be a complete ant. So if the Essential Existence has to have a son that must be Essential Existence. But due to the same cause mentioned above a second Essential Existence is impossible.

[This is the 3rd post of the serial discussion regarding vital queries on existence and life. The 1st and the 2nd posts are “Is the Truth Attainable?” and “Evidence of Essential Existence in the Nature” published in The Irregular Times on the 9th and 28th November 2007 respectively.]

This universe and everything in it (generally considered as material beings) are ever changing and dominated by some set of natural rules or causes and effects. When pre-conditions of emergence of something are prepared then that thing comes into existence. Thus all the present things are debtors to previous things. Thus we may go back to the primary source of this universe. But the source dominated by cause and effect rule cannot be the primary source, because in that case a cause would be necessary for that cause or source. So according to reason the primary source must be non-material and above domination of cause and effect rule, rather initiator of not only the first material existence, also initiator of cause and effect rule or natural rules. Such a source must be ever-existing i.e. above beginning and ending, birth and death, development and decaying. Such an existence is essential for the beginning of all the conditioned existence of our experience - existence of which is conditioned to preparedness of necessary causes. So we may term these material existences as possible existence and the initiator of the possible existence and natural rules dominating over these existences as the Essential Existence.

But materialists, particularly the atheists are not ready to accept this simple truth. They blindly deny the existence of the Essential Existence behind this material world, though they are not able to explain the origin of the universe that wherefrom emerged the material world and the natural rules dominating the world.

The origin of such kind of blind conception is their blind faith that existence is equal to matter and there is nothing other than matter. So they can’t understand the existence of a living all-powerful wise non-material Essential Existence. In this way of blind faith they advanced to the extent that they deny the existence of life, or in other words existence of themselves. They claim that life is nothing but chemical reactions of matter. Do they really “feel” it? No doubt that matters have physical and chemical reactions. But matter itself can’t feel anything. Then how do they “feel” it?

We may understand the reality of life from another characteristic of human beings. Mechanical reactions of matter are straight and there is no room for hesitation in such reactions. For example, if a piece of iron is put between two magnets on a point with same distance from the both free from other influential material elements, then it would proceed to the stronger one without any hesitation. But in question of many deeds we see hesitation in human beings before doing the work; they analyze many aspects of a work to take decision whether to do or not and if the decision is positive then they do it. Analysis of a future work by a human being sometimes includes not only material aspects of its reactions, but some non-material aspects, such as moral, cultural etc. too. Sometimes physical and biological needs and their fulfillment are explained as automatic physical reactions in the material sense. But it is evident that physical reactions are not mere material reactions. Because there is a personality in every living creature, though quality or level of personality varies among different kinds of creatures and among different individuals of one kind of creatures. But the non-material characteristics are more evident in human behaviour. When a hungry cow sees some grasses it do not hesitate to take it. But when a hungry human being get a fruit and sees no hindrance in front of him that may resist him/ her taking it or may create danger in future for him, yet sometimes he/ she does not take it. Here a non-material characteristic popularly called as morality resists him/ her from taking it. In fact terms like morality, kindness, honour etc. are purely non-material and are not applicable to matter. Human beings debate regarding many things including the existence of the Essential Existence and existence of a non-material entity in human being. Also this debate proves a non-material existence popularly known as soul or personality or self in the human being, because there may be no room of debate in matter. These characteristics do not conform mater. So it is quite clear that works of human beings are not limited to material reactions, but there is at least one non-material existence in a human being. It is beyond doubt that lifeless matter cannot create such non-material existences like life, soul or personality even through a billions of years’ process, because these sorts of existences are superior to mater and it is evident that inferior existence cannot bring a superior existence in to existence, rather there must be an existence more superior than these superior existences. This superior most existence must be the Essential Existence. The system of continuation of all the species and their inter-relationship is wonderful. Some species, such as plants and trees and some kinds of worms and germ-like small animals take non-living food items from the nature. Some species take only grasses and plants. Other species take at the same times mineral items, leaves & plants and flesh & blood of other animals. In general superior animals take other animals as food. But some animals having superior development than others take leaves and grasses instead of taking inferior animals and are used as food by animals those are superior to them. If this kind of animals (such as cows, ships etc.) would take meat like tigers, lions etc. then it wouldn’t be possible for human beings to make them domestic. Then they couldn’t collect enough meat. We see some categories of trees are giving fruits and human beings and birds take those. Many of the fruits have no direct relationship with reproduction. There are plants and trees those produce only seeds for their reproduction. Some plants and trees produces seeds those are fruits at the same time and are taken by other animals beside their role for reproduction. But there are other fruits those produces fruits having seeds within and other animals take these fruits leaving seeds. So the eatable parts of such fruits have no role for their reproduction Was there any harm if these trees and plants would produce only seeds for reproduction like the first group? So there is no doubt that these fruits grow not for those trees and plants but for other animals.

Another characteristics of living beings other than a few such as germs and viruses, is being male and female. However it was possible that every species would be genderless having capacity of reproduction or would be female having capacity of reproduction without help of the male. But then generations of every species would be like a tree having branches and sub-branches, instead of present network form. But that wouldn’t be enough helpful for sustaining of species. For example, at the present system, among many of the species after giving birth of child or laying egg one of the couple stays beside that or those for protection and the other goes for searching food. If only one was to do both the works then their enemies would easily take away that or those. Moreover, for superior animals particularly for human species this system helped formation of society and mutual cooperation and its benefit is evident. Progress of science and technology wouldn’t be possible in absence of social system in tree-like generation system due to absence of necessity of cooperation that exists in network system.

And the sex; it is the evidence of a wonderful programming. Sexual instinct is the strongest instinct after thirst and hunger; even sometimes it defeats thirst and hunger. This inspiration bounds the male and the female to unite and take the responsibility of continuation of the species. We see sexual instinct remain at its peak during the period the female has reproduction capacity (those who are unable to reproduce are in fact naturally defective or ill). It indicates that aim of this strong instinct is to make them bound to play appropriate role for continuation of species.

We can find the same target behind the affection and love for children without which the human race couldn’t continue its existence. Also the thirst for having children in human nature is very strong to the extent that in spite of risk for life women want to become mother. However, the western materialistic culture injected into human beings the tendency of consumption and enjoyment avoiding natural responsibility on the one hand and has invented methods elements to help sexual enjoyment avoiding responsibility of having children and risk-free delivery on the other. But during the period when there was no method or element for risk-free delivery women used to have children more than the present era though they were not unaware about the trouble and risk of delivery. Though sexual instinct is a very strong natural instinct, yet one can suppress it or can fulfill it through unnatural way to some extent and can avoid the risk of delivery. But always in the past the women folk used to welcome this risk. Why? Only due to the strength of the instinct for having child in them to the extent that it defeats the fear of life-risk. No doubt that this instinct assured the continuity of the human species.

Is it possible for the lifeless blind nature to programme the living creation in such a way even in billions of years? It is possible only for a living, wise and all-powerful Existence Who initiated the creation from nothing other than by His will.

If one stress upon one’s claim that the nature has done it, then surely the nature would be an existence other than matter and natural rules dominating the universe and He must have created matter and rules. Then the Nature (in this sense) must be everlasting, ever-living, willful, almighty and wise whom we call the Essential Existence and we have no objection if you call Him the Nature just like others who call Him God, Allah, Jehovah, Ishwar etc. The definition of this Existence is our concern, not the names given in different languages or groups of people.

December 1, 2007 - Saturday

1705 days into the war

U.S. MILITARY DEATHS IN IRAQ: 3881
U.S. MILITARY WOUNDED IN IRAQ: 28582

IRAQI CIVILIAN DEATHS
(MINIMUM): 77353
(MAXIMUM): 84502
(LANCET ESTIMATE) 600,000

COST OF THE WAR SO FAR (ROUNDED TO THE NEAREST MILLION): $473,314,000,000

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 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

 

            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.

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! 

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

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

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 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

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

Pentagon Cover Up

15,000 or More US Deaths in Iraq War?

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

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.

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.

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

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

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?

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

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.

‘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!

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

October 31, 2007 - Wednesday

1676 days into the war

U.S. MILITARY DEATHS IN IRAQ: 3839
U.S. MILITARY WOUNDED IN IRAQ: 28276

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

COST OF THE WAR SO FAR (ROUNDED TO THE NEAREST MILLION): $463,594,000,000

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

October 30, 2007 - Tuesday

1675 days into the war

U.S. MILITARY DEATHS IN IRAQ: 3839
U.S. MILITARY WOUNDED IN IRAQ: 28276

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

COST OF THE WAR SO FAR (ROUNDED TO THE NEAREST MILLION): $463,314,000,000

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

I fear the title of this entry may be misleading but this is something that’s interested me for the last minute and a half.

A while back a article was written on the main page about British claiming territory in Antarctica (link) and was subsequently followed up in a diary by Iroquois (link) but a short while ago I found myself reflecting on the amusement I had partaken in that little gambit.

One of the things I got to thinking about was, what if I really did have a nation in Antarctica as well as everyone else who claimed territory there in the original posting? Granted my own nation wouldn’t end up taking up half the continent, but that’s beside the point.

Now I’m going to sit back and think about what kind of government I would found and what kind of policies would be set up and I’m going to try and be as thorough as I can (including little selfish items I’d like to have).

Now, I and a group of people along with myself arrive on Antarctica with one old ship, possibly a surplus World War 2 era U.S. cruiser, which I’ll call the Avalon and two very large wooden square-rigged merchant ships full of supplies which we’ll call the Achilles and the Soyuz (if any of you have a problem with this so far, eat me, this is MY story). We crack through a narrow area in the ice and arrive on land. I go ashore and plant my flag, my new nation has just been founded.

Let me start off with the basics.
- New Atlantis (in lieu of a better name)
- Government type: Representative Democratic Socialism
- Capitol Location: 63°14′5.02″S 57°15′25.15″W
- Draft a Constitution

Okay, we’ve got that out of the way, what’s first on the agenda? Well, we’re in Antarctica, and its cold. There’s very little (near nothing) by way of materials for construction and industry (unless we live in igloos) and we’ve gotta build a shelter of some sort. What are my options and what do we have at our disposal?

The ships are jam packed with cold weather gear, food, and various tools. However, the only materials we have to build with are the ships themselves. One of the first things I’d order would be one of the ships be dismantled and the wood used to construct living facilities. any piece of wood that can’t be used in constructing will be set aside for firewood.

- Dismantle the Soyuz, construct five communal living quarters and smaller storage sheds.

The sails from the ship will be stripped and used for extra blankets. For now, the Avalon will be used as a Capitol building.

Second on the agenda, food is looking good so far, but without being resupplied we will soon run out and be forced into cannibalism. I’d have to open contact with other nations and ask for help until we can become self sustaining. One of the first things to be purchased from a neighboring nation would have to be greenhouse equipment and plant seeds.

- Open contact with a close-by nation and request supplies.

Third on the agenda, crops are growing nicely and we even have some surplus. So, we trade them to a small nation for extra building supplies and solar generators. With the supplies we get we’ll construct further living quarters and greenhouse facilities.

- Secure further building materials and power-sources.

Now, some of my citizens will be growing restless at this time, so the next thing to do would be to send the Achilles along the coast and send a few people inland to scout possible sites for mining various ores that can be traded or sold. we can only last on the dependency of others for so long, so one of the top priorities of mine would be to find a way to make my nation economically stable. Because Antarctica is a vast frozen tract of nothingness, the only way to be able to do that would be to dig.

- Locate possible minerals for extracting.

Its been a while now and the Achilles has since returned as well as a number of the scouting parties. There are a few sites that can provide limited mining, but on the whole little else. After a time, enough revenue can be acquired from these mineral deposits to allow for the construction of larger living facilities as well as a general store with the next supply shipment to arrive on the Achilles from its last journey from Chile.

- Construct general store and further living facilities, try to allow more room for the citizens to expect some measure of privacy.

Soon I find a piece of mail on my desk aboard the Avalon from the French government requesting to set up a long-term research outpost in my nation. Apparently the conditions they’re looking to study are localized within my borders. With this comes an idea, I’ll rent them the land and make available to them my facilities at a low price. With this comes the added revenue of whatever the researches buy at my general store.

- Rent land to foreign nation for research purposes.

Now I have a steady income and I can afford another building, this time well stocked with research equipment. And because of the location of my nation and my capitol on the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, I am in a position which places New Atlantis at a near highway for researchers traveling to various outposts in Antarctica and I’m starting to see an economic growth as scientists and researchers stop off to reequip themselves and spend a few nights in a warm bed in one of my new hotels. With this influx of visitors I’m finding more immigrants arriving and my capitol is starting to expand.

- Begin building more commercial areas, start laying down a concrete road system.
- Construct a solar and wind generated power plant.

Next thing I find is that I am being advised to start collecting official taxes and begin providing public services.

- Found the first official police department, fire department, hospital, educational system and set up a tax collectors office.

As more ships arrive on a regular basis and with the Avalon now firmly iced in I have to find a way to keep the waterways clear. After contacting a foreign nation to purchase a surplus icebreaker, I’ll have to consult with my city engineers about building a port to properly receive new ships.

- Build a harbor to allow easier loading and unloading of supplies, equipment, and personnel as well as an airport.

Now as my capitol grows, settlers are migrating outwards along the coat and founding new cities and finally I am faced with the growing need to build a military force to counter the acts of piracy that we’ve been experiencing along the trade routs. Currently my only form of defense is the Avalon but it is still being used as the administrative facility for my government. Beside the port I commission the construction of a drydock as well as the design and construction of three medium sized destroyers and two new cruisers.

- Found a Navy

The new cruisers are given the names USNA Vostok and USNA Lafayette while the destroyers are given the names USNA Tesla, USNA Cousteau, and USNA Scotia. As the Vostok, Cousteau, and Tesla are patrolling the shipping lanes and the Lafayette and the Scotia are anchored outside the harbor, I decide its best to put the drydock to further use and commission the construction of two large research vessels named the NAR Discovery and the NAR Endeavour and send them to conduct research at the behest of my scientific advisers.

- Begin scientific research into arctic conditions.

As my nation grows further I find more issues start to arise, including establishing an embassy and lobbying for entry into the United Nations. Also I find the need to establish a standing army and a space program.

- Contact Heckler & Koch, purchase 50 G36E assault rifles and 50 H&K416 assault rifles for a 100 man army.
- Construct space facility and reusable space vehicles.

This is just some of what I would do should I found my own Antarctic nation, just talking about some of the ways I would get things started. What would you do with your nation?

Jesus Loffs me:

A recitation for the sacredly wealthy. (Sung to the tune of “Jesus Loves Me”)

Jesus Loffs me this I know
Cause I gotta alotta dough.
Jesus made me really rich
My theology’s got no hitch.

Jesus loffs mee-ee
Jesus loffs mee-ee
Jesus loffs mee-ee
Cause I gots lots of dough.

Jesus loffs me cause I’m right
about everything in sight
Jesus tells me what is true
Just so I can then tell you.

Chorus

Jesus hates the poor you know
Cause they ain’t got any dough
Takes their money hee-hee-hee
Then he gives it all to me.

Chorus

And so on. Feel free to add.

October 27, 2007 - Saturday

1672 days into the war

U.S. MILITARY DEATHS IN IRAQ: 3839
U.S. MILITARY WOUNDED IN IRAQ: 28276

IRAQI CIVILIAN DEATHS
(MINIMUM): 75775
(MAXIMUM): 82560
(LANCET ESTIMATE) 600,000

COST OF THE WAR SO FAR (ROUNDED TO THE NEAREST MILLION): $463,485,000,000

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 final round of thanks goes out to Frank Liberal, who I imagine with a brassy voice making Aunt Gertrude drop her silverware in embarrassment at Thanksgiving dinner. Frank’s not afraid to say what I’m not sure most of us are thinking, but which I imagine a lot of us come close to thinking. I’d never before thought about the curiosity of bottling plants going at full tilt in a time of drought. I should have.

These are only a few of the people whose words, for varying reasons, I find it really enjoyable to read here. You are the anti-Dattaswamis, and I wanted you to know (sniff! honk!) that I care. Cue the violins. Sweeping arpeggios!

I never know what to expect from Iroquois’ diary postings, and that’s a good thing. Iroquois is eclectic, particular, general, biting, forgiving, questioning, answering and always challenging. Thank you, Iroquois, for shoving my brain out in different directions whether I like it or not. Thanks for helping me to laugh. You can have the part of Antarctica I was saving for the icegoing cephalopod mutants.

I appreciate it when Damen posts news articles on topics that the main Irregular Times page might not be covering. It’s a digestion of what Damen considers critical, and although I’m hungry to hear more about what Damen thinks about these stories, I often find myself discovering something I didn’t know, and there’s a lot of value in that. Thanks, Damen.