The Republicans are nothing but a political trick walking and talking. They really represent a VERY small minority of extremely wealthy folks and tailor their policies to benefit them alone often to the exclusion or harm of their voter base. However they pander shamelessly to that base using religious, faux economic issues and hidden or open racism(depending on the local) to attract and preserve their base.

The leadership and chief benificiaries of current republicanism are hardly Christian in any thing but name and many not even that. Free trade is another issue the Republicans have mouthed while selling our job market to slave labor wage thirdworld nations to line the purses of the small minority that control the republican Party. Free and/or FAIR trade is the last thing they are about they are monopolist who hate free markets.

They have gulled the good ole boys of the south with their pick’em up trucks an poopy kicker boots, worn for style not work, into thinking they will shaft the Black and are busy shafting those idiots right of any economic opportunity. (truthfully I have no sympathy for fools who vote biased on racial prejudice; they get just what they deserve for it, which is to be screwed socially and economically. It's too damned bad they are tending to take the rest of blue colar America down the drain with their ignorant biased butts by voting for their economic enemies...effing morons!

Tax breaks are a plus you say ? Give me a break the Republicans have only cut taxes for the very rich, for every break middle cass a Americans Republican dupes think they have gotten, small though they were, the tax burdon has been shifted or mandated to state and locak taxing authorities or tacked on as hidden taxes at all levels in far greater amounts than the supposed breaks.

The current Republican party is the most corrupt greedy narrow interest focused group of crooks the country has ever seen including the complete domination of the Senate by the Gilded Age Robber Barons or US Grant and Warren G Harding’s pack of thieves.


Yes the democrats are bad but they are pikers on political trickery by comparison to the current Republican machine... And you either know all these things and are helping push that trickery or are stupid as hell and badly deceived. There are no other choices…

Indeed. Snake-oil salesmen and scamming tele-evangelists.

Bunkshooters.

This is what David Brooks said recently was the sleight of voters identifying not with policies or politics that would benefit them, but with the kind of people they thought were most like themselves. Then party identification rises uber alles, and the policies and politics matter almost not at all. Sheer party allegiance and interparty warfare.

To me, that seems so.

I hear groups roaring in some back room somewhere at the spectacular game afoot.

I prefer religion be taught in churches, not in the schools, or the courts.

Cut, Thrust and Christ

Why evangelicals are mastering the art of college debate.


Word Power: Liberty’s Bender wants to become a lawyer and work toward making abortion illegal


By Susannah Meadows

Newsweek

Feb. 6, 2006 issue - When you believe the end of the world is coming, you learn to talk fast. On a Friday afternoon the debate team from Liberty University, Jerry Falwell's fundamentalist Baptist college, is madly rehearsing for the tournament about to begin. This year's topic: should the United States increase diplomatic and economic pressure on China. They may just be practicing, but you wouldn't know it from the menacing mosquito-buzz rising as all 20 debaters read their speeches at once, as fast as they can. Policy debate on the college level has become a rapid-fire verbal assault, an arguments-per-minute game, that sounds more like the guy at the end of the car commercial than an eloquent Oxford intellectual. There is tension and more than a little spittle in the air. The Liberty team is currently ranked No. 1 in the country, above Harvard (14th) and all the other big names. But for the evangelicals, there's a lot more at stake than a trophy. Falwell and the religious right figure that if they can raise a generation that knows how to argue, they can stem the tide of sin in the country. Seventy-five percent of Liberty's debaters go on to be lawyers with an eye toward transforming society. "I think I can make an impact in the field of law on abortion and gay rights, to get back to Americans' godly heritage," says freshman debater Cole Bender.

Debaters are the new missionaries, having realized they can save a lot more souls from a seat at the top—perhaps even on the highest court in the land. "Evangelicals have always wanted to persuade people to the faith," says John Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. "The new thing is that evangelicals want to be more involved in the world now. Conservative Christian leaders would like to have a cadre of conservative Christian attorneys, who then become judges, politicians and political appointees." At Patrick Henry College, an evangelical school outside Washington, D.C.—where 30 percent of the student body engages in some form of debate—the president is so committed to producing leaders that he's also the moot-court coach. Baptist Cedarville University in Ohio just tripled its budget for debate scholarships.

Falwell's school, in Lynchburg, Va., pours a half million dollars into the debate program every year, with the goal of eventually flooding the system with "thousands" of conservative Christian lawyers. "We are training debaters who can perform a salt ministry, meaning becoming the conscience of the culture," says Falwell, who is also hoping the team will elevate the humble academic reputation of Liberty itself. "So while we have the preaching of the Gospel on the one side—certainly a priority—we have the confronting of the culture on moral default on the other side."

The Liberty squad, which can spend 40 hours on debate prep the week of a tournament, is by far the most successful of the evangelical debaters. And among their secular opposition, they're widely respected—notwithstanding the times they've quoted dubious sources, such as PatRobertson.com. But part of the reason Liberty is at the top is that it hits as many tournaments as it can, racking up the points that determine national rankings. While the powerhouses like Harvard and Northwestern concentrate on nabbing the prestigious varsity titles, Liberty is competitive at all three levels—varsity, JV and novice. "They're tough. [But] we're not afraid to debate Liberty," says Harvard coach Dallas Perkins Jr., whose varsity team was beaten by Falwell's last month.

Karl Rove was impressed enough by the squad that he tapped Liberty coach Brett O'Donnell to prep George W. Bush for all three presidential debates in 2004. O'Donnell briefed the president on his nonverbal tics. "They didn't listen to me until after the debacle," says O'Donnell, of Bush's awkward first debate performance. O'Donnell, who recently started his own consulting business, has already been contacted by two potential Republican candidates about the 2008 race. If all goes well, maybe he'll get some business down the road from some ex-students.

Correction: In the original version of this report, NEWSWEEK misquoted Falwell as referring to "assault ministry." In fact, Falwell was referring to "a salt ministry"—a reference to Matthew 5:13, where Jesus says "Ye are the salt of the earth." We regret the error.


© 2006 Newsweek, Inc.

I watched Bono on C-Span this am. Truly inspiring man. There's a link at the site to watch the whole prayer breakfast. It's worth watching just to see Bush's face. He looks like he ate a sour pickle while Bono is talking.

Here is the text of the speech:

Thank you very much...Well, thank you, thank you.

Mr. President, First Lady, King Abdullah of Jordan, Norm, distinguished guests. Please join me in praying that I don't say something we'll all regret.

That was for the FCC.

If you're wondering what I'm doing here, at a prayer breakfast, well so am I. I'm certainly not here as a man of the cloth, unless that cloth is -- is leather. I'm certainly not here because I'm a rock star -- which leaves only one possible explanation: I've got a messianic complex. It's true. And anyone who knows me, it's hardly a revelation.

Well, I'm the first to admit that there's something unnatural, something even unseemly about rock stars mounting the pulpit and preaching at presidents -- and disappearing to their villas in the South of France. Talk about a fish out of water. It was weird enough to have Jesse Helms come to a rock show. This is really weird.

Now, one of the things I love about this country is the separation of Church and State and although I have to say in inviting me here both Church and State have been separated from something else completely: their -- their mind!

Mr. President, are you sure about this? It's very humbling, and I will try to keep my homily brief. But be warned: I am Irish.

I'd like to talk about the -- the laws of man, here in this city, where those laws are written. I'd like to talk about higher laws. It would be great to assume that once there's the other, that the laws of man serve these higher laws, but, of course, they don't always. I presume that, in a way, is why you're all here. I presume the reason for this gathering is that all of us are here -- Muslims, Jews, Christians -- are all searching our souls for how to better serve our family, our community, our nation, our God. And some of us are not very good examples, despite what Norm says.

I am certainly searching, and that, I suppose, is what led me here. Yes, it is odd, having a rock star at the breakfast. But maybe it's odder for me than for you, because, you see, I've avoided religious people most of my life. Maybe it's something to do with having a father who was a Protestant and a mother who was a Catholic in a country where the line between the two was, quite literally, often a battle line; where the line between Church and State was, at the very least, a little blurry and hard to see.

I -- I -- I remember how my mother would bring us to chapel on Sundays and my father used to wait outside. One of the things that I picked up from my father and my mother was the sense that religion often gets in the way of God; for me, at least, it got in the way -- seeing what religious people, in the name of God, did to my native land. And even in this country, seeing God's second-hand car salesmen on their TV cable channels offering indulgences for cash. In fact, all over the world -- seeing the self-righteous "roll down like a mighty stream," from certain corners of the religious establishment. I must confess, I changed the channel. I wanted my MTV.

So, even though I was a believer, and -- and perhaps because I was a believer, I was cynical -- not about God, but about God's politics. (There you are, Jim.)

In 1997, a couple of eccentric septuagenarian Christians -- British, as it happens -- went and ruined my shtick, my reproachfulness. They did it by describing the Millennium, the year 2000, as a Jubilee year; described this year as an opportunity to cancel the chronic debts of the world's poorest people. They had the audacity to renew the Lord's call and were joined by Pope John Paul II, who, from Irish half-Catholic's point of view, may have had a little more of a direct line to the Almighty. But they got together to declare the Year of Jubilee.

It's a "Jubilee." Why "Jubilee?" What was this year of Jubilee, this year of our Lord's favor? I’d -- I'd always read the Scriptures, actually, even the obscure stuff. There it was in Leviticus 25:35: "If your brother becomes poor," the Scriptures say, "and cannot maintain himself, you shall maintain him. You shall not lend him your money at interest, not give him your food for profit."

This is such an important idea, Jubilee, that this is how Jesus begins his ministry. Jesus is a young man; he’s met with the rabbis; he's impressed everybody; people are talking. The elders say, he’s a clever guy, this Jesus, but -- you know -- he hasn’t done much public speaking.

When he does, his first words are from Isaiah: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me," he says, "because He has anointed me to preach the good news to the poor." And Jesus proclaims the year of the Lord’s favor, the year of Jubilee. I think that's Luke 4[:18]. What he was really talking about was an era of grace -- and we’re still in it.

So fast-forward 2,000 years. That same thought, grace, is now incarnate in a movement of all kinds of people. It wasn’t a bless-me club. It wasn’t a holy huddle. These religious guys were willing to get out in the streets, get their boots dirty, wave the placards, follow their convictions with actions, making it really hard for people like me to keep our distance -- ruining my shtick. I almost started to like these church people.

But then my cynicism got another helping hand. It was a -- It was Colin Powell, a five-star general, called the greatest W.M.D. [Weapon of Mass Destruction] of them all: a tiny little virus called A.I.D.S. And the religious community, in large part, missed it. And the ones that didn’t miss it could only see it as divine retribution for bad behavior -- even on children, even if the fastest growing group of HIV infections were married, faithful women.

Ah, there they go. Judgmentalism is back, I thought to myself. But in truth, I was wrong again. The Church was slow but the Church got busy on this the leprosy of our age.

Love was on the move.

Mercy was on the move.

God was on the move.

Moving people of all kinds to work with others they had never met, never would have cared to meet. They had conservative church groups hanging out with spokesmen from the gay community, all singing off the same hymn sheet on AIDS. See, miracles do happen. And we had hip-hop stars and country stars.

This is what happens when God gets on the move: crazy, crazy stuff happens.

Popes were seen wearing sunglasses! Jesse Helms had a ghetto blaster! Evidence of the Spirit moving. It was really -- it was breathtaking. It literally stopped the world in its tracks.

When churches start demonstrating on debt, governments listened -- and acted. When churches started organizing, petitioning, and even that most unholy of acts today, God forbid, lobbying on AIDS and global health, governments listened -- and acted. I’m here today in all humility to say: you changed minds; you changed policy; and you changed the world. So, thank you.

Check Judaism. Check Islam. Check pretty much anyone. I mean, God may well be with us in our mansions on the hill. I hope so. He may -- may well be with us in all manner of controversial stuff. Maybe, maybe not. But the one thing we can all agree -- all faiths, all ideologies -- is that God is with the vulnerable and poor.

God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house. God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives. God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war. God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them.

“If you remove the yolk from your midst, the pointing of the finger and the speaking of wickedness, and if you give yourself to the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness and your gloom will become like midday and the Lord will continually guide you and satisfy your desire even in scorched places.”¹

It’s not a coincidence that in the Scriptures, poverty is mentioned more than 2,100 times. It’s not an accident. That’s a lot of air time. You know, the only time Jesus Christ is judgmental is on the subject of the poor. "As you have done it unto the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me." [I] believe that's Matthew 25:40. (See, I've been doing my homework.)

As I say, good news to the poor.

Here’s some good news for you, Mr. President. After 9-11, we were told America would have no time for the world’s poor. We were told America would be taken up with its own problems of safety. And it’s true these are dangerous times, but America has not drawn the blinds and double-locked the doors.

In fact, you have doubled aid to Africa. You have tripled funding for the global health -- for global health. And Mr. President, your emergency plan for AIDS relief and support of the Global Fund -- you and Congress -- has put 700,000 people onto life-saving anti-retroviral drugs and provided eight million bed nets to protect children from malaria.

Outstanding human achievements. Counterintuitive, I think you'll admit, but -- but -- but historic. You should be very, very proud.

But here’s the bad news. There’s so much more to do. There is a gigantic chasm between the scale of the emergency and the scale of the response.

And finally, getting to higher levels, higher callings: This is not about charity in the end, is it? It’s about justice. The good news yet to come. I just want to repeat that: This is not about charity, it’s about justice. And that’s too bad. Because we’re good at charity. Americans, Irish people, are good at charity. We like to give, and we give a lot, even those who can’t afford it.

But justice is a higher standard. Africa makes a fool of our idea of justice; it makes a farce of our idea of equality. It mocks our pieties; it doubts our concern, and it questions our commitment. Six and a half thousand Africans are still dying every day of preventable, treatable disease, for lack of drugs we can buy at any drug store. This is not about charity: This is about Justice and Equality.

Because there's no way we can look at what’s happening in Africa and, if we're honest, conclude that deep down, we would let it happen anywhere else -- if we really accepted that Africans are equal to us.

I say that humbled in the company of a man with an African father.

Look what happened in South East Asia with the Tsunami. 150, 000 lives lost to the misnomer of all misnomers, “mother nature”. Well, in Africa, 150,000 lives are lost every month -- a tsunami every month. And it’s a completely avoidable catastrophe.

It’s annoying but justice and equality are mates, aren’t they? Justice always wants to hang out with equality. And equality is a real pain in the ass. Seriously.

I mean you think of these Jewish sheep-herders going to meet with the Pharaoh, mud on their shoes, and the Pharaoh goes, “Equal? Equal?" And they say, "Yeah, that's what, that's what it says here in the Book, here. We're all made in the image of God, sir."

Eventually the Pharaoh says, “Look, I can accept that. I mean, I can accept the Jews -- but not the blacks. I mean, not the women. Not the gays. Not the Irish. No way.”

So on we go with the journey of equality.

On we go in the pursuit of justice.

We hear that call in the ONE Campaign, a growing movement of more than two million Americans -- five million by the next election, I promise you -- united in the belief that where you live should no longer determine whether you live.

We hear that call even more powerfully today, and we mourn the loss of Coretta Scott King -- mother of a movement for equality, one that changed the world but is only really getting started, 'cause these issues are as alive as they ever were; they just change shape and they cross the seas.

Preventing the poorest of the poor from selling their products while we sing the virtues of the free market, that's not charity: That’s a justice issue. Holding children to ransom for the debts of their grandparents, that's not charity: That’s a justice issue. Withholding life-saving medicines out of deference to the Office of Patents, well that's not charity. To me, that’s a justice issue.

And while the law is what we say it is, God is not silent on the subject. That’s why I say there’s laws of the land and then there's a higher standard. And we can hire experts to write them so they benefit us, these laws, so that they say it’s okay to protect our agriculture but it’s not okay for African farmers to protect their agriculture, to earn a living. As the laws of man are written, that’s what they say. But God will not accept that. Mine won’t. I don't -- will yours?

I close this morning on very thin -- thin ice, probably. This is a dangerous idea I’ve put on the table, here: my God versus your God, their God versus our God, versus no God. It's very easy, in these times, to see religion as a force for division rather than unity. And this is a town -- Washington -- that knows something of division.

But the reason I'm here, and the reason I keep coming back to Washington, is because this is a town that is proving it can come together on behalf of what the Scriptures call "the least of these." It's not a Republican idea. It's not a Democratic idea. It's not even, with all due respect, an American idea; nor it is unique to any one faith.

"Do to others as you would have them do to you." Jesus says that.²

"Righteousness is this: that one should give away wealth out of love for Him to the near of kin and to the orphans and the needy and the wayfarer and the beggars and for the emancipation of the captives." ³ The Koran says that.

Thus sayeth the Lord: Bring the homeless poor into the house, when you see the naked, cover him, then your light will break out -- then your light will be like the dawn and your recovery will be speedily and spring forth; then the Lord will be your rear guard. The Jewish Scripture says that. It's Isaiah 58 again.

It's a powerful incentive: "The Lord will watch your back." Sounds like a good deal to me, especially right now. (Right? The Lord will watch your back. You like that. Okay.)

Alright.

A number of years ago, I met a wise man who changed my life -- in countless ways, big and small. I was always seeking the Lord’s blessing. I - I'd be saying, "Look, I've got a new song...Would you look out [for it]. I have a family; I'm going away on tour -- please look after them. I have this crazy idea. Could I have a blessing on it."

And this wise man asked me to stop. He said, "Stop asking God to bless what you’re doing. Get involved in what God is doing -- because it’s already blessed. Well, let's get involved in what God is doing. God, as I say, is always with the poor. That's what God is doing. That's what He’s calling us to do.

I was amazed when I first got to this country and I learned how much some churchgoers tithe: up to ten percent of the family budget. I mean -- I -- I -- How does that compare with the federal budget, the budget for the entire American family? How much of that goes to the poorest people in the world? Well, it's less than one percent of the federal budget.

Mr. President, Congress, people of faith, people of America: I want to suggest to you today that you see the flow of effective foreign assistance as tithing; which, to be truly meaningful, will mean an additional one percent of the federal budget tithed to the poor.

And what is that one percent that we're asking for in the ONE campaign? It's not merely a number on a balance reader pulled out of the air. One percent is the girl in Africa who gets to go to school, thanks to you. One percent is the AIDS patient who gets her medicine, thanks to you. One percent is the African entrepreneur who can start a small family business, thanks to you. One percent is not redecorating presidential palaces. One percent must not be -- or don't give it -- money down a rat hole. This one percent is digging waterholes to provide clean water...like I saw with Bill Frist, there, in -- Where was it? -- Uganda.

Okay, that's what we're after, folks.

One percent is a new partnership with Africa, not paternalism towards Africa; a new partnership with Africa, where increased assistance flows toward improved governance and initiatives with proven track records and away from the boondoggles and white elephants that we've seen before.

America gives less than one percent now. Were asking for an extra one percent to change the world, to transform millions of lives, but not just that -- and I say this to the military men now -- not just transform hundreds of thousands, indeed millions, of communities, but transform the way they see us, which might be smart in these dangerous times.

One percent is national security. One percent is enlightened economic self-interest, and a better safer world rolled into one. Sounds to me that in this town of deals and compromises, one percent is the best bargain around.

Thank you very much.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

¹ Isaiah 58:9-11

² Luke 6:30

³ 2.177

Research Note: Audio provided by Joseph Slife, Emmanuel College Communication Dept. (Franklin Springs, Ga.)

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/105/43.0.html

I hope that my conservative friend who needs nudging to become a little more liberal reads this. Twice.

You call "debating" teaching religion? Do you object to the ACLU lawyers who are implementing their philosophy into re-interpreting the Constitution? Do you agree with SCOTUS Justic Ruth Bader Ginsberg that the 'age of consent should be 12 and that the US should follow international law?

I have no idea what is counter-intuitive about the US doing more than it's share at almost everything. It's nice that pampered singers raise money from rich republicans, but the bottom line is the money and drugs don't just appear to be given away, people work and slave to make them so back-assed third world socialists can whine that we don't GIVE enough away.

When it comes to charity, one can always do more. I think his comments on how it would pay off in terms of future goodwill are valid. Hearts and Minds, Mr. Vandelay. Hearts and Minds.

It just so happens that the Americans are the most generous in the world. Not only does our government use our tax dollars for foreign aid, millions of Americans donate privately through their churches, charities and organizations to help the rest of the world. Didn't you know that?

Being pragmatic, the more one has, the more one can do. Per capita a rich US can give more to, say Africa, than a poor Venezuela or China.

"I watched Bono on C-Span this am." - SherryB
(Selective reading, but thanks for the speech text.)
I caught a moment live on thursday ( Bono's first few remarks) and wached the service in what entirity c=span could allow this morning (what with the live King funeral and all). Bono was FCC brilliant, as was Bush (equally including non-faith based) and the king from Jordan (outlining Koran concordances). I particularly liked meeting's interfaith tone and diversity
of attendance. Praise all and pass the plate.

Here you go!!

Evolution Measure Splits State Legislators in Utah


By KIRK JOHNSON
Published: February 5, 2006

SALT LAKE CITY, Feb. 3 — Faith's domain is evident everywhere at the Utah Legislature, where about 90 percent of the elected officials are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Prayers are commonplace, and lawmakers speak of their relationship with God in ordinary conversation.

So it might be tempting to assume that legislation relating to the divisive national debate about the teaching of evolution in public schools would have a predictable outcome here.

Senate Bill 96 is proving that assumption wrong. The bill, which would require science teachers to offer a disclaimer when introducing lessons on evolution — namely, that not all scientists agree on the origins of life — has deeply divided lawmakers. Some leaders in both parties have announced their opposition to the bill, and most lawmakers say that with less than a month left in the legislative session, its fate remains a tossup.

One of the reasons why is State Representative Stephen H. Urquhart, a Republican from southern Utah whose job as majority whip is to line up votes in his party. Mr. Urquhart announced last week that he would vote against the bill.

"I don't think God has an argument with science," said Mr. Urquhart, who was a biology major in college and now practices law.

Mr. Urquhart says he objects to the bill in part because it raises questions about the validity of evolution, and in part because the measure threatens traditional religious belief by blurring the lines between faith and science.

Supporters of the bill, which passed the Senate on a 16-to-12 vote one day before Mr. Urquhart's announcement, still predict that it will pass in the House. They say the bill is not about religion, but science. Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., a Republican and former Mormon missionary, has not said what he will do if the bill reaches his desk.


And this is why I distrust anyone who tries to push ID. It seems they always resort to lying. . This man knows full well that it most certainly IS about religion and when one of these guys tries to lie and say it isn't he only destroys his credibility and the credibility of other creationists.


"I don't have to talk about religion — it's of no meaning and it's not part of this discussion," said State Representative James A. Ferrin, a Republican and the sponsor of the bill in the House. "It's not about belief, it's about not overstepping what we know."

Opponents of the bill, including State Senator Peter C. Knudson, the Republican majority leader, openly laugh at talk like that.

"Of course it's about religion," Mr. Knudson said.


He and other lawmakers say that part of the debate here is in fact over what kind of religion would be buttressed by the legislation. Although the Origins of Life bill, as it is formally known, does not mention an alternative theory to evolution, some legislators say they think that voting yes could be tantamount to supporting intelligent design, which posits an undefined intelligence lurking behind the miracles of life and which differs greatly from the Mormon creation story.

"There are people who say, 'That's not my religion,' or that it will only confuse our children," said State Representative Brad King, a Democrat and the minority whip in the House, who also plans to vote against the bill. "For me, it's sort of that way," added Mr. King, whose father, a Mormon bishop, taught evolution at the College of Eastern Utah.

Others say that Mormonism, with its emphasis that all beings can progress toward higher planes of existence, before and after death, has an almost built-in receptivity toward evolutionary thought that other religions might lack. Still others oppose the state's inserting itself in matters of curriculum, which are mostly under the control of local school districts.

Advocacy groups who follow the battle over the teaching of evolution nationally say that what happens here could be important far beyond state borders.

"It's being watched very closely because of the very conservative nature of the state," said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, the executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, based in Washington. "If the legislation is rejected in Utah, it would be a very strong signal that the issue should be avoided elsewhere."

Missouri's legislature is considering a bill requiring "critical analysis" in teaching evolution. An Indiana lawmaker has called evolution a type of religion and proposed a bill banning textbooks that contain "fraudulent information."

Gov. Ernie Fletcher of Kentucky, a Republican, pointed out in his State of the State address earlier this month that alternative explanations for the origins of species can already be taught in Kentucky schools. A spokesman for Mr. Fletcher said he was not advocating alternatives to evolution, but merely pointing out the options.

The Utah bill's main sponsor, State Senator D. Chris Buttars, a Republican from the Salt Lake City suburbs, said he was not surprised by the debate it had inspired. He said ordinary voters were deeply concerned about the teaching of evolution.

"I got tired of people calling me and saying, 'Why is my kid coming home from high school and saying his biology teacher told him he evolved from a chimpanzee?' " Mr. Buttars said.

Idiots.

Evolutionary theory does not say that humans evolved from chimpanzees or from any existing species, but rather that common ancestors gave rise to multiple species and that natural selection — in which the creatures best adapted to an environment pass their genes to the next generation — was the means by which divergence occurred over time. All modern biology is based on the theory, and within the scientific community, at least, there is no controversy about it.

Even so, one important supporter of the bill, State Representative Margaret Dayton, a Republican and chairwoman of the House Education Committee, said her convictions had been underlined in recent days. "A number of scientists have been in touch with me, and I can verify that not all scientists agree," Ms. Dayton said.

Utah's predominant faith has also made its stance less predictable on other issues touching on religion in school — notably school prayer. Enthusiasm for the idea has been muted or ambivalent, said Kirk Jowers, a professor of political science and director of the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah. Professor Jowers pointed to the awareness among Mormons of their religion's minority status in the nation and world.

"It was kind of a realization that if you push to have prayer in school, then outside of Utah, the prayer would not typically be a Mormon's prayer, so is that road you want go down?" Professor Jowers said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/05/national...r=1&oref=slogin

Bishop Harry Jackson: “I believe that what God is doing today is calling for the black church to team with the white evangelical church and the Catholic Church and people of moral conscience. And in this season, we need to be able to tell both [political] parties, 'listen, it's our way or the highway.' We're not just going to sit back,” he said. “You and I can bring the rule and reign of the Cross to America and we can change America on our watch, together.”


http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=19378

What will happen to the Democratic Party when the Blacks wake up and realize that they have been used and abused over the years and leave the party? For years, it was their culture to vote Democratic but as Ronald Reagan said" I didn't leave the Democratic Party, they left me". The Black churches are realizing that the Democratic platform of same sex marriage and abortion does not agree with their beliefs.

What happens when evangelical Christians in the Republican party wake up and realize that they have been used by the wealthy elite and war mongering corporate profiteers?

Supporting the super wealthy over the poor is contrary to the faith.

Great. Armageddonists.

Heh.

God's Green Soldiers


A new call to combat global warming triggers soul-searching and controversy among evangelicals.


By Karen Breslau and Martha Brant

Newsweek

Feb. 13, 2006 issue - In a town where access is everything, the Rev. Richard Cizik's calendar would be the envy of even the hardest-hitting Washington player. One day last week his schedule included the National Prayer Breakfast with President George W. Bush, a luncheon with King Abdullah II of Jordan and a cozy evening reception at the home of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. Between meetings, Cizik hobnobbed with U2 lead singer Bono, in town to advocate for Third World debt relief. Shaking the rock star's hand as eager senators circled for their photo op, Cizik managed to swiftly preach his own gospel. "Global hunger and global warming are inescapably linked. You know that," Cizik said. "Absolutely," replied Bono.


Cizik, who first arrived in Washington in 1980 as a foot soldier for the Moral Majority, is a self-described "Reagan movement conservative" and Bush supporter, who opposes abortion, gay marriage and embryonic-stem-cell research. He promotes those positions as vice president of governmental affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), the lobbying group that represents 30 mil-lion American Christians and more than 50 denominations. But in recent years, Cizik, 54, has also been at the forefront of a Biblically inspired environmental movement known as Creation Care, which holds that Christians have an obligation, described in the Book of Genesis, to "replenish the Earth" as God's stewards. "This is not a Red State issue or a Blue State issue or a green issue," Cizik says. "It's a spiritual issue."

And a controversial one. Until now, the movement has emphasized the individual responsibility of Christians to conserve. But this week a coalition of leading evangelicals will issue "An Evangelical Call to Action," asking Congress and the Bush administration to combat global warming by restricting carbon-dioxide emissions. "Christians must care about climate change because we love God the Creator," it reads. The challenge to the Bush administration—which rejects mandatory limits on greenhouse-gas emissions as economically harmful—has caused a major rift within evangelical circles. Last week the president of NAE, the Rev. Ted Haggard, announced that the group would not endorse the document, since it was not unanimously approved by members. And Cizik says NAE executives instructed him to remove his own name from full-page newspaper ads promoting the "Call to Action."

Conservative critics of the document, including the Rev. James Dobson of Focus on the Family, say the global-warming science is inconclusive and the issue doesn't belong on the evangelists' agenda. "It's a distraction when families are falling apart and abortion continues as a great evil," says Tom Minnery, director of Dobson's political-action group. But the "Call to Action" has been endorsed by dozens of Chris-tian heavy hitters, including the country's leading megachurch pastor, the Rev. Rick Warren, as well as the presidents of major Christian colleges and denominations.


Roman Catholic and Jewish groups have also embraced the cause, but it's the evangelicals, with their close ties to the GOP, who "have the power to move the debate," says John Green, of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. "They could produce policies more palatable to people who have not been moved by secular environmental groups." The eco-evangelists tend to favor market-based approaches. "We are all for doing this in the most efficient, technological way that creates jobs," says the Rev. Jim Ball, of the Evangelical Environmental Network, who helped draft the document.

Cizik, who came to believe the global-warming science only in recent years, says stirring the debate is his Christian duty. "Isn't it the task of the Biblical believer to warn society, not just about sin, but about mortal threats to our very being?" If it is, he's up to the job.

© 2006 Newsweek, Inc.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11179145/site/newsweek/

Lord if the Greens and the religious right get on the same page the Republican Party is DOOMED.
Looks like it’s time for a typical Neo-Con solution to a threat to their political engine...i.e. send out some thugs to burn some religious right churches posing as Green nightriders. Tell any lie (excuse me myth,) dare any crime or slander if it’s for the greater good…(being sure to carefully and quietly define the “greater good.”)

By that reasoning all those black churches Bill Clinton saw burn (which he didn't) were burned down by black provocateur nightriders.

In another cartoon published at the same time in response to the deaths of Saddam Hussein's two sons, the official Palestinian daily Al Hayat Al Jadida published an anti-American political cartoon portraying the United States as a shark-toothed octopus.

Published yesterday in Palestinian daily Al Hayat Al Jadida

The cartoon showed the obviously delighted creature removing Saddam's arms, symbolic of the death of his sons Uday and Qusay, who were killed in a firefight with U.S. troops.

Linkie, linkie, who has the linkie?

google.

It's like shooting fish in a barrel...

Oh my goodness...I like the way she omits any part of whatever she happens to be plagerizing so as to not draw attention to that fact...like removing the words "Yesterday" and "Wednesday north of Baghdad" from the one above.

She is the perfect representitive for the neo-con movement....in other words, a condescendingly judgemental hypocrite with absolutely no ethical standards or scruples.

Judy is such a lying sack of bs, I put her/him/it on ignore. No value and my computer time is limited. Why waste it.

Something off the wall followed by 'Big Wad?"

I'm waiting for Ken Mehlman to blast Martin Luther King as an "angry" black man, any moment now...

by John in DC - 2/08/2006 02:30:00 PM




Eulogy for the Young Victims of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Bombing, by Martin Luther King, Jr. on Sept 18, 1963 in Birmingham, Ala. This was the eulogy for three of the four children killed in attack, Addie Mae Collins, Carol Denise McNair, and Cynthia Diane Wesley. From DKos:


This afternoon we gather in the quiet of this sanctuary to pay our last tribute of respect to these beautiful children of God....

They are the martyred heroines of a holy crusade for freedom and human dignity. And so this afternoon in a real sense they have something to say to each of us in their death.

They have something to say to every minister of the gospel who has remained silent behind the safe security of stained-glass windows.

They have something to say to every politician [Audience:] (Yeah) who has fed his constituents with the stale bread of hatred and the spoiled meat of racism.

They have something to say to a federal government that has compromised with the undemocratic practices of southern Dixiecrats (Yeah) and the blatant hypocrisy of right-wing northern Republicans. (Speak)

They have something to say to every Negro (Yeah) who has passively accepted the evil system of segregation and who has stood on the sidelines in a mighty struggle for justice.

They say to each of us, black and white alike, that we must substitute courage for caution.

They say to us that we must be concerned not merely about who murdered them, but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the murderers. Their death says to us that we must work passionately and unrelentingly for the realization of the American dream [...]

And there you have it. Martin Luther King using the funeral of small children to criticize the existing members of Congress and the federal government overall. And this is exactly what Coretta Scott King's mourners did yesterday at her funeral. Something the Republican party blowhards flipped out over. Something Coretta and MLK would have likely WANTED, as clearly shown by their own actions.

So, come on, Ken. You know you want to blast Martin Luther King for what you view as angrily exploiting the deaths of children, just as you Republicans blasted Democrats for saying the exact same things at Coretta's funeral yesterday. Your fingers are just itching to hit the keys and type out a blistering press release about that "angry" black man MLK and the way he politicizes the funerals of CHILDREN, no less!

Come on, Ken. Tell the black man his real place in America. Tell him how his church is supposed to be run, how his funerals are supposed to look and act and sound and feel like white folk's funerals. Give African-Americans the lecture you so want to give them on how their churches are a bit too noisy and unnerving for nice upstanding white Republicans like yourself.


Come on, Ken. Tell Martin Luther King what he SHOULD have said about those four young children killed in Birmingham in 1963. You're such a paragon of minority leadership. Tell us, Ken. Tell us.

http://americablog.blogspot.com/

You are correct. Her ripping Jimmy Carter and praising George Bush is beyond ridiculous.

Couldn't carry Carter's shoes on the best day they ever saw...

How is it that you find time to spam entire nine yard long articles then?



Carter was, long long ago, a regular brain trust. He was a nukular engineer.

Carter tarnishes image at funeral

Jimmy Carter has always tried to present himself as a modest man who puts principle above politics. However, our 39th president has single-handedly shot down this image with his comments at Coretta Scott King's funeral.

He compared the wiretapping of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to President Bush's surveillance of known terrorists. This analogy is laughable at best, and slanderous at worst. The former (which, by the way, was sanctioned by Democratic icon Robert F. Kennedy), was clearly politically motivated, while the latter was instigated to protect our country from another 9-11.

Sadly, many liberals hate our current president so much for his shortcomings (some real, most imagined) that they simply cannot conceive that he would approve such a drastic policy without a very good reason. Having previously held this office, Mr. Carter should know this. As an elder statesman, he should be holding his tongue (as George H.W. Bush did during the Clinton presidency), not scoring cheap political points with his party's left-wing base, and by extension giving aid and comfort to our nation's enemies.

I suggest that Mr. Carter, a Christian, re-read Romans 13 and James 3, which deal, respectively, with the Christian's proper attitude toward his government leaders and the dangers of a loose tongue.

If he doesn't like the policy decisions of our current president, that's his right as a private citizen. But as a former president, to make such insidious comments undermines not only his own credibility, but also that of our nation.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/l...0,4409642.story

Why is anyone surprised at Jimmy Carter's insensitivity? He is boorish and has no class whatsoever!

Jimmy Carter is a fine man and IMO, a genuine Christian. Your efforts to trash him only prove just how low you'll go.

The newspapers in every state, and even in other countries wrote about it. I'm not a journalist. I pity your poor paperboy... do you beat him up if you don't like the news?

You are a vacuous windbag and the worse of talebearers.


Sad to say, I no longer feel any desire to talk to you because you are a lost cause. In my eyes you are a Republican propaganda recorder, a mimic, a human myna bird sqawking what it has heard.

I feel sorry for you and I hope for your enlightenment and resulting freedom. But I won't hold my breath. Self imposed chains can be the hardest to break. Good luck to you.


You have chosen to ignore all posts from: judy.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. THANK YOU. Now why don't you quite bothering Carol, too?

My computer time:



Your time:

Is your computer time really that beautiful?

Yeah, most of the time.

There are those

days. Dreaded stop bits.

He was talking about the Muslims, but his words apply just as well to the fundies in this country.

Intelligent design? Gay Marriage? War on Christmas? Now the latest smut about teachers?

It's wearting thin and it's long past time to tell you people to shut the hell up.

Wow. I thought it was aimed at the US evangelicals. Fits like a glove.

I thought so, too. Strikingly so.

Politics, religion no longer separate ideas


Tim Giago, Columnist


Friday, February 03, 2006
(KRT)—When I was young my father always told me there are two arguments that can’t be won, those about politics and those about religion. I never imagined in my wildest dream that in the 21st century those two arguments would be reduced to one. Now, it seems to me that politics and religion are interchangeable.

History tells us that nations were once ruled by popes, resulting in great battles between Christians and Muslims. On which side were the infidels? Even though today’s troubles are sugarcoated, it is clear that a war still exists between these two groups.

One would be a fool to believe that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are simply political wars. It seems that America’s enemy is using a religious battle cry of jihad or God is Great before detonating their bombs, killing themselves and whoever happens to be around them. After completing this action, they become martyrs and their martyrdom immediately opens the gates of heaven to them.

And yet the reasons suicide bombers kill are firmly rooted in politics. This is because, in their minds, religion and politics cannot be separated. This means, in a land where mullahs rule, the laws of the Quran are the laws of politics.

Ironically, in America, we are now faced with a leadership that leans heavily on religious convictions when making political decisions. President George W. Bush publicly flaunts his deep religious feelings. And so, once again, we must witness infringements on individuals’ rights by those in charge who believe the laws of the Bible are a suitable foundation for the laws of our country.

In America, red states are labeled “God-fearing” while those inhabiting blue states are dismissed as “Godless.” When did our nation adopt this ridiculous condition?

Islam is the fastest growing religion with the youngest population. Muslims believe their religion is the only true religion. Sound familiar?

They also believe that it is not only all right, but a religious duty for young Muslims to sacrifice their lives to kill nonbelievers.

To read a newspaper or watch a TV newscast today creates an almost surreal world. The suicide attacks upon Iraqi civilians and American soldiers seem to run together so that it is hard to separate one attack from the other.

My father could never have known that when he advised me many years ago to never argue politics or religion that they would eventually become one and the same.

http://www.uecrescent.org/articles/stories...UU_opinion.html

No comment.... just another thought to throw into the mix

"...History tells us that nations were once ruled by popes, resulting in great battles between Christians and Muslims...."

First Crusade 1096 CE

Battle of Tours 732 CE

Which one was directed by a Pope?

Which one stopped a Muslim invasion of Western Europe?

With apologies to Santayana, "Mr Giago, those who do not know history are doomed to make incorrect pronouncements about it."

Answers: The Crusades were instigated by Popes. Charles Martel (Charles the Hammer) defeats an invading Muslim army under the Moorish governor of Spain:

"The Battle of Tours:
732


October 10, 732 AD marks the conclusion of the Battle of Tours, arguably one of the most decisive battles in all of history.

A Moslem army, in a crusading search for land and the end of Christianity, after the conquest of Syria, Egypt, and North Africa, began to invade Western Europe under the leadership of Abd-er Rahman, governor of Spain. Abd-er Rahman led an infantry of 60,000 to 400,000 soldiers across the Western Pyrenees and toward the Loire River, but they were met just outside the city of Tours by Charles Martel, known as the Hammer, and the Frankish Army...In either case, the battle ended when the French captured and killed Abd-er Rahman. The Moslem army withdrew peacefully overnight and even though Martel expected a surprise retaliation, there was none. For the Moslems, the death of their leader caused a sharp setback and they had no choice but to retreat back across the Pyrenees, never to return again.

Not only did this prove to be an extremely decisive battle for the Christians, but the Battle of Tours is considered the high water mark of the Moslem invasion of Western Europe."

Source: http://www.thenagain.info/WebChron/WestEurope/Tours.html

So while Mr Giago's point about the Popes is factually correct it is also chronologically and contextually incomplete and misleading. There was a continuum of conflict both economic and military between the worlds of Christendom and the Muslim Empires far longer than just the Crusades called for by the non-Byzantine Popes.