American Terrorism in Dayton, Ohio: Muslim Women & Children Gassed

Here’s a sad article about a horrifying incident of anti-Islamic terrorism perpetrated by Americans right here on our soil, against women and children attending a prayer service at a mosque. I think it’s no coincidence that this occurred after the distribution of fear-mongering anti-Islamic DVDs in newspapers by a pro-McCain group. I agree with the author of the article:

John McCain has a moral obligation to publicly censure the Clarion Fund; to denounce the inflammatory, anti-Muslim message of Obsession; and to do everything in his power to stop any further campaign activities by his supporters that have the potential to incite violence

What I really don’t get is that those who most fear and hate Islam are Christians, presumably, right? Would the Christ of the gospels have gassed women and children? I think not.

Imagine: A Happily Married Couple in the White House, For Once!

Over at Huffington Post I just read this excellent article written by a married couple, Kathlyn and Gay Hendricks, who’ve been doing marriage counseling for years, about having an authentic couple, equal partners, in the White House, and the benefits that would have for all of us.

Elect Barack Obama. That way, we get the gift of seeing two people having an easeful friendship with each other. We get as a role model two people who communicate with each other as equals and stand beside each other as true partners. If we elect Barack Obama we are electing a new possibility in our relationship lives as a nation: respect, affection and authenticity. Michelle and Barack speak clearly and openly. You know she won’t bullshit you or embarrass you by playing the demure little wife. We’re ready to see that kind of relationship, and we hope you are, too. The question is: are we as a nation ready to end our national addiction to duplicity, phony adoration and Stepford wifedom in the White House? If not, we’re going to get what we deserve.

We have a chance now to make a real difference in the world. If we elect Barack Obama, we can all focus on the critical challenges that must be met now. Speaking personally, we feel a sense of warmth and pride when we think about the support and love the Obamas have for each other. We breathe easier when we see how they live their lives with balance, honesty and clarity. They’re the real deal. In November, let’s give ourselves this new mirror of our own value.

Contrast that with a man who once called his wife a cunt in public, who left his first wife after she was in a car accident that ruined her looks, who cynically chose an unqualified female as his running mate in a ploy to gain attention and some female votes, and who opposes legislation that would mandate equal pay for equal work.

Republican National Security Experts Weigh in Against McCain and For Obama

Here’s an excellent post from a blog I just discovered in a comment at MudFlats; the author, Chris Blask, had attended this talk down in Florida, and I’m afraid it won’t get enough national coverage, so I wanted to bring it whatever attention my little blog can.

The message from the speakers was clear: Senator McCain has been making dangerous decisions for our country for the past eight years and cannot be allowed to take us down the road the current administration has set us on.

Make sure you check out the video, too, of Mr. Clarke talking about Sen. Biden and his ability to step into the presidency if needed.

Churches Getting Ready to Break the Law!

A bunch of pastors are getting ready to break the law that prevents them (with their tax-exempt status) to get involved politically. One of them, a Southern Baptist (of COURSE) wants to talk about the unbiblical stances of Barack Obama. Here’s an article from the L.A. Times all about it. I say, go for it. Maybe when they have to pay their back taxes (I guess these folks don’t realize that you just don’t mess with the I.R.S….they were the guys that were able to bring down Al Capone, remember? death and taxes, baby, death and taxes), it’ll help pay for the bailout on Wall St.

Campbell Brown: “Free Sarah Palin”

CNN Anchorwoman Campbell Brown makes an excellent case that McCain’s campaign is treating Sarah Palin in a sexist manner by shielding Gov. Palin from the press as if she were a “delicate flower.” It’s a riot, and fun to watch. You go, girl!

“Spare Me Your Reverse Snobbery”

Here’s a fabulous article from The New Republic about the anti-elite snobbery, written by someone from a small town who’s tired of hearing that Sarah Palin represents her. A must read for anyone who (like me) comes from a non-privileged background but doesn’t think that means we’ve got to agree with folk like the divine Ms. P.

Here’s a teaser:

Now I appreciate the effectiveness of insulting stereotyping as much as the next pundit, but I’m getting exceedingly tired of hearing about how much I scorn Sarah Palin because she is a hick chick from a hick state who didn’t go to Harvard. Please. I grew up in freaking Southeast Tennessee, in a smallish suburb of Chattanooga known as Hixson. (That’s right, pronounced hick-son.) I have spent more time at mudbogs, tractor pulls, county fairs, pig-roasts, dirt-bike races, and Wal-Marts than most of the anti-elite conservative whiners flapping their gums and wringing their hands over poor disrespected Sarah. I attended public high school, and the bulk of my classmates had Appalachian accents so thick they make Palin sound like a network anchor. The boys were hunters. The girls–myself included–had absolutely enormous hair. If any of my friends wasn’t a Christian, she had the good sense not to mention it to the rest of us, lest we try to save her soul at the countless revivals, church camps, and youth retreats we all attended. I was always smart but have never been an in-tel-lec-tu-al. (Shhhhh. Don’t tell my bosses.) And despite graduating second in my class, it never even occurred to me to apply to an Ivy League university. I went to college at Vanderbilt in Nashville–on scholarship, lest anyone assume that my family was upper-crusty.

Just like Ralph Peters, I KNOW Sarah Palin. Hell, in my younger days, I WAS Sarah Palin. (Well, minus being a crack shot.) The difference is I don’t fetishize my regular-gal roots and assume they make me special–much less qualified to run the country. And while I have indeed witnessed my fair share of cultural snobbery from some of my better-credentialed, coastal colleagues over the years, I’m not so defensive about where I come from that I feel the need to champion a wildly unqualified fellow hick whose politics I disagree with as a way to get back at everyone I know who has ever made a sniffy comment about big hair or small towns.

Miracle of Darwin’s Face proves Evolution True!!

Here is a breaking story from the onion of the miracle on the wall of the Scopes trial courthouse in Ohio:

Miracle proves Darwin right! Evolution is the one true way!!

LHC The Large Hadron Collider, Creationism and Destroying the World

The Large Hadron Collider was designed to accelerate particles at such speeds to reproduce the Big Bang, the formation of Dark Matter, and to uncover the God Particle, or Higgs Boson. Today, the Large Hadron accelerator was hacked into. This means that some computer geeks compromised the security of a device that can attain energies simulating the very formation of universe. They left the message “We are 2600″, an old hacker number favorite, from the days of compromised phone lines. Fortunately, the breach was in the detector network and the result a harmless bit of geekery. But the same breach of security could have been malicious, designed to unleash Dark Matter and God particle level-energies so as to crack the earth to its fiery core like a walnut. Now, I am not the nut branch who thinks it shouldn’t be built since 1) I’m all for science, and 2) since it’s in France and Switzerland, it’s not our country to have a say, unless we are denying Europe autonomy? I for one am very excited about the knowledge of our universe to be gained from such experiments.

My issue is that few Americans knew the LHC was built. Fewer still could tell you why it was built. Yet many European, Chinese and Indian secondary students, that is children, could tell you why it was built. American scientific education is so poor that we are drastically behind the rest of the world in the physical sciences and biological sciences, to a degree that we have to import students in droves from China, India and Europe to fill the void. These same students often take their education home when they’re done. A gap in the physical sciences will one day mean a gap so ridiculous in National Security technology, that no amount of technology stealing or teenage playground aggression tactics can fill it. On top of it all, most Americans were unaware of the hack on the LHC, so that while worrying about lipstick on pigs, few Americans knew that their last thought, the end of life on earth perhaps, could have been yesterday, if someone had tampered with subtleties of the collision controls in a knowledgeable way with malicious intent at the right time.

And here is where we come to McCain and Palin. Not only should we be working with the world, as Barack Obama says, to communicate and work together, such as to help police the LHC and secure it, or to work together and talk with other nations to end conflict. But the Bible has no place in a national science education system already riddled with inadequacy. The Bible can be taught in religion, philosophy or cultural history class as an important part of American cultural and religious history. But the Bible has no place in science. We are threatening our National Security with such nonsense. We must put an end to what McCain and Palin represent: cowboy diplomacy, religious fascism, a backward anti-intellectual view of the world, and an actual threat to the physical and economic security of every American. Obama represents real ideas about real issues. He represents America taking its place as stalwart country and potential inspirer of the nations of the globe. He represents America looking forward to the future by putting our children first with comprehensive health care, a country free of debt, and an educational system centered on giving our children skills needed to succeed in the real, not to navigate as plumbs an ancient mythology.

Barack Obama: A Man with Something to Say

I just saw this ad at TPM. I thought it excellent enough to share. I really feel that if Americans would actually listen to him instead of letting their preformed partisan ideas get in the way, they’d realize that this is the person who could help us get back on a path to a positive future for the whole country.

Who Would Jesus Bomb?

Here’s an excellent bit from The Huffington Post about the difference between Obama and Oh Bomb ‘Em (I mean McCain) and their approach to foreign relations. Robert McElvaine asks the very good question, “Who’s the Christian?” The answer is clearly “Obama.” And he makes the point that those who’d bomb first, ask questions later should really be called “Constantinians”:

Emperor Constantine is usually said to have converted the Roman Empire to Christianity. What he actually did was convert Christianity to the Roman Empire. He gave Jesus the fourth century equivalent of a shot of anabolic steroids and transformed the Prince of Peace into the Prince of War and ally of the rich and the ruler.