"In Germany they came first for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me -- and by that time, no was left to speak up."
- Pastor Martin Niemoller prior to his arrest and internment in a concentration camp
I think someone sent this to me as a joke. However, I am unsure of the punchline...
Here's a new innovative type of group i bet you haven't seen before! "Patriots-Politics-Playmates" is a brand new Yahoo group that mixes beautiful women and the pro-America political philosophies of conservatives, moderates, libertarians, and constitutionalists. If you're card carrying liberal, socialist, or communist...DO NOT apply for membership here! You'll just be booted out later. This group's members supports it country, our brave troops, and will defend their country against the left wing whose mission, along with the ACLU, is to destroy this country and its allies. And don't forget, we have a photo section filled with sexy women who make you proud to be an American...or as one of our allies. Due to the photo content, you must at least 18 years of age or older to eligible to become a member. Let us show the biased and stereotyping left wing that moderates, conservatives, constitutionalists, and libertarians appreciated and respect women more than they do!
If you feel that you belong here and wish to discuss current events and make new friends, then join us at.......
Don't have a lot of time to write this morning, but I plan to hit the ground running this week by introducing two new "events" here at "A Skeptical Blog". More about that tomorrow.
Rather than leave you with nothing to read, I thought I would link to this article. You need an account to access it, which I have, but for those of you that don't want to mess with the hassle, give BugMeNot a try.
In any case, I have to admit a certain amount of delight in this. The Democratic Party is not having much fun in the State of Texas these days, and every little bit helps:
AUSTIN - A secretly recorded video. An alleged political threat to a state senator. A faked phone call to a talk radio program.
And the race, if there is one, is still a year away.
As if any evidence of it were needed, the potential contest between Gov. Rick Perry and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison is on the verge of becoming a Republican Party blood bath.
"The most passionate disputes are always within the family," said Chuck McDonald, who was press secretary for former Gov. Ann Richards, a Democrat. "These are people you've had relationships with for a long, long time. That tends to increase the intensity level exponentially. It also tends to leave long and lasting wounds."
[...]
This week tensions boiled over when Perry supporters began circulating a 46-second video of Hutchison on a stage with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a liberal New York Democrat who is politically radioactive in far-right Republican circles.
The clip showed Clinton saying she was happy to have Hutchison as a "partner on so many important fronts." The response from the pro-Perry camp could be likened to the old salsa commercial: "Get a rope!"
"Alarming" is what one Perry supporter called it. And Cathie Adams, head of the conservative Texas Eagle Forum, said it showed Hutchison was "quite loyal to a feminist philosophy."
At first, the Perry campaign said in published reports that it had nothing to do with the distribution of the video, shot at an otherwise uncontroversial event in Washington, D.C., highlighting historical preservation.
But after officials involved in planning the March 3 event told reporters that the cameramen who shot the video had said they were working for Perry, the campaign acknowledged that it was behind the filming.
Perry campaign director Luis Saenz said camera-toting campaign workers are often sent to the events of possible opponents -- whether it's Hutchison, Republican state Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, or anyone else -- to monitor what they say and do.
"News flash: Potential opponents trashing my governor should not expect a free ride," Saenz said.
Hutchison campaign manager Terry Sullivan called the Perry tactics a "Nixonian kind of bullying."
"Is this the Gestapo?" he said. "You can't disagree with the governor on issues without them sending camera crews halfway across the country? Obviously, they're desperate."
For the record, the camera crew was based in the Washington area and received $2,100 from the Perry campaign to film the event, officials said.
[...]
But Perry operatives say Hutchison political consultant Chad Wilbanks did little to stop the feuding when he pretended to be "Charles from Flower Mound" during a phone call to the radio talk show of conservative moderator Mark Davis on WBAP/820 AM this month.
The Hutchison campaign, after remaining silent on the issue, acknowledged this week that Wilbanks was, in fact, "Charles."
"It was certainly not anything planned by the campaign," said Sullivan, adding that the fake call was "absolutely" a mistake.
Saenz, the Perry campaign director, said the flap showed "the character of whatever campaign they're going to run."
Saenz also pointed to an allegation made by state Sen. Bob Deuell, R-Greenville, in Thursday's Austin American-Statesman.
In the story, Deuell is quoted as saying Hutchison spokesman Dave Beckwith made a "veiled threat" by suggesting that the senator's support for Perry could result in a primary opponent for him.
Deuell declined to repeat the accusation to the Star-Telegram, but a spokesman said the American-Statesman story is accurate.
He also said Beckwith had called Deuell to assure him that he was not making threats.
"I was just making small talk about his re-election prospects, which I hoped were rosy," Beckwith said.
And of course, my favorite part:
Ask McDonald, the former aide to Richards, and he'll say the bitter Republican infighting has a familiar feel to it: It's what the Democrats used to do to each other before they were reduced to the size of an atoll in the sea of Texas politics.
"This one is going to be fun to watch," McDonald said. "They ought to sell tickets to it."
Hell I would stand in line all night to view this little dust up.
Well for Pete's sake, it's that time o' year again.
It's the time that I plead, I beg, I cajole, please, please please, before you buy that tiny fuzzy bunny for little Suzy because they are just so cute together THINK!
You are making a commitment of up to 12 years. You are getting a pet that, without the proper care, will totally destroy your important papers, your favorite photos, the carpet on your floor and the walls of your house.
Don't get me wrong, rabbits are great pets, they are loyal, loving, intelligent and have a great sense of fun. There is nothing quite like coming home after a horrid day and having your bunny run up to you and start dancing around your feet, begging for a pat on the head or a scratch behind the ears.
But they are also medical horrors, they are subject to all sorts of ills that you would never run across in a cat or dog. It is very hard to find a good vet (most vets want to treat a rabbit as if it were a cat. Considering that cats eat meat and rabbits eat veggies this seems insane to me, but believe it).
You must make the rabbit a part of the family. You must give it room to run and play. I have never understood people that want to keep rabbits in cages all the time, have you not looked at their back legs? Those legs were made for running and hopping. Nor is keeping a rabbit outside in a hutch all that great an idea. hutch rabbits tend to die much sooner than rabbits that live in the house.
Rabbits are not really good pets for children because they require a lot of care. You must feed them fresh veggies. You must make sure they have a good supply of fresh hay (hay will make their guts work better). You must keep their toenails clipped, their teeth in good shape, their ears clean...well you get the idea. Caring for a bunny is work.
Most importantly, if you decide to get a rabbit spend some time learning. The best resource on the net is "The House Rabbit Society". While your there read all about the horrors of Easter by clicking here. You can also get involved with their "Make Mine Chocolate!" campaign.
This is a very sad time of year for us. By June we will have dozens of rabbits looking for a good loving home, because a pair of parents could not take five minutes to think about the fact that they are buying a living, breathing animal and not some "cute" photo prop. The bunny starts to grow, starts to chew the walls, and suddenly Bunny ain't so cute. So it is left to people like my family to step up and try to take care of these rejects. No animal deserves to be treated in such a thoughtless manner.
So please people...think. When you invite an animal to share your home, you are making a commitment to that animal. Don't let it down.
Well once again Hal Moroz and his "New Knighthood" (may need to be a member of the group to read posts) has given me a laugh. Well in reality it ain't so funny, but it is par for the course in Morozland.
It is simply amazing to me how people fail to take the smallest amount of time to check these stories out. All I had to do is type "Sir Scott's Oasis Steakhouse" and "Jane Fonda" and I came up with a whole slew of articles on why this simply is not true. But I am getting ahead of myself...
The following was forwarded to me this morning by a fellow-veteran. I have seen it circulated before, but it is always worth reading again for a bit of inspiration and faith that there are great Americans out there who live normal, unassuming lives ... and confront evil in our time!
The radio station America FM was doing one of their "Is anyone listening" bits this morning. This first one was, "Ever have a celebrity pull up and say 'Do you know who I am?' routine."
A woman called in and said that a few years back, while visiting her cattle rancher uncle in Billings, MT., they had occasion to go to dinner at a restaurant that does not take reservations. The wait was about 45 minutes. Lots of other rancher types and their spouses were already waiting. In come Ted Turner and Jane Fonda. They want a table. The hostess says they'll have to wait about 45 minutes. Jane Fonda asks the hostess if she knows who she is. "Yes, but you'll still have to wait 45 minutes."
Then Jane says, "Is the manager in?"
The manager comes out, "May I help you?"
"Do you know who I am?" ask both Jane and Ted.
"Yes, but these folks have all been waiting already and I can't put you in ahead of them," says the manager.
Then Ted asks to speak to the owner. The owner comes out. Jane again asks, "Do you know who I am?"
The owner says, "Yes, I do. Do you know who I am? I am the owner of this restaurant and a Vietnam Veteran. Not only will you not get a table ahead of all of my friends and neighbors here, but you also will not be eating in my restaurant tonight or any other night. Good bye."
Only in America, what a great country!
To all who received this e-mail.
This is a true story and the name of the steak house is:
I x'ed out the phone number because I have a feeling that Sir Scott is mighty tired of having to deny this event ever happened. But you have to admit including the name, address and phone number of a real restaurant was a nice touch. It didn't make it true, but it was a nice touch. One wonders why Hal, an ex-judge and lawyer, did not bother to pick up the phone and find out for himself if this was a true story. And I hear that bearing false witness against a person is a big no no for Christians...(and no, I don't think Hal had anything to do with the letter itself, just carelessly passed it on because it agreed with his oh-so-carefully preconceived notions).
But you see, there is a reason that Hal is not interested in the truth. There is a reason he has no problem bearing false witness against this particular person. It's because he considers Jane Fonda to be evil! Now I have no great admiration for Jane Fonda. First as an actress she has never struck me as particularly impressive. As a person, well let's just say that she does not strike me as a person that I would like to hang with. Not that this makes her a bad person, hell I love Frank Zappa, but he does not strike me as a fun date either...
But evil? Jane Fonda is evil? Look you can disagree with the woman's politics, personally I don't, but that does not mean she is evil.
And herein lies the bottom line boys and girls. I would think that as a Christian, words like evil should not be slapped on people like paper playbills slapped on a wall. I would think that this is a word reserved for only the worse of the worse. Not some person who pissed you off when she was young and stupid...
Now I admit, I don't know a lot about evil. I know I hate the word when used in policy matters, because I have never heard a good definition of what evil is, certainly not from a Christian. If I don't know what evil is, how in the hell can I recognize it in my fellow human being. And if Christians can't even define the term, how can they?
How Christian is it, really, to smear a person's reputation by spreading a lie? Even if you did not know it was a lie, do you not bear some responsibly to find out? It took me, smelly agnostic that I am, all of a minute to find this story was a lie.
Why couldn't Hal Moroz, good Christian that he is, spare that minute?
Well it looks like our good friend, Don Wildmon, is having yet another nervous break down, this time over the possiblity that the major networks will start airing (oh the horror) condom ads.
Networks Set To Begin Airing Condom Ads In Prime Time
Dear Dominion,
CBS and ABC have said they are seriously considering airing condom ads during prime time and daytime television. NBC and Fox and other networks will follow their lead.
I hope this concerns you as much as it does me. The condom companies say their purpose in airing their ads is to help stop the spread of disease. So, why do their ads promote products like "Warm Sensations" and "Twisted Pleasure"?
Don't be fooled by their double-speak. If the networks decide to break their self-imposed policy of not airing condom ads, we'll soon have Church & Dwight's "Trojan Man" ads bombarding our children at every turn.
You can expect that these ads will be aired repeatedly, especially during sporting events.
The networks and condom companies don't really care about what they advertise when our children are watching television. They want to make money! That's why one company president said, "…we could quadruple this business." Does that sound like a company that has our children's best interest in mind?
Do you want the networks to start airing condom ads all hours of the day? Once condom companies get their foot in the door, it’s only a matter of time before the ads will get more and more graphic.
Please send an email message to the six major networks that use public-owned airwaves. Let them know you want them to reject any offers to air condom ads on network television.
Donald E. Wildmon, Founder and Chairman American Family Association
As usual Don was kind enough to provide the means for us to email network execs. Here is my mail, admittedly it is not all that creative:
Dear Television Network President,
I have learned that network broadcasters are considering plans to accept and air ads for condoms during daytime and primetime viewing hours.
Let me congratulate you on a wise decision.
The FCC licenses you specifically to "serve the public interest." I believe it is CERTAINLY in the public interest to air ads for these sexually oriented products.
You may argue that these ads will be discerning and for the purpose of preventing sexually transmitted diseases, and I will be very impressed with your reasoning.
I look forward to hearing that your condom ads on your network will lead to great success and a reduction in AIDS infection in young people.
Sorry sorry sorry for the lack of updates but it has been an incredibly busy week for me. With no end in sight. So don't look for much the rest of the week.
This makes me feel bad, knowing that my fans have a considerable lack of reading material. Well allow me to help with that.
...a biweekly carnival for bloggers who apply critical thought to questionable stories. Subjects include frequently repeated urban legends, quackery, pseudoscience, misinterpreted or denied history, analyses of misleading media, and any other articles or essays that fight misinformation with facts.
You can catch the first three Circles at the above link. Page down a bit and you will see the links, plus who will be hosting the next few Circles. The next Circle should be out on Friday. Give it a read, rational thought is something we can all use! I have even been invited to submit an article or two, and I might just get around to it when I am less busy.
Speaking of links, here are a couple of newbies to the blogroll. Let's give a warm, skeptical welcome to Scriptoids and The Rambling Taoist! Be sure to stop by and tell them Dom sent ya!
Once again I ask, I beg, I plead, if you have me on your blogroll and you don't see your blog on mine, drop me a note. Let me know. It will give me an excuse to come by and read a bit. Who knows, you might even get a regular reader! At the very least, you will get a link back.
Investigation Says Top Commanders Pressured Interrogators but Not to Blame for Abuses
WASHINGTON Mar 10, 2005 - Top commanders in Iraq put intense pressure on interrogators to extract useful intelligence information from prisoners, yet that does not explain the sexual humiliation and other abuse of prisoners under U.S. control, an investigation has concluded.
The report by Navy Vice Adm. Albert T. Church said the pressure was not excessive. The investigation could find no "single, overarching reason" why prisoners under U.S. control were abused at the Abu Ghraib prison complex in fall 2003 and elsewhere in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Command pressure for more intelligence was to be expected in a battlefield setting, Church wrote.
"We found no evidence, however, that interrogators in Iraq believed that any pressure for intelligence subverted their obligation to treat detainees humanely," he wrote in a summary of his findings.
Can you say "whitewash" boys and girls? Sure! I knew you could.
I am still unsure why I can only upload half an article, and Road Runner support was not much help. They seem to think that it is a problem with the software I use to blog (which, since I have not plugged it in a long time, is "Blog" by that mad genius Fahim A. Farook) which I just don't see how. But knowing that Fahim is usually pretty good about answering questions, and I do believe in covering all the basics, I wrote him.
I will describe the problem later, I am in a tearing hurry and have already wasted enough time on this. But if you notice the lack of graphics on this page...well you can draw your own conclusions, you're smart right?
I am going to upload the eyes at least, I think I can manage that. But until I get this figured out...well at least the page will load marginally faster.
I ran across this article on the WorldNetDaily faux-news (or is that Fox-news) site, so you know it has to be good.
"When 'tolerance' backfires" written by William J. Federer, which according to the biographical blurb at the bottom of the article, he "is a best-selling author and the president of Amerisearch Inc., a publishing company dedicated to researching America's noble heritage. He is the author of the new book "Backfired."
Well I was hooked at the mention of research into America's noble heritage. He must be an incredibly wise historian to be able to discern that America's heritage is noble, a value judgment all too often overlooked by more "mainstream" historians. I just had to find out more, so off I head to Amerisearch Inc.
Raised in south St. Louis, 5th of eleven children, Bill lettered in wrestling, football and was a state finalist in track-high hurdles. He graduated from St. Louis University High School ('76), studied at University of Dallas, Texas ('76-`78); in Rome, Italy ('78), and graduated from Saint Louis University (`80) with a degree in Accounting/Business Administration. He worked in real estate, oil & gas industry (Santa Fe Industries `81-`84), and held positions with community organizations, charity groups, churches - working with youth, families, elderly and minorities.
Bill served as a Scoutmaster, having been an Eagle Scout. He gained national recognition for lecturing and writing, receiving an Honorary Doctorate of Humanities from American Christian College in 2004. Articles on and by him have appeared in national publications, such as WorldNetDaily.com, TownHall.com, NewsMax.com, Washington Times, Washington Post, The Wanderer, Human Events, Insight Magazine...
Well with all that learning, experience, and fine display of outstanding publications publishing him (and about him, let us not forget) I can certainly understand why we should listen to him when he spouts off about history.
And in fact, we should not, as the above article proves nicely. For the main course, we are offered this insight:
How did America go from Pilgrims seeking freedom to express their Judeo-Christian beliefs to today's discrimination against those very beliefs in the name of tolerance?
What follows is what I like to call "History Lite". This is where the author (in this case Mr. Federer) takes very complicated historical movements and condenses them to sound bites. And as we all know, sound bites do taste great, but they are far less filling. An example is Mr. Federer's description of the rise in the use of the English Bible:
The journey of the evolution of tolerance began in England. When Henry VIII's divorce was not recognized by the pope, he decided to be his own "pope" of the Church of England and eventually had six wives, their fates being divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived.
His advisers suggested that to solidify his break with Rome, he should replace the Latin Bible with an English Bible so people there would look to England for their spiritual heritage. Henry did so, but something unexpected happened - people began to read the Bible and compare what was written in it to the king divorcing and beheading his wives.
This group wanted to purify the Church of England, resulting in their nickname, "Puritans." The king did not think he needed purifying, so he persecuted them, resulting in 20,000 Puritans fleeing to Massachusetts, where they tolerated ... only Puritans.
Needless to say the "journey of the evolution of tolerance began in England" is rank nonsense on it's face. Does Mr. Federer even have a clue as to how illogical the above is? The journey started when a King (who was not tolerant of his subjects objecting to either his behavior or religion) persecuted a group that wanted to "purify" The Church of England. They fled and followed the king's example by tolerating only fellow group members???? Sounds to me like the same old, same old.
Even worse, this is a total misrepresentation of what actually happened. Yes the Puritans wanted to "purify" the Church of England, but it had nothing to do with Henry's behavior, but the behavior of the Catholic Church. The Puritans wanted to substitute their own doctrine for Catholic within the Church of England! In fact, it was not the king that persecuted them, it was a Queen. Queen Elizabeth to be exact. Twice removed from King Henry. From "The Pilgrims and Puritans Total Reformation for the Glory of God" by Samuel T. Logan. Jr.
"During Mary's reign, hundreds had died for their faith. Would the people of England honor those deaths by seizing the marvelous opportunity the Lord had given England by removing Mary and replacing her with Elizabeth?
Would the people of England now insist that their church and their state be completely purified of all non-biblical elements so that both institutions (and all the people therein) might bring singular honor to the Lord God of Scripture?
These were the questions asked in Foxe's monumental work which we know as The Book of Martyrs. First published in 1563 Foxe's work was an intense account of the pain suffered by the Marian martyrs and a clarion call to bring both the nation and the church of England into full conformity to the Word of God.
Many of those who shared the dream which had been nurtured at the White Horse Tavern now seized upon Foxe's expression of God's expectations of His people and insisted, with ever-increasing fervor, that both their royal and their ecclesiastical leaders direct all English affairs sola Scriptura, according to the Scriptures alone.
Queen Elizabeth I, however, saw things differently. Her vision was of political stability and order. Elizabeth had no interest in any kind of extremism, especially the kind of religious extremism which the theological heirs of those White Horse discussants seemed to her to represent.
England (including the English church) should, in this Elizabethan view, be broad and inclusive and should base its life on tradition and reason as well as on the teachings of Scripture.
So, by 1570, there had developed in England two parties- 1) those who favored this more rationalistic understanding of church and state, and 2) those who continued to insist that further purification of those two entities was required by Scripture and that England must now seize the spiritual opportunity so brilliantly described by John Foxe. And it was in the midst of this controversy that the term "puritan" began to be regularly used by the first group as a derisive epithet of attack upon the second group."
Mr. Federer also manages to make the conversion from Latin to English bibles one of mere convenience to King Henry, when it was really a very complicated movement, again against the Catholic Church. There is little doubt that Henry was interested in getting English translations in the hands of his subjects (at least some of them) but the only reason was spite: (read the whole article to get a sense of just how complicated this changeover was)
In 1539, Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, hired Myles Coverdale at the bequest of King Henry VIII to publish the "Great Bible". It became the first English Bible authorized for public use, as it was distributed to every church, chained to the pulpit, and a reader was even provided so that the illiterate could hear the Word of God in plain English. It would seem that William Tyndale's last wish had been granted...just three years after his martyrdom. Cranmer's Bible, published by Coverdale, was known as the Great Bible due to its great size: a large pulpit folio measuring over 14 inches tall. Seven editions of this version were printed between April of 1539 and December of 1541.
King Henry VIIIIt was not that King Henry VIII had a change of conscience regarding publishing the Bible in English. His motives were more sinister...but the Lord sometimes uses the evil intentions of men to bring about His glory. King Henry VIII had in fact, requested that the Pope permit him to divorce his wife and marry his mistress. The Pope refused. King Henry responded by marrying his mistress anyway, (later having two of his many wives executed), and thumbing his nose at the Pope by renouncing Roman Catholicism, taking England out from under Rome’s religious control, and declaring himself as the reigning head of State to also be the new head of the Church. This new branch of the Christian Church, neither Roman Catholic nor truly Protestant, became known as the Anglican Church or the Church of England. King Henry acted essentially as its "Pope". His first act was to further defy the wishes of Rome by funding the printing of the scriptures in English...the first legal English Bible...just for spite.
I have no intention of going through the rest of this drek, it is a huge waste of time, almost every point he makes is as easily disputed as the above.
But what strikes me is towards the end of this column:
In the second half of the 1800s, tolerance was extended to monotheists - anyone believing in one God. U.S. coins were inscribed with the National Motto, "In God We Trust," - not "gods." Oaths of office ended with "So Help Me God," - not "gods." A monotheistic God was acknowledged in federal courts, which open with the invocation "God save the United States and this honorable court." Presidents acknowledged God in their Inaugural Addresses, and each of the 50 state constitutions made reference to God.
Many state constitutions forbade citizenship to Chinese, Japanese and other "Mongolian" races, in part because they were polytheists, believing in many gods. In the early 1900s, tolerance began to expand to polytheists and finally believers in any other religion.
Then, in the last half of the 1900s, tolerance went out to atheists, secular humanists and the anti-religious.
Today, the government's World Factbook link lists the United States as being 78 percent Christian (52 percent Protestant, 24 percent Catholic, 2 percent Mormon), 1 percent Jewish, 1 percent Muslim, 10 percent other, and 10 percent none. Ten years ago, it listed the country as 84 percent Christian. But back at the time of America's founding, this percentage was well over 90 percent.
America's predominately Christian founders - basing their concept on the Golden Rule from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, "do unto others as you would have them do undo you," and Jesus' example of never forcing anyone to believe in him - enlarged the circle of tolerance by attempting to find common ground with the newly arrived immigrants and newly invented beliefs.
The problem today is those "not believing" are now demonstrating intolerance to those "believing," as seen by many activist court cases to remove God from the Pledge, prohibit Ten Commandments monuments, erase Judeo-Christian symbols off city seals, stop prayer at school ball games and graduations, ban Boy Scouts and Salvation Army, and censor historical documents. They are, in effect, establishing a State Religion of Atheistic Secular Humanism.
It is hard to resist the retort "Payback is hell eh?" After thousands of years of religious intolerance is it not time they felt a bit of their own medicine?
But seriously, this is simply revisionism. America's founders may have very well been "predominately Christians", it is not something I really care about. After all, it ain't the numbers, but the sense those founders had when it came to the mixing of religion and government. It is clear that they thought poorly of it. (For more on the nonchristian flavor of our government see here and here).
Even worse Mr. Federer seems to be suggesting that the problem is tolerance. That Christians made a mistake by accepting people that believe different, look different, act different and are different, instead of throwing them on the nearest burning pile o' sticks. How Trent Lottian. Christians would be better off if they just hated everyone not like them.
Can anyone seriously defend this position? Does anyone care to try?
There is little doubt that if you become more tolerant of a more secular society, then that society will become more secular. But that is hardly discrimination against Christians, and I doubt that Mr. Federer knows what real discrimination is.
I am really tired of the whine from a certain class of Christians that because they can't shove their religion in my face every step in my day, they are somehow being discriminated against. With numbers that Mr. Federer quoted above, it is hard to see just how they are being discriminated. No what really pisses them off is that they are prevented from discriminating against those that refuse to follow their rather silly religion...
I tell ya what. I will be more than ready to take to the streets in defense of Christians when they are being fired from their jobs, refused housing, and not allowed to marry, based on their religion. Which is more than I can say for their willingness to defend my rights when they are threatened.
Until such time, I wish they would just leave me the fuck alone.
Don’t miss out on the second annual Texas 10 Under 20 Rising Star Search for a chance to win thousands of dollars in prizes including a $1,000 grant for your school’s music program!
Do you know any young musicians in your area? If so, make sure you tell them about this great contest. The Texas 10 Under 20 is the premiere talent contest for musicians aged 20 and under from Texas. Young musicians will compete in the following five genre categories for valuable prizes:
Rock/Alternative/Metal Pop/Hip Hop/Rap/R&B Country/Folk/Blues Contemporary Christian/Gospel Solo Guitar
Two finalists from each category will be invited to perform on-stage at the Dallas Guitar Show on April 10th. Finalists performing will receive METAJAM ($200 value); a prize package from D’Addario, Planet Waves and Evans worth over $500; and 50% off studio time at Luminous Sound Studios ($875 savings each day).
Celebrity judges and audience applause will determine the Winner, who will receive a day of recording at Luminous Sound ($1,750), 8 hours of consultation with producer Chris Bell ($1,500), 8 hours of consultation with business developer Paul Levatino ($1,000), a Peavey Blazer - 158 Guitar Amp ($160), a Broadjam Primo MoB membership and the opportunity to perform at EdgeFest 2005 or a KLTY concert. And, the school of their choice will receive a $1,000 music education grant from the Texas Music Project!
To enter this contest, there must be a guitar or bass in the act and one member must be aged 20 or younger and either live in Texas or have gone to a Texas school sometime during K-12.
Too Old For This Contest?
Don’t sweat! There’s another way you can support Texas music programs! Enter the Electric Guitar Solo Contest for your chance to win a Peavey guitar and perform on-stage at the Dallas Guitar Show alongside some of the country's greatest guitarists! Upload your original song with your guitar solo in it and you may be selected to jump on stage at the Saturday Night Jam, April 9th, in Dallas, Texas. Other prizes include a Peavey HP - Standard EXP Guitar ($700 value), a Broadjam Primo MoB membership and half-price recording time at Luminous Sound Studios for the rest of 2005. The winner will also have backstage access and will receive VIP treatment all weekend!
Texas 10 Under 20 Rising Star Search Hey young Texans, this contest’s for you! Want to win cool prizes for yourself and a $1,000 grant for your school? Enter the Texas 10 Under 20 Rising Star Search - the premiere talent contest for musicians aged 20 or younger from the state of Texas.
Submissions for both contests are just $5 per song, and a portion will go to the Texas Music Project to support school music programs. The deadline for entry is Monday, March 14th, so don't delay. Get your music in today for the chance to win fabulous prizes and extraordinary performance opportunities! Thank you for your support!
Sincerely, The Broadjam Staff
Five dollars seem cheap enough. So if you feel you have the chops, go for it. Who knows, you just might be competing against me!
I have to agree that this is the most vapid, stupid, trivial column I have read in a long time:
Tolstoy's novella ("Family Happiness") came back to me while I was reading, of all things, The Wall Street Journal. The paper's Work and Family columnist, Sue Shellenbarger, had a piece last week reporting that the number of couples who now have separate checking accounts is rising rapidly. Roughly half of all married couples now keep multiple accounts, according to a Raddon Financial Group survey.
Some of the reasons for separate accounts are entirely reasonable. People who marry at older ages or who are forming second families may already have complicated financial arrangements that would be hard to pool. Some couples have found after long and bitter experience that they have different spending philosophies; instead of fighting, it's easier to give each spouse a little personal space.
But some of the people quoted in Shellenbarger's article seem unaware that there may be a distinction between the individualistic ethos of the market and the communal ethos of the home. A Texas woman celebrated her family's separate accounts, remarking, "It's so freeing to be your own person, and not feel like someone is looking over your shoulder." It's not clear whether she's talking about a marriage or a real estate partnership.
[...]
I'm not saying that people with separate accounts have marriages that are less healthy than anybody else's. I'm saying we should pause before this becomes the social norm. Private property is the basis for our market democracy. But private property in the home is an altogether trickier proposition.
For one thing, separate accounts can easily turn into secret accounts. A person's status and resources inside the home shouldn't be based on how much he or she is making outside it. A union based on love can easily turn into a merger based on self-interest, where the main criterion for continuing becomes: Am I getting a good return on my investment, psychic or otherwise?
The larger, far more important point is that in a society as individualistic as ours, it's especially important to protect and nurture the countervailing institutions. It's so easy for the powerful force of individualism to wash over and transform institutions - like family, religion and the military - that are supposed to be based on self-sacrifice, loyalty and love.
You have got to be kidding me. Separate checking accounts is destroying the American Family? We have to "pause before this becomes the social norm"? Is there no area of a person's private life that these morons are unwilling to fuck with?
Look, I don't care if you choose to have joint accounts, have separate accounts or stuff all your money in your mattress for fear of the coming economic meltdown. And therein lies the point, who cares! Bobo is trying to make some grand sociological point for which there is simply no evidence. Please someone, point me to a study, a cite, hell a third rate book by a right wing hack, that claims the foundation of troubled marriages is separate checking accounts! The mind simply boggles.
Yet thinking on this subject I realize just how subtle sexism is in this country. Here in the Dominion household, the wife handles all the finances. I have learned in a long life that money is simply not something I deal with very well. My wife can sit down at the end of the month, balance the checkbook, and viola, it actually balances!. I stand amazed at her ability to accomplish this feat month after month. This is a juggling act worthy of the best juggler in the world. At least to me.
So this means, when we go out, she pays the check. When we shop, she pays the bill. Electric? Gas? Water? She pays them all.
Yet every time we go out, I am presented with the bill. Now this is somewhat understandable, you have to hand it to someone, and the dude is as good a choice as any. Chances are he is the one that is going to pay the bill. No what never fails to surprise me is that I always get the change.
Always.
The waiter or clerk can stand there and watch my wife pay, and they will still hand me the change. It's like "Oh there must be some mistake, somehow the wife must have snuck into this poor fool's wallet and taken all the cash. Certainly he deserves the change". It has gotten to the point that I want to scream "What the fuck is wrong with you. Did I hand you any money? Did that cash come out of my pocket? Then why in the HELL are you giving me the change"???
We stopped going to one of our favorite places to chow because one day the waiter had the nerve to comment on our method of pay. It went something like this.
"Here you go sir, I hope everything was fine"
"Yes yes, it was delicious as usual" (hands wife the check).
"Excuse me sir, I have seen you eat here before and you always hand the check to your wife and she pays the check".
"Well yes, that is true" (To tell the truth I don't really notice this, she pays the check because she always pays the check. She has been doing it for all the years we have been together, it is just automatic).
"Doesn't that embarrass you"?
"What? Why would that embarrass me"?
"Well you can't even afford to take your wife to dinner..."
What an assumption to make! And while I am on the subject no it does not make me feel less of a man to have my wife control the finances. Holy cow people, I am a man because I have a penis, not because I have money! When my wife took over the bill paying, she did not take my cock too!
...ahem...sorry for that rave, but I tells ya, it really gets to me sometimes. We all have different skills that we bring to the table in a marriage. After all, it is supposed to be a partnership. I always thought it made me a better person to admit my weaknesses. Hell she is the one that works on the car, does the home repair, and can use power tools with the best of them. Me, I like to cook, work in the garden (that one day might actually grow something), and I have no problem changing the dreaded poopy diaper when baby Terri produces! Does that really make me less of a man, or make her less of a women? Nonsense. It makes us better partners that we are content to do that which we do best.
