Kneepads
Fox News - Methodist Bishops Repent Iraq War 'Complicity'
Thursday, November 10, 2005 - By Kaukab Jhumra Smith
WASHINGTON — Ninety-five bishops from President Bush's church said Thursday they repent their "complicity" in the "unjust and immoral" invasion and occupation of Iraq.
"In the face of the United States administration's rush toward military action based on misleading information, too many of us were silent," said a statement of conscience signed by more than half of the 164 retired and active United Methodist bishops worldwide.
President Bush is a member of the United Methodist Church, according to various published biographies. The White House did not return a request for comment on the bishops' statement.
Common Dreams News Center
Published on Sunday, November 13, 2005 by The Nation
God's Pat Problem
by John Nichols
It cannot be easy being God these days, what with so many of His self-proclaimed followers launching wars in His name.
So the last thing that the Almighty needs is a whackjob calling down the wrath of, er, well, God on communities that fail to follow the instructions in the "Christian Coalition Voter Guide."
But that's what God's got in the person of Pat Robertson, the religious broadcaster who frequently uses his 700 Club television program to pray about weather patterns or to encourage the assassination of foreign leaders…
Robertson and his ilk despise science because it provides explanations and insights that expose their pseudo-religious rants about who is on the right or wrong side of God -- not to mention who gets to pray and how -- for what they are: schemes to scare Christians into voting for Robertson's right-wing allies and writing checks to Robertson's enterprises and causes.
The so-called "Christian broadcaster" is wrong this time, as he has so frequently been in the past.
Despite what Roberston says, the people of Dover can pray to whomever they choose: God or Charles Darwin or even Pat Robertson.
And they can believe, as no doubt most Dover, Pa., voters did when they cast their ballots, that sound religion and sound science need not be in conflict…
Republicans are the party of moral values—aren’t they?
Press Connects
Sunday, November 13, 2005
The purple prose of 'Scooter'
DAVID ROSSIE
What is it with Republicans and smut? What is it that prompts the self-proclaimed paragons of moral values to commit prose that is at once prurient and putrid?
Consider the GOP gallery of purple prose purveyors:
William Safire, Newt Gingrich, Lynne Cheney, G. Gordon Liddy, William Buckley and Kenneth Starr. And let's not forget Bill O'Reilly, whose unwanted phone sex messages to a female colleague cost him a bundle in an out-of-court settlement.
Some might argue that it is unfair to include Starr in that crowd, but not if they read the pious pornographer's report of his investigation of the Clintons' involvement in Whitewater and Just Plain Bill's sordid romp with Monica Lewinsky and sundry others. According to Lauren Collins, writing in The New Yorker, in 1998 the Starr Report was nominated for consideration in the bad fictional sex writing contest that Britain's Literary Review holds each year.
Republicans might argue that they are content to write about such carnal matters, while Democrats indulge in them. They might, that is, if they think we don't remember the adventures of Henry Hyde and Dan Burton, those two moralizing hypocrites who were among Clinton's most vociferous assailants…
[I]n comparison to the latest entry in the field of GOP porn, the lot of them could qualify for jobs at Hallmark.
Meet I. Lewis Libby, aka Scooter, late right-hand man for Dick Voldemort Cheney, and now unemployed. Maybe. Libby, it turns out, was an experienced hand at producing fiction even before he came up against Patrick Fitzgerald.
In 1996, the Scooter produced a novel called The Apprentice. It is not about a young man learning to be an electrician. I can't really tell you what it is about, again, without running afoul of the family newspaper code.
Suffice to say there is a lot of what you might, for want of a better term, call animal husbandry involved. But not the kind they teach at your 4-H Club. At least I hope not.
Permissible (I hope) sample: "At age ten the madam put the child in a cage with a bear trained to couple with young girls so the girls would be frigid and not fall in love with their patrons." There are other hi jinks involving a deer.
If you want something spicier than that you're going to have to buy the book or at least buy The New Yorker…
Thursday, November 10, 2005 - By Kaukab Jhumra Smith
WASHINGTON — Ninety-five bishops from President Bush's church said Thursday they repent their "complicity" in the "unjust and immoral" invasion and occupation of Iraq.
"In the face of the United States administration's rush toward military action based on misleading information, too many of us were silent," said a statement of conscience signed by more than half of the 164 retired and active United Methodist bishops worldwide.
President Bush is a member of the United Methodist Church, according to various published biographies. The White House did not return a request for comment on the bishops' statement.
Common Dreams News Center
Published on Sunday, November 13, 2005 by The Nation
God's Pat Problem
by John Nichols
It cannot be easy being God these days, what with so many of His self-proclaimed followers launching wars in His name.
So the last thing that the Almighty needs is a whackjob calling down the wrath of, er, well, God on communities that fail to follow the instructions in the "Christian Coalition Voter Guide."
But that's what God's got in the person of Pat Robertson, the religious broadcaster who frequently uses his 700 Club television program to pray about weather patterns or to encourage the assassination of foreign leaders…
Robertson and his ilk despise science because it provides explanations and insights that expose their pseudo-religious rants about who is on the right or wrong side of God -- not to mention who gets to pray and how -- for what they are: schemes to scare Christians into voting for Robertson's right-wing allies and writing checks to Robertson's enterprises and causes.
The so-called "Christian broadcaster" is wrong this time, as he has so frequently been in the past.
Despite what Roberston says, the people of Dover can pray to whomever they choose: God or Charles Darwin or even Pat Robertson.
And they can believe, as no doubt most Dover, Pa., voters did when they cast their ballots, that sound religion and sound science need not be in conflict…
Republicans are the party of moral values—aren’t they?
Press Connects
Sunday, November 13, 2005
The purple prose of 'Scooter'
DAVID ROSSIE
What is it with Republicans and smut? What is it that prompts the self-proclaimed paragons of moral values to commit prose that is at once prurient and putrid?
Consider the GOP gallery of purple prose purveyors:
William Safire, Newt Gingrich, Lynne Cheney, G. Gordon Liddy, William Buckley and Kenneth Starr. And let's not forget Bill O'Reilly, whose unwanted phone sex messages to a female colleague cost him a bundle in an out-of-court settlement.
Some might argue that it is unfair to include Starr in that crowd, but not if they read the pious pornographer's report of his investigation of the Clintons' involvement in Whitewater and Just Plain Bill's sordid romp with Monica Lewinsky and sundry others. According to Lauren Collins, writing in The New Yorker, in 1998 the Starr Report was nominated for consideration in the bad fictional sex writing contest that Britain's Literary Review holds each year.
Republicans might argue that they are content to write about such carnal matters, while Democrats indulge in them. They might, that is, if they think we don't remember the adventures of Henry Hyde and Dan Burton, those two moralizing hypocrites who were among Clinton's most vociferous assailants…
[I]n comparison to the latest entry in the field of GOP porn, the lot of them could qualify for jobs at Hallmark.
Meet I. Lewis Libby, aka Scooter, late right-hand man for Dick Voldemort Cheney, and now unemployed. Maybe. Libby, it turns out, was an experienced hand at producing fiction even before he came up against Patrick Fitzgerald.
In 1996, the Scooter produced a novel called The Apprentice. It is not about a young man learning to be an electrician. I can't really tell you what it is about, again, without running afoul of the family newspaper code.
Suffice to say there is a lot of what you might, for want of a better term, call animal husbandry involved. But not the kind they teach at your 4-H Club. At least I hope not.
Permissible (I hope) sample: "At age ten the madam put the child in a cage with a bear trained to couple with young girls so the girls would be frigid and not fall in love with their patrons." There are other hi jinks involving a deer.
If you want something spicier than that you're going to have to buy the book or at least buy The New Yorker…
posted by professor rat at 9:27 PM
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