Judge Nixes Graduation Prayers in Texas

In Round Rock, Texas, the school district allowed high school seniors to vote whether or not they wanted prayers said at their graduation ceremonies. Seniors at three high schools voted "Yes." Seniors at a fourth high school voted "No."

On behalf of several parents and a former student, the ACLU sued the school district claiming that "prayers at a school-sponsored event violated 'the boundary between church and state that is necessary in a pluralistic society."

U.S.District Judge Sam Sparks ruled that the school district may not hold an election or vote by students "to have a prayer, benediction, invocation 'or other religious communication' in any graduation unless the Supreme Court rules in future cases that such votes can be held."

"Thank God!" said God!

The judge could not have ruled otherwise, for indeed, such prayers are unconstitutional. But you have to give him some credit because Texas is overrun with Right, Righteous, Republican Rascals.

Evolution is Racist says Ham

You remember Ken Ham. He's the guy in the clown suit with the clown theology who believes that God said "Shazam!" and everything was created in six days about 6-12,000 years ago.

Ham's the guy who thinks some guy named Noah floated around in a big boat with two of everything for 40 days and 40 nights (well, that's one story) while God murdered every other creature in his creation.

Ham is the guy who built the Creation Museum, a place where dunderheads can go and get their fix of creationist nonsense so they can better deal with all those rabid, racist evolutionists.

Wait! Did he say racist?

Yup. Ham and another guy by name of Charles Ware, who is prez of Crossroads Bible College in Indianapolis, Indiana, have written a book called "Darwin's Plantation: Evolution's Racist Roots."

In this tribute to nonsense and snake oil, Ham and Ware claim that evolution inspired the Nazi belief in racial superiority and the murderous policies of ol' Joe Stalin in the USSR.

This is true! Really!

Ham believes, fundamentally, and first of all, that evolution is bad, bad, bad because it contradicts a literal interpretation of the Old Testament stories in Genesis. He doesn't deal, so far as I know, with the other, more poetic creation stories in the Bible.

Ham says that Darwin's theory re: natural selection elevates some races "higher on the evolutionary scale" and others "closer to the apes." That's racist, says Ham.

Ham also says that Darwin did not start racism, but "did more than any person to popularize it."

Ham and Ware should be laughed off the planet. They provide an excellent example of the kind of immoral, amoral, stupid, ridiculous, nonsensical crap that "evolves" from people dedicated to upholding thousand-year old mythical constructs that have no scientific relevance whatsoever.

These men are so stupid they think humans and dinosaurs coexisted! Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education in California, noted that Hitler seldom, if ever, spoke of evolution.

She said that "Darwinian evolution is based on natural selection, which means that any population can adapt to its environment." Even idiots like Ham and Ware ought to be able to look around and grasp the truth of that. Hell, I've had to adapt to the knowledge that there really is such a monstrosity as a "creation" museum in the United States!

Scott also said that "The ironic thing for the creationists is that Hitler grounded Aryan superiority as a God-given quality."

In fact, Hitler believed that God was behind his policies, that he was carrying out God's will. And much of his hatred for the Jews was given a framework and impetus by the Protestant reformer, Martin Luther.

I've said before so many of these creationists and intelligent design people are liars. They keep insisting that their formulations have nothing to do with religion when they have everything to do with religion.

Even Ham is a liar, claiming that his organization, Answers in Genesis, does not advocate teaching creationism in public schools.

Maybe the corporate construct that makes up Answers in Genesis is not out "advocating" the teaching of creationism in public schools, but I'll guarantee you that every single person affiliated with this freakish outfit would jump at the chance to present the "truth" of creationism to public school kids if they got the chance!

Heck, maybe Ham is right. But if so, he'd be in the group "closer to the apes."

At What Price Security?

I am a veteran of the U.S. Navy. I believe a strong and well-trained military is vital to our national interests.

What follows is in no way critical of the U.S. Air Force or our men and women in uniform.

Time magazine, March 24 issue:

Page 55 shows what appears to be a busy city street in a Middle Eastern country. A young mother walks through the crowd carrying a child, while a slightly older child walks by her side. Just off to the right is a scruffy-looking man with a beard and sneaky eyes. In the background stands another man, nondescript, but seems to be staring at the woman.

The caption is a question: "How do you fight an enemy who hides among the innocent?"

Page 57 answers the question this way: "Never let them out of your sight."

Featured on this page is a U.S. Air Force "state of the art surveillance aircraft" flying over what appears to be a Middle Eastern city.

These two pages constitute an advertisement for the United States Air Force.

It gave me the chills. Here's why:

First of all, keeping an eye on bad guys hiding among the innocent is not "fighting" the enemy.

Unfortunately, as the U.S., Israel and other countries have discovered, fighting an enemy hiding among the innocent will result in "collateral damage." Innocent people are going to be hurt, perhaps destroyed.

Secondly, even though it may have to be done in a war zone, the thought of a U.S. Air Force spy plane circling in the air above a populous city surveilling its citizens is unnerving, to say the least...

Especially when you think of what might happen when a president like Bush, who sees no limits to his powers as prezident or commander-in-chief, orders the Air Force to surveil Washington, D.C. to locate a rebellious group of senators working on his impeachment so he can have them arrested?

Don't say it can't happen here. Bush has already ordered illegal surveillance on numerous occasions. And with our system of checks and balances crumbled to rubble, it is a very short flight to a spy in the sky.

Here's another very interesting article dealing with this issue from a little different standpoint.

Muslim Youth Attack Anglican Priest

St. George in the East Church in London was consecrated in 1729. It was designed by a student of Sir Christopher Wren, Nicholas Hawksmoor. Although badly damaged in WWII by the German Blitz, it was rebuilt in the 1960s.

Michael Ainsworth, 57, is the priest at St. George in the East. While walking on the grounds of the church recently, he was attacked by three Asian youths when he asked them to be quiet.

They yelled "you fucking priest," knocked him to the ground, and punched him in the head. He was saved by some other youths who came to his assistance.

Fr. Ainsworth was taken to the hospital with deep cuts, bruising and two black eyes, where he was treated and released. Shortly after his release, he re-entered the hospital.

St. George in the East has been a target of violence previously. Not long ago, a brick was thrown through a window during a worship service. On another occasion, young people shouted "This should not be a church, this should be a mosque, you should not be here."

Violence is not committed only by Muslims, of course. For example, after the 2005 bombings in London, there were a number of attacks against Muslims. More recently, Muslim involvement in violence has been increasing, especially against Jews. Attacks on Christians are rather rare.

Question: Why would young Muslims want to damage a church or hurt a Christian priest? They didn't come out of the womb saying "I'm going to grow up and throw a brick through a church window," or "I think I'll go beat the crap out of a Christian priest when I'm big."

These acts derive from hatred that is taught in the home, or in the school, or in the mosque, or maybe all three. Christians and others are not off the hook, though, for too often they also are taught to hate in their home, or their church or their school.

Nothing will ever change until people decide, first of all, that we are of one race - the human race; and that we are all brothers and sisters; and that it is better to live in peace as a family than to try to destroy one another because of disagreements of faith, economics or politics.

The Holocaust Journal (Lest We Forget) - Germany 1942 (IV)

Germany - 1942 (IV)

Oswald Pohl was the SS general in charge of the Nazi Economic and Administrative Main Office. He controlled all slave labor and the disposition of Jewish possessions taken from those murdered in the death camps.

Pohl supervised construction of thousands of German concentration and extermination camps.
He was the one who decided what to do with hair cut off Jewish victims - the hair was used to make textiles. He also received the gold from Jewish teeth, rings, and eyeglass frames - these were sent to the national treasury.

Pohl did not get away. He was tried as a war criminal, was convicted and was hung on June 8, 1951.

October 1942 - In various places, some Jews resisted and some Jews escaped the Nazis, but the brutality and the killings continue. All Jewish property in Norway is confiscated. The British ambassador to the Vatican makes note in his diary that Pope Pius XII seldom denounces moral crimes. He writes that the Pope's "policy of silence ... must necessarily involve a renunciation of moral leadership."

At a small labor camp in Poland, a group of female non-Jewish prisoners beat, brutalize and kill several dozen Jewish women.

October 3 - Poland's ambassador to the Vatican spells out in detail to the Vatican how thousands of Jews have been gassed by the Nazis.

October 4 - German authorities order all Jews in German concentration camps be sent to Auschwitz for extermination.

The Sonderkommando was a special unit comprised of prisoners at Auschwitz chosen to handle the more unpleasant tasks, such as searching the dead for valuables, moving bodies to the crematoria, and cleaning the gas chambers.

Marie Vaillant-Couturier, a member of the French resistance imprisoned at Auschwitz, wrote the following:

"One night we were awakened by terrifying cries. And we discovered, on the following day, from the men working the Sonderkommando ... that on the preceding day, the gas supply having run out, they had thrown the children into the furnaces alive."

October 18 - Hitler orders that all captured Allied Special Operations Personnel be executed.

October 23 - The Battle of El Alamein begins in Egypt.

October 28 - The SS issues an order that socks and mittens taken from Jews be sent to SS families.

November 1942 - The Germans occupy southern France.

* November 1-6 - Over 170,000 Jews are killed in one week at Belzec, Auschwitz and Treblinka.

* November 2 - SS chief Heinrich Himmler approves a plan to set up a collection of Jewish skeletons and skull at the Strasbourg Anatomical Institute in France. The head of Germany's Ancestral Heritage Society requests 150 Jewish skeletons.

Allied forces at El Alamein, Egypt, rout General Erwin Rommel's troops.

November 8 - Allied Operation Torch landings occur on the Algerian coast. This inadvertently saves thousands of Jews from the death camps.

November 11 - Norwegian Protestant bishops in Oslo make a public protest re: the deportation of Norwegian Jews.

November 15 - A Parisian Jewish resistance group places two time-bombs in a window of a German barracks, killing several German soldiers eating breakfast. The bombs were carried by Jewish women.

November 19 - The Soviets counterattack near Stalingrad.

December 2 - Jews all over the free world hold a day of prayer and fasting for European Jews.

December 7 - A U.S. State Department official, G. Robert Borden Reams, a so-called "expert" on the Jews suggests the U.S. government remain silent regarding the Holocaust.

December 8 - Rabbi Steven Wise and other Jewish leaders meet with President Roosevelt to discuss the plight of European Jews.

December 9 - "The Christian Century," a U.S. Protestant magazine, attacks Rabbi Wise, saying he has lied about the Holocaust and even if he hasn't he should shut up about it.

December 17 - Under great pressure from many groups, the Allied countries "officially condemn the Nazis 'bestial policy of cold-blooded extermination,' and swear to punish those responsible. Several anti-Semitic U.S. State Department officials try to block this condemnation. There is no mention of Jews in this or future declarations.

The media in the U.S. fails to publicize or discuss the Holocaust.

December 18 - The British ambassador to the Vatican again comments that the silence of the pope is "highly damning."

December 28 - Dr. Carl Clauberg initiates sterilization experiments on Jewish women at Auschwitz.

December 30 - Pope Pius XII says that he thinks the atrocity stories about Jews are exaggerations "for the purposes of propaganda."

December 31 - By this date, two million Jews have been murdered by the Germans in the death camps. Hundreds of thousands more have been murdered by various German military and police units.

The speed and efficacy by which the Nazis were able to identify, locate, arrest, and transport Jews to the extermination camps was due to the assistance of the American company, International Business Machines (IBM)!

Maybe, Possibly, Perhaps There Really Was a Sodom & Gomorrah

Trinity Southwest University is a fundamentalist Christian school located in Albuquerque, New Mexico. One of its purposes is to uphold the Bible as God's divine word to humans. It believes that the Bible is the final authority on any issue it "touches."

TSW is also into archaeology, big time; TSW seeks to prove "scientifically" that what the Bible says is true. Like a lot of fundamentalist operations, TSW praises the notion of "faith," but actively seeks scientific support for that faith.

Dr. Steven Collins is dean of the college of archaeology and biblical history at TSW. Collins has read Genesis. Collins believes that from his reading of Genesis 13, Sodom can be found at Tall al-Hammam in Jordan. "The Bible makes it very clear," says the dean, "Sodom is the largest Bronze Age city east of the Jordan River, north of the Dead Sea."

The Bible speaks of "Bronze Age" cities? I don't think so.

Collins, naturally, believes in the Bible and also believes that if only he could discover Sodom and Gomorrah, this would provide solid archaeological evidence that the historical information in Genesis is factual.

Well, not really. (See below)

Another archaeologist, Eric Cline from George Washington University, says that Collins is dreaming; that he has provided no "compelling archaeological evidence" regarding the location of Sodom and Gomorrah.

What's funny is that all these fundamentalist archaeologists are studying the biblical material microscopically to try to get some clues as to where these two cities might be found. One said that "the key to locating the Cities of the Plain [Sodom & Gomorrah] is an intricate analysis of the biblical text."

What's sad is that this is all unnecessary. Even if these determined diggers could provide conclusive proof they had discovered the sites that were the Sodom and Gomorrah of the Bible, that would say nothing about the accuracy of the bible. All it would say is that the author of the biblical tale of the two cities used real place names for his setting; kind of like Tom Clancy uses the name of the Washington, D.C., in his political pot-boilers.

More and more biblical scholars are coming to believe that the stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses - everything before King David - are essentially legendary. No external evidence has ever been found to support their historicity; none whatsoever! They are legends!

But clowns in khaki still spend their lives climbing up one mountain and down another seeking Noah's god-designed ark. And Dr. Collins will spend a few more years futilely digging around in Jordan for Sodom and Gomorrah.

Linking to God - Mathematically

The Templeton Foundation is an organization dedicated to religious research and to the hope of discovering a link between religion and science. Since 1973, the Templeton Foundation has given a prize for "Progress toward Research of Discoveries about Spiritual Realities."

The title of the prize should tell you what this is really all about. Interesting, too, is the fact that the Templeton Foundation adjusts its prize money annually so that is exceeds that of the Nobel Prize.

This year's prize of 820,000 pounds went to a Polish mathematician and "metaphysician" by name of Michael Heller. Heller, 72 years old, is also a priest, and was a good friend of the late Pope John Paul II.

It is claimed by the Templeton Foundation that Professor Heller has shows "how maths can offer circumstantial evidence of God's existence."

Well, sorry, but circumstantial evidence ain't gonna cut it. Evidence that is circumstantial rests on the bias of the believer. Circumstantial evidence of God's existence is no evidence whatsoever.

You can get a flavor of who Heller really is and what he is about in the comments made by the man who nominated him for the prize, Karol Musiol, Rector of the Jagiellonian University in Cracow. Musiol claims that Heller has "brought to science a sense of transcendent mystery and to religion a view of the universe through the broadly open eyes of science."

But science is not concerned with "transcendent mystery;" that belong to the sphere of religion. So, to claim that he's brought transcendent mystery to science is merely to say he's done nothing whatsoever.

Musiol went on to proclaim that Heller "has introduced a significant notion of theology of science. He has succeeded in showing that religion isolating itself from scientific insights is lame, and science failing to acknowledge other ways of understanding is blind."

Heller, who is a professor in the philosophy department of the Pontifical Academy of Theology, made a statement which is not only old hat but absolutely redundant. He tried to relate the cause of the universe to the cause of mathematical laws. "By doing so we are back in the great blueprint of God's thinking about the universe, the question on ultimate causality: why is there something rather than nothing?"

That's a theologian speaking, not a scientist. He is operating not in a scientific mode, but a theological mode.

Again, from Heller: "Science is but a collective effort of the human mind to read the mind of God from question marks out of which we and the world around us seem to be made."

I don't think so!

And again: "So long as the Universe had a beginning, we can suppose it had a creator."

No, we can't! And then you'd have to suppose a creator of the creator, etc., ad infinitum.

Finally, although his work is obtuse and difficult for a non-mathematician, it is summed up this way: Heller's theories "do not prove the existence of God, they may provide circumstantial evidence that He exists."

In other words, they prove nothing and this Templeton Award is much ado about nothing.

Going Gestapo Over Droopy Pants in Florida

[Photo is from the blog, BlackGivesBack]

One of the most difficult and terrifying problems facing the Florida state legislature these days is droopy pants!

Slip-sliding down the hips, the pants call to mind how Florida's economy is in the toilet and how Florida's school children are having a hard time evolving.

Never fear, however, as Florida's senators, taking a page from the Gestapo, have called for an end to this disgraceful and morally-abject behavior.

Believing that if one law is good for a state, then a million laws regulating a million modules of behavior, must be a million times better, Florida's senators have moved in that direction by outlawing droopy pants!

Now, you'd naturally assume that the author of this saggy, baggy legislation, would be a Republican. You'd be wrong. He's a simple-minded Democrat, by name of Gary Siplin, from Orlando. Maybe it's the Orlando connection - that's rapidly becoming the saggiest, baggiest city in Florida!

What Siplin objects to is the fact that the baggy pants fad derived from "rap artists after first appearing among prison inmates as a signal they were looking for sex." And he thinks it is his job to force Florida's kids to look good as it will "help students get jobs and a degree."

Is that part of the job description for a Florida senator?

Some cities in Florida, such as Riveria Beach, already have a baggy pants law. Repeat offenders who insist on showing off their buttocks can go to jail for 60 days!

Wonder what simple Siplin and his Gestapo mind will come up with next?

I think they should pass a law that would forbid girls from tattooing their stomachs. That's so distracting at the beach! Plus they might not be able to get a job as a lifeguard - especially at a Disney resort!

[I do think these drooping pants are truly idiotic and stupid. I don't think we need to outlaw them. Droopy pants were a fad in 1948. I know; my Levis drooped, too.]

Blessed Virgin Blindness

The Virgin Mary gets credit for lots of miraculous goings-on. Personally, I don't think she deserves any of it, as I've never seen a shred of evidence that 1) the VM existed, or 2) if she did exist, she was a virgin, or 3) if she did exist and was a virgin that she cured or helped anyone in anyway.

In fact, as this story shows, the VM can become a liability.

Seems that a rumor got started down in India, in the Kottayam area, that there was a miraculous image in the sky. The rumor started at the house of a hotelier in Erumli, close to where this divine image was said to have been seen.

The hotelier also claimed that VM statues in the house had been "crying honey and bleeding oils and perfumes."

The liability part of this story comes from the fact that a whole bunch of really stupid, gullible people went out and stared into the sun in the sky, looking for the Blessed Virgin. Almost 50 folks have had to be treated for sight-loss caused by photochemical burns on the retina.

When doctors and health officers told church leaders about this, the church leaders "disowned" the miracle.

Sadly, more stupid, gullible people continue to flock to the hotelier's house to stare up into the sky hoping to see an image of the VM.

They will end up not being able to see at all.

A Christian Church in Qatar

A Christian church in a Muslim country is a rarity.

Qatar has allowed a Christian Church to be built within its borders.

The Roman Catholic Church is known as Our Lady of the Rosary. To get to it requires a 15-minute drive into the desert. It has no cross, no bell and no steeple.

The pastor and parishioners would prefer that no one knows about it. "The idea is to be discreet because we don't want to inflame any sensitivities," said Father Tom Veneracion. "There isn't even a signboard outside the church."

Up until five years ago, Catholics in Qatar had to meet "underground" Then the emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, gave five denominations permission to open churches.

All is not well in the sands of Qatar, however. Qatar is a Wahhabi Muslim country, and some feel that the church is an "offense." A well-known politician has even asked for a national referendum to determine whether the church stays or goes.

A reporter for the Al-Arab newspaper wrote that "The cross should not be raised in the sky of Qatar, nor should bells toll in Doha."

But, a former dean of the Islamic law school disagrees, saying that "places of worship for various religions is a fundamental human right guaranteed by Islam."

Saudi Arabia, the strong ally of the United States, remains the only Gulf state to ban churches.

It's kind of amazing how, with Bush and company, oil makes stronger bedfellows than does democracy or human rights.

The Holocaust Journal (Lest We Forget) - Germany 1942 (III)

Germany 1942 (III)

In the month of August, 1942, when most people should be vacationing -- enjoying the mountains or the beaches -- the Nazis murdered 400,000 Jews.

The U.S., Britain, and Germany agree to cooperate in the feeding of 2 1/2 million starving Greek civilians. The English send 35,000 tons of food per month after the Germans agree not to confiscate it. This feeding costs the Allies $30 million per annum.

The Allies do not, however, do anything to help the Jews in Europe!

August 1-12 - 81,000 Polish Jews are sent from Warsaw to the Treblinka death camp.

August 3 - Emanuel Ringelblum, a resident of the Warsaw ghetto, wrote a diary detailing life in the ghetto. On this date, the first part of the diary, hidden in ten tin cans and milk cans, is secretly buried by a Warsaw schoolteacher, Israel Lichtenstein.

August 4 - Jews are deported from Belgium for the first time. Throughout the country, however, non-Jewish families hide 25,000 Jews.

August 5 - In Radom, Poland, 600 elderly Jews along with young children are shot by the SS.

This daily slaughter will continue all through the rest of 1942, in every city and every country where the Germans have a presence.

August 8 - Edith Stein, a Catholic nun, is gassed at Auschwitz.

August 9 - 180 Jews of Mir, Belorussia, escape to the forests. Jews kill six German and Ukranian policemen at Kremenetes, Ukraine. A group of Jewish partisans capture and execute 44 German policemen at Derechin, Belorussia.

* August 10 - 30 - 50,000 Jews at Belzec are murdered. Swiss authorities refuse entry to 10,000 Jews on the grounds that Switzerland can accept only "political" refugees, not "racial" refugees. These 10,000 go to their deaths.

* August 13 - 27 - US and British officials decide to keep secret Riegner's cable outlining Nazi plans for the Holocaust.

[Often Jewish children were hidden inside Roman Catholic monasteries and convents. Too often, though, these children were refused unless they converted to Christianity. Father Bruno, a Belgian priest, risked his life to save several Jewish children.]

* August 28 - Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, president of the World Jewish Congress, finally receives Reigner's cable. He decides to keep it quiet until he can verify the information. In Paris, Catholic priests who have helped Jews are arrested.

* August 30 - French Bishop Pierre-Marie Theas writes to his parishes that all human beings are God's creation, Jews as well as Christians, and that all people deserve respect from governments and individuals.

Late summer of 1942 - An SS officer by name of Kurt Gertsein goes to the German papal nuncio to tell what he knows of the mass gassing of the Jews. He is turned away.

A Jewish congressman from New York, Emanuel Celler, proposes a bill to allow French Jews about to be deported to the East to immigrate to the U.S. The bill is killed by the House Committe on Immigration.

In France, as Jews are being deported to their deaths, the Vichy Minister of Information reminds the press they need to recall "the true teaching of Saint Thomas and the Popes ... the general and traditional teaching of the Catholic Church about the Jewish problem."

* September 12 - The German Sixth Army and Fourth Panzer Army arrived at Stalingrad, Russia.

* September 22 - French Protestant pastor Marc Boegner protests Jewish deportation and offers to have Jewish children adopted. Vichy France Premier Laval says the children must all leave France.

The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, was a rabid anti-Semite. After leading attacks against the British and Jews in Palestine and Iraq, he fled to Berlin. Hitler promised Husseini that when he conquered the Middle East, he would kill all the Jews. After the war, Husseini escaped a trial and was feted for years in Middle Eastern capitals.

* September 26 and 28 - German railway officials gather in Berlin to discuss obtaining more trains and track upgrades. With IBM's help they can send more Jews to death camps more quickly.

More tomorrow...

The Holocaust Journal (Lest We Forget) - Germany 1942 (II)

Germany - 1942 (II)

* June - The New York-based World Jewish Conference tells the world that the whole of Eastern Europe is becoming "a vast slaughterhouse for Jews."

23,000 Jews are gassed at Belzec and Sobibor.

In Sosnowiec, Poland, Germans enter Jewish hospitals, murder newborn babies, and tear patients from operating tables.

In Dabrowa Tarnowska, Poland, Rabbi Isaac gathers with a group of Jews in a Jewish cemetery. They hold hands, dance, and drink "to life." Their Nazi captors are enraged and shoot and disembowel all of them.

The above events are typical of daily events in Europe during 1942.

The items below are but a minute sample of Holocaust-related events in 1942.

* June 1 - 6 - The British Broadcasting Company reports that about 700,000 Jews have been killed by the Nazis.

* June 3 - There is a Jewish revolt in Breslau, Germany.

* June 4 - Heydrich dies of blood poisoning from his wounds. The United States declares war on Romania.

* June 8 - In Pilica, Poland, the Jewish Council urges every able-bodied Jew to run and hide in the nearby forests.

* June 12 - Anne Frank turns 13.

* June 19 - Jews in Glebokie, Belorussia stage a revolt. The Nazis take 2500 of them to the forest and kill them.

* June 28 - The Germans begin their summer offensive in Russia.

* June 29 - In Slonim, Belorussia, Jews launch an armed resistance. It fails and the Germans burn almost 15,000 Jews to death.

* June 30 - The London Daily Telegraph prints this headline: "More Than 1,000,000 Jews Killed in Europe."

* June - July - Articles appearing in The New York Times emphasize Christian victims of the Nazis, rather than Jewish victims, even though the number of Christian victims was very small compared to the number of Jewish victims.

* July 2 - Great Britain and the U.S. agree to invade North Africa.

* July 6 - Anne Frank and family go into hiding in Amsterdam.

* July 10 - 100 women at Auschwitz are chosen for sterilization experiments.

The rest of 1942 continues with the murder of Jews. On the last day of the year, the Family Hostage Law was announced in Occupied France. This law said that the male relatives of fugitive "terrorists" who did not surrender to the German authorities would be killed, female relatives would be transferred to work camps and their children would be sent to political reeducation schools.

Notice how the word "terrorist" is used by the Nazis to define someone opposed to their regime!

The Holocaust, for many Jews, meant the death of God. There can be no God in light of the horrors of the Holocaust. And if there were a God, he would not be worth worshipping.

Rabbi Irving Greenberg though it was futile to argue about the nature of God in the presence of a burning child; the only thing a person could do is jump in the fire and pull him out.

Rabbi Emil Fackenheim found a new commandment: Jewish survival.

Rabbi Yitzhak Missenbaum said Jews in the Warsaw ghetto should do everything they could to save their lives.

More tomorrow...

David Vitter & the Traditional Values Coalition

Isn't David Vitter that Republican senator from Louisiana who was found to be consorting with prostitutes on a regular basis?

Oh, that's right, he denied he'd been involved with prostitutes in New Orleans, even though the former madam of a New Orleans whorehouse said he was a client in the 1990s.

Ah, but there's more. It appears that Senator Vitter also patronized a prostitute in the French Quarter in the late 1990s. He denies that too, of course.

He did not, however, deny that he was involved with an escort service in Washington that the feds say was a prostitution ring. He apologized though and said God and his wife had forgiven him.

Unlike the governor of New York, Vitter did not resign and is still a U.S. senator.

Senator Vitter is, as you could probably guess, a truly fine Christian gentleman who constantly looks after the welfare of the less fortunate in our country. Even the hookers said so.

That's why Senator Vitter has sponsored an amendment to a bill being considered in the U.S. Senate called the Indian Health Care Improvement Act.

Vitter's amendment would deny funding of abortions with federal monies from Indian Health Services funds, "except to save the life of the mother or in cases of rape or incest of a minor."

Vitter's concern here comes through. He certainly doesn't think sacred federal money should be used to help an Indian woman have a clean abortion with a real doctor in a real hospital. Let her find some quack in a back alley!

Senator Vitter and his amendment are strongly supported by the Traditional Values Coalition. The TVC is one of the strongest anti-gay groups in the country and promotes an ongoing vicious campaign against homosexuals and all persons perceived as "liberals."

I wonder if TVC would support Senator Vitter if he was a homosexual instead of a heterosexual serial adulterer?

Florida Is Unevolving

Two Republican representatives in Florida's house are co-sponsoring an "academic freedom" bill which would give Florida science teachers and students the right "to discuss, without fear of punishment, 'the full range' of problems and ideas surrounding Darwin's theory."

When will these religious fruitcakes quit?

Religion! In spite of their protests to the contrary, that's what it's all about, religion!

And now Florida's Christian creationists have an ally in Ben Stein, [TV host and former Nixon speech writer] who has made a documentary called "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," which challenges mainstream science. This documentary, which Stein has shown to Florida lawmakers, is part of the assault on evolution by the Christian right.

The Miami Herald says that "Trailers show images of Hitler when Stein talks about evolution supporters, and the documentary clearly presents Stein's arguments in religious terms."

Is Stein saying that evolutionists are somehow connected to Hitler or Nazism?

Furthermore, some mainstream scientists who appear in the film say they were misled by Stein as to film's purpose.

An Orlando film critic who saw a pre-screening at a mega-church, "trashed [it] as propaganda."

It's just amazing how these Neanderthals will not let go. The two representatives sponsoring this "academic freedom" bill are Alan Hays, a Republican representative from Umatilla, and Ronda Storms, a Republican senator from Brandon. Hays said "I want a balanced policy. I want students taught how to think, not what to think. There are problems with evolution. Have you ever seen a half-monkey, half human?"

That will give you a idea of how ignorant this guy is. And he's also a liar. He doesn't give a rat's ass about "balance." He's about providing a religious view of creation based upon a literal interpretation of the Bible.

I wish these SOBs would at least be honest!

Howard Simon, the head of Florida's ACLU is right on when he says, "It's not as benign as it sounds. It gives cover to teach religion in science classrooms as long as it's presented as science. All they have to do is talk about Creation Science, or the science of Intelligent Design."

Maybe we could round up all these Christian rightists who wish to live in some previous century and send them on a one-way trip to a remote island where they could set up their Christian country, run it according to God's will, and teach Creation Science (an oxymoron if there ever was one!) to their heart's content.

Hah! That would last about one day and then they'd start killing each other for heresy!

Unending Racism

[Photo - Steve Cohen, 9th Cong. Dist., Memphis, TN]

In recent weeks, racists have renewed their attacks on Barack Obama. These attacks will no doubt continue and increase in quantity and vileness.

One might think that victims of racism would be especially careful to refrain from racist comments or sentiments, themselves. That is not always true.

The 9th Congressional District in Memphis, Tennessee is represented by Steve Cohen, a Democrat.

About a month ago, a pastor by name of George Brooks, from Murfreesboro, Tennessee sent out a flier that circulated in the Memphis area which said "Steve Cohen and the Jews hate Jesus," among other things.

Brooks claimed he did this because the 9th Congressional District is "about 90-something percent black." [Actually, the last U.S. census showed the district to be 59.7 percent black.] Whatever the percentage, Brooks obviously assumes that a white person cannot effectively represent the 9th Congressional District.

Why he should care, living outside of the district in Murfreesboro, is another question.

Cohen will be challenged by an African-American labor lawyer, Nikki Tinker, in the Democratic primary on August 5. Tinker's spokesman in Washington insisted that Tinker had nothing to do with the flier.

Cohen had to face a similar smear attempt based on his religion and race in a previous campaign, but he said "the people of the 9th District rejected that and gave me overwhelming support."

It ain't over yet, though. Feelings run deep as shown last August when the Black Baptist Ministerial Association expressed anger at Cohen's vote in favor of the Hate Crimes bill. When Cohen met with the group, one of the ministers, Robert Poindexter of Mt. Moriah Baptist Church, said "He's not black and he can't represent me."

Now that's clearly out-and-out racism. And it's a sad commentary on the Christianity of one Robert Poindexter.

Is There An Eavesdropper in the House?

In Washington, D.C. the House of Representatives, under the leadership of Nancy Pelosi, met late at night behind closed doors.

The House planned to debate "classified intelligence gathering" before they voted on a "warrantless eavesdropping bill."

So, they met in secret. The first time in 25 years.

The Bushites wanted the House to accept the Senate's bill. That's because the Senate has too many spineless members who obeyed Bush and agreed to exempt from lawsuits the telecom companies that cooperated with Bush in his illegal eavesdropping.

Isn't it fascinating that the House felt they had to meet secretly, behind closed doors, to consider a bill to allow the prez and his cronies to illegally eavesdrop on American citizens?

Were they afraid someone would eavesdrop on them?

They should have been. It's likely that every "security" agency in the U.S. government heard every word that was said. There were probably more secret microphones hidden in the halls of Congress than there are secret sexual shenanigans of the Congresspersons.

Bush said if the House doesn't do what he wants, he'll veto the bill. Sadly, I don't think there are enough House members who believe in the Constitution to override his veto.

Update: The House passed the bill and Bush has pen in hand to veto it. Of course, it was just as we thought; everybody in Washington knew the bill had passed before Bush did. They were eavesdropping without warrants!

Bush Cheats Again

It's no secret that, on numerous occasions, the Bush administration has ordered scientists to modify their findings to fall in line with Bushite political theology.

What with all the publicity of such duplicity, you'd think the White House would give it up.

But, no!

One truly bothersome thing about Bush and his friends is the way, consciously or unconsciously, they borrow stuff from the Nazi playbook.

Now, obviously, they're not gassing Jews, but they're not above taking their perceived "enemies" on planes to countries where gassing Jews would probably not be a problem; countries that are not bound by the U.S. Constitution; countries where the vilest tortures are considered fair play.

I got off topic a bit there.

I was going to say that the Bushites have learned a very important lesson from the Hitlerites and that is, lie, lie, lie. Lie openly, lie publicly, lie over and over again. Pretty soon, people will either believe the lies or they will get so tired of hearing them, they'll ignore them.

Here's how it works: Scientists study, conclude, write reports. The Bush people don't like what the scientists write, so tell them to do a re-write. The amended reports are then presented to the country as "fact." Nothing is said as to the White House adulteration of these reports.

Now it has happened again. Ironically, it has happened to the EPA, which usually bows down and marches off to whatever tune Bush is playing at the moment.

The Environmental Protection Agency was prepared to set out its latest smog requirements when Bush intervened at the last minute. The changes were "directed by the White House."

At this point, I'm not concerned about the issues involved - whether the public welfare smog emission standards should be stronger, weaker or the same as the public health standards.
What I am concerned about is a president who insists on playing politics with issues of great importance to human life.

For Mr. Bush, truth is not important, but rather that science fall in line with his theological/political views and that his corporate bedfellows continue to make enormous profits.

The clean air director of the Natural Resources Defense Council said "Never before has a president personally intervened at the 11th hour, exercising political power at the expense of law and science, to force EPA to accept weaker air quality standards than the agency chief's expert scientific judgment had led him to adopt. It is unprecedented and an unlawful act of political interference."

That is true. Unfortunately, it's just another day in the Bush White House where truth and justice take a back seat to political and/or theological machinations.

Russian Army Garage Sale

The United States doesn't scrimp when it comes to military spending. That doesn't mean the money given to the military is spent wisely, it just means they get a lot to throw at various projects and problems.

The U.S. Federal Budget for the 2009 fiscal year amounts to $2,650 billion. The military gets the lion's share - 54%; which leaves 46% for all non-military expenditures.

Is this a great country, or what?

Reagan liked to pontificate by repeating that stupid statement that "Government is not the solution, government is the problem." Actually, he was totally wrong about that as he was totally wrong about most things. We can't get along with government. The problem is not government but the people running the government.

Bush. Cheney. Republicans. Big problem.

A peace-loving country that spends over 50% of its money on the military has a big problem.

In Russia, they do things differently. They have allocated about 15-18 percent of their total budget for military expenditures. The year, 2008 will see a 20% increase in military spending over 2007, but the military's cut of the country's budget will remain at 15.5 - 16%.

That has implications for the Russian army. There's not enough money to operate efficiently.

So, the Russian army plans to auction off some of the property that it owns - "fabulous mansions, guest houses, dilapidated garrison towns, unused shooting ranges and vast tracts of neglected land, on which no human has set foot for years."

Monies raised from this mammoth garage sale will go to provide housing for army officers, some of which have been on waiting lists for a long, long time.

Whether this plan will actually work is questionable. One army officer said "I didn't know the army had anything left to sell. I thought it had all been stolen long ago."


All of this made me think that perhaps we should cut back the amount of money allocated to our military each year. Maybe there are things they could sell to raise funds, and they wouldn't need so much from the budget.

They could conduct a U.S. Military Garage Sale - wait, I think they already do that and end up giving away all kinds of stuff to countries that later turn around and use it against us. That won't work.

Well, let's just cut their budget and see what happens. Maybe if they didn't get so much money they wouldn't buy $20,000 toilets or $9,000 hammers.

Aw heck. That wouldn't work, either. They'd still buy those toilets and those hammers, because the folks who make those toilets and hammers are good friends of the high and mighty poohbahs who inhabit the hallowed halls of Congress and the White House.

I Don't Believe in Father Timothy Radcliffe, Either

Father Timothy Radcliffe is considered by some to be England's "leading Roman Catholic monk," whatever that means.

Radcliffe used to be the chief poohbah for the Dominicans, but now is "an itinerant preacher" and author, and some think he will be named to succeed Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Conner as Archbishop of Westminster when the good Cardinal retires.

Radcliffe doesn't think much of today's atheists. He accuses Richard Dawkins, the brilliant British scientist, of "being stuck in the 19th century."

Radcliffe says the biggest problem facing the church today has nothing to do with Dawkins, or atheism, but rather is the need to restore hope in the young. Our world, he claims, is configured by a loss of hope. "It is tempting for people to see no way forward. The two main stories the young encounter are the 'war on terror' and ecological disaster."

Our youth are afraid of the future, for themselves and for their children.

Atheists, according to Radcliffe, had some influence in the 19th century, but they're old hat, now. That's because they have nothing to say to people looking for hope for the future.

"People have seen in many parts of the world, particularly China and the Soviet Union, what the effects are of trying to live in a world without God."

I think Mr. Dawkins would have fun with that one. It would behoove the Rev. Radcliffe to shut his mouth when he doesn't know what he's talking about.

We haven't been living in a world without god, we've been living in a world where god reigns! Hitler was a Catholic, one of Radcliffe's own, right up to the end, and he went to church and prayed and saw what he was doing as fulfillment of God's mission.

Stalin came out of an Orthodox background.

The events of 9/11 were carried out by strong believers in god. They were certain they also were doing the will of god. They knew they would be rewarded in heaven for killing so many infidels at once and striking such a profound blow in the heart of the Great Satan.

The war in Iraq was instigated by a man who has a personal relationship with god. It is such a close relationship that god tells him what to do. The war in Iraq was one of god's instructions to George W. Bush.

Now, George is getting more instructions from god about striking Iran nuclearly. Some of that is coming through god's mouthpieces, like John Hagee and the creep from Ohio, Rod Parsley, but it's from god nontheless.

And then, we have the problem of priestly abuse - a horrific scenario that has infested almost every nook and cranny of soon-to-be Archbishop Radcliffe's church! Were not these priests and nuns all believers in god?

A final example has to do with the environment. Whole bunches of religious fanatics, true believers in god refuse to believe that the environment is in trouble. Furthermore, even if it is, it doesn't matter because their belief in god includes the belief that his son is coming back soon to save the faithful and that will mean the end of the world, so why worry about things like environmental degradation?

Don't tell us that Dawkins is so 19th-century, Father Radcliffe. That won't wash.

The truth is the the Roman Catholic Church has never really moved out of the 15th century, and even as this is written is slithering back out of its forlorn place in the 21st century - witness the move to reinstate the Latin mass.

Too often, contrary to what the monk thinks, the problem has not been the absence of god, but the presence of god.

I Don't Believe in Chris Hedges

Chris Hedges is a writer, a foreign correspondent and formerly the Middle East bureau chief for the New York Times.

He has now written a piece called "I Don't Believe in Atheists," which Salon says is "charmingly titled."

Please.

Hedges has decided, being the son of a Presbyterian minister and a hard-headed foreign correspondent and all, that the people he calls the "new atheists," such as Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, are "preaching a fundamentalism as dangerous as the religious fundamentalist belief systems they attack."

I think Hedges is full of you-know-what.

The "secular left" says Hedges, has embraced "the same kind of bigotry and chauvinism and intolerance that marks the Christian right." These leftist seculars, claims Hedges, are "little more than secular fundamentalists."

What exactly does that mean? Well, Hedges would have us believe that the secular leftists - these "new atheists" - have adopted "many of the foundational belief systems of fundamentalists." They believe that human beings are moving forward to some kind of a better society, which is what fundamentalists believe.

Baloney. Hedges gives no examples. I've read all of these men and none believe that humans are gradually getting better and better. I don't think religious fundamentalists believe that, either. Most of them preach just the opposite - gloom and doom: We're going downhill fast, and they point specifically to gay marriage, and abortion, and the lack of Christianity in the government. In fact, they suggest that because we are moving away from God, becoming more evil, God's gonna get us! Some think things are so bad that Armageddon is just around the corner.

Hedges says the Holocaust was the result of a fascist Utopian agenda; it adopted the "cult of science," whatever that means. Then he says that "the New Atheists also make that leap from science into the cult of science, and that's a problem." Is he trying somehow to equate the thinking of the New Atheists with the thinking of the Nazis?

But , exactly how the New Atheists have done that, Hedges doesn't say.

Hedges thinks that it can be dangerous not to believe in sin, and accuses the New Atheists of doing just that. He says they think evil can be eradicated. He says they defend torture. He says that Hitchens is amoral, and Harris is "just intellectually shallow."

It seems to me, however, that Hedges claims a number of things for which he offers no substantiation, and makes all sorts of claims which are either not true or are simply exaggerated.

But the big problem is that nobody cares what Hedges thinks and that makes him angry.

He complained that when he debated Sam Harris at UCLA, the 1500 people present came to the debate liking Sam Harris and left liking Sam Harris. He was pissed.

"I don't think that they heard a word I said, and it's just insulting."

Or maybe they heard quite clearly what he said and came to the same conclusion I did: Hedges is full of horse shit!