The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention

[Photo of Dr. Richard Land, SBC Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission]

It is a dismal truth that fundamentalist Christians just don't get it. Having developed a convoluted theological mishmash of beliefs, they struggle constantly to twist their bibles to confirm those beliefs.

The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, headed by the notorious Dr. Richard Land, is a good example of a form of Christianity going off the rails. For example, the Commission has this to say about science:

"Does science supersede the teachings of Scripture? No. In reality Scripture is in harmony with, and instructive to, science. No finding of science has ever debunked the Truth of God's Word. Scripture is authoritative on all matters in life, including science. Most conflicts between scientific and religious faith arise when observable and quantifiable findings give way to conjecture and speculation. A proper perspective on the relationship between Christian faith and science leads to a healthy and ethical application of the findings of science in critically important fields, such as biology and the other life sciences."

Blah, blah, blah. Scripture is instructive to science? Please. Science debunks scripture constantly and in multitudinous ways. One biggie, for example, is that archaeologists have come to the conclusion that there is absolutely no evidence for most of the people and events we thought "historical" in the Hebrew Bible. In fact there is no extra-biblical evidence of any kind for any of the biblical heroes -- Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Saul, David, Solomon...not historical! Good stories, though, with some theological and philosophical insights, but none of them were real, live, human beings.

Of course, you can deny archaeological findings just as you can believe in any particular fairy tale you wish, as does this SBC Commission.


Let's see how the views of the SBC Commission work out in practice. The huge majority of scientists the world over (99%?) are convinced that climate change or global warming is a problem of immense magnitude that calls for immediate and drastic action if we are to continue to live on a viable planet.

The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, reading from their bible, disagrees. The Commission has teamed up with the "climate change denier," Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), to fight a bill which would call for drastic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

The ERLC believes that the threat of "cataclysmic global warming" is "unfounded."

Thus, they've joined a campaign called "We Get It," which purports to oppose climate change legislation out of concern for the poor (cutting greenhouse gas emissions will make food and fuel more expensive).

The ERLC says this is all about taking a "biblical, fact-based approach to global warming."


The Commission is also supporting a new rule proposed by the Bush administration that would allow medical institutions and doctors to refuse to "participate in abortion and other medical procedures to which they object on moral or religious grounds."

The Department of Health and Human Services, headed by the ultra-conservative wingnut, Mike Leavitt, issued the regulation on August 21. Leavitt said that "Doctors and other health-care providers should not be forced to choose between good professional standing and violating their conscience."

Richard Land was ecstatic: "The Bush administration and the Department of Health and Human Services are to be applauded for taking important steps to protect the freedom of conscience of physicians and other health-care providers in the United States who find the wholesale termination of the lives of our preborn citizens to be unconscionable and reprehensible."

Science versus Southern Baptist religion. Hmmm. I wonder what Dr. Land would say if I were a noted oncologist and he came to me for treatment of a tumor, and I refused to treat him because my bible says that Southern Baptist leaders are reprehensible and odiferous billy goats?

Anyway, he probably brought on the tumor by spending so much time fighting good science with biblical tripe.


What is the most important concern and the most pressing need of our country as determined by the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission?

"...we are in desperate need of a great movement of God among His people and across the farthest stretches of our land, including the corridors of Washington, D.C."

What they mean by that, of course, is that everyone should adopt their peculiar fundamentalist understanding of scripture and their peculiar hide-bound fundamentalist Christian theology.

They plan to meet this "desperate need" by holding prayer meetings! They've established something called "40/40 Prayer Vigil for Spiritual Revival and National Renewal." It will involved "40 days of prayer from Sept. 24 to Nov. 2, culminating in 40 hours of around-the-clock intercession during the last three days."

It seems that the fundys love to pray because then they can pretend they're actually doing something of value. And I love that around-the-clock stuff, as if really intense praying by bunches of folks will better manipulate their skygod into doing what he/she should have done in the first place. What kind of god needs this type of manipulation? What kind of god fails to take action when "need" arises?

Dr. Land and the Commission believes that all this prayer is needed so that our country meets the conditions laid down by god in 2 Chronicles 7:13-14: "If...My people who care called by My name humble themselves, pray and seek My face, and turn from their evil ways, then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land."

Dr. Land and the ERLC want a revival so that god will "pour out His blessings on America once again."

When did god pour out his blessings on America in the past? Fundys always talk about some kind of a golden past, but I'm not quite sure when this was? Maybe it's all a dream?

Another rather important question: Why is it when the fundys talk about "revival" and nation-blessing they never quote from Jesus, but always from some ancient Hebrew scripture? That seems strange because they preach constantly that the New Testament has superseded the Old Testament and that Jesus has, through his sacrifice, taken away the need to obey the Law.

I think I know the answer. Jesus never talked about what they think is so important! Yikes!

Teaching evolution in Florida's schools

[Photo is a 65-million year old Triceratop's skeleton]

What does a science teacher do when the school year begins and he's greeted by a phalanx of kiddos raised in fundamentalist Christian homes and fundamentalist Christian churches, who have already been programmed to believe every single word of the bible (King James Version, usually) is literally true?

The science teacher is supposed to teach evolution to these know-it-all youth who are convinced that the biblical creation story is an historical event, and literally true in all of its parts. These are children who have been trained by ignoramuses who do not even realize that Genesis, chapters one and two, contains dual "creation" stories which rest side by side, yet contradict each other on significant points. Even worse, they remain ignorant of the fact that these stories were never meant to be taken "literally," but are merely two of many "creation" tales in the Hebrew Bible, all of which were written in praise of God for birthing the world - not for the methods he used!

Raised to put their faith in Creationism (at the risk of their immortal souls), these kids "often arrive at school fearing that evolution, and perhaps science itself is hostile to their faith.."

As Amy Harmon notes, in a New York Times article, a certain number of these kids "come armed with 'Ten questions to ask your biology teacher about evolution,' a document circulated on the Web that highlights supposed weaknesses in evolutionary theory. Others scrawl their opposition on homework assignments. Many just tune out."


If people want to believe the unadulterated crap that is creationism, that is their right. But in a public educational system, we try to teach the latest facts, even if they collide with certain religious beliefs about an imaginary friend in the sky who put everything together, zippy-de-do-dah, in six days!

My advice to Florida's science teachers would be to simply grade these fundy students on how well they learn the material. Their religious orientation has no bearing on anything! And any "scrawled" opposing comments on homework assignments ahould automatically zero those assignments! If they "tune out," they fail the course.

Put that in your biblical pipe and smoke it!

Enough with worrying about phony religion and stupid nonsense like Creationism. If the little fundy kids don't like it they can go to a religious school where education is just another word for indoctrination!

And yes, dear ones, science is hostile to ignorance and superstition!

How Bush and Company are [not] protecting us or the environment

From Sierra magazine, September/October 2008, p. 21.

Managers at the Environmental Protection Agency have been ordered by the courts "to rewrite the 30-year-old federal standards for [lead] ... by September."

Scientists at the EPA indicate that "the federal limit on airborne lead should max out at 0.2 micrograms per cubic meter of air."

So what are the EPA managers proposing? You guessed it! They want to rewrite the standards to read 0.3 micrograms!

Lest you think this a minor detail, "...two new studies reveal the stakes: Lead-exposed children have smaller brains and are more likely to be arrested for violent crimes when they grow up."

But, hey, we wouldn't want to put Bush's corporate buddies under the gun, would we? I mean, what's a few kids compared to millions more in profits?


The Bush administration continues its attack on the environment with "A new federal regulation [that] makes it easier to build coal-fired power plants near national parks by changing how air-pollution levels are calculated. Instead of measuring a plant's peak emissions, regulators will now average them out over a year, thereby making emission spikes magically disappear. Staffers at both the EPA and the National Park Service say the new math will mean worsening air quality at national parks like Zion, Badlands, and the Great Smoky Mountains."

This has been the MO of the Bushites from day one. If you don't like the rules, change them. If you don't like the way things add up, devise a new system of calculation.


I'd never heard of perchlorate. If you said the name, I'd probably think you were talking about a fish! "Perchlorate," however, "[is] a toxic component of rocket fuel, [and] has been found in drinking water in 35 states as well as in most lettuce and milk. Researchers report that even low does of the contaminant disrupt thyroid function and impede fetal development."

That's terrible, you say. It gets worse! "...in May the EPA announced that there is a 'distinct possbility' the agency will decide not to regulate it." But you knew that.

Congress is looking at the problem and may force the EPA to set a standard sometime within the next year. Uh uh.


The other method the Bushites use to get their way is to talk out of both side of their mouth, or say one thing and do the other, thinking that most of us won't notice. Most of us don't!

Here's an example. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has announced a $489 million "recovery plan for the northern spotted owl that aims to restore its populations in Oregon, Washington, and California over the next 30 years."

Sounds good, right?

Not so fast. "...instead of protecting the bird's old-growth and mature forest habitat from logging, the plan focuses on secondary threats like wildfires and competition from the barred owl, potentially allowing more logging."

Guess who's in charge of all this? Dick Kempthorne, a Bush crony and old logging proponent! This is the same guy who, when governor of Idaho, received a lifetime score of 1% from the League of Conservation Voters!

In Alabama they prayed and the rain came!

You may recall this story. Alabama was in the middle of a severe drought. Crops were withering in the fields and lakes were drying up. What do do?

Governor Bob Riley, a Southern Baptist and "evangelical" Christian, decided the most important thing was to get all the people praying to their skygod to send rain. Why this was necessary when their skygod is all-knowing and all-powerful, is a conundrum. It is also not known whether they considered the possibility that their skygod was punishing Alabama for one reason or another by withholding rain.

Nevertheless, Riley proclaimed "Days of Prayer for Rain." This proclamation set "aside the eight days beginning last Saturday as a time to pray for rain."

Well, holy crap! Would you believe that it started to rain - a little? For two days. Saturday and Sunday. Then it stopped. Except for some drizzles.

The state climatologist, John Christy, was asked if the rain was an answer to prayer. He said he didn't know. "That's something ... the science part of our lives won't be able to answer." They did pray for rain on Sunday at the church Christy attends, however.

Who knows? Jesus said rain falls on the just and unjust. Just not enough sometimes, or too much. In Florida, thousands of people have been praying to their skygod to stop the rain. Hasn't happened yet. Lots of folks are swimming to work. The ones who didn't find their homes destroyed by flooding.

This prayer stuff sure gets confusing. Oh, Alabama did not get enough rain to end the drought. Maybe the skygod was just funning with them?

James "Brother Jim" Giles

James "Brother Jim" Giles is just one more traveling evangelist fruitcake, but his particular mission is to convert the heathen attending our state universities. State universities, as you know, contain a higher proportion of heathen than just about any other institution in our country, except for the Republican Party! He is a Pentecostal, naturally, but seems to unaffiliated with any particular church.

For years, he has been appearing on university campuses, ranting to students stupid enough to listen to him about how badly they need Jesus. At the University of Georgia a few years ago, he handed out a tract which you can read here.

Poor Jim. He's had a hard life. He started drinking and using drugs early on and fell victim to unbridled sexual lust, and then was sucked into the evil world of "rock-n-roll. That was his downfall. He found Jesus at a Van Halen concert. It was a revelation from on high!

"Right there in the middle of the concert I cried out to God, 'What must I do to be saved?' It was at that moment that God, by his grace and mercy, showed me the ONLY WAY off Hell's Highway. The alternate route from sin to him as to R-E-P-E-N-T and B-E-L-I-E-V-E the Gospel!"

So, he did. Kinda like St. Paul.

Now, also like St. Paul, he wanders about the country preaching this good news that saved him from a life of wretchedness to university students.

The trouble is that some colleges don't want him around. Their students follow a variety of religions or none at all and Brother Jim is a major pain in the ass! When it comes to Brother Jim, no news is good news!

Last year, Brother Jim sued Murray State University in western Kentucky because the school rejected "his request to preach at a high-traffic student center." The rejection was based on the university's rule that speakers "must obtain on-campus sponsors."

So, Brother Jim lawsuit was not tossed because of his message [as many Christian wingnut media outlets portray it], but because he didn't follow the rules.

Federal judge Thomas Russell said Murray State's rule was legal; Brother Jim needs a sponsor.

Too bad, Brother Jim. But at least you can't harangue the students at Murray State anymore! As one of them said, can of Bud in hand, "Thank god for that!"

Obama, Biden, and the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission

The Christian Anti-Defamation Commission, run by Dr. Gary Cass, should be named The Christian Pro-Defamation Commission.

The CADC, along with other ultra-right Christian groups, is engaged in defaming the character and the religious beliefs of Barack Obama, and now, Obama's vice-presidential choice, Joe Biden.

Cass was previously the Executive Director of the late James Kennedy's kooky Center for Reclaiming America. Cass was ordained in the Presbyterian Church of America, which is the southern, fundamentalist version of the Presbyterian approach to Christianity. He is also rabidly anti-choice with regard to abortion and has worked in the past with the vicious organization known as Operation Rescue.

He believes that he is a "true" Christian and all those who believe differently than he does are "fake" Christians.

In a Media Advisory issued the other day by the CADC, Cass said that his organization was not happy with either Obama or McCain, but would consider supporting the one who chose a "true Christian" as a running mate.

Cass is not pleased at all with Joe Biden, as Joe Biden is not a "true" Christian: "Barack Obama's choice of Joe Biden sends a clear message, true Christians need not apply in the Democratic Party. Instead of picking a true Christian, Obama, a fake evangelical, has selected Biden, a fake Catholic. Biden is a liberal on social policy in defiance of Christian moral teaching. He has a 0% rating by National Right to Life and voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment.

"Now we are watching what McCain will do. Will he pick a pro-choice Republican or perhaps a moderate Mormon or a liberal Jew? I urge McCain to pick someone that conservative evangelicals and Catholics can support."


Fake Christian? Fake Catholic? Several biblical admonitions come to mind: Do not bear false witness against your neighbor! Do not judge other because how you judge others is how you will be judged. And I think the apostle Paul had a few things to say about the sin of pride!

I am constantly amazed at what crawls out of the sewers of fundamentalist Christianity! If Cass is a representative of god, who would want anything to do with that kind of deity?

How dare this clown claim to be a "true" Christian? This is exactly the kind of person that I think Jesus had in mind in the story which ends with the judge saying, "Get lost, I never knew you!" In that tale, Jesus reminds his followers that it isn't what you believe or what you say that matters but how you respond to those in need!

But do not take Mr. Cass lightly! He and millions of other "true" Christians are working day and night to turn the United States into their vision of what a "Christian" country should be. I can guarantee you wouldn't like it one little bit! The only difference between these "true" Christians and the Taliban is the name of their religion!

Nuclear power - going out with a bang or a whimper

[Photo is of cooling towers at French nuclear plant]


Nuclear power is all the rage. Lately.

Bush, McCain, Obama, Pelosi and numerous other political poohbahs have praised the possibilities of meeting our energy needs by going nuclear.

Nuclear bespeaks danger. Nuclear is not a topic for casual conversation. Going nuclear means we can go out with a bang, or we can go out with a whimper.

As more and more unstable regimes develop nuclear arsenals, the chance of going out with a bang increases exponentially. As more and more countries seek to go nuclear to satisfy their energy requirements, the chances of going out with a whimper rise in proportion to their number.

There is a new nuclear plant on track to be built in Levy County, Florida. Many people in the area are not happy about that.

According to an article by James Ridgeway, titled "4.5 Billion Years in Provence," energy companies are enthused about nuclear energy "especially when it is fueled by substantial government subsidies. In a country that hasn't broken ground on a new nuclear plant since the 1979 near-meltdown at Three Mile Island, on June 30 the US government's Energy Information Administration listed 19 license applications to build commercial nuclear reactors under review of anticipated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The number is expected to exceed 30 by the end of near year."

That's rather frightening in itself, but Ridgeway continues: "The NRC has hired 400 new staff to deal with the flood of applications, and 'streamlined' the process for siting, licensing, and constructing new nuclear plants."

I have big problems with the word "streamlined" in the same sentence with "siting, licensing, and constructing" ... we're talking about NUCLEAR plants! Living in north central Florida, I don't want them "streamlining" anything relative to the new plant in Levy County!


Ridgeway notes that many nuclear enthusiasts are looking to France for validation of their nuclear dreams. Even John McCain, who, not so long ago attacked France for opposing the war in Iraq, is now kissing that nation's ass, so to speak. McCain went to France last February and came back convinced that if the French can "generate 80% of their electricity with nuclear power," the U.S. can, too!


Ah...not so fast. Last month, there was "a leak from a cracked pipe at a nuclear fuel plant in the southeastern Drome region ... the leak was small and had not contaminated groundwater."

On July 7, that was not the case when "75 kilograms ... of untreated liquid uranium were spilled at the Tricastin nuclear plant in the Vaucluse, north Avignon." All persons located in that part of Provence were told not to drink, swim or fish in the water.

According to Mr. Ridgeway, "Incidences of radioactive contamination are common in France, which has had no more success than any other country in solving the intractable problem of radioactive waste. At the Tricastin site, for example, about 770 tons of nuclear waste have been buried for the past 30 years, and four smaller incidents took place in 2007 alone..."

Greenpeace, in 2006, found that contaminated groundwater threatened the Champagne vineyards of eastern France. And in Normandy, the "radioactivity was more than seven times the European safety limit in local underground aquifers, which are used by farmers for their dairy cattle in a region renowned for its Brie and Camembert."

Radioactive waste from spent fuel rods is a danger for 240,000 years! "Depleted uranium, the byproduct of the enrichment process, is even more robustly radioactive, with a half-life of 4.5 billion years."


This next comes in the "did you know?" category. Reprocessed plutonium is further along on the danger scale -- "and [is] far more easily utilized by terrorists." Nuclear waste is shipped "secretly" all over Europe. La Hague, where large amounts of "highly radioactive nuclear waste" are stored, is "an especially devastating target for a terrorist attack."

La Hague, and Sellafield, "its more notorious British counterpart ... releases low-level radioactive waste into the air and sea. Several studies have found elevated levels of childhood leukemia around the Normandy site."


Mr. Ridgeway continues to describe how "Areva--the French state-owned nuclear giant responsible for the waste sites in Normandy and Champagne, as well the two plants that had leaks this month--is positioned to take full advantage of the US nuclear revival."

Areva has already obtained "several major contracts to supply fuel to current US nuclear facilities, and signed on to build a $2 billion uranium enrichment plant in Idaho. ...

There's much more, including Ridgeway's observation that this push to go nuclear derives in part from Dick Cheney's 2001 (secret) Energy Task Force.

Follow the money and you'll find out who's benefiting from all of this -- many of which are closely-related to or involved in the Bush administration.

Ridgeway also notes that the French are rethinking their commitment to nuclear energy. "Anti-nuclear protests seem to be on the rise in France, against both new nuclear plants and the high-risk transportation of radioactive fueld and waste."


Is nuclear energy a necessity? Are there other options out there? Are those other options off the table because the Bush administration has already committed itself to the corporate pirates who will make out like the bandits they are in the surge to go nuclear?

When push comes to shove, we do NOT know yet all of the ramifications of going nuclear! We do KNOW that it's dangerous as hell and that accidents happen and that we might "accidentally" end up raising a generation of children, all of which suffer from maladies such as leukemia!

It appears likely that if we choose to go nuclear, we will go out, either with a bang, or with a whimper.

What should sane people do?


Please read the entire article by Mr. Ridgeway here.

Rudy Giuliani - Repugnican keynote speaker

[Photo of Rudy in drag]


It is official: Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, will be the keynote speaker at the Repugnican Convention.

Here's a laugh. The theme of the Convention is "Country First," and all four days will be dedicated to "service, reform, prosperity and peace."

How do these Repugnican hypocrites keep a straight face? And how in god's name can they continue to fool so many millions of Americans into thinking that the Repugnicans will best represent their interests? It's a conundrum!

It would appear that the theme of "Country First" comes from McCain and friends, or what's more likely, McCain stole it from the convention planners. You will recall, how, when asked to define patriotism at Saddleback, McCain said "country first."

Unfortunately, that's one hell of a poor way to define patriotism. One's country may have devolved into a war-mongering, fear-mongering, totalitarian state - much like the United States under the Bushites. Patriotism, in that instance, would not be "country first," but would better be defined as a re-dedication to the basic principles upon which the country was founded!

"Country first" as a definition of patriotism would be a much better fit in China that the U.S.!!

McCain, of course, is no intellectual, so he's lucky to chew gum and walk at the same time. Nevertheless, to say that "country first" is a good definition of patriotism is simply stupid -- UNLESS you are part and parcel of the would-be dictators who are running the country!

"Service? Reform? Prosperity? Peace?" My god, these are the very items that the Republican Party has made a mockery of. In the Republican playbook, service has been replaced by greed. Reform has been changed to institutionalized corruption. Prosperity? Well, look around at the price of gas, the steadily rising inflation, at all the people out of work, houses being foreclosed, the homeless wandering about with dazed looks on their faces. And peace? That's rich, as we used to say when I was young and innocent. Peace, according to the Republicans, means never-ending war. But it does make the weapons-makers rich.

Back to Rudy.

In 2006, the disgraced Ralph Reed, who had the unmitigated gall to run for governor of Georgia, invited Rudy Giuliani to be a keynote speaker for a campaign fundraiser at the Westin Buckhead in Atlanta.

This is what jhutson said about it all on talk2action:

"The religious right talks about adherence to high moral standards, and castigates politicians who do not adhere to its professed values - most of the time. But when it is expedient politically and financially, religious right leaders such as Ralph Reed like to cozy up to bigwig politicos, even those who wipe their feet on so-called issues like 'the sanctity of marriage.' ...

"Just how desperate does ... gubernatorial candidate Reed have to be to court and count on the support of a pro-choice, pro-gay, pro-gun control, divorced Catholic politician from New York who has confessed to having sex with his cousin on a regular basis over the course of 14 years?"

Hutson notes that Reed blasted a judge in Fulton County, Georgia for dishonoring the "sanctity of the institution of marriage' because he knocked down Georgia's gay marriage ban.

"Well," Hutson continues, "Does Reed's definition of sanctified marriage include a man and his third cousin? Well, what about a man who married his third cousin, Ms. Peruggi, then had the marriaged annulled after a brief 14 years as soon as he 'discovered' (in the midst of an adulterous affair with Ms. Hanover) that his wife was not his third cousin, but actually his second cousin? What about a man who has an annulment, marries his lover waiting in the wings, and then ends his second marriage with another adulterous affair?"


Now everything said so far about Reed's willingness to snuggle up to Giuliani could be said about the Repugnican Party as a whole and the Repugnican Convention in particular. Rudy, or as some call him - the "cross-dressing, 'blatant adultering cousin-fucker' (BACF) with a comb-over"- will be the keynote speaker for the Republican Convention.

And what do you say about a man who is denied the Sacrament of the Eucharist in his own religious institution because he flaunts the beliefs of that institution?

What do you say about a man who unabashedly uses his complete failure as mayor to protect the citizens of New York to promote himself at every opportunity?

You say "Keynote Speaker!"

How desperate are these Rupugnican hypocrites?

Joe Biden - man for the times

As everyone knows by now, Senator Barack Obama has selected Joseph Biden, U.S. Senator from the state of Delaware, to be his running mate.

Joe Biden is the right man. A member of the Senate since 1972, Biden serves as chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations. Previously, he has served as chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Biden, a Roman Catholic, brings wisdom and experience to the Obama campaign. Biden is a liberal, thank god, with a commitment of those liberal values that put people first. He believes the government is neither evil (as per Reagan), nor the conduit for siphoning the country's assets off to the rich (as per Bush and company). Rather the government is the organism by which the needs of the people are met and the opportunities to live in mutually supportive roles are provided.

In his position as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, Biden will be able to offer focus and insight to Senator Obama as together they take up the task of healing the wounds created by Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney and all the other neocons who saw the world, and specifically the Middle East, as a playground for their war games.

Biden - a great choice!

Susan Eisenhower backs Barack!

The granddaughter of the late Dwight D. Eisenhower, general of the U.S. Army and president of the United States, has decided to support Senator Barack Obama in this year's presidential election.

Her decision to leave the Republican Party did not come easy. But the reasons were compelling. Most had to do with the mess that Bush and the neocons have made of their opportunity to lead the nation.

Ms. Eisenhower says that "McCain and [the] Bush White House have learned little in the last five years. They mishandled what became a crisis in the Caucusus, and this has undermined U.S. national security. At the same time, the McCain camp appears to be comfortable with running an unworthy Karl Rove-style political campaign."

Then she asks the pertinent question: "Will the McCain operation, and its sponsors, do anything to win?"

Ms. Eisenhower expresses the concerns tearing at the hearts of millions of Americans. "We are disliked overseas and feel insecure at home. We watch as our federal budget hemorrhages red ink and our civil liberties are eroded. Crises in energy, health care and education threaten our way of life and our ability to compete internationally. There are also the issues of a costly, unpopular war; a long-neglected infrastructure, and an aging and increasingly needy population."

Today's Republican Party, says Ms. Eisenhower, has been "[H]ijacked by a relatively small few ... [and] bears no resemblance to Lincoln, Roosevelt or Eisenhower's party, or many of the other Republican administrations that came after. In my grandparent's time, the thrust of the party was rooted in: a respect for the constitution; the defense of civil liberties; a commitment to fiscal responsibility; the pursuit and stewardship of America's interests abroad; the use of multilateral international engagement and 'soft power'; the advancement of civil rights; investment in the infrastructure; environmental stewardship; the promotion of science and its discoveries; and a philosophical approach focused squarely on the future."

By so saying, of course, she implies clearly that today's Republican Party is devoid of all of those characteristics, an empty and vapid shell of its former self.

While I believe Ms. Eisenhower's view of "old" Republicanism is seen through too "rosy" glasses and also fails to consider how the rabid religious insanity of the Christian Right has impacted the Republican Party, she certainly lays out a view as to how things ought to be, a view which has been systematically rejected in every instance by Bush and company!

Ms. Eisenhower has announced her support for the candidacy of Senator Barack Obama. "I am convinced," she says, "that Barack Obama is the one presidential candidate today who can encourage ordinary Americans to stand straight again; he is a man who can salve our national wounds and both inspire and pursue genuine bipartisan cooperation. Just as important, Obama can assure the world and Americans that this great nation's impulses are still free, open, fair and broad-minded."


I couldn't have said it better myself!

(Some of the material for this essay was taken from a Washington Post article which you can read here.)

Wylie, Texas School Board - breaking the law for Jesus

[Photo is of the "Christian" community, Wylie, Texas]

I've told this story before, but it is applicable again. The junior high school attended by my youngest daughter in a Houston suburb included prayers to Jesus as part of their daily morning announcements. I protested to the principal, pointing out that such prayers were illegal and that I didn't wish my daughter exposed to them.

The principal basically told me to bug off. He didn't care if what he was doing was against the law or not. He would continue to praise Jesus in the morning.


Unscrewingtheinscrutable pointed me to another Texas story...this one from the town of Wylie, a little burg near Dallas/Ft. Worth.

"Imagine the surprise of the Wylie, TX School Board trustees when during a bond meeting, School board member Ralph James tried to begin the meeting with a recitation of ... The Lord's Prayer. He had got out 'Our Father...' when bond committee member Mikki Lewis stood up and said very loudly, 'Excuse me?'"

While Ms. Lewis' husband is a Roman Catholic, Ms. Lewis is Jewish. She said "...it wasn't on the agenda, and it surprised me. I wasn't there to pray or practice my religion."

The committee, wanting to play "fair," elected to hold a "moment of silence" rather than a prayer. That really didn't solve the problem for Ms. Lewis so she wrote to the superintendent in order to facilitate some sort of discussion as to the place of prayer at a School Board meeting.

The superintendent did not respond, but one of the School Board trustees, Sue Nicklas, did, and here's what she wrote, in part (read it and weep, you lovers of inclusiveness and our Constitution):

"I must share with you first and formost (sic) that there are many people who are praying for you. In ten years as a trustee of the Wylie school board, you're the first parent to complain about a prayer, and the very first person in my 68 years that has ever had the audasity (sic) to interrupt God and one of His children in prayer."

Ms. Nicklas also said that the agenda for school board meetings wasn't set by Ms. Lewis. "We are elected by the people ... in the community," said Ms. Nicklas. Furthermore, Wylie is a Christian community.

Therefore, said Ms. Nicklas, "You go with the culture and customs of the community."


We have done a mighty poor job teaching American history, civics, and the Constitution in the United States, for Ms. Nicklas is not unusual, but represents millions of people who consider themselves to be "patriotic" Americans while at the same time denying the fundamental principles upon which the nation was based. (These principles were NOT the Ten Commandments!)

As Brent Rasmussen put it to Ms. Nicklas at unscrewingtheinscrutable: "Christianity isn't 'more equal' than every other religion out there, and because of the First Amendment, U.S. citizens have a reasonable expectation that we won't be preached at by our elected officials. Quite frankly, no one gives a flying fudge sickle about your self-righteous proclamation about 'many people praying for' Mrs. Lewis. Jesus! How arrogant can a person get anyway?

"...Sue: You don't get to be 'more equal' than everyone else. You don't get to have the privilege of including your own personal wacky religious rituals in public meetings. Period. The end. Yes, yes, even if you have the wink-wink nod-nodded at it for 10 years. Just because you and your fellow Christian theocrats have been breaking the law for ten years does not magically make it legal."

I think that sorta says it all. Be aware, though, that what happened in Wylie happens all over our country every single day schools are in session.

It would probably be wise, therefore, that you're damn careful not to interrupt God and one of His children at prayer!

Rasmussen's entire article is here.

Dr. Berringer and the lying stones or beware of wanting too hard to believe

"Dr. Johann Bartholomew Adam Beringer (1667-1740) was a Senior Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Wurzburg in Germany. Like many physicians of the time, he cultivated an interest in natural history. In particular, he was intrigued by what was call the study of oryctics, or 'things dug from the earth.' Today we would call this the study of fossils, or paleontology."

In 1725, three boys he hired to scour nearby Mt. Eivelstadt and bring him any interesting things they found, turned up with three stones, one of which had "a stylized image of the sun," while the other two bore "images of worms."

As the months went boy, the boys brought him close to 2,000 stones on which were found images of plants, insects, bird, snails, astronomical objects, and even Hebrew letters. Dr. Beringer was not only interested in these items but puzzled. In 1726, he wrote a "treatise about the stones, in order to bring them to the attention of other scholars." That's a typically scientific approach to such a matter.

Much of Beringer's book mused on the origins of the stones; theories as to where they came from. He suggested maybe they were "relics of the Great Flood, or whether they were the product of 'the marvelous force of petrifying moisture.' He even wondered whether they were the work of man. For instance, could the stones 'be ascribed to the superstitious art of the heathen Germans?"

In the end, he decided there were too many of them to be man-made or part of a hoax. So, they had to be produced by nature. He just didn't know how.

"According to legend, just as the first copies of his book were rolling off the printing press, the boys presented Beringer with a final stone, one which had his own name carved in it. Finally, he realized that he had indeed been the victim of an elaborate hoax. Humiliated, and in a state of panic, Beringer frantically tried to buy up all the existing copies of the book."

Beringer had been fooled by two of his colleagues, a Professor of Geography, Algebra, and Analysis and a by the Privy Councillor and Librarian to the Court and the University.

He took them to court and won.

The two colleagues created this complicated and lengthy hoax because they hated Beringer for being "so arrogant" and acting like he "despised them all."

Beringer lived for 14 additional years, and wrote two more books. The hoaxers, however, did not fare so well. One died within four years and the other finally had to leave Wurzburg as a "cloud of dishonor" followed him around.


Here lies the lesson: Beware of "the danger of wantonly pursuing unsupported hypotheses."


[Most of the above was taken from an article at musuemhoaxes. You can read the entire story here.]

Father Jeremy Davies - an exercise in exorcistic futility

Thanks to PZ Myers at Pharyngula for pointing me to this.

Welcome to the Dark Ages!

Father Jeremy Davies is a 73-year old Roman Catholic priest "of Westminster, the leading diocese of the Catholic Church of England and Wales."

We may be living in the 21st Century, but Father Davies never made it out of the Dark Ages! The good reverend believes that "Promiscuity, as well as homosexuality and pornography ... is a form of sexual perversion and can lead to demonic possession."

Among the reasons for the "explosion of homosexuality in recent years," according to this clerical screwball, "is a contagious demonic factor."

Of course. Why didn't we discover this before?

But, this aging celibate ("an Oxford graduate who is also a qualified physician"), doesn't stop there. "Even heterosexual promiscuity is a perversion; and intercourse, which belongs in the sanctuary of married love, can become a pathway not only for disease but also for evil spirits."

We must warn our vulnerable young people about these dangers, cries Davies.

Part of the problem, too, is "that Satan is responsible for having blinded most secular humanists to the 'dehumanising effects of contraception and abortion and IVF, of homosexual "marriages,"' of human cloning and the vivisection of human embryos in scientific research. Extreme secular humanism, 'atheist scientism', is comparable to 'rational satanism' and these are leading Europe into a dangerous state of apostasy. "

Father Davies has even written a book.

Hopefully, no one will ever read it.

What could an old cleric who believes in demons, thinks that sexual intercourse is a "pathway" to "disease" and "evil spirits," who is convinced that homosexuality and pornography lead to demonic possession, who has faith in the notion that life begins when sperm meets egg and thus contraception is "dehumanising," possibly offer people living in the real world in the 21st century?

If you want to believe in demons, look to the comical Father Davies, for he really worries about "demonic" sex. And, as they say, the devil's in the details.

But that's just the opinion of some "rational satanists."

Read PZ Myers here, and more on Father Davies here. There's more on Davies' problem with Yoga here. Read about his "authoritative" tract on exorcism here.

Jindal and Jesus

Bobby Jindal, the ultra-right, wingnut Christian governor of Louisiana, loves Jesus and just knows that he's going to heaven because Jesus has saved him for all of his sins.

Well, here's a sin I don't think Jesus is going to overlook, and it has to do with demeaning God's creatures under the guise of "faith."

Jindal will NOT renew an anti-discrimination order generated by former Governor Kathleen Blanco. This order banned a variety of types of discrimination and harassment in all state offices, "including discrimination by race, sexual orientation and political affiliation." It expires today.

Jindal, who, as we said, loves Jesus and insists that his faith plays a major part of his day-to-day decision-making (I mean, he couldn't imagine going through a day without his god by his side), stated (with a straight face, no less!) that he won't renew the order because discrimination is already prohibited by state and federal laws and "he doesn't want to create additional special categories by executive order."

Okay.

But then we find out the real reason: Jindal was concerned that such an anti-discrimination order would create problems for faith-based organizations and their contracts with the state!

You wouldn't want to take away the right of a faith-based organization to discriminate, would you? I mean, most of these faith-based groups are of a fundamentalist Christian mindset and fundamentalist Christians just can't have non-believers or wrong-believers working for them as they do God's good work!

Hey, don't blame me. The people of Louisiana voted this fruitcake into office. (Want a sleepless night? Supposedly, he's on the short list for McCain's vice presidential running mate!)

Sheesh!

Iraqi troop pullout - so who's unpatriotic now?

Not so long ago, when Senator Obama stated his objective of removing all combat troops from Iraq within 16 months of his taking office, the White House and Same McCain went ballistic. My god, you'd think Obama didn't want to win the war, said McCain. Obama would rather run for president than win the war, said Surely McCaine. Obama is one unpatriotic SOB, implied the flip-flopper-in-chief!

Bush and the rest of the Repugnicans danced around on that same bandwagon, even insisting that when Iraqi PM, Nouri al-Maliki, went on record as approving Obama's plan that al-Maliki must have misspoke! He must not have understood what he was saying. He couldn't possibly agree with Obama! "He's our man!" cried the Bushites.

Oops! All those "patriotic," self-righteous Repugnican clowns are slowly chewing their words today. Turns out that the Iraqis and the Bushites are drawing up a plan to remove all U.S. fighting soldiers from major Iraqi cities (not the country) by next June.

What went wrong that the "patriots" have suddenly turned "unpatriotic," no longer demanding that the U.S. "win" the war? And what will McSame have to say?

Could it have something to do with an upcoming election, which involves an electorate increasing pissed off about the entire costly mess in Iraq and who just might vote Democratic if there isn't some sort of attempt to bring it to a close?

The whole deal could collapse, of course, as the Bush people are hammering in a number of "conditions," which include the stationing of U.S. combat troops in the countryside in an "overwatch" role. Not only so, but a number of Sunni Iraqis don't like the plan, mostly, it seems, because it was developed under a Shiite government, but also 'cause they don't like Bush or his crony, Condi Rice.

Also of note, is that while the Iraqis are insisting that there be NO permanent U.S. bases in their country when the troops leave, the Bushites have their own plan which calls for about 58 permanent bases!

You may find this fact of interest: Congress has not yet been "informed" of the plan and the Bush administration will not submit the agreement for formal approval.

Kings, as you know, do not ask permission from subordinates!

The McCains - challenged by the truth

This is also from John Avarosis at Americablog. It describes how "McCain lied about his wife Cindy meeting Mother Teresa."

John asks:

"How do you not remember, or remember when it didn't happen, that you met Mother Teresa? Even worse? How do you remember, incorrectly, that that is how you adopted your daughter? Here is what McCain's campaign Web site used to claim about his wife, Cindy:

"'Cindy led 55 medical missions to third world and war-torn countries during AVMT's seven years of existence. On one of those missions, Mother Teresa convinced Cindy to take two babies in need of medical attention to the United States. One of those babies is now their adopted daughter, 15-year old Bridget McCain.'"


Avarosis reveals that the story is not true. "Mrs. McCain, it turns out, never met Mother Teresa on that trip. (Once contacted by the Monitor, the campaign revised the story on its website.)"


There's more to the story of Cindy McCain's involvement with the American Voluntary Medical Team - her own charity. It's an old story now, but perhaps has some relationship to the McCain's penchant for avoiding the truth.

It was while working with AMVT that Ms. McCain became addicted to Percocet and Vicodin and stole those drugs from AMVT, her own nonprofit medical relief organization.

Tom Gosinski was hired by Cindy in 1991 and served as the director of government and international affairs for the AVMT. During the summer of 1992, he noticed that Cindy was acting erratically. "In his journal, he wrote that he and others suspected the boss was addicted to painkillers and might have been stealing them from the organization."

The July 27, 1992 entry in Gosinki's journal reads like this:

"I have always wondered why John McCain has done nothing to fix the problem. He must either not see that a problem exists or ... not choose to do anything about it. ... There is so much at risk: The welfare of the children; John's political career; the integrity of Hensley & Company ...

" ... During my short tenure at AVMT I have been surrounded by what on the surface appears to be the ultimate all-American family. In reality, I am working for a very sad, lonely woman whose marriage of convenience to a U.S. Senator has driven her to: distance herself from friends; cover feelings of despair with drugs; and replace lonely moments with self-indulgences."

Cindy fired Gosinksi in January of 1993 claiming "that AVMT was having financial problems and couldn't afford him."

John McCain seems to be devolving from a true American "hero," to a stuttering shadow of inanity, as his past rears its ugly head revealing a tragically-comic old man, involved in a race which, win or lose, will destroy the myth he has so carefully created and cultivated.

You can read the full story by Amy Silverman here. Avarosis' article at Americablog is here.

Ann Coulter, reputation killer for Krist

If you read the Bible as literature, you understand that it is a collection of stories, tales, and sagas which metaphorically tell the same basic story over and over again: What humans see as "good," is not what God sees as "good," and therein lies the dilemma explicated in legends and myths throughout the "good book," beginning with the myth of Adam and Eve.

What humans see as "good," is too often evil in the sight of God.

Perhaps one of the most evil people on this planet today is Ann Coulter. I don't think that is hyperbole. It is impossible to talk of Coulter without referencing evil. From my understanding of the biblical perspective, what Coulter sees as "good," God sees as evil.

News Hounds describes her latest foray into the morass which involved the public and purposeful defamation of the character of Senator Barack Obama. In other words, she lied in order to denigrate Senator Obama in the eyes of the world. She did this while appearing on FOX News. Obviously, that does not speak well for the Repugnican propaganda outlet.

From News Hounds:

"FOX News trotted out the ethically-challenged Ann 'Boombox' Coulter to speak on behalf of Christian values on last night's (8/18/08) Hannity & Colmes. In critiquing Barack Obama's comments in Rick Warren's Saddleback forum over the weekend, Coulter falsely and outrageously claimed that Obama wants to make sure babies born after a botched abortion will be killed. [This story, by the way, is being given serious attention in a variety of place, including AOL!] Then, after a coquettish remark to the married Alan Colmes, Coulter boasted about 'madly flashing' Sean Hannity during the forum.

"Hannity, who quite happily supported pro-choice Rudy Guiliani, has been on a roll attacking Obama over his vote against an Illinois law that would have protected infants after a botched abortion procedure. As Media Matters has noted and Colmes later did, too, Obama's opposition to the Illinois bill was due to the fact that he felt it threatened women's right to choose while criminal statutes already in force protected infants."

Obama's position, by the way, has been verified by the State of Illinois!

As the discussion continued, "Coulter falsely said about Obama that he 'wants the doctors, you know, chasing (an infant born after a botched abortion) through a delivery room to make sure it gets killed."

One must remember, however, as News Hounds reminds us, that "Coulter has repeated called for murder, unlike Obama. She has 'joked' about poisoning Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens and assassinating President Clinton and Senator Lincoln Chafee..."

If that's not evil...

Please read the entire News Hounds article here.

How many houses? McCain forgets...

Old story now, but still funny. Nobody seems to know exactly how many houses are owned by the McCain duo, John and Cindy. I saw a little cracker house in Cedar Key, Florida (above photo) with a sign indicating the owners are the McCains, but I think it is another McCain family. One never knows, though.

See, even ol' John isn't sure how many homes he owns. When asked the question in an interview with Politico on August 20, John said, "I think -- I'll have my staff get to you. It's condominiums where -- I'll have them get to you."

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) thought McCain has six houses. David Axelrod, chief strategist for Obama, mentioned seven. Some think the number is eight.

We all know that McCain is incredibly rich, what with his wife's fortune estimated at $100 mil. So, he can afford four, six, seven, or more houses. The number really doesn't matter. The fact that he can't answer a straight-forward question does.

I don't think it's his age -- he's not that old! I think it's his mind.


Wait, the housing crisis gets even more humorous. As John Aravosis noted at AmericaBlog, "It only took the McCain campaign three hours, or so, to invoke John McCain's former POW status to defend him from attacks regarding his gaffe yesterday in which he couldn't remember how many houses he owns. You see, the McCain's campaign campaign explained to the Washington Post today, McCain was a POW..."

Aravosis describes how it went down, according to Ben Smith at Politico:

"McCain aides referred back to McCain's time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam in defending him from the mockery over his houses.

'This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years -- in prison,' says spokesman Rogers."


Somehow we knew it'd come down to that - the Hanoi Hilton again!

Will James Dobson support McCain?

The following is from Mark Nickolas at The Huffington Post.

On February 17, 2000, James Dobson issued a statement in opposition to Gary Bauer's endorsement of then presidential hopeful, John McCain. Here is part of that statement:

"Speaking as a private individual and not as the president of Focus on the Family, Dr. James Dobson expressed disagreement yesterday with former presidential candidate Gary Bauer's endorsement of Senator John McCain as Republican nominee for U.S. President. The Senator has offered no assurances that he intends to appoint a pro-life running mate or pro-life justices to the U.S. Supreme Court. Indeed, he voted for pro-abortion Stephen Breyer and pro-abortion ACLU-activist Ruth Bader Ginsburg for that Court and for David Satcher for Surgeon General, who supports partial-birth-abortion. McCain also voted in support of President Clinton to expand fetal-tissue research.

"Furthermore, McCain has accepted huge contributions from the gambling industry and apparently is comfortable with the proliferation of gambling in American society. He has also accepted large contributions from producers of alcohol. McCain is in favor of combat assignments for women in the military, and has sought and received enormous financial and political support from the Log Cabin Republicans and other homosexual activists. McCain also supports Most Favored Nation status for the brutal regime in China, and voted against our nation's monitoring of Communist Chinese commercial fronts operating in the United States. He seeks to appease the bloated Federal public school bureaucracy and has refused to support vouchers.

"'The Senator,' Dobson said, 'is being touted by the media as a man of principle, yet he was involved with other women while married to his first wife, and was implicated in the so-called Keating scandal with four other senators. He was eventually reprimanded by the Congress for the "appearance of impropriety." The Senator reportedly has a violent temper and can be extremely confrontational and profane when angry. These red flags about Senator McCain's character are reminiscent of the man who now occupies the White House.'"


Ain't it fascinating how some things never change? Mr. Dobson, with whom I almost never agree on anything, said it right re: McCain's character. Now, seeing as how McCain's character is no different in 2008 than it was in 2000, do you think Dobson will see fit to endorse Senator Obama?

Nah...even an adulterous, profane, violent-tempered liar tied to the alcohol industry like McCain is preferable to a moral, ethical black Democrat! Right?

The oil drilling scam lives on

This thing just won't die.

John McCain, who did a little photo op on an Exxon platform the other day (to show, I'm sure, his "great concern" about the high price of oil), along with millions of other morons in this country, continue to believe and promote the notion that we have gazillions of gallons of oil beneath our offshore waters, hidden under the Alaskan tundra, or shot through shale in the American west. All we have to do is drill, and shazam!, our gas tanks shall overflow and our troubles will be over. It's kinda like magic!

Not only so, but we'd better get all that oil before other countries, bad countries, like China suck it up. Sen. Larry Craig, the Repugnican from Idaho (and Minnesota bathrooms) warned back in 2006 that China might soon be drilling in waters off the Florida Keys. According to Salon.com, "people like California congressional candidate Tom McClintock see the oil rigs now." McClintock wrote this month that "'The vast oil fields off the coast of Florida that American law prevents Americans from developing are now being drained by the Chinese government drilling in Cuban waters.'"

McClintock must be stupid or devious. Are the Chinese drilling in the "vast oil fields off the coast of Florida," or are they drilling in Cuban waters? Is there an American "law" that forbids Americans from drilling in Cuban waters?

McClintock is full of horse hockey, and everything he says is false, but it plays well to the hoi polloi who are terrified that gas prices might go even higher and their standard of living might be compromised further.

In spite of the latest BS promoted on the Internet by the Repugnican wackos, even if drilling were started today, it would be years before we'd see any oil! A spokesman for the government's Energy Information Administration estimates that "it would take at least five years to begin production in U.S. waters [not Cuban waters!] in the eastern Gulf of Mexico ... The process often takes longer."

Furthermore, the recent claims that the amount of oil to be recovered is so vast we could immediately cease relying on oil from the Middle East, is patently untrue. "The EIA says U.S. waters in the area contain 3.82 billion barrels, half our annual national consumption of 7.6 billion barrels. But it would take decades to extract. If the offshore drilling ban were removed in 2012, the EIA states, it 'would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030.'"


Another crazy claim currently making the rounds is that "Alaska has more oil than the Middle East." NOT true!

On Alaska's North Slope, which includes the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, "[I]t can take two or three years to drill a single exploratory well ... because drilling is only possible for a few months at a time in the winter, when the permafrost is frozen hard enough to support equipment." There are other problems, too, such as transporting the necessary infrastructure, the need for "thick gravel 'pad[s],' acres in size," and pipeline corrosion.

"The EIA forecasts that if Congress opened up the ANWR, it would take eight to 12 years go even start production."

The EIA also estimates that because drilling is so difficult and/or impossible in so much of the area, "about 10.4 billion barrels of oil can be recovered from ANWR, just over a year of American consumption. Saudi Arabia has about 260 billion barrels of proven oil reserves."

Maybe the Saudis have just a tad more oil than Alaska? You think?


The plentitude of oil in the so-called Bakken Formation is another story the wingnuts are spreading as the gospel. The Bakken Formation is a "layer of rock underneath North Dakota, Montana and southern Canada." Rush Limbaugh, that drug-addled "rocket scientist" has claimed that "'175 billion to 500 billion barrels of recoverable oil' are located in the Bakken ..."

And all the numbnuts solemnly nod their heads.

NOT so! "Companies are drilling in the Bakken, but an April survey from the USGS reported approximately 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels of oil could be extracted using cutting-edge technology, or about six months of U.S. consumption. Moreover, says Richard Pollastro, a geologist who led the USGS survey, 'that's what is technically recoverable, not necessarily what is economically recoverable.' Essentially, oil prices would have to increase for companies to extract it at all."

So much for Limbaugh. And all the other wackos for whom truth and science and reality are words that never penetrate the fantasy world in which they live and die without learning a thing!

Cheap oil is of the past. Hell, oil is soon to be of the past. Our only option is not more drilling, but to develop a variety of alternative sources of energy.


Most of the above information was derived from an article by Peter Dizikes writing at Salon.com. You can read the article in its entirety here.