Wow. When I die, I want my obituary to be this cool (via TBogg):

When Sally Baron’s family wrote her obituary, they described a northern Wisconsin woman who raised six children and took care of her husband after he was crushed in a mining accident.

She had moved to Stoughton seven years ago to be closer to her children and was 71 when she died Monday after struggling to recuperate from heart surgery. Her family had come to the question of what might be a fitting tribute to her.
. . .
Almost in unison, what her children decided to include in the obituary was this: “Memorials in her honor can be made to any organization working for the removal of President Bush.”

“She thought he was a liar,” Baron’s daughter, Maureen Bettilyon, said. “I think his personality, just standing there with that smirk on his face, and acting like he’s this holy Christian, that’s what really got her.”
. . .
“She’d always watch CNN, C-SPAN, and you know, she’d just swear at the TV and say ‘Oh, Bush, he’s such a whistle ass!’ She’d just get so mad,” Bettilyon said.

I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize in advance to all my friends and family, because I know I’m going to start completely overusing the term “whistle ass”. When “whistle ass” becomes one of the highlights of my otherwise limited and pedestrian vocabulary, I know I’m going to misinterpret your polite chuckles as an affirmation that it’s the funniest thing you’ve ever heard. That’s unfair to everyone. So please believe me when I say I’m sincerely sorry for being such a whistle ass.

One of the things I’ve found especially sickening about the protests in favor of Judge Roy Moore and his Ten Commandments display is the protester’s self-righteously comparing their movement to the civil rights struggle. As evidenced by this editorial from the Baptist (!) Center for Ethics, I’m not the only one who’s noticed this :

Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore is no Martin Luther King, Jr. Efforts to portray the religious right?s agenda on the Ten Commandments as a kin to the civil rights movement cheapens King?s legacy and veils a conservative Christian agenda.

Neither the common geography of Montgomery nor the talk about civil disobedience can meaningfully tie the theocratic goals of a Baptist fundamentalist to social justice goals of a Baptist progressive.

Yet Moore?s backers rallied over the weekend with comparisons between their hero and King, supporting the judge?s refusal to obey a federal court order to remove the Ten Commandments displayed in Alabama?s judicial building.
. . .
Jerry Falwell, founder of the Moral Majority, told the Montgomery rally that civil disobedience was a rightful action if Christians needed to obey God?s law rather than man?s law.

Comparing supporters of Moore with those of King, Falwell said, ?One day, we too shall overcome.?

But what is it that Falwell and the religious right seek to overcome?

The Christian right can hardly claim a history of suffering from slavery, lynchings, segregated schools, separate water fountains, fire hoses and police dogs. In fact, the present-day heirs of the Christian right are the sons and daughters of those who collected money for the Ku Klux Klan in their churches, used the Bible to justify segregation and violently opposed the civil rights movement. Falwell himself even opposed King.

What the religious right really seeks to overcome is the loss of cultural power through identification with a popular social movement and an appeal to victim status.

Since our society now honors the 1960s civil rights cause and reveres King, the religious right hopes that affiliation with the equal rights movement will legitimize their agenda.

Moreover, the religious right is playing the victim card, claiming severe hardship for their beliefs. During the past decade, some American Christians have asserted that our society was ?overtly hostile? to their views and practiced an ?anti-religious, anti-evangelical bigotry.? A Southern Baptist Convention leader warned about a ?drizzle of persecution in the U.S.?

One Montgomery speaker claimed, ?What we are faced with now is an effort to set the stage for religious persecution.?

Of course, such hyperbole trivializes the genuine persecution around the world where arrest, torture, imprisonment and death occur for people of faith.

When the line is blurred between the constitutional prohibition against state sponsored religion and religious persecution, cheap dishonesty is advanced.

It also misdirects attention away from the religious right?s agenda, which is one nation under their interpretation of God?s will and their enforcers of public policy.

I’m glad somebody in the Christian community was able to keep this in perspective. It’s not like Christians aren’t being allowed to vote or own land. There’s something truly twisted about a group whose rhetoric is that the Ten Commandments should be on display because most Americans are Christian, but when they don’t get their way, they’re suddenly an oppressed minority. It can’t be both. You’re either in the minority or not. Either way, a two-ton monument to their religious beliefs doesn’t belong on government property.

Today’s the day. Here’s all the instructions that were from NotGeniuses.com :

How to write a good letter to the editor

First, let’s go over some information on how to write a good letter to the editor. The biggest thing is don’t be insulting, don’t collapse into partisan hysteria. Be calm and factual — your viewpoint is right, you don’t have to scream. Remember, the people who are going to be reading these are not the Freepers or the webmasters at Bush’s website — they are reporters and ombudsmen.

Second, keep it short, 250 words or so. No one is going to print your manifesto, and we want these letters printed.

Third, include your information. Newspapers won’t print unless they can confirm that you’re real — put in your whole name, address, telephone number, city and state.

Follow all that and we should be good.

Talking Points

Now, on to the meat. Tomorrow is Fiscal Irresponsibility Friday, so we’re going to be highlighting the incredible fiscal mismanagement of the Bush Administration — it’s his record, we’re merely publicizing it. You shouldn’t try and get all the points below into your letter, just choose three or so, and just make sure it flows well.

George Bush has presided over the first job-losing presidency since Herbert Hoover. During his tenure, we have lost more than 3 million jobs. However, George Bush clearly doesn’t see this as much of a problem because, when given the opportunity to create about 75 new jobs, he outsourced them to India.

The projected deficit for this year is upwards of $455 billion (source: OMB). Remember the surpluses we had under Clinton? The Cato Institute, hardly a liberal outfit, calls George Bush “the mother of all big spenders”. In fact, George W. Bush’s father said that “there is no practice more dangerous than that of borrowing money”. Why hasn’t his son listened?

The unemployment rate has passed 6%, with 8.8 million Americans out of work. To compare, under Bush, the economy has lost an average of 69,000 jobs a month. Under Clinton, the economy gained an average of 239,000 jobs per month. Which record do you prefer?

The Fed has begun wondering about deflation, something not spoken of since the Great Depression.

Bush has done nothing to help the situation. His tax cuts have so bankrupted the Government that long term interest rates went up 1% since June, a shift to be expected when record deficits are being run, but one that is unwanted in a recovery.

Further, his Tax Cuts, which have been packaged as stimulative, do nothing to help the economy in the short term. They are set to kick in primarily in the future, and they target the wealthy and those with stocks, the classes of people least likely to quickly spend the money.

The States are running record deficits. In normal times, the Federal Government would aid them, but this time, only an emergency $20 billion (to be distributed among all 50) was included in the budget, and only because the Democrats insisted on it.

How do you send?

After your masterpieces are complete, mosey on over to George Bush’s Action Center. At the top, you’ll be asked to put in your zip code. Do so. Click “Get Info”, and a list of newspapers in your area will appear. Choose one (there’s enough people we don’t need everyone to hit all of them) newspaper (keep in mind that we don’t just want our letters in the biggest newspapers so think about picking a smaller paper) , then scroll down, put your letter and all your information in (remember to put ALL the information we mentioned above in the body of the letter or many newspapers will not print it), scroll down and hit “Send Now”. You’re done!

Let’s get the message out about Bush and his disastarous policies. When you’re done, post your letter in the comments.

Taco Bell is now running what may be the most unscientific poll that’s ever been conducted :

Consumers can now “put their vote where their mouth is,” said Laurie Schalow, a spokeswoman for the Taco Bell chain which Thursday launched a “Taco Poll” in which diners can choose their next governor from the menu.

The fast food chain threw its popular products into electoral ring, saying that if punters bought its Crunchy Beef Tacos, they would be casting a vote for the Austrian-born former body builder.

But if hungry patrons opt instead for a Chicken Soft Taco, their choice would be counted as a vote for embattled Davis, the target of the October 7 special elections aimed at ousting him.

“Buy a Grilled Beef Stuft Burrito, and we’ll count that as a vote for one of the” 134 other candidates vying for the freewheeling western state’s top job if Davis is ousted, an advertisement published in newspapers Thursday proclaimed.

By equating Arnold with “crunchy” and “beef” while Davis is “soft” and “chicken” it looks like Taco Bell has already made up their own minds about who to support. Or maybe I’m just reading way too much into something that so dumb that it’s probably not even worth mentioning. So how do I express my intention to vote “No” on the recall and “Yes” on Bustmante through what I eat? A crunchy beef taco sounds good, but I don’t want the people at Taco Bell to get the wrong idea.

According to this email that I just received from the Republican party, it looks like they’re starting a voter registration drive :

Over the course of the next year, I’m going to challenge you to take on one of the most important tasks any American can be charged with - voter registration. Did you know there are millions of American citizens who are not registered to vote? Not only is this sad for our democracy, but for our party as well.

We must encourage civic participation on every level and the
best way to accomplish this is to register new Republicans. You’ve heard it before, but even one more Republican vote in each precinct across the country can turn a tight race into a landslide win.

This is why I charge each and every Team Leader to register 5 new voters. If we are successful in our efforts, there will be over 1,635,000 new Republican votes. These new votes will help the President enact his positive agenda for America.

America isn’t a democracy, it’s a republic and that means that we only get to vote once. For that reason, if extremely important for people to keep themselves informed and register to vote. We all have friends that “aren’t into politics” as if staying informed is just another hobby along the lines of playing videogames or collecting stamps. I strongly reccomend that everyone follow the Republican’s lead and try to register as many people as possible by clicking on this link.

In post explaining his evolving view on gay marriage, Earnest of Mellifluence gave a strikingly honest look into his opposition to the “gay agenda” :

When you mention that there might be a gay agenda, high-minded people roll their eyes and sniff with disdain, but I think they misunderstand what people are referring to as an agenda. Let me explain it the best I can. The gay agenda is, essentially, an effort to raise to an elevated, protected status a set of behaviors, making them tantamount to such indelible traits as gender, race, and age. While one has the ability to start and stop a set of behaviors, one lacks the ability to start or stop one’s ancestry, one’s chromosomal makeup, or one’s age (without rendering the point moot, anyway). By equating gayness to gender, race, or age, you weaken the idea that there are certain things which deserve to be protected because you open the door for anything to have a protected status. I will grant that gays have suffered mightily at the hands of straight people, but the proposed fix far outweighs the problem.

Before you all get up in arms, go read the rest of Earnest’s post. He’s not a homophobe or anything like that. His ultimate point is “Gay marriage is something our country must allow”, which (I hope) most of you agree with.

Reading Earnest’s post makes me wonder how many people in the “mainstream” share his view of what makes up the (for lack of a better term) “gay agenda”? I hope that his opposition is more common than the Rev. Fred Phelps (”God hates fags”) variety. That said, I still think it’s wrong.

Classifying sexual orientation as “a set of behaviors” is a serious oversimplification that has the same effect as most other anti-gay views. In the rhetoric of those opposed to homosexuality, gayness doesn’t encompass emotions, attraction, or self-identity, only what they do (primarily in the bedroom). Homosexuality isn’t something that you can “start and stop” anymore than someone can just decide to stop believing in God. If anything, by providing protected status to sexual orientation strengthens the idea that our society judges people by who they are, not what they are.

Judge Roy Moore is once again refusing to remove the Ten Commandments monument from his courthouse :

State Supreme Court justices overruled Chief Justice Roy Moore on Thursday and directed that his Ten Commandments monument be removed from its public site in the Alabama Judicial Building.

The senior associate justice, Gorman Houston, said the eight associate justices instructed the building’s manager to “take all steps necessary to comply … as soon as practicable.” Some supporters of Moore vowed to fight the move through civil disobedience.

A federal judge had ruled the monument violates the constitution’s ban on government establishment of religion and must be removed from its public place in the rotunda. He had set Thursday as his deadline, but Moore said he would not move it.

Since religious nuts like Judge Moore falsely believe that all moral codes are based on the Ten Commandments (which were in fact adapted from ancient Babylonian law), I can understand why they’re so intent on posting them everywhere. These people foolishly see any attempt to block the posting of the ten commandments as a rejection of their values (ie. thou shalt not kill, bear false witness, etc.), while those of us on the other side object to the first 3 or 4 commandments (depending on which version they’re trying to post) which seem to place allegiance to God and keeping the Sabbath holy above a ban on theft or murder.

What’s so hard to understand about this? The Ten Commandments are a religious symbol only that alienates everyone who isn’t a part of one of the Judeo-Christian faiths. How do you think Roy Moore would react if someone erected a two ton monument to the Five Pillars of Islam in the entry way of an elementary school? I’m sure he’d freak out. The fact is, the Ten Commandments have no bearing on secular law, and thus are completely inappropriate to display in a government building.

Wasn’t the whole point of the New Testament that Jesus was coming to Earth to tell people to forget about all the crazy Hebrew laws in the Old Testament and for people to just love each other? As far as I can tell, the Ten Commandments only appear in the Old Testament. If that’s the case, then shouldn’t the Ten Commandments be held in the same regard as animal sacrifices, the monetary values of various people, or god disliking midgets and people with crushed testicles? When Jesus does mention the commandments, he seems to emphasize the secular rules (while leaving out the ones about God) :

“Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments.” “Which ones?” the man inquired. Jesus replied, ” ‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother,’ and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.”

Not only did Jesus leave out all the “no graven images” crap, but he even went a step further and added one more commandment (which he later repeats as being his only commandment). These are the commandments that most of the Christians I’ve known follow (ie. the ones who keep their religion to themselves), so why aren’t they good enough to be posted in an Alabama courthouse?

(Note : Large chunks of this entry were recycled from a previous post)

For those of you who haven’t visited yet, Bush’s new website gives people the ability to send mass emails to thousands of newspapers across the country. Personally, I hate the idea of spamming media outlets with “talking points”, but taking the high road isn’t a luxury that liberals have right now. So with that in mind, I’ve compiled a list of the email addresses for every newspaper listed on Bush’s site. If you plan on using this list, please stay on topic, be polite, write your own letters, and try not to let this list fall into the hands of conservatives. I don’t wanna be responsible for you guys spamming the hell out of the world, but I also don’t wanna endure another four years of Bush. You can get the list by clicking here.

John Ashcroft is touring the country to drum up support for a law that’s already been passed

At his first stop on a tour in support of the USA Patriot Act, Attorney General John Ashcroft told police officers and prosecutors Wednesday that the law made possible a series of recent terrorism arrests.

Speaking at the city’s museum on the Constitution, near Independence Hall, Ashcroft cited the arrest of three men accused of plotting to smuggle shoulder-fired missiles and the successful prosecution of a man who tried to enter Afghanistan to fight U.S. troops as examples of the law at work.

The probes would have been more difficult if not for provisions of the Patriot Act that made it easier for intelligence agencies, criminal investigators and prosecutors to share information, Ashcroft said.

He said the nation learned the cost of a poorly coordinated law enforcement community during the Sept. 11 attacks.

For the purposes of this discussion, let’s ignore the fact that the Patriot Act is pseudo-fascist bullshit that infringes on our liberty in a way that’s likely constitutional and unlikely to make us any safer. Also, let’s pretend for a minute that the true intelligence failure behind 9/11 was that the government was unable to gather enough information and that the intelligence failures had nothing to do with their inability to share and interpret the data they had already collected.

So, assuming the Patriot Act was a great idea, here’s my question : Why is John Ashcroft’s “Patriot Act Tour” legal? He’s presumably using tax money to tour the country to drum up support for a law that’s almost two years old!! Why are we paying for this? The same thing has bothered me for a while about Bush. He goes all over the country hyping his bullshit policies at taxpayer expense. Why are taxpayers forced to support the Bush Administration’s bully pulpit?

(Before you say “Clinton did it too”, lemme just say that the idea of tax money supporting any partisan policy tour bothers me.)

On Bush’s new site, he’s got the following trivia question :

Q : How many working families are benefiting from President Bush’s Jobs and Growth Act?

A : Thirty-four million working families will receive an average of $1,549 in tax relief each year.

Since Bush’s tax cuts almost exclusively benefit the wealthy, it’s easy to use the top numbers to create an average that hides the fact that the rest of us are getting screwed. So families receive an average or $1549? Not bad, but what’s the median?

Lets imagine there’s a homeless shelter full of people who are completely broke, then Bill Gates walks into the shelter. While the median income remains the same (since the most common income in the room is still nil), Gates’ presence raises the average income into the hundreds of millions of dollars. Now if George Bush were to describe the situation, the average income makes everyone in the room a millionaire, but it’s obvious that being in the same room as a rich guy isn’t going to instantly make poor people millionaires. Next time you hear Bush describe the average affects of his policies, just put yourself in the shoes of these hypothetical homeless and ask yourself if you feel any richer.