i'm gonna tell!!!!

Facts Are Stubborn Things

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

I actually hope I get turned in, for posting this in a manner that is (obviously) in opposition to this health care bill, not to mention putting such lib non-think-tanks as sojo to the rod of ridicule, and for thinking that turning your fellow citizens in to the government for simple disagreement is an idea only liberals would love.

spreading the blame for the agenda

Sojo has commented on the recent murder (please note the word murder) of an abortion provider. Of course, they make use of it by quoting a blog entry elsewhere by Franky Schaeffer (he who blames all on his father).

Abortion: Conversations, Not Killings
The same hate machine I was part of is still attacking all abortionists as “murderers.” And today once again the “pro-life” leaders are busy ducking their personal responsibility for people acting on their words. The people who stir up the fringe never take responsibility. But I’d like to say on this day after a man was murdered in cold blood for preforming abortions that I — and the people I worked with in the religious right, the Republican Party, the pro-life movement and the Roman Catholic Church — all contributed to this killing by our foolish and incendiary words.

Ah, yes, one man acts in an irresponsible manner, and the whole pro-life movement is impugned.

Perhaps Sojo or Schaeffer can tell us, please, how many times abortion doctors have been killed like this man was? Unsure of the number myself, but I'm thinking it must be pretty small, since I can't remember the last time this sort of thing happened. One can think it's blissfully infrequent.

Schaeffer seems to not like that abortion providers are called "murderers". One may assume, I guess, that he would prefer one of the mushy PC titles? Or maybe they are called that because abortion itself is, in fact, murder?

An ancient myth is being played out: You kill me, I kill you, neither of us really knows why. We inhabit a culture where violence is taken for granted. It’s on the air so much it feels like it’s in it. Acts of violence occur at the end of a continuum that begins with how we talk about being human. Moral denunciations, even when focused on people who do awful things, need to be handled with care. Bill O’Reilly isn’t going to change if only enough liberals will shout at him. People aren’t going to stop killing people they disagree with if only our culture can isolate them further than they already are.

Wow, reading that, one would think that the streets are running red with blood, that one can't go out of one's house without having to duck behind the nearest car or other obstacle so that the shooters won't get you.

Seriously, the reason this murder is making the news, and is such a big deal, can perhaps be summed up in two reason.

1. Pro-lifers attacking abortion doctors happens infrequently, so those who see a way to cash in on it are trying to make the most of.

2. It fits the present mindset and attempts to set the agenda by the liberal media and liberal politicians.

It's all about spin.

Schaeffer wants to spread the blame. Sorry, but I do not accept blame for the actions of a loon, not matter what that loon's position. Schaeffer can repent of his own sins (one would wish he truly would), but he does not speak for me.

Because while one man murdered an abortion doctor (a crime and one that deserves justice, which I hope is give), that same abortion doctor murdered many others (a travesty that is currently legal). That abortion doctor deserves justice, too, but you must pardon me if I do not consider him a saint or martyr.

jim wallis' double vision

Last week, Jim Wallis had this to say about former Vice-President Dick Cheney.

The Good News About Yesterday’s Duel

I will leave the judgment of Dick Cheney’s soul to God, who alone is in the position to render that judgment on all of us. But I will say the vision of America that Dick Cheney offers, and did again yesterday, is decidedly evil, and has helped to spread even more evil around the world. Dick Cheney represents the dark side of America, a view of the world dominated by fear and self-righteousness—always a deadly combination. It accepts no real reflection or self-examination, the evil in the world is always external, and the threat ever present. There is only certainty, and never humility. And, when the dark side goes unchecked, what it leads to is a state of permanent warfare, which will only be won by using any means necessary; and where the ends always justify the means. At the end of his breathtaking speech, the former vice president was so full of admiration and praise for those who used “enhanced interrogation” against America’s suspected enemies that you got the impression that he would happily preside over those brutal sessions himself.

I suppose it's pretty clear that Wallis disapproves. Very well, such is his right. Frankly, I think he exaggerates and misrepresents.

For the moment, I'll confine myself to his comments at the end, where he refers to the for Vice-President's remarks about "enhanced interrogation" techniques.

Frankly, I'm more than willing to respect anyone who may be uncomfortable with some of those techniques. I've written elsewhere about that.

But a few weeks ago, Wallis had this to say about someone else.

Thoughts on Obama’s Notre Dame Address

Perhaps this president’s willingness to confront controversy with an appeal to common values can also change the way we address other divisive and controversial issues. We live in a country in which we know everyone will not agree on everything. In fact, it is quite an accomplishment to even get half of the country to agree on anything. Our differences, and our ability to maintain this union in spite of them, are some of our country’s greatest strengths. It’s been a long time since I have heard a president be able to articulate so well a positive vision for how people of faith, and a nation as a whole, can work together to face the difficult moral issues of our time in both disagreement and unity.

Wallis claims to be pro-life. While I have no real reason to doubt it, I find it odd that he should be oh-so-ready to make excuses for a president who has approved not only of abortion of the the infanticide of those babies who had the audacity to not decently die in the abortion process, while ranting against a former vice-president who approved of interrogation techniques that may have caused physical discomfort or even pain but that were not intended to kill.

If he wishes to stand so strong against the one that isn't meant to kill, perhaps he should do so against the one that is out-and-out murder as well.

Or does being a socialist cover a multitude of blood?

he should stop trying so hard

A sojo writer is again trying too hard, trying to read too much into modern-day things and the Bible to make his liberal point.

He tries to use the account in the book of Ruth as a way to bludgeon the US, particularly conservatives, and it just won't work.

What if the Bible’s Ruth Came to America Today?

In the biblical story, Ruth was a foreigner from the nation of Moab, which was despised by all patriotic and God-fearing Israelites. Yet when she came to Israel as a widow, companion to her widowed mother-in-law, Naomi, she was welcomed onto the fields of Boaz, where she gleaned what the regular harvesters had left behind. Boaz made sure that even this despised foreigner had a decent job at decent pay. When she went one night to the barn where the barley crop was being threshed, he spent the night with her — and decided to marry her.

First, I will say that the most distasteful thing here is the insinuation (which is repeated later and more clearly) that the time Esther met with Boaz on the threshing floor was a sexual encounter between the two of them.

When she boldly “uncovers the feet” of Boaz during the night they spend together on the threshing floor, has she violated the “family values” that some religious folk now proclaim? Or has she affirmed that love engages the body as well as the heart, the mind, and the spirit, and that sometimes a loving body comes before a wedding?

The Bible does not say that, and for this writer to say that reveals his agenda. He is clearly insinuating that moral bounds have no place where "love" is concerned--in other words, that sex outside of marriage is ok so long as the two "love" each other (one may also wonder if he is working in the "love" argument of the homo/trans/whateversexuals, too.)

In the biblical story, Ruth was a foreigner from the nation of Moab, which was despised by all patriotic and God-fearing Israelites. Yet when she came to Israel as a widow, companion to her widowed mother-in-law, Naomi, she was welcomed onto the fields of Boaz, where she gleaned what the regular harvesters had left behind. Boaz made sure that even this despised foreigner had a decent job at decent pay. When she went one night to the barn where the barley crop was being threshed, he spent the night with her — and decided to marry her.

Here is a bit, from the biblical account.

1 Now Naomi had a relative on her husband's side, from the clan of Elimelech, a man of standing, whose name was Boaz.
2 And Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, "Let me go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favor."
Naomi said to her, "Go ahead, my daughter."
3 So she went out and began to glean in the fields behind the harvesters. As it turned out, she found herself working in a field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelech.
4 Just then Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and greeted the harvesters, "The LORD be with you!"
"The LORD bless you!" they called back.
5 Boaz asked the foreman of his harvesters, "Whose young woman is that?"
6 The foreman replied, "She is the Moabitess who came back from Moab with Naomi.
7 She said, 'Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves behind the harvesters.' She went into the field and has worked steadily from morning till now, except for a short rest in the shelter."
8 So Boaz said to Ruth, "My daughter, listen to me. Don't go and glean in another field and don't go away from here. Stay here with my servant girls.
9 Watch the field where the men are harvesting, and follow along after the girls. I have told the men not to touch you. And whenever you are thirsty, go and get a drink from the water jars the men have filled."
10 At this, she bowed down with her face to the ground. She exclaimed, "Why have I found such favor in your eyes that you notice me—a foreigner?"
11 Boaz replied, "I've been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband—how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before.
12 May the LORD repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge."

One wonders if this blogger would have approved of Boaz, if this were to happen today. After all, Boaz seems to have based his decision on allowing Ruth to continue gleaning on her character, not her status as poor/immigrant/foreign/whatever PC label may or may not fit. He knew of Ruth's support for Naomi, and of her leaving her home (and perhaps by extension her false gods) to come to Israel. I could as easily see this blogger saying Boaz was being discriminatory in his hiring, because he took her actions and character in account in his decision.

In ancient Israel, everyone had the right simply to walk onto a field and begin to work, begin to use the means of production of that era. And then to eat what they had gathered.

I would like to see what scripture he has in support of that position. Perhaps it's there, but he gives nothing for it here.

Here is a bit about the gleaning that Ruth did.

Levitcus 19
9 " 'When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. 10 Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the LORD your God.

Leviticus 23
22 " 'When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the LORD your God.' "

One thing that isn't in dispute in these passages is that the one who owned and worked or paid workers was entitled to the lion's share of the harvest, and even the first of it. And even with the gleaning, it was hardly a "wait for a check in the mail" type of thing--the poor people had to actually get out and do some work to get the food, not expect the government to do the work for them.

Parts of the blogger's entry are simply ridiculous, as he tries to vilify the US.

Would she be admitted at the border?
Or would she be detained for months without a lawyer, ripped from Naomi’s arms while Naomi’s protest brought her too under suspicion — detained because she was, after all, a Canaanite who spoke some variety of Arabic, possibly a terrorist, for sure an idolator?
Would she be deported as merely an “economic refugee,” not a worthy candidate for asylum?
Would she have to show a “green card” before she could get a job gleaning at any farm, restaurant, or hospital?
Would she be sent to “workfare” with no protections for her dignity, her freedom, or her health?
Would she face contempt because she and Naomi, traveling without a man, might be a lesbian couple?
Would she be waterboarded — drowned again and again, revived at the point of death to be drowned yet again — until she confessed that she had supplied a foreign enemy with mass-destruction weapons to attack America?

Perhaps he should go out into the real world, and see how immigrants are actually treated here, instead of relying on biased sources that have their own political leanings and agendas (though this man has them himself, so I doubt he's going to look hard to see contrary evidence, no matter how obvious it is). And his comments about waterboarding her can only be seen as a stretch, as that was done only to known terrorists.

This blogger's article is silly to the point of hilarious. Whatever point he's trying to make is lost in his biases and agendas and poor support for whatever scriptural claims he's trying to make (and, again, the fact that he's saying that premarital sex is ok only makes one wonder what other bad interpretations he's using).

This Sojo article is Total Fail.

guess i need to find that Alabama disc...

I'm not a huge country music fan. There have been songs I like, like Alabama's "I'm in a Hurry to Get Things Done", and a few others. There's also some painful ones, too, but that goes for almost any music out there. In fact, some types are almost nothing but painful.

But I give it kudos for ticking off the right people.

Country Music: Too Much Freedom-Loving?

The Post music critic going by the name Josh Freedom du Lac – that just can’t be his name – doesn’t really seem to like patriotic music, despite the patriotic byline. He worries that songs like Jason Aldean’s “Hicktown” or the Zac Brown Band’s “Chicken Fried” do something wrong: They are “narrowcasting to a specific community: the core country audience, whose roots aren't exactly in America's urban centers.”

That claim in itself sounds silly. Aren’t people who make rap music or big-band music or polka music “narrowcasting?” Maybe du Lac just doesn’t like this particular niche audience. He doesn’t like the message that’s offered, either.

“The symbolism and prideful sentiments of the songs are intended to create a sense of belonging among people with similar backgrounds and lifestyles, or at least people who romanticize life in the rural South,” he wrote. “To some listeners, though, it might sound as if the artists are closing ranks.”

As the writer later shows, du Lac likes groups like the Dixie Chicks and The Coup; you know, the anti-patriotic and anti-American kinds of music groups.

So, maybe it's time I started re-learning the Electric Slide.

sojo misrepresents, for their own agenda

'Religious Left' agenda advances on hate crimes

A person who follows religion and politics more closely than I tells me the decision of two major conservative Christian leaders, Joel Hunter and David Gushee, to sign on in support of legislation outlawing "hate crimes" against gays and lesbians, is a pretty big deal:

Jim Wallis, President and CEO, Sojourners:

A fundamental Christian belief is that every person is created in the image of God. Too often in our country when violence has been directed against gay and lesbian people, most Christians have been painfully silent. The hate crimes legislation now in the House is designed to strengthen our society's ability to prosecute these crimes. It contains additional explicit protection for free speech and religious liberty, rights which are already guaranteed by our Constitution, and allows for continued free expression of speech about controversial issues around homosexuality, gay marriage, etc. Regardless of the theological differences we may have on these issues, Christians should all agree on the fundamental protection of human rights. That is why I support this legislation.

The problems with "hate crimes" laws is this, that they make some wrongs "more equal than others".

What Sojo and other "progressive christians" (note the non-capitalization, which is not accidental)(is that an example of hate on my part?) don't see or don't want to say is that simply being against "hate crimes" laws does not mean one is for the crimes; rather, it is about treating some crimes as worst than others based on factors not related to the crime.

For example, murder is murder, and those who murder should be punished. If someone murders a straight man with a wife and four kids, the crime is no more serious than someone who murders a lesbian woman. But "hate crimes" laws have us look at them differently, trying to kind some kind of motive of hate behind the murderer of the lesbian woman, and so treat it as a more serious crime than the other murder.

What it is about, really, is not the crime itself, but the intent or supposed intent of the criminal. Perhaps what it is most about is how people see the crime. As an example of that, check out this article.

ABC Debunked Matthew Shepard Murder as No Hate Crime, MSNBC Savages Republican for Repeating

But, on the November 26, 2004, 20/20, ABC host Elizabeth Vargas ran a report in which a number of figures tied to the case, including the prosecutor, were interviewed, and made a credible case that Shepard was targeted by Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson not because of anti-gay sentiment, but because McKinney was high on methamphetamines, giving him unusual violent tendencies as well as a desire for cash to buy more drugs. Vargas not only found that a meth high can lead to the kind of extreme violence perpetrated against Shepard, but that McKinney had gone on to similarly attack another man, causing a skull fracture, very soon after his attack on Shepard. Additionally, McKinney’s girlfriend and another friend of McKinney’s even claimed that McKinney himself has bisexual tendencies, although McKinney himself denied it.

Vargas appeared on the November 16, 2004, The O’Reilly Factor on FNC and summarized her findings:

The prosecutor who prosecuted these crimes says that he never believed it was a hate crime. He believes it was a drug crime. Aaron McKinney, according to Aaron McKinney himself and to several other witnesses, was coming down from a five-day methamphetamine binge. He freely admits he not only used methamphetamine but dealt them, sold them. Five days up with no sleep, strung out on drugs, desperate to buy more, desperate to rob somebody to get money to buy more drugs. This was the motive, according to Aaron McKinney and the other witnesses.

Shepherd is the poster boy for hate crimes laws, and the current hate crimes bill is named after him, as the Newsbusters blog points out. And one can see how some lefties react when the truth of the matter is pointed out.

Hate crimes laws don't promise more justice, but less. It's a political tool, not a matter of justice. Murderers and thugs should be dealt with, no matter whom they murder or beat. Treating them differently based on whom they murder or beat will not bring about justice, but instead cause injustice.

That is why the attempts by such as Sojo to paint us against hate crimes laws as being unloving and unchristian is a joke, and they should be ashamed of themselves for stooping to such blatant lies.

what the supposed "tell-all-ers" aren't telling us

ht http://bibchr.blogspot.com/

As should probably come to no surprise, Sojo has voiced it's opinions of the latest "Blame all the world's problems on the Bush administration" antics by the current administration. In this case, it's about the ways used to get information from captured terrorists.

Torture Memos: ‘What Is Done in the Dark’

Some things they aren't telling us, though, are...

First, that many of their own lib leaders were in the know on what was going on, and were not only not unhappy about it, but even encouraged it.

Fair-Weather Hawks

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, then on the House Intelligence Committee, and others knew of the tough methods as long ago as 2002. A December 2007 Washington Post story revealed that in September of that year, Pelosi attended an hour-long meeting in which she "was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk."

In fact, top Democrats like Pelosi and Rockefeller sat in on about 30 such bipartisan private briefings. One of those in attendance, former House Intelligence Committee Chairman and former CIA Director Porter Goss, remembered: "Among those being briefed, there was a pretty full understanding of what the CIA was doing." According to the onetime Florida GOP congressman, "the reaction in the room was not just approval, but encouragement."

Statements from Pelosi and other Democrats suggest maybe they were dozing off when the briefers described waterboarding. Such excuses, if the expression can be excused, hold little water.

The fact is clear: Top Democrats in Congress chose not to object to getting tough with terrorist prisoners because the poll ratings told them it was politically dangerous not to be an anti-terrorist hawk in 2002 and 2003.

Second, that such tactics may have succeeded at getting important information.

Extraordinary redaction

President Obama's national intelligence director told colleagues in a private memo last week that the harsh interrogation techniques banned by the White House did produce significant information that helped the nation in its struggle with terrorists.

"High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qa'ida organization that was attacking this country," Adm. Dennis C. Blair, the intelligence director, wrote in a memo to his staff last Thursday.

Admiral Blair sent his memo on the same day the administration publicly released secret Bush administration legal memos authorizing the use of interrogation methods that the Obama White House has deemed to be illegal torture. Among other things, the Bush administration memos revealed that two captured Qaeda operatives were subjected to a form of near-drowning known as waterboarding a total of 266 times.

For my part, I'm willing to agree that there may be a need for more consideration in regards to what is acceptable and what not in regards to ways of getting information from these terrorists. I suppose all of us would agree there are lines that should not be crossed. The problems come when we try to consider what would be acceptable.

For example, there are people out there who would likely consider a parent spanking a child a form of torture. Making those kinds happy would likely only involve making sure the terrorists have cozy cells and satellite TV access. These would be justly laughed out of the discussion.

Equally bad would be the "anything goes" types. A "whatever works" mindset may lead to some ugly abuses.

But my own thought is that politics is going to play too big a part in the discussion. It's going to be about painting the last administration in a bad light, and not about really fixing anything.