lib·er·al


1 Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry.

2 Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded.

Synonyms: liberal, bounteous, bountiful, freehanded, generous, handsome, munificent, openhanded
These adjectives mean willing or marked by a willingness to give unstintingly: a liberal backer of the arts; a bounteous feast; bountiful compliments; a freehanded host; a generous donation; a handsome offer; a munificent gift; fond and openhanded grandparents. See also synonyms at broad-minded



Gary Permalink on 5/10/2005

$11.5 Trillion hidden in off-shore tax shelters


Amount would pay off national debt.



Gary Permalink on 5/07/2005

RollingStone.com: Iraq - The Quagmire
It is just like Vietnam. All they have to do is bring back the draft.

Gary Permalink on 5/07/2005

Christ's Militia - How Evangelical Protestantism came to dominate America
Gary B. Nash in the Boston Review gives a history lesson of three major American church leaders. There is an interesting contrast to the two dominant church leaders in Boston around the same time - Ballou and Channing. Not much of a contrast in Hosea Ballou's case - he was a traveling backwoods preacher to start. The secret to spreading the word is to encourage people to spread the word.

I am thinking about religion today as I read a couple things and then more and more on this domination by right Christians.

The first is that a US federal court has ruled that freedom of religion can be limited to Judeo-Christian monotheism. A county government, or presumably any public body, can ban opening prayers from other religions. This will be appealed.

The second is that the GOP takeover of fundy churches has lead to a church banning members for voting Democratic. So what, you might say - churches can determine who their members are. Ahh, but to get tax-exempt status a church, or any tax-exempt group, has to refrain from endorsing specific candidates for public office. This is to enable the taxpayers to know that they are not subsidizing campaign activities. Democrats can take action on this. Local activists or a sharp reporter have already gotten the word out.

Last is the liberal editor of America's major Catholic thought magazine America has resigned with the elevation of the new pope. He had urged the selection of a pope who would allow more open debate.

And then, of course, Kansas is about to mandate teaching creationism again.

Adding yet another instance, this post started with just two, - Judge rules against Sex Ed in Maryland. Technically it is now only under review for ten days. Some of the class content sounds like a more recent edition of the sex ed class I taught. They probably don't have the movies and film strips of people having sex though. I agree with SF writer Mack Reynolds, the best thing for America right now would be mandatory summer camps for all kids - in the nude. It would give the parents a break and eliminate a lot of the worst sexual hang-ups in the future. Gary Permalink on 5/07/2005

David H. Hackworth - Legendary Soldier and Man of Peace
David H. Hackworth has died

Washington, D.C., May 5, 2005 – Col. David H. Hackworth, the United States Army's legendary, highly decorated guerrilla fighter and lifelong champion of the doughboy and dogface, ground-pounder and grunt, died Wednesday in Mexico. He was 74 years old. The cause of death was a form of cancer now appearing with increasing frequency among Vietnam veterans exposed to the defoliants called Agents Orange and Blue.

A reputation won on the battlefield made it impossible to dismiss him when he went on the attack later as a critic of careerism and incompetence in the military high command. In 1971, he appeared in the field on ABC’s “Issue and Answers” to say Vietnam “is a bad war ... it can’t be won. We need to get out.” He also predicted that Saigon would fall to the North Vietnamese within four years, a prediction that turned out to be far more accurate than anything the Joint Chiefs of Staff were telling President Nixon or that the President was telling the American people.

With almost five years in-country, Col. Hackworth was the only senior officer to sound off about the Vietnam War. After the interview, he retired from the Army and moved to Australia.

“He was perhaps the finest soldier of his generation,” observed the novelist and war correspondent Nicholas Proffit, who described Col. Hackworth’s combat autobiography, About Face, a national best-seller, as “a passionate cry from the heart of a man who never stopped loving the Army, even when it stopped loving him back.”

...He led from the front, at one point getting out on the strut of a helicopter, landing on top of an enemy position and hauling to safety the point elements of a company pinned down and facing certain death. Thirty years later, the grateful enlisted men and young officers of the 4/39, now grown old, are still urging the Pentagon to award him the Medal of Honor for this action. So far, the Army has refused.

“Hack never lost his focus,” said Roger Charles, president of Soldiers for the Truth. “That focus was on the young kids that our country sends to bleed and die on our behalf. Everything he did in his retirement was to try to give them a better chance to win and to come home. That’s one hell of a legacy.”

Over the final years of Col. Hackworth’s life, his wife Eilhys fought beside him during his gallant battle against bladder cancer, which now appears with sinister regularity among Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Blue. At one point he considered dropping their syndicated column, only to make an abrupt about face, saying, “Writing with you is the only thing that keeps me alive.” The last words he said to his doctor were, “If I die, tell Eilhys I was grateful for every moment she bought me, every extra moment I got to spend with her. Tell her my greatest achievement is the love the two of us shared.”

Soldiers For The Truth is now working on legal action to compel the Pentagon to recognize Agent Blue alongside the better known Agent Orange as a killer and to help veterans exposed to it during the Vietnam War. Memorial contributions can be sent to Soldiers For The Truth either by internet or by mail to, P.O. Box 54365, Irving, California, 92619-4365.

Email sent by Charles Aulds.

Hackworth was one of the first Vietnam heroes to be attacked by conservative elements for coming out against the war. In this he was joined by John Kerry and John Ritter on Iraq.

Gary Permalink on 5/06/2005

Running against someone for being a rotten liar doesn't work


Max Boot writes: Is Blair a Liar? Brits Don't Care

How can you tell if a political party is brain-dead? Easy. It spends an entire campaign denouncing the incumbent as a smarmy, good-for-nothing liar, rather than outlining its own agenda. The Republicans tried it against Bill Clinton in 1996, the Democrats tried it against George W. Bush in 2004, and now in Britain the Conservatives are trying it, with equal lack of success, against Tony Blair.

Such a tactic is beguiling because, to True Believers, the other side's triumphs are never on the up and up; they must be the result of hoodwinking the hapless electorate. The problem with this approach was pointed out to me by a political strategist last week: "Voters think all politicians are liars. So telling them that someone is a particularly effective liar doesn't work."

Gary Permalink on 5/05/2005

DeLay supported mandatory company abortions

On DeLay's fact-finding mission to an American territory in the Pacific local groups including missionaries hoped that the congressmen would apply minimum regulation to sweatshops run by Asian merchants.

The merchants had set up sweatshops in Saipan eager to get the Made in USA label without coming under US labor laws and regulations.

Little did the groups supporting the virtual prisoners know that his "closest and dearest friend" lobbyist Jack Abramoff had bought DeLay. Abramoff's company represented the Saipan manufacturers for $8 million.

Among the objections the Baptist and Catholic church groups had was that the ruthless clothing manufacturers had enforced mandatory abortions on their guest workers housed in prison-like conditions. The workers not able to leave earned $2.90 an hour minus company store prices for food, housing and transportation.

DeLay's personal ethics have global consequences



Gary Permalink on 5/05/2005

Red Green Mountain

Here in Texas the biggest promoter of clean green energy is Green Mountain Energy. They are at every festival offering to switch your electric bills to their greener and cheaper power.

Are they greener and cheaper? Not really. They have a minor influence by encouraging more alternate sources of power. Some of these alternative sources are dirtier than coal; some like wind power are better. Their brochures often contain misleading and inaccurate price comparisons.

Primarily they are a Republican owned group associated with BP energy that saw a niche market and have aggressively promoted themselves to that market. All the while they are politically funding anti-gay, anti-progressive, and anti-environment candidates.

Just a word to some people who may want to wise up.

Boycott GreenMountain.com!

Right Turn on Green Mountain

Burning Biomass.

Green Mountain has a long history of running afoul of environmentalists. Critics say the company claims to produce renewable fuel but then provides it from less-than-clean sources. Green Mountain is nothing but a front for big oil, contends Mike Ewall, director of the Energy Justice Network in Philadelphia. "What Green Mountain is marketing as green energy," he says, "is actually a lot of the stuff that the environmental community has been fighting for years."

Red Light, Green Light

"They were making zero difference for the environment….They sell stuff that is already out there. They just repackage it,"

Update on the Green Mountain Boycott and why. Texas is actually the best state to be a Green Mountain consumer although their huge political contributions to Bush continue.

Expanded: Texas Green Mountain consumers can actually get 100% wind power electricity. Green Mountain and Enron developed a wind farm in west Texas mostly through generous tax breaks. So in Texas at least Green Mountain can be environmentally sound even if politically appalling. The extent of DeLay/Bush/GOP ties can be seen by the $2.5 million contribution of Green Mountain's founder to slam McCain's environmental record when he threatened Bush's nomination for President. Senator McCain had a better environmental record than Bush.



Gary Permalink on 5/03/2005

Toward a more ignorant America

Well-funded attack on evolution send students to class with questions.

What is interesting is that these questions which sound difficult are easy to answer.

Of course, answering them doesn't change anyone's mind.

Once a frame is in place facts don't matter. Facts get ignored. Students starting at a lower grade need to have a better understanding of science and how it differs from other ways of thinking. Science advances by always questioning what they think they know and coming up with even better answers.

Fundamentalist faith is believing in your religious ideas because they have always been believed.

Gary Permalink on 5/03/2005

Are you a Republican?
My Result:

I am: 8% Republican.

"You're a complete liberal, utterly without a trace of Republicanism. Your strength is as the strength of ten because your heart is pure. (You hope.)"

Are You A Republican? Gary Permalink on 5/03/2005

DeLay's "closest and dearest friend" linked to Mafia and murder
Untangling a Lobbyist's Stake in a Casino Fleet

In a complicated tell that starts with a murder the Washington Post investigates the recent past of the lobbyist DeLay has called his "closest and dearest friend."

This is in part an investigation into what Abramoff was doing with before he extorted $82 million from Indian tribes to get them access to DeLay and top GOP officials in Washington.

Gary Permalink on 5/01/2005

Eros Blog: The Sex Blog

Not suitable for work. Sorry, the previous post was a deep link from this site.

Gary Permalink on 5/01/2005

Say NO to the Drug War

R rated protest picture

Gary Permalink on 4/30/2005

Great Moments in Texas Politics - Senfronia Thompson


JR 6 speech against discrimination by Representative Senfronia Thompson

I have been a member of this august body for three
decades, and today is one of the all-time low points.
We are going in the wrong direction, in
the direction of hate and fear and discrimination.

Members, we all know what this is about;
this is the politics of divisiveness at its worst, a
wedge issue that is meant to divide.

Members, this issue is a distraction from the real
things we need to be working on. At the end of this
session, this Legislature, this Leadership will not
be able to deliver the people of Texas, fundamental
and fair answers to the pressing issues of our day.


Let's look at what this amendment does not do: It
does not give one Texas citizen meaningful tax
relief. It does not reform or fully fund our education
system. It does not restore one child to CHIP who
was cut from health insurance last session. It does
not put one dime into raising Texas' Third World
access to health care. It does not do one thing to
care for or protect one elderly person or one child
in this state. In fact, it does not even do anything to
protect one marriage.

Members, this bill is about hate and fear and
discrimination. I know something about hate
and fear and discrimination.
When I was a small girl, white folks used to talk
about "protecting the institution of marriage" as
well. What they meant was if people of my color
tried to marry people of Mr. Chisum's color, you'd
often find the people of my color hanging from a
tree. That's what the white folks did back then to
"protect marriage." Fifty years ago, white folks
thought inter-racial marriages were a "threat to
the institution of marriage."

Members, I'm a Christian and a proud Christian.
I read the good book, and do my best to live by it.
I have never read the verse where it says, "gay
people can't marry." I have never read the verse
where it says, "though shalt discriminate against
those not like me." I have never read the verse
where it says, "let's base our public policy on
hate and fear and discrimination." Christianity to
me is love and hope and faith and forgiveness-
not hate and discrimination.

I have served in this body a lot of years-and I
have seen a lot of promises broken. I should
be up here demanding my 40 acres and a mule
because that's another promise you broke. You
used a wealthy white minister cloaked in the
cloth to ease the stench of that form of discrimination.

So, now that blacks and women can vote, and now
that blacks and women have equal rights-you turn
your hatred to homosexuals- and you still use your
misguided reading of the Bible to justify your
hatred.

You want to pass this ridiculous amendment so you
can go home and brag. Brag about what? Declare
that you saved the people of Texas from what? Persons
of the same sex cannot get married in this State now.
Texas does not now recognize same-sex marriages,
civil unions, religious unions, domestic partnerships,
contractual arrangements or Christian blessings entered
into in this State- or anywhere else on this planet Earth.

If you want to make your hateful political statements then
that is one thing- the Chisum amendment does real harm.
It repeals the contracts that many single people have paid
thousands of dollars to purchase to obtain medical powers
of attorney, powers of attorney, hospital visitation, joint
ownership and support agreements.
You have lost your way- this is obscene.

Today, you are playing to the lowest common denominator-
you are putting aside the real issues of substance that we
need to address so that you can instead play on the public's
fears and prejudices to deceive and manipulate voters into
thinking that we have done something important.


I realize that gay rights are not the same as civil rights-but I can
guarantee you we are going in the wrong direction. I can not
hide my skin color. In fact, in most of the South, people as pink
as Rep. Wayne Smith were still Black by law if they had a great
grandparent who was African. I was unable to attend an
integrated and equally funded school until I got my Master of
Laws degree. There were separate and unequal facilities for
nearly everything.

I got second-hand textbooks even worse than the kind you're
trying to pass off on every public school student next year. I
had to ride to school on the back of the bus. I had to quench
my thirst from filthy coloreds-only drinking fountains. I had to enter
restaurants from the kitchen door. I was banned from entering
most public accommodations, even from serving on a jury. I
had to live with the fear that getting too uppity could get
you killed --- or worse. I know what third-class citizenship
feels like.

In my first term, one of my colleagues walked up and down
this aisle muttering about how Nigras should be back in the
field picking cotton instead of picking out committees.

So, I have to wonder about Rep. Chisum's 3/5 of a person
amendment. Some of you folks hid behind your Bible then,
too, to justify your cultural prejudices, your denial of liberty,
and your gunpoint robbery of human dignity.

We have worked hard at putting our prejudices against
homosexuals in law. We have denied them basic job
protections. We have denied them and their children
freedom from bullying and harassment at school. We have
tried to criminalize their very existence. But, we have also
absolved them of all family duties and responsibilities: to
care for and support their spouses and children, to count
their family's assets in determining public assistance, to
obtain health insurance for dependents, to make end-of-life
or necessary medical decisions for their life partners---
sometimes even to visit in the hospital, even to defend
our own country. And then, we can stand on our two
hind legs and proclaim, "See, I told you homosexual
families are unstable."

And nearly every one of you on this Floor has a homosexual
in their extended families.

Some of you have shunned and isolated these family
members. Some of you, even some of the joint coauthors,
have embraced them within your own family for the essence
of Christianity is love. Yet,you are now poised to constitutionalize
discrimination against a particular class of people.

I thought we would be debating real issues:education, health
care for kids, teacher's health insurance, health care for the elderly,
protecting survivors of sexual assault, protecting the pensions of
seniors in nursing homes. I thought we would be debating economic
development, property tax relief, protecting seniors pensions and stem
cell research, to save lives of Texans who are waiting for a more
abundant life. Instead we are wasting this body's
time with this political stunt that is nothing more than constitutionalizing
discrimination.

The prejudices exhibited by members of this body disgust me.

Last week, Republicans used a political wedge issue to pull kids-sweet
little vulnerable kids - out of the homes of loving parents and put them
back in a state orphanage just because those parents are gay. That's
disgusting. Today, we are telling homosexuals that just like people of
my ilk, when I was a small child; they too are second class citizens.

I have listened to all the arguments. I have listened to all of the crap.

Mr. Chisum, is a person who I consider my good friend and revere.
But, I want you to know that this amendment is blowing smoke to fuel the
hell-fire flames of bigotry. You are trying to protect your constituents
from danger. This amendment is a CYB amendment for you to go
home and talk about.

Senfronia Thompson is a proud and loyal Democratic State Representative from Northeast Houston/Harris County and currently represents District 141 from which she was first elected in 1972. Representative Thompson may be reached by email in Austin at Senfronia.Thompson@house.state.tx.us or in Houston at Senfronia.Thompson@publicans.com.

She is also serving her first term on the Democratic National Committee representing the Lone Star State having been elected at the Houston Convention in June 2004.

Sent by Carl Whitmarsh - proud Texas Democrat
,br>
Gary Permalink on 4/30/2005

Democrat Hero Jim Moren

The Raw Story | In scathing interview, Democrat says Bush Social Security plan won't help; Dubs Cheney 'ass kisser'

One of the Democrats that Bush counted on to support his Social Security dismantling speaks out and it's a scorcher. This is especially significant as he was counted as one of the most sure votes for any bill the GOP put forward on Social Security. Until more Democrats speak out like this and use similar plain language to state what Bush and the GOP leadership is doing they will remain the minority party.

Gary Permalink on 4/30/2005

CNN Blackholeing Blog Critics from Google

CNN using comment spamming to remove critical articles from Google searches.

CNN sucks now. At least you know what you are getting at the faster paced but Fascist FOX NEWS.

Gary Permalink on 4/28/2005

Someone else has spotted that Friedman is a pile of manure
FLATHEAD

The usual ratio of Friedman criticism is 2:1, i.e., two human words to make sense of each single word of Friedmanese. Friedman is such a genius of literary incompetence that even his most innocent passages invite feature-length essays.

On an ideological level, Friedman's new book is the worst, most boring kind of middlebrow horseshit. If its literary peculiarities could somehow be removed from the equation, The World Is Flat would appear as no more than an unusually long pamphlet replete with the kind of plug-filled, free-trader leg-humping that passes for thought in this country. It is a tale of a man who walks 10 feet in front of his house armed with a late-model Blackberry and comes back home five minutes later to gush to his wife that hospitals now use the internet to outsource the reading of CAT scans. Man flies on planes, observes the wonders of capitalism, says we're not in Kansas anymore. (He actually says we're not in Kansas anymore.) That's the whole plot right there. If the underlying message is all that interests you, read no further, because that's all there is.

Gary Permalink on 4/26/2005

No Plan, No Clue, Train wreck coming

Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal quotes Business Week:

Howard Gleckman: "Despite their brave talk about the need to control the red ink, President George W. Bush and Congress are marching in the opposite direction. At Bush's urging, lawmakers are about to approve an additional $80 billion to fund the war in Iraq for 2005. The House has voted to repeal permanently the estate tax -- at a staggering 10-year cost of nearly $1 trillion. Congress is abandoning a White House request to trim farm subsidies, and lawmakers are balking at modest cuts in Medicaid.... You don't need a green eyeshade to understand the long-range problem. Today, as a percentage of the economy, federal tax revenues are at 50-year lows -- only about 16% of gross domestic product. But spending is humming along at 20% of national output.

And that's just the beginning of the problem. As the boomers age, three government programs -- Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid -- will suck up a mind-boggling chunk of the income the nation produces. In just two decades, those programs alone will eat up every dollar of anticipated tax revenues.... Even Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who gave the green light to big deficits in early 2001 when he put his stamp of approval on Bush's tax cuts, told the Senate Budget Committee on Apr. 21 that the budget is 'on an unsustainable path.'"

He continues with the Financial Times before concluding: And it's not the most fiscally irresponsible U.S. administration since World War II. It's the most fiscally irresponsible U.S. administration since before Alexander Hamilton rammed Revolutionary War debt assumption through Congress.

Gary Permalink on 4/25/2005

Bush / Kerry Logos as branding
Dem marketing sucks. Gary Permalink on 4/20/2005

D. James Kennedy's Creepy False History
I was manually flipping through the channels the other day and stopped at TBN. Trinity Broadcasting Network is the voice of Christian orthodox evangelical fundamentalists around the world and the new voice of the Republican base here at home.

TBN has had recent programming changes since there is controversy over the homosexuality and sumptuous lifestyle of its main on-air spokesman and founder and his outing by popular faith healer Benny Hinn.

The program I couldn't get past creeped me out. D. James Kennedy was preaching on Thomas Jefferson and the myths and lies liberals were spreading about him in an effort to destroy the United States.

First, D. James Kennedy, I can't bring myself to type Dr., looks like an alien from Star Trek, an anti-Vulcan. Instead of pointed ear tips on top he has no ear lobes but a pointy stretch of skin below. Just what you want in a leader - an anti-Vulcan. Away with calm logic, I have the authority of hateful lies.

Second, he was using the rhetoric all too common nowadays from the GOP and Christian fundamentalists about the "evil" liberals, the "evil" American Civil Liberties Union, (who by the way defended Rush Limbaugh's right to keep medical records private), the "evil" liberal media establishment, and the "evil" fake historians and educators. All of us educated civil libertarians and liberals out here are evil, evil, evil and going to Hell, Hell, Hell. He even added a dig about the anarchistic godless French.

Third, he distorted and twisted history. He proceeded to try to pull every time Jefferson supported the church and Christianity as an example of what a great Christian leader he was. One who would support what his organization is trying to do which is to "recreate" America as a Christian theocracy.

During all this he glossed over and tried to explain away Jeffersonian positions he didn't approve of. The "wall of separation between Church and State" he said really was the church being protected from the government. There wasn't any such thing as the Jefferson Bible, Jefferson's cutting out of the parts of the Bible he couldn't support - this was only Jefferson creating a moral guidebook based on the Bible. The little problems that Jefferson had with Christianity can be explained away as Jefferson's loss of loved ones and not having access to a minister for theological guidance. As an aside he mentioned Lincoln's "falling in with the wrong crowd" as an explanation for his unorthodox views.

This was a lecture sermon on the myths and distortions of Jefferson that was full of myths and distortions. Jesus, every time I see a sermon lately I feel I need equal time.

Both Lincoln and Jefferson could be called liberal Christians which these crackpot fundamentalists don't understand. They seem to feel they must lie and distort history to explain away their views.

Jefferson in particular did not believe in the rank superstitions which he felt had been inserted into the Bible. He believed Jesus was a great man but did not rise from the dead and all miracles are superstitions added by credulous ignorant people. Abraham Lincoln believed in a God of love and these fundamentalists don't. Jefferson said he would have been a Unitarian if a church had been near him. Lincoln supported Universalism, which says the message of Jesus and the Bible is love and no tyrant would be so cruel as to condemn people to everlasting punishment. These are the mind and heart responses a thinking loving person can apply toward Christianity.

Media Transparency has created an information page on the powerful political power D. James Kennedy now has.

What distinguishes Dr. Kennedy from the more colorful, media-genic, and recognizable religious right figures such as the Rev. Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and Dr. James Dobson is that "Kennedy has shepherded his flock in a more orderly, and Presbyterian style into the Christian Right."" Part of his crusade is to twist American history to make people believe that the U.S. was founded as a 'Christian nation.' "It is this false, historical revisionism that is central to the ideology of the Christian right -- it's a critical part of their justification to restore an idea that never was."

Between the years 1998 and 2003, Dr. Kennedy's Coral Ridge Ministries, Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church and Evangelism Explosion received more than $7.2 million in grants from conservative foundations. The most generous donors, according to Media Transparency, have been the Orville D. and Ruth A. Merillat Foundation and the Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation, which alone ponied up nearly $6 million earmarked as "unrestricted grant[s]" to the organization's "general fund."

American's United for the Separation of Church and State have obtained a recording of the GOP leaders pledging to strongly push the Religious Right agenda on judicial nominations, church politicking, abortion, marriage, the Terri Schiavo case and other right to life issues.

Just another sign that America is being lead by mutants straight to Hell.

The Light of Reason also sees the GOP quoting Stalin to lead us to Hell.

This was a birthday blog - now back to job hunting.

Gary Permalink on 4/11/2005

Unitarian Jihad

Greetings to the Imprisoned Citizens of the United States! Too long has your attention been waylaid by the bright baubles of extremist thought. Too long have fundamentalist yahoos of all religions (except Buddhism -- 14-5 vote, no abstentions, fundamentalism subcommittee) made your head hurt. Too long have you been buffeted by angry people who think that God talks to them. You have a right to your moderation! You have the power to be calm! We will use the IED of truth to explode the SUV of dogmatic expression!

People of the United States, why is everyone yelling at you??? Whatever happened to ... you know, everything? Why is the news dominated by nutballs saying that the Ten Commandments have to be tattooed inside the eyelids of every American, or that Allah has told them to kill Americans in order to rid the world of Satan, or that Yahweh has instructed them to go live wherever they feel like, or that Shiva thinks bombing mosques is a great idea? Sister Immaculate Dagger of Peace notes for the record that we mean no disrespect to Jews, Muslims, Christians or Hindus. Referred back to the committee of the whole for further discussion.

We are Unitarian Jihad. We are everywhere. We have not been born again, nor have we sworn a blood oath. We do not think that God cares what we read, what we eat or whom we sleep with. Brother Neutron Bomb of Serenity notes for the record that he does not have a moral code but is nevertheless a good person, and Unexalted Leader Garrote of Forgiveness stipulates that Brother Neutron Bomb of Serenity is a good person, and this is to be reflected in the minutes.

Beware! Unless you people shut up and begin acting like grown-ups with brains enough to understand the difference between political belief and personal faith, the Unitarian Jihad will begin a series of terrorist-like actions. We will take over television studios, kidnap so-called commentators and broadcast calm, well-reasoned discussions of the issues of the day. We will not try for "balance" by hiring fruitcakes; we will try for balance by hiring non-ideologues who have carefully thought through the issues.

My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Sibling Jackhammer of Loving Kindness.

Get yours.

Gary Permalink on 4/11/2005