Bushisms

Well, we know this president did not invent the Internet or Google, although he may have invented the word "The Internets" and "The Google".

p.s. The prez doesn't use email either. He doesn't want the liability of a written email record telling him he was supposed to know something. But the rest of this video where he states that has now been pulled from all the sites some 2 months later. Shucks!

Tabernacle Pews Are Casualty of Facelift

I'm a history buff; and this quote about recent rennovations of the Tabernacle just caught my attention.

For Robert Charles Mitchell, a retired newspaper editor from Salt Lake
City who lives in Logan, the fate of the pews and the bank tower hit the “same
vein.” "It’s an issue of values,” he said. “We glorify our pioneers. We talk about their travails and bless their devilishly hard work. We laud them on the one hand and run roughshod over them on the other. We’re dishing up ersatz history and throwing away the real thing.”

The Corpse of Habeas Corpus

"All we have to fear is fear itself." - Franklin D. Roosevelt

The ease in which habeas corpus has been compromised is alarming. As the dear reader knows, habeas corpus is a concept that precedes our system of government by centuries, thanks to the British.

Habeas Corpus looking more like a corpse.

The Geneva Convention seems convened.

And Olbermann waxes poetic on both (Video - 8:42 min).

Christians Conned by GOP

"Then Jesus said unto them, Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees." - Matt 16:6

I don't trust the government to govern religion or to work with it. I want them to be hands off because I think they will just stir up a mess.

Part of my thinking might have to do with my own LDS background in which state governments and the federal government invariably got it wrong when it came to working with their Saint minority. From my viewpoint, they just didn't understand us.

And the fruits of their misunderstandings? Well, Missouri had its Extermination Order against the Saints; Illinois, its lack of civil protection and persecution; and later when the Saints fled to the West, the expanding Federal government was finally moved not to protect but to war against the Saints, enraged by the practice of polygamy and the fear that their new federally appointed civic leaders weren't being paid enough attention to. With religious help like that, who needs friends?

It is interesting to see how manipulative such seemingly religious-minded leaders can actually be -- or so says special assistant to the president David Kuo. Things are not always what they seem at the surface. This administration's faith-based iniatitives have felt and smelt to me like an elite group of political thinkers using religious leaders, who were so willing to be used. Now comes the latest revelations from Bush's #2 man in charge of faith-based initiatives on CBS' 60 Minutes.

Observes Kuo, "He [President Bush] wanted it [faith initiatives] to look good. He cared less about it being good."

Show with no intention of substance. Hmm, where have we heard of this before in the New Testament? It sounds so familiar.

While the administration wrapped themselves up in evangelical clothes and courted their leaders, secretly they were calling evangelical leaders nut-cases. These initiatives were all for show with subtle winks to get the religious voter base out for power -- "wonder working power" -- the evangelical ear-candy equivalent to "Come, Come Ye Saints".

What was it that P.T. Barnum supposedly said? Oh yea. "There's a sucker born every minute."

Nuclear Test in North Korea

North Korea finally tests nuclear bomb Sunday night while U.S. President sleeps

• Developing story at CNN
• Shots fired on Korean border as tensions mount
  

Options?

1. U.S. continues 6 country negotiations, economic sanctions tightened but generally N. Korea continues on as a nuclear power
2. As a result, regional nuclear arms race in the Far East among Japan, China, S. Korea and N. Korea heats up big time and fast! North Korean nuclear technology eventually leak to weapons buyers
   
3. Or China steps in to end current N. Korean regime and establishes a friendlier communist government. In which case they position themselves as the military leader and power broker in Asia
   
4. Or the U.S. steps in militarily in N. Korea with some help from its alliance with other countries - Japan, S. Korea, China, Russia - in order to stop the nuclear arms race in Asia, keep the balance of power and America's leadership position in Asia. (Bogged down in a land war in Iraq, the U.S. implements a draft to meet the needs of a new war?)

Prediction: Watch for a Republican bounce in the polls with the N. Korean threat heating up. Sorry Democrats. Americans will desire stability.

What Are We Willing To Become To Feel Safe?

Here's a YouTube video of the day on the practice of water boarding. The Wall Street Journal editorial board has declared that what we are watching below isn't even "close to torture." The SS were just deploying "alternative interrogation techniques."

Most of the interrogation techniques are top secret. Waterboarding is one of the few we know about.

Majority of Iraqis Now Approve of Killing Americans

• 6 in 10 Iraqis Approve of Killing Americans
• 7 in 10 Iraqis Want the U.S. Gone From Iraq Within a Year

Source: PIPA / University of Maryland Poll conducted by D3 Systems, Inc. Polling was conducted September 1-4 with a nationwide representative sample of 1,150 Iraqi adults.