Genghis on Debt Ceiling II: Return of the Boehner
Gallup: Obama 45, Romney 45
Fact That Things Suck Cited As Impediment To Re-Election
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Genghis on Debt Ceiling II: Return of the Boehner Gallup: Obama 45, Romney 45 Fact That Things Suck Cited As Impediment To Re-Election |
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Friday, November 20, 2009. 145 evangelical, Catholic, and Orthodox Christian leaders have signed the "Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience," in which they declared their shared opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage. Though only hours old, the declaration has already been declared "historic" by those whose job it is to designate historic declarations. Several reasons were cited for the historic designation of the declaration:
While some may quibble with the Manhattan Declaration's historical accuracy, no one can dispute its inherent historicness. In addition, the declaration is also noteworthy for its futureness, envisioning a time when religious institutions will be forced to do really, really bad things by "soft despots." The signers vow that they will follow Martin Luther King Jr. in disobeying any law that would require their institutions to "bless immoral sexual partnerships" or "participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia, or any other anti-life act." The day that those soft despots force the nation's churches to engage in embryo-destructive research will be a dark one indeed, and we owe our gratitude to these courageous religious leaders who are willing to face imprisonment or even loss of tax exempt status for resistance to such immoral hypothetical laws.
Thus does the Manhattan Declaration join the lofty ranks of other proud historic-futuristic declarations like the Declaration of Independence, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Emancipation Proclamation (which while not technically a declaration has been awarded the designation of honorary declaration in light of its declarative qualities). Thank you, Christian leaders, for overlooking your petty theological squabbles to unify against our common enemies: desperate women, homosexuals, and all those judges, politicians, and newspeople who facilitate their immoral practices.
Witness history and sanity unravel in happy unison at my Persecution Politics series at dagblog.com.
By Nancy Benac, Associated Press, May 16, 2012
After the nastiness of the Republican primary race, former candidates have collective amnesia about Romney disses
Note to self: you think you're so smart about this kinda stuff, but you yourself fell for it once again.....so much for all the prognostication about one of our political parties disintegrating from all the primary campaign animosity.
Pew Resarch Center for the People and the Press, May 15, 2012
For decades survey research has provided trusted data about political attitudes and voting behavior, the economy, health, education, demography and many other topics. But political and media surveys are facing significant challenges as a consequence of societal and technological changes.
It has become increasingly difficult to contact potential respondents and to persuade them to participate. The percentage of households in a sample that are successfully interviewed – the response rate – has fallen dramatically. At Pew Research, the response rate of a typical telephone survey was 36% in 1997 and is just 9% today. The general decline in response rates is evident across nearly all types of surveys, in the United States and abroad. At the same time, greater effort and expense are required to achieve even the diminished response rates of today. These challenges have led many to question whether surveys are still providing accurate and unbiased information [....]
On May 16, 2012 at 7:00 PM, the Ride of Silence will begin in North America and roll across the globe. Cyclists will take to the roads in a silent procession to honor cyclists who have been killed or injured while cycling on public roadways. Although cyclists have a legal right to share the road with motorists, the motoring public often isn't aware of these rights, and sometimes not aware of the cyclists themselves.
...
The Ride of Silence is a free ride that asks its cyclists to ride no faster than 12 mph, wear helmets, follow the rules of the road and remain silent during the ride. There are no sponsors and no registration fees. The ride, which is held during National Bike Month, aims to raise the awareness of motorists, police and city officials that cyclists have a legal right to the public roadways. The ride is also a chance to show respect for and honor the lives of those who have been killed or injured.
A new UCLA rat study is the first to show how a diet steadily high in fructose slows the brain, hampering memory and learning — and how omega-3 fatty acids can counteract the disruption. The peer-reviewed Journal of Physiology publishes the findings in its May 15 edition.
"Our findings illustrate that what you eat affects how you think," said Fernando Gomez-Pinilla, a professor of neurosurgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and a professor of integrative biology and physiology in the UCLA College of Letters and Science. "Eating a high-fructose diet over the long term alters your brain's ability to learn and remember information. But adding omega-3 fatty acids to your meals can help minimize the damage."
While earlier research has revealed how fructose harms the body through its role in diabetes, obesity and fatty liver, this study is the first to uncover how the sweetener influences the brain.
The UCLA team zeroed in on high-fructose corn syrup, an inexpensive liquid six times sweeter than cane sugar, that is commonly added to processed foods, including soft drinks, condiments, applesauce and baby food. The average American consumes more than 40 pounds of high-fructose corn syrup per year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
"We're not talking about naturally occurring fructose in fruits, which also contain important antioxidants," explained Gomez-Pinilla, who is also a member of UCLA's Brain Research Institute and Brain Injury Research Center. "We're concerned about high-fructose corn syrup that is added to manufactured food products as a sweetener and preservative."
[Better write this down]
Christopher Doyon, a.k.a. Commander X, sits atop a hillside in an undisclosed location in Canada, watching a reporter and photographer make their way along a narrow path to join him, away from the prying eyes of law enforcement.
It’s been a few weeks of encrypted emails back and forth, working out the security protocol to follow for interviewing Doyon, one of the brains behind Anonymous, now a fugitive from the FBI.
Doyon, who readily admits taking part in some of the highest-profile hacktivist attacks on websites last year — from Tunisia to Orlando, Sony to PayPal — was arrested in September for a comparatively minor assault on the county website of Santa Cruz, Calif., where he was living, in retaliation for the town forcibly removing a homeless encampment on the courthouse steps.
The “virtual sit-in” lasted half an hour. For that, Doyon is facing 15 years in jail.
Why is Obama's Administration is Anti-Religion? It's because they are Communists and Communists do not believe in God. Overwhelming proof to back this claim here: http://www.commieblaster.com/index.html
Why are cucumbers anti-tomato? It's because they are Nazis and nazis are anti-red. Overwhelming proof to back this claim here:
Cukes!
Geek out. (Does anyone really use Cucumber? It looks like another quixotic attempt to write software in business logic aka "English.")
Yeah, it's not exactly my cup o' tea, either.
Commie Blaster? Seriously? Were you cryofrozen in 1980?
This is clearly a high-quality web site, as evidenced by the awesome banner with Ronald Reagan cartoon and this irrefutable equation:
If I can just sidestep Commieblaster's searing argument for one moment, I found reading the Declaration an interesting process, in 3 ways: (1) They've adopted a style and approach which they feel sets them inside MLK shoes, and the anti-slavers, and seem to believe this approach is the right one. (2) It's an amazing look inside their heads, where they clearly feel they're a minority, and this comes up repeatedly across these churches -- whereas we often see them as representing the majority culture. (3) They are claiming women's suffrage, civil rights and even slavery as historic victories - for them. Now, segments and slices of conservative churches actually played quite powerful roles in some of these movements, but certainly in recent decades, these folks have been opposed.
So, you have to wonder what goes through the heads - not just what comes out of the mouths - of people who: A) Support civil rights and women's suffrage; B) Know that Obama & Hillary have won, and were beneficiaries of these movements; and yet, C) Are the immoral monsters bringing you these new challenges.
I've seen the same thing repeatedly come up in churches in relation to the environment, where the churches all became increasingly explicit about supporting wealth creation and pro-capitalist means of doing that, and then... saw their own people, esp. the younger members, begin to challenge the environmental impacts. e.g. That whole "What would Jesus drive?" thing sounded funny, but was part of 000's of churches getting solar panels and so on. At a deep level, there's a big question here, of -- who's really winning? There's also the question of, if your "opponents" are actually having to take many of your attitudes and approaches on-board, how can you use this to peel members off, and split their ranks? And last but never least, there's room for some more thinking about Ressentiment, and the greatness of FN, and how the hell one handles a population that soaks in it.
How the hell one handles a population that soaks in it indeed. On the one hand, I do wonder what the success of PR means about democracy. If you can truly manufacture consent, then what does that imply about the consent of the governed? On the other hand, Fox News only has the ear of about 1% of the population, assuming that their ratings figures are accurate.
Two opposing views on the Manhattan Declaration from WaPo's On Faith section. The first is by Timothy George, founding dean of Beeson Divinity School and a senior editor of Christianity Today. George embraces the "fundamental truths" found in the Declaration and invites believers and non-believers alike to "to join us in the defense of human life, marriage, and religious freedom."
The second and more interesting column is by Robert Parham, executive editor of EthicsDaily.com and executive director of its parent organization, the Baptist Center for Ethics, who is right on topic:
Noting its "chest-thumping boldness and abundant fear-mongering", Parham also calls out the Declaration for its historical un-truthiness in the realms of slavery, women's rights, civil rights and AIDS. Finally, Parham takes on what the Declaration neglected: