Journal Entries
Quotation of the moment - 2 November, 2003
Posted Nov 2, 2003
"Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those that own one."
A.J. Leibling
Discuss this Journal entry [4]
Latest reply: Nov 2, 2003
Should in bother me...
Posted Nov 1, 2003
...that the National Rifle Association publishes an enemies list at its web site?
It bothered Dustin Hoffman that he wasn't on it, according to http://www.abc.net.au/news/justin/weekly/newsnat-29oct2003-34.htm
'Actor Dustin Hoffman was so dismayed to find his name missing from the NRA's shadowy 19-page list of US companies, celebrities and news organisations seen as lending support to anti-gun policies that he wrote to the powerful pro-gun lobby group begging to be included.
'"As a supporter of comprehensive anti-gun safety measures, I was deeply disappointed when I discovered my name was not on the list," Hoffman wrote in a letter to the NRA.
'"I was particularly surprised by the omission given my opposition to the loophole that makes it legal for 18- to 20-year-olds to buy handguns at gun shows," he added.
'Hoffman's name has now been added to the list, which reads like a Who's Who of American business, culture and religion.'
The list can be found at http://www.nraila.com/FactSheets.asp?FormMode=Detail&ID=15
Here are just a few of the individuals and organizations listed:
National Organizations
AFL-CIO
American Academy of Pediatrics
American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
American Federation of Teachers [glad that my union made the cut!]
Central Conference of American Rabbis
League of Women Voters of the United States
National Association of Public Hospitals
National Association of School Psychologists
National Association of Secondary School Principals
National Association of Social Workers
National Black Nurses' Association
United Methodist Church, General Board & Church Society
United States Catholic Conference
United States Conference of Mayors
YWCA of the U.S.A.
Celebrities:
Maya Angelou - Poet
Richard Belzer - Actor
Tony Bennett - Singer
Boys II Men - Pop Group
Jon Bon Jovi - Singer
Kevin Costner - Actor
Sean Connery - Actor
Sheryl Crow - Singer
Walter Cronkite - Frmr News Anchor
Billy Crystal- Actor
k.d. lang - Singer
Ricki Lake - TV personality
Denis Leary - Actor
Norman Lear - TV Producer
Spike Lee - Director
National Figures:
Gerald M. Levin - Chairman, Time Warner
Davis S. Liederman - Ex. Dir. Child Welfare League
Paul Rabbi Menitaff - Clergyman
Abner Mikva - Former Judge
Richard Parsons - Pres. Time Warner
Jay Pritzker, Chairman & CEO Hyatt Corporation
Steven Rockefeller - Financier
Anti-Gun Corporations/Corporate Heads:
Ben & Jerry's Homemade, Inc.
Hallmark Cards
Kansas City Chiefs
Levi Strauss & Co.
Sara Lee Corporation
Time Warner Inc.
Publication and Media Outlets
Capital Cities/ABC
Columbia Broadcasting Service
Corporation For Public Broadcasting/ PBS Television
Gannett News Service
Knight-Ridder Newspapers
National Broadcasting Company
Newsweek, Inc.
Discuss this Journal entry [2]
Latest reply: Nov 1, 2003
Ann Coulter vs. equal application of the law
Posted Oct 26, 2003
Ann Coulter is, in my opinion, slightly more conservative and slightly less rational than Rush Limbaugh, and a fairly well known spokesperson for the neo-conservative movement within the United States.
What I'm going to provide here is a few snippets from a recent news talk show on which seh was a guest. I don't feel the need to make any editorial observations, because the words pretty much speak for themselves. For more of the transcript, visit http://www.msnbc.com/news/980164.asp
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SCARBOROUGH: Now, Lisa Bloom, let me bring you in here and ask you, what does it mean when you have Democratic presidential candidates taking on a radio talk show host? And I’m not just talking about John Kerry, because Howard Dean and Rush Limbaugh have had this back and forth over the past several months.
Is Limbaugh really seen as the boogeyman on the American left right now?
BLOOM: Well, I suppose he is.
And I hate to interrupt this love fest about how wonderful Rush Limbaugh is, but I still haven’t gotten an answer from those of you conservatives, like Ann Coulter, who said that people should be punished for violating drug laws. Doesn’t that apply to your good friend Rush Limbaugh, who has now admitted that he violated a drug law?
BLOOM: Joe, are you protecting your friend Ann Coulter, who doesn’t want to answer the question. She’s been asked five times. She just said on air people who violate drug laws should be punished and go to prison. Why doesn’t Ann Coulter answer that question for herself?
COULTER: Because you’re all talking.
SCARBOROUGH: We’re not going to get there.
(CROSSTALK)
BLOOM: Not going to get there, huh?
COULTER: I’ll answer. You’re all talking.
(CROSSTALK)
SCARBOROUGH: Ann, go ahead. Ann, answer please.
COULTER: I can’t believe this. You won’t let me answer the question and then claim I’m demurring from it.
Look, if my mother committed murder, I wouldn’t want her to go to
jail. It’s a stupid question for what I think the law should be vs. what I think a friend or
(CROSSTALK)
BLOOM: You don’t think the law should apply to your friend?
COULTER: No, I told you. If my mother committed murder, I wouldn’t want her to go to jail.
BLOOM: So you don’t think Rush Limbaugh should go to jail if he
(CROSSTALK)
COULTER: We’re very big on this hypocrisy angle.
(CROSSTALK)
SCARBOROUGH: Cut them off.
Neal.
BOORTZ: It may, in fact, be a stupid question, but it is also a very revealing question. It reveals that...
COULTER: No, it isn’t.
BOORTZ: It is.
It’s revealing, Lisa, your delight in what’s happening to Rush Limbaugh.
BLOOM: Why would I be delighted if a man is addicted to drugs?
BOORTZ: That’s for you to answer. That’s for you to answer. But your tenacious insistence...
(CROSSTALK)
BLOOM: ... on the right who insist on Draconian drug laws don’t want them applied to their friends, for the same reason that I don’t want them applied to anyone.
(CROSSTALK)
COULTER: I don’t want murder laws applied to my friends.
(CROSSTALK)
SCARBOROUGH: Cut off the mikes. Cut off all the microphones.
Discuss this Journal entry [3]
Latest reply: Oct 26, 2003
Church, meet State. State, this is Church.
Posted Oct 25, 2003
The world according to United States General Jerry Boykin, from
http://www.arbiteronline.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/10/20/3f93815e46148
"In June of 2002, Jerry Boykin stepped to the pulpit at the First Baptist Church of Broken Arrow, Okla., and described a set of photographs he had taken of Mogadishu, Somalia, from an Army helicopter in 1993.
The photographs were taken shortly after the disastrous “Blackhawk Down’’ mission had resulted in the death of 18 Americans. When Boykin came home and had them developed, he said, he noticed a strange dark mark over the city. He had an imagery interpreter trained by the military look at the mark. “This is not a blemish on your photograph,’’ the interpreter told him, “This is real.’’
“Ladies and gentleman, this is your enemy,” Boykin said to the congregation as he flashed his pictures on a screen. “It is the principalities of darkness. . . . It is a demonic presence in that city that God revealed to me as the enemy.”
This June, for instance, at the pulpit of the Good Shepherd Community Church in Sandy, Ore., he displayed slides of Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and North Korea’s Kim Jung Il. “Why do they hate us?” Boykin asked. “The answer to that is because we’re a Christian nation. . . . We are hated because we are a nation of believers.”
Our “spiritual enemy,” Boykin continued, “will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus.”
Boykin has made it clear that he takes his orders not from his Army superiors but from God – which is a worrisome line of command. For another, it is both imprudent and dangerous to have a senior officer guiding the war on terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan who believes that Islam is an idolatrous, sacrilegious religion against which we are waging a holy war.
When Boykin’s Delta Force commandos went after Atto, they missed him by seconds, he said. “He went on CNN and he laughed at us, and he said, ‘They’ll never get me because Allah will protect me. Allah will protect me.’”
“Well, you know what?” Boykin continued. “I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol.”
"George Bush was not elected by a majority of the voters in the United States. He was appointed by God."
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Of course, some other people have had different opinions.
"The doctrine of the divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity."
- John Adams
"The Government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion."
- Article 11, Treaty With Tripoli, 4 November 1796
"What influence in fact have Christian ecclesiastical establishments had on civil society? In many instances they have been upholding the thrones of political tyranny. In no instance have they been seen as the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty have found in the clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate liberty, does not need the clergy."
- James Madison
"Religion and government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together."
- James Madison
Discuss this Journal entry [6]
Latest reply: Oct 25, 2003
So far...
Posted Oct 22, 2003
The link provided below provides a running total on what the United States has spent waging war against and occupying Iraq.
http://www.scarysquirrel.org/history/gwbush/cost/
Discuss this Journal entry [5]
Latest reply: Oct 22, 2003
David Conway
Researcher U180337
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