Science vs. Religion

Frish's Missing Link Theory! (Copyright 07052005)

Quote in entirety permitted
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1. Earth supplied the NATURAL components needed to have life happen here.

2. Life is a GEOLOGIC process. Biology is a natural outcome of geology.

2a. Life uses energy and chemistry to process organic and inorganic chemicals. Life is most essentially digesting the planet Earth and the potential energy provided by Earth's chemistry.

3. That's Life.

4. Monkeys obey the golden rule. They are social primates. They do unto others (pick lice for one thing), as they would have others do unto them (pick lice for one thing). Monkeys (and humans) are social primates, DEPENDENT AND RELIANT on each other.

5. The GOLDEN RULE IS BUILT IN to human-kind. Any charlatan can claim it for his or her own, as it is built-in! This fact may be one more than can be contained in a "true-believer"'s head, but morality comes built into humans, almost all of us act "right" almost all the time.

6. Humans and our technology evolved to dig up oil which is just what is needed for the next stage of life's evolution on the planet.

7. Humans have served their function and will be recycled into the ever active treadmill of chemicals and geologic processes that fluxes upon the Earth at all times.

8. “Live long and die off!”

The only moral choice... www.vhemt.org

An abortive attempt at justice! Karl Rove, Traitor!

Caltrans workers dumped road kill in ravine near Saratoga

WHAT CAUGHT MY EYE ABOUT THIS ARTICLE IS THAT MY FRIEND MARK AND I USED TO PLAY IN THE VERY PLACE THESE ROAD KILL HAD BEEN DEPOSITED! WE USED TO RIDE OUR 10 SPEED SCHWINNS UP HWY 9 TO A GRAVEL QUARRY, AND "SKI" DOWN THE GRAVEL SLOPE NARROWLY AVOIDING GETTING BURIED BY THE SLIDING DIRT... I WAS 10 - 12 AT THE TIME. THE COASTAL MOUNTAINS IN CENTRAL CALIFORNIA ARE QUITE IMPRESSIVE, BEAUTIFUL PINES AND REDWOODS... Demian Bulwa, Chronicle Staff Writer Sunday, September 30, 2007 (09-30) 14:24 PDT SARATOGA - -- Three Caltrans maintenance workers have for roughly the past decade violated agency policy by dumping roadkill - the remains of deer, raccoons, opossums and other wild animals struck by vehicles - into a ravine off windy Route 9 west of the city of Saratoga, a Caltrans spokeswoman said Sunday. After learning of the practice Thursday, the agency is now investigating who owns the land in unincorporated Santa Clara County where the animals were dumped and whether their decomposing carcasses could have polluted nearby Saratoga Creek, spokeswoman Lauren Wonder said. "We are doing our investigation with staff and will take appropriate disciplinary action" against the workers, Wonder said. "We will not tolerate this inhumane treatment of animals nor the violation of our policies." Caltrans will do its best to clean up the site, she said. In addition, all maintenance workers in the South Bay will be given additional training on the proper disposal of roadkill. Wild animals, Wonder said, are supposed to be taken for rendering to the San Jose Tallow Company, while pets must be delivered to one of two area animal shelters. Caltrans learned of the dumping Thursday after inquiries were made by a KPIX (Channel 5) television news reporter, Wonder said. One maintenance worker, she said, subsequently admitted the violations had gone on for about 10 years. "It sounds like it's not a regular practice, though," Wonder said. "They've used the area on and off."

Superficial characteristics means more babies fathered! Ah, Sex, ain't it a mystery!?!?!?

I have a radio announcer voice (see first post in this blog!). It does seem to help me "get over" if you know what I mean. No one has ever complained about the timbre or pitch of my voice, although I tend to whine...

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=20d865fc-cd62-4944-896a-6582fc0adc31&k=67686


Man's voice an indicator of sexual potency: Canadian Research; Men with deep tones produce more children

If a recent study holds true, having a voice like the late Barry White, (oh, baby), can be the key to sexual potency.

Tom Blackwell, National PostPublished: Tuesday, September 25, 2007

For many women, the deepness of a man's voice is one of the most powerful aphrodisiacs, a new study co-authored by a Canadian psychologist suggests.

All else being equal, males with lower voices produce more children than their higher-pitched counterparts, concluded the researchers in a search for evolutionary explanations of sexual attraction.

The study looked at Tanzania's Hadza tribesmen, one of the world's few remaining hunter-gatherer societies, because the Hadzas never use birth control, a complicating factor that makes it impossible to do such research elsewhere in the world.

The discovery that the pitch of their voices was a major determinant of how many children they would father underlines the deep-seated roots of the seemingly superficial human trait, said David Feinberg, a psychology professor at Mc-Master University in Hamilton, Ont.

Previous research has indicated that a deep voice signifies robust genes, in evolutionary terms.

The findings, however, can not really be put into action on the dating scene, stressed Prof. Feinberg, a co-author of the study.

"This doesn't mean, go out and find a guy with a low-pitched voice if you want to have lots of babies," he said. "[But] it tells us a bit about where we came from and where we're going."
The findings, though, came as no surprise yesterday to professionals in the dating world.

At Toronto-based Misty River Introductions, billed as a "traditional match-maker," men with deep voices always seem to do better, and are much more likely to move beyond the initial stage of a telephone conversation with their potential date, said manager Linda Miller.

"We've had certain clients, you couldn't tell if they were men or women when they called in. They don't do terribly well," she said. "And then you have men who have radio-annnouncer voices, they have that great masculine timbre, and every call is a hit."

Some of Ruth Claramunt's female clients at Hearts Canada, another match-making service, have actually specified that they like men with low voices.

"Or if someone has a squeaky little voice: 'Oh, I didn't really like him,' " said Ms. Claramunt.

"They could be a great big hunky guy and if they have a squeaky voice over the phone, it's sort of a negative."

Prof. Feinberg said he has been trying to see whether human males attract their mates with the same kind of "ornaments," like a peacock's plumage or a deer's antlers, seen elsewhere in the animal world.

Earlier in human evolution, it appears that the appeal of a deep voice was linked to testosterone levels. Deep voices are caused by high testosterone levels in adolescent. Large volumes of the hormone can also prompt immune suppression in a weaker person, so someone who survived to manhood with a deep voice would necessarily have a strong genetic makeup, said the psychologist.

No one, however, has been able to test until now whether the attraction of a deep male voice translated into their having more reproductive success.

For the study, Prof. Feinberg and his colleagues, anthropologists at Harvard and Florida State Universities, looked at 49 men and 42 women among the 1,000-strong Hadza people, who choose their own mates but have a fairly high divorce rate in an informal system of "serial monogamy."

The participants spoke into sensitive microphones and had their voices analysed with sophisticated electronic equipment. The pitch of the men's voices accounted for about 42% of the difference in number of children between fathers, the researchers found.

Although other studies have suggested that men are more attracted to women with high voices, the study found that the pitch of the women's voices did not predict how many children they would have.

tblackwell@nationalpost.com

Vandals egg house of local atheist

Normally, I'd get really worried and upset about an article like this. But as imaginative as I am, I cannot make this stuff up!

Going house Egging
Brought out my chalk, criss crossing
Jesus Mis-spelt? How???

Vandals egg house of local atheist
Daily Herald Staff Reports

Published: 9/23/2007 3:00 AM

The home of a local outspoken atheist was vandalized overnight Friday, police said -- with eggs tossed at the house and cars, and crosses and religious words scrawled in chalk on the driveway.

A church bulletin also was stuck on the front door.

The incident comes days after Rob Sherman's daughter, Dawn, led a successful effort to have the song "God Bless America" yanked from Buffalo Grove High School's homecoming celebration. Dawn Sherman is a freshman on the student council.

The vandalism likely was the retaliatory work of youngsters, police Sgt. Mike Millett said -- since it came on the heels of the school incident and because one of the chalked words, "Jesus," was misspelled.

Using "GOD" in advertising, is it "beyond the pale"?

I can understand the church's concerns. Is a "blasphemous" image of Christ (or video, worse yet) to be ignored?

On the other hand, the idea of Christ...Man-God, Virgin Birth, Mithras coincidence, no historical record, rewrite and selection of liturgy in Nicea, walked on water...perhaps isn't something the church ought to be so defensive of in the first place!


Pot-bellied Jesus ad irks Church
By Frances Harrison BBC religious affairs reporter

Catholic bishops in Belgium have protested against a TV ad depicting Jesus as a pot-bellied hippy picking up half-naked women in a nightclub.

The advertisement is being aired on the country's main TV channel to promote youth channel Plug TV.

The Catholic Church says this sort of portrayal of Jesus is disrespectful to believers and that it is wrong to use him for advertising.

However, Plug TV denies that the advertisement is blasphemous.

'Number one dad'

The ad shows a long-haired hippy Jesus grooving along as he tries to get into a nightclub and is refused entry by the bouncers.

Jesus makes the sign of the cross and sweeps aside the bouncers, shrinking them so they are left in his wake as dwarves.

This Plug TV version of Jesus then drinks whisky at the bar and magically turns two brown haired frumpy women into blonde babes wearing bikini tops and red horns.

The Jesus character then disappears into a huge limousine with the women but his attention is distracted by an advertisement for Plug TV before he is recalled by God who is standing on a cloud, wearing a T shirt with "Number one dad" written on it.

The God figure tells Jesus off for wanting to watch Plug TV as well as everything else - saying "you still want more".

The Catholic Church has expressed its disapproval to the TV channel - saying advertising is not the same as journalism and should not share the same concerns about freedom of expression.
The Church believes this advertisement "crosses the limits of respectability".

Plug TV however argues it is not blasphemous but contains a message about a "laid-back Jesus addressing youth".

Back from the dead, the fear of being buried alive, etc.

"Dead" man wakes up under autopsy knife

Mon Sep 17, 8:53 AM ET

CARACAS (Reuters) - A Venezuelan man who had been declared dead woke up in the morgue in excruciating pain after medical examiners began their autopsy.

Carlos Camejo, 33, was declared dead after a highway accident and taken to the morgue, where examiners began an autopsy only to realize something was amiss when he started bleeding.

They quickly sought to stitch up the incision on his face.

"I woke up because the pain was unbearable," Camejo said, according to a report on Friday in leading local newspaper El Universal.

His grieving wife turned up at the morgue to identify her husband's body only to find him moved into a corridor -- and alive.

Reuters could not immediately reach hospital officials to confirm the events. But Camejo showed the newspaper his facial scar and a document ordering the autopsy.

American Bandstand meets the Information Highway

Tecktonik dance craze takes Paris by storm
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070921/ennew_afp/entertainmentmusicdancefrance_070921160955

From the Article:

Tecktonik, judged by the videos on YouTube and displays at the Techno Parade, is a mix of break-dancing, hip hop and techno, featuring flailing arms and quick foot movements.

In appearance, fans share similarities with the new-rave scene in Britain, where fluorescent colours, armbands and tight t-shirts are back in fashion in a clear tribute to the 1980s rave music scene.

"I started to practice at home by looking on the Internet," said Jackie, a 20-year-old regular at the Metropolis who works with young people in a northern suburb of Paris.

"It's a real pleasure to dance the whole day," including on the street, he adds.

Internet searches on YouTube and Dailymotion turn up a series of videos, including one by Jey-Jey, downloaded a million times, who demonstrates his take on Tecktonik in his garage.

Another by Cali, who dances in his living room, also appears to be popular.

"A lot of young people don't have the courage to dance in nightclubs because they are worried about the prejudices of others. The Internet enables them to familiarise themselves with the dance," says Blanc from Metropolis.

No Sweat - the chemistry of perspiration and attraction!

Stinky? It's not his sweat, it's your nose
By Julie Steenhuysen Sun Sep 16, 1:09 PM ET

CHICAGO (Reuters) - When it comes to a man's body odor, the fragrance -- or stench -- is in the nose of the beholder, according to U.S. researchers who suggest a single gene may determine how people perceive body odor.

The study, published online on Sunday in the journal Nature, helps explain why the same sweaty man can smell like vanilla to some, like urine to others and for about a third of adults, have no smell at all.

"This is the first time that any human odorant receptor is associated with how we experience odors," Hiroaki Matsunami of Duke University in North Carolina said in a telephone interview.
Matsunami and colleagues at Duke and Rockefeller University in New York focused on the chemical androstenone, which is created when the body breaks down the male sex hormone testosterone.

Androstenone is in the sweat of men and women, but it is more highly concentrated in men. How one perceives its smell appears to have a lot to do with variations in one odor receptor gene called OR7D4.

"It is well known that people have different perceptions to androstenone. But people didn't know what was the basis of it," Matsunami said.

To find out, researchers in Matsunami's lab tested sweat chemicals on most of the 400 known odor receptors used by the nose to sniff out smells and chemicals.

They found the OR7D4 gene reacted strongly with the sex steroid androstenone. Next, they tested whether variations in this gene had an impact on how people perceived the smell of androstenone in male sweat.

They took blood samples and sequenced the DNA of 400 people who participated in a smell perception test done in Leslie Vosshall's lab at Rockefeller.

What they found is slight genetic variations determine whether androstenone has a pungent smell, a sweet, vanilla-like smell or no smell at all.

The role of androstenone is not well understood in humans, but in pigs it sends a powerful sex signal that puts sows in the mood for love.

"It facilitates the courtship behavior in females," Matsunami said.

"There is some evidence published showing this chemical can modify the mood or hormone
levels in humans," he said. "What we don't know is whether the receptor we found was in any way involved in this process."

He and colleagues will further study this aspect to understand how smelling these chemicals might affect human social and sexual behavior.

An extraordinary statement in an article about OJ's memorabilia, and him stealing it back!

Simpson's new book, "If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer," was the top seller on amazon.com.

I may finally have to agree with O'Reilly. American "morals" have reached a new low.

He was referring to last week's Brittney Spear's middriff sighting worldwide on whatever awards show she shouldn't have been anywhere near.

It was even more awkward than Miss South Carolina's fumblings regarding America and South Africa, availability of maps, and education!

All of this is such "pop" culture that I'm not sure why it is here, except to show the state of most people's preoccupation, and it isn't with the health of the biosphere...


HEADLINE WE HAVEN'T SEEN BUT WE'VE LIVED:

Brittney Danced while the Earth Burned.

Just to tie it all up with another recent set of events:

Minneapolis is the nexus of the total collapse, literally and figuratively, of "American Culture".

First, the bridge collapse, not exactly a symbol, so much as the actualization of our rotted infrastructure.

(Spending tax money on roads and bridges would be providing a public good, so is not within Republican consciousness, and they've had control for the past 7 years...)

Then, Senator Craig is caught with his pants on in a toilet stall playing footsie with another patron and ADMITTING TO picking up toilet paper from the floor of a men's room...how weird is that?!?

Minneapolis, it is the low point of American Culture, both social and physical!

We can point to this date, as the crux of the beginning of the end of western civilization!!!

Larry Craig's Pants! ON!!!
I-Thirty Five Double U
Foreshadows Collapse

Global Climate Change How drought and hunger allow bears to hibernate less!

SOME GREAT IRONIES HERE! SEE COLORED TEXT!!!

My uncle died a while back, I think it was 1989. My sister, her baby and I, drove from Connecticutt to DC for the services drove back the same night.

On the return trip, I hit a deer in the NJ Turnpike. That's a long story all by itself, for another place and time.

My point here is, I had the Officers sign off on the fact that "The deer hit my car" and not the other way around!

There is a similar perspective within the words of this article: Bears are a "plague"!

Hungry bears plague US west after record drought
by Judith Crosson Sat Sep 15, 11:03 AM ET

DENVER, United States (AFP) - They hosed the black bear with water, threw things at it and yelled, but the stubborn animal refused to move from its perch in a tree above a quiet neighborhood in Boulder, Colorado.

Pushed from their homelands by a drought and pulled by the scent of human food, black bears across western US states are breaking into homes and tearing up garbage cans in a desperate search for nourishment ahead of hibernation.

Fires across the west also destroyed bear habitat, and the animals face the continuing peril of losing their living space to urban development.

The bear in the Boulder neighborhood finally came down from the tree and fled. The animal was lucky -- it wore an ear tag, meaning a previous run in with authorities.

Authorities would have killed the bear if they had caught it, said Tyler Baskfield, spokesman for the Colorado Division of Wildlife.

This year is on target for approaching the 2002 record of 404 bears killed or euthanized, Baskfield said. Colorado has a population of between 8,000 and 12,000 bears.

"We had a late freeze in June which killed the acorns and berry crop. We had a very dry mid-summer and grasses in the high country dried up. That pushed the bears down into the valleys where we have people," Baskfield said.

It is a similar story in much of the western United States.

"Just everybody is seeing bears everywhere. That's the unusual part of it -- in places where they haven't been seen before," said state of Idaho Fish and Game wildlife biologist Bret Stansberry.

"It's a fairly severe drought and that's essentially the root of the problem. There is very little natural food for them to eat. They're coming into orchards, getting into apple trees," Stansberry said.

Adult male black bears, which weigh between 68 and 160 kilos (150 and 350 pounds), usually eat for up to 20 hours a day just before hibernation in November.

State wildlife agencies are constantly urge residents to use bear-proof garbage cans and make sure no food is left outdoors, with mixed results.

Chris Healy, spokesman for the state of Nevada Department of Wildlife, said bears are posing increasing problems. "We had one up a tree today near the university," he said.

Any area that has trees and shrubs resembles a bear's natural habitat, and when the bear spots a human it usually flees up a tree, Healy said.

Nevada has a small population of black bears, mostly concentrated in the Lake Tahoe region near the California border.

"In Tahoe people are not taking care of their garbage. Once the bears start breaking into houses it's a danger to humans," Healy said.

Bear attacks on people are rare, although there was a fatal attack in July when a bear dragged an 11 year-old boy out of his tent during a camping trip in the state of Utah.

Bears are causing plenty of trouble in California, said the state's Department of Fish and Game wildlife biologist Jason Holley.

"They can blow the door off the hinges. This time of year we're having at least three break-ins a night around Lake Tahoe," Holley said.

Eating human food such as donuts, hamburgers, or ice cream fattens the bears up and allows them to have more cubs. "We're developing an alarming trend -- ten percent are not
hibernating," Holley said.

Black bears in California have not faced competition from their natural rival, the larger grizzly bear, for nearly a century. The last known grizzly in California was shot dead in 1922. California however still has a grizzly bear on its state flag.

There are about 30,000 black bears in California today, up from 12,500 bears 12 years ago, Holley said.

In Montana, a non-profit group has come up with an original way to chase bears away from camping areas.

The Wind River Bear Institute trains Karelian dogs, a species from northern Europe, to use their scent to detect bears, program biologist Russ Talmo said. "The dogs are barking, we're yelling at the bears, we use noisemakers," Talmo said. The dogs, which resemble huskies, are nimble and can herd a bear away from the area, although the dogs are always close to humans.

It is frightening how little reporters "get" Science

Okay, so, did the Reporter ask if the "radio frequencies" generated by whatever means cost as much as the potential energy of the hydrogen released?

I'll wager there is no perpetual energy system here, it costs to create enough energy to "weaken the bonds" of the water molecules at least as much as the hydrogen's energy can release.

There are HUGE inefficiencies here, converting electricity to radio waves and then releasing the heat of the hydrogen into water, a nice insulator, and a good conductor of heat energy too...still, if they can get 25-50 percent efficiency in creating electricity they'd be way short of enough (and they can't!). However, this is going to get some main stream media play until the truth comes out several years from now. This ain't no panacea!

Radio Frequencies Help Burn Salt Water

By David Templeton, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Tue, 11 Sep 2007, 11:41AM

ERIE, Pa. - An Erie cancer researcher has found a way to burn salt water, a novel invention that is being touted by one chemist as the "most remarkable" water science discovery in a century.
John Kanzius happened upon the discovery accidentally when he tried to desalinate seawater with a radio-frequency generator he developed to treat cancer. He discovered that as long as the salt water was exposed to the radio frequencies, it would burn.

The discovery has scientists excited by the prospect of using salt water, the most abundant resource on earth, as a fuel.

Rustum Roy, a Penn State University chemist, has held demonstrations at his State College lab to confirm his own observations.

The radio frequencies act to weaken the bonds between the elements that make up salt water, releasing the hydrogen, Roy said. Once ignited, the hydrogen will burn as long as it is exposed to the frequencies, he said.

The discovery is "the most remarkable in water science in 100 years," Roy said.

"This is the most abundant element in the world. It is everywhere," Roy said. "Seeing it burn gives me the chills."

Roy will meet this week with officials from the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense to try to obtain research funding.

The scientists want to find out whether the energy output from the burning hydrogen — which reached a heat of more than 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit — would be enough to power a car or other heavy machinery.

"We will get our ideas together and check this out and see where it leads," Roy said. "The potential is huge."

The potential for bogus is huge.

Some people are definitely luckier than others.

Man who lost pants and $41k gets it all back

WAUKESHA, Wis. (AP) — It was embarrassing enough that Mark Stahnke woke up in a neighbor's yard without his pants. Then he remembered they contained a cashier's check for $41,093, meant for his son, and several hundred dollars in cash.

But he got it all back Friday, including the pants, thanks to a man and his dog.

Stahnke said he doesn't know what happened between when he left the bar and when he woke up the next morning, and police were skeptical when he filed a report on Monday.

"We're used to hearing weird stories, but with his intoxication we figured this one would be different, that the amount of money wouldn't be exact," Police Lt. William Graham said. "How do you get so intoxicated that you lose your pants?"

Stahnke said he had met his son at a bar and doesn't remember much afterward.

"I woke up cold not knowing where the heck I was, and I didn't realize it at first because I still had my shoes and socks on," he said. "When I got up, I realized, my God, I don't have any pants."

Tim Curzan's dog, Joe, found the pants at an intersection, according to a police report. He found the cashier's check and tried twice, unsuccessfully, to deliver it and the cash to where he thought the owner lived.

On Wednesday, the pants were still at the intersection, so Curzan took them to the police, who contacted Stahnke to claim his belongings.

DNAL-SDRAWKCAB

Lenovo, the Chinese Company that owns IBM's PC line has a set of really weird videos...

http://www.lenovovision.com/lv2/mediaplayer.php?fid=water_tank&locale=en-ca

This is one weird video, there are more of them.

They want to be the "Chrysler" of PC's - Best Engineered!

What a losing proposition, ah, the tech marketers of today, making the same mistakes as their forebears, since, history repeats itself, and old men like me are let go from the ivory towers of marketing...

I warned the PC guys they were on the wrong path in 1993, in St. Louis, at an IBM program for field sales reps and techies...

This was a comment on an Alternet article concerning nutrition and depression and violence...and how fishoil seems to help.

The Completely Nutrition less Diet!

Posted by: williameon on Aug 28, 2007 6:31 AM
In this fake society.
Where we let a Cor‘pirates’ ruin everything
They have ruined our diet also.
For Greed!
There is no accountability
They know that poor diet, pollutants and stress causes disease.
What is, is.
That’s the way
That’s the way
On Ha!
They like it.
Sick people make them happy and rich.
Raking in huge profits for theAMAPharmaceuticalsAndFaux Food Companies.
It’s so easy to make and completely nutrition less also!
The Nutrition less diet!
Boxes filled with fullers and poison,
Never meant to be eaten by man!
Read the label!
In this situation less is more.
The shorter the list of ingredients
The better it is!
In fact fresh fruits, vegetables and foods without any labels are best of all!
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Flax Seed Oil.
Brown rice.
Stone Ground Flour
Whole Grains
Rolled oats.
Dried fruits and nuts.
These are all Manna.
Food of the Gods!
The Corpirates want sick ignorant peons.
To pillage and plunder.
Where’s the Information?
Where’s the BEEF?
That:Hydrogenated oils
High Fructose Corn syrup
And
Overly refined White flour
Are
POISON.
Clogging the minds,
bodies and arteries of our friends.
Nobody seems to know why our country
Is being over run with FAT people.
Child hood diabetes is epidemic!
Kindergartens are Fat farms!
People are literally eating themselves to death
Looking for the Nutrients,
For a healthy life.
Inside every fat person is a skinny person,
Starving to death.
Eating garbage!

---------------------------------------------

Wow, what else can one say...

www.vhemt.org

Sure, there are corpirates, but I don't put much "direction" to their actions. It is inevitable, it is greed, we are all driven by our tastes (sugar, fat, alcohol, drugs, whatever), and the marketing crowd take advantage of our weaknesses, while their manufacturing brethern serve us their muck...to make a buck not to keep our class powerlessness from being evident.

Evangelism and The Military - "We are confronting the Christian Taliban, period!"

The U.S. Military has been a place where necessity overcame societal norms. Blacks served, then civil rights happened...currently gays are being examined as the next group to have their pariah status lifted, both recognizing the changes in society, and preceeding them to some degree.

This article details a very very disturbing trend, an evangelistic bent within the U.S. Military.

When a force as unstoppable as the US Military is even potenitally controlled or even influenced by a philosophy that sees the imminent end of the world as a real possibility that is a problem...


Fringe Evangelicals Distort US Military Policy
By Thomas D. Williams and JP Briggs II, Ph.D. t r u t h o u t Special Report

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/082407R.shtml

"He shall judge between many peoples, and shall decide for strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more;"
- Micah, Chapter 4, The Bible

"And make not Allah because of your swearing (by Him) an obstacle to your doing good and guarding (against evil) and making peace between men, and Allah is Hearing, Knowing."
- The Koran

For decades, especially since the end of the Vietnam War, the US military has been wrestling with aggressive sects of doomsday Christians demanding control and conversions of those of other faiths as well as nonbelievers within the armed forces.

Even beyond this high-pressure hard sell, those Judgment Day, apocalyptic Christian leaders, with followings estimated at 40 million parishioners, have urged public officials on all levels to wage war with Israel's enemies. Sometimes they and others even send their followers into dangerous war zones to preach their faith and risk lives. In at least one case, the Pentagon is supporting a Christian evangelistic group's efforts to promote itself inside the Muslim-dominated Iraq war zone.

The end-time evangelists' aggressive domestic and foreign relations stances have frequently caught the ears of President George W. Bush and those within his administration, as well as a large cadre of influential congressmen.

"The rise of evangelicalism in today's armed forces can trace its roots to the Viet Nam War," writes US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel William Millonig. "Public support for the war declined steadily as the years wore on, but evangelical Christians remained generally supportive of the war throughout. Over the course of the war, they found themselves progressively more aligned with the military - a military which increasingly found itself isolated from the general population." Millonig's March 2006 US Army War College piece is titled: "The Impact of Religious and Political Affiliation on Strategic Military Decisions and Policy Recommendations."
Initially willing to be interviewed, Millonig ultimately refused to discuss his article. His refusal came after he spoke with an Air Force superior who said it is inappropriate for Millonig to comment about anything unrelated to his current job, said a US Army War College spokeswoman, Carol Kerr.

"After the Vietnam War, there was disenchantment with military service by the mainline religions, because the war began to look like an unjust war," said retired US Army Chaplain Herman Keizer Jr. "The military chaplains were not talking about that, and the churches thought they should," explained Keizer, chairman of the National Conference on Ministry to the Armed Forces. Then, he explained, with the advent of the all-volunteer Army, evangelical military chaplains began to increase, because their faith encouraged young people into the ministry and a vocation like military service to actively proclaim their beliefs to others.

Keizer, however, emphasized that more moderate evangelicals, as represented by the powerful National Evangelical Association, have been an influential voice for wartime justice for enemy prisoners. And, to promote peace, in late July the organization agreed to hold discussions in the nation's capital with Muslim leaders, with 14 evangelical preachers on one side and 12 US-based Arab diplomats on the other, The Washington Post reported. More than a year earlier, the organization called for religious freedom within the military.

On the other hand, the promotion of powerful Christian religious fundamentalist voices and religious conversions within the Armed Forces, especially encouraged and engineered by end-time evangelical Christians, has become a focus of concern among many other religious leaders. That concern heightened particularly after 9/11, when Islamic terrorists attacked New York City's World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. Less than a month later, on October 7, 2001, President George W. Bush launched the so-called war on terror with attacks on al-Qaeda camps and Taliban installations in Afghanistan. And, as the heated conflict in Afghanistan temporarily subsided, the Bush administration extended the "terror war" by invading Iraq on March 20, 2003.

Since 9/11, US officials, religious leaders, the press and the public have focused a continuous stream of criticism at religious Muslim fundamentalists. But, what has been largely glossed over by some in the public, media and government are the unrelenting cries for aggressive US military attacks by end-time US evangelicals such as Pastor John Hagee, not only against Islamic extremists, but also against Iran, Syria and the Palestinians threatening Israel.

This pressure for warlike behavior comes from two types of end-time Christians. The "dispensationalists" insist that true believers will be "raptured" into heaven just before a catastrophic war between "left behind" believers and the forces of the Antichrist. "Dominionist" end-timers presuppose that the United States, as a Christian nation, will act as a special representative of God in the final battles. The Dominionists forge on toward the construction, or "reconstruction," of an American theocracy to fulfill God's end-time plan. The two brands cross over and blend. Collectively, they call themselves Christian Zionists to affirm their support of Israel's control over the holy lands.

As war cries from Islamic terrorists and end-time Christians create a danger for ever-expanding religious battles in the Middle East, a small cadre of Christian and Muslim leaders has become alarmed.

"The most basic Christian commitment ... is that we say we believe in the Lordship of Jesus. But, if we claim that, how can a Muslim or Jew trust us, if we say Jesus is the Lord of all Lords?" asked Professor Lee Camp, a Lipscomb University theologian, last November at an interfaith gathering in Nashville, Tenn. "We need to forsake the Christendom model," Camp said. In its place, he explained, should be an international ideal, allowing leaders and members of all faiths to live in peace and communicate.

In February, Louis Farrakhan, 73, leader of The Nation of Islam, insisted the world was at war because followers of contrasting faiths did not understand one another. Jesus Christ and Muhammad would embrace with love if they were on the stage behind him today, he exclaimed. "Our lips are full of praise, but our hearts are far removed from the prophets we all claim," Al Jazeera quoted Farrakhan as saying.

Proselytizing by end-time Christians and others within the military has become a crucial issue within the armed forces, especially during the past half decade. And, US military leadership, influenced by war-encouraging, right-wing evangelists, endangers complex Middle East diplomacy efforts.

"To proselytize in this (military) environment is not allowed except as the individual asks (for it), said retired US Navy Chaplain Victor Smith, a Christian Scientist. "For example, the use of the name of Jesus in public prayers with a mixed congregation such as at a command or official function is prohibited," he said. "Most of the chaplains who pray, and rightly so, pray on behalf of the congregation, as well as with the congregation," said Smith. "Every single person in the military should be protected in every way, physically, sexually and spiritually, while they are serving their country. They already put their lives on the line in warfare. The damage from forcing religion on the unwilling is very deep emotionally. Well, have you ever talked to a rape victim? It's not quite that physical, but it sure is spiritually."

Smith pointed out, "There is a small subset of these faith groups that foster some more extreme views to others and sometimes punish those who don't follow their faith stances." He added, "They include some conservative wings of Baptists and others. These individuals, both lay and apparently some chaplains, say: 'You are not a good soldier unless you believe in my preachings and my faith. '"

While Smith confined religious aggressors to that "small subset," others watching closely for military religious territorial scuffles feel the right-wing evangelical clique is larger and more powerful.

Small or large, officials of the Department of Defense, at least in one telltale instance, are promoting an aggressive Christian group that promises to bring its views in a "crusade" to Iraq. Operation Straight Up "is working to help military children and families become stronger through faith-based entertainment," wrote The American Forces Press Service in April. The story appeared on the America Supports You Internet site sponsored by the Pentagon. It was initially reported in an outside publication by The Nation.

Operation Straight Up is evangelical. Its leaders are former boxer and kick boxer Jonathan Spinks and Hollywood actor Stephen Baldwin.

Here's what Spinks's website said about its potential operations in Iraq: "On the most dangerous soil in our world, we're taking a team of performers, professional athletes, and evangelists on a mission that will be both entertaining, as well as lend tremendous solitude to our men and women stationed in this war-torn country of Iraq. We are most excited about this crusade and yes we are willing to go to the front lines with a very encouraging word straight from God, to our troops. We feel the forces of heaven have encouraged us to perform multiple crusades that will sweep through this war-torn region. We'll hold the only religious crusade of its size in the dangerous land of Iraq." The link, describing these "crusade" plans, became difficult to fetch after emails questioning the "crusade" were sent to its advertised contact: admin@jspinks.org and to the Defense Department. The Spinks site, which does not have a telephone contact number, did not answer repeated emails with queries for this article.

Asked if the Pentagon is lending support or security for these crusading efforts, a Defense Department health records public affairs spokesman, who declined to be identified, said: "There are none. OSU has stated its desire to go and we have suggested ways in which they can arrange that for themselves." Asked whether the Defense Department's announced public support for the Christian evangelistic Operation Straight Up in the Defense Department site, in light of its announced "crusade" inside Iraq, is in violation of federal separation of church and state guidelines, he said: "The Department of Defense is committed to upholding the Constitution of the United States. My oath of office swears me to uphold it." Department rules prevent its officials from sanctioning personal participation with a non-governmental organization. They forbid granting a selective benefit or preferential treatment to any organization. Its officials are constrained by federal law from promoting any specific religious group.

The spokesman also explained the department's support for Operation Straight up by saying: "America Supports You connects Americans supportive of our troops with organizations that are devoted to helping the troops and their families, while also providing a one-stop location on the Internet at www.AmericaSupportsYou.mil where our military and their families can find hundreds of support organizations eager to help our heroes when they need it most. More than 250 home front groups, representing communities from coast to coast, have joined the America Supports You team to support the troops in many ways, including writing letters and emails, sending care packages and assisting military families or helping the wounded when they return home."

However, after an ABC segment on Operation Straight Up, the Defense Department prevented the sending of a controversial video game promoted by the evangelical group to service members in Iraq. The game depicts a film about the battle of Armageddon, in which believers of Jesus Christ fight the Antichrist.

Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, an Air Force Academy graduate and former assistant general counsel for former President Ronald Reagan, said his organization intends to sue the Defense Department over its support of Operation Straight Up. He is vociferous about what he considers such saturated fundamentalist domination within the military.

"What we are seeing is an imperious, fascistic contagion of unconstitutional religious triumphalism that represents a national security threat internally to this country," he said.

"This is every bit as significant in magnitude as that presented externally by the now resurgent Taliban and al-Qaida. Let's call a spade a spade: We are confronting the Christian Taliban, period!"

Weinstein has worked intensively through his foundation to battle the influential forces of Christian end-timers and other religious zealots. His foundation recently announced it is filing a federal lawsuit challenging alleged US military participation in a three-day evangelical Christian gathering in Georgia. It quotes the organizers, Task Force Patriot USA's Internet web site as saying it exists "for the purpose of sharing the fullness of life in Jesus Christ with all US military, military veterans and families," and exclaiming that "Christ is our Commander-in-Chief."

Jim Freeman, the Task Force's founder, said Weinstein "is driving a 'wedge' within the military ranks that will ultimately weaken the strength of our military forces. If Task Force Patriot set out to do the same things he is doing, he would scream violently and file more complaints. Our organization has done nothing of a clandestine nature. Our web site has been up for nearly nine years, clearly stating our position as a Christian Veteran To Veteran Outreach. My question is simply this: Does Mikey Weinstein have enough troops that support his exemption of Christians in the US military to defend America against her enemies? I think not. My organization is supported by a very large majority of America's 27 million-plus US military veterans, along with their families."

Late last year, Weinstein filed a complaint with the Defense Department's Inspector General, demanding an investigation of the Christian Embassy, whose Internet video showed "senior military officers, dressed in uniform and in their Pentagon offices, openly discussing their religious commitment and their strategy to bring religion into the military." Last month, the Inspector General concluded some high-ranking officers indeed violated military regulations by participating in the Christian promotional video in uniform and within the Pentagon's offices.

The IG recommended that "the Secretary of the Air Force and the Chief of Staff of the Army consider appropriate corrective action with respect to the military officers concerned; the administrative assistant to the Secretary of the Army and the Pentagon Force Protection Agency initiate inquiries into the manner; and the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs review procedures to ensure that film crews operating within the Pentagon are appropriately escorted and monitored."

Other individual outrageous violations of the principles of the separation of church and state within the government, says Weinstein's foundation, include: "blatant displays of religious symbolism on military garb by the 523rd Fighter Squadron; placement of a biblical quotation above the door of the Air and Space Basic Course classroom at Maxwell Air Force Base; illegal use of official military email accounts to send emails containing religious rhetoric, and attempts by missionary organizations such as Force Ministries and the Officers' Christian Fellowship to create 'Christian soldiers' by training active-duty military personnel to evangelize their subordinates and peers."

Asked how strictly the Pentagon controls promotion of religious fundamentalism in the armed forces, Jonathan Withington, a Defense Department spokesman, said: "A basic principle of our nation is free exercise of religion. The Department of Defense places a high value on the rights of members of the armed forces to observe the tenets of their respective religions. It is DOD policy that requests for accommodation of religious practices should be approved by commanders when accommodation will not have an adverse impact on military readiness, unit cohesion, standards, or discipline."

The concerns of some within the military are that not only do fundamentalist Christian public pronouncements seep into top-ranking military officials, but their beliefs can infect the decision-making of those officials. For instance: evangelical Army Lt. Gen. William "Jerry" Boykin made headlines in 2003 when he said he believed America was engaged in a holy war as a "Christian nation" battling Satan. Adversaries can be defeated, he said, "Only if we come against them in the name of Jesus."

Despite his highly publicized rhetoric, Boykin remains Bush's deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence. Last February, Army Gen. Peter Pace joined with President Bush and the Fellowship Foundation, "a low-profile group that promotes Christian evangelism," to conduct a reading at the Washington, DC prayer breakfast.

With Christian evangelism at this level of the government, some worry about subconscious or even conscious decision making by these leaders at a time when the United States is "at war with Islamic extremists."

"If the armed forces' culture is allowed to stifle creativity and diversity of thought, then the strategic leader's difficult and often time-sensitive decision process may find itself with fewer courses of action from which to choose," wrote Colonel Millonig in discussing public religious proselytizing by military leadership. "Fewer choices are more easily influenced by a select group of individuals and can lead to disastrous consequences in the short term. Left unchecked, the credibility of the military's decision making and policy advice to senior civilians could steadily erode over the long term."

Millonig said his purpose in writing the academic paper "is not to analyze the validity of any individual beliefs, but to show how the rise of conservative Christian and Republican values have affected the military's decision making and policy recommendations. Whether right, wrong or indifferent - the conservative Christian voice has impacted our military. America's strategic thinkers, both military and civilian, must be aware of this trend and its potential implications on policy formulation. The role of intuition on subconscious biases and perceptions can dramatically impact the decision process."

On the other hand, Chaplain Keizer expressed full faith in the military leadership to weed out religious bias in crucial decision making and to prosecute those who force their faith on others.

"In the military, I am not sure the evangelicals pose any more of a danger than any other religion on decision making. It is the political neocons who are pushing the US to become more supportive of Israel. The military leadership appears more pragmatic, while the politicians are more activist than reflective."

He cited what he considered crucial examples of this contrast. In one instance, he said, it was Army Gen. Eric Shinseki, then chief of staff, who went against the grain of former Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz in suggesting troop strengths should be much higher in the Iraq war than the Bush administration did. He was heavily criticized by the Bush administration and retired. And, during the scandals over US military treatment of Iraqi prisoners, Keizer said, it was those within the military leadership, not US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who insisted prisoners should be treated humanely under the international Geneva Convention. In one instance, a dozen retired generals wrote the US Senate Judicial Committee to oppose torture tactics by the Central Intelligence Agency and the military.

Nevertheless, Colonel Millonig warns that the dangers of religious influences within the military are substantial. "America's military leaders must ensure preconceived notions based on religious or political ideology do not adversely shape the decision-making process, nor can it allow intuition based on 'automated expertise' to override an objective evaluation of relevant possibilities," he wrote. "Failure to do so can lead to an erosion of trust with civilian leadership and degrade national policy decisions."

"One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal," said Bill Moyers, a journalist-commentator for the Public Broadcasting Service in a speech to Harvard Medical School in December 2004. "It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the Oval Office and in Congress. For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington. Theology asserts propositions that cannot be proven true; ideologues hold stoutly to a world view despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality. When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind. And there is the danger: voters and politicians alike, oblivious to the facts." Moyers is an ordained Baptist minister.
*************
JP Briggs II, Ph.D. is a Distinguished CSU professor at Western Connecticut State University, specializing in creative process. A former reporter for the Hartford Courant and coordinator of the journalism program at WCSU, he is currently senior editor of the intellectual journal "The Connecticut Review." His books include "Fire in the Crucible" (St. Martins Press); "Fractals, the Patterns of Chaos" Simon and Schuster), and "Trickster Tales" (Fine Tooth Press), among others. Email: profbriggs@comcast.net.

Thomas "Dennie" Williams is a former state and federal court reporter, specializing in investigations, for the Hartford Courant. Since the 1970s, he has written extensively about irregularities in the Connecticut Superior Court, Probate Court systems for disciplining both judges and lawyers for misconduct and the failures of the Pentagon and the VA to assist sick veterans returning from war. He can be reached at denniew@optonline.net.

Mother Theresa - Patron Saint of Skeptics, Atheists, Brights

THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE DETAILS MOTHER THRESA'S ADMISSION OF NON-BELIEF.
TIME MAG DID A BIGGER ARTICLE EVEN:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1655415,00.html

WHEN SHE WAS ALIVE I RECALL MANY WHO FELT WHAT SHE WAS DOING WAS MORE SHOW THAN GO...WITH MUCH OF THE MONEY COLLECTED FOR THE POOR GOING TO THE CHURCH...

Struggles of a Pious Leader

Throughout Her Life Mother Teresa Wrote Privately of Struggles With Her Faith

A collection of Mother Teresa's private letters are being published as part of the campaign for her sainthood. (ABCNEWS) From World News with Charles Gibson Aug. 24, 2007

In dozens of letters spanning 66 years, Mother Teresa described the "emptiness" she felt and confessed her struggles with faith and the existence of heaven in pages she had planned to have destroyed.

A decade after her death, they have been published in the book "Come By My Light" as part of the petition for her sainthood.

"The lives of the saints are personal, but they are not private," said The Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, who is publishing the letters. "The documents are really are quite valuable in that they speak of her own holiness and the value … to people who can relate to what she was going through."

They offer surprising revelations, including one instance in which she writes, "no faith -- no love -- no zeal -- [The saving of] souls holds no attraction -- Heaven means nothing … it has been like this more or less from the time I started 'the work.'"

Her work began when she heard God tell her to open a mission in Calcutta. The book includes her Jan. 13, 1947 letter in which she wrote to the Archbishop of Calcutta to request permission to found her own order, the Missionaries of Charity.

Several years later, she composed a letter as an exercise from her spiritual adviser to express her devotion to Jesus and passionately wrote, "I want to satiate your thirst with every single drop of blood that you can find in me. Don't allow me to do you wrong in any way."

To millions her work still shines as the example of Christlike devotion. It brought her the Nobel Peace Prize and beatification by Pope John Paul.

But once she began her work in India she never heard God's voice again. Nine years after she founded her mission in Calcutta she wrote, "What do I labour for? If there be no God -- there can be no soul -- if there is no Soul then Jesus -- You also are not true."

"Even the sisters around her had no idea of the length and the depth," Kolodiejchuk said.

Faith vs. Benevolence

As many Catholics learn how long she suffered this crisis of faith, they are even more awed by her deeds.

"Unlike the other saints, who might have been going through their day with a lot of consolation from their prayer, Mother Teresa was running on empty and doing all these wonderful works," said Father James Martin.

But while the faithful see her struggle as inspirational, some atheists are taking it as confirmation of their own rational doubts and proof that the faithless can display enormous benevolence.

"Of course nonbelievers all over the world display compassion," said Dan Barker of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. "She was forced to go through the motions and admitted her own hypocrisy."

Ten years after her death, her Missionaries of Charity claims to have over a million volunteers comforting the sick and orphaned in 40 countries. This book is certain to stir those who pray the Vatican will canonize the nun from the slums. If it does, Mother Teresa may just be the patron saint of skeptics.

This is one amazing post: Conservative going after Sean Hannity concerning Iraq and it's horrible consequences.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig7/tonso5.html

This is a longish article, can't believe I was lucky enough to see it at the site posted above...

I'll copy a little part of it here, it's an open letter for god's sake!

An Open Letter to Sean Hannity
by William R. Tonso

Dear Sean:
It really ticks me off royally when you and your allegedly conservative talk-radio colleagues dismiss all critics of the Iraq War as liberals who are interested in nothing more than winning back the presidency and/or who hate America....snip...

For several months, I’ve considered calling you to take you to task for misleading the listeners who consider you to be such a great American. ...snip...

So I decided to cope with my frustration through an open letter to you, as I once did with one to your pompous colleague, Rush Limbaugh. ...snip...

I’m not afraid to argue with you, because I don’t think you’re that sharp. ...snip...

George Will Quote
"The world is full of ordinary people who do not define freedom as we do, who do not value it as we do, who prefer piety, ethnic purity, religious solidarity, military glory, or the security of despotism. There are still all kinds of competing values in the world, and liberty has to be fought for and argued for and defined. It is a learned and acquired taste."...snip....

Pat Bucannan Quoted:
And in a recent issue of The American Conservative, he noted that if we buy Bush’s claim that we’re "fighting for the right of Islamic peoples ‘to speak, and worship, and live in liberty,’" we’re caught in a dilemma. "Devout Muslims in Islamic lands do not believe people should be free to blaspheme or insult the Prophet. They do not believe all religions are equal or should be treated equally. They do not believe Christians should be free to preach in their lands. The punishment for those who do, and for those who convert from Islam in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia as well as Iran, is death." He goes on to note that wherever free elections have been held in the Middle East Islamists have won over Western secularism and asks: "Should U.S. soldiers die for democracy in the Islamic world, when democracy may produce victory for the political progeny of the Muslim Brotherhood? Is that worth the lives of America’s young?" ...snip...

Andrew J. Bacevich, USA Colonel Ret. a professor of international relations and director of Boston University’s Center of International Relations authored The New American Militarism: How Americans are Seduced by War.

In this book, Bacevich warns of a new and dangerous obsession that has taken hold of so many Americans, conservatives and liberals alike. It is the marriage of militarism to utopian ideology – of unprecedented military power wed to a blind faith in the universality of American values. ...snip...

The outspoken Colonel David Hackworth (USA deceased) believed that going to war with Iraq had nothing to do with combating terrorism and was a blunder. "So, fighting Iraq bears not the slightest resemblance to our triumphant World War II march across Europe. Almost the entire Arab world views us not as liberators occupying that bludgeoned country solely to pull Iraqis up by their sandal straps, but as Crusaders who’ve returned to finish the dirty work the Christian world started a thousand years ago. Deep in the hearts of most Arabs, we’re just the latest wave of infidels who are into violating their sacred land."

Are you beginning to see a pattern here, Sean? Are George Will, Pat Buchanan, Andrew Bacevich, and the late David Hackworth liberals and/or America haters because they’ve pointed out that other peoples aren’t like us and don’t appreciate the attempts by our government to make them like us? And is former Republican strategist Kevin Phillips a liberal for writing in his American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21 Century that while the attack on Iraq was "at bottom about access to oil and U.S. global supremacy," it also had other intentions. "One was to fold oil objectives into the global war against terror. A second was to cement the U.S. dollar’s hegemonic role in global oil sales – and thus in the world economy. A third was to keep the invasion’s purpose broad enough to allow the biblically minded Christian right to see it, at least partially, as a destruction of the new Babylon, on the road to Armageddon and redemption."

...snip... a lot....
The evil that America has brought to Iraq transcends the tens [more likely hundreds] of thousands of Iraqi civilians who have been killed and maimed in the conflict. The evil goes beyond the destruction of ancient historical artifacts and the civilian infrastructure of a secular state and the decimation of lives, careers, and families of millions of Iraqis. The violence and killing that Bush brought to Iraq has spread antagonism between Sunni and Shiite throughout the Middle East with potentially draconian consequences. Bush’s war has turned Muslim hearts and minds against America and made terrorism an acceptable means to resist American hegemony. With his mindless war, Bush has created more terrorism than the world has ever seen.
As far as the war and its disastrous impact on our Bill of Rights go, you and your talk-radio so-called conservatives are nothing but useful idiots for the establishment. You all uncritically support wars anyplace the neocons tell the bumbler in the White House to start them, and any police-state method implemented in the name of security, but then you all get upset with that same bumbler when he and many on the Hill, including liberals, refuse to clamp down on illegal immigration and to protect our national sovereignty. Do you ever stop to wonder how the guy you think is so right when it comes to war and measures impacting the rights of ordinary Americans can be so wrong when it comes to protecting our own borders and sovereignty? Might there be some connection between his foreign and domestic policies?

America is actually a carefully concealed oligarchy. A few thousand people, mostly in government, finance, and the military-industrial complex, run this country for their own purposes. By manipulating the two-party system, influencing the mainstream media, and controlling the flow of campaign finance money, this oligarchy works to secure the nomination of its preferred candidates (Democratic and Republican alike), thus giving a ‘choice’ between Puppet A and Marionette B.
...snip
Smedley Darlington Butler a military hero, and became the Corps’ youngest major general when he was 48, retiring at that rank in 1931.
In War is a Racket, his 1935 book, Butler wrote: "For a great many years as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket. Not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it." He defined a racket as "something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small ‘inside’ group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."
In a 1935 magazine article, Butler wrote:
I spent 33 years and four months in active military service, and during that period I spent most of my time as a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico, and especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902–1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested....snip

As far as the war goes, you and your so-called conservative colleagues are nothing but useful idiots to our own establishment – no faction of which, left or right, could care less about protecting our national sovereignty or the original intent of our Constitution – and that establishment is a far greater threat to us and our remaining freedoms than any Middle Eastern religious/political movement.

Cheers!
William R. Tonso

August 25, 2007