Bad Arguments

Creationists start from a faulty premise, but putting that aside, here are some arguments they should avoid:

"NASA computers, in calculating the positions of planets, found a missing day and 40 minutes, proving Joshua's "long day" and Hezekiah's sundial movement of Joshua 10 and 2 Kings 20." Not promoted by major creationist organizations, but an hoax in wide circulation, especially on the Internet.

Essentially the same story, now widely circulated on the Internet, appeared in the somewhat unreliable 1936 book The Harmony of Science and Scripture by Harry Rimmer. Evidently an unknown person embellished it with modern organization names and modern calculating devices.

Also, the whole story is mathematically impossible. It requires a fixed reference point before Joshua's long day. In fact we would need to cross-check between both astronomical and historical records to detect any missing day. And to detect a missing 40 minutes requires that these reference points be known to within an accuracy of a few minutes. It is certainly true that the timing of solar eclipses observable from a certain location can be known precisely. But the ancient records did not record time that precisely, so the required cross-check is simply not possible. Anyway, the earliest historically recorded eclipse occurred in 1217 BC, nearly two centuries after Joshua. So there is no way the missing day could be detected by any computer.

Note that discrediting this myth doesn't mean that the events of Joshua 10 didn't happen. Features in the account support its reliability, e.g. the moon was also slowed down. This was not necessary to prolong the day, but this would be observed from Earth's reference frame if God had accomplished this miracle by slowing Earth's rotation."

They do, however, still try to propagate other junk ideas:

"There are gaps in the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 so the Earth may be 10,000 years old or even more." This is not so. The language is clear that they are strict chronologies, especially because they give the age of the father at the birth of the next name in line. So the Earth is only about 6,000 years old.

AnswersinGenesis.org:
Arguments we think creationists should NOT use

Homeland Security Innocent

Remember the story about the kid who wanted to read Mao's little red book and was visted by the Feds?
It wasn't true.

"In Thursday's retelling of the story, the student added several new twists, ones that the professors and journalist had not heard before. The biggest new piece of information was an alleged second visit of Homeland Security agents the previous night, where two agents waited in his living room for two hours with his parents and brother while he drove back from a retreat in western Massachusetts. He said he, the agents, his parents and his uncle all signed confidentiality agreements that the story would never be told.

He revealed the agents' names: one was Nicolai Brushaev or Broshaev, and the other was simply Agent Roberts. He said they were dressed in black suits with thin black ties, "just like the guys in Men in Black."

He had dates and times and places, things he had signed and sent back in order to receive the book. The tale involved his twin brother, who allegedly requested the book for him at UMass Amherst; his uncle, a former FBI attorney who took care of all the paperwork; and his parents, who signed those confidentiality agreements.
But by now, the story had too many holes. Every time there was a fact to be had that would verify the story -- providing a copy of the confidentiality agreements the student and agent signed, for example -- there would be a convenient excuse. The uncle took all the documents home to Puerto Rico, he said.

What was the address of the Homeland Security building in Boston where he and his uncle visited the agency and actually received a copy of the book? It was a brick building, he said, but he couldn't remember where it was, or what was around it.
He said he met a former professor at the mysterious Homeland Security building who had requested a book on bomb-making, along with two Ph.D. students and a one pursuing a master's degree who had also been stopped from accessing books. The student couldn't remember their names, but the former professor had appeared on the Bill O'Reilly show on Fox News recently, he said.

The former professor's appearance on The O'Reilly Factor did not check out.

Other proof was sought.

Were there any copies of the inter-library loan request? No.

Did the agents leave their cards, or any paperwork at your home? No.

His brother, a student at Amherst, told Dr. Williams that he had never made the inter-library loan request on behalf of his brother.

While The Standard-Times had tape recorded the entire tale on Thursday, the reporter could not reach the student for comment after he admitted making up the story. Phone calls and a note on the door were not returned."

SouthCoastToday.com 12/24
and
SouthCoastToday.com 12/30

Liars and gody liars

The bible was written by bloggers who copied each other and then added material to prove their own points.

"Bart Ehrman says the modern Bible was shaped by mistakes and intentional alterations that were made by early scribes who copied the texts. In the introduction to Misquoting Jesus, Ehrman writes that when he came to understand this process 30 years ago, it shifted his way of thinking about the Bible. He had been raised as an Evangelical Christian."

Listen to Terry Gross at this site:

Bart Ehrman's 'Misquoting Jesus'

Take that Mel Gibson

The God Who Wasn't There

In this provocative, critically acclaimed documentary, you will discover:

• The early founders of Christianity seem wholly unaware of the idea of a human Jesus
  
  
• The Jesus of the Gospels bears a striking resemblance to other ancient heroes and the figureheads of pagan savior cults
  
  
• Contemporary Christians are largely ignorant of the origins of their religion
  
  
• Fundamentalism is as strong today as it ever has been, with an alarming 44% of Americans believing Jesus will return to earth in their lifetimes

And God simply isn't there

Dazzling motion graphics and a sweeping soundtrack propel this uncompromising and taboo-shattering documentary that Newsweek says "irreverently lays out the case that Jesus Christ never existed."

The Rapture

Kids say the stupidest things

It's terrible when children go off the deep end.

Luckily people can see that a drug addicted, mass murder, or just plain idiot kids are not the necessarily the fault of parents.

Offspring often just fall in with the wrong gangs or work for anti-American news organizations..

"He's lost it. The man has lost it. What can I say," the younger Wallace lamented to WRKO Boston radio host Howie Carr on Friday.

"He's 87-years old and things have set in," the Fox anchor continued. "I mean, we're going to have a competence hearing pretty soon."

Wallace Jr. quickly dispelled any notion that he was joking. When Carr suggested that his comments were likely to be covered by NewsMax, he responded: "You know what? Fine. Go ahead. Call them. That's fine. I'll stand by that."

Returning to the topic of his father's competence, Wallace Jr. explained: "He's checked out. I don't understand it," beyond the fact that Wallace Sr. has "problems with the war."
"I don't know why he said what he said," he added.

On Thursday, the elder Wallace told the Boston Globe that if he had the chance to interview President Bush, he'd ask:

"What in the world prepared you to be the commander in chief of the largest superpower in the world? In your background, Mr. President, you apparently were incurious. You didn't want to travel. You knew very little about the military. . . . The governor of Texas doesn't have the kind of power that some governors have. . . . Why do you think they nominated you? . . . Do you think that has anything to do with the fact that the country is so [expletive] up?"

Chris Wallace: Mike Wallace Has 'Lost It'

10 Commandments parsed

George Carlin

About 5,000 years ago a bunch of religious and political hustlers got together to try to figure out how to control people and keep them in line. They knew people were basically stupid and would believe anything they were told, so they announced that God had given them some commandments, up on a mountain, when no one was around.

Well let me ask you this- when they were making this shit up, why did they pick 10? Why not 9 or 11? I'll tell you why- because 10 sound official. Ten sounds important! Ten is the basis for the decimal system, it's a decade, it's a psychologically satisfying number (the top ten, the ten most wanted, the ten best dressed). So having ten commandments was really a marketing decision! It is clearly a bullshit list. It's a political document artificially inflated to sell better. I will now show you how you can reduce the number of commandments and come up with a list that's a little more workable and logical. I am going to use the Roman Catholic version because those were the ones I was taught as a little boy.

Let's start with the first three:

I AM THE LORD THY GOD
THOU SHALT NOT HAVE STRANGE GODS BEFORE ME

THOU SHALT NOT TAKE THE NAME OF THE LORD THY GOD IN VAIN

THOU SHALT KEEP HOLY THE SABBATH

Right off the bat the first three are pure bullshit. Sabbath day? Lord's name? strange gods? Spooky language! Designed to scare and control primitive people. In no way does superstitious nonsense like this apply to the lives of intelligent civilized humans in the 21st century.

More:
The Ten Commandments

Volunteer Idiots

Just when you thought the evil right evangelicals couldn't get more silly!
Horror and Pity

"What do the interns do?

The main goal of the JHOP internship is to expose interested persons to the unique worship and intercession model of JHOP. During this time, we fully expect that each intern will experience personal growth in areas of devotion to the Lord as well as discovering and using their gifts in the context of community and the house of prayer. The interns will also be intricately involved in the operation and experience of the prayer room as they receive continuous teaching and guidance from Lou Engle and other national and local leaders.

They dance. They chant. They pray. They scream. They bob back and forth, they jump up and down. They're like a mob of dervishes, hysterical, freakish, ineffectual, deluded."

Apply it where needed

Voltaire wrote,

"People who believe in absurdities will eventually commit atrocities."

(Thanks to The Writer's Almanac, produced by Prairie Home Productions and presented by American Public Media for the reminder)

What makes a conservative

This from:
Viscount LaCarte.Blogspot.com

"It isn't that I trust government to do the right thing. I absolutely don't. It is that I trust powerful corporations to do the right thing even less. Why? Because in a Constitutional Republic, the government is accountable to the people, and politicians can be voted out of office.

A conservative will invariably argue, "Corporations are accountable to the people in the free market. When they misbehave, the consumer will spend their dollars elsewhere. The market takes care of itself."

And there in lies the rub. This is only true if the corporations are regulated by the government and forced to play fair. When corporations are free from regulations, you get powerful monopolies, price-fixing, workers being stripped of their rights. One only needs to explore how American corporations conduct themselves in third-world nations to confirm these words."

Love our troops to death

"Republicans think that the only way to support the troops is to let them die. That's what this debate is about tonight. If you love the troops, you should sit back, shut up, and watch George Bush and the Republican Congress send them to their deaths in a war that's already been lost."

Support our troops means bring them home!

"What the Republicans are saying tonight is that America doesn't lose wars, and when America starts a war it doesn't leave until the war is won.

And while that's cute and all warm and fuzzy, like puppy dogs and apple pie, it's downright idiotic as policy. We lost Vietnam. And we didn't lose because we withdrew. We withdrew because we lost. But the Republicans don't think America loses wars. They think you never withdraw because we never lose. So I guess we won Vietnam. Or do Republicans think the American withdrawal from Vietnam was a mistake?

The bottom line is that the Republicans love our troops to death. They're rather see American soldiers die than admit the Republican party screwed up. That's what this debate is about tonight. Just keep killing the troops so long as its saves face."

See John Aravosis at:

AmericaBlog.com

Things Andy Rooney never said

You may get specious email about racist remarks made by 60 minutes columnist Andy Roony.

They are, of course, false and just part of the fascist, right wing drivel we're seeing so much of.

Snopes.com has this to say:

Andy Rooney himself denied it in 2003, saying:

"About a year ago, I became aware of a more serious theft of my name and it is so hurtful to my reputation that it calls for legal action against the thief. Hundreds of people have written asking if I really wrote the 20 detestable remarks made under my name that have had such wide circulation on the Internet.

Some of the remarks, which I will not repeat here, are viciously racist and the spirit of the whole thing is nasty, mean and totally inconsistent with my philosophy of life.

It is apparent that the list of comments has been read by hundreds of thousands of Americans, many of whom must believe that it accurately represents opinions of mine that I don't dare express in my column or on television. It is seriously damaging to my reputation."

Mr. Rooney disclaimed the above-quoted piece again in his 60 Minutes segment of 23 October 2005, saying of it:

"There's a collection of racist and sexist remarks on the Internet under a picture of me with the caption 'ANDY ROONEY SAID ON 60 MINUTES.' If I could find the person who did write it using my name I would sue him."

Not Rooney

More not Rooney

How many lies — Let me count

Iraq on the Record

"Prepared at the direction of Rep. Henry A. Waxman, Iraq on the Record is a searchable collection of 237 specific misleading statements made by Bush Administration officials about the threat posed by Iraq. It contains statements that were misleading based on what was known to the Administration at the time the statements were made. It does not include statements that appear mistaken only in hindsight. If a statement was an accurate reflection of U.S. intelligence at the time it was made, it was excluded even if it now appears erroneous."

17 Statements

There are still bodies in the Big Easy

Scout Prime:

"Five weeks after Katrina, New Orleans is calling off the house- to-house search for bodies. Teams have pulled 964 corpses from storm- ravaged areas across southeastern Louisiana. Authorities admit more bodies are probably out there. They'll be handled on a case-by-case basis. The count is far short of the 10,000 dead once predicted by New Orleans mayor. As of today, the death toll from Hurricane Katrina stands at just under 1,200.Searchers and residents insist there are still plenty of dead to find in New Orleans. Once again, they say the Ninth Ward is being ignored because it is poor and black."

Part I

Part II

15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense

Opponents of evolution want to make a place for creationism by tearing down real science, but their arguments don't hold up.

Besieged teachers and others may increasingly find themselves on the spot to defend evolution and refute creationism. The arguments that creationists use are typically specious and based on misunderstandings of (or outright lies about) evolution, but the number and diversity of the objections can put even well-informed people at a disadvantage.

To help with answering them, the following list rebuts some of the most common "scientific" arguments raised against evolution. It also directs readers to further sources for information and explains why creation science has no place in the classroom.

Scientific American

Lil' Bill and the Neo-Con Bullies

Billy O'Reilly is cut from the same cloth as Pat Robertson.

Here's his steam about San Francisco.

"If Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it," he continued. "We're going to say, 'look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead."

"Let them all die!" That'll teach 'em!


CrooksandLiars.com

God's a Friggin' Bully

Proof from this funny little man:


If you don't teach smarty pants design:

"I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover. If there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city. And don't wonder why He hasn't helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I'm not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that's the case, don't ask for His help because he might not be there."

The Video

Thugs for God

Adolf Hitler

The most famous Christian of the 20th century.

His morality.

He did not smoke or drink and he abhorred pornography and homosexuality.

His call for his nation to repent.

“Providence withdrew its protection and our people fell… And in this hour we sink to our knees and beseech our almighty God that He may bless us, that He may give us the strength to carry on the struggle for the freedom, the future, the honor, and the peace of our people. So help us God.” (March 1936)

(Terror Vacui by Maurizio Cattelan )

His stand against secularism:

“Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without religious foundation is built on air; consequently all character training and religion must be derived from faith….” (April 1933)

His war on atheism:

“We were convinced that the people need and require [the Christian] faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out.” (October 1933)

The most Famous Christian of the 20th Century

By Robert Flynn

Carl Baugh

Indiana
GOP lawmakers want schools to teach 'intelligent design'

As if the gody creationists were not bad enough, here is some information about one of their kind from their own research.

Some of Carl Baugh's more outlandish claims, contained in his videotape Panorama of Creation, are as follows:

1. Before the Flood, the earth was surrounded by hydrogen which was so cold it was metallic and this collapsed when God shouted. This is nonsense. It is impossible that such a surrounding cloud of hydrogen could ever be cold enough, especially in such proximity to the earth.People could hear the 'singing' of the stars before the Flood. Apparently the metallic hydrogen (which could not have existed) enabled this to happen.


2. People could 'feel' the time before the Flood.


3. People can affect radioactive decay rates with their minds. There is absolutely no evidence for this.


4. Eggs do not hatch outside the earth's magnetic field. Baugh claimed that NASA did an experiment demonstrating this. Absolute nonsense.


5. Granites (which contain radioactive elements) are not exploding because they are in 'perfect balance'. However, radioactive elements do not normally 'explode' of course - that requires very special conditions which are not easy to arrange (if it were otherwise, every terrorist group would have atomic bombs!). Even pure radioactive elements will not 'explode', so the fact that granite does not has nothing to do with 'perfect balance' of the granite.


6. He argues that, in some way, radioactive minerals align themselves with the magnetic field, which is nonsense.


7. He says that people were smarter before the Flood, attributing this to a supposedly higher oxygen pressure. There is absolutely no evidence that high oxygen levels would make people more intelligent. He talked nonsense about 'four molecules of oxygen', linking this to his subsequent theories about oxygen saturation. Furthermore, there is no basis for his extravagant claims about the curative effects of high oxygen pressures - if it worked as he claims, paraplegics would be lining up to be treated (many hospitals have suitable hyperbaric chambers).

Baugh confuses many things. He confuses the pre-Flood and pre-Fall worlds in saying that there was no violence among animals 'before the Flood'. He confuses micro- and macro-evolution, getting them completely reversed.
Baugh exaggerates. For example, in discussing the Setterfield theory on slowing light, he says that it was calculated on 'the largest computer in Australia' (not true) and that scientists 'haven't been able to refute it'.

TalkOrigins.org

Rumsfeld To Profit From Avian Flu Hoax

Finally, the pieces of the puzzle start to add up. Last week, President Bush sought to instill panic in this country by telling us a minimum of 200,000 people will die from the avian flu pandemic but it could be as bad as 2 million deaths in this country alone.

This hoax is then used to justify the immediate purchase of 80 million doses of Tamiflu, a worthless drug that in no way shape or form treats the avian flu, but only decreases the amount of days one is sick and can actually contribute to the virus having more lethal mutations.

So the U.S. placed an order for 20 million doses of this worthless drug at a price of $100 per dose. That comes to a staggering $2 billion.

We are being told that Roche manufactures Tamiflu and, in yesterday's New York Times, they were battling whether or not they would allow generic drug companies to help increase their production.

But if you dig further you will find that a drug was actually developed by a company called Gilead that 10 years ago gave Roche the exclusive rights to market and sell Tamiflu.

Ahh, The Plot Thickens...

If you read the link below from Gilead, you'll discover Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was made the chairman of Gilead in 1997.

Since Rumsfeld holds major portions of stock in Gilead, he will handsomely profit from the scare tactics of the government that is being used to justify the purchase of $2 billion of Tamiflu.

For more on the nonsense of the avian flu hoax, you'll want to review my post from yesterday.
Gilead Sciences Inc.

This comes from Dr. Joseph Mercola Mercola.com.

The Doctor, unfortunately is a D.O., a chiropractor with prescription privileges, or sometimes referred to as a Dr. who is afraid of blood.

A good rumor can't go to waste.

No psychic, despite their claims, has ever helped the police solve a crime

Dr. Phil Plait:

I know a place where the Sun never sets.
It’s a mountain, and it’s on the Moon. It sticks up so high that even as the Moon spins, it’s in perpetual daylight. Radiation from the Sun pours down on there day and night, 24 hours a day—well, the Moon’s day is actually about 4 weeks long, so the sunlight pours down there 708 hours a day.

I know a place where the Sun never shines. It’s at the bottom of the ocean. A crack in the crust there exudes nasty chemicals and heats the water to the boiling point. This would kill a human instantly, but there are creatures there, bacteria, that thrive. They eat the sulfur from the vent, and excrete sulfuric acid.

I know a place where the temperature is 15 million degrees, and the pressure would crush you to a microscopic dot. That place is the core of the Sun.

I know a place where the magnetic fields would rip you apart, atom by atom: the surface of a neutron star, a magnetar.

I know a place where life began billions of years ago. That place is here, the Earth.

I know these places because I’m a scientist.

Science is a way of finding things out. It’s a way of testing what’s real. It’s what Richard Feynman called “A way of not fooling ourselves.”

No astrologer ever predicted the existence of Uranus, Neptune, or Pluto. No modern astrologer had a clue about Sedna, a ball of ice half the size of Pluto that orbits even farther out. No astrologer predicted the more than 150 planets now known to orbit other suns.

But scientists did.

No psychic, despite their claims, has ever helped the police solve a crime. But forensic scientists have, all the time.
It wasn’t someone who practices homeopathy who found a cure for smallpox, or polio. Scientists did, medical scientists.

No creationist ever cracked the genetic code. Chemists did. Molecular biologists did.

They used physics. They used math. They used chemistry, biology, astronomy, engineering.
They used science.

These are all the things you discovered doing your projects. All the things that brought you here today.
Computers? Cell phones? Rockets to Saturn, probes to the ocean floor, PSP, gamecubes, gameboys, X-boxes? All by scientists.

Those places I talked about before—you can get to know them too. You can experience the wonder of seeing them for the first time, the thrill of discovery, the incredible, visceral feeling of doing something no one has ever done before, seen things no one has seen before, know something no one else has ever known.

No crystal balls, no tarot cards, no horoscopes. Just you, your brain, and your ability to think.
Welcome to science. You’re gonna like it here.

The MysteryInvestigators.com

Also see:
Open letter to 10 year old daughter

Bush kills 100,000

Iraqi Civilian Deaths Increase Dramatically After Invasion

Civilian deaths have risen dramatically in Iraq since the country was invaded in March 2003, according to a survey conducted by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Columbia University School of Nursing and Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad. The researchers found that the majority of deaths were attributed to violence, which were primarily the result of military actions by Coalition forces. Most of those killed by Coalition forces were women and children. However, the researchers stressed that they found no evidence of improper conduct by the Coalition soldiers.

Pentagon Suppresses Details of Civilian Casualties

The study by US and Iraqi researchers, led by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, surveyed 1,000 households in 33 randomly chosen areas in Iraq. It found that the risk of violent death was 58 times higher in the period since the invasion, and that most of the victims were women and children.

"Making conservative assumptions, about 100,000 excess deaths have happened ... Violence accounted for most of the excess deaths, and air strikes from coalition forces accounted for most violent deaths," said Les Roberts of the Baltimore institution. The researchers excluded Fallujah, the most violent area of Iraq, from their results, which would have made the toll higher. But the finding that air strikes caused the highest casualties casts doubt on US claims that air attacks allow pinpoint precision.

So far 2,ooo American service men have been killed.

Not that one is in anyway connected to the other, 2,752 died at the World Trade Center at the hand of a rogue group of Saudi hooligans.

GWB: "Do as I say"

WASHINGTON, Oct. 18 (Iraq News Agency) - A delegation of Iraqi judges and journalists abruptly left the U.S. today, cutting short its visit to study the workings of American democracy. A delegation spokesman said the Iraqis were "bewildered" by some of the behavior of the Bush administration and felt it was best to limit their exposure to the U.S. system at this time, when Iraq is taking its first baby steps toward democracy.

The lead Iraqi delegate, Muhammad Mithaqi, a noted secular Sunni judge who had recently survived an assassination attempt by Islamist radicals, said that he was stunned when he heard President Bush telling Republicans that one reason they should support Harriet Miers for the U.S. Supreme Court was because of "her religion." She is described as a devout evangelical Christian.

Mithaqi said that after two years of being lectured to by U.S. diplomats in Baghdad about the need to separate "mosque from state" in the new Iraq, he was also floored to read that the former Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr, now a law school dean, said on the radio show of the conservative James Dobson that Miers deserved support because she was "a very, very strong Christian [who] should be a source of great comfort and assistance to people in the households of faith around the country."

"Now let me get this straight," Judge Mithaqi said. "You are lecturing us about keeping religion out of politics, and then your own president and conservative legal scholars go and tell your public to endorse Miers as a Supreme Court justice because she is an evangelical Christian.

PoliticalSports.com

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: October 19, 2005

Who are these Crooks and Liars

If your looking for links to videos and stories exposing the far right minority, see:

A well named Blog:

CrooksandLiars.com

The Real Deal

Tom Delay's real mug shot

Remember that cutesy grinning mug shot of Tom Delay?

This is the real one.

Tom Delay Uncropped



Slate.com

This is Godless America

Some great stories from This American Life on NPR.

Be sure to listen to Act 2:

God Said, Huh?
Julia Sweeney, a Catholic, tells the story of how her faith began to crack after reading a most alarming book ... called the Bible. Her story is excerpted from her play, "Letting Go of God," which ran in Los Angeles.


Godless America

Bombs — Pinter

The Bombs

There are no more words to be said
All we have left are the bombs
Which burst out of our head
All that is left are the bombs
Which suck out the last of our blood
All we have left are the bombs
Which polish the skulls of the dead

The Bombs

HaroldPinter.org

Guns Dont Kill People

Two year olds with their uncle's gun do

Hours after the shooting, the 2-year-old used his limited vocabulary to try to describe what happened.

"Pow, pow," he said to his mother, and then spoke his friend's name. Police said he shot and wounded his 4-year-old playmate while under the care of the 2-year-old's grandmother.

The grandmother had been caring for three children Monday morning and was busy with the youngest of them, an infant, when she heard a popping noise in the next room. The 2-year-old went to his grandmother upset, prompting her to investigate.

Police said the 4-year-old was shot in the right side and was in stable but guarded condition in the University of Chicago Comer Children's Hospital Monday night.

The 2-year-old's uncle, Juan Ramirez, 21, who lives downstairs in the two-flat in the 2200 block of South Drake Avenue, was charged with unlawful use of a weapon by a felon, felony defacement of a firearm and misdemeanor "firearm child protection," said police news affairs Officer Carlos Herrera. The weapon's serial number had been scraped away, he said.

Chicago Tribune

Boy uses his limited vocabulary to describe what happened

Does God Hate Us

There is No God (And You Know It)

Consider: the city of New Orleans was recently destroyed by hurricane Katrina. At least a thousand people died, tens of thousands lost all their earthly possessions, and over a million have been displaced. It is safe to say that almost every person living in New Orleans at the moment Katrina struck believed in an omnipotent, omniscient, and compassionate God. But what was God doing while a hurricane laid waste to their city? Surely He heard the prayers of those elderly men and women who fled the rising waters for the safety of their attics, only to be slowly drowned there. These were people of faith. These were good men and women who had prayed throughout their lives. Only the atheist has the courage to admit the obvious: these poor people spent their lives in the company of an imaginary friend.

Of course, there had been ample warning that a storm "of biblical proportions" would strike New Orleans, and the human response to the ensuing disaster was tragically inept. But it was inept only by the light of science. Advance warning of Katrina’s path was wrested from mute Nature by meteorological calculations and satellite imagery. God told no one of his plans. Had the residents of New Orleans been content to rely on the beneficence of the Lord, they wouldn’t have known that a killer hurricane was bearing down upon them until they felt the first gusts of wind on their faces. And yet, a poll conducted by The Washington Post found that eighty percent of Katrina's survivors claim that the event has only strengthened their faith in God.

Are "We" all Crazy?

Readers want 'crazy' park ban benched

New York Daily News

"This whole idea is just absurd!" wrote one angry New Yorker in response to The News' story about a woman ticketed for sitting on a park bench in a Manhattan playground.

Cops cited Sandra Catena, a 47-year-old belly dancer, on Saturday as she sat in Rivington Playground on Forsyth St.

A sign at the entrance of the playground cites several prohibitions, including: "Adults Except in the Company of Children." Catena said she did not see it.

After confronting the woman for sitting in the playground alone, the two officers issued her a summons.

Catena now faces 90 days in jail and a $1,000 fine if convicted. Her case goes to court in November.

Still, nearly a third of the three dozen responders said they agreed with police and parks officials who said the law was in place to protect children from pedophiles.

"It is wonderful to designate safe areas for children and those who do not belong there must learn not to use those facilities," one woman wrote. Another quipped, "If you're that tired, walk into a deli, buy something small and sit down."

"Let's give credit where credit is due. The woman was ticketed 'within minutes' of sitting alone on the bench. Great response by police," wrote Tom, of Matawan, N.J.

Originally published on September 28, 2005

One Person's Efforts

One at a time

Here's a note from Cheri:


If you are interested in helping a New Orleans family and know where your money is going, please take a look at this update on a family my daughter thought she could help, then did something. This is the beginning of her quest, I'm not documenting the whole thing, but just the beginning of what she wrote and the update on how its going. Its amazing what happens when we work together.

Dear Family & Friends:This is really important. If you’ve been wondering how to help some of the people who have been displaced by Hurricane Katrina then listen up. There’s a way to help a family directly, to know where your money and material things went, and to know how your contributions impacted them.Just 45 minutes ago I was listening to NPR Radio (89.3) and heard about a family Selwyn & Chiquita Smith who have been relocated to McKinney, Texas as a result of Hurricane Katrina.As soon as I walked in the door I called 411, got the phone number to the Best Western where they were staying and called them. Sure enough, they were registered there. I spoke with Chiquita’s sister-in-law who is also living in the hotel. So far they have gotten their 3 children enrolled in school, and now Selwyn is looking for a job, but he only has 2 pair of shorts. In Louisiana he was a loan officer, and is hoping to find a job in sales or something similar.

-------- Original Message --------
Hello Everyone:I want to update you on what's gone on this last week, and to personally thank everyone for their responses, and to those of you who have given so far. If I have left out anyone’s giving, please shoot me back an email. I’ve heard but not been able to confirm everything.Ca-Trece and I are both busy collecting and packing up NEW & gently used clothing, shoes, accessories and the like. Today I shipped out 3 huge boxes of clothes via UPS, and they should arrive by Wednesday, or Thursday at the latest. I know that Ca-Trece was packing up brand new sneakers, T-shirts and clothes for Mom and the daughter today, so we’ll have more on that later.We’ve gotten emails on donations of everything from money, to gift certificates to clothes to jobs for both Selwyn and Chiquita.

Here’s what I know so far.

FYI: The Target WEDDING Gift Registry is up and working. Please visit and enter the couples name under Bride or Groom. Thanks.

----------Thanks to Lena Cole Dennis and Karen Earl of the Jenesse Center for FedExing a $300 Sam’s Club/Walmart Gift Certificate.

Dear Crystal: We are sending by fed ex $300 in gift cards for Walmart/Sam's Club.-

---------Thanks for Fleace' of BlackWeekly.com for suggesting I use Evite, and for sending out a blast to all of BlackWeekly and for offering space on the site to add photos, and messages from our donors.

I have all the space you need! :-) You can set-up an evite and list everything that is needed, with a link to PayPal (you must setup an account for the smiths). Then when people RSVP they can list what they a buying, evite will need track of the list. If you need me to help, just call!––Fleace'

----------Thanks to Donna Brown for shopping for the family at Pottery Barn.

----------Thanks to Rena Braud:

Hi Crystal, Good to hear from you!! I will send them items needed via the Target Registry. Please have Selwyn contact me via phone or email. I can give him Real Estate referrals to jump start his career in TX. Talk with you soon.

----------THANKS Thanks to April Crocket:

Hey Catrece: Exactly what area are they living in? I think you mentioned Frisco. If that is the case, we do have a barbershop/salon called Skillz Salon in Plano (Midway and Park Blvd.) We also have Salon Suites in Frisco called Salon Estetica. She will need to contact the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation to get a Texas Provisional Cosmetologist License. She can go online to:http://www.license.state.tx.us/ and download the form or call 1-800-803-9202 or (512) 463-6599.
The contact person for our salons is Eric Nichols (214) 801-1892 and he would know what we have available. Take Care, April

----------Thanks to Kibi Anderson:

I posted a donation in the amount of $75.00 to go towards helping the Selwin & Chiquita Smith Family on the Jenesse Center web-site.

----------Thanks to Kathy Blount:

Let me know the details, and I'll send them cash.

----------Thanks to Kevin Harbour: I've got stuff to give now.

----------Thanks to Regina Kynard:

Hi Crystal: It's Regina. Let me know the details on sizes needed for the family and I will gladly assist. Thanks for including me and anyway that I can I will help that family. ––Peace and Love to you and yours!

----------Thanks to Joseph Duncan:

I have suits and shirts that should fit Selwyn as well as ties. I have given away most of my daughter's to small or otherwise unneeded clothes to a drive here last week but I may have a little more.

Forgive me if I skimmed over it but could you email me with the best way to get these things to them? Also, I don't have any direct contacts but I know Wells Fargo has a big mortgage presence in Texas. He can post (or re-create) his resume online at http://www.blogger.com/ http://www.wellsfargo.com/ and also view any openings in the area.

.... More pictures of the family will be available here or on their yahoo site (I'll post the address) by the end of the weekend. Please check back.
Sincerely,Crystal

..................................................

Crystal A. WrightAgency Director

Crystal@CrystalAgency.com

http://www.crystalagency.com/

Representing the best in Photography, Makeup, Hair & Fashion Styling

Crystal Agency

4237 Los Nietos DriveLos Angeles, CA 90027-2911
Main: 323.906.9600

Fax: 323.913.0900

Cell: 323.788.1336
--

Blessed are you when people hate you

Bigotry In The Name Of Jesus H. Christ

"Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude and insult you, and denounce your name as evil on account of the Son of Man."
Mathew 5:11

Jesus condemned bigotry and persecution in his name, which today happens to define the policies and actions of the modern right-wing who ironically embrace Christianity -- the teaching of Christ -- as part of their means. Throughout his documented life story, Jesus’ most incendiary comments and actions were aimed at, 1) Satan, and 2) the men who mixed business and religion. Does that second item sound familiar? Nary a single word which denounced same-sex marriage -- well, except in the Bible used by the right-wing and Christian Fundamentalists known as the "Fake Bible Which We Made Up To Suit Our Bigotry: Large Print Edition".

The Bible contains a lot of hogwash which, in a modern context, has little or no validity. The Bible tells us that anyone who comes into contact with a woman who is menstruating must do penance. The Book of Leviticus, the section of the Bible which is the cornerstone of the frightening Christian Reconstructionist movement, condemns homosexuality under pain of death. It also condemns the touching of pig flesh on Sundays... under pain of death. That would certainly make football interesting. Whoever touches the ball dies.

One of the most dominant arguments against same-sex marriage has been that the dictionary defines marriage as: "The legal union of a man and woman as husband and wife". That's a pretty weak argument, no? The dictionary? At one point in time, a definition taught us that a sperm cell contained a fully formed little man called a "homunculus". Just because George W. Bush cites the dictionary definition of marriage as "between a man and a woman" doesn't make it right and justified. This from the same man who thought "misunderestimated" was a word.

Do Women Throat Sing?

Tuva News

Tyva Kyzy is about to arrive in the US

Tuva Trader is sponsoring Tyva Kyzy the only all-women Tuvan Throat Singing and traditional folk ensemble.

This extraordinary group is beginning a month long west coast US tour after 2 years of planning, dreaming and lot’s of hard work. As international popularity of Tuvan music has grown over the last decade and a half many have asked "do women throat sing?" We are very happy that people will now hear for themselves and we will do our best to bring the group to other areas for years to come. The group will also release their first CD very soon.

Tyva Kyzy will be in Washington State between October 1st and 15th, performing a number of concerts around the Puget Sound and Olympic Peninsula before heading south to Portland, then the Bay Area and Santa Cruz.

The full tour schedule, tour posters brochures and links to the Tyva Kyzy website are available from the Tuva Trader home page. The group will also be doing some radio and print interviews, performances and a workshop or two. Please help to spread the word about the Tyva Kyzy west coast US tour to your friends in these areas: Seattle, Olympic Peninsula, Olympia, Portland, Berkeley, San Francisco and Santa Cruz.

http://www.tyvakyzy.com/

http://www.tuvatrader.com/

Also, keep an eye out for the great group Karashay Chirgil-Chin with Steven Kent. They will be performing in a temporarily transformed WW2 bunker in the Marin Headlands next month. Info & directions on their concert web page:

http://www.octavealliance.org/tunnel/

I saw their last performance in the Tunnel with Steve Sklar singing his wonderful khoomei. It was a great experience! Check out Steves site from time to time for great resources. His khoomei lessons and workshops come with my very high recommendation!

Devan Miller
The Tuva Trader
P.O. Box 515
Port Angeles, WA. 98362 360-
477-5445
info@tuvatrader.com

The Tuva Trader

Feynman Online!

With the Baptism Water

Throw the Girl Out!

A 14-year-old student was expelled from a Christian school because her parents are lesbians, the school's superintendent said in a letter. Shay Clark was expelled from Ontario Christian School on Thursday.

"Your family does not meet the policies of admission," Superintendent Leonard Stob wrote to Tina Clark, the girl's biological mother.

Defend the Dorts:

"The Association and all instruction given in its schools is based on the infallible and inerrant Word of God as expressed in the standards of the Reformed Faith (the Heidelberg Catechism, the Belgic Confession, the Canons of Dort and the Westminster Confessions and Catechisms."

One Puff or Two?

Just one to four cigarettes daily triples risk of dying of heart disease or lung cancer

Eurekalet.org

"Taking account of risk factors likely to influence the findings, the data nevertheless showed that light smoking endangered health. The steepest risk occurred between nought and four cigarettes a day.


Compared with those who had never smoked, those who smoked between 1 and 5 cigarettes a day were almost three times as likely to die of coronary artery disease.

While there was little difference in the risk of dying from any type of cancer, this was not the case for lung cancer."

Porn Trumps Terror

FBI forms anti-porn squad

'I guess this means we've won the war on terror,' one agent says'

. . . "Gonzales endorses the rationale of predecessor Meese: that adult pornography is a threat to families and children. Christian conservatives, long skeptical of Gonzales, greeted the pornography initiative with what the Family Research Council called "a growing sense of confidence in our new attorney general."

Congress began funding the obscenity initiative in fiscal 2005 and specified that the FBI must devote 10 agents to adult pornography. The bureau decided to create a dedicated squad only in the Washington Field Office. "All other field offices may investigate obscenity cases pursuant to this initiative if resources are available," the directive from headquarters said. "Field offices should not, however, divert resources from higher priority matters, such as public corruption."

Public corruption, officially, is fourth on the FBI's priority list, after protecting the United States from terrorist attacks, foreign espionage and cyber-based attacks. Just below those priorities are civil rights, organized crime, white-collar crime and "significant violent crime." The guidance from headquarters does not mention where pornography fits in."

What Did Happen at the Bridge?

What Happened and Why at the Gretna Bridge

. . . "initially Gretna police commandeered buses and used them to ferry more than 5,000 evacuees to a rescue site. But more and more kept coming, and after a day of this shuttling, he says, his small police force became overwhelmed."

Added Harry Lee, the sheriff of Jefferson Parish: "FEMA didn't have any food for those people in Gretna. They didn't give me any food. I didn't have any water. My obligations are to the people of Jefferson Parish."

Concluding the explanatory narrative, Burnett reported that Gretna officials had already been put on edge the day before by a mall fire set by "hooligans from New Orleans," leading to their decision to shut down the bridge to all pedestrian traffic.

Burnett did report the full story, but by doing something basic -- focusing on Lawson and Lee's point of view -- he illuminated a crucial aspect of a convoluted, touchy incident. Perhaps the easy answer of race -- or racism -- is not the only viable explanation. Perhaps Gretna officials, already having taken in thousands and fearing that things were getting out of control, felt they simply had no other choice.

At report's end Burnett asked, "Chief Lawson would like to know without communication, food, water, enough buses and gasoline, how long would it take another American city to reach the limits of its compassion?"

Red Cross and the Storm

The Red Cross Coming Home to Roost: Remember 9/11, Anyone?
Richard Walden

"The details are brief. The Red Cross responded to 9/11 by opening a few shelters to which no one came; tried to trace missing persons but were pushed aside when the World Trade Center site was dubbed a crime scene and police and FBI took over identification of missing persons; and, served coffee and

donuts to rescue workers at the World Trade Center site only to be accused of charging for them. (It later paid Daniel Bouley, New York's star chef, to cook for them after the news about charging for coffee was made public.)

The Red Cross' own 9/11 Liberty Fund indeed shows only $336,000 in US or state government reimbursement for what little it did do as a "first responder," a designation equal to police, fire and emergency medical service personnel.

They can indeed spend the money they have collected for Katrina -- $750 million as of September 19th -- on people and community institutions in need beyond what they will get back from FEMA and the state governments; but there is no history of them doing so to any significant extent. Local chapters, yes; it's their community's disaster. The national Red Cross, unlikely; they were the ones who did not appear in New Orleans and pulled out their local chapter from its own community."

Priest Pricks Kids

God made me do it

"I didn't think it was that big a deal. I can see the point now. I'll see to it that it doesn't happen again."
Rev. Arthur Michalka

CBS News

Katrina Google Maps

Overall Summary of all known Google Maps Hurricane Katrina Sites:
(Thursday, September 08, 2005 )

GoogleMapsMania.Blogspot.com

Unsaved Unwelcome!

Landover Baptist Church

Help Us Send Bibles to the Victims of Hurricane Katrina!
Food and shelter are worthless gifts that give these poor lost souls a false hope. The only real hope comes from the Word of God - The Holy Bible!

Cults: Our Handy Reference Guide
As this Christian nation opens its doors to more foreign trash, God's people are unfortunately exposed to exotic new ideas.

Win Free Tickets to Church!
Spend a weekend with God's favorite people!

---

Pat Robertson: Your Arms Are Too Short to Box with God

Tipping is not Democratic

"The origin of the word English word "tip" is less clear. One popular theory says it's is an acronym of "to insure promptness." Jesse Sheidlower, Principal Editor in North America for the Oxford English Dictionary, says that's wrong, because acronyms weren't popular in English until the 1920s. "Tip," says Sheidlower, "began as a verb in the seventeenth century, used in the language of thieves, meaning 'to give'." By the early eighteenth century, the meaning included "to give a gratuity to a servant or employee."

Money.cnn.com

" In its original form, a tip was a gratuity given voluntarily in return for or in anticipation of some service. The French were the first to make the tip mandatory: in 1955 a law was passed requiring every restaurant to add a service charge to every food and beverage bill, regardless of whether it was in the most simple cafe or the most luxurious restaurant. Most people were relieved, for it was thought that such uniformity would make life simpler. Unfortunately, even this did not solve the problem, for in many places and under a variety of circumstances, waiters and waitresses continued to expect an extra tip to be added to the amount that appeared on the bill. One should not judge these people harshly, however, because much of the money added as a "service charge" never got to the people who actually brought the food to the tables. Some of it went to the owner to cover the cost of washing tablecloths and napkins; some went to the dishwasher; some went to the barman; some went to the busboys. The little that remained went to the waiter."

Tips on Tipping

"This is a guide for people who are planning to tip and want to know the appropriate amount. If you think tipping in general is stupid, then don't tip. But don't complain that the minimum wage is too low. Don't complain that the only new jobs being created are low income."

Tipping Etiquette

"Restaurant workers in the United States make more than twenty-five billion dollars a year in tips, so it’s natural that people think of the custom as quintessentially American. But it wasn’t always. Tipping didn’t take hold here until after the Civil War, and even as it spread it met with fervent public opposition from people who considered it a toxic vestige of Old World patronage."

The New Yorker:
Check, please

Starbucks Gossip:
(Jim Romenesko)

Sept 3, 2005 -
Writer sides with those who frown on tipping at Starbucks

Sept 7, 2004 -
Tipping Debate

Sept 6 ,2004 -
More on tipping

Sept 2, 2004 -
Tipping Furor


The History of Tipping - From Sixteenth-Century England to United States in the 1910s

Tipping Is Plain Stupid!
~The Anti-Tipping Site~

Everyone's (evil) Grandmother

Published: September 05, 2005 7:25 PM ET updated 8:00 PM
NEW YORK Accompanying her husband, former President George H.W. Bush, on a tour of hurricane relief centers in Houston, Barbara Bush said today, referring to the poor who had lost everything back home and evacuated, "This is working very well for them."

The former First Lady's remarks were aired this evening on American Public Media's "Marketplace" program. She was part of a group in Houston today at the Astrodome that included her husband and former President Bill Clinton, who were chosen by her son, the current president, to head fund raising efforts for the recovery. Sen. Hilary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama were also present.

In a segment at the top of the show on the surge of evacuees to the Texas city, Barbara Bush said: "Almost everyone I’ve talked to says we're going to move to Houston."

Then she added: "What I’m hearing which is sort of scary is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality."

And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them."

Editor and Publisher.com    

Emergency Privatization

Where's the follow-up report?

June 3, 2004

"IEM, Inc., the Baton Rouge-based emergency management and homeland security consultant, will lead the development of a catastrophic hurricane disaster plan for Southeast Louisiana and the City of New Orleans under a more than half a million dollar contract with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security/Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

In making the announcement today on behalf of teaming partners Dewberry, URS Corporation and James Lee Witt Associates, IEM Director of Homeland Security Wayne Thomas explained that the development of a base catastrophic hurricane disaster plan has urgency due to the recent start of the annual hurricane season which runs through November. National weather experts are predicting an above normal Atlantic hurricane season with six to eight hurricanes, of which three could be categorized as major.

The IEM team will complete a functional exercise on a catastrophic hurricane strike in Southeast Louisiana and use results to develop a response and recovery plan. A catastrophic event is one that can overwhelm State, local and private capabilities so quickly that communities could be devastated without Federal assistance and multi-agency planning and preparedness.

Thomas said that the greater New Orleans area is one of the nation’s most vulnerable locations for hurricane landfall.

“Given this area’s vulnerability, unique geographic location and elevation, and troubled escape routes, a plan that facilitates a rapid and effective hurricane response and recovery is critical,” he said. “The IEM team’s approach to catastrophic planning meets the challenges associated with integrating multi-jurisdictional needs and capabilities into an effective plan for addressing catastrophic hurricane strikes, as well as man-made catastrophic events.”

IEM President and CEO Madhu Beriwal is the recipient of a special merit award from the Louisiana Emergency Preparedness Association ( LEPA ) for her work in New Orleans hurricane emergency preparedness. "

Innovative Emergency Management Incorporated
IEM Inc