Interesting Read

I was in the WordPress IRC channel and someone posted this and I thought it was an interesting read.

Democracy, Birds, And Snails

Oh…Hell

April 7, 2005

I wonder whether liberal democracies do not follow an ordained trajectory into the muck, ripening like fruits, having their arteries harden, and falling, plop, to be eaten by birds and snails. (That was a two-animal medico-vegetative ballistic metaphor, not so much mixed as homogenized, almost colloidal. Patent applied for.) I note that the English-speaking countries are doing to themselves exactly what the United States is doing, and the Europeans, though better educated and more cultivated, follow. Maybe there is a pattern. Read more

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Say Bye Bye to More Civil Rights

The House on Wednesday approved a job-training bill that would allow faith-based organizations receiving federal funds to consider a person’s religious beliefs in making employment decisions.

Under current law, religious groups that receive federal money for job-training programs must obey civil rights laws that prohibit discrimination in hiring or firing. Read more

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Dear Abby,

Dear Abby,
My husband has a long record of money problems. He runs up huge credit card bills. At the end of the month, if I try to pay them off, he shouts at me, saying I am stealing his money. He says pay the minimum and let our kids worry about the rest, but already we can hardly keep up with the interest.

Also, he has been so arrogant and abusive toward our neighbors that most of them no longer speak to us. The few that do are an odd bunch, to whom he has been giving a lot of expensive gifts, running up our bills even more.

Also, he has gotten religious in a big way, although I don’t quite understand it. One week he hangs out with Catholics and the next with people who say the Pope is the Anti-Christ.

And now he has been going to the gym an awful lot and is into wearing uniforms and cowboy outfits, and I hate to think what that means.

Finally, the last straw. He’s demanding that before anyone can be in the same room with him, they must sign a loyalty oath. It’s just so horribly creepy! Can you help?

Signed, Lost in DC

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DEAR LOST: Stop whining, Laura. You can divorce the jerk any time you want. The rest of us are stuck with him for four more years!

Thanks to Chris Miller for posting this.

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Whatever Happened to…

separation of church and state?

Three star general William G. “Jerry” Boykin, deputy undersecretary of Defense for intelligence, is under investigation for suggesting “innovative techniques” for extracting information from Iraqi detainees.

Boykin, an evangelical Christian, appeared in uniform before a religious group last June to state that radical Islamists hate the US “because we’re a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian … and the enemy is a guy named Satan.”

In another venue, the outspoken Boykin said, “I knew my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol.”

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Book of the Year

America, The Book Jon Stewart’s America the Book has been named Book of the Year. I suggest everyone read this.

NEW YORK (AP) — Jon Stewart’s “America (The Book),” the television commentator’s million-selling riff on politics and other matters of satire, has been named Book of the Year by Publishers Weekly, the industry trade magazine.
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