Fitz on Wednesday??? Please???

Fitz!

Funny but true ;)

COLBERT!!

EPU’d
OT here’s a fun google trick. go to google.com, type in Asshole and hit the “I’m feelng lucky†button. Enjoy the show. (needs sound turned on)

The Pope is having a tough time with the Da Vinci Code- to be released on Friday.

Seems that he doesn’t like the suggestion that Jesus may have fathered children.

Why is this a difficult problem? Nothing illegal or immoral about it. What’s up with this whole flap? Any insights?

We should see the frog march soon enough. I saw some of the Rover Q and A last night. He looked a little peak-ed. Actually he looked like he was rode hard and put up wet. Wonder how the candy ass will look on frog march day.

Dialogue:
On the right: “I’m a chicken-hawk, and I’m gonna eat me a chicken! Are you coming quietly, or do I have to mess you up?”
On the left: “Ah say, ah say, that’s a tie, son - not a chicken.”

rwcole—this issue was the only time I saw my parents argue while growing up. While my Methodist mother had signed the doc saying she would raise us Catholic, and she did, when I asked about this issue as an early teen, all hell broke loose. “Catholics do not believe that Jesus married, and therefore he had no kids” was my Catholic father’s response to my mom’s “Of course he had kids”——we could go into all those child producing popes, as I did way back then, but that only made things worse.

Maybe the chickenhawks would sign up if the military gave them one of these “Hollywood Liason” jobs they are offering new recruits.

http://americablog.blogspot.co.....-jobs.html

loubarr

Guess the Bible never says one way or the other in the canonical gospels- although some of the Gnostic gospels claim that he had children. Is it all about whether or not he was too holy to screw?

Looking at that photo first thing I thought was:
“Too many cheetos.”

rwcole — I think it also goes to whether or not that means that priests and nuns need to be too holy to do so. It is a direct challenge to the celibacy issue — and that makes it a third rail.

That bit by GRS is truly funny; thanks for hightlighting it Christy.

Looks like Specter has already caved and Hayden’s hearings don’t even start til Thursday morning. This is sheer lunacy– protecting a preznit with a 29% JAR.

http://www.rawstory.com/showou.....news1.html

Lawyers, Guns, and Money (via Steve Gilliard) on InstyHack and the Lameness of Warblogger Keyboard Fatigue –

http://stevegilliard.blogspot......jesus.html

I see I just got EPU’ed. I just posted #92 on Pach’s “Action Alert” thread, and rather than repost it here I’ll just ask that any other Minnesotans here take a look at it, especially those of you in the 3rd Congressional District. Thanks.

Chimpy’s flappin’ his gums on live CNN

So explain this to me again, these guys turned down the New York Yankees to sign with the Army Rangers?

sláinte,
cl

I can’t think of a country in the world that is more like Texas……and that’s a compliment (heh, heh, heh)– dubya May 16, 2006 speaking to Australian PM

Redd–Yeah the ol Pope may be sittin there thinkin: “Hell- if Jesus could screw, what the hell have I been doin fer the last fifty years?”

Of course, now that I think about it- if Jesus was married to a hooker- I guess that throws a whole new light on the thing eh?

Maybe it’s important to the faith that Jesus not be a real person.

We can’t deal with him takin dumps, whizzin in the bushes, belchin, farting and screwing- payin bills, and taxes- etc. He needs to be sort of human- but not REALLY human.

bush asked about NSA wiretapping - “well protect america against al qaeda attack…

we do not listen to domestic calls w/o approval…

if al qaeda is calling in to the united states, we want to know…

we got accused of not connecting dots b4 9/11…”

can’t type that fast

ooh mr. pissy pants in a snit over the NSA question… i am going to keep doing it, so there! i am connecting the dots…..

Bush - “ours is a world where people tell you something and don’t mean it.”

No shit - just like everything that comes out of your mouth Chimpy McPetGoatenstein

rwcole says:
May 16th, 2006 at 8:49 am

Please peruse this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Magdalene

Apparently Specter’s about to go gooper on us with the “investigation” into Clusterfuck’s criminal activity. Figures. Goopers won’t sign onto any of his programs unless GW Clusterfuck is totally shielded from ANY responsibility for ANYTHING. Figures.

#23 - He’s going to continue connecting the dots, then he will finish the rest of his coloring books.

dubya– john howard may not be the purtiest guy … (i swear he said that)

…my ears are bleeding…

#27– hahaha! In this appearance, he’s either joking or being belligerent (inappropriately)– fairly unhinged; guess he did not rehearse this one!

Chimpy is babbling now and making no sense… of less than usual anyway.

Maine is generally thought of as a blue state; so why do we have *two* Republican Senators???
Olympia Snowe is being challenged by Jean Hay Bright. With her stands on the war (immediate withdrawal), single-payer health system, energy independence, a living wage, I think she would do a great job representing not just the people of Maine but of the country.
Her website is www.jeanhaybright.com and she’s listed on ActBlue; she doesn’t have Ned’s resources, so $$ are welcome.

Christianity is about as based on the teachings of Jesus as our government is based on the Constitution. Who knows if Jesus had kids? It doesn’t really matter to the people who push the sexually repressive christian cult message. Sex is dirty and evil despite the fact that “God” made it necessary for our very survival… canundrum anyone?

bush - “part of my job is to lead, and i did so last night.”

Stephen- thanks. Very interesting. Of course in this case- what REALLY happened is of less interest than what we THINK happened- and how we react to it.

Dkos is reporting that NOW PAC is joining CT NOW in the Lamont endorsement –

Lamont has a 1pm press conference . . . .

The concept of Jesus screwing is linked psychologically with Plato’s indecision about whether there were “forms” for things such as mud and hair.

Lots of interest in Lamont apparently- last time I saw anything he was hopelessly behind in the polling. Has that changed? I figure he’s goin ta get the crap kicked out of him.

The Pope is having a tough time with the Da Vinci Code- to be released on Friday.

Seems that he doesn’t like the suggestion that Jesus may have fathered children.

Why is this a difficult problem? Nothing illegal or immoral about it. What’s up with this whole flap? Any insights?

I have an old friend who is a very conservative Lutheran and I posed this same question to him back when I read The Code. I specifically asked him what the impact would be on the Christian faith if it turned out that Jesus really was married to Mary and they had kids. His answer was, essentially, “I don’t know but I just know it would be bad”. Kind of like when Egon tells Peter and Ray not to cross the streams. “It would be bad”. And this is from a well educated, life long Christian!

I think the real issue conservative Christians have is the idea that perhaps the story of Christ isn’t completely written yet. They desperately want their absolutist beliefs and their unchanging narrative about their Savior. The very notion that there perhaps exists information, yet to be discovered, that might change the reality of who Christ really was scares the hell out of them.

“Sometimes people mistake the way I talk for what I am thinking”

;>)

Read a novel in which Jesus returns–and the church is compelled to do away with him. Having a real flesh and blood person to deal with is way too scary.

OT - CNN says the video of the plane hitting the pentagon will be released today.

DB (#40)

USA = Banana Republic

In the snap poll of 461 people who watched Monday’s speech, 42 percent said they had a positive opinion of the president’s immigration policies before they heard him speak. Afterward, 67 percent said they had a positive view, a jump of 25 percentage points.

The polled audience was 41 percent Republican, 23 percent Democratic and 36 percent independent. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.

“People who watch the speech do tend to be somewhat more Republican than the voters as a whole,” said CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider. “But that wasn’t the best response he’s gotten compared to other speeches, in fact it was lower than any speech we’ve measured since he took office

CNN

It still makes me crazy that Bush actually caters to the belief that “some people” think spying on Al-Qaida is a bad idea. It’s like he pathologically has to distort everything he disagrees with by first oversimplifying and then completely over-exaggerating. Stark raving loony, he is!

Some reporter should tell him that Ahmadinejad wrote another letter saying that breathing is a sign of American hegemony. Then, after Bush pulls a David Blaine and passes out, the MSM can get back to their regularly scheduled Duke rape story.

So did GW Clusterfuck help himself last night? The CNN snap poll sounds positive for him- but I suspect it won’t have a lasting effect.

Anybody ever read Kozantzakis’ “Last Temptation of Christ”? As literature it’s way above “The Davinci Code”. It portrays Jesus as a human being.

conspiracy theory #341:

What if Rove was never in danger of indictment; made a deal long ago; and is covering the fact that his subsequent GJ appearances were as a witness, not a “subject”, by leaking EVERYTHING we’ve read for the last 6 months?

I mean … Fitz hasn’t leaked anything, and Leopold is looking more and more like he’s been swiftly Rather-boated the whole time. Maybe everything we think we know is really just a smokescreen put out by Rove and we’re his unwitting pawns as he keeps the OVP unaware of his defection, his ultimate goal being to throw Cheney under the bus and replace him with the 2008 GOP candidate.

Speaking of Da Code, reading that typing exercise was sorta like wearing a celise. I finished that “book” just to see if I could. Who cares what Brown brings up? He’s to Biblical Scholars what Dubya is to presidentin’…

“But that wasn’t the best response he’s gotten compared to other speeches, in fact it was lower than any speech we’ve measured since he took office

I absolutely love immigration as a Republican issue. I hope they talk about it every day until November. They either piss off the Latino’s in the country, or alienate their racist base. It’s a win-win for the reality-based community.

By the way, anyone else annoyed that the normally upstanding Dick Durbin had to throw in that little bit about “learning English” in the Democratic response? I expect that kind of nativist stupidity from Bush, but from Durbin? Sad…

GW Clusterfuck may actually have figured out a way to take advantage of his lame duck status.

Propose a bunch of stupid ideas that will never have to be implemented until AFTER he leaves office. That gives him a free hand.

Watch- he will NEVER have to do any substantial prosecution of employers for hiring illegals. He’s set up a house of cards that protects him from the impending reality of his brain dead ideas.

Yarn- it is of no interest from the standpoint of serious biblical study- it is of intense interest from the standpoint of the psychology of faith.

Angie #30 - Bush was right. The whole reason 9/11 happened and the country is in turmoil IS because Bush failed to properly connect the dots.

Check it out here

This is the season for pandering to the lowest common denominator- and Clusterfuck did a fine job of it last night.

Christy, 12: “It is a direct challenge to the celibacy issue — and that makes it a third rail.”

Yes, it is a celibacy issue. However, celibacy for priests was not formal doctrine until about the 10th/11th Century. Before then even some popes were husbands and fathers. Until then, the church did a lot of waffling on the issue. Even after celibacy was official teaching, some church officials including popes managed to find ways to sire progeny, to put it delicately.

And, if you look under the covers of church history, you may read about liaisons between church dignitaries and nuns.

Regarding Jesus, some Christians tend to forget that Jesus was a practicing Jew and abided by the traditions of the Judaism of his time. (The Last Supper was a Passover Seder.) That would mean marriage for him was not out of the question. (There was yet no such thing as a Catholic priest.) In his time he was considered a rabbi (i.e., “teacher”) by his followers, so any rules and laws concerning marriage and romantic liaisons for rabbis would have concerned him.

One of the Ten Commandments says “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife,” but does not specifically address the issue of romantic liaisons that are not “adulterous.” (Mary Madgelene was neither married nor a prostitute.)

I know this will shock some Christians, but it comes down to this: was Jesus a good Jew and an honorable rabbi?

As a parting shot, re the Church’s stance on celibacy, I would not be a bit surprised however, to learn that inheritance issues came into play. After all, a single priest has no family to bequeath property to, except of course, the Church.

(Speaking as an apostate.)

re: rwcole and the ‘Da Vinci Code’

If you know the distinction between the canonical gospels and the gnostic gospels, its a bit disingenuous to be asking ‘innocently’ about the Pope’s critical evaluation of the DaVinci Code.

There is a significant portion of the history of Christianity that struggled with attempts by ‘Crypto-Judiasm’ gnostics to insert heretical teachings into mainstream Christianity, the gnostic gospels being the notable example.

The DaVinci Code is a modern articulation of this same problem. Each heretical movement attempted to diverge in either materialistic or overly asthetic interpretations of divinity, resulting in fertility cults (not as fun as it sounds, at least for the women) or dehumanizing asceticism that doctrinally held that all ‘material’ life was bad.

The essential teaching that the mainstream christians were defending was the idea of an essential and good balance between human nature, and divine nature. That Jesus represented both, and that both are supposed to be in balance.
The gnostic gospel presentation of Jesus as having backed down from the essential challenge of divinity vs mortality, by running off with Mary Magdalene feed into the the ‘Jesus was just a good man’ idealolgy that often became the basis for the materialistic (read-hedonism) christian fertility cults.

Not trying to flame you ‘rw’, just wanted to clarify that if want to provide background on DaVinci Code, you could advocate that people read up on the idea of making a distinction between canonical and gnostic gospels.

They also serve who sit and pretend to fight.

Let’s not forget The Man Who Died by DH Lawrence

the speech last night was intended to buck up ‘the base’ ummm, not so much

Sophist..

Well the gnostics were not a heretical movement at the time- the canon had not been established yet and the gnostic material was among the hundreds of pieces of christian religious writing available. It is clear from reading it that it used the same sources as the gospels that later became a part of the canon.

To call it a “heretical movement” is- I would suggest- to rewrite history.

twolf1– nice! Do you think he’s even read it all the way through and uninterrupted even once? I think not.

He probably got the mini–Cliff notes!

Remember having to memorize the preamble to the Declaration of Independence in school? Betcha that dubya scribbled the preamble on his hairy palmar surfaces in order to cheat and pass his test.

Snowballs on CNN now.

darkblack @ 9:08 am

beautiful! I have to say that’s the best one of yours that I’ve seen!

rwcole #46:

A sample of 41% Republican, 23% Democratic and 36% independent doesn’t sound representative to me - if it was balanced for party ID, i would suspect that the 25% bounce wouldn’t be so steep. but, it depends who changed their mind.

tony snow’s first formal WH briefing just started.

Tony Snow doing his briefing now — MSNBC broadcasting it live.

Fahrender - great suggestion on Kazantzakis Last Temptation - also, take a look at Pasolini’s film The Gospel According to St Mathew.

Snow briefing on CNN now

The whole anti-sex thing in the Church comes from St. Paul, not from the Gospels. And clergy weren’t celibate for centuries after the founding of the Church. I’m not even a Christian, and these types who brag about how they “read the Bible every day” and “it’s the literal truth” put me in mind of the classic exchange from A Fish Called Wanda:

Otto: Apes don’t read philosophy!
Wanda: Yes they do, Otto, they just don’t understand it.

New posting of docs at OSC
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/.....dings.html

Obsessed @ 48:
Many have argued Rove is not the deal making type. I never liked this argument. As a political operative Rove would bury his own wife alive if it would win him an election. Why wouldn’t he flip? Everything reported so far is consistent with that possibility. TalkLeft, of course, recognized this long ago.

“As a parting shot, re the Church’s stance on celibacy, I would not be a bit surprised however, to learn that inheritance issues came into play. After all, a single priest has no family to bequeath property to, except of course, the Church.”

That was clearly part of the reason for the celibacy requirement. Don’t know if the Vatican weighs in on this, but all parish priests I’ve encountered will, when asked, admit that inheritance was a (secondary) consideration.

St Paul thought that Jesus was going to return any minute- which made the whole issue of reproduction moot. He thought screwing was OK_ but not as “holy” as total abstinence. Scholars have long suspected that Paul was gay.

Not all of the Gnostics went in the direction of more earthy Jesus if I remember correctly - haven’t looked at the gnostics since pagels was first publishng about them though …

orangejumpsuit: Not to mention that the reason for clergy celibacy was to deal with difficulties of inheritance by children of high (and wealthy) clergy. Celibacy is a prohibibition against marrying, not against sex; that would be chastity.

we will not confirm or deny the existence of the program (revealed in USA Today…) — snow

sanitas @ 61:

Thanks… ‘You ain’t heard nothin’ yet’

:)

The gnostics were known for a dualistic view of the universe- in which an all good God struggle with an all powerful Satan- creating the “compromise” that we find ourselves in. I don’t think there is much difference in the character of Jesus depicted in most of the gnostic material. It was the dualism that was eventually declared heretical.

In the vein of this post, I wanted to point folks to this great comment by Bruce Baugh a few days ago at Crooked Timber:

Talking with Mom and Dad about their personal histories led me to this association: what the war party bloggers have done is recreate the experience of being a child in World War II. They write patriotic essays and make patriotic collages, and get pats on the head and congratulations from the authorities. They watch diligently for the mutant, I mean, for the subversive among us, and help maintain the proper atmosphere of combined courage and vigilance. They are not expected to manage the family books, nor invited into discussion of the nitty-gritty, and it seldom occurs to them that there’s even a possibility there – that’s for the grown-ups, and rightly so.

But what’s fitting for a child isn’t fitting for an adult.

The post it’s responding to is hilarious, but I thought this comment was really penetrating.

These threads sure get off topic sometimes. This one is very interesting. I’m learning alot.

Samurai Sam—I have a very conservative fundamentalist sister-in-law who sent me a book countering the DaVinci Code. Wingnut Welfare Press, I bet…I’d look to see if it really was Regenery but I threw it away.

OMG! Did Ed Henry ask an actual pertinent question ?

did gnostics eat gnocchi? maybe gnat.

as I recall, in several of the gnostics (and I no longer have the books to reference … though my son has been working his way through the gnostics much to my surprise)the focus is on Jesus imparting secret enlightenment to select followers, not on the fertility rite issue or even specifically on a dualistic theology but I’d have to reread to check. The gnostics do make for interesting reading - the Nag Hammadi Library is online with quite complete texts and documents for reading and research at:
http://www.webcom.com/gnosis/naghamm/nhl.html

Returning from my late-nite (for me) wholly incorrect statement that some of the hijackers had come in through Canada, I am treading lightly and cautiously this afternoon. If anyone missed it, I stand not only corrected, but embarrassed. A victim of urban legend, I guess.

It makes me feel queasy to imagine hordes of younger versions of the current crop of GOP agitators. Are these kids coming from conservative homes or just being subject to expert indoctrination? Is there a perception that conservatives are inherently smarter, and wealthier, things these kids want to identify with?

Am dismayed and disappointed that virtually none of the MSM sought fit to pick up on the ABC/NYT NSA phone number collection. Maybe now we know what those national security letters were really all about – being able to collect information on Americans for whatever purpose the government deemed necessary. And far from protecting national security interests, these actions seem designed to cut off any investigation of the government’s own activity, and not suspected terrorist activity. This country is cannibalizing its citizens for its own interests and power, not to protect us from outside dangers.

These are dangerous, dangerous people, and it makes me want to spit nails in anger over the lack of action or accountability.

punaise– who gnu?

Tony on Rove– I am not going to comment on what might or might not happen.

“OT - CNN says the video of the plane hitting the pentagon will be released today.”

Looks like some folks might be getting a little testy about the accusations that 9/11 was aninside job.

-GSD

angie 83 - gnawed me

Drudge has got the siren up on this. Looks like the RNC wants to hit Chavez instead of Tehran.

“VENEZUELA TO SELL US-MADE FIGHTER JETS TO IRAN”

-GSD

Will this allow Iran to cannibalize parts to updgrade their Shah era US planes?

hey Punaise! I see we’re both working hard today!

rwcole - you recently mentioned you were reading a book by Karen ??? (former nun) I looked it up at the time and she sounded interesting as hell - if you know which author I’m referring to, could you post her name again - I’d like to add her to the ever burgeoning list of books/authors to read.

siun, good on your son ! the Nag Hammadi library was one of my first bookmarks - funny that, looking over my bookmark history, two of the other firsts were The Louvre and The Vatican Library (my geek fantasy entails unfettered access to same)

GSD #85- the story is - they were waiting until after the moussaui trial to end.

OK, it’s from Raw Story, but still:

In unscripted moment, Gore says he’s a ‘recovering politician’ who has to worry about ‘relapse’

Former Vice President Al Gore gave yet another vague hint yesterday in Atlanta that he might be open to a run for the presidency in 2008, RAW STORY has found.

hey siun - oh, yeah - just don’t tell my boss

punaise # 92– I truly hope it comes to pass! It would be so gneiss!

rwcole - Is it all about whether or not he was too holy to screw?

If he’s not too holy to screw, then abstinence has no teeth and the church can’t scare you to death if you contemplate sex. Evangelicals don’t hold a candle to Catholics when it comes to using fear as a control mechanism.

No offense to Catholics meant. I’m a lapsarian myself but got the full treatment in catechism.

cbl - Karen Armstrong

Whoo boy. I just saw the weepy Tony Snow clip about his yellow bracelet….
I think it was a fake Mrs. Alito moment to make Tony Snow and his humanity and vulnerability the story.

Color me gnot impressed and a bit repulsed.

-GSD

Did Jeff Gannon ask him about the bracelet?

To rwcole, Samarai Sam and others discussing the DaVinci Code, whether Jesus had sex/babies, whether Paul was gay, priestly celibacy, etc.:

1) The DaVinci Code was a badly written book (truly awful) that raised some interesting and important ideas that have been floating around on the edges of the Christian tradition for centuries.

2) There is no early evidence, and scarcely any evidence at all that Jesus was married, had sex, or had babies. I would be thrilled to learn that Jesus had sex, babies. It wouldn’t trouble me one little bit. But the fact that Jesus was not married was a problem for the earliest (Jewish) church. It was not considered “normal” for a thirty year old man to be not married. This suggest to me that it is likely that Jesus (for reasons not exactly clear) did not pursue sexual relationships with women in licit or illicit forms.

I was with my wife last month at Mohammad’s tomb in Medina. The space (which you could actually see through a hole in the partition) had been Mohammad’s marriage bed with Aisha. It delighted my wife and I that the second holiest shrine in Islam was a place where the Prophet had been fucking his wife. And she is entombed there also.

But sorry folks, like it or not, it appears that Jesus never “got any.”

2) It is true that the later church assumed that the reason why Jesus never had sex is because sex is evil and unholy. That is one of the most unfortunate moves that the church has ever made.

3) I don’t think that there is any truth to the urban legend that the reason for priestly celibacy is inheritance. The sense of sex as unholy provided reason enough for the church to move in this direction.

4) I know of no serious scholarship ( or unserious for that matter) that suggests that Paul was gay. The ONLY possible place people can get that is from Paul’s anti-gay statements (common among Republican in-the-closet types to be extremely anti-gay). But that is a real stretch. People have suggested that “the beloved disciple” who “lay on Jesus’ breast” was gay. People have suggested that Jesus was gay. But I don’t see it in Paul. He was a tight-ass straight arrow if I ever saw one.

I would be delighted to find out that Paul was gay, but I doubt it.

Jonathan, the son of King Saul, lover of future King David, was likely gay.

5) rwcole is correct about Gnosticism, that the latest work on the movement sees it as an alternate form of Christianity that co-existed with what comes to be called “orthodox” Christianity. As always, the side that won wrote the history.

The chimpanzee code…

Tom Hanks stars in a new movie about cracking the meaning of the Bush regime through modern art.
In the first scene Hanks is suddenly struck by the connection between the famous painting, ‘ The Mona Gorilla’ and the Chimp emperor just before he slips on a banana peel and is carted off to hospital.
One of the first things he see’s on regaining consciousness is the famous series of painting of dogs playing snooker and cards. This leads him to theorize what goes on at the Watergate and the Whitehouse between red hot military men and their bitchs.
Later in a flashback engendered by a rare sighting of Seinfeld fan, Paddy O’Fitzgerald, Hanks vividly recalls the famous ‘ Kramer’ masterpiece now hanging in the Getty and is reminded in a flash that the Godfather of the western world can not find the door, is a doofus and institutes crackpot schemes at the drop of a hat.
With another link established between the great apes, great art and great power the Chimpnazee code then roars along toward a spectacular climax the spoilers for which are already appearing on the web. FIVE STARS.

John Howard? Aint he got real purty LIPS tho!

angie: gnat-churly, a biblical reference

only in Matt. 23:24, a small two-winged stinging fly of the genus Culex, which
includes mosquitoes. Our Lord alludes here to the gnat in a proverbial
expression probably in common use, “who strain out the gnat;” the words in the
Authorized Version, “strain at a gnat,” being a mere typographical error, which
has been corrected in the Revised Version. The custom of filtering wine for this
purpose was common among the Jews. It was founded on Lev. 11:23. It is supposed
that the “lice,” Ex. 8:16 (marg. R.V., “sand-flies”), were a species of gnat.

Gnow people…gnock it off!

allegedly Jesus was down on fornicators … wouldn’t that make canoodling with Mary Magdalene kinda hypocritical ?

Redshift - chastity is a state of purity, which applies to both married and unmarried people; in marriage, it means abstaining from sexual sin, such as adultery. The primary meaning of celibacy today is sexual abstention, though the original meaning was more that of singleness - but since sex outside marriage (at least for women, and in theory if not in practice for men) was prohibited going back to the early days of Judaism, celibacy and abstention are difficult to separate.

GSD– this crowd will exploit anything and everything for gain and to show they are a “compassionate” and all- inclusive “team”. Did not see the clip, and am very glad he’s a survivor on a personal level. But this is oh so predictable. Hey everybody, we got us a celebrity survivor.

blech.

How about they disclose the stuff we care about– like the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

FDL House Band:

The Caustic Gnostics

-GSD

GSD 87 –

Probably not — The grounded Iranian fighters are F-14 Tomcats, a high maintenance (now obsolete) aircraft. Venezuela is probably selling them F-18’s, which is a more practical modern aircraft.

Angie,

That is it in a nutshell. Remember how the Republicans laid into Gore for “using his sisters cancer” for political purposes.

I don’t trust Tony Snow one bit. He took a job with the administration that is ruining America.

-GSD

Interesting, from June Harper’s Index:

Percentage change since 1990 in the number of Americans who describe themselves as nonreligious: +106.

Hmmm. In-your-face-Christian backlash?

GSD 105 gets the last word - heh
G’night!

professor rat #99

I wanna see THAT movie.

Nice professor rat @ 99– I cannot believe he actually talked about Howard that way today– simply surreal!

GSD– I like the band name– a lot!

Thanks Mommybrain !

I went to Catholic school for 12 years. I swear I do not recall the Last Supper pic with Mary in it. However, if you look here http://www.artchive.com/artchi.....p.jpg.html

I swear that is a woman seated at the right hand of the father. In school, I think the nuns had an early version of photo-shop.

Just asking:

Why is it that having an illegal immigrant nanny was a disqualifier in the Clinton white house but it’s ok for Bush himself to have employed illegal aliens when he ran his Saudi-funded oil company into the ground?

Mus be that “liberal bias” in the press.

From nyt:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05.....mp;emc=rss

Mr. Bush first met Mexican immigrants at public school in Midland, Tex., where Hispanics made up 25 percent of the population. Later, when he owned a small, unsuccessful oil company, he employed Mexican immigrants in the fields.

Bush’s immigration speech tries to triangle the square while maintaining his circle of base. Will the circle hold? Or turn into a circular firing squad? Developing…

I do applaud Bush in standing up to his far right base in not plowing ahead with criminalization of undocumenteds. But that is about all. What a hodge-podge of half-baked political calculation, with a little tang of military war preznit polliacal capitaling style pandering, and even some sketchy and poorly thoght out reasonable policu ideas.

Probably best if it goes nowhere. Why did Bush oppose increases in border patrol so recently -is this a new unexpected crisis?

Reading Froomkin on the border dis-order crap Bush is trying to distract people with. I am struck by the stark fear of combined threats held over the head of American citizenry.
The U.S. now has the military being used internally to ‘manage’ civilian population, very public cases of warrantless search, seizure and detainment, add that to the NSA wiretapping scandal, and the haliburton ‘concentration camps’ being built inside the U.S.

Its almost as though an 911 was the launch of an ‘information war’ conducted ‘inside the U.S.’ against its American citizens.

Looking at things in this context, the media is not a ‘watchdog, but a gov’t owned instrument of social control.

Which of course raises the question, what forces are the gov’t establishment so afraid of that they are having to resort to such stark scare tactics.

Could it be that the leaders of a nation founded on principles of revolution, are afraid of another revolution ?

You’re most welcome, cbl. One of her books is sitting in the stack on my floor, waiting to be read. Sigh, so many books, so little time…

the additional pictures via Wonkette are worth it. This is when they drink the Kool-Aid