Politics
Ad Featuring Popular Police Pup Sparks Anger in Scottish Muslim Communities
Muslims in the Scottish district of Tayside are outraged by the appearance of a wide-eyed, 6-week-old puppy on postcards distributed by the local police force, according to the Daily Mail.
Postcards showing police dog-in-training Rebel, a German shepherd born in early December, are causing a furor among the region’s Muslims who believe dogs are “ritually […]
Obama Making Christian Push
WASHINGTON — With the Democratic presidential nomination in his grasp, Sen. Barack Obama is making a full-throttle push for centrist evangelicals and Catholics.
It’s a move that’s caught some conservative evangelicals off guard. They say they are surprised and dismayed to see a liberal-minded politician attempting to conscript their troops. At the same time, they say […]
How Bad Is the FISA Deal?
House and Senate negotiators reached agreement today on a new bill to amend FISA, which looks like it will be brought up for an up-or-down vote in both houses of Congress, and will almost certainly pass. Opponents in Congress (like Patrick Leahy and Russ Feingold) and liberals and libertarians in the blogosphere are unhappy, primarily […]
19Jun2008 | Admin | 0 comments | Continued
Does Barack Obama Support Secular Government and Equality for Secular Atheists?
Democratic Senator and presidential candidate Barack Hussein Obama has made a number of comments about secularism, church/state separation, religion, and the role of religion in the public square. Unfortunately, some of these comments have been contradictory — one time he’ll say something which appears to support strict separation and secular government, then he’ll turn around […]
15Jun2008 | Admin | 0 comments | Continued
Lawyer files criminal raps vs Pope, Cardinal Rosales
‘Disturbance of order, swindling, immorality’
By Tina Santos
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 14:32:00 04/29/2008
MANILA, Philippines — A lawyer filed on Tuesday a criminal complaint before the Manila prosecutor’s office accusing Pope Benedict XVI and Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales of human rights violations, including alleged disturbance of public order, swindling and teaching immoral doctrines.
Elly Pamatong […]
Sam Harris: Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks
Geert Wilders, conservative Dutch politician and provocateur, has become the latest projectile in the world’s most important culture war: the zero-sum conflict between civil society and traditional Islam. Wilders, who lives under perpetual armed guard due to death threats, recently released a 15 minute film entitled Fitna (”strife” in Arabic) over the internet. The film […]
6May2008 | Admin | 0 comments | Continued
Soldier Sues Army, Saying His Atheism Led to Threats
FORT RILEY, Kan. — When Specialist Jeremy Hall held a meeting last July for atheists and freethinkers at Camp Speicher in Iraq, he was excited, he said, to see an officer attending.
But minutes into the talk, the officer, Maj. Freddy J. Welborn, began to berate Specialist Hall and another soldier about atheism, Specialist Hall wrote […]
Christianism In The Military - Andrew Sullivan
One of the darkest developments of many dark developments in the Bush years has been the slow ascent of Christianism as a core value of the military. The promotion of Christianists throughout the armed services, the insistence by the president that no public institution be regarded as a place where religion should be silent, clear […]
28Apr2008 | Admin | 0 comments | Continued
Judge Orders La. School District to Stop Bible Giveaways
NEW ORLEANS — A federal judge ordered a public school system to stop allowing in-school Bible giveaways, saying the practice violates the First Amendment separation of church and state.
“Distribution of Bibles is a religious activity without a secular purpose” and amounts to school board promotion of Christianity, U.S. District Judge Carl J. Barbier […]
What would a Clinton Presidency be like? by Carl Bernstein
[…] In A Woman in Charge, I wrote about her ability to evolve, observable especially in the years before she met Bill Clinton and in the Senate: to learn from her mistakes. Events have proven me wrong on that count.
The 2008 Clinton campaign, in fact, has been an exercise in devolution, back to the […]
Does Barack Obama Believe in Separation of Church and State?
By Austin Cline, About.com
Barack Obama does not appear to believe in a strict separation of church an state, which is a shame because opposition to church/state separation is a keystone in the Christian Right’s assault on modernity and the Enlightenment. Barack Obama does not come out to openly deny that church and state should be […]
Richardson says pressure from Clinton camp ‘really ticked me off’
ANTA FE, N.M. — Before he endorsed Barack Obama, before he drew the wrath of the Clintons and was likened to Judas, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson nearly endorsed Hillary Rodham Clinton for president.
But Richardson hesitated, and as the Democratic campaign turned ugly, he grew angry.
There was that “3 a.m.” TV ad, in which Clinton […]
Bondage of the Mind
Most of us involved with issues of critical thinking are accustomed to dealing with what we think of as fundamentalism, which implies specifically Christian fundamentalism. Bondage of the Mind deals, specifically, with Jewish fundamentalism. Just as evangelicalism, and particularly evangelical fundamentalism, is a potent force in Christianity, so too is modern Orthodox Judaism […]
10Apr2008 | Admin | 0 comments | Continued
The IRA Mortgage Bond
By Stan Muse
rsmuse@charter.net
The US economy is in serious trouble due to the recent mortgage crisis and resulting inventory of houses on the market. The Federal Reserve has taken positive action, but has nearly reached the limits of what it can do by cutting the Federal Funds rate and backing illiquid institutions. There is an immediate […]
Confessions of An Economic Hit Man
By David Sirota
Creators Syndicate, 4/4/08
I’ll admit it: I used to admire John McCain.
To paraphrase the UFO poster from “The X Files,” I wanted to believe.
Specifically, I wanted to believe the guy talking tough about campaign finance reform was committed to getting money out of politics. This was the Arizona senator who in 2002 taped a […]
Rep. Monique Davis to atheist Rob Sherman: `It’s dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists!’
The following exchange between atheist activist Rob Sherman of Buffalo Grove and Ill. Rep. Monique Davis (D-Chicago) took place Wednesday afternoon in the General Assembly as Sherman testified before the House State Government Administration Committee. I know from experience that many of you will side with Davis (update — apparently I was wrong! ), […]
4Apr2008 | Admin | 0 comments | Continued
If I Only Had a Brain
Ten days ago, I noted the reckless assertion of Barack Obama’s former pastor that the United States government had deliberately engineered AIDS to kill blacks, but I tried to put it in context by citing a poll showing that 30 percent of African-Americans believe such a plot is at least plausible.
My point was that the […]
The Conservative Case for Barack Obama
Barack Obama is no conservative. Yet if he wins the Democratic nomination, come November principled conservatives may well find themselves voting for the senator from Illinois. Given the alternatives—and the state of the conservative movement—they could do worse. Granted, when it comes to defining exactly what authentic conservatism entails, considerable disagreement exists even (or […]
3Apr2008 | Admin | 0 comments | Continued
Is John McCain Bigoted Against Atheists?
Atheists are the most despised minority in America; this is demonstrated most clearly by the fact that more people would be willing to vote for any other minority - Muslim, gay, female - than vote for an atheist for president. This discrimination is fueled by bigoted prejudices about atheists’ values and morality, and you can […]
1Apr2008 | Admin | 0 comments | Continued
Reports: New protests in Tibet as diplomats end visit
BEIJING, China (AP) — Radio broadcaster and Tibetan activists have reported that fresh protests broke out in the Tibetan capital Lhasa as foreign diplomats wrapped up a tightly controlled visit organized by Beijing.
Kate Saunders of the Washington-based International Campaign for Tibet said a demonstration began Saturday afternoon at the Ramoche monastery and grew to […]
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