http://thinkprogress.org/2006/08/10/cheney-ct/

Cheney reaches new depths of lunacy as he outlines why Lieberman's loss Tuesday actually helps the terrorists.

Is it me, or is his fear-mongering actually becoming transparent? Is he saying the democrat voters of Connecticut should be ashamed of themselves for helping the terrorists?

I guess the new mantra is "Vote for Bush policies or DIE."

Read more at www.dcoffline.com

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http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Underage_Sex_Pact.html

Fear you'll lose your boyfriend while recuperating from surgery? Do you (a) play upon his sympathy, (b) have doctors give your scars sexy dressings, or (c) arrange for your 15-year-old daughter to have sex with him for a couple months?

Life's all about the tough choices, I guess . . .

I'm going to have to give this woman the Dumbass award of the day.

Read more at www.dcoffline.com

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Ok, I just want to lay down a rule, right here in public, for all the world to see.  If you fill a 12 oz. glass with Vanilla Ice Cream before you even put the root beer in, that is not a "small" root beer float, and other people should not be obligated to finish it.  This is a deep koan on so many levels.

This guy may be my new hero. Since I grew up in a conservative church, this speaks to me on several levels. I'd love to get your feedback.

Visit www.dcoffline.com for more . . .

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Disowning Conservative Politics, Evangelical Pastor Rattles Flock

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

Correction Appended

MAPLEWOOD, Minn. — Like most pastors who lead thriving evangelical megachurches, the Rev. Gregory A. Boyd was asked frequently to give his blessing — and the church's — to conservative political candidates and causes.

The requests came from church members and visitors alike: Would he please announce a rally against gay marriage during services? Would he introduce a politician from the pulpit? Could members set up a table in the lobby promoting their anti-abortion work? Would the church distribute "voters' guides" that all but endorsed Republican candidates? And with the country at war, please couldn't the church hang an American flag in the sanctuary?

After refusing each time, Mr. Boyd finally became fed up, he said. Before the last presidential election, he preached six sermons called "The Cross and the Sword" in which he said the church should steer clear of politics, give up moralizing on sexual issues, stop claiming the United States as a "Christian nation" and stop glorifying American military campaigns.

"When the church wins the culture wars, it inevitably loses," Mr. Boyd preached. "When it conquers the world, it becomes the world. When you put your trust in the sword, you lose the cross."

Mr. Boyd says he is no liberal. He is opposed to abortion and thinks homosexuality is not God's ideal. The response from his congregation at Woodland Hills Church here in suburban St. Paul — packed mostly with politically and theologically conservative, middle-class evangelicals — was passionate. Some members walked out of a sermon and never returned. By the time the dust had settled, Woodland Hills, which Mr. Boyd founded in 1992, had lost about 1,000 of its 5,000 members.

But there were also congregants who thanked Mr. Boyd, telling him they were moved to tears to hear him voice concerns they had been too afraid to share.

"Most of my friends are believers," said Shannon Staiger, a psychotherapist and church member, "and they think if you're a believer, you'll vote for Bush. And it's scary to go against that."

Sermons like Mr. Boyd's are hardly typical in today's evangelical churches. But the upheaval at Woodland Hills is an example of the internal debates now going on in some evangelical colleges, magazines and churches. A common concern is that the Christian message is being compromised by the tendency to tie evangelical Christianity to the Republican Party and American nationalism, especially through the war in Iraq.

At least six books on this theme have been published recently, some by Christian publishing houses. Randall Balmer, a religion professor at Barnard College and an evangelical, has written "Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America — an Evangelical's Lament."

And Mr. Boyd has a new book out, "The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church," which is based on his sermons.

"There is a lot of discontent brewing," said Brian D. McLaren, the founding pastor at Cedar Ridge Community Church in Gaithersburg, Md., and a leader in the evangelical movement known as the "emerging church," which is at the forefront of challenging the more politicized evangelical establishment.

"More and more people are saying this has gone too far — the dominance of the evangelical identity by the religious right," Mr. McLaren said. "You cannot say the word 'Jesus' in 2006 without having an awful lot of baggage going along with it. You can't say the word 'Christian,' and you certainly can't say the word 'evangelical' without it now raising connotations and a certain cringe factor in people.

"Because people think, 'Oh no, what is going to come next is homosexual bashing, or pro-war rhetoric, or complaining about 'activist judges.' "

Mr. Boyd said he had cleared his sermons with the church's board, but his words left some in his congregation stunned. Some said that he was disrespecting President Bush and the military, that he was soft on abortion or telling them not to vote.

"When we joined years ago, Greg was a conservative speaker," said William Berggren, a lawyer who joined the church with his wife six years ago. "But we totally disagreed with him on this. You can't be a Christian and ignore actions that you feel are wrong. A case in point is the abortion issue. If the church were awake when abortion was passed in the 70's, it wouldn't have happened. But the church was asleep."

Mr. Boyd, 49, who preaches in blue jeans and rumpled plaid shirts, leads a church that occupies a squat block-long building that was once a home improvement chain store.

The church grew from 40 members in 12 years, based in no small part on Mr. Boyd's draw as an electrifying preacher who stuck closely to Scripture. He has degrees from Yale Divinity School and Princeton Theological Seminary, and he taught theology at Bethel University in St. Paul, where he created a controversy a few years ago by questioning whether God fully knew the future. Some pastors in his own denomination, the Baptist General Conference, mounted an effort to evict Mr. Boyd from the denomination and his teaching post, but he won that battle.

He is known among evangelicals for a bestselling book, "Letters From a Skeptic," based on correspondence with his father, a leftist union organizer and a lifelong agnostic — an exchange that eventually persuaded his father to embrace Christianity.

Mr. Boyd said he never intended his sermons to be taken as merely a critique of the Republican Party or the religious right. He refuses to share his party affiliation, or whether he has one, for that reason. He said there were Christians on both the left and the right who had turned politics and patriotism into "idolatry."

He said he first became alarmed while visiting another megachurch's worship service on a Fourth of July years ago. The service finished with the chorus singing "God Bless America" and a video of fighter jets flying over a hill silhouetted with crosses.

"I thought to myself, 'What just happened? Fighter jets mixed up with the cross?' " he said in an interview.

Patriotic displays are still a mainstay in some evangelical churches. Across town from Mr. Boyd's church, the sanctuary of North Heights Lutheran Church was draped in bunting on the Sunday before the Fourth of July this year for a "freedom celebration." Military veterans and flag twirlers paraded into the sanctuary, an enormous American flag rose slowly behind the stage, and a Marine major who had served in Afghanistan preached that the military was spending "your hard-earned money" on good causes.

In his six sermons, Mr. Boyd laid out a broad argument that the role of Christians was not to seek "power over" others — by controlling governments, passing legislation or fighting wars. Christians should instead seek to have "power under" others — "winning people's hearts" by sacrificing for those in need, as Jesus did, Mr. Boyd said.

"America wasn't founded as a theocracy," he said. "America was founded by people trying to escape theocracies. Never in history have we had a Christian theocracy where it wasn't bloody and barbaric. That's why our Constitution wisely put in a separation of church and state.

"I am sorry to tell you," he continued, "that America is not the light of the world and the hope of the world. The light of the world and the hope of the world is Jesus Christ."

Mr. Boyd lambasted the "hypocrisy and pettiness" of Christians who focus on "sexual issues" like homosexuality, abortion or Janet Jackson's breast-revealing performance at the Super Bowl halftime show. He said Christians these days were constantly outraged about sex and perceived violations of their rights to display their faith in public.

"Those are the two buttons to push if you want to get Christians to act," he said. "And those are the two buttons Jesus never pushed."

Some Woodland Hills members said they applauded the sermons because they had resolved their conflicted feelings. David Churchill, a truck driver for U.P.S. and a Teamster for 26 years, said he had been "raised in a religious-right home" but was torn between the Republican expectations of faith and family and the Democratic expectations of his union.

When Mr. Boyd preached his sermons, "it was liberating to me," Mr. Churchill said.

Mr. Boyd gave his sermons while his church was in the midst of a $7 million fund-raising campaign. But only $4 million came in, and 7 of the more than 50 staff members were laid off, he said.

Mary Van Sickle, the family pastor at Woodland Hills, said she lost 20 volunteers who had been the backbone of the church's Sunday school.

"They said, 'You're not doing what the church is supposed to be doing, which is supporting the Republican way,' " she said. "It was some of my best volunteers."

The Rev. Paul Eddy, a theology professor at Bethel University and the teaching pastor at Woodland Hills, said: "Greg is an anomaly in the megachurch world. He didn't give a whit about church leadership, never read a book about church growth. His biggest fear is that people will think that all church is is a weekend carnival, with people liking the worship, the music, his speaking, and that's it."

In the end, those who left tended to be white, middle-class suburbanites, church staff members said. In their place, the church has added more members who live in the surrounding community — African-Americans, Hispanics and Hmong immigrants from Laos.

This suits Mr. Boyd. His vision for his church is an ethnically and economically diverse congregation that exemplifies Jesus' teachings by its members' actions. He, his wife and three other families from the church moved from the suburbs three years ago to a predominantly black neighborhood in St. Paul.

Mr. Boyd now says of the upheaval: "I don't regret any aspect of it at all. It was a defining moment for us. We let go of something we were never called to be. We just didn't know the price we were going to pay for doing it."

His congregation of about 4,000 is still digesting his message. Mr. Boyd arranged a forum on a recent Wednesday night to allow members to sound off on his new book. The reception was warm, but many of the 56 questions submitted in writing were pointed: Isn't abortion an evil that Christians should prevent? Are you saying Christians should not join the military? How can Christians possibly have "power under" Osama bin Laden? Didn't the church play an enormously positive role in the civil rights movement?

One woman asked: "So why NOT us? If we contain the wisdom and grace and love and creativity of Jesus, why shouldn't we be the ones involved in politics and setting laws?"

Mr. Boyd responded: "I don't think there's a particular angle we have on society that others lack. All good, decent people want good and order and justice. Just don't slap the label 'Christian' on it."

I recently spoke with a brilliant young man with a somewhat lucrative job; he only had to work for three months out of the year and spent the rest of the time traveling to Europe and telling friends and college students how great his job was.  Just a couple of years out of college and had little savings and no credit card.  I talked with him a little bit about the rules of the game that big institutions, like banks and the IRS, set up for peons like us to follow.  He asked me if there were some book he could read so he could know what the rules were.

Well, there are some books out there, usually published by modern-day get-rich televangelists, and these investevangelists have the same purpose as ordinary televangelists, that is, to seperate fools from their money.  At best they want you to buy their book, at worst there are 200$ board games and 1500$ seminars to attend.  I've always felt these talks were helpful but I never want to pay a dime for them.  Similarly, I felt I learned a lot about big business when I attended an Amway meeting, at the ripe age of 17.  However, I didn't want to invest the time or money (I didn't have any!) trying to persuade others to invest their time and money etc. etc.

A good barometer for the legitimacy of the investevangelist is their promixity to Amway and other pyramid schemes.  Suze Orman, for example, has an audience participation part of her programs.  Often these audience members stand up and talk about how they ruined their credit buying tons of stuff in an attempt to get rich off of some pyramid scheme, and she has often set these people straight.  On the other hand, Robert Kiyosaki does not distance himself from the pyramid schemes as he wants their business.

Probably the most reasonable of the investevangelists is David Bach, who writes and talks about the "latte factor".

If anyone wants to learn about the mindset and techniques of getting rich, you can easily get a copy of their work at the local library.  Usually it is in CD, Video, or book format.  At it's worst this kind of stuff is still more educational, and has fewer plot twists, than an episode of 24 or Lost.  But, most likely, if you find someone successful in business, you can find out pretty much everything you need to know from them that are covered in these infotainment shows.  Although I am not rich or wealthy, not even a success story yet really, I've made some mistakes and learned from them and have a plan that doesn't deviate from these guys too much.  And as a one time offer I will void the logipundit gold member subscription fee (50$/month) required for this special money making content guaranteed to double or triple your income within the next ten years.  You've heard of Donald Trump and Warren Buffett right?  Don't you want to learn their secrets?  Well just keep reading silly, and you'll find out the true secret to ultimate riches.

Rule #1.
(Are you ready)


(Drum roll)


GET A JOB
What did you expect?  People will just give you money for nothing?  Think everyone can just flip houses for a living with a zero $ down payment?  What planet are you on?  Sure, this can work, if you make a full time job out of doing your homework of knowing the neighborhood you are buying in, knowing what is a good house, catching any problems, and knowing the demographics of customers, this might work.  Flipping houses also might work in a big city like NYC or DC, but less likely in the "Columbus metropolitan area", and for most of the heartland.  By the way, anyone interested in a 1200 square foot 2 bedroom home for $300,000 here in Columbus?  It's only about  30 years old.Yeah, I didn't think so.

Ok ready for Rule #2

THIS IS A BIG ONE...READY?

GET AND/OR PAY OFF YOUR CREDIT CARD

 In today's society, there are simply too many benefits to carrying a credit card.  Having a line of credit is something banks look for when you buy a car or home.  Old school of thought was that you buy everything with cash on the barrelhead, but it is unheard of to cash out a house these days.  Having a line of credit for a long time tells banks that you are playing the game and not sitting on the sidelines.  Also, good luck getting a plane ticket, renting a car, and getting a hotel room with your debit card.

  Another old school way of thinking, which is really admirable, honestly, is to just keep the credit card for emergencies.  Unfortunately, it kind of works out that you should spend a good bit on your credit card and pay it off at the end of the month.  The trick is not to put more on your credit card than you can afford to pay off at once.  Pay off your credit card at the end of every month all the way down to zero.  Pretty soon you can get dividends and frequent flyer miles, we got a $300 of dividend from our credit card, which was basically 1% to 5% of our purchases sent back to us, spending money on stuff we were going to buy anyway.

  Also, using the credit card in this way helps you itemize your purchases, which can help you come tax time.

Ok now time for the big one:

Rule #3: Don't eat out if you can cook it yourself.
 Ok, this one's real metaphorical.  But seriously, when YJ and I take an opportunity to eat out, we aren't going to eat omelettes, spaghetti, or anything with chicken.  These are staples of our diet.  I am the omelette master, and I've calculated the price per omelette of my one-of-a kind masterpieces.  For a kickass omelette it costs ~$1.50.  Why would I pay $7.50 for something I can do better myself?  I know many eligible bachelors are saying, "Ha, I can't cook anything".  Well, I hope you enjoy microwave pizza.  Get some Ragu and learn to boil noodles, or else pay 6+$ per meal to someone else.  Or, ask your Mom how to cook something.

But the cook it yourself principle applies to many aspects of life, specifically investments.  I used to invest in Edward Jones, and was pretty passive about the process.  Well, after getting my savings thoroughly trashed at the hands of a trusted investment specialist, I took charge of my own money and did substantially better at a no frills investment house than going with $50 per transaction investment gatekeepers.   I estimate I gained about 10% in a bull market, and I'm skeptical, really, about how I can do in a Bear market.  But probably betting on big blue chips with fat dividends is a good start.  Anyway, as our fellow contributor Reagan Gahagan attests, Citibank and others are getting aggressive about offering 5% savings accounts, which is better than nothing and is FDIC.

We plan on taking the same approach to buying a house when the time comes (i.e. when we leave Columbus).  Hopefully soon it will be just as easy to buy a house as a stock.

Update ( I got a little tired at the end there.  Of course buying a house will never be as easy as buying a stock.  I am trying to allude to the shift from using the services of a gatekeeper (realtors and real estate agents) to using online resources, which should drive down the hassle and cost of buying a home some.

This is just insane.  Apparently Pat Robertson experiences a few hot days, and all of a sudden he's a "convert" for global warming.  I don't know what's most asinine, the idea that somewhat can be "converted" by a few record hot days, or the idea that because there's a few hot days means it's humanity's fault.


Plus, if it's the sign of the second coming...(if I recall my Revelation, I believe REALLY HOT temperatures is part of the deal), then why wouldn't it be human's fault?  That would kind of make sense.  So why did he need this week to come up with this conclusion?  That would be a really good connection that would have people sending money to the 700 Club wouldn't it?


Personally, I'm pretty sure the debate on whether humans and our polution are to blame is still going (even though many seem to make the conclusion that "the debate is over" and "all scientists agree", when all they really agree on is that it's getting hotter...not why.)


By the way, if anyone wants to lay out an argument either way, I'd love to hear it, but please don't tell me a few hot days in the dead of summer that broke records by about 1 degree provides "evidence" of human causes of global warming.


It's almost like the abortion/pro-choice debate.  Both sides continually talk past each other, because one side is talking about the sanctity of life and the other side is talking about the sanctity of personal freedom, and in both cases they both actually agree with each other but avoid the true scientific question:  when does human life begin?  And since noone knows the answer, all we hear is:


"Environmentalist Wacko!" or "right-wing greedy capitalist"

All that being said...DAMN it was hot today.

This Article tells us why Raul Castro will be more of a reformer than we think...by telling us that we really have very little reason to believe that he's going to be a reformer at all, other than that he just might.  What a non-story for such a headline.

Finally got the opportunity to watch, "Why We Fight", a feature length documentary on the "military-industrial-complex".  This term was coined by the farewell speech of Dwight D Eisenhower, who warned of an over-militarized U.S. foreign policy.  A few comments:

• Very much worth the watch...Netflix it or even Amazon it...but definitely watch it.
• Much more based on reality than deliberately manufactured trash like "Fahrentheit 911".
• Informed view on the fallacies of the modern relationship between the U.S. government and it's military contractors.
• Absolute hypocricy on it's "non-partisanship"--if one listened to the interviews on the special features, you hear repetitively that "there's not a bunch of people in a dark room, no conspiracy theory, etc...it's just a society that we want to change, blah blah"...meanwhile, the movie spends about half of its play-time SHOWING Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perl, etc...as intentionally and maliciously perpetuating this military-industrial evil U.S. empire  and insanely little blame to anyone on the other side of the aisle (except of course Johnson)--whether it's Cheney's fault or not, the director should at least be open about his political slants.  The only positive image of a Senator in the whole movie (granted...there aren't many to pull from...but details) was Robert Byrd whining about lack of debate.
  
• NUMBER ONE POINT:  Eisenhower originally had "military-industrial-CONGRESSIONAL" complex in his speech (and this I did not know) but decided to leave the "congressional" out so as not to alienate his friends on the hill.
• Another interesting point...that the military contractors have plants spread out all over the country, so if any weapons system is threatened, there is an upswell of protests to protect American factory jobs.  (btw:  Something that's always pissed me off:  a supposedly militaristic President tries to find efficiencies by closing down some bases, and he hears bitching from the left that he just doesn't care about American jobs. What's a brotha to do?)  Now whether this translates into, "If we don't go to war in Iraq, then a bunch of small towns suffer and bitch," might be more debateable, but nonetheless it's a good point.
  
• Think tanks, think tanks...apparently all evil starts from think tanks...who knew?
  

Anyway, number one challenge with the film is that it illustrates only half the problem:..if anything can compare with the inflated Pentagon budget it's the budget of HHS, and every other department of the Fed, and the various failed pork barrell projects our glorious Congress passes on a yearly basis.  In other words, the problem is big Government in general, not simply big military.  And on this note, both sides of the aisle have failed us MISERABLY for decades.

Other foreign policy aspects of the film, I'm in disagreement with (big shock), but thankfully the film is tastefully enough done that you can easily agree with the thrust of the argument (at least what I thought was the thrust of the argument):

That the relationship between the US government and it's military contractors is less than appropriate, the contracting process is a joke, and we the people consistently fail in holding the Senate accountable for its management of the purse strings.

A good friend forwarded this blog, which spurred an angry response from me (below).  Angry at the reporter, not the friend.  I did a little editing of my original email for mass consumption (some profanity, kids).

Used to be a town
by Jasmina Tesanovic (Link here)

We just missed a twister. We saw its black cloud in the sky, lit by lightning. In Louisiana, some miles after Cameron, a small tornado has toppled trees into the road. Police blocked the highway, workers cleaned the branches away and cool people sat on the porches, watching it all happen. Mostly old people. Why do people stay in disaster sites, living under the volcano? Why do they watch?

We enter the tourist center at the border of Louisiana. We want to go to Holly Beach, we say. Holly Beach isn't there any more, says the clerk, politely smiling.

But yes, the road to Holly Beach still exists. We see this: tall trees snapped in half, house-trailers blown by the hurricane, landing in the most improbable places, upside down. Dead cars strewn like corpses, rusting anywhere, mangled as if crushed by specialized machines. Wind-shredded American flags. Where beach-houses once stood there are only bare poles. Instead of churches, there are the statues of saints... The trees which survived the storm have weird wind-tattered shapes. New leaves are growing out of their trunks.

Marshlands stretch all around us. My American friend is devastated. He laments loudly: the future belongs to this indestructible marsh-grass.

The houses we see, what's left of them, have roofs patched with blue plastic, and some, even people living in them: ten months after the storm... why didn't they rebuild the roofs?

Some empty sites still have street numbers and names: and hand-lettered signs that promise, we will be back...

As for the beach itself, oh well, it has seagulls, brown mud, a lot of fish jumping high in low water in the blazing sun. A massive heat wave is striking the USA.

The graveyards have no fences left, the churches have no windows. These people here are all Catholics, and the state of Louisiana is divided into parishes, not civil counties.

I have seen dead towns before, destroyed by war, not nature. My friend argues. The oil of Louisiana is pumped and produced all over these desolate marshlands as if nothing else matters; fossil fuel is like heroin, selling like crazy since the price is soaring worldwide, and bringing the damage of climate change back to the marshland. The refineries smell of pollution, putrid fish, putrid capitalism.

I am interested in people, not things. But there are not many people around here any more.

The new upright billboards, beside the older broken billboards, urge the local people, who are nowhere around, to sue their old insurers for the homes and possessions they have lost.

The mass grave of a city appears, gated by barbed wire: RITA DUMP SITE. It used to be a town, Cameron... the heaped debris of the dead town is colorful and futuristic... made of all sorts of materials, without shapes, without traces.… What did these objects used to be?

A big house on wheels is blocking the interstate highway. This huge metal mansion simply cannot fit over the narrow bridge. The tide of traffic grinds to a halt. One of these days the world we know will disappear. The rusting wheels and wires and tortured trees and marsh grasses will survive. Unlike the pyramids, this debris will not testify of a lost civilization, but of our lack of one.

 

My Reponse :

Jasmina Tesanovic and her Bruce Sterling are not invited to Vermilion Parish.  What the hell does she know?  Nothing.  Uses the hurricane devastation as her pass to get on a soapbox and preach about how shitty "our" civilization is.  A good rule of thumb is that anyone who comes from a culture that participated in ethnic cleansing in the last generation or so foregoes their right to comment on other people's culture. 

The future belongs to the marsh-grass?  The past and present of Cameron parish was and is marsh grass.  The city of Cameron her "friend" (cute to put up a straw man...'I didn't say it, he did') lamented inhabited 900-1000 people.  Most likely her "friend" is her husband Bruce Sterling, who is supposed to be some hotshot Sci-fi writer.

There were 0 casualties of this hurricane.  Fifty years ago a similar hurricane hit the same spot, and 400 people died.  Remember this parish has about 5000 people living in it, and it is the size of Rhode Island.  I think that is a testament to the improvement of "our civilization" if anything.  Back then no one blamed "putrid capitalism" for the "climate change" that caused the hurricane.  Another exercise in self-flagellation.  I know, I know, we should regulate energy use for Americans, like France, so when a heat wave hits thousands can die.  Or maybe we should have slaves build pyramids, or perhaps we need ethnic cleansing like they do in Serbia. 

The people down there don't need her or Bruce Sterling's pity.  And the oil companies are going to rebuild the town faster than the government will.  There has always been a glorious lack of civilization in Cameron parish.  The oil companies brought some semblance of civilization, in the form of paying jobs, to people who are used to roughing it.  A few people down there can and do still "rough it"...no electricity or phone, fish all day, etc. 

She also doesn't mention that over half the parish is wildlife sanctuary, but that would mess up her thesis, wouldn't it?

Anyway thanks for sending this, if only to give me a chance to rebut.

I know a lot of y'all logifans out there wonder what I am doing in graduate school.  I am learning, among other things, how figure out this kind of stuff.