Republicans, weak on terror!

A message that anyone opposed to the Republicans, i.e. the Democrats, need to hammer is that the Republicans are weak in the war on terror.
What, do you say? Attack the Republican party where their supposed strength lies? That's nearly Roveian in nature.
If I were in charge of the Democratic party today, I would pound the Republicans on their failures in the "war on terror" and paint them as being weak, through misguided efforts.
If the American people begin to see how bumbling the Republicans really have been since 9/11, they would never give this party any semblance of power again.
Here are the key issues that need to be hammered into the minds of Americans -
5 years after 9/11, and where is Osama? Bush has given Osama a de facto pardon. The most powerful country in the world cannot catch this man after 5 years and half a trillion dollars spent on a "war on terror". In fact, nature may have brought him to justice before the U.S. could, in the form of a typhoid infection.
Iraq was not part of the war on terror until Bush made it so. Al Qaeda was not in Iraq before we allowed them in, through the chaos that ensued our toppling of Saddam Hussein. Bush deserves an honorary metal from Al Qaeda for aiding and abetting their cause by waging a war based on lies in Iraq.
9/11 did not need to happen. George W. Bush and Condi Rice were clearing shrub in Crawford instead of paying attention to a presidential memo in August 2001 titled "Bin Laden determined to attack inside the U.S." Could anyone imagine Al Gore or Bill Clinton turning a blind eye to that kind of warning?
In times of true national danger, George W. Bush is a deer caught in the headlights. Just watch the video from Florida where Bush sits in front of these 3rd graders while the 9/11 attacks were under way. It's easy to create scripted, polished moments to make anyone look good, but it is those unscripted moments like these that truly reflect the "leadership" or lack thereof, in a person.
Finally, torture and the moral high ground. In order to fight a "war on terror" effectively, we need to do so from the vantage point of a moral high ground. By allowing the torture and abuse of detainees, even if some of them have committed harms against us, we are losing the moral high ground in this battle, stooping to lows more like our enemies rather than the shining example of freedom, opportunity, and justice that America should represent.

If the Democrats seize the initiative and attack the Republicans on their supposed area of "strength" by painting them as weak on defending our country, the balance of power will shift in this country.

Christians have been suckered in America

Christians in this country have been suckered. I'm not talking about the televangelists who duped gullible people of faith out of their money. I'm talking about modern day, sly efforts by so-called "Christians" to get unwavering political support yet go about doing very "un-Christian" things.
Take Ralph Reed, for example. The poster child for Christian conservatism in the political arena. A man who mobilized the Christian hordes into politics, aligning the Republican party with the Christian conservative agenda. Yet, what happened to Ralph? Money and power happened to him. His "Christian" values did him no good when confronted with taking money from Native American gambling interests while decietfully trying to block such gambling interests.
What about our president? We have a president who is a "Christian" - fighting for the lives of embryos and fetuses everywhere. Yet one question the Christians of this country need to face - isn't war associated with killing? How about a war based on lies? Could that even be considered murdering? What do you think about all the lives, American and Iraqi, lost at the hands of our "Christian", "pro-life" president over a war based on lies?

Christians need to wake up and stop voting with their faith, and start voting with their minds. Stop voting for those your pastor tells you to vote for, and vote for someone you believe will change this country for the better. Otherwise, Christians will be no better off than those hapless dupes fleeced by those televangelists in the 80s and 90s.

Pope nearly got a fatwa on his ass

His esteemed holiness, Pope Benedict, is trying to sidestep a big problem. You see, he tried to criticize Islam. From the flurry of protest that followed his speeches denouncing the waging of violent jihad in the name of some god/allah, the Pope has been trying to downplay the implications that Islam is a violent religion.

Too bad the Pope doesn't have any balls to come out and say it like it is. Yes, Islam is a violent religion, especially if you offend the islamist.
Just ask Salman Rushdie. Now there was a liberal not afraid to take a stand against Islam through the pen. His satire and insults against Islam in the Satanic Verses led to violent protests all over the world. Bookstores in the United States were bombed. If we had our eyes open, we would have seen hints of 9/11 foreshadowed in the reaction of muslims against Salman Rushdie.

The problem with the Pope and most other "leaders" in this world today is that they are too steeped in one falsehood to fully criticize the falsehood in another's beliefs.

If the world were taught to read so called "holy" texts critically, I don't think anyone would walk away feeling there is anything "holy" associated with them. The Bible is full of filth, as is the Koran. The Koran is full of violent imagery and black and white statements that denigrate women, non-believers, and democracy. No wonder societies based on the Koran are destined to fail. It should also be no wonder that with such violent imagery, comes violent reactions and preaching. Anyone willing to honestly criticize the Koran better have some good bodyguards or do so anonymously.

Let's see if the Pope can manage to shuffle his way out of the fuming hordes of 1 billion muslims in the world.

Mindless Pop Culture - what "The One I Love" means

Pop culture may be called lots of things, but deep and profound are not typical descriptions.

I'll admit to listening to occasional pop music - it's often easy on the ears and mind.

To enter the pop music arena with a song that carries deeper, darker meaning takes talent.
I have to commend one of my favorite bands, R.E.M. for exploiting the vapid ear of modern day pop audience with such a tune.

R.E.M., not really known for their explicit lyrics, has pulled a fast one on us.
They have a song, "The One I Love" that entails an explicit subject matter, but most people who hear the song have no clue about this.
Read the lyrics. "The One I Love" is about a man who is masturbating, and dedicating each orgasm/ejaculation to someone. It should now be evident what "a simple prop to occupy my time" refers to. Also, the chorus "Fire" describes the exstacy of the orgasm. Lastly, "she's coming down on her own now" describes the refractory period, detumescence of the penis, after male orgasm.

In this era of radical FCC clamp downs on indecency, one has to commend R.E.M. for a song that many view as a "love song" and has received unfettered airplay on public radiostations, yet deals with the explicit subject of masturbation.

9/11, 5 years later

With yet another anniversary of the grim events of Sept. 11th, our nation should ponder what we have accomplished in that time.

The hole in the ground and in the hearts of New Yorkers and Americans goes unfilled. We have yet to break ground on a new building where the twin towers used to stand.

The head of the terrorist organization that executed this act, Osama Bin Laden, has remained free from any bit of justice.

Even other Al Qaeda leaders behind 9/11, such as Khalid Sheik Mohammed, though in custody, have not been tried openly in court.

America, the strongest, most powerful nation in the world, has squandered the world's sympathy and made itself into a fool over our virtual pardon of Osama Bin Laden and misguided war in Iraq.

Despite being attacked by religious radicals, America has embraced religious radicalism itself, with Christian radicals holding disproportionate power in our government today. It is as if we are trying to say, our God is better than your Allah, rather than realizing that God and Allah are both charades.

Hopefully, 5 more years from now, in 2011, we will have more to show for ourselves than this meager, bungled response.

The sterile ballot box

We live in an era of information, supposedly. One can access immense tomes of knowledge these days with an internet connection, and with the ubiquity of such connections, such access is available almost anywhere in the country.
Yet, there is one place where we don't seem to have much information available to us at all. That is the ballot box.
Today's ballot box is still a sterile list of names, political affiliation, and office the candidates are running for.
Why can't we have more information about our candidates in the voting booth? Why can't we have a bio of the candidate, any criminal record the candidate may have, and a list of key positions or views the candidate holds? Why are we left in the dark in the ballot box, having to read and research in detail about these candidates before we vote?
Why is it that an employer, screening a potential employee, is allowed a wealth of information, yet voters, selecting a representative or political leader, have little more than a selection of names and political parties in the ballot box? Shouldn't we, as the electorate "employees" of politicians, have access to basic info about them at the time we cast our ballots?
It's a shame that when we have the technology to easily add information at the point of service in situations such as medical care, we can't apply this to voting.
I would wonder if adding such information might lessen the value of our political ads and spinning. What if voters had a clear, objective description of the candidate to base a voting decision on, rather than relying on spin and attack ads in the media?
I would also wonder, if we had access to such information, how many "values" voters would have voted for Bush and Cheney, if their criminal records of various drunk driving arrests were disclosed in the ballot box?

Bill Frist, the lying physician?

A little discussed topic in the news caught my attention lately. Senator Bill Frist, who maintains an active medical license in Tennessee, seems to have lied or misrepresented his continuing medical education requirements.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060829/ap_on_el_se/frist_medical_license
Despite stating that he completed his CME requirements, diligent work by the Associated Press revealed that Dr. Frist had not completed the CME.
Further actions by the Tennessee medical board are pending, but my guess is that Dr. Frist will get off with little more than a slap on the wrist for this lie.
After the Terri Schiavo fiasco, with Dr. Frist "diagnosing" Terri as not being in a persistent vegetative state, would anyone trust such a man to take a scalpel to them as a cardiac surgeon?!?
The real point that I wanted to highlight, though, from Dr. Frist's misrepresentation of his license requirements, is that much that goes on in medicine is dependent on the honor system. To maintain a license, doctors are asked questions such as have you been sued for malpractice, arrested, or kept up with CME requirements. The truth behind these questions are often never verified or investigated by medical boards. In Dr. Frist's case, only diligent efforts by the press revealed his false CME requirement claim.
Perhaps it is time to realize that the honor system doesn't always work. Answers need to be verified in detail. Patients deserve doctors who are honest about themselves and maintain their medical knowledge and meet other license requirements.