White House political director Ken Mehlman calls Santorum "one of the original compassionate conservatives." - AP, 4/21/03Yes, Mehlman was the guy who went out to defend Santorum after his obnoxiou anti-gay comments. Read More......
Just when you thought the christian right couldn't be any more uptight:
John Hostettler, the Congressman representing the 8th district of Indiana, has been convinced by local religious groups to introduce legislation in the House that would change the name of an Interstate 69 extension to a more moral sounding number.Seriously.
"The Bush administration is working with the nation's largest charity, the Salvation Army, to make it easier for government-funded religious groups to practice hiring discrimination against gay people, according to an internal Salvation Army document.... George Hood, a senior official with the Salvation Army, said the group never discriminates in delivering its services, but on the question of hiring gay employees, 'it really begins to chew away at he theological fabric of who we are.'"- Washington Post, 7/10/2001. You can read the entire Wash Post story here.And here are a few beauts from the Salvation Army's various Web sites around the world:
"Christians whose sexual orientation is primarily or exclusively same-sex are called upon to embrace celibacy as a way of life. There is no scriptural support for same-sex unions as equal to, or as an alternative to, heterosexual marriage." - Salvation Army USA Web site, Dec. 2003
"[Homosexual activity is] as rebellion against God's plan for the created order.... Homosexual practice, however, is, in the light of Scripture, clearly unacceptable. Such activity is chosen behaviour and is thus a matter of the will. It is therefore able to be directed or restrained in the same way heterosexual urges are controlled. Homosexual practice would render any person ineligible for full membership (soldiership) in the [Salvation] Army." - Salvation Army Australia Web site (emphasis added)And did you know that Salvation Army in Scotland actively fought against the repeal of anti-gay laws in that country?
Books-A-Million, Michaels, Auto Zone, Big Lots, and Circuit CityIf you guys can get me contact info for those companies, I'll post it on this site, so we can urge them to stop helping fundamentalist bigots. This holiday season DO give to a charity, but don't give to a bigoted fundamentalist church. Read More......
"One thing that has become abundantly clear if it wasn't already: this is a dysfunctional agency and in some ways a rogue agency," McCain said on ABC's "This Week."Read More......
He said the kind of shake-up that has been widely reported as causing dissent within the ranks of the CIA is absolutely necessary.
"Porter Goss is on the right track," McCain said. "He is being savaged by these people that want the status quo, and the status quo is not satisfactory."
Added Sen. Lindsey Graham: "Somebody needs to deal with the dynamic that led to us being so wrong" about Iraq. "If you have to hurt some feelings, so be it."
1. Canada has universal public health care.There are also three seminars scheduled to learn more about the legal implications of bailing up north.
2. Canada has no troops in Iraq.
3. Canada signed the Kyoto Protocol environmental treaty.
4. More than half of Canada's provinces allow same-sex marriage.
5. The Canadian Senate recommends legalizing marijuana.
6. Canada has no law restricting abortion.
7. Canada has strict gun laws and relatively little violence.
8. The United Nations has ranked Canada the best country to live in for eight consecutive years.
9. Canada abolished the death penalty in 1976.
10. Canada has not run a federal deficit since 1996-97.
The Vancouver, British Columbia, immigration lawyer plans seminars in three U.S. cities -- Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles -- to tell Americans frustrated with Bush's re-election that the grass is greener north of the border.So, if you're sold, it's time to start learning the national anthem. Lyrics can be found here and you can sing along to the music here.
Congress returns this week to decide whether a Forest Park dance club for young people should get $150,000.... The club, which is open Friday and Saturday nights, is run by Victory Videos Ministries. It's home to "The Zone," a dance show broadcast on local TV, "a kind of Christian MTV," Hammersmith said. It has also hosted Christian rock bands such as Pillar, Bleach and Jeremy Camp.Actually, I'm kind of curious what you guys think of this one. It's clearly pork, but is it "crossing the line of church and state" pork? The article goes on to note: "Though the line in the bill identifies the $150,000 for construction of a youth center, the money will mostly go to help train students to use the TV cameras and sound equipment in an upstairs studio." Is it wrong for the government to fund these kind of "help the youth" projects just because they're run by Christian ministries? Does it matter if the ministry, or the TV show, or the training talks about Christ? Whaddayathink? Read More......
American Marines from Falluja and Iraqi National Guard (ING) battalions from Kurdish autonomous region have deployed to Mosul to reinforce American and ING units based in the city, Kurdish and American military officials said. They said the local security forces had lost control of much of Mosul, Iraq's third largest city with an estimated population of 1.8 million Arabs, Kurds, Turcomen and Assyrian Christians.
In the weeks before the crushing military assault on his hometown, Bilal Hussein sent his parents and brother away from Fallujah to stay with relatives.Read More......
The 33-year-old Associated Press photographer stayed behind to capture insider images during the siege of the former insurgent stronghold.
...
In the hours and days that followed, heavy bombing raids and thunderous artillery shelling turned Hussein's northern Jolan neighborhood into a zone of rubble and death. The walls of his house were pockmarked by coalition fire.
``Destruction was everywhere. I saw people lying dead in the streets, wounded were bleeding and there was no one to come and help them. Even the civilians who stayed in Fallujah were too afraid to go out,'' he said.
``There was no medicine, water, no electricity nor food for days.''
By Tuesday afternoon, as U.S. forces and Iraqi rebels engaged in fierce clashes in the heart of his neighborhood, Hussein snapped.
``U.S. soldiers began to open fire on the houses, so I decided that it was very dangerous to stay in my house,'' he said.
Hussein said he panicked, seizing on a plan to escape across the Euphrates River, which flows on the western side of the city
``I wasn't really thinking,'' he said. ``Suddenly, I just had to get out. I didn't think there was any other choice.''
...
``I decided to swim ... but I changed my mind after seeing U.S. helicopters firing on and killing people who tried to cross the river.''
He watched horrified as a family of five was shot dead as they tried to cross. Then, he ``helped bury a man by the river bank, with my own hands.''
``I kept walking along the river for two hours and I could still see some U.S. snipers ready to shoot anyone who might swim. I quit the idea of crossing the river and walked for about five hours through orchards.''
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