This week I decided to ask myself,

“Is this a good thing?”

The answer has eluded me thus far, and I’m beginning to see that it will continue to do so until something much more profound happens to me. Never-the-less I have been fortunate enough to stumble along a very interesting point of view on the matter.

It all starts with the idea that we are currently in the middle of the last of a three stage process. The first stage being a time when society was governed ruled and judged by what ever religious institution was in place. God was almighty and the bible was the law. Simple! In this first stage religion was the value while also being the authority; IE. Do good or God will send you to hell!

Then along came the 60s, when for the first time, and one might say because of the disillusionment of post war parents, people started to question religion as an authority.

“Why should I believe in something that science can explain in numbers and figures?”

Was, I’m sure, a common quandary of the times.

The important thing to note about this stage, is that it was only the authority being questioned, not the values. Killing and stealing remained in the eyes of society, as wrong! Society now placed its belief in the common good of humanity.

Today is to me the most interesting and relevant stage of this process. Today’s generations have been raised by their ever questioning Baby-Boomer parents, who since the 60s, still haven’t seemed capable of definitively answering any of the big philosophical questions they asked themselves at Woodstock. Meaning the question of “who and what” do I believe in, has now become “do I believe in anything at all anymore”?

So I’m left asking myself;

“Do I?”  . . read more

Nonetheless, a new cold war seems unlikely. To evaluate the prospect, we should begin with clarity about the old cold war. Fevered rhetoric aside, in practice the cold war was a tacit compact in which each of the contestants was largely free to resort to violence and subversion to control its own domains: for Russia, its Eastern neighbors; for the global superpower, most of the world. Human society need not endure – and might not survive – a resurrection of anything like that.

A sensible alternative... has recently been given by former Israeli Foreign Minister and historian Shlomo ben-Ami, writing in the Beirut Daily Star: “Russia must seek genuine strategic partnership with the US, and the latter must understand that, when excluded and despised, Russia can be a major global spoiler. Ignored and humiliated by the U.S. since the Cold War ended, Russia needs integration into a new global order that respects its interests as a resurgent power, not an anti-Western strategy of confrontation.” [More] . . read more

I kept thinking "Oh, I can't wait for all these fundamentalist preachers to come out because they're going to be so embarrassed with this huge example of the worst side of religion." And then the opposite thing happened. Our president started using more religious terms, he started using terms like "evil doers", he started framing things with religious type ideology and the way that the sentences were phrased. And then the country itself became more religious. And that's when I saw, I feel, the weaker side of humanity that scares me.

Julia Sweeney is an actor and comedian. . . read more

In any event, now we know what Obama was talking about when he preached his daily sermon on “hope” and “change.” You thought he was talking about peace in Iraq, health care for everyone, and other leftist nonsense. In reality, Brother Obama hopes to change all of you into evangelicals. He and George Bush are old pals. God told George to invade Iraq. What will God tell Brother Obama?...

I wonder if Brother Obama has forgotten a theological issue that led Protestants and Catholics to slaughter each other with astonishing efficiency during Europe’s religious wars, which occurred a relatively short time ago. Are we saved by our faith or by our faith and works? The opposing answers to that question provided a convenient excuse for carnage. The underlying motives for the carnage were, of course, what they always are — wealth and power. Today, a new Thirty Years’ War, or maybe longer, seems well underway in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Brother Obama, we’ve had enough presidential theology. Feed the hungry. End the war. [More] . . read more

"Today we are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force - military force - in international relations, force that is plunging the world into an abyss of permanent conflicts,'' said Putin, president then and prime minister today of the nation that survives of the former power which once stood, with the U.S., as the two greatest mutual threats to one another's security. "As a result we do not have sufficient strength to find a comprehensive solution to any one of these conflicts. Finding a political settlement also becomes impossible.

"We are seeing a greater and greater disdain for the basic principles of international law,'' Putin said at the Munich Security Conference in February 2007. "And independent legal norms are, as a matter of fact, coming increasingly closer to one state's legal system. One state and, of course, first and foremost the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way. This is visible in the economic, political, cultural and educational policies it imposes on other nations. Well, who likes this? Who is happy about this? ''

This weekend, addressing the Munich Security Conference, Vice President Joe Biden declared that it is "time to press the reset button'' in U.S.-Soviet relations.

"The United States rejects the notion that NATO's gain is Russia's loss, or that Russia's strength is NATO's weakness,'' Biden said Saturday, in an address vowing that the Obama administration will "set a new tone... in America's relations around the world... The last few years have seen a dangerous drift in relations between Russia and the members of our Alliance,'' Biden told the conference. "It is time -- to paraphrase President Obama -- it's time to press the reset button and to revisit the many areas where we can and should be working together with Russia.''

At the same time, noting that the U.S. and Russia will not agree on everything, Biden issued a strong affirmation of the Bush administration's push for a missile defense system in eastern Europe - missiles basesd in Poland and radar in the Czech Republic - aimed at guarding against the potential "rogue'' threats of a power such as Iran.

"Our alliance must be better equipped to help stop the spread of the world's most dangerous weapons, to tackle terrorism and cyber-security, to expand the writ of energy security, and to act in and out of area more effectively,'' Biden said. "We will continue to develop missile defense to counter the growing Iranian capability, provided the technology is proven and it is cost-effective. We'll do so in consultation with you, our NATO allies, and with Russia.''

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Trust should be built on something substantial not on a slim possibility. The evidence in his own letters shows a cover up of the truth about sexual abuse by one of his priests. His letters include false statements. He admits the evidence but claims it was a mistake of poor wording (can we trust his writing ability) and that he did not intend to lie. A small possibility, but if he wanted now to be fully honest (and rebuild trust) he would admit that on the evidence it clearly appears that he was lying and covering up. But he doesn’t, he shrugs off the greater likelihood, as if it’s unthinkable and asserts it was without question a mistake. False logic – there is a question, it is thinkable. Trust needs to be built on more than self-serving denial and slim possibilities.  . . read more

The Catholic Church hierarchy has sent a declaration to each parish church to be read out from the pulpit stating that there are 5 non-negotiable issues and leading those was abortion - that catholics should vote against any presidential candidate who does not oppose abortion. These non-negotiable issues do not include “continuing a war of occupation in which hundreds of thousands of innocent citizens have been and continue to be slaughtered or killed as a result of American, and allied, actions for the sake of controlling oil”. No, this issue doesn’t come up in the Catholic Church’s key list of how to choose a country’s leader. This sounds just like Cardinal Pell in Sydney.

How can any Christian priest be oblivious to the greater evil of war, of an unprovoked war to control oil! I found it almost impossible to comprehend until I saw there is one extreme reason why they think that abortion is a greater wrong than unprovoked war – it’s because there is sex involved. Abortion involves sex! They are obsessed with sex so that one abortion is worse than a month of thousands of deaths in Iraq. One fetus about to die worse than a thousand Iraqi children dying. That’s where the right wing of the Christian churches around the world are united – vote for leaders who are socially conservative no matter how many wars they support. Sex bad, War good.  . . read more

Nevertheless I say this; you may feel a touch hard done by when you look around at the putrid conditions that your own ignorant way of life has created. You may just want to, instead of looking at your own stupidity, just blame the rest of the world, which has chosen to embrace all that is good and just. But it won't change the fact that you're still living in the world's sewer, the perfect little filthy rats you are, holding desperately onto the hope that your futile struggle against the free world will one day be successful.

Your strength only resides in those who have been so unfortunate to be born into the hopeless squalor that you have created for them.

Your war against the free world will do nothing more then bring light to your cesspool of a home, it will shine light on the injustice of your societal chains and it will inevitably bring all that is good, just and beautiful about our free world, raining down on you in the form of 500 pound bombs. Once the dust settles we will build a great big shopping mall for young teens to flaunt their new found sexuality in an innocent, yet quirky way.

And in the end the free will prevail; to one day create a world of peace, love and unity between all cultures, traditions and religions.

You won't break us, you can't break us and I will never live in fear

Peace and love to the free,

Khedra Cloud

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"I disagree with all these experts. Somebody has to stand up to these experts."

"They are the experts, but science doesn't operate on consensus."

"Genetics is the foundation for modern biology, not evolution...Genetics goes back to a Christian monk who did precise data."

--Don McLeroy, Chair of the Texas State Board of Education, March 27, 2009

The debate on the teaching of evolution and Texas continues to evolve, mutate and creatively adapt though news sources, ranging from the Dallas Morning News to the Discovery Institute, are declaring premature and decisive victories. It depends on whose version of events one would like to believe. As they say, "perception shapes reality." The truth of the matter is that the story of the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) is a sordid, implicit, complicated one and isn't anywhere close to resolution. The continuing struggle is not about science or even scientific process. Or even about fifteen elected adults in agreement that their sole purpose in public service is to ensure that students in public schools are learning concepts in line with international scientific standards. (Seven of the members are ideologues; six are equivocating ideologues; and two, Berlanga and Nuñez, are clear, concise voices of reason who have the humility--and audacity--to defer to the experts.)

If the issue is not one of sound science, what is it then? It is a fierce battle over language and the concepts language can potentially carry into the classroom.

What has been decided in a final vote by the SBOE on March 27 is a document of words that will guide science curriculum standards for a decade. The final draft is a convoluted, compromised collection of doublespeak. As SBOE chair Don McLeroy publicly declared as a defense for why experts are not needed: "There is stasis in the fossil record." Perhaps it is more accurate to say that there is stasis in the document, and that is a very sad milestone for Texas and beyond.

A larger issue is one of language and concepts, as guided by the document in question, making their way into textbooks. What is at stake could likely affect other states: Texas has economic clout as a buyer of textbooks which gives the SBOE the power to meddle in pre-publication matters in ways that publishers are willing to accommodate. SBOE's range of power in mitigating language is directly based on the curriculum standards. Other states that do not have leverage in volume sales or a similar structure in adopting textbooks stand a good chance of being disadvantaged by decisions made in Texas.

One outstanding example of how this could play out for other states is in the wording of an amendment--now a standard--that requires students to "analyze and evaluate scientific explanations concerning any data on sudden appearance and stasis and the sequential groups in the fossil record." According to Dan Quinn of the Texas Freedom Network, "McLeroy had argued that such data disproves the concept of common descent and will demand that publishers say as much in new textbooks [that] are adopted in 2011."

Most news reports are accurate on one point. It is true that the SBOE discarded the two decades-old language of teaching the "strengths and weaknesses" of evolution theory. That decision came early in the proceedings; it was a compelling ruse for the string of compromised amendments that would follow. Amendments, now standards, that have groups like the Environmental Defense Fund issuing statements hours after the final vote. That is all to assume that the superorganism by the name of the Texas SBOE is capable of arriving at sound conclusions based on consensus as informed by the best and brightest minds that the scientific and activist community has to offer. In its current configuration, it is not.

Laray Polk is a multimedia artist and writer who lives in Dallas, Texas. She can be reached at laraypolk@me.com. This article was originaly published at Counterpunch

Most journalists have tacitly agreed that it's off-limits to ask the former governor about the tenets of the Mormon cult. Nor do they get much luck if they do ask: When Bob Schieffer of Face the Nation inquired whether Mormons believe that the Garden of Eden is or was or will be in the great state of Missouri, he was told by Romney to go ask the Mormons! However, we do have the governor in an off-guard moment, saying that "The [Mormon] Church says that Christ appears and splits the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem… And then, over a thousand years of the millennium, that the world is reigned in two places, Jerusalem and Missouri… The law will come from Missouri, and the other will be from Jerusalem."

It ought to be borne in mind that Romney is not a mere rank-and-file Mormon. His family is, and has been for generations, part of the dynastic leadership of the mad cult invented by the convicted fraud Joseph Smith. It is not just legitimate that he be asked about the beliefs that he has not just held, but has caused to be spread and caused to be inculcated into children. It is essential. Here is the most salient reason: Until 1978, the so-called Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was an officially racist organization. Mitt Romney was an adult in 1978. We need to know how he justified this to himself, and we need to hear his self-criticism, if he should chance to have one. . . read more