Great blog:
http://underagedrvers.blogspot.com/

If gay marriage is wrong because the Bible says so...
will the U.S. (Dubyas' clique) use the teachings of the Bible to base their constitutional amendments on. If you're a firm believer who has no room for manoeuvre on gay marriage BECAUSE THE BIBLE SAYS ITS WRONG, then you'll be in favour of the following amendments BECAUSE THE BIBLE SAYS IT IS SO.1 Marriage in the United States shall consist of a union between one man and one or more women (Gen 29:17-28;II Sam 3:2-5)2 Marriage shall not impede a man's right to take concubines, in addition to his wife or wives (II Sam5:13; I Kings 11:3; II Chron 11:21)3 A marriage shall be considered valid only if the wife is a virgin. If she is not a virgin, she shall be executed. (Deut 22:13-21)4 A marriage of a believer and a non believer shall be forbidden (Gen 24:3; Num 25:109; Ezra 9:12; Neh 10:30)5 Since marriage is for life, neither this constitution nor the constitution of any state shall permit divorce (Deut 22:19; Mark 10:9) 6 If a married man dies without children, his brother shall marry the widow. If he refuses to marry his brothers widow or deliberately does not give her children, he shall either be slain or pay a fine of one shoe (Gen 38:6-10; Deut 25:5-10)The last one could prove difficult to get past the Senate!Now no cherry picking, if you believe that a few passages in a book a couple of thousand years old can specifically outlaw one type of marriage then its only logical you allow a few other passages in the same book to justify the above suggestions. But then when has religion ever used logic?

quote: Dr. Laura Schlessinger is a U.S. radio personality who dispenses advice to people who call in to her radio show. Recently, she said that, as an observant Orthodox Jew, homosexuality is an abomination according to Leviticus 18:22, and cannot be condoned under any circumstance. Dear Dr. Laura: Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate. I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some of the other specific Bible laws and how to follow them: 1. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord - Lev.1:9. The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them? 2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her? 3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness - Lev.15:19- 24. The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense. 4. Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians? 5. I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself? 6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination - Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality? I don't agree. Can you settle this? 7. Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here? 8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27. How should they die? 9. I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves? 10. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev. 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? - Lev.24:10-16. Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)? I know you have studied these things extensively, so I am confident you can help. Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging. I know this letter has been circulating around the internet for years, and I know it has been posted on here several times. The problem is, however, whenever it is presented, it is "debunked" by religious zealots. Their usual "debunking" is "Things in the bible are not always meant to be taken literally. Times change and, like everything else, things become outdated." The problem I have with this "debunking" is that whenever someone proposes allowing Gay marriage, those same religious zealots respond quoting a passage from the bible saying "A man shall not lie with another man as he does with a woman" or something along those lines. Why does the arguement that "Things change, ideas become outdated, and the bible isn't always meant to be taken literally" get thrown out the window only when being applied to the issue of Gay marriage? So which is it? If you are going to take the book of stories...err sorry, Bible...literally, then I should be allowed to own slaves and should be allowed to sell my future daughter into slavery. If it is not meant to be taken literally, than who is to say that the part that says homosexuality is an abomination is to be taken literally? Can someone please clarify or is this just another textbook case of religious hypocrisy?

Stop! Don't criticize Bush for doing what he was hired to do
- Mark Morford
Friday, September 9, 2005

Everyone is slamming poor Dubya. Everyone is saying, "Oh, my God, he's more inept than we ever imagined, he has no idea what's really going on, he's oblivious and in denial and he pretty much let all those poor black people die in filth and misery, and he basically ignored the massive Katrina disaster for days before finally being pressured into cutting his umpteenth vacation short and actually taking action."

This is what they're saying. Kanye West was right, Bush doesn't care about black people, or the poor, or anything that doesn't directly serve his handlers' agenda .

And lo, the darts are slinging in from around the world, according to SFGate.com's own World Views column: "Maddening incompetence ... reminiscent of a drought-stricken African state," says Britain's Daily Mail. "Can't get it together," says a major paper in Italy. "A plethora of grim tales of disaster," says the Scotsman. And on it goes, the world's powers looking on in one part shock and one part disgust and all parts repugnance for Bush's rampant ineptitude and America's apparent inability to take care of its own.

But it's so unfair, isn't it, to attack poor Dubya like this? After all, Bush has always been the rich white man's president. He is the CEO president, the megacorporate businessman's friend, the thug of the religious right, a big reservoir-tipped condom for all energy magnates.

He has always been merely an entirely selective figurehead, a hand puppet of the neoconservative machine built and fluffed up and carefully placed for the very specific job of protecting their interests, no matter what. Repeat: No. Matter. What. Flood hurricane disaster war social breakdown economic collapse? Doesn't matter. Corporate interests, baby. Protect the core, screw everyone else unless it begins to affect the poll numbers and then finger-point, deflect, prevaricate. All of a piece, really. Because Bush, he was never actually meant to, you know, lead.

So maybe it's time to stop with the savaging of poor Dubya. He is, after all, doing a simply beautiful job of kowtowing to his wealthiest supporters while slamming the poor and running the nation into a deep hole and creating the largest deficit in American history, all while his cronies in oil and industry and military supply and Big Energy gain immense and staggering wealth and pay less and less tax on it. This is what he was hired to do.

Is this not what we all expected? Can you reasonably say you thought it would be different? Just look. All major social services are being gutted. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is a joke, second in line only to the ungodly useless Homeland Security Department.

The Associated Press reported that the Army Corps of Engineers asked for $105 million for hurricane and flood programs in New Orleans just last year. The White House hacked that down to about $40 million, even as it passed the most bloated and nauseatingly pork-filled $12.3 billion energy bill in recent history, one that guaranteed we'd be sucking at the tit of foreign oil and kneeling before Bush's pals in Big Energy.

Why did FEMA chief Michael Brown wait hours after Katrina struck to timidly plead with his parent company, Homeland Security, for some backup, not to actually get their hands dirty but rather to help "convey a positive image" about the government's response to the victims? Why, because he's an incompetent lackey Bush appointee who was fired from his former job as head of something called the International Arabian Horse Association. Yay pathetic nepotism.

Just look. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, icon of hollow self-righteousness and the energy magnate's friend, has already leveraged the Katrina nightmare to argue for more drilling in Alaska, much in the way BushCo whored Sept. 11 to cram the Patriot Act down the nation's throat and make fear and xenophobia a national pastime.

And then, the kicker. You read that Bush has actually ordered an official probe into the botched Katrina relief efforts, which is a bit like a shark ordering an investigation into what happened to all the fish. Unless this probe starts and ends in the White House, unless it hangs Bush himself up by his monkey ears and dangles him over a river of toxic Louisiana sewage, it's merely useless and insulting and more than a little sad.

Let's say it outright. The truest measure of any president, of any leader, is how well he takes care of his own people. And Bush, well, Bush has done a simply spectacular job of taking care of exactly his own people -- the wealthy, the corporate, the extreme religious right, his core base of supporters -- while happily and fiercely ignoring, restricting, condemning, destroying the rest. Are you educated or progressive or liberal or alternative-minded or sexually open or homosexual or anti-war? This means you. Are you dirt poor and belong to a minority group and don't drive an SUV and contribute six figures per annum to the RNC and maybe live in a flooded swamp in the Louisiana bayou? This means you, squared. Sucker.

Here, then, is the new American motto, as reimagined by BushCo: Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, and we'll let them die in a filthy and decrepit storm-ravaged American football stadium while our president languishes on vacation and ponders his oil futures and fondly remembers his good ol' days of getting drunk at Mardi Gras before going AWOL from the military. God bless America.