30
Nov
Found this exchange via my buddies at Independent Sources:
Hello Rocky,
What do you think of Elton John’s desire to ban all religions?
Tiffany Swisher
Jacksonville, FLRocky Responds:
As a rule, Tiffany, I don’t worry about anything coming out of Elton John’s mouth that isn’t written by Bernie Taupin.
That was funny, but there’s more to the story that I did like.
"I think religion has always tried to turn hatred towards gay people," he said. "Religion promotes the hatred and spite against gays.
"But there are so many people I know who are gay and love their religion."
According to the singer-songwriter, 59, his solution would be to "ban religion completely, even though there are some wonderful things about it".
He added: "I love the idea of the teachings of Jesus Christ and the beautiful stories about it, which I loved in Sunday school and I collected all the little stickers and put them in my book.
"But the reality is that organised religion doesn’t seem to work. It turns people into hateful lemmings and it’s not really compassionate."
There’s a ton of truth in that statement. He addresses it purely from the gay perspective, but from The Crusades to the modern Muslim Jihads against the civilized planet, ORGANIZED relgion has created chaos and death. Sure, it’s good for the individual, but on a global scale, it’s been a disaster that continues to kill and destroy. I’m not saying any one religion is more or less culpable throughout the history of organized religion, I’m saying the entirity of the sitaution has not done man a whole lot of good. Especially in the last couple of hundred years. It can be argued that organized religion advanced science and knowledge at times. But, the Dark Ages and the current extremist Muslims trying to return to those Dark Ages are currently doing extreme damage for the advent of Man. Rather than wasting billions and billions of dollars in protecting ourselves from this year’s religious fanatics that are being encouraged by organized Islam, we could be developing technologies to prepare the next generations in how to deal with the ever changing global climate and changing demands of increased populations. And, I would guess, by now, if those resources had been better focused, we’d be finding alternative places to live, as in other planets or moons. But, we’re not. We’re spending all those resources on killing each other and protecting ourselves over who’s interpretation of life after we’re dead is most correct.
So, although Sir Elton is most often a flaming bitch who really only seems to say things to offend people any more, he’s hit on a topic that means something. And, oddly enough, he even soft-peddled it a little by saying religion itself has a lot to offer, which it does. It is the corruption of power within those religions that makes it bad. And, banning that corruption doesn’t sound like a bad idea to me. I’m one who has always felt that the only true religion is what’s in your heart and soul. So, banning those people who abuse that faith is a win-win proposal for me.
Now, Sir Elton needs to put that to music, and let Bernie do the writing.
29
Nov
A few years ago, several organizations joined forces to sue the federal government to force the EPA to control greenhouse gases. Although they’ve never won in court, it has now made it to the Supreme Court and is being argued today. The group that sued to force the EPA to force controls on greenhouse gas emissions are:
- The states of Massachusetts
- Illinois
- Maine
- New Jersey
- New Mexico
- New York
- Rhode Island
- Washington
- Oregon
- Vermont
- California
- Greenpeace
- Center for Biological Diversity
- Friends of the Earth
- Bluewater Network
- Sierra Club
- Natural Resources Defense Council
- US Public Interest Research Group
- Physicians for Social Responsibility
Those opposing the using the EPA as a political weapon are:
- Texas
- Michigan
- Idaho
- North Dakota
- South Dakota
- Utah
- Alaska
- Nebraska
- Ohio
- Indiana
Now, you GOT to read the brief. Among other things, The Day After Tomorrow and An Inconvenient Truth are cited as evidence. As stupid as this sounds, there is logical reason for this. They are arguing that global warming is a common interest and therefore should be regulated. I think this is a dangerous argument to make. I will state that I prefer more limited government in general. But, the bigger problem I see with their argument is they are attempting to force the government to enforce the trend du jour. Thirty years ago the evidence was overwhelming that global cooling was occurring. What if these people are wrong and usurp the research and debate over what is causing climate change by compelling their particular political wish-list of things to do on the entire country? What would be the point to research some issues of climate change when you know it will amount to nothing as the EPA is forcing certain actions regardless of what might conclude? This is dangerous folks. However, I trust the wisdom of the Supreme Court to see that. The Appeals Court did not buy into this, and I think the Supreme Court is even less likely to.
I LOVE Scott Ott. I really do. This guy has a take on the world I wish I had the time to ponder myself. Gotta read this one. You really, really, do:
The second best thing about the 2006 elections is it seems to have given Scott a lot more to work with.
The guys at Powerline put some time into analyzing the turnout for the last election and came up with this:
They immediately postulated some reasons for the drop-off. Here’s mine:
92 was a presidential election year, 94 not. 96 was a presidential election year, 98 not. 2000 was a presidential election year, 2002 not. 2004 was a HOT election year, 2006 not. The six election cycles average 2,227,798 voters. The last election, a sixth-year election, brought about 97% of the average. That’s not really too bad. However, it can be safely assumed that the 80,000 nationwide voters that did not vote in the previous off-year election would not have drastically altered the outcome. It can also be safely assumed that the 600,000 that did not vote in the previous election DID alter the outcome. However, traditionally, that happens. Especially in off-year elections and even moreso in sixth year elections. So, IMO, assuming a trend outside of the sixth year elections is somewhat moot since they ALWAYS go against the incumbant president.
Someone commenting on the Powerline blog then speculates there was a "conspiracy" by Karl Rove to allow the Democrats 2 years of leadership to make the Republicans look that much better in 2008. Although that WILL happen, I doubt it was due to any effort of Rove. It’s the sixth year curse, and there was nothing Rove could do to stop it.
Now, I predict the 2008 election will see about 3,000,000 voters. However, that is totally meaningless to who will win. The only thing that matters is who runs and what is happening nationally the middle of October 2008.
Every single election, people all over the country whine that the election was fixed, rigged, or outright stolen. Pretty much every time, it leads nowhere. However, I have stumbled across a fairly local race that does show that sometimes mistakes ( or worse ) happens and the election is definitely in doubt. Here’s a good one:
There ya go conspiracy theorists, an actual election that is definitely "rigged". However, in this case, voters apparently weren’t discouraged.
Actually, I think a re-vote is in order there. More realistically, I think the town just needs to dissolve and not waste their money on the re-vote.
That was in a letter PETA sent to Reverend Jason Armstrong of Anchorage First Free Methodist Church received. Only problem is, no animals are used in their nativity display. "Those animals" are human actors.
That’s how much thought PETA puts into their protests. If it even sounds like something they don’t like, they protest and ask questions later, maybe.
27
Nov
People always claim the current President is Big Brother. Right now a lot of people claim Bush is. Bush doesn’t affect your daily life all that much. At the same time, people often ignore the obvious efforts of others to inflict Big Brother ( ie, thought control ), over us. Here’s one such case that has gone largely unnoticed:
Homeowners’ associations are evil and must be destroyed. They trample all over the Constitution and no one seems to care.
27
Nov
Jennifer Diaz has a problem. Her problem is she is allowing her political interests to obscure the real issue here. Malachi Ritscher’s son has a different take on what happened:
He was different people at different instances and so, so erratic. I loved him no doubt, but he was a very lonely and tragic man, said Ritscher, 35, who is estranged from the rest of the family. The idea of being a martyr Im sure was attractive. He could literally go out in a blaze of glory.
In other words, Malachi Ritscher’s problem wasn’t political, it was apparently rather severe mental illness. Jennifer Diaz et al could do the world a lot more good researching the real reason for Malachi’s suicide than making it a soon-to-be forgotten political statement of their own by ignoring the obvious and promoting the rhetoric. The more she/they promotes this as a political protest, the more people will dismiss it due to his illness. In order for him to be the martyr he apparently wished to be, he would have needed to die for something he can affect. His death can make a difference, but it has to be dealt with honestly. And, as usual, SOME people can’t and won’t do that. I will. Malachi Ritscher wants to be a martyr, but no one is listening to his real message. And because of that, Malachi Ritscher has died in vain.
Caught this little bit on Volokh:
….Jonathan Adler cites evidence that the Heritage Foundation, a prominent conservative think thank has "banned" conservatives and libertarians critical of the Bush administration from its events. I don’t know enough to comment on Heritage’s alleged banning of Bruce Bartlett and Ryan Sager (referenced in the links in Jonathan’s post). If Heritage did indeed refuse to invite them to events because of their criticisms of Bush, it is a serious mistake on their part.
Well, I had to jump into this a little deeper. Ryan Sager’s actual reply is a bit softer than the original insinuation on Volokh:
He then elaborates a little more on the why. Could be he’s blackballed, could be a perceived agenda conflict. Read the end of this post before drawing conclusions.
Andrew Sullivan takes a harsher take on things:
The Conservative Thought Police
….I don’t think many Republicans and conservatives have come out of denial yet about what was done to conservatism in Bush-Rove-DeLay years. Or perhaps the first stage of coming out of denial is anger at those who came out of it years ago.
Pretty harsh stuff. Now, the first thing that struck me was that the two fellas claiming to be blackballed have published books:
Now, I link these two books for a two-fold reason. If it’s thought police in action, they’re doing a pretty lame job since I imagine a few more people frequent Amazon than the Heritage Foundation. Secondly, I don’t see why they feel affronted since I can’t really see fault in the people being attacked by these two books just don’t really feel obligated to promote these two books attacking them. I mean, come on, use some common sense before leaping to wild conspiracy theories. There is no theory here to me, "the conservative thought police" generically applies to all who consider themselves conservative, and most of those people are not members of, or subscribe to, the Heritage Foundation. Me being one. The Heritage Foundation is the elitist group of the uppitiest ups. I’m not one of those. I am a conservative that those two books most likely would appeal to. But, Sullivan particularly is rubbing me the wrong with with his over-the-top knee-jerk reaction to what would be expected of any human being when insulted. So, I have to sort of question his grasp of reality.
Secondly, and more importantly, the problem I have with NEO-conservatism, which is not REAL conservatism, is REAL conservatism does not mix social ideology into the political spectrum. Where the conservative movement lost it’s true direction is when the Neos felt compelled to tell everyone else what is conservative and what is not ( see William F. Buckley as the prime example of what went wrong ). So, for these two guys to write books telling me what they think is the cure for conservatives is doing what I think is wrong about being conservative in the first place. So, having more of the same, with a different take and carrying a price tag as well, complaining about not being invited to more of the same, is incredibly meaningless to me. If they want real reform, and mean it, they’d be begging people to read their books for free. And, they wouldn’t be the least bit concerned at all with not being included as members of the group they blame for screwing things up.
However, this is the end of the post I told you not to miss. The resolution of the post from Volokh:
Again, I don’t know if Heritage really did ban Bartlett and Sager from its events. Perhaps the people who made the decision to invite me are not the same ones who decided to ban them. However, it would be strange if Heritage were to start banning people for making criticisms of Bush very similar to those advanced in its own publications.
That was my original gut feeling. The Heritage Foundation has at times agreed with the two authors claiming their criticism of Bush got them blackballed. I think Sullivan needs to re-examine why they didn’t feel compelled to invite him. If it makes any of them feel better, I didn’t get invited either. Doesn’t matter tho, they wouldn’t like my opinion any more than they do theirs.
Per The Smoking Gun:
The parents of a woman who committed suicide shortly after a grilling by Nancy Grace are filing a lawsuit against the TV host, claiming that their daughter was driven to her death by the hard-charging former prosecutor. In a wrongful death lawsuit to be filed today in Florida, the parents of Melinda Duckett charge that Grace duped their daughter into an interview about Duckett’s missing two-year-old son, Trenton. That interview, which aired on Grace’s CNN Headline News show after Duckett’s death, was more of a cross-examination, with Grace peppering the 21-year-old woman with questions about her whereabouts at the time of her son’s late-August disappearance. On September 8, a day after her interview with Grace, Duckett used a shotgun to kill herself.
From what I’ve seen and heard about this one, regardless of whether Melinda Duckett did it or not, I hope Grace loses. From watching what I could stand, it was obvious to me that Grace made up her mind about Duckett’s guilt before she did the interview, and then chose to prosecute Duckett publicly. That’s just vigilante mob justice that is about as bad as it can get.
Now, if the legal system does prove that Duckett did do it, there’s not much that can be done about it since Grace pretty much screwed the entire process. She really doesn’t need to be on the air any more.
