Glenn Beck and other heroes of the "tea party" movement honored Americans serving in the military and delivered impassioned calls to turn the nation back to God and to protect the traditional values that they said make the country exceptional.

via Beck, Palin tell thousands to ‘restore America’.

What complete bullshit. (But, of course, most of you already know that.)

Here are just a few examples of what our Founders thought of religion. These are the “traditional values” they wanted for us!

“I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved — the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!” — John Adams

“The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.” — Thomas Jefferson

“Because religious belief, or non-belief, is such an important part of every person’s life, freedom of religion affects every individual. Religious institutions that use government power in support of themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths, or of no faith, undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of an established religion tends to make the clergy unresponsive to their own people, and leads to corruption within religion itself. Erecting the “wall of separation between church and state,” therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society.” — Thomas Jefferson

Doctors who are atheist or agnostic are twice as likely to make decisions that could end the lives of their terminally ill patients, compared to doctors who are very religious, according to a new study in Britain.

via UK study: Nonreligious doctors hasten death more.

I think the bias of the headline-writer is showing here. This could just as easily be titled “Nonreligious doctors end patient’s suffering more quickly”.

Seale also found that doctors who were religious were much less likely to have talked about end of life treatment decisions with their patients.

That’s a problem. So, they’re going to pretend with their patients that the condition is not terminal — that there’s not going to be any pain and that the person isn’t going to die — so when the pain DOES come, the patient won’t have any instructions in place for how they want to deal with it. I find that reprehensible and irresponsible on the part of the doctor.

In the meanwhile, I can imagine all the religious people using this study as some kind of proof of how evil atheists are.

"We need to vote them off the bench to send a message across Iowa that we, the people, still have the power," said Bob Vander Plaats, a Republican politician who is spearheading the campaign. "Not only will it send a message here in Iowa, but it will send a message in California, in Arizona and across the country that the courts have really taken on too much power."

via Opponents of same-sex marriage target Iowa judges.

Yeah, and I bet he wishes those “uppity” black people were still riding in the back of the bus and going to separate school.

My point is that bigotry is bigotry — whether its directed towards people of a different race or people of a different sexual orientation.

It gets tiresome. And yet… imagine being one of those people whose rights are limited by the mere fact of being queer.

“I never called anybody a bad word. I was trying to bring — and obviously it has become a national discussion now — I was trying to make a philosophical point,” she said. “And I made it wrong, but I wasn’t dissing anybody. I was trying to make a point, and for that to say that I should be silenced is the reason why I’m saying to you that I’m obviously losing First Amendment rights.”

via ‘Dr. Laura’ to end radio show over racial controversy.

Crazily enough, I’m actually agreeing with Dr. Laura on this one.

Let me just get this part out of the way: “Nigger” is an ugly word with an ugly past. I’m supposing that the history of white people using that word to demean black people is why a black person can say it without serious repercussions but a white person gets jumped all over if they say it. Fair enough. It’s a word with serious baggage.

It would be a slightly better world if NOBODY ever said “nigger” — but there it is.

It’s just a word. It only has as much power as you give it over yourself. I think Dr. Laura was trying to make that point.

God knows, Dr. Laura has spewed enough truly objectionable shit over the years that she’s past due on being smacked down about it. This time, though — I don’t think so.

“In essence, this establishes secularism as the only acceptable basis for moral judgment on the part of voters,” Mohler said.

Prop 8 supporters have filed an appeal of Walker’s decision. Jim Campbell, a lawyer for the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative Christian law firm involved in the litigation, said the religious freedom argument will play an important role as the case moves up the federal judicial ladder — potentially ending at the Supreme Court.

“At bottom, our strategy here is, and has always been, that in this country we should respect the rights of the people when they do what they have always done: vote based on their religious and moral convictions,” Campbell said.
Another Prop 8 debate: Should religious views factor into voting?

Back during the days of segregation and and anti-miscegenation laws, people were voting based on their “religious and moral convictions” too. It was wrong then and it’s wrong now.

A Lutheran pastor in Minneapolis who opposes homosexuals being allowed to lead congregations said Monday he is attracted to men, but that he’s not a hypocrite because he never acted on his urges.

via Minn. pastor back in pulpit after gay report.

This is a sad story in so many ways. Here’s a guy who’s been struggling (unnecessarily) with his sexuality probably since he was a young teen. It wouldn’t surprise me if part of the reason he went into the ministry was because he was hoping it would help him resist his “unnatural” attraction to men. He’s so frightened by his sexuality that he even wants to deny other gay men — men who are living openly — from being ministers.

What a sad, screwed up guy.

What a crazy, messed up society we live in — that helped to produce this guy. I don’t believe Jesus would be okay with any of this.

Brock said he does not believe people are born gay. “I think we’re all born heterosexual actually, and then stuff goes wrong,” he said.

Jeez. After 57 years of struggling with whatever he thinks went “wrong”, you’d think he might have finally realized, Hey! Maybe this is just how I AM. Maybe it’s OKAY to be gay. Maybe it’s even NATURAL for some people!

I guess not. Talk about denial.

At one point in his “Philosophy of Right,” Hegel suggests love or friendship as models of freedom through recognition.  In love I regard you as of such value and importance that I spontaneously set aside my egoistic desires and interests and align them with yours: your ends are my desires, I desire that you flourish, and when you flourish I do, too.  In love, I experience you not as a limit or restriction on my freedom, but as what makes it possible: I can only be truly free and so truly independent in being harmoniously joined with you; we each recognize the other as endowing our life with meaning and value, with living freedom. Hegel’s phrase for this felicitous state is “to be with oneself in the other.”

via The Very Angry Tea Party – Opinionator Blog – NYTimes.com.

You’d have to read the entire (very interesting) article to see how this all relates to the Tea Party movement. I just very much like the explanation of Hegel’s ideas about love.

The boy, who Ms. Im estimates was about 2 1/2 years old, made repeated attempts to talk to his mother, but she wouldn’t look up from her BlackBerry. “He’s like: ‘Mama? Mama? Mama?’ ” Ms. Im recalled. “And then he starts tapping her leg. And she goes: ‘Just wait a second. Just wait a second.’ ”

Finally, he was so frustrated, Ms. Im said, that “he goes, ‘Ahhh!’ and tries to bite her leg.”

via Your Brain on Computers – Plugged-In Parents – NYTimes.com.

This is another article from the New York Times series I mentioned the other day. I see this sort of thing all the time — a mother walking her kid around in a stroller, yakking on a cell phone the whole time, never having eye contact with the kid, much less actually speaking to him.

Psychologists have known for a long time that eye contact and interaction are critical for normal psychological development. We’ve got a whole bunch of young sociopaths coming down the pike.

I love to garden. Unfortunately, I don’t have much space for it around our townhouse and — as you can see – my tiny backyard garden is pretty much maxed out. I heard about these Earth Box things that are supposed to allow you to grow fabulous veggies in a really limited space, so I got four of them. They were delivered today so I got right to work planting them with the veggie seedlings I bought a few days ago.

Here’s what I’ve planted!

• Zucchini
• Sweet Banana Peppers
• Jalapeno Peppers
• Swiss Chard (the “Bright Lights variety that’s really pretty)
• “Blue Lake” Bush Beans
• “Little Fingers” Eggplant
• “Marketmore” Cucumbers
• “Sweet Dumpling” Squash (3 of these, actually)
• “Mortgage Lifter” Tomato
• “Pineapple” Tomato

I know that seems like a LOT to be planted in these four boxes, but they’re supposed to be able to handle it! We shall see… Anyway, this is day 1 of the great Earth Box Experiment.