Featured articles are divided among several categories encompassing topical essays on current affairs, politics, religion, history, safety and games, among others. Over time older features will be moved to the archive pages for their respective categories and replaced by newer features. For the very latest news and essays, however, please see the What's New? section.
INDEX
Bush's Legacy of Deceit: A Firefighter Speaks-out on the election, national security and Iraq, by Bruce Monson, Freethought Firefighters, 10/27/04
George W. Bush will never admit it, but there were at least three deadly mistakes committed by him in the run-up to the war: inadequate body armor, insufficient manpower and no exit strategy – three things that firefighters know more than a little about.
Firefighters to go after Bush 'loudly and aggressively', by Klaus Marre, The Hill, 3/11/04
When, in the future, the Bush campaign is “using firefighters for their photo op,” the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) “will loudly and aggressively” make known the administration’s cuts to federal funds for first responders, Harold Schaitberger, the group’s general president, told The Hill.
Firefighters File Lawsuit over Chaplains in Their Ranks, New York Times, 5/26/03
Six California firefighters have gone to federal court seeking an end to the chaplain's corps of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention, saying it impermissibly mingles church and state.
The Madness of President George, byLlewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., LewRockwell.com, 4/16/04
Hail Lord Farquaad, the Despicable!, by Bruce Monson, Freethought Firefighters, 3/26/04
One of the classic scenes in the movie Shrek is when Lord Farquaad—the insecure, egotistical, size-compensating ruler of Dulac—has organized a duel among his shining knights to determine which of them will gain "the honor—no, no, no—the privilege to go forth and rescue the lovely Princess Fiona from the fiery keep of the dragon." As the duels are about to begin Farquaad proclaims, "Some of you may die. But it's a sacrifice I am willing to make."
Richard Clarke KOs the Bushies; The ex-terrorism official dazzles at the 9/11 commission hearings. by Fred Kaplan, Slate, 3/24/04
Richard Clarke made his much-anticipated appearance before the 9/11 commission this afternoon and, right out of the box, delivered a stunning blow to the Bush administration—the political equivalent of a first-round knockout.
Documentation of Plans to Crash Airplanes Into Buildings that Bush and Condi Claim They Knew Nothing About: They Lie, Assassinate People's Characters Instead of Refuting Their Evidence -- and They are, Most Dangerous to the Nation, Incompetent., BuzzFlash editorial, 3/25/04
"(CBS) Two years before the Sept. 11 attacks, an analysis prepared for U.S. intelligence warned that Osama bin Laden's terrorists could hijack an airliner and fly it into government buildings like the Pentagon.
"Suicide bomber(s) belonging to al Qaeda's Martyrdom Battalion could crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives (C-4 and semtex) into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), or the White House," the September 1999 report said.
The Bush administration has asserted that no one in government had envisioned a suicide hijacking before it happened.
Willful Ignorance, by David Corn, TomPaine.com, 3/16/04
A year ago—March 17, 2003, to be exact—George W. Bush addressed the nation and the world. He gave Saddam Hussein 48 hours to get out town or face a U.S. military invasion. To defend the war to come, Bush declared, "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraqi regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." There was nothing ambiguous here: "leaves no doubt". Of all the false assertions—or lies—that Bush told before the war, this one was perhaps the most important, for Bush was informing Americans, citizens elsewhere, members of the U.S. armed forces about to be placed in harm’s way and Iraqis who also would pay the ultimate price that his actions, as controversial as they might be, were based on rock-solid, you-can-take-it-to-the-bank information. In essence, Bush was saying we know what we are doing and we know it is absolutely unavoidable.
Did Bush Press for Iraq-9/11 Link? CBS New York, 3/20/04
Clarke also tells CBS News Correspondent Lesley Stahl that White House officials were tepid in their response when he urged them months before Sept. 11 to meet to discuss what he saw as a severe threat from al Qaeda.
"Frankly," he said, "I find it outrageous that the President is running for re-election on the grounds that he's done such great things about terrorism. He ignored it. He ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something to stop 9/11. Maybe. We'll never know."
Clarke went on to say, "I think he's done a terrible job on the war against terrorism."
Clarke Kent, by Billmon, The Whiskey Bar, 3/20/04
He's no mild-mannered reporter -- more like a human bulldozer -- but Richard Clarke also appears to have ducked into a phone both and come out a changed man. The former career securocrat has ripped off his suit and tie and put on his tights and cape. And he's going after Shrub like Superman going after one of his many imposters:
by Paul Krugman, New York Times Magazine, 9/14/03
A MUST READ!!!!!
This article was printed back in September, but its analysis is so strong and its information so pertinent to the ramifications we will face as a result of the Bush administration's "starve-the-beast" policy of mega-spending and mega-deficits, that it is quite simply a MUST READ--twice! (ffi)
New Evidence Suggests that Kissinger Gave Okay to Argentine "Dirty War" That Killed Hundreds and Hundreds of Dissenters, Some of Them Dropped In the Ocean, Drugged and Alive, From Airplanes, Miami Herald, 12/4/03
Well Duh!--as if it were ever really in doubt that this and other atrocities were condoned or instigated by Kissinger and other imperialistic cronies who have held power in previous--AND CURRENT--administration(s)! (ffi)
At the height of the Argentine military junta's bloody ''dirty war'' against leftists in the 1970s, then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger told the Argentine foreign minister that ''we would like you to succeed,'' a newly declassified U.S. document reveals.
The transcript of the meeting between Kissinger and Navy Adm. César Augusto Guzzetti in New York on Oct. 7, 1976, is the first documentary evidence that the Gerald Ford administration approved of the junta's harsh tactics, which led to the deaths or ''disappearance'' of some 30,000 people from 1975 to 1983.
War Wounds: Who really supports the troops?, , Hartford Advocate, November 27, 2003
I mourn the deaths of these soldiers. With each death, in fact, my loathing for the leaders who put them in harm's way grows. Millions of us "supported the troops" for the entire year leading up to this debacle in Iraq by screaming ourselves hoarse that our best and bravest NOT be put in harm's way. At least, not for such deceptive and ever-changing reasons given by a commander in chief who went AWOL from his own military duties and a vice president who "had other things" to attend to while 55,000 members of his own generation died in the rice paddies of Southeast Asia.
Iraq Becomes Operation 'Sitting Duck', by Carl Hiaasen, The Miami Herald, 11/30/03
How the Bush Cartel Shafts Our Veterans, by Buzzflash, 11/11/03
Today it's clear to many veterans that the Bush administration and Republicans in Congress think of them on other days of the year besides Veterans Day. They're thinking of veterans as they work to cut off VA healthcare. They're thinking of veterans when they refuse to address lingering health problems from the first Gulf War. They're thinking of veterans when they block full retirement and disability benefits. And they're thinking of veterans when Bush decides, yet again, not to attend a soldier's funeral or pay a visit to those who are recovering from injuries at Walter Reed Army Medical Center just a few miles from the White House.
Case for war confected, say top US officials, by Andrew Gumbel (Los Angeles), The Independent's, 11/9/03
An unprecedented array of US intelligence professionals, diplomats and former Pentagon officials have gone on record to lambast the Bush administration for its distortion of the case for war against Iraq. In their view, the very foundations of intelligence-gathering have been damaged in ways that could take years, even decades, to repair.
Blueprint For a Mess, by David Rieff, New York Times Magazine, 11/2/03
Despite administration claims, it is simply not true that no one could have predicted the chaos that ensued after the fall of Saddam Hussein. In fact, many officials in the United States, both military and civilian, as well as many Iraqi exiles, predicted quite accurately the perilous state of things that exists in Iraq today. There was ample warning, both on the basis of the specifics of Iraq and the precedent of other postwar deployments -- in Panama, Kosovo and elsewhere -- that the situation in postwar Iraq was going to be difficult and might become unmanageable. What went wrong was not that no one could know or that no one spoke out. What went wrong is that the voices of Iraq experts, of the State Department almost in its entirety and, indeed, of important segments of the uniformed military were ignored.
Bill Moyers is Insightful, Erudite, Impassioned, Brilliant and the Host of PBS' "NOW", BuzzFlash interview, 10/28/03
Watching the opening of the second game of the World Series, I was struck at how effectively the Fox producers mixed patriotic imagery with prurient promotions for upcoming programming in what amounted to a sedation of the viewer's critical faculty. It's a fitting metaphor, I think, for what's happening in politics as the mainstream media have been silenced and the partisan media have turned propaganda into "news." Wave the flag, stroke the sentiments, stir the prejudices -- and you can keep the masses distracted from the real game happening out of sight, behind closed doors in boardrooms and oval offices.
9/11: A Firefighter Speaks Out, BuzzFlash, 9/10/03
Last night as I sat with my fellow firefighters at our regular weekly training, we ended the evening with a tribute to September 11, and the 343 fallen firefighters. We had a choice: we could watch the presentation or sit it out. I almost sat out, but decided to participate. I feel a little better able to look back now; a little stronger, less shell-shocked, clearer in perspective.
Don't Reinforce Failure in Iraq, by Brian Cloughley, Daily Times 9/10/03
Turkey was criticised by deputy defense secretary Wolfowitz because its military would not overrule parliament’s decision to stay out of the war. This representative of democracy declared “it’s perfectly appropriate, especially in your system, for the military to say it was in Turkey’s interests to support the United States”. No it isn’t: not in Turkey or anywhere else. The US demand was rejected in the Turkish Parliament by a democratic vote. It is monstrous for the Bush administration to suggest that this should have been overturned by the military.
The Stench, Two Years On, by Maureen Farrell, BuzzFlash, 9/10/03
The further we move away from the tragedy, the less confident we are. Initially, comparisons between 911 and the Reichstag fire fueled distrust, as did surreal speculation that the attacks were an updated version of Operation Northwoods [LINK]. But none of that seemed really real for most of us. As more reasons to distrust the president emerge, however, we're presented with solid evidence that something just isn't right. And it's become increasingly clear that this administration's loyalties don't lie with the American public -- but with foreign oil mavens and its own corporate cronies.
My response to the latest attempt at distraction by the Right-Wing fanatics: "Wake Up Americans," by Bruce Monson FreethoughtFirefighters, Summer 2003
Unless you are one of the stalwarts still conducting your correspondence via the snail mail method you will probably know what I'm talking about when I say that every week or so someone (or perhaps multiple someones) will see the need to demonstrate their "patriotic duty" by including your email address among the multiple dozens of others on their "mass mailing" lists, and treating you to the latest God-inspired evidence for the moral decay of society (of which your heathen ways are no doubt a major contributor...), or another four legs good, two legs bad diatribe showing how great the Republicans are and how bad everything non-Republican is.
Greg Palast answers "Was the Iraq War a Bush Cartel Effort to Divert Attention from Saudi Arabia, the Home and Chief Financier of bin Laden?" BuzzFlash, 8/29/03
Well, it’s become a topic of increasing speculation: Is the Bush Cartel war on Iraq a diversion from having the American press and people demand answers about the Saudi financial support of al-Qaeda – and the fact that 15 of the 19 hijackers on September 11th were Saudis, as well as bin Laden? Do the 28 Bush administration censored pages from the Congressional 9/11 report reveal a much broader Saudi royal family involvement in financing charities linked to terrorist groups? Why have so many connections between the Saudi family and terrorists – as well as the large number of Saudis in leadership position in terrorist groups been swept under the rug by the Bush administration?
Die Laughing, by Chris Floyd, St. Petersburg Times, 9/2/03
[Ed. note: This article from Russia is biting, but the most important aspect is the supporting evidentiary citation of sources at the end.]
Here's a headline you don't see every day: "War Criminals Hire War Criminals to Hunt Down War Criminals."
Perhaps that's not the precise wording used by the Washington Post this week, but it is the absolute essence of its story about the Bush Regime's new campaign to put Saddam Hussein's murderous security forces on America's payroll.
Four 9/11 Moms Battle Bush, by Gail Sheehy, New York Observer, 8/28/03
So afraid is the Bush administration of what could be revealed by inquiries into its failures to protect Americans from terrorist attack, it is unabashedly using Kremlin tactics to muzzle members of Congress and thwart the current federal commission investigating the failures of Sept. 11. But there is at least one force that the administration cannot scare off or shut up. They call themselves "Just Four Moms from New Jersey," or simply "the girls."
Unprepared For Peace in Iraq, by Senator Robert Byrd, Washington Post, 8/26/03
What has become tragically clear is that the United States has no strong plan for turning Iraq over to the Iraqi people and is quickly losing even its ability to maintain order. The administration is stumbling through the dark, hoping by luck to find the lighted path to peace and stability.
Revisiting the Case for War, by Joseph Cirincione and Dipali Mukhopadhyay, Foreign Policy, Summer, 2003
In an effort to quell the controversy over the “16 words” in U.S. President George W. Bush’s State of the Union address, the White House declassified and released intelligence documents on July 18, 2003 to prove there was ample evidence that Saddam Hussein had a continuing and expanding nuclear weapons program. Yet those same documents indicate that some senior officials had serious doubts about the threat of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and the regime’s links to al Qaeda. A look back at President Bush’s October 7, 2002 speech in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he made a detailed case for war against Iraq, reveals that what the president said did not always reflect what U.S. intelligence analysts believed at that time.
Note: This is a progressive article that will continue to be updated to reflect latest information and evidence.
Bush's Mis-State-Ment Of The Union Fiasco, by Arianna Huffington, 7/16/03
Poor Karl Rove. He spends close to two years meticulously staging photo ops and carefully crafting sound bites to create the image of President Bush as a take-charge, man-the-controls, land-the-jet-on-the-deck-of-the-aircraft carrier, "Bring 'em on" kind of leader. But now the latest revelations about the Misstatement of the Union fiasco are threatening to bring back the old notion of W as a bumbling, detached figurehead-in-chief.
And it's the president's own people who are painting this unflattering portrait.
Bush Faced Dwindlind Data on Iraq Nuclear Bid, By Walter Pincus, Washington Post, 7/16/03
In recent days, as the Bush administration has defended its assertion in the president's State of the Union address that Iraq had tried to buy African uranium, officials have said it was only one bit of intelligence that indicated former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was reconstituting his nuclear weapons program.
But a review of speeches and reports, plus interviews with present and former administration officials and intelligence analysts, suggests that between Oct. 7, when President Bush made a speech laying out the case for military action against Hussein, and Jan. 28, when he gave his State of the Union address, almost all the other evidence had either been undercut or disproved by U.N. inspectors in Iraq.
The Attack Has Been Spectacular, by Maureen Farrell, BuzzFlash, 7/1/03
. . . But even if WMDs aren't found (or planted), the Inquirer's Dick Polman assures that "Americans might overlook Bush's claims because the war in Iraq was brief and had few U.S. casualties." As a matter of course, Polman also compares George Bush's lies to Bill Clinton's, as if saying "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" is somehow comparable to spilling both blood and treasure. Given that thousands of Iraqis and more than 200 Americans have already lost their lives (even as US soldiers are ambushed and murdered daily) and that the illegal occupation of Iraq is expected to last somewhere between 5 and 60 years, weighing the consequential trauma of Monica's soiled blue dress against the long-term consequences of Bush Doctrine-related fabrications is like wondering if Martha Stewart is as criminally diabolical as John Wayne Gacy. . . .
Ten Lessons of the Iraq War, by David Krieger, 5/7/03
There are always lessons to be learned after a war. Often governments and pundits focus only on lessons having to do with military strategies and tactics, such as troop deployments, engagement in battles, bombing targets and the effectiveness of different weapons systems. There are, of course, far bigger lessons to be learned, and here are some of the principal ones from the Iraq War.Of Human Shields, Collateral Damage and Consequences, by Bruce Monson, 3/15/03
Suppose there was a gunman (we'll call him a terrorist) holding a group of school children hostage at a daycare center in your city. Let's say that there are 60 children total in the school and the gunman is using 15 of them as a "human shield" to discourage attacks against him from the police department and their "laser-guided precision weapons." The media is outside. Hysterical parents are outside. The place is surrounded.
===> See alsy my Dialogue with Lance Watts RE: his rebuttal to this essay.
Secret Patriot Act II Destroys Remaining US Liberty: Total Police State Takeover: The Secret Patriot Act II Destroys What Is Left of American Liberty, By Alex Jones, infowars.com, 2/11/03
On February 7, 2003 the Center for Public Integrity, a non-partisan public interest think-tank in DC, revealed the full text of the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003. The classified document had been leaked to them by an unnamed source inside the Federal government. The document consisted of a 33-page section by section analysis of the accompanying 87-page bill.
UK Anti-Saddam "Smoking Gun" Document is a Plagiarized Scam: Cited By Powell In U.N. Speech, by Michael White and Brian Whitaker, The Guardian, 2/7/03 >>>See this Also
Downing Street was last night plunged into acute international embarrassment after it emerged that large parts of the British government's latest dossier on Iraq - allegedly based on "intelligence material" - were taken from published academic articles, some of them several years old.
Stating the Obvious, by Paul Krugman, NY Times, 5/27/03
The lunatics are now in charge of the asylum." So wrote the normally staid Financial Times, traditionally the voice of solid British business opinion, when surveying last week's tax bill. Indeed, the legislation is doubly absurd: the gimmicks used to make an $800-billion-plus tax cut carry an official price tag of only $320 billion are a joke, yet the cost without the gimmicks is so large that the nation can't possibly afford it while keeping its other promises.
But then maybe that's the point. The Financial Times suggests that "more extreme Republicans" actually want a fiscal train wreck: "Proposing to slash federal spending, particularly on social programs, is a tricky electoral proposition, but a fiscal crisis offers the tantalizing prospect of forcing such cuts through the back door."
The NeoCons: New Nazi-Lite Con Men Take Washington, by WAYNE MADSEN, 5/17/03
America's manipulative neo-conservatives, who support unending aggression against any country that does not succumb to United States political, economic, and military control and who, themselves, seized power in Washington through electoral malfeasance, are taking a page from Nazi Germany's leaders in their quest for world domination.
It is no coincidence that the neo-cons are worried about comparisons between their policies and those of Hitler.
Ed Gernon, the Canadian executive producer of the upcoming CBS miniseries, "Hitler: The Rise of Evil," was fired when he suggested similarities between the methods used by both Hitler and Bush to wipe away civil liberties by playing on popular fear.Where is Bush Leading Us?, by Gary Hart, Boston Globe, 6/2/03
A short year and a half ago America was astride the world like a moral colossus. Virtually the entire world united behind us in our grim search for justice against Al Qaeda. Sometime last fall, however, when Saddam replaced bin Laden as our white whale, we started on our own crusade and left the rest of the world behind. You can either believe much of the rest of the world became, almost overnight, obtuse and anti-American, or you can more plausibly believe we unilaterally launched ourselves on a mission that made little sense to much of the rest of the world.
Smoke, Mirrors and Conspiracy Kooks, by Maureen Farrell, BuzzFlash, 5/13/03
The U.S. version of the Jessica Lynch saga features a damsel, distress, evil Iraqis, and heroic soldiers saving the day. "The real 'Saving Pte. Lynch,' the Toronto Star counters, exposes this scenario as a "grand myth." Citing testimony from doctors, nurses and Nasiriya locals, the Star refutes America's official story, reporting that rather than being shot, stabbed and tortured before being rescued from the clutches of brutal captors, Private Lynch was actually injured in an auto mishap and was saved from the nurturing care of an attending nurse. "It was so scary for her," Lynch's nurse Khalida Shinah said. "Not only was she badly hurt, but she was in a strange country. I felt more like a mother than a nurse. . .And at nights, I would sing her to sleep."
Upset by U.S. government assertions that Lynch was abused during her time at the hospital, a teary-eyed Shinah said, "This is a lie. But why ask me? Why don't you ask Jessica what kind of treatment she received?" But unfortunately, Army spokesman Lt.-Col. Ryan Yantis warned that, "Until such time as [Lynch] wants to talk - and that's going to be no time soon, and it may be never at all - the press is simply going to have to wait." The same day, FOX News reported, "Sources Say Jessica Lynch Has Amnesia."
Media Monopolies Have Muzzled Dissent, by Ian Masters, Los Angeles Times, 5/1/03
Totalitarian regimes don't tolerate any distinction between journalism and propaganda, but in most democracies it is unprecedented for the free press to abandon Joseph Pulitzer for the methods of Joseph Goebbels.
How did a born-again, family-values administration get in bed with a purveyor of misogyny and mayhem, trash and titillation? The common thread, for all the public piety, has to be the late Lee Atwater, who was friend, mentor and role model to George W., Karl Rove and Roger Ailes, the head hound in the Fox pound of junkyard attack-dog journalism.
AN OPEN LETTER TO MY CONGRESSMEN: by Church Secretary, Church of the Bad News, Sunday, March 30, 2003
It is with a somewhat heavy heart that I write this letter to you; I fear that it is too late, or irrelevant besides. Our nation has been hijacked by a cabal of individuals who have used the highest office of our land, after securing it under circumstances which were dubious at best, for the purpose of enriching and empowering their wealthy friends and acquaintances. Of course, much of this enrichment and empowerment has been done through actions that have served to greatly benefit the extremely wealthy and the corporate culture in general, at the expense of our vital governmental infrastructures. In the process of misusing our democracy for their own ends, these individuals have quite possibly (either through neglect or cynical, malicious intent) left the door open for one of the worst terrorist attacks our nation has ever seen.
Bush's speech signaled the end of rule of law,
Denver Post 2/23/03On Jan. 28, in one speech, George W. Bush threw away and rejected all this that I had learned. He scorned the rationality of his opponents, scorned the diplomatic process, scorned containment, condemned deterrence, declared the right of pre-emptive aggressive war, implied a willingness to use nuclear weapons first and authored a new doctrine of American imperialism for the Middle East.
Did You Get That Right, Andy? (A Response to Andy Rooney on his 60 Minutes segment: "France's Unpaid Debt"), by Bruce Monson, 2/16/03 «--- READ!
This is my letter to the CBS program 60 Minutes that I wrote following their February 16 airing that found the sometimes funny satirist, Andy Rooney, in rare form, though not for his humor. Rather, he presented some rather invective mudslinging directed at France in the wake of that country's defiance of the Bush administration, which he titled, "France's Unpaid Debt." For Rooney, at least, the French "owe us [their] independence" and "have not earned their right to oppose President Bush's plans to attack Iraq."
Superpower Gone Ballistic, Acting very Roguish (Risks Tomorrows Super Bowl, Now That is Quite Atrocious!), by Bruce Monson, 1/30/03 «--- READ!
I saw an interesting commercial on the cable sports channel ESPN this morning. It said: "Without sports there would be no next year." I think they might be right—at least in America.
Secret Patriot Act II Destroys Remaining US Liberty: Total Police State Takeover: The Secret Patriot Act II Destroys What Is Left of American Liberty, By Alex Jones, Infowars.com, 2/11/03 «--- READ!
On February 7, 2003 the Center for Public Integrity, a non-partisan public interest think-tank in DC, revealed the full text of the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003. The classified document had been leaked to them by an unnamed source inside the Federal government. The document consisted of a 33-page section by section analysis of the accompanying 87-page bill.
Axis of Twits, by P.M. Carpenter, BuzzFlash.com, 2/14/03
Contrary to the president's repeated claims that a blow against Saddam Hussein will be a blow against terrorism, the most recent Osama bin Laden audiotape confirms that a blow against Saddam will be a gift to al Qaeda, more valuable in propagandistic weight than U.S. airbases in Saudi Arabia.
The United States of America has gone Mad, by The Times, UK January 15, 2003
The reaction to 9/11 is beyond anything Osama bin Laden could have hoped for in his nastiest dreams. As in McCarthy times, the freedoms that have made America the envy of the world are being systematically eroded. The combination of compliant US media and vested corporate interests is once more ensuring that a debate that should be ringing out in every town square is confined to the loftier columns of the East Coast press.
Secret Government, National Public Radio's This American Life, Episode 229, 1/10/03 «--- LISTEN!
It's been said often that the Bush Administration is one of the most secretive Presidencies ever. But really, just what does that mean? Three case studies of some of the newly-minted secrets. A look at the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, a secret appeals court convened to settle a dispute between a secret court and the Justice Department.
Act One: "Enemy Combatant"; American Citizens held without councel or charges, a look at Jose Padilla.
Act Two: Secret Trials and Deportations
Act Three: USA Patriot Act; Secret Wiretaps from a Secret Court
Remote Prayer Report Misrepresented its Data, by Consumer Health Digest #02-47, November 19, 2002 «--- READ!
Wired Magazine has uncovered evidence that data used to obtain two federal research grants totaling $1.5 million were represented as positive even though they were not.
Hell's Victories: An Excerpt From The Terrorist Next Door, TomPaine.com
This is part one in a three-part series of excerpts from Levitas' upcoming book, The Terrorist Next Door: The Militia Movement And The Radical Right, to be published in November by Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press.
See also: Part Two, Part Three
No Cure for Cancer, By Dean Schabner, ABC NEWS, 10/07/02
"When doctors told Jacqueline Crank to get her daughter to a hospital for the tumor that was growing on her shoulder, the Tennessee woman turned to God instead." See also next story: Religious Group Seeks to Raise Girl From Dead.
Religious Group Seeks To Raise Girl From Dead Associated Press, 9/19/02 «--- READ!
"Members of a Tennessee religious group were hoping for a miracle at a teenage member's funeral."
Archive
Window Blind Cords & Children: A Deadly Combination
Pardon Me, Are You a "True American"? by Bruce Monson «--- READ!
My rebuttal to a Christian revisionist tract that seeks as its goal to attack the very foundations of our Constitution by way of a Christian-based revision of history, to include changing the very convictions of our founding fathers in order to convince the targeted audience (i.e., already believing Christians) that the United States is a "Christian nation," founded by Christians, for Christians!
When Patriotism Wasn't Religious, by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., NY Times, 7/7/02
For Me, It Was Never About God, by Rick Weiss, Washington Post, 11/17/02 «--- READ!
It's the Boy Scout motto to "Be Prepared," and I've always tried to follow that advice. So maybe, given today's political and religious winds, I should have been better prepared than I was for the news that Darrell Lambert, 19, an Eagle Scout in the Seattle area, had his membership in the Boy Scouts of America revoked this month for asserting that he did not believe in God. Read also Port Orchard Atheist: Scout's Fight Draws National Attention, 10/31/02
The Strange Values of President Bush, by Kendall Clark, Monkeyfist.com, 10/24/02
Let's take the Bush Administration at its word and ask some hard questions about values. First, what values does Bush espouse when he refuses to support ballistic fingerprinting? Second, what values does Bush's inconsistent defense of civil liberties reflect?
Election 2004
Bev Harris on the Perils to Democracy by Electronic Voting, BuzzFlash interview with Bev Harris, 12/4/03
A MUST READ!!!!!
What remains the greatest threat to democracy in the 2004 election?
Some would argue that it may be the ability of the companies who manufacture and maintain electronic voting machines to elect a candidate through reprogrammed software – or maybe a third party who could hack the vote counting software and change the tally.
Jefferson's 'Wall of Separation', by Bruce Monson
Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of the Tsunami, by Paul Albrecht (Spring 2005)
I was pained by the injustice of it because it reminded me of a callous article setting out a Christian opinion about the tsunami by the pious Paul Johnson, who was blandly dismissive. He said the deaths were unimportant because the victims were going to die one day anyway, and in killing them now God was revealing his loving nature by reminding us of our mortality. How’s that for a sanctimonious shrug! I disliked being tarred with the same brush as a man I thought should be tarred and also feathered for this attitude.
The Twin Towers -- A Prayer, by Paul Albrecht (Spring 2005)
Almighty God, Creator of all things Hear our petition. Take away our faith And our belief in You, but most of all Our certain knowledge of the life to come, Where You’ll exalt the good and burn the bad. ...
The Deaths of Ananias and Sapphira. Acts 4&5: An Examination of the Nature of Faith, by Paul Albrecht, West Sussex, England, 2/2003
In Acts 5 there is a peculiar and little known event where a certain Ananias and his wife Sapphira suddenly die while in the custody of the apostle Peter for the "sin" of holding back some of their money from the church. Paul Albrecht discusses this event:
"I could not recall ever before having been aware of this brutal incident, which smacked more of Jehovah than Christ and I decided to question religious friends and search the literature to discover how Christians interpret and justify it. What follows is what I have learned and what I conclude."
- Kooks and Quacks of the Roman Empire: A Look into the World of the Gospels (1997), by Richard Carrier «--- READ!
- Carrier argues that when we examine the background of the time and place in which the gospels were written, we discover that "these were times replete with kooks and quacks of all varieties, from sincere lunatics to ingenious frauds, and there was no end to the fools and loons who would follow and praise them."
No Morality Without the Bible?, by Farrell Till
Bibles? Bibles? We don't need no stinkin' Bibles! Humans are more than capable of determining right and wrong without the aid of holy texts and "words of God."
Dialogue between a Priest and a Dying Man, The Marquis de Sade, Works (1782)
"The cause and explanation of what you do not understand may perhaps be the simplest thing in the world. Perfect your physics and you will understand Nature better, refine your reason, banish your prejudices and you’ll have no further need of your god."
Jerry's Story: A Letter From an Ordained Minister «--- READ!
This is a touching, thought-provoking and powerful letter from a former minister, who explains why he can no longer believe in the intolerant doctrines of Christian dogma.
Paradox in Game Theory: Losing Strategy that Wins, New York Times, 1/25/2000 «--- READ!
Game theory may seem an odd connection to principles in evolutionary biology, but within this article there was a key discussion on "ratchets," which have the effect of trapping of heavier objects and paradoxically moving them upward when you would expect them to fall. The reason these are important to the evolutionary debate is because we see such ratcheting effects in nature: "particles," says Dr. Abbott, "tend to move randomly within cells but can be captured, or ratcheted, into performing useful work. This is how many proteins and enzymes are designed." ... "Life itself may have been bootstrapped by ratchets, Dr. Abbott said. When simple amino acids were formed by chance, environmental forces would tend to destroy incipient order. Ratchets could help move life along its evolutionary pathways toward greater complexity."
The Fish That Was Not a Fish, Discover, 7/30/02
Creationist Geologic Time Scale: an attack strategy for the sciences, by Donald U. Wise «--- READ!
Published in American Scientist, March/April, 1998, vol. 86, n. 2, p. 160-173). "The framework of Creationist Bible-based earth history, focusing on Genesis and the Noachian flood, can be assembled into a single geologic time scale. ... Science, rather than using its traditional defensive approach of item-by-item rebuttal of Creationist attacks, needs to take the offensive by challenging Creationists to defend their 'scientific' view of earth history as represented by this time scale."
A Firefighters Poem, Author Unknown
Johannes Brahms the Firefighter, Biographical excerpt
A special thanks to Dan Barker of the Freedom From Religion Foundation for sending in this gem!
The Demon-Possessed Woman & the "Kindly" Deacon by Bruce Monson
Dialogue with Amanda Jones, a "True Christian" who speaks for "The One True God!" by Bruce Monson «--- READ!
This is my detailed rebuttal to Amanda Jones, a fundamentalist Christian from South Africa who felt compelled to write to me after reading my dialogue with the Christian firefighter from San Antonio, Roy Casanova. The dialogue is divided up by topic, and there is one topic you will not want to miss: Jesus Drowns Toddler For 'Sins' of His Mother!
Dialogue with Chris ... -- a Firefighter & Fundamentalist, by Bruce Monson «--- READ!
This is a comprehensive discussion with a fundamentalist and covers a plethora of topics, including Christian theological dogma & Fundamentalism, Evolution & Creationism, Church-State separation, and others.
CHALLENGING THE VERDICT: A Cross-Examination of Lee Strobel’s The Case For Christ -- Earl Doherty's comprehensive rebuttal of this popular Christian apologetic book. «------ a must read
A Short History of America, by Michael Moore
This is a brilliant 3-minute animated feature from Michael Moore's award-winning documentary Bowling For Columbine. «--- A MUST SEE!
Smite Thee!: You are Zeus, king of the gods. Non-believers threaten your temple. Can you destroy them and give your believers the power to help you?
Fun With Jesus: Jesus Dressup!
See the South Park Multimedia Files!
George Carlin: A Modern Court Jester by Bruce Monson