Second Breakfast

Our old friend Pat, whose prayer life includes asking God to strike down those he doesn’t like, is at it again. This time its against the citizens of Dover, PA. According to CNN Robertson included Dover in a rant on his 700 Club show. He said:

“I’d like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don’t turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city,” Robertson said on his daily television show broadcast from Virginia, “The 700 Club.”

“And don’t wonder why He hasn’t helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I’m not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that’s the case, don’t ask for His help because he might not be there,” he said.

So this raises some interesting questions. If 51% of the voters in Dover, PA voted to oust the school board members does that mean that God is going to strike down 100% of the citizens? Or only those who voted incorrectly? What about those who stayed home? They should have voted. Was not voting more or less of a sin that voting the wrong way? What about those who didn’t understand the ballot, or punched the ballot incorrectly? Maybe God won’t strike them down, just give then a serious case of the gout, or measles, or something.

I like Pat because he makes rational people look so, well, rational by comparsion.

Cthulhu for President 2004 - Why Vote for the Lesser Evil?

Seems apropos for some reason. Lets get the fully-concentrated evil on the ballot in 2008. No more years! No more years!

I just don’t want to be the running-mate.

I don’t usually comment on current events, because others do it better, but I’m having a hard time letting this one go. Fresh Air featured an interview today with a journalist, Cam Simpson, a Chicago Tribute reporter who has written a story about 12 Nepalese workers who were abducted and executed in Iraq in August. The full story is available at the Chicago Tribune Online.

So here’s where your tax dollars are going:

• Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR), a division of Halliburton (Dick Cheney’s company), supply most of cheap labor required for support services for the troops in Iraq.
• Because of (legitimate) security concerns, KBR sources most of its workers as so-called Third-Party Nationals.
• Many nations, including Nepal, have banned their citizens from working in Iraq because of concerns of safety and exploitation, but KBR looks the other way.
• KBR uses Middle-Eastern subcontractors to source these workers, who use the same fraudulent and coercive practices that the US condemns in other countries.
• US Federal law requires that companies like KBR provide death and disability benefits to workers in venues like Iraq, but KBR does not inform workers or their families of this, and isn’t paying against any claims.

So the 12 Nepalese workers that the story describes borrowed $3500 (a huge sum!) to work (they were told) in Jordan for $800 per month. Instead, they were taken to Iraq where they would have earned $300 per month, effectively in debt-slavery since they would never be able to pay off the loan given the interest they were charged. On the road from the airport they were given no protection (not cost-effective!), and were kidnapped, held, and gruesomely executed on video a few days later.

We heard very little about this story on the news, even on more serious and balanced sources like NPR.

I feel an enormous sense of anger and shame at my country when it condones and facilitates such exploitation and neglect of human life.

I was listening to Sirius Disorder today (Alan calls this “easy listening” and insists I’m officially over the hill and heard this track, which is courtesy of Wax Audio. Basically this guy followed Bush for a while capturing audio of his public statements, and then realized that he had captured Bush speaking every word from “Imagine”. The result (6.2MB MP3) is both hilarious and a little saddening.

This is, I think, quite good news. Jerry Falwell, after years of making terrible, degrading, and insulting statements towards LGBT folks, seems to be softening his tone, according to an August 26 article from the Southern Voice:

The Human Rights Campaign has formally thanked Rev. Jerry Falwell for apparently speaking out in favor of gay rights for the first time publicly.

[...]

On Aug. 5, during an appearance on MSNBC’s “The Situation with Tucker Carlson,” Falwell raised eyebrowns when he said he was not troubled by reports that nominee John Roberts had done volunteer legal work for gay rights activists on the case Romer vs. Evans.

[...]

“I may not agree with the lifestyle,” Falwell said. “But that has nothing to do with the civil rights of that… part of our constituency.

“Judge Roberts would probably have been not a good very good lawyer if he had not been willing, when asked by his partners in the law firm to assist in guaranteeing the civil rights of employment and housing to any and all Americans.”

[...]

“Civil rights for all Americans, black, white, red, yellow, the rich, poor, young, old, gay, straight, et cetera, is not a liberal or conservative value,” Falwell went on to say. “It’s an American value that I would think that we pretty much all agree on.”

The article goes on to credit SoulForce, founded by Mel White, a former colleague and biographer of the Rev. Falwell, as perhaps instrumental in convincing Falwell that he needs to soften his damaging and hurtful rhetoric. I deeply admire White and his partner Gary Nixon, and the amazing work that everyone at Soulforce is doing.