Tag Archives: Reading

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Book Review: Drift by Rachel Maddow

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This recent book by one of my favorite news commentators is subtitled The Unmooring of American Military Power. With the title and subtitle, you can get a good idea of what the thesis of the book is. Think of the Constitution as the dock, with the US Ship of State tied up securely to it. The lines tying the ship to the dock are the laws of the United States, the executive, legislative and judicial branches that create, administer and enforce those laws, and the people that work in those branches of government. Now, consider that two, sometimes all three, branches, or lines, have become frayed and worn, even purposely cut, to the point that they stretch and occasionally snap, leaving the ship to drift away from the dock, completely unmoored to land, subject to the vagaries of currents. And we have forgotten why we tied the ship to the dock in the first place.

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# 475

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Every once in awhile I check under the old WordPress dashboard to see what I’ve been doing. This here post is number 475, and falls a bit shy of the end of my fifth year of blogging. By the time I get to that particular anniversary (April 18), I hope to have received about 450,000 visits to the blog. I think that’s a lot, but in comparison to others, maybe not so much. Considering that about 425,000 are probably visits from Gideon, maybe I shouldn’t be so proud. 😉

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A Broad Spectrum Of Disbelief

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Here’s something that’s been bugging me, so allow me a little rant.

It seems like every time an atheist makes a comment about some aspect of religion that bugs them, they are quite forcefully and specifically told to shut up. Religion is not a topic one is supposed to discuss in polite company (along with politics and sex, and we know how often that rule is broken). Atheists are made to feel like every time they criticize theism, they are stepping over some boundary of propriety. Due to my upbringing, I often find myself gauging the sensibilities of my listener to see if I might offend them, but I notice that never does a Christian (I don’t have much contacts with Hindus, Muslims and members of other religions) stop and think before they “thank god” or “god bless me” or otherwise inject their religious beliefs into a conversation.

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A Difference Of Degree?

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You may or may not be aware of the recent clashes the Taliban influenced populace of Afghanistan has had with authorities over the inadvertent and unintentional disposal of a few Qu’rans, resulting in daily protests, suicide bombings and other violence. All over some janitor burning a few books that were probably in the way. I often wonder how this actually can seem to be so horrendous to the protestors that they would resort to such extreme measures to voice their discontent. I can’t imagine getting that upset over the loss of a book.

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That Clinches It For Me

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There is far too much discussion about religion in this election. I don’t care who has the better theology, whether one is a better Christian than another, what god says about gays, vaginas or the price of oil for that matter. I don’t care what every two-bit preacher with a mail-order degree thinks. I don’t care what Obama’s pastor said once or twice in the 20 years he attended service in his church (that issue is old news and I don’t want to hear it re-hashed by Santorum).

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I Get Email Too

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Not very often, and most of it is spam, but occasionally I get email that requires some response. Here is one I felt compelled to respond to.

____________________________

Time to crack down, folks. Be sure to vote ….. all you Democrats can ignore this as I’m sure you will. 

 LET’S SEE IF I GOT THIS CORRECT?

RE: 3 American Hikers Now In The NEWS

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Forged

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Not a bad title for a book about the Bible, you gotta admit. The funny thing is, the book convincingly makes the case that much of the Bible and many of the books and letters and tracts that never made it into the Bible, but were contenders (to quote Marlon Brando in another context), were forged.

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If You Believe These Things…

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… You May Be Considered Far Right.

Not to mention a hypocrite.

Credit - http://thismodernworld.com/

‎1. Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of homosexuals and Barack Obama

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Today is “Move All The Bibles To The Fiction Section” Day

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‘Nufff said.

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400,000!

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I just noticed that my stats show that I turned over four hundred thousands visits to this blog. You can confirm it down in that little box at the bottom of the page.

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