Rest In Peace

[mojo]

Thank you D.O.T. for your work. I'm whistling the same tune - and imagining the conversation once he's face to face with God......

[Archantael]

Cerberus is expecting a visitor today.

The bully pulpit is silent, a 24,000 member mega-church has lost it's leader, and millions who have tolerated and suffered from the closed minded bigotry and hate culture that the man helped create celebrate his departure.

They say these things come in threes...is it wrong to hope that a certain Reverend in Topeka, KS is not far behind?

[gyre]

Good luck, Diane.

[PurpleKoosh]

Speaking of the indistinguished not-so-gentleman from Topeka, KS, have y'all seen that he's PICKETING FALWELL'S FUNERAL?!

[Badger]

have y'all seen that he's PICKETING FALWELL'S FUNERAL?!

That's fucking priceless. The ouroboros eating its own tail.

You couldn't choreograph such deserved perfection.

[diane o'thirst]

Good luck, Diane.

I'm fairly comfortable. I'm not nervous at all. DeFazio's a good man and I know from last year he's solidly in our corner. I'm pretty sure he'll agree to vote for the NCI and NIH funding, at least.

Smith and Wyden could be a little trickier to bring on board. They're pro-health but they're mostly concerned with seniors. Not to say that's bad, but we also have a bill we're asking them to co-sponsor that would give Medicaid to people who have been screened for and found to have cancer, including precancerous conditions, are under 65, and are uninsured and otherwise ineligible for Medicaid.

Fortunately, they *are* pro-health and my delegate partner is an oncologist and a charter advocate for the first LiveSTRONG Day. I'm letting him take the lead there; he'll talk about the battle from the front line and I'm giving support as the "human face" story. My story is virtually tailor-made for the Cancer Screening, Treatment and Survivorship Act of 2007.

On topic...hopefully with Falwell's death, the stem cell debate will swing the other way and we can get it passed and heal and save hundreds of millions of people, with this disease and others.

[Lassen Forge]

They say these things come in threes...is it wrong to hope that a certain Reverend in Topeka, KS is not far behind?

Not quite the speaker you were thinking about. Here's your #2 out of 3. Who will be the 3rd religious person to go now?

Yolanda King, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s eldest child who pursued her father's dream of racial harmony through drama and motivational speaking, collapsed and died after making a speech. She was 51

[Ranger Genius]

Religious people?

I though we were talking about evil, bigoted zealots.

[Badger]

I though we were talking about evil, bigoted zealots.

The way I see it there's two down starting with Falwell and Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah http://www.canada.com/topics/news/world ... df&k=19522.

I'd settle for Fred Phelps or Pat Robertson as the third in the religious bigot triumvirate. Actually, I'll take Robertson. I'd just as soon see Phelps stick around long enough to have an opportunity to see (and comment on) Michael Moore's upcoming film on sexuality in America where he goes around the US iin a hot pink tour bus with velvet curtains and a retinue of of male go-go dancers doing a number on the bus roof in front of the Westboro Baptist church.

[DVD Burner]

I though we were talking about evil, bigoted zealots.

The way I see it there's two down starting with Falwell and Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah http://www.canada.com/topics/news/world ... df&k=19522.

I'd settle for Fred Phelps or Pat Robertson as the third in the religious bigot triumvirate. Actually, I'll take Robertson. I'd just as soon see Phelps stick around long enough to have an opportunity to see (and comment on) Michael Moore's upcoming film on sexuality in America where he goes around the US iin a hot pink tour bus with velvet curtains and a retinue of of male go-go dancers doing a number on the bus roof in front of the Westboro Baptist church.

All religious nuts are the same and equally stupid. Just think, this Falwell idiot's so called "university" will continue to teach more idiots that Global warming is not real:


Evangelicals split on global warming
BBC Washington correspondent Matt Frei goes to Virginia to take a look at how the issue of climate change is dividing America's evangelical movement.

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6648265.stm

( you may want to watch the video. It's pretty funny.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/chec ... =1&nbram=1 )

Liberty University, in Lynchburg, Virginia, is one of the biggest evangelical colleges in the world.

With more than 20,000 students on and off campus, it is the creation of the Reverend Jerry Falwell, one of America's most influential Christian leaders.

The technology used here is modern - it uses the latest internet gimmicks and sermons are podcast - but the message is less so.

"The jury is still out on global warming," says the Rev Falwell, in a sermon broadcast on the internet in February this year.

"Despite all the hype by liberal politicians, the media, Hollywood and so forth, it is not yet proven by any means that greenhouse gas emissions are the cause of global warming."

His word is taken as gospel by the university's students.

One, Sharon Langat, says she thinks the attention paid to climate change is out of proportion.

"We should pay more attention to other global issues apart from global warming. I know there's money put there, I just don't think we should put that much money in there."

Fellow student Bliss Spillar, agrees. "There are many evangelical leaders that have made the statement that there are other things we should be focusing on.

"As a Christian, we believe that God created the Earth, that all things are in his control."

Left-wing conspiracy?

A lesson taught by Dr Thomas Ice, Liberty University's senior theologian, focuses on headaches like Armageddon, salvation and the Second Coming.

Compared to these concerns, global warming is considered a mere sideshow at best, or a left-wing conspiracy at worst.

Asked his opinion on whether global warming is a reality or conspiracy, Dr Ice answers forcefully.

"It's a hoax, certainly," he says. "I think global warming is being used like many political issues to try to move the world from nationalism to internationalism or global governance."

And his class? Asked how many of them are worried about global warming, not one raises a hand.

'Body of evidence'

But just as America is bitterly divided on the issue of climate change, so is the evangelical movement.

At Eastern Mennonite University, in Harrisonburg, Virginia, concern about the environment is so high that the college has employed a full-time recycling officer and assistant.

Jonathan Lantz-Trisse, who travels around campus by bicycle with a trailer of recycling in tow, has been monitoring the efforts of staff and students to recycle their waste.

"The students are actually really good recyclers," he says. "Sometimes I think the challenge is getting the faculty and staff to recycle - I think the younger generations have grown up with it and it comes more naturally."

An address by the university's president, Loren Swartzendruber, gives a clue that here, too, it is the voice at the top that sets the tone for the university.

"There is a massive and mounting body of scientific evidence that global warming is a reality," he tells the gathered congregation.

"Hone your God-given talents, grow your entrepreneurial skills and stretch your scientific minds to co-create with God a better world. As disciples of Jesus, we can do no less."

Here, when asked if they are worried about global warming, almost everyone puts up their hand.

Opposing souls

Mr Swartzendruber is one of 86 Christian leaders to have signed an open letter calling on all Christians to battle global warming.

"We understand that the Earth is important. We view it as a gift and it's just been part of who we are for many, many years," he tells me.

He rejects out of hand the suggestion that global warming is a hoax. "It's primarily, first of all, a scientific issue and secondly, it's a theological issue," he says.

And the students at his university sing from the same hymn sheet.

"I look around and I see beautiful trees and birds singing and I see the wind blowing, and I really don't want to see this messed up," says Timothy Shank.

"I would like to sit outside on the lawn with somebody who disagrees with me and talk about what we appreciate about nature and creation - and then figure out ways we can live that doesn't hurt that."

In this way, two evangelical universities use the same quotes from the same Bible to make exactly opposite points of view about global warming.

What could give a clearer insight into the opposing souls of America?

In other parts of the world, the boundaries between left and rights, conservative and liberal, have been transcended by concerns about climate change.

But not here in the US - and especially not here in the conservative south, where science is still political.

[Wind_Borne]

The way I see it there's two down starting with Falwell and Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah

I hope you're not drawing a moral equivalence there. I can tolerate, even be amused by, a man like Falwell; not so one who advocates stoning women for dress code infractions. Sure, zealotry may be a matter of degree and judgment -- as are most interesting things in life. But I have no trouble drawing a line between those two men.

[PurpleKoosh]

Peter Murray was someone I knew only virtually, through an Undernet IRC representation of Callahan's Crosstime Saloon (as immortalized by Spider Robinson). Peter would show up in-channel as himself sometimes, but more often than not as one of several other personae - Agniputra the minidragon, GingerBear (who rode in a bag Agni carried on her back), and Ginger's misspelled cousins Gigner and Regnig.

One of the many friends I made in-channel who joined the mass migration to LiveJournal linked to a post this morning from one of Peter's RealSpace friends in the UK; Peter had apparently been in hospital since the first of this month, and taken a turn for the worse this morning.

He passed away around ten past three his time, with his sister and her partner by his bedside.

He is already missed.

[gyre]

The way I see it there's two down starting with Falwell and Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah

I hope you're not drawing a moral equivalence there. I can tolerate, even be amused by, a man like Falwell; not so one who advocates stoning women for dress code infractions. Sure, zealotry may be a matter of degree and judgment -- as are most interesting things in life. But I have no trouble drawing a line between those two men.

You are quite right.
Falwell and the rest of the christian taliban are much more of a threat to the us.
The only difference is power.
Read the nazi manifesto that was the actual republican platform in the reagan/bush period.
Even reagan had to distance himself.
And that is the final platform.
The fringe element like falwell would go far beyond if they could.

[Isotopia]

I hope you're not drawing a moral equivalence there. I can tolerate, even be amused by, a man like Falwell

Actually, to degree I do draw a moral equivalence between the two.

More than anything I guess it's a question of degree.

And perspective.

I think we can all pretty much go back and read a good number of Falwell's quotes and chuckle at the absurdity of just how achingly stupid and mis-informed his views were. Same could probably be said of any knuckle-dragging, Taliban mullah. Or the rantings of Fred Phelps. I have to admit though that I find no humor in the level of ignominy, and religious acrimony that the three represent insofar as their religious dogmas are concerned. The way I see it there's little difference in calling for the stoning of women for dress code violations and the public demonisation of queers to the point that some people feel OK with murdering individuals like Mathew Shepherd or accusing an entire group of American citizens of complicity in the destruction of the World Trade Center. It just seems like a matter of degree as to how much blood any of the three have on their hands for preaching hate and intolerance.

[unjonharley]

Then all the polly tic's.. The good old boys threw out every thing.. And kissed the dead fucks ass..

[Wind_Borne]

... The way I see it there's little difference in calling for the stoning of women for dress code violations and the public demonisation of queers to the point that some people feel OK with murdering individuals like Mathew Shepherd or accusing an entire group of American citizens of complicity in the destruction of the World Trade Center. ...

Point well made.

Thank our lucky stars for a loyal opposition and the freedom for that opposition to speak its mind. Things go so wrong when people (you and me included) think they're totally right; and everyone else is totally wrong and must be silenced.

[Apollonaris Zeus]

Wish all you want on which funtamentalist dies for they will always be reborn when It is written in a book.

The book must die first!


AIIZ

[unjonharley]

\/
This thread sure turned mean.. hehe .. Amazing what a little truth can add..

[diane o'thirst]

Wish all you want on which funtamentalist dies for they will always be reborn when It is written in a book.

Serial reincarnation isn't in the Judaeo-Christian doctrine.

[joel the ornery]

Wish all you want on which funtamentalist dies for they will always be reborn when It is written in a book.

Serial reincarnation isn't in the Judaeo-Christian doctrine.

i don't think facts matter to AIIZ.

[Ugly Dougly]

My Mom just passed today. Felt I had to tell someone.

[MozyBonz]

sorry to hear that ((((((Dougly))))))

[EvilDustBooger]

Condolences Dougly.

Take it easy on yourself .

[pinemom]

sorry U.D.
Whispers on a windless cloud above you!

[BigCock]

Aw man, Doug.
Remember the good.

[PurpleKoosh]

May you and all who loved her find comfort in memory.

[montana wildhack]

((((((dougly)))))))

[Sensei]

May she rest in peace.

Condolences, Sir Douglas.

[DVD Burner]

sorry to hear that dougly.
Hope your pain doesn't last too long.

[Lassen Forge]

Oh Uggy Duggy...

I am so sorry... words can't express how sad I am. Losing a parent is such a fucking sucky thing, and I am sad for your loss, hon...

Just remember, that no matter what, she's there still looking over yer shoulder; she is there for you, even tho ya can't see her.

All I can do from here is offer you a virtual hug, but you have my v-shoulder to cry on when you need it.

Smooches and tears,
bb