Idaho Speaks

Christian Terrorists finally got this doctor today.  They have tried several times before, one even got a prison sentence for shooting him in both of his arms, but this time he was assassinated as he was attending his Lutheran church and doing his duties as an usher.

Yahoo.com has a good story on this, and names the suspect (not for certain) as 51 year old Scott Roeder.   Even those who disagreed with Dr. Tiller were appalled.  The anti abortion guru, Terry Newman of Operation Rescue, had this to say:

We are shocked at this morning’s disturbing news that Mr. Tiller was gunned down.  Operation Rescue has worked for years through peaceful, legal means, and through the proper channels to see him brought to justice. We denounce vigilantism and the cowardly act that took place this morning. 

I can’t even begin to describe how horrible and terrible this is.   To gun a man down in a house of God, how could you ever begin to ask forgiveness for that act?  The people who do this are no better than other fundamentalist terrorists from outside our borders and they can’t continue to perpetrate these acts of violence on our home soil.

Tags: Abortion Doctor Murdered, Christian Terrorists, Dr George Tiller

This is attributed to Helen Keller.  It’s something that affects us all.

When one door of happiness closes, another opens: but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.

Tags: Helen Keller, Quote of the Day

I’m against the death penalty.  It’s bad enough that in our country, the land of the free and the home of the brave, that innocent people serve huge chunks of time in prison, and it’s reasonable to assume with all the wrongful convictions that some innocent people have been put to death.  We’re not a Christian society, we don’t turn the other cheek, as Z L pointed out.  We take an eye for an eye, if we can get it.

But at least we have a semblence of a fair trial process (unless you’re a Gitmo detainee, of course) and until we can do away with the death penalty, our system is reasonably fair for capital crimes.  No such luck in Saudi Arabia.

CNN has a story about a recent beheading and public display of the dead body of a man convicted of killing/raping a child and then killing his dad when the dad came to look for him.  Oh, yes…also threatening the police when they came to arrest him.  Saudis assert their system of “closed door” justice is fair, and the public spectacle is a deterrent.  Ugh.

Amnesty International decries their legal processes.  They said:

They usually take place behind closed doors without adequate legal representation. Convictions are often made on the basis of “confessions” obtained under duress, including torture or other ill-treatment during incommunicado detention.  Those who are sentenced to death are often not informed of the progress of legal proceedings against them or of the date of execution until the morning when they are taken out and beheaded.

This is justice?  This is okay with us, and they are our allies?  Saudi Arabia allows old lechers to marry 8 year old girls against their wills.  They don’t even allow women to drive yet, do they?  They haven’t bothered to join the 20th century, but because they hold a great deal of the world’s oil, we kiss their asses and attend their crucifixions and (maybe) look the other way.  Shame on US, too.

Tags: Amnesty International, CNN Saudi Arabia Barbarism, Saudi Arabia justice system

Woo Hoo!  It’s party time again at Sandy Downs.  The North American Brewers’ Association is back and it’s gonna be a great day a week from tomorrow.  I anticipate seeing all my friends (as long as I can still focus) and enjoying myself.

From their site:

Come on out and sample hundreds of different beers from over eighty breweries on June 6, 2009!

The ticket price - $20 in advance, $25 at the door -  includes admission, unlimited three ounce samples and live music!

There’s also a food court featuring a variety of yummy treats to eat.

Proceeds from this years event will benefit Breaking Boundaries, Camp Discovery, Crime Stoppers,

Sheriffs’ Search and Rescue and The Snake River Animal Shelter.

The Mountain Brewers Beer Fest takes place rain or shine under the Big Top at Sandy Downs,

there’s also plenty of room to spread a blanket on the grass in the sun and enjoy the band.

Don’t miss the raffle and silent auction tent and your chance to win hundreds of items and gift packages.
Children under 12 admitted for free;  12 to 20 and Designated Driver tickets $5.

Tags: Beer Fest 2009

What a great name!  This duo is exceptionally wacky and funny as hell.  They have a great website, and they have great songs/videos on YouTube.  I found this today while I was looking at ‘rising stars’ videos on YouTube and I’ll be watching for them to be like the female version of Tenacious D.

Now, the brunette (?) is actually someone I recognize, she plays Ted’s girlfriend on Scrubs.  I recognize some of the songs because they were used on the show.

Tags: Garfunkel and Oates, Sex with Ducks

We get rancorous in our political viewpoints on this website, sometimes.  We tend to think of the Republican Party as the enemy.  Even then, it’s not really all Republicans so much as it is the extreme wing of the Republican Party.  Some of the very strongly conservative Republicans preach a type of eliminationism that is frighteningly reminiscent of the tactics of fascist Nazi Germany…they believe that those of us who do not agree with them politically, are deserving of being killed because we are the enemy of all that is holy. 

For over a decade, Mary Matalin and James Carville have been married and have maintained a beautiful and touching relationship…while each sitting on the eact opposite end of the political teeter-totter.  What a pair!  What an intelligent and articulate couple!  Incredible that they are able to be 180° opposites in political viewpoints, yet able to keep their politics out of their personal relationship and love and cherish each other as partners.

Why can they do this, yet our country cannot?  Why have the eliminationists (Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Dick Cheney, Fox News personalities) taken such a strong hold over our process? 

Watch this video on CNN.  It’s a clip from John King’s show, today.  It shows a comfortable married couple, both strongly expressing their totally opposite views, sitting in their home and being respectful of each other even though they don’t agree in any way with each other.  What a concept, what a country!

Tags: James Carville, John King CNN, Mary Matalin

At least in Idaho, the Democrats are far outnumbering the Republicans in their online presence.  The article on the Democratic Party’s website gives numbers for social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, as of May 14, 2009:

Facebook - Idaho Democrats, 1,009; Idaho Republicans, 548
Twitter – Idaho Democrats, 287; Idaho Republicans, 125

And, per Julie Fanselow, the Idaho Democratic Party Communications Director, the Republicans prefer media sources where they can control the content, which tends to be the broadcast media…they can carefully screen out dissenting voices.  She says:

Democrats may still be fighting an uphill battle in many Idaho elections, but when it comes to online media, the simple fact is that Democrats get it and Republicans don’t.

This is in line with what is happening across the country.   Democrats have always enjoyed a greater use of online technology, and by the end of 2008, the up-and-coming Republicans were determined to change the trend.  Per this blog article in the Atlantic magazine online:

2008 made one thing clear: if allowed to go unchecked, the Democrats’ structural advantages, including their use of the Internet, their more than 2-to-1 advantage with young voters, their discovery of a better grassroots model — will be as big a threat to the future of the GOP as the toxic political environment we have faced the last few years.

This site leans heavily to the left, but not for lack of trying.  I know the administrator has worked diligently to invite multiple conservative voices, but thus far, it’s been difficult to convince anyone to participate from right-of-center.  Hopefully that will change before we actually go public, but if not…well, it’s the local Republican Party’s loss.

Tags: Democrats online more than Republicans

Love this group, but I loved the Chieftans back in the day, too! 

Tags: Devil's Dance Floor, Flogging Molly

I don’t know who said this, I can’t find a good likelihood online…but I liked it enough to start up this category:

Whatever you give a woman, she’s going to multiply.

If you give her sperm, she’ll give you a baby.

If you give her a house, she’ll give you a home.

If you give her groceries, she’ll give you a meal.

If you give her a smile, she’ll give you her heart.

She multiplies and enlarges what is given to her.

So - if you give her crap, you will get a bucket full of shit.  

Now I’m sure you never thought all three of those subjects would be in the same sentence.  But oddly enough, President Obama brought them together when he gave the commencement speech this year.  I say oddly enough because I don’t think I would ever have the balls to go to a Catholic university, and tell them that we have to find some common ground on this subject.

The Catholic Church (among many many others) believes that abortion is murder.  They don’t see it as a freedom of reproductive choice issue.  They don’t see it as a woman’s right to choose what happens to her own body.  They see it as a murder of a human being that God set into life, and no man or woman may take that life without committing a mortal sin.

Not all Catholics agree with that position, but it is a doctrinal stance.  So to go to a church school, speak at their graduation, and tell them they need to find some common ground on the issue of murder…well, that’s like telling the world that it needs to find some common ground on the issue of military tribunals of “enemy combatants” who aren’t really “prisoners of war” because we want to exact our pound of flesh for 9-11 and justify our own terrorist actions.

Oh, wait…I guess President Obama isn’t the chosen one, after all.  He’s pissing everybody off, probably without even trying.  Reminds me of Bill Clinton’s first term.

Tags: abortion, Notre Dame commencement