Mike's Blog

15 year old girl in Oklahoma accused of witchcraft by school officials

Going back to our Puritan roots

Category: Religion

The ACLU is suing Union Public School Independent District No. 9 of Oklahoma. The reason is bizarre: administrators at the school have harrassed and violated the civil rights of a young woman named Brandi Blackbear because — and I'm a bit ashamed to admit this can go on in my country — they accused her of witchcraft. They say she used a magic spell to make one of her teachers sick. In retaliation, she has been subjected to searches and public humiliation, and the school has banned the wearing of non-Christian paraphernalia. ...(link Pharyngula)

19:1

Why does the US support Israel? (I'm not saying the Palestinians are the good guys - as so succinctly stated in the post below "the entire Middle East is just one ginormous Groundhog Day clusterfuck.")

Hopefully the relationship with Israel will cool a little or "disimprove" as 43 would have said. How is this not genocide on the the level with what the US is doing in Iraq? The other number in various links is 57% - percentage of fatalities in Gaza which were children.

19:1

That’s the ratio of dead Palestinian children to all Israelis killed by rockets.

...

If 219 Israeli children were killed, Israel would nuke Gaza. 

And our government would still back Israel.

I don’t know why I feel the need to reinvent this blog/myself when the entire Middle East is just one ginormous Groundhog Day clusterfuck.

(link Norwegianity)

Hmm, yeah, I think Diebold beats elections by smokestack

The "arrogance of someone who believes they are right"???  Sorry, no arrogance needed when you're right.

And your little dog too.

Vatican mouths off, again
John Aravosis (DC) · 1/24/2009 06:22:00 PM ET ·
The Prada-wearers are lecturing Obama about arrogance.

A senior Vatican official on Saturday attacked US President Barack Obama for "arrogance" for overturning a ban on state funding for family-planning groups that carry out or facilitate abortions overseas.

It is "the arrogance of someone who believes they are right, in signing a decree which will open the door to abortion and thus to the destruction of human life," Archbishop Rino Fisichella was quoted as saying by the Corriere della Sera daily..

"What is important is to know how to listen... without locking oneself into ideological visions with the arrogance of a person who, having the power, thinks they can decide on life and death," he added.

Apparently it's finally sinking it at the Vatican that Him-bo has left the building. Then there's this:

"I do not believe that those who voted for him took into consideration ethical themes, which were astutely left aside during the election debate. The majority of the American population does not take the same position as the president and his team," he added.

First off, get a spokesman who speaks English, and not German spoken as English. Second, don't lecture us about our elections, when your election is based on a smokestack. And finally, being lectured to about ethics by a regime run by a former member of the Hitler Youth is, well, choice to say the least.

The Vatican had no problem embracing George Bush, and overlooked his innumerable sins, all because Bush was pro-life and anti-gay. The Vatican had no problem with Bush's warmongering, his torture, or his lack of interesting in the plight of the disadvantaged. Funny that none of that ever bothered the oh-so-ethical Vatican.

One final point the Vatican keeps overlooking. We're not a Catholic country, and nobody cares what they think. So go away. (link AMERICAblog)

PRESIDENT Obama's 1st weekly radio address

President Obama's First Weekly "Radio" Address
Joe Sudbay (DC) · 1/24/2009 10:18:00 AM ET


In the first weekly (not just) radio address, brought to us via the White House's YouTube channel, the President talks, of course, about the economic crisis. He's pretty clear about the need to act: "In short, if we do not act boldly and swiftly, a bad situation could become dramatically worse." And, he delves into the specifics of his proposal -- and you know this president knows what he's talking about, not just reading a script:



The transcript can be found here.
(link AMERICAblog)

Wonderful photo collection from the inauguration

January 21, 2009

The Inauguration of President Barack Obama

Yesterday was a historic day. On January 20th, 2009, Barack H. Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States of America - the first African-American ever to hold the office of U.S. Commander-in-Chief. The event was witnessed by well over one million attendees in chilly Washington D.C., and by many millions more through coverage on television and the Internet. Collected here are photographs of the event, the participants, and some of the witnesses around the world. (48 photos total)

The Capitol is illuminated in the early morning hours before the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States of America January 20, 2009 ....
(link boston.com via Rising Hegemon)

Maybe there is still hope for BushCo war crimes trials

I don't know if anything will come of this but it is nice to see the rest of the world demanding war crimes trials

UN Rapporteur: Initiate criminal proceedings against Bush and Rumsfeld now

By Scott Horton

In an interview on Tuesday evening with the German television program “Frontal 21,” on channel ZDF Professor Manfred Nowak, the United Nations Rapporteur responsible for torture, stated that with George W. Bush’s head of state immunity now terminated, the new government of Barack Obama was obligated by international law to commence a criminal investigation into Bush’s torture practices.

“The evidence is sitting on the table,” he stated. “There is no avoiding the fact that this was torture.” He pointed to the U.S. undertakings under the Convention Against Torture in which the country committed that it would criminally prosecute anyone who tortured, or extradite the person to a state that would prosecute him. “The government of the United States is required to take all necessary steps to bring George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld before a court,” Nowak said.

(link Harper's via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)

Ted Haggard - more of teh gay

Disgraced pastor faces more gay sex accusations

By ERIC GORSKI, AP Religion Writer Eric Gorski, Ap Religion Writer – Sat Jan 24, 1:23 am ET

AP – This image taken from video, supplied by Magnolia Pictures, shows the Rev. Ted Haggard preaching in …

DENVER – Disgraced evangelical leader Ted Haggard's former church disclosed Friday that the gay sex scandal that caused his downfall extends to a young male church volunteer who reported having a sexual relationship with Haggard — a revelation that comes as Haggard tries to repair his public image.

Brady Boyd, who succeeded Haggard as senior pastor of the 10,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs, told The Associated Press that the man came forward to church officials in late 2006 shortly after a Denver male prostitute claimed to have had a three-year cash-for-sex relationship with Haggard.

(link Yahoo News via AMERICAblog)

Update - New Life blog "...a number of incidents ..."

"...After Mr. Haggard’s fall, we received reports of a number of incidents of inappropriate behavior. In each case, we have tried our very best to do the right thing, including disciplinary action when appropriate. Our concern has been and continues to be for every person affected. We renew our invitation today for anyone who believes he or she has been hurt to please come forward. ... (link  via 

"It wasn't a one time act..." - I'm shocked!!

New gay sex scandal embroils New Life and Ted Haggard

By Wendy Norris 1/23/09 9:49 PM

Fresh revelations have emerged that disgraced evangelical leader Ted Haggard had a previously undisclosed sex-for-cash relationship with a young male New Life Church volunteer.

An Associated Press report claims that Haggard was involved in an “inappropriate, consensual sexual relationship” that “went on for a long period of time … it wasn’t a one-time act,” according to Brady Boyd, the pastor who succeeded the embattled former leader of the 10,000 member New Life Church in Colorado Springs. ... (link)

Change the default mode "from pissed off to happy"

Change the default mode "from pissed off to happy"
Joe Sudbay (DC) · 1/21/2009 04:05:00 PM ET ·

This morning in the open thread I asked: How's everyone doing on the first full day of the Obama administration?

One thing I've realized is that I'm not angry anymore. I feel like I was just pissed for the past eight years -- and it seemed like a really, really long eight years. But, I'm not now.

Bill Savage, who writes at The SLOG as "Chicago Fan," sent the link to what he wrote, which really captures the change in mood:

For me, the main thing about the Obama presidency is that it re-sets my default mood. Since Bush v. Gore and the judicial coup d'etat of 2000, my default political mood has been pissed off. Occasionally things would make me more pissed off or less pissed off, and once in a blue moon I'd be happy, but pissed off was the baseline from which everything started. And that was before 9/11 and Iraq.

Now, with a President who can speak in complete sentences, who believes in the rule of law, who believes in hiring people for their competence and ability rather than their personal loyalty and religion—my default political mood is happy. Things will piss me off about Obama, I'm sure, and some things will elate me: but the baseline is changed from pissed off to happy, and that's a huge shift.

Huge shift.

 (link AMERICAblog)

Day One

Wednesday January 21, 2009 15:20 EST

A brand-new day

In his inaugural address Tuesday, Barack Obama identified "a sapping of confidence across our land" as one of many worrisome symptoms of American crisis. On Wednesday he moved remarkably quickly to restore national confidence in a dizzying day of action on symbols and substance, all of it pretty much pitch-perfect.

By noon on his first day in office, Obama had called the leaders of Israel, Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority to talk about next steps for peace; asked Defense Secretary Robert Gates to halt Guantánamo trials and circulated a draft executive order to close the prison within the year;  and attended a prayer service that included the first-ever sermon by a woman minister and the prayers of a Muslim imam.

In the afternoon he signed two executive orders and three presidential memoranda, tightening ethics rules for his staff, strengthening the Freedom of Information Act and giving the public greater access to presidential records. "Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency," he said as he signed the documents. Then he watched Vice President Joe Biden swear in his senior staff, and stayed to shake hands or embrace every one of them. After that he met with senior economic advisors and top military staff to discuss plans for the economy and Iraq; later, he hosted an open house for the American people, a new symbol of his commitment to access and transparency... (link Salon)

Good article on the difference between the two religious speakers at the inauguration

As an atheist I wasn't particularly offended by Rev. Lowery, but VERY offended by preacher Dick.  As noted below people will remember this and this is where Warren comes across as the "white real/special-christian all others are going to hell" slime that he is and Rev. Lowery will be remembered as a uniter as will hopefully others who speak on behalf of and for the Obama administration.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Rick Warren gets mixed reviews
John Aravosis (DC) · 1/21/2009 12:22:00 PM ET


As the article notes, leading the nation in a recitation of the Lord's prayer, when we are not a Christian nation - we are a nation with a Christian majority, a far different matter - and many of our citizens are people of faith who aren't Christians, struck me as pure Warren-the-activist. It was his little slap in the face at everyone who criticized his selection. And it's the reason he shouldn't have been there in the first place.

You'll notice that Warren also went out of his way to talk about Jesus, even naming him in different tongues. That was again Warren's way of taking a poke at Jews, Muslims, and probably even non-evangelical Christians, who aren't Christian anyway, according to evangelicals. Rev. Lowery, on the other hand, gave a benediction about God that could have been given by any person of faith, that could be read in a mosque, a synagogue, or a church, and fit right in. That's what a true religious leader does. That's why Lowery is a civil rights hero. And it's why Rick Warren will be remembered as nothing more than a smooth-talking pop preacher who couldn't resist using Obama's big day to take a dig at whoever he was busy judging on that particular day ... (link AMERICAblog)