June 13, 2011 archive

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Daily Living in the Image of God

Growing up, I was told that we were created in God’s image.  But no one really explained the concept to me.  I assumed that God was static, unchanging, and altogether perfect.  To the best of my knowledge, it had always been this way.  Was my behavior to resemble this as well?  Any number of theological loose ends was never tied up, either from ignorance or theological neglect.  Sometimes it is easier to say nothing than to risk the potential offense provided by the truth.  Fast asleep is a comfortable place for many, particularly in houses of worship and everyday communities which are deathly afraid of change.

Vox Frustrati (Vol. 2): Blame

 


Welcome to the Vox Frustrati diary series.  Vox is a persona and this project is a collaboration by a group of people.

Vox Frustrati is here to give voice to our progressive concerns.  He welcomes correspondence from you at VoxFrustrati at gmail dot com.

If you have something to say, a rant, a comment or a question, Vox might decide to lend you his voice, either anonymously or with your byline. It is your choice.  Vox does reserve editorial rights.

We Used To “change the world”

On many fronts, continuing the subject title, we even once were moving into alternative energy, that’s what built the economy that continued to grow and was envied by all others. They used to try and copy but most failed while some, like Japan and South Korea with our help, will say though that when I was a kid and a teen their products were cheap and many laughable, succeeded. Now many have the growth in the experienced workers, we’ve destroyed many of the hands on trades experiences here, needed and are rapidly moving far in front of us, as are they’re economies. And climate change is only one big issue, of many, of the advancement of economic growth and innovation. What this administration understands is that which our parents and grandparents worked so hard and had built for us as now some are destroying piece by piece!

Vox Frustrati (Vol. 1): Dissent

Welcome to the diary series, Vox Frustrati.  Vox is a persona and this project is a collaboration by a group of people.  Today, we welcome Vox and we are very excited about his inaugural broadcast.  We congratulate him on his debut.

Vox Frustrati is here to give voice to our progressive concerns.  He welcomes correspondence from you at VoxFrustrati at gmail dot com.

If you have something to say, a rant, a comment or a question, Vox might decide to lend you his voice, either anonymously or with your byline. It is your choice.  Vox does reserve editorial rights.

Six In The Morning

Missing Iraq money may have been stolen, auditors say

U.S. Defense officials still cannot say what happened to $6.6 billion, sent by the planeload in cash and intended for Iraq’s reconstruction after the start of the war.  

By Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times

June 13, 2011  


Reporting from Washington– After the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the George W. Bush administration flooded the conquered country with so much cash to pay for reconstruction and other projects in the first year that a new unit of measurement was born.

Pentagon officials determined that one giant C-130 Hercules cargo plane could carry $2.4 billion in shrink-wrapped bricks of $100 bills. They sent an initial full planeload of cash, followed by 20 other flights to Iraq by May 2004 in a $12-billion haul that U.S. officials believe to be the biggest international cash airlift of all time.

This month, the Pentagon and the Iraqi government are finally closing the books on the program that handled all those Benjamins. But despite years of audits and investigations, U.S. Defense officials still cannot say what happened to $6.6 billion in cash – enough to run the Los Angeles Unified School District or the Chicago Public Schools for a year, among many other things.




Monday’s Headlines:

Egypt: Mohamed ElBaradei not sure to run for president

Refugees take flight as troops launch attacks on rebel stronghold

Dutch scientists claim breakthrough in combating E.coli

Libya govt says rebels’ victory claims ‘wishful reporting’

High level of strontium found at Fukushima plant

Muse in the Morning

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Muse in the Morning

Time for a break from poetry…in order to create some art.

Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.”

–Carl Sagan



Fireworks 3

Hung. Hung Over. Hung Up. Hung Out To Dry



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copyright © 2010 Betsy L. Angert.  Empathy And Education; BeThink or  BeThink.org  

With news of Congressman Anthony Weiner’s indiscretions the word “Hung” has frequently been heard. “Hung Over” too entered our conversations.  Many asked if he was.   “Hung Up” played a powerful role in reflections. “Hung Out to Dry” seems to be the consensus.  Crowds of Congressmen and women, citizens from each political Party, and even those who claim no loyalties, say, The Representative must be renounced. Few wish to admit that Anthony Weiner is but you and me.  

Supreme Court Justices, who served under Chief Jurist Brennan, perhaps, make three.  Any of us might easily say, as the Justices did decades ago; on the subject of obscene or outrageous, “I Know It When I See It.”  We each do. Still, the definitions vary.

While few of us are officially appointed to write “codes” of conduct, as the Supreme Court Justices are, we too avidly watch the actions of another and judge.

Late Night Karaoke

Altering the Space Time Continuum by the Far Right

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette ]

More fun from the far right and re-inventing history. Sarah Palin’s ignorance about Paul Revere’s ride at least didn’t screw with the time line. The right wings favorite winger historian, Texan Evangelical, David Barton, whose theory is that America’s unique success in the world is divinely caused and due to its commitment to core Judeo-Christian principles, has his own version of history stating that the Founding Fathers rejected Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Small problem with that, Darwin hadn’t been born yet and Origin of the Species wasn’t published until 1859 but according to Barton “there is no need to debate the teaching of Creationism in public schools, because the Founding Fathers made clear that we needed to do so.”

From Mother Jones:

On Wednesday, Right Wing Watch flagged a recent interview Barton gave with an evangelcial talk show, in which he argues that the Founding Fathers had explicitly rejected Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Yes, that Darwin. The one whose seminal work, On the Origin of Species, wasn’t even published until 1859. Barton declared, “As far as the Founding Fathers were concerned, they’d already had the entire debate over creation and evolution, and you get Thomas Paine, who is the least religious Founding Father, saying you’ve got to teach Creation science in the classroom. Scientific method demands that!” Paine died in 1809, the same year Darwin was born. . . . .

It’s been said that James Madison and Alexander Hamilton were ahead of their times. But perhaps not that prescient.

In the same interview, Barton explains that one of the main reasons that the colonies wanted to break away from England was because it would then become easier to abolish slavery. Any who has studied the basics of the American Revolution knows that the issue of slavery was tabled in order to secure approval of the Declaration of Independence. (For the record, Britain abolished slavery in 1833-32 years before the United States.)

Also according to Baron, Jesus would have love Paul Ryan’s budget because Jesus was opposed to the progressive income tax and he was opposed the minimum wage. The Republican’s just love this guy:

Newt Gingrich is a fan. So’s Michele Bachmann. Mike Huckabee’s such a booster that he recently said that all Americans should be “forced at gunpoint” to listen to this guy.

The object of this high praise from Huckabee-and recent shout-outs from other potential GOP presidential contenders-is David Barton, a Republican activist and minister who founded WallBuilders, a for-profit evangelical outfit that works to inject religion into politics. Barton holds some pretty unconventional views, and in the past he has spoken alongside fringe figures like Holocaust deniers and white supremacists. Among other things, he claims that Jesus would oppose the capital gains tax and the minimum wage; that global warming is “self-correcting”; and that the nation’s homeland security apparatus has been infiltrated by members of the Muslim Brotherhood. He also contends that the separation of church and state is a perversion of the Founding Fathers’ intention to create a Christian nation.

Remember the Star Trek episode The City on the Edge of Forever, maybe Darwin popped through the portal to meet with the Founding Fathers to discuss evolution. I bet Ben Franklin would have been quite intrigued.

h/t John Aravosis at AMERICAblog

Pique the Geek 20110612: Boron, Essential and Uncommon

Boron, the chemical element with an atomic number (Z) = 5, is an uncommon element.  The reason is that there is no really easy way for stars to make it except through going supernova.  A more technical way of saying this is that stellar nucleosynthesis is not a viable pathway to produce boron.  As a matter of fact, it is the least common very light element except for lithium.

Tonight we shall look into some of the properties and uses of boron, as suggested by Kossack shrike Friday evening during comments on Popular Culture.  The interest that shrike has in some new medical uses for boron, and we shall go into some detail near the end of the piece.

Dispatch from Ranch Apocalyse

Bilderberg concludes as suburban America dies.

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