ONE OF THE MANY REASONS I DON'T GO TO CHURCH ANYMORE

This Week on ABC
Aired November 7, 2004

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Dr. Dobson, you also have a problem with the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Patrick Leahy. I want to show something that was reported in "The Daily Oklahoman" during the campaign. In the "Daily Oklahoman," it quoted you saying, "Patrick Leahy is a God's people hater. I don't know if he hates God, but he hates God's people." Now, Dr. Dobson, that doesn't sound like a particularly Christian thing to say. Do you think you owe Senator Leahy an apology?

DR JAMES DOBSON: George, you think you ought to lecture me on what a Christian is all about? You know, I think -I think I'll stand by the things I have said. Patrick Leahy has been in opposition to most of the things that I believe. He is the one that took the reference to God out of the oath.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: But Dr. Dobson, excuse me for a second. You use the word hate. You said that he's a "God's people hater." How do you back that up?

DR JAMES DOBSON: Well, there's been an awful lot of hate expressed in this election. And most of it has been aimed at those who hold to conservative Christian views. He is certainly not the only one to take a position like that. But I think that that is -that's where he's coming from. He has certainly opposed most of the things that conservative Christians stand for.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: So no apology?

DR JAMES DOBSON: No apology.

I don't like church in my government or politics in my church. I used to have tremendous respect for James Dobson, but Dobson puts a LOT of politics in his sermons, and I find it unbearable. In fact, he's become the poster boy for the political Religious Right, and the perception in Washington is "that no one helped Bush win more than Dr. James Dobson." Bush even phoned Dobson personally to thank him for his support.

The Bloke in the Outer wrote a great post on the difference between Civil Religion and the Christian Church. He writes that "There is a real danger of the Church confusing the building of the nation with the building of the kingdom."

Maybe Stephanopolous doesn't know as much about Christ's teachings as Dobson, which would mean that Dobson should not have reacted to Stephanopolous' attack on his godliness (for lack of a better word) with condescension and self-righteousness. Perhaps Dobson does need a lecture.

Dobson's only human, and we all make mistakes, but for the record, Stephanopoulos' father serves as a Greek Orthodox priest, and Stephanopoulos received his Masters in Theology at Balliol College, Oxford University, England, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar.

"Christ would not vote for Barack Obama, because Barack Obama has voted to behave in a way that it is inconceivable for Christ to have behaved."

"It's about time we all faced up to the truth. If we accept the radical homosexual agenda, be it in the military or in marriage or in other areas of our lives, we are utterly destroying the concept of family."

Both quotes are from Alan Keyes during his Senate race against Barack Obama, another proclaimed Christian.

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SCOTT PETERSON - GUILTY

After 6 hours of deliberation, Scott Peterson was found guilty of first degree murder for Laci Peterson and second degree murder for their son, Connor.

The difference between Scott Peterson and OJ? I think it was the teeth. Fix the gap, beat the rap.



Read the story

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MORE POLING PROBLEMS IN FLORIDA

Fortunately no one was riding shotgun when this SUV smashed into a 100-foot-long metal utility pole carried by a tractor-trailer in Springfield, Fla. Witnesses said the rig was preparing to turn when the GMC passed escort vehicles and plowed into the pole.

Taken from SFGate.com

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AMAZONIAN MOVIES

I love Amazon the way I love Wal-Mart and Costco. Even with your Barnes & Noble discount card and free shipping, you can't beat the deals at Amazon.

There are some books I've been wanting to get, so I cruise over to Amazon to see what's for sale. On the home page, there is a link to a movie, starring Minnie Driver, called Portrait. Curious, I click it. I watch it. I am amazed at how bad it is.

In this comic Hollywood fable, an ugly duckling turns out to be as pretty as a picture. Minnie Driver stars as a narcissistic corporate honcho who learns a lesson--the hard way, of course--about the importance of what lies beneath.

This Madison & Vine concoction is silly, but not in a good way. (See DodgeBall) In what appears to be an attempt to emulate the cult status BMW Films, Amazon tries to hawk $200 purses and skirts with an artless re-make of a fairy tale.

Sell me stuff on the show. We're all used to it by now, but make me want it. Most of all, I have to like the show. Women want shoes after watching Sex and the City. Want, like, want, like. They go hand-in-hand. You can sell more products when viewers don't feel the need to gouge out their own eyes after an episode.

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VOTER FRAUD UNSUBSTANTIATED - NYTIMES

The New York Times wrote an article stating that the theories of voter fraud were unsubstantiated. Most of the evidentiary anomalies are just anomalies. Some heavily Democratic precincts in Florida have been voting Republican for years, according to the NYTimes.

Most of the registered party v. actual voting pattern evidence is circumstantial, even if the precinct hadn't been voting Republican for years. Voters could have changed their mind and decided they wanted Bush instead.

Something concerning however, is that there was a precinct in Ohio

where an electronic voting machine malfunctioned in one precinct and allotted some 4,000 votes to President Bush, kicking off its own flurry of Web speculation. That particular problem was unusual and remains unexplained, but it was caught and corrected, Mr. Damschroder said.
New York Times

Reaction from the Kerry campaign?

"I'd give my right arm for Internet rumors of a stolen election to be true," said David Wade, a spokesman for the Kerry campaign, "but blogging it doesn't make it so. We can change the future; we can't rewrite the past."
New York Times

But, where there's smoke there's fire, right? Or is a cigar just a cigar? Mainstream media just bashing bloggers? Why are the voting systems Windows (*cough* hacker-central!) based? Why are we so anxious to get the results the day of the election? The President-Elect doesn't take office until January. Instant gratification.

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KEEPING UP WITH THE PHONESES

Is it just me, or are cell phones getting ridiculously complicated? PCMag is running an article, New From Nokia, highlighting some of Nokia's new phones exhibited at a show for potential investors in New York.

They were hawking phones so big, they "could double as a paving stone or a house brick," and they had a batch of kiddie phones that let kids play force-feedback games and beam lighted messages across the room. Yes, let's innundate our children with more video games. What ever happened to reading a good book?

This takes the cake.

The Achilles heel of Nokia's 6620 and 7610 smartphones is their lack of a keyboard. Nokia aims to solve that problem with a folding Bluetooth keyboard, similar to the ones you can buy for PDAs.

Hmmm... a keyboard for my phone. Okay. Whatever.

It slices, it dices and wipes your ass all at the same time!

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ANGRY BLUE-STATER

If profanity offends you or you don't want to read an angry but hilarious rant, don't click this link. Jumperless had the link in her blog, along with some others that are pretty good, too.

I was trying to remain optimistic. A president's second term is unpredictable. Bush won with 51% of the vote. Since 48% of Americans didn't vote for Bush, and he stated that he wanted the divisiveness to end, I hoped he might be a more moderate president this time around. Maybe he's really not such a bad guy.

Then Rove announces that President Bush will pursue a Constitutional Amendment to ban gay marriage. (When did campaign managers start making policy announcements?) Well, pursuing an amendment to restrict the rights of US citizens, along with supporting Clarence Thomas for the Chief Justice seat told me that he's probably going to be more conservative than ever.

How does a country come together when some people believe that abortion is murder and gay marriage marks the continued deterioration of societal values, and the other side sees an unnecessary war as murder for profit and the banning of gay marriage as a violation of basic civil liberties?

Needless to say, I'm unhappy, but I'm not ready to pack up for America Jr. and probate over America's greatness to the "moral" majority. Assuming that there wasn't any tampering with the electronic voting machines, I'll accept that George W. Bush was elected for a second term. I'll even accept that he won the popular vote, but he does not represent my beliefs or convictions.

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THEME THURSDAY - "WINDOW"

Theme Thursday - "Window" Submission





Since the eyes are the windows to the soul, I figured this would work.

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