Well, I TIVOed the opener, and fast-forwarded through it. Nice little win out in Texas.
I’m a little more optimistic than before. Looks like this Crisp kid is going to fill Damon’s shoes just fine. Papi brought it, which is good.
And it looks like Schilling is showing no signs of slowing down. 117 pitches, and still pitching 94 mph in the 7th.
I’m still worried about the deep bullpen though, but that’s Bosox baseball. I think we’ll have a respectable year.
Next Wednesday at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00AM, the time and date will be 01:02:03 04/05/06.
That won’t ever happen again — ever (at least, not starting with the one-sies). Enjoy it while it lasts.
Actual Press Release: RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman to Address The Booker T. Washington Celebration Banquet
Actual Address: The Sheraton Crystal City Hotel, 1800 Jefferson Davis Highway
[H/T: Shakespeare’s Sister]Bet you didn’t know that, but that’s what the religious right is saying.
Via Carpetbagger, we learn of an excellent report from the People For The American Way, discussing some of the incindiary rhetoric coming from the "War Against Christians" conference held last week.
People of faith, take note. These people claim to be your leaders.
For those who are unaware, several Christian leaders held a conference last week all about how Christians are supposedly being oppressed. The gathering was held in the ballroom of the posh Omni Shoreham Hotel (because, to paraphrase Jon Stewart, nothing says that you’re being oppressed more than a two-day conference at an upscale hotel).
Attendees included the usual list of fundamentalist religious leaders, and their indicted or soon-to-be-indicted brethren (i.e., Tom Delay, Ralph Reed, etc.) [RELATED: If you haven’t read the op-ed in the Sunday Washington Post entitled "How the GOP Became God’s Own Party", you really should.]
To give you a taste of what went on…
One speaker was Tom Crouse, pastor of the Holland Congregational Church in Massachusetts and radio show host. Crouse told conference attendees:
to stop worrying about appearing tolerant and start proclaiming the truth, saying that Jesus was the most intolerant person in the world. A similar plea for intolerance was recently issued by Rev. Jerry Falwell, who exhorted his supporters to be “the most intolerant people in the world.”
Well, I guess my Bible must have been mistranslated. I mean, who knew that Jesus actually went on the Mount and said, "Screw the meek. Screw those who hunger and thirst for righteousness."?
Others in the conference echoed that sentiment, including speaker Bill Fancher of American Family Radio – who described himself as proudly “narrow minded”.
Well, I guess they are "proclaiming the truth", but I’m not sure that admitting to be intolerant and narrow-minded is going to win over many converts.
It’s a rather odd message. On the one hand, they claim that Christians are being attacked as intolerant and narrow-minded, and with the other hand, they openly rejoice in the fact that they are intolerant and narrow-minded.
Elsewhere in the conference, you had those who overtly rejected Jesus’s words. Rick Scarborough, the conference organizer, complained that "the Left has been using Christians’ ‘turn the other cheek’ philosophy against them", so it was time for Christians to abandon that forgiving philosophy.
So "what would Jesus do"? He would ignore Jesus, I guess.
The Carpetbaagger took note of the remarks by Rod Parsely, pastor of the Columbus, Ohio, World Harvest megachurch, one of the religious right’s rising stars.
Parsley compared the struggle against the "war on Christians" to the civil rights movement, defiantly shouting that "We [are] not going to the back of the bus … My Father owns the bus line. I will sit where I please!"
That’s oppression for you: owning the bus line and demanding that you sit whereever you want.
But the meta-theme of the conference was the "battle", and most speakers laced their comments with violent war-like metaphors. Parsley, for example, proclaiming "freedom at any cost", shouted:
"If you think 2004 was something, we have not reached critical mass! We are the largest special interest group! … We’re building order from chaos! We’re fighting the sword with the word! We’re fighting savagery with hope!"
He added:
"I came to incite a riot! Man your battle stations! Ready your weapons! Lock and load!"
I think these (white) guys are taking the "Onward Christian Soldiers" bit too literally.
Pretty scary.
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APRIL 3RD, 2006 – 2:05 PM |
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Boston Red Sox
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Texas Rangers
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| Curt Schilling (0-0, 0.00) |
Kevin Millwood (0-0, 0.00) |
| LINEUP: Coco Crisp – CF Mark Loretta – 2B David Ortiz – DH Manny Ramirez – LF Trot Nixon – RF Jason Varitek – C Mike Lowell – 3B Kevin Youkilis – 1B Alex Gonzalez – SS |
LINEUP: Brad Wilkerson – LF Michael Young – SS Mark Teixeira – 1B Phil Nevin – DH Hank Blalock – 3B Kevin Mench – RF Laynce Nix – CF Rod Barajas – C Ian Kinsler – 2B |
ABC News headline: Former Sen. Jesse Helms Has Dementia
Kaye Grogan sent an email to President Bush today. You can read the whole thing here, but here’s a summary.
Kaye starts off by complaining about illegal immigration:
Our people — especially the elderly, are suffering in their own country, so therefore it is "unacceptable" that we as American taxpayers should have to bear the brunt of a country like Mexico and be responsible for boosting their economy, while our own people are suffering. The Bible says that "charity" first begins at home.
Sir Thomas Browne, the Bible: same thing.
But that aside, we’re not sure what Kaye is getting at. When undocumented aliens come into this country from Mexico and get jobs here, they presumably spend that money here as well. How does this provide a "boost" to Mexico’s economy?
And what is Kaye suggesting? That these Mexicans are taking jobs from the "suffering" elderly?
Fortunately, Kaye has found the perfect solution:
There is a simple solution to replacing the need for illegal immigrants to come to America to work in a "guest" workers program. The prisons are filled to capacity with a large amount of "unproductive" citizens. These prisoners can return something back to society for their crimes by picking crops and other jobs that other Americans (supposedly) will not take. In other words, earning their upkeep. Of course, the prisoners would have to be guarded the same as when they are assigned to work detail on the highways.
Apparently, Kaye is working on the theory that 12 million undocumented Mexican aliens are up here and they are all picking crops or working on highway detail. That’s a LOT of crops and highways, Kaye.
But assuming she’s right, we will need lots of guards to watch over these prisoners, right? Who will do that job? Hey! How about all those undocumented aliens?
Next, Kaye simply goes off on one of her patented diversions:
Mr. President, it is simply asking too much of Americans to stand by and watch as our United States flag is being banned from schools, for fear that it offends other nationalities.
That’s right. Kaye thinks the American flag is being banned from schools now.
She’s only warming up though. She then talks about how she’s (help, help!) being oppessed.
The religious people, especially the Christians, have been attacked through groups like the ACLU far too long. And the foreigners are expecting us to be tolerant of their various religions — at the same time showing extreme intolerance for us to practice our religion and traditions openly.
Yeah. Don’t you hate it when those Mexicans come across the border and make you practice your religion in dark allies and stuff?
By the way, what religion does Kaye think most of these Mexican people believe, if not Christianity?
Kaye continues for a while on the topic of religion, straying even further from immigration:
As you well know, our ancestors risked their lives to start a country founded on God. And that religious freedom is protected under the First Amendment. Separation of church and state simply means: that the government cannot adopt a particular religion and make it mandatory that all people accept and practice the selected religion.
Gee, that doesn’t sound like a country "founded on God".
I believe that the anti-God groups know this to be the case, but they have been allowed to trample over the religious rights of American citizens, while the government conveniently looked the other way hoping this dilemma would just go away just like the problem with immigration.
Ah, she finally worked her way back to the subject of immigration, in a "Peter Rabbit was sort of that kind of thing too" kind of way.
Well, we hope that President Bush enjoyed Kaye’s email. We sure did.
It’s not as strong as you might think:
The largest study of the medical power of prayer found secret prayers on patients’ behalf didn’t reduce complications in heart surgery and there was a 14 percent higher chance of problems when patients were aware of the prayers.
The research, appearing in the April issue of the American Heart Journal, followed 1,802 patients undergoing coronary bypass surgery at six hospitals. Of those, one-third weren’t prayed for, another third were prayed for without their knowledge by three U.S. Christian congregations, and the rest knew they were the subject of prayers by the church members.
The researchers, led by Herbert Benson and Jeffery A. Dusek of Harvard Medical School and Mind/Body Institute, found that people who knew they received intercessory prayers had the highest chance of complications of the three groups, 59 percent. Among patients who didn’t know whether they were the subject of secret prayers, complications occurred in 52 percent of those who were prayed for and 51 percent of those who weren’t.
The death rates for 30 days after surgery were similar across all the groups, the two-year study showed.
So if I get sick, it doesn’t matter whether you pray for me or not. But for God’s sakes, don’t tell me that you’re praying for me, because you’re only hurting my chances.
The whole post is worth a read, but I like Glenn Greenwald’s views about Sen. Orrin Hatch:
This seems to be an accurate summary of the evolution of Sen. Hatch’s views of constitutional law:
(1) The Congress has the right to restrict the President’s eavesdropping activities, and to make certain eavesdropping activities a criminal offense punishable by up to five years in prison.
(2) Therefore, Hatch votes several times for FISA.
(3) Every President since then complies with the law — including President Reagan and Bush 41 during the height of the Cold War – and no Administration or member of Congress challenge its constitutionality.
(4) George Bush gets caught violating FISA by engaging in the precise eavesdropping which FISA criminalizes.
(5) Hatch says that the Leader did nothing wrong because the law which the Leader violated — the same one Hatch voted to enact and to amend repeatedly — is unconstitutional.
As Greenwald points out, Hatch is now arguing that censure of a President is unconstitutional, although he was all for it when Clinton was President.
I had a debate with someone right-winger once, in which he insisted that the constitutionality of certain laws is determined by all three branches of government — not exclusively the Supreme Court. Hatch’s back-and-forth stance on what is (and isn’t constitutional) points precisely to the flaw in that argument: Congressmen fall to the whim of politics and will change their views on "constitutionality" to suit the political winds. An independent judiciary however, will not.
No, this isn’t a belated April Fool’s Day Joke.
PBS "Joy of Painting" host and walking sleeping pill, Bob Ross, is planning to make a video game based on — well — Bob Ross.
Now, a painting program I can understand. But a video game?
Maybe you score points based on the number of "happy trees" that you make. Or something.
UPDATE: In the comments, Brett correctly points out that Bob Ross died in 1995 (of lymphoma, as it turns out). But his incorporated incarnation apparently lives on.
Just down the road from me in Waynesville (NC):
Investigators shut down a sadomasochistic dungeon where they say, its owners illegally performed castrations. . . .
It’s not just castrations. Detectives tell us the trio who lived in the house above the dungeon also performed other operations for men including replacing certain private parts or completely removing them.
Don’t let the Easter decorations on this beautiful mountain home in Waynesville, North Carolina fool you. What the Sheriff says he found in the boxed up carport was hopping with illegal activity. Inside- medical supplies like scalpels, IV’s, sutures, local anesthesia and fake and real private parts in jars.
Why does all the really sick and weird stuff happen in the Bible Belt?
Researchers have discovered . . . wait for it . . . that eating vegetables results in more weight-loss than a high meat, high carb diet.
The researchers are apparently fully-tenured scientists at the "No Shit" Institute.
"The mission was to insulate the president. It was about making it appear that he wasn’t in the know."
That’s a quote from a Bush administration official. What’s he talking about?
He’s talking about how Karl Rove, President Bush’s chief political adviser, cautioned other White House aides in the summer of 2003 that Bush’s 2004 re-election prospects would be severely damaged if it was publicly disclosed that he had been personally warned that a key rationale for going to war had been challenged within the administration.
This whole Kallogian/Downtown Baghdad photo thing just keeps getting funnier and funnier.
Let’s recap:
(1) On his website several months ago, Candidate for Congress Howard Kallogian tells how he "just got back" from Iraq, and despite what the media says, it is very peaceful there. To make his point, he posts a picture of a street in "downtown Baghdad", which does indeed look peaceful.
(2) Except his picture is from a street in Istanbul, Turkey.
(3) Having been busted, he replaces the Istanbul picture with another picture. This time the photo is Downtown Baghdad . . . from half a mile away . . . taken safely from a guarded hotel in the Green Zone (thus belying the argument that downtown Baghdad is really safe).
(4) AND the new photo isn’t even recent. It’s from July 2005, and some of the building in it have since been bombed to rubble!
Jesus’ General spoofs.
