10 - You vigorously deny the existence of thousands of gods claimed by other religions, but feel outraged when someone denies the existence of yours.
9 - You feel insulted and "dehumanized" when scientists say that people evolved from other life forms, but you have no problem with the Biblical claim that we were created from dirt.
8 - You laugh at polytheists, but you have no problem believing in a Triune God.
7 - Your face turns purple when you hear of the "atrocities" attributed to Allah, but you don't even flinch when hearing about how God/Jehovah slaughtered all the babies of Egypt in "Exodus" and ordered the elimination of entire ethnic groups in "Joshua" including women, children, and trees!
6 - You laugh at Hindu beliefs that deify humans, and Greek claims about gods sleeping with women, but you have no problem believing that the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, who then gave birth to a man-god who got killed, came back to life and then ascended into the sky.
5 - You are willing to spend your life looking for little loopholes in the scientifically established age of Earth (few billion years), but you find nothing wrong with believing dates recorded by Bronze Age tribesmen sitting in their tents and guessing that Earth is a few generations old.
4 - You believe that the entire population of this planet with the exception of those who share your beliefs -- though excluding those in all rival sects - will spend Eternity in an infinite Hell of Suffering. And yet consider your religion the most "tolerant" and "loving."
3 - While modern science, history, geology, biology, and physics have failed to convince you otherwise, some idiot rolling around on the floor speaking in "tongues" may be all the evidence you need to "prove" Christianity.
2 - You define 0.01% as a "high success rate" when it comes to answered prayers. You consider that to be evidence that prayer works. And you think that the remaining 99.99% FAILURE was simply the will of God.
1 - You actually know a lot less than many atheists and agnostics do about the Bible, Christianity, and church history - but still call yourself a Christian.
ADD: When you vote for the Republican Party because in your narrow world view, you think the abortion issue and gay issue are the most important issues for the humanity beyond the poverty issue, the environmental issue and thousands of innocent lives who have died in Iraq war.
Tae Athikomvittaya
posted by sagicaprio at
7:46 PM
8 comments
Never before has Bush admitted his mistakes. Finally, this President allows the buck to stop at him when he apologized to the whole country for his turtle speed response to the Katrina disaster.
It’s been five years that this President has no single apology to the American people for his mistakes because in his strong conviction, he believes that he has never committed any of them in his Presidency. When he was interviewed last year before the Presidential Election to name the mistakes that he had done during his first term Presidency, he said he could not think of one.
Apparently, he does not think the 9/11 catastrophe was his mistake when his administration was overwhelmed by the evidence of Al Qaeda’s plan to attack the
He is a strong and unapologetic leader.
The Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal caused the
Then Katrina hit the
It takes hundreds of lives, more than 100 billion of dollars and his sinking poll number to make Bush admit his mistakes.
Tae Athikomvittaya
posted by sagicaprio at
1:29 PM
5 comments
Since the Mega Million jackpot climbs up to $100 million, I and my friends have become regular customers to the lottery store. Now it hits $250 million! We have been constantly talking about what we will do if we hit the jackpot. I don’t buy a lot, just 2 bucks each time. It is just for fun and for having something to look forward to on Tuesday and Friday night.
Even though statically a chance of hitting the jackpot is much less than hitting by the thunderbolt, and most of the time, the one who hit the jackpot always live in other states besides New York, we are still talking like one of us will hit this super grand prize.
We have already planned if one of us hit the jackpot, we will rent the whole cruise ship, then we will invite all friends to have the around the world cruise with us. I plan for the route. We will go from here, to
When we talked about it, we all looked happy and our eyes were twinkling.
However, the next morning we all go back to work our ass off as the reality is biting. No cruise ship but the boring office, no beautiful boys and girls but miserable boss, no jackpot but the weekly paycheck, no great food but McDonald around the corner.
But I think this kind of dream is fun. It might sound silly but at least it makes us laugh when we talk about it. I guess we all have to sing a song “Dream”. But dream and hope is exchangeable. Like someone say, “The poorest man is not without a cent, but without a dream”.
Tae Athikomvittaya
posted by sagicaprio at
11:47 PM
3 comments
Last night my friend invited me to the thank you party that was held by the gay candidate- Brian Ellner for Borough President for
My friend’s boyfriend worked as a diligent secretary to Mr. Ellner for the whole campaign. It was tough, in particular, because he is gay. He ended up at the third among nine candidates. “That’s not bad at all,” I told my friend’s friend. Without any endorsement from any unions or groups and as a no-name candidate to start with, I think this campaign is successful.
“At least,” I continued, “this is a process of building the name recognition to the New Yorkers. Yes, it’s disappointing but nothing to be ashamed of. It is a big step to show the people that gay people are visible and they need an equal protection under the law.” However, I think it would be a fool if we just keep bringing up the gay issue. There are many issues in
I think we need to prove that gay candidate can do plenty of things to the city.
The conversation went. My friend’s friend complained that gay people did not vote for gay candidates. I told him I thought it was not necessary that gay men had to vote for the gay candidates. It’s not mandatory. I guess it’s crucial how the candidate show the voters that he is capable of developing the city and has a sound policy. To win the election, we need more straight voters as much as we need gay voters.
I really like the atmosphere last night. Perhaps, I love politics so much that I felt so connected. I mean it did not have to be a gay candidate; any candidates would do it for me as well. I love when Mr. Ellner gave a speech at the end. He did not keep talking about gay issue but all the important issues that need to be addressed.
I hope he will not give up.
I think we need to support those gay candidates to step out and insert themselves to the politics. We need to allow the public to know that we are visible, and we want to make the society better by supporting the equal rights, addressing the poverty, taking care of senior citizens and protecting the environment.
Being a gay candidate is not easy. People seem to be reluctant to endorse him/her. But the good news is we have more and more openly gay representatives in the Congress and the local politics. We need to prove our ability to advance our society and stand on our conviction of equal rights to everybody no matter what their sexual orientation, color of skin or social statuses are.
We need money to support these candidates. We need the genuine candidates who will not betray us like those Log Cabins who are closing their eyes, turning off their ears and allowing the Republican to strip whatever rights we have until we are naked.
posted by sagicaprio at
12:53 AM
2 comments
Ok, I know I have been writing about Katrina a lot lately. But I cannot resist to put this article in my blog. It's such a great piece of article applying the great theory of free market and the invincible hand to the catastrophe in New Orleans. It gives another perspective to how the free market killed New Orleans.
The free market played a crucial role in the destruction of New Orleans and the death of thousands of its residents.
By Michael Parenti
Republished from ZNet / ZMag.org
Forewarned that a momentous (force 5) hurricane was going to hit that city and surrounding areas, what did officials do? They played the free market.
They announced that everyone should evacuate. Everyone was expected to devise their own way out of the disaster area by private means, just like people do when disaster hits free-market Third World countries.
It is a beautiful thing this free market in which every individual pursues his or her own personal interests and thereby effects an optimal outcome for the entire society. Thus does the invisible hand work its wonders in mysterious ways.
In New Orleans there would be none of the collectivistic regimented evacuation as occurred in Cuba. When an especially powerful hurricane hit that island in 2004, the Castro government, abetted by neighborhood citizen committees and local Communist party cadres, evacuated 1.5 million people, more than 10 percent of the country’s population. The Cubans lost 20,000 homes to that hurricane—-but not a single life was lost, a heartening feat that went largely unmentioned in the U.S. press.
On Day One of the disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina, it was already clear that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Americans had perished in New Orleans. Many people had “refused” to evacuate, media reporters explained, because they were just plain “stubborn.”
It was not until Day Three that the relatively affluent telecasters began to realize that tens of thousands of people had failed to flee because they had nowhere to go and no means of getting there. With hardly any cash at hand or no motor vehicle to call their own, they had to sit tight and hope for the best. In the end, the free market did not work so well for them.
Many of these people were low-income African Americans, along with fewer numbers of poor whites. It should be remembered that most of them had jobs before Katrina’s lethal visit. That’s what most poor people do in this country: they work, usually quite hard at dismally paying jobs, sometimes more than one job at a time. They are poor not because they’re lazy but because they have a hard time surviving on poverty wages while burdened by high prices, high rents, and regressive taxes.
The free market played a role in other ways. Bush’s agenda is to cut government services to the bone and make people rely on the private sector for the things they might need. So he sliced $71.2 million from the budget of the New Orleans Corps of Engineers, a 44 percent reduction. Plans to fortify New Orleans levees and upgrade the system of pumping out water had to be shelved.
Army Corps of Engineer personnel had started work to build new levees several years ago but many of them were taken off such projects and sent to Iraq. In addition, the president cut $30 million in flood control appropriations.
Bush took to the airways (“Good Morning America” 1 September 2005) and said “I don’t think anyone anticipated that breach of the levees.” Just another untruth tumbling from his lips. The catastrophic flooding of New Orleans had been foreseen by storm experts, engineers, Louisiana journalists and state officials, and even some federal agencies. All sorts of people had been predicting disaster for years, pointing to the danger of rising water levels and the need to strengthen the levees and pumps, and fortify the entire coastland.
In their campaign to starve out the public sector, the Bushite reactionaries also allowed developers to drain vast areas of wetlands. Again, that old invisible hand of the free market would take care of things. The developers, pursuing their own private profit, would devise outcomes that would benefit us all.
But wetlands served as a natural absorbent and barrier between New Orleans and the storms riding in from across the sea. And for some years now, the wetlands have been disappearing at a frightening pace on the Gulf‘ coast. All this was of no concern to the reactionaries in the White House.
As for the rescue operation, the free-marketeers like to say that relief to the more unfortunate among us should be left to private charity. It was a favorite preachment of President Ronald Reagan that “private charity can do the job.” And for the first few days that indeed seemed to be the policy with the disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina.
The federal government was nowhere in sight but the Red Cross went into action. Its message: “Don’t send food or blankets; send money.” The Salvation Army also began to muster up its aging troops. Meanwhile Pat Robertson and the Christian Broadcasting Network—<>taking a moment off from God’s work of pushing John Roberts nomination to the Supreme Court—called for donations and announced “Operation Blessing” which consisted of a highly-publicized but totally inadequate shipment of canned goods and bibles.
By Day Three even the myopic media began to realize the immense failure of the rescue operation. People were dying because relief had not arrived. The authorities seemed more concerned with the looting than with rescuing people, more concerned with “crowd control,” which consisted of corralling thousands into barren open lots devoid of decent shelter, and not allowing them to leave.
Questions arose that the free market seem incapable of answering: Who was in charge of the rescue operation? Why so few helicopters and just a scattering of Coast Guard rescuers? Why did it take helicopters five hours to lift six people out of one hospital? When would the rescue operation gather some steam? Where were the feds? The state troopers? The National Guard? Where were the buses and trucks? the shelters and portable toilets? The medical supplies and water?
And where was Homeland Security? What has Homeland Security done with the $33.8 billions allocated to it in fiscal 2005? By Day Four, almost all the major media were reporting that the federal government’s response was “a national disgrace.” Meanwhile George Bush finally made his photo-op appearance in a few well-chosen disaster areas—-before romping off to play golf.
In a moment of delicious (and perhaps mischievous) irony, offers of foreign aid were tendered by France, Germany, Venezuela, and several other nations. Russia offered to send two plane loads of food and other materials for the victims. Cuba-<>which has a record of sending doctors to dozens of countries, including a thankful Sri Lanka during the tsunami disaster—offered 1,100 doctors. Predictably, all these proposals were sharply declined by the U.S. State Department.
America the Beautiful and Powerful, America the Supreme Rescuer and World Leader, America the Purveyor of Global Prosperity could not accept foreign aid from others. That would be a most deflating and insulting role reversal. Were the French looking for another punch in the nose? Were the Cubans up to their old subversive tricks?
Besides, to have accepted foreign aid would have been to admit the truth—-that the Bushite reactionaries had neither the desire nor the decency to provide for ordinary citizens, not even those in the most extreme straits.
I recently heard someone complain, “Bush is trying to save the world when he can’t even take care of his own people here at home.” Not quite true. He certainly does take very good care of his own people, that tiny fraction of one percent, the superrich. It’s just that the working people of New Orleans do not number among them.
Michael Parenti’s recent books include Superpatriotism (City Lights) and The Assassination of Julius Caesar (New Press), both available in paperback. His forthcoming The Culture Struggle (Seven Stories Press) will be published in the fall. For more information visit: www.michaelparenti.org.
posted by sagicaprio at
8:02 AM
1 comments
Being harshly criticized from both sides of the aisles and watching his approval rating sinking faster than the Titanic, finally Bush has let go the Chief of FEMA- Michael D. Brown.
Earlier this month, Bush said Brown had been doing “a heck of job” managing the disaster in the
I guess Bush’s tactic of ignoring criticisms and sticking with his people do not work anymore. Bush bows to the pressure from both parties by letting Brown go. Brown is the first victim in his 5 years reign.
I guess his new tactic is to cut any wounded organs to save his life that is struggling for air.
Tae Athikomvittaya
posted by sagicaprio at
3:20 PM
4 comments
Luckily, it happens during the day time. I cannot imagine if this incident happened in the night for an hour in summer. People in L.A would freak out. The traffic that is already bad would get worse. It reminds me of the blackout in
I am not sure if the L.A residents are as freaky as the media. Apparently, CNN has aired this new more than an hour now. I know it’s quite a big deal when it happens in a big city like
Yes, I am as freaky as CNN because I have been constantly watching this news. Gotta go work out now.
posted by sagicaprio at
2:29 PM
3 comments
Dear Mr. President
Yesterday was the first time that your No.2- Mr. Cheney visited the catastrophic area after the hurricane Katrina has hit the gulf coast states for more than two weeks.
Now the death toll is expected to hit 10,000 people. Most are blacks and poor. This is not about race and social status. Of course. But I cannot help but believe that if those unfortunate victims were whites or rich, the treatment or the response might be faster.
You are always out of touch of the reality. You went on the National TV and praised the former FEMA director that he did a heck of a job. Then after your ears were bombarded with all complains from both aisles, you said the FEMA’s response was unacceptable. You never admit any mistakes. Your administration and the Republican in the Congress are calling anyone who criticizing your inefficient response to this tragedy as a bipartisan hack or the opportunist.
Of course, it’s not your fault. You appointed someone who had no experience of managing emergency to head FEMA. Your former FEMA director- Michael D. Brown was a former commission of the International Arabian Horse Association. His credential is a joke. He lies about everything from his school to work experiences. This is why when this tragedy happened, he did not know how to respond or make any decisions.
All of your A team staff, including you were on vacations even though you were warned that Katrina was not a joke but it’s real and likely to destroy the Gulf States. Your Chief of Staff- Andy Card was in
You said no one expected the
The government has no money to spend on crucial projects because you have spent most of it in the war that you have created. With non-sense anti-terrorism policy, tax money is wasted in some states like
Moreover, with your generous tax cut, the rich get richer, the poor get poorer. The federal government, state government and the local government budget are cut. As a result, those essential projects like enhancing the levees are cut as well.
With you and your Republican friends are taking control of the federal government, all pork are distributed to all powerful politicians. You never say enough is enough because the government is broke. You allow them to divert that money to build bridges and tunnels that go nowhere. Money is not used in the most efficient way. The more important project budget will be cut if they do not serve their constituents.
Right now 55 countries are offering help. Today the developing country like
It’s time to re-evaluate your leadership Mr.President.
Tae Athikomvittaya
posted by sagicaprio at
1:49 AM
5 comments
