The WMD lies were made up, and the Bush administration knew it in mid-year 2000, and deliberately hid the knowledge and locked their source up so he could not talk until their highly profitable little war and fleecing of the American taxpayer was well underway.

Evil, pure fucking evil. May they all die and rot in hell, and by “they” I mean George W Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, Richard Perle, and Karl Rove. They are all complicit in the worst crimes of humanity.

One of my friends aptly calls the whole fiasco horseshit… and he’s correct… but I think it is manufactured horseshit.

I don’t think people are really all that offended by any new house of worship, or religiously sponsored community centers… I think this is a very carefully targeted and manufactured wedge issue meant to simultaneously depress mainstream American voters so they have lower voter turnout numbers this November 2nd while exciting the lunatic fringe haters so they are encouraged to vote because they are angry about something.

If everyone votes, it completely diffuses this sort of insanity.

Just like many other manufactured distractions, the facts don’t support the claims and assertions of the talking heads.

It’s not a mosque. It’s not that close to the former world trade center. Sufis (the sponsors for this community center) are generally not terrorists. Americans largely don’t really care in any case. Most of the blowhards talking loudest about this have the least facts (which is typical also for these manufactured wedge issues). Move on America… and remember to vote in November, when you don’t vote you let the most politically motivated on all sides have their say unchallenged. Be the voice of moderation and speak your mind.

Update: turns out I am not the only one who finds all this hoopla suspect, a friend pointed this out: Salon article “How the “ground zero mosque” fear mongering began”

Update 2: on a more humorous note: Outrage Over Plans To Build Library Next To Sarah Palin

Larry Lessig gives a brilliant presentation on exactly why this change has been so bad for our democracy, and why we, all of us, need to stand up and speak out together to get our democracy back on track.

As much as I am glad the blatant corruption of the neocons is out of power, we must take responsibility and encourage the current administration not to be corrupted by the power of their offices. We must challenge President Obama to repair our nation and get back to the Jeffersonian ideals of “by the people and for the people” by dismantling the economy of influence that money buys.

Hat tip to Mark Blacknell.

Seems like giant advertising FAIL to me….

Here is an explanation in case you missed the whole thing on your way to file your tax returns:
http://savetherich.com/

Hat tip to Mark for pointing out the link. Thanks Mark.

The United States of America is not, and never has been a theocracy. We cannot allow that to happen. Faith is not faith if it is the only choice. For people to be free to have faith, they also need to be free to have no faith or a different faith. Without that freedom, it is not faith at all.

Huge hat tip to The Group News Blog (in honor of the amazing Steve Gilliard). Very interesting reading on a regular basis.

• Sharon Bulova
• Patrick Herrity
• Carey Campbell
• Christopher DeCarlo

Your ballot will be:

• Charniele Herring (D)
• Joe Murray (R)

Blue Commonwealth has a map of the district in case you are not sure. The district trends Democratic by a very wide margin, but in a special election for just one local seat the turnout is likely to be abysmally low and the Republicans have a pretty good shot at an upset win here. Please vote if you are in the district.

There is a second special election for all of Fairfax County to elect a new Chairman of the Board of Supervisors. This one is scheduled for February 3rd, and turnout should be a little better. According to the Fairfax county board of elections, the ballot will look like:

• Sharon Bulova
• Patrick Herrity
• Carey Campbell
• Christopher DeCarlo

One of the more amusing aspects of this race is that Patrick Herrity (a Republican McCain supporter) is running as far away from his Republican identity as he can. His signs are in green and white and yellow, and his message has been all about change. In a local election, party affiliation will not be on the ballot; but it’s pretty clear that the Democrats are mostly backing Sharon Bulova and the Republicans are mostly backing Pat Herrity. I could not find a campaign website for either of the other two candidates; and it appears to be a two way race despite four names being on the ballot.

Get out and vote if you are in these local areas.

Here is Obama’s explanation:

Simple link for those who don’t get embedded videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syIEoSIJHis

I am beginning to form a new theory about it, not necessarily one I agree with on timing, but I suspect that Obama is concerned about those Americans who cannot think for themselves, and there are millions of them. If Warren speaks in the same public forum as Obama and many others, and pulls his usual sociopathic ass-hattery, then perhaps some of those Americans will see for themselves Rick Warren’s message of hate and cherry-picking of scripture. Perhaps by shining a bright light on the contrasting messages in full public view we can get some decent public discussion going about these people who preach hate. Obama might be sending the message that we all need to start pulling our own weight. We supporters need to actively combat ignorance and stupidity, and not remain passive to the aggressive onslaught of hate-mongers in America.

Full Disclosure: I actually own a copy of Warren’s book “The Purpose Driven Life”, given to me by a very confused brother one year after he discovered I was Buddhist. The brother is still very lost and confused and thinks I am damned. The book is horrible beyond belief, but I keep it to remind me how messed up huge portions of our country’s people are and how easily they can be misled.

This is tantamount to a free will argument. The religious argument goes, why would God give mankind the power to chose unless that choice is an important one. By that argument Christians must choose to have Jesus in their life. Likewise, citizens should have the power to choose life for the right reasons, but they need to be free to make that choice for moral, ethical, social, and religious reasons.

Abortions can be stopped, if we eliminate unwanted pregnancies. We must stop rapes, incest, unsafe sex, and foolish abstinence-only sex education (abstinence has a place, amongst other choices, but relying on it alone is just silly). We must improve health care for young and poor mothers so having a child is not a career crippling event. That is the right way to prevent abortions, and I think Americans are waking up to that fact.

Like prohibition, making abortions illegal is an ineffective technique to achieve a worthy goal. People need to be free to choose to do the right thing, or the wrong one; and we need to make it possible to do the right thing by supporting them. The key word in “choose life” is the choice. Obama sees that, and will effectively prevent far more abortions than our stacked supreme court.