by Brian Burns

It’s difficult to stimulate our nation’s economy when most of what our leaders collect from our earnings is immediately sent to foreign nations. One might think that investing in our nation, the $700 billion that the Bush Administration has spent so far in the Middle East, could have had a positive effect on our rotting job market, our failing health care, and our overly packed public schools. Maybe it would help to reinvest some of the war-money in private sector incentives to remedy our headache over energy costs, and our insatiable desire for alternative fuels. One would hope that eight years in office would buy the time needed to enact any pro-American policy, but domestic policy was seemingly another one of those things George W. Bush forgot back at the ranch.

It has been eight years of arguably the worst policy making in the history of our country, and the American ignorance towards that fact is astounding. Even though the majority of Americans have accepted that Bush’s presidential run was as close to an utter failure as anyone could imagine, the desire to rid ourselves of an administration whose partisan politics, corporatist policies, and self-serving ideals was seemingly short lived. Now, with presidential hopeful John McCain gaining enough support to where he is running a close race against a man whose campaign slogan includes the word “change”, it’s apparent that a great number of Americans would choose to forego changing our country’s policies for the better, and simply find happiness in knowing the name Bush is no longer carrying the tag ‘Commander in Chief’.

With regard to America’s economic situation, it seems that we’re stuck floating slowly downward like a feather in an abyss. Last Tuesday, the Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, gave us the forecast in which we were told we would be continuing our descent right around the time our president announced that our economy is stable. This is important to note because John McCain agrees with the president’s assessment, and his campaign co-chairman went so far as to call Americans a “nation of whiners” who were stuck in a “mental recession”. They listen to Wall Street, and their economic advisors who believe that our degenerating housing market has already hit the bottom, and say that it will undoubtedly take a u-turn. They use the logic behind economics that shows how bad can actually be good. They say that our plummet to the housing market floor will bring out those who want to buy homes at rock-bottom prices. Consequently, the housing market will reverse itself and will once again grow strong. Their logic only works when employment opportunities are strong, however, since it takes a steady income to maintain the cost of owning a home. But with our job market being dragged down by our failing economy, and the misguided trust in free-trade policies, it seems our economists are either reporting their aspirations, or have lost the ability to think beyond step 1 in the process of coming to a realistic conclusion when thinking through a problem. Though both are things we should be used to after listening to the predictions from the Republicans over the past eight years.

We were told that our troops would be celebrated as liberators, and that they would be greeted with roses in Baghdad, while we were pointing out step 2 in the process of thinking that showed what happened to Russia when they tried occupying a Middle East nation. We were told Bush’s tax cuts would stimulate the economy, while we again pointed to step 2 which clearly shows that his Republican predecessors, both Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr., helped drive our economy further into recessions with tax cuts. We were told NAFTA and CAFTA are beneficial for Americans, but once again, that pesky step 2 is showing that the federal government has regulations enacted that make it more expensive for foreign companies to operate here than in nations where they can setup shop without providing healthcare benefits, a safe work environment, and where they can pay the worker a pittance in comparison. Therefore, their prediction that there would be as much insourcing as there is outsourcing seems to be one dream through which John McCain seems to still be sleeping.

The problem Americans now face is who to choose to hasten the upswing. Barack Obama chants, “Change,” while John McCain claims he’s the “Best to lead since day one.” And though it appears McCain wants to continue upon the same trail from which Bush is preparing to flee, his supporters are coming out of the Kudzu in droves. The citizens are feeling the pressure from the cost of living, and are aware that it’s one of the few things on the rise. They’ve lost sight of our children’s education as it fell from their view of the price at the gas pump. They’ve forgotten about our troops in the Middle East because they can’t take their eyes off the price stamped on a milk jug. John McCain is fully aware of this and so he is doing what most Republicans do during their presidential campaigns - they avoid talking about their policy and scare the American public by threatening that their opponent in the donkey costume will raise their taxes. Judging by the numbers of supporters McCain has managed to recruit, the scare tactic apparently works well. 

John McCain’s plan on spending trillions of dollars in an attempt at occupying Iraq, for what he said could be a hundred years, is a wad of spit in the eyes of Americans who want the war to end and for our troops to return home safely. It’s an upturned middle finger aimed at the faces of us who want to reinvest our earnings into bettering our own country, and who can read where step 2 tells that the best method of securing our nation is not by trying to eliminate everyone who opposes our views. And like his predecessor, McCain has no plan on how to go about occupying Iraq. He avoids telling us that the money could only come from raising taxes, or by borrowing from foreign nations like the $150 billion loan Bush took from China. While we lose jobs, and watch the economy break beneath our feet, they spend our money building walls in Baghdad in their efforts to keep the local Muslim factions separated from each other. We’re led to believe that we’re giving them freedom, but creating tiny enclaves and setting up Baghdad to look like Algernon’s maze is hardly the blueprint for a free land.

It’s apparent the Republicans are back to their old selves - those who refuse to think their way through to step 2. If they read further to where it says that ending the war in Iraq would help our economy a great deal, even if it means the corporations backing the war having to lose out on hundreds of millions in annual profit, they might see that John McCain’s ‘tax and spend on foreign nations’ policy has no way of helping to regrow our economy. If they were to find a true sense of patriotism, unlike those they hang from flagpoles or stick to their bumpers, they might find that it’s best to vote for the candidate who is not wearing the elephant costume, but for the donkey-guy who at least wants to end the war and reinvest that money and our tax dollars into our own nation.

Rock Port, Missouri celebrated becoming the first town being fully powered by the wind. With 4 wind turbines erected on farmland, the town of 1,300 residents will be able to receive 16 million killowatt hours of electricity annually. Since they currently only use 13 million killowatt hours they will be able to sell what they don’t use to the Missouri Joint Municipal Utilities to be used elsewhere. This bodes well for the agricultural community, for farmland usually carries high property taxes in comparison to the income from the yield produced. Now the residents will see additional income, as they can lease a portion of their land to wind-energy developers such as the St. Louis based Wind Capital Group, who currently leases land in Rock Port for their 4 turbines.

Jim Crawford, a natural resource engineer at the University of Missouri Extension, stated that “Anybody who is currently using Rock Port utilities can expect no increase in rates for the next 15 to 20 years.” With 20 years being the lifespan of a wind turbine the residents would then have to have them replaced, but with recycling technology gaining ground in the field of heavy machinery, the cost could be substantially less for turbines 20 years from now.

Oddly enough even more income is coming by way of tourism, since the town has noticed an influx of “outsiders” funnelling in to catch a glimpse of the spectacle in their fields.

by Brian Burns

For many years now Evangelicals in America have been positioning themselves inside of Washington D.C., and have twisted the definition of the First Amendment to our Constitution to mean something that it never has. The First Amendment in our Bill of Rights states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” Evangelicals take this to mean they have the right to erect religious icons in our government buildings and public spaces, and completely miss the mark when they claim our nation is a “Christian nation”. The fact behind their matter is faith-based, and it has grown to where the ‘wall of separation between church and state’, the true essence of the First Amendment, is being torn down before our eyes by those who have either sworn, or are preparing themselves to swear to uphold the Constitution of the United States.

The ‘wall of separation’ between church and secular affairs was first introduced to us by a Christian preacher in colonial Massachusetts named Roger Williams. As a Separatist from the Church of England, Williams was steadfast in his faith, but the Puritanical version he practiced was at odds with England’s state-sanctioned Anglican religion, and so he set sail for Boston. After turning down the offer to replace a minister in an “unseparated” church, he accepted one offered by his fellow Puritans in Salem. Salem, however, was under the jurisdiction of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and the Boston authorities stopped Williams from settling there. Instead, he moved on to Plymouth Colony, where he was more than welcomed by the citizens to lead the teachings in their church, as they too were Puritans who held Separatist views akin to those of Williams. Though still under the rule of England, the colonists considered their New World as one that was removed from their native lands, and many wanted it to be regarded as an independent state. They wanted to enact their own laws, and wanted to be able to worship without being scrutinized by the Church of England. In general, they were seeking religious freedom, and Williams preached their sentiments loudly.

Roger Williams was enthusiastic when he saw that the American colonies were booming with religious variations from across Europe. He saw it as somewhat of a refuge for ‘Separatists’ around the world, and was happy to find that it wasn’t only his people seeking freedom from religious persecution. He noticed that people led moral lives regardless of their faith, accepted all good people, and soon after Williams even befriended the local pagan tribes of Native Americans. Williams believed in religious freedom for not only the sect of Puritans that had come to populate Massachusetts, but for all people in general, and he spoke of it during his sermons.

Although Williams soon found that those who desired religious freedom from the Church of England were no more accepting of the notion of religious freedom than that which they fled, for after only two short years he was forced from the church and back to Salem. There he lived as the assistant to the pastor in their church, before taking over his predecessor’s position after the pastor died just a year after. Salem, however, did not take kindly to Williams’ sermons, in which he preached the acceptance of people with opposing beliefs, and was soon after brought up on charges of spreading “diverse, new, and dangerous opinions”. Both the lawmakers and his own Puritanical people thought it would be best if he were excommunicated to England, and so Williams went into exile.

A year later, in 1636, Williams along with some of his followers settled in a section of land southwest of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and called it Providence. Soon after, Williams saw the area flourishing with those who had escaped persecution in the new colonies, and founded the Colony of Rhode Island. It was the first colony that made civil issues a matter of majority rule, but gave acceptance and equality to all religious and non-religious people, and by 1639 Baptists, Quakers, Puritans, Huguenots, and even Jews had established congregations in Providence and its neighboring territories. Scattered amongst them were Atheists who had no gods guiding their morals, but Williams saw that they were ethical people with their own opinions on religious matters, and was happy to treat them as equals. In 1640 Williams wrote in his ‘The Bloudy Tenet of Persecution’, “No man shall be required to worship or maintain a worship against his will.”

In his fervent battle for the ‘freedom of religion’ Williams wrote many treatises on why the cities and towns of the New World needed to be open to what he referred to as varying “opinions” of spirituality. He recognized the morality of individuals who held opposing views on religion, and later in his life would write, “God requirth not an uniformity of religion to be enacted and enforced in any civil state; which enforced uniformity (sooner or later) is the greatest occasion of civil wars. . . . It is the will and command of God that . . . a permission of the most Paganish, Jewish, Turkish, or Anti-Christian consciences and worships be granted to all men in all nations and countries.”

As the Puritans in Massachusetts were hanging Quakers, and taxing 100 pounds to each ship carrying Quakers onto shore, Roger Williams was planting the seeds of his vision of a melting-pot of free people. He saw the persecution that takes place when governments have preferred or “official” religions, and the dangers in closed-mindedness toward matters of opinion. He saw the dangers in governments that involve themselves in religious affairs of the populace, and he saw the same dangers in religions that involve themselves in politics. In 1644 Williams wrote, “When they (the Church) have opened a gap in the hedge or wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world, God hath ever broke down the wall itself, removed the Candlestick, etc., and made His Garden a wilderness as it is this day. And that therefore if He will ever please to restore His garden and Paradise again, it must of necessity be walled in peculiarly unto Himself from the world, and all that be saved out of the world are to be transplanted out of the wilderness of the World.” This was the inspiration for what Thomas Jefferson would later call “The wall of separation between church and state.”

This ‘wall’ – the notion of government affairs being kept out of religion and vice versa, was imperative for the assembling of a free country, as it was imperative to have the freedom to worship as each citizen saw fit. It was never intended to become a nation where only certain sects of Christianity were free to worship. Nor was it ever intended to be a land where only god-fearing people are free to live and practice their beliefs. America never had a state sanctioned religion because this nation was born from those who sought the freedom to worship away from state sanctioned religions, and by those who desired the freedom to not worship any god at all. The very first amendment to our Constitution, this being on the fore-front of the minds of our Founding Fathers, gives everyone the right to live freely in America without having to be burdened by the dogma of a lone religious sect. America is an Atheist nation as much as it is a Jewish nation, as much as it is a Christian nation, and as much as it is a nation of pagans that are our Native American Indians.

A century after Williams’ death, our nation’s Founding Fathers drafted the Constitution of the United States of America, and shortly thereafter the first ten amendments to the Constitution known as the Bill of Rights. The man responsible for authoring both bills, appropriately known as the ‘Father of the Constitution’ and the ‘Father of the Bill of Rights’, was James Madison, our nation’s fourth president. He was also known as Thomas Jefferson’s protégé, and worked by his side in drafting and passing into law ‘The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom’. In the first section of the document Jefferson expounds on various points including two points influential in Madison’s First Amendment rights. Jefferson wrote, “The coercion of a person to make contributions—especially monetary—to a religion he doesn’t support is tyrannical and creates favoritism among ministers,” and, “Civil rights do not depend on religious beliefs, and what a person thinks is no business of the government.” In the second section Jefferson wrote, “…no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.” Given this history it is without a doubt that Madison had the explicit intention of erecting a wall between church and state in our Bill of Rights that the Founding Fathers signed into law.

Today’s Evangelicals understandably fear their lives being without purpose, and their entire belief system being nullified as gains in evolutionary-science march forth. Many fear the thought of not having an after-life, and the nothingness that life becomes when we as an organism die off. They fear the loneliness that could accompany ‘being without god’, and the autonomy they would be left with. They fear not having the comfort they feel from their spiritual protection, and the safety of the omnipresence watching over them. They see the social-society in America running amok from the civil chastity that comforts them. They see our children becoming more open with their sexuality, and more independent with their thoughts, and they fear its contagiousness. They fear their children growing up being influenced by the hypotheses of scientific experiments because it is killing their notion of gods, and would gladly smother space exploration for the further we reach to the stars the further their heaven fades. And as they grow, and their lives become more orderly, they find safety in believing their god has ultimate control over the situation, and believing it would never let the situation get too far out of hand. But what they fail to see is that humanity is moral by nature, not by bibles and scripture.

As stated earlier, the fact of their matter is faith-based, and faith is an individual viewpoint. The faith one has religiously might be identical to another’s at the apex of the subject, but when broken down into particulars their views could differ greatly. If a Christian and a Hindu were asked if they believe in the presence of an omnipotent being their answers would be identical. However, once the particulars of their individual views of omnipotent beings came into light we would see vast differences, to when we could conclude that they hold opposing beliefs. Even in Christianity alone, where according to the World Christian Encyclopedia there are over 33,000 sects worldwide, this act of breaking the matter down into particulars is what is ultimately responsible for the formation of the multitude of sects. It is the multitude of sects that proves that Christians alone do not have an answer of what their god truly wants, for if they did there would be uniformity, and so they’re left with faith in their beliefs; they are left with their opinions. It is the recognition of religion being solely opinion-based that led to the religious freedom clause in our First Amendment. The Founding Fathers realized that every sect believes they ‘know’ what their god wants, but since they all provide different answers they only ‘know’ what they believe to be true. Nevertheless, the Evangelicals wage their war on the Constitution because it doesn’t mix well with their vision of American culture. They want their religion erected in every government building and in every town square they choose. They believe it is their right.

It comes at these times – the twilight of sectarian power backed by prejudice and fear, when we see the births of historical religious wars, and inquisitions. We see today’s Evangelicals manipulating their way into our nation’s government through what seems to be a large hole in the wall of separation between church and state. They believe we should rewrite the Constitution to “reflect god’s laws”. However, the inspiration of Roger Williams and those who wrote all three of our Charters of Freedom, are the only ‘divine spirits’ which back our nation’s First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America.

In September 2010 NASA’s Space Shuttle Program will be closing down, and its three remaining ships put to rest. The maiden launch of Columbia in 1981 brought fame to the shuttles as being the first re-usable space vehicles. Since, we’ve seen two tragic missions when in 1986 Challenger exploded soon after launching, and again in 2003 when Columbia was destroyed upon re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere. 14 astronauts lost their lives in the two missions combined, and NASA has now decided to scrap the program so they could focus on the construction of the International Space Station.

The three remaining ships, Endeavor, Atlantis, and Discovery, have been successful in 85 missions so far, and will have upped the tally to 95 by the closing of the program. With the final mission scheduled for launch in May 2010, Endeavor will be headlining as it will take critical supplies to the International Space Station before passing off the wand to their successor-ships in the Constellation Program, including Orion and Ares.

To many of us, the program’s initial launching of Columbia was as awe-inspiring as Neil Armstrong’s ”giant leap for mankind” was to our parents, and watching them retire will most likely produce some sentiment similar to what my father felt toward the death of the Studebaker. 

“Floodlit in the hazy distance
The star of this unearthly show
Venting vapours, like the breath
Of a sleeping white dragon”
- Neil Peart

With a heap of issues to talk about, the G8 leaders are proving their annual summit is a waste of jet fuel and travel expenses. In what could be an annual meeting through video-conferencing, the leaders would rather spend their people’s money to gather for 3 days to bicker and cut business deals.

President Bush, a lone trooper on the issue of war, played out his usual childishness when he told the world that he will not help cut back on global pollution unless China and India agree to do the same. And as the job market in the U.S. continues to shrink he reiterated his belief that the only way to help the impoverished in the world is through free trade agreements.

Though he was able to boost the value of a buck by speaking highly of the world’s need of a strong dollar, the boost was less than one-hundredth of a cent against the Euro. And though he spoke out against the situation in Zimbabwe, calling Robert Mugabe’s election a “sham,” he is pushing for India to accelerate their nuclear development program, without signing anti-proliferation agreements, to where it can be in full swing before Bush leaves office.

With more issues yet to talk about, like the inflated cost of food and oil and the loss of wildlife and the environment, it appears that the G8 leaders are taking care of business the hard way. When they could be at home prioritizing their seemingly screwed up policies and taking action, they instead waste more time and money with words. Of course, that is assuming that government leaders can do more than setup walls of red tape and botch the processes in addressing global concerns.

Click here to read how mixed up the gene pool could be in the evolution toward a One World Government.

It is difficult for us to imagine the desperation one must experience before taking their own life. Even those who have had someone close to them commit suicide, we often hear them speaking rather dumbfoundedly about the matter, with themselves questioning, and rather clueless to the depth of their loved one’s state of depression. Though we see the numbers of suicides in our own country add up every day, it is still a very foreign matter to us, because most of us simply cannot imagine that life could ever be that bad.

When news of ’suicide bombers’ first became widespread during the Iraq invasion we were astounded. Many Americans couldn’t believe the enemy would sink so low as to use their own lives as weaponry in their attack on western forces. Others couldn’t believe how little they valued their lives. To the rest of us who thought beyond the act of ’suicide bombing’, we realized that having been promised the riches of an afterlife in the realm of Allah the value they placed on their current lives was minimal in comparison. The truth is that none of these female suicide bombers are angrilly strapping bombs to themselves and running into the public-square to blow up unwanted foreigners, as much as they are doing it because they are severely depressed individuals, whose life beyond that of the present is much more promising.

The women in rural areas of Iraq, who have lost their loved ones to either imprisonment or that have been killed find themselves in such deep depression they become easilly preyed upon by the men trying to expel the western forces from their country. Because of their lack of rights in certain regions, they often feel as if they have no hope left in this life, and so are willing to take their own lives to help gain access into their holy afterlife.

Click here to read about the motivations of suicide bombers, and why their lives were already over before ever committing the heinous act.

There has been a lot of talk recently about our involvement in the war in the Middle East and which of our candidates would be best in handling it. Yesterday the media launched news that the American voters actually prefer John McCain over Barack Obama on this issue, stating that he has more experience than Obama because of time served in the military. The question the pollsters should be asking is, ‘Which candidate will be best at pouring our earnings and our troops into a foreign nation?’ It’s basically the same question with only the semantics being changed.

At the start of this year citizen support for ending the war and bringing our family members home from the Middle East was overwhelming. In fact, McCain’s Achilles’ heel grew from his unabated support for the war, and his plans to occupy Iraq for “maybe a hundred years.” John McCain believes America’s troops belong in Iraq because of what he calls a “generally accepted policy of America’s multilateralism.” By “generally” he could only mean by those who believe we have a right to invade sovereign nations, and forcibly change their government to one that will act as we say. Multilateralism comes best by way of diplomacy, not by bombs and subversion. The plan to occupy Iraq for as long as we say is a unilateral decision. Iraq’s newly birthed version of a parliament has already expressed their want for our troops to leave, as they feel our presence is only bringing out more sympathizers to the opposition, as more of the innocent civilians are harmed or killed there. We know the insurgency is mostly made up of Iraqi citizens and not members of terrorist cells, and with every stray bullet we fire, and with every accidental bombing of a neighborhood, we create more ‘freedom fighters’ against McCain’s ‘multilateralism’. At the start of this year we Americans had to suddenly change focus.

It was realized that with all our leaders’ focus being poured into the health and welfare of foreign nations, there was mold and mildew growing on the walls in our own home, though it wasn’t recognized until it was too late. Now we find ourselves stuck in the bathroom with rubber gloves pulled up to our elbows and wearing masks to keep from inhaling the stench the Bush Administration is leaving behind. Our housing market may repair itself, but only if the job market booms again, and with McCain’s idea that NAFTA and CAFTA are great because it allows for our corporations to leave our country, providing less jobs for Americans, it appears we may surpass our record of over one million homes on the foreclosure list in no time. Our dollar has tanked in the world economy, falling below the Canadian Loonie, and we are borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars from China to continue paying for the Iraqi occupation. It was reported that a good portion of that money went to paying off Muqtada al Sadr for a ceasefire. Our children are watching their education funding flushed, and over a million of them are without any health insurance. Without touching on our energy or environmental issues, it is already obvious that John McCain has an idea but no way to see it through to fruition.

Now is a time for our media moguls to invest in the nation which grants them the freedom to do the job they love most. Instead of lobbing loaded questions, and influencing our populous to vote for more anti-patriotic policies, they need to realize that the Bush Administration stunk up the bathroom so much that it may just take one hundred years before we can breathe again. We need to close it down and have it sterilized before we should let McCain sit in there, since his plan is to stink it up for another hundred years. Instead of asking which candidate loves our flag the most, maybe the question the pollsters should ask is which candidate’s policies will best help America.

By Brian A. Burns

It appears James Dobson is telling all Christians that the Old Testament, the book in which his views of our universe’s origin is shown, is nothing more than outdated gibberish that can be tossed aside. He and Tom Minnery, senior vice president for government and public policy at Dobson’s ‘Focus on the Family’, accused Barack Obama of distorting the message of Jesus, as Obama, in a 2006 speech to a Christian group, used references from the Old Testament which Dobson considers no longer apply since the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament trump the old. “I think he’s deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology,” Dobson said. Although, we have to wonder whose view is truly distorted, Obama’s or Dobson’s.

If the Bible is to be taken seriously Christians must view it as “the infallible word of God.” If they consider it as being written by humans, and may be edited at will, then we can easily chalk it up as nothing more than a book of ancient folklore with some moral homilies that fail to rival Aesop’s Fables, and do away with the entire thing. By ignoring certain passages that are stated as originating from their god’s own voice, which in essence is ignoring their god, then one can easily ignore the entire book. Most Christians would agree that they cannot simply ignore their god. After all, Jesus was the human incarnation of their god. To ignore their god would be to ignore Jesus, and I’m sure James Dobson would have a problem with that.

One portion of the Old Testament brought up by Obama in his speech, something the truly faithful must consider, is taken from Leviticus, where the Judeo-Christian god claims that slavery is perfectly acceptable. In Leviticus 25:44 the Judeo-Christian god states, “Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves.” 25:45 - “You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property.” These are the words from James Dobson’s god, but he doesn’t want to admit it. Instead, he wants to do away with it, and seemingly the rest of the Old Testament which is the foundation for the religion he so vehemently defends as being ‘truth’.

It was best said that Christianity is the ‘delicatessen-religion’ because modern Christians tend to ignore the words from their god that they don’t approve of while happily accepting the rest as ‘truth’. And if their god was timeless, as they like to believe, then it would have known that slavery is immoral and an abhorrent injustice to humanity 2000 years ago as it is today. Without the Old Testament there is no New Testament, for without the tales of the coming of a messiah there’s no Jesus the messiah, but only Jesus the human. Without the Old Testament there is no Moses, and without him they are without their Ten Commandments. Without the Old Testament there is no Christian god.

But how can a person be truly devout when their God says one thing but then sends himself down as a human to say the opposite? Is a Christian supposed to follow the words of their god as the spirit, or their god as Jesus? When the god said, “…an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,” which was later stricken by Jesus who commanded that his followers turn the other cheek, it told all that their god as a spirit was fallible, and his word ephemeral. The message rings even louder today as all of what was written then comes from a time of socially-third-world cultures, whose ideas of morality pale in comparison to those of modern times. The god as Jesus was a great man, I’m sure. He said that we should treat others in the way we would like others to treat us, but only in a much different Farsi tongue. It’s unfortunate that James Dobson cannot live up to this lesson, as he has influenced thousands to vote for a Republican backed war time and time again.

So it appears that Barack Obama has it more accurately than James Dobson. In light of Obama’s question which sparked Dobson’s gas, “Which sect’s version of Christianity should be taught in our schools?” it is best answered with ‘none’. With over 33,000 different sects of Christians across the globe it is apparent that there are many unknowingly confused people. If the religion had any merit there would not be so many divisions. There would be uniformity because people would understand the expectations of their god. If it had a god backing it, it would have come down centuries ago to straighten things out for his followers. It would’ve told them exactly what portion of its words they could ignore, and what they needed to follow. While it was here, I’m sure it would’ve stopped the Inquisitions, the Crusades, Hernando Cortez, Adolph Hitler (yes, he too was a Christian), and made a special visit to send George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to the gallows. While it was here it would’ve turned the tides of compassionless behavior, and rooted it deeply into those who speak out in its name, and crushed those who beat them down. I’m sure most Christians in Darfur and along the Sahel are wondering where their god is right now. I would suggest asking James Dobson, but it appears as if he has distorted the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology.

Ralph Nader announced yesterday that he’ll be filing petitions for nomination, again drilling the spike into the hearts of the presidential candidates looking to grab up every vote they can. The long time Green Party candidate has jumped onboard the Independent train this time around, hoping a more moderate stance may work to bring in the votes he could never yield in past elections. Considered the thorn in the hoof of the Democrats’ donkey, Nader’s past campaigns have snatched up presidential votes the Democratic nominee would ordinarilly get from the left-leaning Green Party constituents.

The move is indeed a wise one for Nader who has been fighting to expand the party playing field for decades. The number of registered Independents has grown rapidly over the past 8 years, as the American populace has become more politically involved, and the voters have grown disgusted with the Republican and Democrat parties and their inability to lead our country toward a positive light. With the current disdain many Republicans feel toward John McCain, along with the Democrats and their inability to spark change, and many on the left who are long-time Nader supporters, there’s a good chance he can provide a tremendous setback for both McCain and Barack Obama.

Could he, however, provide the flame to ignite the bomb U.S. politics is sitting on at the moment? With the current ‘W’orthless Administration on their way out, the scene is ripe for an upwelling of change, and many politically active citizens have grown disheartened with only having two major parties in which to support. Could he take the lead in the fastest growing party and legitimize it to when we’ll see Independent candidates take a multitude of congressional seats? One thing is for sure, Democrats are happy to see him jump to a party where he’ll be stealing from the Republicans as much he will steal from their own.

By Brian A. Burns

John Freshwater’s heinous act of branding a cross on the arm of his middle-school student in Mount Vernon, Ohio should not be very shocking to us. Though it brought much media attention, as “shock stories” tend to do, the thought of an uncompassionate Christian willfully harming others seems to be all too common these days. From the child molestation problems in the Catholic church, to the war in Iraq - brought to you by the likes of the Christian Coalition, Focus on the Family, and all of those “holier than thou” that continue supporting the slaughtering of innocent civilians by voting for their favorite Republican war-monger. Those who consider themselves “compassionate Christians” are often the most violent offenders of human rights. They enact laws against the freedom to choose how we want to live, and die. They uphold the law that forces a person to suffer a tortuous death until their affliction consumes them, without having the option of shutting off the device and being left to die in peace. With that said, we can take the news of John Freshwater as just another drop in the bucket. Although, from the very same occurrance in Mount Vernon, Ohio, we were given the gift of insight to the true intentions of those who fear science - those who simply write off our entire universe as an “intelligent design”.

It was during the heat of the Mount Vernon moment; when the vans congregated and the reporters and their crews raced like rats to the cheese. The cheese they came across was the friend of the ’science teacher’, Dave Daubenmire. Daubenmire was intelligent enough to understand that it was wrong for Freshwater to burn a cross on to his student’s arm. But he muttered his support for the other heinous act Freshwater was committing - teaching his science class that the Judeo-Christian God is the reason for our universe, and that science cannot be trusted. Daubenmire told us all what ID supporters have been trying to tell us all along, “I believe John Freshwater is teaching the values of the parents in the Mount Vernon school district.” In fact, Freshwater was doing just that - using his job as a science teacher to teach against science.

The reason so many citizens, religious and non-religious, are up in arms against teaching Intelligent Design in the science classes of our public schools is due to the fact that there is no science in the belief of gods. The study of omnipotent beings would fall under the social studies category where it is already taught as mythology. The study of Intelligent Design could be taught as “Flash, and it was there!” and it would be the shortest and most hollow of all courses, but with great reading from the origins of fiction. Of course, many religious folks would be offended at their views of their universe being cast aside as mythology, but so too are the scientists who devote their lives to their work which is then mangled and fed to our children as being false simply because some of us don’t want to believe in the facts of science.

John Freshwater was being paid with our tax dollars to teach our children the updated information coming from our community of scientists and researchers. He was not being paid to teach “the values of the parents in the Mount Vernon school district”. Classes in values are being taught at the local church, mosque, synagogue, and temple - or better yet, values are taught at home. And it is most important to note that in the case of Evangelical Christians there are quite a few ‘values’ that are being completely overlooked. Two of which are Honesty and Integrity.

There is no honesty behind teaching children that the Earth is 10,000 years old, that carbon dating is inaccurate, and the factual information coming from evolutionists is false. And there certainly is no integrity behind stealing the information and tagging it with “God was here.” The more evolutionists learn by way of testing the more Christians steal by way of fear and prejudice. They take all that is given and sum it up with two words - intelligent design, and sadly enough, they’re the only side in the battle who feel the need to place finality on the beliefs of our origins. Evolutionists aren’t telling the public that there isn’t a god as much they are telling us what their observations and experiments prove. If their findings further negate the presence of a god then it should only be seen as a byproduct of the hypothesis as opposed to it being the intentions behind the experiment. Evolutionists aren’t looking to disprove gods, but only to discover where everything ultimately came from.

Babu Ranganathan, a Christian writer from Bob Jones University, is one of the people so angry at the hypotheses of scientific experimentation that he’s gone to war against reality and factual information, only to retain the selfish belief that his god can be the only answer. He took the belief that life on Mars might’ve originated there after being blasted into outer space from Earth being impacted by comets, and turned that to mean that the Judeo-Christian god is responsible. An obvious question would be, “Why wouldn’t God just form life on Mars, as opposed to relying on blasting it there from Earth?” But the science behind the belief was never intended to prove a god’s existence or inexistence. It was only noted from Kenneth Nealson of the NASA Astrobiology Institute, “We think there’s about 7 million tons of Earth soil sitting on Mars.” This news was sweet-music to Mr. Ranganathan, as now he had a biblical answer for the day scientists possibly announce the discovery of Martian microbes.

The textbook for Biological studies at Bob Jones University is titled Biology for Christian Schools. It is truly not a resource on biological studies for the simple fact that on the first page it is quoted, “If [scientific] conclusions contradict the Word of God, the conclusions are wrong, no matter how many scientific facts may appear to back them.” It also states, “Christians must disregard [scientific hypotheses or theories] that contradict the Bible.” Instead the book is only a guide on how to turn a blind eye to progressive mentality, and factual information.

So the next time you hear one of our politicians wondering why there’s an absence of scientifically minded indivduals graduating from our nation’s high schools, you can blame those who openly steal the subject and drape it in vestments. As the 9/11 hijackers snuck into our flight-schools to learn how to use our jets against us, so too the John Freshwaters and Babu Ranganathans have invaded the realm of science only to hijack facts and wage war against the education of our children.