Religion

Recycled Content Fridays: Al-Hurra

September 18, 2009 by Bitch PhD

Other bloggers do it, don't they? But this is even better, because I'm going to use content you probably haven't actually seen before. Via Matthew Yglesias' , I find this Washington Post commentary which briefly notes that Tom Dine, director of AIPAC, is lobbying for American-owned Arabic-language media outfit Al-Hurra. Al-Hurra launched in 2004, designed to be an antidote to the propagandistic Al-Jazeera, which I'm sure you've all heard of by now and which no one had heard of in 2001. I wrote about Al-Hurra and Al-Jazeera for a long-defunct blog, back in early 2005, and when I read the WaPo piece I managed to go back and find what I'd written. As it turns out, it's actually pretty good, so I thought I'd give you a taste for what I was writing back when I was still a tadpole law student. These days, Al-Hurra is even more of a joke than it was then, as aptly demonstrated by Dine's lobbying gig.

Hummingbird Mind: My son Kevin, the climber

September 17, 2009 by hummingbirdminds

To commemorate ADD/ADHD Awareness Week (Sept. 14-18), I offer this essay, "We Are Distracted," which in a slightly different form appeared in the 1996 book In Short: A Collection of Brief Creative Nonfiction, W.W. Norton, edited by Judith Kitchen and Mary Paumier Jones.)

I. WE ARE DISTRACTED

We are distracted by the agility of my eight-year-old son Kevin as he clambers up the slick granite rock formation near Rocky Mountain National Park. He is fifty feet above us; we are a bit frightened by the risks he takes, the way he clings like a human fly to the sides of the rock. We all look up and watch one of Kevin's handholds become a fingerhold and just when it's about to become a no-hold, he pushes off the rock with his feet, leaps a three-foot gap between spires, and wraps his arms tightly around the precious purchase he has made with this part of the Rockies.

Tuesday, September 22nd, 7-9pm

September 8, 2009 by yanquimike

It's official. IMAS will hold its first seminar on how to get legal residency in Argentina.

The fine folks at areatres have donated facilities and Expat Connection is promoting to their followers too.

There aren't too many other topics higher-up on the list for people that have come to Buenos Aires for more than a short stay. This first of many planned workshops on DNI and getting legal will be conducted by Argentine immigration lawyer, Solange Veron, and will concentrate on "do-it-yourselfers" but should be pretty damned helpful to those are doing it with a lawyer or are thinking about it.

Thanks, Sarah Palin

August 14, 2009 by natchezblog

Thanks to the blatant lies told by Sarah Palin (as outlined in my previous post) America's senior citizens are now going to have one less benefit. Palin's "death panels" lie has been spread around the country and has been picked up by some other Republicans who really should know better.

Thank heavens some Republicans are still acting honorably. For example, Alaska's senior Senator, Republican Lisa Murkowski, said this week that Palin and other critics were not helping the GOP by throwing out false claims.

"Quite honestly, I'm so offended at that terminology, because it absolutely isn't" (in the bill). "There is no reason to gin up fear in the American public by saying things that are not included in the bill."

No matter how many news organizations or members of Congress say it isn't true, those rabble rousers at the town hall meetings keep saying it. Finally, Senator Charles Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said his Committee would drop the provision from consideration. Sarah Palin - you are so powerful!

Pickering "Affair" Is Getting Really Creepy

July 21, 2009 by natchezblog

The Pickering lawsuit was first broken by Ipse Blogit, who has done an outstanding job of following through on what was an initial piece of good luck. As I read more about the case, I became intrigued with "C Street" - the place where Pickering lived while in Congress.

Initially, it seemed C Street was a place where like minded Congressmen shared a residence - no big deal. Then it came out they were all Christians. Aside from the hypocrisy of family values Christians committing adultery, still no big deal.

Then it was revealed that C Street was in fact legally a church and tax exempt. Hmmm - the tax payers are paying for these politicians to have a place to stay? Didn't seem right to me.

But it gets worse - much worse. C Street is owned by a group called The Family - a secret religious organization whose goal is to control the world. Now they've got my attention! Who are these guys?