NARAL (National Ass Rash Abortionist Libtards) airing a new bullshit ad on Roberts
Mood:  silly
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

New Ad Says 'too Much at Stake' to Allow Roberts on High Court

Details of a television ad released Friday by the liberal interest group NARAL Pro-Choice America against President Bush's Supreme Court nominee, John G. Roberts:

TITLE: "Rights."
LENGTH: 30 seconds.

AIRING: Nationally on cable channel CNN. Local cable programming in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia.

SCRIPT: Announcer: "Privacy. Equality. The right to choose. Fundamental freedoms Americans have cherished for generations. But John Roberts dismisses one of our established liberties as the so-called right to privacy and co-wrote a brief arguing that Roe v Wade should be overruled. Roberts' legal record raises questions on whether he accepts the right to privacy. There's just too much at stake to let John Roberts become a decisive vote on the Supreme Court."

KEY IMAGES: Pictures of smiling families with an American flag in the background; quotes from Roberts' memo, court briefs and a USA Today editorial quote with the Supreme Court building in the background; John Roberts speaking at a lectern.

ANALYSIS: NARAL Pro-Choice America is using this ad to replace one it pulled earlier after criticism that it was inaccurate and unfair. It uses a phrase from John Roberts' released memos, the quote "so-called right to privacy," to try and prove that he would be anti-abortion if confirmed to the Supreme Court. It also points out that he co-authored a government brief submitted to the Supreme Court that said Roe v. Wade was incorrectly decided. Its images of smiling people and an American flag in the background are markedly different from NARAL's previous Roberts commercial, which featured a bombed Alabama abortion clinic and a woman who was injured in that bombing. That commercial brought immediate criticism of NARAL, even from abortion rights supporters. NARAL leader Nancy Keenan says instead of debating the original commercial, the new ad "keeps the public debate focused on the threats that he poses to our freedom."

On the Net: Pro-Roberts Progress for America

And: NARAL Pro-Choice America
(National Ass Rash Abortionist Libtards)

Tampa Bay Online ~ Associated Press - Jesse Holland ** New Ad Says 'too Much at Stake' to Allow Roberts on High Court

Split: Leftists say Dems worse than GOP
Mood:  chatty
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

The key problem with the Dems today is their reliance upon special interests which do not reflect the values and priorities of the people. The party is funded and bullied by abortion loving, anti-American, socialist tree huggers and it leaves the majority of Dems scratching their heads. Here is a perfect example. The Iraq war has been a disaster for the Dems because it pulls the bandage off the war wound. Most Dems want the U.S. to take an active defense posture, reflective of our superpower status and unique role as godfather of democracy and capitalism.

The Democrats, however, are beholden to powerful 'pacifist' movement. These people see the U.S. as an evil patriarchal society and do not trust us to commit any military actions. In fact, their love for the U.N. is more about balancing American power than promoting global cooperation.

This fruitcake didn't go past half the column before he links one of his bullshit opinions from marxists.org

DIRECT FROM THE PEACENIK PACIFIST WHACKO LIBTARD SITE...

Iraq: The Democrats Are Just As Bad
If not worse than the Republicans

Terry Michael, the founder-director of the Washington Center for Politics and Journalism, bemoans "nondebate" over the Iraq war that takes place in the "mainstream" media:

"The most influential interpreters of our public affairs are accepting, rather than expanding, a noose-tight frame the Washington political culture is enforcing to limit permissible discourse on the war in Iraq?. Look at almost any major daily op-ed page, watch the Sunday shows or listen to nightly cable-babble. See how seldom you encounter voices against the war permitted to argue we should just end it, not try to mend it."

As former press secretary for the Democratic National Committee, however, Michael ought to be fully aware of just how and why this sad state of affairs persists even as the rationale for our continued presence in Iraq collapses. The reason is because practically everything is presented and discussed in partisan terms, i.e., in terms of the never-ending conflict between Democrats and Republicans, and the reality is that the Democrats are just as hawkish ? albeit in a "multilateralist" way ? as the GOP. In a perceptive piece published in The Nation, Ari Berman described the views of "the strategic class" that dominates the Democratic party's foreign policy councils:

"At a time when the American people are turning against the Iraq War and favor a withdrawal of U.S. troops, and British and American leaders are publicly discussing a partial pullback, the leading Democratic presidential candidates for '08 are unapologetic war hawks. Nearly 60 percent of Americans now oppose the war, according to recent polling. Sixty-three percent want U.S. troops brought home within the next year. Yet a recent National Journal 'insiders poll' found that a similar margin of Democratic members of Congress reject setting any timetable. The possibility that America's military presence in Iraq may be doing more harm than good is considered beyond the pale of 'sophisticated' debate."

The war-hawk mentality of these "national security Democrats" trickles down the "pyramid" of power from the apex, where party leaders like Senators Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton dwell. The former criticizes the administration's war policy from the right, and the latter has a bill in the hopper increasing the size of the army by 80,000 soldiers. On the second level, we have former government officials like Richard Holbrooke, one of the main architects of Bill Clinton's Kosovo adventure. Holbrooke, a key adviser to John Kerry, was instrumental in blocking any hints of antiwar sentiment from coming out of the Democratic side during the last presidential election. As Berman points out:

"Nine days before the election, Holbrooke addressed the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and reiterated Kerry's support for the war and occupation, belittled European negotiations with Iran on its nuclear program and endorsed the Israeli separation wall. 'Hardly a Dove Among Dems' Brain Trusters,' read a headline from the Forward newspaper."

A third level of the pyramid is the pundit class, which retails the "talking points" developed by the think tanks and the policy wonks: The New Republic's Peter Beinart, whose articulation of a left-neocon approach to the "war on terrorism" was presented in his "A Fighting Faith" piece, is the exemplar of this subspecies of hawk. This slender, squeaky-voiced ephebe waxing passionate over the alleged necessity of a "muscular" foreign policy may seem slightly comic to the average television viewer, but Washington insiders ? who recognize TNR as the voice of the Democratic establishment and the "left" face of the War Party ? take him seriously. Here is someone who was wrong about everything ? not only about Iraq's alleged "weapons of mass destruction," but also about Saddam's intentions and the "threat" posed by his regime. Beinart ignored numerous warnings from war opponents that the aftermath of the war was likely to be a costly chaos, yet still he persists in offering his warmed-over Cold War nostrums as if they had any credibility! Don't these people know when to shut up?

Berman asks "Why does so much of the Democratic strategic class march in lockstep?" but fails to come up with any real answers. "Insularity," "careerism," and "the absence of institutional alternatives" are all listed as contributing factors, but these are just different ways of re-asking the same question: Why is the assumption of interventionism dominant in Washington's foreign policy discourse?

Contra Berman, there is a "simple answer," and it is the natural tendency of the Washington elites to assume the efficacy of government action as the solution to all problems. The "strategic class" is founded, after all, on the premise that the U.S. must intervene ? militarily and otherwise ? in the affairs of other nations in order to secure its own "national interests." The question isn't whether or not to intervene, but what strategy ought to underpin our intervention.

Aside from this inherent prejudice in favor of militarism, albeit of the "multi-lateralist" sort, the Democrats in particular have a tendency to be hawkish on account of their constant search for rationales to increase the power of government on the home front. What better way to serve the Democratic agenda of increased government spending and "national sacrifice" as a good in and of itself than to take the nation to war ? and keep it at war? Listen to Will Marshall, chief theoretician over at the Progressive Policy Institute, the think tank most associated with the "centrist" (i.e., left-neocon) Democratic Leadership Council, touting the virtues of "national service and shared sacrifice":

"True patriotism is at odds with the selfish individualism that shapes the Republicans' anti-government ideology. It means accepting obligations to the community to which we all belong and must contribute if we are to enjoy the fruits of membership. In wartime, not everyone can fight, but everyone can find ways to sacrifice for the common cause. Bush has sent U.S. troops into battle, but he hasn't challenged the rest of us to do our part."

Here is the perfect amalgam of warmongering and left-wing statism, which any neocon could easily endorse with hardly a deviation in word choice. Yet there is a leftish slant to PPI's creed of "shared sacrifice," which mandates a program of full-bodied militarism, as specifically enumerated by Marshall:

"Democrats ought to insist on a major expansion of the military, by as many as 100,000 troops. Some of these troops should be channeled into the post-conflict and nation-building specialties that we have been chronically short of in Iraq: linguists, special forces, psychological operations, civil affairs, and economic reconstruction. Rather than add to Bush's budget deficits, however, Democrats should insist on paying for a larger force by rolling back the administration's unconscionable wartime tax cuts. This would neatly frame the real choice facing patriotic Americans: a stronger military versus tax cuts for the privileged."

One hundred thousand more troops ? for what? To implement the social engineering schemes of collectivist commissars more dangerous, in their way, than the old Soviet variety.

We need plenty of linguists to translate Washington's edicts into all the languages known to man, we need "special forces" to carry out the war crimes that make our military "victories" possible, and don't forget those "psychological operations" that involve systematically deceiving not only the world community but our own people, always an essential component of propaganda in wartime. This is "progressivism" set to military music. A tax cut? Fuggeddaboutit! Don't you know there's a war on?

The Bush Doctrine, as interpreted by its more effusive adherents ? including the president ? has little to do with securing the homeland against terrorist attacks, except in the most attenuated sense. Americans rightfully feel less safe from further attacks as a result of the Iraq war, and, since the London terror bombings, no one believes we are fighting them in the streets of Baghdad so we won't have to fight them in the cities of the West. As expressed in the president's infamous "fire in the mind" inaugural address, it is a militant universalism that animates American foreign policy these days, and the Democrats' only criticism is that the president's actions don't always live up to the highfalutin "idealism" of his words. Our interventionist foreign policy, which mandates a perpetual crusade to spread "democracy" and solve all the world's problems before even confronting our own, is armed altruism run amuck.

Yes, it is "selfish individualism" that opposes a materially and morally untenable doctrine unleashed by this rotten war ? which is precisely why antiwar sentiment is rising among Republicans as well as Democrats. It's true that the Democratic base is against the war, but how much of this is due to Bush-hating and how much to principled opposition to a conflict that adheres to none of the necessities attached to a just war? The pure partisanship of some war opponents is indicated by this post by one of the founders and "leaders" of DailyKos.com, the "netroots" of the Democratic party machine:

"I'm not anti-war. As I've said before, I'm a military hawk. I supported the Afghanistan War and I supported the Bosnia and Kosovo interventions. I'm not one of these touchy-feely hippy types that thinks war is inherently bad. I laugh at people who think they can 'visualize peace.'

"Unlike most people reading this, I grew up in a country at war. I've seen the effects first-hand. I also served in the Army. To me war isn't a video game or an abstract concept. It's real. Yet sometimes, many times, military force is a force for good. There are evil people in the world, doing evil things. And all the sanctions in the world, all the strongly worded denunciations, will never have the effect of a 1,000 pound bomb.

"I oppose the Iraq War. But I refuse to be labeled 'anti-war.' I'm not. I'm anti this war. Why? Because I'm a war pragmatist. I understand the costs of war, but I also understand the potential benefits."

So Markos Moulitsas Z?niga grew up in a country at war ? so what? If he liked it so much, why doesn't he go back there?

Yeah, he served in the Army ? the same Army that trained and equipped the death squads that tortured his own people, in an illegal war that was run by some of the same neocons who are now turning Iraq into a pile of bloodstained rubble. Is it really necessary to point this out?

Spare me the "war pragmatism" of Se?or Z?niga. He supported the rape of Yugoslavia ? a country that had never attacked us, represented no threat to us, and that we bombed without bothering to go to the UN. The very same people who swallowed the war propaganda of the Clintonites ? all of it subsequently exposed as grotesque lies ? are now howling that they were bamboozled into war by the Bushies. Well, isn't that just too fucking bad?! These people can dish it out, but they sure can't take it.

Oh, they don't like "this war," do they? How, then, do they differentiate this particular war of "liberation" from all the others undertaken in the post-Cold War era by those benevolent hegemons in Washington? Saddam Hussein was merely a Middle Eastern version of Slobodan Milosevic, right down to the quasi-fascistic official state ideology, the blustering Mussolini-esque buffoonery, and the brittle weakness of his politico-military apparatus when push came to shove. Serbia's lack of proximity to Israel may account for the absence of charges that Slobo was harboring "weapons of mass destruction," but that is the only difference I can think of.

When I ran against Rep. Nancy Pelosi in 1996, challenging her to justify the Balkan intervention, she answered: "Genocide!" Her bug eyes practically popped out of her head as she said it, even though there was zero evidence to back it up ? and the myth has since been thoroughly debunked. However, Saddam's crimes against the Iraqi people are far less dubiously sourced than the claims of "mass murder" lodged against the Serbians, yet somehow these are successfully ignored by Z?niga.

The Democratic opponents of the Iraq war are, all too often, motivated more by hatred of Bush and the Republicans than by any real, substantive position against an aggressive and immoral foreign policy. Not that hatred doesn't have its uses: but as long as their stance is confined to opposing only Republican wars, the willingness and ability of the Democrats to oppose this war effectively is severely limited. "War pragmatism" will not stop the war, nor is it very practical. As long as the debate is carried on in purely partisan terms, the American people will tune it out ? because there will be no debate, only a tired reiteration of "talking points" that don't diverge in terms of fundamentals.

I don't mean to denigrate those grassroots Democrats who sincerely oppose the war and want to see U.S. troops withdraw as soon as possible. I mean only to warn them against their party leaders, all of whom are ideologically committed to interventionism abroad as well as at home. Perhaps one day they will ask how it is that the majority of Americans can oppose this war, and still the leaders of both "major" parties and the peoples' alleged representatives in Congress continue to pour lives and treasure into the Iraqi charnel house. The answer could spark a revolution.

The widely noted divide between the Democratic leadership and the party's base on the war is bound to lead to an internecine contretemps, but in going into battle, the antiwar grassroots had better understand who and what they are up against. They won't win with "war pragmatism" or by aping the militaristic posturing of the Republicans: they can win, however, with a principled opposition to interventionism, and a healthy (and very American) suspicion of the exercise of state power, especially in the international arena. Not pacifism but skepticism in the face of Republican hubris and the neocons' overweening arrogance: these are the keys to a Democratic victory.

They need less Bidens, and more Fulbrights: we need to see less of Nancy Pelosi, and more of Iraq war veteran (and antiwar Democrat) Paul Hackett. Forget Hillary: no pro-war candidate can beat the Republicans, especially if war skeptic Chuck Hagel somehow gets the nod.

Hey, what about a Vacaville housewife who lost her son in the neocons' war, and whose face is by now far more familiar to most Americans than John Kerry's ever was? Luckily for the Republicans, they wouldn't dare ? or would they?

If I were an antiwar Democrat, I'd trust Cindy over Hillary in a minute, on strategic as well as ideological grounds. Unlike Mrs. Clinton, Mrs. Sheehan could just possibly give Bush a run for his money if an election were held today, what with his rapidly sinking poll numbers and the growing unpopularity of the war ? the point being that the Democratic party has so far failed to fill the leadership gap and show the country a way out of this quagmire.

So much for the self-correcting mechanisms of democratic governance that supposedly keep elites from running off on their own. This time the Washington insiders have gotten so far ahead of themselves, and the rest of the country, that the illusion of "democracy" is dangerously close to being completely debunked. We are rapidly approaching the point where it will only take one incident, perhaps a relatively minor one, to spark a social explosion from that will make our republic reel.

The party of Thomas Jefferson, the anti-elitist, anti-royalist libertarian party known as the Democrats has a long and distinguished tradition of opposition to foreign wars. From the Sage of Monticello's opposition to a standing army to the antiwar activism of Eugene McCarthy, the Democrats have always had a strong noninterventionist populist impulse to contend with. Whether or not it finally manages to take ? or rather, retake ? the party leadership is an open question. Unless a self-conscious antiwar movement develops within the party, however, and finds some real leaders, the Democrats will remain what they are today ? the left wing of the War Party.

Antiwar.com ~ Justin Raimondo ** Iraq: The Democrats Are Just As Bad

Former CIA, military men call for assasination of Chavez
Mood:  chatty
Topic: Yahoo Chat Stuff

Like the man says 'after 9/11 you dont get to threaten us'.

CIA, Military Men Agree with Pat Robertson

While televangelist Pat Robertson has apologized for suggesting that Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez be assassinated, a former military man and an ex-CIA operative have stepped forward to say that his concerns about Chavez aren't exactly unwarranted.

"Chavez is a dangerous guy," retired Col. David Hunt told Bill Bennett's "Morning in America" fill-in host Steve Malzberg on Wednesday. "We helped to elect the son of a gun [and] after 9/11 you don't get to threaten us."

The issue of assassination "should be on the table," Hunt said. "I'm suggesting that we use it as a tool . . . to get those guys nervous."

Former CIA operative Wayne Simmons agreed, telling Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes," that Chavez has "threatened not only the United States and the west, but [has]armed himself with the revolutionary armed forces of Colombia, which is the oldest, most well-trained terrorist organization in Latin America."

"He should have been killed a long time ago," Simmons said.

News Max.com ~ Steve Malzberg ** CIA, Military Men Agree with Pat Robertson

Majority of Dems support more Nuke power
Mood:  surprised
Topic: Yahoo Chat Stuff

Support for nuclear power which took a beating by enviros, anti-industrialists and people who don't read science books is soaring. A strong majority of Americans support building more nuclear power plants, but most interesting is that a slim majority of Dems support more plants. This represents a big wedge between the party special interests and the voters.

Poll: Support for Nuclear Power Soars

By a more than 2-to-1 margin, Americans now back the development of nuclear power as an alternative to increasingly expensive energy sources like oil.

The latest Rasmussen survey finds that 55 percent now want the U.S. to move towards nuclear energy, with just 24 percent opposed.

That's a dramatic jump from just last month, when the margin supporting the nuclear option was 44 to 35 percent.

Sixty-four percent say that developing new sources of energy must be a priority in any long term solution to the energy crisis, with a mere 26 percent saying energy conservation should play a leading role.

Even Democrats, who have traditionally backed environmentalists who oppose nuclear power, now support going nuclear - 52 to 26 percent.

Republicans back building new nuclear plants by more than a 3-to-1 margin, 63 to 18 percent.

News Max.com ~ Carl Limbacher ** Poll: Support for Nuclear Power Soars

Hillary's March for Women
Mood:  cheeky
Topic: Funny Stuff

George Stephanopoulos Urged Foreign Assassination... OF SADDAM HUSSEIN
Mood:  chatty
Topic: Yahoo Chat Stuff

Stephanopoulos Urged Foreign Assassination

Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson prompted a firestorm of media outrage on Tuesday after he suggested that the Bush administration should assassinate a foreign leader who posed a threat to the U.S. - in this case, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

But when senior Clinton advisor George Stephanopoulos publicly argued for the same kind of assassination policy in 1997, the press voiced no objection at all.

Fresh from his influential White House post, Stephanopoulos devoted an entire column in Newsweek to the topic of whether the U.S. should take out Saddam Hussein.
His headline? "Why We Should Kill Saddam."

"Assassination may be Clinton's best option," the future "This Week" host urged. "If we can kill Saddam, we should."

Though Iraq war critics now argue that by 1997, the Iraqi dictator was "in a box" and posed no threat whatsoever to the U.S., Stephanopoulos contended that Saddam deserved swift and lethal justice.

"We've exhausted other efforts to stop him, and killing him certainly seems more proportionate to his crimes and discriminate in its effect than massive bombing raids that will inevitably kill innocent civilians," the diminutive former aide contended.

Stephanopoulos even offered a way to get around the presidential ban on foreign assassinations:

"If Clinton decides we can and should assassinate Saddam, he could call in national-security adviser Sandy Berger and sign a secret National Security Decision Directive authorizing it."

The Stephanopoulos plan: "First, we could offer to provide money and materiel to Iraqi exiles willing to lead an effort to overthrow Saddam. . . . The second option is a targeted airstrike against the homes or bunkers where Saddam is most likely to be hiding."

The one-time top Clinton aide said that, far from violating international principles, assassinating Saddam would be the moral thing to do, arguing, "What's unlawful - and unpopular with the allies - is not necessarily immoral."

Stephanopoulos also noted that killing Saddam could pay big political dividends at home, saying the mission would make Clinton "a huge winner if it succeeded."

News Max.com ~ Carl Limbacher ** Stephanopoulos Urged Foreign Assassination

Libtard Illinois Gov. says we're forced to live in a democracy
Mood:  silly
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

Governor says we're forced to live in a democracy

Maybe the hairspray is seeping into his brain. Or perhaps he's taking pills to boost his testicular virility.

Regardless of the reason, a few weeks ago Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich said something quite strange. Strange even for a Democrat.

It happened when he explained why he was spending up to $10 million taxpayer dollars on stem-cell research without state legislative approval. This was necessary, he claimed, because the General Assembly wouldn't take action on the issue.

Of course, a possible reason the legislature did not was because the governor failed to propose stem-cell funding in his budget. Nor did he broach the subject in his state of the state address, when the governor outlines his initiatives. He found time in that speech, though, to mention he would officially declare September "Illinois Wine Month." So we know he can prioritize.

But Rod decided he was morally obligated to do something about stem-cell research because the assembly simply wouldn't. So he's spending unauthorized funds.

In boasting of his deed, he said, "While we are forced to live in a democracy with several branches of government, sometimes in a democracy the process is frustratingly slow."

We already know that Blagojevich isn't Mensa material. He's admitted that his ACT score was nothing to rave about.

His plan to allow Illinoisans to buy drugs from overseas was a humiliating flop. Even his union pals rejected it.

And he got nailed by a local TV station for his use of armed state troopers. Keeping one around just to carry his hairbrush is dumb. Getting caught doing it is even dumber.

Still, talking about Americans being forced to live in a democracy makes me wonder if he didn't cheat on his ACT.

We do not live in a democracy. The Founding Fathers wouldn't have permitted one. John Adams pointed out: "Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."

James Madison wrote that democracies "have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property."

The United States isn't a democracy, but a democratic Constitutional Republic. We vote for the people who govern. The Constitution protects individual liberties.

Whatever our form of government is called, no one is forced to live in the United States. If a person finds life here so distressing, he can leave whenever he wants.

The governor was correct on one point: Sometimes the process can be very slow. Priscilla Owen and numerous other Bush judicial appointees can testify to that.

If Blagojevich is troubled by how sluggish the system is, there are a few countries where that's not a problem.

Cuba is one. Fidel Castro never has to contend with those tedious branches of government.

When he wants someone to disappear, he doesn't need to propose legislation. Why waste your time with a legislature when you have your secret police?

Another example of expeditious government is the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea. "Dear Leader" Kim Jong Il runs the show there with an efficiency Rod would apparently appreciate.

According to Time Magazine, Kim acts like a murderous schoolmaster. The Supreme People's Assembly meets as required to rubberstamp whatever the Dear Leader wants it to.

You can get in trouble merely for folding a newspaper so as to crease Kim's picture. Usually sporting a meticulously maintained pompadour, he once killed a barber who gave him a bad haircut.

Earlier this year, the Dear Leader approved a "Let's Trim Our Hair According to the Socialist Lifestyle" campaign. Men are expected to keep their hair length to about two inches. Longer locks rob the brain of oxygen, you understand.

State-run TV began broadcasting the names and addresses of violators, who were chastised as "blind followers of bourgeois lifestyle."

Yes, Governor, there are places to which you can relocate where you won't be forced to live in anything close to a democracy. None of those exasperating branches of government either. You won't have to fret over legislative delays.

It's a disgrace that the governor of a major state talks such twaddle and no one in the mainstream media, those valiant defenders of the public interest, calls him on it.

Mens News Daily ~ Mike Bates ** Governor says we're forced to live in a democracy

Abstinence program funds are suspended by the ACLU-turds
Mood:  irritated
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

One day after the news and internet reports of 65 girls in one school being pregnant. Lets see if I have this straight, we can teach girls how to put rubbers on a banana, but we can't teach them not to spread their legs?

And since when does promoting abstainence = promoting religion?

Does this mean funding sex education = promoting atheism? Because that hinders my free practice of religion. That's unconstitutional, you know.

Abstinence program funds are suspended

US halts support after ACLU suit

The federal government has suspended funding of a nationwide faith-based abstinence program, three months after the American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit in Boston arguing that the public contribution of more than $1 million violates the constitutional separation of church and state.

The US Department of Health and Human Services yesterday notified the Silver Ring Thing program, which has held at least four events in the Boston area since 2002, that it has "not adequately separated" its religious component from its secular message urging middle and high school students to forgo premarital sex.

Federal funding of the organization, which is based in suburban Pittsburgh, will be halted until the government is confident that the program is obeying department rules, said the letter from Harry Wilson, associate commissioner of the Family and Youth Services Bureau. The Silver Ring Thing has until Sept. 6 to submit a plan showing that it separates its abstinence message from its encouragement of Christian values.

The Silver Ring Thing received $1.1 million from the federal government in fiscal 2003 and 2004 and has received most of a $75,000 allocation for the current fiscal year, said Steve Barbour, a spokesman for the Administration for Children and Families.

The ACLU yesterday applauded the government's decision, saying the Silver Ring Thing -- which sells silver rings for $15 to teens who take a vow of abstinence -- has been using tax dollars to bankroll religious indoctrination.

"It shows that they [the government] took our lawsuit seriously," said Lorraine Kenny, the public education coordinator for the ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project based in New York. The Silver Ring Thing, she said, had used federal funds "to basically put on a religious road show across the country."

Its next event in the Boston area is scheduled for Oct. 15 at a middle school in Weymouth, according to the Silver Ring Thing's website.

The ACLU, which had been preparing to seek a court order to halt funding, plans to put its suit on hold to see what action the Silver Ring Thing takes to comply with federal guidelines.

Denny Pattyn, the founder of the Silver Ring Thing, declined to comment, saying he only gives interviews to newspapers "that handle conservative causes pretty decently, which your newspaper, obviously, doesn't."

In May, his group said in a statement that the Silver Ring Thing's goal is to teach adolescents about the risks of sex, including teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, and that the organization believes it was using federal dollars properly.

The Silver Ring Thing has held dozens of events in various parts of the country in the past three years, according to the group's website.

Nikki Dingle, 19, who attended a Silver Ring Thing event as a senior at Melrose High School, said yesterday that the federal money helped the organization spread a worthwhile message, and she is upset that funding is being suspended.

Dingle attended a gathering held at Merrimack College in North Andover with a close friend and members of her Catholic parish. Partway through the event, she said, organizers allowed the young people to participate in two group discussions about chastity, one rooted in Christian values, which she participated in, and another that had no religious theme.

"People could choose whether they wanted to relate it to God or not," she said. "Because of that choice, it was fine."

The ACLU acknowledged in its suit that Pattyn, who leads the events, allows teenagers to participate in a secular discussion group. But the Massachusetts chapter of the ACLU, which filed the suit in Boston on behalf of the national organization, said that young people feel pressured to participate in the religious discussion; those who want to participate in the secular discussion, for example, have to switch rooms, while those in the religion-based discussion group can stay in their seats, the suit said.

The federal government said in its letter to the Silver Ring Thing that its review of the group's activities included visits to an event -- held in Canton, Ohio, said Barbour -- and to the organization's headquarters. The officials concluded that the Silver Ring Thing was violating rules that prohibit community-based abstinence education programs from getting federal funds if they "engage in inherently religious activities, such as worship, religious instruction, or proselytization."

Boston Globe ~ Jonathan Saltzman ** Abstinence program funds are suspended

Michael Moore Checks In at Fat Farm
Mood:  hungry
Topic: Funny Stuff

Michael Moore Checks In at Fat Farm

Maverick film-maker Michael Moore has enrolled on a crash course at a $3,800-a-week celebrity fat farm in a bid to loose weight. The Fahrenheit 9/11 director has booked into the Pritikin Longevity Center And Spa in Aventura, Florida, where he is learning to cook healthy meals and will undergo "life re-education", according to PageSix.com. Moore is reportedly aiming to loose 12 pounds during the first three weeks.

A few entries of his libtard diary is over at Iowahawk.

IMDB.com / World Entertainment News Network ** Michael Moore Checks In at Fat Farm

PETA's religious intolerance
Mood:  don't ask
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

PETA seeks confrontation with nearly all of the world's major religions and goes out of its way to offend hundreds of millions of spiritual people.

New CCF Report: PETA Offends People Of All Faiths

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has been widely criticized for its campaign comparing Nazi Holocaust victims to farm animals, its blind insistence that Jesus was a vegetarian, and it callous attempts to cheapen the symbols and rituals of Roman Catholicism. But a new report from the Center for Consumer Freedom indicates that these offensive gestures are just the tip of a larger iceberg. Click here to read the press release, and then download a copy of Holy Cows: How PETA twists religion to push animal "rights."

This eye-opening report includes an inventory of scripture contradicting PETA's claim that only vegetarians can be observant Christians, Jews, Mormons, and Muslims.

A limited number of bound, printed copies are available to religious leaders and credentialed journalists. Just drop us an e-mail, and include your affiliation and postal mailing address.

Introduction

"[H]owever sympathetically you interpret the Judeo-Christian religious tradition, it puts animals in a fundamentally different category from human beings ... I think in the end we have, reluctantly, to recognize that the Judeo-Christian religious tradition is our foe."

- Peter Singer, author of Animal Liberation and PETA's philosophical godfather

At the "Animal Rights 2002" national convention, Animal Liberation author and avowed atheist Peter Singer lamented that "mainstream Christianity has been a problem for the animal movement." Two days later at the same event, a program director with the Fund for Animals issued a warning: "If we are not able to bring the churches, the synagogues, and the mosques around to the animal rights view," he cautioned, "we will never make large-scale progress for animal rights in the United States."

In the hope of converting Planet Earth's religious majority into vegetarians, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has taken these challenges seriously. The group regularly searches for "faith-based campaigners" to spread the gospel of vegetarianism. And like Peter Singer, acknowledged by PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk as her life's inspiration, the group's own odd evangelism actively seeks to confront and challenge the beliefs of Jews, Catholics, Protestant Christians, Mormons, and Muslims -- often in deliberate defiance of their respective scriptures.

PETA generally avoids alienating Hindus, whose "bad karma" prohibitions against killing most animals have endeared them to animal rightists. But Hindu law expressly permits eating meat. Similarly, the Buddhist world has (so far) been spared PETA's impious tantrums, although many Buddhists eat meat -- including the Dalai Lama.

In its religious outreach, as with everything else the group attempts, PETA has blindly pursued offensive strategies without regard for the consequences. Instead of earning a reputation for "kindness," "compassion," and other qualities associated with religious faithfulness, PETA pursues campaigns that offend, provoke, and otherwise show contempt for the faithful.

PETA claims -- despite ample evidence to the contrary -- that Jesus Christ was a vegetarian. (The six-volume, 7,000-page Anchor Bible Dictionary doesn't even include an entry for "vegetarianism.") A PETA website urges Muslims to eat no meat, in open contradiction to the Qur'an.

PETA holds protests at houses of worship, even suing one church that tried to protect its members from Sunday-morning harassment. Its billboards and advertisements taunt Christians with the message that livestock (not Jesus) died for their sins.

PETA declares, contrary to a wealth of rabbinical teaching, that ritual kosher slaughter is inherently cruel and barbarous. It directs its Jewish members (and any other Jews who will listen) to abstain from eating lamb during the Passover seder. And the group's infamous "Holocaust on Your Plate" campaign crassly compares the Jewish victims of Nazi genocide with farm animals.

Along the way, PETA has considered "Thou Shalt Not Steal" a commandment of convenience, lifting copyrighted materials without permission from a Catholic religious order, a popular television show, and even the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. PETA's mission to bring carnivores under the tofu tent routinely ignores prohibitions against "taking the Lord's name in vain." And the group's official endorsement of arson and other violence against animal-rights targets comes most often from its leading parsnip pulpitarian, a man who publicly holds himself up as an example of "Christian mercy" while privately advocating "blowing stuff up and smashing windows" and "burning meat trucks."

Because of PETA's obnoxious and often hateful rhetoric (and its brazen association with the violent underbelly of the animal rights movement), its voice is frequently condemned by mainstream religious leaders and increasingly unwelcome among worshippers.

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Center for Consumer Freedom ~ Animal Rights ** New CCF Report: PETA Offends People Of All Faiths