Really.

I personally don't care for his politics, but he has guts. Think about it: politically, being an open atheist is the worst thing you can be: university researchers found that Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups in "sharing their vision of American society."

That gives some context to this: Rep. Stark Applauded for Atheist Outlook:

The American Humanist Association applauded Rep. Pete Stark for publicly acknowledging he does not believe in a supreme being. The declaration, it said, makes him the highest-ranking elected official - and first congressman - to proclaim to be an atheist. The organization took out an ad in Tuesday's Washington Post, congratulating the California Democrat for his stance.

Rep. Ron Paul to run for president:

U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, a strict constitutionalist and fierce anti-war critic, will formally declare his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination Monday when he appears as a guest on a C-SPAN call-in program.

Paul, R-Texas, created a presidential exploratory committee in January, allowing him to begin collecting money on behalf of his bid. Kent Snyder, the chairman of that committee, said Saturday that Paul would make his candidacy official on Monday.

This will be Paul's second try for the White House. He was the Libertarian nominee for president in 1988.

Snyder said Paul is scheduled to be a guest on "Washington Journal" Monday morning and will make his announcement then.

Paul, a nine-term congressman who represents a district just south of Houston that includes Galveston and stretches along the Gulf Coast nearly to Corpus Christi, describes himself as a lifelong Libertarian running as a Republican.

Paul has spent most of his career outside the GOPs traditional circles. He limits his view of the role of the federal government to those specifically laid out in the U.S. Constitution. As a result, he sometimes casts votes that appear at odds with his constituents and other Republicans.

Paul, for example, was the only Republican congressman to vote against Department of Defense appropriations for fiscal year 2007, which he opposed because of the war in Iraq - a war he says is "not necessary for our actual security."

He once described President Bush as "not a constitutional president" and voted against a resolution declaring that the United States would win the war on terror.

He acknowledges that the national Republican Party has largely shunned him despite his nine terms in office under its banner. He gets little money from the GOP's large traditional donors, but benefits from individual conservative and Libertarian donors outside Texas.

Paul bills himself as "The Taxpayers' Best Friend," and is routinely ranked either first or second in the House of Representatives by the National Taxpayers Union, a national group advocating low taxes and limited government.

Speaking of good Christians: Houses of the Holy: A Star investigation into Toronto's Prayer Palace congregation finds that despite the members' dutiful tithing, the church spends little on charitable projects.

Between them, the pastors have amassed a real estate fortune worth about $12 million. Each owns a multi-million-dollar country estate north of Toronto (Tim's is worth as much as $5.5 million), they share a Florida vacation villa, and the pastors and their wives drive luxurious cars - among them a Porsche Cayenne SUV, a Lexus RX 330 SUV and a Mercedes-Benz CLK 320 convertible.

[...]

However, a continuing Star investigation into Canadian charities has found the church devotes little money to charitable work. In fact, the church's most recent financial statements show that only $9,443 was spent on "benevolent and charity" activities in 2005. The church's annual "missions" fluctuate between $500 and $36,704 in the past few years.

[...]

The documents also show annual vehicle and travel expenses have doubled in the past two years, jumping to more than $175,000. The original cost of the vehicles in the Prayer Palace fleet is over $500,000. Documents obtained by the Star show the red Mercedes convertible is registered to the Canadian church but kept at the pastor's Florida villa.

The Star found the pastors and their wives also drive, besides the Lexus and Porsche SUVs, an Audi A6S sedan, BMW 7 Series and 3 Series sedans, a Lincoln LS and Towncar, and a red, oversized Dodge pickup. The Lexus is also kept in Florida.

Praise Jesus!

I support Ron Paul for President in 2008. Paul is a Republican Congressman from Texas, and one of the few people in Washington politics I actually admire. A few links to learn more about Ron Pail:

Wikipedia: Ron Paul

MySpace: Ron Paul

House of Representatives: Ron Paul

Fox News: Ron Paul, the Real Republican?

Reason Magazine: Paul for President? The maverick libertarian Republican talks on war, immigration, and presidential ambition

LewRockwell.com: Ron Paul columns archive

God Sets the Limits, Not Us (I'm quoting the whole thing here):

(What does your faith lead you to believe about gay unions and gay clergy? Could you ever change your mind?)

Anyone wishing to answer this question must make a choice:

Does one believe that the Bible is God's Word and that He gets to set the rules for those He wishes to speak for Him; or does culture, political correctness and "the times" allow us to make up, or change, or obliterate the rules whenever it suits us?

I choose the former, believing that the God who created us gets to set boundaries inside of which we are to live for our benefit and for His glory. Imagine a sports contest without boundaries and rules? Life lived without boundaries is chaotic, full of disappointment and despair.

None of this, however, is about us; it's about Him.

In his first letter to Timothy, Paul says that an "overseer," or pastor, is to be "the husband of one wife" and above reproach." (1 Timothy 3:2). Only those who have no intention of following this mandate would claim that it means something other than what it says. But many people have disregarded Scripture in pursuit of earthly agendas.

As for "gay unions," such relationships are not unions, again, according to the Bible, which speaks of a man leaving his mother and father and becoming united to his wife and the two shall become one flesh (Genesis 2:24). That doesn't leave any doubt about God's intent for men and women and marriage. Unless one chooses to disbelieve what He said, as many do.

None of this should be used as a basis for hating homosexuals. Just the opposite. But love does not translate into tolerance for those practices God has said are out of bounds.

Jesus H. Christ, where to begin? This is why I'm becoming more of an evangelical atheist; people like Cal Thomas (one of the most widely syndicated columnists in America) are hopelessly deranged by their religious beliefs. And causing real harm to people.

First, let's look at 1 Timothy. This letter to Timothy from Paul mostly lays out the structure for the church, and says a lot of things Cal probably disregards in pursuit of earthly agendas. Just a few words away from Cal's quote, we find this:

I desire therefore that the men pray in every place, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and disputing. In like manner, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefastness and sobriety; not with braided hair, and gold or pearls or costly raiment; but (which becometh women professing godliness) through good works. Let a woman learn in quietness with all subjection. But I permit not a woman to teach, nor to have dominion over a man, but to be in quietness.

Anyone wanna bet Cal has facilitated a disregard for the Scripture by buying Mrs. Thomas gold jewelry or a string of pearls? If he starts telling her what clothes to wear, how to style her hair, and that she needs to shut up, Cal Thomas will likely end up asexual.

A little later:

Let as many as are servants under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor, that the name of God and the doctrine be not blasphemed. And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren; but let them serve them the rather, because they that partake of the benefit are believing and beloved. These things teach and exhort.

Yep -- slavery. Slavery, one of the most profoundly evil institutions mankind ever devised, is OK if the master is a good Christian. This doctrine is in the Scripture Cal Thomas uses to justify his religious beliefs dictating our laws. Yet Thomas almost certainly cherry-picks what parts of Scripture he will and will not obey. I don't think you'll hear him ever suggest that women should not be allowed to teach or wear pearls, but it's right there in his Bible.

I mentioned harm. Here's what I'm talking about:

"Last week I bought a gun. Yesterday I wrote the note. But last night I happened to turn on your show and just knowing that someday I might be able to go back into my church, I threw the gun in the river. My mom never has to know."
-- A boy in Iowa

The e-mail was only four sentences long, but it shaped Daniel Karslake's future.

Karslake, 41, was a young television producer in 1998 when he received the above note from a boy in Iowa. His segment on a lesbian theologian had just aired on the PBS program "In the Life. This boy's short message, one that still brings Karslake to tears, was the first of hundreds he would receive from gays and lesbians across the country - from people who felt rejected by their church families. The aspiring filmmaker had found his mission.

"This e-mail fueled everything I've done since," he said this week.

Opening Sunday night at the Sundance Film Festival is Karslake's "For the Bible Tells Me So," a documentary in the independent film competition. The production, which took more than three years to complete, was funded in large part by Orem-resident Bruce Bastian, co-creator of the word-processing software that became WordPerfect. The film shows how the Bible's verses have been used to justify, over centuries, various forms of discrimination, and how today religious conservatives use the Good Book to back anti-gay rhetoric.

For gay and lesbian people who grew up steeped in Scripture and tied to church communities, this rhetoric - something referred to in the film as "a modern invention" - has been especially painful. Not just for them, but for their families.

By focusing on the journeys of five Christian families, each with a member who came out as gay or lesbian, Karslake paints a personal picture.

I have a very close relative who is gay, and I've had my fill of these religious nutjobs.

I've been talking to a Jackson cop the past few days (no, not about my dear readers' drug habits - I'm no snitch, so your stash is safe).

Just chit-chat, but he brought up the "Jesus Tomb" thing. I still don't know the story -- I'm lazy in newsreading lately. I mentioned odd beliefs like Mormons and Scientology, then the Christian "virgin birth" thing. Very casually (after all, this guy has a badge, a gun, and 50lbs on me). Cop said he "don't believe in none of that religious stuff."

That's as candid as admissions get, once you translate Southern double-negative-with-a-twist.

Congressman and Presidential candidate Ron Paul:

It's a bad idea.

There's no need for it.

There's great danger in doing it.

America is against it, and Congress should be.

The United Nations is against it.

The Russians, the Chinese, the Indians, and the Pakistanis are against it.

The whole world is against it.

Our allies are against it.

Our enemies are against it.

The Arabs are against it.

The Europeans are against it.

The Muslims are against it.

We don't need to do this.

The threat is overblown.

The plan is an hysterical reaction to a problem that does not yet exist.

Hysteria is never a good basis for foreign policy.

Don't we ever learn?

Have we already forgotten Iraq?

The plan defies common sense.

If it's carried out, the Middle East, and possibly the world, will explode.

Oil will soar to over $100 a barrel, and gasoline will be over $5 a gallon.

Despite what some think, it won't serve the interests of Israel.

Besides - it's illegal.

It's unconstitutional.

And you have no moral authority to do it.

We don't need it.

We don't want it.

So, Mr. President, don't do it.

Don't bomb Iran!

The moral of the story, Mr. Speaker, is this: if you don't have a nuke, we'll threaten to attack you. If you do have a nuke, we'll leave you alone. In fact, we'll probably subsidize you. What makes us think Iran does not understand this?

I'm buying this book as soon as I can get to the bookstore tomorrow: Imperial Life in the Emerald City. Excerpt:

Open spaces became trailer parks with grandiose names. CPA staffers unable to snag a room at the al-Rasheed lived in Poolside Estates. Cole and his fellow Halliburton employees were in Camp Hope. The Brits dubbed their accommodations Ocean Cliffs. At first, the Americans felt sorry for the Brits, whose trailers were in a covered parking garage, which seemed dark and miserable. But when the insurgents began firing mortars into the Green Zone, everyone wished they were in Ocean Cliffs. The envy increased when Americans discovered that the Brits didn't have the same leaky trailers with plastic furniture supplied by Halliburton; theirs had been outfitted by Ikea.

Americans drove around in new GMC Suburbans, dutifully obeying the thirty-five-mile-an-hour speed limit signs posted by the CPA on the flat, wide streets. There were so many identical Suburbans parked in front of the palace that drivers had to use their electronic door openers as homing devices. (One contractor affixed Texas license plates to his vehicle to set it apart.) When they cruised around, they kept the air-conditioning on high and the radio tuned to 107.7 FM, Freedom Radio, an American-run station that played classic rock and rah-rah messages. Every two weeks, the vehicles were cleaned at a Halliburton car wash.

Shuttle buses looped around the Green Zone at twenty-minute intervals, stopping at wooden shelters to transport those who didn't have cars and didn't want to walk. There was daily mail delivery. Generators ensured that the lights were always on. If you didn't like what was being served in the cafeteria-or you were feeling peckish between meals-you could get takeout from one of the Green Zone's Chinese restaurants. Halliburton's dry cleaning service would get the dust and sweat stains out of your khakis in three days. A sign warned patrons to remove ammunition from pockets before submitting clothes.

Iraqi laws and customs didn't apply inside the Green Zone. Women jogged on the sidewalk in shorts and T-shirts. A liquor store sold imported beer, wine, and spirits. One of the Chinese restaurants offered massages as well as noodles. The young boys selling DVDs near the palace parking lot had a secret stash. "Mister, you want porno?" they often whispered to me.

I should have posted links to this a long time ago: Rack n' Roll Billiards Scandal (Agitator) and Rack n' Roll Billiards Scandal (Black Velvet Bruce Li):

The Cliff's Notes version: David Ruttenberg hires a guy named Tom Kifer to head up security for his bar. Kifer is specifically charged with keeping drug activity out of Rack n' Roll. Ruttenberg later finds out that Kifer is working for the police, who have instructed him to set up drug deals in the bar, which they then plan use against Ruttenberg, who would later lose his license for -- wait for it -- failing to stop drug activity in his pool hall.

Note that in the audio clips, Kifer tells Ruttenberg he realizes Ruttenberg's getting screwed, but that the police are holding his probation over his head. There's a bit more to this story, too. Kifer went to jail in part because of a bad check he wrote to Ruttenberg. Ruttenberg didn't want to turn him in. But when he cashed the check and it bounced, he had no choice. When Kifer got out, he begged Ruttenberg for his job back. Ruttenberg gave it to him, mostly out of pity, and out of regret for in part being the reason Kifer went to prison in the first place.

The whole thing was a ruse, of course. Kifer was working for the local police. Not to catch Ruttenberg doing anything wrong, but to help the police establish a pattern of drug activity at Rack n' Roll -- activity that took place despite Ruttenberg's best efforts to stop it.

What do you do when you continue to report drug activity to the police, only to have them ignore it, in all likelihood because they instigated much of it? What do you do when you hire security to hunt down drug dealers, only to find out that the very same security personnel you hired are setting up drug deals on behalf of the police -- sometimes deals where the only parties are undercover cops and paid informants?

I can't believe Ruttenberg hasn't gone completely nuts by now. Imagine watching helplessly as you learn, slowly, that the people who hold power where you live have decided to take you down, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it.

And that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of the scandal. If you can find the time, read all the posts about this. It's an outrage.

Brian Keith Dalton's funny short movies, Mr. Deity. Very funny stuff!