August 2010 archive

Mormonism is no more ‘Christian’ than Islam.

Now the things I’m going to tell you about Mormonism may seem unfair, but they are core principles of the faith and I personally don’t think they’re more ridiculous than any other religion.  I’m using Wikipedia as my source where I can because, however much you may despise the depth of its scholarship, its contentious nature means that what is presented is generally agreed on (except for temporary aberrations like Colbert’s Elephant).

First of all, Mormons worship the God of Abraham, just like Jews, Christians, and (gasp) Muslims.

Like Islam, it is a Restorationist religion which believes that priesthood authority was lost and the text of the Bible changed.  This condition of Apostacy was rectified by a special revelation to a new prophet succeeding Jesus of Nazareth.

The story of the Mormons starts about 600 BC when a man named Lehi, his family, and several others are led by God from Jerusalem shortly before the fall of that city to the Babylonians in 586 BC.  After some wandering around the Arabian Peninsula they travel by sea to a new promised land- the Americas.

There’s some serious debate among scholars of Mormonism whether the events described take place in Central or Northern America and there is also a description (the Book of Ether) of an earlier migration by a group of Jews from Babylon called the Jaredites around 2500 B.C.  “The Jaredites grew to become a civilization that exceeded two million people just prior to their destruction.  They finally destroyed themselves about the time Lehi and the other refugees from Jerusalem arrived in America.”

Lehi and his refugees soon divided into two camps, the Nephi and the Lamanites, and they were almost constantly at war.

In the 3rd Book of Nephi there is a description of a miraculous visitation by Jesus of Nazareth after his death, resurrection, and assumption where he personally communicates the ‘Good News’ of the Gospel to the Nephi and for several generations after that there is peace.

The Book of Mormon as a whole is an account of the life of Mormon, the last great warrior king of the Nephi who is said to have written most of it (some transcribed from other records), and his son Moroni who finished it and hid it after the final defeat of the Nephi around 350 AD.

The chronology of Jesus of Nazareth’s visitations to America (North or Central) is somewhat confused as he appeared not only around the generally accepted dates of his life (say 33 BC to 50 AD) but also to the Jaredites some 2500 years previous and to Lehi and his followers shortly after their arrival some 600 years before he was even born.

It’s a miracle.

There is no God but God and Mohammed is his Prophet.

Now I’ll try not to be as harsh on Joe Smith Jr. as Sam Clemens.  If a man tells me he’s hefted something, I’m willing to believe it.

However.

Accepting the story at face value, the last Nephi and Lamanite died 1000 years before Columbus sailed the ocean blue and 1300 years before Joe Jr. dug up those tablets in Palmyra, New York and translated them from ‘reformed Egyptian’ with the aid of the Ghost of Angel Moroni.

It will take someone with much tougher theological chops than I (and as you can see I have some) to explain to me the difference between that and Mohammed’s revelations in a desert cave.

When you listen to Glenn Beck, or Mitt Romney, or Harry Reid, remember that these truths are articles of faith to them that they believe as firmly as you believe in the Miracle of the Menorah, the Resurrection of Christ, that Mohammed ascended to heaven with the angel Gabriel, or that Siddhartha Gautama sat under a lotus tree.

U.S. jobless claims jump to 9-month high of 500,000.

Unexpected climb is yet another setback for already frail recovery

Hello, all!  This is Translator, the newest and most likely the worst editor at The Stars Hollow Gazette.  I am new to editing, so please bear with me.  I also post things, mostly about science, and hope that you like them.

For tonight, I just thank the folks that run this site for allowing me to be somewhat more than an observer.  Here are my rules for responding to my, or others’ who post here.  I think these rules are consistent with everyone else.  No bad language, no hurtful comments about others, and good thinking about everything else.

I shall welome everyone by saying that the Mosque is not bad, but the FOX “News” makes it seem very bad.  I shall talk about other things tomorrow, but not this morning.

I appreciate all of you that want to talk, and I will be available for that on the morrow.

Warmest regards,

Doc

“The commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan says he is not bound by the July 2011 date set for a troop pull-out. General David Petraeus said he could well advise President Obama not to go ahead if he believes it’s the wrong time. American public support for the war is at an all-time low, with July being the deadliest month for U.S. and NATO troops since 2001. With frustration growing about the occupation of Afghanistan, politicians in Germany have even suggested talking to the Taliban and terrorist organizations to avoid a further escalation of violence.”

RT talks with political economist and author F William Engdahl, author of “A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order” and “Full Spectrum Dominance”, about his thoughts on the Afghanistan occupation and the 30 year war scenario to prevent the independent economic development of Russia, China, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) states. Engdhahl has written on issues of energy, politics and economics for more than 30 years, beginning with the first oil shock in the early 1970s. Based in Germany, Engdahl contributes regularly to a number of publications including Asia Times Online, Asia, Inc, Japan’s Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Foresight magazine; Freitag and ZeitFragen newspapers in Germany and Switzerland respectively.

The last combat troops are leaving Iraq, crossing the border into Kuwait. It is being carried live on MSNBC. Keith Olbermann broke in to the Ed Show with the announcement

NEAR THE IRAQ-KUWAIT BORDER – The last U.S. combat troops were crossing the border into Kuwait on Thursday morning, bringing to a close the active combat phase of a 7½-year war that overthrew the dictatorial regime of Saddam Hussein, forever defined the presidency of George W. Bush and left more than 4,400 American service members and tens of thousands of Iraqis dead.

The final convoy of the Army’s 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, based at Fort Lewis, Wash., was about to enter Kuwait shortly after 1:30 a.m. (6:30 p.m. Wednesday ET), carrying the last of the 14,000 U.S. combat forces in Iraq, said NBC’s Richard Engel, who has been traveling with the brigade as it moved out this week.

Peter Daou:

   

The Iraq war is officially over: http://bit.ly/bVM4JO …question is, how many more lives will be lost there?

Now when do the others come home, out of harms way?

When so we start scaling down Afghanistan?

These are wars we can no longer afford either in expenditures of money or precious lives.

Ugh.  It’s no wonder why a majority of Americans (well, US Americans, but it’s just not as melliflous) no longer watch first run Television live and instead record it on their DVRs for later viewing.  Tonight certainly makes me envy my SciFi friend and her extensive collection of Pit Boss.

• AMC– Inside Man (a Spike Lee joint)
• ESPN– Giants @ Phillies, Rockies @ Dodgers
• ABC Family- Two Weeks Notice
• Food– The Great Food Truck Race (Series Premier repeat)
• Lifetime– Antwone Fisher (Denzel Washington night)
• Turner Classic– Torrid Zone, Kings Row (Ann Sheridan night)
• Discovery– Man v. Wild (last week’s and new)
• Travel– Man v. Food

Do you want to know what I’ll really be watching?  Probably The Great Food Truck Race and Mets @ Astros now, the new Man v. Wild at 9, and then maybe Kings Row.  Murder, insanity and sadism in a small town at the turn of the century with Ronald Reagan, Ann Sheridan, and Love that Bob.

I mean, Wild Hogs twice in a row?  Not if you paid me.  As far as I’m concerned it’s cruel and unusual punishment of the type that used to be banned by the Constitution and the Geneva Convention before we decided waterboarding and anally raping children with chem sticks in front of their parents was ok.  Even Ronald Wilson Reagan in his best role ever isn’t as eye gougingly bad.

Later-

No Alton, no Dave, not even Jay.

• AMC– The Negotiator
• Turner Classic– The Man Who Came to Dinner
• FX– Tomcats

Jon has Edward P. Kohn (have your people post a Wiki entry, idiot), Stephen Thomas French.  Jon has Back in Black which is usually so nice you want to see it twice.

Now You Museum, Now You Don’t.  For those of you who worry about our Boys, Dr. Richard “Dick” Impossible is voiced by Christopher McCulloch in this episode.  No Colberts attemped suicide by swallowing a bomb during the animation.

Yahoo TV Listings

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 Aid begins to flow to flood-ravaged Pakistan

by Marwan Naamani, AFP

1 hr 15 mins ago

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Glenn Greenwald: What political courage looks like

The toxic right-wing campaign to impose a Muslim-free zone around Ground Zero intensified today, while Democrats — following in the cowardly footsteps of Senate Majority “Leader” Harry Reid, whose book is one of the most ironically titled in history — ran faster and faster away from the controversy.  New York Governor David Paterson made it known  that he wants to meet with Park 51’s developers to encourage them to move to a new site.  One Democratic official, Rep. Michael Arcuri of New York, actually attacked his GOP challenger, Richard Hanna, for having bravely broken with his own party to support the project; Arcuri’s Gingrich-replicating attacks caused Hannah, one of the few Republicans in the nation to have defended Park 51, to reverse position by arguing today that it should move.  And it is hard to imagine anyone surpassing Rep. Anthony Weiner in the cowardice department after the unbelievably vapid, incoherent letter he issued, ostensibly setting forth his views on this matter (stringing together words randomly chosen from the dictionary would likely create more meaningful sentences than the ones Weiner wrote).

Aside from Michael Bloomberg’s impassioned, principled speech  in defense of Park 51 — and, if one wants to be generous about it, Barack Obama’s initial, voluntary defense of the religious freedom values at stake — there have been very few commendable acts in this dispute.  Until now.

Joan Walsh: Dr. Laura’s pity party

The angry radio quitter is another right-winger who misunderstands the First Amendment and loves playing victim

So Dr. Laura Schlessinger told CNN’s Larry King Tuesday night that she’s giving up her radio show, after being criticized for an on-air flameout in which she abused a black caller and used the word “nigger” 11 times. “I want to regain my First Amendment rights,” she told King. “I want to be able to say what’s on my mind and in my heart and what I think is helpful and useful without somebody getting angry, some special interest group deciding this is the time to silence a voice of dissent and attack affiliates, attack sponsors. I’m sort of done with that.”

Only if You’re A Republican

Transcript available here

CREW: DELAY MUST ANSWER FOR HIS CRIMES

“It’s a sad day for America when one of the most corrupt members to ever walk the halls of Congress gets a free pass. As we continue the work of building a Washington that is worthy of the American people, the Justice Department’s decision not to prosecute Mr. DeLay for his actions sends exactly the wrong message to current and future members. The fact that Jack Abramoff, Bob Ney (R-OH) and former Interior official J. Steven Griles are the only three people who went to prison for one of the worst corruption scandals in congressional history is shocking. The Hammer belongs in the slammer. Mr. DeLay still has crimes to answer for in Texas – generally not considered the best place to be a criminal defendant.”

h/t Crooks & Liars

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour a cup of your favorite morning beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

August 18 is the 230th day of the year (231st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 135 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1920, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution is ratified when the Tennessee General Assembly, by a one-vote margin became the thirty-sixth state legislature to ratify the proposed amendment. On August 26, 1920, Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certified the amendment’s adoption.

It took 70 years of struggle by women of the Suffrage Movement headed by Susan B. Anthony to get this amendment passed. Gail Collins’ NYT Op-Ed recount of the story puts it in great perspective:

That great suffragist and excellent counter, Carrie Chapman Catt, estimated that the struggle had involved 56 referendum campaigns directed at male voters, plus “480 campaigns to get Legislatures to submit suffrage amendments to voters, 47 campaigns to get constitutional conventions to write woman suffrage into state constitutions; 277 campaigns to get State party conventions to include woman suffrage planks, 30 campaigns to get presidential party campaigns to include woman suffrage planks in party platforms and 19 campaigns with 19 successive Congresses.”

As Ms. Catt tell is and to no one’s surprise the Senate was the biggest obstacle, so the Suffragettes decided to take it to the states and amend all the state constitutions, one by one.

The constitutional amendment that finally did pass Congress bore Anthony’s name. It came up before the House of Representatives in 1918 with the two-thirds votes needed for passage barely within reach. One congressman who had been in the hospital for six months had himself carted to the floor so he could support suffrage. Another, who had just broken his shoulder, refused to have it set for fear he’d be too late to be counted. Representative Frederick Hicks of New York had been at the bedside of his dying wife but left at her urging to support the cause. He provided the final, crucial vote, and then returned home for her funeral.

The ratification stalled short of one state when it came to a vote in the Tennessee Legislature on August 18, 1920 and was short one vote to ratify when a young state legislator got a note from his mother:

Ninety years ago this month, all eyes turned to Tennessee, the only state yet to ratify with its Legislature still in session. The resolution sailed through the Tennessee Senate. As it moved on to the House, the most vigorous opposition came from the liquor industry, which was pretty sure that if women got the vote, they’d use it to pass Prohibition. Distillery lobbyists came to fight, bearing samples.

“Both suffrage and anti-suffrage men were reeling through the hall in an advanced state of intoxication,” Carrie Catt reported.

The women and their allies knew they had a one-vote margin of support in the House. Then the speaker, whom they had counted on as a “yes,” changed his mind.

(I love this moment. Women’s suffrage is tied to the railroad track and the train is bearing down fast when suddenly. …)

Suddenly, Harry Burn, the youngest member of the House, a 24-year-old “no” vote from East Tennessee, got up and announced that he had received a letter from his mother telling him to “be a good boy and help Mrs. Catt.”

“I know that a mother’s advice is always the safest for a boy to follow,” Burn said, switching sides.

We celebrate Women’s Suffrage Day on Aug. 26, which is when the amendment officially became part of the Constitution. But I like Aug. 18, which is the day that Harry Burn jumped up in the Tennessee Legislature, waving his mom’s note from home. I told the story once in Atlanta, and a woman in the audience said that when she was visiting her relatives in East Tennessee, she had gone to put a yellow rose on Harry Burn’s grave.

I got a little teary.

“Well, actually,” she added, “it was because I couldn’t find his mother.”