During a radio address in which President Obama spoke about the recent murders at Fort Hood, he made a point to acknowledge the existence of atheists in the military. This marks the second time Obama has mentioned nonbelievers. This certainly is a pleasant change from most previous occupants of the White House.
Referring to the diversity of U.S. military personnel, President Obama said something we all know but are still not used to hearing a president acknowledge. That's right, he mentioned nonbelievers again, saying,
They are Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus and nonbelievers.
So our President recognizes that atheists serve in the military. I feel sort of silly for thinking that this is a big deal, but dammit, it is a big deal!
Thank you, President Obama.
H/T to
Friendly Atheist
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Even though I have grown accustomed to writing my posts in Blogger's web interface, I continue to like the idea of an offline editor. Since I am on the Mac platform, I started with Ecto because I had encountered so many rave reviews. I liked it for the most part except that the manner in which it screwed up line spacing in Blogger was unacceptable. I am now trying Ecto's primary competitor, MarsEdit. In fact, I am writing this post using a 30-day trial of MarsEdit.
The interface is not as pleasing as that of Ecto, but what matters most is functionality. Will MarsEdit work with Blogger like Ecto could not?
There does not appear to be a way to construct post templates containing certain lines of HTML that I want in all posts (e.g., code to enable peek-a-boo posts, an RSS subscription link, etc.). However, MarsEdit's macros provide a fairly effective workaround. I can select a keystroke of my choice to have such code added. Not too shabby! Surprisingly, Ecto couldn't do this either.
Compared with Ecto, MarsEdit's Flickr integration is fairly primitive. I have little interest in using it to browse my own meager collection of photos. I want it to be able to search for public domain images in Flickr just like Zemanta does. In general, Ecto's image handling seemed vastly superior. In MarsEdit, it appears that any image manipulation must be done via HTML. Even Blogger's web interface seems more powerful here.
These are merely my first impressions after spending less than an hour with the software. If it can handle spacing appropriately, it might be worth a more in-depth look. However, I must say that I'm not seeing much indication so far that it is going to enhance my blogging by making anything I want to do any easier.
I should also note that I had no luck initially getting MarsEdit to connect to my blog to allow publishing. However, their tech support was extremely helpful and responsive. This is more than I can say for Ecto's support, which never bothered to respond to my questions at all.
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Ah, Saturday at last. Time for another Idiot of the Week award. Let's get to it.
When I first heard that Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) was calling for her teabagging supporters to converge on the Capitol to intimidate anyone who might actually support affordable health care, I knew there would be some idiocy on display. Would I have to honor Bachmann yet again in this series? It certainly looked like it. But then someone else would step forward at the last minute to take the prize.
Let me set the stage a bit more. Pictured here to the left is Greenman, a Philadelphia figure made famous by the hillarious TV show, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (FX). If you haven't been watching it, you are missing out. I am convinced it is the best comedy on TV these days.
The thing about Greenman is that he is supposed to be funny. When someone dons a Greenman costume, they are going to get attention and laughs. Nothing wrong with that at all.
Why the hell am I bringing this up? Good question. I am doing so because I'd like to contrast the image of Greenman with another famous figure, one that is equally hillarious but also pathetic because he isn't meant to be funny. Ladies and gentlemen, I present this week's idiot - Orangeman.
That's right, this Idiot of the Week award goes to Rep. John Boehner (R-OH). What did our winner do to deserve this award? As House Minority Leader, making him a prominent Republican leader in Congress, Rep. Boehner should have known better than to participate in Rep. Bachmann's embarrassing protest. She is well known for her crazy, but Boehner is supposed to be respectable and represent the GOP establishment rather than the fringe. By speaking at her teabagger rally on the Capitol steps, he wholeheartedly embraced her particular brand of crazy and signaled that this is the modern Republican party. Let him be known not just for his bad spray tan or tendency to sob like Glenn Beck but also for willingly associating himself with birther nutjobs comparing health care to Nazi concentration camps.
And yet, this was not enough for Rep. Boehner. During his speech, he proudly displayed a copy of the U.S. Constitution and quoted from it. The problem was, it was not the Constitution he was quoting from but the Declaration of Independence. An honest mistake for you and me, but this is a powerful Congressman who is supposed to know something about our Constitution.
This is the second time Rep. Boehner has been honored here. Something tells me it won't be the last.
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Many people donated money in support of recent efforts to repeal civil rights in Maine, and they were successful in passing "Question 1." As Zack Ford points out after reviewing research by the National Institute on Money in State Politics,
Of the donations supporting the anti-gay Yes on 1 measure in Maine, 89% ($3 million) came from churches, Christian organizations, and their employees. The Catholic Church alone directly contributed $553,608.27.
Now that's some serious Christian bigotry!
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I agree completely with Americans United for Separation of Church and State that there are important lessons in the recent elections in Virginia and New Jersey, as well as the abolition of civil rights in Maine. Christian extremism is alive and well.
According to Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of AU,
I wish I could say the Religious Right is dead, but this election shows that reports of its demise are inaccurate. The pundits who announced the Religious Right's demise in 2008 were simply wrong.
He's right. While nobody is saying that the outcome of these elections was solely based on Christian extremist influence, nobody should deny that there was an influence.
...Americans need to know that this movement's leaders are still influential in American politics. They haven't given up on their crusade to impose their fundamentalist beliefs on everyone through government action.
Our work is not finished. Not by a long shot.
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