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Fox News "Terror Expert" Is So Full Of It, Back Teeth Are Brown

January 13, 2015, 2:53 pm
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Alan: 89% of Fox viewers believe Mr. Emerson is "a hole in the ground."

Since Democracy relies on an informed citizenry, the United States cannot survive a steady diet of Fox News misinformation-sludge.

I say this as straightforward statement-of-fact without a whit of hyperbole.

"People Who Watch Only Fox News 
Know Less Than People Who Watch No News"

Fox News 'terror expert' says everyone in Birmingham is a Muslim

Pundit on right-wing channel says non-Muslims "simply don't go" into Britain's second largest city, prompting immediate Twitter backlash


Raf Sanchez
By , Washington, video source Fox News
10:17AM GMT 12 Jan 2015
This story has been updated to include Mr Emerson's apology.
An American "terrorism expert" on the right-wing Fox News channel has declared that Birmingham is "a totally Muslim" city "where non-Muslims just simply don't go".
Steve Emerson made the claim, which may come as a surprise to the hundreds of thousands of non-Muslim residents of Britain's second-largest city, during a television discussion about no-go zones in Europe where Muslims are apparently in complete control.
"In Britain, it's not just no-go zones, there are actual cities like Birmingham that are totally Muslim where non-Muslims just simply don't go in," he said.
Mr Emerson, who describes himself as "an internationally recognised expert on terrorism", did not stop there.

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"Parts of London, there are actually Muslim religious police that actually beat and actually wound seriously anyone who doesn't dress according to Muslim, religious Muslim attire," he proclaimed, without giving examples.
He described Birmingham as one of a number of European cities "where sharia courts were set up, where Muslim density is very intense, where the police don't go in, and where it's basically a separate country almost, a country within a country."
Mr Emerson is a regular contributor to Fox News and was appearing on Judge Pirro, a show hosted by the failed Republican politician Jeanine Pirro.
Ms Pirro responded to her guest's claim that the British government doesn't "exercise any sovereignty" in Birmingham by saying: "You know what it sounds like to me, Steve? It sounds like a caliphate within a particular country."
Steve Emerson tells the Fox news anchor that Birmingham is a no-go area for non-Muslims
Disgruntled Brummies took to Twitter to express their disdain for Mr Emerson's characterisation of their home city.
After being contacted by The Telegraph, Mr Emerson released a fulsome apology, saying he "clearly made a terrible error for which I am deeply sorry".
He added he was going to make a donation to a Birmingham charity and take out an ad in a Birmingham newspaper.
Here's the apology in full:
You may quote me on this as I will be posting this and taking out an ad in a Birmingham paper. I have clearly made a terrible error for which I am deeply sorry. My comments about Birmingham were totally in error. And I am issuing an apology and correction on my website immediately for having made this comment about the beautiful city of Birmingham. I do not intend to justify or mitigate my mistake by stating that I had relied on other sources because I should have been much more careful. There was no excuse for making this mistake and I owe an apology to every resident of Birmingham. I am not going to make any excuses. I made an inexcusable error. And I am obligated to openly acknowledge that mistake.
Steve
PS. I intend to make a donation to a Birmingham charity.
Fox News 'terror expert': Listening back Birmingham Muslim error like 'waterboarding'

"Are Republicans Insane?"

"American Conservatives And Oppositional-Defiant Disorder"

"The Republican Party Is A Satanic Cult"

"Do Republicans Do Anything But Piss, Moan, Bitch, Whine?"

Bill Maher: The Zombie Life Cycle Of Republican Lies. They Never - Ever - Die

"The Reign of Morons Is Here," Charles P. Pierce, The Atlantic

"A Southerner Explains Tea Party Radicalism: The Civil War Is Not Over"

"People Who Watch Only Fox News 
Know Less Than People Who Watch No News"

"Republicans For Revolution," A Study In Anarchic Apocalypticism

"Bank On It: The South Is Always Wrong"

"Why The Bible Belt Is Its Own Worst Enemy"
  1. http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/10/why-bible-belt-is-christianitys-enemy.html
How the death of epistemology validates rhetorical vapidity:
  1. The Guardian: "John Oliver's Viral Video Is The Best Climate Change Debate You'll Ever See"
    1. http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-guardian-john-olivers-viral-video.html

George McGovern: "The Case For Liberalism, A Defense Of The Future Against The Past"

Republican Party Is "Full Of Racists," Colin Powell's Chief Of Staff
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/10/republican-party-is-full-of-racists.html

George McGovern: "The Case For Liberalism, A Defense Of The Future Against The Past"

Conservative Norm Ornstein: The Media Ignore Republican Lunacy

"Let's Just Say It. The Republicans Are The Problem"
Conservative Norm Ornstein and Liberal Thomas Mann

"Just How Far Out Is The Republican Fringe?" Norm Ornstein (And Is It The Fringe?)

"It's Even Worse Than It Looks"
Conservative Norm Ornstein and Liberal Thomas Mann

"When Extremism Goes Mainstream"
Conservative Norm Ornstein

"The Real Death Panels," Conservative Norm Ornstein

Jindal Criticizes The Stupid Party: "Simply protects the rich so they get to keep their toys"

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Selma: White, Christian Terrorists Blow Up Little Black Girls. Je Suis Addie Mae Collins

January 13, 2015, 3:26 pm
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Directed by Ava DuVernay, "Selma" tells the story of several months of the American civil rights movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King.


Uncle Sam's Mercenary Christians Kill 17 Iraqi Civilians. 2 Frenchmen Kill 12 In Paris

"Picking On Black Guys Is How Dimwitted White Guys Prolong Their Own Sodomization"

"Bad Black People." Why Bill O'Reilly Is Wrong Even When He's Right


Selma Is A Horror Movie 
(... aout White Christian Terrorists)

Toward the beginning of Ava DuVernay’s movie “Selma,” four little girls in starched dresses are walking down the steps that lead downstairs from the balcony of their church. They are talking about girlish things. “I got my hair pressed that morning, and it was wasted when I hit the water,” one of them says, telling a story about being pulled between the incompatible pleasures of a new hairstyle and a swim on a hot day. The conversation turns to Coretta Scott King’s immaculate tresses. “She parts it in the middle,” another child notes approvingly, longing for the same elegance.
I know my history. I knew the moment I saw those four little girls that they were about to die violently in the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. But DuVernay staged their chatter, and their passage down the staircase, bathed in pale, clear light, in a way that lulled me. For a moment they were so vibrantly alive that I forgot the fate that was descending on them. And when the explosion ripped through that staircase, like a beast lunging in from the right side of the frame and leaving a swirl of splinters and patent leather shoes in its wake, I was shocked in spite of myself.

Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Bombing
Wikipedia
“Selma,” which chronicles the campaign for the Voting Rights Act, has its virtues — including an excellent cast — and its weak points, most notably some leaden scenes that consist of bullet-point summaries of the range of opinions included under the umbrella of the civil rights movement. It is at its absolute best, though, when “Selma” uses the techniques of a genre that is decidedly less respectable than glossy biopic. In the Birmingham church bombing sequence and several others, DuVernay does a masterful job of communicating the terror of finding yourself the target of racist violence. “Selma” is history as a horror movie.
This approach shows in DuVernay’s staging of Bloody Sunday, so named for the attack that state troopers and members of Alabama posses perpetrated on marchers who tried to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge on March 7, 1965. As the protesters — including future congressman John Lewis (Stephan James) — neatly attired in suits and church clothes and carrying small bags of the supplies that are meant to carry them from Selma and Montgomery, approach the bridge, the camera pauses on the letters that spell out its name. Rust is streaking down from the signage onto the pale metal of the structure. The Edmund Pettus Bridge appears to be bleeding.
On the other side of the bridge, a member of a posse winds barbed wire around a bat, the camera gliding past this ominous image as if it’s not worth lingering on. Rather than letting us keep our wary eyes on the weapon, the frame moves on to other things, distracting us and leaving us exposed to a sneak attack from that wire and wood. The state troopers pack their humanity away behind gas masks. The smog pours across the bridge. The dark line of a whip cracks up straight into the air before whistling down on a human being. As a girl runs away from the sting of the gas, an officer emerges from the rolling cloud to beat her. John Lewis looks up after having been knocked to the ground and sees a baton coming in at him.
Over and over again in the Bloody Sunday sequence, DuVernay creates striking images of monstrous things emerging from the blankness. But the most impressive thing about the violence she stages is that DuVernay is not putting us in the position of passive observers to the brutalization of others. Often, she’s staging shots to give us the experience of being bashed in the face.
The most powerful of these moments comes in the movie’s first act, when, after the police break up a small nighttime march, Jimmie Lee Jackson (Keith Stanfield), his mother, Viola (Charity Jordan), and his grandfather, Cager Lee (Henry G. Sanders) escape down an alley. For a moment, it seems that they have saved themselves, that the police are so busy beating other marchers that the Lees have gone unobserved. Even if the cost of their safety is high, we feel profound relief for them.
But that peace is shattered when an officer in a white helmet shoots into the frame and takes off after the Lee family at a run. The anticipation that follows is dreadful. The Lees try to disguise themselves again by taking seats in a restaurant, Cager’s hands shaking too badly for him to camouflage himself as an ordinary patron in search of a meal. As we know it will, this ploy fails, too. The police burst in, beating the patrons in utter disregard of the unwritten laws that make even the humblest restaurant a civilized place, until finally the crack of a gunshot slams Jimmie back against the wall.
DuVernay has given us a plain and painful illustration of what it means to live under deadly threat. An environment in which murder at least puts an end to agonizing uncertainty and perpetual fear is utterly distorted and profoundly inhumane. “Selma” communicates at a visceral level a point many observers have been trying to make in a series of recent national conversations: what it means to live in constant fear of death or violence for which there will be no justice.
After Jimmie’s death, DuVernay also helps us to reckon with what it means to survive the coming to pass of your worst fears. A meeting between the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. (David Oyelowo) and Cager Lee at the morgue where he has gone to identify his grandson’s body is the most powerful scene in “Selma,” and an important counterpart to the end of “12 Years a Slave.”
In that movie, Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a free man sold into slavery, finally is freed from bondage, but he must leave behind Patsey (Lupita Nyong’o), who has no champions in the free world to liberate her. Their owner, Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender), barely recognizes the authority of the man who has come to collect Solomon and bring him home: If Solomon waited to leave or tried to advocate for Patsey, Epps might decide not to let either of them go. Solomon must seize his chance. After hugging Patsey farewell, Solomon gets on a carriage and wrenches his eyes away from the woman for whom he can do nothing. The scene is a terrible reminder that our progress toward freedom is often deeply compromised and bought at great cost.
And in “Selma,” King tells Lee, “There are no words to soothe you.” King is acknowledging that even if he and his allies manage to achieve Jimmie’s dream of the reforms that would allow Cager Lee to vote (and at the end of the movie, we learn that they do), they cannot bring Jimmie back from the dead. The victories that civil rights movements win can change the future. They cannot undo the injuries and tragedies of the past.
The great pleasure of most horror movies is that they frighten us, and then release us out into the comparative safety and normalcy of the real world. Biopics function the same way, reassuring us that various cruelties are permanently confined to the past. But even if their numbers are depleted and their sanction from the state is less certain, the monsters Ava DuVernay depicts in “Selma” are still with us.

Alyssa Rosenberg blogs about pop culture for The Washington Post's Opinions section.

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The Appallingly Retrograde Sameness Of The "New" Republican Congress

January 13, 2015, 3:46 pm
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Let the negativity continue!

Republicans’ tellingly ‘scary’ first week in Congress

By James Downie January 13, 2015
Before officially becoming Senate majority leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told The Post’s Paul Kane that he had a request for the new GOP majority: “Don’t be ‘scary.’ “ “I want the American people to be comfortable with the fact that the Republican House and Senate is a responsible, right-of-center, governing majority,” he said. Across Capitol Hill, the office of House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) put out a press release the day before the new Congress began, promising that “House Republicans have pledged to continue making the American people’s priorities – jobs and the economy – our priorities and are wasting no time getting started.” Seven days later, the bills that House and Senate Republicans have proposed in their first week paint quite a different picture — one of the same old “scary” Republican Party.
Perhaps we should have seen the dearth of new ideas after looking at the three bills touted in Boehner’s press release. The “Hire More Heroes” Act would let businesses hire veterans already covered by Defense Department health-care plans without having them count toward the Affordable Care Act’s rule that businesses with 50 or more employees must offer health insurance. The bill is a fine gesture, but targets a vanishingly small portion of the population. The second — approving the Keystone XL oil pipeline — can be debated on the environmental and energy merits, but studies have found that at most, the pipeline will create only 42,000 short-term jobs (a small percentage of healthy growth over the course of a year) and 50 (yes, fifty) long-term jobs.
The third — changing the ACA’s definition of full-time work from 30 hours to 40 hours — is the farthest-reaching and the most destructive. Even conservative policy maven Yuval Levin (who opposes the individual mandate) says “employers are less likely to reduce a worker’s load by 10 hours than by just 1 or 2 to avoid the mandate … So by setting the definition lower, Obamacare’s architects were trying to mitigate the damaging effects of the employer mandate some, and by setting it higher Republicans would be worsening those effects.”
And when we look at the more than 200 bills Republican senators and representatives proposed in the first week of the new Congress, an even more depressingly familiar picture of the party emerges. Republicans’ priorities are clear: They want to deregulate the environment, repeal Obamacare and derail the president’s immigration plans. Those were the three most common topics of the bills introduced, along with bills or resolutions to cut spending, force a balanced budget or restrict Obama’s options the next time the United States hits a debt ceiling crisis. Economic packages were almost entirely absent, relegated to secondary reasons for deregulating the environment or repealing Obamacare.
And fresh ideas on either immigration or health care are noticeably absent as well. Rep. Steve King’s ObamaCare Repeal Act runs less than 180 words, just long enough to repeal the law with no replacement. Rep. Ted Yoho’s“Preventing Executive Overreach on Immigration Act” just prohibits the president from carrying out his immigration executive order (again offering no replacement plan), which would be a great solution if Congress had any constitutional authority to do that.
Other standouts from the Republicans’ first week:
  • Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) offered three spending bills that would cut most discretionary spending by one, two and/or five percent. Her remarks and press statement don’t explain why she offered a choice rather than combining them into one big eight percent cut.
  • Rep. Scott Garrett (R-N.J.) sponsored H.R. 116, which “would allow a small business operating in the United States to elect to be exempt from any federal rule or regulation issued on or after January 20, 2009.”
  • Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), who is running for Louisiana governor this year, was a fountain of bad ideas, but perhaps his best was S. 63: “A bill to require all public school employees and those employed in connection with a public school to receive FBI background checks prior to being hired, and for other purposes.” There is no word on whether teachers would be disqualified for using prostitutes.
To some degree, the persistence of the die-hard faction in the Republican Party is hardly surprising; after all, it’s hard to think of many far-right conservatives who lost this past Election Day. But it cannot be a coincidence that a Republican economic agenda is little in evidence at the same time that the economy is growing at its fastest rate in years. As of yet, the party still wants to be seen as making jobs its priority; it just can’t figure out what policies will support that impression. As conservative writer James Pethokoukis says, “It’s not just that Republicans need to offer a positive agenda; they also need one that goes beyond an obsession with deficits and debt and that tackles the everyday concerns of most Americans.” If Mitch McConnell’s dream of a Republican White House and Congress is to come true, the party will have to come up with something fast.

James Downie is The Washington Post’s Digital Opinions Editor. He previously wrote for The New Republic and Foreign Policy magazine.

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President Obama's Comedy Routine At 2012 White House Correspondents' Dinner

January 13, 2015, 4:19 pm
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President Obama's Comedy Routine at 2014 White House Correspondents' Dinner

January 13, 2015, 4:28 pm
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President Obama's Comedy Routine At 2011 White House Correspondents' Dinner

January 13, 2015, 4:38 pm
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President Obama's Comedy Routine At 2010 White House Correspondents' Dinner

January 13, 2015, 4:45 pm
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President Obama's Comedy Routine At 2009 White House Correspondents' Dinner

January 13, 2015, 4:51 pm
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"The Great Flydini," Steve Martin In A 1992 "Tonight Show" With Johnny Carson

January 13, 2015, 5:28 pm
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Jerry Brown On Corporate Control And Planetary Destruction

January 13, 2015, 6:17 pm
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Catholic Social Teaching

January 13, 2015, 6:18 pm
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America, The Beautiful

Compendium Of The Social Doctrine Of The Church
Pontifical Council For Justice And Peace


The Role Of Property In The Christian-Marxist Dialogue



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Videotape Of New York City Police Gang-Murdering Eric Garner

January 13, 2015, 6:19 pm
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Annie LaMott Channels Jesuit Tom Weston

January 13, 2015, 6:20 pm
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Biblical Literalists: Please Weigh In On These Passages From Deuteronomy & Acts

January 13, 2015, 6:26 pm
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Deuteronomy 15:7-9 

7-9 When you happen on someone who’s in trouble or needs help among your people with whom you live in this land that God, your God, is giving you, don’t look the other way pretending you don’t see him. Don’t keep a tight grip on your purse. No. Look at him, open your purse, lend whatever and as much as he needs. Don’t count the cost. Don’t listen to that selfish voice saying, “It’s almost the seventh year, the year of All-Debts-Are-Canceled,” and turn aside and leave your needy neighbor in the lurch, refusing to help him. He’ll callGod’s attention to you and your blatant sin.



Acts Of The Apostles

Chapter 2 
42 These remained faithful to the teaching of the apostles, to the brotherhood, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers.
43 And everyone was filled with awe; the apostles worked many signs and miracles.
44 And all who shared the faith owned everything in common;
45 they sold their goods and possessions and distributed the proceeds among themselves according to what each one needed.
46 Each day, with one heart, they regularly went to the Temple but met in their houses for the breaking of bread; they shared their food gladly and generously.

Acts 5:1-11

Chapter 5 

1 But there was a man named Ananias (with his wife Sapphira) who sold some property 2 and brought only part of the money, claiming it was the full price. (His wife had agreed to this deception.) 3 But Peter said, “Ananias, Satan has filled your heart. When you claimed this was the full price, you were lying to the Holy Spirit. 4 The property was yours to sell or not, as you wished. And after selling it, it was yours to decide how much to give. How could you do a thing like this? You weren’t lying to us, but to God.” 5 As soon as Ananias heard these words, he fell to the floor, dead! Everyone was terrified, 6 and the younger men covered him with a sheet and took him out and buried him. 7 About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. 8 Peter asked her, “Did you people sell your land for such and such a price?” “Yes,” she replied, “we did.” 9 And Peter said, “How could you and your husband even think of doing a thing like this—conspiring together to test the Spirit of God’s ability to know what is going on?[a] Just outside that door are the young men who buried your husband, and they will carry you out too.” 10 Instantly she fell to the floor, dead, and the young men came in and, seeing that she was dead, carried her out and buried her beside her husband. 11 Terror gripped the entire church and all others who heard what had happened.


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"The Sin Of Sodom" According To Ezekiel

January 13, 2015, 7:05 pm
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Sodom and Gomorrah
located at the south end of The Dead Sea

Ezekiel 16:49-50The Voice

49 This was the sin of your warped sister, Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, gluttonous, and lazy. She never gave help to the poor and needy. 50 They were prideful, and they did abhorrent things right in front of Me, shamelessly and without remorse! As you already know, I put an end to Sodom and her daughters when I saw their behavior""

Ezekiel 16:49-50Complete Jewish Bible (CJB)

49 The crimes of your sister S’dom were pride and gluttony; she and her daughters were careless and complacent, so that they did nothing to help the poor and needy. 50 They were arrogant and committed disgusting acts before me; so that when I saw it, I swept them away.

Ezekiel 16:49-50Common English Bible (CEB)

49 This is the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were proud, had plenty to eat, and enjoyed peace and prosperity; but she didn’t help the poor and the needy. 50 They became haughty and did detestable things in front of me, and I turned away from them as soon as I saw it.
"A full belly does not believe in hunger." Italian Proverb

Yeshua Excoriates Fellow Pharisees: "The Woe Passages"

Ezekiel 16:49-50Contemporary English Version (CEV)

49 They were arrogant and spoiled; they had everything they needed and still refused to help the poor and needy. 50 They thought they were better than everyone else, and they did things I hate. And so I destroyed them.

Ezekiel 16:49-50Expanded Bible (EXB)

49 “‘This was the ·sin [iniquity; guilt] of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were proud and had plenty of food and lived in ·great comfort[secure ease], but she did not ·help [L strengthen the hand of] the poor and needy. 50 So Sodom and her daughters were ·proud [haughty] and did ·things I hate [detestable/abominable things] in front of me. So I ·got rid of [removed]them when I saw what they did.

Ezekiel 16:49-50Good News Translation (GNT)

49 She and her daughters were proud because they had plenty to eat and lived in peace and quiet, but they did not take care of the poor and the underprivileged. 50 They were proud and stubborn and did the things that I hate, so I destroyed them, as you well know.

Ezekiel 16:49-50GOD’S WORD Translation (GW)

49 This is what your sister Sodom has done wrong. She and her daughters were proud that they had plenty of food and had peace and security. They didn’t help the poor and the needy. 50 They were arrogant and did disgusting things in front of me. So I did away with them when I saw this.

Ezekiel 16:49-50International Standard Version (ISV)

49 Look! This was the sin of your sister Sodom and her daughters: Pride, too much food, undisturbed peace, and failure to help[a] the poor and needy. 50 In their arrogance, they committed detestable practices in my presence, so when I saw it, I removed them.

Ezekiel 16:49-50Names of God Bible (NOG)

49 This is what your sister Sodom has done wrong. She and her daughters were proud that they had plenty of food and had peace and security. They didn’t help the poor and the needy. 50 They were arrogant and did disgusting things in front of me. So I did away with them when I saw this.

Ezekiel 16:49-50New American Bible (Revised Edition) (NABRE)

49 Now look at the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters were proud, sated with food, complacent in prosperity. They did not give any help to the poor and needy. 50 Instead, they became arrogant and committed abominations before me; then, as you have seen, I removed them.

Ezekiel 16:49-50New Century Version (NCV)

49 “‘This was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were proud and had plenty of food and lived in great comfort, but she did not help the poor and needy. 50 So Sodom and her daughters were proud and did things I hate in front of me. So I got rid of them when I saw what they did.

Ezekiel 16:49-50New International Reader's Version (NIRV)

49 “Here is the sin your sister Sodom committed. She and her daughters were proud. They ate too much. They were not concerned about others. They did not help those who were poor and in need. 50 They were very proud. They did many things that were evil in my eyes. I hated those things. So I got rid of Sodom and her daughters, just as you have seen.

Ezekiel 16:49-50New Living Translation (NLT)

49 Sodom’s sins were pride, gluttony, and laziness, while the poor and needy suffered outside her door. 50 She was proud and committed detestable sins, so I wiped her out, as you have seen.[a]


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Levels Of Stress

January 13, 2015, 8:53 pm
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LEVELS OF STRESS
1.    You pick up a hitchhiker — a beautiful girl. Suddenly she faints inside your car & you take her to the hospital. Now that’s stressful.
2.    But at the hospital, they say she is pregnant & congratulate you that you’re going to be a father.
3.    You say that you are not the father, but the girl says you are. This is getting stressful!
4.    You request a DNA test to prove that you are not the father. After the tests are completed, the doctor says the test shows you’re infertile, and probably have been since birth. You’re extremely stressed but relieved.
5.    On your way back home, you think about your 5 kids at home.

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Indian Saddhu Bathing. Reuter's Picture Of The Day

January 14, 2015, 6:02 am
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A "Sadhu", or Hindu holy man, takes a dip at the confluence of the river Ganges and the Bay of Bengal, ahead of the "Makar Sankranti" festival at Sagar Island, India January 13, 2015. REUTERS/Rupak De Chowdhuri



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Thich Nhat Hanh And Wayne Dyer On Blame: Does Finger-Waving Do Any Good?

January 14, 2015, 6:17 am
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In an avalanche, no single snowflake accepts responsibility.
Stanislaw Lec

Lec also asked: "Is it progress if a cannibal uses a knife and a fork?"


When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don't blame the lettuce. You look into the reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have problems with our friends or our family, we blame the other person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like lettuce. Blaming has no positive effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason and arguments. That is my experience. No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just understanding. If you understand, and you show that you understand, you can love, and the situation will change.


Thich Nhat Hanh


All blame is a waste of time. No matter how much fault you find with another, and regardless of how much you blame him, it will not change you. The only thing blame does is to keep the focus off you when you are looking for external reasons to explain your unhappiness or frustration. You may succeed in making another feel guilty about something by blaming him, but you won't succeed in changing whatever it is about you that is making you unhappy. Wayne Dyer



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Chesterton Quotations From "The American Chesterton Society"

January 14, 2015, 6:41 am
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"It is the test of good religion whether you can joke about it."
"Spiritualism"
http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/20607/

G.K. Chesterton Quotations... And More




Quotations of G. K. Chesterton

Entire compendium at http://www.chesterton.org/quotations-of-g-k-chesterton/

Timeless Truths

  • “Misers get up early in the morning; and burglars, I am informed, get up the night before.” – Tremendous Trifles
  • “A change of opinions is almost unknown in an elderly military man.” – A Utopia of Usurers, CW, V, p396
  • “The act of defending any of the cardinal virtues has today all the exhilaration of a vice.” – A Defense of Humilities, The Defendant, 1901
  • “A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.” – The Everlasting Man, 1925
  • “Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.” – ILN, 4/19/30
  • “Impartiality is a pompous name for indifference, which is an elegant name for ignorance.” – The Speaker, 12/15/00
  • “An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered; an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered.” – On Running After Ones Hat, All Things Considered, 1908
  • “What embitters the world is not excess of criticism, but an absence of self-criticism.” –Sidelights on New London and Newer New York
  • “He is a [sane] man who can have tragedy in his heart and comedy in his head.” –Tremendous Trifles, 1909
  • “Among the rich you will never find a really generous man even by accident. They may give their money away, but they will never give themselves away; they are egotistic, secretive, dry as old bones. To be smart enough to get all that money you must be dull enough to want it.” – A Miscellany of Men
  • “Moderate strength is shown in violence, supreme strength is shown in levity.” – The Man Who was Thursday, 1908
  • “The simplification of anything is always sensational.” – Varied Types
  • “Customs are generally unselfish. Habits are nearly always selfish.” – ILN 1-11-08
  • “I believe what really happens in history is this: the old man is always wrong; and the young people are always wrong about what is wrong with him. The practical form it takes is this: that, while the old man may stand by some stupid custom, the young man always attacks it with some theory that turns out to be equally stupid.” – ILN, 6-3-22
  • “The center of every man’s existence is a dream. Death, disease, insanity, are merely material accidents, like a toothache or a twisted ankle. That these brutal forces always besiege and often capture the citadel does not prove that they are the citadel.” – Sir Walter Scott, Twelve Types
  • “The person who is really in revolt is the optimist, who generally lives and dies in a desperate and suicidal effort to persuade other people how good they are.” – Introduction to The Defendant
  • “To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.” – A Short History of England, Ch.10
  • “All the exaggerations are right, if they exaggerate the right thing.” – “On Gargoyles,”Alarms and Discursions
  • “The comedy of man survives the tragedy of man.” – ILN, 2-10-06
  • “We have had no good comic operas of late, because the real world has been more comic than any possible opera.” – The Quotable Chesterton
  • “When learned men begin to use their reason, then I generally discover that they haven’t got any.” – ILN, 11-7-08
  • “The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog.” – Broadcast talk 6-11-35
  • “Aesthetes never do anything but what they are told.” – The Love of Lead, Lunacy and Letters
  • “The aesthete aims at harmony rather than beauty. If his hair does not match the mauve sunset against which he is standing, he hurriedly dyes his hair another shade of mauve. If his wife does not go with the wall-paper, he gets a divorce.” – ILN, 12/25/09
  • “The reformer is always right about what is wrong. He is generally wrong about what is right.” – ILN, 10-28-22
  • “Reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal to the head rather than the heart, however pallid and polite, are necessarily men of violence. We speak of ‘touching’ a man’s heart, but we can do nothing to his head but hit it.” – Charles II, Twelve Types
  • “Man is always something worse or something better than an animal; and a mere argument from animal perfection never touches him at all. Thus, in sex no animal is either chivalrous or obscene. And thus no animal invented anything so bad as drunkeness – or so good as drink.” – Wine When it is Red, All Things Considered
  • “When we step into the family, by the act of being born, we do step into a world which is incalculable, into a world which has its own strange laws, into a world which could do without us, into a world we have not made. In other words, when we step into the family we step into a fairy-tale.” – Heretics, CW, I, p.143
  • “A thing may be too sad to be believed or too wicked to be believed or too good to be believed; but it cannot be too absurd to be believed in this planet of frogs and elephants, of crocodiles and cuttle-fish.” – Maycock, The Man Who Was Orthodox

The  rest of this 25 page collection is available at http://www.chesterton.org/quotations-of-g-k-chesterton/


    ↧

    Mario Cuomo "Obituary" Published By Right Wing "Washington Times"

    January 14, 2015, 6:57 am
    $
    0
    0
    Cuomo

    Mario Cuomo was not a total liar, and that’s saying something

    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jan/13/charles-hurt-cuomo-was-not-a-total-liar-and-thats-/#disqus_thread

    ***

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    "Do Republicans Do Anything But Piss, Moan, Bitch, Whine?"

    Bill Maher: The Zombie Life Cycle Of Republican Lies. They Never - Ever - Die

    "Conservatives Scare More Easily Than Liberals"

    "The Death of Epistemology"

    "The Reign of Morons Is Here," Charles P. Pierce, The Atlantic

    "A Southerner Explains Tea Party Radicalism: The Civil War Is Not Over"

    "People Who Watch Only Fox News 
    Know Less Than People Who Watch No News"

    "Republicans For Revolution," A Study In Anarchic Apocalypticism

    "Bank On It: The South Is Always Wrong"

    "Why The Bible Belt Is Its Own Worst Enemy"
    1. http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/10/why-bible-belt-is-christianitys-enemy.html
    How the death of epistemology validates rhetorical vapidity:
    1. The Guardian: "John Oliver's Viral Video Is The Best Climate Change Debate You'll Ever See"
      1. http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-guardian-john-olivers-viral-video.html

    George McGovern: "The Case For Liberalism, A Defense Of The Future Against The Past"

    Republican Party Is "Full Of Racists," Colin Powell's Chief Of Staff

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    Jindal Criticizes The Stupid Party: "Simply protects the rich so they get to keep their toys"

    http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/07/american-theocracy-by-kevin-phillips.html

    "The Party of Personal Responsibility" Is "The Party Of Personal Irresponsibility"

    Republican Rule And Economic Catastrophe, A Lockstep Relationship

    "Are Republicans Insane?"

    "American Conservatives And Oppositional-Defiant Disorder"

    "The Republican Party Is A Satanic Cult"

    "Do Republicans Do Anything But Piss, Moan, Bitch, Whine?"

    Bill Maher: The Zombie Life Cycle Of Republican Lies. They Never - Ever - Die

    "Conservatives Scare More Easily Than Liberals"

    "The Death of Epistemology"

    "The Reign of Morons Is Here," Charles P. Pierce, The Atlantic

    "A Southerner Explains Tea Party Radicalism: The Civil War Is Not Over"

    "People Who Watch Only Fox News 
    Know Less Than People Who Watch No News"

    "Republicans For Revolution," A Study In Anarchic Apocalypticism

    "Bank On It: The South Is Always Wrong"

    "Why The Bible Belt Is Its Own Worst Enemy"
    1. http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/10/why-bible-belt-is-christianitys-enemy.html
    How the death of epistemology validates rhetorical vapidity:
    1. The Guardian: "John Oliver's Viral Video Is The Best Climate Change Debate You'll Ever See"
      1. http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-guardian-john-olivers-viral-video.html

    George McGovern: "The Case For Liberalism, A Defense Of The Future Against The Past"

    Republican Party Is "Full Of Racists," Colin Powell's Chief Of Staff
    http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/10/republican-party-is-full-of-racists.html

    George McGovern: "The Case For Liberalism, A Defense Of The Future Against The Past"

    Conservative Norm Ornstein: The Media Ignore Republican Lunacy

    "Let's Just Say It. The Republicans Are The Problem"
    Conservative Norm Ornstein and Liberal Thomas Mann

    "Just How Far Out Is The Republican Fringe?" Norm Ornstein (And Is It The Fringe?)

    "It's Even Worse Than It Looks"
    Conservative Norm Ornstein and Liberal Thomas Mann

    "When Extremism Goes Mainstream"
    Conservative Norm Ornstein

    "The Real Death Panels," Conservative Norm Ornstein

    Jindal Criticizes The Stupid Party: "Simply protects the rich so they get to keep their toys"



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