There are some things which just have to be challenged...

There is a column in the Christian Science Monitor which has as its premise that "Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of history". And then it goes off about how most of the religious based killing in the past has been minor compared to the damage done by modern "atheists". And some of what the columnist says is pertinent. However, towards the end of the column, he shoots himself in the foot with this statement: "...cannot explain why, if Nazism was directly descended from medieval Christianity, medieval Christianity did not produce a Hitler."

Well, the short answer is that the rise of Hitler required the technology of the 20th Century. Also, while Hitler's motives were complex, his antisemitism was, in fact, a direct result of centuries of religious persecution. The deaths of over six million Jews can be laid directly at the feet of religious intolerance. Nope, sorry...Harris, Dawkins et al have a point which needs to be considered.

Bush lies to us once more...

The son-of-a-bitch lies, then smirks because he knows he's lying and he also knows that "you can fool some of the people all of the time". How does he lie? Well, the man who, in living memory, has done the most to wreck the American economy is trying to accuse the Democrats of being the people who "will raise taxes and hurt economic growth". This is the man who has took one of the most vibrant US economies of the past 100 years, and, basically, drove it into the ground. Under Clinton, the economy was growing (and growing with good paying jobs rather than the minimum wage jobs more and more Americans are ending up with), the federal deficit was shrinking and we, as a nation, were starting to believe in ourselves again after the long, long recovery from the Vietnam debacle.

So, in less than six years, Bush has managed to throw all that away, and a great deal of what he has tossed away was the foundations laid by Ronald Reagan (who, while I may not have been a supporter, I do grudgingly admire for his optimism about our future.) When we were attacked by the Islamic fundamentalists, rather than give us a shining vision of the mountaintop, George encouraged us to hide in caves and to shun the light.

But even more than the psychological damage he has done, there is the disasterous fiscal legacy he is going to leave. People, sooner or later somebody is going to have to pay for the huge deficit this man and his Republican administration has run up, and that "somebody" is going to be us, our children and their children. If I were a Democrat, I would run on the Bush legacy for the foreseeable future (or at least until the national debt gets back to the level Clinton had it in 2000.) Yep, I would tar and feather the Republican Party with George Bush for many years. Lying Son-of-a-Bitch!!