Quote for the Day

If you enter this world knowing you are loved and you leave this world knowing the same, then everything that happens in between can be dealt with.

- Michael Jackson

Speed-Blogging at the Estes Park Library

One slow public terminal, 7 minutes remaining from a 30 minute limit.   The blog has been on hiatus this past week while I’ve attended Luther Academy of the Rockies, a clergy continuing education event held every summer in the shadow of Mt. Meeker, near Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park.

This year’s most interesting speaker IMHO is a Calvinist homiletics teacher named John Rottman.   He has talked about ways to put the good news back in preaching and has offered a strategy of sermon movement I intend to put in practice when I get back in the preaching saddle.  Couldn’t have come at a better time.  Time, by the way, is about up at the terminal.  Adios for now.

The Iraq Invasion: More Hard Evidence of Its Injustice

Another damning British memo.  But does anybody care, besides the people whose lives have been savaged or destroyed in the name of good ‘ol freedom, Neocon style?

From the UK’s Observer, via Truthout:

A confidential record of a meeting between President Bush and Tony Blair before the invasion of Iraq, outlining their intention to go to war without a second United Nations resolution, will be an explosive issue for the official inquiry into the UK’s role in toppling Saddam Hussein.

The memo, written on 31 January 2003, almost two months before the invasion and seen by the Observer, confirms that as the two men became increasingly aware UN inspectors would fail to find weapons of mass destruction (WMD) they had to contemplate alternative scenarios that might trigger a second resolution legitimising military action.

Bush told Blair the US had drawn up a provocative plan “to fly U2 reconnaissance aircraft painted in UN colours over Iraq with fighter cover”. Bush said that if Saddam fired at the planes this would put the Iraqi leader in breach of UN resolutions.

The president expressed hopes that an Iraqi defector would be “brought out” to give a public presentation on Saddam’s WMD or that someone might assassinate the Iraqi leader. However, Bush confirmed even without a second resolution, the US was prepared for military action. The memo said Blair told Bush he was “solidly with the president”.

Kyrie eleison.  On us all.

Assumptions About Gay/Lesbian Spirituality May Be Wrong

From George Barna:

“It is interesting to see that most homosexuals, who have some history within the Christian Church, have rejected orthodox biblical teachings and principles – but, in many cases, to nearly the same degree that the heterosexual Christian population has rejected those same teachings and principles. Although there are clearly some substantial differences in the religious beliefs and practices of the straight and gay populations, there may be less of a spiritual gap between straights and gays than many Americans would assume.”

Friday Before Summer Solstice Music

Granted, it is a bit weird to post “Beware of Darkness on such a sun-filled day.  But I read the paper, scan the blogosphere, and then look at my own big bag of stuff, and think this might be an appropriate song after all.  While you’re out and about this solstice weekend, “watch out for falling swingers, dropping all around you.”

Great Expectations on Access TV

Kristen Wiig is one of our more under-appreciated comedic actresses.

BARRY, starring Kristen Wiig and Brian Petsos….

more about “KRISTEN WIIG & BRIAN PETSOS in Citybe…“, posted with vodpod

Ryan Leaf Continues to Write His Own Tragic Story

This is just sad.  All those glorious Saturday afternoons spent leading the Washington State Huskies to one improbable victory after another, the strong arm making one deep pinpoint pass after another, now just a distant glimmering memory.  The yellowing press clippings no longer serve as any form of currency.   The smart move made so many years ago, the draft pick that seemed to hold so much promise for San Diego, now shelved and filed in the general vicinity of Tony Mandarich and Lawrence Phillips.

DALLAS (AP)—Former NFL quarterback Ryan Leaf posted a $45,000 bond Wednesday in Washington state for drug and burglary charges out of Texas after being arrested by customs agents as he returned to the United States from Canada.

James Farren, the district attorney in Randall County in West Texas, said Leaf was arrested Wednesday by federal customs agents. Legal assistant Jennifer Bonstein said Leaf declined to waive extradition during a hearing Wednesday afternoon in Bellingham, Wash., about 90 miles north of Seattle.

Wendy Jones, chief corrections deputy for the Whatcom County Jail, confirmed that Leaf posted bond Wednesday evening.

Leaf’s attorney in Washington told the court Leaf would post the bond and return to Texas by himself. Leaf also was to come back to court in Whatcom County on July 16, Bonstein said.

Bill Kelly, Leaf’s attorney in Texas, said his client was returning to Texas to turn himself in by a Thursday deadline.

“I assume when he was crossing the border, they picked him up,” Kelly said.

The ex-Washington State University and San Diego Chargers quarterback is charged with burglary to a habitation, a second-degree felony. Leaf also was indicted on seven counts of obtaining a controlled substance by fraud and one count of delivery of a simulated controlled substance.

Leaf coached quarterbacks at West Texas A&M in Canyon, where the indictment was returned in May.

Leaf, who resigned from West Texas A&M after being investigated for drug crimes in November, was working in British Columbia, his attorney said. Kelly, a former head football coach at the college, said Leaf “has been to rehab and successfully completed it.”

Leaf, who coached for three seasons at West Texas A&M, spent four seasons in the NFL after being chosen with the No. 2 pick in the 1998 draft by the Chargers.

Politics As Usual?

Abomination of War Switches Parties

The Democratic Party just took over ownership for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  As Digby says, they just don’t get it–you know, that swelling of electoral success in the past two elections.

Time to Ring Up Your Congressman on Healthcare Reform

Kevin Zeese writes in Truthout:

Yesterday, as Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) left the health-care hearing room, he leaned over to me and said:

“I used to sell insurance. The basic rule is the larger the pool the less expensive the health care. Today we have 1,300 separate pools – separate health care plans – and that is why health care is so expensive; 700 pools would be more efficient and less expensive and one pool would be the least expensive. That’s why single payer is the answer.”

Nothing like common sense.

But, common sense was not on display in the Senate yesterday. Instead, the Senate is seeking a path to the goal of universal coverage by protecting the least-efficient model – the for-profit insurance industry that through waste, fraud, abuse and bureaucracy eats up 31 percent of the cost of health care….

Read on to discover why this is, if you haven’t figured it out already.