Tag Archives: deceit

Political Activists Can’t Be Trusted

A few minutes ago, I received an email from “CREDO Action.” Here are the important parts:

President Bush wants an endless war, but the majority of Americans want to bring our troops home. Now there is a real plan, endorsed by military leaders, over 50 congressional challengers, and 50,000 citizen co-sponsors like you.

. . .

The Responsible Plan will:

  1. End U.S. military action in Iraq
  2. Use U.S. diplomatic power
  3. Address humanitarian concerns
  4. Restore our Constitution
  5. Restore our military
  6. Restore independence to the media
  7. Create a new, U.S.-centered energy policy

And then there is a link to a page where I can help deliver this “Responsible Plan” to a Congressional representative’s office and another link to a page where I can sign a petition endorsing the “Responsible Plan.” Uh-huh. Right. Like I’m gonna do that on the basis of seven hugely vague phrases that are utterly without details. Sure, maybe I want to “Restore our Constitution,” but maybe what I think about that is not exactly what the people at “CREDO Action” think about that, or what the authors of this “Responsible Plan” think about it.

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The Ladder of Divine Ascent: Insensitivity

From John Climacus: The Ladder of Divine Ascent by St. John Climacus:

The insensitive man is a foolish philosopher, an exegete condemned by his own words, a scholar who contradicts himself, a blind man teaching sight to others. He talks about healing a wound and does not stop making it worse. He complains about what has happened and does not stop eating what is harmful. He prays against it but carries on as before, doing it and angry with himself. And the wretched man is in no way shamed by his own words. “I’m doing wrong,” he cries, and zealously continues to do so. His lips pray against it and his body struggles for it. He talks profoundly about death and acts as if he will never die. He groans over the separation of soul and body, and yet lives in a state of somnolence as if he were eternal. He has plenty to say about self-control and fights for a gourmet life. He reads about the judgment and begins to smile, about vainglory and is vainglorious while he is reading. He recites what he has learnt about keeping vigil, and at once drops off to sleep. Prayer he extols, and runs from it as if from a plague. Blessings he showers on obedience, and is the first to disobey. Detachment he praises, and he shamelessly fights over a rag. When he is angry he gets bitter, and then his bitterness makes him angry, so that having suffered one defeat he fails to notice that he has suffered another. He gorges himself, is sorry, and a little later is at it again. He blesses silence and cannot stop talking about it. He teaches meekness and frequently gets angry while he is teaching it. Having come to his senses, he sighs and shaking his head he embraces his passion once more. He denounces laughter, and while lecturing on mourning he is all smiles. In front of others he criticizes himself for being vainglorious, and in making the admission he is looking for glory. He looks people in the eye with passion and talks about chastity. Out in the world he is full of praise for the solitary life and cannot see how much he is disgracing himself. He glorifies almsgivers and despises the poor. In everything he shows himself up for what he is, and does not come to his senses, though I would not say he was incapable of doing so.

I’m guilty of most of those things. I’m also likely to be guilty of recognizing my guilt and doing little about it, just as the passage describes. What kind of special hypocrite does that make me?

Vultures Capitalize on Katrina

This is just disgusting. May God give me to strength to forgive these
vultures’ trespasses as He forgives mine.

Hurricane Katrina has spawned more than misery and
destruction–a new wave of scam e-mails and Web sites are exploiting the
tragedy
. Phony Web sites and e-mails, purporting to offer help to
hurricane victims or provide more news on the destruction, are making
their rounds on the Internet, security experts said Thursday.

I pray these scammers are caught and sentenced to many months of
disaster relief work.

Some People

Somestimes I just have to scratch my head and say, "Huh?"

I mean, contrast the Unspace (moderate/conservative Christian who sings the church choir) on the Dobson attack against Spongebob vs.crazy Funky Dung’s defensive take that there is a homosexual conspiracy that needs to be fought and the criminals killed, by implication I guess. (Read this for more on this kind of pathology logically extended…)

Do I or did I ever believe that there’s homosexual conspiracy? Did I ever imply that the criminals ( I assume he means homosexuals and their co-conspirators) be killed? Would I ever suggest such a thing?!?

No. I merely suggested that people should dig through caches and archives in search of the evidence Dr. Dobson spoke of. If it’s there, that’s news. If it’s not there, it’s still news. Apparently, it’s there. That doesn’t mean I think their’s some kind of conspiracy (a pink scare, if you will). It does mean that WAFF has some explaining to do.

Now who’s the paranoid? BTW I won’t be linking to this bizarre critic of mine. "I just find his prattling about the nuances of his fantasy belief system to be really uninteresting."