I was reading a diary over at dKOS entitled Is George W Bush Planning to Trigger Apocalyptic War? and it chilled me. The diarist's quote of Jeff Sharlet caught me cold. Sharlet starts by saying "We keep trying to explain away American fundamentalism." Then goes on to describe where I find myself.

Those of us not engaged personally or emotionally in the biggest political and cultural movement of our times—those on the sidelines of history—keep trying to come up with theories with which to discredit the evident allure of this punishing yet oddly comforting idea of a deity, this strange god. His invisible hand is everywhere, say His citizen-theologians, caressing and fixing every outcome: Little League games, job searches, test scores, the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, the success or failure of terrorist attacks (also known as "signs"), victory or defeat in battle, at the ballot box, in bed.... A divine love that speaks through hurricanes. Who would worship such a god? His followers must be dupes, or saps, or fools, their faith illiterate, insane, or misinformed, their strength fleeting, hollow, an aberration. A burp in American history. An unpleasant odor that will pass. ( Jeff Sharlet, from Through a Glass Darkly, Harpers Magazine, December 2006 )

They are, from my perspective, so surreal that I find myself simply reaching for denial or thinking that they are "dumb rednecks" who will have no long term impact. But armageddon fundamentalists are not as I would have them be. Many ETs (End Timers) have impressive secular educational credentials in the academic, legal, medical, and engineering fields (e.g. Olasky at UT). Still their religious born desire for the purification obtained from a great "die back" of humanity is crazy and must be resisted and fought. If the dKos diarist is right W is looking for a way to attack Iran before him term ends we are really in trouble.

Don't Cave Dems...Please Don't

Democrats in the Congress please continue to do what the people sent you there to do i.e. bring the troops out of harms way in Iraq. You cannot accomplish this if you roll over and give Bush want he wants after a veto. The safety of the troops is primarily the responsibility of the commander and in this case the commander-in-chief. Bush has ways of keeping those troops provisioned just keep reminding people of that. And also remind them that a good commander does what is necessary to insure that his troops are never left without the resources they need to defend themselves. In this case what a reasonable commander would do is compromise with Congress and accept the pull out time line knowing that if things turned around in Iraq that timetable might melt away.In any event Bush must be held accountable.

Is it time for Gun Control yet?

I wonder how many people Cho Seung-Hui would have killed with a rock, knife or baseball bat? Would even one person have died before he was overwhelmed and hauled away? But Mr Seung-Hui had a gun, no by all accounts he had two guns. He could instantly dish out mortal wounds before anyone could get near enough to stop him. And so he did.

Already the fake disgust of the NRA-istas is heard, they tell us not to use this tragedy for political purposes i.e. lessening the opportunity for gun violence by strengthening gun control laws. They need not be afraid, over 87% of the country favors the minimum wage and it still hasn't gotten out of the Congress. When it comes to guns is there even 50% of the population who wants more regulation?