Phil

My fiance and I are recently engaged and started looking at potential sites for the ceremony. We're looking for a chapel somewhere north or northwest of Boston, seats at least 150 and that allows foroutside officiants. Plus for historic chapels. Any ideas?

How many free throws do you think Kobe will get tonight in Game 3? My guess is 35.

"Bush Heckler Arrested After Punching Wheelchair-Bound Girl"

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,352498,00.html

"A congressional candidate is defending his speech to a group celebrating the anniversary of Adolf Hitler's birth, saying he appeared simply because he was asked."

http://nwitimes.com/articles/2008/04/23/news/top_n...

I thought we weren't supposed to judge people by their associations.

If humans are the result of random events and evolved from lesser forms, how did we develop the intelligence and logic to develop the theory of evolution?

In Pennsylvania, a key swing state:

"In a head to head matchup between John McCain and Barack Obama, McCain leads 49% to 39%"

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/docs/SV_...

50% of Americans pay no Federal income tax.

25% of the people pay 86% of the total tax.

1% of the people pay 39% of the total tax (and it was 37% pre-Bush, darn tax cuts for the rich)

So do you really think we need to tax the "rich" even more? How is it fair that they pay for such a disproportionate amount of the tax burden?

between these two statements:

- Religion is the opiate of the people.

- People cling to their religion to explain away their frustrations.

I can't see a difference.

According to Obama, us small town folk are a bunch of bitter people who have to cling to something like religion or an anti illegal immigration to deal with it. So what's your crutch?

You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are going to regenerate and they have not.

“And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/04/11/obama-draw...

Or should we not judge him by the company he keeps?

Ayers didn’t just carry a sign outside the Pentagon on May 19, 1972. He bombed it. As his memoir gleefully recalled, “Everything was absolutely ideal on the day I bombed the Pentagon. The sky was blue. The birds were singing. And the bastards were finally going to get what was coming to them.”

“I don’t regret setting bombs,” he told the New York Times in 2001, sorry only that he and the others “didn’t do enough.”

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YThjYTU1ZDBjN...

It seems some are upset with John McCain saying he would not rule out military action against Iran. Obviously things haven't gone quite as planned in Iraq, but do you really want to take the option off the table?

"While speaking to black people, King never condescended to offer Rev. Wright-style diatribes or conspiracy theories. He did not paint black people as victims. To the contrary, he spoke about black people as American patriots who believed in the democratic ideals of the country, in nonviolence and the Judeo-Christian ethic, even as they overcame slavery, discrimination and disadvantage. King challenged white America to do the same, to live up to their ideals and create racial unity. He challenged white Christians, asking them how they could treat their fellow black Christians as anything but brothers in Christ."

What if Hillary manages to win the popular vote (a long shot I know) but has less pledged delegates going in to the convention? Would you want the super delegates to go with the "will of the people" and side with Hillary or "play by the rules" and support Obama with the most pledged delegates?

It looks like Obama filled out a survey in 1996 while running for State Senate which said he did not support capital punishment, supported legislation to ban handguns and was against parental notification before a minor had an abortion. Despite the fact these views are different from what he has claimed, the bigger problem is that he claimed a staff person filled it out and he "never saw or approved" it. Kind of strange that the survey is in his own handwriting and he gave an interview on the survey.

"Through an aide, Obama, who won the group’s endorsement as well as the statehouse seat, did not dispute that the handwriting was his. But he contended it doesn’t prove he completed, approved — or even read — the latter questionnaire. "

Isn't this a blatant lie (and a flip flop) or am I missing something?

http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=03FA37...

I've heard lots of people saying "those things were taken out of context", "there were plenty of other sermons without comments like that". OK, so what about the very theology the church is founded on? Isn't this bad enough?

“Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community. . . . Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love.”

http://blog.beliefnet.com/crunchycon/2008/03/the-i...

All I hear from Obama supporters is that "Obama did not say those things, his former pastor did." Well, that is beside the point for me. The issue is that he chose to associate with this man and supported him for 20 years. Does that not say anything about his own attitude and perspective? If you say he didn't know about those things, what does that say about his judgment? Regardless of whether it affects your opinion of him, how it is a "non-issue" and something we should not at least discuss?

Obama made some good points in his speech, but I found this part troubling. He admits Wright is a man who harbors anger over the past, but he wants to move us past racial issues. If he is a uniter and not a divider, why would he hold someone in such high regard that is focused on black vs. white?

"For the men and women of Reverend Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years."

"The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country – a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past."

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/18/america/18o...

Forget about whether or not it reflects Barack's values, but do you honestly not see a problem with what Jeremiah Wright has said?

“The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. The government lied.”

“We bombed Hiroshima. We bombed Nagasaki. And we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon and we never batted an eye,” Wright said.

“The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes three-strike laws and wants them to sing God Bless America. No! No No!

“God damn America … for killing innocent people. God damn America for threatening citizens as less than humans. God damn America as long as she tries to act like she is God and supreme.”

“Hillary is married to Bill, and Bill has been good to us. No he ain’t! Bill did us, just like he did Monica Lewinsky. He was riding dirty.”

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/03/14/obamas-spi...