CNN.Com: Israeli official: Killing Arafat is option

How utterly stupid can you get here? If they kill Arafat, there *will* be hell to pay. Arafat is the only one keeping peace there — if not for him, Hamas and its minions would have done *soooooo* much more.

I have a better idea: how about Israel electing someone who is willing to work with the terms from the 1948 creation of the state which *didn’t* usurp land and was agreed upon by both sides? How about getting rid of Sharon who is probably the only person in this world who is a bigger warmonger than Dubya? (He was the minister of defense when Israel invaded Lebanon. And they think this guy wants peace?????)

I used to sympathize with Israel. Then, I learned about all the crap they’ve done to the Palestinians and how idiots like Pat Robertson are supporting them only because they want to speed up the Second Coming. (Pat, Pat, Pat: you can’t force the will of God. Why haven’t we learned this by now???) Israel has committed enough human rights violations against the Palestinians to equal the number of suicide bombings. Do I condone the bombings? No. I sure don’t have all that much sympathy for either side — that’s for sure.

Seattle P-I: Seattle throws a tea party to fight java tax

Taking a leaf from the pages of what happened 227 years ago and 3000 miles away, are we? If I hadn’t seen that Seattle is indeed very serious about their coffee, I probably wouldn’t believe this.

I’m thinking that it’s going to be a tough toss-up between Minnesota and Washington as to where we want to be assigned on September 18th.

CNN.Com: Episcopalians delay vote on gay bishop

I’m not in favor of his consecration as bishop because he is in a same-sex relationship but… I also think that someone is pulling some pretty nasty tricks to keep him from being bishop. If these allegations are true, why were they not brought up in the months between when the people of his diocese first elected him bishop and the General Convention?

From the email alleging the misconduct:

“My personal experience of him is that he … does not maintain appropriate boundaries with men. I believe this is an alarming weakness of character that alone makes Gene unsuitable for the office of bishop.

“When I first encountered Gene at a … convocation a couple of years ago he put his hands on me inappropriately every time I engaged him in conversation. NO GAY MAN HAS EVER BEHAVED TOWARDS ME THIS WAY [capitals in original] — and I have had over 25 years of associations with gay male colleagues in the Boston, New York, Los Angeles, and San Diego show business communities.

“If I were a straight woman reporting heterosexual harassment by a straight male priest, would you hesitate to take the matter seriously? Well, I am a straight man reporting homosexual harassment by a gay male priest from another diocese.”

Out of fairness here, the final vote is being delayed to look into the charges. Still… how exactly did Canon Robinson touch this man inappropriately? Did he hold his hand to long? Did he touch his shoulders? Did this person wait to report it until he found out that Canon Robinson was gay???

I know that given my past I shouldn’t be so skeptical of this man’s allegations because I too was afraid of being believed about this at one point. Still… why did this person wait until the eve of the final vote to report this? That makes it just really suspicious.

The other charge is that a website that the Canon started has links to erotic pictures. Canon Robinson denies having anything to do with the site for a few years. My questions: what made these pictures so erotic? Two men holding hands? Was it straight-up pr0n? Do they really think that someone with that much to lose (I’m talking Canon Robinson) would affiliate himself with a site like that???

I’m really disappointed here. I mean, yeah… I don’t want him consecrated, but give the man a fair shot!

Operation Change Pat Robertson has begun. It is a 21 day prayer vigil to change the heart of Pat Robertson. Click on the link to find out more.

CNN: Bob Hope dead at 100

An era has ended. There will *never* be anyone funnier than him or anyone with the kind of talent he had. Best yet, his hummor was clean… which is more than I can say for the person sulogizing him on CNN this morning. (They had one of his comedy writers doing it and he made a very off-color comment, which caused CNN to cut the feed and the commentator to comment that “some people choose the most inappropriate times to try and be funny”.) We’ve lost one of our national treasures. *sniff*

Overheard on Prairie Home Companion:

“Democrats don’t get angry — we get bumper stickers.”

“Compassionate conservatives would put a child on death row but would grant them a wish before the executed them.”

Oh what the heck… click here to listen to the whole thing.