Right and Wrong

“Who doesn't know the difference between right and wrong? Yet that essential knowledge, generally assumed to come from parental teaching or religious or legal instruction, could turn out to have a quite different origin. Primatologists like Frans de Waal have long argued that the roots of human morality are evident in social animals like apes and monkeys. The animals' feelings of empathy and expectations of reciprocity are essential behaviors for mammalian group living and can be regarded as a counterpart of human morality. Marc D. Hauser, a Harvard biologist, has built on this idea to propose that people are born with a moral grammar wired into their neural circuits by evolution. . . .

The moral grammar now universal among people presumably evolved to its final shape during the hunter-gatherer phase of the human past, before the dispersal from the ancestral homeland in northeast Africa some 50,000 years ago. This may be why events before our eyes carry far greater moral weight than happenings far away, Dr. Hauser believes, since in those days one never had to care about people remote from ones environment. " An Evolutionary Theory of Right and Wrong, By NICHOLAS WADE, New York Times, October 31, 2006 J.J. says “This is a reasonable explanation of why we make charitable contributions to local causes when there are places in the world suffering from much more dire situations that we don't support. I've often wondered about this. On the other hand, when those far away places are given T.V. coverage that people see, they are more likely to aid those far away places. The same for concern about warfare in far off places like Iraq.”

Happy Halloween. Do You Know Where Your Children Are? What About Your Bill of Rights?

"Under torture I would admit that George W. Bush is a wise and articulate leader, if that’s what I thought my tormenters wanted to hear."

Vote God

“No party has a corner on God. But as I vote, I want to support people who will most closely represent Biblical and Christian values. What are those values ? . . . When asked, “ Who is my neighbor ? ” Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan. Jesus ’ teaching is that your neighbor is anyone who is in need. Anyone. Love your neighbor as yourself. That’s the politics of Jesus.
Vote God.”

From ROOTS & WINGS : Vote God by Lowell Grisham in the Northwest Arkansas Times.
The full article is well worth the read.

More Great Stuff From Our Patriotic Patti-Three Cheers For Snobbish Women

Global Warming, Exxon Profits, Trickling Down, and A New Lexus
US now ranks 53rd in World Press Freedom Index
Who Really Supports Our Troops?
About that coffee: Fair Trade?
Stem Cell Research
So many ways to die in Iraq

Scopes II-Alan Shore Slams Scientology

Jane Wyatt, Mother on ‘Father Knows Best,’ Dies at 95- No One Reported That She Converted To Islam.

After Being Waterboarded, Alberto Fernandez Says He Should Not Have Called Arrogant & Stupid U.S. Policy Arrogant & Stupid.

Meanwhile, the Holy month of Ramadan ended with at least 44 Iraqis killed along with 5 American G.I’s bringing the October total of American service men & women killed to 83 and counting.

Fergus Snoddy Results

Congratulations to Simon Sawe for winning the Fergus Snoddy Half Marathon. Virgil & even Fergus himself had to lay out this year because of injuries. They would have given young Sawe a good race. Young Campbell here at the left was in the lead for the first quarter mile, but triped while waving to the camera and was not able to finish. There go your shoe endorsements Campbell.

Virgil Has Developed An Invisibility Cloak

Virgil is shown in the picture below wearing his newly developed invisibility cloak.





Duke is far behind.

I Miss The Days When News Was News & Crackpots Were Funny

“What's all this fuss I keep hearing about violins on television? Why don't parents want their kids to see violins on television? I thought the Leonardo Bernstein concerts were just lovely, now, if they only show violins on television after ten o'clock at night, the little babies will all be asleep and they won't learn any music appreciation. They'll learn to play guitars, and bongo drums and go to Africa and join these rock'n roll outfits and they won't drink milk! I think there should be more violins on television and less game shows, it's terrible the way...”
Emily Lattella

Our freedoms in peril

"The president of the United States — unbowed, undeterred and unconnected to reality — has continued his extraordinary trek through our country rooting out the enemies of freedom: the Democrats."
Did we win the Cold War? Maybe we should read again the history of those we think that we defeated and look again at why we opposed them.

"Bush: Iraq 'Could Be' Vietnam All Over Again"

"Is it time to hit 'mission abort' in Iraq? In May 2003 U.S. President George W. Bush touched down on the deck of the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln in a jet fighter inscribed with the words "Commander in Chief" on the cockpit. Standing underneath a banner reading "Mission Accomplished," he declared the U.S. and its allies had "prevailed" in Iraq. Almost three-and-a-half years later, with Iraq seemingly locked in a perpetual cycle of violence, Bush is facing growing calls from military leaders and his own political advisors to hit the "mission abort" button instead."

Habeas Corpus Is One Freedom They’ll No Longer Hate Us For Having.

Habeas Corpus, born circa 1300 in England was killed yesterday. She was inducted into the United States Constitution in 1789. With her death, the President of the United States can put any U.S. citizen, including you and me, in a secret jail without telling us why, deny us the constitutional right to trial by jury, torture us, and even execute us.

In other news ten more GI’s died in Iraq yesterday.

Today’s historical note-We used to consider waterboarding a war crime. How quaint.

Today's Music.

Share The Light Of The Fire You've Been Given

Is This The Perfect Male?

British Army chief: Leave Iraq 'soon'

“Gen. Richard Dannatt . . .said problems with global terror are not caused by ‘our presence in Iraq but undoubtedly our presence in Iraq exacerbates them.’
The army chief of general staff said Britain should ‘get ourselves out sometime soon because our presence exacerbates the security problems, . . .’
Dannatt said the plan to install a liberal democracy in Iraq may have been naive, and the coalition should aim for something less ambitious.”

The celebration plans are, at best, premature.
The troops support the general.
Blair's a fu_ked duck.

Nuts To You-Bush just using Christians

“. . . the nation’s most prominent evangelical leaders were known in the office of presidential political strategist Karl Rove as ‘the nuts.’
“National Christian leaders received hugs and smiles in person and then were dismissed behind their backs and described as ‘ridiculous,’ ‘out of control,’ and just plain ‘goofy,’” Kuo writes.”

"Religious Whites Shifting From GOP"

My Daddy Used To Say About People He Liked: "She/He is not really a Republican."

Patti kinda says the same thing with a twist.

Love, Compassion, Being Human & Divine

Free Hugs Campaign (music by sick puppies)

On another note, the 2.5 million people chased from their homes everyday in Darfur face the threat of starvation, disease, and rape, while the few lucky enough to remain in their homes risk displacement, torture, and murder. Please join me in calling on President Bush and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to do more.
Visit http://www.savedarfur.org to do so
Take action now at http://www.democracyinaction.org/darfur/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=5197&t=
Thanks to Rev. Sandy & MacGraham for the tips.

Jack Straw Urges Christian Women to Take Off Skirts When They Visit. Blair Backs Him.

Blair & Straw continue a long British tradition of cross cultural sensitivity.

Anna The Brave

Laws help, but a free press exists only through people like Anna Politkovskaya to whom reporting truth is more important than money, comfort, safety, or even life. They are few. Even in this country with our beloved First Amendment, it is difficult to be anything but a follower. Most reporters blindly approved of our foreign policy when it was popular, and now a pile on a broken Bush. There are exceptions, but they can rarely rise above their corporate bosses. Here’s a hope and a prayer that Anna’s courage will inspire others. If it does the world will eventually be a better safer place.
Let's also remember British TV reporter Terry Lloyd.

We'll Miss You Buck

"God's been good to me. You can see that, can't you? It didn't happen. They didn't think Buck was good enough to be in the Hall of Fame. That's the way they thought about it and that's the way it is, so we're going to live with that. Now, if I'm a hall-of-famer for you, that's all right with me. Just keep loving old Buck. Don't shed any tears 'cause I'm not going to the Hall of Fame.”
Buck O’Neil
We’ll shed a tear now, Buck, not because some ignorant people didn’t recognize you, but because we miss you. Go with God.

Kurds Show Signs of Seceding From Iraq- What Now, War With Turkey?

"With violence bloodying Iraq, Kurds in the peaceful north have been showing signs of going their own way, raising their own flag and even hinting they could secede in a dispute over oil wealth - moves that have alarmed Shiites and Sunnis."

Our Leaders?????-Republicans "set aside $20 million for a commemoration of success in Iraq and Afghanistan."

"The funding was tucked away in the small print attached to a congressional military spending bill for the past year. Also inserted was a provision for the money to roll over into 2007 if it was not used.

The news from Iraq suggests the party will not be taking place soon. Four US soldiers were killed yesterday, bringing the number of American troops killed since Saturday to 21. And at least 13 people died yesterday and dozens were injured in a series of bomb blasts in a busy area in the south of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. About 75 people were reported injured when three explosions hit the mainly Christian Camp Sarah district The US casualty toll now stands at more than 2734, with almost 120 British troops killed. Two years ago a report in the Lancet suggested over 100,000 Iraqi civilians had been killed."

Hastert Says It's Clinton's Fault-Now That's A New One.

Virgil thought he was kidding yesterday, but House Speaker Dennis Hastert, second in line to the throne, “Dogged by accusations that he failed to protect House teen pages from a congressman's come-ons, . . . blames his problems on the media and Democratic operatives, even suggesting former President Clinton might somehow be involved. . . .
A-B-C News, which broke the Foley story, says their sources weren't Democrats, but, rather, former pages who'd been sponsored by Republican lawmakers.”

Congress' shameful retreat from American values

“I would not send my college kid off for a semester abroad if I were you. Last week, we suspended human rights in America, and what goes around comes around. . . .The U.S. Senate, in all its splendor and majesty, decided that an "enemy combatant" is any non-citizen whom the president says is an enemy combatant, including your Korean greengrocer or your Swedish grandmother or your Czech au pair, and can be arrested and held for as long as authorities wish without any right of appeal to a court of law to examine the matter. If your college kid were to be arrested in Bangkok or Cairo, suspected of "crimes against the state" and held in prison, you'd assume that an American foreign service officer would be able to speak to your kid and arrange for a lawyer, but this may not be true anymore. Be forewarned.The Senate also decided it's up to the president to decide whether it's OK to make these enemies stand naked in cold rooms for a couple of days in blinding light and be beaten by interrogators. This is now purely a bureaucratic matter: The plenipotentiary stamps the file "enemy combatants" and throws the poor schnooks into prison . . . they have no right to see the evidence against them, and there is no appeal. . . .It's good that Barry Goldwater is dead because this would have killed him. Go back to the Senate of 1964--Goldwater, Dirksen, Russell, McCarthy, Javits, Morse, Fulbright--and you won't find more than 10 votes for it. None of the men and women who voted for this bill has any right to speak in public about the rule of law anymore, or to take a high moral view of the Third Reich, or to wax poetic about the American Ideal. Mark their names. Any institution of higher learning that grants honorary degrees to these people forfeits its honor. Alexander, Allard, Allen, Bennett, Bond, Brownback, Bunning, Burns, Burr, Carper, Chambliss, Coburn, Cochran, Coleman, Collins, Cornyn, Craig, Crapo, DeMint, DeWine, Dole, Domenici, Ensign, Enzi, Frist, Graham, Grassley, Gregg, Hagel, Hatch, Hutchison, Inhofe, Isakson, Johnson, Kyl, Landrieu, Lautenberg, Lieberman, Lott, Lugar, Martinez, McCain, McConnell, Menendez, Murkowski, Nelson of Florida, Nelson of Nebraska, Pryor, Roberts, Rockefeller, Salazar, Santorum, Sessions, Shelby, Smith, Specter, Stabenow, Stevens, Sununu, Talent, Thomas, Thune, Vitter, Voinovich, Warner.”
Congress' shameful retreat from American values, Garrison Keillor, Chicago Tribune October 4, 2006

Traumatized By Bill Clinton’s Acts With An Adult Woman, Foley, Hastert, Reynolds, et al. Become Confused About Pedophileia With Young Boys.

It's not Clinton who's frightening these children.

Keep The Pages-Throw Out Morally Bankrupt Congress.

"It what may be one of the greatest disgraces in Congressional history there are now senior Republicans, including the Speaker's best friend Congressman Lahood, suggesting the page program be abolished. . . . the very idea that there are now Republicans claiming that their Congress is morally incapable of protecting young people only demonstrates how far these people have come from the moral bearing of our democratic nation. Punish the pages and protect the politicians? No. Let's keep the pages and get rid of the politicians who threaten them."

Are You All Still With Us?

Young Girls Executed
Hastert Risks Children’s Safety To Stay In Power
Condi’s As Amoral As Bush, Cheney & Rove
More Dead In Iraq
Iraqis Support Attacks On Our Troops-Want Us Out & Dead
Bush Whitehouse In Denial

VIRGIL IS TOO SICK AT HEART TO COMMENT.