My feeling that I am engaged in a political debate, and not a flamefest, is not related to how you treat (torment?) President Bush  it is related to how you treat me.

Frank, I remember you leaving in a huff not too long ago for the very same reasons you are quoting above.

I even remember a reference to masochism from you.

The question du jour is: why have you come back?

Glad we cleared that up….

Pharisee: a member of a Jewish sect of the intertestamental period noted for strict observance of rites and ceremonies of the written law and for insistence on the validity of their own oral traditions concerning the law

And though yes, technically, the fundamentalists claim salvation based on faith not works, in practice they are as obsessed with ritual purity as any Pharisee ever was, they just don’t use the same vocabulary to express their prejudices. No women preachers, no gays. What is this if not a fear of contamination? A fear of the unclean?

NFL minimum salary is about 100k, they can afford to give a lot more – but at least $1,000 each is way beyond reasonable.

If you disagree, please respond with some examples of where I have attacked anyone. If merely having to deal with people that don’t share your views is so distasteful, than I submit it is you that has the problem.

My motives for spending any time here is that I enjoy *attempting* to have a mature dialogue with people that don’t share my views. Admittedly, that’s a tough thing to find, around here.

And if you think this blog is messed up, try mediamatters. The trolls here are models of gentility in comparison. I like hanging out at OW precisely because the signal to noise ratio makes it possible to actually have a conversation.

Let’s rewind the tape …

“TomY spewed forth”, “Frank, people like TomY aren’t aware of their own cognitive dissonance”, “rhys spewed forth”.

And that’s just in this thread. Personal attacks on TomY and myself. You are using the language and phrasing of a bully, not someone interested in “mature dialogue”. You could have simply refuted the points. But no, you had to accuse us of “spewing”.

“Admittedly, that’s a tough thing to find, around here. ”

No one is keeping you here. Feel free to leave at any time.

And then I scroll up to read Frank’s opening salvo in what should have been a fairly benign discussion, and I understand. This is a blog, and hardly representative of the way most people think and feel at any given time. Right now, in OW.Com, we’re in nutball territory.

Phile and Franc are people who simply like attention, even if it’s negative attention. They’re not getting it elsewhere, so they come in here and continue their attention getting behavior. If it somehow were not worth their time, they would not be here.

The rest of you are just giving those two what they want. If you’re secure in your liberal ideology, why bother continuing this 2 year discussion with those losers?

This is my favorite blog on the internet–but this is messed up, people. Messed up.

JK

The Pharisees, walking a thin line between the Romams and Jews, had a tendency to “cover their ass” by keeping the Jewish hoi polloi “in line”, using their own interpretation of the rules, as you described. It had little to do with salvation, however.

The Pharisees and the Fundamentalists are about as far away from each other as Ethiopia is from Sheboygan. I don’t where you dream this sh*t up. Fundamentalists believe that one is saved by faith alone, noty by acts or rules. The idea of rules, sacrifices and rituals p[ermeated pre – Christian Judaism.

Also, it might interest you to know that Christianity didn’t formally split form Judaism for more than two centuries after the death of Christ. The Protestant religions, some of which are now called fundamentalist, didn’t come into being until the 1500′s.

For the record: amaritan’s Purse is on the way to the Gulf.

BTW, For a snapshot of what Christian Ministries are doing in the Gulf area, see here =>

And we ve just seen the conservative s version of government in action. Bush slashed taxes, gutted funding for emergency responders, defunded needed levee work, and shipped most of the troops and equipment needed for an emergency overseas.

Someone didn t fact-check today s liberal talking-points.

Fact #1:

Funding cuts did not contribute to this week s disaster. Says who? How about the lead engineer of the Army Corps of Engineers.

However, they noted that the levees were designed for a Category 3 hurricane and couldn t handle the ferocious winds and raging waters from Hurricane Katrina, which was a Category 4 storm when it hit the coastline. The decision to build levees for a Category 3 hurricane was made decades ago based on a cost-benefit analysis. [this means funding cuts began before Bush became president]

 I don t see that the level of funding was really a contributing factor in this case, said Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, chief of engineers for the corps.  Had this project been fully complete, it is my opinion that based on the intensity of this storm that the flooding of the business district and the French Quarter would have still taken place.

Fact #2:

Clinton was also behind huge cuts to levee funding:

Funding for these projects has generally trended downward since at least the last years of the Clinton administration. Congressional records show that the levee work on Lake Pontchartrain received $23 million in 1998 and $16 million in 1999.

http://tinyurl.com/akzfr

Fact #3:

The Lousiana National Guard consists of 11,000 soldiers, of which less than 4000 are deployed abroad (not all the deployed LANG soldiers are in Iraq).

Furthrmore, the LANG s 225th Engineer Group, which is equipped and trained for disaster relief, is not among those deployed to Iraq.

If there has been a lack of LANG presence to provide relief and security to Katrina victims, the blame falls squarely on the LA government, namely the governor herself.

One more thing to note: Bush urged LA s governor to call for an evacuation of New Orleans 24 hours before she got up the nerve to actually do it.