News Tidbits and Blog to Recommend

To all the Christian nuts, Roy Moore, GWB, Santorum, Brownback, etc. I have one word: Deism.

Great piece in WP on the The Prayer Breakfast Presidency:

And a treaty with the Islamic nation of Tripoli of Barbary begun by Washington, finished by Adams, and unanimously ratified by the Senate in 1797, said: "As the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion . . . it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

Thomas Jefferson was perhaps the least orthodox Christian imaginable. He went through the Gospels with a razor, excising references to the supernatural and rearranging the text. Dismissing the Trinity, Jefferson once remarked: "Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them, and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the
mountebanks calling themselves priests of Jesus." On New Year's Day 1802, in a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association, Jefferson cited the constitutional "wall of separation between church and state" -- yet closed with words of prayer "for the protection and blessing of thecommon Father and creator of man. . . . "

This is terrifying, could be more road trips for me:

Boeing Parts and Rules Bent, Whistle-Blowers Say
The Washington Post

Jeannine Prewitt knew there was a problem when the holes wouldn't line up.

On a Boeing Co. assembly line in Kansas in 2000, Prewitt saw workers drilling extra holes in the long aluminum ribs that make up the skeleton of a jetliner's fuselage. That was the only way the workers could attach the pieces, because some of their pre-drilled holes didn't match those on the airframe.

Prewitt was a parts buyer, the third generation of her family to work at the sprawling Boeing factory on the outskirts of Wichita. She believed that pieces going into one of the world's most advanced and popular airliners, the Boeing 737, should fit like a glove.

The assembly workers Prewitt observed were not the only ones who noted problems with parts from a key Boeing supplier, AHF Ducommun of Los Angeles. Other workers told her that many pieces had to be shoved or hammered into place. And documents reviewed by The Washington Post show that quality managers reported numerous problems at Ducommun in memos recorded in Boeing's system for monitoring its suppliers.

Another Texas blogger to recommend:

I like the Easter thoughts:

But I must say a few words to the right-wing evangelicals: ... b] Where do you get all these ridiculous rules? Certainly not from Jesus. Jesus said there were only two rules - 1. love God with all your heart, and 2. love your neighbor as yourself. All other rules were made by men, especially Paul, who never met Jesus but had the audacity to speak for him, and really seemed to love making rules. Many evangelicals think drinking alcohol is a sin, but Jesus didn't believe this and even helped provide more wine for a wedding he was attending. Shouldn't christians be more interested in what Jesus wants them to do, than what Paul or some other man wants them to do?

And damn if this isn't good news:

Texas Alcoholic Beverages Commission has suspended their recent practice of going inside bars and arresting patrons they believe to be drunk. One of the arrests made was on an out-of-town woman who was drinking in the bar of the hotel where she was staying. They certainly can't claim to be protecting the public on that one! Arrests such as this have angered many merchants and businessmen, who believe this would send many conventions and other business to other states. Seeing that they have stirred up a hornets nest, the TABC is now backpedaling as fast as it can. They have suspended the program so they might "study" it further. My guess is that the program will never come back. You don't step on business toes in Texas.