A Co-worker sent me a "humourous" story that has probably been making the rounds of the Republican set. How simplistic...but to make a point simplicity plays better than complexity. Thinking about it I saw where a little change could show the other side of the coin. Here's my modified version:

Sometime back, I was talking to this little girl, Catherine, the daughter of some friends, and she said she wanted to be President someday.

Both of her parents, liberal Democrats, were standing there with us and I asked Catherine, 'If you were President what would be the first thing you would do?'

Catherine replied, 'I would give houses to all the homeless people.'

'Wow, what a worthy goal you have there, Catherine.' I told her, 'You don't have to wait until you're President. You can start now by coming over to my house and cleaning up all the dog poop in my back yard and I will pay you $5 dollars. Then we can go over to the grocery store where that homeless guy hangs out, and you can give him the $5 dollars to use for a new house.'

Catherine (who was about 4) thought that over for a second, while her mom looked at me seething, and Catherine replied, 'Why don't you ask to the homeless guy come over and clean up the dog poop and you can just give him the $5 dollars?'

'Ah', her mother said, “Welcome to the Democratic Party.”


( Here's the original version )

Michigan Equality PAC Endorses Governor

LANSING, MI -- Michigan Equality PAC announced today their endorsement of Governor Jennifer Granholm in her re-election bid. Granholm's opponent, Dick DeVos (Rep), declined to return Michigan Equality's survey.

"Governor Granholm has been very supportive of the LGBT community during the last four years, and we're extremely happy to be able to continue our support for her," stated Douglas Meeks, President of Michigan Equality's Board of Directors. "She has put her support behind many of our legislative efforts this session and we look forward to working with her again over the next four years."

Governor Granholm has been supportive of various LGBT legislation, including the Safe Schools legislation aimed at reducing bullying in schools across the State of Michigan through education and includes sexual orientation. Granholm also mentioned the Safe Schools legislation in her State of the State address early this year.

London Times [?]Societies worse off 'when they have God on their side' By Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent

“In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies." - According to a paper by Gregory Paul (Social Scientist) published in the Journal of Religion and Society. Data from the International Social Survey Programme, Gallup and other research bodies was used to reach his conclusions.



I'm not sure that I really buy this. "Correlation does not mean causation" according to a Ph.D. student I once knew. His favorite example: Rape & Ice cream sales move almost in tandem but one doesn't cause the other.

There may be some underlying cause for both situations. Poverty? Social insecurity? Something that would push people to both extreme behaviors and some way to make sense of the appearant hostility of the world.

I don't believe that God is bad for society. It is the True Believers that are the danger. The Pat Robertson's and Osama bin Laden's out there who claim to know the mind of God. Folks like who believe and witness their faith (Christian, Muslim, Jew, et al) are beneficial for society. They do the important work of talking about values and making a better society.

From the WSJ Report on the Senate's closed session: Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R., Tenn.) was clearly angry at being caught off-guard by Mr. Reid's demands. "The United State Senate has been hijacked by the Democratic leadership," Mr. Frist said. "They have no convictions; they have no principles; they have no ideas."

It's interesting when a Republican gets called out for not doing their job they have to resort to personal attacks. Where have the Republican's been for the last 18 months?

Oh, that's right. Picking my pocket to save money for the super-rich.

I'm pleased the Dem's finally showed some backbone to the brownshirted bullies.