Battlefield Earth by Bill Moyers

photo credit: http://www.seizmicactivity.co.uk/Copyright Richie Bond

Battlefield Earth
By Bill Moyers, AlterNet. Posted December 8, 2004.
LINK

The environment is in trouble and the religious right doesn't care. It's time to act as if the future depends on us – because it does..

Excerpt:

"..I not only read the news but the fine print of the recent appropriations bill passed by Congress, with the obscure (and obscene) riders attached to it: a clause removing all endangered species protections from pesticides; language prohibiting judicial review for a forest in Oregon; a waiver of environmental review for grazing permits on public lands; a rider pressed by developers to weaken protection for crucial habitats in California.

I read all this and look up at the pictures on my desk, next to the computer – pictures of my grandchildren: Henry, age 12; of Thomas, age 10; of Nancy, 7; Jassie, 3; Sara Jane, 9 months. I see the future looking back at me from those photographs and I say, "Father, forgive us, for we know not what we do." And then I am stopped short by the thought: "That's not right. We do know what we are doing. We are stealing their future. Betraying their trust. Despoiling their world."

And I ask myself: Why? Is it because we don't care? Because we are greedy? Because we have lost our capacity for outrage, our ability to sustain indignation at injustice?

What has happened to out moral imagination?"

Meet The Beast

Meet The Beast
The Christian right and the Christian left are engaged in a debate over who 'owns' Jesus—and whether Dubya is a force for good or evil.

Excerpt:

"Evangelical churches have a sense of urgency about the doing of 'good' in the world that the mainline church has lost. If the church can't show a positive, enticing, seductive vision of the future, where people fall in love with God and fall in love with this community, then it really doesn't have anything to say." Revelation teaches us what happens to lukewarm Christians.

It won't be easy. The political and religious left are not organized. "And part of the reason it cannot organize is that the people in the pews benefit from the system as it is," says Lang. "They can't work up any kind of passion to change it. As those benefits stop, we'll see the left arise. But it might be too late."

Ultimately, despite his despair, Lang is a man of faith. "I really do believe that we're in for several decades of a very dark time. But that's not the end of the world."

LINK

The First European Weblog Awards

The First European Weblog Awards

How exciting! A blog contest for our European friends.
I plan to nominate The Yorkshire Ranter for best UK blog (and other categories).

Announcing The First European Weblog Awards
by David/Fistful of Euros

Today is a good day because I get to announce The First European Weblog Awards. The purpose of the awards is to recognize the efforts and contributions of Europe’s many talented bloggers, to maybe help build a sense of community among us, and, more than anything, it’s a chance for people to discover lots of new good blogs.

Also, awards are fun.

Rules:

You can nominate as many blogs as you like. Please don’t be shy about nominating your own blog.

There’ll be a post for each category. Nominations should preferably be in the form of comments or trackbacks to the relevant post.

Only European blogs are elegible. By that we mean that the blog should be written by Europeans, or else focus on some European issue. (Czech, Catalan…)

This weblog is not eligible for any awards, but our contributors’ other blogs are.

The nominating phase will go on for several weeks. The finalists will be determined by the number of nominations and our discretion.

We’ll introduce categories gradually during the day, and maybe tomorrow. I will update this post with links to the nomination posts.

The Satin Pajama Award for Best European Weblog
Best Political Weblog
Best UK Blog

Ohio election fraud uproar blasting to new level

"...the call for a re-vote as in Ukraine has become a consistent theme among disgruntled Ohio voters."

Ohio election fraud uproar blasting to new level
by Steve Rosenfeld, Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman
December 7, 2004
LINK