Imagine There's No Jesus
(It's easy if you try)

   Muhammad Ali once said "There are more pleasant things to do than beat up people," and the statement is infinitely more meaningful since it didn't come from a weakling but from someone who used to beat up people for a living. In the same way, The God Who Wasn't There is more meaningful since it was directed by an ex-true believer, former Christian fundamentalist Brian Flemming, a man driven to skepticism by the startling inconsistencies of his faith, and who, after exhaustive research, actually ended up changing his mind about the nature of his religion. He's created a film that's as well-researched, informative, and outrageous as it is entertaining and enlightening. Many people didn't buy into Fahrenheit 911 because Michael Moore was delivering a message he believed in from the start, but Flemming has to convince himself before he convinces his audience, and he does a spectacular job, It's impossible to watch The God Who Wasn't There without thinking to yourself "How could anyone believe this nonsense."
   Far from being a slapdash production, this is as professional and well put together as anything out there, full of helpful charts, diagrams, and entertaining film snippets, including interviews with Jesus Seminar fellow Robert M. Price, author Sam Harris, and historian Richard Carrier, plus numerous idiotic quotes from people attending a Billy Graham "crusade" at the Rose Bowl, and hysterical sequences from a 1905 French silent film, Jesus Christ, the first full-length feature ever made. Flemming finishes his pilgrimage with an emotional final statement that clearly took a lot of guts to admit. He not only has Moore's passion and outrageous sense of humor, but his cinematic chops as well.
   In researching the foundations of Christianity, Flemming comes to the inevitable conclusion that the Jesus Christ we've all grown to worship and abide is a fictional character in an entirely manufactured religion. His step-by-step investigation is so thorough it's hard to imagine any rational argument against it.    Though the film itself is little more than an hour long, there are over 200 minutes of  special features to help you explore the “Christ myth” theory and the dangers of modern Christian fundamentalism. There are links to fascinating websites, and I ended up watching the whole thing twice just for the extra commentary track by Oxford professor Richard Dawkins, who is one of the most intelligent and erudite people you'll ever see on your screen.

     There doesn't seem to be any question as to whether Muhammad actually existed. After all, he actually WROTE the Koran (or at least narrated it). Whether the old testament God actually exists can't be proven one way or another, which is why people will never stop arguing about it.
   We may question many things about the various factions of the Christian faith, and many deserve to be questioned, but to ask whether Jesus ever existed in the first place is so outlandish that it seems absurd to even ask it - that is until you try to find any incontrovertible documentation. Hard evidence is not just hard to come by, it's non-existent, and like most conspiracy theories, the actual lack of evidence, combined with clear appropriations from prior religions, make the entire Jesus story look like a myth, a completely manufactured faith to sucker in the masses. After all, it's got everything: a fulfillment of prophesies, a virgin birth (appropriated from Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine, with a God father and human mother), a star in the sky, wise men bearing gifts, healing the sick, walking on water, raising a man from the dead (Asclepius again), a painful martyr's death, and a resurrection (appropriated from Romulus).
   All the gospels ignore his childhood, so apparently there were no prepubescent miracles, and the whole nativity scene isn't in Mark, the first gospel. Kind of a biggy to overlook. Did later gospels make it up? Could be since they made up so much of the rest.
   The myth has been in constant change. In the third century, Jesus was considered a "sun god," riding a chariot across the sky, as you can see in this mosaic from St. Peters.

   To quote an anonymous posting, "It should be remembered that the usual three god pantheon of most religions comes from a very obvious source which was far more material than spiritual. On the physical plane things come into existence, go through a period of change, then come to an end. Everything physical does this. Hence, we have creator gods, preserver gods, and destroyer gods. The Persians have their Ahura Mazda, Mithras, and Auhriman while the Hindus have Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. Krishna is reckoned as the 100th embodiment of Vishnu. Of course it is the middle god who gets most of the adulation as he's the guy who keeps the game going. The Christians of course have their 'God,' Jesus, and Satan, following the lineup of all primitive religions. It's all fairy tale stuff, but it sells, and in many cases religion serves as a needed check on the unruly populace. Primitive minds need primitive religions. An ethical populace needs no governing.
   "Now as for the actual prototype for most of the Jesus Christ mythology you have to look at Apollonius of Tyana. While the early church fathers did their utmost to destroy any record of anyone who might have competed with their Jesus character, there is still a great biography of Apollonius surviving from the 4th century, thanks to the historian Philostratus, as commissioned by the wife of one of the Roman emperors of the time. There is far more still existing about the real Apollonius than about the mythical Jesus."

     What's NOT in dispute, and I'm looking at it right now in my handy-dandy new testament, is that the gospels were written decades after the death of Jesus. Ignoring the gospel of Paul, like all good Christians do, the epistle of James was written at least 20 years after the crucifixion, and the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John much later than that, at least 40, possibly as much as 85 years later. Whenever the gospels were written, they were completely unknown until 120AD and weren't even officially recognized as gospels until 172AD. That's a lot of time for the story to gestate. I don't know about you, but if I had to write about something I heard someone say on a mount more than 20 years ago, what I wrote couldn't possibly be considered anything more than a paraphrase. Maybe Monty Python was right and Jesus DID say "blessed are the cheesemakers."

   The God Who Wasn't There closely examines this enormous gap in time between the "life of Jesus" and the writings about Jesus, finding that most Christian dogma turns out to be rehashes of older dogma from forgotten religions of ancient origin. The real Jesus was nothing like current mythology paints him. At the time, he was just the latest in a long line of imaginary historic virgin-born, crucified saviors, and giant chunks of the Jesus myth fall apart if you just think about them or study a little actual history other than the bible.
    Among other things (thanks to www.jesusneverexisted.com), following a star would lead you in circles, Nazareth did not exist in the 1st century AD, there never was only one Christianity, just dozens of competing and conflicting Jesus/Sun-god/Mystery cults, the first believers in Jesus maintained he was an ethereal spirit, much like other sky/sun-gods, only later did he acquire a human death, a human life and finally a human birth, that "Jesus Christ" is a composite character - god, man, king, carpenter, conqueror, peace-maker, dispenser of justice, advocate of love - deliberately assembled to try and unify a fragmented and fractious messianic religious movement, the 12 disciples are as fictitious as their master, invented to legitimize the claims of the early churches, and the original Mary was not a virgin, just an idea borrowed from pagan goddesses. Claiming to be a Christian without any knowledge of Justin, Tertullian, Eusebius, or the pagan origins of Christian doctrine in Attis, Mithras, Osiris, or Dionysis, is sort of like being a psychiatrist while knowing nothing of Sigmund Freud and Karl Jung.
   The bible fails to mention that the 325 CE Council of Nicea, called by Constantine, combined Jesus with Krishna to invent Jesus Christ. This was because the Persian Mithras and the Indian Krishna were becoming very powerful movements within the Roman Empire, a decided threat to Roman hegemony. Starting with some 1,800 clerics, Constantine slimmed the numbers down to around 300 in order to obtain "unanimous agreement" for his new God: JC.
   Here's a good question. Why would the Romans have allowed a convicted felon to be almost immediately removed from his cross and put in a tomb? The entire point of crucifixion was to make a public point that the most cruel and humiliating form of punishment awaited those who opposed Rome's will. Wouldn't they have left him there to decompose in front of everybody? After all, Quintilian (AD 35-95) wrote that "Whenever we crucify the guilty, the most crowded roads are chosen, where most people can see and be moved by this fear. For penalties relate not so much to retribution as to their exemplary effect."

    The final message of The God Who Wasn't There is to think for yourself and do your own research. After all, those who believe Christ was into peace and mercy are conveniently ignoring Luke 19:27, where Jesus says "Those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them - bring them here and kill them in front of me." No wonder Dubya relates to him.

MD

"The whole history of these books [the Gospels] is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute inquiry into it: and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills." 
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, January 24, 1814 -

"It is so much easier to believe than to think; it is astounding how much more believing is done than thinking."
- James Kemper -

"It is worth remembering that his existence was first declared a truth by the same institution that insisted the sun revolves around the earth."
- The God Who Wasn't There -

You can now view The God Who Wasn't There for free here.

Paternity Suit of the Week

"I did not have sex with that stack of tires," declared
Barb Bituwitz, mother of the bloated child.
"Yes, she did," said the Michelin man seeking custody,
"and I didn't wear a rubber."

Lost in Translation

While cruising through the CIA site I came across their Iraqi Rewards Program, which is in Arabic, so I got it translated here, and came up with this...

If was information possesses Iraq hangs in and which which believes that she place of interest for the government was formed The American, so the hope the communication is coffee by means of dictation of request on the guardian wrote. We we with regard to our protects All information which supplies us in her carefully complete and from from within her aired you self.

From our helpful period on the work quickly and [aaltthbbt] from the information, be necessary on you that presents brands you Complete and your nationality your nationality and your position your position and information of information about the despotic communication dumb and from from within her the telephone numbered. And This of which the American government entitles to grants [mkaafaat] for the informations the value. We we will keep on The complete secrecy.

The imminent attacks: If was any information possesses imminent attack surprising before the insurgent hangs in
Or the terrorists, requests from you the communication in one of members forces of the alliance or the Iraqi police immediately.

Weapons of mass destruction: That presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq exposure of health and safety of safety all
The Iraqi for the danger. That the American government grants [mkaafaat] for Iraqi who accurate information presents in the possibility her evidence for assistance Iraqi on purification their cities and the removal the removal from this weapons and the lethal substances the substances grave. That [aalmkaafaat] will be available accurate according to the information and which which in the possibility the realization from her:

• Sites storer of the weapons and the supply the chemical supply or bacterial (biological) and the rockets the rockets and the vehicles the vehicles Air [aalGyr] supplied in sailors which interview industrialized or her parts of assembly.
• Sites of the factories and the chemical laboratories the laboratories and biological biological, and centers centers of the development and the production the production, and sites of sites The complete test related in weapons of the ruin, or the sites where the removal from this substances in secret method was complete.
• The plans for arranged the weapons and the matters the military matters or any documents hangs in the chemical weapons and Biological and the rockets the rockets or the air vehicles [aalGyr] supplied in sailors.
• The Iraqi who in their possibility and for they for they desire for supplying of detailed information about programs weapons of the ruin Complete in Iraq and the efforts the efforts to concealing of this weapons.

The Baathist commanders: That [mkaafaat] the government is American available to next giving the information about commanders of regime
The previous resurrection, and from from within her ten million dollar American for information arrest of performs to Head council of the revolutionary leadership previous Izzat Ibrahim Al-Duri:

• The current sites and activities activities of these separation. 
• Their their blessing the persons who meets with them and what what she their plans in the future? 

The rebellion and the terrorism the terrorism: That the rebellious elements supporting for the previous agreement and the terrorists the terrorists try demolition
Future of Iraq. There [mkaafaat] available for each from accurate information accepting presents [lltthbbt] and cooperates helps on Detention or ritual consecrations these from the refuge and the supporting the supporting. This information she about:

• Al-Qaeda, advocates of the Islam, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi and their followers their followers in Iraq. 
• The separation or the groups who the bombs possess and weapons of weapons last for use her against forces of the alliance and The Iraqi police and members members of legion the propellant Iraqi civilian and the schools the schools and the operation the commercial works or against The civilians.
• The separation or the groups who saves [mlaajy'] and practice of practice for rebellious and the terrorists and supports these Also in any purpose what.
• The separation or the implicated groups with, or for they knock smuggling of the terrorists to Iraq knew about. 
• The separation or the groups who enlists and simplifies the activities simplify and gathering accumulated the moneys, or any work is last For support of the terrorism in Iraq.
• The separation who the facilitations and the documents present the documents which the terrorists for the trip to Iraq help. 
• Travel agencies, the agencies or the organizations [aalGyr] governmental, or companies of front involved in facilitation Matters of the terrorists for the trip to Iraq.

Lost members forces of the alliance: That [aalmkaafaat] available for each from information about the soldiers presents
The lost who forces of the alliance serve in and from from within them officer in war the gulf, the pilot 
The American marine “Michael [sbykr].”

Science News

Bush declared last week's HAARP earthquake experiment a "complete success" 
except for this two-year-old Pakistani boy removed from rubble after four days.

 

Satan Doesn't Want You to Know

   "[Here's] the stupidest, most removed-from-reality bit of nonsense we have heard yet from the credibility-challenged Ms. Rice, to wit:
    "'But the fact of the matter is that when we were attacked on September 11, we had a choice to make. We could decide that the proximate cause was Al Qaeda and the people who flew those planes into buildings and, therefore, we would go after Al Qaeda and perhaps after the Taliban and then our work would be done and we would try to defend ourselves. Or we could take a bolder approach, which was to say that we had to go after the root causes of the kind of terrorism that was produced there, and  that meant a different kind of Middle East.'
    "You could 'decide that the proximate cause was al-Qaeda'? The attackers WERE Al Qaeda. NOT Saddam. NOT Tariq Aziz. NOT Doctor Evil. The people who attacked the US on September 11, 2001 were followers of a guy named Osama bin Laden, the Daddy Jihad-bucks behind Al Qaeda. If you recall, Samuel Berger a far more intelligent and dedicated public servant than  you could ever dream of being warned you about Osama before your boss took the oath of office. Why you chose to forget or ignore Sandy Berger's briefings is beyond me. The fact that you are still a public servant is just more evidence of not only your incompetence but that of your boss. And your dimwitted yammering about 'proximate' causes only reinforced that impression.
    "And as for your assertion that the United States could 'go after the root causes of this kind of terrorism,' you and your imbecile Boss have done nothing to eliminate these root causes, even though he said he'd go after Al Qaeda. Where's Osama, huh? Where's Ayman al-Zawahiri? Where's Abu Musab al-Zarqawi? Your boss went after the wrong guy, Saddam Hussein, and the occupation of Iraq by the United States is seen among Muslim extremists as yet another 'root cause' to attack our nation, our citizens, and our interests.
    "You, Condolleeza Rice, must think the viewers are credulous fools. Either that or you are an idiot yourself. The more I think about it, the more I am inclined to believe both are likely true."
- J.J. Balzer: Pundit Pap, Popcorn Time -

"I myself am heaven and hell."
- The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam -

    "Jing Soliman left his family in the Philippines for what sounded like a sure thing--a job as a warehouse worker at Camp Anaconda in Iraq. His new employer, Prime Projects International (PPI) of Dubai, is a major, but low-profile, subcontractor to Halliburton's multi-billion-dollar deal with the Pentagon to provide support services to U.S. forces.
   "But Soliman wouldn't be making anything near the salaries-- starting $80,000 a year and often topping $100,000-- that Halliburton's engineering and construction unit, Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR) pays to the truck drivers, construction workers, office workers, and other laborers it recruits from the United States. Instead, the 35-year-old father of two anticipated $615 a month including overtime. For a 40-hour work week, that would be just over $3 an hour. But for the 12-hour day, seven-day week that Soliman says was standard for him and many contractor employees in Iraq, he actually earned $1.56 an hour."
- David Phinney: Blood, Sweat & Tears: Asia's Poor Build U.S. Bases in Iraq -

"We must confront the privileged elite who have destroyed a large part of the world."
- Hugo Chavez -

"Hoover had earlier told the 105,000 people in the area to evacuate. Few had. But Hoover and the Red Cross had prepared. Thousands of trucks rolled into the area just ahead of the first wave of water. Four trains carrying boats, motors, and now-experienced rescuers headed in from different directions, and the rescue fleet entered just behind the first wave of water. All 105,000 people, along with most of their cattle, horses, and mules, were evacuated with crisp efficiency and few deaths."
- John M. Barry: Rising Tide, the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How it Changed America -

"By some false analogy to 'the survival of the fittest' many have conceived the whole business world to be a sort of economic 'dog eat dog.' ...Industry and commerce are not based upon taking advantage of other persons. Their foundations lie in the division of labor and the exchange of products... [A] great area of indirect economic wrong and unethical practices spring up under the pressure of competition and habit."
- Herbert Hoover -

"Bush may as well appoint his chauffeur head of NASA as put Miers on the Supreme Court... However nice, helpful, prompt and tidy she is, Harriet Miers isn't qualified to play a Supreme Court justice on 'The West Wing,' let alone to be a real one."
- Ann Coulter -

"If I ever agree with Ann Coulter, please shoot me."
- every liberal on earth -

   "The extra dollar per gallon that Americans are paying at the pump is the direct result of the war in Iraq. Think of it as the Bush Gas Tax for unnecessary wars.
   "In 2001, Iraq was exporting 2.7 million barrels of oil a day through the Oil for Food program which kept the price per barrel in the $25 range. In 2005 the amount has been chopped to 1.8 million barrels. That extra million barrels per day may not seem like a lot of oil, but with no excess-capacity in the system, it has pushed the price up into the stratosphere, at times tipping the $70 per barrel mark. These prices were unimaginable before the war and are largely the result of the failed occupation strategy. Most experts don't believe that Iraq will be able to substantially increase its exports for at least the next 2 years. This is a dramatic contrast from the neocons predictions that Iraq would be pumping 3 million barrels per day by now. That would have kept the world awash in petroleum and America shielded from the impending recession.
   "For the most part, the western media has kept the details of Iraq's oil industry out of the headlines. In two years of conflict I cannot recall one time when a mainstream newspaper produced an in depth story about pipeline sabotage or the inability of the administration to meet their goals for oil production. Even the photos of black smoke rising from the desert floor have been erased from Americas newspapers. The media continues to limit itself to stories about the random acts of violence that now plague the capital on a daily basis. These stories create the justification for the ongoing occupation and the continuing violence against the Iraqi people. As always, the role of the corporate media is to shape public opinion not to provide the facts...
   "The attacks on the oil installations are the predictable outcome of the invasion. The administration had every opportunity to continue buying oil through the free market system, which they praise at every opportunity. Instead, they chose to extract that same oil at gunpoint after killing more than 100,000 Iraqis. Should we feel indignant that the Iraqis are fighting back? After all, whose oil is it? Whose Oil, Indeed?"
- Mike Whitney: Can Attacks on Oil Facilities lead to Peace? -

    "A number of news reports and commentary on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have linked the disasters to global warming. Almost nobody noticed a crucial scientific finding, two weeks earlier, that foreshadows disasters on a far greater scale in the decades to come.
    "According to August 11 articles in the magazine New Scientist and the British newspaper the Guardian, a pair of scientists, one Russian and one British, report that global warming is melting the permafrost in the West Siberian tundra. The news made a little blip in the international media and the blogosphere, and then it disappeared.
    "Why should anyone care? Because melting of the Siberian permafrost will, over the next few decades, release hundreds of millions of tons of methane from formerly frozen peat bogs into the atmosphere. Methane from those bogs is at least twenty times more potent as a greenhouse gas than the carbon dioxide that currently drives global warming. Dumping such a huge quantity of methane on top of already soaring CO2 levels will drive global temperatures to the upper range of increases forecast for the remainder of this century."
- Ed Merta: The Heat Death of American Dreams -

"Everything is as it is. It has no name other than the name we give it. It is we who call it something; we give it a value. We say this thing is good or it's bad, but in itself, the thing is only as it is. It's not absolute; it's just as it is. People are just as they are."
- Ajahn Sumedho: The Mind and the Way -

    "Most of the big changes in bankruptcy rules, which backers say are designed to prevent abuse of the financial system and ensure that affordable credit is available for all, take effect on Monday. People with above-average income, as determined by a standard 'means test,' will be barred from filing for Chapter 7 protection, where debts may be wiped out entirely. Instead, they will have to file under Chapter 13, which require a five-year repayment plan. Filers also will be required to get professional credit counseling with 180 days of filing.
    "That's led to a surge in filings in recent weeks. They averaged more than 20,000 per day nationwide last week and are up almost 20 percent year to date, according to Lundquist Consulting, which tracks bankruptcy filings."
- John Pain: Debtors no longer home free - New bankruptcy law gives tough lesson to owners of residences -

"Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hard-working, honest Americans. It's the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then - we elected them."
- Lily Tomlin -

"Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions."
- Albert Einstein -

"The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale."
-Thomas Jefferson -

    "The President's historic refusal to veto any legislation is further evidence of the low priority he places on fiscal discipline and constitutional limits on government. One has to go back 37 presidents and 180 years to find the last chief executive - John Quincy Adams, 1825 to 1829 - who served a full term without a single veto. Even George H.W. Bush - a moderate - vetoed 29 bills during his single term in office.
   "Of course, the White House's excuse is that it's difficult to veto one's own party's bills. But this just doesn't wash. Franklin D. Roosevelt vetoed 372 bills from Democrat-controlled Congresses; John F. Kennedy, 12 bills; Lyndon Johnson, 16 bills; and Jimmy Carter, 13 bills. The sad and maddening truth is that party loyalty, political 'considerations' and quid pro quos are far more pressing priorities than is constitutional government in Washington today...
   "President Bush has not vetoed a single bill during his five years in office."
- Federalist Patriot No. 05-41: Republican Revolution? -

"Mr. Bush's attempt at spending discipline has been especially limp. Back in 1987, when Mr. Reagan applied his veto to what was generally known at the time as the highway and mass-transit bill, he was offended by the 152 earmarks for pet projects favored by members of Congress. But...Mr. Bush signed a transportation bill containing no fewer than 6,371 earmarks. Each one of these, as Mr. Reagan understood but Mr. Bush apparently doesn't, amounts to a conscious decision to waste taxpayers' dollars. One point of an earmark is to direct money to a project that would not receive money as a result of rational judgments based on cost-benefit analyses."
- Washington Post editorial -

"The energy and transportation bills signed by the president are budget busters, and the just-announced spending to 'rebuild New Orleans' is likely to make 2006 another record-breaker. If government is too big, as Republicans love to chant, why is it growing larger and at a record pace with a Republican president and Republicans in control of both houses of Congress? Why did it grow at a slower rate when Bill Clinton was in the White House?"
- Joseph Bast of the Heartland Institute -

"North Dakota's Public Service Commission is exploring whether individuals must obtain auctioneer licenses before they can legally use eBay to sell merchandise for others. A North Dakota auctioneer license involves a $35 license fee, $5,000 bond and training at a state-approved auction school where the curriculum includes speaking fast and reading bidders' hand signals. Apparently the ND PSC feels these are important skills for eBay. The closest auctioneering schools are in Montana and Minnesota, and they cost between $795 and $1,625 for up to ten days of training."
- Federalist Patriot No. 05-41: From the Regulatory Commissar's File -

"Price is what you pay. Value is what you get."
- Warren Buffett -

   "An Army veteran who fled to Canada to avoid prosecution for growing marijuana to treat his chronic pain was taken from a hospital, driven to the border with a catheter still attached, and turned over to U.S. officials, his lawyer said.
    "Steven W. Tuck then went five days with no medical treatment and only ibuprofen for the pain, the attorney said.
    "Tuck, 38, was still fitted with the urinary catheter when he shuffled into federal court Wednesday for a detention hearing Wednesday.
    "'This is totally inhumane. He's been tortured for days for no reason,' Hiatt said."
- Hospital patient taken to face U.S. marijuana charge -

"In a completely sane world, madness is the only freedom!"
- James Graham Ballard -

"When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him: 'Whose?'"
- Don Marquis -

"Nothing is more fearful than imagination without taste."
- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe -

    "Selina Jarvis is the chair of the social studies department at Currituck County High School in North Carolina, and she is not used to having the Secret Service question her or one of her students. But that's what happened on September 20.
   "Jarvis had assigned her senior civics and economics class to take photographs to illustrate their rights in the Bill of Rights, she says. One student had taken a photo of George Bush out of a magazine and tacked the picture to a wall with a red thumb tack through his head. Then he made a thumbs down sign with his own hand next to the Presidents picture, and he had a photo taken of that, and he pasted it on a poster.
   "According to Jarvis, the student, who remains anonymous, was just doing his assignment, illustrating the right to dissent.    "But over at the Kitty Hawk Wal-Mart, where the student took his film to be developed, this right is evidently suspect.
   "An employee in that Wal-Mart photo department called the Kitty Hawk police on the student. And the Kitty Hawk police turned the matter over to the Secret Service."
- Matthew Rothschild: Wal-Mart Turns in Student's Anti-Bush Photo, Secret Service Investigates Him -

"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."
- Journal of Religion and Society quoted in Societies worse off 'when they have God on their side' by Ruth Gledhill -

"Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding."
- Albert Einstein -

"The darkest hour in any man's life is when he sits down to plan how to get money without earning it."
- Horace Greeley -

"A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government."
- Edward Abbey -

"He's turned his life around. He used to be depressed and miserable. Now he's miserable and depressed."
- David Frost -

"Worry more about your character than your reputation. Character is what you are, reputation merely what others think you are."
- John Wooden -

"A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him, I may think aloud."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson -

"Too many have dispensed with generosity in order to practice charity."
- Albert Camus -

"So long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleons, the Caesars and Napoleons will arise to make them miserable."
- Aldous Huxley -

"The same prudence which in private life would forbid our paying our own money for unexplained projects, forbids it in the dispensation of the public moneys."
- Thomas Jefferson -

"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license."
- John Milton -

"While the people have property, arms in their hands, and only a spark of noble spirit, the most corrupt Congress must be mad to form any project of tyranny."
- Nicholas Collin -

"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once."
- David Hume -

"A legislative act contrary to the Constitution is not law."
- Justice John Marshall -

"The more laws, the less justice."
- Marcus Tullius Cicero -

"When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law."
- Frederic Bastiat -

"W. loves being surrounded by tough women who steadfastly devote their entire lives to doting on him, like the vestal virgins guarding the sacred fire, serving as custodians for his values and watchdogs for his reputation."
- Maureen Dowd -

    "[T]here is another theory that would fit the facts. It may be that Bush is less concerned about constitutional issues than he is about criminal and political disputes that might reach the court if the troubles surging around his administration get worse.
   "What if, for instance, a senior Bush aide is facing prosecution in connection with an untested law prohibiting unmasking covert CIA officers? It might be handy for Bush to have a trusted friend on the court of last resort to rule on some technical legal questions that could torpedo the whole case.
   "Or what if it turns out that Bush himself participated in the criminal act? Wouldn't it be advantageous if the lawyer who helped him out of previous legal scrapes was sitting among the judges who would make a ruling on this one? (And there really is no reason to think that a Bush appointee would step aside because of some fretting over conflicts of interest.)"
- Robert Parry: Making Sense of the Miers Nomination -

"Do not call for black power or green power. Call for brain power."
- Barbara Jordan -

"Most of us have seen truckers sleeping in their cabs at night with the engine running to power heat or air conditioning. But did you realize that this idling wastes over 100 million gallons of diesel fuel a year? By requiring these sleeper cabs to use a cleaner source of power, we could prevent 700,000 tons of global warming emissions and thousands of tons of toxic and smog-forming air pollution from being emitted every year."
- Union of Concerned Scientists -

"Whatever you receive, wherever it comes from, cherish the desire to give it back in full measure."
- Gurumayi Chidvilasananda -

"Let your writing reflect only the wisdom of pain or of delight which life has most deeply revealed to you. Nothing else is worth your time or the time of any reader."
- William Alexander Percy -

Everything Else

He says things in his infomercials we all agree with, like the FDA is corrupt, pharmaceutical companies are only interested in profits from alleviating symptoms while ignoring actual cures, but before you shell out $29.95 for Kevin Trudeau's best seller Natural Cures 'They' Don't Want You to Know About, be sure to check out Salon's What Kevin Trudeau doesn't want you to know about by Christopher Dreher (free registration required). Apparently the book doesn't actually have any cures and just directs you to the website where he charges for access.

Looking for work or just need some supplementary income? Check out cronyjobs.