Saturday, October 04, 2008
VERY FUNNY, SOMEWHAT SCARY DOC BY BILL MAHER -- trailer and roger ebert review
By Roger Ebert
I'm going to try to review Bill Maher's "Religulous" without getting into religion. Is that OK with everybody? Good. I don't want to fan the flames of a holy war. The movie is about organized religions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Mormonism, TV evangelism and even Scientology, with detours into pagan cults and ancient Egypt. Bill Maher, host, writer and debater, believes they are all crazy. He fears they could lead us prayerfully into mutual nuclear doom. He doesn't get around to Hinduism or Buddhism, but he probably doesn't approve of them, either.
This review is going to depend on one of my own deeply held beliefs: It's not what the movie is about, it's how it's about it. This movie is about Bill Maher's opinion of religion. He's very smart, quick and funny, and I found the movie entertaining, although sometimes he's a little mean to his targets. He visits holy places in Italy, Israel, Great Britain, Florida, Missouri and Utah, and talks with adherents of the religions he finds there, and others.
Or maybe "talks with" is not quite the right phrase. It's more that he lines them up and shoots them down. He interrupts, talks over, slaps on subtitles, edits in movie and TV clips, and doesn't play fair. Reader, I took a guilty pleasure in his misbehavior. The people he interviews are astonishingly forbearing, even most of the truckers in a chapel at a truck stop. I expected somebody to take a swing at Maher, but nobody did, although one trucker walked out on him. Elsewhere in the film, Maher walks out on a rabbi who approvingly attended a Holocaust denial conference in Iran.
Maher had a Jewish mother and a Catholic father, and was raised as a Catholic until he was 13, when his father stopped attending services. He speaks with his elderly mother, who tells him, "I don't know why he did that. We never discussed it." He asks her what the family believed, before and after that event. "I don't know what we believed," she says. No, she's not confused. She just doesn't know.
Most everybody else in the film knows what they believe. If they don't, Maher does. He impersonates a Scientologist at the Speakers' Corner in London's Hyde Park, and says Scientology teaches that there was a race of Thetans several trillion years old (older than the universe, which is only 13.73 billion years) and that we are born with Thetans inside us, which can be detected by an E-Meter, on sale at your local Scientology center, and driven out by "auditing," which takes a long time and unfortunately costs money.
Many of Maher's confrontations involve logical questions about holy books. For example, did Jonah really live for three days in the belly of a large fish? There are people who believe it. Is the End of Days at hand? A U.S. senator says he thinks so. Will the Rapture occur in our lifetimes? Widespread agreement. Mormons believe Missouri will be the paradise ("Branson, I hope," says Maher). There are even some people who believe Alaska has been chosen as a refuge for the Saved After Armageddon. In Kentucky, Maher visits the Creation Museum, which features a diorama of human children playing at the feet of dinosaurs.
His two most delightful guests, oddly enough, are priests stationed in the Vatican. Between them, they cheerfully dismiss wide swaths of what are widely thought to be Catholic teachings, including the existence of Hell. One of these priests almost dissolves in laughter as he mentions various beliefs that I, as a child, solemnly absorbed in Catholic schools. The other observes that when Italians were polled to discover who was the first person they would pray to in a crisis, Jesus placed sixth.
Maher meets two representations of Jesus. One is an actor at the Holy Land Experience theme park in Orlando. He stars in a re-enactment of the Passion, complete with crown of thorns, wounds, a crucifix, and Roman soldiers with whips. I suppose I understand why Florida tourists would take snapshots of this ordeal, but when Jesus stumbles, falls and is whipped by soldiers, I was a little puzzled why they applauded. The other Jesus, Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda, believes he actually is the Second Coming -- i.e., Jesus made flesh in our time. He explains how the bloodline traveled from the Holy Land through France to Spain to Puerto Rico. He has 100,000 followers.
Why have I focused on the Christians? Maher also has interesting debates with Muslims about whether the Koran calls for the death of infidels. And he interviews an Israeli manufacturer who invents devices to sidestep the bans on Sabbath activity. Since the laws prohibit you from operating machines, for example, they've invented a "negative telephone." Here's how it works: All the numbers on the touchpad are constantly engaged. All you do is insert little sticks into holes beside the numbers you don't want to work.
I have done my job and described the movie. I report faithfully that I laughed frequently. You may very well hate it, but at least you've been informed. Perhaps you could enjoy the material about other religions, and tune out when yours is being discussed. That's only human nature.
$100,000 REWARD FOR ROVE TIE TO ELECTION RIGGING
Non-profit offers $100k reward for info tying Rove to election riggingAndrew McLemore
Published: Friday October 3, 2008
A non-profit organization has offered a $100,000 reward to anyone who can supply information tying Republican strategist Karl Rove and computer expert Michael Connell to illegally manipulated elections, according to a Friday press release.
The group is called Velvet Revolution and is looking for evidence of criminal activity and Connell's relationship with Rove.
Citing testimony from another technology expert named Stephen Spoonamore, Velvet Revolution accuses the Republican Party of rigging elections for years by using Connell to exploit electronic voting systems.
Spoonamore filed an affidavit warning that the coming presidential election will be stolen by the GOP unless it is exposed. A colleague of Connell, Spoonamore gives evidence explaining Connell's involvement with past election rigging.
"Mr. Connell is a devout Catholic," Spoonamore wrote. "He has admitted to me that in his zeal to 'save the unborn' he may have helped others who have compromised elections."
The statement by Spoonamore also ridicules the Diebold voting system as "riddled with exploitable errors." The system was created by Diebold Election Systems Inc. and has been used in several elections accused of illegal meddling.
Connell was subpoenaed September 22 to testify under oath in a federal lawsuit in Ohio regarding election rigging and vote manipulation in past elections as well as the upcoming presidential race, according to Raw Story.
He has refused to testify and tried to quash his subpoena.
Connell ran the Florida Government computer network during the presidential election of 2000 and the Ohio Secretary of State election computers during the presidential election of 2004.
Attorney Cliff Arnebeck filed a motion in July to lift the stay on the 2004 Ohio election case in order to expedite investigations that could discover those responsible for the corruption and "protect the integrity of the 2008 election," the Brad Blog reported.
"We anticipate Mr. Rove will be identified as having engaged in a corrupt, ongoing pattern of corrupt activities specifically affecting the situation here in Ohio," Arnebeck said.
Rove is also suspected of connections to Connell in the wake of a scandal surrounding the firing of eight U.S. attorneys for political reasons, The Free Press reported.
The GOP strategist allegedly sent emails that detailed plans to dismiss the attorneys using the e-mail accounts set up by Connell. Rove has also ignored a subpoena mandating he testify about his alleged role in the firings.
Velvet Revolution asks for all tips to be directed by phone at 1-888-VOTE or at Web site velvetrevolution.us.
Published: Friday October 3, 2008
A non-profit organization has offered a $100,000 reward to anyone who can supply information tying Republican strategist Karl Rove and computer expert Michael Connell to illegally manipulated elections, according to a Friday press release.
The group is called Velvet Revolution and is looking for evidence of criminal activity and Connell's relationship with Rove.
Citing testimony from another technology expert named Stephen Spoonamore, Velvet Revolution accuses the Republican Party of rigging elections for years by using Connell to exploit electronic voting systems.
Spoonamore filed an affidavit warning that the coming presidential election will be stolen by the GOP unless it is exposed. A colleague of Connell, Spoonamore gives evidence explaining Connell's involvement with past election rigging.
"Mr. Connell is a devout Catholic," Spoonamore wrote. "He has admitted to me that in his zeal to 'save the unborn' he may have helped others who have compromised elections."
The statement by Spoonamore also ridicules the Diebold voting system as "riddled with exploitable errors." The system was created by Diebold Election Systems Inc. and has been used in several elections accused of illegal meddling.
Connell was subpoenaed September 22 to testify under oath in a federal lawsuit in Ohio regarding election rigging and vote manipulation in past elections as well as the upcoming presidential race, according to Raw Story.
He has refused to testify and tried to quash his subpoena.
Connell ran the Florida Government computer network during the presidential election of 2000 and the Ohio Secretary of State election computers during the presidential election of 2004.
Attorney Cliff Arnebeck filed a motion in July to lift the stay on the 2004 Ohio election case in order to expedite investigations that could discover those responsible for the corruption and "protect the integrity of the 2008 election," the Brad Blog reported.
"We anticipate Mr. Rove will be identified as having engaged in a corrupt, ongoing pattern of corrupt activities specifically affecting the situation here in Ohio," Arnebeck said.
Rove is also suspected of connections to Connell in the wake of a scandal surrounding the firing of eight U.S. attorneys for political reasons, The Free Press reported.
The GOP strategist allegedly sent emails that detailed plans to dismiss the attorneys using the e-mail accounts set up by Connell. Rove has also ignored a subpoena mandating he testify about his alleged role in the firings.
Velvet Revolution asks for all tips to be directed by phone at 1-888-VOTE or at Web site velvetrevolution.us.
Thursday, October 02, 2008
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Friday, September 26, 2008
JOHN AMATO -- CROOKS AND LIARS
We have a treasury secretary in America - Hank Paulson. I’m afraid he’s gone insane. He’s become like the Colonel Kurtz of Treasury Secretaries. He’s gone native. He’s co-opted trillions of dollars of American taxpayers’ money and he’s playing hedge fund like a rogue trader. We have got a rogue trader in the Treasury Secretary’s office. He’s being aided and abetted by Ben Bernanke who’s been discredited as the entire Federal Reserve Bank has been utterly discredited. We’re looking at a possible inflationary depression in America and the worse is yet to come, much worse is yet to come.”
“To pay for all this insanity from Hank Paulson, they have two options. They can either raise taxes or they can inflate the money supply. They can destroy these things US dollars [waves a dollar bill at the camera]. Dollars 30 years ago used to be backed by this stuff - gold [waves a gold coin at the camera]. Now thanks to Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke US dollars are backed by these - bananas [waves a banana at the camera]. They’re absolutely worthless. Anyone buying US dollars today is going to lose money.”
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF ADMIRAL MICHAEL MULLEN SAYS . . . .
"According to people who have been briefed, the NIE will paint a 'grim' picture of the situation in Afghanistan, seven years after the US invaded in an effort to dismantle the al Qaeda network and its Taliban protectors," Ross writes.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen told Congress last week the US is struggling to retain control.
"I'm not convinced we're winning it in Afghanistan," he said, adding, "we're running out of time."
"Absent a broader international and interagency approach to the problems there, it is my professional opinion that no amount of troops in no amount of time can ever achieve all the objectives we seek in Afghanistan," he said.
This aligns with the opinions of commanders on the ground. According to a report in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal, the US military expects the Taliban to launch a "winter offensive," which would mean a spike in violence in an area that has, at least for the recent past, been more quiet.
"I do think there will be an increase in violence by the enemy in order to maintain a general sense of insecurity," Brig. Gen. Mark Milley, deputy commander of the U.S. forces in eastern Afghanistan, told the paper. "The winter fighting season this year will be more violent than in previous years."
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen told Congress last week the US is struggling to retain control.
"I'm not convinced we're winning it in Afghanistan," he said, adding, "we're running out of time."
"Absent a broader international and interagency approach to the problems there, it is my professional opinion that no amount of troops in no amount of time can ever achieve all the objectives we seek in Afghanistan," he said.
This aligns with the opinions of commanders on the ground. According to a report in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal, the US military expects the Taliban to launch a "winter offensive," which would mean a spike in violence in an area that has, at least for the recent past, been more quiet.
"I do think there will be an increase in violence by the enemy in order to maintain a general sense of insecurity," Brig. Gen. Mark Milley, deputy commander of the U.S. forces in eastern Afghanistan, told the paper. "The winter fighting season this year will be more violent than in previous years."
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