What do Kim Jong Il, Pope Benedict XVI, and the Italian President have in common? Tell a joke about them to the wrong audience and you could end up in jail.
On September 23, 2008 an Innocent Man is Scheduled to Die
By Terry L. Benedict – How Easily Can an Innocent Man Lose His Life?
Ask Troy Davis, who came within a harrowing 23 hours of execution by lethal injection last year and received a new execution date of September 23, 2008:
Martin Sheen on Church / State Separation
Television president, Martin Sheen, narrates this video, produced by People For the American Way, about the history of separation of church & state and efforts by the Religious Right to undermine it. It was produced some years back.
The Army Wants You…Again! (Yes, Really.)
By Colby Buzzell – Imagine that you graduated from college, and a couple years afterward your alma mater contacts you and says, Sorry, you didn’t graduate from college. In fact, you have five weeks to drop everything that you’re doing–quit your job, get out of your lease, put all your stuff in storage, cancel your Netflix, etc.–and report back to campus so that you can redo all the schooling that you’ve already done. And not only that, here’s a Smith & Wesson .357 revolver with only one round in the chamber–spin the chamber, point it at your head, and pull the trigger. If you live, you live. If you don’t, you don’t.
Seven Years Later and Counting – A 9/11 Scrapbook
Seven years have passed since the planes hit the World Trade Center. Here is an unvarnished scrapbook of events that took place on that day and how these events led to a war in the Middle East and what happened there.
Wasilla Assembly of God – Statement on Sarah Palin
“Governor Sarah Palin did attend Wasilla Assembly of God since the time she was a teen ager. She and her family were a part of the church up until 2002. Since that time she has maintained a friendship with Wasilla Assembly of God and has attended various conferences and special meetings here.”
Chrisopher Hitchens: Don’t Patronize Palin (Salon.com)
Hitchens: “I cannot wait to see Obama and Biden explain how this isn’t the case or how it’s much worse than, and quite different from, Obama’s own raving and ranting pastor in Chicago or Biden’s lifelong allegiance to the most anti-“choice” church on the planet.”
VIDEOS: Obama’s, McCain’s and Palin’s Pastor Problems
This year, the candidates’ religious leaders and their own beliefs are getting a lot of attention. Here is a round-up of some of the videos that have made news in recent months.
VIDEO: God in China – The Struggle for Religious Freedom
In this hour-long documentary, produced for Italy’s RomeReports News Agency, Chinese men and women speak candidly of their experiences as religious believers, and their assessment of what the future may hold for them. The film presents interviews with representatives of both official and underground religions, shows priests and seminarians practicing their faith in secret, and offers a rare glimpse into China’s Muslim community.
Evangelical Christians and Sarah Palin – Excerpt from Peggy Noonan’s Column (WSJ)
But modern American evangelicals are among the last people who’d judge her harshly. It is the left that is about to go crazy with Puritan judgments; it is the right that is about to show what mellow looks like. Religious conservatives know something’s wrong with us, that man’s a mess. They are not left dazed by the latest applications of this fact. “This just in – there’s a lot of sinning going on out there” is not a headline they’d understand to be news.