David Sanger of the New Tork Times has a nice analysis of Bush�s press conference comments about Iraq last night. Using �the language and zeal of a missionary�, W. made it clear that he still thinks he (and thus we) are on a mission from God.

Drawing later on a line he often slips into his campaign speeches, he reminded a global audience that “freedom is the Almighty’s gift to every man and woman in this world. And as the greatest power on the face of the Earth, we have an obligation to help the spread of freedom.”�

He described an America chosen by God to spread freedom. He never used the word “crusade,” which touched off a firestorm of criticism in the Muslim world when he uttered it soon after Sept. 11, 2001. But he described one.(President Makes a Case for Freedom in the Middle East)

On the editorial page, the Times says, �The United States has experienced so many crises since Mr. Bush took office that it sometimes feels as if the nation has embarked on one very long and painful learning curve in which every accepted truism becomes a doubt, every expectation a question mark. Only Mr. Bush somehow seems to have avoided any doubt, any change.� (Mr. Bush’s Press Conference) But we know how he avoids doubt and change. He views this as a crusade commanded by God and thus justified even in the face of failure, misery, destruction and death. It is almost beyond comprehension that so many people in this country, a country founded on Enlightenment ideals, think that it�s good to have a president who thinks this way. How easy it is to interpret fanaticism as moral clarity and steadiness.

So, on Easter morning, how many women came to the sepulchre to find Jesus’s body missing?

One, of course:

The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre. [John 20:1]

No, wait, two:

As it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. [Mt.28:1]

Or maybe three:

And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him. [Mark 16:1]

OK, maybe more:

Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them. It was Mary Magdalene and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women that were with them, which told these things unto the apostles.[Luke 24:1, 10]

Four books, four different counts. Of course, those are the kinds of errors you get wen the books are written so much later than the alleged events that they couldn’t have been written by anyone alive at the alleged time.

Sorry, but I had to post this in full…

Actors Whip Easter Bunny at Church Show

GLASSPORT, Pa. (AP) — A church trying to teach about the crucifixion of Jesus performed an Easter show with actors whipping the Easter bunny and breaking eggs, upsetting several parents and young children.

People who attended Saturday’s performance at Glassport’s memorial stadium quoted performers as saying, “There is no Easter bunny,” and described the show as being a demonstration of how Jesus was crucified.

Melissa Salzmann, who brought her 4-year-old son J.T., said the program was inappropriate for young children. “He was crying and asking me why the bunny was being whipped,” Salzmann said.

Patty Bickerton, the youth minister at Glassport Assembly of God, said the performance wasn’t meant to be offensive. Bickerton portrayed the Easter rabbit and said she tried to act with a tone of irreverence.

“The program was for all ages, not just the kids. We wanted to convey that Easter is not just about the Easter bunny, it is about Jesus Christ,” Bickerton said.

Performers broke eggs meant for an Easter egg hunt and also portrayed a drunken man and a self-mutilating woman, said Jennifer Norelli-Burke, another parent who saw the show in Glassport, a community about 10 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.

“It was very disturbing,” Norelli-Burke said. “I could not believe what I saw. It wasn’t anything I was expecting.”

I have been seeing a bizarre rash of religious nut pharmacists refusing to fill birth control or morning after pill perscriptions lately due to their illogical belief in mythological constructs. I am pasting an article from the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram almost verbatim, as one now must log in to read it online, which is cumbersome at best and downright intrusive at worst.

I don’t care what wacked out beliefs these nut jobs have, but when their insanity affects others, it’s time to confine the terminally insane so they no longer pose a real and present danger to the rest of us.

Pharmacist refuses to fill birth control prescription
By Ben Tinsley, Star-Telegram Staff Writer

A CVS pharmacist refused to fill a woman’s birth-control-pill prescription this week, the second time this year that a DFW Metroplex-area druggist has withheld a prescribed contraceptive because of personal beliefs.

Julee Lacey, 32, a Keller district first-grade teacher with two young children, said she was astounded when the pharmacist came to the drive-in window of the CVS on Precinct Line Road on Sunday night and refused to fill what Lacey believed was a routine prescription that she had had filled many times.

“She told me she did not personally believe in birth control and said that’s why she wasn’t going to fill the prescription,” Lacey said. “She told me there was a Walgreens down the street I could go to that could help me. I told her I didn’t have the time to go there and set up a new account, and she said she couldn’t help me.”

A written statement issued by CVS spokesman Michael J. DeAngelis on Tuesday said the company regrets the incident.

“We recognize that, in very limited circumstances, a pharmacist may have a deeply held personal belief regarding a certain medication, and we would respect their belief in that particular instance,” DeAngelis said. “However, our pharmacists have a responsibility to ensure that our customers are able to obtain their medications.”

DeAngelis said a CVS pharmacist who won’t fill a prescription is required by company policy to refer the prescription to another pharmacist on duty or contact another pharmacy and find someone willing to fill it.

Lacey said the pharmacist did neither.

Asked whether the pharmacist has been disciplined or faces discipline, DeAngelis said he cannot discuss personnel matters. Lacey declined to identify the pharmacist.

Lacey said she is concerned that a pharmacist would impose personal views on a customer.

“I think your job as a pharmacist or any other kind of service job is to help the consumer,” Lacey said. “She had no idea why I was getting birth control. There are so many reasons people get it that aren’t even for birth control — cysts on ovaries and even endometriosis. She didn’t know anything about my history.”

On Monday night, a CVS representative delivered the birth control pills to Lacey’s home free of charge and apologized to Lacey’s mother because Lacey was not home.

Gay Dodson, executive director of the Texas State Board of Pharmacy, said that pharmacists can decline to fill prescriptions they believe could harm a patient but that state law says nothing about moral objections.

However, Texas law specifies no penalties for pharmacists who refuse on moral grounds, Dodson said.

“The Legislature would have to change that for there to be,” she said. “It makes it hard on us to take action because the law is unclear.”

In January, an Eckerd Drug in Denton denied a morning-after pill to a rape victim on similar grounds. Three pharmacists were fired as a result of that incident.

Just a couple of reminders that in the kinder, gentler New Testament, we heathen still burn in hell forever. First, from Revelation 21:8:

But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.

And here, from 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9:

And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.

I don’t have much more to say today, but while I’m on Revelations, is this shit strange, or what? No wonder Charlie Manson dug it. A charming sample, from Revelations 14:6-11:

And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters. And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.