Purity matters more than good works

Colleen Simon is a Lutheran who has spent decades as a Catholic, drawn to that church by its social work mission. She was the coordinator of social work ministries at St. Francis Xavier Church in Kansas City and spent years encouraging food donations from the congregation and seeing that it was efficiently distributed to the needy. Her devotion to this work was highlighted in a profile in the Kansas City Star and that’s when she got into trouble.
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What the hell is wrong with these people?

Mark Follman writes about a recent disturbing trend among people who oppose any restriction at all on the free and unfettered access to guns, who turn even on women who are fellow supporters of the right to own guns because they are not willing to go as far as them. What happened to Jennifer Longdon is a prime example of the kind of disgusting behavior that can ensue.
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The revolution begins tomorrow

Who knew that moocher rancher Cliven Bundy would be the face of the next American revolution? Emboldened by their victory over the Bureau of Land Management where he and his supporters drove away the jack-booted thugs of the government in order to return to their cows their god-given right to eat where they damn well please, they have now set their sights even higher.
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The great Hillary Clinton conspiracy

I cannot believe that we are talking about Monica Lewinsky again. It should have been a non-story when it originally happened in 1998 and it should be even less of a story now. It was incredible how a consensual affair between two adults actually led to impeachment proceedings against Bill Clinton and to an unbelievable level of voyeurism masquerading as news and moralizing.
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Catholic church’s obsession with sex

One of the main functions of many religions is to control people’s sexuality. They hate the idea that men and women may have sexual lives that are not under the control of the usually male leaders of the religions and many of the rules and taboos that religions promote can be traced back to this desire to make sure that women especially not have that freedom.
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The United States of Secrets-Part One: The Program

Last night I watched online the above two-hour Frontline program that was broadcast earlier this week on public television and it is well worth seeing. It tells the history of the NSA’s secret surveillance programs, focusing on the period from just before the events of 9/11 and leading up to soon after Barack Obama took office as president in 2008. The story of Edward Snowden and his leaks are used to bracket this story but is not the main focus. Part 2 deals with the role of the major internet companies and will be broadcast next week on public television stations and will also be on the internet.
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Glenn Greenwald reveals more about the upcoming big story

In an extended interview on The Colbert Report, Glenn Greenwald reveals more about the upcoming big NSA news. When asked directly what it will be about, he says that “One of the missing pieces is about who are the people on whom the NSA is spying on in America, who are they targeting, for what purposes, who are these people that they are declaring to be sufficient threats that it warrants reading their emails and what is the pattern of people that they have targeted. Are they political dissidents, are they critics of US foreign policy, or are they actual terrorists?”
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The Great Cleveland Balloon Caper

Apparently as part of its fundraising efforts, in 1986 United Way decided to release over 1.5 million helium-filled balloons from the Cleveland city center, breaking the existing record for the Guinness book of records. Unfortunately, an impending thunderstorm required the premature release of the balloons and even then the weight of the rain resulted in the balloons being brought down within a limited area rather than rising up and being spread far and wide as originally intended.
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