This is a concept that many on the Left have never actually understood. It's really simple: government cannot require you to subscribe to any particular religious belief. Our country was founded upon Judeao-Christian principles, but you are not required to be a religious person in order to live here. Unlike the far Left, we believe in tolerance.
This is a concept to which Leftists pay the barest of lip-service. They speak glowingly of tolerance when it suits them to do so, but in practice they are rabidly intolerant.
A nativity scene set up at the southern end of the Bridge of the Gods has been challenged by the Freedom from Religion Foundation.
The Wisconsin-based organization filed a protest in early December with the Port of Cascade Locks “on behalf of a concerned taxpayer and frequent tollbooth patron.” The crèche is facing vehicles as they stop at the toll booth to pay for passage.
“It is unlawful for the Port of Cascade Locks to maintain, erect or host a holiday display that consists solely of a nativity scene, thus singling out, showing preference for and endorsing one religion,” wrote Rebecca Kratz, staff attorney for FRF in a Dec. 8 letter.
“We request that you immediately inform us in writing of the steps that you are taking to remedy this violation of the First Amendment.”
No, Rebecca, you have it backwards.
The First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech - not freedom from speech. Obviously, you have freedom of religion - not freedom from exposure to religion.
The nativity scene does not constitute endorsement of one religion as specified in our founding documents; the important words that you apparently missed are these: Congress shall make no law - and as they have not made any law that specifies Christianity as a national religion, your complaint serves only to demonstrate your own general vacuousness.
That someone of low intellect and mean in spirit makes a decision to become all offended by a holiday display does not mean that any violation of any of the Amendments, nor any other tenets of our founding documents, has occurred. It just means that the "offended" individual is a dork, as are those who would support a dorkish claim.
Many devout Christians view the character of Santa as an abomination; some note that it is simply a rearrangement of the letters that spell the name of Satan, who of course is the epitome of evil incarnate in their view. Yet they don't waste public dollars by filing legal action against public entities that may have a Santa or two among their Christmas decorations.
Rebecca, you and your ilk would do well to adopt the more tolerant attitudes of Christians in this regard. A very acceptable alternative would involve you voting with your feet. You don't have to live in our country; this is hardly a place like East Germany.
Feel free to leave at any time.
And by the way,
Merry Christmas!
My gosh, a lot of folks seem fairly upset over the passage of the Senate health incurance bill. Apparently, these malcontents don't understand that this is being done for their own good. While it would be nice if everybody happened to be as smart as Democratics, that's obviously not the case. So Democratics really had no choice; it's a sad commentary on the intelligence of the average American worker. Oddly, that spin isn't playing well even in liberal places. And it certainly isn't playing in Peoria:
As senators prepare this morning to vote on the package before them, they will do so knowing that it contains a provision for the federal government to pay 100 percent of Nebraska's expanded Medicaid tab forever, thanks to Sen. Ben Nelson's backroom dealing. It's being called the "Cornhusker Kickback."
Although BO may be off to Hawaii now, confident and happy, this isn't a done deal. It has great potential for ugliness, after the Christmas recess.
As is well-known, the Dem leadership essentially bribed Senators from Nebraska, Louisiana, and elsewhere in order to secure their votes for passage of a purported health care bill. Attorneys for several states are now questioning the constitutionality of such moves.
This is interesting, though freighted with other questions: if the Obamacare bill ultimately becomes law in the next few months, can the legal challenges to follow prevent the feds from enacting any portion thereof?
A deep freeze in the United Kingdom and Europe has led to about 90 deaths and is continuing to cause travel chaos.
Heavy snows on the eastern US coast have accounted for at least seven deaths.
Yet the Copenhagen confab, which brought leaders in by private jet and limousine, has been disparaged for its failure to address the important issue of Man-Made Global Warming. They were so close to gaining unprecedented control and subjugating individual freedom - and then the planet went into a cooling phase.
AlGore and his acolytes are revealed as crafty fear-mongers.
The iPhone takes a snapshot of each screen as you use the phone and saves the files without any user action. Think of it as a screen capture each time the screen changes. This means that there is a perfect audit trail of every action the user takes on the iPhone. This is one of the things that make the iPhone so "evidence rich."
There's an app for that. All your base are belong to us.
The route for electric choo-choos between England and France has been closed indefinitely. You can't get much "cleaner and greener" than this.
Trapped Eurostar passengers spoke of languishing in the dark for up to 16 hours without adequate food, water or any clear idea of what was happening. Some reportedly suffered asthma and panic attacks.
While most of the trains were towed out, two had to be evacuated, forcing passengers to walk through sections of the darkened tunnel.
Earlier, officials blamed the problems on the quick transition from the icy cold of France, which is suffering some of its worst winter weather in years, to the relative warmth of the tunnel, which could have produced condensation and interfered with the trains’ electrical systems. But the exact cause remains unclear.
Well, that's just silly. Everybody knows the exact cause: Man-Made Global Warming. At least we know that it's concentrated in the tunnel, so the rest of us can get on with layering clothes, shoveling snow, and breaking ice.
A judge in Multnomah County tossed out a citation issued to a driver after her vehicle struck a bicyclist. The driver had made a right turn, clipping a cyclist, and Portland cops issued a citation for "failure to yield to a rider on a bicycle lane."
Problem: there are no bicycle lanes at intersections. The lanes begin at the far side of an intersection, and continue to the near side of the next. At intersections, the lanes disappear completely.
Adding to the beauty of it all, the cyclist in question was Carmen Piekarski, an employee in the City's Office of Planning and Sustainability. Of course she was riding her bike, because it's so green and sustainable and all. Unfortunately, the "planning" part doesn't seem to have worked out so well. Fortunately, while she took a spill, she wasn't injured, by all appearances. Certainly, her mouth continues to work well.
She understands why there's now "bike lane confusion."
Well, Ms. Sustainability, try this: when the lane ends, you stop - unless you can proceed safely and there are no traffic control devices in place. I know that stop-signs, yield signs, and traffic signals are for "the other people", but you'll still do better to obey them - and to use common sense when riding. That's a lot to ask, sure.
If you want to ride a bicycle, good for you. Just try not to assume that it means that the whole world revolves around your good little self.
If Portland excels at nothing else, there is one glowing trophy to which they can lay exclusive claim: growing vegetables.
When it comes to growing the greens, nobody beats The City That Works. There's a Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, and they don't refer to the Urban Growth Boundary. That wouldn't be prudent. Instead, they refer to an "Urban Growth Bounty". Isn't that just so green and positive and sustainable? They actually pay people around a hundred and twenty grand a year, from your tax dollars (and don't forget the benefits) to come up with propaganda like that.
If a gift of experience is the perfect last-minute stocking stuffer, the City of Portland’s Urban Growth Bounty courses are the answer. More than 700 local residents learned how to transform their yards into “urban farms,” preserve their harvest and keep chickens and bees thanks to the last year’s classes. The overwhelming response has led to a tripling of course offerings for the 2010. The expanded roster includes more cheesemaking and cooking, advanced chicken and beekeeping, innovative gardening and healthful food on a budget classes. On-line registration is available at http://www.portlandonline.com/bps/ugb.
CoPo even has a cool little online thing going, wherein you can give them your "help" in allowing them to make choices for the future. Of course, all of the Q&A are carefully crafted to ensure that the appropriate answers are provided to support the decisions that have already been made by the "planners".
Gubernatorial candidate and former gerrymanderer Billy Bradbury has announced that if nothing is done about man-made global warming, the Portland airport and downtown areas will soon be under water. As in flooded. If he can guarantee that outcome, then elect him.
Well, according to Cuba's foreign minister, yes. This seems surprising, as Nope'n'Change was was going to sit down with intransigent leaders around the world and apologize repeatedly for all of America's faults, and then everybody was going to join the duckies and the bunnies as they hold hands and dance around the Maypole while singing "Everything is Beautiful".
Whatever happened to that? We have a president and first lady who hate America as much as the Cubanistas do, and Cuber disses him?
Rodriguez's comments Monday echoed remarks by former President Fidel Castro, who in a weekend opinion column called Obama's speech in Copenhagen "deceitful, demagogic and full of ambiguities."
Apparently, Cuba has judged the depth of Obama's hatred for this country, and finds it lacking. It's hard to imagine how BO can find a way to appease them.
Often touted as the best "green energy" source because unlike wind and solar, geothermal is always on, companies have been scrambling to cash in. In some areas, geothermal may work well - because in those areas, it's possible to use some fairly passive methods to extract energy. In other areas, however - not so much.
LONDON (Dec. 18) -- The Obama administration has a lot riding on geothermal energy, which it sees as a future source of clean, green and virtually unlimited electricity. Over the past year alone, the U.S. Department of Energy has invested some $440 million in projects trying to turn heat trapped in bedrock deep underground into electricity. But the trial this week of a Swiss geologist – accused of causing earthquakes during the construction of a geothermal power plant – has raised doubts about the safety of some geothermal schemes, and may have contributed to the collapse of one government-backed project in California earlier this month.
Worries about the link between this new power source and earthquakes came to the fore in 2006, when the building of a geothermal plant in the Swiss city of Basel triggered a series of tremors. Although no one was injured, the quakes caused $9 million in damage and seriously shook the locals. On Tuesday, Swiss prosecutors opened their case against Markus Haering – head of Geothermal Explorers, the firm behind the project – who they accuse of deliberately causing landslides and damage to property.
It seems doubtful that Haering intended to cause so much damage, but the approach that his and other companies take nonetheless raises a few warning flags: their method involves drilling several miles down, to superheated rock, then pumping water down the shaft. The steam thus generated is used to spin tubines, creating safe, clean electricity which can be used to power trams, choo-choos, and other devices.
It seems that there is a problem: the cold water fractures the rock, which is a good thing because it generates more steam. It also appears to cause earthquakes. AltaRock has received some $25 million in U.S. government funding to start a new project in Oregon, and the Energy Department is backing more than 120 geothermal initiatives across several states.
Fortunately, as we all know all too well, Oregon is a "leader" in green and sustainable policies.