1

I like these a lot, especially the first one...

...but someone really needs to clean up the formatting. I can tell my looking at your source code that you actually have lines and stanzas, but as it looks now, each word or two is relegated to a new line. Try taking out the three blockquotes wrapped around the whole thing.

Of everything in there, this is what I liked best: We believe that man is essentially good.
It's only his behaviour that lets him down.
This is the fault of society.
Society is the fault of conditions.
Conditions are the fault of society.

So very true. (That people say/think that, I mean.)

2

And coming soon to this very thread, agnostics, atheists, and militant Leftists will be saying that there's no difference between militant Islam and Christianity.

Oops. Didn't mean to say the word "Islam"--in every article I read about this slaughter in Russia, the authors and editors go to great length to make us think this is the work of "separatists" or "Arab mercenaries"--quick now, how many mercenaries sign up for suicide missions?
No, the satanic death cult that is Islamic extremism has struck again, this time against one of the three countries who famously believed (past tense, hopefully) that the war against terrorism can be won by negotiation and compromise.
Completely predictable, and completely preventable.

3

I'm sorry, but how does this have anything to do with Islamic terrorism?

4

The poem is about how the Left has been so spectacularly wrong about every significant issue: sex, the Cold War, defense, and most recently the school bombing and massacre in Russia (that was the link to the news article).

5

Wow...just wow.

6

"I'm sorry, but how does this have anything to do with Islamic terrorism?"

Kevin needs only the barest thread of relevance to go off on one of his right-wing rants, Andrew. No one is going to equate militant Islam with Christianity, but that doesn't matter because in Kevin's mind they already have; because he imagines them doing so.

Oh my...did I "poison the well"?

By the way, the poem stinks. This guy should get together with the girl who wrote the "rape" poem you recently featured. I could write a crummy poem about right-wing nutcases that puts words in their mouths, too, but I won't. I know where garbage belongs.

7

The last poem about "Chance" is okay if a little, er, downbeat. If it does have some political slant to it, it's not particularly obvious to me.

The first poem is also a little opaque but seems to be more of a general rant against those who don't believe in moral absolutes, whom the author believes are hypocrites. I don't see that it's a rant against the "Left," per se, but against some of the intellectual bogey(straw)men which some ultraconservatives cite when they try to smear "the Left" as amoralists.

But what does "We believe there's something in horoscopes, UFO's and bent spoons" have to do with the Left? Hint: Nancy Reagan.

Does "the Left" really espouse the idea that "We believe that everything's getting better
despite evidence to the contrary." Hint: George W. Bush.

Does the Left really promote the idea that "What's average is normal.
What's normal is good." Hint: Heritage Foundation.

The first poem is a pile of literary doggy doo, in my esteemed opinion. The second is okay.

How about this one:

Republicans united,
So spectacularly wrong.
I watch them on TV
Their lies so strong.
So little of substance and
Facts that aren't right --
Gummed and drooled upon
By elderly whites.

8

Rob,

Of Bush's kind of faith, [Al Gore] says, "It's a particular kind of religiosity. It's the American version of the same fundamentalist impulse that we see in Saudi Arabia, in Kashmir, in religions around the world: Hindu, Jewish, Christian, Muslim."

http://www.newyorker.com/press/content/

9

"We believe that there is no absolute truth"

"We believe in the rejection of creeds."

Brilliant!

10

"Of Bush's kind of faith, [Al Gore] says, "It's a particular kind of religiosity. It's the American version of the same fundamentalist impulse that we see in Saudi Arabia, in Kashmir, in religions around the world: Hindu, Jewish, Christian, Muslim.""

This hardly rises to the level that Kevin anticipates. Keep looking; I'm sure you can find a crackpot to validate Kevin's assertion. And I can find a Christian crackpot to compare all atheists to Stalin. I doubt I will have to leave this site to do so.

11

Does anyone know whether the guy who bombed the stem cell research lab in Boston a few weeks ago was religious? I'm wondering whether he's an Islamic terrorist or the other kind.

I kinda doubt he's Islamic because we'd have read about it by now if he was. I can't find anything online about his motives. Maybe he just doesn't like stem cells so he thought he'd kill a few.

12

Ah, I did find this tidbit after fifteen minutes of searching:

"Sources said Karger was insulted with the terms of the job offer from the company, an agricultural biotechnology company, and allegedly left three Bunsen burners and a lit flame on overnight at the building in February 2003. An employee noticed the odor before the building exploded. He is awaiting trial in Middlesex Superior Court for that case."

So it looks like it may simply be an act of revenge and not a terror attack at all.

The truth awaits us at Barger's trial (fyi-- he's pleading not guilty).

13

Kevin W, just curious: what's your opinion on the following:

"This week's issue of the Economist quotes Daryl Kimball of the Arms Control Association about the reasons that the Bush administration has suddenly decided to oppose the verification provisions of the Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty. Kimball says that one of the Bush administration's reasons is: the worries of Israel and Pakistan, two allies that want to keep the option of adding to their stockpiles...."

from Washington Monthly, citing http://www.economist.com/world/na/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3156456

I say this is another example of the Bush Administration's inability to act competently in the interest of U.S. security. What do you say?

14

You guys need to read this:
http://religiousleft.bmgbiz.net/bushandjesus.html