The God of Thuggery

Recent instances of the kind of Christian love I could do without:

A teen objected to a prayer mural at secular Cranston West High School in Rhode Island. A federal judge ordered it removed, and the student has received multiple violent threats, including one to "drown that atheist in holy water."

Kansas House Speaker Mike O’Neal cited Psalm 109 to wish for the death of the President and the widowing of the First Lady: "Let his days be few; and let another take his office. May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow." He added, “At last — I can honestly voice a Biblical prayer for our president!"

On the heels of Tennessee's "Don't Say Gay" bill that would bar teachers from discussing homosexuality, State Rep. Richard Floyd proposed a bill to ban transgender people from using public bathrooms that do not match the gender on their birth certificates, citing “the potential for pedophiles and molesters to come into the restroom" and promising to "stomp a mudhole" into any transgender person who entered a restroom that his family was in. Think of whether you've heard of a transgendered person who molested a child; now think of how many clergy have done so.

With countless incidents such as these recent examples of hatred by so-called Christians, maybe Fred Phelps of Westboro Baptist Church is right when he contends that God hates. You certainly can get that impression. If this is not the case, Christians should do what so many have demanded from Muslims after 9/11 and publicly denounce the hatred within their own ranks.

Nobody Understands Debt - NYTimes.com

I have wondered for the last two years or so why so much damned emphasis has been on federal debt -- not the deficit, but the debt. While I'm not so sure where the push-to-exclusion-of-all-else for austerity came from, this piece from Paul Krugman is the most thorough explanation of why it does not matter nearly as much as the debt Chicken Littles make it out to be.

Nobody Understands Debt - NYTimes.com