Video: Christine O’Donnell Displays A Shaky Understanding of the Concept of the Separation of Church and State

Watch the whole thing but the key howler comes around the 2:49 mark.

Related:

Separation of church and state questioned by Christine O’Donnell. [Washington Post]

[via Sheena / HuffPost]

Video: Jay-Z – Vote Again 2010 PSA (from HeadCount.org)

PSA produced by the non-partisan organization HeadCount encouraging voter participation in the midterm elections featuring clips of Jay-Z at the Bonnaroo Festival in Manchester Tenn.

(Courtesy of Superfly Presents, A.C. Entertainment and Fuse. Edited by Brian Turner.)

Music Video: The Narcicyst featuring Shadia Mansour – Hamdulillah

WATCH THIS!!! This is a look at the Muslim world that the mainstream media doesn’t really show you. Not only is the video beautifully shot but the song ain’t bad either. Here’s a backgrounder on it:

To say ‘Hamdulillah’ is to be grateful for what one has.

Thank you to everyone that was involved. We are blessed to have each other.



The Narcicyst Featuring Shadia Mansour-Hamdulilah Gaza Remix by REVOLT

LYRICS
Bismillah, like the feeling when I miss Falah,
then wish to God in clouds to lift us all
Hamdulilah,
wonder if Bibi can ever see me, and
if I back to Basrah will it ever receive me,
Bismillah,
homies that have the time to talk,
Now I wish to stars that angel find Nawaf.
Hamdulillah,
I stand awed at the strength of my sister
Kiss her and thank God our mission is planned for us.
Bismillah,
mamati inti hayati,
moms the best one, hold her close to heart like my left lung
Hamdulillah,
for the truth in a being as beaming the moon queen you blessed my future to be with
Bismillah,
for the souls anguish, love,
and the moment my brothers programmed these drums,
Hamdulillah,
We put the truth to the test, proof that we’re blessed students of this music at best.

Bismillah,
means to will in God’s name, without the ball and the chain a slave falling to claim,
Bismillah,
will forever hold inner peace, Wicked streets cripple little being rippling through the middle east
Hamdulillah,
may God bless the dead and gone, forever strong a better song, breaking bitter bonds
Hamdulillah,
for this world, in this spot to this song with these words for hip-hop say
Bismilllah,
stay humble in rhymes in eyes that hate your hunger
its like a jungle sometimes it makes you wonder

Click HERE for more info on the video.

Related:

Haroon Siddiqui: Leave quotation of sacred texts to theologians – READ THIS!!! ESSENTIAL for anyone who subscribes to or even mildly sympathizes with the loony philosophies of jihadist Islamist extremists. [Toronto Star]

[via Grandgood]

“The equivalent of a tsunami every five months….”

The displaced children of Darfur

While the Tsunami was a horrendous natural disaster that dominated the news headlines during the holidays and beyond and Iraq continues to be a disastrous mistake of man’s own doing, I and many others’ attention was distracted away from the tremendous human suffering that continues largely unabated in the Sudan and other parts of Africa. I’m embarrassed to admit that it wasn’t until I read the editorial “Thousands Died in Africa Yesterday” in Sunday’s New York Times that I was motivated to return to this tragedy on the site.

Here’s one line from the editorial to consider: “In the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is anything but, some 1,000 people die every day of preventable diseases like malaria and diarrhea. That’s the equivalent of a tsunami every five months, in that one country alone.” Will Bush join his stalwart Iraq ally Tony Blair in his call of pushing for more help for troubled African states?

More information and charity links:

“If We Return, We Will Be Killed” – Consolidation of Ethnic Cleansing in Darfur, Sudan

Darfur: A Genocide We Can Stop

Save Darfur

The Darfur Information Center

The Best Way to help provide relief in Western Sudan and Chad

Crisis in Sudan: How You Can Help Those in Need

Previous Different Kitchen posts on the Darfur tragedy:

Darfur 101 and Bush’s not-so-secret voting bloc

What will the world do this time?

“Democracy Is Like Sex….”

The continuing tragedy in Sudan

Rangel stands up over the Sudan tragedy.

But let’s not forget what some have also termed a genocide in Northern Uganda or the atrocities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo where an estimated 2.5 million people have been killed in a bloody civil war since 1998.

I just blog about it but how we do get others to shine some light on the places beyond Iraq, Iran, Syria and North Korea in desperate need of help or reform?

Revisionist History: the Canonization of Saint Ronald

“Today history is what we say it is.” television executive speaking to the Washington Post’s Jim Hoagland

Watching last week’s coverage of the Reagan state funeral was probably one of the most disheartening things I’ve ever experienced in the media. Actually after the first couple of days I had to give up as I just couldn’t take any more of the media overdosing on coverage of every trivial aspect of the state funeral preparations or pundits trying to top each other’s efforts to canonize Reagan and rebrand him as one of the best presidents America has ever had. Even ESPN got in on the act as they interviewed NBA (I think) officials about whether they had considered postponing playoff games when Reagan was shot.

WTF? Did I miss the memo or something? I was old enough to remember the Reagan era and, as I recall, it covered one of the lower points in modern American history. This is a man who basically ended his term in near-disgrace over the Iran-Contra scandal after his administration, in violation of the law, secretly sold weapons to Iran, even though they were on the State Department’s list of terrorist states at the time, and then illegally diverted the funds to the Nicuaraguan Conatras to fund their insurgency against the Marxist (but democratically elected) Sandinista government. (Newsweek)

Here’s some other highlights from his two terms as president for those who either missed it or don’t remember:

– Reagan infamously thought trees created the greenhouse gases that caused global warming thereby wasting valuable time and diverting funds and resources away from research efforts that could have helped head off this problem years earlier.

– he spent billions on his Strategic Defense Initiative (aka the “Star Wars” missile defense system), which was never completed (or even proven to work), based on the premise of not only defending the US from Soviet missile attacks but also on his sincere belief that it would protect the US from alien attack (I am not making this up).

– he took about six years to acknowledge that AIDS was a serious public health problem that needed to be addressed and researched and not just an issue to pander to the “moral majority” conservatives with by baiting gays and denouncing the homosexual “lifestyle choice.”

And, as reported in Newsweek:

– he failed to shrink big government, contrary to one of his supposed claims to fame. The number of federal employees actually grew by 7 percent during his two terms.

– federal spending also increased as a proportion of national output.

and

– while, committed to balancing the budget, he ran the largest peacetime deficits in American history and tripled the national debt. (more…)