The disbeliever | Salon BooksCheck this out. Salon has a great article about the role of absolutist religious ideas in creating havoc and violence in our world. Excellent article. The author, Sam Harris of the book The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason is an atheist who feels that even moderate religious folks bear a responsibility for the indulgence and support that extremists get. He also takes a good look at the holy books and finds them pretty scary and not viable to pluralistic and civil society's survival.Harri...

I have been following the case of Lt. Watada who has refused orders to fight in Iraq because he believes that the war is illegal. He is not opposed to war and will fight in Afghanistan, because he believes we have legitimate cause to be there. I applaud his stance. The war is illegal under international law. You cannot preemptively strike another nation and there is no proof the Iraq government participated in 9-11. Please check out this site supporting Lt. Watada: http://www.thankyoult.org/In the present army a soldier is not supposed to...

I just read this article, which makes the situation even worse. Apparently before the council impeached Fire Thunder they also passed a ban that "contains a provision to banish from the reservation anyone who considers getting an abortion or helps someone else obtain one."The article continues:"Then the council turned to Fire Thunder. In a 14-to-1 vote, the council of 18, mostly men, suspended her, pending an impeachment hearing.Peters, as reported by the newspaper Indian Country Today, thanked those who may have been conceived as a result of...

"THE SUPREME Court on Thursday dealt the Bush administration a stinging rebuke, declaring in Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld that military commissions for trying terrorist suspects violate both U.S. military law and the Geneva Convention. But the real blockbuster in the Hamdan decision is the court's holding that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention applies to the conflict with Al Qaeda — a holding that makes high-ranking Bush administration officials potentially subject to prosecution under the federal War Crimes Act.The provisions of the Geneva Con...

The Chairwoman of the Oglala Tribe on the Pine Ridge Reservation was impeached on June 29th and removed from office by the tribal council. She had proposed building an abortion clinic on the reservation in defiance of a recent South Dakota state ban on abortions-- one of the most comprehensive in the country. Tribal lands are not subject to State Laws as they are considered to be "Dependent Domestic Nations" under Constitutional Law and as such are subject only to Federal jurisdiction. A fact, that has often rankled State's rights activists...