What would "the terrorists" really like to do in the United States between now and November, assuming that they had the ability to do something? Attack now, or wait until later?

We are not talking about confused juveniles with dreams of 72 virgins here. We are talking about senior leaders who think in strategic terms and plan years ahead. So if they want a McCain presidency, they give him the attack that Charlie Black quite accurately said would boost the Republican vote. If they want an Obama presidency, they do nothing.

Reggie Brown was upset. As executive vice president of the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange, he was before a U.S. Senate committee in April to dispute charges of slavery and human trafficking leveled at tomato growers by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, what Brown called “a purported labor organization.” There’s nothing “purported” about the South Florida-based organization (ciw-online.org) other than the status of its mostly Latino, Haitian, and Mayan Indian membership of migrants. Their employers often don’t consider them quite human. More like purported human beings.

They pay them accordingly. Assuming the picker gets work during the morning auction where growers pick their field hands for the day (the same cattle-auction method showed on Edward Murrow’s “Harvest of Shame” documentary 48 years ago), the picker, until recently, was making 45 cents per 32-lb bucket of tomatoes. The rate was little changed from what it was 30 years ago. Taking inflation into account, the wage was 75 percent lower than in 1978. To make Florida’s minimum wage of $6.79 an hour, the picker would have had to pick and haul 15 32-lb buckets in an hour, or 480 pounds. To make $50 for the day, he’d have to pick and haul 111 buckets, or 3,550 pounds of tomatoes. That’s 1.77 tons.

Who knew? The legalization of gay marriage might make Californians happier. At least that's what a new study based on surveys of 350,000 people in nearly 100 countries suggests.

No, the authors aren't gay activists, nor do they seem to be peddling any particular political agenda. But in their search to discover which countries are happier than others and why, these scholars — led by University of Michigan political scientist Ronald Inglehart — have stumbled on one pretty fundamental conclusion about what people want out of life: freedom.

According to surveys, in developed countries discrimination against women and minorities is actually waning and gays remain the least tolerated "outgroup" in society. They are the proverbial canaries in the coal mine. In most developed countries, the relative level of their acceptance or rejection is a sensitive indicator of that society's overall tolerance toward minorities. And — here's the takeaway — social tolerance "broadens the range of choices available to people," thereby enhancing happiness for both the tolerant and the intolerant alike.

You load your gun with one bullet from Daniel. Drop two bullets from Matthew 24 and three from the Book of Revelation into the cylinders. Now ALL the cylinders are full. Someone is going to die. There is no chance it won't go off.

Get some fundamentalist preacher of note to spin it and then tell the God haunted members of the Congress and Executive Branch and the simple psychopathic narcissists, where to point it and why. Pull the trigger. Its that simple. There is no empty chamber. Lots of people are going to die. The world will never be the same and life as you know for you and your kids will change.

A beginner's guide to understanding how American Christians interpret the New Testament! You might be a practicing Christian and not even know it!

While all True Christians™ applaud James Dobson’s efforts to keep that upstart Borat Osama as far from the Oval Office as his ancestors were from a Selma drinking fountain, we find his methods a bit disconcerting. Doctor Dobson attacked the colored candidate for quoting from the Old Testament instead of the New Testament. But as Fundamentalist Evangelical Christian Republicans, we’ve never been that big on the New Testament, which is loaded with all those inconvenient “truths” about caring for others and forgiving our enemies. In fact, the only New Testament verse we’ve ever had much use for is John 3:16 that merely requires us to give five or 10 seconds of our lives for eternal bliss, no matter how despicable our personas and actions. And politically, the GOP (God’s Own Party) has traditionally favored the fire and brimstone of the old book over the rather socialist leanings of the newer release. Lest Dobson has forgotten, let us remind him of just a handful of differences between fundamentalist thinking and Jesus’ actual words.