Ten Commandments, Religious Right Erosion, NonRadical Right, Radical Right, Exxon's Revolting, North Korea Ignored and NewsMax lies.

I don't know if it's just zeal to carry out, what they believe is, God's work or if it's the unmitigated gall to think that, because of their beliefs, they have the right to make us comform to their version of God's will.

But whatever it is, I wish they'd spend more time in prayer or in church and leave the rest of us the Hell alone.

In their latest attempt to show the rest of us that their interpretation of the Bible requires them to get in everyone's face and make a nuisance of themselves, a D.C.-based evangelical Christian group, Faith and Action will unveil an 850 pound granite sculpture across the street from the Supreme Court.

They haven't gotten the proper permits, but that's OK, because they are serving a higher power than the laws of our country.

"At the heart of the Ten Commandments Project is an effort to restore the moral
foundations of American culture," the group says in a brochure at its offices,
where two reproductions of the commandments are on display on the first floor.

But it looks as though, like most of the self-righteous, it's their own moral foundations that need looking after. The Republican Religious Right monolith is starting to crumble from within.

In his consulting room in a suburb of Montgomery, Alabama, gastrologist Randy
Brinson is a worried man. A staunch Republican and devout Baptist, Dr Brinson
can claim substantial credit for getting George Bush re-elected in 2004. It was
his Redeem the Vote initiative that may have persuaded up to 25 million people
to turn out for President Bush. Yet his wife is receiving threats from anonymous
conservative activists warning her husband to stay away from politics.

"They've been calling my house, threatening my wife," said Dr Brinson. "The
first time was on a day when I was going up to Washington to speak to
Republicans in Congress. Only they knew I'd be away from home. The Republicans
were advised not to turn up to listen to me, so only three did so."

The reason he has fallen foul of men whose candidate he helped re-elect is
that he has dared to question the partisan tactics of the religious right.
"Conservatives speak in tones that they have got power and they can do what they
want. Only 23% of the population embraces those positions but if someone
questions their mandate or wants to articulate a different case, for the
moderate right, they are totally ridiculed."

Mr Cizik, an ordained minister of the Evangelical Presbyterian church and
otherwise impeccably conservative on social issues such as abortion, stem-cell
research and homosexuality, believes concern for the environment arises from
Biblical injunctions about the stewardship of the Earth. The movement's
political leadership, however, sees the issue as a distraction from its main
tactical priorities: getting more conservatives on the supreme court, banning
gay marriages and overturning Roe v Wade, the 1973 abortion ruling.

Another Washington lobbyist on the religious right told the Guardian: "Rich
is just being stupid on this issue. There may be a debate to be had but ...
people can only sustain so many moral movements in their lifetime. Is God really
going to let the Earth burn up?"

It's not just the radical religio-crazie's implosion that's hurting the GOP's chances this fall. The less radical Republicans are getting fed up with the excesses of their current crop of politicians.

But millions of conservatives will have a choice. And the closer Election Day
draws, the clearer it becomes that plenty of them will choose not to vote
Republican. Unless something changes dramatically -- and soon -- the GOP is
poised to lose its most reliable voters, and with them any hope of keeping its
congressional majority.

How disgruntled is the party's base? In recent polls, fewer than 70 percent
of registered Republicans said they approve of the way President Bush is
handling his job, a sharp drop from the 90 percent support on which he once
could count. Among self-identified conservatives, Bush's standing is even lower:
Just 51 percent rate his performance favorably, according to the latest New York
Times/CBS poll. At a time when the president's support among Democrats has
shrunk to single digits, and when only 1 independent in 4 gives him a positive
job rating, the last thing he can afford to lose is the goodwill of his core
supporters. But he is losing it

.

Even in Congress, Republicans aren't playing well with each other.

As the midterm elections loom and concern about maintaining their majority
hold on the House increases, rank-and-file Republicans have grown more and more
combative with their leaders and themselves.

In the past two weeks, Republican House members have sparred openly on the
House floor and have criticized their Speaker behind closed doors.

In another example of low-grade rebellion, Exxon stockholders, for the first time in history, went against the board of directors.

Exxon officials said they believed it was the first time in the company's
history that a resolution had been adopted over the objections of the company,
and it was seen as a sign of anger over the board's decision to award outgoing
chief executive Lee Raymond a final-year pay package of $69.4 million and a
retirement lump sum of $98.4 million.

Tillerson was most combative with critics of Exxon's funding of scientists
and institutes that cast doubt on global warming. With reference to the global
warming debate, he said that the phrase "scientific consensus" was an
"oxymoron." And he denounced those who said the company was underwriting "junk
science," arguing that Exxon was simply taking part in the "debate" over global
warming.

How can someone this stupid make so much money?


North Korea wants to negotiate nuclear disarmament. So far, Bush has had no interest in talking to North Korea, preferring to let China and others handle our national security.

In a statement carried by North Korea's state-run Korean Central News
Agency, the Foreign Ministry invited Assistant Secretary of State Christopher R.
Hill to Pyongyang. However, it called on Washington to first prove that it "has
made a political decision to carry out" an agreement struck last year at
six-nation talks in Beijing offering unspecified economic and diplomatic rewards
to North Korea in exchange for its nuclear disarmament.

Previously, the Bush administration has rejected bilateral talks with
Pyongyang, insisting instead on the six-nation framework, also including China,
Japan, Russia and South Korea. North Korea has refused for months to return to
those talks, citing U.S. "sanctions" imposed last year on financial institutions
linked to Pyongyang's alleged counterfeiting operations. Thursday's North Korean
statement reiterated a similar call to lift those financial restrictions.

The right-wing news outlet NewsMax recently reported that Iraq is safer than Washington D.C..
They claim that there's an annualized Iraqi civilian death rate of 27.51 per 100,000.

Naturally, they were wrong. Why do these people want our troops to keep dying?

According to Pentagon’s own data released today, there have been 94 violent
casualties per day in Iraq between February and May of 2006. (see
p.33). That translates into 34,310 deaths per year in Iraq. For an Iraqi
population of about 26.7 million, plus another 150,000 coalition forces, the
violent casualty rate in Iraq is 128 deaths per 100,000.