Candidates from both the Republican and Democratic parties are treading into off-limits territory, according to an independent electoral watchdog group.
A Political Improvement Group (PIG) report released Thursday criticized both President George W. Bush (R) and Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) for unfairly exploiting certain important issues for political gain in the course of their presidential campaigns.
What we know today as the Pledge of Allegiance was originally written in 1892 by Rev. Francis Bellamy. That’s right, that’s a Reverend in front of his name. Bellamy was a Baptist minister who wanted to come up with a pledge that could be recited by American school children on the quadricentennial celebration of Columbus Day.
The original text read as follows:
I pledge allegiance to my Flag, and to the Republic for which it stands: one Nation, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.
Notice anything missing?
I thought this article was an interesting look at Senator John Kerry’s proclivity for sometimes speaking in gibberish. This is not intended as a political poke or anything of the sort, just an observation and a well-written article about it.
I’m not linking to this article because I agree with the outcome, but rather because it’s something major that’s going on within the United Methodist Church.
I should note that there are a couple of pieces in the Washington Post article that aren’t perfectly clear. First, this decision was a conference-level decision, which means it doesn’t necessarily effect anybody outside of the Pacific Northwest Conference. This is made more clear in the UMC’s coverage.
I rooted for Clay during the second season of American Idol, but I never counted on buying his album or—God forbid—liking it. Modern pop music is overwhelmingly crap, and I expected an overproduced, hyped, electronically enhanced, new-age “R&B” influenced pop crap album like that put out by first-season Idol winner Kelly Clarkson or like Britney Spears’s two most recent albums.
Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.
