Cafe Life

I’ve posted lately over at TMP Cafe. Here is first blog at that site about the apology by the Senate for not enacting an anti-lynching law when that sort of thing was going on. And here is the next and probably last entry in my blog there called 20 Questions. As popular as TPM Café is, I don’t think my entry got much of a read. I get more reaction from my comments. One of my comments got a favorable score from Matthew Yglesias, which I count as a major feat.

I really like 20 Questions. I’ll probably re-post it here.

Blind Faith I

Imagine if you will, everyone on earth is born blind. Like other animals that cannot see, we develop the ability of function, obtain substance and reproduce our kind.

And then imagine God came to us with a special pair of glasses that made it possible for everyone to see.

Everything we could see, we could come to know and understand.

We would come to see how to ground glass so we could see the smallest thing and furtherest phenomenon in the universe. And everything we could see, we could come to know and understand.

But no matter how small we looked or how far away, we could never see God, the one that made it possible to see everything else.

For this, you must remove that which makes it possible for you to see and understand so much. You must accept God on blind faith alone.

Some would say that scientists would have the most trouble with religious faith, but the contrary is true. When one deals in separating fact from assumptions, faith is easy to understand even if not practiced. No part of faith can be proven. For if there is any proof, then it is no longer faith. No icons, no images, no miracles, no martyrs, no text, there is nothing solid on which to grab hold or where to stand.

You must walk to the precipice and step off the edge. Your faith in God will hold you up and will not let you fall. You cannot hold one foot back on solid ground, there is nothing to hold on to, there is nothing in this world to support you. There can be no support for faith. You must step off and away completely and entirely. Faith will hold you up.

Of course, if you actually went to the edge of the precipice and stepped off, you would fall and die. Remember there is no proof. We must suffer fools for God.

Religions or religious people who say there is proof of their faith align themselves with a false god. Those who would install religion beliefs as laws, or send someone to die in His name, or second guess God in passing judgment on others walk the path of those devoted followers who did as they were bid by their religious leaders and condemned the Son of God to die on the cross.

Who's on first, now

Well I’ve been looking all over the net for the list of top secrets so I would know what is the top secret now that Deep Throat no longer holds that position, and I haven’t been that successful. I googled. I looked in Wikipedia. I tried “Top Secrets”, “Best Kept Secrets”, “Best Mysteries”, “List of Secrets”, and “Secrets List” and many more, both with and without quotes. but to no avail. I knew there is a book of lists, and I’m sure the list of top mysteries or secrets would be in it. I’ll have to go to the library and look it up, but that's so twentieth century. I thought I could go to Amazon.com and look in their books, which means I have to sign up and register and all that.

And then I opened today’s newspaper and there it was. A story about what are the top secrets which Deep Throat is no longer a member. I found it online here. Crenson, the writer of the article I’ve linked, listed a lot of previously well known secrets that are now out such as the Unabomber, Thomas Jefferson or his father produced children by the slave Sally Hemmings, the location of Olympic bomber Eric Rudolph, Julius Rosenberg was a Soviet spy, and Jesse James was shot in the back possible by his own gang.

He also included the idea that Chandra Levy mystery lost its distinction -- except to her folks -- when it became obvious that her death could not have been caused by the congressman whose name I don’t recall which I guess makes this mystery downgrade rather justified. Crenson also included a mention of the runaway bride down in Georgia whose name doesn’t deserve mention in any discussion of secrets the likes of Deep Throat. Although not mentioned in the article, in a sidebar Judge Joseph Crater who has been missing since 1930. The secret is getting a little old and I would not include it in any current secret list. Honorable mention, yes; included in the list, no.

Another two mysteries included in the article, the whereabouts of Jimmy Hoffa and who is D.B. Cooper, I’m not sure I would include them in my list. Certainly, I’d like to know more about the real D.B. Cooper. Did he make it out of the plane OK? Did he make it out of the wilderness? But I’m more interested in what are the top secrets now – maybe more inside the beltway or political.

I was thinking I might enter it in Wikipedia since I did not find it anywhere in the site. I could link each entry to somewhere else in Wikipedia. I did not include Osama bin Laden because that should go into a list of worldwide secrets. Anyway, here is my list of top secrets or mysteries.


1. Who mailed the anthrax letters?
2. Who leaked sensitive information to Ahmen Chalabi and was he a spy for Iran?
3. Who leaked Valery Plame’s position?
4. Who forged the memos on Bush’s National Guard service?
5. Who decided to accept the intell that there were WMD’s and some bad-assed mobile labs in Iraq rather than the intell that there were not?
6. Who is really responsible and not a taking the hit for the 14 incorrect words in Bush’s State of the Union Address about yellow cake?
7. Who pays for those face lifts ugly women get when they leak info or make charges against the President and why didn’t Monica get one?

Currently, seven is all I could come up with. I’ll keep working.