Czech: otravný m.
German: ärgerlich de
Icelandic: truflandi
Italian: fastidioso
Japanese: うるさい (urusai)
Spanish: molesto es
Dutch: vervelend
Polish: irytujący

No matter in what language you say it, it all comes down to the same thing.

Milhouse: Why does Bart have a comic book?
Comic Book Guy: Your questions have become more redundant and annoying then the last three "Highlander" movies.

We all have things that annoy us. For me, my the most annoying behavior of others is when people try to speak for me, or claim to be able to do so.

<More after the break>

This story from the front page of Yahoo News by an AP reporter made me want to scream at the computer at 7:00 am this morning.

He reports that faith leaders at the Democratic convention are pressing the party on their positions on restricting abortion, school choice, and other such issues.

Not ONE pro-choice faith leader in Denver was interviewed for the article.

Watching the post coverage of the first night of the convention this moment stuck out for me:  Pat Buchanan whining about how Michelle didn't invoke God enough or read a few chapters from Corinthians.

Verbatim (sorry, I don't have video of this, nor would I know how to post it in a diary.  if anyone can find it, i'd gladly update the diary and give props.):

You notice she didn't bring up the Christian religion.  No religion mentioned. I was surprised.  I mean, where was he "christianity", "Barack and I". No, no, it wasnt in there.

Wow.  Does this guy seriously have a job in news?

An expert panel moderated by Amy Sullivan has just kicked off the week of discussions at The Big Tent. Just as the first event of the convention was a religious service, the first panel deals with faith and politics. Time magazine's Amy Sullivan is moderating, and participants are MoveOn alum and New Organizing Institute founder Zack Exley, Beliefnet's Steven Waldman, Faith In Public Life's Ron Stief, Catholics In Alliance For the Common Good director Alexia Kelley, and Rev. Dr. Michael Beckwith are discussing the ferment in the religious community as people of faith embrace a broader, common good agenda.

Video is streaming at Faith In Public Life, and will be on youtube later. Have a look when you grab the time. It's a quality analysis of the changing face of faith and politics. Over there I'll be blogging about the full slate of religion and politics events in Denver this week, and cross-posting here as well.

HTML is acting up on my diary here. Check it out at Faith In Public Life.

Last week's Saddleback Civil Forum on Presidency, quite appropriately dubbed "The Faith Forum", heralded a new age for the Presidency of the U.S.A. - that of the President-Pontificate.

Has John McCain been baptized into his current church yet? Can't tell from his website. He has been baptized at all. The difference is, has he been baptized into the membership of his current church. According to this interview with his pastor (linked by CNN and CBN) the answer is...

No.

Katie Couric interviewed John McCain at his Sedona house. Number one, it seems. He didn't say how many houses he owns, but he attempted to respond to her question. Within his answer were two odd points:

1 - McCain said he is 'blessed' to have all this success and wealth.

2 - Some of those houses are investment properties.

Suggesting of course, that if you don't have success and wealth, you just ain't been blessed.

And no one even lives in some of those houses. They're just there to make money off of. They own all that property. And he has no time for church membership. Curious, no?

What the heck is a Barna Evangelical, I asked myself when I first ran across the term last week.

from Cogitamus commenting on the Saddleback Forum, via DemFromCt on dKos via Kevin Drum. (Wow, how convoluted. This hyperlink thing just might catch on after all).

I've said before that Barna Evangelicals are unreachable, so Obama's performance doesn't matter with them.  McCain's performance was acceptable, making it easier for them to support him.  However, he didn't really say anything other than his abortion response that would excite and motivate Barna Evangelicals to get out and vote for him.

Anyway, I did a little googling and came up with an answer (after the jump).

NOTE: As always, there will be a Video Reward for those making it all the way to the end. So read on...

Yes, there are thousands of new users on DailyKos every month.

Yes, a lot of diaries are opinions.

Yes, there are a lot of absolutely amazing diaries that are loaded with facts and links that are the heart and soul of DailyKos.

BUT there are so many outrageous assertions that are posted on a daily basis that I kind of wonder what happened to some of the old stand-by questions:
Where's the link?
What's your source?
Prove it with facts?

Polls show that many voters would be disinclined to vote for an "atheist" for president. The most common explanation being that someone who isn't afraid of divine retribution can't be moral.

Most of these people would probably be surprised to know that they have elected many non-believers in the past. This is a guess about who these might have been in the recent past.

For most of the 19th and early 20th Century most white protestants (WASPs) practiced a type of conventional religion. They attended services regularly and professed all the standard responses about Christianity. There is only slight evidence as to how much this adherence to formal practice affected their day-to-day actions. The idea that a supernatural being doesn't exist was not something that arose in conversation very often.

As I have to travel for work for most of this week (San Antonio here I come) I thought I needed to do something profound, something wise, to "stand" for a weeks worth of topics.

Usually I have about 30-50 comments on my diaries, which I am grateful for as I enjoy reading the topics of many here and I hope people enjoy what I write about.

So, what to write about? What is so important or so "wise" that it can be put in the place of 5 maybe 6 regular diaries? Ok ok, keep your pants on.

I will reveal it, as I am sure the suspense is killing you, after the break.

I get mail often from a few right-wing friends and family members.  This morning while waiting for confirmation that Biden was Obama's VP choice, I received another.  This one exhorts Christians to watch a short video of Barack Obama "mocking the Bible."   The email breathlessly exclaims that Christians need to "stand up,"  and suggests that the video must be watched soon and the email forwarded quickly in expectation that the video will be taken down.  So I watched the video and found it to be pretty much what I'd expected.  I did not expect to be as outraged and offended by the video as I was, however.  More than outrage, I have to say I am ashamed that anyone would let themselves and their religion be used so blatantly as a tool to advance a political smear campaign against against a fellow believer, against his faith.  I would have a difficult time accepting that people really find hooey like this convincing, were it not for the evidence to the contrary piling up in my inbox in the form of many other emails containing similar warnings to Americans about Obama, and which are also based on easily-debunked lies and mischaracterizations about Obama.  

With faith based initiatives, value voters and an ever widening bible belt, it sometimes seems the 14% of us who don’t have an imaginary friend, are treated as less than the god fearing.

Now what does this have to do with who McCain is going to pick as his VP? Not all that much, however....

On Tuesday I wrote this extensive write up about sections I and II of Rick Warren's book, The Purpose Driven Life.  This diary includes Sections III and IV.

While Warren's book did well in bookstores worldwide, more than 99.5% of the world has never read it and some of the 0.5% who have are critics. The book is Warren's opinion which he passes off as God's word. It perverts Christianity, perverts the teachings of Jesus, and if you are a true believer in Christianity, you may conclude that Rick Warren is an agent of Satan.

While I personally question the existence of God and I am completely convinced that no bible comes from God, this, in and of itself can NEVER be religion bashing.  The point of my diary is not to offend or insult any good Christian who believes in the bible but to point out that Rick Warren is a snake oil salesman, a fraud, a charlatan, a liar, and a zealot.  To make these points, I take down his arguments in scholarly and detailed fashion, showing the hypocrisy, oversimplications, logical disconnect, chicanery, negativity, fear mongering, hate, divisiveness, and craziness of the author's words.

So I've been thinking about this for awhile. If the right truly believes that leftists are godless heathens, and they want to control the direction of this country, then why don't they think long term? I'll get into this further below, but the basic premise is, if only leftest godless heathen swine use birth control, and have abortions, then wouldn't that actually be beneficial to them. If we reproduce in smaller numbers, and their ranks swelled, wouldn't they be able to dictate policy through sheer numbers?

Many religions have in the past, formulated policies for no other reason than to increase the number of their devotees. See Catholicism, Islam and Mormanism. The latter two having adopted the Older man, several younger wives theory at one time (many Islamic countries still allow four wives if the man can pay for an independent household for each), whilst Catholicism has advocated sex only for procreation, no birth control and no abortion.

As a result of the exposure by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) of endorsements by Gen. Petraeus and Maj. Gen. Mark Hertling on the cover of Under Orders: A Spiritual Handbook for Military Personnel -- a book promoting Christianity and denigrating non-theists -- it appears that these endorsements are going to be removed from the book, and that the book's author, Army chaplain Lt. Col. William McCoy, is going to take the fall for the constitutionally impermissible conduct of the two generals. Here's what's happened in the few days since my initial post about Petraeus's endorsement of this book appeared.

I have heard rumors that Christians are not necessarily far right delusional puritans, that there are actually liberal Christians out there who believe that life on earth evolved over billions of years, aren't waiting for the rapture, marry gay people and think that the question of when human life begins is essentially imponderable and support women's right to control their own bodies and reproduction.

Okay, folks, if you're out there, how about sticking your heads out of the foxhole long enough for us to hear a peep out of you? If there's dialogue or debate within Christendom, we sure aren't hearing it. Where are your radio and TV shows, your books, your press conferences, your candidate forums? Why is there only one definition of Christian belief known to political discourse?

I know many of you have been glued to the television watching the Olympics these past two weeks. I've watched women's gymnastics and a little bit of swimming, but as a political junkie, the next two weeks of the conventions will be much more "must see TV" for me.

Last week, the Religious Institute sent a letter to both presumptive candidates and campaigns, urging them to affirm sexual justice issues. I thought some of you might be interested in the letters, which were basically identical in our requests.

I can't wait to see how all of this plays out! Stay tuned