Sunday, August 31, 2008

Whose Side is God on?

During the past week, I found myself fearing the worst. When James Dobson's Focus on the Family called for people to pray for rain during that convention, I thought that the entire event would be spoiled. Hallelujah and Hosanna! Praise the Lord, it went off without a single bolt of lightning, although the fireworks were spectacular. So I figured that God had ignored the good pastor, as he often ignores the prayers of holy people, lest they get too complacent with their cozy relationship with Him.

Now I'm beginning to wonder what is up. A new hurricane is heading for New Orleans and all those off-shore oil rigs in the Gulf. Mayor Nagin has imposed a mandatory evacuation. And the Republican Convention is about to start. Is this a sign from God? I remember the talk about the last time having something to do with homosexuals and questionable activities of an immoral nature in the Latin Quarter. What is the message this time?

I have a theory. Given the timing, it must be that God has decided to support the candidacy of Barack Obama. After all, the Republican Convention is scheduled to start just when Gustav is predicted to blow into all those offshore oil rigs and come ashore at New Orleans, with all its ugly symbolism for the Republican Party. President Bush was scheduled to speak that night, but he is now rumored to have canceled.

Coincidence? I think not. Look at the past eight years. The Bush administration has continually ignored all the evidence of impending environmental disaster brought on by global warming. The signature energy policy in the McCain save-the-planet campaign is more offshore drilling. But most of all, it must be GOP elected officials like Larry Craig that finally made God decide to switch parties. I think that God may have been tired of all that hypocrisy from the GOP. I swear on the Bible. That must be the answer.

Saturday, August 30, 2008

Kicking It Off

This is the budding version of a blog that shall embody the new Turn Left, a distinctively old Internet liberalism community that harkens back to the olden days of 1995.

I know. Ancient, right?

Seriously, in Web terms, this group of politics junkies is pretty damn old. Essentially, a bunch of us who met through Turn Left and used to post on its wild, free-wheeling forums kept in touch when the site went AWOL around the turn of the century. We formed a mailing list, and then our own forum, which has given us a place to yammer on in our spare time, as well as attract a whole new generation of red-eyed neo-conservatives to spew garbage in our back yard. (Some of them are OK, though, really.)

There's more to come soon once we get our members in action and ducks in a row. But this project will be in the fledgling phase for a while. As it matures, hopefully a clear mission will rise to the surface - likely it will be about first-and-foremost about liberalism (which transcends elections and national borders) which would be very much in the tradition of the original TL. But we plan to touch on a lot of angles on the way.

In the meantime, thanks to Mike Silverman, the original founder and owner of turnleft.com, not just for making this new endeavor possible, but for bringing us all together in the first place.

Test

First post. This is only a test. Please don't panic. This is only a test. I repeat. This is only a test.