Many good points are presented here regarding Sarah Palin's teenage daughter's pregnancy. Excerpt:

"What would they say if Barack Obama had a seventeen year old ... who was about to have an illegitimate baby? ... Let's talk about the fact that Gov. Palin supports abstinence education, and I find that often when you don't give adolescents full information to make informed decisions about sexuality, sometimes adolescents wind up pregnant."

This is why voting based on what conservatives like to think of as 'values' is so wrong and dangerous. As I ponder these points, I realize no one has ever answered me this: What's so evil about condoms, that there are so many religious nuts who consider them sinful? In the age of HIV and AIDS, condoms are the main reason why there will probably be a human race in existence thirty, sixty, a hundred generations from now.

Treasury of Truth

Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought. If with an impure mind a person speaks or acts suffering follows him like the wheel that follows the foot of the ox.

Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought. If with a pure mind a person speaks or acts happiness follows him like his never-departing shadow.

Lord Buddha, in the Dhammapada 1:1-2

Dhammapada, the Gospel of Lord Buddha

W.A.T.C.H

Stop and observe.

- Lord Buddha

Watch your Words
Watch your Actions
Watch your Thoughts
Watch your Character
Watch your Heart

- Sri Sathya Sai Baba

Jesusveg.com

Prophet Jonah claimed that the cows were part of the reason why the city of Nineveh was saved (Jonah 4:11). Krishna also descended, in part, to protect the cows of Vrindavana from the demonic king Kamsa who had taken to animal abuse. Please become a vegetarian, or at least diminish your intake of animal derived foods!

Killing a cow is like killing a man! - Isaiah 66:3

Metta Sutta

This is what should be done
By one who is skilled in goodness,
And who knows the path of peace:
Let them be able and upright,
Straightforward and gentle in speech,
Humble and not conceited,
Contented and easily satisfied,
Unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways.
Peaceful and calm and wise and skillful,
Not proud or demanding in nature.
Let them not do the slightest thing
That the wise would later reprove.
Wishing: In gladness and in safety,
May all beings be at ease.
Whatever living beings there may be;
Whether they are weak or strong, omitting none,
The great or the mighty, medium, short or small,
The seen and the unseen,
Those living near and far away,
Those born and to-be-born —
May all beings be at ease!

Let none deceive another,
Or despise any being in any state.
Let none through anger or ill-will
Wish harm upon another.
Even as a mother protects with her life
Her child, her only child,
So with a boundless heart
Should one cherish all living beings;
Radiating kindness over the entire world:
Spreading upwards to the skies,
And downwards to the depths;
Outwards and unbounded,
Freed from hatred and ill-will.
Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down
Free from drowsiness,
One should sustain this recollection.
This is said to be the sublime abiding.
By not holding to fixed views,
The pure-hearted one, having clarity of vision,
Being freed from all sense desires,
Is not born again into this world

Metta Sutta (Sutra or Teaching on Loving-kindness), translated by Amaravati Sangha

May all the beings
of all the worlds
be eternally happy
Om Peace Peace Give us Peace

Loka Samasthas (my translation), a Vedic mantra

Religulous

I saw this movie over the weekend and wanted to share it with my readers. I love Bill Maher, I think he's a great comedian even if I don't agree with everything he says and believes. A number of Christians on youtube who haven't even watched the movie are calling for a boycott of the movie, which was to be expected, but usually when things like that happen, they end up giving more visibility to the film :)

Some of the scenes were brilliant, like the visit to the muslim side of the temple in Jerusalem where the imam said they allowed women - and then clarified that they had their 'own little corner'. He then went on to say that muslims were tolerant and that they allowed people of all religions into the temple - and then another muslim intruded and insisted to have the Jew expelled from the temple ... there's also an interview with a paranoid leader of the cannabis cult in Amsterdam. I don't want to give away much more - watch it! Looks like all the bad karma that organized religions have accrued is catching up with them!

According to a recent study carried out by the Beckley Foundation, cannabis is less harmful than alcohol or tobacco, banning cannabis has no impact on supply and turns users into criminals.

"Many of the harms associated with cannabis use are the result of prohibition itself, particularly the social harms arising from arrest and imprisonment," it said.

Cantara

Dead Can Dance!