EthixBytes

 “Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest.”     Mark Twain.

 “Why should a Christian magazine report bad things about fellow believers? Because such reporting can help keep people honest and can help protect people from those who would take advantage of them.”      
David Neff, Christianity Today, to Baptist Editors.

“Halliburton is gouging the taxpayer, and the Bush administration doesn’t seem to care.”     
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Cal.), in response to the U. S. Comptroller General’s report that Halliburton’s contract to feed U.S. soldiers in Kuwait had cost taxpayers an extra $30 million, and at least $1 billion in taxpayers’ money has been wasted in inefficient spending in Iraq due to the Pentagon’s “abysmal” accounting system.

“Congress and President Bush have so far spent $119.4 billion for war in Iraq—that amount could buy a median price U.S. home [$174,100] for 685,813 people (slightly more than the residents of Austin), a four-year Harvard University education ($39,980 for 4 years) for 748,495 students, a Cadillac Escalade ESV at a list price of $58,360 for 2,045,922 persons, or a $4,699 suite on the Queen Mary 2 six-day cruise from New York to England for 25,409,661 people.”    
Compiled by Austin-American Statesman, 6/6/04. 

“If I were pastor, I would not be comfortable doing that.”    Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the SBC in response to a Bush campaign email seeking 1600 churches in Pennsylvania “where voters friendly to President Bush might gather on a regular basis.”

“The SBC may vote to boycott Carnival Cruise Lines (as it did Disney Corporation) for hosting a ‘Gay Days Cruise’ prior to June Gay Days 2004 in Orlando. CCL is also hosting a ‘Bible Study Cruise’ January 10-15, 2005, featuring current and past SBC leaders including Jack Graham, Adrian Rogers, and Jerry Vines.”
EthicsDaily.com.

“Up to 90 percent of Iraqi detainees were arrested ‘by mistake’ . . . [and] abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers was widespread and routine.”       
International Committee of the Red Cross 24 page document reporting torture and abuse as far back as February, 2003.

“To his credit [Pres. Reagan] followed his huge 1981 tax cut with two large tax increases. In fact, no peacetime president has raised taxes so much on so many people. . . . The tale of those increases tells you a lot about what was right with Reagan’s leadership . . . . confronted with evidence his tax cuts were fiscally irresponsible, [Reagan] changed course.”        
Paul Krugman, The N.Y. Times.

“The United States ranks third, behind only China and Iran, in reported executions. Four countries accounted for 84 percent of the 1146 government-reported executions world-wide in 2003—the U.S. (65), China (726), Iran (108), and Vietnam (64).”    
Amnesty International Annual Report.

“We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States” . . . In fact, bin Laden “at one time sponsored anti-Saddam Islamists in Iraqi Kurdistan.”         
June 16, 2004 Report of the 9/11 Commission that disputed V.P. Cheney’s assertion that the evidence of a link is “overwhelming” and “pretty well confirmed.”

“Who gets a tax break? Middle 20% income bracket—$647. Top 1% income bracket—$34,992. People with over $1 million income—$123,592.     
Urban Brookings Tax Policy Center.

“In 1966 in South Vietnam, with a population of 16,543,000, Gen. William C. Westmoreland, with 535,000 U.S. Troops was still asking for more. In Iraq with a population of 24,683,000, Gen. John Abizaid with only 135,000 troops can barely secure the troops much less the country. . . .To secure Iraq we need more troops—at least 100,000 more.”          U.S. Senator Ernest F. Hollings (SC), Charleston Post-Courier,6/6/04.

“For us to get bogged down in the quagmire of an Iraqi civil war would be the height of foolishness.”      
Dick Cheney in 1991when he was Secretary of Defense.

“The Defense Department for six years spent an estimated $100 million for airline tickets that were not used and failed to seek refunds even though the tickets were reimbursable.”         
General Accounting Office Report, Associated Press, 6/10/04.

“The President of Southwestern Seminary has confused ethics with etiquette—and its bad etiquette at that. SBC leaders are retreating into irrelevancy faster than anyone could have imagined.”        
Response of the Editor of CET to the seminary’s new employee dress code that requires “gender-specific clothing” (men to wear coats and ties and women to wear dresses or skirts and blouses) to resist “post-Christian androgeny.”

“You’ve got thousands of people running around on taxpayer dollars that the Pentagon can’t account for in any way. Contractors are invisible, even at the highest level of the Pentagon.”        
Dan Guttman, John Hopkins Univ.  expert on government contractors in Iraq.

“The President and his staff have engaged in deceit and deception worse than Watergate in using secrecy to take a nation to war and causing people to die—this is an impeachable offense. I’m not against these people, I’m just deeply disappointed in their bunker-mentality which started long before 9/11.”   John Dean, author of Worse Than Watergate on NOW With Bill Moyers, 4/4/04.

 “Democracy dies behind closed doors.”      
Bill Moyers on NOW, PBS.

“Why would the NRA [convention] display assault weapons which are federally banned in the U.S. from manufacture, import, and sale since 1994? Why . . . invite V.P. Dick Cheney to be its keynote speaker, when President Bush ‘promised’ to support a renewal of the ban? Easy answer: Bush has no intention of supporting the ban’s renewal [which is] fiercely supported by all law enforcement organizations.”       
Mike McAnally, Pres. Million Moms March-Central Texas Chapter.

“This is the time to take advantage of the position I’m in, along with Sen. Stevens (R-Alaska).”
Rep. Don Young, (R) Alaska’s lone member of the House in response to critics of two “pork-barrel” bridges approved under the highway bill, one linking a town of 7845 people to an island of 50 people with an airport ($200 million) and another spanning an inlet to tie Anchorage to a port that has a single tenant and almost no homes ($2 billion).

“Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe supported the expansion of settlements in the West Bank by citing Genesis and calling the debate on the issue ‘not a political battle at all. It is a contest over whether or not the word of God is true.’”
Jason Byassee in The Christian Century.

 “The McDonaldization of sex [means] that sex, like so much else, has come to be seen as accessible, convenient, and immediate. Why wait? ‘You deserve a break today!’ McDonald’s tells us. ‘Just do it!’ says Nike.”        
Anthony B. Robinson, The Christian Century.

“God said, ‘Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It’s yours.’” 
Conservative pundit Ann Coulter quoted in The Christian Century, April 20, 2004.

 “Well, in every war, you have collateral damage.”      
Southwestern Seminary President Paige Patterson’s answer to the question, ‘Do you know or understand how much pain and hurt the [takeover] movement you have led has brought to people’s lives?’

“I realized that the pendulum was not going to swing because the fundamentalists had nailed it to the wall.” 
 Dr. Charles Wade, Exec. Dir. of the Baptist General Convention of Texas noting many moderates thought the SBC takeover was only a temporary shift to the right.

Updated Thursday, December 23, 2004