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War on Christmas: Festivus for the rest of us!

By Peter Bauer

As many of you probably know, the fictional "War on Christmas" is in full swing.  In the spirit of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a Washington man is attempting to place a Festivus Pole at the state capitol.  For those of you how don't know, Festivus is a relatively simple, low cost Christmas alternative.  It has but three attributes:

1.  An aluminum pole that requires no decoration (the tinsel is distracting).

2.  The Airing of Grievances where you tell your family all the ways they have disappointed you that year.

3.  The Feats of Strength.

For more information on this emerging national holiday, please view this instructional video:

The Israeli Dilemma

By Ben Cohen

Paul Jay from 'The Real News'  speaks with David Newman, Professor of Political Geography and a Senior Research fellow at Ben-Gurion University in Israel on the conflicting notions of a religious democracy.

It is a complex issue, and this 8 minute discussion only scratches the surface of the debate. Nevertheless, it is an issue the the mainstream media in the U.S refuses to cover properly, and this brings light to topics the U.S Israeli lobby would rather Americans did not hear.

Thomas Jefferson on the role of religion in politics

By Ben Cohen

Last Sunday, I wrote a post in response to a reader who had commented negatively on my assertion that most Americans felt Dick Cheney should be impeached. Claiming that I had 'lost all credibility' on the subject, and that Democrats were all 'socialists and closet communists' that want to create a 'Stalinist type regime', the reader also made the bold claim that the United States was founded on 'Christian principles'. It appears I was not the only one who took exception to the readers comments, and other readers of The Daily Banter promptly joined in the argument.

Here's an interesting comment from Buckler, who quotes one of the founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson:

"As for America being founded on Christian principles, perhaps we should look at a few quotes from Thomas Jefferson, arguably one of the greatest of our Founding Fathers. These are just a few, extracted from a collection of many, many more:

The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
-- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781-82 (capitalization of the word god is retained per original; see Positive Atheism's Historical Section)