Seth in CA (for the summer)

Weird…

Over at OutsideTheBeltway.com I just saw the weirdest line-up of ads ever:

Surrender in Iraq Do you accept the Democrat strategy of retreat to defeat? Should we abandon our Iraqi allies to the terror of Zarqawi’s successors?If not, sign Senator Frist‘s digital petition by clicking here now! Read More…

Save the UN The United Nations is facing a crisis.Strong differences of opinion and a rapidly approaching spending cap could paralyze the UN – diplomacy, the reform process, even humanitarian efforts.Sign the petition. Urge world leaders: “Don’t Shut Down the UN.” Read More…

Place a Bet on Iraq With yet another successful election, time may be running out to buy the New Iraqi Dinar before it hits the open market. It’s now unbelievably affordable. The same amount that was once equal to over $82,000 can now be purchased for around $45. But, what happens when the oil really starts to flow? Read More…

This is from the website of the last one, BetOnIraq.com. Sounds like a sick joke to me:

What if?

Let’s say you decide to err on the side of Iraqi prosperity. You take advantage of the 100 year low value and buy 2 million Iraqi dinars. You look them over, admire them, and show them to some friends as a curiosity. The security features alone will have them enthralled. Then you stick them in a closet and go about your life.

A few years from now, you see a program on A&E portraying the lives of average Iraqis. You see people drinking locally bottled, genuine Pepsi Cola; not the ersatz they’d been consuming for years. They are buying their cars from Baghdad Mitsubishi.

Their highly educated engineers, no longer waiting tables or driving cabs, are engineering. The world’s 2nd largest oil reserve is producing more efficiently. Higher quality crops are being harvested, in larger numbers.

You discover that things are going well enough in Iraq to have raised the value of the the dinar to one US cent.

Your $2100 purchase would now be valued at $20,000.

If the dinar were to climb to a dime, you’ve got two hundred thousand dollars in your closet. What if it were to reach a dollar? Or rebound to it’s peak of over $3.00? Do you dare continue to keep your dinars in the closet?

Lions, hunters, and media consolidation

“Until the lions can tell their own story, tales of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” — African proverb

Which is to say, media consolidation matters (excerpt from a United Church of Christ pamphlet For faith groups [PDF]):

They had had enough. No longer would an ecumenical group of ministers from Arizona be lumped together with preachers spouting venom in the name of Christianity. No longer would they allow Christianity to be hijacked by hate mongers.

So the Arizona ministers formed “No Longer Silent,” but found that their message of unconditional love was a harder sell than one of hate. “We tried to buy a billboard in a prominent, well-traveled area of Phoenix,” says the Rev. Eric Elnes, No Longer Silent member and pastor of Scottsdale (Ariz.) Congregational United Church of Christ.

Elnes says that more than 150 local pastors wanted to proclaim that God loves everyone, including gay and lesbian persons. But Clear Channel and Viacom, who owned the billboards, labeled the message “too controversial,” effectively telling the pastors to shut up.

No Longer Silent couldn’t overcome the censorship, but its energy was already created and, as the rules of science teach, energy can’t be destroyed: it only can be transformed.

So Elnes rallied help and formed Cross Walk America, a 2,500-mile pilgrimage from Phoenix to Washington, D.C., between Easter Sunday and Labor Day weekend 2006. The pilgrimage would include speaking at local churches and interviewing with local media along the way, and would conclude with the posting of 12 affirmations on a Washington landmark — affirmations of unconditional divine love, justice and respect for all God’s creation. The grassroots effort is “a voice from the heartland that can’t be ignored by the media,” says Elnes, “a voice of hope for those who are spiritually homeless.” Elnes says he hopes Cross Walk America continues as a catalyst within the Christian mainstream.

“We need to make sure that the average person knows that there is more than one thought out there,” he says, “that the public voice of Christianity isn’t only fundamentalist.”

I found this pamphlet through a new group that just launched called the StopBigMedia.com Coalition.