One of the hallmarks of a totalitarian state is the laying of bogus charges against artists. And in those places, it's also not uncommon for the targets of those charges to turn around and praise the state that works to eliminate them simply to survive, particularly when restitution for the state's feigned outrage is demanded from the victim.

CNN and others are now reporting that Peter Berdovsky, 27, of Arlington, Massachusetts, a recent graduate of the Massachusetts College of Art, has been arrested. The Boston Globe reports that Berdovsky is "facing charges of placing a hoax device in a way that results in panic." The law under which he was charged allows the state to pursue restitution.

Cross-posted from Biblical America Resistance Front (barf.org)

'Tis the season when it's not unusual to receive a holiday card inscribed, "Peace on Earth."  It's easy to sometimes assume that this sentiment is a universal one, or if it's not, that it's at least shared by one's neighbors, or among Christians.

But if there's one overarching, most important thing I've learned in recent years, it's that one's assumptions can't be trusted when assessing what's going on among American Christians today.

From time to time, you'll see a report from someone who visited a church and experienced something we would consider jarring and unexpected, or, as in my case, came across a blog entry from a member of a church, who's simply relating what they saw, and how much they thought it was just a wonderful thing.

Yesterday I read one such blog entry, which might serve as an indicator of where some portion of American Christianity is headed - and where it very well may end up.

Two uniformed men strolled into the main room of the Little Falls library in Bethesda one day last week and demanded the attention of all patrons using the computers. Then they made their announcement: The viewing of Internet pornography was forbidden.

The men looked stern and wore baseball caps emblazoned with the words "Homeland Security." The bizarre scene unfolded Feb. 9, leaving some residents confused and forcing county officials to explain how employees assigned to protect county buildings against terrorists came to see it as their job to police the viewing of pornography.

More details, and three unanswered questions, below the fold.

The Miracle Channel is a registered charity in Canada. It appears to me that The Miracle Channel may have stepped out of compliance with  Canada's regulations regarding charities.

Miracle Channel President Dick Dewert delivered this indirect endorsement of anti-gay-marriage candidates at the conclusion of a three-day-long conference at the station. With him were three U.S. based preachers, including Rick Joyner, a Charlotte-area pastor who is a close friend of the disgraced and now repackaged former head of PTL, Jim Bakker.

Transcript and video, below the fold.

Cindy Sheehan, through her insipid, mindless, repetitive and just plain lazy use of the term "trail of tears" has provided an example of exactly this phenomenon.

In the midst of all this fabricated wingnut outrage over the term "Scalito," I opened one of my mailboxes this morning and found this item: an e-mail from the "Vanguard PAC" trumpeting the nomination of "Scalito." "Vanguard PAC" is a self-styled "conservative," but clearly revolutionary, "political and activist group" headed by Rod Martin, who is among other things a member of the Board of Governors of the Council for National Policy and former Director of Policy Planning and Research for Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee.

Not mentioned in Martin's official bio are his articles in The Christian Statesman, published by the National Reform Association (the "Explicitly Christian Politics" people), in particular his 2002 piece entitled Quiet Revolution: The Christianization of the Republican Party.

Included in the e-mail are Martin's exploitation of Rosa Parks' death, Marvin Olasky's attempt to resurrect the pesticide DDT and Alan Sears' latest diatribe against the ACLU. Relevant excerpts from the e-mail below the fold.

Another example of Rove keeping a very low profile lately. Here's this morning's Associated Press story via the WTOP Radio website.

Prominent Advisor Misses Republican Breakfast

TYSONS CORNER, Va. (AP) - White House adviser Karl Rove didn't show at a Republican "Pep Rally Breakfast" Saturday in Fairfax County.

Rove had been scheduled to give the keynote address at an event trying to help out Republican gubernatorial candidate Jerry Kilgore, but was replaced by Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman.

Some have asked where the Vice President has been lately. I've seen some online speculation that he's still vacationing in Wyoming and that he might be sick.

It turns out that his next scheduled event is not related to helping the victims of this disaster, as prominent national leaders in any sane administration would be doing right now. He is instead going to Alberta on September 9 to visit the oil sand facilities near Fort McMurray.

Cheney will also attend a private banquet in Calgary hosted by the Fraser Institute, which is a right-wing Canadian think-tank analogous to the Heritage Foundation or American Enterprise Institute.

A few minutes ago (1:40 AM CT) CNN had a caller on-air from the Tulane University Hospital who reported that water levels were rapidly rising there to the point that emergency vehicles could no longer reach the hospital and that they were preparing to evacuate. The only method left for them to evacuate is via helicopter. The hospital is in the central business district, a few blocks from the Superdome and not far from the French Quarter.

For full video and audio of all the conference speakers, visit my earlier diary entry.

Dobson:

Donohue:

Transcripts will follow in separate diary entries.

These are audio and video downloads of the "Justice Sunday" conference:

Identification of speakers follows the break.

Ritual burning of a Koran in Columbus, Ohio, July 22, 2004

In the aftermath of Joseph Ratzinger's elevation to Pope, and the raising of the question of "respecting" religion and the religious being raised in many Daily Kos diaries, I have a story to tell, about a public event I witnessed with my own eyes last summer that involved both prominent Catholic clergy and activist Protestants. Perhaps it will serve to clarify exactly how religion should be "respected," or not.

Family Research Council president Tony Perkins recently appeared on the "Praise the Lord" program on the Christian television network, TBN, with Ohio pastor/televangelist Rod Parsley. They spent almost 20 minutes laying out the agenda which Bill Frist and other leaders have signed onto by agreeing to appear on FRC's upcoming telecast.

Perkins and Parsley began with the inflammatory claim that children aren't "going to know about the Lord" because judges are "taking away ... the right of the church to tell our children."

Perkins then insisted that the "founders" created the judiciary "as the lesser of the three branches of government," and that the lower Federal courts are "greater" than the courts since they were created by the legislature. He complained about Marbury v. Madison, that judicial review was "never envisioned by the founders" and that Federal judges threw out his Louisiana anti-abortion legislation.

There's more, including Perkins' insistence that a Senatorial "radical minority" is working to preserve an "anti-Christian, anti-American philosophy in the courts" by filibustering judicial nominees.