There are places where having someone armed and standing guard makes me feel at least a little secure. The guard at the bank, the airport, and the police patrol cars on the street are harbingers of safety.

However, church is not one of those places. At least, not for me. But evidently the good Republicans in Louisiana think differently, and so today Bobby Jindal signed the "gun-in-church" bill, authorizing people with concealed weapons permits to bring them to church.

NOLA.com:

Including the "gun-in-church" bill, House Bill 1272 by Rep. Henry Burns, R-Haughton, Jindal has signed into law 940 of the 1,067 bills the Legislature sent him, vetoed 12, and used his pen to line-item spending measures in four different budget bills.

Burns' bill would authorize persons who qualified to carry concealed weapons having passed the training and background checks to bring them to churches, mosques, synagogues or other houses of worship as part of a security force.

The pastor or head of the religious institution must announce verbally or in weekly newsletters or bulletins that there will be individuals armed on the property as members of he security force. Those chosen have to undergo eight hours of tactical training each year.

It sort of kills that whole "love one another" idea, doesn't it?

Yes, I'm going to a great conference hosted by Campaign for America's Future this week. I'm flying to DC Sunday.

David Neiwert and Susie Madrak will be there also so we can have a little C&L powwow. Progressive politics is the life blood of our country and I'm down for participating in the process and trying to get together with the people that feel the same way. CFAF has some of the most talented people in politics and I couldn't be more excited to be part of it.

I'll be on a cool panel with some very progressives minds at the AFN:

Tuesday, 9:30AM Ends 10:40AM Tea Parties, Beck, Bachman and Blarney

Tea Parties, Beck, Bachman and Blarney

Palladian Room

Eric Burns
John Atlas
Alex Zaitchik
John Amato
Digby
James Rucker

I've had a short video made to illustrate how right wing extremism has found its way from talk radio, radical religious figures and paranoid militia groups into the halls of Congress.

After the panel David and I will be doing a book signing which should be very different. David has done this a few times, but for me it's a first so...

I hope I see you there if you happen to be in DC.

Michael Tomasky: Intellectual consistency can be overrated. Because there's nothing intellectual about it.

Pruning Shears: Isn't it a little strange that no one mentions things like our two wars when looking at election results? Washington has for several years now been fully committed to disastrous policies.

Instaputz: It Burns

Manifesto Joe's Texas Blues: Architects of revisionism

Informed Comment: Iran threatens to pull out of nuclear deal over new UN sanctions

The Big Picture: Socialism

If you’re a United States Senator and your house burns down, you don’t have to sleep out on the street. You have money, a staff, and wealthy friends. In other words, you have options.

So it’s pretty telling that when Senator Brownback’s condo caught fire back in 2000, he moved in with the manic, apocalyptic preacher Lou Engle. We know this thanks to a new video unearthed by Bruce Wilson.

Watch Engle explain – as only he can – how his pairing with Brownback came about:

In case you’re not familiar with Engle, he leads the IHOP – the International House of Prayer – which works to hasten the End Times. He’s also the founder (and voice-over talent) of militant, right-wing prayer rallies like this anti-Prop 8 event:

Miraculously, Brownback didn’t come to hate Engle after living with him for 7 months. In fact, the former roomies appeared together last week at the Family Research Council’s “PrayerCast” against healthcare reform. Who knows…maybe having Engle around makes Brownback feel reasonable?

[Bonus footage: watch Engle talk about the “hot blood” of Latinos and claim that his spittle is holy water]

Via Raw Story, news that police use of this weapon is even closer - and more portable, so use will be widespread. I was writing about this in 2006. And no, it's more than "burning sensations" - when they did the tests, they banned metal buttons and zippers because they caused burns, and they also banned contact lenses because they could become fused to the eyeballs.

What brave Congress member will introduce legislation to stop this? Bueller? Bueller?

A powerful hand-held weapon being developed by the Pentagon could end up in police hands, says a report in a UK science journal.

The Pentagon's Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate has been developing the Thermal Laser System since 2005, with the purpose of developing a weapon that could disperse crowds or incapacitate individuals by causing them to experience burning sensations in their skin.

According to NewScientist magazine, the weapon has evolved into a rifle-mounted instrument, and there are plans for a hand-held model that could be used by police forces.

News of the possibility that police departments could obtain the burn weapon will likely concern civil-liberties advocates, who have been watching with alarm as the Taser conducted-energy weapon has gone into regular use in police forces across the United States.

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Glenn Beck wanted to use the senators' opening remarks at the Sonia Sotomayor hearings yesterday on his Fox News show to illustrate his claim that President Obama is shoving his agenda down America's throats, blah blah blah.

So he ran a pastiche of various warm remarks offered mostly by Democrats on the first day of the hearings, describing them thus:

Beck: America, I want you to watch this. As our country burns to the ground, because we all have this kind of stuff going on, this is the questioning -- now get ready, because it's a hard line of questioning -- here's what happened, this is what our senators were doing today. Watch this.

What he proceeded to show, of course, was senators making prefatory remarks to the nominee.

Because as anyone who glanced at the Judiciary Committee schedule for these hearings would know, the actual questioning was not scheduled to begin until today.

Beck also refers to Sotomayor's supposed high rate of reversal. But as Media Matters notes:

But according to data compiled by SCOTUSblog, Sotomayor's reported 60 percent reversal rate is lower than the overall Supreme Court reversal rate for all lower court decisions from the 2004 term through the present -- both overall and for each individual Supreme Court term.

America, watch this. Because this is what passes for insightful commentary on Fox News these days. As our country burns to the ground, as it were.

PBS's NOW:

How does a democracy decide to wage war? At 8:30 pm (check local
listings) on Friday, December 7 - the very day Pearl Harbor was attacked
by Japanese warplanes 66 years ago - David Brancaccio interviews
filmmakers Ken Burns and Lynn Novick and the Rev. James Forbes Jr. about
Burns and Novick's epic World War II documentary "The War". Looking to
the past as a mirror to the present, the four discuss how the waging of
war intersects with our notion of democracy.

"It's incumbent upon a democratic society to evaluate what the
arithmetic is -- the cost of war," Burns tells the group.

See the full show on the NOW website

In addition, in a web-exclusive interview, NOW speaks to BeliefNet's Dan Gilgoff, who shares his insight into the effect of Mitt Romney's speech on religion, the role of faith in the 2008 presidential race, and how America's faithful are reacting. And take note, all you Ron Paul fans: NOW is focusing on Paul and his campaign next week.

Greenwald explains...

This depressing New York Times article by John Burns and Marc Santora details the frantic, reckless manner in which Saddam Hussein was shoved into the noose in clear violation of Iraqi law...read on

This op-ed is priceless.

America won't win another war until the 1960s flower children are pushing up petunias. Radicalized, the flower children morphed into lefty loonies who now masquerade as social progressives. No matter what they rename themselves, however, their agenda hasn't changed.

Listen lady, this Hippie wants us out of Iraq. It really burns them up that the flower people were right.

jeneanmacb@hotmail.com.

Consortium news: The secret world of Robert Gates...Ray McGovern and Democracy Now! have more

The "Effing" Truth: As Thanksgiving approaches, Republicans should be thankful.

10 Zen Monkeys: Election fallout, 24 hours later

The Intersection:The new congress on science

Feministing: Ever wonder what a "Purity Ball" looks like?

F.A.I.R.: Morning-after pundits and fringe-dwelling fantacists take winners to task

OFF THE BEATEN PATH: The Strange Death of Liberal America...the pennsylvania progressive...Halfway There...Making conservatives cringe...Margie Burns