I thought that I was used to radical right-wing Christian conservatives going way off the deep end. Well, today I was unfortunately proved wrong again.

Pat Robertson, creator of the nationally televised "The 700 Club," has now publicly advocated that the United States assassinate Venezeulan President Hugo Chavez. The purported justification of the deliberate murder? He's "a dangerous enemy to our south, controlling a huge pool of oil, that could hurt us badly." The fact that he's chummy with our good friends the Cubans irks him too, I'm sure.

If Robertson was just another right-wing extremist, that'd be fine; I could just ignore his rants as hateful rage against one of the many groups of people he thinks will be going to Hell. The difference here is that we have a Christian minister advocating murder -- and then for the reason that he has *gasp* OIL!

Perhaps Robertson needs to be reminded of the Second Commandment: "Thou shalt not kill." Or perhaps the single most important Commandment imparted by Jesus: "Love your neighbor as you love yourself."

Hopefully remarks like these will cause Robertson's viewers who actually care about their faith and its implications to turn away from him. This type of behavior only serves to further drag the name of Christianity -- and all that it stands for -- through the mud.

Now I may be preaching to the choir at this point, but regardless of what you think of our miserable failure of a President, an article I saw at CNN today raised my eyebrows.

Apparently there's evidence from Britain's MI6 that shows that the US was intent on invading Iraq and deposing Saddam Hussein well before Congress was briefed on the issue; moreover, the blatant lies of WMD as justification were being shored up by the Administration and their cronies in the intelligence community. Among the damning quotes:

"Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.

"The NSC had no patience with the U.N. route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."

While I don't have my tinfoil hat on too tightly, if true (and the British haven't refuted its authenticity) you might want to ask your Congressional representatives to join in on the inquiry that is being presented to Bush to explain his actions.