It used to be that George Bush was one of the biggest masters of dishing it out -- see, for instance, the Swift Boat attacks. But all of a sudden, George Bush is getting a dose of his own medicine -- House Republicans are calling him Beijing George for his refusal to call the House back into session to vote on drilling.

The primary election will be held in Missouri tomorrow, and below are all of the state Democratic races which will be on the ballot. Jay Nixon will likely be our next governor, as polls show him handily leading both Sarah Steelman and Kenny Hulshof. Unlike the Hillary/Obama fight, in which there was a certain level of respect that the two candidates had for each other, this is a personal, acrimonious brawl which is melting down the Missouri Republican Party in 2008. The poison which the Republicans normally throw on us is being used on each other to great effect, for instance:

Steelman has an entire website up documenting Kenny Hulshof's misdeeds.

From the Barnes Campaign:

Survey USA, a national polling firm, released its latest poll in the 6th Congressional District  showing Kay Barnes and Sam Graves virtually even as the General Election begins. Graves held a slight lead, 48-44 percent, within the margin of error. In Survey USA's last poll in May, before the race began in earnest, Graves, the four-term incumbent, led by 10 points.

"Throughout the 6th District, voters are embracing Kay Barnes' call for change. After 8 years of Sam Graves hiding in Washington, the voters of Northwest Missouri are now holding him accountable for his failed policies that have left our nation with skyrocketing gas prices, rising unemployment, unaffordable health care, and out-of-control spending. Washington is broken and Sam Graves cannot be part of the solution, but Kay Barnes will be," said Campaign Spokesman Steve Glorioso.

With the loss of rational proof of God's existence, we now turn to Occam's Razor in an effort to rescue some sort of proof of God's existence. Occam's Razor, in a nutshell, states that, all other things being equal, the simplest explanation is usually the right one. While we rejected the conventional rational proofs of God's existence, we left open the possibility that he still exists. And then comes Occam's Razor -- if all other things are equal, then the simplest explanation is usually the best -- and the simplest explanation is that God caused the Big Bang which caused the Universe to begin.

Kant's Categorical Imperative provides a framework to discuss morality in humanistic terms -- any morals must be universally applicable. I also stated here that we live in a web of interdependence because of the mystery that shrouds our existence. The two principles that I believe to be universally applicable are love and justice. Now, we will elaborate more on the God problem.

There are now 23 states that are no longer taking Title V funds for abstinence-based education. Two more are out next year, pushing that total to 25. There is now a growing consensus that abstinence-only education is nothing more than elephant shit and religious indoctrination disguised as "education." This is typical of the Bush administration, who has done nothing but pass off propaganda as objective truth.

Nietzsche talks about how Christian fundamentalism is outdated. And Bishop Spong goes even farther, arguing that theism is no longer a valid way of understanding God. In that regard, he carries on the meme first promoted by Nietzsche that God is Dead. But, that said, it is much harder to prove a negative than it is to prove a positive. The fact of the matter is that despite the advances of science and technology, the Big Bang that started it all is still shrouded in mystery.

Nietzsche was to Christianity as Marx was to capitalism. He was one of the fiercest critics of Christian fundamentalism as Marx was to capitalism. His problem was that far from creating a better world, Christianity created a state of slavery where doctrinal conformity was strictly enforced and entire cultures and religions were stamped out.

Islam was a reaction to this sterile conformity. Rather than the One Emperor, One Church, One State motif of the Byzantines, Islam presented itself as a religion of peace, where Muslim, Christian, and Judaism could live side by side. It sought to settle the quarrel between Christian and Jew by proclaiming that it didn't matter whether Jesus died on the cross; the only thing that mattered was submission to God.

Working American is sponsoring a Bad Boss contest, where you can vote on the worst boss in the country. Naturally, the polls here won't let us vote for all 500 of them, but I will pick out some of the worst of the bunch and let the person tell their stories. All of these bosses are liable to throw John McCain-sized tantrums at employees who are a little too uppity.

Any kind of study on the functionality of individuals, society, and governments has to deal with the area of compassion. As we have learned over the past 70+ years of the New Deal, compassion is essential for governments, society, and individuals to function. Without it, people will have no stake even if Dennis Kucinich were running for office. Without it, people would be killing and being killed, and society would not function as people would be quarreling over little things. Without it, people cannot be happy in this life. Nietzsche himself said that people have to operate based on consequences, and the consequences in this case are clear enough.

Continuing our full-fledged assault on Christian Fundamentalism (by which I mean the right-wing orthodoxy that has permeated the world), we make forays into some more of Nietzsche's work. First of all, we discuss his work, "Beyond Good and Evil."

Fundamentalism has codes of conduct that have served humanity for the last two centuries. But the problem is that in more cases than not, it has served as a restriction as to what we can and can't do and has prevented us from reaching our potential.

Nietzsche laid out a full-fledged assault on the basis of fundamentalism and called for the reevaluation of everything that we would think of as moral and right. And a similar reevaluation is totally called for thanks to eight years of abuse of power by the Bush administration, the cumulation of forces interested only in appropriating wealth and power to themselves at the expense of the common person.

Plato talked about the Noble Lie that he said that rulers must maintain in order to keep social cohesion. In other words, in order for a group of people to build an identity as a nation, they must center themselves around a common narrative, even if it involves a noble lie. And these sorts of noble lies have been told throughout history. The church told the noble lie of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus in order to create conformity.

The narrative of the founding of America has been a noble lie -- the illusion that our leaders had freedom's best interests at heart. But what the Bush administration has done over the last eight years has been no different than what our country has been doing for the last 200 -- torturing, wiretapping, and committing war crimes in the name of freedom.

Faiz Shakir debunks three of the most common Bush administration myths about drilling:

MYTH #1 -- 'DRILL HERE, DRILL NOW, PAY LESS'

While this may be a short-term solution to our problems (oil dropped $10 a barrel today), what evidence is there that drilling will provide a long-term solution to our problems? And  why not use the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and pass laws improving oversight of the petroleum markets?

Rumor has it that Obama Girl is going to get to see Obama when he comes to Germany to introduce himself to the world.

If we are to learn a lesson from the FISA struggle, it is that the louder we yell, the less Obama will listen to us. Paradoxically, the calmer we are, the more likely Obama will listen to us. Roger Cohen wonders why Barack Obama left Richard Holbrooke off of his foreign policy team. But he winds up answering his own question in his column. The lessons from that are important to take home.

John McCain has released the 25-year Energy Rebuilding Plan. But while it may have all the bells and whistles, the problem is that the John McCain 25-year Rebuilding Plan does nothing to address our energy crisis.

Everybody has wondered when Obama was going to push back against the flip-flop meme that the media was tarring and feathering him with. Paul Krugman today went so far as to suggest that it had Rove's fingerprints written all over them. But Obama has begun pushing back against the flip-flop meme by releasing a fact sheet on Iraq. The fact sheet points out that Obama has the same positions on Iraq now that he did several months ago. You can read the fact sheet here.