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There's a new slogan being spread around the Internet by conservatives: "Pray for Obama: Psalm 109:8."

Isn't that compassionate and patriotic? Conservatives suggesting people pray for America's leader, even though he's pushing policies they abhor. It's like a return to more civil days of yor.

Or not.

Read Psalm 109.8:

May his days be few;
may another take his place of leadership.

Well, ok. So it's just more of the same, conservatives hoping for a quick end to Obama's presidency. Or is it worse than that? The psalm continues:

May his children be fatherless
and his wife a widow.

Yep. That's right. Some conservatives out there are using a Bible verse to urge people to pray for Obama's death.

It's wrong, and it's shameful - a new low in American politics.

Monday, we'll write that there is one real and immediate threat to Medicare patients that is part of the health care debate: Republicans and some fiscal hawks among Senate Democrats are balking at a measure to avert a 21 percent cut in payments to doctors starting in January. Such a drastic reduction in reimbursement rates could cause doctors to quit seeing patients on Medicare.

There's a very good piece up at Politico that dispels some of the common misconceptions about the health care reform bills. It's not a response to people who just hate the reform efforts and spin ludicrous stories about it.  Rather, it addresses what some supporters think it will do and explains why they are wrong. It also predicts possible backlash against the effort if it passes and doesn't meet people's false expectations.

The Votemaster sums up some of the points in an equally good analysis of the Politico article:

Here are some of the most common misconceptions.

• Everyone can choose the public option (No: only about 30 million will be allowed to).
• Everyone can use the new exchanges (No: only the self-employed and the poor can).
• The new choices take effect immediately (No: they start in 2013).
• There is a big fine if you don't have insurance (No: zero until 2014; $750 in 2017).

It's worth your time to look these pieces over. Better that we debate what's actually in the bills than what people only wish/fear are in them.

Short takes

Quick views on some of the week's news.

The winter forecast: clear roads

The revenue-starved Virginia Department of Transportation took a lot of heat this summer when it cut costs in part by closing almost a score of rest stops along interstates in the Old Dominion. The uproar would be but trifling, though, compared to the cold fury of a public immobilized by snow and ice this winter. ...

New Horizons, indeed

The Rev. Bill Lee's dream of bringing health care access to medically underserved Northwest Roanoke has been a steadily growing reality for more than 10 years.

The Kuumba Community Health & Wellness Center, incorporated in 1999 and run briefly out of the basement of his Loudon Avenue Christian Church, became a full-blown medical facility the next year when it moved into a warren of trailers on Melrose Avenue. In 2007, the federally subsidized community health center, renamed New Horizons Healthcare, moved into the Valley View Medical Center. ...

The Tea Partying GOP loathes compromise

Sen. Lindsey Graham finds himself on the wrong side of the Tea Partyers. In his home state of South Carolina, the Charleston County Republican Party this week approved a stinging rebuke of their senator. ...

Read more.

Predictably, some conservatives are already attacking President Obama's decision to bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others involved in plotting the 9/11 attacks to trial in New York City to answer for their crimes.

In an editorial we're working on for next week, we'll respond to those criticisms and argue that bringing the perpetrators of 9/11 to justice - even after more than eight years - will be a resounding display of American values and demonstrate to the world that we adhere to those values when it matters most.

We'll also point out the fragility of the arguments against the trials (thanks to Steve Benen at Washington Monthly for this concise summary of the main arguments and the obvious counter to them): "We'll hear that a U.S. criminal court couldn't possibly be equipped to hear a case against a terrorist suspect -- except for all the U.S. criminal courts that have already proven that they're well equipped to hear cases against terrorist suspects. We'll hear that KSM, if convicted, will end up in an American supermax facility that's ill prepared to house terrorists -- except for all the terrorists that already safely locked away in American supermax facilities."

Friday, we'll write that Americans should be aware that having end-of-life discussions with their physicians and family is their only way to be assured they can exert some control over the quality of their lives as they near death. The health care reform bill that the House passed last weekend would pay for end-of-life counseling for Medicare patients. This does not threaten "death panels," as reform obstructionists have propagandized, but offers the gift of peace of mind.

There are so many right-wing caricatures of President Obama out there that it is easy to forget he's a real human being facing the single most difficult job on the planet at one of the most difficult times - economic turmoil, two wars - to undertake it.

A Daily News reporter was at Arlington Cemetery to visit the grave of a friend killed in Iraq when the president made an unannounced visit, which put the cemetery on lock-down for a time. The reporter, James Meeks, got an opportunity to watch the president and then to meet him.

His moving account of that meeting of that meeting should be read by anyone who believes Obama doesn't take his job as Commander in Chief seriously.

I'm no fan of the Electoral College.  It's an undemocratic holdover from a time when communication was slow and the people were not engaged in the politics of the nation. There are better ways to pick a president.

But there are plenty of people who like it, at least in its basic outline.  Smaller state, especially, don't want to eliminate the college because it gives their residents more electoral power than residents of more populous states.

It's the system we are stuck with for now, but that doesn't stop people from talking about changing it.  Those conversations have been going on for more than a century.

The Congressional Research Service recently completed a report on the Electoral College. It goes over the history, lays out the arguments for and against scrapping it, and discusses some of the potential changes.  It touches on legislation that has been introduced in Congress and even covers the National Popular Vote project.

It is, like all CRS reports, well written, well researched and a must-read for anyone interested in the topic. Unfortunately, Congress doesn't like to share CRS reports with the public. Sure, taxpayers pay for them, but the reports technically are secret.

Sometimes, though, they leak out, and that's the case with "Electoral College Reform: 111th Congress
Proposals and Other Current Developments." Check it out.  It's worth your time.

Apple has taken heat for some of the iPhones applications it has rejected for less than good cause (a Nine Inch Nails app was rejected for profanity - even though the iTunes store sells Nine Inch Nails songs, which contain plenty of rough language), and for applications it accepted but should have rejected (did you hear about the shaken baby app?).

The latest rejected app, though, is inexplicable. MAD magazine artist Tom Richmond had teamed up with a programmer to create an app that would make it easy to contact your congressman. To make it fun, the programmer got Richmond to draw caricatures of every member of Congress (all 540 - counting the nonvoting members). The app presented them as bobblehead dolls whose heads would wobble when the phone was shaken. Cute, but, as Richmond says, "that’s just a novelty, and the real purpose of the app is the database that allows you to find out who your representatives in Washington are and how to contact them."

So why was the app rejected? According to Apple, it was rejected "because it contains content that ridicules public figures and is in violation of Section  3.3.14 from the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement which states:

“Applications may be rejected if they contain content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, sounds, etc.) that in Apple’s reasonable judgement may be found objectionable, for example, materials that may be considered obscene, pornographic, or defamatory.”

Apple's been known to change its mind once a rejection has been exposed as ludicrous. Hopefully, there will be enough controversy over this to convince Apple it made a bad call.

See some of the "obscene, pornographic or defamatory" caricatures by following this link.

Tuesday, we'll write that House passage of a health care reform bill is a historic achievement, but one marred by anti-abortion provisions that would not allow federal subsidies for insurance that covers elective abortions -- a restriction likely to extend to many private plans that now include such coverage. The provision is bound to meet tough opposition in the Senate. Final passage of health care reform that at last promises Americans near-universal coverage should not hinge, though, on stripping the restriction.