Mucking It Up

(Doesn't that picture make you cringe?)

Miracles or math? Mike Huckabee won the Kansas caucuses on Saturday. He thinks it was a miracle. He told the CPAC bunch "I didn't major in math. I majored in miracles, and I still believe in them." So are we supposed to conclude that God loves ol' Huck more than ol' John. But what about New Hampshire? Was Huck's loss there also a miracle. Maybe he shoulda majored in math?

Finger-lickin' stupid. In Kentucky, a State Representative named Charles Siler is sponsoring legislation to designate KFC's "finger lickin' good" chicken as Kentucky's official picnic food. Don't these dipshits have anything better to do?

Get the facts first! In Florida, Rep. Rick Kriseman, a Democrat from St. Petersburg, sponsored a House bill that would tax admissions to "adult entertainment" venues. The money generated was to assist Medicaid recipients in nursing homes and state mental hospitals. Not a bad idea necessarily, but Rep. Kriseman neglected to do his homework: adult entertainment venues, such as strip clubs, already pay a sales tax.

Here we go again. The folks in another storm-ravaged community, this one in rural Tennessee, claim faith is pulling them through. Those that were not killed praised God or a generic higher power for the fact they were spared. The pastor of the First Baptist Church in Jackson, Tennessee, reported that his people were thanking God that the tornadoes didn't kill more people. What? Was God responsible for killing some and saving some? And if he saved some, why didn't he save them all? Why'd he let the tornadoes come along anyway?

I kid you not! At the website of Artisan Publishers, you can buy "Anti Radiation Tablets" which "Will Help You Survive a Radiation Event!" I don't think they're talking about your dental X-ray.

What is this about? Do they know something the rest of us don't? Is this more Armageddon nonsense? Is Bush gonna send nuclear bombers over Iran? The "Recommended Book of the Month" at Artisan is "The Rapture Plot." I know something about what these nut-cases call the "rapture," but I have no idea what "The Rapture Plot" is about. Other "featured" products include books titled "The USA in Bible Prophecy," "Counterfeit Christianity," and something called "The Stone Kingdom."

According to OneNewsNow.com, (a Xtn news site) when Darrell Green and Art Monk were inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame recently, they both "praised God." Green is said to have said that he stayed with the Washington Redskins for 20 years because God told him to. He could have become a free agent, he said, the implication being that he would have made a lot more money. I'd sure like to know just how God told him to stay with the Redskins. How'd he know it was God speaking and not Roger Staubach? And why would god give a damn anyway?

Monk said his parents taught him how to have a "relationship with Jesus Christ" so that he could live his live "in a godly manner." I used to think I knew what that phrase meant. I don't have a clue these days. The most ungodly people I know claim to live "in a godly manner."

Two thousand eight hundred people (approximately) attended this year's National Prayer Breakfast at the Washington Hilton's International Ballroom. El Presidente Bush spoke. He said several things. He said prayer overcomes denominational differences. Really? Remember this is the guy that knelt to pray and turned the whole world against the United States! What has he been smoking?

He also said that God hears our prayers and answers our prayers, and "the more time we spend with God, the more we see that he is not a distant king, but a loving father." How does that work, exactly? I've been praying for eight years that the SOB would be impeached. Nuttin! Or, what does Bush mean when he claims that "when we answer God's call to love a neighbor as ourselves, we enter into a deeper relationship with our fellow man..."? Does that mean more troops or fewer troops, more bombs or fewer bombs? And why would anyone take seriously anything this liar says about God or love or prayer?

By the way, others in attendance included John McCain, Nancy Pelosi, the presidents of various countries, Joe Lieberman, Steny Hoyer (Majority Leader) and, would you believe, Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho!?

Let's hear it one more time! We see "promising new signs of progress" in Iraq, says Defense Secretary, Robert Gates. Ho hum. Oh yes, we also have to wait to "see what the prospects are for further success in the next couple of months."

It's the same crappy old story that we've heard over and over again, year after year. Lots of progress. Just give us a few more months. The surge is working! BS!

Bush calls John McCain a "true conservative." Bush wouldn't know a conservative it if crawled up his leg and bit him in the ass!

We wrote about Bush's signing statements yesterday. During his "reign," the decider has issued more than 151 signing statements challenging 1149 provisions of laws. I think that's more than were signed by all previous presidents combined!

Evolution Weekend! Hopefully, you heard about this and perhaps participated in it. It developed from Evolution Sunday, held for the past two years. On Evolution Sunday, hundreds of pastors preached sermons on the compatibility of their faith and evolutionary science. Because these events were so successful, Evolution Sunday "evolved" (get it?) into Evolution Weekend.

Frederick Carlson explains that "Evolution Weekend is an opportunity for serious discussion and reflection on the relationship between religion and science. One important goal is to elevate the quality of this discussion on this critical topic...A second critical goal is to demonstrate that religious people from many faiths and locations understand that evolution is sound science and poses no problems for their faith...it makes it clear that those claiming people must choose between religion and science are creating a false dichotomy."

Unfortunately, Evolution Weekend concluded yesterday. But there's always next year. It's nice to know that there are religionists out there who don't worship the Bible and understand that the mythologies promoted throughout that collection of ancient scribbling, which may have some religious significance, provide no scientific or even moral basis for understanding or living in our modern world.

God is in front! (Or maybe in back.) The Religious Right (which means the Christian Right) has exercised its considerable power once again. Congress has passed a law which orders that the phrase "In God We Trust" be moved from the edge to the back or front of the new presidential dollar coins.

This law, signed by Bush on Dec. 26, was hidden away in a $555 billion domestic spending bill, and pushed by none other than the Kansas neanderthal, Sam Brownback. Whole bunches of right-wing nuts have been crabbing about God's lack on presence on the coins for months.

One kookabee, Dave Stotts, who hosts the Focus on the Family program, "Drive Thru History", said "I certainly can't imagine growing up in a country and under a government that is atheistic and denies the existence and dependence upon God." You can only imagine what kind of "history" he is teaching!

I wonder if these dodos know that the phrase "In God We Trust" was not stamped on coinage until 1864! It was not mandated for paper money until 1957. In 1864, a Pennsylvania pastor pressured Congress to include the slogan as he felt the Civil War was God's punishment on our country. In 1957, paper money got the slogan to make sure God understood we were not evil communists or slovenly socialists, but lovingly pious capitalists.

But I'm still not clear as to which god we're talking about? Brownback's god is not at all familiar to me.

Huckabee a racist? You decide. Christopher Hitchens, writing in Slate, tells about Huckabee's "unambiguously racist and demagogic appeal" in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Huck said this to his audience:

"You don't like people from outside the state coming in and telling you what to do with your flag. In fact, if somebody came to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag, we'd tell 'em what to do with the pole; that's what we'd do."

(Nice Southern Baptist pastor talk, right?)

But Hitchens says this was racist for the following reasons:

1. The South Carolina flag is quite a nice flag and no "outsider" has ever told South Carolina to do anything with it.

2. The flag to which Huck was referring was the Confederate Battle Flag, first flown over the SC state Capitol in 1962, as a visible symbol of resistance to the civil rights movement. It is not now and never has been, the flag of South Carolina!

3. In the year 2000, the South Carolina legislature voted to take down the Confederate Battle Flag, and now you can see it waving over a memorial to deceased Confederate soldiers.

Way to go, yuckee Huckabee!