Saturday, August 22, 2009
Lutherans to allow gay pastors
[Mark Hanson - ELCA Presiding Bishop]As one very familiar with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, I was delighted to note that the church, at its biennial convention in Minneapolis, voted 559-441 to negate the church's ban on non-celibate gay pastors.
The ELCA is the largest Lutheran denomination in the United States with almost 5 million members. It's been dancing around the issue of gay ministers for many years, prissily insisting that if a pastor is gay, he sure as hell better remain celibate!
But then, a lightning bolt struck the Convention Center where the ELCA was meeting. As PZ Myers suggests over at Pharyngula, it was probably a sign from God warning the pious that he/she loves gays and they better do the right thing. Fortunately, while the vote wasn't an overwhelming one, it was enough.
You can be gay and in a relationship and even married, and be a pastor in the ELCA!
Not all is sweetness and light, however. The fundies (yes, even the ELCA has christianist fundies!) will be coming out of the woodwork, doing their best to undo God's will! One gentleman by name of Ryan Schwarz, who is running for vice president of the ELCA, said "...I plan to speak out ... about how the leadership has failed this assembly."
Yup.
The ELCA was formed a number of years ago by the LCA, the ALC and a "liberal" group formerly affiliated with the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod. Because the ALC and the former Missourians carried within their ranks a number of fundamentalists, that's where the opposition will come from.
Hopefully, it will not lead to a split. But, it's hard when you know God's on your side and while he doesn't "hate" gays, he hates their "sin" and surely would not want them pastoring in His church!
Read more on the fundy reaction here.
Another funny fundy article here.
Roy Blunt - World's Worst - a liar!
Why is that so many of our christianist politicos are the biggest and boldest liars? Oh, yes, I remember: Jesus was teaching the crowds one day and he said, "Remember, my children, the ends always justify the means. That means, my children, you can lie about health care in every country in the world if it will help protect the big insurance and health care companies in the United States.
"I know that you don't understand me now, the but Father will give this insight to the Repugnicans of the 21st century.
"Amen."
"I know that you don't understand me now, the but Father will give this insight to the Repugnicans of the 21st century.
"Amen."
Friday, August 21, 2009
Keith Olbermann on terror & politics & Tom Ridge
Funny, isn't it, how we knew this all along! The MSM never seemed to be able to figure it out, though.
In the Bush administration, everything was about politics!
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Banking scum
[Photo from Digital Economy]This comes from my friend, Jim Hightower.
Evidently, a lot of people have given up using credit cards because it is just too easy to ring up a huge debt in a very short period of time.
So, they've gone to debit cards, which means that when they purchase something, the funds are immediately withdrawn from their bank account.
Makes a lot of sense.
There's a joker in the deck, though. You can't buy something if you have no money in your account. The bank sends back a reject notice, and you're out of luck.
Aha! The bank scum have figured out a new deal to screw over their customers. Hightower puts it this way: "...banks have created 'overdraft protection' programs that let debit-card customers charge more money to the card than they have in their accounts. They can do this without telling you." [Emphasis mine!]
What that means for us poor, stupid consumers, is that the bank nails us with a $35 overdraft charge. And, god forbid, you should not pay that overdraft fee on time, you get nailed for another $35 - a late fee!
Hightower notes that last year banks made about $32 billion on bounced check fees. But not so much this year as people are being more cautious so as not to bounce checks. So the banks have bumped up their charges for bounced checks to $39.
But there's more.
"Meanwhile," says Jim, "Bank of America has doubled its basic checking-account fee, and Citibank charges up to 29.99% interest on credit cards."
Just remember all this when you see that advertisement with the smiling banker who wants to be your friend and have you put your money into his/her bank and lend you whatever amount you need to start a new business or buy a house.
Hah! Try to get a loan these days!
Banking scum! Feeding off of Repugnican unfettered "capitalism."
Mike Huckabee has no credibility!
[Image from the Miami Herald]Let's see how this goes: Mike Huckabee, erstwhile christianist, Southern Baptist preacher, Repugnican, FAUX News commentator, rightwhitewingnut, dominionist, theocrat, and likely candidate for the Repugnican nomination in 2012, goes off to Israel.
While he's in Israel, he "slams" the president of the United States, Barack Obama! Huckabee is a big fan of Israel building more settlements in what have been traditionally Palestinian areas.
The U.S. shouldn't tell Israelis where to live, said Mr. Bigmouth Mike.
There are several things about Mr. Huckabee and this trip that need to be made clear. One is the Huckabee is a christianist whose interest in Israel is tied to his christianist claptrap about the end-times. He believes that to be saved and live forever with his god, one has to have a personal conversion experience and accept Jesus into his/her heart and become a fundamentalist christianist.
ALL other people will burn forever in a terrible fire of hell!
That means, ladies and gentlemen, that all the Israelis which Huckabee claims should build wherever the hell they want to, will spend eternity being burned alive by the loving god of his lord jesus christ! Well, his lord jesus christ is really god, so it's jesus christ's fault that they'll burn in hell.
Except that jesus christ was a Jew and not a christianist! Which also means that god is a Jew and not a christianist! Holy crap!
Oops. I got off on a bit of a tangent there. Suffice it to say that Huckabee's concern for Israelis is not because he gives a damn about them except as they play a role in his morbid end-times theological scenario.
The only conclusion that can be drawn from his trip to Israel is that Huckabee is a hypocrite writ large!
Secondly, it should be noted, that he is a political figure publicly denouncing the president of the United States for what he perceives is a wrong position with regard to Israel settlements.
Who cares what Huckabee thinks about anything? Mike Huckabee has no credibility! Yet here he is, deliberately trying to cripple the president's ability to conduct foreign policy. This has been done by creepos in both parties, but I guess, with Huckabee being a southerner, it's OK because Obama is, you know, of mixed racial descent and not only so, but is a damn Democrat!
However, when Democrats dared critique Georgi Bush's policies while outside of the United States, the entire Repugnican right-white-wing had a collective hissy fit! (See Glenn Greenwald's article of August 17 at Salon.com.)
Thirdly, and isn't this interesting: Huckabee's little foray into Israeli territory and U.S. foreign policy was sponsored by (read "paid for") by an outfit called Ateret Cophanim. This organization, according to McClatchy, "buys land in Jerusalem's Arab neighborhoods and settles Jews there."
But, it gets worse: "According to a report published Monday in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the tax-deductible funds raised by Ateret Cohanim in the United States for educational purposes are used instead to buy land."
To put it straight: Huckabee, is a paid hack for an outfit that is deceptive and possibly in violation of U.S. law.
Why is it that so many christianists are so damn scummy?
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Monday, August 17, 2009
Maddow battles Armey - by Keith Olbermann
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Health Care Hypocrites by Rachel Maddow
If you never see another video or read another story about the so-called health care debate, PLEASE WATCH THIS VIDEO!
There is no end to right wing hypocrisy and as I've said before, no end to the stupidity of the American people who believe what right wingers say about anything!
There is no end to right wing hypocrisy and as I've said before, no end to the stupidity of the American people who believe what right wingers say about anything!
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Palin slays her own straw man - Keith Olbermann
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
The crazies are out of control
1) During the Bush administration, internment camps were considered for "terrorists" or suspected terrorists. No one on the right wing had a damn thing to say.
Now, because of a complete innocuous ad posting by the military for "Internment/Resettlement Specialists" to work with war prisoners, the kookaberries on the right are up in arms claiming, according to Media Matters, that this is a conspiracy to "'round up American citizens' into 'internment camps.'"
It's all bullshit, of course, but that matters not to the stupids on the right who will do or say literally anything to help President Obama "fail."
Patriots they are not!
2) Any regular reader of this blog will be familiar with the name, Paul Broun. Broun is a Repugnican representative from Georgia. He is a true, certified wacko, who proves that statement every time he opens his mouth. Not long ago, being a "good" christianist, he tried to stop our military folks from having access to such terrible pornographic magazines as Playboy and Penthouse.
Why do you suppose these so-called preachers of freedom keep wanting to take away freedom from other people?
Now, Broun is running around suggesting that the United States is on the verge of "martial law." Yup. According to Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly, Broun told his constituents that we have in Washington a "'socialistic' elite; -- Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reed -- who might use a pandemic disease or natural disaster as an excuse to declare martial law."
"They're trying to develop an environment where they can take over," said Broun, aka Mr. Stupid. "We've seen that historically," said Broun, aka Mr. Stupid, even more stupidly!
That's not all. Mr. Stupid Broun also warned that "a public option in our health care system is 'gonna kill people." And last year he said that his fear was "Obama might establish a Gestapo-like security force to impose a Marxist dictatorship on Americans. He added at the time that Obama reminds him of Hitler."
The fact that Hitler was violently opposed to Marxism seems not to have entered Mr. Stupid's head during his years of not learning anything.
This, my friends, is a member of the U.S. Congress, a believer in Jesus. If that doesn't scare the crap out of you, nothing will! What rock do these creeps crawl out from under?
3) The so-called Town Hall meetings. Brownshirts (or maybe Brounshirts) egged on by the moneyed interests and the insurance industry (and too stupid to know it), have done everything they can do break up these town hall meetings and destroy any chance for reasonable debate.
P.M. Carpenter calls these clowns "the cranks and crackpots of that shrinking GOP base..." Carpenter, also says, rightly, "...it's really quite stunning: the squalid hypocrisy, the petty religiosity, the fierce ignorance, the absolute refusal to acknowledge even the most profoundly verifiable wrongs or grant the inexorability of the most profoundly needed improvements -- that's the modern Republican Party for you."
4) And of course, there's the "death panels," so eloquently described by the moose shooter from Alaska. Which don't exist, never have existed, never will exist. But, she hauls out her down syndrome child and whines that Obama wants to deny the poor child his right to live...and also wants to kill her grandparents!
5. Glenn Greenwald has noted that on August 6, Rush Limbaargh compared Obama to Hitler and Nancy Pelosi to Nazi leaders. Nobody even noticed.
Back in January 2004, Moveon.org was involved in some 30-second ads, one of which compared Georgi Bush to Adolf Hitler.
The right wing fruits and the MSM went crazy! How dare they? That's terrible? The RNC chair at the time the ad was "the worst and most vile form of political hate speech."
Today, not a word. But then Obama is of mixed racial descent. If you haven't noticed, the right wing consists mainly of racists.
But Obama's not a Nazi. Bush was not a Nazi either, but his family worked with the Nazis. Where was the MSM on that story? It's verifiable and has been verified. Karl Rove's family worked with the Nazi's, too! Verifiable and verified.
And Bush acted like a Nazi. He really did try to take over the government! Never before in our history has there been such a consolidation of executive power. I guess if a Repugnican acts like a Nazi, it's OK. If a racially-mixed man is president and doesn't act like a Nazi, that's not OK, and that probably means he is a Nazi.
The stupidity is stunning!
Do you understand? This is what passes for Repugnican political theory these days.
6) Finally, and this is not particularly political, but another example of modern greed and stupidity.
I've read the story in a couple of places, but Jim Hightower had the best take on it.
Starbucks "is presently trying to expand through [a] ... bizarre marketing strategy. By disowning its globally ubiquitous brand name."
Huh?
"With Starbucks' sales declining as more and more caffeine consumers reject the cookie-cutter corporate climate that the chain epitomizes, it is launching a new line of stores that disappears its name. There's no corporate signage on the new buildings, no logo stamped on the product inside and none of the generically bland ambiance that makes one Starbucks just like the other 16,000 in the chain."
So, Starbucks is creating new stores which look like old-timey coffeeshops, "dressing them as funky neighborhood coffeehouses with a cool, local vibe. A sort of rustic, thrift-shop decor screens the corporate presence, and such additions as live music and poetry readings are meant to lend an aura of down-home authenticity."
The first one, called "15th Avenue Coffee and Tea" is open in Seattle.
Heh. Heh.
As Hightower suggests, "it's such a goofy fraud that it's doomed to be an embarrassing failure."
Let's hope so.
But then, there is no end to the absolute, utter stupidity of the American people!
Read Jim's entire article here.
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