Wednesday, July 21, 2010

World Changers suing Collier County (FL) school district


"Aw, jeez Ma, World Changers ain't allowed to pass out Bibles to the students in my school anymore on Religious Freedom Day. Whatever are we gonna do?"

"Well, I'll tell ya, sonny, we is gonna sic that God-fearing Liberty Counsel on their evil little asses!"


Yep, and that's what has happened. Down in Collier County, Florida. World Changers of Florida, based in Tamarac, Florida, is your typical fundamentalist bunch of christianist wackos who want to remake the US of A into a wacko fundamentalist christian country where everybody loves Jesus or else!

World Changers, having the "Truth", naturally believes it is their right to distribute Christian propaganda (the Protestant version of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament) to students in the Collier County school district.

And they used to get by with it. Until 2008 when the Collier County school said enough. No more. Take your bibles elsewhere. Shove 'em up your ass. Nah, they didn't say that, but they should have.

World Changers, being head-bangers for Jesus and the 12 apostles (whoever they were) and the sainted Paul and Peter and other sundry folks from the first century common era, hired a "Christian" legal firm, Liberty Counsel to sue the school district. Yes, they did, based on the skewed notion that World Changers has certain rights, such as the right to promote their particular religious views to the children in Collier County. I mean there is no such thing as "separation of church and state" in the Constitution, right?

Wrong.

So Liberty Counsel, founded by the nogoodnik christianist goofball, Matt Staver, is arguing that if other groups like Little League, 4-H, and the YMCA can hand out their literature to students, World Changers should be able to hand out their literature (the Bible) too!

It's their "right," they claim.


Yeah, right! It's not their "right." It crosses the sacred line dividing church and state and is thus forbidden by our Constitution! Bibles do not belong anywhere near our public schools. My God, there's a damn church on almost every corner of every street in every city and town in the state of Florida. They've all got Bibles. If a kid needs a Bible, he or she would have no trouble finding one!

But public schools are "public" schools, not captive audiences for christianist fools who want to impose their cranky beliefs on the students! No religious literature of any kind should be distributed to public school students.


Let's turn this around. Suppose a Muslim group insisted it was their "right" to pass out copies of the Koran to public school students in Collier County. Do you think Liberty Counsel and World Changers would be banging on the legal doors demanding the Muslims be granted that "right"?

Hell, no.

God don't like them Muslim folks. Jesus died for Amurricans!


[The info for this rant came from an article by Adrienne S. Gaines at Charisma magazine which you can read here.]

And you can read all about World Banger, er, World Changers here.

Rachel Maddow - Obstinate GOP removes jobs from jobs bill

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Enemies of Reason


Please click on the cartoon to enlarge.

Thanks to Atheist Cartoons.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Welcome To This World


This is the kind of crap that is taught in fundamentalist Christian churches day after day after day! Which would be fine except that those children taught this crap grow up and become senators and representatives and some of them want to become president so they can force their sick beliefs upon all citizens of the United States.

h/t to Gods is for Suckers.

Keith Olbermann - Tea party candidate runs on 'non-whites' platform

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But no, there aren't any racists in the Tea party pot!

Sarah ain't goin' to the weddin'


Seems like Bristol Palin and the father of her baby, Levi Johnston, are gonna tie the knot in August. Bristol's daddy, Todd, according to "sources," plans to walk his daughter down the aisle.

But mommy Sarah, former governor of Alaska who quit before her term was up, ain't gonna attend. Nope. She ain't goin'!

Probably too busy hunting mooses or liburals!

Dontcha jest love her family values!

Yankee Doodle

Please click on cartoon to enlarge.

Thanks to Atheist Cartoons.

Michele Bachmann the Welfare Queen

This from Joshua Holland at AlterNet.

Michele Bachmann, the Republican goofball from Minnesota, is a Tea Party "darlin" and an anti-government broomstick.

She's also one of the world's biggest hypocrites. Or, let's just call her a Welfare Queen!

As Holland points out:

1. She is paid by the U.S. Government - that "big" government that she hates so much. Not enough, of course, to turn down her paycheck, though.

2. And every year, Ms. Bachmann receives over $200,000 in farm subsidies "for her family's agriculture operation" from that big government that she hates. Or as Holland reminds us, "she hates the way government takes care of people."

3. Plus, she is involved in another "family" business, Bachmann and Associates, Inc., a "Christian" counseling service. And I'll be damned if she hasn't "claimed nearly another $30k in 'big government' payouts for this business. That in spite of the fact that this counseling center is openly Christian. No wonder she likes to claim there is no separation of church and state in the US of A.

You can read the entire Holland piece here.

The Real U.S. Government - by Glenn Greenwald

One might say the U.S. Government is out of control. Not, however, in the manner described by the Tea Party crackpots and those goofballs who point to the president and scream "Obamunist"!

Mr. Greenwald, in an article at Salon.com, references a Washington Post investigative series by Dana Priest and William Arkin which describes "the sprawling, unaccountable, inexorably growing secret U.S. Government," which Priest and Arkin dub "Top Secret America."

Greenwald called attention to our secretive government about a week ago "when writing about the Obama administration's escalating war on whistle blowers:

"'Most of what the U.S. Government does of any significance -- literally -- occurs behind a vast wall of secrecy, completely unknown to the citizenry....Secrecy is the religion of the political class, and the prime enabler of its corruption. That's why whistle blowers are among the most hated heretics. They're one of the very few classes of people able to shed a small amount of light on what actually takes place.'"


In his Salon article, Greenwald quotes the first sentence in the WaPo series:

"The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work."

What we have here is "an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight."

Thus, says Greenwald, "We chirp endlessly about the Congress, the White House, the Supreme Court, the Democrats and Republicans, but this is the Real U.S. Government: functioning in total darkness, beyond elections and parties, so secret, vast and powerful that it evades the control or knowledge of any one person or even any organization."

Greenwald further comments on one of my major concerns -- that government is increasingly owned by the private corporatists and operated for the sake of those corporatists with little or no concern for "we the people." Speaking of the "secret world" that is our government, Greenwald says, "This world is so vast, secretive and well-funded that it's very difficult to imagine how it could ever be brought under control. That's particularly true given its inextricable intertwining with the private sector: the billions upon billions of dollars funneled from the Government to its private-sector 'partners' .... "

How this works out in practice becomes painfully obvious when Roger Altman, investment banker, insists the only way to bring Obama and the business community together is "if the political class is willing to 'fix Social Security' -- i.e., to slash Americans' retirement security."

Greenwald quotes George Carlin: "And now, they're coming for your Social Security money - they want your fucking retirement money - they want it back - so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They'll get it. They'll get it all from you sooner or later. Because they own this fucking place. It's a Big Club: and you're not in it."


At this point I have not seen the Priest and Arkin series. Only the first installment has been run. But I intend to do so, especially after reading Greenwald's article.

And, as Greenwald points out, it really isn't important if Sarah Palin can't spell or read or write. Unfortunately, however, our media will obsess about the tweets from the twit from Alaska, while ignoring the real story which is in process of being written behind our backs by those in the Big Club in Washington!


Please read Greenwald's entire article here.