Vatican sides with God against homosexuals

[Photo of Archbishop Celestino Migliore]


"If a man lies with a male as one lies with a woman, the two of them have done an abhorrent thing; they shall be put to death--their bloodguilt is upon them." - Leviticus 20:13


The French have sponsored a United Nation's resolution which, according to Time magazine, "calls for an end to the practice of criminalizing and punishing people for their sexual orientation. Most dramatically, in some countries, including Iran and Saudi Arabia, homosexuality can be punished by death."

All 27 European countries have backed this proposal.

The Vatican, however, has announced it will oppose the proposal. Father Federico Lombardi, the mouthperson of the Pope, said that this does not mean the Pope's people favor the death penalty. The Vatican is opposed to putting people to death.

What the Vatican doesn't like about this resolution is that some countries might be "somehow" targeted because they ban gay marriage. Notice the wishy washy in that statement. The papal envoy to the UN, Archbishop Celestino Migliore, said "Countries that don't recognize the union between people of the same sex as marriage will be punished and pressured."

Except...the resolution says nothing about gay marriage, and as Time points out, "most of the nations that support it themselves don't allow people of the same sex to wed."

Hmmm.


When it comes to gays, the Roman Catholic church is caught between a rock and hard place. The church is rife with gay clergy. No one knows exactly how many priests are homosexuals because such data is difficult to determine with accuracy, but various studies indicate that as many as 50% of Catholic priests are actively homosexual or of homosexual orientation.

Stanley Kurtz, writing of "Gay Priests and Gay Marriage" in the National Review in 2002 suggested that "After Vatican II, and in conformity with the broader cultural changes of the Sixties, the U.S. Catholic Church allowed homosexuals to enter the priesthood in increasing numbers."

In the 1970s, says Kurtz, "homosexuals were flooding into Catholic seminaries all over the U.S.", many of them flouting the rule of celibacy. Kurtz quotes from Jason Berry's book, Lead Us Not Into Temptation: Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of Children (1992) in which Berry claimed that "as the proportion of homosexuals in the priesthood increased dramatically in the 1970s and 1980s, many gay priests were visiting the seminary 'on the make,' frequenting gay bars, and 'befriending' high school students."

In June of 2002, Catholic World News carried an article by the Rev. Paul Shaughnessy, which quoted an AP report from 2000:

"AIDS has quietly caused the deaths of hundreds of Roman Catholic priests in the United States although other causes may be listed on some of their death certificates, the Kansas City Star reported today. The newspaper said its examination of death certificates and interviews with experts indicates several hundred priests have died of AIDS-related illnesses since the mid-1980s. The death rate of priests from AIDS is at least four times that of the general population, the newspaper said. Kansas City Bishop Raymond Bolan says the AIDS deaths show that priests are human."


Bolan's comment also says something else. Gay bishops and gay cardinals have helped to conceal and play down the problem of non-celibate gay priests. Shaughnessy puts it this way: the actions of gay priests are "frequently ignored, often tolerated, and sometimes abetted by bishops and superiors."

The "problem" of gay priests is so widespread, says Shaughnessy, that gay priests "routinely gloat about the fact that gay bars in big cities have special 'clergy nights,' that gay resorts have set-asides for priests, and that in certain places the diocesan apparatus is controlled entirely by gays."

Here's an interesting tidbit. Not too many years ago, a rumor was floating around the Catholic world that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith planned to publish a ruling that would prohibit gays from entering Catholic seminaries. Cardinal Ratzinger is now known as Pope Benedict XVI.

When gay South Africa Bishop Reginald Cawcutt heard of this rumor, he wrote a letter to "his fellow gay clergy." Shaughnessy quotes from the letter:

"Kill [Ratzinger]? Pray for him? Why not just f--- him??? Any volunteers -- ugh!!! ... I do not see how he can possibly do this -- but... If he does, lemme repeat my statement earlier -- that I will cause lotsa s--- for him and the Vatican. And that is a promise. MY intention would be simply to ask the question what he intends doing with those priests, bishops (possibly 'like me') ... who are gay. That should cause s--- enough. Be assured dear reverend gentlemen, I shall let you know the day any such outrageous letter reaches the desks of the ordinaries of the world."


In fact, such a communication was issued some years ago. According to religioustolerance.org, "A Vatican document of 1961 bars persons with homosexual orientation from ordination and religious vows."

Pope John Paul II, on September 5, 2002, said "It would be lamentable if, out of a misunderstood tolerance, they ordained young men who are immature or have obvious signs of affective deviations [meaning homosexuality, primarily] that, as is sadly known, could cause serious anomalies in the consciences of the faithful, with evident damage for the whole Church."

Cardinal Jorge Arturo Medina Estevez believes that the ordination of homosexuals is "...absolutely inadvisable and imprudent, and from the pastoral point of view, very risky. A homosexual person or someone with homosexual tendencies is not, therefore, suitable to receive the sacrament of holy orders."

Vatican pronouncements and hierarchical statements have not been found wanting, but they have been essentially ignored.

Things are coming to a head, however. On November 17, 2008, the Los Angeles Times noted that "The Vatican recently issued a statement re-emphasizing that even chaste gay men are to be barred from the priesthood. Never mind that large numbers of gay priests -- estimates range from 25% to 50% -- already serve the faithful, with most adhering to their vow of celibacy."

What will be done with these men? That's an especially important question considering that dismissing them will, as Austin Cline notes, "devastate an already imperiled American priesthood. ... Things are so bad in the United States that many parishes are 'importing' priests from abroad."


And here we have a clear picture of schizophrenia. The Roman Catholic Church, with somewhere between one-quarter and one-half of its clergy being of the gay persuasion, opposes a United Nations resolution backed by all 27 European countries, which would decriminalize homosexuality.

To put it bluntly: The resolution calls for all nations to stop killing gay people because they are gays. The Vatican says it will not support the resolution. To stop killing gay people might lead to gay marriage.

Whether you approve of gays in the ministry or gay marriage ...

To oppose this resolution ...

Is, as pointed out by Franco Grillini, founder and honorary president of Arcigay, Italy's leading gay rights group ...

"total idiocy and madness."


[Thanks to Think Progress for the Gillini quote]

And here's a piece on the strangeness Bishop Cawcutt. More here on his weirdness and his resignation in July 2002.

And, finally, another "law" of god: "You shall not round off the side-growth on your head, or destroy the side-growth of your beard." - Leviticus 19:27

Michael Reagan's "war" on Xmas

Photo by timtastic at Flickr

Oops. Guess I should have written "Christmas" and not Xmas.

Michael Reagan, the rightwingnut son of the late B-movie actor and sleepy prezident, Ronald, writes for a rightwingnut outfit called Townhall.com. Reagan (Michael, 'cause Ron's no longer with us) rants and raves about the usual bad guys--the libs, lefties, commies and other nogoodniks who are working day and night to bring America to its collective knees.

These days Michael has jumped into the ring to join the fight which is known by luminaries like O'Reilly and Limberger as the "war" on Christmas.

And, boy, Michael is upset. "Christmas is Not a Holiday - It's a Birthday," says Michael and that's the title of a recent Reagan column. He's not happy, because "Christmas is once again upon us, and we can expect to witness countless new displays of the rampant secularization of what is meant to be a joyous celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ."

Rampant! Secularization! Omigod!

Michael reminds his readers (hopefully, very few) that this country is literally inundated with Christians but unfortunately those Christians are wimps and have allowed the miserable SOB secularists to run all over them to the extent that they're fearful of ever saying the word, Christmas!

Now, that's serious. Seriously!

Got to put Christ back in Christmas, says Mike. And the menorah back in Hannukkah. He doesn't mention other religious groups. What Hannukkah has to do with Christmas Michael doesn't say, other than Jews ought to have a right to hang their religious stuff in public places, too, just like Christians who believe Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Christ.


Michael needs to take a few history lessons. We'll quickly remind him that the accounts of Jesus' birth appear in only two of the four Gospels -- Matthew and Luke, and the accounts contradict each other. They are clearly legendary, derived from stories of other savior gods, such as Mithras, who was born of a virgin in a cave on December 25, surrounded by shepherds ... the whole bit.

Furthermore, the birth of Christ was essentially a non-issue for the Christian church as it developed over the first four centuries of the Common Era. It wasn't celebrated in most places until nearly the end of the fourth century. It was at that point, when Christianity was proclaimed the religion of the Roman Empire, that the date of the birth of Christ was set as December 25 to line up with the Winter Soltice as well as pagan rituals and celebrations. It was a nice, easy fit, for the Romans had held huge Winter Soltice celebrations and celebrations of the birth of Mithras on December 24 (Mithras Eve) and December 25 (Mithras birth) for years.

Other of the accouterments related to our celebration, like Christmas trees and holly were later additions yet.


The fact is the Christian Christmas was grafted on to a "pagan" celebration nearly 400 years after the birth of Jesus is said to have occurred. And Christians who lived at the end of the 4th century would not know what to make of our Christmas celebrations today.

Furthermore, much of what we consider as essential to the Christmas celebration has secular roots. Fat guys in red suits and drunken office parties and candy canes and egg nog and pine trees and ornaments, and the insanity of decorating one's house with millions of lights -- all of which are now very much part of our Christmas celebration, have nothing to do with the legendary birth of the legendary Jesus.


What does Michael Reagan think it proves to say "Merry Christmas" instead of "Happy Holidays"? What does he mean by "Merry Christmas"?

The birth of Jesus has very little to do with Christmas except for those Christians who believe Jesus was actually born in 4 BCE somewhere in Palestine and came to save the world from its sins. These are the people who go to church on Christmas Eve (most churches have given up Christmas Day services as the dedicated, believing faithful don't bother to show up), put stars on top of their Christmas trees -- to make the pagan tree Xtian, I guess, and parade around the neighborhood singing Xmas carols.

And in spite of the fact that a majority of people in this country confess to some form of Christianity, most of that majority do not darken the door of the church even at Xmas. They're too busy celebrating a very secular Christmas.


Thus, there is no "war" on Christmas. That "war" exists only in the frantic, oxygen-deprived minds of people like Michael Reagan. I have never, ever, heard anyone complain about being greeted with "Merry Christmas." It's true that some folks respond with "Happy Hannukah," and there are a few grinches that might say "Bah humbug!" but that doesn't mean they are engaged in a war with everyone who smiles at them and says "Merry Christmas!"

And because for a majority of people in this country, Christians included, Christmas is, in fact, a secular holiday, it should be OK, too, to say "Happy Holidays," or "Hullabaloo," of "Shove that candy cane where the sun don't shine!"

Did you get that last suggestion, Michael?

California's method of how not to solve a budget crisis

Thanks to The Gainesville (FL) Sun for this.


The state of California is having a budget crisis (not unlike many other states.) How California decided to resolve the problem, at least for the time being, offers a lesson in bureaucratic stupidity.

First off, the guv, the guy you know as movie actor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, canned some 10,000 temporary and part-time workers. Secondly, Arnold "ordered the 200,000 permanent employees to be paid only the minimum wage of $6.55 an hour until the legislature passed a crisis-solving budget."

Oops!

About one week after Arnold's drastic moves, John Chiang, the State Controller, told the guv that his plan was in jeopardy. It seems that the "state payroll records could not be changed to accommodate the cut because they were written in the antiquated COBOL computer language."

The only people who know COBOL are to be found among a few of those part-timers that Schwarzenegger had fired.

La Dee Dah.

Don Feder on why The New York Times is dying

Don Feder, you will recall, is the head of something called Jews Against anti-Christian Defamation, and used to write for the Boston Globe and is a wingnut crackpot who seems to have a worm snuggled in his brain.

Today he's busy trying to get people to boycott The New York Times which he feels is a bad, bad newspaper because it's way too liberal and who needs a way too liberal newspaper in the bad, bad city of New York?

His boycott, as we noted previously, is a project of AIM (Accuracy in Media - which is a misnomer if there ever was one) and you can visit his boycott site here.


Feder would have us believe that The New York Times is in dire straits. It is going down. He claims that advertising revenue is dropping and the paper's stock values are plummeting - "its shares have lost 66% of their value this year."

Why would this be? Feder says part of the reason may be the economy. Duh. It's not like The NYT is the only paper riding rough seas. But there's more to it, says Feder. The paper has seen a steady decline in readership over the past 15 years. Duh. It's not like the same thing isn't happening everywhere. Even in our little central Florida town the local newspaper is in such trouble that it has revisited just about everything it does, including the formatting of the paper, and finally merged with a paper from another nearby town.

That's the story of newspapers all over the country, whether one deems them "liberal" or "conservative."


But Feder sees something bigger here. The New York Times is sinking fast because of its "palpable bias." Feder says "As time goes by, The Times has swung further and further to the left - not just in editorials and commentary, but also in what purports to be news coverage." And that, dear friends, has led to such "disgust" that readers stopped reading it.

Feder, being a right winger and kook, wanted McCain and Palin to win the election. He is really pissed at the Times' "slanted coverage" of this year's presidential campaign, which he claims was "biased, brutish and business as usual. Its reporting here was on par with its coverage of gay 'marriage,' domestic energy exploration, judicial activism, illegal immigration, gun ownership, abortion, taxes, the $700-billion bailout - you name it."

Well, that about covers the right wing's playing field!


Feder is flying blind. He offers no facts to back up his assertions. In fact, as I recall, other writers have argued that The New York Times is, at times, too conservative. I'm one of them.

Feder is just another wingnut with the bolts coming loose. And like loose-bolted wingnuts everywhere, he thinks that if he hollers long and hard enough, what he asks us to take on faith will become reality.

Finally, one might argue that readers aren't quitting on the Times because it is too liberal. The majority of people in this country did elect Barack Obama! Thus, one could argue the reason The New York Times is losing readership is that it's too conservative and no longer in touch with the political beliefs of most of the people in the United States. That argument becomes stronger when one realizes that New York City, where the Times gets most of its readers, is even more liberal than the rest of the country.

So, not only is Feder wrong. He's really wrong.

And that's a good thing. It's also typical.

Presidential Executive Orders are bad, says TVC

What's good for the goose is not always good for the gander, according to the Traditional Values Coalition.

The TVC, headed by Andrea Lafferty and Lou Sheldon, a daughter-father team, is that absurd, ultra-right wingnut operation that spends millions of dollars of donated money annually to screech and holler about homosexuality mostly, with some whining done about abortion.

The TVC is terribly upset that President-elect Obama may "begin using Executive Orders to undo many of the Bush policies that protect life, national security, and other pro-family concerns."

That's right. Worry, worry, worry. What will we do?

Omigod, it's possible that Planned Parenthood, that evil and murderous abortion mill, is right when it claims that Obama's going to "rescind protections on taxpayer-funded abortions and abortion counseling immediately after he takes office."

Furthermore, cries the TVC, "Obama's transition team is working closely with pro-abortion groups to set priorities on which Bush Executive Orders to reverse. It is likely that Obama will also reverse policies that protect taxpayers from having to fund abortions overseas. In addition, he will probably overturn Bush's prohibition against new embryonic stem cell research."


And all the sane people yelled "Hurrah!" and "It's about time!"


The TVC, though, is in mourning. It's all right, you see, if Bush signs Executive Orders and bypasses Congress to disobey laws he dislikes. It's OK if Bush signs Executive Orders allowing the military and the CIA to torture prisoners. It's OK if Bush signs Executive Orders that allow his corporate cronies to destroy the environment. It's OK if Bush signs Executive Orders approving the use of illegal wiretaps on American citizens.

The TVC has nothing to say about those things. They aren't important.

We wouldn't expect them to, of course, as the TVC is the scum of the religious right, one of the most virulent and hateful groups that claim Jesus as their guide.

TVC epitomizes the darkness of Christian fundamentalism and exposes the hypocrisy of fundamentalist theology.

Where is god when you need her?

A Gay Bible

Yup. Alison Flood at the guardian.co.uk reports that a new "gay" version of the Bible will be available online in the spring of 2009 at princessdianabible.com.

This gay Bible is being put together by Max Mitchell, an American film producer, and published by Revision Studios of New Mexico.

It will be named The Princess Diana Bible because Princess Diana did so many "good works."


What makes this a gay Bible? We are given a clue in a preview version which describes the creation of humans as written in Genesis, chapter 2. God does not create Adam and Eve, but Aida and Eve.

"And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Aida, and she slept: and he took one of her ribs, and closed up the flesh thereof; and the rib, which the Lord God had taken from woman, made he another woman, and brought her unto the first. And Aida said, 'This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of me. Therefore shall a woman leave her mother, and shall cleave unto her wife: and they shall be one flesh.' And they were both naked, the woman and her wife, and were not ashamed."


Mitchell figures that there are so many different versions of the Bible, gays should be able to have their own version, too. "I got the idea for the Princess Diana Bible from Horror in The Wind." Mitchell directed Horror in The Wind, a science fiction comedy "in which an airborne formula invented by two biogeneticists reverses the world's sexual orientation. ...

"After the world becomes gay, religious people created The Princess Diana Bible, which says that gay is right and straight is a sin. Then they burn all the King James Bibles."

Furthermore, "There are 116 versions of the Bible, why is any of them better than ours?" asks Mitchell.


Needless to say, some Christians, mainly on the right hand of god, are terribly upset. I haven't heard from James Dobson yet, or the Traditional Values Coalition or the American Family Association, but you can bet your bippie they ain't gonna like it!

Some commentators also believe the Princess Diana Bible is "disrespectful to the late Princess..."


Ah so. Should be an interesting few months ahead. First this and I just read that an Atheist Bible is also coming out in 2009 in which God creates Adam and then Adam kills God 'cause he looks like a cow! Joke? Whatever. The Christian Right is gonna come unglued. I'll betcha they even find several OT prophecies that foretold all of this, and that it's definitely one more sign the apocalypse pends.


h/t to Petulant @ shakespearesister.blogspot.com


Alison Flood's article is here.

Jeb for senator? Another twig from da Bush?

Word is out that Jeb Bush, erstwhile brother of the current disgraced prezident is considering a run for the U.S. Senate when Mel Martinez relinquishes his seat in 2010.

We do not need another Bush in the government. We had Jeb as governor of Florida and he turned out to be just another right wing ideologue who put cronies into office, cut taxes for the rich, pushed faith-based operations and and fought for vouchers to allow parents to tap public funds to send their kids to private schools.

Jeb was a lousy governor. He would be an even lousier senator!

Worst of all he is a twig from da Bush family. We've allowed two these twigs to mess up the federal government royally! That's enough, already!

He may not be as stupid as his brother, but he's all the more dangerous for that!

Bush's "Peace" medal

He's gotta be really proud of this piece of crap medal. It's probably the only medal that George is ever gonna get. Bush is one the most horrendous war-mongers of all time! And he gets a "peace" medal. Please.

But, he did. From mega-church clergyperson Rick Warren who hops around the world doing good things because Jesus told him to.

Here's the story:

"To mark World AIDS Day, Saddleback Pastor Rick Warren is hosting a Civil Forum of Global Health at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. Warren will present Bush with the first 'International Medal of PEACE' from the Global PEACE Coalition in recognition of his unprecedented contribution to the fight against HIV/AIDS and other diseases. ... The Bush administration reports that its AIDS initiative helped treat two million people this year living with HIV/AIDS."


If one had X-ray vision, one would have seen that when Bush accepted this medal yesterday with one hand, the other hand would be dripping the blood of literally millions of people who have died because of his stupid, perverse, military mercenary mistakes.

Many think that Bush belongs in jail not on a podium receiving medals for "Peace."


Not only so, but most accounts of this travesty (which highlights what a dim light the Saddleback guy is) fail to note that millions of people were not given assistance for HIV/AIDS because of the religious right's restrictions on the program. This program was coerced and constricted by the theology of fundamentalist Christianity!

Lindsay Beyerstein at majikthise puts it this way:

"Bush is being honored for the PEPFAR program, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, that's the initiative that stipulates that 2/3 of the prevention money should be spent exhorting people in the developing world [to] practice abstinence before marriage and monogamy thereafter. The remaining 1/3 can be spent on condoms, but condoms may not be promoted to young people, whom PEPFAR thinks should be abstinent.

"In 2006, 56% of the money set aside for the prevention of sexual transmission of HIV was spent on abstinence only propaganda programs."


Not only so, but any organization that promoted condom use or abortion was automatically out of the loop. Thus, Planned Parenthood, probably the largest and most significant provider of information and assistance with regard to HIV/AIDS in Africa and other developing countries, along with other similar organizations, were not given any funds.


In truth, millions of people were refused assistance because of the religious right's meddling in government policy. When the Bush administration claims that their AIDS program "helped treat two million people this year living with HIV/AIDS," we don't have a clue as to what that means.

We do know, however, that the Bush administration's so-called "initiative" was pretty much of a joke so far as actually making a difference, and in many cases made the problem worse by refusing to give out needed information and by refusing to allow distribution of condoms, because of the insistence of the religious right that abstinence be the guiding principle of the program.


Maybe someone could tell Warren of Saddleback to put together a new medal for the Smirking Chimp: "America's War-monger." That could be followed by another more in tune with reality: "HIV/AIDS Failure."

White Supremacist elected to Palm Beach Republican Party seat

This from the Pensito Review.

Derek Black, 19, ran for and won a spot with the Palm Beach Republican Party. Black is the "son of a former Ku Klux Klan grand dragon ... and ... is now fighting his own party, which is trying to deny him his seat."

Defending Black is none other than America's favorite racist "and former KKK grand wizard David Duke."

"Derek's daddy, Don Black, runs Stormfront.org, the oldest continually running discussion board for the 'White Nationalist Community.' When he was 12, Derek contributed to a kids page on Stormfront and today helps Daddy Don with his podcasts on the "Racialist discussion borad for pro-White activists and anyone else interested in White survival.'"


You may wish to send a note to the Palm Beach Republican Party, reminding them that what goes around comes around. Tell them they are a bunch of nogoodniks who must take at least part of the blame for the election of the idiot George W. Bush in 2000. Tell them that Republicans have pandered to the racist element in our country for so long that racists naturally gravitate to the Republican Party. Tell them they should keep Derek in their ranks for he represents a good portion of their base. Tell them they can't deny their dark and devious and evil past by pretending all of a sudden they don't want an openly-racist character to play in their back yard.


The original Pensito Review article and a humorous follow-up can be found here.

Godly morons and the Capitol's Visitor Center

There is a new Capitol Visitor Center in Washington, D.C. It cost $621 million. It is, according to McClatchy, "a grand monument-like building" of "marble-and-stone." It is expected to become a major attraction for the 3 million people who visit Washington, D.C. each year.

But there are a couple of problems.

Senator Jim DeMint, a Repugnican from South Carolina, naturally, toured the center back in September. DeMint is an ultra-conservative religious right wingnut who believes the U.S. was created by God and therefore he became upset when he saw that the national motto was inscribed as "E. Pluribus Unum" (from many, one), rather than "In God We Trust."

DeMint further thinks that the center fails to note the importance of the Christian religion in America's history. It doesn't give enough attention to "the faith of the Founding Fathers and other prominent figures."

Too many of the center's displays are "left-leaning and in some cases distort our true history," said this moronic congressman. He whined that the "most prominent display proclaims faith not in God, but in government."


Other Repugnican morons, such as Senators Tom Coburn (OK) and Roger Wicker (MS) as well as a Repugnican Representative from Virginia, Randy Forbes, also protested this utter failure to show America's trust in God in the center.

These idiots complained enough that those in charge plan to make some changes at a cost of $150,000.


The level of idiocy among the members of our Congress stuns the mind. Just when I think it can't get any worse, it gets worse. What's even more frightful is that these idiots were elected by the people of their respective states.

Does no one understand either American history or our Constitution anymore? Our Constitution and Bill of Rights says absolutely NOTHING about trust in God. It does hold up those documents as the basis for our government.

Can we have some sort of test which every person attempting to gain admission to Congress must pass before they can throw their hat in the ring?


The entire McClatchy article is here.

Mandatory Lesson: Atheists are The Enemy

This post is from Alonzo Fyfe at atheistethicist and is used with permission. Thanks, Alonzo!

Speaking about incidents in which atheists allow themselves to suffer abuse without standing up to the abusers, the Daily Kos has a story of a presentation given to air force officers in England. This presentation was camouflaged as a talk on suicide prevention. It was, in fact, a propaganda lecture telling air force officers that a life is not worth living unless it is spent fighting against atheists, materialists (naturalists), and evolutionists.

(See: Daily Kos: Creationism: The Latest in Military Suicide Prevention.)

This slide tells the theme of the presentation:

This is a classic "us" verses "them" propaganda piece. Where "us", the "good guys", the ones who have lives worth living believe in God, and "them", "the enemy", "those the good guys are truly at war against", are those who do not believe in God.

The Daily Kos referenced above ends with a declaration that those who are responsible for this presentation should face trial.

This 'Purpose-Driven Airmen' mandatory presentation is the epitome of military-sanctioned 'hatred of the other' and those commanding its viewing must face trial by General Courts Martial."

They are entirely correct. If this were a story about an air force officer, not in uniform, expressing a private opinion – even if he does so before an audience as a guest speaker – then the only legitimate response would be in the form of words of condemnation and private actions – though both words and private actions should express the harshest condemnation.

As it stands, the people who used their air force authority to command attendance at this presentation should be treated no differently than if they had given a presentation in which "them" were the Jews and the nation of Israel, or "them" were blacks corrupting the pure and wholesome blood of the white race.

This case represents an abuse of authority and, unless it is punished, delivers the message that the official government position (the position that the government has the right to order those in uniform to learn) is that atheists are, in fact, the enemy, and deservedly regarded as such by all military officers.

We have a right to demand that the prestige and authority of the U.S. government not be put behind a message of hate such as this – and to punish those who use their authority as officers in the military to execute such a campaign of hate.

Yet, the question remains whether the people responsible for this presentation will get the punishment they deserve. It is a question about whether those concerned with right and wrong in this case care enough to demand punishment.

Please consider contacting the Military Religious Freedom Foundation and ask them how you can best help them ensure that justice is done in this case.

[General JC Christian, patriot, has a very funny post about all of this here. As the general says, "...who would want to commit suicide after learning we're a theistic nation and that the soviets were a bunch of damned atheists?]

Obama's birth certificate - finis!

Facts from Snopes here.

More factual stuff here.

And a nice summary at Americablog here.


Now will all you crazies go away!

Happy Holy Days

Damn, this "war" on Christmas is so tough.

The country is loaded with pagans, and liberals, and so many other trash-types, that Christmas just ain't like it used to be.

Don't you remember when we would all climb into the wagon and the horses would pull us through the snowy fields to the little white church with the steeple, and then after the services were over, we'd continue on, all the while singing carols like "Silent Night," to Grandma's house where we'd gather around the beautifully decorated real tree and daddy would say a prayer of thanks for the birth of baby Jesus and then the children would quietly open presents while the adults would smile and drink coffee laced with real cream?

You don't remember that? Well! That's what Christmas is all about! And that's why we greet friends and neighbors and even strangers, heck, even people we know don't know Jesus, with a hearty "Merry Christmas," you know, just to show them that we, at least, know the reason for the season!


It's just that it's getting harder these days 'cause the ACLU and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State and MoveOn and the Huffington Post and The New York Times and Talk 2 Action, and Media Matters, and ... well, there are all kinds of atheistic, anti-God groups out there who are fighting a war on Christmas and most of all they want to take Christ out of Christmas and make it Xmas. They want to make everybody stop saying "Merry Christmas" and stores to stop playing Christmas carols, and good Christians to stop putting up creches in front of courthouses!

But we've got just the thing with which to fight back! Buy the "It's OK to say Merry Christmas!" button or glossy sticker available at the American Family Association store here.

Don't let the pagans win! Show your faith! Stand firm. Say "Merry Christmas" to everybody! Demand the stores where you shop have someone out front wishing customers a "Merry Christmas." If the store refuses, or they have someone greeting customers with "Happy holidays!" boycott the store.

Then pin on your button and wear it proudly! Wear it everywhere! Wear it in the shower when you're singing carols (women can stick the pin through their ear lobes; men better pin it to a towel). Wear it to bed. Wear it to work. Wear it to your indictment. Wear it to church.

Jesus will love you and you will be rewarded with the Christian Medal of Honor for heroically defending the faith in the war on Christmas and you'll probably go to heaven where you can wear your "Merry Christmas" button and your Christian Medal of Honor as you parade around the Golden Arches. Oh, wait a minute. The Golden Arches are the other place. I should have said golden streets.

Oh...hold on, I'm just getting a fax from the strangest area code...777 something. Here it comes. Holy Crap! It looks like a business letter. The corporate name is "Heaven, LLC." Underneath that is a logo - the Star of David. Uh, oh. It says:

"Dear Friend,

"You are quite an idiot. In heaven we do not have golden streets. They are bronze. And nobody wears medals up here because we are all heroes.

"Furthermore, we don't understand this "war" on Christmas at all.

"We don't celebrate Christmas here. We celebrate Hannukah!

"So 'Happy Holidays" is fine because "holiday" means "holy day," and that way everyone can have a good time during the winter solstice.

"Yours for all eternity,

"J.C. (for God)"

Planned Parenthood gift certificates

Priests for Life is an ultra-conservative Roman Catholic organization "dedicated to ending abortion and euthanasia." Mostly it's about ending abortion.

The niece of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Dr. Alveda King, is a "Pastoral Associate" of Priests for Life. She figures prominently in the "African American outreach" of Priests for Life.

According to Wikipedia, King "is currently a Senior Fellow at the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, a conservative 'think-tank' in Washington, D.C. She is a former member of the Georgia House of Representatives and the founder of King for America.

To better understand Dr. Alveda King, note that she received her doctorate degree from Saint Anselm College. Saint Anselm is a Benedictine school and is classified by the Princeton Review as one of the "Colleges with a Conscience." She travels the country speaking at Pro-Life rallies, and endorsed the mossback, Sam Brownback, for the 2008 Republican nomination.


Dr. Alveda King is momentarily furious. She is specifically pissed at the Planned Parenthood organization. The Indiana branch of Planned Parenthood is selling gift certificates in $25 increments. According to PP of Indiana, these gift certificates "can be used for everything from birth control to $58 examinations that include breast exams and pap tests. Men who receive healthcare at Planned Parenthood can use them too."

Planned Parenthood offers men screenings for sexually transmitted diseases, as well as HIV tests and general prostate exams.

When asked if these gift certificates could be used for abortions, PP said yes, but that isn't their purpose. Chrystal Struben-Hall, Vice President of Planned Parenthood of Indiana, said "They are really intended for preventative healthcare. We decided not to put restrictions on the gift certificates so it's for whatever people feel they need the services for most."

Sounds reasonable and helpful.


Not to Alveda King. "To give someone a gift card from the nation's largest abortion business is to give death for Christmas," said Alveda. "Planned Parenthood really should call these 'King Herod certificates' after the Roman ruler who slaughtered tiny babies in his vain attempt to kill the baby Jesus."

Well, Alveda obviously isn't aware that Herod did no such thing, but that's a minor point. I guess when you've decided that abortion for any reason is bad, bad, bad, and have concluded that god is on your side, you can stretch the truth a little bit.

And Alveda, certain of her righteousness, is decimating the truth when she claims Planned Parenthood "is defiling the celebration of our Savior's birth."


It's this kind of rhetoric that, being so hateful, ends up so harmful. Even though most scientists and a majority of people in this country believe life begins at birth, there should be room for disagreement and discussion. To call abortion "murder" begs the question and shuts the door to engagement.

And to imply that Planned Parenthood is giving gift certificates to be used for abortions is to color the truth with King's particular prejudice.


The truth is it's a wonderful thing what the Indiana branch of Planned Parenthood is doing. There are many "newly unemployed and uninsured Hoosiers" who will find the certificates a "practical gift option."

As Struben-Hall said, "People are making really tough decisions about putting gas in their car and food on their table, so we know that many women especially put healthcare at the bottom of their list to do."

Planned Parenthood is trying to help. Before Alveda King sticks her self-righteous neck into the mix, she needs to be willing to accept and raise every single baby born into a situation where its basic needs cannot be provided.

Until then, Dr. King, shut up!


Planned Parenthood of Indiana is here.

The cost of illegal immigrants heading home

Alfonso Chardy, writing for the Miami Herald, tells the tale of illegal immigrants, who, hurt by our ailing economy among other things, are heading back from whence they came.

Chardy says millions of undocumented immigrants are "facing new challenges brought on by slim prospects for legalization, more aggressive federal enforcement and a worsening economy." Not only are many of these returning to their homes but fewer are attempting to make the arduous trek to the United States in the first place.

No doubt many Americans would cheer such news. But this reverse migration has some less than desirable side effects.


"Communities in Latin America and the Caribbean report a reduction in remittances -- money sent home from the United States. That money is critical to the survival of families and the success of local civic projects. Border communities that once thrived as way stations for those heading north are now little more than ghost towns."

Not only so, but "While the potential ramifications of a reduced flow of immigrants may not be evident in a recession, labor shortages could emerge once the economy improves." Chardy says that last year, "at the height of the immigration reform debate, Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez warned that without enough foreign workers, landscaping, farms and healthcare companies would suffer."

"'We will see rotting fruit,' Gutierrez said in June 2007. 'We will see lawns that don't get cared for. We will see patients who don't get cared for.'"


The immigration debate has often focused on the perceived harm done by illegal immigrants, with less attention paid to the services they provide, and the jobs they are willing to do which are shunned by more affluent Americans.

As our economy improves - which it will - the immigration debate may take on added dimensions as jobs go wanting for workers. Maybe then our Congress will come up with an immigration plan that works for all.

But don't count on it.

Read all of Chardy's article here. There's another article of interest (where the above cartoon came from) here.

Federal Judges and the Right Wing

I thought federal judges were supposed to be above the fray, so to speak; steeped in the law; neither conservative nor liberal; thoughtful; intelligent; and above all, upholders of the Constitution.

But I forgot. They're lawyers. Oops.

Sherwood Ross, writes at LA Progressive that some of our federal judges have been "Accepting All-Expense Paid Junkets to Right-Wing Conferences."

This, according to Lawrence Velvel, dean and cofounder of the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover.

Ross refers to Velvel's 2008 book of essays which describes how federal judges have attended "corporation-sponsored conferences at posh watering holes, at times on the very subjects of cases they have pending before them."

Velvel says that at these conferences, "judges not only hear right wing views propagandized to them, but also hobnob with, speak with, drink with, play golf with, and sometimes even meet on Boards with right wing figures, right wing lawyers, and others who have pronounced right wing views.

"The conferences are paid for by rich right wing foundations -- (Sarah) Scaife, of Pittsburgh, (Charles) Kock, of Arlington, Virginia etc. -- and by wealthy, powerful companies involved regularly in litigation where there side is, at minimum, the conservative side."

Not only so, but Velvel also charges that judges "have been known to go back home and alter rulings on cases on the issues discussed at a one-sided conference."


This is, of course, corruption, pure and simple. And it is just too damn sad. But it is not surprising. The country has been in a moral and ethical free-fall for the past eight years and that free-fall has had nothing to do with abortion or homosexuality. It has evolved out of pure, unadulterated greed and taken the shape of a war the rich have been waging, silently and behind the scenes, on the poor and the middle-class.


Sherwood Ross' entire article is here.

God calls Texas driver

Well, this time god's call to earth did not involve sex or the lack thereof. It had nothing to do with abortion or the lack thereof. It had nothing to do with homosexuals or the lack thereof.

It happened on U.S. 281 in the great state of Texas. A gentleman driving his pickyup down U.S. 281 got a call from god telling him that the woman in front of him "needed to be taken off the road."

Naturally, he was afeared of what might happen if'n he didn't follow god's instructions, so he put the pedal to the metal (that's how those Texans talk) and when he got all the way up to 100 miles per hour he rammed into her car's rear end.

That's all she wrote, you're prob'ly thinking. But no...he got that damn female off'n the road and god took care of him. The two cars spun 'cross the median and stopped along a barrier and both the gentleman and the woman ended up with only "minor" injuries.

According to the sheriff, the gentleman was jest driving his pickyup calmly down the highway when god called and tol' him "she wasn't driving right, and she needed to be taken off the road."
So, naturally, he did what god tol' him to do.


The sheriff also said god must have been with the guy, "'cause any other time, the severity of the crash, it would have been a fatal."

No drugs of alcohol were involved. So why weren't this guy kilt? God.

Obama's birth certificate

Here it is.

Now, will all the whacko wingnuts who are placing newspaper ads about Obama's birth certificate or lack thereof, go find a hole and disappear?

Enough, already!

Saxby Chambliss, a dirty old man?

This was posted by CabinGirl at Booman Tribune. Saxby Chambliss, you'll recall, is the Repugnican in a run-off in Georgia, known for his serious moral and ethical defects.

What the heck is Saxby Chambliss doing in this ad (watch until the very end)? (You might want to watch it with the sound turned down...) How could they air this? Or is the GOP so demented they don't even notice what's going on in their little family photo-op?

H/t to brendan.

The evil that lurks in the hearts of those who want a bigger audience share

This is a screenshot of an advertisement for Bill Handel's show at a "well-respected" radio station in Los Angeles.

Maybe not so "well-respected" anymore.

A joke? Sarcastic? Satire? Funny?


Thanks to Andrew Sullivan at The Daily Dish.

Bill Johnson, Victoria's Secret, and You!

Bill Johnson is the founder and head honcho of a rightwing christianist organization called the American Decency Association.

In 1988, Bill got a call from the Lord to fight pornography in the United States and became a director of a porn-fighting group called Citizens Against Pornography. In 1999, he decided to start his own "decency" organization, the ADA.

"Bill is devoted to uplifting the message of personal holiness, God's desire for his people."


And that, my friends, is why he thinks he should be able to tell companies how to advertise and what to advertise and what you and I should be allowed to read and watch! It's the Lord's fault! The Lord is sending out way too many messages to way too many kooks!

And isn't it interesting that so many of the Lord's messages have to do with sex or the lack of it? Why, do you suppose the Lord rarely tells these recipients of his messages to do something about war, or the environment, or the poor, or about the greedy rich, or ... It's always this "personal holiness" crap! And the Lord seems to give these kooks the notion that they have the right to decide for the rest of us just what "personal holiness" involves.


One of things that Bill's American Decency Association does is arrange for boycotts of stores that he thinks fail to behave "decently." One of his latest targets is Victoria's Secret. The ADA's campaign against Victoria's Secret has involved "complaints lodged with Victoria's Secret, complaints lodged with mall management, and refusal to buy merchandise."

I wonder what kind of stuff Bill would buy at Victoria's Secret if he wasn't actively boycotting the company?

Bill, taking more credit than credit is due, thinks that his campaign against Victoria's Secret has borne fruit. "There was great indication from Wall Street and CNN and others that Victoria's Secret was in some very serious troubles financially," said Bill.

Not only that, but General Growth Properties, the parent company, is reportedly under financial stress.

Couldn't have anything to do with the recession we are now "officially" in, could it?



Up in Grandville, Michigan, Bill has been busy harassing the Victoria's Secret at the Rivertown Crossings Mall. First off, Bill sent mail to the mall's owners requesting that Victoria's Secret take down "particularly pornographic black and white displays from their windows." That didn't work so he sent packets to every store in the mall asking them to complain to mall management, and threatened a boycott of the entire mall.

Now you tell me: does that sound an awful lot like extortion or blackmail?

Bill says that eventually those "pornographic" displays were removed, but Victoria's Secret -- that bad, bad company -- still has stuff up that is not proper for a "family shopping center."


Bill is one sick puppy! One cannot help but wonder why he thinks that female mannequins clad in bras and panties, or photos of women wearing lingerie, are "pornographic." That doesn't constitute pornography by any normal standards. Bill must have a problem.

Hopefully, Victoria's Secret and other targeted companies will tell Bill and his minions to go to hell: "Do not pass go, do not collect $200, go straight to hell!"

And he needs to get a real job!

Star Parker and GM or how she failed to learn from history

I've written about the christianist rightwinger, Star Parker, before. She's a "syndicated columnist" who holds sway at the christianist rightwing "news" outfit, onenewsnow.com. When I've taken sufficient Pepto-Bismol, I will sometimes read what she writes. But it's hard, like nails on a chalkboard. She lives in a fantasy world that has little or nothing to do with reality.

For example, in one recent column, titled "We fail to learn from history," Parker tells us that the reason the markets are flailing about and the auto companies are going down is because of ... are you ready? ... "Government control. Central planning. And Godlessness."

Yes, and those are precisely the things that define communism and socialism! And those are the twin diseases from which we suffer. And Americans must "wake up and realize that this election was not a cure for our problems but a symptom of the disease."


Consider, says Star, the auto industry. GM in particular. "In 1970," she says, "GM had 50 percent of the U.S. auto market. Today it has 20 percent." And then she asks, "What happened?"

Well, in 1973 the world "changed." OPEC "discovered its power, and drove up energy prices." But that was only part of it. If only the government had left the car companies alone! But, no, wails Parker. "...in our high-profile auto industry that's not what happened. Our politicians, with cooperation from our auto industry executives, decided that the auto companies could not be left to their own resources to adjust to new realities.

"First we enacted import quotas on Japanese cards. Second, we enacted fuel standards to dictate to our car companies what kind of cars to make. And, of course, third, the power of the union was left intact." Of course.

"Now," wails Parker again, "look where we are. We have destroyed an industry that is the product of Americans not being able to compete, but of allowing itself to become dependent on government.

"This is why our auto companies have failed. This is why communist and socialist countries have failed."

Who is this "we" she keeps talking about, and why in god's name would the auto industry execs cooperate with the government to bring down their own industry?


Parker is very confused. First of all, as I've said many times, communism, like democracy, is a political system and socialism, like capitalism, is an economic system. In the United States, a democracy, we have had a mixed capitalist/socialist economic system for most of our existence. And it's worked fairly well. The problems we've faced historically and the problems we face currently have not ensued from our "socialism," but from unbridled capitalism which operates on the basis of self-centeredness and greed.


When it comes to the auto industry and specifically General Motors, Star Parker is not only confused, but she's deep in the woods where darkness prevails.

In the latest issue of Fortune magazine, Alex Taylor III describes in detail what went wrong at GM. And he should know, as he's been a business journalist for the past 32 years with a special interest in General Motors.

Taylor, in an article titled "GM And Me," summarizes GM's problems this way:

Although GM executives have been "smart, sincere, diligent -- modern-day Eagle Scouts," they also "became comfortable, insular, self-referential, and too wedded to the status quo ... They prefer stability over conflict, continuity over disorder, and GM's way over anybody else's. They believe that hard work will overcome adversity, and that tomorrow will be better than today--despite four decades of evidence to the contrary.

"In many ways the story of General Motors since the 1960s is a tale of accelerating irrelevance. Customer preferences changed, competition tightened, technology made big leaps, and GM was always driving a lap behind. ...

"Ask Rick Wagoner [GM's CEO] why GM isn't more like Toyota, and he'd tell you, 'We're playing our own game--taking advantage of our own unique heritage and strengths.' Turns out GM should have forgotten that and become more like Toyota. Toyota's market cap is now $103.6 billion; GM's is $1.8 billion."


Taylor gets specific. In 1999, GM revealed the Pontiac Axtec, calling it a "lifestyle support vehicle" and the "most versatile vehicle on the planet." What they didn't say is that it was arguably the ugliest vehicle on the planet. GM had failed to do the most fundamental thing required of a car company: create a vehicle that people wanted to buy.

Then, in September of 2006, GM unveiled a fuel-cell car called the Sequel. It was a "game-changer" said the GM honchos. Four months later, the Sequel was history and GM was touting the electric Chevy Volt, which the honchos also called a "game-changer."

This kind of futility is not new. By 1980, GM was still growing, but chinks were appearing in its armor. "The company seemed to forget how to execute," says Taylor. "It started to downsize its model line after the 1973 oil embargo and change over to front-wheel drive, but it encountered all kinds of engineering problems." The Chevy Vega overheated which warped the cylinders in its aluminum engine block. GM's diesel engines couldn't handle the temperatures needed to burn diesel fuel. Because of a shortage of V8 engines, GM installed Chevy engines in Pontiacs, Oldsmobiles and Buicks. In 1981, customers rebelled when they discovered that the Cadillac Cimarron was essentially a Chevy Citation with a Cadillac crest.

Roger Smith came on board as CEO in the 1980s and had a basket full of ideas. He's the one who came up with the Saturn plan - "a revolutionary way of making and selling cars." It wasn't all that revolutionary, of course, and eventually bombed. "Smith spent billions to automate GM's factories with robots. Usually robots permit a car company to produce several different models in a factory. But GM, wanting to keep things simple, configured its plants to produce just one or two models--and ended up with a system that was no more efficient than the old one."


Taylor has much more to say, but one thing stands out, Ms. Parker notwithstanding: GM's problems had nothing to do with government interference or with GM becoming dependent on the government! GM has gone downhill all by itself!

Perhaps Parker could get a job writing for Rush Limbaugh or Michael Savage, neither of which are encumbered by morality or truth.

A nod to the god we trust

[AP photo by Gene J. Puskar]

There is nothing in our founding documents -- the Constitution or the Bill of Rights -- about the United States existing "under God." And, initially, there was no nod to god in the Pledge of Allegiance.

That latter came much later; in 1954 to be exact.

But if you ask the average person on the street, my guess would be that he or she would have no clue as to when the phrase "under God" was added to the Pledge of allegiance. Christianist rightists would have you believe that it's always been there.


Not so. And the reason it was added had little to do with any innate spirituality, but rather derived from our fear of the Soviet Union and our hope that God would somehow defend us against the Commie tyrants.

So, in 1952, a preacher by name of George M. Docherty, then the pastor of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., gave a sermon in which he suggested that the Pledge of Allegiance should include a nod to God.

No one really noticed.

On February 7, 1954, Docherty decided to preach the same sermon when he discovered that President Dwight D. Eisenhower planned to attend services.

This time people paid attention. The Cold War was in full swing with all of its saber-rattling and what could be better than to put a nod to God in our Pledge, so as to better cover our collective asses.

On February 8, a Republican Congressman from Michigan, Charles Oakman, introduced a bill in the House of Representatives to include the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. A similar bill was introduced in the Senate. The bills passed and Ike signed the law adding the phrase to the Pledge on Flag Day in 1954.


Docherty died on Thanksgiving Day, 2008, at the age of 97. But the question as to whether his nod to God was effective in the dismantling of the Soviet Union remains unanswered. It sure as hell didn't keep Bush and the neocons out of the government -- the reason for most of our current troubles.

While Docherty may have been a very nice man - he did support Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Civil Rights movement and he opposed the war in Vietnam - his unconstitutional delusion about adding the phrase "under God" to the Pledge, was unfortunate. So, ultimately, we must say RIP and thanks for the good things. But we must also say, when it comes to the Pledge, thanks for nothing.

Christian Heritage Week in West Virginia

West Virginia, a truly great state, has given so much to better the common good of the United States, such as ... hmm ... I'll have to get back to you on that. ...

Oh, wait! West Virginia celebrates "Christian Heritage Week." Yup! Yessiree! You betcha!

2008 will be the 17th year the great state of West Virginia has celebrated "Christian Heritage Week." Whoopee!

According to the Guv, Joe Manchin, Thanksgiving week is Christian Heritage Week. Bruce Barilla is the guy who heads up this wonderful event in West Virginia. He, and his cohorts claim that it gives the residents of West Virginia opportunity to reflect on our nation's Christian heritage.

Bruce Barilla is a freelance writer who's been connected with the rightwing American Family Association. For years, he's been fighting the "war on Christmas," working to put up Christmas creches in and around the great state of West Virginia. He's a historical crackpot who believes that our nation's Founding Fathers ran around wearing little Jesus crosses and quoting the Bible at every opportunity.

According to Barilla, Christian Heritage Week is "very important because it's Christianity that has caused us to be the freest and most prosperous nation on earth, if I can quote Stephen McDowell of the Providence Foundation. And our rights come from God, not from government. And we are a Christian nation, not in the sense that everyone is Christian, not that we always act like it -- we still have many policies that are not Christian and anti-Christian -- the the majority of the people in this country are Christian. You drive around the country, you see the influence of Christians everywhere you look, particularly in churches."

[I wonder if this clown wrote speeches for Georgie Bush. Would you believe you can see the influence of Christians in churches? What a stupid statement. Everyone knows that churches are the last places you see the influence of Christians!]


So, there, too, all you lousy agnostics and atheists and Muslims and Buddhists and Hindus and Jews and humanists and pantheists and deists! Why don't you just move to another country so the Christians can have the United States all to themselves? You don't really belong here, you know! I'll bet you think that our rights come from government! I'll bet you don't believe that Christianity "caused us to be the freest and most prosperous nation on eath."

I'll bet you won't even celebrate Christian Heritage Week!

You're gonna burn in hell!


Read more of Bruce Barilla here. The Website of the Providence Foundation - a rightwingnut, christianist fundamentalist outfit is here.

New money for health care is socialism

The National Center for Policy Analysis is a right-wing think tank which is worried about such things as how regulating emissions to fight global warming will raise energy prices and that the United States is becoming socialistic.

One of its so-called "experts," Dr. John Goodman, also believes that universal health care plans put forth by "liberals" in Congress are bad, bad, bad. Goodman says these plans will "not ... expand health care because it's difficult to insure the uninsured with new money you don't have."

Goodman, like so many on the right, sets up a straw man and then proceeds to knock it down. The straw man is this: We are going to have a "rationing problem." "[T]here is a common pattern among all the health care proposals coming from the left: they envision expanding Medicaid and lowering the age of eligibility for Medicare.

"What that means is putting millions of people into health plans that pay below market rates. And if you pay below market rates, then it's going to be hard for them to get health care. These are going to be the patients the doctors want to see last at the end of the day. We already have a rationing problem in Medicaid; we're beginning to see one in Medicare."


Now, do you think this rightwinger is really concerned about patients who don't get to see good ol' Dr. Stranglove until the end of the day? Nah. The real problem, which Goodman ignores, isn't so much that people paying "below market rates" are going to have a hard time getting health care, it's that we've got millions of people (including children) who have no health care whatsoever.

Furthermore, the problem of "paying below market rates" which Goodman claims will create a "rationing problem" is a financial one that can be conquered by the right health care plan.

But that's exactly what worries Dr. Goodman. He doesn't want to use any "new" government money as that would somehow involve the government too deeply in the health care bizness. Money already in the system is fair game, though, and that's why he thinks John McCain's plan of dividing up $250 billion in tax subsidies and giving everyone the same amount is great. He also supports Mitt Romney's plan to take "all the money the government is spending on free care and [use] it to subsidize private insurance."

Thus, it becomes clear the issue isn't so much money as the philosophical objection to "socialized" medicine. And Goodman doesn't want to use any "new" money we don't have to insure the uninsured. That would be "socialistic." God wouldn't like that.


People like Goodman have been conning the American public for too long. It's all right to give massive tax breaks to the rich in hopes that some of that largess will trickle down to the poor and needy, even though since the days of the B-grade movie actor turned prezident, such nonsense has been proven nothing more than a scheme to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. It's all right to spend $10 billion (or whatever) a month in Iraq [using borrowed money]. It's all right to spend trillions bailing out financial companies, banks and automobile companies that have cratered our economy and the economy of the world because of their greed.

Don't spend another dime of new money on health care, though. That would be "socialistic"!

Veterans wounded in combat get the shaft!

This is from the Anchorage Daily News.

"Our view: Pentagon is off base - Rule on combat-related injuries denies vets, defies sense.

"Fix the rule. Right away.

"That's the best response to the story by the Los Angeles Times about how the Pentagon's redefinition of 'combat-related' disabilities cut a Marine corporal and an Army sergeant out of thousands of dollars of disability compensation. Combat-related wounds draw higher compensation than other injuries.

"The Marine corporal was wounded twice in Iraq, by a roadside bomb and a land mine. He's suffered traumatic brain injury, dislocated hip, hearing loss and post-traumatic stress disorder.

"The Army sergeant shattered a hip and crushed her back and knees when she dove for cover during a mortar attack. She's had surgeries and has at least three more to come.

"Both were told there disabilities were not combat-related.

"The Pentagon's explanation is that it had to narrow its definition of 'combat-related injuries' to conform with the Wounded Warrior Law passed by Congress in January."


Read the entire article here.

The LA Times article is here.

Sex and the Dalai Lama

[Photo from the Dalai Lama's Website]

Picture in your mind the Dalai Lama having sexual intercourse.

Impossible?


I've never understood why anyone listened to anything the Dalai Lama said. Why do so many people think his claim to be the Tibetan spiritual leader means he has any special knowledge whatsoever?

While I don't know everything the Dalai Lama has said, his teachings differ not a whole lot from traditional Eastern religions. He replicates and expands upon Buddhist teachings, which many feel are of value, but so what?

When he spoke up recently about sexual intercourse, he probably should have kept his mouth shut. Sexual intercourse, said this "master" of the mind, is, in the long run, bad for you. It creates an excess of "ups and downs" in one's life, said the D. L.

"Sexual pressure, sexual desire, actually, I think is short-period satisfaction and, often, that leads to more complications.

"Naturally, as a human being...some kind of desire for sex comes, but then you use human intelligence to make comprehension that those relationships are always full of trouble."

Not only so, but this Tibetan poohbah claims that problems deriving from sexual activity can lead to suicide or murder!


Unfortunately, while the Dalai Lama may have some worthwhile things to offer a world obsessed with "things," he blew it big time. And, when he's so full of bullshit about sex, how can we possibly conclude he knows anything about anything else?

This mindset is reminiscent of the Roman Church, too, and many other Christian groups. Sex is bad. Sex will mess you up. Masturbate and you'll lose your mind. Celibacy is the best thing. That's from the apostle Paul again.

It's all a crock. None of it is based in reality or on a scientific understanding of human beings. It is all derived from a sick theology that exalts the "spiritual" over the "physical."

And, as science has shown again and again, it's not sexual activity per se that can lead to problems but the lack of it!


Don't dally with the Dalai. In this case, the Lama is lame!


Here is the Dalai's Website.

Check your soul before using phone

[Image is of Father Federico Lombardi]


When I read that a Vatican poohbah warned about how using a cell phone could put my soul at risk, I immediately looked at the bottom of my shoes. But my soles were just fine. Then I realized Father Federico Lombardi, spokesman for the Pope, was talking about my "soul" and not my "sole."

What is a soul, anyway? Has anyone ever seen one? Has anyone ever described one? Can the definition of a "soul" be put into words?

Lombardi obviously believes such a thing exists. Does it exist independent of the body? Does the soul exist independent of the brain? Is it the same thing as one's mind?


I don't think that anyone can answer any of those questions. This is one of those things in which you just gotta have faith! And lots of it!

And if you believe you've got a sole, er, a soul, and if you also use a cell phone and fool around on the Internet, watch out, 'cause you're in real danger of losing your soul! That's right. That's what Lombardi, spokesman for the Pope said. And that means the Pope believes it, too! You've got to remember, though, that Lombardi is a Jesuit, and Jesuit's are known for their sophistry!

"In the age of the cell phone and the internet," warned Lombardi, spokesman for the Pope, "it is probably more difficult than before to protect silence and to nourish the interior dimension of life."

I kinda like the notion of protecting "silence," if that means turning down the music and turning off the TV.

But what is the "interior dimension of life"? The stomach? The intestines? The lungs? Now if anyone of those goes, you've got one hell of a problem.

But, obviously, Lombardi is talking about something else. "There is an interior and spiritual dimension of life that must be guarded and nourished. If it is not, it can become barren to the point of drying up and, indeed, dying."

Oh, my.

Don't say you weren't warned! There is something inside of you that cannot be seen, described, or defined. It is a Soul! It is an "interior dimension of life." It needs nourishment. It can die without nourishment.


The idea of a "soul" is a Greek concept adopted by the early Christians. It helped make sense of the notion of an afterlife when clearly one's body disintegrated after death.

Today, science has shown clearly that there is no such thing. When the brain goes, everything goes. Human beings are animals with very large brains. We call the brain the mind. Death cancels all functions. There is no "soul" that wafts its way into the heavenly realm, so far as we know.

The Apostle Paul understood that implicitly, and that's why he insisted on the resurrection of the body. In 1 Corinthians 15, he goes into a convoluted and nonsensical theological construct as to how it will work. And later, the Church included in its creeds the specific declaration, "We believe in the resurrection of the body."


The trouble is, of course, that belief and reality are not necessarily the same and often conflict. And until science can show, describe and define the "soul," I think I'll just keep talking on my cell and futzing around on the Internet.

I'll also work on the bottoms of my shoes. I least I know what those soles are like.

Or maybe the Vatican could work on a "soul phone" that could be used to make normal calls but also as a direct line to God? As the Nike corporation would say, "Just Do It!"

Children born to believe in God

Well, not really, but that's what Dr. Justin Barrett says. Barrett who can be found in the musty halls of Oxford, "claims that young people have a predisposition to believe in a supreme being because they assume that everything in the world was created with a purpose."

Barrett further claims that "young children have faith even when they have not been taught about it by family or at school, and argues that even those raised alone on a desert island would come to believe in God."

It's a cognitive thing for Barrett, who's a psychologist. Children, he says, are born with cognitive tools that lead them to believe in God in order to survive.


Well, maybe not. Barrett is referencing children six and seven years old. He points out that studies show these children "instinctively believe that almost everything has been designed with a specific purpose."

Sorry, Charlie. Children of that age have already been mightily influenced by environmental factors. Our culture has been so inundated with god-talk that no child could reach the age of six or seven and not have been affected by it. Furthermore, "a specific purpose," does not translate to any "god," much less the Christian "God."

Barrett cites another study in which 12-month old babies were surprised when the watched a film showing a rolling ball create a stack of blocks from a disordered heap. Please. One-year old babies are surprised at everything!


All of Barrett's findings are suspect merely on the basis of his funding, much of which came from the Templeton Foundation, which is dedicated to proving the existence of God.

You can read more here.

No terrorist attacks in Kentucky, thank God!

To paraphrase George Wallace: The terrorists don't even know where they are much less where Kentucky is.

But that's not the real reason terrorists have not struck in Kentucky - at least since 2006. The real reason terrorists have left Kentucky alone is because of a Kentucky law which requires the state Office of Homeland Security to acknowledge that "dependence upon Almighty God ... [is] vital to the security of the Commonwealth."

According to a report by John Cheves posted at Kentucky.com, "Homeland Security is ordered to publicize God's benevolent protection in its reports, and it must post a plaque at the entrance to the state Emergency Operations Center with an 88-word statement that begins, 'The safety and security of the Commonwealth cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon Almighty God.'"

Guess who's responsible for this desecration of our Constitution: Yup, a Kentucky State Rep who is also a Baptist preacher, one Tom Riner.


As stupid as this is, it isn't funny. It is a slap in the face of all the people in Kentucky and the United States who do not believe as does this idiot Baptist preacher. It is in direct violation of the Constitution of the United States as it "establishes" a particular religion. And it makes the state of Kentucky, known for its horses, look like its inhabited by a bunch of horses asses.

PZ Myers at Pharyngula [and a h/t to him!] says "I try to explain to people that American politics has been dominated by lunatics for many years, and they just don't believe me."


You can read all of Cheves' article here.