While Nero, er Bush, fiddled...the world drowned

For the past eight years, global warming scientists working anywhere near the Bush administration have been forced to alter their reports to conform to the Bush ideology which promoted the notion that 1) there was no such thing, 2) if there was, humans had nothing to do with it, and 3) it wasn't a serious problem.

It was all bushit, of course, and we've reported in depth previously on not only how serious the problem is, but how the exponential growth of global warming portends the devastation of coastal areas around the world. We've noted that today, certain areas of downtown Miami are flooding at high tide!


A new study, informed by data from NASA satellites, shows that more than 2 trillion tons of land ice in Greenland, Antarctica and Alaska have melted since 2003.

The Greenland ice melt is accelerating.

Jay Zwally, a NASA scientist, said "It's [melting ice from global warming] not getting better; it's continuing to show strong signs of warming and amplification. There's no reversal taking place."


Let's see, what happened in 2003? Oh, that's right, our prezident, George W. Bush, decided he needed to play "War President." His daddy had played that game before and Georgie wanted to beat his daddy. Unfortunately, there was no such game available at PlayStation, so he invaded Iraq.

For the next five years:

He laughed at all those fools who worried about global warming.

He went to Texas and cut brush on his "ranchero." The MSM, trailing along, took pictures as he pretended to be a cowboy.


Meanwhile, behind the curtain of delusion, the play went on: God spoke to Bush, soldiers died, Iraq was devastated, Afghanistan became a bad joke, financial institutions went berserk, the Constitution was shredded, christianist organizations received tens of millions of taxpayer dollars for faith-based something or other, more people fell below the poverty line, more children and elderly went without health care, war veterans were mistreated if treated at all, former allies around the world mocked us for electing the Chimp, TV evangelists got top billing at the White House to insist on bombing Iran to instigate the Rapture, oil companies reaped insane profits, the really rich were gifted with tax breaks, the middle class began to disappear ...

The ice melted. Those who dared point this out were told to revise their minds.

The country fell apart.

The world began to drown.

At a meeting of world leaders, no one would shake his hand. In a final, secret trip to Iraq, a journalist (not one of ours) threw shoes at him - the ultimate insult.

Not good enough.

Impeachment, anyone?

Churches and the recession

Some pastors, from what I've read, are waxing ecstatic that their churches are filling to overflowing on Sunday mornings. It's the recession, they say. The economy. The fear. People are frightened. Worried. Looking for answers.

So, they go to church, hopeful that somewhere between the bindings of their books of prose and books of praise, and the orations of their clergy, they will find rest for their souls and respite from the daily grind of putting food on the table and gas in their cars.

These are only anecdotal accounts, of course, so it is impossible to extrapolate generalizations about all churches everywhere. And, an uptick in pew people may derive from other factors, also, such as the reason for the season.


Ironically, I did see a survey somewhere indicating that the economic recession is being felt by the churches in other, less beneficial ways. Offerings are down about 8 percent. For people involved in the mega-churches with multiple income streams, that may not seem like a big deal.

But there are myriads of small congregations that live from week to week and a sudden 8 percent drop in the collection plate could be the grinch that killed their Christmas. It could mean the difference between paying the light bill or paying the pastor.


But maybe as more and more people pull themselves out of bed and drag themselves to church on Sunday morning, the income differential will be mitigated.

You would think, however, God would ensure the opportunity for his people to worship him. Actually, you'd think God would ensure that his people would fail to feel the effects of the recession at all; kind of a financial reward thing. Like Joel Osteen preaches. And that clown from the Dallas area, Kenneth Copeland.

Oh, wait a minute. They're the ones supposed to get rich. The rest of us are to watch and enjoy them enjoying their riches.


Then I remember that passage where Jesus suggests that God causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust.

I never did understand that. Why be good?

Oh, yeah, 2 choices: 1) You'll get your reward in heaven, or 2) be good for goodness sake!

More ammo for the war on Christmas

Here's an Xmas conversation starter. Or maybe we can keep the war on Xmas going a little longer by riling up the fundys.

The Santa vs. God comparison chart comes from Unreasonablefaith.com here.

Who is Charlie Crist, anyway?

Charlie Crist, Republican governor of Florida, was married last Friday to Carole Rome, a wealthy "socialite," owner of a company that makes Halloween costumes and masks.

Both have been married before. Rome has two daughters from her previous marriage.

Crist said he was very happy, and that his new bride made a "beautiful first lady." Senator Mel Martinez said everyone could see Charlie and Carole were "elated."

Charlie Crist is a conservative Christian and a member of the United Methodist Church. Carole Rome Crist is Jewish. They were married at the First United Methodist Church in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Some folks insist that Crist is gay and Carole is a beard. A group of gay activists made their presence known at the wedding in St. Petersburg to protest Crist's opposition to gay marriage. One held up a sign asking "Can I get married now, Charlie?"


When Charlie Crist was elected Florida Education Commissioner in 2000, I was dismayed. From all I had heard, he was a hard-core, extremist on the Christian right who favored educational vouchers.

Lately, it seems he has become more moderate. I'm not so sure. It's hard to tell.


Who is Charlie Crist, anyway?


Charlie's father emigrated to the U.S. from Cyprus in 1912. He was a member of the Greek Orthodox Church. Charlie's mother, however, of Scots-Irish descent, was a Methodist, and Charlie was raised in the Methodist Church.

Charlie's father's name was Christodoulos, which he changed in 1949. He was a doctor. In 1960, the Crist family, consisting of three daughters and one son, moved from Atlanta to St. Petersburg, where Dr. Crist had obtained a job with the Bayfront Medical Center. In 1966, the doctor won election to the Pinellas County School Board.

Charlie, meanwhile, played football for his high school team, a "starring" quarterback, according to some reports. In 1974, he left home to attend Wake Forest University in North Carolina. While his official biography says he played quarterback for Wake Forest, he had suffered a knee injury while in his last year in high school, and was sidelined to the junior varsity, never taking "a snap in a varsity contest."

His military record appears to be non-existent. At the end of his sophomore year, Charlie transferred to Florida State University in Tallahassee, and graduated from that school in 1978. He then headed to Cumberland School of Law in Birmingham, Alabama.

And that's where he married Amanda Morrow. Not a good idea. He filed for divorce after six months and it was "dissolved" in February of 1980. Amanda Morrow is a lesbian and has been living with another woman for many years.

Crist failed the bar examination twice. Passed the third time around.


In 1986, he began to dabble in politics, running an unsuccessful campaign for the state senate. In 1992, he ran again and was successful. Charlie must have taken 1997 off, but in 1998 he challenged Bob Graham for Graham's seat in the U.S. Senate to no avail. Jeb Bush appointed him Deputy Director for the Florida Department of Business & Professional Regulation in 1999. A year late he won election as Florida Education Commissioner.

From January 2003, Crist served as Florida's Attorney General. He was elected governor in 2006, moving into the governor's manson on January 2, 2007.


Personally, I don't care if he is gay or not. He has always insisted he is not. He is now married. It doesn't matter, unless he's in the closet. Then, as they say, "Houston, we've got a problem." While one's sexual preference should have no bearing on one's capacity to serve in an official position, to carry on a deception by pretending to be what you're not, speaks to integrity and honesty and transparency.


Crist's religious beliefs are also confusing. While he professes to be a Christian, he doesn't quite fit in the fundamentalist camp, though the fundys would like to claim him, and he will not willingly slide into the more "liberal" group of Christian cults.

Thus, fundys remain uneasy about him, and that is no doubt one reason McCain kicked him off the VP list.

Charlie remains an enigma, as is shown clearly in an interview he gave to the Florida Baptist Witness in August of 2006.

In that interview, when asked about his "personal religious faith," Crist responded he was a United Methodist. Wrong answer! When a Baptist asks that question, what they want to know is when you were saved! They want to know the date, the time, the weather, and the clothes you were wearing!

Crist said he was a member of the First United Methodist Church in St. Petersburg and that he had been very active in that congregation.

In response to other questions, Crist expressed confidence that he would spent eternity with God in heaven and if God asked him why he should be admitted to Paradise, Crist, said he would tell God he believed in Jesus and that he's lived a good life, followed the precepts of the Bible and "worked hard to be a good Christian and a man of faith."

That's not gonna do it, for the rabid fundies. He should have told God that heaven was his reward for accepting Jesus as his personal savior. The rest of that stuff--living a good life, being a man of faith," etc., just doesn't cut it.


Crist went on to say he supported faith-based initiatives in government. That's good, from the Baptist point of view. But when asked if he would support "civil rights protections on the basis of sexual preference," he jumped out on the thin ice, saying he supported "civil rights protections on the basis of people."

Oops! Not good enough! So the next question went like this: "...the homosexual lobby is pressing for civil rights on [the] basis [of] sexual preference or sexual orientation ... Do you support that agenda.

Crist: "No, it's not an agenda item that I support. But I support civil rights to fight discrimination."

Huh? Does that many any sense? Does he support civil rights for gays or not?

Crist told the Baptists that he did NOT support "repealing the ban on homosexual adoption."And with regard to homosexuals serving as foster parents, Crist said he didn't subscribe to that "rationale but it's currently the law of the land..." so, as governor, he'd have to uphold the law.

Moving on to abortion. Crist said he's "pro-life."

"Is abortion a moral evil?"

"I don't think we should have abortions."

Baptist frustration showed through: "What I'm trying to do is get to the ethical question before the public policy question. Is abortion an evil? Is it a bad thing?"

"It's a bad thing. Of course it is."

Whew!

Next the Baptist asked if he would try to do what South Dakota was up to at the time, pushing the limits of abortion in order to get the abortion issue back before the U.S. Supreme Court. "Do you support that sort of an agenda in Florida to challenge Roe v. Wade?"

"No."

Crist also said he opposed the effort to keep Terri Schiavo alive. He said he favored federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. He is opposed to expanding gambling.


No wonder the fundies are fundamentally confused with regard to Charlie Crist. Is he on their side or not? Yes and no. No and yes. Perhaps. Sometimes. Maybe.


Who is Charlie Crist, anyway?


There are a few who are sure that Crist is for Christ. Well, at least they were a couple of years ago. That's when a whacko christianist preacher, O'Neal Dozier, of the Worldwide Christian Center in Pompano Beach, said the Lord came to him in a dream and told him Charlie Crist was going to be governor. Charlie hadn't even mentioned he was planning to run for governor! O'Neal and Jesus must be pyschic! Or something!

"The Lord Jesus spoke to me and he said, 'There's something I want you to know. Charlie Crist will be the next governor of the state of Florida."

At a pastor's breakfast, Crist said, "It's the most amazing thing anyone's ever told me. It's beyond overwhelming, but the reverend has a very strong faith in his heart and he's a good man. I'm very grateful for his help and his support and his belief."

Yeah, right! Didn't it occur to Charlie or any of the others attending this breakfast to ask why Jesus would appear to this kook from Pompano Beach? Why didn't Jesus appear to Charlie? Why didn't he appear to Jeb Bush, the current governor? Why didn't he appear to all the TV station managers and newspaper editors and we could have all received the word at the same time?

My god, think of all the money and trouble we could have saved ourselves. We wouldn't even have had to hold an election!

And Charlie was wrong. Dozier may have a strong faith, but that doesn't mean diddly-squat. Lots of people have strong faith and their dumber than a box of rocks! And anyone who walks around telling people that Jesus spoke to him should be taken gently away and doctors should examine his head!


Christ for Crist. Not likely. He does seem to desire some divine protection, though. Of a Jewish kind. Maybe that's why he married Carole.

Charlie went to Israel, and has gone to temple with Dan and Steve Gelber, and last year the guv "affixed a mezuzah, a sacred Jewish parchment usually kept within a case, to the frame of the door leading into his formal office at the capitol."

Is Crist renouncing Christ? Omigod!

Nah. In a statement to Jewish media outlets, he said, "Being able to display religious symbols is just as fundamental as being able to practice your religious beliefs. I am honored to display a mezuzah on my door. The freedoms and ideals that make our country great are the same ideals that people all over the world seek every day."

What the hell a mezuzah has to do with the "freedoms and ideals that make our country great" is beyond me!

A mezuzah is like a talisman. It contains within it a scroll, done exactly right, of the Shema, and is placed on a doorpost as a sign of Jewishness and a prayer for divine protection. It's magic! It's a nice tradition if you're Jewish, but for a Goyim to put up a mezuzah is crazy already!

A Miami Herald blog quotes Rabbi Schneur Oirechman, director of Chabad-Lubavitch of the Panhandle, who assisted Crist in putting up the mezuzah, as saying "Governor Crist's actions today will not only provide security inside his office, but will also serve to protect the people of Florida."

Right! Christianists are not the only delusional ones!


Who is Charlie Crist?


I'll be damned if I know!


One final note. Charlie should take down the mezuzah! Religious symbols do NOT belong in the office of a state official! He could put it in his pocket. The deity would probably be able to see it hidden in the clothing and still provide his divine protection!


Read more here. And here. Find out all about the Shema and mezuzah's here.


Note:  Click here for an update on Charlie Crist and why he should be elected governor of Florida on November 4, 2014.

Karl Rove, attack dog

Word is out that Karl Rove is back in the saddle, leading newly-charged partisan attacks against the Obama administration.

We didn't believe the Republicans when they piously prattled about the need for bi-partisanship, blah, blah, blah. We know from past experience that when Repugnicans talk bi-partisanship, they really mean the Democrats bow down, kiss their collective asses, and let the Repugs do it their way.


The WaPo says that it is none other than the attack dog, hisself, Karl Rove, who is planning to head up a partisan Republican fight against Attorney General nominee, Eric Holder; said fight to whine about Holder's role in Clinton's pardons, and they will, of course, complain they need more time.


What I don't understand is why that lying, rotten, no-good son-of-a-bitch, Karl Rove, is not in jail where he belongs!


More here.

Christmas shopping pit stop

Eleven days
And it will end
Then after Xmas
Sales begin.

So sit right down
You're not alone
Ev'ryone's got
Weary bones.

The problem is
It never ends
Too soon we'll do
It all again!

G. W. Bush - the worst of the worst

Distributorcap NY has posted a very informative article on the worst presidents ever.

In his opinion, the bottom six, in alphabetical order are:

James Buchanan
George W. Bush
Warren G. Harding
Herbert Hoover
Richard Nixon
Franklin Pierce.

Other, "really, really terrible presidents" include:

Calvin Coolidge
Millard Fillmore
Ulysses S. Grant
Andrew Jackson
James K. Polk

In a special "conundrum" category is Ronald Reagan. I'd suggest Reagan be slotted in a special "Alzheimic incompetence" category.

Guess who gets the booby prize?


DC goes into detail as to the failings of the bottom feeders, which is not only interesting but historically significant. It also provides an historical context into which we can better fit the monstrous joke currently occupying the White House.


Read the entire article, titled "Race for the Bottom," here.

Conservatism a "cancer"

Here is an summary on "conservatism" and how that takes shape in today's Republican Party.

Today, look what the Republican Party stands for: opposition to American working men and women, the channeling of trillions of dollars to the richest Americans, hatred of gays, hatred of immigrants, continued smoldering racism, opposition to desperately needed health care reforms, opposition to all environmental protections, spitting hatred for science, hatred for public schools, hatred of all those who are not fundamentalist Christians, support for torture, support for rendition, and support for the fantastically corrupt Bush-Cheney regime. The conservative cancer is the perpetuation of all the worst features of American life--intolerance, fear, prejudice, and tribalism. It is this cancer that screams out that Barack Obama is "the AntiChrist", a "Muslim radical", "corrupt", "ally of Satan", and all the other filth we have seen hurled at our next president. The Radical Right is now going to try to destroy Obama and block every reform he tries to institute.


The complete article in all its splendor is available here.

h/t to BuzzFlash

Who will bail out Swedish carmakers?

I have owned two Volvos, a 1958 model and a 1960 model. They looked like 1948 Fords, but smaller. Neither were worth a damn. They spent much of their life with me in the shop where mechanics looked for solutions to undiagnosable problems. They both overheated constantly.

I have not owned a Volvo since, although I have been told they are fine cars and whatever their faults long ago, today they are pristine examples of excellence in automotive engineering.


Volvo and another splendid Swedish car, Saab, are made in Sweden. Volvo and Saab, like U.S. automakers, are in financial trouble. For Volvo and Saab, however, a bailout is even more unlikely than for their American counterparts.

That's because Volvo and Saab are owned, respectively, by Ford and GM. U.S. tax dollars cannot be used overseas. So if GM gets a Congressional bailout, it can't be diverted to Saab.

In addition, the European Union has "competition regulations, which make it difficult for countries to directly subsidize industry."

Thus, the talk is about loan guarantees.


In Sweden, though, politicos are not easily swayed by the car makers' dilemma. Prime Minister Frederik Reinfeldt said "When someone thinks the state should come in and fix the situation, then I think they're crazy."

In other words, the car makers got themselves into this mess so they can fix it themselves.

Trouble is, "If Ford or GM go bankrupt, ... Saab and Volvo could disappear entirely. Their loss would be a blow to Swedish identity. Saab and Volvo account for 15 percent of Sweden's exports."


Whatever else this says, it does illustrate clearly and dramatically, how the national economies are intimately tied together, thus creating a disastrous domino effect when a financial giant like the U.S. goes berserk.

You can read more here.

Italy's Holiday Witch

[Image from Village.fortunecity.com]

We've got Santa Claus, Father Christmas, ol' St. Nick, and Jesus, but over in Italy, they have the holiday witch, too!

"In Babbo Natale, Italy has its own Father Christmas. But it's La Befana, the ugly, broom-flying and present-wielding witch who keeps children on their toes in many parts of the country. Like St. Nick, Befana knows who's been naughty and nice.

"A strange post-Christmas pilgrimage takes place each year in the hills of northeastern Italy's Le March, when thousands of kids flock to a small medieval town called Urbania to sit on the lap of an ugly old witch. On the eve of Jan 6, La Befana flies down chimneys or through keyholes throughout Italy to have her say over who's been naughty or nice."


This fascinating tale, resonant with our own traditions, is told in more detail in an article by Michael Giglio writing for Spiegel Online, here.

What is most interesting is how cultural traditions develop in different areas along common themes.

In this country, Santa and his "naughty or nice" schtick is a variation of Christianity's heaven and hell. Be good or else!


Happy Holidays! Merry La Befana?

Obama in the manger

Over in Italy, craftsmen are busy replicating statues of President-elect Barack Obama which are sold as part of nativity scenes.

Bess, at Times Online, says "Yes, they're definitely tacky. But in Naples they're selling like hot cakes."

They are "handmade little figures of Barack Obama and his wife Michelle, being sold ... as part of the traditional Italian Nativity scene sets - you can set them on the kitchen table alongside the usual figures of the wise Men, donkeys and angels, Jesus, Joseph and Mary."

Adult Christianity reflects that "Obama [is] More Popular Than Jesus." And even more exciting, "...Obama was not born in Hawaii, but in a manger."

You can view a Reuter's video describing these statues here.

War is peace kata Bush

Update: Bush did speak to the troops at Camp Victory. He told them what a wonderful war this was and how 25 million people were now free, and Saddam was a really bad guy, and everyone went hoo haa, USA, USA!

George W. Bush, the worst president ever, has tripped over to Iraq to say "farewell" to the troops.

Oops, not exactly. It seems that Bush didn't see any "troops." Nope. What happened was the Iraqi poohbahs rolled out the red carpet and then ensconced themselves with the Smirking Chimp for two hours "at an ornate, marble-floored palace along the shores of the Tigris River."

Smart. No need to get all hot and sweaty out where the troops are. And, you never know, the troops might cause bodily harm to to el presidente. As it is, someone did throw shoes at him!


So, Bush and the Iraqi main men met and talked. They signed the security agreement that says the U.S. will depart by the end of 2011. Everybody prattled on about what great friends they are.

And George, speaking for himself and his blood-thirsty neocons said, once again: WAR IS PEACE!

The war has been hard, said da Bush, but it was necessary so the Iraqis could have peace. Oh, yeah, freedom. Ah, democracy, too. And the surge must be still working, 'cause violence is down.


4,209 U.S. soldiers have died in Iraq. There is still no electricity in many parts of the country. Water is scarce. People live in fear. One in six have fled their homes. In 2006, the "Factor by which an Iraqi ... was more likely to die than in the last year of the Saddam regime: 3.6. [The] factor by which the cause of death was more likely to be violence: 120."

Seventy-five percent of Baghdad residents have had a family member or friend killed since 2003. Twenty-five percent of Iraq war veterans suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

The Iraq war has cost U.S. taxpayers almost $600 billion.

There are still 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.

Oh, yeah, 55 people were killed in a suicide bombing in Kirkuk on Thursday.


War is Peace! Merry Xmas!

Arsonists hit Sarah Palin's home church

[Photo by Stephen Nowers]
[

It happened yesterday evening. Unknown miscreants started a fire at the entrance of the Wasilla Bible Church, which then spread inward. It appears five women and possibly two children in the church were alerted by a fire alarm and escaped unharmed.

Damage is being estimated at $1 million.

An investigation is underway by a "multi-agency task force," but as yet no motive has been uncovered. When pastor Larry Koon was asked whether the church had received any threats recently, he avoided the question. "There are so many variables," he said, "I don't want to comment in that direction."

Governor Palin made a statement in which she apologized ahead of time if it turned out the fire was in any way a response to "undeserved negative attention" from her vice presidential campaign.

While we don't want to make light of this act of domestic terror, assuming it was arson, we would chide the governor for that cheesy remark. Any negative attention she received, she deserved in spades!


Palin's office also commented that "Whatever the motives of the arsonist, the governor has faith in the scriptural passage that what was intended for evil will in some way be used for good."

We'll have to wait and see if the governor's faith is to be rewarded or if it is misdirected.

New advert campaign for AA?

Just couldn't resist this from Adelaide Green Porridge Cafe here.

Happy Holidays!

Thanks to Der Spiegel

Billboard bimbos fight war on Xmas

[Photo by Robert Yosay]

The "war" on Xmas continues.

This story comes directly from the front lines in Ohio where the battle rages! But it appears the christianists are gaining over the forces of Satan. The forces of righteousness are focusing on atheist, agnostic and "other" grinches who would take away your "right" to say "Merry Christmas!"

It all began with two ladies, Joanne Brown and Linda Bennett, who got a bit miffed when they realized that too many people in their Ohio town were greeting them with "Happy Holidays," rather than "Merry Christmas."

They were soon joined by Judi Hanna, Laurie Kramer and Pat See, and began a campaign to raise money to put up billboards with the messages, "I miss hearing you say Merry Christmas," and "Why have you stopped saying Merry Christmas?" and each message was signed, "Jesus."


Is that sick or what?


In 2007 and 2008 they collected almost $6,000 to erect seven billboards! And they are proud of their work. Christmas should be "Christ-centered," they believe. If Jesus should come walking down a street in Ohio, the ladies want us to be ready to greet him with "Happy birthday, Jesus!"

Yikes!


No doubt these nice christianist ladies think they are doing a good thing. They believe, as Ms. Hanna said, the billboards are a way of feeding "those poor in spirit," and help people understand the "reason for the season."

It's just aggravating that we have to go through this sentimental, pious claptrap every year when most people are well aware that Christmas has become one of most secular of holidays and don't give a damn! It doesn't matter how many billboards these godly ladies put up in Ohio or any other state, Christmas is not going to get more "Christ-centered," or religious.

And, for non-christians, said billboards are often an irritation, like an itch you can't scratch.


So give 'em up, ladies! Go to church. Light candles. Pray. Sing "Happy birthday, Jesus." Sing carols. Have a very merry Christmas.

And when you go home, leave your sanctimonious need to display your faith on grotesque billboards at the church.

Richard Cizik, evangelical leader, gets religion

The National Association of Evangelicals was at one time a relatively moderate organization which could abide within its ranks some difference of opinion and theological diversity.

All that has changed. Theses days, a more descriptive and accurate name for the NAE would be the National Association of Fundamentalists.


Richard Cizik has been "fired."

Well, it is reported that he resigned his position as vice president for governmental affairs because, as NAE president Leith Anderson put it in a letter to NAE board members, there has arisen "a loss of trust in his [Cizik's] credibility as a spokesperson among leaders and constituencies."

Here's the translation: On December 2, Cizik appeared on NPR's "Fresh Air," where had the audacity to admit that he voted for Barack Obama (in Virginia's primary) and that he thought it was OK for Christians to vote for pro-choice candidates as well as candidates who supported same-sex marriage.

Even worse was Cizik's confession that his mind was changing and that while he did not at this time support same-sex marriage, he did support civil unions for gays.


Omigod!

Cizik, of course, is no longer considered a "good" Christian by the "true believers" affiliated with the National Association of Fundamentalists, aka NAE.

Obviously, Cizik has denied god's truth regarding abortion and homosexuality as it is not laid out in the Bible, but he also thinks there might be something to this thing called "global warming." Yup! What a creep, huh?

But it was the same-sex civil union bit that got him relieved of his position.

Perhaps Wendy Wright, who presides over the extremist christianist wingnut group, Concerned Women for America, said it best. What Cizik believes, said Wendy, is "not anywhere close to biblical orthodoxy, traditional Christian theology, nor the bulk of Evangelicals who ground their faith in the Bible."

Ingrid Schlueter, one of the "Limbaughs" on the right, and co-host of Crosstalk America, got truly nasty, and forgot all that her savior taught in his brief time upon the earth. What Cizik said, she said, exemplifies the moral decay in our great land. "The moral anarchy in America worsens daily do (sic) the refusal of evangelical Christians to stand for biblical truth in all areas of life. Those who are at war with God, the author of life, should be publicly confronted by evangelical Christians. Instead, they are aided and abetted in their evil by craven leaders like Cizik."


Whew! Cizik. Evil. Craven leader!

"Love your neighbor as ourself." "Do unto others." "Turn the other cheek." "Forgive seventy times seven."

Don't you just love this christianist religion? So long as you're anti-abortion; so long as you hate homosexuals; so long as you deny global warming, you can call yourself as born-again, saved by Jesus, going to heaven Christian. You don't have to walk the walk or do anything that Jesus said defined those who followed him.


It appears that Cizik finally came to his senses - more or less. One wonders what the hell took him so long!

Peggy Noonan on how George Bush kept us safe

Not so long ago, Peggy Noonan, writing in the Wall Street Journal suggested that whatever faults George W. Bush may have, at least he kept America safe.

"...the one big thing he had to do after 9/11, the single thing he absolutely had to do, was keep it from happening again. And so far he has. ...

"We have not been attacked since 9/11. Someone--someones--did something right."


Noonan's comments are old news and, ultimately, what Noonan thinks is not appropos about anything, much less George W. Bush.

But people do read what she says, even though, in this case, she lost her way somewhere out in the proverbial left field.

As Blue Texan said, writing at Firedoglake, Yeah, Bush kept us "safe," "Unless you lived in New Orleans after Katrina. . . or were killed by anthrax. . . or were shipped off to Iraq or Afghanistan."

Noonan neglects to mention that Bush and Company failed utterly to protect the country on 9/11/2001. And it wasn't because they had not been informed such attacks were imminent. As Blue Texan points out, "the 9/11 Commission concluded that 6 of the 10 major missed opportunities to prevent 9/11 occurred under Mr. Kept Us Safe's watch." Bush and Company were advised specifically in the summer of 2001 that bin Laden might use airplanes to attack the U.S., and they blew off the warnings!


However those facts work themselves out historically and however the characters involved are called to account for their perfidy, the pressing questions now are: What's the situation in 2008/2009? How "safe" are we?

George and the neocons continue to blather about how they brought "democracy" to Iraq and helped stabilize that country and got rid of the evil Saddam Hussein, and the Middle East is a much better place and isn't it wonderful!

Thus they try to soothe our anxieties by muttering platitudes as to how we're so much safer now than we were pre-9/11 and pre-war in Iraq.

The truth is the opposite.


Ron Suskind, in his book, The One Percent Doctrine, tells how, as American tanks rolled through Baghdad, Americans had identified an important al Qaeda operative, Yusef al-Ayeri. Not only was al-Ayeri "behind a Web site, al-Nida, that U.S. investigators had long felt carried some of the most specialized analysis and coded directives about al Qaeda's motives and plans,

"He was also the anonymous author of two extraordinary pieces of writing--short books, really, that had recently moved through cyberspace, about al-Qaeda's underlying strategies. The Future of Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula After the Fall of Baghdad, written as the United States prepared its attack, said that an American invasion of Iraq would be the best possible outcome for al Qaeda, stoking extremism throughout the Persian Gulf and South Asia, and achieving precisely the radicalizing quagmire that bin Laden had hoped would occur in Afghanistan.

"A second book, Crusader's War, outlined a tactical model for fighting the American forces in Iraq, including 'assassination and poisoning the enemy's food and drink,' remotely triggered explosives, suicide bombings, and lightning strike ambushes. It was the playbook."


The neocon dream began to fall apart soon after the invasion of Iraq. Bush and the neocons never considered seriously the possible negative consequences of their military exploits in the Middle East. While some of them, namely Cheney and Rumsfeld, had spent time in the Middle East, even cozying up to Saddam Hussein when it was to our advantage, they seemed to have been so blinded by ideology that they simply ignored the probable outgrowth of the seeds they planted, or they didn't care.

Then there are those who argue it was all about the oil, anyway. None of them gave a damn about democracy! None of them give a damn about the Middle East!

Whatever the motivation, the invasion of Iraq produced the reverse of what they had dreamed; it became their worse nightmare. It will, as historians write of this period, mark them as the creators of nightmares in which morning never comes!

While Saddam and bin Laden eyed each other from afar with undisguised hatred, the United States, under George W. Bush, proceeded to answer bin Laden's prayers.


Suskind puts it this way:

"One hundred fifty thousand U.S. troops in the center of the Arab world was a jihadist recruiting tool of almost unfathomable magnetism. Terrorist recruitment was on the rise, visibly and markedly, across the Arab world. CIA reports indicated that the madrassas in Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Iran were overflowing, as were contributions to radical clerics and their operations. Images flashed to millions each day by Al Jazeera of U.S. tanks in Baghdad and Tikrit, and the carnage that was now Iraq, were dissuading young Arab men--in Iraq and across the Gulf--from standing on the sidelines. They were joining the global fight against the 'crusader' Bush and his infidel army as the cause of their generation."

Bush had lied to the American people about Saddam's WMDs, his nuclear program, his threat to the United States, and his relationship to terrorists.

But now - again from Suskind, "there was, finally, a connection between Iraq and the broader 'war on terror.' It was a catalytic relationship, like gasoline on a fire."


Unfortunately for the U.S. and the Iraqis, it's not over yet. And Peggy Noonan, you were and are so very wrong!

In 2008, as Bush prepares to crawl back to Texas, leaving behind the smoking remains of what was once a powerful and prosperous civilization, we, the people of the United States, hunker down, knowing that we are more vulnerable, as a nation, than ever before.

For that we can only thank George W. Bush and his friends for whom failure is the name of the game.


Crooks and Liars has an excellent take on Noonan's article and Bush, pre-9/11, here.

Obama & Rod Blagojevich

Persons wishing to gain perspective on the attempts of the mainstream media to somehow tie Barack Obama to the corruption of Rod Blagojevich in spite of the fact that U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has said there is NO evidence that Obama was involved in any wrongdoing, should read this article by Jamison Foser at Media Matters.

Here's the first two paragraphs:

"To anyone who lived through the media feeding frenzy of the 1990s, during which the nation's leading news organizations spent the better part of a decade destroying their own credibility by relentlessly hyping a series of non-scandals, the past few days, in which the media have tried to shoehorn Barack Obama into the Rod Blagojevich scandal, have been sickeningly familiar.

"Whenever reporters think -- or want you to think -- they've uncovered a presidential scandal, they waste little time in comparing it to previous controversies. Yesterday, CNN's Rick Sanchez tried desperately to get the phrase 'Blagogate' to stick -- the latest in a long and overwhelmingly annoying post-Watergate pattern of ham-handed efforts to hype a scandal by appending the suffix '-gate' to the end of a word."


Those of us who knew Sanchez when he tarnished the airwaves in south Florida expect no less than some seedy, sordid attempt to exploit a non-issue so as to better feather his nest at CNN. But he's just one pitiful example of what Mr. Jamison describes as the ongoing perfidy of news organizations that find it easier to create a scandal than to ferret out the truth.


Here's the link to Jamison's article.

Rick Warren and what to do with the bad guys

The Satanic Salute

I'll bet you didn't know that the above hand sign is the sign of Satan and comes straight from the Satanic Bible!

Jesus! This is scary! So many "Satanists" out there.

You can read all about it here.


And here's what George W. Bush thought of it!

Roman Catholic gay schizophrenia

Item 1:

Cardinal "Rat" Ratzinger, known now as Pope Benedict XVI, is classically homophic - that is to say he believes homosexuals are fundamentally disordered. Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, who recently presented a report from the Congregation for Catholic Education titled "Guidelines for the Use of Psychology in the Admission and Formation of Candidates for the Priesthood," represents, obviously, the Pope's position.

Cardinal Grocholewski is said to have described homosexuality as "a deviation, an irregularity, a wound."

It is unsurprising, then, that these new "Guidelines" place, not only homosexuals, but those with "deep-seated homosexual tendencies" out of contention for the Roman Catholic priesthood. In order to determine if potential seminarians are homosexuals or have these "deep-seated" tendencies, they will be required to undergo psychological screening.


Item 2:

At the end of last month, the Vatican issued a new directive in a pamphlet banning Roman Catholic priests from using "heterosexist" language in their churches. The purpose of this ban is to refrain from offending gay worshipers.

The pamphlet or leaflet advised priests and worshipers to be welcoming to gay people, and thus should "Remember that homophobic jokes and asides can be cruel and hurtful - a careless word can mean another experience of rejection and pain."


Item 3:

Various studies done over a period of many years suggest that a fair percentage of Roman Catholic clergy (priests, bishops, cardinals, etc.) are homosexuals and a fair percentage of those carry on an active sex life.

The exact percentage is difficult if not impossible to determine, but estimates of homosexual Catholic clergy range from 25% to 50%.


A schizophrenic summary:

The Roman Church believes that homosexuality is a disorder, "a deviation, an irregularity, a wound" and a person suffering from that particular disorder is so flawed that he cannot serve the church as a priest.

At the same time, upwards of 50% of Catholic clergy are so flawed and in light of Vatican guidelines should immediately resign their ministry for they are deviants and have been deemed as unworthy of priestly orders.

It is these gay clergy, along with "normal" clergy, who have now been instructed to refrain from using language in their churches which would somehow denigrate their gay members.


I asked one homosexual priest what he thought about all of this and he looked at me with wide, terrified eyes, threw his hands up in the air, and ran away screaming "Arrrrrrrgh!!!!"

Seasons Greetings!

This photo/painting card was done by Chris Lambright and Randy Pugh at cgcafe.net. Give their blog a look. They do beautiful work.

And Seasons Greetings to all!

Christmas songs written by Jewish songwriters

Nate Bloom has done extensive research on Christmas songs written by Jews. He says "the main reason that Jewish songwriters wrote and still write Christmas or holiday songs was and is commercial. A hit Christmas song means a lot of sales. [What he doesn't say is that very few new Christmas songs are accepted by the public and many singers are simply not interested in them.]

No doubt Bloom is right, though, when he says that Jewish as well as non-Jewish songwriters we "motivated by commercial considerations. They were professional tunesmiths ... and ... turned out songs on every imaginable topic."

And yet, "it would be a mistake to say that an important part of the spirit of Christmas--'good will to all'--was not in the air as both American Jewish and American non-Jewish songwriters penned their popular holiday tunes. Given the opportunities Jewish songwriters found in America--and the horrors they left behind in Europe--they must have felt an openness towards the Christmas spirit that their Old World forebears didn't."


Some of the most popular Christmas songs were written by Jewish songwriters (and that seems especially appropriate as the legendary baby Jesus was Jewish!):

1. The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire) - 1945 by Mel Torme and Bob Wells. Both were Jewish.

2. Do They Know It's Christmas? (Feed the World) - 1984. Midge Ure and Bob Geldorf for the "Live Aid" concert. Geldorf, raised a Roman Catholic, had Jewish ancestry.

3. Holly Jolly Christmas - 1962 - Johnny Marks. Marks studied music in Paris after graduating from Colgate University. He became a "prominent radio producer. He had a heroic World War II combat record, winning the Bronze Star and four battle stars. He wrote three of the most popular Christmas songs ever.

4. Rudoph the Red Nosed Reindeer - 1939 (written as a poem) - Johnny Marks.

5. Santa Baby - 1953 - Joan Ellen Javits.

6. Santa Claus is Coming to Town - First sung in 1934 - Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie. Coots was Jewish.

7. I'll Be Home for Christmas - 1943 - Walter Kent and Buck Ram. (Huge hit for Bing Crosby)

8. Silver Bells - 1951 - Jay Livingston and Ray Evans. Written for the Bob Hope movie, The Lemon Drop Kid.

9. It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year - 1963 - George Wyle and Edward Poal. Wyle was Jewish.

10..Sleigh Ride - 1950 - Leroy Anderson and Mitchell Parish. Parish, the lyricist was Jewish.

11. Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow! - 1945 - Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne (One of the best and most famous songwriting teams of all time!)

12. There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays - 1954 - Bob Allen and Al Stillman. Stillman was Jewish.

13. Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree - 1958 - Johnny Marks.

14. White Christmas - 1940 - Irving Berlin.

15. Winter Wonderland - 1934 - Richard B. Smith and Felix Bernard. Bernard was Jewish.

Feds hiding financial records

The Federal Reserve has handed out more than $2 trillion in "emergency loans."

Let's put it this way: The Federal Reserve, through 11 lending programs, has doled out $2 trillion of our tax money to unknown persons and institutions.

And the Feds are not going to tell you who got the money!


Bloomberg News asked the Federal Reserve to provide the data: names and places; the who and when. The Feds said no way! So, on Nov. 7, Bloomberg News filed suit under the Freedom of Information Act.

On Dec. 8, the Federal Reserve said it wasn't required to provide that information. And to do so might cause "substantial, multiple harms," according to the secretary for the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors.

Isn't this our money? Remember that phrase, "We, the people"?


What a crock! And I'll bet you thought you lived in a democracy!


The entire Bloomberg article is here.

A field trip to the Creation Museum

SAIU trip to the Creation Museum from Secular Alliance on Vimeo.


The Secular Alliance at Indiana University took a field trip to the Creation Museum and made a video of what they experienced.

The video is worth watching for two reasons. It will kill any further curiosity you might have about the Museum, and you will be amazed and appalled that this kind of a monument to ignorance and superstition should even exist in 2008.

It is truly sad that so many people are willing to be deceived into believing Creationist crap!

And anyone bringing their young children to the Creation Museum should be arrested for child abuse!

h/t to PZMyers at Pharyngula

Bush and the Bible

No beating around the bush, George does not believe the Bible is "literally" true.

Oh, boy! I can just hear his base blathering about how Bush fooled them and they should have known and he's probably drinking again and it's no wonder the economy is in the tank, and how could they have been such fools, and they wish he could run for prezident again so they could vote against him at least once!


Cynthia McFadden interviewed da Bush on ABC's Nightline. She asked him if he believed the Bible was literally true.

"You know. Probably not. ... No, I'm not a literalist, but I think you can learn a lot from it, but I do think that the New Testament for example is ... has got ... You know, the important lesson is 'God sent a son.'"

Evidently, George didn't realize how deep he had stepped into "it," and continued to ramble about how "Is is hard for me to justify or prove the mystery of the Almighty in my life. All I can just tell you is that I got back into religion and I quit drinking shortly thereafter and I asked for help. ... I was a one-step program guy."

It got worse, from say, James Dobson's point of view. Da Bush said he thinks the god to whom he prays is the same god as those with different religious beliefs. "I do believe," he said, "there is an almighty that is broad and big enough and loving enough that can encompass a lot of people."

Mein gott! He doesn't even mention Jesus as the only way of salvation!

And there's more to baffle the base. Da Bush, in a crushing blow to biblical literalista and creationistas said while he believed God created everything, that creation is not "incompatible with the scientific proof that there is evolution."


He is, as he admitted, a "simple" prezident, and if he wasn't in charge of the most powerful nation on the face of the earth, no one would care what he believes about anything, but in 2000 and 2004, the christianists, convinced he shared their religious insanity, jumped on his bandwagon and got out the vote, proudly proclaiming da Bush was one of them.

Now it looks like the simpleton fooled them all - Dobson, Hagee, Reed, Parlsey, Warren, Osteen, Robertson, Falwell, Wildmon, Perkins, Sheldon and even Copeland!

Or, as Brody put it in his CBN blog: "At least he doesn't have to worry about winning the socially conservative base anymore because with comments like that, he'd have to go into damage control mode."


Actually, this is probably the first time in eight years that I have heard Bush say anything remotely sensible and sane. Unfortunately, it's too late to undo the damage caused by his friends on the right who made it possible for him to access the controls of power and destroy everything he touched, including the country he claimed to "love."

The problem of the disappearing Jesus

[AP Photo by J. Pat Carter]

Wellington, Florida is a snazzy, upscale community in Palm Beach County, Florida. During the Christmas season, folks in Wellington put up a nativity display on the lawn of the local community center, along with other religious symbols such as a menorah.

The Jesus used in that nativity display is an original ceramic figurine, made in Italy, and valued at approximately $1,800.

Sounds good, but baby Jesus tends to disappear.

That pissed off the leaders of Wellington so they put a GPS unit inside the figurine. Last year, when baby Jesus disappeared, they were able to track it to an apartment where they found it face down on the floor. Police arrested an 18-year old woman.

But a question remains: Why would anyone place a figurine worth $1,800 in an untended outside display?


Similar thefts of Jesus figurines, as well as other religious symbols have led New York-based Brickhouse Security to offer some 200 nonprofit religious institutions the use of security cameras and their GPS product free for a month.

Just another way that Jesus brings "peace on earth and goodwill to all"!


A final thought. The earliest Gospel, Mark, does not mention Jesus' birth, nor does the latest Gospel, John. Only Matthew and Luke take an interest in when or where Jesus was born. Unfortunately, they got their wires crossed or their sources mixed because they don't agree on very much.

But even more curious is that after the miraculous birth we hear nothing of Jesus in any of the Gospels until he is an adult, except for the little tidbit about his parents leaving him behind in Jerusalem where he proceeded to "teach" the teachers.

Just think: If they had had a GPS unit, they could have sewn it into his robe and bingo, they would have known immediately where he was!

More importantly, they could have kept track of everything he did from his birth to his baptism, a period the Gospel writers ignore completely.

That would give christianists more material to argue about.

Waiting in line on voting day

[USA Today photo]

Richard Wolf, writing in USA Today, says that on Nov. 4 "African-American voters waiting more than twice as long as others to vote ... and Hispanics were asked to show identification more often, this as per a survey conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for the AARP and the Pew Center on the States."

The survey also discovered that Hispanics were required to show ID more often than other voters in states where a photo ID was required.


Why are we not surprised?

One question not addressed by this survey is how many people simply gave up and went home after waiting in line for hours. In south Florida, in some communities, in took hours of waiting to finally reach a voting booth.

If anything needs an overhaul in this country, it is our failed system of voting. Is a democracy still a democracy when large segments of our population are denied the right to vote by systemic breakdowns in the voting apparatus?

Christianist wingnuts come loose over Newsweek article on gay marriage

It was to be expected, of course. Newsweek editor, Jon Meacham, unworried, said, in so many words, "bring 'em on!"

And they have! Christianist wingnuts everywhere are coming loose over the Newsweek article supporting gay marriage.

Albert Mohler takes Newsweek religion editor, Lisa Miller, to task for her one-sided approach to biblical teachings. Mohler argues, for example, that while "family" in the Old Testament meant something different than we do, at the center of the biblical unit "stands the institution of marriage as the most basic human model of convenantal love and commitment."

Oh, if only it were so. Assuming momentarily that the partriarchal figures were historical, one can only laugh at Mohler's gratituitous comment. Generally, marriage in those tribal units meant an old man grabbed a young girl of his liking and threw her in his tent. Then, he grabbed another young girl; and another. If, down the road he decided he no longer wanted one of his "wives," he threw her out of his tent like an old wine bottle. That's not really a "human model of covenantal love and commitment."

Mohler has much more to say and you can read it all here if you're interested. You won't find anything new. It's a rehashing of the same old "biblical" arguments. But it is a good case study on why the answers to this and many other of life's questions are not to be found in that musty collection of ancient scribblings known as the Bible.

Mohler does register a bit of paranoia, however. And, as one might suspect, the media are at the heart of it! Mohler says the reason Newsweek published this article is because:

"The national news media are collectively embarrassed by the passage of Proposition 8 in California. [I wonder if he includes Fox News or the WSJ in his definition of 'national news media?'] Gay rights activists are publicly calling on the mainstream media to offer support for gay marriage, arguing that the media let them down in November. It appears that Newsweek intends to do its part to press for same-sex marriage. Many observers believe that the main obstacle to this agenda is a resolute opposition grounded in Christian conviction. Newsweek clearly intends to reduce that opposition."

Uh, oh! Watch out all you good christianists 'cause the national media's gonna grind you down and help establish gay marriage and that means your traditional marriage is no damn good anymore! It says so in the Bible! Of course, more than half of you get divorced anyway, so it probably doesn't matter much.


The American Family Association calls Miller's article "one of the most biased and distorted pieces concerning homosexual marriage ever published by a major news organization," and calls upon all good christianists to e-mail Newsweek saying that "you are disappointed with its distorted interpretation of scripture."


Jim Brown at onenewsnow.com writes that "Bob Knight, director of the Culture and Media Institute, believes there is ample evidence of media bias on the marriage issue, but calls this example one of the worst he has seen. Knight says Newsweek published a 'cartoon' version of Scripture that is a gay activist's dream."

Knight claims that Lisa Miller's trying "to take the Bible and make it say something it flat-out does not say is journalistic malpractice."

Omigod! "Journalistic malpractice!" I wonder if that's against the law? I'll check in Leviticus and get back to you.

Not only so, Mr. Knight also claims that "the article is an attack on the authority of scripture, evangelical Christians, and absolute truth."

I would hope so!


Then we have the Family Research Council, which has also come out of its cave to step into the fray. Tony Perkins goes straight to the Hebrew Bible and straightens Ms. Miller out. It's hard to make sense of what he says, though. For example, in his rebuttal to Miller, notes that many of the Bible's "fathers and heroes were polygamists." Well, says Perkins, that's because "There is a difference between how the Bible defines marriage and how it depicts it in all it's sin-corrupted reality. It is defined in the creation."

You know, when Adam and Eve stood before the serpent in the garden and Eve brushed back her veil and gave Adam his ring and promised to love him only and forever. See Genesis 2. There doesn't seem to be any "traditional" marriage in the Genesis 1 creation story! Damn, this gets confusing!

There's more of Perkins here. Ugh!


Another wingnut, this time a "biblical scholar," Robert A. J. Gagnon, Associate Professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, a fundamentalist school affiliated with the fundamentalist Presbyterian Church, USA.

He disagrees, naturally, with Miller's take on the Bible. "Miller," he says, "restricts her research to biblical scholars supportive of homosexual unions and exaggerates discontinuity between Scripture's marriage values and our own."

Hmmm. Did he just say there is, in fact, "discontinuity between Scripture's marriage values and our own," and Miller's problem is she "exaggerated" that discontinuity.

By god, I think he did!

Gagnon's arguments are another good example as to why referencing the Bible on this or any other "moral" position is a losing proposition. As we steadfastly maintain, "Every evil cause on the fact of the earth is and has been justified on the basis of the Bible."

Gagnon has a rather long article arguing against Miller here.


Richard Land, the self-righteous Southern Baptist poohbah, isn't worried at all about any of this. "If they [Newsweek?] think they're going to cause Evangelical Christians or Bible-believing Christians of different stripes to somehow say, oh, the Bible doesn't matter on marriage, I think they're mistaken. I don't think too many in the Evangelical world are too concerned about what Newsweek has to say."

He's probably right. But that doesn't mean Newsweek is wrong. It means Christians of his kind of stripes drift through life with closed minds. And if these "Christians" try to open the doors and let some fresh air in, Land and his cohorts are there to nail it shut again. That's their job, doing the work of god.


Finally, some of these wingnuts make us wonder what they hell they want. Politico.com writes about how they go through all this biblical justification to oppose gay marriage, and then turn around and say, as did Ralph Reed, [the ethically-challenged former director of the Christian Coalition and close pal of convicted felon, Jack Abramoff],

"There's more of a practical, sociological foundation for why we seek to affirm marriage as an institution than I think is generally understood by those who want to legalize same-sex marriage."

Huh? "A "practical, sociological foundation"? What does that mean? Is Reed saying what the Bible says isn't all that important because his case against gay marriage is based on "a practical, sociological foundation"? And if so, what would that be?

Land concludes by saying something of the same thing. The arguments used around the country in the "anti-same-sex marriage referenda" did not mainly involve "biblical instructions," but "secular arguments, arguing about marriage being a civic and a social institution, and that societies have a right to define marriage. Broadening the definition of marriage could 'shatter' the social role married couples have traditionally played.


So what is it? Are the wingnuts opposed to gay marriage because the Bible says it's a bad thing and god's gonna get you, or are they opposed to gay marriage because it's bad for society and will mess up traditional marriages (as if they're not messed up enough anyway!)?

It's really hard to play god, isn't it? It's really hard to preach "absolute truth" based on the bible when no one has a frigging clue what that is! And then you end up being a sociologist. Or maybe a sociopath?

Don't you feel sorry for the wingnuts?

O'Reilly & Rove - the moronic twins on the economy

This from Melissa McEwan at Shakesville:


O'Reilly and Rove are Crazy, Say the Economic Crisis Is Just a Media Conspiracy

Break out the tinfoil hats.

The economy isn't really in the shitter. It's just a liberal media



If Bill O'Reilly and Karl Rove say it, it must be true -- because they are, I don't have to tell you, well-known truth-sayers.

So everyone go out and spend your dosh like it's going out of style, and, if you should hear rumors of cutbacks at your job, don't listen to them. It just means your boss is in cahoots with Big Media.

And if you get laid off, it probably means you are. Dirty conspirator.

O'REILLY: OK, now the economy. Do you agree with me that the media is not-the economy, but Afghanistan and Iraq and every other problem the United States has spinning as negative as possible now so that they can buy Barack Obama some time and set up a thing where if anything goes right after he becomes president, they can jump on it.

ROVE: Yes.

O'REILLY: And then they can blame everything on Bush for quite a long period of time?

ROVE: You know, it’s interesting to me, this question of proportionality and consistency. I wanted to take you and your viewers back to March of 2000 when the stock market peaked out. We had a 38 percent decline in the Dow Jones. We had a 50 percent decline in the S P 500. And we had a 78 percent decline in the Nasdaq before the markets bottomed out.

Now, I don’t remember The New York Times or the national or The Washington Post or some of these national news organizations treating the precipitous decline in the markets under Clinton with the scare words that they’re using today. Similarly look, and I don’t want to diminish the challenges we face, particularly when it comes to unemployment. If you don’t have a job, it’s 100% unemployment rate for you. But the unemployment rate today was at certain times during Clinton and in most of Carter time in office higher. And, yet, we don’t see the similar scare tactics and the similar phrases and words out of the n ational media about these Democrats as we hear about the current situation.

O'REILLY: All right, so you are agreeing with me then that there is a conscious effort on the part of The New York Times and other liberal media to basically paint as drastic a picture as possible, so that when Barack Obama takes office that anything is better than what we have now?

ROVE: Yes. And watch their words when they describe the steps that he wants to take. I noticed again this past weekend, he described this enormous program of spending on infrastructure, on roads and highways and improvements in our infrastructure. And watch how they treat this when he comes into office if he actually pursues this package. And you’ll see very few of them raising serious questions about what kind of stimulative effect it really is going to have, because what we do know is on these kind of big projects, only one out of every four dollars that’s appropriated for them gets spent in the first year. The rest of it gets spent in the out year. So these are not going to have an immediate impact. And let’s see how tough they treat him on this and how much they hold him up to scrutiny.

O'REILLY: Now you know how that’s going to come down, Mr. Rove.

ROVE: We can always hope. We can always.

O'REILLY: Well, see I know hope. All I want is an honest press. I’m not hoping one way or the other.


* These two really are morons. Of course they have operated for years -- with some justification -- on the assumption that the American people are truly stupid! So, once again they blather on as if their words had meaning. Not!