Sarah Palin didn't learn prayer doesn't work

Or maybe she just didn't have enough McCainites praying with her. Whatever, she and ol' John were discarded by the American people, thank God!

Which actually may disprove my theory that prayer doesn't work. Maybe God did hear Sarah's prayers, decided she was a moron and ensured that his favorite son, Barack Obama, made it to the White House. One never knows about these things. It's a matter of faith.


In case you missed the brouhaha, Ms Palin, prevaricating governor of Alaska, is currently embroiled in a battle with Alaska's legislators because she doesn't want to take the offer of government money in the stimulus package for needy Alaskans. It's the principal of the thing, you know. That's the way Repugnicans talk, although most of them don't know the difference between a principle and a principal.

Sorry, I got off topic a bit there. What I intended to say is Ms. Palin found a paucity of prayer partners amongst the McCain campaigners. Prior to her debate with Joe Biden, she felt the urge to talk to her god up there in heaven - in the clouds, I think. She was worried that God might give Biden a boost, or something, 'cause well, you know, Joe's a "good" Catholic.

"So, I'm looking around for somebody to pray with, I just need maybe a little help, maybe a little extra. And the McCain campaign, love 'em, you know, they're a lot of people around me, but nobody I could find that I wanted to hold hands with and pray."

She finally grabbed her daughter Piper and held her hand and prayed.


I think God went on vacation that day. Her prayer(s) obviously went unanswered, and everybody knew she was a winking fool.

But she's still praying. Mostly she was praying for her hubby to win Iditarod. That prayer didn't work, either. She never learns a thing!


And, would you believe, some of the McCainites are not happy about Palin's verbal punches?

But the saddest thing is that the Moose, pictured above in all it's bloody glory, was praying Palin's bullet would miss. Didn't work. And the moral of that story is, that if Palin's got you her sights, forget praying, shoot back!

Matt Taibbi on Michele Bachmann

Finally, someone in the media tells it like it is! If we can't impeach Bachmann for being an idiot, is it possible to laugh someone out of Congress?

Thanks to Video Cafe.

Reason versus faith

Here it is, in color! The truth. No wonder Baptists and other Christianists are so unreasonable!

Sadly, yes. This sign tells it like it is.


Borrowed with gratitude from Pharyngula.

Republicans: Just go away!

P.M. Carpenter has a great article on Republicans and the budget at Salon. Here's how he sums up his feelings:

"I'll also offer Republicans a little sincere advice: Go away. Just go away for a long, long while. Grab whatever cash you have in the RNC account and hasten thee to a faraway exotic spa, or go on a year-long drunk, or simply hide yourselves at home, shutter the blinds, and shut the f*ck up.

"It's not your critics doing you harm. It's you and your non-budgeting budgets which advocate spending freezes during a deep freeze. It's Dick Cheney running around defending torture and denouncing social progress. It's Sarah Palin babbling about deficiently prayerful McCainites. It's your Cantors and Pences and Boehners looking and sounding goofy. It's Michael Steele strategizing with God but genuflecting before Rush. For those fond of reifying brevity, it can even be just two words: Michele Bachmann."


Read the entire article here.

A day in the life of the President

For eight long years, we had to put up with a president that couldn't swing a golf club and watch his ball; who couldn't, like Jerry Ford, chew gum and walk at the same time; who couldn't speak English if his life depended on it; who didn't read books; who didn't read newspapers; who could barely get through his morning briefing report; who went to bed a 9:00 PM; who had no clue in the morning who the hell he was or where he was!

Compare please: (Courtesy of McClatchy)

"In the past week, President Barack Obama spoke via video to Iranians and, separately, to viewers of a Latin music awards show, appeared on Jay Leno's 'Tonight Show' and on '60 Minutes,' held a prime-time news conference at which he called on several special-audience publications and wrote an opinion column that ran in newspapers around the world.

"He also arranged two events that bypassed the news media, an online 'town hall' and a volunteer door-knocking campaign across the nation to rouse support for his budget."


The difference between the Bush administration and the Obama administration is like moving from the 16th century to the 21st in one fell swoop!

Ain't it great?

We have a president with a brain: who's not only intelligent but also competent and energetic and caring. Did I mention intelligent? Brilliant, even?


The entire McClatchy article is here.

How media hyenas join to smear the president

This is from Media Matters.

The Republican Budget - an empty shell

Aw these Congressional Repugnicans!

The other day, President Obama mentioned that for all the Republican crabbing about his budget, "we haven't seen an alternative budget out of them."

Well, they've got one now. Sort of. Weepy John Boehner held up the Republican "answer," a "glossy 18-page book, 'The Republican Road to Recovery,'" and said, "Here it is, Mr. President."

Heh. Heh. McClatchy has pointed out, poignantly, that "the document contained virtually no specifics on spending, taxes or deficit reduction.." Instead, it "was largely a harangue against Democratic policie and a series of statements of long-held Republican principles."

Oh...not to worry. Weepy Boehner said the details will be forthcoming.


Jesus, these people are not only weepy, but creepy!

Or, as Rep. John Spratt, D-SC, said: "It's like being in the era of the Bush administration all over again."

Of course it is. These fools haven't had a creative idea in a century! They don't want national health care; they want to cut spending (by which Repugnicans always mean cut programs that actually help people); they want to drill everywhere for more oil; and they want to cut taxes.

Whoopee!

No wonder they lost the election. I wonder if they realize that yet?

Ban Mormon marriage!

[Photo of Mormon Temple from Dawkins Watch Files]

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, aka the Mormons, has been in the forefront of the campaign to ban gay marriage in California. Mormons have donated $20 million to the effort, and Mormon honchos put up almost $190,000 to help pass Proposition 8.

Why, one wonders, would a Utah-based religious organization care about what people do in California?

Well, because like religionists everywhere, they think they have the right to impose their beliefs on the rest of the population!

According to Tana Ganeva, writing at AlterNet, another "church," the Universal Free Church, which is a amorphous kind of group, has taken umbrage at such goings-on, and has begun a petition to ban Mormon marriage.

Said petition isn't going anywhere, but as Mary Cristos (love that name!) of the UFC Church mentioned, while Mormons can believe anything they so desire, the don't have the right to use their money and power to deny other people their rights!

"Any time you use the tax-exempt wealth and political power of America's religious majority to create any secular law that forces any religious belief on everyone else, that's religious fascism. It's evil, and it violates the 'establishment clause' of the First Amendment."


Ganeva points out we shouldn't tar all Mormons with the same brush; that she personally observed Mormons working against their church's messing with California's legal system. The trouble is they are very much in a minority.

Whether you're religious or not; whether you're a Mormon or not; whether you're gay or not; it seems that in this great land religious facism should be condemned and fought.


Read Ganeva's entire article here.

Earth Hour 2009

This is a good thing...hopefully, everyone will participate.

Water in North Dakota makes legislators crazy

Well, maybe it isn't the water. But something in North Dakota severely compromises intelligent thinking among the legislators in that state.

First they tried to ban all abortions.

Now, a piece of asshat legislation called the Personhood bill, SF 1572 is on the table. It's already passed the North Dakota House and is figured to slide through the Senate easily. And, the governor of the state, while he hasn't said much, is very much against women having any control over their own bodies.

This idiotic, moronic piece of legislation is a mirror image of the piece of crap that Colorado turned down: It will "grant every fertilized egg in the state full rights, and any intentional death of that fertilized egg would constitute murder." That's according to Andy Birkey, writing at rhreality.check.org.

Here's part of the actual wording: "The state shall naturalize all preborn persons and shall afford to them all the privileges and immunities of state citizenship guaranteed in... the Constitution of North Dakota."

Heh. Heh.


Now, whatever else you want to say about this, it is, in fact, a piece of religious bullshit, foisted upon the public by a bunch of rightwingnut christianists of both the Protestant and Catholic variety.

It is RELIGION! It is not science, it is not connected to reality. It is insanity!


Birkey notes that Tim Stanley, who represents Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, is a bit upset. He believes, rightly, I think, that this bill could reverberate and cause all kinds of untold suffering and despair across the country.

The asshat religious fruitcakes in the North Dakota legislature may well have opened a Pandora's Box: "It's possible," said Stanley, that this bill could result in criminal prosecution for women who have a miscarriage. Under this language a miscarriage could be investigated for manslaughter or reckless abandonment."

It gets sillier. A law in the grand state of North Dakota forbids two people from riding a bicycle built for one! If the bill passes, a pregnant woman riding a bike would be breaking the law!


The man behind this garbage is Dan Ruby, a Repugnican from Minot. Ruby spends most of his time worrying that women might do something with their bodies that is forbidden by the Pope. He's 38 years old, a Roman Catholic, has TEN CHILDREN and has a waste disposal business.

Some have called him a serial moron.

His goal, which he has stated clearly, is to rid our country of Roe v. Wade.


If worse comes to worse, under this law a woman's life could be compromised to save a fertilized egg.

That makes a hell of a lot of sense, doesn't it?

I wonder if the Catholics have a hell for serial morons who insist on making their psychotic belief system the law of the land?

Rachel Maddow and Matt Taibbi

Matt Taibbi is one of a few journalists today who tell it straight no matter what the consequences. He is usually right on target and that's why the rightwingnut Repugnicans don't appreciate what he has to say. Common sense doesn't play well in the Repugnican theater of the absurd. For example, Taibbi notes that if an institution is to big too fail, it's too big, period!

Take it away...

Thanks to Video Cafe.

Rachel Maddow and Bryron Dorgan

Nobody's been minding the store. But we knew that! The foxes have been in charge of the hen house for way too many years.

Thanks to Video Cafe.

Right wingnuts and teleprompters

The christianist rightwingnuts' heads have exploded recently about President Obama and his teleprompter.

The accusation is being passed around from one wingnut to another that President Obama cannot think on his feet and cannot say anything that makes sense without having it written down and appearing on his teleprompter. The implication is that some sneaky socialist or commie down in the basement of the White House is somehow incorporating horrible socialist or communist plans in Obama's speeches but does it so effectively the public is not only not aware of it but somehow succumbs to socialism and communism.

I mean we can see this every day. Drive down the street, any street and people will be out waving the banner and sickle yelling about our failing capitalistic system and how only socialism and communism can save us.


What's really funny is that we finally have a president who can, indeed, think on his feet and can do a press conference for god knows how many minutes taking and fielding questions, answering them using big words, with intelligence and wit and irony and satire. Hell, half the press corps doesn't know what he's talking about he's so far over their heads.

Have the right wingnuts forgotten G.W. Bush, who couldn't string three words together in a comprehensible sentence; who thinks the children is reading?

Please: to all the right wingnuts with nothing to say except moronic nonsense, get a life!

What's going on in Kansas?

The answer to that question is "Same old, same old."

Seems a bunch of youngish females out partying in Wichita had a bit too much to drink the other night and when a police officer on a horse checked them out, a friend with a 5 foot-long inflatable penis rammed the police horse, which spooked. By the time this little melee was over two of the women were under arrest. One of them was from McPherson, Kansas, a quiet, quite religious town where such goings on would be mightily frowned upon! I know that for a fact as a number of my very religious relatives come from McPherson!

More importantly, however, there is underway an attempt in the Kansas Legislature to increase the minimum wage in that state. The minimum wage in Kansas has not been raised in 20 years, and now stands at the incredibly high rate of $2.65!!!


Republicans have, as usual, fought any increases. But it looks now like there's a chance. Senate Bill 160 is to be voted on today and there is a possibility it will pass which will mean that 15,000 people in Kansas will be bumped from $2.65 per hour to $7.25 per hour.

Whoopee!

But before you get too excited, ask your self how the hell anyone can live on $7.25 per hour. That's $290 per week, before taxes. That's a whole $15,080 per year, before taxes. You can't pay rent and eat on that kind of money.

Still, some Repugnicans want to keep the minimum wage at $2.65! Figures, right? I mean Jesus said we'll always have poor people around, so why give them a break? Right?

Let 'em join the Army. Or a bread line!

Cantor at concert and lies about it

[Image from Stupid Celebrities.net]

This is kinda silly, but maybe not. Think Progress had a minor piece on the fact that Eric Cantor, House Minority Whip went to a Britney Spears concert the other night at the Verizon Center.

The trouble with Cantor is that he doesn't think very clearly. He doesn't realize that often what goes around, comes around.

You'll recall he has been busily criticizing our president for wasting time on frivolous activities (like signing a bill removing the ban on funding for embryonic stem cell research). We are in a terrible crisis, said Mr. Cantor fiercely with a Repugnican scowl. How dare the president fool with such unnecessary things like stem cell research? He should be fixing the economy, said Cantor.

Heh. Heh.

It doth make one wonder then, doesn't it, how Mr. Cantor can take time off from dealing with the immense and immediate needs of our country to go to a Britney Spears concert? I mean, you can't even claim that is a cultural event!

Not only so, but Mr. Cantor went to the concert on the same night that the president gave a prime-time press conference!

Amanda Terkel, who wrote the article for Think Progress, relates that Cantor's office put out this statement:

"After attending the NRCC dinner, Eric, like President Obama has been known to do, enjoyed a night at the Verizon Center. It was a bipartisan night, as Eric was joined by Senator Landrieu and other Democrats."

'Tis interesting that the statement mentions no other Democrats by name. Maybe Cantor doesn't know or doesn't remember the names of any other Democrats.

Not only so, but the statement was a lie! Yup. Another member of the Family Values caucus creates a falsehood to make himself look better than usual.

"Think Progress spoke with a staffer in Landrieu's office, who said that the senator was indeed not at the concert."


Read Ms. Terkel's article here.

Who the hell is the racist Tammy Bruce

I had never heard of Tammy Bruce. Probably because I don't watch FAUX News. Turns out she's some rightwing nutcase who likes to bash gays, liberals, Democrats, and especially black people - she's been doing it for years.

So the other day, on the Laura Ingraham show, she blasted Michelle Obama in a series of racist rants, calling her trash. We have trash in the White House, said Ms. Bruce.

Normal people will, of course, rightfully consign Ms. Bruce to the trash bin of contemporary society.

Note, however, that Bruce, just like Ingraham, Coulter, Limgaargh, O'Reilly, Hannity, and the certifiably insane Glenn Beck, all claim to represent "family values" and God and Jesus. Now, think: let's assume that these asshats are correct in their religious ideas. They believe in heaven. They think they're going to heaven and the rest of us, well, we're going to the other place.

Compared to that, the "other place" can't be so bad. I mean, would you really want to spend eternity with these kinds of creeps?


Here's a month old taste of Bruce.

Michelle Bachmann want Minnesotans "armed and dangerous"

One wonders what Michelle Bachmann will say next proving beyond all doubt she's probably the most ignorant and stupid member to ever inhabit the halls of Congress.

[What does that say about those Minnesotans who pushed the ballot lever in her favor?]

Think Progress and other sources of truth have recorded and provided Bachmann's latest foray into insanity for all of the world to see and hear.

Last Saturday, in an interview with WWTC 1280 AM, Rep. Blockhead went on a rant:

[She's really pissed at President Obama's cap and trade plan--it would have, she said, "the impact of forever changing our country." I suppose that in her mind it would result in fewer rich people. She is also really, really pissed that some folks think global warming is real!]

Speaking to the issue of global warming, she said: "And actually, we want this debate because the science is on our side on this one. And the science indicates that human activity is not the cause of all this global warming. And that in fact, nature is the cause, with solar flares, etc." [The "science" she refers to is the Book of Genesis!]

But, as TP points out, Bachmann isn't satisfied to merely oppose any relevant legislation. She went on:

"And really now in Washington, I'm a foreign correspondent in enemy lines. And I try to keep everyone back here in Minnesota know exactly the nefarious activities that are taking place in Washington. [...]

"I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back. Thomas Jefferson told us, having a revolution every now and then is a good thing, and the people -- we the people -- are going to have to fight back hard if we're not going to lose our country. And I think this has the potential of changing the dynamic of freedom forever in the United States."


So, a batshit crazy Representative to the U.S. House of Representatives from Minnesota, not only denies the real causes of global warming, she also accuses the President of trying to change the country forever [whatever that means], and is calling for the people of Minnesota to arm themselves because we may have to instigate an armed revolution against the administration in order to "save" our country.

I guess Chuck Norris and Glenn Beck agree with her as they're busy putting together "cells" of revolution in Texas and elsewhere.


If you had told me that our airwaves and our Congress would be infested with these nutcases 20-30 years BR [Before Reagan), I would have told you you were out of your mind.

It's all so sad, though, when we really need to come together as a country and work together to accomplish badly-needed reforms and try to fix the wrongs that have resulted from the Bush/Cheney wrecking crew.


Here's Bachmann running off at the mouth about the poor rich people.

Newt Gingrich concerned God-lover

[Image from viiphoto.com]

Heh, heh. You gotta laugh. Newt Gingrich is running around pretending he cares about religion, Jesus Christ, who saved his worthless soul, ethics, morals, and the danger of our country going SECULAR!

The is the same asshat who worked to impeach President Clinton for lying while he was simultaneously carrying on an affair with a woman who would become his THIRD wife!


Rob Boston, at Talk 2 Action, eviscerates Gingrich the clown, in an article entitled "He's Baaaaaack!: Newt Gingrich Slithers Out From Under A Rock - Again."

Evidently, old Newt gave an interview to a U.S. News & World Report blogger by name of Dan Gilgoff and Gilgoff wondered why Gingrich was fiddling around with Religious Right causes when he has never been much concerned about Religious Right stuff before.

Newt said: "'I think it's that the overtness of the assault on religious liberty has risen dramatically. It was the 9th Circuit Court's decision [in 2002] that was the last straw.' (Gingrich is referring here to the infamous "under God" case.) He added, 'It's time to challenge head-on secular domination in the West.'"

Newt's worried about his grandchildren who might end up living in a godless society that has kicked God out of public schools and "are now antireligious centers of propaganda."

We're in a crisis, says old Newt. Yup. The secularists are coming. God is leaving. Omigod!


Well, we all know Newt is full of crap. Always has been, and always will be. He's got the morals and ethics of a snake.

Boston, I think, puts his finger on the real issue: Gingrich is looking to reincarnate himself as some kind of political leader. So he's climbed in bed (again) with the Religious Right, thinking he needs the support of the ungodly godly to get wherever it is he wants to go.

Boston says, "Part of Gingrich's new crusade, of course, is to save us from those pesky gays who would destroy marriage by seeking the right to get married themselves. Newt as the savior of marriage? That is rich.

"Remember, this is the guy who told his first wife he was divorcing her while she was in the hospital recovering from cancer. In 1999, he dumped his second wife for a congressional aid 23 years his junior, a woman, who according to some accounts, he had been involved with since 1993. Newt's so pro-marriage he's had three of them!"


And that's only part of the Newt Gingrich story of moral and ethical collapse. That anyone would take this clown seriously is beyond belief! Somebody should read to him the Constitution, too, so that he might realize this is, indeed, a secular nation and was meant to be so from the very beginning.

Oh, one last thing: Newt also pretends to be an historian! Heh. Heh.

UPDATE: See Video below for more on this hypocritcal asshat!

Hey Jindal! Breaking news!

[Mt. Redoubt photo from Anchorage Daily News]

Yup. The Anchorage Daily News reports today that Mount Redoubt, after "roaring to life Sunday and Monday, blasting a column of ash and steam almost 12 miles above Cook inlet," has undergone another more minor eruption this morning.

Mount Redoubt's been blowing its top. No problem, though according to the Repugnican nogoodnik governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal. I'm not sure if he even knows we have volcanoes in the United States.

You remember, in his "rebuttal" (Ha!) to Obama's address to Congress, nogoodnik Jindal "singled out '$140 million for something called "volcano monitoring"' as an example of out-of-control federal spending." He said, with that disgusting smirk, "Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington, D.C."

Well, really. First of all, it's become commonplace for christianist wingnuts to lie through their teeth about anything or anyone Democratic, and especially about President Obama. And these are the religious clowns who claim you've got to believe in their god and their holy book in order to have any ethics or morals.

Not really! So Jindal, who if he didn't know better, should have, speaketh ill of Obama and the budget not knowing he's blowing hot air and looking like a fool? Maybe. But again, maybe he knew damn well we need volcano monitoring in this country and being a good Repugnican simply stuck to Repugnican talking points, truth and honesty be damned.


Here's the truth: The $140 million was for "repair and restoration of a variety of USGS science facilities and laboratories.

NPR.org notes that "Only a fraction of that money would be spent on monitoring volcanoes," maybe $15.6 million or so."

Marianne Guffanti with the U.S. Geological Survey says that monitoring volcanoes is extremely important (hear that, Jindal?) because "We are one of the most volcanically active countries in the world. We have nearly 170 volcanoes that are either active or capable of reawakening."


Erupting volcanoes are very dangerous, especially for airplanes. "In 1989, a full[y]-loaded Boeing 747 jumbo jet was flying over Alaska when an ash cloud suddenly appeared and all four engines suddenly stalled out, causing the plane to fall dangerously close to the mountains that surround Anchorage before the engines could be restarted. That ash came from Mount Redoubt."

Life repeats itself. Mount Redoubt has spewed all kinds of ash into the atmosphere and everyone who knows anything is thanking the gods that we had volcano monitoring. It was because of volcano monitoring that the U.S. Geological Survey at the Alaska Volcano Observatory was given due warning and was able to warn others.

Especially pilots. And every pilot that flies the Alaska skies is a big fan of volcano monitoring. In fact hundreds of flights in and out of Alaska have been canceled because the USGS was able to get word out in time - before they flew into danger!


I think, in order to teach the christianist wingnut from Louisiana a little lesson, we should no longer provide hurricane information to that state! Hah! Who needs the Weather Service anyway, right Jindal?

Nah, we could not and would not do that! Unlike the wingnut, we have ethics and morals. And to take away advance hurricane warning from Louisiana wouldn't hurt the wingnut anyway, 'cause he'd be ensconced in some underground bunker; it would only hurt the people of Louisiana.

Still...

Time to call the Bushites to account - DC NY

Millions of people in the United States and the world over feel it is past time to call George W. Bush and his administration to account for criminal misconduct. Unfortunately, President Obama does not appear to be interested in such an endeavor and there seems insufficient support in Congress.

Obama believes, I think, that it is best to let sleeping does lie, but that is not so in this case. Perhaps the lack of support in Congress derives from the fear that many members of Congress may find themselves implicated in the Bushites nefarious schemes.

Distributor Cap NY recently posted an article called "Collective Guilt." In this article DC lays out the case for a an investigation of Bush, his administration, and his minions who went blithely about lying to the American people as they turned our laws upside down and ran our country into the ground.

DC says: "There is little doubt in any sane, rationale (sic) or thinking person's mind that the Bush Junta Administration is guilty of many, many, many (did I say many) egregious, felonious and treasonous violations of American and International law. A small sample includes (in no particular order):

* Lying [to] the American people to start the Iraq War
* No bid contracts to Halliburton and other Bush favorites
* Politicization and hiring practices in the Justice Department
* Torture
* Private Armies
* Illegal wiretaps
* Holding prisoners without charging them of crimes - shipping them off US territory to avoid US law
* Abuses at Abu Graibh and violations of the Geneva Convention


What DC posits, and I agree with him, we need a thorough and complete investigation into these and other criminal and unlaw acts of the Bush administration, because "no matter what ideas, plans and bailouts Obama embarks on, we will never be able to regain the psychological wherewithal as a nation to heal, grow and finally, like Gerry Ford said, move on. Never. I hate to sound cliche - but the truth will set you free."

DC continues on to suggest there are several historical parallels, such as the Nuremberg Trials, which can point the way for us to proceed.


But if looks like we are going to have to prod the Obama administration and OUR elected leaders in Washington to get off their duffs and take action...


Read it all here.