Tuesday, May 6, 2014
Friday, April 25, 2014
Monday, April 21, 2014
Saturday, April 19, 2014
Read the Bible. Or not!
Read the Bible goes the mantra. I've heard it from my youth. For whatever is wrong in your life, you can find answers and help in the Bible, they said. Sometimes, in church services, I heard people describe in graphic detail what horrible persons they were and how they changed into being nice persons after reading the Bible.
Football players and other athletes write Bible verses on their faces, as if such a godly "tattoo" will give them greater skills or soften the blows they must endure or somehow call the ungodly to repentance and faith.
Religious people, especially Christian fundamentalists, love to quote specific verses or passages to bolster their beliefs or supercharge their endeavors to convert family and friends. "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength," [Philippians 4:13] is a favorite! "You must be born again," [John 3:16] is another.
But there is a problem. Reading the Bible can have often have a negative effect. A lot of it doesn't make sense. Much of it is untrue. There are many stories which deal in sex and violence. Some passages are just plain depressing. One might come quickly to the conclusion that the Bible is severely overrated and best be left alone.
Furthermore, for the past 300 years, biblical scholars have probed the Bible's depth; they have mined it's innermost secrets. They have studied not only the text itself, but the environment out of which it came and the authors who gave it life. Said scholars have concluded, among other things, that for the most part it is not an historical document. It is a compendium of modified legends and mythologies which were common in the Ancient Near East. The major characters and their stories as described in the Hebrew Bible are legendary in character and not to be taken literally.
The creation stories are fiction. The Noah story is fiction, cobbled together from an old Mesopotamian story. Abraham and Isaac and Jacob - all fiction. Joseph and the multi-colored coat and the trip to Egypt and all that ensued: fiction. Moses is fiction. The Exodus is fiction. The conquest of the land of Canaan - fiction. King Solomon, fiction. King David, fiction.
None of that is unexpected nor bad in and of itself. However, if you take seriously many of Yahweh's commands, you can get mired in a bog of misery. You would have to stone your children to death if they failed to observe the Sabbath. You must continue to mutilate the penises of little babies. You can justify keeping slaves and having multiple wives (the latter if you're a man).
But, how can one continue to believe in a God that is so jealous and so filled with wrath that he counsels the destruction of entire civilizations and such atrocities as murdering one's male enemies, raping their women and smashing their children against rocks?
The story of Abraham's almost sacrifice of his son on the mountain indicates that child sacrifice was not unusual in Israel. The story explains why child sacrifice is no longer practiced and that Yahweh no longer requires such an atrocity to satisfy his blood lust.
Valerie Talerico, in an article at Alternet, describes in further detail, stories of sex and violence in the Hebrew Bible, all of which might discourage the suggestion that you should "read the Bible." What follows is her retelling of the tale of Abraham's cousin Lot - a gruesome and disgusting person!
The entire article is here.
Lap Dancers, the CIA, Pay-offs, and BP's Deepwater Horizon
By Greg Palast | for Truthdig
Friday, 18. April 2014
From his investigation for Channel 4 Television in the newly released film, Vultures and Vote Rustlers.
There was CIA involvement through a company called Mega Oil. They were shipping in arms under the cover of oil tools.
The
BP executive was explaining to me how the CIA, MI6 and British
Petroleum engineered a coup d’état, overthrowing an elected president of
a nation who was “not favorable to BP.” The corporation’s former
Vice-President, Leslie Abrahams, is pictured here, holding an AK-47 in
front of BP headquarters in Baku, Azerbaijan. Like most of the other BP
executives I spoke with, he proudly added that while he was working for
BP, he was also an operative for MI6, British intelligence.The conversation was far from the weirdest I had in my four-continent investigation of the real story of the Deepwater Horizon.
The BP oilrig blew out on April 20, 2010, four years ago this Sunday.
Earlier this month, the Obama Administration officially OK’d BP’s right to resume drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. And two weeks ago, just to assure the company that all is forgiven, the U.S. Department of the Interior gave BP a new contract to drill in the Gulf of Mexico––right next to where the Deepwater Horizon went down. At the same time, the forgive-and-forget U.S. Justice Department has put the trial of David Rainey, the only BP big-shot charged with a felony crime in the disaster, on indefinite hold.
The Deepwater Horizon blow-out incinerated eleven men on the rig and poisoned 600 miles of Gulf coastline. What political fairy dust does BP keep in its pocket to receive virtual immunity from the consequences?
To understand what really happened in the Gulf of Mexico, and how BP became a corporate creature beyond the reach of the law, British television network Channel 4 sent me on a four-continent investigation through a labyrinthine funhouse of bribery, lap-dancing, beatings, Wikileaks, a coup d’état, arrests and oil-state terror.
I found the cause of the tragedy of the Deepwater Horizon seven thousand miles from the Gulf in the ancient city of Baku, the Central Asian caravan stop on the Silk Road.
For the interview with agent Abrahams and the full story of the Deepwater Horizon, see, Vultures and Vote Rustlers, the documentary which will be available as a download without charge for the next two days courtesy of the not-for-profit Palast Investigative Fund.
The literal source of Soviet power until 1991, Baku has been exporting petroleum for 3,000 years. As the Soviet Union shattered into pieces that year, BP set its sights on the city. It is now the capital of the new nation of Azerbaijan, which sits atop the biggest untapped oil field in the world, right beneath the Caspian Sea.
A coup for BP
BP Chairman Lord Browne flew into Baku as soon as the young state elected its first president. Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher joined him via the “Iron Lady,” a plane the corporation outfitted especially for her. At a state dinner, Browne handed BP Vice-President Abrahams a briefcase and showed him the contents: a check for $30 million. Browne then gave the check to the president of Azerbaijan.
Still, the new president remained “not favorable” to BP’s demand for control of the Caspian oil, so MI6, the CIA and the corporation went into action. The spy agencies armed and empowered the former Soviet KGB chief Heydar Aliyev, who in 1993 overthrew Azerbaijan’s elected government. Once he became dictator, Aliyev named himself president for life and within four months signed a no-bid deal to give the reserves to BP.
BP and MI6 man Abrahams was instructed, he told me, to “smooth the way” for the deal by taking Azeri officials to London in Lord Browne’s jet for weekends of lap-dancing and other entertainment. By Abraham’s own estimation, he paid over $3 million in additional cash bribes to make certain BP would have no trouble.
I should note that Abrahams broke no law: bribery by a British subject was legal then. BP did not deny the pay-offs when I questioned them directly, and MI6 officers proudly confirmed the coup d’état’s purpose of locking in the offshore deal for BP.
Quick-dry, quick-kill cement
What does this have to do with the blow out of the Deepwater Horizon?
This: It is now well established that the disaster occurred when the cement used to cap the well failed, allowing explosive methane gas to fill the rig and transform it into a sinking fire ball.
But this was not BP’s first cement failure and explosion. Just 17 months earlier, BP’s Caspian Sea Transocean rig suffered exactly the same fate.
The cause of the two blow-outs was identical. In the Caspian as in the Gulf, BP laced its cement with nitrogen gas. The nitrogen bubbles sped up the drying of the mixture, saving BP half a million dollars a day on rig rental charges. But in offshore high-pressure zones, nitrogen-spiked cement can fail. And it did. Twice.
Question: Why in the world was BP allowed to use this insanely dangerous “quick-dry” cement just after a failure in the Caspian? Answer: A cover-up––via threats, beatings, arrests, bribery, perjury and the complicity of the U.S. State Department.
I only learned of the prior blow-out because of a coded message from the Caspian Sea received from one very nervous eye witness. To get the evidence, I flew to Baku and headed across the road-less desert to find more witnesses.
But
we had been ratted out. My crew was placed under arrest by Azerbaijan’s
secret police. While they demanded our film, I was allowed to keep my
pen, which was actually a hidden camera. (I’ve learned a few things from
Maxwell Smart.)How do you keep a monstrous blow-out from going public? As one of the arresting cops told us with odd pride, “BP drives this country.” It drives it with cash. Robert Ebel, former chief of oil analysis for the CIA, estimates that at least $140 million of payments by BP for Azeri oil has gone unaccounted for. Where did it go? Notably, the Aliyev ruling family lives like pashas despite the president’s official salary of $100 a month.
Oil worker advocate Mirvari Gahramanli said she was beaten by police for raising questions. In case I doubted it, she showed me photographs of a dozen cops slamming her with long clubs.
What’s worse, while I was tossed out of the country (it would have looked bad to throw a TV reporter into a dungeon), my witnesses disappeared.
Wikileaks and oily lies
Just five months before the Deepwater Horizon spill, BP Vice-President for Gulf Exploration David Rainey testified before the U.S. Congress that the company had drilled offshore “for the last 50 years in a manner both safe and protective of the environment.”
BP’s testimony was a lie. The Caspian rig blew out a year earlier.
But the lie was good enough for Congress. Based on Rainey’s assurances, legislators pressured the Department of the Interior to drop objections to plans for drilling in the Gulf’s deep waters.
Withholding information from Congress is a felony crime. But Rainey has one heck of a defense: the U.S. State Department was in on the cover-up.
Deep in the pile of confidential State Department cables released by one courageous U.S. soldier, Pvt. Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning, we have the notes from a secret meeting between the U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan, Anna Dearse, and the chief of BP’s Caspian operation.
The hugger-mugger was demanded by BP’s American partners, Chevron and Exxon. The U.S. oil companies had complained to the State Department that they were no longer getting their piece of the Caspian loot and BP wouldn’t tell them why. (You’ll remember that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was a member of Chevron’s board of executives.)
In the memo, which you can see in our film, Vultures and Vote Rustlers, the U.S. Ambassador provides the details of the blow-out of the bad cement on the BP rig.
The State Department kept schtum, not even warning U.S. safety regulators. And Exxon and Chevron’s chiefs joined BP’s Rainey in the mendacious sales pitch to Congress, testifying, despite their knowledge, that their offshore drilling methods were safe as a game of checkers.
Justice is not always abused: David Rainey was indicted for felonious obstruction of Congress. However, the charge centers on a relatively minor falsehood: his alleged understatement of the amount of oil bursting into the Gulf. Neither Rainey nor BP will be tried for the deadlier lie to Congress -- the prior blow-out caused by the penny-pinching quick-dry cement -- because the U.S. government is itself complicit in the cover-up.
Blow-backs and blow-outs
And that’s why we are seeing the red carpet rolled out for BP in the Gulf once more.When the U.S. government participates in the corruption of other democracies, when it authorizes bribery and ignores police-state tactics to benefit from business deals, the sins of empire can come back to haunt the nation. In the CIA’s world this is called “blow-back.” What was covered up in Baku has killed Americans in the Gulf, and it will likely continue to kill.
And bribery does not simply stay “over there.” American officials are not as different from the Baku bandits as they may like to believe. The agency in charge of regulating BP’s drilling in the Gulf, the U.S. Minerals Mining Service, was rife with watchdogs who, like their Azeri counterparts, took backhanders and pay-outs from BP. And when I say BP was in bed with the regulators, that is not a metaphor: a BP lobbyist was sleeping with a chief of the agency.
Don’t bother sending David Rainey a file in a cake: the BP man won’t get two minutes of jail time. His trial has been suspended indefinitely.
Immunity from law is not new to BP. As I reported two weeks ago, BP was the main culprit in the disaster caused by the Exxon Valdez grounding. The company walked away without paying a dime to the victims. In the case of the Deepwater Horizon, a few tenacious attorneys have ensured the corporation pays some compensation in the Gulf. But that money comes nowhere close to the damage it caused and will do nothing to harm the company’s bottom line.
The oil is still there
Today BP has declared Gulf waters clean, as if Mother Nature were just a toilet you can poop in and flush. But I’ve been to the Gulf shores. Dig down ten inches in the shoals off Gulfport and you’ll hit Deepwater Horizon crude. Biologist Rick Steiner tells me BP’s poisonous sludge will remain just under the surface for another 40 year. Hidden––just like BP’s crimes.
For the original article and much more of Greg Palast, please click here.
Keystone Progress Daily Funnies .: Mitch McConnell's Equal Pay Solution from Funny or...
Keystone Progress Daily Funnies .: Mitch McConnell's Equal Pay Solution from Funny or...: Mitch McConnell’s Equal Pay Solution with Peter MacNicol from Peter MacNicol Mitch McConnell offers a solution to eq...
Friday, April 18, 2014
Saviors of the world
Easter is nigh. Pagan mythology lives on in millions of Christian churches around the world!
The above graph was taken from a wonderful article by the Secular School Teacher (which appeared at Daily KOS). You can read the entire article here.
The above graph was taken from a wonderful article by the Secular School Teacher (which appeared at Daily KOS). You can read the entire article here.
Sunday, April 13, 2014
Pathetic, Pompous Politicians and Other Losers
There's something about the south that breeds insanity. I'm not saying that Bob Marshall, a Virginia Republican running for Congress, is insane, but if not, then he's an idiot and something of a monster.
Karoli, writing at Crooks and Liars, notes that Marshall once expressed the thought as to how "'disabled children'" [were] some kind of bizarre divine punishment. Now the Washington Times is reporting that Marshall has concluded "...that incest exceptions in abortion bans are unnecessary because sometimes incest is 'voluntary.'"
So, a young girl, raped by a male member of her family should bear the child because, as Marshall suggests, she may have been a willing participant.
What a pathetic creep!
This man is not a creep, but a true statesman. I'm talking about former Supreme Court Associate Justice, John Paul Stevens. Stevens has gone on record as saying that the 2nd Amendment does not apply to every individual but only to those serving in the military. The 2nd Amendment should be changed thusly to more adequately express the beliefs of those who wrote the Constitution and Bill of Rights:
"A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms when serving in the Militia shall not be infringed."
I can hear the NRA howling already!
Do the pathetic politicians in South Carolina care about the needs of the people - about good health care, good roads, good police and fire protection, safe drugs, safe food to eat, etc.? Not so much. They're too busy harassing the populace with their mindless fundamentalist religious crap and ultra-right political nonsense.
Thus, according to ThinkProgress, in what is doubtless an end-run to define life as beginning at the moment of conception, a state Senate committee has "voted to expand the state's so-called 'Stand Your Ground' law to approve the use of deadly force to protect a fetus. The proposal would grant pregnant women protection from prosecution if they were defending their 'unborn children,' defined as 'the offspring of human beings from birth."
Lord, what a bunch of nut-cases. I wonder, in the whole rotten history of South Carolina, if there has ever been a pregnant woman who shot someone she feared would harm her unborn child/children?
But I think I'm right in suggesting there are a lot of homeless families and hungry children who have neither shelter, nor food nor health care in South Carolina. What do the politicos of the state have to say about that?
The governor of Maine, one Paul LePage, gives idiocy a bad name. The Maine legislature came up with a Medicaid expansion idea which garnered a bipartisan majority. It was even sponsored by Republicans!
The law would have provided health care to about 70,000 poor people in Maine. The feds would cough up the full cost of the first year and then 90% of the cost in following years.
But LePage, who hates Obama with a passion, says he doesn't trust the government so he vetoed the bill.
Here we go again! Another goofball Republican woman wants to be president! As if Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann weren't enough.
This one hails from the south, though. Tennessee. Maybe it's the water. Her name is Marsha Blackburn and she's a Congresswoman. God help us! Marsha, being one of the dimmest bulbs in the Congressional chandelier, claims that women don't want to be paid as much as men for the same work, denies the fact of global warming, and she opposed a domestic violence bill because for some strange reason it protected certain groups.
Liberaland notes that one of her aides said she's a real leader and if there's a fight, she's first in line and "She's not afraid to go toe to toe with anybody."
Yeah, that's the sign of a really great leader. Or a brain-damaged one.
Republicans in South Dakota must be drinking the same water as they do in Tennessee. Senator John Thune, along with other Goofy Old Partisans, is concerned that Obama will tax cow farts. These fine fustodians sped off a letter to folks in the Obama administration pleading that they not regulate cow farting as part of Obama's plan to fight global warming.
I'll bet a psychiatrist would have a field day listening to what these clowns dream up in their sleep!
Here's another possible GOP candidate for president. She can see Carmel Valley from her home. But there's a problem. She tried to buy a home in Carmel Valley and lost it to another family. What would you do if that happened? You would probably go out and look for another home.
Not Kathy Rowe. She got mad and then decided to get even. So "she unleashed her fury by impersonating the woman in a sexually-explicit online advertisement that requested stranger men force their way into her house and 'take me while I say no.'"
A criminal complaint was filed. But I know if Kathy Rowe decides to run as a Republican candidate for president, she'll ask everyone for forgiveness and the GOP establishment will congratulate her on being so forthcoming and ask everyone to vote for her because god loves her and she can build a bridge with government money between herself and her constituents and she can still see Carmel Valley from her home.
Do you remember when we sometimes thought of pro athletes as "heroes" of a sort? They exemplified strength and determination and fitness and they may have had feet of clay but they were not burrowed deep in muck and mire.
Not so these days. As I've noted before, professional sports - especially the more violent ones - have an over-abundance of thugs and gangsters.
Tampa Bay (Florida) has a hockey team. Don't know why, being in Florida, but they do. It's called the Tampa Bay Lightning and lots of folks in Tampa are fanatical about them. The Lightning's left wing, Ryan Moore, was arrested by Tampa police this morning and charged with a DUI. The cops also found 1.3 grams of cocaine in his pocket.
No big deal. Maybe. But maybe it should be.
Did you hear that ex-president Georgi W. Buski told a dirty joke during a civil rights speech? Well, it wasn't so much dirty as just plain dumb, which is what one expects from someone who's just plain dumb: In a speech, he said, wearing that goofy grin, "Former presidents compare their libraries the way other men may compare their, well..."
Ha, ha, ha. The thing is, Bushki is the dirty joke. And it was on us!
If you want to become a Christian prophet or prophetess and make buckets full of money from unsuspecting and ignorant rubes, here's what you do. First off you get yourself on Teevee and hold an old worn Bible open to any place you want (nobody will ever see that page anyway) and then you warn the good folks in America (especially those in the heartland and the south and in the poor areas) that the country's in terrible danger because somebody or some group is going to attack us at some point in the future.
Now, you give this crap credibility by claiming that you "felt" or "heard" this message from the "Lord." You can be referring to Jesus, or God or a British Lord, the Lord of the manor, the Lord at Ford, because the folks at home won't know the difference.
A good example of this kind of idiocy comes from Cindy Jacobs who travels around the world and prophesies to "tens of thousands," including some world leaders. Yikes! Jacobs is a fruitcake who believes, according to Charisma magazine, she has the job of "reforming the nations of the world back to a biblical worldview." Since when did the nations of the world ever have a "biblical worldview"?
Prophetess Jacobs says that a few months ago she "began to feel a great unease again about the safety of America. When she prayed, she claims she "felt the Lord warning me that there were attacks being planned on America in attempts to strike terror in the heart of the nation."
Well, she "felt" lots of other stuff, too, but this is pretty safe "prophesy."
The kicker though is that she also "heard the Lord give "warning and admonition." Of course she did or he did or they did. Just beware, says Jacobs, for there are lots of "hidden" things to be uncovered.
Cindy lives a good life. Makes lots of money. Has a nice family. And the Lord talks to her in various ways much of the time. So she can "prophesy," or foretell the future.
It's the same old snake oil in a new bottle.
In Poland, a decidedly Roman Catholic country, a judge has issued a ruling which would allow The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster to register as an official religion in that country.
The FSM church's website is here. Check it out. It's essentially a way to mock other religions and does that rather successfully.
Furthermore, considering the godawful doctrines of Roman Catholicism, the FSM is like a breath of fresh air.
If you have been fortunate enough not to live in the state of Louisiana, thank your lucky stars! Their public schools have been infiltrated by right-wing Christianist teachings, the state is in dire financial straits; their governor is a Roman Catholic wingnut who has performed an exorcism; and now, a committee in the state House has approved legislation which would make the Bible the official state book.
The bill's sponsor, a dolt by name of Thomas Carmody, says this does not establish an official state religion, it just reflects the views of the founding fathers. Like hell it does. Here we have another dumbass elected official who does not understand reality and truth has no meaning for him nor does history for he thinks that whatever he believes is the truth.
I think dumbass Carmody needs to specify which Bible will become the official state book. There are hundreds of versions, hundreds of translations. Will he make insist on the horrendously inaccurate King James version? How about the Douay version? Is he wanting the Jewish Bible? Will he include the books the Protestants eliminated? And what language would be used? The original Jewish bible was in Hebrew (although there is also a Greek version - the Septuagint) and the New Testament was in Greek. English just doesn't work very well if you really want to understand the text.
The state of Louisiana has a ton of needs. It sure as hell doesn't need an official state book and it sure as hell doesn't need the bible to be that book! And Mr. Carmody needs a refresher course on the U.S. Constitution, for his proposed bill is a frontal attack on the Constitutional doctrine of separation of church and state.
You may not have heard of Rick Wiles. I had not until I read an article in Daily Kos. Wiles is a right-wing lunatic who has a radio show and has claimed "that expanded rights for gays prompted North Korea to threaten nuclear war, [and] that Columbine and Sandy Hook were carried out by 'mind control assassins' ..."
A couple of days ago his lunacy took a few steps further south. He actually called for President Obama to be removed from office by a military coup:
"I warned in 2008," said Wiles, "that Barack Obama's mission is to instigate a second Civil War in America. His regime is deliberately ripping the country apart and if the US Military doesn't take action soon to arrest Barack Obama and remove him and his regime from the White House, there will be no country left for the military to defend. We are on the edge of collapse as a nation. Jesus Christ is America's only hope. Let us pray that Almighty God delivers us from this very real tyranny that seeks to persecute the saints of God."
The president is a Christian. He has no "regime." He does not persecute Christians but, in fact, and to my dismay has continued the Bush program of providing government funds to religious groups for their secular humanitarian duties. Why would God want to "deliver" anyone from such an upstanding Christian man? Furthermore, if the situation is so dire, then god, the omniscient, omnipotent one, would have no problem exercising his/her knowledge and power to rid the country of Obama and his regime.
Or maybe this god thinks Wiles is a crazy fanatic who is best ignored?
And last but not least, Mike Huckabee again. Huckabee wants to be president and thinks that if he disses the president at every opportunity his chances to attain the Oval Office will improve. Now, if Huckabee should become president then we'll need to pray for deliverance. The man lies as a matter of course, and has not a moral or ethical bone in his body.
The other day, Mr. Huckabe, in a speech, reflected on his experiences flying our airlines and mentioned how he is poked and prodded and investigated by the TSA and that has brought him to the point where he thinks there is more freedom in North Korea than in the U.S.
Perhaps we should start a letter-writing campaign suggesting that Huckabee find a North Korean airline, get a one-way ticket and head directly to Pyongyang where I'm sure he'll live happily ever after, free as a bird!
What a pathetic, pompous loser!
Thursday, April 10, 2014
The New Dark Age
A new "State of the Bible" poll via the American Bible Society reveals that about 19% of the people believe the Bible to be God's word. The number of people who reject such a notion and see the Bible more as a book containing interesting stories, has risen from 10% in 2011 to 19% in 2014.
What's really hard to believe is that 19% still hold to the nonsense that this book has some special divine claim.
As for the other 62%, I don't know. Perhaps they don't give a flip one way or the other.
The U.S. House of Representatives, dominated by Republican nogoodniks, has passed Paul Ryan's budget which would balance the books on the backs of the poor and the middle class. It's hard to imagine that the Senate will go along, and I'm certain that the President will treat it like the horrid mess it is and flush.
These same Republican nogoodniks also voted against a bill which would have adjusted more equitably the pay women receive for doing the same work as men. Equal pay for equal work is the idea. Republicans, continuing their war on women, said to hell with that idea. They said "We don't give a damn whether women are treated as equal to men or not!"
The quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers is under investigation by Miami police for an alleged sexual assault that happened around the first of the month. What is it with these NFL playes? It seems like way too many of them are nothing but thugs and gangsters.
Once in awhile, a nogoodnik gets his due. In Boston, a man parked his BMW in front of a fire hydrant which, as we all know, is illegal. Unfortunately, for him, a fire broke out in the neighborhood. The firefighters, in order to get a hose to the hydrant, broke out his windows. His car was not treated kindly. He also got a $100 fine. Yea!
Once again religious stupidity rears its ugly head and our media thinks this is "news." So, we read about a 4-foot statue of the Virgin Mary outside of a Roman church in Indiana which is supposedly weeping tears. Hell, even the pastor doesn't believe it, but people keep coming from all around, taking pictures of this wetness (doubtless caused by the cold and melting snow). Another sign of the dark ages: people kneeling to pray in front of the statue of a mythical figure thinking that a cold stain on her face means the statue has come to life in a miraculous way and thus somehow shows that there really is a god.
But why not? Every time the faithful go to mass, they're told that the bread and wine actually turns into Jesus' blood and flesh: Which they then drink and eat. Hail Mary!
Jim DeMint, the blowhard ex-Senator from South Carolina, claims "big" government did not play a role in eradicating slavery. It was, says dimwit DeMint, the "conscience of the American people" and not the federal government that ended slavery. Tell that to the hundreds of thousands of men and women who died in that bloody conflict. The "conscience" the southern American people thought slavery was just dandy. What a doofus!
We need more floods if they'll cancel the stupid movie about the biblical nutcase, Noah. It did happen that way in Exeter, England. The Vue Cinema flooded overnight because of a faulty ice machine and at least one screening of the movie was canceled. Who said there was no god?
Mike Huckabee is truly a moron; a Southern Baptist preacher who is an ignorant fool and parades his ignorance like a drunken goose. His latest misogynist comment was really funny (Ha, ha). Here's the difference between men and women in his view: Men like to go hunting and fishing with other men. Women like to go the bathroom with other women.
Idiots in Iowa: Joni Ernst is a Republican Senate candidate. She wants your vote because, as she says, "I grew up castrating hogs on an Iowa farm, so when I get to Washington, I'll know how to cut the pork."
Then an Independent Senate candidate, Bob Quast, has an ad where he waves a Glock and threatens to blow off the balls of the person who murdered his sister or anyone who tries to hurt his daughters.
Hillary Clinton was speaking at a meeting of the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries at the Mandalay Bay hotel-casino in Las Vegas when a woman walked down the aisle to about the sixth row from the front and threw a shoe as Ms. Clinton.
Ms. Clinton ducked and no harm was done. The woman was arrested.
But please tell me how someone like that could get so close to the former Secretary of State and First Lady. Did they not have any security available or were those responsible upstairs drinking and screwing around?
It was one of those high-powered NRA events what with the ever-so-serious sociopath, Wayne LaPierre, warning everyone that the Apocalypse would come if everybody in the good ol' USA didn't have a closet full of every kind of weapon available, when one of the attendees shot hisself.
"Freedom," said Pierre,"it's what the founders wanted. We should be able to shoot ourselves anywhere in our bodies. Just check the 2nd Amendment!"
Well, he didn't say that, but just about.
Rush Lumbaugh, or as I refer to him, Mr. Limburger, is all upset that CBS is planning to replace David Letterman with Stephen Colbert. Actual, Limburger is having what we used to call a conniption fit. He's freaking out, which is the one thing he can do really well. Well, other than abuse drugs.
This action by CBS, rails the Cheese, means "CBS has just declared war on the heartland of America. No longer is comedy going to be a covert assault on traditional American values, conservatism. Now it's just wide out in the open." Blah, blah, blah.
First of all Limburger doesn't know diddly squat about the American heartland. He doesn't know diddly squat about anything. But he can make a lot of noise. That's what cheese does when ingested in enormous quantities in a man with an enormous head, with an enormous ego, and with an enormous ass and nothing to show for it except the smell. Of limburger!
Harvard University has announced that after extensive scientific tests, scientists believe that the so-called "Gospel of Jesus Wife" is not a forgery. It's real. The thing is a piece of papyrus no larger than a small postcard and contains just a few lines, a couple of which seem to indicate Jesus is talking about his wife.
As Karen L. King, professor at Harvard Divinity School notes, this does not necessarily mean that Jesus was married, but rather that some early Christians thought he was.
Problems abound. The language is Coptic. It may be from the sixth to ninth centuries or perhaps the fourth century. In other words, its not even as close to the purported events as are the accepted gospels. Furthermore, we know that as the church grew so did the legends and stories. So this may be a monk's wet dream and nothing more.
Also, in the early centuries, we can account for as many as 200 gospels all presenting a different picture of this "Jesus" and all beloved of the communities which produced them. Again, this is to be expected for the Jesus of the traditional gospels and the others was not a real person but was created to give bones to the Christ of Paul; Paul's Christ being a heavenly figure, not an earthly one.
So, this fragment is essentially much ado about nothing. Just like most of the rest of the Bible.
One of the big "missions" of the Koch Brothers is to do away with the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.
But they got a huge chunk of change from the very thing they're trying to drown. According to Joan McCarter, writing for the Huffington Post, "Congress created a $5 billion temporary reinsurance fund in the Affordable Care Act, to subsidize the cost to employers for providing ongoing coverage for people who retire before Medicare eligibility. The Kochs, of course, took a chunk of that."
Harry Reid noted that this reinsurance program "helped the company pay health insurance costs for its retirees who are not covered by Medicare..." In truth, Koch Industries got $1.4 mil from the feds.
Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.
Sam Clovis is also from Iowa. God, if only we could keep Iowans in Iowa but they all seem to want to live in Washington and work for the government they hate! I don't get it.
Anyway Clovis, not the sharpest knife in the drawer, is a Republican (naturally) running for the U.S. Senate. He says that a bunch of Congressional Republicans would like to impeach the President but they are afraid they would be called racists. Well, Clovis said they won't go through with it because of the color the president's skin (1/2 white ya know) and they're jittery that the media would have a field day making fun of them.
Clovis, naturally, doesn't appear to know of any reason why Mr. Obama should be impeached. I'm not even sure he knows what that means.
Way down in Louisiana we got another winner, a good ol' boy Republican Congressman who talks a lot about the importance of family values. In fact, that's how he got elected - 'cause he was a family-values person!
Mr. Vance McAllister is his name and y'all should know that he got caught cheating on his wife the other day. So, per the usual, he's begged forgiveness from god, his family, his friends, his enemies, his golf buddies, his golf cart, his cat, his dog ... well, you get the picture!
Did Mr. McAllister resign? Nah. He's got those family values, ya know. Instead, he fired his girlfriend who just happened to work for him.
Oh, and he didn't ask forgiveness from his girlfriend's husband.
Maybe this will help us here in Florida. We've got a big problem. Somehow we've got to get rid of our nogoodnik governor. And here's a ray of light. The Tampa Bay Times printed an editorial dissing the governor. No punches were pulled.
Rick Scott, said the Times, has "In three years ... done more harm than any modern governor, from voting rights to privacy rights, public schools to higher education, environmental protection to health care. ...
"This is the tin man as governor, a chief executive who shows no heartfelt connection to the state, appreciation for its values or compassion for its residents. Duke Energy is charging its electric customers billions for nuclear plants that were botched or never built. Homeowners are being pushed out of the state-run Citizens Property Insurance Corp. and into private insurers with higher premiums and no track records. Federal flood insurance rates are soaring so high that many property owners cannot afford the premiums but also cannot sell their homes. The governor sides with the electric utilities and property insurers. He criticizes the president rather than fellow Republicans in Congress for failing to fix the flood insurance fiasco they helped create.
In Scott's Florida, it is harder for citizens to vote and for the jobless to collect unemployment. It is easier for renters to be evicted and for borrowers to be charged high interest rates on short-term loans. It is harder for patients to win claims against doctors who hurt them and for consumers to get fair treatment from car dealers who deceive them. It is easier for businesses to avoid paying taxes, building roads and repairing environmental damage."
I couldn't have said it better myself. Let's hope the good folks of Florida will get rid of this crooked
Texas transplant, the man responsible for the largest Medicare fraud in the history of the world!
Not One Law Republicans Passed Has Helped America In Over Forty Years (via Liberaland)December 2, 1970 was the last time a Republican created something that benefits the greater good of society. Seriously, it’s been over forty years since any Republican has successfully enacted legislation that is based on scientific data, also known…
Friday, April 4, 2014
Republicans and Other Wingnuts
The Republican Party used to contain some folks with a smidgen of intelligence, kindness, common sense and patriotism. Today Republicans so described are far and few between. The Republican Party is the Wingnut Party, comprised of kooks, nasties, ignoramuses, contrarians, and unpatriotic SOB's.
But on occasion, Republicans make us smile. Not because they've done anything decent or worthwhile, but because their actions make them look like idiots.
The State of Missouri has always had a reputation. Not necessarily a good one. Stubborn, the people of Missouri have been called, and they're proud of it. Now we can call some of them ignoramuses and stupids. Especially the ones elected to the state legislature. These bright and shining numbnuts just passed a law which "nullifies all federal gun laws in their state." This, at the same time as another shooting at Fort Hood!
The bill is, of course, against the law and the Constitution. But some folks in Missouri never got the word they lost the Civil War and that federal law trumps state law every time! Missouri state troopers don't like this law at all as Missouri is home to a number of ultra-crazy militia type groups who have all the smarts of dog poop, and tend to violence like a crazed polar bear.
The bill allows the good folks of Missouri to sue agents of the federal government if the latter attempt to enforce any federal gun laws. OK, that's kind of funny. But less funny is the fact it allows people with concealed gun permits to carry their weapons in the open even in cities witch disallow such a thing. And now a 19-year old can get a concealed carry permit (down from 21).
The idiot sponsoring the bill in the House is Doug Funderburk, a Republican, naturally. He does not understand the Second Amendment and claims "This is what our founding fathers intent was ...and this is how we push back on a federal government that is running out of control."
The only group out of control in this case are the kooks in the Missouri Legislature!
Our southern states have always been on the brink of wingnuttery but some of us hoped that might change, you know, after the Civil War and the Civil Rights Act, and the move into the modern age. But nooooooo. Mississippi, with the most pregnant teens in the country, just got around to instituting sex education in the schools. Of course, the definition of sex education in Mississippi leaves something to be desired.
In Oxford, Mississippi, "The new curriculum ... has teachers giving Peppermint Patties to the students, having them unwrap them, and then passing them around. Once a piece of chocolate makes it around the classroom, students are told that when they have sex, they're like that dirty piece of candy."
Isn't that funny? I sometimes think it would have been a good thing if the "South" had successfully seceded. But then, they'd need all kinds of foreign aid from the United States; even more than they get now! And lots of mental health care.
Indiana Senator Dan Coats may be be suffering from some disease or perhaps he's been a Republican too long. He went to a hearing on Capitol Hill and sat there for an hour. "[...] when he took his turn Wednesday afternoon, [he started] flipping papers on his lap, reading from them and commending the witness for his department's prompt response to a letter Coats had sent about a military accounting office in his home state."
But the moron was in the wrong hearing! And he didn't realize it until one of his staffers handed him a note.
Ha, ha, ha.
Alan West. You may remember him. The crazy former Congressman from Florida. Well, he's written a book. Hell, I didn't even know he could read! The book is called "Guardian of the Republic." It describes his political thinking and incorporates a bunch of quotes WHICH ARE FALSE!
For example, he claims Thomas Jefferson said "A government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take it away." Heh, heh. A phony quote. And there's more just like it.
But Alan West has never felt bounded by the truth and typical of Republicans, he just makes things up to support his neatherthandalic beliefs and bolster his ignorant stupidness!
Florida again. If you wish to see wingnuttery in spades, come to Florida. We've got that insane "Stand your ground" law, which allows people to murder other people (e.g., Zimmerman) without any consequences.
Now, because some media types have started digging into the background of these "Stand your ground" cases, our moronic State Legislature has passed a bill closing those files to all further access.
Republicans claim to be defenders of freedom, but in almost every instance where freedom is an issue, they vote for the opposite!
Ha, ha, ha. Again we're in the South. North Carolina. A candidate for the 6th Congressional was asked by a 6th-grader how he would defend the rights of LGBT folks. Mr. Phil Berger, Jr., the candidate in question and the Rockingham County District Attorney, said he supported "traditional marriage," and same-sex marriage was like "a man marrying a dog."
Isn't that funny. Oh, Mr. Berger is a Republican. He's also a joke.
Also from North Carolina, a bastion of science education and knowledge. I'm being sarcastic. Charles Sutherland is retired. He used to own a business. He's pretty much an ignorant fool but proud of it. Mr. Sutherland said that when it comes to climate change, "we're heading into another Ice Age, not getting warmer. We need to prepare for that."
My god that's so funny. Republicans are really comical.
Paul Rosenberg, writing for Salon, wonders why fundamentalist Christians who claim to take the Bible literally, don't also believe the earth is flat and fixed, for the Bible is quite clear that is the case. I also wonder how the Creationists deal with the fact that the "firmament" or "expanse," in Genesis is said to provide a divide in the waters where earth could exist. The expanse above is the sky. Above the sky is water.
Even Creationists ought to be able to see this is not a literal description of the way things are!
This from Daily Kos. Another funny Republican: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Last week he refused to allow a reporter cover one of his press conferences. The reporter was from Kentucky, Ms. McConnell's home state.
Last June this strong supporter of the First Amendment told how he "spoke at the American Enterprise Institute and warned of a grave and growing threat to the First Amendment. That threat has not let up."
Yup. McConnell's so funny. He's one of the threats!
Gun Owners of America. This is a very funny group. They want to repeal all "gun-free" zones in the United States! Their rationale is that if everyone is armed and someone starts shooting everybody else can pull out their weapon and kill the first shooter.
That's why last year a very funny Texas Republican Congressmen, Steve Stockman, introduced a bill to repeal the ban on carrying firearms on military bases. He thinks that if civilians can be armed, military personnel should be able to carry weapons on their posts.
So, the recent shooting at Fort Hood would have turned out much differently if only there were a bunch of soldiers carrying weapons when the shooter started shooting. You could have had ten or twenty people shooting. Maybe a hundred dead instead of three.
God, what a fun time!
Some wingnuts in Georgia want to allow people to carry guns while attending church. Hmm...if the preacher is saying something you don't like, just plug the bastard. In the name of Jesus, Amen.
Some good guys. Well, actually, good girls. Sort of. The National Coalition of American Nuns has expressed support of the Affordable Care Act. As part of that support the nuns have publicly backed the Obamacare mandate that insurance companies provide contraceptive devices, etc.
A wingnut, Michael Hichborn, who represents the American Life League, got all hot and bothered about these "renegade" nuns and claims they are not good Catholics. "It remains to be seen," said the wingnut Hichborn, "how they can call themselves even Catholic, let alone nuns, considering that they support abortion, birth control, homosexuality, women's ordination. I mean, they've filled themselves up so much with their own immoral agenda that they've left absolutely no room for Christ."
Now you've got to admit that's hilarious. Can you find a single reference by Jesus to abortion, birth control, homosexuality or women's ordination?
Go nuns!
Star Parker. She'd be funny if she weren't so damn dense and so damn unChristian. She thinks that the black Congresswoman, Barbara Lee, is so liberal she can't see that Paul Ryan is no racist when he blames black culture and idle black men for failing to be more like Paul Ryan and his Wall Street pals - you know, rich and white.
Star Parker is also black. A female Uncle Tom. The problem, says Ms. Parker, is not racism but liberalism. And Mr. Ryan is not a racist, but a "real reformer." Ryan, the one with the budget balanced on the backs of the poor!
I wonder if Ms. Star blames the latest recession on liberals, too: All those "liberals" on Wall Street who destroyed our economy and the 1% percent "liberals" who are destroying the middle class and the chance of most everybody to achieve the so-called "American Dream"?
Poverty-stricken blacks, according to Ms. Parker, are in that situation became of liberalism. Racism had nothing to do with it. Especially in the south. I mean those slave owners and the Strom Thurmonds always treated their blacks folks right. Right?
And what we need right now, says Parker, is Paul Ryan, "who wants to make Americans of all backgrounds better off by giving them more freedom, more choice, more responsibility, and less government."
Just don't give them any money like the damn liberals want to do!
Star Parker really isn't funny.
Here's another really humorous guy. He's Dr. Alex McFarland, who is connected to the Center for Chritian Worldview and Apologetics at North Greenville Univeristy. McFarland has the answer: The recent shooting at Fort Hood happened because we are not longer a "real" Christian nation.
After WWII, says this genius, "Christianity was the core of the community." [I know that wasn't true because I was living then, and McFarland wasn't.] And his statement that "the post-World War II generation" had a "Christian mental view," which meant that when people "were at the very end of their tether," they "would turn to God," is pure, unadulterated hogwash.
Pshaw. The Fort Hood shooting happened, says Mac, because "we've told generations of public school students that there is no creator God, there's purposeless evolution - and now since 1973, we've murdered ten times more human beings than Adoph Hitler through abortion."
Of course, that's why Ivan Lopez bought a gun and began shooting folks at Fort Hood. It's amazing. Thank you Dr. McFarland.
Except, as with many Christianist wingnuts, McFarland doesn't worry about truth. The fact is, there were a number of shootings in this country in the years following WWII: Howard Unruh, a WWII vet in Camden, New Jersey, took a German Luger and shot 13 people in 1949. Charles Whitman, in 1966, at the University of Texas, killed 16, etc.
Finally, back to Florida. Remember our "Stand your Ground" law. Well, for Florida legislators, that's not enough. They are freaking gun crazy! The State Legislature has passed a "warning shot bill." That means that you can fire a warning shot at someone if you fear for your life and not be charged under the current law, which is fairly severe - from 10 years in prison to life in prison.
Can you imagine? We'll have all kinds of crazies firing "warning" shots and most of the time these folks will shoot themselves in the foot or the head, but every once in a while they're going to shoot someone else dead.
Some large questions arise. How much in fear for your life do you have to be? How close does the aggressor need to get before you can fire a warning shot? How many warning shots can you shoot? One? Ten? Twenty?
This bill now heads to the governor, Rick Scott. He's a triple-digit wingnut and not funny at all so it is likely he'll sign the thing.
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
Idiots R Us - #4
At first I thought the story as to which of our States would survive a "Zombie Apocalypse" was an April Fool's joke. But the dateline of the story was March 28, updated on March 31.
It's doubtless a prank, but what kind of freaking world do we live in when some folks think a possible Zombie Apocalypse is worth a long article on the Huffington Post?
The scariest part of this is that there are doubtless idiots among us who really believe in Zombies and that dead people come back to life and eat brains.
For all the stupids out there: There are no such things as Zombies! Dead people are called dead for a reason: they are dead!
For the stupids who write such articles, even in fun, Get a Life!
This is also from the Huffington Post. "Texas Workforce Solutions in Dallas received a job application by email ... from a man who also attached a picture of a penis.
The idiot did not get the job. He got charged "with obscene display or distribution, a misdemeanor.
Being a teenager can be difficult. The teen years are challenging. Many teens have not yet left their childhood behind. They are stupid. Some of these stupid kids are playing a game called the "Eraser Challenge."
The "game" involves erasing your "skin while saying the alphabet and coming up with a word for each letter." Some of the stupids have suffered "pretty severe wounds."
Sheesh! The next thing will probably be tattoos! Idiots!
Gun control. The NRA's position is stupid. Always has been stupid. They fight every reasonable attempt to control weapons, to help stop the killing that goes on in our society.
The State of New York has gun control laws which are more strict than most other states. Lots of people are upset about this. These folks believe the 2nd Amendment means they have the right to bear arms, that there should be no controls whatsoever and they ought to be able to purchase any type of weapon or ammunition.
My opinion as an American historian is that the 2nd amendment does not guarantee the right to bear arms to individual citizens. It was never intended to be interpreted in that manner! And Donald Trump who was railing against gun control at a rally in Albany, New York, is an idiot and full of crap.
The 2nd amendment allowed the states to set up militias for their defense. Militias, like the National Guard!
Here's how it reads: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
Back in the day, men might be called up at any time to form a militia. They would need weapons at the ready. That didn't mean that every Tom, Harry and other Dicks should walk around armed to the teeth and shoot those who they perceived to be a threat (as a Florida law allows)!
The right to bear arms had to do with being part of a State militia.
The NRA has successfully sold the American people a bill of goods. The NRA is not a defender of freedom but an enemy of common sense and the Commonwealth.
One final comment: Let's say that the 2nd amendment does mean that everyone can have any old weapon he or she desires. If that were true then it's about time the 2nd amendment is changed to reflect the danger guns pose to our society!
Here we go again. It's not the shroud this time, it's the Holy Grail, the "cup" that Jesus drank from at the Last Supper.
"Some historians" are claiming this is the historic chalice.
Stop! The Jesus of the Gospels is a mythical figure, created many years after his supposed life came to an end in order to give some historical bones to the "Christ" figure that Paul had seen in one of his visions!
There was no Jesus, there was no Last Supper, there was no "cup," and if there were such a thing it wouldn't be an "onyx goblet ... now encased in a gold chalice" and it wouldn't be residing in a church in Spain.
The Roman church in particular has made millions of buckaroos and converts by claiming to possess the bones of a saint, or some other artifact dating back to the early centuries. There have been enough bones of the crucified Christ and enough nails from his cross to build a cathedral!
If you read Paul's authentic letters in the New Testament, which, by the way, are the earliest of the New Testament books, you will note he never shows the least bit of interest in anything about the so-called "historical" Jesus. He never mentions Jesus, except in a couple of notations which are challenged by scholars. He's all about his Christ figure who lives in the heavens. Even when he goes to Jerusalem, he shows no interest in seeing where Jesus was crucified or any other site of his reported life. He shows no interest in Jesus' physical appearance or his clothing and for damn sure, he cared nothing about the "cup" used in the Last Supper.
Isn't it interesting that nowhere in the Gospels nor in Paul's writings nor anywhere else is there a physical description of Jesus?
At the time Jesus is said to have lived, there were many people writing of the events of the times. The Romans also kept meticulous records of their entire empire. Nowhere is there any mention of Jesus or of any incidents of Jesus' life as recorded in the Gospels.
Enough with shrouds and cups. If you really believe in Jesus and what he said, go out and take care of the sick and the poor and those in prison.
Hobby Lobby is run by a right-wing fundamentalist Christian who does not want his company's insurance program to pay for emergency contraceptives, or intrauterine devices or abortion-inducing medications for Hobby Lobby employees. Such a thing would violate his Christian beliefs, he says.
The funny thing here is that if Hobby Lobby is successful in this case now before the U.S. Supremes, it will mean that the corporation is acting out the beliefs of an individual and therefore the corporation can no longer hide behind the artificial nonsense that it is not responsible for its actions.
Furthermore, and this gets even more humorous, today it was revealed that Hobby Lobby's retirement plan has invested millions of dollars in a variety of companies that produce the very things Hobby Lobby is railing against!
In other words, Hobby Lobby and its owner are huge hypocrites.
But this is not what it's all about. It's really about opening the door for Christians to force the government to bow to their wishes and begin the creation of a theocratic system.
His name is Scott Lively. He's running for governor of Massachusetts. He's an active anti-gay fundamentalist Christian pastor who has said that Obama supports LBGT rights because he might be gay, who travels around the world preaching hatred of homosexuals, who claims he's at least partly responsible for Russia's anti-gay laws, who authored a book called the "Pink Swastika: Because Academic Integrity is Overrated" - it's this idiot who said recently he'd think it would be really fine if gay folks either submit to anti-gay therapy (which has been proven time and again to be ineffective) or be put in jail.
Hallejuah. Praise the Lord. This son-of-a-bitch is preaching the Gospel of Jesus. Or not.
Sister Jane Dominic Laurel is another idiot - but she's also a Roman Catholic nun. This idiot gave a lecture on "masculinity and femininity" at a Catholic high school in North Carolina. Here's some of what this truth-challenged nuncompoop said:
Masturbation will probably make a boy gay. Not girls? And boys living with a single mom will be more likely to be gay because they have no father around to show them how to be masculine. Heh, heh. Yes, she really said this.
She also said that gay men are promiscuous and that gay couples abuse their children.
Once again a spokesperson for the Roman church publicly exhibits ignorance, stupidity and hatred.
We know from various surveys that 25-50% of priests/seminarians are gay. I wonder what is the percentage of gay nuns. Sister Jane didn't speak to those issues. Could she possibly be gay?
One of the biggest idiots to inhabit our Congress is a character name of Louis Gohmert who is a Repugnican from Texas. Gohmert either can't read or cannot understand what he reads. He is ignorant of history and exposes his ignorance bolstered by his stupidity over and over again in public.
We've all heard of the "wall of separation between church and state" as stated in our Constitution. Well, Mr. Gohmert, who has a difficult time mastering the thinking process, says "the constitutional separation between church and state was meant to be a 'one-way' wall where the 'church plays a role in the state.'"
You know the old saw about leading a horse to water but being unable to make him drink. An updated version is that you lead an old Gohmert to the facts, but you can't make him learn anything.
He's an embarrassment to Texas and to the United States.
And finally, a sports hero idiot. He's being hailed as another Tebow and he says that's a good thing because Tebow stands up for his faith and loves Jesus.
Trevor Knight is a star quarterback for Oklahoma and he loves to share his Christian faith.
Well, I've got a suggestion: Shut the f... up! I don't care what your religious faith is. I don't care if you've had a personal experience with the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I don't care if your faith lifts your arm and helps you throw the football or calms the butterflies in your stomach when you go out on a date with a pretty girl.
Because you can throw a football does not mean you're not an idiot. Your stardom does not give credence to your admiration for mythical figures in the sky or legendary characters from a couple of millenia ago.
Fortunately, I can turn you off with a push of a button. But, because you're a star you've got a captive audience made up of fanatics (fans) and it's really tiresome to hear you blather on about how your faith has helped you deal with adversity.
Just throw the damn football.
Here ends the sermon for this day!
[Thanks to Atheist Cartoons.]
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Idiots R Us - #3
Money still talks. Robert H. Richards IV is an heir to the du Pont fortune. He's not gainfully employed. He raped his 3-year old daughter. He said it was an "accident." Superior Court Judge, Jan Jurden let him off because he "will not fare well" in prison.
How the hell do you "accidentally" rape a 3-year old child? Since when do we let people go free because the won't "fare well" in prison? Who the hell fares well in prison?
If you're a poor person, white or black, and caught with marijuana, some states would put you in prison where you would not fare well for 20 years.
Judge Jurden should resign. Richards should be locked up for a good long time.
Good luck with that!
Ted Nugent's latest insult directed toward the president of these United States consisted of calling the President a "subhuman mongrel." It is hard to fathom what goes on in the mini-mind of Mr. Nugent, who because he is a musician, thinks he can speak of the leader of this country in such a disparaging manner.
One article I read said that "everyone" is offended by this insult. But it mentioned only Rick Perry and Rand Paul. Perry noted Nugent's blast was not appropriate language. When asked to comment about the fact that Greg Abbott, a Repugnican running for governor of the oil state, hangs out with Nugent and has been blessed by Nugent, Perry refused to comment.
These hypocritical Repugnicans should be ashamed of themselves. Ever since Mr. Obama was elected, they have reviled him in all kinds of ways, questioning his birthplace, claiming that he's destroying the country, publicly calling for his impeachment. Others have slandered him in ways just as offensive as Nugent.
So, Nugent, bless his filthy little heart, is just following the lead of Repugnican leaders.
Paul Ryan, as the House Budget Committee Chairman, has come up with another "not-so-new" Repugnican budget plan that is tailored to "balance the budget" on the backs of the poor, the elderly and the young. He calls this a "balanced" plan.
Ryan, a Roman Catholic who has adopted the atheist Ayn Rand as his political mentor/guru, believes that the elderly are feeding in the trough of government largess, that the poor are poor because they don't want to work - it's their culture you know, and kids today just don't have what it takes.
So, Ryan's budget, over the next ten years, would lop $5.1 trillion in federal spending. It would cut food stamps, and several programs such as pensions for federal workers and Pell Grants for poor college students. It would cut health care for the poor and working class. The Huffington Post says it would "steer away from cuts to benefits for senior citizens, at least in the short term, but reprises a voucher-like Medicare program for future retirees."
Here's a suggestion: Leave the poor, the old, and the working class the hell alone! Tax the rich. Make GE and Boeing and other companies pay at least some taxes. Stop allowing companies to hide profits off-shore. Stop gifting the oil companies huge subsidies when they're raking in billions of dollars in profit every year.
And here's another suggestion, Mr. Ryan: cut your own goddamn health care and your pension and leave the rest of us to live out our days in peace!
Oh, you might also try to pass some bills which would create more jobs.
Bethlehem Community Church in Laurel, Mississippi, pranked its parishioners by implying former president Georgi Bushki would be giving a "biblical" message. Church officials didn't mention any names, but rather spoke of a "mystery guest."
They did line the "entrance to the church with American flags," and hired men to look like secret service agents.
The "Bush" that showed up, however, was an impersonator named John Morgan, who looks and acts much like the real Georgi W. Bushki.
Just goes to show, you can't believe anything these churches say and they'll do just about anything to get you in the door and pick your pocket!
Did you hear about the Minnesota couple who scammed the assistance program of that state out of $165,000 while living large, with several million in secret bank accounts and a mansion plus yacht in Florida?
And you thought all welfare scammers were poor black single moms with lots of kids!
The truth is that neither the Minnesota couple, nor poor folks of whatever color, are a threat to our system or our financial situation. It's the corporations who receive huge amounts of money every year as gifts from the rest of us that are scamming the system and creating our budgetary crisis.
Some Repugs like to talk as if Social Security is going to be the financial downfall of the United States. That's total bullshit! Social Security is solvent and with no adjustments will continue just fine for at least 3 more decades. And all could be well forever and ever if the rich paid in their fair share to the Social Security system and if Congress would stop "borrowing" Social Security monies to fund their pet projects.
According to an article by Joan McCarter at Daily Kos, Republican states which have failed to implement the Medicaid expansion have kept millions of children from being covered by health insurance.
"[...] in states not implementing the Medicaid expansion, children account for 75% of the uninsured eligible for Medicaid or CHIP."
Even in states which did accept the Medicaid expansion, many children have been left out because people were not informed as to the availability of health care or how to go about getting it.
There are 14 million uninsured individuals eligible for this insurance. 5.2 million of these are children.
Way to go, GOP!!!
Ted Cruz is not known to be a funny guy. He isn't a funny guy. He's an unhappy, cruel and miserable SOB. But what he did on Facebook was funny. He asked his "friends" to answer "an informal survey on his verified senatorial Facebook page."
Obamacare is now four years old. Cruz wanted to know if his friends were better off now than the were before the ACA. They were instructed to answer "Yes" or "No".
"It's probably fair to say that he didn't expect the tsunami of "YES" votes that have shown up on the page among the 47,000 that Facebooks says have been posted."
The Yes people liked not being disqualified because of pre-existing conditions; they liked (if they were young) to stay on their parent's insurance up to age 26, and they liked the lower premiums and no lifetime benefit limits.
I'm laughing.
[The above is from The Jed Report on Daily Kos]
Daniel Lapin is an Orthodox Jewish rabbi, and represents the Orthodox Jewish answer to Christianity's prosperity gospel. Lapin is not an idiot, but something close, clothed in religious garb but spewing nonsense nonstop.
Lapin was on Pat Robertson's 700 Club recently. He has a new book to promote, which deals with the "ancient Jewish wisdom" of "making money."
Robertson is an idiot. Which makes me think that Lapin must be, too, just for appearing on Robertson's show. Robertson raised the old saw about all Jews being rich and wanted to know how they "prosper financially."
It went downhill from there. Lapin claimed that paying a mechanic to fix his BMW or a kid to mow his lawn was "taking care of God's other children." Really. That's what he said!
But here's the kicker: God doesn't want anyone to be an adolescent or to retire. Lapin says there are no Jewish words for "adolescent" or "retire" so the obvious conclusion is that to be an adolescent or a retiree is bad. Robertson said he thought Lapin to be right, that to retire is to violate God's law.
And finally, Lapin charged that the U.S. government has become Marxist and has made its people slaves.
I rescind my earlier statement: Lapin IS an idiot! Maybe there is a hell where he and Robertson can tell each other stories for all eternity.
How to know God is real. There are seven things. You'll be convinced. Or not. These are from a Christianist by name of J. Lee Grady who writes at the fundy Charisma website.
1. Babies. Yup. Just look at that wonderful little baby and consider all the stuff in that baby's DNA and you'll be convinced that god is real. Of course an ape has 98 percent of the same DNA and a mouse is very similar in terms of DNA to humans, but...
2. Thunderstorms. Really. I'm serious. This is what he wrote. You'll know God is real by watching thunderstorms from your back porch; especially if you live in Florida. Like St. Paul said, "creation was the best evidence of God's existence." Hmmm. Tell that to the victims of a tsunami, or a tornado, or a snowstorm, or a mudslide, or...well, I don't think thunderstorms are going to convince anyone that there is a God. Might convince some there is no god!
3. Flowers. Most are not edible. They are just to make the world look better. It couldn't be they just evolved. Nope, a "loving God" created "each individual shape and color scheme for our enjoyment." "Well, except for that damn plant that clamps around you and smothers you to death or that damn Florida vine that destroyed everything around it in my back yard! Nah, flowers aren't gonna do it.
4. The Bible. Oh boy. I think if anyone reads the Bible with an open mind he or she will quickly become convinced that the god of the Bible is a horrible, mythical creature that best be forgotten. He's the one who created millions of people in such a way that they "misbehaved," so he decided to kill them off except for one pederast by name of Noah. Then he re-peopled the earth with the same scum he just killed. He's the one who tells his favorite tribe to disembowel their enemies, rape their women and smash their children against the rocks. He's the one who's going to send everyone to an eternal hell where they will be consumed by fire unless they believe that he was killed as a sacrifice to himself for the sins of the world.
Who can suffer such crap?
5. The global spread of Christianity. I think this may be more of a sign of the devil than of god. Christianity has done more damage to the world in the past 2,000 years than any other group in history!
6. Jesus. You just have to believe that Jesus was the son of god who was killed in order to sate god's bloodlust. Furthermore, there is no credible evidence of any kind that proves Jesus existed. The evidence suggests that he also is a mythical figure. Jesus is not a good argument for a god. Wait, wasn't Jesus supposed to be god? Why then would god have to have himself killed as a sacrifice for himself in order to save all the poor sinners whom he created to be poor sinners? Something's wrong with this picture.
7. A personal friendship with God. Well, that's going to go nowhere. You might as well believe in god because of your personal friendship with Mickey Mouse. It means absolutely nothing.
No wonder people today are leaving religion behind. They're finally catching on. It's a scam.
[The cartoon courtesy of Atheist Cartoons.]
Monday, March 31, 2014
Boycott the Koch Brothers
The Koch brothers, dipping into their bottomless well of money, are a serious threat to American democracy. They can buy and sell anyone and are using their massive funds to spread their ultra-rightwing (dare I say fascist?) political and religious views across the land, usually through front goups with innocuous sounding names. Their pernicious influence is felt everywhere, from the smallest town council to the White House.
But we can fight back. We can boycott Koch products. Do your country and the world a favor by avoiding all the companies on the list and refraining from buying the products mentioned.
Here is a list of Koch products.
Koch Brothers and Koch Industries from:
But we can fight back. We can boycott Koch products. Do your country and the world a favor by avoiding all the companies on the list and refraining from buying the products mentioned.
Here is a list of Koch products.
Koch Brothers and Koch Industries from:
Chevron
Union
Union 76
Conoco
Koch Industry/Invista Products:
COMFOREL® fiberfill
COOLMAX® fabric
CORDURA® fabric
DACRON® fiber
POLYSHIELD® resin
SOLARMAX® fabric
SOMERELLE® bedding products
STAINMASTER® carpet
SUPPLEX® fabric
TACTEL® fiber
TACTESSE® carpet fiber
TERATE® polyols
TERATHANE® polyether glycol
THERMOLITE® fabric
PHENREZ® resin
POLARGUARD® fiber and
LYCRA® fiber
Koch Industry/Georgia-Pacific Products:
Angel Soft toilet paper
Brawny paper towels
Dixie plates, bowls, napkins and cups
Mardi Gras napkins and towels
Quilted Northern toilet paper
Soft ‘n Gentle toilet paper
Sparkle napkins
Vanity fair napkins
Zee napkins
Georgia Pacific Building products:
Dense Armor Drywall and Decking
ToughArmor Gypsum board
Georgia pacific Plytanium Plywood
Flexrock
Densglass sheathing
G/P Industrial plasters (some products used by a lot of crafters)-
Agricultural Plaster
Arts & Crafts Plaster
Dental Plaster
General Purpose Plaster
Glass-reinforced Gypsum (GRG),etc.
There's more on Koch here.
Green Living has much more about the Koch brothers here.
Sunday, March 30, 2014
Idiots R Us #2
Creationists are upset. A representative of Answers in Genesis (the same group that brought America the Creationist Museum) is demanding equal air time to present the Creationist point of view.
This would be hilarious if it weren't so sad and indicative as to how far we have fallen scientifically in this country. The Creationists should be laughed back to the Stone Age not given equal air time to present their religious views under the pretense they are somehow related to science.
Neil deGrasse Tyson is the one behind "Cosmos" and he had the perfect rebuttal to the whiny, pea-brained creationists: "...you don't talk about the spherical earth with NASA and then say let's give equal time to the flat-earthers."
Creationism has NOTHING to do with science no matter what Ken Ham and his cohorts believe! Creationism is a particular religious viewpoint, held by a minority of fundamentalist Christianists who want to believe that the hoary old book of Genesis is some sort of historical document, when it is, in essence, a collection of myths perpetrated by ignorant desert nomads who lived several millennia ago and knew mostly about sheep and cattle and fighting other tribes but nothing of science or the universe or creation!
A new report from the United Nations warns that climate change is real, massive, and is already affecting all life on planet earth. Seth Borenstein, reporting on the UN report says, "The big risks and overall effects of global warming are far more immediate and local than scientists once thought. It's not just about melting ice, threatened animals and plants. It's about the human problems of hunger, disease, drought, flooding, refugees and war, becoming worse."
If we are to save ourselves, we must take action now for we can no longer smooth over the issue by thinking the effects of global warming and climate change are far off in the future and that we have plenty of time to fix things.
As Borenstein quotes from Michael Mann, a Penn State scientist, "It's not far-off in the future and it's not exotic creatures - it's us and now."
Pat Robertson again. He cannot stop himself from making moronic and stupid remarks. On his 700 Club a viewer expressed difficulty converting her atheistic coworker. Robertson said he thought it possible that the atheist might believe as she does because she's possessed by demons or has been raped.
And there you have it folks: Demon possession and rape leads to atheism. Ergo, atheists are possessed by demons or victims of rape.
Alternet has a story about the Catholic Archdiocese in the city of Atlanta. Joseph Mitchell, a nephew of Margaret Mitchell, author of "Gone With the Wind," gave the diocese $15 million. The Cathedral of Christ the King chose to spend $2.2 million to renovate a priestly rectory which had been the home of an archbishop who has since moved into new digs which cost $2.2 million.
Some parishioners in the Atlanta diocese believe the money would be more properly spent on helping the poor, kinda like the Gospel Jesus taught.
Nothing much has changed, it seems, in the thinking of the Roman church.
A positive sign: Conservative book sales are on the decline. Perhaps the reason is that conservatives have enough doorstops.
The State of South Carolina has perpetually been a pain in the ass of this country. Think Ft. Sumter, Strom Thurmond, the KKK, Nikki Haley. Now SC is engaged in another minor, but significant debacle. Crooks & Liars tells the story of a 3rd-grader by name of Olivia McConnell who wanted South Carolina to have a "state fossil." Only 7 states do not have a state fossil. Olivia likes fossils so she wrote to her state representative suggesting South Carolina adopt one.
Seems that in 1725 slaves working on a SC plantation dug up wooly mammoth teeth in a swamp. Olivia thought the wooly mammoth would make a great state fossil.
Two legislators agreed and filed bills in the SC House & Senate declaring "The Columbian Mammoth is designated as the official State Fossil of South Carolina." There are some good folks in South Carolina.
But there are also lots of low-grade dimwits. Two of these, good Christians of course, said this was not a good idea unless South Carolina also acknowledged that God "created on the Sixth Day [the mammoth] with the beasts of the field."
Senator Mark Fair is one of these dimwits. He's the guy who compared our president with Osama Bin Laden, "helped to block funding for a rape crisis center, called climate change a hoax, and blocked evolution from the state's science standards."
Will someone explain to these two fruitcakes that these United States are not to perpetrate any religion whatsoever and that they need to get educated because their stupidity is stinking up South Carolina and we've had enough shit from "good" Christians who demand the right to impose their pagan religious beliefs on the rest of us!
This is also from Crooks & Liars: It has to do with the liar, Chris Christie, who has mangled public education in his state and worked hard to decimate the pensions of public servants. "Facing another year of fiscal problems, Gov. Chris Christie changed the funding formula for the state's pension contribution so that he could cancel $93.7 million in previously budgeted pension payments due in June, cut next year's pension bill by $150 million, and put $900 million less into the underfunded pension system by the end of his term."
Mr. Christie is not a nice person. He is as lousy and dangerous as most Republicans.
Donald Rumsfeld should, in my opinion, be serving time as a war criminal. I agree with the opinion of an Alternet writer, Janet Allon, that he is a psychopath. He was interviewed by Greta Van Susteren recently and implied that Obama has no clue what he's doing in Afghanistan. Then, Rumsfeld, the psychopathic war criminal, said "This administration, the White House and the State Department, have failed to get a status of forces agreement."
I'll admit I don't even know what that is. But I think Rumsfeld is betting no one knows what that is but will think it vitally important and that Obama was stupid for not getting one.
The corker came, though, when this psychopathic war criminal and racist said: "A trained ape could get a status of forces agreement. It does not take a genius."
Nope. It takes a genius to lie us into an unnecessary war with Iraq which killed hundreds of thousands of people for no good reason whatsoever, created a massive increase in anti-American sentiment around the world, and broke our financial back!
Whale feces is a good thing. According to Alex Kirby of the Climate News Network, "By enriching the seas with iron expelled from their digestive systems, sperm whales are helping to slow the warming of the Antarctic" say the scientists.
This from Daily Kos: Sunnie Kahle is eight years old and has been attending Timberlake Christian School, in Forest, Virginia. Sunnie has short hair and fancies herself as a "Tomboy." She prefers wearing jeans and a t-shirt instead of dresses.
Administrators at this so-called "Christian" school decided Sunnie didn't look enough like a girl. They said "her appearance didn't line up with 'biblical standards.'" That's when her grandparents (who are raising Sunnie) took out of the "Christian" school and enrolled her in a public school
I wonder if most of these pretend Christian assholes ever read the Bible?
In the past, when I was younger and more naive, I wondered how it was possible that so many "good" people in Germany fell in step with the Nazis. Recent studies have indicated that support for the Nazi Party was widespread and most citizens were well aware of what was happening under the Nazis.
Most Germans were of the Lutheran (Protestant) or Roman Catholic persuasion. Hitler was a Roman Catholic as were many of his important henchmen. Hitler used Martin Luther's book on the Jews as the basis for implementing the "Final Solution," so it is possible that many, if not most, Germans found some rationale for going along with the Nazis.
Religion, as we know from history, offers no defense from insanity or stupidity or corruption or ignorance. In fact, religion down through the years has exemplified those things in spades. Thus when right-wing Christians in this country begin to sound like their brains have been scrambled, when they defend their war on the poor and their war on women as something of which Jesus would approve, when they promote the notion that their god wants them to be rich, when they suggest that the government should be based upon their biblical interpretations, we begin to understand the very scary fact that most of us would have no problem with a dictatorship that murdered or incarcerated people who failed to live up to their standards.
For example (and there are several), there is a person named Tristan Emmanuel, who wrote a bestseller titled, "Christophobia: The Real Reason Behind Hate Crimes Legislation." In an article posted on the whacko Matt Barber's website, Emmanuel suggested that people like Bill Maher who mock God should be severely punished by the authorities. And this because Maher was guilty of "slanderous crimes against God and country."
Yep, Emmanuel believes America is under the authority of his god. And blasphemy on the part of American citizens will call his wrath down upon us all unless we follow god's law by taking Maher and his cohorts out and whip them in public.
What is really scary about this is that our country is, in places, already under the control of such people. The sit on our school boards, town councils, county commissions, state legislatures. The inhabit the office of governor, U.S. representative, U.S. Senator, and not a few are judges on state and federal levels. Many more are working for the various branches of the government as it is organized around the country.
And what do we do with people who are registering as Democrats in order to enter a political race in a Democratic area but are really Teapot Crackpot Republicans? This is happening right now.
I used to believe Americans were, in general, immune from the imprecations of the extremists and the fascists. I realize now that is not true. We are rather quite susceptible to becoming the antithesis of what our founders envisioned. And when it happens you can bet your bippy that it will be cloaked in the guise of revelatory religion, mostly the paganism that is Christianity.
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