Anybody for RotoRootering a Few Butts?

Tags

Bill O'Reilly, budget, debt ceiling, economy, fundamentalists, gay rights, GOP, idiotic laws, marriage equality, Oslo, religion, Reproductive Rights, state legislatures, teanutz, wingnuts, Women's issues

Bill O’Reilly, Fox Noise mouth, may be one of the more rational (at least he wants to be) voices at the propaganda machine, but heck that isn’t really saying anything much. He’s a mush head of the first order.

His “opines” are so often nothing but third-rank right-wing babble, and recently he took to sucking his toes once again.

If you hadn’t heard, the Institute of Medicine recently recommended that contraception should be available to women without co-pay requirements. If one is serious about cutting abortions, one would think that making sure that pregnancy avoidance would have top priority.

Not so to Billo. He theorized thusly:

 “Many women who get pregnant are blasted out of their minds when they have sex. They’re not going to use birth control anyway.”

Yes, women are just drunken sluts who get taken advantage of by sex hunting men. I suspect he didn’t think that through to the last part very well. Or as Keith Obermann suggested, maybe Billo was talking about his own relationships.

It’s what I like about Fox. They offend everyone, always. And make that a good hard steel bristle brush, thanks!

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Rushy Limpbaugh says the August 2 date on the debt ceiling was picked because it needed to be before the start of Ramadan. Louis Gohmert said it was picked because it was the day before the President’s birthday and he wanted it done to raise campaign funds. Steve King says there is no crisis because the President can order anything paid whenever he wants to. Michele said it all gave her a migraine.

If aliens ever landed and met these four empty vessels, they would mark this planet down as having: most intelligent life? whales. Make that an extra LONG steel bristle brush will ya? And with 4 ends? I wanna give it to them all at once.

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What I was hoping President Obama would say in his press conference yesterday:

“It seems that Speaker Boehner is not in control of his caucus. I ask them to send me Grover Norquist. Apparently he is in charge and I need to negotiate directly with him.”

Alas the President is too civil for that.

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Best line I’ve seen so far:

 “House Speaker John Boehner took his balls and went back to the House, presumably to give them back to Eric Cantor.” (Mustang Bobby at The Reaction )

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John Bolton, we have been lead to understand was “sure” that what happened in Oslo was an Al Qaeda operation. Course it wasn’t, since Bolton is an idiot. It was a homegrown terrorist, and self-identified “Christian conservative.” And so when somebody tells your that it is horrible to accuse fundamentalists of being dangerous. . . And would you dip that roto-rooter brush in hot sauce first?

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Meanwhile, folks on the extreme social right-wing are sure that this marriage equality in New York is one more step to the debauchery of Old Rome. This fine piece comes from “the sky is always falling” National Review. You’d think they would be embarrassed to print such sludge.

Just a few points:

• Brian S. Brown: Go look up the definition of racism. And when you are done, go talk to the small businesses that cater to weddings. They are ecstatic. And don’t get me started about divorce lawyers.
• William C. Duncan: Two points. It’s been pretty much debunked that marriage is for the purpose of procreation. As to “slippery slope” oh please can’t you be more creative?
• Chuck Donovan: What? I derive some comfort about ancestors? Are you nuts? Read what you wrote. I bet you can’t explain that drivel.
• Matthew J. Franck: No court mandated marriage equality, no legislative mandated equality. Oh yeah, we usually submit EVERY decision to a referendum. How long have you been in this country bucko?

Well there is a good deal more, but you get the drift. Make sure the roto rooters are all of the same-sex for this band of merry bigots.

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It is quite clear to me now that humans are a resilient species. How so? Why it progresses, fitfully I admit, even when only about 10% of its total numbers are certifiably sane. I bet no other species can claim that.You disagree? Well read AlterNet’s list of  “The 10 Craziest State Legislatures in America.”

Read it? Now tell me I’m wrong.

We now need so many roto-rooters that I can justifiably call myself a “job creator.” Lower my taxes you dolt!

 

 

 

Betcha Didn’t Know

Tags

fundamentalists, GOP, Herman Cain, idleness, psychology, racism, religious right, social justice, sociology, taxes, teabaggers, the Family, unions

I don’t usually make a big point of pointing out blogs you should read. I assume, if you follow the links, you decide which ones you might like to keep an independent eye upon.

But this one, you just gotta start following. I lucked upon it in a round-up blog, I think from Crooks and Liars yesterday, and not only was the linked post dynamite, I read a few other posts and they were excellent as well.

The name is quite the attention-getter: We are Respectable Negroes.  I’ve given you the general link so you can go and peruse the posts. The one that I originally linked to was about Herman Cain, the great black hope for the truly insane right-wing. This is the man who “proves” they ain’t racist. Well, in a word, Chauncey DeVega says, bullshit. DeVega shows how both Cain and Michael Steele, are nothing but bowin’ and steppin’ as the white man’s buffoons.

There is also an excellent post on “Sarah Palin as the New Al Sharpton,” Oprah Winfrey (not complementary) and the Japanese nuclear meltdown. Excellent snappy writing. I’m in love.

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We have been talking about unions a lot these days. And economics, and how the rich just get richer, and the poor get poorer, and the rich have done a fine job of co-opting the working poor but fundamentalistly religious into their camp. The economic arguments offered by the religious far right originate in their very original and idiotic recasting of the bible.

Jesus was no unionist didn’t ya know? Why? Why because in Matthew 20, (the story of the vineyard owner and how he pays the one hour worker the same as the full day worker), Jesus makes it clear that he is about individual “contracts” not unionization. This from pseudo-historian David Barton.

Further, mental midgets of the same persuasion and we suspect a secret desire to keep their hefty wallets closed, claim that most taxation amounts to “theft” thoroughly condemned in the 10 Commandments.

Anti unionism has been part of that whole scene since the early 40’s. Followers of “The Family” were told that God wants unions broken. Further, since we don’t have slavery anymore, the passages in 1Peter which tell slaves to obey their masters, even if harsh, are now translatable to “workers.”

Yeah, ain’t that all so damnably convenient as to make you want to spew? And the poor teabuggers thought they invented all this stuff themselves. Isn’t that nose ring starting to be apparent to you guys yet?

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As if we didn’t know. Bryan Fischer, all around homophobe, and head of American Family Association, dedicated to marriage inequality, is a full-blown racist as well. His latest tweet about the Libyan no-fly zone:

“boy” president?

h/t to Joe.My.God

 

 

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If you have an idle moment or two today, then do stop by and read this exquisite essay on “idleness.” 😉 It’s a bit of a read, but beautifully written. And frankly, there is more than enough bad news everyday that we need to offset it with purely thoughtful things. Do yourself a favor and go read: The Mother of Possibility, from Lapham’s Quarterly.

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I don’t know about you, but I think I probably idolize my own opinions. I try to keep an open mind, and I’ve changed it on a good number of things over the years, but often when I have thought a lot about something, and rationally (at least to my mind) explored the facts, I have a hard time not defending it in the face of criticism. QBlog explores that idea in a post called The Idolatry of our Personal Opinions. It’s not long, but sets out some interesting concepts.

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We all sign our names to things, some of us dozens of time a day. As a practicing lawyer, I had days I might have signed my name to things nearly one hundred times. (We had a secretary or two that became quite good at copying our signatures on the common day-to-day stuff that needed our sign-off for no good reason than because it was habit.

But when did this idea of “authenticating things” by signature begin? Read the article in Slate to find out.

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What’s on the stove: spaghetti with Sherry’s sauce and meatballs, foccacia (home-made),and, salad. (the foccacia is a new recipe. I’ll let you know how it turned out).

Looking at the Finer Side of Life

Tags

bible, blizzard, DADT, fundamentalists, gay rights, God, Humor, KJV, Pat Robertson, Poetry, spirituality, virtual church

If your mother was anything like mine, complaints about dinner were met with “the little children in China would be happy to have carrots to eat.” If I groused that I didn’t get the one toy I wanted for my birthday, I was told, “the little children of Africa have probably never gotten a toy.”

So, sadly, and with great grumpiness, I can’t complain about the snow here in Iowa. The stupid East Coast just had to go and have a BLIZZARD. How rude! Coupled with the deluges in California and consequent mudslides, I’m unable to feel the least bit sorry for myself.

And that never sits well with me!

Being able to complain is just, well, so American.

But, I’ve taken an oath of sorts to try to listen to my better angel, at least until the new year. It’s just that there isn’t so much good news as you would think out there. We’re a surly bunch, and we like news that at minimum makes us feel better relative to our fellow humans. That’s just the way we are. How else to explain the likes of Cops on Patrol, and Bridezilla, and Hoarders?

Anyway, if you want to feel uplifted and also called into your better self, do go and read this lovely poem from the Franciscan Missionary Society–Christmas Blessing. H/T from Vox Nova.

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Speaking of faith, it’s puzzling, and always has been that fundigelicals prefer the KJV (King James Version) of the bible. They cling to it as THE definitive word of God. I’ve never been quite sure why, since it’s basically not a very good translation, and the language, though beautiful isn’t also easy to understand.

History Today has a great article on the history of the KJV. If fundigelicals actually knew this history, I suspect they might be a bit less enthused about it. It was directed, in some sense, to be a polemic for the right of kings, and thus against the interests of the Puritans who were a bothersome lot in England and elsewhere. The only reason why the Puritans in this country ended up using it, was because the Geneva Bible had been suppressed in England and the KJV was the only one they could get their hands on. Worse, the first printings of the KJV were so bad that they were almost heretical–referring to God’s ass at least one occasion!

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I’ve linked to Andy Borowitz before. His political humor is great. Today he explains what Pat Robertson has to say about the East Coast blizzard. As you can expect, God is punishing somebody that Pat doesn’t like. Go  read it and have a chuckle.

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Speaking of political humor, Mo over at Whatever Works, offered this gem. It’s a site called Political Irony. Lots of jokes, cartoons, a rundown of the talk show political humor. Just lots of fun stuff. I’m sure I’ll be pilfering from it regularly. Add it to your reader or subscribe to never miss a post!

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Speaking of more political humor, I saw this in my travels yesterday:

Of course it hurts. You’re being screwed by an elephant.

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Do you have a ritual for Christmas that you never miss? We watch National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, you know, Clark and his merry band of Griswolds?  We laugh at the same things again and again. It’s a tradition. By the way, the ham was delicious and we can’t stop eating ham sandwiches! Today we are switching to turkey enchiladas, which finishes off the Thanksgiving turkey. And NO it hasn’t been the fridge since November!

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We are getting three days of melting starting tomorrow! We are so excited. We can’t keep the smile off our faces. We may actually be able to get out without being blown out! Temps of 35, 40, 45 for the next three days! Heaven! Oh and rain too. Then freezing, so no doubt it will be slick as snot on Saturday or Sunday. We looked up our snow cleats for our boots! We are ready!

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This is a laugh. I mean, it really is funny/sad/pathetic/hysterically knee-slapping humorous.

Brian Fischer of the AFA, the homophobic “family values” group (one of thousands) wrote a “gotcha” column the other day.

“You dumb old gays! You had a pass to get out the army, should the food prove not gourmet, or the shower room not to have the hunks to ogle. You could go to the commander and announce your gayness. Well, no more,” Fischer gleefully slobbers, spittle flying,  his wild eyes darting. “No, your commander will say, ‘sorry Nancy boy’ back to barracks for you! Those days of special preference are over. You’re in the for the duration.”

Yes Margaret, there really is a crazy man who said that. I swear. Makes you blink and look around carefully. Once again, you fear, you might have slipped into the Twilight Zone.

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Ideas that Create has a post on virtual churches. Can they offer anything “real”? It’s a provocative look at an Internet phenomenon. See what you think.

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Finding all those retrospectives creepy? Especially the ones that tell you who died this year. I forgot some of them and was shocked all over again.

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Keep warm!

Related Articles

• The bible that even atheists worship (independent.co.uk)
• The KJV and the English Language (zwingliusredivivus.wordpress.com)
• FAIL part 2: Bryan Fischer takes another crack at the ‘feminization’ of the Medal of Honor (pinkbananaworld.com)

Ho, Ho, Ho, Witchy Poo is Back!

Tags

Advent, bible, birthers, Christine O'Donnell, Christmas, Frankincense, fundamentalists, Genesis, GOP, Jesus, Michael Steele

She learned at the knee of the Wasilla Wombat. She learned that when the electorate rejects ya, get up, dust yourself off, and keep on yappin’. You will surely find enough poor souls to pay your way.

So Christine O’Donnell, finding the cupboard most bare, formed a PAC and, now her bills taken care of, she can utter profound (in her ditzy mind) quips, and otherwise try to interject herself into adult conversations.

Not content to get two of the top ten quotes of the year, she’s after more. She’s in a friendly race with sista Sarah to be both the most obnoxious, won’t go away buffoon and the biggest butcher of the English language to date.

If enough isn’t being said about the tax bill being decided Ms. Chatty Christie has weighed in. Of course she’s all for the Bush tax cuts being extended and she hates all the stuff for those in economic free fall. According to the non-witchy one, tragedies come in threes–Pearl Harbor, Elizabeth Edwards death, and now these confounded extensions of unemployment benefits. She then tried to explain what THAT meant, and of course failed. Halloween can’t return fast enough.

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You and I are much alike. Therefore, I feel confident that you too have spent countless hours? maybe even days, wondering what the hell frankincense  is or was. Given the season, well, I went a lookin’ for an answer for us both.

I tried Senator Franken, but he demurred, pointing out that there is an “e” after the K in his name, not an “i” as in frankincense. So I figured Slate would have the answer, and they did. Read all about it here, and surprise friends and family with your new-found sparkling intellect.

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I think a lot like Keith Olbermann I guess. At least two of his items from last night’s show were links on my blog. We, meaning me and he and his researchers must be reading some of the same bloggers online. That’s comforting to me. And of course, you can know that you’re getting the “best” when you come here. *snicker* and “toot”.

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It appears that Michael, I’m da black man in the Repiglians world, Steele, has decided to give it another go round. Shocking all the Repoopers with the news he was not gonna go “quietly into the night” he threw his hat in the ring to be the paper tiger in the GOP once again.

Now this pissed off tons of the GOP regulars, since they thought that two years was enough to prove they aren’t the bigots everybody says they are. They were tired of Mr. Steele’s general stupidity, hoof and mouth disease, and all around big spender attitude.

Ain’t it just fun watching the GOP fracture along so many different lines?

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Let those with brains, think. We, with regularity, point out that fundigelicals are guilty mostly of reading biblical texts in a manner that supports their own needs and general beliefs about the world. They accept as literal those things that seem right to them anyway, and reject/ignore/explain away other quite direct statements when they cut against their needs and beliefs.

A provocative post at Biologos explains how early Jewish theologians were pained to clothe Adam and Eve, to protect their ideas of cultural “rightness” in their day. Indeed, we are all subject to that influence. Read, Genesis, Creation and Ancient Interpreters: Adam and Eve’s Nakedness.

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If you just want to read something sweet and uplifting and well, Christmasy, then read Five String Guitar’s post about he and his wife’s latest Christmas shopping trip. It will warm your heart! Try it!

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Hold onto your shorts folks. I have a major announcement to make! I do not DO NOT DO NOT have an opinion on the Julian Assange/Wikileaks affair. Nope, I surely don’t. Stand by: I may have one tomorrow. But so far, I don’t.

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Take a look at this face, and if you ever see it, you will be looking into the face of a modern medical miracle. This man can actually walk and speak.

This buffoon, a Lt. Col. in the Army just pled guilty at his court-martial and faces eighteen months in prison, all because he refused to go to Afghanistan because the President is not a citizen and thus cannot legally give such an order.

What is worse, he was not ordered to Afghanistan but VOLUNTEERED, just to force this case. It is simply stunningly amazing that anyone can be this stupid, and be a surgeon.

Do not, repeat, do not, allow this man near you with a scalpel. No doubt his medical licence is also at risk due to his felony conviction.

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The Contrarian is installing plastic sheeting over the bay windows in the living room. Plenty of naughty words are emanating from there. I am not going out there to see. The cats have all gone into hiding. Brandy wouldn’t come up the steps again, the rain/slush/snow had her carpet all frozen up and slick. So now there are towels down, until it warms enough to de-ice. This is all no big deal, except when it’s 4 below zero and 2:30 am and you are out there begging and pleading with her to “try.”

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What’s on the stove today?  Tostados! Hurrah.

Related Articles

• Christine O’Donnell: unemployment benefits deal a ‘tragedy’…like Pearl Harbor, Elizabeth Edwards (pinkbananaworld.com)
• Christine O’Donnell: Pearl Harbor, Unemployment Benefits Extension Both ‘Tragedies’ (huffingtonpost.com)

Driving Off the Cliff

Tags

DADT, Democrats, evolution, fundamentalists, GOP, life, McCain, Obama, Pauline theology, religious right, science, scientific integrity, tax cuts, theology

As we speak, the Senate is voting on two tax bills. Both are failing of course, since the GOP is holding tough with its demand that the rich get even richer. They take care of their own.

Sadly, this might have turned out differently had the White House not waved the white flag almost immediately after the midterm elections. Emboldened, the GOP knows that it cannot really fail since the President apparently doesn’t have the stomach to do as the American people ask: actually fulfill a campaign promise to end the tax cuts for the rich.

As we have said before, Obama can win this if he holds the line and lets the GOP argue that it is better to increase the deficit by 4 trillion in order to protect the buying power of the likes of Paris Hilton and as Think Progress suggested LeBron James. Where are the jobs after 10 years of tax cuts for the rich? I ask ya?

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One of the things we expected from this Administration, was scientific integrity returned as the standard of doing business. Obama promised that scientists would be free to do their work and report their findings without being edited. A policy statement was authorized. To date, no such policy has been forthcoming, and a significant number of scientists in the FDA and AG, report being urged to exclude or alter information. Read about it at New Scientist.

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For a different prospective on DADT: The Reaction asks: What do Bulgaria, Jordan, Poland, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and the US have in common? Go read the article and see. Oh oh, yes, we do have friends in low places.

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Ethics Daily reports that a slew of right-wing Christians leaders met a couple of months ago at a Dallas airport to work out how to get rid of Obama and install a right-wing friendly president in the Oval office. Scary rundown of names.  (H/T to Ahab at Republic of Gilead.

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Don’t know if you caught the big news from NASA. Life as we know it, has well, you know, C H A N G E D. It’s a subtle point, but once “gotten” its like huge. It’s like Star Trek! Okay, thoroughly confused? Let me ‘splain. (Remember I told you a couple of years ago, that most anything can be explained or understood via an episode from Star Trek?)

The Enterprise went to investigate a mining colony on a dead planet. Miners were turning up dead. What they discovered was that the planet was not dead, but a silicon-based life form was doing fine there, except that miners were killing the “eggs” of the mother Horta.

Once they made contact, they patched up the wounded Horta with some cement which worked just fine, and everybody got along famously.

The point is, that we have so far only identified life as being carbon based. And that requires a number of other elements to be viable. One of those elements is phosphorus. Trust me on this, I just read it in a book I’ll be reviewing for you next week.

Anyway, in a lake in California Mono, to be specific, a microbe has been found that doesn’t have any phosphorus in its DNA. Rather it has arsenic, yes you heard that right. It’s a bacterium that is different from any life form on this planet. No idea how it got here either.

What this means is that when we turn on the telescopes and scan for the stuff we think means life, we can’t just stop at the carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, sulphur, nitrogen and phosphorus, but must also scan for arsenic. What is life just got a whole lot broader. The possibilities are well, huge.

I feel all warm and cozy now, sure that surely we are not alone. A little alien may be among us, or perhaps even in our carbon based environment, other types of life can arise. Who knows? Science is wetting its pants and agog with excitement. But they get excited about a new species of newt too.   (Note the link is to the post of Dec. 2–I have loads of trouble with this reader feed)

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See, there are theologians and biblical scholars. And then there are wannabes. I’m one of those. But in this category, theology,  there are Wannabes and wannabees. I’m the latter. John is the former. If you are feeling all theology-y, then drop over and read what John has to say about how Paul acquired his theology on the road to Damascus. (pssst. it probably didn’t happen there, since Luke is probably not giving a historically accurate account of Paul’s travels here, but it assuredly happened to Paul somewhere!)

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If’n you want to see a psychoanalysis of Mr.’s McCain and Obama, then Crooks and Liars is your choice. Lots of interesting commentary from varied sources, make these two almost equally delusional.

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We got about two solid inches of snow. We can get out. We tidied up the bird feeder and put the “open” sign up. The dogs are sleeping. The cats are sleeping. I’m being a good wife and cooking liver ‘n onions for my husband. Don’t mind eating it, just hate fixin’ it. Going to church tomorrow. Lookin’ for some college football to watch. Havin’ ham for Christmas. Reading a lot these days, publishers have been kind. That is a tour of my synapses, known as roamin’ round the noggin.

Laters.

Related Articles

• Keith Olbermann Reports On Alien Life Discovery, Totally Pwns NASA in Star Trek Knowledge (mediaite.com)
• NASA’s Press Conference On Alien Life (geekologie.com)

Standing on the Roof With a Megaphone

Tags

civilization, fundamentalists, GOP, History, Juan Williams, liberals, Louis Gohmert, political ideology, Politics, progressives, right wing nuttery, Sarah Palin, sociology

I may as well. Things on the old computer front are getting rather ugly. So if I disappear, well I haven’t, I’ve just dragged this mother to a hospital for repair.

I’m almost at a standstill on FB these days, I can barely scroll. So I figured to download another foxfire which I had dumped as corrupted. Well, I didn’t get far before it “file corrupted me”. I tried opera again, same deal. I tried Google’s chrome, and you guessed it.

I finally got a forum question into Google, and maybe I can get an answer. It may be some security setting that needs changing.

But my e-mail is now acting up. If I’m sent a link, like a FB comment, I can’t answer it within e-mail, they won’t open anything. A pain, but I can cut and paste at least. It’s sooo totally frustrating.

The Contrarian doesn’t have problems since he usually just plays poker and goes to a couple of sites. I’m the one with four windows open and starting and stopping. Basically I figure that I’m moving stuff faster than the dial-up speed can take, and it just locks up. Then I have to shut down everything (I get lots of “not responding”) and start over. Over time, I guess I wind things up inside and suddenly everything starts to go awry.

Then it’s into the shop where they clean it all out again. Which seems unfair, since the Contrarian does maintenance every evening, clean-ups, virus updates, defrags. But apparently it can’t overcome my crazed Internet maneuvers.

And then there’s Twitter, which only partially works now. The New Twitter is crap as far as I’m concerned. They continue to say they are fixing it, but never do, at least not my problems. I’m about ready to return to Fred and Wilma and ask if they have an extra room I can rent. The MODERNITY is driving me nuts.

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Many muse on why the West arose as the leader in civilization, dominating the landscape for several hundred years. Superficial answers don’t satisfy. You really have to go far back to uncover the probable reason, and it may well be location, location, location. Hardly a new idea to modern marketing! Anyway, it’s an interesting article and moreover it’s an even more interesting site that you might want to bookmark for return visits, if you are history minded that is.

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Interesting question. Republicans self-identify with being conservative. Democrats are loath to even accept the designation “liberal”. We try to substitute progressive instead. We get ready to defend if accused of liberalism. It’s like having the plague, or a STD. Why?  Jonathan Alter attempts an answer. Bonus is that Alter gives mini-reviews of a lot of political themed books on Washington politics in general and Obama specifically.

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BlackMagpieTheory has a great little poem about Sarah, dear Sarah. Short and sweet. Go see.

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New GOPer Idiot to enter onto the radar screen is Repiglian Louis Gohmert, from the great sludge state of TexASS. Gohmert says Merika would be more fine if all the fine Christians, as he would define them were to take control and just impose God’s law on the land of the not-anymore-free. H/T to Ahab at Republic at Gilead for the above.  By the by, word is that Louis is perhaps the dumbest representative in the entire House, but I guess that is pretty self-evident.

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I must say, there is something mildly giggly about a whole bunch of aging white men and their sexy grizzly girls, all fawning over Juan Williams, and trying to act all-inclusive and everything. Let’s slay the almighty NPR, with its tiny government funding to show how much we love our HOUSE NEGROES, cuz they make us look soooo COLORFUL and not at all the bigoted asshats we truly are.

We are after all, agreeing that it’s okay to think that Muslims who wear traditional Muslim clothing, place being Muslim above being Americans or whatever nationality they might be. Like Catholics who wear crucifixes and Jews who wear yarmulkes are of course placing their faiths above their citizenship. Native Peoples who wear braids, obviously will defend their ethnic group before they will carry a rifle for American against enemy invaders. Yeah, I can see that this all makes sense, and is not just another RACIST FEAR MONGERING TACTIC to gain the approval of the RIGHT WING BIGOT, ya know the ones with NASCAR/BUDWEISER  jackets and FLAGS on their car aerials all to announce that they place their JUST US above the common good of the ENTIRE country.

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Related Articles

• Rose: Williams’ firing reflects fear in media (boston.com)
• Louis Gohmert’s Exquisitely Dumb Solution To The Unemployment Problem (huffingtonpost.com)

Patting Myself on the Back

Tags

atheists, Barack Obama, Fox News Channel, Franklin Graham, fundamentalists, Muslims, nature, paleontology, Politics, racism, Republican, science

The truth is, I believe in dressing well, even for a day at the computer. As you can see, even a hat is de rigueur in my world.

I went on yesterday about veiled conspiracies to subvert the economic recovery by corporations (banks and otherwise), giving up short-term gains to insure a Republican victory this November. I think I’m mostly right.

Veiled or unveiled, I suspect they don’t much care at this point. Fox certainly doesn’t after it’s gift of a cool mill to the GOP. They don’t bother any more with even a pretence at “fair and balanced.”

Why? Oh quite simple really.  They know that their simple-minded audience can’t add two and two and come up remotely close to a correct answer. They can and do lie at will. The right doesn’t listen to the left, preferring to roll in the swill of their moral rightness on everything. Their base doesn’t care one whit that they are playing politics, in fact they agree with it. Just as they agreed with Fox’s promotion of all things tea partyish.

Why I disagree with parts of the next article, especially as to who is owed all the blame, I think there is something to be said for RCP’s article The Lost Promise of Barack Obama. Democrats bear a good deal of blame for their own downfall, which seems more and more likely this November.

 Nobody can get a snark on better than our friends at Urantia Sojourn. This one particularly struck me as both cogent and well researched. The branding of all non-whites as “other” is reaching epidemic proportions in America. Will we stop it before it is too late?

It seems to me that part of being responsible as a human beings is to be willing to criticize yourself, as American, Democrat, religious believer, etc. Being an apologist is simply dangerous, and once discovered takes all the power from your voice. The must read of today is this one: [note that this link is weird–the text is half way down, it looks like a Pakistan military site, but the full text is in a comment–3quarksdaily had no better linkage]

Harvard University offers an award known as the Robert F. Kennedy Public Service award. It’s first Muslim recipient and only second South Asia one, went to Mir Ibrahim Rahman. His remarks are food for deep thought for all of us in the US. They were made at Harvard Commencement. As I said, the text is embedded in a comment I believe, but still it is worth the effort to get to it.

Goodness knows I’ve had my problems with atheists. The NEW ones at least. I find them about as irrational and pompous as fundamentalists. More and more I keep finding that many equate, and frankly always have, the rabid atheist with the fundamentalist. Both talk of certainty about things that are anything but certain.

A great post by Reza Aslan at the Washington Post lays this out extraordinarily well. Much thanks to Mystical Seeker at Find and Ye Shall Seek. Much whine from the atheists in the comments.

The profession of butcher is older than we thought! At least 800,000 years to be exact. Ha! And to think that butcher shops are going out of style and have been for decades now. You would think that they would be revered places, beginnings of our illustrious history as tool makers and users. Read it all at Butchering Dinner 3.4 Million Years Ago.

And then there are times when it’s very embarrassing to be a Christian–when you have to be in the same religion as Franklin Graham. This Muslim hater is beyond the pale. Even his father had enough sense to at least apologize when caught being anti-Semitic. The son now drivels on about how Obama came from “Muslim seed” and “says he has accepted Jesus Christ”.  What a piece of work.

Amy Sullivan has a most interesting take on why polls claim that 1/4 of Americans “think” Obama is a Muslim. Worth your time to read this one.

Meanwhile, James Taranto, writing for the Wall Street Journal (Murdock’s baby remember) writes a convoluted piece that suggests that liberals do these polls all for the purpose of calling the right names for their beliefs, and in the process fail to do it, but make themselves look mean and small for calling out the right wing nuts. Understand that? Neither did I. If you got to comments you will find that ALL believe Obama is a Muslim there. Too funny.

And that’s a wrap.