Duuuuuuudes!  Like, everyone has been down on libs for so long.  Like, harshing our mellow to the max, and all because we're like, lame and stuff.

But don't dispair mon frare...we're back baby!

'cause we totally went back in time and took over the Bible.  We're like rocken spiritual time-pirates.

You thought Bill and Ted had a great adventure?  Nu-uh!  Team lib totally went back in time and snuck the lovey-forgivy-sharey crap into the Bible! 

Uh-huh!  BAM!!  Yeah, take that, in yer face  Mr. Judgy-Mcvitriol Christian guys!

But uh-oh...Andrew Schlaffly's gonna take it back with an army of homeschool kids!  Bogus!

http://conservapedia.com/Conservative_Bible_Project

Get back in the funkey time-travel phone booth dudes!  We have to save the wimpy social gospel or we won't get to have a modern government or health care reform!

A friend of mine had this silly little "You might be a liberal if..." thing up on her Face Book.  So I made a parallell "You might be a conservative if..."

You might be Liberal if you think:

You might be conservative if you think:

1.
Standards for admissions to universities, fire departments, etc. should be lowered for people of color.

1)       It doesn’t matter if you can do the work.  What matters is how well you fit arbitrary selection criteria that often has no correlation with desirable outcomes.  And even if conditions in the world, and in the field of work or study change, the criteria must always stay the same.  If they changed to more accuratly reflect the actual strengths and necessary skills of a population, they wouldn't be arbirtary anymore, and the people who worked really, really hard to look good on paper would be unfairly disadvantaged.

2.
Bilingual education for children of immigrants, rather than immersion in English, is good for them and for America.

2)         Adaptive learning is evil.  Get rid of ESL programs, no math or science ‘til you learn English.  While we’re at it, those hearing-impaired whiners can learn to lip-read before they get to do math as well.

3.
Murderers should never be put to death.

3)       Murderers should be put to death.  Especially the underage and those with mental handicaps that make them incapable of being responsible for their actions;  or if they had some stupid, trumped up “alibi” like being in jail in another country for unpaid traffic fines on the night of the murder they committed.  Kill ‘em twice if their defense attorney slept through their trial and raised no objections and called no witnesses.

4.During the Cold War, America should have adopted a nuclear arms freeze.

4)       Good thing we didn’t listen to those pacifist liberal wimps when they said it was a bad idea to fund, train, and equip the Taliban, central American drug cartels – uh I mean “Freedom fighters”- and fascist regimes.  Just think about the problems we’d have nowdays if we hadn’t helped Bin Laden so much.  And a nuclear arms freeze? Don’t make me laugh!  If being able to exterminate every single person in the Soviet Union a hundred times over isn’t going to get them to back down, we NEEDED to be able to destroy them a thousand times over.  Worth. Every. Penny.

5.
Colleges should not allow ROTC programs.

5)       Actually, I think it’s just the Ron Paul Conservatives and the Lyndon LaRouch-style Trotskyites that don’t like the ROTC on campus.   ‘course, the Ron Paul conservatives would rather there not be land grant universities for ROTC to be on.  Actually, it seems that the Lyndon LaTouch crowd doesn’t like land-grant universities either.  Ron Paul and Lyndon LaRouch actually agree on a lot of stuff…

6.
It was wrong to wage war against Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War.

6)       Afghanistan was going to be too hard.  If it’s too hard to hit the guy who hit you first, hit the guy next to him instead.  Everyone deserves to get hit for something.  

7.
Poor parents should not be allowed to have vouchers to send their children to private schools.

7)       Private schools are better than public schools.  You can tell, because even though they only take top-performing students, and cost more per student, they have inferior equipment, inferior subject selection, inferior teacher training requirements, and fail to have significantly better outcomes as a group.  And just think how we could increase the number of private school “founders” fleeing with all the cash to the Canary Islands if we funneled more public sector money into private schools!

8.
It is good that trial lawyers and teachers unions are the two biggest contributors to the Democratic Party.

8)       Gigantic corporations are people and have a right to petition their representatives.  Lawyers and teachers, however, are not people and have no such rights.

9.
Marriage should be redefined from male-female to any two people.

9)       Gay people need to remember their “place”.  If they didn’t insist on having all the same rights and responsibilities as real people, there wouldn’t be all this trouble.

10. A married couple should not have more of a right to adopt a child than two men or two women.

10)    Children are chattel to be parceled out as rewards for conventionality.

11.
The Boy Scouts should not be allowed to use parks or any other public places and should be prohibited from using churches and synagogues for their meetings.

11)    Even though the Boy Scouts teach, practice, and enforce discrimination against people based on their personal beliefs and their sexual orientation, they should be given the special privilege to use public places without having to pay the fees that other groups pay.  Yes, they should even continue to be given extra special treatment by having parcels of federal land set aside for their exclusive use.

12.
The present high tax rates are good.

12)    The present high tax rates are terrible!  Course, with the exception of the "W" years, they’re lower than they’ve ever been since I started paying taxes…Reagan’s were higher, but those were GOOD high tax rates.  And taxes were higher under George HW Bush…but those were fine too.  I mean, if they weren’t fine, why would we have beat Clinton up so bad for lowering them?  Obama raising  taxes to the lowest rates under Reagan is just evil and terrible.  It was OK for Reagan to raise them higher ‘cause he was the greatest president ever, no matter what you say.

13.
Speech codes on college campuses are good and American values are bad.

13)    “Speech codes” on campus are terrible.  Well, not really, it would be great if we could have our own speech codes, you know the ones that require Biology professors to say that their entire area of study is completely invalid…or one where a sociology professor can’t cover current research that might indicate that abstinence only education isn’t all we hoped…but “speech codes” that could cause a Geology professor to not be tenured just because he teaches that the Earth is only 6000 years old and admits that he lied on his thesis when he said that the Earth was billions of years old…THOSE are BAD.   Telling the truth and speaking honestly about the state of scholarship in your field is against American Values.  All good knowledge was what we knew in 1800.  We will call our "Speech Codes"  "Academic Freedom" bills, because they are the opposite, and we are all about the irony.  And this isn't like stupid liberal speech codes where people just think your a dick 'cause you use the "N" word...no, our speech codes will have the force of law.  Stupid Wimpy liberals.  That'll show 'em.

14.
The Israelis and Palestinians are morally equivalent.

14)    There is only one hope for peace in the middle east.  Israel gets everything, and the Palestinians die. The Temple of Jerusalem has to be rebuilt, and then when Jesus returns in glory, the Jews and most of the rest of humanity will be slaughtered in the final battle, and go to hell. (Rivers of blood!  It'll be so great!)  Then, when we've killed all the unbelievers (including the Jews) we get to go to heaven.  Yeay team Jesus!  I can’t wait.  The only danger is that Israel might get taken over by that one group who thinks that it would be good for people to stop blowing each other up.  Let’s send the side that wants to perpetuate violence lots of money and accuse the other side of hating Isreal.  Just don't tell the Catholics that they are numbered among the unbelievers.  We need them at the moment.  The Mormons too...oh...and the Jehova's Witnesses I guess, but don't talk to them if you can avoid it.

15.
The United Nations is a moral force for good in the world, and therefore America should be subservient to it and such international institutions as a world court.

15)    We created the United Nations, and we have the veto over everything they do and decide.  We owe tons of money to them in dues that we are never going to pay, because they are completely reliant on our goodwill and continued cooperation.  In all the time they've exsisted, we've never done a single thing they've said that we wouldn't have done on our own anyway.  God, will we never be free of their oppression?

16.
It is good that colleges have dropped hundreds of men's sports teams in order to meet gender-based quotas.

16)    Who wants to watch girl’s sports?  Girls are so stupid and weak.  Any girl that wants to play sports is a dyke.  There shouldn’t be girl’s teams, and girls shouldn't get to play on boys teams either.  If a girl wants to do sports, she should move to East German where they like that sort of thing.   If we want to cut funds for education and extra-curricular activities, we should be able to without it affecting our boys sports!

17.
No abortions can be labeled immoral.

17)    Birth control is immoral and the moral equivalent of abortion, because it prevents ovulation so the egg can’t get fertilized.  Moral women who are against abortion should rely on the rhythm method, because it encourages women to abstain until the part of a woman’s cycle when the uterine lining is thinning and resistant to the implantation of a fertilized egg.  Also, using breastfeeding as a form of birth control is moral, because it is lousy at preventing fertilization, but still effective at preventing implantation.  So use the rhythm method and breastfeeding to do your abortions, because all abortions are evil, except the ones God says are OK. 

18.
Restaurants should be prohibited by law from allowing customers to choose between a smoking and a non-smoking section.

18)    I get to smoke.  If my smoke travels over to the non-smoking section and bothers your fragile asthmatic lungs, tough.  Who cares if your stupid, wimpy kid has Cistic Fibrosis, keep him home.  Whatever happened to the good old days when people with freaky diseases remained shut-ins, as God intended.  Get a personal force-field, or re-think your decision to breath, you stupid liberal whiner, you won’t infringe on my freedom with your stupid excuse about dying 5-10 years younger.  I have a right to smoke.  You’re right to life ended as soon as they cut the cord, and you were no longer a pre-born person.  And by the way, just because a place is publically licensed and falls under the legal definition of providing a “public service” doesn’t mean you have a right to go there and not have your health threatened.  This is AMERICA, liberal sucker.  The public can’t make me accommodate black people, or disabled people, and they sure as heck can’t make me address your stupid health concerns.  If you don’t like the way I act in public, stay out of the public.

19.
High schools should make condoms available to students and teach them how to use them.

19)    High Schools should protect children with ignorance and myths.  If they think they can get AIDS from sweat and tear-drops, and if they think that having unprotected sex is less dangerous than using condoms or other contraception, and if they fill in the gaps with stuff they hear from their friends, they will be able to make much better decisions for themselves.  They will automatically come to the correct conclusion that sex is a dirty, disgusting dangerous and degrading thing that God invented because he loves us and wants us to get married really really young so we can stay poor and desperate and have tons of children we can barely afford to raise so that we just spend all our time working and don’t have the time and energy to question, and just do what we are told.

20.
Racial profiling for terrorists is wrong -- a white American grandmother should as likely be searched as a Saudi young male.

20)    Racial profiling of terrorists is the best thing ever.  I mean they’re terrorists.  If they weren’t terrorist, why would they look like terrorists?  Only a very, very foolish criminal mastermind would recruit terrorists that didn’t look the part.  You look like a terrorist, you smell like a terrorist, you’re a danged terrorist.  Maybe your family has lived in Toledo for seven generations and you’ve had ancestors fight in the US military in every war for the past 150 years…but you’re still a danged terrorist.  Now step out of the line, and take off those pants again.  You fly Business class on this commuter flight to Chicago twice a week.  You know the drill Hassim.

21.
Racism and poverty -- not a lack of fathers and a crisis of values -- are the primary causes of violent crime in the inner city.

21)    All conditions in the US at a given time bear absolutely no relationship to past events.  In America, all events happen in a causal vacuum.  So you, see, the effects of slavery and racism disappeared when the institutions that perpetuated them were done away with.  When we stopped the practice of slavery, all of those children who never knew their fathers instantly became familiar with all the details of the European ideal of fatherhood.  The fact that for a time, the best jobs that black men could get to support their families took them away from their families and hometowns didn’t affect any of the kids in the subsequent generations.  The cultural conventions that sprang up to support mothers coping on their own, and the lack of prestige suffered by fathers who stayed around and worked low-paying local jobs in the rural south disappeared as soon as economic conditions changed.  As soon as our culture provided new opportunities, all of the children in the next generation instantly forgot all of the effects of the previous conditions and spontaneously acquired the means and ability to take advantage of the new opportunities.  Anyone who says differently isn’t just describing a cause and effect relationship.  They just want to make you feel badly about yourself.  Don’t let them do that to you.  Remember that you have the right to feel badly about others instead, because this is America.

22.
It is wrong and unconstitutional for students to be told, "God bless you" at their graduation.

22)    Isn’t it terrible how we’ve taken religion out of the schools?  All we have left is “God” in the pledge, and Highschool chapters of Campus Crusade for Christ, and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and the Guideon Bible Handouts, the and the teachers reading the Christmas story in their classroom for story time, and the personal Bibles that people can bring to school, teachers who can’t be fired even if they physically abuse students because they had a Bible on their desk and they can claim that’s the real reason they are being fired.  Why, I went to my God-daughter’s orchestra concert a few years ago, and only half the music was religiously themed.  Only a handful had “God” or “Jesus” or “Lord” in the title.  My son’s highschool only has ONE Christian club paid for my public funds.  We’re down to just having the school’s volunteer advisor sending kids to church functions to earn volunteer hours for school credit, mandatory assemblies where the presenter preaches in the name of Jesus and makes the Catholic kids cry because he says they’re going to hell.  There was this one girl who had to be kicked off of her basketball team (which I think we established shouldn’t even exist) because she refused to pray in the name of Jesus with her highschool team before the game AS REQUIRED…and the law forced the school to reverse her expulsion!  My youngest sone was assigned a paper about an Episcopalian missionary, and my oldest son is playing Martin Luther as part of a school assignment, and everyone knows that Episcopalians and Lutherans aren't REALLY Christian!  I mean…our schools are practically atheist.

23.
No culture is morally superior to any other.

23)    Western culture is morally superior to all other cultures.  How do we know this?  Why, only Western Culture developed Western morals.  DUH!  I mean, look at all of the things they do differently than we do.  Those things are bad.  The badness of them is obvious to anyone whose moral sense was formed in Western culture.  The things they do differently from us prove that we are superior. 

And then, look at all of the things that they do that are the same as us.  See?  Even they know that we’re right.  The things they do that are the same as us prove our superiority.

Then, there’s the stuff that we do that is bad.  First of all, we always have really good reasons for the things we do that are bad.  Not like other cultures who do bad stuff just for no reason at all at least, not reasons that we care about.  Secondly, the bad things we do are not part of our culture.  They're just human sin and part of living in a fallen world, and totally not our fault.  If the world were perfect, we’d be perfect too…and everyone would be just like us.

He who must not be named has an entry up linking to a story about a Christian ™ woman who is now “ex-gay” and wants to deny her former partner visitation rights to their child.

Naturally, he makes a snide question “But oxymoronic “same sex marriage” won’t have any impact on us, will it?”

The question implies that marriage equality will introduce a new condition to marriage.  That of former marriage partners using the children to get back at and punish the other parent by withholding the child from them.  Which would indeed be a terrible consequence.

Imagine!  What a terrible world it would be if heterosexual divorcees started using their children against their former partners!

Of course, what HWMNBN fails to point out is that it is the newly-minted “heterosexual” parent who is using the child as a pawn.

Another question not asked by our intrepid nameless one’s commentary is, why is visiting the still-gay parent suddenly causing nightmares and behavior disruption?  Is this something that never happens to children of heterosexual couples who divorce?  Does the irrevocable dissolution of a family never cause anxiety and distress in the six-year-old children of heterosexual divorcees?  Or is it that the methods and skills for helping them through it are not expected to work if the parents are homosexual?

The WND article caused me to ask some questions as well.  The article makes a big deal about how the couple was never married.  It appears that they had a civil union.  Apparently, the WND believes that a civil union is not enough to legitimate a parent-child relationship.

So what ever happened to the idea that we don’t need marriage equality because gay people have civil unions, and civil unions are just as good?  I must have a different definition of “separate but equal” than your average fundy.

One thing they DON'T say is whether or not the non-custodial, visitation-seeking parent is up-to-date on her child-support payments...

And remember....these are the same people who also consider the rights of heterosexual women to be "separate but equal".  You know, just a little less equal than men:

So I was over a Pharyngula reading a very entertaining piece that handed Deepak Chopra, the rap master of woo, his butt.  (again)

I was reading the comments and enjoying the science-nerd pile-on when suddenly THIS lept out at me:

"Hmmm... Now I know where the really bad, sciency sounding dialog for the character Mohindar Suresh in Heroes comes from."

Dan misses some very important points in this comment:

1) Mohinder Suresh is smokin' hot (see exhibit "A"), and Deepak Chopra is NOT (see exhibit "B").

2)  Mohinder Suresh is a fictional character in a story that specifically suspends the laws of science so that the world can work very differently than it actually does...and to that end there is a need to supply enough technobabble to drum you into a state we call "suspension of disbelief"...whereas Deepak Copra is a real person that is creating a story that specifically suspends the laws of science so that the world can work very differently than it actually does, and to that end there is a need to supply enough technobabble to drum you into a state we call "suspension of disbelief". This will cause you to pay lots of money for him to tell you his pretty pretty story about how you can live forever and be healthy the whole time.

3)Until recently, Mohinder Suresh was a character of unfailing moral fortitude selflessly working to redeem his father's life-work, discover the truth, and benefit all of humanity...and Deepak Chopra writes lots and lots of stuff about what he thinks science doesn't know, and provides PZ Myers with many, many opportunities to point out that just because Mr. Chopra doesn't know how something happens, that doesn't mean that SCIENCE doesn't know how it happens.

4)  Mohinder Suresh's use of eyeliner is organic, subtle, and alluring.  Deepak Chopra's use of eyeliner is heavy, harsh and scary.

5) So, in summation:  LEAVE MOHINDER ALONE!  Thank you, and I rest my case.

Exhibit "A":

(Image from here)

Exhibit "B":

(image from this site)

Apparently, the NARN have radio...and they are allies of the Ori.

Actually, it sort of figures.  The Narn always were overly religious and overly drawn to power.

What next?  The BORG?  (If you don't know what I'm talking about, don't worry...there's a whole lot of TV you'd have to watch in order to figure it out.)

So in other news...

Fashion tip:  The crazy "pisseth against a wall" preacher's wife disses Michelle Obama for wearing a sweats outfit.  Apparently, the Dems should spend $150,000 playing dress-up-Barbie like the Republicans...instead of trying to lead the country.

This from a lady who will marry and reproduce five times with a man who will yell the word "piss" from the pulpit...and who thinks God cares if your knees are bent or not when you pee...ooooh  THAT'S gotta burn.

Make a note people...the Ori do not like knit fabrics.

Here's a picture of what 50% of Americans look like to a conservative.

I think this might be what Robert Beal would say if he was capable of stringing words together that made sense.

It is probably a lot like the opinions held by such "top producers" as Tom Petters.

Seems like something "top producers" William and Shirley Pierce might have taught their students.

It sound like it would be right in line with the philosophy of intelligent, moral people like Fort Mill Mayor Danny Funderburk.  Now THAT'S a guy with a complex mental life who must certainly feel the moral weight of responsibility.

That mean government, always interfering with innocent, hard-working rich people.  Oh!  Those evil liberals who want to burden these bastions of virtue with government interference and regulation!

I think it's great that these poor put-upon assets to our country have someone to stand up and speak for them.

[off-topic update- Rocky just came back from a professional function, and reported that someone told him in conversation tonight that the reason we are in this economic mess is because the Democrats were helping the blacks buy houses.  Wow.  Rocky said he just walked away.  Probably the best response.  Really, the only safe and sane response.  The guy was probably armed.  Our friend Blake was there as well.  It will be interesting to get his take on it.]

[on-topic update] There's little news of this in the conservative MSM, but apparently the good Chrsitian morality says it's OK to gas babies and children if they are Muslim.  Dont you liberals wish that you had that kind of clarity and sanity?  You'd never be able to vote for Obama if you had these kind of rock-solid values.

CNN advertizing the next episode of Larry King:

"Dr. Phil will be here to tell us why we care about politics."

uh...huh?

The economy is in the toilet, economic indicators are plummeting, Osama Bin Laden is still at large seven years after major intelligence failures From highly politicized agencies resulted in 3,000 dead civilians...bail-outs of companies that can't manage to stay afloat despite ^ @! $ !!ing the public for all it is worth, and sticking us with the bill twice after passing laws that make it impossible for us to declare bankrupcy...

And Dr. Phil is going to explain to us why we care about politics?

I want to know, who are these dipshits who give a high-flying rat ^ @! $ !! what Dr. Phil thinks?

Some of you might remember that terrible abuse of the Christian religion that was the Life of Brian.

And some of you might be aware that the Life of Brian was banned by a God-fearing community...among other places...

Quote from Wikipedia entry:  "It was also banned for eight years in the Republic of Ireland and for a year in Norway (it was marketed in Sweden as '"The film so funny that it was banned in Norway")"

And some of you might know some trivia about a certain actress that was in said movie and is now the mayor of said town.

Now, she apparently wants to abuse her power in a clear conflict of interest to persecute Christians by unbanning the terrible movie that blythely urged a generation to "always look on the bright side of life".

No doubt inspiring other un-Godly sources of a glib and light-hearted approach to the world that lead us down the primrose path.

Will the horror never end?

(Hat Tip: Pharyngula)

Any of you remember Gilligan's Island?  Remember the depictions of simple native "Polynesian-ish" people brought to a roiling frenzy over the violation of some randomly rediculous "sacred object"?

Remember how silly and funny you thought it was when you were little?  Remember how (if you're a liberal) you later felt a little squeemish over someone representing an entire ethnic group as being so stupid and backwards? 

'cause nobody would really assault someone over a simple representational object.  I mean, there's no "primitive", cannabalistic cult on the earth that actually thinks that representational fetisches are their physical God, right?

Wrong.  Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

That said, I don't have a lot of sympathy for Webster Cook either.  Come on, every good country kid knows, you walk past a hornet's nest, you just keep on walking.  You don't put a stick in it and smash it around.  If they fly into your house or come and sting you, you smash them.  Or if they try to build in your barn, you break out the wasp spray...but you don't go into the woods where they have a perfect right to be, seek them out and stir them up.  That's just dumb.

I know that some are saying its a protest against having public money going to hold a Catholic mass on campus.  But that's not good enough.  I mean, I haven't heard anyone say that Catholics are the ONLY ones allowed to have mass on campus, and I hadn't heard that the group was trying to influence the administration or functioning of the college in any way, nor that students were required by the university to attend the mass.

Also, as one poster pointed out on line, if he wanted to show the Eucharist to his friend and explain it's importance, he should have just ordered a box of wafers online.  Then, he could crumble them up into his bathtub and roll around in them if he wanted to, and nobody would know.

(Hat Tip:  Pharyngula)

Women!  Take personal responsibility for your own safety.  I know it's tough, but you can do it by starting small.  All you have to do is make some small changes in your dating habits.  Lets start with the easy ones.

1)  Don't date men who describe themselves as "Christian Libertarians". (especially ones who look like they have had someone give their head a bikini wax)

2)  If you do date a self-described Christian Libertarian, and he buys you a diet Coke, assume it is laced with GHB, and don't drink it.  See, a "Christian Libertarian" will view knocking you out and having his way with you as the moral equivilant of stealing a purse you left lying around.  If you are going to date them, it's best to understand their culture and customs so you don't find yourself in situations like this.  See, "date rape" isn't like "Genuine rape".  It doesn't count.

3) Before you engage in innocent flirting, or put on that cute little outfit that shows off all the hard work you did in the gym for the last year, make sure that there will be no Christian Libertarians around where they can see you.  For that matter, consider moving to Berkley or someplace like that where it is toxic for Christian libertarians to live before you join a gym and commit to working out.

4)  Don't flirt with Christian Libertarians.  In their strange culture, flirting is agreeing to have sex...not a preliminary social ritual to gague a potential partner's interest, compatablility, or social acumen.  Also, changing your mind isn't allowed.

5)  Remember, if you put effort into looking good, a "Christian Libertarian" will view it as an invitation to rape you.  See, like the people on the street who overhear your conversation with a friend and interject themselves uninvited, a "Christian Libertarian" doesn't understand that even though you might be sending signals of sexual receptivness, you are not necessarily talking to THEM, and that you do not wave your right to say "no".

6) Actually, if you want to be safe from "Christian Libertarians", forget all of the above.  Just wear a Burqua.

7)  Oh wait, that won't help either.  Then they'll just shoot you.

8)  It doesn't matter what you do, the Christian Libertarians will get you.

9)  It'll be all your fault.

10) They don't need the government or any damn women telling them what to do.  They have all sorts of self-control.

(Hat Tip:  Denialism.com)

Uh oh.  I wouldn't want to be in this guy's shoes.

Apparently, he wrote a court decision about a case where he decided that it was a bad idea to let incompetent, abusive, neglectful parents educate their children at home.

And he wasn't careful to word it so that your average homeschooler would understand that it wasn't meant for them personally, just for incompetent, abusive and neglectful homeschoolers.

So they're all up in arms over it.

It's personal now!  I mean, if incompetent, neglectful, and abusive homeschoolers aren't allowed to educate their children at home...where will it end?

I ask you, isn't it time SOMEBODY drew a line in the sand and said "beyond this we shall not pass?"

My goodness, people, if we require parents to adhere to basic state standards for educating their children, if we (as the father so colorfully put it) force the parents to subject their children to educational environments that expose them to "snitches"...

What will the world have come to then?

Well, anyway, don't worry about it, the Govahnatoh is on the case.  He'll put it right.

Here's the offending opinion.  Basically, it says that religious reasons are fine, but you have to meet certain qualifications.  Kind of like avoiding the draft, you can't just say "it's against my religion", and get out of it.

Hey guys, do me a little favor - K?

Come up with some good turn-down lines that my fellow Kung Fuer - Maggie- can use.

10 brownie points for the best one.

Stuff like "I'd love to call you on the phone, but for some reason my electro-magnetic fields keep getting reversed, and people's phones get hot and explode when I call them".

Or "No, I can't sleep with you.  I shouldn't even be talking to you.  I have projectile herpes.  Oh!  There goes one now.  Sorry."

or "You want to buy me a drink?  No thanks, .  My last trip to the bar, they were all out of the blood of the innocent."

Theobromophile pointed me to this great spoof called "Abstinance Only Driver's Ed"

Basically, the point seems to be that if kids have access to certain...uh...equiptment...and are simply told not to use under penalty of many grave (but fairly vague and distant) threats, but the inherant rewards of using it are obvious, maybe it's a bad idea to deny them critical information about how that equiptment works, and how to use it safely.

Theobromophile counters with a spoof of her own, and you can see how the opposite side would find it fun, because they accept the characterization of comprehensive sex ed that the spoof relies on, and if thats actually how it worked...it would be HILARIOUS.  Well, the spoof would be hilarious.

Personally, the analogies seem a little off to me.

But that could be because I drove cars without training, and without my parent's knowledge or consent long before I got to driver's ed...and comprehensive sex ed clued me in to some things just in time to teach me to make my own decisions based on my own self-interest, and gave me the perspective to be able to say "no" to the advances of adult authority figures.

But I have to say that even though comprehensive sex education helped me a lot, it WAS far from comprehensive.  I mean, sure, they told me "Abstinance is the only way to be completely sure you don't get infected with STDs or pregnant"  However, they never told me "people will know you are not having sex, and you will pay a terrible price."  But my guess is, they didn't want to be discouraging.

I wonder if there is a funny car analogy for everyone knowing you aren't having sex, assuming you are gay, and having straight boys proclaim their determination to "show you the light" some day when you are not expecting them.

But at least abstinance-only education has given us a generation of girls who are afraid to sit on toilet seats, and instead have taken to hovering over them.  THAT'S something we can all be thankful for...row after row of sprinkled toilet seats.  It re-inforces those old-time family values my mom instilled in me:  particularly, "Go to the bathroom before you leave the house!"

And if they think they can get HIV from sweat, I imagine that will make it easier to get on the machines at the gym.

And just a reminder:  If you live in Minnesota, and your kids get quality comprehensive sex ed, it is because your school district told the State of Minnesota to keep their dirty money, and spent their own funds for the curriculum.  So don't forget to thank your local school board and be very sure to vote to re-elect them!

Can you believe that some teachers booed a pastor who came to speak at a school?

Poor Ken Hutcherson .

I can’t imagine why they would ever do such a thing to such a nice guy .

After all, he’s just a big bundle of cuddly.

And he has such nice friends , who are also just the sweetest guys.

I can’t believe that the teachers were so brutal, as to “boo” him.  Have they no humanity?  Don’t they know what “booing” can do to a man who is so sensitive and who just wants to be free to work for a world where Christians will be free to preach that it is God’s will for them to kill homosexuals?

I mean, to say “boo” to a guy like that.  It just goes to show what ANIMALS we are hiring to teach our children.  It’s just Christian persecution, plain and simple.

(Hat Tip: One News Now )

Thanks to Erudite Redneck, I don't have to pass on the delicious sugar rush that is Neil Simpson's blog.

Oh, sure, some people find it sacchrine...but not me.

Though Neil asked me to stop commenting on his blog, and though he complained repeatedly about me linking to him, I find that the fascinating blend of "Sound Doctrine" with it's more difficult and disturbing conclusions blunted by a convenient smattering of carefully selected "liberal theology" is also of interest to others! 

Let THEM creep Neil out!

Besides, it's much more fun when he is addressed by theists who disagree with him (and have a big bowl of alphabet soup after their names)

After all, candy is dandy, but soup is just more nourishing. 

Geekgoddess gets all whiney about poor injured people getting their money taken away by legal action by big corporations.

I also used to think like her, all commie pinko like that and stuff.

But I've recently had a conversion to free-market capitalism.

Just imagine the great heights that could be reached by our society if we made the dog-eat-dog world of business more prefectly dog-eat-doggier?

Just imagine how great our country would be if ANY paid service could not only charge you for the cost of operating their business, plus a modest profit, but then could ALSO charge you for anything that you got that was, in any way related to their service!

Like, just imagine what a great world we would live in if you rented a car, and they not only got to charge you for the rental of the car, but could also commondere your reimbursement from your employer or your business tax deductions?

Or, just imagine if you hired a cleaning service, and they cleaned your house, but if a friend happened to do a little cleaning for you in special preperation for a dinner party, they could charge you for the work your friend did!

It's genious!  And anyone who doesn't LOVE it is a commie atheist terrorist who hates our freedoms.

Between jjkaiser and Snideblog.

To bad Snide's too busy to post often.

Oh no you don't, Media.

You don't get to spend the whole LAST presidential election saying that Kerry would be a bad president because he's a stiff, due to his complete LACK of a sense of humor, and because his penchant for precisely answering the question can be percieved as "waffeling"...

...and then turn around and say Huckabee isn't "Presidential" because he's hilarious and has a shoot-from-the hip style.

Pile on one for being academic and humerless, and then turn around and pile on another because he has a quick come-back for almost everything?  Sheesh.

Huckabee wouldn't make a terrible president because he is funny, quick-witted, charming, and takes rhetorical risks.

Huckabee would make a terrible president because his approach to the world is trapped in the middle ages, because he thinks that he has a little man trapped in a book who will give him all the answers, and because he thinks that Chuck Norris (who, despite being a terrible actor, and a horrible judge of politics, is STILL the guy who I looked up to as a young Karateka) is a cherry political endorcement. 

I was just watching a History Channel special on China yesterday.  I had to laugh out loud when a Chinese Communist Party Official was shown talking about certain economic woes in his province.  He said:

"What we need is some sort of Social Security System".

I had to pause the DVR because I was laughing so hard.

See?  The conservatives are right!  Social Security IS communist! If it weren't Communist, the Communists wouldn't be thinking about maybe someday getting around to having it!

Some people are apparently a little confused about how I can reconcile my love for Daniel Jackson, and my loathing for Eric von Daniken.

Well, it's easy.

Eric von Daniken lives in THIS world, where the pyrmids were build by extraordinary human effort using advanced, but still ancient and very human, ingenuity, math, technology and skills.  All of which we can abundantly demonstrate that the humans of that time had.  Nevertheless, he believes that alien astronauts came to our planet and assembled the wonders of the ancient world with the magic laser beams.  Despite the inability to support these claims with equally extraordinary proof, he continues to promote his ideas as though they are established fact.

Daniel Jackson lives in a fictional world where the pyramids were ACTUALLY BUILT by extraordinary human effort using advanced ingenuity, math, technology and skills which were given them by ancient astronauts posing as gods in order to obtain hosts for their parasitic selves, as well as intelligent, adaptable and fast-breeding slave armies.  Unlike Daniken, when Dr. Jackson went looking for the alien astronauts, HE FOUND THEM.  Then, they pissed him off, and he tweaked their noses, kicked the asses, rolled them in tar and feathers, and kicked them out of his galaxy...with his brain.  He hardly had to flex those nicely proportional arm muscles at all.

Also, Eric von Daniken is a paunchy, dusty old crank who is technically old enough to be either my father or my grandfather, and he spouts enough unsupportable superstitious B.S. to be my pastor.  Anyone creeped out yet?

Daniel, though fictional, is only two years older than me (born THE DAY BEFORE ROCKY), is adorable, and works out on a regular basis.

So, there you have it.  Happy now?

Many entities benefit greatly from Global Climate Change Denialism.

Can you tell the difference between two of them?

ExxonMobile and brain-eating ameobas.

(Hint:  Though they both strive to affect your brain, one funds denialist propaganda, and one is an opportunistic parasite).

[Hat Tip:  Pharyngula]

So I'm on my way to my Wednesday night class,and I'm stopped behind a Ford Taurus at the stop-light, when I notice the vanity plate:

"BM"

That's all it says.

So I look at the "Taurus" logo on the back of the car, followed by the "BM" vanity plate...and I think "Bullshit?"

Am I the only one?

So I'm on the phone with Barb, and we're both drinking.  It's a little thing we do when there's nothing else going on.  She's in Missouri, I'm in Minnesota, so we call each other up at a time when both of our cell-phone plans give us free minutes, and we drink and talk on the phone. 

And Barb starts talking about how one time she went and visited this guy that I had dated, and he was reading her some of his writing and one of the pieces he had written was about me.

And her rememberance of it was that he described me as some sort of epic super-heroin, a cat-like force of nature.  A goddess of potential mayhem and violence.  He just says that because I kicked his ass in sparring.  Repeatedly. Thoroughly. and with more enjoyment than a strictly sane woman would have.

And her response was that this was strange and new to her.  To her, I was just Teresa, who could be sullen and moody; goofy and geeky; a tortured and lost soul with a bit too much drama mixed in to be taken seriously.  I was her kindergarden friend who like playing cars with the boys and moved away and came back years later as a third-grade tom-boy cowgirl with a chip on her shoulder.  The nerdy girl who smoked with the toughies behind the Jet-Mart across the street, and had lots of scary friends, yet never seemed to be scary herself.  Who drank enough to be mouthy when it wasn't wise, but somehow managed to pull off an escape when trouble struck.  Who got arrested on occasion, but was too embarassed to admit it outright and did detention for truancy rather than admit to larceny if she was dragged down to the cop-shop during school hours.  Who showed up at school with spectacular bruises and more spectacular stories that no one really believed or listened to.  Who appeared to make up as much stuff as she told straight, who covered under callousness and carelessness a sense of wonder and responsibilty.

I responded that if she didn't think I was a cat-like super-hero force-of-nature chick, it was probably because she had never been sexually attracted to me, and plus, if she'd never seen me as an epic heroin, she had probably never seen me clean a toilet.

Because me doing battle with the forces of disorder and chaos in a houseful of males is nothing short of the epic battle between Gilgamesh and the Bull of Heaven.  And that goes double after a LAN party where you have at least a half-dozen men who don't live here, have been living on Little Debbies, Doritos and Mountain Dew for 17 hours, and want to get back into play before they get greased by a teenager who has more of a natural tolerance for Little Debbies, Doritos, and Mountain Dew than they do.

Barb called bullshit, as child-hood friends will.  the subject changed, and we moved on.

And I kept my real secrets again.  Hidden in plain sight from those who know me best.

Because you know, don't you dear readers...you're only REALLY dead...when they put you in a box.

>:->

Just let them have the damned papers already.

Yes, it's a fishing expidition.  Yes, even if you haven't done anything wrong or embarassing, they will find something that they can make into something they can use (and who really thinks you got where you are by being a saint?).

But either turn the damn papers over or drop out of the race.  Didn't you learn anything from Bill's debacle?

Stalling doesn't help Democrats.  When a Democrat does it it is seen as weak and sneaky.

When Republicans do it, it is strong and decisive.

Because of the liberal media.

If you don't address whatever it is now, people won't be tired about hearing it by election time.  If they don't have something by election time, they'll do like they did to Kerry and make something up, and it'll be too late to disprove it.

I wouldn't care how it affects you either way, but all the talk is splashing over onto any candidate whose not a Republican.

And besides, any papers about the public's business should be available to the public.

The Foo Fighters are HIV/AIDS denialists.

Mother of God!  Will the hurting never stop?

I suppose next I'm going to learn that the band Rush is anti-vaccination, the Dixie Chicks believe in Morgellon's Syndrome, or Queensreich are Holocaust deniers or something.

No, no.  that would be too terrible.  I couldn't bear it.

(Hat Tip:  Denialism. com)

Continuing the trend of Constitution Party boosters who have needlessly duplicated consonants in their names:

Meet Mary Starrett.

She is anti-choice.   Read the whole article.  I like here answer to the question if abortion could be allowed in the case of rape and incest.  She answers that an innocent child shouldn’t have to suffer for the sins of the father.

Of course, the woman is another story.  It would be interesting to hear what sort of rights a woman has in their world view if a group of cells have more rights because it might one day form a person.  A woman can suffer for the sins of another because she has fewer rights than something that isn’t even a person yet.

Mary Starrett is very cute , smart, educated and articulate.

Why oh why can’t we have Mary Starrett instead of Ann Coulter?  She’d SAY equally entertaining bat-shit insane things, but she’d say them in a way that was actually clever and she’d be easier to look at.  Also, one look at those adorable little grandma chipmunk cheeks, and you KNOW she’d be nicer.

 After all, I think a wholesome, girl-next-door wife, mother and grandmother is more qualified to talk about how important is for women to recognize their proper “place” than a jaded-looking, dried-up, underfed, crabby bitter spinster.

Here is one of Mary’s opinion pieces.   Here is a list of more titles .

Video!  Whose and adorable little conspiracy theorist?  You are!…yes you are…ah-boo-boo-boo.

It weirds me out a little bit that it averages two-to-four sentences on almost any new topic before she gets to a point where I remember she’s lost her mind, though.

For instance, the “fact” that the BBC reported the fall of WTC 7 twenty minutes before it actually fell.  What I find interesting about the conclusions they drew from that, assuming it’s even true and not an urban legend, is that there were TONS of things reported that turned out to not be true.  We had a report of a car bomb on The Mall.  I remember a report of a bomb going off somewhere in Washington, and fires that turned out to be false alarms.  It doesn’t seem like much of a stretch to me to have a report of something happening that turns out to have been a false report, or a report that was prepared ahead of time, knowing that near-by buildings had been damaged (which was mentioned before the collapse of WTC7)  and got aired prematurely, and then the event happens.

 It doesn’t mean the government did it.  Why would 9/11 be an inside job, as Mary says she believes?  What possible reason could they have for doing it themselves when, as anyone in the Clinton administration could have told you it was only a matter of time before something happened.  Were the Republicans poised to take advantage of the tragedy? Oh yes, it would appear to be so.  But why would your orchestrate your own tragedy when it was so clear that one would eventually be provided for you, even if you put your best efforts into preventing it?

I’m sure some of Mary’s fans are a little disappointed at her balking at validating the Zionist Global Conspiracy Theory.  She stopped just short of it, and wouldn’t be budged or nudged into anything more than a polite non-comment.

And I have to say I am a little disappointed that there was no mention of the alien captives in area 51.  Still, we can’t have everything.  But really, a good-old fashioned call for the government to ‘fess up about what REALLY happened at Roswell would have rounded out the roll-call of where-the-fringes-of-the-right-and-left-wings-meet conspiracy theories very nicely.

About her theories on Waco:  It might be that the Branch Davidians were all about peace and fluffy puppy love…but read up on Jonestown sometime.  Read up on the lovely, intelligent, talented, giving people who were members of Jim Jones’ cult.  Read about what a caring and visionary leader Jones himself was.

 Nobody who was in his church in the early years, or who knew many of his followers would have predicted the sudden shift in paranoid militantism, the sexual abuse, or that those people could be convinced to hold down their fellow cult members, plug their noses, and force cyanide-laced Kool-Aid down their throats at gun-point.

Sorry, but given the various histories of cults like this, like the Hale-Bopp cult as well…I am more likely to believe the government line that the cultists preferred to take their own lives and the lives of their fellows rather than be arrested.

Not because I inherently trust the government, but simply because in this case, it seems more consistent with reality than that somehow the government just decided to butcher a bunch of people for no reason.  Nobody has ever given me one good reason why the government would take the actions they are accused of taking.

There is a certain pattern to government malfeasance that just doesn’t fit the Waco conspiracy theories, whereas the pattern of a cult gone to the point of self-destruction because it’s ideology has reached a point of madness where they realize they can no longer exist within the confines of reality is much more consistent with the facts.

Had the government done nothing in Waco, I think we would have had another Jonestown…only this time it would have been on American soil, and do you know WHO people would have blamed?  The government, of course.

But this is the essential fact I see in the Constitution party’s platform.  The government is to be shrunk down to where it has no power at all, and the church will move in to fill the gaps.  ‘Course, what they DON’T say is that the church, being the most powerful civil institution, would pretty much be able to put whoever they want into the government as well.

And do you think the big business guys that they complain about will miss a beat?  I don’t think so.  Just look at all the money they unload on religion already.

The third-largest party in the U.S. is rooting for a theocracy, buttressing their arguments with conspiracy theories that have long ago passed the dead-horse stage, and arguments of inference and paranoid over reason.

God help us all if this is our best “alternative”.

Much is being made of this video.  Some people think that it is a bunch of rude, obnoxious, theocratic extremeists trying to silence a religious blessing upon our government from a holy man from a significant minority group who contributes greatly to the richness of our society.

Nothing could be further from the truth.  The truth is that our Deist founders who didn't believe in organized religion, nevertheless decreed that the United States was a Christian nation.  Sure, natural law was a good enough way for them to live THIER lives, but for the country, they thought that bronze age morality was the cure and they said no other religion could be practiced publicly.

And don't quote me Jefferson's letter to the Baptist convention about the "Wall of Seperation" malarky.  That was just a ruse to lull the non-Christians into a false sense of security.

Anyway.  What's going on here is that the Christians are exersising both their RIGHT to use their free speech to silence other religions, and their SACRED OBLIGATION to harass non-Christian in the country.  And by non Christians, I mean non- Protestants.

Protestants are the REAL church...no matter what the Pope says.

I mean, who does this Hindu holy man think he is anyway?  What makes him think that we WANT to ask to be guided by the supreme deity who created and runs the universe, and have our deliberations and decisions and actions subject to his laws?  What makes him think that we have any obligation to remember that we are part of a country that is part of a planet, that is part of a universal system whose reality we are subject to, and whithin which we are called to function with the best possible expression of our nature?

Oh. Wait.  I guess this must explain something that someone has called to my attention:  Some Christians think that liberal Christians are actually Hindus.  LOL.  Maybe we should re-think the percentage of Hindues that make up the population.  Maybe we need to add more Hindu chaplains.

It seems almost futile for religion to call people to humility anymore.

(double Hat Tip:  Eclecticsanonymous)

Also, Jason Bock has commentary on this.

I was taking an inventory of my baking supplies recently, and it struck me:

Doesn't "Imperial Brown Sugar" sound like the greatest drag queen name ever?

Taking a page from a certain High School English teacher, who used grammar exercises to promote his conservative political opinions, I have come up with a little activity for any of you who wish to attempt it:

 Identify the similes and metaphors.

1)         I’d be all over that like Michelle Malkin on a new justification for the Japanese-American internment in WWII.

2)       The air was as thick with tension as Rumsfeld’s press conferences are with folksy affectations.

3)       With the rainfall and precipitous drop in temperature, the road became as slick as Wolfowitz’ comb.

4)       Dinesh Dsousa’s writing is a thundering rain of self-serving incivility.

5)       Hubris fills the holes in Wolfowitz’ socks.

6)       The flaws in the pre-Iraq justifications were as apparent as Ann Coulter’s knobby shoulder bones.

7)       The Discovery Institute is an actor that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.  Sorry Bill.  (Shakespeare, not Dembski)

8)       The sentiments in Ann Coulter’s columns are a confusion of angry bees in the middle of an episode of Colony Collapse Syndrome.  Each buzzing off in its own direction for no apparent reason.

9)       Knut is like the whole question of man’s impact on the environment.  One we can feel slightly guilty about, and yet embrace with warm fuzzies at the same time…and then let someone else worry about it until we need to blame them for the outcome later.

10)    Bill O’Reilly is the “eccentric” uncle at the family picnic that everyone secretly waits to see what he’ll do next, but nobody wants to talk to.