A Spork in the Drawer

In A Nutshell

While I don't think that Barack Obama is an elitist, America-hating negro the fact remains that Barack Obama is an elitist, America-hating negro.

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Unable To Distinguish

Former BushCo™ speechwriter Michael Gerson:

For the most part, these accusations are a political ploy -- actually an attempt to shut down political debate. Any practical concern about the content of government sex-education curricula is labeled "anti-science." Any ethical question about the destruction of human embryos to harvest their cells is dismissed as "theological" and thus illegitimate.

From there Gerson goes on to demonstrate that he doesn't know the difference between "science" and "theology" or, for that matter, what "facts" and "evidence" are.

And, yes, Gerson brings Nazis into the mix.

Are there any honest, intelligent Conservatives left?

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ADDED: Kevin: "The disingenuousness here is breathtaking."

Chris Mooney (who literally wrote the book on this subject): "In short, Gerson's oped is a joke. No need for debunking, just laughing."

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Our Friends On The Right

Right-winger extraordinaire Ben Stein - famous for Ferris Bueller's Day Off and a little-watched basic cable game show - recently made a "documentary" called Expelled (not going to provide link) which is really an extended hysterical screed against evolution. Various "real" scientists were interviewed for it under false pretenses including blog-favorite PZ Myers. Here's what Stein says about PZ:

Stein: When we just saw that man, I think it was Mr. [PZ] Myers, talking about how great scientists were, I was thinking to myself the last time any of my relatives saw scientists telling them what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed.

Wow.

Just wow.

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Useful

The great Roy Edroso of alicublog gives us The Official Village Voice Election-Season Guide to the Right-Wing Blogosphere: A confederacy of dunces.

Know thine enemy!

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God Save Us

Jesus rides with me:

The Florida Legislature may create a new license plate that features the words ''I Believe'' and the image of a cross in front of a church stained glass window. The measure is moving in both the House and Senate.

[...]

The extra money earned from the sale of the ''I Believe'' license plate would go to an Orlando based non profit called Faith in Teaching Inc. that says on its website that money from the plates would be used for grants to ``continue faith based education for the youth of Florida.''

Perhaps I wouldn't be so opposed if the fine lawmakers of Florida also offered a Flying Spaghetti Monster license plate. Or perhaps license plates should be non-ideological.

[Via PZ.]

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What First Amendment?

Illinois Rep. Monique Davis (a Democrat) to atheist Rob Sherman during committee testimony:

Davis: I don’t know what you have against God, but some of us don’t have much against him. We look forward to him and his blessings. And it’s really a tragedy -- it’s tragic -- when a person who is engaged in anything related to God, they want to fight. They want to fight prayer in school.

I don’t see you (Sherman) fighting guns in school. You know?

I’m trying to understand the philosophy that you want to spread in the state of Illinois. This is the Land of Lincoln. This is the Land of Lincoln where people believe in God, where people believe in protecting their children.… What you have to spew and spread is extremely dangerous, it’s dangerous--

Sherman: What’s dangerous, ma’am?

Davis: It’s dangerous to the progression of this state. And it’s dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists! Now you will go to court to fight kids to have the opportunity to be quiet for a minute. But damn if you’ll go to [court] to fight for them to keep guns out of their hands. I am fed up! Get out of that seat!

Sherman: Thank you for sharing your perspective with me, and I’m sure that if this matter does go to court---

Davis: You have no right to be here! We believe in something. You believe in destroying! You believe in destroying what this state was built upon.

You have to listen to the audio to get the full flavor of Davis' hate.

It just goes to show that some Democrats can be as hateful and intolerant as your average Republican.

[Via Lindsay.]

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Expelled

PZ goes to the movies.

Too funny.

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UPDATE: The NYT takes note.

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The Huckster

Fully-formed human.



Homunculus.

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Jesus Saves

That's as may be but Hillary cozying up to Pat Robertson probably won't help save her campaign.

Ye gods.

[Via Tapped.]

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Red Roses For Thee...Or Maybe A Beating

Our bestest friends:

The sale of red roses and red gifts has been banned by Saudi Arabia's religious police in the run-up to Valentine's Day, reports a local newspaper.

Officials from the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice warned flower and gift shops to remove all red items, including roses and wrapping paper, from their shelves.

"They visited us last night," an unidentified florist told the Saudi Gazette. "They gave us warnings and this morning we packed up all the red items."

[...]

The crackdown has pushed up the price of the flowers on the black market, with some florists making deliveries in the middle of the night, says the paper.

So how's that whole democracy-in-the-Middle East thing going, George and Dick?

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Oy

[Photo by metaphorge via Attaturk at FDL.]

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The Mask Slips

Any lingering questions about how "faith" informs the Huckster's political views are now put to rest:

I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that’s what we need to do is amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than trying to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family.

So now that Huckleberry has implicitly - hell, explicitly - called for establishing a theocracy will the almighty punditocracy slam him?

Of course not.

(Video at link.)

Maria has more.

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Huckmania! II - Electric Boogaloo

So how do the Republicans feel about Iowa today?

Let's just say that the state is filled with "corn-sucking idiots."

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Huckmania!

The Republican Establishment pretends it's not panicking.

tristero has a timely reminder of what exactly the Huckster is.




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A Message For Mitt

Yo, Willard, check it out:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

Constitution, dawg.

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Chest Thumping

Reg Henry:

Not to worry. By expressing his belligerent views, Mr. Giuliani is able to make dyspeptic conservatives forget all the other stuff. For them and their talk-show thought controllers, the main thing is to be tough, always tough.

Still, this is fairly amazing for the rest of us. What happened to the gay-bashing so popular with the Republican Party faithful in recent years? What about all their other alleged values that Republicans said they cared about? Will they put aside their favorite prejudices just to worship power at the first church of Rudy Giuliani?

Of course they will. Anything to win. Besides, they understand now that there has been a bit of the old "doth complain too much" syndrome at work with the result that ordinary fellows are afraid to go into men's rooms around the country lest they find conservative preachers and politicians playing happy feet.

Read the whole thing.

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Power Over Principle

So Grand Ayatollah Pat Robertson has gone and endorsed Benito Giuliani despite Rudy's long history of social liberalism. (I don't think for a minute that a president Giuliani would govern as a social liberal, but that's his record.)

This just adds to the pile of evidence that the likes of Robertson care about power first and foremost. They know that whatever else, Rudy will bomb and kill and run his administration in a way that will make us nostalgic for the sanity and moderation of BushCheney. To Hell with strongly held Biblical principles so long as they think they'll be able to put a boot on people's throats.

And as Greg Sargent reminds us, somebody ought to ask Rudy if he agrees with Robertson's contention that the United States deserved the 11 September attacks.

I would enjoy hearing Rudy's answer.

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The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

The War on Christmas has begun!

Let's go, "Secular Progressives", it's time to carpet bomb some crèches!

Woohoo!

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Rudy and Willard

Newsweek interviews Richard Land, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. What fun!

NEWSWEEK: So we wanted to ask you, first of all, about the third party idea and whether it's serious. A number of people are suggesting it is just a threat.

Land: My intuition [is that] this is not a bluff. If Giuliani is the nominee, there will be a third party. There are things that Giuliani could do to help mitigate the damage. But I have been in too many discussions over the last 15 years where evangelical leaders have said, "The one thing we will never allow to happen is for the Republican Party to take us for granted the way the Democrat Party too often takes the African-American community for granted."

This is not a bluff.

[...]

NEWSWEEK: Did I hear you say that there are things that Giuliani can do that could mitigate...

Land: No, he's not going to do that, and if he did, nobody would believe it. He would [have to] say, number one, "This is a pro-life party; I realize I am out of step with where the party is, and I am not going to try to in any way weaken the [pro-life] plank." He could say, "I will only appoint strict constructionists, original-intent jurists to the federal judiciary." Strict constructionists by definition think that Roe v. Wade was an overreach, and is a badly decided decision. If he were to agree to appoint a pro-life attorney general in the mode of a John Ashcroft…

And then Land is asked about Mittens:

NEWSWEEK: Well, I think the term "flip-flopper" was coined by your side, wasn't it?

Land: Well, not by me… But I think that if [Romney] wants to gain the kind of support [from] evangelicals that he wants, he needs to give a JFK-type speech [in which Kennedy said he was "not the Catholic candidate for President," but rather a candidate "who happens also to be a Catholic."]. I have told him this.

Oh, yes, Mitt should definitely give that speech. But Land and his friends would certainly be unhappy. Why? The central point of Kennedy's 1960 speech to Greater Houston Ministerial Association was this:

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute...I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish--where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source--where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials--and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.

This, it should go without saying, flies in the face of the modern evangelical movement. They deny the very concept of "separation of church and state" and proclaim the US to be a (very conservative Protestant) Christian nation.

So Mitt should definitely give a big speech in which he proclaims his devotion to the separation of church and state.

Then sit back and watch Land's head explode.

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The Death Of Newspaper Columns

The rehabilitation of L'il Ricky is in full swing. After bursting gloriously back onto the stage with "Islamofascism Awareness Week" comes this:

Buried in the middle of the Inquirer’s A3 Rick-Santorum-blasts-brown-people story this morning is a bracketed announcement that the former U.S. senator, our state’s preeminent Islamo-Fascist Warrior, will begin a biweekly op-ed column for the paper starting next month.

Yes, you read that right: Former Sen. Santorum (R-AKC) will be dropping nuggets of his shit wisdom twice a week onto the citizenry of Philadelphia. Could a syndication deal soon be in the offing? Stay tuned!

Ricky's family hears the news.

[Via Think Progress.]

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Damn! I Forgot!

Yesterday was our planet's birthday. Exactly 6010 years old.

Doesn't look a day over 5327 if you ask me.

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Happy Islamofascism Awareness Week!

No, really.

And, needless to say, God's Own Bestiality Obsessed Former Junior Senator from Pennsylvania is in the thick of it.

A regular modern Paul Revere

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Whore Of Babylon

Tony Norman:

Because intolerance is as natural to Ms. Coulter as dyeing her hair a mustard-gas yellow, it was only a matter of time before she got around to saying something offensive about another member of the Abrahamic Axis of Eden.

[...]

Mr. Deutsch pressed her. Asked if "we should just throw Judaism away and we should all be Christians," the tarty Torquemada quickly agreed.

"Well, it's a lot easier," she quipped. "It's kind of a fast track."

[...]

What non-Christian could resist becoming a part of a tradition with this kind of history of perfecting others? If we were all to become like the happy Christians who smiled like idiots through the 2004 Republican convention, we would never have to fear another Holocaust, would we?

Judging by the makeup of the "perfected community" with all of its segregation and intolerance, perfection probably isn't all its cracked up to be.

As the saying goes, read the whole thing.

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Our Friends On The Right

Just keep talking, rightwingers:

During the October 8 edition of CNBC's The Big Idea, host Donny Deutsch asked right-wing pundit Ann Coulter: "If you had your way ... and your dreams, which are genuine, came true ... what would this country look like?" Coulter responded, "It would look like New York City during the [2004] Republican National Convention. In fact, that's what I think heaven is going to look like." She described the convention as follows: "People were happy. They're Christian. They're tolerant. They defend America." Deutsch then asked, "It would be better if we were all Christian?" to which Coulter responded, "Yes." Later in the discussion, Deutsch said to her: "[Y]ou said we should throw Judaism away and we should all be Christians," and Coulter again replied, "Yes." When pressed by Deutsch regarding whether she wanted to be like "the head of Iran" and "wipe Israel off the Earth," Coulter stated: "No, we just want Jews to be perfected, as they say. ... That's what Christianity is. We believe the Old Testament, but ours is more like Federal Express. You have to obey laws."

The more they open their mouths the more people will turn on them.

Except, of course, for the 30% or so that agree with them.

Oh, and Ann? Thou shalt not bear false witness. As a "perfected Christian" you should know that. It's kind of basic.

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Is It The Fourth Reich Yet?

Insanity.

The mayor of a major American city calling in a fundie Christian paramilitary to go after gays is Way. The. Fuck. Over. The. Line.

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Crackpottery

PZ Myers is being sued by some creationist crackpot for daring to review said crackpot's book negatively.

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[stunned silence]

GodTube.

Kill me now.

[Via Pam Spaulding.]

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Riddle Me This

Why is Loyal Bushie™ Michael "Axis of Evil" Gerson writing for the Washington Post?

Liberal media, my ass.

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Whoops!

It looks like fundie Repub David Vitter (R-Cathouse) has been an even naughtier boy than admitted:

U.S. Senator David Vitter visited a Canal Street brothel several times beginning in the mid-1990s, paying $300 per hour for services at the bordello after he met the madam at a fishing rodeo that included prostitutes and other politicians, according to Jeanette Maier, the "Canal Street Madam" whose operation was shut down by a federal investigators in 2001.

[...]

"I'm not out to ruin a marriage, I'm out to save a man," Maier said. "I want his wife to know he's a good man, I want his children to know he's a good father. If he had sex out of wedlock, so what? At least he stayed with his children."

Granted, Maier is writing a book and her own lawyer is surprised at the allegation but Davey should know that once you lie down with Les Belles de nuit these things can happen.

Ahhh, I love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning!

[Via Aravosis.]

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ADDED: Oh, my.

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Nicely Put

University of Washington evolutionary biologist David P. Barash writes:

The good news is that over time, actual truth wins out. Only scientifically illiterate troglodytes deny the microbial theory of disease, or the reality of atoms, or of evolution. Still, scientists face a constant struggle, a kind of Red Queen dilemma. Recall the scene in Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass," in which Alice and the Queen run vigorously but get nowhere. The Queen explains, "Here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that."

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Li'l Ricky In The News!

When last we heard from America's favorite dog-lovin' former Senator he was vowing to become a filmmaker. Well, you have to hand it to the bestiality afficianado because he's, erm, plugging away:

Rick Santorum is in early talks on a movie project with Hollywood producer Stephen McEveety.

Rumors have been buzzing throughout Harrisburg that Santorum was connecting with McEveety, who produced Mel Gibson blockbusters such as "Braveheart," "The Passion of the Christ" and "We Were Soldiers," on a project.

"I am not doing anything with Mel Gibson," said Santorum, a former U.S. senator from Penn Hills who now is a senior fellow with the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a conservative Washington think tank.

"I am doing something with a movie project, but it is in the very, very early stages of the project," he said. "The only Gibson connection is that the guy that I am doing this with used to work for Gibson, but he does not now.

[...]

The story follows three Iranian brothers who take disparate paths in their lives, including one who becomes a terrorist.

At this point, Santorum's project doesn't have a title, and no decision has been made on where it will be filmed and whether it could end up giving the Pittsburgh area's film industry a boost.

Unfortunately, the title "A Boy and his Dog" is already taken.

It'll be fun for children of all ages!

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Mass Confusion

This is very revealing:

Two-thirds in the poll said creationism, the idea that God created humans in their present form within the past 10,000 years, is definitely or probably true. More than half, 53%, said evolution, the idea that humans evolved from less advanced life forms over millions of years, is definitely or probably true. All told, 25% say that both creationism and evolution are definitely or probably true.

PROPOSAL: Beginning at the very earliest stages of education Logic 101 should be taught.

And it should be taught, mandatory-wise, through to the very last level of education.

And for adults, Nancy Pelosi included, it should be a requirement for obtaining a driver's licence.

Ye gods.

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Oh. My. God.

By way of Devilstower we find that Jonathan Gitlin of ars technica visited the new Creation Museum. It's definitely worth a read and the post has many hilarious pictures. I especially enjoyed this one:

You're eyes don't deceive you: This is indeed a triceratops all saddled-up and ready to ride.

Really, anything I write would be superfluous.

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Things I Didn't Know

Interesting:

We learn that chameleons, for example, change colors not because that serves as a survival mechanism, but “to ‘talk’ to other chameleons, to show off their mood, and to adjust to heat and light.”

Okay, by "interesting" I mean that it's interesting that there are loons that believe this sort of nonsense.

The above is from a NYT review of Ken Ham's Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky. We also learn the "true" nature (!) of fossilized remains:

Meanwhile a remarkable fossil of a perch devouring a herring found in Wyoming offers “silent testimony to God’s worldwide judgment,” not because it shows a predator and prey, but because the two perished — somehow getting preserved in stone — during Noah’s flood. Nearly all fossils, the museum asserts, are relics of that divine retribution.

And, of course, besides the remarkably bad "science" we have remarkably bad sociology:

Start accepting evolution or an ancient Earth, and the result is like the giant wrecking ball, labeled “Millions of Years,” that is shown smashing the ground at the foundation of a church, the cracks reaching across the gallery to a model of a home in which videos demonstrate the imminence of moral dissolution. A teenager is shown sitting at a computer; he is, we are told, looking at pornography.

And here I thought that God invented computers just so we could look at internet porn. The things you learn!

On a more serious note, the problem with things like the Creation "Museum," which Ham believes will get as many as 250,000 visitors in it's first year, is that the ignorant - and I don't mean that as a pejorative; we're all ignorant about most things - will venture in and be taken by the slick presentations designed to appeal to our preconceived cultural assumptions. Witness the concluding paragraph of this review:

But for debates, a visitor goes elsewhere. The Creation Museum offers an alternate world that has its fascinations, even for a skeptic wary of the effect of so many unanswered assertions. He leaves feeling a bit like Adam emerging from Eden, all the world before him, freshly amazed at its strangeness and extravagant peculiarities.

Here the reporter, rather than calling bullshit, bends over backwards to not offend believers. In it's way, the article gives the stamp of approval to Ham's pre-enlightenment nonsense. And this from the "secular liberal" New York Times.

Prophylactic: As something of a free speech fanatic I'm not arguing that this be shut down. The solution to problems like this is more speech and better formal and informal education.

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Indeed

In the wake of some of Jerry Falwell's finest plotting to blow up protesters the Booman Tribune's Steven D has some questions:

Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, ring any bells, oh Wise Men of the Punditocracy? Eric Rudolph? Or how about Barbara Joan March,the woman who sent the Supreme Court Justices rat poisoned cookies to eat? Or Chad Conrad Castagana, the idiot who mailed fake anthrax powdered envelopes to Keith Olbermann, Jon Stewart, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and David Letterman (among others)? Or the Alabama militia group that planned to do a little "free range" murdering of Mexican immigrants before the FBI spoiled their party?

Or maybe you Media Masters of the Broderverse can explain to me why the people who just want to peacefully protest an illegal war in Iraq are the walnuts in America's Patriotic Pie, when between 1995 and 2005 there were 60 right wing terrorist plots (that we know about) which were foiled by law enforcement?

But the phrase "Christian terrorists" will never pass the lips (or the fingers) of our finest and most respected pundits.

That would be shrill.

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In Remembrance

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One Down

Evangelist Jerry Falwell dies at 73

Falwell on the 11 September attacks:

"I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'"

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WTF?

What the hell is George doing meeting with Mullah Dobson et al on the subject of Iran?

“I was invited to go to Washington DC to meet with President Bush in the White House along with 12 or 13 other leaders of the pro-family movement," Dobson disclosed on his radio program Monday. “And the topic of the discussion that day was Iraq, Iran and international terrorism. And we were together for 90 minutes and it was very enlightening and in some ways disturbing too."

[...]

“I heard about this danger [from Iran] not only at the White House but from other pro-family leaders that I met during that week in Washington," he said. “Many people in a position to know are talking about the possibility of losing a city to nuclear or biological or chemical attack. And if we can lose one we can lose ten.

"If we can lose ten we can lose a hundred," he added, “especially if North Korea and Russia and China pile on.”

Dobson goes on the scream, "Hitler! Hitler! Hitler!"

As Steven D says, "This is deeply disturbing on so many levels I don't know what to say [...]"

Two points: 1) Our fundies don't need to be convinced that blowing Iran up is a good idea; they're already down with that. And 2) Dobson and friends have no expertise in the matter so why is George conferring with them?

This is only reinforcing my belief that BushCheney, who have poll numbers in the toilet and investigations closing in from all sides, are willing to "throw the dice" and start another war in order to try and save themselves.

This is, again, disturbing on so many levels.

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Our Friends On The Right

Such moral people:

An explosive device "which could have caused substantial harm" was found Wednesday in the parking lot of an Austin, Texas, women's clinic where abortions are performed, authorities said.

"It was configured in such a way as to cause serious bodily injury or death," Austin Police Assistant Chief David Carter told reporters Thursday.

I'm sure their god is very proud.

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What You Need To Know

Marty Lederman:

Back in July 2005, I posted to our "Supreme Court Nominations" subsite (now defunct) a list of precedents that were the most vulnerable in the wake of Justice O'Connor's retirement. The list is republished below. At the time, I wrote that the most important and most vulnerable of those precedents were in the areas of the Establishment Clause (especially the direct funding cases such as Mitchell v. Helms), affirmative action (and just watch what happens to Grutter later this Term), and abortion, where Stenberg v. Carhart was hanging by a thread. Today, the thread snapped, as a five-Justice majority upheld the federal "partial-birth abortion" prohibition.

In its decision today, the Court effectively overruled Stenberg's "undue burden" test for facial challenges to abortion-restriction statues (see pages 36-37 of the opinion).

Justice Ginsburg:

Ginsburg, in a lengthy statement, said "the Court's opinion tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. For the first time since Roe, the Court blesses a prohibition with no exception protecting a woman's health." She said the federal ban "and the Court's defense of it cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away at a right declared again and again by this Court -- and with increasing comprehension of its centrality to women's lives. A decision of the character the Court makes today should not have staying power."

I would now expect a full-on challenge to Roe and given what I've been reading today, the reasoning behind this decision all but mandates the overturning of Roe.

The last word:

Roberta Combs, president of the Christian Coalition of America, said: "With today’s Supreme Court decision, it is just a matter of time before the infamous Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 will also be struck down by the court.”

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The Supreme Court Matters

Here we go:

The Supreme Court upheld the nationwide ban on a controversial abortion procedure Wednesday, handing abortion opponents the long-awaited victory they expected from a more conservative bench.

The 5-4 ruling said the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act that Congress passed and President Bush signed into law in 2003 does not violate a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.

[...]

The decision pitted the court's conservatives against its liberals, with President Bush's two appointees, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, siding with the majority.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia also were in the majority.

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Scrubbed

As has been noted Monica Goodling and around 150 other graduates of Pat Robertson's laughable Regent University Law School* are seeded throughout the BushCheney administration.

Today, Steve Benen brings us some news:

According to Google cache, as recently as April 12, Regent’s “facts” page included seven bullets noting graduates in various political positions, with the seventh noting, in all bold letters, “150 graduates serving in the Bush Administration.” As of yesterday, the same page is identical, except the seventh bullet has been deleted. Regent stopped bragging about staffing the administration almost immediately after someone from the secular media noticed.

I’m open to suggestion, but it seems to me there are two possibilities: either Regent is suddenly embarrassed to be associated so closely with the Bush administration, or the administration is suddenly embarrassed to be associated so closely with Regent. Did Karl Rove put in a call to his old friend Pat Robertson and ask him to change the website? Or did Regent realize that the Bush gang is too scandalous for even Robertson’s school?

Somebody is ashamed of somebody else, that's for sure.

*Sentence corrected. The correct figure is for all of Regent. Thanks to racymind for the catch.

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Jesus

Ol' Froth has a pic.

I may be a Heathen but this "Chocolate Jesus" is a terrific statement of faith. Wow.

[Thanks to reader nobozos for the heads-up.]

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Then There's This

They get letters:

History and history textbooks have been rewritten to exclude any concept of Christianity as an important, indeed an essential, facet in the founding of this country.

I didn't realize that Christians are a persecuted minority in this country.

Golly, someone should do something about this!

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It's All About The Benjamins

Or mammon, as the case may be. Garance:

At first I thought the invitation to this was spam, but no, there really is such a thing: The 2nd Annual Faith Based Marketing Summit is taking place in Dallas come mid-April, combining the two great American traditions of Godly people and sales. Featured speaker last year: Greg Stielstra, author of Pyromarketing: The Four Step Strategy to Ignite Customer Evangelists and Keep Them for Life.

And it's Atheists like me that threaten Christianity.

Right.

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Who Owns The GOP?

Mullah Dobson, of course:

Focus on the Family founder James Dobson appeared to throw cold water on a possible presidential bid by former Sen. Fred Thompson while praising former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is also weighing a presidential run, in a phone interview Tuesday. Related News

"Everyone knows he's conservative and has come out strongly for the things that the pro-family movement stands for," Dobson said of Thompson. "[But] I don't think he's a Christian; at least that's my impression," Dobson added, saying that such an impression would make it difficult for Thompson to connect with the Republican Party's conservative Christian base and win the GOP nomination. [Emphasis added.]

Who the hell is Dobson to decide who's a Christian and who's not? Was he elected by some fundie version of the College of Cardinals? And why does the media consider Dobson and his ilk to be the True Voice of Christianity?

But these freaks have their own definitions:

"We use that word—Christian—to refer to people who are evangelical Christians," [Focus on the Family spokesman Gary] Schneeberger added. "Dr. Dobson wasn't expressing a personal opinion about his reaction to a Thompson candidacy; he was trying to 'read the tea leaves' about such a possibility."

This ties in nicely with my earlier post about Zombie Republicans. When someone makes their home in Cloud-Cuckoo Land there's no talking to them - - would the "liberal" media come to understand that.

Finally, here's my favorite part:

Dobson's phone call to U.S. News senior editor Dan Gilgoff Tuesday was unsolicited.

Mullah Dobson wasn't speaking off the cuff during some interview; this was a carefully thought out Pronouncement.

To Hell with Dobson and to Hell with his media enablers and to Hell with all of those who don't speak out against this insane egomaniac.

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Rid Us Of These People

Missouri Governer Matt Blunt:

For fifteen years, Planned Parenthood of Southwest Missouri clinics in Joplin and Springfield have offered free breast and cervical cancer screenings as part of the state's "Show Me Healthy Women" program. Now Governor Matt Blunt has announced that he will cut off all program funding to Planned Parenthood and redirect it to other health clinics. "Patients should not have to go to an abortion clinic to access life-saving tests," Blunt declared. Refusing to fund cancer screening at the clinics, he said, "ensures women may access important preventative care without contributing to abortion providers' goal of facilitating the destruction of innocent life."

Here's the twist: The clinics in question do not provide abortion services, though they will discuss the procedure and make referrals.

Whether or not the clinics in question provide abortion services is beside the point.

Here's the deal: Blunt supported the referendum in Missouri allowing human stem-cell research, thus upsetting the yowling freaks in the fundamentalist Christian community. This, it would appear, is an attempt to get back into their good graces. That women will likely die because of his action is fine with him and fine with the Christianists so long as they get their symbolic scalp.

"Pro-life," indeed.

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Fun With Conservapedia!

Unferth:

In the Medieval poem, Beowulf, Unferth is the son of Ecglaf who slew his brother. He taunts Beowulf early in the poem, but later lends Beowulf his sword.

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Fun With Conservapedia!

Cubism:

Cubism is a type of painting (school of art) in which normal shapes of people or other subjects are painted in geometic forms.

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The Greatest Threat To Our Nation

The Weather Channel.

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Fun With Conservapedia!

Molecular bond:

A shared pair of valence electrons that olds atoms together in covalent compounds.

Wasn't the Olds Atom made by General Motors c. 1956?

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Mitt

Atrios:

Romney's going to find out that it's not important whether you're a "person of faith." What's important is that you're a person of the right faith. It's time to be honest about that. People believe different stuff, that stuff is important to some people, your identification with a particular religious tribe says something about your beliefs. I wish people didn't think that such beliefs were especially important characteristics of candidates, but the fact is they do. I wish our political and opinion leaders (and religious ones, too) were trying to convince people that such things shouldn't be important, but mostly they've been doing the opposite.

Shakes:

Look, I have no—none, zero, nil, zilch, nada, nought—love for Mitt Romney. If he were the last candidate on earth and I the last voter, I'd write in myself sooner than vote for him. But this kind of juvenile, he's-got-cooties, smear-by-association faux-journalism has to stop. It's pathetic; it lowers the public discourse; it insults us all. And it reinforces the privilege of one specific faith. The message, yet again, is that it's not just enough to be religious; you've got to be religious in a certain way—which is to say that you've got to preach that you're from an accepted Christian denomination, and practice intolerance of gays, uppity women, and people with "weirdo religions" (i.e. not privileged) or no religion at all. (See: Bush, George W.) That every last person reading this post will know precisely what I'm talking about (failing willful ignorance) is evidence of that very privilege.

I couldn't agree more. Would that our "news" media abandon its "narratives" and actually, y'know, report.

(Here's the ridiculous Associated Press story that set this off.)

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Interesting And Scary

The Administration continues to try to turn itself into an unaccountable dictatorship. This time by arguing against freedom of religion:

On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in just such a case. Hein vs. Freedom From Religion Foundation is unlikely to make headlines, but it could deal a sharp blow to the wall of separation between church and state.

The plaintiffs are ordinary citizens who object to their federal tax dollars being used to fund the president's program for "faith-based and community initiatives." In particular, they claim that several conferences sponsored by the program were propaganda vehicles for religion and therefore violated the establishment clause of the 1st Amendment, which forbids government promotion of religion.

The government defendants — "Hein" is Jay F. Hein, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives — dispute the plaintiffs' claim about the conferences. But at this stage, the Bush administration is asking the court to throw the case out on grounds that ordinary taxpayers have no legal interest in how the executive branch spends public money.

[...]

Suppose, as the lower court suggested, the secretary of Homeland Security used general executive funds to build a mosque and hire an imam in the belief that such visible support for Islam would reduce the risk of Islamist terrorist attacks against the United States. Would this traducing of the establishment clause not allow taxpayers to sue?

[...]

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court rarely takes a case to affirm the decision from below. That, together with the recent shoring up of the court's conservative majority, strongly suggest that the administration's position will prevail, despite the threat it poses to the separation of church and state. If it does, everyone at the ball will take notice. But by that time, the party will be over.

This bears watching.

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The People Who Run The Country

Josh Marshall has the goods on some GOP Congresscritters who are pushing the idea that not only is evolution a lie but the Earth doesn't revolve around the Sun. These things are - get ready for it, you know it's coming - a conspiracy by the JEEWWWSS!1!

Yes, these freaks were actually elected.

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Round And Round We Go

And in a couple of years Kansas will probably flip again:

The Kansas Board of Education on Tuesday threw out science standards deemed hostile to evolution, undoing the work of Christian conservatives in the ongoing battle over what to teach U.S. public school students about the origins of life.

The board in the central U.S. state voted 6-4 to replace them with teaching standards that mirror the mainstream in science education and eliminate criticisms of evolutionary theory.

Apparently, there isn't much else to do in Kansas.

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More Loathsomeness

Colorado State Senator David Schultheis:

The lawmaker from Colorado Springs stunned a roomful of people in a Senate Health and Human Services Committee hearing recently when he asked the sponsor of a bill requiring hospitals to give information on emergency contraception to rape victims how doctors "determine that a person actually did incur