I think the problem was that today I didn’t pace myself. I was still busy digesting the story of the 17-year-old who’s lived off nothing but McNuggets and chips since she was 2, and “has never tasted fresh fruit or vegetables,” when I clicked onto WorldNutDaily.

Oh dear.

I was expecting the usual “Obama’s gonna lose in court! Yay!” crap. I’d braced myself for more “Newt is the bestest evah!” But I hadn’t based myself for this screaming headline:

Judge: Spending $153 million on Shariah just fine

Wait… what? Needless to say, my curiosity was piqued. What judge would be endorsing Shariah law… and how on earth was so much money involved?

Turns out some of Joseph Farah’s partners-in-insane-bigotry are taking Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to court, because of the bailout given to the AIG insurance company. You see, it would appear that AIG’s investment arms offers its clients Sharia-compliant investments. Or as Farah puts it:

…AIG insurance, which operates multiple companies promoting Shariah-complaint insurance products, the same Shariah that serves as Islamic religious law and calls for cutting hands off thieves and execution for leaving Islam.

Wow. Just wow. So much hate and ignorance and moronic stupidity wrapped up in one sentence. Let’s ignore ALL the other aspects of Sharia and focus on the cutting off of hands and killing infidels. Now, I’m not saying that all Sharia law is good – much of it clearly isn’t. We’ve seen enough cases of girls being stoned to death for infidelity after being raped, honour killings, etc., etc., but this is typical wingnut fear-mongering bullshit – tarring everybody with the same brush.

These lunatics are going after the government, because they assisted a company, which amongst its many and varied products happens to have investments which are Sharia-compliant. I wonder what would have happened if AIG had been allowed to go down the tubes? But never mind that, what exactly are Sharia-complaint investments?

Simply put, Sharia prohibits the fixed or floating payment or acceptance of specific interest or fees for loans of money. This is usury, which is haram. Ironically, usury used to be outlawed by the Christian Church (indeed William Shakespeare’s father was fined for the crime of usury), until they found out how profitable it was. What this means is that investments held in cash, or bonds, which pay an interest return, are out of the question. Also out are any shares linked to alcohol, tobacco, gambling, porn and of course pork.

Now I’ve worked in the industry for many years and I myself have sold Sharia compliant funds to my Muslim clients. All of whom have been fantastic people and none of them – yet – have chopped off an arm, killed a relative, or flown a plane into a building. In fact, I have sold Sharia-compliant investments to several Christian investors, who wanted to ensure that their money wasn’t invested in “dirty” shares.

But if you’re a right-wing fuck-head like the people who write and read WND, then it’s easier to hate generally and come across as a complete moron, than isolate a few facts.

Then again “Government bails out insurer who happens to have a few Sharia-complaint funds” doesn’t have the same fear-mongering bullshit tone to it.

And they’re going to court over this? How stupid are these people and how much money do they have to waste?

]]> http://cpmonitor.wordpress.com/2012/01/31/so-much-stupid-so-much-hate/feed/ 5 cpmonitor http://cpmonitor.wordpress.com/2012/01/29/your-weekly-wnd-round-up/ http://cpmonitor.wordpress.com/2012/01/29/your-weekly-wnd-round-up/#comments Sun, 29 Jan 2012 10:47:29 +0000 PsyGremlin http://cpmonitor.wordpress.com/?p=3209 Continue reading →]]> Fellow contributor Pi is up to his ears in what he calls his “Ph.D,” but is actually beer and naked groupies… what? You think we’d blog like this if there weren’t perks? Therefore, I’ve taken it upon myself to trawl through the latest offerings on the site. Sorry, that should read “offal on the site.” Despite all Farah’s crowing about the “new look” WND, the reborn (did you see what I did there?) WND’s design is pretty awful, once again showing that nutters seem incapable of employing decent web design. They’ve also gotten lazy, merely posting a synopsis for their readers, and acting as a link farm to the full story.

They’ve probably taken the attention span and reading ability of their audience into account.

Tebow for President!

So, let’s kick off with a bit of irony. WND – the home of the “Where’s the birth certificate” nonsense – is currently flogging “Tebow for President” bumper stickers. This despite the fact that his star is plummeting faster than Mel Gibson’s popularity amongst the Jewish community. The irony? Tebow was born in the Philippines. Yes, I know it’s a slogan, but you’s think that a bunch of people who are so concerned about where – and to whom – the President is born, would know better.

Black genocide

Then they’re touting a new movie from Jason “Molotov” Mitchell – the 29-year-old whack-job Christian nutter movie maker – which claims that Planned Parenthood has a “black genocide directive” and has targeted black Americans for extinction. In case you don’t know Mitchell’s work, he’s the moron behind a bunch of heavily discredited anti-Obama birtherism crap, as well as endorsing Uganda’s “death penalty for homosexuals” bill. All in all, a very nice Christian chap. I wonder what WND would make of a liberal walking around calling himself “Molotov?”

More birtherism

They’re carrying on about the Georgia hearing over Obama’s eligibility, surprise, surprise. There’s much yahoo-ing over the fact that Administrative Law Judge Michael Malihi considered granting a default judgment before the birthers even argued the case, but they held out, wanting to present the evidence, and thus providing us with a good laugh.

Farah waxes lyrical in his column, and you can almost hear him gurgling with glee as he proposes that the administrative judge will ban Obama from the Georgia ballot, before carrying on about forged birth certificates and the “pending preliminary findings” from racist sheriff Joe Arpaio’s “Cold Case Posse”. Gosh, I wonder what he’ll turn up.

Farah also manages to cover his ass, by stating that “even in the highly unlikely event that it is genuine and accurate, it represents further evidence of Obama’s ineligibility because it would represent documentation that his father was a non-citizen of the U.S.” once again, handily forgetting that his mother was a U.S. citizen.

Screw the Environment!

Just because Obama killed the Keystone pipeline, doesn’t mean it’s dead. Apparently a Nebraskan Republican lawmaker has tabled a bill which means they can ignore the President and build the pipeline anyway.

Just another example of the right’s thinking that the dollar now trumps the consequences later. This is, of course, a good thing in WND’s book.

Screw the Rules!

Two stories here, where the rules don’t matter if WND is on your side.

Firstly a teacher is taking his school to court, because they made him take down posters with religious slogans down. Of course, “God Bless America” is a patriotic slogan in WND’s eyes. I rather like his counter-argument though:

…other teachers were allowed to keep anti-religious slogans such as John Lennon’s “Imagine,” Buddhist prayer flags and images of Black Muslim leader Malcolm X.

That sound you hear, dear teacher, is the point missing you. If a 16-year-old girl can realise that having religious-themed posters in schools is against the rules, then surely a teacher could.

The other one is a 50/50 for me. Apparently a kid has been suspended from school for having too long hair. The thing is, he’s survived leukemia and is growing his hair to donate to other cancer sufferers. I admit, it is a very worthy cause, but the school has a very clear hair policy: “off the collar, off the ears, and out of the eyes.” You’d think that arch conservatives would be in favour of school rules being enforced.

But in this case, you can put it down to “because liberals.”

Piltdown man, therefore evolution is a lie.

David Rives – who seems to be a fundie astronomer – hauls out the old “They were fooled by Piltdown Man” crap, in an attempt to show that evolution is based on a lie and therefore false. It’s a Point Refuted A Thousand Times, but I’m going to link to it, because the stupid in the comments has to be read to be believed. If you ever needed a sample of WND’s audience’s intelligence, this is it.

Corsi makes shit up again

Jerome Corsi, still trying to grab the limelight, after Obama stole his thunder, decides to make stuff up. It seems somebody called Adam Eugene Cox has been arrested for posting a perceived death threat against racist sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Corsi titles his piece “Obama backer arrested for death threats against Sheriff Joe,” before saying in the body of the article “An Obama supporter…”

Now there’s a HUGE difference between being a backer and supporter, but I’m guessing that Corsi a) hopes that WND readers won’t read past the headline, or b) won’t know the difference.

WTF Moment

WND seems to think that an elected official – in this case Republican Representative Allen West – saying the following, is a good thing:

Take your message of equality of achievement, take your message of economic dependency, take your message of enslaving the entrepreneurial will and spirit of the American people somewhere else. You can take it to Europe, you can take it to the bottom of the sea, you can take it to the North Pole, but get the hell out of the United States of America.

It seems to be targeted at “liberal leaders” but as that’s the sum total of the article on WND, I have no idea what its context is, besides West being an insufferable idiot.

Movie reviews

I admit, I didn’t know WND did movie reviews, so here’s an update. They’re reviewing “Man on a Ledge”… well, I use the word reviewing broadly, because the reviewer takes great pains to tell us just how the female co-stars are treated likes “pieces of meat:”

…audiences get introduced to Banks’ character in a pair of panties and a shamelessly sheer undershirt, the only purpose of which is to show us not only the exact size and shape, but even the color of the woman’s nipples.

Rodriguez fares no better, as she works to break into a high-security vault in the entirely sensible plunging neckline and push-up bra. Once inside the vault, Rodriguez must slip into a wetsuit, so naturally, she strips down to her Victoria’s Secret and wiggles and wriggles and bends for the camera, such that her boyfriend remarks, “Angie, you are a piece of art.”

Clearly our reviewer was paying close attention… very close attention. PS Remind me why this is a bad thing?

My favourite quote from the review has to be:

I’m no feminist. I’m no bleeding heart liberal. I’m actually one of those evangelical Christians who believes the husband is the head of the home and the Bible actually does mean to use the word “submit,” but even I can smell the misogyny in “Man on a Ledge.”

Yup, Drew Zahn sounds like quite the ladies man. However, what you really need to know is that:Man on a Ledge” has “roughly 50 profanities and obscenities, most of which don’t detract much from the script, though there is one strong use of obscenity;” it’s sexual content consists of “a few innuendos and lewd comments, the partial nudity described above and a passionate kiss.” In terms of violence, we have “a prison-yard fistfight, some gun play, a car chase, a foot chase with people crashing into one another and other various scuffles;” and as far as religion goes, “The movie has only a few, small religious elements, including a funeral in which a priest declares, “Faith in God’s promise and faith in yourself is your one true ally.” A few pieces of cross jewelry and a cross tattoo are also present, as is a Hindu character on the street seen briefly praying.”

Seriosuly, if this is how these people go through life, no wonder they’re all such cheerless sons of bitches.

Now my eyes are starting to bleed, so I’m signing off.

Just had to share this little gem with you all:

I’ll be doing a play-by-play on Barack Hussein’s hate speech, this will be the the first time ever I’ve sat through one of his speeches, so it’ll be unbiased.

Yes, Rob, calling the State of the Union address “hate speech” is really unbiased of you.

I think nothing exemplifies this slightly schizophrenic nature of the country more than the fact that Fox News has been simultaneously polled as being the most AND the least trusted news outlet in the US. Then again, it’s viewers have also been defined as being among the least informed, which might explain why most of its supporters are Republicans.

I’d like to think many of the problems can be assigned to politics, but sadly, I can’t. There’s a deeper under-current running through parts of the country that are – quite frankly – disturbing to an outsider. I know much of the rhetoric can be defended using First Amendment right to free speech – hell, when the Supreme Court rules in favour of twisted little bigots like Fred Phelps, you know Americans take that right very seriously.

But here’s the thing. With rights come responsibilities. By all means, say whatever you like, but you should be able to be held accountable and responsible for what you say. That’s why I can’t understand how people like Glenn Beck, Anne Coulter and organisations like Fox News are allowed to spout any crap they like – even lie – and get away with it. Even worse, their crap is swallowed as gospel truth by their followers. (The very fact that they have followers is telling in its own right.) Yet, I find it slightly disconcerting that there is no mechanism in place for people to say “Excuse me, you said X about Y, where are your sources?” and if it’s shown they’ve pulled it out of their ass, they should be made to apologise publicly and fined. Sadly, to do this, you’d probably have to launch a civil case, and get a lawyer on your side. No wonder the US has half the world’s lawyers.

Then again, with this sort of responsibility, we’d be deprived of the frequent dose of crazy dished out by the creationists and the birthers. Which leads me to my next point – politics. I think it’s fairly safe to say that America in general, and the right wing thereof in particular, was not ready for a black President. This is quite apparent from the ugly backlash that targets everything from his place of birth, to taking a stand against things the President or First Lady support. The latter goes to ridiculous extremes, where you have people like Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann coming out AGAINST breast-feeding programs, because Michelle Obama was in favour of it. I think most people, even those on the left would happily admit that the Barack Obama of the campaign trail is not the Barack Obama of today. Then again, what President is? It’s a side-effect of a political system where policy decisions are based not on party principles, but on who contributed the most to your election campaign.

In 2008 – even taking in account people’s horror at the thought of Sarah Palin being a heartbeat away from the Oval Office – the best thing Barack had going for him was the fact that he was Not Bush. Fortunately (or not, as it might turn out) he’s also Not Gingrich, Not Paul, Not Perry and Not Romney. I’m not sure why, but it seems as if every now and again, one or other of the parties in the US goes into meltdown – we saw it with the Democrats in the 80s, when the best they had to offer were Dukakis and Mondale – and nobody decent seems to be willing to come to the fore. I have a feeling that those who possess at least half a brain, know that 2012 is a lost cause for the GOP and are holding back for 2016. Well, I seriously hope so, because if the current bunch of contenders are the cream (thick, rich and full of clots) of the Republican party, then America is in more trouble than I ever imagined. There is already no political discourse in the US; a situation which will only worsen after the election this year. The only hope if for one of the parties to sweep everything – White House, Senate and House. Then America can get back to work again, instead of bickering amongst itself, like a drunk Irish family at Christmas.

I mean we have a serial adulterer (who’s in favour of traditional marriage); a crazy bitch, who believed God told her to run, but quit anyway at the first hurdle; a man whose hated of gays would make Phelps raise his eyebrows; a man who wants to go back to the economics of the 19th century; a blood-thirsty maniac, whose solution to his State’s crippling drought was to hold a 3 day prayer rally (this was in April 2011 – July 2011 was the hottest month EVER in Texas history. I woncer if God is trying to tell Perry something?)… and the front-runner, who believes God lives on the planet Kolob and that magic underwear can protect him.These are people who – in the real world – wouldn’t be elected to a small town council, and yet thanks to the quirks of American politics… and the fact that they’re stinking rich… one of them could become The Most Powerful Man in the World.

The other strange thing is that in a country which explicitly separates Church and State, these people are all carrying on about how religious they are, and how they’re trying to curry favour with the religious right. (Well, except for Ron Paul, who was booed in South Carolina for daring to suggest that America should “do unto others as it would have others do unto it”… you know, the same thing that filthy liberal Jesus said.) It sounds to me like they’re going to be bringing their religion back to Washington… something that they should know is a no-no.

Religion is another area where the US is going strange. Ironically, if I were to talk to people in the Bible Belt about how say Iran, or Saudi Arabia, are imposing the tenets of Islam on their populace, they’d be up in arms. And yet these people see no problem with imposing the tenets of Christianity on the populace at large… in a country that specifically separates Church and State. The other problem is it’s not a quiet “yes, thank you Vicar, lovely sermon, see you next Sunday” English type religion. No this is a religion that runs up to you, grabs you by the collar and screams at you. Whilst emptying your wallet at the same time.

It’s also a religion that is frighteningly anti-science, anti-education, anti-human rights and anti-common sense. The fact that Kentucky is cutting $50 million from its education budget, in order to fund the $54 million in tax concessions and roads for Ken Ham’s ludicrous Ark project, is evidence enough of this. Bill Bailey has a joke where he wonders if the Taliban we the most brilliant minds of the 14th century… before long, we might be asking the same of the evangelical movement.

Nothing exemplifies this more than the recent brouhaha over Tim Tebow – the 2nd rate quarterback for a 2nd rate team, that just happened to have a winning streak. The fact that Tim is an out-and-out god-botherer elevated him to saint-like status – he was more famous for praying than for playing football. And yet, he can’t be the only religious footballer in the US? Probably just the most “out there.” I’d like to counter that with an example of my own – a gentleman called Bakkies Botha. Bakkies plays lock for the Springboks, and as with many Afrikaners is deeply religious. So much so that he prays before every game… or as friends and foes put it “he prays before he slays.” You see, Bakkies has a fearsome reputation both as a rugby player and as the enforcer in the loose mauls. But that’s the whole point – Bakkies is famous, and liked and loved and held up as a role model, because he’s an amazing rugby player, not because he prays. In America at the moment, a 2nd rate player is being held up as a role model. As the late Bill Hicks (ah, were he alive today… the material he’d have to work with!) put it, “When did mediocrity become something to aspire to?”

My final point is one I’ve touched on both here and in other posts on the blog. There’s a very ugly undercurrent running through some sections of American society. This is harder to pinpoint, because it crops up in too many varied situations. Examples I’ve used in the past are Americans cheering after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, calling it revenge for Pearl Harbour; likewise, after Japan’s women’s team won the World Cup, Americans were once again online, cheapening a fantastic moment for a country still reeling from the disaster, with comments along the lines of “You might have won the cup, but we nuked the shit out of Hiroshima.”

Now I know you might say that these people don’t represent your people, etc, etc, but let’s face it – if you own the largest house on the block and I walk into your bathroom and see a skidmarked pair of undies lying on the floor… which is going to make the bigger impression? And it doesn’t stop there.

There’s the case of little Jessica Alquist who – quite rightly – made her school take down a banner with obvious religious overtones. Remember, the US separates Church and State. Well, the backlash from this has been frightening to read… I can’t imagine what it must be like for a frightened teen. It ranges from one of her state’s (Rhode Island… which just goes to show it isn’t the South that’s all fucked up) Representatives, Peter Palumbo – who just happens to be a Democrat, before you carry on about “fuckin’ Republicans” – calling her an “evil, little thing” – a comment he later amended to “she’s being coerced by evil people”, to a flower shop in her home town refusing to deliver flowers to her. However, once again, the ugly underside of America has bubbled to the surface, with threats of violence and rape being issued against her. I’m glad sites like the one linked posts people names with their comments, because I am a big believer in payback.

But once again, I worry about a society where people can get away with saying “Let’s all jump the girl who did the banner” without facing any responsibility for their right to free speech. Remember, this is a girl who did the RIGHT THING – her school was breaking the law. And yet she receives threats of violence and has to transfer schools.

Something is not right here. We’ve gone way past rotten and sadly, I don’t think we’ve seen the end of America’s polarization and descent into madness just yet.

However, I’m pleased to be able to close off on a positive note. It seems there are good people in the US. A trust fund has been set up for Jessica’s college fund and has a good few thousand in it already. And they say atheists aren’t charitable. And I’m not one for free advertising, but if you want to buy an “Evil Little Thing” T-shirt to support the fund…

However the lowest thing yet came from one of his blog in a piece by Jim Pappas, a not exactly svelte looking Christian, whose article The high price of NOT asking the 15 Questions for Evolutionists in your classroom contains the following wonderful advise for school aged children:

Bottom line: People are going to go to hell, and eventually, after the Judgment, the Lake of Fire to be eternally separated from God. This is the high price to be paid by people if we decide to keep our hands down and our questions to ourselves.

Look at your friends and classmates next time you go to school. Do you want to be responsible for their eternal damnation because you refused to ask a simple question in class when you had a burning in your heart to do so?

That is right kiddies, don’t ask these questions and you are responsible for sending your class mates to hell.He does go on:

The exceeding high price is the salvation and eternal future of your friends and classmates. Some of your friends will forever disbelieve God because of the spiritual blindness caused by the ultimate belief of evolution – there is no God!!! Other friends of yours are struggling with the conflict between what is taught as “science” (which evolution is not) and what is claimed to be religion. The creation of the universe by Almighty God is not religion! The creation of the universe by Almighty God is accurately recorded history! The creation of the universe as recorded in Holy Scripture is the ultimate eyewitness testimony of the most reliable Witness there could ever be: the Almighty God who was there and actually created the universe.

Do you want the highly infectious belief in evolution to continuously eat at the souls of your friends and classmates? Or, do you want to do what you can, raise your hand in class and ask a few simple questions? The choice is yours, and so is the reward. Will you choose the action whose reward is watching your peers slowly lose their faith to a false atheistic belief system, or will you choose the reward of helping your friends gain the crown of life?

I think I might go back to drinking now *sigh*.

We all know that Ken Demyer, Conservapedia’s resident man-child and the world’s worst debater hates evolution – mostly because he doesn’t understand it – but even by his standards, he’s sunk to a new low.

Not content with single-handedly screwing up racist bigot Andrew Schlafly’s blog with his badly… nay… abysmally worded drivel, mostly dealing with the non-existent Question Evolution campaign, he seems intent on discrediting them for once and for all.

His analogies with regards to just how he’s going to destroy atheism and evolution on the internet have become ever more violent. Not content with having the cheetah of creationism eat the buck of evolution, he’s had Christian fire destroy a building, while a lazy, atheist fireman looks on; he’s spoken about evolution being crushed like a can, the “tidal wave” of creationism crushing the hull of the ship of atheism and even atheism being “ground up into a fine pulp.”

However, now he may have gone too far.

His latest fantasy metaphor reads:

When the evolutionist high school biology teachers charge at the creationist students with their evolutionist evobabble, the creationist students are going to be ready.

In amongst this, he links to the video below. yes, the scene from Last Samurai, where the charging samurai are mowed down by machine guns. Given America’s problem with school shootings – and guns in general – not to mention these people have a habit of killing people they disagree with, like abortion doctors, Ken’s words take on an ominous meaning… even more so when fellow sysop, and Mr. Perpetually Angry, Brian Macdonald censors any criticism of Ken’s latest rambling.

I’m pretty sure that it’s just the hyper-active babbling of a crazy man-child, but given the collective crazy of these people, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if one of them acted on it.

]]> http://cpmonitor.wordpress.com/2012/01/15/ken-demyer-shoot-the-teachers/feed/ 0 cpmonitor http://cpmonitor.wordpress.com/2012/01/15/what-its-rapture-season-already/ http://cpmonitor.wordpress.com/2012/01/15/what-its-rapture-season-already/#comments Sun, 15 Jan 2012 08:53:46 +0000 PsyGremlin http://cpmonitor.wordpress.com/?p=3150 Continue reading →]]> This post originally started out as a follow-up from its predecessor, and I was going to pose the question “Why did God forsake Tim Tebow and the Broncos in their hour of need?” In fact, one could argue that God did a lot more than forsake them, given the 45-10 smashing they received at the hands of the New England Patriots, and the fact that the opposing quarterback threw a record 6 touchdown passes, whilst Tebow was awash in his fantastic mediocrity – 9 of 26 completions and only 136 yards. However, a few minutes on Google persuaded me to change my topic.

You see, the Rapture is almost upon us once again!

I’m not talking about fraudulent madman Harold Camping’s rantings either. Fortunately, he’s been relegated to the scrap-heap of history, but given that religion in general, and Christianity in particular, is based on suspension of disbelief, there is always somebody else waiting in the wings to lead the terminally gullible astray… usually in an attempt to part them from their cash. My recent googling turned up the name of one Gerry Almond, who appears to have predicting the Rapture for some time now.

It seems the first date was 4th or 5th April 2011 (which clearly didn’t happen), based on the fact that he’d calculated the anti-Christ would be on Earth by 11th April, 2012. If you really want to torture yourself with the exact calculations, you can read B G Ellis’ posts on why there’s “Compelling evidence that THE RAPTURE occurs on Gerry Almond’s dates of: April 4th-5th, 2011!” (which link you to pages that look suspiciously Timecube-ish in design.

It’s worth mentioning that despite the claims of “Compelling evidence”, the posts come with a handy caveat:

“THE ABOVE IS A THEORY ONLY AND ONE NEEDS TO BE CAUTIOUS OF DATE SETTING.”

That’s handy!

Gerry isn’t done yet. It seems he’s also forecast November 2015 as another possible rapture date (based on the gematria of Jesus, the parable of the fig, and the fact that Rapture must take  place during “our” generation), and it seems that he also jumped on the whole Comet Elenin bandwagon, just to be on the safe side.

However, it seems that Gerry’s not done with predicting yet. Watch out for yet another Rapture on January 28th this year. Admittedly, I’m a bit wary of using “Rapture in the Air Now” because they seem to be populated by raving nutjobs. Here’s why the OP thinks that Gerry’s Jan 28th prediction is right:

I read the last confirmation received by (Mod edit) which I think is a wow because after he was telling about the rapture, the sign of the light off in SF then in the room where he was, the light was also off for duration of 5 seconds out of nowhere. For me it is a wow.

I really hope this time, this is it, this is it, this is it

So, apparently a light going off in a room, is proof that the Rapture is going to happen. Or something.

However, this nutter isn’t alone in coming up with bizarre reasons to see the Rapture happening any day now. Here’s a couple of other responses, highlighting just why they believe the Rapture is coming:

When my alarm clock radio went off this morning, a song was playing ….something like “Party Like It’s 1999″.  My first thought was….”Oh wow..THAT is IT, Lord!” .  I suddenly recalled how evil the New Year’s Celebrations on TV appeared to me this past year, which we only turned on for a few minutes to watch the ball drop in NYC.  I was immediately aware that possibly THE first sign the Lord gave us was the BIRDS dropping out of the sky that very night in ARKansas!!!!  (I was thinking maybe birds represent the Holy Spirit in the Bible?).

That post carries on in similar vein for a bit. Torment yourself with all of it here. However, we’re not done yet. Have a read of this special bit of crazy:

Just in the last two days, I have received two very strong confirmations about the weekend of January 27 thru 29. The first happened on Wednesday morning on my drive into work. My oldest sister telephoned me (I have hands-free Bluetooth in my car). She is a very strong Believer who is frequently checking with me to see if I have had any recent visions, dreams, or revelations about the Rapture or other End Times events. I told her about my “cat food drawer” vision and my interpretation about the likelihood of the last weekend of January for the Rapture. She surprised me by saying that she and her husband are going on their 1st cruise ever, leaving Jan. 25 for 5 days, returning home on Jan. 30. The important thing here is that they are going with my oldest brother and his wife, who are confirmed agnostics and devoted “disciples” of John Shelby Spong. In his church, my brother actively teaches this false doctrine! He is very strong-willed, arguing endlessly against testimony from any of us Believers in the family. The only thing that would sway them is if my sister and her husband were raptured right in front of them — and I now I am confident that is exactly what will happen!

The second confirmation came yesterday (Thursday) morning. For nearly a year now, my wife and I have been trying to set a date to have our pastor and his wife over for dinner and a movie at our house. We have a small Blu-ray movie theater, and his wife has been wanting to see the Disney movie “Up”. When he called, he said that the only solid date that works for them is Friday night January 27. We’ll be watching “Up”!!! (in more ways than one!!!)

Wait… so your sister going on a cruise, and the pastor coming to watch a movie, are signs that the Rapture is coming. I just ate an extra-hot curry. Is that a sign I’m going to hell?

However, I’m going to save the bast for last (and it also provides me with a handy segue back to my opening statements in this post. Once again from “Rapture in the Air Now”, we have a reason why Tebow’s Broncos lost their game:

Maybe Gerry Almond’s Jan 28th day is right on and God knew Tebow wouldn’t be around to play the superbowl anyway!

People this stupid deserve everything that happens to them. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some posts to make to Fundies Say the Darndest Things…

]]> http://cpmonitor.wordpress.com/2012/01/15/what-its-rapture-season-already/feed/ 2 cpmonitor Compelling evidence that THE RAPTURE occurs on Gerry Almond’s dates of- April 4th-5th, 2011! (Part 1)_1326614697854 http://cpmonitor.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/a-special-kind-of-crazy/ http://cpmonitor.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/a-special-kind-of-crazy/#comments Mon, 09 Jan 2012 13:48:23 +0000 PsyGremlin http://cpmonitor.wordpress.com/?p=3131 Continue reading →]]> I have to hand it to Conservapedia – just when I throw my hands in the air and write them off, somebody in charge there steps up to the plate and delivers the special kind of crazy that racist bigot Andrew Schlafly and his cohort of hand-picked goons have made their own.

Lately, Schlafly et al has jumped on the wing-nut short bus surrounding Tim Tebow. For those of you who don’t know, Tebow is a second rate quarterback (the guy who throws the ball… in a football game. Go figure)  for a second rate American football team, who’s more famous for being a god-botherer, than for being a pretty useless quarterback. You see, Tebow, has developed a habit of throwing (ahem!!) hallelujah passes, which win his team the game in the dying seconds. Needless to say, the right-wing fuckheads have leaped on this as a sign that Tebow is blessed by God… happily ignoring all his other teammates that played their guts out to get him into a position to make the winning pass in the first place. Still, it helps when you have Jesus on your side.

It’s also a sign that the right-wing fuckheads are desperate for some sort of hero figure, given the current clown car of candidates, vying for the right to lose to Obama at the end of the year.

Of course, it isn’t enough for the nutters at CP to merely celebrate Tebow’s success. They aren’t happy unless there’s some liberal conspiracy floating around, so they can flaunt their imagined butthurt – in this case, it’s the fact that the liberal lamestream media (to use another childish phrase coined by Schlafly) ignoring Tebow’s god-given efforts. Or as Schlafly puts it:

Are liberals worried that conservative Tim Tebow’s stunning success for the Denver Broncos will make it more difficult for Obama to win the swing state of Colorado? Already CNN is omitting news of Tebow’s success on its website’s front page. 

Except that if you go to CNN’s main page, you see…

However, it takes Mr Perpetually Angry, resident swabbie Brian Macdonald, to bring the true crazy to the party. You see, it seems that Tebow threw a total of 316 yards… in a game of football, but I digress… and this clearly has significance for the Crazy Gang:

Evidence for God? During his college years at the University of Florida, Tim Tebow wore black eye patches with the number ”’3:16”’ on them, in reference to John 3:16. What are the odds of Tebow throwing 316 yards in his team’s victory over the Steelers? 10,000 to 1? A million to one? Or did God Himself make it happen?

Yes Brian. God took a few hours out of his busy schedule to help some team that – let’s face it – almost nobody outside of the US of A has even heard of. Not just that, but 316 yards isn’t that great – Brees has thrown 466 yards in a  game. Now that’s impressive… I think. What I know about American football can be written on the head of a pin. Or Macdonald’s brain. Same difference.

It’s also worth noting that Tebow has the lowest completion percentage of NFL quarterbacks in both the regular and post season stats. You’d think God might want him to stand out a little bit more.

However, we are talking Brian Macdonald here, so maybe we need to take things with a pinch… nay, a truckload of salt. After all, this is the same man who said the following about the Egyptian riots:

This video of the demonstrations in Egypt is pretty interesting, as well as very ominous.

At the 1:17 mark something shows up in the video that could either be a reflection of a flag, an image of an individual on horseback deliberately-placed via Photoshop…or it could very well be the first appearance of the “Pale Rider”, aka the Fourth Horseman of Revelation.

To me, this is just more evidence – rider or not – that Jesus is coming back with the next few years.

Whoa, hang on there a second, Bucky. Notice how we go from “Look there might the Pale Rider” to “It might be Photoshopped” to “Rider or no rider, this is a sign Jesus is coming back!”

As I said, a special kind of crazy.

But let me play devil’s advocate here for a minute. Let’s just assume that God did drop by the game and carried the ball for Tebow. Did anything happen while he was away from the controls?

• 451 people are homeless, 3093 homes and 56 people were injured, and 5,243 buildings damaged or destroyed by flooding in Brazil (8 January)
• Death toll rises to 30 by Compostela landslide (Philippines) -30 bodies recovered with 44 still missing in the landslide that hit a gold-rich mining township of Napnapan
• Tornado in State of Orissa, India -1 died with 6 person injured

Yup, that sounds like the kind of mythical deity I’d bow down to – one that lets people die, so he can attend a ball game.

Which brings me to “News with Views” – a site that comes across as WND-lite, but which is (in their own words) “dedicated to revealing lies, innuendo and agendas – wherever they may be.  Our political affiliations are not to the left or the right, but to ‘what is right and true.’” With no sense of irony, they go on to claim, “NewsWithViews.com is NOT affiliated with any religious organizations or groups. We believe in God and our Lord Jesus Christ the Savior of mankind.“ 

Given that amongst the first thing you see on the advert-riddled main page are links to “Get your gold here!” and “Flu and Flu Vaccines”, you pretty much get the idea that they are firmly on the far, far, far, far right. Amongst the articles are pleas to “unmuzzle the preachers to endorse political candidates” (whilst keeping their tax exempt status, of course) and that the US needs an alternative currency.

It also sports an impressively long list of contributors, although sadly for them, there’s no Chuck Norris or Anne Coulter to share their pearls of wisdom with us. However, I did notice at least two MDs in the list, along with one Eugene Narrett, Ph.D. I just thought I’d throw out a sampling of their work, before moving on to the gist of my story for today.

Here’s Narrett rambling about… something…

A friend recounted a conversation he had a few weeks ago with two nice people, psychiatrists, who are brighter than the stuff they absorb from the Boston Globe and the New Yorker some of whose stories read like ‘death education.’ The lady remarked that “the problem is that there are too many people in the world.” The interlocutor asked, “but whom would you eliminate” and mentioned something about the eugenics agenda. A re-make of La Cage aux Folles is playing in Boston. In the 1880s English added the term of art, “a Boston marriage” to refer to two women living together as ‘husband and wife.’

Across the street lives a nice young couple. The husband, a pleasant Indonesian fellow, manages a fertility clinic that helps lesbians and others conceive. We must not discriminate.

No, I have no idea either. The two MDs both appear to be quacks of the first order. Dr James Howenstine, has an article extolling the evils of chemotherapy and radiation therapy in the treatment of malignancies. Now, I agree that the side-effects of these are pretty icky, but to avoid them? Then I came across the fact that Dr. Howenstein is the author of the book “A Physician’s Guide to Natural Health Products That Work” and is also featured on the “Alternative Cancer Treatments” website, where the opening line – quite tellingly – states “Dr. Jim Howenstine was trained in America, but moved to Costa Rica so he could help cancer patients.” And avoid malpractice lawsuits, no doubt.

As the indomitable Tim Minchin says, “Do you know what they call alternative medicine that works? Medicine.”

But before I tarry too long on these kooks, let me introduce Dave Hodges, described as “an award-winning psychology, sociology, statistics and research professor, a college basketball coach as well as a former mental health counselor.” He’s also said to be “America’s most independent talk show host” broadcasting on what appears to be the extremely right-wing Republic Broadcasting Network.

Mr. Hodges caught me eye with the article “Freedom-Loving Americans Headed to FEMA Camps.” Now I know this is nothing new, but I was rather surprised at the date of his article – 27 Dec, 2011. Clearly this was a knee-jerk reaction to Obama’s signing of the National Defense Authorization Act, with its indefinite detention clause – a move which I personally see as the low point of the administration.

For those of you that don’t know, FEMA is the Federal Emergency Management Agency, who have somehow morphed from the incompetents who made such a mess of post-Katrina New Orleans, into some sort of shadowy government agency, setting up gulags to contain “freedom-loving” (i.e. those opposed to Obama) Americans.

It really is one of the loopier side-effects of the rabid right’s reaction to the Black Man in the White House, along with calls for various southern states to secede from the union. These are the same people who cheered on the implementation of the Patriot Act, the erosion of their rights the illegal war in Iraq, etc under Bush Jr and yet see the US as some sort of military dictatorship now. Ironically, they claim this whilst clutching their constitutionally protected firearms.

Just to quote a few examples from Hodges’ rant:

Below are some key provisions which are part of the impetus for activating the FEMA camps which are contained in the Siefert KBR memo. 

“The Continental US will be broken up into five regions as indicated in the map below Services” will be required in each State within each region.”

This last part is doubly suspicious for Hodges, because “Interestingly, the South was also broken up into five military districts during the military occupation of the South during the Reconstruction Era following the Civil War.”

In addition, “Subcontractors will mobilize, transport, erect, install and demobilize temporary fencing, barricades, and associated equipment according to federal, state and local laws, codes and manufacturer installation instructions” becomes a call “for the installation of fencing and wire used for large scale detention of prisoners.”

What really got my goat, however, was his opening line: “Unquestionably, Americans, who dare to speak out against the emerging military dictatorship within our country, will soon be taking up a new residence at your neighborhood FEMA camp.” I have one thing to say to Hodges.

YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT A MILITARY DICTATORSHIP IS, ARSEHOLE, AND I HOPE YOU FALL ON YOUR KNEES EVERY NIGHT AND PRAY TO YOUR FALSE GOD THAT YOU NEVER DO.

Burma is a military dictatorship. Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Iraq were military dictatorships. Even with this new anti-terrorism act, the US of A is nowhere near a dictatorship. I grew up and experienced my own political awakening in the South Africa of the late 80s and early 90s. This was not a good time to be joining organisations like the End Conscription Campaign, or the Congress of South African Students (or later the ANC itself). This was still the time when the unmarked car parked opposite your house contained officers from the Bureau of State Security (or the wonderfully named BOSS for short) or where your mother would be approached whilst shopping and told by a mustachioed thug that her son is going to get fucked up and will disappear if he doesn’t stop his kak (Afrikaans for “shit”). This was a time when classmates would disappear for days on end, or on one occasion for ever. This was a time when being paranoid was an everyday fact of life.

The endless paranoid bleating of the rabid right about the US’s pending descent into a Marxist/Muslim/Socialist dictatorship is puerile, pathetic and quite frankly boring. There was no mention of FEMA camps when Bush introduced Homeland Security and the patriot Act. It’s just another in a long line of what has been an extremely distasteful reaction by the right to Obama’s Presidency – something I fear is based less on his policies and more on the colour of his skin. Which is why you have the birthers carrying on about Obama’s eligibility to be President, and yet they remain silent on McCain’s even more dubious eligibility, having been born in the Panama Canal region.

The irony of it all, is these morons are screaming “Dictatorship!” at the same time the US is gearing up for the next election. Unless, of course, they know something we don’t, and they’re warning us about the looming Perry / Palin dictatorship…

WND of course had a poll on its new look. Option two was “WND is now the most contemporary website on the block”. Sure. Only a few seconds of rummaging through the code confirmed that WND, like Terry, is using an instillation of WordPress, although WND does not acknowledge this anywhere on the front page. So much for “the most contemporary”. On the other hand, it is kind of sad seeing someone doing a better job of what Terry is desperately trying to do, although WND did have professional help.

Well Terry I will give you some free advice to improve your website’s look: