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:

Being so far behind that I am not going to try and post to catch up, but I will give you some highlights:
Pamela Geller got to be the craziest person twice in one day, first with this gem about a reality TV show involving Muslims:

The fact is that the show specifically situates itself as a response to ‘Islamophobia’ – this was clear from the opening moments of the first show. But it is severely misleading, because it doesn’t deal with the kind of Muslims who would ever have caused anyone any concern in the first place. And I have been saying that since the show premiered.

I honestly can’t get my head around the logic of this. A show that counters the kind of Islamophobia Geller spreads is wrong because it is showing Muslims being normal Americans and not the caricature she presents? She got to follow it up with her weekly article:

Why would Obama want to ease sanctions on Iran? He sounds mentally ill. Or he wants a universal caliphate.

Yeah Pam those are the only two options, you are either mentally ill or you want a universal caliphate. At least she has made it clear on which side of that dichotomy she has fallen. Caliphate is the Islamophobic-right’s latest scare-word, they don’t know what it means, but they know what Glenn Beck told them it means. It means Muslims running the world. The Caliphate was the loose political entity that most Muslims lived under from Mohammed until the office of Caliph was dissolved into the Turkish Parliament in 1924. The Caliphate was about as coherent of a political entity as the Holy Roman Empire and at times multiple people or institutions simultaneously claimed the title of Caliph, the Ottomans being the most recent. It pretty much is the equivalent of claiming that Germans want to restart the Holy Roman Empire again, with the difference that the Nazis actually tried it once.

WND is claiming victory over the whole bestiality in the military story they created. Congratulations!

Some Rabbi, who has a book with WND, has been getting a lot of article space claiming that the USA is about to feel the wrath of God like ancient Israel. It has something to do with trees.

I might be being hyper-sensitive, but I can’t help but notice in this video by Molotov Mitch how he picks aspects of African-American culture as examples of things people are getting paid for by the government because they are lazy. Crypto-racism. It has been a while since I noticed it on WND, must be why it is cryptic.

WND learnt that you can’t wish away a sitting president away.

The highlight had to be Larry Klayman’s article which is so over-the-top it is not worth commenting on besides to say such a gross misuse of hyperbole will be the end of civilisation itself.
Christmas-ish
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday

Christmas-ish

Where would Christmas be without the hysterics of the annual War on Christmas. WND got into the War spirit by compling its own list, that included such things as decorations being removed as a safety risk. A few years back I remember a similar list containing a store that was asked to move its carol singers because they were blocking a fire-exit – Scrooges. Most of the cases come down to various government agencies not being allowed to spend money on singling Christmas, and hence indirectly supporting Christianity, over other religions that have celebrations at this time of year. WND featured a video by Rep. Scott Rigell, R-Va. where he almost got it right. He filmed it in his own time, using his own resources and posted it on YouTube – none of this was done using official government channels or at its expense. You can exercise your religion and free speech all you want, just don’t expect the government to pay for your pulpit. Despite (or perhaps because of) all the hoopla surrounding this imaginary war, USians are finding Christmas more religious than before. Not bad for a pagan holiday that got appropriated.

Other people practising their own religions however a big no. WND was outraged that the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps are going to allowed uniform headscarves and turbans in addition to their regular uniforms. Keep in mind that JROTC is not actually part of the military, it is a school program sponsored by the armed forces and wearing turbans is not Islamic it is Sikh.

Chuck Norris somehow takes the message praying doesn’t work, stick to conventional medicine and turns it into a testament for Jesus.

Farah thinks Obama is going to lock him up. Don’t get me wrong, I think the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 has some bad elements, but the act contains oversight for indefinite detentions where none existed before. The president has actually had these powers since congress rushed through the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists in the week following the September 11th terrorist attacks. The new act codifies the procedures that were already in place and at least we now know that the buck stops with the president for these abuses.

Alan Keyes gets crazy of the day for his wonderful display of hell-fire preaching.

Monday

WND’s signature birtherism was back Monday, a completely irrelevant case dealing with the Secretary of State in Indiana with legitimate questions hanging over his election got about two lines of mention in an article in that was on that very subject before it dissolved into another Obama is ineligible wankfest. WND also got its knickers all wet over lone crank Ron Polland, who WND described as a “researcher”. Polland has “launched” Federal Election Commission and Internal Revenue Service challenges (read filed nuisance complaints that will get thrown in the bin) against FactCheck.Org because they are violating their tax-exempt status by being partisan political for saying things Polland didn’t agree with. The thing in question, is of course, that Obama’s birth-certificate is real. How shockingly partisan. You see the genuineness or falsehood of Obama’s birth-certificate is not an objective fact, it is a political position, and anyone telling you that it is wrong to believe that it is fake is trying to censor your opinion and is violating your First Amendment rights. Fantasy hero of the new-right Sheriff Joe Arpaio is wondering why the Federal government is tiring of him overstepping his authority on immigration and attributes it to him overstepping his authority in investigating Obama’s birth-certificate. One does have to wonder exactly what it is that a group of volunteers in a county sheriff’s office in Arizona can determine about birth certificate held by a state agency in Hawaii, but I suspect that they just read WND for “facts”.

I might owe Chuck Norris an apology, I was shocked to learn the man actually has a military background. This week I learnt that he guarded air force bases in South Korea in 1958, after the war. He was discharged in 1962, thereby missing the opportunity to fight in the next one. But props too him being and Air Policeman is more military work than I have done. However Chuck once again took the opportunity to make it clear only Christians are allowed in the Armed Forces anyway.

The Shroud of Turin was back on the mainpage Monday, with the shocking revelation that scientists in Italy reproduced it using ultra-violet light. According to WND this is proof of the Resurrection, because where would medieval forgers get an ultra-violet light? As the link to Alan Boyle that WND was kind enough to provide pointed out, just because you can make something one way, doesn’t mean that is how it was made. In the face of people declaring it to be the burial cloth of Jesus, the best piece of sanity came from WND commenter Donald Buckley:

Religious relics are a dangerous thing…to believers. In the Old Testament God commanded Moses to make a brass serpent and place it on a staff. A judgement of poisonous snakes had come upon the Israelites in the wilderness and many were dying from their venomous bites. At the command of God any who looked on the brass serpent survived. This was a stunningly clear picture of salvation by faith alone. Many years later King Hezekiah had to destroy the brass serpent because people were worshipping it and not the Living God. The brass serpent had become a substitution for God Himself. Jesus said that only those who know Him personally will be allowed by Him into heaven. He made no mention of belief in any religious relic, statue, picture, whatever. Jesus, to whom ALL authority in heaven and on earth has been given, said, “You must be born again.” Take care of that issue and let the shroud be whatever it is.

From an actual American Protestant position he is correct, it is a piece of cloth.

Tuesday

Farah was back in the fantasy world that he can make the last three years disappear with his own reading of the constitution. Farah (and a much larger proportion of people for that matter) fail to understand that the law exists beyond statutes and the constitution, most of it is case law and precedents stretching back hundreds of years before the US even existed. Natural-born citizenship, or jus soli, is a concept of English common law that mealy states if you are born in a country you are a citizen of that country and United States v. Wong Kim Ark affirmed this. Farah’s fantasy that if he could some how find Obama ineligible the last three years will be scrubbed away also fails the bullshit test because of the de facto officer doctrine, another law that exists in no statute, but only in precedents. In a nutshell it says that so long as the person exercised the duties of the office correctly, the fact they were ineligible from holding it is irrelevant with respect to the decisions they made or orders they gave. This doctrine steams from cases where people in the armed forces, or even judges, have been incorrectly appointed in the past. Terry Lakin threw away an 18 year military career because of this.

Pat Buchanan asks “Whose country is it, anyway?” It belongs to all your fellow citizens, even the ones you disagree with, grow the fuck up and learn to share it.

WND is looking for a new Washington correspondent to draw mockery from the press gallery and a new manager for the WND Superstore. Having previously tried to purchase items through their service a blind chimp will probably qualify for the job. First there was a problem processing my payment with PayPal, which placed a two month lock on my account preventing me from removing an expired credit card from the payment options list. This ended up being resolved by me emailing my credit card details to them (I had the sense to secure my connection, but did they?). I tried to buy something recently from them, but I had forgotten my password, every time I tried to recover the password I got the message my email address was not registered on the system. So I tried to create a new account using that email address. Guess what? It was already on the system and I should use the password recovery if I have forgotten my password. Aagggh!

Wednesday

With the end of the year coming and the dreaded Year 2012 just around the corner, WND has decided to get in on the actions with a book by Tom Horn called Apollyon Rising 2012. The usual supernatural woo, the guy has gone through and picked a whole bunch of stuff from various cultures that he interprets as pointing to the end of the world on December 21, 2012. This book seems to tie into the One World/anti-Christ conspiracies with the glowing eye on US currency thing decorating the cover. WND is flogging five more books like it. It is Y2K all over again. January 2013 I will be picking these books up for $0.50.

Pamela Geller is upset that Republicans with moderate views still exist. Or maybe that she is a second rate blogger and doesn’t have a syndicated newspaper column like the woman she is critiquing, I don’t know.

In other shocking news, religious people use the bible to oppose homosexuality.

Crazy of the Year goes to the man WND styles as A Voice of Sanity, Robert Ringer, who wants to start nuking people, because that will scare China and Russia. Yes, because once the nuclear armed China and Russia knows that the US are happy to fire theirs off at the slightest provocation they are really going to be put them in their place, no chance at all of a pre-emptive strike next time there is a little tension between them and the US. For Fuck’s Sake how could the man live through the Cold War and think this would be a good idea? He actually thinks using the most expensive weapons in the US’s arsenal would save money and win them praise around the world as liberators by nuking Tehran, thereby allowing all the newly dead student protesters to be free. Ringer’s child-like dreams of the US showing the whole world what is what is so staggeringly naive that it in not worth dwelling on, only to say that it was slightly more moderate versions of this mentality that dragged the US into the clusterfuck that would become Iraq.

That is it for this year. Sorry for the slow rate of posting, but reading through WND is depressing. The vitriol and hatred they show for their fellow Americans because they don’t have the same political or religious views they do, or just because they swing a different way, is soul crushing. I can say from having read it everyday for three weeks that it is a cesspit of hatred created by a man that is either delusional beyond belief or will tell bold-face lies because it earns him a buck. I hope you all have a good New Years and I will see when I build up the strength to go for another expedition into Wingnuttia.

Thanks to CS Miller for highlighting errors in the original article.

Except, “Bah humbug!” (which for years I thought was a Jewish holiday)

Part 1

So, the monkeys over at Creation Ministries International have seen fit to pose 15 questions that evolutionists cannot adequately answer. By their logic, the fact that people can’t answer these questions, will therefore mean that evolution is false and you’re supposed to fall down on your knees and become a Christian straight away. However, before we we get to the questions and their answers, I think it’s time to look at some of the people pushing this insane agenda.

First up and leading the charge, we have Ken Demyer, probably better known as user:Conservative on racist bigot Andrew Schlafly’s little rightring hate blog, Conservapedia. A master of disguise, he cunningly poses as user:Question on the “official” Question Evolution blog, where he merely copy/pastes his inane and insane drivel from the pages of Conservapedia.

This is a man who thinks that a fire destroying a house is a good analogy of Christianity, whilst the fireman standing helplessly by, is a lazy atheist. This is the same man who thinks that an encyclopaedia (although I use the term in its broadest possible context where Conservapedia is concerned) needs articles comparing atheists to ponies and bears and god knows what else.

Then again, we are dealing with a mentally disturbed 40-year-old man-child, dwelling in his mother’s basement and with all the social skills of a reticent doorknob. This is a man too cowardly to come out from behind the powers of a Conservapedia sysop and face his critics directly – mostly because he hasn’t got the brainpower to face up to them. This is man who issues bizarre challenges for people to debate him… provided a monetary fee is paid… and then dfoesn’t have the imagination to make up an excuse when his demands are met.

Time and time again he has suddenly become “too busy for an unspecified period” to entertain further discussion and has left websites, such as A Storehouse of Knowledge, where he can’t hide behind the banhammer.

If you’d like to know Ken’s opinion about debate, here’s an excerpt for his most recent blog post on the Question Evolution blog:

The solution to quarrelsome, socially challenged atheists and evolutionists

1. Bring down the banhammer early and often at Christian/creationist forums and wikis when it comes to these types of atheists/evolutionists. It’s fun and entertaining! Mr. Militant, Rude and Ignorant Atheist/Evolutionists, don’t get sassy with me! Bam! You’re out of here!
2. If you have a Christian or creationist YouTube channel read this article at Creationwiki: YouTube participant advice.
3. Require pre-approval of comments at Christian blogs and YouTube channels
4. Never read more than a few words or sentences of inane and socially challenged atheist/evolutionist comments before deleting them. One Christian, who pre-approves the comments at this blog and who has a great sense of humor, told me he gets a big kick out of out of removing combative, vacuous, rambling, and long atheists’ comments at his blog. The longer the comments of senseless and belligerent atheists at his blog, the more he enjoys deleting them! No doubt these type of comments are full of sound and fury, but they signify nothing and they are summarily deleted.

There you have it, in a nutshell – these people have no interest in debating the facts. Ken – who is ironically VERY socially challenged, throws out cheap insults and actively advocates blocking, reverting and ignoring all those who disagree with him. It’s just the kind of behaviour we expect from somebody used to hanging on the coattails of a bigot, who is appalled that a black man is in the White House.

Then again, you’re dealing with a mindset for whom the following is quite logical:

In a biblical worldview, scientific observations are interpreted in light of the truth that is found in the Bible. If conclusions contradict the truth revealed in Scripture, the conclusions are rejected.

Yes, there’s nothing like exploring science, with the preconceived notion that you’re going to reject everything that doesn’t agree with the garbled writings from a bronze-age myth.

Of course, the irony is is that I could insinuate that Ken fucks his mother, to save paying rent for his basement, and he’ll be too much of a coward to appear here to refute the allegation. The talk page is open, come on over Ken.

Part 2

The funniest thing about the Question Evolution campaign is that no matter how much resident fuck-wit Ken Demyer claims the Question Evolution is going to “sweep across the country” or “smash the bows of the SS Atheism” or “grind up atheism in a meat grinder, or even “squash atheism like a tin can”… it’s done nothing.

Absolutely nothing. The updates we have are along the lines of “somebody has volunteered some time to do something unknown at some unspecified point in the future.” For all Ken’s posturing that ‘atheism will soon become “half a squeak” in America’ (yes, I know, that’s the mental agility of the man), their much-vaunted campaign has done… nothing. I’m sure the fact that it’s being run by a bunch of morons is purely coincidental.

The campaign has been going since at least June 2011, and yet as far as I can tell, all the atheists are still here, evolution is firmly entrenched in science. I haven’t seen a single billboard, advert, news insert, nothing. Even on the creation.com website, there are only 15 testimonials supporting the cause. Of those, I know 4 are fake, but CMI is quite happy to accept totally unbelievable, over the top stories, if it aids their cause.

There also been a number of replies to the 15 questions, all of which have been handily rejected. Not, let me state right now, because they are incorrect, or that evolutionists are indeed stumped, but because of:

1. The handy catch-all phrase “adequately explain.” This gives them a handy escape clause, as they can say, “No, sorry, you didn’t adequately explain it, next!”
2. These people have a pre-set agenda – science is badf, Bible is good; anything that contradicts the Bible can be rejected. Or, as Answers in Genesis put it: “In a biblical worldview, scientific observations are interpreted in light of the truth that is found in the Bible. If conclusions contradict the truth revealed in Scripture, the conclusions are rejected.” In other words, if your defense of evolution contradicts the Bible, it’s wrong.

Still’ given the general amount of fuck-all that’s going on with the campaign, it’s no wonder that they go apeshit when somebody actually does something. In this case. a supposedly “13 year old young man” (yes, that’s Ken again) has created a video, extolling the campaign.

Enter Terry Hurlbut – he of the amusing name, batshit insane YEC beliefs (seriously, this is the man who believes that water from the flood cratered the Moon, and that during the flood, the Earth turned into a giant nuclear reactor… but a little wooden boat survived unharmed) and another member of Schlafly’s white supremist hate blog… I wonder if there’s a common thread developing here.

Now Hurlbut, who as a qualified doctor, but now works as a gofer of an ambulance chaser (maybe the power of prayer wasn’t working in the operating theatre) might be more intelligent than Ken Demyer, but he’s just as revolting a person. He regularly deletes comments and blocks users from his own blog, so he’s right at home, both on Conservapedia and with the Question crowd. The fact that Hurlbut was also a member of the Digg Patriots, which actively buried stories they didn’t like, also speaks volumes. So when a scumbag like this speaks up for you, it might be best to back away slowly.

Anyway, Hurlbut is crowing on his blog about how amazing this video is. To quote the man: “Remarkably, his video shows production values that easily rival those of any professional advertising agency. The music alone is worth the viewer’s time.”

Wow. Maybe we should have a look at this work of art.

Don’t worry, I’ve saved you the trouble. here’s a blow by blow description of the video that “shows production values that easily rival those of any professional advertising agency.” Don’t worry, I didn’t give him the pleasure of a visit on YouTube, I simply downloaded it via the link.

Music: Some generic, dramatic, quasi-orchestral piece, probably downloaded from the web. No credit, or source given for the music.

Total length: 1:08

From 0:00 to 0:06 – Question’s logo, the “Darwin with his finger to his lips” picture

From 0:07 to 0:13 – Cut to picture of train tracks with the words “Would you like to stop atheism in its tracks” crammed into the top of the frame. Wait… a cut to the next picture? No fade, or wipe… where are these production values I keep hearing about?

0:14 to 0:22 – cut (again no effects) to a green screen, with a brown stripe at the bottom, and the words “We have 15 questions which stop evolutionists in their tracks”

0:23 to 0:33 – cut (WHAT fucking production values??!!) to blue screen with yellow stripe and the words “This is all part of the Question Evolution campaign.”

0:34 to 0:42 – cut to dark blue screen with white stripe and the words “The Question Evolution campaign ask evolutionist 15 questions. The questions are stumping evolutionists.” I’m starting to get the impression that either this kid is being groomed by Ken Demyer (a thought too horrible to contemplate) or her doesn’t exist and it’s Ken putting this togther.

0:43 to 0:52 – Cut to white screen with black writing “Thanks for watching our video. Please volunteer for this campaign. Merry Christmas from the Question Evolution campaign.

0:53 to end: “For more information please visit: The link is down below.” Ironically the last part is placed under the URL!

Simply put, even for a supposed 13-year-old, it’s awful. And for somebody like Hurlbut to claim it rivals advertising companies… well… the man is either delusional, or lying through his teeth. Knowing him as I do, I’m inclined to go with the latter.