Stop guns with guns!

So the NRA waited a week to announce it’s contribution to the discussion of gun control with the usual “a good guy with a gun stops a bad guy with a gun” drivel. Their big idea was to have an armed police officer in all the schools to make sure that no one with an assault gun can do what Adam Lanza did at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Besides the impractical nature of doing that, besides the costs associated with doing that and beside the message it sends to young kids, it will not work. Anyone who wants to harm others and is willing to die to do it, will not be stopped by a sleepy guard at a school. This reminds me of the proposed action that the Massachusetts Aeronautical Commission wanted after the attacks of 9/11. One was that they want an armed guard at every Massachusetts airport, 24/7. To date that hasn’t been done. And for good reason.

To see a good response to the announcement that the NRA  made Friday see Lawrence O’Donnell’s comments. The link is here. Good piece.

The other thing that baffles me is way so many gun owners/enthusiasts are now going out and buying more guns since the Sandy Hook tragedy. How many assault guns do you need? I personally know of an individual who doesn’t like the government and has many, many guns. What is he expecting? How many guns can one person fire at a time? On TV recently there was a piece about gun owners and one person showed his gun collection. He at least had them in a gun safe. He had over a dozen riffles. Again how many do you need?

The issue isn’t with the average gun owner who is sane and law abiding. It’s just that there are so many guns out there that it is very easy for some person who might be sane but have grudge against someone or some group, for what ever reason, to get the guns he wants and do some terrible things.

We have a terrible gun culture in this country and that has to change as well as the laws about owning guns. Just to make the point about the American gun culture, in both the Iraq war and the war in Afghanistan, over 6,000 service men and women have died. Total in both wars since they started! In just 2011 alone, over 8,000 people have been killed by guns in the U.S. So every year we loose more people to guns than we do in ten years plus of wars. Why don’t we get upset about that? Think about it.

More guns is the answer!

After the horrific shoot in Newtown, CT, it’s not surprising that the ring wing loonies started to spout their mantra that to stop these killings from happening again is to have more guns, especially in schools.

Then of course those good Christian folks like Mike Huckabee, James Dobson and others are on their pulpits now saying that the reason things like this happen is because kids aren’t praying in schools. Maybe Adam Lanza did some praying as he shot his way into the Sandy Hook Elementary School.

It’s been said that if you could reason with religious people, their would be no religious people. Take Mike Huckabee’s reason for the shooting. He said -

“We ask why there is violence in our schools but we have systematically removed God from our schools. Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage? Because we've made it a place where we don't want to talk about eternity, life, what responsibility means, accountability -- that we're not just going to have be accountable to the police if they catch us, but one day we stand before, you know, a holy God in judgment. If we don't believe that, then we don't fear that. And so I sometimes, when people say, why did God let it happen. You know, God wasn't armed. He didn't go to the school. But God will be there in the form of a lot people with hugs and with therapy and a whole lot of ways in which I think he will be involved in the aftermath. Maybe we ought to let him in on the front end and we wouldn't have to call him to show up when it's all said and done at the back end.”

Did you understand any of that? Why does God seem to get a free pass on things like this? It seems that God can’t go into a school unless he’s invited. Sound like an impotent God to me.

And James Dobson does his usual rant about gay marriage and abortion as part of the reason for the shoot in Newtown. Read his drivel here.

Yeah, those gays and that abortion thing is the cause of people grabbing assault style guns and shooting people. Pray tell what’s the connection between homosexuality and guns?

Adam Lanza was sick in what he did but those who use the public airways to spout such insanity as this are just as sick as Lanza. Think about it.

Atheists are miserable people.

That fountain of insane Christian dribble, Pat Robertson, once again came up with a beaut. In the yearly bitch about the “war on Christmas”, Robertson said to his sheep (just as smart) that atheists are miserable because, I guess, they don’t believe in the big daddy in the sky. These terrible people want to suck all the fun out of Christmas and make the Christians just as miserable as themselves. You got it Pat! If you can stomach listening to good ole Pat the link is here.

Anyway, this bullshit about the war on Christmas has as its’ perennial cheerleader, none other than Bill O’Reilly, who recent claimed that Christianity is not a religion but a philosophy. See it here. Does he agree that Atheism is not a religion?

I know Bill O is a very high intellectual so he knows of what he speaks. However I would suggest that he get in touch with Jesus and make sure he’s got it right. Or maybe he should at least contact Benedict XVI and let him know. For 2,000 years the Catholic Church has always proclaimed themselves as the one true religion, or at least that’s what the nuns told me when I went to Catholic elementary school. Maybe I didn’t hear it correctly.

Back to Pat Robertson. Think about all the Christians you know who are so jolly all the time while wondering if God will judge them good or bad and thus determining if they will have an eternity of singing to God every day (yuck!) or roasting like a Boston Market chicken for just as long. That thought alone would make anyone miserable.

Pat may also have caused some issues with his dumb sheep, er - believers, when he said recently that young creationists don’t have it right about the age of the world. He even put in a good word about carbon dating. My God, is Pat leaning towards the dark side?

Pat said - “Look, I know that people will probably try to lynch me when I say this, but Bishop [James] Ussher wasn't inspired by the Lord when he said that it all took 6,000 years. It just didn't. You go back in time, you've got radiocarbon dating. You got all these things and you've got the carcasses of dinosaurs frozen in time out in the Dakotas.

They're out there. So, there was a time when these giant reptiles were on the Earth and it was before the time of the Bible. So, don't try and cover it up and make like everything was 6,000 years. That's not the Bible.”

Pat’s always good for a laugh or two. Too bad his followers sop it up without questioning. I guess they can’t question Pat else they wouldn’t be his followers. Think about it.

Reality bites!

It’s rather amusing to see the Republicans falling all over themselves trying to come to grips with the reality of the drubbing they took in the recent election. Their pundits were proclaiming that Romney would win big right up to the last minute (think of Karl Rove) and when Romney didn’t win they tried to put the blame on the media, the liberals, the common folk (victims), and everyone else except themselves.

A recent example of how the GOP doesn’t see reality like real people do is in a recent interview on Fox News of Thomas Ricks, a journalist and writer of many books on the military including “Fiasco: The Military Adventure in Iraq.” The Fox interviewer was stunned when Ricks took Fox News to task for blowing up the “controversy” over the Benghazi incident that killed four Americans. How dare Ricks slam Fox News! See it here.

Others see the same thing I do and that is if you only watch Fox News and listen to the likes of Rush and Glenn and other wing nuts, you will loose touch with reality. One person, Stephen Carter Escondido, wrote his opinion in the San Diego North County Times recently and said,

“Their delusions are probably best characterized by Romney pollster Neil Newhouse’s declaration that, “We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.”

In the election aftermath, Republicans continue to deny reality. They blame a hurricane for their humiliating defeat. They say that the “uninformed” elected Obama. They fail to acknowledge that Mitt Romney was a terrible candidate with an extremist running mate. They won’t admit that the GOP’s message is one that promises an authoritarian state run by and for a religious plutocracy, a state in which the middle class no long exists.”

One could say that it doesn’t matter that the GOP can’t deal with reality but as long as some of them are in power in our government, we have to be concerned. You only have to look at Senator John McCain to see how folks that live in la-la land can impact us. Think about it.

All right GOP, take that!

I’m very happy with the results of yesterday’s election. Not only did Obama win, but Elizabeth Warren won the Senate seat from Scott Brown. I was worried about the Senate given that Obama may have to nominate several Supreme Justices. The court needs to more towards the center.

I’ve always said to the GOP – Is this Romney guy the best you got? In the end Romney's’ flip flopping all over the place did him in. I’ve seen it said elsewhere that his argument for his election was was to scrape everything Obama did and start over. In essence he was running against the recovery. Yeah things are not as good as we would like but things are getting better.

And Fox News must be going nuts! Now they can’t spend time trying to defeat Obama but I’m sure they’ll continue to bash him at every turn. So much for “fair and balanced” reporting. Suck it up, Fox News!

God doesn’t want women, period.

A posting over at Debunking Christianity run by John Loftus got my attention the other day. The entry was written by Harry H. McCall and is titled “Why women especially should reject Christianity.” The link is here.

In it, McCall gives Biblical reasons why women are inferior to men and that men should have the leadership role in the church and in life. As an example, McCall says – “More importantly, in Paul’s view all women are the deceivers descended directly from Eve who alone listened to the serpent then mislead Adam: “And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being quite deceived, fell into transgression.” (1Timothy 2: 14)”

This reminded me of the time recently when I had gone back west to attend my mother-in-laws 90th birthday which fell close to Mother’s Day. That Sunday and the day of the birthday celebration had us in the local Baptist church and I was amazed how the minister praised women during the service. At the same time the women in this particular church did all the menial tasks while the men were in positions of leadership. Women in the church was OK as long as they knew their place.

At about the same time I came across an entry on Rachel Maddow’s blog with a video picked up by the Right Wing Watch organization, www.rightwingwatch.org. That link is here.

The entry was written by Steve Benen and is titled “This week in God.” In the post Benen writes - According to Fischer [American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer], "masculine leadership in society over the nation" is "God's basic plan for today," and "political leadership ought to be ... reserved for the hands of males." Anticipating criticism, the religious right leader added that those who believe in gender equality won't offer a "reasoned" response to his shameless misogyny.”

So you women concerned by all the talk of contraception and abortion, don’t worry your pretty little heads about it. Just stay at home on November 6 and your husband will vote for you. Aren’t you lucky to be a woman? A Christian woman no less!

Of course, believe the flyer!

I saw that a Romney flyer went out in Virginia recently that had the headline “Our religious liberty under attack” picturing the whole Romney clan. The particular section that caught my attention was in the picture at left. It says “President Barack Obama’s position that the government had the power to tell a church who it must accept as a minister was rejected by the Supreme Court 9-0.”

So if I was to read that part I would be under the impression that the government is telling churches who they can have and not have as ministers. Sounds a little far fetched to me. So I dug into it.

The Supreme Courts decision was about a case brought by one Cheryl Perich, a teacher and a “commissioned minister” for a Detroit-area Lutheran school. She was fired, according to Perich, for her medical condition, narcolepsy. Instead of facing a church tribunal, she filed a discrimination lawsuit under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The suit argued that all church employees other than a priest or senior pastors should be able to sue for discrimination. The Supreme Court said that since ministers have an exemption from laws regarding hiring and firing, Perich couldn’t sue.

You have to understand that a “commissioned minister” is a lay person who performs “specific church-related  ministry by an Association, but does not require the administration of the sacraments, according to a description of “commissioned ministry” by the United Church of Christ. And ministers have an exception from the labor laws such that they can be fired for any reason and they have no recourse in the courts.

So it was not that Obama was dictating who churches could hire or fire as ministers, it was that once you are labeled a “minister” in any way, shape, or form, you can be let go for most any reason, including things that are against the ADA, and you have to suck it up!

As Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, stated, “Clergy who are fired for reasons unrelated to matters of theology — no matter how capricious or venal those reasons may be — have just had the courthouse door slammed in their faces.” So don’t believe this flyer or any political flyer.

Veterans are owed!

At a campaign rally for Obama in Virginia Beach on September 27, 2012, Senator Jim Webb, Democrat from Virginia, introduced the President. A complete transcript of his speech is available.

His remarks were a slam against Mitt Romney’s “47%” remark. Senator Webb minced few words when he spoke about veterans -

“They will not say this, so I will say it for them.  They are owed, if nothing else, at least a mention, some word of thanks and respect, when a Presidential candidate who is their generational peer makes a speech accepting his party’s nomination to be Commander in Chief.  And they are owed much more than that – a guarantee that we will never betray the commitment that we made to them and to their loved ones.”

Speaking of Romney’s failure to get specific he said -

“It’s six weeks before the election and we still don’t really know what Governor Romney wants to do as President.  That should make you worried.  On the other hand we’ve heard a lot about what Congressman Ryan wants to do.  And that should make you scared.”

His whole speech is worth reading. Then take a look at the piece on MSNBC that Lawrence O'Donnell did on Romney that includes Jim Webb’s speech. Mitt was a guy who actually protested FOR the Vietnam war AND the draft AND then get’s a religious exemption and goes to France for a year or two. Boy, Mitt had it rough! Think about it.

What’s a fib amongst friends?

I don’t know if it has something to do with the Mormon religion or not but Romney seems to be very comfortable in lying with a completely straight face. His flip flopping is a given these days but his out right lying is now something that has to be confronted.

Rachel Maddow on her show of September 26, 2012, pointed out a whole litany of lies Romney told even though the lies been exposed by many, many news sources as out right lies.

As reported by Huffington Post on September 27, 2012 -

“Rachel Maddow laid into Mitt Romney's campaign for failing to correct false claims made in campaign ads, even though the Republican presidential candidate recently told reporters otherwise.

Earlier this week, Romney told a CNN reporter that, when it comes to using accurate facts and figures, his campaign has "been absolutely spot on." He added, "And anytime there's anything that's been amiss, we correct it or remove it."

Maddow said that a campaign correcting inaccurate facts is a "normal process."

"That's what makes that statement so newsworthy, because they Romney campaign...hasn't been correcting or removing their own false claims from the record when they are proven to be false, which is a strange decision for a campaign operating at the presidential level," she said.

Maddow went through a number of campaign ads that included false claims that the Romney campaign did not correct or remove. For instance, Romney's first general election campaign ad included Obama saying, "If we keep talking about the economy, we are going to lose."

In actuality, Obama said that comment on the campaign trail in 2008, and was quoting then-Republican presidential candidate, John McCain. "Sen. McCain's campaign actually said, and I quote, 'If we keep talking about the economy, we are going to lose.'"

Maddow said the discrepancy between what Obama actually said and the way the Romney campaign presented it in its campaign add was pretty severe. "That's a really big, really bad lie," she said.”

We know politicians lie but once they are called on it, they ususally fess up, somewhat, and move on. Romney, however, seems to be living in two universes at once. He says one thing in one universe and something else in his other universe. And the two never connect.

I’m thinking it has to do with his religion. Joseph Smith was a known huckster and con artist. Maybe that “con” mentality permeated down the years in the Mormon church to the point that adherents don’t see anything wrong with lying as long as it gets them what they want. In this case, Romney wants to be president so bad he is willing to lie and lie and lie until he get’s to the White House. Politicians that lie are one thing, but pathological liars like Romney are something else. Think about it.

I’m a forty seven percenter.

Dear Mitt,

I so glad you singled me out as one of those folks who isn’t paying income tax and is getting entitlements from Washington. I’m also glad that I really don’t have to vote for you since you’ve written us all off. You see we are those slackers you talked about to your multi-millionaire buddies last May. Yeah, we are free loaders and we just suck all the money that you guys desperately try to keep for yourselves.

I guess you are not interested in the fact that it took fifty years of hard work and paying taxes all along to get to this point. By the way Mitt, I still will probably pay state taxes, excise tax, sales tax, property tax and a few other taxes. Anyway I wasn’t able to stash part of my wealth (if you want to call it that) in some off shore account like you do. Like a good citizen I filled out my tax return every year without the help of a high powered CPA that you have that could of helped me hide some of it. I was lucky if I even got a refund.

I should point out that I did get some help from the U.S. Government for almost eight years though. The government provided me with food, shelter and clothes as well as some education in return for me putting my body in front of the enemies of the U.S. I was in the U.S. Air Force.

After I sucked all I could out of Uncle Sam in that gig, I worked long hours and scraped and saved my pennies along the way. I paid for Social Security and Medicare along the way so my parents would be taken care of in their retirement. I wish I could done more for my parent as all they had to live on was Social Security which I know you’d like to hack up.

Anyway, I’m glad you told all your millionaire buddies how we 47 percenters don’t have to vote for you because you’ve written us off. That gives me time to figure out how I can get more dough from Washington.

Well good luck with the campaign. Maybe after November 6 you’ll find a good paying job. The one you’re looking for in the White House won’t be available.

John Q Public 

Rage Dinesh. Rage!

There’s been a number of Letters to the Editor in my local paper urging folks to see the Dinesh D’Souza film “2016: Obama’s America”, a polemic based on his 2010 book, The Roots of Obama’s Rage.

I think it’s time to shed another perspective on this.

If you’ve know anything about D’Souza, you know what axe he is inclined to grind. The film is just a puff piece to promote his idea that Obama is this raging radical waiting to forever alter America, if he hasn’t done it already.

For one perspective on this, writer Alan Scherstuhl, in an August 30, 2010 piece on the browardpalmbeach.com website said this -

[In the movie] “Paul Vitz shows up to explain that the father who abandons a boy has a profound influence on the shaping of that boy, an argument that lays bare D'Souza's debased rules of evidence: the fact that Obama senior was never around to radicalize Obama junior only proves that he did radicalize Obama junior. That explains why junior later went on to fulfill the dream of all Kenyan revolutionaries of the 1960s: passing the health care plan Republicans came up with in the '90s.”

Do people see what D’Souza is claiming? Since Obama’s father wasn’t around he, Obama’s father, radicalized Barack his by his absence. What rubbish!

Further Scherstuhl writes “Still, the film is a sleepy dud, a polemic that, like D'Souza himself, is at once both outrageous and deeply boring.”

Even Megan McCain, daughter of Senator John McCain, said this in a telephone interview with D’Souza -

“I found the movie to be provocative. But it also came off as conspiracy theory and paranoia-based. I don’t know if all your arguments connected, and that you were making a lot of assumptions about his past and psychology.” Ouch!

Mark Warren in an article on esquire.com dated August 28, 2012 writes -

“His basic idea is that Obama's cool comportment is but a disciplined cover for a seething rage and determination to, in the course of a single presidency, correct the grievous harm that America has inflicted on the world.”

[Movie Narrator] “Here comes Obama, and he never brings the subject up. He's above it. He's the racial healer.... The fact that he doesn't intimidate you with explicit racial appeals is immensely relieving to whites, because whites go, Oh wow, he allows us to believe that we've gotten beyond all that.... This is Obama's secret weapon.”

“You see what D'Souza did just there? He just told us that the proof for his elaborate Kenyan anti-colonial rage theory is that there is no proof at all. Obama's not even acting black! That's how good he is at this game.”

And finally, Sanjiv Singh in ideas.time.com, August 30, 2012 said this -

“In the final analysis “anti-colonial” is too far-fetched a metaphor to understand Obama, who if he rages, must do it very privately. D’Souza’s arguments are so over the top and so obviously personal that they even fail to provoke ire. They are simply like sand between the fingers — fleeting and gone without a trace.”

My point is that before people go gaga over this film check out the background of Dinesh D’Souza and you’ll find that he’s not the unassuming gentleman from Mubai that he may appear to be. Think about it.

RNC–The rich white guy wins!

The Republican National Convention is over and we were all on pins and needles to see who would get the nod from the rich white Republican folks and lo and behold, it’s a rich white guy! Wow!

There was so much dribble coming from the idiots in Tampa that even Tropical Storm Isaac decided to avoid that area. Well, Pat Robinson said it was God that moved the storm so it could hit those sinners in New Orleans again. I guess Katrina didn’t do a good enough job. God failed?

Anyway, Mister (don’t I look good?) Romney talked Thursday night and said some things about America and how he knows how to create jobs (clue us in Mitt!) and everyone there cheered but no one really knew what the hell he said or really cared. But the real star of the convention was Clint Eastwood’s performance talking to an empty chair, supposedly Obama. The guy is 82 years old now and I’ve loved his movies but maybe now he should just retire to Carmel-by-Sea and keep quiet. Clint did solidify what we all have thought about the Republican right’s rant on Obama for these past three and a half years. They seem to think that “their” Obama, the one who has so thoroughly ruined America, is actually invisible and is not the same Obama that many of us rational folks see who is actually running the country. Jon Steward said it the best and I think we should have bumper stickers all over the U.S. with this -

“There is an invisible President Obama that only Republicans can see.”

Right from the time Obama took office the GOP created an Obama that did everything wrong. When he helped bail out the auto industry, the Republicans said we should let them fail and not spend tax dollars. Well Presidents, Republicans and Democrats,  have in the past spent tax dollars to help save various industries. When Obama pushed through his Affordable Care Act, the GOP screamed. But if you look at it the ACA was really fashion after a GOP health care plan. It’s not a single payer, government run system. It’s free enterprise at it’s best.

When he bailed out the banks, everyone yelled, let them fail! But now the banks are doing fine, for the most part, and the stock market is back over the 13,000 point. This all fits into how the Republicans operate. Anything that remotely doesn’t fit into how they think the world should be has got to be shot down. I’m still trying to figure out what world the GOP lives in.

Finally this image from US Today says it all. I’m sure the headline writer wasn’t really paying attention to the headline but then again maybe he was. Is this the best you Republicans got? Think about it.

The GOP creep and GOP creeps!

I’ve seen a number of stories about several things the Republicans are doing that are indicative of a creepy stealth operation on Americans. One creepy thing is the effort of three GOP Senators to repeal the 17th Amendment, another is the effort by several states to require photo ID’s for voters when they vote and then there is the general creepiness of the GOP into everyone's sex lives. More about these in a moment but first I want to talk about Romney and his white board.

I think it was very telling in the picture above that on the Romney side he wrote “No Change” and “Solvent” in talking about Medicare. Romney is doing the old back stepping he’s done for years on this program. Of course Medicare would change under Romney because he wants to eliminate any monetary support for it by giving tax cuts to his wealthy buddies. Buy more disturbing is his “Solvent” note under his name. There is no way that can happen with what he is proposing. Again Romney talks in broad terms and provides no meat. Trust me he says, I know what I’m talking about. Good because I don’t.

Now back to the GOP creep.

So now to make their presence even bigger in Congress, three Senators are proposing that the 17th amendment be repealed. The 17th amendment is the one that lets the people of the States elect their own Senators. These GOP Senators want to repeal that and have the State Governors “appoint” Senators. So with more Republican Governors the GOP will have a stronger hold on the Senate. Lovely!

Then there is the laws being put forward in Ohio, Pennsylvania and possibly Florida that  requires voters to show a picture ID when going to the polls. Since many that tend to vote Democrat may not have a drivers’ license, the laws will discourage them from voting hence increasing the number of people who vote Republican. Sneaky!

And of  course there is the actions of the Virginia legislature to require a trans-vaginal ultrasound for a woman that wants an abortion. The procedure is totally unnecessary medically but the GOP hopes that if they can make it more difficult to get an abortion, women will do the Christian thing and have the baby only to find she can’t feed it because she can’t earn enough as a maid in some Republican’s mansion.

Then there is the idiot Todd Akin, a Republican congressman running for a U.S. Senate seat in Missouri. Akin seems to know a lot about how the female body works, especially when the woman is raped, in that he claims that if it’s a “legitimate rape” the female body won’t allow the woman to get pregnant. Where do these idiots come from?

Little by little the GOP is tearing this country apart by being so stupid, especially about abortion. They want to do everything to protect the unborn but have no issue starting wars (hence killings our folks and foreigners), not providing for the welfare of the sick and elderly (unless you have lots of money), and letting poor people die early because they are, well poor. These folks – the Republicans – are sick! Think about it.

100th and I’m Scared!

I noticed that I have entered 99 blog postings since I started this little endeavor. Back in April of 2008 I never would have thought that I could create 99 blog postings. At the time I thought it would be just a fun thing to do, to write up my thoughts on various topics and share them with the folks on the internet.

I know that some bloggers can create a 100 postings a month and that’s fine. For me each one was something that I felt I needed to put down in print, so to speak. It gave me a chance to formulate my thoughts and express them in a thoughtful and coherent manner. It still is nice to go back over my old postings and re-read them. I find myself saying “I like what I said there.”

So I thought long and hard about this posting. My 100th. So here goes…

I’m scared.

I’m scared to see what is happening to our country. It seems that we pay more attention to the insane and dumb things people do on YouTube, reality TV, People magazine, etc., then to the really cool stuff like the recent landing on Mars. That to me was big news. It got five minutes of coverage and then we moved on to who expose more boobs today.

I’m scared as to how much religion is influencing the country today. From the Catholic Church’s insane crap about being “forced” to provide birth control to their employees, to each candidate rolling out their religion for all to see hoping to curry the favor of one or more religious groups. I was taken aback in 2008 when Obama and McCain “had” to get Pastor Rick Warren’s blessing as they started the campaign. Even now with Romney putting his Mormonism in the background so as not to rile the Evangelical Christians, and Franklin Graham, heir to Dad Billy’s empire, couldn’t get himself to say that Obama is a Christian. He copped out by saying “well he says he’s a Christian.” I thought the Constitution forbids any sort of “religious test.”

I’m scared about the dumbing down of America. We are teaching kids how to take tests and not how to solve problems. I know there are pockets of schools that turn out well educated kids but they seem to be harder to find. It seems that if parents, particularly Evangelical Christians, don’t like what the public schools teach, they opt to home school their kids. That’s fine but they are denying their kids the exposure to others and other views and opinions.  AND let’s not teach kids about that theory of evolution thing! Or SEX!

I’m scared that we like to start wars at the drop of the hat. Since Bush decided to do his “shock and awe” in Iraq, we seemed to think it’s OK just to go around the world and pick a fight with who ever looks at us cross-eyed. Yeah, let’s pick a fight with Iran or North Korea and see what get’s us.

I’m scared that money and big business is killing America. The Citizen’s United ruling has allowed an ungodly amount of money to flow into the campaigns promoting every nutty accusation and falsehood they can think of. And big business and their PACs run Washington and the 99% are getting squat.

And I’m scared and terrified that Romney could get elected. Think about it.

I’ll have some religion with my Chick-fil-A sandwich!

The flap over the comments by the CEO of the Chick fil-A restaurant chain about gay marriage and the subsequent response by folks flocking to the restaurants, shows once again how the religious beliefs of some can raise passions on both sides of the issue. We all saw the response to the Chick-fil-A appreciation day. Now I heard that some on the gay side of things want to stage a kiss-in at the restaurant chain. We’ll see how well that goes over.

Subtly in the comments by some about this thing is the refrain about how religious freedoms are being attacked. I saw the same thing the other day in my local paper. Todays’ paper had the response by some readers to a previous letter about religious freedoms. One person wrote… “Today is a prime example of that [attack on religious freedoms]… a day when our religious beliefs are under attack and our religious freedoms are eroding.” Then the next writer said… “You have your freedoms, but this doesn’t trump the freedom of others, regardless of their beliefs. You cannot impose on us what you and your church ‘believe’ is right.” Further the writer went on to say, “I mean really, specifically what freedoms are being taken from religious institutions in America today, that wouldn’t adversely affect citizens of the U.S., who may not share a given religious bent and deserve the rights our laws provide for?”  Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Getting back to the Chick-fil-A thing, when Dan Cathy says what he believes about gay marriage, he has a right to say that. I don’t have to agree with it and I have the right to speak out. If that is seen as attacking his beliefs, well yeah. The minute you publically speak about your views that are based on your religious dogma, then expect others who agree or disagree to speak out. That’s call freedom of speech.

Often you hear religious people plead for others to respect their religion or beliefs. We do but when those beliefs get into the public forum and are used to make laws that affect believers and non-believers alike, then suck it up Christians! You brought it on yourselves.

What do you expect from Fox News?

The flap going around, pushed mostly by Fox News, was that Obama recently said that if you are a small business owner you didn’t build that business by yourself. Fox News jumped all over this and ran 42 segments running over two hours of air time pushing this blatant lie. Here’s what Obama said exactly -

"If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet."

In reading this and hearing how Fox News distorted it two things came to mind. One, they used something benign and used it to push their dislike for Obama. Remember Fox News is not a news organization. They are really a front for the political right. But secondly maybe they are just plain dumb and flunked out of English classes in school. The phrase “you didn’t build that”, obvious to anyone with any sort of grasp of the English language, refers to the previous sentence about “roads and bridges.”

But then again considering the viewing audience for Fox News, we can’t expect them to understand all this stuff about English. They are too busy stockpiling their guns before Obama takes them away!

Texas–Dumber than a steer!

I caught a segment of The Young Turks on Current TV in which Cenk Uygur talked about the Texas GOP Platform. I found what he was saying astounding, so I searched for the platform at the Texas GOP website. Here are the two planks that Cenk mentioned in their entirety -

“Controversial Theories – We support objective teaching and equal treatment of all sides of scientific theories. We believe theories such as life origins and environmental change should be taught as challengeable scientific theories subject to change as new data is produced. Teachers and students should be able to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of these theories openly and without fear of retribution or discrimination of any kind.

Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.”

The first one on Controversial Theories seems innocent enough until you really think about it. The key phrase is “scientific theories.” It’s a coded way of getting “Intelligent Design” (ID) or “Creationism” taught in schools as a legitimate scientific theory. That’s the problem. Time and again, courts have said that ID and it’s off shoots, is not science. It is religion dressed up like science. Notice they singled out life origins and environmental change. Of course life origins is what ID wants to wedge their way into public school science classes. And environmental change is code for global warming which many Texans don’t buy because it’s always been friggin’ hot in Texas.

But the kicker, to me, is the part entitled “Knowledge-Base Education.” The GOP flatly opposes “critical thinking skills” and anything that challenges “the student’s fixed beliefs.” Wow! In other words don’t teach kids to think for themselves and possibly question what Ma and Pa told them about things like, oh I don’t know, evolution and climate change!

At a time when we need students to think critically about all subjects, Texas is bound and determined to move things backwards. The educational system in Texas will probably implode on it’s self because eventually there will be no one left that knows anything about anything.

If the Texas GOP platform isn’t dumb enough, then there’s this gem -

“Voter [sic] Rights Act – We urge that the Voter [sic] Rights Act of 1965 codified and updated in 1973 be repealed and not reauthorized.” We Texans don’t need those black folks voting.

Dumber that steers.Think about it - except you folks in Texas. You don’t have to think.

There are Boobs and then there are Boobs.

I’ve been intrigued by the the American obsession with boobs. You know those two things that women have on their chest that good old boys go gaga over, even at the mention of the word “boob.” You know breasts, tata’s, jugs, tits, gazinga’s, etc.Then there was this tabloid article about some Hollywood starlet who flashed “side boob’” What the hell is “side boob?”

The photo at left is from the 1937 Popular Photography magazine that originally published it with out the black censor bar. In 2012 when the photo was reprinted in the magazine the black bar showed up. Bruce Gerencser, a former minister over at www.brucegerecser.net, had a nice post about this picture and how, in his view, Evangelical men have problem with boobs. He writes –“Let’s face it, Evangelicals have an irrational fear of breasts. Evangelical men are so weak that if a woman exposes even a portion of her breasts they are sure to fall into sin. I find it amazing that the Christian God can save them from any and every sin but he is quite powerless to keep them from being tempted and led astray by a woman’s breasts.”

Bruce also adds – “Pity the poor Evangelical. So weak that they can not withstand a look at a woman’s breasts. It should come as no surprise that Evangelical men and pastors find themselves in all kinds of trouble…..They are taught they are weak. They are taught they are but one sin away from being a pervert, child molester, porn addict, or rapist.”

I wouldn’t go as far as to say that the fear of breasts is confined to just Evangelical men. I would say that the American society in general has an issue with breasts. But at the same time we seem to have a fascination about them. They are titillating (tits?) up to a point but if you see too much of them, especially the nipples, then you’ve crossed the line. Remember the Seinfeld episode where Elaine exposed one of her nipples?

We should be like Europe where boobs are everywhere and it’s no big deal. I’ve been to the Caribbean on topless beaches and after awhile you’ve seen a bunch of them, so what?

Finally Fox News who tends to cater to the more religious folks – at least they say they are religious – seem to have a lot of titillating (there’s that word again) stuff on their website. Like the photo at left that was posted on the Fox News website. I’m sure Kate Upton’s a good Christian girl who attends church regularly. Praise Jesus!

I found it interesting that she is posed with a red, white and blue popsicle on her tongue. Is that suggestive or what? Boobs and a phallic symbol, what more could a church going man want? Can you give me an Amen!

Jesus, we’re being oppressed!

I ran across the image at left the other day. At first I thought the pie chart was incorrect but after searching the number of religions in the U.S. it more or less correct.

I am always amused when I hear of a Christian, especially on TV or in the press, that complains that someone (the left, Atheists, liberal media, etc.) is running things and the god fearing Christians are getting the short end of the stick. When you see a graph like the on the left you have to chuckle. Poor Christians! With that much dominance in the U.S., what are you bitching about?

The truth is that we are a Christian country, not in a governmental sense but in the population that holds Christianity, in one form or another, as their religion and how it shapes their lives. Most statistics show that the U.S. population is anywhere from 70 to 80 percent Christian, or at least most respondents declare they are Christian in some form. Whether or not they attend church is another matter – just look at the declining Catholic church attendance. The percentages for other faiths is also quite small in the U.S. with one exception. The nonreligious segment is increasing probably due to the influence of younger people who don’t see the value of religion. Numbers are hard to get for that group but most surveys show it to be anywhere from 12 to 14 percent.

Now when you compare religious affiliation across the world you see a different picture. Christianity hold a third of the adherents with Islam garnering 21%. Notably “nonreligious” comes in at 16% and that segment still appears to be growing.

In any event, when Christians play the “Oppressed” card, we should remember graphs like these. The influence the Christian religion has in the U.S. and around the world is enormous. Unfortunately it’s not going away any time soon. Sigh!

Jobs and Jesus–do they mix?

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filed a lawsuit on June 12, 2012 against Voss Electric Company regarding the denial of a supervisory job to an individual who was not religious enough. The EEOC website states “Despite being considered qualified for the position, … Wolfe (the applicant) was denied employment on the basis of his religious beliefs.”

So he was qualified for the job but didn’t have the right religious qualifications for the company. Which raises the question of what would be the right qualifications? To work at Voss Lighting do you have to attend a company approve church? Would that church have to run their mission statement past the management at Voss? What if Voss Lighting aligns themselves with the Southern Baptist and the applicant is a member of a Methodist church? Would that disqualify him? Is there a list at Voss Lighting of approved churches or denominations?

I will admit that Voss Lighting doesn’t hide their religious beliefs. On their website’s mission statement page they say right up front that their Biblical Mission is “ to ‘sell’ our lighting products so that we may ‘tell’ everyone we can about God’s soul-saving, life transforming gospel message as Jesus instructed believers to do.”  I’m curious as to why “sell” and “tell” are in quotes. That’s like the Monty Python sketch where they say something naughty and then “wink wink, nod nod” as if to say you really know what we are getting at, right?

This apparently happened in Tulsa Oklahoma so it doesn’t surprise me about religious overtness that’s there. But this is also a good example of what trouble one can get into when religion and the workplace are involved to this extent. It really makes a mess of this and no one comes out on top. If I sent in a resume to Voss Lighting, they would probably have to handle it with fireproof gloves as if Satan applied for a job. Maybe I will just to see if it lights up at Voss Lighting.

Atheism–magical belief!

I ran across the image to the left recently. I guess this is in response to other banners around that mock the Christian belief of God being pissed so he sends Jesus to live on Earth and Jesus gets killed only to rise from the dead and that some how makes God (the Big Daddy) happy. It all ends with “makes perfect sense.”

Now if you examine the verbiage in this image closely you’ll see that who ever wrote this doesn’t, it seems to me, understand atheism. First of all, atheism is by definition the LACK of belief in a supernatural being or God. Beyond that, atheism doesn’t promote anything. Christians are non-believers when it comes to other gods such as Zeus, Apollo, Allah, etc. Atheists don’t believe in just one more god than them.

But let’s look at what this says - “…there was nothing and nothing happened to nothing and then nothing magically exploded for no reason.” Notice how “magically exploded” is introduced. The writer of this image has to read up on the issue of nothingness in science. For example, Lawrence Krauss explains in his book “A Universe from nothing” that through the known laws of physics we have today, it can be demonstrated that nothing is unstable and that something (i.e. matter) will be created without the need for a supreme being. It isn’t “magical”, it happens!

Further the image says that nothing created “everything and then a bunch of everything magically rearranged itself for no reason.” Notice the word magic again. Once again science has demonstrated how matter evolved over the vast periods of time forming stars, galaxies and eventually life. Nothing magical about it. It’s all explained by the many disciplines of science if one wanted to educate themselves about the topic.

I will concede one thing though. There is no reason for the universe. There is no reason for us. We humans, as does the universe, just happen to be. Why? Who know and who cares? We know we are here now so lets make the best of it as there is nothing beyond our life. Going through life fretting about whether you’re going to heaven or hell is a waste of time. Use the only time you got.

Finally, it’s interesting that “magical” is introduced when most of religion is all about “magic.” They don’t say it’s magic but that’s what they are peddling. Consider the talking snake in the Garden of Eden. Isn’t that magic? Or the fact that the Bible says that God picks up some dirt and breathes on it, and puff there’s Adam. Or in present day where the Catholic Church still clings to “transubstantiation” of the host where a priest says special words and Jesus’ body is now in the wafer. You can’t taste Him but he’s there!

If Christians really thought about their magical beliefs, they’d find it doesn’t make perfect sense. But they won’t think about it and that’s the problem!

“Why Atheists can’t be real Americans”

My Google Alert pointed me to an article at the World Net Daily (WND), a “news” outlet catering to right wing Christian conservatives who would like nothing better than to have America as a white Christian country with all others out.

The WND, sometime referred to as Wing Nut Daily, is the brain child of Joseph Farah who has a less than stellar record in the newspaper business. Anyway he writes that he agrees with something the good Pastor John Hagee, senior pastor of San Antonio’s Cornerstone Church, said recently.

Pastor Hagee - “This nation was not built for atheists or by atheists. It was built by Christian people who believed in the Word of God. To the atheists watching this telecast, if our belief in God offends you, move. There are planes leaving every hour on the hour, going every place on planet earth. Get on one, we don’t want you and we won’t miss you, I promise you.”

Farah writes that he agrees with Hagee saying further “Atheists can’t be real Americans in the truest sense of the word ...”

Referring to the founding fathers and others at that time, he says they “were Christians who believed in the One True God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They weren’t referring to any other god. They rejected Allah. They rejected paganism in all its forms. They rejected atheism.

America was thus founded as a Judeo-Christian nation, tolerant of other views, but with the understanding that only a moral people governing themselves to the best of their ability under God’s eternal laws were capable of maintaining the liberty established uniquely under this covenant.

Likewise, at the end of the day, anyone who doesn’t believe in the Creator God of our founders is, at best, enjoying the blessings established by that national creed without acceptance of it.

There’s an old saying: “America: Love it or leave it.”

Interestingly he goes on to quote Thomas Jefferson, one of the most free thinking founder and the writer of the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson didn’t believe in the kind of God Farah or Hagee talk about. Jefferson was a Deist who believed in a God that plays no role in the daily lives of individuals. In fact many of the founding fathers were Deists. Jefferson didn’t think Jesus was anything special. Jefferson went to great pains to separate church and state, not wanting any religious involvement in government. Jefferson would be appalled at what is happening in America today.

Farah conveniently forgets that Madison said specifically in the Treaty of Tripoli that America was NOT a Christian country.

Of course Farah and Hagee and their kind want the U.S. to be just white Christians everywhere. They’ll want to get rid of the blacks, the Jews, definitely the Muslims, the Buddhists, the Hindis, the Atheists and for good measure throw out the gays too! Can you image if that was to take place how long it would be until one Christian faction starts fighting another Christian faction. You’ve seen how nice sectarian wars can be when we “liberated” Iraq. Maybe Sunnis or Shiites could be brought in as consultants? Think about it.

Is marriage about sex?

All this fuss about Obama saying that he doesn’t have an issue with gay marriage had me thinking about the real issue of marriage. It seems that the religious right are hung up about same sex couples getting it on in the bedroom or where ever else they copulate! But since most couples, straight or gay, have sex before tying the knot and really don’t give a shit about having a marriage certificate before they join their sex organs, where does that leave the issue of sex in marriage? In other words, what really is the purpose of getting married in the first place?

To me, it has been always about the legal benefits and recognition from the government one gets when one is married versus being a single person. From tax benefits, to death benefits, to inheritance rights, legal rights in a court of law, marriage is about what you do as a two person entity in the eyes of the law.

So how about if the gays declared that they will NOT have sex when they marry, would that satisfy the religious nut cases? Probably not but the point about gay marriage should be about treating all persons who want to enter into a marriage contract the same whether they are a heterosexual couple or a homosexual couple. It shouldn’t make any difference about what they do sexually. It’s about their legal standing.

If marriage is restricted to just heterosexual couples, then we create a two class system where one group (straights) enjoy rights that another group (gays) don’t have. The foundation of this country is about equality. That’s why slavery was abolished and why blacks pressed for many, many years for equal treatment under the law. That’s why women fought and won the right to vote and are still fighting to be treated equally in the workplace.

But I know that the Pat Robertson’s of the world will trot out their Bible and quote some insane verse saying that God doesn’t approve of gay sex. My response to God is, find something else to do like stop wars, disease, famine, earthquakes, etc. I’m sure God could find something else to occupy his time.

“Faithless interfere with believers’ rights”

Above was the banner for a letter to the editor in my local paper recently. The writer said bluntly, “Oh ye of little faith, mind your own business.” The writer went on to say that “every tradition we grew up with is slowly being taken away from us.” Oh what a shame, if only it were true.

The fact of the matter is that believers can still believe and practice their silliness just as they did before. Masses and services are still being conducted every week and the churches still have their stupid signs out front quoting this or that inane scripture. They still can bitch every Christmas time that there is a “war on Christmas” and that “Jesus is the reason for the season.” They can still rake in all the tax free cash they want, allowing the more successful ministers to buy mansions and jets. Never understood why God needs so much money.

Ministers can still preach about the love of the Christian religion unless you are a homosexual then, according the Pastor Charles Worley of Maiden, North Carolina, you’ll be headed for a compound with the rest of your fellow sicko’s where you’ll die because you can’t reproduce. The good Pastor has single handedly taken care of that little gay problem!

Finally the writer says that “the faithless interfere with and infringe on our rights and beliefs.” So if you want to believe in some space Daddy who was pissed with his humans at one time but when his “son” was killed and supposedly came back to life, then that made every OK, go ahead. But don’t get pissed at me because I won’t buy that silly story. Or if you believe that the human race was started by a couple some 6 to 8 thousand years ago, that’s fine but don’t teach that story in public school under the guise of science. It aint!

The bottom line is that the religious nuts like the writer of this letter like to play the victim card. Any little thing that ruffles their feathers and they cry “VICTIM!” Please, no one is doing anything to victimize you! For comparison, ask any black man what it was like a 150 years ago in the good old U.S. of A. They were more than just victims.

Romney spouting BS

The mantra for this upcoming election is don’t believe anything Romney says. We already know that he will say anything to anyone just to get them to vote for him. Now most politicians will skew facts to their favor but Romney has brought that practice to a new level.

Case in point is his latest speech (propaganda?) given in Des Moines, Iowa. AP’s Tom Raum posted in the Huffington Post a good critique of some of the facts that Romney got wrong. Here’s one -

“ROMNEY: "I will lead us out of this debt and spending inferno. We will stop borrowing unfathomable sums of money we can't even imagine, from foreign countries we'll never even visit. I will bring us together to put out the fire."

THE FACTS: Romney's tax and spending plans don't support his vow to dampen the debt fire. He proposes to cut taxes and expand the armed forces, putting yet more stress on the budget, and his promise to slash domestic spending isn't backed by the big specifics. Romney's tax plan would cut the top income tax rate to 28 percent from 35 percent and other rates by 20 percent each. He says he'd broaden the tax base and eliminate many deductions in the process, but details are missing.”

A study by the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget concluded earlier this year that Romney's plans would not make a dent in deficits, and could worsen them considerably. That study was done before Romney upped his tax cuts, inviting even deeper debt.

Romney has been saying that he understands the economy (like none of us dummies don’t know a thing) and he can fix it. Gee we must be such dunces! Now to be fair Romney has some knowledge of the economy, namely how to get the most money into his pockets by squeezing the crap out of companies that Bain Capital bought and then dumping. His job creation was to employ more CPAs to keep track of his assets.

Romney continues to play towards his fat cat wealthy friends, ignoring the reality of the economy and spouts simplistic plans that won’t work. The reality of a Romney Presidency is that he will do more harm than good.

Raum also said – “A study by the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget concluded earlier this year that Romney's plans would not make a dent in deficits, and could worsen them considerably. That study was done before Romney upped his tax cuts, inviting even deeper debt.”

All his talking demonstrates that he doesn’t have any understanding of the American economy. It’s easy to say things that sounds nice, but doing it is another story. Please think about it.

Obama–Gay Marriage OK

So the political right is up in a frappin’ tizzy over the fact that President Obama finally said he did have a not problem with gay marriage. The loonies said that Obama has now declared “war on marriage” and it will open the door to the decline of heterosexual marriages. So the question is, “How are those straight marriages doing”?

Here in blue Massachusetts, gay marriage has been legal since 2004 and the effect on straight marriages has been… well nothing! Here we are almost eight years since gay marriages started and straights are still getting hitched and divorced like they did before. All the talk of the demise of marriage hasn’t occurred and we had expected it not to have any affect on straight marriages.

Of course one of our resident far right loonies, Rick Santorum, recently had this to say regarding gay marriage and his sorta buddy Mitt Romney - "Hopefully Governor Romney will continue to stand tall for his position on this issue and understand how detrimental it would be for society for it to have this [marriage thing] changed.”

I guess it’s been pretty “detrimental” for us here in Massachusetts. Curiously, has anyone seen any problems?

My view is that heterosexual marriages are one of the last bastions of privilege that the white, mostly male Christians have that they can raise a stink about. They seem to think that if gays get married then they’ll intrude on their territory (what ever that it) and have privileges that only the straights had regarding marriage.

If they are very worried about marriages, why don’t they work on making sure that their heterosexual marriages work instead of bashing a very small minority of people. What’s the saying about don’t go throwing rocks in a glass house? Looks like 50% of the windows are blown out. Think about it.

Education in America

Take a good close look at the picture to the left. It’s nice to know that our students are getting a good education at those fine Christian schools in Georgia. Who needs the U.S. government to tell schools how to educate kids? Coach McDaniels can teach them kids to be right smart! At least they spelled God right. Or is it Dog?

Is Belief Bad?

I’ve been thinking about faith and belief lately. At the outset I would like to say that as far as I’m concern, faith and belief are one and the same. In my Catholic school days, the nuns would say that in order to have faith you must believe. And in order to believe you must have faith. Two views of the same coin or circular reasoning?

The faith and belief that’s promoted today by many religions tend to be talked about in terms that could lead one to think that faith and belief are “things”. In fact I heard one preacher try to make the point that somehow faith had substance.

Faith is supposedly something that comes into you as a gift when you pray a lot or attend church a lot. C.S. Lewis made the point in “Mere Christianity” that you couldn’t reason Christianity out so the best way to have faith is the pray and convince yourself through repetition that it’s true. I prefer to see faith as a mind concept or process that can supplant normal reasoning.

In the Catholic Encyclopedia, belief is defined -”that state of the mind by which it assents to propositions, not by reason of their intrinsic evidence, but because of authority.”  To me the crucial items in the definition are “not by reason” and “because of authority.” So when you believe something you abandon reason and you assent or accept belief because of some authority, either human or written.

The problem with that is that you relinquish your normal reasoning process to then just accepting what someone tells you “because of authority”. You now abandon looking at the evidence and no longer question assumptions. Now you are susceptible to anything because you have no external basis to judge validity. If you believe that illness can be cured just by praying, then you may die sooner than if you sought medical help. So belief can be a real life or death issue.

It’s amazing to me to hear how much preachers continually push the notion to “just have faith” and everything will be just dandy. From an evolutionary point of view, belief can be a life saving thing for example if the tall grass is rustling, and you believe it’s because a lion is walking through there, it might save your life. But then again it might just be that the wind is moving the grass. So if you are right or wrong in your belief doesn’t matter because you are still alive to tell about it. But if you are rational and say that it was just the wind and a lion was truly there, then you no longer get to pass on your genes because you are a lions’ lunch.

But as we have gain knowledge through science about how the world works we may need to abandon some beliefs. Infrared technology can now tell us whether or not the lion is in the tall grass. We no longer have to rely on faith. But to hold onto to faith when science and evidence tell you other wise, can have profound consequences.

Take the belief that prayer works or you can pray away a disease. If a child is sick and the parents refuse to take the child to the doctors and rely on prayer instead, then the child is in great danger. Or if you are out of work and you have the belief or faith that God will find you a job with out you looking for one, you may end up on the street.

Or if your belief is that the Bible has the truth about how people came to be on this earth and insist on Creationism or Intelligent Design be taught in pubic schools instead of evolution, then our whole country is put at risk.

Beliefs can be comforting but they can be dangerous. We really need to recognize that.

Romney’s the man! Ugh!

Can you hear the over whelming enthusiasm for Mitt (I’ll say anything) Romney as the GOP’s nominee? If you haven’t heard it that’s because it’s almost non existent. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, is Romney the best the Republican’s got to go up against Obama? Come on guys, you had almost three and half years to put forth your best guy and this is what you came up with?

Not only does Romney lie like no body’s business, he changes himself to suit the group he is addressing at the moment. Case in point, his recent pandering speech to the NRA, that group that get’s a hard-on just thinking about a Colt 45. Eliot Spitzer had some good comments over at Slate.com. Here’s just a part of what he says -

Romney also argues that our personal freedom is under assault, and cites the Affordable Care Act, of course. Here is a small story not widely enough known: Mary Brown, who went to court to challenge the bill and whose name was on the litigation that made it all the way to the Supreme Court, claimed at the time she filed the suit, through her attorneys, that she “doesn’t have insurance. She doesn’t want to pay for it. And she doesn’t want the government to tell her she has to have it.” Mary Brown and her husband went bankrupt, leaving behind many debts, including $4,500 in medical bills. She will not pay those bills, but we taxpayers will.

So the question to Mr. Romney is why am I , as a taxpayer, forced to pay for Mary’s medical bill just because she didn’t want to pay it. You know what, maybe I should refuse to pay my Medicare monthly payment. The damn government is forcing me to pay for something I don’t want and I want everyone else to pay instead of me.

The good thing about Mitt is that you never know which way he’ll go on an issue. And that’s the bad thing too. But more than that is that if he make’s it to the White House, the far right nut jobs will pull him over to there side like Darth Vader manipulated The Force. Who’s the GOP’s Darth Vader? Think Grover Norquist. Scares the crap out of me and it should scare the crap out out of you. Think about it.

Liar, liar, pants on fire!

We know that politicians lie, but Mitt Romney is bringing it to a new level. Not only does he flip and flop with the wind, he out and out lies. Of course Obama made the recession worse and made it longer, Mitt says. Wrong! Of course Obamacare added to the debt. Wrong!

He’s been called out on his lying before. As an example, January 24, 2012 from Dan Amira at The Daily Beast -

From a Republican debate in Florida -

Mitt Romney said ….“We’re headed to a Greece- type collapse, and [Obama] adds another trillion on top for Obamacare and for his stimulus plan that didn’t create private-sector jobs.”

Literally everything in this sentence is false. The United States is not headed toward a Greek-style collapse. Obamacare didn't add to the debt; according to the CBO, it's lowering the debt by $230 billion through 2021. And the stimulus created millions of jobs. Aside from that, though, it's a fine sentence.

The thing we have to be careful in the general election is that his lies, said often enough, are believed by enough people to derail the re-election of Obama. Is the American voter is smart enough to see through Romney’s lies? Maybe I just answered my own question.

Greatest enemy that faith has….

You’ve seen the pictures of church signs on the internet. Many are boring, some are funny, and some are idiotic (OK, maybe most are idiotic). Recently I’ve seen a presentation where the presenter showed a slide of church signs that read “Reason is the greatest enemy faith has”. I thought that would make a good bumper sticker. But also I though, that’s right!

C.S. Lewis in his “Mere Christianity” talked about how you really can’t reason Christianity and the best way to be a Christian, according to Lewis, is to just convince yourself that Christianity is true despite the fact that it doesn’t make any reasonable sense. His method was simply to think every day, “this is true” over and over and over. So at the end you give in from exhaustion.

It’s no wonder to me that the statement that reason is the greatest enemy of faith says it all. If you have ever tried to reason with a Christian, you know you can present all kinds of very reasoned arguments that are rock solid only to have the person say “that may be true but I still believe”. It’s the old saw “The bible says it, I believe it, and that’s it”.

So it’s a waste of time to try to reason with a ardent Christian. Our only hope is with those that already have some sort of doubt about their faith and let them find the facts themselves. Reason to hope?

Thinking makes you loose faith, duh!

This guy, Santorum, is too good to be true. As an example of what right wing thinking (or lack of) is all about, he keeps giving one gem after another. On a Sunday morning interview of CBS he said - “I understand why Barack Obama wants to send every kid to college, because of their indoctrination mills, absolutely … The indoctrination that is going on at the university level is a harm to our country.”  He went on to further claim that 62% of students that go to college loose their faith. Ouch!

Well, the 62% number looks like it came from a 2006 survey by Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government which found that 62% of college REPUBLICANS said “religion was loosing its influence on American life.” That very different than what Santorum was saying about the 62% of students in general loosing faith.

But stop and think about that statement for a moment. If it were true or even mostly true, what does that indicate? It indicates to me that once students leave the confines' of Mom and Dad they find a wider world that raises questions that their faith can’t answer. That’s part of being educated, Rick! If you want to insure those kids don’t get “corrupted” by the wider world, then keep them at home and see how they do.

When the world is surpassing us in science, math, and other areas,  yo-yos like Rick would rather have a bunch of pious Christian dummies out in the work force rather than smart, possibly liberal leaning unbelievers. Good plan Rick! Think about it.

Thomas Jefferson must be really pissed!

If you haven’t heard the latest crap from Virginia, Jefferson’s home state, then get ready. It seems in order to make it as difficult as possible in Virginia for a woman to get an abortion, the republican legislature passed a bill that, among other things, required women to undergo a “transvaginal  ultrasound” procedure, without their consent or the consent of doctors. In other words to really harass women the state wants to stick a probe up their vagina to see… what?

The abortion issue aside, what galls me is that the republicans scream to high heaven to get the government out of their daily affairs but yet don’t seem to have any problem with the government looking into vaginas. This is state sponsored RAPE! And why all this is happening? It’s the religious right who wants to interject full blown Christianity into our government. They want to create a theocracy, full stop. They seemed to think this is what the country needs but they conveniently forget to ask the Jews, the Muslims, the Hindus, the Atheists (who cares about them?), and others. What is important is that they get their way, damn everyone else.

There was a reason that Thomas Jefferson wanted this wall of separation between church and state. He saw how having church authorities meddling in government affairs made a mess of things and didn’t want that here in America. I’m afraid we are going backwards towards the dark ages. Tom, I’m with you. I’m pissed!

“But no religious test”

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

The United States Constitution, Article VI, paragraph 3. Emphasis added.

The GOP is famous for beating up on Obama for “shredding the constitution”. Meanwhile the current crop of GOP candidates tout their own religiosity to make sure they pass the religion test with the far right faithful.

Despite what the constitution says, there is a religious test that presidential candidates must pass if they are Republican. You hear them talk about their beliefs and their faith, yelling about whether or not another candidate is a “true Christian’ (what ever that is) or they are the better Christian for the job. Franklin Graham, heir to the Billy Graham empire, hints that Obama is Christian in name only. Of course Romney, being Mormon, might not be a Christian although Franklin didn’t say it directly and I’m sure he’s not happy with Romney’s Mormonism.

Then Rick Santorum talks about Obama and say that he doesn’t think Obama has the correct theology. It’s not the theology of the Bible, Santorum says. Begs the question of what is the correct theology? Maybe there is one but as an atheist I’m sure there isn’t any. To paraphrase sci-fi writer Robert Heinlein “Theology is like looking for a black cat in a cellar at midnight that isn’t there”.

But the main point is that we need to get religion out of politics, it is toxic and it will only cause more problems than it will solve. If you haven’t heard the old joke about when three Baptists get together, one will form a new church. So which candidate has the right religion? Also you already know that “real Americans” don’t trust those “Muslims” because they are ALL terrorists and not Christian. Then there are the Jews. It goes on and on.

Also in the Constitution is this little item... “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”. Congress isn’t establishing a religion but the GOP certainly wants to! Think about it.

“Compelling Catholics”

There was this letter to the editor in today’s paper under the banner “Obama’s contempt for religion evident”. The writer complained that Obama and his supporters “have a contempt for religion, morality and the U.S. Constitution”. But the kicker  comment was this… “the government is compelling Catholics to violate their consciences or to suffer the consequences”.

Compelling Catholics? This whole issue is so stupid! As it has been in the past, health insurance companies help pay for contraception IF the insured wants it. The folks that want to COMPEL Catholics are those guys in funny hats in Rome. And how well has that worked? Not well at all. As been mentioned before, 98% of Catholic women ignore the church’s edict on contraception. No one in government is forcing anyone to get or use contraception.

Why aren’t the bishops up in arms with the pharmacies or grocery store that have condoms on their shelves? Is the pharmacy compelling men to use the condom? If a married Catholic man uses a condom when he has sex with his wife, who is to blame?

I’m upset that when these issues come to light, it seems that men are the ones who seem to want to dictate things. Sean Hannity had a “panel” to discuss this issue. The “panel” was made up of priests, bishops, rabbis and others and all were men. No women! A recent congressional panel was called on this issue and all the witnesses were men! No women! WTF?

The republicans don’t seem to get that most people don’t really care about this issue. What they care about is the economy and jobs. If you are out of work and don’t have health insurance, who cares about the pill or the condom? They are using this issue to try and beat up on Obama. They figure eventually they’ll find something that will stick. It ain’t this! Think about it.