Republicans–what good are you?

I’ve been thinking over these past few years about all the good that the Republicans have done for our country. I’m having a hard time coming up with anything!

Seriously, what have the Republicans done to help our country since they’ve gained control of the House in Washington? Well, 37 or 38 or 39 times (I lost count) they’ve voted to repeal “Obamacare.” Each time they’ve taken this nonsense vote, they’ve wasted time and tax payer money but who cares when your whole purpose for being in Congress is to oppose anything that Obama wants or does.

Well I guess over at www.politicalirony.com, they were thinking the same thing. Here’s what they came up with.

“The Republican National Committee has a newly-redesigned website on which party leaders have highlighted the party’s accomplishments dating back 150 years. For the past 20 years, the page lists the following: a D.C. school voucher scheme (which didn’t work), invading Iraq (which didn’t turn out well), tax cuts for the wealthy (which isn’t exactly an “accomplishment”), invading Afghanistan (which Republicans didn’t handle well), welfare reform (which Clinton signed into law), and the Contract with America (which, again, isn’t an “accomplishment” in any meaningful sense of the word).

The Republican Party kept us safe, except for 9/11 (well, and Anthrax, the shoe bomber, etc.)

The Bush administration captured and brought to justice the top terrorists who threatened America, except for Osama bin Laden

No US cities were destroyed under the last Republican presidency, other than New Orleans

Bush has a perfect record on military invasions of other countries, except for Afghanistan and Iraq

Republicans protected our constitution, except for habeas corpus and the bill of rights.”

Gee guys, thanks a bunch.

A blast from the past.

The following  is something I wrote for my FaceBook page back in October of 2010. As a pilot and flight instructor, I’ve had many, many aviation experiences that not many people mighty ever have. This is what I wrote.

The fun of flying

Probably only pilots understand the fun of the following but I thought I'd share it with everyone. It's the reason flying is both fun and challenging.

This past Monday I flew up to Portsmouth NH to pick up my contact with the Army Corps of Engineers for aerial photos. We have a contract with the Army Corps to fly this guy whenever he needs to take aerial photos of things the Army Corps is involved with, like shore line project, illegal construction in wet lands, etc. This time we were to fly to Newburyport and Plum Island to photograph the beach reconstruction project they were involved with. The Army Corps was dredging the harbor entrance and taking the sand from that area and pumping up onto the beach to replenish the shore. Seems people with houses along the beach were seeing their (ours?) beach being eaten by storms. Gee, the ocean eats the beaches over time. Anyone tell them that that would happen?

Anyway, coming back to Portsmouth after we did the photos, I contacted the control tower on approach and was told to plan for a "land long" landing and plan to exit at a taxiway way, way down the runway. Understand that the runway at Portsmouth (formerly Pease AFB) is over two miles long. Small plane drivers like us like to land such that we don't have a long taxi back to where we need to be. The particular reason the tower wanted me to do this was that a KC135 tanker (think Boeing 707) was going to takeoff at the end of the runway AND a corporate jet was going to take off from the intersection of the first taxiway where I would normally exit the runway. Now "landing long" not usually something we teach pilots because we teach them to aim for the end of the runway. Landing long involves flying low over the runway and planning and adjusting things to make sure you land before the turnoff point but not too far away that causes you to take your sweet time leaving the runway. In this case I had a KC135 jet tanker and corporate jet burning fuel waiting for this little Cessna to do its thing.

So I did my best, dealing with a gusty crosswind and landed where I wanted to and exited the runway in fairly short order. I was disappointed that the tower didn't thank me for doing what I was told to do. But it was fun to buzz the runway that low knowing some expensive machinery was cooling their jets (so to speak) while I demonstrated superior flying skills.

Going to Portsmouth is always fun for me as I spend several years there in the 60's in the Air Force working on and watching B-47s takeoff and land. I never thought, some forty years later I would be flying a plane into Pease AFB, landing on the same runway where I watch countless B-47 takeoff and land. Funny how life takes twists and turns you never expect.

Revisionist history, GOP style

The other night, Lawrence O’Donnell, on MSNBC, did a segment on the right wing’s selective memory about terrorism in light of the Boston Marathon attack. Lawrence featured Tom Cotton, a freshman Republican Representative from Arkansas. Now before going into this, it should be noted that Tom Cotton, became a lawyer and in 2004 signed up for Officer Candidate School and requested the infantry.

As a second Lieutenant, he took advanced infantry training, went through paratrooper and Ranger school and was sent to Iraq as a platoon leader in the 101st Airborne. So I commend him for his service to our country and say thank you.

BUT it seems that his view of history is slightly skewed. In his remarks on the House floor he ripped into President Obama saying that under Obama we’ve had five jihadists attacks. He listed the underwear bomber, the shoe bomber, the Fort Hood shooter, the Arkansas recruiting office shooter and of course the Boston Marathon attack.

He also said the “from September 12, 2001, we did not have any attacks under Bush”, conveniently glossing over the worst terrorist attack in our history when 2977 people were killed. Idiots over at Fox News thump their collective chests extoling the fact that after 9/11, under Bush we had not attacks until Obama took over. I’ll take Obama’s record on terrorism over Bush’s any day. The GOP can’t seem to remember September 11, 2001.

First of all, look at the ones Cotton spoke about under Obama. The Fort Hood shooter was a lone gunman with, probably some mental issues but since he was a Muslim, therefore he’s a terrorist! The Arkansas shooter was also a lone gunman and of course he was a Muslim, therefore a terrorist. Ever wonder why Muslims are pissed at us since we invaded a country of theirs without any real good reason?

Moving on, the shoe bomber was stopped, the Times Square bomber was stopped and the underwear bomber was stopped. Nobody died! The latest attack was by two individuals who may have been Muslims and were pissed at the U.S.and really did a crude attack. Now they did kill people and the surviving brother will spent the rest of his life in prison if not executed. Do we need to now invade Chechnya?

Further more, Obama has an outstanding record in killing terrorists including Bin Laden, which Bush couldn’t get. Maybe the Middle East is mad at us by our use of drones but terrorists know that Obama will use what ever means to wipe them out.  And Al-Qaida is weaker now than it’s ever been thanks to Obama.

What really bothers me is the fact that the Republicans get their panties in a bunch when it comes to anything resembling a terrorist attack but forget about the 26 people, including 20 children, who were killed by a gunman in Newtown Connecticut, or the Aurora Colorado theater shooting, or the shooting in Tucson Arizona, that almost killed Gabby Gifford, or any of the other mass shootings. To my mind Adam Lanza was a terrorist along with the others that killed people. He may not have been a Muslim but to wantonly kill 20 children for no reason makes him a terrorist in my book. Why aren’t the Right Wing nuts getting upset about that? Sorry I forgot they are in bed with the NRA. GOP = Guns Over People

Debate about nothing?

On April 18, 2013, American Atheists’ Dave Silverman debated Christian apologist Dr. Frank Turek at the Broadmoor Baptist Church in Shreveport, Louisiana. The topic: “What Better Explains Reality? Theism or Atheism?” You can see the entire debate at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/ and search to the April 21, 2013 entries.

The debate was good but I struck by Frank Turek’s speaking style which was fast paced and tossing out many, many expressions that, I suspect, went past the heads of the audience who, I’m guessing, were mostly Christians. Reminded me of a used car salesman’s ad on TV. Dave Silverman held his own and was deliberate and specific to the debate topic. I think he did a good job against a slick salesman. Who won? Watch the video and decide for yourself.

I want to focus on Turek’s use of “immaterial, timeless and spaceless” to describe his God. I’m guessing that many in the audience didn’t pick up on what that really meant. This was an example of how Turek tossed out things as a way of baffling the audience with his bullshit.

Now towards the end of Turek’s opening remarks, he had a slide that had the following –

“None of these can be explained by Atheism

CRIMES = Cosmos, Reason, Information, Morality, Evil, Science

All of these realities have an immaterial source or foundation. Therefore when Atheists cite anyone one of them to support Atheism, they are stealing from God in order to argue against Him (and stealing is a crime!)”

I found it interesting that Turek used the acronym CRIME to buttress his argument against Atheism. Framed this way, Atheism is seen by the audience as BAD. So right off the bat, Silverman was cast, not directly, but by inference as a criminal in some sense. I wished that Silverman would have addressed this head on.

Under the heading of Cosmos for example, Turek proclaimed that his God was immaterial, timeless and spaceless without offering any proof or further explanation. How does an immaterial (has no matter) timeless (no constrained by our concept of time) and spaceless (occupies no space) being be and how can this thing exist in the first place? Secondly, how does He, She, or It have the powers that Turek ascribes to it? And just how does Turek know this? But at the same time this thing that Turek talks about loves, hates, forgives and causes things to happen here on Earth. Pretty good for basically nothing thing.

Turek also spent a lot of time talking about how everything must have a cause. This is an old tired argument. I guess he has to bone up on the latest thinking by cosmologists, such as Lawrence Krauss, who says that nothing CAN create something all by itself. In fact nothingness is very unstable. So if Turek’s argument is that this universe could have ONLY happened by his immaterial, timeless and spaceless God, he doesn’t offer any explanation how that can be. Science doesn’t need a cause for the Universe. It just happened!

I guess his whole argument came down to there has to have been some cause to the universe and unless science can show something else, God did it! Ta Da! Sometimes these old tired arguments that Christians keep trotting out, are getting wearisome. But, hey, they really can’t come up with anything new. Think about it.

Gutless!

From John Liming who publishes American Liberal Times

“Something happened in The United States Senate yesterday that I thought I would never live to see – A piece of legislation that was reportedly supported by at least 90 percent of The American People was thrown in the crap can by a bunch of elected officials on Capitol Hill who were reported to be more worried about their own re-election than about the best interests of the people who put them into office in the first place.

Those who desperately wanted the government to “do something” in the wake of all the senseless gun violence that had claimed so many innocent lives over the past few years got their faces slapped, their hearts broken and their confidence in their government shaken because of what I suspect to be no less than the power of a great deal of money and some powerful lobby interests – and I think that is a crying shame, totally unjust and a horrible sign of where this country might be headed if some people don’t get their heads out of their asses.

Some who dwell in the perpetual darkness of contemporary American Radical Far Right Wing Ideology are said to be virtually dancing in the streets because they reportedly  think they have won some kind of victory over the will of the majority of sane and sensible Americans who had placed some hope in the people they had elected to represent their best interests and who then got their rear ends kicked good with that vote up on “The Hill” – the vote that in my opinion, sends a clear signal to every murdering gun-sucking swine out there, “It’s O.k., you can buy your weapons with total abandon now and no one will even ask questions.”

Yes, folks – the gun-tards fought hard on this one!  They  fought hard, they lied about the proposed legislation and they spent enough money to get enough gun owners and other assorted nuts riled up enough to scare the bejeebies out of a few of what I consider to be weak-kneed elected officials – and they got what looks to me like some kind of a victory – for the time being.  It is my personal opinion they probably should hold up on their rejoicing because their glee is premature.  I do not believe Americans will take this incursion into their right to live free of fear from maniacs with guns lying down. This battle is not yet over.

Do not be deceived, my friends – I never did think this fight was about Second Amendment Rights because from my understanding there was nothing in the proposed bill that would have denied any law-abiding citizen their right to own guns – as many guns as they wanted to own – this was never about that but that is what the gun-tards apparently tried to make it about and their message of legitimization of carnage somehow gained enough ears to lead to the defeat of  what many who have their heads screwed on straight consider to be the most common sense legislation to appear before congress in a long long time.

The sad thing about all this to is that there are actually some over on the far right who truly believe that this invitation to disaster was actually a display of legitimate “leadership” on their part.

If those who have expressed such sentiments are alluding to some idea that their “leadership” was commendable because it opens the floodgates to future potential Sandy Hooks, Newtowns and Columbines they might be correct to some limited degree.  I think that is where their so-called leadership will lead – to more victims of more senseless violence somewhere down the road – the only result that I can even imagine coming from a non-restrained proliferation and totally unregulated access to the means to end life by God only knows who.

In my view, this “victory” by the extreme right was not a victory for The Bill of Rights or The Constitution or The Second Amendment.  This “victory” was a victory for insanity – pure, plain and simple and I think The American People ought to use the elections of 2014 to set the record straight on where they stand.”

Amen!

Creationism doesn’t die! Damn it!

Over at the thecontributor.com is an excellent article by the Chief Editor of the blog, Tina Dupuy, In it she writes how she was brought up learning about evolution only to be told by her mother that dinosaurs and people existed at the same time. When asked why there for no dinosaurs alive today, her mother told her "they  couldn’t get on the Ark.” Tough luck dinosaurs.

She makes an excellent point by saying “The creation myth doesn’t harm children; creationism harms schools. Universal public education is there for the public good (a phrase Republicans replaced with the word “takers”). If they’re not teaching basic science then they’re not doing what we need them to do. The integrity of our public schools is what’s at risk.”

In this age where science is needed more than ever, we are hell bent to continue to promote myths over facts. Politicians are so gutless these days to allow Creationism and it’s alternate Intelligent Design to live on in schools. They are so afraid to upset those Christians that they are willing to sacrifice a whole generation to ancient stories, discredited by intelligent people.

Tina ends her piece with this- “In Louisiana, where their “academic freedom” bill was signed by the governor in 2008, private schools that now receives taxpayer voucher money are reported to tell their students the Loch Ness Monster (another mythical creature) is proof evolution never happened. The state is third worst in the nation for math and science.

In the Information Age we’re letting our schools erode.

And with some irony, devolve.”

It’s worth a read.

Obamacare will literally kill you!

Always good for a laugh, Michelle Backmann spouted out another gem recently. In the complete waste of time, the House GOP voted on another bill to repeal “Obamacare.” Michelle got on the floor and opened her mouth and came up with more hyperboles'. She said the Obamacare will literally kill you. How that happens the wing nut didn’t explain. Michelle should be aware of other things that DO literally kill you and maybe we should repeal them too.

Cars literally kill you every day. We should repeal them.

Airplanes kill people every day and we should repeal them.

Trains kill people, on the train or off the train. We need to repeal them.

Hospitals kill people. We should repeal them, except for the ones that cure people.

Water kills people, We should repeal water – wait global warming will take care of that.

Ships kill people, we should keep them in port and don’t go on them.

Guns literally kill people except the ones that use the gun to kill others to protect themselves. But we don’t talk about that.

Why the good people of Minnesota elected her to Congress is beyond me. I hope they are embarrassed.

Supernatural–really?

According to Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language, 1962 edition, nature is defined as “the sum of all things in time and space; the entire universe.” If nature is the entire universe, how do we define supernatural? Back to Webster – supernatural is defined as “existing or occurring outside the normal experience or knowledge of man.” Definition 2 of supernatural further states “attributed to hypothetical forces beyond nature; miraculous; divine.”

If nature is all that we are aware of or have experience of, how can we be aware of the existence of something like “supernatural”? What we only have knowledge of is the universe, the sum of it. What we only have experience with IS the universe. I contend we have no knowledge or experience with anything outside the universe. True we don’t know all there is in or about the universe but so far our experience and our exploration has shown that what we have discovered locally seems to be held throughout the known universe. So where or what is this thing called supernatural?

I contend that supernatural does not exist. If it did exist, then we would have knowledge of it and therefore it then becomes part of nature, i.e. the universe. In other words, supernatural is a nonsense word.

The question of the existence of a god is a good example. The claim is made that a god exists but so far there has been no material, definitive, testable proof of its existence. As long as there is no solid evidence of a gods’ existence, then the question of a god remains a hypothesis.

There has been much written about some of the characteristics of a god such as omniscience, omnipresent and omnipotent. But I prefer another characteristic, location. According to the Bible, a god created the world. Most of the story of the creation event concerns itself with the creation of the Earth. Somewhat implied is the creation of the universe, e.g. “let there be light!” Genesis 1:22. So following the line of logic that says if a god created the universe then that supposes that the universe did not exist at some time in the past and then this god brought it into existence. That further supposes that a god exists in some realm “outside” our known universe. Or does he/she/it?

Some have proposed that a god is the universe or that the sum total of all that is, is a god. I prefer to look at the question more simply. If a god exists, where does he/she/it exists? The answer is either in the universe (as part of it or it as a whole) or outside of the universe in some other realm. Either answer poses problems.

Consider the proposition that a god exists outside the known universe. If a god exists outside of the known universe then that presumes that “something” outside our universe exists. And it follows that a god resides in this “something”. That immediately begs the question of what is this ‘something” that a god resides in? If then there is something beyond our universe, could there not be other universes? Cosmology delves into the multiverse theory as something that is plausible but as of yet, no evidence exists to support the theory.

But assuming that a god exists outside our known universe, and that there is the possibility of other universes that he/she/it deals with, are we his favorite? Maybe we are just an experiment. Since the Bible states that god has always existed, maybe we are just one of many universes that he/she/it puts together just for the fun of it.

Now think of the other possibility; that god exists in our universe; that there is nothing outside of what we know or see of our universe. Since we have pretty good evidence that the laws of physics operate the same in the observable universe, it can be assumed that a god or any god must be subject to the same laws. But wait. Christians will maintain that god can do what he pleases, regardless of the laws of nature, for example Jesus stilling the waters by his words. That leads to two other lines of questions. If a god exists in the universe and is not bound by the laws of nature as we know them, is then god just a real smart entity who knows more than us? Or does god operates under his own rules, laws, etc. How can he operate in the universe and not run into conflict with the laws of nature as we know them? It’s like having a bonfire in a solid ice cave. The fire would eventually melt the ice and the melting ice would put out the fire unless there was a trick involved.

Dealing with “supernatural” is fraught with contradictions. I contend that since this question can not be reasonably resolved, atheism is the default premise for dealing with the universe.

President Barack Obama, part two

Well Barack Obama has been sworn in for a second term and now the GOP has more time to display it’s brand of idiocy. All the rants they had proclaiming that Obama would be a one term president are fading fast. Now they’ll chant to keep Obama ONLY a two term president!

But the nuts are still out there as exhibited recently by one letter to the editor in my local newspaper blaming atheists for all the evil in America.

“However, more needs to be said, and in explanation of all too much evil dirty work, I have to point to 50 years or more of the promotion of atheism. That needs to be recognized as a smoking gun, as truly God-fearing individuals do not resort to vicious slaughter for the sake of worldly fame or infamy. That so often has been the obvious motivation of such murderers, who did not believe in the existence of God and an afterlife in a place called Hell.
Thomas M. Stachura
Auburn”

“Truly God-fearing individuals do not resort to vicious slaughter” says Mr. Stachura. I guess he needs to check some history books to see what “God-fearing individuals” have done over the years. Salem witch trials, the Crusades, burning heretics at the stake, just to name a few.

Then another person responds by piling the blame on those atheists and even going so far as to tell them to get out of the country!

“It's time to stomp out atheists in America. The majority of Americans would love to see atheists kicked out of America. If you don't believe in God, then get out of this country.
The United States is based on having freedom of religion, speech, etc., which means you can believe in God any way you want (Baptist, Catholic, Methodist, etc.), but you must believe.

I don't recall freedom of religion meaning no religion. Our currency even says, "In God We Trust." So, to all the atheists in America: Get off of our country.

Atheists have caused the ruin of this great nation by taking prayer out of our schools and being able to practice what can only be called evil. I don't care if they have never committed a crime, atheists are the reason crime is rampant.
Alice Shannon”

By the way, Alice, freedom of religion does mean freedom from religion. Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Paine, and others didn’t want religion to dictate how the government should conduct it’s affairs. And they went out of their way to make sure people who didn’t want to be involved in religion weren’t treated unfairly.

I also liked the comment about believing in God in any way you want but “you must believe.” Sounds a little like Saudi Arabia, Iran, and other Islamic countries. How would Alice like it there?

But what I liked was this post from “Bill in Portland Maine” in the blog Daily Kos to all Republicans. I couldn’t have said it better.

"Suck it.

To Rush Limbaugh, who said "I hope he fails" on inauguration day: Suck it. He didn't.

To the birthers, whose claims about Barack HUSSEIN Obama's "questionable" citizenship were nothing but racism cloaked in concern-trollery: Suck it. He's a two term Kenyan president now.

To Mitch McConnell, who said his #1 goal was to make Barack Obama "a one-term president": Suck it, turtleman. #44 is #44 for another 4.

To John Boehner, who as House minority leader yelled "Hell NO you can't!" to Obama's first-term agenda: Suck it. Hell YES he could!

To former South Carolina senator and tea party organizer Jim DeMint, who said the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act would be "Obama's Waterloo": Suck it. It so wasn't.

To the tea party idiots who hoisted signs at their Obamacare protest rallies that read, "Bury Obamacare with Ted Kennedy": I'd rather bury your ideas with Reagan. Suck it, jerks.

To Mitt Romney, who ran the most classless and bullshit-dense campaign of any presidential candidate in my memory: Here's something you can scrawl on your Etch-A-Sketch: S-U-C-K-I-T.

To Dick Cheney, who said America would be less safe under Obama: sir, the attacks of 9/11/01---and there were four of them---happened on your watch. Obama killed bin Laden and there were no al Qaeda attacks on American soil. So suck it. Right after you take a remedial gun-safety course.

To all those ignorant fools who called Barack Obama a Muslim, a Kenyan and/or a socialist as if those are all inherently and self-evidently "bad" things: grow the fuck up. Right after you suck it.

To Sean Hannity, Karl Rove and Dick Morris: Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!!!!!!!!! Suck it.

To the Wall Street banksters, who….. who…..  hell, I can't even begin to write the words that describe your obscene, cold-hearted, destructive, greedy and soulless behavior over the past four years. Just suck it.

To all the governors and state legislatures that tried their damndest to rig election laws so they favored Romney over Obama: Suck it. All you did was ensure that voters were more committed than ever to making sure their votes were counted.

And to President Barack Hussein Obama, who withstood all the slime, slop and sleaze that the conservatives' political, financial and media catapults could hurl at him: Carry on. Congratulations. And enjoy your day.”

Can I get an amen?

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.