A show titled "Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey" made its debut this month on FOX. It is a scientific documentary which discussed, in part, the theory of evolution.Creationists are upset. A representative of Answers in Genesis (the same group that brought America the Creationist Museum) is demanding equal air time to present the Creationist point of view.
This would be hilarious if it weren't so sad and indicative as to how far we have fallen scientifically in this country. The Creationists should be laughed back to the Stone Age not given equal air time to present their religious views under the pretense they are somehow related to science.
Neil deGrasse Tyson is the one behind "Cosmos" and he had the perfect rebuttal to the whiny, pea-brained creationists: "...you don't talk about the spherical earth with NASA and then say let's give equal time to the flat-earthers."
Creationism has NOTHING to do with science no matter what Ken Ham and his cohorts believe! Creationism is a particular religious viewpoint, held by a minority of fundamentalist Christianists who want to believe that the hoary old book of Genesis is some sort of historical document, when it is, in essence, a collection of myths perpetrated by ignorant desert nomads who lived several millennia ago and knew mostly about sheep and cattle and fighting other tribes but nothing of science or the universe or creation!
A new report from the United Nations warns that climate change is real, massive, and is already affecting all life on planet earth. Seth Borenstein, reporting on the UN report says, "The big risks and overall effects of global warming are far more immediate and local than scientists once thought. It's not just about melting ice, threatened animals and plants. It's about the human problems of hunger, disease, drought, flooding, refugees and war, becoming worse."
If we are to save ourselves, we must take action now for we can no longer smooth over the issue by thinking the effects of global warming and climate change are far off in the future and that we have plenty of time to fix things.
As Borenstein quotes from Michael Mann, a Penn State scientist, "It's not far-off in the future and it's not exotic creatures - it's us and now."
Pat Robertson again. He cannot stop himself from making moronic and stupid remarks. On his 700 Club a viewer expressed difficulty converting her atheistic coworker. Robertson said he thought it possible that the atheist might believe as she does because she's possessed by demons or has been raped.
And there you have it folks: Demon possession and rape leads to atheism. Ergo, atheists are possessed by demons or victims of rape.
Alternet has a story about the Catholic Archdiocese in the city of Atlanta. Joseph Mitchell, a nephew of Margaret Mitchell, author of "Gone With the Wind," gave the diocese $15 million. The Cathedral of Christ the King chose to spend $2.2 million to renovate a priestly rectory which had been the home of an archbishop who has since moved into new digs which cost $2.2 million.
Some parishioners in the Atlanta diocese believe the money would be more properly spent on helping the poor, kinda like the Gospel Jesus taught.
Nothing much has changed, it seems, in the thinking of the Roman church.
A positive sign: Conservative book sales are on the decline. Perhaps the reason is that conservatives have enough doorstops.
The State of South Carolina has perpetually been a pain in the ass of this country. Think Ft. Sumter, Strom Thurmond, the KKK, Nikki Haley. Now SC is engaged in another minor, but significant debacle. Crooks & Liars tells the story of a 3rd-grader by name of Olivia McConnell who wanted South Carolina to have a "state fossil." Only 7 states do not have a state fossil. Olivia likes fossils so she wrote to her state representative suggesting South Carolina adopt one.
Seems that in 1725 slaves working on a SC plantation dug up wooly mammoth teeth in a swamp. Olivia thought the wooly mammoth would make a great state fossil.
Two legislators agreed and filed bills in the SC House & Senate declaring "The Columbian Mammoth is designated as the official State Fossil of South Carolina." There are some good folks in South Carolina.
But there are also lots of low-grade dimwits. Two of these, good Christians of course, said this was not a good idea unless South Carolina also acknowledged that God "created on the Sixth Day [the mammoth] with the beasts of the field."
Senator Mark Fair is one of these dimwits. He's the guy who compared our president with Osama Bin Laden, "helped to block funding for a rape crisis center, called climate change a hoax, and blocked evolution from the state's science standards."
Will someone explain to these two fruitcakes that these United States are not to perpetrate any religion whatsoever and that they need to get educated because their stupidity is stinking up South Carolina and we've had enough shit from "good" Christians who demand the right to impose their pagan religious beliefs on the rest of us!
This is also from Crooks & Liars: It has to do with the liar, Chris Christie, who has mangled public education in his state and worked hard to decimate the pensions of public servants. "Facing another year of fiscal problems, Gov. Chris Christie changed the funding formula for the state's pension contribution so that he could cancel $93.7 million in previously budgeted pension payments due in June, cut next year's pension bill by $150 million, and put $900 million less into the underfunded pension system by the end of his term."
Mr. Christie is not a nice person. He is as lousy and dangerous as most Republicans.
Donald Rumsfeld should, in my opinion, be serving time as a war criminal. I agree with the opinion of an Alternet writer, Janet Allon, that he is a psychopath. He was interviewed by Greta Van Susteren recently and implied that Obama has no clue what he's doing in Afghanistan. Then, Rumsfeld, the psychopathic war criminal, said "This administration, the White House and the State Department, have failed to get a status of forces agreement."
I'll admit I don't even know what that is. But I think Rumsfeld is betting no one knows what that is but will think it vitally important and that Obama was stupid for not getting one.
The corker came, though, when this psychopathic war criminal and racist said: "A trained ape could get a status of forces agreement. It does not take a genius."
Nope. It takes a genius to lie us into an unnecessary war with Iraq which killed hundreds of thousands of people for no good reason whatsoever, created a massive increase in anti-American sentiment around the world, and broke our financial back!
Whale feces is a good thing. According to Alex Kirby of the Climate News Network, "By enriching the seas with iron expelled from their digestive systems, sperm whales are helping to slow the warming of the Antarctic" say the scientists.
This from Daily Kos: Sunnie Kahle is eight years old and has been attending Timberlake Christian School, in Forest, Virginia. Sunnie has short hair and fancies herself as a "Tomboy." She prefers wearing jeans and a t-shirt instead of dresses.
Administrators at this so-called "Christian" school decided Sunnie didn't look enough like a girl. They said "her appearance didn't line up with 'biblical standards.'" That's when her grandparents (who are raising Sunnie) took out of the "Christian" school and enrolled her in a public school
I wonder if most of these pretend Christian assholes ever read the Bible?
In the past, when I was younger and more naive, I wondered how it was possible that so many "good" people in Germany fell in step with the Nazis. Recent studies have indicated that support for the Nazi Party was widespread and most citizens were well aware of what was happening under the Nazis.
Most Germans were of the Lutheran (Protestant) or Roman Catholic persuasion. Hitler was a Roman Catholic as were many of his important henchmen. Hitler used Martin Luther's book on the Jews as the basis for implementing the "Final Solution," so it is possible that many, if not most, Germans found some rationale for going along with the Nazis.
Religion, as we know from history, offers no defense from insanity or stupidity or corruption or ignorance. In fact, religion down through the years has exemplified those things in spades. Thus when right-wing Christians in this country begin to sound like their brains have been scrambled, when they defend their war on the poor and their war on women as something of which Jesus would approve, when they promote the notion that their god wants them to be rich, when they suggest that the government should be based upon their biblical interpretations, we begin to understand the very scary fact that most of us would have no problem with a dictatorship that murdered or incarcerated people who failed to live up to their standards.
For example (and there are several), there is a person named Tristan Emmanuel, who wrote a bestseller titled, "Christophobia: The Real Reason Behind Hate Crimes Legislation." In an article posted on the whacko Matt Barber's website, Emmanuel suggested that people like Bill Maher who mock God should be severely punished by the authorities. And this because Maher was guilty of "slanderous crimes against God and country."
Yep, Emmanuel believes America is under the authority of his god. And blasphemy on the part of American citizens will call his wrath down upon us all unless we follow god's law by taking Maher and his cohorts out and whip them in public.
What is really scary about this is that our country is, in places, already under the control of such people. The sit on our school boards, town councils, county commissions, state legislatures. The inhabit the office of governor, U.S. representative, U.S. Senator, and not a few are judges on state and federal levels. Many more are working for the various branches of the government as it is organized around the country.
And what do we do with people who are registering as Democrats in order to enter a political race in a Democratic area but are really Teapot Crackpot Republicans? This is happening right now.
I used to believe Americans were, in general, immune from the imprecations of the extremists and the fascists. I realize now that is not true. We are rather quite susceptible to becoming the antithesis of what our founders envisioned. And when it happens you can bet your bippy that it will be cloaked in the guise of revelatory religion, mostly the paganism that is Christianity.
