First there was Bush's Gog and Magog, and now there's the ACOG.The ACOG, which stands for Advanced Combat Optical Guide (or a scope), in question is made by a Michigan-based war profiteer named Trijicon. They've made countless tens of thousands of rifle scopes that have already been sent to Iraq and Afghanistan. But they're not just any rifle scopes: These have engraved on them coded references to the New Testament. You know, that part of the Bible where Jesus Christ makes his very misinterpreted appearance.
Trijicon is another of those Jesus freak war profiteers that have no problem violating the Constitution and federal laws that separate church and state. It's also just plain bad PR as it'll fuel Muslim charges that our involvement in Iraq, Afghanistan and other Muslim countries is indeed a religious crusade.
The story was broken by Mikey's Weinstein's Military Religious Freedom Foundation and will be aired later tonight at 11:35 EST on ABC's Nightline.
What Trijicon has yet to explain is how, if this is supposed to be a sly attempt to proselytize Muslims, the natives are supposed to "divine" the code, so to speak. They've also yet to explain how and why Jesus Christ, who espoused nonviolence at all costs, would approve of having sniper scopes with Biblical references to him on them.
Trijicon isn't shy about proclaiming their fundamentalist bona fides, as they've admitted to ABC News that they have made many such ACOGS over the years as sort of a tribute to their late founder, a South African named Glyn Bindon. Bindon, apparently, wasn't that well-loved by sweet Jebus since he was killed in a plane crash 7 years ago.
You'd think that there would be a massive recall after the news hits the airwaves tonight on, appropriately, Martin Luther King Day, and replaced with the heathen, uncoded Leupolds that we used to use in the SEALs. But no such recall will ever take place because the Pentagon is still run by a bunch of fascist religious fanatics who gave Trijicon $660,000,000 worth of contracts precisely because they put Biblical codes on their product.
Afghanistan Coalition Military Fatalities By Year
| Year | US | UK | Other | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 12 |
| 2002 | 49 | 3 | 17 | 69 |
| 2003 | 48 | 0 | 9 | 57 |
| 2004 | 52 | 1 | 7 | 60 |
| 2005 | 99 | 1 | 31 | 131 |
| 2006 | 98 | 39 | 54 | 191 |
| 2007 | 117 | 42 | 73 | 232 |
| 2008 | 155 | 51 | 89 | 295 |
| 2009 | 316 | 108 | 95 | 519 |
| 2010 | 16 | 4 | 8 | 28 |
| Total | 962 | 249 | 383 | 1594 |
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Iranian nuclear scientist and professor at Tehran University, Massoud Ali Mohammadi, was assassinated when "when a bomb strapped to a motorcycle exploded by remote control outside his home in his northern Tehran neighbourhood of Qeytariyeh." Mohammadi taught neutron physics and "was the author of several articles on quantum and theoretical physics in scientific journals," though the extent of his involvement in Iran's nuclear program is unclear
It just so happens that in February 2007, a controversy erupted when University of Tennessee Law Professor Glenn Reynolds advocated that, in response to Iran's nuclear activities, the U.S. should be "killing radical mullahs and Iranian atomic scientists." Exactly who told this Zionist that the U.S. had the right to behave in such a way? It should also be noted that such remote control explosions are a trademark of U.S. and Israeli terrorist activity.
That's from Pravda.
There is an interesting controversy brewing over the current version of the health care bill in which Amish families are exempted from the mandatory coverage. Other groups may also receive exemptions.
For some Americans who do not want to pay for health insurance (but face a fine under the law), the exemptions are likely to trigger challenges. Why should an Amish person be allowed exemption, but not someone with political or philosophical opposition to the insurance?
The Amish do use medical facilities and regular doctors, but they pay in cash. They believe that such care is the primary responsibility of their church.
The question is why religious conscientious objectors are given exemptions but not secular conscientious objectors. There are plenty of people who have profound objections to this plan that are not religious based. Is it fair to allow only faith-based objectors to get exemptions so that some Christians can apply but not Cato members?
For the story, click here.
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If Iraq is such a success, why don't the Iraqis want to return there?
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Tim Tebow, Heisman Trophy winner, is doing a Super Bowl commercial with his mom about how she didn't abort him.
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Poor, poor wingnuts
A new CBS poll finds that a large majority of Americans say they do not want former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to run for president. Specifically, 71 percent.
Also from CBS: Mr. Obama's job approval rating is now 50 percent, up from last week's all-time low of 46 percent. When he took office a year ago, 62 percent approved.
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While the godless are raising money for the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders, a Christian group is sending boxloads of solar-powered digital Bibles to Haiti — just what they need, I'm sure.
Called the "Proclaimer," the audio Bible delivers "digital quality" and is designed for "poor and illiterate people", the Faith Comes By Hearing group said.
According to their website, the Proclaimer is "self-powered and can play the Bible in the jungle, desert or ... even on the moon!"
I'm trying to imagine an audio speaker that works in a vacuum. And why you would need a moon-ready Bible reader for poor lunar illiterates, anyway.
What really has me stumped, though, is trying to imagine something more useless than sending a bunch of electronic junk to people trying to recover from a disaster.
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Bertrand Russell on God (1959): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aPOMUTr1qw&feature=player_embedded
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It is probably worth pointing out that if Coakley loses in Massachusetts today, thirty million or more Americans will remain one slip on the ice and broken shoulder away from bankruptcy, with the alternatives being seeking more expensive and less thorough emergency room care with no follow-up rehab and costs passed on to all of us, or no treatment and debilitating injuries and pain in perpetuity.
You and I might think that is a big deal, but if you read enough left-wing blogs, it really is no big deal. If the bill fails, we can take Taibbi's advice and just try again in 6-8 years. I mean really, the republicans aren't much different from the Democrats, I've been told. Besides, won't you feel better knowing that you didn't sell out to immoral insurance agencies like Feingold and Sanders and the rest of the corporate whores?
No one said having firm principles was without pain, you know.
And in a related story, Massachusetts has the best phone survey ever going on right now.
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I heart Alan Grayson: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fwUwzwompg&feature=player_embedded#
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Fiddling with the rules
Joe Biden to eat the filibuster
From Calculated Risk: Take a good look at this graph.
What the chart shows is that there is another wave of mortgage resets/defaults coming. Those are the "Option-ARM" five year mortgages, a class of mortgages that were almost as trashy as the sub-primes. Drop back five years from the peaks of the chart for the Option-ARM mortgages and you can see that those were the mortgages that were written at the very peak of the real estate bubble.
Which means three things:
- First, those are probably going to reset at a rate that the homeowners will have trouble paying.
- Second, and more importantly, the majority of those mortgages are now underwater (the homes are worth less than the mortgage balance). Banks will not re-finance underwater mortgages, not unless the homeowners can pay down the principal balance so that the new mortgage has a principal balance less than the loan amount.
- Third, and maybe worse, those Option-ARM mortgages were likely all "securitized" into more collateral-debt obligations. Which means that there is another huge pile of CDOs out there that are going to be going toxic in the next two years.
Which will, in turn, mean that the very same banks which are now in the process of handing out whopping-ass bonuses will be back down in Washington, pleading for another rescue.
And, oh by the way, there likely will be another bad recession before the recovery from this one has gathered very much steam. But that only has an effect on us, not the Villagers in DC nor the rich, so once again, we will basically be told to go bleep ourselves.
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David Brooks says Haiti is a White Man's Burden… and we shouldn't help.
OK, is it me, or was this just about the most paternalistic, condesending, and not-all-that-hidden racist thing out of Bobo's brain yet? It shocked me so much yesterday, I had a really hard time processing how truly evil his essay is.
I could try to parse it out, but Matt Taibbi does a fine job, read him instead.
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Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines will still stop in Haiti, you know, for the good of the locals… The Florida cruise company leases a picturesque wooded peninsula and its five pristine beaches from the [Haitian] government for passengers to "cut loose" with watersports, barbecues, and shopping for trinkets at a craft market before returning on board before dusk. Safety is guaranteed by armed guards at the gate.
OK, so before the quake, the luxury liners created a segregated beach experience in Haiti for its well-heeled passengers, giving them the tropical paradise they expected without subjecting them to the utter misery that is poverty-stricken Haiti (complete with child labor that no-doubt benefitted some of them, i.e., clothes made in sweatshops, etc…), and now the passengers are feeling remorse?
I just can't see myself sunning on the beach, playing in the water, eating a barbecue, and enjoying a cocktail while [in Port-au-Prince] there are tens of thousands of dead people being piled up on the streets, with the survivors stunned and looking for food and water," one passenger wrote on the Cruise Critic internet forum.
Now you can read that quote as the pang of a proto-conscience, or as a petulant demand not to go near the impoverished disaster scene. Which is it?
(The Guardian UK via Gawker.)
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Steam-Powered Ice Fisherman Makes Record Haul on Kazanka River
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