Headlines - Thursday September 29

 

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"One closing remark: It is inexcusable for any Democrat or progressive right now to stand on the sidelines in this midterm election. The idea that we've got a lack of enthusiasm in the Democratic base, that people are sitting on their hands complaining, is just irresponsible..." Obama, Link 

Sir, with all due respect, who are YOU to tell us being on the sidelines is inexcusable?
Who are you to tell us that sitting on our hands is irresponsible?

Some of us have been fighting the enemy every day while you were ...busy with other things.
Truth is, your inattention (and the constant caving in) has sapped the party's will and strength.

I'm not sure you're in a position to lecture anybody about coming to work.  
 
Sidebar:
I don't like having to straighten the president out so often, but why does he keep saying these things?
Telling us to "wake up" is like Bristol telling girls how putting off sex is better. 
After sleeping and kissing GOP ass for two years, why is he telling us to get in the game?

We've been here every day since you were inaugurated, Sir.
It is YOU that has chosen not to engage - how can WE fix that?

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"I cannot help you. And don't say anything to my children. I will tell them you already have a new job ... and from now on you don't know me, and I don't know you. You have never seen me, and I have never seen you. Do you understand me?"- Meg Whitman (CA-Teabagger candidate for Governor) firing her maid via voice-mail for being illegal, Link

 

But I thought wingnuts hated illegals?

 

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Hecate nails it:

Dear Mr. Biden,

Thank you for your letter asking me to donate to elect Democratic candidates. I've given some money to the Democrats over the last two years. I think you should stop whining and get behind what I've already done.

Your friend,

Hecate

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Human Impact on World's Rivers 'Threatens Water Security of 5 Billion'

Study on effect of all human intervention on water supplies finds water security and biodiversity severely damaged

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/09/29-4

 

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If you've got a question about religion, ask an atheist. That's the short version of the findings of a Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life poll. Pew polled 3,400 Americans and asked questions about broad religious knowledge. Of 32 factual questions, the average atheist was able to answer 20.9. Meanwhile, the talk-about-God-all-the-damned-time people -- white evangelical protestants -- managed to get only 17.6 correct. If you want to know about religion, don't ask the religious -- they don't know crap.

This is one of those "man bites dog" stories that isn't as surprising as you'd think. Most atheists become atheist after being born into some faith tradition. Atheism isn't really a religious belief (disbelief can't logically be belief), so much as it's a conclusion. And it's a conclusion reached after investigation.
Keep reading: http://griperblade.blogspot.com/2010/09/fanaticism-disguised-as-skepticism.html

 

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Christine O'Donnell Tells Christian TV:
God Wants Me In The U.S. Senate

The audio is out of sync on this clip, which kinda only makes it better.

 

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Tweet Of The Day - NOM

Here's what NOM is very upset about.

An Indianapolis bakery is under fire from the gay and lesbian community over a choice not to serve a diversity group. A campus organization said it was denied service in what's become a flashpoint in the fight for equal rights. This is what they were after: a mulitcolored cupcake to celebrate "National Coming Out Day" next month; a rainbow confection to honor the diversity on the campus of IUPUI. But the student who had the order placed at Just Cookies was told no. "We're right on the cusp of being equal with anyone else, I don't know why they would do that," said student Shan Parker. "I explained we're a family-run business, we have two young, impressionable daughters and we thought maybe it was best not to do that," said co-owner David Stockton.

"Christian family business forced to bake perverted cupcakes!" Only that never happened, the students took their business elsewhere. Watch for this lie to be repeated by anti-gay groups for the next ten years, just like that wedding photographer in New Mexico. (Who actually was fined by the local human rights commission.) 

 

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More of this, please ...

 

Saying that the Catholic Church should be feeding and clothing the homeless rather than mailing out hundreds of thousands of anti-gay DVDs, a group of lay Catholics in Minnesota has launched a campaign to send those DVDs back to their bishops.

 

The group stresses that they are not soliciting or accepting donations. They invite their supporters to instead send money to groups doing the real "work of Jesus."

 

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The following has nothing to do with health care or crackpot teabagging candidates or which party is going to win the House in November but this is the type of news story I love best.  Conservationist Gordon Buchanan was hoping to confirm that tigers were living at high altitudes in Bhutan. Here is what he found and how he reacted.  I like this guy.

http://mariopiperni.com/nature/tiger-world.php

 

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BBC: Cyclist Alberto Contador, winner of the 2010 Tour de France, has said he has tested positive for a banned substance.

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This is what it means to be gay in America. And shame on all of us.

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James O'Keefe tries to get CNN reporter onto his dildo lube boat

CNN is doing a documentary on the three or four people who are young American conservative activists, so they decided they would follow around that criminal James O'Keefe, the guy who made those ACORN videos and tried to rape Mary Landrieu's phones. But you know the one thing they weren't expecting? They weren't expecting James O'Keefe to try to lure CNN reporter Abbie Boudreau alone onto a boat filled with dildos and lube and a "condom jar" and "fuzzy handcuffs" and "an obvious sex tape machine," so this is precisely what he did. Presumably it was to record himself raping her, of course, but O'Keefe says it was just a goof. Huh?

Thankfully, Boudreau was tipped off by O'Keefe's female colleague, Izzy Santa. (Haha, IS HE SANTA? IS HE?)

"I noticed [Santa] had a little bit of dirt on her face, her lip was shaking, she seemed really uncomfortable and I asked her if she was OK," Boudreau said. "The first thing she basically said to me was, 'I'm not recording you, I'm not recording you. Are you recording me?' I said, 'No, I'm not recording you,' and she showed me her digital recorder and it was not recording."

Santa told Boudreau that O'Keefe planned to "punk" her by getting on a boat where hidden cameras were set up.

Haha, "punk'd," that is a thing hip young people say in 2010.

CNN got hold of a document that supposedly is O'Keefe's plans.

"Instead, I've decided to have a little fun. Instead of giving her a serious interview, I'm going to punk CNN. Abbie has been trying to seduce me to use me, in order to spin a lie about me. So, I'm going to seduce her, on camera, to use her for a video. This bubble-headed-bleach-blonde who comes on at five will get a taste of her own medicine, she'll get seduced on camera and you'll get to see the awkwardness and the aftermath.

Oh, we get it! It's because all attractive women want to have sex with James O'Keefe. How can you resist that O'Keefe charm? CNN won't like it very much when their reporter is forced to have sex with him on a boat! (Forced as in forced by her amazing sexual attraction to him, not rape or anything like that.)

This is why CNN should not employ women. They're too liable to want to fuck James O'Keefe.

Also included in this story? This hilarious list of items in the boat!

Equipment needed

a. Video

1. hidden cams on the boat

2. tripod and overt recorder near the bed, an obvious sex tape machine

b. Props

1. condom jar

2. dildos

3. Music

a. Alicia keys

b. 80s romance songs, things that are typically James

c. avoid Marvin Gaye as too cliche

4. lube

5. ceiling mirror

6. posters and paintings of naked women

7. playboys and pornographic magazines

8. candles

9. Viagra and stamina pills

10. fuzzy handcuffs

11. blindfold

Looks like journalism to us, James O'Keefe. [CNN]

Disgusting pigs. I'd like to see them have to 'pull stunts' for the general population in a federal prison.

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We've been saying it for years: the next world war is going to be over water. "About 80% of the world's population lives in areas where the fresh water supply is not secure, according to a new global analysis. Researchers compiled a composite index of "water threats" that includes issues such as scarcity and pollution. The most severe threat category encompasses 3.4 billion people. Writing in the journal Nature, they say that in western countries, conserving water for people through reservoirs and dams works for people, but not nature. They urge developing countries not to follow the same path."

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Screenshot from Faux News:

I guess their viewers are just small government conservatives who are concerned about the size of the deficit.

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White America has lost its mind.

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If Mexican-Americans ever decide to convert to Islam en masse,

it's all over for White Christian America.

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Tax breaks for cable and oil companies (and the rich)

Because that's how the party of the Confederacy rolls.

By the way, British Petroleum: You can stop running those stupid television ads and buying full-page ads in the New York Times and other papers, touting how you're going to "make this right" and how you've set up a $20 billion dollar fund to help mitigate damages due to your reckless conduct in drilling the Macondo oil well. First off, we all know that the Obama Administration damn near wrenched your arms out of their sockets to get you to agree to the restitution fund. Second, that $20B isn't fully funded.

BP, if you had your way about it (and you would have if George Bush were president), you wouldn't have done fuck-all to help anyone. Everyone who has suffered along the Gulf Coast would have had to sue you in some court where everyone in the courthouse, from the judges to the guy who swamps out the bathrooms, is in your pocket.

Your ads are a waste of money. You're not convincing anyone.

 

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Some advice for President Carebear

I'm in the Will Rogers wing about the Dims, they are too unorganized to be a political party. That said, the farther left you look, the more unorganized it becomes. This is one of the reasons that the blaming of the Left for the so-called enthusiasm gap falls flat with me.

There is no monolithic Left, we don't have talking points, there is no morning phone call to get the ducks in a row. And I think it is safe to say with this White House, there is no communication plan, there is no strategy. The White House guys have no message, you are failing in communicating just about anything. I bet you couldn't even make a coherent lunch order to Round Table.

Back to topic: so the blaming of the Left, is it trying to shift the focus from the abandonment and the many failures of your campaign promises, President Carebear? Maybe. But the larger point I think is this:

Instead of blaming the Professional Left for the enthusiasm gap, do something to bridge the gap. Explain to us why we should be enthusiastic.

It's true that considering the GOP alternative is grim, but that's not motivation to support you, President Carebear, that motivation to not support them. And there is a difference, and you of all people should understand that. This does not mean we are going to support the GOP, so quit raising that strawman. It's stupid and beneath you — but it is as close to a communication plan as you have.

No one is asking for you to weep, or rend your clothing or do something emotional, we are asking you to lead.

For instance, President Carebear, instead of telling your Justice Department to continue pressing the DADT lawsuit, take a stand yourself. You have the power with a stroke of your pen to issue an executive order to end DADT, and you could. There's issue after issue you could actually push, but you have not, and that's what the enthusiasm gap is about. We are as enthusiastic about you as you are about us.

Throw us a bone, you'd be surprised at how much good that would do.

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Whoopsie! It seems No'Donnell didn't attend Oxford OR Claremont Graduate University. That said she did receive a fellowship from a conservative think tank named the Claremont Institute, also in Claremont, CA. This was for her ground-breaking work in the war on masturbation.

Maybe for my next resumé update, I can list all the prestigious schools I never attended, too, to fight the scourge of Onanism! Thanks for the tip, Christine!

(TPM)

Fun fact:

O'DONNELL: A lie, whether it be a lie or an exaggeration, is disrespect to whoever you're exaggerating or lying to, because it's not respecting reality.

MAHER: Quite the opposite, it can be respect.

IZZARD: What if someone comes to you in the middle of the Second World War and says, 'do you have any Jewish people in your house?' and you do have them. That would be a lie. That would be disrespectful to Hitler.

O'DONNELL: I believe if I were in that situation, God would provide a way to do the right thing righteously. I believe that!

MAHER: God is not there. Hitler's there and you're there.

O'DONNELL: You never have to practice deception. God always provides a way out.

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Finally ..... something for the self-employed?

There was a nice little tax break for self-employed people tucked away in that Small Business bill the President just signed into law. "There's a new tax break for the self-employed buried in the small business jobs legislation that was signed into law on Monday. ... Self-employed workers who pay their own health insurance premiums have always been able to deduct those costs, along with premiums for family members, when calculating their federal income taxes. The new law allows them to also deduct those costs before computing their self-employment taxes, also known as payroll taxes, which cover Social Security and Medicare. ... This is a welcome break - payroll taxes, after all, are far more burdensome for the self-employed than regular employees. That's because the self-employed - generally sole proprietors, freelancers and the like - must pay the entire 15.3 percent tax on their own. Workers, meanwhile, typically split payroll taxes with their employers: each pays 6.2 percent of the employee's gross income to cover the Social Security piece and each pays  an additional 1.45 percent for Medicare."

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With two words - "I object" - Mike Enzi killed nearly a quarter million jobs "Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on Tuesday tried to push a three-month extension of a stimulus bill jobs program that is set to expire on Thursday, jeopardizing tens of thousands of jobs. Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) objected. ... "The majority has known this program was going to expire at the end of this month all year and has taken no steps to reauthorize this important social safety net program," said Enzi, who blocked Durbin's request for "unanimous consent" for a reauthorization. ... Having known about the expiration all year, Democrats first attempted to reauthorize the program back in March, but were blocked by Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), who objected to the $1.5 billion cost of the measure. The next attempt came last week when Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) included the program in a catchall "tax extenders" bill shot down by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah)."

Headlines - Wednesday September 29

PZ Meyers: Want to know about religion? Go to your local atheist, not your priest

Lately, a certain faction within CFI (not the whole organization — I know several staff who disagree) has taken it upon itself to slam the Gnu Atheists as a gang of crude louts who know nothing about religion — they've criticized Richard Dawkins, and I've heard that both Jerry Coyne and I were named in a recent talk as bad for the movement. Both Coyne and Benson have already taken John Shook to task for his poor HuffPo article, which begins:

Atheists are getting a reputation for being a bunch of know-nothings. They know nothing of God, and not much more about religion, and they seem proud of their ignorance.

This reputation is a little unfair, yet when they profess how they can't comprehend God, atheists really mean it.

It's almost as if a god has decided to smite those who sneer at the ignorance of the unbelievers, though. In an awesomely well-timed survey from Pew, Americans were queried about their knowledge of religion, and these results are being reported all over the place: the group that knows the most about religion are the atheists/agnostics. This is no surprise — we've been aware of this for many years, and one of the things we've routinely experienced is the fact that in arguments, we almost always know more about our opponent's religion than he or she does. Would you believe about half of Catholics are surprised to learn that transubstantiation is one of the tenets of their faith?

Dave Silverman has a good explanation.

That finding might surprise some, but not Dave Silverman, president of American Atheists, an advocacy group for nonbelievers that was founded by Madalyn Murray O'Hair.

"I have heard many times that atheists know more about religion than religious people," Mr. Silverman said. "Atheism is an effect of that knowledge, not a lack of knowledge. I gave a Bible to my daughter. That's how you make atheists."

In your face, John Shook. Take that, faitheists of the CFI. 

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Obama: Democratic voter apathy 'inexcusable'

So it's OUR fault that you refused to come to work?

 

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Election shocker: Christine O'Donnell didn't go to Oxford

 

If those previous Christine O'Donnell revelations didn't lock up these midterms for the Democratic Party, surely this will: Her LinkedIn profile is incorrect! She didn't go to the University of Oxford, even though she said she did! Hooray, all is saved! Democrats will have a full 80 seats in the next Senate! Ignorance is out, smart people are here! No ridiculous ideologues will ever step foot in Congress again! And there will be a reverent ferocity of masturbation from Senate office to Senate office, from House seat to House seat, from on top of Robert Byrd's coffin to inside Ted Kennedy's coffin, and all across this great land. Finally, we can take solace in knowing Christine O'Donnell will not be elected.

O'Donnell's LinkedIn bio page lists "University of Oxford" as one of the schools she attended, claiming she studied "Post Modernism in the New Millennium." But it turns out that was just a course conducted by an institution known as the Phoenix Institute, which merely rented space at Oxford.

How did she get the time and money to fuck off to England and take this stupid class? Who knows?!

These things just happen in our new, POST MODERN millennium. And so third-party candidate "A Feeling of Angst" will defeat Harry Reid and Sharron Angle in Nevada, but that won't stop Democrats from taking back Congress from whom it was already taken. [Plum Line]

P.S. If she hates elitism so bad, why did she lie about going to Oxford?

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"I have never been in a tanning bed or used a tanning product."
    --  John Boehner, liar and whore,    Link


  

 

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Does the Bible tell us to get into everyone else's business?

And why do child-blowing priests hate gays?

 

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Monkey's Reaction to the News That She Might

Someday Evolve into Christine O'Donnell

 

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Bigoted Indianapolis bakery won't make rainbow cupcakes, citing 'values'

 

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Segway owner Jimi Heselden, 62, died yesterday when he rode his Segway off a cliff and into a river at his West Yorkshire estate. He often used a Segway to explore the grounds of his estate.

 

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Good As You directs us to the below video in which Protestant and evangelical pastors in Minnesota hold a press conference to announce that they are totally down with the Catholic Church's recently-launched anti-gay campaign in which bigoted DVDs were mailed to every Catholic in the state.

 

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The Human Rights Campaign and the Courage Campaign today launched NOM Exposed, a site devoted to unmasking the players, major backers, and strategies of the National Organization for Marriage. Via press release:

As the National Organization for Marriage, or NOM, embarks on a fall election campaign to defeat candidates who support full marriage equality, the Human Rights Campaign, in collaboration with the Courage Campaign, unveiled "NOM Exposed," a live, interactive website which reveals NOM's deep anti-gay affiliations, its long connections to the Mormon and Catholic churches and its quest to keep voters in the dark about its financing.

At the same time, HRC announced the formation of the NOM Project to follow the ongoing political work and propaganda of NOM as it attempts to influence elections and legislative campaigns across the country. The project will be led by Kevin Nix, a longtime LGBT advocate and political and media consultant. A former communications director at both Servicemembers Legal Defense Network and the Family Equality Council, Nix also worked at Media Matters in the 2004 presidential cycle.

"NOM and its leaders project a message of tolerance yet NOM Exposed shows that behind the well-trained talking points is an anti-gay animus and moneyed connections that it is loath to reveal," said HRC President Joe Solmonese. "This website is not static. Working with the Courage Campaign, we will be watching the campaign trail and documenting NOM's political buys and bedfellows. We will connect the dots for voters."

NOM Exposed is one of the most extensive takedowns of the enemies of the LGBT movement that I've seen on the web yet, and I've only just begun to dig in. Take note of the site's "Rogue's Gallery" and start from there. This is fantastic.

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Socialist Sharron Angle ....

Sucking from the government teat:

Angle's campaign acknowledged to Nevada journalist Jon Ralston Monday that both the candidate and her husband receive health care from the federal government. Spokeswoman Ciara Matthews said in a statement: "Mr. Ted Angle receives his pension through the (federal) Civil Service Retirement System. While it is not supplemented by the federal government, current civil servants pay into the program to pay the schedule of those already retired – much like how the Social Security Program works today. Mr. Angle does not qualify – nor does he receive Social Security benefits. His health insurance plan (the Federal Employee Health Program), which also covers Sharron, is a continuation of what he was receiving while he worked for the federal government."

Sharron and Mr. Angle get to have government-run healthcare, but no one else is allowed. You know, because government-run healthcare is socialism. Except when Sharron Angle partakes.

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Barack to Base:  "Kiss My Democratic Party Ass!"

Base to Barack:  "Hope You Enjoy Tea and Crackers,
President Carebear!"

 

 

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Sullivan reports:

The Saxby Chambliss staffer who wrote those words on a popular gay blog has still not been been identified or disciplined, according to a spokesperson from his Georgia office.

And he (or she) won't be. Once again, gay-bashing is good politics for Chambliss.

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It's always good to see someone in Washington who shows more interest in regular voters rather than the deepest pockets. We sure could use people in Congress like Franken. StarTribune

 

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Record gap between the rich and poor.

 

 

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It could not possibly be more obvious that Beck doesn't just want bloodshed...he wants a body count. He is ramping up the rhetoric against the obscure Tides Foundation, today announcing that he was "coming for" the organization "on the battleground of ideas."  Bob is right. he's gone full eliminationist and wants his followers to start eliminating people like us.

 

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American People Profoundly Religious, Yet
Profoundly Ignorant  About  Religion

 

 

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Jurassic Pork: Ronald Reagan is Dead... and We Don't Feel Too Good, Ourselves

 

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"Outsourcing American jobs"-- that's a good thing according to every senator from the party of the Confederacy, including the usual collection of DINOs, Tester, Bauchus, Nelson, Warner and good old Traitor Joe Lieberman.

 

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I have missed out on the bump and grind that America's Favorite Abstinence Educator and Unwed Teenage Mother, Bristol Palin does every week to sell cornflakes and whatnot for her corporate sponsor. That said, we have important news from the ever vigilant Patriots who do watch Dancing with the Stars:

 

Video here.

It seems that when Mooselini made her appearance on Jitterbugger Today, she was pretty solidly boo'ed by the crowd. Later, her flacks and spinners said that the booing was for Jennifer Grey's score (which seems odd, because I'm told she won the Lambada-for-God Dance-A-Thong, so why were they booing). Anyway, Mooselini does her usual word salad thing and cannot say that she's rooting for her own spawn. And as always, she brought along her own Liz Cheney in training, Pipette, to be her human shield.

Pipette is the one to watch out for – she's going to be the one to follow in her mother's Naughty Monkeys, or to snap and wipe out a row of onlookers, Todd-like.

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George Washington and scary eyeliner Jesus want you to save the country.

According to Wonkette operative "Stan J.," this horrifying billboard is gracing the skies of Spokane, Washington. There are just so many catchphrases here! Of course the best and most important one is "Constitution means freedom," a definition from a sign creator who obviously does not own a dictionary. But why are these seemingly unrelated things arranged in such a way? IT'S A SECRET MESSAGE, one that can be decoded by those weird Hebrew rainbow bracelets from a couple weeks back.

Remember this image?

See, there is supposed to be a sign in the clouds, and here it is. And by rainbow, they mean George Washington's gay face. Why else would that scary goth Jesus be there taunting us with his wispy Shakespeare facial hair? He is letting us know that he is right next to the rainbow.

THIS IS A SIGN THAT GOD WANTS US TO ELECT ZOMBIE PRESIDENT GEORGE WASHINGTON TO A THIRD TERM IN OFFICE. As all Teabaggers know, that guy was really good at paying down trillions of dollars of accumulated national debt during a recession. Give the country back to the founders and their Teabag friends! Or else!

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Jim DeMint E-mails Senate Staffs To Let Them Know He Runs Country Now

 

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CNN shocker: girl vanishes 9 years before being born

Have you seen the New CNN? It's probably way better than the old CNN, especially if this "CNN Justice" headline is any indication. Why did the Time Demons do something to a child, in America? [CNN]

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The teabaggers don't even know what they stand for but apparently, the GOOPERS "pledge" isn't isn't it:

"It's a mealy-mouthed sop to the tea party movement that is rife with platitudes and little on substance," e-mailed Andrew Ian Dodge, the Maine state coordinator for the Tea Party Patriots national coalition of local groups. "I have yet to see one person who is wholly impressed with it."

Judson Phillips, founder of the tea party Nation online social network, called it "a nice PR piece, but I don't think it is even showing up on our radar." Most tea partiers, he said, "are skeptical."

It seems that the Teagaggers whole function is to throw a cage-rattling, feces-throwing fit -- and be agenda-less. I suspect their chief complaint about the GOP Plague for America was because it was written down, and reading just isn't the teabaggers forte.

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Frightwing calls to reinstate the electric chair in 3, 2, ... "Some executions in the US are being delayed because of a nationwide shortage of sodium thiopental, one of the drugs used in lethal injections. Several of the 35 states that use lethal injections are now hunting for fresh sources of the drug, which is used to render people unconscious. The sole US manufacturer of the drug says new batches of sodium thiopental will not be ready before early 2011. Meanwhile, nine states have planned 17 executions before the end of January."

 

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Matt Taibbi: Tea & Crackers

Headlines -Tuesday September 28

Short on time, as the fall leaves are calling ..........

 

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If the Pentagon had done this under Bush ...

 

Army Reserve Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer would normally feel honored that the Pentagon was so interested in his memoir "Operation Dark Heart" that it purchased thousands of copies. The problem is that the Pentagon bought the books to burn them. Now that must set a new low for a bad review.

 

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Screwing around with prosperity

While Americans fret and argue about wars in Afghanistan, teabaggers, cutting taxes for the rich, idiot politicians from Alaska and Delaware and mosques in New York, here is what's happening half a world away which will have more impact on the well-being of Americans than any of the rest.  Thomas Friedman:

"China is doing moon shots. Yes, that's plural. When I say "moon shots" I mean big, multibillion-dollar, 25-year-horizon, game-changing investments. China has at least four going now: one is building a network of ultramodern airports; another is building a web of high-speed trains connecting major cities; a third is in bioscience, where the Beijing Genomics Institute this year ordered 128 DNA sequencers — from America — giving China the largest number in the world in one institute to launch its own stem cell/genetic engineering industry; and, finally, Beijing just announced that it was providing $15 billion in seed money for the country's leading auto and battery companies to create an electric car industry, starting in 20 pilot cities. In essence, China Inc. just named its dream team of 16-state-owned enterprises to move China off oil and into the next industrial growth engine: electric cars."

"Not to worry. America today also has its own multibillion-dollar, 25-year-horizon, game-changing moon shot: fixing Afghanistan."

"We're out of balance — the balance between security and prosperity. We need to be in a race with China, not just Al Qaeda."

So while Americans screw around with politics and nonsense, China is quietly and firmly establishing itself as a true superpower.  And as Friedman notes, you will soon be "importing your new electric car from China just like you're now importing your oil from Saudi Arabia."

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Marine Shayne Smalling, 20, appears to have a curious way of having fun. He pleaded guilty to stoning of 50 ducks to death June 2008 in a petting zoo in Cedar Rapids.

 

I wonder if all serial killers started out feeling 'disgusted by what they had done'?

 

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Vice President Biden noted yesterday that he hoped that the Tea Party might finally get Democratic and liberal votes out of their "lethargy." The comment struck a nerve with me since various Democratic leaders have expressed surprise and mild criticism over the lack of enthusiasm by Democratic voters. What is striking is the fact that Biden and others continue to consider their own failure to give voters a reason to become active after years of broken campaign promises and outright betrayals of core values. The best that they can come up with (yet again) is that the other people are worse than we are.
Continue reading 'Biden Laments The "Lethargy" of Democratic Voters'

 

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American Family Association Rejoices Over Ann Coulter's Homocon 2010 Speech

"Ann took them straight on and gave them some straight talk I doubt they were ready for. There is no amount of sugar that will help this medicine go down. According to the leftwing website Politico.com, she complimented the Christian audiences before whom she speaks by telling these homosexuals that the people who get her 'gay jokes are gays.' Christians get them, she hinted, but 'out of sweetness they don't laugh at the gay jokes.' Alas, she was suggesting, if only Christians were as mean-spirited as everyone says they are! I have to leave my gay jokes in the green room because those Christians are just too darned civil and courteous and kind!

"Then she let the air out of the tires on the tired argument that homosexual marriage is the civil rights issue of our day. Reminding them that blackness is an innate characteristic but sexual behavior is a choice, same-sex marriage, she said pointedly, 'is not a civil right -- you're not black.' As Gen. Colin Powell himself said, the comparison between homosexual behavior and race is 'convenient but invalid.' People are born black, but they are not born gay. And many people who enter the homosexual lifestyle later leave it. So there are plenty of ex-gays, but you will never meet an ex-black.

"So Christians are too tolerant to make fun of gays, homosexuals have no civil right to marry, and homosexuals can't claim oppressed minority status. This from the keynote speaker at HomoCon, who got at least five figures to get right in the grill of her hosts. Anybody at HomoCon want their money back?" - American Family Association radio host Bryan Fischer, who says he now takes back all the rotten things he said about Ann Coulter when he first learned about her Homocon appearance.

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Seriously, WTF is wrong with these people?

 

According to the Des Moines Register, anti-gay Christianists are getting themselves appointed to the Sioux City Human Rights Commission and then suing pro-gay advocates for religious discrimination.

Protecting rights has taken an odd turn in Sioux City, where a faction on the city's Human Rights Commission has itself been filing religious discrimination charges with the state - against its own director, a fellow commissioner and a newspaper. Critics allege an anti-gay agenda linked to members' affiliations with a particular church. By law, the commission must protect gay civil rights. Director Karen Mackey, married to her female partner, was reportedly charged and cleared in what some call a witch hunt. Efforts against her included a retention vote, though she was retained 10-0 after city attorneys warned of the potential for a costly lawsuit.

These activities, some claim, are part of a broader mission to pack city boards and elective offices with people who share a religious viewpoint that homosexuality is a sin, and are intolerant of other religions. Three of 11 commissioners and a City Council member, Aaron Rochester, reportedly belong to the Cornerstone Church, which holds that view. Rochester is also co-founder, with a Cornerstone pastor, of the PeaceMakers PAC. Calls to Rochester and two commissioners were not returned.

Cornerstone World Outreach is 120-acre church complex and teleministry on the outskirts of Sioux City.

 

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Be depressed. The reports are in, and American education sucks and is hurting our economy.

 

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Why are Dems not promoting their health care bill?

From the new AP poll on health care.

The poll found that about four in 10 adults think the new law did not go far enough to change the health care system, regardless of whether they support the law, oppose it or remain neutral. On the other side, about one in five say they oppose the law because they think the federal government should not be involved in health care at all.

A whopping 40% call for even more reform to which Michael Tomasky notes.

Interesting how the healthcare debate has been entirely framed by the 20%, while the 40% had very little voice in the whole thing. These are the people who actually have very little representation and power in Washington, because their interests and desires clash with the interests and desires of wealthy people and corporations, but that of course is class warfare, and in America, why that's just wrong.

This is another clear example of why Dems should be making the health care bill the center piece of their midterm election platform.  Instead of running away from it, they should be forcing Republicans to call for its repeal as often as they can.  Once you get past the noise and misinformation, Americans are asking for reform and Republicans have shown they have nothing to offer.

If Dems do not speak up on the benefits of the health care bill pointing out that it's a start to total reform, then I'm just not following the logic.

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I thought this interesting but not surprising.  Sarah Palin found it necessary to mention the President's middle name in defense of her buddy from Delaware.

"Funny, Greta, we are learning more about Christine O'Donnell and her college years and her teenage years and her financial dealings than anybody ever even bothered to ask about Barack Hussein Obama as a candidate and now as our president."

Dumb.  After four years of Obama present on the national scene and with conservatives and Republicans doing their best to take him down by any means possible, what is it that Palin believes has not yet been revealed about the President's past?  And what is preventing her cohorts on the right from revealing it?

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Maybe BPs oil spill payment team was on the job. What's the problem here?

Fending off demands that he resign over the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told Congress in 2004 that he had found a legal way to compensate Iraqi detainees who suffered "grievous and brutal abuse and cruelty at the hands of a few members of the United States armed forces."

"It's the right thing to do," Rumsfeld said. "And it is my intention to see that we do."

Six years later, the U.S. Army is unable to document a single payment for prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib.

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Here's another breach of personal privacy from Hopey.

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Chicken-shit House Dems declare they are not really Dems and to ignore the (D) following their name. Really!!

Aware that their stock has taken the same tumble as home values, Congress' most vulnerable Democrats are declaring their independence from their party's agenda in Facebook profiles, television advertisements, news interviews and campaign websites leading up to the Nov. 2 election.

I can't blame them though, I wouldn't admit it either.The Democrats, in 18 months, went full bedwetting retard at full speed.

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And don't let the door hit ya in the ass: It appears that we are about to hear Rahm Emanuel is about to announce his departure as White House Chief of Smack.

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Digby looks at the "Security State":

Essentially what they are saying is that at American airports if the government finds someone's behavior "suspicious" they have a right to detain them and search them for evidence of terrorism. If they don't find evidence of terrorism, but they still find the person "suspicious" they can then call in police, who will look for evidence of non-terrorist related crimes. What constitutes suspicious behavior? Only the "specialist" knows for sure. And if you demand to know why they are calling the police, that constitutes "escalating behavior" which gives them cause for further inquiry.

This is how the creeping police state slowly takes over. They use the excuse of national security to chip away at the constitutional constraints that prevent the government from abusing its authority. The citizens are in a constant state of paranoia, worried that what they know is innocent will "look" guilty and afraid of asserting their rights because the act of asserting them is considered evidence of something to hide. There are thousands and thousands of people in every aspect of American life now granted the authority to do this in the name of anti-terrorism. [my ems]

...

"Yessir, he just looked guilty."

And it's getting worse.

It makes it easy for them to control the masses but what they forget is that one day, the masses will have had enough.

 

Headlines - Monday September 27

Bill Maher interviews Richard Tillman.

 

Betty Bowers says, " Please pray for folks who don't support our troops enough to lie for them! It's not asking too much that you slap a metallic decal on your SUV, turn a blind eye to the particulars of useless wars and negate all actual human loss with the promise of a magical prize by an invisible friend in the sky. Please join me in rebuking all willful people who don't toe America's theocratic line."

 

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Tony Perkins, the rather fey head of the religious right's Family Research Council mouthed off recently about Obama "claiming" he's a Christian.  Then again, Perkins claims to be a heterosexual.

Earlier this week, Tony Perkins, CEO of the Family Research Council, a highly influential Christian right organization, questioned President Obama's faith. Perkins furthered the myth that Obama is a Muslim by saying that Obama "claims to be a Christian," but is actually "advancing the idea of the Islamic religion."

TP: But at the same time, Tony Perkins just said a couple of days ago, he doesn't think Obama's a Christian, he questions his faith, said he's "advancing the Muslim religion." How do we change that because obviously there are a lot of strong, respectful Christian groups, but with Family Research Council leading the evangelical community, how do you change that dynamic when they're spreading these fears?

INGLIS: Well I think what we should do is stick to the Ten Commandments and especially the Ninth Commandment here, which is thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor

 

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Our pal Comrade Misfit boils down the Rethug "Spooge on" ... ahem, "Pledge to America":

 

"We promise to what we said we would do in 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2006, but we never got around to doing in the years that we controlled the Senate, the House of Representatives and the Presidency. But this time you really can trust us. Would we lie to you?"

 

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Let's set aside for a moment the accusations that megachurch pastor Eddie Long is a hypocritical, gay-bashing closeted homosexual who used his position to coerce sex from teenage boys. Can we all just agree that an enterprise with a leader who rolls like this probably doesn't deserve a tax deduction as a charity?

Bishop Long cuts a flashy figure in Lithonia, the Atlanta suburb where he lives and has built his church. He is often seen in a Bentley attended by bodyguards. He tends to wear clothes that show off his muscular physique. He favors Gucci sunglasses, gold necklaces, diamond bracelets and Rolex watches. He lives in a 5,000-square-foot house with five bedrooms, which he bought for $1.1 million in 2005.[...]

In 2005, for instance, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution published tax records showing that from 1997 to 2000 Bishop Long had accepted $3 million in salary, housing, a car and other perks from a charity he controlled.

Taxing the non-charitable part of megachurch operations isn't even on the political radar, and I'm sure it's just my heathen nature causing me to bring it up, but why the hell should the Haggards and Longs of the world get hundreds of thousands of dollars of tax-free perks from their "charities" just because they're in the Jesus biz?

Update: Fight The False Charges Against Me

Despite rumors that he planned to resign, today televangelist Eddie "Down Low" Long told the congregation at his Atlanta mega-church that he plans to fight the "false charges" against him. (video here)

He said his first responsibility was his family, and the some 25,000 members of the Atlanta-area New Birth Missionary Baptist Church. However, he joked that he would be "remiss" not to address "the world." "I've been accused, I'm under attack. I want you to know, as I said earlier, that I am not a perfect man," he said. "But this thing, I'm going to fight." "And I want you to know one other thing," he told the cheering crowd Sunday morning. "I feel like David against Goliath, but I've got five rocks and I haven't thrown one yet." He then turned on his heel and walked away from the pulpit, ending his 20-minute address.

Four young men are now suing Long for "coercive sexual abuse" and a reported 30 more are said to be looking to join the suit. In 2004 Long led his congregation on an anti-gay marriage march to the grave of Martin Luther King. Last week activist Michelangelo Signorile played a clip of Long preaching that homosexuals deserved to be put to death. Raw Story has the audio.

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You know, this is the kind of stuff that Valerie Plame was working on when Scooter Libber, Karl Rove, and Richard Armitage decided to commit treason and blab about her.

 

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Mondo Frazier wrote a column for The Hill on why the Tea Party exists and why they have a future. It's an interesting piece, but one part of it caught my eye. Here it is:

At the Tea Party events that I've personally covered, the majority of the attendees appear to be in the 40 and older range. A significant portion of them remember an America prior to 1964: an America with significantly less government.

You'd have to be 46 to have been alive in 1964, and closer to fifty to have any memory of a time before then. And, really, three year-olds don't have memories about the size of government. So, why did Mondo choose 1964 as his cut-off? I mean, Medicare and Head Start and the various war on poverty programs were passed in 1965 or later, not in 1964. But, you know what passed in 1964? That would be The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which effectively ended legalized segregation.

His story also suffers from basic factual inaccuracy.

Some remember when their paychecks reflected 95 percent of what they earned -- instead of the 55-67 percent that government allows them to keep today.

Here's some reality:

Rather than keeping 95 percent of what they made, under Eisenhower (you know, prior to 1964) the wealthy actually kept 9% of what they earned.

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If an American citizen is living in Yemen and directing military and terrorist attacks against U.S. interests and citizens, do we have the right to kill him? That's the question the administration doesn't want to have to answer in court. They think they have that right, but they don't want to settle it legally.

And it is a legal question. Or, better put, of course the president has the right to kill someone who is living abroad and who is trying to kill us. But he doesn't have the right to order the death of a U.S. citizen without any due process or even a review by any outside parties. Otherwise, the president can start killing U.S. citizens without even explaining himself.

What Obama is trying to do here cannot stand. I don't care about some terrorist in Yemen's rights. But I do care about setting up a process that can lead to the worst imaginable kinds of abuses. If this guy is as bad as they say, then they should submit their evidence to the courts. In the meantime, Congress needs to clean up some loose ends with the law. If Obama is relying on the Authorization to Use Military Force against those who carried out or are affiliated with 9/11, then he's on really thin ice. If we face a situation where new actors are trying to blow up our airplanes, then new authorizations are needed.

It's really the lack of foundation in law that is outrageous here. If this guy were operating in Afghanistan, it wouldn't matter that he's an American citizen. But the battlefield is supposedly borderless. That's not a tenable legal footing. And if the administration were willing to submit their evidence to real judicial review, we could have confidence that innocent Americans will not be targeted in the future.

Again, it's not about this guy in Yemen. It's about the administration trying to have the right to act on their say-so without any accountability. I very much hope they lose this case.

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With the release of another Christine O'Donnell tape ("Evolution is a myth.",  "Why aren't monkeys still evolving into humans?"), Maureen Dowd takes a look at how the right's science deniers are set on leading you all into a new Age of Darkness.

Sarah Palin will believe global warming is a hoax until she's doing aerial hunting of wolves underwater. And in a 2009 clip, Sharron Angle, the Republican Senate candidate from Nevada, suggested that autism — a word she uttered with air quotes — is a phony rubric. She suggested that people are taking advantage of such maladies to get extra health benefits, adding that she doesn't see why she should have to subsidize maternity benefits for other people either, especially since, as she said, she's not having any more babies.

[...]

We seem beset with spellbinding hybrids with the looks of Fox News anchors, the brains of mice and the power of changing the direction of the country.

President Obama was supposed to be a giant leap forward in modernity, the brainy, rational first black president leading us out of the scientific darkness of the W. years. But by letting nutters get a foothold, he may usher us into the past.

Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, John Boehner, Jim DeMint and some Tea Party types don't merely yearn for the country they idealize from the 1950s. They want to go back to the 1750s.

Joe Miller, the Palin-blessed Republican nominee for Senate in Alaska, suggests that Social Security is unconstitutional because it wasn't in the Constitution. The Constitution is a dazzling document, but do these originalists really think things haven't changed since then? If James Madison beamed down now, he would no doubt be stunned at the idea that America had evolved so far but was hemming itself in by the strictest interpretation of his handiwork. He might even tweet about it.

Evolution is no myth, but we may be evolving backward. Christine O'Donnell had better hope they don't bring back witch burning.

Now someone please explain to O'Donnell why monkeys won't be evolving into humans this year.

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CNN's Don Lemon became a hero last week. It takes a lot of guts to admit to having been victim of a pedophile on national television, particularly when you are on the air every day. But the people Lemon is talking to here sound like any other cultists in thrall to a charismatic leader. Their denial, their refusal to believe that the man to whom they're in thrall could be a pedophile predator, shows how much Long has been able to worm his way into people's heads. Kudos to Don Lemon for being brave enough to point out that he knows this is how pedophiles work because he's experienced it himself.

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The Washington state woman who falsely claimed that a black girl threw acid in her face is being charged with theft for accepting donations from a fooled community. When she was first hospitalized, the woman told reporters that it was only through her faith in Jeebus that she survived the attack of the evil (nonexistent) black woman.

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Nothing wrong with being prepared

 

Here's some interesting news from the UN:

THE United Nations was set today to appoint an obscure Malaysian astrophysicist to act as Earth s first contact for any aliens that may come visiting.

Mazlan Othman, the head of the UN's little-known Office for Outer Space Affairs (Unoosa), is to describe her potential new role next week at a scientific conference at the Royal Society's Kavli conference centre in Buckinghamshire.

God's speed, Mazlan Othman!

I'm sure this will cause a stir with the anti-UN wingnuts who will snicker and poo-poo the idea of alien intelligence preparedness -- while also claiming to have evidence that the president's parents engaged in a 50 year plot to impose Sharia law with a their Muslim terror baby.

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Saint Reagan's Tax Hikes

In 1981, Ronald Reagan cut taxes by around $275 billion. But when the realization of staggering deficits began to set in, Reagan did the fiscally responsible thing. He raised taxes 11 times -- enough to effectively roll back half of the previous tax cuts. Bruce Bartlett lists the tax hikes in billions of dollars:

Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 +57.3
Highway Revenue Act of 1982 +4.9
Social Security Amendments of 1983 +24.6
Railroad Retirement Revenue Act of 1983 +1.2
Deficit Reduction Act of 1984 +25.4
Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 +2.9
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 +2.4
Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986 +0.6
Continuing Resolution for 1987 +2.8
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1987 +8.6
Continuing Resolution for 1988 +2.0
Total cumulative tax increases +132.7

Teabaggers would have hectored him out of Washington.

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They're not going to stop until every child in America is as bigoted and stupid as they are.

The Texas State Board of Education adopted a resolution Friday that seeks to curtail references to Islam in Texas textbooks, as social conservative board members warned of what they describe as a creeping Middle Eastern influence in the nation's publishing industry.

The board approved the one-page nonbinding resolution, which urges textbook publishers to limit what they print about Islam in world history books, by a 7-5 vote.

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Worst Persons

A collection agency associated with Bank of America for this awfulness:

Two days after being confronted by ABC News, Bank of America has fired a debt collection agency after several of its operators were caught using racist and obscene phone calls to collect debts from bank customers.

"What's up, you f---ing n---r?" said one of the collection agents in a message to 32-year old Allen Jones of Dallas, who owed $81 on his Bank of America credit card.

Banks and collection agencies rule the nation. Speaking of which, no one's really talking about the post-recession fallout from all of the bad credit scores. Between foreclosures, bankruptcies, medical bills and credit card delinquencies, is there anyone left with a solid score?

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Brad Reed at Crooks and Liars has the best sex metaphor yet for voting Democratic in November.

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That word doesn't mean what Christine thinks it means

If you can't resist the urge to explain to random freakazoids how sublimely idiotic was Christine O'Donnell's attempted refutation of evolution - "Then why aren't monkeys still evolving into humans?" - PZ Myers has your 10-second slap-down:

... it's a creationist misconception that evolution is directed towards a goal, and that that goal is humanity. Monkeys are evolving into monkeys, not people.

Or, you could go to the library and get copies of Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution is True and Richard Dawkins' The Greatest Show on Earth, then use them to smack the fuckwits upside the head.

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The House's No. 2 Democratic leader said Sunday that comedian Stephen Colbert's testimony last week on immigration was "inappropriate" and "an embarrassment."

No, Steny. You going on a channel that broadcasts propaganda and lies is an embarrassment and inappropriate.

Steny, why don't you take your lazy a** and actually go experience actual harvesting work. See what it's like to do real work instead of this jaw yammering that politicians (especially some democrats of late) are doing in D.C.

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Skippy's environmental news stories Sunday

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Speaking to some Uncle Tom's Log Cabin group:

"Marriage is not a civil right. You're not black." – Ann Coulter

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Glenn Greenwald: Obama Argues His Assassination Program is a "State Secret"