Southern Baptists Change Policy on Speaking in Tongues

From Charisma News:

After decade-long resistance, the Southern Baptist Convention will admit missionary candidates who speak in tongues, a practice associated with Pentecostal and charismatic churches.

The new policy, approved by the denomination's International Mission Board on Wednesday (May 13), reverses a policy that was put in place 10 years ago.

Speaking in tongues is an ancient Christian practice recorded in the New Testament in which people pray in a language they do not know, understand or control. The practice died out until Pentecostalism emerged around the turn of the 20th century. In Pentecostal churches it is considered one of many "gifts" of the Holy Spirit, including healing and the ability to prophesy.

Allowing Southern Baptist missionaries to speak in tongues, or have what some SBC leaders call a "private prayer language," speaks to the growing strength of Pentecostal churches in Africa, Asia and South America, where Southern Baptists are competing for converts and where energized new Christians are enthusiastically embracing the practice.

More here.

I haven't thought of myself as a Southern Baptist for over two decades. That's why it came as a complete surprise that I would be so disturbed by this. I mean, none of my business, really, but c'mon, you're speaking in tongues now? Are you even Baptists anymore?

And the shift has more to do with missionary work, trying to attract people to be Baptists in geographic locations where speaking in tongues is common. Needless to say, such a motivation has absolutely nothing to do with theology or spirituality. Seems pretty damned cynical to me.

But like I said, not really my business.  Still, the old Baptist in my is outraged.

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At least 2 dead as heavy rains flood freeways, close schools

From the Houston Chronicle:

As the flood waters recded Tuesday, HFD and HPD teams searched waterways to make sure other people are not in danger. The crews also searched abandoned vehicles to determine if anyone is inside them. 

Throughout the city motorists woke Tuesday morning to flooded freeways and streets, making the morning commute dangerous and even impossible for most.

The 610 Loop as well as Katy, North and South freeways were underwater in spots throughout the area. Other major roads blocked by high water include Memorial Drive and Allen Parkway near downtown.

Dozens of vehicles were stranded in high water throughout the city. In many cases, the water came up to to the driver's side windows of the abandoned cars, Other vehicles are almost submerged.

More here.

Fortunately, I was barely inconvenienced by this, mostly because I live in the aptly named Heights neighborhood.  I mean, for a while there it had me concerned.  The entire yard, street, and yard across the street became a flowing river for a while.  But once it stopped raining so heavily that all started to recede.  My drive to work was uneventful.  I had to go through an underpass that was covered by some eight feet of water ten hours earlier; by the time I was there, though, it was just muddy.

But really, I was lucky.  This Chronicle article says two dead, but New York Times coverage says five.  This was a significant weather event.  You know, the kind I had hoped I wouldn't be seeing so much since I left New Orleans.

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Black Man Vs. White Man Open Carrying AR-15 Legally

Here:



Not at all surprising in the abstract, but pretty shocking, anyway, to see it happening on video like this. This is what it's all about. This is the central point to the debate that's been raging in this country since George Zimmerman gunned down Trayvon Martin in cold blood: there is an assumption in law enforcement, and among much of the white community, and even among others who buy into the lies and myths perpetuated by white supremacy, that blacks are criminals and whites are law abiding citizens. And this video shows that assumption being played out in the real world.

For that matter, this video also touches on the elephant in the middle of the room among these "open carry" advocates. A lot of these people harbor fantasies that they're going to kill a "black criminal" some day, and that's the sole purpose for their packing heat. So "open carry" is for whites only. So they can kill black people. Thus, "open carry" for black people is an absurdity.

Sick, twisted stuff.

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THE DUGGARS

I posted the video below on facebook yesterday with this accompanying text:

This is what conservatives defending Josh Duggar look like.



In the comment thread, a friend suggested that the family deserves their privacy in this issue. Of course, I have problems with that. My response:

These people aren't simply public figures, though. They actively push harmful ideas to which, apparently, they do not adhere themselves. The Duggars are anti-gay--indeed, Josh's mother was only recently trashing transgendered people in Arkansas because they, she implied, molest children, and she said this fully aware of the fact that her son is a child molester. They're also "purity" people: if you have sex before marriage, you're "impure," like a bite of food passed from mouth to mouth, or some such, the kind of imagery "purity" people teach about sex.

Does this mean that Josh and his sisters are now filthy sluts because they gave it up before marriage? That's the kind of shit they push on the nation.

If they were private citizens, not leaders telling everybody how they ought to live their lives, yeah sure, I'd probably agree with you. But that's just not the case. When you put yourself out there as "people of God," you'd better damned well act like a person of God, or you're just a sleazy snake oil salesman, who needs to be tarred and feathered.

And speaking of Josh, you know that until this scandal broke, he was a really big deal in the Family Research Council, a major fundamentalist political organization, which is why there are so many pictures of him with GOP presidential hopefuls. But he's a child molester. One who was "punished" by the "lecture" of a convicted collector of child pornography. This is totally fucked up.

For that matter, have his sisters/victims even gotten any therapy? How are they doing? Are they cool with the whole thing? How the hell could they be cool with the whole thing? They were betrayed by their family in the most horrible way. And nobody seems to give a shit.

'Nuff said.

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FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING: YET ANOTHER CANINE EDITION!

Lola

Be sure to check out Modulator's Friday Ark for more cat blogging pics!

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Obama’s Twitter Debut, @POTUS, Attracts Hate-Filled Posts

From the New York Times:

The @POTUS account — named for the in-house acronym derived from “President of the United States” — would “serve as a new way for President Obama to engage directly with the American people, with tweets coming exclusively from him,” a White House aide wrote that day.

But it took only a few minutes for Mr. Obama’s account to attract racist, hate-filled posts and replies. Posts addressed him with racial slurs, called him a monkey, and one had an image of the president’s neck in a noose.

More here.

Republicans, you have a racism problem. As always, I must point out that I am not saying Republicans are racist. But many individual Republicans ARE. This means your party has a problem with racism. A BIG ONE. And you desperately need to do something about it. But all you do is deny the obvious truth. Doing nothing under such circumstances is essentially the same thing as condoning it.

This racism problem you have will continue until you put an end to it, and purge these vile racists from your ranks. It's up to you. These are your people. Are you up to the task?

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BEING PRESSED ON MINIMUM WAGE DATA

So, of course, after crossposting yesterday's Real Art post on facebook, the conservatives swooped in to challenge my facts.  So I provided them:

Timothy, as you requested, some data.

First, an LA Times article, which is probably the most neutral of the sources I'm offering, simply because, as a newspaper, the must give, at least, lip service to objectivity. They looked at three studies. The local chamber of commerce study found, predictably, what they expected to find, the traditional conservative minimum wage boogy man.

But the other two studies the examined found the opposite.

The study sponsored by a local labor organization, and done by the non-profit Economic Roundtable organization found exactly what I'm saying, a net increase in jobs, and growth in the economy. But probably the most even handed source, the University of California, which did its own study, said it will be a wash, but with a slight net increase in jobs.

Personally, as a Keynesian, I'm predicting more hiring and an expanding LA economy. But, at worst, it will be a wash, with the more fruit of workers' labors going to the workers who grew the fruit, which is a good thing. Anyway, check it out:

http://www.latimes.com/local/cityhall/la-me-minimum-wage-studies-20150320-story.html

Department of Labor information on the minimum wage:

http://www.dol.gov/minwage/mythbuster.htm

A study of Seattle's minimum wage hikes over the last decade have found virtually no malevolent effect on the local economy:

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/studies-look-at-what-happened-when-cities-raised-minimum-wage/

A Center for Economic and Policy Research study just says straight up that minimum wage hikes do not lower employment.

http://www.cepr.net/publications/reports/why-does-the-minimum-wage-have-no-discernible-effect-on-employment

So, Timothy, the bottom line, for me, is that minimum wage increases have been studied out the wazoo, for many years, using real world situations where the minimum wage was actually raised.

I have never, ever, ever, EVER heard of a situation in our lifetimes when raising the minimum wage hurt the economy where it happened. I mean, sure, conservatives, business owners, capitalists, all of them insist that will happen, but I've never seen any evidence that it does. Just a lot of wishful thinking on the part of people who can't bear to pay a fair wage for fair work.

So it's all a myth. All lies. All for the express purpose of ripping off the working class.

Excelsior!

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Los Angeles Raises Minimum Wage to $15 an Hour

From the New York Times:

The nation’s second-largest city voted on Tuesday to increase its minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020, in what is perhaps the most significant victory so far in the national push to raise the minimum wage.

The increase — which the Los Angeles City Council passed in a 14-1 vote — comes as workers across the country are rallying for higher wages, and several large companies, including Facebook and Walmart, have moved to raise their lowest wages. Several other cities, including San Francisco, Seattle and Oakland, Calif., have already approved increases, and dozens more are considering doing the same. In 2014, a number of Republican-leaning states like Alaska and South Dakota also raised their state-level minimum wage by referendum.

 

More here.

 

Now, if conservatives are right about economics, which they're not, Los Angeles' economy will soon collapse because of this, which it won't. In fact, I'd bet you credits to navy beans that LA's economy will actually expand because of this. Getting money into the hands of people who will spend it, you know, consumers, who also happen to be workers, means MORE economic activity, not less. So businesses will grow, hiring will increase, and more businesses will be created. Pretty simple old school demand side Keynesian economics. A shame we got away from that, really.

 

I await my opportunity to say "In yer face, conservatives!" Sometime next year, I'd imagine.

 

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YET ANOTHER RIGHT-WING DELUSION WORTH NOTING

From Business Week:

Community Reinvestment Act had nothing to do with subprime crisis 

Fresh off the false and politicized attack on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, today we’re hearing the know-nothings blame the subprime crisis on the Community Reinvestment Act — a 30-year-old law that was actually weakened by the Bush administration just as the worst lending wave began. This is even more ridiculous than blaming Freddie and Fannie.

More here.

After yesterday's post about right-wing delusions, I thought of another one worth mentioning: The Community Reinvestment Act, measured in tens of millions, couldn't POSSIBLY have caused a banking crisis measured in trillions. Indeed, it's just insulting to offer this really feeble explanation, one which is just awful on the math, but who cares when you're wallowing in self-delusion? Find something, anything, that lets your lips keep flapping so as to preserve your fantasy world.

These are conservatives today. They're fucking dangerous to us all, even themselves. This shit is bad.

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RIGHT-WING DELUSIONS WILL DESTROY US

From the American Prospect:

The Myth of 'Faulty Intelligence'

The Iraq War, both how it began and how it proceeded, is now an active topic in the 2016 presidential campaign, which I think is a highly salutary development. But it does mean that we need to be on guard for the kind of distortions, misleading statements, and outright lies that characterized this debate from its very start in 2002. As you've heard by now, the Republican Party is currently divided over whether, knowing what we know now, we should ever have launched the war. Most of the Republican presidential candidates are (to my surprise, I'll admit), saying the answer is of course not, while Jeb Bush is saying that he really doesn't want to say, because doing so would be a "disservice" to the troops (which would only be true if he also thinks the answer is no).

One thing they all agree on, though, is that for better or worse the whole thing happened because of "faulty intelligence." If only America's intelligence agencies hadn't screwed up so badly, then everyone wouldn't have been convinced of what a terrifying threat Iraq was to America, and the whole thing would never have happened. Jeb Bush himself said that one of the most important lessons to take from the war is, "If you're going to go to war, make sure that you have the best intelligence possible and the intelligence broke down." But the intelligence didn't "break down."

You can't understand the decisions that led to the Iraq War without grasping just how incredibly politicized the intelligence process had become in the months before the war.

More here.

I've been, once again, debating climate change with an old pal from high school who, like many of my old pals, grew up to be a dogmatic conservative. As with most of his fellow Conservative Tribesmen, my old pal absolutely dismisses pretty much ALL the science on global warming, and instead offers opinions from the few remaining crackpot scientists, virtually all of them on the take with Big Oil by now, who continue to be skeptical on the issue.

Tell him that the Earth is warming up due to human activity and it will result in catastrophe for the human race and he tells me I'm wrong on the science. Point out that virtually all climatologists are saying so these days, and he gives me some essay from the National Review telling me that's not the case. Give him a list of all the respected scientific organizations around the globe making statements in support of the science on global warming, including our own NASA, including, even, the Pentagon, and he doesn't respond.

This is actually fairly typical of modern conservatives. Confronted with damning facts, they double down on their preferred, fact-free conservative reality. This is a massive psychological game they're playing, mostly with themselves, with their own minds, but it affects all of humanity in very likely disastrous ways.

That is, today's conservatives, when they lose utterly on the facts, have responded with self-imposed delusion for themselves, and then push that delusion on everybody else. But it's not just global warming where we see this dynamic in play. For the last fifteen years, at least, they've been doing this with any and all issues where they have lost on the facts. Case in point, the "faulty intelligence" on Iraq's WMD back in 2002 and 2003.

There was no "faulty intelligence." All our intelligence agencies KNEW Iraq had no WMD, knew they had no ties to Al-Qaeda, etc. But the Bush administration "knew" Iraq did. When successfully challenged on the facts, when these conservatives lost, on the facts, they doubled down on their fantasy version of reality, and demanded "intelligence" that would suit their needs.

And they got it.

I mean, not really, not real intelligence. But they did get some little tidbits, divorced from context, unfiltered by intelligence analysts, you know, so-called "raw intelligence," that allowed them to assemble a case for going to war. A bad case based on bullshit and manipulation of the facts they actually had, but a case which they could present to the nation and the world.

I like to call what they did the lawyer approach. That is, the Bush administration had a preordained conclusion they wanted to "prove," so they assembled some ideas and facts in order to "prove" it. Contrast this with the scientific approach, which starts without a conclusion at all, but ultimately comes up with one based on the actual facts observed.

Don't get me wrong. The lawyer approach is absolutely necessary in the courts. We need two sides duking it out like that if we're going to call it a fair process for the determination of guilt or innocence by a jury of people who weren't witnesses to the crime. But the nation is not a court. And going to war, or fighting global warming, all these things must absolutely be guided by facts because the consequences of allowing your fantasies to guide decisions about war or the environment can kill millions. That is, it's like driving with a blindfold.

But this is where we are right now as a nation. We have one of the two major parties trapped into horrid policy positions because they can't deal with losing. We have one of the two major parties wallowing in fantasy and calling it reality.

The Founding Fathers never envisioned this. They couldn't. This is something entirely new. This is something coming out of this current era of the dominant electronic image. And unless we can get a handle on it, unless we can purge this sick, fucked up blight on our public discourse, we're totally doomed.

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FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING

Winkie

Be sure to check out Modulator's Friday Ark for more cat blogging pics!

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Sheldon Adelson faces new scrutiny as documents challenge his testimony

From the Guardian:

Sheldon Adelson, the multibillionaire casino magnate and key Republican party donor, spent four combative days in a Las Vegas court this week defending his gambling empire from accusations of bribery and ties to organised crime.

By the time the hearing was over, Adelson had argued with the judge, contradicted the evidence of his own executives and frustrated his lawyers by revealing more information than he was required to in response to simple yes or no questions. But most importantly, far from laying the allegations against his Las Vegas Sands conglomerate to rest, the billionaire’s answers threw up yet more questions which he is likely to have to return to court to answer.

More here.

Hey Republicans, it's looking more and more like your biggest donor is something of a mobster. Seriously. He's apparently connected, get this, to the Chinese Triad. Yeah, yeah, I know, he's a "legitimate businessman." They're all legitimate businessmen. Anyway, do y'all feel comfortable taking mob money?

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The Day the Middle Class Died

From Daily Kos:

On August 5, 1981, President Ronald Reagan fired every member of the air traffic controllers union (PATCO) who'd defied his order to return to work and declared their union illegal. They had been on strike for just two days.

It was a bold and brash move. No one had ever tried it. What made it even bolder was that PATCO was one of only three unions that had endorsed Reagan for president! It sent a shock wave through workers across the country. If he would do this to the people who were with him, what would he do to us?

Reagan had been backed by Wall Street in his run for the White House and they, along with right-wing Christians, wanted to restructure America and turn back the tide that President Franklin D. Roosevelt started -- a tide that was intended to make life better for the average working person. The rich hated paying better wages and providing benefits. They hated paying taxes even more. And they despised unions. The right-wing Christians hated anything that sounded like socialism or holding out a helping hand to minorities or women.

Reagan promised to end all that. So when the air traffic controllers went on strike, he seized the moment. In getting rid of every single last one of them and outlawing their union, he sent a clear and strong message: The days of everyone having a comfortable middle class life were over.
More here.

I think this shift was actually happening as far back as the late 60s--see Jefferson Cowie's amazing book "Stayin' Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class" for the full story. But Michael Moore has it more or less right in the linked essay when he names Reagan's firing of PATCO strikers as the watershed event making it all official.

I think it also really warped a lot of minds from my generation who were coming of age and too young to know any better. Unions made the middle class in this country, but a seemingly huge percentage of my age group never got the chance to understand that, and, to this very day, express utterly irrational and bizarre ideas about labor unions. I mean, there's just no common sense discussion about this topic with Gen Xers. To them, unions are the devil. Because Reagan is God.

And now America sucks.

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Sea rise threatens Florida coast, but no statewide plan

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

St. Augustine is one of many chronically flooded communities along Florida's coast, and officials in these diverse places share a concern: They're afraid their buildings and economies will be further inundated by rising seas in just a couple of decades. The effects are a daily reality in much of Florida. Drinking water wells are fouled by seawater. Higher tides and storm surges make for more frequent road flooding from Jacksonville to Key West, and they're overburdening aging flood-control systems.

But the state has yet to offer a clear plan or coordination to address what local officials across Florida's coast see as a slow-moving emergency. Republican Gov. Rick Scott is skeptical of man-made climate change and has put aside the task of preparing for sea level rise, an Associated Press review of thousands of emails and documents pertaining to the state's preparations for rising seas found.

More here.

Damn straight there's no plan. After all, this is the state whose legislature has an informal but apparently binding rule making the phrase "climate change" forbidden on the legislature floor. In fact, one state agency worker who didn't realize this crazed rule exists accidentally violated it during a speech he gave, and was then suspended and ordered to get a mental health evaluation if he wanted to return to work. So maybe there is a plan: do nothing and harass as much as possible anybody observing that the Emperor's new clothes are actually his birthday suit.

We're coming closer and closer to the day when global warming deniers are going to drown in the rising waters, even while they continue to deny global warming. Seriously. I think these people are going to their graves insisting that the equivalent of a flat earth exists. I'd laugh if it wasn't all so horrible. I mean, they're all going to look really funny saying everything is fine while everything goes to shit. These fools have doomed us all.

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Abbott signs bill letting students graduate without passing all STAAR tests

From the Montgomery County Courier:

Students who don’t pass all of their state standardized tests can now graduate anyway.

Governor Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 149, filed by Amarillo Republican Kel Seliger, into law Monday morning, putting the law into effect immediately. The bill allows students to be forgiven for not passing up to two state tests, called STAAR End of Course exams (EOCs), and meeting certain criteria.

More here.

Okay, as many of you know, I trash Republicans and conservatives fairly consistently here on facebook, which is why I feel I should always be up front and honest whenever Republicans do something I really like. Today, my new governor, in association with the GOP dominated Ledge, did something I ABSOLUTELY like. They backed us away a bit from education's longstanding testing mania. And they even provided some really good multifaceted standards for graduating from high school without having passed all these tests, which is exactly the direction we need to be going.

It makes me feel good when I'm able to say truthfully, without irony or condescension, good work Republicans!

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American Psychological Association Bolstered C.I.A. Torture Program, Report Says

From the New York Times:

The American Psychological Association secretly collaborated with the administration of President George W. Bush to bolster a legal and ethical justification for the torture of prisoners swept up in the post-Sept. 11 war on terror, according to a new report by a group of dissident health professionals and human rights activists.

The report is the first to examine the association’s role in the interrogation program. It contends, using newly disclosed emails, that the group’s actions to keep psychologists involved in the interrogation program coincided closely with efforts by senior Bush administration officials to salvage the program after the public disclosure in 2004 of graphic photos of prisoner abuse by American military personnel at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

More here.

F you, APA. You've made an already chronically ethics-challenged field a whole hell of a lot sleazier. Are you even going to try to dig psychology out of the hole in which you've put it? Or are you above all that? I have nothing but contempt for you.

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FRANK ZAPPA FRIDAY AND 70S POP MONDAY ON SATURDAY

Two of my facebook features exported to Real Art.



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FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING

Sammy

Be sure to check out Modulator's Friday Ark for more cat blogging pics!

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Jeb Bush Openly Admits He’s A Fan Of White Supremacy

From Addicting Info:
 
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) declared himself to be a fan of controversial social scientist Charles Murray’s books at a forum Thursday in Washington.

Bush lauded Murray’s books on two separate occasions during an interview with National Review editor Rich Lowry, at a forum sponsored by the conservative magazine.

Lowry asked Bush, “… is there any policy or anything public officials can do to help turn back what has been a rising tide of family breakdown crossing decades now?”

“Absolutely, there is,” Bush, a likely 2016 Republican presidential candidate, said. “It’s not exactly the core. My views on this were shaped a lot on this by Charles Murray’s book, except I was reading the book and I was waiting for the last chapter with the really cool solutions — didn’t quite get there.”

Later in the interview, Lowry asked Bush what he likes to read. Again, he cited Murray.

“I like Charles Murray books to be honest with you, which means I’m a total nerd I guess,” Bush said.

More here.

You know, Republicans just go ballistic when you say their party has a racism problem. Painting with too broad a brush stroke, using a few bad apples to judge too many people, whatever. They think it's in very bad taste to go there. But then they turn around and do this crap, again and again.

Charles Murray, Jeb Bush's professed intellectual guru, who asserted in his 1990s conservative classic "The Bell Curve" that IQ testing proves blacks are genetically inferior to whites, is a straight up racist. IQ tests tell us nothing about genetics, and are problematic, anyway, with doing what they're ostensibly supposed to do. Anybody who knows anything about cognitive psychology knows this. Murray, the "conservative intellectual," very likely knew he couldn't honestly come to such a conclusion when he made his racist assertion, so, in addition to being a racist, he's also a damned liar.

This is, apparently, a writer who has strongly influenced the Republican 2016 frontrunner's thinking about black people and public policy. And Jeb's proud of it.

This kind of thing is precisely why liberals can't resist talking about the GOP's racism problem. It's almost as though we're being dared.

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Free Speech vs. Hate Speech

From the New York Times editorial board:

There is no question that images ridiculing religion, however offensive they may be to believers, qualify as protected free speech in the United States and most Western democracies. There is also no question that however offensive the images, they do not justify murder, and that it is incumbent on leaders of all religious faiths to make this clear to their followers.

But it is equally clear that the Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest in Garland, Tex., was not really about free speech. It was an exercise in bigotry and hatred posing as a blow for freedom.

More here.

The shooting in Garland involves essentially the same issues as the Charlie Hebdo shooting. Killing is wrong. Freedom of speech is right. But one should not use one's freedom to be an asshole to an entire minority group. No need to rehash all that.

But a couple of things have occurred to me since then. First, this isn't really a free speech issue. Freedom of speech is about citizens' relationship with government. In contrast, when private individuals threaten violence, use intimidation, whatever, in order to stop somebody from saying something, it's called extortion, which is a criminal act, not a violation of someone's freedom of speech.

So we need to stop confusing the two. Islamic terrorists are criminals trying to extort people into doing their will. Meanwhile, everybody's freedom of speech, at least in the West, remains intact and unthreatened.

Second, Pamela Geller, one of the event's hosts, is a particularly sleazy and bigoted scumbag, and she succeeded in Garland beyond her wildest dreams. That is, Geller WANTED angry Muslims to shoot at her so as to "prove" her vile, prejudiced, and xenophobic beliefs. I have absolutely no doubt that her heart filled with joy the moment she heard that the event had come under fire.

She is an awful, horrible person.

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Obama mocks Michele Bachmann for blaming apocalypse on him — and conservatives are furious

From Raw Story:

Michele Bachmann and other conservative Christians were outraged after President Barack Obama mocked their predictions that he was hastening the end of the world.

Bachmann, a former Republican congresswoman from Minnesota, spoke at length about her apocalyptic concerns in a radio interview earlier this month with a Christian broadcaster.

The president joked about her comments Saturday during the White House Correspondents Dinner.

More here.

Oh, this is funny!

And, for the record, you can count me among the people who mock the End Timers. I mean, even if the Revelation is one hundred percent accurate, the pathetic and shoddy "scholarship" always attempting to establish the End Times as being RIGHT NOW, a pursuit which waxes and wanes, but seemingly goes back centuries, isn't much more than a wish-fulfillment fantasy.

And never mind the fact that this sham religious activity is almost the sole dominion of fundamentalists, who continually insist that there is no need for interpreting the Bible, and then turn around and - you guessed it - interpret the Bible. It's just a joke all the way around. We are not in the End Times. Also, Michelle Bachmann's head is made of wood.

Also Hal Lindsey, Tim LaHaye, and many others have made a lot of money peddling the Apocalypse to suckers who love to empty their pockets for them.

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1 in 15 students have chlamydia at West Texas high school

From the Houston Chronicle:

Crane ISD Superintendent Jim T. Rumage cited abstinence as a useful methodology for keeping kids away from sexual activity in a phone interview Monday. 'If kids are not having any sexual activity, they can’t get this disease … That’s not a bad program,' Rumage said.

And

Crane County had 17 cases in 2013, with a rate of 256.2 cases per 100,000 people.

More here.

No, Mr. Rumage, a good program stops STD outbreaks at schools in the district you run. Clearly "abstinence based" sex ed is the failure it's been known to be from the get-go. Back in the 90s. Twenty years ago.

Just to give you an idea of the scale of the outbreak, the local infection rate is around .25%, a quarter of a hundredth of the population.  Compare that to six percent for this high school.  This is pretty massive.  And Superintendent Rumage thinks "abstinence based" is a good idea.

Why do we still do this shit?

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The Asshole Factory

From Medium.com:

What is Mara’s job like? Her sales figures are monitored…by the microsecond. By hidden cameras and mics. They listen to her every word; they capture her every movement; that track and stalk her as if she were an animal; or a prisoner; or both. She’s jacked into a headset that literally barks algorithmic, programmed “orders” at her, parroting her own “performance” back to her, telling her how she compares with quotas calculated…down to the second…for all the hundreds of items in the store…which recites “influence and manipulation techniques” to her…to use on unsuspecting customers…that sound suspiciously like psychological warfare. It’s as if the NSA was following you around……and it was stuck in your head…telling you what an inadequate failure you were…psychologically waterboarding you…all day long…every day for the rest of your life.

More here.

A friend of mine posted this on my facebook timeline yesterday.  Here's how I responded.

1. Noam Chomsky has said repeatedly over his career as a dissident writer that all human beings are intellectually curious and naturally creative, and therefore need intellectually stimulating, creative work. I agree with him on this, across the board.

2. Karl Marx concedes that there are a lot of really shitty jobs in the overall economy that simply have to be done, which is why he asserted a four hour work day, which would, by his nineteenth century estimate, allow the economy to produce everything everybody needs, but also allowing everybody to have actual lives outside of work. I think that, today, we could probably drop down to two or three hours a day with similar results.

3. I remember attending an in service years ago with the entire faculty of the high school where I worked. They showed a ten minute clip from Dead Poets Society, all inspiring, all the right words about learning and living, and the clip was cheered by everybody. Nobody seemed to be in on the irony that what we were doing every day as teachers in our own school was exactly the opposite of what Robin Williams was doing in the movie.

4. Since I got out of grad school, I've been accused by more than one person of having no ambition because I was waiting tables and pursuing professional actor roles in New Orleans, essentially not worrying too much about it and enjoying my life. Little did they know that I'm trying as hard as I can to reject The Asshole Factory of life, which may very well appear to assholes as though I have no ambition.

I'm at the point in life such that all that shit we were taught we're supposed to be just doesn't seem to be worth it. So why bother? Why participate in an economy to my full "potential" when I don't think the economy is serving me to its full potential? I'd much rather do shows, write songs, and write essays on the internet. As far as I can tell, these things have at least as much value to my fellow man as, say, selling shit to people who don't really want or need it.

'Nuff said!

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Frankie

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Here's What Martin Luther King Jr. Really Thought About Urban Riots

From Mother Jones:

"They are mainly intended to shock the white community. They are a distorted form of social protest. The looting which is their principal feature serves many functions. It enables the most enraged and deprived Negro to take hold of consumer goods with the ease the white man does by using his purse. Often the Negro does not even want what he takes; he wants the experience of taking. But most of all, alienated from society and knowing that this society cherishes property above people, he is shocking it by abusing property rights. There are thus elements of emotional catharsis in the violent act."

More here.

Dear white conservatives, please stop invoking Martin Luther King, Jr. to condemn the response to cops killing unarmed black men. Because, you know, you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. 

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TX Gov Orders State Guard to Monitor Possible Military Takeover of Texas

From Talking Points Memo:

Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday asked the State Guard to monitor a U.S. military training exercise dubbed "Jade Helm 15" amid Internet-fueled suspicions that the war simulation is really a hostile military takeover. 

The request comes a day after more than 200 people packed a meeting in rural Bastrop County and questioned a U.S. Army commander about whether the government was planning to confiscate guns or implement martial law. Bastrop County Judge Paul Pape said "conspiracy theorists" and "fear mongers" had been in a frenzy.

More here.

I hope everybody knows how we get the phrase "tinfoil hat." Basically, it goes like this. A conspiracy theorist believes that the government, or aliens, whatever, is attempting to use a mind-control ray on him. Fortunately, for the conspiracy theorist, putting metal foil over his head blocks the mind-control rays, allowing him to retain his own individuality while he continues to track down the "evidence" that will make everybody see how screwed up things are. Or something to that effect.

Typically, we use "tinfoil hat" to describe only the weirdest and craziest of conspiracy theorists or theories. I mean, there's a difference between people who doubt some of the conclusions of the Warren report, and people who believe that reptilian aliens are clandestinely running the government. This crazed belief that army war games are a ruse for a federal takeover definitely goes into tinfoil hat territory.

I mean, think about it this way. Because Texas is part of the United States, the feds already have a great deal of jurisdiction. Why would they need to take over? For that matter, how does activating the national guard, which is ultimately a branch of the US military, and can be "federalized" at any moment, "protect" us from a federal takeover? It's totally insane. And pretty stupid, too.

But whatever. There are a lot of crazed Texans out there. But only one Texan is governor. And it appears that Abbott is taking this conspiracy theory seriously. So does that make him crazy? Maybe, and that's pretty frightening. It's also pretty frightening, however, to think that he might not believe this nutty conspiracy theory at all, but is totally willing to use the National Guard, spending millions of state and federal tax dollars in the process, simply to pander to the right-wing nuts he thinks are his base.

Crazy or evil. Which one is it? I mean, okay, it could be both, but I'm inclined to think he's simply being evil with this. Using the military and wasting tax dollars just for a political stunt.

Either way, though, this is pretty stunning.

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BALTIMORE

I'm not really saying much about the rioting in Baltimore because I feel like I covered a lot of that territory with Ferguson. But, as the same old arguments are again rolled out and beaten to death, I do want to ask my fellow white people a question. Why do you think this keeps happening? Because it does keep happening. And it's probably not going away anytime soon.

Your answer will say a lot about how well you understand this country. It will also say a lot about how well you understand yourself.

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I taught at the worst school in Texas

From Salon:

J. E. Pearce Middle School sits in a part of Austin my students called the Two-Three. Short for 78723, the Two-Three is a ZIP code that better captures the broken spirit of East Saint Louis than the progressive-minded ethos of Austin. In 2002, the year I started teaching at Pearce, many of the faculty had been hand-selected to revive the struggling school. Ron Bolek, our Ecuadorean-American principal, liked to compare our situation to the Peace Corps. If recent college graduates could donate two years to a starving village in Ghana, why not commit a few years to a school in a neglected corner of East Austin?

More here.

This essay is from two years ago, but it very adeptly illustrates why everybody ought to have nothing but total contempt for the so-called education "reform" movement: as ever, it's not an education problem, not a teacher problem, nothing standardized tests and marathon school days are going to fix; rather, it's a poverty problem, plain and simple.

Until we, as a society, recognize this, we will continue to get the same results. And fifty, one hundred, a thousand more standardized tests, year round schooling, union busting, these will do NOTHING to improve the situation. Really, what we need is to get serious about poverty. Then the "failing schools" will take care of themselves.

Of course, society never seems too terribly interested in doing anything about poverty.

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Sarah Palin's dumbest statements

From Liberal4Life:

#1 God chooses elections

Sarah Palin says God decides elections. Doesn't that mean God likes Barack Obama more than her?  "At the end of the day, putting this in God's hands, that the right thing for America will be done at the end of the day on Nov. 4. So I'm not discouraged at all."

Click here for the slide show.

I've thought Sarah Palin is the funniest thing in the history of American politics from the moment I saw her speak at the Republican National Convention back in 2008. I mean, immediately, as soon as she opened her mouth, it was just completely obvious what a total redneck buffoon the woman is. But it got even better after that when it became clear that a lot of people were actually taking this brain-damaged trashy shopping channel saleswoman seriously! Up until that point I had not really admitted to myself just how far into nut territory the Conservative Movement had gone. It all just got funnier and funnier. And it's still funny today.

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Actors' Equity Implements $9 Minimum Wage For LA's Small Theaters

From NPR's All Things Considered:

Less than a week after union members in LA overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to make small theaters pay their performers minimum wage, Actors' Equity decided to go ahead and implement it anyway. Many say the move could force many 99-seat theaters in LA to close.

Read or listen to the rest here.

As many of you know, I am an incredibly strong supporter of organized labor. After all, collective bargaining is just about the only kind of leverage that workers have when dealing with capitalists who generally hold all the cards and dictate the rules of the game. But I'm also a pragmatist. I don't believe it's a good idea to try to squeeze blood from a stone. It's an even worse idea for a union to escalate the death throes of an already dying industry.

That is, Actors' Equity has long performed a vital service for professional stage actors, representing them, making sure they can make a fair and decent living working in the theater. But they seem to be stuck in the nineteenth century, too, seemingly in deep denial about the fact that theater, for the vast majority of American cities, for several decades now, is no longer a viable economic venture. All that squeezing small theaters does is to finish off the smoldering remains of this once thriving art form.

How does this benefit actors?

I mean, okay sure, Equity is still doing good work for the ever shrinking group of people who are blessed enough to actually get some employment as actors. But this is like making sure the wealthiest passengers on the Titanic are comfortable, happy, and well fed while the ship is going down.

Why isn't this organization doing anything about the fact that the industry in which it functions is probably going to disappear almost completely in the next fifty years or so? That's the real crisis. And putting theaters out of business only makes it worse.

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Study links swarm of quakes in Texas to natural gas drilling

From the AP via FuelFix:

With real-time monitors, scientists have linked a swarm of small earthquakes west of Fort Worth, Texas, to nearby natural gas wells and wastewater injection.

In 84 days from November 2013 to January 2014, the area around Azle, Texas, shook with 27 magnitude 2 or greater earthquakes, while scientists at Southern Methodist University and the U.S. Geological Survey monitored the shaking. It’s an area that had no recorded quakes for 150 years on faults that “have been inactive for hundreds of millions of years,” said SMU geophysicist Matthew Hornbach.

More here.

This is kind of so obviously true that it doesn't really even merit comment. On the other hand, the petroleum industry has massive legal departments that eat entire towns for breakfast, and even then, pretty much the entire Ledge is ready to run interference in Austin for all their oil cronies. That's why there needs to be solid unimpeachable evidence that fracking causes earthquakes. For, you know, a bunch of lawsuits that will hopefully be filed really soon.

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The Media's Failure With the Biggest Story in the World

From TruthOut:

The failure of the media to resist the carbon lobby's propaganda has been expressed by Eric Pooley, one of America's leading journalists, by means of a parable:

Suppose our leading scientists discovered that a meteor, hurtling toward the earth, was set to strike later this century; the governments of the world had less than ten years to divert or destroy it. How would news organizations cover this story? Even in an era of financial distress, they would throw teams of reporters at it and give them the resources needed to follow it in extraordinary depth and detail. After all, the race to stop the meteor would be the story of the century.

Having suggested this scenario, Pooley explained that in his parable, carbon-using humanity is the meteor, which is threatening to destroy civilization. This threat is, Pooley said, "the great test, and the great story, of our time. But news organizations have not been treating it that way."

More here.

I first learned, in painful detail, about the weird news media organizational incentives leading to such slanted and factually incorrect coverage in Eric Alterman's 2003 book "What Liberal Media?" The long and short of it is that conservatives have been so persistent, so loud, so overwhelming in their "LIBERAL MEDIA!!!" accusations, that reporters, editors, and publishers have effectively been cowed into this false "balance" thing they do, you know, "Shape of the Earth; Opinions Differ."

That is, when trying to be "balanced" in their political coverage, truth and facts necessarily take a back seat. As long as the conservatives aren't screaming bias, everything should be just fine. Of course, it doesn't really work that way. Conservatives will ALWAYS whine about bias unless the corporate media report the news exactly the way conservatives want it, their "facts," their framing, their emphases, etc.

Fox News is the ONLY major corporate news source conservatives like. Because Fox tells conservatives exactly what they want to hear, not what they need to hear.

So this news media attempt to placate conservative critics, this bullshit "balance" approach, not only doesn't placate conservatives, but it also warps reality in clearly destructive ways, the political implications of global warming being only one issue of many. Of course, this particular news media failure very likely stands to be the most destructive of them all, in that global warming may very well destroy civilization as we understand the term today.

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1.5 Million Missing Black Men

From the New York Times:

African-American men have long been more likely to be locked up and more likely to die young, but the scale of the combined toll is nonetheless jarring. It is a measure of the deep disparities that continue to afflict black men — disparities being debated after a recent spate of killings by the police — and the gender gap is itself a further cause of social ills, leaving many communities without enough men to be fathers and husbands.

Perhaps the starkest description of the situation is this: More than one out of every six black men who today should be between 25 and 54 years old have disappeared from daily life.

“The numbers are staggering,” said Becky Pettit, a professor of sociology at the University of Texas.

More here.

White conservatives, you really want to know why so many people are so constantly pissed off at you when it comes to talking about race in this country?

It's because you treat fact as though it was opinion. You also treat your opinions as though they are facts. Then you run with those "facts" coming to false conclusions which often verge on racism, if not going into straight up racist territory. When challenged on these false conclusions, these "facts," you inexplicably act like YOU'RE the victim, even though your rhetoric makes you the obvious oppressor.

And it pisses people off.

You want to make every racist incident in the news all about that incident and only that incident, always divorcing it from context, always trying to blame the victim, or calling it a one-off or a "bad apple." You'll say anything you can to deny the reality. You'll drone on forever about single mothers, or the "culture of poverty," or the "black criminal element," whatever it takes to get you and the white power structure off the hook.

Well, you're wrong. Obviously wrong. And it pisses everybody off.

Because when we're able to get away from your word games, your stupid f'ing sophistry, your love for white supremacy, that's when the REAL conversation about race happens. That's when we can see the devastating numbers. That's when we can see that the American black community, historically oppressed, CONTINUES to be oppressed, obviously oppressed, even while I write these words. That's when we can see just how racist, how insulting, how UTTERLY WRONG your bullshit criticism of black people is.

When you tell people that the solution to black poverty is that black women need to get married, it's, like, fuck you, man. When you tell black people to just go out and get a job, it's a racist slap to the face. When you react to the totally justified outrage when unarmed black man after unarmed black man is killed in the streets by police, as though all cops are just like the friendly harmless cops in Norman Rockwell paintings, you might as well be pissing on our faces.

You're wrong. Dead wrong. And when you expect us just to agree with your totally racist bullshit, it pisses us off. You need to pull your heads out of your asses and look at the data.

I'm sick of this shit.

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Faith vs. Facts

From the New York Times op-ed section:

And yet a broad group of scholars is beginning to demonstrate that religious belief and factual belief are indeed different kinds of mental creatures. People process evidence differently when they think with a factual mind-set rather than with a religious mind-set. Even what they count as evidence is different. And they are motivated differently, based on what they conclude.

More here.

My proselytizing atheist friends, I think, might want to go back to the drawing board. I mean, it's sort of intuitively obvious that when believers think about, well, what they believe, they're not approaching it in the same way scientists approach understanding physical reality. But now scientists are making such conjecture about belief into scientific fact.

That is, if you really want a more rational world with a more rational people, "no physical evidence for God's existence" just isn't going to cut it.

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In Defiance Of Federal Law, Tennessee’s GOP House Votes Bible As ‘Official State Book’

From Addicting Info:

If at first you don’t “secede”, try, try again. That must be why Tennessee state House Republicans just voted to pass a bill declaring the Bible the “official state book.” Separation of church and state? They don’t need no stinkin’ separation of church and state.

But in this case, News Channel 5 reports even state GOP leaders think this Bible-as-state-book bill goes too far.

More here.

Needless to say, this appears to be a pretty in-your-face violation of the first amendment's establishment clause: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..." And because the fourteenth amendment made the Bill of Rights apply to the states, well, Tennessee just can't do this.  No state can make the Bible, or the Torah, or the Koran, or ANY religious book its "official book."  Totally against the law.

But even if you don't care about the law - maybe you're very, very religious or something, and believe that your interpretation of the Bible supersedes whatever you want it to supersede - you're still barking up the wrong tree when you support this sort of thing.

Here's a good Bible verse.

"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God."

- Ephesians 2:8

When you support using the government to force Christianity on people, you're not getting any of those people into Heaven.  I mean, it may very well feel really good to think about ramming Jesus down people's throats, but it's all for your own vanity and nothing else.  Because without faith, it's all a waste of time.  And what's worse, the more you do this sort of thing, the more "official" you make Christianity, the more you up the incentive for people to pay lip service to Jesus without any faith at all.  A nation of people who say they're believers, but really aren't. 

A joke "Christian nation."  

Just because you really dig using the government to force your religion on people.  There's just no other way to see this than as a lose/lose scenario.  No upside at all.  Really, all this leads me to believe that the so-called "Christians" who want prayer in school, special social privileges, etc., really don't give two shits about anybody's soul.  They just want to lord it over people.

Bunch of dicks, if you ask me.

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Bloomberg Politics National Poll Finds Deep Partisan Split on Israel and Iran

From Bloomberg courtesy of Hullabaloo:

Israel has become a deeply partisan issue for ordinary Americans as well as for politicians in Washington, a shift that may represent a watershed moment in foreign policy and carry implications for domestic politics after decades of general bipartisan consensus.

Republicans by a ratio of more than 2-to-1 say the U.S. should support Israel even when its stances diverge with American interests, a new Bloomberg Politics poll finds. Democrats, by roughly the same ratio, say the opposite is true and that the U.S. must pursue its own interests over Israel's.

More here.

Having once been a conservative, myself, I usually understand why conservatives take the positions they do. I mean, I disagree, but I understand. But this. This is something I don't understand at all.

How is it possible that some sixty six percent of Republicans believe the US should support Israel OVER OUR OWN INTERESTS?!? I mean, leaving aside the entirely problematic question of what actually constitutes our national interests, this, in the abstract, is deeply disturbing.

You know, I like Israel, too. I believe in Israel. I believe in our longstanding alliance with them. I admire Israel. I definitely think that we should support Israel. But, in the end, whether you like it or not, Israel is another country. It's not the fifty first state. It's not America. Their interests often overlap our interests. But not always.

And when their interests are not the same as our interests, it's a no-brainer. Americans should support America.

But that's not what Republicans think. They think that when there is a difference in interests, Israel should take priority. I don't know what to call that, but it's certainly not patriotism.

The Republicans for many years have been coasting on a reputation for foreign policy expertise. Even after the neocon takeover of the party during the Bush era, and the numerous foreign policy disasters that came with it, the GOP continues to be considered the "grownups" when it comes to dealing with other nations. I think this poll might very well have destroyed that undeserved reputation they've had for foreign policy. That is, if you're serious about how this nation conducts diplomacy, do not, under any circumstances, vote Republican. They value the interests of other nations over our own.

They cannot be trusted.

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Bill O’Reilly’s insane persecution fantasy: Hillary is the frontrunner because it’s “open season” on white men

From Salon, courtesy of Hullabaloo:

“If you are a Christian or a white man in the USA. it’s open season on you,” he said. “Therefore, Hillary Clinton has an advantage. She can run a general campaign — first woman in the White House, and I’m going to help you by increasing the entitlement society. It will take a very articulate and tough-minded Republican to defeat her.”

More here.

I imagine he means it's open season on white Christian men for liberals, that liberals are the hunters in this O'Reilly construction. So, as a liberal, I've just got to take a moment to break this down.

As a man, I don't feel men are under the gun at all. Indeed, I've got a great deal of unearned privilege just because I'm a man. People take me more seriously, for one thing, just in general. People tend to think I know what I'm talking about. And that's just my personal experience. Then you get into the statistics: men continue to be paid higher wages than women for the same work; men continue to dominate mid and upper level management in businesses from coast to coast; most of our political leaders are men, and so on. If it's open season on men, the hunters aren't terribly good with hitting their targets.

But wait; there's more!

As a white man, I don't feel whites are under the gun, either. For instance, in any and all encounters with the police, I feel like I have a MUCH better chance of walking away with my life and liberty intact. Indeed, I feel absolutely privileged as a white man. The dominant culture is the white culture, so I never ever at all feel like I'm somehow culturally out of my element. I mean, America is a white world, after all. Nobody with any real power is out to get me precisely because I'm white. Really, as a white man, I've got it totally made.

But there's also this business about CHRISTIAN white men being under attack.

Here's the deal on that. The vast, vast, vast majority of Americans self-identify as Christian. So if we are to accept that it's open season on white Christian men, we have to accept that it's open season on an enormously large percentage of the population. Such a large percentage that we would all definitely see it if commie liberal weirdos really are on the hunt. You'd see them on your street; you'd see them at work.

But where are they?

The reality is that you can't be elected to dog catcher in this country if you don't profess to being a Christian. How can it possibly be "open season" on Christian white men when that's virtually all of Congress?

Right, exactly. This is just more of O'Reilly's usual psycho bullshit. Never mind what this has to do with Hillary, a white Christian woman married to a white Christian man. There's just no real world evidence that it is "open season" on white Christian men in this country. O'Reilly's a total paranoid weirdo nut. But I guess that makes for good television.

If there is ANY truth to O'Reilly's paranoid ravings, it's that a lot of Americans are sick to death of ASSHOLE white Christian men. I mean, I know I am. But it has a lot less to do with gender, race, or religion than it has to do with the asshole part. In fact, I would say this has NOTHING to do with gender, race, or religion. It's all about the asshole.

And it's quite interesting, indeed, that O'Reilly's likely the biggest asshole in the entire country. No wonder he's paranoid.

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Report Shows US Invasion, Occupation of Iraq Left 1 Million Dead

From TruthOut:

"Initiatives such as the IBC ... only count deaths which are considered civilians directly killed through war-related violence," he said. "So not only are combatants not included in the statistics but also everyone who died from indirect fallouts of the war, such as lack of basic health care, hunger or contaminated drinking water. In most wars, that kind of victim exceeds the number of those directly killed. Without detailed on-site surveys, it is hard to reliably determine either whether a dead person had been a civilian or combatant, or the exact cause of death."

More here.

This is why I oppose virtually all war. I mean, I'm no pacifist. Sometimes you just have to fight, and that's that. But in the modern world, in the era of America's overwhelming military superiority over the rest of the globe, those times are so rare as to be near non-existent. No, killing for oil is not one of those occasions, either, not when alternative energy independence is just over the horizon. By the same token, fighting to keep the world safe for capitalism is sick, twisted, and foul.

Here's what happens when we wage war on a nation. Their civilization is totally upended. Things people take for granted for survival are no longer there. When civilization is gone, people die. Lots of people die. And it is directly the fault of the people who have waged war on them. That is, we killed a million people in Iraq. As the study authors quoted in the linked article observe, that's approaching genocide. And we did it.

I can't think of anything justifying genocide. If we were a nation of responsible citizens, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc., would all be serving life sentences. Sadly, we are not a nation of responsible citizens. Consequently, we have the blood of a million on our hands. And none of us seem to care.

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Sweden’s feminist foreign minister has dared to tell the truth about Saudi Arabia. What happens now concerns us all

From the Spectator:

Outside Sweden, the western media has barely covered the story, and Sweden’s EU allies have shown no inclination whatsoever to support her. A small Scandinavian nation faces sanctions, accusations of Islamophobia and maybe worse to come, and everyone stays silent. As so often, the scandal is that there isn’t a scandal.

More here.

It's far easier to pick on a disenfranchised and oppressed minority in your own country than it is to take on the God King Emperor of oil, and all the industrialized democracies who kiss his ring, no matter what his foul practices are. That is, "Je suis Charlie" was something of a sick, f'd up, and cruel joke. This is the real deal. And this brave woman will, in all likelihood, lose her career for her display of integrity and morality.

Our supporting the Saudis is dealing with the Devil, as sure as our support for Israel is. But the oil. Oil, oil, oil. We're choking on it in more ways than one.

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FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING: ANOTHER CANINE SPECIAL EDITION

Lola

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Chris Rock Takes A Selfie After Cops Pull Him Over For The 3rd Time In Less Than 7 Weeks

From HuffPo:

Chris Rock took a selfie after being pulled over by police while driving Tuesday, marking the third time in seven weeks he's posted while being stopped by a cop.

Rock posted the photo to his social media accounts early Tuesday, writing: "Stopped by the cops again wish me luck." In the shot, the comedian can be seen behind the wheel of a car with blue police lights shining through his rear window.

More here.

No, it's not simply about economics these days, although there's clearly a great deal of overlap. And no, if you're white you really would NOT gladly trade places with a rich and famous black man like Chris Rock--millions of dollars are simply not worth the ongoing indignity and oppression. Racism is real. It exists. It is far more widespread and insidious than most white people will allow themselves to believe.

I bet one of you racism deniers is going to try to tell me that this is because he's always speeding or something stupid along those lines. I mean, like ALWAYS. White racism deniers ALWAYS try to come up with reasons that the black guy had it coming. White racism deniers ALWAYS deny racism.

You know what? Denying racism IS racism. Cut that shit out.

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The Top 16 Anti-Gay Activists Caught Being Gay

From Ranker.com:

In light of it recently being revealed that Republican North Carolina Senate candidate Steve Wiles once performed as a drag queen, and proving once again that conservative, anti-gay activists aren't always what they seem, this list is now 16 conservative anti-gay activists who turned out to be gay, or certainly not anti-gay themselves.

Oooh!  Now it's sixteen!  Click here for the slide show.

Not that any of this is recent news, but it's definitely worth mentioning right now, as the right wing ramps up its continuing hissy fit about the mainstreaming of gays in American society.

What's always particularly fascinating to me, in light of these anti-gay, but secretly gay, hypocrites, is how so many homophobic voices talk about gay sex as something that's a temptation, a choice one might make, sort of like going over to the dark side of the Force or something, when everybody else thinks it's either something you like or something you don't like. It makes me wonder if this is how these obviously emotionally suffering hypocrites construct their own gay desires, and, by extension, anybody else's gay desire.

That is, if they think Darth Vader is making them want hot gay sex, then it must necessarily follow that all gay people are working for Darth Vader, even though it's obvious that they'd be much better off working for Yoda. Or something to that effect.

No, it doesn't make sense at all, but isn't Star Wars great?

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THE BULLSHIT SIDE OF "RELIGIOUS FREEDOM"

Here's the bottom line. All these "Christian vendors," whatever you want to call them, don't want to opt out of serving gays for religious reasons. I mean, it's all just a lie. Instead, they're opting out because they don't like gay people.

Seriously.

As the Apostle Paul wrote, "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." That means EVERY SINGLE CUSTOMER THEY SERVE IS A BIG HUGE HORRIBLE SINNER. Every single one of them. But none of these vendors refuse to sell their services to, say, divorced people getting remarried, or single people getting married who have had premarital sex, or drinkers or drug users, or people who have lusted in their hearts, or who have dishonored their parents, and on and on and on.

It's not about the Bible, Jesus, God, whatever. It's bigotry, plain and simple. I mean, it's really an impossible stance to take consistently, anyway. If you don't serve sinners, you have no business. But they can single out one group of sinners if the hate is strong enough, so that's what they do.
I just don't buy this "religious freedom" thing when it comes to stiffing gays. It's total bullshit.

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After Kentucky’s loss: fires, fights and arrests

From the Wichita Eagle:

On State Street, which had been the epicenter of previous post-game celebrations, downcast expressions and stunned silence quickly gave way to chants of "(expletive) Wisconsin."

Bottles were thrown into the air and fires were set and quickly extinguished by firefighters, who asked for police escorts into the rowdy crowd.

There were several reports of assaults, and fights, and reports of people with minor injuries, such as facial lacerations, a head injury and a foot injury from broken glass.

City officials said 29 people had been arrested, and at least three people had been taken to the hospital. The city said police used pepper spray to break up some fights, and the city brought street sweepers in to defuse the crowd around 2 a.m. City officials described the crowd as "rowdy, and at times hostile."

More here.

Anybody who knows me knows that I'm not usually one to criticize anybody's freedom of expression or political speech, I mean, criticize their right to do it, instead of the content of the expression. But this thing in Kentucky is quite something else. I just don't understand why these people would set fire to their own community, why they would engage in assault and vandalism. Yes, speaking out on important issues is, well, important, but I think what these people are doing is just turning off anybody who might be sympathetic to their message. And, you know...

...wait, these people are WHITE?!? And it's about sports, not politics?!?

Never mind. This is just fine. Everybody move along. Nothing worth talking about here. No problem at all.

(Yes, I'm being sarcastic.)

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Fox News Kicks Off 2014 Coverage Of The "Unholy War On Easter"

Media Matters has a nice clip of Fox News trying to establish a new right-wing meme, the "War on Easter."  Just as absurd of the "War on Christmas."  I mean, it's just a woman from the Freedom from Religion Foundation explaining why they feel it's important to match public property displays of religious symbols with their own displays.  Same old thing.  And now it's a "war."

Click here for the silly video.  Here's what I said about it on facebook:

So we're supposed to be at war with Easter now, too? Why don't the liberal sites I frequent ever tell me about this stuff? Why must I have to go to Fox to learn what I'm supposed to be doing as a liberal? I tell ya, lefty internet writers better pick up their game and start telling me about these kinds of things. I'm getting sick of Fox scooping them.

Excelsior!

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FRANK ZAPPA FRIDAY AND 70S POP MONDAY ON SATURDAY

Two of my facebook features exported to Real Art.




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FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING

Frankie

Be sure to check out Modulator's Friday Ark for more cat blogging pics!

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Racism’s sinister word games: What a white-supremacist talking point tells us about modern politics

From Salon:

It’s important we understand such rhetorical tactics not simply as forms of racism, but as part of an important history that parallels, and lives symbiotically off of, the history of racism: the history of denying the existence of racism. Whether it’s borrowing the multiculturalist language of discrimination in accusations of 'reverse-racism,' or expropriating the term 'racist' as a symbol of white pride, the perpetrators subject themselves to a double-bind: They respect the idea of race-based discrimination when they themselves feel embattled or diminished as whites, but deny the same when the victims of discrimination are minorities.

More here.

Denying racism IS racism. Intentionally confusing the word "racism," which has a very specific meaning, and includes both personal behavior and institutional action, with the more generalized terms "bigotry" or "discrimination" is ALSO racism.

That is, if you're attacking "race baiters" or going on and on about "playing the race card," there's a very good chance that you are aiding and abetting traditional American racism. I'm quite certain, however, that you will never admit this, to me, or anybody else, or even yourself. This is deep psychological weirdness that wants to have a racist cake while eating it at the same time.

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AZ Senator: Church attendance should be mandatory

From KPHO in Arizona:

Allen explained that without a "moral rebirth" in the country, more people may feel the need to carry a weapon.

"I believe what's happening to our country is that there's a moral erosion of the soul of America," she said.

"It's the soul that is corrupt. How we get back to a moral rebirth I don't know. Since we are slowly eroding religion at every opportunity that we have. Probably we should be debating a bill requiring every American to attend a church of their choice on Sunday to see if we can get back to having a moral rebirth," she told the committee.

More here.

Never mind the severe problems this idea has with the first amendment. What does church attendance mean when you have no choice? Absolutely nothing. Some "moral rebirth" we'll have when the government mandates going to church. Kind of the same thing as having to say the pledge of allegiance in school.

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