Russell's Teapot

I hereby pledge to never again miss an afternoon tea time at Russell's Teapot.

infective.invective

What is a 'moderate' Muslim?

"It’s time for a liberal Islamic reformation, says Irshad Manji, the author of The Trouble with Islam."

Gee, it's almost as if LIBERALS are an asset and LIBERALISM is a good thing, universally. Unless, of course, Republicans would like to OPPOSE liberal movements within Islam; which they might, if they are equally addicted to war and aggression as to oil and profits.

It's astounding how many radical fundamentalist christians have forgotten that it was a LIBERAL reformation that CREATED THEM, in the first place. But don't worry, we liberals are a benevolent and patient creator; we continue to tolerate your strident diatribes and wait patiently for your bony craniums to evolve additional gray matter. For, when the gray matter finally takes over from the bony encasement, it will become obvious that, if not for LIBERALS, there would still only be one, unquestioned, unassailable catholic church. So-called non-denominational fundamentalists are, by direct lineage, LIBERALS! Ironically, I suppose, considering the inherently sin-sick tribal superstitions to which they cling, it should come as no surprise to hear so much malignant self-loathing invective from the likes of Coulter, Hannity, Limbaugh, and O'Reilly, hating their own liberal DNA and therefore lashing out at those who are comfortable in their own imperfect but ever striving, post-enlightenment, liberal skins.

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To Whom Much Is Given, Much is Required

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What is Continuity of Government (COG) ?

Warning! There are NUT CASES questioning the official story of 9/11 by way of peer-reviewed, open-access journals. Do not let these careful, independent, analytical reviews confuse you! Everyone knows that the Official Story has been written and therefore all dissenters are CRAZY.

Nevertheless, while watching the C-SPAN BookTV presentation on 9/11 and American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out, I decided to follow up on this and a couple related questions made by the authors of this book.

9/11 and American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out, Vol. 1

Continuity of Government in the United States

"The main points of such a plan in the United States are to suspend certain parts of the United States Constitution and to allow the alternative use of federal land and buildings (including use as internment camps) by FEMA for the housing/detention of US citizens as required, as well as any rescue/recovery operations. It also allows for power in the US to be centralized to the White House and 'appointment of military commanders to run state and local governments and declaration of martial law'[1]. In the former regard the United States arrangements for Continuity of Government are unusual. The plans in most countries are intended to preserve the legal and constitutional framework, the American system relies on circumventing it. There is no legal basis for the imposition of so-called 'martial law.'"

BTW, are you a fan of Fox News demigod William Kristol? He's Chairman of Project for the New American Century (PNAC) and a leading author of the September 2000 report, Rebuilding America's Defenses that just happens to describe the necessity of a new pearl harbor. Go ahead, download the PDF document and search for Pearl Harbor, and tell us we're reading out of context.

United States Military Oath of Allegiance:

I, {insert name here}, do solemnly swear, (or affirm), that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter.

Dan Rather comments as the building collapses, stumbling on his own words as he suggests it looks like "well placed dynamite" was used to collapse WTC 7.

So what happened to WTC 7? Why does the official 9/11 Commission Report not even mention that building? What if a DOMESTIC ENEMY were to infiltrate our own White House? Would YOU, "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign AND DOMESTIC?" No politician, no political party is above that oath -- a lifetime oath -- and one that I TOOK as a U.S. Army Officer; one that I will defend with my very life, if necessary. How about you?

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Watch Godless Scientists Destroying BABIES!!!

By JoVE! Live video of evil, godless, scientists destroying REAL BABIES by the billions! Be careful, this video is utterly SHOCKING.

Did you watch it all? Can you believe the UTTER BRUTALITY of those scenes?

infective.invective

More Modern Signs of Religious Enlightenment

Do not fall into the trap of thinking christians have a monopoly on religious transcendence. If you're SUPER holy, you'll follow the Buddhist monk who cuts off penis and renounces refix. Brilliant.

Bush Impeachment Just a Cheap, Vindictive Partisan Ploy

What Was Asked of Us: An Oral History of the Iraq War by the Soldiers Who Fought It

Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq

Hubris: The inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War

Or maybe not.

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Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son

Wow. This morning, Kevin Jennings read an amazing excerpt from his book Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son: A Memoir of Becoming a Man on BookTV. The book is worth buying simply for the description of predictable, rational belt-beatings by dad (number of whacks linked to severity of infraction) versus mom's unpredictable (five whacks to five minutes, who can ever tell?), creative, pick-your-own switch floggings.

But then, add to that the large family, which essentially felt like two families to the siblings involved -- half raised with both parents, half raised after the divorce by a single mom -- plus the fundamental protestantism, and you've got an all too familiar personal history.

While I don't share Kevin's sexual orientation, I do share many of the other aspects of the upbringing he describes, including the seven year old innocent precociousness and being first from a clan to go to college. Selfishly, I find it a bit sad that our society is still so homophobic in general that this will generally dominate the public dialog surrounding the book. Nevertheless, that is today's reality and I cannot possibly praise Kevin enough for this bold work and I am simply awestruck with respect for all that he has overcome in engaging this multi-headed hydra of domestic and social dysfunction in America.

Someday, perhaps, the destructive plague of religious values-driven child beating will "come out of the closet" as well. I am not against spanking, which can be a crucial "negative reinforcement" tool for teaching children to stay out of the street or avoid a hot stove; both of which pose infinitely greater risk of harm than a startling swat on the bottom. Humans are primates, and like any primates, we are trained first for survival, then for thrival. Sorry if you're offended by this, but just like a dog trainer uses both positive and negative reinforcements -- WITHOUT ABUSE -- to produce extraordinarily capable, bright, and happy puppies; so also does parenting consist of selecting and implementing the right incentives and disincentives to raise happy, healthy, socially capable, interdependent human beings.

Please do not misread me, I am absolutely against BEATINGS which pass for "spanking" in the minds of many whom have endured generations of such abuse. Leaving welts on the lower backs and on back of the legs, the result of bringing weapons to bear upon children, is not spanking, it's debilitating physical and psychological abuse.

For those of us who grew up with such norms of abuse; abuse that was justified by the uncompromising moral imperatives of no less than a Loving Almighty God, Himself; it is difficult to comprehend anything else as normal. Nor it is simple to describe the self-limiting cognitive consonance between LOVE and PUNISHMENT; however logically dissonant those concepts.

Tragically, humans generally repeat what we were taught in both method and rationale, and then wonder why our children encounter the exact same developmental disabilities and demons that we ourselves have spent a lifetime hoping to some day exorcise. All of which ought make us the more thankful for brave and brilliant "hell-bound gay little faggots" like Kevin Jennings. Someday, perhaps we can return the favor by helping to further free him from a false sense of accountability to help heal those who would condemn him to the non-existent fiery pits of hell, in Jesus' all-loving name. Then again, knowing all too well myself that god beats the living shit out of those he loves, I'm the last to criticize if it takes a little time.

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God [ is | is not ] an Asshole

Just the fact that these sites exist justifies a link.

Also, don't miss taking a visual and musical trip down the singularity black hole.

God is an Asshole dot blogspot dot com.

God is NOT an Asshole dot blogspot dot com.

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Urban Monkeys In Situ

If you ever doubted our close kinship with our primate cousins, this should pretty much clear that up. You can take the monkeys out of the jungle, but you can't take the jungle out of the monkeys.

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Xmas PC Offer: Upgrade to Vista in Q1 2007 (for "nominal" fee)

Surely, Windows Vista will be infective; however, the absurdly complex upgrade paths and baffling mishmash of editions is equally worthy of invective.

For instance, how in the world can the "Business Edition" lack the feature to "Better protect your data against loss or theft with Windows BitLocker™ Drive Encryption," but include "Elegant Windows Aero desktop experience with Windows Flip 3D navigation?" This is simply a fundamental Product Management flunkup. Perhaps this is yet another reason why many predict that Vista could be the last of its kind, the final Windows OS Edition, as we've known it. The infinite customization, security, and modularity of Linux is simply far too compelling for business to avoid, moving forward. The costly and arbitrary pre-packaging of OS "editions" is an artifact of early software industry evolution that is simply not adaptive for long term survival and thrival.

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Dinosaurs from Hell

Yes, the dinosaurs are literally springing up from the Depths of Hell (Montana, that is). Discovery Channel :: Dino Skin Preserved in Rare Fossil Find: "In the past, what we've learned about dinosaurs has been mostly based on bones. That might soon change with the recent discovery of an extremely well preserved, 67-million-year-old duckbilled dinosaur found with fossilized skin in the Hell Creek Formation of Montana, according to a North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences press release."

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The REAL Threat to Americans. What really kills Americans.

The REAL Threat to Americans. What really kills Americans.

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Jesus: The Lowliest of Leftist Liberals

When you think of the name and person of Jesus, what actually comes to mind? A personality like the blowhard Rush Limbaugh? The steamrolling self-righteousness of Sean Hannity? The bloviating bombast of Bill O'Reilly? Or the humble voice of Jimmy Carter, a former President of the most powerful nation on earth, now swinging hammers for Housing for Humanity? If, "by their fruits, ye shall know them," how can any socially conscious Christian in their right mind possibly gravitate to the radical political right?

It's just not debatable. The sanctimonious and hyper-religious Radical Right that hijacked the public persona of this prevalent western religion have done an unbelievable disservice to people of conscience who seek the follow the teachings of Jesus. Finally, there are people of conscience working to take back the LOW GROUND. Jesus was not an advocate for Megachurches, not an advocate of Televangelism Empires, not an advocate of Intolerance. Jesus was the advocate of the poor, advocate of the downtrodden, advocate of the maligned and under-represented, and advocate for Social Justice in every sense.

In contrast to those who have for too long controlled the bully pulpit, who have for too long BULLIED the meek into submission and compliance with radical right intolerance, others are finally speaking out with a vastly more accurate reading of scripture, social policy, and political activism. While the overbearing polemicists of the radical right wing media conspiracy continually interrupt to complain about a lack of ideas on the left, many real-world activists have been working to implement the very ideas most crucial to ensuring an enduring legacy of continuous social improvement and opportunity for Americans, and the world.

• Center for American Progress on Religious Left: 15 New Ideas.


• The Institute for Progressive Christianity.


• CrossLeft: Balancing the Christian Voice, Organizing the Christian Left.


• C-SPAN RealVideo. Center for American Progress hosts a panel discussion on the values of the religious left and the "common good" theme that some candidates used in the 2006 midterm elections.

How Religious Movements Prolong the Arab-Israeli Conflict

A Karen Armstrong post on CrossLeft:

Armstrong used the Christian Right as an example to support her thesis that fundamentalist movements are rooted in fear and humiliation. Fundamentalists share the belief that 'secularism and liberalism are attacking them,' that the 'modern world wants to wipe them out.' So, for example, she said that 'small-town America' feels threatened by the culture of 'Harvard, Yale, and Washington, DC.'

Fundamentalist movements, Armstrong said, are an 'expression of a great sickness of soul,' a sign that 'something is rotten' in the society that produces them. In making her case, she discussed Jewish fundamentalist leaders such as Rabbi Abraham Kook and Rabbi Meir Kahane, whose Kahane Chai movement recently had an appeal to remove its name from the U.S. State Department list of terrorist groups rejected, as well as Muslim fundamentalists such as Osama bin Laden and Sayyid Qutb.

WTF? Colbert Pitching Catholocism?

Bill Donahue's Theory of Evolution: "Once upon a time there were some monkeys that fell out of the trees, lost all their hair, and started walking around." Last I checked, that's not exactly how it worked and I was dismayed to see Colbert treat this nutcase like some kind of hero. Very bizarre.

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Maher Haggard, (no relation to Merle)

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Anti-Immaculate Reception

Possibly, one of the most incredible acrobatic touchdown catches ever captured on film. Far from immaculate, but clearly unmatchable!

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Evil Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is twisting minds around its forked fallacies.

When you research the archaeological records, using the rules of admissible evidence, it is clear that FSM is really the evil anti-pasta!

Pasta was never intended to be so long, skinny, and anorexic! However, just like American pop culture has brain-washed people into unrealistic images of noodly-thin beauty, the noodly alluring FSM is spreading his starchy false message.

The One True Creator is Croxetti and His Holy Spirit-n-cheese-filled son Ravioli. You can objectively see the authenticating imprint of The Creator on every croxetti and the manifest shape of the Father is evident with the Son, ravioli.

Spaghetti cannot be filled with anything and one must be filled in order to be saved. The FSM tries to fake this by rapping up its balls in big yarny noodly tangles to give the false impression of indwelling by a nutritious meaty-substance filling. The Church of the FSM is a false gospel and the FSM a false pasta! Come on, people, can't you see all the gaps in such a feeble fabrication? No matter how many layers he wraps around his big bully balls, there are gaps all over the place at every layer! Only Ravioli has no gaps, is fully filled, and stamped by The Creator.

I am not asking you to exercise blind faith, but to use your rational mind. Think about it, whenever you eat spaghetti, you're hungry again in like 20 minutes. But eat the same amount of WHOLLY FILLED RAVIOLI and you shall be fulfilled for a good hour.

This proves that FSM is nothing but a big-balled bully fraud. He is the evil anti-pasta. Awake! Repent! Turn from your noodly ways while there is yet time! Repent and be filled with the Holy Secret Sauce!

If you do not believe in the One True Croxetti Ravioli and His Holy Prophet, Chef Boyardee, you are all infidels and shall be slaughtered for sauce on the great day of Divino Pranzo!

The One True Gospel: Our Savior and Pastafarian Son, Ravioli was fully the Croxetti, yet He was melded together and filled with the Holy Secret Sauce, manifesting Himself as the Three-In-One true redeeming pasta. In the name of the Croxetti, Ravioli, and Secret Sauce, amen.

The Final Supper is near! Whose plate are you on?

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Duped Dipshits Dismayed

Or as Yahoo! News puts it, 'Borat' victims upset at being duped.

Guess what? If each of these dipshits was not a walking stereotypical poster-child for any number of bombastic American hypocrisies, they wouldn't have been in the film in the first place. Borat nimbly peels back a distinctly Americanized disingenuous gossamer veneer of moral propriety, and it's HILARIOUS.

Sasha Cohen is a hero for exposing the very real bigotry, insincerity, and depravity of a society that continually applauds itself as a beacon of tolerance and openness. The truth is, we ARE NOT VERY TOLERANT compared to the ideals of tolerance we collectively espouse.

Age-discrimination is particularly rampant, as people over 30 or 40 are increasingly discarded from the workforce. I'd love to see Sasha create a 42, 52, or 62 y.o. character who goes out interviewing for jobs, in possession of clearly superior communication skill and job credentials to younger applicants. The rampant discrimination of HR people would speak for itself, he wouldn't have to do anything but be polite, best-qualified, and too old in order to hear the universally accepted discrimination code-phrase, "you're just not a good fit right now."

The new character would be a challenge for Cohen because he'd be a superficial opposite to Borat; very refined, cultured, and polished; but he should be named Boris, to further play upon the embedded ignorance of Americans who watched the Bullwinkle cartoons as little kids and therefore still walk around with the subconscious bigotry of that name as inherently evil; all due to an idiotic Saturday morning cartoon designed to coerce them into shoveling their fat-ass faces full of sugary breakfast foods.

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Bush leads King groundbreaking ceremony

As Bush leads King groundbreaking ceremony, I recall my own initial opposition to this idea. As a disgusting godless liberal -- as America's most auspicious anorexic Ann Coulter would describe me -- I was initially opposed to this idea of an MLK monument on the national mall for one simple reason: the mall honors PRESIDENTS, not just Americans of special import. There is no room for Franklin, or Edison, or Einstein, and there should be no room for MLK. It's not a mall of martyrs and not a mall of market-makers. It's a mall of U.S. presidents.

As is often the case, I ruminated upon my belief to find out how deeply I held this position. As I dwelt upon the role of slavery in building the foundations of the much heralded American economy and the role slavery in the lives of those presidents who are enshrined on the mall, my convictions began to crumble.

The most prominently honored presidents on the national mall presided over a nation with a Great Moral Blot: Slavery. Because they presided over a nation that accepted such a fundamental moral evil and PARTICULARLY a nation that claimed All Men Were Created Equal, it is fitting for this blot to be prominently an irrevocably acknowledged in the midst of those "great Americans" who were apparently not great enough to see the hypocrisy of their own positions.

The era of slavery in America is as inexcusable, inexplicable, and incomprehensible as the Nazi extermination of Jews. Slavery truly was the American Holocaust, but still, hundreds of millions of non-black Americans (not just white, but all non-black), have not studied enough African American history to fully understand how bad slavery was for millions.

Because it makes us feel more comfortable, we all like to point out the poster-children for the oxymoron of positive slavery; those owner's who were indeed generous, not abusive, and even the educators who made liberation finally possible. However, nothing can make amends for the lynchings, for the millions and millions of hidden sins and slayings of American slaves.

Nothing can make amends, but something can make a difference: a monument on the national mall. By building this monument, future Americans, like today's misguided retro-neo-nazi's, can never discount or deny that horrible history.

Like German laws that permanently forbid even the appearance of Nazism, in this permanent U.S. memorial, we are not codifying our shame but acknowledging our nobility. We are acknowledging the nobility of an imperfect man who weighed in on the other side of the scales of justice, relative to the other imperfect men on that mall.

In the MLK monument, we enshrine the collective noble spirit of an imperfect people to never think higher of ourselves that we ought; a nation that acknowledges its faults and weaknesses as well as its strengths; a people committed to corrective action in the face of injustice; we reiterate the Original Socialist Pledge of building and sustaining one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

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Evolution in South Park

"So there you go. You're the retarded offspring of five monkeys having butt-sex with a fish-squirrel. Congratulations."
- Ms. Garrison's class on evolution. Episode 1012.

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Losing Our Religion: Atheists Discuss Faith vs. Science

Newsweek: "Steven Weinberg, a Nobel laureate and an outspoken atheist, acknowledged that science is a poor substitute for the role religion plays in most peoples' lives. It's hard, he said, to live in a world in which one's highest emotions can be understood in biochemical and evolutionary terms, rather than a gift from God. Instead of the big, comforting certainties promoted by religion, science can offer only "a lot of little truths" and the austere pleasures of intellectual honesty. Much as Weinberg would like to see civilization emerge from the tyranny of religion, when it happens, 'I think we will miss it, like a crazy old aunt who tells lies and causes us all kinds of trouble, but was beautiful once and was with us a long time.'"

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Thank Goodness! by Daniel C Dennett

Daniel Dennett writes, "Two weeks ago, I was rushed by ambulance to a hospital where it was determined by c-t scan that I had a "dissection of the aorta"—the lining of the main output vessel carrying blood from my heart had been torn up, creating a two-channel pipe where there should only be one. Fortunately for me, the fact that I'd had a coronary artery bypass graft seven years ago probably saved my life...."

In case you can't make time to read the entire essay, following are some key excerpt from his full Thank Goodness! essay posted on EDGE.ORG. "[W]hereas religions may serve a benign purpose by letting many people feel comfortable with the level of morality they themselves can attain, no religion holds its members to the high standards of moral responsibility that the secular world of science and medicine does! And I'm not just talking about the standards 'at the top'—among the surgeons and doctors who make life or death decisions every day. I'm talking about the standards of conscientiousness endorsed by the lab technicians and meal preparers, too.

What, though, do I say to those of my religious friends (and yes, I have quite a few religious friends) who have had the courage and honesty to tell me that they have been praying for me? I have gladly forgiven them, for there are few circumstances more frustrating than not being able to help a loved one in any more direct way. I confess to regretting that I could not pray (sincerely) for my friends and family in time of need, so I appreciate the urge, however clearly I recognize its futility. I translate my religious friends' remarks readily enough into one version or another of what my fellow brights have been telling me: "I've been thinking about you, and wishing with all my heart [another ineffective but irresistible self-indulgence] that you come through this OK."

If you insist on keeping the myth of the effectiveness of prayer alive, you owe the rest of us a justification in the face of the evidence. Pending such a justification, I will excuse you for indulging in your tradition; I know how comforting tradition can be. But I want you to recognize that what you are doing is morally problematic at best. If you would even consider filing a malpractice suit against a doctor who made a mistake in treating you, or suing a pharmaceutical company that didn't conduct all the proper control tests before selling you a drug that harmed you, you must acknowledge your tacit appreciation of the high standards of rational inquiry to which the medical world holds itself, and yet you continue to indulge in a practice for which there is no known rational justification at all, and take yourself to be actually making a contribution. (Try to imagine your outrage if a pharmaceutical company responded to your suit by blithely replying "But we prayed good and hard for the success of the drug! What more do you want?")

Still, I excuse those who pray for me. I see them as like tenacious scientists who resist the evidence for theories they don't like long after a graceful concession would have been the appropriate response. I applaud you for your loyalty to your own position—but remember: loyalty to tradition is not enough. You've got to keep asking yourself: What if I'm wrong? In the long run, I think religious people can be asked to live up to the same moral standards as secular people in science and medicine."

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Students at Calif college ban Pledge of Allegiance

This just takes it too far. These kids are young and ideological, and that's laudable; however, if a person of consciences is going to be a CITIZEN of a nation, that person needs to be loyal to the nation. It's infinitely more legitimate to protest "under God" from the pledge, because it was never a part of the original pledge, but refusing allegiance to the republic as a whole, especially after the hypocritical act of MIGRATING HERE for a superior life and education, is disingenuous beyond belief.

SOURCE: Students at Calif college ban Pledge of Allegiance

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Google To Put [Symbolic] Bitch Slap On Arbitragers

The root of click fraud evil revealed by John Chow dot Com. Try to guess what happens when Google's moral imperative to stop fraud conflicts with its economic imperative to keep it going.

"Of course, Google won’t take so much that the Arbitrager can’t make money anymore. Google wants them to stay in business. While it would be great for their PR, putting Arbitragers out of business wouldn’t be a great financial move for Google."

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George W. Bush, Two Weeks Before 2000 Election

"We can't have a timetable that suits our needs. You're trying to impose a U.S. solution on the Middle East and that's not gonna' happen. " - George W. Bush

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Hannity's Highest Hypocrisy

These moron foxies believe the very things that the so-called nutcases are preaching, because the fact is that the "nutcase" is directly preaching what the bible actually teaches in the most unvarnished sense of The Word. God's default attitude toward all mankind is WRATH, non-negotiable and indiscriminate WRATH upon all who are not forgiven by accepting the sacrifice of jesus. This is simply fundamental Christian doctrine. For the foxies to sit here and belittle this woman is perhaps the single highest hypocrisy in Hannity history.

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Children of the Sun

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Hounding Fox

What a great day for hounding the bloated big-mouth morons on Fox news. All night long they tried play as if this were "just a standard election", but at every turn, slapped themselves silly. For your entertainment, some excerpts from a highly entertaining Salon article:

Sherrod Brown, was described by Hume, with evident distaste, as a "true-blue liberal" and an "out-and-out liberal." Some point was being made there, but since it seemed to contradict the running theme that only conservative Democrats were winning, it never became clear.

Barnes insisted that "there was no ideological component" to the GOP's ever-worsening defeat, and that the widely despised Iraq war was not an ideological issue. That sounds smart until you think about it. In plain English, I think that means: Absolutely everyone has finally grasped that the president is an idiot.

Republican campaign honcho Ken Mehlman, always a graceful bullshitter, "We're seeing a number of different races that are sending different signals," and, "It's going to be a long and interesting evening." Then he started to talk about bipartisan cooperation, which is something only the losers are interested in.

Moving along briskly to the so-called left of the spectrum, Malkin announced that Ned Lamont's defeat by Lieberman had "really opened up some fissures in the Democrat Party. There's a lot of cannibalism out there among liberals." Is that so, Michelle? I can't say I'm surprised; they are liberals after all. But tell me, who gets to eat Al Sharpton?

Below the speaker-presumptive were a few likely chairs of major committees: Charles Rangel, Alcee Hastings, John Conyers and Henry Waxman. These people were variously described as highly liberal (Rangel and Conyers), ethically challenged (Hastings) and overly aggressive (Waxman). No one on the show observed that the folks in the picture were a woman, three black guys and a Jew. (At least not out loud.)

By the next hour under Shep Smith, Fox had totally dropped the mode of lamentation and moved on to a new message: Let's end this partisan bickering and get stuff done! It's time for new ideas! Change! Competence! Like I said earlier, it's the message of those who just got a can of whup-ass opened all over them.

"This is sort of a standard election," Kondracke said crossly in summing up. "There's always something in the sixth year [of a president's tenure], whether it's Watergate or Vietnam or a recession." Yeah, Mort. There's always something. Here's the something this year: That big plan for a permanent Republican majority? It crawled out into the Iraqi desert, rolled onto its bristly back and died.

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Trailers for Babel (2006)

Genesis 11: "The LORD said, If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other."

How, exactly, could men of a common language possibly be a THREAT if you are Omnipotent, oh Lord? So, you CRIPPLE your creation so that it doesn't question or challenge your superior station? Nice job. Next time someone threatens to shows me up on the job site, in the office, in class, I guess I should just bust out their teeth out so they can't talk anymore ... that way they won't be able to compete with me any more. Otherwise, nothing might be impossible for them. Hey, I just want to be like YOU, Father.

Babel (2006)

No, no more "looking at the bigger picture" and giving you the benefit of the doubt, Lord. We call bullshit on the "out of context" ploy given to every unfavorable reading of your alleged word. There is no room to take this story of Babel out of context; it is short, concise, and unambiguous. In the story of Babel, MAN was obviously a THREAT to god; a threat that needed to be actively dispersed and hobbled. If that threat was even remotely possible, then god is not God.

"Is God willing to prevent evil but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" -- Epicurus

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Snakes on a Pew!

Woman fatally bitten by snake in church. Quick! Somebody call Samuel L. Jackson!

I am SICK and fucking tired of these muthafuckin' snakes on these muthafuckin' pews!

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Dawkins and Haggard Conversation from "Root of All Evil" (2006)

Memorable Quotes from Root of All Evil? (2006) (TV)

Ted Haggard: Sometimes it's hard for a human being to study the ear, or study the eye, and think that happened by accident.
Richard Dawkins: I beg your pardon, did you say by accident?
Ted Haggard: Yeah.
Richard Dawkins: What do you mean, by accident?
Ted Haggard: That the eye just formed itself somehow.
Richard Dawkins: Who says it did?
Ted Haggard: Well, some evolutionists say it did.
Richard Dawkins: Not a single one that I've ever met.
Ted Haggard: Really.
Richard Dawkins: Really. You obviously know nothing about the subject of evolution.
Ted Haggard: Or maybe you haven't met the people I have.

How true, indeed! Obviously he HADN'T met the people you had met, Mr. Answers To All Things Objective and Moral!

"I am a deceiver and a liar." - Ted Haggard (USA Today, 11/6/2006)

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