August 3, 2009

Why Didn’t Kent Hovind Just Ask Jesus to Make the Dinosaurs Eat the IRS?

Sweet, sweet Schadenfreude (which was the first phrase that came into my head before I read my lovely wife’s post on the subject!):

Feds can seize Dinosaur Adventure Land

A federal judge has cleared the way for the government’s seizure of a creationism theme park in Pensacola.

A ruling this week says the nine properties that make up Dinosaur Adventure Land, and two bank accounts associated with the park will be used to satisfy $430,400 in restitution owed to the federal government.

Kent Hovind, who founded the park and his ministry, Creation Science Evangelism, is serving 10 years in federal prison as a result of a tax-fraud conviction for failing to pay more than $470,000 in employee taxes in a long-running dispute with the Internal Revenue Service. …

More at the link, and more delicious commentary from Ed Brayton.

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July 12, 2009

Obama Picks Fundy Whackadoodle to Head NIH

And you thought my Ken Ham joke was in bad taste.

Be afraid. Be very afraid:

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December 31, 2008

You Might Think We’d Put “The Battle Over Gay Marriage” At Number One, But No — AU’s Got the Top Ten Spot-On

The role of religion in the presidential campaign tops the 2008 “Top Ten” list of top church-state stories, according to the editors of Church & State.

The monthly magazine, published by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, is the nation’s only news periodical devoted exclusively to the intersection of religion and government.

Said Church & State publisher Barry W. Lynn, “It was a wild and crazy year. To tell you the truth, I’m glad it’s coming to a close. I’m hopeful 2009 will be a lot better.”

After studying the past 12 months of news, the editors selected the following 10 stories as the most important and most interesting church-state developments for the year.

1. The Role of Religion in the Presidential Campaign: Not since 1960 when John F. Kennedy the first Roman Catholic president was elected, has religion played such a large role in a presidential campaign. News media representatives grilled candidates on what sins they had committed and what their favorite Bible verses were. Barack Obama fought false rumors that he is secretly a Muslim, and Mitt Romney’s Mormonism became a controversial topic. Candidates were held accountable for the incendiary comments of their pastors and their clergy supporters, such as the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and TV preacher John Hagee. Many observers thought the whole thing was an unholy mess, especially in a nation that separates religion and government.

2. The Resurgence of the Religious Right: While pundits and progressives have proclaimed the demise of the Religious Right, the fundamentalist political movement remained extraordinarily powerful. Republican John McCain found it necessary to name evangelical Sarah Palin as his running mate to mollify the GOP’s restive religious base, and Religious Right forces rammed through bans on same-sex marriage in California, Florida and Arizona. Moderate evangelical Richard Cizik was forced out as government affairs representative at the National Association of Evangelicals after coming under fire from Religious Right forces.

3. The Battle Over Gay Marriage: Bans on same-sex marriage were approved in California, Florida and Arizona with conservative religious forces leading the drive. California’s approval of Proposition 8, with massive funding from members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was particularly contentious. The Mormons, joined by the Roman Catholic hierarchy and evangelical Protestant congregations, were successful in passing a constitutional amendment that takes away the right of same-sex couples to marry and reflects church doctrine in civil law. The issue now moves back to the state Supreme Court.

4. The Ascendancy of Rick Warren: Once known primarily as a mega-church pastor and best-selling author (The Purpose Driven Life), the Rev. Rick Warren has rapidly moved into position as the nation’s most prominent preacher, despite right-wing views on reproductive freedom, gay rights and church-state separation. Warren, a Southern Baptist who heads Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., is viewed by progressives as Jerry Falwell in a Hawaiian shirt with an ace PR team. After hosting a presidential debate stacked toward John McCain and being asked to give the invocation at Barack Obama’s inauguration, many think Warren seems destined to be the new Billy Graham.

5. Religious Right Influence at Justice Department: Religious Right influence at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) was exposed this year. According to an internal DOJ investigation reported in the media in July, senior aides in the department used religious and political criteria to hire staff members for non-political positions. Monica Goodling, a top adviser to the attorney general, checked to see if job applicants were “pro-God in public life” and held right-wing views on abortion, homosexuality and other issues. (Goodling is a graduate of TV preacher Pat Robertson’s Regent University.) DOJ also posted a legally dubious memorandum this year insisting that the federal government may give grants to “faith-based” social service agencies that discriminate in hiring, even if Congress has explicitly banned such bias.

6. Battles Over Creationism in Public Schools: New battles have erupted over the teaching of evolution in public schools. Blocked by the courts from teaching fundamentalist religious concepts directly in biology classes, Religious Right forces are trying a backdoor strategy. They are demanding that schools teach the “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution, a euphemism for creationist ideas. Over the heated objections of educators, scientists and civil liberties activists, the Louisiana legislature approved an “academic freedom” law encouraging such instruction in the state’s schools. Now the Texas State Board of Education is debating a similar proposal as part of its 10-year review of science standards.

7. Church Politicking Plot: The Religious Right’s dream of building a fundamentalist church-based political machine took a big step forward in 2008 when more than 30 pastors used their pulpits to endorse Republican political candidates. They acted at the behest of the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), a wealthy Religious Right legal outfit that wants to challenge the federal tax law ban on partisan politicking by tax-exempt groups. The ADF, which was founded by TV preachers and other religious broadcasters, hopes the Internal Revenue Service will revoke participating churches’ tax exemptions leading to a court showdown.

8. Defeat of Jeb Bush Referenda: Florida Gov. Jeb Bush saw his school voucher subsidies for religious and other private schools overturned by the state Supreme Court in 2006. Undeterred, the now former governor’s allies on an obscure tax commission engineered two measures onto the November 2008 ballot that would have repealed the state constitution’s ban on public funding of religion as well as diluted its provision for a strong system of public schools. To Bush’s dismay, the state Supreme Court on Sept. 3 struck the referenda from the ballot, derailing the scheme.

9. Blocking of ‘Christian’ License Plate: The South Carolina legislature unanimously approved a special “Christian” license plate featuring a bright yellow cross, a stained-glass church window and the words “I Believe.” Backed by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, four local clergy and two minority faith groups challenged the government favoritism toward one faith. On Dec. 11, a federal district court blocked issuance of the plates. The judge’s action may forestall similar sectarian plates under consideration in other states.

10. The Christmas Wars: It has become an annual holiday tradition Religious Right groups and their allies in the right-wing media launch a yearly crusade to stop the alleged secularization of Christmas and to pressure government to include Christian symbols in the holiday mix. They rail against stores’ use of the term “Happy Holidays” and insist that advertisements say “Merry Christmas” instead. This year, much of the attention focused on a Washington State battle where an atheist Winter Solstice sign was positioned near a Christian Nativity scene in the state capital. Fox News pundit Bill O’Reilly and an array of Religious Right scolds lambasted Gov. Christine Gregoire for allowing the anti-religious sentiment. Ironically, credit for the atheist display actually should go to the Alliance Defense Fund, a Religious Right legal group that sued Gregoire last year, insisting that the Capitol is an open forum where a Nativity scene (and all other forms of speech) must be allowed.

Americans United is a religious liberty watchdog group based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1947, the organization educates Americans about the importance of church-state separation in safeguarding religious freedom. Americans Unitied for Separation of Church and State Links: Homepage; Americans United (Press Center); Americans United (Action Center)

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December 22, 2008

Obama Thinks He’s Throwing Us A Bone, But He’s Still Just Boning Us

B.F.D.

And I’m disappointed in Tammy Baldwin for allowing her name to be attached to the latest event in the ongoing Obama Bigotfest:

Tammy Baldwin named
honorary inaugural co-chair

President-Obama is nothing if not politically savvy.

Perhaps as a bone to gays upset over Rick Warren’s invitation to give the opening prayer during the inaugural ceremony, the openly lesbian Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) has been named one of 15 honorary co-chairs of the inaugural committee.

Of course, honorary co-chairs are just that - honorary. They don’t do anything. Their names are just on the stationary.

In other Warren news, Katha Pollitt points out that Warren has also disrespected Jewish people -they will burn in hell, he has said - and that Muslim leaders should basically be killed for being “evil.”

Do you think that once Warren’s anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim views become more widespread, Obama will stop defending him?

Answer: Only when he thinks he’s in danger of losing Jewish and Muslim voters, too.

Read Pollitt’s piece, too. (“Speaking of Jews, Warren has publicly stated his belief that they will burn in hell, presumably along with everyone else who hasn’t accepted his particular brand of Christianity (i.e., the vast majority of people in the world). And forget about evolution — the existence of homosexuals, he’s argued, disproves Darwin. And while we may not know how old the Earth is, the Saddleback website assures us that dinosaurs and humans coexisted. Warren claims that his views are mainstream…”)

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December 20, 2008

Obama Appoints White House Science Adviser

UPDATE/WARNING, WILL ROBINSON: The following is a joke. A very bitter, very cynical joke that I honestly figured no one would buy. I guess things really are so unpredictable right now (with every day comes a new and bigger slap in the face), it really is believable.

I’d normally let everybody suffer through to the end of the post, but I see I’m causing cardiac arrest across the gayosphere, so: It’s not real.

I apologize for the racing hearts.

Not that I wouldn’t put it past him myself…

Kenneth Alfred Ham (born October 20, 1951) is an Australian president of Answers in Genesis USA and Joint CEO of Answers in Genesis International. A vocal advocate for a young Earth and a literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis, his cross-country speaking tours and many books make him one of the better known young-Earth creationists.

Notably, Answers in Genesis opened its 60,000 square foot Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky on May 28, 2007. the building features sophisticated animatronic dinosaurs alongside humans and depicts young earth creationist ideas.

As a young Earth creationist, Ham believes that the entire universe was created about 6,000 years ago and that Noah’s flood occurred about 4,500 years ago. He believes this explains how a small number of animals carried on Noah’s ark could produce the biological diversity. Ham also believes that dinosaurs co-existed with modern humans. He supports this claim with a cave painting which he states resembles a brachiosaur. Regarding his beliefs, Ham has told audiences, “If you disagree with what I’m going to say, please do not give me your opinion, because I’m not interested.”

Ham accepts that natural selection can give rise to a number of species from an original population, by Mendelian recombination of already existing genes. He believes that new genes cannot arise from mutations, as this would be “adding information” (he claims that only an intelligence can do this); mutations and natural selection can only “remove preexisting information”. Furthermore, all of these species are of the same kind (a term borrowed from the English translation of Genesis 1:11 and elsewhere) and no new “kind” can arise from this process.

AiG believes that evolution is the “source” of many kinds of evil, and that rejection of God’s Word as absolute authority and acceptance of evolutionary ideas will affect the way people think and act—and fuel social ills. …

Oops! I am so sorry — I got a Wikipedia article mixed up with an actual news story.

Silly me. But in light of the events of the past couple of days, I’m sure you can see how easy it was to make such a mistake.

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November 25, 2008

Fun Script for Explaining the Ten Plagues in Under 30 Seconds

As usual, the world is quiet at 2:39 in the morning, which is why it’s my best time to work (that, and I’m an incurable night owl). As is my norm, I’ve got the tube playing in the background to get me through some really tedious grunt work that comes with the territory of what I do, and tonight there’s a rerun of a movie Buffy and I saw a while back — The Reaping. (Yes, I know: It does sound like The Re-Deadening.)

The Reaping is not a great movie — it’s got more plot holes than Jocelyn Wildenstein has surgical scars — but it’s an acceptable time-passer (especially when you’re working, and can’t give the attention you’d like to the subtitled horror film on FLIX right now), and, anyway, I like religious-type movies. No, really, I do — from Ben Hur to junk food like The Reaping, which has Hillary Swank investigating some End-O’-Times plagues going on in some backwater town. You know, frogs falling from the sky and rivers of blood and all that cool stuff that keeps you from slipping into a permanent coma while reading the Bible.

So, it’s not a great movie, but it’s kind of fun. What I like most about it — and was lucky enough to tune in on right in time for it — is Swank’s perfectly logical explanation for all the plagues in the Old Testament. When I first heard it, I decided to put it on my list of Things to Memorize (right after re-memorizing the parts of Jabberwocky and Annabel Lee I’ve forgotten; I think I’m still good on the whole of Sonnets from the Portuguese and I know I’ll never forget a word of Disobedience, even if I forget my own name first), just for that day I run into Tim LaHaye, or Ben Stein, or that whackadoodle in Alaska who thinks Jesus rode to school on Dino Flintstone, and end the entire debate (or spark an entirely new debate) with it.

Here it is — but you’ve got to do it like Hillary Swank does it in the movie, with complete conviction, at lightning speed and without taking a breath:

In 1400 B.C., a group of nervous Egyptians saw the Nile turn red. But what they thought was blood was actually an algae bloom which killed the fish, which prior to that had been living off the eggs of frogs. Those uneaten eggs turned into record numbers of baby frogs who subsequently fled to the land and died. Their little rotting frog bodies attracted lice and flies. The lice carried the bluetongue virus, which killed 70% of Egypt’s livestock. The flies carried glanders, a bacterial infection which in humans causes boils. Soon afterwards, the Nile River Valley was hit with a three-day sandstorm otherwise known as the plague of darkness. During the sandstorm, intense heat can combine with an approaching cold front to create not only hail, but also electrical storms which would have looked to the ancient Egyptians like fire from the sky. The subsequent wind would have blown the Ethiopian locust population off course and right into downtown Cairo. Hail is wet, locusts leave droppings spread both on grain, and you have got mycotoxins. Dinnertime in ancient Egypt meant the first-born child got the biggest portion which in this case meant he ate the most toxins, so he died. Ten plagues. Ten scientific explanations.

Granted, I have to research each and every one of these claims before I bother to memorize this, much less launch it on a sputtering fundy. But, as one of those people who knows a little bit about everything (no, that’s not arrogance talking; that also means I also don’t know everything about anything), it sounds pretty plausible to me.

Have fun with it! And let me know if you ever use it to end (or begin) a discussion.

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September 28, 2008

Sarah Palin’s Neighbors Corroborate Christofascist Takeover of Wasilla

Last week, we heard from Rev. Howard Bess:

“Things got very intense around here in the ’90s — the culture war was very hot here,” Bess said. “The evangelicals were trying to take over the valley. They took over the school board, the community hospital board, even the local electric utility. And Sarah Palin was in the direct center of all these culture battles, along with the churches she belonged to.” …

This week, a longtime Wasilla resident tells an uncomfortably familiar story to Michelle Goldberg (author of Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism) in The Nation:

Pat O’Hara, a journalist who served on the Wasilla school board for twelve years, remembers how the religious right made her feel like a stranger in her own community. …

It wasn’t until the 1990s that local churches like the Wasilla Assembly of God, which Palin grew up attending, became aggressively political. A few years before Palin became mayor, a group of preachers confronted the school board with questions about social issues that had never before surfaced in local politics, according to O’Hara, who wrote first for the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman and then for the Anchorage Daily News. “They started asking me, ‘Would you allow a homosexual to teach in schools?’ and ‘Do you favor abortion?’” she said. “At the time, I didn’t know what was coming. I said, ‘This is not a school board issue. We have overcrowding. We have funding problems.’” The last time O’Hara ran, conservative pastors mounted an effort to defeat her, saying she favored hiring homosexuals, but they failed. Nevertheless, in 1996, feeling increasingly alienated in a place she’d lived for twenty-five years, she quit the school board and moved to more liberal Anchorage.

“The whole community changed,” she said. “It became extremely rigid and intolerant, and you can see that in every election since.” Palin, said O’Hara, “represents the worst of those values. She feels that because she’s a member of the right church, she’s chosen by God to inflict her values on everyone.”

With her vice presidential nomination, Sarah Palin has become the ultimate religious-right success story. Ever since the Christian Coalition was formed using the infrastructure of Pat Robertson’s 1988 presidential run, the movement has focused on building power from the ground up, turning conservative churches into little political machines. …

She has not always governed as a zealot; in fact, she’s a bit of a cipher, with scant record of speeches or writings on social issues or foreign policy. Nevertheless, several people who’ve dealt with her say that those concerned about church-state separation should be chilled by the idea of a Palin presidency. …

Palin’s nomination, and the energy she has injected into the GOP, show that, once again, reports of the death of the Christian right have been greatly exaggerated. …

Palin — who opposes gay rights, believes abortion should be banned even in cases of rape and incest, and supports the teaching of creationism — wasn’t known as a leader in Alaska’s religious right, but she clearly had ties to it, and to some of the more extreme fundamentalists in the United States. …

[Curt Menard, mayor of Mat-Su Borough (which includes Wasilla)] and his wife, Republican State Senate candidate Linda Menard — the former director of the Miss Wasilla pageant — have known Palin since she was in third grade. … They clearly adore Palin, and when Curt Menard describes her connections to the religious right, he doesn’t intend to be critical.

Echoing Pat O’Hara’s account, he recalled that the area had been solidly Democratic until the rise of politicized right-wing religion. …

When Palin ran for governor in 2006, Christian conservatives mobilized to help elect her — the Alaska Family Council, a group that formed that year and is loosely affiliated with Focus on the Family, distributed a voter guide showing Palin’s alignment with its ideology. …

Like McCain, Palin appears to believe that the United States is a Christian nation. As governor, she signed a resolution declaring October 21-27 Christian Heritage Week in Alaska, in order to remind Alaskans of “the role Christianity has played in our rich heritage.” Written in the mode of some right-wing revisionist historians, it describes the nation’s founders — including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson — as “Christians of caliber and integrity who did not hesitate to express their faith.”

The conviction that America is a Christian nation could be especially worrisome when coupled with the kind of apocalyptic beliefs espoused by the Wasilla Assembly of God, since the combination suggests a profoundly messianic foreign policy. …

Much more at the link to send a “ninety-mile-an-hour Alaska north wind” down your spine.

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September 26, 2008

Proposition 8 Endorsed by People Who Got an F in Remedial Science and Theology 101

Timothy at BTB notices that the anti-marriage forces in California can’t manage to muster an endorsement for Proposition 8 from even one “statewide elected Republican… the Governor [or] the Insurance Commissioner,” let alone the mayor of any city you’ve ever heard of, much less want to visit (save Anaheim, a city of 346,823 primarily right-wing nutjobs, minus the couple-thousand gay Disneyland employees who head for Garden Grove to decompress after spending the day cleaning up toddler vomit), one Democratic or Independent state lawmaker, one major newspaper…

…but the Yes on 8 campaign does boat the support of “the Church of Scientology of San Diego, Jewish New Testament Publications, Inc., and Creation Research of North America.”

Well, now, how can you beat the descendants of Xenu the Terrible, Jews for Jesus, and young-earth types who think “The Flintstones” was a documentary?

Timothy also notices:

On their website, Yes on 8 proudly lists the Los Angeles Unified School District, better known as L.A.U.S.D, as supporters. One problem. The LAUSD Board unanimously voted on September 9 to oppose Proposition 8.

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September 20, 2008

“The key to understanding Sarah Palin is understanding her radical theology.”

I strongly encourage you to click the link and read the article in full. And then make sure everyone you know understands what kind of dangerous, loose-screw Armageddonite Sarah Palin really is.

Anyone who does understand, and still wants her one heartbeat away from the most powerful position in the world, is as insane as she is.

Or perhaps so blinded by racism, they’d vote for a David Duke-Fred Phelps ticket to avoid voting for an African-American.

Anyway, read. And be very afraid.

The pastor who clashed with Palin

The Wasilla Assembly of God, the evangelical church where Sarah Palin came of age, was still charged with excitement on Sunday over Palin’s sudden ascendance. …

It confirmed, they said, that God was making use of Wasilla. “She will take our message to the world!” …

That is what scares the Rev. Howard Bess. A retired American Baptist minister who pastors a small congregation in nearby Palmer, Wasilla’s twin town in Alaska’s Matanuska Valley, Bess has been tangling with Palin and her fellow evangelical activists ever since she was a Wasilla City Council member in the 1990s. Recently, Bess again found himself in the spotlight with Palin, when it was reported that his 1995 book, “Pastor, I Am Gay,” was among those Palin tried to have removed from the Wasilla Public Library when she was mayor. …

“She scares me,” said Bess. “She’s Jerry Falwell with a pretty face. At this point, people in this country don’t grasp what this person is all about. The key to understanding Sarah Palin is understanding her radical theology.” …

“Things got very intense around here in the ’90s — the culture war was very hot here,” Bess said. “The evangelicals were trying to take over the valley. They took over the school board, the community hospital board, even the local electric utility. And Sarah Palin was in the direct center of all these culture battles, along with the churches she belonged to.” …

Conservative ministers [in the Mat-Su Valley] targeted [Bess’ book], and the only bookstore in the valley that dared to stock it — Shalom Christian Books and Gifts — soon dropped it after the owner was barraged with angry phone calls. The Frontiersman, the local newspaper that ran a column by Bess for seven years, fired him and ran a vicious cartoon that suggested even drooling child molesters would be welcomed by Bess’ church. …

In 1996, evangelical churches mounted a vigorous campaign to take over the local hospital’s community board and ban abortion from the valley. … [P]assions ran so hot that local antiabortion activists organized a boisterous picket line outside Dr. Lemagie’s office … [A]mong the protesters trying to disrupt the physician’s practice that day was Sarah Palin.

Another valley activist, Philip Munger, says that Palin also helped push the evangelical drive to take over the Mat-Su Borough school board. “She wanted to get people who believed in creationism on the board,” said Munger, a music composer and teacher. …

“I pushed her on the earth’s creation, whether it was really less than 7,000 years old and whether dinosaurs and humans walked the earth at the same time. And she said yes, she’d seen images somewhere of dinosaur fossils with human footprints in them.”

Munger also asked Palin if she truly believed in the End of Days, the doomsday scenario when the Messiah will return. “She looked in my eyes and said, ‘Yes, I think I will see Jesus come back to earth in my lifetime.’”

Bess is unnerved by the prospect of Palin — a woman whose mind is given to dogmatic certitude — standing one step away from the Oval Office. “It’s truly frightening that someone like Sarah has risen to the national level,” Bess said. “Like all religious fundamentalists — Christian, Jewish, Muslim — she is a dualist. They view life as an ongoing struggle to the finish between good and evil. Their mind-set is that you do not do business with evil — you destroy it. …

“Forget all this chatter about whether or not she knows what the Bush doctrine is. That’s trivial. The real disturbing thing about Sarah is her mind-set. It’s her underlying belief system that will influence how she responds in an international crisis, if she’s ever in that position, and has the full might of the U.S. military in her hands. …

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September 19, 2008

Nobody Asked for Your “Judgment,” Governor Badhair

Sarah Palin’s answer when asked if she believed being gay was a choice or not:

“Oh, I don’t — I don’t know, but I’m not one to judge and, you know, I’m from a family and from a community with many, many members of many diverse backgrounds and I’m not going to judge someone on whether they believe that homosexuality is a choice or genetic. I’m not going to judge them.”

Nobody asked you to judge anyone, Einstein. You were asked what you believe.

We already know you believe man romped with dinosaurs, and a host of other lunatic ideas, so why won’t you come clean and just say it? No teleprompter? OK, try this:

“I’m not homophobic — some of my best friends are gay! — but I believe that homosexuality is a choice… a choice to dismantle the building blocks of society, and destroy good, God-fearing families like mine, who are such good Christians that we’re forcing our pregnant teenage daughter to marry the effin’ redneck that knocked her up, just like it says in the Good Book. And you can’t even call it statutory rape, ’cause Alaska’s got some real weird age-of-consent laws — Praise the Lord!”

There you go, Governor. That’s what you’d like to say, isn’t it?

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September 3, 2008

Sarah Palin News Coming Fast and Furious

So fast and so furious that it’s impossible to blog everything, or even one thing, in depth. And, believe me, there is nothing I’d like to do more right now than hit every single Palin story out there. But there are only 24 hours in a day, so I’ll contribute what I can to the truth effort by simply pointing out each new story as I find it, in the hope that folks with greater resources can put it all into perspective.

I’ll make just two remarks for now:

1. If somebody tells you “Family is off-limits,” you remind them that Palin brought her family into this.

2. I never thought I’d end up enjoying this election cycle 1/1000th as much as I am right now. I feel like I’m discovering George W. Bush all over again — only this time, the chucklehead in question isn’t going to hijack my country for the next four years.

With that, here are my Sarah Palin Bookmarks of the Moment, with many more to come:

Rank inexperience:

Choice stuns state politicians
“She’s not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president? Look at what she’s done to this state. What would she do to the nation?” — Alaska State Senate President Lyda Green (R-Wasilla)
Anchorage Daily News, August 29, 2008

Palin On Iraq
“Palin: I’ve been so focused on state government, I haven’t really focused much on the war in Iraq.”
Andrew Sullivan, August 29, 2008

Scholars question Palin credentials
David Mark, Fred Barbash, Politico, August 30, 2008

Vice in Go-Go Boots?
Maureen Dowd, August 31, 2008

Osmosis
“Sarah Palin learned foreign policy by osmosis? Really?”
Obsidian Wings, September 2, 2008

Impulse, Meet Experience
George F. Will, September 3, 2008

Palin traveled abroad rarely
“Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin got her first passport in 2006 and has visited just four countries, and she had little involvement in her state’s cross-border issues, raising questions about her supporters’ assertions that Alaska’s proximity to Russia has given her unique experience on foreign affairs. …”
Bryan Bender and Sasha Issenberg, Boston Globe, September 3, 2008

Anti-gay to the extreme, of course:

Palin no friend to gays and lesbians
The Real Spiel, August 31, 2008

Palin’s brand of crazy Christianity (yep, she believes in creationism and “ex-gay therapy”):

Sarah Palin on faith, life and creation
Michael Paulson, Boston Globe, August 29, 2008

Palin and Her Pastors: “Those that die without Christ have a horrible, horrible surprise”
Ken Silverstein and Sebastian Jones, Harper’s, August 30, 2008

Palin’s Church May Have Shaped Controversial Worldview
Nico Pitney and Sam Stein, HuffPo, September 2, 2008

Mayor Palin: A Rough Record
Nathan Thornburgh, Time, September 2, 2008

The Palin Church Video
Domenico Montanaro, MSNBC, September 2, 2008

Todd Palin, the Alaskan Independence Party, and secession:

Palin And The Alaska Independence Party
Marc Ambinder, The Atlantic, September 1, 2008

Members of ‘Fringe’ Alaskan Independence Party Say Palin Was a Member in 90s; McCain Camp and Alaska Division of Elections Deny Charge
Jake Tapper, ABC News, September 1, 2008

Todd Palin, Longtime Former AIP Member
Jake Tapper, ABC News, September 2, 2008

Palin Backed Alaska Independence and Called Shallow By Woman Claiming To Be the Real Miss Congeniality
Ron Chusid, Liberal Values, September 2, 2008

Todd Palin’s DUI:

Palin’s husband has DWI arrest
CNN, September 1, 2008

Todd Palin’s DUI
ABC News, September 1, 2008

Troopergate:

City of Kenai’s letter to woman accusing Chuck Kopp of sexual harassment (PDF)
October 10, 2005

Kopp to release personnel file
Anchorage Daily News, July 18, 2008

AK Gov. Says Staffer Pressed for Trooper’s Firing
Kate Klonick, TPM Muckracker, August 13, 2008

Investigators Are Looking at Governor About Firing
Michael Luo, New York Times, August 29, 2008

Monegan to Palin: ‘Ma’am, I Need to Keep You at Arm’s Length’
Washington Post, August 30, 2008

Sarah Palin poses ‘Troopergate’ risk to John McCain’s US election bid
Philip Sherwell and Tim Shipman, Telegraph, September 1, 2008

New Emails Suggest Holes in Palin’s Trooper-Gate Story
Zachary Roth, TPM Muckraker, September 3, 2008

Palin E-Mails Show Intense Interest in Trooper’s Penalty
James V. Grimaldi and Karl Vick, Washington Post, September 4, 2008

Polar bears can f—k off and die (literally), because they get in the way of oil drilling:

Bearing Up
Sarah Palin, January 5, 2008

Palin Fought Polar Bear Protections
Justin Rood, ABC News, August 31, 2008

Ted “Intertubes” Stevens, Bridge to Nowhere, and Alaska-style politics:

Vetting Sarah Palin: Irl Stambaugh, Walt Monegan and Cronyism
(She almost got recalled as the mayor of Wasilla for firing city officials who didn’t support her)
Hat Thief, August 29, 2008

Palin’s husband allegedly got advisor fired for dating the wrong woman
The People’s Forum, August 29, 2008

Palin Repeatedly Professed Desire To Renew Federal Funding For ‘Bridge To Nowhere’
ThinkProgress, August 30, 2008

Palin Was a Director of Embattled Sen. Stevens’s 527 Group
Matthew Mosk, Washington Post, September 1, 2008

Palin backed ‘bridge to nowhere’ in 2006
Ken Dilanian, USA Today, September 2, 2008

“Abortion, gun rights, term limits and the religious born-again thing,” book-banning, and earmarks McCain wouldn’t approve of:

As mayor, Palin brought culture wars to town
New York Times via News & Observer, September 3, 2008

Sarah Palin, Israel, and Jews for Jesus:

Palin on Israel
Ben Smith, Politico, August 29, 2008

Jewish voters may be wary of Palin
WFAA.com, September 2, 2008

Palin Meets with AIPAC
Matthew E. Berger, MSNBC, September 2, 2008

Palin’s baby’s baby and Palin’s baby’s baby daddy:

Palin’s teen daughter is pregnant
CNN, September 1, 2008

The Bristol Stomp
“Jake Tapper asks: ‘What would the response be if Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, and his wife Michelle had a pregnant unmarried teenage daughter?’ I can answer that. Mona Charen, Ann Coulter, and Michelle Malkin would sprout bat wings and fangs and start divebombing, Peggy Noonan would issue a pained sigh that would ruffle nun’s robes from here to Hoboken, Laura Ingraham and Bill Bennett would engage in a finger-wagging contest to condemn our loose licentious liberal culture, and Jennifer Rubin at Commentary’s Contentions would crash into the wall doing cartwheels. …”
James Wolcott, Vanity Fair, September 1, 2008

Sarah Palin’s future son-in-law says he’s an Alaska ‘redneck’
“Here’s part of his entry before it was made private: ‘I’m a f—kin’ redneck who likes to snowboard and ride dirt bikes. But I live to play hockey. I like to go camping and hang out with the boys, do some fishing, shoot some s—t and just f—kin’ chillin’ I guess. Ya f—k with me I’ll kick ass.” Status: “In a relationship.” Children: “I don’t want kids.”
Luisa Yanez, McClatchy, September 3, 2008

To know Sarah Palin is to not want her one heartbeat away from the presidency:

Alaska Pipeline
Deb Peterson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 30, 2008

Miscellaneous Sarah Palin lunacy:

Sarah Palin, Buchananite
Christopher Hayes, The Nation, August 29, 2008

The Palin Meltdown in Slo-Mo
Greg Sargent, TPM Election Central, September 1, 2008

Finally…

Is Track Palin the 16-year-old vandal in this story? Rumor has it…

Bus vandals charged
Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman, December 5, 2005

Why did Track Palin spend “most of his senior year in high school” in Portage, Michigan?

Palin’s oldest son has Michigan tie
Chris Christoff, Detroit Free Press, August 29, 2008

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August 28, 2008

Newsflash! Man Used Dinosaurs to Help Build the Pyramids!

Or: Just how A) stupid are creationists, and B) behind-the-times are freepers? Answer: Very, and very.

There’s not a thing we can say about this delusion from the “young earth” idiots that Ed Brayton hasn’t said already (he links to the freeper thread mentioned, which we won’t do):

You have to see this thread at Free Republic about a school in Malta called the Accelerated Christian Academy that teaches young earth creationism. Accelerated, you say? Well of course. Just look at what their director says is taught:
 

But the curriculum of the Accelerated Christian Academy in Mosta is not exactly free of such fanciful reinventions of history. Fenech reiterates the basic Evangelist tenet that the entire universe was created in 4004 BC… and this time, he also supplies “proof”. “When man landed on the moon (in 1969), they expected the landing module to sink in a deep layer of dust. But the layer was only a few inches deep. This proves that the universe is still young!”

. . .

But my favorite part of the article is when Fenech, the head of this “accelerated” school, says that the dinosaurs were alive with human beings and helped the Egyptians build the pyramids. No, seriously:
 

This is the word of Vince Fenech, Evangelist pastor and director of a fully licensed, State-approved Creationist institution which admits children aged between four and 18. “Of course the ‘dinoceros’ existed (as Fenech pronounces the word). It is mentioned in the Book of Job. They were used to help build the pyramids,” he says, adding that this latter observation is only “his personal belief”, and that it does not form part of the school’s curriculum.

. . .

Please don’t forget to read the comments. I love the argument about how ancient drawings that look like dinosaurs proved they must have lived with dinosaurs. Yet we don’t live with dinosaurs today and we draw pictures of them all the time. Amusing.

By the way, the article the freepers have been discussing since August 22, 2008, was written nearly a year ago.

Well, the freepers always have been a day late and a dollar short. They probably won’t notice The Rapture has happened until after one of their co-horts posts a year-old headline about it.

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August 8, 2008

Ben Stein, We Never Knew You Were Such a Great Comedian!

Because you certainly couldn’t have been serious — or sober — when you wrote this:*

Porn Star for Obama

By Ben Stein

…Now, this is perfect. First of all, Paris Hilton was a total nobody party girl in West Hollywood until she and her boyfriend made AND then “someone” SOLD a hard core video of Paris Hilton having sex. So basically, she got her start as a porn star. And she’s being trotted out by the media barons to smear John McCain, as brave and patriotic a man as lives in this nation.

Stein, you do have a way of twisting the facts. McCain “trotted out” Hilton, and Hilton responded to McCain. And I don’t blame her for one second.

This little tramp, who isn’t even close to being pretty, is belittling a man who spent six years in brutal captivity for defending his country.

Paris, get this: in modern day America, we don’t mock people because of things they have done that are unavoidable and not in any way blameworthy. We don’t make fun of blacks for being black. We don’t make fun of women for having breasts. We don’t make fun of old people for being old. This is uncool from any source.

Whereas you, Stein, write, oh-so-bitchily, that Paris Hilton “isn’t even close to being pretty,” and in the very next sentence lecture her about mocking the physical characteristics of others. What a hypocrite.

And what a lie. In modern-day America, it’s still open mocking season on gay people, all year ’round. (Of course, you would think being gay is “blameworthy,” wouldn’t you, Stein?)

It is downright disgusting coming from a porn star — and not a very good porn star at that (yes, I have seen the tape). …

Oh, really, now? I haven’t seen the tape, Stein — porn isn’t my thing. But seeing as how you make yourself out to be an expert on what constitutes “a very good porn star,” it sounds like you’ve watched plenty of porn in order to be able to make that judgment.

Looks like you just set yourself up to be mocked, mercilessly, for something “blameworthy” you did (or do). Last I heard, porn consumption is quite the sin among you far-right creationist types.

What. A. Hypocrite.

And what a jerk for making me defend both Paris Hilton and Barack Obama in the same post.

* In a nutsack nutshell: McCain released an attack ad on Barack Obama, comparing Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. Hilton, understandably, didn’t take too kindly to being used as a McCain shill, and release her own video in response. This is what Ben Stein is complaining about.

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October 8, 2007

D.C. Madam’s Most Famous John Porks Bill with Creationist… Well, Pork.

Senator David Vitter to earmark $100,000 for creationist group

United States Senator, a Republican from Louisiana, David Vitter has earmarked $100,000 for Louisiana Family Forum (LFF), a conservative creationist organization. Vitter put the earmark into the labor, health and education financing bill for fiscal year 2008. The bill specifies the Louisiana Family Forum received the money “to develop a plan to promote better science education.”

Vitter has close ties to the LFF through Dan Richey, the group’s grass-roots coordinator, who received $17,250 as a consultant in Vitter’s 2004 Senate race. Also Vitter’s campaign paid Beryl Amedee who is the education resource council chairwoman for the Louisiana Family Forum.

As part of the Louisiana Family Forum efforts to “combat” the teaching of evolution, the group included Kent Hovind’s “Battle Plan” on its website. Hovind, whose education from Patriot Bible University is widely considered to be a diploma mill, is currently serving a ten year prison sentence for tax evasion and obstructing federal agents. …

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September 22, 2007

Mark Morford: The Fall of the Godmongers

Praise Jesus, it’s the collapse of evangelical Christian rule in America. Rejoice!

. . .

Do you know this clenched and panicky group? Of course you do. They’re the throngs of megachurch lemmings Karl Rove masterfully manipulated and rallied and whored to Bush’s very narrow advantage in two elections.

They’re the ones who’ve made all the headlines and influenced all sorts of laws and national policy changes lo, this past half-decade concerning everything from stem cell research to gay marriage to evolution, sanitized school textbooks to failed abstinence programs to RU-486 restrictions to silly anti-science rhetoric, the ones who gasped in horror at a woman’s bare nipple and made a disgusting mockery of Terri Schiavo and actually applauded when John Ashcroft spent $8,000 of taxpayer money to throw some heavy drapery over the shamefully exposed breasts of the bronze (female) Spirit of Justice statue in the Hall of Justice. And so on.

. . .

Apparently, Bush’s GOP has let them down. They have not been content with BushCo’s anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-sex, pro-abstinence, anti-women, anti-science, pro-war, God-hates-Islam stance, nor have they been content with having their trembling hands around the throat of the preceding Republican Congress for half a decade and clearly they have been insufficiently humiliated by the happy slew of right-wing preachers and politicians who’ve been revealed as meth-loving, restroom-lurking, boy-fetishizing gay hypocrites.

According to the new plan, any current GOP candidate who now wants the valuable evangelical vote will have to prove himself not merely guided by conformist religious zealotry in all things (Hi, Mitt!), but will have to prove his unflappable support for the GOP stance in key issues across the evangelical board, primarily regarding the Big Duo: abortion rights and gay rights. Or, more specifically, the total annihilation of both.

Do you see? This is exactly why we can now rejoice. Because this is the delightful thing about the fundamentalist worldview (and, for that matter just about any strict religious worldview you can name), the thing that absolutely and forever guarantees its frequent and eventual downfall: It can never be sated.

. . .

And why? Because the fundamentalist mind-set is not so much a firm and rational set of beliefs based on thoughtful interpretation of strict Biblical screed as it is, well, a paranoid wallowing in fear. Fear of the Other, fear of change, of progress, of the new and different and young and the sexual and the truly spiritual. And as we all know from almost seven years of Bush, fear knows no reason. It knows no stability. Fear is simply insatiable, voracious, and about as un-Godlike as Jesus with a machine gun. …

Much more — and, as always, well worth the full read

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Of course he’ll find his “evidence” under a rock, since that’s where he lives.

WiscNews.com tells us that another creationism museum is opening, this time in Wisconsin:

About four years ago, Waupaca resident Bill Mielke stumbled upon some startling information while browsing the Web. … What Mielke found was government-recognized artifacts that he believes seriously challenge evolution by depicting dinosaurs and humans living side-by-side. Now, after several years of collecting artifacts and models, Mielke hopes to bring an intelligent design museum to Wisconsin Dells.

. . .

“You still have people holding on to their beliefs,” he said. “Some people just can’t accept deity so they choose believe (in evolution), whether there’s any proof or not.”

. . .

Mielke’s idea for the museum is far from original. In the past year, Kentucky established a $26 million donation-funded facility called Creation Museum. On its opening day, Mielke said about 5,000 people arrived with people picketing outside and airplanes circling with banners reading “Thou shall not lie.”

“I heard there’s another one in Canada now, too,” Mielke added. “So these places are creeping up because people are finding more evidence.”

. . .

“We’re just turning over the rock and saying, ‘Look at this stuff. Now what do you think?’”

What do we think? We think you’re an idiot.

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