A(nother) Brainless Christian

Their Own Version of a Big Bang

A former high-school biology teacher, Ham travels the nation [brainwashing] children as young as 5 to challenge science [on the basis of nothing more than, "I wasn't there, I didn't see it, my book-of-lies-my-pastor-told-me doesn't mention it, lalalalalalalalalaaaaa..."]. He doesn't engage in the political and legal fights that have erupted over the teaching of evolution...

...because he's an intellectual flea who hasn't a rational basis at all for his views and would be cut down in debate by anyone even slightly aware of reality and with more than a few synapses firing.

He urges students to offer creationist critiques of their textbooks, parents to take on science museum docents, professionals to raise the subject with colleagues.

To a burst of applause, Ham exhorted: "Get out and change the world!"

"Change the world"?? That's about as ironic a thing as can possibly be said by a person who believes that the universe was created in it's current (and final) form about 6,000 years ago and hasn't changed since.

Several hundred independent speakers promote biblical creation at churches, colleges, private schools, Rotary clubs. They lead tours to the Grand Canyon or the local museum to study the world through a creationist lens.

Or, more commonly known in the real world as a "blindfold".

When pastors dismiss the creation account as a fable, (Ham) says, they give their flock license to disregard the Bible's moral teachings as well.

After all, they have bought into the whole Christian myth, so they probably aren't mentally coherent enough to realize that just because the figurative tales in the Bible aren't literal, the moral fabric of society isn't going to unravel.

Veep Shoots Lawyer

In the Line of Fire - Cheney shoots Republican millionaire during quail hunt.

"This is something that happens from time to time," she said. "You know, I've been peppered pretty well myself."

"Peppered"?? He got shot! It's nauseating that 1) this happens "from time to time" and is treated so cavalierly, and 2) that the act has been ascribed such an inocuous phrase as "peppered".

Shooting a Republican Party supporter, it seems, can have an upside.

Mr Cheney visited Mr Whittington in hospital before flying to Washington.

The upside was that the victim got a visit from Satan, I mean, Cheney? Hell, he's one of the last people I want to see, shot or otherwise! Then again, I'm not a Reich Wing sycophant.

Mary Matalin, an adviser to the Vice-President, said he felt "bad, obviously".

"On the other hand, he was not careless or incautious or violated any of the rules," she said. "He didn't do anything he wasn't supposed to do."

So, umm...you're supposed to shoot other members of your hunting party??

Religious Fanatics Really Need Better Hobbies

Storm grows over Mohammad cartoons

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was quoted as saying the cartoons -- one depicting the founder of Islam wearing a turban resembling a bomb --showed press freedom should have its limits.

Muslims consider it sacrilegious to produce a likeness of the Prophet Mohammad.

(CNN has chosen to not show the cartoons in respect for... a silly superstition and it's delusional adherents.)

"Any insult to the Holy Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him) is an insult to more than 1 billion Muslims and an act like this must never be allowed to be repeated," Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in a statement.

Because no one should ever do anything that might offend to those who confuse fantasy with reality??

In continuing protests, Palestinian gunmen shut the European Union office Thursday in Gaza City, writing on the door that the office would remain closed until the Europeans apologize to Muslims, Palestinian security sources told CNN.

Wearing masks, the men -- from Islamic Jihad and the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of Fatah -- fired bullets into the air and one of them read demands.

Palestinian officials said the gunmen were threatening to kidnap European workers if the European Union did not apologize.

Clearly, these are rational people who deserve our respect.

Repugs to Poor: Fuck You!

House Approves Budget Cutbacks of $39.5 Billion

WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 — House Republicans eked out a victory on a $39.5 billion budget-cutting package on Wednesday, with a handful of skittish Republicans switching their votes at the last minute in opposition to reductions in spending on health and education programs.

The vote helped President Bush deliver on his promise to rein in federal spending while underscoring deep anxiety within his party over cutting social welfare programs in an election year.

The measure represents the first major effort by lawmakers since 1997 to cut the growth of so-called entitlement programs, including student loans, crop subsidies and Medicaid...

Is it just me, or doesn't it seem like MUCH greater savings could be achieved if we were to rein in our war-machine? I mean, honestly, the part of the budget that's out of control isn't student loans and farming subsidies. But, nah...let's not fix the problem. Let's take this opportunity to fuck the poor. They don't need healthcare. If they get sick and die, that's just god's way of saying, "you've failed to be significant contributors to the Repuke coffers". And screw higher education. We don't need a more intelligent populus, just more cannon fodder.

The spending bill, which covers a five-year period ending in 2010, will achieve savings of $6.4 billion in Medicare, the health care program for the elderly, through a variety of changes that include higher premiums for all beneficiaries, with steeper increases for the more affluent and a freeze in payments to home health care providers.

In the Medicaid health care program for the poor and disabled, $4.8 billion will be saved in part by increasing co-payments and reducing payments for prescription drugs.

Mr. Bush said that he looked forward to signing the legislation and that the budget proposal he would send to Congress on Monday "will continue to build on the spending restraint we have achieved."

SPENDING RESTRAINT!! Has the Pretzeldent gone completely insane?? What about the Republican's orgiastic war-chest spending?? Jesus with a DU tipped butt-plug! Really, I don't think an administration could do more damage unless every U.S. citizen not pulling down $50k or ore a year was lined up to have their colons perforated by the splintered end of a broom. Here's what the war-profiteer-in-chief actually meant to say: "we continue to build on our mountain of bad Karma by fucking those in this country who most need assistance, while at the same time continuing to murder dark-skinned poor people in the rest of the world and funneling hundreds of billions of dollars to my rich, war-mongering supporters who facilitate the killing".

But Mr. Boehlert, one of three Republicans to vote against a recent tax-cutting bill, said he had become convinced that entitlement programs must be revamped before they gobbled up the entire federal budget.

If by "entitlement programs" he meant the hundreds of billions of dollars Congress has approved to be flushed down the toilet of an illegal and immoral war, then I'm in full agreement. If he actually meant entitlement programs like healthcare, farming, and education subsidies then what fucking planet is he from that he thinks a 200-plus billion dollar a year military budget is in any way at risk of being gobbled up?

But conservatives, who pushed hard within their caucus for the cuts, were delighted. Representative Mike Pence, Republican of Indiana, a leader of a group of House conservatives, called the vote "a step toward restoring public confidence in the fiscal integrity of our national legislature."

...and about a thousand steps away from restoring public confidence that Repugnants give any kind of a crap at all about the American people.

So our moron in chief is pretty proud of cutting $40 billion over five years. It astounds me that he fails to realize that he could save over five times that amount in a single year if he would end the war in Iraq.