Dobson predicts grim future

Freak out! Sensing that his undue influence on government is about to come to an apocalyptic end in short order, James Dobson of Focus on the Family has been feverishly firing out frighteningly hysterical missives that predict the Horrors to come should Barack Obama win the US election five (5) days from now. "An Obama Nation is an Abomination!" Some of Dobson's dire predictions include:

"Terrorist strikes on four American cities. Russia rolling into Eastern Europe. Israel hit by a nuclear bomb. Gay marriage in every state. The end of the Boy Scouts.

All are plausible scenarios if Democrat Barack Obama is elected president, according to a new addition to the campaign conversation called "Letter from 2012 in Obama's America," produced by the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family Action."

Terrorist attacks, Putin rearing his head, gay boy scouts, and that's just the beginning. There's also the soon-to-be liberal-leaning SCOTUS, abortion up a month after birth, and the old favourite that Focus on the Family freaks so love to revel in, Religious Persecution. BOOM! POW! Stand back! Fundie heads across the USA are exploding like pin-pricked balloons.

But not everyone's buying Dobson's dubious snake oil, says one Obama-con:

""It looks like, walks like, talks like and smells like desperation to me," said the Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell of Houston, an Obama supporter who backed President Bush in the past two elections. The Methodist pastor called the 2012 letter "false and ridiculous." He said it showed that some Christian conservative leaders fear that Obama's faith-based appeals to voters are working."

Dobson's right about one thing, though: the future is looking pretty grim... for HIM. Bye-bye, dickhead, get familiar with the political wilderness. Lay in lots of supplies, you'll be out there a loooooooooooooong time.

You just know it's a good movie

when fundamentalist religious crackpots give it two sanctimonious, indignant and persecuted thumbs down.

The movie in question is Bill Maher's "Religulous", which just opened this week and sent fundies into an instant persecution high and ragegasm. It was immediately panned in a review by something called "The Christian Worldview Network". Let's see what these brain-damaged bible-whompers had to say about it:

"“Religulous,” comedian Bill Maher’s new movie attacking Christianity and religion, is full of lies, half-truths, false assumptions, logical contradictions and fallacies, distortions, intolerance, prejudice, bigotry, arrogance, ignorance, and hypocrisy."

Good enough for me! Where do I get in line for tickets!??

Fundie-mail

Boom! Got a major alert from one of my fundie email subscriptions tonight. There's a poll out there that needs freeping!!!

"PBS has a short video on Sarah Palin on the website. Also included is a poll that asks: Is Sarah Palin qualified to be VP?

I logged on a few minutes ago and 37% had voted YES, 62% NO.

Let's turn this around..... You don't have to give your name or email address in order to vote. It's very simple.

PBS hates conservatives.

Here's the link:

http://www.pbs.org/now/polls/poll-435.html"

Hey, check that out -- they're wearing their little clicking-fingers to the bone trying to get this thing turned around and it's at 39% with a bullet! And even if the stars and suns don't align, the cookies don't clear, and things don't fall into place as planned, they'll know that it's all because

"PBS hates conservatives."

Like the guy said,

"It's very simple."

"It" sure is.

Wonder how this would go over

with all those rabidly anti-choice republicans that are going into conniptions over McCain's VP pick, Sarah Palin? From the Alaska Pro-Choice website, a picture of Ms. Palin with members of the Alliance for Reproductive Justice (which is, among other things, an abortion rights group) -- scroll down:

I mean, I think it's great and everything, but that's, you know, me. And just because Palin attended a womens' summit put on by (the evil) Planned Parenthood and had her picture taken with a group of pro-choice activists, doesn't mean she's secretly pro-choice; she's obviously not. In fact, I'm sure she meets with all kinds of different groups whose views she doesn't share. But somehow I think this might be one meeting that Daddy Dobson would rather she'd blown off.

Gee McCain, vet much?

The Whining Wall

400 moaning, groaning, whining and wailing batshit-crazy fundamentalist chimps, all gathering in Ottawa to protest Canada's moral decay? It could only mean one thing -- WANKAPALOOZA is in town!:

"The Bible says the meek shall inherit the Earth, but there was no trace of meekness in Faytene Kryskow and her passionate preaching yesterday on Parliament Hill.

"We're going to turn Parliament Hill into the Wailing Wall," Ms. Kryskow told about 400 followers spread out on Parliament's front lawn. The prayer gathering is known as The Cry, a rally for fundamentalist youth who believe mainstream Canadian society is morally bankrupt.

Ms. Kryskow, one of The Cry's leaders, urged the young people in the crowd to send out "prayer waves" that would incite a revolution against Canada's secular humanism."

400 wankers protesting -- sounds familiar. "Hire-A-Wank" must be doing a brisk business this summer.

And it's not even Kansas

Great snappin' assholes! (Whoops, there goes my 5.9% cuss quotient.) Fundie whackjobs in West Virginia are getting special drivers' licenses because they're afraid the normal ones might have the "Mark of the Beast" or some such shit:

"West Virginia is offering special driver’s licenses to people who oppose digitized photos because they believe this could be the beginning of the biblical “mark of the beast” prophecy.

The Division of Motor Vehicles planned to distribute the special licenses Friday at its Capitol office. Phil Hudok will be one of the first to receive a special license. The Randolph County teacher had refused to require his students wear bar-coded identification badges in 1998 because it violated his religious beliefs."

Oh, for fuck sake! How ridiculous do things have to get before governments stop coddling these imbeciles? Good grief, November can't come soon enough for me.

Sorry, Stockie

Fundies have been all a-dither and a-shriek the last few days over the "discovery" of dinosaur and human footprints embedded in a slab of limestone in Texas. Rock-solid proof that man walked with the dinosaurs!

"A slab of North Texas limestone is on track to rock the world, with its two imbedded footprints poised to make a huge impression in scientific and religious circles." [...]

The limestone contains two distinct prints – one of a human footprint and one belonging to a dinosaur. The significance of the cement-hard fossil is that it shows the dinosaur print partially over and intersecting the human print.

In other words, the stone’s impressions indicate that the human stepped first, the dinosaur second. If proven genuine, the artifact would provide evidence that man and dinosaur roamed the Earth at the same time, according to those associated with the find and with its safekeeping. It could potentially toss out the window many commonly held scientific theories on evolution and the history of the world."

Um yeah, sure. But what do the experts say? I knew just where to go to get the straight goods on the story:

"It's supposed to be a human footprint with that of an Acrocanthosaurus on top of it, showing that dinosaurs walked the earth after human beings.Unfortunately, they both look ridiculously fake. The human print has toes like tubes and a wierdly dug-in big toe, and looks ridiculously fake. The dino print is even worse — it's basically a three-pronged flat plate, looking like it was modeled after the smooth bottoms of a plastic dinosaur toy."

D'oh!

KLRVU, call the office!

There's another poll that needs a do-over:

"The legal recognition of same-sex couples continues to split views in the United States, according to a poll by the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. 32 per cent of respondents would allow homosexual partners to legally marry, 33 per cent would permit them to form civil unions, and 29 per cent would grant them no legal recognition.

In addition, 56 per cent of respondents would oppose amending the United States Constitution to ban same-sex marriage." (emphasis mine)

Although equal marriage is still a divided issue in the US, according to Angus Reid, this new poll shows that acceptance is growing.

D'oh! Fundies, poled again!

C-10 Smackdown

Today, Chuck McVety's rotten and twisted censorship dreams were dashed upon the rocks of reason, sanity and freedom by two Liberal Senators:

"Senators Francis Fox and Wilfred Moore today made public the amendments that Liberal Senators intend to introduce when the Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce proceeds to the Clause by Clause examination of Bill C-10." [...]

"The changes proposed by Senators Fox and Moore would:
1. Remove the power for the Minister of Heritage to refuse tax credits based on "public policy" or to issue guidelines about film content, while at the same time safeguarding the right to deny funds when the production itself is contrary to the Criminal Code;
2. Give producers an efficient judicial appeal mechanism if the Minister blocks or delays funding;
3. Continue to prevent government funding of pornography, child pornography, and hate propaganda."

My favourite part is #3 -- "continue to prevent government funding of pornography..." See? Unlike the lies that Mr. McVety and his fellow social conservative nanny-statist travellers would have us believe, there was never a need to deny tax credits or dictate "content guidelines" in order to stop (SHRIEEEK!) the funding of porn: it was already being prevented. However, the funding of movies deemed "OFFENSIVE!" by Mr. McVety is not being prevented, and boo friggin hoo, tough shit. Apparently, Mr. McVety badly miscalculated -- "Canadian values" don't include censorship of the arts after all.

PSA has more.

Stuff it!

Hahahaha! Bruce at Canuck Attitude has stumbled upon more of that chock-fulla-nuts, good old-time fundie love. This time a Christian Car Dealer (just imagine the kind of plaid suits these dudes must wear) is taking it to the streets in F-150s and Broncos, and if you're not on their wavelength, you can stuff your business!

The Cadman scandal's real importance

Gotta hand it to those fundies -- there's no issue that they can't find a way to twist into a discussion about one of the Big Two (abortion/gay marriage). Take the Cadman controversy -- a scandal so rich and rife with elements of Conservative skullduggery, back-room dirty deals, indecent proposals and generally unethical behaviour that it will keep rolling for months... and might even bring down the government. Yet here we have one socon blogger's interpretation:

Chuck Cadman and the vote that lost marriage

Back in the spring of 2005, the same-sex marriage debate was raging. It had not yet become law.

Chuck Cadman's vote, in my opinion, prevented Canada from having an election over marriage.

Maybe, just maybe, if Chuck had voted with the Opposition, the majority of Canadians who wanted to keep the traditional definition of marriage, might have prevailed.

Auuugghh! There are already holes in the walls on all four sides and the desk below me from the pounding of my head. Must I start on the floor?

"They're Coming To Your Town!"

Those krazy kristians at the American Family Association are ringing the warning bell about a devastating threat -- SHRIEEEEEK! -- that's on its way to Your Town! The AFA recently sent out an email flogging a new DVD that warns of an Impending Invasion of... illegal immigrants? Nope. Swarthy Terrorists? Guess again! It's...
... homos and lezzies and queers, oh my! Check out the DVD trailer... if you dare! SHRIEEEEEEEEK!

SHRIEEEEEEEEEEK!!!

(from Good As You, via Pandagon ... SHRIEEEEEEK!)

The Values Voters Debate

Last night in Florida, USian fundies held their "Values Voters Debate" with all the preznitial candidates except the ones that have any chance of winning -- Giuliani, McCain, Romney and Thompson didn't show. I watched some of this little shindig online and for the most part it just confirmed my long-standing opinion that these people are all about as crazy as shithouse rats.

There were prayers aplenty, quotes from the bible, and invocations of the Lord's name, but it wasn't all fetuses and family values. Ron Paul provided some interesting moments -- I actually found myself agreeing with some of what he had to say, especially the parts about "virtue being up to the individual to decide" and how "government intervention in such things was tyranny". Tyranny! Yeah, that impressed me, although it didn't seem to fly too well with the clearly authoritarian audience who'd like nothing better than to intervene, poke and prod into every aspect of peoples' lives, especially their sex lives, and impose their values down the throats and up the asses of the nation.

As for the rest of the candidates - wow, what a collection of mixed nuts, unhinged lunatics and Talibangelists (and even Paul, the sanest among them, had lapses in lucidity). Lots of talk about Prayer! and God! and the Family! and Marriage! and Abstinence!. The Values Voters weren't impressed that Rudy et al declined their invitation, and they symbolically addressed questions to their empty podiums, I guess to rub in the message even harder: "You snubbed us! And you'll pay for that snub in '08!" Oh my goodness, what an overblown image they have of their own importance -- none of these candidates will even win the nomination, so come election day, the Values Voters will be value voting for the GOP candidate even if it's a rock.

But it's an interesting idea, getting together a big group of one-issue voters and grilling all the candidates. I'm thinking we could do something like this before our next election, maybe call it the "Value Village Voters" debate.

Hard to believe

that there's even a need for laws like this one:

"RENTON, N.J. (AP) A pharmacy would be required to fill prescriptions for any drug it stocks such as birth-control pills regardless of a pharmacist's moral beliefs under a bill that cleared the Legislature on Monday.

The bill, approved 56-18 by the Assembly, establishes a pharmacy's duty to fill lawful prescriptions without undue delay and without consideration for a pharmacist's moral, philosophical or religious beliefs."

So in other words, a law had to be passed in order to get these guys (religiously-impaired pharmacists) to do their jobs. What. The. Fuck.

Every so often you hear about one of these nitwit fundie pharmacists screaming "religious persecution" because he has to fill a contraceptive prescription. It makes you wonder: why become a pharmacist in the first place? You have to know going in that birth control will be at the top of the list of high-demand scripts, right along with prozac, antibiotics and tylenol-3, and sooner or later you'll be called upon to dispense it. So why take a job where you know you'll have to do something that puts you in a moral conundrum?

Maybe while they're wasting time and taxpayers' money passing this law, they should pass another one that requires all pharmacists to be atheists.

Aww, too bad: no Abortion-Breast Cancer link

And the fundies were so counting on it. Jeebus will have to find another way to punish evil sluts who have abortions... tooth decay? The heartbreak of psoriasis? More to the point, anti-choicers will have to find some other way to terrify women who want abortions, because this one's toast. Birth Pangs has the details on the latest research that breaks the fundies' crayons by putting the idiotic Abortion-Breast Cancer meme to rest.

The goofy "ABC" canard originated with flawed studies done back in the early 90's. Since then it's been refuted by study after study and breast cancer experts like Dr. Susan Love. But in spite of all the evidence against it, the ABC link still pops up regularly on social conservative websites and blogs (usually preceded by a screaming big-ass headline that translates to "you're fucked!"). With so many studies contradicting this, it's obvious that anti-choicers knowingly disseminate complete and utter bullshit just to terrify women. They use their beloved "ABC link" the same way the Bush administration used the scant and questionable intelligence on WMD in Iraq -- overwhelming evidence to the contrary was just ignored because it didn't fit the agenda.

So what are they saying about it now? It appears they've ratcheted the message down a bit, saying the #1 danger of abortion is that it "denies women the opportunity to reduce their breast cancer risk through childbearing" or some such happy horseshit. Quite a ways from "cause and effect". But even this is disingenuous since having an abortion doesn't prevent a woman from having future pregnancies when she's good and ready to have them. And of course, that's what this is all about: "When she's good and ready to have them".

Although the evidence against it is clearly in (and in, and in again), I expect "the link" to re-appear in anti-choice websites again soon; it's just too good to give up. They'll stop flogging this dead pony the day Dick Cheney admits there's no link between Iraq and al qaeda. The agenda trumps the facts, always.

Five men

confirmed their ownership over the degree of sovereignty women have over their own bodies today, as the US Supreme Court upheld the so-called "Partial-Birth" (fundiespeak to sane person language translation: "late term") abortion ban, 5-4. I love it:

"April 18 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Supreme Court upheld a law that makes it a crime to perform ``partial birth'' abortions, allowing the first nationwide ban on a procedure as two justices named by President George W. Bush tipped the balance.

The justices, voting 5-4, said the 2003 Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act is constitutional even though it lacks an exception for cases posing a risk to the mother's health. The court also rejected claims that the law is so vaguely worded it would force doctors to forgo a commonly used, constitutionally protected abortion technique for fear of prosecution." (emphasis mine)

The late-term abortion procedure has become a hot issue because the fundies would have us believe that after carrying a pregnancy for 36 weeks, "frivolous" women wake up one day in a bad mood, decide "I don't want to do this anymore" and have an abortion. This is such a stenchy, steaming crock of bullshit. Late-term abortions are performed only in the most extreme cases, where there's a threat to the health of the mother or the fetus is so damaged that it will be stillborn. This law helps nobody, and harms women: there can be no doubt that women will die because of it. To say nothing of the psychological trauma of being forced to carry a dead fetus to "term".

I'm too disgusted to delve into what the wider impact this decision might be, but it's a step in the wrong direction. They call the Taliban backwards? Look in a fucking mirror, assholes!