Door to Door Atheists Bother Mormons

This pretty much sums up my feelings on fundies. You can do whatever you want with your religion, as long as you don't bother the rest of us!

The Rest of the Agenda

Okay, so we got waylaid by the Haiti situation last week. I do hope you can still scrounge up some change do donate to Haiti if you haven't already. The relief efforts are ongoing.

In the meantime, we return to our list of Mission America's Top Ten Ways to Make Kids Fundies Truly Safe in 2010.

4. We must pledge to overhaul the schools we are paying for. Let’s start sending our children to Christian schools, conservative charter schools, or begin home schooling them, while we simultaneously evict our local NEA-backed public school boards and replace them with smart soccer moms and dads who have true family values.

This shows me two things. #1, that Linda Harvey thinks what's going on in public schools is far, far worse than it really is, and #2, that she doesn't understand or accept that some people may actually SUPPORT their kids learning things she disagrees with. I could just as easily write a piece detailing why we need to pull our kids out of the fundie Jesus-preachin', anti-evolution public schools in rural Louisiana and start sending them to schools run by people with REAL values, like Richard Dawkins.

Let’s get the radicals out of our taxpayer- funded classrooms...

See? Linda and I found something we agree on! Now, just what is a "radical?"

and refuse to vote for one more levy guaranteeing the same old anti-Christian, socialist, Darwinist, hyper-sexualized, and phony “green” school curricula.

Linda, have you ever set foot in a public school? Do you have any idea what you're talking about, or are you just making shit up to get angry about?

And really, "phony 'green'"? Do you oppose teaching environmental science? Yeah, of course you do. You've never been encumbered by the truth, why should anyone else be?

3. As responsible stewards, we must continue to demand that U.S. Department of Education ‘safe schools’ czar Kevin Jennings be fired for his lack of experience plus his known radical, sexually corrupt ideology.

You can "demand" all you want, but it's not your call. Were you equally as peeved about Harriet Miers being nominated to the Supreme Court despite being woefully underqualified? No, I suspect not.

But you don't like Kevin Jennings, for his "radical, sexually corrupt ideology," (teaching that being a gay teen is OK) so the rules are different for him. Oh, yes, I know, he's "inexperienced," right? I guess anybody can earn degrees from Harvard, Columbia, and NYU, found a national advocacy organization, chair a state executive committee, work as a teacher for ten years (including serving as department chair), write six books, and win multiple national awards for excellence in teaching and advocacy. (Cite)

Let’s also eject Obama’s Chicago crony, DOE Secretary Arne Duncan, and all public officials whose track records attest to “poor education as usual” policies. Where’s the commitment to genuine child safety?

You're never going to find it if you willfully ignore it.

Let’s make plans to fire Barack Obama at least by 2012, too, while we are at it, before he does any more damage to the next generation.

And that damage would be...?

Look, I'm not saying Obama's perfect. I know he's not. You know it, and so does he. I'm just saying you don't get to lob serious insults against somebody and just expect us all to nod our heads in agreement like sheep. You want to bash people? Fine, but you better be prepared to back it up. Here, Linda doesn't even seem interested in trying.

2. Get all pro-homosexual and pro-promiscuity programs, literature, teachers, and counselors out of every school now.

Well, I'm sure all the gay students--who will still be gay even in spite of your best efforts--would really appreciate that; you taking away their entire support system because you have some emotion-based, unsupported belief that it's doing more harm than good. Well, except for that part pro-promiscuity programs. Nobody would miss those, and nobody will notice when they're gone, because they don't exist in the first place.

Remove “gay” clubs, Planned Parenthood at health fairs, and GLSEN- PFLAG- SIECUS activists.

"Remove" them? Whoa, this is starting to sound a bit Mafioso, Linda. Are you on a terrorist watch list yet?

Cease all condom demonstrations, abortion referrals, on-site birth control dispensing, sexual orientation affirmation, and messing with children’s hearts, minds and bodies.

Yeah, really, schools. Stop giving your students age-appropriate advice about services that are perfectly legal and often medically or psychologically necessary. Linda Harvey doesn't like it.

Demand that schools uphold the traditional value of heterosexual identities...

Whether they're scientifically accurate or not.

...teach abstinence- until- marriage...

Yay, unconstitutional religious education! That'll fix all your problems!

Someone remind me to do a post on this abstinence-until-marriage crap soon. I have some thoughts that I've been wanting to write about for quite some time.

...and celebrate male/ female gender differences.

That's the worst one yet. I mean, even assuming Gender Identity Disorder really was all made up (like the fundies want us to think), what is the benefit of reaffirming rigid, pointless, outdated gender roles?

1. Allow—no, welcome-- Christianity back into the American public square...in schools, in community groups, in city council meetings, in the Senate, on city streets, in the courthouse square, in the media, in college lectures.

And all other religions be damned! How we're supposed to do this is anybody's guess, but pissing all over the Constitution would apparently be a good start.

Linda, like most fundies, believes that a small minority is holding back the floodgates of Good Christians (TM) who actively support and encourage the idea of a theocracy. In fact, I'd say most of our elected officials and college professors actually understand what the First Amendment is all about and support it. Why don't you, Linda?

Laugh at the ACLU.

You fundies do that already, and yet, they still stand for the Constitution and they still keep winning cases. And in fact, the ACLU supports Christians when those Christians are legally right.

Elect judges who agree.

Elect judges who don't like the First Amendment too? Wow, I just had a vision of Linda Harvey-land, and it made me shudder.

Don’t elect presidents who think we are no longer a Christian nation.

Oh, haha. Subtle slap at Obama. For the record his actual quote was:

Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation – at least, not just. We are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, and a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.

But I think we've long established that Linda Harvey lives a life unencumbered by such things as "facts" and "reality."  

Let’s refuse to leave our children an inheritance of American rubble. Instead, let our New Year’s resolution and fervent prayer be to give our children an America that is the best it can be.

Well, I think we're all doing that, Linda. It's just that some of us disagree on exactly what that entails.

Help for Victims of the Haitian Earthquake

The biggest news story of the last week was the disastrous magnitude-7 earthquake that hit Haiti on Tuesday. There's no sense in beating around the bush: it's bad down there, and it's getting worse. The death toll is in the tens of thousands and rising. Resources are scarce and aren't easily distributed.

For those of us watching on TV in the comfort of our living rooms, it seems a whole world away. Some of you are in Europe, where, by distance, it really is nearly a world away. The rest of us simply have no idea what it's like to live in abject poverty your entire life, and then have the nothing you thought you had taken away in the space of thirty seconds.

I wish I had a magic bullet to make it all go away, or to turn the clock back before the quake hit. But of course, I can't do those things. In my present situation, I can't even aid in the relief efforts. Chances are, you're not in a position to drop everything and leave home to help either, but I know that at least some of you would if you could.

If you want to help, you can donate, though. Donate anything you can: money, food, water, or clothing are obvious necessities, but there's really nothing you can send that isn't useful. Some less conventional ideas that you may not think of include toiletries (soap, shampoo, toothbrushes, toothpaste), first aid kits (bandages, gauze, alcohol, anti-bacterial cream), batteries, flashlights, and radios (two-way and broadcast).

Of course, the easiest and most versatile item you can donate is money. It's probably the most wanted item as well. Here are a few places you can go to to donate. Excuse any redundancies; there's a lot of overlap.

The Colbert Report

The White House

The Red Cross

You can also donate through your nearest CoinStar machine (usually found in supermarkets). When you donate, select the Red Cross.

Also, as Stephen Colbert notes, there are a couple of ways to donate through your cell phone, courtesy of the musician Wyclef Jean and Yele Haiti (text "Yele" to 501501).

Thanks for reading, and for caring.

Making Kids Safe

You think your kid is safe? Oh, boy have I got news for you! They're not! They're not safe from terrorism, they're not safe from perverts in windowless white vans, but most of all, they're not safe from the enviro-fascist, homo-liberal, baby-killing, porn-producing left-wing agenda! Or so says Linda Harvey from Mission: America.

I present to you, Linda's "Top 10 Ways to Make Kids Truly Safe in 2010!" I have a lot to say on the matter, so I'll split it into two. Today we'll go through 10-5. Next week, I'll give you 5-1.

10. Let’s teach our children to refrain from honoring oppressive, liberty-denying practices and beliefs.

Like the fundie agenda? Yeah, you wish that's where she was going.

Children should be civil to all, but refuse to be manipulated into “respecting” Islam, praying to Allah, etc., no matter how many points it counts on the social studies/diversity unit test

So let me get this straight: Linda is afraid of liberals "taking away the freedom" of our children to act like dicks to Muslims? So, can we be nice to Buddhists, Jainists, Sikhs, Hindus, Zoroastrians, and Shintoists, or do we have to be civilly disrespectful to them too?

I don't know anyone who thinks that respecting Islam entails teaching kids to pray to Allah (the Arabic word for "God," used by adherents of any monotheistic religion who speak Arabic!). Usually, respecting Islam involves things like leaving Muslims alone to pray in peace, not trying to "witness" to them, and not telling them that the way they dress is wrong and needs to be changed.

They should urge every girl they know wearing a hijab to remove it and no longer submit to a system of subtle bondage.

Like, well, that.

They should share the Gospel of Jesus Christ deliberately with every Muslim they know— and make sure these lost kids know that Christians believe in a loving God who gives us free will.

Muslim women HAVE free will, numbnuts. The fact that they choose to exercise it in a different manner than you do A) does not automatically make them wrong and B) is none of your fucking business.

Would you like it if Muslim women came around telling you that your religion was wrong?

9. Our homes should be safe havens. That means no carbon monitors...

What? No "carbon monitors?" What are "carbon monitors?" You mean carbon monoxide detectors? That's asinine, Linda, even for a fundie. Why would you not want to know if there are dangerous levels of poisonous gas in your house?

...parenting or end-of-life counselors under ObamaCare...

Linda Harvey prefers that dying people not have the completely optional choice to discuss end-of-life issues with a qualified professional.

...home school checks...

Yep! I should be allowed to teach my kid anything I want, or nothing at all, for their entire lives! Cuz God knows, every decision a parent makes is the right one!

...or community organizers.

Oh shut up, you moron. You obviously don't even know what a community organizer is. (Nor do you seem to know what "freedom" is, considering you want to eliminate other people's livelihoods based on the fact that, in your uninformed opinion, you don't like them.)

We should be able to hear truly free speech and porn-free programming on radio and TV stations...

How can something be "truly free" and at the same time, restricted? Based on its content?

And really, is porn on TV and radio (???) a real problem, or is it made up by fundies so they can have something to be angry about?

...and neither we nor our children should ever be tempted to have our mortgages paid for us through government hand-outs.

So, Linda, when you're out of work because the economy goes south (or no one is interested in supporting your lunatic rantings), you can just curl up and starve to death. I'm sure you'll be pleased to do it, too.

8. Our kids should not have to face the limited options and reduced quality of life in a once-great country burdened with crushing debt. They should not have to face fifty percent or higher taxes, few employment options, and life in a corrupt and increasingly vulnerable nation.

Oh, okay, Linda. Why don't you outline YOUR economic stimulus plan, since you seem to know how to run things so well. Remember, the last two required the bipartisan efforts of hundreds of lawmakers and thousands of research assistants, sworn testimony by experts in economics, finance professionals, and budget officers from every department, all of whom worked early in the morning until late into the night, and they came together only after months of dedicated cooperation between both houses and the Executive branch.

But I'm sure whatever you came up sitting on your ass in front of the computer with will be much better.

Let’s hold elected officials responsible for reckless spending, pay-offs and pork, by removing them from power at the earliest opportunity.

I love this argument. It's possibly the most ignorant, shortsighted, wrongheaded, and just plain stupid political statement you can make. It's become a rallying cry for the Right, because it's code for "vote out the liberals." Why we need code, I have no idea, but the Left never argues for voting every member out. Probably because it's an asinine strategy.

For one thing, it will never happen. For another, you'd just end up with 535 freshman representatives who have no idea what they're doing and no guarantee they'll be any less corrupt or any more interested in what the fundies want than the last people. How is that better?

7. Children should not be endangered personally by sexually transmitted diseases allowed to rage unchecked through our under-30 population because of political correctness. They should no longer be told the outright lies that life-threatening and/or debilitating infections can be managed through either latex or life-long, expensive drug therapy.

 "Outright lies?" So, then HAART treatments don't reduce the effects of HIV? Condoms don't protect against STI transmission? If Linda can state with such vehemence that these medical axioms are "lies" then it should be easy to provide legitimate, unbiased citations to back her up.

Right, Linda? We're all waiting.

Let’s not leave them with rampant infertility due to “everyone’s” reproductive damage. We need to establish a public health system that deals with reality.

What would you know about reality? You don't seem to spend much time there.

6. Intrusive, low- quality and high- cost health care delivery should not be the legacy we leave our children. We should recognize that America has the greatest health care system in the world, that it truly needs little reform, except to recapture personal responsibility for both cost and options.

America has the greatest health care system in the world! And I know this because I live here! Oh, sure, I haven't studied the subject in depth, but I know that America is God's chosen land, and if it's in America, it's great! Facts? Data? Expert analysis? Who needs that crap? I have jingoism and that's good enough for me!

Of course, the World Health Organization (which DOES have experts, facts, and analysis) gave France the nod in 2000.

Let’s refuse to put Washington, DC in charge of your son’s and daughter’s physical well-being.

Yeah, last I heard, there was no provision in the health care bill for sending sick or injured people to politicians. I'm pretty sure doctors would still be handling medical care, as the bill only covers who will be paying for what.

But what do I know, I'm just a dumb liberal.

5. Let’s give our children some true leadership choices. Let’s leave them examples like Sarah Palin, Jim DeMint, Mike Pence. Let’s stop propping up a failed and compromised GOP, and let’s make sure the Democratic/Socialist party fades into oblivion.

Yeah, we'd be way better with Sarah Palin, you betcha! I like Jim DeMint, too, for whenever I need a crucial appointment stalled so that bad things happen that we can blame on Obama.

I don't know much about Mike Pence, but since Linda Harvey likes him, he's probably an idiot.

That's it for right now. But stay tuned next week, when we get really mired in the stupid. It only goes downhill from here. I know I can't wait!

NY Assembly Member Thinks Racial Profiling is A-OK

It must really suck to be a terrorist; you can't even catch a break on Christmas. For those Scrooges at Al Qaeda, Christmas is "just another work day." Which means if you're Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, you have to pack up your things, stuff gunpowder down your jockeys, and hop a plane trying to blow it up. If you fail, you end up arrested and tried for 290 counts of attempted murder. If you succeed, you end up as charred mush smeared across the tarmac. Even Bob Cratchit never had such a lousy Christmas.

Luckily, none of that came to pass. All 290 passengers and crew escaped safely and Mutallab is in custody. Naturally, this brought the pols and pundits out of the woodwork, pointing fingers, lobbing accusations, and in general, making everybody's holiday season a little more political and a lot less cheery.

The worst of these was New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who on Tuesday, called for a bill allowing racial profiling for random police searches. Hikind has sung this song before, but in the wake of the Christmas bombing attempt, he believes he has a taller soapbox from which to shout. Oh, Dov, how misguided art thou? Let me count the ways.

1) He Has a Short Cultural Memory

For starters, let's go with the simplest one: Dov Hikind is a Jew. And not just any Jew, but an Orthodox Jew. He lives in and represents the Orthodox enclave of Borough Park, Brooklyn, supports Jewish causes, and takes nearly every one of his political positions based on his religion and ethnicity. This guy basically eats, sleeps, and breathes Judaism.

Now, I have nothing against the Hebrew people, or being extremely involved in Jewish culture; I'm ethnically part Jewish myself. But you would think that a guy who's that wrapped up in his Semitic roots might be a little more sympathetic to people being discriminated against based on their ethnicity! You remember that, Dov? You remember which people those were?

Oh, sure, Dov isn't asking for anyone to be rounded up and hauled off to slaughter, of course. And I don't mean to diminish the suffering of the Holocaust victims by equating him with Hitler. He's not there yet, and I hope, being an educated, erudite, scholarly gentleman, that he never will be. You see, Dov only wants a little discrimination. Not death camps, just, y'know, some automatic indicia of guilt. It doesn't even have to have any legal effect. You know, like this.

And yes, I know this entire section was a giant Godwin. But give me a break; if there was ever a justified Godwin, this is it.

2) His Attacks on Muslims are Unwarranted

Dov Hikind supports racial profiling based on the fact that "it would work far more effectively to combat terrorism than the current policy, instituted in 2004, which uses random bag searches." (Cite from Wikipedia) Well, maybe, except that we haven't had any terrorist bombings on US soil since Oklahoma City, which was committed by two white guys.

Oh, sure, we've had shootings, yes. There was the one in Binghamton, NY (committed by an Asian), Virginia Tech (another Asian), and Columbine, committed by two other white guys. Don't forget the Omaha, NE shooting at Westroads Mall, perpetrated by--are you ready?--yet another white guy!

Oh, wait, I know what you're thinking. The Watcher is conveniently ignoring the incident at Ft. Hood, right? That was a Muslim, wasn't it? Yeah, fine, you got one. Except he didn't need to be racially profiled, because he had a long history of psychotic behavior: calls and e-mails to Al-Qaeda and various terrorist operatives, verbal threats against the government, and internet postings signed with his real name, all of which the government was aware of and summarily ignored.

And then, the day after, there was another one committed by a Hispanic guy. Huh, I guess the only people we can let walk around without randomly profiling as terrorists are Black! Oh, no, wait.

3. Mutallab Wouldn't Have Been Profiled

Dov Hikind likes supports racially profiling terror suspects because, well, here are his own words:

"We can go after 80-year-old men and women getting on a plane. But the reality is that you look at the profile of what terrorists have looked like, where they come from and so on and it just makes sense to use that along with other things."

Yes, Dov, let's look at the profile, shall we? Here's one created by psychologist Dr. Mark Sageman. My comments, interspersed, come from this newspaper article and his wiki page.

90 per cent came from a relatively stable, secure background.

Mutallab had that, but he left and eventually stopped speaking to them.

Three quarters were from middle-class or upper-class families, two thirds went to college and two thirds were professionals or semi-professionals, often engineers, physicians, architects or scientists.

He did come from a wealthy family, and he did graduate from college. However, he dropped out of his MBA program and never worked as a professional anything. (For those of you keeping score, thus far, the profile of a terrorist could include me and possibly you!)

The average age for making an active commitment to violent jihad was 26.

D'oh! Our boy is 23. I know it's only a few years, but it's off. Also the "age for making an active commitment" is probably a few years before a guy would be sent on an actual attack, so it could be a little wider than 3.

[T]hree quarters of the terrorists were married, most of them with children.

Not at all. Mutallab had no interest in women. He never got married or had kids.

“Because they were the best and brightest, they were sent abroad to study. They came from moderately religious, caring, middle-class families. They spoke three, four, five, six languages."

This part is more or less true, if broad. Mutallab probably spoke one or two Nigerian dialects, English, and Arabic that he learned when he spent time in Yemen and Dubai.

Unlike the lone serial killer, these men functioned well in groups. Indeed they depended, isolated as they were in a foreign country, on a close circle of friends who reinforced and legitimised their beliefs.

None of that fits our guy at all. Though he's not socially inept, he's mostly a loner who spent his free time praying and creeping out everyone around him. He couldn't find many people who shared his radical views.

“When you look at the global Salafi jihad, you have three waves. The first were the companions of bin Laden, the characters in Afghanistan in the 1980s,” [Dr. Mark Sageman] said. “The second, on whom my 2003 research was based, were the best and the brightest from the Middle East. Those are the guys who became radicalised in the West. Many of them are engineers and physicians."

“And the third are what people call the home-grown, these are the guys who are second or third generation in the West, and they are less well-educated. Their average age is about 19 or 20, and there are more criminal elements there.”

So, no mention of anyone from Nigeria, or Black Africans (which is what racial profiling would be based on!). Group 2 is transplants into Britain, which Mutallab is, but he was brought there by his parents, who had business interests. Dr. Sageman is talking about people who self-transplanted, and would be a lot older than the Mutallab.

Both groups, however, typically experience a sense of dislocation from the society in which they live and work. Clive Walker, a terrorism specialist and Professor of Criminal Justice at Leeds University, says that Mohammad Sidique Khan and his three companions shared a form of “social anomie.”

“It’s a kind of in-between state, a symptom of rejection in many ways. They feel rejected, but equally they reject the available cultures, both of their fathers and of the society they find themselves in,” he said.

I'll give that one half points. That describes Mutallab, but it's tough to tell if his father rejected him or if he was just crazy enough to reject his father.

You know, I might actually grant that some of this stuff be useful. If we could invent a device that scanned every passerby to see if they were an isolated, worldly, educated, hyper-religious kid from a rich, moderately religious family, maybe that might be worth something.

But pulling Arabs out line for special patdowns? Why? It clearly wouldn't have worked here. To make a race-based identification, you'd need a terrorist who's the right race, and we don't have one!

4. Mutallab Didn't Need to be Profiled

We caught him, didn't we?

Okay, that's weak, I know. It was partially due to his own bungling, and partially due to the Dutch guy next to him, who (and I'm speculating here) asked, "Excuse me sir, but do you know your crotch is on fire?"

But seriously, Umar Abdul Mutallab never should have gotten on the plane. We should have stopped him when somebody noticed he was on a no-fly list. Or when someone noticed he had no luggage. Or when his father called the American embassy in Nigeria and ratted him out!

Seriously. I usually defend the Obama administration, but they really dropped the ball here. We had about ten different stops along the way where Mutallab could have been stopped, but we didn't take advantage of any of them.

So my question is: why do we need racial profiling, when we have laws we're not following now? And somehow, we're still catching the bad guys?

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everybody! Or, if you're so inclined, enjoy Festivus for the Restivus!

Swine Flu Vaccine

So I got my H1N1 vaccine this past Friday. Aside from a mild tickle in my throat--which is already gone--I suffered no serious side effects. In fact, no one did.

Yes, I know, the vaccine hasn't been around all that long, but seriously, people, if it were dangerous, SOMETHING would have shown up by now. How long will it take before the conspiracy nuts give up and admit they were wrong?

Oh, I don't doubt that somewhere, somebody who has six different immunodeficiencies and a diet that consists entirely of horse crap will probably get the vaccine and die. Never mind that he or she will be one out of 70 million people vaccinated, versus the 10,000 who died from actually having the disease.

Bottom line: Get your freakin' inoculation and stop listening to the conspiracy nuts. Otherwise, you run the risk of getting it or passing it on to someone else.