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If evolution is true, then…


 
Caption THIS…

My entry is:

“What Would Jethro Do?”

Via Christian Nightmares

Posted by Richard Metzger
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06.20.2011
09:37 pm
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Ayn Rand absolutely hated Ronald Reagan
06.17.2011
03:25 pm
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As I’ve admitted on this blog before, I was a teenage Ayn Rand fanatic. I owned all of her books, cassette tapes of her lectures and every single issue of The Objectivist, The Objectivist Newsletter and The Ayn Rand Letter. I’m not exactly proud of this fact, but what can I do? Thankfully it didn’t take me that long to outgrow this nonsense, but for good or ill, I still to this day have a pretty good working knowledge of her philosophy and life’s work.

This morning it popped into my head, appropos of nothing, how much Ayn Rand railed against Ronald Reagan before she died and I recalled one particular essay from one of the final issues of The Ayn Rand Letter where she asked her readers not to support Reagan and instead to vote for Gerald Ford, who Reagan was challenging for the GOP nomination at the time (and who appointed her loyal apostle and acolyte, Alan Greenspan, to his position as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board).

I’m guessing that a lot of Republican Ayn Rand fans—maybe this will be news to Rep. Paul Ryan and Senator Rand Paul—probably don’t realize that their hero had such a dim view of The Gipper…

From The Ayn Rand Letter, Volume IV, Number 2, November-December 1975:

Now I want to give you a brief indication of the kinds of issues that are coming up, on which you might want to know my views.

1. The Presidential election of 1976. I urge you, as emphatically as I can, not to support the candidacy of Ronald Reagan. I urge you not to work for or advocate his nomination, and not to vote for him. My reasons are as follows: Mr. Reagan is not a champion of capitalism, but a conservative in the worst sense of that word—i.e., an advocate of a mixed economy with government controls slanted in favor of business rather than labor (which, philosophically, is as untenable a position as one could choose—see Fred Kinnan in Atlas Shrugged, pp. 541-2). This description applies in various degrees to most Republican politicians, but most of them preserve some respect for the rights of the individual. Mr. Reagan does not: he opposes the right to abortion.

From Rand’s final public speech, “Sanction of the Victims,” delivered November 21, 1981:

In conclusion, let me touch briefly on another question often asked me: What do I think of President Reagan? The best answer to give would be: But I don’t think of him—and the more I see, the less I think. I did not vote for him (or for anyone else) and events seem to justify me. The appalling disgrace of his administration is his connection with the so-called “Moral Majority” and sundry other TV religionists, who are struggling—apparently with his approval—to take us back to the Middle Ages, via the unconstitutional union of religion and politics.

The threat to the future of capitalism is the fact that Reagan might fail so badly that he will become another ghost, like Herbert Hoover, to be invoked as an example of capitalism’s failure for another fifty years.

Observe Reagan’s futile attempts to arouse the country by some sort of inspirational appeal. He is right in thinking that the country needs an inspirational element. But he will not find it in the God-Family-Tradition swamp.

If you know any conservative Republican Ayn Rand fans, you should forward this post to them, just to annoy ‘em.

Below, William F. Buckley on Ayn Rand:
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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06.17.2011
03:25 pm
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Oregon jury convicts faith healing parents
06.08.2011
02:21 pm
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Yet another depressing post from me this morning, but what are you gonna do?

Tuesday afternoon an Oregon jury found Timothy and Rebecca Wyland guilty of criminal mistreatment for denying medical care to their baby daughter, Alayna. The couple now faces up to five years in prison.

The jury deliberated a little over an hour, and was unanimous in their verdict.

Authorities filed charges against the Wylands after an abnormal and deforming buildup of blood vessels in the child’s left eye was left untreated. The buildup, known as a hemangioma, would have left Alayna blind in the left eye if untreated.

While the Wylands prayed over Alayna, anointed her with oil and used other spiritual rituals endorsed by their church, they failed to seek medical attention for their daughter’s obvious ailment. From January to June of 2010 the couple did nothing while their daughter’s condition deteriorated.

The Wyland’s are members of the Followers of Christ Church located in Oregon City. The church is notorious for prohibiting members from seeking medical attention, favoring prayer over medical treatment. The consequences of church doctrine have been tragic: the preventable deaths of numerous children.

Defense attorneys for the parents tried to argue the couple was the victim of religious persecution - an argument the jury was definitely not buying.

Good for this jury, obviously. This is appalling and reckless stupidity. People this dumb and superstitious should not be allowed to procreate.

Other children of families belonging to the Followers of Christ Church, the church the Wylands attend, have died. The Wylands were the third couple in 24 months to be prosecuted for failing to provide medial treatment for their children.

Last months’s legislation in the Oregon state Senate ending legal protection for parents who practice religious faith healing was directly due to the cases related to the Followers of Christ Church.

Oregon jury convicts faith healing parents (Portland Humanist)

Posted by Richard Metzger
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06.08.2011
02:21 pm
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Dr. George Rekers: American Mengele?


 
This story is do distasteful, twisted and nasty, it’s hard to know where to begin…

There was a piece on Anderson Cooper 360º last night that was so shocking to me, I was simply dumbfounded by what I was seeing. It’s sad. Oh, is it sad. And infuriating. It’s that in spades.

Fundamentalist Christian leader, anti-gay activist and infamous hirer of male prostitutes, Dr. George Rekers, who foundered the Family Research Council (with Dr. James Dobson) was the lead in the grotesque mind-rape of an innocent child—not just one child, several—in a bizarre psychological experiment at UCLA in the 70s called the “Feminine Boy Project.” Boys as young as 4-years-old were trusted with this creep by parents who were worried that their sons would turn out to be “sissies,” looking for a “cure” for this behavior.

When you watch this, you’ll want to cry. It was child abuse, pure and simple, under cover of “science” and administered by a self-loathing gay man with severe psychological issues of his own. When Rekers was caught in his “rent boy” scandal, with male prostitute Jo-Vanni Roman in 2010, Frank Rich of The New York Times wrote: “Thanks to Rekers’ clownish public exposure, we now know that his professional judgments are windows into his cracked psyche, not gay people’s. But…his excursions into public policy have had real and damaging consequences on a large swath of Americans.”

Like young Kirk Murphy, whose life was ruined by Rekers’ sick Pavlovian “therapy.” From CNN:

Kirk Andrew Murphy seemed to have everything to live for. He put himself through school. He had a successful 8-year career in the Air Force. After the service, he landed a high profile position with an American finance company in India.

But in 2003 at age 38, Kirk Murphy took his own life.

A co-worker found him hanging from the fan of his apartment in New Delhi. His family has struggled for years to understand what happened.

“I used to spend so much time thinking, why would he kill himself at the age of 38? It doesn’t make any sense to me,” said Kirk’s sister, Maris Murphy. “What I now think is I don’t know how he made it that long.”

After Kirk’s death, Maris started a search that would uncover a dark family secret. That secret revealed itself during a phone conversation with her older brother Mark, who mentioned his distrust of any kind of therapy.

“Don’t you remember all that crap we went through at UCLA?” he asked her. Maris was too young to remember the details, but Mark remembered it vividly as a low point in their lives.

It’s a pity Kirk didn’t live long enough to see Rekers’ disgrace, downfall and the complete discrediting of his life’s work by the scientific community. He is a pariah now, even in the Christian conservative community, something he so richly deserves, but. humiliation isn’t enough for a guy like George Rekers. Humiliation is too kind for a monster of his caliber.

Imagine what it’s like to Google your own name and see yourself compared to Josef Mengele THOUSANDS of times? I hope that more of his victims and their families come forward like the Murphy family has and publicly denounce this evil man. He should be investigated, his degrees should be stripped from him, and I sure hope that he’s wrapped up in expensive lawsuits from his victims that will ruin what is left of his time on this planet.

Perhaps it’s impolite to say this, but it’s too bad that Kirk didn’t take George Rekers with him when he killed himself, but I doubt that I was the only one thinking it, watching this.

Maris Murphy,  said it best:

“The research has a postscript that needs to be added,” she said. “That is that Kirk Andrew Murphy was Kraig and he was gay, and he committed suicide.”

“I want people to remember that this was a little boy who deserved protection, respect and unconditional love,” his sister said. “I don’t want him to be remembered as a science experiment. He was a person.”

This is some powerful reporting. Anderson Cooper and his team did a great job with this explosive story.
 

 

 
Therapy to change ‘feminine’ boy created a troubled man, family says (CNN)
 
Via Little Green Footballs

Posted by Richard Metzger
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06.08.2011
12:14 pm
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Palin dissed by Margaret Thatcher confidante: ‘Sarah Palin is nuts’
06.07.2011
06:01 pm
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Sarah Palin would like to meet Margaret Thatcher when she’s in England next month. Palin told the Sunday Times:

“I am going to Sudan in July and hope to stop in England on the way. I am just hoping Mrs Thatcher is well enough to see me as I so admire her.”

Hey, not so fast there, snowbilly grifter! Palin’s plans for something to rub off on her (or at least a photo op that will drive Michele Bachmann green with envy) will be most likely be “thwarted” with the excuse that Baroness Thatcher is seldom seen in public anymore and in poor health, as Wintour and Watt report at The Guardian’s website:

It would appear that the reasons go deeper than Thatcher’s frail health. Her allies believe that Palin is a frivolous figure who is unworthy of an audience with the Iron Lady. This is what one ally tells me:

“Lady Thatcher will not be seeing Sarah Palin. That would be belittling for Margaret. Sarah Palin is nuts.”

Posted by Richard Metzger
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06.07.2011
06:01 pm
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No Virtue in Selfishness: Some Christians do not like ‘The Ayn Rand Budget’


 
Did you see the footage of Republican Congressman Paul Ryan hot-footing it to his SUV to avoid being handed a Bible at the Faith and Freedom Coalition meeting yesterday? The young man who accosted Ryan, I believe is named James Salt. My hat is off to you, James. Bravo, sir! That took balls, and I’ll bet it was fun!

Via Swampland:

These days, when people question a politician’s “morality,” they usually mean his or her personal behavior and choices. But an interesting thing is happening right now around the GOP budget proposal. A broad coalition of religious voices is criticizing the morality of the choices reflected in budget cuts and tax policy. And they’ve specifically targeted Ryan and his praise for Rand, the philosopher who once said she “promote[d] the ethic of selfishness.”

Across the street from the Faith & Freedom Conference Friday afternoon, a group of religious leaders continued the attack on what they now consistently refer to as “The Ayn Rand Budget.” Father Cletus Kiley, a Catholic priest, declared the Ryan budget “does not pass our test” of Catholic teachings, and suggested that supporters of the budget “drop Ayn Rand’s books and pick up their sacred texts.”

Rand’s influence on Ryan’s politics is also the subject of a new ad produced by the religious group American Values Network, which hopes to run the spot in Ryan’s district. It’s a stinging attack, and again, one that was wholly unanticipated by the Republican rising star.

BRILLIANT!!!! 100% gold-plated genius. LET HIM HAVE IT! They need to make it really hot for this guy…

You won’t hear this in the embedded video below, but in another video of the same event from a different camera, James Salt says: “He [Ryan] will have to account for the suffering he will cause.”

I don’t think James was referring to voters here, when he says Ryan will be held accountable, do you? It’s a pity Ryan didn’t hear that bit…

As YouTube commenter Dr. Frank Crosby quipped: “The mistake the conference organizers made was assuming that Representative Ryan with his hate-filled policies is a Christian.”

”+1,” as the kids say…+1.
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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06.05.2011
09:30 pm
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Sarah Palin on Paul Revere: The idiots are coming! The idiots are coming!


 
A history lesson, courtesy of Sarah Palin…

Wonkette said it best:

“[E]very time Sarah Palin speaks in public, the nation’s collective IQ drops another point.”

I love how she seems PISSED-OFF to be put on the spot over something that a fourth grader would know… Run, Sarah, Run!!!
 

 
Via Wonkette

Posted by Richard Metzger
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06.03.2011
02:27 pm
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The GOP’s ‘useless eaters’ solution: No more food for you, poor people!


 
Let them eat… nothing!

There is currently a record number of Americans—14%—relying on federal food stamp assistance programs and that number is probably not going to shrink, but grow, in the near term, as more and more desperate Americans exhaust their unemployment benefit extensions. The number of recipients has risen 11% since last year and over 61% since 2007. At present there are an incredible 45 million people (21 million families) who depend on this assistance to put food in their bellies. So that they and their children do not go to bed hungry. (My parents run a food kitchen for the poor out of their church basement in West Virginia, the stories I’ve heard are sad and pitiful.)

If the evil Republicans get their way, these poor families, school-age children, veterans of foreign wars and disabled people can just… starve… Via ABC News:

The Republicans’ 2012 budget plan proposes changing SNAP [“Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program”] from an entitlement to a block-grant program that would be tailored for each individual state, much like their proposal for Medicaid. States would no longer receive open-ended subsidies and the aid would be contingent on work or job training. It would also limit funding for the program.

“Limit funding”? In certain states (see New Mexico, Florida, Michigan) they’d just eliminate it entirely.

Why should poor people think they have some kind of a right to eat?

Rand Paul would tell you this himself: Food, like healthcare, is not a right! If some Americans have to starve to death, this is what it takes to preserve our freedom!

It amazes me that Republicans think stirring up these kinds of vicious class resentments somehow helps them politically. I mean, sure, the very, very poorest people tend not to vote, but this stuff is just so nasty that I can’t help wondering what is really going to happen if/when these sorts of cuts go into effect. Do they really expect that these folks will simply STOP EATING AND DIE?

Well, judging from the GOP’s behavior, maybe they do! How else do you explain away this particular aspect of “compassionate conservatism”? Well… now that you mention if, it would certainly help balance the budget if a ton of poor people died. Why just think of the tax cuts for the rich!

Will the Republicans finally be happy when we’re all living in a country that resembles Mad Max far more than it does Leave it to Beaver? Is this what the Republicans want? It sure seems that way to me. If not that, then what? What am I missing???

But the thing is, right, is it actually good for them, too? Think of the shitty karma the Republicans unleash by skull-fucking the poor and indigent?

It’s a very black and white situation: Vote a certain way and millions of people go hungry. Vote a certain way and INSURE an increase in misery for the weakest members of society (just like Jesus would want!).

Would you want that stain on your karma? There is a special place in Hell for someone so cruel and ugly.

It’s not really any kind of grand “thought experiment” to imagine another member of Congress being shot—a Republican this time—not by some lunatic like Jared Lee Loughner, but by a broken man who’s completely lost his shit because he can no longer feed his family. Some sad guy, completely depressed walks into a town hall meeting or a political appearance with a gun and decides to confront the cold-hearted bastard who he blames for fucking his life up and shoots him. It’s not difficult to imagine at all. But again, it won’t be a professional lunatic next time, it’s going to be a destitute, desperate John Q type-situation. It’s gonna happen, it’s just a matter or when.

For the record, I’m not a big fan of violence, but it does have its place, historically, in the class war that’s raged since human society began. Admittedly the image of say, Rep. Paul Ryan, being forced to fellate a Colt .45 in front of news cameras and having to beg for his life by a once-proud middle-class father reduced to moving his family into a car is something I’d really enjoy seeing. (I think whoever did that would go down in history as a folk hero and at least THEY FEED YOU IN JAIL)

The Republicans think that they can cut entitlements for the poor with impunity because the poor don’t vote. But they are not immune from the laws of karma: What if a new front in the class war opens up that doesn’t involve the ballot box?

Posted by Richard Metzger
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06.01.2011
01:07 pm
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Bikers force Westboro Baptist Church to eat exhaust as Joplin protest abandoned
05.31.2011
01:37 pm
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Over the weekend, a planned action by the Westboro Baptist Church in Joplin, Missouri to coincide with President Obama’s memorial to the people killed in the storms, was abandoned after a large group of bikers arrived and made things hot for them. Some truckers are alleged to have blocked members of the hate group from leaving a truck stop area until the event was over. Apparently the one guy who did manage to show up on site was a “freelance” nutcase and not actually a member of the “church.”

According to one first-hand account, reposted on Raw Story, it went down something like this:

“When the police saw what was about to happen they grabbed him and tried to push the bikers back!! Then they told the guy “run you stupid mother fucker” And I am quoting!!  We heard that more of them were blocked at a local truck stop by a few awesome truckers!! They pinned them in until it was over, not sure about this one just what we were hearing!! You may think of bikers as mean or lawless but when it comes to things like this they really step up!!!”
 

 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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05.31.2011
01:37 pm
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I’m not racist, but
05.31.2011
12:35 pm
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Here’s a blog dedicated to people who are not racist, but… Well, you get the picture. Good grief.  

I’m Not Racist, But…
 

 
(via Cynical-C)

 

Posted by Tara McGinley
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05.31.2011
12:35 pm
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