Two back-to-back posts by Digby this morning that connected in my head. From the first:
In those days, Republicans believed that government and military leaders were heroic protectors of all we hold dear. But even as kitschy as Bush’s infamous “Mission Accomplished” performance was, and as overweening as the GOP’s patriotic love of men in uniform, that statement above is a remarkable validation of the American dedication to the concept of civilian control of the military. He might have been wearing a fake uniform (he liked to do that) but they acknowledged and respected him for his political leadership.
Something seems to have changed their minds. According to this new YouGov poll, these same patriotic Republicans still love the military passionately but are no longer attached to that moldy old concept of civilian control:
“Republicans (43%) are more than twice as likely as Democrats (20%) to say that they could conceive of a situation in which they would support a military coup in the United States.”
Hmm -- what changed? Could it be that we now have a Democratic president who also happens to be African-American?
But it gets better:
For instance, the latest Washington Post poll shows that they are not so cynical that they cannot imagine anyone having the qualities that are required for such a job:
1) Republicans say by 64-35 that Trump is “qualified to serve as president.”
2) Republicans say by 60-35 that Trump is “honest and trustworthy.”
3) Republicans say by 53-45 that Trump understands the problems of people like them.
4) Republicans say by 54-42 that Trump “has the kind of personality and temperament it takes to serve effectively as president.”
Mr. Trump attended the New York Military Academy after years of rowdy and rebellious behavior at Kew-Forest, a more traditional prep school in Queens. Mr. Trump once recalled giving a teacher at Kew-Forest a black eye “because I didn’t think he knew anything about music.”
A man known as "Il Duce":
Born on July 29, 1883, Mussolini gained a reputation for bullying and fighting during his childhood. At age 10 he was expelled from a religious boarding school for stabbing a classmate in the hand, and another stabbing incident took place at his next school.
It might serve to remember that, in spite of all the cries from the right about "liberal fascists," fascism in Europe was really an unholy alliance of conservative elements in government, business, and the church. Just sayin'.
This piece, by Amanda Marcotte, on the desperation of the "religious" right:
Unfortunately, though, Davis’s behavior isn’t just a bratty tantrum. This whole incident is also a sign of a troubling development in the religious right: As their cultural power declines in the face of growing diversity and liberalism, religious conservatives are embracing scary levels of radicalism. They don’t have the numbers anymore, so they are turning to scarier and more radical demands to seize power in any way that they can.
In this light, the ignorance displayed by leading Republican figures about the way the American legal system works is a little more sinister. Mike Huckabee, although we consider him laughable, is probably the best example:
Mike Huckabee has been at the frontlines of pushing the claim that Christian conservatives simply have the right to ignore or overturn democracy to impose their will, and not just because he’s been running around Kentucky, trying to get himself on camera as much as possible in support of Davis’s attempt to ban gay marriage by fiat. He’s also been using the campaign trail to argue that the president should be able to simply end rule of law and start ruling like a dictator.
He doesn’t use the word dictator, of course, but make no mistake, Huckabee has repeatedly and shamelessly promised that if he is elected president, he will start declaring his beliefs to be the law of the land without the cooperation of Congress. In a Google hangout, he laid out the scheme: Declare as president that there are “constitutional rights of the unborn” and simply ban abortion by fiat. He claimed a similar authority during the Republican debate, a moment that got startlingly little play even though it was literally a candidate for president arguing that he would make himself a dictator.
The calls for armed insurrection start to take on a little more weight. And if you don't think it can happen here consider this:
Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes announced yesterday that he had reached out to Davis’ lawyers at Liberty Counsel to offer the protection of his group, which he says is already forming a presence in Rowan County, Kentucky, where Davis was recently released from jail after prohibiting her office from issuing marriage licenses. Rhodes said in a statement that his position has nothing to do with gay marriage, but rather his conviction that Davis had been illegally detained by the federal judge who held her in contempt for violating multiple court orders.
You may remember them as the group that forced the stand-off at the Bundy Ranch, when Cliven Bundy wanted to use our land for free to graze his cattle.
In spite of all the hoopla (or maybe because of it), and despite what the usual suspects are spreading through the usual channels, Kim Davis' cause isn't all that popular. From Rasmussen, which leans somewhat right:
But just 26% of Likely U.S. Voters think an elected official should be able to a ignore a federal court ruling that he or she disagrees with for religious reasons. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 66% think the official should carry out the law as the federal court has interpreted it.
There always seems to be about a quarter of the U.S. population that thinks our system of laws is only a suggestion, and that they know better -- or at least, their preacher does.
At any rate, it seems that most of the country sees Kim Davis for what she is: a self-centered, arrogant bigot using her religion as a smokescreen.
And according to the judge's order, will stay there until she agrees to issue marriage licenses to all legally qualified couples. So far, she's refusing.
Mahablog has a good, concise summary of the state of affairs as of this morning. She makes one telling observation: "At this point the story is the fallout." That's really it. Davis has no legal options left, although she's vowed to appeal. At least, her attorneys say so, but she really has no legal recourse left: both the Sixth Circuit and the Supreme Court refused requests for stays on Judge Bunning's order, and given the force of her arguments to date, they're not likely to entertain an appeal.
Mat Staver, of Liberty Counsel, her attorneys, is eating it up:
Staver also compared Davis to other "prisoners of conscience."
"Kim joins a long list of people who were imprisoned for their conscience. People who today we admire, like Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Jan Huss, John Bunyan, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and more."
Surprisingly, he left off Rosa Parks.
"Surprisingly" because just about everyone else has dragged Parks into the fray. Staver was probably blinded by the dollar signs he's seeing. And let's face it: there's nothing admirable about Kim Davis: the people Staver mentioned were all working for fairness and equal treatment of all -- they are Davis' polar opposites. And, judging by her refusal to allow her deputies to issue licenses, it's obvious that the real issue here is her desire to force her personal religious beliefs on everyone one else through the powers of her office.
Not surprisingly, the one thing that keeps shining through on Davis' part is her overwhelming arrogance, including her refusal to allow her deputies to issue licenses in her place and her assertion that those licenses "are not worth the paper that they are written on." (There's some question about that last: the County Clerk's signature is required, but there is provision for maintaining the business of the clerk's office during the clerk's absence -- and being in jail certainly counts as "absence.") It's obvious that the real issue here is her desire to force her personal religious beliefs on everyone one else through the powers of her office.
, or, "Today in 'Christian' Love," or, "Today in Compassionate Conservatism" -- take your pick. This:
A program designed to help ex-felons who served time for drug offenses went into effect September 1st in Texas.
Texas soon will allow tens of thousands of residents convicted of drug crimes to receive food assistance from the federal government, joining almost every other state in ending a ban that once covered the entire nation.
Because it makes sense that if ex-convicts are able to feed themselves and their families, there's less incentive for them to return to their old habits. I mean, let's face it -- getting a job these days is not easy for anyone, and it's worse if you've got a record.
But never fear -- Fox News to the rescue:
Morning fearmongerer [sic], Brian Kilmeade presented the story with the intro,
'Hey, thousands of felons are receiving food stamps ON YOUR DIME.'
He interviewed a run-of-the-mill Texas Republican, Matt Rinaldi, who represented the compassionate Conservative opinion that giving aid to the downtrodden is just enabling them. Rinaldi identifies as a Roman Catholic, who apparently eschews the Gospel of Jesus. He identifies with the Tea Party, who wants stronger border security and expanded Second Amendment rights. . . .
Rinaldi gave the usual shtick, why should drug dealers get aid when single mothers, who have done everything by the book, are getting the same assistance?
Hmm . . . how many of those single mothers have never been married? And what book is he talking about?
For some reason, I keep coming up with a parallel between the conservative attitude toward former convicts and children: you're OK if you're someplace where we can keep you under control, like prison or your mother's uterus, but once you're out on your own -- well, you're on your own.
To Fox's credit, they did have a rational person on the show presenting the other side of the story. But Kilmeade's lede is pretty thoroughly reprehensible.
You've no doubt heard about the latest episode in "Christian" soldier Kim Davis' ongoing battle to force her personal religious beliefs on the citizens of her county.
The sound is rather faint, at least in the key part, but here's a transcript:
Davis: We’re not issuing marriage licenses today.
Man: The Supreme Court denied your stay.
Davis: We are not issuing marriage licenses today, so I would ask you all to…
Man: Based on what? Why are you not issuing marriage licenses today?
Davis: Because we’re not.
Partner: Under whose authority are you not issuing marriage licenses?
Davis: [stern look] Under God’s authority.
The "Christian" right is all over this one, of course, with the usual lies and misrepresentations. Here's Bryan Fischer, one of the most shameless liars in that camp:
My point is that Kim Davis, the county clerk in Rowan County Kentucky, she is the ONLY one who is obeying the law. This is not civil disobedience on her part. This is civil obedience. In fact I would suggest that she is the only one in this entire scenario who is actually obeying the law. Because a court ruling, ladies and gentleman, is not the same thing as the law. We know what a law is. A law is something that is passed by the elected representatives of the people and signed into law by the chief executive official…the law that’s on the books is the DOMA law passed by Congress in 1996…that’s the last time Congress has addressed this thing in the form of a law…Now the Supreme Court has issued a ruling that is contrary to that, but remember the Supreme Court has no legislative power whatsoever.
What the Supreme Court does have, as we all know (those of us who did not flunk high school civics), is the power of judicial review: the Supreme Court can nullify a law if it is found to violate the Constitution. Don't expect Fischer, or any of his fellow-travelers, to mention that. (By the way, DOMA is not even the issue here. But this is Bryan Fischer.)
You know I think one way to get around the whole idea of what the Supreme Court is forcing on the states is for states to just get out of the business of giving out licenses. Alabama has already voted to do this…anybody can make a contract and then if you want a marriage contract you go to a church. And so, I’ve often said we could have got around all of this, also, in the sense that I do believe everybody has the right to a contract. There never should have been any limitations on people of the same sex having contracts. But I do object to the state putting its imprimatur to the specialness of marriage, on something that’s different than most people defined as marriage for most of history. So one way is just getting the state out completely. I think that’s what we’re heading towards, actually. Whether or not people who still work for the state can do it without the legislature changing it, is something I’m going to leave up to the courts exactly how to do it. But I think people who do stand up and are making a stand to say they do believe in something is part of the American way.
Shorter Rand Paul: I don't like the Supreme Court's ruling making same-sex marriage the law of the land, so let's just take the government out of marriage. We can ask the courts how to do it.
But enough of the comedy segment of this post. I had some thoughts, reading through these stories this morning, about how this all is most likely going to play out.
History is a series of reactions. They tend to happen these days within a couple of generations, at most. The sixties were a reaction to the enervating conformity of post-War America. The Reagan eighties were a reaction to the sixties. And now we're about to see, I think, a reaction to the dominance of the "Christian" right over the past thirty or so years.
In the particular instance of Kim Davis, Warrior for God, I won't guess whether Davis is looking forward to "Christian" crowd-funding to save her ass, but in the short term, she's going to be a hero to the "Christian" community -- she'll join the bakers and florists on the martyr circuit -- all on "Christian" radio and TV shows: this is their basic tactic for the new mantra of "religious freedom," which is what they're banking on to roll back nondiscrimination laws in general. But for the wider audience -- the American public -- crap like this is starting to be a major turn off, because the god-botherers don't understand that you can't carry this past a certain point. I think we're starting to see the reaction to the last couple of generations of "Christian" hegemony in American politics -- public opinion is on our side in general, and most Americans don't really like the idea of discrimination. Yes, it's the courts leading the way, which is so often the case in this country, but in spite of the "religious" right's efforts to de-legitimize the courts, they are setting the standard.
So, the backlash is going to come, and it ain't going to be pretty -- for them. They're setting themselves against the Consitution, and that doesn't go down well. For Kim Davis to cite "God's authority" when violating people's rights just makes her and her supporters look like just what they are: arrogant, self-centered bigots.
And just to underscore that last point, here's what Davis' Bible has to say about obeying the law:
Romans 13:
1 Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2 Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.
(With thanks to commenter Wayne at the AmericaBlog story.)
Footnote: With regard to Davis' hypocrisy -- much has been made of the fact that she's been married four times. BeccaM, in the comments to the AmericaBlog story, cites this article:
The Kentucky county clerk facing potentially stiff penalties for refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses has been married four times, raising questions of hypocrisy and selective application of the Bible to her life.
The marriages are documented in court records obtained by U.S. News, which show that Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis divorced three times, first in 1994, then 2006 and again in 2008.
She gave birth to twins five months after divorcing her first husband. They were fathered by her third husband but adopted by her second. Davis worked at the clerk's office at the time of each divorce and has since remarried.
Bit it's all OK, you see, because four years ago she found Jesus:
The leader of the organization providing her legal representation, Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel, says he’s not sure precisely how many husbands Davis has had, but that it's not relevant.
“I know she was married more than once – I’ve heard three [times],” he says. “It’s a matter of fact that she’s been married multiple times.”
Staver says “it’s not really relevant, it’s something that happened in her past” and that her conversion to Christianity about four years ago wiped her slate clean. “It’s something that’s not relevant to the issue at hand,” he says. “She was 180 degrees changed.”
“She was 180 degrees changed.” So, does that mean that before becoming a "Christian," she wasn't a self-centered, arrogant bigot?
Actually, the target this time is Planned Parenthood. I'm sure you've heard the stories about how Planned Parenthood is profiting from selling fetal tissue and organs from all the gazillions of abortions they perform every year, based on videos released by a group calling itself "Center for Medical Progress".
At any rate, since PPH is an organization that provides healthcare to women, and especially poor women, the usual suspects -- meaning the teabagger Congress and the "Christian" soldiers -- are all over it. Everyone's investigating Planned Parenthood.
Videos released by anti-choice groups claims that Planned Parenthood is participating in illegal fetal tissue sales, but Planned Parenthood states that the only compensation for fetal tissue donation is for expenses, and those programs are only in two states.
“Although donation of fetal tissue is lawful under the Abortion Control Act and federal law, our review has found that Planned Parenthood facilities in Pennsylvania do not participate in this practice,” Pennsylvania Secretary of Health Karen Murphy wrote in a letter to a state legislator. “Moreover, there is no evidence that any Planned Parenthood site in this Commonwealth is involved in the buying or selling of fetal tissue.”
Murphy said that she’s never found a “violation … regarding the procurement or use of fetal tissue.”
Pennsylvania is the fifth state to investigate and find no wrongdoing on PPH's part.
An expert report submitted to congressional leadership today, concludes that the secretly recorded and heavily edited videos, released about Planned Parenthood and life-saving fetal tissue donation ‘significantly distort and misrepresent’ actual events. . . .
Collectively, the five videotapes of Planned Parenthood staff have at least 42 splices where content is cut and edited together to make it appear to be a seamless conversation.
In some cases, these splices completely change the meaning of statements. On one video, a Planned Parenthood staff member’s remarks about lab protocols were edited to make it sound like she was talking about changing abortion procedures. Phrases on the tape were isolated and removed, stringing together unrelated sentences to change the meaning.
Anti-abortion activists used the doctored “quote” to support false claims that she was talking about changing how an abortion would be done, and the “quote” was published by mainstream media as if it were real.
On one tape, a Planned Parenthood staff member in Colorado says 13 separate times that any arrangements related to fetal tissue donation need to be reviewed by attorneys and follow all laws – and all 13 are edited out of the video.
On another tape, a Planned Parenthood staff member in Texas says nine separate times that there is no “profit” related to fetal tissue donation – and all nine are edited out of the video.
And of course, the "liberal press" has been repeating the lies ad nauseam.
Now, if you think that this report is going to have any effect on the Republican leadership, you really should know better -- the House Witch Hunt Committee has got to justify its existence somehow, and Benghazi!! is so 2014. And don't count on the Democrats to grow a pair.
I suspect, however, that the guardians of America's morals are not going to find PPH such an easy target. Several states have tried cutting off Medicaid funding for PPH -- but it's against federal law.
"Longstanding Medicaid laws prohibit states from restricting individuals who have coverage through Medicaid from receiving care from a qualified provider," Lori Lodes, spokeswoman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told AP in an e-mail. "By restricting which provider a woman could choose to receive care from, women could lose access to critical preventive care, such as cancer screenings."
At least, as in the case of Rowan County (KY) Clerk Kim Davis, whose request for a stay pending appeal to the 6th Circuit was unanimously denied. The 6th made an important observation:
“In light of the binding holding of Obergefell, it cannot be defensibly argued that the holder of the Rowan County Clerk’s office, apart from who personally occupies that office, may decline to act in conformity with the United States Constitution as interpreted by a dispositive holding of the United States Supreme Court,” the judge ruled. “There is thus little or no likelihood that the Clerk in her official capacity will prevail on appeal.”
Translation: It's not about you, Ms. Davis.
I think I've remarked before on the narcissism of the "Christian" right. I'm not the only one to notice.
A long-standing conundrum related to black holes deals with something known as the “information paradox.” In a nutshell, the laws of quantum mechanics tell us that everything in the universe is encoded with information about its constituent particles’ quantum states. And, this information should never entirely disappear, not even if something gets sucked into a black hole. The fact that this information seems to get irretrievably lost when a black hole inevitably evaporates has frustrated physicists for nearly four decades.
During a lecture at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm on Tuesday, famed British physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking presented an idea about how this paradox can be solved. According to him, the quantum-mechanical information about particles falling into black holes doesn’t actually enter the black hole.
“The information is not stored in the interior of the black hole as one might expect, but in its boundary -- the event horizon,” Hawking said, adding that the information is encoded in two-dimensional holograms known as “super translations.”
The problem is that the information is not organized, so that, in practical terms, it is lost, even though it's not. (Don'cha love modern physics?)
I vaguely remember a science-fiction story from years ago in which someone was trapped in orbit around a black hole -- at the event horizon, more or less -- and someone else was trying to rescue them, but it's been a long time and I don't remember the details. The point of that little anecdote is that it may help visualize what Hawking is describing.
One thing that interested me is that I never knew that black holes evaporate, or that it's inevitable.
And Hawking notes that there are other ways out of a black hole short of dissolution. But you'll need to read the article.
Or any other state where Republican-controlled legislatures have been trying to guard against "voter fraud." Via tristero at Hullaballoo, this report:
As an elected lawmaker and member of Myanmar’s governing party, U Shwe Maung attended dinners with the president and made speeches from the floor of Parliament. But this weekend, the country’s election commission ruled that despite more than four years in office, he was not a citizen and thus was ineligible to run for re-election in landmark voting in November.
“I was approved and considered a full citizen in 2010,” he said in an interview on Saturday. “Now, after five years, how could I not be eligible?”
Mr. Shwe Maung’s plight is but one example of what appears to be the mass disenfranchisement of the Rohingya, a persecuted Muslim minority who number around one million in Myanmar.
Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya who cast votes in elections five years ago have been struck from the electoral rolls, election commission officials have confirmed, although without providing a precise number.
Substitute "Latino" or "African-American" or "poor" for "Rohingya," and you could be talking about Kansas, or Florida, or Ohio, or. . . .
If you think the progression to genocide is extreme, consider this, from one of the Hairpiece's fans:
“Hopefully, he’s going to sit there and say, ‘When I become elected president, what we’re going to do is we’re going to make the border a vacation spot, it’s going to cost you $25 for a permit, and then you get $50 for every confirmed kill,’ ” said Jim Sherota, 53, who works for a landscaping company. “That’d be one nice thing.”
Kind of like killing Cecil the Lion only a lot closer and cheaper.
Police say two brothers from South Boston beat a homeless man because he was Hispanic—and The Boston Globe reports one of the men said he was partially inspired by Donald Trump.
The 58-year-old homeless man was asleep next to Dorchester’s John F. Kennedy/UMass stop when he woke up to the brothers urinating on him, police said. They then punched him and beat him with a metal pole, police added.
The two brothers, Scott and Steve Leader, were on their way home from the Red Sox game on Wednesday night when they decided to attack the homeless man, according to police.
One of the brothers claimed to be partially inspired Trump, a Republican presidential candidate, allegedly telling police, “Donald Trump was right, all these illegals need to be deported,” the Globe reports.
After he was informed about the incident, Trump told the Globe, “it would be a shame . . . I will say that people who are following me are very passionate. They love this country and they want this country to be great again. They are passionate.”
Trump has since modified his reaction -- seems the blowback was enough to catch his attention.
And if you're thinking these are just a couple of isolated incidents, go back and read the NYT article linked in the Cecil the Lion quote from Digby. Why does this seem to center on Trump? I think Paul Krugman has hit it:
Here's an interview with Keegan Hirst, the first professional rugby league player to come out as gay:
If you can decipher his accent (even I'm having a bit of trouble with it, and I've been watching English murder mysteries), it's pretty interesting, not only for the actual content, but perhaps even more for the subtext: it's all very matter-of-fact, as though the interview was about the upcoming rugby season or something.
Boston brothers said that they were inspired by Donald Trump to beat and urinate on a homeless Latino man, police revealed on Wednesday.
According to State Police, Scott Leader and Steve Leader encountered the victim on the way home from a Red Sox game near a stop on Boston’s subway system, The Boston Globe reported on Wednesday.
The man said that he awoke to find the brothers urinating on his face and rummaging through his belongings.
“Next thing . . . he was getting hit in the face and head,” a police report explained. “He remembers being punched several times and hit with the metal pole.”
A witness said that the brothers were heard laughing as they walked away.
Or their hero?
Trump called the assault a “shame.”
“I will say that people who are following me are very passionate,” he remarked. “They love this country and they want this country to be great again. They are passionate.”
They're not passionate -- they're stupid bullies, just like their leader.
That's really showing our greatness -- beating up on homeless people. If we were really great, we wouldn't have any homeless people.
You know, the Duggars are getting to be as boring as the Kardashians. They're even less interesting than the Republican presidential wannabes -- although the hypocrisy level might be a little higher. Maybe.
They seem to favor doubling down, backtracking, and dodging. Remember Pastor Ben Bailey of Tennessee, who was steadfast in his contention that gays deserve to be stoned?
“God does not approve of homosexuality or gay marriage,” he insisted. “The scripture says… that is vile, unnatural and deserving of a penalty… It’s an abomination that under the Old Testament deserved stoning.”
"We do not believe in stoning homosexuals," Bailey tells WTAE. He says the New Testament doesn't teach that, "and I didn't teach that in the video."
However, if you look at his church's website and his own sermons, you're likely to be scratching your head over the cognitive dissonance.
"Did you know that the New Testament says that homosexuality is a sin against God and nature?," the text of a sermon given by Bailey reads. "In Romans 1:26-29 we are told that homosexuality is immoral and ungodly, and that people who engage in such will receive the eternal punishment that is due to them if they do not change their ways."
Sounds like he's dodging here. Apparently, his faith isn't strong enough to weather the blowback from his disgraceful and inflammatory statements. But he's doing it out of "love" -- at least, the "Christian" version of love, which no rational person would recognize as anything positive.
If you read the article at the link, the guy sounds pretty incoherent. Perhaps the video is clearer:
It strikes me how easy it must be to be a "Christian" -- you don't have to take responsibility for anything, if you screw someone over Jesus will forgive you (and you don't have to worry about the effect of your actions on those you've harmed), and you never have to question anything in the Bible -- you just have to pick the parts that suit your own agenda.
A newspaper willing to tell it like it is. The Lexington (Kentucky) Herald-Leader has published a blistering editorial on Kim Davis and her battle for "religious freedom":
Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis has chosen to prolong her moment in the limelight by defying a federal judge's order to issue marriage licenses to legally qualifed people who apply for them.
U.S. District Judge David Bunning kindly but firmly told Davis Wednesday that in our system her religious beliefs don't trump the rights of the taxpayers who pay her almost $80,000 annual salary. . . .
No doubt county clerks and their staffs over the decades have often looked at people applying for marriage licenses and questioned both the wisdom and the likely sanctity of the proposed union. Certainly they've often known things about the couple that many religions would frown upon. But we've never heard of a clerk denying a license to a divorced person, a philanderer, someone who's abused a partner or neglected children. It's easy to imagine the outrage and chaos that would ensue if clerks began morality-testing prospective opposite-gender spouses. But that's exactly the right that Davis is demanding. She wants to pick and choose, based on her beliefs, which legally qualified couples will get marriage licenses.
The real target, though, is Liberty Counsel, acting as Davis' attorneys:
Liberty's attorneys know they can't win the case in Rowan County. Same-sex marriage is legal since the Supreme Court's June 26 decision and it's Davis' job to issue marriage licenses.
So, why is Liberty Counsel marching alongside Davis in this losing cause? It takes a lot to keep that marketing machine humming and those executives paid, and the only way to keep those donations coming is to stay in the news. For that purpose a losing cause is just as good as, perhaps better than, a winning one.
That comes after a summary of Liberty Counsel's executive salaries and expenses -- excuse me, $600,000 for someone to send e-mails?
Read the whole thing. It's delicious.
(Apologies -- somehow, I forgot to provide the link. It's there now, so I've bumped this one up.)
Not to freak you out or anything, but scientists have just revealed that octopuses are so weird they’re basically aliens.
The first full genome sequence shows of that octopuses (NOT octopi) are totally different from all other animals – and their genome shows a striking level of complexity with 33,000 protein-coding genes identified, more than in a human.
Proving that octopuses are creatures that arrived from another planet, possibly from another solar system, may not be revealed any time soon. However, their alien existence upon the Earth is expected to be the focus of significant research in the coming years. It is likely that they will be found to be born of the Earth, but the mysticism that they may be aliens makes the genome discovery quite intriguing.
This is what the abstract of the study says:
The core developmental and neuronal gene repertoire of the octopus is broadly similar to that found across invertebrate bilaterians.
Buy stock in tinfoil. It's a sure bet.
Science reporting in general is pretty abysmal. I don't know if it's just that the writers are generalists who find themselves out of their depth when covering specialist findings, or whether they're just so used to dumbing down that it's become a reflex. Years ago, I used to read NYT's science articles regularly, until I finally got fed up. And this was NYT.
Glen Cook, in The Instrumentalities of the Night, describes a progression of the religions centered in the Holy Lands. The first is the god of the Dainshaukin, which he describes at various times as "vicious," "psychotic," "egomaniacal," and "psychopathic." That one seems to be a blend of the ancient Middle Eastern gods -- think Baal and the like -- at least as near as I can figure. (Cook doesn't display a lot of sympathy for organized religion or the gods themselves in this series.)
During an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union this morning, Mike Huckabee was asked about “Mainumby,” a ten-year-old Paraguayan girl who became pregnant after she was raped by her stepfather. The girl, whose name is a pseudonym, was denied an abortion and forced to carry the baby to term, despite objections from medical experts.
When CNN host Dana Bash asked Huckabee if he would have allowed Mainumby to have an abortion, Huckabee responded with a stock answer: “Does it solve the problem by taking the life of an innocent child?”
Bash then asked Huckabee if it would be easy “looking in the eyes of a 10-year-old girl and saying, ‘You had a horrible thing happen to you, and you’re going to...carry it out for the next nine months.’”
Huckabee responded: “No, it isn’t easy. I wouldn’t pretend it’s anything other than a terrible tragedy. But let’s not compound the tragedy by taking yet another life.”
His rationale for such a decision is two-fold Huckabee explained, it protects both fetus and mother: “There are two victims. One is the child; the other is that birth mother who often will go through extraordinary guilt years later when she begins to think through what happened — with the baby, with her. And again, there are no easy answers here.”
"There are no easy answers here." That's good, especially since the Pastor/Governor has one: punish the 10-year-old mother-to-be for being the victim of a rape. Why do I get the feeling that this is not an issue on which he's squandered a lot of thought?
And what about the life of the "innocent child" who is the real victim here? Oh, I forgot -- children only matter before they're born.
Pastor Ben Bailey of the Central church of Christ in McMinnville, Tennessee blamed “liberal society” for banning the stoning of LGBT people, whom he said were deserving of punishment.
In a Sunday broadcast for The Gospel of Christ television program, Bailey observed that some couples were choosing to go to churches with “relaxed and liberal views.”
He said that they wanted “things like women preaching, women leading in service, where homosexuals and gay marriage were accepted openly.”
“They were just looking for something liberal,” the pastor continued. “Something that didn’t criticize or condemn or didn’t have any hardcore standards on anything — anything goes type of mentality.”
But Bailey argued that was not what God wanted.
“He has a definite standard and it is not the liberal mindset that we see today,” Bailey opined. “This book [the Bible] does not condone things like women preaching… Paul said I do not let a woman preach of be in authority over a man, that’s not according to the Bible. If I’m out to please God, we don’t find things like that in the Bible.”
“God does not approve of homosexuality or gay marriage,” he insisted. “The scripture says… that is vile, unnatural and deserving of a penalty… It’s an abomination that under the Old Testament deserved stoning.”
Got that? Not stoning people is "liberal." This guy makes Rick Santorum look like a progressive.
He is, of course, an Old Testament "Christian". I wonder how he'd manage if he pulled his head out of his Leviticus long enough to read the Gospels?
(By the way -- I've read that the word "abomination," of which the OT "Christians" are so fond, is a mistranslation, and the word actually used meant something like "not the custom" or "against our tradition." But then, that doesn't have quite the same punch, does it?)
The real problem is how to lure these roaches back into the woodwork where they belong.
