Impious since 2006
This human desire to have divine meaning to our lives continues to propagate religion from generation to generation. When you remove emotion from the equation, it’s not difficult to see religion for the ancient superstition that it is.
Wisdom from Carl Sagan:
The Senate Republicans blocked a $30-billion plan to help community banks boost lending to small businesses, dealing a blow to President Barack Obama’s election-year battle to reduce unemployment.
Tempers ran high as Democratic leaders failed to muster the 60 votes needed to advance the measure over a Republican filibuster…Even if the Senate passes the small business lending bill next week, it will be too late to get it to Obama’s desk before mid-September. The House of Representatives, which passed its version of the bill in June, is set to begin a six-week break on Friday. The House will be unable to vote on the version passed by the Senate until then…Obama has been pushing for passage of the lending measure arguing that getting more capital into the hands of independent community bankers would lead to more small business loans. It is supported by independent bankers and business groups.
Jeff Bridges rules out 'Lebowski' sequel
California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman is now in support of the anti-immigration legislation she recently opposed shortly after she stated she supported it, unless you speak Spanish."The Flower," award winning artist Haik Hoisington contrasts a legal marijuana economy with an illegal one, to show how everyone stands to benefit from ending the war on weed. [note that no one is irresponsible, and even take public transportation?]
Migrants sell up, flee Arizona ahead of crackdown
Bringing round a friend; non smoker, veggie, bit of a painter... it's f*ckin' Hitler!
This week the Unemployment Benefits for millions of Democrat voters has been extended, even though no one's really sure how the Federal Government is paying for it. But the Democrats convinced everyone that it was the obstructionist Republicans who were stalling their checks. Good political win for the Democrats there!
There's been a lot of talk about the Black Panther voter intimidation case getting thrown out. I think John McCain and Sarah Palin did a better job, and I guess the judge agrees with me.
The Pork-u-lus bill doesn't seem to be working out.
Financial Reform was passed, but, lets be honest - it's just setting up the dominoes for next time.
And meanwhile Mr. Obama's poll numbers and his Super Powers are shrinking.
And meanwhile at Comicon - this happened.
Have a great week.
The entire cast of Joss Whedon’s just-assembled Avengers on a single stage at Comic-Con. L to R: Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man); Clark Gregg (SHIELD Agent Coulson); Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow); Chris Hemsworth (Thor); Chris Evans (Captain America); Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury); Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye); Mark Ruffalo (The Hulk); Joss Whedon; and Marvel Studios’ President Kevin Feige.
[/film.]
Father sues son over stealing his Cubs season tickets. You'd think he'd thank him instead?
Ieshuh Griffin is running for state office in Wisconsin, and she wants voters to know she is "NOT the white man's bitch".Remember how, back in 2008, everyone voted out the Republicans because they were greedy, corrupt, and disrespectful of the voting public? Well give them this much: But they were so GOOD at it!
If you want to see politicians who are simultaneously a) corrupt and b) really bad at it, look no farther than New York state, where elected Democrats are tarnishing every institution of disciplined corruption that the Gambino family worked for decades to establish.
To illustrate our point, here’s a list of all the corrupt Democrats that New York has had to endure in recent months… plus the corrupt Republicans they could learn from.
| Corrupt Democrat | Act of Corruption | Republican Who Did It Better |
|---|---|---|
 Eliot Spitzer, ex-governor | Hard to believe this was 2 years ago. Spitzer rode a wave of self-righteousness all the way to Washington, DC, where he washed up aboard The Mayflower… and then paid several thousand dollars for rough sex. | David Vitter, who one-ups Spitzer’s hypocrisy by trying to criminalize the very prostitution industry he patronized so faithfully. |
 David Paterson, current governor | Allegedly used state police to intimidate the victim of his wife-beating aide. And he forced the Yankees to give him free World Series tickets. | Rudy Giuliani knows more about exploiting the Yankees. He also knows how to get way more out of thuggish police officers. |
 Hiram Monserrate, ex-State Senator | Beat the crap out of his live-in girlfriend. | Ousted Rep. Don Sherwood (R-PA) beat the crap out of his live-in mistress. |
 Charlie Rangel, U.S. Representative | Despite chairing the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, he appears to not have declared a taxable asset since the Carter administration. | Ex-Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, who’s paying back taxes on lobbying gifts in the form of hand-made license plates. |
 Eric Massa, U.S. Representative | Propositioned a male aide in his Capitol Hill offices. | Actually, Massa even beats the Republicans in this category. Not even Mark Foley was slick enough to use the excuse: “I’m just a salty old sailor.“ |
House Panel Says Rep. Charles B. Rangel Violated Ethics Rules
A man known for posting an online warning to the creators of "South Park" that they risked death by mocking the Prophet Muhammad was arrested Wednesday and charged with offering himself as a fighter to a Somali terror group linked to Al-K-Duh.
Best Counterprotest of Westboro, ever. Fairly sure.
The Pew Research Center has gotten to the bottom of who's buying up all those “Left Behind” books. Many of them appear to be … Democrats? Whhhaaa?? That's unpossible! As part of a larger survey about Americans’ predictions for the next 40 years, just over 1,500 people were asked whether they thought that Jesus Christ would return to the earth during that timeframe. Interestingly enough, it is self-identified Democrats who appear to have more certitude that this will happen than Republicans. Whhhaaa part II?
According to the poll, 26% of Democrats believe that the Second Coming “will definitely” happen within the next four decades. In comparison 19% of Republicans believe this.
Among those who think Jesus will probably return to earth in 40 years, there are more GOPers than Democrats. Just under a quarter (24%) of Republicans believe this will happen compared to 18% of Democrats who predict this. Independents are least likely compared to members of both parties to believe in Jesus’ imminent return.
By the way, the partisan breakdown on this question was not in the general report on the Center’s website. The info above was emailed to me in response to a question I had after spotting an item by New York Times columnist Charles Blow on a group that is rarely mentioned in by America’s journalists, the religious left:
I guess the larger number, 75% believed that He was currently in the White House?According to a Gallup report issued last Friday, church attendance among blacks is exactly the same as among conservatives and among Republicans. Hispanics closely follow. Furthermore, a February Gallup report found that blacks and Hispanics, respectively, were the most likely to say that religion was an important part of their daily lives. In fact, on the Jesus question, nonwhite Democrats were roughly twice as likely as white Democrats to believe that He would return to earth by 2050.
Add to this the fact that, according to the 2009 Gallup report, 20 percent of the Democratic Party is composed of highly religious whites who attend church once a week or more, and you quickly stop second-guessing the Second Coming numbers.
Welcome to the Religious Left, which will continue to grow as the percentage of minorities in the country and in the party grows.
People often ask whether the Republican Party will have to move to the left to remain viable. However, the question rarely asked is whether the growing religiosity on the left will push the Democrats toward the right.
Scott Adams [Dilbert] bows at Steve Jobs’ crisis management skills.
I’m sure you’re all following the iPhone 4 story. If you hold the phone a certain way, it drops calls.
In a press conference on the subject, Steve Jobs said, “We’re not perfect. Phones are not perfect. We all know that. But we want to make our users happy.”
Jobs got a lot of heat about his response. Where was the apology? Where was the part where he acknowledged that the buck stops with him, and that Apple made a big mistake that never should have happened? That’s public relations 101, right?
I’m a student of how language influences people. Apple’s response to the iPhone 4 problem didn’t follow the public relations playbook because Jobs decided to rewrite the playbook. (I pause now to insert the necessary phrase Magnificent Bastard.) If you want to know what genius looks like, study Jobs’ words: “We’re not perfect. Phones are not perfect. We all know that. But we want to make our users happy.”
Jobs changed the entire argument with nineteen words. He was brief. He spoke indisputable truth. And later in his press conference, he offered clear fixes.
Did it work? Check out the media response. There’s lots of talk about whether other smartphones are perfect or not. There’s lots of talk about whether Jobs’ response was the right one. But the central question that was in everyone’s head before the press conference – “Is the iPhone 4 a dud” – has, well, evaporated. Part of the change in attitude is because the fixes Apple offered are adequate. But those fixes easily could have become part of the joke if handled in an apologetic “please kick me” way.
If Jobs had not changed the context from the iPhone 4 in particular to all smartphones in general, I could make you a hilarious comic strip about a product so poorly made that it won’t work if it comes in contact with a human hand. But as soon as the context is changed to “all smartphones have problems,” the humor opportunity is gone. Nothing kills humor like a general and boring truth.
The fact that the iPhone 4 is, in fact, a dud has been, at least temporarily, obscured by this brilliant jujitsu. But, it turns out, most of iPhone’s competitors still work if you hold them using your hands.
Ex-IRS agent pleads guilty
Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left the Apollo 11 command module (piloted by Michael Collins) in orbit and performed a landing in the lunar module Eagle. At 4:18 p.m. EDT, Armstrong announced to a watching and waiting world that “The Eagle has landed.”
Remember when everything was starting to look better? When spending by the most affluent was about to save us from the Great Recession? It didn't last, and now that the rich are on a budget, it's time to show how trickle down works, again.
ut the Top 5 percent in income earners — those households earning $210,000 or more — account for about one-third of consumer outlays, including spending on goods and services, interest payments on consumer debt and cash gifts, according to an analysis of Federal Reserve data by Moody’s Analytics. That means the purchasing decisions of the rich have an outsize effect on economic data. According to Gallup, spending by upper-income consumers — defined as those earning $90,000 or more — surged to an average of $145 a day in May, up 33 percent from a year earlier. Hmmmm.
At the high end, luxury hotel chains like the Four Seasons and Ritz Carlton said bookings were much stronger earlier this year but had recently slowed. And upscale retailers, including Saks and Neiman Marcus, said sales growth eased in June. Overall retail sales slid in June from May, the government said this week.
However - There is one thing we've got that they didn't have in the Great Depression: built in obsolescence : in industrial design is a policy of deliberately planning or designing a product with a limited useful life, so it will become obsolete or nonfunctional after a certain period. Planned obsolescence has potential benefits for a producer because to obtain continuing use of the product the consumer is under pressure to purchase again, whether from the same manufacturer (a replacement part or a newer model, heeelllooo iPhone customers waiting in line, over night?), or from a competitor which might also rely on planned obsolescence. The purpose of planned obsolescence is to hide the real cost per use from the consumer, who will be willing to pay a higher price for the product than if he had been aware of its limited useful life.
Jonestown Kool Aid Summer Spectacular!The headlines light up from Lieberman’s suggestions:
“US Ready to Strike Iran” (2010) & “Bomb Iran If It Doesn’t Stop” (2007)
“We hope this threatens the abusers in Iran and we hope this legislation says to the protestors, your struggle is difficult but as has been the case for those who have fought tyrannies throughout history, that ultimately the cause of freedom and justice will prevail.” – February 11, 2010 joining John McCain on an Iran Human Rights Bill
On “Face the Nation” with Bob Schieffer June 10, 2007
“I think we’ve got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq…and to me, that would include a strike into…over the border into Iran, where we have good evidence that they have a base at which they are training these people coming back into Iraq to kill our soldiers.”
“I think you could probably do a lot of it from the air, but they can’t believe that they have immunity for training and equipping people to come in and kill Americans.”
If the U.S. does not act against Iran, he added, “they’ll take that as a sign of weakness on our part and we will pay for it in Iraq and throughout the region and ultimately right here at home.”
In September of 2007, John Kyl co-sponsored an amendment with Lieberman to basically declare the Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a global terrorist group. The initial intent was to identify Iran’s influence in Iraq to ratchet up the military response.
He told the Jerusalem Post: (aim of air strikes in Iran would be) “to delay [the nuclear program] to deter it hoping that you set the program off course so that by the time they catch up back to where they were there’s been a change in government. That’s the limited objective that I would see” – April 18, 2006
In December of that year he paraphrased he was opposed to a sit in direct talks with Iran because it was like “your local fire department asking a couple of arsonists to help put out the fire. These people are flaming the fire. They are extremists.”
In 2004 Joe Lieberman help for the Committee on Present Danger (CPD) claiming the aim of the group was “to form a bipartisan citizens’ army, which is ready to fight a war of ideas against our Islamist terrorist enemies, and to send a clear signal that their strategy to deceive, demoralize, and divide America will not succeed.”
Then all the way back to 2003, in an interview on FOX News:
I think it would be in the interest of the world, and most particularly of the Iranian people, to have a regime change in Iran.
I’ve actually been saying that for quite a while, that we’ve got to begin to look at Iran the way we looked at the Soviet Union for a long time, which is the people are on our side. Every poll says that. Every time they get a chance to vote, the Iranians vote for reform.
There is a small group of extremists at the top of the Iranian government, very much like the small group of communists at the top of the Soviet Union, who will not deal with us.
Of course, the Iranians even are more detached from us, and more extreme than the Soviets were. And I think what — we want to have a policy that looks for the Lech Walesas and Vaclav Havels of — and in some senses the Gorbachevs — of Iran, and encourage them in every way we can.
For nearly a decade Joe Lieberman has been beating the drum for us to blow up Iran.
“We can tell them we want them to stop that, but if there’s any hope of the Iranians living according to the international rule of law and stopping, for instance, their nuclear weapons development, we can’t just talk to them,” Lieberman said. “If they don’t play by the rules, we’ve got to use our force, and to me that would include taking military action to stop them from doing what they’re doing.” – On “Face the Nation” with Bob Schieffer June 10, 2007
While we are naturally focused on Iraq, a larger war is emerging. On one side are extremists and terrorists led and sponsored by Iran, on the other moderates and democrats supported by the United States… This bloodshed, moreover, is not the inevitable product of ancient hatreds. It is the predictable consequence of a failure to ensure basic security and, equally important, of a conscious strategy by al-Qaeda and Iran, which have systematically aimed to undermine Iraq’s fragile political center… On this point, let there be no doubt: If Iraq descends into full-scale civil war, it will be a tremendous battlefield victory for al-Qaeda and Iran… One moderate Palestinian leader told me that a premature U.S. exit from Iraq would be a victory for Iran and the groups it is supporting in the region. – December 29, 2006 Washington Post
And you thought that Joe Biden was gaffe prone?
35mm from Pascal Monaco on Vimeo.
Minimalist movie posters are brought to life in Pascal Monaco’s “35MM,” which strings together spartan graphical representations of 35 famous films.A video of Cthulhu Bobblehead by Stephen W. Bell.
5.5” tall. Cast urethane, acrylic paint. $50. Guaranteed to drive your coworkers insane.
[nerdcore.]
Great, now God Hates NerdsAre you kidding?! If these people would spend even some of the energy that they spend on these comic books, reading the Bible, well no high hopes here. They have turned comic book characters into idols, and worship them they do! Isaiah 2:8 Their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made: 9 And the mean man boweth down, and the great man humbleth himself: therefore forgive them not. It is time to put away the silly vanities and turn to God like you mean it. The destruction of this nation is imminent - so start calling on Batman and Superman now, see if they can pull you from the mess that you have created with all your silly idolatry.Members of the church intend on staging a 45-minute protest during one of the least busy days of the convention in order to get everyone back on the right track.
Which Kirk saith of Khan, "They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head: they that would destroy me, being mine enemies wrongfully, are mighty: then I restored that which I took not away." Psalm 69:4.And of course our friends at Westboro don't realize is that comics ARE a kind of religion, and telling the same types of morality tales found in their ancient texts. You can't convince me that Superman isn't Jewish. However, since that won't hold up as a quick argument - realize that they're protesting the hobby comic books. What's next model trains?
If they knew anything about the medium, they'd know that there are hundreds of Christian books, and even Robert Crumb painstakingly recreated the entire book of Genesis (another Star Trek II reference, natch!) in comic form.You may think you can condemn such people, but you are just as bad, and you have no excuse! When you say they are wicked and should be punished, you are condemning yourself, for you who judge others do these very same things.And if that's not enough to end this, we'll just say NERDS HATE CHURCH and call it even.
~ Romulans 2:1
