R.I.P. Heath Ledger

Heath Ledger, better known as Ennis from the movie Brokeback Mountain, has passed away.



Now, the question is - how long until we hear the inevitable announcement that Fred Phelps and the rest of the nutters at the Westboro Baptist Church are going to protest at the funeral?

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Apparently not long. The announcement has been made:


How appropriate it is that the zip code for Topeka, Kansas starts with 666, meaning that everything Phelps mails out has the "Number of the Beast" on it.

Faith-Based Amendments

Unbelievable idiocy spews from the mouth of Republican Presidential Candidate Mike Huckabee:

I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And thats what we need to do is amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than trying to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family.

OK, It's pretty clear that the Huckster has no fucking clue what the Constitution is. It has nothing to do with how we treat each other and how we treat the family, it's about how we run the country. It's an instruction manual for our form of representative democracy. Does Huck also think that the manufacturer of his television set should update its owner's manual so it's in God's standards?

But let's humor Huck for a moment. Let's see if we can predict his desired amendments. Judging from his prior statements, it's pretty clear that number 28 would state that an unborn fetus is to be considered a person in all interpretation of the law and that any medical procedure destroying an embryo or fetus is to be treated as a homicide. Number 29 would define marriage as the holy union of one man and one woman. There might even be a number 30 stating that the First Amendment must not be construed in such a way as to prohibit a government office from acknowledging God and Jebus. These amendments are just the tip of the iceberg, however. Let's look at other Biblical principles we could add to the constitution.

For starters, we could make the Ten Commandments into Amendments 31 - 40. Citizens would be required to only worship the Judeo-Christian God. We would also be forbidden to make any "idols" in the shape of anything in the skies, on the earth, or in the water (this would presumably include crucifixes, statues of Jesus, Mary, and the Saints, and those tacky fish on car trunk lids - good riddance to all of them, I say) and forbidden to misuse the name of God. We would be required to keep holy the Sabbath (that's Saturday, by the way) and do no work on that day.

Then it would get more interesting. Here are a few more Biblical principles we could add to the Constitution.

41. No citizen shall boil a baby goat in its mother's milk. (Exodus 34:26 - from the other Ten Commandments)
42. All seafood which does not have fins and scales is abomination. (Leviticus 11:10-12 - so much for the seafood industry)
43. Any citizen who has a judgement against him in a court of law must pay at least twice the amount of the judgement (Matthew 5:40)

Feel free to suggest some others!

Jeff Sessions: Traitor

Today, on the Senate floor, our village idiot Jeff Sessions let loose this unfuckingbelievable comment:

Some people in this chamber love the Constitution more than they love the safety of this nation. We should all send President Bush a letter thanking him for protecting us.

Jeff, you dipshit, without the Constitution there is no safety. Don't you realize that if you let Bush gut the Constitution, then when he leaves in 2009, President Hillary (or whoever) will be able to wiretap your phones without a warrant and/or throw your ass in Guantanamo forever with no chance to defend yourself in court, or even to know the charges against you?

Also, didn't you take an oath of office to uphold and defend the Constitution against all enemies foregin and domestic? Your willingness to let the Number One enemy of that Constitution shit all over it while you fawn over his toughness and thank him for "protecting" us is probably the most revolting act of your Senate career, and it's got some doozys with which to compete. You do realize that his landing on the aircraft carrier to proclaim Mission Accomplished was a fucking ACT, don't you?

As for me, I didn't cower in fear and sacrifice my rights when the Soviets had ten thousand nuclear warheads pointed at us, and I'm sure as hell not going to cower over your dire warnings of my imminent death at the hands of few Muslim fanatics hiding in caves. A true patriot once said, "Give me liberty or give me death." Jeff Sessions, you are willing to sacrifice our liberty in return for promises of safety from an incompetent buffoon who couldn't protect us on 9/11 and can't protect us now - clearly you are no patriot. In the immortal words of your buddy Dick Cheney, go fuck yourself.

New Digs

Ok, I've moved my blog (including all the old posts) over here to Blogger. This ought to make it easier for other Blogger users to leave comments. I'm still working on getting the template as close as I can to the theme on the old Drupal blog. I'm also making a New Year's resolution to post more often. If you count this post (which you probably shouldn't), I've got three posts in three days, so it's a start.

Hope y'all enjoy.

H.R. 847

This is the meat of House Resolution 847:

Now, therefore be it

Resolved, That the House of Representatives--

(1) recognizes the Christian faith as one of the great religions of the world;

(2) expresses continued support for Christians in the United States and worldwide;

(3) acknowledges the international religious and historical importance of Christmas and the Christian faith;

(4) acknowledges and supports the role played by Christians and Christianity in the founding of the United States and in the formation of the western civilization;

(5) rejects bigotry and persecution directed against Christians, both in the United States and worldwide; and

(6) expresses its deepest respect to American Christians and Christians throughout the world.

This is the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Any questions?

I know it would be too much to ask for the Congress to actually do something useful instead of wasting time and taxpayer money in idiotic posturing, but could they at least refrain from blatantly violating their Oaths of Office to uphold and defend the Constitution?

EDIT: Thanks to Dispatches from the Culture Wars, I just discovered that John McKay has a bit more commentary on this ridiculous resolution.

Silly Mormon, the Presidency is for Evangelicals

Wow, has it really been that long since I posted? Yipes.

Ok, so I'm hearing today all about how Huckabee "innocently" asked whether Mormons believe that Jesus and the Devil are brothers. Obviously, he's trying to cast aspersions on Mitt's faith, blah blah blah. Yes, the Constitution says there should be no religious test for public office - but it's clear that American voters administer their own individual tests.

Anyway, what I want to know is, who cares whether one of the candidates believe Jesus and the Devil were brothers? This is the second presidential election of the 21st century. Surely by now, the only people we should consider capable of running the country are those who understand that Jesus and the Devil are fictional characters. No one with any sense or any grasp of reality should be considering voting for either of these pious nitwits.

Supreme Court rules against FFRF suit over faith-based initiatives

The Supremes decided 5-4 that taxpayers have no standing to sue over the faith-based initiatives program which takes their money and gives it to religious organizations, in clear violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution. You can read the details in the Washington Post.

What is especially galling about this decision in favor of the Bush Administration's ongoing War Against the Constitution is that Bush himself has, on many occasions, used 'the taxpayers' as an excuse for his obstruction of embryonic stem-cell research. His reasoning is that many Americans are opposed to the destruction of embryos, so using their money to do research on these embryos is unfair. Apparently in Bush's vision of America, taxpayers' opinions only count if they agree with his own.

The savvy reader might also note that the opposition of many taxpayers to the war in Iraq doesn't seem to be slowing the rate at which billions of dollars, not to mention thousands of American men and women in uniform, are being poured onto that fire.