Compared to those people, Islamic terrorism doesn’t seem terribly frightening at all. Terrorists can never take from us what we are. Americans are the only ones who can do that. What we need to remember from this is that there are clearly a group of Americans who want to do exactly that.
They’re the really scary people.
Precisely.
And do read the rest of the post. It’s well worth your time. Then, should you need to calm your blood pressure, enjoy a lovely sunset.
A federal court has ruled in favor of the state of Michigan and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in a case alleging that rules requiring farmers to tag their livestock for identification in order to help identify and prevent the spread of disease violated the religious liberty of farmers who think such tags constitute the “mark of the beast.”
I’m still trying to figure out just how warped your interpretation of the Bible has to be in order to equate livestock tags to the mark of the beast. And I’m also curious as to how people that obviously fucked in the head can manage to run a farm. How do they manage to put on pants in the morning, for that matter?
But that’s not the scariest thing. What frightens the fuck out of me is the fact that, if the Feds hadn’t made this program voluntary (states get to decide whether or not they want to make the use of such a simple and obvious disease-fighting step mandatory), these frothing fundies might have actually prevailed on such idiotic grounds:
On the causes of action against the MDA [Michigan Department of Agriculture], which is the agency that made the tagging mandatory on all farmers in the state and specified the use of RFID tags in order to help eradicate the incidence of bovine tuberculosis, the court granted summary judgment in favor of the state because neither law identified by the plaintiffs as grounds for the allegations applies to the states.
The plaintiffs alleged a violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), a law that requires that exemptions be granted from laws that impose an “undue burden” on the religious liberty of an individual or group unless the state can show a compelling interest in imposing the law in each individual circumstance and of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). [emphasis incredulously added]
But the federal courts have ruled that neither RFRA nor NEPA are legally applicable to state actions, so once the USDA was dismissed from the case those laws could not be used to overturn state actions that were not explicitly required by federal law.
Really not liking the implication that some religious freak with a reading comprehension problem might be able to defeat efforts to protect the public health. But at least the district court made the right call in this case.
I shall have to make it to Michigan to enjoy a satanic cow dinner one of these days. You should come, too. In the meantime, enjoy some more Bruce Dickinson:
The circus sideshow led by Sally Kern in Oklahoma gets more ridiculous by the day. Now a Baptist publication was caught red handed printing a copy of Kern’s morality proclamation along with faked signatures from other government officials as though they were endorsing that proclamation.
Now, a new controversy has taken center stage involving The Baptist Messenger, a weekly paper with about 68,000 subscribers put out by the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma. The publication reprinted the proclamation in its July 16 edition, complete with state seal and a signature by Governor Brad Henry and Secretary of State Susan Savage.
“It is not anything that the state is sponsoring, so to see it on such an official document that we filed is really surprising,” Savage said.
But given the situation in Oklahoma, these elected officials are soft-peddling what happened here:
Savage’s office has to verify the governor’s signature on all proclamations and affix the seal. Savage believes the paper took another proclamation signed on July 2 and merged the bottom half with the Kern proclamation.
“I think it’s unfortunate especially when it’s something that’s potentially controversial to have there be any misrepresentation of the state’s official position on it,” Savage said.
Well, I’m sure they didn’t see anything wrong with misrepresenting the government for the Lord. Not until they got caught playing with Photoshop, anyway.
“As ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’ opens, we are once again reminded of the characteristics that make him something of a Christ figure,” Connie Neal writes for the evangelical Christianity Today.
“It is more likely that at the end of the viewing or reading, rather than the allure of magic … what remains are the scenes that evoke values such as friendship, altruism, loyalty, and the gift of self,” wrote L’Osservatore, the Vatican‘s semi-official newspaper.
Even Focus on the Family‘s pluggedin finds something redeeming: “Harry, whatever his faults, embraces such unglamorous words as ‘duty,’ ‘responsibility’ and ‘sacrifice.'”
[snip]
Um, it’s still fiction, guys. But I do find it so ironic that once again, the evangelical community went off in ignorance over something that once their initial fear and fearmongering was over, they found commonality in.
That’s what we in the reality-based community like to call “not judging a book by its cover.” You should try it more often.
I don’t think this flirtation will last. After all, when the last movie comes out, they’ll have to face the fact that Dumbledore’s still gay.
But at least they’ve backed away from the bonfire for now.
Work continues apace as shit-for-brains rabid right fundies take a wrecking ball to the Texas curriculum. The latest:
According to a draft of the proposed new textbook standards, “biographies of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Stephen F. Austin have been removed from the early grades.” At the same time, Peter Marshall wants more teaching of Christianity’s role “in America’s past“:
Marshall…also recommends that school children get a better understanding of the motivational role the Bible and the Christian faith played in the settling of the original colonies. […]
“In light of the overwhelming historical evidence of the influence of the Christian faith in the founding of America, it is simply not up to acceptable academic standards that throughout the social studies (curriculum standards) I could only find one reference to the role of religion in America’s past,” Marshall said in his review.
Actual education professionals in Texas appeared dismayed at Marshall and Barton’s assessment.
I imagine they did. I also imagine they wish they were merely having a nightmare rather than living one.
If my Texas readers know of any way to counter this crap, please do let us know. It’s gotten ridiculously far out of hand.
For anyone who, like me, worries about all of the fundamentalist fanaticism that’s infiltrated the military over the last many years, this comes as a joyous surprise:
The military was regularly providing flyovers at countless evangelical Christian events all over the country, not only violating the regulations prohibiting military participation in religious events, but spending millions of dollars of taxpayer money in the process.
MRFF began exposing these events, which included flyovers on the five holidays when flyovers at civilian events are permitted, and even a few at National Day of Prayer events, and began to see some decline in their frequency, but we weren’t sure if the number of flyovers at these events was really decreasing, or if the military and organizers of these events were just being more careful not to make the nature of the events so obvious.
In case you might be one of those who didn’t see the harm in the military getting so cozy with Christianity, you might want to read this typical letter to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. Peruse a few of the dozens of posts Ed Brayton’s written regarding the infiltration of our armed services by religious fanatics. And then ponder the fact that we have a military with some of the most powerful ordnance in the world.
America is a secular country. We can’t afford to allow our military to become sectarian. It’s good to see them begin the long journey back to neutrality.
You probably don’t know who Jim Ammerman is. You should. He is the founder of an organization called the Chaplaincy of Full Gospel Churches (CFGC), which provides the official endorsements for 270 chaplains and chaplain candidates in the U.S. military (including the disgraced Gordon Klingenschmitt, who retains his endorsement from the group despite having been discharged from the military). Ammerman was himself an Army Colonel.
Ed demonstrates why this man should be kept away from our poor troops at all costs – they have enough explosives to deal with, and yet here they are in a minefield of utter dumbfuckery. And it does, of course, get worse:
You should also know about Maj. James Linzey, who is currently a chaplain with an endorsement from CFGC. Linzey is another conspiracy nut, as Rodda describes:
The following was the promo for one of Maj. Linzey’s several appearances on a radio show called “The Edge.”
“Major James F. Linzey; U.S. Army Officer, Chaplain, and director of Operation Freedom, exposes how the satanic forces in the U.S. Government allow illegal immigration, giving access to terrorists to invade America’s heartland. Find out the myths and lies, and how illegal immigration effects the politics, domestic issues, national security, and terrorist ring in the United States, and you can do about it. Get your questions in early. It’s going to be hot!
It’s already hot.
One of my former bookstore coworkers used to carry a can of Lysol around when he worked at one of the local colleges. He’d spray down the people who were so groovy granola they refused to bathe before he’d shake their hands. I think we should equip the troops with small portable fire extinguishers for much the same reason. When they see chaplains endorsed by CFGC, they need some means of putting out the stupid before they end up in a burn unit.
Wikipedia has banned the Church of Scientology and its members from editing its site after discovering that members of the church were editing articles in order to give the church favorable coverage.
The move is being hailed as “an unprecedented effort to crack down on self-serving edits,” and it is the first instance in which Wikipedia has banned a group as large as the Church of Scientology.
