Postmodern Deconstruction of Biblical Texts

Dibya Sarkar, an Associated Press writer reports in the Washington Post:

"Dealing a significant blow to Sprint Nextel, the government on Thursday awarded the largest-ever federal telecommunications contract _ a 10-year deal worth up to $48 billion _ to its rivals AT&T, Qwest Communications and Verizon." [...]

"For the winners, Thursday's announcement was perhaps most significant for Qwest, the smallest among them. Suss said Qwest can now leverage its government business to gain more corporate clients."

"Qwest senior vice president Diana Gowen conceded that the Denver-based company has its work cut out for it going up against AT&T and Verizon, but said Qwest's smaller size would make it more agile. "If you want to make it the David and Goliath story, we'll be the David and slay the dragon," she said."

Amen, sister! David slaying that Philistine dragon was always one of my favorite Bible stories. So I'll support you by buying Qwest toothpaste from now on.

(H.T. Taranto.)

Survivor!

I have never actually seen a whole episode of 'Survivor', but I can imagine that it is much like Grandpa John's. However, I don't remember voting any of the other contributors off the blog, nor do I remember anyone's keyboard being doused.

On the bright side, though, this is the first year that I have actually followed through on a New Year's resolution. I resolved on New Year's Day to put up more posts on this blog than Grandpa John, Todd, or Lance this year. Things are lookin' good. What will power! I feel that I deserve my high self-esteem.

Migration, Not Extinction

According to the world renowned zoologist, Plebian, who is so famous that he has to use one name only, global warming has already taken a deadly toll:

"Prominent environmental groups today declared April 1 a “National Day of Mourning” for the loss of another species to global climate change. Researchers today confirmed that there are no surviving members either in the wild or in captivity of the genus Homo Erectus Hirsutus, also known as the Pacific Bigfoot."

Chet Bellweather, Chief Researcher of the Pacific Bigfoot Resource Centre: "In 2000 we only had two sightings, and we haven’t heard anything since early Fall 2002 when some hikers saw a baby Bigfoot get eaten by a bear."

Kathy Viracocha, president of Hooray for Animals!: "Mankind’s genocidal urges simply cannot be sated: first the dodo bird, then unicorns, and now Bigfoot."

Al Gore: "But now we come along with SUVs and private planes and zinc mines and drive them to extinction. Mark my words: a great reckoning is coming, and we can only hope that Mother Nature is kinder to us that we have been to the Bigfeet!"

Bellweather: "And I’ve been getting pessimistic reports from Scottish colleagues about the numbers of Loch Ness Monsters sighted over the past few years. Few people realize how fragile these animals are. In a rare success story, since their successful introduction in the US in the 80’s Leprechauns appear to be out of danger."

However, researchers from my secret basement laboratory have discovered that Homo erectus hirsutus has simply migrated from the Pacific Northwest to South Central Wisconsin. The specimen pictured below was discovered wandering about in Janesville's Oakhill Cemetery muttering the mantra, "The End Is Near! Beware, Global Warming and Brimstone!"

(Photographic film developed by Freaking News.com.)

Sometimes You Feel Like a Legume,
Sometimes You Don't

Nancy Pelosi and the Democrat-led Congress support the troops. Former President Jimmy Carter supports the troops.

The war supplemental bill that recently passed the House appropriated a $75 million pork project for peanut storage in Georgia.

Modern Democrats Top George Washington Carver

Congress believes that Global Warming has caused many Islamic Freedom Fighters to evolve peanut allergies. For those that do not, peanut protein in the bloodstream will cause anaphylactic shock and the incumbent urticaria. They also know that the salt will really hurt the wounds. That will surely bring them to dialogue for peace.

UPDATE: Cindy Sheehan and Code Pink are camping outside of peanut storage facilities demanding unilateral dispeanutment.

(Photo from Calvey in Iraq.)

Twins

Posting on Newsbusters, Noel Sheppard seems to thinks that Rosie O'Donnell and Bill Maher are fraternal twins.

Neither O'Donnell nor Maher would confirm nor deny the allegation. Both, however, seemed pleased at the suggestion.

'I Snarl, Therefore, I Am'

George Will opines about the omnipresent show of anger these days in 'Anger is All the Rage'. In this WaPo column, Will draws heavily from Peter Wood, an anthropologist and author of "A Bee in the Mouth: Anger in America Now".

[...]"So in this age that is proud of having achieved "the repeal of reticence," anger exhibitionism is pandemic."

[...]"...the new anger "often has the look-at-me character of performance art." His book is a convincing, hence depressing, explanation of "anger chic" -- of why anger has become an all-purpose emotional stance. It has achieved prestige and become "a credential for group membership.""

[...]..."attribute of an increasingly common personality type: the person who "unless he is angry, feels he is nothing at all.""

[...]"Once upon a time, Americans admired models of self-control, people such as George Washington and Jackie Robinson, who mastered their anger rather than relishing being mastered by it. America's fictional heroes could be angry, but theirs was a reluctant anger -- Alan Ladd as the gunfighter in "Shane," Gary Cooper as the marshal in "High Noon." Today, however, proclaimed anger -- the more vituperative the better -- is regarded as a sign of good character and emotional vitality."

"Perhaps this should not be surprising, now that Americans are inclined to elect presidents who advertise their emotions -- "I feel your pain." As the late Mary McGrory wrote, Bill Clinton "is a child of his age; he believes more in the thrust-out lower lip than the stiff upper one.""

[...]"Today, many people preen about their anger as a badge of authenticity: I snarl, therefore I am."

It appears that 'being offended' could be substituted for 'anger' without altering any meaning.

You Call That a Knife?
Now Here's a Knife

By that strange hook, you can tell this one is actually German.

(Stolen from Tigerhawk.)

Another Botched Exegesis

Somehow this reminds me of a Puerto Rican drill sergeant that I had in basic training. During hand-to-hand combat training, he always ended the particular session with, "And then you heal-stomp hee-um!"

(Stolen from the Maverick Philosopher.)

Keep a Stiff Upper Lip

According to a PRNewswire-USNewswire report:

"In a formal invitation sent to former Vice-President Al Gore's Tennessee address and released to the public, Lord Monckton has thrown down the gauntlet to challenge Gore to what he terms "the Second Great Debate," an internationally televised, head-to-head, nation-unto-nation confrontation on the question, "That our effect on climate is not dangerous.""

"...that Mr. Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth, is a foofaraw of pseudo-science,..."

Foofaraw? C'mon, Mr. Gore, gird up your loins and slap this Limey silly. I think he's talking about yo' mama!

Where's My Stash?

"In the 1960s I was still a young kid living in the USSR."

Oleg Atbashian relates some observations about American Progressives:

"Being a reluctant expert on communist ideology, I examined the Marxist connection first. But while Marxism may be strong in the academia, most people at the rallies won’t be members of any Marxist nor any other radical movement."

"Your morality is what guides you in your choices between right and wrong, good and evil. If you believe it’s wrong to enjoy life in a successful capitalist society, you’ll feel guilty about your high living standard and a disproportionate consumption of world’s resources. By extension, you wouldn’t want to miss the once-in-a-year opportunity to redeem your sins by supporting such a highly moral cause as an anti-war protest."

"My research has led me to the excerpts from Yoko Ono and John Lennon’s articles published in the 1972 editions of Sundance magazine... It should be a required read for everyone who would like to know where their otherwise lazy and cynical leftist opponents get their passionate idealistic convictions from."

Here is a condensed list: (With annotations)

"1. A collective hallucination can create objective reality.
2. “The fenceless and doorless world is soon to come.” Obviously it’s a good thing.
3. Middle America is stupid and “afraid of youth and the future.”
4. People work not because they’re glad to have a job but because they’re being bullied into working by the “tyranny and suppression of the capitalists.” (Karl Marx called and left a message).
5. Immature youth are “the aware ones”; traditional education and thought discipline is the enemy.
6. Material reality is evil.
7. “Come together rather than claim independence.”
8. “Feel rather than think.”
9. Immature and irresponsible behavior is a virtue.
10. Possessions are immoral. “Any possession that is more than what you need belongs to someone who needs it.”
11. A worldwide revolution (“progress”) is inevitable, and such a future “cannot be anything but brightness.”
12. To resist the revolution is immoral because it prolongs people’s suffering.
13. A society based on competitiveness and logic produces “hypocrisy, violence, and chaos.”
14. A society based on love rather than reasoning will produce “balance, peace, and contentment.”
15. To remove evil from this world men must be feminized (if you liked this one you will also like “The DaVinci Code” which is a 500-pages-long regurgitation of this very doctrine)."

No doubt about it, I need a bigger stash!

Silent Spring: The Death of 'Prague Spring'

Jan Lopatka, reporting for REUTERS and posted in The Union Tribune's SignonSanDiego.com:

PRAGUE – "Czech President Vaclav Klaus said on Wednesday that fighting global warming has turned into a 'religion' that replaced the ideology of communism and threatens to clip basic freedoms." [...]

"'Communism has been replaced by the threat of an ambitious environmentalism,' Klaus wrote in response to questions from the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Energy and Commerce." [...]

"Klaus said poor nations would also be hurt by efforts to impose limits and standards on emissions of gases believed to cause global warming."

"'They will not be able to absorb new technological standards required by the anti-greenhouse religion, their products will have difficulty accessing the developed markets, and as a result the gap between them and the developed world will widen,' he wrote."

"'This ideology preaches earth and nature and under the slogans of their protection – similarly to the old Marxists – wants to replace the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central, now global, planning of the whole world,' he added."

Czech President Vaclav Klaus was 27 years old in 1968:

"In 1968 relations with the eastern European satellites had flared up again when leaders of the Czechoslovakian Communist party under Alexander Dubcek initiated reforms promoting democratization and free speech. A wave of popular demonstrations added momentum to liberalization during this "Prague Spring" until, on August 20, the U.S.S.R. led neighbouring Warsaw Pact armies in a military invasion of Czechoslovakia. Dubcek was ousted and the reforms undone. The ostensible justification for this latest Soviet repression of freedom in its empire came to be known as the Brezhnev Doctrine: "Each of our parties is responsible not only to its working class and its people, but also to the international working class, the world Communist movement." The U.S.S.R. asserted its right to intervene in any Communist state to prevent the success of "counterrevolutionary" elements."1

Czech students hang their national flag on a Soviet tank in Prague. (1968)2

The Gore Doctrine: "Each of our parties is responsible not only to its working class and its people, but also to the international working class, the World Climate Crisis Movement." The Movement asserted its right to intervene in any nation or state to prevent the success of "counterrevolutionary" elements.

Bumper Stickers

Dr. Helen writes a short post about bumper stickers. The comment section has many that were either seen or suggested. Some are pretty good.

Does Thomas Sowell Read Grandpa John's?

Thomas Sowell produces a random thoughts style article on NRO titled 'Stop Continental Drift! Trying to make sense of the world we live in.'

Here are a few excerpts:

"Will those who are dismantling this society from within or those who seek to destroy us from without be the first to achieve their goal? It is too close to call."

""Women's Liberation" and the "sexual revolution" have not liberated women. They have liberated the sort of man who is a "love and leave 'em" kind of guy, who lets the woman deal with the consequences, including pregnancy."

"Amid all the media hysteria over the price of gasoline and the profits of "Big Oil," one simple fact has been repeatedly overlooked: The oil companies' earnings are just under 10 percent of the price of a gallon of gas, while taxes take 17 percent. Yet who ever accuses the government of "greed"?"

"Despite political spin about "tax cuts for the rich," cuts in tax rates have led to increases in tax revenues — not only in this administration, but in the Reagan administration before that, and the Kennedy administration before that, not to mention in India and Iceland as well."

"A reader says that he had a T-shirt made that said: "Stop Continental Drift!" It made as much sense as "Stop Global Warming.""

"When the Constitution's protection of private property was disregarded, so that politicians could rob from the rich to give to the poor, that also gave politicians the power to rob from the poor and give to the rich — such as seizing homes in low-income neighborhoods and turning that property over to developers."

"At a recent debate over global warming sponsored by National Public Radio, the audience was polled beforehand and was solidly on the side of the hysterical predictions. Afterwards, they switched to a slight majority against those predictions. Don't look for the global-warming crusaders to risk doing any more debates."

"Why should they, when they have virtually a monopoly in the media, in schools and colleges, and among politicians?"

"Whenever I see the kinds of expressions on the faces of people in high-fashion ads, I feel lucky that I never met them."

I really got a kick out of that last one. On March 17th, it was written here concerning runway models, "...those anorexic bundles of sticks that parade down the runways looking like they are suffering from having barbarous objects thrust into unmentionable bodily orificia."

It's either a case of great minds running in the same channels or Sowell has been reading this blog.

Blonds Strike Back

There's a set of complementary commercials for a particular woman's hair care product that I think are quite clever. The product, used in the shower, is purported to enrich and enliven hair color. One is for brunettes, the other for blonds.

Brunettes, after extolling the efficacy of the product: "Blonds, we guess that you'll have to wear even shorter skirts now."

In response, the Blonds, after the ad for their product: "Brunettes, at least your mom thinks you are pretty."

The Ironic Copper in the Lincoln Penny

It is often opined that the Iraq anti-war crowd traces its roots back to the Viet Nam era 1960's. This movement can, indeed, be considered the descendant of the '60's-- the 1860's. Cindy Sheehan's, et al., family tree has a trunk formed by the Democrat Copperheads of Lincoln's day.

Mackubin Thomas Owens writes in NRO an article titled, 'Abraham Copperheads, Then and Now: The Democratic legacy of undermining war efforts':

[...]

"Weber [Jennifer, in her book, Copperheads: The Rise an Fall of Lincoln’s Opponents in the North, which Owens is examining] demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt that the actions of the Copperheads materially damaged the ability of the Lincoln administration to prosecute the war." [...]

"It is certain that the Union soldiers tired of hearing from the Copperheads that the Rebels could not be defeated. They surely tired of being described by the Copperheads as instruments of a tyrannical administration trampling the legitimate rights of the Southern states. The soldiers seemed to understand fairly quickly that the Copperheads preferred Lincoln’s failure to the country’s success. They also recognized that the Copperheads offered no viable alternative to Lincoln’s policy except to stop the war." [...]

"These words of the La Crosse [WI!] Democrat responding to Lincoln’s re-nomination could just as easily have been written about Bush: “May God Almighty forbid that we are to have two terms of the rottenest, most stinking, ruin working smallpox ever conceived by fiends or mortals…” The recent lament of left-wing bloggers that Vice President Dick Cheney was not killed in a suicide bombing attempt in Pakistan echoes the incendiary language of Copperhead editorialist Brick Pomeroy who hoped that if Lincoln were re-elected, “some bold hand will pierce his heart with dagger point for the public good.”" [...]

"The Copperheads often abandoned all decency in their pursuit of American defeat in the Civil War. One Connecticut Copperhead told his neighbors that he hoped that all the men who went to fight for the Union cause would “leave their Bones to Bleach on the soil” of the South."

"The late nineteenth century Democratic party paid a high price for the influence of the Copperheads during the Civil War, permitting Republicans to “wave the bloody shirt” of rebellion and to vilify the party with the charge of disunion and treason."

Who will win the nomination to run for President in 2008 from the Democopperhead Party?

Yo' Mama...

Rush Limbaugh played a parody of Al Sharpton Friday. The scene was set outside of Barack Obama's campaign headquarters. Sharpton, with a bullhorn, is demanding that Obama answer some questions about his past level of 'being down' with the Black community. With no reply forthcoming, Sharpton begins his taunts:

"Yo' mama is so fat, that on a scale of 1 to 10, she is a 747."

"Yo' mama is so fat, that she has to put Pesos in one pocket and Euros in the other."

"Yo' mama is so fat, that when the doctor diagnosed her with flesh-eating disease, he said she only had 87 years to live."

It's going to be a long, dirty primary decade.

Packin' Heat

The fashion world is a strange duck. The fame of the designers of Paris and the American coasts is well promoted and documented by the media. Most of their designs are freakish, apparently inspired by things seen in Sudan, on LSD, or received in messages from the outer universe.

These fashions show themselves to be fit only for faggots; those anorexic bundles of sticks that parade down the runways looking like they are suffering from having barbarous objects thrust into unmentionable bodily orificia.

Flyover country generally takes a more rational tack. Fashion form follows environmentally sound function; bib overalls, suspenders, and socks with sandals all reflect needs contained in the circumambiency.

Often these fashions are created by people in unrelated professions and so far ahead of their time that people are unable to adapt to the great wisdom of their functions. My dad was such a visionary.

By trade, Dad was a union pipefitter at the Janesville GM plant. He was of average height, stocky, and gruff. In his younger days he was a farmer, had tryed his hand at trapping, and loved to boat and fish. I never expected the genius of high fashion, precise function, and Earth's salvation to originate from a man such as this.

Back in those days, two major concerns dominated the times. Overpopulation threatened widespread starvation and war. Global cooling promised to preserve our dead bodies within glaciers to be studied by the future generations of those few lucky enough to survive.

Dad knew that electing a Catholic John F. Kennedy would only exacerbate the Earth's population problem so he loudly voiced his opposition. Obviously that failed. Kennedy was narrowly elected.

However, Dad was undeterred. As a solution, he turned to fashion design. This man, with calloused hands and lacking one fingertip, had to teach himself to knit. His idea would not only help make the inevitable global cooling more bearable, but also slow world population growth.

Dad diligently began knitting JB's Peter Warmers. These fashionable garments were knit in several sizes to warmly fit peters of any size and a rainbow of colors to match any outfit. It came standard with an attached but removable 'stocking cap' that allowed for sanitary urinary function. Included also was a knit pocket for the scrotum with a cinch string to allow for a snug and secure fit.

Dad was wise enough to know that his creations would provide comfort for the coming Arctic hardships and that the added testicular warmth would lower sperm counts to restrain population growth.

Unfortunately for Dad and the Earth, Ron Popeil rejected the idea in favor of the Veg-O-Matic, the Pocket Fisherman, Mr. Microphone, and GLH-9 Hair in a Can Spray. Popeil's lack of vision is responsible for the desperate condition in which our beloved Earth is now found.

From Another Planet Altogether

Lindsay Beyerstein, in a This Modern World post titled, 'Guns, burglary, and self-defense':

"I’ve never understood why anyone would keep a gun in their home to protect themselves from burglars. If you had a violent stalker ex, or someone who was was bent on invading your home in order to hurt you, I could see the rationale for being armed. But buying a gun to protect against burglars is no protection at all."

Yes, I used to interview each intruder to determine whether they are there to hurt my family or me or just to burgle. But now I have put up a sign on all doors and windows, "ATTENTION: Burglars. This house owner has and uses handguns. For your own safety, please go to Lindsay Beyerstein's house where there are no guns. Thank you."

"Turning on the lights to find the gun is enough scare off the average burglar."

I used to give each burglar a Burglar IQ test to find out if he was average and therefore easily scared off.

"The burglar isn’t there to fight you hand-to-hand for your iPod. Confrontations with the homeowner go against the whole burglary business model."

I used to require of each burglar a copy of his Burglar Business Plan to determine what goes against his business model.

"Keeping a gun at home to protect against robbers seems like an especially silly idea in a big city where the police can arrive at the scene in less time than it takes to open your gun safe, load your gun, and confront the burglar."

In what city do the police arrive in less than 5 seconds after they're called? Wow!

"If you’re already getting burglarized, do you really want to add to your problems by confronting a desperate criminal with your own loaded weapon?"

I just consider it 'delegating' my problem to the 'desperate' intruder.

(H.T. Tim Blair.)

The Best of the Best of the Web

Taranto:

"...an interview with Gore that appeared last May in a publication called Grist:"

"Q: There's a lot of debate right now over the best way to communicate about global warming and get people motivated. Do you scare people or give them hope? What's the right mix?"

"A:...Nobody is interested in solutions if they don't think there's a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis."

"And it's not as if Gore's "over-representations" don't have harmful effects. They've caused a lot of people to get really sad and stressed out."

"...venture capitalist John Doerr:"

""I'm scared," he told the audience, looking down at his 15-year-old daughter in the front row. "I don't think we're going to make it.""

"Doerr issued a passionate call to action for everyone to make environmental concerns their "next big thing.""

"Jennifer Garner:"

"Jennifer has also confessed she cries more now she is a mother. The actress believes the experience has made her more caring."

"She said: "Since I became a mother, I cry more because I care about things more."

""I can't watch a movie where something happens to a child. And I've always cared about global warming and breast cancer, but now there seems to be an urgency about them.""

"GORE LIED, PEOPLE CRIED!!!!"

Signs of Spring

The oaks are in bud, wasps are out roaming, flies are being flies, mud squishes between your toes, and the robins have returned to make their usual ruckus.

Flashing back to my youth, I well remember being enthralled by the rush of meltwater through the culvert running under Highway 11 and the mini-flood through the small wooded area we called 'The Ditch'.

I revisited The Ditch a few years back and while wandering through, I found some of our ancient toys still there in the floral rubble. The anthropologist in me mused at the advanced culture that frolicked there in man's early history. I often wonder what happened to these individuals.

The Great Global Warming Swindle

Google Video has posted the BBC's production of The Great Global Warming Swindle. The video is 1 hour and 15 minutes long and very informative. For Geeks like Todd and Lance, it is filled with clips of nerdy scientists with bushy eyebrows, wild hair, and spectacles, many with heavy British accents while displaying many graphs and charts. There are also several scientists of the 'Indiana Jones' variety.

Some of the contributors have already received death threats by environmental jihadists.

Al Gore has not returned my phone calls.

How Negligent Have I Been

-March 20, 1852 - Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, "Uncle Tom's Cabin", is published and becomes America's first book to sell over 1 million copies

-Mar 30, 1888 - The National Council of Women of the US is organized by Susan B. Anthony, Clara Barton, Lucy Stone, Julia Ward Howe, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Many of these women are considered the 'foremothers' of the women's rights movement. However, much of their agenda has been repudiated by modernity.

The Revolution, Anthony's publication, stated concerning abortion:

"Guilty? Yes. No matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed. It will burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death; But oh, thrice guilty is he who drove her to the desperation which impelled her to the crime!"

Abortion was referred to as "child murder." The Revolution, 4(1):4 July 8, 1869

"We want prevention, not merely punishment. We must reach the root of the evil...It is practiced by those whose inmost souls revolt from the dreadful deed." The Revolution, 4(1):4 July 8, 1869

"All the articles on this subject that I have read have been from men. They denounce women as alone guilty, and never include man in any plans for the remedy." The Revolution, 4(1):4 July 8, 1869

Elizabeth Cady Stanton:

"When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit." -Letter to Julia Ward Howe, October 16, 1873, recorded in Howe's diary at Harvard University Library

"There must be a remedy even for such a crying evil as this. But where shall it be found, at least where begin, if not in the complete enfranchisement and elevation of women?" The Revolution, 1(10):146-7 March 12, 1868 1

What might these women say to today's feminists? "You've gone the wrong way, Baby!

Good News About The Good News

Monday, March 5, 2007

Iranian Imam Receives Christ Via Satellite TV, Escapes Country
Four More Imams Are Underground Believers

By Mark Ellis
Senior Correspondent, ASSIST News Service

WOODLAND HILLS, CALIFORNIA (ANS) -- One of the top Islamic leaders in Iran accepted Christ and left the country after facing death threats and imprisonment, according to an Iranian pastor living in the U.S.

“This man has been watching Christian TV programs for the past two years,” said Pastor Elnathan Baghestani, founder of Iran for Christ Ministries. (www.iranforchrist.com) Pastor Baghestani and his wife provide Christian programming to the Mohabat Network satellite, which broadcasts 24/7 into Iran and other Middle Eastern countries.

The imam called one of the phone counselors connected to Iran for Christ Ministries and prayed to receive Christ in early February. “The man has been watching Christian TV programs for the past two years,” Baghestani said. “He said he has believed since he began watching the programs but his salvation was sealed through his confession.”

“This man knows all the verses of the Qur’an by heart,” he added. “After he began watching, doubt began in his heart about the Islamic faith.” The man spent nine months in prison after he questioned the violence of radical Islam. Following his release from prison, he faced numerous death threats and escaped the country.

Several other religious leaders may follow suit. “He knows four other high-ranking imams that are in the same condition and want to leave Iran,” Baghestani said.

While it is illegal to own satellite dishes in Iran, many hide them on their roofs or other locations on their property. “They arrest people for having satellite dishes because they know the Christian programming is effective,” Baghestani noted.

The imam who fled left everything behind. “His salary was 700,000 of their monetary units every month,” Baghestani said. “He was honored and respected, but when the gospel came to him he lost everything,” he noted. “Now he is a poor refugee in a foreign country.”

“God is shaking the foundation of Islam in Iran,” Baghestani said. “We have been praying for some of the main government officials to come to Christ and God is answering us,” he reports. “I pray God will open more doors for us to send the gospel to the Middle East.”

(Reprinted by permission)

Climate Chains

Ivy J. Sellers, in Human Events.com, interviews Christopher Horner about his new book, "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism." In it Horner exposes the Left's blatant manipulation of environmental issues for political gain -- none more so than "global warming."

One crowning jewel:

"Consider Canada’s then-Minister Christine Stewart remarking at a meeting with the editorial board of the Calgary Herald in 1998, “No matter if the science is all phony, there are still collateral environmental benefits” to global warming policies. Climate change [provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world.” Former Democratic Sen. Tim Wirth, now head of Ted Turner’s UN Foundation, famously said almost precisely the same thing."

[Here is Wirth's quote: "We've got to rid the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing, in terms of economic policy and environmental policy."1]

For many Progressives, passing their agenda through the cumbersome Constitutional legislative means is deterred by knuckle-dragging antagonists. Global warming provides a smokescreen, an ozone loophole to press forward their superior ways.

Mining the Riches of the Ukraine

Following are excerpts from Holopupenko in 'Reasoning Repaired', a Ukrainian blogger:

"In his book On Bullsh*t, Harry Frankfurt contrasts bullsh*tting and lying. Where the liar makes deliberately false claims, the bullsh*tter is simply uninterested in the truth. Rather, bullsh*tters aim primarily to impress their audiences. Whereas the liar needs to know the truth the better to conceal it, the bullsh*tter, interested solely in pretense, has no use for the truth. Bullsh*tters are people “who are attempting by what they say to manipulate the opinions and the attitudes of those to whom they speak.” By virtue of this, Frankfurt claims, “bullsh*t is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.”" [...]

"Today, we have on one side of the reality-shifting spectrum the particularly repulsive anti-truth views of postmodern deconstructionists, while on the other side we have the artifically-narrow “truth only as naturalism,” scientism-promulgating atheists. The positions of both these camps is incoherent and self-defeating, but that doesn’t stop their attempts to pull the unsuspecting and the careless down into the dark depths of Plato’s Cave."

"Postmodernism and Atheism are bullsh*t."

Harry, why don't you tell us what you really think?

Like, No One Saw This Coming

Cox &Forkum:

Chanting & Burning & Candles, Oh, My!

Juan Carlos Llorca, Associated Press Writer, reports:

"GUATEMALA CITY - Mayan priests will purify a sacred archaeological site to eliminate "bad spirits" after President Bush visits next week, an official with close ties to the group said Thursday." [...]

[Juan] "Tiney said the "spirit guides of the Mayan community" decided it would be necessary to cleanse the sacred site of "bad spirits" after Bush's visit so that their ancestors could rest in peace. He also said the rites — which entail chanting and burning incense, herbs and candles — would prepare the site for the third summit of Latin American Indians March 26-30."

Chanting, burning incense and herbs, and lighting candles will never rid the site of that sulfur smell. You need sacrificial virgins, and a lot of them, after a showing of Mel Gibson's Apocalypto. What are you? Pagans or something?

Real Scientists Research Global Warming

For some time now, the researchers in my secret basement laboratory have been collecting piles of data on the global warming controversy.

Our first major breakthrough occurred on February 2nd. Son-of-a-Birch, our thoroughbred backyard woodchuck, emerged from his burrow wearing only a Speedo and Foster-Grants and muttered something in Woodchuck. One interpreter parsed the statement as, "Winter was soon to be a mere footnote of history." Our second linguist translated it as, "A woodchuck can chuck no wood because of new union rules and because small illegally immigrating Mexican mammals have taken all the woodchucking jobs that American woodchucks wouldn't do."

In addition, our temperature collection data observed changes over the past 84 days. Never, until today did the temperature cross the 40 degree barrier. But today, it soared well into the sweltering 40's. If this trend continues we predict that in just a few short months ambient temperatures may reach into the upper 80's or low 90's.

Core samples taken from the pristine glaciers in our front, side, and back yards have shown that these are starting to lose ice and recede. Because of the results of our computer models, we sent warnings to New York City as well as all other coastal cities to prepare for oceanic rise.

Also, none of our researchers have noted the presence of a single polar bear in the area since no one can remember when. Squirrels, polar bears' diet staple, are multipling like rabbits and appear to show no fear or natural wariness of their deadly consumers.

We are not quite ready to draw a final conclusion, but, in the meantime, does anyone want to buy a snowblower and shovel?

(Other less dignified and scientific articles may also be found on Dr. Pat Santy's Carnival of the Insanities. Special deal: With purchase of snowblower, shovel thrown in for free.)

"Oil: Protecting the Earth from
Renewable Energy for 148 Years"

That is the title of Mac Johnson's opinion piece in Energy Tribune and it demonstrates some logical historical realities:

"In the environmental Dark Ages before the discovery of oil, man’s energy needs had to be extracted from the living world. Whole continents were deforested in the quest for firewood. Priceless wetlands were strip-mined for peat. Bees were robbed of their wax to make candles. Even when millions were starving, valuable animal fats and plant oils were rendered into fuel to illuminate the homes of the rich."

"Alas, it appears those times may soon return as environmentalists, politicians, and the media push for man’s energy needs to be met once more by the limited capacity of field and fjord. But for one brief moment in man’s planet-killing history, oil was there to carry the burden that man would have otherwise hoisted upon the bowed back of nature. Just look at what oil did for the whales." [...]

"Together with coal, oil opened up an unimaginable quantity of energy that came from outside the contemporary natural productivity of the Earth. For the first time, societies could grow far beyond the biological energy limits of their landmass. Wealth skyrocketed. Food supplies were no longer diverted to energy needs. Populations blossomed, and yet man’s energy-motivated environmental depredations fell significantly." [...]

"But the exercise demonstrates the burden fossil fuels have lifted from the environment, and how accustomed all six billion of us have become to eating. Even the paltry efforts toward already subsidized biofuels have had an impact. The U.S. demand for ethanol has helped drive the price of corn tortillas beyond the reach of some impoverished Mexicans, precipitating calls for price controls and export restrictions. Unfortunately, the competition between mouths and motors can only increase, and the demands placed on our living planet can only get worse as the second age of renewable energy dawns prematurely."

So... 'big oil' has saved the whales, has preserved our forests and natural beauty, has helped provide food for billions, AND has helped keep at least a handful of Mexicans in Mexico.

Exxon-Mobile for President, 2008! Halliburton for Veep! (Of course, George W. Bush would have been named CEO of Exxon-Mobile and Cheney CEO of Halliburton.)

Eight more years! Eight more years!

I Probably Hung Out With Lars

Lars Walker reminisces in The American Spectator, 'Furl the Freak Flag, Already':

"We revered something called "authenticity" back in the Sixties. Dressing neatly, grooming ourselves, even basic hygiene -- all such activities were condemned as "plastic." Conformist. Hypocritical. Real beauty sprang from the heart, we told each other, and anyone blind to such beauty had, like, no soul, man. The really authentic thing, of course, would have been to wear no clothes at all, but where that wasn't practical (like in February in Minnesota, where I lived then and live now), decency demanded dressing like a Biafran refugee and smelling like a dog's bed."

"It never occurred to us, in our innocence (no, let's be honest -- our arrogance), that inner beauty might also involve some small concern for the noses of others, and that cleaning up, smelling good, and covering ourselves with attractive clothing might also be a way of striving for greater peace and universal consciousness in the world."

Oh, wow, maaan! Authentic-good, plastic-bad, nonconformity-good, Soul-good, Biafra-bad, nekkid-good. Lars is like far out spiffy, outta sight groovy, maaan!

Lars, maaan, stop bogartin' that doobie, maaan! Peace, Bro!

"I Have Sinned"

Al Gore, America's leading tele-evangelist should resign from his ministry after it was revealed he had been carbonating like a prostitute. He should confess his moral failure, neither whitewashing his sin nor calling it a mistake, and be defrocked by church authorities.

Back in the 1980's, similar occurrences took down TV evangelists Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker. Both took their medicine.

Al Gore is living in sin by using high quantities of energy to heat and cool his large home and by gadding about the Earth in the likes of a Gulfstream jet. However, he claims copasetic atonement because he had purchased carbon offset credits.

"But as, what the Catholic Church calls "indulgentia a culpa et a poena" (release from guilt and from punishment), paying carbon offset fees makes perfect religious sense."

"The Christian sinner pays the church for "a remission of the temporal punishment due, in God's justice, to sin that has been forgiven, which remission is granted by the Church in the exercise of the powers of the keys, through the application of the superabundant merits of Christ and of the saints, and for some just and reasonable motive" (Catholic Encyclopedia)."

"In the animistic church any using or changing of the physical world (such as burning carbon) is a sin against the sacred, holistic, living world (the Gaia hypothesis). But as everyone uses energy (just as every Christian sins), the neo-animist church, too, must provide for a remission of sin (and also, a handy source of profit for the carbon-offset company owners — such as Al Gore who, according to news reports, pays his indulgences to Generation Investment Management, of which he is the chairman.)"

"In the neo-animist church of global warming, as in all religions, the truth is acquired by faith — not science. And as in all religions, the faithful should be on guard for charlatans."1

A Presidential Pardon is Due

Lying or giving misleading testimony is not a serious offense. Everybody does it. So I believe that President Bush should issue an immediate pardon.

John King of CNN:

"President Clinton will leave office free of the prospect of criminal charges after he admitted Friday that he knowingly gave misleading testimony about his affair with Monica Lewinsky in a 1998 lawsuit."

"Under an agreement with Independent Counsel Robert Ray, Clinton's law license will be suspended for five years and he will pay a $25,000 fine to Arkansas bar officials. He also gave up any claim to repayment of his legal fees in the matter."

Although a pardon of Clinton would come too late to affect the suspension of his law license and the fine would be non-refundable, it would take away the only tarnish from President Clinton's career.

Then President Bush could also pardon 'Scooter' Libby without accusations of partisanship.

The Apostle John

ABC News:

[John] Edwards, in an interview with the Web site Beliefnet.com:

"I think that Jesus would be disappointed in our ignoring the plight of those around us who are suffering and our focus on our own selfish short-term needs," Edwards told the site. "I think he would be appalled, actually."

Jesus would be... would be... Is Edwards saying that he would be if he were real? Or that he would be if he were still alive?

More than likely I think that Edwards misspoke. I believe that he was talking about what another Biblical personality would think:

Mary then took a pound of very costly perfume of pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped His feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

But Judas Iscariot, one of His disciples, who was intending to betray Him, said, “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and given to poor people?”

Now he said this, not because he was concerned about the poor, but because he was a thief, and as he had the money box, he used to pilfer what was put into it. (John 12:3-6, NAS)

So the more accurate Edwards quote should have been, "I think that Judas would be disappointed in our ignoring the plight of those around us who are suffering and our focus on our own selfish short-term needs. I think he would be appalled, actually."

Good to See

Tony Allen-Mills reports in TimesOnline:

"THE hunter has become the hunted. Michael Moore, the celebrated left-wing film-maker, has become the unwilling subject of a new documentary that raises damaging questions about the credibility of his work."

"The director and star of successful documentaries such as Roger & Me, Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11, Moore has repeatedly been accused by his right-wing enemies of distorting or manipulating the material in his films. On his website he dismisses his critics as “wacko attackos”."

"Yet the latest assault on Moore’s film-making techniques has come from an unexpected quarter. In Manufacturing Dissent, a documentary to be shown for the first time at a Texas film festival on Saturday, a pair of left-wing Canadian film-makers take Moore to task for what they describe as a disturbing pattern of fact-fudging and misrepresentation."

"“When we started this project we hoped to have done a documentary that celebrated Michael Moore. We were admirers and fans,” said Debbie Melnyk, who made the film with her husband, Rick Caine. “Then we found out certain facts about his documentaries that we hadn’t known before. We ended up very disappointed and disillusioned.”" [...]

"Yet Caine and Melnyk insist they should not be confused with the right-wing hordes who want to damage Moore."

"“If you have to sell out your values and principles to get at a greater truth, where does that leave you?” said Melnyk."

"“If we think it’s wrong for the government to lie and manipulate, how do we think that [left-wingers] doing it is the solution?”"

Cheeky Monkey

Robert C. Cheeks writes in The American Thinker about the life and thought of Alexksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn; 'Solzhenitsyn, the Prophet':

"In his corpus Isaevich teaches us the history and pathological reality of Soviet Man, who in reality very much mirrors Western Man. He also makes us aware that the foundation of the Marxist System is the Enlightenment project and the triumph of its heresies. From doubting God, to destroying God, to the Gulag, Western man's egophanic revolt results in a profound disorder of language and articulation, a destruction of the noetic symbols of transcendence, and the loss of the cosmic order. There can be little wonder, then, that modernity collapsed into relativism, nihilism, objectivism, and the resultant postmodern age is best described as the anti-philosophical triumph of "groundlessness," the epoch devoid of the meta-narrative, the age without God."

If I've said that once, I've said it a thousand times.

Switzerland Prepares for Invasion of Iran

Although spun as a mistake by troops that lost their bearings, I have it on good sources that it was really a training mission for Switzerland's impending invasion of Iran and destruction of its nuclear and military offensive capabilities.

One unnamed source was quoted as saying, "I've always wanted to learn to yodel in Persian and my chalet could use a couple of rugs to spruce it up."

Another said, "We've whupped the bully Liechtenstein, next... Iran."

(H.T. Aaron.)

Breaking Updates:

From Live Journal:

"But what makes this latest incursion different is the rhetoric. Yesterday Kurt (Liechtenstein's army) denounced the Swiss for yet again failing to ratify the Army Knife Proliferation Treaty. "How many different blades do you need on an Army knife?" he asked."

"Meanwhile, in Switzerland, the Toblerone factories have switched production to the extra large family size Toblerone bars after discovering they made excellent tank traps. As one EU minister said, "a chocolate curtain is being erected across Europe. Nothing will be the same any more.""

"Now Liechtenstein have retaliated by placing all Swiss cuckoos under clock arrest."

From Stotting Over... Again:

"Senator Reid and Rep. Pelosi issued a joint statement condemning this action which was the direct result of President Bush’s arrogance and propensity toward preemptive warfare."

From The Nose on Your Face:

"France Surrenders as “Precaution” After Swiss Troops Wander Into Liechtenstein"

Get into your Swiss Army Knife shelters now!

Carbon Credits For Sale

As more and more people, small businesses and large companies become hip to carbon emission offsets and the carbon-neutral lifestyle, we here at Jawbone's Carbon Offset Emporium and Pawn are offering a special deal for the month of March. We will offset any overindulgence of carbon dioxide production for $9.75 per metric ton.

We here at JCOE&P understand that there are many companies offering services, some for even less cost, that claim similar advantages for a healthy Earth, but these do not provide nearly the great benefits. The others may plant trees, produce solar or windmill power and research, tear down coal-fired power plants in China, neutralize bovine flatulence, or enrich Al Gore through the sale of indulgences for past and futures sins against the goddess Gaia. We, however, go one step further.

Jawbone's professional staff visualizes a vibrant Earth and the end of climate change via global warming. We don't just place bumper stickers on our SUV's, chant ourselves senseless with vain repetition, or write inane and unread opinion pieces in the local newspaper. (Although a few staff members use visualization enhancing organic herbs and psilocybes.)

Our visualization has teeth. We visualized Britney Spears bald... voila! (One trainee visualized another portion of Britney bald, but was found to have been viewing Beavers by Norelco.com while at work before the fact and was fired.)

We visualized John Kerry voting against it. He had voted for it previously.

We visualized Monica Lewinski praying on bended knee. Well, we were half right, anyway.

If you need more proof, you may observe the efficacy of our ongoing visualizational projects:

-No George W. Bush presidency after 2008

-The French become obstinate

-Genital herpes will be a hassle

To assuage the ubiquitous American guilt for the sins against the world sign up now at Jawbone's Carbon Offset Emporium and Pawn and receive our March discount and save Mother Earth. The blessings of Gaia will be upon you.

Post postscript: JCOE&P has an even more incredible offer to visitors from Dr. Sanity's Carnival of the Insanities: Just $9.85 per metric ton of carbon footprint excesses.

And please behave yourselves. Trolling makes me angry, increases my respiration, and therefore produces more CO2 to destroy the Earth. You will be held responsible. We will visualize things; crabs and cockroaches and fleas, Oh, my!

For $1,000
It Had Better Be a Large Screen HD

Eric Peters, in The American Spectator writes an article titled, 'Mandatory Back-Up Cameras?'

"Should back-up cameras (designed to prevent kids from being run over by vehicles moving in reverse) be mandatory equipment in every new car sold? If legislation introduced by Sens. Hillary Clinton and John Sununu -- the Cameron Gulbransen Kids and Cars Safety Act -- is signed into law, they will be."

But, never fear, gentle American citizen, if the extra cost cuts your food budget, the government schools will feed them. If you have to cut medical care expenses, the government will provide universal health care. If you have to cut the heat and can't afford gasoline, Governor Doyle will tax the hell out of them. (I know that won't help you, but Governor Doyle will feel better.)

Summation:

"A parent who needs a TV screen to keep him from running over his children is doing a lousy job raising them."