War Zone Britain: Welcome to the Olympics

War Zone Britain: Welcome to the Olympics
by Felicity Arbuthnot
18.07.2012


"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked

"Oh, you can't help that", said the Cat: We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad.

"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.

"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."

("Alice in Wonderland", Lewis Carroll, 1832-1898.)




When London scraped past Paris to win the 2012 Olympics by four votes on the 6th of July 2005, triumphalism of the "Rule Britannia" genre was rampant - and for many cringe-inducing and concerning in the extreme. The UK had joined the US in the invasions and near destruction of swathes of Afghanistan and Iraq. Award of this great international event surely sat badly with a large world view of Britain.

The then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, whose offices provided the historically misleading document about Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction" sealing the decision to invade - was integral to the Olympic bid. Sir Steve Redgrave, one of the Bid Team in Singapore commented at the time, " ... if you have to pin it down on one person, it's Tony Blair coming out here ..."

The triumphalism was short lived. Fifteen hours after the announcement, explosive devices on London's transport system during the morning rush hour,placed on trains and a bus, killed fifty-two people and injured seven hundred and seventy.

The Olympic opening ceremony is on the 27th of July, the anniversary of the Centennial Park bombing of the Atlanta Olympics (the 27th of July, 1996) killing two and injuring one hundred and eleven.

Britain's Ministry of Defence surely do not believe in omens, but nevertheless, reality now is a world away from the UK's Award commitment that, "The 2012 Olympiad stands under the motto 'Green and Secure.' "

The US Dow Chemical company's "worldwide partner" status - is the highest level sponsorship of the Olympic Games for "a decade of positive association" with the "Olympic brand" at a price tag to Dow of $100 million, arguably hardly presents either a "green" or "secure" image.




Dow is parent company to Union Carbide, responsible for India's December 1984 Bhopal disaster, the world's worst chemical accident, resulting in at least eleven thousand deaths. A 2006 Indian government affidavit, pertaining to still ongoing legal actions, stated the leak caused a staggering 558,125 injuries.

Campaigners, survivors and the Indian government have protested Dow's sponsorship. It seems still uncertain whether the Indian team will take part in or boycott the Olympics. (i)

On the 30th of April, it became clear that Londoners could factor in a potential chemical, biological or missile attack. "Exercise Olympic Guardian" was announced - the UK had, of course, now enjoined the US again in threatening another two countries, Syria and Iran. London too has become a war zone.

"We are fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here" has been the US and UK political mantra of their illegal invasions. Ironically, Olympic London's mobilization is now being compared by politicians to the World War 11 Blitz - when the area most devastated by Germany's bombs were East London - the main Olympic venue.

General Sir Nick Parker, in command of the totalitarian terrorization of Londoners and residents around other Olympic venues explained, "It's an air threat (of two kinds) the sort of 9/11 threat ... and also the lower, slower type of (missile) which might pop up closer to the Olympic Park, in which we would need to intervene."

Thus, in this most densely populated area, batteries of surface-to-air Rapier missiles (which launch at up to three times the speed of sound) have been sited on two residential blocks of flats within bombing range of the stadium. The "formidable" Rapier with warhead "to guarantee a kill," cited by its developers as a "hit-ile" rather than a missile, is being deployed at six London sites in all (so far).

Parker's concern is to protect Olympic venues from a "very serious threat." Should planes or missiles crash on residents, their lives and homes are clearly a price worth paying. "Drones will patrol the skies over the Olympic park, barricaded behind an eleven-mile electrified fence and guarded with sonic weapons and fifty-five teams of attack dogs." (Guardian, 11th of July 2012).




Sonic weapons can shatter windows and ear drums up to three kilometers away - of parents and children, people simply pottering around in their homes.

Typhoon jets and helicopters with snipers are based minutes hit time away at West London's RAF Northolt (first such deployment since World War 11), RAF Puma helicopters in East London with "side firing machine guns" are included in a "sad history" of British military aircraft crashes, according to the military savvy Daily Telegraph (3rd of July 2012).

Warships with Royal Navy Lynx helicopters: "now with increased firepower" based on board, are on the Thames and at the rowing venues at Weymouth Bay and Portland Harbour. General Parker's contingency plans, however, have not accounted for nature's near biblical deluges currently submerging cars in Weymouth's Olympic "Park and Ride" facility.

Portland, which overlooks the rowing contests, has been walled in reminiscent of US erected walls in Baghdad, to prevent massively inconvenienced residents' availing of small compensation in watching contests free.

Soldiers patrol the streets, about 13,500 being deployed, more than deployed in Afghanistan - twelve thousand police, twenty thousand varying other security personnel, with at least a thousand American police and military personnel, maybe more, figures change.

But in spite of all, perhaps the most alarming material has come from an undercover reporter (ii) experienced in such work, employed as a security guard with G4S, the main contractors for Olympic protection. His truly terrifying recounting includes a plan to evacuate the whole of London (eleven million people) and the importation of two hundred thousand (body) caskets, each being able to hold four or five people.

So if you plan to visit the Olympics (traveling from abroad up to five hours wait to pass immigration at Heathrow Airport; part of a motorway to London is currently collapsed, but there is always the underground transport system). Enjoy your stay.

Update: as this is finished, a further three thousand five hundreds troops, many" just back from Afghanistan" have been drafted into the main Stadium area. Let's hope they remember where they are.

Weather forecast: "Cold, wet, windy." Not unique to Pravda

More great fashion images.

More Louisiana Lunacy: A Special Report From Loch Ness

Well maybe not exactly Loch Ness, but it is from Scotland.

This is similar report on the story I covered under the title, Louisiana Vying For Title America's Most Stupid State? only this time the report comes from this side of the pond. I'll wager they are still rolling about in Scotland.

Updated with this priceless graphic, borrowed from William Hamby who is also running this story.

How American fundamentalist schools are using Nessie to disprove evolution
Rachel Loxton
24 June 2012

IT sounds like a plot dreamed up by the creators of Southpark, but it's all true: schoolchildren in Louisiana are to be taught that the Loch Ness monster is real in a bid by religious educators to disprove Darwin's theory of evolution.

Thousands of children in the southern state will receive publicly-funded vouchers for the next school year to attend private schools where Scotland's most famous mythological beast will be taught as a real living creature.

These private schools follow a fundamentalist curriculum including the Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) programme to teach controversial religious beliefs aimed at disproving evolution and proving creationism.

One tenet has it that if it can be proved that dinosaurs walked the earth at the same time as man then Darwinism is fatally flawed.

Critics have damned the content of the course books, calling them "bizarre" and accusing them of promoting radical religious and political ideologies.

The textbooks in the series are alleged to teach young earth creationism; are hostile towards other religions and other sectors of Christianity, including Roman Catholicism; and present a biased version of history that is often factually incorrect.

One ACE textbook – Biology 1099, Accelerated Christian Education Inc – reads: "Are dinosaurs alive today? Scientists are becoming more convinced of their existence. Have you heard of the 'Loch Ness Monster' in Scotland? 'Nessie' for short has been recorded on sonar from a small submarine, described by eyewitnesses, and photographed by others. Nessie appears to be a plesiosaur."

Another claim taught is that a Japanese whaling boat once caught a dinosaur. It's unclear if the movie Godzilla was the inspiration for this lesson.

Jonny Scaramanga, 27, who went through the ACE programme as a child, but now campaigns against Christian fundamentalism, said the Nessie claim was presented as "evidence that evolution couldn't have happened. The reason for that is they're saying if Noah's flood only happened 4000 years ago, which they believe literally happened, then possibly a sea monster survived.

"If it was millions of years ago then that would be ridiculous. That's their logic. It's a common thing among creationists to believe in sea monsters."

Private religious schools, including the Eternity Christian Academy in Westlake, Louisiana, which follows the ACE curriculum, have already been cleared to receive the state voucher money transferred from public school funding, thanks to a bill pushed through by state Governor Bobby Jindal.

Boston-based researcher and writer Bruce Wilson, who specialises in the American political religious right, compares the curriculum to Islamic fundamentalist teaching.

"They are being brought up to believe that they're at war with secular society. The only valid government would be a Christian fundamentalist government. Obviously some comparisons could be made to Islamic Fundamentalists in schools.

"One of these texts from Bob Jones University Press claims that dinosaurs were fire-breathing dragons. It has little to do with science as we currently understand. It's more like medieval scholasticism."

Wilson believes that such teaching is going on in at least 13 American states.

"There's a lot of public funding going to private schools, probably around 200,000 pupils are receiving this education," he And the majority of parents now home schooling their kids are Christian fundamentalists too. I don't believe they should be publicly funded, I don't believe the schools who use these texts should be publicly funded."

Daniel Govender, managing director of Christian Education Europe, which is part of ACE, said the organisation would not comment to the press on what is contained in the texts.

Of course, the Scottish tourist industry might well reap a dividend from the craziness of the American education system. Nessie expert Tony Drummond, who leads tours as part of Cruise Loch Ness, has a few words of advice to the US schools in question: come to the loch and try to find the monster.

"They need to come and investigate the loch for themselves," says the 47-year-old. "We've got some hi-tech equipment. They could come out on the boat and do a whole chunk of the loch.

"We do get regular sonar contacts which are pretty much unexplainable. More research has to be done, but it's not way along the realms of possibility."

But he's not convinced that the legend of the Loch Ness Monster is being taught the right way. "That's Christian propaganda," he says. "And ridiculous."

Textbooks of some state-funded Christian schools praise the Ku Klux Klan.

The violent, racist organisation, which still exists in the US, advocates white supremacy, white nationalism and anti-immigration.

One excerpt from Bob Jones University Press American history textbook has been reported as saying: "the [Ku Klux] Klan in some areas of the country tried to be a means of reform, fighting the decline in morality and using the symbol of the cross ... In some communities it achieved a certain respectability as it worked with politicians."

Other views taught include claims that being gay is a learned behaviour.

It isn't just America where the bizarre Christian Nessie myth is being taught as a reality. The UK has similar religious schools but they do not receive cash from the state. Nevertheless, the Evangelical Christian curriculum they follow has been approved by UK Government agency, the National Recognition Information Centre (Naric) which guides universities and employers on the validity of different qualifications.

Naric judged the International Certificate of Christian Education (ICCE) as officially comparable to qualifications offered by the Cambridge International exam board.

It is estimated around 2000 pupils study at more than 50 private Christian schools in Britain for the certificates as well as several home-educated students.

The courses are based around the Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) programme, which originated in Texas in the 1970s.

Pupils study a range of subjects, including science and English, but spend half their studies learning from Bible-influenced US textbooks. heraldscotland.com

It's a Funny Old World: Thick as Two Short Planks Edition

You probably shouldn’t Google how to kill someone before killing someone
By Ned Hepburn

A couple from Florida (where else?) have been tied to a murder after hundreds of text messages, Facebook messages, and Google searches revealed that they had turned to the Internet to find out how to craft an alibi as well as communicate to each other various ways to carry out the murder of Juliana Mensch, a 19 year old roommate of the couple. James Ayers, 32, was arrested a few days ago after apparently confessing to a friend. His girlfriend Nicole Okrzesik, 23, was arrested soon after yet blamed the murder on Ayers. And then the police checked their phones.

Turns out that Okzresik had extensively Googled how to kill someone the night of the murder. The Broward/Palm Beach New Times has links to everything she did on her phone that night (they even have the text messages.) More




Man jailed after bragging "I think I got away with it" on Facebook

A man was convicted of an assault after he bragged to friends on Facebook during his trial that he thought he had got away with it.
06 Jun 2012

Michael Ruse, 21, believed the two week trial had gone well and decided to share the news online before the jury was due to go out.

Ruse, who had denied beating up a friend's dad, wrote a status update shortly before the jury was due to go out, saying: "Another week at court!"

When asked by a friend about the case he said: "Yeah I think I get away with it tbh (to be honest) x," adding it was "looking good."

The exchange was printed out and delivered anonymously to the court, where it was handed to the prosecution.

Confronted by the new evidence Ruse, who used the name Michael Miles online, had little choice but to change his plea to guilty to assault causing actual bodily harm.

Ruse, who has previous convictions for assault and criminal damage, then went back on the social networking site to describe the judge as "stuck up" hours before his sentencing.

Judge Ian Pearson said Ruse's stupidity was no excuse.

He said: "You pleaded guilty part way through the trial only really because you were stupid enough to put on Facebook what amounted to a full confession.

"Your stupidity really is not much mitigation."

Ruse, of Leigh Park, near Portsmouth, Hants, was given a 46 week prison sentence, suspended for two years, and put on a six month curfew from 7pm to 7am.

Russell Pyne, defending, said his client had planned to move away from Leigh Park and change his ways.

He said: "He needs help with regards to thinking skills."

During the trial, Portsmouth Crown Court heard Ruse's friend, Terry Reeve, 20, had thrown a brick at his own dad's car earlier in the day in March last year.

Ruse and Reeve then armed themselves with a baseball bat and a baton and attacked the 45-year-old lorry driver in the street in Leigh Park.

Reeve's father was left with a cut to his head and bruises all over his body.

Reeve, of Leigh Park, was found guilty of the assault and of criminal damage after the trial. He was jailed for a year and 55 days.

Michael Williams, defending Reeve, said he had not had a happy childhood.

He said: "The reason that he perhaps thinks with his fists first comes from his father."

After the hearing, Ruse went back on Facebook to say: "Boom! Im (sic) coming home best start sorting myself out. Tag for 6 months...and got to stay out of trouble for 2 years."

He was also fined £250 in court costs. Telegraph

Oh Ye of Too Much Faith

And too little brains.

“I didn’t want to be weak in my faith and disappoint God.”

Jury gives mother prison time in death
By Bill Braun
May 27 2012

A Tulsa County jury imposed a 2½-year prison sentence Friday night after convicting a woman of second-degree manslaughter in the diabetes-related death of her ailing son, whose treatment she believed relied upon spiritual means.

Prosecutors alleged that Susan Grady acted with “culpable negligence” toward 9-year-old Aaron Grady between June 2 and June 5, 2009, by not seeking medical treatment for him.

Aaron died June 5, 2009, at his family’s Broken Arrow apartment from complications of diabetes mellitus.

District Judge William Kellough set formal sentencing for June 8.

Grady, 43, who has been free on bond, was jailed after the verdict was delivered.

Defense attorney Rob Nigh, who expressed disappointment with the outcome, said he will seek an appeal bond, which would allow Grady to stay out of custody during an appeal. That matter could be taken up at the formal sentencing.

Grady did not testify.

In relying on prayer to heal her son, Grady, a member of the Church of the Firstborn, told police in 2009, “I didn’t want to be weak in my faith and disappoint God.”

Nigh has maintained that Grady’s conduct was not unreasonable, based upon the teachings of her church.

Assistant District Attorney Ben Fu told jurors in a closing argument that the prosecution “did not put the Church of the Firstborn on trial this week.”

“This case is about Aaron Grady,” Assistant District Attorney Sarah McAmis said. Go to page two.

Update: A more comprehensive report here.

They take their cattle to the vet but won’t take their children to the doctor

Did The Earth Move For You? Shagging in Iran

And you always thought Sha Ging and Wan King were cities in China!

The last of three posts on religion and sex. (1) (2) And one that hardly needs elaborating on, other than perhaps to say: looking forward to a nuclear Iran?

Women to blame for earthquakes, says Iran cleric

Women behaving promiscuously are causing the earth to shake, according to cleric, as Ahmadinejad predicts Tehran quake
19 April 2010

A senior Iranian cleric says women who wear revealing clothing and behave promiscuously are to blame for earthquakes.

Iran is one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries, and the cleric's unusual explanation for why the earth shakes follows a prediction by the president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, that a quake is certain to hit Tehran and that many of its 12 million inhabitants should relocate.

"Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which increases earthquakes," Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi was quoted as saying by Iranian media. Women in the Islamic Republic are required by law to cover from head to toe, but many, especially the young, ignore some of the more strict codes and wear tight coats and scarves pulled back that show much of the hair. "What can we do to avoid being buried under the rubble?" Sedighi asked during a prayer sermon last week. "There is no other solution but to take refuge in religion and to adapt our lives to Islam's moral codes." Seismologists have warned for at least two decades that it is likely the sprawling capital will be struck by a catastrophic quake in the near future. Some experts have even suggested Iran should move its capital to a less seismically active location. Tehran straddles scores of fault lines, including one more than 50 miles long, though it has not suffered a major quake since 1830.

In 2003, a powerful earthquake hit the southern city of Bam, killing 31,000 people – about a quarter of that city's population – and destroying its ancient mud-built citadel.

"A divine authority told me to tell the people to make a general repentance. Why? Because calamities threaten us," said Sedighi, Tehran's acting Friday prayer leader. Referring to the violence that followed last June's disputed presidential election, he said: "The political earthquake that occurred was a reaction to some of the actions [that took place]. And now, if a natural earthquake hits Tehran, no one will be able to confront such a calamity but God's power, only God's power ... So let's not disappoint God."

The Iranian government and its security forces have been locked in a bloody battle with a large opposition movement that accuses Ahmadinejad of winning last year's vote by fraud.

Ahmadinejad made his quake prediction two weeks ago but said he could not give an exact date. He acknowledged that he could not order all of Tehran's 12m people to evacuate. "But provisions have to be made ... at least 5 million should leave Tehran so it is less crowded," the president said.

The welfare minister, Sadeq Mahsooli, said prayers and pleas for forgiveness were the best "formulae to repel earthquakes. We cannot invent a system that prevents earthquakes, but God has created this system and that is to avoid sins, to pray, to seek forgiveness, pay alms and self-sacrifice," Mahsooli said. Gruniad

Previous: Respect People's Religious Beliefs. Why? Seat belts essential.

Sarah Palin All-American Wingnut

Were it not for Tina Fey featuring on a program I watched yesterday evening, Frost on Satire, UK only, I probably would have sailed past this brief, but right on the money perception the world of Sarah Palin.

Back in 2008, I used to argue that Sarah Palin didn’t really exist — that she was actually an incredibly elaborate Tina Fey performance art project, an Andy-Kaufman style hoax. Because, seriously — Palin was so staggeringly vapid that it stretched credibility that she could be for real. It almost seemed more likely that she might be an over-the-top parody of a certain kind of blissfully idiotic, all-American wingnut, than that she was an actual person. And the rest of it is a post about Romney.

Nuff said?

From the same program, and by all accounts it is true: "The problem with the French is that they don't have a word for entrepreneur." -George W. Bush Bushisms




Compilation.



Jack Cafferty.



The real thing, ten minutes.

Toddler Terrorist: TSA Threatens Lockdown Over 4-Year-old Girl

Toddler Terrorist: TSA Threatens Lockdown Over 4-Year-old Girl
April 25, 2012

The much-maligned Transport Security Authority (TSA) is once again in hot water after it accused an innocent four-year-old girl of attempted gun smuggling as she hugged her grandmother in the security zone.

­In a Facebook post that has since gone viral, Michelle Brademeyer describes the story of her family being detained as potential terrorists by the TSA on a flight out of Wichita, Kansas. The TSA is responsible for screening passengers as they board and disembark from planes.

Brademeyer was passing through security checks with her mother and her small daughter, Isabella. When the older lady triggered the metal detector, and was told to go for a pat-down, Isabella ran over to and briefly hugged her grandmother.

The TSA immediately said Isabella would now also have to undergo a pat-down, in case the grandmother passed contraband to her during the hug.

When the child shouted “I don’t want to,” the TSA declared Isabella a “high security threat,” and said that they would close down the airport if she moved.

Afterwards, the by-now-hysterical four-year-old was taken to a separate room, and told to stop crying. When she could not, the officers called for backup – saying “the suspect is not cooperating.”

Once the girl calmed down enough to be patted down, Brademeyer claims the transport police repeatedly stated that the girl might be carrying a weapon, as they had previously “seen a gun in a teddy bear.”

Neither the grandmother, nor the child had anything illegal on their person.

Eventually, Isabella and the rest of her family were allowed to board the flight.

The TSA has not questioned Brademeyer’s version of events, but refuses to apologize.

“TSA has reviewed the incident and determined that our officers followed proper current screening procedures in conducting a modified pat-down on the child,” said an official statement.

Recent controversial TSA security procedures have included patting down a wheelchair-bound boy, making a woman with a “cute figure” repeatedly go through the body scanner, and forcing a mother to produce a bottle of her breast milk for inspection, before allowing her breast pump onboard.

Brademeyer’s Facebook page has been flooded with hundreds of comments of support from outraged passengers who also claim to have suffered at the hands of over-zealous TSA agents. ICH or more in depth, The Mail

Tennessee Goes Monkey Again

No comment.

Tennessee Goes Monkey Again
By Katherine Stewart
01 April 2012

It’s been a great couple weeks in Tennessee – unless you happen to be a public school student, gay, or not a fundamentalist Christian, or the time horizon in which you think about the future of humanity and the environment extends beyond the next decade or two. On March 26, the state legislature passed a bill that will have the intended effect of inserting creationism and climate science denial into public school classrooms. Just a week earlier, on March 19th, the House passed a bill to permit the display of the Ten Commandments in public buildings (HB2658). And Tennessee is currently debating a bill that is intended to give schoolyard bullies an exemption from the law if their bullying happens to be motivated by “sincerely held” religious bigotry.

The creationism bill is rich in historic irony. Four score and seven years ago, a Tennessee high school biology teacher named John Scopes was charged with the crime of teaching evolution. At the time, Tennessee had an anti-evolution law, known as the Butler Act, in honor of John W. Butler, the leader of the World’s Christian Fundamentals Association. Trial lawyer Clarence Darrow said, of his involvement in the case, “I knew that education was in danger from the source that has always hampered it – religious fanaticism.”

Back then, press coverage portrayed the fundamentalist groups backing the anti-Darwin forces as anti-intellectual, chauvinistic – the “sharpshooters of bigotry,” in Darrow’s words. The widely accepted view was that those who supported the teaching of creationism in public education were motivated by fear, superstition, and prejudice. They represented an obstruction of modernity and progress that was construed as un-American. The fallout was so toxic that Christian fundamentalism retreated as a political force for decades.

The recently passed bill in Tennessee was opposed by pretty much every credible organization involved in the teaching of biology, including the National Association of Biology Teachers, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Institute for Biological Sciences, the National Association of Geoscience Teachers, the National Earth Science Teachers Association, the Tennessee Science Teachers Association, and all eight Tennessee members of the National Academy of Sciences. But the legislators of Tennessee obviously knew better.

The interesting question that comes up in light of Tennessee’s storied history as a center for biological ignorance is: why does it seem that we have moved backwards on this subject? There are a number of cultural and social forces at work, of course, but there is a much cruder and more effective force at work too: money. Creationism is now only part of teaching about supposed “scientific controversies” that the Tennessee bill wishes to address; the other part is climate science.

The new Tennessee legislation, which has been given the Orwellian title, The Environmental Literacy Improvement Act, is based on model legislation provided by ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, a corporate lobbying group that takes the view that human activity plays little to no role in harmful climate change, and that EPA regulations are a “train wreck.” ALEC’s sponsors include, among others, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, BP, United Healthcare, and Koch Industries.

The person overseeing the ALEC committee that adopted the model legislation, Alexandra “Sandy” Liddy Bourne, who happens to be the daughter of notorious Watergate operative G. Gordon Liddy, left ALEC some time ago to work for the Heartland Institute—a climate science denial group that recently gained some notoriety when internal memos detailing its cynical strategies for manipulating public opinion and public school science curricula were leaked. The calculus of the corporate sponsors behind the Tennessee anti-science bill and others like it (yes, there are more such bills in other states) seems pretty straightforward: The less the public knows, the more money ALEC sponsors make. Which may be true, if your time horizon is short enough.

Tennessee’s anti-bullying—rather, anti-anti-bullying—legislation involves a kind of irony that is a little sadder than that of the anti-science bill. It is important to note that Tennessee already has some anti-bullying laws on its books. The state and its schools have acknowledged that bullying is a problem and that something should be done about it. As well they should: last December, a young man named Jacob Rogers became the latest public high school student to kill himself after being relentlessly bullied in his Tennessee high school for being gay. The intention of the new bill—introduced just one month after Jacob’s suicide – is to carve out an exemption for those bullies who can lay claim to a sincere religious motivation for their hatred.

In its hectic month defending the rights of pious bullies, the rights of those who don’t want to know anything about science, and the rights of the representatives of the majority religion to stamp their doctrines over public property, the Tennessee legislature has done us the service of raising an interesting question. Why is it that the people who are so hostile to science also seem to be hostile to gays, to children, and especially to gay children? Why is it that creationists are always the ones who are most convinced that God did not create any LGBTs? And why is it that the people who are most frightened at the prospect that their school might expose their children to the reality that some of their fellow students are LGBT are so often the same ones who don’t want their children exposed to the realities of evolution?

If short-term money is the fuel behind the Tennessee rampage, it seems pretty obvious that what Darrow called “religious fanaticism” is the fire. All of which goes to show that just as science provides an ever-increasing wealth of opportunities to enrich the mind, so ignorance multiplies its damages without limit. RD.net

Dear Bristol

Dear Bristol,

I understand you’ve been complaining that President Obama should be calling you like he did Sandra Fluke anytime now to apologize for people making fun of you and your family. I think you misunderstand what he was calling about. You see, Sandra Fluke, a law student, went to Congress to argue for women’s health. She was attacked and insulted by a sleazy ex-drug addict that was once arrested after coming back from the Dominican Republic with a bottle of Viagra and a bunch of guys (it’s called “sexual tourism” and you have to pay for the sex). Her plea that birth control pills be covered by insurance because of the many vital health benefits, aside from contraception, they provide was earnest and moving. You wouldn’t know that, of course, because you didn’t watch that footage. You got the Fox News/Rush Limbaugh version in which she was having so much sex, the cost of her pills were too expensive to pay on her own. What a slut. Except she wasn’t and only very stupid people think that is what she was arguing for. more

Sarah Palin 'Believed Queen Was in Charge of British Forces in Iraq'

Sarah Palin 'believed Queen was in charge of British forces in Iraq'

Sarah Palin believed that the Queen rather than the prime minister was responsible for the decision to keep British forces in Iraq, according to research done for a new film chronicling her brief political rise.
By Raf Sanchez
20 Feb 2012

The former Alaska governor reportedly made the comment during the 2008 presidential campaign as aides to John McCain, the Republican candidate, scrambled to bring his surprise-pick running mate up to speed on foreign affairs.

Her confusion emerged during a coaching session with Steve Schmidt, a top McCain adviser, who asked Mrs Palin what she would do if Britain began to waver in its commitment to the Iraq war.

In one of the many rambling responses that steadily eroded her credibility during the campaign, Mrs Palin reportedly replied that she would "continue to have an open dialogue" with the Queen. blah blah

Common Sense Prevails Court Victory for Cigarette Butt Man

Which makes a change.

Court victory for cigarette butt man
24 May 2010

A man fined £50 for dropping a cigarette butt down a drain celebrated a victory when the case was thrown out of court.

Benjamin Barton was handed the fixed penalty notice by a council officer who spotted him disposing of the stub in Nottingham city centre.

But he refused to pay it and the case was taken to Nottingham Magistrates' Court last week, where he won.

The 24-year-old told the Nottingham Evening Post: "I am absolutely delighted. I think it was crazy that I was fined and then taken to court in the first place.

"The fact that I have won is not just a victory for me but for the public as well."

Nottingham City Council said it was council policy to issue a £50 fine to anyone seen dropping a cigarette butt in the street.

Community protection officers responsible for handing out the fines can exercise discretion however, and some offences result only in a warning.

A council spokesman said: "We respect the decision of the court and will not take this matter any further." Indi

H/T https://twitter.com/#!/StevenNott

Previous insanity: On England's Pleasant Pastures Seen

Why I Don't do PC and Why This Country is a Bollocks

Scroll down for: Motorist returns to find yellow lines painted either side of her car - and a parking ticket

Senate Panel OKs Creationism Teaching Bill

Senate panel OKs creationism teaching bill
Associated Press
January 26, 2012

An Indiana Senate panel has approved a bill that would allow creationism to be taught in Indiana's public schools.

The Times of Munster reported that the Republican-controlled Senate Education Committee voted 8-2 Wednesday to send the legislation to the full Senate despite pleas from scientists and religious leaders to keep religion out of science classrooms.

The bill allows schools to authorize "the teaching of various theories concerning the origin of life" and specifically mentions "creation science" as one such theory. Creationism is the belief that the Earth and its creatures were created by a deity.

Purdue University professor of chemistry John Staver told the panel evolution is the only theory of life's origins that relies on scientific investigations. He says creationism "is unquestionably a statement of a specific religion." IBJ

~ ~ ~

Which fits in ever so nicely with the agenda of mega charlatan, Ken Ham and his ridiculous Answers in Genesis

Answers in Genesis is adamantly against the mandated teaching of Creation in schools.

"While we don’t support compulsion to teach the creation position (imagine how unbelievers would distort our position), it would be good if Christian teachers had the legislative freedom and encouragement to present critiques of evolution and discuss alternatives." Santorum Amendment supports teaching alternatives

They don't want creationism officially mandating, because if it were, it would, as Ham says, get torn to shreds by anyone with two neurons bolted together.

Far better, legislation like this, where the creationists can sneak in through the back door like thieves in the night and fuck with the minds of vulnerable children.

It is child abuse, nothing more nothing less.

Abuse your own mind, Creation Wiki. Tip, coal, oil, sedimentary rock and and Noah's flood aren't bad places to start, but please.

''Lack of Geographical Awareness''

I never intended that it would become a post, it was just a little something I saved in order that I might pass it on to a reader. Until that is, remembering the existence of a video clip, that one could only describe as being made for the job, custom made if you will.

Amy Goodman, Democracy Now, in conversation with talking head and Korea wonk, Christine Ahn, on the subject (24m30s mark) of the recent demise of the Dear Leader.

....Christine Ahn, if you could continue with this history lesson that Professor Chung-in Moon began for us, especially for people here in the United States. You know the lack of geographical awareness of people here. We live in an insulated world—a globalized world, but we’re very insulated in the United States. What do you feel it’s most important to understand about North Korea in a global context?

By some strange coincidence, our featured clip, does in parts, feature the peninsular, sorry, the Island of Korea.

So without further ado; drive on!

Not forgetting of course, to strap in before doing so.

Why Do Republicans Gleefully Embrace Idiots as Presidential Candidates?

Why Republicans Embrace Simpletons and How it Hurts America
By James Marshall Crotty
Nov 30, 2011

Since I report on American education, including the intellectual lassitude of American voters, foreign observers routinely ask me: Why Do Republicans Gleefully Embrace Idiots as Presidential Candidates?

The question naturally begs a larger question: How can a country, with the world’s highest national GDP, and absurdly complex systems regulating everything from credit default swaps to nuclear missile safety, possibly allow onto its national stage men and women of such transparently inferior intellect?

The easy answer is that there has always been a long, pathetic history of anti-intellectual paranoia in American politics, as Richard Hofstadter documented in his book Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1963). It is like kudzu. You just can’t kill it. No matter how advanced the U.S. becomes in technology, biomedicine, and weaponry, it not only attracts, but promotes, under the rubric of equal opportunity, a confederacy of dunces as Presidential candidates.

To be fair, Democrats have had their share of dolts, including the tax-cheating, race-baiting, college dropout Reverend Al Sharpton (who gained fame not only because of his courageous civil rights protests, but because he claims to be “Keepin’ It Real”; read: not formally educated), as well as Democrat-turned-Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond (whose 1948 campaign slogan was “Segregation Forever”). Nevertheless, in 2011, the God-fearing Ossified Party has rolled out the greatest assortment of Know-Nothings in its history, most of whom share a singular misconception: because I can do one small thing well (e.g., run a pizza chain), I can handle the world’s most demanding job.

At first blush, one thinks this embrace of incompetence has something to do with the uniquely American idea that anyone from any background can become President. It’s an old saw told to almost every young person in the country. I believed it. I also believed that I would be an astronaut or a professional basketball player.

However, reason suggests, that when a clear-headed adult, with no experience in national politics, no reputable training in public policy -- as opposed to a bastion of Christian zealotry like the former Oral Roberts School of Law, which Michelle Bachman attended -- and little understanding of countries outside U.S. borders, says that he or she is running for President, his or her reasonable adult compadres should rightly say, “You are suffering from delusions of grandeur.” After all, you need advanced degrees to properly practice medicine, law, and nuclear physics. Why would we expect the Leader of the Free World to have anything less than the precise qualifications for such an elevated job opening?

However, only in America is no training or knowledge required to perform a job that is not only more complicated and demanding than the above three fields, but one which regulates the above three occupations and all sorts of other complex and nuanced occupations around the globe (including undercover agents in foreign lands).

But that’s only the beginning. More, of some length with a few doh! clips thrown in. Try the “Hannitize” if it interests you, you might come away asking the same question as I did. How does he live with himself?

Has Michele Bachmann No Friends?

Surely she has at least one that would be kind enough to whisper in her ear and say, sit the fuck down, please?

Let me set the tone for this piece by employing this extract from a previous post that featured the writings of the inimitable Fred Reed.

Then Michele Bachmann, clueless evangelical daffodil. Complete ditz-rabbit. May God save us from Christianity. Brighter than Perry, but so is anything not actually inanimate. Not visibly intelligent enough to disqualify her for election, but maybe she is dissimulating. No experience in the world that I can see. more

Brighter than Perry? Yes I suppose she may well be, if only for the reason that Fred Reed draws attention to.

Not terribly bright though is she, not for someone running for the office of the President of the United States of America. In fact I would go a little further than that, I would describe her as dumb, fucking dumb, excruciatingly, frighteningly, fucking dumb.

I think I need not elaborate further, the headline saying all that needs to be said on this occasion. I shall keep the pasted bit to a minimum, for there are all kinds of links, graphics and a video in the original.

Michele Bachmann: U.S. Embassy In Iran (Which Doesn't Exist) Would Be Closed Under My Watch

Michele Bachmann told supporters in Iowa on Wednesday of her lofty plans for American diplomacy, claiming that a Bachmann presidency would mean no U.S. embassy in Iran.

Considering the recent hostility in the Iranian capital of Tehran against the British embassy, the comment might not seem particularly out of place -- if not for the fact that the U.S. hasn't actually had a functioning embassy in Iran since 1980.

NBC's Jamie Novgorod first pointed out the flop in a tweet earlier Wednesday: More HuffPo

But it doesn't stop there, if never does, does it? The first of two more HuffPo articles that I would like to set before you, Michele Bachmann on, what else, Intelligent Design?

It hardly needs me to tell you that the Second Law of Thermodynamics, irreducible complexity and the "the dearth of fossil record" need to be addressed don't in fact need addressing. Nor to point out that there are: There are hundreds and hundreds of scientists, many of them holding Nobel Prizes, who believe in intelligent design no, I hardly need do that.

But what I would like to draw your attention to, are the two kids sat on the back row behind Michele Bachmann. Listen to Bachmann by all means, but keep your eye on these to boys from start to finish. There is still a little hope left for Iowa.

Michele Bachmann: Evolution-Only Approach In Schools Amounts To 'Censorship By Government'

Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann said that excluding intelligent design in teaching evolution in schools amounts to "censorship by government" during a stop in Iowa on Wednesday, the Des Moines Register reports.

The conservative congresswoman signaled that her religious beliefs helped to shape her posture toward the scientific theory. She explained that she believes "God created the earth" and issues such as the Second Law of Thermodynamics, irreducible complexity and the "the dearth of fossil record" need to be addressed.

Bachmann also stated, "If you look at scientists there is not a unanimity of agreement on the origins of life." She made similar remarks in 2006.

"There are hundreds and hundreds of scientists, many of them holding Nobel Prizes, who believe in intelligent design," she said then.

Last summer, Bachmann said in explaining her stance on intelligent design, "What I support is putting all science on the table and then letting students decide." She added, "I don't think it's a good idea for government to come down on one side of scientific issue or another, when there is reasonable doubt on both sides." source

Lastly, and by no means least, displaying the same kind of judgement as that of John McCain in choosing a running mate, we have included on Michele Bachmann's maybe list, (discounting for the moment, Donald Trump) none other than, he, not of this planet, the creepy, seriously deranged, Rick Santorum.

And when I say creepy, and seriously deranged, I'm not saying it for effect, I mean it, I mean I really mean it, por que? try this bellow. Read of it what you will, but it is at the ''Atrios'' link under the header, What Rick Santorum Means by 'Keeping Sex to Yourself' where we really start to get into the realm of the twilight world.

Not Only is Rick Santorum a Homophobic Twat, He's One Very Sick Puppy Indeed

Just one last thing before I let you get on with it. If any of you can think of another country in the world, where the behaviour described in the above article, wouldn't be sufficient to seriously question the sanity of the fellow in question, notwithstanding that the man is standing for the highest office in the land, would you send me your answer on a postcard please.

Michele Bachmann Vice President Picks: GOP Candidate Mentions Possible Running Mates

For now, Michele Bachmann's days as a GOP presidential frontrunner are in the rearview mirror. Poll numbers aside, the Minnesota congresswoman has unveiled some potential running mates.

In a Wednesday evening interview with Fox News's Greta Van Susteren, Bachmann reeled off a list of vice-presidential possibilities that included some Tea Party favorites and a big business mogul.

"We've got a lot of wonderful candidates who would fit that bill," Bachmann said. "Easily comes to mind I think would be Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina. Marco Rubio of Florida certainly would be in that category. There's a lot of great people out there. And Donald Trump is someone that I think a lot of people would be intrigued with, too."

Fellow GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum also made Bachmann's VP short list. In a Wednesday interview with the Des Moines Register, she described him as a "sharp guy" with the potential to fill the shoes of attorney general or another cabinet position.

"I have very high regard for Rick Santorum," Bachmann told the paper. "And I'm not just saying that. I mean that." blah blah

I think you need to be a European to fully appreciate this photograph.

It's a Funny Old World: Condom Edition

Particularly for those of us that live in the enlightened parts of the west, unless you have watched specific* television programs on the subject, I don't think you can begin to understand the effort that goes in to targetting sex workers in the US by the police.

Whole police departments are given over to planning meticulous raids and scams (entrapment) to such a degree that it staggers the imagination. And let's face it, at the end of the day, does it matter?

*I couldn't swear to it being the program in question, but irrespective, the wretched lives led by the majority of the street girls as depicted in HBO's Hookers at The Point, was enough to garner anybody's sympathy. Life was tough enough for these women without being hassled by cops with a plank stuck up their arse.

Stopping Police and DAs from Using Condoms to Convict Sex Workers
By Crystal DeBoise
11.14.2011

Last winter, “Sheila,” a sex worker in her early 20s, had just finished her counseling session with me at the Sex Workers Project, and was heading out the door. Sheila was seeking counseling from the Sex Workers Project to help her make a career change, but had no financial support and was still working in the sex industry. I gestured towards our colorful shoebox of condoms, lube and pamphlets about safe sex and reminded her to take whatever she needed. She looked at me as if I were suggesting she walk into the January snow barefoot and said, “Are you crazy? I’m not carrying those things around! You want me to get arrested or something?”

Sheila was referring to a situation in New York that permits the use of condoms as evidence of prostitution, resulting in their collection and confiscation from women who are detained by the police. This practice is an outright slap in the face to the decades of hard work that public health advocates have undertaken to increase safe sex, decrease HIV and create a positive shift in the cultural acceptance of condom use. This policy discourages a stigmatized and marginalized group of sexually active people from carrying the tools they need to be healthy and safe. And this occurs despite the fact that the New York City itself runs a free condom distribution program because “Using a condom every time you have anal, oral or vaginal sex protects you and your partners from getting HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases … and prevents unplanned pregnancies.”

Staff at the Sex Workers Project had been seeing police reports of arrested sex workers that listed the possession of condoms as evidence of prostitution for some time. Many of the arrests were not of even sex workers, but, rather, incidents of profiling transgender individuals as sex workers — their personal condoms were confiscated and used as “evidence” of prostitution.

Sentiments like the one Sheila shared have become more prevalent among sex workers, and for good reason. Prostitution convictions have an extremely negative impact on the lives of sex workers.

Arrests themselves are often abusive and traumatic, as well as costly. A criminal record is a major hurdle to joining the mainstream job force. Many jobs require disclosure of crimes or out-and-out disqualify people who have such records. When hired despite their records, those with prostitution-related crimes on their record often face discrimination on the job; others encounter sexual harassment when arrests for prostitution are disclosed. If carrying condoms increases the chance that a sex worker will have to experience these consequences, there’s a difficult decision to be made.

New York State Bill A1008/S323, cosponsored by more than a dozen state senators, would stop police and prosecutors from using possession of condoms as evidence of prostitution in specified criminal or civil proceedings. According to the summary of the bill, it “provides that possession of a condom may not be received in evidence in any trial, hearing or proceeding as evidence of prostitution, patronizing a prostitute, promoting prostitution, permitting prostitution, maintaining a premises for prostitution, lewdness or assignation, or maintaining a bawdy house.”

The explanation for the bill says, “It does not promote public health and welfare if the law discourages prostitutes from carrying condoms. If anything, their use by prostitutes should be encouraged by public policy ….” As of fall 2011, the bill was sitting in Judiciary Committee of the NY State Senate and the Codes Committee of the NY Assembly.

The Sex Workers Project is participating in an active campaign to support the passage of the bill this legislative session. Our online public service announcement explains its importance, and we have an ongoing petition with over 5,600 signatures at Change.org. Thirteen organizations have signed statements in support of the bill, and our staff holds legislative advocacy sessions for sex workers and allies where supporters can join our “pink postcard” campaign to send a message to state senators and assembly members.

Our activism is needed to make sure that this simple health and safety measure is put into place. If the bill passes, sex workers and the general public will be able to feel confident that the condoms they have in their pockets will not be used to assist law enforcement in accusing them of committing crimes. Feministe

Herman Cain Makes Two Short Planks Look Like a Computer

But even he pales into insignificance when compared to Bachmann. If you don't watch the video, at least listen to the brief audio. Link

How an Idiot Could Still End Up in the White House
By Archie Bland
November 16, 2011

There is, of course, nothing to stop total idiots trying to be leader of the free world, but you'd think there'd be some sort of winnowing process that would stop them reaching the last six.

The amazing video of Herman Cain that did the rounds yesterday, in which he cheerily burrowed his way to a stratum of stupidity not explored in American politics since Alaska's own Sarah Palin explained that one of her foreign policy qualifications was living quite close to Russia, was an unfortunate reminder that this is not the case. Herman Cain is not just stupid: he's stupid and HE DOESN'T CARE IF YOU KNOW IT. I don't care if he made a fortune from Godfather's Pizza. He's brazenly thick.

This is why, when asked for his views on Libya, he doesn't mind asking his interlocutor to clarify things for him. You'd think he'd have at least tried to style it out. "OK, Libya," he begins, after an agonising pause, twitching a bit, flicking his tongue out with the unnerving air of a hungry and ill-informed lizard. "President Obama supported the uprising, correct? President Obama called for the removal of Gaddafi. Just want to make sure we're talking about the same thing." He goes on like that for a bit, but it doesn't get any better.

Cain does say one sensible thing in the interview, when he gives his view that presidents don't have to be experts in everything. He's absolutely right: they can rely on advisors of the highest order. But there ought to be a basic qualifying level of not being a total ignoramus. It's a bit like driving. You don't have to understand how a carburettor works, but you do have to know which pedal's the brake and which one's the accelerator. You have to be engaged enough to learn. Herman, you feel, might easily end up trying to fly the car off a bridge.

It's sort of incredible, this. You could naively assume that even those candidates for high office lacking book smarts are at least possessed of some sort of animalistic cunning. It gets said a lot about George W. Bush. Reader, do not be fooled! Random, inexplicable things happen all the time. Stupid people can definitely get to the top. And if Karl Rove gets behind them, they can stay there!

Everyone says Herman Cain is only really in it for a shot at a Fox News gig, and it's true that he probably won't be president. But what if Mitt Romney gets knocked over by a political bus? And what happens then if unemployment keeps going up? Imagine it: President Cain. Applying the rules of suburban fast food delivery to international affairs. Bringing the people of Libya an extra-large invasion feast, when all they wanted was a side order of air support. Independent

Respect People's Religious Beliefs. Why?

This is a re-up, the reason being, I have captured the clip and uploaded it to Youtube. It needed to be done, that which is depicted in just forty seconds of tape, is as priceless as it is unique, and thoroughly deserving of being preserved.

Pigs In Space, And The Rabbis Too

Whereas I try to treat all religions with equal contempt, I think this is a first for featuring the Jewish faith in these unhallowed pages.


Not by design that Judaism has previously slipped under the radar, unless of course I have subconsciously given them a free pass because I know I'm never going to get a Jew knocking at my door trying to sell me a Bible or their god.

That said, and perhaps after watching the forty second clip, you might agree with me that they are just as loopy and batshit crazy as all the rest of the nutters.

Flying rabbis fight swine flu

A group of rabbis and Jewish mystics have taken to the skies over Israel, praying and blowing ceremonial horns in a plane to ward off swine flu.

About 50 religious leaders circled over the country on Monday, chanting prayers and blowing horns, called shofars.

The flight's aim was "to stop the pandemic so people will stop dying from it", Rabbi Yitzhak Batzri was quoted as saying in Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.

The flu is often called simply "H1N1" in Israel, as pigs are seen as unclean.

Eating pork is banned under Jewish dietary laws.

According to Israel's health ministry, there have been more than 2,000 cases of swine flu in the country, with five fatalities so far.

"We are certain that, thanks to the prayer, the danger is already behind us," added Mr Batzri was quoted as saying.

Television footage showed rabbis in black hats rocking backwards and forwards as they read prayers from Kabbalah, a form of Jewish mysticism which counts the singer Madonna among its devotees.

The shofar is the horn of a ram, and is used to mark major religious occasions in Judaism. BBC

Somebody Deserves to be Locked Up

Him, if he changed his name by deed poll. His mother if he didn't.

CPS office worker 'sold cannabis to his colleagues' while working on drug smuggling cases

A corrupt Crown Prosecution Service worker sold drugs to colleagues right under the noses of Britain's top prosecutors, a court heard yesterday.

Michael Prince Jackson-Bailey, 31, allegedly peddled drugs at CPS headquarters, where he worked in a UK Border Agency team that deals with drugs cases.
The father-of-one is accused of supplying cannabis to staff who worked on drugs smuggling prosecutions.

In a hugely embarrassing case for the CPS, Jackson-Bailey was allegedly found to have secretly stashed seven bundles of cannabis in a rucksack under his desk at Rose Court, Southwark, South London, where some of the most important criminal cases in British history have been handled.

Inner London Crown Court also heard how he received text messages from colleagues asking him to bring in drugs.

Jackson-Bailey denies dealing drugs, claiming he has been framed in an extraordinary conspiracy by CPS prosecutors and management who wanted to sack him because they were racist.

Jackson-Bailey, who had previously worked for Revenue and Customs prosecution teams for eight years, was caught on February 3.

He was stopped by a routine police patrol on his lunch hour, after he was seen behaving suspiciously with another man down an alley in Brixton, South London. more blah blah

Sarah Palin Not Running For President: Neither is My Dog

Mrs Palin said in a statement that the decision came after much thought, and that she and her husband, Todd, "devote ourselves to God, family and country". BBC

For fuck's sake, pass the bucket. Don't you think the time might be better spent in adult education?

Sarah Palin, the only person I know that makes George Bush look like an Oxford Don.




Previous: Popcorn With Palin & It's Over For Palin! Don't Kid Yourself Stills missing! copyright? strange.

Update: A Blogger/Picasa balls up by all accounts. Leaving this link here in case I need it one day.
http://www.jensdesk.com/2011/08/how-to-get-rid-of-black-error-triangles.html