A Whole Lot About Mostly Nothing

Oh my. Lovely.

You get the feeling that they are genuinely surprised to find that Catholics are attaching far more importance to the descration of the Eucharist than, say, the desecration of a Rosary. They seem to have reeled a bit at the volcanic response. Now they are getting their footing and realizing this *really* ticks off Catholics and so, like eight year olds, they are enjoying being in (they think) the position of saying, “Take one step closer and I’ll torture your cat!”

I won’t mince words. Myers is an evil man. (I won’t go that far, but he is an asshat of the first water and engaging in evil acts.-ed) And as evil men, particularly evil intellectuals, tend to be, he is also a mad man as are most of his acolytes and followers. One need only read Pharyngula to know this. Not all atheists are driven mad by their atheism. Many are quite respectable human beings. But those who make it their raison d’etre tend to be made crazy by it. That’s the tragedy of sins of the intellect. They don’t just make you stupid. If you persist in them, and particularly if you persist in them to this degree, they make you crazy.

(snip)

The hatred breeds lies like, “I’m just exercising freedom of expression”.

No. You are committing theft, vandalism, and incitement.

Or else you lie and say, “Unless Catholics can prove the Eucharist is actually the Body and Blood of Christ and not a worthless cracker, I’m just guilty of being rude.”

No. Catholics are under no obligation to prove that in order to show that you are guilty of theft, vandalism and incitement.

(snip)
Yet another demented lie to cover up your naked act of aggression is to play the victim:

It’s just so darned weird that they’re demanding that I offer this respect to a symbol that means nothing to me.

The answer to this lie is that *nobody* is demanding Myers offer respect to the Eucharist. He’s blasphemed the Eucharist on his blog off and on since forever. Catholics are free to disagree with him, just has he is free to disagree with them. That’s the first amendment in action and I, for one, am glad to live in the land that is not Canada where even demented professors whose careers are stuck in Wilbur Weed Boxtop Diploma Mill can have a voice in the public square, if only to serve as a warning to normal people of what hatred of God can do to the human mind.

(snip)

Myers’ logic is that of Kristallnacht, punish all Catholics everywhere with theft, vandalism and incitement because of the (alleged) actions of a couple.

OoohWEE!! Read it all. Wonderful.

ALSO, a a great round-up at The Daily Kraken.

Kevin Jones also thinks PZ is an asshat and deserves reprimand, at least.

UPDATE: Somewhat interesting combox exchange at Mark’s with some of the more lucid Pharyngulites.

It is instructive to note that even these calmer people toss out “challenging” questions -as if no one has ever thought of them before- and are then directed to consult proper Gospel commentaries.  And guess what?  All they do is re-phrase the question, and suggest that our lack of actual response indicates sure evidence that the Church is bogus.

In part cause he says that he absolutely intends to follow through on his desecration.

The man reminds me of a rabid homophobe who has secret homosexual tendencies.  The more he raves at the object of his secret obsession, the safer he feels.

Minnesota Indy interview (full of softball questions.  The comments are typical, though tjswift is hilarious.

Anchoress.

Cartago Delenda Est.

Frances Beckwith here and here.

Catholic League news release.

Fox News on the original foofaraw that got PZ’s panties all in a bunch.

Washington Times.

Fr. James Martin in America.

Then PZ went and posted all the public information on a couple of lintheads who sent him evil threatening e-mails.  PZ ended up taking them down, because his sycophants went crazy on the lintheads.  PZ re-wrote the post, with this classic quote:

It is most definitely not intended to incite harassment. I do not want you to be dunning these people with email, threatening them back, signing them up for spam, or otherwise being a jerk. For one thing, we can’t be certain that an innocent’s account hasn’t been hijacked; for another, we’re supposed to be better than that.

Res Ipsa Loquitur.  They cannot be better; philosophically, logically, they are acting exactly as they should; with malice and venom.  PZ knew that was going to happen, and he simply didn’t care.  Orac, another ScienceBlogs writer, took PZ to task on this idiotic action of his with great charity:

What on earth did you expect, P.Z., posting the e-mails and the entire headers?

Clearly you didn’t think things through.

Posted by: Orac | July 14, 2008 4:57 PM

But he did.  PZ is a sanctimonious, hypocritical asshat, a fundamentalist prophet of the Church of Atheism, but he is not stupid.  He knew what would happen.

Anyway, there is more, much more, more than one could possibly care to stomach over at Pharyngula, but those can be searched for by others.

I for one, am very curious to see exactly what he does to commit sacrilege to the Eucharist.  Not for any real harm that can come to Christ; I am confident that He can take care of Himself.  No, I am more curious to see how it further illustrates PZ’s consistent, pathological hatred (that word is used carefully) of religion, particularly Christianity.

(link). . .and Dawkins runs to his aid. (Beckwith claims that Pharyngula has been taken down, but as of the time stamp on this post, that is incorrect. PZ is still blathering full bile ahead.)

Mark Shea says it best:

The guy’s a bag lady screaming at the traffic–on the Minnesota taxpayer’s dime. Tell me again what the hell any of this has to do with science?

All this has spurred on a perfect storm of imbecilic comments (from BOTH sides) all over Myers’ pestiferous blog.  More than I have ever seen.  Illiterate commentary espousing violence from putative Catholics makes for a lousy witness (not that PZ would ever actually pay attention to a witness example, but that doesn’t absolve us from the responsibility to try), and the sanctimonious responses from Myers’ Sycophantic Horde is no better.

And that’s all I’m going to say on this. Res ipsa loquitur.

Keep this statistic in mind -Metro Seattle went 65% Democratic in the 2004 Presidential race- when considering the oft-held tripe that liberals are more compasstionate. (Amusingly, I tried to find a quote about compassionate liberals on kos. Here’s what I found:

That’s right. Nothing.)

Big surprise. But let us allow the NetNuts their delusion that they really are the Party of Compassion (despite evidence here, here, and here, just for starters, that this idea is all a bunch of hooey). Here is some concrete proof that these are utter horsefeathers.

Driving home from work early Sunday, (State Trooper Kim) Triplett encountered an overturned SUV on Interstate 405 in Renton. Several people were injured, including a man who was trapped beneath the vehicle and gasping for breath.

Triplett parked on the freeway and tried to commandeer passing motorists to help her lift the vehicle off the man. Many ignored her pleas, driving through the accident scene as if it were an obstacle course, Triplett said.

It wasn’t until she stood in front of several vehicles and forced the drivers to stop that she was able to get enough help to lift the SUV off the injured man.

(snip)

Triplett was still in uniform and on her way home at the end of her 6 p.m. to 4 a.m. shift when the cars in front of her began braking and skidding on Interstate 405 just south of Highway 900, she said.

She saw a woman crumpled in the middle of the HOV lane, Triplett said. An injured girl sat nearby. In the right lane, a 1990 Ford Explorer lay on its side.

Cars kept pushing through the lane between them, driving over photographs, CDs and clothing that had been scattered when the SUV flipped over. Shattered glass glistened under their brake lights.

The accident had just happened. No one had even called 911, Triplett said.

When she got out of her car to help the woman, Triplett didn’t see the 18-year-old man trapped beneath the driver’s-side door of the Explorer. But then she heard him screaming.

She grabbed a bright-yellow emergency blanket from her patrol car and draped it over the woman so people wouldn’t hit her. She then crossed traffic to get to the pinned man.

“He was gasping and gurgling,” Triplett said. “He was in 40 seconds or so of losing his life.”

Triplett knew she couldn’t lift the SUV alone. She tried waving down cars, which were still passing slowly in the lane between the victims, but nobody stopped. Some people said, “Sorry, I’m late for the airport,” or told her they had to get to work as they drove by.

People were callous, Triplett said (no frickin’ duh -ed). One car brushed her leg as it passed.

(Snip)

“Finally, I decided to forcibly stop cars and ask people to get out and help me save this guy,” she said. “I basically stood in front of the cars until somebody got out.

Let’s revisit that stat: 65% of King County residents (that’s Metro Seattle) voted for John Kerry in ‘04, ostensibly because he is of the more “compassionate” Left. Out of the easily 100 cars that passed this unfortunate trio even before Trooper Triplett arrived, don’t you think at least ONE of the 65 “compassionate” liberals that stats suggest ought to have driven by the accident might have stopped to help?

Hell no, they had planes to catch/jobs to tend to.

Damn liberals. And damn all King County drivers. Self-indulgent assbuckets, relying on the Nanny State to solve all problems.

H/T Rachel Lucas

The Nanny State shows increasing signs of ascendancy when a Quebec court decides that dad has been too harsh in forbidding his daughter from attending a school trip.

Madam Justice Suzanne Tessier of the Quebec Superior Court ruled on Friday that the father couldn’t discipline his daughter by barring her from the school trip.

The judge’s decision, made from the bench, applies only to the girl’s unusual circumstances, lawyers for both sides said, trying to dispel visions of grounded teenagers rushing to the nearest courthouse to overturn their parents’ punishments.

Madam Justice’s “logic”?

Lucie Fortin, the lawyer representing the 12-year-old, said the judge found that depriving the girl of the school trip was an excessive punishment.

She said the girl has already been forbidden to use the Internet and her father also punished her by cancelling her participation in an extracurricular event.

The trip, a three-day outing within Quebec supervised by teachers and volunteer parents, marked her Grade 6 class graduation from elementary school.

“She’s becoming a big girl. … It’s a unique event in her life,” Ms. Fortin said.

How in the name of all creation does a freaking court decide if poor little Spoiled BratGirl is a “big” enough girl to override Dad’s legitimate discipline concerns?

This crap is going on in Canada, I know. But it may well meander its way down here, at which point, if I am still a parent, I must consider moving to another country that still recognizes the family as the primary social unit of society.

What is the logical end of this sort of State intervention? What kinds of kids can we look forward to?

See, now little spoiled Mackenzie can now sue her dad and get the correct car with the correct color.

This is no little cavil I am ranting about here. This is nothing less than the huge signpost that society as we know it is about to crumble.

Talk about rising divorce rates, homosexual marriage, rising teen pregnancy and STD transmission rates. Yes, those are all there as well. Take away a parent’s right to discipline, and now the State is signaling that it is the primary arbiter of society. And we all know how well the State does when it manages the monopoly on some service/commodity: It all goes to hell.

This is, simply put, really bad, bad news.

ANCHORESS as usual has more info, as well as coverage on the Canadian school that called Child Welfare on a family because a teacher’s aid felt the child was being abused based on what a local psychic had been telling her, and the school administration bought this nonsense!! Anchoress also talks about Canada’s outlawing of spanking and its lockdown on free speech.

Meet the face of utterly f***ing stupid liberal asshattery. Her name is Parry Burnap, and she is “Denver’s “greening” director (whatever the eff THAT is -ed). . .attached to the (DNC’s) host committee full time for now; the committee works closely with the city but is a separate, nonprofit entity.”

This brainless twit has worked with the DNC to make sure that all official meals catered to the upcoming bloodbath Democratic National Convention meet the following guidelines:

• Fried foods are forbidden at the committee’s 22 or so events,
• as is liquid served in individual plastic containers.
• Plates must be reusable, like china, recyclable or compostable.
• The food should be local, organic or both.
• And for the final filip of brainless Political Correctness taken to the Nth degree of schizophrenic derangement, caterers must provide foods in “at least three of the following five colors: red, green, yellow, blue/purple, and white.”

Don’t believe me? Check the link.

Caterers praise the committee and the city for their green ambitions, but some say they’re baffled by parts of the RFP.

“I think it’s a great idea for our community and our environment. The question is, how practical is it?” asks Nick Agro, the owner of Whirled Peas Catering in Commerce City. “We all want to source locally, but we’re in Colorado. The growing season is short. It’s dry here. And I question the feasibility of that.”

None of that matters to the completely demented Burnap (WHAT a name that is. . .):

“It takes some creativity because some of these things are more expensive,” she says. “But we’re at the front end of a market shift.”

For those of you not familiar with Lefty Asshattery, that last sentence translates to: “No one else is doing this, and it’s batshit crazy, but we desperately hope that others will follow our ridiculous example, since it, you know, like, saves the world.”

Could someone PLEASE explain that damned color scheme??? WTF IS that all about? Not enough colors represented on our god-forsaken food plates, so now THAT is also up for Equal Opportunity?

My God, My God, why have you abandoned us?

Who the hell let these idiots -both Burnap, for her idiot ideas, and the Denver DNC reps, for embracing them- out of their cages?

UPDATE:  I found Burnap’s post-graduate thesis online.

(MSM article)  I’m only going to comment thus:

• via Ace of Spades, it becomes increasingly troubling when an activist state Supreme Court overturns the will of the people by finding a “fundamental right” that has no real basis in law.  As Ace says, the Californication SSC really ought to change its motto to, “L’etat, c’est moi.”  What is the point of elected governing bodies when sovereign judicial bodies can then usurp legislative authority to itself, and then give no recourse to higher appeal?  To quote:

It is, in legal terms, an ipse dixit, an “it’s this way because I say it is,” and you can always tell when a court is resorting to ipse dixit because it stops citing the actual constitution and previous decisions and begins speaking of hitherto-unknown “fundamental rights.” How did they become “fundamental rights”? Oh, they always were. Just no one ever noticed.

• I find Anchoress, as usual, to be eminently sane and reasonable when examining this topic:
  • I frankly think it might be a better thing if the religious sacrament of marriage were separated from the legal action of marriage, and vice versa. Perhaps it would be wise for us to adopt the practice in France, where the civil marriage takes place at City Hall, and the Sacramental marriage at the church.A civil union is a mere legality. It can be defined any way the state wishes, but it leaves the church out of the question of who may “legally” be married and protects her ability to bestow sacraments and practice the faith free from “discrimination” lawsuits and the inevitable punitive damages that can materially destroy her.

    Depending on how the courts go, we could conceivably see this issue coming up in a lot of states, and then there will be a press for federal recognition of gay marriage. If the church does not take steps to protect herself now, by advocating this sort of separation of duties and intents, she will be spending a lot of time and money (and losing tax-free status, of course) fighting for the right to practice the faith without government interference.

    I actually wrote something touching on this possibility last summer.

    I have no problem with civil unions (my line gets drawn whenever someone implies that a church must go against its own theology and sacramental understanding of marriage), so I can understand where Don Surber is coming from in his post, and I agree with him about the “zero-tolerance strain” of liberalism that too often shuts down an exchange of ideas - but didn’t the “faith based” group essentially show a similar tendency toward exclusion of non-conforming thought?

The Church (as in all the Christian denominations) need to follow this advice.  “render unto Caesar” his need to legalize a union.  And if Caesar decides that sodomites need to be recognized too, then so be it, I guess.  But the sacrament of marriage needs the freedom to be governed from within.

Otherwise, we are going to open ourselves to the Tyranny of Tolerance, as the State then intervenes in the Church, demanding that it give the same recognition to ancient Roman excesses that the State already has.  And that is when I start yearning for access to the other worlds imagined in Larry Niven’s Known Space future history.

All very depressing.  Not at all surprising.  But depressing.

(from PostSecret.com)

Honey, it ain’t what God was thinking.  It is what we are thinking.

Thomas Beatie, a former woman who is now a pregnant man, defended (her) decision today to have a baby, saying (she) has a “right to have a biological child.”

Despite removing (her) breasts, growing a wispy beard and legally having (her) gender changed from female to male, Beatie, 34, kept (her) female sex organs intact because (she) hoped to have a child some day.

After years of struggling with (her) sexual identity and deciding to live as a man, (she) did the most womanly thing possible — (she) became pregnant.

(Or not thinking, as the case clearly is here.)

So, to sum up: Woman born as woman decides she’s a man.  Has name and gender legally changed (there is a rendering unto Caesar that he in his most power-drenched fantasies never dreamed of demanding of his subjects), yet keeps sexual organs intact so that he/she can do “the most womanly thing possible” and get pregnant.

To the mailer of the card above: Honey, this isn’t God.  This is us, screwing everything up as much as possible.

Actually, Pepsi might be the only thing whose price is NOT rising right now. But in these times of skyrocketing fuel prices coupled with rising food prices, the Cost of Living Adjustments are not going to keep up. . .leaving many of us on the margin with some difficult choices to make.

But, as usual, the Anchoress raises an interesting point re: biofuels. Like so many of the current fad beliefs -reality TV is quality programming, American Idol showcases real talent, Obama is the Messiah, all political candidates are really different this time around, the world is warming due us Bad Humans- this one struck me as more than a little unlikely to “solve all of our problems.”

Consider: Biolfuels have the following, immediate effects on the world that we have generally come to believe are undesirable:

1. They really do nothing to encourage conservation in consumers
2. There is no real conservation of fuel at all, in fact, it is likely that more fuel is consumed in producing biofuels. Harvest and fertilizations processes consume much petroleum. Granted, there is a “free” exchange that occurs through photosynthesis, but much of this is then offset by the planting and harvest petroleum uses.
3. Significant increases in fertilizers add to the river run-offs that are purportedly damaging sea-life off of river mouths, most notably the Mississippi.
4. Most damning, the food supply becomes limited, driving up prices and limiting access.

We are hearing about food riots in developing countries, and the press is making hay about Sam’s Club limiting bulk purchases of rice. Like anything reported by todays Yellow Journalists, the context of these reports needs to be taken with a large block of salt.

Yet. This hearkens back to the Anchoress’ point: Is the use of food for energy consumption -rather than for human consumption- morally acceptable?

Yeah, it’s bad policy. But I’m wondering if it is also immoral?

I’m sure that sounds extreme, and I don’t mean to. It also sounds very Roman Catholic, but I can’t help that; it seems to me that there is a morality question here - is it ever right to burn food for energy when people are hungry?

Taking a line through the idea of things being used for the purposes intended, one might call burning for food both “disordered” and (when doing so threatens humanity) “intrinsically evil.”

I just know it makes me uncomfortable as hell to consider burning fuel to zip down to Walt Disney World, if it means people somewhere else are struggling to get fed.

Well, from my perch, she should not be questioning herself. She’s dead right. It is morally indefensible to be burning food for our own comfort while others are starving.

Welcome to 21st Century Liberalism. Where We Burn Our Own Food While Third World Indigents Starve.*

*(And don’t forget, we’re the party of the Little Guy!!!)

Those brainless f***buckets at Pharyngula and Pandagon are at it again.

PZ, on the Texas, FLDS nightmare:

Here, let me ruin your morning, just in case you hadn’t already heard the story of this raid on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

(snip)

I think “fundamentalist” has become a synonym for “misogynistic pedophile”.

/Irony/ Nope. No generalities here. /Irony

What an asshole. Yes. In the cosmology of Herr Doktor Myers, if one is a “conservative” Christian, one therefore must:

1. Hate women, and
2. Have deep urges to mate with younger members of the species.

Well, last I checked, being a conservative Catholic (note: Quick test to determine this. If you think Pope Benedict is mostly a good guy and the idea of Catholic universities ought to, well, you know, teach basic Catholic doctrine, you too are a conservative Catholic) means I’m a conservative Christian.

In PZ’s book, that means I’m a “fundie.”

Which then means I must hate women and lust after kids.

I’ll say it again: What an asshole.

As for my misogyny, ask my co-workers, who for nearly 20 years have been women. Ask my wife. I doubt highly any of them will suggest that I am a misogynist.

As for my incipient pedophilia according to Herr Doktor Myers, bad news. Almost 18 years working with kids grade K-12, and you know what? I’ve managed to keep my hands off of ALL of them.

It’s easy, really. The very concept of pedophilia frankly grosses me out. Besides that , I still lust after my wife, and that keeps me fully occupied, thank you very much. Perhaps Herr Doktor Myers knows something about Jimmy Carter’s “lusting in the heart” that I do not. But I don’t want the details if he does.

But I must then be a liberal. Herr Doktor Myers’ theory demands that this be so.

Hmm. Fucked up in the basic computations, Herr Doktor. Back to the fantasyland mill drawing board.

Meanwhile, there is Amanda the Berserk:

like all the other little empires Warren Jeffs has built, it’s a religious patriarchy taken to its logical conclusion, i.e. built around the practice of raping underage girls. (bold by ed)

So, I guess the Pope all along has been lusting in his heart to build little compounds to rape little girls. What absolute fever-swamp idiocy.

She blathers on:

Considering that atheists supposedly have our own fundamentalists, I’m sure any day now we’ll find out that Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris are running rape farms where they swap daughters with their friends because Darwin told them they have a right.

Frankly, I would not normally expect this of Dawkins and Harris, but I would not at all be surprised that some of the more lunatic fringe of their particular stripe in fact WOULD think that is a good idea. In fact, some already do.

But the question that PZ raises—why does it always come back to misogyny and pedophilia with religious nuts who push it too far?

PZ didn’t raise a question, Sister Moonbat. He was talking out of his ass. I think he was about 50% serious when he wrote that. You of course take it all too seriously.

Now, of course, most fundie Christians don’t slide towards polygamy, because there are laws and rules and restrictions against it.

What.

A.

Bitch.

SHE can make it appear my “misogyny” is being raised, though the fact is, I don’t hate women.

I just loathe Amanda Marcotte. If she were male, I’d be just as outraged.

It’s not the rules that forces most people -conservative or liberal, whomever- to avoid pedophilia; it’s the fact that the very idea of it is repugnant. This is especially true for conservatives. I wonder how many members of NAMBLA, who are fighting to legalize pedophilia, are registered Democrats, good, “free-thinking” liberals who desire to legalize what is deep in the hearts of all sex-sodden Democrats.

See how much fun generalities can be, you two morons?

The final irony to this is the fact that Amanda subtitles her little moronicy as part of the “Sunday Freethinker Sermon”.

Free-thinking my blue ass.

UPDATE: Then PZ, the absolute barking-mad asshole, berates some poor old guy who demolished two Porsches.

Total damage: £60,000.

So what does the senile twit say afterwards? You guessed it:

It was a miracle I got out alive and I put it down to the power of prayer and God looking after me.

Why was he praying to wreak havoc on expensive German cars?

Cars (at least Porsches, good. Old men with bad driving skills who invoke God? Bad. Myers? Asshat of the first water).

See, I haven’t read the dolt for weeks. Amanda links to him, I see what foolishness he is raving about now, and again, I go off the end.

Bastard is bad for my health.