Bible Thumpers and Rush's Kitty

So this afternoon I was driving around in my car wondering how much gas would cost the next time I went to the pump and I veered once again into day dreaming about the religious left. This thought was prompted by yet another hurricane setting its sites on the Florida coast. To be specific it seemed to be headed straight toward Rush Limbaugh’s house wherein, according to Rush, he was huddling down with his kitten to ride out the storm. Apparently the kitty doesn’t travel well and Rush couldn’t bear to abandon it. This picture struck me as somewhat hilarious but also made me wonder a little. Where is the religious left? Hurricanes are hitting Florida, as they do every year, but there is none of the usual global warming cacophony. I’m resentful; usually these nitwits can be counted on, with their dire predictions etc. every year around this time. They come as regularly as, well, hurricane season. It’s the one pick me up in an otherwise dull month for me. Its hot, business is always slows this time of year, and the dogs incessant flea scratching drives me crazy. The one thing I have to look forward to is the global warming zealots and their holier than thou attitude.

Why are these people so entertaining to me? I think it’s the absolute disconnect from circumspection while at the same time insisting that they are the true people of science and reason. Generally these people tend to come from the secular progressive side of the tracks. I have met none who have ever struck me as hard-core bible thumpers but when I explain to them that in my eyes they are exactly that they become very puzzled. The bible thumper stands on a corner and says with absolute conviction in his heart that if you don’t accept Jesus, you are going to hell. What about some kid in Mongolia? Still going to hell if they never heard of Jesus? Yep, going to hell! Obviously this is ludicrous and it is nothing but self indulgent for one to think they are qualified to make such a proclamation. The bible thumper will say it is not he who is making the decision, but God, through his words in the bible. Have you ever met one of these guys? Have you ever met a single one who ever struck you as having studied ancient Greek or Aramaic? Neither have I, yet they feel it is fully within their power to interpret a translation of the bible (which is an accounting by mortal man of Gods word, its real third hand by the time you get to the Random House paper back edition most of these guys have). In fact nine times out of ten the kind of person making these pronouncements is not interested in saving anyone at all. He is interested in making himself feel good, powerful, in the know with a hot line straight to the almighty.

To me it’s the same thing with the Global warming fanatics. I’ve asked them, repeatedly, do you really honestly and truly think it is that odd that hurricanes are hitting Florida this time of year? Do you really feel it’s getting hotter every year? The scientists who predict global warming say its something like 1 degree in 100 years, you cant feel that. Are you sure that the reason for the warming is anthropogenic (man made)? Oh yes they will say, all the top scientists say that. Have you read any of the studies? No, they will say. Yet they still have the smugness and arrogance of the bible thumper. Their hotline may be to somewhere other than the Christian god but they are expert on the eschaton nonetheless.

OK – So let me get this straight. Even if one accepts that global warming is taking place, to prove it is anthropogenic is a huge leap. You want an entire reordering of society for something that may very well be a natural phenomenon. You make fun of anyone who thinks it might be a little premature to cripple our economy based on your reasoning. You call me stupid or crazy, yet you have not even read any of the studies. Now, given that the bible thumper has quite probably read some sort of translation of the bible, and you mock him, why should I not mock you? Does your bible consist of evening news sound bites and anecdotal evidence? Why should I trust you when in the 70’s the same people were crazed about global cooling? Why do so many who believe this stuff seem to live in NYC, San Francisco and LA.? Wouldn’t they be moving to higher ground if they really believed it? What foolishness. At least the millennium crazies ( remember when all the computer clocks somehow weren’t going to switch over from 1999 to 2000? Wasn’t that the last time we were all going to die?) acted on their convictions. I tangentially know a few who did build bomb shelters. I’d make fun of them to but they tend to still have the guns stock piled. Anyway, if I hear “the overwhelming scientific consensus is” one more time, when it is manifestly untrue I think I will puke. Now I’m gonna get a little kitty and see if I can go hang out with rush.

OK – You made it to the bottom of this; here is a really cool link:

Up Yours

The following story to me pretty much signals the total 180-degree shift from the original purpose of government. The tone of this post lurches into the maniacal, but I think if you read the new story in the provided link you will understand why.

To sum up, a bunch of guys had a ranch on the Texas border. They have some group that is interested in stopping illegal immigration. They apprehend two illegals crossing a ranch near them. They detain them for an hour or so then send the illegals on their way with milk and cookies. The illegals then claim that one of them was pistol-whipped and they suffered emotional trauma from the ordeal. They sued, with the help of the Southern Poverty Law Center and won. The illegals now own the ranch. The jury deadlocked on the pistol whipping, all parties agreed on the milk and cookies, one of the ranch guys was convicted of being an ex convict in possession of a fire arm. The judgement, in the end giving the illegals the ranch, was to settle the civil case arising from the emotional trauma. Read the whole story here

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0819ariz-immig-abuse19.html

At this point there can be little doubt. Government, state wide and federally now exists to serve those it used to protect us from. It extorts massive sums in the form of taxes and fees from the productive and transfers them to those who prey upon them. Homeless can squat anywhere and armies of advocates line up to secure land for them while building permits for those who follow the rules are expensive if ever granted at all. You work for hours every day just to provide the basic necessities yet those who decided to party and become drug addicts are given taxi cab rides to get their methadone at tax payer expense. Prisons are built and then mothballed up in Portland, police announce they will no longer even investigate burglaries in Springfield due to lack of funds. All this while state and county agencies have limitless funds for diversity specialists and endless bike path projects. I could go on but everyone knows it all to clear by now. Who the hell is this government serving? Why do we let it go on? Have the shrill race baiters and members of the professionally indignant class become so effective that everyone is scared to speak? I’m not.

Damn you for taking food from my children’s mouths to give to a drug addict for cab fare. If you cant afford cab far for treatment then you should die.

Screw you and your damn bike path. Police, fire, schools. That’s the priority. Get it? You want these damn things? Pay for it, the income tax form states the minimum amount to pay, you can always send in more and the government will accept it. Just don’t rope me in with you “Id be willing to pay more taxes if it meant better social services BS”. Go ahead, pay more.

Up yours with this concept that anyone who strolls over the border, squats and has a baby just gave birth to a US citizen. The 14th amendment was about slaves, making sure they had rights as citizens, not so that anyone who aims carefully and shoots a baby out and lands it six inches over the border had an “in” to the United States. This interpretation, like other Supreme Court decisions, can be overturned.

I’m so damn sorry you were one of those fooling around in high school and didn’t learn anything. Gee, I guess now you want a “do over” and go back for endless retraining at my expense. So I get it, I just worked real hard. I didn’t go to all the parties. I paid off loans for years for college. I risked everything to start two businesses. And now its up to me to feel real guilty because you wanted to go to parties, do drugs and generally hang out and have a good time. And now somehow your one of the ”disenfranchised”. Well that’s too bad Sunshine. I’m not here to pick up after you; I’m not even here to figure out a solution for you. You figure it out, and if you cant, then you will die. Gee I’m so damn heartless, funny, that’s what happens to you after years of no one feeling terribly sorry or apologetic for taking half of everything I make in taxes to pay for this crap.

So What’s UP in Gaza?

I’m trying to piece this together: A success for the US in Iraq is still very much a toss up. Iran is still pursuing atomic weapons and last time I checked no one in the mid east popped up recently and tried to make nice nice with Israel. Why then, did Ariel Sharon, the inventor of the settlement program, do an about face and start the pullout from Gaza? It makes no sense. Do Hamas all of a sudden seem more reasonable? Yesterday, when the withdrawal started Hamas announced that this was proof that their violent tactics worked. They vowed to continue them now in the West Bank. This sort of statement from them is not exactly unexpected, but why total capitulation by Israel with this kind of thing being said? I have my suspicions and before I voice them I would like to make clear: they are entirely my own and based purely on conjecture. To me it is the only logical thing that makes sense.

I think that behind closed doors the Israelis are pissed off. The Europeans are handling the Iranian situation. Everyone knows how they dealt with Saddam under the Oil for Food program. These guys would sell out their own mother for a buck. Along with that the Israelis are scared to death public opinion here will result in a pull out from Iraq. What happens then? The Iranians, who are funding most of the terrorists in Iraq, will walk right in. Iran will then have a real nice nuclear program with more than enough oil revenue to fund it. George Bush is hoping for a win in Iraq but, after the WMD fiasco, knows he can’t go in and start bombing Iran. Nothing short of an Iranian nuke test above New York City would satisfy the doe eyed good vibes crowd in the US now. The Israelis want to start cleaning house now, before it’s too late and the US pulls out of Iraq or Iran pops up with a nuke. Bush is holding them back because he knows if the Israelis start action now, all hell will break loose. It will be seen as a heavy Western/Israeli hand in the region and world opinion would be less than helpful. We would face a more suspicious public in Iraq; we would be seen much more as agents of Israel than we are even now. I think Bush has made a bargain with Sharon - Make one last full-fledged attempt to deal with the Palestinians. Give them everything they want so that no one can deny that you gave peace every chance. If they still will not give up terrorism, then all bets are off, do what you want.

It’s a pretty scary scenario, but the only one that I can see as possible. Why are the Israelis trying to acquire so many bunker buster bombs if not to deal with the Iran threat? Surely they wouldn’t be stocking up on arms if they truly saw capitulation as the road to peace? They sure aren’t much use against a guy wearing dynamite in the town square. I think the Israelis are relying on the Palestinians to uphold the PLO motto one last time - “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity”.

We miss you Karl Rove

I never thought Id long to see that name in the news again. After what seemed to be an interminable period over what has to be the biggest non-story of my life, the Valerie Plame name leakage incident, I now long for those days. Recent events down in Crawford have made that story seem positively news worthy. Who the hell is this woman whoring her son’s death for a second sit down with the president? If you look closely you will see clear as day. Its none other than Linette ( aka Squeaky ) Fromm, of Manson family fame. The resemblance is incredible although I would have to tilt the scales in Squeakys direction in any evaluation of sanity. Anyway back to dear Karl. What the hell was that all about? Democrats were apoplectic about this breech of security for releasing some desk jockeys name. Did this even pass the laugh test for anyone? Are these the same people who never raised an eyebrow when Sandy Berger (Clintons national security advisor) was caught red handed sneaking top secret documents out of the National Archives in his socks? The central question remains not who leaked Valerie Plames name, no one gives a rip about who the hell she is. Equally dull is the attempt at being the Christ like sacrificial lamb by the reporter who went to jail rather than reveal her source. The big question is, why did the CIA need to get someone from the State Department, Plames husband Joe Wilson, to go and investigate whether Saddam Hussein had sought uranium in Niger. Isn’t that basically at the core of what the CIA does? Wouldn’t it be job one at the CIA to have people who went around checking to see if the lunatics of the world were buying Uranium? I guess that question will never be answered and all we have now is a bunch of sun addled kooks camped outside of the Crawford ranch to watch. It’s going to be a long August.

Smokers – S.O.S. ( Saviors of Society )

Once again it looks as though some Oregonians are set to start stealing from others through government sanction to reinforce their piety. I am talking about yet another cigarette tax increase to fund the Oregon Health Plan. The caring pious ones will get to feel good about themselves, providing those always essential government services, without it costing them a penny. Don’t these people increasingly sound to you like that obnoxious kid in third grade who was always going to “tell the teacher on you”?

Has anyone really thought about all those cigarette tax increases? Sure it’s easy to hate smokers. It’s in fashion. Always cloaked in the self-righteousness attitude that somehow their behavior costs society millions and endangers everyone around them. But has anyone really thought through the tax angle on this hatred?

As taxpayers, most of us pay Medicare and Medicaid taxes. These are the programs that some how got ripped off by those evil smokers through their supposedly higher medical needs. Yet a few years back there was the settlement with Big Tobacco. This settlement was in the billions of dollars and states reaped a windfall. Supposedly this was to pay the governments back for health care claims they would not have had absent cigarette smoking. Whether these were past costs being recouped or future costs to be incurred was never made clear. All that was clear was that Big Tobacco was hated and they were going to fork over the money come hell or high water. Well, the money is being paid, in installments to be sure, but paid nonetheless.
The big problem with this whole thing is government never pays for anything, taxpayers do. If the settlement money was to pay for past expenses incurred by the health care system, then aren’t the taxpayers due a refund? They paid for all that care initially, now the government has supposedly recouped that loss. Where’s my check? On the other hand, if the settlement was to pay for future health care costs, then isn’t a reduction in Medicare and Medicaid premiums i.e. taxes in order? Don’t hold your breath, especially if you smoke.