They were selling this shirt at Glenn Beck’s weekend God-Damn-Boree:

. . so I checked my Bizarro closet, and darned if I didn’t have it:

What the hell is wrong with these people?

Pastor says armed militia to protect church during Quran-burning event
CNN Wire Staff | August 24, 2010 10:47 p.m. EDT

(CNN) — An armed Christian organization, Right Wing Extreme, will protect a church that is planning to host an “International Burn a Quran Day” on September 11, the church’s pastor said Tuesday.

The Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, says it is hosting the event to remember 9/11 victims and to take a stand against Islam. With promotions on its website and Facebook page, the nondenominational church invites Christians to burn the Muslim holy book.

Dove’s Facebook page, set up for the September event, has nearly 6,000 fans. The initiative has also drawn critics.

Dove World Outreach Center Pastor Terry Jones has accepted the support of Right Wing Extreme, which he said offered to come to the church with between 500 and 2,000 men on September 11. He described the organization as an armed civilian militia group . .

This is beyond the normal hysteria and bigotry. This has become some sort of nasty zeitgeist.

Strange thing that it’s all happening now — 9 years after 9/11. Now they’ve gone anti-Muslim batshit. They sure weren’t acting this badly during the Bush administrations, it’s very curious.

There has to be a reason for everybody wigging out right now. Like there’s something, I don’t know, in the air.

Some sort of black cloud hanging over people. A dark, mysterious threat. Something inking its way into the tissues of some folks’ reactionary brains.

And it gnaws at them and won’t let go. Perhaps something odd and out of place, like a stain. One that — even after months, or years — won’t go away.

Hmm. I wonder what it is . . .

He grew up rich, ultra-Conservative and ultra-Christian. He became a Navy Seal. He later founded the world’s most powerful para-military for hire, Blackwater. He became a friend of the Bush administration and raked in better than a billion dollars in contracts over 10 years.

He’s Erik Prince, and he’s tired of America and its bitching and complaining about his homicidal, gun-running company, and he’s getting out. Going to live in that shining city on a hill, Some Arab Capital:

Blackwater Founder Moves to Abu Dhabi, Records Say
By JAMES RISEN | Published: August 17, 2010

WASHINGTON — Erik Prince, whose company, Blackwater Worldwide, is for sale and whose former top managers are facing criminal charges, has left the United States and moved to Abu Dhabi, according to court documents . .

Current and former colleagues said Mr. Prince hoped to focus on security work from governments in Africa and the Middle East. They also said he was bitter about the legal scrutiny and negative publicity his company had received.

Mr. Prince does not face any criminal charges, but five former top company executives have been indicted on federal weapons, conspiracy and obstruction charges. Two guards who worked for a Blackwater-affiliated company face murder charges from a 2009 shooting in Afghanistan, and the Justice Department is trying to revive its prosecution of five former Blackwater guards accused of killing 17 Iraqi civilians in 2007.

Yes, that’s what a great patriot does, hides in the United Arab Emirates. Because they hold traditional American values dear: democracy, freedom, and fair play. OR, more likely, ‘Your money’s good here.’ And ‘No extradition.’

Erik’s traditional values?

Erik Prince talks values, defends Blackwater at Tulip Time lunch
By PETER DAINING | Posted May 05, 2010 @ 04:10 PM

Erik Prince told a sold-out Tulip Time lunch crowd that the worth of a warrior is not best defined by his deeds, but by his enemies. The founder of Blackwater and Holland native described his own enemies as Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and “noisy leftists.” . .

Prince decried Washington and its excessive government spending. He did not mention that Blackwater — now called Xe — was the beneficiary of government contracts worth more than $1 billion, many awarded without competitive bidding . .

But he also addressed his youth, saying he walked in Tulip Time parades every year from fourth grade through high school. He went to the Naval Academy, but eventually dropped out; he called the school too liberal. “As liberal as some universities may be, imagine one run by the federal government,” he said . .

Onward Christian . . bus drivers?

Don’t laugh, they’re dead serious about this lawsuit. They are striking a real blow for ‘religious freedom.’ From their perspective, a Christian bus jockey reserves the right to refuse service to anyone they figure out is about to receive an abortion courtesy of their driving.

What? Yeah:

Bus driver claims abortion views led to his firing
By Steven Kreytak | Friday, July 16, 2010, 10:20 AM

A former bus driver has sued the Capital Area Rural Transportation System, charging that the nine-county transit service discriminated against him based on his religion when he was fired for refusing to drive a woman to a Planned Parenthood clinic in January.

Edwin Graning, who was hired as a driver on April 1, 2009, was “concerned that he might be transporting a client to undergo an abortion” when he was assigned to transport two women to Planned Parenthood, according to his lawsuit, filed this week in U.S. District Court in Austin.

Graning is seeking re-instatement, back pay and undisclosed damages for pain, suffering and emotion distress. He is represented by lawyers from the American Center for Law & Justice, founded by evangelical Christian leader Pat Robertson.

He was hired to drive people on the bus. When he refused to do it, he got fired. So he’s suing because he should have the right to quit his job but keep getting paid because he’s a Christian. Don’t know, maybe the issues escape me.

Graning had asked his wife to call the facility; she heard a recording directing callers to call 911 in case of abortion complications. “I said, dear God in heaven, this woman’s gonna have an abortion,” he said.

So he refused to drive the bus there.

His supervisor, who is not named, responded by saying “Then you are resigning,” the suit said.

Graning denied he was resigning and was later told to drive his bus back to the yard and he was fired, the lawsuit said.

So he ain’t exactly Dr. King. He’s not willing to accept the responsibilities and consequences of his actions — ‘yes I’m refusing to do my job because of my beliefs, and don’t you dare touch me.’

Therein lies the rub. Graning is another victim of Robertson and other high-profile pastors who have been pushing the flock to throw tantrums. They’re convincing normal folks to turn into big-headed, pig-headed Christianists who should press Americans to do their will.

Why — even though the Constitution clearly supports personal freedom and abhors the abuses of power that come with religious extremism? Because it’s your Constitutional right, people! You can do whatever you want, whenever you want, to whomever you want because it’s your religion. This is the sort of behavior the Founding Fathers, wholly conservative Men of Jesus, would have demanded of them if only they were still around, sure.

When they spoke of freedom, they really meant Christian freedom. When they spoke of rights, they meant Christian rights. And if, legally, some liberal opens up the interpretation to outsiders, just know that the Founding Fathers were all conservative evangelicals and *wink-wink* I don’t need to say another word, do I?

This is the utterly laughable fantasy that’s been leveled like a double-barrel shotgun at ordinary folks like Ed Graning. He’s fallen for it completely.

“I’m not out for revenge or anything like that,” said Graning, who said he felt obligated to stand up for his beliefs.

“I pastored years ago, and I’ve done a lot of things – and normally I wouldn’t have made any issue out of this – but you know, I’m really getting tired of Christians getting kicked around,” he told LSN. “I mean, we see other things as going on in this country, and somebody somewhere along the line is just got to quit bending the knee to Baal and letting this government run over us.”

So, to be clear: applying for, getting and carrying out the responsibilities of the government job of bus driver, a job Ed got without telling his superiors that certain situations would force him to refuse service to riders as a matter of religious belief, is “letting the government run over” him. Never mind that very few people go to Planned Parenthood on any given day to get an abortion, and he certainly had no clue why the woman went there, Ed’s “getting tired of Christians getting kicked around.”

Rational thought, logic, science and technology, modern philosophy, the legacies of the Age of Enlightenment — these things are not essential. Not universal, not cultural, not American, any more than your haircut is. They are the private beliefs of the secular humanists who hold too much sway in the public domain. It’s time for Christians’ private beliefs, Christianity, to eject that pop culturalism and to hold unilateral power.

Freedom, you say? Freedom isn’t some government stab at public transportation. Real freedom is about the practice of closely-held religious beliefs. A government serious about operating in a free society wouldn’t provide buses for the profane to trample those sacred tenets. Get it?

Hold your church’s millenia-old beliefs at your own risk?

University of Illinois Instructor Fired Over Catholic Beliefs
Published July 09, 2010

URBANA, Ill. — The University of Illinois has fired an adjunct professor who taught courses on Catholicism after a student accused the instructor of engaging in hate speech by saying he agrees with the church’s teaching that homosexual sex is immoral . .

Howell, who taught Introduction to Catholicism and Modern Catholic Thought, says he was fired at the end of the spring semester after sending an e-mail explaining some Catholic beliefs to his students preparing for an exam.

“Natural Moral Law says that Morality must be a response to REALITY,” he wrote in the e-mail. “In other words, sexual acts are only appropriate for people who are complementary, not the same.”

An unidentified student sent an e-mail to religion department head Robert McKim on May 13, calling Howell’s e-mail “hate speech.” The student claimed to be a friend of the offended student. The writer said in the e-mail that his friend wanted to remain anonymous.

“Teaching a student about the tenets of a religion is one thing,” the student wrote. “Declaring that homosexual acts violate the natural laws of man is another.”

This is a tough call. On its face, the professor’s case seems like a reasonable one: if he makes it clear that he’s airing his beliefs, then what’s the harm? It’s a venerated tradition in university settings to allow personal views to be expressed without them limiting or defining the intellectual discussion. In a best case scenario, one’s personal feelings can be ultimately changed by a decent battle of ideas. One realm is considered to be both bigger and more rigorous than the other.

But then intellectual arguments can be slippery. Your position can change pretty quickly depending upon the day, the arguers and the facts on hand at the time. Your beliefs are much more likely to be solid and un-changing.

So I can understand that a gay man would take offense at hearing that his professor believed him to be ‘immoral’ in both the religious and natural sense. You can’t imagine a professor saying the same thing about someone who happened to be black. Even if it’s only his silly belief, even if it’s merely (ostensibly) in a classroom discussion, it’s probably shocking and painful to hear.

So, how did we get to this unfortunate place, where a professor’s routine (for many Catholics) beliefs ended up getting him fired? It sounds like some sort of law has been broken, doesn’t it?

It’s because this particular religious belief is dangerously out of step with modern thinking and understanding. Specifically, religious folks who damn what appear to be a group of behaviors, homosexuality, are actually damning a whole group of people. It’s tantamount to hate speech.

Even if it’s a sacred part of your religion, why should society tolerate this? Calling murder, or incest, or even theft a sin is a valuable tenet from society’s point of view: these behaviors cause damage to people. Society seeks to prevent and punish such things.

But the key difference that swings the religious view to publicly intolerable is that homosexuality is no crime: there’s no victim by definition in a routine, consensual homosexual act. In a civilized society, two adults certainly should be able to engage in this manner without condemnation or harassment. Or being barred from society’s benefits, or barred from work, or their animal persecutors being barred from prosecutions and imprisonment.

Especially when, as we are aware now, homosexuals appear to be born homosexual. It is almost always the case that a gay person will tell you that they have no recollection of ever being any different. I have no reason to doubt them. And any intention to disregard these memories because one prefers to view the reporters as morally flawed is a callow one.

Homosexuals are simply born gay, there’s no debate on this any more. So, when you call their behavior — natural behavior — unnatural or immoral or evil, it’s not just factually wrong, it’s an egregious act. You can try to hide behind whatever you like, but the net result is the same: it’s particularly uncivilized speech. You’re harming society. Period.

Thus, a college professor gets fired. Understandably, fired.

There was a time, centuries ago, when religion led society as a moralizing, civilizing power. It taught people to obey the rules, to respect life, to love one another and to get along when little was known of the natural world, or the people in the next hamlet, or county, or country. The secular world wasn’t quick to learn, but there’s no denying that religion worked as perhaps the only major institution to enlighten it.

Now, it seems as if the roles have reversed: it’s society which seeks to drag religion into the new world. I see no reason to be shy about expanding secularism’s role here as long as we can agree that it’s not anything to be taken lightly. The facts that homosexuality has always been and always will be part of humans’ existence, is a naturally occurring expression of sexuality and is a positive, not remotely criminal, way of behaving are damning of religion’s moribund or alabaster responses to the discovery of truths. If religions now refuse to honestly accept or discuss man’s essential worldly and spiritual characteristics, then we’ll be forced to shift the heeding of voices wholly into the public, secular realm.

This discourse, absent of ancient religious dogma, then becomes more than a cosmopolitan exercise, it becomes critically important for us to function in a meaningful way. It carries a bigger, more universal responsibility than it once did. And maybe it’s time that it should — do we really need to indulge people who believe that “sexual acts are only appropriate for people who are complementary, not the same”? That’s an argument conspiratorially stupid, one that any decent high-schooler would shred in mere seconds. For someone like me, with a background in Genetics, it’s a howler.

Well, then, what should the poor professor have done? After all, they’re only his personal beliefs, right? Yes — but his beliefs are insulting to civilized society. Sounds bad, but that’s because it is bad. Iron-clad religion can be very bad for us, and that’s a truth we’ve got to openly admit to if we’re to do right by our fellow man. If we’re to do more than pretend to make a moral world for everyone to exist in, we’re demanded to say it.

A wise professor might wonder if stating his beliefs, though they be held dear, amounts to categorically abominating a blameless fellow man. Society only increasingly sees this as anachronistic bigotry. I’ll ask that he refrain from it at the University, or at any other public place.

University of Illinois Instructor Fired Over Catholic Beliefs
Published July 09, 2010

URBANA, Ill. — The University of Illinois has fired an adjunct professor who taught courses on Catholicism after a student accused the instructor of engaging in hate speech by saying he agrees with the church’s teaching that homosexual sex is immoral.

“Natural Moral Law says that Morality must be a response to REALITY,” he wrote in the e-mail. “In other words, sexual acts are only appropriate for people who are complementary, not the same . .”

. . been thinking about this for a couple of days, will throw in my 2 cents later. [NOTE: the next day's thoughts, here.]

Meanwhile, take in some Freeper reaction:

I fully expect that one day a bunch of faggots will beat down my door and kill me, or someone who thinks/speaks/looks like me. ‘Course, I’ll mow down six of them on the way, and so there’s a good side to the story.

posted on Friday, July 09, 2010 3:13:33 PM by MarineBrat

So, the faggots step up their attacks on the Catholic Church. No big surprise.

Hey Protestants! Those of you whose churches haven’t already capitulated to the queers, brace for collision! The sodomites will be after you, next.

posted on Friday, July 09, 2010 3:28:24 PM by ArrogantBustard

Hers’s with some commentary on the letter …

No, because I wanted my love of buttsecks to be confirmed.

posted on Friday, July 09, 2010 4:00:19 PM by BenKenobi

Thank you for the links to the emails! I cannot believe the student thinks the teacher’s email is hate speech…HATE speech!?!

What’s really amazing? The student actually claimed classes should encourage independent thought and public discourse while engaging in an attack on the very same things!!!

posted on Friday, July 09, 2010 4:17:05 PM by CitizenUSA

Once laudatory:

The Passion of the Christ: A Powerful Spiritual Experience
Copyright 2004 by Gretchen Passantino

Few would argue against the proposition that Billy Graham was the single greatest tool of evangelism God used in the 20th century. I believe Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ may well be the single greatest tool of evangelism God uses in the 21st century. Exaggeration? I don’t think so. In a worldwide culture of visual communication and subjective experience, this movie version of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ has the potential to impact more people in more cultures than any other single individual, book, or evangelism method.

. . what will they say now of Gomorrah’s iconoclast champion of Jesus? A movie millionaire made billionaire by telling the Savior’s story on the degenerate silver screen in eye-popping gore? They didn’t know him? He’s Hollywood, ferchrissakes . .

I had the opportunity and privilege to see the movie in the midst of the editing process and to speak briefly with Mr. Gibson. Seeing this movie was one of the most significant spiritual events of my life. I am convinced that Mr. Gibson is a Christian of remarkable humility, faith, and commitment to following God’s will in his life, no matter what the cost. His work on this project is a living example of Paul’s words in Romans 1:16: “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.”

. . Mr. Gibson is not a Christian of remarkable humility, faith, and commitment to following God’s anything:

It’s about time. Frustrated with the Church’s meaningless promises of cooperation with authorities, and shocked, as all other Belgians were, to hear of the 73 year-old Bishop of Bruges’ admittance of serial child molestation, the police apparently had had enough. Last Thursday, in Brussels and Leuven, they took matters into their own hands:

Belgian Catholic bishops angered by police raids
Friday, 25 June 2010 12:59

. . On Thursday, the police carried out a series of raids as part of an investigation into allegations of abuse committed by priests.

The Church’s headquarters, the Palace of the Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels, was sealed off, while officers searched for related material. Bishops meeting there were barred from leaving the premises or telephoning outside for several hours.

Officers also raided the nearby home of the recently retired archbishop of Belgium, Cardinal Godfried Danneels, seizing paperwork and his computer . .

In Leuven, investigators seized all 475 dossiers from the offices of the Church commission tracking complaints and compiling evidence about clerical sexual abuse. The computer of the commission’s chairman was also taken . .

“This violates the right to confidentiality of victims who have contacted the commission,” he said. “Such acts greatly complicate the necessary and excellent work of the committee.”

You have got to be kidding me. There’s a clear pattern of behavior here regarding the Church.

It goes something like this: the molestations and rapes become known, usually first within the Church. One or two people are made aware of them, but the matter is pushed aside. A few years later, the allegations re-surface, probably with a lower level church person.

Molester Stephen Kiesle

The allegations become known outside the Church. Now several people have to become involved. Communications and reports are passed around for months on end. After a year or two, the small clamor begins to die down, and the matter is effectively pushed aside. The allegations re-surface publicly again as part of a whole group of similar crimes. Well, now, this is serious, right? Must be time for a commission.

Who are they kidding? When the Bishop of Bruges(!) himself admits to being a serial child molester, the jig is up. Belgian authorities and society have every right to force the Church to surrender everything they’ve ever known about these miserable sexual predators.

Belgian bishop Roger Vangheluwe resigns over abuse of boy
Published: 6:17PM BST 23 Apr 2010

The resignation of Roger Vangheluwe, 73, the Bishop of Bruges since 1984, was the first from Belgium since a child abuse scandal began testing the Catholic Church several months ago in Europe and the United States . .

“When I was not yet a bishop, and some time later, I abused a boy,” Vangheluwe said in the statement.

“This has marked the victim forever. The wound does not heal. Neither in me nor the victim,” Vangheluwe’s statement said . .

. . and there’s another pattern of behavior here. Who is sad? Who feels bad? Who again is the victim?

Pope Benedict attacks Belgium police for raiding suspected pedophile priests
By Agence France-Presse
Sunday, June 27th, 2010 — 4:40 pm

. . “I want to express… my closeness and solidarity in this moment of sadness, in which, with certain surprising and deplorable methods, searches were carried out including in the Mechelen cathedral and in the premises where the Belgian episcopate was meeting in plenary session,” [Pope Benedict] said . .

Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said Saturday the detention of bishops was “serious and unbelievable”, likening it to the practices of communist regimes.

As I opined before, until the Church shows the respect towards society and its laws they very much deserve, the clashes between it and the various wronged states, and its citizens, will only grow nastier and more incendiary.

I have no doubt that if these people were murderers, the Church would find a way to do the right thing. But because Church officials (wrongly) think these people are merely indulging in sexual shenanigans, that they’re just your garden variety fallible mortals, the Church has become part of an obscene conspiracy. It’s doing evil.

Don’t know who else in Michoacan, other than the infamous ultra-right-wing Christianist decapitation drug cartel who own and terrorize the state, would have the firepower and wherewithal to pull off this sort of mass-murder of federal policeman.

They’ve done it before. When La Familia’s top assassin got arrested by the cops in July of last year, they killed 5 federal law enforcement officials within a couple of hours.

Ambush in Central Mexico Leaves 10 Federal Police Officers Dead
Latin American Herald Tribune

MEXICO CITY – Ten Federal Police officers and several criminals died in an ambush Monday on a police unit near Zitacuaro, a city in Mexico’s Michoacan state, officials said.

The officers, who are providing security in several cities in Michoacan, were attacked as they traveled from Ciudad Hidalgo, a city in Michoacan, to the Federal District, the Public Safety Secretariat said.

The ambush occurred in downtown Zitacuaro, located 168 kilometers (104 miles) west of Mexico City, near a place called Lengua de Vaca.

The officers took fire near the National Technical Professional Education School, or Conalep, in Zitacuaro.

“Ten Federal Police officers lost their lives and several others were wounded while repelling the attack,” the secretariat said . .

“Several assailants lost their lives and others were wounded” in the shootout, the secretariat said, adding that “the bodies and wounded from the armed group were pulled out of the area by their accomplices.”

Federal Police officers are searching for the gunmen by air and land.

Army troops, Federal Police reinforcements, state police and emergency services personnel went to the scene of the ambush to help the wounded officers, Michoacan Public Safety Secretary Minerva Bautista told Formato 21 radio.

Investigators have not determined who carried out the attack and it is not known if any arrests have been made, Bautista said.

Michoacan is a stronghold of La Familia Michoacana, a drug cartel infamous for decapitating and dismembering enemies, as well as for mounting attacks on the security forces.

Continue Reading »

June 5, 2010

The pill kills the truth
By Judie Brown

INTRO: Saturday, June 5th is a special day for preborn babies, honest pro-life activism and families committed to ridding this nation of the sexual saturation that is killing the souls of our young people. This is why Judie Brown has a message that every American should read.

EPILOGUE: I want to hear Judie Brown’s vital message — the one that Judie Brown speaks glowingly of. Tell Judie Brown to hurry up, I’m on joodies and braouns. Juuuuddddiieeee Brrroooowwwnnnnnn. Judie Brown Judie Brown Judie Brown! Booty Drown! Crazy Hair!

– The pill kills preborn babies http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiCU46_lWeE

– The pill kills women http://thepillkills.com/PPD09talkingpoints.pdf.

– The pill kills the environment http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/64600

I looked up your links — they don’t say what you say they say! You lie!

Each of these statements is based on irrefutable evidence.

Lie!

Oh yeah?! Wwwweeeeeelllllllllllllll theeeeennnnnnnn . . . BABIES KILL LIES! That’s right! BABIES KILL LIES!! HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA!

June 5, 2010

I’ll Just Pull Out — You Can Trust Me
By Drunk N. Christian

Naw, no problem, piece of cake . . .

June 5, 2010

Hit Me With Your Rhythm, Chick
By E. N. Droolie

Aw, yeah, the timing’s right, we gonna do it all night . . .

June 5, 2010

We Can Do It That Other Way *wink-wink*
By I. Watchee Pron

Girl, this is gonna be rrrrreeeeeaaaaallllllllll seXXXee . . .

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Threat to Parents’ Rights a Bigger Issue than Rights of a Child
by Marybeth Hicks

. . but if you’ve ever insisted that your teenager drag himself out of bed on a Sunday morning to attend church with the family, or required him to find a part-time job to pay for the increase in your car insurance, or – heaven forbid – if you’ve ever spanked a young child for an act of willful disobedience, there are folks who’d like to override your parental judgment.

Folks like President Obama, in fact.

The issue of parental rights is at the heart of the ongoing debate over the US’s failure to ratify the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Mr. Obama thinks it’s a travesty that the US and Somalia – a country not known as a beacon of human rights – are the only two nations that haven’t ratified this treaty.

What a great indicator, Somalia and us. They have the exact same problem with it — the rights of the parent should supersede the well-being of the child. Like if you demand your kid pick up a gun and fight for a warlord, or jump on a fastboat with some pirates to go attack merchant ships, that should be okay.

For example, the treaty creates “the right of the child to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.” So if your child doesn’t want to go to a religious school, the law would favor his preference, not your desire to instill your faith.

And to that, I say “fine.” This is probably the biggest issue: the far right’s ability to continue to indoctrinate and cult-ivate the next generation. If your faith is so oppressive that you can’t get your children to gravitate to it by the positive manifestations of it in your own life and by the example you set, then I’d say you deserve to get whacked by the treaty (even though you won’t). But I’d say the fact that you’re even worried about that possibility constitutes an indictment of your crappy parenting.

It makes sense that the US stands nearly alone in refusing to ratify this treaty, since we live in the safest, most prosperous, most desirable country in which to be a child.

And to that, I say “Fuck You.” Anybody with half a brain knows that the U.S. is nothing like that. Poverty:

–About 15 million children — one out of every four — live below the official poverty line.

–22% of Americans under the age of 18 — and 25% under age 12 — are hungry or at the risk of being hungry.

Healthcare:

–Study: 1 In 4 Kids Go Without Health Care

–Report: Two-thirds of Arkansas Kids Without Health Insurance

It goes on and on: 3% of America’s children grow up to be supervised by a department of corrections, 1% currently end up in jail. Homicide is the second leading cause of death for older teens, and it’s the leading cause of death for African-Americans. Otherwise, suicide is the leading cause of death. Do you even want to talk about education?

America is nowhere near being the best place to grow up. Given the wealth of the country, it’s a scandal how poorly children are treated here.

UNICEF did a study on the well-being of children in 21 countries of the first world:

An overview of child well-being in rich countries
A comprehensive assessment of the lives and well-being of children and adolescents in the economically advanced nations

“The true measure of a nation’s standing is how well it attends to its children – their health and safety, their material security, their education and socialization, and their sense of being loved, valued, and included in the families and societies into which they are born.”

They measured and ranked these countries across six categories, including material well being, educational well being and health and safety. Here are the results:

[click for better view]

America ended up 20th out of the 21 wealthy countries. You paranoid Christians aren’t just arrogant idiots, Marybeth, you’re dangerous to your own people, your children. Those are the facts.

If you’re the type to suspect that wingnuts might welcome terrorist attacks, then this crap is right up your alley. Doug Giles and his teenage outrage can barely contain themselves.

There’s been a terrorist attack. OF COURSE! The jerk was a Muslim? PBBBBT!! YA THINK!?!? BWAH HA LIBBRULS!!!!!

Giles will never be more in his element:

On this Jesus website, it’s perfectly fine to characterize other folks as religious unibrows. Scott Roeder drove across part of a continent to shoot and kill Dr. Tiller in church, where his wife was sitting, but he’s no “Christian unibrow.” Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by right-winger Yigal Amir, but he’s no “unibrow Jew.”

We re-wrote movies? Or ‘movie news’?

He’s a woman! Totally good one! You burned him, I bet he’s watching.

done