Contagious America: The Anti-Equality Tour.

Kim Davis, the county clerk from Kentucky who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples after the U.S. Supreme Court’s marriage equality decision, spent nine days in October on a tour of Romania to boost religious conservatives’ push for a referendum to put a ban on same-sex couples marrying into the country’s constitution. Davis traveled with Liberty Counsel Vice President Harry Mihet, who was born in Romania. Mihet discussed the trip last week with Liberty Counsel president Mat Staver on Faith and Freedom, the group’s weekly radio show.

Staver said that Mihet and Davis met with “four out of the six top archbishops of the Orthodox Church” as well as evangelical leaders and heads of “pro-family” organizations. Mihet said they spoke to “several hundred people” in six of the country’s largest cities, with “thousands” more watching online.

Staver said that Davis made the trip to tell her story as a warning about “the implications” of a country going “the wrong way on marriage.” Mihet said Davis gave a “powerful” message about the need to define marriage in the constitution to prevent the kind of “devastating” impact on people of faith experienced in the United States because of “judicial activism and judicial overreach.”

The monstrous contagion that is America. People everywhere, don’t let your countries grow up to be Amerikka. Please. Be better than us, it’s not like it’s a high bar. RWW has the full story.

“They fall down if you’re dumb.”

Trump l’oeil: the atrium of Trump Towers.

I’m quite surprised Jim Bakker can breathe, he’s so busy screeching out dire warnings. This one is quite standard, democrats in power = all hell’s gonna break loose, you bet.

Bakker and his guest, Sharon Gilbert, agreed that President Trump is being protected by God and that Trump is much smarter than people think.

“You cannot build the most beautiful skyscrapers in the world if you’re dumb,” Bakker said. “They fall down if you’re dumb.”

It’s not nice to make someone snort tea in laughter. Most beautiful? Cheapshit gilt all over everything? Corners cut all over the place? Beauty is subjective, and I don’t find any Trump establishment to meet that standard. They might make The Gaudiest, Most God-Awful structures anywhere. As for them not falling down, were you under the impression that Trump actually got out there and did the construction? Set it up? Supervised it? No. He hired people, all of them smarter than him, to do the actual work. Trump wouldn’t know work if it smacked him in the face.

Bakker went on to warn that while Trump is committed to defending Christianity, Democrats are intent on destroying it.

“The left has become anti-Christ,” Bakker continued. “I’m convinced, if we would have elected the other candidate, we would be, right now, probably packing boxes to move out of our buildings and Christian television would begin to be a part of the end of era of the freedom of Christian television. They don’t want us, we’re one voice that speaks biblically and they don’t like the fact that God’s word differs with what they teach. If we change positions in this country and the other team takes over, you better get ready because all hell is going to break loose and America will not be a religious nation any longer.”

Oh fuck off. We were all doing quite well the past eight years, with a highly peaceful and scandal free white house, one in which actual work got done. No one cares about your tiny shows or your youtube channels. I thought Pres. Obama was supposed to be the anti-christ, and you all never stopped screeching for the whole time. No one came and got you in the middle of the night and quietly disappeared you. No one came to get you in daylight, either. You’re still here, spraying toxic stupid shit into the air by the tonne.

Oh, so you’re all one voice which speaks biblically? Two words: Roy Moore. You all don’t seem to be one voice there. One thing you can count on christians never being: a united front. You’re all so splintered and fractious, you’ll fight one another forever over the most piddling of things. That’s why I have little respect for moderate christians, because they are the foundation you religious reich asses rest on, and they won’t stand up to you.

So, America will  not be a religious nation any longer. That would be a good thing, because this is supposed to be a secular nation, not a christian one. Of course, as everyone remotely rational knows, the democrats don’t have the spine to say boo to christians. Nothing on that front will change. Never does.

Your ugly, psychopathic god preaches every evil. I would hope that good people would differ greatly in what they teach. I’m all for inclusion and acceptance. You want hate, rabid fear, exclusion, divisiveness, and the power to hurt others. No fucking thanks.

I did get a laugh looking at the opening screen on the video – there are wrapped boxes everywhere (most likely empty), a happily pagan winter solstice tree, garlands, and garish decorations. How very commercial of you, O righteous dude! Tsk.

Via RWW, there’s video.

Rat Art Installation #7,352.

This is actually a fairly old one, but I came across the bottle while cleaning the studio, and took pics this time out. I had this on a high shelf, which a persistent and creative Angel finally managed to get to, mostly with persistence in scaling the wall. The food colouring had, of course, run down the wall, and when I first saw it, still mostly asleep, first reaction was “WTF, who is bleeding and how in the hell…” This evening, just picking it up, after it has sat for months, I got my fingers covered in red, which won’t come off. Damn stuff is a menace.

© C. Ford.

Sunday Facepalm.

Thoughts & Prayers, Thoughts & Prayers, Thoughts & Prayers, pretty much the only response of conservatives and too many christians in any crisis. Unsurprisingly, people at large have finally gotten fed up with Thoughts & Prayers, and aren’t at all shy anymore about telling the Thoughts & Prayers Parrots where to stick those thoughts and prayers. This has upset Ralph Reed of the Faith and Freedom Coalition something awful. He has a little petition:

…I’m writing you, along with thousands of other supporters of Faith & Freedom Coalition, to demand that Democrats stop using the lives of the 26 victims of Sutherland Springs to push a political agenda.

As Americans, we need to come together in a time of tragedy. We must focus on what unites us–not how we can score political points.

But instead, members of your party have gone on the record openly mocking Christians for offering their prayers, support, and guidance over the last few days. And worse, members of your party have exploited these victims to push radical gun laws that wouldn’t have prevented the attack in the first place. …

No one is using them as a political prop of any kind. What’s happening is anguished outrage over all those who stubbornly defend absurd and insane laws in this country, which is already drowning in guns, and refusing to acknowledge that change is desperately needed, to save lives. Of course, one of the major problems with christians is that you assholes always go on and on and on about how this life doesn’t count, it’s the one after you’re all dead and decayed.

If you all want to believe that, fine, but stop inflicting that view on everyone else. There are plenty of people who are most focused on this life, because we know it’s all we get, and time is short. It’s truly awful the way christians always find a way to disdain and disrespect life, in spite of all those Thoughts & Prayers. You support unfettered access to guns. You fight even the tiniest of regulations. You defend those men who routinely abuse their families. You protect those who sexually assault and rape. You defend the rights of rapists. You fight against women having the slightest amount of bodily autonomy. You protect those who abuse children. You support and encourage the death penalty. You support wars. Yeah, your morality just shines through all those Thoughts & Prayers.

You act as though Thoughts & Prayers are some sort of action; that they mean something. They don’t. They are just a way for you to hoist yourself into the spotlight, while actively refusing to do one thing which would make for a positive, and less blood-soaked change. Why should anyone give a damn about your parroting prayers? Are all your TweetPrayers so valuable?

And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father in secret shall reward thee openly. – Matthew 6: 5-6.

I expect your little petition will be ignored; I certainly hope it will be. After all, if those Thoughts & Prayers were supposedly directed to your god, what difference does it make how others react to them? Oh, ye of little fuckin’ faith, so very frail.

You can see the whole thing here.

TNET 8: M&Ms!

m&m’s Dissolving in Water – 4K from Beauty of Science on Vimeo.

We dropped m&m’s chocolate in water and discovered something really wonderful!

This 4K time-lapse video was shot with a Sony A7R M2 camera to capture the beautiful details of m&m’s dissolving. High-resolution stills:

beautyofscience.com/mm-dissolving

Oh, I must get M&Ms! I have to do this myself.

Open Thread: don’t be an asshole. Thanks. Previous thread.

Helios Day Mood.

Heilung – Krigsgaldr. (The video is mesmerizing, don’t miss it.) If you haven’t seen them live, I recommend it, but avoid the comments.

Heilung is amplified history from early medieval northern Europe and should not be mistaken for a modern political or religious statement of any kind.

Remember that we all are brothers
All people, beasts, tree and stone and wind
We all descend from the one great being
That was always there
Before people lived and named it
Before the first seed sprouted