No Worries, “God” Will Heal All Diseases.

Jehovah Drowns People For No Good Reason. Gustave Doré.

Gordon Klingenschmitt is having another rant, this time about Planned Parenthood, what else. If Planned Parenthood is killed off, well then Jehovah will be all happy, and heal all diseases. He uses a passage from Exodus for this reasoning:

15:26 And said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the LORD that healeth thee.

I’ve always had a particular loathing for the story of the Egyptians in Exodus, it’s a stark illustration of the psychopathic nature of Jehovah. When I was a child, I never could get past the “hardening of the heart” business. It was clear to me, even at a young age that this was a particularly nasty, sleazy cheat. As Steve Wells points out*:

So Moses rounded up all three million or so Israelites, their flocks, herds, cattle, unleavened bread, and all the silver, gold, and clothes that they could steal from the Egyptians and left town.  [See Exodus 12.34-38] And everything would have ended happily ever after, too, if God could have resisted the temptation to harden the Pharaoh’s heart a few more times. You see, the Pharaoh’s heart was just too damned soft to suit God. So he set about hardening it a bit more. (He had to harden it 8 times to pull off his last killing.) (14.4, 14.8, 14.17-18.)

Now, there is a bit more about medical care in the bible, which Gordon has conveniently neglected:

16:12 And Asa in the thirty and ninth year of his reign was diseased in his feet, until his disease was exceeding great: yet in his disease he sought not to the LORD, but to the physicians.

16:13 And Asa slept with his fathers, and died in the one and fortieth year of his reign.

See? Don’t go to doctors, ever! Doctors are awful, and you’ll die. You just need to pray, have faith, or touch the right religious leader’s hankie. There’s nothing at all about Planned Parenthood, or idiots who think terminating a pregnancy is the same as infanticide.

Part of Gordon’s little rant here:

“You know what the solution to America’s healthcare crisis is?” Klingenschmitt asked. “Obey the Ten Commandments, stop funding abortion, stop funding child killing and God will heal your diseases, America. The supernatural blessing of healing is available if we stop working with the demonic spirit of murder.”

Klingenschmitt proclaimed that if America were to repent for the sin of abortion, then “we would receive [God’s] healing and wouldn’t need to rely on socialist healthcare.”

The problem there, Gordon, is that I don’t believe in your psychopathic god, and I don’t care one whit about that evil creature, who is the obvious villain in every story. So, even if we were to pretend Jehovah existed, that would make me one of the Egyptians in his eyes, so I wouldn’t come in for that wondrous healing of all diseases. It would be lovely if you fucking idiots could figure out that not everyone in this mess of a country are christian, and that many of us have zero interest in becoming one.

*I receive no monies from Amazon.

Via Right Wing Watch.

Delicious Nudes.

Rather than fixating on the clothing or obsessing over the figure, the French fashion photographer Marwane Pallas places a special emphasis on the external objects within the frame. Props within the scene that would normally serve a supporting role are given equivalent degrees of attention to the standard “centerpieces” of the fashion photos.

You can see much more of Marwane Pallas’s work, and read more at The Creators Project, Marwane Pallas’s website, or instagram.

The Hunt for Bannon le Napoleon.

A new profile on Steve Bannon published yesterday by New York Magazine reveals that the White House Chief Strategist and former executive chair of Breitbart News was gifted his own version of Jacques-Louis David’s famous portrait, The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries (1812), by British Politician and known Trump supporter, Nigel Farage.

David painted two versions of this famed neoclassical painting. One currently hangs in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, and the other is at Versailles. The hunt is now on to find an image of Bannon’s version. Green took to Twitter to call onWashington Post reporter and CNN contributor David Fahrenthold to help him find a copy of this masterpiece. Fahrenthold posted a tweet challenging his 434,000 followers to find the painting and Green offered a free copy of his new book, Devil’s Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency. News of Bannon’s portrait is spreading like wildfire across Twitter, with imaginative Photoshopped versions coming in every hour.

Via The Creators Project.

On The Hunt.

Today sees a need to hunt for a refrigerator, to replace my beloved early 1950s Philco, which is far from dead, but the latch is failing, and I’ve recently had to turn it up to ‘2’, which used to freeze everything solid. Ours is one of the odd ones, with the latch on the right, opening to the left. Almost all the Philcos had their latches on the left, unless it was the marvelous V version, which opened from either side.

I won’t be able to part with it; I’ll set it up in my studio as art supply storage. As it’s metal, the rats will leave it be. All the inside racks and such are a translucent aqua blue, kinda spectacular. So, off to find a small, absolutely no frills fridge, I’m hoping to be able to find one without a freezer, as we have a late 1940s Zenith chest freezer which is unbelievably huge.

Cold War Spying.

From rq: You can find this in the middle of the Courland forest on the west coast of Latvia – formerly the west coast of the USSR. It’s now half radio astronomy research centre and half military site, but it’s in the middle of an abandoned former top secret military town. One of the largest such satellite dishes in Europe of its time. About a half-k to the left is the Baltic Sea. Click for full size!

© rq, all rights reserved.

Bodies! Naked Bodies! Quelle Horreur!

ESPN has been producing a body issue since 2009. I don’t care for sports, but it’s always nice looking at happy naked people, and the photography is spectacular, and all kinds of body types grace the issues. On the cover of this years issue is a woman who happens to be an amputee. There are no naughty bits on view, as that would be too much for the prudery of Americans. Apparently, some conservatives have just now figured this out, and are most outraged.

ESPN’s latest controversy has nothing to do with politics or sports performance. The sports network is now resorting to nudity for magazine sales and internet clicks to lead the world in entertainment. ESPN magazine’s “The Body Issue” presents 23 male and female athletes not only out of uniform but completely out of clothing. If your business is flagging, as ESPN’s is, just resort to the lowest common denominator.

Now resorting? They’ve been doing this 8 years. Where was your outrage eight years ago? Obviously, ESPN is not doing this to shore up flagging business.

Putting the anti-Trump and LGBT agendas aside for the time being, ESPN’s website is promoting the athletes-turned-exhibitionists in shocking athletic poses. Each is portrayed taking athletic stances or actions corresponding to their respective sport. Rear ends are completely exposed in several photos. Men and women hide their fronts, and women cover their breasts with their hands or arms. Very little is left to the imagination.

Oh my oh my. There is nothing in the least bit shocking about their poses. They are fantastic, and I give them all the credit in the world for pulling off what has to be a difficult shoot, often outdoors, in mid-athletics while having to keep the naughty bits hidden. All kudos to the photographers, too, for an incredible job. Goodness, butts! Whatever will we do, having been exposed to some rather magnificent arses? Me, I’ll enjoy them. Actually, a fair amount is left to the imagination, and I expect that’s more of a problem for you fuckwits.

ESPN.com posted a photo and cutline about the nudity. ESPNW is displaying stories and videos on some of the participating nudists.

Oh the drama! They aren’t nudists, you idiot. Are you a nudist because you take off your clothing to bathe, assuming you do so? Are you a nudist if you remove your clothing to make love to your partner, assuming you do? No. Taking your clothes off for a photo shoot doesn’t make anyone a nudist. I’m more of a nudist than any of the people featured over the last eight years, I often don’t bother dressing, especially if I’m going to be painting. It’s easier washing paint off skin than clothing. Even that doesn’t make me a nudist, though.

This isn’t ESPN magazine’s first body issue; it’s the ninth. It seems this crass outfit is intent on shocking people and distracting sports’ fans attention away actual sports. Now when families attend a sporting event, their children may remark about the athlete that actually has his clothes on.

Oh, how nice of you to notice. Now, now, don’t be projecting your shock all over the place, it isn’t polite. It doesn’t shock me in the slightest. I can appreciate bodies just fine. I hardly see how this directs peoples’ attention away from sports. It’s not as though most athletic uniforms are made for modesty. The children! Of course. Could it get more boring or stupid? So, a child might make a remark about an athlete with their clothing on. And?

I encourage all parents with children in the home to adjust their computer filters by adding ESPN.com and espn.com/espnw/ to their blocked lists to protect them from this.

ESPN postures itself as culturally enlightening, but the truth is this morally bankrupt media organization is contaminating our culture and taking it downward.

Hahahahahaha. Do fuck off. Not that I don’t have suspicions about copies of ESPN’s body issues being secreted someplace in your abode sir, most likely the lavatory. After all, you can’t get all properly outraged without a lengthy and minute examination of all those delicious bodies, right?

Link.