And the prize for a complete lack of self-awareness goes to…

…this TERF. It was a usual argument about how horrible it is for trans activists and allies to be fed up with Graham Linehan because of frozen peaches, when the following exchange occurred:

Terf: Grand, so, but sure we’ll be pushing them into the sea this year so we won’t have to worry about them much longer but read a load of liberalism because that’s what’s coming next hopefully… (emphasis mine)

Other person in the conversation: i have literally no idea what you’re talking about.

Me: I’m not sure, but it sounds like a threat to me.

I mean, how could I take somebody talking about pushing trans people into the sea so they don’t have to worry about them as a threat, given the rampant violence, be it structural, administrative and literal, against trans people?
Apparently this upset her a lot.
Terf: Always with the drama. Into the sea, it’s a metaphor.

Me: Get lost, it’s an imperative.

Apparently, the fact that “get lost” is an imperative was, no pun intended, lost on her. Anyway, I was done, but she obviously wasn’t.

Terf: No, that would be we MUST push them into the sea.
Terf: ps and anyone who would take a statement like ‘we are going to push them into the sea’ literally must have a very flat sense of language or need their head examined imho. Unless they were German and in the vicinity of Dunkirk in the early 1940s…
Note the not so subtle ableism… She tweeted this at me a full day after I told her to get lost, which shows that apparently she really couldn’t let go. To be honest, I had already forgotte who exactly she was when she tweeted this.
Me: You seem upset.
Terf: What an odd thing to say…

Lady, you keep tweeting at me after a full day…
Me: You come back a day later after I told you to get lost. Maybe upset is the wrong word, obsessed fits better. I repeat, get lost.

Terf: That seems a little extreme – obsessed by what?

One thing, it’s “obsessed with”. Second thing, look at this. Somebody has told you twice to leave them alone and you keep replying, but think that “obsessed” is extreme.
Me: You’re still talking to me after I told you to get lost, twice. Go learn to respect some boundaries.
Yes, I was getting annoyed. Why is she still in my mentions? What is so difficult about leaving somebody alone? We’re strangers on the internet, we do not have to come to any kind of solution, so why not just respect the other person’s boundaries, no matter what you think about their position?
Terf: I’ve been pursuing a fairly common line of reasoning about a form of leftist smear-journalism, providing examples when requested and other reading material – that’s all fairly normal, isn’t it?
No, lady. In the offline world you’re the dude who keeps following me down the street, nagging and nattering and insisting that they’re totally rational while I’m trying to walk away.
Terf: But you accused me of making a threat, I explained that it wasn’t a threat but a metaphor – I’m allowed to defend myself, and obliged to reassure you that it wasn’t a threat, aren’t I? And then you say I’m upset and obsessed – I assure you I am not.
This is my favourite one as it is so fucking entitled that the whiniest white dude could learn something. Note the words. A stranger has told her repeatedly to stop bothering her, but she thinks she’s allowed to keep talking to me, even obliged by I don’t know what to keep talking to me regardless of whether I want to hear her. My wishes, my personal space, my agency to decide to whom I talk and to whom I listen has just been completely negated.m Because she thinks she’s got the right to talk to me. Terfs love to accuse trans women to be “entitled men” who “disregard women’s spaces and boundaries”, but look at this textbook example of not taking no for an answer. I have a feeling that this has something to do with the fact that many Terfs (especially on Twitter) believe that no cis woman could ever agree with trans women and that they speak for all cis women, so therefore I must be trans. I mean, after all I put my pronouns in my bio and I have a tortoise as a picture. This one is an annoying case, but one of the more harmless ones. Anyway:
Me: Get. Lost.
Terf: You accused me of making a threat, which is untrue and unfair and not supported by any evidence. I’d like to give you a chance to apologise…
This is getting rich. Now she’s the wronged party (perpetual victimmobile).
Me: Get lost, this is the textbook definition of harassment.
 
By now I was getting into teacher/mum “I told you no five times already and I’m getting angry” mood.

Terf: Accusing someone of making a threat for no reason could be said to be harassment, and then not allowing them to defend themselves but adding further charges. But lets leave it at that, I think the point about smear tactics is well made and I wish all you all the very best.

Yeah, totally no reason. But she’s leaving a fake “wish you all the very best” at the end, so maybe this is over?
Terf: (ps just for completeness – accusing someone of harassment who is trying to defend themselves from a false accusation you yourself have made is itself harassment) atb.
Well, a girl can dream, right? But we leave on the note that I am the real harasser here. In conclusion, there is absolutely no difference between Terfs and their new best friends, the christian right. They will both whine about free speech, by what they mean “being owed a platform and nobody is allowed to talk back”. They will both bother and annoy and harass you. they will not take a no for an answer. They will ignore women’s boundaries and wishes. And then they’ll complain about how they’re the real victims here.
TLDR, Terfs are right wing bigots and assholes, don’t be one.

 

Thank goodness he found the culprit!

Pope Francis

Source: Wikimedia

Remember when “liberals” praised Pope Francis for being so progressive? Our lovely progressive Pope had to deal with some nasty issues like priests massively raping kids for decades and of course he promised to do whatever he can. So you’ll be glad to hear that he’s found the culprit.

The Devil.

Yes, you heard right. The Devil. The literal horns and hooves devil, who did it to undermine the Roman Catholic Church.  Oh, wait, did you think that the abused children were the victims here? You could not be more wrong! The real victim here is the church.

What an elegant way to absolve your horrible abusive institution from all the moral blame, especially those poor priest who were obviously under satanic influence.

Wackaloon

Liz Crokin, right wing “journalist” has recently lost the tips of two fingers in a surfing accident and is blaming Hilary Clinton as the cause.

While she realizes that it was probably “just a freak accident,” that didn’t stop her from also asserting that it may have been the result of a curse that had been placed on her by Hillary Clinton or artist Marina Abramović or some other “witch” that is targeting her due to her efforts to expose the secret satanic cannibalistic pedophile cult that supposedly runs the world.

Is it just me, or do other people think that the right wing of America have lost their minds. I can almost get past their belief in their God (almost, but not really), but what is up with the belief in witches and spells and curses. Do they really think we live in Harry Potter World full of magic, and if so why isn’t their all-powerful, all-seeing God doing something about it? It seems to me that it just highlights the impotence of their sky God. It all seems so totally illogical and totally ridiculous. The full story is at Right Wing Watch, if you can stomach it. Just a word of warning, if you click on the links inside the story be prepared for even more ridiculous right wing thinking.

 

Demonic Virtual Reality.

Janet Mefferd and Tim Dailey got together to have a chat about the Bigfoot Question. Yep. I had no idea there was a question at all, and certainly not one about bigfoot. Apparently, it’s important for christians to know how to interpret reported bigfoot sightings, and how this all ties into the paranormal conspiracy, which is orchestrated by Satan, of course.

Dailey said it was telling that “many, many reliable observers” have reported spotting Bigfoot but yet there is a “virtual absence” of tangible proof that would convince the skeptical public that such claims were credible.

“It’s real. It’s a projection. It’s a demonic virtual reality, but it’s not nuts-and-bolts, in this case, flesh-and-blood creatures,” Dailey said.

Well, that’s one way to have your cake and eat it too. “It’s real, but it’s not real real.” Generally speaking, Mr. Dailey, a reliable observer would have something or other to give their claim credibility. As that virtual absence of evidence continues, that would mean there have been no reliable observers.  There is projection going on, I’ll grant you that much, but it’s not coming from a devil or any other imaginary being.

Mefferd went on to ask Dailey why nobody ever takes a picture of Bigfoot “at noon,” when someone could take a well-lit photograph. Dailey said that the devil designs Bigfoot sightings to happen when it is too dark to take clear photographs.

“The vast majority happen in the dead of night and you wonder, ‘Why is this?’ And then if you remember the biblical verse about the powers of darkness that love darkness rather than light,” Dailey told Mefferd.

Y’know, camera equipment has advanced a great deal, and there is no excuse for such incredibly bad shots outside of doing it that way deliberately. Why would anyone do that on purpose? Ah, what else, money. Many a hoax has been perpetrated, and many hoaxes put a fair amount of money in pockets before exposure of the racket. It has absolutely nothing at all to do with ‘powers of darkness’.

“That’s right. That’s important,” Mefferd replied. She went on to ask Dailey, “What could possibly be the reason the devil might be motivated to make an appearance, even if it’s a UFO or an alien that somebody sees, why would the devil do this?”

“It’s part of the devil’s modus operandi. He has always used this kind of phenomena to, once again destabilize, to engender fear, to open us up to the possibilities of other realities and other beings and then we begin getting involved with demonic spirits. So yeah, all through history there have been many, many different varieties of beings that are primarily spiritual beings that have terrorized civilizations and peoples and non-Christian cultures are very aware of this,” Dailey said.

Sigh. Engender fear? Really? Bigfoot doesn’t scare me, because bigfoot doesn’t fucking exist. UFO sightings don’t scare me either, because again, non-existent. The amount of people who buy into nonsense like bigfoot and UFOs are not a large percentage, so if this is Satan’s way of engendering fear, it’s a damn stupid one, and I certainly don’t see any of this nonsense “terrorizing civilizations”.  I think the last time I heard someone bringing up bigfoot was waaaaaay back in the 1970s. Even then, there wasn’t any terror attached to it all.

As for “non-Christian cultures are very aware of this”, ummm, would you be implying that christian cultures are on the stupid side? I suppose what’s meant there is that all those non-christian types* are in league with the devil, but it can certainly be read in a few different ways.

*Which of course includes many a flavour of other christians, such as catholics and mormons, etc.

RWW has the story.

League Of The South Goes Russian.

Michael Hill speaks with a WWLTV reporter at Confederate monuments rally (Image from WWLTV May 17, 2017 broadcast). Source.

Unsurprisingly, League of the South is attempting to mate with Russia, home of, and saviour of white people. There’s a whole lot to the article, just a bit here.

Amid the controversy over President Trump’s recent summit with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, the neo-Confederate League of the South announced this week that it will soon be introducing a Russian language section to its website.“To our Russian friends,” a missive on the League’s website, is signed by Michael Hill, the group’s president. An excerpt:

We understand that the Russian people and Southerners are natural allies in blood, culture, and religion. As fellow Whites of northern European extraction, we come from the same general gene pool. As inheritors of the European cultural tradition, we share similar values, customs, and ways of life. And as Christians, we worship the same Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and our common faith binds us as brothers and sisters.

We Southerners believe in societies based on real, organic factors such as shared blood, culture, and religion, and all that stems naturally from these salient factors in the human experience. As fellow White Christians who are grounded in the sublime traditions of our common European cultural heritage, we believe that the Russian people and the Southern people are natural allies against the destructive and impersonal impulses of globalism.

Religion is organic? Huh. As for these “sublime traditions”, c’mon, let’s hear about some of them. Any of them. Provide some details on all this sublimeness. Interestingly enough, the first definition of ¹Sublime is: to cause to pass directly from the solid to the vapor state and condense back to solid form. If one uses that particular definition, yeah, I can buy the sublime tradition nonsense.

Mr. Hill teaches that the defeat of Nazi Germany was “an unmitigated disaster for Western Christian civilization.” I don’t know who taught Mr. Hill about World War II, but they should be smacked.

Alt-Right leaders and white nationalists adore Russia’s Vladimir Putin, much as American Religious Right leaders do. As Casey Michel noted in a RWW report last year, Richard Spencer has called Russia the “most powerful white power in the world.” Matthew Heimbach, leader of the now-disbanded white nationalist Traditionalist Worker Party, called Putin “the leader of the free world.” Former KKK leader David Duke, who was a speaker at this year’s League of the South conference, has said he believes Russia holds the “key to white survival.”

Putin has supported right-wing nationalist movements across Europe. In 2015, Jared Taylor, the American proponent of “race realism,”  took part in a conference in St. Petersburg that gathered activists from Europe’s far right. There Taylor declared the United States “the greatest enemy of tradition everywhere.” Also in attendance was former KKK lawyer Sam Dickson, who praised Putin’s efforts to preserve “[the white] race and civilization.”

I can’t figure out why all these wannabe nazis don’t just run off to Russia. They’d be happy, and we’d all be better off without them.

RWW has the full story.

Sunday Facepalm: Demon-strations.

A print from Bernard de Montfaucon's L'antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures (Band 2,2 page 358 ff plaque 144) with different images of Abraxas.

A print from Bernard de Montfaucon’s L’antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures (Band 2,2 page 358 ff plaque 144) with different images of Abraxas. Source.

Abraxas (Abrasax) is an interesting character, across cultures, a god, an archon, an aeon, then deemed a pagan god by the catholic church and promptly downgraded to a demon. Tsk. The image above is different kinds of Abraxas Stones, which were quite common. Unfortunately, the idiots under discussion today are not nearly as interesting.  It’s Dr. Bill again, and wannabe prophet Mark Taylor. They are both exceptionally nasty people, but Mr. Taylor does have a ways to go before reaching the open malice and hatred of Dr. Bill.  Mr. Taylor seems very open to being swayed by whoever is in front of him at the moment, and if he keeps hangin’ with Dr. Bill, I expect it won’t be long before the viciousness level is up.

“Individuals like Peter Strzok and Hillary Clinton, these are people of clay and iron,” Deagle said. “Clay being human flesh and iron being the trans-dimensional energy that is inside of them. They’re being avatared like a video game … These are not just normal human beings—your brothers and sisters—these are your brothers and sisters who are totally taken over by evil.”

“These people are not human,” Taylor agreed.

“These people like Peter Strzok,” Deagle responded, “when I saw him screwing up his face and leaning forward and making his eyes look really dark, I’m thinking, ‘Ooh, we’re not hearing a person talk, we’re hearing a demonic entity talk through his mouth.’ It’s disgusting.”

Odd, I feel disgust just reading your words, Mr. Deagle. So, Dr. Bill declares “he has an amazing “spiritual gift” that allows him identify “the names of the succubi and incubi inside Peter Strzok” just by looking at him.” Right. I’ll invite people to stare at your face and make up shit about what’s inside you, Dr. Bill.

It’s not easy finding a current, good shot of Dr. Bill. He seems to dislike facing straight on, and uses old photos on his website. It seems Dr. Bill is in love with his younger profile. I can’t say I see demons, because they don’t exist. There’s definitely a high shit content, but you can’t get that from a face. It’s an old belief, thinking you can tell everything by looking at someone’s face and head, but it was idiocy then, and it’s idiocy now. Unfortunately, it’s in vogue once again. Can’t say I think much of that “amazing spiritual gift”, you just see what you want to see, and whatever fits your lunatic narrative.

“Individuals like Peter Strzok and Hillary Clinton, these are people of clay and iron,” Deagel said. “Clay being human flesh and iron being the trans-dimensional energy that is inside of them. They’re being avatared like a video game … These are not just normal human beings—your brothers and sisters—these are your bothers and sisters who are totally taken over by evil.”

“These people are not human,” Taylor agreed.

Gotta say, I love the sideways shift from devil to aliens (or trans-dimensional energy) so many lunatic asshole christians are now embracing. They are just so damn desperate to come across and up to date and relevant.

As for not being human, Esme Weatherwax once stated that thinking of people as things was start of all evil, and I agree:

“…And that’s what your holy men discuss, is it?” [asked Granny Weatherwax.]
“Not usually. There is a very interesting debate raging at the moment on the nature of sin. for example.” [answered Mightily Oats.]
“And what do they think? Against it, are they?”
“It’s not as simple as that. It’s not a black and white issue. There are so many shades of gray.”
“Nope.”
“Pardon?”
“There’s no grays, only white that’s got grubby. I’m surprised you don’t know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people like things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.”
“It’s a lot more complicated than that–“
“No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.”
“Oh, I’m sure there are worse crimes–“
“But they starts with thinking about people as things…”
–from Carpe Jugulum, by Terry Pratchett.

Ah well, back to the idiots:

“It’s almost like the protests your are seeing now,” Taylor then added. “Those are not protests, those demonstrations; they’re demon-strations. … They’re flailing around, these are demon-strations, these are demons that are manifesting because they know that their time is short.”

Oh ffs. I’m sure weak word play makes Mr. Taylor feel oh-so-clever, but it’s the cleverness of someone in 3rd grade, who simply wants to taunt without thought. Seems to me all the people who are busy organising protests are not the ones flailing about, Mr. Taylor. I put that sort of action more on your side of things.

RWW has the full story.

“An illogical yet divinely guided step…”

Sales of Tarot Cards are up! Oh no, witchcraft, satanism, and atheism, oh my! And worst of all, anti-Trump!

Breaking Israel News that warned that “sales of tarot cards have risen sharply in the last year as self-proclaimed witches claim that divination and dark-magic are effective in opposing President Trump.”

In that, um, article, Tarot cards are referred to as an ancient evil. That couldn’t really be further from the truth. Tarot cards are quite old, yes, but they started out as playing cards for specific card games, which are still played in parts of the world. The whole using them as divination tools and such didn’t come into fashion until the late 18th century and 19th century, which is not all that long ago. What I find to be funny is that tarot playing cards all have trump cards. I have no doubt that if lunatic christians and Jews found out about this, they would make a most hysterical hay out of it.

Right Wing Watch has a full article up about all this, I’m just going to quote this particular part of it:

The Breaking Israel News article also quotes Rabbi Pinchas Winston “an end-of-days expert and prolific author.”

“Anytime people act illogically and don’t notice it, it is a sign that Divine hands are setting the stage,” Rabbi Winston said, explaining that this was all part of a “Messianic endgame.”

“According to Jewish sources, the end-of-days will see an enormous polarization of good and evil,” Rabbi Winston said. “This is so that when we stand before God and he asks us ‘why didn’t you choose good?’, no one can say they couldn’t see the difference, that good and evil were not obvious. No one can say that they were kind of good. The end-of days is all or nothing, with the ramifications clearly spelled out.”

Winston explained that this process of clear good versus clear evil was clearly true in how American politics has played out in recent years.

“Obama was the first step of this polarization but he was able to hide most of the polarization and dress it up as social justice,” Winton said. “He could hide the evil he promoted, make it sound like good. So people who supported him could support evil but give the excuse that it was reasonably presented as good. To accomplish that, they need to be masters of disguise, to hide the truth even from themselves. They need to embrace Hollywood. They need for it to be all about appearances and subjective reality because the truth is too painful.”

“Trump is one step further,” Rabbi Winston said. “There is no hiding. You either love him or hate him, and he doesn’t know how to hide the truth in pretty words. Good and evil are laid out for everyone to see.”

Personally, I think good and evil are pretty easy to tell apart, especially these days. I agree with Rabbi Winston that it is most important for people to stand up against evil, which means standing against the Tiny Tyrant and all the destruction he is wreaking all over the damn place. It’s a pity so many believers of Abrahamaic religions are noisily standing on the side of evil, and protecting evil people.

Good people don’t go out of their way to destroy the environment even further when the damage already done is displacing so many people and dire weather events are happening all over the place. Good people don’t encourage Nazis, let alone refer to them as “fine people”. Good people believe in social justice, wanting basic human rights and equality applied to all people; good people don’t characterise social justice as evil. Good people don’t build concentration camps, rip people apart, and place children in fucking cages. And on and on and on the list goes.

If your fucking god hates people because of skin colour or country of origin, and hates social justice, then your god is one evil fucker, and you should be walking away, into the light and the right. Time to question that god of yours, and decide whether or not you can manage to be a truly good and moral person. No gods are needed for that.

RWW has the full story.

Survival Coffee, Better Than Gold!

With this offer you will receive eight (8) Freeze Dried Columbian Coffee Pouches-60 servings per pouch, one (1) Vanilla Pudding Pouch-10 servings per pouch, one (1) Morning Moo’s Low Fat Milk Pouch-20 servings per pouch.

With this offer you will receive eight (8) Freeze Dried Columbian Coffee Pouches-60 servings per pouch, one (1) Vanilla Pudding Pouch-10 servings per pouch, one (1) Morning Moo’s Low Fat Milk Pouch-20 servings per pouch.

End Times prepper pastor Jim Bakker dedicated his entire television program today to pitching his new line of survival coffee, telling his audience that things will get so desperate when the Last Days arrive that those who are prepared will be able to get a new car in exchange for one packet of this coffee.

Citing the passage in the Bible in which Joseph was put in charge of Pharaoh’s palace in order to prepare for a coming famine, Bakker reiterated his claim that God made Donald Trump president in order to give Christians an opportunity to prepare for the End Times … by buying Bakker’s survival products.

Oh yes, if you just have a bunch of buckets o’ yuck, everything will be just fine for all those “left behind”, you bet. I can’t imagine why Jim would care in the slightest what happens to anyone after he’s safely raptured and tucked into Jesus’s lap or whatever, so it has to come down to plain old greediness, as always.

When the End Times arrive, Bakker said, a bucket of coffee is going to be worth its weight in gold.

“What do you think that is worth if the sun don’t shine?” he asked. “What will it be worth if the power goes out and there’s no trucks running [due to an] EMP bomb or whatever they’re talking about for these Last Day events? This two gallon bucket of packs of coffee, you could trade them for whatsoever you want. You could probably get a new car for one packet of coffee.”

Uh, right. A new car which won’t run because EMP bomb and a lack of fuel, yeah? I’d rather hang onto the coffee, but not your bucket coffee, Jim. Besides, in all the hysterical depictions of “end times”, most people would be gone, disappeared into whatever, so it seems people could just help themselves to whatever they liked. I just can’t find any motivation to spend $80.00 on your crappy coffee and morning moo. Ugh.

RWW has the full story.

Sunday Facepalm.

I had never heard of this lunatic before; if you’re like me, you can find an excellent rundown of “Dr. Bill” at Swallowing The Camel:

Dr. William Deagle is a physician, a prophet, a government insider/whistleblower, and one of the two witnesses described in the Book of Revelation. He knows what really happened at Columbine, the World Trade Center, and Oklahoma City. He could be the ruler of the world, but he has chosen to enlighten the masses instead. Thanks to him, the world may someday be safe from Modified Attack Baboons.

There’s a whole lot of material there, and if you search this man, there’s a whole lot of people not happy with him at all, including other christians, which was a bit of a surprise. “Dr. Bill” has had his medical license revoked at least twice, so he went into the supplement business, what else? Okay, on with the current shit pouring out from Dr. Bill.

Earlier this week on “The NutriMedical Report Show,” a radio program hosted by nutritional supplement proprietor Dr. Bill Deagle, Deagle repeatedly threatened to kill anyone who dares to harass him, President Trump, or any other conservative politician in America.

Outraged about recent incidents such as White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders being asked to leave a restaurant, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi being confronted by protesters, and Rep. Maxine Waters’ call for more such confrontations, Deagle declared that “these people need to understand, they’re not going to have a bad day, they’re going to die.”

Deagle said that if he had been on hand during the confrontation between Bondi and protesters, he would not only have pepper sprayed the protesters but “would have whipped out my concealed carry permit gun and I would have blown them away and put them in a box.”

He seems nice. It’s rather interesting how Deagle seems to think he has the perfect right to assault and murder people at will. That said, he seems to keep a cozy distance between himself and any protesters, so at this point at least, he seems to understand there would be consequences. I hope so.

“They need to understand the right is not going to be shouted down,” he said. “[If] they continue to think they are going to harass the right, these people need to understand they’re not going to have a bad day, they’re going to die.”

Right, because only one side is allowed to shout; only one side is allowed to march or protest. Everyone else needs a tank rolled over them. I get the feeling that “Dr. Bill” would be seriously at home with all aspects of Nazism.

“People need to start realizing they’re going to get a lot more than they bargained for if they want to harass us, supporters of Donald Trump and conservatism,” Deagle stated. “They’re not going to get just a little helter skelter and yelling, they’re going to get death.”

Deagle also issued a warning to Democratic candidates and lawmakers who are calling for the abolishment of the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) branch.

“We’ll ice them, how’s that?” he said. “We’ll put them on ice.”

Unfortunately, no matter how much Deagle protects himself from any action with consequences, there are people who listen to him who might not be concerned about any consequence, and that’s scary as hell. There are already enough aggrieved white men spraying bullets and murdering people. This open incitement to murder is terrifying.

“I’ve reached my limit now,” Deagle fumed. “They want to bring it on? You’re going to get a lot more than you bargained for, believe me. The destroyer is not the devil, it’s God and we’re his proxy. You want to bring it on? You’re going to bring on your own devastation and destruction. Don’t push it.”

Every day, I wish more and more that christianity would just fucking die already. Religious fanatics are frightening, and christianity is chock full of them. For all that they scream about religious fanatics on the ‘other side’, they never seem to look within their own ranks, or face up to the reality that there are a lot of scary ass christian fanatics out there not only doing a great deal of damage, but with intent to do even worse at every step of the way.

RWW has the full story.

The Chains of Intolerance.

Andrew Ellis Johnson, “The ICEman Cometh” (2018, detail), ink, charcoal, wax, graphite.

Andrew Ellis Johnson, “The ICEman Cometh” (2018, detail), ink, charcoal, wax, graphite.

Art and artists most definitely have a place in answering wrongs, great or small, and everything in between. Andrew Ellis Johnson has a searing piece up at Hyperallergic. It’s well worth seeing and reading.

“In the nostrils of God, could it be worse than what we think?”

…“Could we be in worse days than we know?” Bakker asked on his television program yesterday. “In the nostrils of God, could it be worse than what we think? I think this may be the secret. This may be what God wanted me to see. God was vexed, upset, that he would kill everybody on earth. They were so wicked that he had to do it.”

After fellow guest Rabbi Zev Porat warned that while God had merely “pressed the reset button” with the flood, God will next time press “the delete button if we don’t wake up,” Gallups warned that “the spirit of Antichrist” is running wild across the globe, leaving God no choice but wipe out all of humanity.

It would be so nice, if just once, people would invent a god which was better then themselves, but no, it’s all the worst of humanity writ large. It never seems to occur to christians that an actual god would be able to hit a ‘reset button’ without killing most everyone. Of course, killing is the one thing Jehovah is good at (See Drunk With Blood).

As for a ‘delete button’, well, even if this idiot god existed, where would be the fun in this? You have all that juicy, surreal nonsense which is Revelation, and hitting that delete would spoil all that blood & guts fun. Makes more sense to just go with the whole second coming and all that.

…“What happened in the days of Noah? The whole world had gone down the spirit of Antichrist,” he added. “Satan was corrupting human flesh, he was corrupting animal flesh, he was corrupting minds, he was corrupting marriage, home, family, he was corrupting life itself and God pushed the reset button. We’re right back there again.”

If I wanted to invent a god, I’m pretty sure I’d want it to be able to learn from its mistakes. Stupid and vicious is a bad combination on any level.

RWW has the full story.

Ice Cream Saloons: A Place For Unchaperoned Women.

Ice cream parlor of L. C. Fish, Merced, Calif.

Ice cream parlor of L. C. Fish, Merced, Calif. Source.

…Throughout the 19th century, restaurants catered to a predominately male clientele. Much like taverns and gentlemen’s clubs, they were places where men went to socialize, discuss business, and otherwise escape the responsibilities of work and home. It was considered inappropriate for women to dine alone, and those who did were assumed to be prostitutes. Given this association, unescorted women were banned from most high-end restaurants and generally did not patronize taverns, chophouses, and other masculine haunts.

As American cities continued to expand, it became increasingly inconvenient for women to return home for midday meals. The growing demand for ladies’ lunch spots inspired the creation of an entirely new restaurant: the ice-cream saloon. At a time when respectable women were excluded from much of public life, these decadent eateries allowed women to dine alone without putting their bodies or reputations at risk.

[…]

The first ice cream saloons were humble cafes that served little more than ice cream, pastries, and oysters. As women became more comfortable eating out, they expanded into opulent, full-service restaurants with sophisticated menus that rivaled those at most other elite establishments. In 1850, a journalist described one ice cream saloon as offering “an extensive bill of fare … ice cream — oysters, stewed, fried and broiled; —broiled chickens, omelettes, sandwiches; boiled and poached eggs; broiled ham; beef-steak, coffee, chocolate, toast and butter.” According to the historian Paul Freeman, the 1862 menu of an ice cream saloon in New York ran a whopping 57 pages and featured mother of pearl detailing.

[…]

Although ice cream parlors had an air of dainty domesticity, they also developed more sultry reputations. At the time, they were one of the few places where both men and women could go unchaperoned. As a result, they became popular destinations for dates and other illicit rendezvous. “Did a young lady wish to enjoy the society of the lover whom ‘Papa’ had forbidden the house?” the New York Times wrote in 1866. “A meeting at Taylor’s was arranged, where soft words and loving looks served to atone for parental harshness, and aided the digestion of pickled oysters.”

Innocent young couples weren’t the only pairs tucked together in the velvet booths. During a trip to Taylor’s, one writer observed “a middle-aged man and woman in deep and earnest conversation. They are evidently man and wife—though not each others!” Moralists were also outraged by the presence of pimps, prostitutes, and women “who were not over particular with the company they kept.” These scandalous scenes prompted rumors of ice cream “drugged with passion-exciting Vanilla” that seduced virtuous women into taking “the first step…which leads to infamy.”

These charges did little to dissuade respectable women from patronizing ice cream saloons. In fact, their reputation as “a trysting ground for all sorts of lovers” may have made the saloons all the more enticing. According to the Times, Taylor’s “always maintained its popularity, in spite of (or perhaps because of) rumors that it afforded most elegant opportunities for meetings not entirely correct.”

Oh my, passion-exciting Vanilla! I have vanilla ice cream in my freezer, and I had no idea of the evil I was hosting. I’ll enjoy it all the more for that. You can read much more about the history of Ice Cream Saloons at Atlas Obscura.

Cry Havoc!, and Let Slip the Horses of the Apocalypse. Er, What?

Four Horsemen of Apocalypse, by Viktor Vasnetsov. Painted in 1887. Source.

Four Horsemen of Apocalypse, by Viktor Vasnetsov. Painted in 1887. Source.

This week, Jim Bakker has decided the apocalypse to have begun. Who knows what the fuck it will be next week. Evangelicals can never seem to make up their mind. They seriously want the apocalypse to actually happen, so they can see all us godless heathens and other varieties of sinners tromped on my Jehovah and Jesus, while at the same time, their unquenchable lust for power keeps them from end time talk, because their only chance at oppressing the hell out of people will happen right here, in reality land.

“Have you ever seen a time when we hate our president like the people do now?” Bakker marveled. “Literally half the nation hates the president and would probably kill him if they got a chance.”

Oh, it’s much more than half of ‘merica, Jim. I’m afraid the Tiny Tyrant has pissed off and alienated a good portion of governments and people across the planet. That seems to be the only thing he’s actually good at, which is unfortunate for us all. Back to uStates a moment. Did you know that people used to assassinate presidents? Yeah. I’d say murdering someone was a pretty solid expression of hate, Jim, and no one has so much as tried when it comes to the Tiny Tyrant, and I’m quite tempted to add a “more’s the pity”, but that wouldn’t be nice.

Bakker said that when he asked God what was going on, God told him that “you are in Revelation, Chapter 6,” which tells of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

“This is what He told me,” Bakker claimed. “He said, ‘Donald Trump is a respite in this troubled times and I sent him in grace to give you time to prepare for what’s coming on earth.’”

This is what you call a respite? Intense divisiveness, people declaring Nazism a fine thing, and people everywhere lying down under the constant crush of lies and fascism? You have one fucking weird definition of respite, Jim.

Bakker said that while “the Antichrist spirit” has been let loose on America, “God has given us a man who is not afraid to fight. We have a president people think is crazy. They call him crazy, but he’s making peace treaties, he’s doing all the things to try to solve the world’s problems and God has put him on earth—God spoke to me the other night, He said, ‘I put Donald Trump on earth to give you time, the church, to get ready.’”

Uh huh. Peace treaties, really? Jesus fuck onna stick. The wannabe dictator is not crazy, but he is a liar, a narcissist, and a bigot to the core, with a lust for greed and power.  He’s also one hell of a dim bulb, who can’t think his way out of a wet paper bag. The president of this country is not supposed to solve the world’s problem, you dipshit. The problems of this country are sufficient, and all he’s done is to make every single thing worse. He recently bragged about ripping families apart and placing tiny children in cages. Seems to me if any horseman is to show, it would be to drag this unrepentant evil shit off to somewhere else. Anywhere else.

So, we’re to get ready, are we? I thought christians were always supposed to be ready. Well, at least those who believe in the rapture nonsense, which was not a part of christian belief until relatively recent times. Just how much time do you all need to pray and holler out “Hey, Jesus, ready!”? We all know this crap isn’t going to happen, but I would love it if you all disappeared. I expect it won’t be long before you dump this theory in favour of the next conspiracy or whatever grabs your fancy.

RWW has the story.