What’s next after Expelled?

I’ve got a little inside information on Premise Media, makers of Expelled — despite all the bragging about what a successful movie they had, they still haven’t fully paid contractors they’d hired, and the company appears to be dead. It was a kind of zombie company anyway, with a fake website filled with fake projects to trick people into taking it seriously, and now it’s simply decaying. All that’s left is a collection of clips.

However, the writer, Kevin Miller, has found employment working on something even schlockier — the poor guy’s career is sinking so fast, he’s going to end up writing for Veggie Tales at some point. He’s working on a new movie with…Kirk Cameron!

The movie is called Monumental, and I dare you to puzzle out what it’s about from the description at that link. It seems to be best described as Kirk Cameron’s Vanity Show, in which a film crew follows him around as he gushes out a right-wing simplistic version of American history that emphasizes how God was on our side every step of the way. It sounds like the sort of thing they’d want to bring in the Texas board of education to consult on.

I remember the classic BBC television series, America, and it has echoes of that…except instead of a guy with class and gravitas like Alistair Cooke, their narrator is going to be a pious pipsqueak creationist with a reputation for inanity and ignorance, and it’s being written by a fellow whose last big screen effort was notorious for its dishonesty and incompetence. The Dunning-Kruger effect strikes again!

How to fish for atheists

It’s easy. Bait your hook with stupid.

It’s true, we’re a sucker for that stuff, although it does have a downside. We’ll come up, swallow the bait, follow the line to its source, devour the poor fool holding the pole, and then waddle off, all fat and smug. It’s our nature, we can’t help it.

So, for instance, an Indiana politician who is considered a potential presidential candidate, Mitch Daniels, talks about atheism.

People who reject the idea of a God — who think that we’re just accidental protoplasm — have always been with us. What bothers me is the implications — which not all such folks have thought through — because really, if we are just accidental, if this life is all there is, if there is no eternal standard of right and wrong, then all that matters is power.

And atheism leads to brutality. All the horrific crimes of the last century were committed by atheists — Stalin and Hitler and Mao and so forth — because it flows very naturally from an idea that there is no judgment and there is nothing other than the brief time we spend on this Earth.

You should read the rest of that interview, especially the part where he talks about not being ostentatious with his faith. It’s so precious.

The projection is strong in this one. I don’t know if I’d want a president who thought the world was divided into people who thought the only two possible purposes in life were to glorify God or a brutal drive to power.

Daniels is an example of a Christian considered smart enough to be president. You should see what the brain-damaged masses believe. It’s always fun to be lectured about what I believe by a marginally literate kook. Did you know that atheists believe in these six things?

  1. Satan.
  2. Ghosts.
  3. Tarot cards.
  4. Astrology.
  5. Veganism.
  6. Saying OMG.

She even made a video about it!

But wait! You haven’t seen the scariest part! Who is this person?

Jellooo I’m Bev, I’m a health care provider, I work in a hospital and nursing home. I also earn my degree in Bachelor of Science major in Management, I teach academic program to toddlers, children and young adults, I also teach speech to foreign student.

If only she’d move to Indiana, she could run for president someday.

Uh, I don’t think those credits will transfer anywhere

Glenn Beck really is certifiable. He’s now pushing his own “university”, staffed by a trio of right wing incompetents, with a tuition of $9.95 per month.

His introductory curriculum is Faith 101, Hope 101, and Charity 101, titles which don’t seem to have much to do with their contents. I look forward to the first student to show up my university with a transcript and ask for transfer credits — normally, we just give no credit for inappropriate or bad coursework, but this is one case where I think negative credits are warranted.

Republicans discover sarcasm, don’t like it much

I’ve been receiving a lot of mail lately urging me to pharyngulate the America Speaking Out site, but when I saw what it was about, I held off…I could tell what kind of self-screwing it was going to be. Here’s the premise: the Republicans saw, in their remote and confused sort of way, that the internet (aka “series of tubes”) had some real potential, and looked really smart, and maybe if they took advantage of it, they could look a little less yokely and rubish. Seriously. You can’t make this stuff up.

Lest you think Republicans are just discovering the Internet, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Wash.) let it be known that “House Republicans have tweeted five times as many as the House Democrats. Leader Boehner has almost five times as many Facebook fans as Speaker Pelosi.” Boehner grinned and gave a double thumbs-up.

Rep. Mike Pence (Ind.) contributed to the discussion by twice giving out the wrong address for the new site.

So what did they do that was making them so pathetically proud? They created an open web site to formulate an agenda for the future of the Republican party, where anyone could make any proposal, and everyone could vote on it. No filters, except against profanity. The doors are open, y’all are invited to come on in and tell the Republicans what to do.

The results are predictable: complete chaos. Teabaggers are raving, liberal saboteurs are inserting all kinds of crazy suggestions, and you can’t tell them apart. You tell me; which of the following suggestions are serious, and which are taking the piss?

A ‘teacher’ told my child in class that dolphins were mammals and not fish! And the same thing about whales! We need TRADITIONAL VALUES in all areas of education. If it swims in the water, it is a FISH. Period! End of Story.

Require all Muslims in the U.S. to wear ankle bracelet transponders so we know where the terrorists are at all times.

We should administer capital punishment to anyone who has an abortion. In order to cut costs that the death penalty normally entails, we will have lax gun laws that will allow people to obtain guns with greater ease. Then we would allow the “free-market” to dictate whose philosophy wins out – the liberals irrational philosophy or our logical and God following philosophy. Liberals who have abortions would be taken care of by a militia of the willing who will get rid of all liberals who take the life others irrationally and will allow us to remove all of our opponents to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

all leaders should proclaim faith in Jesus Christ. anyone who does not, like muslims and atheists should be removed from office.

It’s like Poe’s Law written out all across the country, on every subject. It’s insane.

They’ve also discovered another little problem: Americans are rushing to take part in the hilarity, and this error message is coming up all the time.

A very high volume of Americans are speaking out right now.

Please wait a moment and try again.

I bet they are. Every basement-dwelling troglodyte with an opinion, and every laughing liberal looking for a giggle, is hitting that site right now. And once again, the Republicans are looking like incompetent idiots.

That’ll teach us!

We really hurt the true believers of Islam with Draw Mohammed Day. They are angry and frustrated, and they want to strike back against secularists equally well, in ways that will also infuriate us. To their credit, though, some realize that threatening to decapitate heretics isn’t exactly smart and civilized…they need something that will illustrate to us how hurtful violating their religious precepts was.

What to do, what to do…

One Muslim genius has come up with the answer: EVERYBODY RESEARCH HOLOCAUST DAY. On 30 June, he is encouraging everyone to engage in “critical study” of “the foundational myth of the secular cult”.

Much of the injustice that takes place in our world stems from ignorance. We reject being emotionally blackmailed by Hollywood tales and holocaust museums which legitimize the war crimes and crimes against humanity of the extremist Atheist regime of Tel-Aviv.

So this guy proposes to reply to drawing stick-figure Mohammeds with holocaust denial and the negation of history? Yeah, that’ll improve the reputation of Islam as the domain of rational thought. He also has his own justification, that tries to claim the moral high ground in this disagreement.

The difference is that you draw Lies about Muhammad and we draw Truth about you. That you seek to bring unrest and conflict, and we wish to uncover the reality so injustice is no more

He does make one good point, though. He asks if he’s free to question the holocaust, just as we are free to question Islam. I’d say yes, he should be, but I know that some European countries have put special restrictions on this one area of inquiry — you are not allowed to express a certain wrong opinion about the holocaust without risk of penalty, and that’s not right.

These people should be free to say awesomely stupid things so we can point and laugh and watch their whole effort collapse in stupidity.

Everyone Draw Mohammed

It’s that day when everyone should draw Mohammed. You can just do the traditional stick figure, or you can get fancy — I like this one, a kind of Mohammed transitional series in which you have to draw the line where blasphemy occurs.

I can’t draw. The only thing I could think of was to sketch out this picture of a hybrid cow-pig.

i-79148186b05bae303b43ff8ab282a2ba-moo-ham-ed.jpeg

It’s Moo-ham-ed. Get it? OK, you’re allowed to groan and close the page.

Would it add to the verisimilitude if I said he was mooing/squealing excitedly at the prospect of raping a 9 year old girl (not shown)? Sharp-eyed observers will also note that Moo-ham-ed is a hermaphrodite, since he also has udders. I just thought that would make it a little more offensive.

Your turn. You can try to do better—actually, you could close your eyes and stab a piece of paper with a pen and do better—but there’s not much point. It really doesn’t matter what you draw or how rude or explicit or stupid or accurate or respectful it is, since someone somewhere is determined to be offended by it anyway.

Also, Pakistanis won’t see it: they’re trying to block the internet, demonstrating their own stupidity. Not only is it easy to get around, but I could easily show you a plenitude of obscenity and hatred and violence that has been on the internet for years, and is far more offensive than amateurish stick figures.

Creepiest Christian comment yet

I don’t know what to say. This is a Christian’s idea of an argument against abortion — not just exaggerating abortion into murder, but also by trivializing rape.

Atheists always use rape as an argument for justifying killing because they want to justify abortion. But is rape really that bad? It’s a horrible experience but you get over it with time. If you use it to justify murder you’re never going to get over it. Imagine you have a painful divorce. Would you murder your children after because they remind you of your ex husband? Of course not. I think any woman would easily tell you that a painful divorce is worse than rape but it’s not an excuse to kill your baby, so why is rape?

Christian women can also take a lot more than atheist women. Maybe this is part of the reason that atheists get so hung up about this. Christian women can turn to Christ or worship God in their hearts and endure great suffering. I’m not belittling it but think about it, no amount of suffering from rape is as great as the suffering our Lord suffered on the cross for our sins. You are the one who has to ask more true Christian women about this. You’re out of touch and trying to make a big deal out of something just for shock value.

This is the kind of person you don’t argue with…just walk away.

Pansies everywhere

I’m glad someone occasionally looks into the other side of the net to see what they’re talking about — I can’t bear to read religious forums, myself. Here’s why: take a look at what they’re saying on BaptistBoard.

I believe women in politics have done a great disservice to the sovereignty and resolve of a our great Republic. Many issues that face our nation, from without and within, need to be decided from a place of strength instead of weakness. Women are gifted from God with a lot of skills that are good in the home, but not in the Government. They tend to base their decisions from a security standpoint and believe that they have the ability to rehabilitate and nurse others to mental and social health. Men are more pragmatic and can make the tough calls that have to be made in matters of war, also in domestic and international policy. Maybe I should have said men used to be able to make the tough calls. Women in politics have been in position so long now that men are not the men they once were. They have to take into account how their decisions and policies will be viewed by the ladies. Being weak, pathetic, and a bunch of pansies being entrusted with positions of power are all the result of this great error.

Even the loons there who disagree with this nonsense are saying it’s because God gave men and women complementary abilities!

I’m also greatly offended. One consequence of that attitude is that, in order to be True Men™, we have to be ignorant, brutal, and ready to go off to war whenever our testicles tingle…and if you aren’t, you’re a “pansy”. It’s a bias that is as demeaning to men as it is to women.

Progress in Saudi Arabia!

In 2002, 15 young girls burned to death in a school fire because firemen were not allowed by their religion to enter and rescue females who might not be covered head-to-toe in concealing clothing. In fact, religious police had actively hindered the escape of the girls, with reports that they were hitting them and pushing them back into the building, because they were trying to run out without putting their head coverings on first.

Now, in 2010, the religious ministry has given orders to the religious police to allow even male rescue workers to enter girls’ schools in an emergency.

Wow. So it only took them 8 years to figure out that maybe lives are more important than modesty.

Do Twilight, Harry Potter open door to the Devil?

Wow, I thought Cardinal George Pell was thick…but his second-in-command, Bishop Porteous, sounds like he could be even crazier. They’re hiring an exorcist for Australia, and he’s full of ominous warnings about evil things.

The appointment of a new exorcist by Sydney’s Catholic Church precedes a warning by a senior clergyman that generation Y risks a dangerous fascination with the occult fuelled by the Twilight and Harry Potter series.

Julian Porteous, the auxiliary bishop of Sydney, warns that pursuing such ”alternative” relaxation techniques as yoga, reiki massages and tai chi may encourage experimentation with ”deep and dark spiritual ideas and traditions”.

Twilight isn’t magic — it’s just badly written and mindless. Those spritiual ideas aren’t “deep and dark”, they’re just stupid. And I put exorcism in the same category, as a ridiculous, ignorant practice based on rank superstition. We gain nothing by replacing reiki massages and sparkly vampires with old geezers waving censers and chanting at demons.

And Porteous has been doing just that.

Exorcism is no fantasy according to the church, with the Sydney archdiocese last month appointing an as-yet unnamed priest, suitably ”endowed with piety, knowledge, prudence and integrity of life” to conduct exorcisms, as required by Catholic canon law.

In Rome, the Vatican is preparing its first official English translation of the rite of exorcism, which was promulgated in 1614 and reissued in 1999. Its chief exorcist, Father Gabriele Amorth, claimed this month to have carried out 70,000 exorcisms. Bishop Porteous – who has stood in as exorcist for the Sydney archdiocese over the past five years – warns that yoga, reiki massages and tai chi can lead to people being in the grip of ”demonic forces”.

These people are just nuts.