Is Sarah Palin the Bethenny Frankel of Politics?

Yeah... Like probably most non-'reality'-show-watching people I didn't get the connection, but the headline intrigued me, so I had to read the story.

It was an education for me. Not only do I now know who Bethenny Frankel is, but why Ilana Angel asked the rhetorical question:

Just when you think Sarah Palin has said the dumbest thing possible, she tops herself with yet another doozy. I wrote a couple of weeks ago that I wanted her to shut up and I totally take it back. I hope she never stops talking because every time she does, she reminds America there is no way in hell she should ever be President of the United States.
Mrs. Palin likes to share her views on Facebook. Perhaps she thinks this will make her popular among voters who are into social networking. It’s not working though because for her, it’s just a place where she hides from live television. What she is doing is showing Americans she is not serious, and should not hold any political office ever again, especially not President.
What are you doing Sarah? It’s time for things to get real and for you to grow up and stop playing games. Either you want to run for President or you don’t, but your rhetoric, while hilarious, is getting boring. Are you just trying to amass your fortune and raise your celebrity, or are you planning to run for President? Your cat and mouse game is annoying and we’re about done.
Following the State of the Union speech of President Obama, Palin said Obama’s use of Sputnik was confusing and I don’t doubt for one second that it was. For Palin. Bless her little heart. She was probably out bashing fish on the head, or shooting wolves from the sky when they talked about Sputnik in her history class, so you can’t blame her for not knowing the facts.
Palin said: “Well, speaking of last night, that was a tough speech to sit through and try to stomach because the president is so off base in his ideas in how it is he believes government is going to create jobs. Obviously, government growth won’t create any jobs. It’s the private sector that can create the jobs. His theme last night in the State of the Union was the WTF, you know, “Winning the Future,” and I thought OK, that acronym, spot on. There were a lot of WTF moments throughout that speech.”
Sarah Palin seems to be confused about a lot of things and it is impossible to take her seriously. What does it say about America that a woman, who is so incredibly under-qualified for a political job, is spewing crap each and every day about our country? What the f&%$ Sarah? When are you going to start acting like a grown up, and not a mean girl on the playground? You have no respect for this country, or for your President.
Sarah Palin is quickly becoming the Bethenny Frankel of the political world. Like Bethenny, she is attractive and oddly appealing, and also like Bethenny, she is a joke that we watch because we like to laugh at her, not with her. Bethenny has no talent, but she has a huge following of crazy fans. By crazy fans of course I mean the fans are actually crazy people, just like Sarah’s.

So, since there seems to be a building consensus for a Palin-free zone for February, this might be my last Palin Post for a month.

But jeez, you know the woman is such a fucking goldmine that I doubt I'll be able to go on the Palin-free wagon that long...

Paul Revere, Sarah Palin and "Gotcha" Journalism

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Franklin Graham & His Sycophants on Sarah Palin

From the Billy Graham website (I wont provide the link because I don't want the trackback -- Google it if you really want to see it), here's what Billy Junior (aka Franklin Graham) has to say about Saint Sarah:

I have been shocked at the reports from those suggesting that former Governor Sarah Palin has some level of responsibility for the horrific shooting in Arizona.
. . .
She is a kind and compassionate God-fearing woman who believes with all her heart that Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Whether you agree with her politics or not, it is outrageous to suggest that her political opinions encourage violence toward anyone.

Jesus wept.

Even worse are some of the reader comments on this site:

• Thank you Franklin for voicing for so many that which we believe and know to be the truth about Sarah Palin. She is a godly woman who publicly professes Jesus as her Personal Savior and Lord. This attrocity [sic] belongs to one man who has given himself over to hate, violence and destruction. Anyone expoilting [sic] this evil act to push their agenda is in fact promoting it.
• Thank you for standing up for Sarah Palin. I am thankful that she is a Christain [sic], and I pray she will become our next President. May God help us to have a strong Christain [sic] in the White House. We need to turn back to God as a nation and having a Christain [sic] president will show us as a Christain [sic] nation once again. May God continue to bless us!
• I agree with Franklin, our society has been so conditioned to let our youth grow up with all this corruption, murder, rape, cursing etc. It is small wonder our kids are so violent and messed up. It is not the LORDS' way, it is Satans' way. The gospel states that man will become weaker and wiser. I think you have to look at that with broad strokes of periods in civil and social acts. When you constantly pour evil acts by the bucket full on our kids. All the killing games that are available for so call entertainment. Wow our kids don't have much of a chance. Don't blame 1 or 2 people for these crimes, we have to look at ourselves and say where can we start to get this stuff off our airways, out of our play station game rooms. Praise be to GOD,to help us through these terrible times.
• How unconsionable [sic] that someone could even consider Gov. Palin as somehow contributing to this heious [sic] crime. Palin who is a Christian and stands only for righteousness and godly principles. May she become our next president.

So there you go. These people, aside from being spelling-challenged and thinking-impaired (equating murder and rape with cursing? Really?), are deadly serious about pushing the Half-governor into the White House.

South America is starting to look real good about now...

Sarah Palin Out -- Say It Ain't So!

It is with great regret that I note that Sarah Palin is dropping out of the race for the White House, a race that she was never in to begin with.

Only in America could this be headline news. My personal regret is that it will probably drive down the readership of this blog.

The one page on this blog that has gotten, according to Blogger Statistics, the absolute highest number of hits (by a factor of 2-1!) is my post from November 2008, Sarah Palin Camel Toes, the vast majority of those hits coming from Google Search for the phrase "Sarah Palin Camel Toes". Do the search yourself and you will see that this blog occupies the top four slots in the Google rankings.

What does that say about the Internets, about the users of those Internets, and about the public at large? And what does it say about the media in this country that of all the possible stories they could cover on a given news day, the non-story of a non-candidate dropping out of a race that she was never in gets top billing?

It's a sad commentary on our times, for sure.

Still, I'm going to miss her. She was easy, a ready target every time she opened that pit-bull-with-lipstick mouth of hers and said something stupid. My biggest regret is that I didn't slam her more than I did.

Shit. See, I'm doing it myself... Damn you, Sarah Palin!

Birthers Love Palin

A recent poll shows that 51% of likely Rethug primary voters still believe, in the face of all of the evidence , that Obama was not born in the US and they still want to see the birth certificate.

Interestingly enough, this is the same group that puts Sarah "Caribou Barbie" Palin at the very top of their choices for president in 2012.

(Okay, I knew that this was supposed to be Palin-Free February, but come on...)

So I think it's a fair question, and one that gets asked on the always valuable and freely entertaining Palingates blog: Where is Trig's birth certificate?

And those of you who think it's somehow "not fair" to drag a politician's children into the debate, where were you when Rush Limbaugh called the then-12-year-old Chelsea Clinton the "White House dog"? Besides, Mama Grisly has been exploiting her children for political gain since day one; she's the one who dangled them out there over the balcony railing like Michael Jackson. As Palingates says, "We would love to leave them alone, but Sarah Palin keeps shoving them in our faces to market her Christian/real American family values..."

Sarah Palin's Alaska? Really, that was really all about Alaska and not all about furthering her own selfish political aspirations? Especially when, in numerous shots, from inside a moving vehicle, and neither she nor her daughter, Willow, are even pretending to wear seat belts? I call that child endangerment, and the laws of every state, including Alaska's, agree with me.

I also call that child exploitation for political gain -- after all, if that kid was sitting back in the seat with the belt fastened properly around her, she wouldn't be visible to the camera, and what would be the point of it all then? Sarah talking to herself? I'm sure she does enough of that as it is, but chances are she wouldn't want it caught on camera...

So, getting back to the topic. If that 51% of voters vote with their True Beliefs, then we can look forward to Sarah Palin being the GOP nominee.

Bring it on! If the Democrats can't beat Caribou Barbie*, then they deserve to be out of power.

----

[* In a fair election, that is. If she does win, it will be fraud at the polls in numbers so frightening that it will make the old Soviet Union elections look scrupulously honest by comparison.]

Sarah Palin, The Victim-y Feminist

One of the blogs that I read regularly is The Truffle (she's been in my blogroll since day one).

Today she has an excellent piece on Sarah Palin as "Victim Feminist":

Sarah Palin's latest quest to find something to stand for has led her to call herself a feminist and talk about "mama grizzlies." Why feminists don't simply laugh their asses off is beyond me. Oh, I know why--it's because somehow Palin's new schtick has earned her a Newsweek cover story, which means that Very Serious Media People are supposed to take it seriously. Jezebel, at least, is having fun Photoshopping said Newsweek cover.
Let's leave aside the part about Palin making Wasilla's rape victims pay for their rape kits. And her stand on abortion. (Here, I should emphasize that I believe it's possible to be a feminist and oppose abortion. It would be really cool, however, if Feminists for Life and their ilk would push contraception, work to make adoption easier, and promote responsible, realistic sex education. It would also be helpful if they'd admit that the days of botched abortions are not an era any woman would want to revisit. But I digress.)
The truth is that if--IF!--you accept that Palin is a feminist, you have to admit that she's exactly the kind of feminist that her fellow conservatives have always claimed to loathe: a victim feminist.
...
And, come to think of it, Palin's victim schtick is kind of strange and pathetic when you consider all the hatred, vitriol, and misogyny faced by Hillary Clinton for decades. Even an anti-Hillary group called Citizens United Not Timid (note the acronym). Marie Cocco breaks down the woman-hating garbage flung at Clinton on the presidential trail. Much, much nastier stuff than a botched TV interview.

There's a lot more to this incisive analysis so be sure to read the whole thing.

Good job, Truffle -- you go, girlfriend!

Everyone else, be sure to check out those faux Newsweek covers in the link.

Sarah Palin, "Prayer Warrior"

This is some seriously disturbing video, showing the kind of weirdo religious cult that Sarah Palin has been in, has been supporting, has been believing in for many years:

Oh, and be sure to read Mark Karlin's editor's blog over at Buzzflash: Sarah Palin is a Manchurian Candidate for One Extremist Splinter Group of the End-Times Crowd. It has a lot more information on the extreme and dangerous religious cult views of Sarah Palin and those who support her.

We simply cannot let this woman be a heartbeat away from the presidency. We just can't.

Please, give some money to the Obama-Biden ticket, and vow to do everything you can between now and election day to get out the vote in such overwhelming numbers that they will not be able to shave points and steal another election.

Glee and Sarah Palin

I don't watch the new television series Glee, but after what happened this week I might just have to start.

Conservatives have got their panties in a bunch over what was essentially a throw-away line on last Tuesday's episode.

A woman who is apparently the cheer squad coach is talking to a couple of her cheerleaders and says, "You may be two of the stupidest teens I've ever encountered. And that's saying something. I once taught a cheerleading seminar to a young Sarah Palin."

And that was it. So naturally what does the wingnuttery do? It goes batshit crazy over it.

Crooks and Liars has the show clip along with some comments on it from LA Times columnist Patrick Goldstein:

Glee" was already in hot water with the right wing, since the show's creator, Ryan Murphy, had in previous episodes made fun of abstinence education and, as Newsbusters puts it, "tried to normalize teen homosexuality." Apparently on the right, treating gay kids as regular folks, instead of as scary deviants, is cause for alarm.
Not to be outdone, over at Andrew Breitbart's Big Hollywood website, John Nolte has also weighed in with his usual light touch, claiming that the Palin gag was part of a concerted liberal effort to mesmerize your children with lefty propaganda. Here's his not-quite-so-entirely levelheaded take:
    "Glee" is millions of dollars of sound and fury aimed squarely at your children. And as we can now see, the creators are all about getting between you and your kids with their political and social agendas. They know Palin is a growing political force and nothing's off the table when it comes to marginalizing her -- even at the expense of their own show's entertainment value -- even at the expense of audience share.

Sarah Palin, the rightwing's gift that keeps on giving.

Watchdogging Sarah Palin

It's too bad that it has to be done, but someone has to keep an eye on Sarah Palin. And no, I'm not talking about all those rightwing per-verts* who got huge boners when she scampered out of moose-murdering frozen obscurity onto the national stage in 2008.

As much as she's intentionally been in the "news" since then, we still don't know very much more about her than we did on that fateful day two years ago when Grampaw "You Goddam Kids Get Offa My Lawn" McCain elevated her to mock-celebrity status in front of a fawning media.

Well, that's changed. I just discovered a terrific blog called Palingates -- The Sarah Palin Watchdog Team. In it the team leaves no stone unturned (and, since we're talking about Alaska, no tern unstoned; sorry, I just couldn't help it...) in asking the hard questions and doing the hard research that the media in this country used to do for itself. You remember, back in the days before the media assigned itself the role of cowering ass-kissing lapdog lickspittle to the rich and powerful?

From Palin's fake pregnancy with little Trig (Obama "birthers", have any of you asked Sarah for Trig's birth certificate?) to her patently false story -- lying --about her Wasilla to Los Angeles in a motorhome road trip in less than three days, this blog has it all.

If the worst-case-scenario projections for 2012 hold true, and the Pit Bull With Lipstick actually does manage to become the Rethug nominee, I have a feeling that the Palingates crew will be providing the opposition -- that's us in the "professional left" -- with a lot of the ammunition to fire back.

We can even turn Mama Grisly's own words back on her: "Don't retreat -- RELOAD!"

-----

[* This mispronunciation, with the stress on the second syllable, is, of course, from Carl "Tony Soprano" Palodino's rant to the rabbis about those nasty homosessuals and their nefarious "agenda".]

Sarah Palin: Going Rouge

One of my absolute favorite writers is a guy in Florida named Carl Hiassen, who writes a column for the Miami Herald and is also the author of a number of absolutely hilarious novels. I was waiting with baited breath (that explains the worm on my chin...) for his take on the new Sarah Palin "autobiography", Going Rouge Rogue, and he didn't disappoint me:

(Confidential response of Sarah Palin's book editor to the first draft of her upcoming memoir, "Going Rogue''):
Dear Sarah,
Thank you for turning in the manuscript so quickly. I thought only Stephen King could crank out 400 pages in four months! Seriously, there's some terrific material here, and all of us at Harper Collins are thrilled to be publishing your life story.
Before we move ahead, the fact-checking department has asked me to pass along a few notes and comments that may require some revisions on your part.
1. Eric Clapton spells his last name with a C. More significantly, his publicists tell us that you were not the inspiration for Layla, and that he doesn't recall ever having an affair with you. Is it possible you've got him confused with another rock star?
2. The mainland of Russia is indeed visible from parts of western Alaska during favorable weather conditions in the Bering Straits. Considering the ridicule you endured over this issue during the campaign, your desire to set the record straight is understandable. Still, 78 pages is a big chunk of the book. Perhaps it's possible to deal with the I-can-see-Russia controversy a bit more succinctly.
3. Our researchers can find no evidence that Tina Fey belongs to the Taliban. Could you send us the sourcing for that reference?
4. John McCain's campaign staff is vehemently denying the incident you describe in Chapter 13. Perhaps you could provide our legal department with the names of persons who actually witnessed the senator placing the duct tape over your mouth.
[Read more; it gets even funnier...]

Read the whole thing and you'll see why Hiassen is one of my favorites. I'm first in line when a new novel of his comes out, and if you haven't read him, you are missing out on some of the funniest stuff to come out of Florida since Flying Flagler and the Alligator Boys...

The Great Debate on a Social Network

It started out simply enough with me putting a link to the CREDO Mobile story Tell Sarah Palin: Violent threats have consequences on a popular Social Networking site:

We must put a stop to the escalating hate rhetoric of the right and its very specific calls to armed violent action. Lines of decency have been crossed, and Sarah Palin has a special responsibility and opportunity in the wake of the attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

First response:

Billie: Bullshit

Me: Thank you for the well-reasoned dialog

Her: You're welcome. It describes all this "let's blame the right instead of the shooter" crap perfectly.

2nd Party joins in.

Yousef: yup. things happen in a vacuum. no one is influenced by anything.except holy wars, crusaders, sun tans and right-wingers. lol

Her: The routine use of imagery by both parties in a culture obsessed with "battleground" states is nothing new. A nearly identical map, included in a Democratic Leadership Committee publication in 2004, featured nine bulls-eyes over regions where Republican candidates were considered vulnerable that year, and was accompanied by a caption reading: TARGETING STRATEGY. A smaller caption, beneath the bulls-eyes, read: BEHIND ENEMY LINES. The map illustrated an article on campaign strategy by Will Marshall of the Progressive Policy Institute. SoSarah is not the only one to use this kind of stuff, but I guess only the Democrats get a pass. It's metaphorical for crying out loud as Obama's "if they bring a knife to a fight we'll bring a gun" comment was. There was a rush to judgment by the left almost immediately BEFORE any details were known about anything or anybody. The biggest culprit was the Pima County sheriff who was/is supposed to be conducting an investigation NOT spewing his political opinions. I find his credibility in question anyway since he enforces laws only he thinks he should. It's not his place to decide. His oath demands he enforce all laws, not just those he decides in his infinite wisdom are worthy. He's not a judge.he's a sheriff.

Yousef: Point taken. But Dem's don't lie about using it. At least I don't. But then I don't use weaponry as an analogy or an excuse. If we want to be semantic.bulls eye targets are antiquated. The use of a sniper scopes cross-hair is not. :)

Me: I am not saying that the Dems don't use it, but do two wrongs make a right? You know that I am well-armed liberal, but even I have to gag when I see ALL of the "war" imagery used in political contests. And the right wing uses it more than the Dems by a factor of 10 (or more) to 1. When you couch all your political speeches using the metaphor of war ("Don't retreat, reload!" etc.) it is not conducive to reasoned political discourse. I've actually been to war, unlike the vast majority of Republican politicians, and I take it kind of personally when they appropriate the language from the battlefield to the political field. War is one of the very worst things that a person can endure, and its metaphors should never be used lightly or blithely. Again the Republicans are way out in front on this, and no reasonable thinking person can deny that.

And another thing. Here is a list (http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/terror-arizona-just-another-isolated) of "lone nuts" who were unwitting recipients of Hate Radio's constant drumbeat of war. I challenge anyone to come up with an equivalent list of wackjob liberals who have committed similar crimes, let alone ones who were provoked by, say, Keith Olbermann or Thom Hartmann .

And these incidents are from just in the last two-and-a-half years!

Yousef: Has nothing or had nothing to do with politics in Arizona either. LMAO.

Me: And here's another bunch of examples of rightwing hate speech: http://opovet.blogspot.com/2011/01/just-little-taste.html Again, show me a matching list of liberals who have said similar things

Her: Your first list Farnsworth is chock full of extremists and they certainly do not echo what I believe in or most of us on the "other side".For example, I'm a pro-lifer but would never think of killing a doctor or bombing a clinic. The overwhelming majority of us wouldn't either and condemn the ones who do. Since you mentioned Michelle Malkin check this out on her website..michellemalkin.com." The progressive "climate of hate:" An illustrated primer, 2000-2010.." No, I didn't count the number of hate filled things to compare with your list. There's plenty to see there if you'll look at it.It's enough to say that your side as well as mine has it's nuts. That what this loon was that shot up Tucson..nutty.. Some on blogs and comment sites have even gone so far as to lump the despicable Westboro Baptist Church( I say church loosely) in with us mainstream Christians. Fred Phelps and his "Phreaks" make me sick and I have fought them for years even when they came to protest a young soldier's funeral in our area.Don't want to get in a pissing contest with you Farnsworth, but there's plenty of questionable stuff to go around and to pull back a little and tone it down wouldn't hurt on ALL sides. But to blame this shooting on Conservatives is all wrong. I would have liked to have seen some of this outrage from the left when Major Hassan killed our soldiers at Ft. Hood and wounded 30 or others. Instead for weeks we were "told"(by the left of course) not to jump to conclusions that he had was leaning toward radical Islam.Don't want to offend anyone don't 'cha know. But, within a few short hours these left-wing folks were screaming this Tucson shooting in part was due to Sarah Palin and others vitrolic, speech. Nuts are nuts and we need to realize it and make THEM responsible for their actions, A molestor of children is just that and is responsible for what he/she does. I don't give a damn how bad or good his/her childhood was he/she still had a choice to not harm a child. The responsibility is on them if they do and I have no sympathy for them at all. Same goes with these nuts that do the sort of thing that happened in Tucson, Ft Hood, abortion clinics.schools, work places etc. Put the blame where it belongson the guy that did it.

Yousef: funny thingextremists always look and act like the rest of us. If they didn't we could just point and click them to a holding cell. Extremists are by nature cultural chameleons. But the particular psyche does aggregate in certain ways that shed light on tendencies..

Me: I'm not trying to paint with a broad brush. I embrace reasonable and non-strident socially-conscious conservatives, but you know it's always the extremists who get the focus. Remember after 9-11, when every Muslim in the world was our enemy (and many on the right still feel that way)? The ones who commandeered those planes were extremists, but this country had a problem -- and still does -- accepting that.

Her: Point taken Farnsworth. Peace.

Then a new player, John, joins the discussion:

John: Maybe everyone should read the Koran or Quoran , when Mohamad calls his followers ,whether moderates or extremists ,they are required to KILL the non-beleivers of THEIR god , if you are not a muslim believer YOU are an infidel ;one who does not believe in a particular religion . WHAT part do you not understand ??? And I am NOT a right winger , I believe in JESUS CHRIST , and GOD and COUNTRY .

Me: I agree. The Holy Book of any religion can be misused by its adherents.

Take a look at this list of items, which includes genocide, violence, rape, forced marriages, infanticide, and even cannibalism. opovet.blogspot.com/2010/10/more-scary-stuff-from-quran.html

Her: Line 20 in this with the reference to Allah proves to me it's not my Bible. You're correct though Farnsworth, anyone can take out of context written or spoken words and twist them to suit their own particular purpose(s).

Yousef: @John yes you should. And you should read the Qur'an. As i have read and have a copy of the Red Letter Bible. also read the historical footnotes that put each verse of the Qur'an in context. What all of you would soon understand of is that the Qur'an was primarily revealed to those present. In the context of their particular plight of a historical tale to them. Not as a harbinger of future behavior necessarily. So just using line 20 as a reference is the usual gross ignorance and is typical of people who feel victimized. I am flag waiving American as Farnsworth can attest. But don't gloat on what Fox News passes for your education of the Qur'an or the Middle East or it's inhabitants.

Her: Yousef, What I meant by that reference to line 20 was simply that my religion does not refer to God as Allah. Sorry if I was unclear on that point. I am a member of The Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod which is conservative by many standards, but we are not right-wing nuts. We have folks in our congregation who are Republicans, Democrats, Independents, students from our local university,blue collar working people, professors,small business owners,teachers, doctors and all manner of folks.. ..each of us having our own political views.. The thing that ties us together is our faith and what our creed teaches us. We do not preach politics from the pulpit. We preach the Gospel.

Yousef: Actually it does. The literal translation of 'God' as the omnipotent in Arabic is 'Allah'. All the churches in Nazareth as elsewhere in Arabic speaking countries use that teem as well as the Latin.

John: Yousef , I believe in Jesus Christ , He is my God , I do not believe in allah as being the I AM ; what does your Qur'an tell you that you are to do with me ???

Me: @Billie-- did you read the whole thing? Those are NOT lines from the Qu'ran, but from the Old Testament, my point being that every religion that has a "Holy Book" has crap like this. And exactly WHERE in the Qu'ran is the quote that Muslims must kill all infidels? See http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080827235128AAY0Asq

Her: Farnsworth, I have to admit I have never heard of this Xian Bible so I looked it up and from what I can see, I'm disturbed by it. It seems as though whoever put it together is very hateful. Did they speak the truth or put stuff in it to suit their own purposes? I'll have to do more reading about it when I find the time to do so and speak with some folks who might be able to shed more light on it for me.Besides, although we still read scripture from the Old Testament, Christians use the New Testament as the basis for their faith.

Me: It's actually shorthand for the "Christian" Bible, Xian being a play on words from the early Christians in hiding in Rome, who left an "X" on walls to show their belief in Christ. The "X" of course representing the Cross. While I applaud you for your concentrating on the New Testament, so many of the Religious Right are fond of quoting the Old Testament in their hatred of, for example, gay people, and their insistence on the Ten Commandments being displayed in the public square. And you are right, you ought to be disturbed by what you read. Is this really who we want to be as a society? The Religious Right thinks

Yousef: If one reads the whole of the Qur'an and understands it's historical context then it tells Muslims to respect as respected. Pretty much the same as any monotheistic religion. I've heard these taunts before. You dint know the Qur'an better than I so any inflammatory Fox news jabs from a misquoted verse isn't going to win you much defensiveness from me. Just a chuckle and recognition that P. T. Barnum was a genius. And I mean that toward both Muslims and Christians. :). The Jews as a people probably know their history and Book better than the rest of us. And the concept of replacing the Trinity by using the single consciousness of Jesus as the only god-conscious is purely an American invention. Anywhere else and still in the Roman Catholic church the trinity still recognizes the prophet (human body) of Jesus. For me the justification of a Trinity is murky at best. Mind you that I've spent many more hours in Catholic school and in Baptist churches than in a mosque. This has been done primarily to separate connection with Aramaic and Arabic. The original languages of the Bible. Besides it's easier for both sides to justify war this way. ;)

John: I asked a very straight forward question , I did not get a straight answer.If a person does not "submit" to Allah ,or accept the Muslim faith ,What does the Qur'an say to do with them??????

Me: What does the Christian Bible say about it? My point is that you can do the "cafeteria plan" on ANY piece of Holy Writ and find something that will allow you to do what you want to do anyway. See the quotations from the Old Testament on the earlier link. And what do we make of these quotations from the Old Testament:

"..devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey. "

"But of the cities of these peoples which God gives you as an inheritance, you shall let nothing that breathes remain alive, but you shall utterly destroy them."

"We took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain." I have a lot more of these, as you can see at opovet.blogspot.com/2010/08/it-is-will-of-allah.html

John: After Christ died on the cross, christians live under the new covenant of the new testament . Old testament violence is no more .

But Islam has things called Surah and Quran texts 8:12-13 that say pretty much the same thing ; " I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve, therefore strike off their heads and strike off every finger tip of them." I see Yousef did not want to answer . I have another for Yousef ; What does the word "subjugate" mean to you ?????

Surah 9:5 , 2:191-193 ,4:74 ,4:89 ,8:60,8:65 9:29,9:52what do all these verses pertain to ? And there are a few hundred more that tell you to do away with un believers.What I read in my Bible is , my duties are to tell you of GOD'S word ,so you can hear it ,try to bring you to GOD ,if you do not ,He does not tell me to kill you or do away with you . If you do not believe, your punishment is at your own hand and of your own disbelief . My hand will not harm you . You die in your own disbelief .

Me: As I mentioned earlier in this thread, if you truly believe in Jesus Christ and eschew all that God-directed murder in the Old Testament, then I applaud you. But too many of the Religious Right are not really into the Jesus of the New Testament -- too wimpy, I guess, what with all that "love thy neighbor" and "turn the other cheek" stuff -- and more into the hellfire and damnation that you find in the Old Testament. More power to you. You have done your duty to spread the word of God to atheists like me. If I choose to go my own way, then, as you say, that's on me

John: Well I am sorry , but I'm not a rihgt winger and Yousef ,your "moderate" friend still won't answer truthfully as to what his Qur'an says to do with non-believers . I gave you the verses, if I'm reading them wrong , then give me the right answer.

Me: What can I say, dude? Yousef is his own man and if he chooses not to respond, that's his choice And here's how the Christian Bible treats unbelievers:

Anyone arrogant enough to reject the verdict of the judge or of the priest who represents the LORD your God must be put to death. Such evil must be purged from Israel. (Deuteronomy 17:12 NLT)

They entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and soul; and everyone who would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, was to be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman. (2 Chronicles 15:12-13 NAB)

Suppose you hear in one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you that some worthless rabble among you have led their fellow citizens astray by encouraging them to worship foreign gods. In such cases, you must examine the facts carefully. If you find it is true and can prove that such a detestable act has occurred among you, you must attack that town and completely destroy all its inhabitants, as well as all the livestock. Then you must pile all the plunder in the middle of the street and burn it. Put the entire town to the torch as a burnt offering to the LORD your God. That town must remain a ruin forever; it may never be rebuilt. Keep none of the plunder that has been set apart for destruction. Then the LORD will turn from his fierce anger and be merciful to you. He will have compassion on you and make you a great nation, just as he solemnly promised your ancestors. "The LORD your God will be merciful only if you obey him and keep all the commands I am giving you today, doing what is pleasing to him." (Deuteronomy 13:13-19 NLT)

1) If your own full brother, or your son or daughter, or your beloved wife, or you intimate friend, entices you secretly to serve other gods, whom you and your fathers have not known, gods of any other nations, near at hand or far away, from one end of the earth to the other.

2) do not yield to him or listen to him, nor look with pity upon him, to spare or shield him, but kill him. Your hand shall be the first raised to slay him; the rest of the people shall join in with you. You shall stone him to death, because he sought to lead you astray from the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery. And all Israel, hearing of this, shall fear and never do such evil as this in your midst. (Deuteronomy 13:7-12 NAB)

My point still being that anyone can take bits and pieces out of their own particular Holy Book to justify their own actions. You cannot deny the truth of that statement. So, as Jesus may have said, "don't worry about the speck of dust in your neighbor's eye when you can't see the two by four in your own."

John: You can't get out of the Old Testament can you my friend ,you did not want to hear what I said , but what I have given you about the Qur'an is what they consider their "new" testament , those verses overide all the old ones . Just as I told you of The New Covenant God made with christians . But like you said ya'll hear only what ya want to .GOD BLESS . And good luck.

Yousef: Well I did answer you John. But it was an attempt at speaking with respect to your intellect because I don't know you. Farnsworth thanks for your Deuteronomy citations. I thought you were actually making my point for a sec! Oh wait you did. I mean we did. But you must have been righter-er cuz it was the bible. Oh wait it was the old one so we don't have to listen to the old god just the new one. Cuz he changed his mind n stuff. Lol

Reread it carefully. I called you a sucka' for a cheap fight: P. T. Barnum reference. LOL why would I do that? Just calling the kettle black dude. You don't even know me and yet you are willing to pick a fight over something you don't know jack shit about. Really. Not jack shit.

Anyway, for every 'killum' bad guy verse in the Qur'an they are usually followed quickly by a short verse or stanza that says something similar to "but the best of you will not (do said thing)or [will] know better.." etc.

You may also find it interesting to know that there is actually a verse that admits the "Arabs of the desert are the -worst- amongst you". You will also note that accusation is made without a reference to a religion but addressed to the larger population of 'you'. Meaning ALL Arabs: lumping Arabs of all three religions into a single accusation.

Then Qur'an also directs us to be respectful of any and all holy site of any religion (admittedly except idolaters. Though I choose to include them). Be honorable and respectful in all our relationships and dealings with the non-believer. In this instance 'non-believer' just means a non-Muslim. But you will likely take offense to it. And also allows unto marry anyone of any religion. Which I did. And glad for it.

If you are ever interested I suggest the Muhammad Asad translation. Born an Austrian Jew he traveled the middle east for his journalist job. His translation has the most historically accurate notes on just about every verse and his formal training in the Torah just adds to his understanding.

But that's assuming you even want to understand someone else outside of what Fox and Rush could tell you. Because they are like smart n stuff.

Me: I have only one last comment, and then I'm bailing out of this conversation. If the New Testament superseded and overruled the Old Testament, then are the Ten Commandments no longer in effect?

If they are still in effect, the Old Testament was not overridden by the New, and then we're back to the pick-and-choose cafeteria plan, which was, I believe, my point in the beginning of all this. People take what they can from their particular Holy Book to justify their actions.

The reason I am bailing is that, as much fun as this has been, none of us is going to "win". We all believe -- or disbelieve -- what we want, and we are free to do so.

You know, no matter what you do, someone is just not going to "get it". I could have gone on with this discussion endlessly, asking, for example, why the Old Testament is bound up with the New if it's been superseded, why so many Xians are so clutchy to the Ten Commandments and ignore the 11th, etc etc etc.

But essentially it's a waste of time arguing with these people. They'll never get it.

Now This Is Just Plain Stupid

Longtime readers of this blog know that I used to be a state employee here in the "Other Washington", so I know what I'm talking about when I say that Sarah Palin is stupid.

What am I talking about? Only the news that Caribou Barbie inappropriately charged her state over $20K in "travel expenses" to take her children along with her on expensive junkets.

The Associated Press broke the story yesterday, and it's a doozy:

The charges included costs for hotel and commercial flights for three daughters to join Palin to watch their father in a snowmobile race, and a trip to New York, where the governor attended a five-hour conference and stayed with 17-year-old Bristol for five days and four nights in a luxury hotel.
In all, Palin has charged the state $21,012 for her three daughters' 64 one-way and 12 round-trip commercial flights since she took office in December 2006. In some other cases, she has charged the state for hotel rooms for the girls.
Alaska law does not specifically address expenses for a governor's children. The law allows for payment of expenses for anyone conducting official state business.
As governor, Palin justified having the state pay for the travel of her daughters — Bristol, 17; Willow, 14; and Piper, 7 — by noting on travel forms that the girls had been invited to attend or participate in events on the governor's schedule.
But some organizers of these events said they were surprised when the Palin children showed up uninvited, or said they agreed to a request by the governor to allow the children to attend.
Several other organizers said the children merely accompanied their mother and did not participate. The trips enabled Palin, whose main state office is in the capital of Juneau, to spend more time with her children.

Jesus, what is the matter with these people? Is the background noise of corruption so goddam high over on the right wing that even the bureaucratic equivalent of shoplifting seems normal and acceptable?

When I was a state employee, falsifying travel expense vouchers was something that only the stupid did. Smart people didn't do it because it was so easy to get caught. We even had a commissioner -- the HMFIC of the agency -- lose his job over his abuse of travel reimbursements. And on first examination, what he did was not in substance different from what Caribou Barbie did.

And his now-infamous arrogant response when he got busted? "That's chump change."

And that's pretty much how it appears that Caribou Barbie sees it as well.

Vice President Palin? I don't think so.

Having it Both Ways

Yeah, I know that's a major "nudge-nudge-wink-wink" headline, which of course I write with a measured amount of trepidation, given the content of my earlier post today, but come on. Donald Trump and Sarah Palin as Neo-Birthers? Really???

The Donald, as he is unaffectionately known, is trying to carve out his own niche in presidential politics by attempting to resurrect the birther controversy about whether Obama was born here, etc etc blah blah blah.

So, in response to The Donald's sojourn into Total Fuckwackery, our favorite Great Huntress of The North, Caribou Barbie, aka Sarah Palin, is now on record as saying that (1) she "appreciates" Trump's questions, and she (2) "thinks" Obama was born in Hawaii because "there was the birth announcement put in the newspaper...[b]ut obviously there is something there that the president doesn't want people to see on that birth certificate, that he sees going to great lengths to make sure it isn't shown. And that's perplexing for a lot of people..."

All hail the final triumph of Fuckwackery over reason. Just because he is Donald Fucking Trump, all of a sudden he's a fucking expert on the topic. Perplexing, is it? Just to the feeble-minded and their cynical manipulators. Like you, Sarah and Donald.

But, to give credit where credit is due, supposedly The Donald has a "crack team" of investigators (by which I assume he does not mean "investigators on crack") on the job, and they undoubtedly will, once and for all, discover "The Truth" behind the secret Obama birth certificate.

But the proof of the pudding, as we all know, is in the eating, and I'm looking forward with baited breath to masticatingly mauling that lumpy, chewy indigestible mass, even as we speak.

And Sarah? She's trying to have it both ways.

No, stop it, get that mental image out of your diseased imagination. That's not what I meant. No, really, I mean it... Stop it.

The Captain Cook Question: An Absolutely True Sarah Palin Anecdote

 This really happened:

Sarah Palin was chatting with some fans after one of her book signings when she met a psychiatrist. While she was talking with him, she asked what is probably a fairly common question that psychiatrists must get a lot.

"Would you mind telling me, Doctor," she asked, "how you detect a mental deficiency in somebody who appears completely normal?"

"Nothing is easier," he replied. "You ask a simple question which anyone should answer with no trouble. If the person hesitates, that puts you on the track."

"What sort of question?" asked Sarah.

"Well, for example, you might say, 'Captain Cook made three trips around the world and died during one of them. Which one?'"

Sarah thought a moment, and then said with a nervous laugh, "You wouldn't happen to have another example would you? I must confess I don't know much about history..."

Okay, maybe it didn't really, actually, happen, but does anyone have a problem believing that it could have? Spread the word. This one has as much potential as the Dan Quayle story about his upcoming trip: "If I'd have known I was going to go to Latin America, I'd have paid more attention in Latin class." That of course was not true also, but since it sounded so much like something he might say, it developed legs of its own.

BTW, amonst the wingnuttery, the Captain Cook Question that is currently making the rounds is attached to Nancy Pelosi, but as Snopes points out it's been around for many years.

Sarah Palin: The Gift That Keeps on Giving

Sarah Palin just can't stand being out of the spotlight. Today I learned that she publicly called President Barack Obama "chicken" for not labeling all terrorists "Islamic terrorists", and also for not going to Paris for a photo-op at The March, where he would have met with world leaders that she despises, e.g., Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, the socialist president of France François Hollande, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Instead she calls the President "chicken". So the caliber of political discourse has dropped to the level of schoolyard taunts? Really?

But if he had gone, I am also 100% dead certain that she would use that against him, saying he was "pallin' around with terrorists". The President just can't win against the brain-dead nattering nabobs of negativism at Faux News.

In other news, Palin is bringing back her television show on some channel that is so far up the line that most remote controls can't handle the large number of punches it takes to get to it. I don't know what kind of knuckle-dragging mouth-breathing moron-American audience she gets, but they can't exceed about 75 on the IQ scale. And the total viewership surely can't make a nudge, or even a burp, in the Nielsens.

I hope she does stay in the spotlight as much as she can. It's like shooting fish in a barrel making snarky comments about her. They practically write themselves -- hell, she actually writes them for us.

It's probably too much to hope for that she'll make a run for the presidency next year.

Oh, and speaking of pallin' around with terrorists:

A Decision in Alaska

No, I'm not talking about the decision to change the channel before Sarah Palin's "nature show" starts, or ten seconds into it.

What I'm talking about is this: Finally, the Alaska senate race is over, and Lisa Murkowski has made history by being the first victorious write-in candidate in something like a million years.

I'm actually of two minds about the whole thing. I'm glad that Teabagger darling and Sarah Palin leg-humper Joe Miller lost, but the seat is still in the hands of the Rethugs.

So I'm not really celebrating, as such. Well, just a little in the way of schaudenfreude over yet another of Palin's hand-picked candidates biting the pillow dirt...

Sarah Palin Camel Toes

Okay, I'm the first to admit that it likely isn't HER. Nevertheless, here's a jackoff photo for my wingnut readers of Sarah showing "toes":

[Thanks to Stumble Upon for the image.]

Run Sarah Run and the Cambodian Genocide

Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts calls it in today's column. He really wants Sarah Palin to run for -- and win -- the Rethug nomination for prez in 2012.

He's serious about it:

Maybe you figure I think you'd be a weak candidate who would pave the way for President Obama's easy re-election.
That's not it. No, I want you to run because I believe a Palin candidacy would force upon this country a desperately needed moment of truth. It would require us to finally decide what kind of America we want to be.
Mrs. Palin, you are an avatar of the shameless hypocrisy and cognitive disconnection that have driven our politics for the last decade, a process of stupidification creeping like kudzu over our national life.
As Exhibit A, consider your recent speech at a so-called "tea party'' event, wherein you dismissed the president as a ``charismatic guy with a teleprompter.'' Bad enough you imply that teleprompter use is the mark of an insubstantial man, even though you and every other major politician uses them. But what made the comment truly jaw-dropping is that even as you spoke, you had penned on your left palm, clearly visible, a series of crib notes.
Mrs. Palin, if Obama is an idiot for reading a prepared speech off a teleprompter, what are you for reading notes you've inked on your hand like a school kid who failed to study for the big test?
In the Fox interview, you scored Obama for supposedly expecting Americans to "sit down and shut up'' and accept his policies. But when asked when the president has ever said that, you couldn't answer. Obama, you sputtered, has just been condescending with his "general persona.''
I found that a telling moment. See, ultimately what you represent is not conservatism. Heck, I suspect that somewhere, Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan are spinning like helicopter rotors at the very idea.
No, you represent the latest iteration of an anti-intellectualism that periodically rises in the American character. There is, historically and persistently, a belief in us that y'all just can't trust nobody who acts too smart or talks too good -- in other words, somebody whose "general persona'' indicates they may have once cracked a book or had a thought. Americans tend to believe common sense the exclusive province of humble folks without sheepskins on the wall or big words in their vocabularies.

It's that anti-intellectual strain in the American psyche that elbows its way to the front every now and then and turns professors into targets and smart people into defensive-posture hunkering.

It's part of the same mindset that when carried to its logical extreme caused Pol Pot to "cleanse" Cambodia of everyone who did not have honest calluses on his hands. In other words, the entire intellegentsia class was pretty much wiped out in the Cambodian genocide.

Could it happen here? Yeah I think so. I think it actually wouldn't take much to whip a mob of armed teabaggers into a lynching frenzy, to get them to storm the universities with torches and pitchforks. They are just that stupid and malleable.

So back to Leonard Pitts. There's an old saying, Leonard: Be careful what you ask for, because you might just get it...

Palin's Pallin' Around with Who?????

According to reports out of Hong Kong, Sarah I-See-London-I-See-Russia Palin spoke before a rapt -- or is that wrapped? -- audience in her first foray into the international-woman-of-mystery scene.

Reactions were ... mixed, shall we say. One European delegate to the CLSA Investors' Forum said that "she was brilliant". He spoke, however, under conditions of anonymity. Jeez, imagine that...

Two US delegates walked out, with one saying -- also anonymously -- that "it was awful, we couldn’t stand it any longer".

Read the snarky report over at The Raw Story, and you Rethugs out there, maybe you can explain this:

Palin also tackled the recent US trade spat with China, a country she said the United States should have the best possible relationship with.
According to delegates, she said US President Barack Obama’s administration worsened an already difficult situation when earlier this month he slapped duties on Chinese tire imports blamed for costing American jobs.

So, if I'm getting this right, Sarah Palin, after accusing Barack Obama with "pallin' around with terrorists", is now pallin' around with ... Communists??????

Oh, the horror, the horror...

Top Ten Palin Out Edition

In case you missed, this week's Top Ten Conservative Idiots gives the top three positions to none other than Sarah Palin, soon-to-be (but-not-soon-enough) ex-governor of Wasilla, Alaska. (Note that I say Wasilla and not the entire state -- little old pit bull/hockey mom Sarah couldn't be bothered to actually go to the state capital in Juneau to perform her duties, perfunctory though they might have been. But hey, you can see Russia from Wasilla, ya betcha!)

My personal favorite? Number three, which talks at length about Sarah P. pouring the cold water of reality over Rich Lowry's boner. Remember last year, when he had this to say about her:

I'm sure I'm not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, "Hey, I think she just winked at me." And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America. [emphasis added]

Oh, how things can change. Now Lowry has this to say:

...she needs substance, not the hackneyed sound bites she clings to for dear life...she needs a positive program, not just the hatred of conservatism’s favorite enemies. On this score, her premature exit from the governorship makes her task all the more arduous. As the soon-to-be-former half-term governor of a small state, she makes that other prominent populist social conservative, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, look formidably credentialed in comparison.

Jeez, just don't tell me Lowry's got a boner for Huckleberry now...