Great Plains Observer

Is This Really The Best Group To Be Doing This?

2011-11-16T12:57:00.000-06:00

Who better to partner with schools to educate the public about child sex abuse in the wake of the Penn State scandal than the organization that perpetrated the biggest child abuse scandal of our time? Yep the poster child for child rape, the Catholic Church, wants to help.

The Roman Catholic Church is willing to partner with American educational institutions to educate the public about child sex abuse after the Penn State scandal, according to the head of the U.S. church.

"One of the good things God might bring out of this evil and this tragedy would be now some type of alliance between religion and the educational establishment in a major national campaign to see that this is faced head on," said Archbishop Timothy Dolan, the top Catholic official in the United States.

You just can't make this stuff up.

Apparently $6.2 Billion Doesn't Go As Far As It Used To

2011-11-16T08:45:00.001-06:00

Having been stationed on 3 different aircraft carriers during my time in the Navy I can remember when $6.2 billion would buy US taxpayers a ship that had toilets that usually worked at least somewhere. True we had many issues in isolated areas of the ship often caused by clothing or some other type of foreign object being flushed but what is going on onboard the Navy's newest carrier, the George H.W. Bush, is something else altogether.

The Navy’s newest aircraft carrier has a messy problem. Since deploying in May, the Norfolk, Va.-based carrier George H.W. Bush has grappled with widespread toilet outages, at times rendering the entire ship without a single working head.

But it’s no laughing matter. Sailors tell of combing the ship for up to an hour to find a place to do their business, if they can find one at all. Others have resorted to urinating in showers or into the industrial sinks in their work stations. Some men are using bottles and emptying the contents over the giant ship’s side, while some women are holding it in for so long that they are developing health problems, according to sources on the ship.

The article goes on to document that since the ship was commissioned in early 2009, the poor snipes in the Bush's engineering department have spent over 10,000 man hours keeping the waste system operational including at least one 35 hour stretch where not one of the 400 plus toilets worked.

So what does the Navy have to say about their $6 billion dollar plumbing headache?

Instead of calling out the contractor who supplied the system that the Navy freely admits was designed with unusually narrow waste pipes, they blame the sailors on the USS Bush all while claiming that a 94% uptime for the system that has no back up is acceptable.

The Navy, in a written statement, acknowledged problems with the system since the ship was delivered in May 2009. Sailors have spent more than 10,000 man hours addressing the toilets’ vacuum system on this deployment, averaging roughly 25 calls per week for commode problems. Most problems were fixed within 24 hours, with some requiring just a few minutes of work, said a statement from Naval Air Force Atlantic, adding that the ship had a “94 percent availability of commodes” throughout the deployment.

AIRLANT said most issues occurred when inappropriate materials were flushed down the toilets. Sailors onboard the ship said that everything from feminine hygiene products to clothes have been unclogged from the network of pipes. When used as intended, the system works well and most problems can be fixed in minutes, AIRLANT said.

As a former sailor I can tell you that of course 94% availability is fine...as long as you don't have to go during the other 6% and throw in a few 35 hour system wide outages and 94% doesn't look as rosy. Even on the USS Midway, a 45 year old ship at the time I was stationed on her, these types of outages were unheard of but would at least be understandable. But on a 2 year old state of the art carrier?

Come on now...

Hot Coffee

2011-11-14T07:00:00.000-06:00

Tort reform has been a buzz word in our political landscape for quite some time. Who couldn't be against getting rid of frivolous lawsuits right?

Susan Saladoff, director of the HBO documentary Hot Coffee, explains that tort reform isn't the silver bullet that we have been led to believe.

The Colbert Report
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If you have HBO I recommend that you see this via OnDemand or HBO Go if not, the DVD is now available. Watch it!

Supposed Family Oriented Hate Group Gives 100% Rating To Rep That Refuses To Pay Child Support

2011-11-04T10:10:00.000-05:00

The South Dakota War College recently made a big deal over the Family Research Council's (FRC) 0% rating given to South Dakota Senator Tim Johnson. So with that in mind I figured I would add some perspective and show what exactly someone must do to gain the approval of the group which made the Southern Poverty Law Center's list of hate groups.

Illinois freshman House Republican Joe Walsh was recently awarded a 100% rating from the FRC for what they called his "unwavering support of the family" and Walsh was more than happy to accept.

“We thank Cong. Walsh who has voted consistently to defend faith, family and freedom,” said FRCA President Tony Perkins. “Cong. Walsh and other ‘True Blue Members’ have voted to repeal Obamacare, de-fund Planned Parenthood, end government funding for abortion within the health care law, uphold the Defense of Marriage Act, and continue support for school choice. I applaud their commitment to uphold the institutions of marriage and family.”

“I am proud and honored to be recognized by the Family Research Council as the only member from Illinois with a 100 percent pro-family voting record,” Walsh said in a news release. “Defending American values have always been one of my top priorities, and this reward reaffirms my dedication to that fight.”

So what exactly are some of Walsh's family value highlights? How about allegedly being over $100,000 behind on his child support payments.

The freshman congressman's ex-wife, Laura Walsh, filed the claim against him in December as part of their divorce case, saying he owed $117,437 to her and their three children, the Chicago Sun-Times reported in a story published Wednesday. She contends that Walsh loaned his own campaign $35,000 and took international vacations but said he couldn't afford child support payments because he was between jobs or out of work.

Sounds pretty pro family to me, too bad Senator Johnson can't live up to these standards...

Milking The Gullible Continues To Be Profitable

2011-11-01T11:40:00.003-05:00

You would think that selling yourself as the doomsday prophet and then having the date of your prophecy come and go without incident would be bad for your reputation but what about 3 times?

Harold Camping, the Family Radio preacher who predicted the end of the world for the first time way back in 1994, has apparently left the rapture business after incorrectly predicting it not once but twice this year alone.

For the past five months, Harold Camping's Family Radio website had posted on its main page an "explanation" of why the world did not end on May 21 and why it would truly end on Oct. 21. Four days after Camping's failed doomsday date, however, that explanation has been removed, suggesting that Family Radio may be out of the rapture prediction business.

But before anyone starts to feel sorry for the man who's supposed unquestioned faith proved to be wrong you should know that playing on the beliefs of the faithful can be quite profitable, like 75 million dollar profitable. Certainly no vow of poverty for this preacher...

So what is worse, predicting the end of days at least 3 different times by pulling arbitrary dates out of your rear end and banking millions while doing it or sending money to the guy who did?

So in honor of Harold Camping, I predict the rapture will happen January 3rd, 2024 (no particular biblical reason, I just pulled the date out of my ass). Any Camping follower or anyone else that truly believes, feel free to send money to me at the link in my sidebar so I can spread the word.

Sanctity Of Marriage

2011-10-31T11:45:00.001-05:00

It sure is a good thing that we have the religious Conservatives working on our side to prevent gays from marrying and ruining the sanctity of all our marriages. After all we all know how seriously straight couples take the sanctity of that institution and we sure wouldn't want to ruin that...

Kim Kardashian is filing for divorce just 72 days after tying the knot with Kris Humphries in a lavish ceremony that was taped for her reality show.

Religions Of The World Explained

2011-10-23T09:58:00.001-05:00

Study By Climate Change Skeptic Ends Up Proving Climate Change

2011-10-22T18:41:00.001-05:00

What is even funnier than a global warming skeptic and physicist performing a study to disprove climate change that actually proves it? How about it being funded by the Koch brothers...

Back in 2010, Richard Muller, a Berkeley physicist and self-proclaimed climate skeptic, decided to launch the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) project to review the temperature data that underpinned global-warming claims. Remember, this was not long after the Climategate affair had erupted, at a time when skeptics were griping that climatologists had based their claims on faulty temperature data.

Muller’s stated aims were simple. He and his team would scour and re-analyze the climate data, putting all their calculations and methods online. Skeptics cheered the effort. “I’m prepared to accept whatever result they produce, even if it proves my premise wrong,” wrote Anthony Watts, a blogger who has criticized the quality of the weather stations in the United Statse that provide temperature data. The Charles G. Koch Foundation even gave Muller’s project $150,000 — and the Koch brothers, recall, are hardly fans of mainstream climate science.

So what are the end results? Muller’s team appears to have confirmed the basic tenets of climate science. Back in March, Muller told the House Science and Technology Committee that, contrary to what he expected, the existing temperature data was “excellent.” He went on: “We see a global warming trend that is very similar to that previously reported by the other groups.” And, today, the BEST team has released a flurry of new papers that confirm that the planet is getting hotter. As the team’s two-page summary flatly concludes, “Global warming is real.

Translating Conserva-Speak

2011-10-22T09:19:00.001-05:00

Translations for some of the more popular right wing talking points from Anything But Theist:

Support our troops (Kill foreigners)
I oppose big government (I hate when Democrats do anything)
Family values (I decide what families should be)
Obama is a Nazi Socialist (I know nothing about Nazis, Socialism, or Obama)
America first (Me second, everyone else third)
Only 53% pay taxes (Tax kids, the elderly and the comatose!)
Wealth will trickle down (The rich are pissing on us)
I’m pro-life (Unless you’re a black convict or lack health insurance)
Liberal bias (Science and history)
I don’t see color (I ignore minorities)

Don't Worry

2011-10-22T09:19:00.000-05:00

I Truly Miss George Carlin

2011-10-04T13:18:00.000-05:00

George Carlin explains as only he can why efforts like the ongoing "Occupy Wall Street" protests are so important. (NSFW)

There's a reason education sucks, and it's the same reason that it will never, ever, ever be fixed. It's never going to get any better, don't look for it, be happy with what you've got. Because the owners of this country don't want that. I'm talking about the real owners, now. The real owners, the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions -- forget the politicians.

The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land, they own and control the corporations; they've long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the State houses, the City Halls; they've got the judges in their back pockets, and they own all the big media companies so they control just about all the news and information you get to hear. They gotcha by the balls.

They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying -- lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want -- they want more for themselves and less for everybody else. But I'll tell you what they don't want. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that, that doesn't help them. That's against their interests. That's right. They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they're getting fucked by system that threw them overboard 30 fuckin' years ago. They don't want that. You know what they want? They want obedient workers.

People who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork, and just dumb enough to passably accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime, and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it.

And now they're comin' for your Social Secuirty Money. They want your fuckin' retirement money. They want it back. So they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They'll get it. They'll get it all from you sooner or later -- 'cuz they own this fuckin' place.

It's a big club. And you ain't in it. You and I are not in the big club. By the way, it's the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long, beating you over the in their media telling you what to believe -- what to think -- and what to buy. The table is tilted, folks. The game is rigged. And nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. Good honest hard-workin people -- white collar, blue collar -- doesn't matter what color shirt you have on. Good honest hard-workin people continue -- these are people of modest means -- continue to elect these rich cocksuckers who don't give a fuck about them.

They don't give a fuck about you, they don't give a fuck about you. they don't care about you -- at all. You know? And nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care ... that's what the owners count on, the fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick that's being jammed up their assholes every day. Because the owners of this country know the truth.

It's called the American Dream ... 'cuz you have to be asleep to believe it.

Thanks to PZ Myers

Congress Isn't Too Popular Are They?

2011-09-23T10:53:00.000-05:00

Saw this on Facebook this morning and figured I would share.

A driver is stuck in a traffic jam on the highway. Nothing is moving. Suddenly, a man knocks on the window. The driver rolls down the window and asks, "What's going on?"

"Terrorists have kidnapped Congress and are asking for a $10 million dollar ransom. Otherwise, they're going to douse them all in gasoline and set them on fire. We're going from car to car, taking up a collection."

"How much is everyone giving, on average?" the driver asks.

The man replies, "About a gallon."

Labor Day, A Day To Celebrate The Demise Of American Labor

2011-09-05T10:47:00.000-05:00

Labor Day, a federal holiday to celebrate American labor since 1894 when it was rushed through Congress in an attempt to head off further conflicts after the killing of numerous striking workers by the US authorities, seems to have lost some of its luster lately.

Currently as many as 16-20% of the US population is either unemployed or underemployed all while many US companies are seeing record profits often on the backs of cheap foreign labor. Since 1973, private sector union membership has declined from 34% down to approximately 8% while at the same time wage inequality in the private sector has increased by more than 40 percent. (no correlation there right?) Hardly numbers to to be celebrated.

While many are looking for work, Apple the US based darling of Wall Street and one of the biggest companies as far as revenue generated gives us a good example of the current labor/business relationship such as it is.

In 2009, the materials to make an iPhone cost Apple $172.46 and the Chinese labor to assemble it added another $6.50. Given those numbers, Apple had a profit margin of around 64% on each and every iPhone sold. Now look at what those numbers might be if Apple decided to manufacture that same iPhone in the US:

For the sake of discussion, they assumed that assembly line wages in the U.S. are ten times higher than in China. Given that Chinese production workers earn roughly $1 an hour, that is not an unreasonable assumption. The higher wages would mean that the total assembly cost per phone would rsie to $65 and the total manufacturing cost would approach $238. If Apple continued to sell the iPhone for $500, the company would still earn a very respectable 50% profit margin.

Yep, Apple would be forced to only make a 50% profit margin on each unit and 1000's of new jobs would be created. Obviously the example above isn't completely accurate as you can't touch an unsubsidized iPhone for anywhere near $500 and it doesn't take into account any benefits that Apple might chose to offer those imaginary workers but you get the picture.

Now despite how it sounds, I am not going to turn this into another "corporations are greedy" meme, well maybe I will a little bit, and I freely admit that Apple is free to run their business as they see fit and to make as much money as possible. Heck if Nike can employ a workforce of children in the 3rd world to make their $200 shoes why can't Apple also take advantage of cheap labor to make their toys? I only point this out to show how the current climate is taking us down the road to a 3rd world wake up call in which we could eventually become the next former superpower. Our education system is already well on its way there, so how long before that $1 an hour assembly job starts looking good here as well?

So on this Labor Day when we find that being employed in the government sector is bad for your employment prospects and private business is not creating jobs despite banking trillions in profits, maybe we should consider changing the name of the Labor Day holiday. How does Boardroom Day sound? We can make it a day when all the CEO's collect their multi-million dollar bonus checks and we can stand in line to collect our latest unemployment checks.

After all if you are unemployed, do you really need another day off?

Registering Poor To Vote Is Like Giving Burglary Tools To Criminals

2011-09-02T19:52:00.000-05:00

Believe it or not that is the contention of Matthew Vadum writing in the ironically named rag the American Thinker.

Why are left-wing activist groups so keen on registering the poor to vote?

Because they know the poor can be counted on to vote themselves more benefits by electing redistributionist politicians. Welfare recipients are particularly open to demagoguery and bribery.

Registering them to vote is like handing out burglary tools to criminals. It is profoundly antisocial and un-American to empower the nonproductive segments of the population to destroy the country -- which is precisely why Barack Obama zealously supports registering welfare recipients to vote.

So there you have it, only the rich should be allowed to vote because only the most productive ones in society should have that right. Besides they certainly would never fall victim to false claims or bribes...

DOJ Sues To Block AT&T/T-Mobile Merger

2011-08-31T12:24:00.001-05:00

To be honest I am completely shocked by this considering all the pro-merger hype and the rubber stamp big business seems to be wielding these days, but the Department of Justice announced this morning that they would be suing to block the proposed merger between AT&T and T-Mobile.

Right now, four nationwide providers account for more than 90 percent of the mobile wireless connections in America, and preserving competition among them is crucial. For instance, AT&T and T-Mobile currently compete head-to-head in 97 of the nation’s largest 100 cellular marketing areas. They also compete nationwide to attract business and government customers. Were the merger to proceed, there would only be three providers with 90 percent of the market, and competition among the remaining competitors on all dimensions—including price, quality, and innovation—would be diminished.

As can be seen in the Department’s complaint, AT&T felt competitive pressure from T-Mobile. One example cites an AT&T employee observing that “[T-Mobile] was first to have HSPA+ devices in their portfolio…we added them in reaction to potential loss of speed claims.”

So as you can see, a merged AT&T and T-Mobile would combine two of the four largest competitors in the marketplace, and would eliminate T-Mobile, an aggressive competitor, from the market.

As one would imagine given the seeming certainty that this was going to fly through the approval process, AT&T is livid.

We are surprised and disappointed by today’s action, particularly since we have met repeatedly with the Department of Justice and there was no indication from the DOJ that this action was being contemplated.

We plan to ask for an expedited hearing so the enormous benefits of this merger can be fully reviewed. The DOJ has the burden of proving alleged anti-competitive affects and we intend to vigorously contest this matter in court.

At the end of the day, we believe facts will guide any final decision... We remain confident that this merger is in the best interest of consumers and our country, and the facts will prevail in court.

Now barring a reversal by the DOJ, not only will Ma Bell not be allowed to swallow up a competitor, they will be on the hook to T-Mobile for $3 billion and all kinds of 3G roaming rights and US mobile customers will not lose one of a dwindling number of choices for cell service. So at least for now it seems that big business lost and customers won.

Can the Obama is anti-business meme be too far behind?

Disaster Aid The Next Political Hostage?

2011-08-26T19:35:00.000-05:00

If comments from House Majority Leader Eric Cantor are to be believed, the Tea Bag wing of the Grand Old Party might be looking to tie any disaster aid requested in the wake of this week's earthquake and hurricane on the East Coast to spending cuts before getting House approval.

Cantor raised some eyebrows on Wednesday when, in the aftermath of the 5.8 magnitude earthquake that rattled the East Coast and originated in his district, he said Congress will help those hurt by the earthquake but will require finding offsets for any federal aid.

"When there's a disaster there's an appropriate federal role and we will find the monies," Cantor said during a news conference in Mineral, Va. "But we've had discussions about these things before and those monies will be offset with appropriate savings or cost-cutting elsewhere in order to meet the priority of the federal government's role in a situation like this."

Pandering To The Tea Party Not Such A Good Idea Anymore

2011-08-25T17:46:00.001-05:00

Some recent polling seems to show that the Tea Party has lost some of the luster it had during the last election cycle.

Polls show that disapproval of the Tea Party is climbing. In April 2010, a New York Times/CBS News survey found that 18 percent of Americans had an unfavorable opinion of it, 21 percent had a favorable opinion and 46 percent had not heard enough. Now, 14 months later, Tea Party supporters have slipped to 20 percent, while their opponents have more than doubled, to 40 percent.

Those numbers aren't pretty but if you really want to put their growing unpopularity into perspective, Tea Partiers (and by extension the Religious Right) are even less popular than us lowly Atheists!

Of course, politicians of all stripes are not faring well among the public these days. But in data we have recently collected, the Tea Party ranks lower than any of the 23 other groups we asked about — lower than both Republicans and Democrats. It is even less popular than much maligned groups like “atheists” and “Muslims.” Interestingly, one group that approaches it in unpopularity is the Christian Right.

I guess people have finally gotten tired of be called every word in the dictionary ending in "ist" every time they don't agree with the tea bagger's warped ideology.

Under President Bachmann Gas Will Be Under $2 A Gallon

2011-08-20T10:08:00.000-05:00

Michele Bachmann promises that she has a plan that would somehow cut gas prices in half to under $2 a gallon gas if she becomes President. All we have to do is open up our domestic drilling and somehow make oil shale production profitable at $50 a barrel.

“The day that the president became president gasoline was $1.79 a gallon. Look at what it is today,” she said at an event in Greenville, S.C.. “Under President Bachmann, you will see gasoline come down below $2 a gallon again. That will happen.”

Who knew it would be so easy to tame the speculation and world oil markets?

(via)

Bachmann: Even Hypothetical Cuts Are Fake

2011-08-15T06:00:00.001-05:00

During the Iowa GOP debate the other night the candidates were asked a hypothetical question on whether they would accept a debt reduction bill if it was setup so that it included a 10 to 1 cut to tax increase ratio. Everyone on the stage being the good tea bagging suckups that they are, raised their hands to say that they wouldn't

Yesterday during an interview with Fox's Chris Wallace, Michele Bachmann was asked to explain why she wouldn't agree to such a debit deal that would in theory be a big win for the GOP:

WALLACE: Let's go back to that moment in the debate, though, when you -- and I've got to say, all the other candidates on that stage said that you would walk away from a debt deal, here it is right here, $10 in real spending cuts, to $1 in revenue increases. 10-1. Even Reagan's top economic adviser, Marty Feldstein, said that is too hard-line, that that would be walking away from a huge conservative victory.

BACHMANN: Well, I think probably Reagan would be the best example, because Reagan was going to get $3 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax increases. It ended up being $3 in tax increases for every $1 in spending cuts. That's the way it works in D.C. The deal sounds so rosy in the very beginning, and usually the cuts are illusory, they are off into future years. And of course one Congress can't bind the next Congress, and a Congress lasts for two years. So we can't bind what future Congresses can do. We can beat our chests and be really proud and say, oh, we're going to cut trillions of dollars, but we can't guarantee what future Congresses will do. That's why no one would take that deal on the Fox stage of the debate, because we all know that they're fake cuts, essentially. They sound good. They're soundbites, but they are not real.

Yep, that's right, Bachmann said she wouldn't vote for a hypothetical debt deal that might take a few dollars from the rich in the form of higher taxes because the cuts would be fake, you know the hypothetical cuts that weren't even specified!

The Koch brothers have her trained well don't they?

Ok Iowa, Very Funny. So Who Really Won?

2011-08-14T09:18:00.003-05:00

Michele Bachmann (R-Mars) won Iowa's straw poll yesterday which if anything shows that Iwegians have a sense of humor (please Iowa tell me you were joking) and satirist Andy Borowitz reacts.

Calling the results of today’s Iowa straw poll “alarming,” Standard and Poor’s took the unprecedented action of downgrading Iowa’s IQ.

While the effects of such an extraordinary measure are hard to predict, experts say the IQ downgrade could result in Iowans having difficulty completing sentences or operating a television remote.

“This downgrade would be very upsetting to Republicans in Iowa,” said an S & P spokesman. “Fortunately, there’s no way they’ll understand it.”

And in other Iowa straw poll related news, some other Minnesotan called it quits after Iowans wondered who this guy was on their straw poll ballot.

San Francisco's Transit Authority Goes The Way Of Egypt To Quell Protest

2011-08-13T14:53:00.000-05:00

One of the ways governments in the Middle East have used to try to break up the protests has been put to use right here in the US. When San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) heard rumors that people were planning to protest a BART officer's shooting of a local resident last month, they put into place several tactics including contacting cell phone providers having them shut down the towers serving 4 BART stations for 3 hours.

The protests never materialized calling into question whether they ever were going to happen in the first place but the approach used by BART and the fact that other governments including England are now looking into employing similar procedures has some wondering about the government infringing on the rights of its citizens.

BART has been the target of outrage since it successfully jammed cell signals at its stations. Hackers have already broadcasted their ire, with a digital flyer entitled “muBARTek,” a reference to the former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s own efforts to jam cell service in his country during mounting protests.

In response to the allegations that BART is infringing on first amendment rights to free speech, the transit service said, "BART accommodates expressive activities that are constitutionally protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and the Liberty of Speech Clause of the California Constitution (expressive activity), and has made available certain areas of its property for expressive activity...."

So what do you think, did BART go to far? Does the government have the right to purposefully control access to technology to stop peaceful protests?

And maybe more importantly, what is happening to folks in the Bay Area if they can't organize and carry out a decent protest without having cell phone coverage? I seem to remember that Northern Californian's used to be quite good at that whole protest thing long before anyone had ever heard of a cell phone.

Fischer: God Only Allows A Woman To Be President As A Last Resort

2011-08-13T13:15:00.002-05:00

The American Family Association's Bryan Fischer, buddy of newly announced GOP Presidential candidate Rick Perry and co-sponsor of his hate filled "Response" prayer-athon, has definite ideas on what place women should have in our culture and it doesn't include the White House. Unless there are no men available to do the job that is...

If you look at the Scriptures, I believe it's clear that God has designed men to exercise authority in the home, in the church, in society, and in government. So let me repeat that - that is my personal take on what the Scriptures indicate about the way God has designed man and woman to work: God has designed men to exercise leadership and authority and headship in the home, in the church, in society, and in government.

Now then the question becomes what if God can't find any men with the spine and with the testicular fortitude to provide the kind of leadership? Well, what he'll do is He'll send a woman to do a man's job.

Rick Perry must be so proud.

Keeping Up Appearances

2011-08-13T10:56:00.000-05:00

Apparently Michele Bachmann was more concerned with keeping up appearances than she was in boning up on the issues for the latest Iowa GOP debate.

In a Twitter post that evening, Jennifer Jacobs, a Des Moines Register reporter, wrote, “Bachmann left the stage at every commercial break, even during the last one, when the Fox crew corralled her and asked her to stay,” and someone with knowledge of what happened confirmed that account. They said that Mrs. Bachmann insisted on leaving in order to touch up her makeup, even after Fox employees warned her that leaving during such short breaks was risky.

At least she looked good while falsely telling us that raising the debt ceiling gave Barack Obama a blank check to add more debt.

Michele Bachmann repeated a false claim that raising the debt ceiling
is giving Obama a $2.4 trillion "blank check." She also adds another
misleading statement that the debt-ceiling agreement — known as the
Budget Control Act of 2011 — will result in only "$21 billion in
illusory cuts."

Bachmann, Aug. 11: It was very important that we not raise the debt ceiling, because — consider what happened. The Congress gave Barack Obama a blank check for $2.4 trillion. What did the American people get in return? $21 billion in illusory cuts.

As we have written before, a "blank check" means unlimited spending. But the administration is limited under the agreement to new borrowing of between $2.1 trillion and $2.4 trillion, depending on future congressional actions, as the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office explained in an Aug. 1 analysis of the deal. Also, the administration cannot spend money without congressional authorization. The borrowed money will go to pay obligations Congress has already approved or will approve.

As for the "$21 billion in illusory cuts," Bachmann is referring to the estimated impact on the federal deficit in the first year. The CBO estimates that the debt-ceiling agreement would reduce the federal deficit by $2.1 trillion over 10 years, including $756 billion over that time by capping discretionary spending.

Fox Shuts Down Comments On Hip Hop BBQ Post But Leaves Headline That Incited Them

2011-08-12T11:36:00.001-05:00

It seems Fox Nation's post on Barack Obama's 50th birthday party titled "Obama's Hip-Hop BBQ Didn't Create Jobs" spurred so many racist and defamatory responses that they had to shut down the comments on the article completely.

On Friday, Fox News' Fox Nation website was forced to shut down comments on a post that referred to President Obama's 50th birthday party as a "Hip-Hop BBQ," after receiving many submissions that were racist. "We found many of the comments to be offensive and inappropriate and they have been removed," Bill Shine, the executive vice president of Fox News programming, told The Cutline on Friday.

As noted, Fox was forced to shut down the comments on this post but yet apparently still doesn't have any problem with the headline that initiated the comments as it remains. Of course this just further highlights the outright hatred demonstrated by many at Fox and from those that drink the Fox Kool Aid and is just the latest in a continuing pattern of hatred by Fox and many of their followers.

All that seems to be missing from Fox's logo are men in hoods wearing white sheets and a burning cross.

Stewart: They're Really Only Entitlements When They're Something Other People Want

2011-08-12T10:55:00.000-05:00

Jon Stewart uses Fox News' Megan Kelly's rant about the criticism she received from conservative radio host Mike Gallagher about her maternity leave to point out the hypocrisy of the anti-entitlement crowd.

The Daily Show
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