Air Force refuses a fly-over of a religious rally, and nutty Christians get all bent up

That accurately summarizes this dumbass story, methinks. Every year, the Christian Defense Coalition organizes the "God and Country Festival" in Idaho, and every year, they get the Air Force to perform a fly-over. Nothing screams patriotism like seeing jets roar over your festival, eh?

Problem is, this year the Air Force flatly refused to fly over the festival, and so of course those poor little Christians got all bent and huffin', and here's what Rev. Mahoney, leader of the farce, had to say about it:

"For years, flyovers have been allowed by the Pentagon at the 'God and Country Rally' in Nampa Idaho. These flyovers were not to endorse or promote any one religious faith tradition. Rather, they were held to honor and pay tribute to our heroic men and women who have served or are currently serving in our armed forces. "For the Obama Administration to deny a flyover for the first time, is a slap in the face to all those who proudly serve our country especially when we are at war. These flyovers have been a special part of the 'God and Country Rally' for many years.

Indeed, that does sound pretty bad – unless you actually take a few moments and dig into the festival's goals and mission and discover Mahoney is nothing more than a big fat fucking liar:

Our mission is primarily about spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ. We believe this Festival, started in 1967, is an incredible tool to share this Good News by strengthening the fabric of our society through our connection to family and country.

We want to encourage believers everywhere to get out in their communities, not just to strengthen each other, but to encourage family, friends, neighbors, and coworkers to learn more about who Jesus Christ is and what He's done for each and every one of us.

To borrow a phrase from Michael Boerner of Mission Media,

In order to witness to people, you have to do the following:

• Bless people
• Fellowship with them
• Meet their needs
• Present the Truth

This, in a nutshell, is what the Treasure Valley God and Country Festival attempts to do. The stated purpose of the Festival is to meet the following goals:

1. Develop a sense of community spirit in a relaxed, social atmosphere, making all citizens of the Treasure Valley feel welcome in friendship.
2. Present a safe, pleasing, and inspiring fireworks display to commemorate our country's independence.
3. Dedicate a significant portion of the program to emphasizee, particularly to young people, the precepts on which our country was founded: Individual rights, belief in God, a representative form of government guided by an assemblage of laws created by elected individuals, sanctity of human life, and all other rights outlined in the Constitution and its supporting documents.
4. Present the Good News of Jesus Christ in a clear and concise manner.
5. Avoid any pretense or appearance of a political rally.
6. Remind those who attend of their good fortune to live in a free society and also their responsibilities to maintain the freedoms which they enjoy.

We are attempting to meet steps one and two, to bless people and fellowship with them, through music, kids' activities, and teens' activities.

After we have done that, we attempt to accomplish step three, to meet their needs, by promoting community activities such as "Communities in Action," and other organizations whose goal is to meet peoples' needs with a Christian heart.

At the end of the evening, we move to step four, presenting the Truth. Each year, we ensure that the message of the Gospel is presented, and information is provided for those who have heard and want to know more about Jesus Christ.

I don't see how any group whose mission statement mentions Jesus Christ every few words can really be seen as secular or non-religious. That was nothing but a baldfaced lie, and Mahoney knows it. There isn't a single word anywhere in that load of waffle about "honoring and paying tribute" to the military, so everything Mahoney's whined about was nothing but complete lies, rendering him into nothing more than an asshat demagogue.

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Even fellow Republicans agree Michele Bachmann is nuts

I wonder how bad that must sting, having three fellows from your own party call you out on your absurd levels of stupidity. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA) and John Mica (R-FL) have written a letter to the idiotic Minnesota representative, calling her out over her public decision to deliberately leave most Census questions unanswered.

“We share Ms. Bachmann’s concerns about ACORN’s involvement in the 2010 Census and will continue pressuring the Bureau to follow their own guidelines for partnering organizations and dump ACORN. However, we can not emphasize enough how important it is for every individual to fill out their census forms.

“Every elected representative in this country should feel a responsibility to encourage full participation in the census. To do otherwise is to advocate for a smaller share of federal funding for our constituents. Boycotting the constitutionally-mandated census is illogical, illegal and not in the best interest of our country.

“The unfortunate irony is that Ms. Bachmann’s boycott only increases the likelihood that ACORN-recruited census takers will be dispatched to her constituents’ homes. Anyone who completes and returns their census form will remove any need for a census taker to visit their residence.

“Furthermore, a boycott opens the door for partisans to statistically adjust census results. The partisan manipulation of census data would irreparably transform the census from being the baseline of our entire statistical system into a tool used to wield political power in Washington.”

For once, I actually agree with a Republican's views on a matter. Lord knows how often that happens. You know you've gotta be downright insane when fellow Republicans openly state you should be sent to cuckooland.

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Somewhere, Bush, Cheney & co. are smiling

In yet another move that keeps the Obama administration that much closer to the very administration they vowed to distance themselves from, the General Counsel for the Department of Defense said they won't rule out detaining ex-terrorism suspects even after they'd been officially acquitted.

Defense Department General Counsel Jeh Johnson moved the Obama administration into new territory from a civil liberties perspective. Asked by Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) the politically difficult but entirely fair question about whether terrorism detainees acquitted in courts could be released in the United States, Johnson said that “as a matter of legal authority,” the administration’s powers to detain someone under the law of war don’t expire for a detainee after he’s acquitted in court. “If you have authority under the law of war to detain someone” under the Supreme Court’s Hamdi ruling, “that is true irrespective of what happens on the prosecution side.”

Right. Who cares if the guy has nothing to do with terrorism after all? Just keep 'im locked away anyway, not like he'll be missed.

How many more lies, backtracking and broken promises are we gonna see from the Obama administration? While compared to Bush and his cronies they still look like angels, but that's just because Bush & co. were so utterly pathetic. Seriously, Obama can, and should, do much better. Endlessly dragging his feet on the reversal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", his pussyfooting around gay rights and gay marriage issues, his continued latching-onto the States Secrets bullshit, and a long "etc." show he's going down a road we all prayed was the one we were specifically gonna distance ourselves from.

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At what point is it acceptable (or encouraged) for a guy to hit a girl?

I'll probably be drawing the wrath from feminists and general girl/woman readers with this, but this is my blog and damned if I'm not gonna post what I think, how I think it. :P

I just read a report from seattlepi.com, and it made me think about certain things. In addition to my usual commentary and reactions to what it described, I also embarked on a sort of moral-slash-philosophical debate, described below.

Of course, one of the greatest "moral rules" of being a guy in our society, is that no boy or man can ever – EVER – hit a girl or woman. Ever. As in, she'd be burning your house down, eating your kitten, killing your family and stealing your horse all the while trying to kill you, and you still couldn't hit her. (Extreme hyperbole, yes, but you get the idea.)

I'm not trying to sound cavalier about this; rather, I'm trying to express how I feel about the custom that guys can never hit girls (unless perhaps in certain cases of self-defense), no matter how very badly said girls can deserve it at times. But then, that would just raise a whole bunch of other rhetorical and ethical questions: "where do you draw the line?" "When is it acceptable to hit a girl?" "And if so, how much are you 'allowed' to do so before it passes from acceptable to mere malice?" and etc. I'm trying to take this on from an intellectual, logical standpoint rather than an emotional or instinctual one.

For example: say a group of fancy rich girls start to gang around and harass an innocent, unpopular girl. Say they start to bully that girl for a long time, driving the victim positively miserable, and so forth.

Would it be okay, then, to walk up, grab them by the hair, yank them away, and yell at them to fuck off lest something horrible happen to them?

Or, another example. Say a 16-year-old girl sets her pitbull loose on a group made of a mother and her children, with no apparent motive other than she can, or that she's just a bitch who enjoys hurting folks. Say she even screams at you, and actually starts to beat you over the head and shoulders, chasing you around, etc.

Shouldn't you be "allowed" to give her one very good punch to the face and show her she'd better go the fuck away if she knew what was good for her?

'Cause that's what I would've done in this case, and I sure as hell wouldn't have felt the slightest moral wrongness about it.

A 16-year-old girl was charged Monday with two counts of third-degree assault for attacking two women in SeaTac last month. Deputies say her pit bull also joined the attacks.

But deputies who have been searching for her since last week can't find her, and an arrest warrant has been issued. The girl also was charged with one count of being a minor in possession of liquor.

More in-depth details on the full affair below:

On the evening of June 21, a woman stopped at a Burien gas station, where she said she saw a pit bull being abused by the girl and three other juvenile boys, according to court documents.

When the woman told her not to kick the dog, the girl allegedly swore at her and said, "I can do what I want." Deputies say she got in the face of the woman's husband and swore at him as well.

Later that evening in the 13300 block of Des Moines Memorial Drive South in SeaTac, another woman stopped and asked the group if they were OK. She later told police that she also saw the children kicking the pit bull.

"The young black female in the group went up to (the woman) and said 'Get out of here bitch this is none of your business,'" according to court documents.

When the woman said she could call the police and grabbed her cell phone, prosecutors say the girl yanked open the passenger door of the woman's car and started beating her about the head with her own phone.

The woman ran from her car, but the teen ran after her, "beating her all over the head, neck shoulders and back" -- even pulling out her hair, according to court documents.

A man ran up and announced he'd called police, who were on their way.

"Bitch it's my dog and I can kill it if I want, I can do what I want to," the teen responded, according to court documents.

Deputies say the pit bull then attacked the woman who was beaten.

Another woman who was driving by with her daughter reported seeing the incident and advised the teen girl to wait and explain what happened to police.

"The female then attacked (the woman), getting her on the ground and punching her in the face and head," according to a probable cause document. There was a second attack on the woman moments later and deputies say the teen girl again got the woman on the ground before the dog attacked her on both arms.

Both women who were beaten at the SeaTac scene were hospitalized at Harborview Medical Center.

The woman attacked with the cell phone had bruises on both eye sockets and lacerations on her left arm where deputies could see tissue and bone.

The teen girl was treated at Highline Medical Center. Deputies believe she was injured from beating the woman.

Another fine example of our wonderful youth. Always so good to feel so reassured about the future of this species.

As it stands, if the girl is convicted, her sentence could be as harsh as 90 days in detention and with up to 450 hours of community service, along with three years of probation.

Harsh sentence for a harsh crime, and rightfully so.

In this case, and this is just me: I very much would've hit that girl, and not just when she would've chased me around and beat me with my own cellphone until bone was visible through my flesh (for fuck's sake). Pretty much as soon as she had set her dog against that mother and her kids, I would've grabbed her. And if she tried to hit me, I can shamelessly say I would've felt no hesitation in hitting her back, if only to restrain her and show her who's boss. (Not to sound like an Internet Tough Guy; I just don't take bullshit, especially from stupid youths.)

And so, I herein invite anyone bored or pissed enough to still be reading this far to enter the comments and tell me: is it ever right to hit a girl? If not, why? And if so, why, or when/how? Come on, a blog is nothing without some reader participation. I wanna pick those brains!

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Silvia Allen is a very stupid woman

It's testament to how stupid much of our modern world is when dingbats like Silvia Allen (R-Arizona) can safely say that the world really doesn't need new environmental protection laws – the Earth's been around for 6,000 years, anyway, and is still going strong.

Unbelievable.

It's a sad day for Arizona and moderately intelligent people everywhere.

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If you thought Don McLeroy was bad for public education in Texas ...

Then this news might make you spill your coffee over your keyboard as you choke on it. Texas crackpot governor Rick Perry is now pushing Cynthia Dunbar (R-Richmond), who's widely known for her incredible godbot-ness, having written the book One Nation Under God, and has openly said she despises public education, for the chairman of the Texas State Board of Education.

Yeah, putting her in charge of the very establishment she openly hates sounds like a very good idea to me, too.

“It would certainly cause angst among the same members of the pagan left that rejected Don McLeroy because he was a man of faith,” said David Bradley, R-Beaumont, one of the seven socially conservative members on the 15-person board.

Perry’s office declined to comment until “a final decision is made.”

Ooh, the "pagan left" – what a zinger! Admittedly one I've never heard before and that's so utterly random I hope never to hear it again, but still! Sounds to me like someone is angwy that poor ickle McLeroy was given das boot ...

In case we weren't clear enough on how large a crackpot Dunbar is, here's some more info for your noggins:

In a book published last year, Dunbar argued the country’s founding fathers created “an emphatically Christian government” and that government should be guided by a “biblical litmus test.” She endorses a belief system that requires “any person desiring to govern have a sincere knowledge and appreciation for the Word of God in order to rightly govern.”

Also in the book, she calls public education a “subtly deceptive tool of perversion.”

The establishment of public schools is unconstitutional and even “tyrannical,” she wrote, because it threatens the authority of families, granted by God through Scripture, to direct the instruction of their children.

Dunbar home-schooled her own children.

She just sounds better and better, doesn't she?

Basically, the overall article describes Dunbar as the best choice because she makes wingnut conservatives happy. Right, no need to get a moderate who would make both sides happy – or just someone who's not a totally deluded crackpot who would ruin education in Texas for who-knows-how-many years to come. As long as she makes fellow kooks and cranks happy.

The USS Texas Education isn't just sinking; it's plowed right into the ocean bed and has crumpled into a million pieces by now. Chances of recovery: slim-to-none. Only option: get outta there.

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When these guys say they believe in fairies, I do wish it were a joke

But alas, it isn't: these folks really did attend a festival of sorts in the hopes of "encouraging communication and cooperation of the fairy realm". And yes, it's funded, organized and attended mostly by adults.

Oh boy.

TWISP, Wash. -- In the foothills of the North Cascades, where the veil between dimensions is said to be thinnest, inhabitants of this world gather once a year to coexist with fairies in theirs.

About 250 people came to the Methow Valley June 26 through 28 from as far away as Europe and Hawaii to participate in the ninth annual Fairy and Human Relations Congress, an outdoor festival in a secluded mountain meadow called Skalitude.

A giant crop circle depicting a pinwheel-shaped sun had been cut into the high grass. An open-air tent pavilion stood at the lower end of the meadow. Farther up, white peace banners fluttered in a circular array.

"The purpose of the congress is to encourage communication and cooperation of the fairy realm," said Michael "Skeeter" Pilarski, the event's founder and organizer.

The human world is in crisis and can use all the help it can get, Pilarski said, so why not form alliances with those in other realms?

Maybe because they don't exist and you're living in a fantasy world? Oh, alright, I'll try and remain polite ... (however difficult that may prove to be).

Seriously – these guys really believe in fairies? I've heard stories about folks who actually do believe in flying pixies, but never of a full-blown outdoors festival about it ...

Since 2000, the Fairy Congress has been held all but two years at Skalitude, a retreat owned by Lindsey Swope and Will Buchanan. For two years, it was held near Hood River, Ore. Asked whether she believes in fairies or is merely sympathetic to those who do, Swope said, "I believe in it. Life is way more complicated than what we can see, hear and touch."

Hang on – that's her argument, her reason for believing fairies exist? That life and the world are more complex? First of all, how can she know that, if (as a human) she cannot, well, know of any further dimensions to the world around us, only knowing what she can "see, hear and touch"? And second, isn't that the same silly argument used for the existence of God – or any magical beings we've never seen (and cannot see)? That the world is larger than us and that we can't ever know everything about it?

Skeptics might mock the participants or dismiss them as New Age hippies, but they say their belief system is not much different from Native American animists or even Christians who believe in angels.

Well, maybe not "hippies" or even "New Agers", but "kooks" and "general weirdos", sure. Same thing as members of other faiths who actually believe they're being watched over by angels and such. Isn't it odd how these "guardians" never really "guard" us against anything, instead forcing us to rely on our own senses and instincts to keep us from screwing up?

Revelers donned wings, horns or colorful attire suitable for a euphoric Saturday night romp around the bonfire, but there was no evidence of drugs or inebriation. Voices raised only in song or laughter. The sound of drum and flute carried on the wind. Children frolicked. Adults gathered around a communal outdoor kitchen.

Good thing there weren't any drugs with children present – though one may wonder if seeing mature adults with wings or horns would be any more dignified.

One who claims to have seen a rather large deva, much like the Jolly Green Giant only without the peas, is Mary J. Getten, of Olympia, who says she can communicate telepathically with animals and fairies.

It also is possible to communicate with the "unseen realm," Getten said, but it's important to know what you're doing before trying.

"Seeing fairies changes your reality," she said.

You know what else would change your reality? Attending your nearest AA meeting immediately. You know, if you're seeing fairies and such.

"Thirty years ago, we would have been called kooks or worse," he said. Now people are more accommodating in their thinking.

Does he believe in magic?

"There is magic everywhere, Pilarski said. "We're magic. But in the sense of things happening that are out of the ordinary? Yes, there definitely is magic here."

Don't worry, you're definitely still being called kooks and worse. It's rather a given when you openly admit you believe in actual magic.

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New Song: 'Time Again' (short version)

'Time Again'
(short version)
By Joé McKen

'Time Again'
Composed by Joé McKen

Don't forget to view in HQ!

Note that this is a shortened, cut-down version of the song. 'Time Again' is basically the same motifs played over and over with changing lyrics and vocals in the background, and the whole thing is about 3 minutes long, which is too long to be playing the same thing over and over again. This will nonetheless give you a good idea what the song is like until I get a microphone and record my vocals over it.

This is simply a little motif that just popped into my head (I do love it when that happens), so I quickly wrote it down and this is exactly what I got. I wanna keep this song extremely simple: it's only a single acoustic guitar playing with some vocals accompanying it, nothing more, but the end result is a good one I believe. You be the judge. ;)

[Click "Continued …»" below to view lyrics]

Verse 1

Time again
To take the road that no-one's took before
Time, my friend
To look up past the mountains at the shimmering stars above
Hmm, ooh, ooh
When the time comes the angels will come down before the dawn
And when the world is different, and you don't know what to do
Just sing a song, just any song, and let the whispers come to you

Verse 2

Carry me away ...
Set me by that flowing little creek
Fly with your golden wings
Time and time again, you will fly high in the skies
Ooh, you're so beautiful, my angel
And before you know it, it's a treasure wrapped in blue
Time again ...
Time ...

Written & recorded with Guitar Pro 5.2.

Rate, comment & enjoy! =)

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Not fit for the title of "mother"

Mothers don't intentionally let their kids die from a treatable cancer simply because they're autistic.

SALEM, Mass. -- A woman accused of withholding cancer treatment from her autistic son has been charged with attempted murder.

Kristen LaBrie is scheduled to appear in Salem Superior Court on Monday on charges of attempted murder, child endangerment and permitting bodily injury to a disabled person.

LaBrie's son, Jeremy, was 9 when he died in March. He had been diagnosed with leukemia in 2006.

Prosecutors say LaBrie canceled at least a dozen appointments for chemotherapy treatment and did not fill at least half the prescriptions her son had been given.

She had earlier been charged with child endangerment, and a grand jury returned the more serious indictment Friday. She was arrested Sunday night.

Let her rot in jail for a good, long time. What an incredible ghoul.

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One of Us!: Daniel Radcliffe is an atheist!

The religious nutjobs in America now have yet another reason to hate Harry Potter: the actor who incarnates our beloved wizard in the film series has openly revealed himself as a proud, relaxed atheist. Attaboy, Daniel!

In an interview with Esquire magazine, Radcliffe risked the US box office prospects of the new Harry Potter film by declaring himself to be an atheist.

In a pronouncement that will dismay America's religious Right, which has long voiced suspicions about Potter's "anti-Christian" message, the 19-year-old actor said he did not believe in God.

He also expressed his admiration for Professor Richard Dawkins, the prominent atheist and bete noir of Evangelical Christians.

Radcliffe has been reticent on the subject of religion in the past, but in an interview to promote the latest instalment in the film franchise, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, released on July 15, he said: "I'm an atheist, but I'm very relaxed about it. I don't preach my atheism, but I have a huge amount of respect for people like Richard Dawkins who do. Anything he does on television, I will watch."

He joked: "There we go, Dan, that's half of America that's not going to see the next Harry Potter film on the back of that comment."

I don't see why anyone would worry about a drop in the box office – anyone who's offended by witchcraft and fantastical hocus-pocus will already have been boycotting the films and burning Harry Potter effigies and books for a decade now, so seriously, anyone who's still watching the films or reading the books will likely have no problem with a young atheist in lead role. (Not to mention that anyone who stops watching a series they previously enjoyed just because an actor happens not to believe in their branch of faith is a total ass, but that's a given.)

I'm surprised I haven't heard of this before – apparently he said this at the release of Half-Blood Prince, now almost four years ago.

I was sorry to read this next little bit, though:

Prof Dawkins, author of best-selling book The God Delusion, is no fan of Harry Potter, once remarking that tales of witchcraft are "anti-scientific".

Oh come on now. That's just silly. It's a fantasy novel. What the heck does he want, science-based magic? Frankly, hating on Harry Potter just because it's supposedly "anti-scientific" (which is really a stupid claim in itself) is just as pathetic as anyone who hates, say, House for being "anti-woo". Kinda disappointing coming from someone as obviously intelligent and usually dead-on accurate as Professor Dawkins, but no-one's always 100% rational, I guess.

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Ray Comfort thinks he's a bad man

Well, sorta. But only according to his rather astoundingly-high standards one must meet to be considered a "good" man, apparently. Here's what he replied to something he was sent from a commenter who said that Comfort "probably" wasn't a "horrible useless little sinful piece of garbage":

It shows that you think that you could be wrong about me being a good man. And, you are. Big time. I’m not a good man, and I am "all that bad." A "good" man loves the God who gave him life--with all of his heart, mind, soul, and strength. He also loves every other human being as much as he loves himself. A good man never lusts after women, or has a selfish or unclean thought sexual though. He is perfect, in thought, word, and in deed.

I'd like to know where God ever said how he defined what being a "good" person meant. I doubt even God would send you to Hell if you failed to meet all that impossible criteria. I'm probably guilty of more sins than I'm even aware of, but I doubt that makes me a "bad" person.

Contrasting with God's surprisingly elitist views on goodness, my views on what makes someone a good person or not are really quite simple: they must intend to cause, and end up causing, more good in the world than bad. Someone who just wants to be happy and others to be happy with them, and who spends their time trying to make the world around them a better place, if only a tiny little piece of it – no-one can call them "bad" for it. Everyone will do bad, mean or hurtful things every now and then. It's called "being human". But as long as you try to spread more good around than negativity, then no matter what you do, you're a good person in my book, end of story.

No doubt this will make you angry, annoyed, flabbergasted and very concerned about my mental health. This is because you don’t understand God’s terrible justice, neither do you understand His amazing mercy. You and I may be a "sinful piece of garbage," but it is on that garbage that God set His love, and suffered and died to cleanse us of our filth.

Don't worry, no-one's been concerned with Ray's mental health for quite a few years now, ever since he's been formally diagnosed with terminal stupidity. But even then, I wouldn't go so far as to call him a "sinful piece of garbage". For all his faults (and stupidity), he's not a bad man, or an evil man. Just annoyingly dumb and ignorant. Bad things to be, perhaps, but rather low down the list overall.

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The kind of letter editors probably wish they received more often

Perhaps it's a good thing I woke up so damn early this morning (5 AM? Aie aie aie ...), for it allowed me to come across a mention of this letter to the editor of the NY Times. I think it's hard to argue with this guy when he's just so bloody right.

To the Editor:

Re “When Our Brains Short-Circuit,” by Nicholas D. Kristof (column, July 2):

The reason humans respond to immediate threats more readily than future threats like global warming relates more to their poor understanding of science than neurons in their brain.

Science education in the United States is so poor that most citizens are incapable of understanding basic scientific theories like evolution. As a result, pundits and talk show hosts can easily persuade the average listener that global warming is a hoax while offering little or no evidence.

If these same people took the time to read the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report on global warming, they would see that the evidence is overwhelming.

Fred Posey
Canfield, Ohio, July 2, 2009

The writer is an adjunct professor in the science and math department of Edison State College in Fort Myers, Fla.

I would say that the way the brain works isn't perhaps as irrelevent as Prof. Posey makes it sound like; we've still yet to discover many of the secrets of our minds and how they process information relevant to our survival and well-being. But his overall point regarding the state of education, particularly scientific education, in the US is incontrovertibly dead-on. I bet editors wish they received more sensible and educated (not to mention coherent) letters like this one as opposed to the myriads of complaints, screeds and general crap they tend to get instead.

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