Sunday Blasphemy – Jesus Abs

NOH8

Cindy McCain stepping forward tells us something we already knew – not all republicans are homophobic jerks; the really sad part is they can’t seem to be part of national politics unless they are.  Even Darth Cheney was able to come out in support of gay unions AFTER he left elected office.  As if to drive that point home, John McCain quickly released a statement that he was against marriage equality and he was the elected member of the family.

While I wouldn’t normally begrudge a person a little airbrushing (just when it’s done to women like Faith Hill and Jessica Alba to make them look impossibly proportioned).  I think Cindy could have kept a few of her lines if only to keep her real looking – what the hell did they do to her ears?

Sunday Blasphemy – Who Would Jesus Kill?

Almost too ridiculous – A company that makes scopes for the US government has been found to be including “secret” bible verses attached to the end of their serial numbers.  I’m not sure how Chapter: Verse notations are all that secret.  It’s not that much more of a secret code than the guy at the baseball games that used to hold up the John 3:16 sign (maybe if it said JN3:16).

There have been plenty of idiots that have framed the current conflict in terms of a religious war, a crusade, of Christians against Muslims (including George W. Bush).  So many, that one has to wonder what percentage truly believe it to be, but only occasionally voice it in front of microphones.

To their credit, Trijicon agreed to stop putting the code on the scopes and is even providing kits to help in their removal.  The codes have been in use for 30 years, so they weren’t added specifically for this war against people who are mostly Muslim.  As far as the verses themselves, it certainly would not have been difficult to find plenty of more warlike and blood thirsty ones if that had been the intent. 

Matos confuses me

Dina Matos broke into the broader spotlight in a way that I can’t imagine anyone would be envious of.  She seemed somewhat gracious at first.  I’ve known some couples in similar situations (where one spouse comes out) and to their credit they’ve managed to remain friends.  In the McGreevey’s case though, the divorce became publicly ugly.

There were a couple points in her recent interview that seemed off to me.  The first point was probably a simple jumble of statistics.  She said "There are at least two million marriages that break up each year because one of the spouses come out of the closet,".  That seemed like an awful lot of gay people getting straight married – something that should be more and more rare as society changes and people are less motivated to hide in a “straight marriage”.  According to the CDC (I’m not entirely sure why it’s the Center for Disease Control that is tracking this) there were a few more than 2 million marriages in 2008.  I don’t think ALL of them broke up because of “teh Gay”.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/divorce.htm

• Number of marriages: 2,162,000
• Marriage rate: 7.1 per 1,000 total population
• Divorce rate: 3.5 per 1,000 population (44 reporting States and D.C.)

The other part that I have a harder time understanding is that despite her experience she doesn’t think gay people should be able to marry our own kind.  She falls back on her Catholic beliefs to say that straight people are better than gay people – just like they must have told her that 3 ways with McGreevey and another man, before and after they were married were fine.  Funny how religion tells you (or doesn’t tell you) exactly what you want (don’t want) to hear.

Sunday Blasphemy – Pat Robertson

“Something happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about,” Robertson said Tuesday.

“They were under the heel of the French, you know Napoleon the third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said ‘We will serve you if you will get us free from the prince.’ True story. And so the devil said, ‘Ok it’s a deal.’

Sunday Blasphemy - Genesis

Sunday Blasphemy – Doctor Who?

(hat tip to voenixrising.com) 

New Airport Security Measures

This eliminates getting to the airport 2 hours early,
but you still have to take off your shoes.

The body scanner is sure to get a go-ahead because of the illustrious personages hawking them. Chief among them is former DHS secretary Michael Chertoff, who now heads the Chertoff Group, which represents one of the leading manufacturers of whole-body-imaging machines, Rapiscan Systems. For days after the attack, Chertoff made the rounds on the media promoting the scanners, calling the bombing attempt "a very vivid lesson in the value of that machinery"—all without disclosing his relationship to Rapiscan.

Talking out both sides of their mouths

The New York Times has refocused the story about how American evangelical Christians have had a role in stoking the flames of homophobia in Africa and helping to craft legislation in Uganda that could lead to life imprisonment (seemingly downgraded from death) for gays and jail time for anyone that knows of a gay person but doesn’t report them to the police.  Since the story started getting traction a while back, most of the ministers that have been linked to the story have feverishly backpedalled – at least to their US audiences. 

I liked this cartoon – thanks to my FB bud Lionel for sharing.

Sunday Blasphemy – Blast from the past

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk41Gbjljfo

For the first Sunday of the new decade, I’ve found a one hit wonder from the 80’s.  (I still think the 80’s produced the best music in my lifetime to date).