World News Korner

Courtesy of New York Daily News:

A North Carolina student was looking forward to starting a club for atheists at her high school—until administrators reportedly shot down those dreams.

Pisgah High School in Canton already has a fellowship for Christian athletes. But when 15-year-old Kalei Wilson tried to start a club for secular students, she said she encountered nothing but resistance.

“Everyone’s accepting of the Christian group,” Wilson told The News. “It’s not fair to people like me who don’t have a place to go to meet like-minded thinkers.”

Wilson says she often sees posters in the school advertising events for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, which many of her peers call the “Bible Club.”

The Christian group’s goals are made clear on the Pisgah High School website.

“The vision of FCA at Pisgah is to see our school and community impacted for Jesus Christ through the influence of athletes and coaches.”

You know you would think that by high school it would be made clear to the students, and apparently the faculty, that the United States of America is not a theocracy.

Every year more and more people self identify as non-religious or atheist, yet they are still the most hated minority in America.

In fact it seems they often feel even more isolated than the gay community, not only here in the US but around the world. And yet when they try to reach out, to find those of a like mind, they are made to feel even more unwelcome and insignificant.

I can tell you from experience what it feels like to live a life without the comfort of religion, or the sense of community that regular church attendance provides. As an adult my strength comes from within, but as a teenager feelings of isolation and rejection can be overwhelming and lead one to make terrible choices, or hide within yourself so deeply that soon no one can reach you.

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So Nancy French, or Ram, or however is looking up hard words for Palin these days put up a post on Facebook yesterday:

Here's why in almost every one of my speeches or interviews I use the term "Orwellian”.

Palin's ghostwriter then links to an article over at Townhall, a terrible place full of Obama hatred and little actual journalism, that I try to avoid at all cost

In the Townhall article the author claims that under President Obama we have now entered the world warned about in George Orwell's "1984." You know because it was the Democrats who stole national elections, and started unnecessary wars while lying to the American people, and of course it was Obama who started the domestic spying program that so many find troubling today.

The ghostwriter, channeling the Wasilla Wendigo, however did not seem to care about hypocrisy:

As I sit the bleachers today at middle school sports tournaments, I look out at our future and confirm the necessity to get America back on the right road, soon, before it's too late. Please explain this article to your children, as many have been, unfortunately, shielded from reading the staples “Nineteen Eight-Four” and “Animal Farm” in school. (And exactly which groups work to ban these books in public schools Sarah?) Then encourage them by your actions to be engaged and NOT LET IT HAPPEN.

Remembering when Palin actually visited an Animal Farm.

I can assure you right now that Palin most likely has never read a book by George Orwell, and if by some miracle she has, I would bet my house she did not comprehend what she was reading.

And as for the idea that any of her supporters have the mental capacity to explain the TV Guide, much less this article on "1984," to one of their children, well you know how dimwitted they must be, don't you.

Fortunately for me the great folks over at Wonkette got their teeth in this story ahead of me and dismantled the Townhall article point by point.

However it was the last bit where they decided to spike the ball:

Victor (Author Victor Davis Hanson) wraps up with what should have been a big finish, but actually falls flat after all the BLAARRRGGGGHHH about how Bamz is Big Brother: both left and right make shit up, but Orwell was more concerned with the left ipso facto ergo Obama bad. Whut? Victor, Victor, Victor. You really do not get this Orwell guy at all: he hated Stalinist communism, but mostly because he hated what it had done to pervert and ruin socialism. In “Why I Write” (1946), he makes it clear that he did not see the glorious free market as the cure for communism:

The Spanish war and other events in 1936-37 turned the scale and thereafter I knew where I stood. Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it.

Got it? George Orwell is not on your side, Victor.

You see Orwell was not warning about a President using his executive powers to help the country make progress in the face of an obstruction for obstructionism's sake Congress. He was warning against a party that keeps its citizens constantly in fear, attempts to repress their sexuality, and bans access to information that would undermine their control.

None of that sounds like President Obama or the Democratic party.

But I do know which party it DOES sound like and it rhymes with Perublicans.

Of course somehow I think that Palin did NOT want parents to explain the book to their children quite that well.

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Courtesy of Slate:

On Tuesday, the Kansas House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a measure designed to bring anti-gay segregation—under the guise of “religious liberty”—to the already deep-red state. The bill, written out of fear that the state may soon face an Oklahoma-style gay marriage ruling, will now easily pass the Republican Senate and be signed into law by the Republican governor. The result will mark Kansas as the first state, though certainly not the last, to legalize segregation of gay and straight people in virtually every arena of life.

If that sounds overblown, consider the bill itself. When passed, the new law will allow any individual, group, or private business to refuse to serve gay couples if “it would be contrary to their sincerely held religious beliefs.” Private employers can continue to fire gay employees on account of their sexuality. Stores may deny gay couples goods and services because they are gay. Hotels can eject gay couples or deny them entry in the first place. Businesses that provide public accommodations—movie theaters, restaurants—can turn away gay couples at the door. And if a gay couple sues for discrimination, they won’t just lose; they’ll be forced to pay their opponent’s attorney’s fees. As I’ve noted before, anti-gay businesses might as well put out signs alerting gay people that their business isn’t welcome.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. In addition to barring all anti-discrimination lawsuits against private employers, the new law permits government employees to deny service to gays in the name of “religious liberty.” This is nothing new, but the sweep of Kansas’ statute is breathtaking. Any government employee is given explicit permission to discriminate against gay couples—not just county clerks and DMV employees, but literally anyone who works for the state of Kansas. If a gay couple calls the police, an officer may refuse to help them if interacting with a gay couple violates his religious principles. State hospitals can turn away gay couples at the door and deny them treatment with impunity. Gay couples can be banned from public parks, public pools, anything that operates under the aegis of the Kansas state government.

It gets worse. The law’s advocates claim that it applies only to gay couples—but there’s no clear limiting principle in the text of the bill that would keep it from applying to gay individuals as well. A catch-all clause allows businesses and bureaucrats to discriminate against gay people so long as this discrimination is somehow “related to, or related to the celebration of, any marriage, domestic partnership, civil union or similar arrangement.” (Emphases mine.) This subtle loophole is really just a blank check to discriminate: As long as an individual believes that his service is somehow linked to a gay union of any form, he can legally refuse his services. And since anyone who denies gays service is completely shielded from any charges, no one will ever have to prove that their particular form of discrimination fell within the four corners of the law.

Interestingly enough Tuesday was also the day that Idaho introduced almost the exact same bill.

What was Tuesday, hating on homos day? I never got the memo.

Apparently the red states are going to have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st Century, just like they were dragged into the 29th Century over interracial marriages.

And of course the reason used to support this discrimination, the ONLY reason used to support this discrimination, is that the Bible says it's wrong.

Man that religion, what would we do without it?

What indeed?

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Yoo hoo, Judgey. Thanks for that pubic service.

Courtesy of Alternet:

A former Alaska judge claims he was the victim of "racist and sexist hazing" by his peers after former Governor Sarah Palin thanked him for his "pubic service" in his appointment letter. (Uh wait, what?)


Richard Postma Jr. claims the typo in Palin's letter caused him so much grief that he was voted out, had to return to private practice, and is struggling to hold onto his law license Bar.

Richard W. Postma Jr. sued Alaska Bars Counsel Stephen Van Goor and Assistant Bar Counsel Mark Woelber, in Federal Court.

"Plaintiff was a former state district judge in Anchorage who was appointed in 2007 by former Governor Sarah Palin," the 13-page lawsuit states.

"As a judge, he experienced racist and sexist hazing by certain judicial officers and court employees.

"The hazing started because of a typographical error in the judicial appointment letter where the Governor thanked the plaintiff for his years of 'pubic service,' instead of 'public service.'"

Postma claims in the complaint that his hazers went so far as to suggest he was appointed as a judge "by performing oral sex on former Governor Palin," and that it escalated "to suggest Postma was the biological father of Governor Palin's son, Trig Palin."

When he complained he was retaliated against, Postma says.

Postma claims that none of the jokes were true, but he suffered the harassment from his appointment in 2007 until 2010, when the Alaska Commission on Judicial Conduct "initiated an administrative action to remove Postma from the bench because of stress and medical problems caused by the hazing."

Okay have you ever had a situation where the smart ass comments are and juvenile one liners are so backed up in your brain that it renders you almost incapable of saying or writing a word?

Well I have, and it kind of hurts.

However I will say this, while I knew the Palin curse was strong and something to be feared, even I did not know she could destroy a career simply though poor typing skills.

I mean damn!

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I swear the lawsuit is as original to me as the hair on my head.

Courtesy of the Washington Post:

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has been caught using purloined passages in several of his speeches. Now the aspiring presidential candidate stands accused of filing a lawsuit stolen from its author.

Since December, the libertarian lawmaker, a tea party favorite, had been working with former Reagan administration lawyer Bruce Fein to draft a class-action suit seeking to have the National Security Agency’s surveillance of telephone data declared unconstitutional; the two men appeared together as early as last June to denounce the NSA’s activities.

But when Paul filed his suit at the U.S. District Court in Washington on Wednesday morning, Fein’s name had been replaced with that of Ken Cuccinelli, the failed Republican gubernatorial candidate in Virginia who until last month had been the state’s attorney general. Cuccinelli has never argued a case in that courthouse, and he isn’t even a member of the D.C. bar (he also filed a motion Wednesday seeking an exception to allow him to argue this case in D.C.). But he is, like Paul, a tea party darling.

Fein, who has not been paid in full for his legal work by Paul’s political action committee, was furious that he had been omitted from the filing he wrote. “I am aghast and shocked by Ken Cuccinelli’s behavior and his absolute knowledge that this entire complaint was the work product, intellectual property and legal genius of Bruce Fein,” Mattie Fein, his ex-wife and spokeswoman, told me Wednesday. “Ken Cuccinelli stole the suit,” she said, adding that Paul, who “already has one plagiarism issue, now has a lawyer who just takes another lawyer’s work product.”

Yeah nothing undermines a suit against stealing people's data without their knowledge like having the lawsuit itself be stolen from the author without his knowledge.

I know that Rand Paul is making a play for the disenfranchised young voters that supposedly feel disappointed in Obama, but if he wants to demonstrate his integrity by comparison, he might want to actually develop some first.

Before this he was trying to appeal to female voters by using her husband's sexual dalliance to attack Hillary Clinton.

Next he will probably make a play for the Hispanic vote by demanding that they learn to speak English.

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This was taken from the recent debate between Nye and Ken Ham.

"We are, you and I, at least one of the ways that the universe knows itself."

I have been saying some version of this for years and I find it so much more profound and inspiring than anything I have ever read in any religious book.

We have a duty to strive to understand, and appreciate, and stand in awe of, the majesty that surrounds us.

Because if we don't then who will?

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BREAKING: 3.3 million have selected an Obamacare plan from Oct 1 to Feb. 1. pic.twitter.com/Z66QU69Ux7

— igorvolsky (@igorvolsky) February 12, 2014

I can just hear the Republicans now:

"Yeah but we have all these stories about people having their health care plan taken away by their employers, their old health care insurers trying to upgrade them to a policy they don't need, and refusing to go on the HealthCare.org website or asking for help, and now they have no health coverage. Obama sucks!"

Essentially what I see in the 2014 campaign cycle is a contest between the ignorant technology challenged older people complaining that Obama has destroyed this country, versus the younger, more technologically savvy, previously uninsured, shooting off fireworks and proclaiming Obamacare the best thing to happen to health care in this country since the invention of the Band-aid.

My only fear is that the younger newly insured people will be so happy about their new healthcare, and push to legalize marijuana, that they will forget to vote to protect this new America that they love so much.

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