World News Korner

Of course we have covered this poorly named freedom orgy last month. And now it is almost here.

Yesterday Palin posted, all by herself it would seem, an update that seems almost plaintive in its concern that she will have trouble getting Todd to accompany her on this trip.

Courtesy of Deep Fat Fried Freedom Chick's Facebook page:

Any bad day fishing beats any good day... well, doing most anything else! (Actually the bumper sticker slogan, which is ubiquitous in Alaska, is the following: "A bad day of fishing beats a good day at work.) Todd and buddies are on the Nushagak River in Bristol Bay today (I could have sworn he said he had to fly his float plane over to his fishing grounds to prep for the rip-roaring Bristol Bay commercial salmon season, but this looks more like rod & reelin'! And to think Todd says, "We commercial fish; no time for sport because we don't play with our food.")

(I'm pretty sure that Todd no longer commercial fishes. Anybody have information to the contrary?)

The plan is to lure him away from his Rainbow Bay Lodge he helps run, and we'll jet to Tennessee for the Seiver County Tea Party Rally on Thursday. (I wonder if this means that Todd's contract is up? Perhaps this is Palin's way of lamenting that she now has to convince him to accompany her rather than wave a piece of paper in his face and threaten to call her lawyer?) Glad he's showing tourists what Alaska has to offer as he guides them from the Rainbow Bay Lodge. Good bear viewing, good fishing, as you can see... and you should have seen the one that got away!

- Sarah Palin

Palin includes a bunch of pictures of Todd holding various fish corpses, but I live in Alaska so I am unimpressed.

The rally also features other conservative idols such as Judge Jeanine Pirro, Senator Rick Santorum, and Col. Allen West. So you know the Right Wing rhetoric and attacks against liberals will be coming hard and fast.

And in light of the recent upset that cost Eric Cantor his House seat, Tennessee has now become ground zero for the anticipated resurgence of the Tea Party, so Palin is putting herself right in the middle of an event that could get quite a lot of coverage.

I don't think that they really knew it when they planned this event, but it might actually BE the "last stand" for the Teabaggers.

And that the other "last stand" certainly turned out well. Right ?

Right?

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Courtesy of Burnt Orange:

In what they say is an effort to "show that gun rights belong to all" members of the open carry movement will walk through the 5th Ward on Sunday -- a day after many Texans will be celebrating Juneteenth, in a predominantly African American area of Houston settled by former slaves just after the Civil War. The Facebook event claims the event will be a "canned food drive" and donations will be given to the "First Missionary Baptist Church."

The walk is being hosted by CJ Grisham, founder of Open Carry Texas, who was convicted of interfering with police duties over an incident where he was being questioned about his AR-15. The resulting conviction led to no jail time and he plans to appeal, but he was fined $2,000 and lost his concealed handgun license for 5 years. One does not need a license to open carry a long gun.

I called the 5th Ward Missionary Baptist Church which is only blocks from where the walk is poised to begin this Sunday and they had no idea about the event and assumed that I was either mistaken or contacted the wrong church -- the latter is certainly possible since I could not locate a "First Missionary Baptist Church" in the 5th Ward.

Either way the sentiment is understandable since most open carry demonstrations have been in highly visible suburban to upper-middle class parts of towns near or in major chain establishments. Even before receiving admonishment from the NRA over their "weird" behavior (that was quickly retracted) Open Carry Texas had encouraged its members to stop entering commercial business without first letting them know if their plans. This came after major setbacks as chain after chain reconfirmed their no gun policies.

This walk will certainly be a departure from other highly publicized events. It is unclear how many will march but pictures by some of those expected to attend show members mocking the area's Congressional Woman Sheila Jackson Lee are not exactly friendly to the community. One shows a man in front of her office with a sign that reads "Gun Control = Slavery Sheila Jackson Lee Supports Slavery" and caption that read "Queen Sheila ran for the hills," and another simply shows a man eating a piece of fried chicken in front of her office.

So not happy with simply terrorizing people eating in restaurants or buying lumber at Home Depot, now these assholes are trying to start a race war?

Once again I will reiterate that I really think these morons are trying to get one of their members shot so that they can martyr them and use the incident to further push their agenda.

Though to be honest I am not entirely sure how that would work.

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"I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I'm not afraid of death, but I'm in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first," he said.

"I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark," he added.

I sometimes find myself struck silent by the musings of seemingly intelligent people about he possibilities of an afterlife.

I think the realization that such a thing was not possible occurred to me quite young, and my research and musings since have only reinforced the obviousness of that realization.

Our consciousness is really only a collection of our memories and experiences, that are contained within the computer housed within our skulls.

Once that amazing machine is rendered inoperable our memories, our consciousness, our soul if you will, are also gone forever.

This would seem as obvious as the realization that once the heart stops pumping blood our bodies no longer function, and yet the opposite is held so dear by so many of us that to suggest the lack of a life following this is considered heretical even by many of those who consider themselves non-religious.

I often think of it in terms of a USB flash drive.

Though it may be fairly bulging with documents, and pictures, and video of a person's life, if there are no more computers left to read the information it essentially does not exist. And it is as if the life contained within was never lived.

That is why I always stress the importance of experiencing all this life has to offer. Rather than mourn the loss of eternity, instead we should embrace and squeeze joy out of the one life that we have.

Every kiss should be savored, every laugh echoed by our own, and every moment of pain respected for the lesson that it teaches.

In that way we will touch the lives of those around us in a fashion which carries some small part of us forward. And as they touch the lives of others as well, perhaps our brief life will have an impact that lives past our final breath.

(Source)

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Scene from a Faith & Freedom restroom #RTM2014 pic.twitter.com/IOUyRjcLFT
— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) June 20, 2014

Courtesy of Mediaite:

The 2014 Faith and Freedom Coalition Conference is underway in Washington, D.C. and one of the fun features they have apparently included this year is the ability to pee directly on President Barack Obama’s face. That’s right, there are Obama urinal cakes in the men’s room.

Now remember this is the Faith and Freedom Coalition who describe themselves thusly:

We believe that the greatness of America lies not in the federal government but in the character of our people — the simple virtues of faith, hard work, marriage, family, personal responsibility, and helping the least among us. If we lose sight of these values, America will cease to be great.

Yes such great virtues and character these self proclaimed religious folks express don't you agree?

And exactly what kind of "real" American actually urinates on an image of their Commander-in-Chief anyhow?

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Courtesy of WTVR:

McKenzie Michelle Carey was born weighing just over eight pounds, 12 years ago on April 20, 2002.

Eighteen months later she was diagnosed with a life-threatening disease identified as Mitochondrial disease. Mitochondria are considered the cell’s power producers, and the work they do helps generate fuel for the cell’s activities. But McKenzie’s mitochondria can’t do what they are needed to do; sustain life and support growth.

The disease damages cells of the brain, heart, liver, skeletal muscles, kidney and the endocrine and respiratory systems.

McKenzie isn’t paralyzed, but she can’t walk and she is non-verabal — though her mother says she understand everything said to her.

But her condition didn’t keep her off the stage for the summer pageant, thanks to her awesome dad, Mike Carey.

Let me honest and admit that I saw this video two days ago but was so overcome with emotion I could not type up a post.

I'm doing better today, but still struggling to see the keys.

However if this man can do this for his little girl, I think I can manage to power through and help him share it with the world.

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Courtesy of Salon:

The recent reboot of the show Cosmos on Fox further demonstrated how partisan the very idea of science and empiricism has become. The show, which features astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson taking over the host role from the original’s Carl Sagan, was aggressive in defending science, curiosity, and following the evidence from people who would rather rely on faith or authority, but it took no partisan positions. Nonetheless, it was immediately understood by Americans both left and right as a “liberal” show, merely for its strong insistence that facts should not be ignored in favor of wishful thinking.

Even though the show was hosted on the Fox network channel, Fox News, the conservative cable channel, did not hold back in the slightest from attacking Tyson for perceived liberalism. In a shockingly racist segment, host Greg Gutfeld and guest Gavin McInnes dogged relentlessly on Tyson, insinuating that he can’t really be an astrophysicist and making fun of “white liberals” for being enthusiastic about Tyson and his work. It only grew uglier with McInnes claiming that Tyson deserved to be mistreated based on his race when he was young because he “fit the profile” by having “a huge afro.”

While that was the ugliest example of race-baiting, overall conservative media had a tendency to treat Cosmos like its insistence on empiricism and rationality was inherently a culture war issue, so much so that many Christian conservative media outlets attacked every episode in the series with fervor. It wasn’t just when it came to Tyson’s acceptance of evolutionary theory, either. Christian conservatives threw a fit because the show told the story of how Giordano Bruno, a 16th century monk, was burned at the stake for free-thinking. Even though the story fit directly into the larger argument the show made about the dangers of repressing free inquiry, Jay Richards of the Discovery Institute felt that criticizing the church for torturing a man to death should be off-limits because the man in question was a monk, not a scientist.

Or, even more hilariously, when Tyson mentioned in passing on the show that Christmas was established by the church not because it’s actually Jesus’s birthday but because the church needed a holiday to compete with the popular pagan Saturnalia, Richards completely exploded in rage and denial. “We learn that the holiday celebrated by a couple billion Christians is really a camouflaged take-over of Saturnalia, the High Holy Day when ancient Romans celebrated Saturn, the god of agriculture,” he whined. The only problem is that when Christmas was established, Christianity wasn’t a religion with two billion followers. It was an upstart faith and Saturnalia was, in fact, one of the hands-down most popular days of the year for the followers of the pagan faiths that had been dominate for thousands of years. None of this requires math to understand, but now the right has gone so anti-evidence that even boring old history is considered up for debate.

Part of what I loved about the new Cosmos is that it so fearlessly discussed facts that I knew were going to cause the Religious Right and conservatives to rend their clothing in response.

And it did so with such nonchalance, as if it were simply stating the obvious and suggesting that those who rejected the reality were simply afraid to let go of the comfort provided by fairy tales told to a child.

It also helped to illustrate just how deeply the divide is between those who rely on faith to navigate through life, and those who rely on reason.

A divide that may have been best characterized by the show's creator Ann Druyan. (The late Carl Sagan's widow):

During my all-too-brief phone conversation with Druyan, we also discussed her brilliant rereading of the story of the Garden of Eden, which she sees as the story of humanity’s escape from “a maximum-security prison with 24-hour surveillance.” Adam and Eve’s capital offense is that they seek knowledge and ask questions, precisely the qualities that define the human species. At least in that story, God appears to demand a subservient and doctrinaire incuriosity, and many of his followers continue to insist on that path to this day.

The show simply HAD to be attacked by the conservatives who desperately need a populace that makes decisions based on fear and ignorance, rather than facts and intelligence.

Personally I hope the success of the show opens the door to a whole new era of similar programming that will help educate a populace whose public school system is right now under attack by those who cannot abide a well educated citizenry.

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