World News Korner

Courtesy of The Friendly Atheist:

Susanne Atanus, the 55-year-old Republican who told a local newspaper that God put autism and dementia on Earth as punishment for marriage equality and abortion, just won her primary for a seat in the House of representatives. She will face off against incumbent Democrat Rep. Jan Schakowsky this November:

Voters in the Republican primary will have two very different candidates to choose from in the 9th Congressional District, as David Earl Williams III and Susanne Atanus vie for the right to face Rep. Jan Schakowsky in the fall… “I am a conservative Republican and I believe in God first,” Atanus said. She said she believes God controls the weather and has put tornadoes and diseases such as autism and dementia on earth as punishment for gay rights and legalized abortions.

Apparently Illinois party leaders tried to get Atanus to drop out, but nope, she was on a mission. And apparently that mission is to hand the Illinois 9th District House seat back to Jan Schakowsky.

For once the Democratic agenda matches well with the agenda of the Republican fringe.

This morning I listened to Reince Priebus on MSNBC telling Chuck Todd that the party cannot be held for every strange thing uttered by a Republican.

But what he fails to understand is that these comments are not outliers among the Republicans, THIS is how a great number of them see the world.

These elections are now increasingly defined as between the rational and the irrational.

For the sake of America's future let's hope that the majority of the country sits on the side of the rational.




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Pretty impressive wasn't it?

I'm a huge Superman fan so that kind of blew my mind.

If you want to destroy the fantasy and find out how they really pulled this off just click here.

That is the problem with possessing critical thinking skills, we can never simply accept that a man can fly.

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Courtesy of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

As the same-sex marriage debate rages, one person says he won’t be weighing in on the subject anymore: Dan Cathy, CEO and president of Chick-fil-A.

Almost two years after he made headlines by throwing his support behind traditional marriage and later decried a pair of Supreme Court decisions that favored same-sex unions, Cathy hasn’t changed his mind. But he said Atlanta-based Chick-fil-A has no place in the culture wars and regrets making the company a symbol in the marriage debate.

“Every leader goes through different phases of maturity, growth and development and it helps by (recognizing) the mistakes that you make,” Cathy said. “And you learn from those mistakes. If not, you’re just a fool. I’m thankful that I lived through it and I learned a lot from it."

Yeah okay.

He may have decided to keep his homophobia on the down low, but it will be a long time before he can live down things like this.

I don't care how good your chicken is, this kind of stomach churning stench can last for decades.

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Courtesy of Star Tribune:

Wyoming is the first state to block a new set of national science standards, but a week after Gov. Matt Mead signed off on the change, education advocates are still digesting what the action means for the state.

Some say the provision, which came through a last-minute budget footnote, blocks the state from considering any part of the Next Generation Science Standards, a set of K-12 standards developed by national science education groups and representatives from 26 states. Others, including the provision's author, say it prevents the wholesale adoption of the standards as they are written.

And why do Wyoming lawmakers have a problem with the new science standards which were introduced to upgrade the old standards that were over fifteen years old and terribly outdated?

Religious objections to he teaching of evolution?

Concern over instruction about the Big Bang that some Fundamentalists consider an affront to their belief system?

Nope.

One of lawmakers' big concerns with the Next Generation Science Standards is an expectation that students will understand humans have significantly altered the Earth's biosphere. In other words, the standards say global warming is real.

That's a problem for some Wyoming lawmakers.

"[The standards] handle global warming as settled science," said Rep. Matt Teeters, a Republican from Lingle who was one of the footnote's authors. "There's all kind of social implications involved in that that I don't think would be good for Wyoming."

Teeters said teaching global warming as fact would wreck Wyoming's economy, as the state is the nation's largest energy exporter, and cause other unwanted political ramifications.

Micheli, the state board of education chairman, agreed.

"I don't accept, personally, that [climate change] is a fact," Micheli said. "[The standards are] very prejudiced in my opinion against fossil-fuel development."

To be clear this is a decision based solely on a fear that teaching that climate change is both real, and impacted by the actions of mankind, will have political repercussions and a short term financial impact.

One could perhaps understand the argument against evolution, based on fear that it will undermine religious belief, but this one is based solely on the fact that the politicians fear that children learning about climate change will grow up to be too informed to support oil drilling and fossil fuel exploitation.

It is really rare to have an argument against science education be quite this transparent.

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Courtesy of Americans Against the Tea Party:

Since Monday, the scientific community has been celebrating the discovery of what seems to be “smoking gun” evidence of the Big Bang. In a discovery that is touted as being on par with that of the Higgs boson in 2012, scientists now have found the first direct evidence of the Big Bang.

About 14 billion years ago, when the Big Bang created our universe, it produced gravitational waves and, of course expanded at about the same rate at which advertisers are fleeing Rush Limbaugh.

Data from the BICEP project, which deployed a special telescope in the south pole between 2005-2008 previously said that reading “strongly hinted” at inflation, but were “not sufficient to rule out other models of the early universe.” Something was missing.

If you guessed that it is the detection of the gravity wave background–something that could only result from inflation–you are correct!

This is exciting news! In fact, it was so exciting that FOX News actually reported it!

Apparently now that the Fox network is broadcasting the new Cosmos series, which is already freaking out the science deniers, they figured they might as well go all in with reporting on scientific breakthroughs.

Now if you think that the Fox News viewers are now suddenly enlightened and ready to accept the scientific explanation for the origin of the universe, well you don't know Fox News viewers now do you?


There are many more at the AATP link I posted at the top, and every one seems crazier than the last.

Let's face it science is moving forward at an increasingly rapid pace, but these people are hanging onto the door frame of religion and refusing to budge beyond their superstitious foundations.

P.S. If you want to see something both historic and heartwarming here is the video of Professor Andrei Linde, who first formulated the inflation theory, learning that he has been proven correct.

This is an incredible discovery, and it moves us much closer to understanding how we all got here, and how everything around us came into existence.

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"The first lady of the outdoors?"

There are people all over Wasilla bent over and clutching their stomachs with laughter right now.

After watching this I am guessing it is aimed at the same group of inbreds who enjoy "Hillbilly Handfishing," "Lady Hoggers," and "My Big Redneck Wedding."

Nice to see that Palin has finally found her demographic.

You know, morons.

Mediaite is calling this "Jackass for Conservatives."

Sounds about right to me.

Update: Palin pimps the trailer on her Facebook page. (Where else?)

Red, Wild, and Blue – we'll never back down!"

Oh man, we're going to have fun encouraging you with stories of overcomers who make America so amazing! Thank God for our freedom to get outdoors to enjoy His creation, to provide for our families by working so hard, and to care for our fellow man enough to voluntarily and enthusiastically help them whenever the need arises. If these unique opportunities don't drive you to defend liberty and make America exceptional again, then you could use some inspiration!

Uh, what's an "overcomer?"

Is that somebody who ejaculates too much, or something?

I'm just asking.

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This weekend, on Meet the Press, former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibs expressed concerns for the 2014 elections:

Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Gibbs said “there’s no doubt that the rollout for healthcare is still providing a huge hangover” for Democrats. But that’s not the biggest problem that Democrats face as an emboldened GOP seeks to seize six Senate seats and retake the majority for the first time in eight years.

Democrats are worried, he said, that the electorate could be more like the tea party wave election and less like the 2012 defeat of Mitt Romney and a sustained GOP push for the Senate.

In that event, “there’s a real, real danger that the Democrats could suffer big losses,” Gibbs said.

“If we lose the Senate, turn out the lights. The party’s over,” he said.

This vocalization of his concern, not one necessarily shared by other Democrats by the way, has encouraged certain elements within the conservative party to start their victory dance early.

Courtesy of the Tundra Twit's Facebook page:

"…if [Democrats] lose the Senate, turn out the lights because the party's over." - Robert Gibbs

Well then! America, let's not wait! Push back their blundering agenda that's made us less secure by adding an additional $7 trillion dollar I.O.U. to the nation's outstanding bills; jump on offense to reverse course even before the elections; and let's get this party started!

Damn does she piss me off!

Unlike Gibbs I really don't think the Republicans have a very clear shot at victory, even if the President does not jump into the races aggressively.

Overall the feeling in the country about Republicans in general is less than stellar, and Obamacare, which just signed up five million people, is not the open wound it was six short months ago. In fact it could serve as a positive if the numbers keep going up, and truthful testimonials are used in political advertisements during the campaign cycle.

Since this whole thing comes down to turnout, I do believe that with their numbers slipping away, and a feeling of impending doom for the party, that the Republicans have substantial motivation to get to the polls this time out.

But so do Democrats.

Especially Democrats who realize that with more support in the Senate and the House, the President could make his second term far more productive than his last, and that losing the Senate would be the death knell for anymore progress until 2016.

So come on people, let's not fail this President now.

And whatever we do, let's NEVER make Sarah Palin right about anything!

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