Guy in a Bear Suit

watch out cprime

this is going to happen to you next:

ftc says burnlounge is a pyramid scheme

the top guys had to pay back money. 

by the way, what were the results of that double blind test that was supposed to have happened in march/april?  and where is your patent?

next step - the american taliban

ok, i have a good idea about how politicians attempt to win elections.  they appeal directly to the group(s) that they know will vote for them by bringing up an issue that will move those people to the polls. 

in 2004, the ohio republican party put an anti gay marriage bill on the agenda, knowing that religious nutters would show up to vote for that, and hey, while you're here, how's about checking that lil' ole box for dubya.  it worked, and bush took a key swing state by around 100K votes.

so with that in mind, i have no idea if rick perry really believes what the people in the following video are saying, but it's scary as fuck to think that he could end up as our president while having these people as his spiritual advisers.  these are all groups that are taking part in his prayer rally in august. 

one thing that i don't understand at all is how some christians want to forcefeed their beliefs on the rest of us and won't accept anything else.  how is that different than what the taliban did in afghanistan?  obviously we're not at the stage of stoning people to death, but it's the same path, just further down.  our country was founded on the tenet of freedom of religion.  that also means freedom from religion. 

so have yourself a look & listen to this video.  some moments that i particularly enjoyed were:

• 0:55 - oprah is the whore of babylon (actually, i might agree with this one)
• 1:30 - hitler was a hunter for jesus, weeding out all the bad jews who didn't want to live in jerusalem
• 2:04 - when you die, god will have a copy of your voting record and will want to have a word or two with you.  "so tell me again why you voted for the bond measure to build a new minor league baseball stadium?  i believe i made it clear that i wanted the toledo mud hens to stay put".

 be afraid.  be very afraid.

 

jesus will only give me as much as i can handle

i can't stand it when people say this.  or really i can't stand it when they actually believe it.

pick up your local newspaper (i'm dating myself, no one besides me reads the paper anymore) on any given day and you'll find lots of examples of people that were bitten off more than they could chew by the almighty choppers of the lord.

take the case of rev. fred winters, who was shot in his church while in the middle of a sermon.  he even used his bible as a shield.  was he given only as much as he could handle?  said god, when reached for comment, "guess i overestimated my book's ability to stop bullets.  i really thought he would handle that".

or what about greg mckendry of knoxville, TN.  he was an usher in a church where he was shot by a gunman.  your thoughts on that, god?  "oops.  mighta given greg a touch more than he could handle, what with the bullets and all".

care to ask the opinions of the nine brazillian church-goers that were killed when the roof of their church collapsed?  god didn't tell me, but i'm almost positive having a roof dropped on your fucking head at the precise moment you're praising someone is more than you should be expected to handle.

now don't get all in a huff and get me wrong; these are horrible, horrible acts.  even though i'm not religious, i think one should be able to worship without worrying about being shot.  my point here is not that bad things happen to people in church, although sometimes they do, just like anywhere else.  my point is that saying, "god only gives us as much as we can handle" is one of the more ridiculous notions i've ever heard. 

people tend to use it when they're facing a minor setback and they're trying to put a positive spin on it.  ok, i get that.  the power of positive thinking and all that, even if the source of the positivity is the magic man in the sky who will fix all our boo-boos if only we ask.

but the reason it fails is because no one ever says it in regard to someone who died.  "man, jesus sure gave old jimmy a fuck ton more than he could handle when he made that pit bull rip his throat out".  if you believe in god, guess what?  sometimes he's gonna give people more than they can handle. 

and of course when he does, it will have been "his will", which is the catch-all for all of the atrocious things that happen to people on earth.  choke on a fishbone and die on your kitchen floor?  his will.  lose your job for looking at tranny porn on a work computer?  he's only giving you something he knows you can handle. 

to me, when someone speaks of "god's will" in response to a tragedy, it's the religious equivalent of shrugging your shoulders and going, "fuck if i know". 

but i'm sure reading this rant is only as much as you can handle.