Nebraska ACLU wants schools to ban rosaries!

Well, I’m sure some will try and make such a claim – but it just ain’t so.

First the story: The Fremont (Nebraska) Public School District had banned certain necklaces from its schools after hearing from local police that gangs were using them as identifying markers. So when a 12 year old girl showed up for classes wearing a necklace that fit the description, she was told to remove it while at school. The Nebraska branch of the ACLU is siding with the girl and her parents against the school policy.

Omaha World-Herald Oct 4, 2011

Amy Miller, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska, said Monday that the ban raises “serious concerns” about children’s religious liberty.

“Students have the right to express their faith in public schools,” Miller said. “Whether a student wants to wear a crucifix, a rosary or another symbol, it is wrong for school officials to interfere.

“We understand the serious concerns about gangs in schools, but Fremont Public Schools should demonstrate there is a concrete gang connection before shutting down a student’s free speech and religious rights.”

How many will believe the heading for this post? The ACLU has been demonised as the enemy of religion for so long that far too many will believe any lie about it.

Right wing tolerance

found at Ed Brayton’s place, with original formatting by John Jay

first things first.–

1.)take out the talking head media, and burn the new york times, the los angeles times and the washington post to the ground. draw and quarter the media, and shoot their remains from canons in the four directions of the prevailing winds.

rinse, lather, repeat as needed.

2.)take out all the incumbent leadership of both parties in the congress, and every self avowed socialist and communist in congress. give them all proper muslim burials at sea, just like osama bin laden.

eliminate pensions for congressional service. rinse, lather, repeat as needed.

3.)eliminate the faculty senates at harvard, yale, columbia, nyu and university of california at santa barbara. boil bill ayers, bernie dorhn and angela davis in canola oil, and feed their remains to the fishes.

they are all physical cowards. they should fall into line pretty quickly. repeat every ten years as a prophylactic, on general principle.

and,

4.)now that the “arab spring” has brought enlightenment to the middle east, send all of the muslim immigrants back to their native countries, in boxes or tourist, their choice.

burn all the mosques. period.

just sayin’.

john jay @ 09.26.2011

p.s. burn the editors and contributors to “the daily kos” at the stake. i’ll think of something suitable for hilary clinton. bill, he has to room with jimmy carter in a clapped out pickup & camper on the edge of a southern peanut field, somewhere in arkansas: that’s about as close to a living hell as i can imagine for him.

and, throw all the living governors of new york, california, ohio, illinois, washington, florida and massachusetts into the fiery pits, from which there is no escape. sorry, jeb. but, i think that you were a skull & bones internationalist, too, weren’t you?

No need to say anything – let the fool speak for himself

EPA declares hay a pollutant!?!?

An old Buffalo Springfield tune has some appropriate lyrics for these times:

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you’re always afraid

Death panels, FEMA camps (prisons), Christians being oppressed, Obama is a secret Muslim, etc. etc. and now “Hay is a pollutant!”

EPA Declares Hay a Pollutant in Effort to Antagonize Small and Mid-Sized U.S. Cattle Feeders

September 1, 2011 Billings, Mont. – During his presentation on the status of the nation’s new country-of-origin labeling (COOL) law, and on behalf of the R-CALF USA COOL Committee, R-CALF USA member and Kansas cattle feeder Mike Callicrate was asked a non-COOL question that set convention goers on their heels during the 12th Annual R-CALF USA Convention held August 26-27 in Rapid City, S.D.

“Has the Environmental Protection Agency declared hay a pollutant?” an audience member asked. Callicrate responded affirmatively and explained that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently initiated a formal enforcement action against his Kansas feedlot for, among other things, failure to store his hay in a pollution containment zone. “Now that EPA has declared hay a pollutant, every farmer and rancher that stores hay, or that leaves a broken hay bale in the field is potentially violating EPA rules and subject to an EPA enforcement action,” Callicrate said. “How far are we going to let this agency go before we stand up and do something about it?”

“Has the Environmental Protection Agency declared hay a pollutant?” an audience member asked.”

Gee, do you think that was a planted question?

Honestly, I don’t know any more about this than what I could ‘google’ in a few minutes but what I did find seems to show that Mr Callicrate’s feed lot has a bit of a problem with contaminated run-off. Not too unexpected with a place that has 3000+ cows eating and defecating. Water contamination is a constant problem with modern meat production and I think the EPA does a decent job protecting America’s water supply – most of the time.

Clean water for all is a rather important goal and the idiots who think the EPA is holding back business solely due to the ideological bias of various government workers simply have no clue as to the effects of their personal desires.

Hope – stupidity in one direction canceled by stupidity going the other way

Ignorance of history goes a long way in the modern world. Most think history is irrelevant, others know it is important but what they think they know of history is often wrong. Far too often history is used to excuse actions taken in modern society.

MsMaxy74 has some ‘issues’ with the world she lives in, however the responses to her are just as full of crap as her video.

It does seem like there are lots of people who love seeing themselves on the internets, no matter how clueless they come across.

Arizona passes a ‘Birther’ Bill (for male candidates)

Wandering about the tubez of the internets a couple days past, I found an interesting post on the site of the Phoenix New Times:

Birther Bill Could Force Presidential Candidates to Provide Description of Their Penis

This morning I read that the bill has now passed the Arizona House and is to be signed into law. So Arizona passes a ‘birther’ bill that would require “President Obama and other presidential candidates to prove they are U.S. citizens before their names can appear on the state’s ballot.” Color me unsurprised

This Arizona bill is not about proving a candidate’s citizenship, the Certificate of Live Birth for Barack Hussein Obama that has been posted all over the internets, is accepted by the US Government as proof of citizenship. If the Arizona legislation was anything other than an attack on the President based on the babblings of the demented – it would not allow non-legal documents to be considered acceptable ‘proof’. Allowing a document which is not accepted by the feds is simply additional proof of the fallacy inherent in any statement about candidates “proving” they are citizens. Plus the matter of gender discrimination just might be a bit of a problem.

The initial paragraphs of the Fox article do not provide a complete description of the bill as passed, but then what else would one expect from FauxNews. The tendency of most of us to simply read the first couple of paragraphs in a news story is well known. So if the editor doesn’t like a fact, it may be included but be buried in the trailing parts.

Toward the bottom of the Fox piece is the kicker, the matter of what type of documents are acceptable to the state of Arizona as “proof” of citizenship. Does anyone else think that a religious document which is not accepted in any court as a ‘legal’ document should be considered as proof of citizenship?

The last sentence of the Fox piece shows the danger of the ‘birther’ bill.

The names of candidates can be kept off the ballot if the secretary of state doesn’t believe the candidates met the citizenship requirement.

If I am reading it correctly, this means that one political figure would be given the power to prevent a person from running for office. Not quite what one could call Democracy.

Text of the bill may found here.

If you go to the Arizona Legislatures website and search for HB2177, you will find a very interesting action by the pols in Phoenix. HB2177 started as a proposal to ensure Arizona schools all conformed to a standard number of days they would be open in any school year but then in some mysterious fashion mutated into the bill as passed which sets out requirements for Presidential candidates.

Denial is not just a river in Egypt, Rome has problems too

This meshes nicely with the planned beatification of Pope John Paul II as the letter was sent out while he was on the Papal throne

DUBLIN — A newly revealed 1997 letter from the Vatican warned Ireland’s Catholic bishops not to report all suspected child-abuse cases to police — a disclosure with the potential to fuel more lawsuits worldwide against the Vatican, which has long denied any involvement in cover-ups.

The letter, obtained by Irish broadcasters RTE and provided to The Associated Press, documents the Vatican’s rejection of an Irish church initiative to begin helping police identify pedophile priests.

The letter’s message undermines persistent Vatican claims that the church never instructed bishops to withhold evidence or suspicion of crimes from police. It instead emphasizes the church’s right to handle all child-abuse allegations, and determine punishments, in house rather than hand that power to civil authorities.

Catholic officials in Ireland declined AP requests on the letter, which RTE said it received from an Irish bishop.

Child-abuse activists in Ireland said the 1997 letter should demonstrate, once and for all, that the protection of pedophile priests from criminal investigation was not only sanctioned by Vatican leaders but ordered by them. A key argument employed by the Vatican in defending dozens of lawsuits over clerical sex abuse in the United States is that it had no role in ordering local church authorities to suppress evidence of crimes.

It looks like various police forces around the world need to raid Catholic offices and churches as they did in Belgium.

The Guardian, June 24, 2010

Catholic headquarters in Belgium focus of police raids in sex abuse cases

Belgian police sources say church has been withholding information from its independent inquiry into sex abuse scandal

Of course, the Church just doesn’t get it, “Those Irish bishops weren’t supposed to stop speaking to the police. That’s not what the letter says.”

Vatican: 1997 Irish abuse letter ‘misunderstood’

VATICAN CITY – In a new round of damage control, the Vatican insisted Wednesday that a 1997 letter warning Irish bishops against reporting priests suspected of sex abuse to police had been “deeply misunderstood.”

The Associated Press on Tuesday reported the contents of the letter, in which the Vatican’s top diplomat in Ireland told bishops that their policy of mandatory reporting such cases to police “gives rise to serious reservations of both a moral and canonical nature.”

The newly revealed letter, obtained originally by Irish broadcaster RTE from an Irish bishop, has undermined persistent Vatican claims, particularly when seeking to defend itself in U.S. lawsuits, that Rome never told bishops not to cooperate with police.

Dems Panicked Over ‘Climategate’ Probe

FoxNation.com at 9:00AM 19 Jan 2011
(I’m posting the date and time due to a propensity of FoxNews to erase or alter embarrassing claims from their sites)

A power struggle is unfolding in Virginia over climate change research. Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has been taking the University of Virginia to court to get information on a climate change researcher who once worked at the school. Now several members of the State Assembly say they’ve had enough and have introduced legislation to rein in Cuccinelli’s investigation. Cuccinelli, a global warming skeptic, is looking into whether UVA professor Michael Mann manipulated data to show that there has been a rapid, recent rise in the Earth’s temperature.

Read more: http://nation.foxnews.com/climate-change/2011/01/19/dems-panicked-over-climategate-probe
(auto link, which is a nice bit of programming, except in this case all you would get to read are some rather inane comments)

So tell me, from the headline didn’t you think this was related to or about the stolen emails last year? After all, wasn’t the controversy stirred up by deniers and politicians all about those stolen emails? So why did Fox use that word – Climategate – when the story is actually about the “Hockey Stick” graph?

Also, where are the “Dems” who are supposed to be “panicked”?

from the site linked to in the FoxNation piece – WTOP FM in Virginia

Democratic Sens. Donald McEachin of Henrico and Chap Petersen of Fairfax County say their bills won’t give blanket immunity to colleges to defraud the state, but they would curb politically motivated probes.

McEachin and Petersen, both lawyers, said Cuccinelli had abused the authority the office obtained under a 2002 law.

Their legislation would force Cuccinelli to sue and obtain subpoenas as is required of other civil litigation. This would afford defendants the right to defend themselves.

That last sentence is rather telling wouldn’t you say?

Less scary thoughts (for some folks) about Election Day 2010

As Nate Silver promised, he has now posted five reasons why Democratic candidates (might) do better than all the polls are showing.

Five Reasons Democrats Could Beat the Polls and Hold the House

1. The cellphone effect. … a lot of pollsters don’t call mobile phones. Cellphone-only voters tend to be younger, more urban, and less white — all Democratic demographics — and a study by Pew Research suggests that the failure to include them might bias the polls by about 4 points against Democrats

2. The “robopoll” effect. … “robopolls” being 3 or 4 points more favorable to Republicans over all

3. Some likely voter models, particularly Gallup’s, may “crowd out” Democratic voters. Gallup’s traditional likely voter model has consistently shown terrible results for Democrats this year, having them down by around 15 points on the generic ballot

4. Democrats probably have better turnout operations. This is always what a party says when it’s about to lose an election: our amazing turnout operation will save us!

5. The consensus view of Democratic doom is not on such sound footing as it seems. It seems like the evidence that Republicans will win the House is very rich, redundant and robust. Look at this generic ballot poll! Look at this other generic ballot poll! Look at how badly Democrats are doing among whites. Look at how they’re doing among independents!

But all of these indicators are, in fact, highly correlated with one another. They’re all rooted in the polling, and they’re all dependent on the polling basically being accurate.

It will be an interesting evening if the early reports of much higher voter-turnout numbers than predicted continue to come in from the rest of the country. Will the craziness and loonasity of various Republican candidates be enough to get apathetic voters off their butts and down to their local polling place – we will see.

Why do Republicans hate (fear) science?

Yet once again as we approach Election Day in America, many on the right are stepping up their attacks on science, whether it is global warming or evolution or childhood vaccination. In a world driven by the advances that science and scientists have bestowed upon us over the past three hundred years, there are some who continue to exploit the ignorance found in many Americans.

They vow to stop the EPA’s regulation of green house gases, they push for the teaching of ‘intelligent design’ in biology classes and they want their version of history taught in America’s schools. Despite the reality of tens of thousands researchers using evolutionary science in their quest for knowledge about life on this planet, no matter the number of climatologists who tell the world that humanity is the primary cause of global warming and the hundreds of thousands of medical practitioners who will vouch for the effectiveness of childhood vaccines, there are some Americans who seem to fear reality and to prefer holding tight to ideas that a smart 12 year old can debunk.

Despite the validation of the science being confirmed by multiple queries into the emails of “Climategate”, we have the following promise from Republicans

GOP plans attacks on the EPA and climate scientists

Several key Republican Congressmen — most notably Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista), who could take over the chairmanship of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee — have said they plan to investigate climate scientists they contend manipulated data to prove the case that human activity is contributing to global warming.

In Virginia, fundamentalist Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli continues his legal attacks on Professor Michael Mann, he of the famous “hockey stick” graph.

Back in May, as campaigns heated up we could read the following
Alabama Gov. Candidate Attacked for Belief in Evolution and what was his response?

As a Christian and as a public servant, I have never wavered in my belief that this world and everything in it is a masterpiece created by the hands of God … As a member of the Alabama Board of Education, the record clearly shows that I fought to ensure the teaching of creationism in our school text books.

Didn’t do him much good, he lost in the Republican primary.

Time and again, Republican politicians have either refused to answer questions about the Theory of Evolution or have vowed that they, as Mr Byrne in Alabama did, “believe every single word of the bible is true.

Conservatives pick 25 ‘Worst’ Americans

So reading my morning dose of liberal ‘koolaid’ – must keep up with the messaging you know, I was ‘directed to’ this at Right Wing News

Out of all the gangsters, serial killers, mass murderers, incompetent & crooked politicians, spies, traitors, and ultra left-wing kooks in all of American history — have you ever wondered who the worst of the worst was? Well, we here at RWN wondered about that, too, and that’s why we decided to email more than a hundred bloggers to get their opinions. Representatives from the following 43 blogs responded…
(snipped blog list)

The 25 Worst (votes in parentheses)
23) Saul Alinsky (7)
23) Bill Clinton (7)
23) Hillary Clinton (7)
19) Michael Moore (7)
19) George Soros (8)
19) Alger Hiss (8)
19) Al Sharpton (8)
13) Al Gore (9)
13) Noam Chomsky (9)
13) Richard Nixon (9)
13) Jane Fonda (9)
13) Harry Reid (9)
13) Nancy Pelosi (9)
11) John Wilkes Booth (10)
11) Margaret Sanger (10)
9) Aldrich Ames (11)
9) Timothy McVeigh (11)
7) Ted Kennedy (14)
7) Lyndon Johnson (14)
5) Benedict Arnold (17)
5) Woodrow Wilson (17)
4) The Rosenbergs (19)
3) Franklin Delano Roosevelt (21)
2) Barack Obama (23)
1) Jimmy Carter (25)

Naturally, I am totally outraged by the historical ignorance shown by this list with its focus on those ‘liberals’ presently on the political scene, there are some historical figures but really – somebody is putting Al Sharpton on the list with Timothy McVeigh and John Wilkes Booth? Jimmy Carter worse than Rutherford B Hayes? C’mon people – quit complaining about education in America if this is the best you can come up with, what with your ‘elite’ home schools and fundie colleges.

So, I had to check and see what some of the individual bloggers had to say about their choices, naturally I picked the one with the title of “Professor” and – what do you know, the guy actually does know a bit of history, I still disagree with some of his choices – “Paris Hilton”?? but most of his list is a reasonable selection of the folks most would call the “Worst in American History”

ProfessorBainbridge.com
first his comments about the original list
23) Saul Alinsky (7)–a bad guy, to be sure, but top 20?
23) Bill Clinton (7)–GOPers still mad because he beat the crap out of them; sour grapes
23) Hillary Clinton (7)–I don’t like her, but I think she’s making a good Secretary of State
19) Michael Moore (7)–agree
19) George Soros (8)–maybe top 40
19) Alger Hiss (8)–the traitors are way to low on this list
19) Al Sharpton (8)–eh
13) Al Gore (9)–depends on whether global warming is as bad as he thinks it is
13) Noam Chomsky (9)–annoying to be sure, but not in top 20
13) Richard Nixon (9)–fair enough
13) Jane Fonda (9)–has been much less annoying in recent years
13) Harry Reid (9)–he’s effective and wrong but not evil
13) Nancy Pelosi (9)–annoying? yes. one of the worst? no.
11) John Wilkes Booth (10)–finally somebody I wholeheartedly agree with, but should be higher
11) Margaret Sanger (10)–nope
9) Aldrich Ames (11)–yes, but should be higher
9) Timothy McVeigh (11)–yes, but should be higher
7) Ted Kennedy (14)–higher than the worst domestic terrorist? no
7) Lyndon Johnson (14)–ditto
5) Benedict Arnold (17)–too low
5) Woodrow Wilson (17)–huh?
4) The Rosenbergs (19)–good
3) Franklin Delano Roosevelt (21)–give him some credit for managing the winning coalition in WW II
2) Barack Obama (23)–way too high, even if socialized medicine ends up being his legacy
1) Jimmy Carter (25)– being feckless and sanctimonious doesn’t make him a bad guy

now his list of the worst
1. Aldrich Ames–traitor
2. Benedict Arnold–traitor
3. John Wilkes Booth–killed our greatest President, contender for #1 on my list if rank ordered
4. James Buchanan–feckless President whose inaction allowed the Southern rebellion to get off the ground
5. Aaron Burr–traitor and murderer of Hamilton
6. Robert Byrd–KKK member and the worst pork politician in history, plus an insufferable prig
7. Jefferson Davis–leader of the traitorous Southern rebels
8. Louis Farrakhan–race hate monger
9. Nathan Bedford Forrest–treasonous Rebel general, caused or condoned the mass murder of black soldiers at Fort Pillow, founder of the KKK, contender for # 1
10. Rutherford B. Hayes–President who threw Reconstruction under the bus to steal election
11. Paris Hilton–personification of the celebrity obsessed culture
12. Alger Hiss–traitor with really annoying apologists
13. Jim Jones–mass murderer and race hate monger
14. Ted Kennedy–Chappaquiddick, probable rapist, almost certainly a rape abettor, and progenitor of what might become socialized medicine
15. Bernie Madoff–worst financial swindler
16. Timothy McVeigh–worst domestic terrorist, probably # 1 on my list if rank ordered
17. Michael Moore–he just oozes evil
18. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg–atomic bomb traitors
19. Roger Taney–Chief Justice who decided Dred Scot and Ex Parte Merryman
20. Morrison Waite–Chief Justice whose decision in United States v. Cruikshank effectively disabled the federal government from protecting the freed blacks from white southern terrorists during Reconstruction

…there’s just a couple of folks who really annoy the crap out of me. But I tried to keep them to a minimum. And I really think you can make a case for Byrd and Kennedy deserving to be at least in the top 100. In their own ways, they each personify and symbolize some of the worst aspects of our political life. So I’d argue that only Hilton and Moore are real reaches on my part.

The one person who slipped my mind, but whom I probably would have found room for if I had thought of him in time is L. Ron Hubbard as our worst religious false prophet.

Some of the remaining bloggers had some very bizarre choices on their lists but that’s the internets for ya.

So what do YOU think? Should a person who is merely annoying (Moore and Hilton) be on the list? and why put Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd on the list of your personal 20 Worst and then write that they deserve to be “at least in the top 100”?