When cataclysmic disasters strike, it usually doesn't take long for TV prophets like Pat Robertson, John Hagee and the late, unlamented Jerry Falwell to pronounce them portentous signs of God's wrath. Equally predictable: God's punishments are always closely aligned with the prophets' right-wing political views.
It's notable then that with the biggest-ever oil slick bearing down on Gulf Coast beaches and a spate of deadly tornadoes and floods across the South over the past few weeks, interpreters of divine vengeance have been eerily quiet.
Their silence is atypical. For example, within about 48 hours after 9/11, Robertson and Falwell were on the air expressing what appeared to be inside knowledge about who was really to blame for the terror attacks: http://www.pensitoreview.com/2010/05/03/why-is-god-smiting-the-deep-south/
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The Boy Scouts of America, an organization that bans gays and atheists from membership, was ordered to pay a settlement of $18.5 million to Kerry Lewis by an Oregon jury last week. Lewis was the victim of repeated sexual assaults by former assistant scoutmaster Timur Dykes in the 1980s. The Scouts apparently knew Dykes was assaulting boys and let him continue as an assistant scoutmaster.
More on the story at the link about how the Scouts kept more than just one known child rapist on the team.
The Scouts prohibit atheists from volunteering with them. "because of its views concerning the duty to god, Boy Scouts of America believes that an atheist or agnostic is not an appropriate role model of the Scout oath and law for adolescent boys. Because of scouting's methods and beliefs, scouting does not accept atheists and agnostics as members or adult volunteer leaders."
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Christians take time out of their busy day to scream derisive putdowns. In Congress.
And also to check emails:
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The multi-millionaire banker pulls out a dollar – a single dollar – to give to the homeless man while walking back to the Ritz, just like in that Eddie Murphy movie.
More Goldman "sacking" ... this time of the adulterous kind:
No man's behavior looks attractive when he's cheating on his wife, but this little tell-all by a woman who had a sort-of fling with former Goldman chief and treasury secretary Bob Rubin is more than unusually embarrassing. It's all coming out now — Goldman is officially the new Tiger Woods. The next revelation has to be something involving Gary Cohn and Ted Haggard. - matt taibbi
With all of his writing about the vampire squidlikeness of Goldman, I'm thinking Matt better have some body guards. Goldman probably wants to "sack" him in the "Cousin Guido" kind of way.
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Today, the Senate will begin casting votes on the Wall Street reform bill. "Democratic leaders had not yet determined as of late Monday whether amendments will need 50 or 60 votes to pass." Sen. Barbara Boxer's (D-CA) amendment stating that no taxpayer funds could be used again to bail out large financial institutions is likely to be the first to be voted on.
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Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on the Gulf spill….
"It potentially is very catastrophic. And I think we have to prepare for the worst, as we have from day one. If this thing continues to spew out, the ultimate relief here is going to be a relief well that may be 90 days out. And so we have to be prepared to make sure that we're protecting the American public, the American environment, our treasured coastlines on the Gulf Coast. So we are ready to do everything humanly possible to get that done."
The ultimate relief he is referring to involves drilling a "relief well" three miles below the ocean floor.
Not good.
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The attempted car bombing now appears to be an act of international terrorism.
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Terrorism and double standards
It's hard to imagine that Faisal Shahzad, found and apprehended admirably quickly in Saturday's attempted car bombing in Times Square, is going to be allowed to post bail. Nor should he be. Because a determined terrorist is a high risk to either flee, as Shahzad was in the process of doing, or continue his quest to wreak mayhem. So it's only right that suspected terrorists be held until trial, right?
Well, unless they're WHITE, right-wing terrorists who invoke Christ and have vowed to kill police officers and government officials. Then they get to go free.
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It's only beig government when some other state gets the largesse
Some things are too hypocritical for even that hack Dana Milbank to ignore:
About 10:30 Monday morning, Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), an ardent foe of big government, posted a blog item on his campaign Web site about the huge oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. "I strongly believe BP is spread too thin," he wrote.
The poor dears. He thinks it would be a better arrangement if "federal and state officials" would do the dirty work of "protecting and cleaning up the coast" instead of BP.
About an hour later came word from the Pentagon that Alabama, Florida and Mississippi -- all three governed by men who once considered themselves limited-government conservatives -- want the federal government to mobilize (at taxpayer expense, of course) more National Guard troops to aid in the cleanup.
Read on...it's definitely worth your time, as it points out how residents of the states which send these small-government demagogues receive a disproportionate amount of federal funds even when all is well. But don't think for one minute that the money we in the states that don't vote for these teabagger-coddling loons is going to change anything. The minute they get their hands on the cash, they'll be back to screaming that Obama is a socialist and we in the Godless heathen Jewish homosexual Communist northeast aren't "real" Americans.
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Evolution at work
Just as the heavy use of antibiotics contributed to the rise of drug-resistant supergerms, American farmers' near-ubiquitous use of the weedkiller Roundup has led to the rapid growth of tenacious new superweeds.There is nothing about this story that was not foreseeable by anyone with a basic education in science.
But every industry assumes that they are different and that they can ignore science. The farmers were no different.
Farmers sprayed so much Roundup that weeds quickly evolved to survive it. "What we're talking about here is Darwinian evolution in fast-forward," Mike Owen, a weed scientist at Iowa State University, said.Part of this may be due to the fierce dedication to scientific illiteracy of a certain number of the religious and political interests in this country, for if you and your neighbors think that evolution is a fraud, then the point that, if you apply the same pesticide or herbicide over and over again, that the pests and weeds will develop a tolerance for the stuff will escape you. You won't be able to see past the marketing hype of Monsanto. You'll think that if a little application of a weed-killer is good, a heavy application is better.
But sooner or later, a weed (or pest) develops a tolerance for the chemicals used to kill it. And then there is that huge ecological niche for weeds that is now empty and the poison-tolerant weed fills it, as rapidly as propagation allows.
Monsanto and their ilk, of course, have a vested interest in ignoring the way evolution works. They'll eventually develop another weed-killer that works as well as Roundup. And the cycle will repeat itself.
Because we will have learned nothing from this.
