Religious Bullshit

God's Plan for Sarah Palin: Shake Your MoneyMaker, Bitch

Today's New York Times sheds more light on the religious fundamentalism of Sarah Palin.  The article--In Palin's Life and Politics, Goal to Follow God's Will--we are confronted with another candidate for high office who believes in the literal word of a book of ancient myths.  (Myths that revere a fictional god with a penchant for murder, rape, genocide, infanticide and human sacrifice.)

More frightening still is the Times passing reference to Palin's former pastor and his advice for Palin when she comes asking for biblical examples of great leaders.  He refers her to the Book of Esther, which the NYT characterizes as "the story of Esther, a beauty queen who became a real one, gaining the king’s ear to avert the slaughter of the Jews and vanquish their enemies. When Esther is called to serve, God grants her a strength she never knew she had." 

The "liberal media" is giving the conservative Bible thumpers a big break with that interpretation.  I just read the entire Book of Esther, and I'll agree on one point: she discovers her strength, all right.  It's called the pubococcygeus muscle.  (Who knew Kegel exercises go back millennia?)

Allow me to elaborate.  Here's my more learned and accurate accounting of the Book of Esther:

The story opens in the court of a Persian king named Ahasuerus (we'll call him King Ass, for short).  King Ass is rich, powerful and used to getting his way.  He throws a big party where the wine is flowing free.  After several days of binge drinking with his homeys, he orders his main bitch to come in and show off her fine ass to his subjects.  The Queen, however, was apparently a little ahead of her time.  She refuses to submit to King Ass's drunken, sexist commands (don't Palin and her supporters hate sexism, by the way?).  King Ass strips her of her title (and in some accounts, kills the uppity bitch) and issues a decree: Chicks everywhere, obey your husbands or there will be hell to pay. 

This is when the story gets really good.  He then rounds up a bunch of virgins from across the land.  Esther is one of them, and when the King sees her, he pretty much pops a royal woodie.  He makes her Queen and forces his smelly persian prick on her at his whim.  Esther, she figures shit, it's a living.  This goes on for a while, until the King's sycophantic Prime Minister Haman (let's call him Hymen, for fun) gets all worked up that Esther's Uncle Mordecai (aka, Mordy) won't bow down to him.  Hymen gets King Ass to issue an order that all Jews are to be killed in an official "killing spree" to be held really soon.

Esther to the rescue!  Esther calls a special few dinners with the King Ass and Hymen.  Though it's not explicitly spelled out, you can pretty easily infer that she gives his Highness a few Special, Royal Fuckings.  (Probably some reverse cowboy stuff with some teasingly torturous blowjobs, delayed ejaculation/edging, followed by some explosive cumming.  Just some educated guessing on my part.) 

As you might imagine, after King Ass wakes up from what must have been a hell of a great night's sleep, he's seeing the world pretty differently.  He hangs Hymen, reverses his decree, and it's the Jews who get to go on a killing spree, annihilating their enemies in a biblically-typical orgy of violence and depravity.

As the old saw goes, she who has the pussy holds the power. 

Yes, this is the story that might very well be the single most important piece of inspiration and guidance for the next Vice President of the United States.  It's worth noting that her pastor thinks Sarah "had lived out the advice as governor, and would now do so again as the Republic Party's vice-presidential nominee."  (emphasis added). 

Wow.  One can only conclude that should--God forbid--John McCain die in office, he's likely to die with a smile on his face that a crow bar won't be ably to pry off.

South Carolina's god-given right to fuck up the United States

South Carolina's completely dis-proportionate role in Presidential politics must end. 

On Friday the South Carolina Republican party announced that it's moving up its primary to January 19, 2008.  The reason? Because it's so critical that South Carolina maintain its "first in the South" status, according to the state Republican chairman Katon Dawson. 

Yes, the primary system is fucked up all-around.  But South Carolina's actions--rooted as as they are in holier-than-thou, delusional religious fervor--are the most offensive.  (When faced with the possibility of sanctions from the national political parties, Dawson sniffed, "We'll deal with the punishment later."  But that's the kind of attitude you can expect from people who think they are on a mission from God.)

Before the hate-mail starts rolling in from the rednecks, I should state for-the-record that I'm intimately familiar with South Carolina.  I've spent much of my life there.  So I can make the following statements with some authority:

-- This is a state that is still frighteningly full of confederate-flag waving, "south will rise again" rednecks who still maintain the Civil War (which they are weirdly obsessed with) was about "states' rights," not slavery.  (South Carolina's official reasons for secession are captured in the historical record right here, you fucking Klansmen.  Oh wait--you're illiterate.  I almost forgot.)

-- Some of their most renowned politicians love to pander to racists even while secretly impregnating black teenage housekeepers.  (How's hell feeling, Strom?) 

-- They act most "un-Jesus-like" in their hatred of sinners, which in their estimation range from gays to democrats to atheists to vegetarians (it's almost funny, the degree to which the latter inspire their inbred brows to furrow in consternation).

-- Even so, they just L-O-V-E god.  Just read the South Carolina Republican Party Platform, and you'll see the Big-Guy-in-the-Sky mentioned every paragraph or two.  I particularly like this one:

We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self- government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.

This is why many of us--those born of two un-related parents, those who read, those who wear shoes--end up moving away from South Carolina.  For all of its beauty and its contributions to society (e.g., boiled peanuts, shrimp-and-grits) the average citizen makes it unbearable.

To paraphrase Bill Maher, I love South Carolina.  It's South Carolinians I can't stand. 

And I shore can't stand 'em picking our Presidents, bubba!

John McCain and the Theory of Devolution

devolution
noun
1.	the process of declining from a higher to a lower level of effective power or vitality or essential quality

The first GOP debate revealed that three Presidential hopefuls don't believe in evolution...so we knew to expect more religious bullshit from last night's festivities.

I'm resigned to the Mormon's and the Southern Baptist minister's viewpoints.   But McCain continues to confound and frustrate me.  I guess it's because I still want so much more from him, despite it being clear for a while that he's sold his soul--or his intellect, anyway--to the Devil in order to win over the religious right.

Here was the exchange last night between moderator Wolf Blitzer and Mr. McCain:

BLITZER: Senator McCain, do you believe creationism should be taught alongside evolution in the nation’s schools?

SEN. MCCAIN: No, I believe that’s up to the school districts. But I think that every American should be exposed to all theories....

The point is that the time before time — there’s no doubt in my mind that the hand of God was in what we are today. And I do believe that we are unique, and I believe that God loves us. But I also believe that all of our children in school can be taught different views on different issues. But I leave the curricula up to the school boards.

Seen the Light?

The news today is about how faith helped Hillary cope with the most infamous blowjob in history. This from the "Presidential Forum on Faith, Values and Poverty," which took place last night with a panel that included Hillary, Obama and Edwards. The Hillary quote that struck me was:

At those moments in time when you are tested, it is absolutely essential that you be grounded in your faith.

Hmmm.  Tested.  Tested by what?  A blowjob?  Doesn't God have better things to do?

Like, for example, helping John Edwards, a man who is starting to look like our Job of American Presidential Politics.  His 16-year old son died of an auto accident back in the mid 90s, and his wife is fighting cancer for the second time.  According to ABC News:

He said he strayed from his faith as an adult and it came 'roaring back' when his teenage son died in 1996. "It was the Lord that got me through that," Edwards said, along with both of his wife's cancer diagnoses.

I can buy into that kind of conversion.  The kind that comes from genuine tragedy.  From needing to believe that your loved one isn't gone...that you'll see him/her again some day.      

Still, on the whole, I think Democrats are hypocrites.  My theory is many of them are atheists, agnostics, or simply non-practicing-whatevers.  Hillary is Exhibit A here.  Her sermon is pure campaign strategy.  The blue dress as Shroud of Turin...I see Jesus in that spunk stain.

Edwards...that's different.  I believe him, and am genuinely pulling for him and his wife.  (If I lost one of my loved ones, I could find God, too.  Whatever eases the pain.) 

But a blowjob?  Please.  I find that a little hard to, well, swallow.