Sorry, So Sorry
Halfwit evangelist Franklin Graham is backpeddling after his idiotic remarks the other day:
Graham, president of the relief organization Samaritan’s Purse and the son of famed evangelist Billy Graham, said he now accepts Obama’s declarations that he is a Christian.“I regret any comments I have ever made which may have cast any doubt on the personal faith of our president, Mr. Obama,” he said in a statement.
“I apologize to him and to any I have offended for not better articulating my reason for not supporting him in this election—for his faith has nothing to do with my consideration of him as a candidate.”
Graham said he objects to Obama’s policy stances on abortion and same-sex marriage, which Graham considers to be in “direct conflict” with Scripture.
More than a dozen members of a religious subgroup of the NAACP had accused Graham of “bearing false witness” and fomenting racial discord.
“We can disagree about what it means to be a Christian engaged in politics, but Christians should not bear false witness,” the NAACP statement said. “We are also concerned that Rev. Graham’s comments can be used to encourage racism.”
Bearing false witness must be Christian speak for “being an asshole.” At any rate, he isn’t sorry at all, and achieved everything he intended to accomplish. He got to re-sow the seed that Obama is “the other” among the wingnut base, and now he gets to be the martyr who spoke the truth but was beat down. This will only increase the belief among the base that Obama isn’t Christian, and again feed their persecution complex that actual Christians can’t speak without retribution.
He knew what he was doing, even though he is a lot dumber than his father (who was also a jerk).
Wait, “bearing false witness” is still a bad thing? And yet that somehow hasn’t stopped Santorum?
February 29th, 2012 at 1:43 pm
GOP POV:
“Thanks, Franklin. Nice job – mission accomplished!”
February 29th, 2012 at 1:44 pm
What a jerk.
He is an Elmer Gantry, working to harvest goodies for himself in the name of the Lord.
Which should be “taking the Lord’s name in vain”, at least in my opinion.
February 29th, 2012 at 1:45 pm
At first glance, I read “Santorum’s Purse”
Thanks for the lulz, however unintentional.
February 29th, 2012 at 1:47 pm
JOHN! JOHN! YOUR WEB GODDESSES FIXED THE BLOCK QUOTE PARAGRAPH PROBLEM!
Second para after a blank line with no underline
February 29th, 2012 at 1:47 pm
Obama the mooslim, Hillary killed Vince Foster, Bill is a serial rapist who shot down Ron Brown’s plane.
Bearing false witness is the GOP motto.
February 29th, 2012 at 1:47 pm
He doesn’t claim to be “Samaritan’s Brain.”
What. a. dumbass.
Couldn’t one of the Graham daughters taken up the family banner? Why this jackal?
February 29th, 2012 at 1:48 pm
Great. Franklin Graham topic, and an online ad for Liberty University.
And Angelina’s disappeared!
February 29th, 2012 at 1:49 pm
I think the Ten Commandments, in the original language, are written in very simple form: ‘No lies’, ‘No theft’, ‘No murder’, etc.
These preacher men should stick with that kind of language when they apologize for committing a sin. IMHO.
February 29th, 2012 at 1:51 pm
this is a religious country, up to a point. And there is a limit to morons like Graham trying to use preacher politics on the voters, to not turn off all the folks that believe in baby jeevus, but want the little rascal and his right wing toadies to stay out of politics, at least in an obvious way. This is why a lot of repubs are wincing at Rick’s brazen bible thumping. Law of diminishing returns, that sort of thing.
February 29th, 2012 at 1:53 pm
I, like my fellow readers over at Pharyngula, really like this whole John-Cole-Says-Fuck-Religion thing. Keep pounding on these pious assholes, Cole. It helps drive the debate in the right direction. No matter how big or small the forum, it’s the volume that counts.
Just ask the Medicare-Scooter-Patriot crowd. Look at what that small number of jerks were able to accomplish. Imagine if we could get that organized.
Oh,look! We are!
February 29th, 2012 at 1:54 pm
I am heartily sick of the habit we’ve developed of promoting the children of celebrities in multiple fields to some sort of prominence because of their last names. This dynasty crap has to stop.
February 29th, 2012 at 1:55 pm
Intellectual dishonesty is where the Christo-Wingers live. Anything they disapprove of, e.g., Global Warming, MUST be proved 100% without anyone saying nay. Anything they approve of, e.g., Obama is not a Christian, is automatically True and refutation or push-back is oppression.
Assholes. The lot of ‘em.
February 29th, 2012 at 1:56 pm
@Elizabelle: Angelina Jolie? Has she disappeared in real life, or just from a BJ ad?
How about Brad?
If they’ve really disappeared, maybe it is the Rapture. That would be an interesting Rapture, if it just took BranJolina.
I guess fundamentalist preacher men being the topic brought that scenario to mind.
A person could almost like a Rapture that took only decadent Hollywood celebs and, maybe also assorted impoverished riff raff and outcasts.
February 29th, 2012 at 1:56 pm
@Elizabelle: Because the daughters are supposed to be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, with their husbands as their masters, that’s why.
February 29th, 2012 at 1:56 pm
Somebody must’ve pointed out that Obama’s UCC church, as far as protestant churches in America go, is much older than his johnny come lately sect.
February 29th, 2012 at 1:56 pm
Davy Jones died. : (
February 29th, 2012 at 1:57 pm
@Elizabelle:
Don’t you know that it is an article of faith in the Xtian world—all monotheistic religion, really—that men do the talking? Very paternalistic, they are.
February 29th, 2012 at 1:59 pm
@eemom:
The Monkees’ Davy Jones?
February 29th, 2012 at 1:59 pm
A lying asshole, to be specific, yes.
My GOD! Christians can’t randomly make up bullshit without being called on it! (Well, not always). WHERE DOES IT END
!
February 29th, 2012 at 2:00 pm
I’m hoping and feel pretty confident that the wingnut base isn’t actually all that big, so that in a larger election for president or senator say, their candidate won’t win.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:00 pm
Isn’t this the kind of half-assed meaningless takeback that only happens just before we determine if he weighs the same as a duck?
February 29th, 2012 at 2:00 pm
he objects to Obama’s policy stances on abortion and same-sex marriage, which Graham considers to be in “direct conflict” with Scripture.
What does Scripture have to say about these things?
February 29th, 2012 at 2:01 pm
If I were to guess which one practices his Christianity in daily life, it wouldn’t be Franklin. Asshole is to kind a word.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:01 pm
Bearing false witness actually means lying through your teeth, so yeah Reverend Grahame did a bad thing.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:02 pm
@eemom:
Aw, man. At the risk of really dating myself, I think he was my first official crush.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:02 pm
@Elizabelle: There is another brother who I think is a much better person, wants to honor his father’s wishes about a number of things including where he is buried when he dies. This one should not inherit the family business, so to speak.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:02 pm
@Xecky Gilchrist: Maybe someone should ask him about the death penalty also, too.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:02 pm
First of all, Obama is against same-sex marriage. So what the heck is Graham talking about? Is he lying or does he simply not know better?
Second, who the heck cares if any of Obama’s stances are against the Scripture? We have separation of church and State in this country.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:03 pm
@Elizabelle:
What Soonergrunt and joeyess said.
Plus girl cooties. Also. Too.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:04 pm
@Comrade Mary: HEY! It was fixed—I noticed it in the Snowe thread, and again when I loaded this thread a few times—but now it’s broken again.
Will go away and sulk now.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:05 pm
@Xecky Gilchrist:
That was going to be my question too. Please quote Book and Verse where abortion and same sex marriage are discussed. Kthnxbai
February 29th, 2012 at 2:06 pm
@joeyess: PZ’s horde is indeed represented here.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:07 pm
@Elizabelle:
Be careful of what you wish for.
I don’t think this is an improvement on the other Grahams.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:07 pm
I could not care less about Franklin Graham, what he thinks or does not think, or his rationale for what he thinks, does, or says. He is not relevant to me, and I am hard pressed to understand why any non-sectarian news outlet would consider him relevent.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:12 pm
@opie_jeanne:
The horse has bolted on that one: when Ruth Graham was on her deathbed, Franklin very obviously leaned on her to agree to be buried in the Charlotte themepark (talking animatronic cows, piped music at the gravesite) instead of the place she’d picked out near her home. Billy will be buried by her side.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:15 pm
@Anoniminous:
Yeah, I forget about the sexism. But was hoping one of the girls had felt genuinely “called” to preach.
I remember some reporting from 2007, when Ruth Graham was dying. She wanted to be buried near Montreat, a small community she loved.
Franklin, of course, wanted her buried at the Graham family theme park aka the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte.
And that is where she, and eventually Billy, will rest.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:16 pm
Buried at a theme park. Sounds like Lenin with Holy Roller Coaster.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:18 pm
Aha. The Ruth Graham burial story is even in Wikipedia.
Shall have to help them find the citation.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:19 pm
I’m certain that it’s already been noted here, that Davey Jones of the 1960’s boy band (created back when even boy bands had musical, writing, and signing talent) has died.
I’m a bereaver.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:20 pm
@Brachiator:
Dang. I was hoping one of the daughters would have more sense.
Their mother seemed to.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:21 pm
@Soonergrunt:
That is so perfect.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:22 pm
Reminds me of when I was canvassing for Obama before the 2008 primary and got the following response from an elderly lady:
“Well, I don’t want to vote for him because I’m a Holocaust survivor and he’s a Muslim.”
Gahhhhhh. Still gets a rise out of me every time I think about it.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:26 pm
http://www.holyobserver.com/de.....abstinence
no really, its not a joke
February 29th, 2012 at 2:26 pm
@Soonergrunt:
Last Train to Darksville?
February 29th, 2012 at 2:27 pm
@Litlebritdifrnt: I have your verses on abortion for you. Numbers 5:11-29. No, it’s not an injunction against abortion – it’s God telling priests to feed bitter water to women accused of cheating on their husbands, which will cause them to miscarry if they are guilty. In other words, forced abortions.
Fuck Franklin Graham and his ilk with a rusty pitchfork™. He can miss me with that shit.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:28 pm
Now to find the Washington Post citation. That’s my memory, too.
http://www.wsoctv.com/news/new.....ome/nGtPL/
Theme park, with dairy bar, over all.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:28 pm
I signed up for his website and left him a message on the contact us screen saying his father must be so disappointed in him. I think that is what made him rethink his comments.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:29 pm
@scav:
I think “uncouth boors for whom American Idol was the height of Art and Culture” sums it up.
Hope like hell they do get “Raptured.” Not only will we get all their tawdry stuff the average global IQ will increase 5 to 10 points.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:31 pm
@Elizabelle:
Honor thy Mammon and Fodder.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:32 pm
along with Obama’s war on gun owners! There has been no change in federal policiy concerning any of those topics. These guys have to make sh*t up to satisfy their own boogey men.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:33 pm
He is a tool and a jerk but I disagree John, he didn’t know what he was doing.
9 times out of 10, what we interpret as malice is simple stupidity. He is not smart enough for the underhanded play you attribute to him, he really isn’t.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:36 pm
Here’s the Washington Post story, by Laura Sessions Stepp, and it’s fascinating.
A Family at Cross-Purposes
February 29th, 2012 at 2:36 pm
Breaking:
Bob Kerrey changes mind again, will seek Dem nomination for NE Senate seat after all. (No link yet, but TPM is headlining it.)
.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:36 pm
@TuiMel:
Precisely because he’s irrelevant. The great American Media is determined to stoke up the partisan bickering. Especially in a presidential election year. Good, tasty, and plentiful ad money! Democracy in action!!
February 29th, 2012 at 2:36 pm
@artem1s:
It is. I think you need to read the disclaimer page although there are quite a few clues all over the place that it’s satire.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:38 pm
Part of me really wants this crazy right wing shit to continue through the year, just to make Obama and the democrats seem more normal. I just feel like if they keep everyone distracted with teh CRAZY, it will better Obama’s chance of re-election. Kind of like when Aragorn and the men of the West drew Sauron’s eye away from Mordor and Mount Doom so that Frodo could destroy the ring.
Kind of.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:38 pm
@eemom:
Does that mean David Bowie can now use his real name?
February 29th, 2012 at 2:38 pm
Why does this nitwit get any media time at all? For being the idiot son of a mostly forgotten evangelist? or being the idiot son of a right wing relic from the seventies? What say Julie Nixon and Bebe Rebozo Jr? Where is a young Hruska to speak for the mediocre? Or are we just saying Luke Russert covers that base?
February 29th, 2012 at 2:39 pm
@Skippy the Wondermule:
Forgive him Father, for he knoweth not his ass from a hole in the ground.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:39 pm
@The Dangerman:
Y’argh, to the bottom of the sea matey.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:39 pm
Let’s not forget Grandpa, Christianity Today editor L. Nelson Bell:
February 29th, 2012 at 2:40 pm
@Chris:
Fundie Christians think it’s OK to lie since they all think they have a “Get out of Hell Free” card.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:40 pm
@joeyess:
no, the dude with the undersea locker 300 years ago.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:41 pm
@The Dangerman: perhaps… Pleasant Valley Mournday would be befitting as well… They say that you always remember your first, these guys were the first ones that I ever spent hard earned birthday cash on for vinyl…
February 29th, 2012 at 2:41 pm
@Xecky Gilchrist:
Why should it matter what Scripture says?
February 29th, 2012 at 2:42 pm
@Elizabelle:
I don’t think “being called” is an option for women in that milieu anymore. Which is different from their start since from the 1920s through 1940s Amie McPherson not only ‘ran the grift’ she thought-up and developed most of it.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:42 pm
Better yet, since the President, to his eternal shame, OPPOSES same sex marriage, can Franky please explain how he and the president differ?
Hey, Frank, it’s easier for a camel to get through the eye of the needle than a rich man to enter heaven. Does Frank know Jesus told the rich man to sell everything in order to follow him?
Who’s in violation of Scripture now, asshole
February 29th, 2012 at 2:42 pm
@asiangrrlMN: The verses you cited don’t discuss a pregnancy being involved.
It’s simply a test the Israelites were to give a woman whose spouse accused her of infidelity, and failing the test meant the woman would be barren for life which was considered a horrific punishment at the time.
The injunction against abortion would be the verses against murder, which would be dependent upon accepting the premise that an unborn child is a complete human being with the attendant rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that would entail.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:42 pm
@asiangrrlMN: Thanks for that, it is going to come in useful methinks. :)
February 29th, 2012 at 2:43 pm
@chopper: I realized that was a dumb question the moment I hit ‘enter’ and fully expected to take heat for it. Just not this late in the thread. You hold grudges, don’t you? ;^)
February 29th, 2012 at 2:43 pm
@Elizabelle:
So this is Franklin’s and his sister’s vision for their parents’ earthly remains? There are so many times when you read about right-wingers and you think, if Carl Hiassen put this in a novel, you’d say he went too far.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:44 pm
@asiangrrlMN:
Even if you could make the stretch that this is an abortion procedure – you would then be saying that the abortion is fine if it is requested by the husband and performed by the temple priest. Why do you hate women’s rights?
February 29th, 2012 at 2:45 pm
Testing.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:45 pm
Yes more of this please. We need more religious people called to task for bearing false witness—i.e., lying about people. It’s the fucking 9th Commandment, after all. If fundies are going to go on and on about how much they love the 10 Commandments shouldn’t we at least remind them when they break them? Especially that oh-so-inconvenient 9th one?
February 29th, 2012 at 2:46 pm
@Soonergrunt:
Perfection. I loved the Monkees. Such a fun show. Does anyone else remember when MTV ran something like three straight days of Monkees shows? I stayed up with some friends and we watched show after show until finally we collapsed. They had some “audition footage” for the eventual members. I don’t know if it was real or not, but it was fun.
RIP, Davy.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:47 pm
I watched the Monkees routinely as a child but besides the musical numbers, I can’t remember the basic format of the show. I’d rather have one of you tell me than look it up – did they have plots? Were they solving mysteries?
February 29th, 2012 at 2:48 pm
If you don’t pray in my school I won’t think in your church, mmmkay?
February 29th, 2012 at 2:49 pm
@reflectionephemeral:
That link in the original post made me sad. I don’t know much about Billy Graham, but I did remember him being one of the people who rooted for civil rights. I guess racial tolerance didn’t bleed over into religious tolerance.
@rlrr:
FTFY.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:49 pm
@asiangrrlMN: Psalm 139 is also a major scriptural touchstone for pro-lifers, where the psalmist talks about God “creating [his] inmost being” and “knitting [him] together” in the womb. They interpret this as proof that life begins at conception and is the work of God’s hand, etc., taking what is clearly meant to be a poetic image literally.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:51 pm
@Comrade Dread: She would miscarry if she got pregnant – it says so in the verses. If one argues that abortion is taking a life, one would have to agree that so is miscarriage – which many women go through. So, we have God saying that the punishment for a woman who cheats is to suffer a miscarriage – which, again, is the loss of life.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:51 pm
I ask because I know we have a fair number of African-American commenters here: are AA Christians as obsessed with their “testimony” as white evangelicals are? I have a feeling that part of Graham’s specific assholery here is that he was expecting Obama to respond to him in the same way a white evangelical does, by falling all over himself to give his “testimony,” but I’m pretty sure people in AA churches don’t do that. Am I incorrect?
February 29th, 2012 at 2:52 pm
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yeah. That whole story was so sad, I remembered reading it in dead tree form.
Makes you wonder what Hiassen doesn’t use because it seems too unbelievable.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:53 pm
@Elizabelle:
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
The link is bad. Are you sure Billy Grahom dairy farm amusement part/donor dragnet/burial site story is not a hoax from the Onion?
February 29th, 2012 at 2:53 pm
@jl:
Does this link work better? (Re Ruth Graham burial wishes, Washington Post)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....38_pf.html
publication info:
A Family at Cross-Purposes
Billy Graham’s Sons Argue Over a Final Resting Place
By Laura Sessions Stepp
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
found this via google search.
Does link not work for you because Washington Post wants you to sign in?
February 29th, 2012 at 2:57 pm
@jl: It must be a hoax because everyone knows that good Christians are concerned with feeding the poor, not just baptizing them.
February 29th, 2012 at 2:57 pm
If anyone’s interested, apparently Obama did specifically do an interview on how he became born again back in 2004 when he was still a state senator. It’s pretty interesting, because he specifically links it with the long history of black churches fighting for civil rights:
But Obama’s connection specifically to the history of black churches couldn’t possibly be why Graham doesn’t think Obama is a “real” Christian, now could it?
February 29th, 2012 at 2:59 pm
@asiangrrlMN: Which goes to the point that throughout history, opposition to abortion has been almost entirely animated by the fear that women use it primarily as a way to conceal pregnancies arising from infidelity or general sluttiness. In the passage from Numbers, the ritual and resulting abortion are used to detect adultery and punish the woman accordingly—she not only loses the child she was carrying, but, the text implies, is condemned to be barren henceforward.
February 29th, 2012 at 3:04 pm
@asiangrrlMN: The English translations that use that verbiage aren’t as accurate as some others. The New American Standard is considered the best literal translation and reads the curse as “her abdomen will swell and her thigh will waste away.”
Without diving into a bunch of other texts that I’ve long since boxed up and stuck in the garage since dropping out of seminary, I couldn’t really tell you what the latter part of that means, if it’s a curse of being barren (as in her womb wastes away) or if it’s more of a literal she’s going to have skinny thighs and have issues walking.
/seminary geek
February 29th, 2012 at 3:04 pm
@asiangrrlMN:
And this is where it’s utterly ridiculous. Many women have miscarriages that happen so early they don’t even know they were pregnant to begin with. Maybe their period is a few days late. Maybe they notice that when it does arrive it’s a bit heavier than normal, or maybe not. Many times that’s an early miscarriage. The woman doesn’t even know.
This also happens with “vanishing twins”, where the woman is pregnant with twins, one doesn’t make it, and the tissue is reabsorbed and by the time the woman knows she’s pregnant, she’s told it’s a single pregnancy and never has any idea she was originally pregnant with twins. Recent medical research has shown that this sort of thing happens way more often than we ever suspected.
When we think of miscarriages we generally think of later pregnancy loss, where at least the woman knew she was pregnant. T can be horribly difficult and hard on a woman. But they are not at all the most common form of miscarriage.
If the Republicans were to pass one of these personhood laws, it would be like Romania under Ceauşescu. Women would have to be inspected monthly lest they accidentally miscarry when they didn’t even know they were pregnant.
February 29th, 2012 at 3:07 pm
@joeyess:
Well, not entirely. The Quakers have always had women as ministers. And, of course, many current Protestant Christian denominations do now, as well.
Your brush, she is a bit too broad, Cholmondeley.
February 29th, 2012 at 3:12 pm
@Skippy the Wondermule:
Then he shouldn’t fucking be on TV as an authority on anything if he’s too stupid to actually be an authority on anything.
February 29th, 2012 at 3:15 pm
@Comrade Dread: On the upside, we may have scriptural foundation for liposuction?
February 29th, 2012 at 3:16 pm
I remember as a youngin’ looking through a Life magazine with a interview of Billy with pictures of his very expensive house and thinking that that man was a false prophet. No way a man with those kind of possessions could believe anything in the Good Book. Course now that I’m an atheist I realize that he understood it better than any real believer.
February 29th, 2012 at 3:19 pm
Davy Jones wanted to be a jockey before he was in show business. He later owned several racehorses.
Nice story from 2002.
http://www2.timesdispatch.com/.....r-1729889/
February 29th, 2012 at 3:21 pm
its not false witness if you actually believe it. you put your faith in god telling you which sources are good and which ones are bad. therefore, god only lets you believe the things he wants you to believe are true, so believing them is living in god’s image.
because god had a motherfucker of a lawyer.
February 29th, 2012 at 3:21 pm
@Skippy the Wondermule:
It’s plausible because, among other things, they aren’t used to being challenged – at all. Romney’s one of the most egregious examples, but the entire party lives in a hermetically sealed alternative universe in which you can speak nothing but bullshit and never have to worry about anyone questioning or arguing the point. (God knows the media doesn’t do a hell of a lot in that department).
And they get so used to it that eventually they’ll say some of that bullshit in front of a larger audience because they just plain forgot that not everyone out there has their Sacred Knowledge and they just sound like plain dingbats to those who don’t. Which seems to be what Franklin did here.
February 29th, 2012 at 3:23 pm
@Marcellus Shale, Public Dick:
Writer (and liberal Christian) Anne Lamott has a different view: “You know you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that He hates all the same people you do.”
February 29th, 2012 at 3:25 pm
@Svensker: I may be using a broad brush, but the canvas is quite narrow. In that, I mean, not the one’s represented on teevee.
February 29th, 2012 at 3:29 pm
@piratedan: @Soonergrunt:
(I’m not your) head stone.
February 29th, 2012 at 3:34 pm
Speaking of Juan Cole….Anyone here read Informed Comment? Today he posts:
Can’t wait to hear what the reichtwingnutz make of this one.
February 29th, 2012 at 3:39 pm
So, Ma and Pa Graham get to be buried in a third-rate Disneyland?
How all too appropriate for a cheap showman and charlatan who never did a damn thing for anyone but himself his entire life.
February 29th, 2012 at 3:39 pm
@kindness: It just proves we should invade Iran because maybe they too will harbor the world’s most wanted Shiite terrorist some day. /wingnutlogic
February 29th, 2012 at 3:41 pm
@kindness: Considering that Stratfarce is the right-winger go-to false “intelligence” shop, you should expect some caterwauling. The fact that they are only ahead of the news by about a couple of days (in the rare instances where they are actually correct) should tell you something.
As far as ISI being in bed with UBL—the CIA was saying that back in 2002 if memory serves.
February 29th, 2012 at 3:46 pm
@Violet: Thanks. Those hard biological facts are why any ‘life begins at conception law’ will turn the country into a totalitarian reproductive police state, deprive women of civil rights, and result by necessity in unfair selective application of the law. In short a nightmare for everyone, but especially women of child bearing age.
That is why, even the very backward and patriarchal people who came before us (even Christians) decided that there was no person until ‘quickening’, and the debated when ‘ensoulment’ occurred. They had no choice, since medical technology of the times did not permit snooping into a person’s innards. Now they can snoop, and it has given fundamentalist crazies an excuse to play God, which they like to do at every opportunity, even though that is one form of blasphemy, which is another deadly sin.
Edit: and in places with very high infant mortality, why, real socially recognized life did not begin until the kid had survived a few days, and was therefore likely enough to be a relatively permanent person to deserve a name.
February 29th, 2012 at 3:47 pm
@rlrr: Why should it matter what Scripture says?
To me, it doesn’t. To governing, it doesn’t. But it does deflate Graham’s point quite a bit if Obama’s policies are supposedly contrary to Scripture on points Scripture doesn’t talk about.
February 29th, 2012 at 3:48 pm
@joeyess: Ooh thanks for the reminder – I meant to buy some swag to support it!
February 29th, 2012 at 3:50 pm
@Elizabelle: Stills tried out for the Monkees and didn’t make it.
February 29th, 2012 at 3:51 pm
Sorry, John.
Their, there, or they’re.
Loose or lose.
Effect or affect.
Backpeddling or backpedaling?
You be the judge.
February 29th, 2012 at 3:55 pm
@Raven:
Steven Stills?
Learned that Neil Young recorded early on with Rick James (later “Super Freak”).
1960s salad days.
February 29th, 2012 at 3:55 pm
@jonas:
I don’t think this is true. For most of history, there were no safe means of inducing abortion. Or people didn’t understand anatomy enough to attempt one. Women got pregnant and had the child, abandoned it, or killed it.
February 29th, 2012 at 3:59 pm
@Raven:
I’ve heard that Charles Manson, a failed musician and songwriter before he started his Family, also auditioned to be in the Monkees. Manson didn’t make it either. (However, he did eventually get one of his songs recorded by Guns’N’Roses.)
February 29th, 2012 at 4:00 pm
@Amir Khalid:
Those audition tapes could make a great reality show.
February 29th, 2012 at 4:06 pm
@Brachiator:
Sorry, no, chemical abortions have been around for centuries, if not millennia—women who drank pennyroyal tea knew what they were doing. And surgical abortions have been around pretty much as long as civilization, with some techniques dating back to 2700 BCE.
Abortion has been around for as long as women have been bearing children, and men have been trying to control it for just as long.
February 29th, 2012 at 4:08 pm
@Amir Khalid: You must be thinking of the wrong decade. Manson was friends with one of the Jan & Dean guys in the late 60’s.
February 29th, 2012 at 4:09 pm
@kindness:
“The Monkees” debuted in 1966. Which decade are you thinking of?
February 29th, 2012 at 4:11 pm
@Mnemosyne: See what that acid did? But it’s funny, they seem to be much more popular with people a decade younger than me. Their music seemed so silly at the time.
February 29th, 2012 at 4:14 pm
@Raven:
THANK GOD! A world without CSN&Y would hardly be worth the effort.
February 29th, 2012 at 4:16 pm
@redshirt:
They always had some loose excuse to be running around. Chased by spies because of mistaken identity, taking jobs as catering waiters to pay the rent. But it was all just a set up to get to songs written by some of the biggest hit writers on the decade.
February 29th, 2012 at 4:18 pm
@Mnemosyne:
both means to the same end.
February 29th, 2012 at 4:19 pm
@Amir Khalid: Paul Williams too.
February 29th, 2012 at 4:20 pm
The bigot doesn’t fall far from the tree.
February 29th, 2012 at 4:21 pm
@Schlemizel: goddamn right but I caught them on a bad night in the 90’s in Phoenix. Those harmonies are a bitch (no neal)
February 29th, 2012 at 4:21 pm
@jonas:
But oddly enough the old church, up until at least row v wade (maybe even after) said life did not begin until the “quickening” which is something like 8-10 weeks in.
If the rules are eternal why did this one change?
Also anyone who thinks God is against murdering unborn children has never read the OT. He does it several times en mass and individually when it suits His momentary desire.
February 29th, 2012 at 4:22 pm
@kindness: Actually Manson was friendly with Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys.
February 29th, 2012 at 4:23 pm
@Raven:
Harry Nilsson did too as did one of the 3 Dog Night singers.
February 29th, 2012 at 4:24 pm
@Raven:
I can believe that. Their harmonies would be killer to try to produce on stage, live. I think you can do it in a studio with good headphones & retakes or you have to count on the audience being more stoned than the performers.
Add in age which is not kind to voices & it probably is something to be skipped. Can’t imagine those were cheap tickets either
February 29th, 2012 at 4:24 pm
@Schlemizel: true, but in their defense, they did eventually make themselves into a real band and Nesmith certainly proved himself capable of crafting a song or two himself.
February 29th, 2012 at 4:27 pm
BTW - did everyone know that The Monkees had Jimi Hendrix open for them once?
The crowd HATED him so they let him go. It was the Monkees idea & Don Kirshner was livid about it but pretty much has washed his hands of them when they stopped kissing his platinum ass.
February 29th, 2012 at 4:27 pm
@piratedan:
yeah, the early stuff is fun & all but the late stuff is actual talent.
It was Kirshner that made them but they died when Columbia stopped supporting them because they wanted to be actual musicians. Its too bad, I think they could have been OK.
February 29th, 2012 at 4:29 pm
@McWaffle: PZ’s crowd is probably very well represented here. Both good places to destroy libertarian arguments as well as religious ones.
February 29th, 2012 at 4:31 pm
@Schlemizel: agreed and some of the chances that they took in their music (see Headquarters and such) showed that and if Kirschner hadn’t called vendetta on them, who knows?
February 29th, 2012 at 4:35 pm
Mammon is their God. Pure and simple. Jehovah cannot compete with Mammon. Jesus cannot compete with Mammon.
Mammon is their fucking God. Plain and simple.
February 29th, 2012 at 4:38 pm
@Schlemizel:
Opened seven dates. The girls screaming for Davey drowned him out.
The publicity (aided by a false press release that said that he’d been dropped due to pressure from the DAR) broke open the American market for him.
February 29th, 2012 at 4:38 pm
@Amir Khalid: The Beach Boys recorded one of Manson’s songs. They changed a few of the lyrics and called it “Never Learn Not To Love” rather than “Cease to Exist,” but it’s the same song. Ever since I found that out, I’ve been too creeped out by the Beach Boys to listen to them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRObQ3AojC0
(Cease to Exist)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmXGGlUaoOw
(Never Learn Not to Love)
February 29th, 2012 at 5:00 pm
@Svensker: Perhaps. But counting the number of sects that are progressive on women’s issues verses the number of people belonging to those sects verses the standard anti-woman sects, and there’s an overwhelming majority of Christians in the anti-woman sects.
February 29th, 2012 at 5:03 pm
@gex:
Who is PZ?
February 29th, 2012 at 5:08 pm
@gex:
Probably. But the Quakers, the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterians and the Reformed Church in America all allow women to be ministers and rise through the ranks. Not sure about the Methodists, but I think they do, too. Quakers are small, as are the RCA, but the other guys are pretty good sized outfits.
February 29th, 2012 at 5:11 pm
@Svensker: Add in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Formed in 1988 by the merger of three (liberal) Lutheran synods, it has had woman ministers from the beginning. Indeed two of the founding groups (LCA and ALC) have had women ministers since the late 1970s, I believe.
February 29th, 2012 at 5:27 pm
@PurpleGirl:
I forgot the Lutherans! My Swedish ancestors just rolled over.
February 29th, 2012 at 5:32 pm
@Mnemosyne:
Points noted. However, simply abandoning children and infanticide have also been around as long. There is clear evidence of this, from Sparta to Rome in the West, and civilizations around the world.
And yet even the Wiki notes that ancient civilizations had varied reactions toward abortion, so you can not easily link it to men controlling women.
And it doesn’t appear that in the West the Catholic Church had a definitive opinion on the matter until the 16th century:
Evangelicals and Rick Santorum like to pretend that there has been consistent, uniform, and universal opposition to abortion, but this is nothing more than a tiresome lie.
February 29th, 2012 at 5:35 pm
When I am tyrant of the USA, Evangelists will be executed in job lots.
February 29th, 2012 at 5:36 pm
Ruth Graham’s final wishes, signed in the presence of witnesses:
Only when she’d fallen into a coma was a statement was issued saying that she’d end up in the themepark after all. Nice work, Franklin. You fucker.
February 29th, 2012 at 5:53 pm
@Argive:
“Well, I don’t want to vote for him because I’m a Holocaust survivor and he’s a Muslim.”
It wasn’t Muslims that built the gas chambers——Gah
February 29th, 2012 at 6:00 pm
Wonder why FG decided to apologize now. He’s made the exact comments about President Obama’s Christianity before on CNN.
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/.....christian/
He never apologized then, so why is this different?
February 29th, 2012 at 6:10 pm
“He knew what he was doing, even though he is a lot dumber than his father (who was also a jerk).”
A masterpiece of understatement. The old man never met a Republican he didn’t like, nor a White House meal he could turn down. I have never seen the fascination with these people and their spin on Christianity. Just a bunch of right wingers with the same old garbage.
February 29th, 2012 at 6:44 pm
@TenguPhule: As emperor my first order of business is the elimination of valet parking but I’ll make
yours second.
February 29th, 2012 at 7:47 pm
@Brachiator:
On this, we can agree. The funny thing is that it was the advancement of science and embryology that caused the Church’s opposition to continuously move the “allowed” window backwards—the whole “life begins at fertilization” thing didn’t get touted as God’s Eternal Word until science let us all in on how fertilization works.
February 29th, 2012 at 8:42 pm
@jonas:
“Knitting” implies an ongoing enterprise, not one that is completed. The life isn’t created till that “knitting” is done, when born the baby is. Therefore, post hoc propter hamhock ergot summa cum loudly, our side wins, free choice and bodily autonomy for all women. Whew! I didn’t know it was going to be so easy!
March 1st, 2012 at 3:18 am