Here's to All Us Fake Americans

If spreading the debt but not the wealth, encouraging breeding, providing fake health-insurance tax cuts, and voting based on race makes you a real American. I'm proud to be a fake one.
I’ve been meaning to write something about this tax stuff that McCain and Obama are arguing about and I guess a comment on my status kind of set me off.
First of all, I am sick to death of this Joe the Plumber thing. I don’t care who he is or what he makes. The hypothetical Joe is fine to talk about. It goes like this: Joe wants to buy a business that makes more than $250,000 a year and thinks it’s bullshit that Obama wants to tax him more because he makes more than $250,000. He doesn’t like the idea of “spreading the wealth.”
Well, there are three problems with that. First, Obama is not talking about raising taxes on the entire amount, just the amount over $250,000. So, if Joe the plumber makes more than $250,000 by, say $30,000, then he only pays the additional taxes on the $30,000.
Second, the argument that we shouldn’t spread the wealth is completely contradicted by the argument that we should bail out the banks (i.e. spread the debt). There is a serious logical disconnect between saying that it is OK for the average Joe making less than $250,000 to pay taxes to bail out rich companies and rich investors and saying it’s not OK for the rich Joe to pay a little bit more in taxes to take responsibility for those people making less than him.
Lastly, the people who are anti-wealth spreading operate under the false premise that people who work hard are rewarded by wealth and that poor people just haven’t earned the right to have wealth. Many Americans work between 40 and 60 hours a week and still take home less than $100,000 a year. I’m going to go with most (I’ll admit to not taking the time to look at the numbers). Is that because they haven’t worked hard? Is that because people who make more money work more hours? Or is it because we value white-collar work more than blue-collar work.
I said this in an earlier pseudo-conversation but I liked it so I’ll say it again: The idea that rich people are wealthy because they work hard is just a fairy tale conservatives tell their children as bedtimes stories. It helps the kids sleep because its so boring and helps the adults sleep because it clears their conscience.
On the other side of the coin, McCain has proposed two tax-related things that drive me up a wall. First, he wants to give additional tax cuts to breeders. Second, he wants to tax our health insurance covered by our employers while then providing a tax “rebate” of $5,000 so people can choose their own health care.
McCain says he wants to double the child tax credit. Well, between the marriage credit and the child credits, I think married couples with 2.5 kids have had enough tax breaks. What about the single-income adult with no kids who is having a hard ass time getting by because college loans have come due and oooftah. I mean, couples have two incomes typically. That makes it easier for them to buy property, get cheaper interest rates, pay standard bills, etc. Single people, like myself have to pay for all of that two but its only one income paying for it and we get stuck paying more taxes because we are unmarried.
Single people also end up paying more for other people’s kids. People with kids get benefits of free schooling, free health care (to a point), and other special kid-only services. But all of us pay for those things. Education is Idaho’s single greatest expense and, while I benefited from it as a child and benefit from having an educated population, parents benefit directly. And they are the ones who get the child tax credit.
Add to that the benefits that spouses get from their spouses’ employer and you see that the single/unmarried couples get the shaft. Same-sex and Opposite-couples who are unmarried get screwed.
Why should we encourage people to get married and have children? Is it really in the State’s interest? Perhaps it is because that couples in committed relationships, with the responsibility of kids, are more stable. But if that’s the case, isn’t it in the State’s interest to discourage divorce and encourage couples of all kinds to get “married.” Gay people are going to be gay whether or not they are married and so the State’s interest in promoting stable relationships should be as strong in straight and gay relationships.
The long and the short of it is that McCain’s doubling of the child tax credit does nothing for me and mine and encourages irresponsible family building.
McCain also wants to change the way we do health care too. He wants to tax benefits and then provide a tax cut so people can get their own insurance. Problem No. 1: taxing benefits would cripple, if not eliminate entirely, the system of employer based health care coverage. Problem No. 2: many uninsured people do not make enough money for a tax credit to be of any value. If people can’t afford health insurance it is probably because they don’t make enough money to pay for it. If that is the cause, they probably don’t even pay $5,000 in taxes each year. If they don’t, the tax credit doesn’t help anyone. In fact, the tax “credit” ends up benefiting only the rich who can already afford health coverage.
It seems that the entire point of the McCain health care plan is to eliminate employer-based health care and force those previously insured people onto the rolls of the uninsured – another bad idea.
I just want to say one more thing: How the hell is anyone undecided? These candidates couldn’t be more different if they tried. And if I hear one more person say they “like” Obama but they are “just not sure why they don’t trust him,” I am going to scream “IT’S BECAUSE YOU ARE A RACIST!! Either you don’t like the fact that he’s black or you don’t like that fact that he has some tentative ties to Islam. Either way, it makes you a bigot. So just say what you mean: I don’t want to vote for a black man with a funny name.
Here’s to being part of the Fake America.

Why DC Comics suck

I remember why I stopped reading D.C. and it’s not because Batman, Superman, Wonderwoman, Green Lantern, etc were not cool characters. It’s because the stories are entirely inaccessible.
After watching The Dark Knight, I was interested in reading Batman again. To help matters, D.C. announced they were going to publish a story arc called R.I.P. and Alex Ross started drawing the covers. R.I.P. supposedly spans Detective Comics, Robin, Nightwing and a couple others.
So I picked up Batman. It’s the most schizophrenic comic book I’ve ever read. It follows from month to month but it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense and I can’t quite tell where they’ve been and where they’re going. Apparently, Batman himself is schizo and either may be The Black Glove (a new villain) or is being affected by him. I get the impression that the villains have been dosing him with crystal meth. To add to it, Batman is now dressed in red, yellow, and purple and has a little floating thing next to him. I’m all sorts of confused.
But when you read Detective Comics, it has nothing to do with the current story line. In fact, Batman and Catwoman appear to be in a relationship and they are fighting Hush. But Batman is dressed and acting normal and it’s completely disconnected from the Batman storyline.
After bingeing on the Smallville episodes I missed over the past few years, I’ve been wanting to read more Superman too. So I went to the comic store and picked up the issues I have missed. There were like 15 of them. I started with issue 666 – not a great issue (the art was hideous) but whatever. At least it wasn’t the Toyman. Then 667 was cool because the Camelot Falls story is back. Superman’s fighting Arion, a sorcerer from Atlantis who is convinced that Superman is causing the end of the world by saving it over and over. Really unique, interesting concept especially since magic can hurt Supes. The art is solid, dialogue is good. The teaser on the last page of the book says, “Superman 668: This is it! The grand finale! The epic conclusion! The point of no return! The – oh, you know what we mean.”
So I pick up 668 and it has nothing to do with what 667 was about. Nothing at all. Now Superman is trying to find the third Kryptonian or some damn thing. I had to double check and, low and behold, the conclusion of that story was bumped and I’ve got no idea when it will come out. Superman, BTW, is now on 680 and the Arion story has still not been brought up again. DC did this before in Action Comics. Last year’s The Last Son story was on again, off again, and finally concluded in Action Comics Annual over the summer. What’s the point of giving a shit about these stories if you can’t follow them from month to month and then DC doesn’t reference what happened in the last story arc in the current story arc.
I’ve just stopped picking up All-Star Superman even though it was great because it takes so long to come out. It started in 2005 and just, this month, ended at issue 12. And All-Star Batman is ridiculous. It should be great because it’s written by Frank Miller and drawn by Jim Lee. But the story is slow moving and the release of the issues is even slower. The first one of those came out in July of 2005 and the final issue is scheduled to be released in December – 30 months after the first came out.
Last but not least, Final Crisis is a bunch of bullshit in my mind. I’ve read it but it makes no sense at all. It’s choppy, slow paced, and poorly written. But what’s worse is that it’s completely inaccessible. I picked up number one having not read any DC titles this year with the exception of Justice League and I was so lost it made my head spin. From talking to people who are DC fans, they say the same thing. Apparently, the reader needs to know:
• Once upon a time, DC had many many parallel universes with many parallel Earths. Some of these Earths had heroes, others didn’t. There was a very Sliders quality to it.
• Then DC compressed them all into one Earth/Universe in the epic Crisis of the Infinite Earths.
• After some time, fractures started happening and following the Infinite Crisis, 52 universes came back into existence.
• In at least one of those universes, the New Gods and Evil Gods have died and are looking for new hosts, which they found in our heroes on Earth 2 or 1 or whatever they are calling it.
But that’s not recapped anywhere. It’s a mess and complicated and too much for a new reader to try to figure out.
The over-all problem with D.C. is that it’s just not reader friendly and acts as if it is punishing you for picking up a new title. Marvel does three great things D.C. needs to adopt ASAP. First, they give a summary page at the very beginning of the book. It says something like “Irradiated by cosmic rays during an experiment, the Fantastic Four were born. Recently they’ve been fighting the dastardly Dr. Doom who has turned Reed and Sue into walnuts. Let’s see what happens.” If D.C. would only give a brief rundown of who the characters are, what they are doing in the story, and where the story has been recently, the reader would be able to catch on pretty quick.
If a story has become really complicated, like Secret Invasion, Marvel publishes these things they are calling Sagas. The most recent is the Marvel: Your Universe Saga, which compiles all you need to know about the history of a story line to read the current Secret Invasion stuff. The kicker is, Marvel gives them away for free.
Next, if Marvel has a crossover story arc within its main titles, they put something like “Secret Invasion” on the cover. That’s a cue to the reader saying “if you want to know more about what’s happening to these characters during this crossover, pick up this book.” The stories in Captain America, Fantastic Four, Daredevil, Iron Man, etc. have had absolutely nothing to do with Secret Invasion recently and, so, Marvel didn’t tag them as such. But DC, on the other hand, does; and on a regular basis. “Batman R.I.P.” is just the first of many. So far I’ve seen Countdown, Infinite Crisis, 52, Villians United, and more dain the cover of DC titles without so much as a mention of the over-arching story throughout the book.
Lastly, Marvel finishes a story arcs and do so in a timely fashion. All of the main titles and many of the mini series come out consistently every month. That’s not to say there are no problems but books like Iron Man, Daredevil, Captain America, all the X-Books, and New Avengers have been consistent. What’s more is there are no such thing as quarterlies like in the DC world. It is too hard to keep track of what happened last time if the last book came out four months ago. And even when they are delayed, they maintain the same storyline from month to month. There are no drastic and abrupt disruptions in an arc. There is no Camelot Falls problems in Marvel.
DC has some incredible characters and great potential but they are screwing up left and right. Everyone knows who Batman or Superman is but fewer people could have told you who Iron Man was before this summer. But Iron Man did great because Marvel is the best at what they do. I guess it just sucks to be DC.

Christians Extremists and Home-Grown Terrorism

This form of militant Christianity scares the crap out of me. This is the kind of home-grown terrorism no-one is paying attention to.

	'Arming' for Armageddon Militant Joel's Army Followers Seek Theocracy By Casey Sanchez Photography by Lowell Handler Intelligence Report Fall 2008
	Canadian Todd Bentley, who preached for months on end this year in Florida, is a general in Joel's Army. LAKELAND, Fla. — Todd Bentley has a long night ahead of him, resurrecting the dead, healing the blind, and exploding cancerous tumors. Since April 3, the 32-year-old, heavily tattooed, body-pierced, shaved-head Canadian preacher has been leading a continuous "supernatural healing revival" in central Florida. To contain the 10,000-plus crowds flocking from around the globe, Bentley has rented baseball stadiums, arenas and airport hangars at a cost of up to $15,000 a day. Many in attendance are church pastors themselves who believe Bentley to be a prophet and don't bat an eye when he tells them he's seen King David and spoken with the Apostle Paul in heaven. "He was looking very Jewish," Bentley notes. Tattooed across his sternum are military dog tags that read "Joel's Army." They're evidence of Bentley's generalship in a rapidly growing apocalyptic movement that's gone largely unnoticed by watchdogs of the theocratic right. According to Bentley and a handful of other "hyper-charismatic" preachers advancing the same agenda, Joel's Army is prophesied to become an Armageddon-ready military force of young people with a divine mandate to physically impose Christian "dominion" on non-believers. "An end-time army has one common purpose — to aggressively take ground for the kingdom of God under the authority of Jesus Christ, the Dread Champion," Bentley declares on the website for his ministry school in British Columbia, Canada. "The trumpet is sounding, calling on-fire, revolutionary believers to enlist in Joel's Army. … Many are now ready to be mobilized to establish and advance God's kingdom on earth." Joel's Army followers, many of them teenagers and young adults who believe they're members of the final generation to come of age before the end of the world, are breaking away in droves from mainline Pentecostal churches. Numbering in the tens of thousands, they base their beliefs on an esoteric reading of the second chapter of the Old Testament Book of Joel, in which an avenging swarm of locusts attacks Israel. In their view, the locusts are a metaphor for Joel's Army. Despite their overt militancy, there's no evidence Joel's Army followers have committed any acts of violence. But critics warn that actual bloodletting may only be a matter of time for a movement that casts itself as God's avenging army. This video was posted on YouTube by a detractor. Those sounding the alarm about Joel's Army are not secular foes of the Christian Right, few of whom are even aware of the movement or how widespread it's become in the past decade. Instead, Joel's Army critics are mostly conservative Christians, either neo-Pentecostals who left the movement in disgust or evangelical Christians who fear that Joel's Army preachers are stealing their flocks, even sending spies to infiltrate their own congregations and sway their young people to heresy. And they say the movement is becoming frightening. "The pitch and intensity of the military rhetoric of this branch of the global Dominionist movement has substantially increased since the beginning of 2008," writes The Discernment Research Group, a Christian watchdog group that tracks what they call heresies or cults within Christianity. "One can only wonder how long before this transforms into real warfare with actual warriors." 'Snorting Religion' Joel's Army believers are hard-core Christian dominionists, meaning they believe that America, along with the rest of the world, should be governed by conservative Christians and a conservative Christian interpretation of biblical law. There is no room in their doctrine for democracy or pluralism. Dominionism's original branch is Christian Reconstructionism, a grim, Calvinist call to theocracy that, as Reconstructionist writer Gary North describes, wants to "get busy in constructing a Bible-based social, political and religious order which finally denies the religious liberty of the enemies of God." Notorious for endorsing the public execution by stoning of homosexuals and adulterers, the Christian Reconstructionist movement is far better known in secular America than Joel's Army. That's largely because Reconstructionists have made several serious forays into mainstream politics and received a fair amount of negative publicity as a result. Joel's Army followers eschew the political system, believing the path to world domination lies in taking over churches, not election to public office. Another key difference between the two branches of dominionism, which maintain a testy, arms-length relationship with one another, is Christian Reconstructionism's buttoned-down image and heavy emphasis on Bible study, which contrasts sharply with Joel's Army anti-intellectual distrust of biblical scholars and its unruly style. "Some people snort cocaine, others snort religions," Joel's Army Pastor Roy said while ministering a morning program at Todd Bentley's Lakeland, Fla., revival in late May. As this article went to press, Bentley's "Florida Outpouring" had been running for more than 100 days straight. Many attendees came in search of spontaneous physical healing and a desire to be part of a mystical community marked by dancing, shouting, gyrating, speaking in tongues and other forms of ecstatic release. Snide jabs at traditional church services are fairly common at Bentley's revivals. In fact, what takes place onstage at the Florida Outpouring looks more like a pro wrestling extravaganza than church. On stage, Bentley and his team of pastors, yell, chant, and scream "Fire!" and "Bam!" while anointing followers. "The Call," a 12-hour revival of up to 20,000 young people held in a different city each year, is led by Joel's Army pastor Lou Engle. The audience members behave as if they are at a psychedelic counterculture festival. One couple jumps up and down twirling red and silver metallic flags. Dyed-haired teenagers pulled in by the revival's presence on Facebook and MySpace wander around looking dazed. Women lay facedown on the floor, convulsing and howling. Fathers wail in tongues as their confused children look on. Strangers lay hands on those who fail to produce tongues or gyrate wildly enough, pressuring them to "let it out." Bentley is considered a prophet both by his followers and by other leaders of the Joel's Army movement, whose adherents claim to be reviving a "five-fold ministry" of prophets, apostles, elders, pastors and teachers, as outlined in the Book of Ephesians. Not every five-fold ministry is connected to the Joel's Army movement, but the movement has spurred an interest in modern-day apostles and prophets that's troubling to the Assemblies of God, the world's largest Pentecostal church, which has officially disavowed the Joel's Army movement. In a 2001 position paper, Assemblies of God leaders wrote that they do not recognize modern-day apostles or prophets and worried that "such leaders prefer more authoritarian structures where their own word or decrees are unchallenged." They are right to worry. Joel's Army followers believe that once democratic institutions are overthrown, their hierarchy of apostles and prophets will rule over the earth, with one church per city. Warrior Nation According to Joel's Army doctrine, the enforcers of the five-fold ministry will be members of the final generation, for whom the landmark Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade constituted a new Passover. "Everyone born after abortion's legalization can consider their birth a personal invitation to take part in this great army," writes John Crowder, another prominent Joel's Army pastor, who bills his 2006 book, The New Mystics: How to Become Part of the Supernatural Generation, as a literal how-to guide for joining Joel's Army. Both Bentley and Crowder are enormously popular on Elijah's List, an online watering hole for a broad spectrum of Joel's Army enlistees, from lightweight believers who merely share an affection for military rhetoric and pastors who dress in army camouflage (several Joel's Army pastors are addressed by their congregants as "commandant" or "commander") to hardliners who believe the church is called to have an active military role in end-times that have already begun. Elijah's List currently has more than 125,000 subscribers on its electronic mailing list. Rick Joyner, a pastor whose books, The Harvest and The Call, helped popularize Joel's Army theology by selling more than a million copies each, goes the furthest on Elijah's List in pushing the hardliner approach. In 2006, he posted a sermon called "The Warrior Nation — The New Sound of the Church," in which he claimed that a last-day army is now gathering and called believers "freedom fighters." "As the church begins to take on this resolve, they [Joel's Army churches] will start to be thought of more as military bases, and they will begin to take on the characteristics of military bases for training, equipping, and deploying effective spiritual forces," Joyner wrote. "In time, the church will actually be organized more as a military force with an army, navy, air force, etc." In a sort of disclaimer, Joyner writes at one point that God's army "will bring love, peace and stability wherever they go." But several of his books narrate with glee what he describes as "a coming civil war within the church." In his 1997 book The Harvest he writes: "Some pastors and leaders who continue to resist this tide of unity will be removed from their place. Some will become so hardened they will become opposers and resist God to the end." Two years later, in his book The Final Quest, Joyner described a vision (taken as prophecy in the Joel's Army world, where Joyner is considered an "apostle") of the coming Christian Civil War in which demon-possessed Christian soldiers enslave other, weaker Christians who resist them. He also describes how the hero of the novel — himself — ascends a "Holy Mountain" in order to learn new truths and to acquire new, magic weapons. Kids on Fire Bentley, who claims to be a supernatural healer, is no less over the top, playing his biker-punk appearance and heavy metal theatrics to the hilt. On YouTube, where clips of his most dramatic healings have been condensed into a three-minute highlight reel, Bentley describes God ordering him to kick an elderly lady in the face: "I am thinking, 'God, why is the power of God not moving?' And He said, 'It is because you haven't kicked that women in the face.' And there was, like, this older lady worshipping right in front of the platform and the Holy Spirit spoke to me and the gift of faith came on me. He said, 'Kick her in the face … with your biker boot.' I inched closer and I went like this [makes kicking motion]: Bam! And just as my boot made contact with her nose, she fell under the power of God." The atmosphere is less charged with violence at "The Call," a 12-hour revival of up to 20,000 youths led by Joel's Army pastor Lou Engle and held every summer in a major American city (this year's event was scheduled for Washington, D.C. in August). Attendees are called upon to fast and pray for 40 days and take up culture-war pledges to lead abstinent lives, reject pornography and fight abortion. They're further asked to perform "identificational repentance," lugging along family trees and genealogies to see where one of their ancestors may have enslaved or oppressed another so that they can make amends. (Many in the Joel's Army movement believe in generational curses that must be broken by the current generation). As even his critics note, Engle is a sweet, humble and gentle man whose persona is difficult to reconcile with his belief in an end-time army of invincible young Christian warriors. Yet while Engle is careful to avoid deploying explicit Joel's Army rhetoric at high-profile events like The Call, when he's speaking in smaller hyper-charismatic circles to avowed Joel's Army followers, he can venture into bloodlust. This March, at a "Passion for Jesus" conference in Kansas City sponsored by the International House of Prayer, or IHOP, a ministry for teenagers from the heavy metal, punk and goth scenes, Engle called on his audience for vengeance. "I believe we're headed to an Elijah/Jezebel showdown on the Earth, not just in America but all over the globe, and the main warriors will be the prophets of Baal versus the prophets of God, and there will be no middle ground," said Engle. He was referring to the Baal of the Old Testament, a pagan idol whose followers were slaughtered under orders from the prophet Elijah. "There's an Elijah generation that's going to be the forerunners for the coming of Jesus, a generation marked not by their niceness but by the intensity of their passion," Engle continued. "The kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force. Such force demands an equal response, and Jesus is going to make war on everything that hinders love, with his eyes blazing fire." Although Joel's Army theology is mainly directed at people in their teens and early 20s via events like The Call and ministries like IHOP, sometimes the target audience is even younger. In some of the most arresting images in "Jesus Camp," a 2006 documentary about the Kids on Fire bible camp in North Dakota, grade school-aged kids dressed in army fatigues wield swords and conduct military field maneuvers. "A lot of people die for God and they're not afraid," one camper told ABC News reporters in a follow-up segment. "We're kinda being trained to be warriors," added another, "only in a funner way." Cain and the Intellectuals Both Christian and secular critics assailed the makers of "Jesus Camp" for referring to the camp's extremist, militant Christianity as "evangelical." There is a name, however, that describes Kids on Fire's agenda, if you're familiar with their theology: Joel's Army. Pastor Becky Fischer, who runs the camp, said that a third of the kids at her camp were under 6 years old because they are "more in touch in the supernatural" and proclaimed them to be "soldiers for God's Army." Her camp's blend of end-times militancy and supernaturalism is perfectly emblematic of the Joel's Army movement, whose adherents believe their cause is prophesied in the Old Testament chapter titled "An Army of Locusts." The stark, evocative passages of that chapter describe a locust swarm that lays waste to Israel (to this day, the region suffers periodic locust invasions): "Like dawn spreading across the mountains a large and mighty army comes, such as never was of old nor ever will be in ages to come." As remarkable as the language is, most biblical scholars agree that it is a literal description of a locust invasion and resulting famine that occurred sometime between the 9th and 5th centuries B.C.E. In the Book of Joel, the locust invasion is described as an omen that an Assyrian army to the north may attack Israel if it fails to repent as a nation. But nowhere is the invasion described as an army of God. According to an Assemblies of God position paper: "It is a complete misinterpretation of Scripture to find in Joel's army of locusts a militant, victorious force attacking society and a non-cooperating Church to prepare the earth for Christ's millennial reign." The story of how an ancient insect invasion came to be a rallying flag for 21st-century dominonists begins just after World War II in Canada. Out of a small town in Saskatchewan, a Pentecostal preacher named William Branham spearheaded a 1948 revival in which he claimed that his followers lived in a new biblical time of "Latter Rain." The most sinless and ardent of his flock would be called "Manifest Sons of God." By the next year, the movement was so strong — and seemed so subversive to some — that the Assemblies of God banned it as a heretic cult. But Branham remained a controversial figure with a loyal following; many of his followers believed him to be the end-times prophet Elijah. Michael Barkun, a leading scholar of radical religion, notes that in 1958, Branham began teaching "Serpent Seed" doctrine, the belief that Satan had sex with Eve, resulting in Cain and his descendants. "Through Cain came all the smart, educated people down to the antediluvian flood — the intellectuals, bible colleges," Branham wrote in the kind of anti-mainstream religion, anti-intellectual spirit that pervades the Joel's Army movement to this day. "They know all their creeds but know nothing about God." The Gates of Hell Branham was killed in a car accident in 1965, but his Manifest Sons of God movement, the direct predecessor of Joel's Army, lived on within a cluster of hyper-charismatic churches. In the 1980s, Branham's teachings took on new life at the Kansas City Fellowship (KCF), a group of popular self-styled apostles and prophets who used the Missouri church as a launching pad for national careers promoting outright Joel's Army theology. The Joel's Army movement began with the 1940s preaching of William Branham, whose group was banned as heretical by the Assemblies of God. Ernie Gruen, a local pastor who initially promoted and gave citywide credibility to KCF pastors in the early 1980s, cut his connections in 1990. Concerned about KCF's plans to push its teachings worldwide, Gruen published a 132-page insider's account, based on taped sermons and conversations and interviews with parents who had enrolled their kids in KCF's Dominion school. According to Gruen's report, students at the school were taught that they were a "super-race" of the "elected seed" of all the best bloodlines of all generations — foreknown, predestined, and hand-selected from billions of others to be part of the "end-time Omega generation." Though he'd once promoted these doctrines himself, Gruen became convinced that the movement was turning into an end-times cult, marked by what he summarized as "spiritual threats, fears, and warnings of death," "warning followers to beware of other Christians" and exhibiting "a 'super-race' mentality toward the training of their children." When contacted by the Intelligence Report, Gruen's spokesman said that Gruen stands by everything he published in the report but no longer grants media interviews. The Kansas City Fellowship remains in operation and has served as a farm team for many of the all-stars of the Joel's Army movement. Those larger-than-life figures include John Wimber, the founder of a California megachurch, The Vineyard, who, before his death in 1997, proclaimed that Joel's Army would not only conquer the earth but defeat death itself. Lou Engle founded The Call based on the Joel's Army visions that KCF "prophet" Bob Jones (not to be confused with Bob Jones III of Bob Jones University) received while at KCF. Mike Bickle, another KCF member, stayed in Kansas City to form the International House of Prayer. IHOP members and other Joel's Army adherents are well aware of how their movement is perceived by other conservative Christians. "Today, you can type 'Joel's Army' into a search engine and a thousand heresy hunter websites pop up, decrying the very mention of it," writes John Crowder in The New Mystics. Crowder doesn't exactly allay critic's fears. "This is truly warfare," he writes. "This battle is not a game. They [Joel's Army warriors] will not be on the defense; they will be on the offense — and the gates of hell will not be able to hold up against them." So far, few members of the secular media have taken notice of Joel's Army, even as they report on Protestant dominionists like Pat Robertson or the more outrageous calls for the stoning of gays and lesbians emanating from Reconstructionist circles. There are exceptions, however. On the DailyKos, a well-read, politically liberal blog, a diarist has been blogging for two years about her experiences as a walkaway from a Joel's Army church. She writes under a pseudonym out of fear of physical reprisals. She may have real cause for concern. As Wimber, the late founder of The Vineyard, put it in one of his most famous and fiery sermons, one that is still frequently cited by Joel's Army followers: "Those in this army will have His kind of power. … Anyone who wants to harm them must die."

If You're Not Paying Attention, You're an American

At some point, America will wake up and see the lies and misdirection offered by those people in power and those people asking for more of it. At some point, Americans will find the need to protect their own democracy from the power-hungry and unscrupulous. At some point, we will find a way to dig ourselves out of the grave our “leaders” keep throwing dirt on.
But today’s not that day.
My mother called me yesterday and was practically in tears saying “why is this country so blind?” She’s recently become very politically minded and decently informed. When many 50-something Americans use a DVR to record LOST and CSI, she records political debates, speeches, commentary, and Keith Olberman. She’s not one to read blogs or even the New York Times but she, like many Americans, gets her news from broadcast networks.
I don’t value mainstream media very highly. I think it’s been co-opted by people who are more concerned with profit than information. I think the way entertainment gossip is reported as “news” makes me want to scream on a regular basis. And I think that “commentary” is not news and, in the absence of actual news, we shouldn’t have commentators giving our opinions to us.
It’s impossible to sit down and watch the cable “news” networks and actually get anything of substance without the bias that goes along with that network. MSNBC is liberally biased. Olberman, Rachael Maddow, and Chris Matthews make up the prime-time line up and the former two are very liberal/progressive. CNN (regular) is pretty un-biased but they do have Lou Dobbs is really conservative. CNN Headline News is conservative and – for lack of a better word – mindless. I mean Glenn Beck and Nancy Grace? Yikes. And Fox News, as most of us are aware, should rename itself to RTPN – Republican Talking Point News.
The problem is compounded when people don’t recognize that they are listening to biased news. Fox News watchers actually believe it is “Fair and Balanced.” People, like my mom, who watch Olberman think he is truly moderate when he’s not. My dad listens to conservative Christian radio and gets his news from online sources that deal specifically with Christian-focused news stories. Dad also thinks that they offer the most unbiased look at world news – which might be true given that world news is rarely covered by many media outlets. I watch Olberman and Maddow because I like the slant. The difference is – I recognize it. Unfortunately, I only get one side of the debate because I just don’t have time (or patience) to watch O’Reily.
All that being said, at least Mom’s paying attention. And at least Olberman and Maddow speak truth to power even though it is biased and fairly one sided. And at least the news she gets tries to uncover untruths for both parties.
But given the utter lack of outrage over the past - I’m going to say - six years it is clear to me that either Americans aren’t getting the information necessary to make informed decisions or they just don’t give a fuck. Sadly, I think it’s the latter.
A long time ago – during the Clinton administration – I saw a bumper-sticker that said “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.” That couldn’t be truer than it is today. The following is an incomplete but lengthy list of stories that should outrage fair-minded American citizens:
The 2000 and 2004 elections, and several elections before and after it were likely rigged to favor a Republican candidate. – The Velvet Revolution
The Bush Administration lied every step of the way to get us into Iraq. – Mother Jones
While much of New Orleans still lies in ruin, the population make-up of the city is now much richer, older, and Whiter. – NPR
Years after the initial revelation that the Bush Administration used warrantless wiretapping to spy on American citizens, no one has been prosecuted for the crime. – Wikipedia
In spite of numerous calls for the closure of the infamous Guantanamo Bay facility, the Bush Administration still holds detainees there. The administration even held innocent people there for years without charging them. – McClatchy News
And it’s not just the past, the present is plagued by lies as well: just search for Palin lies on Google and you’ll find a plethora of information including how the governor lied re:
• The bridge to nowhere
• Troopergate
• Firing her executive chef
• Selling the governor’s private jet on e-Bay
• Whether she fired Irl Stambaugh, former police chief and librarian of Wassilla for political reasons
• How much energy Alaska provides the country
I found a lot of these from the Atlantic.com Web site.
Some day, Americans will be fed up like I am but inspite of this overwhelming information, my fellow citizens are blissfully unaware or recklessly uncaring. Maybe we’ll see some hope but sadly, today’s not the day.
(For more interesting debunked lies, visit http://www.factcheck.org/ and http://www.mccainpedia.org/index.php/Count_the_Lies. Also, for some reason, I haven't been able to get my links to work properly but I did find all of my information from the source listed after it.)

Could McCain’s campaign be more full of shit?

John McCain’s campaign released a web ad recently decrying Obama’s use of the phrase “Lipstick on a Pig.” A variety of news agencies have put forth their own commentary on it with the majority of talk referring to how many times John McCain has used the phrase and the fact that McCain’s own (former) press secretary wrote a book called “Lipstick on a Pig.” What I really think they are missing is that this is ANOTHER case of the McCain campaign lying to Americans.

The ad goes like this:

“Sarah Palin on: Sarah Palin
‘You know they say the difference between a hockey mom and a pit-bull? Lipstick.’
Barack Obama On: Sarah Palin
‘You know, you can put lipstick on a pig… It’s still a pig.’
Kati Couric on: This Election
‘One of the great lessons of that campaign is the continued and accepted role of sexism in American life.’
Ready to lead? No.”

The thing is Obama wasn’t even talking about Sarah Palin when he used the phrase “lipstick on a pig.” In fact, the quote (in context was):

“Let's just list this for a second. John McCain says he's about change, too. Except -- and so I guess his whole angle is, ‘Watch out, George Bush, except for economic policy, health-care policy, tax policy, education policy, foreign policy, and Karl Rove-style politics. We're really gonna shake things up in Washington.’ That's not change. That's just calling some -- the same thing, something different. But you know, you can -- you know, you can put lipstick on a pig; it's still a pig.”

McCain is so full of shit! Obama is CLEARLY saying that McCain represents a dressed up version of the same old policies.

And people are calling him insensitive, sexist, elitist, and showing a lack of judgment. A blogger at www.palmettoscoop.com even went so far as to say that Obama’s comments highlight his “foot and mouth disease.”

How? I guess I just don’t get how the phrase in context highlights anything other than the use of an analogy to make his point. And sexism?

I paid attention to the race quite a bit during the primaries and I can’t understand where this stuff about sexism is coming from.

So, while Obama didn’t call anyone a pig I am going to:

McCain, you’re a pig (or a dog) in the sense that you are an insensitive male or male chauvinist. And Palin, you’re a bitch in the sense that everyone means that when they say it. And, in my defense, Palin called herself that when she referred to herself as a pit-bull. A bitch is a female dog. Palin is female. Pailin is a pit-bull. A pit-bull is a dog. Therefore Palin is a bitch.

Hmmm...

Another thing, anyone find it ironic that the RNC convention was in Minneapolis this year? I wonder if any of the guests visited any stalls in the airport...

Get Me Some of that Reform

While watching the RNC convention over the past week, one quote from "O Brother, Where Art Thou" keeps going through my mind:

Junior: "Well, people like that reform. Maybe we should get us some."
Pappy: "I'll reform you, you soft-headed sonofabitch! How we gonna run reform when we're the damn incumbent?"

So, Sen. McCain... how are you going to get you some of that reform when all you represent is the same old Bush policies coupled with the same old Rovian bull shit?

God, Please Shut Michael Moore Up

OK, I’ve never really liked Michael Moore but yesterday on Keith Olberman’s Countdown show he said something absolutely disgusting.
Olberman asked for a comment about the coincidence of hurricane Gustav making landfall near the start of the RNC Convension in St. Paul. Moore replied:
“I was just thinking, this Gustav is proof that there is a God in Heaven.” He then laughed and said, “To have it planned at the same time – that it would actually be on its way to New Orleans for day one of the Republican Convention, up in the Twin Cities – at the top of the Mississippi River.”
Are you kidding me Moore? That’s reprehensible among other things. Fucking hell man. There is nothing God-send about a pending natural disaster that has already forced New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin to evacuate the city. It’s a level 5 storm already and it’s just passing Cuba as I write this.
I write this with a twinge of irony because a few weeks ago “Doctor” James Dobson, leader of Focus on the Family, asked his followers to pray for rain during Barack Obama’s speech at the DNC.

Darragh Murphy, Sarah Palin, and The Moronic Republicans

OK, I’m pissed. Full on, fucking pissed. Why? Why rant today of all days? Well it involves the bitch pictured below.








Darragh Murphy is the founder and spokesperson behind the widely moronic and cultish P.U.M.A. PAC. PUMA stands for “Party Unity My Ass” and is mad because the Clinton camp lost in the primaries and they’re not going to take it anymore. Or is that what they want you to think?

Murphy has been on “Hardball with Chris Matthews” more than a few times and has widely been cited as one the fiercest Clinton supporters out there. But the shit that comes flowing from her mouth is mind-bogglingly stupid. It’s like listening to a 10-year-old who didn’t get her way. Unfortunately, I didn’t find any transcript of today’s show but today she praised John McCain’s choice of a running mate and said that McCain will be peeling off Obama voters because the VP pick is a woman. How belittling.

To explain why I think it’s fucking ridiculous, I need to go into the resume of ½ term Alaska governor Sarah Palin.

Sarah Palin was born in Sandpoint, Idaho just a half-hour north of me. She moved to Alaska where she grew up. In high school she was the leader of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and played basketball. She continued her education at the University of Idaho where she received her bachelor’s degree in political science. For the record; so did I.

She also took time to participate in her home-town's Miss Wasilla beauty contest and finished second in the Miss Alaska pageant. According to Wiki (where I’m getting my info btw) she was named “Miss Congeniality,” which is ironic because John McCain has often said that he’d never won any prizes for Miss Congeniality.

Her political experience begain in 1992 where she served on the city council of Wasilla, Alaska – a town of about 6000. She then became mayor of her hometown. She then served as Commissioner of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission finally running and winning as Governor of Alaska in 2006. She’s served a year and a half.

Her position on issues are ridiculously conservative. She’s anti-choice/pro-life/anti-abortion rights. She promotes teaching creationism in schools and is a “7-days-means-7-days” kind of Evangelical wacko. She opposes gay rights and supported the first state constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. She objected to Dirk Kempthorne’s decision to add polar bears to the endangered species list. (It should be noted that Kempthorne was the former Republican governor of Idaho appointed to Secretary of the Interior by George Bush).

What’s more, she wants to drill in ANWAR and is in the pockets of big oil – no surprise coming from Alaska.

For a woman who ran on an ethics-reform platform, it is important to know that she dismissed Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan because he refused to fire her former brother-in-law Alaska State Trooper Mike Wooten after he divorced her sister. Then she replaced Monegan with Chuck Kopp who had been involved in sexual harassment allegations involving one of his employees.

So, in summary, she’s a uber-conservative, anti-environmentalist, evangelical woman who has a piss-poor education and about as much political experience as I do. I mean, seriously, I have more education than she does from the same school as she went. The only thing she has in common with Hillary Clinton is her gender.

So how can P.U.M.A.’s Murphy claim that she’s going to win over Clinton supporters? Is she blinded so much by the gender issue that she doesn’t care about the other issues?

No, it’s because she’s a Republican. According to the Rumproast blog, Murphy gave a sizable donation to John McCain in 2000 and admits to voting for him in the primary. She claims to be a “life-long Democrat” but she didn’t give anything to Al Gore. The Huffington Post confirms it.

What’s even more irritating is that MSNBC is giving this lying bitch airtime. And they are falling for the exact kind of dirty politics that the Republicans used in the past two elections. There are not hundreds of thousands of former Clinton supporters who are now going to flock to the McCain ticket because they’ve got a woman on the ticket. It just makes no sense. The worst number I saw was that 28 percent of the people who voted for Clinton in the primaries would not vote for Obama. But that poll was conducted in March. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a pollster and I don’t even believe modern polls because they don’t poll people with cell-phones. But I feel comfortable saying that it is highly unlikely that the people who supported Hillary Clinton would want a Republican McCain supporter speaking for them.

And while I’m ranting, I find it offensive that McCain would pick Palin as his running mate. It’s not only pandering but also scary. Imagine if McCain is elected and – as old men are prone to do – dies, we’ll be left with a woman who ran a small city and the smallest state (population wise) in the nation. Do we really want to take that chance?

In my opinion (which is really not so humble), McCain lost any ability to criticize Obama for lack of experience when he picked Palin. If she is experienced enough to take over for him in the event of McCain’s death, then Obama is almost over qualified.

The Obama/Biden ticket has at least 14 years of combined higher education. Obama received his bachelor’s degree from Columbia and law degree from Harvard Law. Biden got two bachelor’s degrees from the University of Deleware and his law degree from Syracuse University. Both have taught at law schools.

The McCain/Palin ticket has all of 8 years combined. McCain barely got his degree from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1958 with a class rank of 894 out of 899. Palin got her degree from the University of Idaho – just like me.

The Obama/Biden ticket has a combined total of four years in State government and 28 years of experience on the U.S. Senate. Obama served in the Illinois State Senate for four years and went on to represent Illinois in the U.S. Senate for the past three years. Biden has served on the Senate for 25 years. It’s also worth mentioning that Obama represented Illinois – population of almost 13 million.

The McCain/Palin ticket has 1.5 years of state experience and 16 years of federal. Palin’s experience is less than one term representing Alaska – population of less than 700,000. McCain has represented Arizona in the U.S. House of Representatives for 4 years and the U.S. Senate for 12 years.

About the only thing McCain’s got more experience doing is serving in the armed forces. I know that everyone wants to tip-toe around his service but I’m not going to. John served in Vietnam. Vietnam was a repressible war where the U.S. Military killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people including the firebombing of woman and children. Vietnam is now looked at as a mistake and a quagmire that lead to our ultimate defeat. It was unpopular here and around the world.

While fighting in Vietnam, McCain was shot down and imprisoned. He held out in the face of torture and refused to give the North Vietnamese any information. But he was shot down on a bombing run and held captive. That doesn’t make you a war hero – it makes you fodder. McCain didn’t serve as a high ranking officer during the war. He was a grunt who was lucky enough to survive getting shot down. He retired as a captain but held that post during peace time.

Oh, and he has experience cheating on his disabled wife and divorcing her for prettier, younger, richer woman – Cindy McCain. Great family values asshole.

Lastly, McCain said something really funny today: “But once you get to know [Sarah Palin]…” I know, that doesn’t sound that funny until you take into account that McCain and Palin have met once. What a bunch of crap.

God is SO Not Your Homeboy

“God is our excuser not our excuse, you know what I mean?”
No, no, no! No I don’t know what you mean you crazy ditz.
OK, that might have been too much but you haven’t been sitting here listening to this bimbos talk about stupid shit for an hour. It’s one girl, she’s constantly talking, and her conversation has ranged from the moronic to hypocritical with little redeeming value in between.
This girl is, like, pretty, like, she’s totally, like the stereotype of, like, pretty girls. She, like totally loves God, you know. She’s, like, totally amazed that God is, like, everywhere, like, always performing miracles and, like, with us all the time. It’s totally, like totally, incredible.
And while she might be talking like that, she’s also so full of shit I can smell her from across the room. She has – so far – talked about how she really liked this “fucked up” scary movie that reminded her of the “Amityville Horror.” She’s talked about how she got tired of her boyfriend and how she had to break up with him because he just didn’t do it for her anymore. And apparently, about all she misses is having someone to talk to while laying in bed at night.
So she’s taken to praying because “like” God listens even though it “like totally feels like I’m just talking to the air; you know?”
It’s exasperating listening to her talk. To be Christian is to strive to be Christ-like. I’ll be the first to admit, I’m a sinner and I make some bad mistakes. But I don’t go around talking about living with my boyfriend – missing the sex – and then saying that I’m filling the void with prayer!
I guess, lately, I’ve had such a hard time with “Christians” who are half-assed and think that God is their BFF. I mean, what ever happened to God is awe-inspiring? Instead of the wrathful, jealous God of Moses and Abraham – you know, the one that sent fire from the heavens and plagues killing children – we’ve got these bimbo teen girls talking about God like they have him on speed-dial. It just bugs the crap out of me.
OK, I’m done.