Jesus Loves Osama

I found this through Religious Liberal. It's a short article about a pastor in Australia that put this sign up in front of several churches.

While many are upset about the message, a pastor from the church insists that it adheres to Christian beliefs.

"Jesus came to save all mankind and that includes you...me...and Osama bin Laden," said the pastor from Central Baptist Church.

Not the most exciting post, I know. But the meaning behind this message is an extremely powerful one. Everything that the gospel preaches emphasizes all-encompassing love and compassion for every fellow human being. When "Christians" condone acts of violence, and murder through war, they HAVE to completely ignore this part of the Bible.

Let's get this straight once and for all. According to the Bible, Jesus was a Passivist. If he were saying these same things today, "Christian" conservatives would be labeling him a kool-aid drinking hippy. Unfortunately he's not around anymore, and media right wingers are professionals at misconstruing the views of dead people.

Top Gear - Alabama

Unlike the opening sketch to the new craptastic right wing comedy show on fox news last night, this is actually funny. See what happens when 3 guys from Britain write "HILLARY FOR PRESIDENT" and "NASCAR SUCKS" on their cars and then proceed to drive through Alabama. When they stop at a gas station, and the locals call "the boys", things get a little nasty. Will 'the boys' reinforce the stereotype of red-state intolerance? Of course... if they didn't, I probably wouldn't have posted it. Watch it here at YouTube

UPDATE: It looks like the BBC got YouTube to take the video down as soon as I put the link up. Here's the same video, just a different version: Alabama Stoning

Comedy For The Peanut Sized Brain

Gay Penguins?... Hilarious!

Fox News is unveiling their new anti-Daily Show, weekly comedy program this Sunday called The Half Hour News Hour. It must be good, the funny is right there in the title. Oh, those right wingers and their wacky humor...

I'm not a comedian, but I think I know funny when I see it. (Conan O'Brien funny, Carlos Mencia not) Judging by this preview through Fox News online, this show looks like a steaming pile of right wing excrement. This is all you republican comedians could come up with? In economic terms, the lack of quality seen here is probably directly due to the overall lack of human resource in right wing comedic writers. There are no republican comedians; only Dennis Miller and that 'git er done' guy. The point is, Fox News and entertainment geared specifically towards a demographic of observably humor-disabled people, will naturally never be funny. (faux news viewers, not republicans... necessarily)

Case in point, here's a segment of one of the show's promos:

"our new show... may offend the following. The left, the far-left, in fact anyone standing to the left, gay penguins, lawyers, the ACLU, anyone who has the letters ACLU in their name, democrats, people who voted for democrats, people who know democrats, gay penguins... finally theres a show for the rest of us... an equal opportunity offender... illegal aliens, space aliens! Tom Cruise!"

That's right, they said gay penguins twice. Double the funny.

Yes, the Daily Show is my favorite show. But I'm not mad at Fox News for ripping it off. It'll be fun just laughing at what they're laughing about. Openly stating that your show will specifically offend lefties and then going on to say your show is an "equal opportunity offender"... only on the Fair and Balanced Channel.

The show was created by a guy named Joel Surnow, also the creator of the hit Fox show '24'... famous for its fear inducing, torture endorsing story lines and generally warped view of reality and human nature. Surnow smokes cigars with Rush Limbaugh in his off-time and is a self proclaimed "right-wing nut". No surprises there. In Surnow's own words:

“Every American wishes we had someone out there quietly taking care of business.It’s a deep, dark ugly world out there... It would be nice to have a secret government that can get the answers and take care of business—even kill people. Jack Bauer fulfills that fantasy.”

Fantasizing about killing people, hmmm. At least he's honest about being a nut.

UPDATE: The Half Hour News Hour uses a laugh track. Just the fact that this show is being even slightly compared to The Daily Show and Colbert Report is an insult.

Apparently Bob Cesca at Huffington felt the same way, and there's a youtube link for the preview there too. I also added a link for the promo and changed the link for the preview. When something is this bad, it's fun to watch.

21st Century Propagandists: Looking At You, Exxon

Much like the debate and the skepticism over the harmful causes of tobacco smoke in the 20th century, the "doubts" and "uncertainty" surrounding the issue of global warming today are entirely manufactured by those who have a monetary stake in the political and social reaction to the threat. Were the public to actually know how dire the implications may be if something isn't done, multi-national corporations, more powerful than most nation-states, would be very negatively affected. The companies who are now propagating misinformation on global warming take their cue from the R.J. Reynold's and Philip Morris's of the past. These new propagandists of the 21st century include: Conoco, BP, Shell, and most importantly ExxonMobil.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had a great post today on Exposing Exxon. Here are some important excerpts:

Using phony think tanks like the Competitive Enterprise Institute, scientists-for-hire called biostitutes, slick public relations firms, and their indentured servants in the political process, they have intentionally defrauded the public by promoting the notion that global warming is a hoax or a sketchy theory that requires more study.

Exxon has dished out at least $19 million dollars since the negotiation of the Kyoto Protocol (1997) to fund an elaborate network including over 75 industry front groups mobilized in a misleading campaign to cloud the public's understanding of global warming. Their objective has been to counter balance the overwhelming scientific evidence of man-induced climate change with pseudo scientific denials to derail reforms that might effect corporate profits. In 2005, ExxonMobil paid over $3.5 million to 49 different front groups, according to the company's own records, which are collected each year by ExxonSecrets.org and the ExxposeExxon coalition. A report released earlier this month by the Union of Concerned Scientists traces the roots of this fraudulent propaganda broadside - and many of its prime actors - back to the tobacco industry's tactical war on science.

I wrote about this one in a post several months ago, but there's an update:

A 2002 Exxon memo recently obtained by Greenpeace through FOIA coaches one of the President's top environmental advisers Philip Cooney, chief of staff at the White House Council on Environmental Quality on how to "improve" administration research on climate change by emphasizing "significant uncertainties" in the science. The New York Times later revealed that Cooney, a former lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute which is generously funded by Exxon, made myriad changes to government climate studies designed to weaken their strong conclusions about the need to act on global warming. Typically Cooney would insert the words "significant and fundamental" before "uncertainties" in the reports. Cooney, a non scientist, helped suppress or alter several major taxpayer funded scientific studies on global warming including a decade-long study commissioned by this President's father. Cooney resigned two days after the Times broke the story. But don't feel badly. Within a week ExxonMobil announced it had hired him.

As further evidence of the company's insincerity, Exxon's chief executive and CEO Rex Tillerson, on Friday told world leaders in Davos that oil companies should not be held responsible for global warming. The blame, he argued, rests instead with the very consumers and government officials his company has spent millions of dollars manipulating and defrauding.

Read the rest of the post here.