You know. I’m curious about something. We all know that Jesus was born a Jew and we all know that he went to temple (since his oh-so-observant parents found him there after they’d left Jerusalem without noticing the nearly teenaged Jesus wasn’t with them!) but why is it that the Gospel writers never mention his bris or his bar mitzvah in their writings?

Maybe BillO and the rest of FoxNoise could do some investigating on that? I can just see BillO’s next book title: “Jesus and the Missing Foreskin: Why Liberals Hate Christianity.”

(Note: I’m joking about the bar mitzvah since that didn’t become a regular practice of Judaism until well after the time of Jesus. But still—the bris question persists. That was mandatory of all Jewish boys, even in the time of Jesus. Unless, of course, Jesus was born without a foreskin—since Jesus is supposed to be God and God wanted foreskins as a symbol of the “covenant,” it doesn’t really make sense that God would want, or need, His “own” foreskin for the collection—or he had some sort of magical foreskin that regrew. Maybe THAT was Jesus’s first REAL miracle—the regrowth of the foreskin—and Gospel writers and later Biblical authorities felt it might be a bit too embarassing to be included as part of the canon.)

I’m guessing that Katy’s feeling she doesn’t have to “get naked” comes only after she realized NO ONE wants to see HER naked. She is pretty but nothing special.

Of course, it’s worth nothing that Katy started off as a Christian music artist AND FAILED. How does that happen? That’s really one of the most forgiving (pardon the pun) genres in the industry. She apparently wanted to be a star more than she wanted to praise the Lord so she “tarted” it up (and if she’d never released “I Kissed a Girl” and played the faux LUG card, she wouldn’t have taken off so quickly).

It’s kind of funny, you know? For people such as these “concerned” parents and the FoxNoise hosts and guests who believe the meme that “America is a Christian nation,” their faith seems pretty weak if they need a school textbook to prop it up. Shouldn’t their kids be getting all those “Christian nation” facts from mom and dad and their regular visits to the “Christian” church of their choice?

It’s too bad FoxNoise and the GOPers weren’t as quick with the “impeachment” talk when a certain previous President was all quick with the talk about WMDs.

In fact, as I recall, when a certain gentleman came out publicly pointing out the LIES about Iraq and “yellow-cake uranium,” his wife who was a real-life undercover CIA operative was turned into a public figure. And FoxNoise spent its time blasting the whistle-blower (and truth-teller) and helping that President’s administration cover up its LIES.

As the old saying goes, “Bush lied; thousands died.” But FoxNoise and impeachment? Not even on the table. Not even up for discussion—except to blast the calls as “radical partisanship” and “revenge for Clinton.”

I hope Dems are paying attention. The next time they’re in the majority in Congress with a GOPer in the White House, start calling for impeachment at the drop of a hat. Every little misstep, every little incorrectly uttered phrase, every little terrorist incident—call for impeachment. The last GOP president we had was beyond incompetent but FoxNoise made sure to cover HIS bungling.

The Washington Free Beacon was the first to notice a Twitter user challenged, “Show me just ONE example of an Islamic country where non Muslims are treated with equality?”

Perhaps the Twitter user should’ve gotten this answer: “Do you believe that Muslims are being treated with equality in Christian-dominated countries by the so-called Christians living there? Because there are many examples of Muslims living in the US who aren’t being treated with equality.”

But, as to answering his question, Indonesia. Malaysia. Albania. Bangladesh. Sierra Leone. Senegal. That’s just a few.

I’m getting to the point where I’m going to demand the Capitol Police go and arrest every single GOPer in Congress and charge them with acts of treason. Frogmarch every last one of them to jail and then get the planes ready to put them in Gitmo.

Let these whiny bastards scream “freedom of speech” and have them reminded that treason and sedition is NOT free speech (treason, in fact, is grounds for removal from Congress). Let these d-bags spend the next couple of years in front of judges facing treason charges just to put the “fear of God” (if you’ll pardon the expression) into them and remind them that they are there to serve the people and do a job—something they’re not currently doing, all because the President’s Black.

Amy, actually ALL religion is a “belief.” All religion is also a “choice.” And ALL religion is constitutionally protected. But then again, so are most beliefs (that whole silly “freedom of speech” thing) just as long as the belief doesn’t conflict with civil law or infringe on another’s civil rights (freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from consequences of that speech).

And how exactly does this “permission” for teachers to physically assault students mesh with the possible “mental” assault that so-called Christian students or so-called conservative students get from their “atheist, liberal” teachers? I mean, yes, words can hurt but how much you wanna bet that Bolling will the first one screaming “ABUSE!!!!!” if some little whiney-ass kid is told he or she can’t wear a Confederate t-shirt to school or a cross or if a teacher makes a snide comment about Republicons?

And if I’m not mistaken, Jesuit schools are PRIVATE facilities. Even if a state bans corporal punishment administered by a school official, Jesuit schools will still be allowed to beat their kids as much as they want to.

However, I’d love it if someone else who attended that school with Bolling were to come forward and tell the truth about Bolling—that he cried like a little girl or tried avoiding each swat or, more devastating to Bolling’s account, that the priest barely touched Bolling’s precious little butt. At least, not with a “baseball bat.”

Reading some of these letters puts me in mind of some lyrics from Frank and Moon Unit Zappa’s hit single, “Valley Girl”:

“Tosses her head and flips her hair/She got a whole lot of nothin’ in there.”

and

“Last idea to cross her mind/Had something to do with where to find/A pair of jeans to fit her butt/And where to get her toenails cut.”

I wonder if some of the current crop of Teabaggers were real-life Vals back in the day. It would certainly explain some of their (lack of) brains.

And that alleged 50 year old woman who’s just learning the computer? What the hell has she been doing for the last 20 years? I could understand if computers had just been invented a few years ago, but come on……..they’ve been on the market for decades. There’s really no excuse for anyone under the age of 60 to not have some familiarity with computers.

Jane, most of the right-wing “Christians” prefer the “Cherry-Picked” Version of the Bible. That’s the version which allows them to quote Leviticus against LGBTs while ignoring the hundreds of other “abominations” that Leviticus mentions (like wearing clothes of more than 1 fiber or eating pork or giving false testimony). It’s also the same one that pretends that Jesus wasn’t really Jewish and doesn’t spend much time pondering why a single man would spend so much time hanging out with a bunch of other single men. It’s also the one that allows them to ignore a whole lot of Christ’s commands and teachings that don’t fit into their lifestyle and worldview (such as “easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter Heaven” or “Blessed are the meek”).

How much you wanna bet that these wonderful examples of humanity would resort to the same behavior the woman did if any of them were “a neighbor of an active crime scene” and “a TV news crew that refuses to leave the sidewalk in front of [their] house?”

And leave it to Pinhead-in-Chief Bill O’Reilly (not to be confused with Clive Barker’s Cenobite creation, Pinhead, or even Bill Griffith’s creation of Zippy the Pinhead) to bring his own version of “Joy to the World” by attacking people who are trying to remind Americans that Christmas shouldn’t be treated as a religious holiday. And Bill himself should be reminded that the Puritans of Massachusetts actually BANNED Christmas as a “papist invention.” And doesn’t BillO usually bring up the “Founders”—including the Puritans—when invoking the idea that “America is a Christian nation?” The Puritans’ notion of Christmas was as a day intended to be spent in Church, listening to some (usually fire-and-brimstone) sermon and the remainder of the day to be spent in prayer and reflection, rather than a day of gifts and presents and (gasp) joy. A Puritan child who thought he or she would be able to go outside and do anything fun would find out how quickly that idea would be quashed. And the idea of singing? Hoo boy. The Puritans believed that to be a sin—even inside a church.

Sandman2, well, presenting articles of impeachment would STILL not show that the reps are doing “something for their paychecks.” While it only takes a simple majority (of ALL those present and voting) to pass an article of impeachment, that’s only in the House. For the Senate (which is in charge of actually trying the case), it requires that ever-lovable 2/3 majority to convict. So even if the GOP-controlled House could manage to present articles of impeachment for the Senate to consider, with the present composition of the Senate, there is NO way that impeachment would ever happen. Hell, the GOP would have to manage to pick up a solid 22 Senate seats in next year’s elections—while losing no more than 13 House seats—in order for impeachment to stand more than a snowball’s chance in Hell of proceeding. Next year’s Senate election will only have 19 current Democratic seats at stake. I don’t know how many of those 19 will be “open” seats (from incumbents retiring) or how many are really “safe” seats (there do seem to be a fair number of “red” states with Dem Senators such as Alaska, Arkansas and Louisiana, to name a few) but there is just NO way that the current GOP could possibly swing that many Senate seats. (Since 1961*—following the admission of Alaska and Hawai’i when the Senate increased to its current 100 seats—the biggest swing in seats happened in 1980 when the “Reagan Revolution” changed the Senate by 12 seats, and note that involved a Presidential election. For mid-term elections, the biggest switch was in 1994, with just 9. In both cases, the switch benefitted the GOP. Just by looking at the states involved, 10-12 switching to the GOP is possible but anything more than 12 would be little more than GOP wishful thinking.)

*It’s worth noting that prior to the 1960 election, there are a couple of higher switches that depend on how you look at them. Since the direct election of Senators (provided by the 17th Amendment), the biggest switch was in 1958 with 15 seats shifting (from GOP to Dem; Alaska elected 2 Senators in the Nov 1958 election and it was admitted as its Senators took office on 1/3/59—excluding them, the switch was just 13). The two greatest shifts in US Senate history, however, both resulted from the Civil War and Reconstruction. (The immediate political aftermath of the secessionist states makes the seating of the Senate in 1861 hard to judge with any true definition. As the new Congress didn’t begin until early March at this point in history, a number of Southern States were still actually represented in Congress at the beginning of the year—even after the start of the new Congressional session—only to withdraw within a few weeks of the session. A similar problem occurs with the Reconstruction period since some states had Senators appointed by the Reconstruction governors which allowed the state to be represented in the Senate but once the state was formally readmitted under civilian control, the state legislatures were quick to replace their Senators before they could actually “run” for re-election.) Probably the real “biggest shift” was a 17-seat shift in 1824 with the major parties renaming themselves when the Democratic-Republicans changed to Democrats and the Federalists changed to National Republicans; the DRs/Ds went from 43 down to 26 and the Fed/NRs went from 5 to 22. (Since there were only 48 Senate seats at the time, that would be the equivalent of a 35-seat shift today.)

When these f@cks can show me proof that a single “Christian” student has been beaten up or shoved around or pushed down at school BECAUSE of the student’s “Christian” behavior, I’ll give their comments more than a moment’s acknowledgement.

We’ve already seen these f@cks lie about transgender kids (one TG girl in Colorado was actually placed on a suicide watch because of LIES perpetrated by some right-wing “Christian” legal group—maybe legal should be parenthesized as well—based on some alleged parent’s purported “concerns” at the girl’s school, but NO other actual evidence; the school’s principal, in fact, denied that there’s been any real harassment reported by any students at the school) and the right-wing has already gone to court to overturn the CA law allowing TG students to use the restrooms that match their gender identity.

Now, I know some folks might use the novel and film “Carrie” as an example of “anti-Christian bullying,” they’d also be sadly misunderstanding the bullying. At no point is anyone attacking Carrie over her religious beliefs (although it could be argued that her mother’s religious beliefs indirectly cause Carrie’s being bullied at school but none of the girls behind the bullying are tormenting her because of Carrie’s religious beliefs).

Of course, Bream obviously misses the irony of going on FoxNoise and complaining about “Christian” kids not being allowed to bully in the name of “religious freedom.” I’ll bet there are far more minority religious kids who are being bullied for THEIR religious beliefs than the reverse. Even in the late 20th Century, Jewish kids in the South were being harassed (including by teachers) over their “non-Christian status.” And we’ve seen plenty of Muslims and Sikhs being attacked over THEIR religious beliefs (and appearances). You can pretty much find bullying of non-religious students and non-traditional religion practitioners. There’s even bullying of non-mainstream Christians (Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons) in deeply Baptist and Catholic areas.

“Still, Van Susteren made a point of underscoring that Barrette will have to pay for services she ‘may not want’ and that it is confusing.”

Barrette and perhaps Greta might want to turn their paychecks over to someone who can actually handle their money for them, because based on the “have to pay for services she ‘may not want’” comment, it looks like neither of them should be trusted with handling money at all. You do this with cable—you pay for channels that don’t appeal to you in order to get others that you do want at a lower cost. (I’ve no interest in sports channels or religious channels—or FoxNoise—but a number of them come with my “basic” cable package but there are a number of channels I’d like to get instead but the cable provider won’t offer a “swapout” package.) You do this with auto insurance—you can get a lower rate by assuming a higher deductible or take a higher rate by assuming a lower deductible. Maybe you need (or want) full coverage so that your insurance will pay out for someone’s smashing into you instead of just liability in case you hit someone else.

And what about life insurance? An accident can kill you just as easily at 20 as it can at 50 but the insurance premium for a 20-year old is lower than for a 50-year old and a high-value policy will cost more than a low-value policy. And while many life insurance policies don’t punish you for “pre-existing conditions,” they will charge higher premiums for people who smoke or who’ve had a stroke or heart attack or who’ve been diagnosed with cancer.

Or homeowner’s or renter’s insurance? Policies can offer full coverage for theft or if property burns down or gets hit by a tornado OR it can offer partial coverage. Obviously, full coverage is going to cost more than partial coverage. BUT, neither type of insurance can replace “sentiment” or “memories”—family photos that get wiped out in a fire or tornado are gone, forever. No amount of insurance will ever really replace them (some things might be duplicated to some degree but if the precious baby photos of your 16-year old burn up, you can’t possibly replace them in any fashion). And even if you’ve got “special” insurance to cover rare items (such as collectibles—such as a Cabbage Patch collection or antique thimbles), you may get the value in cash, but you may never be able to actually replace the items themselves.

(And, it would have probably helped if I’d read earlier comments. As it was I only got as far as Priscilla’s “Alawite Christian” comment before I felt a need to correct it, so I didn’t see that Jane S caught the mistake first.)