Hey Patrick, mustn’t forget the Fourth Crusade. When all those brave, Christian crusaders decided to stop off in Constantinople (seat of the Orthodox Christian Byzantine Empire) in 1203 and lay siege to the city, and eventually pillage and loot the city in 1204.

In fact, it was this little event that finalized the schism in the Christian Church. Somewhat ironically, Catholic Pope Innocent III had blessed/launched the Crusade with an intent to help reunite the two branches; after learning about the sacking, Innocent realized the Christian church would never come together because, as Innocent wrote, “How, indeed, will the church of the Greeks, no matter how severely she is beset with afflictions and persecutions, return into ecclesiastical union and to a devotion for the Apostolic See, when she has seen in the Latins only an example of perdition and the works of darkness, so that she now, and with reason, detests the Latins more than dogs? As for those who were supposed to be seeking the ends of Jesus Christ, not their own ends, who made their swords, which they were supposed to use against the pagans, drip with Christian blood, they have spared neither religion, nor age, nor sex. They have committed incest, adultery, and fornication before the eyes of men. They have exposed both matrons and virgins, even those dedicated to God, to the sordid lusts of boys. Not satisfied with breaking open the imperial treasury and plundering the goods of princes and lesser men, they also laid their hands on the treasures of the churches and, what is more serious, on their very possessions. They have even ripped silver plates from the altars and have hacked them to pieces among themselves. They violated the holy places and have carried off crosses and relics.” (taken from the Wiki article on the Fourth Crusade) Of course, once all the ill-gotten gain made its way back to Rome, Innocent wasn’t quite as upset with the guys.

Maybe when Prick Prickson grows a vagina, a uterus and a pair of ovaries (and finds someone brave enough to get him pregnant), then he can comment on abortion. Oh. Also—he’d have to work a job with almost no kind of health coverage AND live in a state that only has one clinic available AND the state has a mandatory 72-hour waiting period after seeing the doctor before getting the abortion AND being told and shown all sorts of graphic and hyperbolic information that he doesn’t want to see AND he’s subjected to an invasive ultrasound for his “own good.” Of course, since Prick is a man who doesn’t have to endure any of that—and I’m quite sure his wife enjoys his dominating every aspect of her sex life and…..Oh. Waitaminnit. Is he actually married? The Wiki bios on Rush and Seanniepoo and Glenn and even Michael Wein-er, Savage, all list their spouses (whether just one or part of a set) but Prick has no “personal” bio at all. I’ve heard of “penis envy”-maybe Prickson has some twisted form of “uterus/vagina envy” and he’s just mad that modern women want to have as much control over their “naughty bits” (as Monty Python would say) as men do.

Yeah, Sean. Because there were never any scandals before Clinton.

Things like Iran-Contra and Ollie North’s “shadow government from the White House Basement” and Watergate and Newt Gingrich’s philandering and the Black Sox Scandal were ALL because of Bill Clinton.

“The chyron stated Fox fact: “Flawed Lesson Plan, Is Islam Praised As Religions Degraded?”

Correct if I’m mistaken but isn’t Islam a “religion” as well?
On another point, I really wish I could’ve participated in this little “discussion.” I’d have to ask just how lax these “outraged” parents are if they can’t provide a “superior” Christian perspective in their daily lives that would be sufficient to keep their (apparently) brain-dead children from suddenly deciding that they need to convert to Islam.

If this book has just ONE chapter (and only 36 pages, at that), I don’t think the teacher’s going to be spending more than a week on the chapter (meaning a grand total of about 5 hours of the students’ whole lives on Islam, compared to DOYC-only-knows how many hours they’re getting of Christianity at home and church a week).

Sigh…..I know, I know. I’m talking about facts. And the fact-challenged pundits of FoxNoise really don’t appreciate that kind of language.

As far as casting for Chris Plante, I’d suggest one of the losing contestants from “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”

Perhaps, Alaska or Ivy Winters (from Season 5), maybe Tammie Brown (from Season 1) or Pandora Boxx (from Season 2). They could even do the role in full drag (maybe with toned-down makeup) and STILL act more manly than Plante. (Not really sure if any would be willing to be a character that stupid, but you never can tell.)

“BTW, how do you think Bream and Gallagher would react to a kid sporting a Hezbollah flag at a public school event?”

Probably with the same freaked-out reaction they get whenever a Mexican flag appears at a largely Hispanic school.

Joe Marsh seems to have overlooked Sharpton’s role in the Amadou Diallo incident and the Tyisha Miller incident and the Sean Bell incident and his participation in protesting military target practice on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques.

Until certain people hold other public figures to the fire for THEIR outrageous actions, Sharpton shouldn’t be unfairly targeted, Mr Marsh—no matter how much you may dislike the man. None of the police involved in the shooting deaths of Amadou, Tyisha or Sean were found guilty of murder (yet between the three incidents, more than 100 shots were fired by the cops and 0 by the victims).

George Sill, so perhaps you can explain why roughly 9 out of every 10 MEN who apply for those “special forces” training wash out.

As for those alligators and snakes, big deal. There are WOMEN in Louisiana who can handle those creatures just as well as the men (and, in some cases, even better).

And as for your slam at Aria about “easy to hide behind your keyboard,” you’re not really one to talk. You’re doing the SAME thing right now.

And, if memory serves, I do believe there was a WOMAN who actually fought during the Civil War and it wasn’t until she was wounded during combat that her fellow soldiers discovered she was a woman.

And you might want to brush up on your information about Israeli female soldiers. From the IDF’s own website (English-language version), you’ve got such things as

“KARAKAL
Karakal is a special battalion (gdud) inside the realm of Chir that is comprised of both women and men, both of which do all of the training together and exercises/guarding which is required. It is a unit that is full capacity combat and mainly is stationed in the south at the Egyptian border and the Jordanian border. Women need to posses an 82 profiles (Men 72) and pass Gibbush Lochemot (Women Fighters Tryout) in order to be accepted into Karakal.”

and,

“CHILUTZ veHATZALA
A combatant position responsible for retrieving and rescuing using various methods; there are different training techniques practiced on a daily basis.”

As for those “dog handlers,” here’s how the IDF describes the duties:
OKETZ

This is a sayaret of the Kfir Brigade. For women, they must first pass Gibbush Lochemot (Female Fighter Tryout) in order to be a fighter. If a woman passes the Gibbush, she is placed Karakal (which is a faction of the Kfir Brigade). Once starting tironut in Karakal, there is a Gibbush (Tryout) within the unit in order to be accepted to Oketz.
Men need to be drafted into Kfir, and then do the Gibbush for Oketz. If they pass the Gibbush men are placed into Oketz. If they do not pass, then they continue as a combat soldier in Kfir. Oketz specializes in training and handling dogs for military applications. Each dog is now trained to have a particular speciality. Attack dogs are trained to operate in urban areas, as well as in rural, bushy areas. Dogs are also trained as tracking and chasing dogs, for manhunts and detecting breaches at the borders. In addition, dogs are also trained as weapons and ammunition dogs, to search for guns and munitions, as explosive dogs, to sniff out hidden explosives and as search and rescue dogs, to find people in collapsed buildings. Oketz operators are often assigned to other units in the case of a particular need for their specialist skills, such as in the extraction of terrorists from fortified buildings." (Emphasis added by me.)

Pretty much, George, Israeli women get FULL combat training, and, in Israel, a “front-line” of combat can easily become a main street in Tel Aviv or Haifa. Wikipedia points out that, per the 2000 Equality Amendment to the Military Service Law, “The right of women to serve in any role in the IDF is equal to the right of men.” Also, from Wiki, “When the Second Lebanon War broke out [in 2006], it was the first time since 1948 that women were in field operations alongside men.” (Again, emphasis added.)

Now, it might make you happy to know that there are some in Israel who aren’t happy with women serving alongside men—but they’re religious fundamentalists who believe (much like those “ebil Mooslims” you hear so much about on FoxNoise) that women shouldn’t be allowed to mix with men they’re not related to. (Oh. There was even a story similar to that HERE in the good ol’ USofA. A bus line in NYC, operated by Orthodox Jews and receiving funding from the City, had a strict policy—or perhaps, “has,” is more appropriate since the line hasn’t changed its policy—of gender segregation where men sit at the front of the bus and women have to sit in the back. I’ll bet that just makes you long for the “good ol’ days” when the segregation wasn’t by gender.)

@ mlp: Given the offensive slur that the “hogrider” uses as the second part of his pseudonym, I don’t think the troll knows the meaning of either “factual” or “reputable.”

I sort of hope when this series does air that the script has a BIG piece from when Hillary made the bold claim about there being a “vast right wing conspiracy.” It’d be kind of interesting to see how FoxNoise covers that topic (though, in all likelihood, they’ll just skip it).

Does Johnson have an opinion on Newt Gingrich?

After all, the man (term used very VERY loosely) was cheating on his first wife and then, when she was in the hospital recovering from cancer surgery, took in divorce papers for her to sign.

Then, while married to the second wife (former mistress with whom he’d been cheating on Wife #1), he began an affair with a staffer—even as he was publicly chastising Bill Clinton and calling for Clinton’s impeachment. Gingrich finally divorced Wife #2 and, after paying off the Roman Catholic Church to ignore his first two marriages and divorces, he “converted” to Catholicism and married the second mistress in a FULL Catholic ceremony, making her Wife #3.

And, then of course, there’s BillO’s little “falafel and loofah” incident—while he was “happily” married. When he and the missus agreed to a separation and she started seeing another man, BillO decided to get the police to begin a less-than-licit “investigation” of the man.

And then there’s Rushbo. Multiple marriages and frequent (apparently solo) trips to the Dominican Republic.

Whoops—technical difficulties caused a problem (okay—my fingers hit the wrong keys in the middle of trying to type my previous comment). The following (hopefully) should be what was intended in the previous comment:

“I would like to know why Geraldo is still on Fox News especially after his tweet..I am tired of these perverts not receiving their consequences for their actions..”

Damn. So THAT’s all we needed last year. If only Paul Ryan had tweeted a shirtless pic of himself doing his little workout routine, then the conservatives (or at least the one upset at Geraldo’s tweet) would’ve completely abandoned the GOP and just stayed home.

(Yeah. It would’ve probably been far more effective if I hadn’t screwed up with the previous post.)

So, Joe, are you seriously trying to suggest that people can’t change? For all your asinine crap about Sharpon, you need to remember that O’Reilly, Limbaugh, and Hannity have ALWAYS been the race-baiting blowhards that Sharpton calls them on being. They have NEVER changed. They have NEVER attempted to change for the better.

And you have the effin’ audacity to keep harping on Sharpton? Get back to us when you see the right-wing blowhards make some LEGITIMATE effort at changing their divisive images.

@ doors17: I don’t even think the people of Arizona would fall for that seeing as how Palin’s currently “looking into” a run for the Alaska Senate seat currently held by Mark Begich. If she actually does follow through on that, and doesn’t succeed, there’s NO WAY that Arizonans would respond favorably to her carpetbagging 2 years later.

After a stripper told Watters what she made per night, Watters joked that maybe he should be a stripper even though he’s “not built for that.”
******
Methinks Jesse needs to do a little more “investigating” if he really thinks he’s “not built” for stripping. For crying out loud, just last year, one of the most successful films (in terms of box-office take vs production budget) was ABOUT male stippers. And Channing Tatum, the star of that film (the film, incidentally, was “Magic Mike”), spent several years AS a male stripper.

Male strippers are a reality. And they have been for decades. Maybe Jesse needs to have his girlfriend—if such a beast (pardon the choice of terms) exists—explain to him what modern women mean when they talk about “Chippendale’s.”

Now, I haven’t had the chance to check out shirtless Jesse but he doesn’t look all that bad. He could probably strip a couple of nights and do pretty well (especially if he worked the nights when the crowd consists of heavy-drinking 40+ women). Male strippers, working in front of a female audience, are pretty restricted in how much contact they’re allowed to make (just as male patrons of female strip clubs are limited in how much contact they can make—in most clubs, if a female stripper does a lap dance, the male client is generally prohibited from touching the woman; she can touch him, but he’s not supposed to touch her). The gay clubs are a whole ‘nother matter. I doubt Jesse is built enough to work the gay clubs, although he might do a fair amount on “amateur nights,” but he might not want to be pawed and groped and fondled the way most male strippers (whether gay or straight—yep, straight male strippers actually like working the gay clubs since the money is so much better and they’ll put up with a fair amount of “handling”) are in the gay clubs.

From below: "Who better to give a “fair and balanced” analysis of President Obama’s economic speech than the Birther Boy with four past bankruptcies?"

Um, maybe a college freshman after sitting in his Econ 101 class for 15 minutes? I’m sure the student is far better educated in the subject than Trump is. (The student also probably has a minimum wage job to help him pay for his classes and textbooks unlike Chump er, Trump, who doesn’t seem to really do much of anything to merit his money.)

mj, I think it really depends on the circumstances. After all, when Mark Sanford’s affair was caught, and his wife not only left him, but divorced him, she didn’t catch the least bit of flack for it. Maybe Sanford’s fooling around with a “furriner” and “hiking” to a “furrin country” made the difference. If he’d only had the decency to fool around with an illegal immigrant, then Mrs Sanford would’ve been condemned.

Then again, Sanford was redeemed a few short months ago by some of the same people who condemned his little affair.

“Not in an effective way,” O’Reilly interrupted. “He’s only addressed it in an off-hand way. Where’s his public service announcement? Where is the federal government taking the beaucoup money they have and making these announcements?”

So, wait. I thought that, in the right-wing world, government was ineffective and couldn’t solve problems. But it seems that O’Reilly is here PRESSING for more money to be spent on the very types of programs that his fellow CONservatives have spent decades trying to defund.

Here’s something interesting about Guillory that appears in his Wiki article:

“Up until 2007, Guillory had been a registered Republican and served on the Republican state central committee. He became a Democrat in 2007 when he first ran for the state House in the heavily Democratic District 40. During the 2013 regular session of the Louisiana Legislature, Guillory switched his party affiliation back to Republican.”

In other words, the man is nothing but an opportunist.

An added bonus—Wiki lists his religious affiliation as Roman Catholic (his father was a Catholic, his mother is a Baptist) but “Guillory himself has been married and divorced four times.” Yep, married AND divorced—the hallmarks of a GOOD Catholic.