Minnesota’s pet wacko

What do you do with a local politician who claims that public education is her #1 issue, while accepting money from supporters of the Alliance for the Separation of School and State? That’s our Michele Bachmann, claiming to be a supporter of education while endorsed by people who say this:

I proclaim publicly that I favor ending government involvement in education.

Take a look at the people who favor completely gutting public school education at the Separation of School and State site, too: D. James Kennedy, Tim LaHaye, Tom Monaghan—it’s like a chorus line of the freaky religious right. And our little Michele fits right in with them.

Rapture Insanity Watch

I keep waiting for the padded ambulance to roll up and men in white coats to leap out, shoot these bozos with a trank gun, wrap them up in a straight jacket, and go howling off to the nearest sanitarium, but no…instead, they get invitations to appear on cable news and babble about the apocalypse. And it’s not just the airhead news media…

…Rosenberg is just one of several conservative media figures who have identified and expounded upon the purported signs of the Apocalypse to be found in the Israel-Hezbollah conflict. During his appearance on Live From…, Rosenberg claimed that he had been invited to the White House, Capitol Hill, and the CIA to discuss the Rapture and the Middle East, and noted—several times—that the apocalyptic events described in his novels keep coming true.

What’s really frightening is that these people don’t exhibit an ounce of critical thinking, and these ridiculous attitudes are endemic in the people who run our country. I’m waiting for some smart, pragmatic, sensible guy in government or the press to stand up and truncate that famous quote: “You have done enough. Have you no sense?”

(via Atrios)

Just another Christian ranter on the fringe

He only has a few radio and television programs, his own university, tens of millions of dollars to throw at his political causes, and a few million voters in his pocket, so Jerry Falwell* is just a marginal nut, right? We can just ignore him when he says things like this:

It is apparent, in light of the rebirth of the State of Israel, that the present day events in the Holy Land may very well serve as a prelude or forerunner to the future Battle of Armageddon and the glorious return of Jesus Christ.

Those rapture freaks who are cheering on the bloodshed in the Middle East certainly don’t have any real clout…at least, not as much as us influential atheists, I’m sure.

(via DefCon)

*Grade A Demented Fuckwit.

Ignore anything I might have ever said about Dershowitz

How could I have ever said a charitable word about Alan Dershowitz? In penance, I urge you all to read Juan Cole’s dissection of Dershowitz’s grading of civilianity, or if you’d prefer something lighter, try Kung Fu Monkey’s demolition by amusing anecdote.

If anyone were in the mood to revisit my earlier post, you could easily undermine my appreciation of Dershowitz’s argument there by pointing out that it is Alan Dershowitz talking about morality, and I would have to sheepishly admit that he has no credibility on the matter.

Middle East code words

Digby’s argument, that the Bush administration language about the war in the Middle East is loaded with code words to pander to the looney fundamentalist base, isn’t entirely convincing. Just the fact that Rice used a word, “birth-pang,” that Rapture nuts have loaded with all kinds of millennialist meaning doesn’t mean she consciously chose it to make the fundies all giddy.

I admit, though, that the only reason I reject the hypothesis is that this administration has been so incompetent that I suspect they babble this kind of stuff all the time without putting any effort into thinking about it. These guys aren’t geniuses; overestimation of their abilities is something we should leave to their sycophants.