I get email

Some Kentuckians are not happy about my comments about their fake Ark-to-be.

Ark

This is a CHRISTIAN NATION if you hooked nosed kikes dont like it then get the hell out. If it were up to me we would have camp agin for you Christ Killing piles of human sh*t. You things are like acid on society you constantly corrode it with your porn, affirmative action, civil rights, fake funny money federal reserve, being totally morally bankrupt,yourselves all of you together are less than pile of dog sh*t. Like CHRIST SAID John 8:44 you are of your father the devil, you are not of God. I will be so glad when you tares are pulled up from among us THE WHEAT and cast alive into hell………..GOOD RIDDANCE .

REV. 2:9
REV. 3:9 CHRIST TALKING you call yourselves jews but do lie and are of the synagogue of satan…………………..you disgusting pice of scum!!!!!!!!!

Charles L. Moss

Man, I get so much hate mail from people who have firm ideas about my ethnic background, I really ought to get made an honorary Son of Abraham, or something.

Hooo-weeee! Look what the state of Kaintucky is gittin’ for $37 million!

This ain’t gonna be free: the state guvmint is kickin’ in $37 million in tax incentives to help a gang of Bible-totin’ theocrats build a fancy Disneyland for ignoramuses. This is what it’s gonna look like, they think:

i-62094e9f35db8e6e9d63214a1ea08749-ark.jpeg

Lookie there: the centerpiece will be a genuwine, life-sized, full scale copy of Noah’s very own ark, all 300 cubits by 50 cubits by 30 cubits of it, and they say it’s gonna be built with materials and methods as close to possible as the ones in the Bible. Where they gettin’ gopherwood? And are they really gonna build it with handsaws and mallets and wooden pegs? That’s gotta be impressive, but it’s gonna be tough to git’r done by 2014.

But wait a consarned minute: it ain’t floatin’. And there’s no talk of stockin’ it with 8,000 pairs of animals, or however many they say there ought to be in there. I’ll give ’em a pass on fillin’ it with dinosaurs (well, maybe not…some say they’re daid, but the folk at AiG say they’re just hidin’), but I want elephants and hippos and giraffes and sheep and pigs and cassowaries and kangaroos and rhinoceroses and monkeys and squirrels and everythin’ tucked in there, to give me the true and odoriferous varmint-rich Ark Experience.

They also claim this big ol’ project is going to make 900 jobs in Kentucky. I don’t believe it. Read your Bible. The original Ark did float, and it did carry a whole menagerie, and it only employed eight people. They’re cuttin’ corners here with their non-floatin’ critter-free ark, so I’m expectin’ they’ll hire six, at most. And that’s generous.

OK, and maybe a couple more to sell tickets, and a few more to hand out kewpie dolls at the booths, and sell cotton candy. But heck, you can just hire a bunch of carnies to do that, and they work cheap.

They’ll be especially cheap since Governor Beshears is workin’ hard to make sure the entire freakin’ state of Kentucky is populated with people qualified to work as carnies, and not much else. Yeehaw!

Smithsonian announces that art can’t be controversial

Bill Donohue is on a roll. First he bravely put up a billboard that reassures everyone that Jesus was real, which is no problem, as far as I’m concerned; it’s not true, but he isn’t interfering with other people’s right to express themselves. But now he has really done it: he has successfully pressured the National Portrait Gallery to remove an art work that Donohue did not like. That is obstructing the right of free expression, and is deplorable.

The work in question was a video about the pain of AIDS victims in Mexico, and references the Catholicism of that country by showing a crucifix with ants crawling on it. Apparently, you can make explicit movies that show Jesus getting whipped, tortured, nailed, and stabbed (Donohue loved Gibson’s Passion!), but we’ve got to draw the line at showing bugs crawling on him. Although, probably, Donohue doesn’t so much object to tormenting Jesus as he does to the implicit criticism of Catholicism, which is his true god. And perhaps also to the fact that it was part of an exhibit on sexual and gender identity, which makes all patriarchal homophobes a little queasy.

But so what? Since when do individuals or organizations get to declare what kind of art is permissible, and get national art institutions to yank out exhibits? I am unsurprised that Donohue brayed like an idiot, because that’s what he does, but I am appalled at the response from the gallery.

National Portrait Gallery Director Martin Sullivan said in a statement about the current video that Wojnarowicz’s intention was to depict the suffering of an AIDS victim. He said the museum did not intend to offend anyone.

If the museum did not intend to offend anyone, then it wasn’t doing its job. Great art is supposed to challenge the mind, and sometimes that means by necessity that it will offend. Does the National Portrait Gallery include religious art? I know it does. Then it offends atheists. Does it include works by abstract expressionists? I know it does. Then it offends all those people who will declare that they have pictures by their 3 year old on their refrigerators that look better. They’d best get rid of those bold and aggressive paintings by Picasso and replace them with something safer … say, some Thomas Kinkade originals, or perhaps a wing of Elvii painted on black velvet.

Are they going to let Bill Donohue dictate everything that they’re allowed to exhibit? And if Bill Donohue, why not me, or John Waters, or Al Goldstein? Oh, maybe because non-authoritarians are willing to allow work they dislike to stand, unlike wretched bluenoses like Bill Donohue.

You know what’s really sweet about this, though? Donohue’s protest got one obscure exhibit pulled from one art gallery, and now it’s going to blossom on a thousand web sites and millions of people will see it. Quite the triumph, Billy!

Baffling and ominous

Who needs expertise and knowledge? In the bold new world of the Teabagger Republicans, all you need is a sense of privilege and outrage, and you too are qualified to do rocket science and brain surgery…or, at least, to complain about rocket science and brain surgery. Here’s the latest brilliant idea from a Republican congressman: the National Science Foundation provides easy access to their database of grant awards online, so let’s sic a mob of uninformed, resentful, anti-science gomers loose on the field of already extensively vetted (by qualified people!) awards and have them seek out places to trim the fat.

It’s a proven strategy for pandering to the ignorati; Senator Proxmire used it for years. A lot of research is arcane and deeply imbedded in the context of a specific discipline, so it’s really, really easy to find a grant proposal that looks weird or silly or as if it has no possible utility, and then you can have a press conference and deplore wasteful spending by highlighting it, and making noise about taking back that $75,000 grant and somehow solving the federal deficit. It’s theater, nothing more, and its indirect effect is to belittle all of science in the process.

For some reason, these grandstanders never seem to target defense agencies, where the real money lurks.

So now Eric Cantor is playing this game, and he’s calling on people to hack away at the federal budget by picking nits at NSF. He wants people to search NSF and report back to him with grant numbers that they don’t like.

It’s very peculiar. NSF has a wide brief and offers grants within a great many fields, so Cantor singles out grants to study the kinetics of soccer players and to model sounds for use by the video game industry as wasteful…but why? The latter at least sounds like it would help industry, and ought to be a Republican favorite.

And then he gives hints on searching the database, listing words that might yield boondoggles: “success, culture, media, games, social norm, lawyers, museum, leisure, stimulus, etc.” Why these are bad, I don’t know. Sure, try searching NSF for grants that mention culture or media; boom, practically every award to a microbiologist pops up. Does he have something against museums? And why lawyers? NSF has a whole program supporting Law and the Social Sciences!

And if lawyers are a waste of federal funds, then I need only point out that Eric Cantor is a lawyer by training. We could save even more money than killing a grant would do by simply firing that bum!

Gov. Beshear has been twittered

We have at least a cursory account of the creationist press conference in Kentucky, in which Governor Beshear proudly announced the state’s cooperation with Answers in Genesis in promoting lies to children. It’s via Twitter, so just read it from bottom to top:


joesonka
Video of the press conference (Kentucky’s Shame) coming soon. Yaba Daba doo!


31 minutes ago


joesonka
Press conference over. Kentucky has had many humiliating days in its history, but this has to rank near the top


32 minutes ago


joesonka
I ask if Beshear supports young earth creationism being taught in public schools. He says we’re not here to talk about that


35 minutes ago


joesonka
No rollercoasters!!!


about 1 hour ago


joesonka
Judge Exwcutive says he agrees with aig’s religious beliefs


about 1 hour ago


joesonka
Flack journalists asking about dimensions of ark. Dude…


about 1 hour ago


joesonka
I ask if dinosaurs will be in the Ark. Beshear gives icy stare. AiG flack says YES


about 1 hour ago


joesonka
Beshear says this is all about the bling bling. If they can support Nascar, they can support these nuts


about 1 hour ago


joesonka
Beahear says it’s not unconstitutional


about 1 hour ago


joesonka
Gushing about how supportive and enthusiastic Beshear and Gov office has been on this project


about 1 hour ago


joesonka
Answers in Genesis dude says it’s “high tech and cutting edge”


about 1 hour ago


joesonka
Plan is to open Spring 2014, get 1.6 million dolts to visit in first year


about 1 hour ago


joesonka
Gov here and excited about bringing “Biblical stories” to the bluegrass. Surreal


about 1 hour ago


joesonka
Still waiting on Steve Beshear and Ken Ham and Fred Flintstone


about 1 hour ago


joesonka
Answers in Genesis people here saying it’s been great working with the Gov. Say Geoff Davis told them he wishes he could be here.


about 1 hour ago


joesonka
Damon Thayer here. Says he’s excited that this is in heart of his district


about 1 hour ago


joesonka
More wow from the press release: http://yfrog.com/7331hcj


about 1 hour ago


joesonka
Press release says Creationist Theme Park will be $150 million to build. Is Dudley Webb in on this?


about 1 hour ago


joesonka
Wow http://yfrog.com/em1fc01j


about 1 hour ago


joesonka
The press kit: http://yfrog.com/44caq0j


about 2 hours ago

I bet the governor didn’t actually call the AiG flacks “nuts”. Although he should have.

And of course dinosaurs will be on the Ark. You can’t imagine how fanatical AiG is about their literal interpretation of the Bible: if it says Noah gathered all of the kinds of animals on the Ark, there can be no exceptions, all, including dinosaurs, must be on the Ark.

Ah, Kentucky. We’re going to be laughing at you for many years to come.

Hey, these bus ad polls sure are popular

The Fort Worth transit system is running horrible, hateful ads on their buses: they say, “Millions of Americans are Good Without God.” I know, pick yourself up off the floor, that’s terrifying…how dare atheists be so offensive?

The Star-Telegram is going to settle this by running a poll. Look who’s winning!

Should The T have rejected the ‘Good-without-God’ ad as DART did?

No. The T policy is rightly non-discriminatory
32%
No. The T could use the ad revenue
2%
Yes. The T should steer clear of such controversy
23%
Yes. And I won’t be riding The T until the ad comes off
43%

Woo hoo! Buses in Fort Worth will be 43% less crowded!

Oklahoma ain’t Christian enough for Jim Inhofe

He’s in a snit. He refuses to participate in Tulsa’s Holiday Parade of Lights because it doesn’t have “christmas” in the title.

“I did not do so last year because I’m not going to ride in a Christmas parade that doesn’t recognize Christmas,” he said. “I am hopeful that the good people of Tulsa and the city’s leadership will demand a correction to this shameful attempt to take Christ, the true reason for our celebration, out of the parade’s title. Until the parade is again named the Christmas Parade of Lights, I will not participate.”

What a silly man. The parade, by the way, is on 11 December…which last I heard, is not Christmas.