There ought to be a qualifying exam for parenthood

It’s another of those cases where people unfit to be parents abuse their children. Samuel McGehee is accused of murdering his youngest son, suffocating him to death because he wouldn’t take a nap. That’s horrible, but the next question I have to ask is why this guy was allowed in the same room with small children after what he did last year.

A detective testified that in March 2008, McGehee, concerned about the family’s financial state, decided to circumcise his other son at home, using a filet knife.

“There was severe damage to the shaft of the penis,” Detective Shawn Jenkins said. “There was a lot of skin removed.”

The 3-month-old’s scrotum was also lacerated during the procedure, Jenkins said. The child has subsequently endured extensive reconstructive surgeries, and more are expected.

What is it with these religious kooks and their children’s penises? I’m the father of two boys, and aside from assistance with basic hygiene when they were very small, I pretty much left their business alone…and the idea of taking a knife to them was unthinkable. I really wonder what crazy fundagelical church this man went to that made circumcision such a priority.

If the law had taken this lunatic aside when he’d committed such a stupid crime and told him that his parenting rights were immediately suspended, there’s another little boy who might still be alive today.

Roger Ebert is such a skeptic

He takes on our country’s curious attitude towards patent inanity.

We are edging into an Election Season where strange beliefs will get an unusual airing. Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee are up front in their disdain for Darwinism and their embrace of one degree or another of Creationism. Obama and most Democrats, and many Republicans have no problem at all with Darwinism, but will be wise to keep that out of their basic stump speech. Palin can draw applause by affirming she doesn’t believe mankind shared a common ancestor with oran utans, but Obama will prudently refrain from revealing his belief in the quite provable fact that we do.

It will be a fascinating aspect of the coverage of the approaching campaigns to watch how mainstream news organizations tread on this thin ice. There was an outcry in some circles when most news outlets were slow to simply state that George Bush was wrong about Brownie doin a great job, and Palin was wrong about the Bridge to Nowhere. They were wrong, but few in the MSM said they were, and even fewer, perhaps none, of those outlets will say that Palin or Huckabee are just plain wrong, wrong, wrong about Creationism. Not since Flat Earthers has there been a public dispute in which one side (Darwinism) has so throughly and merciless demolished the other (Creationism). Yet at most the MSM might venture to mention a “debate” or “controversy” between Darwinism and Creationism. News at 10: The debate about the theory of gravity.

He doesn’t just target the right-wing follies, either: the lefties get a skewering for their promotion of New Agey Nonsense. It’s a good read.

Why did it take God so long to create the sun?

One of the weirdest elements of the Biblical chronology of Genesis is that God waits until Day 4 to create the sun, moon, and stars. I know, it makes no sense at all, but as it turns out,
God had a reason for that. Just ask a creationist!

Why did God wait till Day 4 before He made the sun, moon and stars?

Answer: Perhaps because God knew that some people would worship the sun, moon and stars, and He wanted to show us that they are not so important after all. The sun did not form the earth, and the stars do not control what happens on Earth. God wants us to worship Him, not anything that He has created.
Some people use the stars to make horoscopes. These are charts that supposedly say what is going to happen to people from day to day. God forbids this. He wants us to read His Word, the Bible, and to ask Him for wisdom; not to consult horoscopes, which people make up out of their own imagination.

So, you see, God juggled the whole chronology of creation in this crazy way simply because he hates astrology. And he thought that doing it in that order, when no human beings existed to see what he was up to, would convince the astrologers that the motion of the stars was meaningless.

No matter how hard I try, I’m sorry, I just can’t think like a creationist. That’s really stupid.

Take your doctor’s advice

An Irish doctor has had to go public with his recommendation: he’s telling Catholic fanatics that they shouldn’t stared directly at the sun to generate optical artifacts.

We clearly need a set of PSAs targeted specifically at religious audiences. Don’t jump off of tall building because you can’t fly, don’t eat poop because it tastes yucky and is full of bacteria, don’t poke yourself in the eye with a fork when you eat, that sort of thing. They clearly need help.

Freezin’

My house is in chaos! The cats are yowling in panic! My fingers are fragile little icicles at the ends of my arms! It may be quiet here for a while. This morning, the contractors showed up to install new doors on my house — wonderful energy-efficient insulating doors to replace the old thin sheets of plywood — that were ordered way back in October. The first step, of course, is removing all those old doors, opening up the interior to the open air. In Minnesota. In December. And it’s snowing, lightly.

Anyway, if you think this is a perfect opportunity to charge in and penetrate the normally tight security in my lair, I should warn you all that the missing doors are currently manned by burly guys with nail guns and drills, and will soon be replaced with steel-framed thick slabs. With wall-mounted computer-targeted lasers, yeah, that’s the ticket, and exploding doorknobs. And I’ll be warm again, I hope.

No worries. Doors installed; house warming up. Urge to kill… fading… fading… fading — rising! Fading… fading… gone.

More Obama bashing

Michael Moore wrote a friendly letter to Obama before his announcement to expand the war in Afghanistan. It’s worth reading.

Your potential decision to expand the war (while saying that you’re doing it so you can “end the war”) will do more to set your legacy in stone than any of the great things you’ve said and done in your first year. One more throwing a bone from you to the Republicans and the coalition of the hopeful and the hopeless may be gone — and this nation will be back in the hands of the haters quicker than you can shout “tea bag!”

Choose carefully, Mr. President. Your corporate backers are going to abandon you as soon as it is clear you are a one-term president and that the nation will be safely back in the hands of the usual idiots who do their bidding. That could be Wednesday morning.

It’s Wednesday morning. I don’t see his corporate backers fleeing him just yet, but the people who voted for him are turning away in disappointment.

Obama regret

I had my reservations before the election, but I voted for Obama as the better choice (and I have not changed my opinion on that at all). I had hopes that he’d get in office and stand up for some principles…but no such luck. There are several reasons for my dissatisfaction.

Looking at his record (which isn’t just his problem: the Democratic Party has failed to promote a Democratic agenda), I see the real problem. Despite all the screamers on the right accusing him of being a socialist, what actually happened here is that we elected another Republican to office. A moderate Republican, to be sure, but not someone who has the kinds of priorities I want in my president.

We’re going to be marking time until the 2012 campaign starts up. I’m hoping their will be some viable, liberal alternative to our crappy incumbent, because I really don’t want to have to choose between Republican Lite and Republican Lunatic in the next election.