Jesus totally kicks ass

Here are five scenes "deleted" from the New Testament in which Jesus Christ totally kicks some ass. They're actually from apocryphal gospels that the collators of "holy" scripture decided to leave out of the New Testament.

The Gospels that made it into the Bible pretty much skip from the birth of Jesus Christ to his adulthood, but there are other documents that chronicle the adventures of Jesus Christ: Boy Wonder. They're part of something called the New Testament Apocrypha, a series of books deemed unfit for inclusion due to concerns over the message they'd send or, in some cases, the number of faces they'd melt with their sheer awesomeness. Most of the stories are pretty normal fare -- healing lepers and raising the dead -- but some are so insane that we learn that the answer to, What would Jesus do? is Whatever the hell he wants.

Read more: http://www.cracked.com/article_18948_5-real-deleted-bible-scenes-in-which-jesus-kicks-some-ass.html#ixzz19RI5JB3u

Inclusion = terrorism?

The ACLU has been put on a list of "suspicious or terrorist activity" because they're calling on people to be inclusive this holiday season. Because... the terrorists are all about inclusiveness? [scratches head]

The ACLU of Tennessee says it ended up on a map of potential terrorist threats after it sent a letter to school superintendents asking them to be "inclusive" in their holiday celebrations.

The civil rights group says it found itself on the Tennessee Fusion Center's map identified under the category “terrorism events and other suspicious activity," with the explanation "ACLU cautions Tennessee schools about observing 'one religious holiday.'"

"It is deeply disturbing that Tennessee’s fusion center is tracking First Amendment-protected activity," Hedy Weinberg, executive director of ACLU-Tennessee, said in a statement. "Equating a group’s attempts to protect religious freedom in Tennessee with suspicious activity related to terrorism is outrageous. Religious freedom is a founding principle in our Constitution—not fodder for overzealous law enforcement."

Bias in the media by the numbers

The media ARE biased. VERY biased. Toward conservatives. And here are the numbers that prove it.

Indeed, a Pew Research Center survey found that of the top 10 most-covered candidates in the midterm elections, conservatives held the top three spots.

Here's more evidence. I asked AOL's Relegence team, which tracks more than 30,000 news sites on the Web, to compare coverage of comparable liberals and conservatives over the past 12 months.

The results are stark. Conservatives were featured in vastly more stories.

Pat Robertson?

Here's a shocker: Pat Robertson has come out in favor of legalizing marijuana.

"We're locking up people that have taken a couple puffs of marijuana and next thing you know they've got 10 years with mandatory sentences," Robertson continued. "These judges just say, they throw up their hands and say nothing we can do with these mandatory sentences. We've got to take a look at what we're considering crimes and that's one of 'em.

"I'm ... I'm not exactly for the use of drugs, don't get me wrong, but I just believe that criminalizing marijuana, criminalizing the possession of a few ounces of pot, that kinda thing it's just, it's costing us a fortune and it's ruining young people. Young people go into prisons, they go in as youths and come out as hardened criminals. That's not a good thing."

Wait till next year

The Republicans aren't in Washington to make things better, that's for sure. They have a vested interest in the failure of the country so they can blame it on Obama and run against him on it in 2012. Their biggest fear is continued improvement in the economy. Once Americans start feeling that things are getting better, Republicans know that would put a lock on Obama's reelection, so they've got to do anything and everything to keep things from improving.

The 111th Congress witnessed a record amount of Republican obstruction. Wielding an unprecedented number of filibusters, the GOP waged war against the Democratic agenda to defeat Obama, apparently viewing unemployed workers, judicial nominees, service members, and even 9/11 rescue workers as collateral damage. As Congress entered the lame-duck session, Senate Republicans threw ‘operation obstruction’ into overdrive. In a rare moment of honesty, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) openly admitted that the GOP stalling tactics on publicly-supported legislation were nothing more than an attempt “to run out the clock.” And even as the lame duck lurches to a close, “angst-ridden” Democrats better gird their sanity for another round because, according to a chuckling Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), “if they think it’s bad now, wait till next year“:

“There’s much for them to be angst-ridden about,” McConnell said with a chuckle. “If they think it’s bad now, wait till next year.”

DADT is history

Add another accomplishment to the list. President Obama signed the repeal of DADT into law this morning. See the video of his statement and the signing here.

A really busy 2 years

Just a few of the things President Obama has gotten done in the last couple of years.

Video: Yes, Obama did

from msnbc.com: Maddow

Rachel Maddow reviews the legislative accomplishments of the past two years in the context of President Obama's promises and personal priorities, and notes that the next two years will be about defending what they've done from Republicans bent on reversal. (The Rachel Maddow Show)

Eliminate the Methodist Church

A top teabagger wants to eliminate the Methodist Church.

A blog post on his Tea Party Nation page says that on Friday he walked by the United Methodist Building in Washington D.C., which had a sign that said, "Pass the DREAM Act." Phillips wrote: " I have a DREAM. That is, no more United Methodist Church."

Make the rich create jobs

Right wingers whine the reason we shouldn’t help the poor is because they’re “lazy,” and they’ll only spend the money on things that right wingers believe they shouldn’t. Which leads me to conclude that they’d like some oversight on what the poor do with their so-called “handouts.”

If that’s true, then how about the wealthy?

It’s constantly drummed into our heads by their pundits and preachers and talking heads that tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy create jobs. Okay… if that’s true, then how about some oversight over what the rich do with those tax cuts?

I propose that if the rich really want more tax breaks, and tax breaks for the rich create jobs, then let’s REQUIRE the rich to create jobs with their tax breaks. If they don’t, we take the money back.

Oversight!

Sarah Palin: FRAUD

Busted! Sarah Palin exposed as a teleprompter-using FRAUD!

At a Tea Party speech, Ms Palin mocked the President by saying, “This is about the people, and it’s bigger than any one king or queen of a Tea Party, and it’s a lot bigger than any charismatic guy with a teleprompter.” You must fill in the requisite sneer for full effect. The implication is that the President is a moron for using a teleprompter. This is made clear by the Right’s gleeful picking up of this meme and running with it at every turn, especially when they have nothing relevant over which to criticize the President.

[...] So anyway, last week while watching “Sarah Palin’s Alaska”, I could have sworn I saw a teleprompter on her home studio camera, but I didn’t care enough to do a screen grab. After all, there are so many lies to deconstruct and so little time. But then last night, as I was watching the latest episode (which I must confess is now a fun distraction from her tweets), she was showing us her studio in the house she built next door to her home on Lake Lucille and she and Todd were making a show of how it was just the two of them. And while she made cute and Todd told her her hair was above his pay grade, I saw the evil socialist machine staring me down, clear as day. So clear that I could read the logo. Yes, a teleprompter.

[...] Now what in heaven’s name can a paid contributor who is only on the air for a scant few minutes and who’s been given the questions in advance need a teleprompter for? Yes, Ms Palin requires that all questions be given in advance. And of course, the teleprompter kinda gives that away because it would be impossible to load it up with a script if Ms Palin didn’t know what she was going to be asked in advance. Um, well, here’s what happens when Sarah Palin doesn’t have a teleprompter. Notice how she can’t remember her three ideas for America so she has to check her hand.

The name escapes me…

Hmmm… I seem to recall some president or other promising to fight for repeal of DADT, but the name escapes me…

Haven’t heard a resounding chorus of activists thanking President Obama for his work on ending the stupid DADT policy. At least, not as loudly as they slammed him nonstop for not moving fast enough.

Ending it in the legislature (where it began) is a lot better than ending it by executive decree, and Obama knew this. That’s why he fought so hard to get Congress to move on it. But I firmly believe that had Congress failed to act, he would have ended it by executive order. However, that could have been easily overturned, and with the incoming Republicans suffering from Obama Derangement Syndrome, they surely would have done so.

So where’s the activist chorus? I seem to hear the sound of crickets…

GOP hypocrisy on federal pay

GOP lawmakers are making a lot of noise about cutting federal salaries. But the ones doing so have been caught boosting the pay of their own staffers at the same time.

For a guy who insists that federal bureaucrats make too much money, incoming House Majority Leader Eric Cantor sure doesn't mind handing out handsome government raises of his own.

Cantor, the Virginia Republican who has led the GOP charge this year to freeze federal salaries, has boosted his congressional office's payroll by 81 percent since coming to Congress in 2001 – about 8 percent per year through 2009. When he became minority whip last year, the office's personnel expenses went up by at least 16 percent.

Cantor and other GOP leaders are now pledging to cut their budgets by 5 percent when they take over the House in January – a symbolic gesture aimed at showing a commitment to slowing Washington spending. But the lawmakers suddenly calling for wage cuts often haven't practiced what they're preaching.

The end of DADT

The House passed the repeal, and today the Senate passed it 65-31, and now it goes to President Obama’s desk for his signature, and the nonsensical ban on gays servicing openly in the US military is over.

Email blast from President Obama/Organizing For America:

Moments ago, the Senate voted to end "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
When that bill reaches my desk, I will sign it, and this discriminatory law will be repealed.

Gay and lesbian service members -- brave Americans who enable our freedoms -- will no longer have to hide who they are.

The fight for civil rights, a struggle that continues, will no longer include this one.

This victory belongs to you. Without your commitment, the promise I made as a candidate would have remained just that.

Instead, you helped prove again that no one should underestimate this movement. Every phone call to a senator on the fence, every letter to the editor in a local paper, and every message in a congressional inbox makes it clear to those who would stand in the way of justice: We will not quit.

This victory also belongs to Senator Harry Reid, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and our many allies in Congress who refused to let politics get in the way of what was right.

Like you, they never gave up, and I want them to know how grateful we are for that commitment.

Will you join me in thanking them by adding your name to Organizing for America's letter?

I will make sure these messages are delivered -- you can also add a comment about what the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" means to you.

As Commander in Chief, I fought to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" because it weakens our national security and military readiness. It violates the fundamental American principles of equality and fairness.

But this victory is also personal.

I will never know what it feels like to be discriminated against because of my sexual orientation.

But I know my story would not be possible without the sacrifice and struggle of those who came before me -- many I will never meet, and can never thank.I know this re

peal is a crucial step for civil rights, and that it strengthens our military and national security. I know it is the right thing to do.

But the rightness of our cause does not guarantee success, and today, celebration of this historic step forward is tempered by the defeat of another -- the DREAM Act. I am incredibly disappointed that a minority of senators refused to move forward on this important, commonsense reform that most Americans understand is the right thing for our country.

On this issue, our work must continue.

Today, I'm proud that we took these fights on.

Please join me in thanking those in Congress who helped make "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" repeal possible:

http://my.barackobama.com/Repealed

Thank you,

Barack

Paid for by Organizing for America, a project of the Democratic National Committee -- 430 South Capitol Street SE, Washington, D.C. 20003. This communication is not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

More spin

A leaked email shows a Fox News boss ordering their Kens and Barbies to cast doubt on climate change. They decide, then they report.

In an e-mail obtained by liberal watchdog group Media Matters, Bill Sammon told his staff to downplay the importance of climate science that showed the world was getting warmer.

"Given the controversy over the veracity of climate change data... we should refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question," Sammon wrote.

Sammon issued the instructions less than 15 minutes after Fox News correspondent Wendell Goler noted that the United Nations' World Meteorological Organization announced that 2000-2009 was "on track to be the warmest [decade] on record."

Filibuster reform

Right wingers and teabaggers love to screech, “That ain’t in the Constitution!” Well, neither is the filibuster. And because of the abuse of it by Senate Republicans, it’s time to do something about it and fix the way the Senate does business.

Senate Democrats will make a dramatic effort to reform the rules of the chamber when the next Congress begins, one of the body's primary filibuster-reform advocates said Wednesday morning.

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who has championed a weakening of the procedural mechanism that allows the minority party to hold up legislation, predicted "fireworks" on Jan. 5, 2011 -- the day on which the Senate can, he argued, revamp its rules by a simple majority vote.

Watching Fox News makes you stupid

A new study confirms what we’ve suspected for a long time: Watching Fox News makes you stupid.

World Public Opinion, a project managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, conducted a survey of American voters that shows that Fox News viewers are significantly more misinformed than consumers of news from other sources. What’s more, the study shows that greater exposure to Fox News increases misinformation.

So the more you watch, the less you know. Or to be precise, the more you think you know that is actually false. This study corroborates a previous PIPA study that focused on the Iraq war with similar results. And there was an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll that demonstrated the break with reality on the part of Fox viewers with regard to health care. The body of evidence that Fox News is nothing but a propaganda machine dedicated to lies is growing by the day.

Believers and non-believers battle it out in Fort Worth

It's a battle royale between believers and nonbelievers in Forth Worth, Texas. And their weapons of choice are dueling bus and billboard ads. (At least advertising people are making lots of money this holiday season.)

Stand on a corner in this city and you might get a case of theological whiplash. A public bus rolls by with an atheist message on its side: "Millions of people are good without God." Seconds later a van follows bearing a riposte: "I still love you. - God," with another line that says, "2.1 billion Christians are good with God."

A clash of beliefs has rattled this city ever since a group of atheists bought ad space on four city buses to reach out to nonbelievers who might isolated during the Christmas season. After all, Fort Worth is a place where residents commonly ask people they have just met where they worship and many encounters end with, "Have a blessed day!"

''We want to tell people they are not alone," said Terry McDonald, the chairman of Metroplex Atheists, part of the Dallas-Fort Worth Coalition of Reason, which paid for the atheist ads. "People don't realize there are other atheists. All you hear around here is, 'Where do you go to church?'"

Death panels redux

Sarah Palin is fear mongering about death panels again, reviving a very tired, and very debunked, lie. If she's so concerned about death panels, why isn't she screeching about Republican Governor Jan Brewer's real, live death panels in Arizona?

Spinning the news

Back during the health care debate, the American public liked the idea of the public option, but hated the idea of a government option... even though they were the same thing. The American people liked the word "public" better than the scary word "government."

What to do if you're the media arm of the Republican Party? Make sure that you never referred to it by its real name -- the public option -- but be sure to call it the scary, sinister "government-run option."

So that's how Fox News spun it -- at the direction of a managing editor at Fox News, caught red-handed spinning the news in order to influence public opinion. Not "fair and balanced," not "we report, you decide," but rather telling their audience what to think about health care reform.

The Washington, DC managing editor at Fox News appears to be caught red-handed in the art of spinning.

As the health care debate was reaching a high point last year, a leaked e-mail shows Bill Sammon asked his news department to refer to the public option as the "government run option."

Later that evening, Fox News flagship news program, Special Report with Bret Baier, used the very phrase Sammon had requested.

The e-mail, obtained by the liberal watchdog Media Matters, indicates that Sammon sent the request after Republican pollster Frank Luntz said that polls show the "government option" was opposed by the public. 

According to the report at Media Matters, in August of 2009 after Fox News' Sean Hannity used the term "public option," Luntz encouraged him to say "government option" instead.

"If you call it a 'public option,' the American people are split," Luntz said. "If you call it the 'government option,' the public is overwhelmingly against it."

"It's a great point, and from now on, I'm going to call it the government option," Hannity replied.

Luntz also claimed that the "government option" would be "sponsored by the government." In fact, the proposed public option bills would have funded the program with the fees paid by those who enrolled in it.

Elizabeth Edwards RIP

Elizabeth Edwards has passed away at the age of 61.

The 61-year-old wife of former presidential candidate John Edwards died at home Tuesday afternoon with her family around her.

The news came after the Edwards family announced Monday that cancer had spread to her liver and doctors were recommending against further treatment.

Before her death, Edwards posted the following message to friends on her Facebook page:

You all know that I have been sustained throughout my life by three saving graces – my family, my friends, and a faith in the power of resilience and hope. These graces have carried me through difficult times and they have brought more joy to the good times than I ever could have imagined. The days of our lives, for all of us, are numbered. We know that. And, yes, there are certainly times when we aren't able to muster as much strength and patience as we would like. It's called being human. But I have found that in the simple act of living with hope, and in the daily effort to have a positive impact in the world, the days I do have are made all the more meaningful and precious. And for that I am grateful. It isn’t possible to put into words the love and gratitude I feel to everyone who has and continues to support and inspire me every day. To you I simply say: you know.

A crappy deal all around

I'm not happy about it, but I understand it. The president is right that the Republicans were not going to budge, and they were holding middle class Americans hostage, threatening to raise taxes on EVERYONE unless they got their deal to comfort the ultra-wealthy. So Obama had to give it to them or else everyone would have suffered. At least we get an extension of unemployment benefits out of the deal. IMO, bashing Obama on this crappy deal isn't entirely fair.

"Take a tally. Look at what I promised during the campaign. There's not a single thing that I haven't done or tried to do," the president said.

He staunchly defended his decision to deal with the GOP in order to extend about-to-expire tax cuts for all Americans.

"There are some who would have preferred a protracted political fight," the president said at a White House news conference a day after the compromise was announced. "And I understand the desire for a fight. I'm sympathetic to that."

Many Democrats in Congress are unhappy about the agreement because it continues tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans. But Obama said a long political battle "would be a bad deal for the economy. And it would be a bad deal for the American people."

He promised a renewed fight during 2012 when the tax cuts would expire again, making the point that he still opposes the Republican position that high-income earners should get the extension, too. The agreement includes individuals making $200,000 or more a year and families making $250,000 or more.