First Baptist Church of Dallas, The Grinch Alert, Merry Xmas, and why Robert Jeffress needs a history lesson

The First Baptist Church of Dallas has started a "Grinch Alert" website.  Here's the Dallas Morning News:

First Baptist Church Dallas is keeping a list this season, and probably lots of people will be checking it twice, if not more.
The Rev. Robert Jeffress, the church’s pastor, today announced the launch of www.GrinchAlert.com , a First Baptist Web site where people can post the names of “naughty” businesses that use generic holiday language or nothing at all, rather than acknowledging Christmas through store displays, advertising or community relations.

“Too many businesses have bowed down to political correctness,” Jeffress said. “I thought this would be a fun way to call out businesses that are refusing to celebrate Christmas.”

The website features a “naughty” list but also a “nice” list for recognition of businesses that do acknowledge Christmas.

....“We’re letting readers and listeners make their own determination about who ought to be on the naughty or nice list,” Jeffress said. “This is just a forum to let people express their views. In a pluralistic society everybody gets to make their decision.”

Here's some more wholesome Baptist Jihadism from the Grinch Alert website.  If this doesn't remind you of Saturday Night Live's "church lady", you weren't paying much attention in the 90's:

Have you encountered a “Grinch” this Christmas season? Share your experiences here at GrinchAlert.com! Here, you can nominate businesses and organizations that shut-out expressions of Christmas in their interactions with the public via marketing, advertising and public relations. When companies use misplaced political correctness to halt the celebration of Christmas, they belong on the “Naughty List.”

We also want to know which companies are celebrating Christmas with excitement and meaning–especially those who keep Christ in Christmas where He belongs! Those companies and organizations will be placed on our “Nice List.” Help us preserve Christ this Christmas.

Of all the theologically unaware, culture-bound, divisive, and downright sanctimonious displays of historical ignorance I've ever seen, this is one of the worst.  It's almost enough to make me go into a cussing fit, but I intend for this post to be read from pulpits all across America next Sunday.
 
The following is an excerpt (actually, an entire chapter) from "Stories Behind The Great Traditions Of Christmas", by Ace Collins. 

On Xmas

Over the past sixty years or so, Christians have lamented the commercialization of Christmas.  Many have pointed to magazines, newspapers, and store advertisements that seem to pull Jesus out of the holidays by substituting an X in place of the name of Christ in the word Christmas.  While it is usually true that those who use Xmas these days are doing so to save space and shorten the word, Xmas is hardly a new concept - or an irreverent one.  Its use actually dates back to the earliest days of the Christian church. 

Many of the Gentiles who became the initial followers of Christ were Greek.  The Greek for Christ's name is Xristos (pronounced Christos).  While it is well known that a fish was often used as a symbol to denote churches and Christian gathering places during the ancient days of the church, many Greeks also used the letter X (pronounced chi) as their symbol of faith.  This X marked the places where they worshiped.  Therefore, the use of the letter X for Christ is one of the oldest traditions in the Christian faith - one of the first concrete symbols that signified the gospel message for people of all races and backgrounds.  Knowing that Greeks were following the teachings of a Jewish man was almost mind-boggling to scores of pagans during this time.  It also spoke volumes about the nature of Christianity - that all were welcome to become part of the family of God. 

The apostle Paul no doubt knew what the symbol X meant.  He had led a large number of his Greek brothers and sisters to Christ.  A majority of those who called the Savior Xristos financially supported Paul's missionary work and created an environment for the rapid growth of Christianity in Europe.  Many of these Greeks were so enthused about their faith that they helped ignite a fire that rapidly spread the word to the far corners of the known world.  Yet they paid a price as well. 

Countless Greek Christians were persecuted for their faith.  They were stoned, hanged, burned, and put to death in grotesque displays in Rome's Colosseum.  When a Christian was martyred, other Christians often traced an X to mark the spot where a true believer had  given his or her life in faithfulness to Christ.  Hence, in the initial days of Christianity, X was also the ultimate symbol of devotion and sacrifice. 

During the early days of the church, Xmas did not exist.  This was not because church leaders felt that using such a term would be a sign of disrespect.  Since carving letters into the stones of homes and churches was not an easy chore, having an X stand for the meeting place of Christians was fine with the clergy.  The reason that Xmas was not employed during the holiday season was that there was no holiday season.  It would be almost three and a half centuries before the church designated a date to celebrate Christ's birth, and even then Christmas was not a widely recognized holiday. 

Blogger note: And when the church finally decided on a date, they plopped it onto an earlier, pagan festival.  Winter Solstice.  Go here for details.  And when you get back, you'll always remember that the original, true December holiday greeting is "Happy Winter Solstice !!"   And if you say anything else.....you're a Grinch who bows down to the forces of Political Correctness.
Sorry for the distraction. 
Back to the Ace Collins chapter on the Christian origins of "Xmas":

Many of the early Christians had a basic education and could read.  But as time passed and the missionary movement spread the gospel across Europe, converts to the faith were largely unschooled. 

Kinda like whoever came up with this Grinch website.....

These men and women would not have recognized their own names on a document, much less the name of Jesus Christ.  Therefore, symbols became an important part of faith during the Dark Ages.  Some members of the clergy taught new converts that X was a symbol for Christ.  By writing the X, a man, woman, or child could easily spell out in one simple symbol what defined his or her faith. 

During the 16th century, as more and more European clergymen began to document the history of Christianity and to record the day-to-day business of the church, the use of an X for Christ was again widely employed.  It was during this time that the word "Xmas" first began to appear in the writings of Catholic clerics and monks.  Christ's name was probably abbreviated in this manner for three reasons.  The first was that almost all religious documents of the time were handwritten in a very ornate style.  A large X could be drawn in a much more artistic fashion than could the spelled-out name of Christ.  Thus, by writing Xmas with dramatic flair, the day of Christ's birth stood out. 

The second reason probably was that ink and paper were not as easy to come by as today.  Hence, shortening any word would save not only time but also precious resources. 

Ultimately, however, the primary reason many of the Christian writers of the time used Xmas was no doubt because of their knowledge of the Greek language and the early history of the church.  In the minds of these men, Xmas was a word of power that contained great devotional value.  It was a term that honored both the early Christian followers, many of whom became martyrs, and the Savior they had chosen to lead them.  The clerics wanted to make sure that believers remember the fallen heroes of the faith each Christmas. 

As time went on, and reaching a more educated public with a deeper understanding of what faith meant became more important, Xmas was again used by the church.  This time the term was employed to point out that while Christ's birth was necessary and was a cause for great celebration, it was his death and resurrection that gave real meaning to the Christian faith.  Therefore, the X in Xmas reminded believers not only of Christ's birth, but also of the most important Christian symbol, the cross. 

When Christmas finally evolved into a holiday with commercial significance in the mid-1800's....

(Thank you, Charles Dickens)

....retailers began to note the use of Xmas by certain small Christian groups.  In order to save print space and make their flyers and advertisements easier to read, stores picked up on this term based on a very old symbol.  It also made sense because in those days many Americans could not read.  It was far easier for them to grasp than a longer word like Christmas. 

Today, in a culture where few know Greek and almost everyone has a working knowledge of English, the need for employing the symbols of faith is not widely needed.  Hence, most Christians don't know that Xmas was first used by the church and not invented as a shortcut used by merchants during the commercialization of the holiday season.  The fact that the knowledge of the real meaning of X has slipped away from most Christian teachings is a great loss.  The early Greek believers did not know the joy of worshiping freely.  they did not celebrate Christ's birth publicly.  They often paid for their faith with their lives.  Yet they helped spread the gospel to the far corners of their world.  To them, living under the sign of X - the sign of Christ - was the ultimate statement of faith.  If they could visit today's world and see the term Xmas, they would immediately understand its correlation with the Son of God.  Thus, to them, Xmas would be one of the most wonderful and powerful traditions of the modern Christmas. 

And they would also look at that shameful Grinch Alert website, and ask First Baptist Dallas to take it down. 

Are you better off than a Vanderbilt?

Bryan Caplan, of the Library Of Economics And Liberty, just returned from the massive Biltmore estate, George Vanderbilt's massive North Carolina palace.

But how many  (of us) would actually want to trade places with George? Despite his massive library, (pipe) organ, and so on, I submit that any modern with a laptop and an internet connection has a vastly better book and music collection than he did. For all his riches, he didn't have air conditioning; he had to suffer through the North Carolina summers just like the poorest of us. Vanderbilt did travel the world, but without the airplane, he had to do so at a snail's pace.

Caplan goes on to write that Vanderbilt died at age 51 because of complications from an appendectomy.  Yeah.  An appendectomy.  He continues:

Vanderbilt clearly had it better than most of the people in his era. But the world has improved so much that, all things considered, the average American is now better off than this prince of the Gilded Age. I can't be sure, but I bet that George would have agreed. How much do you think he would have paid to live for a single day in your shoes?

Here's Radley Balko, commenting on his own trip to the Biltmore estate a few years ago....

Hackneyed libertarian observation: I couldn’t help but think that in most ways the average American today lives better than a baron like Vanderbilt did just a century ago, even by Biltmore standards.

Okay, so I don’t have awesome mountain views and milion-dollar tapestries in my one-bedroom Alexandria apartment. But much of what made the Biltmore so modern for its time — a swimming pool, a bowling alley, plumbing, a “fitness room,” elevators, refrigeration — most all of us at least have access to today. There aren’t many periods in human history when you can say that within a hundred years, that average man will live as “royalty” does.


Let's combine that with some census data about what the poorest Americans own:

% Households with:	Poor 1984	Poor  1994	Poor 2003	Poor 2005	All 1971	All 2005
Washing machine	58.2	71.7	67.0	68.7	71.3	84.0
Clothes dryer	35.6	50.2	58.5	61.2	44.5	81.2
Dishwasher	13.6	19.6	33.9	36.7	18.8	64.0
Refrigerator	95.8	97.9	98.2	98.5	83.3	99.3
Freezer	29.2	28.6	25.4	25.1	32.2	36.6
Stove	95.2	97.7	97.1	97.0	87.0	98.8
Microwave	12.5	60.0	88.7	91.2	1.0	96.4
Color TV	70.3	92.5	96.8	97.4	43.3	98.9
VCR	3.4	59.7	75.4	83.6	0.0	92.2
Personal computer	2.9	7.4	36.0	42.4	0.0	67.1
Telephone	71.0	76.7	87.3	79.8	93.0	90.6
Air conditioner	42.5	49.6	77.7	78.8	31.8	85.7
Cellular Telephone			34.7	48.3	0.0	71.3
One or more cars	64.1	71.8	72.8 (2001)		79.5

These numbers were compiled by The Austrian Economists.  Here are more observations from The Austrians:

I think these data largely speak for themselves. The only categories where the poor have become "worse off" are in freezers (likely due to more being built into fridges) and now telephones, which is, of course, explained by the gains in cell phones. Stoves are down slightly, but that too could be due to swapping regular stoves for microwaves or even toaster ovens. In any case, it's a pretty small decline.


The overall lesson is clear: lives for Americans below the poverty line continue to get better in terms of what they are able to put in their households and have to make use of everyday. And do note that the average American household in 2005 was doing much better than its 1971 counterpart. MUCH better - and this doesn't even count medical advances and the like. So whatever one hears about stagnating wages and the like, the bottom line is ultimately what we can afford to buy and have in our households to improve our lives. By those measures, life for the average American is better today than 35 years ago, life for poor Americans is much better than it was 35 years ago, and poor Americans today largely live better than the average American did 35 years ago. Hard to square with a narrative of economic stagnation or decline.

What the current policy regime holds for the future remains, of course, to be seen. But to use Pete's terms: as long as the Schumpeterian horse of innovation and the Smithian horse of the gains from trade outrun the Government horse of stupidity, the winners will continue to be you, me and our children and grandchildren, even if the stupid horse is running a bit faster than it used to.

So the next time one of our government employees starts talking about the widening gap between the lowest 20% and the highest 5%, remember this.....

1) With every new innovation, somebody got to own it first.  This applies to iPads, microwaves, video cameras (once the $35,000.00 Christmas gift in the Neiman-Marcus catalog), televisions, cell phones and plumbing. 
2) You can't prevent the top 5% from owning something without slowing its eventual use by the bottom 20%.
3) Free Market Capitalism has done more to improve the lives of more people than any Statist scheme ever devised. 

FBI continues to keep us safe by encouraging people to kill us

The FBI has once again attempted to keep America safe by setting up another terrorist plot.  So that they can disrupt it.  This is from The Washington Post:

IRVINE, CALIF. - Before the sun rose, the informant donned a white Islamic robe. A tiny camera was sewn into a button, and a microphone was buried in a device attached to his keys.


"This is Farouk al-Aziz, code name Oracle," he said into the keys as he sat in his parked car in this quiet community south of Los Angeles. "It's November 13th, 4:30 a.m. And we're hot."


The undercover FBI informant - a convicted forger named Craig Monteilh - then drove off for 5 a.m. prayers at the Islamic Center of Irvine, where he says he spied on dozens of worshipers in a quest for potential terrorists.

Since the 2001 terrorist attacks, the FBI has used informants successfully as one of many tactics to prevent another strike in the United States. Agency officials say they are careful not to violate civil liberties and do not target Muslims.

But the FBI's approach has come under fire from some Muslims, criticism that surfaced again late last month after agents arrested an Oregon man they said tried to detonate a bomb at a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony. FBI technicians had supplied the device.

In the Irvine case, Monteilh's mission as an informant backfired. Muslims were so alarmed by his talk of violent jihad that they obtained a restraining order against him.

He had helped build a terrorism-related case against a mosque member, but that also collapsed. The Justice Department recently took the extraordinary step of dropping charges against the worshiper, who Monteilh had caught on tape agreeing to blow up buildings, law enforcement officials said. Prosecutors had portrayed the man as a dire threat.

Compounding the damage, Monteilh has gone public, revealing secret FBI methods and charging that his "handlers" trained him to entrap Muslims as he infiltrated their mosques, homes and businesses. He is now suing the FBI.

Officials declined to comment on specific details of Monteilh's tale but confirm that he was a paid FBI informant. Court records and interviews corroborate not only that Monteilh worked for the FBI - he says he made $177,000, tax-free, in 15 months - but that he provided vital information on a number of cases.

Hit the link at the top to read the whole thing.  The entrapment cartoon came from here. 

Can someone please fly down to Cancun and tell the U.N. Climate Change conference that it's over ??

From Christopher Booker of The Telegraph (UK):

Cancun climate conference: the warmists' last Mexican wave



If, last week, frozen behind a snowdrift, you heard a faint hysterical squeaking, it might well have been the sound of those 20,000 delegates holed up behind a wall of armed security guards in the sun-drenched Mexican holiday resort of Cancun, telling each other that the world is more threatened by runaway global warming than ever. Between their tequilas and lavish meals paid for by the world’s taxpayers, they heard how, by 2060, global temperatures will have risen by 4 degrees Celsius; how the Maldives and Tuvalu are sinking below the waves faster than ever; how the survival of salmon is threatened by CO2-induced acidification of the oceans; how the UN must ban incandescent light bulbs throughout the world.


“Scientists”, we were told, are calling for everyone to be issued with a “carbon ration card”, to halt all Western economic growth for 20 years.

Meanwhile, Dr Rajendra Pachauri was telling us that we must spend hundreds of billions on covering the world’s oceans with iron filings, on building giant mirrors out in space and on painting all the world’s roofs white to keep out the heat from the sun.

The entire article is worth reading.  Enjoy at your leisure.  Someone really should fly down to Cancun and let them know that it's over.
Next, we have Mike Kelly, writing for the Sunday Sun about what the weather will bring next:

Throughout the 20th century the sun was unusually active, peaking in the 1950s and the late 1980s. Recently sunspot activity has all but disappeared.


Gavin said: “It is the sun’s energy which keeps the earth warm and the amount of energy the earth receives isn’t always the same. I’ve looked at the evidence for global warming and while I understand and agree with a lot of it, there has been a lot missed out. A major factor is the activity of the sun.”

There is also solar wind – streams of particles from the sun – which are at their weakest since records began. In addition, the Sun’s magnetic axis is tilted at an unusual degree. This is not just a scientific curiosity. It could affect everyone on earth and force what for many is unthinkable – a reappraisal of the science behind global warming.

It was thought that carbon dioxide emissions rather than the sun was the bigger effect on climate change. Now a major re-think is taking place.

The upshot is that Gavin is not alone in predicting we face another 30 frozen years, each getting progressively colder than the last.

Hit the link up top to read the whole thing.  The important part?  It's not whether it will get warmer or cooler, but how various government-funded leeches and parasites can make money from it. 
Next, Mr. Joseph Weber of The Washington Times has a report on the reluctance of new lawmakers to spend any more money on windmills. 

The Obama administration lavished billions of stimulus dollars on wind-power producers and other renewable-energy interests, but the whirl of the turbines may slow dramatically as budget-cutting Republicans take their seats in the next Congress.

The climate — at least on Capitol Hill — has changed dramatically for the wind-power industry, which is dealing with President Obama's stalled green-energy agenda as well as the loss of old friends in Washington and the nation's statehouses and the rise to power of "tea party"-backed Republicans who are skeptical of government supports for the industry.

"The incoming Republican majority in the House of Representatives will almost certainly present obstacles toward the wind industry's agenda on Capitol Hill," the trade publication North American Windpower recently reported, including an end to direct cash grants from Mr. Obama's stimulus package and more delays in formulating the long-awaited federal standard for the use of renewable-energy sources by the nation's utilities.
The Republican ascendancy likely will curtail the Obama administration's financial support for wind farms and other renewable-energy interests, which have received more than $7 billion in stimulus money since 2009.
The midterm elections dealt a "shellacking" to Mr. Obama's agenda and changed the political and lobbying calculus for industries and corporate interests across the landscape.

Note the words that I chose to highlight in dark black.  That's what this whole sordid Chicken Little incident has been about. 
Hope you can stay warm, everybody !! 

TCU's Amon Carter Stadium demolition - photography by Brenda R. Jones

They blew up TCU's Amon Carter Stadium yesterday, and Brenda R. Jones was there to capture the action.

 
Go here to see the entire series by Brenda Jones and Ron Ennis.  Cool stuff. 
Here's the video:



Congratulations, Brenda !    On the front page of the Star-Telegram !!!

Government employees forbidden to visit the Wikileaks site without proper security clearance

From The New York Holy Times:

WASHINGTON — In a classic case of shutting the barn door after the horse has left, the Obama administration and the Department of Defense have ordered the hundreds of thousands of federal employees and contractors not to view the secret cables and other classified documents published by Wikileaks and news organizations around the world unless the workers have the required security clearance or authorization.

“Classified information, whether or not already posted on public websites or disclosed to the media, remains classified, and must be treated as such by federal employees and contractors, until it is declassified by an appropriate U.S. Government authority,” said the notice sent on Friday afternoon by the Office of Management and Budget, which is part of the White House, to agency and department heads, urging them to distribute it to their staff.

I guess if they want to know what's in the Wikileaks cables, they'll have to get a neighbor or any literate 8th grader to tell them.....

The directive applies to both government computers and private devices that employees or contractors might have, as long as they are accessing the documents on nonclassified government networks. It does not advise agencies to block WikiLeaks or other websites on government computer systems, a White House official said Saturday. And it does not prohibit federal employees from reading news stories about the topic. But if they have “accidentially” already downloaded any of these documents, they are being told to notify their “information security offices.”

And on a slightly unrelated but equally ridiculous topic, Wikileaks is slowly starting to reveal documents about the Climate Scam:
Go here for details. 
This is amazing.  Truly amazing. 

It's kinda like the TSA body scans, or any other illegal government search and seizure, but reversed. 
Come on, Uncle Sam !!!   You shouldn't worry about breaches of privacy if you have nothing to hide !!! 

The pic of the horse that got through the barn door came from here.  This lady makes some great pics, BTW.  The picture of Uncle Sam having his privacy violated came from Daily Kos. 

A rant about wine prohibition in Memphis grocery stores

During a recent Memphis vacation, I kept running across propaganda put out by the Tennessee Wine And Spirits Retailers Association and their sister monopolists at the Wine And Spirits Wholesalers Of Tennessee.

The TWSRA wants to keep wine out of Tennesse grocery stores. 

Why? 
Here's some ultra-wholesome boosterism from the WSWT site that tries to explain:

Our industry was created by the 21st amendment, which gives wholesalers the responsibility to foster the safe and responsible distribution of beverage alcohol in Tennessee.


Ours is one of the healthiest wholesaler trade associations in the entire country comprised of more members than any other state. This ensures that the selection of wine and spirits products available in Tennessee is far greater than most states. We are committed to preserving the integrity of our products and the climate in which they are sold.


The story of beverage alcohol distribution in Tennessee is both a lesson in history and a case study in the state's evolving business climate. We are proud of our heritage and take very seriously the duty we have been given by the state to ensure the safe and responsible distribution of our products. Here you will find a wealth of resources regarding Tennessee wholesalers, from our beginning with the 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, to the role we play in today's competitive market.

The 21st Amendment is the one that ended alcohol prohibition, but allowed government to begin regulating the sale and distribution of alcohol.  In other words, the graft potential was transferred from the bootleggers to the legislatures.
In Fort Worth, Texas and other areas not suffering under Sharia law, you can go into a grocery store and purchase a bottle of wine. 
In Memphis, you can't.  It depends on the whims of the various legislatures.

So what excuse would anyone use to force shoppers to make multiple stops to pick up their bread and wine?
Get ready....you know what's coming....they make you run all over town because....IT CREATES JOBS !!!!

Here's Hank Cowles, writing for the Memphis Flyer:

More than one million jobs have vanished in America in the last sixty days, and the end is nowhere in sight. Closer to home, changing our state's current alcohol-sales laws to allow wine sales in grocery stores or other big retailers will not generate a single new job, but would likely throw several thousand of our fellow Tennesseans out of work.



The Tennessee Wine and Retailers Association estimates that between 2000 and 3000 jobs might be lost, while members of the Tennessee Alcoholic Beverage Commission estimate they would need to hire over 2000 compliance officers to oversee this expanded availability of wine!


Wine in these stores would be just another item feeding their bottom line without generating more sales tax, while the loss of 2000 jobs would have a serious multiplier effect on the state economy. Most of these people would end up on the states' unemployment rolls, further deflating Tennessee's' ability to help its citizens. (The Tennessee Unemployment Department recently notified most Tennessee employers that the unemployment tax they pay will be increased due to the high number of claims filed by Tennesseans who have already lost their jobs).

As of Saturday, December 4th, in the year of our lord 2010, it is illegal for wine to be transported by anyone other than wine store employees using teams of mules.  Consumers may not transport wine in their own vehicles.  The mule teams, staffed by members of the Teamsters Union (to be regulated by legislative oversight committees), will be charged with making all residential wine deliveries.
All wine shop customers must be carried through Tennessee liquor stores in sedan chairs and each customer will be charged with employing four Customer Carriers upon entering a liquor store.    
Cash registers are now illegal in Memphis wine shops.  Winesellers must do all of their accounting and bookkeeping in traditional ledgers.  A tax rebate will be available for those using an abacus.  

One other thing....both wholesaler websites claim that the Memphis wine selection would decline if grocery stores were allowed to sell wine, implying that the citizens of Memphis now have a variety of vino that would make Bacchus blush. 

Horsecrap.  In the ultra-competitive Fort Worth wine market, we have liquor stores whose contents could float a Memphis steamboat out of a dry dock.   

But I went to TWO different Memphis liquor stores that didn't have any Jim Beam Black Label.  Any Fort Worth store that ran out of JBBL would instantly be surrounded by an angry mob wielding torches and pitchforks. 
But in Memphis people don't know any better. 
The alcohol merchants of Memphis, thanks to the "Bootleggers And Baptists" phenomenon, have never had to compete.  They are allowed to get away with such shameful behavior because Tennessee citizens have no choice in where to buy any alcohol.  (Hit the "Bootleggers And Baptists" label below for an explanation of this behavior.)

Ok, one last point, not quite related to the topic at hand.  My employer, Jukt Micronics, has a factory/warehouse facility in Johnson County, Texas.  Johnson County has the most bewildering overlay of contradictory, Sharia-inspired, idiotic liquor laws that I've ever seen.  You can buy beer in some places, but not in others.  You can purchase wine in a few convenience stores, but not everywhere.  The Baptist Imams and Mullahs have worked hand-in-hand with the Bootleggers to create this monstrous web of confusion.  Who benefits?
The liquor store owners just outside the city limits or county lines. 

Who else benefits? 
Johnson County is now known as the Crystal Meth Capital Of North Texas. 
One adult male out of every ten is now on parole, probation, or is an involuntary guest of the state. 
I'm not saying that there's a cause and effect relationship here, but it seems that all this prohibition is very effective in "saving and creating" jobs for law enforcement, judges, parole officers, probation clerks, jailers, the private prison industry, drug testers, urine tasters, and nanny state stool-sniffers. 

That's all I've got this morning.  Hope you have a great day.  Please keep the wine-deprived citizens of Memphis in your prayers. 

Soli Deo GloriaThere. 

Kentucky will soon have a Creationist Theme Park

From MSNBC.com 
I don't make any of this stuff up.  I just copy and paste. 

FRANKFORT, Ky. — A huge replica of Noah's Ark and an 800-acre creationist theme park reportedly are coming to Grant County, Ky., according to NBC station WLEX.


Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear and Answers in Genesis, builders of the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky., are expected to unveil plans Wednesday for the $150 million northern Kentucky attraction, WLEX and other area news outlets reported.
The ark and theme park are expected to attract 1.6 million visitors annually, WLEX said. The operation is expected to create 900 jobs. That doesn't count employment at new restaurants and hotels expected to complement the park.

We are now doomed to see every new car wash, taco stand and whorehouse in terms of "jobs created and saved", thanks to our economically illiterate Porker In Chief.  Here's a hint: Prosperity isn't created by increasing the number of jobs.  It is created by saving time.  But I digress.... 

..The museum and private investors have been looking at several spots around the county, but efforts to place the park in Grant County have been under way at least for 18 months, officials told WLEX.

The Creation Museum, opened in May 2007 about seven miles from the Cincinnati-northern Kentucky airport, was estimated to draw about 250,000 visitors per year but surpassed 1 million visitors in less than three years, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported.
Exhibits represent the views of Apologetics Ministry, including the belief that the Earth is only about 7,000 years old and that dinosaurs were among the creatures on Noah’s ark.

Heavy, heavy sigh....This is what happens when you start taking metaphors and parables literally.  You get backed into these ridiculous corners where Bronze Age story characters can build boats with enough compartments to keep the T-Rex family from devouring the poodles. 

The Creation Museum is directly or indirectly responsible for bringing 2,100 jobs to the area and has an economic impact of $65 million per year, according to a study it commissioned.

Joining Beshear at Wednesday’s announcement in the State Capitol will be Mike Zovath, senior vice president of Answers in Genesis and head of the Creation Museum project, and Grant County Judge/Executive Darrell Link, the Enquirer said.

The project will be a joint development of Answers in Genesis and for-profit partner Ark Encounter LLC of Springfield, Mo., according to the Louisville Courier-Journal.
The developers are seeking state tax incentives under the Kentucky Tourism Development Act, which allows up to 25 percent of the cost of a project to be recovered, Courier-Journal said.

Atheist groups and church-state separation advocates noted that state involvement in the project may not appear to be right, but it does appear to be legal as state tax breaks are used to support tourism projects.

“It might not be discrimination, but it might not be a good idea,” Edwin Kagin, a Northern Kentucky attorney who is also the national legal director for the group American Atheists, told the Courier-Journal.

The existing 70,000-square-foot Creation Museum "brings the pages of the Bible to life, casting its characters and animals in dynamic form and placing them in familiar settings," says the Creation Museum website. "Adam and Eve live in the Garden of Eden. Children play and dinosaurs roam near Eden’s Rivers. The serpent coils cunningly in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil."

Among other museum exhibits are a planetarium showing "the amazing 'Created Cosmos,'" four theaters including a special effects auditorium featuring "Men in White," a Dinosaur Den, Noah's Ark construction site, and a cave about "Natural Selection Is Not Evolution."

The pics came from this guy, who is probably going to enjoy the park as much as I will. 
Please note the section of the park where "The Ground Is Cursed - Adam Must Toil For Food".  Well, I gotta go to work.  Hope everybody can find a way to cope with this condemned, cursed, fallen, miserable world.  Remember....Eve ate an apple.  Therefore, you must be punished. 

Andrew Ian Dodge has made it into Newsweek !!!

My online buddy Andrew Ian Dodge has made it into Newsweek !

Well done, sir !  Here's an excerpt:

The libertarian insurgents are currently gathered around Andrew Ian Dodge, a science-fiction writer and amateur rocker (with a penchant for writing lyrics about reducing the size of government), who serves as the unpaid coordinator for Maine’s Tea Party Patriots. Unlike folks on the Christian right, he and his allies aren’t tied in to a network of endowed think tanks, private universities, and broadcasting outlets that help to amplify their message. And Dodge is skeptical of groups like the Tea Party Express, which, he says, is “a Republican front run by Republican apparatchiks.” As an outsider, he’s enjoying having a chance at being on the inside, and he’s not going to give up his seat so easily. “Look at me: I’m a hairy guy with an earring. It’s a new environment on the American right where someone like me fits in, one driven not by an individual but by a core belief system.” A belief system that is made up of the nonreligious tenets of fiscal responsibility, free-market economics, and limited government, according to Dodge.

Yeah. 
What he said.

FBI creates a fake Al-Qaeda plot, creates a fake bomb, and creates a real terrorist to thwart

Well done, gentlemen. Well done.