Alex, I'll take "Jerusalem" for $500

Quote of the day, on a logical consequence of huge debt

I found this on Samizdata:

During the Middle Ages and Renaissance, Christians were not supposed to charge interest. Therefore, the most common moneylenders-to-kings were Jews. They could loan money at a profit, and were thus more likely to lend it.

But whenever the King's debts got too large to repay, he began to demonise the Jews. And eventually came a pogrom. And hey-ho, the debt went away along with the Jews.

I'm seeing the demonisation of banks. I wonder how long before government throws a pogrom?

- Ellen Kuhfeld

Jews For The Preservation Of Firearm Ownership

Go here to marvel at the website of "Jews For The Preservation Of Firearms Ownership"

The site refers you to the chart I've included below.  Here's some info on where these guys are coming from:

Why must all decent non-violent people fight against "gun control"? Why is the right to keep and bear arms truly a fundamental individual right? You can find the answers in this new book.

People frequently ask why we are so dedicated to our cause? This book answers that question by collecting the key facts and arguments in one place.

People have asked us to present the whole JPFO argument in one place. We have done it. Available now in an easy-reading format and a handy size, the new book is entitled Death by Gun Control: The Human Cost of Victim Disarmament.

The message is simple: Disarmed people are neither free nor safe - they become the criminals' prey and the tyrants' playthings. When the civilians are defenseless and their government goes bad, however, thousands and millions of innocents die.

Professor R.J. Rummel, author of the monumental book Death by Government, said: "Concentrated political power is the most dangerous thing on earth." For power to concentrate and become dangerous, the citizens must be disarmed.

What disarms the citizens? The idea of "gun control." It's the idea that only the government has the right to possess firearms, and that citizens have no unalienable right to use force to defend against aggression.

Death by Gun Control carefully examines the "gun control" idea: its meaning, its purposes, its effects. It comes in many forms, but in every form it enables the evildoers and works against righteous defense.

Yeah.  See below. 

The Genocide Chart © JPFO.org 2002
Government	Dates	Targets	Civilians Killed	"Gun Control" Laws	Features of Over-all "Gun Control" scheme
Ottoman Turkey	1915-1917	Armenians (mostly Christians)	1-1.5 million	Art. 166, Pen. Code, 1866 & 1911 Proclamation, 1915	• Permits required •Government list of owners •Ban on possession
Soviet Union	1929-1945	Political opponents; farming communities	20 million	Resolutions, 1918 Decree, July 12, 1920 Art. 59 & 182, Pen. code, 1926	•Licensing of owners •Ban on possession •Severe penalties
Nazi Germany & Occupied Europe	1933-1945	Political opponents; Jews; Gypsies; critics; "examples"	20 million	Law on Firearms & Ammun., 1928 Weapon Law, March 18, 1938 Regulations against Jews, 1938	•Registration & Licensing •Stricter handgun laws •Ban on possession
China, Nationalist	1927-1949	Political opponents; army conscripts; others	10 million	Art. 205, Crim. Code, 1914 Art. 186-87, Crim. Code, 1935	•Government permit system •Ban on private ownership
China, Red	1949-1952 1957-1960 1966-1976	Political opponents; Rural populations Enemies of the state	20-35 million	Act of Feb. 20, 1951 Act of Oct. 22, 1957	•Prison or death to "counter-revolutionary criminals" and anyone resisting any government program •Death penalty for supply guns to such "criminals"
Guatemala	1960-1981	Mayans & other Indians; political enemies	100,000- 200,000	Decree 36, Nov 25 •Act of 1932 Decree 386, 1947 Decree 283, 1964	•Register guns & owners •Licensing with high fees •Prohibit carrying guns •Bans on guns, sharp tools •Confiscation powers
Uganda	1971-1979	Christians Political enemies	300,000	Firearms Ordinance, 1955 Firearms Act, 1970	•Register all guns & owners •Licenses for transactions •Warrantless searches •Confiscation powers
Cambodia (Khmer Rouge)	1975-1979	Educated Persons; Political enemies	2 million	Art. 322-328, Penal Code Royal Ordinance 55, 1938	•Licenses for guns, owners, ammunition & transactions •Photo ID with fingerprints •License inspected quarterly
Rwanda	1994	Tutsi people	800,000	Decree-Law No. 12, 1979	•Register guns, owners, ammunition •Owners must justify need •Concealable guns illegal •Confiscating powers

Governments killed around 200 million of their own people in the previous century.  Never forget that.  Please. 

Why I am no longer a religious fundamentalist

God's mad

I hope everyone is having a pleasant Sunday morning.
If you find yourself unable to attend formal worship services, how about this gem from Westboro Baptist Church, the group that pickets the funerals of American soldiers (They do this because God is punishing America for tolerating gays and lesbians - Get it? I don't either.)

God is mad, mad, mad.
As best I can tell, God is mad at gays, lesbians, Catholics, Jews, and everyone else who is different from the people Reverend Fred Phelps grew up with.

Hit this link to go to the Westboro Baptist website. They've added a few things since the last time I visited: There's a banner that says "Welcome, depraved sons and daughters of Adam", and a countdown ticker that tells you how many reprobates have entered hell since you entered their site.


That spinning sound you hear is Michael Jackson rolling over in his grave, begging for vengeance.

Fred Phelps, Gays, Jews, and Bullshit

Fred Phelps, the gay and lesbian hating minister of Westboro Baptist Church, recently took his "God Hates Fags" publicity circus to protest outside of Sidwell Friends, the Quaker-founded school attended by Sasha and Malia Obama.

This, of course, is crossing the line.

Phelps likes to protest near military funerals of servicemen and women killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. His "logic" is that God is punishing us with 9-11 and military failure because of our semi-acceptance of gays and lesbians.

When I started looking for something to post tonight, I figured I would trot out the Biblical Re-interpretation schtick I've been running with for the last few weeks....I could claim to discover that 2000 years of anti-homosexual persecution was due to a typo, and that God Hates Figs, not Fags. I could end the post by suggesting that Phelps go protest outside the headquarters of Fig Newton manufacturer Nabisco. It coulda been funny.

Then I started looking around the Fred Phelps/Westboro Baptist website. There's not much there to laugh about. First of all, they have a link to a charming site called Jews Killed Jesus.

Speaking of Jewish people, here's the Westboro Baptist protest and demonstration schedule schedule, along with Biblical commentary, from November 11th when the church planned to demonstrate outside the U.S. Holocaust Museum:

U.S. Holocaust Museum - You haven't seen ANYTHING, WAIT 4 IT 100 Raoul Wallenberg Pl. SW
The sorrow which some Jews experienced during the WWII Holocaust, at the hands of the vicious German, and other Gentiles is NOTHING compared to what the Lord Jesus Christ is going to inflict upon His return.
Check it out, suckers:
2 Thesalonians 1:5 Which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer:
6 Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you;
7 And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels,
8 In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ:
9 Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power;
10 When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day.

Flaming fire = holocaust, dummies! The Lord Is Coming. AMEN!

In other words, the pain Hitler inflicted during the Holocaust was nothing compared to what the Holocaust victims are now enduring in Hell. You see, most of those unfortunate people who died in the camps weren't Christians. They didn't believe that Jesus was the one and only sacrifice for their sins. Therefore, God is having them tortured forever.

I'm sorry, but that's bullshit. Fred Phelps' interpretation of it, in my opinion, is 100% accurate. Whoever wrote it meant exactly and precisely what Phelps says it means. If you don't believe that God had a son who was also himself, who died horribly to get Himself to forgive us, then God/Son/Spirit are going to torture you forever. That's what those verses mean.

And that's bullshit. I've yet to meet a Christian who I can't persuade to privately affirm that it's bullshit. Mostly it's because they've never really thought about it. But once you think about it, you eventually realize that there is no Presbyterian Hell For The Torture Of Dead Babies. There is no hell filled with bewildered Asian non-Christians who died in the year 396 A.D. And Hitler's concentration camps weren't a preview of Hell for the Jews who suffered there.

It's the year 2009. We've been to the moon. We're mapping the human genome. I'm sitting in a dining room in Fort Worth, Texas and within an hour people will be reading these words in Australia, Europe, South America, and even Yazoo City, Mississippi. When will we outgrow our tribalism?

In my first 23 years, I read, studied, and memorized more Bible than many of you can imagine. A lot of it is merely false, and some of it is downright harmful. And that passage above, from 2nd Thesalonians? It's bullshit. It causes us to hate the people who aren't like us.

The Islamic beliefs of Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the gunman who killed 12 soldiers at Fort Hood? His religious beliefs that "infidels" should be beheaded and have boiling oil poured down their throats? That's tribalism. His religion caused him to hate people who weren't like him. Therefore....it's bullshit.

I'm tired of arguing with people who can't reference anything but bullshit. I'm tired of hearing people justify atrocities by reciting chapter and verse bullshit. I'm tired of enduring people who have no interest in learning about the origins of their bullshit or the evolution of their bullshit.

You can start to view the world through a lens of logic, reason, and basic decency, or you can remain loyal to Tribal Bullshit. Pick a side. Fred Phelps is waiting.

Little girl with God Hates Fags poster came from here.

Great Moments in Anti-Semitism

A tip o' the hat to Denny at The Grouchy Old Cripple.

A Funny Thing About The Ten Commandments

This morning a friend of mine mentioned that there's usually a senseless (but traditional) mistake in our representations of the 10 Commandments. He was referring to political hacks who put the traditional outline of the stone tablets on campaign posters as a shorthand for "I'm for traditional values." The mistake is prominent on this poster. Do you see it?

If you look closely, you'll see that the mistake is repeated below on an infamous statue outside of a courthouse. Don't get hung up on the extra verbiage they left out from the biblical account in Exodus 20:2-17. Don't do a textual analysis comparing this version to the one in Deuteronomy 5:6-21 either. Both texts are similar but not identical (which you would expect from documents claiming to be the inerrant word of God.) Plus, almost all of our 10 Commandments artwork omits the biblical threats against those who break the commandments.
(This dispute apparently was a plot point on an episode of The West Wing TV series. You can read a compact summary of the discrepancies, and resolution, here.) But that's not the mistake that my friend told me about.
A group called Team Sandtastic made the same mistake in a sand sculpture. Look for an anachronism.
You'd think God would give us some prohibitions against slavery, or define when life begins during pregnancy. A commandment against racism would've been nice, but that would've slowed down the ongoing Jewish campaign against the Canaanites. (Something about being God's chosen people clashes with prohibitions against racism, doesn't it?)
But I digress. The first three commandments on the poster below seem petty. The remainder seem like unnecessary reminders. But the arbitrary nature of the commandments isn't what my friend told me about.
The mistake is on the poster below. Moses is holding it.
This next picture looks like someone went to a lot of trouble to cast the tablets out of cinder blocks. The text isn't legible, but the error is there for everyone to see. (I believe the mistake is usually made in an effort to give the commandments an air of ancient authority.)

If you still haven't found the mistake, let's oversimplify the pictures. This picture came from The Confederate States Of America Website.... (speaking of organizations that try to give themselves an air of ancient authority.)

Give up?

Don't. Here's the same thing on the the door panels to the Supreme Court....(some skeptics claim that this door panel depicts the Bill of Rights.)

The answer is blaring at you.

Ok, here goes. If the 10 Commandments came down from Mount Sinai around 2,300 BCE, they were chipped into stone about 2,000 years before the birth of the Roman empire. That would be 2,000 years before the advent of Roman numerals. So there is abolutely no reason to list the things with Roman numerals.

We traditionally use Roman numerals on grandfather clocks, in our scholarly outlines, and for some reason, copyrights. But all of these came after the Roman empire. We still use the numbers I-XII on sundials, since the Romans had sundials.

But why are they always on the Ten Commandments?

Well, can you imagine this on a statute outside an Alabama courthouse? Lilah Tov !

Does John McCain Know THIS About Joe Lieberman?

I don't even remember how I found this abomination.
A Memphis, Tennessee, pastor named Reverend George Books is actively campaigning against Congressman Steve Cohen.

Cohen's shortcomings are described in a letter from Reverend Brooks, which is duplicated in italics below. All of the bold text is his. You can hit this link and read it without my editorializing, but I hope you won't. I want to spoon it out to you in delicious bite-sized morsels. Here's the first chunk of what apparently went out in the mail to a Cohen supporter.

'Anti-Christ Congressman Steve Cohen of Memphis, TN., who, to the detriment of many, legalized gambling in the form of the Tennessee Lottery awhile back. And is also attempting to legalize MARIJUANA FOR THE SICK.

This guy likes unnecessary commas and capital letters even more than I do.
Next are some pictures of Congressman Cohen and openly gay Congressman Barney Frank.

However, he and pal Barney Frank, the gay congressman from Massachusetts, were unsuccessful in passing their last "pot bill". So maybe now they'll go to work on a national "same sex marriage bill", given the recent victory of California gays. For, who knows, these two may one day decide that they want to "tie the knot".

Or, in their tradition, break a glass and have everyone shout "Mazel Tov" ! Please allow the Reverend Brooks to explain:

Also, both are Jewish, and therefore absolutely refuse to believe in Jesus as the Messiah or the Son of God.

They don't merely refuse it, they absolutely refuse it. Whew.
Then Reverend Brooks decides his audience has reached the teachable moment....

Just in case some Memphis Christian voters are not aware that Jews are against Jesus.

So that explains why I never got invited to any Christmas parties at the Rothsteins. I had wondered. But does everyone know this? Or does it only get taught in seminaries at the doctoral level? Should we start spreading the word? (Full Disclosure: I've had three Bud Lites, and I'm having a great time writing this.) Is this Jewish belief system ever discussed at the highest levels of government? ? ? Reverend Brooks wants to know also:

Is John McCain aware that his advisor, pal, and possible VP candidate Joe Lieberman DOES NOT BELIEVE IN JESUS ?

Is John McCain aware? Who knows? Here's some more doctrine:

Jews do not believe in Jesus as the Messiah or the Son of God. And say that people who believe in the Trinity are actually worshipping three Gods.

Can you imagine the Republican V.P. vetting committee sitting down with Lieberman, and digging around about former drug use, speeding tickets, shady contributors, Clarence Thomas moments, and then getting to the big question: "Joe, I'm sorry, but there's one more question we've got to ask. Do you believe that God exists as three persons but is still one being?And that God has but a single divine nature but God's son Jesus assumed human nature, and therefore had two natures, and is really and fully both God and human? I'm sorry, Congressman, but there are preachers in Memphis who are going to want to know...."

Back to the letter:

Now what does McCain have to say about this? And what about the Southern Baptist Convention, John Hagee, Mike Huckabee, Pat Robertson, Rod Parsley....

Just typing that unholy list of groups and names was almost enough to make me give up pork and put on a yarmulke.

....and other Christian leaders? As well as the Jews of America and Israel, who owe America an explanation as to why Christians should be fighting and dying in wars for them? A people that played a role in the death of Jesus Christ, and believe in him not.

I think it was the Italians who played the biggest role in the death of Jesus Christ. But that's a minor quibble.
We now get to Reverend Brooks' final point:

Which actually makes them anti-Christ.

There's some other stuff in the cover letter about Jesus actually being a black man, blah blah blah.
Reverend Brooks is probably black.
Reverend Brooks is probably the product of a 99% Christian, relatively non-diverse, homogeneous environment.
Reverend Brooks has the right to say whatever he wants to say, under the banner of free speech.
But Reverend Brooks is also an anti-Semitic idiot.

John Hagee, Jews, Hitler, Zionism, Theodor Herzl, Israel, and The Holocaust are now a bigger problem than Jeremiah Wright

Here's Pastor John Hagee, holding forth on what the prophet Ezekiel had to say about Hitler, the Jews, Zionism, Theodor Herzl, the birth of modern Israel, and the Holocaust.
McCain formally accepted Hagee's endorsement a few months ago.
My previous Youtube post on Hagee dealt with one of his discourses on Roman Catholics, and Catholicism essentially being the "Whore of Babylon" referenced in The Book of Revelation.
There must be something floating around out there where he attacks Hindus, because people keep putting "Hagee" and "Hindus" in the search field for this blog.

Hagee, in the video below, states that the Jews have "dead souls".

For betting purposes, I'm setting the over/under for McCain formally repudiating this guy at Saturday, May 24th, at 12 noon.
If you pick the "over" that means you think McCain will throw Hagee under the bus sometime AFTER lunchtime on Saturday. If you take the "under", that means McCain will distance himself from Hagee BEFORE lunchtime on Saturday.
If the Archangel Michael appears in The Promised Land riding a three-headed horse and blowing a trumpet, followed by four additional horsemen named War, Pestilence, Death, and Famine, then all bets are off, and no wagers will be paid.