The Hypocrisy Of Barack And Michelle Obama

Here's Reason magazine, on the sheer hypocrisy of Barack and Michelle Obama.

In a truly civilized society, leaving a son or daughter in the Washington D.C. public schools would qualify as a form of child abuse.
The parents would be arrested.

Barack and Michelle Obama are sending their daughters, Sasha and Malia, to Sidwell friends, an elite private D.C. school.
He has supported the teachers' unions in ending a popular voucher problem that allowed 1,700 low income students to do the same thing at a little more than half the amount being spent per student in the public school system ! ! !



When the Clintons sent Chelsea to a private school, I remember one of their spokesmuppets sniffing that "It was a personal choice".

Here's a subject for further research: How far down the chain in the Obamessiah's Department Of Education does one have to go before finding an administrator who has kids in the D.C. public schools?

A Subtle Suggestion For Senator Charles Grassley

Senator Charles Grassley (Republican - Iowa) is not happy with the AIG executives who got $165,000,000.00 in bailout money bonuses. Here's Chuck:

"I would suggest the first thing that would make me feel a little bit better toward them if they'd follow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say, I'm sorry, and then either do one of two things: resign or go commit suicide."

Those money-grubbing Wall Street guys need to commit suicide ! ! ! Charles is ready to grab his torch and pitchfork and exploit some populist outrage. Here are Senator Grassley's comments from a few days later:

Grassley continued to express his displeasure with the company that is distributing $165 million in bonuses over lawmakers' objections. He said executives should not be rewarded for running their corporation into the ground.....
"From my standpoint, it's irresponsible for corporations to give bonuses at this time when they're sucking the tit of the taxpayer...."

The "tit of the taxpayer" ! ! ! You tell 'em, Charles.
There's one problem.
Senator Charles Grassley is a whore for the ethanol industry. He will do things for Iowa corn and ethanol producers that Shanghai harbor prostitutes would politely decline.


If AIG execs are gently "sucking the tit of the taxpayer", then Charles Grassley's state of Iowa is a massive veal calf feedlot, chewing on Lady Liberty's nipples with enough pressure to suck-start an airliner. Hear that incessant slurping sound coming from the midwest? That's Iowa, inhaling the subsidy money.

From 1995 to 2006, Iowa received $16,000,000,000.00 in farm subsidies. (Those are billions, not to be confused with the measley AIG bonus millions.) They can thank Grassley for most of it.
Friends of AIG, like Senator Chris Dodd, wrote loopholes into the stimulus package. These loopholes allowed AIG execs to walk away with millions in taxpayer money.
Friends of ethanol, like Senator Charles Grassley, have been responsible for Iowa farmers and ethanol producers walking away with billions (with a "b") in taxpayer money.

In one instance, a relatively small amount of your money was given to a small group of Dodd/Obama supporters at AIG.
In another, a huge amount of your money was given to a larger group of Charles Grassley supporters.

There is absolutely no difference. Money was taken from taxpayers and given to campaign donors. Both examples are obscene.

So here's a suggestion for Senator Charles Grassley. Be sure that your personal finances are in order, and that your Last Will And Testament is legally binding. Get your rifle out of the gun cabinet, and take it to the middle of a remote Iowa cornfield. You'll figure out what to do.

Here are the Manic Street Preachers performing the theme from M.A.S.H. - "Suicide Is Painless"



Picture of overpriced biofuel came from Moonbattery.

Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson !! - The Twin Towers Died For Your Sins !!

Here are Reverend Jerry Falwell and Reverend Pat Robertson, recorded shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.


They neglect to mention that we also allow women to teach men (in violation of 2nd Timothy 2:12), and that a lot of us eat shellfish and pigs (prohibited throughout Leviticus).

I believe I've seen women preachers on Brother Pat's TV show and network. Brother Jerry looks like he's had many a platter of shellfish and pigs.

We also have a banking system that loans out money, expecting repayment with interest (Deuteronomy 23:19), and many of us, including those two clowns, occasionally shave our faces.(See Leviticus 19:27. Shaving is a big No-No.)

And I suspect that both of these heretics are wearing at least one article of clothing made of blended fabrics (surely they've read Deuteronomy 22:22).

If you accept the biblical admonition that committing an "abomination" is worthy of death (see Ezekiel 18:9-14), then we can only conclude that....

Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson caused the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Cal Thomas Says Barack Obama's Not A Christian

Journalist Cal Thomas has written a column entitled "Barack Obama Is Not A Christian".
Hmmmmm.....
I'll be needing a few tools....

Scalpel - thanks.

Laptop - got it.
Righteous Indignation - I've got plenty.
Various Unitarian Websites - check.
Online Concordance - there are dozens.
Chainsaw - yep.
Let the Fisking begin ! Here's Cal Thomas:

Religion is a topic that makes most journalists uncomfortable, unless they can expose hypocrisy — as in preachers who speak of virtue while carrying on an affair — or outrage such as Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the doings at Barack Obama’s now former church in Chicago.

Let's divide journalism into reporting and editorializing.
The reason for the journalistic discomfort is that journalists are supposed to deal with facts, and only facts, when doing straight reporting.
Journalists are supposed to combine logic and opinions when editorializing.
But religion is an area where many of the "facts" are debatable, and logic is secondary to emotion, feeling, and tradition. Therefore, it's difficult to do straight reporting or editorializing about religion unless the thrust of the journalism is something like exposing hypocrisy or generating outrage.
For instance, amazing things happen during Pentecostal worship services. When taken at face value, these events are credited to the movings and workings of the Holy Spirit. Many Pentecostal worshippers believe that God, in the form of the Holy Spirit, enters their bodies and allows them to speak in foreign languages, have feelings of ecstasy, etc etc etc. Anyone attempting to "report" on this would have difficulty determining what is fact. Anyone attempting to "editorialize" on this, would probably be skeptical. But the True Believers would then claim that the journalists simply don't wish to transcend themselves or take a journey of personal and spiritual discovery.

Most journalists think taking religion seriously might require them to study the claims of various faiths and too many of them have already decided this might lead them to a faith higher than themselves or politics and they don’t wish to take such a journey of personal discovery.

Yeah, that's what it would sound like.

That is too bad, because such an attitude exposes one of the main gaps between most Americans — who believe in God — and most journalists, who don’t.

At this point, Cal does a bit of equivocating. Most of the time when we say "equivocate", we mean "to use intentionally misleading language". But in the rhetorical sense, To Equivocate is to toggle back and forth between two different meanings of the same word as if they meant the same thing.
The Americans surveyed above who believe in God are referenced as if they're a unified block.
That ain't the case. Muslims, who believe in Allah, generally take offense to being lumped in with the Jewish devotees of Yahweh. Many Christians believe that God is not one, but three. Others see God as a life force, or the driving energy behind the universe, like Paul Tillich's "The Ground Of Our Being" concept.
Either way, our beliefs in God aren't all the same.

An exception is Chicago Sun-Times columnist Cathleen Falsani, who interviewed Obama in 2004 for her book, “The God Factor: Inside the Spiritual Lives of Public People “and asked him specific questions about his religious beliefs.
“I’m rooted in the Christian tradition,” said Obama, who has declared himself a Christian. But then he adds something that most Christians will see as (gasp) universalism: “I believe there are many paths to the same place, and that is a belief that there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people.”

Obama could've quoted some Saint Paul at this point: "Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous." (Rom. 5:18-19)
Or Obama could've continued by simply stating "I refuse to believe that God is creating people by the billions, simply to torture them forever for non-belief."

Falsani correctly brings up John 14:6 (and how many journalists would know such a verse, much less ask a question based on it?) in which Jesus says of Himself, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
That sounds pretty exclusive, but Obama says it depends on how this verse is heard.

Mr. Obama is correct on this point. Not only does it depend on how the verse is heard, it depends on whether Jesus really said it. According to the near unanimous opinions of the Biblical scholars in The Jesus Seminar, Jesus didn't say it.
Americans not only have widely divergent beliefs about God, they have diverse beliefs about scriptural authority.

According to Falsani, Obama thinks that “all people of faith — Christians, Jews, Muslims, animists, everyone — know the same God.” (her words)

Cool. Does this mean we can stop killing each other?

If that is so, Jesus wasted his time coming to Earth and he certainly did not have to suffer the pain of rejection and crucifixion if there are ways to God other than through Himself.

Only if the entire universe has to conform to the belief system you grew up with, Cal. One of my favorite theologians, a guy named Culver Nelson, has hypothesized that Jesus simply taught love and compassion and stood up to authority. This got him killed. The substitutionary atonement business got projected onto Jesus after the fact. Click here for details.

Here’s Obama telling Falsani, “The difficult thing about any religion, including Christianity, is that at some level there is a call to evangelize and proselytize. There’s the belief, certainly in some quarters, that if people haven’t embraced Jesus Christ as their personal savior, they’re going to hell.” Falsani adds, “Obama doesn’t believe he, or anyone else, will go to hell. But he’s not sure he’ll be going to heaven, either.”

OK, from what I've read here and elsewhere, George W. Bush believes that other people will go to hell, and he's going to heaven. Forever. Barack Obama doesn't believe that anyone is going to hell, and Obama isn't sure he's going to heaven.
Think about that a few minutes, and let me know which person you'd trust with the nuclear football.

Here’s Obama again: “I don’t presume to have knowledge of what happens after I die."

The rarest of all commodities: A politician telling the truth for a print publication.....

"When I tuck in my daughters at night and I feel like I’ve been a good father to them, and I see that I am transferring values that I got from my mother and that they’re kind people and that they’re honest people, and they’re curious people, that’s a little piece of heaven.”

Tucking in your daughters, being a good father, kindness, honesty, curiosity - those attributes are worth more than every creed, dogma, and doctrine ever invented.

Any first-year seminary student could deconstruct such “works salvation” and wishful thinking.

I believe that condemning your enemies to eternal torture and rewarding yourself with eternal bliss is "wishful thinking". Wishful thinking for sadists. But that's just me.
One thing I've noticed, though....you're correct that first-year evangelical college seminary students would probably deconstruct this as "works salvation". Willingness to do so tapers off at the Doctoral level, though. It's difficult to study Church History, Biblical Origins, and Textual Criticism at that level and see these little debates the same way.

Obama either hasn’t read the Bible, or if he has, doesn’t believe it if he embraces such thin theological gruel.

I suspect that Obama has read some Bible. I suspect that Obama "believes" the Bible is worthwhile. But I suspect that Obama has read some other books, books that lead him to believe that the Bible was created by a small group in a small place by people who had no idea that God just might like other people too, and that their enemies weren't necessarily God's enemies.
These people remind me of Cal Thomas.

Obama can call himself anything he likes, but there is a clear requirement for one to qualify as a Christian and Obama doesn’t meet that requirement.

A clear requirement? One clear requirement? Does one have to be baptized? Does one have to receive the Last Rites from a priest? Does one have to accept the doctrines given by the angel Moroni to Joseph Smith? Become a member of a Church Of Christ or some other restorationist denomination?

One cannot deny central tenets of the Christian faith, including the deity and uniqueness of Christ as the sole mediator between God and Man and be a Christian.

No, if Bob Barr can sponsor the Defense Of Marriage act and oppose all medical marijuana laws and still be called a Libertarian, then we can call Barack Obama a Christian.

Such people do have a label applied to them in Scripture. They are called a “false prophet.”

I prefer the term "Whited Sepulchres", but that's just me.
The best rebuttal I know of for this nonsense, if we're going to go Biblical, can be found in Wikipedia's "False Prophet" entry. None of these scriptures remind me of Barack Obama. But if you can read those verses without thinking of Benny Hinn, John Hagee, or Oral Roberts, then you're not watching enough religious programming.

I hope some national journalist or commentator with knowledge of such things asks Obama about this and doesn’t let him get away with re-writing Scripture to suit his political ends.

People have gotten away with re-writing scripture for 2,000 years.
I hope some readers with knowledge of such things will e-mail Cal Thomas about this, and not let him get away with spiritualizing politics to suit his political ends.

Black Jack, Missouri

Black Jack, Missouri, the town that would've turned away Joseph, Mary, and baby Jesus.

Click here for details.

Hat Tip to Radley Balko of Reason magazine and The Agitator Blog.

How To Pronounce Sepulchre

For some reason, people are arriving here as a result of Google searches, wanting to know how to prounounce the word "sepulchre".

The U.S. spelling is "sepulcher", but I grew up with the King James Bible, and prefer the way it's done in the mother tongue.

Sepulchre is prounounced [sep-pulk-er]. That's a short "e" in sep, with the accent on the first syllable.

A sepulchre is defined as any chamber used as a grave.

The term "Whited Sepulchre" comes from one of Jesus' better rants, found in The Gospel of Matthew 23:27.....as I explained in my first post on this site:

If you didn't have the social, cultural, and career advantages of growing up Southern Baptist, you might not catch the "Whited Sepulchre" reference....It's from a story told about Jesus, when he compared his accusers to "Whited Sepulchres" or Freshly Painted Tombs.

These tombs were beautiful on the outside, and full of rotteness and corruption on the inside. After accidentally touching a Sepulchre, or tomb, any devout believer who subscribed to the complete rigamarole of the clean/unclean belief system had to go through a long and tiresome cleansing process.
This purification and cleansing process could kill several weekends.Therefore, tombs were routinely painted Day-Glo white so anyone who happened to be going through the graveyard at night could avoid accidental contamination in the dark.This left weekends free for avoiding pork, studying the Torah, and throwing rocks at adulterous women until they bled to death.
If I routinely post updates on this site, I suspect I'll focus on various Whited Sepulchres that make me nuts.
Lots of things make me nuts. I make me nuts.
So does the government. Religious nut cases. Drive-through windows. Department of Transportation requirements. And perhaps I'll include some other musings on travels, extended family, and whether or not it's sane to own four weiner dogs.

It's bascially a reference to anything that seems ok on the outside, but is full of death and rottenness and corruption on the inside. Like the current Farm Bill, The Clintons, U.S. Trade Policy, me, Subsidies, The City of Arlington's Eminent Domain Abuse for Jerry Jones' Benefit, blah blah blah blah....

God forced Richard Roberts' Resignation

All I wanted to do before work this morning was sit in Starbucks and read the paper.

Star-Telegram.com: 11/29/2007 Roberts: God forced resignation

I don't ordinarily get worked up over the goings-on at 3rd tier Witch Doctor Finishing Schools, but there's a warm place in my heart for anyone connected to Oral Roberts.
My grandmother, Mamie, was disabled from a stroke, and lived with us part of the year.
When I was growing up, we only got one TV station.
One of those TV stations regularly carried the Oral Roberts TV "Ministry".
A regular feature of this "Ministry" was Oral berating people like Mamie who didn't have the faith to stand up and walk. I've hated that bastard ever since then.

TULSA, Okla.-- Richard Roberts told students at Oral Roberts University Wednesday that he did not want to resign as president of the scandal-plagued evangelical school, but that he did so because God insisted.

Richard, that's called getting out of town before the lynch mob arrives.... Mamie used to sit in her rocking chair while people like your Daddy screamed at her.

God told him on Thanksgiving that he should resign the next day, Roberts told students in the university's chapel.

That's when you realized God The Investigators had you, wasn't it?

"Every ounce of my flesh said no" to the idea, Roberts said, but he prayed over the decision with his wife and his father, Oral Roberts, and decided to step down.

For those who haven't followed it closely, Oral is having a few problems with the "Physician, Heal Thyself" thing in his old age. Oral's not doing well. Something about it reminds me of how Mamie used to sit there watching the TV, saying "I just wish I had that kind of faith...." when Oral would "heal" shills from the audience.

Roberts said he wanted to "strike out" against the people who were persecuting him, and considered countersuing, but "the Lord said, 'Don't do that,'" he said.

The Lord is correct, Richard....You're going to need to save every penny you've got for defense, not offense.

After submitting his resignation, he said that for the "first time in 60 days peace came into my heart."
Roberts spoke for only a few minutes and was applauded and cheered by students. He wiped away tears with a handkerchief and his hands.

Enjoy the peace in your heart while it lasts. They're still going to come after you with the long knives. Some of those students were applauding your departure, you Nimrod.

"This has nearly destroyed my family, and it's nearly destroyed ORU," Roberts said.

So close. So close. Maybe next time.

A lawsuit accuses Roberts of lavish spending at a time when the university faced more than $50 million in debt, including taking shopping sprees, buying a stable of horses and paying for a daughter to travel to the Bahamas aboard the university jet.
Roberts has previously said that God told him to deny the allegations. The week the lawsuit was filed, Richard Roberts said that God told him: "We live in a litigious society. Anyone can get mad and file a lawsuit against another person whether they have a legitimate case or not. This lawsuit ... is about intimidation, blackmail and extortion and taking shopping sprees, buying a stable of horses, and paying for a daughter to travel to The Bahamas aboard the university jet.

Ok, that's the last I'm going to write about these clowns. Mamie, wherever you are, I hope you're enjoying this.

Al Gore, Our Richest Vice-President?

Cover your wallets, lock up your daughters, bury the family silver in the back yard. Al Gore is about to cool off the planet, and it won't be cheap. It's all coming together now....

Following His Green Dream Newsweek Project Green Newsweek.com

Here's the full text of the Newsweek article, along with some helpful comments....

Al Gore just won a Nobel Prize for teaching the world to think green,

as predicted here, and the Nobel wasn't for teaching the world anything. The Nobel was for Political Correctness, and was a great opportunity for the Nobel committee to embarass Bush (as if Republicans have needed help in that area....)

but he's also showing he knows a thing or two about another kind of green: money.

Ok, get the smelling salts ready. Prepare the ammonia capsules to wave under the noses of anyone who might feel faint. Children should leave the room. Move the sharp objects away from your computer. Startling revelations are on the way....

Since 2000, according to published reports, the former veep has transformed himself from a public servant with around $1 million in the bank....

Are they trying to tell us that Al Gore, who has a house with a larger carbon footprint than The Concorde, was only worth a million? ? ?

....to a sparkling private consultant with a net worth estimated to be north of $100 million.

How the heck did that happen? By growing organic vegetables and selling them at Whole Foods? Walking from city to city holding a "Will Work For Farm Subsidies" sign? By Thinking Globally, Acting Locally? There can't possibly be an earth-friendly way for Saint Albert The Goracle of Music City to be worth $100 million, can there?

He's a senior adviser to Google, a board member at Apple....

Good companies, both of them. But they aren't going to pay Saint Albert $100 million. Unless they had a massive lobbying project, and I haven't read about any, they merely wanted his picture in their newsletters. Saint Albert was probably rewarded with a favorable position in the Google Search Rankings and a free iPod Nano. (Put the words "House" "Carbon" and "Footprint" into Google and see whose residence is mentioned prominently. Tipper must be proud !)
Back to the point: Flacking for Google and Apple won't get you anywhere near $100 million.

....and now a newly minted general partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the Silicon Valley venture-capital firm that made billions investing early in Netscape, Amazon and Google.

But wait....Saint Al has a bachelor's degree in Government, doesn't he? What does he know about finance, investments, venture-capital, or even counting petty cash accurately? Shouldn't he feel guilty about accepting anything at all for lending his Government expertise to a venture-capital firm? Or was this like John Edwards making a fortune working at the Hedge Fund just to learn more about poverty and how poverty relates to the financial markets?

Gore has pledged to hand over his KP "salary" to Alliance for Climate Protection, a nonprofit he chairs.

Thank God. I was scared he was going to spend it on a gas-guzzling SUV and some more wings for his house.

But the gift is more symbolic than material.

Symbolic money?

Gore's salary—his cut of the 2 percent "management fee" that KP partners get on all investments—is typically a sliver of the total compensation that VCs receive. If Gore's profit-sharing deal is anything like the firm's other 23 partners, he's also in line to collect tens of millions of dollars a year.

Let's assume that Saint Albert's take is exactly 20 million (the lowest possible number he could drag back to The Carbon Footprint in Nashville and still have "tens" of millions in a year.) What the hell could Albert have done for these guys that's worth TWENTY MILLION DOLLARS? (Typed in capital letters because of respect, fear, and awe.)

That's because partners carve up 30 percent of the profits if and when the alternative-energy start-ups that KP supports go public or are sold. (Kleiner Perkins declined to comment on Gore's compensation, but his communications director, Kalee Kreider, confirmed that he plans to donate only his "guaranteed income" to charity.)

Alternative-Energy Start-Ups? Do you know anything about Alternative-Energy Start-Ups? I haven't seen any Alternative-Energy Start-Ups ! ! Who needs Alternative Energy? I haven't asked for any. Wouldn't you need a really good reason to switch your home/vehicle/business to Alternative-Energy? Especially if you were a Global Warming Skeptic? Someone would have to go over your head to The Government and lobby for these Alternative-Energy startups, wouldn't they? The Government would have to make you pay for it. So who better for that dirty work than the dude who announced the "crisis" resulting from the use of Traditional Energy?

Should Gore's prospecting unearth a clean-energy gold mine the size of Google—which earned billions for KP partners—his share of the loot could make him U.S. history's richest ex-veep.

Richer than Nelson Freakin' Rockefeller? Good Lord in Heaven ! ! ! (Nelson Rockefeller, by the way, supposedly died in an extreme exercise of Traditional Energy.)

Emphasis on "ex": Gore's relationship with KP is perhaps the strongest signal yet that his days in politics are over.

Heck no, Saint Albert's days in politics aren't over. He'll be seen again, lobbying for the expensive artificial cure for the artificial crisis that he helped create. Just hide and watch. It's brilliant.

The firm is notoriously secretive about its finances, and it's unlikely that KP would strike a deal with Gore if the association could subject the firm to public scrutiny. And anyway, with the kind of money Gore stands to make, why run for president?

The only way Al Gore can make a cent off this scam is if you let him. When you see the Kleiner Perkins Start-Ups get their Government Subsidies, remember that you read about it here first. When you see Saint Albert testifying before Congress that we need to have deadlines in place for Alternative-Energy use, remember you read it here first. Look to the east, like in The Book of Revelation, and if you see Al Gore coming over the horizon on a 3-headed horse, prepare for the End Times.

Get mad. Run out into the streets and bang pots and pans together. Call your Senator, and tell him to return his Kleiner Perkins campaign contributions.

The guys who wrote the Newsweek article above, Tony Dokoupil and David A. Kaplan, wrote their entire piece without a smattering of outrage, curiosity, or skepticism. How is that possible?

(addition from 1-1-2008....I have a follow-up rant here, resulting from Gore almost getting "Person of The Year" from Time magazine. He receives similar reverent treatment from someone named Bryan Walsh. No one is wanting to question Gore's financial motives for spreading the current panic.)

Senator Charles Grassley Asks Ministries To Turn Over Financial Records Within One Month

The Lord has blessed....

Senate Panel Probes 6 Top Televangelists, Sen. Charles Grassley Asks Ministries To Turn Over Financial Records Within One Month - CBS News

CBS News has learned Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, is investigating six prominent televangelist ministries for possible financial misconduct. Letters were sent Monday to the ministries demanding that financial statements and records be turned over to the committee by December 6th.

According to Grassley's office, the Iowa Republican is trying to determine whether or not these ministries are improperly using their tax-exempt status as churches to shield lavish lifestyles. The six ministries identified as being under investigation by the committee are led by: Paula White, Joyce Meyer, Creflo Dollar, Eddie Long, Kenneth Copeland and Benny Hinn.

Three of the six - Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland and Creflo Dollar - also sit on the Board of Regents for the Oral Roberts University.

Good enough. For more on info on the unrelated scandal going down at Oral Roberts University, click here. Yes, I'm still irritated because Oral Roberts didn't heal my grandmother.
But can you imagine an Oral Roberts University Board of Regents meeting with that ghastly crew?
Has anyone ever had the nerve to call in sick?
Not with all those Alpha-Male Faith Healers taking your illness as an affront to their powers. Oral, Richard, Benny, Kenny, and Creflo would drop everything, fly to your bedside, lay hands all over you, and not cease praying till you were 100% healed.

Otherwise, people would talk.

Here's where it gets interesting, and not for the reasons you might think. There's a Dallas-based watchdog group that has been funneling information to the investigators for years:

The letters sent Monday were the culmination of a long investigation fueled in part by complaints from Ole Anthony, a crusader against religious fraud who operates the Dallas-based Trinity Foundation, which describes itself as a watchdog monitoring religious media, fraud and abuse. "We've been working with them for two years," Anthony told CBS News. "We have furnished them with enough information to fill a small Volkswagen."

Ole Anthony is also publisher of a satirical religous magazine called "The Wittenburg Door". This magazine was hilarious 25 years ago, but has lost something in the interval.

Here's some more info about Ole Anthony, linked here from a Dallas Observer article of about a year ago. I happened to read it shortly after it was published, and maybe that's why I don't think "The Wittenburg Door" is very funny any longer:

....allegations that Trinity is a cult began as early as the late '70s and have surfaced numerous times since, often by members' families, sometimes by the media. In 1989, Jeffrey Weiss of The Dallas Morning News wrote, "there are times when even to its members the foundation looks like a cult of personality."

More than a dozen former Trinity members interviewed by the Dallas Observer agree that Trinity bears many cult-like traits:
• Zealous commitment to a domineering leader not accountable to any authority.
• Discouragement or punishment of dissent and doubt.
• Use of mind-altering techniques such as denunciation sessions--the infamous hot seats.
• Dictation by leadership of how followers should act, sometimes in great detail.
• Breakdown of personal boundaries, such as denying members permission to marry.
• Encouraging a sense of elitism or special status for the group.
• Fostering an "us vs. them" mentality.

There's more. I think Ole Anthony is simply trying to tear down his more succesful role models:
ABC had accused (Robert) Tilton of manufacturing tears; people were noticing Anthony had the same skill. "I think Ole is a classic sociopath," Larry Ferguson says. "I don't think he knows what real emotions are."

But the biggest issue was the far-fetched stories. Anthony always had a new tale: In addition to being a spy, he'd been a helicopter pilot and crashed when he had a backpacking and survival company in Montana, and he was also in Vietnam setting up nuclear test stations and in Colombia trading coca leaves for intelligence and on and on.

The next question: Who is going to investigate the investigators?

Update from November 25, 2007.....You can click here for an update on The Oral Roberts University investigation.

Oral R.U. Without Dick ?

Oral Roberts University may lose Dick "Richard" Roberts, the current university president.
A THREE-RING CIRCUS
Three instructors have been fired, there are allegations that current ORU first lady Lindsey Roberts likes 'em young, that money has been misplaced, and that documents have been shredded. The University comptroller has been fired. In a faith-healing gone bad, three blind men were made lame.

Oral Roberts, the university's founder, started his career with small tent revivals and faith healings. This grew to a multi-media empire, including radio, TV programs, and Oral Roberts University. Because of a unique fund-raising vision of a massive Christ, Roberts also inspired one of the great rapper names: MC 900ft Jesus

My first exposure to these clowns was through my grandmother. She had been crippled by a severe stroke, and lived with us most of the time. I can remember her watching this charlatan's TV programs, and watching Roberts "heal" shills from the audience. "I just wish I had that kind of faith," she would say, after Roberts would shriek that her illness was still with her because of her unbelief.

This is from the Associated Press article that ran in the Startlegram:
Oral Roberts, who lives in California, said last week that the allegations against his family had blindsided him, "but we have been through some tough experiences in building Oral Roberts University in the 1960s, and we have surprised them all and have built a university that we believe is for the glory of God."
The Roberts family ministry grew from Southern tent revivals to one of the most successful evangelical empires in the country, hauling in tens of millions of dollars in contributions a year. The university reported nearly $76 million in revenue in 2005, according to the IRS.
The elder Roberts founded the school, known for its 60-foot-tall bronze sculpture of praying hands, in 1963. He famously told viewers in 1987 that God told him to raise $8 million for the university or he would be "called home."

There is a "Scandal Vulnerability Assesment" document tied to the lawsuit brought by the three dismissed instructors. Scandal Vulnerability? As if there's a side to these goobers that's remotely ethical? How would you go about looking for an Oral/Richard Roberts scandal? They're Faith-Healers, for heaven's sake. You couldn't throw a stick at ORU without hitting a scandal. If I'm a Whited Sepulchre, these guys are Gleaming Charnel Houses.

In a recent statement, Richard Roberts told a congregation that "God told him to deny the allegations". Would he have not done so otherwise?

Addition on November 23, 2007.....Click here and here for updates on the Oral Roberts University mess and a related mess.

And for the final comment I intend to make on these clowns, click here to read about Richard Roberts' pitiful resignation. And a few more comments about Big Daddy Oral not having the faith necessary to get off his deathbed and walk.

The Location of Tom Tancredo's Head

Further proof here that Tom Tancredo, Republican for President, has his head up his rear end. Click on the Rocky Mountain News link....

Rocky Mountain News: Opinion

How can a Republican get this so deeply and profoundly wrong?

The only time nations trade with each other, the only time states trade with each other, and the only time individuals trade with each other is when each party in the deal has something that the other party wants more. Both sides come away from the deal thinking that they're the winner.
The only time I trade with McDonald's, Central Market, Starbucks, or the guy who drives the Highway 80 Roach Coach is when they have something that I want worse than I want money. Whether it's Big Macs, 600 varieties of cheese, Double Espressos, or Indigestion.

The only time these organizations willingly give me Big Macs, 600 varieties of cheese, Double Espressos, or Indigestion is when they want to own a varying amount of my money. They are free to lower the price if I stop buying. The are free to raise the price if I show no signs of stopping.

Do I need the government to step in and tell me how much I "should" be paying for Big Macs, 600 varieties of cheese, Double Espressos, or Indigestion, if I can find those same items cheaper at Burger King, Big Benny's World O' Cheese, Seattle's Best Coffee, or in a dumpster? Should the government be in the business of preserving the profit margins of McDonald's, Central Market, Starbucks, and Rodrigo the Roach Coach Man?

If an iPhone from China costs $200 and an iPhone manufactured in Vail, Colorado costs $2000, who should be manufacturing Iphones? Whose iPhone will sell? Whose iPhone will be a total waste of resources, assuming all other quality issues are equal? (And if you don't bring up lead paint on Chinese Toys, I won't bring up poison in Tylenol bottles....)

We all wind up with more affordable stuff as a result of allowing everyone produce the things for which they're the lowest cost producer.

Nobody is worried about The Tarrant County, Texas, vs. Sunflower County, Mississippi, trade deficit ! ! ! Nobody is worried about the Texas vs. Louisiana trade deficit ! ! ! No sober person, in my presence anyway, seems to worry about my trade deficit with Starbucks ! ! !

I mean, every morning of my life I go to the Hulen and Camp Bowie Starbucks and give them two dollars and they give me a double espresso, but they never buy a freakin' thing from me ! ! ! Where is the outrage, people? ? ? Should I start making double espressos at home if Starbucks doesn't start using my shipping and logistics services ? ? ? That will show 'em, won't it? But maybe, just maybe, my time in the morning is better spent cussing various freight carriers for not showing up on time, instead of adjusting the grind on an espresso machine.....(Diane with ABF, this is directed at you.)

We in the U.S. are collectively better off with the garment industry in China instead of along the East Coast. Not because the garment industry is bad, but because it's absence is a sign that we are too productive to have something as basic as large-scale garment manufacturing here. China will be better off when the garment industry packs up and moves to India. (They'll fight it when it starts happening.) It will mean that Chinese labor has become so productive that the garment industry can't afford to be there any longer.

Bill Clinton understood this. Bill Clinton gave us the biggest hog-stomping economic expansion in history. Hillary used to understand this. But at least in the primaries, Hillary seems to be in a race with Tancredo, Obama, and The Carolina Ambulance Chaser to see if she can fully insert her head into her fundamental aperture even faster than they. Click here for details, while you can still see her ears.

Mitt, Mormons, Moses, and Muslims

Interesting article here by Jay Cost, affiliated with RealClearPolitics.com on a yet-to-be delivered speech in which Mitt Romney intends to defend his Mormon faith. (It quotes an earlier column by Bob Novak.) Both Novak and Cost anticipate that the speech will be an attack on anti-Mormon bias.

The Whited Sepulchre opinion on Romney is as follows: Romney has proven that someone with red(neck) state policies can get elected in a blue(blood) state. He has money to burn. He's an ok, if slightly robotic, speaker. He saved the Utah Olympics. He's made a lot of money. Like most Mormons, he works hard.

But Romney subscribes to a belief system based on the idea that Joseph Smith found some gold plates buried in upstate New York, carried them to his house, put a blanket across the room so nobody else could see the plates, put on a pair of magic Ray-Bans, and with help from these supernatural sunshades was able to translate "The Book of Mormon" to a neighbor. Because the neighbor, unlike Smith, had the ability to read AND write.

According to Mormons, your ranking and status level in eternity depends on whether or not you believe this.

What is disturbing about this to many of Romney's potential Red State constituents? Well, most of them subscribe to a belief system that claims God took a liking to various Nomadic Tribesmen, all of whom lived in a small corner of what we now know as the Middle East. Not just any regional farm-team god, but THE God chose these Tribesmen as His favorites. THE God didn't just give them some puny little gold plates, he gave his rules to them chipped in stone. God took a personal interest in all of their laws, battles, and dietary habits, and inspired these tribesmen to write a collection of stuff which was kept as an in-house proprietary document for years.

Then there were about 400 years of God-silence.

Until He inspired a lot of other writings, which, a few centuries later, got enough votes from various church committees to be known as "Bible". THE God didn't inspire anyone in East Asia, South Africa, Europe (outside of Greece and Italy), Australia, or North and South America. These huge areas of the world had their own little district deities, some of whom were confused with THE God, but they never produced anything but regional best-sellers. THE God only speaks to Middle Eastern Tribesmen. No revelations from upstate New York allowed.

Many Christians believe your body temperature in eternity hinges on whether you believe all this.

So Mitt Romney has an obvious conflict with many Red-State religious groups (which tend to be more devout than their Blue-State equivalents.) Many commentators are making comparisons to the situation faced by Kennedy because of his Catholicism. Granted, Kennedy was running as a Catholic in a predominantly Protestant nation, but most Protestants understood Catholicism. Protestantism is a Catholic splinter group. Protestants have simply rejected a few Catholic doctrines without adding too many others, except for a delightful acceptance of birth control.

A case can be made that Mormonism is a Protestant splinter group. But Joseph Smith added enough additional wood to create a new tree. And the tree is growing. Mitt Romney will be many voters' introduction to the works of Smith and his church.

Our next President will have to deal with the aftermath caused by some people from yet another belief system. They attacked us on 9/11, and if we're to believe what they say and write, they attacked because we don't subscribe to the writings in another book.

Yes, we're in an undeclared war with groups who believe in "The Koran" (A.K.A. Quran or Al-Qur'an).

"Muslims believe the Koran to be the book of divine guidance and direction for mankind and consider the text in its original Arabic to be the literal word of The God, revealed to Muhammad over a period of twenty-three years and they view the Qur'an as God's final revelation to humanity", to borrow Wikipedia's carefully crafted statement. I apologize for not downloading any pictures of the moment of Muhammad's moment of Divine Revelation, but to depict The Prophet in art or imagery is a capital offense in The Muslim Rigamarole, and I don't want to go the way of Theo Van Gogh or Salman Rushdie. To be martyred while killing infidels, according to Islamic Fundamentalists, is the fastest way to paradise.

The number of virgins you get to deflower in the next life depends on whether you believe this.

I could go further into parsing the differences between the Shia and Sunni Muslims who are having a high old time killing each other, and us, in Iraq. I'm sure the authority of God-inspired books is a contributing factor. But that would belabor an already exhausted point....

Mitt Romney is about to make a major statement deploring anti-religious bias, but bias against his book in particular.

A cynic would say that the time might be right for not less anti-religious bias, but more. Equally distributed.

"Beware The Man of One Book" - St. Thomas Aquinas

That is SO unfair to men

Here's a link to an article in Today's Startlegram....The article refers to a somewhat controversial concentration of classes at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. (Disclaimer: I went there for about a year in the mid-80's, and bailed out due to a Personal Theological Crisis and a strong influence from The White Elephant Saloon in the stockyards.)

Star-Telegram.com 09/30/2007 Guys, too, should know how to make house a home

The classes combine a "Biblical" study of homemaking with traditional Home Economics classes (nutrition, interior design, clothing design, etc.) The program has been widely ridiculed as a pre-feminist throwback to the 1950's.

Here's a quote from the article, in case you don't have time to open the link:

"My problem with Southwestern Baptist, however, is not the school's decision to elevate homemaking to a college degree. Anyone who has served as family CEO knows the varied proficiencies required. My beef is the lack of inclusion.
The seminary should open the program to men. The future fathers of America should also master the duties of a household. What better way to strengthen families?"
-Ana Veciana-Suarez

Ms. Veciana-Suarez has taken a long hard look at Southwestern Baptist Theological Semitary, AND SHE SEES A LACK OF INCLUSION IN THE WOMEN'S STUDIES PROGRAM? ? ? ?

Lord Jesus, come quickly.

Does Ms. Veciana-Suarez not know that The Throwbacks who now run SWBT Semitary won't allow women to preach? That they won't even allow women to teach men? (Disclaimer #2: Mrs. Whited Sepulchre is a Youth Minister. And a good one.)

I think Ms. Veciana-Suarez would visit Afghanistan and criticize the Taliban for not allowing men to wear Burkhas.

I grew up with no female ministers/preachers. The general attitude was much like Samuel Johnson's famous quip: "A woman preaching is like a dog walking on its hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all."

But I want to think I've grown a little since then. Despite what The Apostle I-Don't-Like-Women-And-I-Never-Got-Married Paul had to say.

Total unwavering loyalty to what you learned sitting in your Mother's lap has never moved the human race forward a single inch. (Disclaimer #3: The Mother of The Whited Sepulchre, who grew up Southern Baptist in the Deep South, has now asked a woman minister to preach her funeral. The Mother of T.W.S. is almost 70, and she's still growing and evolving. Lesser people give that up in their twenties.)

Just when I think I've gotten those people at that glorified Witch-Doctor Academy out of my head, just when I get to where I can ignore them, they do something to make me totally nuts.