Friday, October 30, 2009

Good Quote from David Brancaccio on the Rachel Maddow Show

On Americans:

"One thing they're not good at is thinking about the future."

If You Thought the Fundies Were Crazy Before...

Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network has sent parents an urgent warning on their children's Halloween candy. As Americans United for the Separation of Church and State reports, CBN columnist Kimberly Daniels has written an online column claiming that Halloween candy may have been contaminated with demons by witches.

My Gut Reaction: As my father puts it, the Taliban has nothing on Pat Robertson, except for the gnarly beards.

Analysis: Pat Robertson has gone on for a while about Halloween, which he sees as having Satanic associations, and even calls a "festival of the devil." (Hmmm...I wonder what he thinks of the so-called hell houses where evangelicals depict the horrors of ungodliness and hell to try to convert people.)

Daniels's column, however, seems to go to far, even for CBN. When I went to their website in order to link to it, I found the article itself had mysteriously vanished. Perhaps it proved too embarrassing even for these fanatics.

Then again, Daniels may be on to something. As one of my friends who has children pointed out, there are at least two demons in every piece of chocolate Halloween candy: corn syrup and caffeine.

Going Broke

Browsing through Amazon.com yesterday, I happened to notice an advertisement for Sarah Palin's new book, Going Rogue. The price has already been cut by twenty dollars.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Randall Terry: God's Gift to the Pro-Choice Movement

Randall Terry, Operation Rescue founder and patron saint of the anti-abortion movement, has done yet another service for us pro-choicers. He is calling for the burning in effigy of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid because he seems to think health care reform is a conspiracy to kill all the babies in America.

The blogger and commenters at the blog linked above are all trying to dissociate themselves and the anti-abortion movement from Terry's actions, but I think he is the movement's perfect mascot. Fanatical, misogynistic, a hypocrite (he promotes family values but is not on speaking terms with many of his children)-he basically sums up all the winning qualities of the anti-abortion movement.