NOBODY Expects the Spanish Inquisition!

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Monty Python's Flying Circus - the Spanish Inquisition Thread





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The Ministry of Silly Walks

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Monty Python's Flying Circus, featuring John Cleese





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A Valentine for Niles

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On Valentine's Day David Hyde Pierce notices an errant crease in his pants in this classic scene from “Frasier”.

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Republicanism Explained

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Written by ‘Jude’ – on www.First-Draft.com

In the last few months, as the scavengers have picked at the carcass of the Republican party, I've heard a lot of people talk about what "conservatism" means. Most recently, the New York Times saw fit to address the issue in this waste of virtual space.

Well, I can't definitively say what "conservatism" means. I possess no advanced degrees, am not a philosopher, and have almost no knowledge of political science.

However.

I can tell you what Republicanism means, and that, I think, is a more germane issue. As I'm sure you've noticed, we don't have a "Conservative" party on our ballots. No. We have a "Republican" one. So figuring out what they stand for seems to be a much more useful endeavor than attempting to define "conservatism."

Well, I've done a lot of observing and thinking, and it seems to me that the Republican party stands for two things.

1. Tax cuts are the cure for everything, including the common cold.

2. Fuck you.

And that's pretty much it. All of the shit that the Republicans do flows from those two points.

I know what you're thinking. "What about the religious right?" "What about the anti-science stand?" "What about the neocons?" "What about all of the other cherished bullshit of the GOP?"

They can all be explained by number two. The Republicans don't really care about God. They just like to use him to tell people "fuck you." Women want to control their own reproductive systems? Fuck you. People want to get married to whatever other adult they want? Fuck you. There's overwhelming evidence that life on earth is billions of years old? Fuck you.

The same applies to their foreign policy. What, you aren't happy with us starting a war with a country that never attacked us? Fuck you. Don't like our carbon emissions or bullshit missile defense? Fuck you. Pissed off that we abducted and tortured your citizens? Fuck you.

And on and on it goes. These people aren't interested in cutting spending or in limited government--they spend like drunken sailors (I would know) and want to regulate who, when, and where you can fuck. That's about as fiscally irresponsible and intrusive as government can get. They don't care about patriotism or families. And "drill, baby, drill" was just a "fuck you" that was acceptable to the FCC.

As for # 1, they keep parroting that insane fucking line no matter what. Got a surplus? Cut taxes. In a deficit? Cut taxes. Booming times? Cut taxes. Worst economy since the Great Depression? We need to--you guessed it--cut taxes. They never explain how it would work. It's an article of faith. I mean, when a group of imaginary creatures from a cardboard cut-out cartoon show has a better economic model than a major political party, things are really fucked up. Yet, somehow, they still get taken seriously. There are a lot of things I don't understand about the world. That fact is about forty of those things.

So it comes down to this: Republicanism is an ideology by and for bullies. But not the kind of bullies who have the guts to get in actual fights, even if the deck is stacked in their favor. No. They hire people to do their fighting for them. Even in their grand and glorious overseas crusades, the ones where they denounce everyone who opposes them as cowards and appeasers, these cocksuckers stay on the sidelines. How many prominent Republicans ran out and enlisted after 9/11? How about before the Iraq war? Which major Republican pundits were cops? Not a goddamn one. Why? All talk, no action.

They're the kind of bullies who love to pick on anyone at the lower end of the economic ladder. It's what weak, shitty people do. What, you want health care you can afford? Fuck you. Your kids need better schools? Fuck you. Workers want to be able to form unions to get better pay and benefits? Oh, fuck you.

That tax cut shit is bullying, too. Because they don't really care about cutting your taxes. No. They want to cut rich people's taxes. It's like they read the story of Robin Hood and thought he was robbing the wrong people. And, since somebody eventually has to pay the bill for all the costs the government incurs when it's out invading sovereign countries that have never threatened us, who do you think gets left with the tab? That's right. The people who can least afford it. Why? Because fuck you.

So I guess Republicanism has just one premise after all.

Posted by Jude on February 08, 2009 at 18:44 in Stupid Republican Tricks | Permalink

http://www.first-draft.com/2009/02/republicanism-explained.html

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Technology to the nth Power

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Have we seen any field of endeavor in our lifetimes that has advanced its cutting edge not progressively or in fits & starts, but exponentially? Yes – technology. The scope of the word broadens as technology permeates deeper into our daily lives. What was said 50 years ago to be impossible is, today, mundane. Exponentially advancing technology challenges one’s imagination. Please sit back and challenge your imagination for 5 minutes.

1,474 Megapixel Camera Photo

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Seriously folks, you've got to see this. Especially recommended for people watchers.

This picture linked below was taken with a Canon robotic camera which pulled together over 200 individual shots. This robotic camera is 1,474 megapixels, 295 times the resolution of a standard 5 megapixel camera.

Either move the zoom tool on the upper left or scroll with your mouse to zoom in or out. You can also put the cursor on a spot and double click and it will automatically zoom to that spot. Double click again and zoom closer. Each zoom may take up to a second to focus. To move the picture around, click, hold and with the mouse (hand) drag the picture.

http://gigapan.org/viewGigapanFullscreen.php?auth=033ef14483ee899496648c2b4b06233c

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Pope Lifts Excommunication of Holocaust-Denying Bishop

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There’s a sect of the Catholic Church known as the Society of Saint Pius X founded in the 1960’s for the purpose of rebelling against the modernizing reforms of the Church. Its hierarchy consecrated the men in unsanctioned ceremonies. As a result, Pope John Paul II excommunicated its membership of four in 1988. What may well have prompted the attention of John Paul II, was the society’s adherence to the theological beliefs of its namesake – rejection of a modern Church suited to the changing world and society.

One of the four current members of the Society of Pius X is Bishop Richard Williamson. Bishop Williamson denies that the Nazi regime used gas chambers to murder 6,000,000 Jews. This is not interpretation or innuendo. The good Bishop makes the following assertions:

"I believe that the historical evidence is strongly against -- is hugely against -- 6 million Jews having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler."

"I believe there were no gas chambers," he added.

He added: "I think that 200,000 to 300,000 Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps, but none of them by gas chambers."

Bishop Bernard Fellay, who heads the 4 bishop society, distanced himself from Williamson’s comments, claiming Williamson was responsible for his own opinions.

Ironically, the interviews with Bishop Williamson took place in Regensburg, Germany, where Pope Benedict XVI once taught. Prosecutors are looking into Williamson’s comments denying the holocaust for criminal prosecution. Holocaust denial is a crime in Germany.

In today’s Catholic Church there are 2 factions battling it out for control: progressives seeking to modernize the Church to keep it relevant in today’s society, and, traditionalists not in favor of moving the Church into the modern area.

OK folks, with that background here’s what Pope Benedict XVI did on Saturday, January 24, 2009. The Pope lifted Pope John Paul II’s excommunication of members of the Saint Pius X Society, welcoming its 4 members, one of whom is a potential criminal as a holocaust denier, back into the Church’s fold with open arms. This move, carried out on a weekend, nonetheless did not escape CNN’s world news net:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/01/26/pope.holocaust.denial/index.html

The reaction within the Vatican hierarchy itself questioned the wisdom of repairing a rift with 4 Bishops dedicated to reversing the Church’s move toward the future at the expense of creating an even greater rift with those “more liberal groups that have fully embraced the changes and reforms.”

Rabbi David Rosen of the American Jewish Committee called the move by the Roman Catholic Church "shameful." By "welcoming an open holocaust denier into the Catholic Church without any recantation on his part, the Vatican has made a mockery of John Paul II's moving and impressive repudiation and condemnation of anti-Semitism," he said.

Pope John Paul II called anti-Semitism in the Catholic Church "a sin against God and man". Pope Benedict ignored his predecessor’s long overdue condemnation of millennia-old anti-Semitism in the Church, choosing to accept anti-Semitic, history-denying, potential criminal, Holocaust-denying Bishop Williamson back to the Catholic Church by lifting excommunication of a regressive Society and its four members.

Was it not possible to lift excommunication individually to the three other members of this Society rather than the Society as a whole? Wouldn’t that have helped mend fences with the conservatives without trashing John Paul II’s condemnation of anti-Semitism as a sin against God and man? Wouldn’t that have accomplished the Pope’s purpose without welcoming back to the fold one whose beliefs fly in the face of accepted Church doctrine, not to mention reality?

Is Pope Sebastian XVI carrying on the enlightened ecumenical style of John Paul II’s papacy? Said Vatican analyst Marco Politi to The Times of London, “the new era has begun with a lie. The pope has made an openly declared and unshakeable anti-Semite a legitimate bishop."

The pope has twice visited synagogues, in the U.S. and his home country Germany, but recently stated, according to The Times of London, that dialogue between Christians, Jews and Muslims "in the strict sense of the word" was "not possible."

Pope Benedict XVI who, in his formative years as an adolescent was compelled to join the Hitler Youth and then the Wehrmacht, has stricken a blow for ecumenical discord and anti-Semitism along his road to a more conservative and regressive Catholic Church.

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