Bill Donohue is grumpy. It must be Tuesday.

Child Rapist Apologist Bill Donohue is offended again. And this time his psychotic rant was published as a guest column in the Washington Post. Apparently, they gave up their journalistic integrity. In the article, he complains about all the evil liberals and their evil agenda to eliminate Donohue’s all-powerful God who is apparently powerless to stop mere mortals. Donohue sees villany everywhere, especially Hollywood, even though he himself brings up the undeniable success of The Passion of the Christ. But in perhaps the funniest line in his little diatribe, Donohue attempts to discount this film as a clear exception to his argument:

Were it not for Mel Gibson, there would have been no “Passion of the Christ.”

Well DUH! He co-wrote, co-produced, and financed the bloody thing! But what Donohue and other wacko conspiracists don’t understand is that while Hollywood definitely is filled with lots of creative types, a class of folk that tend to be more liberal, Hollywood’s only real agenda is making money. That’s it. Do you think the people being the new film 2012 give a shit about how their promotion of this doomsday superstition affects their audience? No. All they care about is that it’s another disaster film by the dude who brought them the incredibly profitable Independence Day. They didn’t pay the project much interest originally because there was every reason in the world to think that an entirely subtitled film that was nothing but blood & guts the whole way through would not be financially successful. But even liberal Hollywood was happy to eventually embrace Mel’s little torture porn flick once it proved profitable. And I’m sure numerous similar film ideas have been floating around in Hollywood ever since. I personally would like to see The Passion of Adam, a five-hour film in real-time showing the agony of the first man after having his rib literally ripped out of his chest without any anesthetic at all.

But I think Donohue’s real agenda in writing this piece is contained in one paragraph where he proposes all the religions join forces against their common liberal enemies:

The only way secular saboteurs can be stopped is by an alliance of religious conservatives across faith lines. The good news is that this is already happening. In the fight over gay marriage, the scorecard is 30-0: traditional Catholics, evangelical Protestants, Orthodox Jews, Orthodox Christians, Muslims, and Mormons, along with a big contribution from the Latino and African American communities, have succeeded in throwing a roadblock at this crazy idea.

Yeah, good luck with that one. In fact, Bill, I’ll even pay for the plane ticket so you can travel to the Middle East to meet with Al Qaeda personally to discuss this “holy alliance” of yours. I hear they’re quite rasonable and accomodating people, those Muslim conservatives.

Oh, but the absolute best part of Donohue’s article is the very last paragraph:

The culture war is up for grabs. The good news is that religious conservatives continue to breed like rabbits, while secular saboteurs have shut down: they’re too busy walking their dogs, going to bathhouses and aborting their kids. Time, it seems, is on the side of the angels.

Am I wrong in thinking that Donohue is telling the religious to continue fucking their brains out and applauding secular abortion? Also, bathhouses? What?! But since in reality, church membership in the U.S. is way down, churches are closing like crazy, Christian organizations of laying off hundreds of employees, many evangelicals are moarning their dying movement, and every study has shown a rise in the number of people not affiliated with any religion, I’m glad Bill’s happy with his women-as-breeding-tools, fuck-your-way-to-salvation approach. Good luck with that one, buddy!

PZ Myers also does a good job of responding this this big bowl of crazy here.

Oh, but speaking of Donohue, he’s also pissed off at The Simpsons over a line in their latest “Treehouse of Horrors XX” episode. In one of the segments titled, “Don’t Have a Cow, Mankind,” Bart becomes the “Chosen One” who’s immuned to zombie infection. When they get him to the Safe Zone where they can use him to create an antidote, the following exchange takes place:

Guard: “Welcome, son. To survive, all we must do is eat your flesh.”

Marge: “Hold it right there, Bub! What kind of civilized people eat the body and blood of their savior?”

Rev. Lovejoy: [Groans nervously]

And Donohue’s over-the-top response?

What kind of uncivilized people work at Fox? Last year, when they poked some gentle fun at the Apostle’s Creed on the Halloween episode, we said nothing. That’s because it didn’t cross the line. This year is different: mocking the heart of any religion always crosses the line, and mocking the Eucharist does it for Catholics. They know this at Fox, which is precisely why they did it.

Oh, they didn’t complain that one time, so that entitles them to complain about every other trivial offense against their stupid beliefs. And how much would you want to make a bet that the only reason they didn’t complain that last time was because they didn’t find out about it until it was no longer timely? This is the same guy who called the chocolate Jesus sculpture two Easters ago the worst offense to his religion ever and organized a boycott against ABC because they put on a drama series focusing on the staff of an inner-city church that included an agnostic pastor as well as an atheist. And now he’s going balistic over a two-second joke in The Simpsons, which is actually fairly standard by Simpsons standards. Apparently, Donohue never heard Rev. Lovejoy tell Ned Flanders to consider some of the other religions because they’re all basically the same or the time Rev. Lovejoy asked Marge if she ever actually sat down to read the Bible and then said, “Technically, we’re not allowed to use the bathroom.” The Simpsons mocks religion on a regular basis. You don’t like it, Billy? Don’t watch. If you haven’t figured out that The Simpsons is critical of religion often by now then I’m guessing you never watched it to begin with anyway.

And even though I’m long past the point where I’ve stopped watching new episodes of the show, let me use this opportunity to promote it. Here’s the episode in question that apparently made baby Jesus cry.

The short begins at the 7:50 mark and the excerpt in question begins at the 14:08 mark.

This Week In God 10.20.09

1. Jesus returns. . .to Ikea – It’s unclear at this time whether Jesus has come for the Swedish meatballs; the elegantly designed furnature at low, low prices; or he just wanted to return the furnature he bought from them before because he couldn’t assemble it himself. But one thing is certain. Jesus is at Ikea.

2. Jesus is also black and in an electric chair, as well as a crucified gorilla – Artist Paul Fryer has just introduced his latest work, which is guaranteed to piss off Child Rapist Apologist Bill Donohue any time now.

3. R. Crumb’s The Book of Genesis, Illustrated is finally here – Greta Christina gives a review of the controversial comics artist’s complete, unedited translation of Genesis into graphic novel form, a project that took five years to produce.

Controversial atheist subway ads come to NYC

Today, if you live in the NYC area, you almost couldn’t escape the news about the oh, so controversial atheist ads that will be popping up in NYC subway stations starting next week. The NY Times wrote about it. The local Fox website wrote about it. The Gothamist wrote about it. On TV, the local ABC news briefly talked about it at six o’clock and eleven o’clock. My friend Michael De Dora, who heads up the Manhattan branch of the Center For Inquiry, is being quoted left and right about the super-duper controversial NYC atheist subway ads.

So what does a controversial advertisement have to say in order to get some serious media attention?

“A Million New Yorkers Are Good Without God. Are You?”

The horror. The horror. Okay, those militant atheists have gone too far now. Next they’re going to be telling us that you can be black and a good person all at the same time. When will it end?!

Seriously though, all this press its getting is great. The ads are promoting the website BigAppleCoR.org, which lists numerous local groups affiliated with the Coalition of Reason, the umbrella organization that coordinated the campaign. And even though the ads won’t even be up until next Monday, I wouldn’t be surprised if the BigAppleCoR.org site has been seeing a massive rise in traffic. The Friendly Atheist also blogged about this story.

Like the last NYC bus campaign from a few months  ago, the $25,000 that paid for this ad was paid for by an anonymous donor. So I wonder if once again, the anonymous donor will enrage Keith Olbermann like it did last time because apparently, few things piss off Keith Olbermann more than selfless generosity. How dare someone give money to a cause they believe in and not reveal their identity? What kind of sick monster would do such a thing?!

News From Around The Blogosphere 10.18.09

1. Child witch-killings continue in Africa -

Nwanaokwo Edet was one of an increasing number of children in Africa accused of witchcraft by pastors and then tortured or killed, often by family members. Pastors were involved in half of 200 cases of “witch children” reviewed by the AP, and 13 churches were named in the case files.

2. New online game for radical right-wingnuts – The game takes place in 2011 after “Obama’s coup fails.” The game invokes the “New World Order” conspiracy and rewrites history, establishing Lou Dobbs as the “one brave newscaster” who first sounded the alarm bells of the evil Obama/NWO conspiracy and defining the Obama administration as engaging in “Marxist experiments.” Really, guys?  On the plus side though, in this hypothetical future history, all the really annoying right-wingnut propagandists like Glenn Beck, Neil Boortz, Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, Bill O’Reilly, and Sean Hannity have all either been killed or have disappeared. So the future is looking brighter. . .

. . .or is it?!

3. Remember that website I blogged about last month that predicted the end of the world would happen on September 21, 2009 and then immediately afterwards changed the end of the world to September 23, 2009. . .or September 23, 2015?

Well this time they’re totally serious! It turns out I guess that they didn’t carry the one or something because now the world’s going to end on October 21, 2009. And you know this time they’ve got it right because they’ve got such a great track record for predicting these apocalypes.

Like before, I recommend screen capturing this page again, so that you can compare it to what it says on October 22, 2009.

4. My less skeptical cousin chupacabra found and is on display at Creation “Museum” -

5. Dad performs son’s circumcision. . .and botches it - Man, and you thought your father embarrassed you? He probably should have known better since he’d already botched his own circumcision.

Bill Maher digs himself even deeper & the ‘I’m just a humble investigator asking questions’ gambit

As controversy has grown over Bill Maher’s idiotic statements about vaccination, Maher decided he needed to address the criticism on his most recent show. Unfortunately, he just made it worse:

This is a classic example of what I call the “I’m just a humble investigator asking questions” gambit that is pretty much universally used by all conspiracy theorists, denialists, and cranks when backed into a corner. They come off incredibly strong at first insisting how much they “know” they’re right and everyone who disagrees with them are complete fools. Only two weeks ago, Maher tweeted that anyone who gets the H1N1 vaccine is “an idiot.” His words. Then once you have them on the ropes, they retreat to a weaker position that sounds more rational, like “I’m just asking questions” or “I’m just calling for more debate.”  Sure, you are.

Here are some examples of others who use this tactic. Scientologists, who run a “museum” named Psychiatry: Industry of Death and who blame psychiatry for every major atrocity in pretty much all of human history will, when grilled by media personalities, often retreat to the safer position that they don’t oppose everything about psychiatry. They’ll even go as far as to sometimes publicly admit some pharmaceuticals may have genuine benefits to mental health. But what was the name of that museum again?

And 9/11 deniers often will insist all they want is for another investigation. But is there really any doubt that if such an investigation happened and still concluded that 9/11 was not an inside job that they wouldn’t just declare  that that investigation was a sham too?

Then there’s moon landing denier Joe Rogan, who passionately ranted about how certain he was that all the evidence we went to the moon was obviously faked by NASA on Penn Jillette’s radio show. After having each of his arguments flattened by Phil Plait, he retreated to the, I’m not saying it didn’t happen but I’m just an ordinary, rational guy who’s just asking questions position. Of course, within minutes, like every other denialist, he was back to taking the strong position again. Some of that show can be heard on The Conspiracy Skeptic’s podcast episode 5, The Moon Landing Hoax here (24 minutes into the podcast you can hear the back-peddling from Humble Joe).

In the mockumentary Expelled, Ben Stein plays the humble investigator just asking questions too. In fact, the whole narrative of the film is that this is all supposed to be just Ben Stein’s investigation into evolution. Of course, the reality is that Ben Stein seems to have had little involvement in the film until he was brought in later to play the film’s star. Several scientists were interviewed by the film’s producers months before having to reshoot some of the interviews with Stein there asking the questions. What’s really interesting though is the rollercoaster ride of positions taken throughout the film. Half the time Stein is just asking questions and hearing from creationists who claim they’re only interested in “teaching the controversy” or in “academic freedom,” to which Stein’s voiceover responds as if either he’s retarded or he thinks his audience is retarded with things like, if all they want is to ask questions, what are the Darwinists so afraid of? While the other half of the film is Stein blaming evolution for the Holocaust by way of more retarded rhetorical questions.

And on the rare occasion that someone in the media gives a platform to Holocaust denier David Irving, he’s suddenly the model of rationality. All he says he wants is to get to the truth and determine a more accurate figure for the numbers of Jews killed in the Holocaust. He’ll also pretend to find Hitler appalling despite the fact that he celebrated Hitler’s birthday on his website. Classy guy.

It’s all about playing the rationality card to the media so that the audience doesn’t find out that you’re batshit insane. Case in point:  Jenny McCarthy and her boyfriend Jim Carrey. At their “Green Our Vaccines” rally, when referring to the CDC, Jim Carrey shouted, “Do they think we’re stupid?” McCarthy clearly shared this position. The implication was undeniable. They were declaring that the CDC was deliberately involved in a coverup. Of course none of this wacko conspiracy talk that was so prevalent when surrounded by their flock made it into McCarthy’s answers when she was interviewed Time Magazine. In fact, the total number of times the CDC was mentioned in that interview was zero. No, instead she focused on repeatedly saying how not anti-vaccine she was while seriously suggesting she only thinks we should be taking two, none of which were against measles, mumps, rubella, pertussis, cervical cancer, polio, or seasonal flu. Of course, McCarthy proved even a failure at marketing herself around a saner, more rational position when she admitted that her plan might lead to millions of deaths and that she preferred it anyway:

I do believe sadly it’s going to take some diseases coming back to realize that we need to change and develop vaccines that are safe. If the vaccine companies are not listening to us, it’s their f___ing fault that the diseases are coming back. They’re making a product that’s s___. If you give us a safe vaccine, we’ll use it. It shouldn’t be polio versus autism. (Read “New Clues to Autism’s Cause.”)

. . .

People have the misconception that we want to eliminate vaccines. Please understand that we are not an antivaccine group. We are demanding safe vaccines. We want to reduce the schedule and reduce the toxins. If you ask a parent of an autistic child if they want the measles or the autism, we will stand in line for the f___ing measles.

Measles kills. Polio kills. Autism doesn’t. Hmm, tough decision. Fortunately though, we never have to choose between them because science has overwhelmingly shown no connection between vaccines and autism.

The bottom line is that contrary to popular belief, people touting crazy ideas aren’t always completely unaware of how crazy they sound. When people think of crazy people, they think tin foil hats or straight jackets. But in the modern age of marketing, crazy people have learned to hide their crazier ideas.  One doesn’t have to be stupid to be suckered into a cult. Do you really think anyone would be a $cientologist if they came out with the Xenu stuff on day one? Of course not. That’s why they start with a simple free stress test to get you to come into their center where they can sell you phase two, which will lead to phase three, and so on. Or they get you with their phony narcotics recovery clinic or with their bogus educational tools, etc.  People promoting major bullshit claims will recognize when they’re not getting any traction and switch to a tactic that seems more rational until they think they can get away with the full-on crazy stuff again.

Bill, you’re not helping your case, buddy. Here, maybe you should pay attention to Michael Shermer and EVERYONE ELSE instead of just your own maverickiness. I know. I know. Some of your best friends are vaccines and you’re not really anti-vaccine; you just think their the greatest WMD’s in history. We know. We know.

Who would oppose an anti-rape amendement?

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Religious conservative on trial for murdering sister and spouse because they didn’t invite him over for Christmas

Edward Wycoff, a conservative Christian, is on trial because in 2006, he planned and carried out the murders of his sister and her husband because, according to a prosecutor, they were too liberal, were raising their children wrong, and because they hadn’t invited him over for Christmas.

How much did he plan the murders in advance? He got Lasik surgery as well as night-vision goggles so he could find his way around the house.

He also purposefully picked the date for the killings – Jan. 31, 2006 – Peterson said in Contra Costa County Superior Court in Martinez. That was 20 years to the day after Wycoff’s grandmother, whom he hated, left his home after breaking her hip, the prosecutor said.

Wycoff regarded his grandmother as “evil” and thought his life improved considerably after she left, Peterson said. Because he believed the couple had also been making his life miserable, he chose that date to break into their home on Rifle Range Road overlooking Wildcat Canyon Regional Park, stab them repeatedly with a knife and bludgeon them with a wheelbarrow handle, Peterson said in his opening statement in Wycoff’s murder trial.

Although Wycoff was also armed with a gun, he didn’t use it because he didn’t want to boost the cause of gun-control supporters, the prosecutor said.

He didn’t want to boost the cause of gun-control supporters, so he murdered his victims on Rifle Range Road. Makes sense.

Wycoff also admitted to the jury that he still hates the couple “a little.” But the absolute best statement he made is this:

“They owe me a life,” he said. “This has ruined my life, and Julie and Paul owe me for that.”

Yeah, who do those murder victims think they are? How dare they ruin his life like that?! It wasn’t just Christmas but they didn’t invite this murderous lunatic over for Thanksgiving either! I hate stuck up people like that who won’t invite you over just because you hate them and plot to murder them! Inconsiderate bastards!

“When someone does that, they hate you – they’re out to destroy you,” Wycoff said.

Yeah, I’m with you, buddy. Clearly it was they who were out to destroy you.

In an interview from jail after the slayings, Wycoff, who is 6 foot 5 and weighs 300 pounds, said he had tried to disguise himself during the killings by wearing a motorcycle helmet and attaching a ponytail with his late mother’s hair.

In a poem, Wycoff wrote, “My sister, I gutted her like a fish,” Peterson said.

“And in fact, he did,” the prosecutor added, “and he’s proud of it.”

. . .

At the close of his remarks, Wycoff told the “few fans” in the gallery to contact his advisory attorney, David Briggs, if they wanted autographs.

Clearly, the guy is insane so his politics & religious views can’t be completely blamed for these killings. But as always, I wonder if he would have gotten this far if people could better distinguish a homocidal maniac from a more typical religious conservative.

What book are Christians burning now?

The Amazing Grace Baptist Church in North Carolina has decided to organize an annual book burning around Halloween. So yes, they are celebrating Halloween, only in their own fascist, Nazi-like way. Among the many books they intend to burn is the Bible. I’m not joking:

Yes, apparently “God” didn’t write the Bible; he just cribbed off of thousands of older versions and decided to copy it all into his native language, English.

News From Around The Blogosphere 10.14.09

1. Actimel yogurt commercial banned – The Advertising Standards Authority in the UK banned the commercial for false advertising. They claimed the product supported children’s natural defenses against disease. . .which it doesn’t!

2. Monkeys recognize realistic vs. unrealistic depictions of themselves -

Monkeys are freaked out by almost-but-not-quite-real depictions of themselves. That tendency is well documented in humans, but has never before been seen in another species.

To test their preference, researchers showed macaque monkeys real pictures, digital caricatures and realistic reconstructions of other monkey faces. To the latter, the macaques repeatedly averted their eyes.

3. Chimpanzees Help On Request But Not Voluntarily -

The evolution of altruism has long puzzled researchers and has mainly been explained previously from ultimate perspectives—”I will help you now because I expect there to be some long-term benefit to me”. However, a new study by researchers at the Primate Research Institute (PRI) and the Wildlife Research Center (WRC) of Kyoto University shows that chimpanzees altruistically help conspecifics, even in the absence of direct personal gain or immediate reciprocation, although the chimpanzees were much more likely to help each other upon request than voluntarily.

4. Simon Singh updates us on his legal battle with the British Chiropractic Association:

Ralph Lauren digs themselves even deeper

Filippa Hamilton's face

The other day, I wrote about the recent controversy over a horribly bad Photoshop job in a Ralph Lauren ad that made the model look impossibly skinny. Two websites reposted the image while dishing out harsh criticism over Ralph Lauren’s poor decision. This led to Ralph Lauren threatening to sue them for reprinting the image. But one site, Boing Boing, refused to be intimidated as they knew they had every right to repost the image in an article that criticizes it. And of course, this all only heightened the controversy and the outrage against Ralph Lauren, which led to an official company apology:

“For over 42 years we have built a brand based on quality and integrity. After further investigation, we have learned that we are responsible for the poor imaging and retouching that resulted in a very distorted image of a woman’s body. We have addressed the problem and going forward will take every precaution to ensure that the caliber of our artwork represents our brand appropriately.”

How did they “address the problem?” They fired the model whose Photoshop image was the source of the controversy.  The 23-year-old Filippa Hamilton who’d worked for the company for 8 years is in reality 5’10″ and weighs 120 pounds with a body that bears no resemblance to the pencil-thin photoshopped image of her in the advertisement.

Though Hamilton has modeled for Ralph Lauren since she was 15, the company let her go “as a result of her inability to meet the obligations under her contract with us.” But the story gets worse: Hamilton says she was let go because she’d become too fat to model for them. “They fired me because they said I was overweight and I couldn’t fit in their clothes anymore,” she explained. “I was shocked to see that super skinny girl with my face…It’s very sad, I think, that Ralph Lauren could do something like that.”

Though a very reasonable 120 pounds, Hamilton claims dissatisfaction over her body led to her being fired six months ago. Thought that obviously didn’t stop Lauren from continuing to use her face attached to a body that is not her own:

However, the company continued to use her image, whittling down her arms, waist, thighs, and possibly several other body parts in the above ad. If they were so unhappy with how she looked, why not get another model for the campaign? Why use the photos and alter and distort them?

Today, Ralph Lauren himself is distancing himself from the ad, claiming, “The image in question was mistakenly released and used in a department store in Japan and was not the approved image which ran in the U.S.” So we’re confused. They say the photoshopping was an error, that Hamilton is “beautiful and healthy,” yet they allegedly fired her for her size? With all these apologies and statements it sounds like the brand still has yet to accept responsibility for their actions.

. . .

“I think they [Ralph Lauren] owe American women an apology, a big apology,” says Hamilton. “I’m very proud of what I look like, and I think a role model should look healthy.”

The real Filippa Hamilton

The real Filippa Hamilton

The real Filippa Hamilton