The Blatant Bigotry At CPAC: The Anger, The Arrogance And A Distinct Lack Of Reasoning

It's over a week since this event happened. It went viral almost immediately. Millions have already seen it. Why am I writing about it? Simply to state this:

THERE  ARE  MORE  WHERE  RYAN SORBA  CAME  FROM

A young Right-wingnut disguised as a budding conservative ala William F. Buckley (who would NOT have approved) aroused anger, shame, boos, disgust and yes, a small amount of applause. No one had expected his arrogant tirade. He was very proud of it. With the first sentence, he proved that Republicans still have not mastered the art of vetting. The event is best told in short points:

• Alexander McCobin of Students for Liberty thanks CPAC for including GOProud as a sponsor...
• McCobin is booed by several members of the audience...
• Including (admittedly): Ryan Sorba, representing ...
• California Young Americans For Freedom ...
• Sorba is introduced next as the young man who appeared on Glenn Beck's show for the wrong reasons and ...
• Was supposed to tell his story...
• The first words out of his mouth...
• "I'd like to condemn CPAC for accepting GOProud"...
• It was met with a chorus of boos...
• To which he said "I love it!"

Forget the booing. It's PC. Yes, for once, booing was politically correct. A bunch of CPAC arch-conservatives would have cheered, but people were recording his sage words, so how should they have reacted? They also heard the boos for McCobin and didn't want to go down that path by cheering Sorba.

And the saga doesn't end with Sorba's words at the podium.

He gave TWO interviews.

One ended in an ugly manner and should be quoted verbatim by gay reporter Alex Knepper of Race 4 2012.

He [Sorba] said at around this point that he needed to go, and put out his hand to say goodbye. I stared at him, refusing to shake his hand, and he said “Well, I don’t really want to shake your hand, you’re intrinsically evil.”

When we reached the area near the escalator downstairs, he turned on his camera. I put out my arms, striking a mocking pose, but realized he kept holding the camera at me.

“Wait, are you recording or taking a picture?” He was recording.

“Ah! OK…Well, I’d like to say, then, that the person behind the camera is a Hitler Youth waiting for a fuhrer to sweep him off his feet into a grand national project so he can sacrifice individuals like stock-fodder to his own biases.”

He turned off the camera and approached me. I told him he should get his girlfriend to give him a blowjob so that he could experience the joys of sodomy. He put two of his fingers an inch from my face and said that he’d want to fight me if a girl wasn’t around. “Ah, the use of force!” I said again.

The full exchange can be read HERE. This was not the first time Sorba's speech caused a stir. Recall that he cited protesting lesbians at Smith College. He was referring to a three-year-old incident at Smith where he was supposed to speak on the "Born Again Hoax". The theme for his speech was supposedly culled from his "forthcoming" book of the same title. Protesters stormed the hall in which he was speaking and he was ushered out ("for his own safety"). He's been living on that story ever since, it seems.  

The irony here lies in the possibility that the "hoax" may be Sorba himself. The only available copy of his "book" is HERE. It is not listed in Amazon.com (which many times even lists out-of-print books). It was copywrighted in 2007. The first chapter and the last three chapters are labeled "tbc" presumably because they are not under copywright yet, but they are important chapters and are missing. But the biggest problems with this 95-page pamphlet/book: no bibliography and no index. Sorba thinks that his brain and his brain alone should be taken as the temple of truth. This man who prides himself on spewing pure Aristotilian rhetoric is himself unreasonable, expecting everyone to take him and his arrogance at face value simply because HE says he's using reason. He makes statements, then immediately storms off because he is cowardly. Bravado, it seems, is not his forte.
 

The second interview he gave that day is below. Again, his bravado does not extend to allowing himself to be photographed for some inexplicable reason. You are allowed to laugh at his statement "I don't hate anybody."  

Remember this message: Ryan Sorba is not alone. He may seem like a one-man hate group masquerading as an intelligent neo-conservative, but he has supporters out there - somewhere.

End of an Era: The San Francisco Faerie Portal Closes

Not A Human Interest Story,
But A Wonderful Story Nonetheless

AN ENCHANTING LOOK BACK

For years, the Faeries of San Francisco have had a portal to their world and to ours. And being the San Francisco portal, it was, of course, considered the Grand Central Station for faeries.

The other day, however, the portal was discovered in a terrible state: it had obviously been dismantled (with the exception of the actual doorway itself) and a note was tacked on to it. It read, in effect, that Oberon, King of the Faeries had closed the portal, distributed its plants and flowers (as well as the sparkly gemstones the faeries used to play with) and declared it inoperable. Why the King did this is not important since the faeries knew him to be a very strict but just King and they never questioned his purposes. They knew that he would somehow provide an alternate portal.

But it was nonetheless a loss. Such gay times they had there! You see, to the faeries, our world is exciting, in a rough and rugged sort of way. Even a sleek apartment in the sky is filled with adventure and exploration. The portal was therefore seen as a place to ...party! It was the last party for some and the first party for others.

It transcended anything we could imagine. For instance, it had a toll taker who took away their gemstones because humans valued them so much and would start poaching faerie communities if they ever found so much as a tiny ruby. But faeries being very sloppy (as faeries are wont to be), they littered the portal and the toll taker had to eventually pick up all of them.

Party Time! The light is white,
so they're... ah ... you know!

When they came through the portal into our world, they became progressively bigger in size and could actually be seen by some humans! And when they went back, they shrunk back to King Oberon's ordered size which was smaller than the head of a pin.

In the evening, they gave off rainbows of light and when they made love, they produced the purest and brightest of white lights. That's the reason white lights lit up the portal on moonless nights, faeries being exhibitionists and all.

They would also be met by Fiona, Faerie of the West Wind who, on her magic flute produced music so entracing that faeries felt very welcomed (or very missed). The problem with Fiona's music was that it was never sufficient warning for faeries wandering up the path to the Dark Forest. Faeries going in ... but not coming out.

So it's the end of an era for San Francisco. The King is allowing the doorway to be overgrown with wildflowers and weeds. It may not be discovered for a very long time. But as the faerie legend goes, anyone who discovers the doorway is destined to plant the bright flowers and plants to entice the faeries back.

It's The Last Night
and Fiona Bids You Farewell

Which Politician Will Target Buy?

OK. This is a personal matter. I happen to shop at Target quite a lot. For the most part, they've got good merchandise at reasonable prices.

It's Target Online that I'm writing about. It's about getting shafted by a loophole that Target Online has taken advantage of numerous times. It's about receiving an enormous package so decrepit with an item you know is so damaged beyond your belief that you're afraid to open the package. It's about loosening regulations on quality control. It's about who will Target Online contribute campaign money to ease the regulations even more?

I know that this line of reasoning is stretching well beyond the six degrees of separation, but it's all possible. When corporations start throwing unlimited amounts of money at politicians, this situation may happen a million times to consumers all over the country.

I'm in the process of moving. It's stressful. Everyone knows what it's like to pack away things you know you'll be unpacking in a matter of days. We all wish we had magic powers to zap our belongings to the new place in an instant. Where is Samantha Stevens/Elizabeth Montgomery when you need her? (I wouldn't even mind a visit from Endora/Agnes Moorehead). I've paid particular attention to any new items that would be needed in the new place. I placed an online order with Target Online for a new writing desk. Below is what I received:

Now look at the packaging inside:


Notice Target.com's information stamped on the carton.
Finally, the condition of the "writing table":


Oh forget it, Vojir! Just return the table and quit whining over it. It's a cheap table.

But wait, there's more! Target fully expects me to box this thing up, pay for shipping, after which I will be reimbursed: sometime after the next full moon, I think. I checked with UPS: $200 to package and ship (ground) to Minneapolis. I told Target "NO WAY!" They said "NO WAY" will they take the thing back without it being boxed, then picked up (arrangements which I have to make) then reimbursed upon receipt. Period.

Will they add on the cost of my time, labor and interest accrued for the time they decide I will be reimbursed? Don't bet on it. I checked the site page for my writing table. There was one great review. However, upon further reading, I found out that THE EXACT SAME COMPLAINTS as mine were posted by about twenty customers for the same brand/line of furniture! Target has definitely been shipping this kind of stuff out for quite a while, hoping that the consumer would just go away exasperated.

Bear with me, I'm almost there making my point. There is something that retail operations must have: quality control. But what if there were no quality control? What if companies like Target could send out items like the one above with impunity? Yes, it's a sketchy "what if" but if corporations have no conscience...

BTW: Target is based in Minneapolis - home turf to Michele Bachmann. If they throw in some slivers of the True Cross with the campaign funds, they just might be able to get rid of their whole "quality control" staff which, BTW, seems to reside in India.

Now Coming To YOUR Church: Evangelism and Gay Porn

Pastor Martin Ssempe's new tactic to see all gays killed reached a new low when he showed gay pornographic slides in a Kampala church. He hoped to get more support for the "kill the gays" bill.

Pam's House Blend

The screening was attended by around 300 supporters crammed into an evangelical church in the Ugandan capital after plans for a 'million-man march' were thwarted by police. 'We had planned to have a million-man and -woman march in Kampala but unfortunately we were told that we could not march because of security concerns," Martin Ssempa told the crowd. 'The major argument homosexuals have is that what people do in the privacy of their bedrooms is nobody's business but do you know what they do in their bedrooms?,' the pastor asked. Ssempa then displayed a slide show of gay pornographic pictures. 'This one is eating another man's penis,' the pastor said, before going into even more graphic descriptions. 'Is this what Obama wants to bring to Africa?'

No, I don't think it is. He wants to bring something that Ssempa hasn't seen for years: civilization. I know that's harsh and some might say see the statement as racist, but just think how our own Christian Right is trying to drag us all (kicking and screaming) back to the Middle Ages. Christofascists see Africa as new meat: "there's redemption in them thar hills and we's gonna get us a whole passel of brand spankin' new converts. Yessiree!"

And people like Rick Warren are exporting homophobia as fast as possible. Of course, Warren has denounced the "kill the gays" bill, but only after a lot of pressure. And other high-ranking evangelicals are beginning to look like "Hitler's Pope," Pope Pius XII, who gave only a small, vague remonstration to Hitler and the Holocaust. For the Pope, it was a trade-off or rather, being on the side of the lesser of two evils: back Hitler, but not Stalin. And in the case of Uganda, gays, like Jews, are expendable. If killing gays en masse begets just one conversion, then so be it. It's like Rick Warren's motto: "Whatever it takes."

And yesterday's headlines concerning mass hysteria in Kenya will please a great many of the Christofascists.

365gay.com

The wave of anti-gay sentiment in Kenya continues to grow. The mob violence on Feb. 12 over the alleged wedding of two gay men has led to house-to-house searches for gays, attacks on gays in the street and the sacking of an AIDS clinic.

So now Martin's Seempa's homophobia (and by extension, Rick Warren's) has spread.

One of the questions I have for Pastor Ssempe: what video were your slides from? Was it "To The Last Man" by Raging Stallion? Was it the wonderful take-off on Tim LaHaye's novels called "Kiss My Left Behind?" Was it "Folsom Undercover?" Was it "The Bigger The Better?" The guys in those films didn't look gay at all. Or did you show something like "Castro Twinks Get It On." That one would have you marching in San Francisco like the angry villagers in Frankenstein. Wouldn't that be fun?

OK, so I'm flippant. Did you expect anything less? Some people deserve to be treated jovially but dismissively or they just don't get the point. OK, I'll cut out the flippancy because it's too be easy to dismiss Ssempa's mentality as one of a typical Central African tyrant whose problem-solving skills entail only jail sentences, torturde and executions. His reasoning is fed by the U.S. evangelical community which owns him. His leaders cannot accomplish anything without the sanction of people like Rick Warren and Franklin Graham. And so Ssempa targets Barack Obama.

Seempa never seems to realize that Uganda (and now Kenya) has to exist with more globalized societies. China realized it years ago. So did Russia. And if he and Musevene want to imitate capitalist democracies such as ours, he'll have to deal with certain ethical principals.

Theocracies are NOT democracies by any stretch of the imagination. But sacred cows like Ssempa would rather not have democracies standing in their way. Again, like his mentor's motto: "Whatever it takes."

Poor Uganda. Poor Kenya.

Poor Africa.

Good Housekeeping: Sweeping Away The Cobwebs Inside Ann Coulter's Brain

It almost is kind of effective to send out this drunken Irishman to respond to Dick Cheney. It's like sending out the White House dog. It's saying, 'We so don't respect you we're sending in Joe Biden.'

Several days ago, Ann Coulter hit a low point - and kept going lower. Talking about Joe Biden's hair plugs is one thing: it demonstrates that Coulter doesn't have enough on Biden to come up with a serious criticism. Using unfounded ethnic slurs, then saying that a grade F politician who doesn't know enough geography to answer simple(ton) questions is "twenty million times" more qualified than he is (politically) shows us that she attacks just for the sake of attacking. She thinks she's leading a group of villagers with torches, but she's only one of the mob with a rock in her hand asking "Who do I stone, who do I stone?"

It's time for the American public to forcibly retire Ann Coulter (you know she won't go away willingly). Her jibes for the sake of publicity have neither basis nor meaning. She loves the image of "muckraker" even though she cannot hold a candle to someone as intelligent as Nancy Mitford.

- “I love children, especially when they cry, for then someone takes them away”
- "Surely a King who loves pleasure is less dangerous than one who loves glory?”
- “'Always be civil to the girls, you never know who they may marry' is an aphorism which has saved many an English spinster from being treated like an Indian widow.”

Would that we could treat Ann Coulter like an Indian widow.

On Geraldo

Coulter: How about comparing Joe Biden with Sarah Palin? She's twenty million times more qualified than he is.

Rivera: How do you say that? A two-year governor against a long Senate career. Anyway --

Coulter: How long are we gonna pretend Biden is not just some drunken Irishman embarrassing Obama?

Here is a person whose livelihood is derived from insulting people. And let's admit it: people love to read/hear insulting people. Sometimes (as with Coulter, it seems) people know that pundits are trite and hackneyed liars, but don't care, as long as what they spew is about someone they're inclined to hate.

So, do we NEED Ann Coulter? No. Should we denounce her? No. She loves being the martyred Right. Can we "retire her"? I think so, but only if we're diligent about it. The fact that her book sales are on the wane is promising, but we need to do three things: a) keep holding her to account on everything she says, b) laugh at her and c) tell her she's boring.

Yes, we should fact check every word she says. Most of her "research" and "statistics" are based on questionable data. Whatever she says, mention her half-truths and lies every day in our blogs, videos and social websites. Yes, poke fun of her, not for her physical characteristics (like I sometimes do - I won't be a hypocrite - I'm evil that way and it's a whole lot of fun) poke fun at her bloviations, her reasoning, her half-assed logic. Get celebrities and comics to poke fun of her. Get Glen Beck to poke fun of her!

Yes, tell her she's boring. The loudest she screeches, the more she's apt to screw up and absolutely nothing will get a rise out of her as much as telling her that she's boring. And she is: people know HOW she's going to attack someone, WHO she's going to attack and WHEN she's going to attack someone. Her attacks are beginning to sound more like whining than polemics. And when any writer, pundit or otherwise, gets overexposed, stale, and laughed at, the reading public slowly (but surely) will back away and follow a new bloviator of bad journalism.

So, let's get to work and retire Ms. Coulter. And let's start by cleaning house.

I love to engage in repartee with people who are stupider than I am.

OK. We get the point. Ann Coulter steamrolls over the rudiments of grammar to get her point across to people. That point being: "No matter what I say, I'm smarter than you are."

Once they have fooled the voters and are safely in office, Republicans sometimes double-cross the voters. Democrats always do.

Sweeping generalizations such as these are tiresome and unoriginal. And by their inclusiveness, they are always wrong.

If we're so cruel to minorities, why do they keep coming here? Why aren't they sneaking across the Mexican border to make their way to the Taliban?

Probably because as badly as we treat minorities, they're treated worse somewhere else. And they may be more "family-oriented" than AC: sending money back home for the family to survive beats starving with the family.

Liberals become indignant when you question their patriotism, but simultaneously work overtime to give terrorists a cushion for the next attack and laugh at dumb Americans who love their country and hate the enemy

Everyone becomes indignant when you question their patriotism. Liberals get miffed because flag-wavers can't understand that you can be patriotic without painting yourself red, white and blue for a football game. And hypocrisy is always worth laughing at: "dumb Americans" love only that part of America that agrees with them and will hate who they are told to hate.

Taxes are like abortion, and not just because both are grotesque procedures supported by Democrats.

How wonderfully witty! Unfortunately, both faulty analogies have been used for years to demonize non-Coulterites.

While the form of treachery varies slightly from case to case, liberals always manage to take the position that most undermines American security.

Coulter hates anything with an open door ... or an open mind. Meanwhile, uber-conservatives manage to kill more people by engendering fear and racial profiling than any terrorist attack.

I thought gays just wanted to get married to one another and settle down in the suburbs so they could visit each other in the hospital.

Coulter's low blows can get lower, of course, but she keeps them at a level where she can safely say she doesn't "bash" homosexuals.

You would think there were "Straights Only" water fountains the way Democrats carry on so (as if any gay man would drink nonbottled water)

Stereotyping is a definitive modus operandi with Coulter. It's also easy when she doesn't know anything about the people she stereotypes.

The two videos below demonstrate how Ann Coulter is losing her relevance (her credibility went bye-bye a long time ago). The first by a man so young he couldn't possibly have had as much exposure to Coulter as the rest of us, showing what little exposure it takes for Ann Coulter to make people angry at her. The second is a clip with Joe Scarborough. His response is priceless.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!! FROM ME AND DOROTHY LAMOUR!

RANDOM THOUGHTS OF LOVE

Is That A Question - Or A Threat?

Originally uploaded by poe.

Giant Smurf Pixies and The Christofascist Perspective

AVATAR has an abhorrent New Age, pagan, anti-capitalist worldview that promotes goddess worship and the destruction of the human race.

- NOT Pat Robertson

I must have been sleeping ... for the last eight weeks. I saw the movie Avatar (in 3-D) last night and it hit me as to how the Christofascists would spin it into something totally evil. Then I went home, googled some themes and, surprise! Some right-wing bloggers and the pope had raled against it in December! I don't know how any bloviating about it could have slipped by me: I don't remember it in any of my rss feeds. How could I have missed it? The biggest blockbuster (with the biggest budget) coupled with the theme of genocide by capitalism didn't get the usual 700 Club treatment.

And four weeks into its run, Avatar is still packing movie houses. People are seeing it twice, three times and telling people how wonderfully entertaining it is! They've been hypnotized by the artistry, blown away by their own violent reaction of empathy to an indigenous humanoid species (who, when you come to think of it, look like giant smurf pixies) and rooted against capitalism and the military mindset as never before.

So why hasn't the Christian Right conducted a huge protest ala The DaVinci Code? Is Avatar still playing in Alabama?

I checked. It is. In about ten neighborhood cineplexes.

Think of “Avatar” as “Death Wish 5” for leftists. A simplistic, revisionist revenge fantasy where if you freakin’ hate the bad guys (America), you’re able to forgive the by-the-numbers predictability of it all and still get off watching them get what they got coming.

John Nolte Big Hollywood

If you love the philosophy and culture of the Na'vi too much, you will be led into evil rather than away from it.

David Outen, Movieguide

The movie’s most seditious act is to evoke the specter of September 11, only with the terms reversed…Cameron’s willingness to question the sacred trauma of 9/11 is audacious, and his ability to do so in a $300 million tentpole movie is nothing short of shocking. If Avatar has a claim to revolution, that is where it lies.

Sam Adams, AV Club

We have made a religion out of entertainment.
And an entertainment out of religion.

Sorry folks, but that's as profound as I can get. For me, it's the only solution possible to the conundrum of Avatar's popularity in spite of Christofascists telling people that it's anti-American and, by extension, anti-Christian. What many right-wingers don't seem to understand is that folks consider it anti-American to keep entertainment at bay from the American public. You can take away the right of Americans to free speech, free worship, and even representation in government, but never, never attempt to take away America's God-given right to be entertained.

Never.

And in the melee that we call the culture war, entertainment (and James Cameron's Avatar) has won this battle.

Obama's Courage Comes At The Last Minute: A Tale of TWO Speeches

When you're constantly under fire and you have an ounce of courage in you, that courage is bound to sneak out once in a while ... and in the most unlikely of places.

Google a transcript of President Obama's National Day of Prayer Speech and you might be confused: the transcript given out to USA Today is very different than the transcript given out AFTER the Breakfast. Read the PDF given over to USA Today and you'll find these very important words: "As Prepared for Delivery." The one actually given was different in many ways.

It was longer
It didn't mention Jesus
It mentioned God more often
It's key words were "God" "Faith" "Without" and "Civility"
It mentioned Uganda It mentioned other religions
It referenced gay marriage

One critic: [on the pronunciation of the word "corpsman"] Obama doesn't say one unscripted word. There is obviously no one on his staff who knows this word or its correct pronunciation.

To the contrary: depending on the time when they were written, these transcripts show us that more often than not, President Obama does NOT depend upon "teleprompters" (as Fox News would have us believe) and that he might make drastic changes and additions at the last minute, while knowing that those changes may rile some of the audience.

And some of the audience took umbrage with his inclusion of other faiths.

It's ironic, isn't it, that USA Today got the wrong transcript while Pam's House Blend got an accurate one. And who besides USA Today got the "As Prepared For Delivery" outline? Lest we think that someone was being dishonest, I think that it was a mistake. But a very, very lucky mistake: had the sacred cows attending the NDOPB read it, Obama might have had some very uncivil responses hurled at him accompanied by scrambled (if not rotten) eggs.

A "CHRISTIANS ONLY" AFFAIR!:

from Beyond Religion:

Anyone can attend the National Day of Prayer, but only Christians can lead said prayers. So the National Day of Prayer is really the National Day of Christian Led Prayers to the Christian God who, because he is Jewish, is excluded from leading prayers during His Own National Day of Prayer. This is what really pisses me off— if Jesus Himself came down from heaven and asked to lead a prayer at any of today’s National Day of Prayer events he would be denied.

So which words do you think riled the Christians Only crowd? There are some people seething about terms, words, and ideologies. An article for FOXNews.com (don't worry, I won't go there) was titled The President's Prayer Breakfast Catastrophe By S.E. Cupp (who, BTW, has a new book coming out in April with the title: “Losing Our Religion: The Liberal Media’s Attack on Christianity,” pass it on). In it, Ms. Cupp derides the President for many things, but what gets her most:

The worst misstep of today’s speech? When the president said that “God’s grace” is expressed “by Americans of every faith, and no faith, uniting around a common purpose, a higher purpose.” Uh, no it isn't -- unless my definition of atheism is different than his. Most atheists insist that God’s grace most certainly is not expressed through them, and that there are no “higher” purposes. While we may all come together for “a purpose” – like relief work in Haiti, poverty, AIDS, or world hunger – no atheist I know would consider this God's work.

Ms. Cupp runneth over with equally strident derisions throughout the rest of her piece, but always manages to communicate her main theme: This Is A Christians-Only Event and Don't You Forget It! There were other segments of the speech that riled the attendees:

...we all share a recognition -- one as old as time -- that a willingness to believe, an openness to grace, a commitment to prayer can bring sustenance to our lives.

"Willingness" and "openness" smack of lefty commie-pinko socialism!

God's grace, and the compassion and decency of the American people is expressed through ... evangelicals at World Relief. By the American Jewish World Service. By Hindu temples, and mainline Protestants, Catholic Relief Services, African American churches, the United Sikhs. By Americans of every faith, and no faith, uniting around a common purpose, a higher purpose.

How DARE he be so inclusive! How DARE he mention atheists and pagans and the like! THIS IS A CHRISTIAN EVENT!!

We see that in many conservative pastors who are helping lead the way to fix our broken immigration system. It's not what would be expected from them, and yet they recognize, in those immigrant families, the face of God.

Is he insinuating that our pastors have no compassion for illegals?

Yes, there are crimes of conscience that call us to action. Yes, there are causes that move our hearts and offenses that stir our souls. But progress doesn't come when we demonize opponents. It's not born in righteous spite. Progress comes when we open our hearts, when we extend our hands, when we recognize our common humanity.

Progress also comes when we open our wallets due to taxing us to death! "Demonize" our opponents? But they ARE demons!

we've turned the faith-based initiative around to find common ground among people of all beliefs, allowing them to make an impact in a way that's civil and respectful of difference and focused on what matters most.

There he goes again! Putting us on the par with every other religion! A subtle dig against us!

We may disagree about gay marriage, but surely we can agree that it is unconscionable to target gays and lesbians for who they are -- whether it's here in the United States or, as Hillary mentioned, more extremely in odious laws that are being proposed most recently in Uganda.

It's disgusting the way he throws bones to our religious community, then turns around and panders to the homosexual agenda!

Let's end with the kind words of Ms Cupp:

But rest assured, his friends in the liberal press – indeed, the ultimate Tower of Babel – will hail this speech as they do all the rest, and insist it proves he is indeed, as unnamed officials say, “a prayerful man.”

Known Diseases Attacking the Republican Brain: Prognosis Negative

The guy whose brain was scanned for the above picture doesn't have a chance of survival - at least not as an American human being. He has been diagnosed as one of those unfortunate beings who places in the lowest twenty percent of self-identified Republicans and as such suffers chronic attacks of bigotry, intolerance, self-righteousness, secessionist tendencies, overbearing (fake) patriotism, hard-boiled homophobia, and totally rank hypocrisy. His I.Q. has been reduced to a level below that of an amoeba. This reduction is brought on by irrational hatred of just about everything he is told to hate.

None of these terrible conditions have ever been treated simply because he was unaware of them. If caught in time (before the age of reason since these viruses attack rudimentary reasoning first) they might have been treated.

The most obvious sign that his mental capacities were impaired was when he stated on a Research 2000 survey that he thought Sarah Palin was better qualified for the position as President of the United States than Barack Obama. Examining researchers were horrified that this man's deterioration had been so long and advanced.

He also AGREED to all of the statements below. To be fair, they were put in question form, and some ideas were delineated by proper grammar, so they might have been put in a way that may have been difficult for him to understand.

NEGATIVE THOUGHTS AND IDEOLOGIES OF REPUBLICANS

Abortion is murder	76%
ACORN stole the election	21%
Congress shouldn't make it easier to join unions	68%
Contraceptives should be outlawed	31%
Creationism should be taught in public schools	77%
Gay couples should not have state or federal benefits	68%
Gays should not be allowed to serve in the military	55%
Gays should not teach in schools	73%
Illegal immigrants should not be allowed to work here	59%
Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation and heaven	67%
Marriages are equal partnerships	76%
Obama is a racist	31%
Obama is a Socialist	63%
Obama should be impeached	21%
Obama wants the terrorists to win	24%
Obama was not born in the United States	42%
Sarah Palin is more qualified that Barack Obama	53%
Sex education should not be taught in schools	51%
The birth control pill is abortion	34%
There should be no same-sex marriages	77%
Women should be able to work outside the home	86%
You support the death penalty	91%
Your state should secede from the U.S.	23%

Put together in a different graph, the poll shows us that there is the possibility that a substantial amount of people could have agreed with ALL of these statements. Let's look at it in another way:

Now let's see to possible variables: some Republicans did NOT agree with every statement. Some statements may not be considered too radical. Also, some statements do no necessarily mean that a person negates the opposite. E.G., it's possible that some Republicans believe that Creationism should be taught along WITH evolution.

Variables aside, however, the results of the poll (2,000 self-identified Republicans across the country and across demographics) show a very, very sczisophrenic group of people, the majority of whom agree with the statements that: a. abortion is murder, but they would voted for the death penalty, b. gay cannot teach in public schools, but some of them could serve in the military, c. purport to be patriots but some of them want to secede from the Union, and d. folks who think abortion is murder would also outlaw contraceptives - at a time when more "misbegotten" children are born than at any other time in history.

Indeed, the reasoning power of self-proclaimed conservatives has been on a downward spiral for the last generation. That may be why the number of self-proclaimed Republicans has decreased steadily since the 1960s. 55 million people in the U.S. were registered Republicans in 2004. It's doubtful that today's number is in the high 40's. Look at the bottom part of the graph and make some assumptions of our own: counting a wide range of variables, that bottom 20% can be honed down to 10%, don't you think? Is that fair?

Well, if it is, than 10% of people who identify as Republicans are: pro-Sarah Palin, anti-Obama people who will refuse to let their children have any sex education let alone purchase condoms. They will allow their women to work outside the home and think that their marriages are equal partnerships, although domestic violence cases continue to rise. They will certainly support the death penalty but at the same time chant that they are "pro life," without any qualms of hypocrisy. Some of them want gays to serve in the military more than they want them to teach in schools, but giving them any rights concerning marriage or spousal claims is beyond their comprehension. Finally, why any of them would think that Obama WANTS the terrorists to win is incomprehnsible. That statement alone defines the bottom 20% as irrational and, dare I say it, not qualified to vote.

And according to the least amount of calculation, there are approximately 4 MILLION people out there who have agreed to ALL OR MOST OF THE STATEMENTS. Four million. Who are voting irrationally. Who are amongst us. Who want their state to secede from the Union. Who do not like the rest of the people in the U.S. simply because they are not made of 100% whatever they label themselves as.

I'm sorry, but it looks to be true. Movements start with just a few people, but when movements begin to mass and affect the nation's psyche, then we all have to deal with them. Sorry, but at this time, to go on would make me seem like a fearmonger. Please, just think about it.