A week ago, Sean Hannity of Fox News agreed to do something no intelligent broadcaster would do: after touting torture as simply an "interrogation method," he agreed to guest Charles Grodin's challenge to subject himself to waterboarding, volunteering to do it for charity.
Thank God for Keith Olbermann! Calling Hannity's bluff, Olbermann declared that he would give $1,000 to charity for every second Hannity withstood waterboarding.
The world is waiting, but so far, there has been no response from the Hannity camp.
From PoliticusUSA.com:
Malcolm Nance, a former master instructor at chief of training at the U.S. Navy Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape School (SERE) in San Diego described waterboarding in detail in 2007, “In the media, waterboarding is called "simulated drowning," but that's a misnomer. It does not simulate drowning, as the lungs are actually filling with water. There is no way to simulate that. The victim is drowning."
He continued, “Unless you have been strapped down to the board, have endured the agonizing feeling of the water overpowering your gag reflex, and then feel your throat open and allow pint after pint of water to involuntarily fill your lungs, you will not know the meaning of the word. "
In Other Words: Don't Fuck With The Truth! (With an Update about his "Susan Boyle" Speech)
Let this post be a Rick Warren Primer with several rules to remember:
1. Reinventing yourself is something only a true artist can pull off successfully. 2. Once you've stated something in public, you'd better have a good reason to state the opposite in public. 3. Only people with good self-esteem can lie well enough to be believed. 4. If, by lying, you're trying to straddle a wooden fence, get ready to get chafed in the balls. 5. If the fence you're straddling is a picket or has curled razor wire - you're an idiot.
Rick Warren is an idiot and by far the worst person to attempt reinvention. If, say, Madonna is a "10,"then Warren is definitely a "-10." He's gone from shiny round face to rotund hipster with mustache, goatee and Hawaiian shirts. Now he's back to sport coats and (sometimes) shirt and tie. His church has gone from a series of big tents to a 120 acre "campus" complete with cafes, skateboard park and hundreds of monitors outside the "worship center," which, by the way, looks like an enormous basement liberally slathered with innocuous cream-colored paint.His book, The Purpose Driven Life spiraled to the top of the Bestseller lists and gained him much fame and even more fortune.
His call to the ministry was supposedly (according to wikipedia) initiated by a laying on of hands by W.A. Criswell, the arch-conservative Southern Baptist pastor of Dallas' First Baptist Church and former president of the Southern Baptist Convention. Criswell was influential in making the SBC MORE conservative than it had been in the 40s and 50s. And with Warren, Criswell espoused "Whatever it takes" more than "Thou shalt not lie."
By now everyone in the world with an internet connection knows about Warren's sanctified chicanery: He compared homosexuality in the same category as bestiality and pedophilia, then he said he never said it. His website stated that practicing homosexuals could not be a member of Saddleback Church. When someone pointed to that part of the site, it was expunged.
He persistently claims that he has many "gay friends" and knows "gay leaders" yet no LGBT community person has come forth in admitting that he or she has even spoken to Warren.Search the Saddleback website and you will be hardpressed to find out what Saddleback believes about homosexuality. Visit the HIV/AIDS part of the site HERE and note that homosexuality is not mentioned at all! Also in regards to AIDS/HIV: while he is considered the undisputed champion of AIDS relief, his projects are in AFRICA, not America (go to his site and you will find out how to minister to - supposedly - straight HIV+ people, but you will not find names, addresses or contacts of any kind). Warren's wife, Kay, runs the "international" AIDS initiatives in Africa and while you will read of the "stigma" attached to AIDS, not one word will be mentioned about homosexuality.
In the section, "Bible Questions and Answers" all answers are on an audio software that was useless to me. And while putting it in audio form may be wonderful for the blind, it is not so great for the deaf. One convenient thing about the audio: while it might site chapter and verse, it doesn't have to tell you which VERSION is used. Last year, the site's written answer for "What does the Bible say about homosexuality?" quoted three different sources/versions. With audio, the listener will make the assumption that all chapter and verse will be from the same source.While the HIV/AIDS page tauts needle exchange and condom use as prevention, all of the money and sources channeled to Africa are given to programs preaching abstinence only and denounce needle exchange programs. (NOTE ON AFRICA: Warren's influential relationships with Rwanda and Uganda's presidents have beggared the question as to why he has not guided them towards decriminalizing homosexuality).
Warren made a last-minute video (supposedly for his congregation ONLY?!?) endorsing California's Proposition 8, then said on Larry King's national television program that he never campaigned for Prop 8.To clarify his about-face concerning gay marriage, a press release was given out (the usual "one man, one woman for 5000 years, EVERY culture, EVERY religion" gibberish), but it did little to explain anything.
The much-anticipated appearance of Warren on George Stephanopoulos' Washington program, This Week, was cancelled at the VERY last minute, again giving lame excuses and even blaming his strained vocal chords on Fox News' insistence that his pulpit be varnished, thus forcing him to inhale fumes for hours.
The latest news is that there's been some strange goings on concerning Rick Warren's page on wikipedia.org. The site's been "frozen" for some time because rewording and restructuring has been going on without the proper sources.After scrutiny, the revisionist was discovered to be one Mark Carver, an advisor to Warren, heading what has now become known as WWW: "Warren Wikipedia Whitewashers."From The Ignorant Heterosexual:
Among the contentions made by the Warren Wikipedia Whitewashers:- Warren did not compare same sex marriage to incest, polygamy and pedophilia during his notorious Beliefnet interview.- Gay and lesbian people have never had the right to marry in California.- Controversies surrounding Warren's position on gay marriage are, according to CarverM, "a tempest in a teapot" and unworthy of more discussion than a link to Wikipedia's Proposition 8 page.After weeks of voluminous and sometimes heated debate, it was uncovered that CarverM is in fact Mark Carver, the International Director of Purpose Driven Ministries.
UPDATE AS OF 4/27:
Warren just used the inspirational Susan Boyle story in a speech (see below). He includes the footage we've all seen in his presentation, depending upon it, leaning upon it like a crutch to get his point across. His primary message is that we are all wonderful and loved by God no matter what our appearances may be. How beautiful! How insightful! How meaningful!
How...much more of this can we take? Where's the meme "It's not about YOU!" Warren talks about how so many of us have been brainwashed to prejudge people by the way they look or their circumstances. This is a guy who put being gay in the same class of sin as being a pedophile! This is a guy who can't backpedal enough when criticized for his homophobia. This is a guy who thinks image is SO important that he renamed his own church: it USED to be the "Saddleback Southern Baptist Church." This is a guy who will always let others emphasize his importance in the welfare of African nations, but would be hard-pressed to outline his church's local AIDS outreach.
Warren, his wife, Kay, and their staff have come off this past year as a bunch of Christofascist proselytizers without much sense at all: when their lies are discovered, their spins and explanations are absurd. That they've gotten this far regarding America's emotions and souls is very disturbing.
Be afraid. The next Christofascist preacher might be a better liar.
'Cause That's What It Looks Like To The Rest of Us!
Rachel Maddow is right on top of it: Cheney now seems to be prepping for a defense. Shades of "Judgment at Nuremburg." The problem for Cheney is he can't use the excuse of the Nuremburg defendants - "I was just following orders"- simply because he was the one who probably GAVE the orders.
Three reasons why Dick Cheney is stupid:
1. He should have shut up and faded away like any good former vice-president.He hates President Obama and his only stance is "He's soft on terrorists."Stupid. Very stupid.
2. He very obviously defends the use of torture.
3. The papers he requested may prove to be irrelevent to the case, but the TIMES they were written are certainly no coincidence.Does his arrogance block out all the facts surrounding his case? Who knows? Has one of his minions managed to destroy key evidence?
Thanks to the New York Times, you can link up with 24 of the torture memos and read what all the fuss is about.Or, you can click on one of the links below to get the exact memo you want.Anyway, there's nothing like sitting beside your little child's bed and reading them a lovely torture memo!
MARCH A memorandum prepared by a Defense Department legal task force drew on the January and August memorandums to declare that President Bush was not bound by either an international treaty prohibiting torture or by a federal anti-torture law because he had the authority as commander in chief to approve any technique needed to protect the nation's security.
'Tis a coincidence: that the spiritual leader of the world's largest Christian Church could trace part of his ecclesiastical heritage back to Roman Catholicism's darkest sin: The Inquisition. And today, during a time of deep inner reflection upon the subject of torture, the Catholic Church is presided over by one Benedict XVI, for at the time of his election as Pope, Benedict had been Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The CDF is the child of the INQUISITION:
(From wikipedia)
A form of torture similar to waterboarding called toca, and more recently "Spanish water torture", to differentiate it from the better known Chinese water torture, along with garrucha (or strappado) and the most frequently used potro (or the rack), was used infrequently during the trial portion of the Spanish Inquisition process. "The toca, also called tortura del agua, consisted of introducing a cloth into the mouth of the victim, and forcing them to ingest water spilled from a jar so that they had the impression of drowning". Wlliam Schweiker claims that the use of water as a form of torture also had profound religious significance to the Inquisitors.
A strange man, Benedict XVI: forced to be Hitler Youth, then an infantry man during WWII, he palled around with the likes of Hans Kung, a liberal colleague and both closely associated with the ideals of Vatican II. But, as they say, "something changed," and he started listing to the right, concentrating on the "traditional" church and resisting any change.
wikipedia:
Like his predecessor, Benedict XVI maintains the traditional Catholic doctrines on artificial birth control, abortion and homosexuality.
In addition to his native German, Benedict XVI fluently speaks Italian, French, English, Latin, and also has a knowledge of Portuguese. He can read Ancient Greek and biblical Hebrew.
Strange: knowledge of "Ancient Greek and biblical Hebrew" has been the undoing of card-carrying Fundamentalist and Evangelical "scholars" because it is in reading the Bible in its nearest (and "purist") form of translation that a person realizes that what may actually have happened and what was written are two very different things: unless God purposely inspired errors and inconsistencies. Benedict would have noticed that "homosexuality" as we know it today, was NOT in the Bible's lexicon, and that the Greek word "arsenakatoi" (sometimes translated as "sodomite") was a fairly obscure Greek-Hebrew portmanteau slang word for "temple prostitutes."
But enough of the etymology of sodomy, let's focus on The Church and "torture." According to sources, the Catholic Church did not stop torture as a by-product of The Inquisition until the 19th century. So torture was recognized as a means of gaining information (or a recanting of beliefs) for over 700 years. Of course modern day popes decry torture and err on the side of the humane treatment of prisoners. BUT the gradual involvement of the Church in American politics casts doubt upon the depth and sincerity of this ideology.
Benedict XVI has caused consternation amidst the Muslim world with his rhetoric about Islam and Mohammed. If he were to decide the efficacy of torture against a Al Qaeda or Taliban terrorist, would he give thumbs up...or down?
Just a thought.
Now... (as Andrew Sullivan would put it) a mental health break:
(His fingerprints must have been all over the memos!)
For those who have lived in a cave for the past weeks, the subject yesterday, today and tomorrow has been, is and will be: waterboarding.
From wikipedia - Effects of Waterboarding:
The technique does not inevitably cause lasting physical damage. It can cause extreme pain, dry drowning, damage to lungs, brain damage from oxygen deprivation, other physical injuries including broken bones due to struggling against restraints, lasting psychological damage or, ultimately, death. Adverse physical consequences can start manifesting months after the event; psychological effects can last for years.
From the 2005 Bradbury memo:
The CIA used the waterboard "at least 83 times during August 2002" in the interrogation of Zubaydah. IG Report at 90, and 183 times during March 2003 in the interrogation of KSM, see id. at 91.
Releasing previously classified memos is always a situation fraught with dangerous consequences. In the case of the "Torture memos" (as they're sure to become known) concerning torture of Al Qaeda detainees/suspects, their release has broken America into two main factions facing each other and screaming: "We torture!" "We do not torture!" But as each day goes by, the "We torture" side has gotten louder, while the dissenters' has gotten weaker. The memos, the testimonies - EVIDENCE - has come to the fore and it's all damaging: to the Bush Administration, to Dick Cheney in particular (as the foremost champion of torture), but most of all, to the The United States of America.
We will be labeled hypocrits - and rightly so. We will be called sinister and evil. But - worst of all - the world will laugh at us for impeaching a President who lied about getting a "Lewinsky" from an intern and not impeaching a President who said "We do not torture, " when we did.The amount of humiliation we will receive may become so great we may never recover from it. President Obama will have to make an urgent request to the nation along these lines: "Every citizen of the United States MUST at all times be a roving ambassador' of good will. If you cannot convince the world that we were deceived as much as everyone, we will never have ANY stature in the world!"There are so many people who's frustration took hold with Abu Ghraib and ascended to the heights of anger with these memos:
What kind of fucking country do you live in where you have to debate whether torturing someone is a crime? What kind of country do you live in when you can spend 3 years prosecuting the President for a consensual sexual act but won’t prosecute a President for authorizing illegal wiretaps and torturing people? What kind of country do you live in where the supposed ’spiritual’ and ‘religious’ leaders think it’s OK to torture non-Christians?
In a previous post, I presented a picture of U.S. and Vietnamese troops waterboarding a Viet Cong soldier. Does it make waterboarding right? Let's look back a bit further in history.
From Crooks and Liars:
On November 29, 2007, Sen. McCain, while campaigning in St. Petersburg, Florida, said, "Following World War II war crime trials were convened. The Japanese were tried and convicted and hung for war crimes committed against American POWs. Among those charges for which they were convicted was waterboarding."
The problem we have now is: who do we hang?
Just a thought.
P.S.: Below is a little video clip of an interview with King Abdullah of Jordan (who might know a thing or two about torture)
A Thoroughly Horrible, Atrocious, Hidiously Rotten,No Good Day! ...For Right Winguts and Christofascists!
Ever had one of those days...? Well, April 23rd just didn't sit well with the Right Wingnuts (religious or otherwise). First, there was Rep. Boehner's slip of the lip: He used the dreaded T-word (gasp!):
From Crooks and Liars:
Regarding his use of the T-word, Boehner spokesman Michael Steel writes, "It is clear from the context that Boehner was simply using liberals' verbiage to describe these interrogation techniques. The United States does not torture."
Give this man a Rick Warren Cigar!
Then a movie called Outrage came out (pardon the pun) and has named names - Republican names - of closeted Republican gays.
From: Pam's House Blend:
LOLOLOLOLOLOL! Whoa, is anyone surprised at this? I haven't seen Outrage, but a lot of journalists took in a screening. The Florida governor and almost-ran wannabe McCain veep, who announced his engagement (to a woman) at a politically convenient time, would have to be at the top of any list to try to finally decloset him.
Other names: Former Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho), Rep. David Dreier (R-Calif.) and former Rep. Jim McCreary (R-La.) and Ken Mehlman, former chairman of the Republican Party. Fox anchor Shepard Smith is named, even though he is not a politician.
Today it was revealed that a Salvation Army youth pastor has been charged with child molestation:
(HT Dan Savage):
A Salvation Army youth pastor in Greenwood has been arrested on preliminary child-molestation charges involving three 15-year-old girls. Jonathan James Hartman, 29, Indianapolis, was arrested Tuesday... One of the girls told police that she is pregnant with Hartman's baby, the release stated.
I'll never look at another one of those bellringers at Christmastime in the same way again.
In the vein of "If the Bible says it's true, it is" comes a book which not only questions the dependable Masters & Johnson study, but intimates that fraud was involved:
(from 365gay.com)
The New York Times’ John Tierney reports on his blog today that a new book questions whether Masters & Johnson faked the conversion of gays and lesbians into happy heterosexuals. Ex-gay groups, like Exodous International, often use the Masters & Johnson study to say that the ability to turn gays into ex-gays has a scientific basis. Fail!
Then a double dose of torture angst came from Andrew Sullivan (the Atlantic):
Today the Dish learned that interrogators from both the FBI and CIA resisted torturing Zubaydah, and only did so because the White House sought to find an Iraq-Qaeda connection. Also, they used spiders. Churchill and even the Luftwaffe in wartime had higher moral standards than Cheney, whose incompetence eclipsed even his vanity.
So there you have it:
A Republican has to do damage control on his gaff about torture.
Two agencies of the federal government refused to torture but were commanded by the White House to do so.
A long-time "reliable source" of the ex-gay movement is given the axe.
A Salvation Army youth pastor is arrested for child molestation of two girls, one of whom may be pregnant with his child!
And a documentary "outing" Republicans creates a firestorm too formidable to be doused in the foreseeable future!
Will this "bad karma" day continue? As you're reading this, do you hear careers and ideologies crumbling? We can only hope. Now for a bit of a diversion, I found this YouTube piece about the state of today's Republican Party to be almost "inerrant." Enjoy!
A...MILLION...MAN...MILITIA...MARCH. So much for debunking "bitter people who cling to their guns and religion."
From Historian Marc Pitcavage (courtesy, Wikipedia)
The militia movement is a right-wing movement that arose following controversial standoffs in the 1990s. It inherited paramilitary traditions of earlier groups, especially the conspiratorial, antigovernment Posse Comitatus. The militia movement claims that militia groups are sanctioned by law but uncontrolled by government; in fact, they are designed to oppose a tyrannical government. Adherents believe that behind the "tyranny" is a left-wing, globalist conspiracy known as the New World Order. The movement's ideology has led some adherents to commit criminal acts, including stockpiling illegal weapons and explosives and plotting to destroy buildings or assassinate public officials, as well as lesser confrontations.
As an outgrowth of the (unsuccessful) tea parties, people (all anonymous) are talking about a march on Washington composed of all those disgruntled people who see Barack Obama as the anti-Christ, talk about the coming terrors of The New World Order, think Hannity, Limbaugh and (possibly) O'Reilly are the only believable media people left, and feel Sarah Palin has a God-given right to shoot wolves from planes.
From Crooks and Liars:
"...the latest idea from the militiamen who are starting to see their paranoid ranks rising:
A peaceful demonstration of at least a million — hey, if we can 10 million, even better — but at least one million armed militia men marching on Washington. A peaceful demonstration. No shooting, no one gets hurt. Just a demonstration. The only difference from any typical demonstration is we will all be armed.
Throw in Christian Identity, the Ku Klux Klan, Neo-Nazis, Pastor Rod Parsley (for religious respectability), people who make pilgrimages to Ruby Ridge and Waco, and brother, you've got a kickass party!
Try getting a permit for this shindig! "No shooting, no one gets hurt." WTF? One million men (no women?) and one million guns loaded with about 8-10 million rounds of ammunition and no one gets hurt?
"Peaceful"Impossible. If one "wrong" tattoo shows up (perhaps Jonathan and David kissing) there will be way too much bloodshed.
And pointless. Except to Fox News, the sponsor of the event.
Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.
Mark Twain
American, Author Quotes
more famous quotes
A week ago, Sean Hannity of Fox News agreed to do something no intelligent broadcaster would do: after touting torture as simply an "interrogation method," he agreed to guest Charles Grodin's challenge to subject himself to waterboarding, volunteering to do it for charity.
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