Consume

After 9-11, the people in our great nation were encouraged to come together and consume in order to soothe our grief and allow our society to recover. I've always loved the concept of an entire society shamelessly organized around consumption: essentially reducing us to some base level of foragers like a huge colony of locusts with credit cards.

One of the more entertaining movies I've seen was released about twenty years ago - a John Carpenter throwaway, 'They Live.' The basic premise is that we are all under the control of space aliens but don't realize it. They keep us in check with subliminal messages embedded into everything we see - messages that endlessly repeat chants such as 'Sleep...' and 'Consume...' Our hero discovers a pair of glasses that allows him to see the truth and we are off to the races. There's some good quotes in the movie, to:

'...Television Host: The feeling is definitely there. It's a new morning in America... fresh, vital. The old cynicism is gone. We have faith in our leaders. We're optimistic as to what becomes of it all. It really boils down to our ability to accept. We don't need pessimism. There are no limits...'

and what John Carpenter movie would be complete without:

'...I have come here to chew bubblegum or kick ass, and I'm all out of bubblegum...'

One of my favorite things to consume is Jesus kitsch, and I have recently found a motherload courtesy of the site We are Fishermen. Little plastic statues of Jesus skateboarding, playing football, and (soon to come, according to the promotional brochure they sent me) Jesus crawling out of a wrecked race car, like some holy crash test dummy. I've already got two, Jesus surfing and Jesus bending it like Beckham (images above, on either side of stoner Jesus with a dove). Not all are available yet, but I'm definitely getting more, especially when Jesus riding the bull is released.

And speaking of consumption and movies, this one looks too cool:

Preaching

Quote of the day:

'...One may intelligently wonder why, if seminarians are not taught a simplistic conservatism about the New Testament, they do not communicate more nuanced views in their preaching. A common excuse for this failure is that anything more complex and nuanced might disturb the people - now an increasingly specious explanation when far more Catholics receive college education and might be encouraged if they found out that their church, once a danger has passed, is capable of changing its mind in face of evidence. Probably a major factor is that to communicate nuanced biblical views in a way that people will find constructive (rather than puzzling or disturbing) requires more effort and imagination than many preachers are willing to expend. The bland is often effortless and survives even when the church teaches the contrary...'

From Raymond Brown's An Introduction to New Testament Christology. I'm about a quarter through this brief but excellent book, which I wanted to read before tackling his tome, Death of the Messiah. Thanks to Mike, who recommended to me Brown's Community of the Beloved Disciple which I finished last year.

Mine Mine Mine

I see that the Russians have discovered the power of the Flag:

'...A Russian expedition descended in a pair of submersible vessels more than two miles under the ice cap on Thursday and deposited a Russian flag on the seabed at the North Pole. The dive was a symbolic move to enhance the government’s disputed claim to nearly half of the floor of the Arctic Ocean and potential oil or other resources there...'

Scientists Say That By 1970 Over 10,000 People Will Be Living On The Moon!

(Above, the Earth, not the moon...)

So in the past week, the roads in front of Grand Central Station have exploded upwards and the bridges in Minneapolis have collapsed downward. The future doesn't look bold and beautiful like the cover of a 1950s Popular Mechanics magazine, but rather looks like a slow decline into senescence and irrelevance, a dull narrative for the ending of our culture. And to think that merely a generation or two ago, things looked so bright.

The crazy innocence of the atomic age 1950s didn't seem to last all that long. By the 1980s, that Popular Mechanics imagery had already become an ironic emblem of a naive age, and now it's even fading from our memories as a cultural touchstone.

But hope remains. On August 11th and 12th at the Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station is the 2007 Rocketbelt convention. (h/t This Modern World).

So although a vacation on the moon doesn't seem on the horizon anytime soon, at least we can still get our damned jetpacks.

Talk to Jesus

Just shoot me...Seriously, I'm signing up as a beta tester for this.

If you go to the site, they have the following disclaimer at the bottom:

Disclaimer: TalkToJesus is intended for entertainment purposes only. It is not the actual Jesus.

H/T my brother, who if he has time to track down insanities such as this, has the time to post in his blog...

Christians United for Israel

Rapture Ready: The Unauthorized Christians United for Israel Tour from huffpost and Vimeo.

This latest from Max Blumenthal is a must see to understand my motivation for studying Christianity. Watching the former speaker of the House of Representatives (and third in line to the Presidency) talk about how he looks forward to Armageddon, the senior senator from Connecticut wax poetic about one of the most corrupt televangelists, and dozens of people from around the country use the Bible to advocate messages of hate ('...the Antichrist will be a person of peace...') sends chills down my spine.

In the money

It looks like I will now never have to worry about money again, for I soon will be coming into billions, perhaps trillions of dollars. For some unknown reason, my yahoo email address has stopped spamblocking all of the Nigerian 419 scam emails, and for the past several days I have been getting flooded with them. I started keeping track of the amounts I was going to get yesterday morning, with the goal of posting this in a week, but after only 24 hours, it started getting too ridiculous. So here is a day's worth of loot that I'm going to receive:

$46 Million from Mikhail Khordokovsky, jailed head of Yukos Oil

$500,000 from Mr. James Morgan (deceased) who apparently knew me.

$25.5 Million from the Equitorial Trust Bank, PLC in Nigeria

$850,000 from the Global Company

$400,000 from Mr. Fred Clean in Nepal

15 Million Euros from the 'July Category 'A' draw'

An unspecified amount from the Central Bank of Nigeria

GBP 850 Million from the Microsoft email lottery promotion (this is close to $2 Billion dollars)

$950,000 from the Global Max Courier Company Benin

$3.2 Million from a woman in the Ivory Coast whose family was killed in Darfur, for me to use:

'...I have prayed and I told God to direct me to an honest Person whom God will use to handle this funds for the less privileged people ,offernage, displace and mother less baby home to receive this fund and utilize it for things that will glorify the name of God. After my prayers...'

$900,000 from John Basil in Benin

GBP1 Million from the Microsoft Lottery Corporation in England

$1.5 Million from Mr. Howard Ferraro who is a 'Spanish base business man.'

'$21,437,000.00 Million' (which if it's not a typo is over 21 trillion dollars) as the next of kin of the late Ronald Lake and his wife who used to work with Frank Howard Allen Realtors.

and my personal favorites:

$1 Million from the UN and Central bank of Nigeria 419 Scam Victims compensation fund, and

$35 Million from the Global Exchange Bank in Nigeria. I have been made aware of this through the 'Nigerian Investigation Department Ant-Fraud [sic] Unit':

'...BEWARE OF HOODLUMS...Based on the finding in this investigastion department we wish to warn you against some touts. We have been informed that some touts are contating you in respect to the collection of your fund in the total sum of $35 Million U.S.A Dollars that was long approved in your favour through the Global Exchange Bank of Nigeria. As a matter of fact we have been on this investigation assignments for some time codely known to no one but the Presidency and some top government official who are in support of this investigation team to help stop fraudalent activities in this country.

Although we have been able to come up with some good result about the people that have extorted money from you illegally and i wish to list them so that you will personally indicate them by writting back because we want to make your paymen to you without any delay but we must surely deal and bring this names to book if only you will indicate correctly any of them...'

So now I'm going to start up the spam blocking process again for these emails. After all, once you've got 21 trillion dollars, trying to acquire more is just plain greedy.

Why do you call Ganesh?

Ganesh is displeased.

You know my name (Look up the Number)

I just want to post briefly on this fun scandal du jour, currently engulfing Washington, and distracting us from things of lesser import, such as failing wars and health care. Normally I would follow this more closely, what with the people caught up in this being such perfect hypocrites up there with the scribes and Pharisees, but it really is shooting fish in a barrel.

More information is coming out, which means that Senator David Vittner (R. Louisiana) will likely be having to share the spotlight soon. Now it appears that Hustler Magazine (which first played the Senator into admitting his dalliances to the AP) is claiming to be investigating more than 20 congressman and Senators. And now another Republican consultant has been outed in all this.

It's been fun to read the defenders of these people. People on the right have been talking a good game of 'the temptations of immorality' etc. And the comparisons with the 'Clinton Blowjob' are flying fast. Of course what they are failing to take into account is one of the key differences between the Clinton Blowjob and the Good Senator (and others) visiting a hooker: The Clinton Blowjob was essentially plain vanilla sex.

You see, when a Senator visits a hooker, it's not going to be for some standard missionary position fun. Oh, no. A Senator visits a hooker because he wants to a) have someone ram a 12" dildo in the shape of Jesus up his ass, and b) make certain that she doesn't tell anyone about it. That's why. So the real fun is not going to be the naming of names. It's going to be the naming of kinks.

Update:

Looks like I was a bit off. Apparently the Good Senator is into Diapers.

Little Pink Guns for You and Me...

And I thought that the crap couldn’t get any crazier. But I would have been wrong. First of all we hear from Bill O’Reilly at Fox News that hundreds of roving gangs of lesbians carrying, I shit you not, pink guns, are rampaging across the country committing all sorts of heinous crimes. David Niewert at Orcinus has the story on this latest insanity from Fox News; the Southern Poverty Law Center has been following the idiocy as well.

This report also came out about the same time that the Vice President's favorable ratings have hit a whopping 13%, probably about the same percentage of people who favor getting repeatedly kicked in the nuts. Or more to the point, it's the exact same percentage of people who have never heard about global warming.

But the issue remains health care, of course, especially since Iraq is getting into the news more and more lately. Today The President appeared in Cleveland to give a speech on the topic:

'...The immediate goal is to make sure there are more people on private insurance plans. I mean, people have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room...'

Shit, why didn't I think of that. We should just build more emergency rooms. It's good to hear that the President has been on top of things like this for the past six years. From today's testimony by the President's last Surgeon General, Dr. Richard Carmona:

'...Anything that doesn’t fit into the political appointees’ ideological, theological or political agenda is ignored, marginalized or simply buried,” Dr. Richard Carmona, who served as the nation’s top doctor from 2002 until 2006, told a House of Representatives committee.”The problem with this approach is that in public health, as in a democracy, there is nothing worse than ignoring science, or marginalizing the voice of science for reasons driven by changing political winds. The job of surgeon general is to be the doctor of the nation, not the doctor of a political party,” Carmona added.

Carmona said Bush administration political appointees censored his speeches and kept him from talking out publicly about certain issues, including the science on embryonic stem cell research, contraceptives and his misgivings about the administration’s embrace of “abstinence-only” sex education...'

Perhaps things have improved somewhat since Dr. Carmona left. Or not. From Kevin Drum:

'...the Bush administration is apparently in favor of loosening lead regulations in the United States, a transparent bit of industry pandering that makes the Iraq war look like a sober and prescient piece of public policy...'

Perhaps we could take the lead, paint it pink and make it into bullets. Then we could take on all those crazed lesbian gangs. We have plenty of Emergency Rooms, after all.

National Healthcare: Breeding Ground for Terror

TPM has been following the latest crap being hoisted up the flagpole. No word yet on how many people are saluting. YouTubes are at the links.

Apparently, because a number of the clueless idiots who didn't know how to make a bomb in England last week were doctors, this is a reason we shouldn't have universal health care in this country: it will lead to terrorism. You see, if we have universal health care, there will be an increased demand for doctors, and so we will have to import them from abroad. And of course, that means that we will be letting terrorists into our midst. Other options are discounted, as I gather from the impending nature of this crisis we no longer have any medical schools in this country.

So who exactly is hoisting this flag? One Jerry Bowyer from National Review Online. Who? Tbogg has the details from a post he did back in 2003. In short he's a PR schmuck for far, far right conservative causes bankrolled by the myriad of Scaife Foundations. Why he gets onto Fox news is therefore obvious. Why that drek then gets picked up by other news outlets is more outrageous.

Update:

As TPM notes, the meme is spreading - now it's in the New York Sun. Crooks and Liars is also on the track of all of this.

Torches and Pitchforks

They don't even try to hide the hypocrisy any more.

In a scramble to try to come up with some leg to stand on in the 2008 elections, the administration decided to trot out that old warhorse, Law and Order. If they can't take names and kick ass abroad, well then they could at least try to look tough at home. From the June 17th Boston Globe:

'...WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is trying to roll back a Supreme Court decision by pushing legislation that would require prison time for nearly all criminals.

The Justice Department is offering the plan as an opening salvo in a larger debate about whether sentences for crack cocaine are unfairly harsh and racially discriminatory.

Republicans are seizing the administration's crackdown, packaged in legislation to combat violent crime, as a campaign issue for 2008.

In a speech June 1 to announce the bill, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales urged Congress to reimpose mandatory minimum prison sentences against federal convicts -- and not let judges consider such penalties "merely a suggestion."

Such an overhaul, in part, "will strengthen our hand in fighting criminals who threaten the safety and security of all Americans," Gonzales said in the speech, delivered three days before the FBI announced a slight national uptick in violent crime during 2006...

...Justice officials also point to a growing number of lighter sentences as possible proof that crime is rising because criminals are no longer cowed by strict penalties...'

Let's see how that new campaign theme's working out:

'...WASHINGTON, July 2 — President Bush said today that he had used his power of clemency to commute the 30-month sentence for I. Lewis Libby Jr., the former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, who was convicted of perjury in March and was due to begin serving his time within weeks...

...“I respect the jury’s verdict,” Mr. Bush said. “But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby’s sentence that required him to spend 30 months in prison.”...

...The president noted in his statement that the decision to commute “leaves in place a harsh punishment for Mr. Libby.[a 250,000 fine]”...

The president’s decision drew praise from Mr. Libby’s defenders. “That’s fantastic. It’s a great relief," said former Ambassador Richard Carlson, who helped raise millions for Libby’s defense fund. "Scooter Libby did not deserve to go to prison and I’m glad the president had the courage to do this."...'

I love the 'harsh punishment' of a cool quarter mil for a guy who's already ranked in dozens of times that amount for his legal defense fund. The media is already talking about this as some kind of compromise, like the President has the wisdom of friggin' Solomon or something: cut the sentence in half...

Americans put up with just about anything in politics, but they actually do start drawing the line at rank hypocrisy. The problem is that no one in the media points any of it out, at least with this administration. It's going to get a lot worse, too. Nobody in Washington is fearing crowds showing up at the White House bearing torches and pitchforks.