Thursday, May 05, 2005

Crazy Marion praying to mammon, Robertson's real god Rude Pundit says this so I don't have to. Pat Robertson: Madman: The Rude Pundit's been wondering for a long time why interviewers still talk to Pat Robertson, a crazed, hubris-filled idiot who tells people to put their hands on their TVs and their emphysema will disappear, those nasty non-healing wounds will close, and they'll get erections that last for days. And the reason was made crystal clear on Sunday's This Week: because Pat Robertson is head pudsucker of the batshit insane troop of headline whores and you never know what nutso shit is gonna spout from that smarmy mouth of his. Apparently, the filibustering of a few judicial nominees by Democrats is "the most serious threat America has faced in nearly 400 years of history, more serious than al Qaeda, more serious than Nazi Germany and Japan, more serious than the Civil War," as host George "Behold My Gorgeously Coifed Bedhead Hair" Stephanopolopolopoulos put it, to which Robertson oozed, "George, I really believe that. I think they are destroying the fabric that holds our nation together. There is an assault on marriage. There's an assault on human sexuality, as Judge Scalia said, they've taken sides in the culture war and on top of that if we have a democracy, the democratic processes should be that we can elect representatives who will share our point of view and vote those things into law." Quick run-down here: Nazi Germany and Japan, in addition to the whole genocide thing, killed hundreds of thousands of Americans in a war. The Civil War ripped apart the nation, creating divisions that last until today, resulted in more than 600,000 deaths, and the assassination of a President. Al-Qaeda's 9/11 attack not only killed 3000 people, but it undermined the way in which Americans relate to each other and the world. "Activist" judges might end up allowing gay people to get married. Seems like a fair comparison, no? But, in case you doubt Robertson's word, well, there's higher authorities that will put the smite down on your disbelief. Stephanopolopolopoulos played a clip from earlier in the year where Robertson told 700 Club viewers (known here in Real World Central as "fucking idiots") what God told him was going to happen: "What I heard was that Bush is now positioned to have victory after victory. He'll have Social Security reform passed, that he'll have tax reform passed, that he'll have conservative judges on the courts." Robertson said to Stephanopoulos that things were on the path for God's words to come true, and that, while God doesn't change the laws of nature (because, you know, he invented them), he is listening: "In terms of human affairs I do think he answers prayer and I think there have been literally millions of people praying for a change in the Supreme Court. The people of faith in this country feel they're on a tyranny and they see their liberties taken away from them and they've been beseeching God, fasting and praying for years, so I think he hears and answers their prayers." Two problems here: 1) How fucking out of your mind do you have to be to "fast" so God will listen to your "prayers" over the Supreme Court? 2) And, really, and the Rude Pundit's said this before, is God's PDA so empty that he's got the time to fuck around about whether the next Supreme Court nominee is really, really fucking insane right wing or just plain ol' fucking insane right wing? 'Cause, see, if the Rude Pundit were an all-powerful deity, he might wanna change some hearts in Darfur or, say, North Korea. See, in clinical terms, Pat Robertson is, well, crazier than a shithouse rat (look it up: that diagnosis shows up in the DSM-IV, right after "crazier than a shitfight in a monkeyhouse"). Whatcha wanna go with? Delusional Disorder, Grandiose Type? Where one can be a functioning person, just having shit like voices in your head, and delusions of "inflated worth, power, knowledge, identity, or special relationship to a deity." Paranoid Personality Disorder? Marked by a sense that "disaster is on the horizon," that "the world is full of enemies," that "accidents are doubtful; negative events are initiated by others with hostile intent," that "all events relate to self," that the individual is "never to blame or guilty (others are)," and that the individual is "different from the rest of humanity, often with pretensions of having unique awareness or insight." Damn, there's nothing finer than watching the crazy people on the TV. It's like putting a webcam in the waiting room at Bedlam - who knows what's gonna happen? Will someone try to chew off her own arm? Will someone grin with glee as he pisses himself? Will someone just stand there and shriek? Or will someone answer the voices in his head, calmly, rationally? They're always the scariest ones in the asylum As always, I will point out that Muslim-Americans are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan alongside Jews, Christians and Athiests. For that foul piece of excrement to demean their service is worthy of only contempt. [Steve Gilliard's News Blog] 9:40:59 AM     The National Day of Prayer. Last week, in his prime-time televised press conference, President Bush took a firm stand regarding matters of faith: "I view religion as a personal matter." This week, Bush took the opposite stand, insisting that religion is a governmental matter. Some may not be aware of it, but today is the official, 53rd annual National Day of [...] [The Carpetbagger Report] 9:38:30 AM     Rummy's Spitework Smaller, faster, a fantasy Pentagon's Plan to Transfer Troops Is Faulted by Panel By DAVID S. CLOUD Published: May 5, 2005 WASHINGTON, May 4 - A government commission examining the Pentagon's plans to reposition overseas military forces and transfer some 70,000 troops back to the United States warns that the Defense Department may lack enough ships and aircraft to redeploy those forces quickly in a crisis. A report by the Overseas Basing Commission, a six-member panel created by Congress in 2003, also warns that housing and other infrastructure may not be ready in late 2006 when the troops are to begin returning in large numbers. The conclusions are likely to fuel a debate that has been under way for two years on Capitol Hill and among military specialists, not about whether the United States should re-orient its military presence to deal with new security threats, but about the speed at which it is unfolding. The panel's major recommendation is to slow down the moves, but it does not propose a specific schedule. Most of the 70,000 troops involved, including 40,000 mainly from Army units in Europe, are scheduled to move home from 2006 to 2010, officials said. Personnel remaining overseas are to be consolidated in a smaller number of existing bases, and new facilities would be opened in regions where the United States has had little or no presence, like Eastern Europe. The planning is happening as the Pentagon is trying to transform the military into a leaner, more agile force, is embarking on another round of domestic base closings, and is conducting a sweeping review of strategy, forces and missions that is required every four years. "The commission finds no imperative for doing all this in the short span of time now planned and believes that if we continue at the current pace we are liable to handicap operational capability and run the risk of creating new vulnerabilities," the report says. Reforming what military? The current military is now enlisting the mentally ill and criminals. God knows what the literacy levels are with these folks. Rumsfeld's Spite the Germans plan is a massive mistake. Pulling out US troops and moving them east is happeneing for one reason: the Germans refused to join in our colonial war. It is hoped that the new countries will be more compliant to our demands for auxilliaries. As to the smaller, lighter faster crap: we still have the heavy, slow, old weapons and that theory of airmobility died in an Iraqi field in 2003. You can see one of the survivors of that philosophy every week on Amazing Race 7. It seems that even the vaunted Apache can be blown from the sky and the Blackhawk is a flying deathtrap anywhere an RPG is around, forget a SAM. And the Stryker, well, let's just say they have to put wire frames around it so the 11B's won't be killed in it. They like it, but it doesn't seem to work well in protecting them. Oh yeah, Predators seem to miss company-sized formations gathering in towns and countryside. Our robot planes are far from perfect, especially when picking out 100 men running around with AK's. Leaner, more agile would be possible with the Army of 2003. I think the Army of 2006 will be a very different beast. At the core of this, is Rumsfeld and the neocons worshiping technology. Idiots like Rich Lowry, who seem to have less critical faculties than that 3 year old who got from his home to the movies, forget that it is men who win battles, not machines. A new look US Army would be looking to expand infantry and get better infantry weapons. It would infantry train supply troops and demand their leaders be able to protect their units. It would develop anti-grenade systems for both aircraft and armor which worked. It would move away from DU shells which pollute the battlefield. The new US Army will be the backbone of peacekeeping forces in places like Darfur and Zimbabwe. This intervenetion in Iraq is an expensive abberation. The current US Army could no more survive an attack against Iran than ensure Baghdad's safety. What it would not be doing is cutting forces and pretending technology solves all problems. Each day in Iraq proves that. [Steve Gilliard's News Blog] 7:12:35 AM     Life on the Farm. Nicholas Kristof has a passionate editorial in the NYT on Tuesday on why "W" has sold out Darfur. Rather than confront what they admit is a genocide, the White House is attempting to railroad legislation that would rollback preventative... [BAGnewsNotes] 5:04:16 AM

© Copyright 2005 Michael Mussington. Last update: 6/1/2005; 1:34:10 AM.