No, not theee Apocalypse, the January issue of the magazine.
Notice the St Alphonzo’s Pancake Bush uses for a halo.

I’m still annoyed that so many Christians are concerned about the supposedly impending destruction of the world as their apocalyptic myth would have it, and yet remain in total denial of the impending destruction of the world as it is actually unfolding via global ecological disaster.  The best way to follow their endtimes fetish is, of course, through Apocalypse magazine.

Bush made the January cover, and for good reasons. He’s actually done more to bring the rudiments of an apocalypse to fruition than all of it’s other advocates combined.  They talk the talk, but Dub walks the walk.  And he walks this walk because he claims God told him to.  Plus he has balls the size of Winnebagos, and they’re made of unmitigated gall:

An ah jist— I can not speak strongly enough about how we must collectively git after those who kill in the name of— in the name a some kinda false religion.
George Bush— Press appearance with King Abdullah of Jordan, Aug. 1, 2002

And George’s method of speaking strongly enough about it is, of course, to kill them in the name of his religion.

The feature article, “Daily War On Terror— A Mission From God” is written by infamous Blues Brother, Elwood Blues:

Bush has made the claim he’s “On a Mission from God.”  As someone who’s been on an actual mission from God, I can tell you with some confidence, that’s a bunch of bullshit.  The way my brother Jake and I recognized we were on a real mission from God was that things, like, just fall into place.  Even before the smokies chased us into that mall, I knew they would never catch us.  And they didn’t, until we had accomplished the mission.

George Bush put up a banner saying “Mission Accomplished,” not because God told him to, or because things were falling into place, but because he simply decided the mission was accomplished.  He’s “The Decider,” ya know.

•

And we base it, our history, and our decision making, our future, on solid values. The first value is, we’re all God’s children.
—Washington, D.C., Jul. 16, 2003

•

But the real ass-kicker article is from Heeza Lunatik:
“Love KILL Your Enemies.”

There can be no greater example of Bush’s arrant hypocrisy than his early-on discarding of Jesus’ most powerful teaching of the requirements of Love;  his instruction to “Love your enemies.”  Rather than accept the challenges inherent in such a bold and advanced moral position, Bush chose the path of traditional murder, which masquerades under the name “war.”  And he appropriately named his war of terror,  the “War on Terror.”

Bush prosecutes his wars under his interpretation of God’s messages to him.  Pointing to God’s gift of freedom to all men, he bestows the, “God’s Liberator of Men” mantel upon himself.  If the “first value” is, “We’re all God’s children,” then God’s Liberator is a mass murderer of God’s children.  I imagine Bush’s  judgment day explanation will be even more arrogant than it is today.

The disease of hypocrisy must rot the brain from the inside out.  Why else would Bush not recognize the absurdity of making statements to other thinking, sentient creatures, i.e., “people,” like this one:

It’s also important for people to know we never seek to impose our culture or our form of government. We just want to live under those universal values, God-given values.
—Washington, D.C., Oct. 11, 2002

It’s not enough to point out and ridicule such a ridiculous lie.  After seven years in Afghanistan and Iraq, with staggering loss of life, billions upon billions of dollars worth of the fruit of our people’s labor squandered, stolen, wasted, and lost, there must be an accounting.  And that is coming right soon.

“Justice makes a nation great, and the greater a nation the more solicitous will it be to see that injustice shall not befall even its most humble citizen. Woe upon any nation when only those who possess money and influence can secure ready justice before its courts!  It is the sacred duty of a magistrate to acquit the innocent as well as to punish the guilty.  Upon the impartiality, fairness, and integrity of its courts the endurance of a nation depends.  Civil government is founded on justice, even as true religion is founded on mercy.”
—Jesus speaking in The Urantia Book

The Prodigal Son • by Clark Kelly Price

The Parables of Jesus are unparalleled spiritual lessons, and their complete accounts in The Urantia Book are a priceless contribution to contemporary generations. The Urantia Papers say that the parable of the prodigal son was Jesus’ favorite, and he often told it with the Parable of the Lost Sheep, and the Lost Coin, to illustrate how thoroughly the Divine searches for all who are “confused, confounded, or otherwise spiritually blinded by the material cares and accumulations of life.”

If you have never heard this parable, or only know the second-hand account from the Bible, reflect on the fact that the Son of Man created this story, not just for the confused and confounded souls of his day, not just for all future residents of our world, but for every lost soul on each and every world of a projected ten million inhabited planets.

So.  In the words of Jesus.  The Parable of the Lost Son.

And now I would like to tell you the story of a thoughtless son of a well-to-do farmer who deliberately left his father’s house and went off into a foreign land, where he fell into much tribulation. You recall that the sheep strayed away without intention, but this youth left his home with premeditation. It was like this:

A certain man had two sons; one, the younger, was lighthearted and carefree,  always seeking for a good time and shirking responsibility, while his older brother was serious, sober, hard-working, and willing to bear responsibility. Now these two brothers did not get along well together; they were always quarreling and bickering. The younger lad was cheerful and vivacious, but indolent and unreliable; the older son was steady and industrious, at the same time self-centered, surly, and conceited. The younger son enjoyed play but shunned work; the older devoted himself to work but seldom played. This association became so disagreeable that the younger son came to his father and said: “Father, give me the third portion of your possessions which would fall to me and allow me to go out into the world to seek my own fortune.”  And when the father heard this request, knowing how unhappy the young man was at home and with his older brother, he divided his property, giving the youth his share.

Within a few weeks the young man gathered together all his funds and set out upon a journey to a far country, and finding nothing profitable to do which was also pleasurable, he soon wasted all his inheritance in riotous living.

[Read more →]

Our world— Urantia— has become known among other neighboring inhabited planets as the “World of the Cross.”

For newbies to this blog who’ve never heard of The Urantia Book, just the caption on the photo above holds the potential to make their head explode.  “. . .neighboring inhabited planets”??  Uh huhhh.

But. Yeah.  If all you’ve ever thought of calling the planet you walk around on is “earth,” then your planetary provincialism rules you pretty much unrecognized.  That is, even though you may have been a Star Trek fan back in the day, enjoy science fiction, and maybe you have even enjoyed the thirteen episodes of Carl Sagan’s 1980 groundbreaking series, “Cosmos,“  for whatever reasons, you’ve never seriously examined the notion that a universe hierarchy of other inhabited worlds— many of whom are certainly far older and more advanced than ours— may know of our world through means most of us have not even imagined.

The Cosmos programs were to many “earth dwellers” or “Urantians” around the world a wonderful introduction to the very concept of cosmology;  a comprehensive approach to a personal understanding of reality existence, which includes among all other things, a relative comprehension of the origin, purpose, and destiny of the Universe, and of consciousness and the nature of reality existence.

But.  I’m too far afield already. The notion that someone else named our world “Urantia” and that the surrounding universe knows we put the Son of God on a cross, and our world has subsequently become known to them as “The World of the Cross,” are bits of information filtered out of a little known revelatory instruction to our world in cosmology. 

[Read more →]

Sarah Reagan vies for control of the Republican Party

Thanks to the legacy of the failed Bush presidency and the electoral landslide it produced for the Democrats, the Republicans are convening in Miami today to figure out wtf to do next.

No doubt returning to the glory days of the Reagan Administration will be a major theme. But not even Dr. Frankenstein could reanimate that rotting corpse. It’s shining city on a hill has become a whited sepulcher filled with dead men’s bones, a monument to the failure of trickle down economics.

Contenders for leadership of the party include Louisiana Governor and exorcist extraordinaire, Bobby Jindal; lightweight Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty; Mormon scion and former Massachusetts governor Mittens Romney; former Speaker of the Rich House and author of the ’90s Contract On America,  Newt Gingrich;  and of course, the ethically challenged Alaska governor and failed VP candidate, Sarah Palin.

In an interview with Greta van Susteren Monday, Sarah reveals that:

Faith is a very big part of my life. And putting my life in my creator’s hands - this is what I always do. I’m like, OK, God, if there is an open door for me somewhere, this is what I always pray, I’m like, don’t let me miss the open door. Show me where the open door is. Even if it’s cracked up a little bit, maybe I’ll plow right on through that and maybe prematurely plow through it, but don’t let me miss an open door. And if there is an open door in (20)12 or four years later, and if it is something that is going to be good for my family, for my state, for my nation, an opportunity for me, then I’ll plow through that door*.

I’m like, so excited that there’s a door for Sarah to plow through should God crack it open a bit. (An improvement over George W. Bush who dispensed with the word “if” when announcing he had received God’s own Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.) Though, I have to wonder why she didn’t consult the Big Guy before accepting a VP bid that would have placed her a fragile 72 year old heartbeat away from the nuclear football; or if she did, what went wrong.

No matter– I’m like, so thrilled at the prospect of Sarah debating a snobby elitist like Barack Obama who right wing blogging denizen John Hinderaker says could learn a thing or two about public speaking from that master of political malapropisms eloquence, George W. Bush:

Obama thinks he is a good talker, but he is often undisciplined when he speaks. He needs to understand that as President, his words will be scrutinized and will have impact whether he intends it or not. In this regard, President Bush is an excellent model; Obama should take a lesson from his example. Bush never gets sloppy when he is speaking publicly. He chooses his words with care and precision, which is why his style sometimes seems halting. In the eight years he has been President, it is remarkable how few gaffes or verbal blunders he has committed. If Obama doesn’t raise his standards, he will exceed Bush’s total before he is inaugurated.

I want what this guy is smoking.

It must take a tremendous amount of psychological effort to sustain the kind of delusion that dominates Republican thinking. To this I say–

Viva la Palinistas!

——–

* Compare:  “[T]he ‘wise man, when seeking entrance through the locked door, would not destroy the door but rather would seek for the key wherewith to unlock it.’ -The Urantia Book, quoting Jesus of Nazareth

Republicans whiners like David Frum are already complaining that Obama is “muscling his way into power.” If he had anything to do with the choice of the rug in the Oval Office seen in the picture below published by CNN , it’s definitely alright with us.

Obama and Bush confer over the Banner of Michael

*Compare to the Urantian Sojourn three concentric circles graphic on the bottom left of this page. Taken from this description in The Urantia Book:

53:5.4 Since Michael elected to remain aloof from the actual warfare of the Lucifer rebellion, Gabriel called his personal staff together on Edentia and, in counsel with the Most Highs, elected to assume command of the loyal hosts of Satania. Michael remained on Salvington while Gabriel proceeded to Jerusem, and establishing himself on the sphere dedicated to the Father—the same Universal Father whose personality Lucifer and Satan had questioned—in the presence of the forgathered hosts of loyal personalities, he displayed the banner of Michael, the material emblem of the Trinity government of all creation, the three azure blue concentric circles on a white background.

Update: See comments section.

UPDATE II:
“This here  is our Great Seal! You kin ride yur chairs right on it if ya want to;  it’s okay.”

One of the greatest attractions of patriotism— it fulfills our worst wishes. In the person of our nation we are able, vicariously, to bully and cheat. Bully and cheat, what’s more, with a feeling we are profoundly virtuous.
— Aldous Huxley

“Country First” John McCain: “I am not a perfect vessel.”

I’ll see your “Country First” and raise you a McCain:

I’ve always had 100 percent absolute truth. That’s been my life of puttin’ my country first, and I’ll match that record against anyone.  And I’m proud of it. And any assertion that I’ve ever done otherwise I take strong exception to.”

Wuh oh. I think there’s a “Come to Jesus” moment comin’.

It’s not “gotcha” journalism to not assume it’s not a given when John McCain says he’s “always had 100 percent absolute truth“—  that he understands he’s saying something that’s only relatively true.  If you asked him directly when he says he put’s “country first” if that means there’s some area of reality where God pulls up in second place, do you think he’d say yes?  Or is his country assumed to be synonymous with God?  What? . . .

In McCain Cosmology, you wont hear him qualify that God, in fact, comes first, then his country; can this be his attempted appeal to secular Americans?  But give him the benefit that God comes first. He is still clueless about the nature of Truth.

John McCain believes he tells “100 percent absolute truth,” when no where on this earth is that simply even possible.

Can you  think of any denomination of Christianity, including John McCain’s version of yet-to-be-baptized Baptist belief, which doesn’t recognize that God is “absolute truth”?
John McCain, like all of us here, is a finite creature of time;  God as the source of, and as an absolute and infinite personal reality, is the only one capable of speaking absolute truth 100 percent of the time.  End of story.  But don’t assume most Christians grok that simple fact of reality;  it’s absolutely relative, dog.

That means John McCain is really talkin’ truthiness, and we all know it except him — and those who will vote for him. [Read more →]

If the karma fits, you must convict

Hall of Fame football player and former Ginsu Knives spokesman O.J. Simpson was found guilty yesterday by a Las Vegas jury of a number of felonies, including armed robbery, guaranteeing that he will spend at least five years in the Big House.

The verdict comes exactly 13 years from his acquittal in a criminal trial for the brutal stabbing murders of his white ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman; and in the 13th hour of the jury’s deliberations. (What the number 13 signifies I’ll leave to you numerology freaks, kabbalists, and assorted triskaidekaphobiacs.)

The object of the Las Vegas crime was, as Simpson described it, an attempt to retrieve “his stuff,” including the suit he wore during his earlier acquittal, from a couple of sports memorabilia dealers. Stuff that would have otherwise been forfeited to the Goldman and Brown estates pursuant to their successful $33.5 million civil suit judgment against Simpson for the deaths of Ronald and Nicole.

Having escaped the grasp of both criminal and civil law, Simpson appeared to be a justice defying roll. And then Rupert Murdoch entered the scene.

Murdoch offered Simpson big bucks to do an exclusive interview in conjunction with his publishing of a ghost written book titled “If I Did It,” an ‘imagining’ of hitherto undisclosed details of the murders. (A bogus holding company in the name of Simpson’s children was set up to launder his advance and royalties.) Murdoch offered the Goldmans and Browns millions to look the other way, but in the case of the Browns, was told to go to hell.

The announcement of the pending book and interview resulted in an outpouring of public outrage. This, of course, couldn’t have made Murdoch happier, as in his world, slimy publicity is great publicity. However, Frank Goldman successfully sued for the publishing rights and the deal went down in flames. Goldman subsequently printed the book under a different title “Confessions of the Killer,” adding some choice commentary to Simpson’s original wording.

Murdoch ended up eating the 400,000 books he had already printed. And lost another $30 million settling a wrongful firing suit against editor Judith Regan, his designated scapegoat. (Murdoch had claimed Regan had uttered anti-Semitic remarks in a phone call as justification for the firing.) All in all— couldn’t have happened to a nicer couple of guys.

The moral of the story being— you can run from the long arm of the law, more especially cosmic law, but you can’t hide. Bush Administration criminals take note.

The karma principle of causality continuity is, again, very close to the truth of the repercussional synthesis of all time-space actions in the Deity presence of the Supreme.
—The Urantia Book

Sarah has seen “pictures” of human footprints inside the tracks [of dinosaurs],” and that means men walked the earth with them.

Palin is “Religulous,” but Maher is “RiDICKulous.”

Bill Maher’s new moovie, Religulous, is not going to make it on Sarah Palin’s “to do” list this year, or any other. And it’s a shame too, because Sarah Palin, if she had been willing to talk to Maher, would have been just the sort of interview he should have put in the film. Because Palin is one of those people who at least used to think— and may still— that men and dinosaurs coexisted on earth approximately 6,000 years ago;  about 65 million years after most scientists say they were extinct. So what’s 65 million years between friends?  Probably the difference between the cognitive power of, say, a moosasaurus, and your dullest college graduate of today.  And even though Sarah used four different schools to get through college, she has apparently retained the intellectual keeness of an un-schooled moosasaurus.

As if Sarah Palin’s recent cerebral dribbling with Katie Couric wasn’t sufficient evidence to cause even intransigent Republicans to recoil in shock, add “Young Earth” stupidity to the list and you might even get a seizure or two from punDicks like BoBo Brooks and George Will.  Oh— wait. . .

In America, Palin is free to believe whatever she wants about dinosaurs or incoherent babbling in tongues.

[Read more →]

1: Steal 2000 and 2004 elections.
2. Appoint proven corporatist attorneys like John Roberts to the Supreme Court.
3. Appoint morons like Michael D. “Brownie” Brown to run critical government agencies like FEMA  to prove Reagan’s mantram that government is the problem, not the solution.
4: Start two expensive wars while simultaneously cutting taxes.
5. Deregulate Wall Street.
6. Bail it out when its pyramid scheme of bogus paper derivatives collapses.
7. Bankrupt government to the point where it’s discretionary budget can be drowned in Grover Norquist’s bathtub.

The Rethugs panicked the supine Dems into authorizing the AUMF (used as justification for invading Iraq) and then the Patriot Act (used to repeal the 4th Amendment).

Now they’re trying to panic Dems into authorizing a bailout of their immoral and profligate Wall Street buddies and donors, burdening our children’s children’s children with the cost.

Well, let me just say this– call their bluff. Burn down their rotten insect ridden house and put up something more enduring in its place.

No mortal who knows God and seeks to do the divine will can stoop to engage in the oppressions of wealth. No noble man will strive to accumulate riches and amass wealth-power by the enslavement or unfair exploitation of his brothers in the flesh. Riches are a moral curse and a spiritual stigma when they are derived from the sweat of oppressed mortal man. All such wealth should be restored to those who have thus been robbed or to their children and their children’s children. An enduring civilization cannot be built upon the practice of defrauding the laborer of his hire.

But cultural society is no great and beneficent club of inherited privilege into which all men are born with free membership and entire equality. Rather is it an exalted and ever-advancing guild of earth workers, admitting to its ranks only the nobility of those toilers who strive to make the world a better place in which their children and their children’s children may live and advance in subsequent ages.
-The Urantia Book

Sarah Palin lets a parrot give her talking points now;  she’s saving her voice for the debate with Senator Joe Biden. (Not everyone can see the clownface on the candidates;  it’s not your fault; blame it on the MSM.)

Palin:
“As fur foreign policy, you know, I think that I’m prepared and I know that on January twintieth, if we are soo blessed as to be sworn into office as your president and vice president, certainly we’ll be ready. I’ll be ready. I hiv that confidence. I hiv that ridiness.”

How will she get that “ridiness”? Well, she said she has “confidence,” which leads directly to “ridiness.” And of course, she “thinks” she’s prepared, which is a necessary first step to readiness. What other “verbiage” do you need to know?

McCain:
“A large contingent of the Alaska guard deployed to Iraq and her son happened to be one of them,” he said, “so I think she understands our national security challenges.”

Yes, this sounds like more visual foreign policy cred, i.e., if you can see Russia from your balcony, then you have foreign policy cred;  likewise, Palin can handle “Pooty Poot,” because her son wears government issued camo— because he’s in the United States Army— not the Alaskan National Guard (McSlop clean-up crew, take note). So what other “verbiage” do you need to know?

“Wauuck! We’ll be riddy!  Hello. . . I have teh ridiness.”

“We’ll be riddy.  Hello. . . I have teh ridiness.”

“. . . I have teh ridiness. Wauuck! We’ll be riddy!  Hello.”

•

At rally yesterday in Jacksonville, FL., Rachel Madow reports that without his trusty sidekick Sarah Barracuda at his side, John McSame was able to fill less than 25% of the arena.

She also comments on a rally in Nevada, where a local pol asked the crowd: Is this what 10,000 people look like? Er, probably not. The venue only holds 3,500.

Bloomberg News reported that the McCSame campaign is inflating the size of crowds that do show up. Last week, for instance, at a rally in Fairfax, VA, the McCain campaign claimed 23,000 people attended, citing the local fire marshal as the source of the estimate. Problem is, the marshal denies it, saying the department don’t do crowd counts. A WaPo reporter who was there said it looked more like 8,000 to him.

Bloomberg mentions a similar unsubstantiated claim from a rally last month:

Aug. 30, at Palin’s first big public appearance after her nomination. the McCain campaign said 10,000 people showed up at the Consol Energy Arena in Washington, Pennsylvania, home of the Washington Wild Things baseball team.

The campaign attributed that estimate, and several that followed, to U.S. Secret Service figures, based on the number of people who passed through magnetometers.

“We didn’t provide any numbers to the campaign,” said Malcolm Wiley, a spokesman for the U.S. Secret Service.

While exaggerating crowd sizes at rallies is commonplace, pulling numbers out of thin air and then attributing them to authorities like fire marshals and secret service agents represents a new low in political campaigning.

McCain became McSame when he adopted the Bush/neocon ethic– the end justifies the means.  Selling his soul for the presidency is tragic enough. But putting a totally unqualified religious fundie like Sarah Palin a heartbeat away from the most powerful office in the world borders on lunacy.

May God have mercy on us all.

The political or administrative form of a government is of little consequence provided it affords the essentials of civil progress — liberty, security, education, and social co-ordination. It is not what a state is but what it does that determines the course of social evolution. And after all, no state can transcend the moral values of its citizenry as exemplified in their chosen leaders. Ignorance and selfishness will insure the downfall of even the highest type of government.
-The Urantia Book

Seems like Sarah Palin’s lipstick joke is becoming something of a joke itself, undergoing a number of remixes and used against her (as in my own blog yesterday).

Check out this version by Juan Cole in today’s Salon titled:

“What’s the difference between Palin and Muslim fundamentalists? Lipstick”

It begins thusly:

Sept. 9, 2008 |
John McCain announced that he was running for president to confront the “transcendent challenge” of the 21st century, “radical Islamic extremism,” contrasting it with “stability, tolerance and democracy.” But the values of his handpicked running mate, Sarah Palin, more resemble those of Muslim fundamentalists than they do those of the Founding Fathers. On censorship, the teaching of creationism in schools, reproductive rights, attributing government policy to God’s will and climate change, Palin agrees with Hamas and Saudi Arabia rather than supporting tolerance and democratic precepts. What is the difference between Palin and a Muslim fundamentalist? Lipstick.

Well worth reading the whole thing.