Giuliani to Paul: ‘Take back’ 9/11 comments

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Why did terrorists attack the U.S. on 9/11?

According to Texas Congressman Ron Paul, “They attack us because we’ve been over there. We’ve been bombing Iraq for 10 years. We’ve been in the Middle East.”

Restrained, but clearly angry, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani jumped in, calling Paul’s statement “extraordinary.”

“As someone who lived through the attack of September 11 — that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq — I don’t think I’ve ever heard that before, and I’ve heard some pretty absurd explanations for September 11th,” he said.

Giuliani’s fiery response prompted applause and the following demand from the former mayor: “I would ask the congressman to withdraw that comment and tell us that he didn’t really mean that.”

In response, Paul stood by his comments and said that “if we think that we can do what we want around the world and not incite hatred, then we have a problem … They come and they attack us because we’re over there.”

Giuliani isn’t grounded in reality.

Source: CNN 

Storm in US over chocolate Jesus

A New York gallery has angered a US Catholic group with its decision to exhibit a milk chocolate sculpture of Jesus Christ. The six-foot (1.8m) sculpture, entitled “My Sweet Lord”, depicts Jesus Christ naked on the cross.

Catholic League head Bill Donohue called it “one of the worst assaults on Christian sensibilities ever”.

The sculpture, by artist Cosimo Cavallaro, will be displayed from Monday at Manhattan’s Lab Gallery.

I think the best part is the people who are causing an uproar about this probably bashed the Muslim  community for getting in an uproar about the Mohammad cartoons.

I f someone can explain the next point to me, I’d be very glad:

The Catholic League, which describes itself as the nation’s largest Catholic civil rights organisation, also criticised the timing of the exhibition.

“The fact that they chose Holy Week shows this is calculated, and the timing is deliberate,” Mr Donohue said.

He called for a boycott of the gallery and the hotel which houses it.

Why does there need to be a Catholic civil rights organization? More importantly why does there need to be more than one! I have a feeling they focus less on “Catholic civil rights” and more on preventing the religion from looking bad or from people “offending” it in anyway. The day a group with those goals can be called a civil rights organization is the day logic dies.

‘Overwhelming response’

The gallery’s creative director, Matt Semler, said the gallery was considering its options in the wake of angry e-mails and telephone calls.

“We’re obviously surprised by the overwhelming response and offence people have taken,” he said. “We are certainly in the process of trying to figure out what we’re going to do next.”

Mr Semler said the timing of the exhibition was coincidental.

Mr Cavallaro, the Canadian-born artist, is known for using food ingredients in his art, on one occasion painting a hotel room in mozzarella cheese.

He used 200 pounds (90 kg) of chocolate to make the sculpture which, unusually, depicts Jesus without a loincloth.

It sounds like an impressive piece of art, and something that would be breathtaking to see. Molding something that large out of chocolate is an awesome feat.

That is, unless you are catholic… then your civil rights have been violated.

Source: BBC News

Atheists under attack in America

CNN runs a story on how Atheists are under attack in America, but during the discussion at the end of the show prove their point on a different level by having the panelists ruthlessly and hatefully attack people who lack faith in any higher power.

It is a sickening display and far worse than I’ve seen of any atheist, including myself who and I am admittedly a ruthless bastard, attack Christians or any religious group.

In the aftermath, Debbie Schlussel posts her response to the anger the segment generated on her blog.

It’s a sick look at the mind of a paranoid, heartless person consumed by the ignorance of her faith.

I’m surprised these atheists would be so obedient to a higher power that told them to e-mail me since, after all, the one thing they’re supposed to have in common is a lack of belief in a higher power. Well, no-one ever said atheists are consistent or immune from hypocrisy.

I don’t mind receiving the atheist hate mail, since I know that in a few years, many of these same people will either be Muslim extremists (redundant) or helping the country fall further in its fight against the creep of Islamic imposition on America . . . or both.

Look at famous atheists and what happened to them. Adam Gadahn a/k/a Azzam Al-Amriki–now a top Al-Qaeda video “personality”–was raised by his hippie Jewish father and equally bizarre gentile mother as an atheist. And look how he turned out. Ditto for hippie-spawn John Walker Lindh.

Those two people are enemies of America, and many of those who think like them are of equally weak mind. If you don’t believe in anything, you’ll fall for virtually nothing. That’s why Europe is so quickly turning Islamist–because atheism dominates and Christianity is rapidly dying there. Over there, the number one cause for which atheists are suddenly finding “god” is Islam.

Over here, as I pointed out on CNN, atheists are on the attack against religion and G-d only when Christians and Jews are involved, not when Muslims and Islam are. A Christian prayer at a public school graduation or football game? Send in the ACLU lawyers. A Muslim prayer at a high school football game in Dearbornistan? Suddenly, when the “Religion of Peace” is involved, atheists boast extreme tolerance and display ultimate deference. No lawsuits. Ever. And the Muslim prayers continue.

So to you hate-filled atheists a/k/a future Muslim extremists (redundant), your e-mails have no effect on me. Ditto for your creative obscenities which don’t impress upon me the civility of the atheo-fascisti set

It’s a sad day for this county.

VIDEO COMPILATION: Anna Nicole Smith And Our National Media Embarassment

The death of Anna Nicole Smith yesterday was a feeding frenzy for the national media, and coverage of the war was drowned out: NBC’s Nightly News devoted 14 seconds to Iraq compared to 3 minutes and 13 seconds to Anna Nicole. CNN referenced Anna Nicole 522% more frequently than it did Iraq. MSNBC was even worse — 708% more references to Anna Nicole than Iraq.

The lop-sided coverage largely ignored many key developments in Iraq, including the sixth downing of a U.S. helicopter in the past three weeks, the allegations that a deputy Iraqi health minister was aiding a Shiite militia in its attacks against U.S. troops, and the death of four Marines.

ThinkProgress has collected some of the many, many lowlights of yesterday’s coverage (i.e., Larry King: “The death of Anna Nicole Smith is the number one story around the world tonight”), along with a lone highlight provided by CNN’s Jack Cafferty. Watch it:

Watch as our nation goes insane over the death of a porn star…. kinda shows how skewed American priorities are.

Watch the video here, it’s worth it.

CNN’s Paula Zahn actually bumped Richard Dawkins in order to commit more time to talking about Smith’s death. That one fact kinda makes me a bit sick.

Source: Think Progress 

District To Pay $100 For Good Performances On Standardized tests

An eastern Ohio school district is experimenting with an incentive usually deployed by parents to coax good grades out of students — paying them up to $100 for good performances on state achievement exams.

Coshocton City Schools is in the last year of a three-year experiment run by an economics professor at Case Western Reserve University. Officials of the 2,000-student district will decide after getting Eric Bettinger’s final data this summer whether to continue it.

The third- through sixth-graders in the study receive $15 for every score of “proficient” on a state exam and $20 for better results — so they can collect $100 if they have high scores in all five subjects. The money comes as gift certificates redeemable at a local pizza parlor and Wal-Mart.

Coshocton manufacturer Robert Simpson paid for the project with a $100,000 grant from his family foundation, and says the foundation is ready to take the rewards districtwide if the data and the community support it.

“We are confident the incentives work, and our foundation is very pleased with the program so far,” Simpson said.For the experiment, entire grades from the city’s four elementary schools were randomly chosen to either receive the rewards or not.

Although Bettinger is not releasing his study results early, the district has climbed out of the state’s “academic emergency” ranking since the rewards began. It is now two notches higher, at “effective” status.

I guess if you think of it as a tax refund…. it doesn’t seem so completely insane.

Source: News net 5 

Sex Slavery Ring Uncovered in Georgia A prostitut…

A prostitution sting in Clayton County has shut down 14 massage parlors, but now Clayton County Sheriff Victor Hill says even more serious charges are coming.Investigators there have been working on the case for three months. Last month, they raided and shut down the 14 massage parlors. But now, the deeper story is what some of the people who worked in those spas have been going through.

Additional investigation has the county sheriff looking at more serious charges than prostitution.

“Last week, before the holidays, it was confirmed that four of these locations were definitely holding women against their will,” said Hill.

Hill says in four of the spas that were shut down, they found women who were forced into prostitution.

“In one heartbreaking story, one woman said she had been held for four years — even tried to escape, was unsuccessful. Was assaulted for trying to escape,” Hill said.

Now all the businesses in question have been shut down. The buildings have been seized, as well as cash, credit card machines. The sheriff says it is one of their proudest moments.

“I hope this sends a clear message to the people who were operating these places, that they will no longer ever be allowed to operate them,” said Hill. “And if anyone was thinking about bringing that type of establishment to my county, they will be dealt with swiftly and appropriately.”

The sheriff says there are obviously legitimate massage therapy locations in the county, but in the 14 cases his office has cited, when an undercover officer went in and was getting a massage, they were asked if they wanted that massage to go further into a sex act.

That’s the south for you!

America is the land of the Freeee as we all know. Noooooo problems here.

Source:  wltx

HOW OLD IS THE GRAND CANYON? PARK SERVICE WON’T SA…

Grand Canyon National Park is not permitted to give an official estimate of the geologic age of its principal feature, due to pressure from Bush administration appointees. Despite promising a prompt review of its approval for a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah’s flood rather than by geologic forces, more than three years later no review has ever been done and the book remains on sale at the park, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

“In order to avoid offending religious fundamentalists, our National Park Service is under orders to suspend its belief in geology,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. “It is disconcerting that the official position of a national park as to the geologic age of the Grand Canyon is ‘no comment.’”

In a letter released today, PEER urged the new Director of the National Park Service (NPS), Mary Bomar, to end the stalling tactics, remove the book from sale at the park and allow park interpretive rangers to honestly answer questions from the public about the geologic age of the Grand Canyon. PEER is also asking Director Bomar to approve a pamphlet, suppressed since 2002 by Bush appointees, providing guidance for rangers and other interpretive staff in making distinctions between science and religion when speaking to park visitors about geologic issues.

Absolutely insane, I don’t understand why the rangers aren’t fighting this. It’s one of the most insane things I’ve ever heard.

Ironically, in 2005, two years after the Grand Canyon creationist controversy erupted, NPS approved a new directive on “Interpretation and Education (Director’s Order #6) which reinforces the posture that materials on the “history of the Earth must be based on the best scientific evidence available, as found in scholarly sources that have stood the test of scientific peer review and criticism [and] Interpretive and educational programs must refrain from appearing to endorse religious beliefs explaining natural processes.”

“As one park geologist said, this is equivalent of Yellowstone National Park selling a book entitled Geysers of Old Faithful: Nostrils of Satan,” Ruch added, pointing to the fact that previous NPS leadership ignored strong protests from both its own scientists and leading geological societies against the agency approval of the creationist book. “We sincerely hope that the new Director of the Park Service now has the autonomy to do her job.”

At least there is a small minority who are fighting. I feel like vomiting.

Source: Peer.org 

Girl has fingers chopped off for stealing spinach …

An enraged landowner chopped off all the fingers of a 10-year-old girl’s hand with a sickle after catching her stealing a few spinach leaves from his property in eastern India.

Khushboo, the daughter of lower caste labourers, was foraging for edible herbs near the railroad tracks of her village in Bihar state when she mistakenly entered the fields of upper caste landlord Pankaj Rai.
When Rai found Khushboo removing spinach leaves, he chopped off the fingers of her right hand.
The girl’s father, Sukho Ram, said he had sent his daughter to collect some herbs but she had accidentally strayed into Rai’s fields.
The incident occurred in the Bhagalpur area, 145 miles southeast of Patna, the capital of Bihar, widely considered India’s most lawless state with a history of caste violence.
Local police have registered a complaint, local newspaper sources said. No other details were immediately available.–AP

I’m glad I don’t live in India…. or like Spinach for that matter…

Source: The Herald

Teacher rejects 2nd food donation A Grade 3 student

A Grade 3 student is the little girl who gave too much.

Stephanie Templeton, 8, arrived on two separate occasions with a bag full of canned goods for her North York school’s food drive.

On Tuesday when Stephanie arrived with her second load of six cans, her teacher at Derrydown Public School in the Keele St. and Finch Ave. W. area sent them back home with her because she was making other students feel bad, Stephanie’s dad, Frank Templeton, said yesterday.

“The teacher said she was showing up the other kids,” the shocked father said. “We teach her to do the best she can, and they basically just stuffed the cans back in her knapsack and sent her home with them.”

Tis the season for giving!

Source:  Toronto Sun

School Bans Hugging

A junior high school in Iowa City has banned hugging on campus, according to a Local 6 News report. officials at Southeast Junior High School banned the popular act of affection because girls would hug in groups and stop the flow of traffic during passing periods. Principal Deb Wretman said they have now instituted a strict hands-off or handshake policy at the Iowa City school. She said it’s safe and efficient.”The reason that we have the hands-off handshakes is really a, ‘Lets move through the halls during passing time, do it safely and efficiently,’” Wretman said. But not everyone is happy about the change. A student recently wrote a letter to a local newspaper expressing outrage about the rule. Wretman said at this point they are firm about the decision that has been handed down.

At least they still allow us to talk to each other!

Source: Local6