FairAndUNbalanced.com

 
From M. Bouffant at Web of Evil:

If it’s not the Cult of Trump, Jesus or Moses but it’s the Cult of W. Fard Muhammad or L. Ron Hubbard it’s “troubling”. Or “unholy”. (Ooooh, scary!) And competition for the religious dollar, so in true market of ideas style, the right wants to see if they can get the gov’t. to lean on their competitors a little by skree-ing about another vast imaginary conspiracy.

Bethany Mandel / National Review:
The Troubling Connections between Scientology and the Nation of Islam
— Farrakahn receives a commission for each of his followers who undergoes a Scientology ‘auditing.’
— Scientology is commonly known as the religion of the stars. Its reach inside Hollywood is deep …
Discussion:
Sarah Lee / RedState: Unholy Union: Scientology and the Nation of Islam Join Forces
CommunicatorIC / Ex Scientologist Message Board: Members of the Nation of Islam are practicing the religion of Scientology.

Whatever happened to that right-wing concern/desire for “religious liberty”/theocracy?

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Okay, so the President is actually welcoming service members and their families to a White House screening of ‘Men in Black 3’, May 25, 2012

Wondering why a few conservative friends fail to be impressed.

 
From The Onion:

THE HEAVENS—Feeling unnerved after sensing a sudden movement in His peripheral vision, an increasingly jumpy God, Our Heavenly Father, was reportedly starting to worry Monday that Heaven may be haunted.

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From driftglass:

It is necessary but not sufficient to use whatever talents we have to hang a lantern on the Conservative monsters and quislings who are killing the country.

We are also called to support those who will stand with us against the monsters, even as we acknowledge their imperfections. In the Liberal Blogosphere, respecting and supporting anyone who is not 100% Stein-Certified and Greenwald-Approved brings down the wrath of the Purity Angels, and over the last 13 years, this has cost me about half of my traffic. Which, as one of the last single-shingle, non-ad-supported bloggers still standing, meant taking a serious hit.

Was it worth it?

Damn betcha.

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From The Journal of Improbable Research:

Mistreated by a supervisor at work? Would it make you feel a little bit better if you could, say, torment a voodoo doll?

Professor Lindie Hanyu Liang (at the Lazaridis School of Business and Economics at Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada) and colleagues have investigated such things. In return for a $1 payment, 195 full-time employees living in the US or Canada participated in an experiment in which they were given the opportunity to retaliate (after recalling an abusive workplace scenario) against an online Voodoo Doll, provided by Dumb.com (“Your source for dumb stuff”) ^{* see note below}

“[…] we asked the participants to use the materials provided (e.g., pins, pliers, fire) on the doll over the next minute.”

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From North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz:

I know two things about my death:

I know I’m going to die.

I also know that when the time comes, it will likely come as a surprise to me.

Death is usually like that; it arrives as a rude interruption—leaving work undone, conversations unresolved, plans unfinished, dreams unfulfilled. It rarely let’s you wait until you’re fully ready to go.

Death leaves permanent ellipses where we’d have placed periods.

We will all be in the middle of something, of many somethings, when we are taken from here to hereafter.

As much as I can, I want to be prepared.

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Michelle Obama to children:

The 2015 White House Easter Egg Roll is right around the corner on April 6. We have had a lot of fun these past few years, and this time around we’ve got some new twists in store our theme is gimme five and I’m gonna be challenging all of you to give me five things that you’re doing to lead a healthier life.

Wondering why a few conservative friends fail to be impressed.

 
From PZ Myers:

Remember when you were kids, and people would prank each other with mild little jokes, and it was OK at first, and then it would get a bit tiring as the day went on, and as you got older the tiring phase would come earlier and earlier in the day? Well, I’m 61 goddamn years old, and the tired bit started at 12:01 am, like it does every day.

But that isn’t all. The fools have taken over, 365 days a year. Have you heard of Q/Anon? Here’s the inside dope.

There is a high-ranking official in the government calling themself Q, who is privy to dramatic state secrets that they have chosen to reveal on 4chan. Q claims the country is actually run by a gigantic pedophile ring (this is an echo of PizzaGate) fronted by the Democrat party, and that Donald Trump is a super-genius who has been playing 13-dimensional chess with everyone.

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From The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser:

People raised in Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) churches have heard countless sermons on what the Bible says about sex. Teenagers are warned about the dangers of petting, and many IFB church forbid unmarrieds from having any physical contact with each other. Young men are characterized as weak horn-dogs and young women are viewed as gatekeepers who are responsible for any untoward sexual advances made by sexually aware boys. Young women are given strict orders concerning how to dress and behave to ward off church boys from having sex with them. One thing is certain: if a young IFB woman has sex with a boy, it is almost always her fault.

IFB churches often have lengthy and complex rules that are used to keep unmarrieds from having sex. These rules follow young adults to the IFB colleges they attend. Here we have institutions filled with eighteen- to twenty-five-year-old men and women who, with hormones raging, are expected to refrain from physical contact with the opposite sex. This includes: no holding hands, no kissing, no hugging, no putting one’s arm around another, or sitting too closely to someone of the opposite sex. My wife and I attended Midwestern Baptist College in the 1970s. We were expected to maintain a six-inch distance from each other at all times. Even after we married, we were expected to refrain from public displays of affection lest we cause unmarried dorm students to “sin.”

One would think that IFB pastors and college leaders would approve of masturbation as a way of dealing with pent-up sexual frustration. Unfortunately, masturbation is also a sin. As an IFB teenager, I heard pastors who warned church teens about the dangers of masturbation, including, — oh yes they did! — warning that masturbation will make you blind. Now lest you think it’s just crazy IFB preachers who have a problem with masturbation, consider this quote by Evangelical pastor Mark Driscoll:

First, masturbation can be a form of homosexuality because it is a sexual act that does not involve a woman. If a man were to masturbate while engaged in other forms of sexual intimacy with his wife then he would not be doing so in a homosexual way. However, any man who does so without his wife in the room is bordering on homosexuality activity, particularly if he’s watching himself in a mirror and being turned on by his own male body.

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From our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit:

21 hours ago
Via Phil comes word that it’s possible to put together a wearable piece of kit that will negate facial recognition. It can possibly make the facial recognition gizmos think you’re someone else. The attack on facial recognition is invisible to the naked eye and, if tuned right, can spoof the machines into thinking you’re someone else.

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