Holy crap, I had never noticed that before, but they are totally right. It IS all economically based … at least the substantive discussions, the ones that could actually lead to something that might have an impact on the environment. Of course there are all of the hippies, tree huggers, earth lovers, bleeding hearts and such who are screaming at the tops of their lungs about how there is a different kind of impact … you know, to people and animals and plants and stuff … but in the defense of the large corporations that are doing the most damage to the environment, it’s really hard to hear individuals yelling over the grinding of the gears of industry and the heavy machinery that is destroying the rain forests.

However, the yelling of cold, hard cash is easy to hear over the din, and actually makes sense to industry. So in some ways it is good that the bulk of the discussion is about economic concerns … how much will it COST to reduce greenhouse gas emissions? What will the impact be on our BOTTOM LINE?

The sad fact of the matter, though, is the bleeding hearts and tree huggers and hippies are really the ones concerned about what matters about the situation. because when it comes down to it, how much does money matter when we can’t breathe anymore? Or when our shorelines are flooded? Or when our current systems of agriculture are not able to provide food in the same way they were able to when the globe was not too warm?

It might just be me, but who gives a F%&K about money when our actual survival is on the line? Which might seem a little drastic or over the top or reactionary or whatever, and this might not be anything that any of us will have to worry about in our lifetimes …

… but that, to me, is just the argument that you would expect from outright human arrogance … “it won’t impact my life, so why should I care?” Which is what has gotten us into this mess to begin with. We want more, bigger, better, faster … money, products, conveniences, automobiles, you name it. We are willing to have children slaves in international waters make our tennis shoes to save and/or make a buck … we are willing to genetically engineer our crops and livestock beyond recognition (and have our livestock live in completely abysmal conditions) to save and/or make a buck … and we are willing to rape the land for everything we can burn or process to burn to make fuel to drive the machinery that allows all of these other things to happen …

… To make and/or save a buck.

But our arrogance as human beings (that which is probably our one defining characteristic … F%&K ingenuity or industriousness or whatever you want to call it … we’re F$%*ING arrogant) keeps us from being able to just sit back and admit, “hmmmm, maybe we are screwing ourselves over in a bit, and no matter what the costs or impact to our bottom lines, maybe we SHOULD do something about it.”

But we won’t, as the arrogant sons-a-bitches we are, and we will continue to drag our feet and try to figure out the most money-saving way to GIT’R'DONE!, while we continue to belch smoke into the atmosphere and dump toxic waste wherever we can.

And we turn to the juggernaut of SCIENCE to back ourselves up … because no matter how conclusively scientists prove that the icecaps ARE melting and the globe IS warming, some jackhole can call up to a show and spout some bull$h!t like “it’s a scientifically proven fact that the globe has been warming consistently for the past 20,000 years, sine the ICE AGE, so global warming is a heap of horse manure.”

Okay, science is flawed, we all know this … or we should. Science is not the ANSWER to our problems, it is a way to try to FIND an answer to our problems, and it is as flawed as anything else. It is a constant process of refutation and revision … of hypothesis testing and theory generation …

… THEORY generation. That is an important thing to keep in mind. Of course some theories are more solid than others, and we can actually claim to have proven some things … but when we are dealing with a question about what the temperatures were 10,000 years ago or 5,000 years ago, can we really be sure?

This is where common sense should come in for how we attempt to solve our problems now … sure science may tell us certain things about trends in global temperatures and weather patterns and such, but really … shouldn’t we also just open our F%&*ING eyes and take a look at what is happening?

Doesn’t common sense tell us that if we clear-cut thousands of acres of rain forest and suck all the oil out of the Earth and burn it, and send coal smoke belching out of thousands of smokestacks (or hundreds of thousands), and pave over the Earth, and pollute the oceans and the lakes and build and destroy and blah, blah, blah that WE MIGHT ACTUALLY BE DOING SOME KIND OF DAMAGE THAT SCIENCE HASN’T “DISCOVERED” YET?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

I’d say that’s a real possibility … but if it costs too much to fix, or if we can point to “science” that says we’re not doing any damage at all, why bother worrying about it.

We’d be too arrogant to admit it anyway.

Of course that connection cannot be denied, and there is always the possibility that the act was religiously motivated, but the fact that the news-making capability of a  mentally ill individual, or someone who cannot handle the stress of looking down the barrel of the gun of deployment, pales in comparison to an act of Islamic violence against America cannot be denied either. And this, of course, brings up the ever-present feelings of Blind Nationalism that are festering in the heart of the good o’l US of A.

On a news call-in show this morning, a gentleman from a southern state called in to quote the Koran. After pronouncing words wrong, he proceeded to read from the often used section about non-Muslims as infidels, blah, blah, blah, and they should be killed, blah, blah, blah, unless they convert to Islam, yadda, yadda, yadda. And then used this as the basis for his claim that Muslims should not be allowed to serve in the US military.

Seriously? This dude actually committed this act of stupidity on a nationally-aired, well-respected radio program. ON F$%&ING NPR! What did he really think the reaction would be? “Oh southern racist guy [yes this is an assumption on the Awesomizer's part that this jackhole is also a racist as well as anti-Muslim], of course you’re right! There is at least one section in the Koran that claims that Westerners are infidels and should be killed. That is a perfectly reasonable basis for a claim that those who practice Islam should not be allowed to serve their country!”

It’s astounding and flabbergasting to me how these religious texts are used like quick reference manuals for argument rather than pieces of collected history and theology that need to be interpreted in historical, social, and political contexts.

Oh, but we do, and we do it a lot.

Turn to designated argument section A, to make point B, rinse, and repeat.

What I truly love about this particular example of idiocy is what is commonly referred to as the pot calling the kettle black. This guy that references the overused section about infidels that the lunatic, fundamentalist fringe of Islam uses to justify terrorist acts, is probably the same guy who is a member of the Christian lunatic, fundamentalist fringe that clings to the overused, archaic section of the Bible to justify hate crimes against homosexuals or immigrants, or other races, or whatever. “Gays shouldn’t be able to get married because of what it says in Leviticus!” And then some dude empties his gun into an abortion doctor.

Sound familiar? Does this mean that Christian Fundamentalists shouldn’t be allowed to carry guns?

Holy F$%&ING hell … perish the thought!

But that seems to me to be the same amount of logic inherent in this guy’s claims to ban Muslims from serving in the US military. One bad apple ruined the whole bunch.

But maybe he’s on to something there … maybe Christian Fundamentalists shouldn’t be allowed to carry guns … hmmmmm. But that’s for another post.

The point here is that fundamentalism is fundamentalism, no matter what book you use to justify your claims. And it leads to violence no matter what passage you choose.

What we forget is that Islamic Fundamentalism is the flavor of the day … we Christians did and still do practice our fair share. It’s just not what’s hot right now. But some of you may remember something called the Inquisition? Happened in Europe a few years back. There was something in there about Jews needing to convert to Catholicism or … you know, something bad would happen. I think some people died as a result. A bunch of them fled to other countries. Sounds a bit like the passage from the Koran our radio pal read … convert or else, right? I wonder what passage in the Bible justified their claims?

These are books, people, written by men. They are religiously and politically motivated texts that were written centuries ago. They do, perhaps, map out pathways for coexistence with others, codes of conduct to help us get along … you know, Thou Shalt Not Kill and whatnot? I think the Koran does stuff like that, too.

But what happened back then is not the same as what is happening now. When the Koran tells you to kill the Infidels unless they convert, chances are the political situation at the time of writing was kill or be killed. Which is still the case in many places nowadays. Especially when an army comes in and starts killing you. And then comes back a few years later and starts killing you again.

And we wonder why Fundamentalism survives.

But thank God we’ve got idiots who are willing to point these things out for us on the radio.

Watch this, if you can stomach it … a prime example of the dumbing down of our nation.

This is how the Right wins hearts and minds … pay careful attention to his description of the New York Times’ coverage of the Left Wing protests and the Right Wing Tea Party. He reads a quote from one article in a sappy, false voice we’ll call the “sarcastic, rainbows and fuzzy puppies” voice that most bleeding-heart liberals use when they talk about the stuff the Left Wing does. The other, he reads in the voice we’ll call the “sarcastic, angry, hate-speech” voice that the “liberal media” uses to denounce the actions of the Right Wing.

In Glenn Beck’s world,by changing his voice while reading articles, and by following the readings with comments like, “I want to wear a tie-dyed t-shirt and drive my VW van while listening to the Grateful Dead and not bathing for six months,” actually changes reality. It makes the article about the Left Wing rally a happy-day love fest (in the eyes of the liberal media, of course), while the Right Wing rally is seen (by the same liberal media) as a hate-filled festival of hate. However, if we look at these two quotes as they appeared in the newspaper, without Mr. Beck’s spot-on line reading, we can see that there is actually very little difference between the two.

“Several thousand demonstrators espousing and denouncing a host of causes converged on downtown Pittsburgh on Friday, pumping up signs and playing instruments in a peaceful and permitted march calling for solutions to a range of problems they attributed to the economic policies of the world leaders at the Group of 20 meeting.”

“A seas of protesters spilled onto the national mall on Saturday in the largest rally against President Obama since he took office, a culmination of a summer-long season of protests that began with opposition to a health care overhaul and grew into a broader dissatisfaction with the government.”

Was the Pittsburgh protest not a peaceful and permitted protest (yes, there were arrests, but very few in comparison to the people in attendance)? Was it not in protest against the policies of the G20? Was the Tea Party not a culmination of a summer-long season of protest? Was it not against Obama and the health care plan?

But, when read in the “sarcastic, angry hate-speech” voice, the second quote takes on this meaning:

“The liberal media hates you Right Wingers. They hate you and therefore, they are going to talk about your protest like you’re anti-American. They’re going to make you look like a bunch of hate-filled hate mongers. While the Left Wing protest was a bunch of loving, fuzzy puppies and pink, fluffy bunnies dancing hand-in-hand. Right Wing = bad. Left Wing = good.”

Of course, Mr. Beck mentioned nothing about the use of signs at the Right Wing rally that depicted Obama as Hitler. That seems to ring with a little bit of truth on the hate-filled, hate-monger front doesn’t it?

But it is this convenient leaving out of crucial facts, mixed with the outlandish performativity of Mr. Beck (and his other nutter cohorts) that is such a powerful drug for the dissemination of stupidity. You don’t need to interepret your own facts when Mr. Beck is there to interpret them for you … when he can read you the cherry-picked quotes from the newspaper while adding his own verbal, sarcastic spin to them. Why should you bother picking up the paper and reading it for yourself when Mr. Beck told you what was important? I mean, he did it in a funny and entertaining way, didn’t he?

There is good and bad on both sides. There was discord at the Pittsburgh rally. There was discord at the Tea Party. There was hate and violence on both sides. But in Mr. Beck’s world, and therefore in the worlds of his listeners and viewers. They are the victims of all the hate and violence, and if they become violent and hateful as a result? Hey man, it’s just the natural progression of things. We’re the victims, right? Obama is a hatemonger who is against us, so we need to paint a picture of him looking like Hitler to make our point, right? That’s what Mr. Beck said anyway.

This from a man whose vision of utopia, at the end of his rant, comes down to a Norman Rockwell painting and an episode of Gunsmoke. Because these are both accurate representations of reality. Or at least that’s as much reality as we need.

If that isn’t the dissemination of hate, violence, and misinformation, then I don’t know what is

“This is a great time to reflect and ask yourself ‘who am I to judge?’ … I have never questioned my faith.  Initially I questioned all others as I grew into maturity.  I questioned Islam after 9/11.  But rather than fear and attack the Islamic religion, I chose to learn more about it.  I don’t agree with everything in the Qur’an just as I don’t agree with everything in the Bible.  But ultimately, both religions were born from Judaism, a belief in one God who created the world and cares about the behavior and beliefs of human beings … So with your current stance on Muslims not being allowed to pray on National Prayer Day at the Capitol Building to me is a complete slap in the face to the Constitution and several amendments.  Also, it shows a lack of follow-up.  I checked in the USA Today, Washington Post and NY Times, and there is no story whatsoever of there being a “mass prayer” being held on the Capitol Hill steps.  Perhaps the media is trying to protect “us” by not publishing or acknowledging that there was a prayer …  But you can find 100′s of stories from bloggers, which you seem to have found as ‘truth’ … I am sick of the ignorance of this nation and supposed true ‘Christians’ towards Islam.  We have unfortunately labeled Muslims as “Islamists”.  The difference is night and day.  Less than 1% of Muslims are the extreme Islamists, yet something as peaceful as a prayer on the steps of our Capitol seems to launch fools into standing against it.  Thankfully, the most of the world has not judged ‘us’ on the Spanish Inquisition, Adolph Hitler (Christian) or Benito Mussolin (Catholic) … To answer your question where do I want to be when Judgment day comes, I know I will be able to say this.  I will be standing with my family, and holding the hand of a dear friend of mine who is Muslim, and holding the other hand of a dear friend who is Hindu, I will stand beside my family and friends and together we will walk into the afterlife … If Muslims do ever choose to pray and you wish to stand against’, don’t forget to don your white hoods and take a burning cross for good measure … In closing, I would really appreciate it if you would stop sending me this filth.  It is unbecoming of true Christians.”

I want to thank my friend to taking a standing and calling out the ignorance where he saw it. I have only one thing to add for all of those jackholes that are intent on standing against an attempt at a peaceful assembly of religious folks because those folks aren’t the “right” religion. If you can march on Washington to spread ignorance and intolerance like you did with the “Tea Party” (for any of you not familiar with this, check the Awesomizer post dealing with this event), then a group of people who are trying to spread the word of peace should be applauded for trying to do so, not railed against because “their” God is not “your” God.

God is God people. We’re the one’s who decided he/she/it was something different based on the books WE decided to write about him/her/it. Our words, not God’s words … always keep that in mind. Religion is a construct of the human mind and its will to control other human minds.

By the way, that line you “Christians” (and yes, I put that in quotes to signify that you are not really all that Christian) are so intent on keeping in our pledge of allegiance, “…one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all,” does not say “…one nation, under ‘our’ God (and not ‘your’ God), with liberty and justice for a few, select people who read the ‘right’ book about ‘our’ God.”

You are the ignorant, the intolerant, the hate mongers, the violent. You are what’s wrong with this country. Not those who are trying to spread the word of peace. Here’s a hint … before you start rallying against, try to learn about that which you rally against … and never, ever forget that the “Christian” history is as violent as anything else.

Thanks friend. You are one more solider in the fight against stupidity. You are a true Christian.

Many people who have learned English as a second (or third or fourth) language will tell you that it is because of these homonyms(phones)(graphs) that English is a tricky language to learn and use, and by virtue of my place of employment and my course of study, I can verify this to be true in many cases. However, and this is the crux of this discussion … these people who have learned English as a second (3rd, 4th, 5th) language USE THESE F%^*ING WORDS CORRECTLY while we, native-born, native speakers of English CANNOT and have no desire to correct this particular problem.

Meanwhile, there are intelligent, eloquent, hard-working people in our midst who not only know how to speak and write in English every bit as well as we do (or better), but they also speak and/or write fluently in several languages. How many people do you know who are bilingual, let alone are polyglots? How may people do you know who could use polyglot correctly in a sentence?

Lord knows I’m not multilingual … I know enough Spanish to order at Taco Bell and that’s about it.

This is not to say that I would expect all of us to become English experts or Linguists or anything, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect that we can (and should) learn the bare-bones basics of the language we have supposedly learned since birth … and that’s “supposedly,” not “supposably.”

Part of this, I realize, is the sad fact that all people are not considered equal and that there is still a large part of our population that does not have access to quality education … hell, if we can’t provide the basics needed to keep our citizens healthy, then how are we going to provide them all with good education … but a lot of it is our own willful, intentional, acceptable, laudable ignorance.

It’s the jock mentality of high school … nerds do well in class, jocks do well in sports, it’s cooler to be a jock than a nerd, therefore, jocks are more valued. It’s why professional athletes make millions of dollars and teachers make $h!t.

The problem with all of this is — and here, dear readers, is the point of Awesomization — we are willing to blame everyone but ourselves for the problems we have in this country. It’s immigrants, it’s foreign business, it’s them damn Arabs, it’s the gays and the lesbians, it’s the non-Christians, it’s the liberal media, it’s blah, blah, blah.

Wake up people … if we can’t write the basics of our own language, how are we supposed to run the giant business that is our country? How are we supposed to keep foreign businesses from doing better than American businesses? How are we supposed to keep foreign individuals from, as the rednecks say, “taking our jobs,” if they are obviously willing to work harder and study harder than we are?

How, my fellow Americans, can we expose the corruption and broken systems in this country, so that we can be active participants in fixing the systems, eradicating the corruption, and mending the clusterF^&K of a country we live in, without being taken for a ride by the “greedy politicians” and the “liberal media” and all of the other people who are “doing stuff to us” if we can’t F%^&ING figure out that “there,” “their,” and “they’re” are three diifferent words?

Education is the key … if we would actually be willing to take it seriously … but that, my friends, is entirely too unAmerican.

There is not going to be much text in this post because I believe this video says it all. I am sure that the individual interviews and comments in this piece were cherry-picked specifically for their absolute ridiculousness, but I think the point still stands …

We’re dumb. Americans are dumb. And the saddest part is that we don’t want to learn. We’re willfully stupid, and we beg these crackpots and idiots to come and tell us what to think.

Because why learn about your government? Why become educated on the inner workings of congress and the presidency and the judicial branch when someone can fill your brain with fear and propaganda? Why think for yourself and take an educated look at the information that’s being fed to you when you can believe it word for word, no matter how ridiculous it is?

This video is the perfect example of how the Right Wing nut bars are feeding the populace this load of garbage, knowing full well the average American doesn’t know anything except for what he or she is told.

Medicare is socialized medicine.

Communism, Socialism, Totalitarianism, Fascism are all different things … they are not interchangeable.

Czar is just a fancy name that Reagan gave the guy he appointed to lead the “war on drugs” and it stuck.

Obama is a black man living in a nation that is still a majority of white knuckleheads, he is not Hitler. If you want to see the Nazis in action, hold a mirror up to the Right Wing.

But in order to know this, you will have to read and listen and observe and process and think critically, which Americans are clearly not willing to do.

When you’re standing at a rally protesting something and someone asks you detail about what it is you’re protesting and you can’t answer that question, you should be ashamed of yourself … utterly and totally ashamed.

I don’t care if you really believe this $h!t, but if you’re going to make an a$$ out of yourself, at least know enough to answer a simple question about why you’re making an a$$ out of yourself …

Meanwhile, the Right Wing agenda enforcers are sitting back, getting blowjobs from hookers and payola from special interest groups, laughing at how easy it all is … because you redneck, idiot sonsabitches are too stupid and lazy to pick up a F$%KING newspaper.

Okay, this guy is the biggest jackass amongst jackasses. The only reason that Rush Limbaugh beats him on the jackass front is because Limbaugh has a national audience. But Mr. Dutko is at the forefront of the Conservative Right’s campaign of hate breeding about anything and everything, using his “religion” as a platform to fill people’s ears with hate and intolerance.

This particular day’s rant was about Obama’s healthcare plan and how Obama was backing down from the public option … and this is where we can observe the trickery of the Right, and how dumb-ass Americans fall for it every time:

1.) Obama announced that there would be a public healthcare option

2.) The Right screamed “Socialism”, which was akin to saying, “Hey Castro, why don’t you just kill Jesus and flee back to Mother Russia you Maoist.”

3.) Obama “backs down” from the public option.

4.) The Right screams, “You wussy! You flip-flopper! You pantywaist!!!”

5.) Dumbass Americans think, “Oh yeah, he sure does suck. He’s a Commie and a pantywaist.”

Now, I might be wrong, but isn’t one of the main parts of any politician’s job to listen to and act upon the wishes, desires, and opinions of his or her constituency? For example, a state Senator needs to listen to his or her state’s concerns and try to push legislation through congress that will help alleviate those concerns … or maybe I’m just a stupid F$%&ING a$$hole, which is quite possible.

But if that IS true, then isn’t the President’s constituency the entire nation? And if THAT is true, then if the loudest jackasses are screaming at the tops of their lungs, “Hey you Commie, we DON’T WANT a public healthcare option because it’ll be like living in Russia and China and Cuba and France!” shouldn’t he back down from it? I mean, is that flip-flopping or good governance? If the people don’t want it, then don’t give it to them, right?

So good Mr. Dutko and his cohorts on the Right play this card each and every day of the week. Anything the Left does is bad, and the way they make that point is to make up a bunch of $h!t and use words that the general public is afraid of.

Like “Death Panels” …

Seriously? The most bizarre thing about this little nugget is that people are actually still listening to Sarah Palin. For real. Like actually giving her the time of day. Like she’s not a gigantic idiot.

Death panels? How does this even happen? How does an insurance-paid, end-of-life consultation with your doctor become a death panel? How does information about things such as living wills and other end-of-life decisions become a F#$%ING death panel? How does discussing your imminent death with your doctor and having your insurance pay for it become a M^&*ERF%^&ING DEATH PANEL that sentences your baby with Down Syndrome to death?!?!?!?!

How the F%^K does trying to fix a broken healthcare system and trying to establish a system in which more people have health care equate to a panel of bureaucrats that decides who lives and who dies? 

I mean, when you think about it, the fact that insurance would pay for anything dealing with the elderly, the disabled, and the terminally ill is pretty amazing. Even if that is euthanasia …

… but the truth doesn’t matter, because now Grannie is scared that you’re going to send her to the euthanasia clinic.

And then the jackholes on the right start kicking around Nazi references like the Aktion T4 program in which “children and adults with disabilities, and anyone anywhere in the Third Reich was subject to execution who was blind, deaf, senile, retarded, or had any significant neurological condition.”

Seriously, who would anyone think that the government is trying to design a healthcare system that executes the elderly and disabled? Why on Earth would the US be trying to follow in the footsteps of Nazi Germany? 

What’s F$%^ING amazing is that if there is anyone in the US that would be trying to follow in the footsteps of the Third Reich, it would be the very same people who are trying to scare everyone into thinking the US is following in the footsteps of the Third Reich … like Dutko, and Palin, and Limbaugh, etc., etc.

Think about it … the Conservative Right … the people who are against immigration and homosexuality and non-Christians and who want so very badly to have our first Black president to fail … the ones who are trying so very hard to breed discontent, blind nationalism in the name of “patriotism”, and intolerance. These are the people who might follow in the footsteps of Hitler and Co. 

So why are they name-dropping AktionT4?

Because nobody but the Nazis like Nazis. And good, God-fearing Americans HATE Nazis … as they should. So if Obama’s White House is full of Nazis who want to kill the elderly and the mentally disabled, etc., etc., then good, God-fearing Americans need to go to Town Hall meetings and yell at the top of their lungs about how they don’t want Death Panels and Nazi Germany.

Are you beginning to see how these guys operate? 

Spread the fear, spread the hate, and the rest takes care of itself. And us idiot Americans eat it up with a spoon. We should just ignore it, but we don’t … because although Tom Daschle says he was “occasionally confronted with the ‘forced euthanasia’ accusation at forums on the plans, [he] came to see it as an advantage. ‘Almost automatically you have most of the audience on your side … Any rational normal person isn’t going to believe that assertion.’” The problem is that we are not dealing with “rational” or “normal” people here … take a trip across the Midwest for a few days, and I think you’ll see what I am talking about.

We will believe anything you tell us. We WANT to believe everything you tell us … everything we read in magazines or see on TV or in the movies … for most of us, the tabloid reading we do in the checkout line at the grocery store IS NEWS. So when you start kicking around words like Socialism and Nazi and Death Panels, we believe what you are telling us.

And the Right knows that.

What they want to do is blur the real information that is out there. They want you to have misinformation instead. 

Real information is boring. Real information is not sensational. Which one of these screams more from the page and grabs your attention?

1.) “A pending House bill has language authorizing Medicare to finance beneficiaries’ consultations with professionals on whether to authorize aggressive and potentially life-saving interventions later in life.”

or

2.) “The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.”

So you have words like “Language” and “Pending” and “Beneficiaries’ Consultations” versus “Death Panel” and “Bureaucrats” and “Death Panel”.

Spread the misinformation, spread the fear, spread the hate, and the rest will take care of itself.

And why? 

Because *gasp* they have become shockingly secular!!! You know, like NOT wearing habits, and NOT living in convents, and NOT just giving up and letting the men rule the church without trying to say something about it … like this SHOCKING discovery about the organization the Leadership Conference of Women Religious: ”it appeared that the organization had done little since it was warned eight years ago that it had failed to “promote” the church’s teachings on three issues: the male-only priesthood, homosexuality and the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church as the means to salvation.”

How DARE they. 

Number One: everyone knows that MEN are the only people who have the God-given authority to be CLERGY! For heaven’s sake ladies, you should know that by now. Silly women can’t actually LEAD a church, can they? 

No way, dude … only pederasts in clerical collars should be allowed to do that.

Number Two: You’re not gay bashing enough … Sisters, come on. The church is not built on equality and service to the community. Silly gooses. Focus on making sure that there are people who are NOT allowed salvation. Make sure that those sick bastards know exactly how much God hates them.

Number Three: I think the first two points are an effective enough argument as to what needs to be done next regarding the primacy of the Church, don’t you think?

On a side note, with all of the other strife going on in the world, it’s comforting to know that the Church is spending time worrying about this one: The bishops said that Catholics should stop practicing Reiki, a healing therapy that is used in some Catholic hospitals and retreat centers, and which was enthusiastically adopted by many nuns. The bishops said Reiki is both unscientific and non-Christian. 

Since when is Catholicism worried about science anyway?

F^&*ING Reiki … what a bunch of heathens those nuns are … not to mention adopting anything “enthusiastically” … uppity women.

What it really comes down to is that women need to accept their role in the Church, which basically boils down to this: ”Shut up and take it. Let the Men handle it. Your job is to be quiet and make babies, and if you can’t handle that, become a nun.” Cut the  $h!t, and stop trying to take power and make decisions.

With that said, here comes the Truth with a capital “T” and the Science with a capital “S”.

Ladies … I think it’s high time for a revolt. Bring the Church down to its knees. There are enough of you out there, and it is time for you to stop taking the Vatican’s $h!t. 

Think about this … When the scandals came out that the priesthood was chock full of kid touchers, the Vatican initiated a giant cover-up. But when nuns get too uppity and start making decisions that go “against” the church, they get a “quiet investigation.”

And that, my dear friends, is a crock of horse shit.

I think that what needs to happen is the women of the Catholic Church need to rise against the Vatican boy’s club and bring the entire organization to the ground. Because what it has become is nothing more than a fag hatin’, holocaust denyin’, sexually repressive juggernaut, and that does no one any good … especially those who claim to believe in what the Catholic faith says it believes in.

When pederasts are allowed to be priests, and when it comes out that they’re pederasts, the Church helps cover it up, then HOW THE F%^K IS LETTING WOMEN AND MARRIED MEN BE PRIESTS POSSIBLY A BAD THING!?!?!?!?!? 

So stop taking the $h!t, ladies, and let the Men at the top know your full outrage and dissatisfaction … unless you like the way the Vatican treats you … and then never mind. Or unless you truly believe that birth control is Satan, and that women and gays are second-class citizens. If so, then get yourself to church on Sunday.

Otherwise, rise up … bring the Church down.

Stop attending mass … bring the Church down.

And for God’s sake stop tithing to fund the madness … and bring the Church down.

The nice thing about it being a boy’s club at the top is that the soft and sensitive parts are on the outside … one well placed kick should do it.

… during the latter, I just usually get pissed on.

Anyway, I was stopped at an intersection, and an ungodly behemoth of a vehicle pulled up next to me. I looked over and saw a Cadillac Escalade.

Big … Dumb … Expensive …

But there was something a little different about this one. I saw a little badge near the front fender … I looked, rubbed my eyes, looked again, rubbed my eyes again, and looked  third time … nope, my eyes weren’t deceiving me …

There actually exists … are you ready for this?

A F%^&ING Cadillac Escalade HYBRID!!!

Maybe everyone else already knew about this, but I didn’t … I laughed out loud.

What the F$%K is the point  of wasting time, energy, and money in the design, manufacture, and distribution of a F$%&ING Cadillac Escalade Hybrid?

Seriously … check out the specs on this thing …

A “best-in-class 20 MPG in the city and 21 MPG on the highway.”

Reading $h!t like this makes my face want to explode .

Is this the best we can do? Global warming, economic crises, issues with foreign oil … and we make a stupid F$%^ING automobile that “seamlessly combines the highest levels of performance and luxury” and only gets 21 MILES PER GALLON!?!?!?!

And the thing retails for somewhere between $73,000 and $87,000. I know people whose houses are valued for less than that right now. Mine included.

And this is what the US automakers are spending their R&D time and money on?

Come on people, we are making regular, gas-powered vehicles that get in the ball park of 35 MPG. Some hybrids get up to 40-something. Of course Honda makes two hybrids that get 43-45.

Ford does make the Fusion, which gets some pretty good mileage, but it also makes the Escape Hybrid, which really doesn’t.

Have our expectations gone so low that we are impressed by ANY improvement in gas mileage, even if that improvement means that the “best-in-class” still wouldn’t qualify for the Cash for Clunkers deal?

“For passenger automobiles, the new vehicle must have a combined fuel economy value of at least 22 miles per gallon.”

And this F%&*ING Hybrid vehicle wouldn’t qualify.

Am I the only one whose head is about to explode? Let’s look at the facts again:

1.) Hybrid automobile gets 21 MPG

2.) Cash for Clunkers requires 22 MPG

3.) A F%^&ING Hybrid — the “future” of automobile technology — doesn’t meet the bare minimum fuel efficiency for a program that is designed to take “clunkers” off the road.

If this is the kind of decision-making that is going on behind closed doors, it’s a wonder the geniuses at the Big Three can’t turn a profit.

Think about this … the Aveo gets MPG in the mid 30s. The Focus gets up to 37 MPG. If you made these cars into Hybrids, imagine how far they’d go on a gallon of gasoline.

SO WHY ARE WE WASTING OUR F$%^ING TIME MAKING SUV HYBRIDS THAT GET WORSE GAS MILEAGE THAN REGULAR F^&*ING GAS-POWERED AUTOMOBILES!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Because we here in America are F^&*ING stupid, that’s why.

That Escalade was not transporting a family of eight, it was transporting one passenger. I would bet you anything that she doesn’t have eight kids at home.

But her Escalade only rapes the environment a little bit now … good for her.

Maybe when she’s done with it, she can sell it a family who lost their home, and they can live in it. If they can get a mortgage big enough to cover it, that is.

The issue here is overuse. It used to be than an exquisitely placed F-Bomb could make a point more sharp, or make a message stand out more, or even make a joke funnier. But when it is placed in a sentence as frequently as an article or a vocalized pause, it tends to lose its effect after a while. I mean, how shocking is “um” or “er”?

This realization came while I was at a concert with my 14-year-old niece. Every band that graced the stage was F%^&ING this and F%^&ING that and is everyF&*^INGone having a F$%^ING good F%^&ING time toF$%^INGnight? I wanna F#$%ING see everyone F#$%ING jumping up and F$%^ING down with this F#$%ING song Oh-F#$%ING-kay?

And my niece didn’t even blink. All of the other kids around us were doing the same thing … I swear I actually heard someone say “F%^KING F^&K those F%^&ING F#$%ERS”.

Which I think successfully uses F%&K as an adverb, verb, adjective, and noun and as both the subject and the predicate. Which is marks it as possibly one of the most versatile words ever.

Be that as it may, the meat of this realization is now that the word has lost its power as a way to shock, draw attention, or emphasize, and has replaced pretty much all of the other words in the English language, it just sounds kind of dumb … and makes the user sound kind of dumb. When you have to rely on just one word to convey emotion or emphasis or a sense of urgency, it kind of marks you as not very creative …

The worst part is, I am one of those people. I use the F-Bomb all of the time. I use it as an adjective and a verb and a noun and an adverb and as a vocalized pause and on and on and on.

I realized not only how dumb we all sound by overusing this once-powerful word, I realized how dumb I sound overusing this word.

And because I use it so very, very frequently, I am sure that my infant daughter will pick up on it and incorporate it into her vocabulary, and overuse it possibly more than those teenagers at the concert, and that is something that I cannot let happen.

The only recourse we have is to remove the F-Bomb from daily use. It will be hard, and it will hurt, but we have to do it. Otherwise this once majestic word that had the ability to make people blush and gasp whenever it reared its ugly head, the word that was an instant grounding if ever heard within the confines of home, the word that was the cause of much adolescent giggling on the playground and elevated the one brave enough to use it to instant rebel status … the word that functioned as the doorway to adulthood and was the harbinger of lost youth … this F$%^ING word that used to embody, in its one syllable, the very essence of standing against the establishment … will become (if it has not already become) as ho-hum as the words that we used to use to repace it in decent conversation, like “fudge” or “fricking” or “freaking”.

We cannot stand by and let this happen.

So I call out to all of you good and patriotic Americans to save this word by ceasing to use it in every day conversation unless the severity of the situation or the need for emphasis or the hilarity of the punchline absolutely call for it.

If we band together, we can F%&*ING put the F$%^ING explosiveness back in the F#$%ING F-F#$%ING-Bomb.

So let’s F#$%ING do it people … who is with me?