In its latest attempt to render all parody impossible, conservapedia has unveiled the “Conservative Bible Project”.  Apparently, these geniuses finally clued into the fact that Jesus was a peace-loving hippy.  Rather than question their own decidedly non-hippy worldview, or just convert to the worship of Baal or Mammon (all the torture and wealth hoarding you could want), they’ve decided that this must mean that the bible has been “mistranslated”. 

Here are a couple of their insights:

…defective translations use the word “comrade” three times as often as “volunteer”; similarly, updating words which have a change in meaning, such as “word”, “peace”, and “miracle”.

Socialistic terminology permeates English translations of the Bible, without justification. This improperly encourages the “social justice” movement among Christians.

I read this and can only hope that’s it’s either spoof or too crazy to gain any headway.  From the sounds of it, their re-translation will be about as honest to the source material as the Lolcat bible and probably have less in common with the actual teachings of Jesus than Pastafarianism. 

I found this on Balloon Juice (and I wish I hadn’t)

I’ve given up trying to be productive this week so instead I’m going to clear the cobwebs away from my blog and post something.  Since I don’t have enough ambition to post something meaningful, I’m instead going to point out some obscure sources of brilliance on the web. 

Pointless Planet

My brother turned me on to this site, which seeks to answer the question “What do the idiotic commercials that pollute the airwaves tell me about my meaningless inconsequential existence?”  Needless to say, hilarity ensues.

God Hates Protesters

This sites seems to have started out by making fun of the nutjobs at the Westboro Baptist Church.  However, the epic failure evident at many of the “Tea Party” rallies has provided some opportunity to branch out and mock a whole new class of idiots.

That’s all, carry on with your lives.

Kristin Maguire resigned as Chairwoman of the South Carolina Board of Education yesterday, citing family reasons for her sudden decision.  I’ve written critically about her in the past.  I didn’t like the idea that someone who clearly disagreed with the Scientific Method could have an impact on the education of children. 

Given all that, and despite my long held belief that vocal social conservatives always have a dark side.  I don’t know what to make of this, from FITSNews.com:

Kristin Maguire, an Upstate evangelical and one of South Carolina’s most respected social conservatives, has been one of the governor’s closest education policy advisors for years.  She’s also Sanford’s appointment to the S.C. Board of Education, which last year elected her its Chairwoman.

What else is she?

The prolific author of hardcore erotic fiction on the Internet, according to documents provided to the governor’s office earlier this summer and later obtained by FITS…

…FITS was able to use conversations in various Internet chat rooms, however, to link at least two “erotic stories” to Maguire’s alleged pen name, “Bridget Keeney.”

Should I be satisfied that someone who threatened the education of my children will now be seeking another line of work?  Should I laugh at yet another possible scandal involving sex affecting the Governor’s office?  I don’t know. 

For the record, I don’t see this as much of a scandal, outside of the usual hypocrisy angle (abstinence only education indeed).  There’s lots of slash fiction out there and based on the small sampling I’ve seen, most of it is horribly written crap.  As long as it’s not illegal though, it shouldn’t be something to resign over.

That said, I will admit to an evil desire to review her work for spelling, grammar and punctuation and to send it back to her for any corrections.  She is an educator after all.

Because it introduced me to this song.

‘I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one:  “O Lord, Make my enemies ridiculous.”  And God granted it.’
   Voltaire

That is the only response I can think of to this bit of news:

A former Southern Baptist Convention officer who on June 2 called the death of abortion provider George Tiller an answer to prayer said later in the day he is also praying “imprecatory prayer” against President Obama.

The pastor, Wiley Drake, then elaborates that he is in fact praying for the death of the president.  He follows that up with a whole bunch of horse shit that would, in a civilized society, result in him spending some time in a psychiatric ward.

Well pastor, allow me a prayer of my own.  I’ll send this prayer out to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the Tree of Inifuss and whoever else is listening.  Please grant this moron a clue and some humanity.  He clearly needs both.

Found the link on Shakesville

from the big picture.  I’m not sure why but #29 is my favorite.

The astronomy nerd inside loves this stuff.

found this link on the Bad Astronomy Blog

Just listened to the most recent podcast The Watchmen and I thought I’d post links to the 3 shows that I think do the best job of explaining what the hell happened to the economy.

355 – The Giant Pool of Money

365 – Another Frightening Show about the Economy

382 – The Watchmen

Each podcast is an hour long but they are worth it.  I’ve learned more about what happened and what’s happening to the economy from these than from any other source.

From the LA Times:

Manny Ramirez has tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs and has been suspended 50 games starting today, Major League Baseball confirmed.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by this stuff anymore but I bought into the idiot-savant persona that Manny projects.  I enjoyed his years in Boston and accepted his antics and occasional absences in return for his consistent, outstanding hitting.  At this point, I have to accept that everyone in the sport of baseball is tainted. 

Now, I can either turn a blind eye to it and pretend that the current testing regime catches most of the cheaters.  Let’s face it, we already do that with the NFL.  Or, I can tune out the sport entirely.  Both choices suck.  

On a completely unrelated but much more positive note:

Sasha Cohen just confirmed she will be back to contort her body for America at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

For no reason what so ever I’m including this video of Sasha doing Yoga. 

I recently started doing a little yoga myself thanks to the Wii Fit and I think it’s a good exercise, although I’ve got a long way to go to match Ms. Cohen’s flexibility.

Whence came the links

If Frank Rich is even 50% correct is his Op-Ed Column from this Saturday, then it’s 50% too much.  Here is the money quote:

Five years after the Abu Ghraib revelations, we must acknowledge that our government methodically authorized torture and lied about it. But we also must contemplate the possibility that it did so not just out of a sincere, if criminally misguided, desire to “protect” us but also to promote an unnecessary and catastrophic war. Instead of saving us from “another 9/11,” torture was a tool in the campaign to falsify and exploit 9/11 so that fearful Americans would be bamboozled into a mission that had nothing to do with Al Qaeda. The lying about Iraq remains the original sin from which flows much of the Bush White House’s illegality.

I wish I could say I was shocked by this, but the truth is there isn’t much I would put past the Bush Admin.  Obama is wrong on this one.  This must be examined.  We, as a nation, have to ask how we allowed ourselves to become a nation which tortures.  We have to examine what motivated those who crafted this policy.  Only then can we banish the myth that torture saved lives or made this country safer.