Hannity Attacks Obama On Religion; London Study Shows Hannity Is An Idiot February 27, 2010

Sean Hannity, the fundo darling of the fundo religious and political right wing of the right wing of American politics [read ‘Republican’], attacked the Obama administration yesterday for having the nerve to talk to atheists and other secular leaders.

A summary from MediaMatters states:

Commenting on a White House staff-level meeting with leaders of atheist groups, Sean Hannity claimed that religious groups "have not received this treatment from the Obama White House." In fact, President Obama himself has met with numerous religious leaders, and the administration’s contacts with religious groups include two days of meetings between administration staffers and more than 60 religious leaders.

What Hannity said:

The Obama administration earlier today rolled out the red carpet for a coalition of atheist groups. Now, among the individuals in attendance was Michael Newdow. That’s the California man who sued unsuccessfully to have the words "under God" removed from the Pledge of Allegiance. Now, religious groups, however, have not received this kind of treatment from the Obama White House. Now, last year, the President distanced himself from the National Day of Prayer, cancelling the formal service traditionally held in honor of the day and refusing to attend a Catholic prayer breakfast. So what’s going on? Has the administration demonstrated a pattern of hostility towards religion, or is this merely a coincidence?

MediaMatters goes on to report on all the access the superstitious supernaturalists have had over the years, including access to the Obama administration. Hannity is simply lying, or ignorant, or stupid, or all three, most likely all three. But that’s his way of operating. He gets away with it because the people who pay attention to him, aside from watchdogs like MediaMatters, tend to be as amoral, ignorant, and stupid as Hannity.

Apparently Hannity is of the mindset that if you don’t believe in his particular Christian insanity, you shouldn’t have any say or input to government. Hannity’s insanity, carried out to its logical extreme, would ultimately have atheists and non-Christians locked up in camps boasting large ovens running around the clock. Been there, done that.

Now The Lion has never considered Hannity a bright boy. In fact, Hannity never rises above the level of an annoyance. But now there is proof that Hannity really is not a bright boy. In fact, it can be shown that he is stupider than the average atheist, and dumber than the average liberal.

A study from the London School of Economics and Political Science demonstrates conclusively that liberals and atheists have IQs six to eleven points higher than fundogelicals and conservatives like Hannity. (Ignore the part about not using the data to stereotype or make assumptions about people: that takes the fun out of it.)

Here’s a nice explanation about religious and conservative hysterical paranoia:

Religion, the current theory goes, did not help people survive or reproduce necessarily, but goes along the lines of helping people to be paranoid, Kanazawa said. Assuming that, for example, a noise in the distance is a signal of a threat helped early humans to prepare in case of danger.

"It helps life to be paranoid, and because humans are paranoid, they become more religious, and they see the hands of God everywhere," Kanazawa said.

And this:

"Historically, anything that’s new and different can be seen as a threat in terms of the religious beliefs; almost all religious systems are about permanence," he noted.

How do atheists get those higher IQ scores? According to the study:

Participants who said they were atheists had an average IQ of 103 in adolescence, while adults who said they were religious averaged 97, the study found. Atheism "allows someone to move forward and speculate on life without any concern for the dogmatic structure of a religion," Bailey said.

That’s right, they live in the real world and refuse to cripple themselves with ideologies and dogmatism that blind the paranoid fundos to reality. Take torture, for example. It’s not the atheists calling for the government to torture people who dress funny and speak weird languages on the other side of the world. It’s easy to torture someone if you believe it’s the will of a supernatural being whose ass you kiss in a church; not so easy if you are able to empathize with another human being in the real world.

And say, didja notice how many of those oh-so-upright conservative fundos get caught cheating on their wives? Senator Ensign, Governor Sanford, et al? Turns out that the atheist crowd are more likely to be faithful to their partners than the religious crowd. Maybe that explains the sky high divorce rate in the American Bible Belt states.

Unfortunately, little Sean Hannity will go on spewing his stupidity and his lies on Faux News, which refuses to hold any of its people to even the lowest standard of truth and credibility. But Faux is simply playing to its audience, which apparently has the collective IQ of a box of rocks. Whether that makes them dumber than Hannity is, of course, debatable.

What matters is that Sean Hannity and his ilk are the face of Republicanism today, and Republicans today are epitomized by politicians like Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky, who just said ‘Tough shit!’ to the thousands of unemployed people in his state by blocking the extension of benefits. The poor baby was upset that having to be in the Senate to make his filibuster motion meant he couldn’t attend a college basketball game. The other Senate Republicans did nothing to stop Bunning’s contemptuous and contemptible action. But that’s what you get when the Hannity’s of the world are calling the shots to the rank-and-file who elect the politicians. You get stupidity, you get arrogance, and you get cruelty. You get, in a word, Republicans.

Technorati Tags: Sean Hannity, Fox News, Atheism, Politics, Religion, London School of Economics, CNN, Bunning, Unemployment, Kentucky, Bible Belt, Republicans, Conservatives, Fundogelicals, Fundamentalists, Christianity, IQ

Senator Scott Brown Plans Coup, Forms Secret Group February 18, 2010

Freshly minted Massachusetts Republican Senator Scott Brown admits to planning a conspiratorial coup by forming a like-minded group of anonymous, shadowy, conspiratorial Senators. From today’s Globe:

Brown told WCVB that he is forming a new caucus on Capitol Hill called the Take Back Washington Caucus. He wouldn’t identify the half-dozen senators who will be members, or say how many are Democrats or Republicans.

How Republican of him! Putting together a gaggle of Senators who haven’t the courage to stand up and say what they intend, what they stand for, who they are targeting, smacks of old time Soviet politics and back-room American shady deal-making.

Of course, given Brown’s sleaziness, demonstrated in the rest of the Globe article’s analysis of his hypocritical behavior on the job stimulus package, it may well be that he is simply lying about his mystery caucus, that it doesn’t exist at all and that he is doing nothing but playing to the rabid Republican base to whom all is evil except themselves.

Yep, if there’s sleaze to be done in the dark, the Republicans will find a way to do it. And apparently they done learned Mr. Brown well.

Technorati Tags: Scott Brown, Republicans, Politics, Senate, Conspiracy, Secret Societies

Did The Economic Stimulus Bill Work? February 17, 2010

There’s an informative piece by David Leonhardt in the New York Times about the stimulus bill. It starts like this:

Imagine if, one year ago, Congress had passed a stimulus bill that really worked.

Let’s say this bill had started spending money within a matter of weeks and had rapidly helped the economy. Let’s also imagine it was large enough to have had a huge impact on jobs — employing something like two million people who would otherwise be unemployed right now.

If that had happened, what would the economy look like today?

Well, it would look almost exactly as it does now. Because those nice descriptions of the stimulus that I just gave aren’t hypothetical. They are descriptions of the actual bill.

How about that, eh? The next grating, annoying sound you hear will be Republicans trashing the independent, private firms that analyzed the data.

Technorati Tags: Economy, Politics, Economic Stimulus, New York Times, David Leonhardt, Jobs, Jobs Bill

Medicare For All, The Corporations Be Damned February 16, 2010

A friend of The Lion mentioned with an expression of rue and a shrug of whatareyagonnado that he pays $22,000 a year for health insurance for his family, with a $4,000 deductible.

He’s fifty. Got a wife. Got two kids in coverage. Works on commission doing sales.

Almost two thousand dollars a month, just in case something serious happens. Figure in the deductible and he pays $26,000 before the insurance company will lift a finger.

In California, Anthem Blue Cross raised rates 26 to 39 percent on individual subscribers, and that after raising rates the year before.

Insurance companies are pirates and thieves. Period. Blanket condemnation. Health insurance companies are sociopathic pirates and thieves. They not only take your money, they kill people.

In Washington, D.C., the politicians cuddle up to the health insurance companies to make sure the companies can continue their murderous and profitable ways. The politicians are determined to reward essential criminality by throwing your money to the corporations. In return you may be lucky enough to get a deal like my friend, a deal that will put enough stress in your life to make you sick, at which point the insurance company will drop you, but keep the outrageous amount of money you have fed them.

Pay no attention to the so-called protections written into the current corporate-approved legislation the politicians are promoting. The corporations have no doubt already figured out ways to get around the bogus protective provisions. After all, the law was written by legislators the corporations own, written with the help of corporate lobbyists who threw over three billion dollars at the Washington politicians last year. (Yes, three Billion.)

Nothing will change in this gigantic rip-off of the American citizen until that citizen rises up, en masse, and demands what the rest of modern civilizations have, until the citizens rise up and demand, until they demand until they get it, and that is Medicare for all.

There should be one cry rising up from every group, from every organization, from every association that wants a rational, functional, useful healthcare system in the United States. One cry, and one only.

Medicare for all, the corporations be damned.

Nobody should be getting rich from healthcare, not the insurance corporations and their arrogant CEOs, not the doctors, not the administrators, and most of all not the politicians who have heartily agreed to the current system of corruption and disgrace, who willfully comply with the system of profit and denial that murders the citizens of this country, that creates sickness and disease, that weakens the fabric of the economy and the social fabric of the people.

No more. Not one penny more.

Medicare for all, the corporations be damned.

That is the cry that should be heard throughout the land. It should be loud enough to drive the Republicans back under their slimy rocks. It should be loud enough to make the Democrats quiver and shake and fear for their future. It should rage and scream so loudly that all other options are driven from the table.

Reason has failed. Intelligence has failed. Rational argument has failed. Anecdotes of suffering and misery have failed. Only rage is left. Rage and action.

When the thunderous rage of millions falls on the corruption of Washington, when it continues to rain on the heads of timid Democrats and cold, arrogant Republicans, when they all fear for their jobs, for their future, perhaps even for their very lives, then and only then can the corporate evil be destroyed.

Medicare for all, the corporations be damned.

A brave people, united in the quest for the basic right of good healthcare, would en masse cancel their health insurance and bring down the system that way if all else fails. But the system will fall, either of its own unsustainable greed and corruption, or because the people demand it, now, because they demand to live in a society that puts people before sociopathic insurance corporations that contribute nothing, not one thing, not one iota, not the tiniest bit of health care to one single person.

One focus. One call. One goal, and only one.

Medicare for all, the corporations be damned.

#

Technorati Tags: Health Care Reform, Health Insurance Terror, Medicare For All

Why Republicans Are Stupid And Should Be Stomped On Like Cockroaches February 12, 2010

Jon Stewart’s take on John Boehner’s sissy stand on the Obama invitation to meet and discuss health care reform is priceless.

In the same clip John Oliver shows up RNC Republicans for the frigging idiots they really, truly are. That’s what you get when your ideological arrogance refuses to admit real facts from the real world.

If anything, Republicans have shown over at least the last year that they have absolutely no reason to exist. They’re as worthless and useless as a hemorrhoid and slightly less well-informed.

[No cockroaches were harmed in the writing of this piece, and The Lion apologizes for the necessary insult to cockroaches, and notes further that cockroaches are a necessary and useful part of life on the planet, unlike Republicans.]

[No apology to hemorrhoids is deemed necessary as hemorrhoids are not believed to be sentient, although it is likely they are more sentient than Republicans.]

[That last bit was a cheap shot, committed with glee and joy and pride.]

 

Technorati Tags: Jon Stewart, John Oliver, John Boehner, Republicans, Cockroaches, Hawaii Health Care, Health Care Reform, Obama, Politics

The Lion Plays Paris. Troy Trembles. February 12, 2010

Apropos of nothing at all, other than The Lion’s current disgust with politics in America as played by the Democratic cast of spine-challenged players and the Republican cast of brain damaged players, The Lion hereby announces his selection of his three favorite women on television.

In no particular order, lest some god or other be offended, the three include Emily Procter, playing Calleigh Duquesne on CSI: Miami; Tamara Taylor, playing Camille Saroyan on Bones; and Kathryn Morris, playing Lily Rush on Cold Case.

 

Ms. Morris may be the whitest woman on television. She is practically translucent. As an actress, she manages an emotional presence with nice understatement, never too much, never too little, and never mailing it in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

While Ms. Procter is only one of many beautiful women to play on CSI: Miami, she is the only one who manifests a powerful stage presence. When she walks into the scene, her presence just sucks the air out of the room. She’s gorgeous the way a tigress is gorgeous. Unfortunately the scripts keep all that presence and power bottled up, as if they’re afraid to unleash it.

 

 

 

Ms. Taylor manages to carry off looking beautiful, ethereal, sexy, and cute all at once. In the movie Serenity she was merely ethereal. In Bones she does it all, but never overpowers her scenes. When she’s there, you know she’s there. A vivacious presence on screen, with a wide emotional range.

 

 

 

 

What all three of these women possess as actresses is presence. When they’re on screen they dim everyone around them, not by cheap tricks or mean acting, but simply because they project such full and complete personalities within their role. There’s there there.

The Lion sighs.

 

Technorati Tags: Emily Procter, CSI: Miami, Kathryn Morris, Cold Case, Tamara Taylor, Bones, Actresses, Entertainment, Television, Politics, Grumpy Lion

Gibbs Parody Destroys Bipartisanship; American Civilization Ends; Oh Nooooooo…. February 10, 2010

By now the poorest peasant in Farawayistan knows that Sarah Palin wrote crib notes on her hand for her speech to the fanatically uninformed and hate-filled right wing of the right wing of the Republican Party.

Perhaps The Lion should rephrase that last bit.

A pathetically retarded Sarah Palin scribbled the fundamental tenets of her political philosophy on her hand so she wouldn’t forget them when she addressed the dominant element of the Republican Party over the weekend at the Tea Party Convention.

The fact that this woman can’t answer an unscripted question without babbling only slightly more intelligently than a severely retarded child somehow qualifies her for high office suggests the sickening depths to which American politics has fallen. That she is a Republican and that the Republicans have taken us to those depths is not surprising.

She is a master of the sound bite and little else, putting her on a par with the Republicans, who have mastered only one sound, the sound of ‘No!’

The comics and the faux news boys have nailed her for her handwriting stunt, satirizing her apparent inability to remember the basic ideas she loudly claims she stands for. She’s been speechifying (and stultifying anyone with at least three working brain neurons) since the campaign of 2008, spewing the same old crap, but she has to write it on her hand to remember it.

And she’s been slamming Mr. Obama the whole time.

And yet, when Robert Gibbs, Presidential Press Secretary, parodied her in yesterday’s press briefing by reading a shopping list printed on his palm, he created a minor storm in the ever moralistic press corps (the same press corps that brought us that ever-so-moral war in Iraq).

This morning, CNN’s T. J. Holmes and that dumbass conservative Joe Scarborough over at MSNBC just couldn’t get enough of listening to themselves profoundly moralize over Gibbs’ attack on bipartisanship. (Which raises the ancillary question of how people that stupid get jobs anchoring news shows on major news networks?)

Apparently, according to their faux thinking, it’s okay for Sarah Palin and the Republicans to engage in rabid partisanship that has brought the country political paralysis and threatens to spin off into violence, but it’s not okay for anyone in the Obama Administration to poke fun at the complete lack of credibility, at the sheer stupidity, of someone like Sarah Palin: The Lion uses the term ‘like’ advisedly to include the entire leadership of the Republican Party and most of its membership.

The Republicans have been rabidly, foaming-at-the-mouth partisan ever since the black guy won the White House. They have refused every attempt by the Administration to work together. They have lied. They have backstabbed. They have twisted, distorted, and demeaned everything the Administration has done, while offering absolutely nothing substantive.

So where do the fucking retards on CNN and MSNBC get off calling Robert Gibbs’ parody of that dangerous fool, Sarah Palin, an affront to bipartisanship?

If American democracy goes down the tubes it will be due in no small part to clowns like T. J. Holmes, Joe Scarborough and his partner in vapidity, Mika Brzezinski, and the mad dog partisanship of the Republican Party, led by mouth-foamers John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, and Michael Steele as they worship at the knees of a brain-dead Sarah Palin.

Technorati Tags: Sarah Palin, Robert Gibbs, Barack Obama, T. J. Holmes, Joe Scarborough, MSNBC, CNN, Mika Brzezinski, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Michael Steele, Republicans, Tea Party, Politics

Obama: Politics Before Policy Guarantees Failure February 8, 2010

Steve Clemons has an interesting piece over at TPM telling how Obama’s close circle of advisors is undercutting everything he told us he stood for. A little reminiscent of Nixon, without the criminality. Worth reading.

Long article in Financial Times referenced by Clemons.

Technorati Tags: Obama, Politics, Steve Clemons, Talking Points Memo, Financial Times

Matador, 16, Kills Six Bulls In One Day; Associated Press Adores Him February 7, 2010

A teenage matador in Spain was awarded the ears from some of the six bulls he killed in one afternoon yesterday. The crowd cheered.

Apparently the Spanish people exult in this sort of barbarism.

The teenage psychopath suffered a near fatal goring in 2007. The Lion suggests that he should suffer another, that it should last a long time, that he should suffer great pain, and then he should die. The same fate would be fitting for the rest of the Spanish psychopaths who believe killing animals for entertainment, who believe torturing animals for entertainment, is a good thing.

As for the Spanish people who support this ‘entertainment’, they are no better than barbarians whose morals and standards of civilization come from the gutter where the worst denizens of humanity thrive.

The adoring AP story in the Globe by Daniel Wools is itself a stomach-turning paean to the torture and slaughter of animals for entertainment. Perhaps Wools would like to play the part of the bull in his next trip to the arena.

Bullfighters rank right down there with the sick bastards who bury their children alive for violating barbaric so-called honor codes.

Civilization is indeed a thin veneer covering the slime of the human mind.

Technorati Tags: Bullfighting, Teenage Matador, Six Bulls, Jairo Alonso, Caceres, Spain, Animal Cruelty, Associated Press

Palin Speaks February 7, 2010

Last night the former governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, who quit the job halfway through her term in order to hit the road and make a bundle of money pimping her ghost-written book, gave a speech in Tennessee at a convention of fanatics whose grasp of reality prevents them from understanding anything as complex as the Sunday comic pages. They cheered for her. She collected one hundred thousand dollars for her forty-five minute speech.

Nobody learned anything.

Technorati Tags: Sarah Palin, Tea Party, Politics