Last week, we got a friendly reminder of the power of that special, enlightened voting bloc that likes to look at facts and say “no, thank you.” We got that reminder in the form of Georgia Rep. Paul Broun (R-Eden), who took the stage to make sure everybody knew that just because he went to college doesn’t mean he believes in crazy things like evolution and embryology, because they are “lies straight from the pit of hell.”
Science has tricked people, you know, in a clever ploy to make them think they don’t need Jesus.
We the pitiable, atheistic masses finally got a response yesterday from Meredith Griffanti, Broun’s no-doubt exasperated spokeswoman (who thinks LGBT folks look “interesting”).
No, the clarification does not make anything any better.
She told CNN Broun was “speaking off the record to a large church group about his personal beliefs regarding religious issues,” which raises serious questions about what questions CNN asked her in the first place, but also about the definitions of both “off the record” and “religious issues.”
First problem: Broun’s camp appears to believe “off the record” not only means “we did not expect people who disagree to find out about it,” but also, somehow, that it doesn’t count. We are supposed, it seems, to pretend we don’t know that a member of the House Science Committee (and a doctor of medicine) has chosen to discount hundreds of years of provable scientific findings in favor of a story that revolves around how humanity owes everything to this one Middle Eastern guy who hung out with 12 dudes and a hooker.
(Also: Who gets their annual check-ups from Broun? Are they still living? Has he healed them with snakes?)
A little context: Broun is on the committee that oversees the National Science Foundation and also sincerely believes “the Earth’s but about 9,000 years old.” He says he has evidence for that, and it must be pretty awesome evidence if it refutes 4,499,991,000 years of the Earth’s 4,500,000,000-year history. Potential explanation: A 13th apostle, Camcorder.
This leads us to the second assertion from Griffanti, which is that Broun was speaking about “his personal beliefs regarding religious issues.” Religious issues, of course, have somehow moved past “this wine is actually blood that you should drink” and become “the study of fetal development is the work of the devil, and my invisible friend should dictate all public policy decisions.”
A guy that we have put in charge of real things is standing up and saying that true things are not true. That’s not a “religious issue,” that’s a learning disability.
It’s like saying the Moon is made of cheese and calling it a “dairy issue” — evidence that the Moon is made of Moon and not of gouda might be inconvenient for gouda enthusiasts, but that doesn’t mean we’re being rude to the goudists by pointing out they’re being dumb.
It doesn’t matter though, because this is a democracy, which means if you can get enough goudists into one congressional district, it doesn’t matter what the Moon is made of — the government says it’s cheese, and that Broun is so good at his job. [CNN]
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I keep hearing how certain sciences are the products of the debil (sic) and how evil they are, but that never stopped fundies from using the internet (solid state physics from the Big Bang), oil/gas (found through geology), anti-biotics (EVILUSHUN), etc.
Doesn't that make the fundies that use them ebil (and extremely hypocritical), too?*
*I know the answer to both is YES (but I want a fundie loon to answer this question and so far no one has.)
Fundies don't recognize hypocrisy, therefore it doesn't exist. Like evolution.
"Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them; for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Thus, when you give alms, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward."
I dunno. Jeebus did. Surprised that his brain dead followers can't.
That's the New Testament Jeebus. The fundies follow the precepts of the Old Testament Jeebus.
"Old Testament Jeebus" – HA!
If the Horrendous Space Kablooie was the debbil's work, we're in trubba.
No evidence anywhere that Magdelene was a "hooker".
You mean hanging around with twelve gay guys isn't proof enough????
No, it just proves she was a fag hag. /blasphemy
I just accept it on faith.
Smart move.
Definitely no evidence that one of the characters in that fairy tale was a hooker.
COUNCIL OF NICEA LIBEL!
Every writer likes to give a different spin to established characters.
The franchise is due for a(nother) reboot. Maybe JJ Abrams can make sense of the hooker thing.
There was a woman who was a prostitute, and there was Mary Magdelene; no evidence suggests they were the same person. If any of these people actually existed.
God put Broun on earth to test our faith, in humanity.
And humanity failed – again.
Yeah for stupid!!!!!!!
Meanwhile, in the Dark Ages…
Moon is made of cheese and calling it a “dairy issue”
It's not??
Herman Muenster is on the case.
This is why NASA is building their new launch facilities in Vermont.
I'm lactose intolerant.
We must stop NASA from milking us for funding.
Wallace and Gromit libel!
Don't let anyone fool you, that globe in the sky is government cheese! There's no dairy in that sh*t!!
Saying that Science is "lies straight from the pit of Hell" is a lie straight from the pit of Hell.
See more at iCanHazTautology.com.
Is that were the bibleoliteralists read the teleo leaves?
Damn fine. Two thumbs up.
The first rule of Tautology Club is the first rule of Tautology Club.
I love that Randall's strip is in the top ten Google results for tautology.
They blonded me with science.
Thank you really, but I still have that earworm from last week.
My embarrassment is a disability at times.
Quick! Apply for your "free" scooter now!
":this one Middle Eastern guy who hung out with 12 dudes and a hooker."
God's honest truth, that one hooker was really God-damned smart.
I'm more of a mozzerllaist, but I can work with the goudists.
Avoid the goat-cheese fuckers.
Must correct typos..Jesus, freakish, stop working…
Mozzarellaist. For fuck's sake.
I'm Brie-partisan.
Oh, briehave….
Pfft, that sort of tolerance is unacceptable. What's next, support for the Cheddarites? Getting along with the Velveetists? It's a slippery slope, I tells ya!
Frommage Detent.
You hope statements like his would cause his constituents to say, "You're nuts!" but I fear too many would respond, "Say it, Brother!". If he's not stoning adulterers (with stones!) then he's not a real Christian. So there.
Maybe they can bust out the holy hand grenade of Antioch.
"Facts" is just another word for "nothing left to lose."
Apparently Griftanti is not anti-grift.
You think Meredith is a Palintologist?
Of the Brisket sub-sect.
Man, I can't wait for the 13th century to get here!
What this spokesperson seems really to have been saying is "he was lying to a bunch of ignorant superstitious pigfuckers, just telling them any old bullshit they wanted to hear, and if you are not an ignorant superstitious pigfucker, those lies aren't meant for you, he has a whole other set of lies for when he speaks to literate, educated people."
This is the BEST possible explanation. Otherwise an incompetent, moronic, superstitious fool is "overseeing" the NSF. Evil, willfully deceitful propagandist or incomprehensibly dumb fucktard? – ladies and gentlemen, the GOP.
There's not much in between, its true, in the GOP. Now that little bitchy superman marathoner Paul Ryan, you know he is in the first category. You just know Biden is gonna mention "marathon time" at some point, don't you? I mean, that has to happen, old handsome Joe is gonna at some point look at him and say "your budget numbers are as fake as your marathon time," you know? I mean, can't our fantasies come true for once? If that happens, thats not a "drink" moment. Thats a mandatory blowjob moment, if Joe Biden says the words "your marathon time" (or words of similar import, you know what I mean). Or something better if you can think of it, but thats way bigger than just a drink moment, you know?
I cannot wait I cannot wait I cannot wait. I know Joe is going to be charming no matter what, and Squidgy over there is going to look just like the weasel he is standing in Joe's light. I do hope he kicks his ass.
Viognier. Just that, a tour of the viogniers of the world, Argentina, California, andf France, thats just the start. Thats just the aperitif!
Here's Mobutu Sese Seko's summation, which is so brilliant it could have been written by you: "Tomorrow night, all of it could explode into a genuinely fascinating clusterfuck. You have a brittle prick who's coping badly with the media falling out of love with him, going up against a guy who embraces being a goof and plays the role well. Ryan has three superpowers—smug disdain, shameless prevarication and ducking the issue—and he's going to be locked for 90 minutes, in front of the entire nation, next to a dude with working-class bona fides, a subtly strong command of foreign and domestic policy and every incentive to wring Ryan's pencil neck."
As I don't drink and we have no alcohol in the house, if Joe says marathon time- I will eat one of my remaining pieces of French chocolate
I tried chocolate instead of alcohol last week. Trust me. Go out and get some alcohol.
"old handsome Joe is gonna at some point look at him and say "your budget numbers are as fake as your marathon time," you know? I mean, can't our fantasies come true for once? If that happens, thats not a "drink" moment. Thats a mandatory blowjob moment, if Joe Biden says the words "your marathon time" (or words of similar import"
So by "mandatory blowjob moment", you mean we will all be required to blow Handsome Joe? I'm not necessarily opposed, I just think it will make for a very long night.
Also, I hope he mops the floor with that little snot Ryan — especially after President Obama's disappointingly subdued performance — but just in the absolute, too.
Not Joe, no, just, there should be blowjobs. And Colonel Angus, too!
Hey, I used to work for NSF!! We have had a number of really dumb shits in Congress question what we did- funding research for that devil science and math and engineering- and especially the social sciences because they are really evil.
Social science = socialism, obvs.
NSFW: Not Safe For Worship.
I think I just figured this out, they have not learned enough about science to realize how much they don't know. I read ScienceDaily every day . One reason is because without fail I will discover another entire branch of science I know nothing about. They stopped learning once they understood gravity makes the change in your pocket stay at the bottom.
I worked for this fundie bitch once who actually noted my attendance at continuing education in my field as a negative on my evaluation, because it demonstrated that I admitted not knowing everything about my field. (True story). They really believe that everything they know at 17 is everything there is to know.
Between this idiot and Akin (who is also on the committee), I am surprised science even exists in this country – yet we are winning Nobel Prizes for sciency things in spite of these idiots.
It's not just Broun and Akin, unfortunately: http://www.salon.com/2012/10/08/least_scientific_…
Yes,Science,Logic,and Common sense is completely against the GOP party line.
I'm wondering about this "pit of hell" thing. Are there other parts of hell? "The parking lot of hell"? "The gift shop of hell"?
I'm curious about the library of hell.
It's endless shelves piled high with "Going Rogue"
And the Ann Coulter bibliography
REPENT!!!1!
Everything John Ringo has ever written.
I hear it has the largest collection of Jerome Corsi first editions in the universe.
About nine in total, lovingly documented by Dante. I'm especially fond of the level in which traitors are encased in ice up to their necks.
You know, this makes me feel like an utter hypocrite, using this avatar and username, and yet not having fully read through Inferno. I've more or less understood the Cliff's Notes version, but that's about it.
I'm going to find a public domain eBook and load it up on my Kindle Fire-N-Brimstone.
It's one of those Wade books, in that you have to wade through it. The imagery makes no sense unless you have a working knowledge of Machiavelli and 15th century western religious thought, which I have only a smattering of. The Cliff's notes version probably tells you everything that you could reasonably want to know without writing a master's thesis on the topic.
And a working knowledge of everybody Dante was ever pissed off at.
"It's one of those Wade books, in that you have to wade through it."
Gravity's Rainbow was like that, also Remembrance of Things Past.
I have a lot of guilt about a lot of things (Catholic upbringing), but absolutely no guilt about not finishing a book. If I look for an excuse to put it down more than a couple of times, back to the library it goes.
If you make a right turn at the fork just before the pit, you can see the "fluffy bunnies of hell" exhibit.
Go to the Slauson cutoff; and CUT OFF YOUR SLAUSON!
"the Starbucks of hell" — where the coffee is always cold
That sounds, like, really bad.
So basically any Starbucks except without the warm?
And you get that burnt smelling and tasting coffee from the very bottom of the carafe.
The put of hell is where the slow cook all that delicious bbq.
IT'S PEOPLE!!!
But you're right, it IS delicious.
Can't wait to visit the golf course of hell — endless rounds of golf with John Boehner, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck
You wouldn't like it … every hole is par infinity.
My favorite was always the outhouse of hell – smells like turd briquets.
Well, I've been to hell's bathroom, and I can tell you, it's no picnic….
well i don't know about that at all but i'm pretty sure most of hell looks like schaumburg.
Schaumburg LIBEL!
No, wait ….
Nevermind.
Gruyere libelz!!!!!! Gouda one, editrix!!!
editrix!!!
Except the trick's on you… The above writer is more 'rich'.. like abDill havarti.
Telemea why you had to harsh his Moale?
I stand corrected. Thanks for your remarkable alert mental state this early in the AM. It is in fact a rich cheese, perhaps a land of Canaan bear, to stick with the jeebus-ness of this whole mess. Sadly Congressman Broun and his supporting constituents are more into cheez-wiz and Velveeta.
Well, we are in American.
What American are you in?
Well, I think the moon is guarded by a Greek monster first described by a French author. That would be the Gorgon Zola.
…and he suffers from FNTS (French Novelist Testicular Syndrome): Ballz-ache.
The best!!
Did Bround do his training under Theodoric of York? He sounds like he needs a good leeching.
(yes, I'm *that* ancient and just referenced a 70's era SNL skit.)
<a href ="http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/theodoric-of-york/1357947/ " >Theodorick!
As others have said, we should make people who spout this bullshit live the way people did 2,000 years ago. No products of modern science or medicine for them. No internet, no cars, no Viagra, no smart phones, no air travel, no vaccines, no television.
I see a new market opening up for leeches….
And a purge for the evil humours.
Cupping will become all the rage again!
But, but, you see, all of those things work just fine because of Magic Jeebus Power. I read it in the A Beka Book "'Science' And Other Liberal Fallacies" textbook.
These people really need to fucking go live without science for awhile. See how much they really like subsistence agriculture (living under the constant threat of starving to death), having to walk everywhere and carry everything on your back, and having 10 out of your 13 kids die before the age of 10 due to a complete lack of medicine.
Then, and only then, can they come back and calmly explain to me how science is the work of the Devil.
yup- a little infection and you are dead.
God made polio and smallpox. Satan eradicated them from the face of the Earth.
Yeah, but man, it was way easier to keep the rabble in line when they were all stupid and superstitious and the Church could utterly dominate them, amirite?
I hate American cheese.
It is a "cheese food". Which means processed oil and water. Yecchhhh.
Here are some outstanding artisan cheeses made in uh-MEHR-ka.
http://www.maytagdairyfarms.com/aspx/welcome.aspx
http://www.capriolegoatcheese.com/Home.aspx
You haven't tasted Humboldt Fog.
Even cedar cheese?
Just how did humanity survive before religion was invented?
It's just so much easier to just answer "God did it' to all the questions on your final exams than actually learning how the heart pumps blood. I wonder how much his monthly bill is for leeches and essence of urine.
I bet this is making the Science Guy's bowtie spin!
You mean the "Hell-Bound Guy," right?
If the moon is made of gouda, what wine would go with that? And can you put the moon on a Ritz cracker?
Tip of the iceberg. There's a whole generation of homeschooled fundy kids just waiting to inflict their stupid on the world.
I thought Bush gave them all career positions in the Justice Department?
"Notwithstanding the soul-snatching videotape, my boss wuz speaking off-the-record-ex-cathedra-in-tongues."
Broun can believe whatever the hell he would like, however, don't the voters have a right to know if he is making laws based on those beliefs so they can make an informed decision whether to re-elect him or not?
That was the point of the speech — pleasing his Religion-Clinging Dipshit constituents.
Last year, I took my 91 year old, fundamentalist dad on a trip through the Badlands and Black Hills of S.D…..the home of the dinosaurs….somewhere about the Story of Man museum in Rapid City, he started to get very quiet….on the way back home to Minnesota, he muttered something about, "maybe it was just the Bible of the Jews…."
Flintstones???
too soon….
Going to a MD that doesn’t believe in science and or appointing him to sit on the committee that oversees the National Science Foundation is like frequenting a celibate hooker.
God loves us sooo much that he'll send us to spend eternity in torment if we don't kiss his ass!
Worship me, dammit!
Not a viable candidate if they don't speak in "tongues"………..
We ALL know the Devil went down to Georgia.
I thought it was Kansas….I can't keep up….
He was looking for a soul to steal.
Giordano Bruno wishes to be re-burned at the stake.
And Giovanni Vico would weep again.
It's easy to be a doctor when all you have to do is say "Sorry, it's God's will. Go home and pray." or "Here, try these leeches."
People like this sure are skewing the bell curve for the rest of us…
When you do standup at Liberty Baptist University you gotta bring it big.
Now it makes sense…he was doing a comedy routine…
It's such a fine line…
Keeps me searchin' for a heart of gold; and I'm gettin' old.
Going to a doctor that doesn't believe in evolution and embryology is like going to a doctor for a foot ailment and getting a pelvic exam and ending up preggers.
And having that anti-abortion doctor make you get an abortion in order to save his marriage.
Is this Fundie Friday here at Wonkett?
It's thickhead Thursday.
I'm off, man, I need it too! This is my Friday..
Every day in the the USA is Fundy Day.
I remember once, I had a science. I didn't like it, so I throwed it in the water and it killed the fishies – and me and Jesus just laughed and laughed. Oh, wait – that wasn't me! That was big chemical companies using their good science to make the moneys that make repukes denounce the bad science of the liberalz.
"Blessed are the pure of heart, and the dinosaurs."
"Blessed are the peacemakers, and don't forget your credit card."
Jesus: The meek shall inherit the earth.
Dinosaurs: RAAAAAWWWRRRR!!
Jesus: OK, fine. We'll cross out the meek — it's not like they're gonna do anything about it.
Jesus derped.
I think I figured out a great way for the dairy industry to make buttloads of money: say that they're all members of a cheese-worshiping religion, and get rid of all those pesky taxes. Bonus: claim that any legislation that doesn't directly benefit the dairy industry is religious discrimination.
Their deity could be Cheeses of Nazareth.
Stupid mothahfuckah!!!
The 18th century looks better and better everyday.
I would like to think that God would choose to hang around a kind atheist rather than a hateful "Christian."
The great paradox – a benevolent God, created by hateful, single-minded people, thereby rendering the will of God single-minded and hateful.
Your move, Jesus.
We are thick with fundies here in W Colorado. So sometimes one will be helping a professional type of person with a technology issue, and Pith will assume they have an education and understand science on a basic level. Then they will say something like "how else could sea shells have gotten in the ground since we are over a mile above sea level" which I will then answer with a cogent explanation of how the strata in our area was deposited when this area was part of inland sea 260 million years ago. Then they get this look on their face, like I'm some kind of demon they have mistakenly asked into their life.
How come that Devil has a scythe? I thought that was the Grim Reaper's weapon of choice. Copyright infringement!
He represents Honey Boo Boo, and he's doing a damn good job of it!
So this Paul Broun person claims to have 'evidence' that the Earth is 9000 years old, contradicting both Science's reckoning of 4.54 billion years, and Archbishop Ussher's creation date of 23 Oct 4004 BC.
These two facts taken together prove clearly that this man weighs the same as a duck.
He was speaking off the record and he had his fingers crossed so of course we shouldn't take him seriously.
That sign is making me hungry for Deviled eggs or ham or something…
I'm imagining Richard Dawkins in a giant cape with RD in flourescent letters bursting through a brick wall and committing violent acts upon Broun's person…simply as a demonstration of the wide spectrum of human adaptation.
I thought that 'off the record' was something that you arranged before an interview with a reporter, not something that applied to anything you ever said anywhere that you don't want to talk about.
I would like to announce that everything I said or did in that strip club in 1977 was off the record.
"In hell it's ten minutes before the pubs open. In hell it's always ten minutes before the pubs open." – Peter Cook.
If the Moon is made of government cheese, does that mean the Universe is Socialist?
A guy that we have put in charge of real things is standing up and saying that true things are not true. That’s not a “religious issue,” that’s a learning disability.
historians will use this as shorthand for the republican party c. 2012.
Wait, so goudists believe that true happiness resides in being able to rid yourself of the desire for cheese? Good luck with that!
Hi, God, I love you and totally believe you exist.
Now please don't let the bad guy throw me into a furnace, and also I would like a bicycle and a pony and some sparkly balloons.
"Science has tricked people, you know, in a clever ploy to make them think they don’t need Jesus."
Crap like this is the reason for the old adage that a lawyer shouldn't ask a question that he doesn't already know the answer to.
If you start a fight, or a vendetta, or a competition, you'd better be damn sure you have a decent shot at winning; because if you start a fight, or a vendetta, or a competition, and then whine because your opponent is ahead, you look like a crybaby sorehead loser as well as a bully.
Ha ha, silly Christers!
What they don't know is that there's an atheist Hell. It's basically like the regular Hell, except that it's a few degrees hotter, and more humid, and everybody has one of those really bad headaches throughout all of eternity, and there's nothing to eat but broccoli, which means everybody farts all the time, and also they play "Hotel California" on an endless loop.
The fact that we have the worst Hell is conclusive proof of our beliefs.
Fucking moran can't even spell Brown.
If God is all good and all powerful, why doesn't he just squish the devil like a bug, instead of hiring him as a subcontractor to do all of God's dirty work?
Devil [shoveling lava and muttering to himself angrily]: Oh, sure, I'M the bad guy! [mockingly] Satan is eeeevil! Let's not let him sit with us at at lunch! [back to regular voice] But when Goody Two Shoes God wants a hurricane to knock somebody's house down, THEN who does he come around asking? Lousy rotten stinkin…
Holy balls, is this guy fuckin' stupid.
"Religious issues, of course, have somehow moved past “this wine is actually blood that you should drink” "
They've tried every other possible variation for vampire movies and TV shows; why not this?
I suppose we're not allowed to call *this* guy a liar, either.
*pouts*
This comment has been removed, because against stupidity even the gods rail in vain.
Shameless prevarication truly is the bane of politics as we know them. I absolutely despise semantics as much as I adore Viognier. The difference between the two guys will be so stark, Joe really is a master debater, and that other one has never done it on the national stage, woowee, come on techno-destructo. I want GWAR – just, blood all over the stage.
I am looking forward to it all very much. This is exciting!
"Joe really is a master debater"
You did that on purpose, didn't you?
Just don't have an MSNBC Weeknight Host Shit Fit if Uncle Joe fails to destroy him in the manner of your pre-debate fantasies. I mean, we all could write a better movie than "Return Of The Jedi" on Monday morning, or some such mixed metaphor. Selling blow jobs and fancy wine grapes at Mailboxes Etc. may be against local zoning laws, also.
This guy has never seen Empire Strikes Back, much less Return of the Jedi, can you freaking imagine? And everyone will be in a good mood tomorrow, no matter what happens tonight, I promise you.
Its true, all I know of Yoda I learned from listening to co-workers imitate him, doesn't every office have a resident Yoda-impersonator? I have gotten the impression that backwards he says everything? True is this? Anyway, I do like this philosophy of there is no try, only do, and its been working very very well, the doing. Chet there is no mailboxes etc. at the airport that I know of so we won't be going near one of those.
What, no lapdance?
I thought "no try, do" was Mr. Miyagi. I need to brush up on my trivia of the awful films of the '80s.
So you guys aren't opening a Mailboxes, Etc. franchise? Is it a Sunglass Hut or Chipotle, then?
Something, something, 3 tequilas and a travel agency. We'll figure out the name when the buzz wears off.
We don't have much to peddle, Chet, except smart-assery and uncomfortable for onlookers public displays of affection. I like chipotle peppers though. We ate a fried egg served over spring mix with a chipotle sauce for breakfast once!
Perhaps a Legal Counsel & Brunch Joint? Guy Fieri could roll up on you to see how you make your fancy egg dishes. Or David E. Kelley could shoot a pilot for "Promz Law", the show that would finally kill his string of snarky liberal legal dramas.
I'm good with the smart-ass public displays of affection, if I can watch.
Remember that show about the lawwyer who practiced law out of his bowling alley?
That third tequila is the point of no return crossing of the Rubicon thing for sure.
No, but I have no reason to doubt it existed!
No, yes lapdance. Always. It is why God made laps.
Amen.
Everything she does is on purpose, everything she says is said with keen awareness of the meaning and connotations of every single word. it comes out as spontaneous stream of consciousness but she is paying extremely close attention to every word. And even if its just spoken back and forth chat, like real life talking and not thought-out typed responses like this, her mind is that amazingly fast that still, every word matters and was chosen carefully.
I shouldn't say this, but you see, there are 4 other very specific puns and double entendres and secret references in that post. Its like reading Joyce, I swear I say this with no exxageration. Finnegan's Wake level stuff going on.
Let us prey.
The thing about Gravity's Rainbow is that the beginning is very hard, and the end is very hard, but the middle is pretty much a rollicking yarn. That there's that "rocket trajectory" metaphor, I suppose.
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