WORLD EXCLUSIVE: Evil supervillain’s lair discovered in NYC.

The early afternoon was sunny and warm yesterday as My Amazing Lover™ and I strolled through West Chelsea toward Hudson River Park. Though the route would take us out of our way, we were hoping to catch a cool breeze coming off the water as we made our way downtown, back to the West Village. Our path also held the sweet, sweet promise of encountering fewer annoying tourists than taking the High Line, and fewer ginormous-baby-stroller-toting brunch-goers than a more direct route down Eighth Ave.

If you’ve never been to West Chelsea, it is an architectural wonderland. Spared from the ($electively applied) restrictions of the West Village historic district, in recent years the neighborhood has become a Mecca of sorts for wealthy moguls and visionaries erecting all sorts of innovative and whimsical structures. I’ve always been partial to Shigeru Ban’s Metal Shutter Houses on 19th Street, a short walk from the West Side Highway, where you can also see Frank Gehry’s IAC building and Jean Nouvel’s 100 Eleventh Avenue.

Frank Gehry’s IAC Building (2007); behind it and to the left is Jean Nouvel’s 100 Eleventh Avenue (2010).
[IMAGE: Beyond My Ken]

Then there is Renzo Piano’s much ballyhooed new Whitney Museum, which, I’m sorry to say my friends, I do not get. Like, at all.

Whitney Museum from the Hudson River. NO.
[IMAGE: Bill Benzon]

What makes the area even more intriguing architecturally is the juxtaposition—sometimes quite literally—of old structures with new. West Chelsea still retains quiet, tree-lined streets lined with low-rise brownstones sporting exquisite ironwork, none of which would be out of place in the West Village. Then there are the iconic London Terrace Apartments, connected structures that occupy the entire city block bounded by 23rd and 24th Streets and Eighth and Ninth Aves. Constructed during 1929-30, the complex has been called home by some of the city’s most famous residents, from Debby Harry to Chelsea Clinton.

Victor C. Farrar’s London Terrace,
with older low-rise townhouses visible in the foreground.
[IMAGE: Beyond My Ken]

London Terrace detail.

Yesterday the sky was cloudless and the sun was strong, so we Whitey McWhitepersons, who naturally hadn’t bothered to apply sunblock or hats, kept to the south side of 23rd Street for the occasional patches of shade on offer. Still, it was sweltering. I was beginning to wish that I could somehow conjure up some ice cold water when I first saw it, and suddenly it was my blood that was running ice cold. Ladies and Gentlemen and other people of any gender and/or no gender whatsoever, I give you: 344 W. 23rd Street. A.K.A. The Cheyney.

344 W. 23rd Street. A.K.A. The Cheyney.
[IMAGE: Iris Vander Pluym]

Now you might think evil supervillains would be smarter than to put up signage announcing the location of their secret lairs, but I can assure you that is not the case. Their egos are too enormous so they simply cannot resist—although they often misspell their own names, as Dick Cheney obviously did in this case, in a futile effort to throw certain Intrepid Internet Journalists™ off the scent. He is a clever old weasel, I’ll give him that, hiding his hideout in plain sight like this. I mean, the building is nondescript by any standard. But plunked down among this neighborhood’s glittering architectural gems, it is veritably camouflaged if not utterly invisible. Note too the aluminum bars on the cellar windows: I shudder to think what kinds of Dark Arts are being practiced in that dungeon as we speak!

I quickly put it all together and announced proudly and boldly that I, Your Humble Monarch™, had single-handedly uncovered the Gotham lair of evil supervillain Darth Cheney. Incredibly, my partner remained entirely unpersuaded. But the more My Amazing Lover™ tried to talk me out of my conclusion, the more absolutely certain I became that it was true. “Don’t you see? That’s exactly what he wants us to think!” I insisted, “You’re playing right into his hands!”

Some people just have no appreciation for Intrepid Internet Journalist Genius™.

It would be a few hours before I would contact the International Criminal Court with my invaluable insights and information; I had to take every precaution to ensure none of this would be traced back to me. But in the meantime we trudged on silently in the merciless heat. Shade was scarce along the water, and the Hudson River yielded no cool breezes. Worse, my sandals were giving me painful blisters, and I felt parched and weak.

That’s right: I was in Hell. And I knew that at that moment one of Satan’s very own minions was not far away, gloating. But I can promise Loyal Readers™ this: if he dares set one foot on Perry Street, I’ma totally moon him.

An anti-abortion law so bad even some Texas Republicans think it goes too far. TEXAS REPUBLICANS, people.

Some Tea Party douche in the Texas legislature shat forth an amendment so terrible that even some Republicans objected. (!!!) And here I thought there was no practical limit to the amount of shitweaselry the Texas legislature could get up to.

Rep. Matt Schaefer (R-Tyler) put forward an amendment that would make it illegal to terminate a pregnancy after 20 weeks, even if a fetus “has a severe and irreversible abnormality,” effectively forcing families with wanted, but unsustainable pregnancies to carry to term at the behest of the state and against the advice of their doctors or their own wishes.

And to think some people actually balk whenever I call these assholes Forced Birthers. Hey, why don’t we ask Savita Halappanavar what she thinks of this idea? Oh wait, we can’t. Because she’s dead, having been denied an abortion during the miscarriage of her non-viable, 17-week-old fetus. See, that’s how “pro-life” works.

Anyway, this Schaefer d00d was not quite finished being an epic asshat just yet:

Schaefer said, during debate over his amendment, that suffering is “part of the human condition, since sin entered the world.”

WHAT. There is of course no such thing as sin entering the world. But suffering is indeed very much part of the human condition—and this turns out to be especially true wherever conservatives abound. That is just a fact.

I am inclined to agree with a Facebook acquaintance, who said:

I’d like to introduce an amendment that would make it illegal for Matt Schaefer to seek medical attention for any reason, because suffering is part of the human condition.

Except that unlike Mr. Schaefer, I do not relish the thought of causing or increasing the needless suffering of other people. Nor would I ever flippantly justify my violent sadism by citing a sadistic fairy tale. I mean, how nasty a piece of work are you when even some of your fellow Texas Republican legislators condemn your anti-abortion amendment?

Even some Republican lawmakers opposed Schaefer’s proposal, casting it as a cruel and unnecessary intrusion into the lives of grieving Texans.

“Why should the heavy, blunt hand of the government come into that most heartrending decision?” said Rep. J.D. Sheffield (R-Gatesville), a medical doctor.

“Because I just loooove the idea of pregnant Texans suffering horribly and possibly even dying for absolutely no reason whatsoever!” said Rep. Matt Schaefer (R-Tyler).

NO HE DID NOT SAY THAT. I totally made that up. Or perhaps I accurately translated his thoughts and actions into words, hmmm? Not enough Republicans objected to Schaefer’s amendment—it passed. Fortunately, a Democrat used a procedural block that put the legislation back in review, no doubt to rise from the dead and plague us again another day.

Rest assured that while ensconced in the Palace Abattoir, Mr. Schaefer will receive all the extra-special attention he deserves. We just want to help him get more in touch with the human condition.

[h/t Jay]

She’s baaaaaaack.

We have arrived home safely from our journeys to the Caribbean island of Saint Martin, where we stayed in Grand Case on the French side. Naturally, news of the terrorist attacks at Charlie Hebdo rocked the seaside town, and many flags remained at half mast.

The Palace is likewise flying French flags at half mast until further notice.

I am sure Loyal Readers™ have a pretty good idea where I stand on many of the issues implicated in these events, e.g. religion in general and fundamentalist Islam in particular, free speech and freedom of the press, satire and mockery vs. terrorist violence as political acts, the inevitable right-wing blowback in the West including more—and thus more ineffective—mass surveillance. I may have more to say about some or all of that later. For now, I will just leave you with just a few things that resonate with me.

A timely reminder from my friend that people in the U.S. have much, much more to fear from our own homegrown jihadists than we do from Islamic terrorism: Terror From the Right: Plots, Conspiracies and Racist Rampages Since Oklahoma City. (See also.)

These lines from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, written a thousand years ago:

But yours the cold heart, and the murderous tongue,
The wintry soul that hates to hear a song,
The close-shut fist, the mean and measuring eye,
And all the little poisoned ways of wrong.

[h/t Adam Lee]

Behold the beauty of for-profit healthcare.

My last post touched briefly on the debacle known as Obamacare, which I have written about ever since I first started blogging and many times since. In a nutshell, my primary objection is that it entrenches and strengthens our wildly expensive, unjust, craptastic for-profit system, rather than providing any sort of bridge to transition the vast majority of Americans to a single-payer system. For-profit means just what it says: it puts healthcare in the business of producing profits, and not, you know, health.

See?

On several key measures, for-profit hospices as a group fall short of those run by nonprofit organizations.

The typical for-profit hospice:

●Spends less on nursing per patient.

●Is less likely to have sent a nurse to a patient’s home in the last days of life.

●Is less likely to provide more intense levels of care for patients undergoing a crisis in their symptoms.

●Has a higher percentage of patients who drop out of hospice care before dying. High rates of dropout are often viewed as a sign that patients were pushed out of hospice when their care grew expensive, left dissatisfied or were enrolled for hospice even though they were not close to death.

They also deny their patients palliative care they deem too expensive, like radiation treatments to shrink tumors.

Hospice operators have an economic incentive to provide less care because they get paid a flat daily fee from Medicare for each of their patients. That means that the fewer services they provide, the wider their profit margin.

Wow! Who would have thought?

Industry advocates warned against using the findings to rule out care from a for-profit hospice.

That’s because they are industry advocates, paid to advocate for the hospice industry. And they seem to be quite successful at what they do:

The number of hospice firms has risen rapidly, and over the past decade the growth has come almost entirely from new for-profit operations. Between 2000 and 2012, the number of for-profit hospices tripled to 2,196, according to federal figures, compared with about 1,500 nonprofit hospices, including those run by local governments.

Good job, industry advocates! And of course the ultimate villains in this story are never lurking very far away:

The expansion has been driven in large part by investors, including private equity firms, hedge funds and entrepreneurs. More than a dozen private equity firms have invested in businesses that provide hospice care, including giants such as The Carlyle Group, Kohlberg & Company, Summit Partners and GTCR.

“Hospice [mergers and acquisitions] market is red hot (peak valuation levels),” according to a presentation by financial analysts at Cain Brothers last year, which cited, among other things, the favorable U.S. demographics — more old people.

“Hospice continues to be of robust interest to Wall Street,” said Carsten Beith, a managing director at Cain Brothers.

The more neglect and misery inflicted on the elderly and terminally ill, the more money motherfuckers make. Red hot market. Robust interest to Wall Street.

If that’s not your cue to run far, far away from for-profit hospice care, I’d really like some of that (illegal!) medical marijuana you’re smoking.

Defenders of market-based healthcare generally and private medical insurance in particular—a.k.a. conservatives—would no doubt attack my reasoning here, perhaps by claiming that the real problem is too much regulation (nope: as the linked article notes, hospices are terribly under-regulated) or too much government interference in the Glorious Free Market™ that leads to such disparate outcomes between for-profit and non-profit hospice operations. Alternatively, conservatives might spin or deny reality, with which they maintain only the most tenuous grasp. That is because in the bizarre wasteland that is the conservative mind, the well-established fact that non-profits and single-payer health systems yield far superior health outcomes across a wide range of measures (and do so much more cost-efficiently) simply cannot be acknowledged as true. Thus stories like this one in The Washington Post must be dismissed or explained away by ever more hilariously absurd rationalizations, lest we all fall into a communist death spiral and ruin America.

Recent reading.

Asset seizures fuel police spending. Robert O’Harrow Jr., R. and Rich, S., The Washington Post (Oct. 2014). (“Of the nearly $2.5 billion in spending reported in the forms, 81 percent came from cash and property seizures in which no indictment was filed.”)

German colleges offer free degrees to Americans. CBS, wtsp.com (Oct. 2014).

Decades-old CIA crack-cocaine scandal gains new momentum. RT.com (Oct. 2014).

Documents Reveal Billions of Gallons of Oil Industry Wastewater Illegally Injected
Into Central California Aquifers: Tests Find Elevated Arsenic, Thallium Levels in Nearby Water Wells. Center for Biological Diversity. (Oct. 2014).

The Unsafety Net: How Social Media Turned Against Women. Buni, C. and Chemaly, S., The Atlantic (Oct. 2014). (“Under the banner of free speech, companies like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have been host to rape videos and revenge porn—which makes female users feel anything but free.”)

This Week, Two Incidents Of Street Harassment Escalated Into Violent Attacks Against Women. Culp-Ressler, T., Think Progress (Oct. 2014).

The War on Viet Nam, the Coming “Official History,” and the US Victory in that War. Jonas, S., The Greanville Post (Oct. 2014).

Lullabies for Misandrists. Ortberg, M., The Toast (Sep. 2013). (OMGLOL—especially the comments. –Ed.)

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NOTE PLZ: Acquisition of links and/or bon mots for the Palace Library does not imply the Palace’s 100% agreement with or endorsement of any content, organization or individual.

BREAKING: Two Fifth Circuit Judges Become Involuntary Organ Donors.

Yesterday, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued a decision allowing the state of Texas to immediately enforce certain provisions of its draconian anti-abortion law HB2, pending the outcome of an appeal on the merits. Since HB2 was enacted last year, the number of abortion clinics in the vast state of Texas fell from 41 to 19. Today, that number will go down to 7. Note that such clinics also provide a wide range of healthcare services for women and trans* people, including prenatal care, birth control, STD treatment (Texas has the 8th highest STD rate in the country) and life-saving cancer screenings.

HB2 is, among other things, a TRAP law (“Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers”), which has become a popular weapon of shitweasels who enjoy brutalizing and punishing women in accordance with their misogynist religious beliefs. As I noted here, the Forced Birth Brigades are hip to the little problem that their odious religious views underpinning their opposition to abortion will result in laws that likely do not pass constitutional muster, so now:

[they] are effectively restricting abortion on other pretexts without any (obvious) connection to religion. For example: the ability of a fetus to feel pain; TRAP laws purporting to regulate abortion clinics for the safety of women but actually shutting clinics down; biased counseling requirements and mandatory delays (do men have mandatory delays for any common medical procedures? No I don’t fucking think so…); parental consent laws pretending to protect minors by blocking their access to a medical procedure that is 14 times safer than childbirth; and of course draconian prohibitions on public funding that lead to terrible outcomes for poor women.

Yes, the anti-regulatory zeal that animates conservative economic principles evaporates into thin air when the target of regulation is a non-profit women’s health clinic (or vaginas). Why, it’s almost as if deregulation is not really a conservative “principle” at all! (Either that, or “conservative principle” is an oxymoron.)

Most reprehensively, they are doing all of this on the disingenuous pretense of protecting the health of women. At issue in yesterday’s decision was whether Texas could immediately begin to enforce the remaining women’s clinics to conform to HB2’s Ambulatory Surgical Center (“ASC”) provisions, which require cost-prohibitive, medically unnecessary, multimillion dollar upgrades to facilities and equipment. Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights which challenged the law, calls the ASC provisions “a multimillion-dollar tax on abortion services.”

Writing in dissent to the two judge majority opinion, Judge Stephen A. Higginson (an Obama appointee) said:

[T]he district court found, after trial with witness credibility determinations, that an undue burden existed because Texas had over forty abortion clinics prior to the enactment of H.B. 2, and that after the ASC provision takes effect, only seven or eight clinics will remain, representing more than an 80% reduction in clinics statewide in nearly fourteen months, with a 100% reduction in clinics west and south of San Antonio.

…

The district court further found that there was no credible evidence of medical or health benefit associated with the ASC requirement in the abortion context…Weighing lack of medical benefit against the significant reduction in clinic access, the district court found the burden to be “undue.”

…

First, the district court recognized that there are 5.4 million women of reproductive age in Texas. Next, the district court found that if the ASC provision goes into effect, 900,000 women will live more than 150 miles from an abortion clinic; 750,000 women will live more than 200 miles from a clinic; and some women will live as far as 500 miles or more from a clinic. Furthermore, the district court explicitly considered the financial and other practical obstacles that interact with and compound the burdens imposed by the law, both in it its discernment of a substantial obstacle and also in its assessment of impact on women. Finally, the district court also found that the remaining seven or eight abortion ASCs lack sufficient capacity to accommodate all women seeking abortions in the state. Indeed, these remaining clinics would have to increase by at least fourfold the number of abortions they perform annually.

…

[T]he district court found that “abortion in Texas [is] extremely safe with particularly low rates of serious complications,” and further found that “risks are not appreciably lowered for patients who undergo abortion at ambulatory surgical centers.”

…

On the other hand, the district court found that if the ASC requirement goes into effect plaintiffs likely will suffer substantial injury, notably that enforcement would cause clinics to close in Corpus Christi, San Antonio, Austin, McAllen, El Paso, Houston, and Dallas. The longer these clinics remain closed, the less likely they are to reopen if this court affirms that the law is unconstitutional. The district court further found that only seven or eight clinics will remain open, and that these clinics alone lack sufficient capacity. Unless shown to be clear error, this circumstance is comparable to the one the Seventh Circuit observed would subject patients “to weeks of delay because of the sudden shortage of eligible [clinics]—and delay in obtaining an abortion can result in the progression of a pregnancy to a stage at which an abortion would be less safe, and eventually illegal.”

[emphasis mine; citations omitted.]

Nevertheless, Judges Jerry Edwin Smith (a Reagan appointee) and Jennifer Walker Elrod (Dubya) who wrote for the majority, ignored the district court’s findings and slithered their way through controlling legal precedent in order to unleash their fellow shitweasels immediately. In particular, these assholes held that: none of this shit constitutes an “undue burden” to a “substantial fraction” of Texans; that medically unnecessary obstacles placed before hundreds of thousands of people attempting to access legal medical care are perfectly constitutional; and that HB2 is likely to be upheld on the merits. Sadly, on that last point they are probably correct, given the current makeup of the same US Supreme Court that shat forth Hobby Lobby. (You can read the decision here.)

And so this morning Judges Smith and Elrod find themselves participants in our groundbreaking involuntary organ donation program, where we perform extractions of lifesaving organs whether people consent to them or not. For the uninitiated, we do not forcefully harvest organs from just anyone. All of our involuntary donors would happily force others to donate lifesaving organs without their consent. And since they feel so very strongly about this principle—if not about deregulation!—well, it is only right and fair that they live (or die) by it.

Now, organ extraction does involve some risks. But that doesn’t constitute an “undue burden,” much less to a “substantial fraction” of Fifth Circuit Court Judges. To ensure our two new donors are fully informed (if not consenting!), we will subject them to trans-vaginal (and/or rectal) ultrasounds for a peek at the organ(s) from which they will soon be permanently parted.

It appears we will not be harvesting Judge Higginson’s organs any time soon.

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In related news, stock futures for the coat hanger manufacturing sector are soaring.

WWJD?

Andrew Seidel has a nice post on the FFRF blog [h/t Don Ardell] about the immorality of the entire basis for Christianity, vicarious atonement.

Jesus is nothing more than the scapegoat for Christians. He died for your sins. I often joke that if you don’t sin, Jesus died for nothing. But in all seriousness, the idea of vicarious redemption through human sacrifice is—to my mind—the most immoral religious idea. That our guilt and liabilities can be piled onto an innocent living being is disgusting in itself. That our guilt is expunged by extinguishing that innocent life is nothing short of barbaric.

This patently immoral doctrine is a total refutation of personal responsibility. You are not beholden to the people you’ve stolen from or who you’ve lied to—you’re forgiven because you accept your role in the execution of an innocent.

But this is what Christianity requires: reverence for the sacrifice of an innocent…

Jesus, if he lived, died for nothing. His death cannot absolve anyone of his or her mistakes.

I love Seidel. Since he came on board at FFRF, their messaging has become much more aggressive, entertaining and snarky.

While I’m glad to see vicarious atonement being pilloried for the evil abomination it is, I think it’s necessary to go even further and reject the premise that Jesus died at all. I mean, putting aside whether or not he even existed, was the son of a deity, born of a virgin, performed miracles, etc. I’m saying even if you grant all of that and take the biblical account(s) at face value, Jesus did not die.

GODBOT: Jesus died for your sins!

IRIS: Nope. Haven’t you read your own bible? Because not only is this idea of vicarious atonement morally repulsive, but according to your scriptures Jesus did not, in fact, die. He had a bad weekend. Followed by coming back to life, and then just hanging around for a while. Oh, and then ascending into the sky, to enjoy ruling over the entire universe for all of eternity. That’s, like, the opposite of dying.

Usually shuts them up for a minute.

If vicarious atonement were such a great gift to humanity from gawd himself, WWJD? No, not What Would Jesus Do, but rather Why Won’t Jesus Die?

Recent reads, new quotes.

German universities scrap all tuition fees. Charter, D., The Times (Sep. 2014). [Christ, what a socialist nightmare. –Ed.]

White House exempts Syria airstrikes from tight standards on civilian deaths: Amid reports of women and children killed in U.S. air offensive, official says the ‘near certainty’ policy doesn’t apply. Isikoff, M., Yahoo News (Sep. 2014).

Police Chief Asked Medical Examiner to Change Autopsy Report To Match Officer Testimony, He Does. Vibes, J., The Free Thought Project (Sep. 2014).

US jobs that returned after 2008 recession pay 23 percent less. RT.com (Aug. 2014).

20 percent of American workers have lost their job during the last 5 years. RT.com (Sep. 2014).

World wildlife populations halved in 40 years – report. Harrabin, R., BBC (Sep. 2014). (“The society’s report, in conjunction with the pressure group WWF, says humans are cutting down trees more quickly than they can re-grow, harvesting more fish than the oceans can re-stock, pumping water from rivers and aquifers faster than rainfall can replenish them, and emitting more carbon than oceans and forests can absorb.”)

US and Afghanistan sign security deal: Pact allows 10,000 American troops to remain in the country and raises hopes for improved US-Afghan relations. Rasmussen, S.E., The Guardian (Sep. 2014). [This has worked out so well in Iraq. –Ed.]

Reality TV star Jessa Duggar blames the Holocaust on the theory of evolution. Dolan, E.W., Raw Story (Sep. 2014). [WHAT. –Ed.]

Haredim refuse to sit next to women on El Al flight, causing ’11-hour-nightmare’. Blumenthal, I., Jewish World (Sep. 2014). [Does it make me a terrible person that I go out of my way to brush up against Haredim on crowded subways? Probably. And yet I have no intention of stopping. –Ed.]

Stop Interrupting Me: Gender, Conversation Dominance, and Listener Bias. Kirkpatrick, J., Women In Astronomy (Jul. 2014). (“Having a seat at the table is not the same as having a voice.”)

How a Black Gay Mormon Kid Lost His Faith. James, G., The Root (Sep. 2014). [TW: rape, homophobia.]

Woman working 4 jobs to make ends meet dies while napping in car between shifts. RT.com (Aug. 2014). [The American Dream! –Ed.]

The Terrible Tragedy of the Healthy Eater. Erica, Northwest Edible Life (Aug 2012). [OMFG LOL. -Ed.]

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For our world-renowned QUOTE collection, some words from Elie Wiesel [h/t SJ]:

Indifference, to me, is the epitome of evil.

I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

As long as one dissident is in prison, our freedom will not be true. As long as one child is hungry, our lives will be filled with anguish and shame. What all these victims need above all is to know that they are not alone; that we are not forgetting them, that when their voices are stifled we shall lend them ours, that while their freedom depends on ours, the quality of our freedom depends on theirs.

War dehumanizes, war diminishes, war debases all those who wage it.

There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.

None of us is in a position to eliminate war, but it is our obligation to denounce it and expose it in all its hideousness. War leaves no victors, only victims. [Not so: America’s Owners are the victors. –Ed.]

A destruction only man can provoke, only man can prevent.

No human being is illegal.

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NOTE PLZ: Acquisition of quotes and links for the Library does not imply the Palace’s 100% agreement with or endorsement of any content, organization or individual.

Has Ebola mutated?

I read with great interest this headline, quoting some d00d I never heard of named Rick Wiles:

Rick Wiles: ‘Ebola Could Solve America’s Problems With Atheism And Homosexuality’

Wow! I thought. This must be some new strain of the virus that makes Americans less conservative shitty people! Turns out the d00d hosts a radio show called Trunews—so it must be, you know, true. He went on to say this:

“Now this Ebola epidemic can become a global pandemic and that’s another name for plague. It may be the great attitude adjustment that I believe is coming,” he said. “Ebola could solve America’s problems with atheism, homosexuality, sexual promiscuity, pornography and abortion.”

OMFG, you guys! An end to religious privilege. No more homophobia or “slut”-shaming. War on Women? OVER. That is some beneficial mutation, amirite? I wonder how it works. It probably targets some genetic sequence that codes for conservative shitweaselry, and blocks or reverses it, I’m guessing. In the years to come, neuroscientists will learn so much from studying this phenomenon.

And there’s more: “Wiles previously linked President Obama to the Ebola outbreak. That is some serious 11th-dimensional chess right there, Barack. Like, whoa.

Wait, what?

End Times radio host Rick Wiles said that an outbreak of Ebola in the U.S. might actually be a good thing if it ends up giving an “attitude adjustment” to all the gays and atheists, along with people who use pornography or have had an abortion, who will die if they aren’t “protected by God.”

…

“If Ebola becomes a global plague, you better make sure the blood of Jesus is upon you, you better make sure you have been marked by the angels so that you are protected by God. If not, you may be a candidate to meet the Grim Reaper.”

Oh. So this guy is a total flaming asshole, then.

Never mind. Forget I said anything.

Haha no.

I was chatting about this on Facebook and thought I’d drop it here.

Pope Francis asks forgiveness for priests who sexually abused children.

No.

As in: absolutely not. May unrelenting contempt and loathing follow these priests and the church that enabled them for the rest of their days.

“I feel compelled to personally take on all the evil which some priests — quite a few in number, obviously not compared to the number of all the priests — to personally ask for forgiveness for the damage they have done for having sexually abused children…”

WTF d00d, that’s not how this works. See, *you* cannot “take on all the evil” that others do. Vicarious atonement is a reprehensible concept—one reason among the many that I so loathe Christianity.

Go fuck yourself, smiley “liberal” pope.