Filed on June 28, 2010 at 5:18 pm under by dcobranchi
Rand Paul doesn’t know how old the Earth is. Or, rather, he was afraid to tell a group of fundy homeschoolers the truth.
Filed on June 15, 2010 at 6:33 am under by dcobranchi
Check out the comments on this CNN article about a proposed AZ law. The bill would clearly violate the explicit wording of the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868. And yet the commenters at CNN are going on about how the Framers of the Constitution never intended for the children of illegal immigrants to have citizenship.
We amended the Constitution. It says that if you are born in the US you are a citizen, by birthright.
Filed on June 13, 2010 at 4:42 pm under by dcobranchi
Anthony officially graduated yesterday. It was a very nice event. Just our small co-op. All of the kids who participated in co-op classes were recognized, and then we had the actual graduation ceremony. I got to deliver the keynote address. Pretty fun.
It was neat seeing three boys (er, young men) who we have known for years make the transition out of homeschool and into college. All three will be attending one of the local community colleges next year.
Filed on June 6, 2010 at 8:10 am under by dcobranchi
I calls ’em as I sees ’em. And this is what I see this morning:
It’s about freedom of worship
No mosques in New York City!
There was a church that perished on 9/11. The little St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church. Rebuild that!
It is not a matter of freedom of religion, but, freedom of worship. In America, worship the one true God of our forefathers … of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob, of Joseph, and of Nicholas. Any ol’ way you like.
We have a jealous God, who founded America. He hasn’t abandoned us. I promise.
Russ Olenick, Raeford
But, heh, it’s Fayetteville. Lots of idiots running around here. But how, then, to explain the comments on this CNN piece on the same topic? Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.
Filed on June 5, 2010 at 3:13 pm under by dcobranchi
It’s not about the “babies.” It’s about keeping women barefoot and pregnant. They don’t like the fact that women can have sex without the risk of getting pregnant.
Filed on May 23, 2010 at 5:58 am under by dcobranchi
A very cool photo today. Make sure to zoom in on the shuttle.
Filed on May 15, 2010 at 7:32 am under by dcobranchi
Thursday was my birthday. No big deal and I wouldn’t mention it at all except it’s a necessary detail for the story. Jonathan had a 9-10 baseball game scheduled for that night. As we were heading out the door for the game, my dad called with birthday wishes. He told Jonathan to hit a home run for me.
Now 9-10 baseball is the first year that the kids pitch. It’s not exactly MLB quality. And Jonathan’s team is not exactly tearing up the league. At the top of the 4th, they were down 10-0. That’s mercy-rule territory. They needed to score at least one run to keep the game alive. The leadoff hitter walked. Then, on the next pitch, one of the stranger plays in baseball happened. A grounder to first allegedly hit the runner going from 1st to 2nd. But nobody on the field saw it and the field umpire didn’t signify dead ball (which is the correct way to handle it). Instead, he let play go on. The batter-runner was thrown out at first and left the field. That’s when the field umpire called the runner on 1st out for interference (Rule 7.09 (m) and 7.10 (a)). Then the home plate umpire called the batter-runner out for abandoning the baseline by going back to the dugout (7.08 (a)(2)). This, IMO, was a very legalistic ruling, since the field umpire blew the call and that error led to the kid leaving the field. Regardless, after all of the discussions and arguments and hullabaloo, it was now 2 outs with nobody on and Jonathan got up. One more out and the game is over. Two pitches later he hit a sharp liner between third and short. It skipped through the left fielder’s legs and rolled to the fence. Jonathan hustled all the way around the bases for a “home run” (at least in 9-10 baseball). As he crossed the plate he yelled out “Happy Birthday, Dad!”
That really was the best birthday present I’ve ever received.
Filed on May 13, 2010 at 5:23 pm under by dcobranchi
Taser Int’l is headquartered there.
Filed on April 24, 2010 at 5:57 pm under by dcobranchi
D (a school bus) UI is not very cool.
Filed on April 23, 2010 at 6:57 pm under by dcobranchi
That is, “insane.” It’s a really good question.
Filed on April 21, 2010 at 1:19 pm under by dcobranchi
You’ve got to love the folks who write the (totally scientific) polls at OneNewsNow. They really do seem to know their readers. Today’s is #1.
Filed on April 17, 2010 at 8:56 pm under by dcobranchi
That’s “Wingnut of the Day.”
And another thoughtful conservative calls for the repeal of the 19th Amendment.
Only real Americans (that means white, conservative, and male) deserve the vote.
They really do hate democracy, don’t they?
Filed on April 14, 2010 at 6:45 am under by dcobranchi
Life in Tea Party Central Casting:
Corruption apparent with health vote
Well, the battle is on. I have a hard time understanding, after all these years, why anyone would proudly associate his name with the title “Democrat.” I have never seen a more ungodly, corrupt group in Washington, and even in our own town, that has raised its head to deprive the citizens of this country of their constitutional rights.
What is even sadder is not that the health care bill has passed because of our present group of communist sympathizers, but we have so many willing to sell this country down the tubes for the color of the resident’s skin or the greed of their character.
Bob Smith
Fayetteville
Do these sub-morons really believe that supporting health insurance reform somehow equates to being a communist sympathizer? I could pick apart his letter word by word, but why bother? I am really curious, though, about what constitutional rights we on the left have deprived him of? Was it the right to be denied coverage by an insurance company? Or perhaps it was the right to be driven into a medical bankruptcy because he gets sick. Oh, I know. He’s being deprived of the right to pay for insurance for years and years, only to have the insurance company rescind his policy when he needs it. Yeah! We proud Democrats are a bunch of sick bastards for that one.
Filed on April 8, 2010 at 2:23 pm under by dcobranchi
OneNewsNow is touting a bunch of homeschoolers who are “challenging” the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act.
Filed on April 5, 2010 at 2:58 pm under by dcobranchi
One News Now is full of shit. The write downs that Deere and Caterpillar are taking are due to a closure of a ridiculous tax loophole that allowed them to write off as an expense money they weren’t spending. FASB rules require that they account for the change in their 10-Q. So they did. But it’s not real money, and it’s certainly not money that they should have been able to count as income. But ONN (full of shit!) wants to play games.
And small businesses were NOT eligible to take advantage of that particular loophole. If anything, reform helps level the playing field for them.
Filed on April 1, 2010 at 7:00 pm under by dcobranchi
Do y’all remember the Sesame Street song that started out “One of these things is not like the others”? That song popped into mind when I read this HuffPo piece:
Such products as Left Behind wall paper, screen savers, children’s books, and video games have become part of the ubiquitous American background noise. Less innocuous symptoms include people stocking up on assault rifles and ammunition, adopting “Christ-centered” home school curricula, fearing higher education, embracing rumor as fact, and learning to love hatred for the “other,” as exemplified by a revived anti-immigrant racism, the murder of doctors who do abortions, and even a killing in the Holocaust Museum. And now we have a cult/militia dedicated to the same idea.
Funny, but I don’t equate stockpiling weapons and ammo with homeschooling, Christ-centered or not. Just because Christianists homeschool doesn’t mean they’re all one step removed from declaring war on the federal government.
Filed on at 6:30 am under by dcobranchi
*Oh. My. Allah!
Fundamentalist Muslims can be just as stupid and evil as their Christianist counterparts.
(CNN) — A Lebanese man charged with sorcery and sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia is scheduled to be beheaded on Friday, the man’s lawyer said Wednesday… Sibat is the former host of a popular call-in show that aired on Beirut-based satellite TV channel “Sheherazade.” According to his lawyer, Sibat would predict the future on his show and give out advice to his audience.
Filed on March 27, 2010 at 12:07 pm under by dcobranchi
It seems pretty clear that the future pope covered up for two (or more?) child-molesting priests. But never you mind. After all, we know that schools churches are the safest place for students children to be.
Filed on March 21, 2010 at 11:04 am under by dcobranchi
the stupid cardinal is still smashing into the windows. At least I’m pretty sure that he won’t pass the stupid genes on to his progeny, since he doesn’t have time to seek out a female.
Filed on March 20, 2010 at 8:04 pm under by dcobranchi
The Hurt Locker continues in a long tradition of boring Best Pictures. I found myself rooting for the Iraqis.
Filed on March 17, 2010 at 10:11 pm under by dcobranchi
Calling an 11-year-old girl a “loser” is not the way for a teacher to relate to students.
Filed on March 13, 2010 at 11:03 am under by dcobranchi
We have mirrored film on our windows to reflect IR radiation. It works quite well, but there is one somewhat negative side effect. For the last 24 hours, we’ve had a male cardinal bashing itself into the windows as it attacks the other male in the mirror. It drives the dog and the cats crazy, and it’s probably not so good for the bird. I even opened the windows enough for the cats to sit on the ledge outside the window. The bird just moved his attacks up about a foot to stay out of harm’s way.
Suggestions?
Filed on March 12, 2010 at 10:28 pm under by dcobranchi
Lynn at Bore Me to Tears documents the sad end of the public school system in the United States. It was murdered this week in Texas. It is survived by a bastard son, Fundamental Christianism.
Filed on at 6:41 pm under by dcobranchi
I’m sure y’all will be shocked(!) to learn that vaccines are still not causally related to autism.
The “special vaccine court” ruled Friday that parents who alleged their children’s autism was caused by a mercury-containing preservative in childhood vaccines did not prove their cases and are not entitled to compensation.
The reviews of the three test cases by special masters of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims exceeded 600 pages and found all of the claims wanting.
“Petitioners’ theory of vaccine-related causation is scientifically unsupportable,” wrote Special Master Patricia Campbell-Smith in her conclusion about William P. Mead, whose parents, George and Victoria Mead, had brought one of the suits.
“In the absence of a sound medical theory causally connecting William’s received vaccines to his autistic condition, the undersigned cannot find the proposed sequence of cause and effect to be logical or temporally appropriate. Having failed to satisfy their burden of proof under the articulated legal standard, petitioners cannot prevail on their claim of vaccine-related causation.”
Filed on March 11, 2010 at 8:06 pm under by dcobranchi
Trust me. It’s worth it.
Filed on at 7:56 pm under by dcobranchi
I’m really not sure that I want to live in the same country as these “Christians.”
JACKSON, MS – A northern Mississippi school district decided Wednesday not to host a high school prom after a lesbian student demanded she be able to attend with her girlfriend and wear a tuxedo. (See earlier story)
Instead, the school board met and issued a statement announcing it wouldn’t host the event at Itawamba County Agricultural High School in Fulton, “due to the distractions to the educational process caused by recent events.”
Of course, the super-“Christians” at OneNewsNow are cheering on the homophobes. They even have a rigged poll on the subject. Check out the Q&A.
OneNewsNow.com Poll
What’s your reaction to a school district’s cancellation of its prom following a lesbian’s request to attend and bring her girlfriend? (related article)
1. The district should be commended for sticking to its morality-based policy
2. The community should rally behind the district and host a private event
3. The ACLU should know better than to flex its muscle in the Bible Belt
How ’bout a choice for people who are not still living in the 16th century?
Filed on March 9, 2010 at 8:17 pm under by dcobranchi
Time to storm the Bastille D.C.
If you think health care reform is ugly, just wait until Congress tries immigration reform again.
The Senate has begun work on an immigration bill and at the center of this new plan is a controversial requirement for all American workers to get identification cards… Under the plan – all legal workers, including citizens and immigrants, would have to get an ID card that includes biometric information like fingerprints.
There is no way in hell that I am giving the gov’t my fingerprints or any other biometric data. The new passports have an RFID chip in them with a digitized passport photo. The day I got mine it somehow got dropped into a microwave oven which accidentally was programmed for 30 seconds on “high.” Who knew that RFID chips and microwaves didn’t play well together?
I absolutely will not voluntarily participate. The only way the gov’t gets my fingerprints is if they arrest me.
Filed on at 9:33 am under by dcobranchi
I shot this one of Katelyn the other day. Ballerinas can only maintain First Arabesque for a second or two, but in this photo Katelyn looks like she could stay there forever.
Filed on March 6, 2010 at 9:52 pm under by dcobranchi
The AP(!) dissects Christian/creationist biology textbooks written for the homeschool market. Jay Wile has a pretty ugly quote:
Coyne and Virginia Tech biology professor Duncan Porter reviewed excerpts from the Apologia and Bob Jones biology textbooks, which are equivalent to ninth- and 10th-grade biology lessons. Porter said he would give the books an F.
“If this is the way kids are home-schooled then they’re being shortchanged, both rationally and in terms of biology,” Coyne said. He argued that the books may steer students away from careers in biology or the study of the history of the earth.
Wile countered that Coyne “feels compelled to lie in order to prop up a failing hypothesis (evolution). We definitely do not lie to the students. We tell them the facts that people like Dr. Coyne would prefer to cover up.”
I taught a homeschool co-op chemistry class at our church in DE (Yes, I used to go. A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away). They wanted me to use the Wile text. I reviewed it. Total piece of shit. Really very, very poor. Not surprising given how little respect he has for the way science works.
Filed on March 3, 2010 at 7:31 am under by dcobranchi
Another in the never ending series of “Life in Fayetteville, NC.”
Military service a privilege, not a right
Betsy Lowe, thanks for your recent service to our country. By serving, you’ve done what most civilians are only armchair quarterbacks to, deferring to “supporting the troops” instead.
Thank you for your comments (“Is controversy a case of guilty consciences?,” Feb 20). With them, you have proven that the best policy is the existing “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” As long as everyone stays in their lane and doesn’t infringe on the rights of others, and focuses on the war-making mission, the mission will be enhanced instead of degraded.
Close-knit units, as in the special operations world, are most efficient at war-making types of missions, which is why most of them have certain specialties that still are not and won’t ever be open to females because of the “no fail” mission statements. The ability to fight, survive and fight again far outweighs any single person’s personal desires to pursue their dreams in the military.
Serving in the military is not a right, it is a privilege. Hence, the military’s policy of weeding out undesirables who would detract from that mission instead of enhancing it.
This is going to offend some I am sure, but why is it that, as a society, we have accepted that homosexuality isn’t a conscious decision but an attraction to the same sex, but we don’t apply that same reasoning towards pedophiles? Aren’t they born that way as well? C’mon, time to step up and accept responsibility for your own adult decision-making.
Rick K. Hopfauf
Sanford
Homosexuality = pedophilia? WTF? I really shouldn’t have to explain this. Presumably Rick Hopfauf is over the age of 5 and has learned to read something beyond Dick and Jane books. But, apparently, the thinking part of Rick Hopfauf’s brain atrophied a long, long time ago. So, here you go Rick Hopfauf…
The reason we accept homosexuality and we don’t pedophilia is that homosexual acts between consenting adults are BETWEEN CONSENTING ADULTS! Children cannot consent and acting on an attraction to pre-pubescent children is wrong, both morally and legally.
*sigh* My neighbors really are a constant source of agita.
Filed on at 7:00 am under by dcobranchi
That’s conservative/libertarian Thomas Sowell’s advice (paraphrased) for how to reform health care. In Sowell’s view, the problem is that people have insurance. Insurance is a bad thing because it allows people to consume health care even if they couldn’t pay for it out of pocket. So, in Sowell’s perfect world, the folks who can’t afford $50,000 for a heart bypass operation would just die (quickly) and the folks (like Sowell) who have lots of money would pay for their own health care (which would be far cheaper since there’d be less competition for the doctors’ and the hospitals’ services).
One of the biggest reasons for higher medical costs is that somebody else is paying those costs, whether an insurance company or the government. What is the politicians’ answer? To have more costs paid by insurance companies and the government.
Back when the “single payer” was the patient, people were more selective in what they spent their own money on. You went to a doctor when you had a broken leg but not necessarily every time you had the sniffles or a skin rash. But, when someone else is paying, that is when medical care gets over-used — and bureaucratic rationing is then imposed, to replace self-rationing… Nothing would lower costs more than having each patient pay those costs. And nothing is less likely to happen.
I can’t imagine why it won’t happen. It’d be a win-win, for sure. Fewer poor (and middle class) people and healthier (and richer) rich people.
Filed on February 26, 2010 at 7:21 pm under by dcobranchi
Fill in the blank:
“The point, of course, is this: If you have 51 votes for your position, you win,” _______ told his Senate colleagues on the floor.
He added, “Reconciliation is a rule of the Senate (that) has been used before for purposes exactly like this on numerous occasions… Is there something wrong with majority rules? I don’t think so.”
Harry Reid? President Obama? Nancy Pelosi?
Scroll down for the answer.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Sen. Judd Gregg, Republican
Filed on February 25, 2010 at 8:56 pm under by dcobranchi
I’m not really sure how to classify these two teachers. Exhibitionists? Probably. Morons? For sure.
I like that the school trustee thought that having one teacher bury his face in another teacher’s crotch as part of a school sanctioned “dance off” was “not good.”
Filed on at 8:39 pm under by dcobranchi
Our PS2 died and Jonathan’s been itching for a PS3. I’d go for it except the current PS3 is not backwards compatible with PS2 games. We have way too many to trash.
Way to go, Sony! You lost a sale.
Filed on February 20, 2010 at 10:26 pm under by dcobranchi
Drawing on a school desk can get a student arrested in NY. Can educrats be arrested for blinding stupidity?
Filed on February 17, 2010 at 8:45 pm under by dcobranchi
My hometown of Greenville, SC has the highest concentration of conservative idiots in the world. Seriously, it’s not even close. That’s why I’m really surprised to learn that the SC legislator who proposed a bill that would ban Federal Reserve Notes from being accepted in the state and, instead, would make silver and gold coins the only legal tender is NOT from Greenville.
He’s from Laurens, a few miles away.
Filed on February 15, 2010 at 9:01 am under by dcobranchi
Who took the residents of FAY and replaced them with pod people? The folks who wrote today’s LttE surely aren’t the neighbors I’ve come to know and, umm, er, *cough*, know.
Filed on February 9, 2010 at 11:09 pm under by dcobranchi
I watched tonight an MSNBC “documentary” called Marijuana, Inc. A modern day Reefer Madness. The nadir was when some Bush era drug czar called pot a poison. Made we want to fire up a doob just to spite them.
Filed on at 7:28 am under by dcobranchi
The latest Mr. Deity episode is sure to be a classic. What’s that? You don’t watch Mr. Deity? Take the time now to watch the show. You can thank me later when you have some time. 🙂
Filed on February 4, 2010 at 8:20 pm under by dcobranchi
Why? Because he talks like this:
6Then God declared, “A great sheet-like expanse shall come between the waters, and it shall divide waters from waters!”
If the writers at conservapedia’s Bible project really believe in the all-powerfull vengeful kind of God, they ought to be quaking in their boots. I know if I were some kind of omnipotent being and some bunch of yahoos made me sound like a dork, I’d be smiting their ass, big time.
Filed on February 1, 2010 at 9:27 pm under by dcobranchi
Prosecution != persecution
And I’m not sure that not being allowed to homeschool ought to be grounds for granting political asylum in the US.
Uwe and Hannelore Romeike are not like other asylum seekers, people fleeing war or torture in places like Afghanistan, Iraq or Somalia. They’re music teachers from a village in southern Germany. And yet, in what appears to be the first case of its kind, the couple and their five children were granted asylum in the U.S. last week by an immigration judge who ruled that they had a “well-founded fear of persecution” in their home country for engaging in what has become a popular albeit somewhat controversial American practice — homeschooling their children.
Filed on January 19, 2010 at 7:40 am under by dcobranchi
My friend the editor allows the religious nutcakes to take over his LttE page today. *sigh*
Filed on at 7:20 am under by dcobranchi
Have you ever heard the term “over-exposed”? The Super Bowl is neither the time nor the place to be “preaching” about a controversial political issue.
Filed on at 7:12 am under by dcobranchi
So that you can teach your kids real science and history as opposed to wacko Christianist/GOP propaganda.
McLeroy flipped through the pages and explained what he saw as the gaping holes in Darwin’s theory. “I don’t care what the educational political lobby and their allies on the left say,” he declared at one point. “Evolution is hooey.” This bled into a rant about American history. “The secular humanists may argue that we are a secular nation,” McLeroy said, jabbing his finger in the air for emphasis. “But we are a Christian nation founded on Christian principles. The way I evaluate history textbooks is first I see how they cover Christianity and Israel. Then I see how they treat Ronald Reagan—he needs to get credit for saving the world from communism and for the good economy over the last twenty years because he lowered taxes.”
Views like these are relatively common in East Texas, a region that prides itself on being the buckle of the Bible Belt. But McLeroy is no ordinary citizen. The jovial creationist sits on the Texas State Board of Education, where he is one of the leaders of an activist bloc that holds enormous sway over the body’s decisions. As the state goes through the once-in-a-decade process of rewriting the standards for its textbooks, the faction is using its clout to infuse them with ultraconservative ideals. Among other things, they aim to rehabilitate Joseph McCarthy, bring global-warming denial into science class, and downplay the contributions of the civil rights movement.
Battles over textbooks are nothing new, especially in Texas, where bitter skirmishes regularly erupt over everything from sex education to phonics and new math. But never before has the board’s right wing wielded so much power over the writing of the state’s standards. And when it comes to textbooks, what happens in Texas rarely stays in Texas. The reasons for this are economic: Texas is the nation’s second-largest textbook market and one of the few biggies where the state picks what books schools can buy rather than leaving it up to the whims of local districts, which means publishers that get their books approved can count on millions of dollars in sales. As a result, the Lone Star State has outsized influence over the reading material used in classrooms nationwide, since publishers craft their standard textbooks based on the specs of the biggest buyers. As one senior industry executive told me, “Publishers will do whatever it takes to get on the Texas list.”
So, in the next few years, g-school textbooks across the country might teach the kids that McCarthy was right, that Ronald Reagan should be beatified, and that Newt Gingrich was (and is) a visionary.
FSM save us from Texas!
Filed on January 16, 2010 at 2:27 pm under by dcobranchi
Just bought a nearly new $350 ladder for $100.
Filed on January 2, 2010 at 2:10 pm under by dcobranchi
SC’s educational radio station is running a show next week during which they’ll debate whether or not SC Gov. Mark Sanford has a legitimate shot at the presidency in 2012.
I had to check the calendar to make sure it was January 1st and not April 1st.
Filed on December 21, 2009 at 2:50 pm under by dcobranchi
Civil war on the far right fringe. Cool.
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