"Christians" like these are why I am so glad to be a member of a different tribe

The Fred Phelps phuckheads have struck again. These people know no shame, have no decency and, well, they just don't know how to act.

I am not a Christian, but I am familiar with Christianity and the basic tenets of that religion. Tenets like clothe the naked, care for the sick, feed the hungry and bury the dead.

In other words, any Christian worth their salt is expected to know how to act like a civilized, decent, compassionate human being.


Civilized, decent, and compassionate are decidedly NOT descriptives that anyone in their right mind would ever apply to those horrible, hateful vermin from the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. For those who don't know about these embarrassments to my species, stop reading now!!! If you have lived through the last two decades and not been introduced to the Ministry of Hate, consider yourself lucky.

Those jackals are the Christianist answer to Islamic terrorists. They are the attention-whores with a double-digit congregation (71 members, 60 of whom are related to the cloven-hoofed old goat) and single-digit IQ's that protest funerals of homosexuals, soldiers, and now victims of infrastructure disasters.

One of the first funerals they ever picketed was that of a college friend of mine from Wichita State. I returned to Wichita just in time to spend a little time with him at the very end. His name was Laurent Langlois, and he was a talented actor, a wonderful friend, the best study-buddy I ever had, a trusted confidant, and...a homosexual. He contracted AIDS when it was still a death sentence. I walked out of the church after the service, grieving for my friend, and felt like I had stepped into the twilight zone. I saw that old goat and his evil minions, and their vulgar signs, and then my eyes fell upon the hate-twisted face of Fred Phelps - and it was all I could do to keep walking. I wanted to injure him. For the first time in my life, I knew true, unambiguous and unadulterated hate.


Besides all that, In the intervening years, I still have never been able to figure out what, exactly, they would have us do with the bodies of our loved ones and fellow human beings, after they shuffle (or are shoved) off this mortal coil, if a decent burial ain't it.

The mere thought of protesting a funeral was - and remains - abhorrent to me. An obscenity of the first order. I pray to a God I don't believe in that there is a hell, just so those wastes of carbon can burn for eternity.

Westboro Baptist Church is an apostasy. Those idiots know no shame and have no decency.

Now, they are going to Minneapolis to protest the funerals of the victims of the bridge collapse.

According to the press release above, God knocked that bridge down, you see, because Minnesota is a blue state, and besides that, the state as a whole is just way too tolerant of homosexuals. (I think they need to take it up with their infallible God-person, who made all those gay people to begin with. That just seems like the appropriate place to start. To my rational and undiseased mind, at least.)


Yeah - God knocked down that bridge to punish Minnesota for not hating properly.

Give me a fucking break.

The I-35 W fell down because it was deficient after years of neglected maintenance. Infrastructure has been sacrificed since Reagan's first term on the altar of tax cuts, and now it's time to pay the tab. Last week, Minneapolis got stuck with the check.

To my Minnesota readers, I sincerely apologize for the these pathetic, ineducable assholes. Your state and your loved ones do not deserve this. No one does.

But we have a Constitution I revere that guarantees them the right to say stupid and hateful things, and we have laws against just shooting the wastes of skin, leaving their bodies where they fall, and calling it a day. So I am limited to ranting about how much I loathe them on a blog. (And planning my wardrobe for my protest of Fred's eventual funeral. I am thinking red dress, fishnets and stilettos. Other days, I think I'll do it dressed as a Dominatrix. Whatever I wear, I plan on bringing a whole gaggle of drag queens and every flaming waiter I can find with me. The part of town where I live - I can find a whole gaggle of them, too.)

I realize that this is a terrible tragedy and it is no laughing matter - but Australian comedy team The Chasers know how to deal with the Phelps Phuckheads, and besides that, I think we can all use a laugh right now. Especially one at their expense.

Anthony Cordesman: Odd Man Out

Turns out there was a third on that little jaunt to Iraq that Ken Pollack and Michael O’Hanlon took that resulted in that now-infamous op-ed (which I posted about here).

Turns out that Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic Studies was on that trip as well, and he came back singing a less upbeat song.

From my perspective, the US now has only uncertain, high risk options in Iraq. It cannot dictate Iraq’s future, only influence it, and this presents serious problems at a time when the Iraqi political process has failed to move forward in reaching either a new consensus or some form of peaceful coexistence. It is Iraqis that will shape Iraq's ability or inability to rise above its current sectarian and ethnic conflicts, to redefine Iraq's politics and methods of governance, establish some level of stability and security, and move towards a path of economic recovery and development. So far, Iraq’s national government has failed to act at the rate necessary to move the country forward or give American military action political meaning.

He quoted a high-level U.S. official who described the situation in Iraq as “the current situation is like playing three dimensional chess in the dark while someone is shooting at you.”

Cordesman describes “positive trends in the fighting” and indications of future political progress. Any “successes” that have been touted by the war supporters would not have been realized by increased troop numbers alone. “[T]he original strategy President Bush announced in January would have failed if it had not been for the Sunni tribal awakening.” (That awakening was accompanied by a lot of free guns. And a lot of ammo.) He goes on to say that there is a “tenuous case for strategic patience” and that he believes that tying reductions in forces to political progress without timetables is the preferable “exit strategy” but he realizes that banking on strategic patience is a high-stakes game, and as is characteristic of high-stakes games…luck is a fickle factor.

(Note: Since he prepared his report and made this assessment, hundreds of thousands of residents of Baghdad have lost power and water in 120º heat, and five more Cabinet members have bolted from the Maliki government and the Cabinet can no longer reach a quorum to approve legislation to the Parliament.)