This is just disgusting.

Brazil Girl, Alleged Rape Victim, Aborts Twins.The procedure on the 9-year-old girl draws complaints from Catholic church.

Fuck me sideways. This poor girl is raped by her stepfather and is in danger of being slowly torn apart by the twins developing in her, and the bastard archbishop not only condemns the termination of the pregnancy, but excommunicates the girl's mother and doctors?.

And my family wonders why I am no longer a practicing catholic.

I must note, without much surprise, that the father, who raped not only this girl but her disabled older sister, is still all right with the church. But then, that's only child molestation, and we know where the church stands on that.

AND HOW IS IT 'ALLEGED' RAPE WHEN SHE'S NINE!!??

Bastards.

Michael Newdow is a Gigantic Asshat

Would someone please duct-tape this idiot's face shut? Literally?

It's no great secret that the US is an overly evangelical country. We require all of our congressional representatives to indulge in empty, fawning religious obeisance before we will elect them to office. We structure much of our lives around religious practices. We invoke God or credit him for helping us achieve the most trivial and asinine goals, like scoring a touchdown. And it can get damned frustrating for a person who does not indulge in Armband Religion (thank you for that phrase, Kathleen Parker).

But come on. It's a stupid little ritual that occupies a few minutes of time and will not be remembered a year from now. At least, it wouldn't have been, if this self-important jackass and his capering sycophants hadn't decided to pop up from under their collective rock and make fools of themselves. Now, Bill "War on Christmas" O'Reily and Sean "Brain? What brain?" Hannity will be regaling the nation with tales of how evil secularists are persecuting poor, helpless Christians. And for what? NOTHING.

There are real, tangible separation issues occurring in our society. People lose custody of their children because judges apply religious dogma in their decisions. Prisoners are differentially sentenced, or granted or denied parole on the basis of whether they are "saved". Military personnel are targeted for proselytization and abuse, and denied promotion on religious grounds. And the inauguration invocation is the best gripe this band of morons can come up with?

Mr. Newdow, please go back to playing in your sandbox and let the grown-ups do the heavy lifting. We don't need your interference.

Buena Park FL Pastor to Rick Warren: "You're not enough of a Douchebag to get into Heaven"

A lot of hay has been made about Obama's selection of gay-bashin', bible-thumpin huckster Rick "I-love-hommasexuals-but-they're-all-pedophiles" Warren to give the inaugural invocation. Though I would love to see this empty practice abandoned, there are unfortunately many shallow, ritual-obsessed people in this country that would go into collective apoplexy if it were.

This man, however, takes things to a new level. He's publicly promising that God will punish Warren for invoking his name and blessing an Obama presidency.

"I pray He is kind to you in this punishment that is coming," Drake wrote in a widely-released e-mail. In it, the First Southern Baptist Church of Buena Park pastor criticizes Warren's "recent plan to invoke the presence of almighty God on this evil illegal alien," a reference to Obama.

Drake, who made last November's ballot as a vice-presidential candidate for the American Independent party, is a party to a lawsuit claiming Obama was born outside of the U.S., and is therefore ineligible to serve as president. Obama has a Hawaiian birth certificate, which Hawaiian officials have said is genuine.

You can read more about the American Independent Party here. Nothing I can write on this blog conveys their inanity as effectively as their own statements do.

HT: Guy P. Harrison

Washington Mutual Collapses, is Siezed by the OTS and Sold to JP Morgan-Chase

"The bailout came after the thrift suffered deposit outflows of $16.7 billion since September 15, the [Office of Thrift Supervision] said."

Holy fuck.

I worked for Washington mutual for 5 years, after they acquired my previous employer, Fleet Mortgage. They shut their Milwaukee site down last year after they dumped their entire government-backed mortgage portfolio on Wells Fargo. They kept the ARMs and other weird loan products.

Oops.

In the past couple of weeks, I've fielded several calls from my old employers, who were feeling me out to see if I'd be willing to come back on. Apparently, the people they hired to replace me at the new site weren't exactly working out as planned (not my fault: I trained them as well as I could in the time I was given). I told them I'd be happy to help out, but only if I could work from Milwaukee: I wasn't going to move to Florence, SC to work for a struggling company in a struggling industry, with no job security, for the same money I could make by staying where I am. It also only made sense for them: they'd save money by having me telecommute.

They were curiously reluctant to agree to my suggestion. I wonder if this didn't have something to do with that.