Michael Brown — a moustached and broad-smiled Christian Post Op-Ed contributor — tells us without batting an eyelid that: "I believe there is a common thread that unites the new atheism, the radical left, and the gay activist revolution. It is the philosophy that says, "We will not have God and His Son rule over us!" 
Whoa... You've got it, relatively... But not quite. Actually, Michael you missed the mark by a hundred miles. But then without flinching you tap the trump card:

 

"To be perfectly clear, I do not believe in trying to establish a Christian theocracy in America (or anywhere) until Jesus returns, at which time He will rule and reign over the world. Until then, we seek to be a positive influence in the society, living godly lives, raising solid families, working for social justice, caring for the poor, advocating for righteousness, being disciples and making disciples, and, in a democratic republic like America, voting according to our principles."

Of course, Michael. Well done. Pat on the head, Michael... Thank you for not pressing the delusional theocracy bizo on the YameriKans. Leaves us, atheists, a bit of room to move, otherwise, YameriKans would be a bit underfoot like people in Saudi Arabia, though under a different divinity with the same sort of crappy rules and no woman drivers. It ain't going to work well. 
Many atheists love social justice and reasonably solid families of what sex they are and we usually care for the poor, often in a contrary spirit to the "capitalists" who do "charity" with crumbs. We tend to be less inclined towards kingdoms and stuff like that. That could be why we tend to be more "socialistic". More equal, less kings. Kings can be a bit of a bunch of clothe-less people... Hum... Are kings people?... Good question, as often they robe themselves with godly golden underpants. You should see gold in the bible... It's mentioned nearly on every page! As a sin if you idolise it and as decoration for the godly goblets.
But as I repeat ad nauseam, Atheists don't have anything to sell.  The only message we carry is that religion is not for us. We do not believe in god. full stop. 
We don't subscribe to any of the fabrications made in the bible, the qu'ran and the tanack or the buddhistic prostrations... Santa Claus makes more sense than Sarai giving Hagar, her slave, to her husband Abraham to fuck and thus Hagar becomes another wife ! Hell another mouth to feed... plus the resultant kiddies. Great story which could have happen in real life or not, but in reality there is nothing godly about it, even if Abraham was a saintly fucker....

 

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So here we are, Mr Brown tells us that, horror, attorneys defend "terrorists" but none are defending "marriage" against... a different viewpoint:

John Adams, the future president, agreed to represent British soldiers accused of murder in the 1770 Boston Massacre. Clarence Darrow defended two union activists who dynamited the Los Angeles Times building in 1910, killing 21 workers. Leading law firms today have lined up to defend detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, some accused of ties to Al Qaeda."

Yet none of these law firms is willing to stand up for marriage for fear of the overwhelming backlash that can be expected, one that would label them as bigots of the worst kind, no better than the KKK or the Nazis. As for the Christian legal organizations that are taking a stand, like the Alliance Defending Freedom or the ACLJ or Liberty Counsel, they are vilified and mocked on a daily basis.

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No sir, no-one nor everyone are ever mocked nor vilified by our good selves. Makes us laugh, though. Take your stand, we take ours. There is such a thing as the separation of church and state and this has nothing to do with Hitler as an imbecile Republican intimated:

“Do you know, where does this phrase "separation of Church and State" come from? It was not in Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists...The exact phrase "separation of Church and State" came out of Adolf Hilter's mouth, that's where it comes from. So the next time your liberal friends talk about the separation of Church and State - ask them why they're Nazis.” ― Glen Urquhart

But of course, the concept of "separation of church and state" goes a bit further back than Hitler, who to really give him his due was a "Christian". 

Back to YameriKa:

 

“The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries.
Letter objecting to the use of government land for churches, 1803” 
― James Madison (President of the USA)

 

 

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Hum... What happened in Europe to make Madison write something like that?... Ah yes, the wars of religions, the religious wars and the inquisition, including the demonisation of science... So our esteemed Michael Brown carries on about the way the bible is "discounted" by the present culture:

Without a doubt, we are in the midst of a massive cultural revolution, a significant downturn in faith and biblical morality, an attempt to cast off God and His standards. Yet so much of the church seems soundly asleep, content with lovely services and entertaining sermons.

Yes the odd sermon tends to put one to sleep, to hear for the hundredth time, the story of the water being turned into wine or the story of loaves and fishes... Here is a conveniently mixed metaphor...

f

So Michael brown wants to rally the troops to start proselytising with a bit more vigour, while climbing on a box advertising Zion soap. Long live the revolution ! Sorry, I've joined the ranks of the mockers... Apology.

It's high time we awake to righteousness, to desperate, fervent prayer, and to preaching Jesus without shame or apology.

God's answer to the mockers in Psalm 2 was simple: "I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill" (Psalm 2:6).

That remains the answer today: We preach Jesus as Lord, we live under His lordship, we seek to bring others under His lordship through evangelism and discipleship, and we refuse to back down or compromise from our biblically-based convictions.

God's answer to a godless counterculture revolution is a fresh Jesus Revolution. Why not now?

Read more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/whats-really-behind-the-attack-on-religious-freedoms-137360/#zMiTMSP6bKeztCi7.99

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Politics and religions are like theatre. From time to time the public is asked to applaud, believe in the make-believe and the decor, or make a choice:

What can be hoped of an art which must necessarily depend on the favour of the public — of such a public, at least as ours? Good work may, does sometimes succeed. But never with the degree of success that befall twaddle and vulgarity unrelieved. Twaddle and vulgarity will always have the upper hand.
Max Beerbohm, 1908

Unfortunately, politics and religions are inane twaddle and elevated vulgarity. They strongly are dependent on "their" public — and dare I say, their critics... This is why they have "their" priests or preachers (laic or ordained) to constantly reinforce the message, albeit mostly concocted from lies, legends, fabrication and forgeries. As every one who has been to a studio sitcom recording, there is a clown or a stand-up comedian before the taping of the show, the job of whom is to "prime" the public into laughter. They even have signs saying "applause"...  Clap guffaw... Jolly good show. Believe...

“It would not be impossible to prove with sufficient repetition and a psychological understanding of the people concerned that a square is in fact a circle. They are mere words, and words can be molded until they clothe ideas and disguise.” 
― Joseph Goebbels

As we know,  repeat of message eventually makes the message appear like the truth, when it's not. Ah, I see there is no error in the bible, but there is some "symbolism" ("A plurality, one-third, says the Bible is the inspired word of God and has no errors, though some verses are meant to be symbolic — 33 percent — note... the report... highlights that it is a statistically significant increase over 2014 when only 30 percent of respondents held this view of the Bible.)... Whoa... Some people "polling" for you !... People know best?... That is to say if the sayings are a bit naughty, obscure or contradictory, they can be interpreted to suit the preaching of the spruiker, with "symbolism". Excellent.
Mr Michael Brown , CP Op-Ed Contributor, entertains some biblically-based convictions? Excellent. Have you read the Old Testament lately? Are a few things in regard to "family" making no sense? Or is there different godly dictum for the plebs and others instructions for kings? For example:
Chronicles 11:21

Rehoboam loved Maacah the daughter of Absalom more than all his other wives and concubines. For he had taken eighteen wives and sixty concubines and fathered twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters.

 

Hum... no punishment from god for Rehoboam fucking around... An extended family par excellence of course....

I often heard the "excuse for this one is that these were different times, where slavery was a given... blah blah... Well Michael, we live in different times where science explains a lot of things religion has farted around with since the year not-dot. Your mob base your year dot about 2000 years ago, with a bit before that, and everything is sweet. 

 

But It makes no sense to have a god setting "his King on the Hill of Zion". Why not Papua? Why not the North Pole or Chile? Yes, Michael, there was a long pre-history before that, and monkeys before this. Here is more of the biblical crap:

 

Samuel 5:13
Meanwhile David took more concubines and wives from Jerusalem, after he came from Hebron; and more sons and daughters were born to David.

Hum.... what is you position on bigamy? Mormonic? Moronic? And what about war? Every second page in the bible is full of someone from the chosen people going to war under the banner of god to fight someone else whose god is "the wrong  one"... And what about the chosen people? Do they get thick ankles from the exclusive anointment... or do they freak out for not being up to the task of being chosen? Ridiculousness plus. 
I should not read nor contest the drivel you write, Michael, should you write about your religious convictions alone. But as soon as you "attack" us, atheists, you come a bit close and you can get a couple of well-deserved slap on the face. Yes the new atheism, the radical left and the gay activism say to you: "we don't believe"... They don't say "We will not have God and His Son rule over us!" for the simple reason that god and his son is a human legend/myth/porky fabrication in line with the Greek/Roman gods and the Islamic beliefs. "we do not believe" is simple enough. We don't care that you shall believe in god and his son and the third other guy, but please leave secularity alone. Give the human government of Caesar to Caesar.  
So, what's really behind the attacks of "Christians" on atheism?... Whatever you pick, but mostly Christian subconsciously hate seeing other people having freedom of thought, expression and action, and still be generous, courteous and upright... It's not hard and there is no sin attached. There are secular laws to respect, and following these is far less demanding than being under constant "temptation" from the devil. The devil does not exist. Stupid peer pressure? Yes. The Devil? No.

 

 

 

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz chose a conservative, evangelical Christian university as the setting for his announcement that he was running for president. This underscored his apparent strategic decision to focus relentlessly on the conservative, highly religious segment of his party, both in terms of attempting to become their candidate of preference, and also in terms of maximizing their turnout in the 2016 primary elections.

The Republican Party in general has a disproportionate percentage of conservative and highly religious Americans in its ranks, so Cruz's strategy would appear to make numerical sense -- as it would for other conservative politicians, like Mike Huckabee or Scott Walker, who may aim for the same target audience. On the other hand, potential candidates like Jeb Bush or Chris Christie would play more to Republican voters who are in the moderate and perhaps less religious space of their party. All of which raises the question: Exactly how big are these various segments of the Republican Party?

We can provide estimates by looking at the cross between ideology and religiosity among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, based on interviews conducted with 17,845 Republicans as part of Gallup Daily tracking so far this year.

Read more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/how-many-highly-religious-conservative-republicans-are-there-137297/#U0eXdGxMAKlVSZYf.99

 

What the poll above does not tell you is that within an error margin of about 3 per cent, 48 per cent of Conservative Republicans are highly religious and 27 per cent of Conservative Republicans are "moderately" religious (whatever this means possibly like being half-pregnant). 

 

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is likely to release its March readings in coming days. Last month, the agency said both the first two months of 2015 and the 12 months to February were the hottest in 136 years of records.

The warm start to 2015 is likely to continue with large areas of the Pacific Ocean, a major driver of global climate, remaining abnormally warm.

El Nino temperature boost

Australia's Bureau of Meteorology on Tuesday said sea-surface temperatures are "now just shy of El Nino levels", with all major models it tracks pointing to El Nino thresholds likely to be exceeded by June.

During El Nino years, the Pacific absorbs less heat from the atmosphere, boosting global temperatures by 0.1-0.2 degrees. Such events typically bring drier conditions for much of Australia, resulting in reduced cloud cover and hotter temperatures.

Climate scientists say the arrival of an El Nino event would build on the background warming from climate change, making it likely that 2015 and even 2016 will challenge global temperature records. That would mean 2014's ranking as the hottest year will be short-lived

read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/global-temperature-records-keep-melting-as-japan-declares-march-the-hottest-on-record-20150414-1ml83u.html

 

Marco Rubio Struggles With Question on Iraq War

Patrick Healy

Senator Marco Rubio of Florida struggled on Sunday to give clear answers about whether it was a mistake for the United States to go to war against Iraq in 2003, becoming the latest Republican presidential candidate to trip on the wisdom of the military invasion.

Under a barrage of questions from Chris Wallace of Fox News, Mr. Rubio repeatedly said “it was not a mistake” for President George W. Bush to order the invasion based on the intelligence he had at the time. But Mr. Rubio grew defensive as Mr. Wallace pressed him to say flatly whether he now believed the war was a mistake. Mr. Rubio chose instead to criticize the questions themselves, saying that in “the real world” presidents have to make decisions based on evidence presented to them at the time.

“It’s not a mistake — I still say it was not a mistake because the president ...."

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/05/17/marco-rubio-struggles-with-question-on-iraq-war/

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Gus: HOLD IT ! Do not say anything more, Marco... You are correct, Mr Rubio... It wasn't a mistake... 

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"....because the president was presented with intelligence that said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, it was governed by a man who had committed atrocities in the past with weapons of mass destruction,”

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Gus: Crap ! Now Marco, you stuffed it... You said ALL that cannot be said... You're an idiot !...

First, the intelligence on the Iraqi WMDs was NOT kosher. Kapishe?... The intelligence was concocted by all the spying agencies to make the case for war as "ordered" by the presidential suite, including Wolfo, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bush and the others, including Blair.

Second, the "atrocities" committed by Saddam were far far less than the Yanks committed in WWII. Carpet bombing of Germany, France, Japan, Vietnam, etc

Third, Saddam's weapons of mass destruction had been supplied by the USA, Germany and other European Countries, including the UK to carry on a proxy war on behalf of the West in the 1980s against Iran. 

Fourth, the weapons of mass destruction were rarely used against Saddam's own people. He was "fighting" the Kurds who were also being fought by our "friends" the Turks, and Saddam was also fighting small rebellious sectarian Shia outfits. His biggest WMD then was "water shortage" when he drained the marshes... Saddam was certainly preventing the rise of Al Qaeda in Iraq. At the time of the US invasion, there was no Al Qaeda in Iraq. There was no ISIL either. ISIL being "secretly" presently promoted by our friends the Saudis — against the Shia government in Iraq.

Fifth, there was NO weapons of mass destruction to speak of in Iraq, before and at the time of the invasion. The US, the UK and Australia knew that. Hans Blix knew that, the CIA knew that. The UN, the Germans, the French knew that. The more than 10,000 pages report that Saddam submitted to the United Nations (and swiftly redacted by the US) detailed blow by blow how all the WMDs had been destroyed according to the peace treaty following Iraq War Mark I of 1991 (Note: Saddam did not use any WMDs during this short war). The destruction of the WMDs had been supervised. 

The Iraq war WAS NOT A MISTAKE.

IT WAS A DELIBERATELY WAGED ILLEGAL WAR by the USA, the UK and Australia.

Bush, Blair and Howard are war criminals. As simple as that.

 

 

Marco Rubio’s preferred Iraq policy is getting some attention:

“It’s not nation-building. We are assisting them in building their nation,” Rubio said of his vision for Iraq.

Specifically, Rubio said that he thinks the U.S. has a responsibility to “help them build a functional government that can actually meet the needs of their people over the short and long term.” How that differs from a policy of “nation-building” is unclear at best, since it would seem to be the definition of what past “nation-building” missions have tried to do. But Rubio’s statement raises three more important questions: why does he think building a “functional government” in Iraq is still a U.S. responsibility in 2015, how long does he think the U.S. will have this responsibility, and why does he think the U.S. knows how to do any of this?

The U.S. experience in Iraq between 2003 and 2011 is strong evidence that the U.S. doesn’t know how to “help them build a functional government.” If the U.S. is incapable of fulfilling the responsibility that it supposedly has, there would seem to be no point in making the attempt. The U.S. owes Iraq far more than it can ever repay, but there is no reason to assume that it is doing Iraq any favors by attempting to repay that debt when it has had such an awful track record in the country.

Rubio also objects to past U.S. support for Maliki, which he portrays simply as a failing of the current administration, but the “rallying around” Maliki that he cites as a cause of Sunni alienation was a bipartisan, consensus affair dating back nine years. For years, Maliki was celebrated in Washington as a “secular” nationalist leader, and his sectarianism and semi-authoritarian practices were whitewashed or ignored. Maliki came to power and remained in power for as long as he did in no small part because the U.S. thought that he could create and run a “functional government” in Iraq, and he was already behaving in an abusive and sectarian fashion while the U.S. had a large military presence in the country. Rubio’s suggestion that a continued U.S. presence would have prevented this is unfounded.

read more: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/rubio-and-nation-building/

 

 

The Folly of “Nation-Building”

By DANIEL LARISON • June 8, 2015, 12:00 AM

Unsurprisingly, Max Boot thinks Rubio is right to support “nation-building”:

The Bush administration learned that for itself: It came into office prejudiced against “nation-building” which Republicans wrongly viewed as a Clinton project. As a result the administration failed to prepare for nation-building in either Iraq or Afghanistan, allowing insurgencies to develop. The Obama administration repeated the same mistake in Libya where it did no nation-building after the fall of Qaddafi. The result is that Libya is now in the grip of rival militias and ISIS is gaining strength there. As Rubio rightly put it, the alternative to nation-building is chaos.

 

As the Iraq and Libya examples clearly show, the real alternative to “nation-building” is to refrain from overthrowing the existing government. The Iraq and Libyan wars were unnecessary for U.S. security, but the U.S. opted to topple the old regimes in these countries anyway. The chaos that has resulted and continues to result from these horrible decisions would not be happening in Iraq, and it almost certainly would not be as bad in Libya as it is today. Acknowledging this doesn’t help to remedy Iraq and Libya’s serious problems, but it is a necessary first step in realizing that the U.S. needs to reject launching wars of choice and not just the costly “nation-building” part that sometimes follows. The case of Afghanistan offers a different lesson. Even when the U.S. is justified in taking military action, it doesn’t have the relevant knowledge or understanding to succeed at creating an effective, functioning government to replace the previous one. Rubio isn’t “conveying a hard truth” with his endorsement of “nation-buildng.” He is confirming that he is wedded to the faulty assumptions of a bankrupt ideology.

read more: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/the-folly-of-nation-building-2/

 

Read from top...

Ted Cruz recently authored an op-ed ostensibly on Syria and Russia’s intervention there that has almost nothing relevant to say about either of them. His argument was at its most irrelevant when he was left repeating discredited talking points from five years ago:

We can redouble our efforts to develop the defensive weapons that neutralized the offensive Soviet threat — particularly missile defense, which has seen a 25% budget reduction under Obama, according to an analysis from the conservative Heritage Foundation, and has been constrained by bad arms deals like New START.

We should not only move quickly to install the canceled interceptor sites Putin opposed in Poland and the Czech Republic, but also to develop the next generation of systems that will only increase his discomfiture.

The first thing to understand here is that Cruz’s claims about missile defense are mostly nonsense. New START in no way constrains missile defense, but it has been a frequent false complaint by treaty opponents that it does. The cancelled installations in Poland and the Czech Republic weren’t wanted in their host countries before they were cancelled, and there is certainly no interest in revisiting the issue in Prague. Poland is now participating in a different missile defense plan that makes the earlier one redundant. U.S. missile defense plans changed after 2009, but they never halted, but like any other hawk Cruz can’t admit this. It is telling that Cruz now admits that missile defense proposals are aimed at “discomfiting” Moscow when their advocates a decade ago strenuously denied that they had anything to do with Russia. As with many of his other proposals, Cruz isn’t arguing for these things because they make sense or have anything to do with enhancing U.S. or allied security, but rather only because they grate on the Russians’ nerves.

read more: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/cruzs-half-a-loaf-syria-policy/

(bold by Gus)