Jeannieology of a not–Poe

I’ve seen any number of ridiculous objections to the birth control mandate in the US, but this one has got to be one of the loopiest. I found it at Sadly No!, and I swear that it is not a Poe. It’s by someone named Jeannie DeAngelis, and is titled “Is Obama purposely altering America’s religious complexion?”. Considering that Ms. DeAngelis’ writing has also been found at websites like The American Stinker pretty much sums up all you need to know about her. And since I haven’t done a fisking in so long, DeAngelis’ screed provides the perfect target.

Just like a benevolent government that has worked hard to help provide naïve young girls with parent-free abortions,[...]

All women and girls have reproductive rights. Parents don’t own their kids, and they shouldn’t suffer because they happened to be born to fetus fetishist parents. Abortion (and contraception, although DeAngelis didn’t mention it in this context) are legal.

[I]t stands to reason that ‘patriarchal’ Christianity would be next in line to be undermined.[...]

If patriarchal religion is being undermined I’m all for it.

When it comes to challenging authority, the President seems to be particularly obsessed with using birth control and abortion as a weapon.

“Birth control and abortion as a weapon?” You have until the count of ten before I pump your guts full of pills!;)

[...]Barry seems excessively concerned about ensuring that everyone, regardless of age, credo or upbringing, can obtain free condoms, morning-after pills, sterilization, and abortion-on-demand.

Actually, economic and other barriers ensure that most women don’t have abortion or contraception on demand. Additionally, the Hyde Amendment and other laws ensure that federal tax dollars and none of your money™ are not being used to fund (most) abortions (cite).

The only religious group Obama respects and is careful not offend, whether religiously or parentally, is Muslims.

Bush emphasized on a number of occasions that he was fighting Islamic terrorists and extremists and not the vast majority of Muslims who are neither.

The Muslim faith has drawn a line in the sand and the President, who feels very comfortable defying every other authority from the Vatican to the parents of 14-year-old girls[...]

The Pope runs his own country. And again, children shouldn’t suffer because they had the misfortune to be born to parents who abuse them by denying them legal health care.

[A]cquiesces, without question, to the tenets of the Koran.

This conspiracy theory that Obama is a secret Muslim has been debunked a million times.

Barack Obama knows full well that “Muslims believe that health insurance is ‘haraam,’ or forbidden, because they liken the ambiguity and probability of insurance to gambling.” Thus, without question the Obama administration has decided that, unlike other faiths, “This belief excludes them from any of the requirements, mandates, or penalties set forth in [Obamacare].” Obama respects the Muslim stance on gambling, and presto! Muslims are exempt from health insurance, and more specifically the birth control, sterilization, and abortion mandates that accompany it.

Actually, as Snopes and FactCheck make clear, while some Muslim groups object to life insurance, most Muslims have no problem with health insurance or other insurance required by law. Considering that no Muslim groups objects to Social Security, which Christian groups granted exemptions under the appropriate laws do, it is unlikely that any Muslim would be granted an exemption. As Snopes puts it, “[N]o Muslim group has ever qualified for an exemption under the guidelines which define which religious groups would be exempt from the health care law.”

And furthermore, there is no abortion mandate.

DeAngelis then goes on to quote some Catholic dogma about human reproduction and sexuality. The appropriate response to this is, of course, to point out that if one is concerned about abortions (like DeAngelis herself mentioned as recently as last month) and wants to reduce the number of abortions, improved access to contraception is the number one way to do it. That, along with better sex education, is how places like the Czech Republic (cite), Georgia (cite), and elsewhere (cite) have reduced their abortion rates.

Barack Obama, who’s obsessed with everyone else’s sex life[...]

“[O]bsessed with everyone else’s sex life?” I thought this article was written by Jeannie DeAngelis, and not Yagotta B. Kidding.

The question arises as to why a President so focused on controlling so many Americans’ reproductive habits and overriding religion[...]

98% of sexually active Catholic women use contraception. A Majority of Catholics support no–cost contraception (cite). The only religion being overrided is that of the professional virgins almost no one listens to anyway. In addition, as David Frum (a Republican) pointed out, those who oppose the birth control mandate on the grounds of “freeddom of religion” are incoherent, much less the fact that several states have required churches to follow similar rules several years already.

[...]Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Barack Obama have joined forces, blocked the exits, and are distributing free condoms at the contraceptive circus.

Contraceptive circus? Really?

Meanwhile, Islam is exempt.

See just above. DeAngelis mentioned this in the part of the paragraph that I skipped over. She sure does know how to rant, doesn’t she?

The President is urging and actively assisting in lowering birth rates in a Christian community whose tenets reject contraception and abortion and stands by while, according to Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life population projections, “Globally, the Muslim population is forecast to grow at about twice the rate of the non-Muslim population over the next two decades.”[...]

Ooooh, alert alert, it’s the scary foreign people! That aside, if you read such demographic reports, you’ll find out that the fertility rate in the Muslim world is plummetting. The reason for the continued increase is, of course, population momentum: When you have a large cohort of people of prime reproductive age, the population will almost certainly go up even with a low birth rate.

DeAngelis continues ranting the same stuff for her last paragraph, reiterating her previous wingnut word salad about Muslim exemptions and pretty much nothing that hasn’t been debunked above.

Update: This post used to have a picture, but I removed it on the grounds that it added no value to this post.

No fat lady in a horned helmet over here

The Arbourist’s partner, The Intransigent One, is a choral soprano who has received some vocal training. She has even taught herself arias. The Arbourist himself sings in a choir but mostly plays the piano. With that information in mind, I wonder they think of this video, another incarnation of the “Sh*t people say” meme:

It’s Sh*t Opera Singers Say, and is brought to you by mezzo–soprano Jennifer Rivera and Tenor William Ferguson.

Some trivia: The song sung when she puts on all those scarves is not a made up, but rather is a few measures of what is arguably the best–known opera excerpt sung by women, the Queen of the Night Aria from Mozart’s The Magic Flute, also known as Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen. The fact that she doesn’t reach F₆ shows she’s no coloratura soprano.

More random stuff

In no particular order:

• Leon Panetta, the American Secretary of Defense, has signed a certification to formally end Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (via).
• And bigots, the sky hasn’t fallen.
• More proof that correlation does not equal causation, or why emptying your spam folder is good for the economy (via).
• Someone Rick Perry respects is strongly urging him not to run for president.
• Too bad Michele Bachman, Herman Cain, and Rick Santorum didn’t get the message.
• There were terrorist attacks in Norway, and several people have been killed. My condolences.
• This is so sad. “Half of US Social Program Recipients Believe They ‘Have Not Used A Government Social Program’“. The ignorance, I can see it.
• Team Japan won the FIFA Women’s World Cup. Congratulations to them. A major morale booster after their devastating earthquake.
• As my own team did not play like CONCACAF champs, I’ll admit to cheering for the US.
• The game was also the most tweeted event in history.
• Update: Negative aspects of and problems with gender stereotypes.

Plinky Prompt FAIL

A feature recently added to WordPress is Plinky Prompts, which appear at the screen just after you publish a post. They provide suggestions as to future posts. For my last post, I got these ones (see picture [click to enlarge]):

FAIL

 For those who can’t read the circled writing, the one in the upper left says “349th post.” The one in the lower right says “Do you blog? Why or why not?”

Epic FAIL.

As for those questions, the first one is pretty obvious and is utterly unworthy of wasting any more attention on. As for the second, I blog because if enough people speak up, all will hear us.

As for the Plinky Prompts, this is another example of why dictionaries define human intelligence, animal intelligence, military intelligence, extraterrestrial intelligence, and artificial intelligence and in that order.

Some days it’s not worth getting out of bed

An actual conversation I had today:

Another person: What are you doing on that computer?

Me: Stuff for college. Why do you ask?

A: I tried using it earlier today. All I got when I turned on the monitor was a logo saying that there was no signal.

Me: Did you turn on the box?

A (looking at the CPU part): What was the computer doing turned off?

Me: I’m pretty sure they turn off the computers when the place is closed, so that they save power.

A: Tell them to keep them on all the time.

Lieshite going under

I found out from SUZIE ALLCAPS’s place that Lieshite, I mean LifeSiteNews, has run out of money and is raising funds.

The appropriate reaction to this is as follows:

Play the world's smallest violin

For those who don’t know, the website in question is a news site that covers various events from a Christian, anti–abortion perspective.

My advice to them is as follows. If you look at their front page, you’ll see stories such as a new anti–gay law in Malawi, the progress of a Canadian bill that will include gender identity in anti–discrimination measures, whining about increased secularism in Europe, an initiative by the Brazilian government to combat homophobia, and additional rubbish along similar lines.

The key thread here is that those things have absolutely nothing to do with abortion. Rather than trying to be inyourunderwearnews.com— I get first dibs on that website — Lieshite should stop covering things that are irrelevant to the abortion debate. If it instead focused solely on abortion, and covered things such as how contraception and sex education reduce the abortion rate, it would be more responsible with its money and therefore not have to try raising funds, as well as advance its cause better.

Picture from the archives of Pam’s House Blend.

Are You There Janet? It’s Me, Reality.

Exactly three years ago today, a column was published at WingNutDaily that was so completely and utterly full of ridiculous persecution fantasies, it reads like the rantings of someone who had not only gone off the deep end, but gone off the rails carrying the deep end as well.

The column in question is this one. It is by Janet Porter (then Folger). Adopting the perspective of a prisoner writing a letter to the outside world, Porter makes various “predictions” of what will happen to Christians in the wake of the Democratic capture of the US presidency in 2008.

A further discussion of her “Letter from a future prisoner” is after the jump. Before going ahead, make sure that no drinks are on your desk as her column is so full of shit that you’re likely to spill them, and I don’t want you to wreck your keyboard.