Idiot Christians Think President Obama Gave Away The Internet

Here's the story as Snopes told it about a month ago:

America ... does, currently, oversee the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the nonprofit entity that controls the critically important Domain Naming System (DNS), which is responsible for coordinating the domain name hierarchy and IP addressing for the entire Internet.

This week it was announced that, by prior arrangement, ICANN will be cut loose on 1 October 2016 from its sole government steward, the U.S. Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), and become answerable to multiple stakeholders worldwide, including countries, businesses and technical bodies.

The terms of the transition were laid out in 2014, when NTIA announced that it was ready to make good on the U.S. government's longstanding commitment to privatize the Domain Naming System.
http://www.snopes.com/2016/08/19/america-to-hand-off-internet/

Here's the story as some Christians are telling it today: 

Christians Join in a Desperate Last Ditch
Fight to Retain U.S. Internet Control

(Washington, DC) – [CBN News] Leaders are stepping up in a last-ditch effort to stop President Obama from giving up Internet freedom "while there's still time."

The National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) urged Congress today to stop the Obama administration from giving up U.S. control over the Internet address system on October 1.

The administration plans to pass web oversight to a broader online community, removing oversight of the Internet from the supervision of a single U.S.-monitoring body.

Many are concerned this move could endanger free speech on the internet. Jay Sekulow from the American Center for Law and Justice believe this internet transition could be disastrous.

"Once America gives up control of the Internet, there is no reset button. The Internet could very well fall into the hands of the world's most anti-free speech dictators, and we could do absolutely nothing about it," Sekulow said in a statement.

That is why the NRB is doing everything it can to keep this measure from going forward.
http://www.breakingchristiannews.com/articles/

John 8:32 said that the truth will set you free ... but today’s Christians think it just fucks up a good story.

Nature Programs

When I was child I used to like watching the nature programs on TV but there always came a point where they stopped showing pictures of magnificent wild animals in their natural habitat and reminded us, instead, that soon all of them would be extinct! The commentator would explain that stupid humans were destroying the environment and eventually all the wild animals would be gone. It was such a sad message and it really buggered up my enjoyment of the program.

More recently there have been a lot of TV programs about zoo animals, but I have a problem with them as well. I want to see the zoo keepers caring for the animals and I want to see the animals in their outside enclosures and, sure enough, we get a few minutes of exactly that - but then it's hospital time! The resident tiger has been looking lethargic so he's taken to the vet hospital and we have to spend the next twenty minutes watching blood and guts pictures as the vet probes around the animal's intestines looking for the cause of the problem.

Not long after You Tube appeared on the Internet you could find all sorts of inspiring stories about dedicated animal lovers rescuing homeless dogs and cats from the city streets. It was a real pleasure to watch those videos as the animals were given a makeover (bath, haircut, flea powder, etc) and eventually adopted into their "forever home".

This next bit is hard to cope with. If you are at all sensitive you might want to stop reading right now.

But now that source has also changed and the videos are no longer concentrating on the happy ending, but the horrific beginning. Just the other day I searched for "animal rescue" and the first page of results showed pictures of a dog that had been dipped in tar and left stuck to a concrete path by a sadistic owner. Another dog was shown lying in a yard with both its front legs chopped off and still bleeding! There was also a cat that seemed to be nothing but raw meat - apparently the sadist had poured boiling water on it.

I'm not saying that video makers should not mention extinctions, medical procedures, and animal abuse, but - for Christ's sake - could they please give viewers like me a bit of a warning first. Incidents like those I've just mentioned really play on my mind and the nightmares continue for days and sometimes weeks afterwards.


6 months later
I finally decided to look at another edition of "The Zoo" which featured the Taronga Park Zoo in Sydney Australia. The first story was about a family of 19 chimps and in the very first minute the vet was preparing to knock them out (all of them) with anaesthetics.

After five minutes they were still anaesthetising chimps and five minutes after that we were looking at unconscious chimps covered with thick rope nets.

Now the program has been going for twenty minutes and we're still in the veterinary hospital. Last two patients were a kookaburra and a snake.

When the fuck are we going to see a healthy animal acting naturally? The program is called "The Zoo", not "Animal Hospital".

Another Resurrection Story

I have a feeling my comment (at the bottom of this picture) will be deleted by the moderator.

http://blog.godreports.com/2016/09/david-platt

My comment was accepted after all. They probably didn't realise that I was taking the piss.

(Yes, I do want the story to be "spread far and wide" - not because I believe it's true, but only to highlight the idiocy of gullible Christians who will accept any bullshit miracle story fed to them by a scamming preacher trying to get dollars onto the collection plate.)

There are eleven comments on that story and ten of them are written by people who have clearly accepted the tale at face value and assumed that the man really did come back from the dead. Mine is the only comment that asks for checkable details.

Added later:
Now 32 comments.

Still no doubters (maybe one - who seems to be as subtly sarcastic as me)

You Think I Don't Know A Euro When I See One

Everybody knows what a kangaroo looks like, but the macropod family is much larger than that. It includes kangaroos, wallaroos, euros, pademelons and wallabies.

Many years ago I worked on a "road maintenance gang" - a fancy name for the guys who fix potholes. We were driving along the highway in our truck, miles from anywhere, and off in the distance we could see four animals silhouetted against the skyline.

"Euros" said the guy sitting next me.

I was amused at how emphatically he made the claim. "How do you know they're not kangaroos?" I asked him.

He was highly offended. "You think I don't know a Euro when I see one..."

We kept on driving and eventually we got close enough to see the animals more clearly - four horses! 

I put on the smuggest grin I could muster and glanced across at my buddy, but he was looking out the side window and didn't seem at all interested in engaging in conversation with me.

Sports Injuries

Watching a football game on TV and one of the players gets injured; a bone is broken and the player's leg is horribly bent in places where it shouldn't be bent. The commentators are instantly sympathetic.

"Oh dear, that is absolutely horrific. Nobody wants to see that happen to anyone."

"Perhaps we'll get a better idea what happened with the slow motion replay. Yes, you can see it quite clearly now ... Oh dear, nobody wants to see that happen."

"Oh look, we've also got the incident filmed from a different camera angle ... Oh dear, nobody wants to see that happen." 

"Actually, if we take another look at that slow motion video we might be able to see the precise moment when the bone snaps. Here it comes. Watch for it. Yep, there it is. Crack! ... Oh dear, nobody wants to see that happen."

In the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave

I can hardly believe I lived long enough to hear a US presidential candidate talking like this.

 

Donald J. Trump once again raised the specter of violence against Hillary Clinton, suggesting Friday that the Secret Service agents who guard her voluntarily disarm to “see what happens to her” without their protection.

“I think that her bodyguards should drop all weapons,” Mr. Trump said at a rally in Miami, to loud applause. “I think they should disarm. Immediately.”

He went on: “Let’s see what happens to her. Take their guns away, O.K. It’ll be very dangerous.” 

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/17/us/politics/

Kill Kill Kill. It's The American Way

This story brought to you from

the land of the free and the home of the brave.

In January 2016 Trump said,

"I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters." (and the crowd laughed approvingly)

 In September 2016 Trump was talking about Hillary Clinton when he said,

"Because she's being so protected, she could walk into this arena right now and shoot somebody with 20,000 people watching right smack in the middle of the heart and she wouldn't be prosecuted, okay?" (and the crowd groaned their disapproval)
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election

It's not something you hear a lot during election campaigns in civilized countries: a leadership contender boasting about his ability to commit a random murder without fear of arrest - and then declaring that his opponent could do the same!



And it gets worse. Here's a Christian preacher taking his cue from Trump:

“America, we like our guns. We want to start shooting again. And Donald gives us the opportunity to feel like we can shoot again … We want to start shooting again. And Donald says we can shoot again. Shoot the Mexicans. Shoot the Muslims. Shoot the liberals. Shoot everybody.”
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/dispatches/2016/09/14/

Shoot everybody!

(Forget that "Thou shalt not kill" bullshit.)

Trust Me - I'm A Christian

In 2010 Richard Keenan was sworn in as mayor of Hubbard. 

“I care about this town,” the 59-year-old mayor said. “I’m pulled to hear the heart of the people.” He noted he did just that when he served as representative from the 4th Ward, often sitting in people’s homes listening to their concerns.
[...]
Keenan also brings another element to the office. “I’m a Christian. Dedicating my life to Jesus has changed my life,” he said. “Don’t preach it, but live it” is a practice he takes to heart.

http://www.vindy.com/news/2010/jan/06

Six years later we got a clue about what he was up to when he invited himself into other people's homes...

The Trumbull County Prosecutor’s Office said in a legal filing Monday that Richard Keenan, a former Hubbard mayor, admitted on several occasions raping and molesting a child over a three-year period – beginning when she was 4.

Keenan, who served as Hubbard mayor in 2010 and 2011, was indicted last month on eight counts of rape and 12 counts of attempted rape and gross sexual imposition.

[...]

he told a social worker “he was feeling suicidal because he had been molesting the child victim for approximately the past two years.” It states that during those discussions, Keenan blamed the victim for initiating the acts and called her a “willing participant.”

http://www.vindy.com/news/2016/sep/13/

He wouldn't have turned into a pedophile when he was sixty-five. He's probably been fucking children since he was a teenager. I'll bet the members of his extended family are all looking sideways at each other and wondering who he's fucked and who he hasn't.

Hinckley's On The Loose

John Hinckley Jr. is freed after 35 years

https://www.washingtonpost.com/

How long before this would-be killer stops taking his medication and goes on the rampage again?