Near Earth Object

Who else feels Christopher Hitchens getting terminal throat cancer [sic] was God’s revenge for him using his voice to blaspheme him? Atheists like to ignore FACTS. They like to act like everything is a “coincidence”. Really? It’s just a “coincidence” [that] out of any part of his body, Christopher Hitchens got cancer in the one part of his body he used for blasphemy? Yea, keep believing that Atheists. He’s going to writhe in agony and pain and wither away to nothing and then die a horrible agonizing death, and THEN comes the real fun, when he’s sent to HELLFIRE forever to be tortured and set afire.

Message posted to Christian web site about the ailing Christopher Hitchens.

Republicans: The government should always cede territory and authority to the private sector, and generally never interfere with business activities of private citizens and entities.

Theocrats: All of the above, but when it comes to religions not practiced by the sect in power, zealously and mercilessly wield the full force of the government (the justice system, regulators, bureaucrats, legislation from the statehouse, legislation from Congress) to defeat the rival faith even in the most benign, trivial, or merely-symbolic of matters.

Thanks, Newt “Saudi-Arabia-Has-The-Right-Idea-On-Religious-Freedom” Gingrich, for making this distinction clear.

In my defense, I never believed I needed to say, “Governor, stick to the truth, there’s a videotape.” Perhaps I should have.

Brett Schundler, former New Jersey schools chief, on being fired by Gov. Chris Christie over a clerical error that deprived the state of $400 million in federal education funding.

Right wing huckster John McCain has won his primary against right-er wing huckster J.D. Hayworth, so perhaps now the senator feels he is free to unburden himself of some of his more unpleasant entanglements, bit by tiny bit. What makes me think so? Witness a tweet from McCain from two days ago:

So what? He’s retweeting his daughter’s TV plug. Whatever.

But this is a TV appearance in which Meghan McCain talks about Sarah Palin in some unflattering ways. Ms. McCain doesn’t attack Palin or anything, but in the interview (and in a soon-to-be published book plugged in the interview) she does lament the “drama” brought by Palin to the presidential campaign, wonders aloud if the loss was Palin’s “fault,” refers to Palin as a “time bomb” and as someone “who leaves a wake of confusion and chaos — to the point of dizziness — wherever she went.”

So either John McCain (whoever does his tweeting for him) hadn’t seen the interview and had no idea what his daughter was publishing a book about, or maybe he’s ready to start inching away from the North Star.

It wouldn’t matter, of course. John McCain’s soul is already sitting in Mephistopheles’ warehouse, collecting dust. No Palin disassociation can save him now.

Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.

Stephen Hawking, clearing the record.

John McCain, on President Obama’s Oval Office address on Iraq, going way out of his way to make himself utterly, insufferably loathsome:

I’m not surprised that he wouldn’t give George Bush credit, that’s just in the DNA of the individual apparently.

This made me roll my eyes so far back I could read my own thoughts.

The majestic North American Democratzi Loon

For your reading pleasure, I present the first comment posted on a short and fairly banal Politico blog post about Charlie Crist and the Florida U.S. Senate race, written by “Eileen for Freedom/Liberty”:

LEAVE NO DEMOCRATZI ‘LOON’ STANDING IN NOVEMBER’! America…I believe there are more old time Democrats…like my parents and grandparents…then there are Democratzi ‘loons’! Those patriots will NOT vote for this fraud and the continued agenda of the Democratzi ‘loons’ who are seeking to destroy America from within one big spending bill at a time! They love their country more than party…and will vote for America by saying yes to cleaning house on all the Democratzi ‘loons’ who have put all of America’s children into debt to a COMMUNIST country! Despicable politicians who need to go…and they will! Congratulations Senator Rubio! IMPEACHMENT OR THE ‘ORIGINAL’ RECORDS OF BIRTH…IT IS JUST A MATTER OF TIME…AND 2010 WILL BE THE TIME…GUARANTEED!

I learned so much from this comment.

First, I was introduced to the pejorative “Democratzi” term, which I presume equates liberals with Nazis, which makes perfect sense of course.

Second, I am curious as to who the “old time Democrats” are/were, but I presume they may have often been idenitifed with the “Dixie” prefix, but that’s just a guess. I mean, I’m assuming Eileen is not referring to, say, Hubert Humphrey.

Third, the consistent use of single-apostrophe quotation marks for “loons” I find confusing, because later in the comment she uses the same quote marks for “original” when referring to Obama’s obviously-forged-by-Muslim-communists birth certificate. Does that mean that she doesn’t mean the “loons” part, that she’s just kidding about it? Or is she saying that the birth certificate is legitimate? Eileen, what are you trying to tell us?

Fourth, can one “impeach” a document? Is Obama’s obviously-manufactured-by-Hitler birth certificate holding public office? I suppose so, because according to Eileen, 2010 is “GUARANTEED” to be the year this impeachment takes place. So really, there’s only one question left to ask:

Will the Senate convict Obama’s obviously-fabricated-by-Osama-bin-Laden-and-Skeletor-and-written-in-the-blood-of-aborted-Christian-babies birth certificate?

Only Eileen knows for sure.

I mean, if that’s how you feel, fine. But do you have to shout about it on Craigslist?

And do you even know any machine operators?! They’re people too, you know!

If you’ve never heard this stuff before, it blows your little blue booties off because it’s fun, fun, fun.

Jack Horkheimer, the guy who did those weird Star Hustler spots on PBS, died this week. I didn’t know about it until This Week delivered the news on the “In Memoriam” portion of the show. I don’t mean to make too much of it, he was no Carl Sagan or anything, but he was among those who helped share a love of the universe. In his own special way, of course. I hardly remember the shows themselves; mainly that he walked over an odd blue-screened Saturn ring, was incredibly enthusiastic, and that my dad lovingly referred to him as “John Porkpie.” Thanks, Mr. Horkheimer.