Classic Colbert

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After extensive research the definitive answer to the retarded question one quarter of Americans have been asking has been revealed in stunning detail. Click to find out...

Is Barack Obama a Muslim?

"The One"

Is ‘The One’ Cocky or Commander in Chiefy?

By MAUREEN DOWD

Published: July 23, 2008
(c) NYTimes

"Barack Obama wrinkles.

Just slightly, and just when he has to wear a flak jacket over his blue oxford shirt.

The media behemoth slouching after the senator is scouring his every word, expression, bead of sweat, basketball shot and accessory — are those hiking boots too Bremer? Are the sunglasses too rapper? Will he leave enough time for his glittery groupie, Carla Bruni? — for hints of imperfection that would foretell lacunae in presidential judgment.

The One, as McCain aides sardonically call Obama, glided through Afghanistan, Iraq and Jordan, girding his messianic loins for the inevitable kvetching he would face in Israel as skeptical Jews “try to get a better sense of what’s in Obama’s kishkes.” So said Nathan Diament of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, in The Daily News, defining “kishkes” as Yiddish for gut.

The king of Jordan personally drove the prince of Chicago from the palace to the airport on Tuesday night to catch his flight to Israel, leading a motorcade in his slate Mercedes 600 across the tarmac and right up to O-Force One, as The Chicago Sun Times mockingly calls the candidate’s freshly branded 757, with the captain’s chair embroidered with “Obama-’08/President.” As the senator got out of the passenger seat, King Abdullah jumped out to chat some more, as though the two, who had only met in passing on the Hill, were old pals.

Obama finally found a Muslim with whom he’s willing to be photographed."

(story continued here at NYTimes.com)

Paultards, still alive & stupid.

fun times at the Ron Paul Forums / news post courtesy of wonkette.com

CONSPIRACY

Neo-Con Bilderbergers Try, Fail To Kill Ron Paul

A bunch of congressmen from Texas were flying to D.C. so they could vote on some Texas thing, and then OMG the Continental jet had a slight loss of cabin pressure so it made an unscheduled landing in New Orleans, and the the congressmen got on another plane to Washington. In other words, NEW WORLD ORDER ALMOST KILT DR. RON PAUL!

First, we wanted to make sure Doktor Paul was okay. Phew, he’s fine! Then we rushed over to RonPaulForums to make sure everybody was freaking out:

• They tried to kill Ron Paul! His plane just had to make an emergency landing in New Orleans! Ahhh he survived!
• cab depressurized. sudden loss of altitude. (mask fall down) effect - cause?
• Paul, take amtrack from NOLA. it may be safer. Or greyhound even.
• Lol… Plane crashes are the only way to totally wipe someone’s hands clean of an “assassination” attempt… They said the cabin lost pressure… How often does that happen?
• Ever heard the story about how and where jim groce died? I wouldn’t board my next flight out of louisiana. People are poor here and can be bought off easily. there are a lot of parts on a plane… anything can go wrong.
• I hope this make RP even more determined.
• I think you mean Jim Croce.
• I love this guy. Ron Paul is the only hero I’ve ever known. Fuck spiderman!
• Hell, I’ll go pick him up and give him a personal escort to D.C. if he’ll cover the gas.
• There were 7 members of Congress on board, that’s about 25% of Texas congressional districts, there were Neocons on board, and Liberals, and coincidentally Ron Paul. This is why we lost cause people always want to bring conspiracy’s. I bet you think we lost the nomination to Vote Fraud.
• Just saying, just because the plane didn’t blow up, didn’t mean someone didn’t do it. But it doesn’t mean the converse either. We don’t know what happened, when only suppose what happened.
• Ron Paul simply isn’t worth killing, at least not any more. Kucinich is a more likely target, methinks.
• Can’t just whack the good Doctor, it would or could trigger the one thing “they” fear the most………thousands of angry americans getting off their asses and visiting wa with torches and pitch forks. That would definitely dampen all their plans. A couple of similar incidents before the big one would make it even more believable and safe. I suggest it was ……….. A WARNING!
• I bet it was the NWO trying to kill Ron Paul…
• “Poe told 11 News the flight was about an hour late leaving Houston because of mechanical difficulties with an engine. He said things went downhill from there not long after taking off from Bush Intercontinental Airport”
  1) I wonder how engine problems could be connected to a loss of pressure?
  2) And, who knows? Maybe there was a little Supernatural intervention.
  Not every plan by “the powers that be” succeeds. Sometimes they try to kill people and it’s just not allowed to happen.
• The establishment, if they stay in power for much longer, won’t allow Dr. Paul to live much longer… he will be a martyr just like MLK Jr. and JFK Jr. except even a bigger martyr because the way so many people truly care about him and the abundance of the internet…
• He is unstoppable. Even the NWO cannot stop him.
• Off topic? Did ya know McCain himself is expected to be in NewOrleans tomorrow? Big announcement? Hmmmmmm.
• I’m sorry I don’t believe 2 planes made the twin towers collapse at nearly free fall speed onto themselves. I’m sorry I don’t believe that WTC fell at free fall speed into itself from a minor fire. Will the Ron Paul people quit bashing me now for fear of making the movement a bunch of “conspiracy theorists?” Stop caring about what other people think and start asking real questions. And there is absolutely no evidence that this plane was being sabotaged. But it doesn’t make the scenario impossible either. Have an open mind and an open heart. Always.

And then, a million comments about JFK being a socialist and steel doesn’t melt and holographic neo-con blimps blew up New York … or did they???

RON PAUL FORUMS
Flight with 7 congressmen makes emergency landing [Google/AP]

The real two-dimensional characters: tv "journalists"

When churches do the right thing...

The Gospel in practice will be offensive and it will be attractive, side by side.

Immigrants Find Solace After Storm of Arrests

By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN
Published: July 12, 2008
(c) New York Times

POSTVILLE, Iowa — Back in 2002, before all the trouble, the Rev. Paul Ouderkirk retired from St. Bridget’s Roman Catholic Church here, his last station in 43 years of ministry. He built a home 35 miles away in a town along the Mississippi, and he indulged a passion for family history, tracing his lineage to an ancestor who had arrived in New Amsterdam with the Dutch East India Company.

Once a month or so, Father Ouderkirk drove back to St. Bridget’s to officiate at a wedding or baptize a baby. He savored those rituals, proof that the Hispanic immigrants who had arrived over the past decade to work in Postville’s kosher-meat plant were setting down roots. Some had bought homes. Their children had graduated from high school, even been selected for the National Honor Society.

Then came the morning of May 12, when both satisfaction and retirement ended for the 75-year-old priest. Federal immigration agents raided the Agriprocessors factory, arresting nearly 400 workers, most of them men, for being in the United States illegally. Within minutes of the raid, with surveillance helicopters buzzing above the leafy streets, the wives and children of Mexican and Guatemalan families began trickling into St. Bridget’s Church, the safest place they knew.

It was about that time, with several dozen cowering people inside the church, when Sister Mary McCauley, the pastor administrator at St. Bridget’s, found out that Father Ouderkirk was attending a ceremony for diocesan priests nearly two hours away in Dubuque. Unable to reach him directly, she left a simple, urgent message: “We need to see a collar here.”

Continue reading this story here

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There's tarnish on the Golden Rule

“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting, it has been found difficult, and therefore left untried.” (G.K.Chesterton)

You know it's election time when...

Apparently marriage in our country is only threatened during even-numbered years.

30 Days - Cognitive Dissonance vs. Revision

Can beliefs change when presented with contrasting evidence? Or does one further cement their beliefs in light of irreconcilable ideas? Psychologist Leon Festinger theorized, tested and documented the disturbing rationalizations we make as humans to support our beliefs. In his 1957 MIT study, "A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance" Festinger noticed that under certain conditions there can be a psycological opposition of irreconcilable ideas. In other words, people will adjust their beliefs to fit a behavior - instead of changing their behavior to fit one's beliefs (which is the sequence conventionally assumed and furthermore that is more common, that is that it is our default).

Here's a stunning modern day example of dissonance no less dramatic than Festinger's subjects in the 50's. The outcomes and quotes from this episode of the FX series, 30 Days, are telling in which a wife and mother who is a strong proponent of the traditional family unit will have her beliefs challenged when she agrees to spend 30 days with the new face of alternative parenting:



In contrast another episode of the same show with the same belief system under review displays what happens when the subject undergoes a revision instead of a cementing rationalization in the face of contrary evidence:

"What allowed Isaac Newton to exchange the palm of god for gravity, or Columbus to come away with a curved rimless world? Throughout all of history there have been examples of people who, instead of clapping their hands over their ears, pushed into dissonance, willing to hear what might emerge. Who knows what new shapes of faith might emerge from a willingness to withhold rationalization for real revision?"
- Lauren Slater (Opening Skinner's Box)

Googly Eyes Gardener