Liveblogging 2014: God Help Us All (UPDATES)

Polls are closing here in Florida within the hour and across most of the East Coast.  There's going to be a lot of local, state, and national elections to keep track of.  I got a link to the NBC News tracker here, and a separate link for the Florida elections tracking here.

I will update here from time to time, so please check back in.  I will be stressing mostly over three issues: Crist beating Scott, the fate of the three Florida amendments, and the fate of the US Senate.

I hope we got enough sane voters out there today, and via the Early Voting and Absentees.  Hope hope hope...

Update 7:17 PM EST - well that was quick.  The BayNews 9 website is showing Crist up 58 percent (528,000 votes) to Scott's 38 percent (346,000).  That is, oddly, with ZERO percent of the precincts reporting in.  I'm wondering if that's the Early Voting or the Absentee Ballot counts.  I'm thinking this is good news, but MSNBC is reporting that there are problems with voting machines in South Florida and the Panhandle, so the results are not solid and this is still up in the air.

Update 7:25 PM EST - in better news, the BayNews polling on the three amendments are solid.  Amendment One to fund our waters and ecosystem is up by 78 percent!  Well above the 60 percent needed to pass.  Amendment Two on medical marijuana is at 61 percent, which is unsettling but it's a good sign.  And Amendment Three to preemptively pack the courts is losing with the No count at 54 percent.

Here's hoping, Florida.

Update 7:30 PM EST - in the WTF category, Pam "Friend to Lobbyists" Bondi is leading Sheldon 51 percent to 47 percent for the Attorney General seat.  This is where things are questionable because you'd think the pro-Crist voters would be pro-Sheldon (and as anti-Bondi as we are anti-Scott).  The hell, Florida?  Bondi has been a disaster as AG and she's still on the edge of winning?!

Update: gimme 15 minutes to get some NaNoWriMo writing in!  BRB

Update 8:20 PM EST - well hell in Kentucky Grimes lost to McConnell.  It's looking like McConnell has it won handily too, which is sad because otherwise McConnell's not exactly the most popular guy in his own state.  By the by, got to 7000 words just now, hope to get 8000 by end of the night.

Update 8:25 PM EST - SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SCOTT IS UP 48 to 47 percent right now with 39 percent of the precincts in?!  NO NO NO NO NO NO NO OH GOD TELL ME THEY GOT THE PROBLEMS WITH BROWARD MACHINES RESOLVED...

Update 8:30 PM EST - they called the vote for my congressional district, my neighbors went with Ross (R) over Cohn (D) by 61 to 39 percent.  (insert headdesking here)  Meanwhile, the Medical Marijuna amendment slid under the 60 percent threshold and is at 57 percent YES... the water and ecology funding is steady at 75 percent, and the court-packing amendment is pretty much lost.

UPDATE 8:32 PM EST - this is a heartbreaker.  Pam Bondi won re-election handily (WHAT THE HELL, FLORIDA), and in Pinellas County the Greenlight Pinellas alternate transit plan has gone down to defeat 62 to 38 percent.  It wasn't even close, for a county that has massive traffic woes crushing a plan that could have generated jobs and boosts to the local tourist economy.  Because, what, there was a tax hike involved somehow?  What the hell is wrong with people...?

UPDATE 9:02 PM EST - we're at 93 percent of the polls reporting and Scott is up by 123,000 votes over Crist.  I'm still getting told that the Broward and Dade results aren't in, that there's still a chance the urban (Democratic-heavy) votes will get counted soon and that Crist may yet prevail... BUT WHY IN THE NAME OF GOD WAS THIS EVEN THIS CLOSE?!  We've had 4 years of Scott lying, ignoring questions, selling out to his business cronies, breaking transparency laws, slashing our education funding, refusing to protect our environment... I mean, we've got 75 percent of the voters backing Amendment 1 to keep our waters clean, and yet there are enough of those voters still backing a crooked governor who would eagerly pollute that all for money in his own pocket? (his blind trusts are nothing of the sort)  How the fuck is this disconnect between one issue and the other even happening?!

UPDATE 9:32 PM EST - Still waiting on Broward and Dade counties apparently.  This is still too disgusting to realize that there were not enough registered voters willing to make the effort to turn out the vote.  I get the impression far too many moderate voters were tuned out... too many Democratic voters were tuned out... the hell?

Update 9:52 PM EST - BayNews 9 site is calling it for Amendment Two.  It won't get enough votes to get past the 60 percent requirement, even though it's at 57 percent approval.  Just not enough people believing in medical marijuana or even in the need to shake up the screwed-up War on Drugs.  Still waiting on the governor's race.  There's still a slight lead to Scott by about 100,000 votes over Crist and there's still 2-3 percent of the precincts yet to report in.  Somehow Scott keeps clinging to that 100,000 vote difference like it's some kind of artificially-generated buffer...  As for the national scene, it's looking like the Republicans win gain a slight lead in the US Senate, meaning the GOP will control both houses of Congress for the first time since 2006.  The hits on Obama are gonna get worse...

Update: I'm gonna take another NaNo break to write.  When I get back the rest of Florida better F-CKING have voted Crist about 300,000 votes to beat Scott.

Update 11:00 PM EST - I've spent about the last 40 minutes trying to comprehend how in God's name 2,8 million people voted for a GODDAMN MEDICARE FRAUD like Rick Scott.  Again.  And I'm horrified by the failure of the Democrats and moderates and No-Party-Affiliate voters who failed to show up to vote for Charlie Crist.  What the hell, Florida?  What the fucking hell?

Rick Scott has been a liar since Day One, he's been avoiding his duties as governor, refusing to deal with our ecological concerns, slashing funds for our schools, cutting social services for women and families, he's been caught using secret emails in violation of our Sunshine laws, he's been trying to wreck our legal system and fill the courts with his pro-business cronies.. WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU FLORIDA?  You WANT to live in broken communities and low-paying jobs and no Medicaid help for your elderly and disabled relatives?  YOU WANT THAT KIND OF HELL?!

I'm done for the evening.  I will post later about why I'm this angry, why I'm this pissed off at the Republicans and why I'm pissed off at voters who DON'T FUCKING CARE.

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Another Florida Folly

Even with all the general weirdness and madness of a last-minute campaign run for a hotly-contested gubertorial race here in the Sunshine State, we've got this going on as a distraction:

This map is from a coalition operating out of the City of South Miami.  City officials want to split off the southern half of the state so they can form their own, one that would do something about the climate change/flooding doom facing the coastline:

...(Vice Mayor) Harris told the commission that Tallahassee isn't providing South Florida with proper representation or addressing its concerns when it comes to sea-level rising.

"We have to be able to deal directly with this environmental concern and we can’t really get it done in Tallahassee," Harris said. "I don’t care what people think -- it’s not a matter of electing the right people."

The solution isn't that simple, crew.

I think I've argued in other articles about secession that the logistics of such a move - either to become an independent nation or a separate state - would be self-defeating.  While the move to become a state won't be as risky - the federal government is still there providing a foundation - there are still massive issues over revenue sources, property rights, and bureaucratic snafus.

First off, the existing state government has to sign off on this.  Considering South Florida is a major financial, trade, tourist, entertainment metropolis (Miami is one of the major global cities), Tallahassee may be loathe to give up that tax base.  That this coalition wants to grab the next two major metros in Tampa Bay and Orlando - as well as key metros like Ft. Myers/Naples and Lakeland - is going to leave North Florida with just Jacksonville, Pensacola, Tallahassee, Ocala and Gainesville (with J'Ville the only real metro).  Tampa is another major financial hub and seaport... Orlando has Mickey Mouse and global tourism money... South Florida is going to be taking a lot of money off the table and there's no way our current government will give up all of that.

The first thought I had when I saw the makeshift map up there was "why the hell does Miami-Dade want to include all the redneck counties between there and Tampa/Orlando?"  Reading that article helped spell it out: Orlando/Orange County is where Florida manages the water resources that South Florida needs.  But still, the logic of the map eludes me, because there's another thing that the secession types keep overlooking: even with a single state there are cultural and socio-political rivalries that prevent such clean break-ups ever happening.

Florida is not easily divided into two parts.  At best - at the very least - it can be divided into six territories.  If the state of Florida ever fractures it most likely go like this:

• South Florida (Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade, the Keys) - Everything from West Palm Beach down to Homestead is one big metro.  If you've ever read the Dredd comics, where they came up with megacities that engulfed entire states, you might get an idea what South Florida looks like: an uninterrupted chain of highways packed with suburbs, slums, business towers, and sports arenas.  The Keys from Largo to West may not be packed, but it's pretty much joined to the hip to Miami-Dade - literally, it's the only way in or out by car - and part of the same tourism appeal and Caribbean culture.  This might include Martin County, maybe even Saint Lucie...
• Southwest Florida (Ft.Myers-Lee, Collier, Charlotte, inner counties south of Polk) - pretty much the last part of Florida to get suburbanized, and one with a lot of political-religious-social cohesion along the coastline.  The inner counties are mostly farmland and some of the least populated counties.  They'd have to choose between Miami-Broward-Palm Beach (an area they share little with), Tampa Bay/Polk County (same issue), or form their own faction (with Martin/St. Lucie/Okechobee Counties) surrounding the key geographic feature of the area, Lake Okechobee.  Taking their chances with Ft. Myers/Naples metro would be the likeliest move...
• Tampa Bay (Pinellas, Tampa-Hillsborough, Manatee, Sarasota, Polk, Pasco, maybe Hernando Counties) - Defined by one of the key growth markets of the early 1980s that made Florida the 4th most populous state within a decade, not as big a financial market as South Florida but still a major trading port anchored by a coherent media market, healthcare industry, and sports franchises.  They'd get Sarasota County because the city of Sarasota is too close to the southern reach of the metro to split off with Port Charlotte-Ft. Myers-Naples...
• Greater Orlando (Orange, Seminole, Osceola, Brevard, Indian River, Volusia, Lake, maybe Sumter Counties) - the tourist Mecca.  Orlando brings in the people for the amusement parks, Brevard and Volusia brings in the beach tourists eager to visit Daytona and Cocoa Beach.  The South Florida group foolishly cuts off Seminole from Orange, despite the urban reach of Orlando overlapping Seminole as an outlying suburban circle of Purgatory. This faction could conceivably pick up Polk County if they make the right offer (more condos in Haines City!)...
• Northeast Florida/Jacksonville (Jacksonville/Duval, every County east of the Suwanee River) - Where North Florida kinda becomes indistinguishable from the Deep South, and has more in common with Georgia than the urban centers of Central/South Florida.  Jacksonville would be the major seaport and business center, with Gainesville as the cultural/academic center.  There's little else up here except for horse farms and cattle.
• Northwest Florida (Tallahassee, Pensacola, Panama City, sparsely populated Counties west of the Suwanee) - the other half of North Florida, the Panhandle.  Tallahassee is the state capitol and home of two universities (Florida St. the big draw), and then you gotta drive three hours and a time zone to get to Pensacola and that's pretty much it.  There's an airbase where they test UFOs and some decent southern-facing beaches, but that's it.  And if the state goes bonkers and splits up like this, there's a good chance Pensacola might just pack up and merge with Alabama, as that region has more in common with Mobile than Tallahassee...

Even the scenario I've painted here is unlikely: the state could easily fracture into ten parts as much as six, and there's little incentive for the sections to split off (yes, even for South Florida) because the costs of forming a new government - new elected officials, new government buildings, new bureaucracies to manage the graft - are just too damn high.  Mind, South Florida (just Miami-to-Palm Beach alone) might have enough financial muscle to pull it off, but barely.  The other parts of Florida would never afford such a move.

The other point of this proposed split is that South Florida residents are increasingly worried about the global climate change - the global warming in particular - that's due to flood out most of Dade and Broward Counties by 2020.  The costs of pumping out rising seawater from the sewers and streets are getting higher by the month: flooding is not happening during hurricanes anymore, it's happening during peak moon tides.  The response from Tallahassee has been to basically handle it as an ongoing crisis kept as far away from the news cameras as possible: but sooner rather than later the beaches that the state prides on won't even be there anymore, and boating won't be done on the Intercoastal, it will be done on Hwy 441.

But if South Miami/Florida thinks splitting itself off to form its own government will help matters, it won't by much.  They'll still have to cope with the costs of pumping and reinforcing flood walls, for one thing.  They'll have to contend with the fact our federal government - cough, oil-and-coal-paid-for pols with both parties, cough - is ignoring the problems of climate change altogether, something that a new state still won't be able to overcome.  And considering the map that the South Miami group is pushing, the new state government they'll form is going to include a lot of Republican-leaning red counties (Ft. Myers and Naples, Lakeland and Orlando and the infamous I-4 Corridor, the suburban outlets of Tampa and Pinellas) that might counter the more urban-leaning Democratic areas of South Florida itself (not to mention the conservative Cuban population in Dade/Broward mucking up matters).

Just chalk this up as another pipe dream by a local group of concerned citizens horrified that the leadership in Tall Hassle (the nickname for the corrupt capitol of the Xanth fantasy series whose map mimics Florida's) isn't working to answer their concerns.  A better alternative than wasting time and effort to forge a new state would be focusing on CLEANING UP the political mess of the existing state by voting out the corrupt Republican bastards who are ignoring climate change in the first place.

Alright, I'm off to bed.  Just remember kids, here in Florida we've got Early Voting going on, and you all need to GET THE VOTE OUT and FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T VOTE REPUBLICAN.

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First Rule Of Public Debates: Never Do Anything Stupid or Petty. Or Throw A Hissy Fit.

(UDPATE: hello to all Crooks & Liars visitors!  Just remember these three things: please comment if you want, although I ask you not use 'anonymous' as an ID; please prepare for NaNoWriMo this November; and when you speak of Ta-Nehisi Coates and the Horde, speak well.  You can find me Tweeting away on #fantrum to my heart's content... P.S. GET THE VOTE OUT PEOPLE)

So there was supposed to be a Governor's debate here in Florida tonight between Charlie Crist and Rick Scott.

So before the debate begins, there's a bit of confusion going on, and then finally the debate moderators had to note conflict brewing backstage.

So what happens is that Crist has a floor fan he takes everywhere.  Every public speech or gathering he's got a a small floor fan that can fit under a podium or chair and uses it for cooling down.

This is old news.  It's been reported on as recently as this August.  There's a fake Twitter account for Charlie Crist's Fan that's been around since 2009.  (UPDATE: It turns out Crist had one as far back as 2006 when he campaigned for Governor then... the debate promoter ended up providing a fan to the opponent Tom Gallagher...) I'm willing to bet Crist had a fan like that at last week's Hispanic Debate.  Another thing to point out: This is Florida.  Nearly everybody in the state has a floor fan like that, or a ceiling fan, or an oscillating fan.  IT'S FLORIDA: IT GETS HOT DOWN HERE.  Even in October.

But somehow Scott and/or his campaign handlers didn't like Crist having that floor fan around and argued to have it against the rules at this debate for Crist to have it there.

So, the fan is there under Crist's podium and Scott decides to refuse to take the stage.  For seven minutes, Crist's pretty much the only one up there, cracking at least one awkward joke at Scott's expense before Scott finally came out to begin the debate proper.

Why Scott has to throw a hissy fit over a fan makes little or no sense.  It's not like the fan is a f-cking teleprompter or Blackberry giving Crist an edge.  See above: THIS IS FLORIDA.  There are fans everywhere.  As Crist says towards the end of the debate when the fan issue became the question, "What's wrong with being comfortable?"

As Michael Mayo at the Sun-Sentinel notes:

...that Crist, our former governor, looked bad for so desperately clinging to his trusty sweat protector. And Scott, our current governor, looked worse for almost scuttling the debate over something so silly.

It's already made the national media sites.  I won't doubt that the Republican partisan sites will talk up Crist's evilness in bringing an EVIL DEMONIC floor fan onto the stage like that.  But what does it say about Scott's demeanor that he threw the adult equivalent of a child's tantrum?

Look, like it or not that is a state-wide - and tonight of all nights a NATIONAL - stage upon which to present yourself as a cool, capable, level-headed politician.  There are several rules about debating (one them is literally "don't let them see you sweat!"), and one of the top rules is "Never act stupid or petty at the podium."

Look to Rick Perry back in 2011-12 for God's sake.  He came in late to the GOP primaries as a "white knight" figure - a Far Right governor of a Far Right state popular with the GOP wingnuts - only to blow it on the debate stage when he couldn't remember the three federal agencies he'd close down as President.  The stupidity was so painful that moment that his fellow debaters jumped in to remind him.

In terms of pettiness, bad debate performances turn on how one of the debaters would get stuck on some minor detail or annoyance and flare it up into a useless argument.  This is where Scott screwed up.  Where Crist came out to the stage to begin the debate, Scott refused.  A smart debater would have come out, pointed out the rule, asked Crist directly to work that debate without the fan, shift the burden completely onto Crist, and proceed with the event.  Instead, Scott came across acting like a spoiled child who wasn't getting his way and was going to take his toys and go home.

So who had the Oops Moment here?  Crist may have brought out a floor fan against Scott's wishes but he was the one who came out prepared to actually debate.  Scott was fighting an argument over a floor fan that Crist has used almost his entire political career with no scandal, and was "standing up" for his argument by throwing a tantrum.  Over a fan.  IN FLORIDA.

Our state's entire existence depended on air conditioning, and Scott is throwing a hissy fit over a fan.  How many Floridians are sitting at home watching this debate thinking "why the hell doesn't Scott have a floor fan?"

If our governor's election turns entirely on how the average Floridian thinks about the use of floor fans during a debate, AND STILL VOTES FOR RICK "NO COOL" SCOTT, we deserve to sink into the rising climate change waters.

Going to bed now.  When I wake up tomorrow morning I wanna see at least 60 percent of my fellow Floridians claiming they're fans of Charlie Crist.

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In The "You Can't Make This Sh-t Up" Department of Crazy-Ass Primarying

Over at the TNC Horde, we'd save this for a Tuesday, but hell it's Friday and we might as well get this out of the way (link via Talking Points Memo):

On Tuesday, Timothy Ray Murray (pictured) challenged longtime incumbent Rep. Frank Lucas (R-OK) for the Republican nomination in Oklahoma's 3rd Congressional district. Murray lost, but he did manage to pull in 3,442 votes, good for 5.2 percent of the total. Now Murray says he will contest the outcome of the election. Because, he says, Lucas is dead and has been replaced by a "look alike."

Wasn't this an episode of The X-Files? No, wait, it was Nowhere Man, starring Bruce "Enlist in Starfleet" Greenwood...

"The election for U.S. House for Oklahoma’s 3rd District will be contested by the Candidate, Timothy Ray Murray," Murray wrote in a press release posted on his campaign website. "I will be stating that his votes are switched with Rep. Lucas votes, because it is widely known Rep. Frank D. Lucas is no longer alive and has been displayed by a look alike."

Widely known? This is the first any of us are hearing about this!

On the website, Murray claims that Lucas and "a few other Oklahoma and other States’ Congressional Members," were executed "on or about" Jan. 11, 2011 in southern Ukraine.

What were Oklahoma politicians doing in southern Ukraine in January 2011?!

"On television they were depicted as being executed by the hanging about the neck until death on a white stage and in front of witnesses," the website claims. "Other now current Members of Congress have shared those facts on television also. We know that it is possible to use look alike artificial or manmade replacements, however Rep. Lucas was not eligible to serve as a Congressional Member after that time."

I dunno, there's been a few Congressmen still serving office well past their zombiefication...

The bizarre charge was first reported by KFOR TV in Oklahoma City. The station reported that while Oklahoma election board officials had also received Murray's press release, Murray had yet to file a formal petition to contest the election. The station also sought comment from Lucas, who said that he had never been to Ukraine.

Well, that's what you'd expect the Life Model Decoy of Congress-Podperson Lucas to say!

“Many things have been said about me, said to me during course of my campaigns," Lucas told KFOR. "This is the first time I’ve ever been accused of being a body double or a robot."

There was that time he was accused of being one of the original singers for Milli Vanilli, but the evidence never panned out...

Murray, who previously challenged Lucas in 2012 while running as a Democrat, ran on a pledge to "help bring U.S. House leadership back to traditional values and defend and serve the voice of The People." Federal Election Commission records show that Murray raised and spent just $50 on his campaign. His campaign website's "issues" page called for balancing the budget, creating incentives for job growth in "all tiers" of the job market, protection for small businesses and banks, protecting Social Security and Medicare, and tax reform. He also pledged to "never use a look alike to replace my (The Office’s) message to you or to anyone else, as both the other Republican Challengers have."

Murray did not immediately respond to a request for comment from TPM on Friday.

Here's the thing that's bothering me: what if Murray is telling the truth, and there's been an elaborate sham perpetrated by the Pentagon and the global media to cover up the shocking assassination of American politicians on foreign soil? What if Lucas is a plant, a stealth agent for HYDRA, just waiting for the opportunity to abuse the 25th Amendment to his own diabolical need?  What if this is some massive conspiracy dating all the way back to Operation: Paperclip to destabilize the U.S. government out of some twisted need for revenge by the still-living brain of Adolf Hitler?! What if, man, what if! YOU GOTTA START THINKING LIKE THE CIA DOES, MAN! ROSWELL! ROSWELL!

...

Just to note, Murray originally ran as the Democrat candidate back in 2012 against Lucas.  Didn't exactly see the reports on this back then, you know...

I'm not going Tag this with a Republicans Are Insane label, since this is pretty much just this one Murray fellah jumping off the cliffs of sanity here, and he's someone party-jumping for some personal need for attention.  But... Seriously, guys?  Both parties - Republican and Democrat - need to do a better job screening their candidates with psych evaluations before letting them do any fundraiser campaigning.  Seriously.

Meanwhile... in an abandoned warehouse outside of Floyd, Texas... (insert ominous musical sting here)

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Apocalypse Why

It's just to note that today is WELL PLAYED MAYANS DAY we've been worried about since, oh, the Mayans forgot to make a follow-up long form calendar for the one expiring today.

Personally, I only found out about today back when I was a huge fan of The X-Files (aka a Philer, and a 'Shipper to boot), when the Mayan Calendar date was a plot point to the series finale.  But before that I've borne witness to such end-times embarrassments as Y2K, Harmonic Convergence, the Jupiter Effect, and the Tampa Bay Bucs winning a Super Bowl.  Not to mention a constant stream of predicted Raptures and Armageddons by various religious leaders screeching about War, Plague, Anti-Christs and hangers-on.

Just to note, before I go any further, I do not blame Mayans (and yes, they are still around) for the hype and hoopla.  This is all from some New-Age crank selling books.  But that comes later...

Look at that end-time embarrassments list regarding Dates Predicted for Apocalyptic Events on Wiki, this is something stretching back to even before Christianity was a gleam in Mother Mary's eye.  And it's not even including the mythology of various pantheons - such as the Norse and their Ragnarok - spelling massive catastrophe for not only humanity but the Gods as well.  This seems to be a hard-wired element of the human psyche: the expectation that at any moment, especially a moment that higher powers decided to create clues for announcing such doom, the world will end.

So, the eternal question: Why?

This is an even bigger question considering the age we live in.  We have enough human history now, enough recorded moments and documented failures of apocalypse - I've lived through (from 1970 to now) what I count to be more than 40 (I gave up around 2006)! - that I'm just sitting here asking "Why are people still buying this sh-t?"

Making it worse is noticing how the SAME NAMES keep cropping up on the list of predictors: David Berg, Harold Camping, Pat Robertson, Ronald Weinland, even a psychic debunker like The Amazing Criswell made an End-Times prediction for FSM's sake.  You would think after getting the FIRST and what was supposed to be ONLY prediction of THE END wrong, nobody would let them come back and make even MORE predictions ("Okay, so last Friday didn't work out, but I guarantee JEBUS is gonna show up at Mardi Gras like three years from now and order some Hurricanes!").

Insert head-desking here.

Why?  Why are these guys still out there?  Why are they still allowed to spew predictions they've already proven they're not good at making?

It's not that I blame the First Amendment, the right they have to say whatever they believe as long as it doesn't incite to riot.  After all, these End-Time predictors are global (Japan, China, Uganda, etc) in places that don't have as much free-speech rights.  And there are a ton of First Amendment users who abide by the common-sense principles of not saying anything stupid that can come back to haunt them later.

What I blame are the con artists who found in religion a near-perfect scam.  Look at how nearly all of these seers of prophecy are religious leaders or spiritualists of some form.  All they gotta do is whip up some frenzy, get the True Believers thinking they and only they are special enough to survive the Wrath of God, and get them involved with money work and more money to get a cozy little life-style going (NOTE: I am not a huge fan of wealthy priests claiming to serve God while owning four-car-garage mansions.  Living the good life while supposedly helping the impoverished reeks of hypocrisy).

Thing is, these "religious leaders" have to give these Believers something to fear: the expiration date.  You gotta give 'em an End Time to actually be worried.  And so they offer up a date, something that fits well into the numerology of faith (the number of years since the birth of the Messiah, the numbers of the Beast, the anniversary of a significant event).  And now, you've got the attention of the faithful who'll make sure to advertise everyone's doom, safe and satisfied that the Good Lord spares the True Believers (SEE Rapture, The; something that caught on in American Christian theology in the 1830s).

And then the day comes and goes, and for some Godforsaken reason none of the True Believers seem to get really p-ssed off.  Oh sure, the "outsiders" aka the People Who Didn't Buy It For One Second may laugh their asses off, but they're not in much of a position to sue for emotional damages or anything.  If anyone's got to be angry at the likes of Ronald Weinland - a "pastor" who predicted TWO different End-Times in 2011 AND 2012, and is still ballsy enough to "amend" his deadline to 2013 now that we're 10 days away from that year - it ought to be the people who bought his Rapture story and got suckered.

Could it be the embarrassment of admitting you got suckered?  Could it be the Belief is strong enough to ignore the doubt of the failed seer?  In a sane world, anyone having predicted an End-Time that does not come about ought to be removed from the stage, mocked for all time, made to refund any moneys made from selling doomsday materials - Books!  Recordings!  Beach towels! - and forced to repair broken-down casino slot machines on Indian reservations as a reminder that the odds are not ever in their favor.

For myself, I've seen enough, read enough to know that the End of the World on a global scale is more in the realm of science, not Faith.  End Times on a personal matter such as a death in the family or that of a friend, that IS Faith, and one that ought to be a guiding point in each of our lives but in our own ways.  My End of the World isn't going to match yours, I know that.

And the question of why that is doesn't bother me at all.  Because in my worldview, God is not going to end the likes of us.  We're too good an audience to God's everyday delights.

And thus endth the sermon.

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As Fox-Not-News' War On Saturnalia Continues Unabated

...I mean, seriously, I can't find any Greco-Roman pagans who even know what Saturnalia is, for Athena's sake...

I just wanted to make this observation about the ongoing disaster that is the GOP 2012 Primary race.  All the insane debates, the rise and fall of various wingnut candidates all because Mitt Romney is a flavor most primary voters didn't like the last time he ran in 2008...  I mean, we've gone from Trump to Bachmann to Perry to Cain and now Gingrich of all people is in the lead in Iowa and even now Gingrich's lead may be slipping to where Ron Paul is surging...  All of this, all of the crazy going on, it made me realize this:

Doesn't the 2012 Republican primary race look and feel EXACTLY like Monty Python's Upper Class Twit of the Year decathlon?

 
I know, I know.  This is awfully Classist of me to wage such bitter, savage rage against a select group of idiots who can't realize their grandstanding on the debate stages highlight exactly how elitist, out-of-touch, and flat-out insane they really are.

And I honestly do not encourage this year's grouping of Upper Class Twits uh Republican Presidential candidates from shooting themselves in order to win the Upper Class Twit award uh the Republican nomination.  Mostly because it would be a waste of bullets when a humiliating Electoral College result (I mean, at this rate the Republican candidate will get only South Carolina, Texas, and Idaho this November) would be more satisfying.

Now I understand why Huckabee and Christie and Daniels refused to sign up this round.

Having typed this, I just want to say to all Greco-Roman pagans out there Io Saturnalia!

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