I don't know about you...

...but all too often, when I consider the pattern of my life, I realize that much of my strength is devoted to avoiding any clear perception of what sort of existence I have, so that with luck I don't think too much about the life I'm leading until it's over.

Runflat de Milo

Art about cars from Australia, via Autoblog.

Our administration's latest Sith Lord

Meet our new U.N. Ambassador, a man of whom Jesse Helms said that he'd want him standing next to him at Armageddon.



Our foreign policy is about to get a really bad mustache ride.

Bobby Fischer wants an extra egg

And he'll take on anyone to get it.

Odd that Iceland is so happy to take him in. I guess they're okay with anti-semitic racist nuts there? Certainly Bobby would feel comfortable surrounded by Vikings; the vast Jewish conspiracy can't get him there.

Render unto VISA what is VISA's

Senator Chuck Grassley (R.-IA) wishes to pass a bill making credit card debt bankruptcy-proof, so that going through personal bankruptcy will not help those who have excessive card debt. Fairly standard big-money idea, and of course the credit card people are slavering for it.

Jeff points out that it's a bit worse than that, though. Senator Grassley is not just fiscally conservative. He's a fundamentalist Christian moral conservative who follows the strict evangelical line on gay marriage, abortion, sex in general, etc. But he won't apply any Christian principles to debt. A plea from a Christian attorneys group to consider the biblical arguments against usury falls on deaf ears. Why? Because Chuck doesn't want to mix government and religion! Why, that would be theocratic!

I can’t listen to Christian lawyers because I would be imposing the Bible on a diverse population,” Grassley said. “I’ll bet those lawyers wouldn’t want us to impose the principles of forgiving debt every seven years. If that were the law, nobody would loan them money.

Jeff's full story, which I recommend for anyone interested in the current "religious" conservatism, is here.

This in a nutshell is why I left the Christian community. Hypocrisy is always part of a religious experience. But the people in my country who call themselves Christians are so puffed up with false pride, so in love with money, so ready to spend others' lives for their own comfort, so hateful, so greedy, so imperial that to be an apostate is a great blessing to me.

We have met Antichrist, and it is us.