Beyond Beyond the Fringe category archive

Were it I, I should not want them back. According to the story, neither do the ladies.

“He said he had a rather odd request,” said Stacy Wessells, 26, a hair stylist at Hairart Hair and Tanning Salon at the Chesapeake Square Plaza in Onley. “He was helping a friend join a fraternity at Virginia Tech and needed three pairs of women’s shoes. He said the fratmaster was just down the plaza at Cato’s. He promised to return with them in a few minutes.”

Today, there has been a police report filed. Three pairs of shoes are missing. And three women milled around for hours with bare feet.

One thought: DNA.

I thought I was done with this topic, but the title of this column by Clarence Page was just too good to pass up. So is the rest of the column.

In all the analysis and theorizing and fulminating about the once and future rapture crazes, no one I have read has pointed out the obvious.

I suspect that is because, in this country, once you call your particular brand of foolishness a “religion,” and particularly if you label it “Christian,” it becomes forbidden to say this:

The people who bought this song and dance are nuts. Unconnected to reality. Loony-bin crazy. Whack jobs. Not ready for prime time.

And the persons who orchestrated the song and dance are pathological delusionists or sociopathic frauds and liars or both.

The sincerity of their beliefs is irrelevent.

Sincere foolishness is still foolishness.

Just as I predicted.

Greet the new rapturous day!

Calling CQ.

Calling CQ.

Isn’t there anybody there?

Anybody . . . . ?

If you were expecting to be raptured today and are reading this, you obviously are not worthy. Live with it.

Hey! What happened to all those annoying self-righteous?

Get your rapture relief here!

All seriousness aside, we were given the capacity for reason for a purpose.

Faith without reason is not faith.

It is fanaticism. It is Jonestown.

The Elmer Gantrys and the other End-of-the-World-Is-Nigh scammers–the false prophets who live by gulling the unreasoning and the vulnerable to sell the lectures, the radio shows, the books, the retreats, and the merchandise–will claim that there must be an error in their cosmic arithmetic, a sign that was misread, and, like a GPS gone screwy, will continue

recalculating, recalculating, recalculating . . .

all the while soliciting additional donations from their willing victims to pay for more and better recalculators while selling revised lectures, revised radio shows, revised books, revised retreats, and revised merchandise.

They will continue fleecing their followers and betraying trust with their con games, for, as L. Ron Hubbard knew, the best scam is a religion scam.

Terry Gross opens Area 51 to some Fresh Air. From the website:

Journalist Annie Jacobsen tells Fresh Air’s Terry Gross that the site has remained classified for many years — not because of aliens or spaceships, but because the government once used the site for top-secret nuclear testing and weapons development.

In Area 51: An Uncensored History of America’s Top Secret Military Base, Jacobsen details how several agencies — including the Atomic Energy Commission, the Department of Defense and the CIA — once used the site to conduct controversial and secretive research on aircraft and pilot-related projects, including planes that traveled three times faster than the speed of sound and nuclear-propelled, space-based missile launch systems.

Follow the link above to listen or read the transcript here.

The Chicago Tribune provides tools for building your own wingnut conspiracy theory as to how Osama bin Laden is not dead, but is risen. A nugget:

(Bin Laden / Elvis) was spotted in (the crowd / the men’s room) at the United Center on Monday as the Chicago Bulls dropped Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinals to the Atlanta Hawks. Hey, we can make up stuff too.

This week’s doubters have been dubbed “deathers,” a not-subtle allusion to the birthers, who are still spinning conspiracies about the president’s origins despite all that egg on their faces. Neither group should be confused with the truthers, who reject government and media accounts of the 9/11 attacks, which were (an inside job / a government pretext for war in the Middle East).

It is a delicious read.

My friend Karen is no piker; she has the answer.

Tradition at Comically Vintage, plus what Field said.

More wingnut cruelty.

Afterthought:

No, there really isn’t another word for it. Maybe also “spitefulness.”

The beckless search for truth:

The Colbert Report
Tags: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

Via TPM.

February 15, 2011 | Posted by: Frank | Posted in: Beyond Beyond the Fringe | Bookmark this post

Students of labor history know that the Pinkertons frequently served as hired goons (think Blackwater) against workers.

And now, public servants are painted as public enemies because they expect to be paid and treated fairly.

The Wisconsin governor is preparing to set the National Guard against state employees.

In Wingnut World, workers exist to be exploited.

This is truly sick-making.

Addendum:

Jason330 comments at Delaware Liberal. An excerpt (emphasis in the original):

Now Republicans like Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker are here to let us know that STATE WORKERS not only indulge in overt acts of treason (like the guy who plowed Rt. 13 last weak in order to help usher in the ACORN/WeatherUnderground Caliphate), but they are using a secret means to undermine ‘Merica.

Their devious plan can be summed up in three words: “wanting” “to” “get” & “paid” Okay. Four words. But seriously, it is enough to make you puke isn’t it? Even here in Delaware we have STATE WORERS who have the nerve to want to get paid, when they know that every dollar paid to them is a dollar less in job creating tax cuts we can give to AstraZeneca executives.

The ABC’s of death metal:

. . . and having a diabetic low gets you tasered and beaten in Ohio.

My friend is diabetic. In fact, she had a low today as we were returning from a walk.

A low does not make someone aggressive; it makes him or her disoriented and weak and it impairs thought.

Indeed, behaving aggressively during a diabetic low is pretty much impossible.

Men with guns and tasers using their badges to shield abuse–all too possible.

I was looking back in this blog’s history for something I linked to a week ago and stumbled over this post referring to someone who believed that the rapture would take place September 21, 2009.

If it did, I missed it.

He’s trying again (I assume it’s a him based on the general ugliness of the website). Now he suspects that we will not make it to February this year.

Have to make another note in my giggle calendar.

Furrfu.

Nursing school variety.

From her Subaru, a car painted as white as the fourth horse of Revelation, Allison Warden proclaims that Jesus Christ shall return May 21.

As in 151 days from now.

By her reckoning, the Lord’s return will fall on a springtime Saturday. And if the world weren’t ending, you might find people celebrating other notable highlights of the day: Mr. T’s birthday, Montenegro’s independence or the Red Sox-White Sox game.

But to Warden and hundreds of like-minded Christians, Judgment Day can be calculated precisely by tracing biblical genealogy, or by following history forward 7,000 years from the day Noah shut the door to his ark.

I’ve set my Google calendar to remind me to check on May 22 for depopulation. Wonder if I’ll be here for the reminder?

Afterthought:

Why is it that those who claim most loudly their knowledge of the Christian Bible tend to betray the most ignorance of its message?

Luke 17:20.

From the Guardian, offered without comment:

“There is a need for more exorcists,” (The Rev. Gary–ed.) Thomas agreed. The demand comes from parishioners, who tell priests they or a family member need exorcism. Thomas ascribes increased demand to increased “activity of paganism and idolatrous practices among Catholics,” and to people confusing mental disease with possession.

It’s kind of scary and depressing and it’s one of the best-written things he’s done.

Apply for a mortgage and find a bankster in your bedroom.

You can’t make this stuff up.