At A Laws For Words

Bush challenges hundreds of laws

"President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution."

I guess there's nothing in the oath of office that says he needs to obey the law. But honestly... ooo, that was an ironic turn of phrase, wasn't it?

Limbaugh: Typical. Just typical.

Limbaugh surrenders on drug charge
"Before his own problems became public, Limbaugh had decried drug use and abuse and mocked President Clinton for saying he had not inhaled when he tried marijuana. He often made the case that drug crimes deserve punishment.

“Drug use, some might say, is destroying this country. And we have laws against selling drugs, pushing drugs, using drugs, importing drugs. ... And so if people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up,” Limbaugh said on his short-lived television show on Oct. 5, 1995."

The Fuel Crisis Explained

Call me slow on the uptake, but I finally have this whole fuel-price-fiasco figured out:

To begin with, we know that the Bush administration has demonstrated a consistent pattern of responding to disapproval by the sudden appearance of a crisis of relative proportions. The greater the disapproval, the greater the crisis. Usually this involves playing on fear (the Bushists' favorite tactic - manipulating public fears - terrorism). For example, whenever the polls go down, a new videotape of Osama Bin Laden arrives, or some other terrorist alert is pronounced. It has become predictable and expected.

Unfortunately, because of its predictability, many people have grown jaded to this boy-who-cried-wolf tactic. So the Bush regime is forced to look to "plan B": an energy crisis.

The Bush administration is first and foremost a front for the energy industry. It is staffed by energy industry honchos. It's first priorities have been to secure wealth and power for the energy industry on a global scale. They even have taken the US military away from us to use as storm troopers to achieve their goals. They have bankrupt the country in order to enrich and empower themselves, and everything is secondary to those ends, including human life, national security, the environment... everything.

Since they are the controllers of energy, it was only a matter of time before they played this card. Remember, their strategy in the so-called "war on terror" has been to create a diversion of catastrophic proportions while they shamelessly rape our country. Knowing that the citizenry is fed up with that, they move to plan B, which is to repeat their successful formula with fuel. They are creating this crisis (they control the prices, remember?), and now they will have George Bush, our hero, ride in and rescue us. Gas prices will fall as Bush poses and struts Gollum-like across public-appearance stages, microphone in hand, adjusting his good-ol-boy accent to suit the audience, sneering and hunch-backed like his surrogate father Unca' Dick, snickering and giggling one moment and wide-eyed with exasperation the next, uttering his constant catchphrase, "I know [current issue] is important. I understand that [current issue] is important. But..."

The bottom line: The oil-industry cronies who run this country are artificially raising prices to cause a distraction from the Bush administration's low approval ratings, and plan to improve those ratings by lowering prices after Bush makes a show of forcing them to play nice. He will make tough statements and seemingly heartfelt promises, the energy industry will lower their prices, and their man in the White House, bought and paid for, will be a hero again, smart and brave and crusading to save us all from our "addiction." The prices will go down, approval will go up, and all will return to the way it was. Just like they want. Dissent stifled. Mission accomplished.

In the world of addiction, it is the supplier, not the addict, who usually wins.

Oh, and as an added bonus for their trouble, Bush is taking the opportunity to remove environmental safety regulations! Happy birthday, oil companies!

Reminiscing Through Right Wing Claptrap

Rooting through some blog archives, I noted some ridiculous, but typical, statements by right wing bloggers I've dealt with:

"The best health care in the world is available for free in America to anyone who wants it."
This guy meant it, too. He honestly believed that free healthcare was already available to everyone in America. By the way, this guy has an MBA.

"A college education is available for free in America to anyone who wants it."
This guy meant it, too. The statement was so ludicrous that, at the time, I think I asked him what planet he was from.

"If someone can't find a job where they are, they should move to another city where there's work. I myself have given drifters bus fare out of town."
Wow, that's a Reagan-esque job strategy if there ever was one. As realistic as an old movie plot, and just as practical. Try showing up in a community for the first time, with no clothes, etc., but what you can carry, unwashed, with no place to live, no money, not even a place to go to the bathroom. Then, go look for a good job. According to the right, you'll be raking in the dough before you even feel hungry again.

"Poor people are poor by choice."
In the magical world of the "right", there is no such thing as natural disaster, catastrophic illness, automobile accidents, disease, cancer, crime, savings-and-loan scandals, Enron, birth defects... theirs is a perfect world where bad things never happen. No external forces exist that could impact your resources or income.

"Poor people are lazy."
Hop out of your SUV and bus some tables for a full shift, smartass.

"The world doesn't owe them a living."
Liberals never said it did. We only said that we have a responsibility to take care of each other. Sorry, righties, if that sounds too “nuanced” for your “don’t touch my stuff!” right-wing-greed-o-rama (the Christian version, of course). Notice we don’t whine like republicans even though blue-state liberals pay more in taxes, and red-state “conservatives” are the welfare-addicted entitlement junkies who keep suckin’ it down!. Get a job, right wing moochers!

"Nuance"
Maybe it's because republicans secretly envy the French, but they love the word "nuance". The use it derisively against leftists as an insult, not realizing that leftists are not offended by being described as seeing the big picture and acknowledging all the details. Besides, wing nuts nuance their asses off when it suits their agenda. Just ask one to explain how they never really said that Saddam Hussein and 9/11 were linked. It’s like a ballet.

"Liberals are anti-American/hate America/etc."
Except that this country was conceived and founded by liberals, who designed the nation to acknowledge the freedoms (liberties - y'know?) we all enjoy and which have been hijacked by the right as belonging to them alone. Conservatives can thank liberals for the great things about America that they claim to value.

There’s more out there, but you get the idea.

By the way, here's a great article with a lot of words for right-wing pundits to choke on.

If You Like "Office Space"...

...you'll need some of these.

Perversity on Parade

The "President" of the United States is visiting my general area of the country, and guess why? Among other things... To celebrate Earth Day!?!

I Urge Everyone to Read this Article

(click image for a great article)

50 Years of Screwing with the Middle East... or, Why They Hate Us.

Hint: It has nothing to do with the fact that they "hate our freedom."

Why We Fight

Fancy a movie?

Halliburton's War

Halliburton's War
"Instead of a comprehensive solution to the Persian Gulf crisis, we got what can only be called "Halliburton's War," the three-year descent into Hell, during which time, thousands of American GIs were killed or maimed, Iraq became engulfed in an ever-growing asymmetric warfare insurgency, and a parade of private military corporations (PMCs), led by Halliburton, raked in tens of billions in U.S. taxpayers' dollars and Iraqi Oil-for-Food funds, left over from the Saddam Hussein era. Pentagon and Congressional investigations have confirmed that the PMCs, particularly Halliburton, have engaged in crass war profiteering, with the latest Pentagon audit concluding that Halliburton's Kellog Brown and Root (KBR) subsidiary has systematically over-billed U.S. taxpayers by 25% on all of their Iraq logistics and reconstruction contracts, since the beginning of the Iraq imbroglio."

Like Last Night's Chili

Democrats won’t let DeLay go so quickly - nor should they, since Republicans, whose god is money, regarded Delay as their lord and personal savior. He's the anti-republicans' best asset.

A Belated "F**k Tax Day" (Udated)

Hey, remember that funny bit called "Fuck the South"? Well, I just discovered there's a several more "fuck the..." rants, including one called "Fuck Tax Day". There located here at Annotated Rant.

UDATE: The F Word

From the Old News, Late Post File: Why the Right Refuses to Effectively Address the Immigration Issue

Molly's "Immigration 101"

"...should you actually want to stop Mexicans and OTMs (other than Mexicans) from coming to the United States, here is how to do it... put the CEO of that corporation [that hires illegal immigrants] in prison for two or more years for violating the law against hiring illegal workers... You can also imprison the corporate official who actually hired the illegal and, just to make sure, put some Betty Sue Billups -- housewife, preferably one with blonde hair in a flip -- in the joint for a two-year stretch for hiring a Mexican gardener. Thus Americans are reminded that the law says it is illegal to hire illegal workers and that anyone who hires one is responsible for verifying whether or not his or her papers are in order. If you get fooled and one slips by you, too bad, you go to jail anyway. When there are no jobs for illegal workers, they do not come."

Enforce laws against corporate America? Blasphemy!

Our Fake Immigration Crisis

"When Wal-Mart was busted for hiring undocumented workers, did anybody boycott the company for it? Of course not; consumers value price and aren't concerned, for the most part, about how a company accomplishes cheapness. If, however, people do really care about keeping all jobs open to American citizens, then there is only one effective strategy: Level the playing field by enforcing labor laws."

Enforce laws against corporate America? Heresy!

Happy Oestre Redux

This is a reprint of tidbits from last year's easter post. I enjoyed that one so much, if I do say so myself, that I decided to bring some of it back! Happy Oestre, Pagans!

Easter Origins

Many religious historians believe that the death and resurrection legends were first associated with Attis, many centuries before the birth of Jesus. They were simply grafted onto stories of Jesus' life in order to make Christian theology more acceptable to Pagans. Others suggest that many of the events in Jesus' life that were recorded in the gospels were lifted from the life of Krishna, the second person of the Hindu Trinity.

More about Easter

In Norway, in addition to skiing in the mountains and painting eggs for decorating, it is tradition to solve murders at Easter. All the major television channels show crime and detective stories (such as Poirot), magazines print stories where the readers can try to figure out who did it, and many new books are published. Even the milk cartons change to have murder stories on their sides. Another tradition is Yahtzee games.

In the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia, a tradition of whipping is carried out on Easter Monday. In the morning, males whip females with a special handmade whip... [consisting] of eight, twelve or even twenty-four withies (willow rods) and is usually from half a meter to two meters long and decorated with coloured ribbons at the end. It must be mentioned that while whipping can be painful, the purpose is not to cause suffering. Rather, the purpose is for males to exhibit their attraction to females; unvisited females can even feel offended. The whipped female gives a coloured egg to the male as a sign of her thanks and forgiveness. A legend says that females should be whipped in order to keep their health and fertility during whole next year. In some regions the females can get revenge in the afternoon when they can pour a bucket of cold water on any male.

Easter's Pagan Origins

All things are made new in Spring ..... even old mythos! The absorption into Christianity of the old pagan myths and legends is only natural; we see it again and again, even in the pagan mythos... a new religion takes from the old such things as it can use to it's own profit. We can certainly see this in the Wiccan adoption of the (originally Christian and symbolizing the Five Wounds of Christ) pentagram!

Yeah, it's time to Spring Solstice, Fertility, Jesus, Rabbits, or whatever... even the celebration of the marketing of hideous crap.

A funny coincidence is that last year's easter post occurred during the Terry Schiavo situation, and included a bit about Tom Delay:

Republican point man Tom Delay, under investigation and heading for indictment, takes the opportunistic position that God has stricken this woman and her family with misfortune so that the world could see how difficult life is for him:

Speaking last Friday to a group of conservative Christians, DeLay proclaimed, "One thing that God has brought to us is Terri Schiavo, to help elevate the visibility of what is going on in America. ... This is exactly the issue that is going on in America, of attacks against the conservative movement, against me and against many others."

Poor Tom Delay. Poor "conservative" movement, whatever that is. They control all three branches of government in the world's last remaining superpower, along with puppet governments elsewhere, most of the planet's wealth and resources, but gosh darn it, the criticism really hurts their feelings! Oh, sob!

At the time, I figured Delay was paranoid. Turns out, he was just using the wrong turn of phrase. He wasn't being attacked... he was getting caught!

Thank God that, well, God, is on their side, and will inflict His wrath on anyone who says something bad about His chosen party. But wait - what about what these guys said:

"The United States is in no sense founded upon the Christian doctrine." - George Washington

"As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion ..." - Treaty of Tripoli, 1797

"Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa." - The U.S. Supreme Court, 1947

"The national government ... will offer strong protection to Christianity as the very basis of our collective morality.” - Adolf Hitler

So, happy easter, everyone... another ancient ritual celebrating the natural order of things. Seasons change. New life appears, and old things pass away. Amazing, isn't it?

Rule #1: DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS

Some of you know that I frequent Usenet newsgroups - those wonderful forums that preceded blogs in internet evolution. Now, those who frequent newsgroups are familiar with TROLLS, now known as Internet Trolls as they have spread from newsgroups to blogs (please read the description at the link, it explains the situation well).

One of the hallmark tactics of Internet Trolls is to place comments into a comment-thread that is designed with the sole intent of provoking an angry response from one or more legitimate commenters. Their comment may seem relatively on-topic, but it is not intended to contribute to the discussion in any meaningful way. The troll may or may not hold the opinion which they submit, they simply write things designed specifically to provoke and antagonize, and to distract from the subject of the discussion. In this way, they imagine that they have "taken control" of the thread, which gives them a sense of power. They also get a vicarious thrill from provoking other commenters until they make them angry, and when that anger is presented in writing, the troll gleefully taunts them. At that point, the troll has won, and they know it... and revel in it.

Why am I writing about this now? Because, unfortunately, my blog was recently infested by a troll. This individual has admitted that he deliberately makes antagonistic comments to me, for the sole purpose of aggravating and provoking me, while falsely portraying his attacks as legitimate comments. In other words, his sole intention has been to deliberately manipulate me for his own amusement, all the while pretending to be a commenter. His whole presentation was a lie, a cheap facade, and because I have always maintained a policy of never deleting anyone's comments, I was an easy mark. I fell for the ruse. I was the patsy. I received his comments in good faith, and in return, he got his jollies by manipulating me.

Now, in contrast, there exists another blogger for whom I have the utmost respect and admiration, that captain of common sense, Grandpa Eddie. He has a disclaimer on his fine blog that I admire enough to copy and use on mine. It reads as follows:

"Comments from all readers are welcome and appreciated. Open discussion is allowed, trolls are not. As I am the editor of this blog, I am the one who makes the decision on what may be posted in the comments section. Free speech is a wonderful thing, but comments from trolls will be removed...and I decide who a troll is here."

That is what is necessary, thanks to trolls like the one that infested my blog. To paraphrase Spiderman, with free speech comes great responsibility. From now on, when I see comments from that particular individual, they will be removed forthwith. I will not tolerate trolling, and I will not have my blog polluted by such repugnant vandalism. I will do what I can to rid the internet of trolls.

To my blogger friends, my stalwart companion Mike of the North, Sar (officially #47), Windspike, WhyNot & Dianne, Grandpa Eddie, Watch 'N Wait, Tina, Ken G, Via, Romablog, and whoever I've forgotten, you're always welcome here. I think you'll find it a little bit more pleasant environment.

Peace.

President Stupid

OMFG. This is a question that the President of the United States should be able to at least bullshit his way through. He can't even manage that. What a pathetic twit.

Right-Wing Radio Host Advocates Murdering Border Crossers

Right-Wing Radio Host Advocates Murdering Border Crossers

Right-wing radio host Brian James of KFYI in Arizona recently advocated murder as a way of dealing with undocumented immigrants

Okay, truthseekers, let me tell you about KFYI in Phoenix. I lived in Phoenix when KFYI first started in the 80's. I mean, from day 1. Talk radio was really taking off, and KFYI appeared as a struggling upstart.

It was quaint, in the beginning: they didn't have enough staff to run 24 hours, so they would run old vintage radio serials to fill up time during the wee hours. It was great, to follow them as they grew. I felt like they were really my talk station. Gradually, they acquired talent, and soon they were (probably) the only talk station in existence that offered a balanced talk format. They had both conservative and liberal talk hosts at different times of the day, and the formula worked well.

This was during the days of Governor Evam Mecham (remember, Arizonans?). He was a psycho local car-dealer and political repeat offender with a toupee that looked like it was ripped from the exhumed corpse of Moe Howard. Governor Mecham was infamous for repealing the Martin Luther King/Civil Rights holiday, referring to black children as "pickaninnies", and a host of other things, including claiming that his political enemies were spying on him by beaming microwaves through his office window on an upper floor of the state capitol. Oh, did I forget to mention that he was a Christian-Conservative-Republican? Or was that already implied when I described him as a "psycho"?

This was also during the time that Arizona senator John McCain ran for office. His platform, and every speech he gave, and every speech that was given in reference to him, and every call to KFYI, consisted of one message: he was a P.O.W. Did you know he was a P.O.W.? He was a P.O.W. I mean, A P.O.W., he was. The thing about McCain was, he was a P.O.W. McCain, you know? A P.O.W. Everyone who called to claim they were voting for him, did so for that reason only, and none other. Of course, he later was found to be in the pocket of savings-and-loan-scandal-crook-liar-hypocrite-thief Charles Keating, who ruined countless lives through his savings and loan debacle, but also founded (I think) an organization called "Morality in Media" to dictate morality to the rest of us. By the way, McCain was a P.O.W.

So anyway, after a couple of years, things changed at KFYI. Right-wing hate speech from opiate-addict and pathological liar Rush Limbaugh, and others, began to dominate the airwaves. Liberal and progressive talk hosts were marginalized and moved on. Within a very short time, the KFYI became a right-wing talk station, and even carried Limbaugh & Laura Schlessinger. Progressive talk left the Phoenix area and would not return until Air America appeared years later. I left, too.

Apparently, things have not improved at KFYI. And the sad thing is, when we read a headline like the one above, it's no longer shocking. It's just typical. Typical right-wing commentary: mass murder, conservative America says, is the solution to every problem. No thought required, just kill everyone until the only ones left are those who agree with the right. That's their plan. The right claims the left has no plan, but the truth is, we do. It is to try to solve our problems without killing everyone. The right only considers a plan to be a plan if it involves the death of a lot of people. Typical.

By the way, that Bryan James guy should take a stroll through a few neighborhoods I can think of in Phoenix and describe his solution to the immigration issue to the residents there. He might be surprised to learn how interested they would be to discuss his ideas one-on-one.

Neocon Ideals Begin to Come to Fruition

According to this report, U.S. steps up war plans for Iran. An even more frightening article reports Bush Planning Massive Bombing Campaign Against Iran, Including Nukes. Lovely. The Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Rice-Etc Neocon death machine is one step closer to acheiving their goal of turning America into something worse than the old Soviet Union could ever hope to be. Conservatives, rejoice. You're well on the way to realizing your longed-for armageddon.

The Bush administration doesn't even bother to present their plans for global domination in a package that give the slightest recognition of the values America is supposed to stand for. Values trotted out the the neocons for election speeches only, but regarded by them as quaint platitudes to pacify the rabble who so inconvenience them by merely existing (that's us, by the way).

No, they want to make yet another unprovoked nuclear first strike against a country and engage in yet another deliberate war of what George Bush Sr. called "naked aggression" (when the same thing was done by his old pal Saddam Hussein). Here are a couple of reasons:

"...to pressure Tehran to abandon its alleged nuclear development program"

Even though WE have been using nuclear weapons against Iraqis and Afghans and god knows who else (article, video), all along. Naked agression combined with naked hypocrisy - that's what a "conservative values" foreign policy is all about.

"The threat from Iran is, of course, their stated objective to destroy our strong ally, Israel," Bush said. "That's a threat, a serious threat... I'll make it clear again that we will use military might to protect our ally Israel."

You know what? I know this sounds politically incorrect, but screw Israel. They have their own fucking badass war machine and they can take care of themselves. They're a nation that lives by the sword if there ever was one. Israel and its enemies are two sides of the same coin, and that coin purchases death and destruction on a grand scale. It's amazing that they all haven't blown each other to smithereens long ago. The Bush regime's plan to bring peace to the region? Turn the place into a nuclear wasteland.

"Bush has also been privately consulting with key senators about options on Iran as part of a broader goal of regime change..."

Oh, that old chestnut again. If there's one thing American impiral global expansionism loves and cherishes, it is smashing other countries and replaceing their governments with puppet regimes. We have a long, sick, shameful history of doing that, and the neocons even managed to do it right here at home.

In a weird twist, the Joint Chiefs [are] Opposed to Iran Nuke Attack, [even though] Members of Congress [are] Gung-Ho.

"'There’s no pressure from Congress' not to take military action"

Which is one more bit of proof that congress is stuffed with worthless punks who have no regard for human life. Yet interestingly,

"Joint Chiefs of Staff — a panel of the highest-ranking military officials from each branch of the U.S. armed services — are strenuously opposed to the plan, so much so that some have threatened to resign if it goes forward"

Which is further proof that the neocons are so utterly disconnected from reality and from this nation and its people that they are willing to destroy the earth if they can't posess it completely. And there's no stopping them. Is there?

Organized Crime

According to a usenet post, a gang that frequently appears in the news nationwide, is guilty of the following:

36 have been accused of spousal abuse.
7 have been arrested for fraud.
19 have been accused of writing bad checks.
117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses.
3 have done time for assault.
71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit.
14 have been arrested on drug-related charges.
8 have been arrested for shoplifting.
21 currently are defendants in lawsuits.
84 have been arrested for drunk driving in the last year.

Who are they? This criminal gang is known as...

see comments

Republican Family Values x 3

Homeland Security Official Arrested

"The deputy press secretary for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was arrested Tuesday for using the Internet to seduce what he thought was a teenage girl... [he] had a sexually explicit conversation with what he believed was a 14-year-old girl whose profile he saw on the internet... The girl was an undercover Polk County Sheriff's Computer Crimes detective... Doyle sent the girl pornographic movie clips and had sexually explicit conversations via the Internet... [he] revealed his name, that he worked for the Homeland Security Department and offered his office and government issued cell phone numbers."

Republicans: the party of national security and traditional American values.

Wait! There's another one!

a senior Homeland Security Department law enforcement agent was busted last October for exposing himself to a girl in the food court of a mall... that law enforcement agent, Frank Figueroa, used to run Operation Predator.

They put him in charge of catching child molesters!

But wait! There's another one!

Michael Burks: My father was a police officer. I was a police officer. I work for the Department of Homeland security. I understand you guys have a job to do and I’m not trying to tell anything else other than that. I swear to God, as God as my witness, I’m wearing a St. Michael’s medal right now, okay? I was not going to do anything with her.

I watched that one on television, on Nightline!

AAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH! REPUKES! GEORGE BUSH AND HIS SICK REPUBLICAN PERVERTS WANT TO HAND OVER YOUR NATIONAL SECURITY TO CHILD MOLESTERS! WHERE WILL IT STOP!?

News From The Front

Dig what Windspike has to say in his post from Educational Whisper: Good News For Critics Of The Iraq War. Dig what soldiers have to say about the war in Iraq.

More Insidious Fundamentalist Brain Snatching Attempts

So, Georgia has approved the use of The Bible as a classroom textbook.

Since I am a blogger who often states my opposition to religious fundamentalists’ attempts to subvert and consume secular societies’ freedoms, my regular readers (vast crowd that they are) might expect that I would condemn this action as contrary to the separation of church and state. Well, maybe so, maybe not. Depending on the context, I have no initial problem with it. Schools must be free to include relevant material in the curriculum, even if it is politically “objectionable” to some. Christianity’s influence makes it a necessary part of studies in philosophy, history, and social science. The objective examination of the Bible can contribute to students’ education in those disciplines.

However, if a public school tries to proselytize any religion, be it Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Shamanism, or whatever, then that would be a violation of the 1st amendment. Private religious schools can design curricula around their religious beliefs, and church bible-study classes exist for that purpose. But public schools are funded by tax dollars from people who are many things besides Christian. That’s why we who support the American constitution are so enthusiastically opposed to Christian fundamentalists’ constant, insidious attempts to sneak their religion into our classrooms.

So that leaves us with the question: What classes do they want to use the Bible as a textbook?

"The bill creates two courses, the History and Literature of the Old Testament Era and the History and Literature of the New Testament Era, that can be offered as electives… it requires that the Bible itself, not a textbook, be the core material used."

Judging by their titles, these courses’ objectivity is arguable. To me, they sound entirely religious in nature and appear to fail the public-school litmus test. To define the periods they examine as the “new testament era” and the “old testament era” is to define them entirely in biblical terms. Honestly, would one expect these classes to include a review of all the history and literature of those “eras”? From all over the world? From China? From the Americas? Rome? Greece? Egypt? Mesopotamia? Doubtful. More likely, the only “history” explored in the classes will be “history” as taken from the Bible, which is not history at all, and the only “literature” will be the bible itself. At least they got the literature part right.

It’s obvious that these two classes are another thinly-veiled attempt to use (non-Christian) taxpayers’ money to proselytize fundamentalists’ literal interpretation of the Bible. And that’s too bad, because they had a golden opportunity to show how their religious texts could be used for real education in a relevant way, and instead they’re just finding more ways to legislate their religious dogma through deceptive word-play. A pity, but at least they’re consistent.