The Wonderful World of Magical Thinking XXXIV

27 11 2007

The week in fundie . . .

  1. The Opus Dei wing of the Liberal Party is being blamed by moderates for the fall of the Howard Government. (While they’re at it, they might also throw some blame at Howard himself for backing Silas in Mitchell.) (Sydney Morning Herald)
  2. The Australian Christian bookstore chain Koorong (along with other Christian book retailers) has indicated that it will be unlikely to stock a new Bible study guide challenging the notion that the Bible excludes same-sex relationships. (The Age)
  3. A British primary school teacher in the Sudan faces a maximum of 40 lashes, six months in jail and a fine for the dastardly crime of “allegedly insulting Islam’s prophet by allowing children to call a teddy bear Mohammed.” You have got to be fucking kidding me. (AFP; see also Pharyngula)
  4. I’ll let this grab from a Cutting Edge radio transcript speak for itself:
    The demons of Satan’s army will soon physically manifest themselves as Aliens, arriving in armadas of space ships which we have heretofore called UFO’s. The plan calls for them to suddenly appear at many places on Earth simultaneously. Some will appear at the White House to confer with the President; some will appear at the United Nations; other aliens will appear at key governmental buildings all over the globe. Aliens will appear in some people’s homes or on their front yards. The world’s peoples will literally be shocked out of their minds. This is the Plan. This may occur before the worldwide Rapture of the Church; we must be prepared to deal wisely with this planned phenomenon.

    (Via Fundies Say the Darndest Things)

  5. “Nice soul you have here. Awful shame if something were to happen to it.” More standover tactics by Catholic clergy (obviously from the Pell wing) in the US. (The story comes via Fundies Say the Darndest Things. The mobster reference should be credited to Denis Loubet of the Non-Prophets)
  6. I just had a look at the Australian Christian Lobby’s list of what it considers are the strengths and weaknesses of the Australian Greens’ policies. Among the “weaknesses” the Lobby identifies are the Greens’ support for a Bill of Rights, and their support for the extension of anti-discrimination legislation to (partially-taxpayer-funded) private schools as well as public schools–a reminder, if any were required, of how the ACL and the Religious Right in Australia generally are no friends of liberal democracy.

UPDATE: Off-topic, but Phillip Adams really sums up why Labor’s victory is so sweet.

Humor via Atheist Media:


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Categories : 2007 election, alex hawke, ALP, Atheism, australian christian lobby, catholicism, homophobia, Islamofascism, Magical Thinking, theocracy, wingnuts

Just when you thought the Liberal Party couldn’t be any more unelectable . . .

26 11 2007

The Opus Dei wing of the party has won a seat in Federal Parliament.

The electorate of Mitchell lies smack-bang in the middle of Jesusland (a.k.a. the Hills district of north-western Sydney) and is thus safe Liberal territory*. In 2006, Alex Hawke–who believes moderate Liberals should instead join the Greens–branch-stacked and bully-boyed his way into the Liberal candidacy. In what might someday come to be known as the “Hawke-Clarke hijack,” Hawke and David “The Teacher” Clarke have extended the influence of the uber-Christian Right over the Liberal Party in NSW and the Young Liberals nationally.

And I say more power to them. The more lunar and extremist the Liberals appear, the further they will fade into the electoral wilderness where they belong.

(P.S. Super Simmo has returned to the blogosphere!)

(*Admittedly, there was a 9.6% swing to the ALP in Mitchell.)


More YouTube gold from Swannysback:


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Categories : 2007 election, alex hawke, David Clarke, federal election 2007, liberal party, theocracy, theofascism, wingnuts, young liberals

The Wonderful World of Magical Thinking XX

17 06 2007


The week in fundie:

  1. The Hawke-Clarke hijack. Alex Hawke, former leader of the Young Liberals (and, thanks to him, now dominated by its bovver-boy wing) and acolyte of ultraconservative NSW Liberal State MP David Clarke, has never made secret his long-term goal of shifting the Liberal Party to the Christian right; as far as he’s concerned, party members who don’t share his extremist ideology “can choose the Greens, Labor or the Democrats.” Now Hawke, who opposes abortion and wants the age of consent raised for homosexuals–he considers it “a child protection issue to stop gay men preying on the young”–could well have achieved a major milestone on his agenda by securing preselection in Mitchell, one of the safest seats in the country, amid accusations by moderate Liberals of branch-stacking. (For more on what may one day come to be known as the Hawke-Clarke hijack of the Liberal Party, see this Monthly article and this Four Corners transcript.) (SMH)

  2. Speaking of faith-based haters, Iran’s government has condemned the awarding of a knighthood to author Salman Rushdie, a citizen of the UK which is not AFAIK an Islamic theocracy. According to a spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, since Rushdie is an “apostate” and “one of the most hated figures in Islamic society,” the knighthood constitutes an attack on Islam. What a maroon! (ABC News Online)
  3. In Jerusalem, an Orthodox Jewish court has placed a curse on participants in Jerusalem’s gay pride parade. (Dispatches from the Culture Wars)
  4. In Australia, the fundies branch stack; in the US, they state-stack. (Via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)
  5. The Pentagon has admitted it once tried to build a “Gay Bomb.” You know, a bomb that would infect the enemy with TEH GAY and make them want to stop fighting and start having teh gay anal sex. Yes, I’m serious. (Dispatches from the Culture Wars)
  6. Seventh Day Adventist splitters World’s Last Chance believe they have identified the “First Beast of Revelation” (and I could almost believe it after the Mitchell preselection ;) ):


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Categories : abortion, alex hawke, catholicism, Christofascism, David Clarke, fundies, homophobia, liberal party, theocracy, theofascism, wingnuts, young liberals, YouTube


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