Here we go again,  We’re getting another three to four days of surprise heat wave with temperatures in the 90°s and 100° starting tomorrow.  Today will be high 80°s.  I am so sick of this heat, I could scream.  Thank goodness I moved in 12/2013.  Otherwise, it would have killed me.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:29 (average 5:22).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos (classic 3/2010): Dear Dr. Laura:

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God’s Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination… end of debate.

I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other elements of God’s Laws and how to follow them.

1. Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighbouring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can’t I own Canadians?”
2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her
3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual unseemliness – Lev. 15: 19-24. The problem is how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offence
4. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord – Lev. 1:9. The problem is my neighbours. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?
5. I have a neighbour who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2. clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should I ask the police to do it?

It’s and oldie, but it’s worth the rerun. Click through for the rest. Dr. Kauffman’s friend is wrong. Owning a Canadian is our God-given right!!

From NY Times: THE prime minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, has called an election for Oct. 19, but he doesn’t want anyone to talk about it.

He has chosen not to participate in the traditional series of debates on national television, confronting his opponents in quieter, less public venues, like the scholarly Munk Debates and CPAC, Canada’s equivalent of CSPAN. His own campaign events were subject to gag orders until a public outcry forced him to rescind the forced silence of his supporters.

Mr. Harper’s campaign for re-election has so far been utterly consistent with the personality trait that has defined his tenure as prime minister: his peculiar hatred for sharing information.

Americans have traditionally looked to Canada as a liberal haven, with gun control, universal health care and good public education.

But the nine and half years of Mr. Harper’s tenure have seen the slow-motion erosion of that reputation for open, responsible government. His stance has been a know-nothing conservatism, applied broadly and effectively. He has consistently limited the capacity of the public to understand what its government is doing, cloaking himself and his Conservative Party in an entitled secrecy, and the country in ignorance.

Click through for the remainder of this excellent editorial. The author, Stephen Marche, has Stephen "The Whoremaster" Harper (R-Canada), Fuhrer of Harpers Harlots, pegged.

From Raw Story: A liberal guest shouted down former George W. Bush spokesperson Mercedes Schlapp on Sunday after she tried to claim that Jeb Bush would not have trouble defending the Iraq war because Democrats voted for it knowing the intelligence was faulty.

During a discussion on Fox & Friends, Accountability Project Executive Director Nomiki Konst said that Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush was trying to “reinvent history” of the Iraq war.

Faux Noise Bag Alert!!

Note how the Faux Noise décolletage blonde kept interrupting the Democrat every time she started to make a fool of the Republican liar.

Cartoon:

It appears that the worst of the heat wave is ending for now, with 86° forecast today followed by three days in the low 80°s.  Of course it will take a couple days for this building to shed the accumulated heat.  This week I have a lot of cleaning and organizing to do.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Either the site has technical issues, or there;s something wrong with my system, because all my attempts to go there have loaded a blank page.  To try it yourself, click here.  Please let us know if you get through.

Short Takes:

From YouTube: Racist Commercials [suitable for Republican racism]

These ads come from the British film Confederate States of America, but accurately reflect the state of racial equity we could expect if Republicans are successful in achieving their goal of establishing a permanent Republican Reich.

From NY Times: Despite the repeated horror of mass shootings in churches, movie theaters and schoolrooms, the Republican candidates running for president are remarkably quiet about how they would deal with this most pressing public health challenge.

“We define gun control real simple — that’s hitting what you aim at,” Senator Ted Cruz of Texas told a political gathering in New Hampshire earlier this year, typifying the level of pandering by the Republican field to the gun lobby.

In contrast, Hillary Rodham Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination, is taking up the gun control issue once more, 15 years after the defeat of Al Gore left her party leaders swearing off the subject as a losing cause. “We have to take on the gun lobby,” Mrs. Clinton told a New Hampshire crowd last month. “This is a controversial issue. I am well aware of that. But I think it is the height of irresponsibility not to talk about it.”

Tell that to the Republican candidates staunchly opposed to gun safety laws, like limits on ammunition used in the rapid-fire, battlefield-type weapons favored by mass shooters and a ban on unregistered weapon sales by dealers at gun shows. Mass shootings involving three or more murder victims have been on the rise in recent years, according to federal data, while gun production has more than doubled since 2008.

Republicans won’t admit it, but they really want the mass shootings to continue. They generate lots of fear, and keep NRA money flowing into the their campaign chests in return for their support of Ammosexual criminal gun rights.

From Alternet: As an unprecedented shift in public opinion brought about the legalization of gay marriage, a vigorous counter-current has been intensifying under the banner of “religious freedom”—an incredibly slippery term.

Perhaps the most radical definition of such freedom comes out of the relatively obscure tradition of Christian Reconstructionism, the subject of a new book by religious studies scholar Julie Ingersoll, Building God’s Kingdom: Inside the World of Christian Reconstructionism.  As Ingersoll explains, Reconstructionists basically reject the entire framework of secular political thought in which individual rights have meaning, so “freedom” as most Americans understand the term is not the issue at all. Indeed, they argue that such “freedom” is actually slavery—slavery to sin, that is.

Reconstructionists aim to establish a theocracy, though most would no doubt bristle at that description. They do not want to “take over the government” so much as they want to dismantle it. But the end result would be a social order based on biblical law—including all those Old Testament goodies like stoning gay people to death, while at the same time justifying “biblical slavery.”  These extreme views are accurate, Ingersoll explained, but at the same time quite misleading in suggesting that Reconstructionism is a fringe movement with little influence on the culture.

I agree with the author. The rabid Republican base goose steps almost entirely behind Reconstructionist Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christians (the exact opposite of authentic Christians).

Cartoon:

Cousin Pole Cat knows just how to spray them!