The Seventh Sense

Doom Meets Jesus

I thought social conservatives were against violence in video games.  Guess not. 

Welcome to the video game version of the famous Left Behind series, where young rapture wannabes get to convert or kill heathens from the computer desk.  This is a direct bllurb from the game's website:

Imagine: you are a foot soldier in a paramilitary group whose purpose is to remake America as a Christian theocracy, and establish its worldly vision of the dominion of Christ over all aspects of life. You are issued high-tech military weaponry, and instructed to engage the infidel on the streets of New York City. You are on a mission - both a religious mission and a military mission -- to convert or kill Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, gays, and anyone who advocates the separation of church and state - especially moderate, mainstream Christians. Your mission is "to conduct physical and spiritual warfare"; all who resist must be taken out with extreme prejudice. You have never felt so powerful, so driven by a purpose: you are 13 years old. You are playing a real-time strategy video game whose creators are linked to the empire of mega-church pastor Rick Warren, best selling author of The Purpose Driven Life.

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This game immerses children in present-day New York City -- 500 square blocks, stretching from Wall Street to Chinatown, Greenwich Village, the United Nations headquarters, and Harlem. The game rewards children for how effectively they role play the killing of those who resist becoming a born again Christian. The game also offers players the opportunity to switch sides and fight for the army of the AntiChrist, releasing cloven-hoofed demons who feast on conservative Christians and their panicked proselytes (who taste a lot like Christian).

Is this paramilitary mission simulator for children anything other than prejudice and bigotry using religion as an organizing tool to get people in a violent frame of mind? The dialogue includes people saying, "Praise the Lord," as they blow infidels away.

Not all Christian conservatives are climbing aboard the Left Behind bandwagon/bloodfest:

Not surprisingly, Left Behind Games' attempt to make Christianity accessible to youngsters through the use of lethal firepower has its critics. Thompson, for instance, said he severed ties with Tyndale House in a dispute over "Eternal Forces."

"It's absurd," the video game critic said. "You can be the Christians blowing away the infidels, and if that doesn't hit your hot button, you can be the Antichrist blowing away all the Christians."

But for those who think Christianity is all about killing people, this is the game for you.  My favorite part?  The subtle fear-mongering homage to September 11:

All of the ambulances have 911 painted on their roofs. In the reality-based world, most ambulances have a red cross on top. Yet the game designers make prominent use of these 911 ambulances to evoke the tragic events of September 11, 2001. The historical context of 911 is invoked as if to say, We are living in the End Times, and Muslims are among the kinds of infidels whom you should fear, whom you should be prepared to kill for your cause.

Happy gaming!

"Though we walk in flesh, we do not make war in accordance with the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly." (2 Corinthians 10:3-4a).

UPDATE:  Andrew Sullivan reports that the nemesis in the Left Behind game is an Anti-Christ figure named Nicole Carpethia, a Romanian who, after the Rapture, becomes head of the United Nations.  (No, I'm not making this up).  He is conceived through the genetic material of one women and two gay men.  So Satan literally is the spawn of gay people.

These people are simply evil haters, pure and simple.

The Religious Right And The Environment

Where does the religious right stand on environmental issues?  The answer may surprise you.

Rick Cizik is an ordained minister of the Evangelical Presbyterian church.  More importantly, he's the vice-president of the National Association of Evangelicals, an umbrella organizations for all the smaller evangelical organizations trying to do away with stem cell research, abortions, etc.  Cizik is just about as "right" as they come on those issues.

But Cizik is concerned about the environment.  His concerns stem from a spiritual belief that God entrusted man to be stewards of this planet, and we're failing miserably at the task.

But the religious right is giving him hell for it:

The movement's political leadership, however, sees the [environment] issue as a distraction from its main tactical priorities: getting more conservatives on the supreme court, banning gay marriages and overturning Roe v Wade, the 1973 abortion ruling.

"It is supposed to be counterproductive even to consider this. I guess they do not want to part company with the president. This is nothing more than political assassination. I may lose my job. Twenty-five church leaders asked me not to take a political position on this issue but I am a fighter," he said.

No doubt Jerry "global warming is a myth" Falwell has weighed in on this, too.   Wanker.

So where does the religious right stand on the environment?  Well, subject to exceptions like Cizik, they care about the unborn and not-yet-living.  As to the planet that the living live on, they couldn't give a damn.

Gay Bashers Going Off The Deep End

His Unholy Shrillness, James Dobson:

Cos as you all very well know marriage is under vicious attack, now I think from the forces of hell itself. Now it’s either going to continue to decline, and as I told you in my office a few minutes ago, I believe with that destruction of marriage will come the decline of western civilization itself.

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We’re really in a crisis point, right now, right now… Where the family is either going to survive or it’s going to fall apart and it will happen in the next few years.

Speaking of shrill gay-bashers, our local Congressman Vernon Robinson is in an election against Democrat Brad Miller.  Vernon, for those who don't know, has a history of insuating that his political opponents are gay.  He's run an infamous ad on the radio that said “If Miller had his way…America would be nothing but one big fiesta for illegal aliens and homosexuals.”  Now he's making gay insinuations about Miller:

…Soon after winning the GOP primary in the 13th District in May, Robinson mailed literature to more than 400,000 households portraying Miller’s voting record and personal life as being out of the mainstream.

Among many other things, the literature calls Miller a “childless, middle-aged personal injury lawyer.”

There's a reason why Miller is "childless":

“I think that should not be part of what you agree to take on if you want to be involved in politics — that kind of personal attack without any basis,” Miller said.

Miller said his wife of nearly 25 years, Esther Hall, could not bear children because she had endometriosis and then a hysterectomy at age 27 before the couple were married.

What WMD Would Jesus Use?

Apparently, some sort of biochemical weapon.

It looks like some Christian fundamentalists are using homemade weapons of mass destruction to terrorize porn stores.  But don't take my word for it:

WALDO, FL -- Evidence teams plan to put on protective gear and seal the room as they search for any clues left behind on a contraption that investigators are calling a "weapon of mass destruction."

Technicians will be looking for fingerprints and any other evidence that may have been left on the device, which was pumping a mix of water and a caustic chemical into a sex shop when neighbors found it Sunday morning, detectives said.

The evidence crew will be breathing the air inside the room, but won't have any unprotected contact with the plastic jugs, duct tape, and hoses that make up the device.

In Waldo, people have held prayer vigils and protests aimed at an adult bookstore along US 301, trying to keep the "Cafe Risque" from opening its doors on time.

Those efforts have all failed, so investigators say it looks like someone has turned to what they're calling a clear act of terrorism to keep the store's owner from opening up shop.

The device, discovered Sunday morning, was made of two gallon-size sports drink jugs connected by hoses. Someone set it on top of the store's window air conditioning unit.

Detectives say that person then strung one hose from a water spigot on the outside of the building, and pushed another hose into the building through a gap above the air conditioner.

Question: What's the difference between a radical Christian fundamentalist and a radical Islamic fundamentalist?

Answer:  Nothing.  Nothing at all.

John Gibson Takes A Stand

Way to go out on a limb there, John.

[H/T: Think Progress]

Last Throes = One Year (At Least)

Dick Cheney:

"I think we may well have some kind of presence there over a period of time. But I think the level of activity that we see today, from a military standpoint, I think will clearly decline. I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency." — Dick Cheney, May 30, 2005

Conservative Songs, Part II

The same idiot who came up with the list of the 50 best conservative songs . . . has come up with 50 more best conservative songs.  This list is even stupider than the first.  It contains (a) songs that nobody heard of; (b) songs that clearly have no political content in it whatsover (e.g., "Yackety Yak"), and (c) songs that are clearly liberal.

I mean, come on.  The Byrd's "Turn, Turn, Turn" -- written by Pete Seeger -- is a conservative song?  Well, to John Miller it is.  And why?  Because its lyrics "are taken from Ecclesiastes".  See if you can figure that one out.  As if biblical and liberal can't possibly occupy the same space?  What a doofus.

Corrupt Democrats

Ever since the Abramoff scandal rained crap on many GOPers, the Republican establishment and their colleagues in the press have been looking for the equivalent level of corruption in Democrats.  They think they've found it.

The headline reads "Reid Accepted Free Boxing Tickets While a Related Bill Was Pending":

Senate Democratic Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) accepted free ringside tickets from the Nevada Athletic Commission to three professional boxing matches while that state agency was trying to influence him on federal regulation of boxing.

Reid took the free seats for Las Vegas fights between 2003 and 2005 as he was pressing legislation to increase government oversight of the sport, including the creation of a federal boxing commission that Nevada's agency feared might usurp its authority.

Except it's not that bad.  TPM Muckraker explains that "there is an exception for gifts from governmental agencies (like the Nevada Athletic Commission) in the Senate ethics rules. So there is nothing untoward about Reid having accepted the free tickets."

Moreover, Reid voted against the legislation for which the Commission was seeking his support.

Now, to be sure, this has the appearance of impropriety, and perhaps Reid should have been smarter.  (There's no doubt he would not do this in a post-Abramoff world).  But it's hardly comparable.

Impatient Americans

If you're like me, you might read this article and think "Yeah?  So?".  It's absolutely true:

An Associated Press poll has found an impatient nation. It's a nation that gets antsy after five minutes on hold on the phone and 15 minutes max in a line. So say people in the survey.

The Department of Motor Vehicles, the U.S. version of the old Soviet bread line, is among the top spots where Americans hate to wait. But grocery stores are the worst.

Almost one in four in the AP-Ipsos poll picked the grocery checkout as the line where their patience is most likely to melt like the ice cream turning to goo in their cart.

And it seems people don't mellow with age. The survey found older people to be more impatient than younger people.

Nor does getting away from the urban pressure cooker make much difference. People in the country and the suburbs can bear a few more minutes in a line before losing it than city inhabitants can, but that's it.

In short, Americans want it all NOW. Or awfully close to now.

Fake News

It's a sad commentary on the state of the media when they broadcast news segments produced by the government and major companies:

Federal authorities are actively investigating dozens of American television stations for broadcasting items produced by the Bush administration and major corporations, and passing them off as normal news. Some of the fake news segments talked up success in the war in Iraq, or promoted the companies' products.

Investigators from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) are seeking information about stations across the country after a report produced by a campaign group detailed the extraordinary extent of the use of such items.

The report, by the non-profit group Centre for Media and Democracy, found that over a 10-month period at least 77 television stations were making use of the faux news broadcasts, known as Video News Releases (VNRs). Not one told viewers who had produced the items.

"We know we only had partial access to these VNRs and yet we found 77 stations using them," said Diana Farsetta, one of the group's researchers. "I would say it's pretty extraordinary. The picture we found was much worse than we expected going into the investigation in terms of just how widely these get played and how frequently these pre-packaged segments are put on the air."

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The range of VNR is wide. Among items provided by the Bush administration to news stations was one in which an Iraqi-American in Kansas City was seen saying "Thank you Bush. Thank you USA" in response to the 2003 fall of Baghdad. The footage was actually produced by the State Department, one of 20 federal agencies that have produced and distributed such items.