entirely safe and fun

Venal US Representative Tom DeLay has announced he will leave congress and not seek re-election.

One down, just a few hundred to go. In other good news, nasty thug Michael Oxley (of SarbOx fame) will not be seeking re-election either. Crypto-fascist Paul Sarbanes also announced his retirement. But nauseating traitor John McCain is barnacled to his seat through 2010, although if he is elected President in ‘08 he might be successfully impeached by a Democratic Senate and removed from office ahead of schedule… his co-conspirator Russ Feingold is likewise secure in office until 2010.

What is depressing is that I could go on like this for about three hundred more names. I’ll just stop. Remember: Vote Freshman! No non-incumbent voted for Constitution-betraying legislation like USA “PATRIOT,” SarbOx, or McCain-Feingold, to pick three easy ones. I get the special opportunity to be voting for anyone but nanny-state-builder Feinstein – who do you get to kick out of the Senate this year?

Following up on my earlier post… I saw today, on Plastic, a quicklink to coverage of venal US Representative Tom DeLay’s speech to the membership of a group called “Vision America”. He claims there’s a war against Christianity in the United States.

I thought that was very funny.

Even funnier, from organizer Rick Scarborough: “This is a man, I believe, God has appointed … to represent righteousness in government.”

Hee!

And the man himself, DeLay: “Our faith has always been in direct conflict with the values of the world.” Nowhere on his Congressional homepage is his talent as a medium discussed, but he seemed to be possessed by Nietzsche for just a second there. If he had only meant it that way, maybe there would have been hope… Scarborough’s congregants saw fit to suffer a witch to live, though, and he got better, delivering the sort of platitudes and tautologies they presumably paid him to hear (”…Jesus Christ himself made us just so that we could live in this nation at this time.”).

At least DeLay’s former colleague James Traficant had an entertaining hairpiece. For a while there, DeLay somehow was managing to be crooked without being interesting, but his recent foray into ensemble comedy is somewhat promising.

Yet another study reveals that Americans distrust atheists more than traditionally discriminated-against groups such as gays and Muslims (discussion of a previous study with somewhat different focus on plastic.com). Said study shows that “…acceptance or rejection of atheists is related not only to personal religiosity, but also to one’s exposure to diversity, education and political orientation—with more educated, East and West Coast Americans more accepting of atheists than their Midwestern counterparts.” The full study will be published in the April number of the American Sociological Review. Among its revelations:

• Midwesterners would prefer, if they were gay, not that they are, to become involved with Christian rather than atheist homosexuals, if there were any around, and would like to know if the investigators know anyone who’s looking, not that they’d want to be introduced or anything.
• Respondents with less than six years of formal education would prefer shiny Muslims to unpolished atheists, and some of them already have collected several bright, reflective Muslims and Jews to adorn their nests.
• 62% of Muslim respondents who preferred a Christian to an atheist politician of otherwise equivalent background consider Christianity a “wicked and primitive superstition.”
• Although atheists were generally rated as “untrustworthy,” those with larger trucks were rated less unfavorably than those with smaller trucks. On an item asking about suitability for careers in teaching, atheists owning vehicles with more than two feet of clearance scored almost as high as believers who drive Escorts.
• On most favorability scales, atheists were rated slightly above atheist lawyers.

You know, Mr. Newsom, you’re a lot better at this than those stiffs on the Mountain View council! They’re as boring as their web page. All right, ready? I’ll start the clock.

OK, you’re studying documents. You’re… studious? Concentrating? Oh, but you’re flirting with Kim, I see… you’re flirting? No, too serious. Maybe you’re pensive? Yeah! That was great! You were so pensive. OK, what’s my word?

No way. Mayor Newsom gets an easy one, and I get “posed” for my turn? I’m drawing again.