Occupy Chicago. Birth of a True Grassroots Revolution.

Are true grassroots movements possible? The beautiful people of OccupyChi.org are trying to find out.

I spent the morning and early afternoon at the corner of LaSalle and Jackson with Occupy Chicago. About 40 members were there. Mainly I observed them. They engaged in some Direct Democracy via deciding to abide by the City Ordinance regarding storage of personal property on public sidewalks (This seemed to be an effort by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago to hamper them) and kept vigil during the awful rain which is on a 4 day run, albeit with scattered clear skies, across the Chicagoland area.

I did speak with a few members, mainly the young man who, due to his interactions with CPD on the previous night, became the Police Liasion for the OccupyChi group.

I imparted some Grungy advice regarding interactions with the Police. The main thought I tried to get through to him was that it wasn't a compromise to their principles to abide by directions from the Police. It would be detrimental to give some Right Wing Chicago version of Lieutenant Bologna the ability to crack down on them by violating something trivial. I mentioned that they did have natural allies amongst the Police and commented on the early morning quote tweet from the unidetified Cop, "When I get home, I take these clothes off. I'm you guys."

Many Cops know, the Police are expected by the 1% to act as Guardians of the Elites.

We spoke about how they could expect no lovingly tender corporate media reach around (proven by the scorn and derision from the crass Ginia Bellafante of the New York Times), no coverage from Faux News (let alone the sponsorship, participation, active support Faux provided the Tea Party) and no millions in funding from Dick Armey or the Koch Brothers.

They have high hopes for their protest and are proud to be the second longest running protest of the nascent Occupy Wall Street. I told some of them the 1% was most likely going to let the Chicago weather do the work for them and hope that OccupyChi wears out from the wet and cold. Hopefully, the group has set up someone to coordinate logistics but right now locals and other brave members of the 99% were donating food, ponchos, charging time for devices and helping dry the clothing of the Occupiers.

Normally, I don't join groups or organizations, but being a part of the 99% is something that has been put upon us all. Solidarity! We are the 99%.

In a fitting post script as I rode home on the 2:40 METRA, I noticed none other than Rick Santelli, the acknowledged birther of the Tea Party 'movement'. My friend was shocked and texted me "that lazy bum is already off work?"

NYPD makes me Blue. Occupy America!

"¡El pueblo unido, jamás será vencido!"

Capitalism has always been a failure for the lower classes. It is now beginning to fail for the middle classes. ~ Howard Zinn, A People's Hisotry of the United States

Well, as a Police Officer I am dismayed and sickened by the behavior of the New York Police Department, but not surprised. The Occupy Wall Street demonstration is in the middle of the Rapacious Thieves mere blocks away from the heavily fortified NYPD headquarters. Bloomberg and his Corporate Masters will not suffer a poor person to been seen for once you become a Big Enough Thief the Police work for you.

In any Police Force one can find a power hungry less than scrupulous cop ready to do what he's told. NYPD Lieutenant Anthony Bologna appears to be one of the police officers who make the job harder for the rest of us. Bologna can be seen in a video walking up to a female protester who's been herded off, like so much cattle, behind orange plastic flexible fencing and maliciously spraying her in the face. Bologna has a history of ill-treatment towards protestors with whom he disagrees, having been named in a Civil Rights Violation suit stemming from allegedly making an illegal arrest of a man for protesting the Republican National Convention in 2004.

Take a look at the treatment of this protest. The People have had Enough!

Like, the Wisconsin protestors, the Anti-War Protests, the Protests at the Republican Conventions, the Right Wing Media is ready and willing to tarnish these protests because they don't serve the Faux News/Dick Armey/Koch Brothers crafted Hate-riots efforts to pin the collapse of the Middle Class and Generational Theft of Trillions onto one black guy.

Don't just look but, actively SEE the difference. During the 2009-/2010 Conservative Hate-riots the police were ordered far away and the most racist, vile, filthy, threatening ignorant trash walked in the open, displaying their weapons and threatening violent warfare against the government.

But, a Rally against the Criminals who've stolen Billions on Wall Street? The Police are mobilized and instructed to beat, pepper spray, cordon off and detain without provocation.

Power does not surrender itself. Power will never surrender itself. Those with the power will not heed your requests for clean drinking water or safe working conditions or healthcare. There is too much money at stake. Citizens United is just another Orwellian twist of Language the Rich have engaged in, just another system of control. For, when Money and Power beckon and call enough miscreants will take up truncheon and mace and hold the people down.

Howard Zinn noted and hoped the Guardians of the Wealthy would realize their situation and rise up and throw off the shackles of control and side with the 99% against their Corporate Masters.

[T]he Establishment cannot survive without the obedience and loyalty of millions of people who are given small rewards to keep the system going: the soldiers and police, teachers and ministers, administrators and social workers, technicians and production workers, doctors, lawyers, nurses, transport and communications workers, garbagemen and firemen. These people-the employed, the somewhat privileged-are drawn into alliance with the elite. They become the guards of the system, buffers between the upper and lower classes. If they stop obeying, the system falls.

Don't lead a life of quiet desperation! Occupy Chicago! Occupy Every Downtown! Stop Obeying your Corporate Masters! Rise Up!

Related:
The elites and the media loathe and will never provide coverage of the Occupy Wall St movement. (From Firedoglake)

Ayn Rand is wrong (I know shocking)

Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong. ~ Ayn Rand

There's no need to demonstrate her entire philosophical edifice is flawed, I've already demonstrated Rand's Magnum Opus was little more than an attempt to justify her sexual proclivities (see my Ayn Rand Objectively Wrong post here) and her utter hatred for the common man.

This demonstration also does not rest on Rand's hypocrisy of accepting Social Security and Medicare from the US Government, under the name Ayn O'Conner, her jilted husbands' last name.

Instead I will demonstrate and simply that her 1st premise is fundamentally flawed and by her own Objectivist standard her entire Philosophy crumbles.

So here it is. Rand stated one as one of her basic premises: A is A.

Well, A is A is wrong. Just ask any High School Physics student; What is Light? Is light is a wave or a particle?

Well, Light is both a wave and a particle, so therefore A is not A. Rand's theories are really sociology but she liked to pretend and convince everyone that they were hard science.

Robert Anton Wilson amusingly related a story about light and Quantum Mechanics,

With quantum mechanics, you can prove that light is made out of particles experimentally. You can build up a whole mathematical theory of light traveling in little particles called photons, and you can do experiments, and the experiments will give you a pattern showing that light is traveling like particles. We've also got a whole mathematical theory built up showing that light travels as waves, and we've got experiments that will show you that light travels as waves.

As one physicist in the 1920s said, 'It looks as if the damn light is waiting to see how we're going to do the experiment and then deciding which way it's going to travel.' The modified Copenhagen view is light is neither waves nor particles until we look, and then it adjusts itself depending on what we're looking at it with. An electron is not anywhere until we look, and when we look, the electron decides to be somewhere as long as we're looking. As soon as we stop looking, the electron is everywhere again.

No Chinese raised on I Ching has ever found quantum mechanics puzzling. It's only puzzling to people raised on Aristotelian logic where things are either A or not A. In the I Ching, things are A and not A at the same time.

Quantum physics undercuts the entire mendacious objectivist philosophy. So objectivists... Check your premises.

Do you want to know how dishonest Fox is? Even Fox Sports lies...

Jay Cutler has been very maligned as of late. Before getting to the perfidy of Fox Sports, here's a little about the beating he has taken in the last few years as the Bears QB. In the last 17 games, Jay Cutler has been sacked 63 times. Peyton Manning has been sacked 61 times in his last 64 games. Cutler has already been sacked 11 times this season and knocked down another 17 times, he's on pace to set a dubious NFL record for most QB sacks in a season.

8 months ago in the NFC Championship game Cutler suffered a torn MCL. Torn.

But, what did Fox Sports writer Jason Whitlock do? He wrote a column and stated this emphatically "I don’t need an MRI to confirm King Cutler quit".

Then Whitlock spent hours on 670 The Score yelling at Dan Bernstein and Terry Boers how Back when I played college ball he played a whole season on a torn ACL. Whitlock also told Boers and Bernstein if Cutler had been more demonstrable and more visibly in pain in the game or on the sideline he would have believed Cutler was injured. So basically, if Jay had acted more injured and feigned trying to gut through a bad injury it would have made Whitlock feel more convinced of Cutler's serious injury.

The entire "debate" about Cutler was despicable, but Fox always finds a way to surpass their previous dishonesty and shamelessness and continues the utter lack of any journalistic integrity within the entire Organization.

During the Bears victory over the Falcons on Sept 11, Fox Sports displayed the following headlines:

“Cutler Leaves With Injury”

“Cutler Lacks Courage”

“Cutler’s No Leader”

Then Darryl Johnston relayed “these are the actual headlines from the local papers in Chicago.”

Of course, they are not. The Chicago Tribune called Fox and got the following quotes from Fox Sports spokesman Dan Bell, "It was misleading." "The wrong word was used." "Our attempt was to capture the overall sentiment nationwide following that game.”

I don't know if someone over at Fox has a grudge against Cutler for demanding out of Denver or for failing their fantasy football team. But, the Fox Sports lies and maligning of Jay Cutler did not end with Week 1 but carried over into the Week 2 match up with the New Orleans Saints.

I don't listen to any Fox broadcast preferring Tom Thayer's erudite descriptions and Jeff Joniak's hometown partisanship over at WBBM 780.

So, last week when Fox Sports sent their #1 Team, I muted the tv broadcast from Where is Troy Aikman's Brain? and the inane blatherings of the overrated Joe Buck. So while I saw Fox broadcast I didn't hear what was being discussed until afterwards.

During the game as the Saints were beating the Bears, Fox showed several wide angle shots of Jay Cutler standing alone far away from the rest of the team. Joe Buck wondered 'I don't know why Jay Cutler is standing over there by himself' as Fox continued to hammer away at the Cutler is No Leader meme they have adopted. Finally, Troy Aikman had to halt the constant Cutler bashing by stating, he also watched the game far away from the bench so that he could see the entire field.

This is worse than misleading, this is outright fabrication and lies. But, then, Fox Sports is a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp. As Gregg Rosenthal wrote for NBC Sports over at profootballtalk, Why make up headlines when they could just hack into Cutler’s voice mail and create a real one?

Update:
I believe most Bears fans wish Cutler had responded to his critics thusly

Social Security has been the greatest Achievement of the U.S. Government

"Give us the fucking money, Lebowski!" ~ Nihilists, The Big Lebowski

The creation of Social Security and the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) has been one of the greatest achievements of the United States. And it's no wonder Republicans hate it because it helps people.

Oh no, it’s going bankrupt! By 2037 it won’t be able to fully fund seniors! What a crock of conservative crap!

What Government program is funded for 2012? The military? Guess what none of them are. No other program has faced the consistent attacks from the Right like Social Security and even with their efforts, it's scheduled to work for another 25 years.

It's a Ponzi Scheme! Like all Republican talking points crafted by the Koch Brothers and Rupert Murdoch, multiple conservatives have been repeating Social Security is a scheme, but Social Security is such a rousing success that it’s predicted, even by Republicans and rich assholes like Sean Hannity, to still be working 100 years after it's inception. It's the exact opposite of the Chicago Cubs.

In my duties as a Police Officer I've often come into contact with people on SSI. People with severe disabilities or low mental functioning. Now sometimes these people make attempts to get extra money from organizations, churches and persons and I have had to tell them to stop. But these efforts are most often merely a nuisance and do note involve criminal activity. They simply, most often, do not possess the physical strength, cunning or ability to committ burglaries, thefts or other crimes.

But, when you see them schlepping their entire worldly possessions into a run down 1977 Ford LTD, you realize these people living out of cars or in Motel 6 or a group home really have nothing.

And these are exactly the people the Republican Party wish to take from. The SSI disability funds are the last great bastion of funds which the Rich haven't been able to raid. They. Want. That. FUCKING. Money.

Remember, the Rich aren't paying huge sums into Social Security. The FICA tax is capped at $106,000 and Dividends and Capital Gains are, of course, exempted.

There are several Trillion dollars at stake. But, the Corporate Plutocracy knows... They know! If they can get the right Republican into office they can steal it. They can roll it into Wall Street derivatives equations and computations and...

It’s Not Class Warfare, Mister Boehner, Mister Ryan and Mister Fleming. It’s Class Massacre.

“Since my net income — and again, that’s the individual rate that I told you about — the amount that I have to reinvest in my business and feed my family is more like $600,000 of that $6.3 million. And so by the time I feed my family, I have maybe $400,000 left over..." - Republican Tea Party member John Fleming

"If inequality is at a much higher level - who cares?" ~ Brit Hume, Faux News

The Republicans are out in force. Their Plutocratic Masters are furious that the top tax rate may increase from 35% to 39.6% or that Capital Gains profits would be taxed as regular income.

It's been class warfare ever since the Wealthy had the tax codes changed so they could pay themselves a "salary" of $100,000 and millions in "dividends", on which they pay a paltry 15%. Meanwhile, they insure you pay twice that rate on the money you earn. The Middle Class has been carrying the burden of funding the government for decades. It's ingenious, to make the middle and working class pay for Social Security and aid to the poor while the Rich pay less in taxes, capped the SSI payroll tax at $106,000 and funnel billions to themselves from "government contracts".

The Rich are rapidly gaining total economic control of the US and will not abide having anyone stand in their way. So, they issued orders to their Hitmen in the Republican Party to bombard the airwaves with cries of "Class Warfare!"

Here's how His Regal Lordship Paul Ryan reacts when a Peasant dares question him;

Representative Ryan shall not brook Peasants in his Sight, "I hope he's taken his blood pressure medication," while he still can because after Ryan enacts his couponcare program, pre-existing conditions are going to cost too much of your "individualized" health savings account.

Of course, this isn't the first time some pleb has gotten to close to Paul Ryan. While being treated to a $700 dollar Pinot Noir dinner date from $20 Billion dollar Hedge Fund "Manager" Clifford S. Asness, a peasant had the gall to approach the Sagacious Deficit Guru and his companion. Asness, who correctly did not want to have his hands sullied with touching a poor person, declared, "Fuck Her"!

The Richest have so much economic power they have no fear of actively and openly trying to dismantle any opposition to their control. Paul Singer is the head of a $17 billion hedge fund, i.e. he shuffles paperwork around, creates jobs in Thailand and closes American plants and business's to "make money". Mr. Singer, a self proclaimed Barry Goldwater conservative, was still advocating the Right Wing BS that any regulation of Wall Street by Government would threaten to ruin the United States’ standing as the world leader in finance, during the Bush economic collapse year of 2008. Wall Street knows best America, regulation is theft; Capital belongs to the Capitalist; Poverty belongs to the Poor!

The Koch Brothers Party of the Opulent in June 2011, was attended by Billionaires and Millionaires, who were lavished with praise from their special guest, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, whom they flew out special to lavish them with praise as they applauded themselves for their excellence and prepared for the "Mother of All Battles". (Read and listen to Christie's vile speech broken by the Brad Blog)

The Moneyed Masters see the 2012 elections as providing them the necessary power to complete the subjugation of America; they will steal Social Security, eliminate Pell Grants, end Medicare/Medicaid, obliterate Unions and so beat down the Middle Class that Americans will be battling each other for an extra crust of bread or a few more slips of Plutocratic company scrip.

And if you resist? Well, John Fleming (R-LA) has a message for you, "That’s people who will not get jobs."

Update:
Faux News is out in force pushing the Plutocrats Talking Points. This from Michelle Malkin is the height of the alternate conservative universe hypocrisy; "we're talking about non-wealthy people who are earning, say, $250,000..."

For the purposes of their genuflection to the Rich, a quarter million is "non-wealthy" for purposes of destroying Unions and making teachers destitute, $50,000 is greedy.

Now, personally I don't think $250,000 is wealthy. At this point, it's upper middle class. But, it's a sick and twisted land we live in that conservatives are allowed to consistently label those making one-fifth that amount as thugs and parasites.

Let them Eat Chilled Cake and Zero Percent Taxes for People... Corporate People

"Corporations are people, my friend." ~ Mitt Romney

"This is an impressive crowd - the haves and the have-more. Some people call you the elites; I call you my base." ~ George W. Bush

“It’s like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939.” ~ Hedge Fund parasite Stephen Schwarzman correctly defines what would happen if Capital Gains were taxed as normal income.

Do you want to know why the economy has not rebounded? Because the majority of the American people are being pushed in penury and wage slavery. Here's what the Bush/Cheney Years did to America:

- Median Income declined outright from 1999 to 2009.
- From 1960 to 2000, manufacturing accounted for 20 million jobs in the U.S. since 2000 we've lost a 1/3rd of those jobs.
- Between 2002 and 2007 2 out of every 3 dollars of Income growth went to Bush's Base
- And even in during Bush's Crash year of 2008, excluding capital gains, the top 1% saw their share of national income rise.

At a time when Multi-National Oil Corporations are destroying the oceans, rivers, hills and dales of the world and receiving US Taxpayer dollars to do it, the Republicans are running on eliminating the EPA and all regulations of businesses.

At the same time Faux News, Kudlow & Cramer and every hired Republican punk ass hitman proclaim the lie that 49% or 51% or whatever number they find convenient to demagogue about do not pay taxes;

"And I'm going to tell you one other thing: When did we ever get to a point in America where, we're nearly at the point where fifty percent of Americans don't pay anything in taxes! Nothing!" ~ Sean Hannity.

"I think it's abysmal that 51% pay no income taxes..." - Orrin Hatch.

The Republican Party's favorite Presidential Candidates are running on a platform of No Taxes on Corporations. That would be Zero. Corporate Profits have gone up quarter after quarter since the beginning of 2009. Verizon, for instance, reported a pre-tax income of $24.2 Billion in 2009-2010 and received, through U.S. federal income tax loopholes, a $1.3 Billion dollar refund.

Just so you understand that correctly, when poor people who have next to nothing manage not to pay federal income taxes it's a Sean Hannity abomination. But, Corporations who are receiving U.S. government welfare and whose profits have been increasing steadily, since a minor dip caused by the Bush Recession, should have their tax rates reduced to Zero.

This New Republican Taxes could be called the Pleasure of Working for Us Tax.

But, you see that's when the Conservative Fabrication Machine steps in! The Heritage Foundation can be counted on to convince the brain dead and battered conservatives to support more taxes on the poor and the transfer of more U.S. taxpayer dollars to off-shore bank accounts of the Plutocracy.



Don't make Stuart Varney mad you fucking peasant! YOU have a refrigerator! YOU are not Poor! Even if that fridge does not contain milk or eggs or medications. The Cupboard maybe bare, but you have Freedom... If you can't realize that you "Lack a Richness of Spirit."

The entire Republican Party, "Business-firendly" Democrats, and most Conservatives hate America, hate the Middle Class and hate the Poor. Every fiber of the Republican Party is tuned to oppressing and enslaving the American Worker.

The Koch Brothers and their Plutocrats have declared 2012 will be "The Mother of All Battles" as they intend to fully stock the Government with hit men who will implement every possible tactic they can to crush opposition to the Class Massacre while cementing into U.S. law the Rule of the Plutonomy.

American Capitalism is Medieval Feudalism

The Capitalist system we are being subjected to is nothing less than Wage Slavery and Neo-Feudalism. The Banksters, Industrialists, Hedge Fund Managers have set up a system where all their losses are paid for by society and all their profits are snuck into secret UBS bank accounts in Switzerland.

American Capitalism is a game rigged by Swindlers and Thieves. Similar to the landed gentry and Peers of the Middle Ages, they claim infalliability for their station in life with titles, like "Job Creators" and they’ve spent decades creating Repositories of Conservative Bullshit, euphemistically called think tanks, which produce terabytes full of justifications for the Order of the World. Here's what the Heritage Foundation proclaimed would happen if the Bush tax cut legislation were to pass, it would:

1) Effectively pay off the federal debt;
2) Reduce the federal surplus by $1.4 trillion;
3) Substantially increase family income;
4) Save the entire Social Security surplus;
5) Increase personal savings;
6) Create more job opportunities.

Not one of their predictions came true, but then the Bush Tax Cuts weren't about helping the American people but about stealing Trillions in wealth.

Plus, the Plutocracy has it's church, run by politicians and corporately controlled media, which give daily sermons to the serfs and lavishes praise on their Masters.

At a recent fundraising event hosted by the odious Koch Brothers and attended by Billionaires and Millionaires, Chris Chrisite assured the Plutocrats that they are the Lords of Creation.

"Please, if you leave with just one message from me, if only one message sticks: This is a huge moment of crisis and opportunity for our country. All of you are the people who are going to lead us back to American greatness. If you care enough to do it."

Chrisite also assured the Plutocracy that help from the Government to the Middle and Working Classes was at an end,

"Now, pain will be inflicted when we change that. People are going to do with less. People who are used to having entitlement at a certain level will not have them at that level anymore. That's the story." Christie cited Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan's "courageous" and "thoughtful plan" to "fix those systems" by replacing Medicare with a voucher program.

That pain you feel? Well, that's the Republicans whipping you in the fields while your Lords work you to death.

Related:
The Republican Party's Notion of Shared Sacrifice

Republican Tax Cuts, Spending and Ultra-Whining

It’s time to take/vote out these GOP=SOBs

"I don't give them Hell. I just tell the truth about them and they think it's Hell." ~ Harry Truman

The Right Wing Fabrication Machine is up in arms over a video of Teamsters Leaders James Hoffa Junior, which they have, shockingly, heavily doctored. And the suspects are the same as always Faux News and Andrew Breitbart.

Like all Conservative News organizations the entire Right Wing story is a Fabrication, a lie and a smear campaign. The goals are simple; Billionaire Industrialists hate that Unions have created a Middle Class and affluent workers and want them destroyed. The Conservative Movement will stop at nothing to return America to the 1800’s. The America in which, those whom Republicans and their masters in the Plutocracy deem not to be “Real Americans” are returned to bondage and servitude.

It’s the entire meaning of the Tea Party Chant to ‘Take Back Their Country’.

Sean Hannity, R. Limbaugh, Dana Loesch, Andrew Breitbart, James O’Keefe, Michelle Malkin, Jonah Goldberg, Jerome Corsi, Dinesh D'Souza and their ilk have no problem lying because they are the hired ‘murderers’ for the Plutocracy. Their job is to create fake news stories, whispering campaigns, false narratives which they feed into society.

And this they do over...

And over...

And over...

And over...

And over...

Always lies but designed to bilk their duped supporters and towards their goal of Wage Slavery and Neo-Feudalism.

But, the Moneyed Masters, their conservatives slaves and Republican Attack Dogs are punk ass bitch cowards and bullies. Rhetorically punch them in the nose and they go apoplectic. Like all bullies they can dish it out but when you confront and fight back against them by calling them liars, chicken hawks, cowards, criminals and rich elitists they cannot take it.

Hence the Right Wing, Faux News, RNC attack on James Hoffa Junior. Hoffa has rightly called out the Right for it's evil, it's hatred, it's contempt towards American Workers. The bullies can't stand it so they attempt to bully other Liberals into silence. Don't Let Them!

As James Hoffa Jr stated, "Everybody here's got to vote. If we go back and keep the eye on the prize, let's take these son of a bitches out and give America back to America where we belong! Thank you very much!"

It's Time Liberals! Stick to your (verbal) Guns! Take these Sons of Bitches out! Give em to Hell! All via the vote...

Why does god speak in earthquakes and hurricanes?

"I don’t know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We’ve had an earthquake; we’ve had a hurricane. He said, ‘Are you going to start listening to me here?'" ~ Michele Bachmann

"I don't want to get weird on this, so please take it for what it's worth, but it seems to me the Washington Monument is a symbol of America's power*. It has been the symbol of our great nation, we look at that monument and we say this is one nation under God. Now there's a crack in it. Is that a sign from the Lord? Is that something that has significance, or is it just the result of an earthquake?" ~ Pat Robertson

Weather activity and plate tectonics are still ascribed to god. 7,000 years ago this was a good scientific hypothesis, but today it is either espoused by the horribly ignorant or unscrupulous charlatans. Fortunately for the Republican Party these two demographics, along with chicken hawk cowards, punk ass bitches and bigots, comprise their voting base.

But, let's treat this as a hypothesis! Is it possible that god has sent the earthquake and hurricane towards the east coast over the past month?

So, the first question is answered. The cause is god. No what caused 'yahweh' to send these events? Gay Marriage was approved in New York on July 24th, Hurricane Irene didn't hit until August 28th. Bachmann cited that the "[G]overnment is on a morbid obesity diet". But, spending has been high since World War 2.

So what's the delay? Why doesn't god act right away? And why does god choose in the 21st century to communicate in phenomenon which can be misinterpreted? He didn't have a problem of sending more explicit messages in the past. He used to appear as giant swirling towers of flame or turn rivers to blood and even sent his own son/self to deliver messages in person!

Now, I could mention the post hoc ergo propter hoc (after this therefore because of this) fallacy or I could point out other weather phenomenon which have been explained without relying on the 'god did it' claim terrible heat wave and drought which gripped the god belt of America all summer of 2011. Or point out the earthquakes and tsunamis which afflicted Bam, Iran in 2003, Indonesia in 2004, Haiti in 2006 and Japan in 2011 but these incidents serve the Dominionist community by proving god is christ since each event killed thousands of non-believers.

Such discussion would require the faithful drop their ignorance and that is not going to happen. Instead the likes of Bachmann respond with "“Of course I was being humorous when I said that!"

But, sadly we all know that is a flimsy cover for her true beliefs shared by thousands of religious wackoos and Bachmann knows Jesus is Watching You and she (or Rick Perry) is the chosen one sent to speak for the god who is mad because of Pell Grants, the EPA and that poor Americans have refrigerators.

*- there is so much one can deduce about Pat Robertson from his comment. Shouldn't an obvious obelisk be thought of as a symbol of pharoh's power? And then layers one could uncover by delving into why Pat thinks a bright white phallus is the symbol of America's "power" could take an entire blog...