2/10/2014::Leftovers, yummy!

Instead of Focusing on the Economy and Jobs, Rand Paul Proposes Amendment to Allow Guns in Post Offices

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) has introduced an amendment aimed at overturning the federal ban on Americans carrying guns when they visit the post office.

The proposal was quickly endorsed by the National Association for Gun Rights, which claimed that gun-free zones were in fact “criminal safe-zones.” The group urged its members to support Senator Paul’s amendment, saying that Americans should not be left at “the mercy of would-be criminals.”

Far from attempting to leave citizens defenceless, the federal ban on guns was introduced after several mass-shootings took place in post offices. The most infamous of these was the massacre in Edmond, Oklahoma in 1986, from which the term “going postal” was coined. Postal Service employee Patrick Sherill murdered 14 of his co-workers before committing suicide. It remains the deadliest mass-shooting at a place of work in American history.

Is Alcoholics Anonymous a Cult, or a Culture?

Sitting in an open AA meeting the other day, listening to a qualification from a guy whose story didn’t exactly resonate with me—was it what he was saying, or the macho way he was saying it? Or was it the over-definite generalizations about addiction he no doubt was repeating from generations of men who had come before him; the steroid-pumped catchphrases we’ve all heard a million times (“My addiction is out there in the parking lot, doing push-ups”), and so on?

I listened to others murmuring along with him, some of them rapt with attention, and pursed my lips impatiently. Because I have two degrees in English and have spent years teaching the language on the university level, and because some of the “programs” have not revised their basic texts’ initial do-or-die language in six decades or more, I sometimes turn a critical eye on the literature and language of the fellowships that have saved my life. And criticism is not always welcome among folks in 12-step groups: How dare you take aim at the very fellowship that has always been there for you? A resistance to criticism is one reason often held up as evidence that “AA is a cult.”

But listening to this sober dude that day, and looking around at the intent crowd (some 60 people, mostly professionals, at 4 p.m. on a Monday afternoon), I wrote a note to my friend Ian, a former newspaper reporter and a student of language, who was sitting to my right:

“Is AA a culture instead of a cult?”

Pat Robertson Explains Divine Genocide
[From Religion Hurts Humanity: "Not surprisingly, this attitude towards people of different customs is reminiscent of the way many early Christian colonists regarded the “savage” natives of North America, which ultimately led to the “Manifest Destiny” rationale and resulted in the slaughter of tens of millions. It also might partly explain why so many Christians seem anxious for “Armageddon”–a final “Holy War” which they believe will result in a world purged of unbelievers, where only the followers of Jesus will reign."]

“It sounds cruel but in the long run it’s more merciful,” he continued. “Further, He didn’t want his people to be contaminated by those people…. They had sex with animals, they had incest, they did all of these terrible things and they offered their children as sacrifices to their gods, it was horrible what they did.”

Document exposes Papa John’s and other companies as secret Koch brother allies

The Koch brothers are well-known for their right-wing activism, but less has been known about the wealthy conservatives who fund their vast political operations.

But a document left behind last week at the first donor gathering of 2014 at the Renaissance Esmeralda resort in Palm Springs, California, and handed over by a hotel guest to Mother Jones offers a glimpse at this network.

Attendees at events hosted by the billionaire industrialists are warned that the seminars – where plans are hatched to elect Republican officials and advance conservative ideas – are strictly confidential, and they’re told to closely guard their meeting notes and materials.

The discarded document, Mother Jones reported, lists VIP donors – including John Schnatter, founder of Papa John’s pizza chain – who met individually with Koch representatives and revealed just how closely tied Koch Industries is intertwined with the brothers’ political machine.