President Bush’s “terrorist fist bump,” convenient edit of Thomas Jefferson in 4th of July speech

From the frivolous lawsuit department

An Ann Arbor man has filed lawsuits against two prominent publishing houses, Thomas Nelson and Zondervan, over bibles published by them that include anti-gay verses. Bradley Fowler says those verses have caused him emotional distress. Fowler is representing himself in the case; the complaint filed with the court was actually handwritten. U.S. District Judge Julian Abele Cook refused to appoint an attorney to represent Fowler, something that would be highly unusual in a civil case. He is seeking $60 million in damages from Zondervan and $10 million in damages from Thomas Nelson.

I have absolutely no doubt that Fowler and every other gay person in this country has suffered as a result of anti-gay bigotry. I also have absolutely no doubt that the Bible is the single greatest source of anti-gay bigotry. But this case is going to last about 30 seconds after a motion to dismiss is filed, which is about 20 seconds longer than it should last. The government is simply not going to get involved in determining what is and is not the proper translation for a religious text; the free exercise clause of the first amendment would clearly forbid such interference. This case is dead on arrival.

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We’ve always been at war with Oceania

President Bush was at Monticello for a 4th of July celebration and he delivered an address. But it’s quite telling that his speechwriters, in quoting Jefferson, cut out an anti-religious statement from a long and famous quote. Here’s the way Bush put it:

Thomas Jefferson understood that these rights do not belong to Americans alone. They belong to all mankind. And he looked to the day when all people could secure them. On the 50th anniversary of America’s independence, Thomas Jefferson passed away. But before leaving this world, he explained that the principles of the Declaration of Independence were universal. In one of the final letters of his life, he wrote, “May it be to the world, what I believe it will be — to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all — the Signal of arousing men to burst the chains, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government.”

Now let’s look at the full quote, including the part that was cut out. This is from a letter he wrote to Roger Weightman reflecting on the upcoming 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (which, it turns out, was the day both he and John Adams died):

May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government.

Jefferson made many such statements, of course. Clearly they are best edited out by those who advocate nothing if not monkish ignorance and superstition.

Bush does “terrorist fist jab” with impressionable youngster

Remember when Fox News bubblehead anchor E.D. Hill described a fist bump between Barack and Michelle Obama as a “terrorist fist jab”? If you don’t, here’s the video:

Turns out they may have learned it from President Bush:

Who in turn learned it from his father:

Send them to Guantanamo Bay, I say!

If you can’t say something nice, at least tell the truth

Jesse Helms died on the 4th of July and the nation celebrated with fireworks, BBQs and a day off for everyone. I can’t think of a single nice to thing to say about him so I’ll say accurate things instead. It is a matter of some dispute whether Helms’ most obvious and prominent attribute was his ignorance or his bigotry. He was a malevolent voice for obscurantism and anti-modernism in every conceivable way. This was a man who, as late as 1995, was declaring that the Washington Post and the New York Times were “infested with homosexuals” and called gays “morally sick wretches.” This is also the man who called the University of North Carolina the “university of negroes and communists” and who said, in response to vigils on college campuses by students in the wake of Martin Luther King’s death, “They should ask their parents if it would be all right for their son or daughter to marry a Negro.” No, I won’t miss him, nor will the world. Rot in peace.