Sometimes I write at great lengths, but today I will just serve up what others have already done so well.

Rep. Henry Brown of South Carolina and 74 Republican co-sponsors in the U.S. House of Representatives actually wants Congress to pass a resolution condemning people for saying “Happy Holidays” rather than “Merry Christmas.”

The religious meaning of Christmas is serious to Brown. In an explanation of his resolution to the Christian Broadcast Network, Brown noted that, “we’re in a troubled world,” so “we can’t lose sight of our deep faith by some how or another diminishing the value of Christmas.”

The main threat to Christmas, Brown contents, is the use of the term “happy holidays” rather than an emphasis on “Christ and Christmas.”

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But wait! it’s not enough to be hateful AND ignorant as to the makeup of the country and the history of Christmas (stealing it from other religions). no, it gets better than that!

However, Brown’s 2008 December newsletter wished a “happy holiday” to his constituents for the “holiday season.” Although the newsletter had a link to the White House Christmas tree website, it made no other mention of Christ or Christmas. (Click here for a screenshot)

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Remember, It is not the GOP that is our enemy, but rather the corruption-generating machine that runs the GOP – the Religious Right. They have 74 congress-pawns who are willing to stand up and actively put YOU in the back seat for a holiday they stole in the first place. These are very bad people. These are the people we fight, and will continue to fight, until they grow up or are voted out.

Be sure to look these pawns up and tell them how wonderful they are.

Happy New Year!

Click here and enjoy the eye candy.

And don’t forget that it’s not too late to make a year-end tax-deductible donation to American Atheists. The recession has hit donations hard, and we need your support!

Bloggers, we are once again befuddled by spam and other wonderful blogosphere bunk. Whoopie.

In an attempt to block it, I’ve upgraded to the most recent version of the blog and spam-protection software, and reactivated it. This means your comments will be moderated, at least until i can find a better way to do this. Comments and suggestions are solicited.

We are doing this to make the blog better, not worse, for everyone. This didn’t work well last time (a lot of users could not get whitelisted for some reason). Please be patient.

Dave

Fans have a new reason to love Lady Gaga now that the notorious Westboro Baptist Church officially hates the singer.

The Kansas-based congregation, helmed by Rev. Fred Phelps and consisting largely of his offspring, announced plans Wednesday to picket Gaga’s Jan. 7 show in St. Louis, calling the ‘Bad Romance’ star a “hussy” and a heathen for “seducing a generation.”

A press release for the ‘God Hates Lady Gaga’ protest contains no mention of the church’s signature issue, hatin’ gays and such, but one can assume they don’t approve of Gaga’s bisexual leanings and tolerance of homosexuality.

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So the obvious question here is: Did Lady gaga give money to the Phelps clan to launch a press release against her? Probably not, but it would be clever. Nothing will drive traffic to her songs better than these guys saying she’s terrible. Better than a warning label on an album.

I’ve heard her music, she sounds pretty talented. Maybe I’ll give her a second listen.

Never Yield to terrorism

A Nigerian man was charged Saturday in a federal complaint with trying to destroy Northwest Airlines Flight 253 as it approached Detroit on Christmas Day. He was also charged with placing a destructive device on the aircraft.

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I remember flying right after the faith-based attacks on 9/11. The planes were nearly empty.

I had an occasion to speak with a pilot on one particular flight, and found it very enlightening. The Pilot explained that 9/11 was a “sucker-punch”, that could never happen again. He explained that the reason 9/11 was succesful was out mentality that it was best to cooperate with hijackers and do as they said. The theory was that they would take the plane to Cuba and let everyone go. This mentality ended on 9/11 (actually it ended during the attacks, when passengers learned what was happening, and heroically crashed their own plane). My pilot friend told me that everyone on every plane was now an anti-terror agent, and they would all try to stop any terrorist on an individual level. So far, he’s been absolutely correct.

Now, where was I? Oh yes, the religion of peace and love, that deserves respect. We all know this is a load of crap, and that Islam is a backwards barbaric mythology that frankly needs to be expunged from the planet (Judaism and Christianity aren’t much better, but they aren’t trying to blow up our planes right now).

So, can you be an ethical Muslim? What do we say to the ethical peaceful members of this barbaric war-mongering religion? How about “try reality”?