No. 322.2: EXTRA! Gott Mit Uns (or else)

Guardian: Paul Ryan says decision to fire House chaplain was not political

The House speaker, Paul Ryan, has told fellow Republicans he fired the House chaplain after complaints from members that he was not doing a very good job – and not because of pressure over the Rev Patrick Conroy’s political leanings.

We want a chaplain 

who will only pray

and make anyone we 

do not like go away.

What we want is 

to try to capture

what it will be like 

after we Rapture

away to be with 

our Lord and Jesus

with seventy-two virgins (each!) 

there to “please” us.

We know that that's Muslim 

and from Sharia

but that's the sole reason we 

choose this career.

No. 322.1: EXTRA! House “Schultz” Committee Clears Trump Campaign

WaPo: HouseIntelligence Committee Republicans release final Russia report (Paywall)

House Intelligence Committee Republicans released a redacted version of their final report from a year-long probe into Russia’s “multifaceted” influence operation, generally clearing Trump and his associates of wrongdoing while accusing the intelligence community and the FBI of failures in how they assessed and responded to the Kremlin’s interference in the 2016 election.

Of course, it's a WHITE wash.

GOP's only color.

If you're looking for TRUTH,

just wait for Mueller.

No. 322: Game, Set, Match?

Guardian: 'We're doomed': Mayer Hillman on the climate reality no one else will dare mention

Global emissions were static in 2016 but the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was confirmed as beyond 400 parts per million, the highest level for at least three million years (when sea levels were up to 20m [more than 65 feet] higher than now). Concentrations can only drop if we emit no carbon dioxide whatsoever, says Hillman. “Even if the world went zero-carbon today that would not save us because we’ve gone past the point of no return.”

Drill, baby, drill!

More fossil fuel!

Earth isn't warming,

and coal is cool.

Climate's not changing.

You know it's not!

And if it is?

Some like it hot.

We NEED our pickups,

our grand SUVs.

If this causes hiccups —

fiddle-dee-dee!

We're doing okay.

There isn't a crisis.

Buy oil today.

(Just not from ISIS.)

Build more airports,

more coal-fired plants,

make jobs, make children.

DON'T be a scaredy-pants.

Think: “The world is my oyster.”

THAT will do the trick.

That is unless shellfish
make you feel sick.

The train's left the station

so shut up and drop it.

No point complaining.

It's too late to stop it.

No. 321: All Hands In The Till Until (the outing of Otting)

REUTERS

Exclusive: Trump's bank watchdog bought financial stocks up until taking office

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s nominee [Joseph Otting] for Wall Street regulator Comptroller of the Currency bought financial stocks until he took office in November. . .

“Nominees are supposed to shed investments before they take office, not gamble on stocks until the last moment,” said Richard Painter, who served as ethics adviser to President George W. Bush. “If I were handling this, I would have pulled the nomination.”

A former career banker and close associate of U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Otting is one of several Trump appointees whose ties to industries they regulate have raised questions about their ability to be impartial when enforcing rules.

(MORE)

With a fox in charge of our hen house,

we cannot pretend we're surprised

when the fox feasts on our chickens.

What else would we have surmised?

No. 320: Doin' What Comes Natcherly?

Science Daily: Unprecedented wave of large-mammal extinctions linked to prehistoric humans

"It wasn't until human impacts started becoming a factor that large body sizes made mammals more vulnerable to extinction,. . .Homo sapiens are identified as a species around 200,000 years ago, so this occurred not very long after the birth of us as a species. It just seems to be something that we do.”

Wherever we go, the damage accrues

because killing things is what we do.

We eliminate big things then start on the the small,

it only ends when there's nothing at all.

Maybe someday when the meteor hits

blasting advanced civilization to bits

without all of us the Earth can start to mend.

I'd say the odds are — at best?! — one-in-ten.

Another "Thing We Do"

No. 319: Æthelred II (c. 968 - 23 April 1016)

Yesterday, Monday, April twenty-third
we let pass the day without a word
noting the death in A.D. 1016
of that most noble and regal being:
“King of the English”, Æthelred the Unready,

whose rule was long. (If not very steady.)

When Edward, his half-brother, was overthrown,
Æthelred, at ten, ascended the throne.

Then throughout his entire reign,

Æthelred ineffectively fought invading Danes,
who in those days were hard to distinguish
because they spoke and largely looked like the “English”.

____________________________

*Ethelred the Unready, also spelled Aethelred, also called Ethelred II, or Aethelred Unraed, (born 968?—died April 23, 1016, London, England), king of the English from 978 to 1013 and from 1014 to 1016. He was an ineffectual ruler who failed to prevent the Danes from overrunning England. The epithet “unready” is derived from unraed, meaning “bad counsel” or “no counsel,” and puns on his name, which means “noble counsel.”

— Encyclopædia Britannica

No. 318: Donald's Impossibly Deep Thoughts On Poverty (Thinking Outside The. . .)

While poverty (maybe) is not a crime,

the poor, even white ones, are — let's face it! — slime.

Yet, if I'm pressed I am willing to grant,

they should not lose a (low-pay) job to an immigrant.

Many say poverty is good for the soul,

in providing incentive to get off the dole.

Here, it is clear, government must play a role,

developing someway to make them eat coal.

No. 317.1: EXTRA! Sunday Sermon (The Devil On Line One)

NYT: ‘Shut Up, Satan’: Rome Course Teaches Exorcism, Even by Cellphone (Paywall)

ROME — Andrés Cárdenas sat in the back of the auditorium, opened his folder and took careful notes as a Catholic cardinal with decades of experience casting demons out of possessed bodies gave a master class on how to yell at the devil, rid Muslims of black magic and purge Satan on your cellphone.

On Tuesday, he could listen to an exorcist lecture on. . .“The Auxiliary Exorcist: Skills and Duties.”

On Wednesday, there was “Magical, Esoteric and Occult Links to Some Alternative and Energy-giving Therapies,” followed by Friday’s “The Exorcist: Life, Choices and Mistake.” But he was especially interested in Wednesday’s talk on “Witchcraft in Africa.”

So. . .THIS is what they get up to in Rome.

(Is somebody spending too much time home alone?)

Is the Vatican becoming — again! — as hysterical

as your typical U.S. Bible Belt Evangelical Clerical?

Does THE (one true) CHURCH believe it can thwart the demonical

by ripping off courses straight out of Rowling's Hogwarts chronicle?

All of this sounds, I have to confess,

like Flip Wilson's “The Devil Made Me Buy This Dress”*.

[Sidebar:
The devil can assume any disguise
Therefore, I'd say, we would be wise
to have White House and Capitol both exorcised.]

When, at last, Satan's cast out, banished and overthrown,

will she summon an Uber to take her home
by hacking the app on your smart phone?

Conclusion:
The devil will never prove as meticulous
as believers who render religion ridiculous.

[updated 4/22/2018, 1:15 pm]
____________________________

*Click here.