Colorado Rockies get desperate as another season tanks

This is the most ridiculous promotion I've ever seen. Rockies Faith Day? Why not call it Rockies Sucking Up to Churches Day? Or maybe New and Interesting Ways to Fill the Ball Park as the Rockies Choke Day? Maybe Rick Perry could conduct the opening prayer?

Weird.

If this is a trend, sign me up for Rockies Flying Spaghetti Monster Day.

Go to http://mlb.mlb.com/col/ticketing/faithday.jsp?partnerId=aw-5951796513581239158-1070

Do Leftie bloggers really hate Christians or their un-Christian attitudes?

Seems that I will always have material for weekend blogging as long as the local Radical Christian Right is on the job.

Harlan Edmonds wrote an op-ed in today's Wyoming Tribune-Eagle. Mr. Edmonds has hit those pages before -- and hit them hard -- with screeds against abortion, Liberals, immigrants, RINOs -- you name it.

I don't mind screeds as I sometimes engage in those same tactics. But shouldn't they make sense or present some solid evidence for the Average Joe (or Mike) to latch onto.

His target is "Tough Enough to Wear Pink" day held Thursday at Cheyenne Frontier Days. On that day, burly dudes in pink wrestle steers and ride bucking broncos. In Thursday's parade, Gov. Matt Mead wore pink, as did Secretary of State Max Maxfield. Members of the CFD committee wore pink. This was a statement advocating increased funding for breast cancer research for all those women in our lives faced with the disease. The CFD's charity of choice on this issue is the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundations. Christian Right activists contend that some of the money donated to Komen MAY end up being donated to Planned Parenthood which MIGHT use it to counsel poor women to have abortions.

In the name of Christian purity, Mr. Edmonds and Mr. Wall contend that not a penny of our money should go to a wonderful charity which saves lives and will some day help to find a cure for women afflicted with breast cancer. They may be our wives or daughters or co-workers or someone we don't even know.

How very un-Christian of you Christian gentlemen.

But that's not the point, is it? Mr.. Edmonds will believe what he believes and logic will not shake him. He spends most of his column with ad hominem attacks local Christian minister and fellow Leftie blogger Rodger McDaniel. Mr. Edmonds says that the Rev. McDaniel "managed to squeeze more anti-Christian bigotry into a single WTE piece recently than Mullah Omar could fit in a four-hour fatwa."

I always like it when Christian fundamentalists try to equate Lefties with Muslim fundamentalists. As we all know, Fundies of all stripes believe in the same basic philosophy -- literalism. This is one of the reasons that some of my fellow Leftie bloggers label the American Christian Right "the American Taliban."

And I just did the same thing. Oops!

Lefties have learned a few things during the past 40 yars or so. Literalism is a dead end, whether it applies to the Bible or to The Communist Manifesto, the Koran or Mao's Little Red Book, the Book of Mormon or The Port Huron Statement. Living your life by the tenets of one little book penned by humans (and possibly inspired by God) eventually backs you into a corner.

It's also un-democratic (small "d"). The humanist principles upon which America was founded call upon citizens to continue to continually think and grow. Fundies, by nature, reach a dead end in their personal growth. All they are left with is a striving toward the End Times and eternal salvation. The hell with society. The hell with my fellow man and human. The hell with cancer cures and global arming solutions and universal health care.

In the end, they are anti-life.

In its efforts to aid humankind, CFD advocates life over death. I have a feeling that there are a few Christians within the CFD leadership ranks. And you can't swing a cat at a rodeo without knocking down a Christian cowboy or cowgirl. I know because I tried that last year and burly security guards wearing pink threw me out of the rodeo grounds.

SECURITY GUARD: "We don't cotton to your kind around here."
ME: "Leftie bloggers?"
SECURITY GUARD: "No, guys who swing cats."

I left, chastened.

Another thing I've noticed about fundamentalists, whether they be Mullah Omar or Harlan Edmonds -- they have no sense of humor.

I strive for humor and sometimes succeed. Maybe that's why I was inspired to wear pink fairy wings during my turn as emcee Thursday evening at the Atlas Theatre's old-fashioned melodrama. The pink wings looked great with my cowboy duds. "Tough enough to wear pink fairy wings!"

Take that, you close-minded fundies.

America's own Taliban -- Al Jazeera English

We have some of these strange people in Wyoming. They advocate the destruction of Native American religious artifacts. Go to America's own Taliban - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

Bachmann’s Husband Calls Homosexuals ‘Barbarians’ Who ‘Need To Be Educated And Disciplined’

Bachmann’s Husband Calls Homosexuals ‘Barbarians’ Who ‘Need To Be Educated And Disciplined’

When trying to figure out where presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) gets her stringent, anti-gay views, you only have to look as far as her husband. Dr. Marcus Bachmann, who has described himself as his wife’s “strategist,” runs a Christian-based counseling center in Minnesota that has been rumored to offer reparative treatment for those looking to “ungay” themselves.

Kansas is perfect, so anti-abortion zealots come to Wyoming

Anti-abortion protesters from Kansas are demonstrating in Jackson. From Wyoming Public Radio:

The pro-life protest is being organized by a Kansas-based group called Operation Save America. They say their goal is to make Wyoming the nation's first abortion-free state, and they say the protest will continue into the weekend.

Read the rest at WPR: Abortion protestors and counter protestors clash in Jackson

Why aren't they busily making Kansas the first abortion-free state? Or maybe they could make Kansas the first hungry-child-free state. Or maybe they could make sure that the kids in their local schools always have lunches to eat. Or maybe they could lobby their Kansas reps and senators to save Medicaid from Republican budget cuts so there won't be sick and dying babies and mothers in Colby and Wichita and Topeka.

I'm a big fan of protests. But I do wonder why these Kansans are so interested in Wyoming. And I wonder why they always care so much about the fetus but care so little about the babies and children and toddlers once they are born? This has always puzzled me.

Old King Coal not such a merry old soul

Laramie River coal plant near Wheatland 

China burns half of the world's coal production every year. It pollutes its air and kills its people, making heart disease the nation's number one killer. China's fossil-fuel habit is one of the main culprits of global warming.

Wyoming and Montana companies dig thousands of tons of coal from the ground every day. Our power plants can't burn all that coal to send power to Colorado and Texas and Utah. Other U.S. plants can't burn that much coal. Many states, Texas included, are scrubbing plans for new coal-fired plants.

To fill China's endless coal appetite, and to contribute to the further spread of cardiopulmonary illnesses, our states want to export more coal to China. There's money to be made, too. Not only for the coal companies, but for severance taxes which pay the salaries of government workers such as myself.

But Washington state is getting in the way of progress.

The Cowboy State and The Treasure State want to ship their coal directly to Asia through a port in Cowlitz County, Washington (a.k.a. The Gateway to Mt. St. Helens). Officials in the county have approved an upgrade to its Columbia River port, but environmental groups say not so fast (from the Casper Star-Tribune). 

On Tuesday, the Washington Department of Ecology petitioned to intervene in the appeal filed by Earthjustice. Ecology spokeswoman Kim Schmanke said the agency wants a seat at the table because it may be asked to approve other permits for the project.

Gov. Brian Schweitzer plans to travel to Washington state next week to seek support for the project. He said he's going to tell state officials it's irrational for them to oppose a port to export Montana coal when utilities that serve Washington state burn Montana coal.Freudenthal said Thursday that he would not expect Schweitzer to accomplish anything but making the trip. 

Freudenthal doubts Washington state officials will receive advice from someone from another state any more than Wyoming officials do when they get similar visits from an outsider. 

The immediate problem, Freudenthal said, is how to get the port exporting Wyoming coal. The larger issue is the need to figure out carbon capture and sequestration in order to receive support from the "rational" environmental groups, he said.

Meanwhile, Gov.-elect Matt Mead is working on a letter of support to send with Schweitzer next week, Mead spokeswoman Susan Anderson said Thursday. Mead takes office Monday. 

Freudenthal said people need to realize that the coal industry is "at risk" whether they agree that climate change is real or not. "This is about coal production, market share and jobs," Freudenthal said.

We're going to see more of these conflicts as we attempt to switch from fossil fuels to alternative energy sources that don't melt the ice caps and lead to the flooding of port cities from Seattle to San Diego. Red states want to ship their coal to China but the coastal blue states won't let them. No alternative but to send it to Houston and then on to the Panama Canal and then on to China. But that route would add time and miles and make the whole enterprise less cost-effective. The states could send the coal to Vancouver, B.C., which shipped about 26 million tons of coal to China this year. But how would that look, red-state Wyoming shipping its coal from Socialist Canada?

Even George Will is getting into the act. In a column this week, he could barely contain his glee that millions of tons of global-warming-contributing coal could be shipped out of a port adjacent to the Green Capital of the U.S. and maybe the world -- Portland, Oregon.

Cowlitz County in Washington state is across the Columbia River from Portland, Ore., which promotes mass transit and urban density and is a green reproach to the rest of us. Recently, Cowlitz did something that might make Portland wonder whether shrinking its carbon footprint matters.

I wonder why conservatives take such delight in destroying the planet? The fundies are all convinced that the end is coming anyway so why fight it? Doesn't matter to them if it's flood or fire. But George Will isn't in this Know Nothing camp. He's smarter than that. While he will no longer be with us when Washington Post columnists commute by gondola, one wonders why he doesn't care for the future of his family or your family or my family.

George Will makes his living by being the conservative curmudgeon in the bow tie. He's also a language scold and a know-it-all baseball fan. That's his platform and to turn Green (or even hint at it) at this late date will cost him.

He provides several quotes from James Fallows' recent cover story about coal in The Atlantic. In "Dirty Coal, Clean Future," Fallows makes the case that we can only get out of this hydrocarbon dilemma by trusting in China's new technologies to burn coal cleaner. The only way out is through. I just read the synopsis, but it seems as if Fallows would give a green light to the shipping of coal from Washington state. And the more we can ship, the better.

I'll read the article and respond. Meanwhile, here's a few parting words from George Will:

If the future belongs to electric cars, those in China may run on energy stored beneath Wyoming and Montana. 

And so run the hopes of the Govs of Wyoming and Montana.