Rush Limbaugh has lost it. Completely. First of all he’s weeks behind TBogg who predicted the Batman Dark Knight Rises‘ villain being named Bane “it’s an attack on Mitt Romney” nutbaggery conspiracy. But with Glenn “Crazy Eyes” Beck banished to his own self-created ice prison of GBTV, someone had to take over the far right tinfoil concession. Check out this frothing rant:

Have you heard, this new movie, the Batman movie – what is it, the Dark Knight Lights Up or something? Whatever the name of it is. That’s right, Dark Knight Rises, Lights Up, same thing. Do you know the name of the villain in this movie? Bane. The villain in the Dark Knight Rises is named Bane. B-A-N-E. What is the name of the venture capital firm that Romney ran, and around which there’s now this make-believe controversy? Bain. The movie has been in the works for a long time, the release date’s been known, summer 2012 for a long time. Do you think that it is accidental, that the name of the really vicious, fire-breathing, four-eyed, whatever-it-is villain in this movie is named Bane?

Uh, Rush, Bane, the villain, has been around in the DC comic universe for longer than Mitt has contemplated running for President. Unless of course this eeeeeevil plot goes back at least as far as Obama being born wherever it is the whackjobs think he was born and secretly groomed as president in a bunker by commies. Or whatever the heck these lunatics believe.

A little research on the interwebs easily disproves the insane Bane theory, but then Rush et al, including Juggalos for Mitt Romney would have nothing to bitch about; there would be no Big Hollywood/Comic Book Company Conspiracy. And basically their whole concept falls apart if one simply looks at the history and the facts:

Bane first appeared in DC Comics’ Batman: Vengeance of Bane in 1993, and was a character in the 1997 Joel Schumacher-directed film Batman & Robin. Bain Capital Ventures was founded in 1984, with Mitt Romney as one of the founders. R-money retroactively retired from Bain in 1999,  was elected Governor of Massachusetts in 2002, and ran for President of the United States in 2008, and now  is the GOP nominee for the 2012.

So unless Chuck Dixon, Graham Nolan, and Doug Moench, the creators of Bane, the DC Comics villain, knew in 1993 through Top Sekrit Pacts with Demons and the arcane art of necromancy that Willard Mitt Romney worked for Bain and was planning to run for President with Bain Capital as an issue almost 20 years after they launched their criminal character, this whole conservative soggy bag of chips should be tossed.

Here’s more from Rushboob:

Anyway, so this evil villain in the new Batman movie is named Bane. And there’s now discussion out there as to whether or not this was purposeful, and whether or not it will influence voters. It’s going to have a lot of people. This movie, the audience is going to be huge, lot of people are going to see the movie. And it’s a lot of brain-dead people, entertainment, the pop culture crowd. And they’re going to hear ”Bane” in the movie, and they are going to associate Bain. And the thought is that when they start paying attention to the campaign later in the year, and Obama and the Democrats keep talking about Bain, not Bain Capital, but Bain, Romney and Bain, that these people will think back to the Batman movie –”Oh yeah, I know who that is.” There are some people who think it will work. There are some people think it will work. Others think — “You’re really underestimating the American people who think that will work.”

Uh, Rush, guess what: You’re the one associating Bane with Bain, you and your fellow fact-check-failing freakazoids. In fact you’re perpetuating the concept, one that most likely a vast number of your listeners wouldn’t have even noticed if you hadn’t brought it up, you blathering pile of hyperlipidosis. Maybe you are secretly a tool of the Vast Liberal Hollywood Conspiracy! Stuff that in your vat of HagenDazs and eat it!

Oh and P.S.: According the the dictionary “bane” means:

1. A cause of great distress or annoyance.
2. Something, typically poison, that causes death.

Synonyms include poison, venom, ruin, perdition, and curse.

As of Monday, 141 advertisers had evacuated the Rush Limbaugh show. The latest to withdraw:

The Wrap reports that Limbaugh’s syndicator, Premier Network, owned by Clear Channel,

withdrew its national advertising spots from his and other talk shows for two weeks on Monday, the same day that Jane Fonda and Gloria Steinem called for the Federal Communications Commission to yank the right-wing radio host’s license.

Additionally, Think Progress reported that advertisers have asked that their ads no longer run on Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck or Michael Savage, as advertisers have deemed those shows

offensive.

[H/T: Think Progress and The Wrap]

Last week rabid frother Glenn Beck launched into a rant about the iPhone game Angry Birds which features angry birds trying to keep their eggs from being stolen by pigs and what the game actually means:

It’s redistribution of eggs!

Yes, in Beck’s mind, the birds are wealth-creating capitalists, and the pigs are socialists trying to steal from them.

It goes downhill from there around 3:00 with Beck mentioning that Germany before World War II would have benefited from the game and then moves into a discussion of the police.

[HT: Gamepro.com]

Glenn Beck comments on the new passport form, which may go into effect for people who don’t have birth certificates:

Why don’t you just put nipple clamps on Americans over this?

Actually, the proposed “biographical form” is intended for those people who are unable to provide the usual proof of citizenship required for a US passport – namely, a birth certificate, consular report of birth abroad or naturalization certificate.

Glenn, do you see anything about “certificate of live birth” on there? Nooooo.

Glenn, can’t you see this is an effort on your side’s part to corral Obama? To catch him and prove he is not a US citizen?

And as your compatriot Monica Crowley points out, the birther movement has traction because, well, Obama does “un-American” things that give the impression he is not “one of us.”

I think it was God’s flyover. It was not supposed to happen. We couldn’t get a flyover. We couldn’t even get anybody dressed in a military uniform to present the flag. We tried for almost a year. We couldn’t get it done. Thank God, we had our flyover.

Beck must be confused about “wasn’t supposed to happen.” Geese fly in flocks and there are resident geese in DC.  No doubt, some were a little disrupted by the crowds on Saturday and so they took to the air. That aside, the use of augury and signs from nature to indicate a message from God/s is off limits for Christians and especially Mormons like Beck who would like the rest of us to forget about the golden salamander, golden tablets and magic glasses.

In Roman augury, birds flying from behind you is a bad sign. The birds were flying from behind the audience at Beck. Good for Beck, bad for his followers. But the flock of Canadian geese–the same species that caused the US Airways crash into the Hudson–veered to Beck’s left side. Bad omen.

If Beck was going to go retro-pagan and divine signs from God in the movement of birds, he really should have used the birds made for it. However, some works of augury say the birds that appear should be used to see which god is answering the question. So let’s give that a try:

Geese are sacred to Aphrodite. Aphrodite is Venus in Roman mythology. Venus the planet was ruled by her, and certain Christian sects came to associate the planet with Lucifer.

But let’s modernize our augury. Colloquially, God was goosing Glenn Beck. Glenn Beck is a silly goose. Honk if you think Glenn Beck is nuts….Surely you have some interpretation of this event.

(photo: Sakurako Kitsa on Flickr)

However the court’s ruling doesn’t give Mel Gibson a pass. Didn’t he realize he was on notice from Hollywood at the Golden Globes this year when he was made to do the intro for Inglourious Basterds after his famous anti-Semitic rant?

And now Gibson has ranted about having to pay his taxes on his credit cards. Maybe that is his comeuppance, but it’s not enough. Talk about giving Christians a bad name! Between Gibson, molesting priests and child beating nuns, the Catholic Church should just hang up their habits and turn the Vatican into an historical theme park.

And while we’re on the subject of bad behavior on tape, WTF was Limbaugh thinking?

According to a new Harris poll conducting during the height of the health care debate, 24% of the surveyed 2,230 Republicans think Obama “may be the Antichrist.”

Okay “may be” and “is” are two different things all together. Anyone “may be” anything, and that verb form is pretty speculative. Plus Glenn Beck may have a different candidate for the Beast: Director James Cameron. At least that’s what Cameron says in an Avatar home-video press session:

Glenn Beck is a fucking asshole. I’ve met him. He called me the anti-Christ and not about Avatar. He hadn’t even seen Avatar [at the time]. I don’t know if he has seen it [since].

The Beastly epithet was delivered when Cameron was exploring an ossuary in The Lost Tomb of Jesus. But actually James, you need to turn down your hubris a bit. According to CNN transcripts, what Beck said was:

Many people believe James Cameron officially has tossed his hat in the ring today and is officially running for anti-Christ.

Cameron “may be” the Antichrist, and the director has some equally vacillating views about Beck:

I think, you know what, he may or may not be an asshole, but he certainly is dangerous, and I’d love to have a dialogue with him.

Note the backsliding from “is a fucking asshole” to “may or may not be an asshole.”

And while 24% of Republicans believe that Obama “may be” the Antichrist,
* 67 percent of Republicans (and 40 percent of Americans overall) believe that Obama is a socialist
* 45 percent of Republicans (25 percent overall) agree with the Birthers in their belief that Obama was “not born in the United States and so is not eligible to be president”
* 38 percent of Republicans (20 percent overall) say that Obama is “doing many of the things that Hitler did”

There are too many people running around pointing fingers at others or themselves as Ole Triple 6, but they have forgotten something really important:

The oldest extant scrap of Revelations, a 1,700 year old papyrus from the Oxyrhynchus find gives the Number of the Beast as 616, the area code for Grand Rapids, if you care to parse that. The difference has been suggested as a mistake in transcription. I posit that the original was 616 and some clever transcriber used gematria to change it to the triple digit and thus equal through the magick of math Nero. And I know saying that will bum out a lot of heavy metal fans because now their tattoos will be like all irrelevant, but whatever.

Full disclosure: I practice an African Diasporic religion, and after the Haitian earthquake, along with a donation to the Red Cross, I gave a small sum to help the voudou community. In other words, I have a religious opinion; and like Brit Hume, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, the right to express it in the media.

Tuesday, Evangelicals violently disrupted a traditional religious ceremony in the Cite Soleil slum, located just outside the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. According to AFP:

Police said a pastor urged followers to attack the ceremony, resulting in a crowd of people throwing rocks at the voodoo followers.

Throwing rocks? WTF?! Is this anyway for Christians to act? Are they all so sinless?

Today the Washington Post reported that a two-year study by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs shows

American foreign policy is handicapped by a narrow, ill-informed and “uncompromising Western secularism” that feeds religious extremism, threatens traditional cultures and fails to encourage religious groups that promote peace and human rights.

While our foreign policy at a governmental level may be “handicapped” by secularism, the private sector is screwing up by pushing their religious agendas, retarding efforts to actually do a greater good.

In the wake of January 12 earthquake, hundreds of religious groups headed to Haiti bringing food, water and aid, some including solar powered Protestant bibles and their own religious tracts in their care packages. Some called themselves “Volunteer Ministers” and interfered with medical personnel in attempts to recruit.  It’s a huge dog pile as minsters of God ply  Haitians with various versions of salvation.

Religious tensions have increased and accelerated. Dr. Christos Kioni, the Florida-based vodou expert profiled in Christine Wicker’s Not In Kansas Anymore wrote us:

The violence fundamentalists have engaged in upon the practitioners of Vodou in Haiti is fueled by a sectarian demon. It is the same spirit that spurs Muslim radicals to engage in terrorist activities in the Name of Allah, it is the same spirit that fanned the flames of the Inquisition and Crusades. Christians have long ago abandoned their faith in the authentic teachings of Christ that God is Love. They have also forgotten that Christ said to his disciples “Other sheep I have that are not of this fold.” These radical evangelicals show no religious tolerance nor the Fruit of the Spirit by their rhetoric and actions. Such acts of violence reveal just how far Christianity has backslidden.

Earlier this month, as reported in the New York Daily News Max Beauvoir, vodou’s supreme leader

believes Christians in Haiti are taking food and supplies, and not allowing them to reach needy people outside Port-au-Prince.

“They take everything they get to their own people,” he said, “and that’s a shame.”

The Chicago Council on Global Affairs recommended:

Empowering government departments and agencies to engage local and regional religious communities where they are central players in the promotion of human rights and peace, as well as the delivery of health care and other forms of assistance.

Local and regional should mean traditional and indigenous, not just the missionary groups and those they convert.

Catholicism and vodou are the Haiti’s traditional religions.  Vodou, more commonly spelled as voudou or voodoo, is a syncretic faith combining various West African religions carried by slaves with the colonizing French’s Catholicism and aspects of the Northern European folk faiths. A voudou ceremony held by escaped slave and hougan (voudou priest) Dutty Boukman was the catalyst for Haiti’s 1791  slave rebellion that led to the island’s freedom.

Pat Robertson–who later backpedaled after a public outcry–had harsh words about Haiti’s history and blamed the country’s troubles on their faith:

They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon the third, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you will get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it’s a deal.

That sort of intolerant thinking is what leads to actions like Tuesday’s stoning in Jesus’ name. AFP reported:

Rosemond Aristide, police inspector in Cite Soleil, said he has since spoken with the pastor, who agreed to allow voodoo ceremonies to take place there. However, Aristide could not explain why no arrests were made nor provide further details.

Beauvoir claimed hundreds of Protestant Evangelicals along with other people they hired attacked the ceremony, causing a number of injuries.

KWTX reports that the attackers were Haitian Christians.

Praying and singing, the group was trying to conjure spirits to guide lost souls when a crowd of evangelicals started shouting. Some threw rocks while others urinated on Voodoo symbols.When police left, the crowd destroyed the altars and Voodoo offerings of food and rum.

Christians supposedly follow the Prince of Peace; unfortunately, their hostile behavior could lead to some repercussions. Max Beauvoir  told AFP:

It will be war — open war. It’s unfortunate that at this moment where everybody’s suffering that they have to go into war. But if that is what they need, I think that is what they’ll get.

Dr. Kioni added in email:

I agree with my friend and colleague, The Supreme Servitor of Vodou, Ati Max Beauvoir, that this attack by the evangelicals is a declaration of war. These Bible Thumpers have no idea how powerful Vodou is nor how lethal it can be.

We are mobilizing our forces to meet this demonic spirit head on; bullets nor pious, hypocritical prayers have no power where Vodou is concerned. Vodou will be recognized and accepted as a valid and legitimate system of spirituality just as the Wiccan and Pagans have been accepted. Freedom of Religion is a right and no man nor religious organization has a corner on God nor salvation. There is only ONE God and His Universal Name is Yawe.

The Chicago Council’s Richard Cizik (from the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good, who ought to be taking those rock tossers to task!) said:

Some parts of the world — the Middle East, China, Russia and India, for example — are particularly sensitive to the U.S. government’s emphasis on religious freedom and see it as a form of imperialism.

It’s also a form of  imperialism to proselytize and try to convert people during a disaster when they are at their most vulnerable. Note that the pastor who incited the stoning “agreed to allow” traditional religious ceremonies on native soil. WTF? Talk about imperialism.

I deplore the actions of those Evangelicals in Cite Soliel–all thinking and all loving people do–and pray that the Haitian people will not return ignorance and violence with more violence.

As an American, I ask my fellow Americans, whatever faith they may be, to act with grace and dignity, respecting the religious traditions of those to whom they bring aid.

Oh ministers and pastors and your flocks, do unto others as you would have them do unto you–and really, in a disaster aid situation, would you want someone trying convert you to say Islam or some arm of Christianity that doesn’t jive with yours? May peace prevail in Haiti.

Is it part of God’s plan that there are just so many good Sarah Palin stories tonight? Sarah, I just can’t quit you.You are a long cold drink on a hot day.

And speaking of drinking, it’s been announced that Palin will be the official keynote speaker at the Wine and Liquor Wholesalers of America convention in Las Vegas in early April. The convention features a liquor tasting, which leads in my bedazzled brain to the Name the Palin Cocktail game, and of course the official Sarah Palin drinking game.

Now what kind of drinking game might be best? We need a title for the game, scoring, rules, penalties, judges. She mentions “conservative” take a shot? “Good clean” whether Alaska protein or energy is worth two?

For some guidelines to the mixology concept and the drinking game, which could begin with her appearance tonight on O’Reilly (see above)  or tomorrow on Beck, here’s some stuff  from Game Change reported by the Daily Mail:

Palin’s behaviour was so erratic that at one point senior figures in the McCain campaign began to seriously discuss the possibility that she was mentally unstable..

She wasn’t eating (a few small bites of steak a day, no more). She wasn’t drinking (maybe half a can of Diet Doctor Pepper, no water, ever). She wasn’t sleeping (not much more than a couple of hours a night, max)…while being drilled for upcoming interviews, ‘she would routinely shut down – chin on her chest, arms folded, eyes cast to the floor, speechless and motionless, lost in what those around her described as a kind of catatonic stupor’.

The morning of her ill-fated CBS interview with Katie Couric, Ms Palin – ‘her eyes glassy and dead’ – was unresponsive to attempts to prep her as she was being made up.

‘As they were about to set off to meet Couric, Palin announced “I hate this makeup” -smearing it off her face, messing up her hair, complaining she looked fat,’ the book says

Speaking of cocktail, check out sleazy and creepy Glenn Beck leering about their weird attraction to each other. That’s enough to make me mix a nice absinthe and vermouth.