Gods bless the churches in Alabama where leaders of Episcopal, Methodist and Roman Catholic churches, representing 338,000 Alabama residents, filed suit Monday to block enforcement of the state’s new immigration law, claiming it prevents free exercise of religion. The Southern Poverty Law Center has also filed a suit opposing the law.

The law, signed by Governor Robert Bentley on June 9 and set to go into effect September 1, broadens police powers, requiring local authorities to identify illegal immigrants. Alabama is the fifth state to enact legislation which

requires police officers to verify the immigration status of anyone they stop and suspect may be in the U.S. illegally. Businesses must use a federal database called E-Verify to determine whether job applicants are eligible to work. In addition, the measure makes it a crime to rent housing to illegal immigrants.

Bishop Robert J. Baker of the Birmingham Diocese of the Roman Catholic Church in Alabama said in a statement that the law:

interferes with the biblical imperative of hospitality which our churches have adopted and encoded in various documents of governance. It aims to shut the doors of our churches and social ministries, against our wills, to a whole class of people, denying them access to such basic human needs as food, clothing, shelter, and, most importantly, worship of God.

It was lack of hospitality which lead to the fall of Sodom and Gomorrah…

And in other religion news, lots of Americans are just ignorant, according a poll conducted by Public Religion Research Institute in partnership with Religion News Service.

Most Americans (56 percent) say it’s important for a candidate to have strong beliefs, even if those beliefs differ from their own…Yet the religious groups most firmly behind this point — white evangelicals (73 percent) and ethnic minority Christians (74 percent) — often falter when asked about politicians’ religions.

For instance, 44 percent of white evangelicals know that Romney is a Mormon. At the same time, more than eight in 10 evangelicals say Mormon religious beliefs greatly differ from their own.

And while only one in three Americans can identify President Obama’s sect of Christianity (oh come on that’s splitting hairs, since he is currently an “unaffiliated Christian” and a former member of the United Church of Christ; seriously, what sect did Reagan belong to? Bush 1? Ford?), 18% still think the President is a Muslim!

In other findings:

At a little more than 70 percent, Republicans and Tea Party members are significantly more likely than Democrats (51 percent) to say it’s important for a presidential candidate to have strong religious beliefs. Tea Party members (46 percent) are even more likely than Republicans as a whole (38 percent) to say it is “very” important for a candidate to have strong religious beliefs.

Gary Scott Smith, an expert on presidential religions at Grove City College in Pennsylvania, told Religious News Service that white evangelicals

are going to be more likely to vote Republican, even if the party nominates someone who isn’t known for strong faith commitments. And if they don’t recognize that Romney’s a Mormon by now, then you wonder how attuned they are to politics anyway.

He added that

Americans have traditionally elected presidents who use religious language and seek divine guidance, especially when grappling with the moral conflicts of the day, provided that their beliefs are relatively mainstream and don’t conflict with national security.

And then there’s this–

—White evangelicals are the group most likely to say they don’t know what Bachmann’s beliefs are (51 percent), even though she attends a Baptist church, and only 35 percent say she has similar religious beliefs to them. [Thank gods on the latter!]

On Monday Venetian Casino Resort, LLC. filed suit against Tea Party Nation Corporation of Franklin, TN for $642,144 in unpaid hotel bills and interest. According to a contract attached to the suit, Tea Party Nation agreed to pay the resort $579,148 in the event of a cancellation. The Palazzo alleges the group still owes $554,148, plus and 18 percent interest charge of $87,996.

Tea Party Nation had big plans for their 2010 summer convention: The neo-con org booked 1,637 room nights at the ritzy Palazzo Hotel at a cost of $554,148, with attendees checking in on Wednesday, July 14, and departing on Sunday, July 18.

Except no one was interested. Las Vegas in July? Puhleez. At the average cost of $339 per night, a registration fee of $399, and the convention’s speakers Laura Ingraham and Republican congressional candidate Sharron Angle? Boring! Only excursions to see Criss Angel and Carrot Top could have made that event any more dire.

The Palazzo: Conservatively tasteful

Tea Party Nation organizers shifted the date to October, and then cancelled the whole event, skipping out on the bill. The February 2010 Tea Party Nation convention in Memphis featured Sarah Palin, but drew cries of profiteering. And Frank Ricotta, vice chair of the Clark County Republican Party and a former state director of Nevada Patriots, told the Las Vegas Review Journal at the time of the Vegas event’s cancellation:

They were kind of opportunistic.

Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips just announced that:

the 2011 Tea Party National Convention, originally scheduled for Kansas City, KS with his support, has been reset for a new state based on strategic electoral considerations and the desires of a new group of funders.

Oh, and Phillips also said:

Boehner and McConnell are the predatory credit card issuers of the Entitlement State, they’re about to renew Obama’s cancelled Mastercard, and they want to saddle America’s grandchildren with all of the bills

But the Tea Party Nation has saddled the Palazzo and its parent company, Las Vegas Sands Corp., with over $500,000 dollars in unpaid bills. Las Vegas Sands CEO Sheldon Adelson is a major Republican political donor.

Steampunk–a style of dress and for some a way of life is based in the worlds of Jules Verne,  H.G. Wells,  Robert Anton Wilson and Alan Moore. Think an alternative  Victorian England  where steam power runs elaborately geared machines, women wear corsets and–as in The Wild, Wild West TV  series and its unfortunate cinematic remake–there’s a nutty villain and outrageous gadgets.

Now The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen has transmuted into what could be called The Legs of  an Extraordinary Woman in the new comic book Steampunk Palin. And it’s not satire. But it does include  eight pin-ups, along with the most ridiculous confusing plot line (here below the spoiler alert) as I understand it from the review by Comics Alliance’s Chris Murphy who suffered through reading it–and worse yet through looking at the drawings. Chris, your eyes will stop bleeding soon, I promise. Bless you for your service to your country, nay, the world!

Somewhere in the near future, after a huge war makes the Earth’s oil dry up, politicians and policy makers  gather to figure out a new power source is needed.

Naturally being a big energy expert, Sarah Palin suggests steam power  to run the world’s generators,  as a replacement for  the now long gone oil. Because ya can’t have Tea Party with hot water, youbetcha!

And uh, you can’t have steam without heat and heat is made from generators run on what now? Steam?  But how to get steam to make more steam? Do you build huge distilleries to recycle the steam? but how do you get the energy to manufacture the steel and copper needed to build giant steam generators that…oh never mind, but you see why I am baffled?

*****************************SPOILER ALERT****************SPOILER ALERT*********************

So anyway, the energy conference is bombed by  the evil forces of Big Oil/Nuclear Energy (wait, I though the oil had all been destroyed in the war).

*Poof * When Steampunk Palin and Robama–yeah, clever that–Obama/Robama– and every one elses awakens, they have been rebuilt in to half human-half machines and Sarah’s breast seem to have truly become a fan boy (0r fan) girl fap fest.

But kudos to the artists that Sarah doesn’t shake down her up-do and take off her glasses to gain even more super powers.

The weirdest part is that the Evil Mastermind Mad Villain behind the oil/nukes profit machine and has his bad guys fight Sarah’s army of good guys (it’s all relative)  is actually Al Gore.  Okay that definitely makes this  an alternative universe. For most people reading this, an alternative universe is one where Gore won the 2000 election; DOMA was repealed and ENDA passed; the genders of people marrying was no longer an issue; the war was over; health insurance was affordable and.. and, too.

Then the Russian start a war on the border with Alaska! Naturally in the end, aided by both Robama and a spare parts-rebuilt version of John McCain (the cyborg building team fixed up his bad arm an gave him a metal one to go with his medals! How thoughtful),  Sarah’s  bipartisan alliance wins against the army (somehow her robot body controls a her own robot army-insert “twiddle knobs/push her button jokes here), and she poses for those pin up drawings. Then makess herself a nice cup of  red-blooded, all American tea. (Okay, I made that last senten up).

Oh and while we’re on the subject of alternative history genres and smash-ups, this summer will bring us COWBOYS VS ALIENS, directed by John Favreau, starring Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford. Fer realz.

Rest in peace, Captain. The rest of you, go vote!

November 2, y’all better be at the polls. There’s plenty on the ballots, whatever states you live in. AZ, CA, OR and SD have pot issues. And then there’s a whole other type of tea party to vote against!

If I can haul myself out out of my vale of tears and wrap my swollen eyes in Jackie O shades to stagger to the polls, those of you who haven’t done your mail in ballots can certainly do the same!

VOTE!

I wrote about some idiot tea partier posting what he thought was the address of Representative Tom Perriello, so that people annoyed with his health care vote and other issues could pay a visit and have

a good face-to-face chat.

Only, it was the address of congressman’s brother. Now Federal and local authorities are investigating a severed gas line at Bo Perriello’s house. The gas line led from a propane tank to a barbecue on the back porch, and while it posed no immediate threat to the Perriello family, both the FBI and the Albemarle County fire marshal are investigating the incident, and police have stepped up patrols in the area as well.

Monday, Teablogger Mike Troxel said:

If they would like to provide me with the address of Tom, then I’d be more than happy to take it down.

Troxel then posted a long response about how it was not his fault if the internets were wrong, so neener. His site has currently exceeded its bandwidth, so you can’t read his cringe-worthy, self righteous screed, but it was pretty icky.

Another Tea Partier, Nigel Coleman, wrote on his Facebook page:

This is Rep. Thomas Stuart Price Perriello’s home address … I ain’t holding back anymore!!

According to a number of news reports, Coleman also wrote on another blog–since removed:

Do you mean I posted his brother’s address on my Facebook? Oh well, collateral damage.

Coleman later said that:

his choice of words was “definitely in poor taste.” He said he was not aware of anyone actually visiting the address and said this was not an organized effort by the 5th District tea parties.

“A lot of us who are tea partiers, we communicate through social networks,” Coleman said. “One of the other tea partiers in another group put up an address and said it was Tom Perriello’s address and several others of us put it up on our Facebook pages and Twitter accounts.

“Turns out that it was not in fact his address, it was his brother’s. That was not something we were going for. We just wanted people to get a little closer to their congressman.”

Yeah, morans, it’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye. WTF?!

Oh, and BTW, the increased cost of protecting members of Congress will come out of all the taxpayers’ pockets, and could result in a decrease of personal freedoms. You idiots, idiots, idiots!

And yeah, I am waiting for the double-douche comment that

Oh the Perriellos or some progressive activist cut the gas line themselves to discredit the Tea Party.

Please link to that when that–or posts about how anti-Democratic vandalism is just pissed off progressives trying to make true patriots look bad–show up. Because it’s never their fault. (See: Tiller). Facefuckingpalm.jpg.

Film critic Roger Ebert, who lost his voice to cancer, has discovered Twitter and is busy composing 140 bursts about the Tea Party, nicknaming them rge TeaPee and calling them by their original name the Teabaggers. In an email to the Los Angeles Times Ebert writes:

I write about the TeePees because it’s so sad how they’ve been manipulated to oppose their own best interests…I am a liberal.

Along with sharing his political thoughts, Ebert has been sharing his fondness for American writer Harry S. Keeler in his blog and raising Keeler’s posthumous profile on Twitter.

Ebert told the LATimes about tweeting:

It’s an art form. It encourages minimalism, almost like a word game. Having said more than once ‘I will never be a twit,’ I now feel it is a splendid discipline . . . I link to great writing on the web. I also like to link to the unique, the beautiful, the weird…That day is a sad day when a newspaperman fears to tweet.

And his blog for the Chicago Sun Times, Ebert writes about the new device which will allow him to turn his typed words inot his own voice. He’ll be unvieling it today on Oprah.