Yep. I heard it on the radio tonight. Scary, huh? People running screaming in the streets of Toledo, beating their breasts in Topeka, and so forth, all because Hamas (pronounced like humus) won in Palestine. (Gosh, I hope this doesn't mess up the Superbowl...)
Let me explain. I just put a new battery into my car and while I was resetting my favorite radio stations, I stumbled onto SunLife Radio - the awesome informational machine of that exemplary
pedophile christian Jimmy Swaggert and his buddies. I've listened to these folks before and it is hard to find a more ignorant, hate-filled outfit in America (I know some exist, but I'd have to look a lot harder to find them). They spend most of their time attacking other fundies, though, and so it's sometimes entertaining to peek in on them.
Anyway, tonight the host (a woman with an exagerated southern drawl whose name I never caught) was on the phone with Barbara, who is NOT an expert on the Midwest Middle East even though she has a hell of a lot to say about it and has lived there for 23 years.
The host was explaining how the election of HAWmus in Palestine had forced the prime minister to resign (which prime minister? - why the Palestinian Prime Minister of course) which meant that the president was going to have to appoint a new one.
Which president? Why President Bush, of course. Yes sir, that's right. Didn't know that our beloved preznit got to appoint the leader of Palestine, did you? Well, Barbara quickly corrected the host (come on Barb, don't be coy - you really ARE an expert, aren't you!?) and said that it was the Palestinian preznit who would appoint the new prime minister. The host blushed (verbally) and allowed as how this information was just arriving on her desk, and if she made a mistake or two it was because this amazing, breaking news was not yet clear (at 11 pm eastern time Thursday - only about 24 hours after the news really broke).
Well, I was intrigued, and couldn't change that dial!
Pretty soon I learned the following:
- that the election of HAWmus had thrown the Midwest into turmoil!
- that if Carter had been prezunt for 8 years, any ol' country could have walked in and taken over the US.
- that in the last year of Carter's prezuncy the press wouldn't admit that he was going to lose to Reagan, who was just a movie star after all. This revelation was quickly followed by a correction from Barbara, who allowed as how she made a mistake and it was actually Ford that Carter beat that year, and (blush) in correcting her mistake she forgot what she was going to say next!
- that Carter destroyed our relationship with the Shaw of Iran, who, although being a dictator, ("But he was OUR dictator" said Barbara, in, I swear, a sweet "aren't those puppies cute" kind of voice) was a good man because he was trying to make Iran into a country like America.
- that Komayni made women wear them shawls, you know, that Ay-rab dress thing.
- that the reason our Patriot missiles missed all them Scuds in the first Gulf War was because the Scuds were malfunctioning and tumbling in erratic ways. Russia learned from this and began to make "tumbling" missiles, (sort of like tumbling pigeons, I surmised) and now Iran has bought some tumbling missiles from Russia (for $30 billion) that they could use soon to launch nucular warheads against Israel or the US.
- these attacks against New York, DC, and LA would throw the US into turmoil (so we'd better do something to defend ourselves quick!).
- that Israel is our mostest, bestest friend, and that they will soon launch an attack against Iran (before March).
- that we should all write letters to the editor and call in on the radio to support our dear preznit.
- that the host has a picture of the Pope kissing the Ko-rahn.
- Ted Kennedy has used his political power and name to get away with things he should have been imprisoned for, and we should all chip in to buy him a ticket so he can go live in some other country where it's all politically correct and that.
Anyway, it goes on and on. This, folks, is where many of our neighbors get their information.
Wouldn't life be a hell of a lot easier if you were stupid?
PS - last night I was listening to Coast to Coast radio (home of space aliens, vampires, ancient Hebrew scripture, pseudo-science, auras, and lots of paranoia) and a caller (who verified his credentials by describing a vision he had on the Santa Monica Freeway of a bloody cross 10 miles long suspended above LA) said that he had dreamed that on March 13, Israel would launch a nuclear war, but if we all prayed really hard, it could be prevented. I like that kind of prophecy - make it contingent on a totally unmeasurable metric so your butt is covered if (when?) it doesn't come true! But an eerie similarity to the Pentecostals above, n'est-ce pas?