Enter Dan Maes, running for Governor of Colorado, described as a “tea party favorite.”

Photo by Cyrus McCrimmon, The Denver Post

It turns out that his likely opponent in the general election, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, has been secretly working to turn Denver over to the U.N. by creating a bike sharing program!!!1!!

Sure, Denver signed up with the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives in order to share ideas on making the city greener with other municipalities more than a decade before Hickenlooper became mayor… but that’s just how diabolical his plan is.

And while their website mentions that the ICLEI was formed during a meeting at the United Nations, they’ve carefully hidden any current association they have with the nefarious U.N. But Maes knows better. He’s done the research! He knows!

The U.N.’s true plans were so well hidden that Maes himself didn’t realize the danger at first:

…I thought, ‘Gosh, public transportation, what’s wrong with that, and what’s wrong with people parking their cars and riding their bikes? And what’s wrong with incentives for green cars?’ But if you do your homework and research, you realize ICLEI is part of a greater strategy to rein in American cities under a United Nations treaty.

And destroy your reusable shopping bags, people. That’s how they get you!

Full story here.

2. America is good.

Much like in Maine, the teabaggers appear to have taken over the Iowa GOP. Adopted in June, the GOP platform’s 387 planks cover everything from the status of manure…

2.08 We support the definition of manure as a natural fertilizer.

…to the obvious need to abolish the IRS…

13.09 We support the abolition of the IRS.

…except when it doesn’t…

7.17 We believe that the IRS should be encumbered with the same burden of proof as other agencies, institutions, and individuals.

And then there is this:

7.19 We call for the reintroduction and ratification of the original 13th Amendment, not the 13th Amendment in today’s Constitution.

The original 13th Amendment says:

If any citizen of the United States shall accept, claim, receive or retain any title of nobility or honour, or shall, without the consent of Congress accept and retain any present, pension, office or emolument of any kind whatever, from any emperor, king, prince or foreign power, such person shall cease to be a citizen of the United States and shall be incapable of holding any office of trust or profit under them, or either of them.

It was proposed way back in 1810 as a way to make sure people with ties to English nobility couldn’t hold office… or even be citizens (I’m greatly simplifying here.) Before it could be ratified by 3/4 of the states, the War of 1812 came along and put everything on hold. After the war, British xenophobia must have waned, because no more states voted on it. It became an historical footnote.

So why do teabaggers care about it? Aha! Because Barak HUSSEIN NObama received a Nobel Peace Prize, and the Nobel committee is appointed by the King of Norway, and so that means the Nobel is a “title of honor… from… [a] king!” And that means Obama can be stripped of the Presidency – and his citizenship! (even though he’s Kenyan.)

Used teabags can also be used as a natural fertilizer.

Where did this 13th Amendment idea come from, though? As with all things teabag, it starts with a doofus. In this case, it was a guy back in the ’80′s who decided that the Amendment had actually been ratified way back in 1819. And that meant that almost every politician since then – by virtue of belonging to the International Bar Association or the International Bankers Association – was actually not a citizen of the U.S. and could not hold office. So every law, every act since 1819 would be null and void! No IRS! No freed slaves! No uppity women voters! And since Iowa was illegally admitted to the Union in 1846 by foreign terrorists, no Iowa!

So there you have it. The Iowa territory still belongs to the U.S., since the Louisiana Purchase happened in 1803. But California wasn’t captured from the Mexicans until 1848. So I guess I’m now an illegal alien living in Mexico. You’ll find me with a bunch of other guys in jeans and trucker hats loitering outside the Apple Store, waiting for someone to pay us to help set up their wifi network.

Cribbed from Newsweek, the actual Iowa GOP platform, and Jol A. Silversmith (probably “Esquire,” and therefore a foreign devil.)

Well, here we have a civilization far more advanced than we are (able to travel between the stars in a reasonable amount of time,) and you claim they’re here to harvest our genetic material. This requires specially-equipped ships, probably a base in-system somewhere, and hundreds of highly trained individuals willing to treat another sentient species as cattle.

I also note that your alien civilization seems to act exactly as if they were the worst of Humanity.

And yet, we’re perhaps decades (or less) away from being able to efficiently move atoms around with nanotechnology. We will no doubt develop this ability long before we’re able to get to even the nearest star. We’ll be able to create and manipulate molecules (like DNA) on a massive scale.

So this alien race has decided to do it “the hard way?” Rather than just get a couple of samples from us and manipulate to their heart’s content, they feel the need to get millions of samples and to keep getting them over decades.

I would say that your idea is the product of an active imagination, but really, it’s the product of a lack of imagination. You see a phenomenon and you come up with a reason for it that fits your cynical world view. You don’t stop to think that maybe sentient beings from another planet might not act like Wall Street brokers, and that if you’re going to ascribe “magic” levels of science to them, you have to ascribe it to ALL of their sciences, not just spaceship design.

So which is more likely? That many people have alien-like sleep paralysis experiences, a number of hypnotherapists have no idea what they’re doing, and PR firms for certain Hollywood movies promote anything that will raise interest in their client’s product, – or – , that a super-advanced race (in every field but one) is abducting millions of people because they need…? Material?

But here we have a woman, someone new on The View, which I’m happy to say I’ve never seen until now, who doesn’t know if the Earth is flat.

I say again:

This grown woman on a national television program does not realize the world is round.

Here’s a link.

I didn’t realize there was another level we could fall to.

I fear that before the decade is out, I will be seriously injured by someone who thinks that by taking their picture, I have stolen their soul.

The question arises, “Should those of us who are atheists debunk The Da Vinci Code?” I say no. Since “Jesus Christ” is a fictional character in the first place, debunking Da Vinci would be like debunking a book that claimed a secret cult was trying to protect the descendants of Frodo.

Oh, but if you really need a debunking, try   one   of   these.

Is a restaurant in Florida secretly harboring international terrorist Osama bin-Laden? Find out on the next Geraldo!

…while Rome burned.

First stop, Ohio. I don’t see Jesus in this picture. I see something far more sinister: a grey alien with long hair!

Next up is Jesus in the shower. This is obviously another mis-identification. That’s none other than Pete Townshend in that shower!

Meanwhile, down in Fort Worth, he’s shown up on a window. Nope. There’s nothing there. What the fuck? Are these people blind? Oh, wait. That one lady said she was blind until she touched the glass. But then why was she wearing glasses? (See the slide show.) Anyway, they tried to move it. But it broke. But the non-existent image was on the unbroken part. So’s okay.

In Detroit, two sisters who were divinely guided to be sloppy painters accidentally created this image. Personally, I think it looks like a side view of this character from Star Trek: Insurrection. Why the sisters would immortalize a character from such a crappy movie is beyond me.

Now, we all know that Jesus has many super-powers, but I didn’t know super-shrinking was one of them. Let’s see… god flosses those who floss themselves? Don’t forget to use Christ toothpaste? Four out of five dentists recommend Jesus for their patients who chew Christ?

What unmitigated idiocy.

Of course, I’m not immune to the occasional bout of wishful thinking. I once saw Einstein’s head in a crumpled up piece of cellophane. Then it uncrumpled a little and looked instead like Carrot Top. So I threw it out.