It’s unclear whether a procedural victory for opponents of a controversial Islamic center in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, will delay or permanently enjoin completion of a mosque, under construction since last September. Equally unclear, without detailed knowledge of the facts, are the merits of Chancellor Robert Corlew’s ruling that the planning commission had not provided proper public notice of the construction before granting a permit. But if this ruling is not a victory for bigotry (Corlew explicitly acknowledged the Islamic congregation’s rights under the First Amendment and a federal statute), it is a victory for the bigots who opposed the mosque out of antipathy toward Islam and the idiotic claim that it is not a religion.

Mosque opponents effectively “put Islam on trial,” KATV reports. At 2010 hearings, “a string of witnesses questioned whether Islam is a legitimate religion and promoted a theory that American Muslims want to replace the Constitution with extremist Islamic law and the mosque was a part of that plot.”

These are not arguments; they’re fantasies, and we have heard them all before, often from the same people who would conform constitutional rights (notably rights for gay people and women) to their understanding of biblical law. Still, the ignorance and un-self-conscious hypocrisy that underlies rants about Shariah law are breathtaking.

Here’s how Joe Brandon*, the plaintiff’s attorney in the Tennessee case, explains opposition to the mosque: “This Shariah-compliant facility must show they are a religious organization, which we vehemently dispute. They are a political organization with Shariah-compliant rules and regulations. Shariah and the U.S. Constitution cannot coexist.”

*Cunt. 

Mack Wolford, a flamboyant Pentecostal pastor from West Virginia whose serpent-handling talents were profiled last November in The Washington Post Magazine , hoped the outdoor service he had planned for Sunday at an isolated state park would be a “homecoming like the old days,” full of folks speaking in tongues, handling snakes and having a “great time.” But it was not the sort of homecoming he foresaw.

Instead, Wolford, who turned 44 the previous day, was bitten by a rattlesnake he owned for years. He died late Sunday.

Who would have thought that harassing a deadly snake on a regular basis could go so wrong?

The 32nd annual Razzie Awards, which recognize the worst movies and performances of the year, were held earlier this evening and according to Reuters, Adam Sandler’s “Jack and Jill” made Hollywood history by winning all ten categories.

That’s not just pretty bad, it’s legendarily bad.

Voted on by a panel of experts as well as anybody with an internet connection, the Golden Raspberry Awards have been given out every year since 1981. But never before has one movie crapped the bed as hard as “Jack and Jill.” Just how bad was it? Well, for his dual performance as twin sisters Jack and Jill, Sandler became the first performer to ever win both the Worst Actor and the Worst Actress awards.

Imagine a glee club with 196 diverse, well-groomed teenagers preparing to sing rock band Asia’s classic “Heat of the Moment.” There’s a lot of pressure to do well because a great performance could earn them a trip to regionals. A problem arises though: Three kids won’t sing Asia’s 1982 masterpiece, inexplicably insisting on performing Jefferson Starship’s “We Built This City.” Everyone tries to convince the holdouts to switch their song for the group’s sake. “We’ve come so far,” they plead. “Don’t hold us back when we’re this close to regionals!” Nonetheless, the 193 are met with refusal, and the future of this once-promising singing collective remains in question. If you were one of the 193-strong majority, wouldn’t you be frustrated at the asinine stubbornness? Now switch the legendary sounds of Asia for the metric system and the three contrarians with Liberia, Myanmar and the United States, and the situation seems even more ridiculous. The rest of the world uses a system based on universally accepted measurements. We cling to a system based on the size of a king’s foot. Any pinko commie foreigners be damned if they try to point out the absurdity of doing so.

Welcome to the 21st century U.S., where logic is fine and dandy as long as it doesn’t threaten the infallible notion of American exceptionalism. In the past, this meant belief in the potential of a fledgling nation to thrive above the rest because of our work ethic and independent spirit. Now it’s a cover-all justification to resist “change,” which, as everyone knows, is just a liberal code word for socialism.

Never mind that American education lags behind the rest of the first world, our bloated prison system has nearly 10 times the number of prisoners as any other developed country, and a significant amount of adults believe radio hosts with no college degrees are better informed about science than actual scientists.

Twenty-five years ago young Americans had a chance.

In 1984, American breadwinners who were sixty-five and over made ten times as much as those under thirty-five. The year Obama took office, older Americans made almost forty-seven times as much as the younger generation.

This bleeding up of the national wealth is no accounting glitch, no anomalous negative bounce from the recent unemployment and mortgage crises, but rather the predictable outcome of thirty years of economic and social policy that has been rigged to serve the comfort and largesse of the old at the expense of the young.

Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, human potential has been consistently growing, generating greater material wealth, more education, wider opportunities — a vast and glorious liberation of human potential. In all that time, everyone, even followers of the most corrupt or most evil of ideologies, believed they were working for a better tomorrow. Not now. The angel of progress has suddenly vanished from the scene. Or rather, the angel of progress has been sent away.

Nobody ever talks about generational conflict. Who wants to bring up that the old are eating the young at the dinner table? How are you going to mention that to your boss? If you’re a politician, how are you going to tell your donors? Even the Occupy Wall Street crowd, while rejecting the modes and rhetoric and institutional support of Boomer progressives, shied away from articulating the fundamental distinction that fills their spaces with crowds: young against old.

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For the past several months, the laissez-fairyland blogosphere, assorted corporate front groups, a howling pack of congressional right-wingers and a bunch of lazy mass media sources have been pounding out a steadily rising drumbeat to warn that our postal service faces impending doom. It’s “broke,” they exclaim; USPS “nears collapse”; it’s “a full-blown financial crisis!”

Why?

In 2006, the Bush White House and Congress whacked the post office with the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act — an incredible piece of ugliness requiring the agency to PRE-PAY the health care benefits not only of current employees, but also of all employees who’ll retire during the next 75 years. Yes, that includes employees who’re not yet born! No other agency and no corporation has to do this. Worse, this ridiculous law demands that USPS fully fund this seven-decade burden by 2016. Imagine the shrieks of outrage if Congress tried to slap FedEx or other private firms with such an onerous requirement.

Why would Republicans pass this for any reason other than to slowly bleed the USPS dry, and grease the hands of FedEX, UPS and the like? Oh, that is why? Cool. 

If I were going to describe the perfect contraceptive, it would go something like this: no babies, no latex, no daily pill to remember, no hormones to interfere with mood or sex drive, no negative health effects whatsoever, and 100 percent effectiveness. The funny thing is, something like that currently exists.  The procedure called RISUG in India (reversible inhibition of sperm under guidance) takes about 15 minutes with a doctor, is effective after about three days, and lasts for 10 or more years.

The world is close to reaching tipping points that will make it irreversibly hotter, making this decade critical in efforts to contain global warming, scientists warned on Monday.

Scientific estimates differ but the world’s temperature looks set to rise by six degrees Celsius by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions are allowed to rise uncontrollably.  As emissions grow, scientists say the world is close to reaching thresholds beyond which the effects on the global climate will be irreversible, such as the melting of polar ice sheets and loss of rainforests.

 ”This is the critical decade. If we don’t get the curves turned around this decade we will cross those lines,” said Will Steffen, executive director of the Australian National University’s climate change institute, speaking at a conference in London.  Despite this sense of urgency, a new global climate treaty forcing the world’s biggest polluters, such as the United States and China, to curb emissions will only be agreed on by 2015 - to enter into force in 2020.

 ”We are on the cusp of some big changes,” said Steffen. “We can … cap temperature rise at two degrees, or cross the threshold beyond which the system shifts to a much hotter state.”

We have been nearly seven years without a series (eleven years if you don’t count Enterprise). It’s time to bring Star Trek back and to do so properly.