My Favorite Bastard

Every so often I get curious about what Kip McKean is up to these days.  It doesn’t happen often, I think the last time was over a year ago.  Today, I saw this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kip_McKean

There’s a flaw in the Wikipedia philosophy.  Mostly it works, but on edge fringe cases like this, it simply can’t.  If you can make it to the bottom without vomiting or suffocating from incredulous laughter, note how the tone changes.  At the beginning the writer(s) makes an honest effort to sound legitimate, as though everything reported is mere fact.  In a sense they are, in the same way North Korea reports facts on their state sponsored news agency.  Towards the bottom all pretense is lost.   Note the use of exclamation marks and the use of the words “we” and “our”.  It’s not too hard to figure out the perspective of the writer.  How many other Wikipedia articles use “we”, especially in an article about an individual?  I was tempted to “correct” the article, but I suspect that’s already happened a couple of times.  It’s surprising to see the “critical” links at the bottom haven’t been removed.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, this article has been “cleansed”.

For an alternative view of Kip McKean, try out these sites.

• http://www.rightcyberup.org/
• http://www.reveal.org/
• http://www.cultwatch.com/icc.html

He has an official website, but I don’t recommend you waste your time.  http://www.kipmckean.org/  It’s boring as dirt.

A bit more interesting reading is http://www.kipmckean.com/.  How pissed off do you think he was when he saw that domain was taken?

This man started a cult, this cult grew to frightening proportions, and damaged countless people.  Eventually the ICOC (his cult) more or less kicked him out for not living up to his own standards (nobody can live up to those standards, incidentally) and went to Portland Oregon to start again.  The ICOC more or less collapsed under it’s own weight without the charismatic cult leader to hold it together.  He’s still out there and he’s still ruining lives.  He’s since moved back to Los Angeles and more or less rebuilt his “movement”.  Apparently the current name is the Los Angeles International Christian Church (Ironically, I.C.C instead of I.C.O.C., the International Churches of Christ.  Creativity does not appear to be one of his sins). 

Why do I tell you this?  Simply this.  If you’ve read this post then you’re most likely not a member of the church (they don’t allow members to browse the Internet unsupervised, this post would be considered “spiritual porn”), but you might know someone who is.  They might approach you.  If you’re even mildly on the fence about the existence of God they’ve got an in with you. 

Mostly, though, I hope that I’ve completely wasted your time.

Today, the world is a slightly better place

I'm still keeping up on the news, and despite several Republican attempts at revisionist history (e.g. "Bush defeated the Taliban/Al Queda" which still hasn't happened, the economy problems started before Bush, blah blah) I see the mess beginning to be straightened out.  Apparently President Obama was shocked to find out that he had the authority to declare American citizens as enemy combatants, and could indefinitely detain them and deprive them of their civil rights without due process.  Yep.  Apparently the damage done to the Constitution didn't just apply to Iraqis. 

I got a slight chuckle when I heard there's a movement in Canada to have George Bush detained on suspicion of torture (which shouldn't be too hard to prove), where he is headed now to give his first post-presidential speech.  I believe that it will be an American first to have a president arrested for war crimes.  As embarrassing as it would be for the country, it would still be good to see.  One can hope...

I like President Obama.  I think he's shown moral fibre in his first couple of months as President which has been sorely lacking in America's leadership for a very long time (e.g. more than eight years).  It saddens me to see Republicans still playing politics.  The Democrats do too, but Obama seems (so far) to be above it.  The fact that he's a Democrat seems almost incidental to him.  He's out to repair the damage of eight years of Sith rule. 

I don't hate all Republicans because of Bush, nor do I like all Democrats because of Obama.  I wonder how people justify what happened to themselves solely because they call themselves "Republican".  I wonder how many people no longer call themselves "Republican" because they couldn't.  That's the danger of being a party-liner.  I'm neither Republican nor Democrat.  Neither Conservative nor Liberal (well, maybe just a bit Liberal).  This gives me the ability to be a bit more objective about politics.  I didn't like what I saw and I didn't have to rationalize it.  I like what I'm seeing now and I can be confident I'm not rationalizing.

I wish he weren't a Democrat, but if he weren't he wouldn't have been elected.  It still bothers me to see our government stuck in the grip of these two massive political parties that for the most part seem interested in nothing but bickering.  I think there's light at the end of the tunnel, though.