Sometimes you just have to laugh: Owners of biblical replica of Noah’s ark sue over … rain damage (and it wasn’t even 40 days and 40 nights). In case you aren’t familiar, the Ark Encounters theme park (and Creationism Museum) in Kentucky was built with an $18,000,000 (that’s 18 million) from the taxpayers. This should have seemed an obvious violation of the U.S. Constitution’s ban on establishing a religion, but no, politicians insisted that it was really about jobs that the theme park was going to create thanks to the millions of visitors who would show up to see the park. Never mind that the park insisted not just that employees be Christian, but they have a very narrow definition of Christian: prospective employees have to declare that they adhere to a litany of anti-gay and ultra conservative doctrines to be hired.

By the way, those supposed millions of tourists have never shown up. They dispute those numbers, yet they also have come back begging the state for more money to make up for the lack of income, so…

Anyway, they had some flood issues that caused damage to one of their roads, and their insurance companies have refused to cover more than a fraction of the cost of the repairs: Not The Onion: Ark Encounter Sues Over Rain Damage.

These are the same kind of people who insist that thoughts and prayers will end gun violence, and also claim their god will always provide and so forth. So, why the heck are they suing their insurance companies.

But then, remember, these same people decided two years ago to start lighting up the Ark with rainbow lights as an anti-gay statement. Again, I’m not kidding! They claim that they have taken the rainbow back from the queer community by lighting up this money pit like it’s a giant Pride Parade float: ‘Look at this gay boat’: Creationist’s use of ‘God’s rainbow’ colors for Ark park lighting gets hilariously mocked.

Irony is when people are (tragically) unaware that their perception of their situation or their actions are at odds with their actual situation. Clearly, irony is very much alive and kicking for the Ark Encounter wingnuts.

Speaking of wingnuts, Ben Shapiro is spouting off racist/facist/nazi nonsense, again. He and the alt-right are always disavowing each other, they because he’s Jewish, and he because somehow he thinks that people can’t see that he is saying all the same things they are. But don’t take my word for it, go read this incredibly good explanation: On the Right & Civilisations. “I know there’s already a thousand takedowns of this whiny crap from Ben Shapiro but good grief it is whiny crap.”

It’s definitely worth the read!

Edited to Add: Since the news about the Ark Encounter park suing its insurers over the refusal to cover all of the flood damage unleashed a million mocking headlines, they have gotten very angry and issued a counter-statment: Ark Encounter Really Hates That People Are Saying They Suffered “Flood” Damage. The statements from the Ark Encounter people declare all of those headlines fake news (they use the exact phrase) and then say that it is not flood damage, it’s rain damage—because that is totally different, and rain doesn’t have the same funny connotations as flood does when talking about Noah’s Ark.

So the places that specifically used the phrase “and it wasn’t even 40 days and 40 nights!” can totally keep the same headlines.

One more thing: I got a ping elseweb in response to this original posting that took issue with me poking fun at the Ark Encounters park because they light up the ark light a rainbow every night, making it look like a gay pride statement clearly visible from the nearest interstate. The commenter didn’t think I understood that the rainbow was a symbol from god. Ahem. As I have written before: the christianists who try to claim the gays stole the rainbow from god are the ones who don’t understand the importance of the rainbow in the story of Noah. I’ll just quote one of the times I wrote about it: “[quoting] from the end of the story of Noah in the old testament to justify his claim that queers have stolen god’s invention. I’m going to quote a bit of that: “¹³ I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. ¹⁴ Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, ¹⁵ I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life.” That’s god talking to Noah, and please note what god himself says: the rainbow is a sign of a covenant between god and the entire planet. A moment later he emphasizes that it is a sign of a covenant between him and all living creatures of every kind. Gay people are part of the planet. Gay people are a kind of living creature.”

I will leave for the reader the exercise of determining just what kind of an omniscient being needs to leave himself post-it notes in the sky just to remember that he shouldn’t commit genocide.