A World Quite Mad

SOPA/PIPA can bite me

2012-01-17T20:35:00.004-06:00

This blog will be offline in protest of the fascist bastards who want to pass SOPA/PIPA. Write your senator. Write your congressmen. I don't care if you think it won't do any good. Do it anyway.

"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." --Sergei Bondarchuk

The War on Contraception and the Rise of Serfdom in America

2012-01-11T18:33:00.002-06:00

Since Rick Santorum, or as they call him Mr. Frothy in much of the left-leaning blogosphere, was quoted as saying that the states should have the right to outlaw contraception (a clever way of saying that it ought to be outlawed without coming out and saying it directly), I've been thinking a lot about the general state of affairs in these United States. It's the 21st century to be sure, but the neoCons seem intent on taking us back to the dark ages, not only by outlawing contraception, and ostensibly abortion, but by having a population of serfs utterly dependent upon the Corporatocracy for every little morsel of their genetically engineered food.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that poverty and children are intertwined on the same thread. In fact, as we speak more children are slipping into poverty because our economy is in the toilet.

Who is hardest hit by this poverty? Minorities of course.

"Minorities were hit hardest. Blacks experienced the highest poverty rate, at 27 percent, up from 25 percent in 2009, and Hispanics rose to 26 percent from 25 percent. For whites, 9.9 percent lived in poverty, up from 9.4 percent in 2009."

So what does the religious right do to try to alleviate this poverty? Do they push family planning and the use of contraception to prevent unwanted pregnancy and therefore abortion? No, they plan to protest abortion at the Democratic National Convention in Charolotte. They insist that abortion is causing a "black genocide".

I read that and thought, 'What a bunch of bullshit.' Isn't that just what the poor need? More mouths to feed? In fact, the African American population in this country has grown over the last ten years and is projected to grow further over the next forty years according to the US census bureau. I know, I know, since when do I expect religious fundamentalists with an agenda to actually tell the truth. Genocide is a loaded word. It's very definition means the utter destruction of a population based on a trait. Well, as you can see from the census data, that ain't happening.

In fact, this sort of thing pisses me off, a lot. It implies that black women aren't fit to make their own decisions regarding their own bodies and their own lives. They need someone to tell them what to do, in this case religious conservatives and a (Caucasian and male dominated) big brother government. Because minorities, especially female minorities, can't be trusted to make decisions.

Black anti-abortion activists depict this phenomenon in dire terms — “genocide” and “holocaust,” for example. But often the women getting the abortions say they act in the interests of children they already have.

“It wasn’t a hard decision for me to make, because I knew where I wanted to go in my life — I’ve never regretted it,” said Kimberly Mathias, 28, an African-American single mother from Missouri.
She had an abortion at 19, when she already raising a 2-year-old son.

“It wasn’t hard to realize I didn’t want another child at that time,” Mathias said. “I was trying to take care of the one I had, and going to college and working at the same time.”

She was able to graduate, now has an insurance job, and — still a single mother — has a 3-year-old son as well as her first-born, now 11.

Women who have abortions for non-medical reasons do so for one of three reasons. Either (1) they already have too many children to care for and can't afford another one, or (2) they aren't ready to have a child because they are still in school but would like children later, or (3) they don't ever want children. Why do these religious fascists think they have a right to tell women that they must carry a pregnancy to term no matter their current state of affairs, no matter if they just simply don't want children? Where do they get off? Let's turn this back on them. I don't ever want children and I don't think anyone should have children either so therefore I'm going to legislate no more children ever! Ridiculous right? Yeah, about as ridiculous as their reasoning, or rather lack thereof.

The argument against abortion breaks down into two camps. The religious wingnuts who think that if they allow others (not themselves mind you because these laws don't apply to them) to have abortions then some imaginary sky god will be angry at them. And the other camp? The Corporatocracy of course. I imagine it hasn't escaped their notice that outlawing abortion, and especially contraception, would increase poverty in this country. And an increase in poverty is good for the rich and good for big business. Outlawing contraception and abortion would essentially assure that most women, and by extension their children, would live in poverty and never be able to get themselves out of it. If you think this is bullshit, read this study. I for one didn't need to read that study. I've seen the vicious cycle of poverty with my own eyes.

What better way for the Corporatocracy to have a steady stream of poor workers than to outlaw contraception? Workers who would be willing to work for minimum wage, if the minimum wage even lasts that long. Poverty is a trap, and one incredibly difficult to get out of. We speak of choices. Those born into poverty had no choice in the matter and the Corporate-christo-fascists don't want them to have one either, as it serves the Corporate jackals to have a serf class at their beck and call.

Opa, Zeigen sie mir ihre papiere

2012-01-09T22:28:00.004-06:00

The title says it all. You know, things can be so absurd that people won't believe they are happening. I suppose that could have something to do with what happened in Germany in 1933. Most people just simply couldn't fathom what was going on. They couldn't fathom that their elected leaders would throw away a Democratic Republic.

Why does the DHS need to show up at a Social Security Office in Leesburg, FL where elderly citizens go to get their checks? (note to Glen Beck and the rest of his teabagging rabble, they're not "entitlements" but rather getting back the hard earned money you invested into the government for forty plus years) Just so you know, it is not legal for an officer of the law, be it federal or state or local to ask you for your "papers" unless they have probable cause to believe you have committed a crime. Well, except I guess in Arizona, except that even there it's unconstitutional. It's a violation of the fourth amendment. But you know, politicians are so used to wiping their asses with it by now, I suppose a bit of it was flushed down the proverbial toilet. Someone should send fiddles to all the members of congress and the President. They can then fiddle while America and everything she used to stand for, burns.

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross." --Sinclair Lewis

Chris Hedges: The Election March of the Trolls

2012-01-07T23:04:00.004-06:00

I saw Chris Hedges this morning on Book TV and when he was asked if he was following the election coverage in Iowa, he said no. He said he didn't want to fill his head with such bullshit, well not in so many words but that's the gist of it. He called it "The Election March of the Trolls." An apt name for it methinks.

This is pretty much the conclusion that I came to a while ago. It's all bullshit, every friggin' bit of it. I think that's a reason why so many people whose blogs I used to read have stopped blogging. It's why I barely bother to write about any of this crap any more. It's all nonsense. Nothing important is said, and when something important is said, it's obfuscated by a bunch of other bullshit.

Hey kids, make sure you strap yourselves in, keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. The road to tyranny is a bit bumpy. Let's hope someone decides on a detour before it's too late. I don't like that particular vacation destination. I prefer the French Pyrenees by far.

"Those who would sacrifice liberty for a little bit of temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." --Benjamin Franklin

Kim Jong Il has died...

2011-12-18T21:46:00.003-06:00

Farewell, so long, good riddance and don't come back anytime soon.

Via Gawker

Scott Olsen shot @ POINT BLANK range by Oakland PD

2011-10-27T18:50:00.006-05:00

If this don't piss you off, nothing ever will. What the hell is wrong with the Oakland PD that they not only fire a tear gas canister at POINT BLANK range at someone's head, but that they follow that up by firing flash grenades into the crowd as they try to help the person who the police have injured.

I'll be honest, when I first heard that Scott Olsen, (for those of you who haven't heard, was a veteran to two tours of duty in Iraq and a Marine), had been wounded by the police I thought one of two things, one was that he probably got in the middle of a crowd that was violent or that the police had fired randomly into the air and the canister had come down on his head. You see, I couldn't imagine that the police would *really* be jackbooted thugs. Not here. Well, watch the video and you'll see. The Oakland Police Department are indeed a bunch of jackbooted thugs.

The videos show it all. The protesters were peaceful. Nothing was being thrown until the police fired tear gas and someone in the crowd threw one back. The crowd did not become violent at all, not even after they were attacked by the police.

And "unlawful assembly"? It is our constitutional right to assemble anywhere on public property that we god damned well please. Requiring a permit even is a violation of this right, and most cities are in violation of the Constitution of the United States.

By the way, the fascist thugs should know that this ain't 1933. You can't make up lies any more because the cameras, they don't lie.

Footage of Scott Olsen being shot by Police at Occupy Oakland from Raleigh Latham on Vimeo.

And it begins...

2011-10-26T11:23:00.005-05:00

It's only a matter of time until they declare martial law and start shooting people. Teargas fired at Oakland protesters? Because the People are pissed and occupying a public space? What is this? A third world dictatorship? It's certainly beginning to seem like it. (Actually, it's seemed like it for a while now, we're all just in denial.)

Erin Burnett mocks #Occupy: No surprise because...

2011-10-09T00:11:00.004-05:00

...she's worth 12 million dollars. To top that off, she makes two million dollars a year. And I thought congressional members made an absurd amount of money. That totally pales in comparison to the $174k a year that they make, even with the 26 weeks of vacation. Ridiculous.

These media jackals keep saying that they don't know what these people are protesting. Yeah, they can't say because it would take more than the two second sound byte to do so. The list is fuck-off long as to just how jacked up this system of ours is. I believe it can be fixed though. There was a ton of greed and avarice in the 1920s and our grandparents paid for it with the Great Depression, and it took a while, but things turned around and were even better than before. I just hope that Obama grows a pair and rivals FDR when historians look back on this era.

Herman Cain: Don't blame the Corporatocracy, Blame yourself

2011-10-05T21:59:00.009-05:00

Herman Cain is an (un)American idiot. If you recall back in July he was clamoring for religious tests before people can serve in government here. Any sixth grader who's taken government studies could tell you that that is unconstitutional, a violation of Article Six of our Constitution. Now he tells ordinary, average Americans that it's all their fault.

"Don't blame Wall Street, don't blame the big banks," he continued. "If you don't have a job and you are not rich, blame yourself!

Really? I wonder when Herman Cain last visited a ghetto. Maybe he should take a stroll through public housing. While he's there he'd do well to look at all the children living there. Children brought into this world, born into poverty, through NO FAULT OF THEIR OWN, who do not stand a chance with people like Herman Cain running things.

"While Cain dismissed the protests, he stressed in his interview with the Wall Street Journal that he's more in touch with the middle class than the GOP frontrunner, Mitt Romney."

O rly? Well, I suppose this could be factually accurate since there's not much of a middle class left here in the United States and what is left is on it's way out. I guess it's easy to be more in touch than your opponent with something that doesn't exist.

"And while Cain has been successful in business, he told the Wall Street Journal's Alan Murray, "Don't spread this perception I'm a kajillionaire.""

This is of course a lie. Only the rich can run for office in this country. I suppose an exception might be made if someone of lesser means sold out and was funded by a Corporate backer *cough* tea party candidates *cough*

Actually, Herman Cain's net worth is reported to be $18,000,000. How many years would you have to work to earn that much money? If I went by my last full-time job, which happened to pay ABOVE the median wage for an individual in the United States, I would have to work over four hundred years to earn what Herman Cain is worth. At the rate I'm going now, since I'm underemployed, it would probably take me closer to a few thousand years to earn that much. There's something wrong with that. But then again, Herman Cain is in the top 1% of people in this country. Besides the non-existant middle class, I'm sure he's in touch with his profit margin.

Judging from his self-serving demeanor, I dare say that Herman Cain would not want to raise taxes on the rich, unlike Obama, since Herman Cain acts like an entitlement whore, in that he's entitled and the rest of us are just SOL.* Herman Cain doesn't care about this country. He doesn't care about our Constitution either, and he doesn't care about you. Unless 'you' happen to be Herman Cain that is, or one of his cronies. And if Herman Cain reads this, since he claims to be Christian, maybe he ought to ponder the second half of the nineteenth chapter of the book of Matthew.

"You know, where it ends, usually depends on where you start." --Everlast, What it's Like

*Hint:Obama is rich too, but still raised taxes on himself.

An answer to the right-wing pundits and tea-baggers:

2011-10-03T23:44:00.003-05:00

Since reading the news about the Occupy Wall Street protests I noticed a few common themes in the comments from tea-bagger types. I'd like to take this time to refute the ~~corporate shills'~~ tea-baggers' ideas (which are absolute nonsense).

Teabagger: Aren't these protesters just a bunch of whiney rich kids with nothing better to do?

Me: Um, no. If they were rich they'd be on a yacht off the coast of Monaco thinking about all the ways they can get out of paying any taxes on their capital gains.

Teabagger: The government would have an easier time of it if they just didn't have to pay everyone their "entitlements" like Social Security.

Me: Last time I checked, Social Security is not an entitlement. The government has been taking money out of my check since I was sixteen years old. When I retire, they give it back plus interest. Maybe the teabaggers should take a simple course in economics before they decide to lecture about it.

Teabagger: These kids took student loans out of their own choice and therefore it's their problem.

Me: No, it's really society's problem. When millions of Americans desire an education and cannot afford it and therefore must go into debt to get it, something is terribly wrong with the system. Australians and Europeans get free higher education if they do well in school, and are not saddled with debt the second they get out. We have twenty-something year olds in debt before they even get started in a career path, and then add to that the massive unemployment and the fact that possibly 50% of recent college graduates are either unemployed or working in jobs that do not require a degree, and we (yes we!) have a huge problem on our hands.

To add to that, we waste human capital (not that that matters to the Corporate elite, although it should). Just because you're born into poverty doesn't mean that you shouldn't have a chance at things. Isn't that what the so-called American Dream was all about? If someone is intelligent, they should be given an education free of charge. The teabaggers are a cabal left over from feudalism, wishing to see us return to a time when (corporate) lords protected people (serfs) from the ravishes of the world in exchange for absolute bondage to them. They stand for something that is the very anti-thesis of a free and democratic society.

What is wrong with these teabaggers and those who share such ideology? I'd start with the fact that besides the psychological problems and ignorance they obviously have (signs held up at their "parties" about government staying out of Medicare say it all), they also have no empathy. Why else would you boo a veteran of our armed forces? Or cheer because someone without insurance dies? Or absolve yourself of all interest in your fellow Americans.

Obama was quoted as saying that's not who "we" are. I want to know who these asshats are. Is it just ignorance? Is it that they can't think for themselves so they just parrot whatever they've been spoon-fed by Faux News? Whatever it is, it's refreshing to see that there are still intelligent people left in this country.

"Because if this is gonna be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we've got to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that he commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition -- and then admit that we just don't want to do it." --Stephen Colbert

American Autumn

2011-10-02T21:58:00.005-05:00

A single snow flake can start an avalanche.

A single drop of rain can precede a flood.

One person can change the entire world.

I know what you're thinking. The first two are true and the third is bullshit. But it's not. Think about it for a minute. I'm sure you can come up with a handful of people who, if they had never lived, the world would not be the same place. Maybe more than a handful. They may have had help, they may not have done it alone, but without them, things would not be the way they are now.

The corporate media is determined to undermine the Occupy protests. They're dismissing it as a bunch of hipsters who don't want to work. ~~Corporate shills~~ Trolls online are calling them communists, as if they even comprehend the meaning of that word. Communist, liberal, socialist, fascist, conservative etc. have all lost their meaning because of the misapplying of these terms to things/people/movements that do not fit into their definition. The mainstream media are owned by powers that wish to see us made into serfs. If you think this is also bullshit, I suggest you turn off Faux News and take a look around. Corporate profits are up 22% since 2007. Why are so many people out of work? Because they're pocketing the money on the backs of their workers. But that's just the tip of the iceberg and only one of the many problems that are facing us today.

Why are CEOs making more than ever when the average American's salary has fallen? More importantly, why are so many Americans hoodwinked into thinking that if there is regulation of a system it won't benefit them? Why do these same people think that regulation equals communism? Or that providing for the poor equals communism? (Jesus was apparently a communist in that case.) Public education in this country is the first thing cut, and when you think about it, from an almost conspiracy-theory-esque sense, that's been a boon to the Corporatocracy. What better way to control the masses, to make them believe your propaganda newscasts than to give them a lackluster education and discourage critical thinking skills. I'd like to believe that it's a serendipitous by-product of unintended consequences, but after a while discounting the multiple "coincidences" tends to make one question their sanity anyway.

You may also think that everyone is just too lazy or too comfortable to do anything about it. After all when we can sit around and poke at facebook or lose ourselves in online games, why would we want to put ourselves in danger of being arrested, pepper-sprayed by police or worse? But always, always throughout history, there comes a tipping point. Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that, "all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed." What happens when everyone has had enough? What happens when a military you have equipped and trained (and that qualifies for food stamps with what they are paid) have themselves had enough?

The congressmen and women in Washington are no longer working for We the People. They have been bought by the Corporations. They have turned their backs on the Constitution of the United States in exchange for thirty pieces of silver. Except the thirty pieces of silver wasn't enough for them, and the billions weren't enough for their Corporate masters. It's never enough; they must have more. And that "more" comes at the expense of the middle class. At the expense of US. And that is why things have gone they way they have. People may have been willing to forget about it if it hadn't gone so far, if they were able to have a decent life, send their kids to college and have a nest egg for retirement. Instead they have seen their wealth vanish and the price of their home plummet. They give up 40% of their income in taxes, and their children graduate from college tens of thousands of dollars in debt and are not able to find a job. They have seen their hopes and dreams evaporate. And meanwhile, the super rich are getting richer and pay no or few taxes by taking advantage of loopholes in the tax code.

Every single politician in Washington ought to be recalled and sent home. And every single lobbyist should be standing in the unemployment line. Free elections should be called with NO CORPORATE SPONSORSHIP AND NO CORPORATE MONEY. We the People want our country back. We want our Constitutional rights restored to Individuals and stripped from Corporations. We want our jobs back. Those are our demands. We may not be able to Occupy Wall Street because of distance, but we can Occupy our towns. And when we can't do that, we can Occupy the Internet. We are here and we aren't going away. We aren't shutting up. We aren't going to accept serfdom so that 1% can accumulate more and more. We're fed up and we've had it.

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." --Margaret Mead

PS. As an aside, if you had asked me in 1995 what the greatest threat to this country was, I'd have told you it was religious fundamentalists. And maybe it still is to some degree because they are the ones who have been hoodwinked by these Corporate bastards. They are the teabaggers and their hangers-on, funded by Corporations. I however would never have thought that business would become so corrupt, and our politicians so enamored by their money, that our very democracy could hang in the balance over money. Ideology yes. But money? It seems so ridiculous. As they say, truth is stranger than any fiction.

The Inadequacy of Lesser Equality

2011-07-14T22:36:00.004-05:00

A presidential candidate that I admit I've never heard of (probably because until recently I have avoided reading the news like the plague) has openly trampled all over the first amendment of the Constitution of the United States. I'm sure he's prime oval office material. I mean after all, Gee Dubya wiped his ass on the Constitution, so why not have Herman Cain wipe his feet on the amendments.

Herman doesn't seem to think that Muslims deserve to be able to build a mosque in which to worship. Would he think the same if it were a church that was being built? Of course not. The state of Tennessee is one of the most backward-racist-homophobic-stupid-bastard states in the country. I wonder if it escapes Herman's menial thought process that forty years ago he would have been sprayed with water hoses if he'd have dared try to run for the office of dog catcher, much less the office of President of the United States.

Of course he's also apparently itching to wipe his ass with Article Six too. I hope he doesn't mind that Gee Dubya already used it for toilet paper.

"On the Glenn Beck Show today, the host asked the Georgia Republican about his refusal to appoint Muslims. Cain told Beck that he would be willing to appoint a Muslim only “if they can prove to me that they’re putting the Constitution of the United States first.”"

Too bad Herman Cain doesn't put the Constitution of the United States first.

"...no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."

Black Children were better off under Slavery

2011-07-14T00:33:00.007-05:00

Yes, you read that correctly. Or at least the right-wing wackos in Iowa think so. Maybe it's really just a tempest in a teacup, but I have to rant for a moment, so keep your arms and legs inside the car and hold onto your ass.

Where do these people get off? Who in the hell do they think they are? What do they think gives them the right to upend our democracy and impose on us a western style Sharia (aka theocracy)? WHAT THE FUCK?!

Okay, I feel better now. I'm sure it won't last. Between the mess with the economy and these fucktards running around begging to flush their freedom down the toilet, I don't hold out much hope for humanity or this country.

And the right-wing bloggers are complaining that the "liberal media" took it out of context. I'm sorry, but there's nothing to take out of context. I know that their reading comprehension skills rival a first grader's but really.

"Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA's first African-American President."

What do you think that says? Hmm? I think it implies that a child was better off under slavery solely because they had two parents. And the kicker, it's not even fucking true. Children were often sold away from their birth families. Parents were often sold away from their children.

I have a suggestion for these "pro-family" (and I use that term loosely) asshats, and that is, if the corporations that are backing them would pay people a fair wage, one parent could stay home with their children. But right now, that's usually not possible. The behavioral problems with children stem from having to rely on daycare. Daycare teaches children that the peer group is in charge because one adult to twenty plus children is bullshit. And that has nothing to do with marriage or divorce, but rather with economics, like everything else that has had to do with economics, from slavery and the Civil War right down to the war in Iraq. It's all about money. And you can take that to the bank.

An open letter to the people of North Carolina, district 5

2011-05-27T21:57:00.003-05:00

Dear people of North Carolina,

This week Virginia Foxx sponsored an amendment to de-fund medical schools that teach abortion. Now, regardless of what your stance is on abortion, sometimes it is medically necessary and not a choice at all. In cases of ectopic pregnancy, severely deformed fetus or in the case the mother would definitely die if allowed to attempt to carry the pregnancy to term. Whatever you may think about god and life, pregnancy is not perfect. Shit happens. Sometimes very bad shit. Doctors need to know how to perform abortions. This isn't the dark ages. Please do not let people like Virginia Foxx drag us back into one.

I was born in North Carolina, and I would thoroughly appreciate it if you would vote this crazy bitch out of office. It makes all of us look bad. I know quite well that most of the people of North Carolina are indeed sane and rational people, whatever their political persuasions. Unlike Virginia Foxx, who is to put it mildly, quite mad.

Sincerely yours,
–Quite Mad (but not crazy like a Foxx)

Doomsday has been rescheduled...

2011-05-24T22:53:00.003-05:00

Due to technical difficulties, doomsday has been moved to the 21st of October this year. If you heard peals of mysterious laughter this morning, that was twitter exploding in unrestrained hysterics.

The Doomsday that Wasn't

2011-05-23T16:58:00.004-05:00

It seems that Harold Camping has emerged from hiding. It seems he's a bit embarrassed.

"Camping's PR aide, Tom Evans, told the L.A. Times that the group is "disappointed" that 200 million true believers weren't lifted up to heaven on Saturday while everyone else suffered and eventually died as a series of earthquakes and famine destroyed the Earth."

Don't you wonder about the sort of people who would be disappointed about something so catastrophic not happening? I don't particularly care for these fundies, but I don't want them to die or anything. *sigh*

The sad part is, there are some really gullible people in the world. Many people quit their jobs, spent their retirement and all their savings, and for what? For something that any rational person should realize is not happening.

If people would focus more on the here and now, rather than on some afterlife, or god, or whatever, the world would be a better place. If these people had spent all the money they did on feeding the hungry, or helping homeless veterans, etc., how much more good would that have done. The dogma that faith is more important than works is something that evangelicals should re-examine. That of course would require them to actually read the New Testament and listen to what Jesus and his followers supposedly said.

"What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill," and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead." James 2:14-17

Why is a pagan like me having to quote the bible for these people? Shouldn't they know this? Apparently not.

Love Wins

2011-05-22T21:59:00.002-05:00

This video is from a few years ago, but I just saw it tonight. It's thoroughly made of win.

It starts off with the usual back and forth arguments between the crazy preacher and the crowd. I say never argue with crazy, it's like running on a treadmill. You don't get anywhere. And then the end was so worth it. What happens in the end is the antithesis of everything these hate-filled fear mongers are preaching. And that's what makes it so awesome.

How do you like your rights violated? Bastrop High School Senior rubs it in

2011-05-21T18:18:00.009-05:00

Via Friendly Atheist:

A public school district in Louisiana ought to have their asses sued right off them.

"I was initially chosen to deliver the invocation, but I was recently informed that I would be giving a moment of silence. However, before I fulfil my obligation, I would like to say that I am of the Christian faith. Now I respect those who do not share the same faith that I do. But at this time I would like to give thanks to the god who has made the class of 2011 a great success..." (followed by a long prayer)

No. She didn't respect the beliefs of others, and neither did anyone who clapped in that audience. Neither did the school officials who failed to cut her mic and ask her to leave the stage. They violated the rights of other people to not have to be subjected to their drivel. I don't know who that girl is, but she has been done a great disservice by a community that has raised her to believe that respecting the rights of others is the same as trampling all over said rights.

If you don't like the fact that our public schools are secular, then send your little fucking spawn to a private school, where they can say prayers all day long and none of us give a shit.

This is your tax dollars at work, turning out good little morons who can't think for themselves or follow the law, or more importantly, do what is right.

edit:

Via Death and Taxes, the student who trampled all over Damon's rights is named Sarah Barlow. Shame on her. And shame on the entire town.

Apocalypse FAIL

2011-05-21T16:24:00.003-05:00

The 'post rapture looting event' on facebook did give me many lulz, so I can't say that I'm completely disappointed that Harold Camping is an idiot. Usually I would weep for humanity.

However, I do think they could have done something better with the millions of dollars they spent marketing their rapture. Feeding and housing the homeless comes to mind. Maybe following the actual teachings of Jesus? Nah. That's absurd.

The end of the world? Not again!

2011-05-14T21:15:00.004-05:00

How many times does the world have to end anyway? I guess I could gamble that it really is going to end, and blow all my savings and go to Carcassonne again. That would be nice. But I'd regret it come the 22nd, which incidentally two years ago to the day, Carcassonne is where I was. *sigh*

Why'd I log in to write this? Oh yeah, because I wanted to say that if it really is the end of the world, and if these asshats really are right, just go ahead and toss my ass in the lake of fire, because I have no desire to spend eternity with a bunch of jerk asses and their evil god. That's my feeling on the matter. At any rate, they're more full of it than a turkey at Thanksgiving dinner, so I look forward to the 22nd and all the snark that's going to go with it.

Anonymous wages war against Copywrong

2011-03-09T11:45:00.004-06:00

This is some funny shit.

Is it wrong? Criminal? Well I suppose that depends on your definition of wrong and criminal. Wrong is suing poor grandmothers for an absurd amount of money for downloading a song. Criminal is G. Dubya Bush, but I digress. Plenty of people get away with wrong and criminal actions all the time. Got money? Got a good lawyer? You too can get away with shit.

Poor? No lawyer? 1/2 ounce of pot? Go to jail, do not pass Go, do not collect $200!

I never thought of Anonymous as being leverage against stupid corporate shit, but maybe it could be. Except, I don't think they do enough. And they probably aren't organized enough. And are most of them even in this country? Do they all share similar goals? Probably not on both of those counts. That's probably all that keeps corporations from being under constant attack by them. Or maybe they have better things to do? Hard to say.

What pisses me off, is that the laws of this country, our Constitution, etc. were designed to protect individuals, not Corporations. Copyright law was intended so that individuals would not be stolen from. And individual musicians, they don't get shit from the behemoth that is the record industry. The majority of the profit goes to the industry, not to the musician. Maybe the big name ones get advertising gigs and that's how they wind up with a lot of money, but the small time musicians rely on their concerts and personally selling their CDs at said concerts to generate income. So, the industry is not suing on behalf of the musician. They're suing to protect their own profits.

Is being sympathetic to Anonymous a way of promoting anarchy? Maybe. But socialism, communism and capitalism don't work. Why not try anarchy for a while? I'm kidding. Aren't I? The problem with any form of government, is that the greedy always worm their way into power, and then use their power to rewrite whatever laws they want in order to line their pockets. That's the way it always is. The only way it won't be like that, is if greedy people cease to be. And that probably ain't happening any time in the next ten millenia.

"If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth--certainly the machine will wear out. If the injustice has a spring, or a pulley, or a rope, or a crank, exclusively for itself, then perhaps you may consider whether the remedy will not be worse than the evil; but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn." --Henry David Thoreau

It should be a rule of the internet...

2011-02-18T22:11:00.004-06:00

...if it isn't already that you never mess with Anonymous. For those of you not too hip on the intertubez, just keep on surfing LOL

I'm amused that they've issued a warning to the Westboro Baptist Church, props to Joe My God, I haven't read anything this funny in a while. Indeed, I haven't read much of anything in a while, because it merely infuriates me and 'teh stupid' just keeps on rolling whether I write about it or not.

I'm hoping they ignore Anonymous like I think they will, and hilarity ensues.

A Nutritious Belief

2011-01-12T12:34:00.005-06:00

Belief. It's an interesting thing. I once naively thought that it was only in religion that one found this thing we called belief. It seems however that belief extends to other categories of thought where it really has very little business being, like politics, science and nutrition. Unlike the intangible, these are subjects where FACTS should speak for themselves, leaving no room for belief.

That people can be shown concrete, scientific evidence to the contrary of what they think is true, and not change their mind, is to put it mildly, absolutely mind-boggling.

I used to think that eating fat would raise your cholesterol and give you a heart attack. I believed it because that's what organizations like the American Heart Association tell you, and well, you would think that scientific research in the 20th (and now 21st) century was high enough that they really did know what they were talking about. Unfortunately, they don't know what they're talking about, and it is almost unbelievable to say that an absolute fraud has been perpetrated not only on the American people, but the people of this entire planet. I suppose that it's irony that they chose to represent what we should eat by a pyramid, appropriate in that it surpasses the ponzi scheme carried out by Bernie Madoff by light years. And it's worse than that though, because whereas Bernie swindled people out of their money, the AHA and others have swindled people out of their lives.

I just got through reading a book by a Swedish doctor named Uffe Ravnskov called "Fat and Cholesterol are Good for You". He had written another that is now out of print ten years ago that I missed, and is now expensive to buy, called "The Cholesterol Myths." I already knew that they had the diet we should be eating all wrong thanks to Gary Taubes, who I personally think deserves a Nobel Prize.

The "research", and I use that term very lightly, carried out on the effects of cholesterol on the human body, is blatantly unscientific and in some of the studies seems to be an outright scam by the pharmaceutical companies so they can sell you expensive statin drugs.

So why am I writing about this on a blog dedicated to the absolute madness that politics and religion cause on otherwise seemingly rational people? Well, that same madness extends to other areas of our life as well. It goes back to belief. People have been indoctrinated to believe that fat is bad for them. They have been brainwashed to believe that high cholesterol will kill them. And then they're confronted with the fact that none of what they've been told is true, and only a few change their minds! Most stick their heads in the proverbial sand, for whatever reason, and continue believing what they've always believed. I'm sure most of the researchers do this because if they published literature to the contrary, they'd lose their soft funding from the food and pharmaceutical industries.

If you read the news and look into some of the studies they quote about nutrition, you will find that in a lot of them they use no control group. Or they don't isolate one variable, they have five or more variables and yet they pick the one they want and go with it. I'm not even a scientist, and from my limited science classes in college, even I know that this is bad science! And the research is equally bad, something I know a bit more about. When you write about something, you really ought to present opposing viewpoints, even if it's only a small mention in your paper, especially on subjects where things are really controversial. But these researchers who write up reports on these studies choose only the ones that agree with what they want to say, and ignore anything else. They also ignore the numbers. They'll dump out half a study and only use the part of it that they like if necessary. What kind of science is that? The answer is, it isn't science. It's fraud is what it is.

And our government, that is supposed to protect us from snake-oil salesmen, has been suckered in to buy up all that snake-oil as well. Our representatives, like our doctors, get told by the pharmaceutical companies what drugs are good for us, and what kind of research (on their terms) needs to be done, and that's how it goes. Your doctor doesn't know jack about the real effects of medication on you. S/he's too busy running a practice and keeping up with paperwork to read any journals. Reps from the pharmaceutical company come by the office and tell him or her how their drugs are so good for you, the patient. And they buy it, hook, line and sinker and then prescribe it to you. Maybe that's okay for short-term medications, like something you take to clear up an infection. But we're talking long-term drug use here, and without any really long-term studies. Most of the studies were for five years. The pharmaceuticals are advocating that everyone, even children, be on statins. Besides the fact that in almost all of their studies more people died in the treatment group than in the control group, and besides that fact that people (especially women) with higher cholesterol live longer, what are the effects of shutting down a normal biological process in people starting at a young age? No one really knows because no such study has been done, but I daresay it probably isn't a good outcome.

Cholesterol is important. It repairs damage. Fat, especially saturated fat, is important for brain development and function. Did you ever wonder why there has been an increase in ADHD? Or an increase in obesity? The correlation is inverse with the low-fat diet craze. But that's another post.

"This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes." --Morpheus, The Matrix

Life is Stranger than Fiction

2011-01-08T22:31:00.005-06:00

They just identified the 9 year old girl who was shot today at the Gabrielle Giffords event as Christina Taylor Green. The irony of it is she was born on 9/11/2001 and died today 1/8/2011 (1+8=9) at the hands of an insane terrorist. I suppose all terrorists are insane to some degree. No sane person would fly a plane into a building, or shoot a 9 year old girl.

Such senseless violence, and for why? Because a psychopath was upset with our government? Even if the government is flawed is that any reason to kill people? I feel so sorry for the neighbor who invited her to attend the event, I'm sure they blame themselves in a way even though it isn't their fault.

It was only a matter of time...

2011-01-08T17:54:00.007-06:00

...unfortunately.

I'm sure most of you have heard that Gabrielle Giffords (Democrat Rep from Arizona) was shot at point blank range by some deranged motherfucker at an Arizona Safeway. She was having an open meeting with her constituents and a gunman walked up and shot her in the head, and then open fired on the crowd. According to news reports a 9 year old child and a federal judge, John Roll, are dead, in addition to others. The person arrested for the shooting, (if this had been in Texas, he'd have gotten one shot off before someone in the crowd took him out, just sayin') was Jared Lee Loughner, who it was reported left paranoid rants online about the government, a North American currency (which has been a conspiracy since before I was born probably), and immigrants who don't speak English.

What with the Tea Party crazies and Sarah Palin's ilk inciting violence, is it any wonder? What sort of nation are we when we can't have political discourse without crazy people assassinating (or attempting to) our Representatives? This isn't happening in a vacuum! Giffords had her headquarters vandalized and the federal judge who is dead had received death threats! There are nutcases online everyday ranting about how terrible our government is. So like I said, it was only a matter of time before something like this happened. I hope Glenn Beck is pleased with himself. It's people like him who are responsible for urging on these paranoid people. Maybe he's paranoid himself, I don't know. This is why we need state hospitals. Paranoid, psychotic people should be committed, not left to wander around shooting people because they think Big Brother is out to get them.

BTW, the link to the article about John Roll from Politics Daily, I just want to say that Politics Daily has the right idea about comments, that they can't be personal attacks and they are all read before being published. Too bad Yahoo News won't do that. The comments on their news stories rival youtube for the inanity, insensitivity and overall crassness. I'm all for free speech, but not when it's trollish or inciting violence (we see where that leads don't we?).

Anyway, the most important thing here is this: my condolences go out to all the people affected by this senseless act of violence.

~~~~~~~

This is totally off topic, but Huffington post had a picture of Obama reacting to the shooting and my thought was, 'I want a room like this in my house!' I know, it's like the White House, but it looks so cool...

I Have a Bridge in Brooklyn to Sell You...

2010-11-29T19:30:00.006-06:00

...if you believe the latest story about the leaked diplomatic memos, that a single army private was responsible for them.

The young Army Pfc. suspected of stealing the diplomatic memos, many of them classified, and feeding them to WikiLeaks may have defeated Pentagon security systems using little more than a Lady Gaga CD and a portable computer memory stick.

The soldier, Bradley Manning has not been charged in the latest release of internal U.S. government documents. But officials said he is the prime suspect partly because of his own description of how he pulled off a staggering heist of classified and restricted material.

If it sounds like bullshit, it probably is. What I really want to know is, where is the classified information? I mean, most of what I've read so far sounds like stuff that either I already knew, or comes as no surprise whatsoever. Among the "top ten revelations" is that Putin gave Berlusconi (of Italy) gifts. Um, heads of state often give each other gifts. Another big one is that Gadafi is traveling with a hot blonde Ukranian nurse! I mean, really? I can't help but Lulz a bit at that. And here is another shocker, Saudi Arabia doesn't like Iran. I know, you'd have no idea about that huh? I suppose most average Americans don't, since all Muslim countries get lumped into the "hated other" category by most mainstream press.

What is also a bit disconcerting is the number of posters at yahoo!news that are calling for the execution of anyone involved in the leak, because they think it's "treason." I'd like to think my fellow Americans aren't so blood thirsty over a bit of gossip, but I guess not. So far, I've not seen anything that looks like it could endanger anyone's life, like the disclosure of troop movements or something, or the security plan at a base in Afghanistan. If it were something like that, I would agree it's serious. But this, this is like a bunch of old women talking about who's screwing who in the neighborhood.

As an aside, in my opinion, I think that this has been published and completely blown out of proportion to cover up something. I don't know what that something might be, but I wouldn't be surprised at all.

The Food Police

2010-11-10T21:12:00.007-06:00

I always say it's a slippery slope when you start having the government or any other organization tell us what we should be doing, believing, wearing, etc. Well, how do you like being told what you should eat? The city of San Francisco is moving toward banning toys in childrens' meals at restaurants, if they don't conform to a certain "standard", because truly, as a parent, you aren't fit to make decisions for your children. I think it's an appalling situation when a small group of people can take all the fun out of life. I suppose that's what happens when you found a country with Puritans. If it tastes or feels good or is fun, then by god it must be bad for you and you must be saved from yourself!

I suppose on the face of it, urging children to eat "healthier" sounds like a good thing. Except you have one problem. And that is that the government's current suggestions for how to eat healthy are anything but. Read Gary Taubes book "Good Calories, Bad Calories", if you dare, and you will see why. It is a book that will make you so angry you won't be able to see straight. These "scientists", (and I use that term very loosely), researchers, dietitians, and doctors have had evidence for the entire last century that sugar is what makes you fat and causes diabetes, and that fat is what we should mostly be eating, but since Ancel Keys decided to publish his absolutely skewed results that fat is bad for you and causes heart attacks people have cut back on the fat and increased consumption of carbohydrates, and have gotten heavier because of it.

In fact, hunter-gatherer type people who do not consume sugar and carbohydrates, and get most of their food from animal sources, have no evidence of heart disease, diabetes, or get this, cavities. I knew that ages ago and wondered why. I remember reading that paleolithic people didn't have cavities, or dental caries, but that agricultural people who ate grains did. And people knew this a hundred years ago! And if you think about it, it makes sense. Ten thousand years ago, what do you think people ate? They ate meat most of the time. They didn't have refrigerators or grocery stores. They didn't wander down to the market and buy leafy greens and fruit. They only ate vegetables and fruit when it was in season, well, actually, IF it was ever in season.

In 1908, a man named Vilhjalmur Stefansson spent ten years living with the Inuit* who did not eat anything but meat (because they had nothing else) and they were all very healthy people. When he returned to New York the doctors didn't believe him. He spent an entire year eating nothing but meat under observation to prove that it was healthy. There are also various accounts of doctors who lived among native populations in Africa and South America, who saw that the native populations did not have any evidence of any of the "Diseases of Civilization" (meaning heart disease, diabetes, etc) until they adopted a western diet high in sugar and refined carbohydrates.

After the McGovern committee on the Nutrition Guidelines in 1977, it pretty much became gospel that fat was the cause of heart attacks and any researcher who dare say otherwise was pretty much tossed out on the street. Kilmer S. McCully was one such researcher. He insisted it was an amino acid deficiency that caused heart disease. For his trouble, he was denied tenure and had trouble finding another job because Harvard had blacklisted him.

And another reason the government shouldn't tell us what to eat (as if you need another reason), is because their definition of "obesity" is absurd. Most of us think that people are obese when they're very round, like a woman who weighs say, 300 lbs. Well, the government has a different idea. You're probably considered "obese" if you're a pant size too big. That's because they grade obesity and overweight by the BMI index, which doesn't take into account muscle mass or bone structure. So if you lift weights, you're probably obese too.

What all this boils down to, is that your health is your business. If you want to eat McDonald's every day (and lose weight LOL), that's your prerogative. If your children beg you to go to McDonald's on a regular basis and you cave, it's not the government's responsibility to babysit you as you let your children eat junk. But I suppose that's California for you.** As a commenter on a forum said, and I found it quite amusing, "they don't call it the land of fruits and nuts for nothing." Sorry if you're from there. Really, I am.

*A wacky site I know, but they have posted the original article from Harper's by Stefansson LOL

**My mother-in-law bought a handgun, and it had a warning on it put there by the State of California that "children are naturally drawn to guns". Naturally? Really? Maybe they're drawn to a hot burner on the stove too. Are you going to put warnings on everything? Or should parents teach their children not to touch things they shouldn't. What this is, is an abdication of parenting and the teaching of your children about what is allowed, or not allowed, and what is safe or is not safe. It's also an abdication of common frickin' sense.

Tea Party Schizophrenia: A true mental disease

2010-10-11T16:38:00.006-05:00

In a recent poll, it was found that supporters of the Tea Party movement were likely to support the Christian Conservative agenda.

"While the loosely organized Tea Party movement has focused largely on shrinking the size of government and other fiscal issues, its backers are more likely to support government restrictions on gay marriage and other social issues, the Public Religion Research Institute found in its American Values Survey."

This is, in a nutshell, just more proof of how bat-shit crazy these people are. It's not that they want less government, it's not that they want their concept of "moral values" forced upon the citizens of these United States, it's that they want both. They want to have their proverbial cake and eat it too. Except, the cake is a lie. It's always a lie.

They want less government interference in regulating things that keep us safe. They want more government meddling into the private lives of homosexuals, wanting the government to pass laws to keep them from being able to marry or share their partner's insurance benefits, some going so far as to say that laws should be passed making homosexual acts/partnerships illegal. They want less government funding of education (wanting to dismantle the Department of Education and quit funding college loans and grants, because ask any slave master from the 19th century about the best way to keep people as chattel). They want more government interference with the bodies of women, to tell them that they must have children, whether they want them or not, whether they are mentally and emotionally fit to have them or not, whether they've been raped and abused or not.

It's really a complete schizophrenia, to sit there and say that the government should have no influence in the corporate lives of businesses but at the same time that same government should be in our bedrooms telling us what to do, who to be with and forcing women to carry a pregnancy they don't want, or is dangerous to their health, to term. I'll call it for what it is. It's goddamned fascism, pure and bleeding simple. It's so Orwellian, it's almost un-fucking-believable, for these ass-hats to sit there and scream that they are the denizens of freedom and democracy, and at the same time wanting to put their jackboots at the throats of their fellow Americans to make them follow their own twisted version of "morality".

Christian Flag Taken Down in North Carolina

2010-10-11T14:59:00.005-05:00

In North Carolina, a flap is going on over the Christian flag flying at a veterans' memorial. The local citizens are upset that the city removed the flag that was flying on public property after a veteran of the war in Afghanistan complained about it.

In response the local citizenry has decided to fly the flag themselves in protest, which of course is their right on private property. They are calling for the flag to be put back up, it being lost on them that, not only is it against the separation of church and state for a single religion to be promoted by the State, but that it's just plain rude and a slap in the face of all those who died so that we would all have the right to believe (or not) whatever we want.

But you know what, I have a great idea. Let them put it back up, and then let them put up all other religious flags too, one of every kind the city can find. Because I guarantee that the second a flag with a pentagram or star and crescent goes up there, they'll decide that it's best to not have any religious flags flying there at all.

You have an Idiocracy, if you can keep it...

2010-10-10T20:06:00.004-05:00

You may have heard recently that a Pew Forum poll showed that atheist/agnostics scored higher on questions about religion than others. The press has been talking about what it means, etc. yaddy yadda yadda. Well, you know what I think this poll shows? That Americans are stupid. The highest average score (which was among the atheists/agnostics) was a 62%, which when I was in school was a big fat F. That means a bunch of people didn't know crap about religion and few knew a whole lot.

And Diane Winston over at the Huffington Post declares that it's really not important to know these things.

"But really, how important is it to know that Jonathan Edwards was an 18th-century revivalist or that nirvana is the Buddhist experience of freedom from suffering? The focus on factoids obscures a central challenge of the 21st century: negotiating the absolute conflict of multiple religious absolutes."

Well, it's kind of difficult to "negotiate the absolute conflict[s] of multiple religious absolutes" if you don't know shit about any of it. I find that a lot of people in this country are willfully ignorant and make it a point to say that they "don't need to know" anything. Yes, perhaps it is true that you don't need to know any of this stuff to go down to Wal-Mart and go shopping, and stop in at the McDonald's on the way home and stuff your face with a Big Mac and fries (mmmm, fries...). Anyway, it's kinda important when dealing with other people that you have some inkling of what they believe and why and what has happened before now.

In fact, only 2% of people got what would average to an A on it. The questions aren't hard either, they're things that one ought to know from just reading crap on the internet. Or should have learned in a general history/sociology class in college or high school.

You know, you gotta wonder about these things, either that or the intelligence of the people who take them. Only 28% of white evangelicals knew that Protestants teach salvation through faith alone. Only 57% of Jewish people knew that Maimonides was Jewish. I mean, come on, I knew that, he's one of the most important Jewish scholars ever. They did say that the higher the education, the more questions people got right, with college grads getting an average of 20.6 correct while people with a high school diploma or less only got an average of 12.8. Again though, those are averages, and a 20.6 is still an F.

What's funny is only 94% of atheists knew what an atheist is. I mean, that's really, really simple and 6% of self-professed atheists got it wrong. Maybe they just didn't bother reading the questions? I suppose that's a possibility.

The survey also apparently included general knowledge questions. Only 59% of people could name the Vice President. What's scarier than that, is that most of them probably vote...

Let Them Eat Cake

2010-10-09T14:16:00.004-05:00

So, on BookTV they're going to be talking about a book, "Generosity Unbound: How American Philanthropy Can Strengthen the Economy and Middle Class". Whenever I hear something that sounds like it's advocating making the filthy rich, richer, alarm bells go off in my head. Now, I obviously have not read the book, and to be honest, probably wouldn't waste my time now that I have looked up who the author is. Or rather, who she's affiliated with. Her name is Claire Gaudiani, and she's a senior fellow at a non-profit, the 'Institute for American Values' (guess who's probably paying her money to say that there should be no regulation of non-profits, you get three guesses). They don't want divorce, they want "traditional values" (again, I say alarm bells go off in my head every time I hear these words), and they have a 'Center for Marriage and Families' that promotes such homophobic people like Maggie Gallagher. They say that gay marriage isn't good for children, and I think, imply that it would be better for a woman to stay with a husband who's beating her "for the sake of the children." Bull shit. Absolute utter tripe.

I don't need to say that the last thing we need to do is make the uber-rich, richer is it? What is this? Serfdom? In America? So that the poor can go and ask for alms at a church service like our ancestors did in Europe seven hundred years ago? What's next, are we going to have to swear fealty to some overlord? Really?

This shit is the antithesis of everything democratic. Making the rich, richer, does NOT strengthen the middle class. A lack of regulation means that those with the money get away with things they shouldn't, and they trod all over the poor. No middle class means no more democracy. No middle class and you have France prior to the French Revolution (gee, how did that turn out for the uber-wealthy?) or Mexico today. And they're trying to pander to the Center and Left by saying that it's "for everyone". Bull shit. I call it a bunch of lies. They can take their right-wing, facist tendencies and shove them where the sun doesn't shine.

When Books Burn...

2010-09-07T21:43:00.004-05:00

I'm sure ya'll have heard about the certifiable (as in, insane) pastor in Florida that is planning on burning Korans on 9/11.

A fine example of asshattery

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The government turned up the pressure Tuesday on the head of a small Florida church who plans to burn copies of the Quran on Sept. 11, warning him that doing so could endanger U.S. troops and Americans everywhere.

But the Rev. Terry Jones insisted he would go ahead with his plans, despite criticism from the top U.S. general in Afghanistan, the White House and the State Department, as well as a host of religious leaders.

Jones, who is known for posting signs proclaiming that Islam is the devil's religion, says the Constitution gives him the right to publicly set fire to the book that Muslims consider the word of God...

First of all, hiding behind the mantra that "the Constitution lets me do it" is a cowardly act. It's in some ways like blaming the devil because you cheated on your spouse. Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should. One could go and call random black people on the street terrible names, it's a constitutionally protected right after all, but there are consequences. They'd probably get the shit beat out of them, and would anyone be surprised? I think not. So Mr. Asshat here can burn the Koran and piss off a bunch of fundamentalist Muslims. The only problem is, it won't be him getting the beating. It will be some poor bloke, probably some 19 year old kid who enlisted in the military half a world away from home who gets the shit beat out of him because Mr. Asshat is well, an asshat.

We should be outraged that he burns any book at all. Or that anyone burns any book, be it a Bible or Harry Potter. Why you ask? Because this type of sentiment leads to hatred of other human beings. First they burn books, next they burn people. It's happened before, plenty of times. If we're not careful, it can and will happen again. Most of the people of Nazi Germany probably didn't realize the path their country was headed down in 1933 when they vilified Jews and burned Torahs and Synagogues. What path are we on? Vilifying Muslims and burning Korans? The next step will be genocide if no one puts a stop to this crap.

One Nation Under [Her] God

2010-08-01T20:54:00.005-05:00

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross." --Sinclair Lewis

Reagan bankrupt this country and yet he's still their darling. I curse his memory by the way. Then G.Dubya took his ideology to the extreme and it has plummeted us into another Great Depression. And the fact that she blames the Department of Education for No Child Left Behind crap is moronic at best. It was a bill introduced in congress and signed by their beloved G.Dubya. That's fucking rich that is. Let's just lie, lie, lie, and pretty soon no one will even know the truth. Our education system here sucks, and you know why? Because it's funded by property taxes. The rich get a great education and the poor, as usual, get fucked over. And NCLB has nothing to do with it.

That she would cite Bachmann, means she's crazier than batshit. I guess it takes one to know one.

Americans For Prosperity? One might mistake that they're for the prosperity of Americans, but that would be a mistake. They're for Americans supporting the Corporatocracy. Yes, let's cut taxes for the rich and fuck the People over by refusing to extend the unemployment insurance and by shipping jobs overseas so that CEOs can make more profits. Why don't they just dispense with the pretense and just call it what it is. Americans for the Fascist Corporatocracy. Or maybe The Fascist Corporatocracy for the Support of American Serfs.

I often wonder why politicians who want to be in control of government, pander to the "small government" group, and then when they get in there, they do the same damned thing every other politician has ever done, LIE LIE LIE and back corporate interests in spite of the people they're supposed to be representing. They don't do anything to make the government smaller. They do everything they can to put more and more of our government into the pockets of private business interests.

Border patrol is the job of Immigration and Customs. By advocating that the States should have the right to practice border patrol, means that they are advocating succeeding from the Union, de facto, because that means next they'll be saying they ought then have the ability to issue visas and passports so they can control who comes into their state. Maybe Nevada ought to succeed, and we can ship all the nutty neo-Cons there and they can live in a great utopia of oppression of the lower classes. I suppose the gambling capital of the country will have to go somewhere else (or we'll have to be really rich and go to Monaco to gamble) and I also suppose that we'll have to grant refugee status to anyone from Nevada with a brain and half a thought in their head.

"What caused the problems [with the economy] in the first place"?!?!?!? I can answer that for you Mme. Angle. YOUR PARTY is the cause of the economy collapsing! That's what happens when you deregulate every fucking thing. MORONS. All of them.

*sorry if I've rambled tonight, I blame the beer, it makes my thoughts meander =P

**edit**

SeeingEyeChick pointed out that she looks a lot like "The Chicken Lady" (Sue Lowden, left) who I must have missed (terrible I know)... why does the party of red wear blue, the color of the opposition?

Mazes and Monsters

2010-08-01T20:23:00.001-05:00

Too funny! Reminds me of all the people who blame television and games for the "degenerate youth of today." A complaint Pliny the Younger made two thousand years ago.

Target the Gays

2010-07-30T11:47:00.008-05:00

Target is in hot water. They donated money (albeit a bit indirectly) to a Christian hate rock band that calls for the deaths of gays and lesbians. They donated to a Minnesota PAC, who donated to Tom Emmer, who donated money to a band/ministry known as You Can Run, who's founder, Bradlee Dean said on a radio show back in May,

““Muslims are calling for the executions of homosexuals in America... This just shows you they themselves [Muslims] are upholding the laws that are even in the Bible of the Judeo-Christian God, but they seem to be more moral than even the American Christians do, because these people are livid about enforcing their laws. They know homosexuality is an abomination.”

“If America won’t enforce the laws, God will raise up a foreign enemy to do just that,” Dean continued. “That is what you are seeing in America.”

“The bottom line is this… they [homosexuals] play the victim when they are, in fact, the predator,” Dean said, before going on to make a claim that has no basis in fact: “On average, they molest 117 people before they’re found out. How many kids have been destroyed, how many adults have been destroyed because of crimes against nature?”

So this asshat has basically said that Muslim countries who kill gays are moral and righteous and we should follow their example. It's so nice to see that they took a moment to stop hating on Muslims to resume hating on gays. Because what better place to be than dragged back into the dark ages. {/sarcasm}

A group has been started on Facebook to boycott Target, and this is the form letter everyone is receiving in response to their letters to Target:

"In fact, if you look at our Federal PAC contributions year to date, you will see that they are very balanced between Republicans and Democrats. For more information please visit www.target.com/company, and view the Civic Activity page."

The thing is, so many are so self-righteous about avoiding Wal-Mart, but shop happily at Target. Guess what? It's all made by political prisoners in China, it's all cheap plastic crap, and shopping locally is no better (because you can't afford locally made things) unless your filthy fucking rich. And why can't you afford them? Because the corporations you work for don't pay you enough!

But I digress, so back to the quote. As you can see, Target like so many other businesses fund both parties. They want all of the politicians to do their bidding, because as I've said before, and I'll say it again, this is a Corporatocracy. Our government is in the pockets of corporations, and Wal-Mart is used merely as a distraction. The problem is, Corporate entities should not be allowed to donate money to any political anything, nor should they be able to send lobbyists to Washington to buy politicians. They should stay out of government entirely. But really, it's too late for that, the politicians, they're all already bought and sold, and there's nothing we can do about it, except continue working for peanuts and writing letters to people who send back auto-responses.

May God Have Mercy On Your Souls

2010-07-23T15:00:00.005-05:00

I've got news for my Republican friends. Every single person who is going to recieve unemployment insurance under this bill is unemployed. Every single one of them doesn't have a job, and that's why they need this money. Now I know what the Republicans are thinking, they're thinking, why don't they just sell some stock? If they're in really dire straights maybe they could take some of their art collection and send it off to the auctioneer. And if they're in deep, deep trouble, maybe the unemployed can sell one of their yachts. That's what the Republicans are thinking right now. But that's not the life of ordinary people. The 99% of America who actually have to work for a living, that doesn't just clip coupons and live off of interest and dividends like my Republican friends do. That's why we need this bill to pass, because of the 99% of America that deals with reality every day. The people who will lose their homes if this bill doesn't pass. The people who will be living in their cars if this doesn't pass. That's why we need this to pass. And I will say this to Republicans who have blocked this bill now for months and kept food out of the mouths of children, I will say to them now, may God have mercy on your souls.

And here is the root of the problem. These rich bastards that run everything haven't got a clue what it's like to wonder where your next meal is coming from, or whether you might get laid off when you live paycheck to paycheck. They haven't got one iota of an idea of what it's like for the rest of us.

First they came for the Jews...

2010-07-23T14:32:00.004-05:00

It's truly amazing the number of dumb ass people we have in this country. I know, I know. Calling people dumb asses is probably counter-productive, but really, what else can you call people who are so ignorant, so undeniably moronic, that they protest against the First Amendment to the Constitution?

Anti-mosque protests on the rise, say Muslim advocates

By Liz Goodwin liz Goodwin – Wed Jul 21, 5:16 pm ET

Opposition to the construction of mosques has skyrocketed in cities and towns across the country, scholars and advocates of Muslim culture tell The Upshot.

Public protests against three planned mosques have made news in the past week: Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin joined others in opposing the building of a mosque a few blocks from the World Trade Center site. Hundreds demonstrated against a proposed mosque in a small town in Tennessee (pictured above). And some residents of Temecula, California, are opposing the local Muslim community's plan to build a bigger mosque, saying it could become a hotbed of radical Islam.

...

"There is very little counter-thrust in the public debate, and the result is, I think, Muslims are becoming increasingly concerned about their security in the country," Zogby says. "This is a worrisome environment. Something's got to give."

Opponents of mosques feel freer now to openly object to the presence of a mosque in their community, says Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim advocacy organization.

...

Of course, opponents of mosques do not consider themselves bigots, and many are genuinely concerned that mosques may help produce homegrown terrorists. According to the Washington Post, 34 Americans have been charged by U.S. authorities since January 2009 with direct involvement in international terrorism. But in many of these case, it appears the suspects were radicalized via Internet contacts.

...

A pastor opposed to the proposed Temecula mosque reflected these fears of homegrown terrorism.

"There is a concern with all the rumors you hear about sleeper cells and all that. Are we supposed to be complacent just because these people say it's a religion of peace? Many others have said the same thing," Pastor Bill Rench told the Los Angeles Times.

...

Some opponents of the mosque in Tennessee have told local news outlets they think people will learn jihad inside the mosque's walls, though the local Muslim community has had a smaller mosque in the town for years without incident.

Several hundred people in Tennessee took to the streets of Murfreesboro last week to protest the local Islamic Center's 15-acre land purchase. They were met by a counterprotest of equal size.

"In Islam, a mosque means 'We have conquered this country,' " one man told a local CNN affiliate. "And where are they? They're in the center of Tennessee. They're going to say, 'We have conquered Tennessee.' "

A plan for a separate mosque was tabled in another town in Tennessee this year after public opposition, reports the Tennessean.

Ahmed visited the site of a mosque in Columbia, Tennessee, that had been burned down and vandalized with painted swastikas in 2008, while researching last year.

"The local tiny Muslim community was in a state of shock because most of them were born in America and had lived very happily in the small community," he says. "People say, 'Go back home,' and they say, 'Where do we go? This is our home.' "

I believe that Lewis Sinclair was right, when fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross. They may come for the Muslims first, but they'll come for you eventually...

Not-So Breitbart Just Keeps Turning Up...

2010-07-21T14:31:00.005-05:00

...like a bad penny! Because when you don't have truth on your side, you fight by using lies.

Racial firestorm surrounds USDA employee's ouster
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said that he would reconsider the department's decision to ask Shirley Sherrod to resign. Sherrod, the director of rural development in Georgia, was asked by department officials to leave her job on Monday after conservative bloggers posted an edited video of her saying that she initially didn't give a white farmer as much help as she could have 24 years ago, when she was working for a nonprofit farm aid group.

Sherrod says the video distorted her full speech, which described how she came to realize the white farmer needed her help and which she says was intended to promote racial reconciliation.
...
The two-minute, 38-second clip posted Monday by BigGovernment.com was presented as evidence that the NAACP was hypocritical in its recent resolution condemning what it calls racist elements of the tea party movement. The website's owner, Andrew Breitbart, said the video shows the civil rights group condoning the same kind of racism it says it wants to erase. Biggovernment.com is the same outfit that gained fame last year after airing video of workers at the community group ACORN counseling actors posing as a prostitute and her boyfriend.

What I want to know, are the people who made this decision so stupid that they believe anything that comes out of Breitbart or any of his associates' mouths? Really? Because, if you have any sense you should never believe a liar. Once someone has lied to you, you can never believe anything they say ever again.

Oil for Dinner Anyone?

2010-06-04T21:19:00.004-05:00

Anger grows as disaster reaches Panhandle beaches
Meanwhile, BP's Hayward assured investors that the company "considerable firepower" to cope with the severe costs. Hayward and other senior BP executives struck a penitent note in their first comprehensive update to shareholders since the oil rig explosion.
"We will meet our obligations both as a responsible company and also as a necessary step to rebuilding trust in BP as a long-term member of the business communities in the U.S. and around the world," said BP chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg. "This is in the interest of all our stakeholders."

When the last fish is choked to death by all the crap we pour into our water and the last bird is drowned by all the mess we pump into our air, maybe then we'll realize that we can't eat money... or not. These corporate thugs would squish the last butterfly in the world if they thought for a moment they'd get a profit out of it.

Rainbows and Unicorns

2010-04-03T14:47:00.004-05:00

So I got some crap in my email from the NRSC entitled "Rainbows and Unicorns". Supposedly it was an April Fool's Joke. For some reason, I'm not laughing. I deleted it, or I'd post the text of it. You can google it and see the retarded video that some vapid, poor excuse for a human being took the time to make.

It takes a lot of cajones to blame the other party when your party is the whole raison d'etre for the economy being in the shite state that it is in.

But you know what, I could give a rats ass. It must be nice to get paid a lot of money to trash your opponents with lies and pandering and meandering waffle while your countrymen have no jobs, can't make ends meet and live out of their cars after being laid off. I mean, it must really burn their biscuits to see so many dirty poor people while they drive to work in their Mercedes and BMWs.

Every single word these political "mavericks" utter makes me hate them even more. In another age, it would have been peasants with pitch forks. Now? It's just a bunch of whiney emo kids complaining that their iPod won't hold a charge and so they can't poke their friends on Facebook or harvest their tomatoes in Farmville.

You know, they waste so much money on nothing. And there are people starving to death, and all they can do is poke sticks at each other. I wish that these stupid fucks would find some deserted island to go to so they could leave the rest of us the hell alone. They could leave all the money they had nothing better to do with anyway to charity, and go drown in their sea of stupidity, hatred, and ignorance.

A Terrorist by Any Other Name

2010-02-20T10:09:00.006-06:00

They say that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. And apparently that is the truth since some right-wing wackos are lauding Joe Stack as a hero. Joe decided that he was mad at the government and the IRS and flew a plane into a building housing the IRS in Austin.

You see, all terrorists are pretty much the same. They are mad at "the man" (the government, or other power) and want to strike out at it. Except that usually they never hurt what it is they're mad at. Stack didn't hurt the government at all. Just like the terrorists on 9/11 who flew the planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. They were mad at our government too. But in both instances, neither party hurt the government at all. All they accomplished was hurting innocent people and destroying the lives of those close to them.

Apparently Joe decided that our laws didn't apply to him at some point about thirty years ago and tried to get out of paying taxes. And you know what they say about fighting the law. It wins. The thing that really gets me, is that he was complaining about the government taking everything, but if he had just been a law abiding citizen and paid his taxes, he probably would have done well for himself. How many people can afford to own planes? And he owned a house too, in Austin, in a fairly nice neighborhood. I mean, seriously. He obviously wasn't poor, but by breaking the law and trying to avoid paying taxes, he lost, and in more ways than one.

People who think that by perpetrating violence on innocent people, that it will accomplish something, are seriously fucked up in the head. And those who think that this idiot is a hero, are as fucked up as he was. I suggest if they don't like living in a free and democratic society, where taxes pay for services like the fire department and the police, they should scurry off somewhere, perhaps to a deserted island and form their own country and leave mine the hell alone.

Snow Forecast = Mob Mentality?

2010-02-05T19:38:00.003-06:00

I'm glad I don't live where it snows any more. If it snows where I am now, we'll know hell has completely frozen over. But I did once live where it snowed, and I never could understand why everyone goes for the dairy products that have to be refrigerated. Milk? Sour cream? Don't they know when the power is out, they won't want to get in the fridge, and if it's out long enough, everything will go bad anyway? So silly. And the silliness is in full swing in DC, where they've shut the whole place down in anticipation of what could be the biggest blizzard on record.

At a Safeway in Hanover, Md., dairy products and other perishable items were scarce. There wasn't a single egg in the store, and only a few bottles of milk remained.

"I've come from two other places that are out of milk and sour cream," said Cheryl Conner, 50, of Hanover. "This one's out of sour cream, too, it's crazy."

It's total Lulz.

Well, That's Retarded...

2010-02-04T20:17:00.004-06:00

Or as they'd say in Boston, "re-tah-ded". But I digress. WTF is wrong with Palin anyway? I know that uneducated morons tend to have a poor grasp on the English language, but no one in their right mind who wasn't a complete asshole would refer to a child as being retarded. That would be mean. Retarded, the way it is used in the English language now, simply means stupid. NTM, I heard that Palin called her own child that. Whether that is true or not, I could give a rat's ass.

Really? This is all these fuckers have to complain about? People are starving to death, dying over nothing, people in Haiti have lost everything, and all the Palin-ites can do is complain because someone used a word. Fuck 'em, they can take their retarded grasp of the English language, their PC (while simultaneously decrying PC) shit and shove it up their lily white arses.

I mean, when was the last time that you heard someone use the word "retarded" in the context that Palin is screaming about? Maybe fifty years ago? Fucking retards >.<

~~~
Wow. I went complete Boston-ite slash New Yorker in this post LOL

For those of you who have never lived in the northeastern United States, the words "retarded" and "fuck" are adjectives, adverbs, nouns and verbs, and sometimes even prepositional phrases. XD

Putting Religion First

2010-02-03T22:20:00.004-06:00

On my way home tonight, I saw a bumper sticker that said:

Catholic
Conservative
American
In that order.

And I thought, really? You put your religion before your country? (And on top of that they put their political ideology before it too, but that's a whole other post). I suppose that is the way people do it. And I also think that makes them a traitor. Either you defend the Constitution or you don't. If your religion gets in the way of defending the Constitution, then you're not an American. It can't come third. It's either first, or not at all. Christianity is diametrically opposed to secular democracy, which is what the Constitution lays out for us. There is no religion in the Constitution. The only mention of religion is in Article 6, and that is to ensure that no religion is required to hold office or serve the United States.

"...no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."

I suppose when you believe the big lie, that the writings of semi-nomadic pastorlists, who thought the stars were permanently pasted into the night sky, are the words of "god" and that everyone who doesn't believe what [fill in the sect here] espouses is going to hell, that would make you betray your own country, and if it came down to it, your own countrymen because they're not like you in that they are a different religion, or no religion at all.

Article six was a huge step forward in our civilization. Prior to it, in most places, you had to be the religion of the ruling party to vote (if you could vote), to hold office, or in some instances, to even live in said place. In the colonies here, prior to the Revolutionary War, there were laws that required people to be a certain religion to participate in the operation of the colony. That is the reason why Roger Williams left Massachusetts to found Rhode Island. They ran him out because he wanted a voice in his own governance without having to convert to the official state religion.

I just don't get these people. And it's late... I'm sure I'm rambling now...

OMG! Teh Gayz are Serving! in the UK anyway...

2010-02-02T22:04:00.005-06:00

Over at JoeMyGod you can read the discussion about how Peter Spriggs is an asshat. He claims that 1.) if gays serve openly in the military they will go on rape sprees, that 2.) if they serve tons of straight people will resign in protest and that 3.) homosexuality should be outlawed and gays imprisoned. If you read my post from the other day, he's not alone. Unfortunately.

What this is about though, is that gays serve openly in the UK and have for ten years now. And their fundies had the same arguments as ours are having now, and everything they said, never materialized.

Large-scale resignations from the UK armed forces were widely expected in some quarters, when the ban on gays was lifted - but in practice they did not materialise.
At least one British army brigadier publicly resigned in protest, citing "strongly held moral and military convictions" but most observers were surprised at how smoothly the new law - which was forced on the UK government by the European Court of Human Rights - was implemented...
British Security Minister Lord Alan West, a former head of the Royal Navy, told the Associated Press in July 2009 that allowing gays to serve openly was "much better".
"For countries that don't do that - I don't believe it's got anything to do with how efficient or capable their forces will be. It's to do with prejudices, I'm afraid," he said.

I find it appalling that we, America, are supposed to be the land of the free, a place where everyone is equal and has civil rights and equal protection under the law, and yet the Europeans right now have surpassed us in civil liberties by leaps and bounds. For godsake, Portugal has allowed gay marriage. Conservative, Catholic Portugal! Of all places. And we're the United States, and we're a bunch of fucking asshats over here apparently. I suppose that's what happens when you found a country with Puritans. Their descendants are uptight assholes who have to meddle in their neighbor's business to make sure they're doing what some deity or other wants.

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." --CS Lewis

What's a Matter with US?

2010-02-02T21:49:00.004-06:00

"It's like a French Revolution in reverse in which the workers come pouring down the street screaming more power to the aristocracy." --Thomas Frank

I read this article over at the BBC, and I have to tell you, they hit on something there. No one cares about facts. They only care about how things make them "feel." It's why people elect idiots to office, who serve not the people who elected them, but Corporate masters. It's why they blame Obama for the mess we're in, and why they blame him for not waving a magic wand to get us out of it. I suppose that Obama should have studied a bit harder at Hogwarts, because he just isn't all that good at magically cleaning up two decades of Republican mismanagement in a year.

Last time I checked, large, complex civilizations don't just turn on a dime. You can think of our civilization as a really big aircraft carrier. You don't just whip it right around like it's a Lamborghini or something. It's not possible.

People are stupid. They don't care about facts, or logic, or what is real, or what it actually takes to accomplish something. All they care about is listening to pundits and talking heads shriek about things that make them "feel" like they have some kind of power over the situation and that validate any emotions they might have about it. Because, when it comes to humanity, facts are never important and neither is the truth.

Queue the Cattle Cars

2010-01-31T16:39:00.009-06:00

Props to JoeMyGod for this one...

"If you believe that what drug abusers need is to go into an effective detox program, then we should likewise put active homosexuals through an effective reparative therapy program.
The bottom line here is that, biblically, those "who practice homosexuality" should come under the purview of the law just as much as those who take people captive in order to sell them into slavery." --Bryan Fischer (emphasis mine)

And to think my last post was on Anne Frank and the suppression of literature in our public schools. Today, I read that yet another ignorant demagogue wants to send homosexuals to prison for reparative therapy. Is the fact that the Nazis called for the same thing lost on these idiots? Apparently, or they wouldn't spout such nonsense.

My next question is, who the hell do these people think they are? Bryan Fischer is unequivocally calling for a theocracy, openly and without any sort of shame. Subject to Biblical Law as Civil Law?! In these United States? Bryan Fischer, if you read this, YOU CAN GO FUCK YOURSELF! And so can the rest of the fuck-tards who follow his thinking.

I daresay that I haven't been quite so angry and simultaneously annoyed over anything in a long time. I suppose it should come as no surprise. Oh sure, you read this sort of thing all the time from some crackpot troll on message boards, or blogs. But this guy is on the radio, people actually listen to him, he has a platform, and what he is advocating is an overthrow of our democratic system. Our Constitution doesn't allow the sending of people to prison for thought crimes, or crimes against a religion. If Bryan Fischer wants theocracy, he can go live in fucking Saudi Arabia. I keep telling these ignorant bastards that, but they don't get it. Probably because they have the critical thinking skills of a slug. And that's an insult to slugs!

If you think this doesn't affect you because you're not gay or you don't know anyone who is, remember that in Germany, lots of people thought that what was happening didn't affect them because they weren't Jewish, until it was too late.

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out.
--Martin Niemöller

I've probably said it before, but I'll say it again, in the Middle Ages people were subject to civilian law for religious "crimes" which were what we would now call thought-crimes. We're talking like Orwell's 1984 here. Orwell wasn't writing solely about the future, he was drawing on the past. People could be dragged in before the Inquisition, in what amounted to a kangaroo court, convicted of heresy after interrogation, (see: torture) for not *believing* what they were told they should believe by the Church. They were then, in what amounts to a mockery of morality and justice, "relaxed" or turned over to the secular authorities for punishment. This meant burning at the stake in most times and places, though later it might amount to hanging.

Make no mistake, this is exactly what people like Bryan Fischer want. They want to be able to kill people for not conforming to their version of Christianity. They will never say it outright, not until they're in a position to carry it out, but they're getting bolder and bolder all the time. When we're to the point that they're willing to openly push for incarcerating people for not believing as they do, we're on a dark and dangerous path as a country. We can't let the demagogues drag us back into the Dark Ages...

"As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be aware of change in the air however slight, lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness."
--Justice William O. Douglas

They'd Really Rather Burn the Books Instead

2010-01-29T16:46:00.006-06:00

Some dipshit parent got mad that The Diary of Anne Frank has explicit material in it, and school officials in Virginia caved to it. And you wonder why American children are some of the lowest ranking in the Industrialized world. Our education system here is a joke.

If these "Christian" (and I use that term loosely) don't want their children to learn anything, they should home-school them. And hide the Bible from them while they're at it, because the Bible is about a hundred times more illicit and graphic than The Diary of Anne Frank. Of course the dipshit parent has probably never read either.

So there you have it. This is the exact same reason why an entire nation of people went along with the Nazis and allowed millions to die in death camps. Because they were stupid and uneducated chattel.

The Truth Can Send You to Federal Prison

2010-01-27T11:04:00.003-06:00

I'm thoroughly amused by the story that James O'Keefe was arrested along with three neo-Con friends for trying to tap into the phone lines in a Democrat's office in a Federal building. How stupid can you get? I wonder how many more felonies Lack-of-any-ethics O'Keefe is planning on committing before he's thirty.

You see, we have laws in this country, such as privacy laws, that prohibit taping or recording audio of a person without their permission or without a court order. Apparently, some neo-Cons like O'Keefe think they're above the law. I wonder if his friend's daddy can get them out of this one. I suppose it's likely, if daddy has some pull with the Feds. They're rich white boys after all. They'll probably get a slap on the wrist. What they really deserve though is to pay the price for breaking the law. If that happens, I'll be pleasantly surprised.

Upon leaving the courthouse on a measly $10k bail, it was reported that O'Keefe said "The truth will set me free." To which I thought, the truth can send you to prison, but I digress. You see, I think that the whole thing with them taping those workers at Acorn was a load of bullshit. First of all, they edited the tapes in their favor, and cut out pieces that didn't fit with their agenda. Secondly, the things they said were so outrageous that most people, especially people who aren't very intelligent, would probably be caught off guard, so much so that they might say strange things or things they wouldn't ordinarily say because they're confused. It amounts to entrapment. Most of the people at Acorn actually called the police on them. They may have said what they said to play along, and then report them, because that's how you gather information. But as usual, the truth is never what is important. It's just what you can fit into a ten second sound bite. People lost their jobs over it, whether they were really guilty of anything or not.

Whenever neo-Cons are concerned, it's always a double standard. If it's them that's in trouble, they scream it's "just a few bad apples," but if it's anyone else, it must be "wide spread corruption."

The Corporatocracy: It's Official

2010-01-26T13:05:00.008-06:00

In case you weren't paying attention, a few days ago the Supreme Court basically ruled that a Corporation has the same "rights" as you and me. If you had been reading the news, you'd probably have missed this, because no major news network bothered to actually report it. Surprise, surprise. Oh, sure, some had letters or editorial opinions about it, but it wasn't news worthy. We all surely knew that the Corporations were in charge. After all, they give to both parties, and every single official in Washington is indebted to them in some way. Sure, Supreme Court Justices are appointed for life, which is supposed to put them above fearing for their position, but they can still be impeached by congress. And since the Corporations have Congress in their pocket, if the Supreme Court doesn't go along and toe the line, they can and will be dissolved.

I decided that it would be fitting to rewrite the Declaration of Independence in favor of the Corporation, seeing as that is what we have become. Enjoy. Feel free to share, just link back here. I call it "The Corporate Declaration of Independence"

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for Corporations to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with a Government, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Corporations are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Business Models, Deregulation and the pursuit of Profits. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Corporations, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the Corporation to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Bottom Line and Profits. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that Corporations are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of regulations and worker protections, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Oversight, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Such has been the patient sufferance of these Corporations; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present United States Government For and By The People, is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Oversight over these Corporations. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

They have refused their Assent to Deregulation, the most wholesome and necessary for Corporate Profits.
They have forbidden their Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till their Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, they have utterly neglected to do our bidding.
They have refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of slave labor, unless those people would be given the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right unknown to them and formidable to a free people only.
They have called together legislative bodies at times unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from our Lawyers, for the sole purpose of fatiguing us into compliance with their measures.
They have dissolved Committees repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness their invasions on the rights of the Corporations.
They have refused for a long time, after such disolutions, to cause others to be appointed; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the Corporation remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of worker strikes from without, and bankruptcy from within.
They have endeavoured to prevent the Corporations of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, so that we might pay them slave wages.

They have obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing their Assent to Laws for establishing the Judicial Rights of Corporations.
They have made Corporations dependent on their Laws alone, for the tenure of their existence, and the amount and payment of their worker's salaries.
They have erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Regulators to harrass our Corporations, and make them comply with worker protection laws.
They have kept among us, in all times, Federal Regulators without the Consent of our exective boards.
They have affected to render the People independent of and superior to the Corporate power.
They have combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our business model, and unacknowledged by our lawyers; giving their Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of Federal Regulators among us:
For protecting them, by a Laws, from retaliation for any Fines which they should impose on the Corporations of these States:
For cutting off our free Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Off Shore Tax Shelters:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for using Child Labor and worker abuse:
For abolishing the free System of Monopolies in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein government Oversight, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute Oversight into these Corporations:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Corporations:
For suspending our own Executive Boards, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

They have abdicated Free Market Capitalism here, by declaring us out of their Protection and passing Laws of Oversight against us.
They have plundered our CEO's pay, ravaged our stock options, dissolved our Monopolies, and destroyed the lives of our Executives.
They are at this time transporting large Armies of Regulators to compleat the works of Bankruptcy, Regulation and Oversight, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Overseer of a Corporatocracy.
They have constrained our fellow Corporations, caught in Pyramid Schemes, to become the informants of their friends and Brethren, or to lose their Tax Exemptions by their Hands.
They have excited worker insurrections amongst us, and have endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our Enemies, the merciless Union Organizers, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished desire to protect workers of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define the leader of a Free People, is unfit to be the ruler of Corporations.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Worker brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our organization and the cost of doing business here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these Oversights, which, would inevitably interrupt our ability to use them as slave labor. They too have been deaf to the voice of business and of Profit. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in Hostile Takeovers, in Peace useful workers.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the Corporations of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good Corporations of these States, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Corporations are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent Corporations; that they are Absolved from all Laws and Protections for their Workers, and that all political connection between them and the benefit of the Worker, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Corporate States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, run roughshod over Workers, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent Corporations may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Business Models, our Lawyers and our sacred Profits.

Jefferson and the rest were great men, but they weren't capable of saving us from ourselves.

What progress we are making...

2010-01-18T21:17:00.003-06:00

A hundred years ago, if you had told your average American that black people would have equal rights someday, they would have thought you quite mad. And if you had told them that a black man would be elected President of the United States, they'd have had you committed to a mental asylum for being completely off your rocker.

I hope that someday, whether it be a hundred years from now, or a thousand, that people look back on this age and consider it as barbaric as we consider the Medieval period. I hope that someday all people really are treated equally, and that there is no more hunger or homelessness in this world. It's a nice dream isn't it?

"What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now they are content with burning my books." --Sigmund Freud

"Rudy and the Big Lie"

2010-01-10T10:38:00.004-06:00

Sounds like it could be the title of a blockbuster movie huh?

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

*Sigh* It really makes Goebbels look like an amateur.

Oh, and Rudy here is a frickin' mathematician, 6 days is less than 10. Really? I would have never known that.

Just keep saying it.* The chattel will love you for it.

*"it" being 9/11

A New Year, Same Shit

2010-01-03T21:56:00.003-06:00

LOL I don't really have anything much to write about. Same shit, different day. I could talk about whatever news story, but it would just be rehashing the same mess. It is all a mess and all the same isn't it?

I read a few books over the holiday, and right now I'm reading "The Inquisitor's Manual" by Bernard Gui. Let me tell you, reading it will make you very happy that you live in the 21st century and have secular laws like the Constitution to protect you from religious crazies. Well unless you're unlucky enough to live some place like Iran or Saudi Arabia which are still run by religious zealots :\

Really, if you're American, you should all go and find a statue of Thomas Jefferson and kiss it!

The Double Standard

2009-11-05T21:06:00.007-06:00

I'm sure that by now you all have heard about the shooting at Fort Hood here in Texas. It's a tragic thing, so many people killed for no good reason. It's really sad. What's also sad is some of the comments left on various news articles. Instead of offering the families of those who were slain their condolences, the racists are out in force and the anti-Muslim sentiment is oozing forth. The shooter is apparently of Jordanian descent and his name is of Arabic origin.

Whether or not he did what he did because of his religious beliefs (which I do doubt at this moment), why does everyone blame Islam? What truly would be irony is if he turns out to be a fundamentalist Christian evangelist, but I do digress. You see, crazy doesn't discriminate. He didn't open fire on those people because of religion, even if he claims that is the reason. Rather he did it because he's crazy. Period. Crazy. Nothing else.

But you say, the Koran is full of violence. Then I dare you to read the Bible. The Bible too has commandments to kill non-believers, witches, idolaters, homosexuals, etc. But when some crazy Christian kills someone, even when they claim their religion made them do it, we don't see people condemning Christianity.

Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. Ex 22:18

And the man that committeth adultery with [another] man's wife, [even he] that committeth adultery with his neighbour's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. Lev 20:10 (Man, all the cheating Republicans better watch out!)

If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood [shall be] upon them. Lev 20:13

A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones: their blood [shall be] upon them. Lev 20:27

That is of course not counting all the smiting that "god" does, or ordering the killing of a man for gathering sticks on the sabbath (Num 15:32-35) or the ordering of the ancient Israelites to keep all the virgins for themselves after slaughtering an entire town (Num 31:17). However, "god" appears to change his mind by Deu 5:17 by saying "Thou shalt not kill" but forgets all about it by Deu 13:6,

If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which [is] as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; [Namely], of the gods of the people which [are] round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the [one] end of the earth even unto the [other] end of the earth; Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. Deu 13:6-10

The Bible is full of genocide, of "god" ordering the ancient Israelites to kill their neighbors and take their land. Of ordering them to kill unbelievers. During the Medieval period, western Europeans took all of this to heart, and murdered millions because of it, and that's not counting the crusades in the Middle East.

On that note, do you want to know why the Middle East is in the state it's in today? Because Medieval Christians invaded one of the most enlightened civilizations on earth and reduced it to ashes, and the British came along and finished it off in the 19th and early 20th century. Of course, they fucked up Africa too, so go figure.

The Arabs gave us the number zero, algebra, optics, and a myriad of other things prior to the invasion by a bunch of barbaric western Europeans. If you were a female in the Middle Ages, it would have been best for you to have been born in the Muslim world. During the Medieval period, women in the Middle East had rights that the women in western Europe did not have. Such as the right to testify in court, hold property and initiate divorce. And this history is buried here in the west, glossed over by people who would rather forget that our ancestors were a bunch of asshats.

Recommended reading: The Crusades through Arab Eyes

Fox News is of course NOT NEWS!

2009-11-03T20:02:00.000-06:00

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

For Fox Sake!

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Health Care Crisis

"But according to Fox, their weekday news programming, and this is according to Fox, runs from 9am to 4pm and from 6pm to 8pm for a total of nine newsy hours a day. So for the audience let me help you out because it does get confusing.

The three hours that you spend in the morning with Fox and Friends, not news! Your four o'clock to five o'clock post tea and crumpets neo-Kabudo break, NOT NEWS! The five o'clock to six o'clock emotional whirl wind and national group therapy session that is Glenn Beck, not even close to news!

O'Reilly, Hannity, Van Susternenenen, NOT NEWS! This is according to Fox News. Those people, the ones featured in promos about how "Fair and Balanced" Fox News is, are not news. These people, otherwise known as the only people you ever think of, when you think about Fox News, are not news. They're Fox Opinu-tainment. Apparently Fox News are these folks, or as they're known, who the fuck are these folks? That's Fox News...

The truth is the news side of Fox and the opinion side of Fox are like the McDLT. The hot side stays hot, and the cool side stays cool, but when you put it together and eat it, well I think you know what ends up happening."

US Government Sponsored Human Trafficking

2009-10-23T09:25:00.009-05:00

As if allowing your employees to gang-rape women isn't enough, how about abducting people from their homes by promising them jobs in the United States, only to take them and force them to work for little pay in Iraq?

Buddhi Gurung, who calls himself a poor Nepali man, described how he was unable to get a job to support his wife and two sons during fighting by Maoist rebels and the army in 2004. When an agent promised him a job in America for $500 a month, he said he borrowed about $2,800 to pay him — but instead of going to the United States, he was taken to Jordan via New Delhi.

After a month in Jordan, he said he was put in a van with 11 others and driven to Baghdad. Twelve Nepali friends in the van that left just before his were abducted, paraded on television and eventually beheaded. Gurung said he wound up at the U.S. Al Asad Air Base where he was forced to work and paid less than the promised $500 a month.

"We would hear bomb blasts nearby and we knew our life was at risk," Gurung said. "I always wanted to go back to Nepal but neither my passport was with me, nor did I have any money or knew any other way to go back. ... Finally, after 15 months, I was permitted to go back to Nepal. ... This is how my life was saved."
Gurung and the families of the 12 Nepali men have filed a U.S. federal lawsuit accusing Houston-based defense contractor KBR Inc. and a Jordanian subcontractor, Daoud & Partners, of human trafficking.

When I was reading this, I was like, how in the hell did he wind up being forced to work in Iraq? I know that there are criminal organizations that abduct people, but surely once he was found by our people, he would have been sent home. And then I read that KBR was responsible, and it suddenly made sense. Why recruit Americans, who you'll have to pay really well, and pay hazard pay for going some place so dangerous, when you can just abduct people from third world countries and force them to work? This shit just keeps getting deeper. And our congressmen are tangentially responsible for everything that these contractors have done, by failing to have oversight of the situation.

I did a search but, there doesn't seem to be much about this case in the news. Surprise, surprise.

Al Franken Pwns Hudson Institute Bitch

2009-10-21T22:33:00.008-05:00

Hahahahahahahah.

It would be funnier if it weren't so damned sad.

Let me tell you a little story about the "American Dream." My step-mother developed cancer. Her insurance company dropped her and she needed multiple surgeries to remove the tumor. (Surprise, surprise you say). She kept having seizures and couldn't work obviously, she had to wait forever to get disability. My father and her had to file bankruptcy to keep from losing everything they had worked so hard for. It destroyed their marriage. And they're not the only ones. Their story is the same many times over throughout this whole country.

Meanwhile, these politicians are lining their pockets with lobbying money from the Corporatocracy. Wall street fucks up and they get million dollar bonuses. How does that bitch in the video sleep at night? I'm not sure.

I'm sorry, but if you bust your ass and work hard, you shouldn't be in danger of losing everything if you get sick. When the one percent of the people in the United States are worth the same amount of money as ninety percent of the people here, you have an uneven distribution of wealth. Guess what? Tax the fuckers, because there is a point where "doing well" becomes having an obscene amount of money. Oh, "but that's not fair" whine the idiots who are persuaded by those who it affects (see: the bloody filthy rich) to be righteously indignant. Life isn't fair. Guess what else isn't fair? Starving to death on the streets while Buffy dines in her yacht and complains about having to pay too much in taxes.

Come on, I want to make so much money that I have to pay a lot of taxes on it. I'll do it and I'll be happy about it! Seriously. But then again, I grew up in a ghetto. I know true poverty. I have seen it with my own eyes. I have lived it and I have breathed it. It's ridiculous that in the richest nation on the planet, we have people who are homeless, who don't know where their next meal is coming from, who are laid off after working thirty years at the same place because their job was outsourced to Mexico, where we have people who die because they can't get the care they need. Where Corporations are subsidized with our tax money by the government while they make record profits. WTF America? WTF.

Transcript:

Al: I think we disagree on whether the health care reform we're talking about now in congress should pass. You said that kinda the way we're going will increase bankruptcies. I want to ask you, how many bankruptcies because of medical crises were there last year in Switzerland?

Bitch: I don't have that number in front of me, but I can find out and get back to you.

Al: I can tell you how many it was. It's zero.

*laughter*

Al: Do you know how many medical bankruptcies there were last year in France?

Bitch: I don't have that number but I can get back to you if you like.

Al: Yeah, the number is zero. Do you know how many were in Germany?

Bitch: From the trend of your questions I'm assuming the answer is zero, but I don't know the precise amount and I would have to get back to you.

Al: Well, you're very good, you're very fast. The point is, is that I think we need to go in that direction, not in the opposite direction. Thank you.

Bitch: Do you know the cancer survival rates in those countries?

Al: You know, you've picked on one, and if you look at that study, did you know that we pick easily, much more easily survivable cancer rates. So if you want to get into digging deep into studies, that study isn't legitimate. I've heard that before. That's because we find easily survivable cancers to count as ones that we survive. You can cherry pick stuff to find one little place where somebody says our system works better than the French or the Germans, but we're talking about bankruptcy here today.

Bitch: *deer-in-headlight look*

Al: And the fact of the matter is, you're saying that if we go more to a French system or a Swiss system, that we'll have increased bankruptcies, but the fact is they don't have bankruptcies and we do for medical care. Thank you.

Beck: Freedom is not really Freedom

2009-10-21T21:39:00.005-05:00

From Crooks and Liars:

Watching Glenn Beck is like watching a real life version of Orwell's 1984 in action.

War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.
Corporations are your friend.

Hey Beck! The 13th century called, they want you back. Because that's what this boils down to. They don't want the plebes to have information, just like the medieval Church didn't want the peasants to be literate, because then they might get ideas in their head. And when they say they want broadband access for everyone, that doesn't necessarily mean in their homes. It means that you can go to a library or some other publicly funded place and access the internet. I think that's an important thing.

The only thing that disturbs me is that people believe everything Beck says. As much as he mentions him, I wonder if Beck has ever read anything by Karl Marx. I wonder if he can define "socialism" or "fascism" or "Marxism" beyond just saying that the Obama administration is "all of those things."

“You have a freedom of speech or the government. You can’t really have both,” said Beck.

Really? I could have sworn that the piece of paper that G. Dubya Bush wiped his ass with, also known as our Constitution said that *we the People* are the government. And herein lies the danger. The right-wing wackos scream about how terrible the government is, but we're all supposed to be the government. We're supposed to decide what happens, by electing officials who carry out our wishes. The Constitution, that piece of paper that so many religious fundies want to throw out and replace with the Bible, is supposed to protect our rights. And yet we have Conservatives screaming we need a revolution, we need to overthrow a duly elected government, yadda yadda yadda. There is nothing wrong with our Constitution. It has served this country well (for the most part) for over two hundred years. I do believe that there is a word for that. It's called treachery. And, as Jack Sparrow said in Pirates of the Caribbean, "The deepest circle of Hell is reserved for betrayers and mutineers." But on a more serious note, these people have apparently never read the Declaration of Independence (or anything else of value for that matter):

"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."

Maybe what it boils down to is that Beck is so paranoid, he's afraid of himself.

Think Progress has more.

What Was Fought For at Omaha Beach?

2009-10-20T20:58:00.006-05:00

Thanks to True Blue Texan for this:

This video moved me to tears. Can you tell me exactly what was fought for at Omaha Beach? Was it so that we could discriminate against people? So we could lynch and roast people alive? Was it so we could act like moral busy bodies and holier-than-thou-arts? Was it so that religion could take over our government and run it as a theocracy?

Or was it so that everyone could have life, liberty and pursue happiness? So that the Constitution of the United States could be upheld? That everyone would have equal protection under the law.

"I have seen with my own eyes the consequences of caste system and it makes some people less than others or second class, never again. We must have equal rights for everyone. It's what this country was started for."

And I too have seen the depths of human depravity (just read some history). It is often masked as religious piety or national pride. Do not forget that it wasn't just Jews who were massacred by the Nazis seventy some years ago.

"As many as one-half million Gypsies, at least 250,000 mentally or physically disabled persons, and more than three million Soviet prisoners-of-war also fell victim to Nazi genocide. Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, Social Democrats, Communists, partisans, trade unionists, Polish intelligentsia and other undesirables were also victims of the hate and aggression carried out by the Nazis." citation

All that it takes for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing. Why is equal rights even a question? It's the United States for godsake! WHY?! So that some religious fanatics can feel better knowing that preventing Joe and Jack down the street from getting married makes their deity happy? WHAT. THE. FUCK.

"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." -- CS Lewis

Christians Fighting Each Other in Ireland in 1908

2009-10-18T18:41:00.003-05:00

I found this today and it's very interesting. It's a reprint of a newspaper article from a hundred and one years ago today (their time), when Catholics got angry about a local man, a Protestant who had a meeting in his store. It caused days of violence.

The lower classes of Roman Catholics in the country were very ignorant, and made a ready prey for any bad leading and bad passions...and the least suspicion of proselytising on the part of Protestants... was quite enough to drive their Roman Catholic neighbours of a less educated class into paroxysms of senseless intolerance such as they experienced in Swords last week.

Those words are profound, and still relevant today. Intolerance and upheaval is what happens when you have a few people inciting the less educated among us, by stoking fears and prejudices.

Got (Harvey) Milk?

2009-10-18T17:16:00.006-05:00

So, the state of California recently passed a law creating a day of recognition for Harvey Milk, the gay rights activist murdered in 1978. The day is to teach children about Harvey Milk and what he did. And... let the screech of the religious right commence.

Some think that teaching children history and tolerance, is "indoctrinating" them. Because accepting that gays and lesbians have the same rights as everyone else does makes you friends with Satan. I'll tell you what "indoctrination" is, and that's what most Christian churches in this country are doing right now. They indoctrinate children to believe everything they spout, whether it is true or not, if it's in the Bible, that "infallible" word of "god" that urges genocide and endorses that a woman marry her rapist.

The point of education is to question. The point of blind belief is to do what your leaders tell you to do and not to ask why. Public school does (or is supposed to do) the prior, while most churches do the latter.

Over at the Collegian Online, the online paper for California State University - Fresno, they apparently have people with a lack of education:

Call me old-fashioned, call me ignorant, set the LGBT police on me, I don’t care. I think this [day honoring Harvey Milk] is ridiculous. Don’t get me wrong—I have no quarrel with homosexuals. I believe it’s unnatural and immoral, but who am I to judge. Hate the sin, love the sinner. I believe all that... I understand this may be controversial to some, and maybe it is. It is now conventional wisdom for us to see homosexuals to be born the way they are, that it’s natural. I’m sorry, but I don’t see it that way.

I'm not quite sure how one can hold that view point and still sleep soundly at night, but whatever. I'm also not quite sure how he thinks he has no quarrel with homosexuals and yet he calls them "unnatural" and "immoral". Yeah, that's not at all a quarrel. *sigh*

And there are dozens of other blogs saying pretty much the same thing and worse. It's indoctrinating the children, it's endorsing homosexuality in our public schools, gasp, screech, *fall over*!!! Just google it. I know, I know, it's really no surprise they're having a fit over it.

Someday, hopefully, humanity will look back on all of this and wonder what the hell was wrong with all of us, and with a bit of incredulity, be grateful that such barbarity is gone from the world. One can hope anyway.

A Good Ol' Fashioned Book Burning

2009-10-18T11:24:00.004-05:00

I had read about the wackos in Canton, North Carolina who are going to have a book burning on Halloween night the other day. Ah, but this isn't just any ol' book burning where they burn Harry Potter or something. No, they're going to burn Bibles and other Christian writings instead.

I didn't get around to writing about it until now. Part of this is probably because it came as no surprise to me. I grew up not far from where these people are. Do not for a moment think that this is some kind of minority in a microcosm of Christianity in this area. Western North Carolina is full of these types, so keep this in mind when the media is sure to say that their church has "only" fourteen members. I have met a good many who believe exactly what they do. They believe the KJV of the Bible is the only version acceptable. If you try to have a rational conversation with them and discuss the history of the Bible, how it came to be, how it was translated, their response will be "that's the devil talking." I'm not making this shit up, I have actually had people say that very line to me. Speaking of a lack of understanding about biblical scholarship, I have come across people who have told me point blank that the Bible was written by Jesus himself. Again, you can't reason with these people, or have a rational conversation. If you don't agree with them, it's all Satan's fault.

Apparently, everyone is very interested in these people, because their site has evidently exceeded it's bandwidth and is down. Yay for the w ayback machine. It was stated on their main page:

We believe that the Bible is the Word of God, and it is our final authority in all matters. We believe in teaching “no other doctrine”, like Paul told Timothy, and that is our stand. We stand on God’s Word and not man ideas or “scholarship.” We make no apology for our stand. We are an old fashion Independent Fundamental Baptist Church.

In other words, they don't like education or studying. Their followers are to follow, not question, and do so blindly. Apparently they mock the god that they believe gave them a brain complete with the capacity for critical thinking skills. They don't trust their own brain, or anything that can be learned from "scholarship", but rather put their trust in the often incoherent writings of semi-nomadic pastoralists who thought that the earth was flat and that the stars were permanently pasted into the night sky.

I find book burnings, of any book, whether I agree with it or not, abhorrent. These people are ignorant, so much so, that they have no idea that when they say they're going to burn books, that the first thing most educated people think is "like the Nazis". Well, except for me, but then I'm weird. I automatically think of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. Idiots.

The picture at the beginning of this entry is of the Dominicans tossing Catholic and Cathar books into a fire. Of course the Catholic ones floated away from the flames while the Cathar ones were consumed. 15th century painting by Pedro Berruguete after a legend from the 13th century. The picture on the left is of the Nazis burning books.

Republican Gomorrah

2009-10-16T20:00:00.006-05:00

This is an amazing talk, it's a little long, an hour and ten minutes, but well worth watching the whole thing. I think I gotta read this book. It's about more than just the closet cases of the Republican Party.

There are parts that are hysterically funny, and other parts that are absolutely appalling. The right-wing neo-cons want nothing more or less than the utter destruction of our democracy. They want a theocracy, do not doubt this for a moment.

"As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air — however slight — lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness. " --Justice William O. Douglas

Thirty United States Senators who are For Rape

2009-10-15T12:53:00.006-05:00

You know, I have to ask myself what in the hell is wrong with some people. I often wonder how it is they sleep at night. I also wonder how they manage to call themselves Christian. Of course, they're not really Christian. They're hypocrites, and if Jesus (if he even existed) were actually here, he would probably bitch slap them. But I digress.

How in the fuck do you vote to allow companies to allow their employees to be gang raped, and then have no legal recourse? How do you justify that? How do you just casually act like you're voting against that because it's "political". Tell that to the girl who was gang raped, you stupid, stupid fucks.

Oh, I have an idea about what would be just for these thirty poor excuses for humans that we call senators, but it would be wrong of me to say it. I'll leave it to your imagination.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Rape-Nuts

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Ron Paul Interview

Alexander (R-TN), Barrasso (R-WY), Bond (R-MO), Brownback (R-KS), Bunning (R-KY), Burr (R-NC), Chambliss (R-GA), Coburn (R-OK), Cochran (R-MS), Corker (R-TN), Cornyn (R-TX), Crapo (R-ID), DeMint (R-SC), Ensign (R-NV), Enzi (R-WY), Graham (R-SC), Gregg (R-NH), Inhofe (R-OK), Isakson (R-GA), Johanns (R-NE), Kyl (R-AZ), McCain (R-AZ), McConnell (R-KY), Risch (R-ID), Roberts (R-KS), Sessions (R-AL), Shelby (R-AL), Thune (R-SD), Vitter (R-LA), Wicker (R-MS)

I would like to point out that a.) if there was any political point to them voting no on this, it was because these Republicans are a bunch of asshats who didn't want to agree with anything a Democrat might propose, and that b.) all of them are white males. Maybe they were just sorry that they didn't get in on the action, knowing that they could never be held criminally or civilly responsible for it. I wonder how they would have felt if it'd been their wife or their daughter that this happened to.

IMHO, I think they should pass a law that if you're working overseas for the government, that our criminal law applies to the employees who are working there if they violate the law, and these asshats who think they can get away with stuff like this could then be prosecuted criminally for it here.

My Kingdom for a Golf Package!

2009-10-13T16:29:00.004-05:00

I've been a bit busy lately, and have had better things to do than read the news (the stupidity, it only makes me angry) but I came across this today in my email, and just had to post it because it is humorous, on quite a few levels.

BTW, don't ask me how I got on the Republican's mailing list, I'm not entirely sure, but I certainly didn't ask for it.

Dear Supporter,

You only have one day left to register for your opportunity win a trip to the NRSC's first ever private Golf Outing with 7-time PGA Tour Winner Peter Jacobsen in Naples, FL.

We'll start the day with lunch and a golf clinic hosted by Peter Jacobsen. After you've tested the tips you've learned from Peter on the course, we'll have a cocktail reception and photos with Peter and Republican members of the U.S. Senate.

Don't miss out on this once in a lifetime opportunity. If you contribute at least $18 by tomorrow at midnight, representing the 18 seats the Democrats have to defend in 2010, you will be entered into a drawing to win an all expense paid trip for you and a guest to attend this special event.

Sincerely,

Senator John Cornyn
Chairman

Wow. So they're seeking campaign donations by giving away golf packages because... because? Could it be because they got nothing else to campaign on. Apparently fucking the American people over isn't a popular platform, but throw in a golf package and all aboard! The only people who haven't caught on to this are the ones with no critical thinking skills. I suppose one lucky dumbass will win a trip for two to Florida.

My kingdom, my kingdom for a golf package...

And yes, I altered the links, click them and enjoy the rickrolling LMAO

The Party of "Waaaaah!"

2009-09-11T13:53:00.005-05:00

The Republicans lately seem to act like a bunch of two year olds who missed nap time and can't shut-up long enough to let the adults have a conversation. They can't control themselves and they have no tact. And it isn't just your average un-educated American any more. No sirree, it's our elected officials who have no decorum. Joe Wilson, if Benjamin Franklin were alive, he'd probably smack you across the face with a white lace glove.

But I digress. What happened to statesmanship? To debate, not arguing and screaming? Oh, I know. A black man got elected, and all the good ol' boys nearly died of shock. The shock must have been so great, that it gave them Turrets, because they can't seem to control what they say any more.

We have some serious problems here, including poverty, a lack of health insurance for our poor, a lack of education (especially access to higher education), unemployment, etc. etc. etc., and all the Republican talking heads can do is scream about fantasy things like death panels and illegals getting health insurance. *rolls eyes* If they want to act like two year olds, and not let the adults have the important conversations over where we're going, then they need to be treated like two year olds. Put them in time-out, ignore them, and let them rave about their fantasy-land there and let the rest of us get on with the real work of reforming this inadequate system.

A Miscarriage of Justice, or Same Shit, Different Day

2009-08-27T14:23:00.005-05:00

Maybe you have heard the story of a young Afghan man named Mohammad Jawad, who has spent the last seven years of his life in prison. Accused of a crime he probably didn't commit. He was only about twelve when he was arrested. I've read various news reports on it, and I have to inject my two cents, that the government doesn't really have a leg to stand on. Their defense is, never mind the torture that was involved, that a bone scan they did showed he was either 16, 17 or 18 depending on which version of their story you want to believe. I suppose that story is fine and well for the uneducated masses, but I've studied Archaeology and I know good and well you cannot accurately determine an exact age from a bone scan. There is variation in populations and that is only accurate within maybe three years in either direction making for a window of six years, and he could have had an advanced bone structure and been twelve or thirteen. I somehow don't think that defense would hold up in a court of law.

His mother says he was born in 1991, and for some reason, I have more reason to believe her than I do a government that lies about everything else. How sad, not only did they take away seven years of this young man's life that cannot be given back, but they took him away from his family, and didn't even bother to tell his family where he was until Red Cross workers delivered a message from him nine months later.

On top of the fact that they imprisoned a young minor, they tortured him as well, using sleep deprivation and what the Spanish Inquisition called "Strapado" where they bind your hands behind your back and hang you up by your wrists. Isn't that special? The news reports never identify what they're describing, might be a bit much for the masses to realize what our government has done. Then again, would they even realize? When 8% of North Carolinians don't even realize that Hawaii is a state, I somehow doubt it.

Makes me real proud of my country and of humanity in general, to know that my fellow countrymen carried out medieval torture like barbarians and all in the 21st century. Not.

McCain has Publicly Funded Health Care

2009-08-23T12:43:00.005-05:00

The fucking hypocrites. I can't stand them. They make my blood boil with their hypocrisy. It really pisses me off. This article here, is just another example of the depth of deceitfulness that the average politician will go to, to fuck YOU over. That's right. Most of them don't give a damn about the American people, and if you think they do, you should really reassess why it is that you think so.

Most politicians are money-grubbing, they're after lobbying dollars and like to misuse our tax money, so they can do things like fly to Argentina to see their mistress, and of course live a lavish lifestyle, many times that rivals the stars out in Hollywood. And you know what is even stupider, WE elect the idiots.

So what has me so pissed off this morning? McCain has the fucking COJONES to sit there and tell us that while he gets publicly funded health care, you know, the health care funded by OUR tax dollars, that the average citizen doesn't deserve that. FUCK HIM.

And if you think that the Insurance Companies are our friends and we don't need a public option, then FUCK YOU TOO.

Woman Yells "Heil Hitler" at Jewish man in Nevada Town Hall Meeting

2009-08-19T15:56:00.008-05:00

The bitch is so dumb, that she doesn't even realize the gravity of what she's said. Look at her face after the camera pans to her. There's no regret there, no remorse, nothing. No thought in her head either, if you ask me.

Millions of people died under the Third Reich, and millions more died fighting that bastard, and yet this woman has the cojones to say that, to an Israeli Jew nonetheless. That man probably lost family members in the holocaust, and she has the fucking nerve to say something like that. Either she's a racist bastard, or she's just plain fucking dumb. Maybe a bit of both. I've watched a lot of dumb shit on the Internets lately, but this makes my blood boil. It pisses me off beyond words. It's a good thing I wasn't there, because I'd have gone to jail.

The stupidity, the idiocy of these people, it's absolutely beyond me. How can you be that fucking stupid? On that note, I bet if you asked her about WWII, Hitler, or the holocaust, she wouldn't be able to tell you a thing about any of it.

edit: What was I saying earlier about two year olds? At the end there, she reminded me of being on a playground in pre-school. Yeah, THAT'S real mature.

Arguing with a Dining Room Table: An Analogy for having a Conversation with Conservatives

2009-08-19T12:57:00.005-05:00

This is total LULZ. Rep. Barney Frank (D. - Ma) totally gave some of his idiot constituents a what-for.

Rep. Barney Frank lashed out at protester who held a poster depicting President Barack Obama with a Hitler-style mustache during a heated town hall meeting on federal health care reform.
"On what planet do you spend most of your time?" Frank asked the woman, who had stepped up to the podium at a southeastern Massachusetts senior center to ask why Frank supports what she called a Nazi policy.

"Ma'am, trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table. I have no interest in doing it," Frank replied.

These people, who come to these event to disrupt them, are like two year olds who won't let mommy and daddy have a conversation because they're busy banging pots and pans together on the kitchen floor because someone took their toy away. This is a start, but I really think they ought to start treating them like the two year olds that they're acting like. Perhaps some parenting experts can help in this regard.

Just Say No to... Trolls and your Own Interests while you're at it

2009-08-18T13:27:00.008-05:00

Two things today. The first is, no more anonymous posting. I originally (and probably naively so) didn't have a problem with people posting anonymously, until I realized that it's usually only trolls that have nothing to add to the conversation, and that I can't tell who I'm talking to. They're all anonymous. So from now on, you have to be registered. Sorry, but some pricks always have to go and ruin a good thing for everyone else.

The second thing is, I was checking out France24, a news agency in France. I like to watch them, they tend to give a different perspective on things, since they have less of a vested interest in our politics, especially so when compared to local news networks. And I have to say, I love the comments regarding our health care. I'm sure the French, who have that *evil* "socialist" medical system are laughing their asses off at us. Well, at least laughing themselves silly over the idiots in this country. And we wonder why there is a prevalent attitude that Americans are stupid. We re-elected GDubya, so that's a case in point. We have people running around screaming against their own interests in favor of the interests of the Insurance Industry. How dumb can you get? Some comments from France24... translation is mine, and I'm not a native speaker, so I might miss some of the subtelty, but you'll get the gist of it anyway

"When Bush was in power, the Senate didn't hesitate to vote in favor of more funds to support an increase in cost of opearations for the soldiers in Iraq, that money was wasted and lost, but now they hesistate to vote in favor of a project that benefits all Americans, especially the poor."

"I do not understand why certain people (USA) are so hostile to this project? It's simple enough to be empathetic and understand the best interest of the project..."

"Good luck to this President, for this initiative for health."

Yeah, he's going to need all the luck he can get. And yes, it should be simple to understand that we think health care is a right, and that all people regardless of income should have access to it. But that requires critical thinking skills, and those are unfortunately sorely lacking in this country.

When I was in France, I came across a French family vacationing in the Pyrenees. We had a conversation about our vacations and what we were up to. The husband told me he thought it was insane that we didn't get more vacation time here in the States, followed by a little laugh, as if he knew he had the better end of the deal and was thanking his lucky stars he wasn't American. The French get an average of 39 days of vacation a year. In my white collar job, I get 10 a year. Yeah. They understand there, that there is more to life than money. Something that I think we've forgotten in this country. Sure money is important for living, I come from poverty and understand that really well, however it is not the be-all and end-all of life. What happened to enjoying life? Or are we too busy killing ourselves chasing after material shit that the talking heads on the TV tell us we have to have?

If you want to see an prime example of this, watch HGTV sometime. Watch how prospective home buyers and home owners either talk about or rip out entire kitchens and bathrooms because they're "dated". They complain about the color of the appliances because they're not "in". Talk about environmentally unfriendly! How many resources are wasted to build a new appliance, how many appliances are dumped in landfills because they're the "wrong" color? And these same people talk about going "green" while being the most wasteful fucks on the planet.

Everyone has to have the latest of everything, the latest phone, the latest custom cabinetry, the latest computer (okay well, maybe if you want to play the latest games you'll need that LOL), a brand new car, a brand new this and a brand new that. What happened to using things until they don't work?

Le sigh.

Your Quote of the Day on Health Care, or how you're a fucking idiot if you think private corporations are the answer

2009-08-17T09:22:00.005-05:00

"...leaving private insurance companies the job of controlling the costs of health care is like making a pyromaniac the fire chief." --Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y.

You know after much thought, I've decided that if people are so stupid that they don't want universal and public health care like Canada and the UK and much of the rest of Europe have, that they don't deserve it. God forbid that they lie sick in the hospital with cancer, and are having to argue with their creditors because they're losing their house and everything they have because their insurance company dropped them when they got sick. Think it can't happen to you? It can, and it will. If you get sick with an expensive disease, your insurance company WILL drop you. End of fucking story.

Against universal health care? How does it feel to be a pawn of the insurance lobby? If you haven't enough sense in your head to see that the problem is the corporations, the insurance companies, etc., then you deserve exactly what you get. Hope you eat it up. Enjoy! Let me know how that works out for you, k?

I'm sick of the stupidity in this country.

"Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on." --Winston Churchill

Your Anger will Consume You

2009-08-11T16:28:00.006-05:00

"There is more anger in America today than at any time I can remember." --Arlen Specter

Never thought I'd quote old Specter, but that quote caught my attention. There's a whole lot of anger all right, and a whole lot of ignorance to go along with it. The talking radio heads are pandering to the ignorant masses, feeding them lies and sending them off to disrupt democratic town hall meetings. They're like a two year old throwing a temper tantrum and making it impossible for the grown ups to talk.

They're spray painting swastikas outside of US Representative's offices. They're threatening a revolution. Yes, a revolution because they can't stand the fact that a black man is President. THAT is what this all boils down to. And if you don't believe it, you've not been paying attention. It's bad enough for these people that a democrat is in office, and our civil rights are semi-protected for the time being, but that there's a black democrat in office. That's just the straw that broke the camel's back for them. It has nothing to do with Socialism, they don't even understand the definition of that, as they're using it right now (Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, etc.). That we might have healthcare like the UK, Canada or Sweden, is a good thing, but they believe the lies because they can't think for themselves. For them, money is prime, yet they don't have much of it. They are content to be the pawns of the Republican party, the lobbyists, the Corporations, like the Pharmaceutical and Insurance companies. Oh yes, they're told to be angry and go crash these meetings on behalf of these entities that have no business being in our politics in the first place. And these people are too stupid to realize it. They're rebels without a clue, to quote Tom Petty LOL

Lincoln was right. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves. If we let these neo-Nazi wanna-bes crash democratically run town hall meetings, if we let them threaten and intimidate politicians by spray painting racist crap outside their offices, they may eventually get the upper hand, and we all know where that road leads. It isn't a pretty drive. They need to arrest these people and charge them with criminal trespass and disturbing the peace. If they can't come to a discussion and have just that, a discussion, and instead scream and throw their tantrums, they need to be removed from the event and punished, like a two year old, put them in time-out at the local jail.

40th Anniversary of Apollo 11 and New LRO photos

2009-07-17T11:57:00.004-05:00

When I was a kid I loved astronomy and anything to do with space. And then it seemed for so long that we weren't really doing all that much in space and I kinda lost interest. If you had asked me when I was ten if we'd have a man on Mars by now, I would have told you without hesitating, yes. But money is scarce when you're throwing trillions away on killing people. We can spend more money than you and I can even imagine on blowing brown people up half way across the world, but we can't spend it to engineer a way to send a man to Mars. We can make the Internets to waste everyone's time and be an utter distraction, but we can' seem to come up with a way to travel through the solar system. Maybe I'm just jaded.

But today, I got really excited for the first time in a long time about our space program. NASA has released new images of the Apollo landing sites for the 40th anniversary of us landing men on the moon for the first time. And on that note, if you had asked me, again when I was ten, if a woman or a black person would have landed on the moon by 2010, I'd have told you hell yes. And maybe that's coming soon, maybe real soon. We squander our time here in so many ways, and our wealth too.

At any rate, the images were taken by their Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which is mapping the entire moon so they can send people back to the moon, this time on a more permanent basis instead of just for a few hours.

I think the most interesting picture is where you can see the astronauts' footprints. They're still there because there's no weather on the moon. It's pretty nifty if you ask me. In the coming weeks they'll have better, higher res images as the satellite drops lower into it's orbit. Maybe they'll have GoogleMoon eventually. Wouldn't that be cool?

Ignorance is bliss?

2009-07-16T00:07:00.005-05:00

I've been a little busy with things, and so I haven't even read the news lately, and so I have nothing to write about. I realized while on my trip to Europe that I enjoyed not knowing what was going on. The world kept on going without me knowing anything about all the crap I can't change or do anything about. You can read about all these politicians, and the things they do to muck up the world. You can read about all the crazy fundamentalist fanatics that are burning books or lashing women in some backwater in Afghanistan or beating their wives right here in the good ol' US of A. And I can't do shit about any of it. I sometimes question whether or not it's even worthwhile to know about all of the travesty that goes on in this world.

That's almost anathema to what I believe, that knowledge is important, it gives you power. I don't know what kind of power that is exactly though. The power to drive yourself quite mad at the craziness of humanity, both in the past and now, and I'm sure into the future. The entire world is quite mad. And that's why I named this blog that. Humanity is really fucked up on so many levels.

So why am I writing this? I don't even know, something to do with the fact that I realized I hadn't written in a few days, and realized also that I didn't know what to write about. That and it's late, I'm rambling and I should go to bed, but I'm procrastinating about that.

Republicans are Racist Bastards (but we knew that)

2009-07-11T11:31:00.007-05:00

Of course the Republicans are kicking and screaming over Sotomayor. It's not enough that she's a woman, but she's a Hispanic woman! The Republican reaction?

Republicans: Oh noes!!11!!1! The colored people are wanting equality again and are gaining important positions, even the Presidency! :'( Drat! Our evil scheme is coming undone...

So now they're saying that she's associated with an "extremist" group. Apparently if you're associated with a right-wing extremist group though it's not a problem, and how dare you say anything bad about them, especially if they're infiltrating our military. {/sarcasm}

At any rate, I hardly call the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund an extremist group. They're like the NAACP... but I suppose the Republicans don't have the cojones to call the NAACP an extremist group because they'd have Jesse Jackson protesting outside their offices. I guess the Hispanics are just a little too mellow for that.

Hispanic Rights Group at Center of Sotomayor Fight
Conservatives have called the group's stances on capital punishment and abortion rights, as well as its advocacy of affirmative action in worker discrimination cases, "extreme" and "shocking."...
Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, used the word "extreme" to describe the PRLDEF's views on capital punishment and race...

So, what it boils down to is that this group supports rights for minorities and women, the enemies of the rich, white guys in the Republican party. Since the Republicans have no leg to stand on and nothing of substance to run on (and no brains I dare say either) they have to paint their enemies with the "terrorist brush." They basically have equated PRLDEF with extremists and terrorists in their opposition to Sotomayor. They did the same thing with Obama, so I suppose it should come no surprise to anyone that they should go as far as to paint Sotomayor with that same brush as well.

Racism in the 21st Century

2009-07-10T09:01:00.005-05:00

Down here in south Texas we have a radio station (well, probably more than one) where the DJs are ignorant, stupid bastards. They play decent music some of the time, but I don't think I'll be listening to them any more. I think they must listen to right-wing talk radio in their off time, because back during the election they were allowing people on the air to propagate all the lies about Obama that were going around at the time, like he was Muslim and wasn't a citizen, etc. This isn't supposed to be a right-wing talk radio. It's supposed to play music from the "80's, 90's and today" but the DJs seem to like to inject their own political and religious persuations into what's supposed to just be music.

Now don't ask me why I continued to listen to the station after that. I guess because there just aren't any other stations that play music I like. Well from now on I'll go with the radio off before I listen to their stupid asses. The reason? Yesterday I read about some minority children that were asked by a private pool to leave. It sounded like they knew how many children there were, but when the members using the pool saw they were black and hispanic, they pulled their children out of the pool and went and complained. The people who ran the pool then refunded their money and asked them to never come back. They tried to say they didn't have the capacity to deal with that many kids. WHAT? You have got to be kidding me. I'm sure they knew how many kids were involved when they arranged for them to come. I'm sure the question was asked, "how many kids do you have?" I'll bet what wasn't asked was "what color are the kids?"

Now you may ask why I'm mad at the radio station? The DJs (who are white) dismissed this as being "overblown" and that there's no racism in the 21st century. Excuse me? I'm from western North Carolina, where there are still Klan up in the mountains. So what the fuck ever. You want to be so stupid and ignorant and think that, you can bite my ass. I know for a fact that country clubs discriminate against minorities, and find ways around laws so they don't have to accept minorities into them. So again, whatever. The DJs here are ignorant assholes and I pray they never know what it's like to be discriminated against. People are so quick to forget history. My mother, yes, my mother, went to a segregated school. She'll be sixty this year. That's not even very old. It wasn't even that long ago they were lynching black people in the south, in my mother's lifetime! And these DJs have the temerity, the cojones to dare to say that it's magically all gone? Fuck them.

You see, racism isn't gone. It's swept under the rug and that makes it more dangerous, because if we deny there's a problem, then there's never any justice. I believe there's an old adage, that sunlight is the best disinfectant. In 1955, when my mother was five years old, a fourteen year old boy by the name of Emmett Till was murdered in Mississippi for whistling at a white woman. His mother insisted on an open casket, so that the world might see the brutality of the killing. If we just sweep it all under the rug, if we don't take a stand and say, no, it's not right what you're doing, then we are just as guilty as the people who perpetrate the crime, whether it's discriminating from a job or beating someone or telling a group of elementary aged students they can't swim in the same pool as the rich white kids.

The greater crime here isn't the fact that the private pool kicked the poor minority kids out. The greater crime here is the ignorance that says there's not a problem.

President Obama is a Geek

2009-06-30T12:39:00.002-05:00

This totally cracked me up:

John Hodgman at Radio & TV Correspondents' Dinner

Quote highlights:

"Speaking of Supreme Court Nominees, strict constructionists, [are] jocks. Anyone who believes that they know the original intent of the framers of the Constitution are obviously jocks, because a.) they hate hippies, and b.) they neglect the fact that the Constitution is perhaps the most geeky document of all time. It is essentially the Frequently Asked Questions list of the United States that was written by monied, sickly, bookish, bi-focal wearing nerds who believed that God was a distant, uncaring Dungeon Master."

"It is an exciting time to be a nerd... at this very moment the fate of Iran is strangely entwined with the sleep schedules of the geeks who maintain the servers at Twitter and Youtube."

Conservatism Fails the United States

2009-06-28T11:08:00.006-05:00

As in EPIC FAIL. For eight years we had a conservative Republican administration. The conservatives controlled the House and the Senate for most of that time. Their ideology says that they want less taxes and less government. I'm sure that there are some rather thick people out there who think that this sounds like a good thing, until they think, if they have the capacity to reason that is, about all of the things that we have that are provided by our government. You know, the schools, the roads, the public services like trash pick up and water.

In fact if you listened to the Republicans enough you would think that what they really want is to go back to some sort of medieval style serfdom, where the poor have no chance of an education and are held in servitude to a lord, or in this case, a corporation. The mark of a free and democratic society is how educated it's people are. Without public education, nay, without good public education, you wind up with a society that is only fit to serve it's masters. I believe that the founders would be appalled at this.

And California is a microcosm of the bigger problem we have here in this country. There is an article in Time, that I read this morning, that really sums the entire problem up for us.

California's Fiscal Crisis:
The Legacy of Proposition 13

The financial crisis in California grew worse this week as State Controller John Chiang warned that if legislators and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger fail to come up with a budget-balancing package, he would begin paying California's bills with IOUs on July 2. The last time the state did this was during the Great Depression...

And at the root of California's misery lies Proposition 13, the antitax measure that ignited the Reagan Revolution and the conservative era...

Before Prop 13, in the 1950s and '60s, California was a liberal showcase. Governors Earl Warren and Pat Brown responded to the population growth of the postwar boom with a massive program of public infrastructure — the nation's finest public college system, the freeway system and the state aqueduct that carries water from the well-watered north to the parched south...

The conservative mindset has, yet again, thrust us into what I'm sure historians will decide some decades from now, is another Great Depression. They got us into the first one as well, as I wrote about some months ago. You cannot provide the things that are the mark of a free and democratic society in a modern country, things such as water and public education without taxing people. You have to pay taxes if you want these things that make our lives comfortable and free. It's really quite simple. Sure, the government, at both the federal and local level, could stand to trim fat, you know, like the two wars we're fighting for no reason, politicians who use public money to go and see mistresses in Argentina, allowing no-bid contracts to certain corporations in quid-pro-quo deals, but that's not what the Republicans want cut. That's what they want to spend money on! Meanwhile they seek to destroy public education, government assisted funding for college and anything else that serves the public good. And the Democrats are no better. They need to grow some cojones and put a stop to this shit.

When we stop funneling money and resources into killing people and into corruption, we should have all the money we need for our crumbling schools and decaying roadways.

Or we can just be stupid and let the government continue to cut funding to important things so they'll have all the money they need for the military, so that they can run off and fight unnecessary wars with our tax dollars. We can submit to this and be little more than serfs, we can throw away all of the sacrifices that our ancestors gave so that we could be free and educated, and instead live in servitude to corporations.

The Forces of Darkness

2009-06-26T18:49:00.005-05:00

War is Peace,

Freedom is Slavery,

Ignorance is Strength.

I don't think that any of these Republicans who are clamoring for their own little totalitarian theocracy have ever read 1984. Because if they had read it, they'd realize that what they're doing is straight out of Big Brother's propaganda machine. These are all from ThinkProgress and all from this evening.

The Democrats are just as bad as the North Korean and Iranian regimes.

Phil Gingrey (R. Ga): "Americans are watching as from Iran to North Korea, the forces of darkness are attempting to silence the forces of democracy and freedom. The irony is on this day, the Democratic process and the nation’s economic freedom are under threat not by some rogue state, but in this very chamber in which we stand."

Pelosi has created an autocracy in the House.

John McCain (R. Az): "And I guarantee you we are using every parliamentary possibility we have and I have great sympathy for my friends in the House because it’s almost under an autocracy now with Speaker Pelosi."

Obama is an Colonial African Despot.

Rush Limbaugh: "We’ve elected somebody who’s more African in his roots than he is American…and is behaving like an African colonial despot."

Because, G.W. Bush wiping his ass with the Constitution of the United States, getting us into two wars we had no business being in, and sending our economy down the fucking drain, promoting theocracy in this country, and being an overall dipshit that the whole world hated, didn't cause these asshats any sort of bother at all. They didn't wake up in the middle of the night, wondering if maybe they should be doing something to save this country.

Now that the democrats are trying to save it, perhaps slowly and perhaps ineffectively, all they can do is scream about how the democrats are really despots and tyrants. Oh please. They wouldn't know a tyrant if they were arrested by them, thrown into prison without trial, and taken out behind a woodshed and summarily executed. Why? Because they don't have any cognizant thought or reason in their heads. Nor do they have any empathy. All they have is a singular idea that god tells them they're special and deserve to have absolute power over everyone else, and because they're rich, they don't have to bother with the lesser classes who should know their place.

Forces of darkness? The only forces of darkness I see are McCain, Limbaugh and the rest of their hangers-on.

Anonymous Fails Christianity 101

2009-06-25T18:11:00.004-05:00

Oh, of all the things I could write about, oh, this one struck me as the funniest thing I've heard in a long time. I got a bunch of comments from some "Anonymous" on my last post. Anonymous is someone I'm sure who's too afraid to post with an ID, mainly because they have no valid argument to counter mine, and they know it.

While talking about Sanford's humanity, and his failure to live up to his own moral code, I said and I quote,

Instead, I'm sure Mr. Ensign and Mr. Sanford are blaming Satan, the scapegoat for everything, for their failings. That's the problem with religions like Christianity. They promote the belief that one is not responsible for their actions, that bad things are done by the devil (or by people influenced by the devil) and that if they only put aside their reason, that Jesus will make it all better by a simple thought in their head that he's a god and came to earth to save them, like some kind of superhero.

To which Anonymous responded,

Wrong, again. Do you just make this stuff up while you tap away in Starbucks? When you include a statement like that it just collapses the reader's belief that you have any capacity to reason.

First of all, I hate Starbucks. They burn their coffee. Quite frankly, the coffee at our local bookstore is much better and they roast the beans fresh every day. But I digress. You see, Anonymous fails Christianity 101. The main tenet of Christianity is that it doesn't matter what you do, what actions you perform, bad or good, all that matters is that you think in your head that Jesus has "saved" you. If you have murdered a million people and then "accept the Lord Jesus" into your heart, you're going to heaven because Jesus absolves all sins no matter how bad. But if you don't believe in Jesus, you're going to burn in the lake of fire for all eternity, no matter how good of a life you've lived or how many charitable acts you've done. Now, the more moderate Christians tend to gloss this over, especially Unitarians, who try to be inclusive. But the doctrine is still there, they just don't harp on it, like say, the Southern Baptists.

I can't make this shit up. I've lived among too many Christian Fundamentalists for that. I know verbatim what they say. I know all of their arguments, and all of their weak refutations which always go back to a belief in Jesus. And if Anonymous thinks that one can be saved without a simple belief in Jesus, I don't know what religion he or she thinks they're talking about, but it isn't Christianity.

Finally, with the reference to Starbucks, I'm sure Anonymous thinks I'm a "latte sipping liberal" and that's a red flag that he or she gets their news from Faux and listens to Rush daily. What he or she doesn't realize, is that I hate both the Republicans and the Democrats. I don't believe the left or the right. I despise them all equally because I think they're all fucked up. I don't take anyone's side, save my own, and that of the impoverished and the oppressed. I don't need to take sides with politicians who are lying rats and who are born with a silver spoon up their ass. It's really too bad that all these people who claim to be Christian, don't bother to read one iota of what Jesus actually said, and then actually *gasp* go do it. You know, about taking care of the poor, social justice and all that. About going into your closet to pray, instead of standing on the street corner like hypocrites. Oh, but that would mean that they'd have actually had to read the Bible and comprehend it and think about it, instead of listening to people like Rush, Coulter and Malkin telling them what to think.

And I don't sip lattes.

Mark Sanford: Another One Bites the Dust

2009-06-24T19:20:00.003-05:00

And here we have, in a mere one week, another shamed Republican presidential 2012 hopeful. Laid low by the strict moral view espoused by their twisted interpretation of ancient manuscripts, they fail to see the irony that is their life. While insisting that everyone else live up to a certain moral, they themselves fail the proverbial hypocrite test, of failing to practice what one preaches.

Personally, I don't give a damn if he had an affair with someone. IMHO, that's between him and his wife. The problem is, these politicians scream for morality, and then when they don't practice what they preach, it's because they're "just human." Well yes, they are just human, which is why they fuck up. So why can't that be a lesson to politicians, that we're not interested in your morality. Just do your damned job of representing the people, and don't worry about how I live my life and I won't worry about how you live yours. So long as no laws are broken, who cares? Instead, I'm sure Mr. Ensign and Mr. Sanford are blaming Satan, the scapegoat for everything, for their failings. That's the problem with religions like Christianity. They promote the belief that one is not responsible for their actions, that bad things are done by the devil (or by people influenced by the devil) and that if they only put aside their reason, that Jesus will make it all better by a simple thought in their head that he's a god and came to earth to save them, like some kind of superhero.

The 2012 election is going to be interesting. When your most likable (as in likable by those who have no thoughts in their head) is a dumb bitch from Alaska, you have problems. You see, the GOP has been the party of anti-intellectualism for the last three plus decades, and the lack of viable candidates that have half a thought in their head, shows us that this strategy has finally come home to roost for them. So not only do they now have a bunch of followers who are unthinking hypocrites, the core of their leadership is made up of much the same.

English Only Conferenece [sic]

2009-06-22T20:09:00.007-05:00

From think progress
Yeah. I couldn't help myself. It is true that a picture is worth a thousand words.

Why? Why do we still have racist bastards in the 21st century? The guy on the right is Peter Brimelow, the editor of a white nationalist website. You see, these people try to tie up the immigration debate in the package that it's about jobs or national security. But it isn't. That's what they want you to think. It's really about racism. These people are like the Nazis. Yes, yes, I know, Godwin's Law. But it's true in this case. They're conservative, fascist bastards who think the white race is somehow better than any other race. They miss the fact that race is a socially contrived thing, and genetically there is little difference between the so called races, and that skin color is a very late adaptation, perhaps arising as late as 10,000 years ago. But whatever, you can't argue with stupid.

PAT BUCHANAN: Judge Sotomayor is up there at school in New York, she gets a scholarship to Princeton, she’s graduated with all these big honors and awards they said she never won. What’s she doing there in the summer? They said her adviser told her to read children’s classics so she can learn English better. How do you graduate number one in Princeton if you’re in the summer and you’re reading Rumpelstiltskin and Snow White?

Seriously? You're kidding right? I bet you anything these ignorant morons haven't read a classic in their lives, children's or otherwise. Huckleberry Finn is a children's classic. So is Mrs Frisby and the Rats of Nimh. All worthy of being read if you haven't done so. But I digress, because what he has said is a lie. First of all, she was born in New York City. She's American, you can't say she doesn't speak English. What he has said has a kernel of truth to it, which is the most powerful kind of lie. When she went to college, she lacked a knowledge of the classics, perhaps children's or otherwise. Had nothing to do with her ability to speak English, but these clowns couldn't understand that. And I might add, that we only call a lot of books children's classics because most read them when they're in public school. Quite frankly, I think a good many of them have themes and situations that are over most children's heads, and should be re-read later in life. But I digress.

You know, this pisses me off a lot. Sotomayor was born in poverty and pulled herself out of it, and these rich, priveledged white men, who have never had to do a day's manual labor in their lives mock her for not being as educated upon entering Princeton as her white classmates were. What a bunch of fucking pricks. I'm sure there's some more nuanced way to put it, but that right there is how I'm feeling about them right now.

Neda: The Revolution will be on Youtube

2009-06-21T16:28:00.004-05:00

A government that attacks it's own people isn't fit to govern them. Perhaps in a time not long ago, governments could sweep the terrible things that they do under the rug, but not any more. Not with cell phones with cameras and the internet. And youtube. There are a ton of videos on there that people have uploaded showing the horrific, and pointless violence. All these people wanted was a say in their government, and the freedom to live as they see fit, and to be free from fear of being arrested for mere words. But the Iranian government couldn't abide by their people being able to have a voice.

And people are dying because of it. And there are videos on youtube showing these people's last moments, with their friends and family members screaming in agony, wondering why their child, their brother, their father, or mother or their friend had to die. So, the government of Iran can't sweep it under the rug. There is a video of a girl whom they are calling Neda, which in Persian means "voice", who is shot in the chest and dies moments later. All caught on camera. I warn you if you click the link that is in her name that it is graphic. It is death. But you get to watch it safe at home, on your computer screen. These people are living with this day and night. With the police shooting at them for merely assembling and demanding their human rights. The government can't silence Neda. She may be dead, but she's all over everyone's computer screens right now. They may kill the people who are on their roof tops shouting "Allahu Akbar!" (God is Great), and thereby silence them, but they can't silence them. They're also on youtube. The harder the Iranian government cracks down, the more the voices of the disenfranchised Iranians will be heard across the world. And it will never go away. Their voices will ring out forever, as long as the internet lasts, demanding their right to be free from tyranny and fear.

"Beneath this mask there is more than flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea, Mr. Creedy, and ideas are bulletproof." --V. from V for Vendetta

Republican Senator John Ensign had an affair!

2009-06-17T16:08:00.002-05:00

Surprise, surprise.

What is it with these self righteous conservatives who think everyone else needs to follow their version of "morality" but then don't bother to apply it to themselves? Bloody hypocrites.

Sen. Ensign quits GOP post after admitting affair

...The Nevada lawmaker is a member of the Christian ministry Promise Keepers and has championed causes pushed by the GOP's conservative religious base while seeking to raise his political profile for a possible presidential campaign...

The disclosure resurrected questions about a two-week period in 2002, when Ensign abruptly dropped from public view. A person familiar with that episode, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said Tuesday the senator told a close associate the absence followed an earlier affair...

And of course it's not his first affair. He's apparently had others. This from a man who is vehemently against two people of the same sex getting married and being faithful to one another. If you're going to be a lying, hypocritical bastard, the least you can do is not expect everyone else to follow your supposed "moral" code. I personally don't give a damn what you do. If he wanted to cheat on his wife, whatever, ain't none of my business. However, it is my business when he wants to tell me how to live my life. He can take his "morals" and shove them where the sun doesn't shine.

Racism and the Grand Old Party

2009-06-14T09:31:00.004-05:00

Okay, so not all Republicans are racist obviously. But for some strange reason, racists seem to flock to the party like geese to Canada in the summer. So it really comes as no surprise to me that a long time Republican activist, Rusty DePass of South Carolina, made the comment a few days ago that an escaped gorilla was one of Michelle Obama's ancestors. He then tried to cover his ass by saying that the First Lady had said herself that we were all descended from apes. Remember they hate evolution too. No one has found where the First Lady said this either, and I doubt that she said anything like it. And at any rate, in this case, this has nothing to do with evolution, but rather with a long standing tradition that black people are just one step above being a monkey, and are obviously not human.

This isn't the first time that rude, racist comments have been said, if you recall former Senator George Allen of Virginia, called a democrat volunteer of Indian descent "macaca" a clearly racist pejorative. He claimed he didn't know what it meant. Yeah right. At any rate, it destroyed his political career on the national stage. In the end he lost his seat, but not because he's a racist. Indeed, he was narrowly defeated by Webb who held a mere one third of one percent (0.3%) more votes than Allen. All of those people who voted for Allen didn't care that he was a racist, probably because most of them were racist as well.

Many people act like racism isn't a problem any more, that it's something that was a problem a long time ago but isn't now. Usually this view is espoused by the ones who are racist. They don't want a spotlight shown on their beliefs, so it serves them well if most people think that it really isn't a problem. Where I grew up in the south out in the countryside, there are still Klan. I knew plenty of people in high school who were virulently racist, and would say terrible things, like "the only good n____ is a dead n____." And they'd get away with saying things like that because the administration was probably racist too. I also recall a kid on the bus who told this other kid that there were probably black people in his family tree, and I remember the other kid getting really angry, and saying that there "ain't no n____ in my family!". He threatened to beat the kid up if he didn't take back the statement that he could have ancestors that were black. That was in the 90s, it hasn't been that long ago. These are things that I saw and heard first hand, so I know good and well the reality of it. And those people are still there, most of them have had a few children now, and are passing their hate on to them.

I take it the Iranians are tired of Theocracy

2009-06-13T21:34:00.006-05:00

Elections were held in Iran yesterday. Anyone who dares think for a moment that they were anything like fair is living in a fantasy world. It's a dictatorship run by a bunch of priests. To paraphrase Stalin, "It isn't who votes or how that is important, what is important is who counts the votes and how."

So of course the elections aren't fair. They don't have a free press, or any sort of oversight over what their government does. And if you've seen the pictures, some people are obviously pretty fed up with it. I dare say, a whole lot of Iranians are pissed. People are the same everywhere and tend to want the same things. The Iranian people want to be free to live without interference from their government, without fear of being "disappeared" in the middle of the night, without fear of being executed as a traitor for merely speaking their mind. These are the same things that everyone wants. Very few want to live in a theocratic dictatorship. The ones who wind up doing so, do so against their will and tolerate it out of fear. Out of fear of punishment from "god" and/or fear of what the earthly leaders of their country might do to them. The only people who want to live in such a place, are those who are in power, who benefit from it, the dictator and maybe his close comrades.

The question of where this civil unrest will lead depends on whether or not the Iranians who are so furious, are willing to die to free themselves. That's what it boils down to. If they're not willing to go to jail, if they're not willing to risk being tortured and killed, if they just go home, then they will continue to live in a theocracy. Because what they face if they refuse to go home and shut up, is death. It also depends on how cohesive the movement is. The Revolutionary Guard has said it will put down any uprising, and indeed I hope that Mousavi goes somewhere safe because he's in grave danger. The government will probably accuse him of fostering this whole thing and we know where that kind of stuff leads in situations like this.

It's really too bad that Iran's government is so backwards. I've always been fascinated by the place. One of the greatest empires in history was there, the Persian Empire. I love archaeology and would love to see Persepolis. I think it would be a great place to visit, but I'm not likely to set foot there so long as things remain the way they are. I'm sure the people are lovely, but I don't go for theocracies.

Same shit, different day.

Right-Wing Extremists a danger? Really?

2009-06-11T13:35:00.010-05:00

What was that a few months back, when the Justice Department caught hell for warning about right wing wackos? What was that? Oh yeah, looks like they were correct in their reasoning, obviously, as anyone with half a brain would realize. I wonder who was pissed about that assessment? Could it be the right-wing wackos who seem to always be ranting at the top of their lungs? Quite a few people owe Janet Napolitano an apology.

Alleged gunman charged in museum shooting

By BRETT ZONGKER and CALVIN WOODWARD

Security Guard Dies After DC Museum Shooting

WASHINGTON (AP) -- An 88-year-old white supremacist has been charged with murder for killing the security guard who had opened the door to let him into the U.S. Holocaust Memorial and Museum, officials said Thursday...

In his car, officers found a notebook with a handwritten note saying, "You want my weapons - this is how you'll get them. The Holocaust is a lie. Obama was created by Jews," according to a court affidavit...

This guy, James von Brunn, who murdered the guard, he was also ranting online about how Obama wasn't born here, following the usual right-wing diatribe bullshit. You know, just like what Faux News was saying. Same shit. I know where he gets his news from.

By the way, Stephen T. Johns and the other guards who stopped this ignorant, poor excuse for a human being, are heroes. If it hadn't been for them, countless other innocent people would have died.

Oh, and James von Brunn isn't alone. Just look at the white supremacist forums if you dare. I came across one by accident in a Google search of his name. They're lauding him as a hero. I don't know how such sorry excuses for life can sleep at night. They obviously have no empathy and no conscience. That's the mark of a serial killer, the mark of a despot. People who would kill other human beings and not feel any remorse whatsoever, I don't even have any words for that sorta crap.

I'm Back Stateside

2009-06-10T19:20:00.004-05:00

So I'm back from my walkabout in Europe. Let me just say it was awesome, amazing and way cooler than I had ever imagined. I thank you all for your comments and well wishes.

To answer the question about whether or not Europeans hate Americans, etc., the answer is definitely no. They think our government is quite mad, but most of them think their own governments are quite mad too. There's the rub, most governments are corrupt bastards, but the people are nice. They think sometimes that we're a bit obnoxious, but they think the French are more obnoxious, except of course the French, who think everyone else is inferior.

Actually, that's not true. The French are actually pretty nice, or at least the ones that I met were. Even in Paris where I had been warned that everyone was rude and hated Americans, I failed to come across a single rude person. And for a city that size, I was shocked. I've met more rude people in London. And I butchered French, I only speak a little, and most people if they knew English would just start speaking English to me when they realized that I wasn't fluent. Which is a bit infuriating if you're trying to learn their language. Most of the French in Paris speak English by the way, I suppose it's because they're so close to England, only a little over two hours away by Eurostar train. You know attitude is a lot of it. I wonder how many people who complain about others being rude to them, are really the cause of their own problems.

Now the French in the south, they don't speak much English, but they're as nice as can be. We got by with my terrible French and waving our hands about a lot. Check my blog on the Albigensian Crusade, because I'm going to update it and include a few photos that I took.

Away for the next month...

2009-05-09T10:54:00.005-05:00

I'm leaving in a few days for a trip to Europe. I might not find the time to write any more before I leave. Or I might. Who knows? I suppose it will be a matter of whether I have the time on my hands, and if I find anything to sufficiently piss me off enough to bother writing about. So much of everything lately is redundancy.

At any rate, I'll be back the second week of June. Until then, you'll have to be content reading what I've already written. I'll be updating my other blog on the Albigensian Crusade when I get back, as I'm going to be in France where the crusade took place, so if you're interested in that, check back in June.

They Don't Hate us for our Freedom

2009-05-07T13:03:00.005-05:00

They hate us for our Corporatocracy, and the endless greed that goes with it.

Study: Poverty fueling Muslim tension with West

By DAVID STRINGER
Associated Press Writer
May 7, 1:51 PM EDT

LONDON (AP) -- Joblessness and poverty are a more potent source of tension between Muslims and wider European and U.S. society than religious differences, one of the first major studies of Muslim integration since the Sept. 11 terror attacks claimed on Thursday.

Attacks by Islamic extremists on the United States, and European capitals like Madrid and London, have sparked debate about whether a failure of Muslims to integrate into Western society has fueled extremism and created divisions between communities.

But a study of around 10,000 people in 27 countries by the Gallup polling company claims non-Muslims - including the public and lawmakers - have misunderstood the attitudes of Muslims in the West, stifling attempts to promote better understanding. Muslims in the West are more patriotic, more tolerant and more likely to reject violence than the rest of Western society believes they are, the study claims...

The study found that only 10 percent of British Muslims consider themselves integrated into British society, compared to 46 percent of French Muslims and 35 percent of German Muslims. Mogahed, an Egyptian-American Muslim, said unemployment and access to education were key factors in isolating Muslims in the West.

The study found that 38 percent of British Muslims said they had a job, lower than the figure for the British general public - 62 percent - and lower than Muslims in Germany or France, where 53 percent and 45 percent respectively said they were employed. Mogahed said that Muslims, particularly in Britain and France, feel marginalized because they have more difficulty finding jobs than non-Muslims, and typically have lower incomes.

"Economic integration may become more precarious in light of the current financial crisis affecting Europe," she said. Another key finding of the study was that that Muslims don't prioritize their faith over patriotism, Mogahed said.

The study found that 77 percent of British Muslims feel a strong sense of British identity, compared to 50 percent of the country's non-Muslims. In France, around half of Muslims and non-Muslims say they feel a strong sense of patriotism...

And this just goes into Muslims who live in the west. They're discriminated against and people assume that they're really terrorists in disguise. I once knew a girl, she was Muslim and had a small child who was about three. All of them were American Citizens. Her family ran a convenience store and one day she told me that this older man came into the store, and when he saw her in her headscarf and the child, he pointed at the toddler and said something to the effect of "He'll grow up to be a terrorist too." I was appalled that someone would assume that because of one's religious persuasions that that automatically makes them a terrorist. Excuse me, but the kid's three. You don't even know if he'll have strong religious beliefs when he grows up. It's absolute, unadulterated ignorance and racism/ethnocentrism, and there's no excuse for it. How can you talk about a toddler like that? How cruel and stupid do you have to be? Is it any wonder that they don't feel integrated into society?

I mean, if you see an Irish Catholic, do you call his kid a terrorist because of the IRA? They blew people up over religion. Do you automatically assume such a thing? Or does it really have more to do with race as to why Muslims get hated on? After all, the Irish guy is white. And don't try that whole "the Koran is different than the Bible" argument, because that's bullshit. Both books are full of barbarity and god righteously ordering the smiting of this or that group of people. Indeed, a portion of the Koran is a retelling of the Bible with the names spelled differently, but no one has a problem with the Bible. Even the Bible says that you should kill unbelievers. Where's the outrage over that?

"If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, "Let us go and worship other gods" (gods that neither you nor your fathers have known, gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other), do not yield to him or listen to him. Show him no pity. Do not spare him or shield him. You must certainly put him to death. Your hand must be the first in putting him to death, and then the hands of all the people. Stone him to death, because he tried to turn you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. Then all Israel will hear and be afraid, and no one among you will do such an evil thing again." Deuteronomy 13:6-11

Indeed, Christianity itself has historically been a violent religion. Just look at the Inquisition or the pogroms against Jews.

People forget that there are crazies in all walks of life, and while religious convictions (of any type) can fuel that, there are plenty of people who are just plain fucking crazy, and religion has nothing to do with it. Luckily, I think the majority of people, regardless of their religion are basically good people.

When society starts demonizing an entire group of people because of their religion or ethnicity, bad things follow. All one must do is look at history to see this.

Civil War over Slave Gay Marriage

2009-05-05T21:18:00.012-05:00

Because tearing the country apart over giving legal rights to other people is... is... wait. That's exactly what happened during the Civil War in the 19th century. Our ancestors tore this country apart over slavery, with half the country wishing to deny blacks the right to be free, to be considered human, instead of 3/5^ths of a person.

Fast forward 144 years and we have black people in DC up in arms, clamoring to deny others of their legal rights. They should be ashamed of themselves. This is a nation of laws, not a nation of religion. You don't like it, don't marry someone of the same sex. This isn't about what your sky god thinks or what you think he thinks. This is about same sex couples having legal rights provided by our secular government. If you don't like it, move to Saudi Arabia. Let me know how that whole theocracy thing works out for you, k?

Barry Warns of "Civil War" Over Gay Marriage
D.C. Council member Marion Barry (D-Ward 8), the only council member to vote against the bill today to legalize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere, predicted today there could be a "civil war" in the District if the Council decides to take up a broader gay marriage bill later this year.

"All hell is going to break lose," Barry said while speaking to reporters. "We may have a civil war. The black community is just adamant against this."

Barry made his remarks a few hours after a group of same-sex marriage opponents, led by black ministers, caused uproar in the Wilson Building after the Council voted 12 to 1 to recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere. They caused such a ruckus that security guards and police had to clear the hallway. The protesters shouted that council members who voted for the bill will face retribution at the polls.

Although he has been a longtime supporter of gay rights, Barry said he voted against the bill to satisfy his constituents in Southeast Washington.

"What you've got to understand is 98 percent of my constituents are black and we don't have but a handful of openly gay residents," Barry said. "Secondly, at least 70 percent of those who express themselves to me about this are opposed to anything dealing with this issue. The ministers think it is a sin, and I have to be sensitive to that."

But Barry said he disagrees with the ministers' antics today at the Wilson Building, saying the chaos "sets the movement back."

Oh, and by the way, the great irony of this, is that the Bible supports slavery too. Maybe those black people in DC should go back to being slaves since the Bible says it's okay. {/snark}

"Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ." Ephesians 6:5

"All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect, so that God's name and our teaching may not be slandered." 1 Timothy 6:1

BTW, I never thought I would quote the Catholic Encyclopedia in any seriousness, but you know, there is a time and a place for everything.

..."according to Greek law and usage, the slave was in a complete subjection to the will of his master, possessing no rights, even that of marriage."

So, there you have it. It is true. Humanity learns nothing from history.

Miss California: The Homophobic Hypocrite

2009-05-05T11:13:00.012-05:00

Because nude photos are so Christ-like. *roll eyes*

Yes, this doesn't surprise me, not one little bit. It's because the extreme Fundamentalists love to tell everyone else what to do, but they think that they are exempt from their own rules.

Miss California Nude Picture Carrie Prejean Naked Photo Scandal
"Hmmm…These explosive pictures could be devastating for Miss California, whose anti-gay marriage campaign recently resulted in a partnership with the National Organization for Marriage and helped to make her increasingly popular with right-wing conservatives.

Can you guys believe the nerve of this bozo? Using the Lord Jesus Christ as an excuse to support inequality when she’s just as big a sinner as anyone?

Let this be a lesson to us all; you may want to refrain from chastising other people about how they live their lives when there are digital photos of your ass buried on somebody’s hard drive. This reminds me of something my mother always said when I was growing up- Ah, that’s right, something about stones and glass houses. Ring a bell?"

This reminds me of so many other bible thumpers, who were exposed as frauds. Because this is what it boils down to. She is an air-headed idiot, who probably likes to party too much, and has done who knows what (and done who knows who), but has the audacity to stand in front of cameras and tell two people that they shouldn't be together because of her religious beliefs, which obviously don't mean very much to her in the first place.

Indeed, if she wants to take the Bible literally, she ought to put some fucking clothes on. How dare she expose herself like that! {/snark}

From a Biblical standpoint, she is a whore. She picks and chooses her verses, when they're useful for hating on other people, but ignores the ones that urge modesty, saying that the use of makeup and jewelry is a sin. I don't even know what the Biblical writers would have thought of bikinis, as they weren't invented yet, but I'm sure that those crotchety old priests would have disapproved, for the masses that is. I'm sure they were as lecherous as the next priest.

The Christians are so good at judging and hating other people. If they were truly Christians, they'd take the words of their so-called savior a little closer to heart. I believe it was a parable about throwing stones at someone when the stone throwers themselves were just as guilty. Something too about not judging. But why does anything that Jesus supposedly say matter? I mean, much of it was quite ethical, and some if it was insightful, but if it gets in the way of hate, well we can't have that.

Oh, and apparently there are some racier photos than the one displayed here. I'm sure they'll be leaked later.

Apparently there may be more too. Give a man enough rope and he will hang himself.

Miss California Denounces Racy Photo Leak
"I am a Christian, and I am a model. Models pose for pictures, including lingerie and swimwear photos. Recently, photos taken of me as a teenager have been released surreptitiously to a tabloid website that openly mocks me for my Christian faith.

"I am not perfect, and I will never claim to be. But these attacks on me and others who speak in defense of traditional marriage are intolerant and offensive. While we may not agree on every issue, we should show respect for others' opinions and not try to silence them through vicious and mean-spirited attacks."

What is this about "high school" photos? The photos so far that have been released are estimated to have been taken quite recently, after her boob job. You know, my dad used to warn me about saying too much. Apparently Miss Carrie Prejean didn't get the same advice.

A Disaster for Tourism in Mexico

2009-05-05T10:32:00.008-05:00

It really is a disaster that the swine flu seems to have started in Mexico, not least of which is the hit to their economy, a lot of which is fueled by tourism. It's not enough that they already have a ton of problems on the border, with all the violent drug cartels, the kidnappings, and murders in broad daylight.

Not that many years ago, twenty maybe, one could go down to the border and cross it to go shopping or have lunch. Those days are long gone, unfortunately. I wish it weren't so, as I love travel and have never been to Mexico. We live so close to it, but it's really not safe to go there anymore. There are Mexican nationals who travel between the US and Mexico because of work or personal reasons here, and even they won't go to the border towns, they only travel through them, usually early, early in the morning. Indeed it has gotten so bad, that many who live in the border towns have come up here to stay with relatives.

And there's a great danger of the violence spilling over the border. Indeed, earlier this year in Pharr, which is near McAllen, a live grenade was tossed into a bar where off duty police officers frequently hung out.

It's really terrible for the people having to live there, and the Mexican military seems out gunned, and outnumbered. I really don't have an answer on how to stop it all either. Well, I do, but no one will like it. Legalize all drugs and tax the hell out of them. There you go. Perhaps it's not realistic, but in my head it makes sense. All of a sudden the cartels are without business, because you can buy your drugs legally. Of course, no one will like this idea, because it's not "moral" whatever that is. As if it's "moral" to allow people to suffer under the cartels, but whatever. I've always been of the mindset that if one is going to do drugs, they're going to do them legal or not, and if they're not going to do them, they won't even if they're legal. I wouldn't do drugs, even if they were legal. I don't smoke cigarettes, so I wouldn't even smoke marijuana, even though I don't think it's all that bad for you.

I also think that the fact that it's taboo, probably leads some people to do it. I have known people when I was younger, who abused alcohol because their parents were teetotalers, and it was a reaction against that. They drank to spite their parents, or to see if they could get away with it. I on the other hand, had parents who were a bit more open than that, and insisted that if I was going to drink or something, that I be safe about it. I never had an urge to go and get drunk as some of my friends did. I think it's something psychological.

And we're in a huge mess tax wise, with the Republicans screaming they don't want more taxes. Well, here you can have your cake and eat it too. Imagine all the tax money from legal narcotics. Imagine all the money saved by not prosecuting people for damaging their own health. Now don't get me wrong, if you're driving under the influence, or causing a disturbance because you're on drugs then you need to be prosecuted as such, but if you want to sit in your own home and fry your brain, that ain't none of my business.

You know, it was entirely different at the end of the 19th century. I read a really interesting article not that long ago, that many middle and upper class women were totally addicted to heavy duty narcotics because they were marketed as elixirs for their health. But the thing is, they didn't understand how bad it was for them. IMHO, education is the answer, not punishing people for it. You see, this is why we wound up with the mob in the 30's because they outlawed liquor, and the mob filled a niche. As I said, if one is going to do it, the legality of it is generally not a deterrent. Just sayin'