Prominent Republican finally speaks sense about Park51

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) [source: The Daily Hurricane]

Well, slap me three times and feed my ’nads to the dogs. Here I was, thinking that the GOP had collectively eschewed any shred of integrity and respect for the Constitution in favor of constant demagogy, when Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) steps up and goes on the air to proclaim that, yes, Muslims have every right to build their proposed Park51 Islamic community center two blocks north of Ground Zero in Manhattan:

HATCH: Let’s be honest about it, in the First Amendment, religious freedom, religious expression, that really express matters to the Constitution. So, if the Muslims own that property, that private property, and they want to build a mosque there, they should have the right to do so. The only question is are they being insensitive to those who suffered the loss of loved ones? We know there are Muslims killed on 9/11 too and we know it’s a great religion. … But as far as their right to build that mosque, they have that right.

I just think what’s made this country great is we have religious freedom. That’s not the only thing, but it’s one of the most important things in the Constitution. [...]

Things could have been so much simpler …

One wonders what something like this might have solved:

Cartoon for August 29, 2010 | ViewsAmerica (Deb Milbrath) | GoComics

But then, as Iron Knee at Political Irony remarks, “they would claim Obama is Mexican”. Impossible to silence, they are.

(via Political Irony)

Tags: Barack Obama • Birtherism • religion

Badgers, badgers, badgers, badgers (and no mushroom)

Some people get a fistful of dollars. I prefer an armful of cute fluffy critters:

People holding six badgers [source: Daily Mail (link unavailable)]

Those cute little snouts make up for those less-than-sexy paws.

(via The Agitator)

Tags: badgers

Free speech is so useful for revealing bigoted assholes

It might seem to be commonsensical that a portion of the United States with a label such as the “Bible Belt” wouldn’t be too welcoming towards non-Christians, but thankfully, most folks are kind and tolerant and don’t have much of a problem with people of other faiths in their area.

And then, you get people who think this sort of thing ought to be encouraged:

Gas station message: “One nation under God and if you don't like it. Leave !” [source: WIS News 10]

Feds ransack home for a man who’s been in jail for a year

Police [source: FishbowlDC | mediabistro.com]

The Boveda family in Hialeah, Florida recently had an encounter of the typical kind with federal agents when they found their home raided in search of a convicted felon. WSVN-TV reports:

HIALEAH, Fla. (WSVN) -- A family is claiming federal agents raided their house when they were looking for someone who was not there.

The Boveda family said federal agents raided and ransacked their home Thursday morning. Even the front window was smashed. Broken glass was scattered across the floor and nearly every door in the house was busted open. Even their closets were cracked.

"I can't believe what I was seeing. I said don't break the window, I'll open the door for you, but you got the wrong house, you got the wrong house," said Orlando Boveda.

Federal agents said the raid was part of a larger operation to arrest alleged drug smugglers, and the house they raided was the last known address of a suspect who they were looking for.

Daily Blend: Tuesday, August 31, 2010

S.E. Cupp [source: Newsmax]

Finally brought my kitty Kaylee to the vet to get snipped. Should be slightly less insufferable for a while. Good thing she’s so damned cute or I might just hate her. ♥

• Silly column by S.E. Cupp ^[pictured] in the NW Daily News where she decries “[p]oliticizing [the] mosque near Ground Zero” by attacking Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi for jumping on the issue despite not being New Yorkers – while conveniently omitting any mention of those other prominent politicians who also have nothing to do with New York and who’ve also jumped on the Park51 kerfuffle, Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin.

• Brace yourself: Why People Like Glenn Beck, in Their Words.

• Virginia AG Ken Cuccinelli’s (R) witch hunt-of-a-case against climate researcher Michael Mann dismissed for lack of evidence indicating Mann was in any way “misleading, false or fraudulent”. Will he shut up? Of course not. But it’s a start.

• TSA: “S’cuse us while we dig through your purse and wallet, ask about your pills and check out your receipts. Ma’am, why do you look suspiciously nervous?”

Even foreigners get it about Tea Partiers

Maybe they really are just a (very) simple people after all:

Cartoon for Tuesday, August 31, 2010 | Martyn Turner’s Railings (Martyn Turner) | The Irish Times

My only problem is that I’m a foreigner to Ireland, which I use as my excuse for not getting the punchline.

(via @todayspolitics)

Tags: Tea Party • Tea Partiers • teabaggers • cartoons • Martyn Turner

The 12 Biggest Lies (that mostly aren’t lies at all)

Mark your calendars, folks! There’s a groundbreaking new documentary coming out this October on what are purported to be the “12 Biggest Lies” that we are being fed every single day. The only little problem? It’s total garbage:

And those evil falsehoods that we have forced down our throats like rancid salami every day are:

The (supposedly) 100 Cheesiest Movie Quotes of All Time

To pass the time, here’s a nifty collection of (what the video’s creator thinks are) 100 of the corny, tacky, predictable, lame and/or otherwise cheesy lines from a variety of flicks:

Eh … I’ve heard (and seen) cheesier.

(via Diaphanitas)

Tags: films

Texas Republican outraged over local paper calling him out on his bullshit

Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst (left) and Gov. Rick Perry, shown in Austin on April 13, are among the politicians whose statements have been fact-checked by PolitiFact Texas. [source: NPR]

This story is almost two months old, but it’s so good and funny that I just had to blog it:

Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst woke up the other day to find the newspaper had declared on the front page that he was dead wrong.

To be precise, the Austin American-Statesman said Dewhurst had made statements about kidnapping in Phoenix that were FALSE. It wrote it just like that, in capital letters, accompanied by a needle pinned to empty in what the newspaper calls "The Truth-O-Meter."

He's gotten more favorable judgments, too, but Dewhurst, a Republican running for re-election this year, was not amused. "This is regrettably a new low for the Austin American-Statesman and for this particular group," Dewhurst told NPR. "It shouldn't be in the newspaper. It should be on the editorial page. I mean, for heaven's sake."

Shortened posts for faster loading of main page

Preliator

This is just a quick advisory to let you know (in case you couldn’t tell) that I’m implementing a slightly updated format style regarding the length of the blog posts displayed on the main page. I’ve decided to shorten the amount of each post that displays on the index, thus cutting back on the overall length of the main page and hopefully reducing the loading time, especially for those of you not blessed with high speed connections (which apparently includes me, bugger).

(And, no, this decision has nothing to do with the fact that you now have to actually open up a larger number of posts in order to see the rest of the content, thus driving up my page hits. Totally irrelevant. Not a factor at all.)

Update: I’ve also changed Mojoey’s Atheist Blogroll (middle right sidebar) from the scrolling marquee version to the fixed version showing the latest 25 additions. Ought to help speed things up a bit.

Like the changes? Is the blog loading any faster for you? Do let me know in the comments!

Tags: Preliator pro Causa • Preliator

Fail Quote of the Day: S.E. Cupp on “liberal thought police”

From conservative commentator S.E. Cupp on Fox News’s Fox News Watch this past Saturday:

My transcript:

S.E. CUPP: Just asking the question, I think, reveals a whole mindset that I think is really problematic. For all of their interest in tolerance and freedom of speech and freedom of religion, the liberal thought police are out in full force to tell you that you cannot have certain opinions, that you cannot – that there’s a line you can cross in a debate, that you can’t have one belief, or you’re Islamophobic, or racist, or nativist. I mean, it’s absolutely – it’s intimidating and it’s akin to censorship.

Victim In Fatal Car Accident Tragically Not Glenn Beck

I’m not one to wish harm on others (though I may be forgiven if I occasional find amusement in certain scenarios where Darwin Awards may be applicable), but this Onion segment is just too funny to ignore:

Personally, I don’t wish for Beck to be hurt or killed … I just wish he’d never been born in the first place. Or had received proper discipline as a child. Or had been spared from the brain damage he somehow obtained to make him the wackjob he is today.

Tags: Glenn Beck • The Onion • funny

The Onion: Man learned all he needed to know about Muslims on 9/11

Gentries made a conscious decision to stop learning anything new about the Muslim faith on May 22, 2005. [source: The Onion]

This is another one of those brilliant The Onion pieces that so effectively blur the line between satire and cold reality:

SALINA, KS—Local man Scott Gentries told reporters Wednesday that his deliberately limited grasp of Islamic history and culture was still more than sufficient to shape his views of the entire Muslim world.

Gentries, 48, said he had absolutely no interest in exposing himself to further knowledge of Islamic civilization or putting his sweeping opinions into a broader context of any kind, and confirmed he was "perfectly happy" to make a handful of emotionally charged words the basis of his mistrust toward all members of the world's second-largest religion.

"I learned all that really matters about the Muslim faith on 9/11," Gentries said in reference to the terrorist attacks on the United States undertaken by 19 of Islam's approximately 1.6 billion practitioners. "What more do I need to know to stigmatize Muslims everywhere as inherently violent radicals?"

Celebrate the dream, reject the nightmare: A comparison

As you may be aware, the Lincoln Memorial has now been the site of two rallies pertaining to focus on civil rights and liberties, on the same date (albeit some 47 years apart) and by two cultural icons (albeit for vastly different reasons). Here’s a quick comparison flowchart point out some of those minor differences between the characters of Martin Luther King, Jr., civil rights hero, eloquent speech-maker and all around great man, and Glenn Beck, conservative pundit, professional conspiracy theorist and failed disk jockey.

Daily Blend: Monday, August 30, 2010

What Earth would look like if it stopped rotating (artist’s depiction) [source: Big Think]

• Amusing satire piece on Intelligent Design: Intelligent Gestation Theory. … It is satire, right?
  (via Pharyngula)

• The day the Earth stood still: What would happen to our planet if it suddenly stopped rotating? Hint: We’d probably be nicknamed by passing aliens as “Ringworld”.
  (via @jennifurret)

• Interesting yet sad: Journalist Jim Rankin of Toronto, Canada’s The Star gives several panhandlers prepaid credit cards, then reveals himself and documents the results. More optimistic about the poor folks’ behavior than you might think.
  (via The Agitator)

• Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) encourages attendees of her pathetic, 1,000-strong rally to claim that 1 million people were there. Once again confusing patriotism and bullshitting – it’s the wingnut way.
  (via @todayspolitics)

Chinchilla + Sex Offender = Sex Chillaaaaa

What happens when you combine cuteness and acute time-wasting? Cutelette!

A nifty utopia for homeless cats

What happens when you take a guy who’s never much cared for cats and you give one to his son? Well, I dunno, but in the case of Craig Grant, he has a bit of a change of heart …

Welcome kitty wishes to welcome you. To Kittyville. [source: theCHIVE]

All you need to know about Palin supporters from a shirt

You can usually tell a right-wing, Tea Party-type rally when you see people brandishing things like this:

Shirt: “Palin: Babies - Guns - Jesus” [source: @todayspolitics]

Even their clothes are virtually dripping in demagogy about armed Christianism. Doesn’t that just say it all about these people.

(via @todayspolitics)

Tags: Sarah Palin • shirts • clothes • conservatives

Daily Blend: Sunday, August 29, 2010

Nutraloaf [source: Boing Boing]

• Jen McCreight at Blag Hag explains (somewhat optimistically) how busting Dr. Marc Hauser, leading researcher on the evolution of morality who was terminated as a result of scientific misconduct including fabrication of data, actually serves to show how science is such a wonderful, self-correcting system.

• Sarah Jones at Politicususa watches and comments on the Beck/Palin rally so you don’t have to. (Not that you would, anyway. Right?)
  (via @todayspolitics)

• How your toilet habits may be giving you hemorrhoids! Makes sense to me. The more you know.
  (via The Agitator)

• Food critic vs. Nutraloaf ^[pictured]. Or, when prison food is so bad that it’s practically considered cruel and unusual punishment in itself.
  (via The Agitator)

Construction site of future Tennessee mosque arsoned

Murfreesboro, TN mosque announcement vandalized: “Not Welcome” [source: loonwatch.com | click for full size (550×426)]

In yet another case that I’m sure has absolutely nothing to do with racism and rising Islamophobia in America:

MURFREESBORO, TENN — Federal agents have been called in after someone poured flammable liquid on four pieces of construction equipment early today at the site of a planned new Islamic center and mosque just outside Murfreesboro.

A CBS television affiliate is reporting that it is being investigated as arson.

Carmie Ayash, a spokeswoman for the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, said the Rutherford County Sheriff's Department was contacted around 1:30 a.m. by someone who had seen the fire.

Are conservatives for or against regulating the Internet?

For the honestly ignorant or the dishonestly clueless: Net neutrality is a principle ensuring that the Internet stays deregulated and that ISPs don’t get the right to favor certain types of content over others. It allows the network to keep everyone on equal footing, so that some two-bit blogger out of Québec (*waves*) has the same service and availability as Google or Microsoft Corp.

With something so obvious and easy to understand, you’d think that conservatives, such as the Tea Party-based group Americans for Prosperity, would be all for the FCC’s efforts to enforce net neutrality rules to prohibit greedy companies from choosing what content or websites are privileged over others, right?

Well …

Man misidentified at hospital, falsely scheduled for cancer surgery, beaten when he tries to leave

Hospital sign [source: CAMERA Snapshots]

This has got to be one of the weirdest lawsuits you’ll have heard of (that didn’t include some sort of tinfoil-hat lunacy, that is). And if the charges are true, one of the more infuriating as well:

Joseph Wheeler says a June 23 car accident put him in the hospital, which is owned by Dimensions Health Corporation. When he woke up hungry on June 24 and asked a nurse for food, she told him he couldn't eat because he was scheduled for surgery, Wheeler claims in Prince George's County Court.

Wheeler says the nurse checked his identification bracelet and told him the surgery was "to have a potentially cancerous mass removed from his chest."

Wheeler says his ID bracelet "contained a name that was different from Mr. Wheeler's, appeared to be that of a woman, and had a birth date that was 13 years prior to his own."

The history of the Soviet Union, performed to the Tetris theme

I suspect this demonstrates one of two things: that YouTube is full of either people with absolutely nothing to do, or great creative geniuses. Guess which side I’m rooting for.

This comment by SkotFischer says it best: “this is epic covered in awesome sauce wrapped in win... like bacon.”

(via @jennifurret)

Tags: Tetris • Soviet Union • Pig With the Face of a Boy

Glenn Beck compares himself to the Titanic’s Frederick Fleet

In which our rodeo clown (currently clowning before a rodeo of his own, ironically enough) denies being a monger of fear:

My transcript:

But fear only wakes you up for a very short time. I know that many in this country think that I’m a fear-monger. It is not a label that I think applies. I do talk about frightening things. But I don’t think the man who saw the iceberg as the Titanic was about to hit it and said “It’s an iceberg!” was a fear-monger; he was warning the people on the ship!

Badass Quote: Andy Futral/Robin Browne on ‘Harry Potter’ vs. ‘Twilight’ [updated]

Harry Potter vs. Edward Cullen [source]

Andrew Futral is apparently the frontman for some indie rock group out of New York City named The Age of Rockets. Also, he has it dead right on any moronic comparison between Harry Potter and Twilight:

Harry Potter is all about confronting fears, finding inner strength and doing what is right in the face of adversity …. Twilight is about how important it is to have a boyfriend.

Couldn’t have said it better myself. For good measure, I’ve added this to my Memorable Quotes.

---

UPDATE (10/20/11 9:10 PM) – Lightswitch in the comments informs me that Futral has since clarified that he took the quote from a certain Robin Browne (exact post unknown).

(via @jennifurret)

Edit (11/21/11 8:14 PM) – Made a few minor formatting changes.

Tags: Twilight • Harry Potter • Andrew Futral

Orly Taitz finally pays up

I guess Birther Queen Orly Taitz finally had enough of her futile efforts to try and evade Judge Clay Land’s $20,000 fine for continually pestering the courts with her innumerable frivolous lawsuits attacking President Obama’s eligibility. Here’s something we’ve all been waiting to see for a long time, now:

Orly Taitz $20,000 cheque [source: Obama Conspiracy Theories]

Just in case you thought it was all over, though, here’s a little note she scribbled on the back of the cheque:

paid under protest as illegal extortion to cover obama’s fraud

To say that some people like Taitz just never learn would be an insult to folks with learning difficulties.

(via @todayspolitics)

Tags: Orly Taitz • court sanctions • Birtherism • Clay Land

Fox News: Scaring White people since 1996

Seems accurate to me:

‘Fox News’ | Cartoon Saturday (Mike Stanfill) | Salon.com

They left out ACORN, though.

(via @todayspolitics)

Tags: cartoons • Mike Stanfill • Fox News

Daily Blend: Saturday, August 28, 2010

“Dry water” [source: Telegraph]

I cannot begin to describe how sad, depressed, exasperated, outraged and horrified I will feel if I learn that Glenn Beck’s wretched rally ended up attracting more participants than MLK’s 1963 March on Washington. Come on, people.

• The first PZ Myers post I disagree with in a long time, it seems. He argues that “being a dick saved [his] life”, but it was his knowledge of physiology/biology and a sense of caution that made him choose to go to the hospital, not an abrasive attitude. Either I’m missing the point or his post just a very stretched defense of “dickishness” that doesn’t make sense.

• Daily Caller article on how numerous conservative bloggers secretly take money from Republican candidates in exchange for promoting them. In all fairness, I’d reckon there’s probably a similar problem amongst certain left-wing bloggers as well.
  (via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)

• Islamic nation Egypt prosecutes an Islamic publisher for criticizing Christianity in a Bible published by his company. … Wait, what?
  (via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)

• “Conservatives Across The U.S. Plan Parties To Read The Constitution Out Loud” No, it’s not your fault if you thought that was the title of an Onion piece. (Though it totally should be.)
  (via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)

• Scientists create “dry water” ^[pictured]! … Except it isn’t anything like water. Just water droplets encased in silica shells.
  (via The Agitator)

• Celebrate Year-Long Dog Day with a 31-piece photo gallery.
  (via The Agitator)

Plight of the poor homeowners in Montgomery, Alabama

Urgent to poor people in Montgomery, Alabama: If the city doesn’t like the way your home looks, even if it’s up to code and even if the courts rule in your favor, they’ll kick you out of it and tear it down and give the land to people with bigger moneybags than you. Oh, and you’re paying for it, you filthy peasant.

This isn’t even an abuse of eminent domain (where the government can appropriate private residences for public use in exchange for just compensation). This is just insane. How such a law has been allowed to remain on the books – or why media attention has only just fallen upon it – is beyond comprehension.

(via The Agitator)

Tags: Montgomery, Alabama • Montgomery, AL • eminent domain

AFA outraged over government spending to restore cultural artifacts that include Islamic structures

Islamic mosque & minaret [source: American Family Association]

The American Family Association is all outraged over the fact that the US Department of State is handing out “nearly $6 million of American tax dollars” (as if there were any other sort of government money?) in order to “rebuild Muslim mosques around the world”. And they want you to get angry, too!

According to the Associated Press, the Obama administration will give away nearly $6 million of American tax dollars to restore 63 historic and cultural sites, including Islamic mosques and minarets, in 55 nations. See the State Department document here.

This is an outrage! Our country is broke. And can you imagine what the ACLU and others on the secular left would say if these monies had been spent to repair Christian churches? They would be screaming “separation of church and state!” Funding Islam on foreign soil with American taxpayer money? Not a whimper. [original emphasis]

Ooomigod, Obama is financing Islam!!! What about separation of church and state? Why is the Obama administration focusing its attention on helping those dirty terrorist Moslems and not good, upstanding Christians instead? Where’s the outrage of all those secular libruls???

Well … actually, three little points the AFA appears to have neglected to inform you about …

• A) If one would read the actual source document ^{(PDF, ~100 KB)} for the AFA’s claims, they would notice that these funds (“rewards” totaling US$5,959,811, to be precise) are actually being used to preserve and maintain a wide range of structures and artifacts, from mosques to palaces to historic canals to even documentation on tribal music and other sorts of records bearing great archival significance. These span across the globe and all world religions, with no particular focus on Islam or any other.

• B) These relics were chosen because of their historical and/or cultural importance, not their religious nature(s). This is clearly not a governmental endorsement of any one or more religion(s), so the Establishment Clause simply doesn’t apply as it’s not an issue of separation of church and state.

• C) Contrary to the AFA’s claims about how the “secular left” would be outraged if this money were used to repair Christian churches, this is, in fact, the case with numerous Christian documents, houses of worship and other artifacts being sent restoration funds. The reason the ACLU and “secular left” aren’t hollering over this is because they aren’t the legally illiterate reactionaries whom the religious-Right loves to portray them as. Methinks such would be a case of psychological projection.

Nice try at fear-mongering about those dirty, rotten Muzlimz, AFA, but as usual, your demagogy fails in light of the evidence.

Tags: American Family Association • AFA • Islam • mosques • minarets • demagogy • US Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation 2010 Awards • US government

Zakaria on peaceful Imam Rauf and Sufi Islam

CNN’s Fareed Zakaria explains how Park51 imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is a staunch promoter of Sufism, a brand of Islam that promotes a very liberal interpretation of the Quran, mysticism, peace, music and dance and is seen by al-Qaeda as a big enough threat to their crazed jihadist extremism to be worth bombing along with any other group of “infidels”.

As Zakaria notes, the fact that al-Qaeda hates Sufism as much as the Western World should serve as a good indication of just where Imam Rauf and his fellow backers of the Park51 Islamic cultural center are situated in the Islamic spectrum, and why we should embrace him as an ally, not a foe.

(via @todayspolitics)

Tags: Fareed Zakaria • Islam • Sufi Islam • al-Qaeda • Feisal Abdul Rauf

Daily Blend: Friday, August 27, 2010

Ken Mehlman [source: Anti-Fascist Encyclopedia]

Pfft. Uzza’s finally back to commenting and she hasn’t even taken the time to remind me how much IntenseDebate sucked bawls and how much of a cretin I was for installing it to begin with. She must be she must be losing her touch, man. losing her touch.

• The Top 5 Ways the Universe Could Wipe Out Humankind, courtesy of Phil Plait at Popular Mechanics.
  (via Bad Astronomy)

• Win for free speech: President Obama signs into law a bill ensuring that US libel laws can’t be enforced in the horrible, free-speech-restricting manner of the UK and puts the burden on the accuser, not the accused.

• The Top Ten right-wing conspiracy theories. Seems a little outdated; none of the modern ones (circa 2008) made it on the list.
  (via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)

• Revenge of the Cat. I tink I saw a really big puddy-cat.

• A graceful reveal (for once): Former RNC chairman and former 2004 Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman finally comes out of the closet, asserts he’ll push for same-sex marriage rights.

• The Exorcist, featuring … Ray Comfort?

• Family Research Council releases ad proclaiming that “our military is for protection, not politics” … in order to oppose Harry Reid’s re-election. They don’t even know the definition of “hypocrisy”, do they?

• Glenn Beck’s egomania continues to skyrocket.

• How to react to a controversial judicial ruling (if you’re in the religious-Right).
  (via @hemantmehta)

• Okay, the fire, itself, wasn’t a funny thing (and thankfully, nobody was hurt) … but what mischievously cackling editor titled that article “Burning bush ignites Woodburn church”?
  (via Friendly Atheist)

• “Tick-Tock Muhammad”, “Brainwashin’ Brian”, “Pedo Pope” and “Hole E Christ”: New Zealand’s new flamboyantly anti-religious ad campaign certainly won’t win anyone over, but then again, I suspect that wasn’t their goal.
  (via Pharyngula)

• Typically thoughtful meandering by Roger Ebert on the subject of same-sex marriage.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Tags: Universe • Phil Plait • Barack Obama • libel laws • USA • America • Rightists • conservatives • cats • Ken Mehlman • exorcism • Comfort • Family Research Council • US Military • Harry Reid • hypocrisy • Glenn Beck • judicial activism • religious-Right • churches • irony • atheist ads • blasphemy • Roger Ebert • same-sex marriage • gay marriage

Friday Canine: You’re either vewwy scary or vewwy ugly

[via Tone on Pixdaus | click for full size [489×672]]

Tags: dogs • puppy

Vox Day and those horrible, evil, society-destroying feminists

Feminism

Vox Day really doesn’t like women. In response to Carrie Lukas writing at the National Review Online about “Women’s Equality Day” and the how it’s “amazing to think of all the progress women have made in our society” since the suffragettes:

It is amazing... amazingly horrific. Let's contemplate exactly what that progress has meant in material terms:

1. Millions of murdered babies, disproportionately female.
2. A significant reduction in marriage rates and a large increase in divorce rates thanks to pro-female divorce laws and the heavily female-biased family court system.
3. The doubling of the female work force suppressing wages and creating a vicious cycle where married women who don't want to work are forced to do so because their husband's real wages are lower than in 1973. To forestall the expected ignorance-based protests, I invite you to first consider what happens to the price of a commodity when the supply increases faster than the demand.
4. National insolvency.
5. A massive increase in sexually-transmitted disease.
6. A significant reduction of personal freedom for men and women alike.

Women: Home-wrecking, disease-spreading, emasculating forces of economic and baby-killing fascism!

One has to wonder how tainted was the milk Vox’s mother used to nurse him during those crucial years.

As I have stated several times before, there is no such thing as equality! It does not exist in material terms, legal terms, moral terms, scientific terms, or spiritual terms. There is no evidence for it because it simply does not exist. Women who traded societal wealth and material freedom for nonexistent "equality" have made a terrible bargain since they literally traded something for nothing. The foundation of the suffrage argument is the false assertion that voting is freedom. My counterargument rests on the verifiable assertion that voting does not equal freedom. That is the crux of the matter.

My counter-argument to Vox’s counter-argument (counter-counter-argument? Original argument?) rests on the equally verifiable assertion that Vox Day does not know what “equality” even means, at least not as it is used and promoted by actual egalitarians. The fact that he’s previously made the amusingly moronic and ignorant statement that differences between males and females disprove the notion of equality is my proof, if he fails to understand that equality is achieved and upheld despite physical and mental differences. Two differently shaped halves are not worth differently; their grooves and slots complete each other to form a perfect whole.

Tags: Vox Day • equality • women • misogyny

Fail Quote of the Day: Rep. Fleming poses a false dichotomy

Rep. John Fleming (R-LA) [source: TPMDC]

From Rep. John Fleming (R-LA) at the Republican Women of Bossier:

We are either going to go down the socialist road and become like western Europe and create, I guess really a godless society, an atheist society. Or we're going to continue down the other pathway where we believe in freedom of speech, individual liberties and that we remain a Christian nation.

Umm – psst, John – you don’t need to sacrifice freedom of speech and individual liberties to become a secular nation. Proof of this is evident in the fact that the US is not a Christian nation, no matter how many Christians live there, but is, in fact, a secular nation. Just so you know.

(via Right Wing Watch)

Tags: John Fleming • Christianity • USA • America • socialism

Conservatives go demagogic over legalizing marijuana

Finally taking a (presumably short) break from all that kerfuffle over the Park51 (“Ground Zero Mosque”) manufactroversy and rising Islamophobia, here’s a wonderfully demagogic advertisement from MarijuanaHarmsFamilies.com opposing California’s Prop 19, which would legalize possession and cultivation of marijuana in the state:

You gotta hand it to those “family values” conservatives: They really know how to do demagogy well. Not a single genuine statement; not a single real issue; not a single logical argument. Nothing but pure fear-mongering about that evil cannabis and how it will tear the fabric of society apart. (Wait, wasn’t same-sex marriage supposed to do that? Or abortion? Or all those other things they rail against?)

So, I say: Time to play “List the Fallacies”!

[Marijuana is] The #1 ADDICTION for 65% of TEENS in Drug rehab.

Starting off with the most patent falsehood, I see. Just two tiny problems with that statement: 1) Marijuana is not addictive, at least not until you start using it very heavily for a very long stretch of time, at which point your usage is more akin to an ingrained habit than an actual chemical dependence); and 2) Even if 65% of teens in rehab are there because they smoke pot (and I could find no statistics regarding this claim), the reality is that they’re forced there by scared parents, authoritarian counselors and generalized social stigma, not because they need to fight off a physical addiction.

Rightists outraged over Imam Rauf telling the truth about America’s grisly role in the Middle-East

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf [source: NY Daily News]

If there’s one thing that so many conservatives just can’t abide, it’s any notion that the US is anything less than the shining light of sanctity and righteousness in the world and that it just might be responsible for bad things every now and then. Here’s the latest example of the right-wing cranking up the outrage machine over someone daring to speak the plain and unadorned truth about the US’s less-than-pristine track record regarding its influence in the Middle-East. From Jason Mattera at conservative blog Human Events:

New audio has surfaced of the imam behind the controversial mosque near Ground Zero allegedly telling an audience overseas that the United States has been far more deadly than al-Qaeda. "We tend to forget, in the West, that the United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than al-Qaeda has on its hands of innocent non Muslims," Feisal Abdul Rauf said at a 2005 lecture sponsored by the University of South Australia. After discussing the U.S.-led sanctions against Iraq under Saddam Hussein, Rauf went on to argue that America is to blame for its testy relationship with Islamic countries.

"What complicates the discussion, intra-Islamically, is the fact that the West has not been cognizant and has not addressed the issues of its own contribution to much injustice in the Arab and Muslim world." The audio was uncovered by blogger Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs.

Note the one thing that Mattera fails to include in his piece: any semblance of context, any evidence to try and refute Imam Rauf’s statements. He can’t, because everything Rauf said is completely and undeniably true. He didn’t say that the US is “worse than al-Qaeda” in the sinister sense that Mattera would have you believe, but simply that the United States – at least, the US government – has an enormous amount of Muslim blood on its hands. As Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars explains:

Add up all of the people killed in every terrorist attack by Muslim extremists in the world and they don't come close to the number of innocent Iraqis killed during two wars, numbers that easily reach into the hundreds of thousands (not to mention those who died as a result of the humanitarian and refugee crisis precipitated by both wars).

Exasperating poll shows rising anti-Muslim bigotry in US

The Economist has the results of a poll on whether or not Americans think Muslims can or should, legally or morally, build the proposed Park51 Islamic cultural center two blocks north from Ground Zero (the notorious and misleadingly labeled “Ground Zero Mosque”). The results are pretty much what you’d expect – not that it makes them any more pleasant.

Here’s what Americans believe regarding the legality of the matter:

People who think Muslims have a constitutional right to build a mosque near Ground Zero

Of course, the only acceptable answer is a resounding “yes”. There are absolutely no laws, rules or zoning restrictions prohibiting anyone from building a community center, or even a dedicated house of worship, in the area where Park51 is to be established. Not only that, but such a thing as the First Amendment, which guarantees everyone’s equal right to religious liberty regardless of ethnic or religious creed, basically ensures that any attempts made to prevent Park51 from being built would, themselves, be unconstitutional and quite possibly illegal.

Notice the usual split between party lines. I’m quite disappointed to see that so many Democrats (~ 42.5%) are also that ignorant of the law if they don’t know the obvious answer. The same cannot be said for the Republicans, though, seeing as how we all know the majority of them are legally illiterate, anyway, something they throw into relief whenever they get emotionally charged.

Next, The Economist asks people to enter their viewpoint into one of three possible answers:

Promo poster for season 7 of ‘House’

For any other devoted House fans who may be reading, here’s a little treat:

Promo poster for ‘House’ season 7 [source: The Ausiello Files]

Even the posters are amazing. I love this show.

(via The Ausiello Files)

Tags: House • House, MD

Taiwanese animation on rising anti-Islam sentiment in the US

Here’s another one of those corny yet amusing animations of current events from Next Media Animation, this time focusing on the swelling tides of Islamophobia in the US:

Dang, they’re quick.

It’s somewhat of an amusing experience to try reading through the comments on the video’s YouTube page. Astounding, how people try and claim how they aren’t being Islamophobic – then turn around and spew anti-Muslim hatred. The cognitive dissonance is strong with these folks.

(via Michael at Next Media Animation)

Tags: Islam • Islamophobia • Muslims • Next Media Animation • racism • Ground Zero Mosque

Daily Blend: Thursday, August 26, 2010

President Barack Obama [source: The Independent]

Thank the Lawd for Internet connection downtimes.

• Special Advisory: For all you non-US residents who harbor the same venomous hatred for Comedy Central’s no-play-Daily-Show-or-Colbert-Report-videos-outside-of-US policy as I do, rejoice for a miracle has come!

• President Obama’s ^[pictured] track record shows how he went from being for same-sex marriage (circa 1996) to against it whilst remaining pro-civil unions, all for purely political reasons.

• Facebook blocks ads vouching for legalization of marijuana in California.
  (via The Agitator)

• Update: After initially announcing that they’d help “protect” the Dove World Outreach Center as they held their “International Burn a Quran Day” event, the Christian armed militia Right Wing Extreme has now withdrawn their support because “[they] don't want to be a part of inciting violence and racism anymore”.
  (via Right Wing Watch)

• Silly and disingenuous piece by Terence P. Jeffrey at CNSNews where he bizarrely claims that Obama’s repeated (and welcomed!) recognition of non-religious Americans somehow invites more Islamic anger amongst Muslims. Or something.
  (via Right Wing Watch)

• Today in sloppy journalism: Guardian article claims atheist or agnostic doctors are “more likely to hasten death” in their patients, especially those suffering from terminal conditions, based on one biased and unreliable study with self-selected subjects (and of which we’re given minimal information into its methodology). Also fails to put this end-of-life care into proper context; the reality is that godless doctors are more likely to advise terminal patients against prolonging lingering on in suffering, presumably seeing as they have no religious convictions against euthanasia or a horrible “life at all costs” mentality.
  (via @hemantmehta)

• … So naturally, our favorite atheist-basher Vox Day declares that the aforementioned article proves that “[a]theism does kill”. Does he even put any amount of thought into his anti-atheist smears? At all?

• Great opinion piece by Timothy Egan in the New York Times on how America is turning into a country of freakin’ idjits.
  (via @todayspolitics)

• Fox Nation claims that “schools are dropping the Holocaust from history lessons to avoid offending Muslim pupils” “whose beliefs include Holocaust denial”. Despite the fact that, as Snopes reports: A) This is based on an unverified and patently false chain email; B) The actual story was about one “secondary school in an unnamed northern city”; C) Every other school is still actively teaching about the Holocaust; D) This took place in Britain; E) Several years ago; and F) Holocaust denial is as hated amongst Muslims as it is anywhere else. As usual, nice fact-checking your attempts to rile up yet more anti-Islamic hatred, Fox.

• Pakistani Taliban threaten to attack relief workers trying to help flood victims. And you thought there was a limit to inhumanity. How silly.
  (via @BreakingNews)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Tags: Comedy Central • The Daily Show • The Colbert Report • Barack Obama • same-sex marriage • gay marriage • Facebook • marijuana • pot • Just Say Now • Dove World Outreach Center • Right Wing Extreme • International Burn a Quran Day • Christians • armed militias • Terence P. Jeffrey • atheists • Muslims • doctors • studies • right-to-die • euthanasia • Vox Day • anti-atheists • Timothy Egan • USA • America • idiots • stupid • Fox News • Fox Nation • Holocaust denialism • lies • Islamophobia • Pakistan • Taliban • extremists

How low we’ve come in persecuting heroes of truth

Bradley Manning [source: The Socialist WebZine]

I originally posted this on Twitter, but I thought it was worth reposting here.

Inspired by this WikiLeaks tweet:

Three days of global action to support alleged WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning Sep 16-19! http://bit.ly/cn16tX

Lemme see if I get this straight … We need global action to help a man who’s imprisoned, and will possibly be sentenced, by the US Military – and whose “crime” is, allegedly, helping a whistleblower group spread the truth about wrongdoing, lawbreaking and possible war crimes?

Just how fucked up has the US government and military become, exactly, when they punish people and treat them as traitors or terrorists, simply for telling the truth about wrongdoing, lawbreaking and possible war crimes?

I understand that OpSec (Operational Security) demands that there be certain types of information left out of public knowledge for the sake of security; that much is reasonable and I respect that. But covering up evidence of screw-ups, corruption, or massacres, and the likes, is a wholly different story. I’m not calling for the military to broadcast each failure they make. I’m just saying that they could start by not demonizing those who try and make them minimally accountable. Baby steps.

As a soldier, you should be willing (and, in an ideal world, able) to break whatever oaths you take if it means doing the right thing. Oaths mean absolutely nothing if they actually prohibit you from following the very ideals and concepts upon which your country, and by extension, its military, was founded upon. If your job as a soldier actually forces you to do the opposite of what your country and people stand for, then there’s a problem and you probably shouldn’t be in such a position.

Just some ramblings on idealistic ideology.

Tags: WikiLeaks • Bradley Manning • US Military • OpSec • truth • accountability

Woman dumps cat in trash bin, walks away unpunished

I hate cruelty towards animals and the soulless ghouls who commit such acts, and I loathe it even more when they do so casually and mindlessly:

Nobody knows why this middle-aged woman dumped poor cat in a bin. Maybe she hates cats, whatever. But she was unlucky enough to be caught on camera during the process. The four-year-old cat, Lola, was found by her owner 15 hours later and the woman was also identified. She is a bank worker from Rugby, UK. Police have not arrested the woman because she has not committed a criminal offence.

More hypocrisy in outrage over “Ground Zero Mosque”

Park51 concept art [source: Tricycle]

Opponents of the planned Park51 Islamic cultural center in lower Manhattan, which has been un-affectionately and misleadingly labeled the “Ground Zero Mosque”, generally bring up two primary arguments in debating why the center shouldn’t be built two blocks north from the southeast corner of Ground Zero. The most common argument is that the site of the proposed center, where an abandoned Burlington coat factory building currently stands, is simply too close to Ground Zero and that it’s offensive for those who were harmed by the 9/11 attacks.

Of course, this argument falls flat for numerous reasons, including: A) The only place that could be reasonably considered “too close” to the site of a terror attack ought to be directly at the site, or else we enter a world of aleatory boundaries; B) Saying the center is offensive to families of the victims of 9/11 is absurd considering how many Muslims also perished in the attacks; and most of all, C) The people who are behind Park51 aren’t the same extremists who caused 9/11 in the first place.

But, wait. Here’s the real ironic bit about all this. The demagogues are all over how Park51 is a “mosque” that’s too close to the “hallowed ground” of Ground Zero, too close to the area where so many lives were destroyed in the terror attacks. But there’s another place where there actually is a dedicated prayer area for Muslims (amongst others) near the location of a 9/11 attack. In fact, this area of worship is located directly at the very site of the attack, less than 100 feet where the plane hit. Better yet: It was built and is currently operated with the full help and blessing of the US government. And literally hundreds of Muslims congregate there every single week to pray.

What a slap to the face of those who suffered on 9/11! Where is this landmark to Islamic conquest over America, this symbol of the terrorists’ victory, so insidiously and covertly placed?

In the Pentagon.

Muslims regularly assemble to prostrate before Allah right at the heart of the freaking headquarters of the US Military.

And the best part about it all? No-one, right-winger or otherwise, seems to have said a single damn thing against it.

Maybe the Right’s outrage over the Islamic cultural center two blocks away from (the outer limits of) Ground Zero would hold a bit more weight if the very existence of the Pentagon chapel didn’t blow their astronomical demagoguery and hypocrisy wide open.

(via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)

Tags: Park51 • Ground Zero Mosque • Ground Zero • Pentagon • hypocrisy • mosques • Muslims • Pentagon chapel