WorldNutDaily applauds anti-atheist vandalism

Vandalized atheist billboard

Last Sunday, I mentioned in the Daily Blend how an atheist billboard in North Carolina had been vandalized so that it read “One Nation Indivisible ← under God”. Because, of course, even the mere notion that atheists exist and are allowed to put up billboards advocating for a secular nation – which is what the United States is in the first place – is offensive enough to stir up Christian vandals to display their lack of respect for private property (not to mention their lack in originality).

Now, different Christian groups have different reactions to when this sort of crap occurs, though they usually fall into the lines of “vandalism is wrong, but you kinda sorta deserve it”. Others, however, are rather less covert in showing their contentment, if not outright self-righteous glee, at the news that atheist ads are being desecrated. It’s also a testament to the fact that I really ought to start perusing the WorldNutDaily more often, seeing as their position on the matter of anti-atheist vandalism is neatly summarized in a stupid, sneering little article article by Chrissy Satterfield, titled “My Kind of Vandals”. Hemant Mehta at Friendly Atheist already does a good job at tearing it apart and exposing the absurd, self-righteous bullshit inside, but it’s this one quote that really takes the cake for me (or the bowl of elephant diarrhea, rather) [my emphasis]:

I would like to extend my deepest thanks to the man or woman responsible for this vandalism. I appreciate the action you took. Thank you for reminding me that I'm not alone. It took a lot of guts to do what you did – and the fact that you haven't stepped forward to take credit makes you a hero. It shows everyone that you are more devoted to the message than you are to the spotlight. I encourage you to keep your cover. Don't give the secular world a reason to call your name; instead, let them call for our God.

Yes, you read that right. She is actually thanking the petty vandals, those zealous pearl-clutchers who see no better way to deal with another group’s expression of free speech than to defile their private property.

I’ve got news for you, Chrissy. These vandals are not freedom fighters, they are not “standing up for themselves”, and they are not speaking in anyone’s favor. They are insignificant little criminals whose fetid little minds cannot comprehend the nature of free speech, or the reality of their country being free for all religions, including non-religion. The fact that you’re rejoicing at their criminal acts, at their violation of other people’s free speech, speaks a whole lot about your person and your beliefs, and none of it is flattering in the slightest. It shows you are a close-minded and bigoted little idiot with no respect for others’ rights and property. And finally, the fact that the vandals do their crimes in the dead of the night and then refuse to “take credit” (the kind that would consist of handcuffs) doesn’t indicate them having guts or being devoted to a message. It shows how they’re cowards.

God, I do so hate stupid little diatribes like Chrissy’s. Though, they work wonders to expose the WorldNutDaily for the wretched hive of wingnut scum and villainy that everyone with a brain knows it to be.

Tags: atheist billboards • vandalism • crime • WorldNetDaily • Chrissy Satterfield • free speech • freedom of speech • censorship • Christians • stupidity

Daily Blend: Wednesday, July 07, 2010

Bradley Manning

I feel like writing a song …

♪So I wake up to that red light
Always that fucking dead light
And from here on out I know that I’m fucked
I try to wait a little while
Might as well be a mile
Or maybe two, I dunno, it’s just so long♪

• Public dirty laundry: Paul Baranek, biological father of Military Religious Freedom Foundation co-founder Mikey Weinstein’s daughter-in-law, writes a nasty little letter to the Colorado Springs Gazette berating them for repeatedly mentioning that oh-so-anti-Christian Weinstein. Which prompts a vehement response from the daughter, Amanda Weinstein, defending Mikey as her true father and as someone who is far from anti-Christian – just anti-injustice.
  (via Dispatches From the Culture Wars)

• Hyperbolic Guardian article claims that “science has been changed forever” by “Climategate” and that climatologists are now more open about their uncertainties. Heavily sensationalistic, but the kernel of truth is present.
  (via The Daily Grail)

• Defiant Thomas Jefferson changed the wording in an early draft of the Declaration of Independence referring to the people as “subjects” to “citizens” to further dispel idea that the people were to be ruled by a tyrant.
  (via The Daily Grail)

• Sharks aren’t all you should fear when you go to the beach. Here’s another handy, nightmare-inducing list for ya.
  (via The Daily Grail)

• Interesting piece on how horses may be able to eventually catch up to dogs in ability to understand humans and physical cues.
  (via The Daily Grail)

• At least it’s not child molestation for once: Catholic priest in Connecticut charged with stealing $1.3 million in church money for personal use, including – you guessed it – male prostitutes.
  (via @washingtonpost)

• Drudge Report headline claims that the government is blocking access to websites with “controversial opinions” … based on a story explaining how the TSA is now barring its employees from accessing chatting, violent and gaming websites because they’re “inappropriate for government access”. Finally, the TSA is doing (a little) something right – though you can still count on Drudge to be a dishonest scoundrel about it.

• Bradley Manning ^[pictured], alleged leak of the “Collateral Murder” video, has now (finally) been formally charged for his “crime” by the army. He now faces up to 63 years in prison. Daniel Ellsberg, call your office.
  (via @wikileaks)

• The women of The Daily Show speak out against a recent slanted and poorly researched Jezebel article claiming that there’s a current of institutionalized sexism behind the scenes. Let’s just say: The 40% of TDS staff who are female strongly disagree.
  (via @hemantmehta)

• Political legal thuggery: Having recently redesigned her website portraying her as a “mellow-minded conservative”, US Senate candidate and Tea Party favorite Sharron “rape is God’s plan” Angle (R-Nevada) threatened to sue her opponent, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada), for putting her old website up for display to show just how much of a wingnut she really is. Update: Undeterred, the Reid campaign has ignored the threat of lawsuit and reposted the old website anyway.
  (update via @todayspolitics)

• Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle (R) predictably vetoes same-sex civil unions bill.
  (via @todayspolitics)

As always, if you have any story suggestions, feel free to send them in.

Tags: Paul Baranek • Mikey Weinstein • Amanda Weinstein • Climategate • science • communicating science • Thomas Jefferson • Declaration of Independence • American history • beaches • safety • horses • animals • animal psychology • priests • Drudge Report • dishonesty • Bradley Manning • whistleblowers • The Daily Show • Jon Stewart • women • sexism • Jezebel • legal thuggery • Sharron Angle • Harry Reid • censorship • Hawaii • Linda Lingle • LGBT rights • civil unions

Arizonan truck driver jailed for failing to carry his birth certificate in his back pocket 24/7

In which the predicted mingled racial profiling and police zealousness begins:

Silly Brown people! Don’t you know you should have your birth certificate, medical records and DNA test results hanging around your neck at all times? Or better yet, pin them to your shirt so everyone can clearly see you’re not one of ’em illegal Brownies. You’ll avoid deportation that way … maybe.

(via @todayspolitics)

Tags: Arizona anti-immigration law • racism • anti-immigration • Arizona

PZ Myers explains why you should trust the experts

For all those who claim that we cannot know anything for certain, that science is just as dogmatic as blind faith, and especially, that we shouldn’t trust the “experts” and that those who rely on the intellectual authority of scientists are wrong and foolish, then I wish to present you with this excellent retort from PZ Myers who says it as it is:

We read the books — even the simple books for the lay public — and they describe the evidence for the age of the earth, and they also explain how the data is used to explore deeper into geology. I'm not a physicist or geologist, but it's relatively easy to get an overview of the host of data used to support estimates of the age of the earth, to see the degree of detail geologists have at hand, and it's also even easier to see that working geologists and physicists, people with in-depth training in their fields, are not arguing over whether the earth is 6000 or 4.6 billion years old; the issue is settled.

It's not dogmatism, it's pragmatism. The depth of science is so great that no one brain can even grasp the whole of a single subfield, so we trust our colleagues — at least, we trust them as far as they demonstrate cooperation with the tacit rules of the institution of science, which safeguard to some extent the reliability of a scientific claim. The relevant scientists say the earth is 4.6 billion years old, and they are all willing to show their work, so I'll provisionally accept it until I see a reliable source provide cantrary evidence. A cowardly creationist who won't even set a rough date is not a reliable source.

Of course, he’s talking about scientists’ certainty regarding the established age of the Earth (ie. the field of geology), but you could replace that with any other subject or field – Evolution over Creationism (biology), vaccines vs. antivaccination (medicine), whatever – and still get it perfectly right. Yes, experts are often wrong, and some so-called “experts” truly are nothing but charlatans out to peddle an agenda. (See the case of Creationists coasting through PhD programs just to subsequently be able to use their credentials to proclaim their authority despite their utter cluelessness in the matter.) The thing is, though, that whatever mistakes that experts make are certain to usually be quite small in scale – such as, say, getting the age of the universe wrong by a degree of a few thousand or million years, which is less than the blink an eye in cosmological terms – and that regardless of the fact that scientific experts are just as human, and therefore fallible, as anyone else, the (more important) fact that they have spent their lives searching, researching, digging for answers, testing ideas and meticulously laying out the conclusions of their scientific explorations does act to give them all the credibility they need to be taken seriously by laypeople, those who are not scientists and therefore rely on actual scientists – the experts – to tell us what is and what isn’t.

Are they sometimes wrong? Yes. But does that affect the fact that they are still the most knowledgeable and generally unbiased, and therefore trustworthy, people out there in terms of acquiring knowledge? No. So, yes, you truly should “trust the experts” – not as infallible gods of empirical knowledge, but as people who usually possess a far greater understanding of our universe and its workings than you do (as is delineated by their chosen fields of expertise, that is) and, therefore, whom you should ask for knowledge, rather than any old uneducated, underqualifed and usually politically- and/or ideologically-driven hack.

Tags: PZ Myers • communicating science • philosophy • science • knowledge

Daily Blend: Tuesday, July 06, 2010

Map of Earth’s gravity field

• Sunday Sacrilege: PZ talks about the fundamental role of science in human development and its place in the slow demise of religion.

• British Medical Association declares that gay conversion therapy is discredited, harmful, and should be banned. Includes beautiful badass quote: “I also sincerely hope that any vulnerable gay person who is unhappy about their sexuality takes notice of this motion and realizes that it is the world that needs to change, not them.” Preach it, doctor.
  (via Pharyngula)

• Apparently, in Texas, it’s perfectly legal for a homeowners association to foreclose on a $300,000+ home over dues totaling less than $1,000 – while the husband is off on military tour in Iraq and the wife is at home with clinical depression. Look, it really doesn’t matter that the wife failed to make the payments to the HOA and that it was all apparently legal. The legality of an act does not affect whether it’s moral or not. The problem is that their house – of a deployed National Guard captain, to boot – was sold off for a tiny fraction of its worth right from under them without a decent warning or chance to fix the problem. It’s a moral issue, not a legal one, and the HOA is definitely coming across as major league assholes with what they did.
  (via Dispatches From the Culture Wars)

• Are we breeding the nutrients out of common crops?
  (via The Agitator)

• Man fired from dream job over an 11-year-old drug charge – that had previously been dismissed for lack of evidence.
  (via The Agitator)

• Gladiators: possibly not just for men.
  (via The Daily Grail)

• Mapping the Earth’s gravitational field [pictured] for the first time. Or, why you’d weigh slightly less in southernmost India.
  (via The Daily Grail)

• Does money bring happiness? Short answer: Not necessarily, but it sure tends to help with your life satisfaction.
  (via The Daily Grail)

• Giant otters are people, too. Or, at least, they care.
  (via The Daily Grail)

• Only in Norway do they have a prison with private apartments, barless windows, flat-screen TVs, fenceless landscapes, horseback riding, barbecues and wintertime ski courses. (See slideshow, here.) Coincidentally, they also have the world’s lowest imprisonment and recidivism rates. Think they might be doing something right by focusing on rehabilitation and reform rather than mere punishment?
  (via @jennifurret)

• Wonderful(ly refreshing) piece by Monica Hesse in the Washington Post about how US atheists celebrate the 4^th of July, one of the very few non-religious holidays. Even better is that even the comments section seems to be ruled by decent people for once and not the usual riffraff of mentally deformed hicks.
  (via Friendly Atheist)

• Because every country’s the best at something. Seems to have me pinned just right.
  (via @anushayadev)

As always, if you have any story suggestions, feel free to send them in.

Tags: PZ Myers • science • religion • history • British Medical Association • gay conversion therapy • homeowners associations • injustices • Texas • douchebaggery • agriculture • food • drugs • gladiators • Ancient Rome • women • cool • physics • gravity • Earth • money • happiness • studies • otters • animals • animal psychology • Norway • prisons • penal system • atheists • Independence Day • random

Q&A with Godless Blogger, bringer of the proposed Atlanta Atheist Billboard

Atheist billboard: “Millions are good without God.”

The upswing in the amount of atheist advertising going around the world (especially North America and Europe) as been simply phenomenal these past couple of years, with a multitude of godless billboard and bus ad campaigns popping up all over the place. This is understandably a highly important movement as far too many atheists feel isolated in their nonbelief, especially in certain highly religious areas, in addition to all those religious folks who seem to believe that atheists are out to destroy their religion in between eating babies and stomping on kittens. And now, interestingly (and amusingly) enough, I find myself in a position where I may be able to help! (A tiny little bit!)

I was recently contacted by Jake Collyer, aka Godless Blogger, who has launched a campaign to set up an atheist billboard in his hometown of Atlanta, Georgia, smack dab in the middle of the Bible Belt. He has requested that I “interview” him, so to speak, to help spread the word for this important undertaking of his. The exchange, below:

What is your project about?
I'm trying to bring a billboard that carries a positive message for atheism to Atlanta, Georgia.

Why are you undertaking such a project?
I was really inspired by the bus ads over in Europe and other places. I initially wanted to replicate that, but due to restrictions I am unable to do bus ads. Instead I opted for a billboard.

How do you plan to proceed and what steps have you already taken?
Well I've already talked to the advertisers and come up with an estimate, $4000. Currently I am trying to raise that money still via our Facebook page and http://AtlantaAtheistAd.com. The balance was around $1000 when I last checked so there is still a ways to go.

Who are you trying to reach and influence with this project?
I want fellow atheists in the Bible Belt to realize they are not alone and there are others out there. My other hope is that a positive message and the simple fact of it being there will influence some believers' minds. Perhaps it will promote greater discussion among the community and hopefully a greater acceptance for atheists. It's going to take more than just this billboard, but everything has to have a starting point.

How can people support you and your project/cause?
I need both funds and awareness. If you can donate, please do! All donations are run through the American Humanist Association and are tax-deductible. Alternatively, you can help by simply spreading the word around. If you use StumbleUpon, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc. post links to the site and tell your friends about this campaign. More people will speed up the process.

Be sure to help support Godless Blogger’s cause any way you can. Start by donating, here, and check out the campaign’s website and Facebook page. (Yes, I’m mentioning them again, just in case you forgot to click the first time.) Regarding the man behind the project, you can find Godless Blogger’s blog, here, and his Twitter account, here. You can also drop him a supportive line, here.

All hail King Kitty and his faithful steed

Bow down already, you irreverent scoundrel, and show your fluffy little King some respect! He’s already turned a tortoise into a loyal mount; you’re next if you don’t greet him with an exposed nape.

Hell, my Kaylee already has me carrying her around the place. The insidious uprising has already begun.

(via Diaphanitas)

Triple-Fail Quote of the Day: Ray Comfort on evolution (you knew it was coming)

Yes, you are

There’s just no end to the mind-numbing FAILing today, is there? First from VP Joe Biden, then from Marc Thiessen; and now, from the ever benignly ignorant and dimwitted Ray Comfort, who tries to argue that evolutionists are outright stupid and then comes out with this fresh load:

[Evolutionists believe that evolution] is responsible for the ever so slow development of the human eye, the brain, the blood, the heart, kidneys, liver, the perfect mix of oxygen in the air, the positioning of the sun and the planets, the seasons, male and female of all animals, birds, fish and insects, gravity, the amazing seas, the succulent fruits, beautiful flowers and massive trees.

*ahem* Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, no, no, no, yes, yes and yes, no, no, yes and yes.

Really … I could go on about how evolution is a BIOLOGICAL process that applies solely to LIFE ON EARTH and has absolutely fuck-all to do with cosmology and geology and gravity and so on … but would it be worth it? I didn’t think so.

For a guy who wrote an entire post calling those who accept evolution “stupid” … well, you know.

How to tell a real face from pareidolia

It seems that some people tend to get confused and see things where none exist. In such cases, it’s good to have a handy little guide around, like this one:

Well, I guess I have no more excuses to confuse the two any longer.

(via Friendly Atheist)

Double-Fail Quote of the Day: Thiessen and commie soccer

Mark Thiessen

My brain has just been mortally irradiated by the thermonuclear stupid that is Marc Thiessen. (Don’t ask how I’m still alive and cognizant.) In trying to explain just how Americans should hate that filthy “soccer” commie sport [my emphasis]:

The world is crazy for soccer, but most Americans don’t give a hoot about the sport. Why? Many years ago, my former White House colleague Bill McGurn pointed out to me the real reason soccer hasn’t caught on in the good old U.S.A. It’s simple, really: Soccer is a socialist sport.

Think about it. Soccer is the only sport in the world where you cannot use the one tool that distinguishes man from beast: opposable thumbs. “No hands” is a rule only a European statist could love. (In fact, with the web of high taxes and regulations that tie the hands of European entrepreneurs, “no hands” kind of describes their economic theories as well.)

Soccer is also the only sport in the world that has “hooligans”—proletarian mobs that trash private property whenever their team loses.

I think I’m crying, now. Or those could be liquefied brains. Dunno. Don’t care. I’m mourning, here.

(And as for the rioting mobs: Yeah, well, here in North America, our zealots stampede and vandalize whenever their teams either win OR lose. We’re obviously so much better.)

(via Dispatches From the Culture Wars)

Fail Quote of the Day: Biden gaffes about “media piracy”

Vice-President Joe Biden

Vice-President Joe Biden is renown for his knack for making verbal gaffes every now and then, but I didn’t think it would get as bad as to merit him his own Fail Quote segment. When speaking at a press conference back on June 17 on the subject of the Obama administration’s toughening anti-piracy measures:

But piracy is theft. Clean and simple. It's smash and grab. It ain't no different than smashing a window at Tiffany's and grabbing [merchandise]."

I literally facepalmed.

Because, of course, expressly downloading some songs, software, games or movies off the Web is exactly the same as smashing windows and robbing the joint. After all, it’s perfectly normal to conflate the two – clicking a link and streaming copied digital media vs. wanton vandalism and material theft; they’re practically interchangeable. Hell, whenever I try to download the latest movie theater release, I often end up in the middle of the street, hurtling a brick through the nearest boutique window at the first sight of anything shiny. Don’t you?

The tendency for making such astoundingly moronic comparisons like this is one of the (many) reasons why copyrights warriors and their arguments hold no water for me. If you can’t even put a moment of thought into your arguments, then it reflects rather poorly on your ability to construct a credible argument. Not that filesharing opponents have much of a leg to stand on either way, considering all the their claims are revealed to be based on incomplete and thoroughly unreliable research. (And add the common sense argument that filesharing actually acts to increase artists’ popularity – and subsequently, album and ticket sales – and you assuredly end up with more pros than cons for filesharing.)

Daily Blend: Monday, July 05, 2010

Nuclear bomb detonating in space

Whoo, been composing nonstop for over a week. I could get used to this “unhindered flow of inspiration” thing.

• PersonalFailure at Forever in Hell wonders why, if all the bad things in the world popped into existence the moment Adam and Eve bit that accursed apple, Satan was already in the Garden of Eden. Kinda hypocritical of an omnipotent and omniscient God to knowingly and deliberately allow the Devil himself to slither into his precious Garden, knowing that it would inevitably result in the Fall of Man, only to then turn the finger of blame onto us fallible humans when he knew all along what was coming, no?

• What’s worse than falsely crying wolf? When you’re the attention-seeking idiot painting the swastikas on your own door and claiming it to be an anti-Semitic attack.
  (via @todayspolitics)

• Poor humans, we’re losing our “unique” status in the Animal Kingdom more and more every day: New research shows how ravens are capable of displaying empathy and actively console their distressed flock-members.
  (via @Naturalismus)

• Newly declassified photos and video footage of the military detonating nuclear bombs in space [pictured].
  (via @ebertchicago)

• Unintended reverse psychology: Reading this composer’s arguments in a debate/argument with a teenager only heightens my appreciation of Internet filesharing (colloquially known as “media piracy”). He conjures up three incredibly facile and illogical examples to try and explain just how the teenager is utterly wrong and arrogant and so on, all the while mischaracterizing her points, ignoring or dismissing her arguments and overall coming across as a master of condescending sophistry, himself. People like him are the prime reason why I hate the whole absurd concept of “intellectual property” to begin with. If I choose to pay for a product or a service, it’s because I wish to support the artist/creator and his/her work(s) and/or cause(s), not out of concern of the law, for which I honestly could not care less.
  (via @donttrythis)

• Typical amusingly inane editorial at the Washington “Moonie” Times breathlessly reports how the Obama administration continues its “war on the traditional family” – by giving LGBT people passports with a “transgender” option and issuing guidelines for gay inmates in prisons. Because, of course, granting LGBT folks equal socio-legal rights and standing will force Little Timmy to shag Little Robbie as those pervasive gay rays permeate the air and break down the very fabric of society, turning us all into goat-humping deviants. Or something. At least, isn’t that what social conservatives always warn us about?
  (via Politik Ditto)

As always, if you have any story suggestions, feel free to send them in.