Fail Quote: California mayor don’t like no atheist billboards

Margie Rice

From Westminster, California’s Bible-thumping Mayor Margie Rice, reacting to the new godless billboards to be hosted by her city (and featuring the ever-so-offensive message of “Don’t believe in God? You are not alone.”):

Mayor Margie Rice, who helped spearhead the In God We Trust movement in Orange County, said she still believes in God, but that the atheists have their rights and freedom of speech.

"That billboard is going to turn my stomach every time I drive by," she said. "But there is not much I can do about it. I guess it's fine to make a statement, but if I could help it, I would not allow it."

Rice said she will be seeking the advice of the city's legal counsel to find out what their options are. At the same time, Rice said, she will also wait to see the community's reaction to the sign.

So we have a god-bothering politician who explicitly admitted that she’d love to strip atheists of their free speech rights, especially if she can use public protest to her advantage. How simultaneously sickening and unsurprising.

Hemant Mehta explains just what she really meant to say:

Let me paraphrase:

I know atheists have the same rights that I do… but if I had the power, I’d take their rights away. How DARE they put up a completely inoffensive billboard like that?!

Maybe if the locals complain, I can circumvent the law. Because that’s how “rights” work. We can take them away based on the whims of the masses.

Actually, sorry to say it, but that’s actually exactly how rights work, at least in this society. Marriage equality? Abortion rights? Even the more controversial (but, in the end, equally self-evident) ones like recreational drugs and prostitution? All things that ought to be basic civil rights for all, and all things that are currently being fought against, with varying levels of success, by a narrow-minded majority, especially those on the political Right.

(via Friendly Atheist)

Daily Blend: Thursday, May 05, 2011

Pat Trueman

• Texas high school teacher suspended for telling American Muslim girl “I bet that you’re grieving” over her “uncle’s death”, then sniggering when she cries. Fire the bastard.
  (via @todayspolitics)

• Research with transgender workers once again proves gender-wage gap is a thing of the present. Clincher: The closing lines.
  (via @PersonalFailure)

• City of Manhattan, Kansas votes to repeal recently incorporated LGBT inclusion in anti-discrimination policy.
  (via Joe. My. God.)

• Morality in Media’s Pat Trueman [pictured]: Legalizing adult porn leads to child porn. Seriously.

• Fox News’s Eric Bolling has apparently not yet learned the art of hole-digging course reversal.

• Cute.

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

A clear and easy way to explain micro- and macro-evolution

Creationists love to argue that there’s no such thing as macro-evolution (or, of course, micro-evolution, either) because a dog can’t give birth a cat, or some similarly brainless argument. Of course, in their attempt to discredit evolution through mockery, all they’re achieving is revealing their own colossal ignorance of the issue. Maybe this will offer them some much-needing understanding:

[full size (875×402)]

What am I saying? Of course they won’t understand. If Creationists could understand basic science, we’d enter a logical deadlock, ’cause there wouldn’t be any Creationists to begin with. But, at least we’re left with cool graphics like this to help educate the rest of us.

(via Friendly Atheist)

‘Owners’ and ‘pets’, or ‘human carers’ and ‘companion animals’?

“Animal companions”

From the Department of Give Me a Farking Break:

Animal lovers should stop calling their furry or feathered friends “pets” because the term is insulting, leading academics claim.

Domestic dogs, cats, hamsters or budgerigars should be rebranded as “companion animals” while owners should be known as “human carers”, they insist.

Even terms such as wildlife are dismissed as insulting to the animals concerned – who should instead be known as “free-living”, the academics including an Oxford professor suggest.

The call comes from the editors of then Journal of Animal Ethics, a new academic publication devoted to the issue.

And what kind of kook came up with this nonsense?

[The Journal of Animal Ethics] is edited by the Revd Professor Andrew Linzey, a theologian and director of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, who once received an honorary degree from the Archbishop of Canterbury for his work promoting the rights of “God’s sentient creatures”.

Well, not to make a snark of it, but there’s all you need to know.

(via The Daily Grail)

Photo of the Day: Heart of the volcano

If anyone’s ever wondered what a volcanic magma chamber looked like from 650 feet down inside it … well, you have very peculiar interests. And also, here you go:

[full size (964×642)]

This reportedly the first time humans have ever ventured into a magma chamber, which I find to be rather incredible, given the amount of interest, cultural and scientific, that people vest in volcanic phenomena.

(via The Daily Grail)

Texan GOP reveals its budget priorities

Pictured: More important than education and healthcare (to GOP)

Texas is currently facing the worst state budget crisis since World War II, and in response, the legislature is forced to make a number of drastic cutbacks, slashing funding for education and healthcare, amongst others. But don’t think that stops the Republicans who control the State House from expressing its heartfelt desire to help … themselves, and in an almost cartoonish manner:

In response to the worst state budget crisis since World War II, the Texas House has proposed slashing $27 billion from the budget, including huge cuts to education, nursing homes, and health care for the poor. Yet last Friday, the Texas House Ways and Means Committee approved a tax break for those who want to buy yachts costing $250,000 or more.

The bill, HB 2187, was proposed by Houston Republican Rep. John Davis, and would cap the sales tax the state could collect on the sale of a personal boat. According to AP, Davis authored the bill out of fear that yacht owners would start buying their boats in Florida, which has a similar law. Davis described it as “economic development,” while Ways and Means Chairman Harvey Hilderbran (R-Kerrville) said it was “one of those things you have to do.”

“One of those things you have to do.” Did Rep. Hilderbran just try to make this sound like it was some sort of sacrificial effort? Why, yes, the children get to stay stuck in overcrowded and under-equipped classrooms, and the sick and the poor get to basically screw themselves rather than have proper healthcare services … but, hey, at least the obscenely rich are now able to shop more freely for Texan-sold floating palaces.

Is there really no end to the GOP’s transparent plutocratic depravity?

(via Pharyngula)

Greenwald: bin Laden’s capture does not prove torture advocates right

Osama bin Laden

Glenn Greenwald has a typically great piece up where he notes the predictable clamor from conservatives claiming that Osama bin Laden’s capture (and death) was only made possible thanks to the Bush-era torture techniques, a notion that’s not only been debunked my multiple sources, but that manages to miss the point as pro-torture advocates usually do: It wouldn’t matter if torture had worked in this specific instance, or any other, because A) it’s inhumane, B) it’s illegal, and C) it’s much less effective and reliable than other, non-invasive interrogation methods, as multitudes of trained interrogators have concluded.

Here’s the opening quote, if only to entice you to read further:

The killing of Osama bin Laden has, as The New York Times notes, reignited the debate over "brutal interrogations" -- by which it's meant that Republicans are now attempting to exploit the emotions generated by the killing to retroactively justify the torture regime they implemented. The factual assertions on which this attempt is based -- that waterboarding and other "harsh interrogation methods" produced evidence crucial to locating bin Laden -- are dubious in the extreme, for reasons Andrew Sullivan and Marcy Wheeler document. So fictitious are these claims that even Donald Rumsfeld has repudiated them.

Be sure to read the rest.

Daily Blend: Wednesday, May 04, 2011

Osama bin Laden

Apologies for the lack of posting. Blame Minecraft.

• President Obama decides not to release Osama bin Laden [pictured] death photos, citing risks of “creat[ing] a national security risk”. I’m feeling ambivalent about this.
  (via @todayspolitics)

• AlterNet has a very handy list of the top 12 most influential Christian-Right groups in America.
  (via Right Wing Watch)

• “I swear if Obama turned water into wine his critics would accuse him of being an alcoholic.”
  (via @todayspolitics)

• Google does “It Gets Better” for Chrome. I wonder how many LGBT youths were reached, or moved to tears.

• Donald Trump opposes gay marriage because he’s a golfing traditionalist who doesn’t like those “weird” longer putters.
  (via Joe. My. God.)

• To quote Jen McCreight: “Are you fucking kidding me?”
  (via @jennifurret)

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

Supplemental tags: Harry Potter • al-Qaeda • Gregg Kilday • Jen McCreight

Next Media Animation does bin Laden

Okay, so I have one more thing to add about Osama being killed: Next Media Animation’s take on it is hilarious.

Update: (05/05/11 11:30 AM) – Video has been made unviewable, and I can’t seem to find another one on YouTube. My apologies.

Okay, maybe it’s because I’m still only 19, but the idea of bin Laden getting ass-raped by 72 virgin pigs in Hell is probably the most childishly satisfying thing I’ve seen in a long time.

(via Joe. My. God.)

Obama trumps Osama

Osama bin Laden

I don’t feel much like blogging today, and not just due to the (understandable) lack of any non-Osama-is-dead news out there at the moment. I don’t really have much to say on the matter; to be honest, I don’t even particularly care either way about bin Laden being dead. So, the US killed some religious extremist who, a decade ago, executed a terrible strike against its citizenry and continued to threaten many more since, although rarely with any follow-through.

Of course, I’m relieved that he’s gone – and I can’t deny a small, primeval part of me does somewhat hope his much-belated departure was painful – but when you think about what it really changes, in practical terms pertaining to everyone’s day-to-day lives … it’s just another corpse. Albeit one that millions worldwide are frenziedly cheering over. Which I find to be creepy. (Yeah, yeah, bleeding-heart liberal and all that.)

Granted, though, this does have the effect of giving President Obama an assured jolt in the polls, which, combined with the recent birth certificate release, might even make the motley bunch of GOP candidates soundly unelectable at the moment. If anything, that is good reason to cheer.

In the end, though, Radley Balko at The Agitator has the closest take to mine that I’ve seen so far: Yeah, the fucker’s dead, but one look at his legacy of terror he spawned in Americans – the vast majority of it self-imposed – and it becomes clear that putting two bullets into the decrepit old man’s skull isn’t what makes you the true victor in this matter. Given his terms and his original goals, bin Laden won. He won bigger than he could even have hoped for. And he will continue to be victorious for as long as the government is wiretapping phones without a warrant and groping passengers at airports nationwide. (Amongst innumerable other transgressions against reason and civil and human rights.)

Perhaps the silver lining in all this, at least for me, is the assured amusement to be had from the “We must now somehow find a way to criticize Obama over this!” reaction that’s more-than-certain to come from the Right. We’re already seeing Tea Partiers crowing about how Obama’s hogging the credit for it (as if he shouldn’t?) for purely political reasons, and others are engaging in their usual “we shoulda shitfucked the carcass just to piss ’em off!” schtick, seeing as they obviously can’t come up with any better way to deal with this “victory” than to act like smarmy eight-year-olds. We even have certain conspiracy theorists now waxing suspicion over the fact that the body was quickly buried at sea rather than paraded around or turned into an exhibit or something.

In short: It’s fine to be happy that bin Laden’s dead, but celebrating it in an orgy of national pride, as if the US had somehow struck a mortal blow against a great and pressing evil, is just bizarre and, frankly, wrong. One evil figurehead down; countless more future ones to go. And so the cycle perpetuates itself.

Daily Blend: Sunday, May 01, 2011

Jonathan Villareal (17)

• Derby, Kansas teen [pictured] gets arrested, tasered and has his arm broken over refusing to pull up his saggy pants.
  (via The Agitator)

• Atheist researcher at Washington Post: Atheists are fine folks who don’t deserve to be hated. Vox Day: ATHEISTS R ASSHOLES WHARRGARBL

• *snicker*

• This list is worth it just for #8.

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

Fail Quote: Bachmann compares taxing the rich to gassing the Jews

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN)

Another day, another nugget of pure crazy from Minnesota’s Rep. Michele Bachmann (R) as she compares raising taxes on the rich to – what else? – the Holocaust:

She said she was shocked to hear that many Americans weren't aware that millions of Jews had died until after World War II ended.

Bachmann said the next generation will ask similar questions about what their elders did to prevent them from facing a huge tax burden.

"I tell you this story because I think in our day and time, there is no analogy to that horrific action," she said, referring to the Holocaust. "But only to say, we are seeing eclipsed in front of our eyes a similar death and a similar taking away. It is this disenfranchisement that I think we have to answer to."

Yes, Michele, getting the obscenely wealthy to pony up a few more bucks every year to help pay for things like schools and hospitals and drivable roads is exactly like slaughtering millions of Jews (and others). It’s the big moral quandary of our times.

Do you think Minnesotans have been sufficiently embarrassed by this twit as to avoid electing her the next time around?

(via Pharyngula)