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| Queensland Parliament |
A heavy setback in Australia today as the government of Queensland has announced it will repeal certain key LGBT rights:
The Australian state of Queensland will remove gay couples’ ability to have children through surrogacy and downgrade civil partnerships to the class of ‘registered relationships’, after a debate in Parliament last night.
The Legislative Assembly in Brisbane agreed to extensively alter the provisions of the Civil Partnerships Act 2011, which came into force in February this year after control of the house swung to the right.
The system, introduced in the final months of the last state government, will be renamed and the option of an official ceremony revoked so it bears less resemblance to marriage.
Because protecting marriage is all about making sure those dirty homosexuals can’t celebrate their love or form families like normal people do.
(via Joe. My. God.)
Just in case it hadn’t been hammered home yet that the very existence of godless folk is offensive to a vast swath of the American populace, here’s Gallup with their latest sobering poll:
![Chart: “If your party nominated a generally well-qualified person for president who happened to be ______, would you vote for that person?” [source: Gallup, June 7-10, 2012]](http://i.imgur.com/yu4EX.gif "Chart: “If your party nominated a generally well-qualified person for president who happened to be ______, would you vote for that person?” [source: Gallup, June 7-10, 2012]")
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| Transcript: (click the [+/-] to open/close →) | [−] |
| Between now and the 2012 political conventions, there will be discussion about the qualifications of presidential candidates -- their education, age, religion, race, and so on. If your party nominated a generally well-qualified person for president who happened to be ______, would you vote for that person? | ||
| Yes, would | No, would not | |
| % | % | |
| Black | 96 | 4 |
| A woman | 95 | 5 |
| Catholic | 94 | 5 |
| Hispanic | 92 | 7 |
| Jewish | 91 | 6 |
| Mormon | 80 | 18 |
| Gay or lesbian | 68 | 30 |
| Muslim | 58 | 40 |
| An atheist | 54 | 43 |
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These findings are reminiscent to previous surveys that found the vast majority of the American voting public have varying levels of discomfort with the very idea of electing an atheist to office (with Islamophobia in close second). It’s anyone’s guess how long it will take before those numbers reach approximately 100% for “Yes” across the board, regardless of a potential candidate’s given physical and ideological traits. It’s the actions that matter, not beliefs, and even then, only the actions that are limited to defining one’s capacity as an elected representative or leader.
If anything, I’m just surprised there are even 4-5% who are willing to admit that they wouldn’t vote for a candidate on the sole grounds of them being female or having darker skin. The ensuing realization that survey responses are inherently biased towards liberal results, given people’s reticence to admit to their own prejudices, makes one wonder about how open-minded and free our society really is.
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Even though pot use amongst teenagers is reportedly on the rise and is apparently eclipsing cigarettes in popularity, a new study declares that contrary to prohibitionists’ baseless fear-mongering, there’s no evidence to suggest that the legalization of medicinal marijuana in several states is the cause:
For the new study, economists at three universities analyzed data from the youth risk survey that were collected from 1993 to 2009, and compared those results with when medical marijuana laws were passed. Over the 16-year-period included for analysis, medical marijuana was legalized in 13 states, including Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington. Currently 17 states legalize medical marijuana.
Researchers specifically examined the relationship between legalization and marijuana use at school, whether the teen was offered drugs on school property, and alcohol and cocaine use. Their results provided no evidence that medical marijuana legalization led to increases in pot use at school, the likelihood of being offered drugs at school, or the use of other harmful substances. The researchers also looked closely at state surveys of youth risk behavior and didn't find such evidence.
To be sure, this study is hardly the definitive word on the matter, least of all as it hasn’t been peer-reviewed, though these findings have also been confirmed in previous research on the matter. But nonetheless, it should be quite telling to any rational mind that the only evidence regularly – if ever – presented for why marijuana is so bad that legalizing it, even just for medicinal use, would result in youths everywhere being caught in its leafy, life-destroying clutches consists solely of third-party anecdotes that are endlessly rehashed around the prohibitionist circle-jerk until they retain all the legitimacy of Reefer Madness.
(via Study Finds/@radleybalko)
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| Rectangle |
A Kansas City-based Redditor shares his recent unhappy encounter with local police:
At about seven AM our house alarm went off. The homeowner was called. He called the person watching our house at the time, she reported that there was no break in that she knew of and started to check the doors and windows. The homeowner then called the alarm company and said that it was a false alarm. The cops arrived on the scene almost immediately. The dog was outside and the person at the house was on the other side of the house checking the basement door. Rectangle (our dog) ran toward the policemen on our porch. Possibly barking (noone has seen a police report. One of the officers pulled his gun and fired at him point blank. FOUR TIMES. Luckily, he was only shot twice and will hopefully recover after surgery.
The homeowner talked to the Police Sergeant and he confirmed that they knew it was a false alarm. The officers on the scene left before anyone who lives there arrived. The Sergeant said that this behavior was protocol. My roomate is left with a costly vet bill and no explanation for what happened.
A little more info from what appears to be the man’s girlfriend:
This is my boyfriend’s two year old Staffordshire Shepherd and four rounds were fired at him this morning. Luckily, two of them missed. Of the other two, one bounced off the top of his head and the other went into his shoulder. He had to have surgery and now my boyfriend is footing a bill that he’s not sure how he got into.
Maybe it’s time for local news crews to do a little digging, particularly to uncover that police report. At least Rectangle is one of the rare lucky ones (relatively speaking) who survived.
(via @radleybalko)
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| [full size (514×625)] |
Doggycide Bingo Index
Confirmed hits:
Total: 3/25
Not much information to go on. No bingo.
The following is a guest post by Zon.
(Note from Joé: The game in question is obviously and explicitly intended to satirize Hentai-style tentacle rape porn. Whether or not you personally believe it is amusing or appropriate has no bearing on A) any actual merits of the game, nor B) whether or not the game has the right to exist. Kindly keep this in mind during any ensuing discussion. Thanks.)
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When it comes to current events, I'm lucky if I'm following news while it's still breaking. I almost never catch a news story when it first surfaces. I usually find out about it a few months later, and then spend some time on Google searching for everything I missed.
To that end, I'm certain that a few of you are familiar with Tentacle Bento. If not, it's a card game about tentacle rape. Now, if you haven’t heard of that, well, welcome to the internet.
It's exactly what it sounds like. Japanese schoolgirls getting raped by tentacles. From what I know of it, it came into existence to fight Japanese censorship laws; a penis needs to be censored. A tentacle that looks like a penis? Nope.
Hilarious loopholes aside, Tentacle Bento is a card game where the point is to “snatch” as many schoolgirls as possible. I think most people share the opinion that the game is certainly in poor taste. Despite its tasteless nature, I find the concept at least to be a bit funny, though I have no interest in playing it. Even if I owned a copy, I wouldn't know what to do with it, beyond putting it on one of my bookshelves as a conversation starter. No matter which way you look at it, however, the game has a right to exist. You know, that whole pesky freedom of speech thing.
John Cadice, the creator of the game, ran a Kickstarter campaign to get the funds to produce and distribute the game, which wound up getting canceled. It was moved to another site, funds continued to be raised, and people continued to either complain or compliment it.
Enter Penny Arcade's Mike Krahulik (aka Gabe), and the main subject of this post, Mat Jones.
Now, I've written about Penny Arcade (and Mike) before. I'm sure If I know Joé like I think I do, he'll be adding links to my previous posts here and here. [Mental note: Zon knows too much. —JM]
Mat, however, is new to me. I don't know anything about the guy, other than the article he wrote on the Tentacle Bento controversy. It is this article, however, that led me to form the opinion that he is a fucking moron. Please read through it. I don't mind waiting.
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| John Yoo |
Any particular reason why memory upgrade implants aren’t a thing yet?
John “Bush torture memos” Yoo [pictured]: President Obama is abusing executive power and the Constitution by ordering a more humane immigration policy!
More cops get acquitted despite video proving they lied about wrongfully arresting an innocent man.
(via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)
They aren’t terkin’ ur jerbs: Exhaustive study finds no evidence whatsoever that decades of immigration have harmed the U.S in any way.
(via The Agitator)
Nonreligion is on the rise (and Christianity is slowly but surely falling) in Australia.
(via Pharyngula)
The five stupidest excuses ever given in a political scandal (that don’t include Larry “wide stance” Craig). I fully agree with #1.
If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.
Tags: John Yoo • Barack Obama • Obama administration • George Bush • Bush administration • executive power • U.S. Constitution • Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department • Steven Sartori • immigrants • Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science • atheists • religious nones • non-theists • Australia • censuses • Cracked.com • Bob Allen • Eric Massa • J. Herbert Burke • Saera Khan • George Rekers
It’s getting too depressing around here. Time for some Heinz-brand levity:
| My transcript: (click the [+/-] to open/close →) | [−] |
Two robots, one bigger and one smaller, both consisting of RC vehicles with a mounted ketchup bottle powered with compressed air, are on a table, spinning their little plastic muscly arms.
The larger robot, Heinz Automato, approaches a plate with a hot-dog, then turns around and aims the ketchup bottle at it. It spins its arms bravely, then starts spluttering a stream of ketchup onto the hot-dog, drowning it and spilling half the ketchup on the table, until the spray is turned to mist as the bottle empties. It spins its arms again.
The second robot, Heinz Automato Jr., approaches its own plate and hot-dog but faceplants right into it, spinning its little arms helplessly as it sends a stream of ketchup in the opposite direction. People are heard laughing in the background.
It’s okay, little robo-ketchup … I’ve heard it happens to everyone.
(via Cracked.com)
Tags: ketchup • Heinz • Heinz Automato • robots
This is easily one of the best – by which I mean worst – examples of how deeply religion can twist one’s mind that I’ve yet seen. Here are four minutes of several people proclaiming their gratitude to God for all the horrible things that have happened to them, including being raped, losing their husband and being anorexic, while many more lines appear on-screen, such as losing a baby, having cancer or being addicted to drugs, because the “The Secret is to become Thankful for Everything” (random caps included) because that’s “the key to unconditional love”:
Quick question: If God’s love is unconditional, then why do people need to force themselves to draw up silver linings in their traumas in order to earn it? Not too clear on that.
What’s even weirder is that lines like “Thank God I am gay” or “am a virgin” also appear in the midst of all those tragedies. ‘Cause those are bad things. I mean, know I find it hard to tell who I should care about more – homeless stroke victims, or people who haven’t had sex yet …
(via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)
Tags: God • tragedies • Thank God I • John Castagnini
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| Michael Reagan |
Did you know that President Obama’s recent order to stop deporting young undocumented immigrants is just like raping kids? I sure didn’t. But conservative commentator Michael Reagan does:
Emperor Obama obviously could not care less about helping the Latino population. When Democrats had control of both houses of Congress he did absolutely nothing for them.
Now he's doing to Latinos what Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky allegedly did to the children of Pennsylvania -- using and abusing them. With his short-sighted politicking, Emperor Obama has hurt the Latino cause in the long run.
Perhaps he could explain to us exactly how putting an end to the policy of kicking out innocent teens and young adults who were brought to the U.S. by no choice of their own and who’ve called it their home since before they could form memories is so harmful that it’s akin to molesting them all.
Otherwise, stay classy, Mike. Stay classy.
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| Michele Leonhart |
I’m not sure which warps brains more, being on drugs or being put in charge of overseeing the ever-ongoing (and worsening) Drug War. Just look at poor Michele Leonhart, the DEA chief best known for declaring that mounting drug violence leading to scores of children being murdered is a sure sign that prohibitionists are approaching victory over the cartels. And now, here she is, unable (or unwilling) to admit that there are worse drugs in existence than mere weed:
During a House Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on Wednesday, Drug Enforcement Administrator Michele Leonhart repeatedly refused to admit that anything was more addictive or harmful than marijuana.
Democratic Rep. Jared Polis of Colorado pressed Leonhart on whether illegal drugs like methamphetamine and crack, as well as legal prescription drugs, caused greater harm to public health compared to marijuana. But within a three minute time-span, Leonhart dodged his questions eleven times.
“Is crack worse for a person than marijuana?” Polis, who has called for an end to marijuana prohibition, asked.
“I believe all illegal drugs are bad,” Leonhart responded.
“Is methamphetamine worse for somebody’s health than marijuana?” Polis continued. “Is heroin worse for somebody’s health than marijuana?”
“Again, all drugs,” Leonhart began to say, only to be cut off by Polis.
“Yes, no, or I don’t know?” Polis said. “If you don’t know this, you can look this up. As the chief administrator for the Drug Enforcement Agency, I’m asking a very straightforward question.”
Be sure to watch the video of the exchange, which really brings home just how clueless she sounds:
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It’s long been argued that churches don’t deserve any special tax-exempt status, and not only because of the occasional obligatory tithing and mandatory membership fees, or because so many pastors secretly encourage partisan political activism, both of which are blatant violations of tax exemption requirements. The fact is that allowing religious organizations off the taxation hook practically screams violation of the Establishment Clause, and so many of them are so corrupt and wasteful that they barely even meet the definition of charity, either.
But for all the complaints, no-one’s ever taken the time to tally up just how much income is lost every year to these government subsidies of religious belief. Until now, as the Council for Secular Humanism has a lengthy report that lays it all out – and it’s even worse than expected:
To put this into perspective, the combined total of government subsidies to agriculture in the United States in 2009 was estimated to be $180.8 billion.38 Religions receive at least 40 percent of the subsidy that agriculture does in the United States. Another way to illustrate the size of the subsidy may be to illustrate how much tax revenue would increase at the state level if religious institutions had to pay property taxes. In Florida, where the state government’s budget was $69.1 billion in 2011, the amount of tax revenue lost from subsidizing religious property was $2.2 billion or 3 percent of the state budget. The additional revenue would have mostly prevented the $1.1 billion cut to firefighter and police retirement plans and the $1.3 billion cut to public schools.39
Religion: Not just a massive drain on society, but on the economy as well.
(via Pharyngula)
Tags: churches • tax exemption • United States • USA • Council for Secular Humanism
![Joé McKen (18) [taken 07/13/10]](http://i.imgur.com/2wvlR.jpg "Joé McKen (18) [taken 07/13/10]")
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I’m a liberal skeptic, rationalist & third-wave atheist stuck in a rut in Québec, Canada and who spends his time composing, writing, drawing, harboring a layman’s passion for science and technology, getting angry at social injustices, and most of all, jabbing cretins and trolls with sharp pointy sticks. (Oh, and blogging.) Proud owner of a Nize Hat!, an indomitable SIWOTI syndrome and an itchy snark finger.
You can find all my musical, literary and artistic works at my art blog, Creativitas.
![There is probably no [superstition]. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life](http://i933.photobucket.com/albums/ad171/crispianjago/Probably-No.gif "There is probably no [superstition]. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life")
