Daily Blend: 05/10/13

Fr. Anthony Musaala

Obama administration worsens their crackdown on state-legal marijuana.

Ugandan priest ^[pictured]: “The Catholic Church is still covering up clerical child abuse.” Catholic Church: “You made us look bad! You’re suspended.”
(via Freethought Blogs)

Why do police consult “psychics”? Because people are gullible and prefer false hope to realistic desperation.
(via @radleybalko)

And finally, PZ Myers schools movement skeptics about science and why their mindless dismissal of atheism as “unscientific” is decidedly unskeptical.

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

Daily Blend: 04/02/13

Dr. Deandre Poole

So, I guess that should read “exemplary teacher ^[pictured] threatened by student after asking class to step on piece of paper with Jesus’s name in harmless exercise on cultural sensitivity”. And he’s been receiving death threats from those ever-lovin’ Christians, of course.

I was in kinda-sorta-loose agreement with Sam Harris right until he says “[t]here is no such thing as Islamophobia” and that “[it] is a term of propaganda”. Now that’s how you shipwreck an argument, folks. (If he wants to contest the conflation of genuine criticism with bigotry, he should stress that ‘Islamophobia’ only applies to the latter, not that it isn’t actually a thing.)

Reality: Hoaxer dude calls domestic violence counseling line with phony abuse story, repeatedly refuses offered assistance to find free shelter or contact authorities. MRAs: “Abused man ‘denied help’”!

Public Policy Polling does conspiracy theories, reveals an average 10–15% of Americans are effin’ nuts. Not sure why “Bush lied about Iraqi WMDs” is counted as a myth, though.
(via @BuzzFeedAndrew)

And finally, it’s getting almost impossible to tell when Vox Day is being either seriously or facetiously stupid.

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

Daily Blend: 03/26/13

Gov. Jack Dalrymple (R-ND)

Applying for an internship/apprenticeship/something at a ranch tomorrow! Wish me luck. (Or a broken leg. However it goes these days.)

North Dakota Gov. Dalrymple (R) ^[pictured] signs law banning abortion at six weeks, presumably planning emergency fund for inevitable court loss. Wonder if he’ll also enact the even worse “personhood” law.
(via @BreakingNews)

Berlin-based company confirms their “atheist”-branded packages take significantly longer to reach their destinations, when they don’t go missing altogether. Looks like the US Postal Service has some explaining to do.

Oh, look, it’s another boilerplate, evidence-free diatribe about how “[m]ilitant atheism has become a religion”. (Hemant Mehta tears it apart, as does PZ Myers.)
(via @religionnews)

Vox Day: Egalitarians are “inferior beings” (because some of them sometimes make crude jokes on the Internet).

And finally, here’s the trippiest damn water spiral you’ll’ve ever did seen (more info here):

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

Daily Blend: 03/20/13

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX)

Happy tenth anniversary to the clusterfuck in Iraq and the spoon-fed lies that got the US populace to go along with it.

Another underage victim blamed for being raped by football players. Some people are just fucking sick.

Why is it that so many of those in charge of laws pertaining to computers and the Internet are absolute morons about computers and the Internet? (Though, to be fair, Rep. Gohmert (R-TX) ^[pictured] is usually wrong about everything.)

Another day, another blatantly dishonest global-warming-denying article from a renowned crank in a Daily Mail-associated tabloid.

I’m really embarrassed by fellow progressives’ penchant for nanny statism at times. Is it really that hard to commit to the ideal of personal freedom even if it means allowing people to make unhealthy choices?

Faithlessness is healthy and growing in Canada.

More of that Christian Love^TM, this time in Nova Scotia, Canada.

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

Ken Ham accuses non-Biblical literalists of “helping atheism”

Ken Ham

Infighting is funny, Christian fundamentalist edition: Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis is upset at fellow zealots like Mark Driscoll (Seattle’s Mars Hill Church) and Robert Jeffress (Dallas’s First Baptist Church) for shying away from his fetishized brand of Young-Earth Creationism and accuses them of “undermining” Christianity in the process:

During a recent interview on the Bill O’Reilly show, Dr. Robert Jeffress, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, acknowledged his belief that the earth could have been created 13.7 billion years ago.

“I think it very well could have been,” Jeffress told O’Reilly. “One of the things fundamentalist Christians mess up on is they try to say the earth is 6,000 years old. The Bible never makes that claim.”

Ham denounced Jeffress statement maintaining the Bible makes no such claim that the earth is billions of years old.

“Pastors need to be told that when you do that, you undermine the authority of Scripture,” Ham said. “They are helping atheism by undermining the authenticity of the word of God.”

Oh, don’t worry, Ken. As much as we heathens appreciate your fellow bigoted crackpots’s talent for discrediting themselves every time they open their mouths, they really can’t hold a candle to the kind of man who would sink millions of dollars into a stronghold of fantastical bullshit posing as a scientific establishment and whose intellectual/ideological equals can’t match wits with any properly educated sixth-grader.

One good thing about being an atheist: No other group needs to put in as little effort to disprove and discredit its opponents, since they’re adept at revealing their own mad idiocy all by themselves.

(via Right Wing Watch)

Ray Comfort: Only Christianity prevents horse-meat burgers!

Ray Comfort

I generally avoid paying any attention to Ray Comfort’s more mindless anti-atheist arguments (not that anything he’s ever said on the matter could be called “mindful”, no matter how charitable one feels), but this was just too funny to pass up:

There was a big fuss recently in Sweden about lasagna and burgers containing horse meat. Sweden is atheist heaven, and so there shouldn’t be any hard and fast table manners—other than “if it tastes good, eat it.”

So why aren’t cats and horses on restaurant menus in most countries? It’s because Judeo/Christian nations base what is right and wrong to eat on the rules God gave to the Jews. But if atheism has its way, we can expect restaurants to expand their menus to include eagle-wings, double-double whale burgers, fresh cat casseroles, and tasty little kitten fingers. When any nation forsakes God, it defaults to mob rule (what society dictates) and that can go anywhere it wants.

Swinging at fruit this low-hanging is rather like picking a fight with a four-year-old; it leaves one feeling sullied and unsatisfied.

Daily Blend: Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Pres. Barack Obama

President Obama ^[pictured] shocks privacy advocates everywhere with an executive order on cybersecurity that isn’t replete with Fourth Amendment violations.

Republicans still think it’s a good idea to put queen crazypants Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) on the House Intelligence Committee.

17 months after DADT, Defense Department finally figures out what limited benefits they can grant same-sex military families under DoMA.

Science-Based Medicine’s David Gorski hammers Penn & Teller for their appearance on the quack-tastic Dr. Oz Show.
(via The Daily Grail)

Sean Curry at BuzzFeed offers some pointed rejoinders to “15 questions atheists are sick of answering”.
(via Friendly Atheist)

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

Daily Blend: Friday, February 01, 2013

Is it just me, or are months going by faster and faster?

Tennessee’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill ^[pictured] is back, now with the requirement that school faculty out any students seeking sexuality counseling to their parents.
(via Joe. My. God.)

Unbelievable: Remember the old joke about conservatives being so anti-Obama that if the President came out against Hitler, the Right would defend the Nazis? Oh, wait, that totally just happened.
(via @radleybalko)

More on creeping Creationism in Missouri.

And finally, I am quite happy to see Jen McCreight is back in the game. And not just because it promises more Pokébiology.

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

EDIT (02/01/13 9:53 PM ET) – It turns out the above is the same Creationism/ID bill I mentioned in my last Daily Blend. (via Rob F)

Daily Blend: Tuesday, January 29, 2013

[full size (584×764)]

Good: Federal judge stops DEA’s attempt to seize a rural Massachusetts motel after a few guests there committed crimes without the motel owner’s knowledge. ^[pictured]
(via Uzza)

PZ Myers handily dismantles the tired anti-abortionist claim that science proves that personhood begins at conception.

Meanwhile, the anti-abortion fetal “heartbeat bill” makes it to Arkansas.

Creeping Creationism in Missouri.

Ray Comfort: Surgeons can’t reconstruct chimp attack victim’s face, ergo, Evolution is dummy-dumb-dumb.

I’m 96% humanist! Take that, 2009 Humanist of the Year PZ Myers and your paltry 90%!

And finally, here’s a bunch of Christians I could have a drink with (if I drank):
(via Joe. My. God.)

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

Daily Blend: Sunday, January 20, 2013

Phil Plait

Phil Plait ^[pictured] explains the many problems with education vouchers: They’re basically thinly veiled attempts at inflicting anti-science garbage upon impressionable young minds.

Isn’t it interesting how those who try to tarnish scientists’ credibility always end up destroying their own instead?
(via @BadAstronomer)

Difference between Islamist extremists and anti-feminist cranks: The former throw acid in women’s faces, while the latter just joke about it. (To his quasi-credit, Conlon later apologized.)
(via Pharyngula)

And finally, here’s why the Oxford comma isn’t all bad:
(via @normative; RT: @radleybalko)

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

A petition for equality in the atheism/skepticism community

I don’t often plug petitions, given the general futility of these things (good intentions are no substitute for effectiveness), but there’s one floating around that I think absolutely merits signing and sharing as widely as possible in the hopes of focusing our push-back against all the sexist assholery that’s been dividing the once-concerted atheo-skeptic movement:

We, the undersigned, are atheists, skeptics and nonbelievers who value free speech and rational thought and who seek to build a strong, thriving movement that can advocate effectively for these values. We've chosen to put our names to this petition because we want to respond to a video created by a blogger calling himself Thunderfoot. In this video, Thunderfoot attacks named individuals who've been active in promoting diversity and fighting sexism and harassment in our movement. He describes these people as "whiners" and "ultra-PC professional victims" who are "dripp[ing] poison" into the secular community, and urges conference organizers to shun and ignore them.

We hold this and similar complaints from other individuals to be seriously misguided, false in their particulars and harmful to the atheist community as a whole, and we want to set the record straight. We wish to clarify that Thunderfoot and those like him don't speak for us or represent us, and to state our unequivocal support for the following goals:

We support making the atheist movement more diverse and inclusive. […]

We support strong, sensible anti-harassment policies at our gatherings. […]

We support the people in our community who've been the target of bullying, harassment and threats. […]

To put a stop to this bad behavior once and for all, we need to change the culture of the atheist movement so that sexism isn't condoned or defended, just as racism and homophobia aren't condoned or defended. We're grateful to the leaders of the movement who've spoken out against harassment, and we encourage all atheists and skeptics, regardless of their influence or prominence, to do likewise.

See? This is how mature, reasonable adults carry a discussion about sensitive issues: No demands that opponents be banned or censored; no hatred or vitriol towards people with differing opinions; no blatant dishonesty and misrepresentations of anyone’s arguments or attempts to rewrite the record; and no thinly veiled threats against their livelihoods or persons. Just a community coming together in the spirit of reason, fairness and equality in order to accomplish what is obviously and undeniably the right thing to do.

There’s already some impressive names in the list of signatories, and 308 people (and climbing fast) have added theirs as of this posting. I don’t think it’ll be difficult to bump that number up past the required 730 minimum before day’s end, do you? This is an international effort, so there’s really no reason not to add your mark right now.

(via @jennifurret)

Daily Blend: Thursday, January 03, 2013

Dr. Oz

House Republicans actually manage to kill the Violence Against Women Act because it was “too supportive of immigrants, the LGBT community, and Native Americans”. I’m seriously starting to wonder whether they just love playing the bad guys at this point.
(via @BuzzFeedAndrew)

Not unrelatedly: Welcome to Steubenville, Ohio, where the violent gang-rape of a drugged 16-year-old girl by football players is totally hilarious. (But remember: There is no such thing as rape culture! It’s just a myth from fugly fascist feminists who hate teh menz.)

Atheist organizer Michael Nugent dismantles Thunderf00t’s latest appallingly dishonest anti-feminist video. The man has devolved into a sad parody of himself.
(via @mikenugent; RT: @pzmyers)

Meanwhile, here are the 14 kinds of sexist commenters who invariably pop up under any remotely pro-women post. (#15: Slimeballs who think spewing semi-coherent vitriol is akin to presenting a rational argument that deserves to be addressed.)
(via Pharyngula)

And finally, in case you were wondering, yes, Dr. Oz ^[pictured] is still a ginormous quack, despite all his fancy credentials.
(via @BadAstronomer)

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

On Al Stefanelli’s “Atheist Cult” tirade

Al Stefanelli

As some of you may be aware (and not just because I mentioned it in last night’s Daily Blend), atheist journalist/activist Al Stefanelli recently made a video wherein he launched a veritable Gish Gallop’s worth of attacks and smears against several writers involved with Freethought Blogs (where he briefly resided), Atheism Plus, and the social-justice-oriented atheosphere in general, accusing them of being “radical extremists” out on a witch-hunt against White men and who give other, “real” activists a bad name and so on and so forth. It’s a remarkably dreary and absurd rant, and given that even my SIWOTI syndrome only goes so far, I was content to link to Ed Brayton’s excellent debunking and leave it at that (I found his comparison to the rhetoric from religious-Right cranks particularly fitting).

However, Stefanelli himself was apparently dissatisfied that I supposedly misunderstood his argument, and additionally claimed that I hadn’t even watched the video (an amusing assumption, considering that while I did skip past some of the more lengthy segments devoted to explaining in mind-numbing detail exactly why certain bloggers he disagrees with are like a “cult”, I did sit through the majority of it and understood his arguments perfectly).

But let it never be said that I’m not one to rise to such an easy challenge (even if it entails spending hours of my own freaking birthday typing down some weird rant about how myself and my allies are something like the bastard child of Jim Jones and Pol Pot of godless social justice). And so, I took the liberty of transcribing every painful second of Stefanelli’s tirade, below, in the hopes of sparing anyone else from sitting through the wretched thing:

Donohue wants higher taxes for “miserly” non-religious liberals

The Catholic League’s Bill Donohue has found a new reason to snipe at atheists and other irreligious folks: They (supposedly) aren’t as charitable as religious people, and are thus a burden on society! Or something.

The top religion story of 2012 was The Chronicle of Philanthropy survey of American charitable giving, “How America Gives”; it was released in August. Its central finding was that the more religious a city or state is, the more charitable it is; conversely, the more secular an area is, the more miserly the people are.

[…]

The findings are consistent with other studies. It suggests that the rise of the “nones”—those who have no religious affiliation—are a social liability for the nation. It also shows that those who live in the most liberal areas of the nation are precisely the ones who do the least to combat poverty. They talk a good game—liberals are always screaming about the horrors of poverty—but in the end they find it difficult to open their wallets.

There is little doubt that the “nones” and liberals (there is a lot of overlap) are living off the social capital of the most religious persons in the nation. Perhaps there is some way this can be reflected in the tax code.

Of course, the reality is quite different: The only reason why more religious states appear to outperform more secular states in how much people give to charity on average is because most pollsters include money given to churches and other explicitly religious institutions as “charity”, which understandably and unfairly skews the numbers. It’s not as if “religious nones” had any centralized faithless organization to which they donated a faction of their yearly earnings. In fact, unskewing those numbers seems to indicate the precise contrary – that less religious regions are actually more charitable on average.

What’s more, there’s actually research that seems to indicate that secular folk may be driven more by compassion for others and less by some sense of duty to church or doctrine. You know, in case you needed yet another reminder that religion and faith in some deity aren’t useful factors in determining how good or caring any given person is.

So, with that in mind … who, exactly, should be getting higher taxes, here, Bill?

Daily Blend: Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Busy reading, so have an early Daily Blend for today.

I am shocked – shocked! – to learn that the anti-feminist/Atheism Plus/Freethought Blogs camp doesn’t actually have any good arguments.

Study: West Antarctica is warming up twice as fast as predicted and at thrice the planetary average rate.
(via ThinkProgess)

White House website petition to label Westboro Baptist Church a “hate group” is the most popular ever. Only problem: No such designation exists under any U.S. law.
(via @BuzzFeedAndrew)

And finally, here’s one particularly creepy ritual put into perspective:

Don’t forget the hover text! [‘Communion’ | xkcd (by Randall Munroe)]

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

Daily Blend: Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Quick updates: I finally found how to replace the old “Older/Newer Posts” links with actual post titles, something I’ve been trying to do here for quite a while. I’ve also replaced the clunky old search bar with a Google custom search bar, so older posts should now be much easier to find. Oh, and Disqus reactions are finally working again. That is all.

The Atheist Census ^[pictured] is finally back from its DDoS-induced coma, so get yourself counted if you haven’t already.

Speaking of godless representation, a new comprehensive Pew Research Center study reveals that 16.3% of the world is religiously unaffiliated (though not necessarily atheistic, of course).

Not that you need it (I would seriously hope), but the Bad Astronomer has a write-up explaining in detail how and why the world will not end this Friday.

And finally, it looks like the new SimCity will be the first in the series I won’t be spending my money on. It’s a damn shame; I love Maxis, but to hell with EA’s prohibitive DRM fixation.

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

Atheism Plus now has a wiki!

For those of you who still aren’t decided on whether the fledgling movement is a fit, or for those interested in learning a little more about social justice and how to be a better person around others from different walks of life, the Atheism Plus Wiki is now online. It’s still a bit wet behind the ears, though, so feel free to contribute if you have something to add to its as-of-yet rudimentary list of resources.

Me, I’ll just be trying to wrap my mind around all these weird prefixes and suffixes that combine in to denote the intricacies of different people’s genderal or sexual identities. (Perhaps that’s another example of cis/hetero privilege – I don’t have to learn thirteen new terms to situate myself on the gender/sexuality spectrum, nor do I often receive glassy-eyed looks for explaining my leanings.)

Daily Blend: Saturday, November 10, 2012

Dean Boland

Lawyer ^[pictured] ordered to pay $300K for “harm[ing]” unidentified children whose stock images he used to create fake child sex photos to prove how irrational and overbroad child porn laws are. So … mission accomplished?
(via @tedfrank; RT: @radleybalko)

The Catholic Church reaffirms its commitment to obsolescence.

Ed Brayton has a measured take on five clichéd catchphrases that atheists should stop using.

And finally, in case there was any suspicion, Vox Day is still a dumbass.

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

Daily Blend: Friday, November 09, 2012

Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ)

Mitt Romney displays his “fiscal conservatism” by canceling campaign staffers’ credit cards in the middle of the night, while many of them were taking taxis home.

It would appear that favored Arizona House candidate Kyrsten Sinema (D) ^[pictured] might not be bisexual and is certainly not an atheist. Looks like there won’t be any openly godless Congresscritters after all, now that Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA) is gone.

And finally, Scottish “funnyman”^[sic] Brian “Limmy” Limond explains how much he enjoys being an inane jerkwad on the Internet, particularly towards SIWOTI-inflicted atheists. Since when is “troll” a badge of honor?

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

Daily Blend: Wednesday, November 07, 2012 – The Re-linkening

Consider this a continuation of my previous “wrap-up” post as the dust continues to settle. There’s plenty of good and a smidgeon of bad, so hold onto your butts:

The good —

LGBT: Last night was a major win for equality with same-sex marriage passing by popular vote in three states (and a constitutional ban failing in a fourth), the election of the first-ever openly lesbian senator, and the fall of anti-gay candidates everywhere like flies.

Meanwhile, in the schadenfreude department, Sen. Scott “racist” Brown (R-MA) and Rep. Joe “deadbeat dad” Walsh (R-IL) are both kicked out.

Oh, and Troy, Michigan’s notoriously homophobic mayor, Janice Daniels, is also out on her bigoted ass.
(via Joe. My. God.)

New Hampshire: I wonder how many men feel discomfited now that both state senators, both representatives, and the governor are all women?

Florida: The Sunshine State did particularly well, with voters turning down abortion restrictions, killing a ban on Obamacare’s health insurance mandate, and preventing taxpayer money from going to churches and religious schools. Upholding abortion rights, healthcare reform and secularism all in one – not to shabby for a state renowned for its zaniness.

More good Floridian news: Rep. Allen West (R) will soon be Rep. no longer, possibly as a result of all that crazy shit he’s always spewing.

Atheism: While the only openly atheist Congressperson, Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA), lost his seat after decades of serving the progressive community, candidate Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), rumored to be both an atheist and bisexual, is winning, though her opponent isn’t conceding yet.

Drug Laws: Massachusetts approves medicinal marijuana, though a similar initiative fails in Arkansas.

So, all in all, I guess this means those polls weren’t skewed against Republicans after all.
(via Joe. My. God.)

And finally, we can safely say that yes, FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver is (probably) a witch. (Or just very good with statistical analysis. Either way.)