Psycho Dave's Commentary

"WHO AM I?" (Another Retard Birther!)

2011-12-25T08:31:00.000-08:00

Many people have received a chain-email recently, titled "Who Am I", that starts out with an interesting biography, which many Tea Party and Birther types would presume to be that of Barack Obama. Of course, at the end, it says that it's actually "Adolph Hitler". Of course, that should have sent red flags up immediately, that this was anti-Obama propaganda, written by an history-illiterate who got his hands on a computer.

Let's see how many actual facts he got correct.

* I was born in one country, raised in another. My father was born in another country.

This assumes that Barack Obama was not born a US citizen, which is a myth that has already been thoroughly dispelled. Though Obama's father was Kenyan, Hitler's father was not "born in another country".

In 1867, while Hitler's Austrian-born father was living, Austria, parts of what later became modern day Germany along with parts of what would later become the nations of Hungary, Bosnia, The Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, and other nations became part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

In 1871, Austria and Germany unified into a new country, called The German Empire, or the second reich, under Kaiser Wilhelm.

Following the first world war, the Empire was re-partitioned, so that a new territory, called German Austria was "a component of the German Republic", also known as the Weimar Republic. Alois Hitler, along with millions of others living in Europe, had his nationality changed on him, as wars changed borders from the 19th century to what became pre-World War 2 Europe. Though the family never moved more than 20 miles away from the cities they were born in, they became German citizens by default, new nations were formed. Saying that he was "born in a foreign country" would be like saying that anyone born in North Dakota before it was incorporated into the USA was born in a foreign country -- in other words, it's preposterous to claim that Hitler's family was foreign to Germany, or were immigrants.

I was not his only child. He fathered several children
with numerous women.

Alois Hitler had children by 2 women, not "numerous" ones. His first wife died, presumably of tuberculosis, and he stayed faithful to his second wife until his death in 1903. This is quite different from Obama's father, who had children with at least 4 different women, both in and out of wedlock.

* I became very close to my mother, as my father showed no interest in me. My mother died at an early age from cancer.

* Later in life, questions arose over my real name.

* My birth records were sketchy and no one was able to produce a
legitimate, reliable birth certificate.

To say that Hitler's father showed no interest in him is preposterous. Hitler's father was well known for being a disceplinarian, and was known to be concerned about Adolf's rebellious nature, making him work on a farm, and later putting him in a Catholic school for boys. Barack Obama's father was not involved much in his son's life, which is correct, but again, to compare this to the strict upbringing of Adolf Hitler, where his father stayed home with the family, does not compare.

Questions arose about Hitler's name -- Alois Schicklgruber changed his last name to Heidler, because his mother married Johann Heidler. Later, Official spellings of surnames were standardized by the Weimar government, and the Hiedler family's name was now officially spelled "Hitler". There was no question about Adolf Hitler's name, nor his country of origin. Only his father's name was questioned.

Hitler's German citizenship was never questioned. Good luck trying to find any literature that parallels that of Barack Obama, whose US Citizenship was questioned mainly by people who refused to accept the documentation that the State Department gathered before allowing him to run for public office.

* I grew up practicing one faith but converted to Christianity, as it
was widely accepted in my country, but I practiced non-traditional beliefs
& didn't follow Christianity, except in the public eye under scrutiny.

This flies in the fact of what we have on record for both Adolf Hitler and Barack Obama. Hitler was born a Roman Catholic, and remained a Roman Catholic. Barack Obama's Mother and family were "non practicing" Methodists and Baptists. Obama was raised in the faith, and grew into it as he became an adult. This whole section revolves around the easily disproven myth that Obama secretly practices the Muslim faith.

* I worked and lived among lower-class people as a young adult,
disguising myself as someone who really cared about them.

* That was before I decided it was time to get serious about my life
and I embarked on a new career.

These factoids are nonsense. It assumes that Obama doesn't really care about the people that he organized in Chicago. It presumes that Hitler didn't care about the people he worked with.

* I wrote a book about my struggles growing up. It was clear to those
who read my memoirs that I had difficulties accepting that my father
abandoned me as a child.

The one thing that is never mentioned in Mein Kampf, was that his father abandoned the family, because it never happened. Hitler's father remained with the family until he died, and though he had issues with his father, they were not about abandonment at all. Hitler's issues were with his father's strictness.

Again, no comparison with the life of Barack Obama.

* I became active in local politics in my 30's then with help behind
the scenes, I literally burst onto the scene as a candidate for national
office in my 40s. They said I had a golden tongue and could talk anyone
into anything. That reinforced my conceit.

* I had a virtually non-existent resume, little work history, and no
experience in leading a single organization. Yet I was a powerful speaker
and citizens were drawn to me as though I were a magnet and they were
small roofing tacks.

* I drew incredibly large crowds during my public appearances. This
bolstered my ego.

To say that Barack Obama "burst onto the scene" out of nowhere is a myth. His legislative career spans over 11 years, and was preceeded by another 10 years of working as a lawyer, and a community organizer.

* At first, my political campaign focused on my country's foreign
policy. I was very critical of my country in the last war and seized
every opportunity to bash my country.

* But what launched my rise to national prominence were my views on
the country's economy. I pretended to have a really good plan on how we
could do better and every poor person would be fed & housed for free.

* I knew which group was responsible for getting us into this mess.
It was the free market, banks & corporations. I decided to start making
citizens hate them and if they were envious of others who did well, the
plan was clinched tight.

* I called mine "A People's Campaign" and that sounded good to all
people.

This doesn't describe Hitler's political career at all, nor does it describe Obama's. Hitler crusaded AGAINST Marxism and socialism, and blamed liberal groups in the Weimar Republic for corrupting Germany and creating a financial crisis. Jazz musicians, artists, Jews, of course, and people with loose morals were to blame, according to what he wrote, himself. He did not blame business, but rather blamed Jewish Bankers. Hitler did not criticize Germany for World War 1 -- he criticized what the allies did to Germany following the war, in the Treaty Of Versailles.

Barack Obama did not criticize the government for the Iraq war, during his presidential campaign. He merely said that it should be ended soon.

These attempts at parallels don't work, because they are basically assumptions about typical liberal politics that are blindly applied to Obama, without citing any sources. Typical right wing rhetoric loves to claim that liberals only talk about taxing and spending, and that they increase the size of government. Reality, of course, does not support even this description of liberal politicians.

* I was the surprise candidate because I emerged from outside the
traditional path of politics & was able to gain widespread popular
support.

Again, this does not describe Hitler or Obama. Obama got into politics through all of the traditional channels, not from outside. Likewise, Hitler's rise to power was totally typical for the time and place. He, along with people from the military that fought in World War 1 with him, formed a political party and ran their campaigns in very typical ways. To say that Hitler or Obama were political outsiders is preposterous.

* I knew that, if I merely offered the people 'hope' , together we
could change our country and the world.

* So, I started to make my speeches sound like they were on behalf of
the downtrodden, poor, ignorant to include "persecuted minorities" . My
true views were not widely known & I needed to keep them unknown, until
after I became my nation's leader.

* I had to carefully guard reality, as anybody could have easily found
out what I really believed, if they had simply read my writings and
examined those people I associated with.

* I'm glad they didn't. Then I became the most powerful man in the
world. And the world learned the truth.

*Who am I? *

ADOLF HITLER

WHO WERE YOU THINKING OF?
Scary isn't it?

Again, this is made up nonsense, just speculation on what Obama, the scary black man, thinks. It isn't based on anything that Obama or Hitler wrote, and it's merely the projection of the author's deep suspicion of Obama as a "stealth" candidate.

The anti-Obama rhetoric of people like the one who wrote this chain-letter, is a series of fear-based assertions that are strongly held, but nonetheless, mere assertions.

Eight Rules for Effective Protesting

2011-12-12T08:28:00.001-08:00

Americans have forgotten how to protest properly. We think that going outside, playing drums, bashing trash can lids, and shouting slogans in unison is how it's done, and the result is always the same -- the public get sick of them, and doesn't seem to care when police use their military-surplus toys to bust them up.

30 or 40 years ago, protests were more effective, more lawful, and actually inspiring. There are some significant differences between the protests of the 60's and modern protests that people need to know, and some things that should be taken to heart.

(1) Reclaim the American Flag
40 years of right-wing shenanigans, pundits, Jesse Helms, and rednecks all waving flags in solidarity of genuinely hideous principles, has made most liberal protestors regard the flag as the symbol of conservative hatred and bigotry. Even I must confess that seeing Tea-Party protestors, anti-Muslim, anti-gay, anti-immigrant, anti-science, and anti-bill-of-rights, right-wing activism, all accompanied by fierce flag-waiving, as if to say that everyone who isn't a bigot is un-American, has made me think of the American Flag in a negative way. If you look at left-wing protests in other countries, this is not the case. Left wing protestors in France, Russia, and other countries all wave their national flags around with pride. In America, left-wing protestors can't seem to do this, without holding the flag upside down, if at all.

The American flag is not the exclusive property of half-retarded, brain-dead racists, fascist, and neo-cons. It belongs to everyone, whether you are right-wing, left wing or in-between. Liberal protestors need to stop thinking of flag-waiving as an activity performed by the Neanderthal, thug-like, and the mentally-retarded, redneck right wing. We need to reclaim the flag as everyone's flag, and it needs to be as prominent as the protest signs.

(2) Dress for the occasion
Even I get sick of seeing throngs of dread-locked, tie-dye festooned, pot-smoking hippies. That's what I see at every left-wing protest event. I can't begin to tell you how much the image of these people turns me off, as well as it turns off moderate and right-wing people. Now I am as liberal as the next one of you, but really, the style of dress, and the behavior that involves banging djembes, dancing, and smoking pot, makes people, including yours truly, think these people are just dirty.

I think that protestors would be taken much more seriously if they simply dressed as though it were a special occasion. Don't go in blue-jeans and t-shirts like those Tea-Party tards -- wear your interview suit, your Sunday best, and your office-attire. LOOK RESPECTABLE. Nobody looks at filthy hippies with respect, especially when they are banging their obnoxious drums and chanting John Lennon lyrics. Dressed like slobs, you are a mob. Dressed respectably, you are an assembly.

(3) Quiet down
Hearing drums pounding hour after hour, people screaming, and out-of-key renditions of Lennon and Dylan songs is ANNOYING to listen to. It annoys the other protestors, as well as people who may otherwise be sympathetic to your cause. In fact, people are more willing to listen to you if you are quiet, believe it or not.

I learned this in parochial school when Sister Jane was trying to explain a lesson to a noisy classroom. She kept getting louder and louder until she suddenly switched to a softer and softer voice. The rest of us instinctively got quiet, until we heard what she was saying. She whispered "If I speak quietly enough, you will listen to what I am saying." One of my College professors, in a history class, applied the same method when the class was loud with talking students. It's true -- the quieter your message, the more attentively people will listen to you. People will have far more respect for a protest that doesn't leave their eardrums vibrating.

(4) Be Less accepting of variations in the message
One of the big problems with both the Tea Party Protestors and the Occupy movements, is that they seem to allow anyone to show up and protest with them, even if they are not protesting the same thing. When Racists showed up at Tea Party events, the news media singled them out, and it seemed as though the movement actually welcomed them and their racist message. Likewise, all of the pot-smoking kids who use the opportunity of a protest to play rave music and dance, all of the conspiracy mongers, and all the people with bizarre messages to add to the protest, can reflect badly on your protest. 911-truthers, Vegetarians, Communists, Pot-legalization proponents, and other kooks and weirdoes, are just there to hijack your protest, and are trying to push their own agenda, using your steam.

Protestors are too permissive, and too overly-polite. You really need to get rid of people that show up at the protest, whose messages are not properly aligned with the movement. When crazy people show up, you need to inform them that they are only welcome if their message is aligned with the rest of the group, and that they should either get with the program, or stay away. This sounds harsh, but all it takes is one news-crew with a camera to see one inappropriate sign, or interview one kook who has nothing to do with the protest, or who is inarticulate and the whole country will see that person as representative of your movement. This is especially true if Fox News is sending its crews around for "gotcha" interviews, which are designed to defame your movement.

(5) Take control of your message
The people who organize liberal protests need to make sure that everyone participating goes through an orientation, and follows rules. They need to have internal policing of protestors to enforce rules of conduct. The rules of conduct should be simple and straightforward -- Don't act like idiots, don't be rowdy, be polite, no fighting, no yelling, No boom boxes playing loud music, no drums, be clean, be on your best behavior.

Protests need to have designated speakers to whom the media can be directed. Participants need to be told that they should not speak to the media unless they are designated speakers. Everyone needs to have hand-outs that explain the points of the protest, and everyone needs to be told that they should refrain from pushing a message that is not listed in the hand-outs. When asked by media for an interview, people need to be aware that it's best to redirect the media to the designated speakers. Not everyone is good on camera, or is articulate enough to express the movement's goals. Also, not everyone is skilled enough to know when they are being set up by a hostile interviewer. Interviewers need to be routed to experts who can handle expressing the goals of the protest without looking like a fool.

Organizers need to control the signage. When people show up with poorly-made signs, which are misspelled, or have inappropriate messages, they need to be told to trade in their sign for a more official one. Organizers need to have a bunch of more-or-less professionally-made signs to give people whose signs are not appropriate. They must be honestly told the reason for switching their signs, and that they should leave if they refuse. I know it sounds tough, but as I said, if you allow signs with poor spelling and grammar, inappropriate language, or inappropriate messages, the public may see these people as representative of you.

To properly control the message, you need to have some trained security people who can spread out in the crowd, and respond wherever rules are being broken. People who show up with inappropriate signs or those who do not behave, should be given a written page of the rules, and be asked to attend an orientation. If they refuse, or they have to be given a warning more than 3 times, they need to be removed. The security people need to be swift and as non-violent as possible. This sounds harsh, but it can make the difference between a truly unified protest, and a random mob of mixed messages.

(6) Don't camp. There is no reason for it.
The biggest weakness of the Occupy movement is the unnecessary and disruptive practice of camping out in public spaces. Other protest movements from around the world do not camp in public places. They simply assemble every day, and leave when it's time to go home. I know that it's hard to keep thousands of people fed, hydrated, informed, policed, and have adequate sanitary facilities. Having a permanent camp may be convenient, but it's definitely not the best way to do it. If the structures were torn down and set up at regular times every day, and not left overnight, it would give fewer excuses for authorities to tear them down. It would also give less opportunities for Homeless people and petty criminals to take advantage of people who are sleeping.

(7) Learn what non-violent civil disobedience is supposed to be
American protestors have forgotten what civil disobedience is, and how to conduct it. Some protestors, such as the idiots at UC Davis, make bad situations worse. The Protestors at UC Davis blockaded police, and entrapped a small group of University police that were actually trying to leave, making a bad situation even worse. They got maced, and they asked for it. Let's get one thing clear. Non-violent, Civil disobedience is NOT about confronting cops and intimidating them back. Traditionally, successful civil disobedience is when you walk up to the cops, and offer to let them arrest you. Civil disobedience is NOT resisting arrest, and NOT fighting with police.

If you actually believed in your protest, you should be willing to offer yourself up for being arrested for protesting.

Shouting slogans angrily at cops only does one thing. It scares the crap out of them, because it's only one small step from shouting slogans to having a peaceful mob turn into a riot. When the cops arrive, you need to be calm, intelligent, and KNOW YOUR RIGHTS. Many cops don't even know what your rights are, and will try to tell you what they are, incorrectly. You need to ask why you are being asked to leave, and most importantly, "what law am I violating", and "Are you arresting me, and if so, what will I be charged with?"

Too many protests involve acting tough and openly intimidating cops, shouting angry slogans at them, and improvising weapons as though you plan on fighting them. This is the wrong way. Martin Luther King and Ghandi did not resist arrests, or intimidate cops. When the cops attacked, they looked like fascists, because they were using violence against un-armed peaceful protestors. When you shout at cops, chant slogans, threaten to rise up, or otherwise resist them, you are inviting them to behave badly.

When they arrest you, you have to go willingly, and you cannot shout or scream. Just go peacefully, and cooperate. Most of the time, you will not get hurt (though it can happen), and most importantly, when the cameras are on you, you will look like someone who is willing to get arrested for their cause. In most cases, if you have truly not broken any laws, charges will be dropped. Many protestors get arrested multiple times at different protests without getting hurt, and without being charged. Sure, some people did get charged, and paid fines or served jail time, but the point is that public sympathy is increased by observing protestors that aren't acting rowdy.

(8) Realize that we're not living in a dictatorship.

Too many protestors are looking to start a violent revolution. Many people, particularly anarchists and communists, have wet dreams of fighting police in the streets, throwing Molotov cocktails, and chasing frightened cops through the streets as smoke and bullets fly. These people should be weeded out and effectively banned from the group as soon as they are discovered. They often have the ability to incite the crowd, as they did at UC Davis. These people are not about non-violent, civil disobedience. These people are about violent clashes with authority.

In a dictatorship, police do not have to follow rules of conduct, and are known for getting away with atrocities. America is nowhere near being a Dictatorship. Cops have to follow strict rules of engagement, and can be publicly punished for violating rules and laws. Though lots of people keep claiming that we're turning into a fascist police state, the fact is that we haven't nearly gotten to that point at all yet. Cops can still be tried and imprisoned for their behavior, and regularly do. If we were a fascist dictatorship, cops would rarely be tried for crimes committed while wearing their badges. Yet we see it every day -- cops get reprimanded sent to prison for bad behavior, criminal activity, and violating the rights of those whom they arrest.

Now go out there and protest like civilized people.
Using these rules will not guaranty a perfect protest, but it will get you closer to being effective at spreading your message and garnering the sentiment of the public. There will always be those who will pooh-pooh your movement. There will never be 100%public support for your movement; no movements are accepted by 100% of any population. What is important is that your message be clear, be consistent, and be rational. Protestors need to be wrangled effectively to ensure uniformity of goals. Laws need to be obeyed, officers respected, and you have to be willing to get arrested for your cause, if it comes to that. To be effective at protesting, you have to be respectable, rational, and realistic.

An Open letter to Anonymous and others who organize the Occupy Movement

2011-11-17T10:01:00.001-08:00

Dear Occupy organizers and Anonymous,

I wholeheartedly support your movement, but there are serious mistakes being made, and I wish to address them here. There is a big difference between successful non-violent protesting, and what is going on around America. Successful non-violent protesting has traditionally been when a bunch of people simply show up and (mostly) silently, POLITELY, and passively make their presence and minds known. Classic non-violent protests, such as those done by Martin Luther King and Ghandi, did not involve drumming, partying, yelling, smoking pot, and behaving like... a bunch of teenagers on a wild rampage.

What I see the Occupy movements in Boston, New York, Oakland, and elsewhere, is that there are plenty of people in the group who clearly have a different idea of what non-violent peaceful protest is about. Some young kids think it's party-time. They play loud music, and frolic like drunken ninnies. Many people take the opportunity to protest as though it's some big celebration of themselves. They lack the discepline, knowledge, and character to conduct themselves in an appropriate and proper way. They are loud, boisterous, and sometimes appear dirty and angry.

Of course, it doesn't help that too many of the other people are so passive and so laid back, that they just let unrully individuals get away with rude, noisy behavior and drug use. This is the biggest problem -- those who want to be involved with the group and it's goals, but who don't want to get involved with keeping up appearances and ousting people who don't play well with others. This is what delegitimized the Tea party movement -- there were only small amounts of openly racist, crazy people at the rallies, and the majority of Tea Partiers POLITELY IGNORED THEM. They should have ousted them, and told them they were not welcome. If they did, they would not have appeared to be harboring racism.

In Martin Luther King's era, Civil Rights marchers dressed in their interview suits and Sunday best clothing, and marched with dignity. They were well-dressed, well-behaved, and well-spoken. This meant that when police took nefarious action against them, it would appear, and rightly so, that well-mannered ladies and gentlemen were attacked and bloodied by thugs.

By contrast, the less-organized rabble that seems to make up the occupy movement is made up of dirty hippies, hippie-wannabes, grungers, and stoners. Even some of the organizers of the Occupy movement admit that these people are not wanted, or at least, less appreciated.

Please organize yourselves better. Have a code of conduct that all participants must follow, OR ELSE. The "Or Else" should be understood as "Or Else we will kick you out and/or report you to the police if you don't behave."

I have read that the Occupy Wall Street organizers have raised millions of dollars. What is this money being used for? Why not use the money to rent or purchase a building near the event, which can be used as a base-camp to feed, shelter, and provide sanitary facilities to the participants, hence no need for an unsightly shanty-town? This would be a great way of avoiding the use of partially private, partially public land, as well as allegations of unhealthy, unsanitary conditions.

Perhaps the money can be used to hire some internal security personnel, who will police the group from within, and ensure that undesireable people or badly-behaved people are dealt with, and that people follow the rules laid down by the organizers. The most important thing for a non-violent peaceful protest to succeed is for the entire group to be unified in their conduct and appearance. If you look like a bunch of hippies and scalliwags, you will not have the impact or the sympathy when the cops get ugly.

Which leads me to my final point -- when the cops get ugly. If you can be made to run away when the cops intimidate you, and it's easy to arrest you and throw you into the police van, you will not succeed. In foreign countries, the protestors actively fight back against the police, use improvised armor and weapons, and many times indimidate the police to the point that the police run away.

Why not invest some of the money made in a basic riot survival kit for participants? Give out gas masks, protective sports padding (Football helmets, shoulder pads, shin pads), and non-lethal weapons (a boxing-glove on the end of a pole is humorous and effective) to the people who face the cops on the front lines. Have them make and use full-body shields. Teach them basic Phalanx, wedge, and flanking tactics to make it difficult for the cops to single out and hurt individuals. The idea is defense. If the cops think it will be easy to rush the crowd and beat people up, they will. If they try, and are effectively held back, they will think twice about it. The key here is to make it hard for cops to bust up the group, while giving those protestors who are not in for a fight, the chance to escape and avoid being victims. A wall of well-padded, well-trained individuals, committed to holding back violence until it is no longer possible, will make a bolder statement than any cops with tear gas can.

GOP has a problem with simple facts.

2011-06-15T11:12:00.000-07:00

If anything is clear from the recent CNN Republican debate, it's that the whole group of GOP candidates, apart from Mitt Romney, are idiots, Homophobes, and Islamophobes, who know nothing about the US Constitution, and who buy into the Christian Fundamentalist Dominionism mythology about America's founders wanting to make America Exclusively Christian.

Herman Cain, When asked about his comment that he would feel uncomfortable having a Muslim in his administration, snapped "I would not be comfortable because you have peaceful Muslims and then you have militant Muslims — those that are trying to kill us, and so when I said I wouldn't be comfortable, I was thinking about the ones who are trying to kill us." Of course, this doesn't take into account all the American-born Christians who have been trying to kill us, but I digress.

Cain also explained that he does not support Sharia law in American courts. "I believe in American laws in American courts, period." He, as well as several other candidates like Rick "I am not a homophobic bigot" Santorum and Tim "I'm not a homophobic bigot, either" Pawlenty, don't seem to realize that there is no Shariah Law practiced by any US Government angency. It's a completely made up fear, and the Republicans are treating it as though it's a legitimate threat.

Is Herman Cain for real? First of all, he's an African American Republican. That tells you what an idiot he is from the start, because he is willing to ignore over 75 years of overt racism on the part of the Republican party, such as the infamous "Southern Strategy", where the party deliberately created fear of black people in white southerners, to frighten them into thinking that the Democratic Party was out to take their rights away and give black people special priviledges. This overtly racist strategy is still used in much of the country, in spite of the GOP apologizing for it back in 2005.

Herman Cain previously mentioned that he would only allow Muslims to run for public office if they took a special oath, which he also said would not have to be given to Christian or Jewish candidates, because they can be trusted. This essentially amounts to a religious test for public office. Cain also just weeks ago was holding up his little copy of the US Constitution, proclaiming that every American needs to read it and know what's in it. Too bad he said that. Now we get to see what a true retard the guy is. Article 6, section 3, of the U.S. Constitution, specifically states that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." Apparently, Caine hasn't finished reading up on his Constitution yet.

Mitt Romney was the only candidate who managed to say something intelligent about this issue. He said, in response to Cain, "We recognize that the people of all faiths are welcome in this country... Our nation was founded on a principle of religious tolerance. That's in fact why some of the early patriots came to this country and we treat people with respect regardless of their religious persuasion."

Tim Pawlenty, who runs on a platform of Homophobia and Islamophobia, erroneously commented "The protections between the separation of church and state were designed to protect people of faith from government, not government from people of faith." Well, he got it half right. The Constitution works BOTH WAYS. It protects individual religious freedoms from government intrusion, but it also prevents government from being controlled by a religious majority.

But Tim went on to reveal what a true ignoramus he is, by saying "This is a country that in our founding documents says we're a nation that's founded under God, and the privileges and blessings that we have are from our creator… The Founding Fathers understood that the blessings that we have as a nation come from our creator and we should stop and say thanks and express gratitude for that. I embrace that." Too bad it's utter nonsense. None of our founding documents, especially the United States Constitution, say that in any sense.

Right wing Christian Fundamentalists wish that "The Pledge Of Aligience" was more than just a stupid ritual that entered into America's culture as reaction to fears of Communism. They wish that "under God" was part of our founding documents, and keep asserting that the nation was founded on Biblical Principles. Nothing is further from the truth. The problem with this retarded theory of Christian Dominionism is that it has one thing standing in it's way -- inconvenient facts, such as the texts of our Nation's founding documents, and the quotes from our founding fathers themselves. They are so concerned with avoiding the pesky facts of US History and pushing their mythology, that they not only make up their own facts, but they even write books with bogus quotes from the founding fathers.

Here's a little test you can all perform. All you need is a text file of the United States Constitution. Search the text of the Constitution for the following words -- (1) God, (2) Jesus, (3) Christ, (4) Faith. You do not find God, Christ, Jesus, or Faith at all in the Constitution. One word you do find is "lord", but it is only in the context of a figure of speech "In the year of our Lord..." which was an official, British legal way of announcing the date. In no way does the single appearance of "Lord" in our constitution refer to how government is run. The single reference simply announces that a group of named people were present at the signing of the Constitution "in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven". If our founding fathers were religious, and sought to create a particularly religious nation based on Christian principles, their most basic founding documents, The Declaration Of Independence, and The Constitution Of the United States Of America, which establishes how our nation is set up to run, is pretty empty of religious language. In fact, apart from the first Amendment, Article 6, section 3, is the only other place in the constitution where religion is even mentioned, and it's not very friendly to the idea of America being a nation of religious exclusivity.

You can even try this text search on the The Declaration Of Independence, too. Apart from "Endowed By Their Creator", there is no other religious language in the document. Why all the GOP candidates are spending so much energy pushing this ridiculous mythology about America, is because they really believe that their votes depend on the nation's Jesus-Freaks. They are willing to push marginal and bogus views, promote psuedohistory, and lie to get elected, because they really believe that they can't get elected without catering to Religious Nut-jobs. This strategy will fail as soon as one interviewer challenges their assertions on the subject. All it takes is one setup question, asking the candidates if they believe that the constitution promotes Christian Values, then after they give their positive answer, all the interviewer needs to do is hit them with inconvenient facts, like the text of the Constitution and actual quotes from it's writers. They will fall all over themselves trying to explain things.

Workplace Pre-Employment Drug Screenings

2011-05-24T09:05:00.001-07:00

One of the legacies of the Reagan Era that has been the most aggravating for workers, as well as a waste of time, money, and manpower, has been the Drug Free Workplace Act of 1988. This act, and the tax breaks that companies get for participating in it, is a waste of money. The anti-drug hysteria of 1980s conservatism was just that -- a hysteria. It's always been an irrational fear of people who smoke pot, based on delusions pushed on people by conservatives and religious nuts.

I've had several jobs since 1988, and each one of them required a pre-employment drug screening. Now, I don't do drugs, and have nothing to hide from taking these tests, but every time I take them, it's a hassle. I've had to wait in lines for long periods, often having to really go bad, because I made sure I had plenty to drink. On one occasion, the people administring the tests were just kids who passed a course at one of those quickie learning centers, and they made mistakes, forcing me to pee a second time. Then, on one memorable occasion, I arrived at the location given to me by the employer, and the place was closed -- as in out of business. They sent me on an all day-trip looking for a bunch of clinics on their extremely out-dated list, each one of which was either no longer a diagnostics place, or which had moved. By the time I got to the last clinic on their list, and found it open, I was in serious pain from holding my pee all day, and I had to wait another hour before I could take the test.

It's aggravating that anyone should have to go through this just to get a job, and just so that your employer can get a tax break, paid for by your taxes, for this utter nonsense.

I call it nonsense, because almost nobody is ever failed on these tests, and often times, you can re-test. Also -- there are plenty of tried-and-true methods for passing on a test, which allow many people to cheat the system. Anyone can carry clean pee with them in a bag. As long as testing allows you to have privacy in the rest room, anyone can cheat by bringing someone else's clean pee in a catheter bag. If employers and government REALLY wanted to test for drugs effectively, they would use Hair, blood, and tissue tests, which are far more accurate, and which few people could cheat on.

Pre-employment drug screenings are a political test. It's basically an employer's or governemnt's way of placing you in a box that says "This person is unpatriotic, liberal, or some kind of trouble-maker". It's obviously not about safety, because if it were, they would want to screen for psychiatric drugs, rather than recreational ones. See, there have been far more workplace safety issues -- and annoying little workplace killing sprees -- attributed to doctor-prescribed psychiatric medication than to marijuana or methamphetamines.

If the government and employers REALLY wanted to test people for drugs that were actually a danger to workers and management, they SHOULD be screening people for Prosac, Zoloft, and Paxil, all of which have such wonderful side-effects as Suicidal tendencies, and other psychotic mood swings .

The term "Going postal" was coined after several well-publicized incidents of post-office killing sprees, perpetrated by people who were on Prosac or other doctor-prescribed antidepressants. It would make far more sense for workplaces to screen people for Prosac to keep us safe from potential killing sprees. Call it discrimination against the mentally ill, but am I wrong for not wanting to work around head-cases who will annoy me with their drama, or have breakdowns for whatever reason, or who might flip out and go on a killing Spree? I do not discriminate against race, creed, color, sex, or sexuality, but I do not believe I am wrong for discriminating against psychos.

If I was going to work somewhere, I'd prefer to work around potheads, than to work around fragile-emotioned potential psychopaths who might forget a few doses of their meds, then come to work with a duffel bag full of guns and ammo. Besides, apart from being mostly harmless while under the influence, potheads will make me look like a much better worker, because they'd be high, goofing around, and well, acting like potheads, while I was actually doing my job. Of course, this is pure fantasy -- the government's own statistics show that people who smoke pot often work just as efficiently as non-pot smokers, but I digress.

Don't keep potheads out of jobs -- keep psychotic people out of jobs, until they can be cured or controlled of their illness. How many people will have to die in workplace-related violence before government realizes that people with serious psychotic disorders are far more dangerous than someone who smokes weed occasionally.

WWW.WEIRDCRAP.COM Still Lives!

2011-05-17T06:45:00.001-07:00

Just a reminder to all those who still like my old website, www.weirdcrap.com... The site is still up. For a few weeks, I had not visited it, and then I got an email from someone asking me if it was the end. I went to the site, and found PORN! This was no surprise, as my Brother-in-law runs a porn site off of the server that he hosts from. I had a free space on it, and several times, when he upgraded the software or the hardware, my site went kablooey, because he moved folders around, or settings had been set back to defaults.

So I decided to just move over to my own domain, and well, after delay after delay, I did it. It's back up, and well -- it was never gone, really. The files are still on my brother-in-law's server. I re-pointed the www.weirdcrap.com domain to a new host, and now the site is back, and nobody can screw it up but me.

Have fun!

Who's politicizing Bin Laden's death?

2011-05-06T13:25:00.000-07:00

So I'm looking on my Facebook page and I see someone writing the following:

Let’s be clear on this: OBAMA did NOT kill Bin Laden!
OBAMA did NOT kill Bin Laden. An American soldier, who Obama, just a few weeks ago was debating on whether or not to PAY, did. Obama just happened to be the one in office when our soldiers finally found OBL and took him out. This is NOT an Obama victory, but an AMERICAN victory!!

I commented that this idiot was essentially doing a cut and paste, and that right-wing blogs have been putting that same comment up everywhere. Of course, the idiot denied it, claiming that it was their own opinion, not something grabbed from some teabagger website. So I did a search for the comments, and found about 400 hits of the IDENTICAL wording.

Why bother lying about something like that?

The irrational cut-and-paste teabaggers don't even realize that using their own logic, Bin Laden shouldn't take credit for the World Trade Center bombing, because he didn't actually do it himself. So why did we bother to go after him?

Of course, I don't buy that kind of illogical crap. President Obama deserves as much credit for this as Ronald Reagan was given for the fall of communism. The difference, of course, is that unlike Reagan, Obama was intimately involved in the planning of the operation; Reagan just said "tear down this wall", after Gorbachev had already begun the process of transforming his country from Communism into something resembling a democracy.

Why does Obama deserve credit for what a soldier did? Well, why does Bin Laden get credit for destroying the world trade Center? Easy -- Obama, before he was elected, said he would make the capture or killing of Bin Laden a priority. He also enacted several policy changes that directly led to the killing.

* First, he ended enhanced interrogation, and went back to the old proven style of interrogation that the CIA used before George W. Bush took office.

* Second, he actually LISTENED to his military advisors, who had been telling his predicessor that the Pakistani government was giving aid to Bin Laden, and stopped sharing intelligence with the Pakistani government.

* Third, he gave orders for intelligence officers to not engage targets, and to simply gather information, follow people, until we have actual proof of Bin Laden's location.

* Lastly, he gave the orders, after intelligence officials had shown him, the pentagon, and the intelligence community the evidence, to plan for the raid.

The level of intimate involvement that the President had in the details of the raid was far more than what George W. Bush did when he went in to Afghanistan back in 2001. There simply is no way to take credit away from President Obama without being inconsistant.

If it were not for Obama, we probably would have given up on Finding Bin Laden, just as George Bush ad done in 2002, when he said "I don't know where Bin Laden is, and I don't care..."

Republicans and Democrats: Is one worse than the other?

2011-02-05T17:09:00.000-08:00

Many people (well, nearly always conservatives and Tea-bagger types) often claim that “Republicans and Democrats are all the same” when it comes to dirty politics. The usual claim (often riding off a discussion of a Republican being caught doing ill deeds), is that The Democrats are just as bad, and that it doesn't matter if it was a Republican or a Democrat -- both groups are equal in terms of their slime factor.

Is this claim true? Are they really just as bad?

After some simple (and even after more thorough) research, you will have to agree with me that not only is it NOT true, but that there simply is no comparison to the level of slime in the Republican party versus the Democratic Party.

Let’s start with the worst examples of Republican abuses against the people of the USA.

Nixon:

Claimed presidential powers that did not exist
Watergate was the attempt by Nixon and his staff to rig the elections.
The white house tapes revealed that Nixon also was trying to prevent Jewish people from public office and being appointed as court judges.
The Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP) and the Plumbers worked on ways to manufacture phony scandals to defame democrats, as well as engaged in illegal gangster-style money-laundering.
Anti-Semitism and overt racism was Rampant in Nixon’s white house.
Nixon and his staff openly discussed how to assassinate certain democratic members of congress and news reporters.
Nixon’s staff contained over 40 people who were convicted of federal crimes.

All of the above is very well documented and reported on. There is no conjecture about it. The facts are part of the official Government investigation, the Nixon Library, and the Library of Congress.

Which Democratic President did anything even resembling the above? I’d certainly love to hear who the Democratic equal of Nixon is, because as far as I can tell, no Democratic President in the 20th century has even come close to the Nixon record.

The Republican “Southern Strategy”:

The Southern Strategy was the Republican party’s way of gaining Southern white votes by creating fear of black people. The Policy was overtly racist.
When the Democratic Party split over the Civil Rights Amendment, and hundreds of Southern Democrats left the party as it promoted the Civil Rights Act, the Republican Party Welcomed them with open arms.
In 2005, The Republican party actually apologized for this racist strategy in an attempt to get black voters in the party.

Now a true believer in the Republican party would obviously defend his party by either denying the racism that oozes from the party, or they will try to suggest that Democrats do the same thing, except they use the fear and hatred that black voters have for white people. Some might fall for this desperation ploy, but name one democrat running for office who ever told black voters that they were going to “keep whitey down” or “punish the white man for racism”. It simply doesn’t happen, and the republicans who use this tactic to try to say that democrats are just as racist, only in reverse, fail to address the fact that historically, Republicans have been against the civil rights act, and tend to oppose laws that attempt to ensure civil liberties.

Ronald Reagan:

Reagan made a deal with Terrorists to give them weapons in exchange for Hostages. He also allowed South American drug lords to import illegal drugs into the country (with military escorts), and the money from the sale of the drugs went to purchase arms for the Contra rebels, a CIA-created group used to terrorize Nicaragua, which was a democratic nation.
Reagan’s staff contained over 138 people who were convicted of federal crimes.

Have any Democratic Presidents ever done that?

George W. Bush:

Where to begin? How about the establishment of “free speech zones” to avoid letting the news media see protestors?
The Gulf war has been analyzed in detail, and it’s no mere conjecture that Bush and his staff invented the reasons to go to war, and invented lies to support them – it’s documented fact.
Bush fired 12 lawyers because they were doing their job the correct way, instead of taking direct orders from Bush to start investigations designed to defame Democratic critics of the President.
Bush stuffed the military full of private advisors and military contractors, which increased the cost of using the military by 1000% or more in some cases. Work traditionally done by enlisted men is now performed by private contractors who cost hundreds of times more ($200/hour versus less than minimum wage for enlisted troops).
Bush’s white house endangered the life of one of our CIA officers in order to get revenge against her husband who was openly critical of the administration.

What have Democratic presidents done that’s anything like that?

When one takes all of this – the big overall picture substantiated by historical facts – and asks “how do the Democrats compare”, the answer is a resounding “There is no comparison!” The Democrats simply do not have any record as a whole of the kind of civil rights-violating criminal activity, arrests, convictions, and jail time that the republicans do. You may be able to find some democrats engaging in mudslinging, and other questionable activities each election season, but the Republican Party tends to commit criminal acts and behave like mobsters by comparison.

Bill Clinton is often used as an example of someone who was “as bad as Nixon”, but the Lewinsky scandal was no abuse of federal power, and was no attempt to violate citizen’s rights. In fact, Conservative opponents of Clinton had to pretty much make up phony scandals to make Clinton look bad. The Whitewater Investigation cost us millions of dollars, and was nothing more than Republicans trying to bog Clinton down in a phony scandal. When all was said and done, Whitewater only revealed that Clinton was the victim of an illegal land deal by Jim Mcdougal. Jerry Falwell, and other members of what I like to call “the Criminally insane branch of the right wing”, even invented a “hit list” of people that Clinton allegedly has murdered to keep them from testifying against him in the Whitewater hearings. When the list is examined, though, most of the people on it are still alive.

We can even see this desire to invent artificial scandal against democrats today, as media pundit after media pundit goes on the air and rather than talk about what President Obama HAS DONE, talk about what his COULD DO or MIGHT DO.

Anyone saying that the democrats and republicans are alike is simply wrong. Comparing the Democrats to the Republicans is like comparing school children to the mafia. The Republicans are far worse,far more criminal, and have a long history of racism and criminal prosecutions that the Democrats haven’t even come close to matching.

Celebrating the Confederacy is like Germans Celebrating Hitler's Birthday

2010-12-21T14:08:00.000-08:00

So, I was looking at the new video recommendations on my YouTube account, and one of the videos was Southern Secession and the Liberal Mind by a writer I've sometimes agreed with named The Southern Avenger. Whereas I've agreed many times with him in the past on his analysis of various political issues, this video blog of his could not be more wrong, more ugly, and just so full of the ignorance of the American Civil War, that it's just not funny.

In his video, he explains that northerners who criticize southern celebrations of confederate heroes, or loving remembrances of the Confederacy are ignorant of the "heritage" of the country, and do not appreciate how Southerners feel about their history. My brief description won't do justice to the full video, but in essence, he defends people who have "confederate pride" as simply historically informed individuals who don't want us to forget our history.

That is why he is wrong. Every argument with people who celebrate the south's part in the civil war eventually gets to the mention of slavery. If you argue the civil war with any of these confederate pride types, one of the first arguments that you will hear is that "Slavery wasn't quite as nasty as it was made out to be... You need to realize that the winners of the war got to write the history... The war was about unfair taxes, not about slavery..."

All of these arguments were promoted in the above video, but I've heard them before from other people. The people who make these arguments are just wrong, and they are wrong because they are not informed by history. The irony is that the very writings of Jefferson Davis betray the notion that the war wasn't about slavery. The Confederate papers, The Constitution of the Confederacy, and the writings of the leaders of the confederacy are very weak on taxes and economic issues, and verbose on slavery and abolitionists.

The reason that the people who celebrate the confederacy always have to avoid the issue of Slavery, and try to downplay it by lying about it's role in the war is simple. If it were not for slavery, there would never have been a civil war, and in order to make the confederacy more palatable to people who actually appreciate freedom, the ugly side of the confederacy has to be covered up, and more emphasis must me made on the alleged conservative and family values of the people who were called Confederates. Unfortunately, in doing this, historical facts are forgotten, propaganda is used, and the Southerners showing pride in their beloved history end up being more like Germans who try to celebrate the Nazis as a cherished part of their national heritage.

Yeah, I used the N word. Tough! I know that it's usually the death knell for an argument, but hear me out, because it will all make sense when my article is complete.

The writings of the Confederacy

Take the address to the confederacy that Jefferson Davis gave at Montgomery on April 29, 1861. You will note that the words, "Tax" and "Tariff" do not appear at all, nor does any language pertaining to money or finance. What does appear frequently, however, is "slavery". The entire speech is all about slavery and it's preservation. The rest of the speech concerns preparing for war against the north, which destroys the idea that the Confederacy was seeking peaceful coexistence, and trying to avoid war.

If Secession was not about racism or slavery, then why would Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens have written "Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth."? (From his Cornerstone speech, March 21, 1861)

If Secession was not about Slavery, then why would the constitution of the Confederacy, as well as the constitutions of Confederate states like Alabama, look pretty much just like the Constitution of the United States, with the only real differences being sections that protect slavery, and prohibit emancipation of slaves by the government?

The reality of "State's Rights"

To really grasp the utter idiocy of modern people defending the honor of the south and the Confederacy, let's look at the reality behind the so-called "State's Rights". As we know, State's Rights was the argument that the south used as a reason for breaking away from the Union. We also heard this "State's Rights" argument rear itself during the civil rights era, personified in the likes of former Alabama Governor George Wallace. Modern supporters of the confederacy will often still refer to States Rights when arguing for more respect for southern pride and the preservation of southern heritage (respecting the confederacy).

What kind of things constituted the rights that states were asking for? Essentially, the reality of state's rights seems to be that a state should be allowed to violate the rights of minorities and people whose views are less popular than the views of white protestant conservative Christians. I reach this conclusion by simply looking at the things that the south has traditionally done in defiance of the north.

When your state wants to allow guys in white sheets to murder black people or white people who help them, and not prosecute any of them, that's your state's right.
When your state wants to allow lynchings, and willfully obstructs the federal government from conducting a criminal investigation of a lynching, that's your state's right.
When your state wants to prevent black people from enrolling in college to get an education, and your governor personally blocks the way to the admissions office to stop black people from enrolling in a state college, which their family's tax dollars paid for, that's your state's right.
When your state wants to segregate black people and white people the way that Saudi Arabia and Iran segregate men and women in their society, that's your state's right.
When your state's public buildings and many businesses have 3 types of restrooms -- men, women and "black", which both black men and women have to share, that's your state's right.
When your state gerrymanders voting districts so that black neighborhoods deliberately have poorer representation (or no representation), that's your state's right.
When your state actively prevents black voters from voting, by having different standards that apply only to black voters, that's your state's right.
When your state allows a 14-year-old black boy to be abducted in broad daylight with plenty of eyewitnesses, then be beaten to death beyond recognition by his well-known abductors, and the trial of his killers is manipulated so that they not only get away with it, but boast of their guilt afterward, and still go unpunished, that's your state's right.
When your state allows a church to be bombed, which kills four young children, and local law enforcement doesn't cooperate with the FBI's investigation, and it takes decades for the killers to be arrested and prosecuted, that's your state's right.

That's the stark reality of so-called state's rights. It's just a smokescreen for saying what, in plain English, would be too ugly to admit -- that you want states to be allowed to violate the constitutional rights of certain groups of citizens, plain and simple. Whenever you hear the phrase "state's rights" being bandied about by the jokers who are arguing for revision on the civil war, or trying to white-wash the racist history of America, just tell them that you understand, and fling a few of the above bullet-points at them. If it doesn't leave them speechless, it will certainly provoke their anger, and soon enough, their inner Klansman will become too obvious.

The NFL Saves Boobies

2010-10-10T10:21:00.000-07:00

My girlfriend is a Football fan, so this Sunday morning, she was surfing the television for games to watch, and noticed something weird. All the players on the channel she stopped to watch either had pink wristbands, pink chinguards, pink socks, pink shoes, or a combination of several of these things. Then, she changed the channel, and there were two totally different teams, with scattered patches of pink on their persons. She changed the channel, and there were more pink-speckled Football players from yet two more teams. This was such an astounding and strange thing that she had to call me over to be an eyewitness, or to at least let her know that she wasn't hallucinating. It was like suddenly, the most manly sport on TV had gone all metro-sexual. I didn't notice that the cheerleaders were using pink pom-poms, probably because that's normal for women.

My reaction was "WTF?!"

"It's breast cancer awareness month," she said. Now something made sense. But this was still a ridiculous event to watch. In my liberal anti-corporate mind, I thought of the scene from Office Space, where a chain-restaurant manager chews out a female employee for not wearing enough flair on her uniform (Flair is decorations, usually on pin-on buttons, which are worn on work uniforms to advertise or put slogans into customers' heads). I pictured the corporate owners of the NFL standing their players and coaches and other workers in line, and saying something like "Now Mr. Jones, who writes a lot of our paychecks, has made a lot of donations to various funds for breast-cancer research, and wants you all to show him that we're all behind his favorite cause..."

Then I realized that this was football. I then considered how the pitch was most likely made. "You all like boobies... at least most men do. Boobies are great. But boobies are in danger from cancer, and Well, we all need to help save the boobies so that we can continue to enjoy them, and so your sons can enjoy them when they grow up." Following that, players began to discuss how they were going to show support. "I like squeezing boobies with my hands, so I'm gonna wear pink gloves!" "I like putting them in my mouth, so I'm wearing a pink chinstrap and mouth-guard!" Nobody understood the guy who decided to wear pink shoes, though...

I wouldn't be making fun of this if it wasn't made so painfully obvious that it's breast cancer awareness month, and that the NFL was supporting it. It's like the whole NFL decided that a freak show was the way to show support for Breast cancer. They somehow need to make their support look as visible as possible. Someone must have convinced them that merely donating money and holding a press conference to announce their donation was not enough, and that pink shoes and gloves were a much better way to do it. It's just such a totally American thing to do, too -- make a painfully-obvious, overly-overt, visual demonstration of your stance -- Wave a flag, paint your face, shout a slogan, be a walking, talking advertisement, so that nobody could possibly misunderstand you... or take you seriously.

The Tea Party: Stupid, White, Racist and All American... And damn proud of it!

2010-04-02T17:56:00.000-07:00

I recently spent a few days conversing with the retards that call themselves the Tea Party. I learned many fascinating factoids from them. For example, did you know that President Obama is following the exact same path that Hitler did to taking over Nazi Germany? Did you know that Nazis are actually liberals/, because National Socialism contains the word Socialism, and that means that they were closer to being liberal communists? Did you know that Obama and the liberal left are out to kill off all the old people, the disabled, and have already taken over 50% of the nation's economy? Were you aware that the Health Care Bill recently passed by Obama and the House, is a socialist takeover of the healthcare system?

All of these interesting factoids were bandied about by people who really knew what they were talking about. They got their information from the most trusted news and information sources -- Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and other Pundits. Not one of the people I talked with had any need to read what was in the health care bill -- Their favorite pundits simply knew what was in it, and they didn't read it, themelves, either. It seems that all of the amazing facts about Obama and the Health care reform bill did not get sourced at all from the text of the bill, or from anything that the democrats said. After all, going right to the source text of the bill itself would be a futile effort, you see, because everyone knows that the democrats wouldn't let us read what the bill is really about. So the actual text of the bill is "hidden", and what we get to see is a phoney bill that looks all nice and non-theatening, when we go to the Government's website.

My encounter with these geniuses from the Tea Party started when I started hearing news on TV and radio about the Tea Party's reaction to the bill's passing. Many people were accusing the Tea Party of being racists. African American senators, like John Lewis (D, Georgia), were called niggers and spat upon by angry protestors. This was witnessed by Capital Hill police officers, who arrested some of the protestors for assault. I went to You Tube, and searched for videos and found this.

I also found a series of videos and slide shows that showed images of signs carried at Tea Party Rallies. but the above video sort of encapsulates it all very well. I made a couple of comments, and went away to do work.

Then the email started pouring in. Apparently, I angered a few Tea party people, and we soon started discussing things. From my years of dealing with right wing luantics and religious nut-jobs, as evidenced in my blog, I've learned a few things about how these people think and where they get their facts, and I basically presented them with a few messages to confirm that they were the same kinds of retards that I usually deal with on the far right. I actually have a couple of friends who are tea party members. We don't talk much about politics, but I occasionally hear a few things that suggest that they have far-right views which would make them less friendly if we had any honest discussion on actual issues, and I pointed out actual facts to them, which clash with their insane political beliefs. I also have a similar problem with most of my family -- a white Irish Catholic family who all moved into the boondocks and became avid fans of Fox News. One thing I know about both family and tea party friends is that underneath their hatred and anger is a deep seated racism. My dad and brothers have been using the "N" word (you know, "Nigger") since I was a kid.

Whenever far right wingers discuss "how America is being ruined", they almost instantly and automatically invoke Illegal Immigrants and Black people, with occasional references to Jews. The Sub-prime Mortgage Crisis that started a couple of years ago, for example, was blamed by many right wing pundits, on illegal immigrants. There's a good reasn that Illegal Immigrants can't be the cause of the mortgage crisis, though. No lending institution would risk lending to someone who is not documented. It is virtually impossible for anyone that entered the country illegally to get a loan from a bank, because the first thing they get asked is if they are US citizens, and for a social security number. There were a lot of hispanics involved in the sub-prime crisis, but not illegal ones. See, in the bizarro world of the far right, hispanic = illegal alien. When I mention my hispanic co-workers in conversation with my right wing parents, for example, the first question out of their mouths is "Are they illegal immigrants?"

The discussion inevitably turns to comparisons to Nazis, Communists, socialists, and monsters of all types. One of the dumbest statements that I keep hearing from far right wingers, religious nuts, and Tea Party People is that Democrats are just like Nazis. This is an interesting thing, because Nazis were right wingers, historically, and democrats are left wingers. In the bizarro world of neoconservatives, though, words are redefined and turned topsy-turvey. You will always hear these Teabaggers say "Nazi is a concatenation of National Socialism" (Sorry, they would never use a big word like "concatenation", much less spell it correctly), therefore, the Nazis were socialists, therefore they were liberals.

Even if you try to explain it to them, they will pooh-pooh all the actual facts you give them and write you a strange revisionist history. For Example:

"actually the Nazi's were Socialists, the word Nazi stood for National Socialist Party or Nat'i Nazi' for short. Obama, an admitted Communist and currently acting Socialist embraces Socialist ideals. He has seized the banks, industry, and spent tax payer dollars faster than all the Presidents combined in the last CENTURY. He and his party have destroyed this country inside of two years."
"You are wrong! If you studied Nazism you would find that a leader comes in promises the moon takes of the country and turns it into Nazism Germany."

I love hearing this crap from the far right, because there is no source, except for possibly Conservapedia, that will back up their version of the facts. Let's do a short comparison of Nazis, Republicans, and Democrats, to see who is closer.

Republicans:

Democrats:

Liberal Ideology
Generally not favorable toward militarism, big business, or religion
Supports homosexuals
Pluralistic (Not pro or anti any particular religion)

Nazis:

Conservative Ideology
Supported by the far right (Military, business, Church)
Anti-Homosexual
Promoted Christianity

I'm talking about facts that virtually all history books, in any country will agree on. It's only these far right people saying that nazis were liberals. No actual historical experts will make that claim. When you do not properly source your information, and just uncritically take the words of a pundit that you like, for granted, you make yourself intellectually lazy. It's just dumb to never bother to check facts.

What's even more annoying is their claim that republicans and conservatives in general, as well as the tea party, are not racist. Really? Perhaps the reason that there are so few African American people and Jews in the republican party is that there's just too many white people crowding them out. Yeah, yeah, that must be it. There must be a good explanation why African American Republicans have dwindled from nearly 20% in the 1950s to just under 10% today.

Perhaps the problem is that the Republican party has not really tried to reach out African Americans, and often treats African American members as second-class party members. Perhaps most conservative white people in the USA are still resentful of the civil rights act of 1964, and fearful of black skinned people because most cop shows portray them as gangsters.

Or perhaps most conservative white people really are just racists deep down inside. After all, you can still hear the occaisional rant against Jews being uttered by Christian Fundamentalists. I've documented that here, here, here, here, and here.

Conservatives have a real problem with their way of expressing themselves, because a lot of what they have to say concerning race, religion, science, history, and other topics show a fundamental lack of actual knowledge of the subjects, but also are explained by them rather sloppily and insensitively. I mean, take a look at this article by Pat Buchanan written on the eve of President Obama's victory. I mean the guy literally says that slavery was the best thing that ever happened to African Americans! He may have meant well, but it came out like a stream of steaming liquid-crap; They have a way of complimenting and cherishing African Americans that comes off more like fear and loathing dressed up in an evening gown.

Now to the subject of whether or not the Tea party is Racist. They are not, by definition. Their Party's description of it's values clearly make it just a conservative anti-tax group. However, the rhetoric of their speakers and some of their supporters is most definitely racist. This is due to poor policing by the group's leadership. Instead of telling the people who attend their rallies with guns and confederate flags or racist slogans to please go away, they have embraced them, because they care more about the bottom-line -- membership numbers and donations. It's their own undoing. The leadership of the party has done nothing to discourage the racists in their membership, and it comes off to us as a sort of passive approval of racists. Perhaps the best way to illustrate the membership's attitude towards racists is to show you these two video clips. This first clip clearly shows idiots with racist signs and comments being allowed to be part of the rally, and there is no criticism of them from the rest of the group. This video clearly shows a man doing nothing but holding a sign up that says "Public Option Now", and he is chased, has objects thrown at him, and required 6 cops to keep the angry crowd from beating him up. in short, they behave like a mob of Brown-Shirts.

That the Tea Party would not even question the racists, but chase the guy with the pro-healthcare reform slogan away, is very telling of the makeup of the group. More telling than their official position as stated on their website. The membership does have a large degree of racists in it. The party's platform, as stated, is not racist -- The leadership and the members are simply morons, as you can clearly see in the clips. The ideas promoted by the party are simplistic and idiotic. It's no wonder that they're being shown for what they are.

After a long, long pause...

2009-06-23T11:52:00.000-07:00

Sorry I haven't added anything for a while.

I've been excessively busy both at work and home, as well as socially, and simply haven't had much time to write. I'll try to get some regular posting done in the future. For now, though... Back to work!

Are All Presidential Assassins "Liberals"?

2009-01-06T12:09:00.000-08:00

Ann Coulter, in her latest attempt to cash in on her hate mongering inanity, claims that most presidential assassins are liberals or communists. In a recent interview with CBS's Harry Smith, Coulter said:

...every presidential assassin -- or attempted presidential assassin in the history of the nation has either been a liberal, a communist, an anarchist, someone on the left, or there were two who had no politics whatsoever unless you count John Hinckley, who is certifiably insane.

Really now? Why do I have the feeling that Ann has pulled this factoid out of her anorexic, boney ass? On the surface, it sounds like she may have a point, after all, the most famous presidential assassin in recent memory was a communist (Lee Harvey Oswald), and anarchist Leon Czolgosz was President McKinley's assassin (how many people even know that guy's name?). But is Ann right when she says that every last assassin and attempted assassin was "a liberal, a communist, an anarchist", excluding John Hinckley, who gets off because he was insane?

Let's do a little fact-checking here...

The first and most famous presidential assassin effectively makes Coulter wrong. John Wilkes Booth (Lincoln's assassin) was a Pro-confederate, very conservative Episcopal, who was a member of the "Know-nothing party", which was an extremist religious conservative group whose platform would be familiar with many conservatives and republicans today. Here is a brief sample of what the party stood for:

Severe limits on immigration, especially from Catholic countries
Restricting political office to native-born Americans
Mandating a wait of 21 years before an immigrant could gain citizenship
Restricting public school teachers to Protestants
Mandating daily Bible readings in public schools
Restricting the sale of liquor

To call Booth a liberal is not just absurd, there is no way anyone can support such a notion, given the man's history. This one assassin, clearly the most famous in U.S. history, is plenty to demolish Coulter's notion. But I'm never satisfied with such a quick disposal of a conservative's idiotic ramblings, so if you will, let me rub it in a few times to make it even more dramatic a disposal.

Charles J. Guiteau (James Garfield's assassin) described himself as a Theocrat and was member of a strange Christian cult called "The Oneida Community". He Supported the Republican party, and President Grant's election, so technically, that makes him a conservative. He was arguably insane, and Believed that God ordered him to assassinate Garfield for being ungrateful for his work in helping him get elected.

Leon Czolgosz (William McKinley's assassin) was definitely an Anarchist. Well, here's one point for Coulter!

Lee Harvey Oswald (John F. Kennedy's assassin) was definitely a Communist. No Doubt about it. He actually defected to the former Soviet Union, lived there for a while, and then came back to live in the USA, where he became well known as a fierce supporter of Cuba.

There are a string of assassins and failed assassins whose names are largely unfamiliar to us, and likely to Coulter (mostly because she is a lazy researcher), because they either tried to assassinate presidents who are not well known to modern Americans, or who were not as popular or notable as Lincoln or Kenendy. Their names are all recorded in history, and you can easily find out about them. Ann Coulter apparently didn't even do the 5 minutes of research it takes to find them all, which is the most common problem for pundits like Coulter.

Richard Lawrence (attempted assassin of Andrew Jackson) was a British immigrant who believed that he was the King of England. He blamed Andrew Jackson for allegedly witholding money from him that was owed, which would allow him to realize his place as the rightful heir to the throne of England. He was certifiably insane.

Giuseppe Zangara (Attempted assassin of Franklyn Roosevelt) was an Italian immigrant who suffered from a variety of painful illnesses. He believed that Roosevelt was responsible for his medical pain. So he goes in the "Insane" category.

Griselio Torresola & Oscar Collazo (attempted assassins of Harry Truman) were Puerto Rican Nationalists. As political movements go, The Puerto Rican Nationalists were anti-communist, and their flag had a variation of a cross on it, so they don't fit into any of the molds that Coulter suggests (anarchists, communists, liberals). Reality gains another point against Coutler.

Arthur Bremer (attempted assassin of Richard Nixon)This guy was definitely Insane, and said that his attempted assassination of Nixon was supposed to impress a girl who dumped him.

Samuel Joseph Byck (attempted assassin of Richard Nixon) was insane.

Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme (attempted assassin of Gerald Ford) was Insane, a member of the bizarre Charles Manson's "family", a religious cult, which preached an apocalyptic message. I don't know if that makes them automatically conservative, so we'll just put this in the "insane" category. Anyone who has seen Charles Manson being interviewed knows that he's insane.

Sara Jane Moore (attempted assassin of Gerald Ford) was a Communist, or at least a leftist, as she stated that her reason for trying to assassinate Ford was mainly because of Nixon and his "war against the left". So I guess Coulter gets another point.

John Hinckley, Jr. (attempted assassin of Ronald Reagan) poses a serious problem. Though he was very much insane, and Coulter said we could leave him out because of it. Hinckley was actually well known to the Bush family! He Supported George H. Bush's run for president against Reagan, and his brother Scott Hinckley is a close personal friend of Neal Bush!. He may have been insane, but the ties, the political background, and more, all point to him being conservative. No wonder Coulter wanted to excuse him! He demolishes her idea, just like John Wilkes Booth does.

Another insane assassin was Frank Eugene Corder (attempted assassin of Bill Clinton), who smashed a stolen Cessna aircraft on the white house lawn in an attempt to kill Bill Clinton. He was a Former Viet Nam vet, honorably discharged from the military, but was insane and suicidal. His assassination attempt on Clinton happened, ironically, on September 11th, 1994.

Francisco Martin Duran (attempted assassin of Bill Clinton) was the Gun nut who was pissed off at the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, so he took an SKS semi-automatic weapon to the white house, and started rattling off shots from outside the fence. He was an avid listener of the conservative Talk Show Host Chuck Baker. Reality scores again against Coulter.

So there you go, Ann Coulter not just busted, but owned. Coulter claims that all presidential assassins are liberals, communists, or anarchists, but with about 5 minutes of work (trust me, it took less than a minute to find all of the presidential assasins in a list), it's easily proven to be just another dumb, unfounded assertion. This is because Coulter is not a journalist, but a propagandist. She likes to call herself a polemicist, but as the word is defined, she clearly fits more into the "contraversialist" or "sensationalist" definition, because all she really does is make the most deliberately contravercial opinion she can, because she just wants your attention.

"Gay Panic" is a strange defense

2009-01-02T11:37:00.000-08:00

Imagine that you are a 21-year-old man, approached by a 62-year-old man you know. You agree to go over his house, and while there, he takes off all of his clothes, and makes a homosexual advance at you. By your own admission, the advance is not a demand for sex or a threat of violence. He simply put his hand on your crotch. You are so taken by surprise, that you find a baseball bat (he doesn't own one, it came from somewhere else), and you beat his brains in until his head resembles several pounds of ground beef with hair imbedded into it.

So frightening was this experience for you, that you then you take his body (he's still alive, by the way), and you stuff it into the trunk of his car, and leave the car on the side of the road, where he dies. Later, you return to the car, and grab his wallet, and you go on a $1500 spending spree with his credit cards, buying video games, a TV, and an airplane ticket to Texas.

Clearly, you were the victim of a homosexual, and shouldn't be called a murderer, because you were under the effects fo "Gay Panic".

Now suppose you are a high school kid, and you and your friend are offered a ride home by your Music teacher, whom everyone reguards as "a fruit". You agree to go to his house, first, where you play video games. Later on, he asks you to come up to his bedroom, where he asks if you want to have sex. You refuse, and he understands, so he offers to drive you and your friend home, and he does.

After stopping in front of your house to drop you off, you choke him, and your friend helps you, and it takes about 10 minutes for him to die. You then drive back to his house, put his body on the couch, and load up the car with all of his valuables, which you take home with you.

Obviously, you're just another victim of Gay panic!

Many may recall the Matthew Shepard case, where Shepard was beaten with a baseball bat until near death, by 2 men who picked him up at a bar, then left to die on a barbed-wire fence. They used the Gay panic defense, too. Apparently, they later admitted that it was just a robbery gone bad, but their initial plea was Gay panic.

I wonder if the definition of Gay panic that a psychiatric dictionary would have includes something like "Symptoms include violence followed by desire to commit robbery." Of course, the victims of Gay panic are never just innocent little school-boys. In all of the above cases, the people using the Gay panic defense all had previous police records, or were known as trouble-makers to local cops. These poor victims are just misunderstood. I mean, they only wanted to rob the victims, but somehow finding out that they were gay created such painful trauma for their young minds that they couldn't just commit their robberies like they would if the victim was not gay.

Of course, this argument -- that we should excuse murderers because of Gay panic, sort of reminds me the Emmett Till murder, in 1955, where a group of white adults were so offended by a 14-year-old black boy wolf-whistling at a white woman, that they simply had to beat him to death and throw his body off of a bridge. Back then, they only pleaded "not guilty", but I'm sure that if the phrase "Black Panic" was in use back then, that's what they would have pleaded.

I'm waiting for "dumbass panic", where I get to get off of murder and robbery charges, because I was extremely offended by what a dumbass the victim was.

Pakistan Arrests Mastermind of Mumbai Massacre

2008-12-08T13:29:00.000-08:00

Today, December 8th, 2008, the Pakistani government announced that it raided a terrorist training camp in Lashkar suspected to be the base of the group which killed over 170 people in Mumbai, India, last week. During the raid, they managed to capture a man named Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, who is suspected of being one of the masterminds of the massacre in Mumbai.

Such swift justice from Pakistan, a nation that has been openly hostile towards India for decades, speaks volumes about the competence of the Bush administration in the war on terror. Since Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda's most important people have been hiding in Pakistan, the Pakistani government has not really done much in helping the US find them and bring them to justice, and we are supposedly their allies. Yet they seemed to bend over backwards for their arch-rival India, and swiftly staged a successful raid on a group that by all accounts were some of the best trained terrorists ever encountered.

Did the Bush administration even care about finding Bin Laden and the remaining Al Qaeda officers, or did Pakistan conduct the raid against the Mumbai attackers because they feared nuclear retaliation from India if they did nothing? If the Bush administration was serious about Al Qaeda, they could easily have gotten Pakistan to do what they did for India, and they could have done it years ago. The fact that India got such a quick favor after their attack by terrorists, and the Bush administration could only get lip service for 7 years, speaks volumes about how poorly the Bush administration has dealt with our foreign allies. Our allies seem to give their enemies better treatment than they give us.

Perhaps the arrangement with Al Qaeda and the Bush administration is similar to the arrangement that the Guild of Calamitous Intent has with Dr. Venture in the fictional cartoon series, The Venture Brothers. It's explained that the guild limits what super-villains are allowed to do to protagonists, to allow them to co-exist and allow both protagonist and villain to do their own thing without actually killing each other. Perhaps George Bush solicited Al Qaeda's help in becoming our nemesis, mainly so George could get the status he sought. In the Venture Brothers universe, super-scientists and other protagonists often solicit villains to gain status. Their managed conflicts keep each other alive while developing new super-weapons and gaining fame.

That may explain why the Bush administration hasn't managed to get Bin Laden or other Al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan for the last 7 years. Al Qaeda is engaging in "controlled costumed aggression" with Bush, and both are bound by the guild's honor code. That way, both sides get the prestige and notoriety they seek, without actually killing each other. Henchmen are occaisionally killed, but the arch villains and protagonists, and their immediate family members stay protected.

AFA puts the KKK back into Christmas!

2008-11-18T11:15:00.000-08:00

This is a real ad from the American Family Association's web-shop. The ad, for the cross in this picture, reads:

Let Your "Light" Shine For Christ This Christmas Season!

Looking for an effective way to express your Christian faith this Christmas season to honor our Lord Jesus? Now you can.... with the "Original Christmas Cross" yard decoration.

Light up your front yard, porch, patio, driveway, business, organization or church this holiday season with a stunning Christmas cross. This beautiful Christmas Cross is 5.5 feet tall, with 210 individual ultra bright lights. SHIPPING IS INCLUDED!

Assembles in just minutes! Includes simple instructions and requires only a screwdriver. The cross is compact when not in use. And of course, it's weather-proof.

Decorate this holiday season with the Original Christmas Cross to remind your friends, family, neighbors, and all who drive by your home, office, or church of the real meaning of Christmas. You won't find the Original Christmas Cross in stores, so order online today!

PLEASE NOTE: This product ships directly from the distributor. If you wish to order other products at this time from the AFA Online Store, please make a seperate order.

I honestly don't need to add anything more to this, except to say that the irony nearly made me shit my pants.

UPDATE 24-NOV-2008

Well, I went to the AFA store, and this is the picture that now accompanies the ad! I guess they got enough complaints! Hahahahahahaha!!!

My "Extremist" Opinion on Free Speech

2008-11-14T11:00:00.000-08:00

I recently wrote the following in the google-group "Atheism vs. Christianity", in a discussion about Canadian Hate-crime laws. I have corrected spelling and clarified it a bit from the original messy post.

I don't believe that my concept of civil rights, however, includes the "right to openly hate and advocate the elimination of, or disenfranchisement of certain groups of people", or "the right to abuse people". I am all for allowing Christians and Muslims to practice their faith, and for political groups to promote their beliefs, but when that "faith" includes bombing abortion clinics, sequestering a congregation in a "compound" so as to cut them off from society and control all information, or the "political beliefs" involve advocating the taking up of arms to shoot and kill other citizens, racism, disenfranchisement of others, or other patently antisocial activity, it's not about rights.

It's often said that people have a right "to be an asshole" if they choose to be -- Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Andrew Schlafly are all perfect examples of people practicing their right to be an asshole, and advocate ideas that are idiotic, mean-spirited, fraudulent, or just plain dumb. The problem is that all of these people are like modern day Joseph Goebbels. They are straddling the thin line of propaganda, balancing between mere political speech and hate. Behind everything they say is thinly veiled racism, sexism, fascism, but most importantly, a disdain for education, civil rights and constitutional freedoms. If enough people follow them, it could lead to the kind of fascist state where mob rule wins over constitutional democracy -- where the vigilantism of the Wild West replaces the rule of law and fair trials.

I do not believe that we can allow them to go unopposed, without putting back into place the laws which used to govern news and information programs -- The old fairness and accuracy doctrine that was made impotent when Fox News won a case by claiming that their news broadcasts were "entertainment" and not subject to any guidelines of journalistic integrity. All any media propagandist needs to do is proclaim their show to be "entertainment", and they instantly have no responsibility to separate opinion from fact, be objective or even report facts at all. They can just proclaim whatever they want their viewers to think is the truth, but say "we're entertainment" to a judge, and they have no responsibility for what they say. They can tell their reporters WHAT to say in a report, even if it's not true. They can craft intricate hate-pieces that slander anyone. They can reach millions with messages of hate, and there is no recourse.

So when we see a preacher preaching hate, or a pundit preaching hate, I believe it is dangerous. The typically mean-spirited nature of such speech has no legitimate place in society -- it's intentionally destructive, intentionally harmful. That's never good for society. Protect free speech, but when it comes to people who advocate hate, and mean-spirited treatment of others, I say fine them, make them criminals, and let them suffer for their hate.

How far should we go with allowing free speech? I have always been an advocate of completely unlimited free speech. I have always considered that if someone is offended by my speech, or someone else's, that they're just sissies who can't handle dealing with opinions that are different from their own. After considering the discussion over how people in Canada can no longer preach what the Bible says about homosexuality, because it's hate-speech against gays (I mean, think about it, Leviticus advocates that homosexuals be executed), I thought about why that was good, and why it could be bad. I realized that the good aspects of hate-speech laws sounded a lot more convincing to me than the "total free speech" I advocated.

There certainly are some types of speech or advocacy that people consider dangerous. For example, it is currently illegal to issue written or verbal death threats. People who have openly advocated assassination and killing of others have been charged and put on trial for it. There is good reason why death threats are illegal and not "protected free speech". It is because a death threat victimizes a person by creating an atmosphere of hostility and fear, or in constitutional language, it "attacks domestic tranquility", which the preamble of the United States Constitution purports to ensure for all. Imagine a family living in a neighborhood, and having several neighbors tell them "We'll kill you". The family is forced to live in fear, incurring mental and physical stress. It's not just that one family -- its any people living in the neighborhood or surrounding areas who hear of these threats. If you can imagine the family being Jewish or African-American, and the threats coming from neo-Nazis, it becomes even worse of a situation. It is unacceptable to make death threats for that reason -- it disrupts domestic tranquility, creating fear and hostility in a community. We have laws against disturbing the peace. You cannot set off explosives in the middle of the night, play extremely loud music that wakes your neighbors up, use heavy construction equipment early in the morning when people are still sleeping, and such, for the same reason -- it disrupts domestic tranquility.

Rather than issue a death threat, some people thought it was clever to avoid making a direct death threat against someone, by suggesting that someone else do it. For example, on a Christian radio program in Denver, Colorado, back in 1993, Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, said a prayer over the air where he asked that someone please assassinate Dr. Warren Hern, a Colorado abortion provider. The authorities didn't think that was free speech, and promptly arrested him. Members of his organization were found guilty of harassing the family members of various doctors who provided abortions, when they followed doctors' children home from school, or followed the families when they drove around town. Again, legally speaking, such activities are not protected free speech because they disrupt domestic tranquility, and force the victims to live in fear of hostilities or attacks. At a time when many abortion providers were being assassinated by anti-abortion activists, this became all the more frightening for these victims.

So on the issue of punditry, and the writers of trash-talking political diatribes, as well as so-called "entertainment" broadcasts of Fox News, and other conservative hate-filled language against so-called liberals, I believe that the same situation applies. When a Rush Limbaugh, an Ann Coulter, or a Sean Hannity goes on the air, and incites hatred against various groups considered "liberal" or "un-American", they are doing the same thing that a Neo-Nazi does when they spray-paint a swastika on a wall in a neighborhood. They are inciting people with propaganda, to hate other citizens. They don't actually come out and say "these people should be hated, treated with suspicion, killed, etc..." but they certainly incite animosity and hatred against certain people in society. After 9-11, the cry of "Treason" was heard a lot from far-right pundits. Treason often is punished by the death sentence (and the pundits made sure to mention that when they accused people of it), which is sort of a roundabout way of suggesting that so-called liberals or critics of the Bush administration should be killed. If you were a liberal or a Bush critic, you certainly felt a little bit of your domestic tranquility threatened by hearing such rhetoric.

There is a difference between being politically incorrect, and the type of speech that Joseph Goebbels delivered in Nazi Germany. One is simple criticism, occasionally crude, profane or awkward, without suggestion of violence or action that would scare the target of your criticism into thinking that they were in any danger. The other suggests that the target of the criticism is not worthy of their constitutional protections or freedoms, that they deserve to suffer, and that people who take it upon themselves to punish them would or should be considered to be doing a patriotic duty of some kind. It is one thing to suggest that a president, or a politician, or a religious leader, is wrong about their actions or opinions; that is totally reasonable, protected speech. It is entirely a different story, however, to call the same people devils, traitors, and suggest that they be intimidated, harassed, or held in suspicion, or treated unpleasantly for it.

When a Christian Minister or politician quotes the Bible, and reads the verse from Leviticus that orders homosexuals to be stoned to death, he is merely presenting an objective fact about what his faith says. When he suggests to his followers that they need to follow this law of God to the letter, and use votes or direct action to achieve it, he is victimizing gay people -- creating unease and spoiling domestic tranquility. All you have to do is change the references from Homosexuals to Jews, and the book from the Bible to Mein Kampf, and it brings the hate-speech to life quite vividly.

The disruption of other citizens' domestic tranquility is a crime; it is a violation of a person's constitutional protection. Disturbing the peace is a crime on most laws of our states. I say we police it. Thinly veiled threats against other citizens, no matter how cleverly worded they are, have an effect on their intended targets. They create unease, fear, and tension in society. People who make use this hate-mongering speech are sociopaths, plain and simple. They do not care about the constitutional rights of the people that they victimize, and in fact, many of them advocate the idea that those people have no constitutional rights, or that their constitutional rights should be taken away. Such ideas, are, ultimately un-American, because the spirit of the constitution is that all people, regardless of who they are or what they believe, have the same rights and protections. For most of the purveyors of hate-speech, the idea that someone they despise can be their equal, and have every right to disagree with them, is an inconvenient thing to live with. Ultimately, hate speech is about advocacy of inequality and non-protection of citizens. You can't get any less American than that.

Obama the Antichrist?

2008-11-05T07:18:00.000-08:00

Okay, I'm making a little prediction here. Actually, I'm not really predicting, as much as just stating what trends I've been noticing. So bear with me here.

During the last few months, I noticed that a lot of Fundamentalist Christians have been not just writing posts against Barack Obama, they've been predicting that if elected, he would either turn out to be the Antichrist, or that it would usher in the end times, and that Armageddon would be coming. I'm serious. Here are a few more examples of what I read.

http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/Voting_for_Obama_is_a_SIN_What_decade_is_this

http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=269841

http://davidbenariel.wordpress.com/2008/10/22/obama-a-disaster/

The best example was a recent McCain commercial titled "The One", which overtly suggested that Obama was indeed the Antichrist. Rush Limbaugh, on a recent show, said:

"We'll find out in less than 30 hours how many people want to give up their freedom for what they think is going to be some version of a carefree utopia. We'll find out, and we'll deal with the result after it happens."

My old pal Ray "I am not a looney" Comfort, over at his blog, sort of had similar ideas about Barack Obama, but instead used the old tried-and-true "Some of my best friends are black... no wait, really..." method of using a black man to speak out against Obama for him. How often have Ray's posts consisted of an entire article of someone else's opinion on his blog before? Almost never, going back about a year.

So here is my prediction. I predict that either Ray Comfort or another well-known lunatic Fundamentalist, will post something this week proclaiming that America is now doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed. Someone is going to proclaim that the economic crisis was predicted by the Bible, and that Obama being elected is another fulfillment of prophecy, and that more terrible things are yet to come, all of which will be right out of the book of Daniel and the book of Revelation.

This kind of thing is only inevitable, and is not really surprising to anyone who has watched this happening for the last 30 years. It's really all just part of the usual election cycle. Every time we elect, a group of religious nuts somewhere proclaims the newly elected president to be the Antichrist. Remember how "Ronald Wilson Reagan" was the Antichrist, because each part of his name has 6 letters in it, which come out to 666?

Just wait. It's bound to happen. I'm hoping that Ray is the first to do it. I have everything planned for the occaision... but it will work fine on anyone else who is first to predict Obama's Satanic birthright! So let's see what happens! Just watch out for crazy posts by insane Fundy bloggers advising people to head for the hills, dig some bunkers, and stock up on canned goods and bullets.

Just Vote, Please!

2008-11-04T07:18:00.000-08:00

We all need to vote. I don't care who you vote for, either. Just do it. I can't stand the people who are not voting because "there's really no difference who wins; things will just be as they always have been..." That's no excuse not to vote. You don't vote under the delusion that the candidate you pick will magically transform the world. If you do, then you're just dumb.

For me, voting is about selecting the people whose track records and stated beliefs most closely match those of your own. It's not easy. There's never a candidate whose track record is perfect, and I always have disagreements with candidates on at least a few issues. For example, I disagree with Barack Obama's Religious views. I disagree with his Health care proposal (I am more for universal Health care that does not have a for-profit component). I also disagree with his support for NAFTA (I think we should abolish the act). When I vote, it about which candidate and which party you feel best has served the American public. It's about give and take.

Let me tell you why I voted the way I did. I actually thought about it, unlike a lot of people. I voted for Obama. Throughout the entire campaign, he shined, and he didn't resort to getting dirty and dishonest. I checked FactCheck.org every day, and also read online newspapers, and saw clearly that if there was any fault in Obama's literature, speeches, or commercials, the fault was that they were overly optimistic. Every fault in the McCain/Palin campaign was either deception, or an outright lie. McCain used fearmongering and told outright lies about Obama's platform and record, then he tried to smear him as a pal with so-called "terrorists".

Every time I checked the facts, McCain came up the loser.

Then I watched the debates. McCain performed sadly and acted like a frightened animal during the debates. His arguments were lame, and his responses to questions were nothing more than official campaign talking points. Palin's performance during her debate with Joe Biden was just plain retarded -- and we sure don't need another retard in the white house; we've had a retard there for the last 8 years, and he screwed up badly.

What's worse is the manner in which the Republican party and the McCain campaign staff acted during the entire campaign. They seem to want to appeal only to morons who can be motivated by the kind of rhetoric you hear from teenagers arguing in a grammar school playground. First, I couldn't help but see a traditional White double-standard, also called "White Privilege", at play during the last year. Then I saw familiar reports about Republican attempts at voter caging. Right wing pundits have always made me vomit, but Sean Hannity's attempt to smear Obama by using patently false and misleading information supplied by a white supremacist, probably gave me the trots, as well! But when republicans all across the board recently talked about how they represent "real Americans", it made me ooze a lot of unmentionable stuff, including disgust, outrage, and vitreol.

It's a pretty clear choice. You either go with the party of racism, McCarthyism, and Jesus, which started a completely unneccesary war and equates happiness with money, or you go with the party of diversity, liberalism, and social justice, which is in favor of living in peace with the rest of the world, helping people in need, and trying to secure a better future for all, and not just some.

In short, I'm voting for the guy who didn't have to lie his way through the election season, who I think has the better chance of fixing the idiotic mess that George W. Bush has made of the country, and the world.

Zombie of Joseph McCarthy Rises from the grave!

2008-10-21T09:53:00.001-07:00

The zombie of Senator Joe McCarthy crawled out of his grave, with his mouth drooling for some fresh brains to munch on. Unfortunately, he seems to have munched on the brains of leading republican thugs.

Apparently, Colin Powell and others who don't want to vote for John McCain are part of a different America, according to several Republicans (the ones who apparently had their Brains eaten by Joe McCarthy's Zombie). There are "REAL AMERICANS" (I.E. rural Republicans who love JEE-ZUS and don't have college educations), and those other (apparently not real) Americans (College educated, liberal, tolerant of diversity). Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin, whose lack of a brain probably left Joe McCarthy's Zombie unsatisfied, and hungry for more brains, recently said:

"We believe that the best of America is not all in Washington, D.C. We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation. This is where we find the kindness and the goodness and the courage of everyday Americans. Those who are running our factories and teaching our kids and growing our food and are fighting our wars for us. Those who are protecting us in uniform. Those who are protecting the virtues of freedom."

Her devisive propaganda, implies that people who don't agree with McCain and the Republican Party are all not really Americans. Yeah, this is the kind of rhetoric that we always hear from Fascists and Communists -- "Those who are not with us are against us." Apparently, if you're not from a small town, not living in poverty, and not voting Republican, you're not really pro-American. But perhaps because this is a horror movie, Palin really means that there's been an Invasion of The Body Snatchers, and the pod-people are turning "real Americans" into Democrats! It could very well be, but Zombie movies have more potential for fun, so let's stick to our theme.

On the trail of the Zombie McCarthy, we followed some chunks of brain from Sarah Palin's campaign stop to Minnesota. There, Zombie McCarthy took a large bite out of Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann". Bachmann recently echoed the sentiments of McCarthy when she said:

"What I would say — what I would say is that the news media should do a penetrating expose and take a look. I wish they would. I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America? I think people would love to see an expose like that."

This has the classic mark of McCarthy written all over it. Yeah, we're about 50 years too late for that. We tried that back in the 50's, and we called it a Witch Hunt. You can tell that zombie McCarthy was the one that ate her brain, because the sentiment is the same -- the belief that we have enemies within America, and we need to seek them out and expose them. Having grown up in Salem, Massachusetts, I'm quite familiar with how witch hunts get conducted. When you run out of actual witches, historically, the next targets of suspicion are Communists, Jews, atheists, liberals, and so on... Ah, Witches... Another Halloween theme! But let's get back to tracing the path of Zombie McCarthy's feeding frenzy...

So from the gaping hole in Bachmann's head, we did not find any brain dripings. Apparently there just wasn't enough there to leave behind any clues. But we got a hot tip from McCain's campaign. We heard that McCain Campaign advisor Nancy Pfotenhauer was speaking on behalf of the McCain campaign, when she said:

"The Democrats have just come in from the District of Columbia. The rest of the state, the real Virginia, if you will, will be very responsive to Senator McCain's message."

The unmistakable divisive speech. Yes, another case of "Real Americans" versus "fake Americans". Clearly this is the mark of Zombie McCarthy, or another warning about the pod-people! Unfortunately, I wasn't able to confirm any zombie tooth-marks on her skull, but if she's been wearing hats in public lately, you can be sure that's the reason. The trail of Zombie McCarthy went dry after that, and I think that he may have either been re-killed, or that he isn't hungry for brains anymore. But I did notice that the rotting corpse of George Lincoln Rockwell made an appearance.

Rush Limbaugh, in a clear sign that the Zombie of George Rockwell had a taste of the fowl contents of Rush's skull, recently said, about Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama.

"Secretary Powell says his endorsement is not about race. OK, fine. I am now researching his past endorsements to see if I can find all the inexperienced, very liberal, white candidates he has endorsed. I'll let you know what I come up with."

Remember folks, Uncle Rush says that Black people can't endorse black candidates without being called racist, themselves. Apparently, we need to check everyone whom a black person has ever endorsed or associated with to ensure a lack of racism. That is what Mr. Limbaugh is saying. Proof that George Rockwell is back? Or is Limbaugh suffering from an attack of the zombie Joseph Goebbels? There could be a sequel to this horror story, as it is traditional for horror movies to have multiple sequels, no matter how bad they are. I'll admit that my horror movie plot is lacking, but look at the characters I had to deal with here, folks...

Sean Hannity: Racist or just a friend to Racists?

2008-10-10T11:52:00.000-07:00

Many people may recall that Sean Hannity was recently forced to wear his own ass for a hat on his own show, by Robert Gibbs, an Obama supporter. Essentially Hannity had been hammering away at Obama for weeks for an alleged connection to former radical William Ayers. The relationship was being described as sinister in nature by many right wing radicals, and Hannity's program on Fox had essentially become a platform for them. Realizing this was simply a "guilt by association" tactic, Gibbs masterfully steered Hannity into a question about his relationship with the guest on his last broascast, Andy Martin. Essentially, Hannity was reduced to a stuttering mess, trying to back away, but the more he talked, the stupider he looked.

Hannity claimed:

"When I interview, when I interview -- hang on, I'm going to answer your question. When I interviewed Malik Shabazz, when I interviewed Al Sharpton, when I interviewed all these controversial figures -- you see, on Fox, we actually interview people of all points of view, whether we agree or disagree.

Yeah, Sean, whatever you say. You're the one wearing his ass for a hat, so you must be speaking the truth.

Hannity did not just interview Andy Martin on the his program. He actually presented him as a credible, legitimate journalist, and actually had an introduction where Hannity himself narrated Martin's claims, uncritically. Hannity never questioned Martin's claims, nor did he present any opposing views and ask Martin to respond to them. Hannity essentially crafted a program that literally promoted Martin's views, as legitimate investigative journalism.

Now who is Andy Martin, anyway? Here's a few facts. Andrew Martin has been a long time anti-semite who has been crusading against Jews for decades now. He's run for public office, unsuccessfully, in various states, since the 1970s. His 1996 run for the Florida State Senate came unraveled when it was revealed that he'd named his campaign committee for his 1986 congressional run "The Anthony R. Martin-Trigona Congressional Campaign to Exterminate Jew Power in America." Of course, none of this stuff gets mentioned on his website, but his actual record is recorded for posterity elsewhere.

Okay, so some of you might be thinking that this is a one-time occurence, or something. Some might be tempted to think that one little interview can't hurt. Well, there's more. Sorry.

Hannity is a long time fan and associate of Bob Grant. Hannity said, himself, in his own book:

"I'd grown up listening to Bob Grant...one of the most entertaining hosts I'd ever heard," (Let Freedom Ring: Winning the War of Liberty Over Liberalism, Reagan books, 2002)

He not only grew up admiring him, he got a job taking over his radio spot!

Grant, for those not in the know, is a long time racist, who has made plenty of contraversial comments over the years. Hannity has had the guy appear on his own show from time to time, as well. As with Martin, Hannity never questioned Grant's views on the air, or presented other people's opinions of grant in order to get a response; it's always been friendly promotion.

Hal Turner is another problem dogging Hannity's past. Turner is yet another antisemitic ultra-conservative whack-tard. Turner is an outspoken white nationalist -- yeah, the guy is a freaking Nazi retard! He developed a long term friendship with Bob Grant, and later with Hannity, and appeared on both Grant's and Hannity's radio programs a number of times. Hannity tried to deny it, but was later forced to admit it. Read the idiot's Racist Blog for yourself.

On December 6, 2006, Turner announced on his website:

We may have to ASSASSINATE some of the people you elect on Nov. 7! This could be your LAST ELECTION CHANCE, to save this Republic... Sorry to have to be so blunt, but the country is in mortal danger from our present government and our liberty is already near dead because of this government. If you are too stupid to turn things around with your vote, there are people out here like me who are willing to turn things around with guns, force and violence. We hope our method does not become necessary.

There's plenty more on Turner and his connection to Hannity, though, in The Nation. Oh, of course, because the author's last name is Blumenthal, Turner supporters can just say he's part of the Jewish-Liberal conspiracy, as they reach for their tin-foil helmets and lock their bomb shelters...

Lastly, because he's such a minor figure, but this is important because of what happened, Duane "Dog" Chapman, Fox TV's famous "Dog, the Bounty Hunter", himself a former felon, and not known for being a political or intellectual bright light by any means, had a little problem. He was caught making a few extremely racist remarks about his son's African American girlfriend, and his show was temporarily taken off the air because of complaints.

Hannity rushed to Dog's defense. On November 6, 2007, Hannity flew to Los Angeles and even cut short his radio show, in order to devote the full hour of his Hannity & Colmes to rehabilitating Dog’s image. This is not unusual. Hannity also rushed to defend the racist slurs of Mel Gibson, in a similar manner, devoting a whole show to trying to explain that he was just under stress, and abusing alcohol, so he wasn't himself. Actually, from what many people close to Gibson say, he was himself. Mel Gibson has a long history of behavior that can best be described as mental illness.

So there we have it. Not only was Hannity mentored by a racist anti-semite radio host, but several long-time friends of his, who are antisemites and racists, were given uncritical segments on his program, and Hannity himself rushed to do shows to rehab the images of famous conservative friends who had unfortunate slips of the tongue. Guilt by association? Or substantial evidence of where his loyalties lie?

Questions for Atheists, Answered

2008-10-08T14:11:00.000-07:00

Questions for Atheists...

Okay, I thought I'd compile a sort of FAQ file for all the people who ask the same questions about atheism all the time. I took the questions from a variety of Christians who posted their "questions for atheists" in various forums, blogs, and newsgroups.

If you were in a hospital and knew you were going to die, would you consider asking Jesus to save you? Would you really have anything to lose?

No. I would have nothing to lose, and nothing to gain, since I know from the best scientific research that the afterlife is a myth.
What is the point of being moral if God does not exist?

There is no point in being moral at all. There is a point in being ethical, however. Morality is not the same as ethics. Morality usually has religious overtones attached to it, where ethics are more secular and concern society and an individual's relationship with the rest of society. The point in being ethical is that everyone else in your society is watching you, and that if you behave in an ethical manner, people will trust you, and you will have friends. If you are unethical, it is more difficult for you to form relationships with people that last, because eventually, they will find out that you are not someone they can trust. essentially, it's in your best personal "selfish" interest to behave in an ethical manner, because friends are an advantage, and enemies are a risk. Essentially, your life, and indeed, your society, is a better place to live in when people are ethical.
If there is no God, and no moral authority from him, Why not steal, kill, rape, do drugs, get rich, and have lots of sex?

Because doing so would likely anger people in society, who would then come after you for revenge, and they would hurt you, or at least imprison you and make your life less enjoyable. Also, It seems that anyone who lives that kind of life will likely not have any friends, and not be very happy...except for the having lots of sex part...
What truth does the atheist have that Christians don’t?

All except "there is a God," I guess. See, if you believe in objective facts, objective truths, and objective reality, then the truth I have shoud be the same as yours. The only truths I do not hold are the speculative ones that are not reasonably proven. If we all agree that observing the world we live in gives most people the exact same truth -- that the sky is blue, that water is wet, that rocks are solid, that trees grow, and that getting cut hurts, the only truth that I would not have in common with you is the one about God.
When you say, “I’m an atheist” what does that mean?

I just means that I do not beleive in gods, or any of the stories and myths associated with them. I do not believe in gods, angels, devils, magic spells, love potions, curses, ghosts, or any of tens of thousands of other things associated with the religions of the world. It certainly appears that none of those things exist, and until someone provides irrefutable proof of any of them, I'll continue to not believe in them.
Why are you an atheist?

Because I have found nothing valid in any religions that merits belief in them.
Why do you think a belief in deity has permeated almost every society and culture since the dawn of mankind?

Because people are superstitious, and the less educated and experienced in the world a person is, the more superstitious they tend to be. People have a strong tendency to assign mythical supernatural powers to things that they do not understand. People worshipped mountains, the sun, the moon, the Sea, bears, elephants, lions, and other things, merely because those objects seemed to have power or strength beyond human comprehension. Now that we've conquered or learned about them, they are not frightening or mysterious to us any more. I believe that all of man's gods have their origin in the minds of men.
Have you ever, even for a moment, believed in a God(s)?

Yes. When I was young, I believed in God, and was given religious instruction. Now I am older and wiser, and I do not believe in gods.
Why, if you are an atheist, do you spend so much time speaking about religion (especially the christian faith?)

Probably because mentioning atheistic points of view in public attracts religious fundamentalists like flies to dogshit. Also, many times in my life, I've seen religious people attempt to pass legislation that infringes on religious liberties, such as blue-laws, laws that attempt to persecute gays, force kids to say Christian prayers and receive Christian indoctrination in public schools, or laws that attempt to shove religion into science classes. I feel compelled to speak out against these things not just because they are unethical, but because they are idiotic, as well.
Am I correct in my assumption that Atheists believe that there is nothing other than the physical measurable realm?

Well, no. That is materialism. Atheists can be materialists, but not all materialists are neccesarily atheists. I happen to be a materialist, however. I believe that everything in the universe is a property of matter or energy, or directly relates to them.
If materialism is correct, how does an Atheist prove thinking? I mean, you can’t see it or touch it or measure it, so how do you know it exists?

The only thinking we can examine is our own. However, consider the following facts:
- Thinking is something that a brain does.
- Brains are made of matter.
- Brains need to be alive, have a blood supply, and nutrients, in order to think.
- Thinking is a neurochemical process described by neurophysiology as communication between groups of neurons in the brain.
- Neurons, and the chemicals that they use to communicate with, are all made of matter.
- Neurophysiologists have mapped out most of the brain's specific parts which perform certain tasks in responding to stimuli and making logical decisions. All of these parts are physical.
- Therefore, thought requires matter in order to exist.
If you think I'm wrong, find one scientifically verified instance of thought existing without a brain to think it.
Do atheists believe that all of life, mankind, animals, trees, etc, are purely accidents with no purpose to their existence?

No. The idea that evolution is an accidental process is a completely wrong and bogus interpretation of the facts. Evolution is not random, but it is not guided by a mysterious being's invisible hand, either. Nothing in nature happens at random, or by accident. Everything is the result of cause and effect. This is the basic principle behind science. For someone to claim that evolution is random is to ignore one of the basic tenets of Science.
How would you define “atheism”?

Lack of belief in gods and/or the supernatural.
How would you describe “Intelligent Design”, using only one word?

Bullshit. Well, you did only ask for one word...
What scientific endeavour really excites you?

Space Exploration, Aerospace, Information Technology, Archaeology, subatomic particle research.
If you could change one thing about the “atheist community”, what would it be and why??

Have there be more atheists where I live, and have us be as organized as various political groups are.
If your child came up to you and said “I’m joining the clergy”, what would be your first response?

I'd ask them how they came to their decision.
What’s your favorite theistic argument, and how do you usually refute it?

I don't know if I have a favorite or not. There are "the most frequent", and for me, the most frequent is "how do you explain how everything in the universe got here?" I of course point out that saying "God Did it" is not an explanation, and is really just a cop-out answer. Then, I go on to point out what the world's physicists and cosmologists have said on the subject, and that essentially we still don't have enough information to anything about the origins of the universe with certainty. What we are certain about is the Big Bang, that matter and energy are interchangable, and that matter cannot move faster than light.
What’s your most “controversial” (as far as general attitudes amongst other atheists goes) viewpoint?

Well, it's not one that is uniquely mine, but I generally agree with Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens that Religions tend to cause more harm for mankind than good, and that they do so by fostering and promoting ancient superstitions, prejudices, anti-science, anti-intellectualism, and dogmatism. I also beleive that the US government should end tax examptions for religious organizations unless they can actually prove that they perform some sort of community service that helps people. I believe that churches should pay taxes on their property.
Of the “Four Horsemen” (Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens and Harris) who is your favourite, and why?

I like Dawkins because he performs well in discussions, and I thought he made an excellent host of the programs he's done for the BBC and ITV, such as this, that, and this.
If you could convince just one theistic person to abandon their beliefs, who would it be?

I would think that any of the extremely high-profile evangelical ministers, with megachurch and telecommunication empires, such as Pat Robertson, Billy or Frank Graham, Paul Crouch, or Don Wildmon. These high-profile people have a lot of influence, and if convinced that they were wrong, it would likely be sensationalistic, and they'd write books and do TV interviews detailing unpleasant things about their religious organization's past, and dirty secrets about their former colleagues in the evangelical megachurch/multimedia empire community. This would sour a lot of evangelicals and make them seek new churches or at least question their faith. Questioning one's own faith is simply introspection -- and introspection is good.

Well, that's all the questions I found today. The following links are where I got most of them. I eliminated duplicate questions from the lists on these pages when compiling, and re-worded some of the questions into better English.

McCain's connection to a terrorist

2008-10-06T13:14:00.000-07:00

The McCain campaign is trying to out Barack Obama's alleged ties to William Ayers, and there has been quite a lot of reports from various newspapers on Ayers, but the bottom line is that the connection he has to Obama is so thin that it doesn't merit investigation. Essentially, the relationship is sort of like you and your co-worker, who you'd occaisionally meet on the way to the water cooler, or at official company functions. They were merely both working for the same board of the Woods Fund of Chicago. That's about it.

Now, if people wanted a REAL juicy story about shady conenctions to a terrorist, why not go after John McCain's self-described "Old Friend", G. Gordon Liddy? Remember him? People's memories are a bit foggy, so let me give you some simple facts about Liddy, in my usual heavily-hyper-linked research.

Liddy served four and a half years in prison in connection with his conviction for his role in the Watergate break-in and the break-in at the office of the psychiatrist of Daniel Ellsberg, the military analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers.
Liddy has acknowledged preparing to kill someone during the Ellsberg break-in "if necessary".
At CRP (The Committee to Re-Elect the President, appropriately nicknamed "CReeP"), Liddy concocted several plots, some far-fetched, intended to embarrass the Democratic opposition. These included firebombing the Brookings Institution in Washingon, D.C., where classified documents leaked by Daniel Ellsberg were being stored.
He plotted to murder journalist Jack Anderson.
He plotted with a "gangland figure" to murder E. Howard Hunt to stop him from cooperating with investigators.
He plotted to kidnap anti-Vietnam war protestors at the 1972 Republican National Convention -- a plan he outlined to the Nixon administration using terminology borrowed from the Nazis.
During the 1990s, Liddy reportedly instructed his radio audience on multiple occasions on how to shoot Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agents and also reportedly said he had named his shooting targets after Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Liddy has donated $5,000 to McCain's campaigns since 1998, including $1,000 in February 2008.
In addition, McCain has appeared on Liddy's radio show during the presidential campaign, including as recently as May.
An online video labeled "John McCain On The G. Gordon Liddy Show 11/8/07" includes a discussion between Liddy and McCain, whom Liddy described as an "old friend."
During the segment, McCain praised Liddy's "adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great," said he was "proud" of Liddy, and said that "it's always a pleasure for me to come on your program."
Additionally, in 1998, Liddy reportedly held a fundraiser at his home for McCain. Liddy was reportedly scheduled to speak at another fundraiser for McCain in 2000.
The Charlotte Observer reported on January 23, 2000, that McCain's campaign vouched for Liddy's "character":

His [McCain's] campaign officials said Liddy's character will appeal to many voters because he was following orders from President Nixon and kept silent afterward.

"His (Liddy's) judgment might be in question, but I don't think his character is," said Ed Walker, the York County chairman of McCain's campaign. "He was following orders just like any good soldier, and he didn't tell on anybody. He felt like he was on a mission and kept his silence."

I think that McCain's connection to a creep like Liddy should be far more of a concern for Americans than a pretty much non-existant connection to a former terrorist. Remember, Liddy was plotting terrorist actions as a part of secret government responses to critics and a blatant attempt by Richard Nixon to supress voters and steal the election. This is a guy we're asked to be proud of, and to honor as a good soldier who did his job. Sorry -- McCain is a soldier who did his job. Liddy was just a hired thug working to help a president break laws and undermine the constitution.

Nuff Said?

How specific are Biblical End-Times Predictions?

2008-10-06T07:55:00.000-07:00

Okay, once again, I saw another ridiculous attempt by an Evangelical to proclaim that we're living in the end times. You know, I see this kind of stuff all the time, and it's always posted by an idiot who doesn't know Jack or shit about history.

Here is a text version of what the usual claims are:

In the end times, there will be...
(1) people Claiming to be spiritual leaders
(2) Persecution of Christians
(3) Wars and Unrest
(4) Earthquakes
(5) Rise in Law-breaking
(6) Famines
(7) Diseases
(8) lack of sincere Love
(9) Sun and Moon darkened
(10) Stars falling
(11) Gospel preached around the world
(12) Jesus returns...

So I have some questione for all the Evangelicals out there who trully believe that the current time is the end times. These are all easy questions, but I'm willing to bet that nobody can answer them. Here goes:

Can you name one single year or decade in the last 2000 years when people haven't claimed to be great spiritual leaders?
Can you name one single year or decade in the last 2000 years when there was no perceived persecution of Christians.
Can you name one single year or decade in the last 2000 years when there were no Wars and Unrest.
Can you name one single year or decade in the last 2000 years when there were no Earthquakes.
Can you name one single year or decade in the last 2000 years when there were no people perceiving a rise in Law-breaking.
Can you name one single year or decade in the last 2000 years when there were no Famines.
Can you name one single year or decade in the last 2000 years when there were no Diseases.
Can you name one single year or decade in the last 2000 years when people were not perceiving a lack of sincere Love on the part of other people.
Can you name one single year or decade in the last 2000 years when the Sun and Moon were darkened (I'm assuming this is about eclipses, which happen nearly every year).
Can you name one single year or decade in the last 2000 years when there were no Stars falling (Meteorites, novae, comets, etc)
Can you name one single year or decade in the last 2000 years when there were the Gospel was not preached around the world.
Finally, is there one single year or decade in the last 2000 years, when any one of the above 11 conditions was not happening?

I can prove to all of you, by simple historical facts that anyone can look up on the web, that all of the above questions must be answered with "No." in order for you to be honest and consistant with history. Anyone who claims any answer other than "no" is cordially invited to prove me wrong. If anyone can prove me wrong, I will post a mesage to that effect, proclaiming that I was wrong, and acknowledging that you beat me.

The only rule will be that you can't win by listing a year for which not much was written about. In other words, if you pick a year, and there literally is almost no history written about that year, it doesn't count. You will need to establish your claim as a searchable historical fact, such as on Wikipedia or another reliable source, and you must post the link.

Sarah Palin Debates someone else...

2008-10-03T14:11:00.001-07:00

I'm seriously disappointed in the Vice Presidential Debate of October 2nd, 2008. Yeah, I'm disappointed that Sarah palin did not give us more vapid moments, as she's given us for the last month or so. Keith Oberman of MSNBC has a collection of her most vapid moments Here. Check them out, as they give you a comprehensive idea of just what a dumbass she really is. I'm disappointed that she just stood there with her beauty-contest vapid smile glued to her face, as though this were just another chance to charm a bunch of men who see her as a piece of meat. I'm disappointed that she didn't answer a damn question that she was asked -- yeah, in a way I'm disappointed that she didn't do a good job of actually debating, and that she didn't surprise me. I mean, every question she was asked was given a patented pre-written-and-memorized talking-points answer, just as though she spend the last few nights cramming and memorizing a bunch of specific answers that her handlers have been writing for her. It sounded just like that, too -- not spontaneous at all, just like a kid in grammar school blurting out a memorized paragraph.

The only thing that had me laughing was her yokel way of speaking, like I was watching Margie Gunderson from the Cohen Brothers movie, Fargo. All the "Yah. You Betcha" and "gosh darn" was so quaint that it made her appear to completely lack any sense of modernity. She was like June Cleaver on prosac, only without brains (June Cleaver was actually a well-educated, smart character).

What I was disappointed about was on so many levels that I can't pick just one. I mean, I wanted to see her either have a mental meltdown and look like a dumbass, or I wanted to see her suddenly, and uncharacteristicly actually be sharp and incisive, but what we got was less than either extreme. I could feel Biden's frustration as she just kept saying what sounded like the same 3 or 4 paragraphs over and over again, never actually answering any questions, as though she was oblivious to what was being asked. I kept wanting him to jump out of his character and say "Are you going to answer any of these questions, or what? I kept wanting to see him pulling his hair out, like I was about to do, every time I heard her piercing voice saying "Maverick... Maverick... Maverick".

After the debate was hilarious. Right wing bloggers, media pundits, and others, proclaimed that "she held her own", and actually said that her debating skills were great, "because she successfully avoided answering the questions she didn't want to answer." Since when is not answering the questions you're asked in a debate a sign of strength?! Pat Buchanan, sexist as ever, on Keith Oberman's show, commented that she won because of her good looks and smile. Yeah, that's pretty much what he said. It's hard to believe that American political debates have become so vapid, provincial, and just plain dumb. It was embarrasing watcing a debate between a college educated long-time US Senator, who is respected by many world leaders whom he has met, and a college drop-out who has been hastily groomed and propped up like a new Barbie doll, completely unprepared, completely outclassed, and completely incompetent. Who would even consider pairing such an uneven match? Oh, yeah... I just remembered. Most viewers are dumber than Palin, and wouldn't know that she evaded any questions if they had it pointed out to them. Oh, well... I doubt that Palin has helped McCain's campaign at all. He will lose. Perhaps he wants to lose, because he can't bear the pressure from his party anymore, and he's just sick of it all. Perhaps he chose Palin because he knew she'd prevent him from winning. Let's wait and see!

The Top Ten Signs that your Church is Insane

2008-10-01T08:27:00.000-07:00

I know, this is very short, and probably not too humorous, but it had to be done, as the idea has been in my head for a while...

They preach the end of the world is nigh.
They tell you that just thinking about sin is just as bad as committing it.
They preach that creationism is science while evolution isn't
They preach that women shouldn't have leadership positions over men.
They tell you to home school your kids
They tell you that you may need to move to a safer town, usually in another state, to avoid the next war.
They tell you who you should vote for.
They speak in tongues.
They handle poisonous snakes, drink poison, etc.
Your Pastor proclaims that he's the second coming of Christ.

Voter Caging: The legal way to supressing voters!

2008-09-23T13:23:00.000-07:00

I came across this interesting article online, which reminded me of a bunch of stuff that I already knew, but which was floating around the back of my head, amid memories of last week's television, music, and video game strategies I'm currently using. Jim Crow Lawswere the series of laws in southern states, which from 1876 till 1965, kept black people separate and unequal from the white population. Part of the Jim Crow laws were rules about voting, which kept black people's vote from getting counted, or which prevented them from even voting in the first place.

One way Black voters were prevented from voting was the POll Tax, which denied votes to people who payed no income tax (as many black people had no income). The most famous way black voters were kept from voting in some parts of the south, were laws mandating that all voters must pass a reading test prior to voting. White voters would rarely, in fact, almost never, be challenged at the polls to take these tests. Only black people were given them. The Black voters would arrive and be given a book to read a passage from. The book would be written in a foreign language like Greek or Classical Latin, and of course, inevitably, the black voter could not read it, so they would not be allowed to vote.

Nowadays, however, more modern, computerized ways of voter supression are being used, and almost exclusively by the Republican party. The practice is called Voter Caging, and is traced to the telemarketer term used to describe how mass marketing firms send out junk mail to addresses on their databases, and erase the entries of people whose mail comes back as "undeliverable".

This is exactly what happened in the 2004 election. But the story is a little more complicated than that. Republicans have been challenging black people's votes, and districts which vote mostly democrat, all throughout the 20th century. They in fact, are the only political party that regularly makes accusations of voting fraud, and which seeks court orders challenging whole districts and individuals.

According to BBC reporter Greg Palast, best-selling journalist, and accused terrorist, the GOP has offices all over the country which work in advance of elections to challenge votes in every state.

According to Slate magazine:

The Bush-Cheney operatives sent hundreds of thousands of letters marked "Do not forward" to voters' homes. Letters returned ("caged") were used as evidence to block these voters' right to cast a ballot on grounds they were registered at phony addresses. Who were the evil fakers? Homeless men, students on vacation and—you got to love this—American soldiers. Oh yeah: most of them are Black voters.

Why weren't these African-American voters home when the Republican letters arrived? The homeless men were on park benches, the students were on vacation—and the soldiers were overseas.

In 1986, the RNC tried to have 31,000 voters, most of them black, removed from the rolls in Louisiana when a party mailer was returned. The consent decrees that resulted prohibited the party from engaging in anti-fraud initiatives that target minorities or conduct mail campaigns to 'compile voter challenge lists.'

Back in 2004, many of the Republican's challenges were routinely denied action by the courts, which had come to see the annual voter challenges for what they were.

New targets for the Republicans now include people whose homes were foreclosed on during the recent mortgage crisis. Apparently, if you've lost your house, you stand a good chance of losing your vote, as well.

The whole process by which the Republicans perform this voter supression, is outlined in this report, which explains the whole chain of discoveries that led reporters to figure this all out.

But perhaps the biggest eye-opener in this is the fact that many of the Judges that the Bush administration fired amid great contraversy, were judges who declined to investigate Republican challenges to votes during the 2004 elections. Apparently the republicans are punishing them for not helping them prevent more people from voting against them.

This is Your Nation on White Privilege

2008-09-19T10:33:00.001-07:00

I didn't write this. I got it from The Red Room, but found it so compelling and utterly full of the irony of the Republicans, and the way they reason their way into self-contradiction, that I had to share it. Tim Wise not only hits the nail on the head with why these hypocrites should not be trusted, but he pretty much completely demolishes any notion that McCain and Palin are honorable people who are who they try to market themselves as. So please enjoy this. I am going to look up relevant links to all the facts listed here, which will take time, so keep checking in from time to time as they are added.

This is Your Nation on White Privilege
by Tim Wise
9/13/08

For those who still can’t grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it,perhaps this list will help.

White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because “every family has challenges,” even as black and Latino families with similar “challenges” are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.

White privilege is when you can call yourself a “fuckin’ redneck,” like Bristol Palin’s boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you'll “kick their fuckin' ass,” and talk about how you like to “shoot shit” for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.

White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action.

White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don’t all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you’re “untested.”

White privilege is being able to say that you support the words “under God” in the pledge of allegiance because “if it was good enough for the founding fathers, it’s good enough for me,” and not be immediately disqualified from holding office--since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s and the “under God” part wasn’t added until the 1950s--while if you're black and believe in reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school, requires it), you are a dangerous and mushy liberal who isn't fit to safeguard American institutions.

White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you.

White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto is “Alaska first,” and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you're black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she’s being disrespectful.

White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and the work they do -- like, among other things, fight for the right of women to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end to child labor--and people think you’re being pithy and tough, but if you merely question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college and the fact that she lives close to Russia -- you’re somehow being mean, or even sexist.

White privilege is being able to convince white women who don’t even agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your running mate anyway, because suddenly your presence on the ticket has inspired confidence in these same white women, and made them give your party a “second look.”

White privilege is being able to fire people who didn’t support your political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or being a typical politician who engages in favoritism, while being black and merely knowing some folks from the old-line political machines in Chicago means you must be corrupt.

White privilege is when you can take nearly twenty-four hours to get to a hospital after beginning to leak amniotic fluid, and still be viewed as a great mom whose commitment to her children is unquestionable, and whose "next door neighbor" qualities make her ready to be VP, while if you're a black candidate for president and you let your children be interviewed for a few seconds on TV, you're irresponsibly exploiting them.

White privilege is being able to give a 36 minute speech in which you talk about lipstick and make fun of your opponent, while laying out no substantive policy positions on any issue at all, and still manage to be considered a legitimate candidate, while a black person who gives an hour speech the week before, in which he lays out specific policy proposals on several issues, is still criticized for being too vague about what he would do if elected.

White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God’s punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you’re just a good church-going Christian, but if you’re black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on black people, you’re an extremist who probably hates America.

White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such a “trick question,” while being black and merely refusing to give one-word answers to the queries of Bill O’Reilly means you’re dodging the question, or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced.

White privilege is being able to go to a prestigious prep school, then to Yale and then Harvard Business school, and yet, still be seen as just an average guy (George W. Bush) while being black, going to a prestigious prep school, then Occidental College, then Columbia, and then to Harvard Law, makes you "uppity," and a snob who probably looks down on regular folks.

White privilege is being able to graduate near the bottom of your college class (McCain), or graduate with a C average from Yale (W.) and that's OK, and you're cut out to be president, but if you're black and you graduate near the top of your class from Harvard Law, you can't be trusted to make good decisions in office.

White privilege is being able to dump your first wife after she's disfigured in a car crash so you can take up with a multi-millionaire beauty queen (who you go on to call the c-word in public) and still be thought of as a man of strong family values, while if you're black and married for nearly twenty years to the same woman, your family is viewed as un-American and your gestures of affection for each other are called "terrorist fist bumps."

White privilege is when you can develop a pain-killer addiction, having obtained your drug of choice illegally like Cindy McCain, go on to beat that addiction, and everyone praises you for being so strong, while being a black guy who smoked pot a few times in college and never became an addict means people will wonder if perhaps you still get high, and even ask whether or not you ever sold drugs.

White privilege is being able to sing a song about bombing Iran and still be viewed as a sober and rational statesman, with the maturity to be president, while being black and suggesting that the U.S. should speak with other nations, even when we have disagreements with them, makes you "dangerously naive and immature."

White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and experiencing racism and an absent father is apparently among the "lesser adversities" faced by other politicians, as Sarah Palin explained in her convention speech.

And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90 percent of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are losing their homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world opinion, just because a lot of white voters aren’t sure about that whole “change” thing. Ya know, it’s just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more years of the same, which is very concrete and certain.

White privilege is, in short, the problem.

A Heartbeat away!

2008-09-10T10:51:00.000-07:00

Think Sarah Palin is ready to be Vice president -- or potentially the President?
When asked her opinion of the recent government takeover of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, Palin ignorantly stated that the two had “gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers,” which shows a basic ignorance of what were not government programs, but private corporations!

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are privately owned banks that were no burden at all to taxpayers. As the federal government takes them over, they will now become our burden. This basic ignorance of these two well-known institutions, and Palin's ignorant comments about them should concern anyone who votes for McCain. Do we want someone in the white house who is so ignorant that they don't even know the basic facts of a currently in-the-news organization?

Of course, what happened to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is not unlike what happened in the Savings and Loan crisis in the late 1980s. Guess who was receiving bribe money from Charles Keating during that scandal, and publicly rebuked by the senate back then? You guessed it -- John McCain! Can we really trust this guy, who helped bring about one of the costliest financial scandals in US history, and who willingly accepted bribe money and attempted to obstruct justice? Because of people like McCain accepting bribes to lobby on behalf of financial criminals, US taxpayers had to shell out 160 billion dollars. Neil Bush, son of former president George H. Bush, alone, cost taxpayers 1.6 billion dollars!

In the Savings and loan Scandal, McCain was cleared of impropriety, but publicly condemned for exercising poor judgement. What does this speak of his character, even now? He makes poor judgements, apparently, and his running mate is clueless. What a great combination!

Palin is a Religious nut-job, plain and simple!

2008-09-09T08:27:00.001-07:00

I'm not going to hide behind any careful wording here, because it's not really neccesary. The title says exactly what any reasonable person will conclude after they see the evidence I present.

But first, let's go back a few months and see what happened in the press when someone commented about Barack Obama's former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. As you will remember, Wright made a few statements that can be considered highly charged and inflamatory rhetoric. Wright said things that a lot of people think, and which he presented as opinions, as opposed to what God was telling him to say. In fact, he pretty much never claimed to be God's mouthpiece when making these statements. For example:

"The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people... God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."

In it's context, there really isn't anything insane about this rhetoric. He's merely stating a political opinion, and using facts and opinions. This is not something that we can really point out as evidence of insanity on Wright's part, or Obama's part, for attending his church. The plight of Americans of african heritage is pretty well documented and lived by millions of people. Wright, and many other Americans of African ancestry are pretty well justified in their anger, and are entitled to these opinions.

As we remember, the media took this story and essentially condemned Obama's relationship with Rev. Wright, to the extent that Obama had to publicly denounce him. Well, let's hope the media is fair to Obama, and takes an honest look at Sarah Palin, because old video of her at her church reveals something that should be considered far more contraversial, and perhaps reveals that her beliefs are quite insane. The videos come from the official Wasilla Assembly Of God Church website, and when they showed up on You Tube, the church took them down. A direct link to their online video library is here.

You can watch some of the video of Palin addressing her church over at the Huffington Post. I mean, she literally tells these people that getting an oil pipeline built is God's will, and that the Alaskan government can only do good when the people are "right with God". Okay, maybe that's not too contraversial. Lots of reasonable people in America talk that way. Hold on, there's more.

Her church holds weekly prophecy sessions, and in this video, Palin learns that we're living in the final days, before the end times, and that the Iraq war is God's will. Scary stuff. Lots of fundamentalist nut-jobs believe this stuff. Do we really want to have this person one heartbeat away from the presidency? I mean, we just spent 8 years having George W. Bush, who believes many of the same idiotic things, ruin this nation's economy, world alliances, and cheapen the constitution.

Oh, so you don't think that's so bad? OKay, watch this video of Palin's church, as these people act like lunatics running amock in an insane asylum.

Think Palin has normal beliefs now? Think this church, which she is still a proud member of, is a normal church, full of normal average folks? Want to see a future vice president or potentially a president roll around on the floor, mumbling gibberish, and foaming at the mouth? Better yet -- think foreign diplomats would be amused by it if she did it for them while they were visiting her in the White House?

Let's get real, folks. Palin is a fundamentalist whack-tard, as are all people whose churches teach this end-days prophecy shit, and who do the Jesus-boogie on the floor while speaking in tongues. It is insane behavior, period. No sane individuals do this kind of stuff, or believe that kind of prophecy crap. The press needs to air these videos, to be fair to Obama, because of the lynching he got for what Rev. Wright said. Rev. Wright may have pissed off some white people when he made his remarks, but at least he didn't jiggle around on the floor like someone getting holy shock-treatments from the lord. Be fair. Show Palin's church to the world so everyone can be fully informed about McCain's Vice Presidential pick.

Is Atheism a Religion?

2008-09-02T12:46:00.000-07:00

Ray Comfort, once again, is repeating himself, and perhaps a gazillion other droolers like him, when he responds to an atheist rightfully claiming that atheism is not a religion.
Ray comfort drooled:

It’s interesting to note that one definition of religion is:

"A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion."

He just stops right there with the definition. You will note that this is only one of the many definitions of religion. Here is the rest of the dictionary entry for "religion":

1. a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.
2. a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects: the Christian religion; the Buddhist religion.
3. the body of persons adhering to a particular set of beliefs and practices: a world council of religions.
4. the life or state of a monk, nun, etc.: to enter religion.
5. the practice of religious beliefs; ritual observance of faith.
6. something one believes in and follows devotedly; a point or matter of ethics or conscience: to make a religion of fighting prejudice.
7. religions, Archaic. religious rites.
8. Archaic. strict faithfulness; devotion: a religion to one's vow.

This is very typical of religious people who insist that anything that they are opposed to is just another religion, as though everyone's religious views are equally valid when it's just one religion against another.

Of course, it also completely ignores what people usually understand when they read or speak the word "religion" in conversation. Most people in real life associate "religion" with robes, silly hats, candles, prayers, ceremony, clergy-collars, churches, holy books, priests, nuns, and clergy.

Ray continues:

That rightly describes the ardent atheist cause. Despite protests to the contrary by its faithful adherents, atheism is a form of religion.

Despite being educated in an English speaking country, Ray continues to have trouble thinking his thoughs over and proofreading.

"A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion." does not describe "the ardent atheist cause" at all. It doesn't even tell us anything about atheism. Ray's selective word definition can describe anything from being a sports fan, a Ford automobile enthusiast, a political activist, a collector, Soccer-moms, musicians or music fans, and a whole spectrum of different activities that people "pursue with zeal or conscientious devotion."

Being possibly one of the dumbest people in the English Speaking world, Ray, like all the idiots who echoe his statement (he's not the first person to make this argument by far) doesn't realize that not only is he pretty much calling any activity that is pursued with zeal and devotion, a religion, he's completely devaluing the concept of "religion" by equating himself and what he does with those guys who paint their faces blue and shout slogans in the stands at football games (which you have to admit is kind of close to what I equate religious people with).

Ray continues:

Though their numbers are small—-only 2 percent of the world’s 6.5 billion inhabitants—atheists are an ever-growing group of people with a "belief" system. Although many flinch at the thought that they have faith in anything, they believe that there’s no God, and even have "works" to confirm it.

Atheism is apparently a "belief system". Of course, whenever hard pressed to list the basic tennants of this belief system, most religious people will either pooh-pooh it and make a joke answer up, or they will try to conflate "atheism" with liberalism, evolution, communism, abortion, homosexuality, and other topics.

Ray concludes:

Their lifestyle is fruit of their belief system.

This implies that there is automatically something unpleasant or negative about the lifestyle of the average atheist. Of course, no details are ever given about what, in the lifestyle of an atheist, is not acceptable or pleasant. This is because like most of the brain damaged preachers out there who crusade against their "enemy of the week", Ray has no idea what the "atheist lifestyle" is, because he's never asked. In fact, if he did ask, he wouldn't find much commonality between atheists in their lifestyles that differs from that of the average Christian, beyond not going to church and not believing in gods. Atheists have lifestyles that are representative of a cross-section of society. There are certainly a lot fewer atheists in our prisons, which I can't interpret as saying anything bad about our lifestyle.

Ironic article I found...

2008-08-29T10:45:00.001-07:00

I recently came across a posting of This article in the Washington Times. As you may or may not know, the Washington Times is staunchly conservative Newspaper that is owned by ultra-right wing Whack-tard, Rev. Sun Myung Moon, whose followers believe that he is the second coming of Christ. Anyway, here is the article as is appears on their site:

Not so brave

"Although it is often they who accuse us of being babyish, needing a big daddy in the sky to lean on, there is something profoundly immature about atheists. That surly, self-satisfied certainty that insists that one is the first person, ever, to see with a white-hot, burning clarity straight to the heart of society's attempts to
manipulate and control us all for its own ends.

"Today, atheism is big business with the success of books like 'The God Delusion.' If you want to get ahead, be a heretic! Something, however, has been lost. Say the word 'atheist' 100 years ago and it conjured up a vision of sexy, freewheeling rebels celebrating life, love and creativity in their rejection of a higher power. Say it now and a vision of fun-hating killjoys, desperately scared that somewhere
a Christian is having a good time by singing lustily in church on a Sunday morning, comes to mind. And, sadly, the alleged 'humanist morality' never happened - to this day, 80 percent of all unpaid and unself-interested voluntary and charity work is faith-driven.

"The problem, which Western atheists miss, is that to be a heretic here requires no bravery whatsoever. On the contrary ... the mocking of Judeo-Christian belief is a mainstay of prime-time entertainment and has been so since 'The Life of Brian.'"

- Julie Burchill, writing on "For the love of Christ" on Aug. 14 at the Guardian blog Comment is Free

How typical, but ultimately ironic, as all you need to do is substitute all the appearances of "Atheist" and "Atheism" with "Christian" and "Christianity", and make a few appropriate changes, and you get, what I feel, is a far more accurate article:

"Although it is often they who accuse us of being babyish, afraid of big daddy in the sky, there is something profoundly immature about Christians. That surly, self-satisfied certainty that insists that one is the first person, ever, to see with a white-hot, burning clarity straight to the heart of society's attempts to manipulate and control us all for its own ends."

"Today, Christianity is big business with the success of books like the 'Left Behind' series. If you want to get ahead, be a Evangelist! Something, however, has been lost. Say the word 'Christian' 100 years ago and it conjured up a vision of pure, honest good folks, celebrating life, love and creativity in their acceptence of a higher power. Say it now and a vision of fun-hating killjoys, desperately scared that somewhere an atheist is having a good time living a Hedonistic lifestyle, comes to mind. And, sadly, the alleged 'Christian morality' never happened. Whenever atheists publicly demand to be treated like anyone else, the death threats from Christians start filling up their answering machines."

"The problem, which Western Christians miss, is that to be a believer here requires no bravery whatsoever. On the contrary... the mocking of liberals, Atheism and Evolution is a mainstay of Christian Fundamentalism and has been so for the last century."

Now doesn't that tell it more like it really is?

Ray's Award-Winning Stupidity

2008-08-26T08:30:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I know I seem to have no other sources for my entertainment at times, but once again, I find myself commenting on Ray Comfort's bloggings again. I know there is a cure in sight for my addiction. Ray trully is too easy a target, and I really should look for bigger fish to fry. So I'll try... I promise!

Looks like Ray Comfort is using a legitimate criticism by an atheist to simply sell his video. It's really funny how Ray keeps trying to say that he's not a money-grubbing evangelist, then goes on to use legitimate questions from people as a shameless vehicle to sell, sell, sell. He doesn't even bother to address the question at all. Get this, Ray makes a big deal out of the fact that his video "The Science Of Evolution", won an NRB (National Religious Broadcasters) People's CHoice Award.

The National Religious Broadcaster's People's Choice award is hardly a prestigious award at all. They like to compare themselves to the Emmy awards, but there simply is no comparison at all. Essentially, you would likely NEVER see any of the programs awarded by the NRB get a Peabody award, an Emmy, or even a J. Fred Muggs award (bonus points if you get that!). The award he won carries the weight of the Adult Video News Best Actor Award (Yes, that's best actor in a porno video, and we all know how great the acting is in your average porno).

Religious television, in general, is just plain lame to begin with. The TV shows that CBN, TBN, Daystar and other religious networks run are notorious for being of such poor quality that they simply don't even rate when compared to even the lamest secular/commercial programs. This is because the Evangelicals who run those networks have such low standards to begin with, and have created their own little world where the normal standards of quality that the rest of the world uses simply don't apply. The average episode of the Simpsons or South Park has more depth, better writing and production values than that of the best Christian Programming. Having been a long-time watcher and monitor of religious television, I can say with confidence that the acting in most Christian Dramas are easily far below even the worst junk programming on regular TV. Occaisionally, real hollywood actors are cast in Christian programs, but overall, it seems that good acting is rarely valued in the world of religious broadcasting.

The problem with most religious TV is that is preaches dogma, and more often than not, quoting the Bible and preaching the Evangelical Fundamentalist dominionist message take precidence over quality acting, good writing, direction and production. An intelligent director, for example, would at least try to get actors to not act like they were in a grammar school play.

I mean, just watch Ray and Kirk's video and see how lame it is, and how downright retarded the writing is. It may be funny for Ray and Kirk to try to get an Orangutan on an airplane, and make fun of the ape because it doesn't speak, but they waste all that effort making an ignorant argument. The orangutan likely has a higher IQ than them. There is an excellent critical analysis of this video on Youtube, which I can't really add anything to. Ray and Kirk could easily surpass Captain Hook's Christian Pirate Puppets in terms of their mindless entertainment value.

Ray Comfort continues to just not get it.

2008-08-21T13:19:00.000-07:00

Well, Ray Comfort continues to just not get it, despite what we've told him over and over.

Ray comfort wrote

(Presumably an atheist from his blog wrote):

Atheists, don't hate any god, fairy, leprechaun, unicorn or other fictional being. It's impossible to hate something that does not exist. Try to get this burned in your mind this time. Repeat it a few thousand times if that helps."

That’s right. Atheists don’t hate fairies, leprechauns or unicorns, because they don’t exist. It is impossible to hate something that doesn’t exist. And that makes the point. You hate God because He does exist. You spend your time thinking about Him, then arguing about Him, then blaspheming His name (what greater hatred can you have for a person than to use their name as a cuss word?), and showing contempt for, and ridicule of, those that love Him.

Ray still just doesn't get it. I can't believe he's ranting about this again. Ray doesn't seem to understand that the argument we atheists tend to have is not that God exists or doesn't exist, but that the people who promote God have a strong tendency to be IDIOTS. God says nothing. He does nothing to incur the wrath of atheists any more than the wicked witch of the west. Again and again, I have emphasized the point that it's not God that we have a beef with. It's some of his followers -- those few extremists, who are priggish, ill-mannered, unable to deal with criticism, unable to self-examine, ignorant, shouting, spitting weasel-like people living in their own esoteric universes -- these people have very ill-mannered, impolite, and outright RUDE ways of communicating their message. God is harmless and inoffensive. It's the people promoting him that incur our ire.

Ray wrote:

You have the axiomatic evidence of creation and of your conscience, and you are therefore without excuse. By professing the blindness of atheism you are denying the God-given light that He has given each of us.

Well, so what? Is Ray trying to say that he can't deal with criticism? Is he trying to say that if we call HIM an idiot, or a moron, it's an insult to God? Ultimately, Ray is playing this game where it's okay for him to deny and denigrate our beliefs, but if we touch his, it's persecution. In other words, this is a two-way street. If Ray can't take it, he shouldn't dish it out.

There are some cultures that will show so much contempt for a family member that has wronged them, they actually deny his existence. They refuse to acknowledge that he existed as a son. They don’t want to see him, hear from him, or talk to him. That’s what the professing atheist does with God, and his or her reason for doing so is moral. It’s not intellectual.

So let me get this straight. If I think that God does not exist, and my reasons for not believing him are that (a) his followers are logically inconsistant in their promotion of him, (b) the concepts from the Bible do not logically mesh with known scientific realities, and (c) most of the arguments used to support the existence of God are fallacies, then my reasons are moral, and not intellectual?

Well, that's the kind of reasoning you get from people like Ray. He has a dozen atheists write to him each day, and tell him the same thing, so he ignores them, and tells them that they really don't believe in God because they just want an excuse to have care-free sex (he didn't say that here, but on his blog, he tends to follow the "moral issue" comment with an explanation about atheists and Darwininsts using science or atheism as an excuse for wild sex). He's definitely got a one-track mind.

Ray continues:

If it was an intellectual issue there wouldn’t be any argument.

Yes, because we all know that no true intellectual can disagree with Ray Comfort's powerful reasoning. After all, Ray is the epitome of the word "intellectual", isn't he?

Ray finishes with:

But because you love your sins and you know that God requires an account for every action and every word (including your thought-life), you can’t stand that thought, and so you deny His existence.

See what I mean -- we "love our sins" (that's a buzzword for "wild, adulterous sex" in Ray's vocabulary). Despite the fact that we've given him plenty of rational, logical, and scientific reasons to doubt Christianity, and usually mention that one of the biggest turn-offs are the utter twits like Ray who promote a bizarre version of it, none of that means anything. Ray won't listen to anything we have to say, because he has made up his mind what goes on in our minds, for he has his Bible to tell him what we think. Is it even possible for Ray to simply accept what we have to say for us, or is he going to continue to play the "I know what you really think" game?

Ray's "Empty Threat Of Hell"

2008-08-20T13:41:00.000-07:00

Once again, Ray just doesn't get it, and rather than use actual statements that actual atheists make on a subject, he decides to just make up what he imagines atheists are thinking, because it's much easier for him to talk to himself than have an actual 2-way conversation.

In Ray's Bizarro-world, atheists couldn't possibly make their decisions based on logic and rational thinking, because if they did, they would have to agree with Ray on everything, because Ray is allegedly a logical, rational-thinking person.

Yeah, in a pig's eye!

Ray thinks that atheists deny Hell merely because we don't like the idea of it. Of course, he gets this notion not from reading what atheists have to say for themselves, but from what other dogmatic Christians have said about atheists.

No Ray, We don't simply deny Hell because we just don't like the thought of all that eternal torment going on. We deny it because nobody can offer any rational, logical proof that such a thing is real.

Yeah, I know it's hard for you to conceive of people who don't accept the Bible as 100% God's only truth, but we don't. We actually have read it, were not impressed with it, and have a standard of proof that is more sophisticated and accurate than yours. I mean -- I don't believe whatever is in an ancient book just because it's ancient, and just because a bunch of people are obsessively compulsive about promoting it.

Now I know it's hard for you to conceive that people can read the Bible, and NOT be immediately compelled to drop to their knees and start asking God to please not burn or kill them, but well, we exist.

It's must be terribly, terribly difficult for you to conceive that there are people who don't accept what you claim is "obvious" to you. Well, not everyone sees what you do the same way.

You cannot conceive that your are irrational.

You cannot conceive that you are illogical.

You cannot conceive that you are not very intelligent.

These flaws in you will continue to make you a sort of laughing stock, and continue to hinder the prospect of convincing anyone other than people who are already beleivers.

It's not hard at all, by the way, for me to conceive of the opposites of theses things -- that there are people who can read the Bible and come away from it totally believing it, and being totally obsessed with pushing it on everyone else -- Gullible, obsessive-compulsive, feeble-minded people have been a historical reality, as they are today.

Michael Medved Shoots Discovery Institute in the foot!

2008-08-15T11:14:00.000-07:00

Remember that old saying about giving someone enough rope to hang themselves with? Well, recently Michael Medved did just that!

Michael Medved, a Movie critic, outspoken lunatic conservative, and senior fellow at the discovery institute said everything we need to know about Intelligent Design, when he said:

The important thing about Intelligent Design is that it is not a theory - which is something I think they need to make more clear. Nor is Intelligent Design an explanation. Intelligent Design is a challenge. It’s a challenge to evolution. It does not replace evolution with something else.

Source: The Jerusalem Post, Aug 6th, 2008

There you have it.

Intelligent Design is NOT A THEORY; Therefore it has no business in biology class, since it's not even a theory.

Intelligent Design is not an explanation; Therefore it is not science, since the whole purpose of science is explaining how things work in the natural world.

Intelligent Design does not replace evolution with something else; therefore, it's place in a science class is superfluous and trivial at best.

Intelligent Design is a challenge to evolution; therefore, given the rest of what Medved has admitted, it is a largely UNSCIENTIFIC challenge, carrying no weight whatsoever in the scientific fields, and is strictly a sociopolitical challenge, if anything.

So do we need to waste any more time arguing the subject of Intelligent Design, and whether or not it belongs in science classes?

Ray Comfort's Starter Kit

2008-08-08T08:16:00.000-07:00

The following is my take on Ray Comfort's latest blog, Atheist Starter Kit. I am continuously amused by how ironic Ray and his Peanut Gallery are.

Evangelical Christian Starter Kit

If you are a newly converted Christian, there are many things you need to know in order to stay on track with your salvation. Here are ten suggestions for the newly converted:

1. Whenever your poorly-conceived representations of "what science is" and "what atheists believe" is referred to as a "straw man argument," or "circular reasoning", or you mis-quote a scientist, and someone calls it "quote mining", just accuse your opponents of repeating a mantra, like they are a robot. Play dumb and try to make them think you don't actually know what those terms mean.

2. When an unbeliever says that science or evolution calls a literal interpretation of Genesis into question, dismiss such common sense by saying that the Bible has been around for 2000 years, and that millions of people believe it, because it's God's truth, and that's good enough reason to keep the faith.

3. When you tell an unbeliever that they have everything to gain and nothing to lose (Pascal's Wager) by obeying the Gospels, and they reject it, claiming that Buddhists and Muslims can say the same thing about their faiths, just mindlessly quote passages from the Bible, especially passages that emphasize that unbelievers are fools.

4. If an unbeliever tells you that "there is no evidence that Jesus existed", mindlessly quote from the Bible, and tell them that if Jesus didn't exist, how come all the Gospel writers talk about his life in detail? Also bring up how people have believed that Jesus was real for 2000 years, and how that must mean he is.

5. Do not read and interpret the Bible for yourself. That is a big mistake. Always obey what your Pastor tells you is the correct interpretation.

6. When unbelievers use big words, like "Megalo-maniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully" to describe God, or they make a big deal about education and your lack thereof, attack them for being prideful of their education (Pride is a sin), or ramble on mindlessly about how colleges are "just mills for pumping out gay communist liberal atheists".

7. Say that you were once a genuine atheist, and that you found it to be false. (The cool thing about being an Christian is that you can lie through your teeth, because you believe that there is nothing wrong with lying to God's enemies). Additionally, if an atheist claims that he was once a Christian, and found that it was false, point out that this is impossible, simply due to the very definition of Christianity as "one who knows the Lord". PLEASE NOTE: It cannot be overly emphasized how learning and using these little phrases can help you feel secure in dismissing common sense.

8. Believe that nothing is 100% certain, except the truth of the Bible. Do not question it. Believe with all of your heart that there is credible scientific evidence for Biblical inerrancy. When you make any argument, pat yourself on the back by concluding with "I know I'm going to Heaven, what about you?" That will make you feel good about yourself.

9. If unbelievers respond to the threat of eternal punishment by saying that they don't believe in the existence of Hell, Tell them that if they don't believe in something, it doesn't make it NOT exist. Don't follow their logic about there needing to be reasonable proof that Hell exists as a prerequisite (Another big word!) for believing in it, or that other line about the tooth fairy and leprochauns. Just repeat that only fools deny that God and Hell exist.

10. Blame Atheism and Evolution for the atrocities of the Nazis, even though Martin Luther's influence on historical antisemitism was far greater, and the Nazis emphasized their conservative Christian heritage. You may want to emphasize that people believe in evolution because it lets them be adulterers without guilt.

11. Finally, keep in fellowship with other like-minded Christians who believe as you believe, and encourage each other in your beliefs. Build up your faith. Never doubt for a moment. Remember, the key to Christianity is to be unreasonable and willfully ignorant. Fall back on that when you feel threatened. Think shallow, and keep telling yourself that you are going to Heaven. Remember, an Christian is someone who pretends that they know what's best for everyone else.

Questions about Uncommon Descent's Mission Statement

2008-07-21T12:59:00.000-07:00

The following is Uncommon Descent's purpose statement on their blog. It raises a few questions which I am daring to ask them. I doubt there will ever be answers to these questions, but if there are any ID Proponents who wish to provide answers, I'll gladly discuss them with you. When providing answers, I would appreciate specific links to specific sources which back up what you're claiming, especially where you think it has the best impact.

Here goes:

"Materialistic ideology has subverted the study of biological and cosmological origins so that the actual content of these sciences has become corrupted."

Okay, so answer me this:

(1) What content of science has been corrupted by "materialistic ideology"?

(2) When did this corruption start?

(3) What parts of which sciences have, traditionally used non-materialistic elements? (remember, "traditionally" means that it was done that way for generations)

(4) Can you give specific examples of a science discepline that successfully used non-materialistic elements in the past, which was "subverted", becoming less successful, and provide a historical context under which it happened, as well as list the actual negative effects of the corruption?

"The problem, therefore, is not merely that science is being used illegitimately to promote a materialistic worldview, but that this worldview is actively undermining scientific inquiry, leading to incorrect and unsupported conclusions about biological and cosmological origins."

(1) Saying that the conclusions are incorrect and unsupported suggests that you know what the correct conclusions are, and you have plenty of support for them. PLease explain.

(2) PLease give examples of scientific research that has been undermined by materialistic worldview, and what specific scientific progress has been hampered, and how it was hampered. Please give specific examples.

"At the same time, intelligent design (ID) offers a promising scientific alternative to materialistic theories of biological and cosmological evolution -- an alternative that is finding increasing theoretical and empirical support. Hence, ID needs to be vigorously developed as a scientific, intellectual, and cultural project."

(1) Can you give examples of the progress of the support of ID? Specifically, which scientific advancements has science benefitted from that are the result of ID research?

(2) Please list some specific research that ID proponents have done which have resulted in positive empirical support for ID.

Thanks in advance if you attempt to answer!

I couldn't resist this post!

2008-07-02T12:31:00.000-07:00

Ray Comfort wrote, in his Soap-box Blog:

"Do Christians make you nervous?"

That all depends on the individuals. Most Christians are just regular people, but then there are nutters whose behavior is aberrant, and who make normal people, even other Christians, feel nervous, in the same way that insane people make us nervous.

Ray continues:

"Are you afraid of our political aspirations?"

Only when those aspirations involve getting the death penalty for blasphemy, homosexuality, and other exclusively Christian offenses. Any Christians who ascribe to the doctrine of dominionism or Christian Reconstructionism are not to be trusted, because they are literally against democracy and the bill of rights.

Ray continues:

"Do you want to keep us out of the education system?"

Hell, no! If anything, you need more schooling to get over your ignorance.

Ray continues:

"Do you think we are narrow-minded and dangerous? I know that many of you do."

Again, this depends ont he individual. I've known many Christians who are open-minded and intelligent, as well as others who are narrow-minded and crazy. Can you guess which group I count you in?

Ray wrote:

"You think that we have an evil agenda, and you are concerned because we are everywhere, and that gives us political power. We are doctors, nurses, mechanics, scientists, pilots, authors, and some of us are even politicians."

I don't think that "Christians" have an evil agenda. I think that a minority group of Christians who are nutters, have ridiculous ideas and confuse reality with their delusions, and that's it. Sometimes, the delusions of these nutters are used by politicians, but for the most part, they don't do much harm, except for the tiny minority of nutters who bomb abortion clinics and assassinate doctors.

Ray wrote:

"Genuine Christians are really quite harmless. We are likened to sheep (see John 10), and sheep don’t normally attack people. I did a quick search on the Internet, using the search-words "Sheep attacks man," and only came up with two clips. One was a sheep following a boy rather than attacking him, and the other was funny more than anything."

The vast majority of Christians are average people, and they are harmless. Only a tiny minority of the nutters who call themselves Christians are any threat.

Sheep are really dumb, Ray. They're dumb as doorknobs (You should know that about sheep having lived in New Zealand, the sheep-farming capital of the world). Sometimes, the nutters resemble sheep too well. Baaaah. Baaaaaah...

Ray wrote:

"Dog’s are called "man’s best friend," yet they attack and sometimes kill people. It is estimated that two percent of the U.S. population, an amazing 4.7 million people, are bitten by dogs each year. Chimpanzees, elephants, bears, lions, tigers, and other animals attack and kill people. But sheep don’t."

Sheep don't bomb abortion clinics, assainate doctors, or call for the execution of heretics and homosexuals. So what's your point?

Ray wrote:

"So, Christophobians, lighten up. You may think that we are wolves in sheep’s clothing, but we’re not. We are not out to kill you, or bite you, or hurt you in the slightest."

What makes you think that we thought that? Are you projecting?

Ray wrote:

"We love you, and our deepest desire is for you to find the gift of everlasting life, and you will only find that by following the Good Shepherd."

Translation: We really wish you were just like us, because we think we're just the best people on earth! Baaaaaaaaaaaaah! Baaaah!

Answers to a Creationist's Questions

2008-06-26T11:58:00.000-07:00

John Willis responded to my posts on Ray Comfort's Soap Box Blog, in one of Ray's many botched attempts at writing about science. Ray cut us off when I started posting links to back up my claims, so I continued the discussion here, injecting even more links that I posted on Ray's forum.

John, if you find me here, welcome. I hope to continue the discussion, and possibly get to some of your comments, which raised questions for me. So here goes, from our last exchange...

John Willis wrote:
"If you are going to beat me up, please do it slowly and throughly."

I'm not here to beat you up. I'm here to correct glaring mistakes that you and others have about science, history, and other things that they consider to be "facts", which are objectively in error.

IN other words, I'm trying to help educate what I see as misguided and commonly made mistakes concerning science, atheism, and history.

John Willis said...

DAVE: Do you realize that nothing in nature is random?

"Yes, I do, but that is not the claim of Darwinian evolution. In this respect, your understanding of nature is more in line with my worldview then atheism.

You're incorrect. The modern theory of evolution does not claim that evolution is driven by "chance", is "random", or is "accidental".

John Willis wrote:

David wrote:

"Do you understand that "random events" are not compatible with the scientific law of cause and effect?"

Yes I do. And you are the first atheist I have conversed with on this blog, who does not deny the scientific law of cause and effect.

I haven't met any atheists anywhere who deny cause and effect. Perhaps you haven't been debating very long? Cause and effect are part of the essential backbone of all science. Anyone who denies it, essentially denies science itself.

John Writes:

This is indeed important. You hit the nail right on the head as you write....

"The same is true of all natural events -- all things in the world obey the laws of chemistry and physics, as well as cause and effect. Nothing has ever been known to be random or to not follow these scientific laws."

And as the universe coming into being was the first event, what or whom do you claim caused the universe?

We have insufficient information to determine the cause of the universe, and saying "God did it" does not help to increase our knowledge at all -- it's sort of a scientific cop-out to just say "God Did It" for anything we currently don't understand. We don't know what preceeded the Big Bang. We can only speculate, based on our current knowledge, because we reach "singularity", meaning, our information on the factors and variables for calculating what happened are too incomplete to give accurate results. I am not going to speculate blindly.

John Willis said...

David wrote:

"I don't mince words or make up my own new definitions for words. Using the English Dictionary should be a practice that we all do. I have found that religious groups in particular, love to invent new definitions for words that nobody else uses but them."

Can you give me an example?

Well, let me see...

Last month, Ray Comfort objected to being called "Religious", claiming that the word had "too many negative connotations". When I looked up the definition of "Religious", I found no such synonyms or connotations. So I actually bothered to ask Ray and others exactly what those "negative connotations" were, and nobody answered.

No doubt, you've heard or read definitions for words like "atheism", "liberal" from conservatives that go like this:

Conservapedia is veritable cornucopia of redefined words, revisionist history, and similar subjectivized information. They define Liberal like this:

A liberal can support many of the following political positions and practices:

* A government with large spending on social programs, and high taxes to support such programs

* Taxpayer-funded and/or legalized abortion

* Income redistribution, usually through progressive taxation

* Some argue that liberals typically support economic policy similar to that of fascism.

* Liberals claimed a monopoly on compassion, decency, and social justice (as defined by themselves), posing as the sole defenders of civic virtue against a horde of backwoodsmen, racists, and religious fanatics.

These definitions of the word are not found in standard dictionaries, and quite frankly, are so opinionated that they do not even pass any cursory test of objectivity.

John Willis said...

The fruit fly's lifetime is a matter of days. Because of this, they make great test subjects for subjecting them to radiation to induce mutations to test the macro-evolutionary hypothesis.

How many beneficial mutations do you think there have been to fruit flies after bombarding them with radiation over the last 30 years?...(literally thousands of generations.)

This all depends on what you mean by "beneficial". The study of fruit flies has actually yielded some of the most widely cited evidence for speciation (the evolution of a new species). Genetically isolated species of fruit flies have evolved and been observed. At least two species of fruit fly were evolved and became unable to mate with other species of fruit fly. They could only mate with each other, and had a whole series of different behaviors.

For more on this, see:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciation

http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309058775

BUt Fuit flies are not the only species that we've managed to observe evolving. Recently, an E. Coli bacteria study that has been going on for 20 years produced pretty much what you are asking for -- beneficial mutations.

See this for more info:
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/dn14094-bacteria-make-major-evolutionary-shift-in-the-lab.html

John Willis said...

Although you list some of the fossils you are refering to, can you provide the chronology of the transitional forms you are claiming leading up to homo sapiens?

Sure. I have several sources you can look at:

Wikipedia has an article with some charts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution

This textbook on Evolution, from the national Science Foundation, has a collection of charts and graphs:
http://www.evolution-textbook.org/content/free/figures/ch25.html

This talkorigins book has photos of fossils, and possibly the most comprehensive information assembled online on Human Evolution:
http://www.talkorigins.org/pdf/fossil-hominids.pdf

This article has lots of organized information, too:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/

John Willis wrote:

Your quote:
Dave wrote:

"Because of the shape of the skeleton (of australopithicines), we know they walked upright."

....is problematic because a complete skeleton of australopithicines does not exist, and the fossils we do have, have been found hundreds of miles apart.

Not true. In fact, the person who made that claim is Tom Willis, who wrote the claim in the October, 1987 issue of the Bible Science Newsletter. He claimed to have met Dr. Johanson, who was one of the discoverers of the fossil, and questioned him, and he admitted that the knee joint was found 3km away (not hundreds of miles -- the facts become distorted as the story gets circulated between people). Johanson said that he never said that, and that Willis must have either misunderstood his answer, or he misunderstood Willis' question. The bottom line is that Willis was wrong, and that subsequent investigations proved that Johanson was telling the truth (several Afarensis specimens are on record, some nearly complete).

Talkorigins Archive has this article on the matter:

To Summarize: At least eighteen creationists have made this bogus claim. Three have never responded in any way to questions about it (Girouard, Menton, Willis). Another two have not responded to further inquiries (Brown, McAllister). Only five have shown a willingness to discuss the matter (Chittick, the Nuttings, Sharp, Taylor), but one (Chittick) cut off correspondence. Four have agreed that the claim was in error and agreed to stop making it (Hovind, McAllister, Sharp, Taylor), and two agreed to stop making it if further investigation showed that the claim was bogus (the Nuttings) but have continued to repeat it. One (Arndts) has indicated a willingness to believe that the claim is in error but no interest in researching further or offering a correction because the article in which he made the claim just used it as an example of a type of error in reasoning. One (LaHaye) has insisted that the claim is not in error, but agreed to stop making it at the request of the Institute for Creation Research. Three (Baugh, Huse, Mehlert) have not yet been contacted for comment. One (Brown) now denies having made the claim at all. Only three (Menton, Morris, Sharp) have issued public corrections or clarifications.

I should add that the knee joint is not the only evidence for bipedalism -- the shape of the hips, the legs, and the feet, as well as the knee, as a whole group shows bipedalism.

Also, many people are unaware that you don't need a 100% complete skeleton to establish the shape of the specimen. Since most creatures have a right side that is a mirror-image of their left side, you can conclude that the arms of the left should be mirror images of the right arm, and so on.

John wrote:

Dave Wrote:

"Darwin also predicted that we should find common traits in related species, which extend to fossils of similar creatures. When we discovered DNA, we had an even better way of establishing relational links between species. Some fossils have had enough DNA left int hem to examine, and we have been able to establish links between fossils and modern species."

Can you give me an example? My research indicates we have found exactly the opposite to that prediction of Darwins with the discovery of DNA.

I'd be interested in seeing what your research included. Can you give me links?

Here are examples of DNA evidence that confirms Darwin's theory:

Analysis of Neanderthal and Human DNA:
http://www.archaeology.org/online/news/dna.html

http://www.jqjacobs.net/anthro/paleo/neanderthal.html

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/mtDNA.html

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Dinosaurs-Shared-the-Same-DNA-with-Birds-48875.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_birds

Essentially, We discovered that Neanderthals are not our ancestors, but a separate species, cousins, to humans. The discovery came when mitochondrial DNA was extracted from the tooth of a Neanderthal skull, and compared with modern human DNA. We also found that Therapod Dinosaurs (like T-Rex and Raptors) are genetic ancestors of all modern birds, after T-Rex DNA was extracted from a tooth. DNA has also been extracted from fossils trapped in amber, as well as from some fossil Dinosaur eggs. You will note that I did not rely exclusively on talk-origins material -- I got material from a variety of online sources.

John Willis said...

David wrote:

"The Theory also predicts that in heterogenus populations (a population that is very diverse and where different sub-species can interbreed) which live in a rapidly changing environment will see a greater degree of mutation. This is exactly what has been observed."

Can you give me an example and a reference please.

OKay, sorry, but I have no online sources for this. so here is a footnote:

Oliver, Antonio et al. 2000. High frequency of hypermutable Pseudomonas aeruginosa in cystic fibrosis lung infection. Science 288: 1251-1253. See also Rainey, P. B. and R. Moxon. 2000. When being hyper keeps you fit. Science 288: 1186-1187. See also: LeClerc, J. E. and T. A. Cebula. 2000. Pseudomonas survival strategies in cystic fibrosis (letter), 2000. Science 289: 391-392.

Essentially, a study of bacteria infecting the lungs of chronic cystic fibrosis patients revealed that strains of bacteria mutated new strains more rapidly in Cistic Fibrosis patients. This is probably not the best example, because it's rather technical.

Some evidence comes from the studies of the KT boundary, and the cambrian explosion. The KT boundary is the layer of radioactive iridium that indicates that an asteroid hit the planet (Iridium is not found naturally on earth). The estimated timeline is about 65 million years ago. It typically marks the end of the Dinosaur era. Immediately above the KT-layer, there are few fossils to be found, but after small gap, we start seeing therapsids and mammals, and a huge sudden explosion in new life forms. The Cambrian explosion began with, and was also ended by a similar mass-extinction, commonly called the Cambrian-Ordovician Extinction. Precambrian strata yeilds evidence of small, simple life forms. Then there is a layer similar to the KT boundary. Above this layer, we see the cambrian explosion -- lots of new life forms appearing, and what looks like rapid evolution. Then, towards the end of the cambrian era, we see another Mass extinction, called the Ordovician–Silurian extinction, followed by a gap where there is not a lot of fossils, then a sudden increase in new types of fossils, similar to the cambrian explosion, but with remarkably different forms. I'll assume you're aware of these facts, since you brought up the cambrian explosion. There are several Mass-Extinction events recorded in the fossil record and rock strata, and the patter of each of them is very simlar to what I just described.

John Willis said...

Can you give me an example of a transitional fossil between any of these major groups? And can you offer an explanation of why we do not see these transitional forms in Cambrian strata?

Cambrian Transitional Fossils contain the first major group -- invertebrate to vertebrate transitionals.

Check out these photos of actual fossils from this series:
http://facstaff.gpc.edu/~pgore/geology/geo102/burgess/burgess.htm

Pikaia, an early invertebrate chordate. It was at first interpreted as a segmented worm until a reanalysis showed it had a notochord.
Yunnanozoon, an early chordate.
Haikouella, a chordate similar to Yunnanozoon, but with additional traits, such as a heart and a relatively larger brain (Chen et al. 1999).
Conodont animals had bony teeth, but the rest of their body was soft. They also had a notochord (Briggs et al. 1983; Sansom et al. 1992).
Cathaymyrus diadexus, the oldest known chordate (535 million years old; Shu et al. 1996).
Myllokunmingia and Haikouichthys, two early vertebrates that still lack a clear head and bony skeletons and teeth. They differ from earlier invertebrate chordates in having a zigzag arrangement of segmented muscles, and their gill arrangement is more complex than a simple slit (Monastersky 1999).

Now there are transitional fossils between all the other groups, too. They are:

Ichtyosetigids -- They have both traits of fish and amphibians.
Seymoromorphs -- They have mixed amphibian and reptile traits.
Therapsids -- They have mixed mammal and reptile traits.

There are thousands of examples of each of these categories.

The reason these groups are particularly important is (a) Creationist literature says they do not exist, and (b) no creatures living today fit any of these categories.

If you don't know how to tell a reptile from a mammal by looking at the bones, here is a brief description. Mammals have the following exclusive traits (meaning only mammals have them, and you never see then in reptiles, birds, fish, or amphibians): A single jawbone, an inner ear with small bones for hearing, several types of specialized teeth in the skull, No fenestrae in the skull (Large open areas on either side of the skull), and most importantly, warm-bloodedness (indicated by canals inside of bones through which blood flows). Reptiles have multiple jawbones, no inner ear, one type of tooth, fenestrae, and no warm bloodedness.

Therapsids have a variety of exclusively mammalian and exclusively reptilian features -- such as cold bloodedness with multiple types of teeth, a single jaw with only one type of tooth, all reptilian except for no fenestrae in the skull. Mammals do not exist prior to the appearance of therapsids in the fossil record.

These are just a few of the dozens of species of note in the Therapsid family:

John Willis Wrote:

Further, why do we not see any fossil evidence in pre-Cambrian strata?

We do, actually.

This is a Wikipedia article that mentions Pre-cambrian fossils.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Cambrian

The Precambrian fossils that have been found are consistent with a branching pattern and inconsistent with a sudden Cambrian origin. For example, bacteria appear well before multicellular organisms, and there are fossils giving evidence of transitionals leading to halkierids and arthropods.

Evidence of microbial life forms are found throughout the pre-cambrian.

Any way, This is ther end of the list of questions that John had. If he chooses to pick it up, I'll continue it here. I also hope this article is useful to other people who are facing similar questions from creationists. This is about the 3rd time I've actually written this type of article, but the first time I've actually save it permanantly.

I intend to produce more work like this, because I think it would be helpful in educating people about science facts versus creationist propaganda.

Evangelical Pentagon Conspiracy...

2008-06-19T08:22:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, check out My Latest posting at "Fundamentalist Deceit: An American Tradition". I read a few recent articles and collected some scary research. In short, the Pentagon and out Military Acadamies have been taken over by a cabal of Evanglical nut-jobs, who have been harrassing atheists, Jews, and women in the military. Read all about it!

Ray Comfort is totally Clueless

2008-06-05T08:22:00.000-07:00

I seem to spend a lot of my blogging on Ray Comfort's moronic bloggings, but well, they are hilarious, in a morbid way. I mean, I've got mixed feelings about making fun of the mentally handicapped. On the one hand, it seems cruel to poke fun at people who don't know any better, and who obviously are in serious need of psychotherapy or medication. On the other hand, Ray makes a lot more money than I do, has command of lots of followers, and has national exposure on his TV shows, so I don't feel bad at all making fun of a person whose career seems to revolve around exposing his personal insanity to the world. After all, nobody thought it was cruel to poke fun at Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush when they were displaying their lack of intelligence to the world. Ray is no different.

In his latest Blog, titles, appropriately "Circular Reasoning, Etc.", Ray re-affirms that he has no clue, and that he still doesn't know the meanings to several words and phrases that we atheists have frequently used in discussion.

Ray Comfort wrote:

"Reading comments between Christians and atheists is sometimes frustrating."

Yes, It's frustrating for Ray to have a battle of wits, while unarmed.

Ray continues:

"Most of the Christians are very polite and try to address the issues"

On this point I tend to disagree. SOME are polite. Others give into ranting and arrogantly castigating us rational objectors. But I digress.

Ray continues:

"and the atheists are generally arrogant and word-twisting,"

You cannot twist words when your word meanings come straight from the English Dictionary. If anything, Ray and his people are ones to twist words, especially last week, he claimed that he objected to being called religious, "because it has so many negative connotations", despite the fact that several online dictionaries failed to have anything negative in their definitions of the word,and no thesaurus had any negative synonyms of it, either.

I pointed out that far too often, it is "people of faith" (is that a less offensive euphamism than "religious"?) and "extremists" of various types who mince their words and try to redefine well-established English words to suit their agendas, and I believe I succeeded in proving my point with several examples of words that Ray and others have their own special meanings for that are not really found in dictionaries.

Ray continues:

"while resorting to ridicule and personal attacks. They keep saying the same old things, such as, “Prove to me that God exists without using the Bible. If you use the Bible that’s 'circular reasoning.'” That is nothing short of ridiculous. It’s like saying, “Prove to me that the President lives in the White House, but don’t look into the White House.”

Actually, it's not like that at all, but it is possible to prove that the president lives in the White House without actually going there and looking into the building itself. I would check the phone books, have him followed by a camera crew, and verify how long he spends there with other methods. I never need to be on the property to find proof.

Ray has confirmed for us all that he still does not understand what circular reasoning is, nor do I think we can ever get him to have any revelations about why circular reasoning is inherently irrational, and illogical.

Let me illustrate from his history. Remember when he debated the Rational Response Squad?
(1) he claimed that he could "scientifically" prove that God exists, without referring to scriptures.
(2) he claimed that God exists outside of the physical universe, and that the realm of the supernatural is beyond the ability of science to detect.
(3) his first attempt to "scientifically prove" God's existence was to start quoting the 10 commandments, and other parts of the Bible.

First of all, do you see the blatant contradictions here? First he said that God can be proven scientifically. Then, he claimed that God is beyond Science's ability to detect -- which completely negates the possibility of using science to prove his existence! Then he claimed that he could prove God's existence without using the scriptures, and his first point was to quote the 10 commandments, which is a second blatant contradiction.

Now he is saying that it is impossible to prove God's existence WITHOUT referring to scriptures, so he's contradicting him 3 times. Doesn't he understand what a contradiction actually is, and why contradictory statements like his are irrational and illogical? As I said, since we've been beating his brow, it looks like he hasn't learned anything.

It looks like Ray Comfort does not understand:
(1) what a contradiction actually is,
(2) What the word "religious" means,
(3) What circular reasoning is, and
(4) What a straw-man argument is.

He really should resort to an English dictionary whenever he has trouble with English words and phrases that he still obviously do not understand. The problem is that his fans and followers don't know any better, either, always back him up mindlessly and support everything he says, but are reluctant to correct him when he's wrong. It's the same syndrome as George W. Bush -- he's surrounded by people who never criticize him when he says something completely stupid, and because of that, he never really knows how much of an ass of himself he is making.

Why Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron are Ccomplete Morons

2008-05-30T07:40:00.000-07:00

The American form of Evangelical Fundamentalist Biblical Literalist Christianity (can you say that in one breath?) that Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron preach is arguably the most insipidly childish form that the Christian faith can take. It preaches internal elitism, or the idea that followers are automatically superior in some way to non-followers, just because they have faith placed in the proper form of Christianity (allegedly). It promotes the idea that no matter how ridiculous any passage from the Bible is, it should be taken literally. They are proponents of what William Jennings Bryan once said, when asked if he believed that Jonah was literally swallowed by a whale, "If the Bible said that Jonah swallowed the whale, I'd believe it!" They promote an anti-science and anti-intellectual agenda, and will readily admit to shoddy journalism (because they don't even know what good journalism is).

Take Ray Comfort's latest book, "Evolution, a Fairy Tale for Grownups" as an example. Ray is forthcoming in admitting that he knows in advance that people will criticise him of quote-mining, where a writer removes a quote from it's original context to deliberately distort the meaning of what the quoted person was saying. Well, he wasn't predicting this because he had great foresight. As anyone who reads his blog knows, he test-fired many passages from his book months in advance, and we had to explain to him what quote mining was. The phrase "quote mining" became his favorite word for a while, and he was quick to attempt to ridicule people who used it, saying that they were mindlessly chanting it like a mantra. From the forward of his book, it's clear that he has absolutely no idea why quote mining is a terrible journalistic practice, or what good and proper journalism is. He says:

No doubt you will accuse me of "quote mining" (for those who don't know what that is, it's the practice of taking a quote--often out of its context, and using it in a way that was never intended by the author). However, every gold nugget is legitimately mined out of its context. No one seriously values the earth that encases the gold. So, when I uncover an evolutionary expert quietly admitting that he has no evidence to back up his theory, I don’t see any value in the soil of his surrounding words. I merely extract what I believe is of value for those who want to discover the truth about the theory of evolution.

From this quote, it's quite clear that Ray simply is clueless that the process that he just described is a dishonest process, condemned by journalists world-wide, and the tool of propagandists for ages. He openly admits to mining quotes out of context, because he apparently believes that the context that the quotes were pulled out of is irrelevent. As we shall see, his research into these quotes was practically non-existant. He got his quotes from other creationists, and did not bother to check the original quotes to see if they were, in fact, correct. Some may ask "why should Ray have done that? Do other creationists lie?" Well, unfortunately, for Ray, and other practitioners of America's dumbest sect, the answer is a very strong YES. The creationist movement in America is all about lies, deceptions, half-truths, shoddy-research, and willful cluelessness.

By making such an admission, he's literally telling those in the educated world that he has no concept of journalistic integrity, and that his book will be full of examples of misquotes. That's not quite what you want to tell people as they start readign your book, but then again, his audience are the pathetically clueless Evangelicals who are just as inept and intellectually absent as he is.

Ray's blog is a modern wonder of contradictions and arrogant ignorance. Ray makes lots of brainless statements in his blog, and when people point out his mistakes and contradictions, he defends himself -- with even dumber mistakes and contradictions. Take for example, his conversation with an atheist. Ray Claimed:

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to look at this amazing creation and see the genius of the amazing Creator. A child can know that. Your stumbling-block isn't intellectual as you maintain. . . it's moral. (Ray Comfort, 12:57 PM May 26, 2008)

But he had previously given us this contradiction:

However, the reason your conscience has nothing to say about your atheism is that atheism is not a moral issue. It’s an intellectual issue. (Ray Comfort, 3:46 PM May 18, 2008)

Apparently, Ray didn't seem to realize that there is a problem with such contradictory statements. The atheists pointed out his contradiction a few times, and it didn't phase him at all!

Then he throws out this zinger:

It is pathetic. I want genuine science. Not theories.

These nine words practically demonstrate the complete scientific illiteracy that Ray has. He obviously doesn't understand that science is inseparable from theories, because theories tie science together. Theories are explanatory conceptual frameworks that help answer questions or explain how things work. Real science is theories. Ray doesn't like one particular theory, that of evolution, therefore, he has latched onto the idiotic concept that a theory is just a guess.

Perhaps the most hilarious display of unbridled ignorance and stupidity from the Way Of the Master people, is Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort's series of videos on evolution, which offers arguments against Evolution that make Kent Hovind look like Stephen Hawking by comparison!

In the video, Comfort and Cameron insist that their arguments against evolution are strictly intellectual in nature, but around every corner, they whip out Bible verses. One way they allegedly prove that evolution is false, is to rely heavily on interviews on the street with tenagers who openly admit that they don't know what the evidence for evolution is, or what the answer to various science questions are. It never did occur to them to go to the National science Foundation, or even a local university to ask those questions from people who actually profess to know the answers!

Next, they move on to prove that we couldn't possibly have evolved from apes, by interviewing an Orangutan! Yes, because the Orangutan can't speak English, and doesn't use science and cannot converse about intellectual topics, this is their proof that we could not possibly be related to them. Never mind the genetic evidence in our DNA, or the similarities in Brain structure, or the fact that many apes have been tested and can easily solve technological puzzles that scientists have put to them. Never mind the fact that our DNA is more closely related to Chimps than to any other creature on earth. Never mind that DNA sequencing, which is used to settle identity and paternity questions, has shown how related we are.

Cameron then comes on and says "There are no missing links between Ape and man", and also that "All the fossils claimed to be human ancestors were found to be just apes."

Cameron completely ignores the 20 or so hominid species, nearly all of which walked upright like you and me, and most of which have been found with stone tools and other artifacts.

If that's not enough, they completely ignore the entire fossil record itself, by claiming that there are no transitional fossils, and that none have ever been found. Never mind that transitional fossils are actually very plentiful, and that several whole taxonomic groups of fossils are strictly transitional in nature.

If you don't piss your pants laughing at this video, they have a whole other bunch of them to choose from. I've watched about 12 of their videos this week, on various topics, but mostly science, and these guys, when put together, are actually less intelligent than a lot of 4th graders. They parade out shoddy reasoning, and plain retarded statements, which of course, they haven't checked. The result is a religious ministry that caters to extremely dumb, uneducated, possibly insane people.

And that, in short, is the reason why I consider Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron to be a couple of morons.

10 most Dangerous books...

2008-05-19T12:14:00.000-07:00

Conservatives and Fundamentalists love making lists of things that people should avoid. Whenever I read stuff like like this, it burns my biscuits, because not only do these people literally tell people not to read books (advocating a type of book banning), they usually put books on the list just for their own political propaganda point, rather than sticking to some actual criteria to guide their selection.

In this Bozo's list, you will see that he added "The Kinsey Report". Now, unfortunately, there is no such book. The books that Kinsey put out are "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male" and "Sexual Behavior In the Human Female", which are often referred to as the Kinsey reports. What harm did Kinsey's book do? I guess it must be a dangerous book because it showed facts that conservatives don't like to talk about -- like the fact that homosexuals and lesbians exist, or the fact that most people have sex before marriage. I'm pretty sure that nobody died as a result of reading Kinsey's books, and I'm pretty sure that it was not used as a tool of opression by any political regime.

Betty Friedan's "The Feminine Mistique" is on the list, probably because the author is a stuck up conservative old fart who doesn't like the idea of women holding jobs, being independant, and voting. Friedan's book was an inspiration to generations of American women who realized that traditional lifestyles, which had women staying home and raising kids while men worked, was not the only option available. The book is clearly on his list because like most conservatives, he can't stand uppity women who have minds of their own.

Neitzsche's book, "Beyond Good And Evil" is most likely on the list merely because it's an atheist book. The concept of "beyond Good and Evil" is rarely presented accurately, either because of poor translation from German, or because Religious nuts with an agenda rely on "what they heard about it", rather than actually reading it. Neitzsche's book was not an inspiration to the Nazis at all, which is a typical conservative myth.

I saw other lists from similar conservative sites that put Darwin's book, "Origin Of Species", and we know why that's there. Apparently Nazis got inspired by it, which isn't obvious, since it was on their list of banned books, and it was forbidden to mention Darwin's theories in schools.

So I decided to compile my own list to act as a kind of opposing position to these conservative lists. The difference, of course, is that I used the following criteria to judge the books by:

(1) Did people die as a result of others getting inspiration from the book?
(2) Was the book used as a tool of opression by a government?
(3) Did the book have a large impact on the world?

Malleus Maleficarum (Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger, 1487) -- Led to the torture and killing of hundreds of thousands of people in Europe.

On The Jews and Their Lies (Martin Luther, 1543) -- This book still inspires antisemitism today. The nazis reprinted and distributed the book in WW2.

The Protocols of the Learned Elders Of Zion (1903) -- This forgery inspired antisemitism in Russia, Germany, and the United States. There are still people who claim that the book is an actual document of a global Jewish Conspiracy, despite the clear documentary evidence that it was written by one of Tzar Alexander's Generals just before the Russian Revolution.

The Communist Manifesto (Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, 1848), and The Wealth Of Nations (Adam Smith, 1776) -- These two books are the inspiration for the two competing economic systems of the world that molded the 20th century. The conflict between advocates of capitalism and communism killed millions in the 20th century, and will likely continue to affect us well into the next century.

Mein Kampf (Adolph Hitler, 1925) -- What else needs to be said for the book that defined the Nazis?

The Bible, The Qu'Ran, and The Book Of Mormon -- These 3 religious texts all claim to be peaceful inspirational works, but the worldviews in these books have created great conflict in the world, especially between Christianity and Islam. The body count for the Book Of Mormon is small by comparison, but think of how large the Mormon church has become. It's beliefs are opressive, and cult-like, and women are definitely not equal.

The Prince (Niccolo Machiavelli, 1532) -- This book inspired many dictators, and was a personal guide to Joseph Stalin.

There definitely is a conflict between science and religion

2008-05-15T11:45:00.000-07:00

In polite society, where we try to put our best face on, and often talk around issues by doing it nicely and politely, it's often customary to adopt positions of neutrality to prevent our discussion partners whom we occaisionally disagree with, from being insulted or to establish that you are approaching a topic from a neutral position out of respect.

In the past, one such "neutral position" has been the one that goes "Science and religion are two different topics, and need not neccesarily be in conflict with one another." Sometimes, we like to add to that that because science deals with the natural world, and is merely a methodology for finding out how things works, and because religion deals with morality and philosophy, that they can't really be in conflict, because they are two entirely different topics. The statement that science and religion do not conflict is sort of a polite man's way of establishing space between religion and science, to assert that there are no conflicts, and that we either are talking science or we are talking religion, but we can't mix them.

Well, after much thought, and a newsgroup discussion, I came to the conclusion that this idea that there is no conflict between religion and science is simply not true. It may be polite to use the statement, but ultimately, it's just not true. There is plenty of conflict between religion and science.

First off, the methodology of science is specifically designed to get to the truth of the matter by seriously probing a topic, testing the results, and going where those facts take you. Religion, by contrast, dictates truth, and nothing can oppose the official dogma, not even science. In fact, the history of science and religion has shown us that religion, when it's got political power in a society, as it did during the Renaissance, often opressed science brutally. Whether we're talking Giordano Bruno, Galileo, or others, the fact is that when scientific truths are discovered which conflict with religious dogma, religion's response is to deny it, and try to supress or subvert science to silence it from contradicting faith and dogma.

Religions are made of dogmas that constantly overlap with science. The virgin Birth concept, for example, clearly says something about biology. The idea that the Soul enters the body at conception clearly has legal and biological implications. The problem is that these topics have a complete lack of scientific backing to them, and they are actually harmful when enough people who believe in them have the power, for example, to deny funding to medical research on embryonic stem cells, which could save lives and cure diseases.

It's not just science, either, it's history, too. History, though having a slightly different methodology, is nonetheless a methodology, which, like science, is designed to extract truth from fiction, and find the facts in a sea of conjecture. Religions often make historical claims, and often, these claims are directly in opposition to recorded history. Archaeology was once dominated by a pro-Christian bias, and to a degree, certain topics in history still are. But over the last century, many interesting facts concerning the ancient world have been discovered that conflict with long held religious dogmas, and have become accepted fact.

The progression of Pharoahs in Egyptian history is one of the more notable ones. In the Old Testament, the lineage of Pharoahs is listed, and for years, archaeologists associated various dates to various Pharoahs, based on the Bible, because the paradigm was that the Bible was always correct. But more recently, lineages written in the stone of ancient tombs and on buildings revealed a whole bunch of Pharoahs that the Bible skipped over, and we even found the mummies of the those individuals.

Even medicine and public health issues are not safe from Religious dogma. Remember the fury over the first birth control pills? Religious groups, particularly Catholics, protested and continue to this day to try to either outlaw contraceptives, and Evangelical Protestants have had a serious effect on US foreign aid to Africa, effectively preventing condoms from being sent to Africa to prevent AIDS. Sex education in the USA is forbidden in many places from even mentioning anything about contraception, which had led to a lot of patently false misinformation on sex being spread in some schools. One texas school taught kids that kids could get pregnant from oral sex, refering to the mythical infants conceived via filatio as Spit Babies".

So the idea that religion doesn't conflict with science really is not true. It does. It has profound effects on public life, and can even lead to dangerous outcomes. We should not discount the attempts of evangelicals to push creationism on our public schools as futile attempts. We should oppose it with the same determination that African Americans opposed Jim Crowe laws. Religions do not merely infringe on scientific facts, they infringe on historical facts, politics, education, public health, and society in general. We should stop using the notion that science and religion aren't really in conflict, and admit the truth. They clearly are, and the more people there are who accept religious dogma over scientific truth, the more opression, misinformation, and ignorance there will be.

Toothless and the Subway Preachers

2008-05-13T07:09:00.001-07:00

Every day I take the subway to get to work. I drive or walk to the station, then I squeeze into a crowded subway car. Some stations have musicians busking for cash, and others have... street preachers!

Years ago, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority banished street preachers from subway stations, because people were irritated by these screaming luantics, who seemed to have no sense and no care that some people's ears were hurting from hearing their echoing, loud, and annoying voices.

The Subway authority welcomes musical performers, and has strict rules on volume -- nobody is allowed to be louder than the PA system, because people need to hear that for safety instructions.

Some street preachers figured out a clever way to get around the ban, though. They applied for musical performance permits, and entered the subway with guitars in hand. Unfortunately, for music lovers, none of these people seemed to know how to play their guitars, or at least could not play an actual song on them. These street preachers in musician's wool, would literally just strum one or two chords, and preach, although, thankfully, they maintained a volume that was tolerable. Many street preachers still do this today, and recently I met an interesting character.

I call him Toothless. Toothless is an older Afro-American man, with greying hair and a children's size guitar. Yes, he has no teeth. He plays the blues really well, and can belt out a soulful, rousing tenor voice. His voice is really awesome... but sadly, he never uses it much. He has kind of a crazy look to his face, and literally just sits there, strumming random chords on the guitar, and saying "priase the lord" over and over and over again. I sat there for an extended period while a disabled train forced my car to stay in the station for an extra 10 minutes. Toothless started out with a real great blues song, "Oooooooh, Lord, what shall I dooooo? Ooooooooh Lord, what shall I dooooooooo? Lord I'm so down, I don't know whaaaaaaat to do!"

His voice is somewhere between Winonie Harris and Bullmoose Jackson, and he really plays his tiny guitar like a pro, but he only does it for about a verse or two, then he breaks out into just preaching the same few sentences over and over again. Part of me wants to tell him to go away, but the few times he belts out that voice makes me want to coach him and cultivate that talent so he can draw more donations from the crowd.

Even as a non-believer, I'd love to give him some advice and see if he tries it out. I really want to hear him sing the blues. I've thought about talking to him, and giving him an idea, like taking a psalm from the Bible, and just turning it into the lyrics of a blues song -- many great lamentations are found in the Bible, and in fact, many blues singers have used the Bible as a source for song lyrics. He could just take a few verses, and set them to Blues music, and Bang, he can mix blues with street preaching in a way that could be unique and creative.

Yeah -- I would like to do that, even though I'm an atheist and can't stand preachers. I think the guy has talent that just needs to be focussed. He seems dazed and confused the way he is now.

Too many people who want to preach on the streets or in the subway have no talent for it. That's what's really annoying. People like Jed Smock, the great grandfather of modern confrontational street preaching is largely an untalented man who figured that just screaming and ranting to get attention from people got him an audience. Sure -- if you act like a maniac, many people will watch you, in the same way that people watch a crazy drunken person -- they watch them to avoid them, or to make sure that they do not get too close and have to call the police for help.

If street preachers are going to get music permits to play in subways and parks, they should at least have some talent, first. I mean, they should at least be able to play a few songs competently. Nothing is worse than a person who gets a permit to perform in a public place, who has no musical intentions whatsoever. I remember one Street Preacher guy who just had a Karaoke box, and he'd stand there and sing Gospel songs. At least he sang and carried a tune, for crying out loud. Nowadays, we get people who don't even try to sing. They just blatantly use the musicians' permit to street preach to something that is barely music. The city only gives out so many permits, and these losers are taking permits away from actual talented musicians who really play good music. Some of the actual musicians, whose permits are being taken by shill street preacher musicians, need the money that comes from handouts.

I heard that some preachers in New York have taken street-preaching to new levels of infamy. They are actually boarding the subway cars in small groups of 3-to-6 people, and when the doors close and the train starts moving, they stand up and start the fire-and-brimstone screaming. Reports are athat these people are pretty much hated by New Yorks's subway riders, and the police have been unable to identify them and prevent them from breaking the subways's rules (it's against the rules to yell in a subway car or create a scene), because they all get off at the next stop, and board a different train.

It wouldn't be so bad if these street preachers had a sense of personal space and respect for people's ears. The screaching of the train's wheels and the clackety-clack noise of the tracks is irritating enough. To have a bunch of people start jumping up and down, screaming and trying to be louder than the noise of the train, can literally create hell in a subway car.

Why Do People Laugh At Creationists?

2008-05-08T05:10:00.001-07:00

I recently found this delightful and hard-hitting series of videos on YouTube. They are all made by the same person, and quite frankly, are one of the most thorough and spot-on analysis of Creationism you can find -- very succinct and to the point, too.

Click on this link to be taken to the entire series:

Why Do People Laugh At Creationists?

I urge everyone to watch at least the last few of these (22,23, and 24), which are about Ben Stein's "Exposed: No Intelligence Allowed". The rest are all very good as well. I would have no problem showing these in a biology class as a way of informing the class on what creationism is, and why it's crap.

Become an Atheist -- Read a Bible!

2008-05-06T07:24:00.000-07:00

It is interesting that Ray Comfort assumes that when we atheists read the Bible, we read it with "pride in our hearts" which apparently can block our ability to be moved and persuaded by it.

As a believer, I did, in fact, read the Bible, and believe that everything in it was true, until I actually started paying attention, and remembering what I read from chapter to chapter.

I have the priviledge to have grown up in the 20th century, when things like racism and the equality of women were big issues, and I learned from growing up and experiencing these issues first hand. See, as I read the Bible in Bible studies, and was told "This is why women need to be submissive to their husbands... This is why Biblical-style slavery is okay..."

By comparing a society where women are equal to men with the Biblical idea of submissive women, I clearly saw that equality was clearly a better way than the Biblical one. By comparing Biblical slavery to American civil-war era slavery, I saw that neither was any "better" than the other, and that freedom and equal rights is actually better than both.

What became apparent, also, was that the people who wrote the Bible believed a lot of patently false notions about healthcare, medicine, food, hygiene, and other things. For example, take the lines in Leviticus where it tells people what to do after a man is cured of a discharge (presumably of semen). The Bible clearly tells you to take two birds, kill one, and spread it's blood all over the house, to purify it. The man then has to take a ritual bath. Leviticus also tells us that when a woman has her period, everything that she touches must be pronounced unclean -- pottery she touches has to be broken and discarded, chairs she sits on need to be thrown away, etc.

We modern people know that these practices are irrational and just plain stupid, as they accomplish nothing, and actually are based on bizarre superstitions. The Bible tells us not to eat pork (or any animal with cloven hooves), yet pork is, in actuality, one of the most nutritious meats, and the most economical.

The more I read the Bible, and remembered what I read, the less believable it was. I was reading stories that had, incorporated into them, all sorts of primitive superstitions -- things which, if this was written by God, should not be there, unless you accept that God has to lie to us the way parents often lie to their children to avoid having to explain concepts that their young minds can't grasp. The more I read the Bible, and remembered what previous chapters said, the more I saw blatant contradictions.

Reading the Bible literally changed me from being a believer to being an atheist -- which is why I tell people that the best way to become an atheist is to read the Bible and see for yourself what nonsense is in there. So take Ray's advice -- take a notepad, take notes, and remember what goes on from chapter to chapter. If you commit the stories of the Bible to memory, you will clearly see it's obviously human authorship -- primitive, tribal, superstitious human authors, with a lot of anger and hostility in their hearts.

Mormon Cult got 14-year-olds pregnant

2008-04-30T07:22:00.000-07:00

News out of Texas confirms that 31 of the 53 girls between the ages of 14 and 17, who were taken into protective custody by Texas law enforcement officials, from the Yearning For Zion Mormon Cult compound, had either given birth before, or were pregnant at the time of the raid. One 15-year-old girl gave birth while in custody, just the other day.

Religious pundits, including Ben Stein wrote scathing articles about how these poor religious people's rights were being violated, or how they were being treated unfairly.

With this new evidence, combined with the information from the girls that most of them were married to men who were old enough to be their grandfathers (the average age of their husbands was 53 or older) is quite damning evidence, as it proves that the practice of marrying teenage girls to older men was pervaisive. They have been marrying young girls off in this manner for decades -- and that violates both the statutory rape laws of Texas, as well as the marriage laws, which prohibit people under 18 from consenting to marriage.

These are really sick-ass people!

So here's a good question, though...

Should "First Amendment Protected Religious Freedom" include the right to marry off your kids off and get them pregnant at 12, 13, and 14 years of age?

Should it include the right to create a closed-off religious compound-type environment, where all information about the outside world is controlled by the leaders?

Should it include the right to home-school kids with a curriculum that essentially leaves them unable to function outside of the cult environment, and which does not meet any education standards of the state or federal government?

Should it include the right to have agencies within the religious organization whose job is to spy on members and critics, and take action against them?

Should it include the right of these organizaitons to accumulate stockpiles of weapons and to tell their members that soon they will need to take up arms against outsiders?

Consider this something to think about. The Texas cult raises many issues pertaining to age of consent and religious freedom. Unfortunately, I don't think that anyone could seriously argue that we should have just left them alone to keep practicing their sick society. In my opinion, no religion should have the right to do what they did. It's not religious freedom. It's old men using religion to have sex with kids, period.

How the Mormons control Utah

2008-04-25T11:08:00.001-07:00

I was asked about how the Mormon church controls politics in Utah, and after collecting my info together, I decided to write this brief littany of incidents to describe briefly what the Mormons do that should piss you off.

If you do a bit of digging, you'll get stories about how the Mormon Church has persuaded Mormons who were elected into public office to give preference to the Church when it wanted to acquire lands. There are plenty of political corruption cases where the Church bought parts of Salt Lake City that were once public parks, and turned them into church-owned parks with Mormon secutiy guards who would kick out anyone wearing the wrong clothes, tatoos, smokers, etc. Some may argue that this is no worse than cities that ban smoking, or that it's the same kind of stuff that happens in other states, but think about the fact that it's not a private favor here -- the favor is taxpayer's money going to a powerful church.

The Mormon-dominated legislature successfully passed laws which water-down alcoholic beverages, and limit the size of a beer to this dinky half-pint bottle that costs the same as a full pint outside of Utah.

After the faith-based initiatives went into effect, Utah's social services became an extension of the church -- the church gets government money for faith-based rehab programs, and those programs get favored selection by the state.

The church owns a tons of Utah's real estate. In fact, Motels, hotels, malls, and various department stores are all owned by prominant Church officials, who give their profits to the church.

Remember Footloose with Kevin Bacon? It was based on a real town in Utah, where mormon politicians literally banned dancing! Utah also has the most "dry towns" in the country -- meaning many towns have banned the possession and sale of alcoholic beverages. IN fact, people often have to drive outside of the state to buy alcohol, and when they return, they have to hide their liquor the way drug dealers hide pot, because some cops will pull you over and check for it -- like In Massachusetts, where fireworks are banned, and during summer months, State Troopers pull over people coming off of various highways from New Hampshire to check for fireworks.

Last Year, anthropologists working on a dig of Mountain Meadows were shut down by mormon governor Mike Leavitt, because they were uncovering the bones of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, where, in 1848, Mormons killed a group of immigrants. The Mormon dominated radio, TV, and newspapers did not mention a thing about it, and the secular non-Mormon news sources were the only places where you could find out about it. They also banned PBS from showing a documentary on the Mountain Meadows Massacre on Utah PBS stations.

The Salt Lake Tribune was the only newspaper that printed articles following the above events, and the church tried to buy them out in a hostile takeover with help from Mormon politicians.

Other stories involve Jewish families moving into Mormon-dominated towns, and then having their businesses mysteriously burned down, and law enforcement seemed unwilling to investigate (Of course, these are merely accusations).

The most insidious thing is that the Mormon Church has it's greedy little hands on the Public School system. All junior high and high schools in the state of Utah are arranged so that there is a Mormon seminary building either right next door or across the street. Essentially, the Mormon kids receive extra religious instruction in these buildings during the school day. What happens, is that the public schools literally empty out at one point, leaving only a handful of non-Mormon kids to just sit around and twiddle their thumbs for an hour or two. Many kids get sick of being alone, or sick of being part of the "other kids", and end up going with the Mormon kids.

Like many Evangelical towns in the American Bible Belt, many public school systems are run by administrators and staff who are Mormon church officials, and they use every opportunity to indoctrinate kids to the faith -- in public schools. Non-Mormons are daily subjected to religious instructions, just like Jewish kids used to get lectured on Christian doctrine before 1964. Music classes in public school use a lot of Mormon religious music, too. Also -- until recently, many public schools celebrated "missionary week", a Mormon holiday commemorating young boys becoming missionaries. The public schools actively help them celebrate it.

The Mormons have also tried to ban pornography on many occaisions, over the years. The Internet made this extremely difficult, since it meant that people could get porn without anyone knowing. The church actually has it's own spy network, which spies on citizens (usually on church members) suspected of being involved with liquor, porn, or other legal-but-church-prohibited activities. The CIA regularly recruits people who served in this network, too. The legislature also tried to make it a serious crime (with high fines and prison time) to let underaged kids into R-rated movies.

Oh, and they don't like porn in video stores. Movie Buffs, inc. was cited for 15 misdemeanor violations, because it did not have specially edited-for-cable versions of patently adult videos! Despite the fact that adult films are not outlawed, the state tried to prosecute them, and almost ran them out of business, before they were acquitted.

In Salt Lake City's East High School, a group of gay and lesbian students tried to form a support group. The school disallowed it, so they sued the school board. The courts agreed that the students deserved the right to form their group, but the Mormon-dominated school board decided to ban all extra-curricular groups from schools, rather than let the gay students have a group of their own.

This is just the tip of the iceburg. If you delve into these things, you'll see more and more testimonies from various people, both non-Mormons and ex-Mormons, who had experiences like the ones here, or where various events made the news reports.

The Yearning For Zion Cult

2008-04-22T06:30:00.000-07:00

Okay, this is America, and we're supposed to allow for people to follow whatever religion they want -- but does that include the right to belong to a cult that brainwashes you and treats you like property, or like a slave?

I have seen interviews with these Mormon Fundamentalists on TV, and they are very obviously brainwashed and under the control of the church's leaders. First of all, the women all wear identical pioneer-style dresses, identical hairstyles, and bonnets. The fact that their clothing is so uniform, with very little color variation, makes them look like a cult.

The true litmus test was when these women opened their mouths to speak on camera for the news reporters. They actually finished each others' sentences -- like everything was so scripted as to what they would say, that each of them knew each other's lines in the script. They kept talking in a monotone, too. How can you take people seriously when they say "Our way of life is so happy and fullfilling, and trully joyful" when they say it like Ben Stein discusses economics in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off"?

Worst of all, the cult is still not cooperating with the police. The women keep giving different names for the children, and the relationships between different family members is explained inconsistantly, so as to deliberately stimey Law Enforcement officials.

Some have argued that the government has gone too far in taking the children into custody. I say that the government hasn't gone far enough. Cults that control their members to the point where they will not cooperate with law enforcement in the investigation of a crime do not deserve being treated any better than an individual who behaves the same way. If you do not cooperate with law enforcement, I dont' care if you're the Pope of the Catholic Church -- you should be dealt with the same way.

I think that more media exposure for this cult will only damage the public's perception of them. After all, seeing a bunch of identical anachronistically-dressesd women speaking in monotone voices, finishing each other's sentences, looking just like what most people expect brainwashed people to behave like, will only secure the notion that they're just another mind-control cult that has ill-intentions for their women and children.

Cults are intimate terrorists. They terrorize each other, in their own homes, with the threat of hellfire and banishment from heaven. They are the terrorists who terrorize each other as a way of life -- by re-enforcing group-notions of external-persecution, fear of the end times, fear of hell, fear of not doing enough to get to heaven, fear of ostracism, fear of the outside world, fear of demons, and fear of anyone not like them. Any group that lives with a fear of outsiders, and an built-in antagonism towards non-members, ceases being a legitimate religion, and endangers themselves, as well as their neighbors.

It gets better...

2008-04-16T09:47:00.000-07:00

Ray Comfort, after not really reading my post, and accusing me of trying to "justify pedophilia", got a little tongue lashing from his own fellow Christians, who read my reply as well, and called him on it! They asked him where I tried to justify Pedophilia, told him that I said no such thing, and even that he owed me an apology.

So he wrote me a sort of half-way apology, and apparently still does not understand what I wrote. My guess is that he still hasn't actually read it.

Here it is, with my response.

Ray Comfort wrote:

"My apologies David. I was too quick in my response."

Apology accepted, but from what you write, I still don't know if you understand what I wrote.

You wrote:

"You are saying that you believe that time forgives serious crime, when these men violated the law, and their positions of trust, and many of them are still in positions of great authority. That is wrong. If it isn't, then why storm the Texas compunds now? Simply leave the issue for 20 years, and everything will be okay."

No, that's not what I said at all. It's not even remotely what I wrote by a long shot. I don't know if you read what I wrote.

I wrote that the abuse scandals of the Catholic Church were not about people who were in the process of being abused when the issue was raised. The victims lived silently with their memories, and never reported the crimes, so police and other law enforcement officials were not even aware of the crimes. Some of them waited for 30 years before they spoke out and told their story. When they told their stories, they named specific individual priests who abused them. After an investigation, and after more people came forward to add their names to the list of victims, Those individuals were then charged with their crimes, and eventually went on to serve prison terms.

There were no children being held hostage in a compound, which is why there was no need for a raid.

This Church cooperated with the police, and gave them information on the history of transfers of the priests, along with internal church documents, and the Church agreed to pay compensation to the victims (which forced them to sell a lot of their properties in the USA) as part of civil lawsuits rising from the matter. I will tell you that there is no excuse what what happened -- I think that the Catholic Church made a lot of negligent decisions in how they handled their affairs internally -- and that more individuals will go to prison, eventually.

This is in stark contrast to the situation in Texas, where a small criminal enterprise was being run (They were running a welfare scam, and marrying off girls to men so that they could fraudulently file for child support welfare, which the men would collect and use for themselves). When the FBI came investigating the accusation by the girl who tipped them off, they realized that this would blow the cover off the whole scam they were running, and THEY REFUSED TO COOPERATE. Refusing to cooperate was why the raid was neccesary. If they cooperated, and went peacefully, the raid would not have been.

There is no double standard here, Ray -- these are two completely different cases, with completely different sets of circumstances, and completely different requirements under the law. I don't know if you will still understand it after reading this, but you clearly did not understand what I wrote before. I don't know if it's because you read too fast, or if it's because you're all worked up over it. So please, let me know if you now understand why I don't consider there to be a double standard, and if you acknowledge that these two cases are radically different from each other.

Ray Comfort defends Mormon Fundamentalists, accuses me of justifying pedophilia!

2008-04-16T05:03:00.000-07:00

Well, it looks like Ray Comfort is engaging in a little bit of Catholic Bashing in his blog. He's saying that there is a double standard with reguards to the way the Catholic Church is being treated by the FBI with reguards to past sexual abuse scandals, and the way the Mormon Fundamentalists in Texas are being dealt with currently with their sex abuse scandal. Appartently Ray is ignoring the details, as usual. There is a huge difference between the two scandals, and Ray doesn't seem to understand what the difference is.

I Responded:

Oh, dear, I don't know where to begin, Ray, but you are so misinformed that it's not funny!

I live in Boston Mass, which is the epicenter of the clergy abuse scandal. The difference between what happened in Texas and what happened here with reguards to the Catholic church is that the abuse in Texas was CURRENTLY HAPPENING, and the victim called up and said "I'm being abused right now, and so aren't others."

In Boston, it wasn't until 20 and sometimes 30 years after the abuse happened that the victims came forth and accused people of molesting them. Almost no people in Boston called the cops and said "help, I'm being sexually abused right now". They kept it to themselves, and some had to go to years of therapy before they were able to come forth.

That's a pretty big difference right there.

The Church did not inform authorities when the abuse was discovered. They dealt with it in their own way -- and it was indeed a stupid way -- by moving the offending priests to different parts of the country, and tried to forget about it, then the abuse started up again, and the cycle continued. The church, in many cases, payed the families of the victims to remain silent and gave them what therapy they could, with the understanding that this would be kept within the church.

When individual priests were named and given to the authorities, and charges pressed, some priests were extridited back to Massachusetts to stand trial. Several of them went to prison.

No large FBI raid was neccesary, because no people were currently in the process of being abused. It was all about things that occurred 20 years ago or more. Furthermore, the church authorities totally cooperated with the police when they asked.

In Texas, by contrast, like I said, the abuse was current, and someone asked for help now. Since over 40 alleged victims were involved, the police by law, needed to protect them. When the police went to the Texas cult compound (I don't think you believe they were a legitimate church, Ray, but correct me if I'm wrong), they did not cooperate. They resisted told the cops to go away.

That is when the FBI had to come and get the kids out of there.

Don't try to bring up memories of Waco, either. The CULT in Waco (please do not argue that the Branch Davidians were not a cult) was raided for the exact same reasons. Former members who left tipped off the FBI that children were being raped by David Koresh himself.

See, former members of the Branch Davidians, even members who still believe in David Koresh, admitted to police that David Koresh had all the married couples split up within the cult, and that David Koresh had sex with pretty much all the women, and that no other men in the cult could have sex. Then he started taking 12-year-olds to bed with him, and some surviving cult members still believe that that was okay -- because they believed he was Jesus, and that anything he did was okay.

There simply is no comparison between what happened in Texas and what happend with the Catholic Church in their sexual abuse scandal. The Catholic abuse was in the past with no victims needing to be rescued, and the church cooperated with authorities. In Texas, the Mormon Fundamentalists did not cooperate, and the abuse was going in currently, with people asking for help now.

How you can claim there is a double standard, and that Catholics are somehow being given better treatment is simply your own disreguard for the details, which seems to be the main issue you have with many things -- those annoying, pesky, and boring details.

But get this,

Ray's response was to accuse me of "justifying pedophilia"!!!! Can you beleive it?

Read it yourself...

Ray Comfort wrote:

"David...I shouldn't be amazed that you would attempt to justify pedophilia. Unbelievable."

Ray, Are you trying to be funny?

I don't understand how anyone who can read and write the English language would interpret what I wrote as "justifying pedophilia". If you actually read what I wrote, it is clear that I was trying to tell you that there is no double standard, because the DETAILS of each crime are so completely different that they had to be handled differently -- and were.

I find it unbelievable that anyone with at least a 6th grade understanding of English would read what I wrote and conclude what you thought. I really think you need to read the whole post, and not "skim" though it.

An Email reply from Christian Worldview Network

2008-04-15T11:00:00.000-07:00

I saw that Ray posted his "Letter to Michael Shermer" on the Christian Worldview website. I quickly copied and pasted my response to it, which you should see below in my blog here, and posted it to their feedback section. After a couple of hours, I got an email back from someone at the Christian Worldview Network named Brannon. Here is what they wrote back to me:

Brannon@worldviewweekend.com"
1:20 pm (15 minutes ago)
to priscus.forem@gmail.com
date Apr 15, 2008 1:20 PM
subject your feedback

your feedback was rejected because it was soooo lame.

If you really think there is even one transitional fossil then you should go find it and put it on E-bay because the leading evolutionist have admitted they do not have even one. I could send you their quotes and the books in which they wrote this if you really wanted to be educated...but I don't think you are interested in being educated but in repeating lies so you can keep believing lies.

Very sad.

Next time you offer feedback try not to write fairy tales and it might get accepted.

Thank you.

That's hardly the kind of polite, proper, and business-like response to get from a website that allegedly is run by professionals. Perhaps Brannon is a young intern who is very passionate about his faith, and just got carried away. Nonetheless, it does seem that his reply was most likely baiting me for a flame war or something.

I wrote to the management bringing this email to their attention. Hopefully he'll at least get a talking to about proper email etiquette.

I will report more on this, if I hear back from anyone. If it turns out that Brannon is also the person who is in charge of getting the complaint mail, then it may get interesting. I will post all of his feedback here, without alteration, for your amusement.

Ray Comfort's post to Michael Shermer

2008-04-14T13:46:00.001-07:00

Ray wrote:

They say that all the animals we have now were not as we see them. They were radically different. Dinosaurs, over millions of years, became birds, fish became lizards, dogs were something else, primates evolved into human beings, etc. So, when they tell you this, ask why there are no species-to-species transitional forms in the fossil record.

There are, Ray, but you don't want to look at the evidence. There are so many transitional fossils in the fossil record that there are entire categories devoted to them.

Therapsids are creatures that have both exclusively-mammal and exclusively-reptilian characteristics -- exactly what one would expect if reptiles evolved into mammals. No living creatures alive today mix "exclusively mammalian" and "exclusively reptilian" features (When we say a feature is "Exclusively reptilian" it means that it is only found in reptiles, and not in mammals). Yet, we have thousands of fossils of therapsids, which clearly have mixed mammal and reptile features. Imagine a mammalian jaw on a creature that is clearly not warm-blooded (warm bloodedness is determined by the prescence of small channels in the bones where blood vessels go. Reptiles don't have them. Mammals do). Imagine a reptile with more than one type of tooth in it's mouth (All modern reptiles have only one type of tooth in their mouth, where mammals have several types).

Seymoromorphs are fossils that have both reptilian and amphibian features, and are found in a similar variety to Therapsids.

Ichtyosetigids are fossils that have both fish and amphibian characteristics. Again, there are thousands of examples on record.

Anyone who asks a scientist this question is just totally ignorant of the subject.

Go to the "talkorigins" website, and look for the "transitional vertebrate faq" for more info.

Ray wrote:

Why is there no evidence anywhere (in the billions of bones of dead animals) of any species becoming another species?

There are -- thousands of examples -- creationists simply discount the whole fossil record and say that a creature with, for example, the mixed features of a mammal and a reptile, is either 100% mammal or 100% reptile, since they have already decided that no transitionals exist, they cannot acknowledge these clear examples.

If you wish, I can supply an ample supply of links to transitional fossil information, with plenty of pictures for those with reading issues.

Ray wrote:

When they maintain that there are masses of fossils that prove this, don’t take their word for it. Press the issue. Blind faith is another word for ignorance. Say you want facts. Ask for specific scientific evidence of species-to-species transitional forms in the fossil record. When they say that museums are full of them, don’t just believe it as they do. Press the issue again. They will talk about variation (evolution) between species. That's not Darwinian evolution. It's a rabbit trail. Ask again for just one example of species-to-species evolution.

Well, Ray, unfortunately, you said yourself that science just "BORES YOU TO TEARS". It seems here that you're asking a scientist to just whip the right fossil our of his butt, on demand. what you described is the Lazy-man's way of demanding proof by bullying.

The real way to find answers is actually a lot easier -- but it will bore you to tears, because it is full of those boring scientific facts that you don't like to bother with when you write trash about science. You have to RESEARCH. All the fossils that have been entered into the fossil record have been documented in scientific peer-reviewed journals. Peer-reviewed journals are the cornerstone of science. without them, scientists' experiments and test results don't get known by anyone. Creationists avoid peer-review like the plague -- they never publish experimental results or discoveries in peer reviewed journals. If they just did that, then they would qualify as real scientists.

Of course, in order to write stuff in peer-reviewed journals, one needs to actually be collecting data, performing experiments, documenting finds, and doing complex things like math. Creationists do nto do these things, either!

So now that I've bored you to tears with simple facts, let me tell you how to find out where all these transitional fossils are:

Go to ww dot talkorigins dot org (You can also use wikipedia dot org). Click on search the archive. Look for "Transitional vertebrate faq". Read it. If you are not convinced that the information is valid, simply go to the footnotes (all 4 pages of them) at the end of it, and search for those journals and books. I know it's hard work to go to the library and do lexis-nexis searches -- almost like being in college (which is where scientists go to learn how to perform science) -- and it will bore you to tears, because it takes a lot of reading, but eventually, you will see that following the information, instead of whining about not having it handed to you on a silver platter, will lead you to real hard facts.

While you're at it, you can take your favorite creationist book(s) to the library with you. FOllow the footnotes that they have in their books -- especially when they quote non-creationsts or science journals. See how often you find that the source material does not say what the footnotes do. See how often, for example, non-creationists are mis-quoted. Then you can try explaining to me what dishonesty is.

Ray wrote:

They will try and sidetrack you by talking about moths being stuck to trees, vestigial organs, mutations, bipedalism and mitochondrial DNA.

Yeah, those pesky details... Creationists hate dealing with those annoying facts and details...

Ray wrote:

Or they will maintain that there is something called "observed speciation," or try and dazzle you with names like Sinosauropteryx and Ambulocetur and other pseudo-intellectualisms. Then they will say that they aren’t experts, and use words like “maybe, possibly, perhaps, probably.” When they say that science has the proof, somewhere, push it. Demand evidence like your life depended on it. Tell them that you want to use your God-given brain to make a rational decision regarding evolution. You want to know if it's true. Stay open-minded. If it is true, then embrace it. If it's not, reject it.

You know, I think Mike has done that already, but instead of badgering someone like a spoiled adolescent, he actually read books, took college courses, and did lab work. He does have a Master's degree in psychology and a PhD in the History of Science. He started out majoring in Theology at Pepperdyne University, if you didnt' already know that.

Ray -- 30 years ago, when I was 13, I decided to ask all those questions. I started out by asking my teachers lots of questions in class about science, evolution, astronomy. I ended up taking high school and college courses that helped me find the answers, and I read Scientific American, and various other science mags, watched a lot of documentaries, and always pursued the facts, took notes, and I even traveled to a few cities to see museum collections. Have you even done anything resembling that? I realized that badgering is not the right thing back when I was 13, and teachers had 30 other kids in the class to teach.

Your approach to science... well... to be blunt, it's pathetic. If we were talking about calculus, and you wanted to see proof of Newton's revolving orbit theorem. So I show you a bunch of calculations, and you go, don't bore me to tears with that mumbo-jumbo, just give me the answer. So I start explaining the mathematical symbols to you, and try to teach you math, and you just say "this is just a wild goose chase! Just give me the answer, don't bore me with these details!" So I give you the answer in numbers, and you complain "so how do you know this is the correct number?" and the spiral goes downward and downward from there.

Expelled and Antisemitism

2008-04-14T10:22:00.000-07:00

In "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed", as we've found out already, much is said about an alleged link between Darwin's theory of Evolution and Nazi Germany. Ben Stein goes all around to various death camps, with Nazi footage interspliced so that viewers can't mistake what the film is suggesting, and he cries crocodile tears.

But then Ben Stein interviews a Polish professor of dendrology, Maciej Giertych, who denies evolution.

What Ben Stein and the producers of "Expelled" either didn't know, or casually ignored, is that this professor harbors some very ignorant and rather antisemitic beliefs.

Professor Giertych had written and/or said the following:

"By their own will, [Jews] prefer to live a separate life, in apartheid from the surrounding communities. They form their own communes (kahals), they govern themselves by their own rules and they take care to maintain also a spatial separateness. They form the ghettos themselves, as districts in which they live together, comparable to the Chinatowns in the USA. It was only Hitler’s Germany that created the concept of forced separation, of a closed ghetto from which Jews were not allowed to leave.

Jews are not pioneers. They do not go conquering the wild world or overpowering the hazards of nature. They settle among other civilisations, preferably among the rich. They tend to migrate from poorer to richer lands.They do so always as a group, immediately forming their own separate community. (source)

In our civilisation, a righteous person living honestly will not get in conflict with the law, even not knowing it. On the other hand, living in agreement with the letter of the law but dishonestly, derives from the pharisaic attachment to rules but not to ethics. The exploitation of rules, of imprecisely written laws, of gaps in them, of their multitude and inconsistencies, activities on the verge of legality, tax evasion techniques, all formally within the law but unethical, derive from the rabbinical casuistry, from the mentality of deriving ethics from the written law. Yet, such a swindler, acting within the law, has in fact no moral respect for any law. He cannot be compared to the Sabbath traveller sitting on a water bottle, who is also using a convenient interpretation of the Law, but he is doing this in order to fulfil the Law and therefore in full respect for it.

In our civilisation, a righteous person living honestly will not get in conflict with the law, even not knowing it. On the other hand, living in agreement with the letter of the law but dishonestly, derives from the pharisaic attachment to rules but not to ethics. The exploitation of rules, of imprecisely written laws, of gaps in them, of their multitude and inconsistencies, activities on the verge of legality, tax evasion techniques, all formally within the law but unethical, derive from the rabbinical casuistry, from the mentality of deriving ethics from the written law. Yet, such a swindler, acting within the law, has in fact no moral respect for any law. He cannot be compared to the Sabbath traveller sitting on a water bottle, who is also using a convenient interpretation of the Law, but he is doing this in order to fulfil the Law and therefore in full respect for it.

And all of this occurs because the Jews didn’t recognize "Jesus Christ as the awaited Messiah":

What we consider as the Jewish people today refers to a tragic community, a people that has not recognised the time of its visitation. It is those who did not recognise Jesus Christ as the awaited Messiah. Those Jews who followed Christ merged within the Christian universality. Those who rejected Him became wanderers throughout the world, among believers of other religions, jealously nurturing their chosenness, this messianic consciousness,which gives a defining mark to their civilisation.

I can tell you right now that many Evangelical Fundamentalists who absorb and believe the crap that "Expelled" promotes, will read the professor's comments and simply say "Yeah, so? What wrong with that?"

They will not recognize the blatant antisemitic tone of Giertych, because they probably think the same thing about Jews themselves. They probably consider the Professor's comments to be "commonly known facts". I'll be so bold as to affirm the theme behind some research I did on antisemitism and the Evangelical Christian movement; The Evangelical Fundamentalist Christian movement as a whole, harbors a lot of antisemitism. I document this in my "Fundamentalist Deceit" blog, which has a who's who of big-time Evangelism, with quotes of theirs.

There is a common idea among Fundamentalists that the Jews are a "flawed" people -- that their biggest mistake as a group was rejecting Christ. This leads many Fundamentalists to presume the following:

(1) The Jews (who never convert) will go to Hell.
(2) That Israel will be inherited only by "true Christians (c) (tm)"
(3) That Jews will be included among those who help Satan in the end times
(4) Most importantly, that a powerful conspiracy of Jews exist who wage war against Christianity.
(5) Jews "control all the banks and the media".

I've actually had prolonged discussions with various Chrsitians who took it upon themselves to tell me these things, and then write me all sorts of rationalizations and alleged proofs of it.

Jewish Conspiracy theories abound in Evangelical circles, and it's largely due to a combination of ignorance and blind trust for their leaders who often utter incredibly antisemitic statements.

The link between Christianity and antisemitism goes back to the founding of the Christian Church, and finds itself traced through Martin Luther, John Calvin, the Puritans, and southern Baptists in America. It's too bad that so many Evangelicals can turn a blind eye to this very obvious and well-documented fact, and continue pandering to "Expelled". Darwin's theory had zero influence on antisemitism in Nazi Germany. It was the much stronger and more obvious ties between Christianity and Antisemitism that is to blame.

What Irony that Ben Stein, a Jew, can help to promote the propaganda of a movement of people who share a much closer and more intimate set of links to Nazi Death Camps than Darwin!

This cartoon really says it all.

2008-04-11T11:29:00.000-07:00

I found this little cartoon on the web, at another atheist's website. I forgot exactly where, so if you know, just tell me and I'll credit it.

It pretty much says it all. Nothing more really needs to be said.

Street preachers

2008-04-09T11:42:00.001-07:00

You know, I once pondered what makes street preachers tick, but I came to the conclusion that no matter what, they will never be convinced that street preaching is (a) Annoying to most people, (b) ineffective as a form of converting people, and (c) just makes the preachers look like idiots, most of the time.

For about 10 years, every saturday night, in Harvard Square, cambridge, a local group of evangelicals decided to preach in what they considered the den if iniquity. Harvard Square, in Cambridge, MA, is the center of Harvard University, and is a thriving shop and restaurant district. At night, street performers of all types show up. When the preachers showed up, and started screaming at everyone, most people considered them an annoyance. At first, they were ignored.

Then they began to use personal tactics -- singling out people from passersby, and yelling rude things at them -- suggesting one woman was a whore, or that a boy in a leather jacket was a satanist. This would start shouting matches, and occaisionally caused people to walk over and sock them in the face. One young man, after hearing his girlfriend referred to as a whore (because she was apparently dressed like one), walked up to the preacher, and asked "Did you just call my girlfriend a whore?" The preacher started to explain that "if she dresses like a whore, then the Bible says..." but was interrupted when the young man pushed him and cussed him out.

Then the preachers decided to start using a bullhorn because apparently, screaming volume wasn't loud enough -- they wanted people a block away to hear them. They didn't just use the bullhorn to save their throats from going hoarse from yelling; they actually yelled into the microphone at the same volume, which made their voices irritatingly piercing, and difficult to understand. It was at this time that many of the local people had enough of them. Shop-owners and restaurant owners complained that people in their establishments complained about the noise, and asked them to please stop. The response from the preachers was to whine about having a right to be there and that they were warning everyone about Hell, which was far more important than listening to music and making money.

This is how I see street preachers. They are attention-seekers. They want people to notice them, and they get off on being the center of attention. When a street preacher perceives that he's not attracting the attention he seeks, he gets louder and more obnoxious until people simply cannot politely ignore him. They become disruptive because they need attention, and normal everyday people do not want to give them attention. They believe that their message is so important that no amount of reality checking will make them stop. If ignored, they will just say that the Bible says that people won't listen because they don't want to hear the truth. If heckled, they will say that the Bible predicts that people will heckle you. If shoved, spat on, struck, or otherwise assaulted, the bible tells them that that will happen to -- obviously whoever wrote those parts of the Bible had those types of experiences!

Every negative aspect of their preaching will just be spun into a self-fulfilling prophecy, and they will just say "I guess we're doing the right thing!" Sometimes they even count assaults like merit badges, and even point out bruises and scars received while annoying people, the way old soldiers display their battle scars to young people. They are proud of being a public nuisance. The more public disruption they cause, the more their own beliefs are justified.

None of them ever considers that being a public nuisance is a negative thing. None of them ever consider that constantly hearing loud, angry, screaming voices amplified, for long periods of time can actually have a negative effect on people. None of them ever consider that perhaps it's a better idea to avoid violent confrontations, and avoid getting personal and making people angry. None of them ever consider that young kids seeing this awful display of anger and verbal abuse might be negatively affected.

The bottom line is that these types of street preachers are lousy neighbors, plain and simple. Nobody minds their message, in fact, many people are probably of the same faith. If your neighbor and his family stood on their porch every day, and screamed at everyone that walked by, and generally was loud and disruptive all the time, even when people were trying to sleep, neighbors would not like it, and if calling the cops didn't work, people would move away.

An interesting side not to this is that I am a street musician myself on occaision. I play a loud instrument -- bagpipes. Bagpipes are very loud, and they can be heard from several blocks away sometimes. When I perform, I try to pick an area that is in the middle of a public park, far enough away from shops, homes, and places where people have to be for long periods of time. I do this out of consideration for others. If there are other performers nearby, like guitarists or people playing soft instruments, I usually warn them, play a few toots from my spot, and then go over and ask them if I was far enough away to not interrupt their performance.

I've never seen street preachers show even that much courtesy towards others. Do they think that anyone who is not with them is just another hell-bound person who doesnt' deserve common courtesy? I don't know. All I know is what happened one day when I was playing. The city has a first-come, first served rule for performers. This means that if you arrive and start playing, other people who want your spot have to move, or wait for you to leave. The street preachers know this, because they have to apply for permits just like musicians. So I was playing my pipes, and a small number of street preachers started gathering nearby. When all were present, they started their preaching. I couldn't really hear them, since my pipes were loud enough to cover their screaming.

Then one of them walked over to me and asked me to talk. He asked if I'd stop playing my pipes, because they couldn't be heard with their bullhorn. I asked him if he knew what the city's policy was on street performances. He said no. I asked him if he had a performance permit, and he said yes. I asked him if he recalls the first-com-first-served clause from the rules. He tried to say that they were different from street performers, and that theirs was a special case. I asked him what was wrong with moving further away, after all, I moved to the spot that I was in so that I wouldn't disrupt a juggler a hundred yards away. He then said that the spot they chose was chosen because they wanted the best traffic. I told him that I'd like to get a lot of traffic by me, too, but I had to walk a quarter-mile away from the spot I wanted, because I didn't want to interrupt the juggler, or the guitar players. I attempted to compromise, by suggesting that they simply wait for my act to end in helf-an-hour, since I can only play for about an hour before I get tired, and my instrument gets too damp to work. He refused, and I said I'm sorry. So he walked away, and they continued their show. While I was packing up to go, the preacher who was speaking at the time noticed me, and commented over his bull horn "It's about time you stopped! Ladies and gentlemen, some people think they can drown the word of the Lord from being heard!" I even heard someone call me a tool of Satan. Interestingly, most of the music I play is actually religious music from the middle ages and the renaissance era!

Oh, the irony. but man, what a bunch of priggish jerks street preachers can be.

The Persecution of Creationists

2008-04-03T12:14:00.000-07:00

Is Intelligent Design getting persecuted by mainstream science?

IN short, no.

What is happening, though, is that creationists, and their intelligent design hypothesis, are not conducting actual science. If they were out there conducting actual scientific experiments, doing surveys, studying the data collected from their experiments, and having it peer-reviewed, they would be conducting science properly, and would not have to feel left out.

Unfortunately, they simply are not doing anything that resembles science. They are merely squawking and writing books that promote their opinions about evolution.

If we were talking about math, and there was a group of people crusading against algebra, or saying that calculus is a faulty field, and that their new math should be included in public school, math professors, worldwide, would treat them the same way that scientists treat creationists.

What creationists are mad about is not discrimination. They are mad that nobody is taking them seriously, but they don't want to participate in science, which is how you get inclusion in the first place.

Suppose a person walked into a police station, and said "Okay, give me a badge and a gun, I'm going to be a cop!" The police officer at the desk would most likely say "Sir, you'll first have to pass a civil service test, and then for better results, you may want to take some courses in law enforcement from a reputable institution." Creationists are the same way. They want their voices heard in science classrooms, but most of them don't even want to bother with getting a science diploma (some have, but most creationist authors don't, or have resorted to diploma mills), a job as a researcher, or even submit a paper for peer review.

So here's a hint: If you want to have your "theory" taught in public school classrooms, you should first properly formulate your hypothesis, research the facts, perform tests, then build your theory THE LEGITIMATE WAY, like any other scientist has to do for their theories. You don't just start griping and demanding inclusion. That is not how science is properly done.

We then come to the phenomenon of the creationists who feel that science is too flawed -- that because it doesnt' consider subjective or supernatural claims, that it's lacking in it's ability to trully see the whole picture. These creationists are working on trying to re-write science altogether. Peer reviews -- Poppycock! They have the Bible! Experiments? Pshaw! We have divine revelations from spiritually adept people! Empirical evidence? Nonsense! we have direct communication from God, and that should be good enough to settle any issue!

All in all, there is no persecution of creationists going on. There is legitimate science, and legitimate avenues to go from a hypothesis like Intelligent Design to theory, to peer review, to inclusion. Creationists are simply not participating in the scientific community, and deliberately making up excuses for it, rather than just going ahead and doing it. Just as you have to pass certain tests to get your driver's license, a theory in science needs to pass certain tests to be considered legitimate. If you do not pass your driving test, you do not get a driver's license, and you cannot drive a car, or get a job driving a car.
If you do not submit hypothesis and theories for peer review, your theories do not get the proper scientific backing from other scientists, and you don't get consulted by textbook writers.

All creationists need to do is conduct science properly. They have had almost 100 years to do it, and have not done so yet. Instead, they whine and gripe about persecution. They get what they deserve; they persecute themselves.

Answers to my Quiz

2008-03-31T08:59:00.000-07:00

Okay, I just read Ray Comfort's review of "Expelled", and apparently, he believes that this celluloid travesty was moving. Well, what do you want -- half the people who are "moved" by such films are equally likely to be "moved" by Tim Lahaye's "Left Behind" films, which are pathetic excuses for films, much less pathetic excuses for drama or science fiction.

People who are moved by "Expelled", and who do not think it's propaganda, are just dumb, Period. I mean that with all sincerity. If you saw Expelled, and you thought that it made a "powerful" case for Intelligent Design, or that it revealed any kind secret conspiracy against poor, persecuted minority groups, then you have to either be incredibly stupid, or your standards of proof are so weak that you probably believe that Pro Wrestling on TV is real, too. I'm not going to be goaded into guilt from people who complain that I'm being impolite or rude. I'm stating a fact that I can prove with objectivity. Quite simply, the film is terrible -- badly made, obviously contrived in places, and just goes way too far with it's Nazi analogies.

So I put the following quiz on Ray Comfort's blog, to see if people would bite. The answers to the questions follow the quiz.

I have a quiz to emphasize just how little actual fact is in the film. If you saw the film, and actually have graduated High school, you should be able to easily answer (or google) the answers to these questions.

(1) How many times did Hitler (or Nazis in general) speak or write favorably of Darwin? Never, or frequently? If you say anything other than never, please provide at leastone quote from WW2 era Nazis to back up your answer.

(2) What did Hitler and the Nazis do with Darwin's book, "On the Origin Of Species"?
(a) BURN IT
(b) Make every school child memorize it
(c) Re-printed it and distributed it in churches.
(d) make sure it was included with every Bible

(3) Hitler's speeches made frequent use of Christ, God, and Christianity, such as stating that it was every German's duty to Christ and God to rid the nation of Jewish Influences, or that Jews were enemies of Christ, because they crucified him. (TRUE or FALSE)

(4) How many specific facts were presented in the movie "Expelled", which were specific proofs of intelligent design? If your answer is "at least one fact", please summarize the "fact".

(5) Hitler and the Nazis did what with martin Luther's book, "On the Jews and their Lies"?
(a) BURNED IT
(b) Made every school child memorize it.
(c) Re-printed it and distributed it in churches.
(d) make sure it was included with every Bible

Now I think you all know what the answers are. If anyone has any doubts, or suspects that I have no proof, I'll gladly provide it to those who ask. It is made up of links, but I'll post the answers, complete with copious links, on my own Blog.

And now... THE ANSWERS with documentation.

(1) Hitler and the Nazis never invoked the name of Darwin or spoke favorably of the theory of evolution in any of their public speeches or writings. In fact, the only connection between Darwin and the Nazis is the Eugenics link -- but Darwin never wrote about EUgenics. Eugenics came following the realization that traits are inherited, as well as genetic disorders. Humanity was well aware that traits were inherited, and that genetic disorders were, long before Darwin wrote about it. In fact, it was the work of Gregor Mendel, a Catholic Priest and botanist, who gave us the ground work for genetics. People have been cross-breeding animals to get specific traits for centuries. We certainly didn't need Darwin to give us the notion that maybe we could do that with people, too.

Hitler and Darwin
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA006_1.html

Mendel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mendel

(2) The Nazis BURNED Darwin's book, or course, and an exhibit of banned books at the University of Arizona has a section dedicated to the official campaign of Nazi Book burning and banning. Here si a link which lists all the banned books of Nazi Germany, and which has the complete text of the official library instructions on which books to burn.

http://www.library.arizona.edu/exhibits/burnedbooks/documents.htm

In particular, you will note that among the rules, it specifically says "6. Writings of a philosophical and social nature whose content deals with the false scientific enlightenment of primitive Darwinism and Monism (Häckel)."

If Hitler and Nazism was based in any part on Darwin's books, then burning and banning Darwin's books was a counter-intuitive way of demonstrating it.

(3) It is very true that Hitler and the Nazis frequently framed their beliefs as Christian. Here are some quotes:

"As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice." (Mein Kampf)

"Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator - by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord." (Mein Kampf)

"“My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was his fight against the Jewish poison. Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed his blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice. And as a man I have the duty to see to it that human society does not suffer the same catastrophic collapse as did the civilization of the ancient world some two thousand years ago — a civilization which was driven to its ruin through this same Jewish people." (From a 1922 speech in Munich)

Now the links:

The religious Views of Adolph Hitler
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/quotes_hitler.html

Wiki Quotes
http://equotes.wetpaint.com/page/Adolf+Hitler+Quotes?t=anon

(4) ZERO. Not a single fact to back up the claims of ID was presented. If they just had one scientific fact, and explained it a little, it would have at been something.

(5) Hitler had "On the Jews and their Lies" reprinted and redistributed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_jews_and_their_lies

"Four hundred years after it was written, the National Socialists displayed On the Jews and Their Lies during Nuremberg rallies, and the city of Nuremberg presented a first edition to Julius Streicher, editor of the Nazi newspaper Der Stürmer, the newspaper describing it as the most radically antisemitic tract ever published.[9] Against this view, theologian Johannes Wallmann writes that the treatise had no continuity of influence in Germany, and was in fact largely ignored during the 18th and 19th centuries.[10] Hans Hillerbrand argues that to focus on Luther's role in the development of German antisemitism is to underestimate the "larger peculiarities of German history."[Hillerbrand, Hans J. "Martin Luther," Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2007]

Ray Comfort admits too much!

2008-03-27T07:51:00.000-07:00

Ray Comfort wrote (in his Blog):

"The reason atheists and skeptics get so upset when I say it’s good to cut down trees is that this world is all they have. If it gets completely wrecked, it’s all over for them. That’s what they believe"

I must emphatically say that is most certainly not what we believe. One of the problems I have with evangelicals is their insistance that they know what we unbelievers believe, and their inability to represent what we believe accurately. More often they don't just the bullseye of the target, they miss the target completely.

Let me correct Ray by telling what I belive. It's good to cut down trees. See how wrong he is, already? Trees are excellent resources. The problem is that too often, trees are cut down without being replaced, and this makes wood more scarce, and thus, more expensive. The other problem is when tree-cutting is mismanaged, and we end up with not enough trees to help clean the air. You need forests and green parks near cities to counter the air pollution caused by all the cars and industry. Also, help beautify our living areas. You wouldn't want to live in a wasteland of concrete and steel, with no plants or animals anywhere nearby, would you?

Ray goes on to get everything wrong by stating:

"... that life then ends. That’s unless Mother Nature or Father Evolution (whoever they believe made everything) makes some more trees, etc. Of course if it has to start all over again, they have to wait for around 4.5 billion years. That’s what they believe, and I guess that’s a little too long for them to wait."

This part of Ray's paragraph borders on incoherent. Not only did he fail to represent what atheists beleive, he completely misrepresented several science topics, and though he tried to make a joke, I'm afraid that the only thing funny is the irony that we atheists find in just inanely he wrote it.

The Ray goes on to blunder:

"So they get antsy when Christians are a little flippant about creation. But we can’t help it. We don’t value creation as though our life depends on it. That’s because we know and trust Him who made all things, and if humanity wrecks this earth, we have His immutable promise that He is going to make all things new."

That is really quite an unflattering thing for Ray to admit. He apparently doesn't realize how disrespectful he is to his god, whom he allegedly worships and trusts? He is literally saying that it's perfectly okay to trash his God's creation, and just be disrespectful towards it, because God can just fix it with his omnipotent powers if we screw it up too much.

Suppose instead of God, we were talking about your neighbor. Suppose your neighbor asked you to house-sit for him while he was away. During your stay, you wreck his house, and break a bunch of his belongings. When he gets back, you just flippantly say "sorry bout' the mess, mate, but you can just get some new stuff to replace the lot that I broke..."

I am totally amazed at what a childish, almost selfish attitude Ray just admitted to having. It doesn't speak well for him or the people who will defend it. In fact, it's downright thoughtless.

Arrogance and the psychology of Evangelicals

2008-03-26T12:02:00.001-07:00

Many people, after encountering Evangelicals, consider them to be a bit arrogant, and perhaps a little bit obsessive. The Evangelicals, if accused of being arrogant, usually try to explain that they had a life-transforming experience, and that God talked to them, and they cannot forget it. It is difficult to argue against the idea that the transformed evangelical actually communicated with God. After all, you cannot peer into their heads and read their minds and verify if they actually experienced what they claim. Unfortunately, with subjective experiences such as spiritual epiphanies, there is no way to confirm or verify that they are genuine. We, as the outsiders, have to step aside and argue around the topic.

Consider this possible explanation for the perceived arrogance of Evangelicals (and indeed any religious people who try to sell their religion to you).

At the time of their epiphany, the Evangleical feels that they are finally right about something. All of their lives, they "sinned" and behaved wrongly, but now, after their spiritual enlightenment, they are finally on the right track, and living their life correctly. God, and the Bible, is their guidebook to everything that is right and good, and they feel that as long as they have faith, trust God, and read the Bible, they will always be right. Many of them even say things like "I answer to nobody but God."

Imagine if a person had a direct link from their brain to a supercomputer full of information. They could call up facts on the fly, and always have the correct answers. This is how many of the evangelicals feel about their new way of life. They feel that they are right about everything, and that if they have questions, faith and reading the Bible is the way to find the answers. They've found God, and they're now right. What they think in their heads is now guided by God, and many Evangelicals claim to talk directly to God, and so they just know that they're right now.

From the point of view of an unbeliever, it seems that many true believers don't distinguish between what they're thinking, and what God tells them when they talk to God. Perhaps after a while, the believers become so accustomed to the feeling of communication with God, and it becomes second nature to them that even they can't tell their own ideas from God's. UNfortunately, the unbeleivers cannot tell if the believers are delusional or genuinely receiving divine inspiration.

Whatever the case is, Evangelicals do tend to believe that they are always right, and it stems from the idea that God is telling them what's right. UNbelievers are often accused of being arrogant because we criticize believers, but as far as I'm concerned, objectivity always trumps subjectivity -- in other words, an objective fact, which is documented and can be demonstrated, always trumps what a person feels or believes in their heart that the facts are. When a person talks as though they are always right, and they try to throw the authority of their experience with God in your face, which you are not allowed to question, how is that NOT arrogant?

There is a difference between being right objectively, and simply proclaiming that you're right. Evangelicals need to learn a little objectivity if they don't want to look arrogant.

The Same Old Questions...

2008-03-14T04:41:00.000-07:00

There are certain issues that pop up over and over again, in the
philosophical battlefield between Christianity and atheism. This
article attempts to deal with these issues so that Christians will
better understand where we, as atheists, start from, and might
possibly prevent repetetive and oftentimes annoying re-debates.

(1) "Millions of people all over the world believe in God. Are you saying that they're all wrong."

Essentially, YES, but there is nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with preferring the color blue to the color red, or preferring vanilla to chocolate. Like any other descision in life, Belief in God has different opinions available. Some people prefer to believe in one, others don't. Atheists choose to not believe in God for many reasons, usually because they cannot find any proof that one exists. You cannot convince a person who prefers vanilla ice cream over chocolate ice cream that chocolate is better or right, and vanilla wrong. The same is true in this case.

(2) "Where did the universe come from if there wasn't a God to create it?"

Christians assume that God created the universe. Atheists admit that no man knows what created the universe. In fact, there are many origin theories to choose from. One theory suggests that the universe simply always existed (much the same way Christians maintain that their God always existed and had no beginning nor end), while another suggests that the universe was created as the result of a process that we do not fully understand yet.

(3) "How can you be moral without belief in God?"

Are all Christians moral? Are any non-christians moral? Morality has absolutely nothing to do with belief in God. Morality is a way of conduct that is beneficial to society, or considerate to others. Manners, politeness, and ethics are all practiced by many non-christian cultures, as well as atheists. you do not have to be a believer in God to be moral -- you just have to be considerate of others.

(4) "What about your soul? Do you want to suffer for eternity?"

Most atheists do not believe that the soul exists. We maintain that personality, consciousness, intelligence, and talent are all contained in the organ known as the brain, and there is considerable scientific and medical research that proves this to be true. When confronted by the facts about the Brian-mind connection, many Christians opt to describe the soul as having nothing to do with intelligence, perception, or personality. If that is the case, then what does the soul do? what evidence is there that such a thing exists?

(5) "What happens to you when you die? I know I am going to heaven!"

Sadly, we atheists cannot offer any pleasant stories to comfort a person's fear of death. We do not believe in an afterlife. We believe that when you die, that is it. We believe that death is final, and that nobody has an afterlife. We discount all stories of "near death experiences" as fantasies that people under very traumatic
circumstances have, very similar to the hallucinations that child molestation victims create to blank out the memories of abuse. We simply accept that death is the end, and get on with our lives.

(6) "Why live, then? Why not just kill yourself?"

This follows from question #5. If we have no prospect of an afterlife, that doesn't make living any worse. Instead of striving for some imaginary goal that will only come after death, the accepting of death as our ultimate end gives us less time to worry about the afterlife, and lets us concentrate on enjoying this life -- the only
one we have. We are no more or less depressed about death than a christian would be. We simply accept it's finality, where the Christian has to cling to a myth about an afterlife.

(7) "Why be moral? If there is no ultimate justice for people who commit crimes, why not lead a life of crime?"

This also follows from question #5. Essentially, it is much more beneficial for survival to behave in a moral way, and avoid crime, because criminals tend to be hunted by their victims, and a life of crime is typically short and brutal. Few criminals have ever been able to live pleasant lives. They usually end up dead or in a prison cell somewhere. It is better to live in an ethical way, because people will be less likely to kill you if you are nice to them.

The very notion that "if there is no God, and there is no judgement, why not be as bad as you want?" speak a lot more about the Christian using this argument than it does about atheism. It speaks of a person who feels that if it were not for God and the Christian belief structure, they would just go hog-wild, kill, steal, and rape their way through life. If that is how these people trully feel, and if it really were possible for them to do that, it doesn't give a very positive message about that individual. It is actually quite pathetic.

A Solution to ID in Public School science classes.

2008-03-07T13:32:00.000-08:00

The Solution to getting Creationism Taught in Public School

Okay, I know a lot of people will say that this idea is crazy, because it dignifies the Creationists by treating them seriously, but after reading my article, maybe you'll understand where I am coming from, and that I'm really being quite devious.

No self-respecting science teacher wants to have to teach creationism or "Intelligent Design" (ID) in their science class, and every year, there seems to be yet another attempt by a Fundamentalist-dominated school board to include ID or challenge evolution (and all of science in general, as a result). Well, they will keep trying, and they'll probably keep losing.

So here's a way I thought of to try and get both Evolutionary biology teachers and ID proponents satisfaction.

First, we pass a bill to include ID in public school science class as a topic. The Bill will be deceptively titled and promoted as a bill that would introduce ID in the classroom. The actual text of the bill would contain the following:

(1) ID would be introduced as a topic in biology class.
(2) When discussing ID, teachers must use only what is considered current, modern, science, as approved by the world's academies of science.
(3) All materials used to teach about ID cannot be given to teachers by organizations with religious ties, or which are not considered part of the body of scientists from the world's working scientists. The only materials allowed must be comprised of current, accepted science.
(4) All science classes will teach the scientific method, and the characteristics of science as part fo their curriculum.
(5) Everthing taught in science class must be factual in nature, and scientifically justified.

Secondly, we get America's academies of science to develop a short, but effective seminar that wouldn't take more than a class or two, where students will be taught about ID. Of course, the material will not be from the Discovery Institute or a church. It will be only what the plain simple facts about ID are. It will teach that most of the literature from ID proponents is rife with inaccuracies and outright lies (which can easily be demonstrated objectively very easily) and that Michael Behe, the originator of the term "Intelligent Design" defines science in a way that allows Astrology to be considered a science. The material will contain just facts about ID, and make it clear to the student (hopefully with dramatic and practical demonstrations and diagrams) that ID should not be taken seriously as a science. We have this material be in the early introductory biology classes.

Thirdly, we incorporate more logic and reason into the Public School curriculum -- not just classes in formal logic, but logic and reasoning that is simply part of the way things get taught, so that students pick it up, and get used to using it in all aspects of their studies. The idea is to offer an education that actually improves thinking by promoting good logic.

ID will get talked about in public school, and science teachers will not have to fight it, because they would be teaching only what current standard modern science says. Of course, the ID people will eventually see the trick, and complain about it, but who can be taken seriously when they try to argue that science classes shoudl not be teaching what is currently accepted standard science by the world's science academies? It wouldn't sound very good.

This sort of stealth tactic is how ID proponents thought they'd get ID in the class, and this is a sort of a reversal of it.

People have already said that my idea just legitimizes ID by giving it a mention in the first place. I agree only partially. ID is a legitimate topic that is a very hot issue, but it certainly is not science, and does not deserve to be given equal time. My tactic would make ID proponents think that they're getting inclusion, but on Science's terms. It could actually be fun to watch them protest after they've realized they've been had!

My Response to Ray Comfort's "Lincoln Was Right"

2008-03-01T06:53:00.000-08:00

Ray Comfort wrote:
"Even more disheartening for evolutionists is the fact that for over 50 years evolution has been espoused from all quarters in this nation, and yet the amount of people believing it since that time has only increased by a measly one percent."

Firsty of all, I'd liek to know precisely which poll you are looking at. I looked up several polls, including the ever reliable Gallup, and the most of them have very variable results. Some of them have questions that are loaded (especially ones conducted by Religious groups).

According to Gallup, (www . gallup . com), it depends on the questions asked! Type in "Evolution" into their search engine on their website, and you will see several polls with different questions. The first one I found was "what do Americans know about Creationism and Evolution. According to the poll's questions, most Americans aren't very familiar with either subject enough to comprehend. 20% believed that evolution was "definitely true", while 35% believed it was "probably true". The numbers for Creationism were 29% and 29%, so the two are almost even.

They compiled questions week to week, and the results were different every week with different people.

This is quite different from your informal poll, where you and Kirk Cameron concluded that evolution must be false, because a bunch of random people that you filmed at an airport said "I don't know". Yours was hardly a scientific poll. IN fact, if you asked people about Gravity, or what chemicals make up DNA, they'd say "I don't know" -- because most average people do not get into biology enough to give an education opinion or summation of those things.

I'd never trust the opinions of accountants, auto mechanics, bus drivers, finance experts, or salespersons on matters of science, simply because their professions do not give them exposure. You really need to speak to actual experts who work in the field.

Ray Comfort wrote:
"Why has this happened? The answer is simple. It takes no faith to believe in God’s existence. This is because evidence is everywhere. Even a child knows that if there’s a creation, there must be a Creator."

It takes no faith to believe in God? Wait a second, I thought that Christianity was all about having faith in God? You're engaging in a kind of double-talk here, Ray. I think you need to explain how you can talk about how we all need to have faith In God and the Bible one minute, then proclaim that it takes no faith at all to believe in God. It's pretty much a contradiction.

Ray Comfort wrote:
"But because there is no empirical species-to-species evidence for evolution, it takes a huge leap of faith to believe in the theory."

It only takes a huge leap of faith for all of those people who are "Bored to tears" when reading the technical details of actual science, or hearing biologists explain how they inferred facts from experiments. If you're NOT bored to tears with actual science, then you will need no faith to examine specimens or read a report in a peer-reviewed science journal (something I am willing to bet you have never done in your life) -- you will understand the technical details, and you will be fascinated, and interested to keep on reading. See -- When I hear you say how bored to tears you are with science, I keep saying to myself "Then why does he bother trying to make his readers think that he knows anything about science?" I'm not about to try telling people why one automobile is a better one than another, because I'm not an expert on Cars, their engines, or what makes one better from another. I'm honest to admit that I'm no expert, and that my opinion on cars means nothing.

Why is it so hard for you do just admit that you're not an expert on science, and just leave it at that? What is this problem that you have proclaiming to know something abour science, then saying how much science bores you (actually, I dont' think it bores you as much as it goes above your understanding level). Why do you keep trying to behave as though you actually know somthing about science, when you obviously don't? It's one of the reasons that so many people consider you perhaps a bit dishonest.

Ray Comfort continues:
"For a time it seemed that the masses were being persuaded by evolution, but recent media attention to the issue has made them give the issue some serious thought. The "folks" are not that easily deceived. "

Ray, I think it's more accurate to say that most people are simply not knowledgable enough in science to know any better. The Gallup polls that I read clearly show that most Americans simply don't know a lot about science. To people who believe in the "great conspiracy theory", that proclaims that "atheists since Darwin have been undermining science and pushing evolution to the exclusion of all other views" is to be totally ignorant of the scientific method, the process of discovery and experimentation, and how all data is peer-reviewed and re-tested by independant people.

All it would take is a single "Creationist" scientist to conduct an experiment and publish his results in a peer-reviewed science journal to prove that creationists are actual scientists. They have never really done this. All tehy have done is complain to churches and media outlets about allegations that never pan out.

The Discovery institute just made a documentary with Ben Stein where it is claimed that "scientists have been fired from their posts for believeing in creationism". I have personally studied every single case that has been in the news about so-called scientists who got "fired for believing in Evolution", and every single case was exaggerated by the Discovery Institute beyond credibility.

They claimed that a researcher was "fired" from the Smithsonian Institute. The reality was that the guy was never actually an employee there to begin with -- he was a post-grad student who was doing his post-doctoral research there, and he's still there -- he lost nothing.

They claimed that Dr. Gonzales at U.C. Berkeley was "fired from jis job as a science professor" for being a creationist. Well guess what? He's still working there, and was never fired -- he got denied tenure, among hundreds of potential candidates, many of whom were even more qualified than him (he simply had not been there long enough, or done enough work to be given tenure, but he still is employed there).

Why do you think that Creationists like the Discovery Institute need to lie and exaggerate so much to prove their point? What's more, it only takes a tiny amount of fact-checking to discover their lies. You obviously never spend the 5 minutes it takes to check your facts on these matters. Why is that? Could it be that you're so confident that you're always right, that you don't think you need to check facts on these things -- because facts bore you to tears?

I'm curious to know.

William F. Buckley: Remembering a Prick

2008-02-28T12:26:00.000-08:00

William F. Buckley should be remembered for what he was -- an asshole conservative who legitimized being a racist bigot, by simply defending his neanderthal ideals with a charming smile, a British accent and better vocabulary than the average neanderthal.

This is the William F. Buckley I knew growing up:

(Concerning the methods used in the south to keep blacks from voting)
"The central question that emerges . . . is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not prevail numerically? The sobering answer is Yes – the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race. It is not easy, and it is unpleasant, to adduce statistics evidencing the cultural superiority of White over Negro: but it is a fact that obtrudes, one that cannot be hidden by ever-so-busy egalitarians and anthropologists.

National Review believes that the South's premises are correct. . . . It is more important for the community, anywhere in the world, to affirm and live by civilized standards, than to bow to the demands of the numerical majority." -- William F. Buckley, from a A 1957 editorial of The National Review titled 'Why the South Must Prevail'' (8/24/57)

William F. Buckley, in 1968, during a debate with writer Gore Vidal.

(Vidal, who is gay, called the conservative a “pro-war-crypto-Nazi,”)

"Now listen, you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I’ll sock you in you goddamn face and you’ll stay plastered"

Ah, Elegant, Erudite, and positively Buckley.

If you get a chance to see the video of William F. Buckley debating famous M.I.T. Professor Noam Chomsky on the Vietnam war, you will see how much Buckley was really mostly about using his vocabulary to skirt around issues. This debate is one that clearly shows that Buckley did not know what the issues were, and as soon as Chomsky tries to get beyond the slogans and one-liners of conservative pundits, and actually discuss the issues, Buckley tries to cut him off and stop him from explaining what the issue are. You can see Buckley trying in vain to make it sound like our invasion of Vietnam and the war was all about altruistic intentions and good will, and how we were there for only the best of mutually-beneficial intentions. Chomsky pretty much politely cleans his clock by using actual facts, reports, and statistics.

William F. Buckley -- should be remembered for what he really did -- he legitimized being an elitist, racist, knee-jerk-anti-communist, bigotted conservative, by being eloquent, graceful, genteel, and erudite.

Sin, Crime, and Mental Illness.

2008-02-26T08:20:00.000-08:00

One of the issues that is almost always lost with Christian Fundamentalists/conservatives is the issue of mental illness and it's implications for people who commit crimes while under the influence of an illness.

After discussing things like this for years, I get one of several answers from religious conservatives:

(1) People who have mental illnesses are actually possessed by the devil, and as such, made a choice somewhere that allowed Satan to take control, so they're really responsible for crimes committed while under his influence. IN other words, "mental illness" is not real; it's just an excuse for unbelievers to use to explain why people sin, or something like that...

(2) People who are mentally ill are still responsible for what they do, because even though they have less control, they usually know it, and they just need to try harder to fight it.

(3) Mental Illness is just an excuse for crimes, end of discussion.

(4) It is very difficult to determine if a person actually has a mental illness, and if they're just making it all up. I say we have to presume guilt before innocence, and have doctors determine whether they're really ill before releasing them.

In my opinion, far too many people tend to discount the concept of mental illness to the extent that they are willing to execute mentally retarded people (such as a man with severe brain damage who had the mind of a 4-year-old), and people with a documented history of treatment for mental illness.

Many people in our country are given psychiatric medication by doctors, and while under the influence of an incorrect dosage or after quitting without telling their doctor, they have an episode, and someone gets killed. Though we can trace the course of what clearly are "premaeditated" crimes, like the purchase of guns and amo, and the writing of notes or hit-lists, the over-riding factor is that these premeditations are done by people who are not in their right mind, because of their medications. These drugs alter the ability of people to think straight and make rational decisions, and far too many people are unwilling to consider the details when a horrific crime is committed under the influence of these drugs, which in many cases are legally prescribed by licensed doctors -- and they punish the people who commit crimes as though mental illness simply didn't exist, and as though the drugs mean nothing.

Which brings me to a question.

When people commit crimes under the influence of psychiatric drugs, or because they are mentally retarded or mentally ill (and thus incapable of making rational choices and decisions), should they be held responsible, just as much as a non-mentally ill person?

What about people who sin, and are mentally ill, under the influence of prescription medication, or retarded. Are they responsible according to the Bible, or do people who are incapable of understanding get forgiven?

I'd be interested in knowing what believers think about this.

(posted to Ray Comfort's Blog)

My Response to Ray Comfort's "The Evolution Debate"

2008-02-25T14:11:00.000-08:00

Ray did research on Evolution, and found it mind-numbingly boring... Presumably because he's not well-enough acquainted with science in general past the grammar-school level to understand how science knows what it knows.

Like far too many people, Ray will look at a science book -- not even one about evolution -- and his eyes glaze over as he stares at it with a blank expression, as he tries to read it. In the end, his reaction is "This is stupid! I can't figure out how those eggheads conclude anything from this mumbo-jumbo!", and he throws the baby out with the bathwater.

People like Ray Comfort have this issue with being right all the time. They will never admit that they are mistaken, or that they said or did anything that might be embarrasing. They have to keep this phoney front of integrity up when faced with highly technical subjects that they don't know how to deal with. They either make up their own answers, and hope that nobody will question them, or they try to wait you out in the hope that you'll forget about what you were discussing.

Ray Comfort does not have the common decency to simply say that he is not a science expert, and that even watered-down, mass-consumption versions of science that we find in magazines like Scientific American, are like Greek to him. He cannot admit that he is scientifically illiterate, and so he makes up answers to questions that he doesn't know, and hopes that believers will just go along with him, and that critics will be consumed researching his cryptic answers.

It's an annyoing habit, really, never admitting that you simply don't know. There is no shame in admitting that you never really studied in or participated in science, just like I have no problem admitting that I've never actually studied music and can't read a note of it.

I wonder why this community is so full of people who can't say "I don't know" when they don't know. I mean it becomes painfully obvious to people like me when they don't know, yet they keep trying to explain their way out of the discussion as though they are experts. it would save a lot of time writing messages back and forth, if people would simply start off by saying that they don't know, then we'd know not to bother continuing the conversation.

Pat Buchanan through the way-back machine...

2008-02-25T13:35:00.000-08:00

Remember when Pat Buchanan ran for president of the USA back in 1996? I totally forgot that I watched his campaign with a combination of snickering ridicule, and morbid fascination. I scarcely recall how I formed my opinion of the man, except that I knew he was a woman-hating fascist bigot. Now, thanks to going back to old newsgroups, I can actually trace how I formed my opinion of him and other people I've written about. I'm now cataloging my usenet postings, as part of a project to create a kind of diary of my life, so I can see where I've come from.

I Wrote this back in Feb 18 1996, in the alt.politics newsgroup. This is so we can remember Pat Buchanan at his sleaziest.

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"Pat Buchanan on David Brinkley"

I never saw a man make a bigger ass of himself on a national scale, then when I watched Pat Buchanan defend himself in a no-holds-barred question and answer session with David Brinkley, Sam Donaldson, Cokie ROberts, and some other guy whose name I
forget :)

(1) Buchanan claimed that Women should be allowed to compete in the marketplace (good), but that we need to realize that they are incapable of competing against men because of their biology! He claimed that they could never achieve the same level of competetiveness and success as their male counterparts because of some unwritten biological setback, which he failed to identify or give a reference for.

(2) He claimed that black people haven't been properly assimilated into American culture, and that their subculture has a dangerous effect on the rest of American society.

(3) He claimed that illegal immigrants from Mexico are INVADING America and STEALING jobs from Americans. When it was pointed out that most of the illegals end up getting $2 an hour and getting treated like dirt, and that most are trying to escape their opressive country to look for opportunity and a better way of life, he just kept saying that they are invading the southwest and trying to turn it into another part of Mexico.

(4) He was confronted with the fact that the phone number for his Louisiana campaign office doubles as the office of the NAAWP (David Duke's National Association for the Advancement of White People, which is a well known supporter of the aryan movement and Klan organizations), and tried to blow it off, unsuccessfully, by stating that the person who campaigned for him in Louisiana was a good worker. He never addressed the issue of the association with the NAAWP, and his campaign strategist Pratt's attendence of Nazi and Klan rallies. This was his biggest weakness.

(5) But wait -- that's not all! He made a pitch for the Whacko-Bible-thumping fundies! He was asked about his views on Abortion, and claims that he would like to see Roe Vs. Wade overturned, and doctors charged with MURDER.

(6) IN addition to that, he also revealed that he wished to ban the teaching of evolution in public schools, because Evolution was a "godless, evil verision" of our origins, and that the Bible is the only truth. He claimed that "Evolution is an evil doctrine FORCED on our young people by secular humanists and atheist!"

In my opinion, Buchanan has TOTALLY SCREWED HIMSELF. He is unelectable, especially after toting the whacko-fundy line of extremist politics with a dash of insane religious views. Just his views on women and minorities make him questionable as a candidate, but his ties to Nazis and to Christian Fundamentalist insanity make him put him in the realm of Lyndon Larouche -- TOTALLY OUT-THERE!

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This is from Feb 13th, 1996

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"Pat Buchanon: Fascist for President"

People like Pat Buchanon scare me. Well... they don't scare me as much as they make me angry that there are more mindless Nazis-for-JEE-ZUS out there willing to buy all the "family values" propaganda of the religious conservatives out there.
Pat Buchanon's platform is "win the cultural war and bring America back to God and family values." Buchanon, in interviews, has taken the kookie-Christian viewpoint this time around (he's been running for president since I've been in grammar school), spewing forth all the paranoid propaganda which The Christian Coalition and Pat Robertson have been promoting.

Buchanon, like Robertson, believes that there is a "War against Christian values" going on in America; he believes that the government and society are officially sanctioning overt discrimination against all christians, and against their
values. He has stated that Christians are treated like second-class citizens. He has stated that America was intended to be a Christian nation, and that we have strayed from the goals of the founders.

What a load of absolute bullshit. Buchanon's ideas are founded on the sense of paranoia that Fascist-Fundamentalist preachers dream up to scare their followers into being more religious. The only reason that people like Buchanon feel that
Christianity is under attack is because many people in Politics and Media openly reject the fascist ideas that the Religious Right promotes, such as forcing "creationism" and prayer in public schools, outlawing abortions, and punishing flag-burners with stiff jail sentences (and Jesse Helms once asked for the death penalty!), and teaching "abstinance" in place of actual useful hygenic knowledge about sexuality. People like Pat Buchanon, Pat Robertson and the rest of the Christian Coalition are not under attack by anyone. They are the ones doing the attacking, and they usually attack anyone who disagrees with their paranoid solutions to problems.

But the religious nutcase side of Buchanon is not all I dislike about him. Buchanon is a protectionist. Even though NAFTA has done nothing to harm America, he thinks that it's a bad idea, and that we should impose heavy tarrifs on foreign goods, blocking anything that resembles FREE TRADE. Tarrifs mean big government, which most Americans are trying to reduce. Being in favor of such protectionism is counter to
shrinking the government, because you need a burocracy to keep track of all the taxes and tarrifs. We rejected Ross Perot in the last election, and here is Pat Buchanon repeating many of the same paranoid delusions about how unfairly we should trade without our neighbors.

Buchanan is a space cadet of a candidate, and it's no surprise to me that he got as many votes as he did in a Bible-belt state. We'll have to watch how badly he does in the northern states, where the insanity of Bible-thumping nazis from beyond
the 8th dimension is not so influential.