Category: WTF

Help! Help! I’m being Repressed!

There’s been some noise around the interwebs recently about how oppressed white men are.  Who knew? I’m under the thumb of The Man (or rather The Woman I suppose) and nobody told me. It’s all out there in The Manosphere.

I’ve actually kept kindof quiet about the recent Richard Dawkins flap, but it seems to me a lot of people blew a few passing comments out of proportion. I actually literally laughed out loud when Mr. Deity mentioned how they threw Richard Dawkins under the bus.

I think I’ll just sum the whole thing up here: Guys, don’t be dicks.

I find it personally disappointing when we devolve into this kind of blame game so and so is bad and so and so is wrong. Makes us look like politicians. Issues that are important to me include the quality of American education (including keeping religion out of schools and teaching real science), fair pay, jobs, and care for the underprivileged at home (which is vehemently opposed by the religious right, otherwise known as Republicans), and human rights violations around the world and at home (most of which occur in the name of God).

It occurred to me at some point that most of the issues I care about are caused by or exploited by religion in some fashion, and I threw my lot in with the Atheists. Rebecca Watson was right to speak out on her issue. It matters to her and she raised awareness of it. Her audience is quite a bit larger than mine, so she’s succeeded admirably. Meanwhile I’ve lost nearly everything in a fight to protect my children from fundamentalism. It has truly cost me dearly. That’s why I don’t disagree with Dawkins either: certain issues are just a little bit more important to my life at the moment. When I’ve finished deprogramming my children and teaching them to appreciate the world as it is and not how some ancient goat herders wants it to be, I’ll make sure I cover jerks propositioning women in elevators too. I can’t wait until the day when that’s what I have to be worried about.

Should math be taught in schools?

Recently all Miss USA candidates were asked if evolution should be taught in schools. 

The answers were varied, and most overwhelmingly indicated that they did not personally believe evolution. That’s an appalling statement on American education and the iron grip the religious right holds over our country.  While there were a couple of definite “yes” answers, many “yes” answers were of the variety “well we should teach both sides”. It’s such an appalling state that so many believe there’s “two sides”.  If we teach whatever anybody believes, we must also include creation stories from Hinduism, Daosim, Pastafarianism, Raelianism, and so on.  It’s not just evolution and the Abrahamic faiths.  Evolution differs from all of the creation stories in one important respect: It has evidence.  It’s science. It’s not faith based. We should not teach religion in schools, but we should teach science. Creationism in all it’s varied forms (including Intelligent Design) is RELIGION. Period.

Consider this from another angle: what if the question was “Should we teach Math in schools?”

Carl Sagan was a Mormon?!?

In some random internet surfing I ran across this: http://famousdeadmormons.com/index.php?id=208

The Mormons have a habit of posthumously baptizing famous people into the Mormon religion. Some of them are really amusing. This site has listed some of the more interesting names, including:

Carl Sagan,
Groucho Marx,
Alexander the Great,
George Carlin,
Frank Zappa,
George Orwell,
Eazy-E,
Jack Ruby,
Bing Crosby,
Joey Ramone,
Betty Page,
Buddy Ebsen,
Fred Rogers,
Shemp Howard,
Steve McQueen,
Lee Harvey Oswald,
Karen Carpenter,
Earnest Hemingway,
Babe Ruth,
Wolfman Jack,
John F. Kennedy,
Joan of Arc,
Imhotep,
Timothy Leary,
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,
Oral Roberts,
John Candy,
Nostrodamus,
Pope John Paul II,
King Arthur,
Pocahontas,
Hunter S. Thompson,
Karl Marx,
Sam Kinison,
Andre the Giant,
Malcolm X,
James Dean,
Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz,
Jimmy Hoffa,
Johnny Cash,
Vlad the Impaler (better known as Count Dracula),
Attila the Hun,
Sid Vicous and Nancy Spungen,
Candy Barr (famous stripper),
and Anna Nicole Smith

just to name some of the more amusing ones.

Where the hell is my giant robot, Dawkins?

This is actually quite funny, with just a hint of supercreepy. The very thought of anyone organizing atheists into an army bent on world conquest is completely laughable. Sorry, we just don’t work that way. Not to mention that most of us, Dawkins included, are ardent pacifists as well. 

But then they warn the Christians to get their sword and fight off the evil atheists. Um, what? Is this more of that Bush era “strike first” kind of thing? It’s more than a little creepy that there are Christians out there who might take this video seriously.

Let me make one thing clear: I’m not fighting a war for Richard Dawkins or anybody until I get my own giant fucking killer robot.

A brief look at what’s really important to us as a species

You may (or may not) have heard that recently SETI had to mothball it’s Allen Telescope Array.  Apparently it would cost $2.5 million to keep it operational.  That’s a lot of money, especially in these hard economic times, right?

It depends on what’s important to you.  I recently saw a bumper sticker that read something to the effect of “we never have enough money for education, but we always seem to have enough money for war”.  Think about that. The swath of Republicans we just voted into office (due in no small part to the billions of anonymous dollars filtered through SuperPACs made possible by the Citizen’s United ruling) have been busy slashing funding left and right.  They claim we can’t afford these things.  Things like health care for all Americans, NPR, PBS, Planned Parenthood, and our educational system.  I’m watching my sister facing the possibility of being fired and forced to re-apply for her job as a way of “improving our educational system”.  What a crock.  Meanwhile, we’re involved in a third war now.  We don’t pay our soldiers much, but damn do we buy them some expensive toys. 

Microcosmologist has put together a little infographic that shows, quite clearly, where our priorities lie.  (there’s more after the picture)

Is this stuff important? Is it worth the money? I defer to the great Carl Sagan.

Back online for what it’s worth

I decided to reopen the blog.  Is it safe to?  No.  “Then why?” you ask.  Cause I really don’t give a fuck anymore.  My reasons for closing the blog down are more or less moot.  All the bad crap I was afraid might happen did anyway, without anybody finding my blog.  So, what the fuck.  Hope I haven’t lost too many readers.  Well, ok I didn’t have that many to start with, so I guess it’s more accurate to say I hope I still have readers.  Meh.