Not all of them, just most of ‘em.  Case in point:

Tonight I was minding my own business picking up dinner.  I happened to be wearing my Obama/Biden ‘08 shirt.  When I entered the place, the first thing I hear is some pretentious shitbrick CEO-wannabe-looking private college business major dropout saying,”Oh God, an Obama supporter.”

Shitbrick then went on talking shit–at points repeating Rush Limbaugh verbatim–the entire time I was picking up my order.  I’ll bet the boyfriend his wife doesn’t know about was proud.

Really, I guess this post is more dedicated to my new favorite tool, Shitbrick:

Dear Shitbrick,

Damn those liberals and their high taxes!  You’re absolutely right:  those of us making six or more figures a year ought to be bitching about taxes.  As anyone can tell, we make more money than 80-90 percent of the population, which means we need it more than those who support our excessive, irresponsible lifestyles.

I mean, jeez, can you believe there are people out there who don’t play golf with the CEO for a living?  Why should our taxes go to support them?  It’s their own damn faults they’re poor anyway, because as logic dictates (and a fact everyone instinctively knows anyway) everybody on the planet can be millionaires like us.  All they have to do is vote Republican and be free market, trickle-down capitalists.   So when they get it through their stupid, poor heads that all they have to do is give more money to us rightfully rich people, they’ll become rich too.  If they can’t, it’s their own fault.  That’s just simple economics.

By the way, how many houses do you own?  Ever come home drunk after screwing your secretary and forget which one you’re in?  It’s not a big deal, I’m sure every trust fund baby has that problem.  Oh well, keep on ruling the world, you’re doing a great job at it.

Sieg Heil, brother!

1. No Experience.  If we can write off Obama’s elected positions and teaching positions at a major university, plus his degrees and social work career beforehand, we can do the same for Sarah Palin.  If she were the governor of a bigger, more powerful state, this may not be as much of an issue.  Obama has to have some kind of edge on her to have cut his teeth on Illinois politics.  She doesn’t hold a candle to Joe Biden.
2. Nobody knows her.  Maybe we ought to hold her to Republican standards and start asking questions about her patriotism, since she’s so new on the scene.  At least “Obama” was more or less a household name before the primaries.
3. Married to an oil man.  Not the smartest pick on John McCain’s part.  As if anyone needs another reminder that the Republicans are in bed with Big Oil while gas fluctuates between $3.50 and $4.00 per gallon.
4. The fact that she’s a woman is an obvious ploy on McCain’s part to lure in disaffected Hillary supporters.  From what I’ve heard so far, many women are feeling this is an insult to their intelligence.  Although, I’ll be the first to admit I didn’t see this one coming.  The timing was well done.
5. The purely political nature of this pick borders on cuttthroat.  Unfortunately, political strategy is not going to fix our country’s problems–that is all the GOP has been able to offer thus far.

They could have formed a virtual juggernaut of strong, well-known Republican players.  Instead, they took a crap shot on luring a few women who disagree with everything Palin stands for.  I’m going to file this under “swing and a miss” instead of a blunder, because of the intentionality of it.  But seriously–an oil person?

Silly Republicans, America is for the People.

“Anybody else appreciate the intense irony of Focus on the Family praying for rain on Obama’s speech… then getting Hurricane Gustav on the Republican National Convention?”

Hat tip:   micketymoc

I weep for humanity.  I like to think that a college education negates ignorance.  Unfortunately, even stupid people can earn a college degree if they work at it hard enough, and nothing negates stupid.

I was browsing the Op-Eds today in search of enlightenment and instead stumbled upon this catastrophe.  The sad part is that it started out well and looked like it would be interesting:

The shining example of free thinking said to characterize the French Enlightenment was Voltaire. In the face of dogmatic clerics, both Protestant and Catholic, he urged reasonable people everywhere to “crush the infamous thing.”

His argument was as obvious then as it is today: organized religion not only divides humanity into believers and infidels, it authorizes the former, with a beatific smile, to extinguish the latter. Often religion claims to be doing so for the good of the infidel.

That Voltaire had Christianity in mind is indicated by a rather more vulgar expression from his pen: “the people will not be free until the last king is strangled in the guts of the last priest.”

Okay, I’m with you…

Modern would-be Voltaires such as Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins are just as strident in their hatred of religion in general and revealed religion in particular.

*forehead smack*

For my money, their arguments don’t amount to a hill of beans. They simply oppose one dogma with another. Truth to tell, such analysis as they advance has little to do with serious and existentially commanding descriptions of religious experience. Their questions like those of the village atheist are just plain silly: can an omnipotent God make a rock bigger than he can lift?

So the question that comes to mind is: why are they shouting so loudly?

The two most obvious explanations are, first, that they think their opponents are so powerful that they must amplify their own arguments just to get a hearing.

Second, they know full well that their own arguments are so weak that they have to obscure this fact with a high-decibel diversion.

For my money, this guy has never read Hitchens or Dawkins.  You will notice, throughout the article, not a single argument of theirs is mentioned.  Names such as Dawkins and Hitchens are now buzzwords in anti-atheist rhetoric.

The “silly” question he’s referring to can be explained this way:  If God cannot create a rock so big he can’t lift it, he is not omnipotent.  If he can create such a rock, but cannot lift it, he is not omnipotent.  Far from silly, it’s actually a rather clever argument.  The reason this guy thinks it’s silly is because he doesn’t have an answer that suits his beliefs.

True, these “evangelical atheists,” as Roger Scruton called them, do think religion is both powerful and malign. They can point to Islamists for contemporary proof, but add that the current crop of fanatics has hordes of angelic predecessors, stretching back to antiquity.

Every faith, the dogmatic atheists say, contains a seed of violence and torment, even (or especially) among those who see in their religion a command to love their neighbours, including neighbours as obnoxious as these atheist critics.

Considering the fact that religion is an industry that generates hundreds of billions of dollars every year (figures cite the Catholic Church alone as receiving over 100 billion per year), or the fact that the fundamentalists are a large and powerful voting bloc, or that in the United States, being a Jesus freak is being used as a qualification for public office, despite the fact the Constitution these fundies claim to love says,”…no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States…”

You get the picture.  Religion is indeed powerful.  But let’s take a look at its malignity.

What Cooper fails to acknowledge is that even “those who see in their religion a command to love their neighbours,” there is hatred, violence, bigotry and torment.  The God of the Old Testament never seemed to have a problem with genocide, and neither did his followers.  This directly confirms Voltaire’s assertion that religion, as paraphrased by Cooper, “authorizes the former to extinguish the latter.”

His followers are at least as malicious:  The Crusades.  Witch Burnings.  Forced conversion.  The Inquisition.  Modern Christians may not fly planes into buildings (yet), but the examples of their violence and hatred are plenty:  “God Hates Fags.”  Abortion clinic bombings.  Multi-state killings commanded by God.  Issuing death threats over the destruction of a cracker.  Referring to Iraq as a Holy War.  The evidence speaks for itself.

The rest of the article gives a traditional “God of the Gaps” style argument, suggesting that anything we don’t know, well, Goddunnit!  Then, ironically, the author claims the following:

Wondering means tolerating mysteries. Interestingly enough, it was Socrates, not some religious fanatic so pilloried by the evangelical atheists, who said that philosophy begins in wonder.

Wonder is something enlightened atheists never could abide. No wonder they shout so much.

Wonder is what drives the science atheists cite when confronted with religious wackoism.  The problem this guy has is because atheists don’t say,”yes, that is a mystery.  Something mysterious and supernatural is probably behind it,” they’re somehow devoid of curiosity.

This is false.  When an atheist comes across something he does not understand, he indeed wonders.  He wonders,”what could have caused it?”  Unlike a theist, who automatically assigns God to the cause, an atheist looks for evidence to find out what it is, where it came from and how it works.  Writing it off as supernatural is a cop out, intellectually lazy and robs one of the fulfillment of knowing rather than merely believing.

At first, I thought this was some fundie journalist hack.  Then I saw the credits and smacked my crusty, sunburnt forehead again.

Barry Cooper, PhD, is a professor of political science at the University of Calgary.

If this is the best he can offer, I feel very, very sorry for his students.

———-

Another article which drones on about atheistic “dogmatism” is here.  Fortunately, this article is considerably better than the last one.  Specifically, it talks about atheists, but it makes a good case against fundamentalism itself.

Unfortunately, the author mistakes atheist fundamentalism with a lack of patience for ignorance, then misuses science as being something grand and mysterious.  It isn’t.  It’s rather open and its methods are used to understand that which we consider “mysterious.”

Judging by the title, I was expecting the article to be an ignorant rant, but I’m content enough with it. However, I think the author misunderstands atheists a bit:

Again like his religious counterpart, the fundamentalist atheist tends to avoid this difficulty by remaining ignorant of the thing he despises. His faith in atheism is maintained by building a straw-man version of religious belief, and knocking it over repeatedly, to the applause of like-minded believers.

Barring those who are simply atheist as a result of being irreligious (and a few “atheist” teenagers who are really just rebelling against their parents), most staunch atheists are well aware of the religion they’re rejecting (Many, like myself, even come from a religious background).  We don’t need to write a thesis on the irrationality of theistic belief every time we need to decry it; we’re all aware of why we don’t believe and repeating it ad nauseam is a waste of time.

Enter the proverbial straw man. When one is introduced, it is for those reasons and is knocked down in the presence of other atheists because it is intended for other atheists. If a theist is interested in debating Aquinas’ 5 Proofs, we’re happy to oblige. But if we’re trying to illustrate a simple point on a related matter, we’re far more likely to use a generic paraphrasing of God et al instead of intricately explaining the theory of evolution… again. Being a writer himself, he ought to know that different audiences require different styles of writing.

A commenter on the article wrote about the differences between agnosticism and theism/atheism and how theism and agnosticism are mutually exclusive, but not so with atheism.  I responded in agreement with him stating that agnosticism is a matter of knowledge and theism/atheism is a matter of belief.

And god dammit, an actual fundamentalist atheist (every crowd has its idiot) apparently only saw “atheism is a matter of belief” and responded indignantly.  Like I said, nothing negates stupidity.

Overall, the article was still basically dumb and easily refuted.  Like the last time, this also came from a professor:

Paul Campos is a professor of law at the University of Colorado. He can be reached at paul.campos@colorado.edu.

It’s better than what your colleagues had to say, Mr. Compost, but I wouldn’t use it in court.

Whine to your friends about how you never get comments.  I will call this experiment a success.

The first assignment in my composition class was to write a response to an editorial or to a letter to the editor.  My first choice was rather bland because there wasn’t much I was interested in responding to at the time.  Then I came across this turd while visiting friendlyatheist.com.

I had been toying with the idea of posting my work on my blog to get a critical response or just share what I’ve been working on, so here you go.

I wrote this response three times.  The first time was at my work computer, but I forgot to email it to myself so I could edit it from home.  The second draft is what I eventually turned in.  The reason the third draft exists is because I thought it might have to be double-spaced (it didn’t), so I cut out a ton of information I thought was necessary to get it down to the one-page limit, essentially summarizing my work.  Now I have a nifty little 2GB USB drive to carry all my crap around with me.
Here’s the second draft (read the article first or it won’t make sense):

This article is a stunning example of why atheist representation is desperately needed at the interfaith gathering at the Democratic National Convention.  The ignorance and bigotry displayed by the author concerning atheist behavior and beliefs is positively staggering. 

First of all, the insistence that atheism is a religion is not only incorrect but offensive.  While it is true atheism is classified as a religion in the eyes of the law, it is done so for the purpose of simplification; it is important to consider that freedom of religion requires freedom from religion as well.

Among the misrepresentations of atheistic views is the perception that Atheists claim there is no God.  This is categorically false.  An atheist might say “I do not believe in God.”  Disbelief does not equate disproof.  On the contrary, most atheists I know would say that while they don’t believe in a God, they’re agnostic towards the possibility and would happily change their minds if there were evidence.

Another common method of attacking atheism is the quotation of scientists to indicate that atheism is, as the author puts it, “a sad and shallow belief.”  In this case he cherry-picked a quote from Albert Einstein to indicate that he was a religious man.  He wasn’t; he was a self-proclaimed agnostic.

The most outrageous part of the letter was the far-fetched comparison of the holocaust to a pro-atheism billboard which quoted John Lennon, then the subsequent attempt to link atheism with all the ills of the world.  The non sequitur arguments that followed were so absurd they bordered on satire.

If we are to believe Mr. Laugesen, atheism leads to the non-existence of ethics, humanitarian organizations, higher education and results in tyranny and genocide.  Someone ought to remind him that the birth of logic and Western thinking was irreligious in nature.  Remind him of the resistance to the teaching of science by Creationists. 

What about the millennia of anti-Semitism on religious grounds which culminated in the Holocaust he had the nerve to exploit?  When falsely warning that atheism would lead to tyranny, perhaps someone should point out that America was settled by many people who were trying to escape the tyranny wrought by the Church of England.  This was among the main reasons a “freedom of religion” clause was included in the First Amendment!

As if the taunts and insults sprinkled throughout this article weren’t enough, he goes on to assert that the reason atheists weren’t invited to the interfaith service is because they’re rude!  The irony would almost be funny if it weren’t so frustrating. 

The best example of why atheists need a voice at the DNC can be summed up with the author’s own words:  “[Atheists] should act more like Christians and Jews.”  If one were to replace “Atheists” with “Muslims,” he would be fired in a heartbeat.  Campus Atheists and Secular Humanists chairman Joe Foley says it best,”…atheists are one of the last groups remaining that it’s still socially acceptable to hate.”

 The third draft, which my wife jokingly referred to as “the abridged version,” is here:

This article is a stunning example of why atheist representation is desperately needed at the interfaith gathering at the Democratic National Convention.  The amount of ignorance and bigotry in this article is positively staggering. 

 

The insistence that atheism is a religion is not only incorrect but offensive.  The only reason it is classified as a religion in the eyes of the law for the purpose of simplification; it’s important to consider that freedom of religion requires freedom from religion as well.

 

The most outrageous part of the letter was the far-fetched comparison of the holocaust to a pro-atheism billboard coupled with subsequent attempts to link atheism with all the ills of the world.  The non sequitur arguments that followed were so absurd they bordered on satire.  If we are to believe Mr. Laugesen, atheism leads to the non-existence of ethics, humanitarian organizations and higher education, then results in tyranny and genocide. 

 

As if the taunts and insults sprinkled throughout this article weren’t enough, he goes on to assert that the reason atheists weren’t invited to the interfaith service is because they’re rude!  The irony would almost be funny if it weren’t so frustrating. 

 

The best example of why atheists need a voice at the DNC can be summed up with the author’s own words:  “[Atheists] should act more like Christians and Jews.”  If he had said “Islam” instead of “Atheism” in any of his points, he would be fired in a heartbeat.  Campus Atheists and Secular Humanists chairman Joe Foley says it best,”…atheists are one of the last groups remaining that it’s still socially acceptable to hate.”

Moving back to Peoria has done wonders for my active/social life. It’s not that Lincoln had nothing to do (they didn’t), my main challenge was finding the time to do it. I was on the road for two hours a day, five days a week, then ended up in Peoria every other weekend visiting family (who suddenly wanted to see us now that we’d left the area–go figure).

This Saturday I was hanging out with 35,000 intelligent people in Springfield. One of them was Ollie, who provided the wheels to our little voyage, and was most pleasant company.

We arrived at about 11 and made our way to the venue. Along the way were a number of vendors but not many people. Just when I foolishly thought we had beat the rush, we reached the entrance… and found out the end of the line was X number of blocks in the other direction.

I say “X” because with the rate at which the line grew, there is no feasible way to determine how long the line was when we got to there. So after a quick-paced power walk (I ought to get a medal for keeping up with Ollie), we got to the end and waited in line for about an hour. And that was with it moving at a steady pace.

I had to abandon my bottle of water, still half-full, at the security entrance. Apparently the Secret Service thought it would be a good idea to strip people of their beverages during 90-degree weather.

We ended up about 100 yards to the left of Obama (symbolic, no?) and got a decent enough view of him and Biden. Paramedics were zipping through the crowds at various intervals to cart off those who’d passed out due to heat exhaustion (thanks Secret Service).

That reminds me. Reality-deprived Conservative scumfucks: next time you parrot Fox News’ Barackstar propaganda, keep in mind that people pass out in crowds for medical reasons too. Damn, he’s a politician, not Elvis.

Anyway, I have some footage of the event as well as a few photos. After the speeches were made and things were winding to a close, we got about 30 feet or so from the candidates before they started walking towards the old capitol. Guess my handshake will have to wait.

I’m quite excited about Biden. He was my original pick during the primaries. While there are a few important things I vehemently disagree with him on, during the debates he came off as a realist, something I respect. After he dropped out, I became an Obama man. For me, this is the dream ticket.

I’ll try to get those photos and video posted sometime tonight. I have to purchase a new card reader to get the data off the damn camera.

Later that night I ended up in a conversation about parsnips and Cheeto dye (that’s how they get the Cheetos orange, dur), at a party at my friend’s house in the middle of nowhere. Sunday I ended up painting a stairwell and changing light bulbs in the Move That Never Ends. Tonight I’ll be going there to throw away crap that’s sitting in the garage now that I’ve found a dumpster to rent for less than $400 (the nerve!). Still need to find a home for those cats, and boy have we been trying. They’re free, folks. Free cats. Get ‘em while they’re hot.

I have two cats which I must give away, one is a longhair black cat with yellow eyes, one is a shorter-haired orangey cat. Both are male, both neutered and both de-clawed in the front. Their names are Shadow and Casey, respectively. Both have up-to-date shots… um.. both are house cats… friendly… dumb… what else… the black one is two years old and the orange one is three (I think).

If anyone is interested, let me know. All the no-kill shelters are full and not taking new pets.

The Case of Casey and Caylee Anthony is sad. The circumstances are sad, the reaction is sad and the outcome thus far has been sad. Leading the charge, as always, is Nancy Grace: the worst thing to happen to the American justice system.

*record scratch* WHAT?

“Nancy cares about children,” you say. “She wants to make sure justice is served!” You’re getting warmer. “She wants to see criminals in jail!” DING! DING! DING! We have a winner!

Well, it’s close enough for horseshoes.

The problem with Nancy Grace and people with similar shows is that they focus on criminal cases but they completely disregard the American ideal of Justice. Programming like this is centered not on the victims but on the accused. Any time even the most minute piece of information about the case is leaked or reported, Grace and her army of “experts” devote hours upon hours to analyzing it until there’s nothing left to do but replay the information and their interpretation of it over and over and over again.

What her program amounts to is the modern equivalent of a witch hunt, poisoning the jury pool and burning the defendant at the stake of public opinion. If you don’t believe me, take a look at how little time they devote to evidence that might vindicate the accused, or when such is opined, notice how quickly the hawkish Grace strikes it down as a silly delusion.

There can be only one outcome in the world of Nancy Grace: the defendant is always guilty.

The latest in her long line of justice-subverting topics is the case of the missing girl, Caylee Anthony. The biggest complaint coming from the know-it-alls at CNN is the mother’s seeming lack of concern for her daughter’s disappearance and the abnormal length of time between when the daughter had first gone missing and the mother reported her absence to the police.

The evidence is mounting, but there has been no trial. No trial, no presentation of evidence, no confessions, no murder charges… and yet, the talking heads are acting as if they already know Casey Anthony is guilty and her child is dead. The only thing the network is concerned about is pimping this poor child’s potentially tragic case to make ad revenue by sensationalizing the story with no regard for protecting the process which guarantees Americans a fair trial. You can see it in the way they point their fingers or in the phony sympathy Grace feigns for the camera whenever Caylee’s picture is plastered on the screen.

The mother’s actions are questionable, there’s no doubt about that. She hasn’t been helpful with the investigation and her parents seem to be half a bubble off. This could be indicative of mental illness, could it not? Maybe there are legitimate reasons why this woman acted the way she did. We have no way of knowing one way or the other because there hasn’t been a fucking trial yet, and already, this woman is being maligned–without a conviction–in front of the entire country.

I’m not saying there’s no merit to such opinions, but this is not how American justice works. Consider this: Caylee Anthony is still alive and has been abducted by an acquaintance of Casey Anthony. Casey doesn’t realize the significance of the situation or understand its gravity because she is a schizophrenic and therefor has an abnormal perception of reality. Psychiatrists confirm this to be the case and Caylee Anthony is found and placed in the custody of Child Protective Services while her mother is placed in an institution. Custody is not awarded to the grandparents because of their suspected malfeasance and are deemed unsuitable to be considered as caretakers for this child.

But that’s not how the trial goes. In the trial, the prosecution, confident in the evidence they’ve accumulated and the support of public opinion, proceed, without a body, to charge the defendant with murder. The jury, having followed the case on national television before it came to trial, deliberate for no more than 15 minutes before coming to a unanimous verdict: guilty as charged. They recommend the death penalty.

Casey Anthony is stowed away in a maximum security prison where she is habitually beaten by other inmates and neglected by the guards. After being systematically tortured and raped by fellow inmates before suffering a mild concussion, the person who abducted her child is discovered and arrested. Caylee Anthony is found alive and healthy but traumatized by the experience. Months pass before Casey’s appeal is heard, and details from the defense’s case citing psychiatric examinations and physical evidence suggesting abduction begin to surface and, wouldn’t you know it, Nancy Grace is on TV once again, ranting about how the case was mishandled and how the prosecutors involved should be fired… but makes no mention of her own massive part in the outcome of the trial.

It could happen, people. This is nothing more than conjecture, just like Nancy Grace’s crusading is little more than conjecture. What both sides have in common is the lack of a trial to back them up.

She’ll have her day in court and we’ll find out whether she’s guilty of the heinous charges she’s being accused of by certain blabbermouths. Until then, how about we let the process work and stop sabotaging the system by jumping to conclusions, hm?

If Caylee Anthony turns up safe and sound and her mother is innocent after all, I’ll be petitioning CNN to kick Nancy Grace’s detrimental ass off the air.

---

Recent developments in the case can be found at the America’s Most Wanted website. I have no problem linking to them. While they’re focused on catching crooks, they at least seem to give a shit about the victims.

Attempt #1, Day #1.

Wish me luck.

UPDATE:

EPIC failure.  Smoked 5 cigarettes throughout the day, starting at 1pm.  However, this is down 75% from one full pack per day.  Not bad, not bad.  Will try again tomorrow.