Just doing my part (from 2010-07-26)

I finally broke down and decided to actually cook a real dinner last night. Pork chops, sauerkraut and homemade macaroni and cheese. None of these things I had so I was off to the store.

Going in and out of the store, I had the thrill of shooing away a  panhandler making his pitch for something for some kid or kids somewhere. Not sure what it really was because he was still rattling of his programmed dialog with an exceptionally mush-mouthed dialect as I walked away. I loaded the car and dropped of the cart.

Then came the second panhandler.

It was a woman who, thankfully, kept her pitch short: single mom, unemployed, can I wash the windows on your car?

"No, thank you." "So there's nothing you can spare?"

I understand that part. I don't need my windows cleaned but perhaps there is still hope for some charity.

"No. I'm sorry." I walk on.

"God bless you, anyway."

Anyway?

What fucking gall. Perhaps, lady, your suffering is God's wondrous plan and his hand moved to stay mine from offering charity. That can only lead me to conclude that he wants you to suffer and, if he's feeling charitable himself, die in misery. Who am I to stop that?

I do give to charities but not to any that help humans. Humans can help and better themselves. They just have to want to do something about it. I guess it's easier to wait for a handout than actually make something of your predicament. Sheep, set for life.

 

A thought about stem cells

There is no rational reason to prohibit stem cell research. It is good for mankind and expanding human knowledge, which never is bad.

That's why "people of faith" are against it.

I was motivated by the recent federal circuit judge ruling that blocked federal funding for stem cell research. It has now been reversed but I am sure that an appeal is already working its way into the system. Ignorant savages people of faith may be, they are benefiting from the science and knowledge gained from medical research. Only the nutjobs who are completely against all man-made medical treatment are doing it right...and dying out as a result. Good on them. Keep it up.

 

I am happy to announce that I have an answer to all of this. It came to me on the toilet one morning.

If you are opposed to stem cell research, you may not use non-natural medical techniques when you ail. Deal with your plight. It's what The Farfalla would want.

You also may not utilize fertility treatments. Obviously, The Farfalla does not want your filth to breed. Since you will not propagate, you might as well off yourself now since that is the sole purpose of your empty, non-contributing life. I recommend hanging with a hemp rope. They are very durable.

 

You may use fertility treatments, however, under one of two conditions:

Option One: the female who is stupid enough to have this mindset can have only one ovum at a time harvested. Most source material for stem cells come from fertility services where many ova are harvested and fertilized a time. Just take one at a time and implant it. If it does not work, you pay full pop again and again in both cash and pain. It's what The Farfalla would want.

Option Two: You may not use fertility treatment for yourself but you may have implanted all of the remaining ova from a single donor. You essentially adopt the remaining ova from one donor and will have one implanted every year until the cache is depleted. You may not have state or government subsistence to support your brood. Either you and your family can support them or not. You may not put them up for adoption and with luck, many will starve to death. That will be your fault.

Actually, there is a third option: keep your filthy sewer shut and your superstitious crap to your self. You don't like stem cell research, don't benefit from it. Those who do, will.

Despite two thousand years of oppression, humanity has clawed its way out of the filth despite Xianity's constant badgering and we are better for it. Now we, or some of us, stand upright instead of living in a state of constant genuflex. Humanity will evolve and become better. For some inexplicable reason, we will drag these anachronistic fools with us. Maybe it's the Xian thing to do.

We need some Conquistadors

A couple of weekends ago, I saw a banner for a Mayan exhibit at the Kimbell Art Museum. I made a note to myself to go and see this as I enjoy Mesoamerican antiquities. I've even visited some of the better known places in Mexico. Fascinating stuff, and a pity. It chaps my ass to think of how much we lost to the plague of European conquerors. While the Maya still exist today, they are a pale shadow of their former selves, crushed into assimilation by an arrogant, ignorant, and unworthy master. I even wish they Maya had had some unknown disease that could have killed of those Catholic bastards, or at least let them live long enough to take it back to Europe to decimate their population. <Ecstatic shudders>

That made me think: we need some new conquistadores, and the more I thought about this while I was driving, the more I loved it. Why I loved it had to do with all the sickening piety gushing out of the worthless evangelicals that re a genuine plague to our country. They are extremists. They are zealots. Those people need be destroyed with prejudice.

Here's the scenario:

One day, out the blue and without warning, aliens arrive. They seem benign but they possess a power that goes beyond our comprehension to a diety-like level. In very short time and without warning, rhyme or reason, they become malign and: butcher half of the population and all of the clerical people; destroy the religious and some non-religious cultural texts; make us learn a single, new language; make us worship alien god(s) that have no meaning; put us to work as slaves harvesting our natural resources; give us a disease that kills off a quarter of the remaining population; then leave us to flounder like a dying fish on a beach. If we are lucky, they will destroy our planet when they sail on to other shores.

My pleasure at this situation is derived from the anguish of the pious, crying to their sky pasta daddy, and the silence of the response. With so much of the culture destroyed and poorly remembered, enhanced by a death penalty for anyone practicing the old ways, how can one not love the irony dealt to these pasta lovers-an irony lost on their ignorance.

Suffer, bastards.

Free Speech and religion

Who would dare support anti-defamation of religion? 1) It's subjective. 2) Laughing at retards is fun!

After all, at one point, especially with religion, any discussion about a new faith was dangerous. You could be killed for it. Hypocrites. Their take is defamation is intolerance. I say anti-defamation is intolerance.

It's the same side of the same coin.

Source: Pharyngula

...And Misery for All

Link: http://tinyurl.com/yf9gs5u

An amusing trial is going to occur in California early next year. In it, the constitutionality of the state's recent Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage, will be assessed. Unfortunately for the backers of the porposition, they are in Judge Vaughn Walker's court. There was today a preliminary hearing with the attorneys, as highlighted in the link at the top. Judge Walker indicated that he was not amused by the position of the group and would take the opportunity in court to examine some of the rhetoric often spouted in the defense for such a ban.

I laughed several times reading this article, mostly at the simple questioning offered that garnered highly-polished I-don't-knows from Charles Cooper, attorney for the backers. After the hearing, the Mr. Cooper said that he would be ready with material to support his case.

Allow me to help you, the people who support this ban: you won't and never will for one simple reason: your position is wholly indefensible from a legal standpoint. The only thing you can say if that this is your belief or opinion. It will save a lot of time if you simply come out and say that it is the faith of your clients. Then the case can be thrown out for being patently stupid, bigoted, and faith-based.

One of Judge Walker's questions was regarding how same-sex marriage causes harm to mixed-sex marriages. Again, Mr. Cooper did not know. There is no harm to mixed-sex marriage except for that which is caused and perceived by the individual. After all, if same-sex marriage is allowed...where will it end? Mixed-species? Mixed-matter-states? Whom does it harm? No one. You may not like it, but that does not make it wrong or bad.

What business is it of yours, anyway? You do not want the government involved in an issue like this because, inevitably, it will decree something that you do not like. Then what? You gave them the power and now you are the victim. I would offer the same advise to you then as I do now: suck it up, jackass.

But marriage is a sacred institution. Bullshit. Humans were forming community-acknowledged pair bonds long before some asshole priest/shaman/witchdoctor decided to create a lucrative line of work for himself—and a few bucks—by pretending to solicit blessings from the Sky Daddy over the union. Humans form pair bonds. Even alligators form pair bonds, and they are hundreds of millions of years old—or 5000 in young-Earth years. That's all you need. Probably, after a few centuries of study, you might find that pair bond couples have greater success because of the nature of the pair bond. Maybe not much more, but its more.

Do pair bonded couples marry? Of course, and that's fine because at no time will I say that anyone cannot marry if they want. Marriage is not a sacred institution, unless you really want those blessings on the union. What are the typical blessings: children (have more sex, use the rhythm method, have sex every day - works for atheists and everyone else), a prosperous home (work harder or at least do work that rewards you in other ways beside money - works for atheists and everyone else); love and respect (don't be an asshole, plus love and respect your partner - works for atheists and everyone else). Hmm. I'm not seeing anything special here. Sounds more like magic and talismans and spells and potions are needed - you know, pagan stuff. Of course, if blessings are not part of the equation then make an appointment with your local Justice of the Peace.

I'm curious about these supposed blessings on the union: do you have to be a member of the cult to receive them or does the Sky Daddy dole them out to anyone? What about a couple who are not married, who have several healthy children, whose lives are rich, and who love each other to the end of their days? Did Sky Daddy secretly bless them? What if they are Buddhist? Atheist? Deist? Zoroastrian? Pastafarian? Stop me when this starts to sound really silly. Too late.

I'm sure that the big item that will be presented is the harm to children of same-sex parents. They are the same arguments used to prevent same-sex couples from adoption. Harm? What harm? Again, the only harm is that which is perceived by these bigots. They're not raising them like I do my children! Thank The Great Noodle! Maybe they won't be bigots.

Children of gay (from here the term "gay" shall encompass the full gamut of GLBT) couples may be brought up with different values than yours. Values are an individual's own pursuit. So what? Who is to say that such an upbringing is bad? The bigot? That person is biased. The same-sex couple? They're biased, too. Why don't you ask the kids once they are adults? Track them. Collect data. Analyze it. Collect more data. Compare those results with the first. Have other people conduct the same experiment with a different population and compare those results. Then, and only then, can you make a pronouncement about harm or benefit.

Aw, crap. That's the scientific method and this is a religious matter.

In any case, it's none of your fucking business any more than it is the government's. Those people are individuals. They have the freedom to change their own minds, express their own opinions, form new opinions and pursue their lives however they want. Just like you. The latitude you enjoy is available to everyone. It's starting to sound like you are opposed to people having values different from yours. Values are not part of a package deal when you reach adulthood. You build them over time. They change as a person experiences life. A person with fixed values is unable to grow.

Marriage is the cornerstone of the family. You might be on to something there...um, nope, that's bullshit, too. Maybe to you, marriage is required to have a proper family but have you looked at that position from outside your little bubble? How pathetic is that? You have to have this artificial construct imposed onto your life in order to be a good parent—I do not say couple because marriage is about children, you know, the traditional reason? You really believe that unless you are married, you will be a horrible parent and unable to love your spouse? Does that not sound incredibly wrong?

Marriage is about commitment. Again, I ask, are you completely unable to do this without the construct of marriage? Have you ever interacted with any of the other seven billion people on the face of the earth in your life? You have?!?! Were you civil to them? Were you polite? You weren't standing in front of a mirror, were you? So how is that any different from the way you would treat your domestic or life partner? If you are a civilized human, the answer is none. Incidentally, commitment to whom? Your spouse or your Sky Daddy? Who or what is more important? That sounds more like a three-way, and not the kind of three-way I was wanting.

Are you worried that those kids will not be brought up in a household of religious faith? Guess what, gays have faith, even if you think your faith ignores them. It is faith, after all. It is what you make of it.

Are you worried that the children of same-sex couples will become gay? There is no proof of that. If you want proof, I already told you how to measure that. It should only take a few hundred years to have a good data sample so that you can postulate a theory. It will never be any more than a theory because it involved humans, and humans are infinitely complex. Well, some are. To further clarify, so long as there is one variant, it remains a theory, never a law.

Whatever the results of the case, frankly, I do not care because, as the comedian is so fond of saying: everyone deserves the same opportunity to be miserable. If Judge Walker cock-punches these crackpots (please!), it will not matter to them because they will wrap themselves in their faith and know that they were right. That's fine. That's faith: a psychological mechanism to tell yourself that everything will be okay, despite the situation.

For my final swing of the bat, I have to ask: is this really that important? Is this more important than poverty? Is this more important that hunger? Is this more important than education? Is this more important than life where basic human dignity is oppressed? Stupid question, I know. Without suffering and ignorance, you cannot have faith.

I can only shake my head in incredulity. For the record, I don't think that marriage is completely bad, just unnecessary for civilized humans. If it helps some people behave themselves and/or be happy, more power to them? When the marriage fails, that okay, too. They're only human.

Since it's on topic: An opinion piece

Asshole alert: Newt Gingrich

Source: blog.au.org

I read this article on the toilet this morning, strangely appropriate.
The gist of it is that the former Bozo of the House was speaking to the Republican Senate-House Dinner about, as described in the article, the importance of religion in American political life and public policy.

AU does their usual, wonderful job talking about this and how vile and inappropriate his words were. Beyond this, however, there are a few items that rub me the wrong way. Specifically, it involves the quotes from Gingrich that were delivered at a separate conference.

Specifically, this quote drives me nuts: Reignite in people an understanding that the heart of your life is subordination to God! The heart of your life is seeking God’s will, and that all of us are weak and vulnerable, all of us make mistakes, but that all are welcomed by a loving God.

Foremost, the language used here is rather sad. It is self-demeaning and pitiful. How could such a person have come to a position of leadership with he is, as he says in his own words, "weak and vulnerable?"

Secondly and just a disturbing is the fact that this is Gingrich's own, pathetic interpretation of his jebus cult cell. It is not everyone's opinion. What makes him think that others feel as pathetic as he does? Probably more do that I would hope. However, one thing that is systemic of the jebus cult-and other general cults-is the game of one-upsmanship that goes on where one cultist tries to show that it is more devout than the others. This act makes for a dangerous game that results in extremism. Extremism of any kind is not good-it's evil.

The other thing about his quote is exemplified by "subordinate" and "weak and vulnerable." What is this? What is usually weak, vulnerable, and subordinate? A child. Is this man not an adult? Stupid question. There are a variety of reasons why someone would act this way but I believe that it is mostly about shirking individual responsibility or culpability. When the cultist does something stupid that makes other livid, they have their imaginary friend to run to, who will like them and say nice things to them when everyone else calls them an asshole.

Regarding Dr. Tillman

I told myself that I was not going to comment on the vicious, hypocritical murder of Dr. Tillman, the late-term abortion doctor in some flat part of the country.

Considering how much gawd-lovers scream about abortion and children, do they not realize that children and reproduction technically are their gawd's curse to women and punishment to both men and women? Of course it is. To be funny, one could say that it was paradise because you could walk around the house naked all day. However, there is nothing to indicate that A&E were copulating prior to acquiring knowledge, prior to which they were as dumb as the moss on a stone. They did not have offspring in the garden. Ah! Maybe they could not because they were not sexually mature. That would be interesting in light of religious figures and children.

One thing that does bother me about religious justice is that a mundane instrument is required at all. There were a number of jerk-offs who said that their gawd would not want this murder victim to live. Obvious IT did because IT had not killed it before then. After all, IT is omniscient and omnipotent, but more importantly, IT is obviously lazy. Maybe IT decided to test IT's cultists with the existence of the murder victim. By committing the murder, the cultists are telling IT that they do not like that test. Well, isn't that convenient. If you tell your teacher that you don't want to take their stupid test, they say No problem. Here's your F. This shit does not jive with love thy neighbor and turn the other cheek, probably because it's inconvenient and isn't compatible with their burning intolerance. I wish they would follow the turn the other cheek line. More children from the insane cultists need to be aborted, as late-term as possible. Gas it right after the live birth.

There have also been a number of cultists who have publicly endorsed this murder. They should be rounded up and executed, young and old, rich and poor, cultists and cult leaders. They are all criminally insane. Now, we will not give them lethal injection, or electrocute them, or decapitate them, or shoot them, or hang them. Let's use their own favorite: burn them alive. All the others kill more quickly than burning but that is not the real reason to use it. We use it for the blood-curdling screams one hears coming from the flames. Real, protracted pain and suffering. They deserve only the best.

Bishop Dolan: Scaremonger for idots

Link: http://www.nypost.com/seven/04232009/news/regionalnews/tamper_with_marriage__were_in_big_troubl_165728.htm

Enough about marriage, already. It is a contrived burden, just like religion. A tiny percentage, depending on whom you ask, of animal species are monogamous - about 3 - 5% by some estimates. If marriage is so awesome, why do so few animals do it? Gawhd obviously likes animals more than humans since they were made first - not as an afterthought - so why do they not practice it more? Because they are dumb animals?

Maybe it is a punishment. After all, adam and eve were companions until they decided to try knowledge. Then they were shackled together. That is not real marriage. It is an arranged marriage, maybe even a shotgun wedding. We all know how revolting those are.

Oh, wait, I answered my own question there.

Hmm. Why was woman made? Because man was lonely or because gawhd was tired of adam humping his leg?

As I've said before, if you care enough for someone and can tolerate them being around, you can coexist without some mumbo-jumbo magical contract.

At one point, the bishop rattles off some crap about morality and marriage being programmed in our DNA. I am not sure what he means by morality, and it does not matter because morality is subjective. Marriage, however, is more determinable. The concept of marriage is not in our DNA, pair bonding is. The two are not the same.

Something else in our DNA - fear, the real cause of religion.

Bynkii: The End of Divorce

John Welch makes some beautiful points.

It seems like this bullshit about "saving marriage" is nothing more than making its proponents seem desperate to have something that makes them special. Marriage is not special, it is work, no matter what anyone tells you.

Link: http://www.bynkii.com/archives/2008/11/its_the_end_of_divorce.html

Now that California and Florida have banned gay marriage, (and in FL's case, any and all legal/civil recognition of homosexual relationships) I'm sure we'll never ever see another divorce in either state again. Why, in every state where gay marriage has been banned, the divorce rate, nay, even the marital counseling rate has immediately dropped to zero.

Heck, in Arkansas, they banned gays from being able to adopt or even foster kids, so in that state, we'll never see another abused kid again, right?

At least they will be abused properly by Great Juju-fearin' xians.

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Pirate football and Death

There was an article in a local newspaper about a local high school football team whose boosters had purchased a good quantity of spirit flags for people and businesses to put up around town. The woman who voiced her opinion is grossly confused.

The skull and crossed bones, the Jolly Roger, is means to strike fear. It is not Satanic. xianity is replete with images of bones in paintings that hang in the Vatican museum, which I have personally seen. You find the motif on sarcophagi of popes and saints.

Perhaps there is a difference between the understanding of Catholics, the true xian faith post judaism, and her bastard-splinter faction of make-believe - which is not even 100 years old. Can she not even recognize that her faith is nothing more that a necrophilic cult?

Her vapidity makes me cringe that such mouth-breathers walk the earth. Read a fucking book and embrace the truth of your phoney-baloney system: alcohol gave you life, your sky daddy will only give you death. That is its only thing it will ever do for you.

On top of all this, this os about high school football in Texas. It is hard to decide which is more worthless.

* * *

Reprinted without permission because it is public domain and they charge to look at archived materials. I typed this from the physical copy that I had.


FORT WORTH, Texas (2008-09-18) —

One person's spirit symbol is another's banner of doom, according to Hood County, Texas, residents involved in an unlikely scrap over black skull-and-crossbones flags intended to rally football fans round the Granbury High School Pirates.

"I've started a big stink, evidently, in Granbury," said Nadra Arnold-Curry, who spoke up at a recent Hood County Commissioners Court meeting to register her disapproval of the black flags distributed by the Touchdown Club football boosters. "I appreciate our teams and coaches, too. But I have to stand up for my biblical convictions." The 39-year Granbury, Texas, resident branded the flags "satanic" and warned that the city could be risking "the wrath of God" by flaunting them. Granbury is southwest of Fort Worth.

Hood County commissioners listened, then granted the booster club permission to post them on county property. "It had nothing to do with the content of the flags," Commissioner Dick Roan said. "Most of the flags in question were in the city of Granbury, but for the two or three that were on county property, we approved them."

SCHOOL SPIRIT

No doubt, the Jolly Roger symbol was originally intended to strike fear into the hearts of would-be pirate victims. But in Granbury?

"Everything I've ever read about black flags and white skulls and bones, it's called the 'flag of death,'" Arnold-Curry said this week. "That's what I automatically think of when I see it, gloom and doom." Arnold-Curry, football boosters and county commissioners alike say they can't believe that the flag flap has grown to such proportions.

"The Hood County News" has printed several letters and editorials after a Sept. 10 story on the Commissioners Court meeting, and other media outlets have checked in, too. "It's all fairly comical, in my opinion," said Don Titus, president of the booster club, which bought about 200 of the fearsome flags to rally community support on game weekends. The flags are posted around the city and at participating businesses on Thursdays and taken down on Saturdays during football season. With the arrival of coach Scotty Pugh from Dallas' Highland Park program, Granbury's less-than-stellar football program received a makeover during the off-season, Titus said. The Touchdown Club swelled from 20 to 400 members and began sprucing up school-spirit symbols such as repainting faded "peg leg" pirate footprints on sidewalks. Titus designed a new logo for the club, and plans called for putting his nonpirate "G" design on flags to line the streets.

"It was going to cost $80 apiece to have them made," he said, "so we went instead with the Jolly Roger design on pre-made flags that cost us $1.80 apiece."

Arnold-Curry and Titus spoke on the phone after the county meeting last week, he said. "The difference between us is she thinks the flags are satanic and I think they're nautical history."

TEAM SUPPORT

Sandy Price sells embroidered and screen-printed team uniforms and spirit wear at her Granbury shop, All About Sports & Awards. Her son Zach plays junior-varsity football. She flies the Jolly Roger in front of the shop every Thursday and Friday. "Before this even came up, we were hanging up a big old Jolly Roger sign in our 'Pirate Cove' area," she said. "Most of the people in town have been quite excited about it."

County Commissioner Steve Berry grew up with a Jolly Roger flag on his bedroom wall. "This is about kids, not parents or politics or even religion," he said, noting the record 256 boys who tried out for football this year in the revitalized Granbury program. "Everybody's entitled to their opinion," he said of Arnold-Curry's remarks. "There have been two or three other people who have said they don't like the way the flags look, and that's OK."

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