The Republican Party Continues Talk Only About Race

Oh Yeah, Being a White Male is Soooo Hard in this Country. I Would Know, I Am One.

Kudos to Rachel for taking him to task, she is right, he is living in the 1950s.

Murdering (or Attempting to) Your Own Children No Longer Just a Christian Phenomenon

Blind Faith is the Path of the Righteous

An ultra-Orthodox Jewish mother stands accused of continuously starving her 3-year-old son over the course of his life time. The 15 pound toddler was admitted to a hospital for severe malnutrition, but while there, his devote mother can be seen on tape repeatedly removing a feeding tube from her near-death son. The mother claims the child is sick and that she isn’t responsible for his condition. This has lead to violent demonstrations in the streets of Jerusalem, where ultra-Orthodox Jews have gather to protest…wait for it… the treatment of the mother! Ignoring the video evidence (shocking, I know), the faithful have taken to the streets for three consecutive days massing at the hospital where the child is being treated and clashing with police. Her supporters refuse to believe the authorities claim that the mother is responsible. They probably blame demons, sex, arabs, bacon, someone serving fish and meat together, shell fish, or any and everything else NOT SEEN IN THE VIDEO!

Via MSNBC.com

GOP Candidate Suggests She will Turn to Violence to Achieve Political Means

Using Violence to Advance a Political Agenda, Don't We Call That Terrorism?

"We have the chance to fight this battle at the ballot box before we have to resort to the bullet box... That's the beauty of our 2nd Amend rights."

- Catherine Crabill, the Republican Party's nominee for Virginia's 99th District in the House of Delegates

Sure, the violence rather than democracy school of thought may excite the Right's base, but will it help them at all with the middle? I guess we will see in 2010. How can these people call themselves patriots? Imagine if a liberal called for violence against the government during the Bush years.

Also, this women believes the government had a role in the Oklahoma City Bombing. I'm sure she is a 9/11 truther also, but it is just too soon to publically admit that and still be elected to office. Virgina, be proud.

Glenn Beck Can't Handle Dissenting Views

Glenn Squeals @ 3:30, Screams at Caller "Get Off My Phone You Little Pinhead!"

Wow, Mr. Beck sure is passionate about denying others health care. Could he sound any more insensitive? He won’t even let her talk. This is the American right, the rich get whatever they want, the rest of us are losers.

Pastor Prays for the President's Death

More Hate From the Right

As long as he doesn't pull the trigger he is without responsibility, right? What a joke. As always the hypocrisy will be lost on his followers.

Via Pharyngula

Why Robert Wright is Wrong about New Atheism

In an article from Huffington Post Robert Wright argues that New Atheists by definition must have a right-wing, or hawkish foreign policy. I disagree completely with most of his argument, and here is why. Robert writes:

[What are the chances of finding a right-wing New Atheist?] Actually, the chances were pretty good. When it comes to foreign policy, a right-wing bias afflicts not just Hitchens's world view, but the whole ideology of "new atheism," especially as seen in the work of Hitchens allies Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins.

Atheism has little intrinsic ideological bent. (Karl Marx. Ayn Rand. I rest my case.) But things change when you add the key ingredient of the new atheism: the idea that religion is not just mistaken, but evil -- that it "poisons everything," as Hitchens has put it with characteristic nuance.

While it is true there are right-wing atheist, to say that a New Atheist must have a hawkish stance on foreign policy to qualify as such, is just foolish. It is my belief that the New Atheist movement is a battle for the middle. We aren’t going to be able to win over the far right, not in Islam, not in Judaism, nor in Christianity. This is because the far right cannot be reasoned with like the middle can be. For every fundamentalist there are ten people on the fence waiting to be influenced either way. Religions have a methodical and well funded effort to reach these minds, atheist do not. I know it is cliché, but New Atheism is a battle for the hearts and minds, not an effort to snuff out religion in one giant effort. It is a piecemail process.

Robert continues:

Consider Dawkins's assertion, in his book The God Delusion, that if there were no religion then there would be "no Israeli-Palestinian wars."

For starters, this is just wrong. The initial resistance to the settlements, and to the establishment of Israel, wasn't essentially religious, and neither was the original establishment of the settlements, or even of Israel.

No Mr. Wright you are just wrong. Both parties in the conflict believe that the land was promised to them by God. If the Jews didn’t believe that Israel was their promised land, it is doubtful that they would have chosen to settle there after World War II. Since these people actually believe that how they serve their God will determine an afterlife of paradise or torment, it makes perfect sense for them to go to such extremes in trying to reach their political and religious goals. After all what is worse, blowing oneself up in a crowded market, or an eternity of torture? To believe you have a mandate which trumps all reason and reality is the first step to extremism.

Of course, when religion is handy, special problems can arise. If there were no belief in paradise, there would be few suicide bombers. Then again, there might be less charity. Whether belief in posthumous rewards has on balance done more harm than good is an empirical question whose subtlety Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens don't exactly emphasize.

Anyway, the question is how to reduce the number of suicide bombers. And I have to wonder: If some Jihadists are motivated partly by fear that the west threatens their religious culture, is the optimal counter-terrorism strategy to have know-it-all westerners tell them their God doesn't exist?

The notion that there would be less charity if religion lost it’s influence is pure speculation. I admit, a lot of charity has a religious origin, but there are many secular charities as well. These charities are fully devoted to their cause, not also a religious agenda. Some of your money donated to them goes to building churches in far off lands, paying missionaries and to church administration. Maybe shortly after an atheist revolution would there be a drop off, but I wonder what the case would be 100 years from such an event? I suspect charities would rebound, and we would be without the draw backs of religion (intolerance, violence, etc). Countless man hours and money are put into churches and other religious interests; one has to believe that some of that would be reinvested back into society.

As for his second point that denying the existence of God will only serve to drive more to radicalization is fundamentally flawed. Mr. Wright fails to realize that a vast majority of these people wouldn’t be radicalized if it wasn’t for their belief in a higher power/mandate. Again, a New Atheist isn’t going to convince the staunch believer; the most likely to be a radical. It is working to convince the people with secret doubts, doubts strong enough to prevent them from strapping on a suicide vest and going to a club in Tel-Aviv. Given that to be an atheist is punishable by death in most Muslim countries, it is doubtful that we will ever see it take root publically until enough of the moderates can be swayed - at least to tolerate it in others.

Thoughts?

Fox News Critizes Netherlands

Country With Mixed Economy Has One of the World's Highest Living Standards



Socialism?? OH NO!

Sarah 'You Betcha' Palin to Resign!!

Repost From MSNBC.com

WASILLA, Alaska - Sarah Palin plans to resign as governor of Alaska in a few weeks, KTUU-TV reported Friday.

Palin, the Republican vice presidential candidate in 2008, made the announcement at her home Friday morning, the station said.

Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell will take over at the end of the month, KTUU reported.

With her at the announcement were Parnell and most of her cabinet.

There was no immediate word as to why she will step down before the end of her first term, though some have speculated in the past that she may be interested in running for president in 2012.

I really hope she runs for President, how great/hilarious would that be?

This is too Awesome

I love passing people with Jesus fish, as I'm sure my Darwin fish really burns their cannoli. This guy however, has me beat by several orders of magnitude.

Hypocrisy is Patriotic

What Credit Crunch?

Every American Deserves Spinners

A whole company based around financing rims? This is worse than Randy Marsh's Margaritaville.

The Census Will Destroy All Civilization

Bachmann/Beck 2012

Rep. Bachmann Embarrasses Minnesota Again

Says Cooperating with the Census will Lead to Internment

If we look at American history, between 1942 and 1947, the data that was collected by the census bureau was handed over to the FBI and other organizations, at the request of President Roosevelt, and that’s how the Japanese were rounded up and put into the internment camps. I’m not saying that’s what the Administration is planning to do. But I am saying that private, personal information that was given to the census bureau in the 1940s was used against Americans to round them up.

Iran's Tank Woman

This Really is Awesome

Update: Full Gay Exorcism Video