tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-157378682024-03-14T10:24:58.891-04:00Out of respect......meaning I simply have none left.DUBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04395913387532403508noreply@blogger.comBlogger135125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15737868.post-17201992072669067902012-04-08T14:07:00.000-04:002012-04-08T14:07:23.103-04:00He is Risen!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Shit...maybe I better stop with all the Zombie Easter jokes. <br /><br />Well, either that, or water on the ground absorbs heat from the sun and environment, energizing the water molecules and causing them to move around quickly enough to escape the water tension and carry that heat away as a vapor, rising into the atmosphere in evaporation. <br /><br />This vapor obeys the second law of thermodynamics, as heat transfers from high temperature to low temperature, the upper atmosphere being cooler than the lower as low density hot air pushes above higher density cold air in convection currents helped along by the Earth's rotation.<br /><br />As these water molecules continue rising they lose energy to the cooler ambient air, eventually condensing and retuning to a liquid. This liquid collects, some of it even freezing, becoming a solid, and mixes with particles in the air, forming a cloud. Eventually, gravity takes effect and starts pulling the heavier molecules toward the Earth.<br /><br />As the heavier molecules fall to the lower portion of the cloud, colliding with incoming vapor, electrons are knocked free, separating charge: negative electrons in the lower portion of the cloud and positively charged droplets at the top, creating an electric field. The negative field at the bottom of the cloud becomes so intense that it repels electrons in the Earth's surface, which acquires a positive charge.<br /><br />This field becomes strong enough to ionize the surrounding air, separating its positive ions from electrons, creating a more freely moving plasma which creates a conductive path between the ground and cloud, allowing an electrical current to flow. As positive streamers grow from the Earth's surface, step leaders propagate toward the Earth from the cloud,attempting to bridge the gap, and once they meet...a circuit is completed, allowing charge to flow along the conductive path creating a discharge to neutralize the charge separation.<br /><br />This current, measuring in the tens of thousands of amps, is accompanied by tremendous heat-hotter than the surface of the sun-which produces a white-blue flash and expands the surrounding air so rapidly it explodes, literally producing a thunderous shockwave.<br /><br />Either that or the supreme creator of the universe has a bad sense of humor and worse temper, and is striking out at me in a spectacular temper tantrum.<br /><br />Probably that.</div>
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</div>DUBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04395913387532403508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15737868.post-10980309111553409162012-04-05T23:28:00.001-04:002012-04-06T00:23:26.325-04:00Clarifying the 5th<div align="justify" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">From a forum thread ~2006<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">Lil DevilWrote:<br />
<br />
Really? I thought the original wording was <i>lo tirtzach</i> (sp?) which means "thou shalt not" (lo) and "any kind of killing whatsoever" (tirtzach) which together means "Thou shalt not kill." I don't pretend to speak Hebrew, but I remember hearing about it from the studies of Dr. Alcalay who I think is some kind of Hebrew/Old Testament expert and also from the writings of Rabbi Milgrom.</blockquote><br />
This is a much disputed issue. But the dispute exists only because of bias of beliefs (i.e. <b>how to get the Bible to say what you mean, as opposed to mean what it says</b>). However, <b>the Hebrew is quite clear</b>.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.ou.org/index.php/glossary/article/aseret_hadibrot/">Aseret HaDibrot</a> aka The Decalogue bka "10 Commandments" are derived from the Tanakh, more specifically in the Torah: <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%2020:2-17&version=31">Exodus 20:2-17</a>, <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%2034:12-26;&version=31;">Exodus 34:12-26</a>, and <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy%205:6-21;&version=31;">Deuteronomy 5:6-21</a>. I will note that all are different, the most commonly cited is Exodus 20, and Exodus 34 are the only set of (roughly) ten actually described as "<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%2034:28;&version=31;">commandments</a>", and they are <i>completely</i> different than what we're used to hearing (there are 613 "commandments" in the Jewish "bible").<br />
<br />
Now, in those passages, what words are used in the original Hebrew, how are they different from the English translation, and <i>how did it get to be this way</i> (intrinsic in the last question is "what did the original Greek and Latin translations say?")?<br />
<br />
In both Exodus 20:13 and Deuteronomy 5:17, the word translated as "kill" is the Hebrew verb <a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/tmp_dir/strongs/1157920485-3459.html"><i>ratsach</i></a>, which undoubtedly carries a meaning of murder, as opposed to merely kill, as in "extinguish life" (more commonly reserved for <a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/tmp_dir/strongs/1157920799-1456.html"><i>harag</i></a> and, in some places, <a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/tmp_dir/strongs/1157920993-6479.html"><i>nakah</i></a> or <a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/tmp_dir/strongs/1157921414-7769.html"><i>muth</i></a>).<br />
<br />
<b>So, the original Hebrew reads, "Thou shalt not MURDER."</b><br />
<br />
(If needed, I can provide verses which discuss situations of killing that isn't "murder" according to Law, and discuss which Hebrew words are used respectively.)<br />
<br />
The Greek in the New Testament Matthew 5:21, where Jesus is quoting the Law (Torah), used the word <a href="http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:0g9Jf7JeKo0J:www.textexcavation.com/synmurder.html+%CF%86%CE%BF%CE%BD%CE%B5%E1%BD%BB%CF%83%CE%B5%CE%B9%CF%82&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=6&client=firefox-a">phoneuo</a> (murderer) from <a href="http://www.eliyah.com/cgi-bin/strongs.cgi?file=greeklexicon&isindex=5406"><i>phoneus</i></a> which distinctly means criminal murder (i.e. homicide), as opposed to slaying a man (which could be criminal or not), for which it used the word <a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/tmp_dir/words/4/1157922603-2316.html"><i> anthropoktonos</i></a> (see <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20John%203:14-15;&version=31;">1 John 3:14-15</a>). The word <i>phoneuo</i> (i.e. homicide) is also the word chosen in the translation of the "commandments" in Exodus and Deuteronomy.<br />
<br />
<b>Therefore, the original Greek translation of the "Old Testament" (<a href="http://www.answers.com/topic/Septuagint">Septuagint</a>) reads: "Thou shalt not MURDER".</b><br />
<br />
<b>So, if Hebrew—the original written language—and Greek both clearly say "MURDER", where do we get "Thou shalt not KILL" in our English-language bibles?</b><br />
<br />
The answer lies in Saint Jerome, who translated the "Old Testament" into Latin in the <a href="http://www.answers.com/latin%20vulgate?ff=1">Latin Vulgate</a>. In all instances where the Tanakh and Septuagint used "murder"—and indeed, in incidents where those versions simply used "kill"—Jerome wrote "non occides", from the Latin root <a href="http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/occidere"><i>occidere</i></a>, which means "die". So, the Latin renders both murder and kill simply as "to make die", which doesn’t carry the distinction found in the Hebrew and Greek.<br />
<br />
And which language did the Church Fathers prefer, and was the official language of the Church? Latin. They used the Latin Vulgate and it's rendition of the Commandment as "kill".<br />
<br />
As far as the translation <a href="http://www.cmy.on.ca/toraportions2000/shemot/5761/yitro5764.htm"><i>lo tirtzach</i></a>, we have to understand Hebrew. Hebrew did not make use of vowels. So, the base word in the original Hebrew was <i>rtzch</i>—which we add vowels to and make <i>ratsach</i> (discussed above). In each of the 49 times <i>rtzch</i> occurs, it refers to humans only (not animals) and describes murder. It has always been translated as "murder".<br />
<br />
So, where does the translation of <i>rtzch</i> as "any kind of killing whatsoever" come from? A <b>pacifistic</b> Rabbi named <a href="http://waksedsak.blogspot.com/2006/05/position-vacant-middle-east-gandhi.html">Jeremy Milgrom</a>.<br />
<br />
At first I thought you may have been referring to the Noahide Laws, which are listed and discussed in the Talmud (Talmud Bavli Sanhedrin 56a). There are seven Mitzvot (Laws) for Benei Noach (non-Jews; "sons of Noah"). Number 3 is <i>Shefichat Damim</i>, which is the restriction of murder. The Noahide Laws are derived from Genesis 9:5-6.<br />
<br />
For a good paper on this subject, see <a href="http://www.ucalgary.ca/%7Eelsegal/Shokel/001102_ThouShaltNotMurder.html">here</a> .</span></div>DUBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04395913387532403508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15737868.post-55435464220435516022010-02-23T23:56:00.000-05:002012-04-06T01:09:02.588-04:00Slavery Isn't Very Civil...<div align="justify" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I have recently had the misfortune of being presented with the delusional, wanton molestation of historical fact and reality that is the claim that the Civil War was "not about slavery".<br />
<br />
This unsettling bit of tripe is often found falling from the lips of a certain segment of society as an attempt to distance their socially conservative stance against "big government" from the American elephant in the room: a certain "peculiar institution". Indeed, they’ll insist, brother was pitted against brother over the issue of "States’ Rights". Ah, the elusive specter of States’ Rights so often evoked but seldom defined. But which particular right or rights were being trampled on by big-bad federal government? And which states were making this complaint of violation? If only we had a way to determine what they had to say for themselves...<br />
<br />
Sadly, this is not, by any stretch of the imagination, the first time this particular flavor of Bizarro World history has been presented to me. My interlocutor on this occasion quoted a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jimmuldrow/Sandbox" target="_blank"> Wikipedia entry</a> on the Civil War, I’ll assume as some form of "proof":<br />
<br />
</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: small;">"In September 1862, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation made ending slavery in the South a war goal"</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: small;"> <br />
As befuddled as I am by this selection, I suppose his intent was to suggest that slavery was not an issue until Lincoln decided to make it one in 1862, almost a year and a half into the war.<br />
<br />
One would wonder, then, what Confederate officials had to say on the topic. In 1861, in his Inaugural Address as Provisional President of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis <a href="http://www.csapartisan.com/jefferson_davis_quotes.html" target="_blank">said</a>:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"It [slavery] was established by decree of Almighty God...it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation...it has existed in all ages, has been found among the people of the highest civilization, and in nations of the highest proficiency in the arts...Let the gentleman go to Revelation to learn the decree of God - let him go to the Bible...I said that <b>slavery was sanctioned in the Bible, authorized, regulated, and recognized from Genesis to Revelation...Slavery existed then in the earliest ages, and among the chosen people of God; and in Revelation we are told that it shall exist till the end of time shall come. You find it in the Old and New Testaments - in the prophecies, psalms, and the epistles of Paul; you find it recognized, sanctioned everywhere.</b>"</blockquote>
<br />
Thirteen years prior, as senator from Mississippi he told congress:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"If slavery be a sin, it is not yours. It does not rest on your action for its origin, on your consent for its existence. It is a common law right to property in the service of man; its origin was Divine decree."</blockquote>
<br />
In 1856 he said:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"African slavery, as it exists in the United States, is a moral, a social, and a political blessing."</blockquote>
<br />
Again, in his role as President of the Confederacy, he stated:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"My own convictions as to negro slavery are strong. It has its evils and abuses...We recognize the negro as God and God's Book and God's Laws, in nature, tell us to recognize him - our inferior, fitted expressly for servitude...You cannot transform the negro into anything one-tenth as useful or as good as what slavery enables them to be."</blockquote>
<br />
Davis had a strong opinion about the Union:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Were it ever to be proposed again to enter into a Union with such a people, I could no more consent to do it than to trust myself in a den of thieves...There is indeed a difference between the two peoples. Let no man hug the delusion that there can be renewed association between them. <b>Our enemies are...traditionless</b>."</blockquote>
<br />
Need one wonder precisely which tradition he could have possibly been referring to?<br />
<br />
I readily admit that these are merely the recorded opinions of one individual Confederate, on one particular topic and, as such, do not necessarily say anything at all about the causes of the Civil war. Therefore, I will refer to pertinent official legal documents.<br />
<br />
A study of the <a href="http://www.usconstitution.net/csa.html" target="_blank">Constitution of the Confederate States</a> presents one glaring difference from that of the United States—the mention of slavery:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"<b>No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed</b> [by Congress]"</blockquote>
<br />
Of course, this too merely demonstrates that the Confederate states approved of slavery, not necessarily that it was a major factor in the Civil War. So, as it can hardly be argued that actual secession of states from the Union was the primary catalyst of the Civil War, we should investigate the reasons for secession. Luckily, each state presented these reasons, and the majority clearly mention slavery as the primary motivating factor, usually within the first paragraph and typically throughout.<br />
<br />
The SECOND sentence of the <a href="http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/reasons.html#Georgia" target="_blank">Georgia Declaration of Secession</a>:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. <b>For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slaveholding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery.</b>"</blockquote>
<br />
The SECOND sentence of <a href="http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/reasons.html#Mississippi" target="_blank">Mississippi's Declaration</a>:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"<b>Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery</b> - the greatest material interest of the world."</blockquote>
<br />
"Thoroughly identified with...slavery". How much more clear can it get? From that same document:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"It has nullified <b>the Fugitive Slave Law</b> in almost every <b>free State</b> in the Union, and has utterly broken the compact, which our fathers pledged their faith to maintain."</blockquote>
<br />
A common theme from all of the "slave states" is the complaint of government theft. What "property" are they talking about? That’s right, humans.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/reasons.html#South%20Carolina" target="_blank">South Carolina's Declaration</a> bemoans the refusal of other states to abide by the Fugitive Law Act and return escaped slaves:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States.<br />
<br />
The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But <b>an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery</b>, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution."</blockquote>
<br />
The Alabama Ordinance of Secession:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"And as it is the desire and purpose of the people of Alabama to meet <b>the slaveholding States of the South</b>, who may approve such purpose, in order to frame a provisional as well as permanent Government upon the principles of the Constitution of the United States..."</blockquote>
<br />
Virginia's Ordinance:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The people of Virginia in their ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, adopted by them in convention on the twenty-fifth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, having declared that the powers granted under said Constitution were derived from the people of the United States and might be resumed whensoever the same should be perverted to their injury and oppression, and the Federal Government having perverted said powers not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to <b>the oppression of the Southern slave-holding States</b>"</blockquote>
<br />
This "oppression" was the pressure to stop oppressing human beings.<br />
<br />
<br />
The Texas Ordinance of Secession makes it obvious:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"WHEREAS, The recent developments in Federal affairs make it evident that the power of <b>the Federal Government is sought to be made a weapon with which to strike down the interests and property of the people of Texas, and her sister slave-holding States</b>."</blockquote>
<br />
Finally, Texas' Declaration of Secession is rather blunt:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"She was received as a commonwealth holding, <b>maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery - the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits - </b>a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time."<br />
<br />
"<b>When we advert to the course of individual non-slaveholding States</b>, and that a majority of their citizens, our grievances assume far greater magnitude."<br />
<br />
"The States of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa, by solemn legislative enactments, have deliberately, directly or indirectly violated the 3rd clause of the 2nd section of the 4th article [the fugitive slave clause]..."<br />
<br />
"<b>In all the non-slave-holding States</b>, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, <b>based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color - a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States.</b><br />
<br />
For years past this <b>abolition organization has been actively sowing the seeds of discord through the Union, and has rendered the federal congress the arena for spreading firebrands and hatred between the slave-holding and non-slaveholding States</b>. "<br />
<br />
"By consolidating their strength, they have placed <b>the slave-holding States in a hopeless minority in the federal congress, and rendered representation of no avail in protecting Southern rights</b> against their exactions and encroachments.<br />
<br />
They have proclaimed, and at the ballot box sustained, the revolutionary doctrine that there is a "higher law" than the constitution and laws of our Federal Union, and virtually that they will disregard their oaths and trample upon our rights.<br />
<br />
They have for years past encouraged and sustained lawless organizations to <b>steal our slaves and prevent their recapture</b>, and have repeatedly murdered Southern citizens while lawfully seeking their rendition. "<br />
<br />
"They have sent hired emissaries among us to burn our towns and distribute arms and poison to our slaves for the same purpose.<br />
<br />
<b>They have impoverished the slave-holding States by unequal and partial legislation, thereby enriching themselves by draining our substance.</b><br />
<br />
They have refused to vote appropriations for <b>protecting Texas against ruthless savages, for the sole reason that she is a slave-holding State</b>.<br />
<br />
And, finally, by the combined sectional vote of the seventeen <b>non-slaveholding States</b>, they have elected as president and vice-president of the whole confederacy two men whose chief claims to such high positions are their approval of these long continued wrongs, and their pledges to continue them to the final consummation of these <b>schemes for the ruin of the slave-holding States</b>."<br />
<br />
"We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established <b>exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable</b>.<br />
<br />
That in this free government <b>all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights</b>; that the <b>servitude of the African race</b>, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, <b>as recognized by all Christian nations</b>; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen <b>slave-holding states</b>.<br />
<br />
By <b>the secession of six of the slave-holding States</b>, and the certainty that others will speedily do likewise, Texas has no alternative but to remain in an isolated connection with the North, or unite her destinies with the South. "</blockquote>
<br />
I don’t think a stronger indictment can be made. The governments of each state, in announcing their secession, provided reason for that action, and each was quite clear that the strongest and primary grievances centered firmly around slavery.<br />
<br />
Yet, in light of all of this primary source evidence, some people will still insist that the Civil War was not about slavery. The real question is, why?<br />
<br />
<br />
[In an attempted stab at brevity I excised relevant sections from the quoted documents, all of which can be found in their entirety at <a href="http://www.civil-war.net/pages/ordinances_secession.asp">http://www.civil-war.net/pages/ordinances_secession.asp</a>.]</span></div>DUBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04395913387532403508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15737868.post-42357885294542365612009-08-30T16:40:00.008-04:002012-04-06T01:28:36.410-04:00Something to think about (just don't actually think)...<div align="justify">
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<br />
<br />
This story is a complete <a href="http://www.positiveatheism.org/mail/eml9908.htm#USC" target="_blank">lie</a>. This is overwhelmingly obvious, and anyone reading it with an open mind and applying critical thinking should immediately see the numerous red flags it raises. It unabashedly and blatantly uses numerous telltale signs of spuriousness and follows a standard outline of sensationalist propaganda and urban legend.<br />
<br />
But that's just the start.<br />
<br />
I'm quite curious as to exactly what this makes you think, and what "insight" it offers.<br />
<br />
It is designed to make people think that academic institutions are godless, that atheists are cruel, that intellectual fickleness is acceptable, that critical thought is bad, and that Christians don't have the de facto religious privilege in this country. It reinforces both ignorance and hate. It perpetuates negative stereotypes and fosters unfounded fear.<br />
<br />
Atheists are oppressed and discriminated against in the US. Christians are favored and given a free pass, yet they attempt to present the opposite, and claim victim status. Nobody in this country suffers for being Christian. Faith is the ONLY topic in this society that gets unquestioning acceptance. You are NOT allowed to question faith. This type of blatantly false propaganda does nothing but contribute to this inequality.<br />
<br />
This is IDENTICAL to white people losing their minds and claiming "reverse discrimination" when White privilege and Black oppression start to be addressed and measures ensuring equal rights are put in motion. Nobody is taking anything away from White folk, but they panic because their history of entitlement is questioned, so they blow shit out of proportion and spread hateful lies.<br />
<br />
Imagine an obviously fake story detailing a supposed angry, mean Black civil rights figure imposing his beliefs on innocent, scared Whites, until some brave, proud White man stood up for the White race.<br />
<br />
What it makes ME think is: Why does a bad person have to resort to bad means to emphasize the ultimate good? Why should someone have to lie to preach the truth?<br />
<br />
Seriously, though, believe all you want. But why tell a lie to endorse belief in an "ultimate truth"? How can a group of people who supposedly hold exclusive rights to morality so thoroughly endorse lying?</div>
</div>DUBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04395913387532403508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15737868.post-31435704015671085422009-08-21T19:05:00.002-04:002009-08-21T19:14:36.641-04:00Testing mobile Upload...<p class="mobile-photo"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgndjhGPTHtfKIWVGA7EQnZrff819FK4ssy9NAodYyyA6jA4j_ZEfodS6JLA4Z-7hmAMWTxPlIaWKNQ_Y4acbJObzpe9CIjvWmr7N7RYAI13ch4ORSsuYsBoqX_d-9j3btR5lL2/s320/maliyah-773388.jpeg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5372557295829945042" border="0" /></p><br /><br /><p class="mobile-photo"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXrejSBFlVmlkhZ5Ej8Qok3lnvMpkNsv4iD3QAywinfnU8vPDBzs73eZU1YUg5gNACFn5_OJ39TbSSDA6vyX2BnfM9pagbOF0HGALUWvSVmqqqaCvpsbYVqbBaawNaUs9omX94/s320/2009-06-26_13.12.52-710150.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5372554448739980082" />DUBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04395913387532403508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15737868.post-37569475783130291862009-08-18T22:15:00.005-04:002009-08-24T10:27:55.379-04:00On Kooks and Libertarians...<div align="justify">Just in time for my <a href="http://dubsays.blogspot.com/2009/08/welcome-to-bizarro-world.html">previous post</a>, we have more gun-toting dumbasses showing up to Obama events.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.clipsyndicate.com/video/play/1062166">One particular cowboy</a> receives special notice. Partly because he is Black, and partly because he chose to brandish two loaded firearms: a Glock 17 at his hip and an AR-15 strapped to his back. Now, admittedly, when I first saw this on the news, I couldn't hear the accompanying audio and didn't know whether he was just another nut case anti-Obama kook, or a somewhat overzealous Obama supporter attempting to make a point.<br /><br />Turns out he's a Libertarian. And, oh, how I love me some Libertarians.<br /><br />In a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63GiXzpfGhA">Youtube video</a> they show him "reasoning" with other event attendees. In one of his early rants, he's accusing the government of thievery, making brilliant analogies through hypothetical sarcasm such as "<i>Oh, I want education and I'm just going to take it from you</i>", apparently unaware that public education already exists through taxation. Should I presume he has something against education? Or those paved roads he's walking around on? Or those publicly-funded police officers who are present protecting his right to open-carry, which was granted him by government officials who are also paid with tax money? Or the military industrial complex which provided the R&D that lead to the design of his beloved guns? Or the government-ran regulating bodies that ensured that the garments he's wearing were safe for consumption and presented him no eminent danger of bursting into flames, or that his motorcycle was safe for transportation, or that the money he used to pay for either held any value? He ends this particular tirade with "<i>Taxation is theft...all taxation</i>".<br /><br />Now, while we're discussing theft, perhaps he's unaware that the capitalistic system that he depends on to earn the money he used to purchase those firearms is based upon theft in the form of profiting off of other's labor. Or that the very land he standing on was stolen, or that it's highly likely that the fact he's even standing there is due to the theft of his ancestors. I'll assume he's oblivious to the fact that he'd probably find it quite difficult to gather enough resources to pay for those weapons or that spiffy shirt and tie if, instead of living in a cooperative society of 312+ million people, he was a loner scrapping out an existence in the wilderness all by himself. Perhaps he would barter off some livestock or other fruits of his labor to the local gunsmith in return for a sleek semi-automatic military-style assault rifle, but, OOPS!, if it wasn't for a division of labor and the manual drudgery of other people in society, there would be no food surpluses to enable the idle time utilized to developing and manufacturing such material possessions.<br /><br />He then parrots the insane and willfully deluded thought process that the world would be a safer place if everyone carried firearms. I'm sure he doesn't <i>really</i> mean "everybody"; that he has definite restrictions in mind. Now, I won't bother to attempt a debate about firearms, pro or con, but if anyone seriously thinks you can take a crowd full of people who honestly believe public option health care is socialism, government death panels will euthanize grandma, and Obama is comparable to Hitler, mix in some guns, and the end result will be an <b>increase</b> in safety...well, they have quite frankly lost their fucking mind.<br /><br />He also thinks it would be "insane" NOT to constantly be armed, citing the "dangerous world" we live in as rationalization. Here's where I could—and probably should—cite a multitude of sources showing how ridiculous the "dangerous world" fairy tale is in our particular society, with a dash of stats showing that the one thing that actually <i>is</i> dangerous about our society versus comparable others is the prevalence of, what else, guns. But again, I won't. I'll just ask him when was the last time he had to fend off roves of raping and pillaging lunatic thugs.<br /><br />At one point (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIJQQcgQFwk&NR=1">3:13 into this video</a>) he utters a rational thought and illuminates that merely having melanized skin tends to make people nervous. Although his tense ("at one time" and "made") is way off, I'm sure there's a reason he chose to dress in the manner he did. I'm somehow sure that, deep down, he realizes that people like our government officials—who are paid by taxes—and fellow tax-paying citizens—whom he doesn't feel any allegiance to in the form of assistance—made it possible for him to even be considered a full five-fifths human guaranteed the rights by our Constitution that he is speaking so in favor of. All while he hints at the better times of wise men when that Constitution was written: times when he would have most definitely had a very, very different perspective on things.<br /></div>DUBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04395913387532403508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15737868.post-25767602866829689202009-08-16T18:05:00.006-04:002009-08-24T10:28:27.573-04:00Welcome to Bizarro World...<div align="justify"><br />Quick hypothetical situation:<br /><br />It's 2007. A Muslim (or Black or Latino man) comes to an event at which President Bush is speaking and stands along the route the President is expected to travel. He holds a sign which endorses violence against political leaders. On his thigh is a holstered firearm. What happens?<br /><br />If you think for one second that the end result mimics what happened to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XflE0RMiIiA">William Kostric</a>, the white man who did this Tuesday, you're simply delusional.<br /><br />Now the reality. 2008: Mr. Kostric attended a New Hampshire event at which President Obama was speaking, openly displaying his loaded firearm whilst holding a sign that read "It's time to water the Tree of Liberty" (a reference to the Jefferson quote <i>"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants"</i>...and I sincerely doubt Mr. Kostric considers President Obama the patriot in this equation).<br /><br />Was he arrested, charged, prosecuted, imprisoned? None of the above. From footage and reports it's unclear whether or not he was even questioned or observed/followed.<br /><br />He states that a firearm is a defensive tool (an odd belief <a href="http://www.nationmaster.com/country/us-united-states/cri-crime">in a country with nearly 10,000 homicides by firearm per year</a>). He states that he feels the event would have been safer if <b>everybody attending had a gun</b>. This poppycock is too irrational to event attempt rebuttal.<br /><br />Now, just in case one think me a tad hyperbolic, peaceful anti-Bush protesters were arrested in <a href="http://www.sptimes.com/2002/11/03/TampaBay/7_protesters_arrested.shtml">Tampa Bay</a>, <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20980625/">NYC</a>, <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/11/23/politics/main1070503.shtml">Crawford,TX</a>, <a href="http://www.progressive.org/mag_mc082007">Charleston, WV</a>, and <a href="http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0ef_1183415431">Kennebunkport, ME</a> (just from a quick Google search). <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/08/31/national/main4401941.shtml">Protestors</a> were also <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/02/rnc.security/">arrested</a> at the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/30/rnc.protest/index.html">2008 RNC</a>.<br /><br />And just in case I'm accused of playing the dreaded race card, I'll provide a reminder that although the avowed white supremacists who were captured with rifles in a plot to assassinate then Senator Obama at the 2008 DNC were arrested, <a href="http://firedoglake.com/2008/09/03/fbi-wanted-obama-plotters-charged-but-a-rove-appointee-said-no/"><b>no charges were brought against them</b></a>. Although <i>the very same prosecutor</i> <a href="http://firedoglake.com/2008/08/28/the-obama-plotters-the-republican-double-standard-in-law-enforcement-made-manifest/">charged an inmate</a>—who just happened to be black—who had mailed a threatening letter containing baby powder to John McCain, stating "we won't stand for threats of this kind in Colorado". Because we all know how much more threatening a black man who is locked down at a penitentiary is than a car full of Neo-Nazi tweakers with rifles roaming about free in public.<br /><br />There are rather blatant double standards at play here. It sorta reminds me how a Black Harvard professor can be (<a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2223379/">falsely</a>) arrested for "disturbing the peace" <i>in his own home</i>, while angry white mobs can <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5cof0yadjw">violently attack a man</a> at a townhall meeting in Florida with no fear of recourse from law enforcement officials. But it's probably just me and my crazy biases overreacting again.<br /></div>DUBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04395913387532403508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15737868.post-56364998928913002782009-08-16T13:04:00.003-04:002012-04-01T15:24:28.833-04:00"I Am A Conservative American Shitheel"<div align="justify">
A profound <a href="http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/forums/index.php?plckForumPage=ForumDiscussion&plckDiscussionId=Cat:338a2432-3a3c-459f-9c58-00df096792c5Forum:624bcd7f-b978-4ad6-996c-450fba4971f9Discussion:8f3b308c-3c41-4abe-8e1c-3a9a2fe6ffff&plckCurrentPage=1">Whole Foods forum post</a> by <a href="http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/users/profile.php?uid=402dfb65-f41f-7b29-8346-000011bd7d5d">MB shopper</a>, originally attributed to a Something Awful forum poster called <a href="http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3154974&userid=71425">randomnoise</a> (who claims no previous knowledge of "<a href="http://dubsays.blogspot.com/2009/08/damn-liberals.html">Joe Average Conservative</a>").<br />
<div class="comment_actual_text" id="text_expose_id_4a8b40f0497d59d85345143">
<a href="http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3154974&userid=71425" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a></div>
Replying to:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
"You're an ignoramus. Look at the facts. Anything the government has involved itself in haS [sic] becomes less efficient and more expensive. That's not partisan it's reality. The CBO has twice now substantiated that this trend will only continue if the government gets involved. We need to address the cost of health care but the gov. is not the solution."—Posted by <a href="http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/users/profile.php?uid=48bdc208-2bb3-3208-db14-000014811bc0">Stump</a></blockquote>
...<br />
<blockquote>
"Sigh.<br />
<br />
Once again, for the benefit of the government-can't-get-anything-right flock:<br />
<br />
<b>I AM AN AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE SHITHEEL<br /><br />This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US Department of Energy. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility. After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC regulated channels to see what the national weather service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I watched this while eating my breakfast of US Department of Agriculture inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the Food and Drug Administration.<br /><br />At the appropriate time as regulated by the US congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the US Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved automobile and set out to work on the roads build by the local, state, and federal departments of transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank. On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the US Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school.<br /><br />After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, enjoying another two meals which again do not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to my house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and fire marshal's inspection, and which has not been plundered of all it's valuables thanks to the local police department.<br /><br />I then log on to the internet which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration and post on freerepublic.com and fox news forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can't do anything right.</b><br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
And apparently, the Global Positioning Satellite system is POS, right?<br />
<br />
The only reason government doesn't work is because conservative Republican administrations defunded and/or patronage staffed them with people with ties to special business interests: to wit the last FDA, Dept of Interior and Agriculture under Bush. No one seems to have a problem with pumping over $500Bil to the Defense Department which last I hear is a socialized entity."</blockquote>
</div>DUBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04395913387532403508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15737868.post-1487271646209635492009-08-15T18:52:00.006-04:002012-04-01T15:26:26.174-04:00The Racial Undercurrent in the Health Care Reform Brouhaha...<div style="font-family: arial; text-align: justify;">
It's so painfully obvious. Birthers. Teabaggers. The sudden flip in the Republican Party's key talking points, from same-sex marriage and abortion to Affirmative Action and gun control (a not so subliminal play to age-old race panic about black crime perpetrated against white chastity). Swelling membership of white-supremacist ranks, cries of "reverse-discrimination and Obama's alleged racism and comparisons to Hitler. They try to play it off as if it's <i>not racism</i>. Nowhere remotely near racism—after all, how can we be racist if we have a Black President? Indeed, they try to convince us that it's <i>Socialism</i> they're against (though the American tradition of anti-Socialism is itself spurned on by xenophobia). Never mind those signs comparing Obama to a monkey, or outright calling him "nigger". Forget that Beck is claiming Obama's attempt at reform is all about reparations. Nope, nothing at all to do with race here, move along, please. <br />
<br />
I voice it to my immediate associates every time I see it dripping from the foaming mouths of the protesters in their worked up panics. But I don't see it addressed. Well, at least not with any degree of mainstream exposure, which I'm admittedly not too shocked over. Thus I was quite pleased to see <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111899507">NPR cover it recently</a>.<br />
<br />
Professor Harris-Lacewell hits the nail squarely on the head. "I want my America back" <i>is</i> coded language with racist undertones. <i>Which</i> America is it, exactly, that they want back? One with legislated segregation? One with rampant, overt institutionalized racism and sexism? What precisely do we need to repeal to get back to these beautiful glory days? Welfare? Social Security? Medicare? A national highway system? Child labor laws? Unions? Women's suffrage? Manumission? <i>Whose</i> America is it we so desperately need to return to? Exactly which freedoms have been so rampantly eroded, other than the freedom to openly discriminate and oppress entire chunks of the population with no regard to repercussion? The attrition of disparate privilege <b>is not</b> a loss of rights. Equality for all is not implicit with oppression of others.<br />
<br />
"Individual responsibility" <i>is</i> classic political white supremacist lingo that is almost exclusively applied to those very same individuals they refuse to actually view as <i>individuals</i>, instead of representative embodiments of an entire population group and supposed "cultural pathology". When is this phrase injected into public discourse other than conversations on welfare, criminal punishment, or any other social issue which is immediately identified with black people in the eyes of the majority?<br />
<br />
Who are they talking about when they say "real Americans"? Natives?<br />
<br />
Race is most definitely an underlying factor, and anyone who thinks the protest against reform would be equally as rowdy if proposed by a white President is simply disingenuous.<br />
<br />
But enough with vain attempts at reason or logic. At times we can just apply simple measures and see what conclusions can be drawn. So, I propose a quick test: Simply ask yourself, how many minorities are so up in arms about Health Care reform? I pretty much see only white faces protesting. Not too many black or brown faces in the affray (unless they're having their Rosa Parks posters ripped out of their hands). Isn't that odd? Yes, quite peculiar indeed.<br />
<br />
<br />
Update: Tim Wise elucidates the issue in his article <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/8/17/768048/-Racism,-Right-Wing-Rage-and-the-Politics-of-White-Nostalgia"><i>Racism, Right-Wing Rage and the Politics of White Nostalgia</i></a>, which he penned after his CNN appearance discussing this matter:<br />
<br />
<script src="http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/.element/js/2.0/video/evp/module.js?loc=dom&vid=/video/politics/2009/08/16/nr.race.a.factor.cnn" type="text/javascript">
</script><noscript>Embedded video from &lt;a href="http://www.cnn.com/video"&gt;CNN Video&lt;/a&gt;</noscript><br />
<br /></div>DUBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04395913387532403508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15737868.post-46543370924902776872009-08-13T19:46:00.001-04:002009-08-24T10:29:55.852-04:00Damn Liberals...<div align="justify"></div>A favorite of mine, which I feel needs reiterated:<br /><br /><blockquote><b>"A Day in the Life of Joe Average Conservative<br /><br />Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards (*1).<br /><br />With his first swallow of water, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to ensure their safety and that they work as advertised (*2).<br /><br />All but $10 of his medications is paid for by his employer's medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance - now Joe gets it too (*3).<br /><br />He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry (*4).<br /><br />In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained (*5).<br /><br />Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for the laws to stop industries from polluting our air (*6).<br /><br />He walks on the government-provided sidewalk to subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.<br /><br />Joe begins his workday. He has a good job (*7) with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe's employer pays these standards because Joe's employer doesn't want his employees to call the union.<br /><br />If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he'll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn't think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.<br /><br />It is noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression(*8).<br /><br />Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage (*9!) and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime. Joe also forgets that in addition to his federally subsidized student loans, he attended a state funded university.<br /><br />Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards to go along with the tax-payer funded roads (*10).<br /><br />He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers' Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans. The house didn't have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification.<br /><br />He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension(*11) because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to.<br /><br />Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn't mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day. Joe agrees: 'We don't need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I'm a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have.'"</b></blockquote><br />======================<br /><br />Update:<br /><br />The following annotations <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2009/8/10/8624/34358/21#c21">provided</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote>Sadly, the most striking thing about rereading this is the fact that it is now outdated. The ascendancy of the Selfish Right has undermined or made mockery of so many of the institutions described it is heartbreaking.<br /><br />The asterisks indicate where these protections have been either seriously eroded or outright destroyed by RW governance, through lax enforcement or repeal:<br /><br /> 1. "Healthy Forests", mountaintop removal<br /><br /> 2. FDA medicine/ food contamination scandals<br /><br /> 3. Employers dropping health care en masse<br /><br /> 4. See #2<br /><br /> 5. See #2<br /><br /> 6. Pollution controls on all fronts weakened over last decade<br /><br /> 7. Jobs lost = about 6-7 million over last 18 months<br /><br /> 8. Current system no longer protects from banksters<br /><br /> 9. Fannie Mae mortgage. LOL<br /><br /> 10. That car better be safe, the roads and bridges sure aren't!<br /><br /> 11. Union pensions vs polar bears. Who faces quicker extinction?".<br /></blockquote>DUBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04395913387532403508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15737868.post-43507064059222901612009-07-28T01:25:00.004-04:002012-04-01T15:31:53.354-04:00Throwing the Baby Out With the Bathwater...<div align="justify" style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">
Most of us on Facebook have probably seen the little poll about Universal Healthcare, which asks "Are you in favor of a Government run healthcare system?"<br />
<br />
Aside from finding it blatantly misleading (using an image of Obama, who doesn't promote anything near a universal healthcare system), I rather enjoy this poll. Not solely because I'm a HUGE advocate of such a plan, but because it gives me a glimpse into other people's perspectives, and I'm a student of human behavior.<br />
<br />
Case in point, someone on my friends list voted "No" and left the following comment:<br />
<blockquote>
<br />
"I don't think my tax $ should pay for someones 'choice' to kill a baby!!"</blockquote>
<br />
Now, I obviously respect her (one of the kindest people I've ever met), or she wouldn't be on my friends list...but I'm going to use this as a case point to make a couple of observations.<br />
<br />
She has every right to be concerned about what her tax money pays for. I don't want my tax dollars paying for religious schools, supporting faith-based initiatives and the batshit insane bigots that run them, buying bombs to kill brown people for oil in a religious crusade, paying the salaries of racist officials, creating an oppressively brutal police force, or any other myriad elements of our reality. But I'm only one 320 millionth—0.000000003125%— of the population, and I realize how democracy works (or is supposed to).<br />
<br />
But the main problem here seems to be the typical over-zealousness and narrow-mindedness mixed with ignorance of the facts in the face of intentional misrepresentation. And I honestly mean nothing negative in that statement.<br />
<br />
First, some of the facts as reported <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090722/ap_on_go_co/us_health_care_overhaul_abortion">here</a>:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
"Abortion is not mentioned in the 1,018-page bill..."<br />
<br />
"The Supreme Court has established a woman's right to abortion, but federal law prohibits government funds from being used to pay for the procedure in most cases. However, nearly 90 percent of employer-based private insurance plans routinely cover abortion."</blockquote>
<br />
OK. Pretty cut and dry.<br />
<br />
Second, let's forget almost the entirety of my personal belief system, and attempt to deal with this just on the basis of these and a few other established facts (namely 1: there are a shit-ton of uninsured Americans, and 2: some pretty serious problems come along with being uninsured or not sufficiently insured in a society that has ridiculous healthcare costs).<br />
<br />
So, she's saying that <b>46 MILLION</b> uninsured Americans essentially <i>should</i> continue to suffer because the government <i>MIGHT</i> use tax dollars to fund abortions, most likely only in the event that it saves the mother's life (again, not even a definite option, but, if it <i>is</i> an option, a rarely used one)?<br />
<br />
But in the meanwhile, the current private system covers <i>almost all</i> abortions, <i>AND</i> screws over 46 million American men, women (and their fetuses), and children. Not to mention, the dollars YOU pay into YOUR premiums are what the insurance companies use to pay for those abortions (!). So, in the current, private system you already ARE paying for abortions. For less debatable reasons. And there are still 46 MILLION people going without any health care or all, or substandard health care.<br />
<br />
So, in a nutshell, the reasoning is "I don't want to help my fellow humans because it might lead to significantly lower levels of something that is already happening". I must say that doesn't make much sense at all.<br />
<br />
It is worsened by the fact that the assumed reasoning is based on a religious affiliation with a faith that is supposedly defined by merciful dedication, sacrifice, and non-judgmental service to one's fellow humans according to the example set by a God/prophet that never once mentioned abortion but did prop up the poor, condemn the rich, and stress egalitarianism and beneficence.<br />
<br /></div>DUBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04395913387532403508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15737868.post-23188628117161837102009-07-06T08:08:00.003-04:002009-08-24T10:30:57.917-04:00Correction, we didn't evolve from monkeys...<div style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" align="justify"><span style="font-size:100%;">We <i>are</i> monkeys.<br /><br />Well, we're still of the taxonomic parvorder Catarrhini. I suppose it's still more "accurate" to say we're apes, being of the superfamily Hominoidea, but the point remains.<br /><br />This isn't about opinion or feelings. We're primates, plain and simple. This proves to be a very difficult FACT for some people to accept, and this is mainly due to a certain arrogance: people find it "dehumanizing" and somehow degrading to think of themselves as animals. This, of course, is ridiculous. These are technical terms. If you're a living, locomotive organism that digests other living organisms to survive, well, guess what? You're an animal. Lose the self-righteous indignation.<br /><br />Okay, perhaps I simplified things with motile and heterotrophic. As AronRa puts it in his <a href="http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=110640968124&h=PLU-I&u=MUGwq&ref=mf">excellent video on cladistic phylogenetics</a>, you ARE a primate as long as you are a:<br /><blockquote>"gill-less, organic RNA/DNA protein-based, metabolic, metazoic, nucleic, diploid, bilaterally-symmetrical, endothermic, digestive, tryploblast, opisthokont, deuterostome coelemate with a spinal chord and 12 cranial nerves connecting to a limbic system in an enlarged cerebrial cortex with a reduced olfactory region inside a jawed-skull with specialized teeth including canines and premolars, forward-oriented fully-enclosed optical orbits, and a single temporal fenestra, -attached to a vertebrate hind-leg dominant tetrapoidal skeleton with a sacral pelvis, clavical, and wrist & ankle bones; and having lungs, tear ducts, body-wide hair follicles, lactal mammaries, opposable thumbs, and keratinized dermis with chitinous nails on all five digits on all four extremities, in addition to an embryonic development in amniotic fluid, leading to a placental birth and highly social lifestyle."</blockquote><br />If for any reason you feel the above passage doesn't describe you...<br /><br />...well, I don't know what to say to that. Just watch out for those government agents, and good luck phoning home.</span></div>DUBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04395913387532403508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15737868.post-47893814739163696342009-05-10T13:53:00.003-04:002009-08-24T10:31:30.508-04:00Mothers' Day Bible Study:<div align="justify"><blockquote>"And Jesus said to her, 'O woman [Mary], what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come.'" — <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=joh+2%3A4&sourceid=mozilla-search">John 2:4</a></blockquote><br /><blockquote>"While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him...He replied to him, 'Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?'" — <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=mat%2012:46-48;&version=31;">Matthew 12:46-48</a></blockquote><br />Jesus <i>loved</i> his mama. He was sooooo respectful. But let's not forget his whole view on "family values":<br /><br /><blockquote>"If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple."— <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2014:26;&version=31;">Luke 14:26</a></blockquote><br /><br /><blockquote>"For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law and a man's foes will be those of his own household. He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me" — <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matt.+10%3A35-37&sourceid=mozilla-search">Matt. 10:35-37</a>; <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2012:51-53;&version=31;">Luke 12:51-53</a></blockquote><br /><br />And, of course, nothing drives it home as well as internal contradictions:<br /><br /><blockquote>"For God commanded, 'Honor your father and your mother,' and, 'He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him surely die.'" — <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matt%2015:4;&version=31;">Matt. 15:4</a></blockquote><br />Where's that crackpot James Dobson at?</div>DUBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04395913387532403508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15737868.post-82971709237671599172009-05-09T22:53:00.002-04:002009-08-24T10:31:52.931-04:00My Other Side of the Fence...<div align="justify">Forbes let's us in on the <a href="http://www.forbes.com/2009/05/05/world-happiest-places-lifestyle-travel-world-happiest.html">Happiest Places on Earth</a>.<br /><br />No surprise at all that they're also ranked quite low in religiosity. It's a <a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article571206.ece">documented fact</a> that the less religious nations rank higher in categories indicative of human happiness.<br /><br /></div>DUBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04395913387532403508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15737868.post-45029713000887106002009-05-01T19:03:00.005-04:002009-12-13T10:24:11.138-05:00Bible Study: Geneis 32:23-34<div align="justify"><blockquote>"After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, 'Let me go, for it is daybreak.'<br /><br />But Jacob replied, 'I will not let you go unless you bless me.'<br /><br />The man asked him, 'What is your name?'<br /><br />'Jacob,' he answered.<br /><br />Then the man said, 'Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, <em>because you have struggled with God</em> and with men and have overcome.'<br /><br />Jacob said, 'Please tell me your name.'<br /><br />But he replied, 'Why do you ask my name?' Then he blessed him there.<br /><br />So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, 'It is because <em>I saw God face to face</em>, and yet my life was spared.'<br /><br />The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip. Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip, because the socket of Jacob's hip was touched near the tendon." — <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=gen%2032:23-34;&version=31;">Genesis 32:23-34</a></blockquote><br />Jacob (a human, by the way) wrestles with God (you know, the ALL-POWERFUL Creator of the Universe), and God (who is Omnipotent AND Omniscient) has to pretty much beg Jacob to let him go. So Jacob makes a demand. Of GOD. And gets what he asks for.<br /><br />I have to wonder...how would God do against, say, Randy Couture? I mean, sure, God's had 3,000 years or so to practice, but just think of the reward. Jacob's family became the most favoritest of ALL the people on Earth...EVER!! OK, so he essentially won a chunk of otherwise worthless land that has been the center of endless dissonance for eons, and those same people—although "God's chosen"—are going to burn in eternal hellfire when God's son comes back. But still, the prize has got to be pretty damn fabulous. </div>DUBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04395913387532403508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15737868.post-19478537354597377672009-04-29T17:18:00.005-04:002009-04-29T17:33:57.612-04:00Bible Study: Judges 1:19<div align="justify"><blockquote>"The LORD was with the men of Judah. They took possession of the hill country, but they were unable to drive the people from the plains, because they had iron chariots." — <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judges%201:19&version=31">Judges 1:19</a></blockquote><br />So, Judah had God on his side, which is pretty kick-ass, so he and his buddies do a lot of ass kicking. With the omnipotent, omniscient creator on their side, they were just whoopin' Canaanite and Perizzite tail. They killed 10,000 in Bezek alone, burnt Jerusalem, and cut off Adonibezek's thumbs and big-toes. NOBODY was left standing in their path...<br /><br />...until they got to the valley. Because, after all, <i>those</i> people had iron chariots for, uh...God's sake.<br /><br />Yeah. The most powerful entity in the universe can't fuck with iron chariots. Even though he made iron. And chariots. Flooding the planet? No problem. Pillars of fire and gaping holes in the earth? Easy. I mean, you'd think he could at least kill the horses, leaving the people trying to kick-push the chariots Flintstone or skateboard style. But no. God turns completely flaccid at the sight of iron chariots. Kinda like me and Star Jones.<br /><br />I still think I could whoop Star's ass, though, and I can't even open those windows in the sky to let it rain.<br /><br />But at least he gave them fair warning:<br /><br /><blockquote>"but the forested hill country as well. Clear it, and its farthest limits will be yours; though the Canaanites have iron chariots and though they are strong, you can drive them out." — <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Joshua%2017:18;&version=31;">Joshua 17:18</a></blockquote><br />Or that could just be one of those pesky contradictions. Or God lying. Or changing His omniscient mind. Or just the ancient ramblings of a superstitious Bronze-Age goat herder.</div>DUBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04395913387532403508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15737868.post-4336521965363943762009-04-29T02:41:00.002-04:002009-08-24T10:32:28.470-04:00Well, waddaya know?...<div align="justify">Salon.com posted an article that says the most by having to say anything at all. Newsflash: <a href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/04/14/christian_nation/index.html">America is not a Christian nation</a>!! <br /><br />Could go MUCH more in depth, and provide LOADS more FACT, but it does nicely. But, then again, how can you mess up the truth?<br /><br />Also in news, scientists and medical professionals suggest heavy intake of oxygen may be beneficial.</div>DUBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04395913387532403508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15737868.post-23559408952792568592009-04-28T21:37:00.002-04:002009-08-24T10:33:03.771-04:00Tim Minchin's "Storm"<div align="justify"><br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/UB_htqDCP-s&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/UB_htqDCP-s&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><blockquote>"Science adjusts its views, based on what's observed. Faith is the denial of observation, so that belief can be preserved."</blockquote><br /><br /></div>DUBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04395913387532403508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15737868.post-46650260179878099702009-04-28T21:36:00.000-04:002009-08-17T19:39:15.806-04:00The Unconditional Love of Reality<div align="justify"><br />A very rare and lovely piece of art by <a href="http://parentingbeyondbelief.com/blog/?p=121">Dale McGowan</a>:<br /><br /><br />A Christian friend once asked me what it is about religion that <b>most</b> irritates me. It was big of her to ask, and I did my best to answer. I said something about religion so often actively standing in the way of things that are important to me — knowledge of human origins, for example, important medical advances, effective contraception, women’s rights…the simple ability to think without fear. I gave a pragmatic answer — and the wrong one.<br /><br />Not that those things aren’t important. They’re all crowded up near the top of my list of motivators. But in the years since I gave that answer, I’ve realized there’s something much deeper, much more fundamentally galling and outrageous that religion too often represents for me — something that constitutes one of the main reasons I hope my kids remain unseduced by any brand of theism that endorses it.<br /><br />What I want them to reject, most of all, is the <b>conditional love of reality</b>.<br /><br />I’ve talked to countless Christians about their religious faith over the years. I have often been moved and challenged by what their expressed faith has done for them. But the doctrine of conditional love of reality simply mystifies, offends, and frankly infuriates me.<br /><br /><b>Conditional love</b> is at play whenever a healthy, well-fed, well-educated person looks me in the eye and says, Without God, life would be hopeless, pointless, devoid of meaning and beauty. Conditional love is present whenever a believer expresses “sadness” for me or my kids, or wonders how on Earth any given nonbeliever drags herself through the bothersome task of existing.<br /><br />Whenever I hear someone say, “I am happy because…” or “Life is only bearable if…”, I want to take a white riding glove, strike them across the face, and challenge them to a duel in the name of reality.<br /><br />The universe is an astonishing, thrilling place to be. There’s no adequate way to express the good fortune of being conscious, even for a brief moment, in the midst of it. My amazement at the universe and gratitude for being awake in it is <b>unconditional</b>. I’m thrilled if there is a god, and I’m thrilled if there isn’t. <br /><br />Unconscious nonexistence is our natural condition. Through most of the history of the universe, that’s where we’ll be. THIS is the freak moment, right now, the moment you’d remember for the next several billion years — if you could. You’re a bunch of very lucky stuff, and so am I. That we each get to live at all is so mind-blowingly improbable that we should never stop laughing and dancing and singing about it.<br /><br />Richard Dawkins expressed this gorgeously in my favorite passage from my favorite of his books, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Unweaving-Rainbow-Science-Delusion-Appetite/dp/0618056734">Unweaving the Rainbow</a></i>:<br /><blockquote>After sleeping through a hundred million centuries, we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn’t it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked—as I am surprisingly often—why I bother to get up in the mornings.</blockquote><br />I want my kids to feel that same unconditional love of being alive, conscious, and wondering. Like the passionate love of anything, an unconditional love of reality breeds a voracious hunger to experience it directly, to embrace it, whatever form it may take. Children with that exciting combination of love and hunger will not stand for anything that gets in the way of that clarity. If religious ideas seem to illuminate reality, kids with that combination will embrace those ideas. If instead such ideas seem to obscure reality, kids with that love and hunger will bat the damn things aside.<br /><br />And when people ask, as they often do, whether I will be “okay with it” if my kids eventually choose a religious identity, my glib answer is “99 and three-quarters percent guaranteed!” That unlikely 1/4 percent covers the scenario in which they come home from college one day with the news that they’ve embraced a worldview that says they are wretched sinners in need of continual forgiveness, that hatred pleases God, that reason is the tool of Satan, and/or that life without X is an intolerable drag — and that they’d be raising my grandkids to see the world through the same hateful, fearful lens.<br /><br />Woohoo! is not, I’m afraid, quite a manageable response for me in that scenario. Yes, it would be their decision, yes, I would still love their socks off — and no, I wouldn’t be “okay with it.” More than anything, I’d weep for the loss of their unconditional joie de vivre.<br /><br />But since we’re raising them to be thoughtful, ethical, and unconditionally smitten with their own conscious existence, I’ll bet you a dollar that whatever worldview they ultimately align themselves with — religious or otherwise — will be a thoughtful, ethical, and unconditionally joyful one. Check back with me in 20 years, and for the fastest possible service, please form a line on the left and have your dollars ready.<br /><br /><br /></div>DUBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04395913387532403508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15737868.post-28167010474590925272009-04-28T20:43:00.001-04:002009-04-29T17:17:48.828-04:00Bible Study: II Kings 2:23-24<div align="justify"><blockquote>"From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some youths came out of the town and jeered at him. 'Go on up, you baldhead!' they said. 'Go on up, you baldhead!' He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the LORD. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths." — <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=II%20Kings%202:23-24;&version=31;">II Kings 2:23-24</a></blockquote><br />42 children attacked and killed by bears.<br /><br />For calling a man "bald".<br /><br />God is <i>good</i>.<br /><br />Upon having this verse brought to his attention, my cousin voiced that his position on Christianity might be worthy of reconsideration if it allows one the ability to have bears maul all who harass you. I do suppose that one of the fringe benefits of being JEWISH appears to be summoning "Power of Bear" whenever necessary. Of course you lose Resistance to Iron Chariot, but it's a fairly even trade off. Especially considering you also get the ability to live in fish bellies, Water Control, complete dominion over women, Pillar of Fire, and Gaping Hole in Earth. You do lose all sense of direction and occasionally spend a few decades wandering around aimlessly, but all in all it's one hell of a deal.<br /><br />If you like having to constantly fawn over a fiercely jealous god who has a obsessive fascination with foreskins, menses, and burning meat, that is.</div>DUBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04395913387532403508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15737868.post-31089954805698104362009-04-28T19:42:00.000-04:002009-08-18T19:23:11.288-04:00I Told Y'all I Love This Woman...<div align="justify"><br />Exactly how out of touch with reality are people who think wearing sleeves is the most important thing she can do?<br /><br />While to many there is nothing Michelle Obama can do right, to many, many more <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/28/first.lady/index.html?eref=rss_topstories">she changes lives</a>.<br /><br /></div>DUBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04395913387532403508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15737868.post-37194452226131471362009-04-28T00:51:00.000-04:002009-04-29T17:00:35.486-04:00Bible Study: Ezekiel 23:19-20<div align="justify"><blockquote>"Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in Egypt. There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses." — <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ezekiel%2023:19-20;&version=31;">Ezekiel 23:19-20</a></blockquote><br />Yes, this means exactly what you think it does.<br /><br />I've often pondered the potential influence of this verse on Afrocentrists and their "Egyptians were black" claims, but quickly realized the negative effects it would have on the "Jesus was black" claim.<br /><br />I mean, ya gotta pick which one "uplifts" your ego more: you have a HUGE penis or God looks like you?<br /><br />Tough choice.</div>DUBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04395913387532403508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15737868.post-49644748136012648662009-04-27T21:31:00.001-04:002009-08-24T10:34:02.053-04:00Did Sartre Write for Cracked Magazine?<div align="justify"><br />This is phenomenal. I've spent hours on Cracked.com wading through complete nonsense only to stumble upon <a href="http://www.cracked.com/article_17061_5-things-you-think-will-make-you-happy-but-wont.html">this</a> for enlightenment.<br /><br />(But <a href="http://www.cracked.com/article_17019_5-real-life-soldiers-who-make-rambo-look-like-pussy.html">this</a> was pretty damn cool, too.)<br /></div>DUBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04395913387532403508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15737868.post-30254578951800393402009-04-27T17:14:00.002-04:002009-08-24T10:34:25.559-04:00Well, At Least It's For a Good Cause...<div align="justify">Proceeds will go to 'Faith based' teaching in public school.<br /><br />That's FAITH-BASED Teaching. In PUBLIC SCHOOLS.<br /><br /><a href="http://blogs.tampabay.com/.a/6a00d83451b05569e201156f58d011970c-450wi"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 450px; height: 223px;" src="http://blogs.tampabay.com/.a/6a00d83451b05569e201156f58d011970c-450wi" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />I see "In God We Trust" plates from Indiana almost daily, but this takes the cake.<br /><br />The only thing more amazing than the ease at which they continually violate the Constitution is the complete lack of concern from the public.<br /><br />Oh, yeah: "faith-based teaching in PUBLIC SCHOOL"!!<br /><br />Can I get one with Frigga chucking a sprigg of mistletoe at Baldur? Or maybe Minerva springing forth from the head of Jupiter? Xenu hydrogen-bombing the volcanoes?<br /><br />No? Well, then how about the signing of the Constitution?<br /><br /></div>DUBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04395913387532403508noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15737868.post-85343089866478205542009-04-26T14:40:00.003-04:002012-04-01T15:34:41.131-04:00Bible Study: Murder + Abortion<div align="justify">
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Then Menahem smote Tiphsah, and all that were therein, and the coasts thereof from Tirzah: because they opened not to him, therefore he smote it; and all the women therein that were with child he ripped up—2 Kings 15:16</blockquote>
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Ripping open pregnant women's bellies? In the Bible. Condemning slavery? Not in the Bible.</div>
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Oh, and what was that about God's love for little unborn fetuses?</div>
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