When the Point is the fact that It's Pointless

This amateur clip simply leaves the viewer hanging, after a rather stilted mishmash of contradictory and confusing messages which, I believe, are a pretty damned accurate abridgment of the messages that Americans receive, as a whole, over any give year watching TV and listening to others try to explain away the lunatic fringe of christianity.

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Why Does Everyone Think That So Many Christians are Self-Serving Liars?

Oh, I don't know ...

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Congratulations, You're On The TSA Terrorist "Selectee" List

WTF country do we live in, here, people?

Church of Reality: "Marc Perkel, the founder of the Church of Reality is now listed on the American TSA list as a terrorist suspect. The TSA (US Transportation Security Administration) maintains a 'selectee list' which lists people who are flagged for heightened security screening. This list, which has not caught a single real terrorist, is used mostly as a political enemies list against activists who are speaking out against government abuses of power.

'In some ways this is a badge of honor', states Marc Perkel, First One of the Church of Reality. In this environment of repression of non-Christian religions in America, if you aren't on the TSA list you aren't getting your message out. I consider it to be an acknowledgement that I'm doing my job.'

This selectee list is not the worst list that the TSA has. Marc is not on the no fly list which would have prevented him from flying at all. This is just a harassment list that the US government keeps to intimidate activists.

As a result, the United States of America is now on the Church of Reality list of nations who are hostile to Realism and Realists and the US is a nation that is moving in a dangerous direction towards oppressing religious freedom."

infective.invective

Bush Won. Get Over It.

It's six years into a (hopefully) limited eight year term. I'll believe it when I see it. If there were ever an administration capable of manufacturing an excuse to stay in office beyond the legal limits, it's this one.

So, sorry if some of us are Still Not Over It.

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Stay the Course, Of Course

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Why Won't They Believe Me?

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GWB's United States of Whatever

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Important Facts about Gingervitis

Help eliminate ignorance about this dreaded genetic defect. See IGKF for vital safety information.

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An Example of Extraordinarily Lazy and Sloppy Thinking

Rule number one of debunking anything is to UNDERSTAND what the hell it is you are debunking. This series of short videos is entertaining to the extent that it's sure to inflame the self-assured and self-righteous, but beyond that, it's a great example of how NOT to convince anyone of your perspective. In this YouTube rant, How do we know that Christians are delusional?


we apparently find the deluded seeking to rescue the delusional. The methodology and objectives are arguably respectable and perhaps even dead-on, but the actual content reveals nothing but sheer intellectual laziness and even willful ignorance of the subject matter at hand. Even if I agree with the conclusions, this guy's clueless pontificating actually serves to drive any half-educated listener AWAY from his seemingly desired outcomes.

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Schroeder: Bush's faith raised suspicion

Interesting. Just hours after posting this personal screed, this report shows up on Yahoo News:

"We rightly criticize that in most Islamic states, the role of religion for society and the character of the rule of law are not clearly separated," Schroeder wrote. "But we fail to recognize that in the USA, the Christian fundamentalists and their interpretation of the Bible have similar tendencies."

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Sometimes, I Think I Miss You

But then I think again and realize ... mmmm ... nah ... not so much.

infective.invective, diversions, tangents

Firefox 2.0 Debut on Tuesday

Woohoo! Firefox 2.0 debuts Tuesday. If you just can't wait, grab RC-3 right now, since "Your copy of Firefox 2 RC 3 will be automatically updated to the final release of Firefox 2 when it becomes available" or just check all the new details here.

infective.invective

Why We Fight

This brilliant film by Eugene Jarecki explores not only why we fight, but why we (that's you and me, common Americans) keep backing the war pigs, even as they whittle away at our domestic strengths, productivity, health, self-sufficiency, and individual liberties. This is not "the government's" problem. This is MY problem. This is YOUR problem.

A good place to start: add this film to your Netflix queue, or go get it from your local video store. Next, watch ALL the extra content; the extra scenes, the crucial Q&A's, and each of the character profiles. Watch ALL of it, then we might have some reasonable basis upon which to communicate. In the meantime, take in the film's website, as well.

In the film, we are reminded that it was a Republican, a 5-Star General, a Hero of the Greatest Generation who cautioned us as a people about the military-industrial-congressional revolving door that presently holds sway over the American Empire's foriegn policy in the world. Two-term REPUBLICAN president, Dwight D. Eisenhower:

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought ['accidental' and 'inadvertant' are just as destructive as collusive or intentional], by the military-industrial-congressional complex. [Yes, the ORIGINAL DRAFT of Ike's speech -- written BY HIM in the day before Presidents merely read cue cards -- included Congress in the domestic Axis of Evil; but to salvage his own future book deals, even Ike did not have the courage to leave Congress in the final draft.]

The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

By today's neo-con standard, even Eisenhower himself -- certainly no dove -- would be characterized as a conspiracy-mongering, wussy liberal, weak on defense. That is how dangerously far today's radical republicans have driven the party to the extreme right. The Bush doctrines have hijacked the republican party and driven it as far to the right as militaristic totalitarianism will allow. They aren't quite there, yet, but give them eight more years ... or maybe just four ... and the luxury of holding on to doctrines of infallible U.S. policy may turn to necessity of spouting precise Party Doctrine at threat of exclusion, suspicion, expulsion, and yes brother and sisters, incarceration.

The moment that we all fully believe that totalitarians could NEVER take over in the U.S. is the moment our complacency will become our final downfall. Moreover, if the idea of ONE PARTY, controlling all three branches, into the indefinite future, is appealing to you in any way, then you my friend are indeed my intrinsic foe in every possible sense of the term. I will oppose you with my own blood, even if we share a common blood. For that vision, is the vision of TOTALITARIANISM and I will gladly fight, kill, and die to prevent that from happening to the democratic republic that is MY AMERICA.

Consider, soberly, Wilton Sekzer's personal journey in Why We Fight; this is the journey that hundreds of millions of Americans have taken in the years since 9/11/2001. Millions of good-natured, trustworthy, and trusting patriots like Mr. Sekzer were sincerely duped and are now coming to terms with that fact. However, coming to terms with facts and voting in a way that reflects those facts are two very different things; particularly in a nation where voting any way other than Republican has effectively become a SATANIC vote. Hundreds of millions of U.S. Christians actually hold this belief as tightly as they hold to the unquestioned infallibility of their sacred textbook. THIS IS DANGEROUS BEYOND BELIEF and amounts to Talibanism in the U.S. Imagine the power of these religious communities and the pressure to conform to voting patterns at threat of being accused of "not understanding God's will."

THIS *HAPPENED* IN 2000 AND 2004 AND IS HAPPENING ALL ACROSS AMERICA, TODAY! This would have seemed incomprehensible to me, in My America, just a decade ago. But today, hundreds of millions of Christians have latched on to one or two core issues as THE ONLY ONES THAT REALLY MATTER TO GOD and ignore all others. In these minds, a vote for a Democrat is a vote AGAINST GOD. I am not even close to overstating the facts as they exist in today's mainstream Christian environment.

Most Christians (not all) but MOST are effectively behaving equivalent to a non-violent Taliban party. While the Taliban will not hesitate to use brutality and violence, the American Christian Taliban use social marginalization and exclusion to enforce their loosely affiliated regime.

Finally, dear reader, if you are truly interested in gaining a well-rounded exposure to all kinds of views on the direction of U.S. policy and the war in Iraq, add every single one of these to your Netflix queue; approach with an open mind; and watch all extra material on each. Often, it's among the extra material where some of the most surprising, candid, enlightening, and incisive material can be found.

• Howard Zinn: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train (2004)
  
• WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception (2004)
  
• Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War (2003)
  
• Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election (2002)
  
• Noam Chomsky: Distorted Morality: America's War on Terror? (2002)
  

Finally, if you want political energy directed to personally crucial issues such as UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE then please begin thinking about voting according to YOUR OWN TRUE, INTERNAL, REAL WORLD PRIORITIES rather than conforming with peer-reinforced ideals of how things are SUPPOSED to be. Look at the way things TRULY ARE in your world and ask which things can make the most positive impacts in your own life and in the lives of those you love. Then, vote for the people advancing YOUR INTERESTS instead of marching lockstep with those who SAY they have your interests in mind.

infective.invective, iraq

Why Do Atheists Care About Religion?

infective.invective, atheism, atheist

That Light Might Conquer Darkness, Still

Jonathan Miller, narrating, "This series is about the disappearance of something: religious faith. It's the story of what's often referred to as atheism. The history of the growing conviction that God doesn't exist."

Eternal (pun intended) thanks to intrepid stumbler, StockTrader, for this one. I'm personally biased because this BBC program mirrors some aspects of my own journey; I'll nevertheless subjectively assert that this is some of the best documentary content I've seen in recent years. A thoroughly respectful, intelligent, dispassionate, methodical, and compelling video essay. In many respectes, what Noam Chomsky does for political thought, Johnathan Miller does for religous thought.

Here are links to Part 2 of 3 and Part 3 of 3.

"When I became convinced that the Universe is natural that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts, and bars, and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf, or a slave. There was for me no master in all the wide world, not even in infinite space. I was free.

free to think, to express my thoughts
free to live to my own ideal
free to live for myself and those I loved
free to use all my faculties, all my senses
free to spread imagination's wings
free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope
free to judge and determine for myself
free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the "inspired" books that savages have produced, and all the barbarous legends of the past
free from popes and priests
free from all the "called" and "set apart"
free from sanctified mistakes and holy lies
free from the fear of eternal pain
free from the winged monsters of night
free from devils, ghosts, and gods
For the first time I was free. There were no prohibited places in all the realms of my thought, no air, no space, where fancy could not spread her painted wings
no chains for my limbs
no lashes for my back
no fires for my flesh
no master's frown or threat
no following another's steps
no need to bow, or cringe, or crawl, or utter lying words.

I was free. I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously, faced all worlds. And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and went out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers who gave their lives for the liberty of hand and brain for the freedom of labor and thought

to those who fell on the fierce fields of war
to those who died in dungeons bound with chains
to those who proudly mounted scaffold's stairs
to those whose bones were crushed, whose flesh was scarred and torn
to those by fire consumed
to all the wise, the good, the brave of every land, whose thoughts and deeds have given freedom to the sons of men.
And I vowed to grasp the torch that they had held, and hold it high, that light might conquer darkness still."
-- Robert G. Ingersoll (1833-1899), "Why Am I An Agnostic?", 1896

infective.invective, agnostic, atheism

The Unimpeachable Party of Conservative Values

Uh, huh. The dope-head Rush Limbaugh, the womanizing Bill O'Reilly, and now add the homosexual child-stalker Mark Foley, (AIM name: Maf54) to the list. That pretty much evens the "party of sex scandals" score; so now that we have a Democratic President getting BJ's and a Republican Congressman GIVING them, maybe we can settle down to comaparisons that matter.

For instance:

• Which party ran an economy into the Largest Financial Surpluses in history?
  
• Which party plunged the nation into the Most Massive Debt in history?
  
• Which party launched the first preemptive war in the history of our nation, under false pretenses?
  
• Which party persistently presses for a National Healthcare program?
  
• Which party aggressively cuts taxes, while simultaneously spending with complete abandon?
  
• Which party insists upon a balanced budget and a balanced tax program to support a sustainable budget?
• Which party is led by oversexed, undisciplined, horn-dogs? Okay, so we have to call it even on that one.

ABC News: READER DISCRETION STRONGLY ADVISED: Foley's Exchange With Underage Page

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