GOP Oblivious to their Fucktardery

The idiots in the GOP are up to their fucktardery again... The worst part is that they can't even tell the irony of their position, even when directly confronted with the madness of their position. First I'll let the Daily Show present it to you (keep in mind, I am not a fan of Samantha Bee, but in this case, she does a great job).

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My apologies to folks outside the US that can't see this video.

I already wrote a way back about the idiotic idea of personhood... After all, gawd loves abortions (considering how often he causes them if you're of the mindset that imaginary things cause natural events).

I know that as long as the GOP maintains their anti-reality stance, theocratic bent, and plutocratic direction, they will never get my vote.  I have a daughter, and I prefer that when she grows up, she have control of her own reproductive rights instead of some rich, old white guy dictating how she can treat her body.  Also, their theocratic outlook is absolutely repugnant to me.  Between the First Amendment and Article VI of the Constitution, you'd think they get it, but apparently, they are as oblivious about the Constitution as they are about their statements in the video above (or the bible they cling to yet seem never to have read...).

And I also have to say that the GOP seems to have the entirely wrong idea about the Bill of Rights.  It's a bill of rights, not a bill of restrict rights.  I don't think they would like their legacy to be like the 18th Amendment. 

Politicians Have Forgotten Their Job!

The job of a politician (in general) should be:

"Represent their constituents within the confines of the Constitution."

You ask any politician what their job is, and they will insist that this is exactly what they are doing, but I contend that they are NOT.

First of all, they fail in representing their constituents.  If you observe their behaviour, you can tell that they are not representing their constituents.  They are only representing the people who actually voted for them.  In my opinion, they are being stupid in adhering to their rabid partisan ways.  Of course, the GOP has an over abundance of stupidity in their adherence to non-negotiable ideological positions.    If you actually try to represent the entire population as opposed to some loudmouthed redneck extremists, you may actually gather more votes as you run for re-election.  Of course, the politicians are too interested in pandering to the most extreme positions of their "base".  This hyper-partisan environment is doing nothing but freezing up anything from happening.  If you look at this particular congress, I bet you could easily imagine them passing a resolution opposing President Obama if he declared kittens as cute.

Secondly, and this is particularly against the GOP, they are absolutely not following the Constitution.  To most politicians, they think their job is to impose their views on the populous, without regard to the anti-establishment clause of the First Amendment.  They think that because they believe it, it's okay to impose their view, despite the freedom of religion for all citizens, even if it's not christianity.  The most important thing to remember is that freedom of religion, if it is going to apply to everyone, also requires freedom from religion. Why is that? You do not truly have the freedom to practice your religious beliefs if you are also required to adhere to any of the religious beliefs or rules of other religions.

As an obvious example, could we really say that Jews and Muslims would have freedom of religion if they were required to show same respect to images of Jesus that Christians have? Would Christians and Muslims really have freedom of their religion if they were required to wear yarmulkes? Would Christians and Jews have freedom of religion if they were required to adhere to Muslim dietary restrictions?

Simply pointing out that people have the freedom to pray however they wish is not enough. Forcing people to accept some particular idea or adhere to behavioral standards from someone else’s religion means that their religious freedom is being infringed upon.

Freedom from religion does not mean, as some mistakenly seem to claim, being free from seeing religion in society. No one has the right not to see churches, religious expression, and other examples of religious belief in our nation — and those who advocate freedom of religion do not claim otherwise.

What freedom from religion does mean, however, is the freedom from the rules and dogmas of other people’s religious beliefs so that we can be free to follow the demands of our own conscience, whether they take a religious form or not. Thus, we have both freedom of religion and freedom from religion because they are two sides of the same coin.

Interestingly, the misunderstandings here can be found in many other myths, misconceptions and misunderstandings as well. Many people don’t realize — or don’t care — that real religious liberty must exist for everyone, not just for themselves. It’s no coincidence that people who object to the principle of “freedom from religion” are adherents of religious groups whose doctrines or standards would be the ones enforced by the state.

Since they already voluntarily accept these doctrines or standards, they don’t expect to experience any conflicts with state enforcement or endorsement. What we have, then, is a failure of moral imagination: these people are unable to really imagine themselves in the shoes of religious minorities who don’t voluntarily accept these doctrines or standards and, hence, experience an infringement on their religious liberties through state enforcement or endorsement.

That, or they simply don’t care what religious minorities experience because they think they have the One True Religion. And maybe that's their point?

Keep the "Creation Museum" off this list

Greg Laden's blog alerted me to this website where people can vote on sites that are good family destinations.  You can't downvote a site, but absolutely suggest sites that are at least based in reality!  Currently the creation museum is at number 3...  Go vote for much more deserving places please and knock that place off.  Something where actual learning will take place, not a lobotomy.  And the comments...  Holy shit.  I had to add my 2 cents int here as well, but I just couldn't bear the overwhelming stupid of most of them so I kept it short:

This "museum" should only serve as a warning as to what rampant ignorance and mental castration can do to the wonder of science and history... I can't understand how bronze age fables survive in today's age of space flight, genome sequencing, and everything else we know about the world.

There are a few other rational comments there, but most of them are just the ignorant lapping up the supposed wonder of this place.  The authoritarian, and unquestioning faith these people display is truly frightening.  That they are so certain in what they believe is what is frightening, especially when you consider the long list of people their god tells them to hate and kill.  I just can't respect that sort of unquestioning faith, and see it as the worst weakness of humanity...

Instead, I love the grandeur and wonder of more modern viewpoints.  Think on this:

"Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics.
You are all stardust.
You couldn't be here if stars hadn't exploded. Because the elements, the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution weren't created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars. And the only way they could get into your body is if the stars were kind enough to explode.
So forget Jesus. The stars died so you could be here today." - Lawrence Krauss

Isn't that frikkin' COOL!?  Instead theists insist that they actually have the answers to everything, even if it's demonstrably wrong.  Maybe Carl Sagan said it better:

In some respects, science has far surpassed religion in delivering awe. How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, "This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant. God must be even greater than we dreamed"? Instead they say, "No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way."- Carl Sagan

Newt is an Arrogant, Lying Sack of Shit

So the giant Jabba the Hutt blob of butter with a fat head that is campaigning under the name of Newt is an arrogant, lying sack of shit...  However, we already knew that.  Why am I so pissed?  Not because he said particularly insensitive stuff on Martin Luther King day, or anything like that.  But he said some particularly egregious lies about food stamps and poor people, and made them sound like lazy people who are just too damn dumb to know how to fill out a job application or even find one to fill out.

Why does this have me mad?  As Military.com reports:

more than $31 million worth of food stamps were used at commissaries nationwide in 2008 – an increase of about $6.2 million, or more than 25 percent – from the $24.8 million redeemed in 2007. That contrasts with a 13 percent overall increase in food stamp use by Americans for the same period,

Okay, now that may sound like some sort of increase that validates his claims that President Obama has somehow put all these people on food stamps, and that he is responsible for these great increases (and keep in mind, this isn't the totally the amount spent by the active duty folks on foodstamps, which numbered 2100 in 2003, the last time they surveyed).  Again, that's not quite right:

In 2000, there were slightly more than 17 million Americans on food stamps, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington-based think tank focused on issues impacting low-income Americas.
By 2005, the number had increased to nearly 26 million while a government report issued earlier this year found that more than 32 million people are on food stamps. 

Under Bush, the increase was about 9 Million people.  And then the increase during the latter half of Bush, and then Obama, we have a total of a 6 Million people increase.  Even if ALL of those were blamed on Obama, last I checked, 6 is less than 9... How can President Obama be responsible for putting more people on Food Stamps than any other president, when he clearly isn't?  Oh yeah, sanctimonious, bullshit pandering logic that gets you a standing ovation from braindead hicks... What I would like to do is find a military member on food stamps, and have this guy get into Newt's face and ask him exactly how he can "own the fucking job he already has"?  Especially one that has himself not served, and seems to be totally out of touch with the intelligent and hard working Americans that think he is a pompous ass, which should be everyone...  Of course, that's just my opinion.

Testing the New Blogger Interface

I have used the older interface for the blogger system for quite a while now.  I found it easy to use, intuitive, and clean.  Everything was placed in an easy to use area, it was tightly grouped for accessibility, and didn't use too many fancy scripts to run the page.  Well, for the longest time, I have been trying to use the old way of blogging to somehow automatically publish to my Google+ account.  Heck, Facebook had a way of letting me automatically publish a blog post to my profile there, and it was easy.  So anyway, I just wanted to complain that Blogger/Google+ took something that should be easy, and forced their users to adopt things that they may not want.  Forcing someone to do something is generally not considered a good public relations practice.

Anyway, just wanted to bitch and moan about it...  And test to see if this actually works the way it's advertised to...

Anti-theist / atheist / science videos I enjoy

Over at Rational Skepticism, there is a thread about different types of videos that folks enjoy.  I really enjoyed the thread, and it had a lot of great videos highlighted in it.  Here some are for your enjoyment.  Of course, these are only a few of the videos from the RatSkep forum.  Also, don't think that just because I enjoyed them that I am in total 100% agreement with them.  I just happened to enjoy them.  That's an opinion (I think I may have said a few things about that in the past).  Also, there are tons of other great videos out there (ZOMGItsCriss is also one of my faves.  Her style is something that I never get tired of, and face it, that accent...).

Opinions versus Facts

I'm sure you have all seen it.  Someone says something in a totally authoritative way, and you have to pick your jaw up from the floor because what they said was not only mind-numbingly stupid, but patently wrong.  I'm talking flat earth level of wrong.  Yet they carry on as if they made some sort of profound statement of truth, and the sad part is, they think they  have.

Sadly, as of late (and the media hasn't helped with all their fucking talking heads), people have totally lost the distinction as to what separates a fact from an opinion.  They think they are one in the same (as I mentioned in my lead in here).  Now, the world champions at this sort of dimwittery are the religious (a close second are politicians).  The funny thing is... the religions of the world have only themselves to blame for being in conflict with reality.  Let's start in with a Sagan quote:

How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, 'This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant?' Instead they say, 'No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.' A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.

Back when Galileo started  messing with the cosmology of perfect crystal spheres, and showing that the moons surface was jagged and imperfect, the church threw a hissy fit.  But you know who didn't really give a rat's ass?  The common people.  Same thing when Copernicus figured out that the opinion of the earth at the center of the universe may be somewhat wrong, despite the prevailing opinion of the day.  The church has fought and railed against every demotion of humanity from the pinnacle of creation, and has consistently lost.  It's a wonder anyone actually believes the bullshit that comes from the church.  It's like betting that the boxer with a 0-100 record will somehow win the championship fight.  Well, in that analogy, I suppose the incompetent looser could win, by cheating.  And that is the church's chief weapon I suppose.  They lie and distort to their hearts content (or bully, imprison, execute, etc.).  And people seem to let them get away with it...

Another Sagan quote:

In science it often happens that scientists say, "You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken," and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.

So, this is supposedly some sort of weakness of facts. That actual data can force us to re-evaluate what we know to be true.  Sure, we all used to believe that the earth was the center of the universe.  That didn't stop the earth from orbiting the sun at any time, so the fact was true, despite no one knowing or believing it.  But the important lesson here is that we got better at observing the universe around us, and figured out that we had something wrong, and (with the exception of the church initially) accepted it.  It's the actual strength of science that it has this mechanism for self correction and discovery embedded in its basic process.

Eventually, the theitards will have to accept evolution like they accepted the fact that the earth isn't the center of all.  The evidence is too staggering for us to actually move forward as a society without this as a fundamental fact of existence.  As an aside, one must wonder, how is it that when the initial idea of descent from common ancestors (i.e. evolution) was proposed, and there were many fields that we had no idea about like genetics, cellular biology, microbiology, taxonomy, etc.  If a 19th century scientist was going to make up something, or try to intentionally deceive the scientific community, how could he possibly have pulled it off?  EVERY SINGLE DISCOVERY in biology and genetics supports evolution.  Read that again.  Every single one!  Even Newton's theory on gravity didn't stand up that well to time and subsequent discoveries.  Now, if you head over to another web page I maintain, you'll see that pretty much every argument theitards have made up has been addressed.  In the past 150 years, they haven't been able to come up with anything fundamentally new.

With that, I think I'll leave off with a few more Carl Sagan quotes, because he said things so well:

Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the universe with an open mind and accepts whatever the universe has to teach us, or somebody who says everything in this book must be considered the literal truth and never mind the fallibility of all the human beings involved?

Think of how many religions attempt to validate themselves with prophecy. Think of how many people rely on these prophecies, however vague, however unfulfilled, to support or prop up their beliefs. Yet has there ever been a religion with the prophetic accuracy and reliability of science? ... No other human institution comes close.

We have designed our civilization based on science and technology and at the same time arranged things so that almost no one understands anything at all about science and technology. This is a clear prescription for disaster.

We've tended in our cosmologies to make things familiar. Despite all our best efforts, we've not been very inventive. In the West, Heaven is placid and fluffy, and Hell is like the inside of a volcano. In many stories, both realms are governed by dominance hierarchies headed by gods or devils. Monotheists talked about the king of kings. In every culture we imagined something like our own political system running the Universe. Few found the similarity suspicious.

And yes, I see the irony of this being an opinion piece!

What Should President Obama do About Gen McCrystall?

Fuck, what a mess...  I'm sure you have been following the news and the breaking story with gen McCrystall and his comments about the Commander in Chief.  Quite the clusterfuck all around.

My OPINION on this:

• McCrystall is too important to the current effort to fire him outright.
• McCrystal does need to be put in his place in relation to the Constitutional control of the military by a Civilian leader.
• President Obama needs to take clear and decisive action that is in line with military discipline and tradition.
• Both parties have too much important work to focus on instead of this bullshit.

So what needs to happen:

• Gen McCrystal should get at least an Article 15 signed by the President.
• He should be allowed to continue his mission until the normal time of his replacement (goal of July 2011 I think).
• When he retires, he should get a censure and be reduced in grade.
• All this needs to be public and well choreographed for the media fucktwats that think this is important.

What do you think?

So you think you can dance?

I was glad to see Evan make it through to the finals. I was sad to see Melissa go. She has grown the most as a dancer during this season. I think Kayla is destined to win, as is Brandon. So, what's your thoughts?

(Sorry this is such an abbreviated entry, I just spent a lot of time with the family, so you guys are the last thing I get to. It's just a facet of reality, no offense implied.)

The Real America?

As I mentioned in the "Douchebaggery" blog, I may not agree with everything President Obama is doing (on the domestic side), but also realize that we've put ourselves in a bad position where these solutions are what is left. But what I would like to talk about (thanks Aaron for giving me the idea) is this "Real America" thing.

I can't express how thankful I am that President Obama won. In his mind, there aren't two Americas that are real and not real. He's not about dividing people up just because they don't adhere to whatever is your ideology. Not so with the GOP. Even more and more I am hearing that they represent the "Real America". What the fuck are they talking about? Is it really their goal to alienate and piss off anyone who isn't a fundamental xtian? Let's face it, the GOP has turned into the Fundamental Christian Political Action Group, and is no longer in any way a Grand Old Party.

And what determines what makes a "Real American" anyway? Serving your country in Uniform? Being a god fearing church goer? Really, all I see again out of the GOP is incredibly childish, short sighted, divisive actions. And this is coming from someone who was a registered Republican for 25 years!

So really, what the fuck is a Real American, and what the fuck is a fake american? I'd like to know, just so I can see exactly how deluded and childish the dividers are.

Should I just write non-sense?

So I was wondering, should I write more on my blog? Sure, I have a blog, but in the past year, I have written a few times each month. Now, generally I only try to write when I have something to say, or I have found something that I really want to pass on. Of course, that means my blog tends to be rather static, and really not much of a reason for folks to come here. Not that people really come here for my blog that often as it is... So, in a sort of chicken or egg type of thing, I suppose that I ought to blog a bit more often. Hopefully that will eventually lead to more folks coming here.

One thing that I will always try to do is find some sort of funny picture to go with the blog entry. Hopefully it will be somewhat applicable to the entry. Also, I will always make sure to tag my entries. I realize that I tend to write about science, logic, and atheism, so I will try to expand my horizons a little just to find more material. Although, science is one of the things that I really, really enjoy, so that will be a focus for me. As for the atheism focus, well, that's a battle that I am embroiled in because I care about the future. Hopefully those two things won't drive you away, since there are many tings to talk about aside from just those two items.

Well, so over the past two days, I guess I am keeping up on the resolution... Although, I do tend to travel A LOT and sometimes I just don't have internet access... So I amnot making a resolution to write every day, but you should hear a lot more often from me. Now to try to think of topics to write about... They say personal experience is one thing to draw on. First, who the hell are they? And how about writing about resume writing, job searching, networking, job interviews, etc.? That's probably quite topical as well!

Need a new name....

Blogalicious sucks... I just typed it in because the registration required it. I am very unhappy with it though. Please help me come up with a better name than that. Something that reflects me a bit better at least!

I Hate the 96th Comm Squadron

Okay, nothing personal, but it seems these guys take away anything that is worthwhile on the net, and block it. Normally I suppose in a corporate/military structure, this is a good thing. However, sometimes it goes just way too far! I am in the business of procuring weapons that the Air Force uses to kill people and blow stuff up with, right? So, why would a bage be blocked by the 96th Comm Squadron because it contains material about "weapons and violence"? I kid you know, that's the "Access Denied" message I got when looking up some counter-IED technology!

Further confirms my theory that people as a mass are stupid!

IE SUCKS

Okay, so pretty much everyone knows that Internet Explorer sucks... So why do 80% of the planet insist on using it? I have this really cool background image for the main body of the text on my web page. In FireFox it's nice and transparent, and you can see the KC-135 and all the fighters around it. It looks cool. On Internet Explorer, the box where all the text is located goes pure white and blocks out the image. I tried using the "filter:alpha(opacity=60)" command, but that actually made the BODY image transparent instead of that white background. Looks like I need to keep working on that.

I do have sounds that DO load on IE, but not in FireFox. Although I consider that a minor thing though since they only appear on two pages. I know there is a easy fox for that, so it shouldn't be a problem.