Seriously? An entire chicken? In a batch of beer? To DRINK???

Seriously? An entire chicken? In a batch of beer? To DRINK???
Originally uploaded by flakingnapstich

Palin's Next Job?

Quiz: Were the following statements made in reaction to:

A: New Hampshire legalizing gay marriage.
B: The 1967 US Supreme Court decision legalizing interracial marriage

"This type of legal marriage must be forbidden simply because natural instinct revolts at it as wrong.”

“I believe that the tendency to classify all persons who oppose [such marriages] as ‘prejudiced’ is in itself a prejudice,” claimed a noted psychologist.

A U.S. representative from Georgia declared that allowing this type of marriage “necessarily involves (the) degradation” of conventional marriage, an institution that “deserves admiration rather than execration.”

“The next step will be (the demand for) a law allowing them, without restraint, to … have free and unrestrained social intercourse with your unmarried sons and daughters,” warned a Kentucky congressman.

“When people (like this) marry, they cannot possibly have any progeny,” wrote an appeals judge in a Missouri case. “And such a fact sufficiently justifies those laws which forbid their marriages.”

These types of marriages are “abominable,” according to Virginia law. If allowed, they would “pollute” America.

In denying the appeal of this type of couple that had tried unsuccessfully to marry, a Georgia court wrote that such unions are “not only unnatural, but … always productive of deplorable results,” such as increased effeminate behavior in the population. “They are productive of evil, and evil only, without any corresponding good … (in accordance with) the God of nature.”

A ban on this type of marriage is not discriminatory, reasoned a Republican congressman from Illinois, because it “applies equally to men and women.”

Attorneys for the state of Tennessee argued that such unions should be illegal because they are “distasteful to our people and unfit to produce the human race.” The state Supreme Court agreed, declaring these types of marriages would be “a calamity full of the saddest and gloomiest portent to the generations that are to come after us.”

“The law concerning marriages is to be construed and understood in relation to those persons only to whom that law relates,” thundered a Virginia judge in response to a challenge to that state’s non-recognition of these types of unions. “And not,” he continued, “to a class of persons clearly not within the idea of the legislature when contemplating the subject of marriage.”

A: They were ALL about interracial marriage, but it's hard to tell isn't it?

Why Womean Can't be Bosses

http://uk.askmen.com/money/career_250/278_why-women-cant-be-bosses.html

Thompson has fallen for the classic "Confirmation bias" logical fallacy. He's filtered his observations through his biases, discarding the evidence that refutes his beliefs, while accepting the experiences that supports them.

This is a common mental defect among people who fall for scams like your average "psychic." Because they want to believe, suckers remember all the vague, unspecified "hits" a psychic makes during a reading, but forget the 99% of the conversation that consisted of little more than inaccurate guesses, hemming and hawing.

It's clear Thompson either actively dislikes women, or is trying to convey that image in the article. I'm reminded of the members of the rather sad, pathetic "True Forced Loneliness" movement and their paranoia about WHY women reject them.

An observation

Western medicine tends to absorb and use any "alternative" treatments that are proven to be effective. Aspirin is an early example. It was found that the bark of certain trees contained a compound that eased pain. Bayer went to the trouble of isolating the active compound and mass producing a purified version. Many big pharmaceutical companies have departments that test and evaluate "natural" remedies to determine what the active ingredients are.

Most of the "natural" remedies that lie outside of western medicine fall into the category of folk medicine that refuses to die out, despite there being ample evidence that it's bunk. Others, like St John's Wort, are painfully inconsistent in the dosage of active ingredients. Saint John's Wort contains what many claim is a weak MIO inhibitor. The problem is the dosage of that inhibitor varies wildly not just from one brand to the next, but even from one PILL to the next in the same bottle. People using this "natural" remedy are, as a result, self medicating with a drug whose dosage can't be satisfactorily controlled. This is a recipe for disaster, particularly when dealing with ailments like clinical depression.

Finally, there's the myth that "natural" remedies aren't as "dangerous" as science based medicine. For some inexplicable reason, people tend to think that just because a drug is less refined (and thus has more contaminants) it's magically less dangerous. What's more, people often ignore "natural" remedies when discussing potential drug interactions with their doctors.

Copypasta about weights and measures

Does the statement, “We’ve always done it that way” ring any bells?
The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That’s an odd number, don’t you think? Why was that ‘gauge’ used?

Because that’s the way they built railroads in England, and English expatriates built the US Railroads. Why did the English build them like that?

Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that’s the ‘gauge’ they used. Why did “they” use that gauge then?

Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing. Okay!

Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing?

Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that’s the spacing of the wheel ruts. So who built those old rutted roads?

Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England) for their legions. The roads have been used ever since. And the ruts in the roads?

Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot.

And bureaucracies live forever. So the next time you are handed a specification and wonder what horse’s ass came up with it, you may be exactly right, because the Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war horses.

Now the twist to the story…

When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses’ behinds.

So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world’s most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse’s ass.

Why people laugh at Creationists Part II

Why do people laugh at Creationists Part 1

A Religion Joke

A little boy was confused by the differences between the Old Testament and the New Testament. "God was such a JERK back then" he said, "I mean, he had bears eat a bunch of kids because they made fun of a prophet's bald head!"



"Well" the father began, "It's like this. God was a really severe, angry guy in the old days. The creation had gotten all messed up, Lucifer had turned against him and even though he focused all his energy on a single group of people he couldn't get them to behave."

He took a breath, considering his next words and said, "Then around 4BC or so he saw this cute Jewish chick. He went down on, er, went down to Earth, got laid, had a kid out of wedlock and pretty much did a lot of the things he'd been grousing about for a few thousand years. It really mellowed him out."

The little boy looked up at his Father and said "Are you sure we're talking about God? That sounds an awful lot like the story Mom tells of how she met you."

The Father was shocked and asked "Why, what on Earth do you mean?"

"Well" said the little boy, "She was heading home from Synagogue, you were heading to the library for some of your Seminary studies-"

"Yes, well, your mother wasn't underage when we met. And I LEFT Seminary, God just went back to Heaven and left Mary to raise Jesus with her new husba-"

"Didn't they kick you out of Seminary for knocking up a Jewish girl?"

"I think it also had something to do with her being the Rabbi's daughter. Anyway, that's why we're Unitarians now."

The boy nodded sagely and asked, "So why am I circumcised then?"

Scientists: Spanking 'brings couples together'

Spanking is stressful at first, but it could bring consenting couples closer together. That's the implication of two studies of hormonal changes associated with sadomasochistic (S&M) activities including spanking, bondage and flogging.

read more | digg story

What Rush Limbaugh taught me about research

In High School I was a Dittohead (Rabid Rush Limbaugh Fan), raised in a good Lutheran home watching the 700 Club. I was also a computer geek, well versed in the ways of DOS.

During college I heard an episode of the Rush Limbaugh show where he was talking about the antitrust case then pending against Microsoft. I knew the issues inside and out, so I was excited to hear Rush's take.

Rush went on to talk about being a Mac user and how people were all upset that there was a Microsoft utility on his Mac that he'd installed but never used. He then proceeded to paint the entire issue as being about people installing Microsoft software on their computers of their own accord. He went on to completely ignore the actual issues raised in the antitrust case and instead paint a fanciful and inaccurate vision of the issue. His vision, which I would later learn was a perfect example of a straw man argument, was easy to mock and debunk, which he proceeded to do.

I realized that Rush was one of two things:

1. A liar trying to discredit Microsoft's detractors.
2. A moron with no understanding of the issue who insisted on pretending to be an expert.

Neither option appealed to me. Both interpretations meant Limbaugh was a manipulative fraud more interested in his pocketbook than in accuracy. I began to critically evaluate everything he said, researching the topics on my own. I soon realized that Limbaugh was not to be trusted. He was either lying to promote an agenda or was too lazy to do any research past collecting a few tidbits that could be twisted to support his existing beliefs. Research, I realized, was critical. You need to evaluate not just the sources that you agree with, but the ones you find objectionable. There's no such thing as a bias free news source, although some try to achieve that goal. Sticking to one source however will just ensure you only get the news with that particular bias, that you'll only ever see things from one, often censored, viewpoint.

American Racists Take Obama To The Mat

Another notjob is running around pimping the claim that Obama was born in Kenya. These conspiracy theorists are of course gleefully ignoring the fact that Obama's birth certificate HAS been released.

It just goes to show that some people will never be swayed by actual evidence.

Attacking the cost of the Oscars

Why does The Metro keep harping about the cost of the Oscars? The Metro is ignoring the fact that Hollywood actually turned a profit. The Oscars weren't paid for with tax dollars by companies who went to Uncle Sam looking for a handout. The Oscars were paid for by people who got rich selling a popular (if generally vapid) product.

If a failing company wants to pay it's executives and extortionate salary, that's between the board and the shareholders. The problems start when those same failed executives want to get obscene bonuses paid for with funds meant to bail their companies out of a catastrophic mess. If you screwed up your company so badly you need a government handout you damn well better not be getting a multi-million dollar bonus paid for with MY tax dollars.

It's clear the Metro is trying to tap into the anger and vitriol over the government bailout excesses. They fail to do so because they chose a profitable industry to attack. Yes, most of what Hollywood produces is useless, uninteresting garbage, but they make money doing it. If they want to throw an obscene party and air it on national television let them.

Now, if MGM came begging for a hangout like CITI or GM, it would be a different story. As it is, The Metro just comes across as a sour grape merchant who chose to attack the cost of the Oscars so they didn't need to bother watching or thinking about them.

Can anyone give me a good reason why Hollywood SHOULD cut back the Oscars because the economy is bad? Given their role in propping up national morale during the Great Depression I would think reducing the Hollywood spectacle is the last thing they should do.

A cute video to start the week

God must be a royal bastard if life begins at fertilization

Let's look at the facts. One estimate is that even without birth control about 80% of fertilized eggs never reach the end of the first month. They either never attach to the uterine wall or disconnect for any one of a variety of reasons. Discounting stillbirths and crib death, we're talking about 24 BILLION dead zygotes just for the 6 billion people alive today.

Now, since we are all tainted with original sin, this means if those zygotes have souls they go straight to Hell when they're passed by the woman's body.

This means our loving God who came to Earth and died for our sins has no problem with 24 Billion souls going straight to Hell without even having drawn their first breath or even had their first heartbeat. If you want to argue that life begins at fertilization then you're also stuck with a cold, heartless God who damns 80% of all humans right off the bat. Unless you're Catholic, and the Pope declares Limbo valid this month. In that case there's 24 Billion souls in limbo instead of Hell.

And that's just for the people alive today That ignores all the generations that came and went before us.

Don't go away mad Eli, just go away

I'd gotten tired of the flood of e-mail from moveon.org, so I decided to take advantage of their unsubscribe option. I was asked if I wanted to switch to their weekly newsletter instead. I thought about it for a second and then concluded that I wasn't really interested in getting any more messages from them. It had been so long since I'd read anything they sent I saw no value in a weekly missive.

An hour or two later I got the following e-mail:

from Eli Pariser
date Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 8:05 PM
subject Don't go!
mailed-by list.moveon.org

Dear Matthew Miller,

You've been permanently unsubscribed from the MoveOn list -- if you take no more action, this'll be the last email you get from us. But please don't go!

MoveOn gets its power from its members -- we're just 3 million people working together to change the world. But we know some folks are too busy to follow every last email.

So, we've developed a once-weekly newsletter to keep those folks informed. We'll only send you the most critical messages, and we won't email you more than once a week in any case. Want to sign up? Just click here:

http://www.moveon.org/subscrip/join_one.html?id=xxxxxxxxxxxxx

And if you didn't mean to unsubscribe in the first place(we hope so!), you can re-join the full list at:

http://www.moveon.org/subscrip/i.html?id=xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Thanks for everything you've done as part of MoveOn,

--Eli Pariser and the MoveOn team.

Call me crazy, but when I try to unsubscribe from something I generally want to be left the Hell alone, not pestered with another appeal to come back. I'm terminating contact with a digital service, not breaking up with an emotionally crippled codependent. I want an unsubscribe to actually unsubscribe me. It's a clear and definitive message to leave me alone, not an appeal for you to come back begging to let you back into my inbox.

I reported the pathetic "Please come back pretty please" message as spam to spamcop and gmail. Since moveon.org has demonstrated it's happy to keep pestering me even after I ask to be left alone, I'm also adding a filter to send any e-mail from their domain to the trash can.

Dinesh D’Souza, dumb or deliberately trying to mislead?

Dinesh D’Souza recently had the following to say in Salvo Magazine on the topic of atheism:

“I don't believe in unicorns, so I just go about my life as if there are no unicorns. You'll notice that I haven't written any books called The End of the Unicorn, Unicorns Are Not Great, or The Unicorn Delusion, and I don't spend my time obsessing about unicorns. What I'm getting at is that you have these people out there who don't believe that God exists, but who are actively attempting to eliminate religion from society, setting up atheist video shows, and having atheist conferences. There has to be more going on here than mere unbelief.”

I have to wonder if Dinesh D’Souza is being deliberately misleading or is as dumb as the comment makes him sound. The unicorn comparison is a poor one, largely because no one is going around trying to enact laws or shape government policy based upon belief in unicorns. D’Souza blithely ignores the negative impact of Christian Fundamentalism on the US in recent years. Bush's abstinence only education push has resulted in an increase in teen pregnancy. The denial of the morning after pill to rape victims by fundamentalist pharmacists is ignored by D’Souza's comment.

Yes, D’Souza, there IS more going on than a mere lack of belief in God. People don't like being told what to do by fundamentalist zealots intent upon using cherry picked verses from Leviticus as a legal textbook.

If our last president had spent his eight years in office claiming to take orders from a unicorn, or using a unicorn as the basis for his foreign policy, if he'd been using unicorn related language to try and drum up support for his invasion if Iraq, then D’Souza's unicorn comparison might have been relevant. As it is, it's a vague and unrelated tangent that reveals not a crushing argument, but intellectual bankruptcy on D’Souza's part.

Obama Conspiracy Theories: Obama in the Bible

There are a lot of comical Obama themed conspiracy theories floating around. My favorite is the claim that Luke 10:18 refers to US President Barack Obama. Here's the "logic" behind the claim as stated by Sollog (John Patrick Ennis, born July 14, 1960), a self-proclaimed "New Nostradamus"

www.sollog.com/news/satanbarack.html

In Luke 10:18 Jesus states,

“I beheld Satan as Lightning fall from Heaven.”

How does a Jewish Rabbi, which Jesus is credited with being (John 1:38), say in HEBREW, that Satan is like LIGHTNING from heaven?

Barack, also transliterated as Baraq in Hebrew, is LIGHTNING (Strongs Hebrew word 1300). Even in Greek, Barak is LIGHTNING (Strongs Greek word 913) for the name of a person!

The ONLY WAY, a Jewish Rabbi can say in Hebrew that SATAN is LIGHTNING is, SATAN BARACK!

Let's set aside the fact that a self proclaimed Rabbi is spending his time quoting the New Testament. While we're at it we'll ignore the fact that Sollog is a convicted criminal. Instead, I'll point out that the article's cornerstone are similarities between the Hebrew word for "Lightning" and the name Barack. There's a small problem with Sollog's argument. The book of Luke was written in Greek and Jesus would have spoken not Hebrew, but Aramaic. While the Hebrew alphabet is derived from Aramaic, we only have a vague idea as to how it was actually pronounced. Ancient Aramaic recorded largely consonants, not vowels. As a result the vowels we assign to many ancient texts are based upon tradition and conventional pronunciation. This means we don't know how Jesus would have pronounced the Aramaic word for "Lightning." Sollog's claimed use of modern interpretations of now to pronounce Hebrew are irrelevant to his claim.

Without a Lightning / Obama connection, Ennis' claims fall flat. He no longer has a supporting argument.

Believing Ennis' claims requires you to play Mad Libs with the Bible, assuming words with vaguely similar pronunciations in different languages and time periods are meant as part of some kind of hidden code. Ennis' claim is just bit of Post Hoc mental gymnastics. Luke 10:18 is a clear reference to the fall of Satan and trying to claim that the verse is somehow related to the current US President is using the kind of contorted, theologically unjustified garbage dogma that lead to things like the claim that Gorbachev was the Antichrist.

Believing Luke 10:18 refers to Obama as Satan involves trivializing the Bible itself, turning it from divine revelation into some kind of encrypted and obfuscated horoscope. It's a claim fostered by people who are more concerned with reasons to hate a given politician than in actual scholarship. A lot of idiotic "rationales" have been spun around this stupidity, but in the end it's just a racist "theologian" looking for a reason to hate Obama while boosting his own readership.

censorship

I always found censorship to be absurd. Censorship makes a thing forbidden, it makes it tantalizing and draws people to it. A lot of the books on the "Banned books list" are, to be honest, drek. The ONLY reason some of them are still in print is because people made a fuss about them, canonizing an otherwise dull book because it had a few sexually charged or blasphemous scenes.

There was a TV show a season or two ago called "The Book of Daniel." It was slow moving, boring, poorly written and poorly acted. It lasted about half a season and would have died sooner had one of those religious parents' action groups not started a massive campaign to get the network to cancel it. I'd never even HEARD of it until they raised a ruckus. Something that would have died a quiet, quick death was prolonged and got a hell of a lot more exposure than it deserved because people were outraged.

Of course, that might have been the point of protesting that particular show. When something terrible is attacked and it dies the death earned by its low quality, the not jobs who were protesting get to claim credit for its downfall. It's kind of like the career of Andrew Dice Clay. I know people who claim it was moral outrage against his act that ended his career. The truth is that he isn't all that funny. The moral outrage against him prolonged his career.

The Auto Industry Bailout