My father, bless his backward heart, saw fit to forward me one of those annoying anti-Obama emails. This one has a subject line of "Stupid is as stupid does" but might as well be titled "Wake up, white people." It consists of a ridiculous list of Bad Things--from hijackings to assassinations--attributed to "Muslim male extremists between the ages of 17 and 40."

It then goes on to point out that:

"According to The Book of Revelations:

The Anti-Christ will be a man, in his 40s, of
MUSLIM descent , who will deceive the nations with persuasive language,
and have a MASSIVE Christ-like appeal....the prophecy says that people
will flock to him and he will promise false hope and world peace, and
when he is in power, he will destroy everything.


And Now:
For the award winning
Act of Stupidity
Of all times the People of America want to
elect, to the most Powerful position on the face of the Planet --
The Presidency of the United states of America

A Muslim
Male
Extremist
Between
the ages
of 17 and 40."


Okay. I'm going to type *reeeeeeal slow* for my relatives who probably won't get it anyway. For the hundred-thousandth time: Barak Obama is not Muslim.

And while I'm on the subject, the obsessive use of his middle name as an attempt to encourage negative associations also needs to stop. We don't shun everyone named Adolph or George--let's leave the Husseins of the world the fuck alone.

Every single candidate in this race has *plenty* of legitimately negative qualities and closet-skeletons we can criticize--fabrication and inflation are entirely unnecessary.

( (The entire email is behind this cut, if anyone cares to wade through it.) )

Via hughcasey, and others...

A booth at the Texas Republican Convention was selling buttons that read, "If Obama is President... will we still call it the White House?" (Brought to you--unsurprisingly--by the people who sold an anti-Hillary button reading, "Life's a bitch--don't vote for one.")

This is disgusting on so many levels that I can't bring myself to analyze it in any depth. Thankfully, it is so obviously reeking of vile stupidity that I hardly need point it out.

I was driving home after getting an oil change when I found myself behind a ridiculous, black, full-size Hummer. "Why are you telling us this," you ask? Because the fucker was absolutely *plastered* with an equally ridiculous number of earth-friendly/eco-hippie/green-living bumper stickers. It was practically wallpapered with them, as if a layer of trite and tired one-liners could somehow distract the casual observer from the fact the vehicle beneath is a gas-guzzling behemoth of the vilest kind. The irony made me cringe.

It's been suggested that the choice of decor could, in fact, be parody display. I do not doubt the possibility, although a bit of well-planned eco-vandalism seems just as likely.

(Via mutster101.)

(Via firinel.)

HS Principal Outs Gay Student Couple

That principal needs my foot up her ass. (Just to loosen it up a little for the reaming I *hope* she receives from the ACLU). It really, really irks me that one of the boys might not be able to volunteer in New Orleans, now. It just strikes me as particularly disgusting to deny him the right to do good because he *might* do something that a vicious little subset of humanity thinks of as bad. Vile. Vile!

Fuck censorship. Just fuck it. And fuck fundie-fuelled censorship twice as hard with a pointed stick.

Via Wired:
A U.S. government-funded medical information site that bills itself as the world's largest database on reproductive health has quietly begun to block searches on the word "abortion," concealing nearly 25,000 search results.

Called Popline, the search site is run by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Maryland. It's funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, the federal office in charge of providing foreign aid, including health care funding, to developing nations.

The massive database indexes a broad range of reproductive health literature, including titles like "Previous abortion and the risk of low birth weight and preterm births," and "Abortion in the United States: Incidence and access to services, 2005."

But on Thursday, a search on "abortion" was producing only the message "No records found by latest query."

( Rest of article behind the cut, or via the link, above. )

This is one of Miller's BBC series called The Atheism Tapes. This is not an anti-religious screed--it's Miller's point of view, having survived the Depression as a Jew in a climate that was far, far from accommodating. Arthur Miller is amazing, and his perspective is worth considering.

I don't think so. And neither does the AAP.

Since the airing of an anti-vaccination themed episode of Eli Stone, the anti-vaccination crowd has been riding the wave of the show's thinly-veiled assertion that vaccination with Thimerosal causes Autism. Indeed, one of the most common tactics of the antivaccination movement is to present heart-rending stories of "vaccine-damaged" children. Indeed, this is a key strategy designed to obtain "compensation" through lawsuits and the autism omnibus. In response, the AAP has been circulating an e-mail seeking to fight fire with fire[...]

In short, if you're the parent of an autistic child, or the parent of a child who contracted an illness that could have been prevented by vaccination (it's not safe to vaccinate some children), consider contacting the AAP and contributing to their campaign to encourage vaccination.

I'm not saying that vaccination carries -0-risk. It is, however, both effective and socially responsible.

And a Happy Darwin Day to all the apes on my flist.

Watched Kinky Boots while I was slobbing around being sick. It's very, very cute.

There are two songs in this segment--a peace anthem for Palestine (quite cute) and an environmental rock anthem that will hopefully change the way you grocery shop for the rest of your life.



Yes, okay, he has hair like an electrocuted porcupine, but if it meant Mr. Minchin would be shirtless more often, I would eschew plastic bags for all eternity. He's definitely in my Top Five for Lickability, right next to Robbie Coltrane and Dylan Moran. I blame the eyeliner.

"I don’t think anyone (---snip---) is suggesting that impoverished kids shouldn’t be provided with opportunities for education and a chance to improve their lot in life. However, even here in the States, kids rarely find much productive to do with their computers without appropriate guidance. Why should Third World kids be any different? At least in developed countries, money wasted on poorly planned 1:1 computing initiatives is simply money wasted. In the target countries for the XO, however, money wasted by governments and philanthropists on these machines is money that can’t be spent on food, sanitation, water, medication, and, ironically, education."

One of the blogger's students went so far as to say, “We don’t even really need laptops. What are these kids going to do, Google images of food they can’t have?”

(Dvorak's editorial is here.)

In terms of the "these kids will only get into trouble" attitude, there's the *huge* assumption that a "poor tribesman’s child" will have internet access that will then expose them to said "trouble", like Nigerian scams and pornography. How can these guys go on about how poor and impoverished these children are and in the next breath worry about how they'll be getting into trouble on Teh Intarwubs? Look at the stats for internet access by region and then tell me these kids will be getting online, let alone unsupervised. They may well only have net access at school, and even then, if we take Africa as our example, access is discouragingly limited. Lack of technology often comes down to something as basic as limited access to electricity.

If you have an opinion on this, (particularly those of you involved in education and care, as there are several of you here who work with children in various capacities), I'd be interested to hear it.

For the logophiles....

Take the vocabulary quiz at FreeRice.com and they will donate a small portion of rice for every correct answer. It seemed a bit futile at first, but it really does seem to add up. Am stuck at level 45 for the moment, and approaching 5000 grains of rice.

EDIT: Finally made it to 46!
EDIT, redux: 47! Almost at 10,000...

Have you been wondering what that bunch of bent wingnuts at Westboro Baptist Church have been up to, lately? Well, it seems that in a fit of creativity, they've written and recorded a song! Oh, happy day! It's entitled God Hates the World, and it's a bastardization of We Are the World. It's about the most disgusting thing I've heard in a long time.

Warren Ellis was quite correct about the last bit of the video--it's particularly awful. Even if you manage to sit through the first 5 minutes, the last 30 seconds will probably push you over the edge. It's almost enough to make me believe that there is, in fact, an anti-Christ, and he is working directly through these miserable bastards.




You know, these yobs have always defended their ugly public protests by claiming that they're only trying to "save" the world from God's angry wrath, but in the next breath (and in this video) they clearly state that it's already too late for all us "proud sinners" and we're all doomed to a fiery hell. If that's the case, why are they wasting their time? It's because they *enjoy* it. It makes them feel good, and smug, and superior. Did you see how they were laughing and smiling toward the end of the song? They aren't *warning* anyone. They're gloating, and they're glorying in it.

And I would like nothing better than to take that child from her parents and raise her as an atheist.

I watched a BBC show about the Westboro Baptist crew earlier, but it's not on YouTube. However, I found this unaired excerpt--just in case if you've never seen them in action. Kudos to the gentleman managing the documentary. His self-control is stunning.



What people do in the name of religion makes me ill.

I post this every year, but for those of you who haven't read it, here it is again.

Lincoln's speech declaring Thanksgiving a national observance: 3 October, 1863.

(If the word "Thanksgiving" inspires images of pilgrims and turkeys and Native Americans to dance in your head, this might help with that.)

At the age of 14, this young man from Nairobe gathered some spare parts, did some reading on the internet, and built his family a windmill to provide their tiny house with electricity. Not only did he accomplish this with limited means, he actually improved on the design he was using for a guideline.

This--THIS, right here--is why we should invest in Africa.

William James Mullen, a respected philanthropist and prison reformer, died in 1882. About six years later, this monument was erected on his grave in Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia. The castle-like building is modeled after Moyamensing Prison, which was razed in 1963.

There's a large plaque on the back of the stone that talks about Mullen's accomplishments, but since it's impossible to read without going through several closeups, I've included one shot of the entire plaque and a transcription of the text at the end of this post. Some of the symbolism of the monument is reflected in the text. (Drive across the bridge into South Laurel Hill, and turn right. The Mullen monument is about 50 yards ahead, on your left. Need I say that you can't miss it...? :)



( 15 more photos and inscription behind this cut. )

Dogfighting is disgusting enough, but for someone who enjoys such privilege and notoriety to attempt to profit from it? This is even more thoroughly vile.

This man should be soaked and elctrocuted with a stripped heavy-duty extension cord--just as he did to his less-than-profitable dogs. Useless waste of human skin. He should be financially responsible for the rehabbing of those dogs who have a decent chance of being re-socialized. Those that don't should get to use his carcass for a chew toy as they live out the rest of their natural lives in doggy luxury, on his dime. Any fines should go toward enforcing anti-cruelty laws and shutting down every last dog fighting organization in this violently uncivilized world. Hell, garnish his wages and leave him just enough to live on--he coud contribute more to the effort while alive, I suspect, than gnawed.