Please vote tomorrow

Well, it’s less than twenty-four hours to go until the American election. While I’m not able to vote (I’m in the UK) we’ll all feel the consequences.

So no matter who you vote for, if you’re an American, please vote tomorrow. You won’t be in a position to complain about the government if you didn’t vote.

By far the most dangerous foe we have to fight is apathy – indifference from whatever cause, not from a lack of knowledge, but from carelessness, from absorption in other pursuits, from a contempt bred of self satisfaction. –William Osler

Sunday Sign: 1, 2, 5

Have trouble with maths? Become a priest.

(via That Pam Chick)

Twat of the Week: Ashley Todd

Ashley Todd with her fake wound

This week’s prize imbecile is Ashley Todd, the John McCain volunteer who claimed to the police that she was attacked by a (naturally black) man who then, upon seeing her McCain bumper sticker, carved a ‘B’ for Barack into her cheek with a knife.

It was, of course, a fake. Anyone who can’t see that is clinically insane – it is quite obvious that it could not have been inflicted in the circumstances she describes, as

1. the wounds are inconsistent with those inflicted by a knife. They look scratched.
2. the glyph is far too well formed to have been made by a criminal, in a hurry, in a relatively public place, on the face of a struggling person
3. the ‘B’ is backwards. Almost as if… it had been done in a mirror.

More About my Atheism (Meme Thingy)

Oh noes! I’ve been tagged by Homo Economicus! Oh well. Here goes…

Can you remember the day you officially became an atheist?

No.

Can you remember the day you officially became an agnostic?

Are you teasing me?

How about the last time you spoke or prayed to God with actual thought that someone was listening?

I don’t think I ever really thought someone was listening to my prayers. It always felt like I was improvising god’s answers as I went along.

Here is a good one: Were you agnostic towards ghosts, even after you became an atheist?

I never really believed in ghosts either.

Do you want to be wrong?

Not particularly. If I want a way to cheat death, I’ll achieve it using truly realistic means, not by bowing to a schizophrenic overlord.

I’d better tag somebody else for this now. Here goes then – to anyone from Proud Atheists, consider yourselves tagged.

An apology for mentioning multiplication

Oh deary deary me. I have been naughty – I haven’t touched this place in over a week. Well, here I am now, and to apologise, here’s some brief commentary on the Scouts.

It seems they’re now bringing a whole new dimension to their motto, Be Prepared. They’ve announced they’ll now be dispensing sexual health advice. And, predictably, Wonder Widdy and Birdshit Green have, of course, criticised the move.

I never had a great deal of respect for the Scout organisation: they still technically prohibit atheists from joining. What Widdecombe and Stephen Green need to get is that people are going to have sex, like it or not. Oh, and what does Genesis say? Oh yes.

Go forth and multiply.

Get it?

Sunday Sign: IT’S A TRAP!

FREE COFFEE - EVERLASTING LIFE - YES, MEMBERSHIP HAS ITS PRIVILEGES. Yes. Too late. Starbucks must have got here first.

(via Funniest Signs)

Twat of the Week: Elizabeth Dole

Elizabeth Dole looking scarily like a less attractive version of Joan Rivers

Oh dear, curse me. I have neglected this place lately. Oh well. Here we go with this week’s star cactus. This time it’s a politician – Elizabeth Dole, the woman responsible for attacking her political opponent, Kay Hagan, for simply consorting with atheists.

This tactic pangs of desperation – Hagan is winning and still gathering momentum, whilst Dole looks like she may well be on her way out of the Senate.

So now she’s resorted to cheap attacks. She claims that Hagan won’t stand up for North Carolina’s values. If that’s so, then why the fuck do all the opinion polls put her ahead? Does she think North Carolinans were born yesterday?

Of course, her campaign team’s put out the ‘Godless Americans PAC wants to abolish the Christmas holiday’ bullshit. Just because she meets with a group that actually wants secularisation of the winter holiday, not its abolition, she won’t necessarily implement their proposed policies.

They also, while mentioning the fact that Godless Americans PAC wants to remove “Under god” from the Pledge of Alleigance, conveniently omit the facts that (a) it wasn’t there in the first place, and (b) if disestablishmentarianism is to be practiced, it shouldn’t even be there.

The woman is deplorable for sinking to such low levels, and I sincerely hope Dole loses the election and that Hagan wins with a landslide majority.

Sunday Sign: Give away all of your money, to us

YOU GIVE GOD THE CREDIT, NOW GIVE GOD THE CASH. Presumably, otherwise, he'll end up being nationalised, with his saving business being sold off to the Spanish

(via Divine Caroline)

Why I don’t believe in god, in 100 words or less

I do not believe there is a god. I find the very idea of one implausible and unlikely.

I instead believe in what science can tell us. Science can be tested and repeated in your own home if you have the equipment. Religion can not.

Anyway, in most religions, god is a sadistic despot responsible for the genocide of thousands of people. I believe in reality, not the contents of fifty-two books with uncertain histories.

I simply cannot believe in what is essentially an evil sky fairy who is akin to an imaginary friend. Unless you can prove it exists.

Twat of the Week: Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee, looking like a fat Ian Hislop. (Image: David Ball/Wikipedia)

This week’s twerp is Mike Huckabee, who was dangerously close to becoming the Republicans’ nomination for President of the USA. The man’s as insane as Sarah Palin. Some of the things on his ridiculous tea-tray of policies and standpoints include:

• opposition to gay marriage
• the belief that homosexuality is unnatural and sinful
• the belief that creationism should be taught as an alternative to evolution, describing evolution as a ‘dogma’
• the belief that his sky fairy promised Israel to Jewish people
• the fact that he stands by (but no longer believes, I hasten to add) his 1992 statement that HIV patients should be quarantined: he now rejects this point of view, but he made this statement when we knew that HIV couldn’t spread via casual contact
• the belief that homosexuality causes disease
• the fact that he credited his god for his presidential campaign (it failed)
• the fact that he wants to ‘take the nation back for Christ’
• opposition to gay adoption
• the fact that if elected he wouldn’t change the US armed forces’ ridiculous ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy
• the belief that carrying concealed weapons should be allowed
• the fact that he is against universal health care
• the fact that he supports displaying the Ten Commandments in schools
• the fact that he believes embryos with no nervous system are sentient beings
• the fact that by day, he’s a Southern Baptist minister

In short, he’s barmy. The scary thing is that we may have someone who is effectively Huckleberry, but in hockey mom casing, a heart attack away from the presidency in mere months.

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