Owner: Bligbi URL:http://bligbi.com Join Date: Fri, 25 May 2007 17:33:06 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: The ramblings of a non-apologetic militant atheist mom doing time in the lonestar state on atheism, religion, feminist issues, politics and current events. Site statistics:Click here
Fun with telemarketers 2007-05-25 17:22:04 Getting off the phone with a telemarketer without being rude is about impossible. The slightest hesitation, the smallest act of politeness and *poof*. That’s 10 to 15 minutes of your time that’s gone forever. What’s a person to do? Tom Mabe may have discovered a solution for us:
Now we need protection from birth control? 2007-05-25 13:53:50 One of the biggest arguments by pro forced maternity activists is that women need ‘protection’. This how they’ve managed to get such ‘protective’ measures as informed consent, parental consent and mandatory waiting periods passed into law as well the upswing in support for forced sonograms.
We women supposedly have no idea that an abortion ends an unwanted pregnancy and we need ‘protection’ from the abortionists who would rather poke their eyes out with toothpicks than let us in on the secret.
Well, now they’ve found something else we need protection from. Birth control. Specifically we need protection from Lybrel. What makes Lybrel so dangerous? It’s a non-stop birth
control pill that stops periods.
Why is that dangerous? Because it blurs the gender lines! Yep. Wingnuts throughout the land can only tell the difference between men and women if they’re given roughly thirty days and one bleeds “from down there&rd
Fatwa over adult breastfeeding gets cleric fired 2007-05-25 08:25:28 Yes, you read that right. A cleric
from the Egyptian university Al-Azhar has been fired over a controversial fatwa that allowed breastfeeding
between unrelated adults in order to deal with Islamic social rules forbidding the mixing of unrelated men and women. The funny thing is that they’re all pissed off over something Mohamed said himself:
‘A’isha (Allah be pleased with her) reported that Salim, the freed slave of Abu Hadhaifa, lived with him and his family in their house. She (i. e. the daughter of Suhail came to Allah’s Apostle (may peace be upon him) and said: Salim has attained (purbety) [sic] as men attain, and he understands what they understand, and he enters our house freely, I, however, perceive that something (rankles) in the heart of Abu Hudhaifa, whereupon Allah’s Apostle (may peace be upon him) said to her: Suckle him and you would become unlawful for him, and (the rankling) which Abu Hudhaifa feels in his heart will disappear. She returne Read more:Fatwa
Bananas, Coke cans and now electricity 2007-05-24 11:28:56 Ray Comfort just doesn’t know when to quit. He’s tried to prove the existence of his god with a banana, brought up a coke can during a debate with the Rational Response squad and in a soon to be published book titled “The Atheist Delusion” he’s comparing disbelief in the existence of his god to disbelief in electricity
.
There were once three men who considered that they were very wise. They lived in a country that had only just been introduced to electricity.
One dark night, the men were invited by Edison Electric to see a demonstration of electrical power, because it was well-known that the three of them were skeptics when it came to electricity being a reality. The reason they denied its existence was because they didn’t believe in anything that could not be seen. These men were rationalists, and electricity was said to be invisible1. They refused to believe in something that couldn’t be scientifically demonstrated.
When they entered the dim
Interview with Lori Lipman-Brown of the Secular Coalition 2007-05-24 08:30:04 Just a quick hit to let ya’ll know there’s a great interview up at Nevada Today with Lori Lipman-Brown
of the Secular
Coalition. I especially enjoyed and agreed with her statement that we should, as the most hated minority group in America, try to avoid unnecessary conflicts with each other.
Do you ever worry that by lumping all nontheists, humanists, atheists etc. into a single category, and then tackling specific issues, you might be misrepresenting anyone? Can a humanist/non-religious individual be, for example, anti-abortion or against stem-cell research?
This is exactly why we do not take a position on abortion. We do however support embryonic stem cell research because attempts to protect blastacysts at that stage are based on theological notions of a soul being imbued at the moment of conception.
Occasionally some of our supporters disagree with us on an issue, but I’ve often supported groups with which I don’t agree 100 percent of the time. For example, w
Aspiring doctors defiantly choosing to enter abortion field 2007-05-23 18:13:34 From the LA Times comes a story about aspiring doctors who are choosing to provide abortion
s. This is such good news as decades of terror and intimidation by pro-forced maternity activists (H/T Exterminator) has taken it toll on many doctors with the number of abortion providers dropping by 37% between 1982 and 2000.
Listening to news of the Supreme Court’s ruling, third-year medical student Lysie Cirona, 24, found herself shouting at her radio in frustration. Then she took a hard look at her career plans. She had always been interested in psychiatry, but now she envisioned herself flying to North Dakota or Nebraska a few times a month to perform abortions.
“It wasn’t on my radar screen” a year ago, Cirona said, but her priorities have changed as she’s learned more about the history and current state of abortion rights. Cirona has taken to badgering her professors to include information about abortion in their lectures. She attended workshops on how to r Read more:Aspiring
, enter
Woman blames devil for torture of daughter by husband 2007-05-21 14:15:53 A two month old infant is in the hospital today with burns on her face and hand. She got those burns from the microwave her father put her in. He originally stated that she was burned when he tripped and spilled hot water on her. Then he confessed and said he put her in the microwave and turned it on because he was “stressed”.
Since that time his wife, the mother of the tortured child, has declared the whole incident is the result of the devil taking advantage of her husband.
“That was not my husband; my husband is a wonderful father. Satan was working through his weaknesses,” said Eva Marie Mauldin, the 20-year-old mother of the 2-month old who was severely burned after her father placed her in a hotel room microwave in Galveston two weeks ago.
In an exclusive interview with 11 News, Eva Mauldin said her husband Joshua is “not the monster people are making him out to be.”
She blames the devil and some form of a demonic possession of her husband fo
Humanist Symposium #2 2007-05-21 08:25:54 The second edition of the HumanistSymposium
, which includes my post On True Atheists, is up at Confessions of an Anonymous Coward. The next one will be at Black Sun Journal on June 10th.
A bunch of monkeys 2007-05-19 17:58:26 Here’s a video about humanity that puts it all in perspective:
Carnival of the Godless #67 2007-05-27 16:00:27 The latest edition of the Carnival
of the Godless
is up at Letters from a Broad. The next one is at Action Skeptics on June 10th.
PZ Myers of Pharyngula has put together a great collection of articles in response to the recent opening of the creation “museum” in Kentucky. Having a short attention span today, my favourite:
Other Carnivals:
The 39th edition of the Carnival of Liberals is up at A Blog Around the Clock.
The 38th edition of the Carnival of Feminists is up at Team Rainbow.
The 3rd edition of the Carnival of Space is up at Universe Today.
Americans United asks IRS to investigate the Doctor of Prayer 2007-05-31 17:56:03 The AU has asked the IRS to look into Bill Keller’s ministry for political intervention for articles he has written about Mitt Romney, a Mormon presidential hopeful. It began earlier this month when Keller put up an article stating that a vote for Romney was “a vote for Satan”. In the fallout Keller wrote another article where he again attacked Romney, whined about being attack and continued calling Mormonism a ‘satanic’ cult.
He also appears to have stepped over the line by actually encouraging Christians to vote for third party candidates should Romney end up the Republican representative (emphasis added):
The legitimate question that this has also raised is who to vote for in ‘08. As in the past, I refuse to tell you who to vote for, that is a choice YOU have to make. However, let me give you this guidance. No person who is serious about their faith can vote for a person who is going to support the killing of babies. No person who is serious about their faith can Read more:Americans
, United
, Doctor
, Prayer
We have been betrayed 2007-05-31 08:10:42 Last week the Democrats sold out the American public and gave what can only be called a ‘blank check’ to the boy king for his war in Iraq. Keith Olbermann took them to task for their betrayal in a special comment that I can only say “hell yeah!” to:
If you can’t view the video, the full text is available here. An excerpt:
For, ultimately, at this hour, the entire government has failed us.
Mr. Reid, Mr. Hoyer, and the other Democrats… have failed us.
They negotiated away that which they did not own, but had only been entrusted by us to protect: our collective will as the citizens of this country, that this brazen War of Lies be ended as rapidly and safely as possible.
Mr. Bush and his government… have failed us.
They have behaved venomously and without dignity - of course.
Brahma loses thousands to Buddha 2007-05-30 17:03:50 Thousands of the followers of Brahma
have apparently had it with the racial/social bigotry of their religious brethren and have decided to join Buddhism in protest. Brahma has been conspicuously silent on the whole matter while human representatives are insisting that Buddhism is just another way to say Hinduism.
This latest conversion is considered the largest (estimates put the crowd at 5000) and goes back to Bhimrao Ambedkar’s conversion 50 years ago also in protest of the Hindu “untouchables” dogma and the Indian caste system.
What I haven’t been able to find out is if this actually changes anything for those who convert as it relates to their dealings with Hindus. It seems strange that a simple ceremony can absolve you of the burden of the One True Religion™ places on you for the misfortune of your birth.
Read more:Buddha
Greg Epstein determined to start fight with atheists 2007-05-29 15:02:41 Something needs to be done about Greg Epstein. He is seriously damaging the reputation of humanism, be it “religious” or “secular”. Last month he got his arse chewed about off for referring to outspoken atheists as fundamentalist atheists while promoting some shindig he was/is involved with. So what does he do in the wake?
He gives an interview in the Washington Post where he again states that outspoken atheists are fundamentalists:
“At times they’ve made statements that sound really problematic, and when Sam Harris says science must destroy religion, to me that sounds dangerously close to fundamentalism,” Epstein said in an interview after the meeting. “What we need now is a voice that says, ‘That is not all there is to atheism.’ “
To make matters worse, he’s now being joined by other humanist leaders such as Roy Speckhardt of the American Humanist Association:
“Atheists are somewhat focused on the o Read more:determined
, fight
Let the rioting begin 2007-06-02 14:35:41
Completely outrageous! I suggest we drive a tank through the Vatican for this insult!
Read more:begin
Mr. and Mrs. AntiChrist 2007-06-01 10:34:07 The right reverend Fred Phelps welcoming the newest member of the Cheney family:
I have to admit to not hating Phelps as much as others do for the simple reason that unlike his counterparts, he’s blunt about his dislike of homosexuals. There’s no passive aggressive bullshittery (ie, love the sinner, hate the sin). There’s no pretty package labeled ‘think of the poor pitiful children’.
Just pure unadulterated hate in all it’s Christian glory. That’s got to count for something in an age where Christians prefer to take the “I’m only making your life hellish because you won’t obey me, thus victimizing my poor pitiful oppressed self” route.
I am the President! 2007-06-01 09:33:01 In case there’s any doubt regarding the sanity of our would-be boy king, take a gander at the display he recently put on for friends here in Texas (emphasis added):
The White House sees terrorists as born, not created by history, bearing the mark of Cain, not the mark of circumstance. There is a scarlet “T” written on their foreheads at birth and the only answer is to destroy them. This kind of thinking, of course, relieves the thinker of any responsibility for the presence of the insurgent-terrorist-whatever in our innocent midst.
What’s more, there is not much real give in the administration’s policies. True, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other American diplomats met Memorial Day weekend with the Iranians in Baghdad (a good first move but limited, since the Iranians have most of the power because of our incredible stupidity in Iraq). But by all reports, President
Bush is more convinced than ever of his righteousness.
Friends of his from Texas
Firefox on Linux Mint is driving me batty, please help 2007-06-06 20:31:35 I finally made the jump to Linux
after one bloody virus related pop-up too many on Windows this past weekend. So far, everything’s been good. But there’s one thing that’s driving me about batty. I can’t figure out how to stop Firefox
from opening multiple windows when I click on a link in an email or the occasional site.
I swear there was an option on Windows that when checked forced Firefox to open a new tab if it was already open. Am I going blind, senile or this not an option on the Linux version?
Pro forced Maternity Zealots caught being truthful yet again 2007-06-06 20:06:41 It’s only Wednesday, but boy has this been a week to remember when it comes to the pro forced
maternity zealots. First, a Focus on the Family representative actually admitted that it was the increased physical risk for the woman that was behind their support for the banning of Intact D&Es. Now another group by the name of American Life League has decided to show it’s “pro life” hand by attacking Christians who think poverty is a major issue worthy of rallying around (emphasis added):
Abortion is an act that takes the life of an innocent human child,” said Erik Whittington, American Life League’s youth outreach director. “It is shameful that Christians would rally around the physical needs of the poor and ignore the deaths of untold millions of babies. Abortion is poverty and the number one priority of our day should be its demise.”
This past weekend, Sojourners opened Pentecost 2007: Taking Vision to the Street, a conference aimed Read more:Maternity
Homophobic Bigot nominated for Surgeon General post 2007-06-06 12:22:49 The boy king has nominated
Dr. James Holsinger for the post of SurgeonGeneral
. As you may know, the Surgeon General
’s primary role is to educate the public on health issues using the best scientific information available. And what qualifications does the good doctor have that says he’s the best candidate for the job?
He and his wife are the founders of an anti-gay group that declares being homosexual a “lifestyle choice” that one can walk away from with the help of their “re-education” program. Such conversion type programs have been soundly repudiated by major medical associations including the American Psychological Association for years.
The good doctor has also written a paper where he explicitly attacks homosexual men using the lame “parts fitting together” argument as evidence that sex between men is bad, bad, bad. The paper also explains how this argument is justification for not believing that gay people should be entitled Read more:Bigot
Democrats courting American Faith Supremacists 2007-06-06 10:13:17 FAITH, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel. - Devil’s Dictionary
The Democrats
are again trying to court American
faith supremacists in their race for the American presidency. What is a faith supremacist? It’s a person who believes that faith is superior be it explicitly or implicitly. The right is full of the explicit kind. The left is full of the implicit kind. They’re the ones who write books, articles and blogs about how they and their brethren are being completely rational when they threaten to vote against their alleged values because of the lack of respect their ‘faith’ gets from people with the same alleged values.
The sad thing is we’re all so used to them that we hardly think to question their adherence to their so called values. Take a post by A Guy in the Pew for example in response to the news about the faith forum (emphasis added):
As I have said before, I Read more:Faith
Pro-forced Maternity Activists in row over Purism 2007-06-05 10:16:51 If you wanted to destroy the rights of a sub-group in your society how would you do it? Would you just issue a degree declaring “Group X is hereby stripped of its rights and privileges as members of Society XYZ” or would you start off small with something they’ll ignore and slowly work your way up to the degree which by the time you announce it it would be little more than a formality?
That’s the question the anti-womens rights activists seem to have asked themselves and they’ve apparently decided that anyone who goes with the second option is not a True Believer™.
How do we know this?
Well, they’ve went and attacked James Dobson of Focus on the Family for his support of the recent SCOTUS decision that essentially banned intact D&Es in an open letter that was published in the Washington Post a couple of weeks ago. Why are they upset about Dobson’s support of the decision? If you guessed anything other than “it’s just a ban on particular Read more:forced
, Maternity
, Activists
An abortion providers story 2007-06-04 13:35:14 I just back from a trip but I wanted to point out an article on Daily Kos by an abortion
provider on why he provides abortion before I crash for the day.
By 1967 I was a third year medical student, still with no visible means of support, and we were pregnant with our third child. It was the spring of that year and I was ending my rotation in the Ob-Gyn Service clinic. I was assigned a 40 plus year old, poverty stricken mother of several children. I think she was unmarried but I am not sure of that now. This care worn mother-of-several had a large abdominal mass that I rapidly determined to be a well advanced pregnancy. I asked my resident to come and break the news to this woman; it was very obvious to me that she was not going to be happy about the news of another pregnancy. When told that she - already unable to adequately feed and clothe her family - was again pregnant, she looked up at me and the resident. There we stood, two white males, well clothed, well feed young men with supe Read more:story
Giselle disagrees with the Catholic Church 2007-06-08 17:14:48 Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen has entered the ring so to speak. In an interview with Folha de S.Paulo she spoke out against the CatholicChurch
’s policy on premarital sex, contraception and abortion going so far as to denounce the ban on contraception as “ridiculous”.
The Brazilian beauty, one of the world’s top models, told Folha de S.Paulo newspaper in an interview that when the Church made its laws centuries ago, women were expected to be virgins.
Today no one is a virgin when they get married … show me someone who’s a virgin!” she said.
Asked about abortion, she said a woman should have the right to choose what is best for her.
If she thinks she doesn’t have the money or the emotional condition to raise a child, why should she give birth?”
Gisele, who had just arrived from New York to take part in Rio de Janeiro’s Fashion Week, also defended condom use.
“It’s ridiculous to ban contraceptives — y
Big Daddy Dobson endorses view that the Lesbians did it 2007-06-08 15:29:44 James Dobson
of Focus on the Family recently endorsed a sermon that blamed Lesbians (in advance, mind you) for the destruction of an American city due to our celebration of lesbian sex:
On the June 4 edition of his Focus on the Family radio show, Focus on the Family founder and chairman James C. Dobson broadcast a sermon by John MacArthur, pastor of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, titled “A Nation Abandoned by God.” In the sermon, MacArthur said America had forsaken God and engendered the “wrath of abandonment” as a result. MacArthur declared: “You know a society has been abandoned by God when it celebrates lesbian sex.” MacArthur further argued that as a result of America’s abandonment, the destruction of a major U.S. city “could happen” and that “God would be just in any calamity he brought upon us.”
You just can’t make this up. Nonetheless, we must ask ourselves a very important question. Read more:Daddy
, Big Daddy
YouTube Funny: Slow down dude, you’re not driving a Ferrari 2007-06-08 13:17:07 Have you ever had take one of those test where you have to give your opinion about the tester? I’ve always hated them myself. The people in the following video had to do give their opinion on a class they took. Some chose to give their opinion on the professor. The results are hilarious.
Read more:Ferrari
, YouTube
, Funny
The Candidates on Abortion 2007-06-12 14:42:54 Democrats
Republicans
No surprises really. The Republicans support overturning Roe vs. Wade and support the recent SCOTUS decision making late term abortions more dangerous for women while the Democrats support Roe vs. Wade and criticized the SCOTUS decision.
And since I’m leaning towards Senator Obama, here’s what he had to say on Roe vs. Wade:
“I think that most Americans recognize that this is a profoundly difficult issue for the women and families who make these decisions. They don’t make them casually. And I trust women to make these decisions, in conjunction with their doctors and their families and their clergy, and I think that’s where most Americans are.”
— Democratic Candidates
Debate, April 26, 2007
And on the SCOTUS Decision:
“I strongly disagree with today’s Supreme Court ruling, which dramatically departs from previous precedents safeguarding the health of pregnant women. As Justice Ginsburg emphasized in her dis
America: The land of dumb and dumber 2007-06-12 14:05:05 There’s a new Gallup Poll out regarding evolution. It’s nothing but bad news. The majority of Republicans reject evolution, preferring to believe that humanity and so on and so forth are the special creation of an invisible man who lives in the sky somewhere.
Republicans shouldn’t feel too bad though because as you can clearly see, 40% of Democrats and 36% of independents also prefer ‘magic man did it’. Of course, the report also shows there’s a clear connection between faith and ignorance with only 24% of weekly church attenders accepting evolution as the answer to “where did humanity come from”.
Those who answered in the negative were also asked what their primary reasons were for not accepting evolution as a valid explanation for the origins of humanity. Their responses:
Reason
Percentage
I believe in Jesus Christ
19
I believe in the almighty God, creator of Heaven and Earth
16
Due to my religion and faith
16
Not e Read more:America
Suffer not the Woman to go unpunished 2007-06-11 11:28:29 Various groups throughout the land claim that their motivation for opposing the rights of women is based upon their religious beliefs. They use terms like “pro-family”, “pro-life” and describe children, especially the allegedly pre-born ones as being ‘blessings’ from their god. Concerned Women of America (CWA) is one of these groups. In the opening of a PDF about abortion the CWA states that humans are ’sacred from conception to natural death’ and that believers must ‘remain firm in that truth and uphold it’.
Yet time and again the leaders and spokespersons of these groups use language that makes it clear that these words are little more than rhetorical umbrellas for a deep seated hatred of women, especially those of us who dare see ourselves as anything more than the caretakers of and the human incubators for men. Janice Crouse of the CWA is but the latest to give us an example of such hatred. In response to a set of bills design
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