Shit that Pissed me off This Week – 11/2
Crazy Christians Claim Hurricane Sandy is the Wrath of God
Any time a random act of nature affects human beings, god is getting all up in our face for something, according to the crazy wing of the Religious Right.
Now why god flooded the east coast is up for debate. It might be gay marriage. I could have something to do with Israel. It could have something to do with the fact that it is a coast and getting hammered by a storm once in a while is about as likely as floods happening on flood plains.
If you look really closely at the cloud formation, you can see god flipping off the east coast.
Once again, why believe that God is such a colossal dick? Why would he put the lives of believers at risk? There are, unquestionably, a large number of New Yorkers who don’t support gay marriage. So god is punishing them because they didn’t oppose gay marriage hard enough?
When can we all settle down and accept that natural events are not the act of a vengeful god?
At the very least, can you all have a conversation and figure out what he’s punishing us for before you start talking out of your collective asses?
Shit that Pissed me Off This Week – 10/26
Yes, that’s right, let’s discourage people from being seismologists by threatening them with imprisonment if they don’t do a good enough job predicting Earthquakes. You know, because their job is to be perfect about something we know we can’t accurately predict.
And when they get it wrong, we can hold them accountable when people die.
By god, someone will PAY FOR THIS!!!!
You know, because it makes sense to hold people accountable for an act of nature.
The next time some idiot decides to jump into freezing cold rapids at Yosemite National Park and they die as a result, we should sue the Federal Government because they didn’t give the guy an IQ test at the gate, right?
Geeks Without God is Getting all Political this Week
This week features an episode we recorded back at the Renaissance Festival. We sat down with Tony Miller (Shamus the Insulter) to talk to him about being raised as a Menonite. I still think we need to back to talking about him about that because we ended up getting sidetracked by the upcoming gay marriage amendment.
Obviously, I’ve spent a lot of time writing and talking about the amendment but I really liked a lot of the things Tony said in this episode. We decided to schedule it a couple weeks before the election in hopes that it might change someone’s mind. Even if it doesn’t change your mind, I’m hoping that we can inspire a few people to talk about it to family and friends who are still going to vote “yes.”
People who vote “yes” don’t want to talk about it. At some level, I believe they understand that their decision to vote “yes” is a hurtful act and they don’t like to be told. This isn’t an ideological conservative vs. liberal issue. It is a “fucking over a minority issue.” I don’t have a problem with people who are going to vote for Mitt Romney. I have a big problem with people who are voting “yes.”
All righteous indignation aside, I’m pretty proud of this episode. Please listen.
Life isn’t fair. Anyone who says Differently is Selling Something.
Over the weekend, I went to a Minnesota Atheist meeting in Minneapolis to hear Stephanie Svan speak on justice in a “just world.”
Her talk coincided with a Christian posting a comment on my Inherit the Wind blog in which she said, in part:
I don’t feel my children are growing up ignorant because we teach them that they are gifts on loan from God to us, and they are loved and cared for by parents and a God who loves them dearly and has an awesome plan and purpose for their lives.
If I had a fundamental objection to religion, it is this idea that god has a “plan” for us. It plays into this idea that the universe is inherently a “fair” place. Yet the facts suggest that this is not the case.
Shit that Pissed me off This Week – 10/19
Academic Men Explain Things to Me Tumblr
I shouldn’t read these pages. Yes, most men are not misogynist pricks who talk down to women at every opportunity but far too many of them are.
Ladies, if I’ve ever said anything this shitty to you, I sincerely apologize. I’ll try to do better.
Here’s my favorite:
I was at a conference outside my field (I am in Women’s Studies), and a male undergraduate came up to me, saw the department name on my tag, and told me, “no offense, but Women’s Studies is a dead field. It’s built on a fundamentally sexist premise, so it was only a matter of time before you killed yourselves.” Thanks?
Hey everyone, rule of etiquette number one: if you ever need to preface what you say with “no offense,” what you are about to say is really fucking offensive.
Shit that Pissed me off this Week – 10/12
I honestly wonder if the dude even reviews law before he makes rulings. His most recent comments seem to state that since anti-sodomy laws were on the books for 200 years, that makes them constitutional.
I guess we can be pretty certain he’s not going to be terribly supportive of marriage equality, is he?
See, I understand that there are different legal interpretations of a lot of things but what I don’t understand is how one dude who is so clearly an asshole who doesn’t give a shit about anything except making sure corporations can spend money however they please can have so much power over the rest of us. Yeah, he’s one of nine but he’s one vote you can always count on.
And by that I mean, ask yourself how a jackass would rule on any particular topic and you can bet Scalia will vote that way.
Not that kind of jackass!
Shit That Pissed me off This Week – 10/5
I don’t care how you feel about it – voter fraud is a red herring in the Voter ID debate. There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud and further, no evidence that voter ID laws will prevent fraud.
Also, we’ll need to draw some blood.
What Voter ID laws will do is make it more difficult for college students to vote without getting a new drivers’ license in the state where they attend college. It will make it harder for seniors who no longer drive to vote. It will make it harder for a lot of people to vote and that pisses me off because voting is one of the most basic rights we all have in this country.
We shouldn’t make it harder to vote. We should make it fucking easy to vote. That way more people will vote.
All that aside, isn’t it a bit suspicious that the party who is most strongly pushing for voter fraud is responsible for voter fraud? I know it’s just one guy but that proves my argument. This sort of thing is not widespread.
What are they really trying to do with these amendments? Because it would seem what they aren’t trying to do is stop voter fraud.
Why now?
When I look at the amendment battle this year, I am angered not just by the cold-hearted attempt to use a public forum to legislate what is a private matter. I’m also angered by the cynicism it takes to put these amendments on the ballot now.
Yes, these amendments are on the ballot, in part, to get conservatives to the polling booth.
You’d think that the better play would be to put up candidates worth voting for but neither major party seems interested in doing that.
Doing something nice for my kid
Last week, I wrote about how my son was being bullied and how proud I was of his response.
A lot of people told me how he sounds like a great kid and they also told him this weekend. Before the weekend, I made a facebook post wherin I suggested that those who wished to should give him $5.00 to help replace a 3DS he lost last week. Several people asked if there was a way to do it online.
So for those folks, here is a way to donate to his DS fund through paypal. You can only donate $5.00. I don’t want anyone to donate more than that. If you can’t afford $5.00, that’s OK.
If we make more than what we need to buy him a DS, we will donate the remainder to Minnesotans United for All Families.
If you would rather make a $5.00 to Minnesotans United in his name, that would also be terrific.
Thanks for all the love and support he’s received. He doesn’t entirely undersand it but I know he appreciates it.
Here’s the donation button for those who would like to use it:
Grail Diary 