I can assure you that there is no magical being who hates homosexuals.  This is a manifestation of your own inability to cope with fear of the unknown, and hate directed at something that you can not understand.

I can assure you that there is a completely scientific theory of the source of life, and it has nothing to do with a magical guy in a beard.

I can assure you that the Earth is hundreds of millions of years old. It is based on factual evidence, scientific study, and radio-active dating.

I can assure you that evolution is the history of mankind.

I can assure you that the Bible, the Koran, and other religious texts are works created by man, for man.  There is no outer-worldly influence on these (or any other) books.

I can assure you that nothing in history has claimed the lives of as many people as faith in a god, and/or our inability to accept others’ faith in a different god.

I can assure you that ignoring science, fact, history, evidence is just a weak attempt to further the myth of an aging religion.  This is simply a manifestation of your inability to admit that millions of people, including yourself, were wrong.

If you must have faith, have faith in yourself.

Thank goodness there are massive corporations and a government purchased by them to jingle the car keys with their left hand, and take EVERYTHING WE OWN with their right.

No one is even trying to hide it anymore.  BP owns the American government.  We’ve come to the point where they’ve actually PURCHASED U.S. JUDGES.

I don’t know how much clearer I can make it.  The federal and state representatives that YOU ELECTED are lying, cheating, taking payoffs and looking the other way.

“Conservapedia” is a Wikipedia-clone, apparently trying to feign accuracy and trustworthiness while selling a right-wing, conservative, christian message directly over top of SCIENCE.

Even if you’re a conservative, this should scare the shit out of you.

And if that doesn’t do it for you, check this out:

Young earth creationists believe, from the biblical account, that dinosaurs were created on day 6 of the creation week approximately 6,000 years ago, along with other land animals, and therefore co-existed with humans. As such, they reject the Theory of Evolution and the beliefs of evolutionary scientists about the age of the earth.

- link to the madness

ROFL

Not long ago, a YouTube video portraying a married couple (and their young children) rapping while dancing around their minivan entered the internet meme realm.  This (not surprisingly) was a commercial for Toyota’s latest minivan, the family-moving-grocery-getter, or whatever it’s called.

Following on the heels of the Swagger Wagon’s success, a video called “Dad Life” was released and quickly found internet success.  The source of this video, however was a bit more cryptic.  The minivan used in the video is never mentioned by brand or model, the dad’s aren’t donning similar khaki pants or shoes, in fact no brands are really mentioned at all.  There is no logo, website ad, watermark, or other indication of the creators anywhere in the video, so finding the source required a little digging.

As it turns out the Dad Life video was paid for/recorded by/produced by/somehow involved with a religious organization in Tulsa OK called Church on the Move.

But I digress.

Let’s get to the meat of this post:  These two videos symbolize (to me anyway) a continuing effort in some kind of “moral propaganda” assumingly centered around the belief that the morality of the world is in a steady decline, and making responsibility and “moral behavior” more appealing to the uneducated masses will sway this decline back toward the “positive”, bring people back to the church, and set some kind of example for youngsters.

For the most part, I have no problem with what they’re trying to do here.  Bringing the moral standard of behavior up a notch or two probably isn’t a bad idea.  I’m not a huge proponent of church, but for those of you who are, great!  Get back in there and pray for the rest of us.

So, crank up that morality!  But, don’t fool yourselves.  Remember that propaganda is disinformation.  If minivans and family vacations and diaper changes were as cool as these videos would have you believe, we wouldn’t have James Bond, or Playboy magazine, or “The most interesting man in the world” commercials.

However, I am very excited for tonight’s unveiling of new Futurama episodes!

Fox announced that Comedy Central had picked up the show for 26 all-new episodes. The new batch begins tonight, with two episodes airing starting at 10 p.m.

The 10 Most Important Things They Didnt Teach You In School

Why do we do this?  The answer, actually,  is quite simple.  It’s baked right into our DNA and psychology.

The “Good”:
Buddhists, Catholics, and other religious sects practice self-denial (even self-injury) in the effort to “connect” themselves to their God.  Human nature and basic psychology dictate that we are unable (or unwilling) to subject ourselves to stories of suffering, strife, or peril of our deities unless we too, can share the burden of self sacrifice.

The Bad:
People are human, that is to say, that we are imperfect by design.

Where there is no way, we will find one.  We don’t even need to get into the Catholic priests (again) to discover that Christianity’s view of sex is slanted.  But even seemingly “strict” religions, like Islam for example, where followers (who are almost always “fundamentalists”) are willing to “die a thousand deaths” to be holy has excellent examples of good-old human behavior.

“To deny our own impulses, is to deny the very thing that makes us human.”
- Andy and Larry Wachowski

The irony here is that our very nature of existence causes both the inability to be abstinent, and the self-edification to crave it.

$733 million in fines were paid, quietly, last year by BP for safety violations ALONE.

BP had 760 safety violations last year (Exxon had 1, Mobile had 8).

The hearings are really just a public bashing of the BP CEO for the general public’s enjoyment.
OK, we’re past that.  Now let’s move forward.

Will BP be banned from drilling in US waters?
Will BP be forced to change ANYTHING about how they do business AFTER they get slapped with the “eleventy zillion” dollar fine which they may or may not pay?
Will we get ANYTHING out of this except some exciting news to watch?

Spoiler alert…  No.

Original photo credit (here)

Dear Greatest Blogger in the universe:

I keep hearing about “net neutrality” and I was wondering what you thought of it?

(no, this isn’t an actual letter I’ve received LOL)

“Net neutrality” is the belief that no internet service provider should have the right (or exercise the right) to ‘throttle’ or control your internet access.  Basically, if the providers are given the freedom to limit your access, they can create a perceived scarcity of access, and profit from it.

You are probably now screaming “son of a bitch!“, so in true blog form, let me anger you further:

74 House Democrats and 37 Senate Republicans just signed their names to industry letters telling the FCC to halt efforts to protect Internet users and prevent phone and cable companies from blocking Internet traffic.

Yeah, check that shit out.

If you live in Florida, you should ask Rep. Corrine Brown where she got $20,500. you should ask Rep. Alcee Hastings about the $28,000 and you should ask Rep. Suzanne Kosmas about her $25,000 influx of cash.

Ready for the big spoiler?!  Your elected officials are fucking you over.  I know, it blew my mind too…