Happy Presidents' Day! Happy Chinese New Year!
Hey, all!
Happy Presidents' Day! Gong Xi Fa Cai! (I used the Mandarin because my favorite physics professor at university was Mandarin)...may the year of the red fire monkey bring all of us around the world peace, prosperity, and health. You don't have to be Chinese to enjoy the beauty, pageantry, and wisdom of the Chinese culture.
As you can tell (!), I've been loading up the blog posts lately.
There has just been so much to say!
So much information we need to know if we want to vote with intelligence and integrity.
It's been a pile of work for me, and maybe you feel overloaded by it all, too.
So I'm going to throttle back a little and see what happens. Or maybe I'll just throw together a few headlines and petitions and then binge-watch YouTube videos and pass along the ones I find most interesting.
Either way, thanks for coming along for the ride. I appreciate you!
Cheers!
-- Dot Calm's shadow
********************************************
Hey, Phil Robertson--
how many infidels have YOU killed today for God?
********************************************
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia passed away Friday, and Republicans have already agreed among themselves to stonewall President Obama's nominee to replace him. It must be nice to get paid $174,000.00 plus benefits to do nothing but keep someone else from doing his job.... Maybe I should run for office. That's a pretty sweet deal.
********************************************
Hey, Republicans and Christians--
is it sin to consider others' perspectives?
Why was Antonin Scalia
unwilling or unable
to look at the world from the point of view
of a woman?
Or a torture victim?
Why are you?
Why was Antonin Scalia
unwilling or unable
to look at the world from the point of view
of a woman?
Or a torture victim?
Why are you?
********************************************
This week's amazing science newsScientists have finally observed gravitation waves, confirming another aspect of Einstein's theory of general relativity. We can only see so far back in time with light--gravitation waves reveal far earlier events in the history of the universe than we've been able to observe with light-based telescopes.
It's awesome that scientists are finally discovering evidence to underpin the theory of gravity--you'd be surprised at how little evidence there actually is for gravity, as compared to, for example, the notion that living things change gradually, over many generations, due to heritable factors and environmental pressures and that, over many many generations, living things can become more complex (i.e., evolution). Republicans and Christians believe the former and doubt the latter, even though we have so few observations for gravity and so many--including from unrelated fields, like paleo-geology, genetics, embryology, etc.--for biology. It would seem strange except that people's daily observations include things falling but not drug-resistant microbes--we deal from the evidence at hand, often not realizing that there is more to be had if we would just go look it up.
Please click through to the BBC article--which is surprisingly thorough for a piece of popular press--and watch all the embedded videos (they're short). Well worth your time.
If Congress got 15 automatic pay raises since 1989, aren't we entitled to a raise or two, too?
DKos petition:
Sign the petition today calling on President Obama and the Department of Labor to urgently implement a new overtime rule that will increase workers’ wages and rebuild our middle-class.
Note: This petition is integrated with WhiteHouse.gov's "We The People" petition platform, which means that if we get 100,000 signatures the White House will send an official response. Please add your name today, and then click the confirmation email after signing.
Headlines from Daily Kos and AlterNet
********************************************
Freedom of religion demands
freedom from religion.
You are free to practice your religion
until it interferes with my life,
just as I am free to practice my religion
until it interferes with your life.
Both of us are free to practice
no religion
and to believe in any god or gods
or no god at all.
If you think freedom of your religion
gives you the right to dictate
how everyone else should live,
just imagine how you'd feel
if someone from a religion you don't like
tried that on you.
If you demand the right to prosthelytize,
then you agree to be prosthelytized to.
If you demand the right to dictate
others' sex lives,
then you agree to be dictated to.
Freedom from religion
protects everyone's freedom of religion.
freedom from religion.
You are free to practice your religion
until it interferes with my life,
just as I am free to practice my religion
until it interferes with your life.
Both of us are free to practice
no religion
and to believe in any god or gods
or no god at all.
If you think freedom of your religion
gives you the right to dictate
how everyone else should live,
just imagine how you'd feel
if someone from a religion you don't like
tried that on you.
If you demand the right to prosthelytize,
then you agree to be prosthelytized to.
If you demand the right to dictate
others' sex lives,
then you agree to be dictated to.
Freedom from religion
protects everyone's freedom of religion.
********************************************
| |
| Stop the right-wing attack on equality | |
| The petition to the Republican Governors Association reads:
“Take a stand against attempts by state legislatures to license religious-based discrimination.”
Add your name:
|
********************************************
If Congress got 15 automatic pay raises since 1989, aren't we entitled to a raise or two, too?
DKos petition:
Sign the petition today calling on President Obama and the Department of Labor to urgently implement a new overtime rule that will increase workers’ wages and rebuild our middle-class.
Note: This petition is integrated with WhiteHouse.gov's "We The People" petition platform, which means that if we get 100,000 signatures the White House will send an official response. Please add your name today, and then click the confirmation email after signing.
********************************************
Headlines from Daily Kos and AlterNet
DKos
AlterNet
 |
Janet Allon, AlterNet
And the RubioBot has another malfunction. READ MORE»
|
 |
Bill Blum, Truthdig
The impact of Scalia's death will be felt immediately in a number of pending high-profile cases. READ MORE»
|
 |
Phillip Smith, AlterNet
There are drug war excesses remaining to be rectified. Here are some of the most outrageous. READ MORE»
|
 |
By Adam Johnson, AlterNet
One of the lamer hit jobs on Sanders by the establishment so far. READ MORE»
|
 |
By Sarah Leonard, Bhaskar Sunkara, The Nation
You don’t need a $200,000 college degree to know when you're getting screwed. READ MORE»
|
 |
By Ben Jacobs, David Smith, The Guardian
Frontrunner goes after former Florida governor on brother, Iraq and 9/11 READ MORE»
|
 |
By Kali Holloway, AlterNet
Nearly 50 people have died while taking snapshots of themselves since 2014. READ MORE»
|
 |
By Elias Isquith, Salon
Has the venerated pundit become everything he hates? READ MORE»
|
 |
By Carrie Weisman, AlterNet
A new company is using touchable technology to help teach about the female orgasm, one vulva at a time. READ MORE»
|
 |
By Jeffrey B. Perry, AlterNet
Harrison’s 'When Africa Awakes' has been reissued in an expanded edition. READ MORE»
|
 |
By Sarah Ryley , Pro Publica
And it’s happening almost exclusively in minority neighborhoods. READ MORE»
|
 |
Outrage Grows Over Viral NYT Video Showing Charter School Teacher Yelling at, Berating First-Graders
By Adam Johnson, AlterNet
Episode is part of a long line of harsh tactics from the powerful charter school network. READ MORE»
|
 |
By Rocío Pérez Domenech, Global Voices
Women represent approximately 20% of gang members in Honduras alone. READ MORE»
|
 |
By Arturo Garcia, Raw Story
The Real Time host 'goes there' in a segment calling for lax drug laws. READ MORE»
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
********************************************
Are you a Christian?
Do you cut your hair? Shave?
Have tattoos? Eat pork or shellfish?
If you're a woman, do you wear a veil?
Which biblical laws do you not follow and why?
Do you not know Jesus' very words?
Till heaven and earth pass,
shall in no wise pass from the law.
-- Matthew 5:18
The Bible didn't change...
God's law didn't change...
God's law didn't change...
why did you?
********************************************
Movie time!
Rafael Edward Cruz suddenly pretends to care about the 99%, Brah. Hey, Rapture-Ready Teddy--don't piss on my head and tell me it's the economy trickling down.
Rafael Edward Cruz's lies, in this case about his shutdown of the government, shock Washington establishment journalist Jonathan Karl! Why am I not surprised that ickle Rapture-Ready Teddy is a pathological liar? He's also an amazing hypocrite. Who else would equate carpet bombing the Middle East with "pro-life"? ...Seriously, though, I have to bring up another window to hide Rafael's disturbing, ugly mug when it comes up on my screen--I can't afford to replace this computer because I punched it to death.
If you go to YouTube, you'll see a lot of other Cruz-bruisings listed and ready to click. Like this one, in which John McCain showed just how completely pissed off he was at Cruz for harming Arizonans by shutting down the government:
I was pissed at Cruz for shutting down the government, too. Rafael Edward "Ted" Cruz single-handedly cost me personally over $200,000.00 in lost wages due to unemployment and underemployment. I have only just gotten a decent new job as of mid-November. So, yeah, the least I can do is remind Dot Calm's readers what this sick, twisted, sadistic, narcissistic, evil man has done and then lied about.
Meanwhile, there is Rafael Edward Cruz's father, "Reverend" Rafael, who claims he is a scientist, saying "there is nothing scientific about evolution." I wrote to him, sending him a link to Wikipedia's article listing evidence for common descent and asking him from which university he earned his scientific doctorate, in which field he completed his dissertation, in which peer-reviewed scientific journals he's published his important result refuting all the evidence, and how he disproved the existence of DNA, which basically proves evolution.
Needless to say, he never responded.
Rafael Cruz, Sr., rants this bullcrap at his audiences with a straight face and the pretension of full conviction that he is 100% correct in every idiotic word he spews. And he further shows his ignorance by equating communism with socialism. People like my Tea Party Christian friend eat this shit up. "See, you stupid scientists? My pastor is a scientist, just like you, and he says evolution is a lie and you are all wrong about everything. And I believe him because he says so." They feel all smug, like they know just as much as those of us who have actually gone to school to learn the sciences and contribute in those fields. And they vote.
I could just as easily say, "I'm a general contractor, and I have successfully run my own contracting business for over 30 years, supporting myself and my employees." And you could hire me to work for you on my say-so. But if you knew anything about anything, you would first look me up on the Internet and see if I am who I say I am. You would check to see if I really have the company I claim to have. And, if I do, you could check for reviews, licensing board complaints, Better Business Bureau complaints, etc. And if that all comes up roses, then you could hire me to work on your house. If you don't know nuthin 'bout fixin' or buildin' no houses, you might or might not be suspicious to see me whack a nail with a screwdriver instead of a hammer. And you might not think twice to see me lay ceramic tile right on top of a vinyl floor or plywood subfloor with no further preparation than a bed of mortar (which is exactly how to do it if you want the entire floor eventually to break up and come loose). But if you were a contractor yourself, of if you knew anything about fixing and building houses, the alarm bells would go off, and you would know that I was a fraud (not a real contractor), a cheat (doing the job on the cheap), or ignorant (unskilled).
If you're willing to investigate the truth of what someone tells you about your house, then why be so lax when someone talks to you about your immortal soul?
Americans are so science-illiterate that, especially with Christianity's crusade to discredit science, they are in no condition to make such reasoned assessments of what non-scientists say about science. And that is a problem. And they vote.
In this video, watch Rafael Sr. call for ending the separation of church and state. Weirdly enough, Rafael Sr. makes Rafael Jr. look almost sane. I guess the batshit doesn't fall far from the sphincter in this family.
Kyle Kulinski of Secular Talk nailed my biblical literacy quiz in 8 minutes, 38 seconds! *sigh*...I so wish we could open the eyes of "the faithful" and show them what they are doing. There are none so blind as those who will not see...
Not even Pope Francis, for as likeable as he is compared to Pope Darth Sideous and even JPII, can count himself as an intellectually honest, good-hearted human being of integrity and morals. Why? Because he is against equal rights for LGBTQ and women, and he allowed the Vatican to claim that child rape is not torture. This is why religion is dangerous, friends! Once you force yourself to believe one thing your rational mind knows is wrong, you destroy your ability to think critically and clearly, letting in all the other crazy bullshit you'd otherwise have immediately recognized as such. If you still align yourself with the Catholic Church, then you support child rape--your church supports child rape, and you support the church. If you didn't, you'd leave. You'd stop giving them yourself to fill their pews and swell their numbers. You'd stop giving them your hard-earned money to mount their legal defenses, shuffle pedophile priests around, and do everything else in their power to protect the offenders from their victims and from justice. Is that really how you want your money spent--protecting child rapists from their innocent victims and subverting justice? Is that really how you want to be viewed--supporting child rape?
I hadn't realized that Matt Hagee was as evil and hateful as his disgusting father, John Hagee. These people are filled with incredible darkness, and neither they nor their flocks see it. Just watch the man's face as he talks--you'll see what I mean.
Here's a taste of Pastor Disgusting, if you can stomach it. Remember, dudecicle makes over $1M every year by fleecing the sheep in his flock. I'm sure the book and video sales help. My Tea Party Christian friend luuuuurves this man and has some of his books and videos to prove it. And he votes.
Here are John Hagee's failed end times "prophecies," made in 2014 calling for the sky to start falling come 2015. Oops--it's 2016 now, and the world is still here. Do ya think Hagee and his sheep realize that? Along with Rabbi Jonathan Cahn's calls for the stock market to crash September 2015, which it didn't, my Tea Party Christian friend eats this bullshit up. And he votes.
Here "Pastor" Hagee calls for American theocracy. I guess if you don't think God said exactly what He meant in the Bible (four-footed birds? selling daughters into slavery? the earth is flat, the sky is hard, the sun revolves around the earth, and outer space is water?), then you certainly wouldn't expect mere humans like the founding fathers to say exactly what they meant in the Constitution, duh. I for one welcome
Bill Maher's panel discusses ISIS violence vs U.S. violence. Friends, it's time for us to hold the U.S. government accountable for its war crimes and misdemeanors. I'd like to start with Bush and Cheney and work as far backwards as possible and scrutinize Obama, too. I like Ike, but not even he was completely innocent when he was President. Maybe the right someone had him over the right barrel--who knows? If you want to understand more about America's history of empire, cruelty, and violence, please read A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn, and consider going to biblio.com to buy hard copy--not only can you find cheaper books, but you will be helping disadvantaged children read and get books, too. You will be glad you did. It's time for all of us to be honest with ourselves. Loving our country doesn't mean pretending it never did anything wrong.
They will know we are Christians by our love. Christians, is this man really who you want on your team? Does he really represent your world view? The sad part? My Tea Party Christian friend would probably say, "Hell yeah! Just like Phyllis Schlafly says, Sam Solomon is one of the only voices of truth and reason left on the radio." Hum, I hadn't realized that Phyllis Schlafly was that hateful and toxic. No wonder God killed himself (temporarily).
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is dead at 79. He was found dead at a Texas ranch. He and his wife had nine children, proving themselves to be good Catholics. I am relieved he's no longer able to pollute the Supreme Court with his insane fundamentalist agenda, but I would much rather have had him retire and enjoy some time with his family than to drop dead. (Yeah, yeah--I know, I sound like such an amoral atheist compared to all the lovely Christians in the videos above. But I digress.) So far, it sounds like it was sudden, without any warning to his family and friends. That's an awful way to lose someone--you don't even get to say goodbye and "I love you" one last time. And 79 seems so young to die any more. Best wishes and condolences to his family and friends. It's hard to imagine someone that hateful and hard being loved and missed, but I'm sure Mr. Scalia is loved and will be missed. Even Adolf Hitler had Eva Braun. Did you know that Adolf and Eva were long-time partners and that they were married for less than forty hours before they committed suicide? She agreed to share his fate. If that's not romantic enough for Valentine's Day, I dunno what is. But I digress. Let's have a little video retrospective on Justice Scalia and remember the insanity and filth he degraded the Supreme Court with during his career of judicial activism (which the right consistently perpetrates but then projects onto the left--go figure).
The Supreme Court of the United States is no place for the kind of racism Scalia espoused. "What a moroon," as Bugs Bunny would say...and Scalia was one of the right's intellectual powerhouses...?!?? Un. Freakin. Believable.
Scalia believed that the devil is a real person and that flogging is not unconstitutional. That is some serious whiskey-tango-foxtrot stuff right there, friends. Wouldn't you prefer a SCOTUS judge who organizes his life around reality rather than superstition, fantasy, fairy tales, and monsters in the closet? Wouldn't you prefer a SCOTUS judge who doesn't bait and switch--saying that he interprets the Constitution literally, free from his own agenda, but then doing the exact opposite?! Wouldn't you prefer a SCOTUS judge who understands what a conflict of interest, or appearance of conflict of interest, is and acts accordingly? Seriously, did you realize he was such a whackadoodle cuckoo bird? If he got his news from the Washington Times--the moonie paper--at best and Rush Limpballs at worst, on a daily basis, then where on earth did he get his law degree--out of a Cracker Jack box?!?? It wasn't just Scalia's DOMA dissent that was argle-bargle--it was his whole benighted career.
Scalia contradicts himself again--this time, on Obamacare.
The fucker supported the Bush-Cheney junta's use of torture. I guess he never learned the 8th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which outlaws "cruel and unusual" punishment...torture being both cruel and unusual by definition. I guess he forgot that we prosecuted the Japanese for waterboarding in WWII. Geneva Conventions, scheneva conventions. He should have gone to JAIL for war crimes on that one--along with the rest of the Bush-Cheney junta.
Scalia even made sure to hate on teh gays. Boy, did he know how to make Catholics and Republicans look like jerks. Too bad he didn't READ A BOOK!
And, of course, there's always the misogyny of denying women insurance coverage for their prescription medicine. Do you really think he would have done the same to men seeking boner pills? Or type-2 diabetics? Hey, if, as the Catholic Church teaches, it's God's will to punish women with babies for having sex, then surely it's God's will for men with ED not to have boners and for people who won't control their food and alcohol intake to suffer the full brunt of diabetes. Who was Scalia to punish only women seeking birth control? Did he even care how many women take the pill for migraines, polycystic ovaries, and other health conditions having nothing to do with whether or not they want children? Naaaah, that's not black and white enough for the likes of Republicans like Scalia.
The "Hobby Lobby!" song (worth a chuckle):
********************************************
Argle-bargle
-- Antonin Scalia
-- Laugh In
********************************************
And now, a bit of fun...
The secret lives of atheists:
God Zilla!
God answers the dinosaur question:
posted by Dot Calm @ 7:55 AM
