A dilemma

Guise, I don’t know what to write about. I mean, I have a couple of drafts:

1) one about politeness in response to some common fallacies, like “politeness is just a form of empathy”

2) one about BrE/AmE

3) one about fundamentalism

4) one about reading, interpretation, and fundamentalism

You can vote, if you wanna.

So instead I bring you:

(sauce) <— sadly, the trolling was already noticed and deleted :(

Without comment, because it doesn’t need any.

(Well, not really, because I thought it might possibly cleverly refer to this:

In January 2006, West again sparked controversy when he appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone in the image of Jesus wearing a crown of thorns

(sauce)

So there)

I swear I will have something interesting next time ^^;;;;;;;;;;;

Your regularly scheduled programming will return shortly! LINKS

I can’t make up my mind what’s actually a bigger news, in a way. Anyway:

1. Apparently, a bunch of Teabagger trolls on Digg has been suppressing non-teabagger (as in, not extremely right wing, not denying artificial climate change, not denying evolution, not denying that assorted social problems are problems, not denying that the social justice discourse is important, etc, etc) news and articles for years.

This is completely batshit insane, if only for the reason that there are actually people perfectly willing to waste sizeable chunks of their (free?) time on creating multiple accounts, circumventing bans, and so on, only so that they can collectively remove articles that say Obama is not a Kenyan Muslim terrorist or something.

And a good waste of life to you too, sir(1)!

2. Prop 8 is temporarily overturned, and everybody is quite rightly in a jubilant and festive mood, but! Not all! I know, I know, the Maddow video is awesome and stuff, but let’s focus on something not a lot of people is focusing about because of their jubilant and festive mood, namely, right-wing gnashing of teeth, bawwing and wailing(2).

Maggie Gallagher!

Judge Walker has added insult to injury by suggesting that support for marriage is somehow irrational bigotry, akin to racial animus. The majority of Americans are not bigots or haters for supporting the commonsense view that marriage is the union of husband and wife, because children need moms and dads.

(…)

Parents will find that, almost Soviet-style, their own children will be re-educated using their own tax dollars to disrespect their parents’ views and values.

Cry me a river of crystalline tears, with your sapphire orbs! (I’ll even donate some money for the Soviet style re-education camps, if a donation drive is ever undertaken by the fellow Marxists hurr durr derp)

Worldnut Daily!

He seeks to deconstruct (and then reconstruct) the definition of traditional marriage by describing its constituent elements and showing how those elements can be applied equally to heterosexual marriage and same-sex marriage, thus concluding there is no difference between the concepts. It’s as if he compared my DNA with any of yours and concluded that because 99.9 percent of human DNA is the same in everyone, you and I are the same person.

Guys, the Fans of proof by analogy(3) group on Facebook has a new member (guys, we need an international version now, too) hurr hurr derp derp derrrrrrp.

AFA!

Judge Vaughn Walker’s ruling yesterday, in which he trampled on the will of seven million Californians, is a monstrous, egregious, reprehensible expression of judicial activism and tyranny.

TYRANNY! TYRANNY! It’s when someone doesn’t allow the state you live in to support your  treatment of human beings as if they were subhuman. Clearly.

Although almost no other organizations other than the American Family Association are making an issue of this, Judge Walker should have recused himself from this case since he is a practicing homosexual. This created a clear conflict of interest, and he had no business issuing a ruling on a matter on which he had such a huge personal and private interest.

I’m sorry, I had to guffaw here.

He is Exhibit A as to why homosexuals should be disqualified from public office. Character is an important qualification for public service, and what an individual does in his private sexual life is a critical component of character.

Catholics: first, they come for the gays. Next, the Protestants(4).

I would watch out for the Catholics if I were a Protestant.

Coffee time now.

(1) I haven’t been using Digg, so, I’m not actually invested or anything. I’d love to hear about that from someone who did. Did the users notice suspicious patterns in the articles being buried? I mean, someone obviously did, duh, or there wouldn’t have been an investigation and stuff, but how common was this noticing? Did people think that the burying patterns actually reflect people’s opinions accurately, and lost faith in humanity in general, and joined VHEMT? I wanna know.

(2) Oh, the sweet taste of suffering and misery! *Sendai-in-her-festive-and-jubilant-mood*

(3) Where by analogy obviously a false one is meant.

(4) Yeah, I know that the term “Protestant” is polemical and therefore problematic. I couldn’t think of another word for “mostly all Christians who are not Catholic”, though.

Vox Day proves that feminism will make your country flourish and prosper and a better place <3

You haven’t misread. Indeed, it is Vox Day who indeed pontificates the benefits  the society can gain if it embraces the feminist ideology. I can’t blame you if you twitch a bit, and ask yourself quietly whether this Vox Day, the defender of feminism and women’s rights, can really be the same person who wrote this:

Consider the two great laments of the modern American woman. For the unmarried woman, it is the reality that she must marry later in life than ever before, if she is able to marry at all. For the married woman, it is that unlike generations of women before her, she cannot afford to stay home with her children unless she is fortunate enough to have married to a man of the financial elite.

Both of these developments can be traced directly to women’s rights. Men’s increasing unwillingness to marry stems primarily from two causes — the feminized family court system that transformed marriage from a mutually beneficial contract into a financial and emotional liability, and the removal of paternal responsibility for the sexual behavior of young women. Ergo, the need for marriage has been eliminated while its liabilities have increased. As Blue America and de-Christianizing Europe increasingly show, in the absence of religion there is now very little impetus for marriage. (source)

or that:

I have said before that calling a feminist a feminazi is an insult to National Socialism. Now, it is clear that even Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot are second-rate killers in comparison with Ms. Sanger, Ms. Friedan and Ms. Steinem. (source)

or even this:

Since only the woman who is not entertaining the possibility of sex with a man and is subsequently raped can truly be considered a wholly innocent victim under this ethic, it is no wonder that women who insist that internal consent is the sole determining factor of a woman’s victimization find traditional Western morality to be inherently distasteful. (source)

And yet! In Why women have to vote? Vox Day points out several important reasons for why they should:

1. Although he starts his initial argument very uncertainly, by cautiously mentioning that there is very little conclusive research done on how the women’s suffrage positively influence societies, he soon gives a long list of examples where women’s suffrage and women’s rights movement did influence societies positively. In any case, we think that Vox Day, not being an expert on feminism and sociology, as painfully  evinced by the above quotations, would benefit from studying the relevant literature a bit more closely.

2. Vox Day’s subsequently indicates that countries whose governments focus on the support of the capitalist system at the cost of personal freedom of their citizens often tend to have severe restrictions on voting and political representation, also of women.

3. In his next argument, Vox Day points out that the increased liberalisation, which often follows the recognition of women as full citizens by the state, has many a time lead to a sudden change of priorities for the better, such as more restrictive gun laws in Switzerland introduced 22 years after women’s receiving suffrage, in recognition of the obvious fact that one’s right not to be more likely to be shot is more important that one’s right to own a boom stick. This was accomplished at a relatively swift pace despite Switzerland’s long tradition of private militia.

4.  To quote this short passage in its stunning perceptiveness:

The opponents of women’s suffrage have been proven correct with regards to their predictions of a) increased divorce, b) increased abortion, c) sexual promiscuity, d) increased paganism.

This means that despite many pessimistic predictions, various women’s movements throughout the last two centuries did manage to fulfill many of those movements’ demands, and that we are, despite everything, progressing towards equality for everyone, regardless of their gender, sexual orientation, race, religion and class.

(I would also prefer Vox Day not to forget that lesbians and trans* women also are and have been part of the women’s movement in a way, although I don’t want to erase their, or rather our *own* accomplishments)

It’s always very heart-warming to see the efforts of many generations of women around the world recognised by a, hopefully, former opponent.

5.  Next, Vox Day quotes John Lott (unfortunately, his website is now defunct. I’m certain I’m not the only feminist who would have liked to see his brilliant analysis of our, let’s face it, epic win):

“The two consistent results were: allowing female suffrage resulted in a more liberal tilt in congressional voting for both houses, and the extent of that shift was mirrored by the increase in turnout due to female suffrage. The effects are quite large.”

The above words refer to the US situation, so the correct re-interpretation for Europe would be “social-democratic tilt in parliament voting”; this of course means that women were smart enough to recognise that anti-feminist political parties, such as the most conservative ones, are least likely to represent their interests effectively, and voted accordingly.

6. Finally, in the last attempt at hipster irony, a stylistic choice of Vox Day I tend not to value very highly, he amusingly mentions that:

Perhaps not all women are fascists at heart, but without their votes, few fascists would ever be elected.

Some readers who are less well-read than Vox Day may misunderstand his sophisticated irony, so I’ll try to explain: Vox Day is wittily alluding to the fact that under the fascist regime in Italy women were not allowed to vote;  they receive suffrage only in 1946.

Thank you, Vox Day.

(Link to the Vox Day post was found in the comments of this post.)

Links! (Victorian sex survey, Assyrian tablets, Constance McMillen prom)

1) Victorian sex survey:

“I opened it up and there were these questionnaires”— questionnaires upon which dozens of women, most born before 1870, had inscribed their most intimate thoughts.

In other words, it was a sex survey. A Victorian sex survey. It is the earliest known study of its type, long preceding, for example, the 1947 and 1953 Kinsey Reports, whose oldest female respondents were born in the 1890s.

2) What can happen to an absolutely priceless artefact during WWII:

Within a few years, he’d pawned the tablet, along with rare coins, to purchase the liquor store, the attorney said. But he soon paid back the pawn broker and reclaimed the coins and tablet.

3) Constance McMillen thing. By now everybody surely must know what happened, so I’ll just point to the account of her school mate about the school mate’s trials and tribulations at the hands of the omnipotent attention-whoring Gay Mafia, pulled straight from the comment the cross-burning ignorant hick’s left at another blog (her name was later pulled from her public Facebook profile, and how stupid you have to be to have a public profile when there’s a bunch of data-hungry lawyers prowling the internet in search of damning evidence? The lawyers who, I hope, do have the Screengrap app). Gee, it’s JUST LIKE In the Grove:

What people are failing to realize is that much of the fault of this whole stink lies with Constance, not her mistreatment by the school district, but her crazy-reckless need for attention. It sounds mean and horrible and like we planned it all specifically to embarrass Constance, but we didn’t. We let her have her prom with her girlfriend and her tuxedo and we went to party it up in the “boondocks” not because we wanted her rights violated, but so we could salvage what has turned into a total fiasco

Well. I can think of someone who’s failing to realize things; it’s not “the people” (whoever they might be).

Also, there are some photos from the no gay, disabled,  and otherwise different folks allowed prom here (again, pulled from Facebook accounts of those involved, and  again, not very smart, I’d say. Good for Constance though).

The most spectacularly failtastic bit of fail comes with this, though:

So, I guess it’s OK for two girls to kiss, as long as they aren’t real lesbians? Very cunning. Also, a girl in the other photo is wearing JEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANS.

I mean, jeans. This is hardcore stuff, guys. Like, a step away from fully fledged lesbianism or something. I’d pray for that girl, just in case.

As usual in cases like that, a plucky internet detective uncovered the Facebook groups those people (that is Itawamba blahblah  Highschool students) belong to and unsurprisingly:

And, if you look at the facebook profiles for the “secret prom” attendees you see the same pages recurring in their profiles:

Greenville Christian School
The Charleston Baptist Congregation
Little Creek Baptist Church
“I’m Proud To Be Christian” by Aaron Chavez Religious Center
Prayer In School Religious Center
I Love Jesus Religious Center
Freedom Rally 2010 “A call to Revival”
Dedicated to Christ
Going to Church Religious Center
God id Love Religious Organization
Jesus Daily Religious Organization
I’m a Christian & I’m Proud Religious Organization
The Resolve Tour Religious Organization
ChristBuild Inc Religious Organization
Christ In Action Non-Profit

CUTE. Clearly, what they need is moar Jesus in their lives OH WAIT-

Also, I personally agree with the following comment made about the latest developments in the Constance McMillen’s prom case:

If they [people who organised the no-;esbians-allowed prom — Sendai] keep digging that hole, they’ll soon be swimming in magma.

…

Dig faster.

I hope the original commenter will forgive me for quoting her verbatim, but I believe the comment i’s indicative of the attitude a sane person ought to preserve in face of the fail exhibited repeatedly by the Itawamba Highschool students, their parents and teachers, may a concert piano fall on their bigoted heads.

4) (I’m thinking about having a book-by-book reading orgy progress report on Twitter. Hmmm)

Linkspaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam!

1. If at 14 you believe you’re ready to have children, you are of course wrong.

However, if ten or even twenty years later you persist in your delusion  belief  that you were ready to have children at 14? You are totes not ready to have children still.

Hilary Mantel thinks you should be popping out children at 14, which is, like, absolutely not influenced by her being infertile and unhappy about it. Oh, I do realise it must be a terrible tragedy for her, but for some people? Getting pregnant at the age 14 is, too.

(Pity she’s such a douche, her books seem like something I could pick up when my brain needs several days in a semi-enjoyable stand-by mode)

***

2. How (Not) to Write About Africa. (Un?)surprisingly some of those boring, offensive, ridiculous, dehumanizing tropes still persist. Also, an audiovisual aid for those less willing to read (there’re no Morning Musume in there, I promise!):

***

3. NHK website about hikikomori (wiki on hikikomori). I just want to say, at first I snickered at the irony of NHK of all places having a website about hikikomori stuff, then I got sucked in and spent about two hours reading through the FAQ (STATISTICS!!!!!!!!11!1!!).

It’s in Japanese, though.

***

4. Shakesville post about rape culture. I just want to say, I’m sooooooo happy I don’t have to write it.

***

5. How to sell your snake oil thing, or any kind of woo, really. Should be read together with any of Orac’s excellent posts about woomeisters always blaming the patient.

***

6. I’ll freely and nonchalantly admit I only discovered it about a week ago: English without non-Germanic words, aka Uncleftish Beholding. I will also admit that my brain tells me to visualise “uncleftish” every time I hear/see the (non) word.

Suffering ensues.

***

7. An interesting article about the cancer that is killing vampire fiction like you could kill the cancer that is vampire fiction with a different cancer hurr durr Twilight and cultural appropriation. What it lacks is a mention of the problematic portrayal of Quileute in the books (ahahahahaha, BOOKS AHAHAHAHA) in the first place, but this can be easily found with the help of Google and some resourceful typing.

***

8. The crazy terrorist anti-tax guy who crashed into an IRS office is being white-washed by his daughter thus:

Asked whether she considered her father a hero, Stack’s adult daughter, Samantha Dawn Bell, said during a telephone interview broadcast Monday on ABC’s “Good Morning America”: “Yes. Because now maybe people will listen.” But she stressed that his actions were “inappropriate.”

The catch: the daughter lives in Norway. NORWAY! One would think a greedy sociopath tax protester could find a better place to live than Norway:

– The basic tax rate is 28 % of the net income. The social security contribution is 7,8 % of the gross income. Therefore, the total tax rate rarely exceeds 36 %. However, on gross income exceeding NOK 456.400 (relevant as of salary grade 60) a surtax (toppskatt) of 9 % is levied. On gross income exceeding NOK 741.700 (relevant as of salary grade 82) a surtax of 12 % is levied. (source)

Seriously.

(Btw, the income tax is not all the tax that an individual has to pay in Norway. There’s also the so-called wealth tax, so in many cases you’d have to pay much moar)

(Mmmm, taxes  <3)

***

9. I discovered Vox Day(1), the most odious person and at the same time the most pretentious cretin on the internets. Seriously. I expect to have time to make fun of him properly soon.

***

In other news, I’ve been hearing rumours about late (as in, in June) spring in Poland this year. I might have to reconsider my spring break plans.

Also, wisdom tooth is a whore.

(1) Bad pun is  bad, especially as “dei” is totes not pronounced like that.

Gender fail at Olympics, unicorns, refrigeretor

1. Figure skating is such a girly sport. Where by ‘girly’  clearly some sort of inferiority is meant.

This means that men who are exceptionally good at such a ‘girly’ thing can’t be, like, real men or something, like Johnny Weir:

“This may not be politically correct,” Mailhot said during the segment, in which Weir … was shown sporting a semi-sheer, pink-and-black costume he designed himself.

“But do you think he lost points due to his costume and his body language?”

Goldberg replied that Weir’s feminine style may reflect badly on other male figure skaters.

“They’ll think all the boys who skate will end up like him,” he said. “It sets a bad example.” (source)

Let me just-

Bad example?

There’s nothing offensive, insulting, ironic, sarcastic or cynical that could make this statement more ridiculous, absurd and surrealistic than it already is.  Mailhot is so stupid he’s like a parody of himself.

Also:

“We should make him [Johnny Weir] pass a gender test at this point,” Goldberg said, and Mailhot then jokingly suggested Weir should compete in the women’s competition. (source)

As if his complete gender fail weren’t enough, Mailhot&  Goldberg  also had to be offensive to trans people. Is there some sort of award they give for that sort of idiotic, mindless, thickety thick clueless fuckwittedness? Because, I’d like to propose Mr Mailhot as a candidate.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world can enjoy Johnny Weir dancing to Lady Gaga’s  Poker Face:

Somehow, the Koreans seemed pretty enthusiastic.

(I HATE PEOPLE WHO PREVENT ME FROM NOT CARING ABOUT THE OLYMPICS. MAILHOT WILL PAY ONE DAY)

2. The best game ever:

forevergeek.com where I got the cap says: so bad it's good. BAD??? BAD??? what a bunch of bitter, sad n00bs you all must be :(

My review will be very short and to the point: UNICORNS!!!!!!!1!!!!!

Also:

(via MRW <3<3<3)

3. Also, in Oppenheim, Rheinland-Pfalz, where I currently reside, it’s all Suddenly!Spring. BIZARRE VERY BIZARRE.

OK so this was so stupid I decided it deserves an entire new post.

From the previous discussion; commenter(1) 10 shares his/her insights about atheism and gender with the rest of the internets:

I don’t think there are as many sexual advantages for women to say they are atheists.

Hurr hurr, “sexual advantages”? I know of no scientific studies dealing specifically with the sexual prowess of atheists as compared to theists. If any of you guys do, please let me know. I’d be very interested in the results.

(A conjecture though: a strong correlation of atheism with more progressive and science-based  views on human sexuality could mean that atheists do indeed have better sex lives, or, to put it bluntly, it’s moar fun to have oral sex when you don’t have to think about a bearded yet invisible omniscient deity with voyerism kink)

For a man, staking a claim in defiance of God and society can turn heads. For women, it’s just bitchy. Sad, but true.

Atheism is by no means “defiance to Dog”. You can’t defy something in which you don’t  believe it exists, because there is no proof that it does.

Also, that “it’s bitchy” is, sadly, the commenter’s opinion projected on the society in which he or she lives. Again, I know of no actual scientific study reviewing the attitudes of public opinion towards female and male atheists.  The commenter probably doesn’t know of such a study either.

Did she/he had a great time pulling anecdata from his/her arse? We will never know.

PERSONALLY, I’d think that for women the clear and obvious advantage of not having a powerful organisation policing our sexuality and our gender roles, and rationalising it with a swift yet effective “DOG SAID SO QED”  would be an awesome enough.

Frankly, I don’t understand how a woman could prefer to be oppressed by another sexist religious organisation at all.

(1) I know, I know; looking for stupid comments on the internets is like trying to nuke a fish in a barrel, but seriously. I JUST CAN’T RESIST.

Disappearing comment, crouching dragon, woe!

Re: disappearing comments: I have no idea why they do. While I do admit to having a  tiny set of blacklisted words that will immediately get you *in* the spam folder, and never *out*(mostly the sort of not!PC language I will not tolerate here, hurr hurr hurr. censorship!111!!!!!1), none of the lost comments actually contained any of them.

So! If your comment disappears, feel free to comment a gazillion times until I notice!

The sad life of a *very* angry theist (as seen on Amazon.com)

This is better than a blog. This is like a shopping list for a philologist: it shows you what a person uses, what are their needs, and what they like, and what they don’t and so on.

The bonus is, it has the author’s own meta-commentary which allows a curious anthropologist a unique glimpse into the life of an angry middle-class white anglophone theist. As usual, it starts with a persecution complex and quickly degenerates from there:

Amazon’s CEO, being an anti-Christian bigot, allows me and other Christians to be repeatedly harassed by Amazon’s community moderators and other anti-Christians, including allowing them to repeatedly leave fake reviews on Christian books.

I believe the terminus technicus for this kind of whining is “aw, world’s smallest violin!”.

1. The stuff he is interested in that isn’t media includes:

a. A knife with which he doesn’t seem to be happy:

I really hate these dumb laws forbidding automatic knives which are causing the market to be flooded with junk like this. It’s hard on the fingers to open and feels crumby and clumsy when it sets open rubbing against the metal below the knife. How is it it’s legal to own and shoot a gun in self defense, but not a knife? Someone please get rid of these dumb anti-self-defense government laws, it’s sickening.

Uh-huh, what does he need an automatic knife for?  Is this a countryside thing, where you could need an automatic knife for some bizarre countryside things which I would have no idea of?

Somehow, I believe, epistemological scepticism is in order.

b. A bicycle cover. When he starts ranting, though, the rant has very little to do with bicycles at all:

Note: this review would have shown up a day earlier but once again the amazon community moderators decided to harass me for my religion and delete without notification. So much for the “We’re trying to be the most customer centric” lie. The moron amazon moderators, who are massively evil liberal morons refrained from harassing me by interfering with my reviews for me being a fundamentalist Christian, using arbitrary reasons like, “WE couldn’t tell if you liked it or not”(…)

Halfway through I started wondering if he would ever get to the actual bicycle cover part at all, but alas. He didn’t. The happy end:

How can amazon be the most customer centric if they approve of stalking Christians? . I hope this review satisfies their arbitrary length requirements, you evil bigots. You are begging to be sued.

Aw, sweet! I wonder whether he consulted his internet lawyer yet.

c. An electric turkey fryer and roaster. This review totally freaked me out, because, well. If this guy suddenly disappears from the internets and later, a Darwin award will be given to a angry middle-class white anglophone theist? We will so know who it was.

I mean, seriously. I hope he never actually never does anything stupid like breathing in CO2 to prove his point, because:

CARBON DIOXIDE IS NOT A TOXIC GAS YOU STUPID GULLIBLE ANTI-SCIENTIFIC MORON. STOP PARROTING STUPIDITY YOU STUPID IDIOT! HOW SAD THAT 22 PEOPLE AGREED WITH YOUR ABSURD BABY BRAINED REMARK ABND ABOUT NO ONE DISAGREED!!! JUST GOES TO SHOW HOW MANY SCIENTIFICALLY ILLITERATE MORONS THERE ARE IN THE WORLD! “FRIGHTENING”!

MORONS: CARBON DIOXIDE COMES OUT YOUR MOUTH CONSTANTLY, IF IT WERE A TOXIN YOU IDIOTS YOU’D BE DEAD. GET A CLUE ALREADY YOU PARANOID MENTALLY ILL IGNORANCE-LOVING DELIBERATE RETARDS. GOD YOU ARE SO STUPID!!!!!!!!!!!! KILL YOURSELVES ALREADY IF YOU THINK CARBON DIOXIDE IS SO BAD SINCE IT’S COMING YOUR MOUTHS NONSTOP YOU TOXIC POLLUTION MACHINES! HYPOCRITE MORONS!

Yeah, coming out of our mouths all right. But in? In is a completely different story :( I gathered that he considers Wikipedia a huge liberal conspiracy, but for what it’s worth:

Toxicity and its effects increase with the concentration of CO₂, here given in volume percent of CO₂ in the air:

• 1%, as can occur in a crowded auditorium with poor ventilation, can cause drowsiness with prolonged exposure.
• At 2% it is mildly narcotic and causes increased blood pressure and pulse rate, and causes reduced hearing.
• At about 5% it causes stimulation of the respiratory centre, dizziness, confusion and difficulty in breathing accompanied by headache and shortness of breath. In addition at this concentration panic attacks may occur.

At about 8% it causes headache, sweating, dim vision, tremor and loss of consciousness after exposure for between five and ten minutes.

Yeah, so. Hopefully, the guy isn’t actually dumb enough to try to prove anything to anybody :\

d. A ceramic tower heater:

1) The LCD on the heater is an ugly mentally disturbing green.

Ah, an interesting colour.

2. As for the media:

a. Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America’s Invisible Government, and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years

The “fundamentalism” in the title of the second book is misleading though since there is nothing wrong with having beliefs and the opposite of fundamentalism is arbitrariness or ignorance. Also everyone has beliefs that they won’t change on, why pick on that? Further, the fundamentalists this book attacks aren’t fundamentlists, but Arbitrarians I call them, since they have beliefs based on their feelings. But knowing that, that second book has much good info.

“The opposite (sic!) of fundamentalism is arbitrariness or ignorance”? Huh? I must be new to the whole synonym/antonym thing, then. And beliefs based on feelings? I’m sorry, this offends my Vulcan logic.

Otherwise, guys, this is so hilarious!

b. Inside the Assassination Records Review Board: The U.S. Government’s Final Attempt to Reconcile the Conflicting Medical Evidence in the Assassination of JFK (Volume 1)

Besides being an incredible breakthrough work, it’s yet more evidence of how corrupt our government is. It just never ends.

Hah. There is another thing that just never ends. Heeee.

What sick idiots from Hell.

It’s quite fascinating to see how he conflates categories here for the effect of creating omgosh! the most potent insult ever! They are idiots! But they’re also sick!

IN HELL!1111111111!!!!111

c. He also writes scathing reviews of Windows OSs, which after brief skimming I concluded to be mostly on topic. However, the day when I actually stoop as low as to read computer programmme rants on Amazon will be the day I give up the internets forever.

I hoped someone would recommend to him Ubuntu, though.

I know, I know. It’s unethical.

d. His review of Racing Toward Armageddon: The Three Great Religions and the Plot to End the World contains, well, among other things, his predictably misogynistic views on abortion:

An obvious flaw with this is that fundamentalists are known for trying to save babies not abort them with a red cow and nukes. And according to a few psychos fundamentalists are like Hitler because they try to get everyone to have more babies (yes that’s isanely backwards and stupid). SO, even in twisted people like that realize fundamentalist Christians aren’t trying to kill everyone off, but trying to increase the world’s population (like ever heard of “be fruitful and multiply”? one of the most common phrases in North America, kinda hard to miss), so the authoer must be severely blind.

Ouch. I think his sources about “most common phrases in North America” might be a bit biased.

Multiple Bible quotations follow. Then:

Clearly Baigent and Ian are so stupid, they can’t understand plain speech, and in their abhorrence of justice, can’t believe that God would actually punish wrong doing.

This is sort of adorable, like a stupid puppy running into a snowdrift or a tiny kitten trying to eat the woolen decoration on my hat and then vomiting all over the room.

e. He enjoyed Jeff Sharlett’s The Family, which I found extremely hilarious, and which also makes one wonder about the degree of development of his reading comprehension skills.

f.  His review of Biblical Numerology: A Basic Study of the Use of Numbers in the Bible made me giggle, a bit:

Excellent Objective Scholarly Work

is followed by:

This is a thorough and very readable book and the other rightly defends the perfection of Scripture, God’s word, which has changed the world for the better by those who use it for good and even by those who use it for mere personal gain.

Yeah. Yet again, a really not very bright Biblical literalist proves that to a Biblical literalist “objective” = “agrees with all my preconceptions, prejudices, and bigotry”.

(Also: using Biblical dates/numbers for actually counting anything, worse yet, trying to date historical events, or possible historical events, must be, like, the dumbest thing ever. EVER!)

There are 20 pages of this stuff. I must do important things now, though.

I LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!1!!111

But the snow, oh, the snooooooooooow(1).

I’m maybe sort of back to semi-regular blogging, only:

1. I NEED TO MOVE IN THREE WEEKS PANIC PANIC PANIC!!111!!!11 Also, snoooooooooooooow.

2. I need to write, well, I wanted to say “a gazillion” words, but the more empirically accurate estimate would be, like, maybe 50 000 words? Well, that’s what I’m hoping for, anyway.

Part of it has to be in German WOE. My idea of coping with writing in German is: write everything in passive voice, put a full stop every half a page, vomit a Thesaurus all over it.

The really tragic thing: most of the time it works.

3. OH AND I UNIONISED AGAIN SO THAT NOBODY CAN USE MY SLAVE LABOUR TO FIGHT AGAINST THEISM ANYMORE(2) AND SAY HALLO THAR TO PLANET ATHEISM <3.

4. Also, I read seven thousand interesting things, but most of them have to do with the stuff I have to do, so, the willingness to write about it on my blog? Like, nonexistent.

I’d recommend any article/book ever by Mario Liverani, though, if you’re interested in that kind of thing.

IF I’M NOT BACK TOMORROW IT MEANS THAT THE SNOW ATE ME EVEN THOUGH I FOUGHT TIL THE END111!1!!1!!1!111111 WITH MY TINY LITTLE ARMS.

ETA: typos, as usual =_=

(1) At this point I might sort of identify a bit with Captain Ahab, only that would be rather silly, because, chasing snow with a harpoon? Yeah, NO.

(2) Not that anybody would, you see, there are far too many volunteers for slave labour to be needed, but it SOUNDS SO GOOD.