This is my front page. All comments here are screened; if you don't have my email address, you can drop me a line here. If I know your email address, I'll reply by email -- if not, I'll reply to your comment, and then rescreen both your comment and my reply.
It's also got every tag I have -- this is because my current LJ style doesn't include a tag index. (At least half of my participation on LJ is on my Treo. I chose this style because it loads quickly and it's still readable on a small screen.)
I'd tell you more about myself, but that's what my profile -- and the rest of my journal -- are for.
I'm sure there's a reference in one of the books that I'm missing, but where I come from, "pillow biters" means something entirely different. (And is probably considered fighting words.)
This Ḥanukkah Cake, as she calls it, is apparently in the same episode of Semihomemade as the infamous Kwanzaa Cake. (A few seconds into the clip, you can see the Kwanzaa Cake.)
About forty-five seconds in, she puts marshmallows in the center. The good news is that marshmallows don't clash with the other ingredients of her cake the same way that chocolate frosting clashes with apple pie filling. The bad news is that properly observant Jews don't eat marshmallows during Ḥanukkah. Or any other time, for that matter.
It's not even noon, and I need a drink. Fortunately, it seems Sandra Lee is good at drinks.
When I first read that 8 passed, I wanted to go vandalize the nearest church. A few hours later, I wanted to take a couple of male exhibitionists with me, break into a church, and film them having teh hawt ghey buttsexxors, with just enough wide panshots to make it perfectly clear exactly where all tihs hawt ghey buttsexxors was happening.
I've calmed down a little, since, but this still appeals to me a lot. It includes a link to my new friend, IRS Form 13909 -- in fact, it includes instructions on how to fill it out.
LDS has taken a giant shit on my state and its Constitution. I don't care if it will never affect me personally, and I don't care if the ACLU is successful in getting it annulled -- I want payback. I want these people to be so terrified of IRS auditors that it makes their current fear of the Gay Agenda look like nothing more than a passing mild distaste.
And more importantly, I want other churches that might consider pulling this kind of stunt to be sent a clear message: don't try it. You want a voice in government? Fine. You can pay for it like the rest of us.
"Comment to this post, and I will choose 7 of your interests that I am curious about. You post about them in your own journal and we continue from there."
I replied when ms_daisy_cutter posted this meme, and here are the seven she chose.
One: The phrase "I'm going to Hell for this" is not, as you assume, a statement that I believe in Hell, nor a confession that I believe I'm going to go there. It's just me making light of something I'm about to say that might be considered by some to be offensive or blasphemous.
Two: "Goddamned" is not, as you assume, a qualifier indicating that I believe something to be eternally condemned by the One True (nonexistent) Creator. From the mouths of some people, it is not taking the (nonexistent) Lord's name in vain, merely an expletive. If I refer to "that fucking computer," surely you don't believe that I'm suggesting the computer is having sex?
Three: When I say I don't believe in God, that is not a confession that I believe there is a God, and I just refuse to believe in him. I just say it that way because it's shorter than "I do not believe that there is any supreme being," and for most people, it gets the general idea across.
Four: You can believe that I'm not truly an atheist all you want, based on my choices of expressions. I don't care. You and your stupid-ass semantic fluff-picking can go straight to Hell, and you may interpret that however you wish. In any case, you can get out of my nonreligion, as you're making us look like twatmonkeys.
Stories like these make me wish I believed in God, so that I could hate Him. As it is, I'm stuck being angry at some of the stupid, semi-literate, inbred pigfuckers who claim to serve him.
(Short version: A lesbian student went to a school principal because she was being bullied. The principal outed her to her parents, and used his power not only to continue bullying her, but to bully students who supported her. The ACLU fought on the girl's behalf, and won. Unfortunately, the principal still has a job, and a lot of people in that state still think he did the right thing. Apparently, they feel that if a principal is ordering female students to lift their shirts, it's okay... as long as he's just doing it to make sure that they haven't written things like "gay pride" on themselves.)
(Short version: Three new pharmacy schools, created for the express purpose of churning out Christian pharmacists who think it's okay to shove their own beliefs down the throats of their patients. Plan B? You won't get it -- it serves you right if you get pregnant. Birth control pills? You won't get them -- God wants to punish you for having sex, and contraception would cheat God of his due. HPV vaccines? You won't get them -- God wants to punish you for having sex, and taking preemptive measures against STDs would cheat GOd of his due.)
Yet more progress being made by Christian nutcases, in their ongoing quest to drag society back into the fucking Dark Ages. You know why so many civilized people think that Christians are total whackjobs? It's because of people like this, and the sane Christians need to do more to fight it.
You know how, every now and then, I get angry about so-called women's issues? Part of the reason for that is that I feel that men need to call each other out on the shit being spewed from our own ranks. The same damned thing applies here.
I've long suspected that people will make a musical out of anything. My latest piece of evidence: Tonya and Nancy: the Opera. Yes, as in TOnya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan.
That's it. This was the final straw. I'm going to write a musical about a televangelist, and his fall from grace. It'll start with a priest at his podium, singing about his desire to spread the love of God, to the tune of the Rolling Stones' "Paint it Black"...
Then, perhaps he starts having lustful thoughts about a high-priced call girl, a bit like Jim Bakker. I'm tempted to use the song "Special," from Avenue Q, but it might be more fun to write my own. Or maybe, more filk, this time to the Moody Blues's "Nights in White Satin"...
"Tricks in tight stockings, and garter belts too. A black lacy teddy, looks brand spanking new.
I am a preacher. I'm not here for a lay. I wish I could teach 'er, to not live this way,
...but I want her... but I want her, ooooooh, I want her!"
Then, he finally gets the call girl into bed, and he starts beating himself up over it. Cue the music for "King of Pain," by the Police:
"There's a little wet spot in my bed today. And I'm sure that it wasn't there yesterday. I feel so guilty, yet I can't stop. I am lucky she wasn't a plain-clothes cop.
I have worked so hard, to glorify God's Name. It has garnered me riches and personal fame. Now I've shouted "Oh God," but it's not the same. I am ruined and soiled, with just myself to blame."
...except on the final chorus, the last line changes, with special emphasis: "I am ruined and soild, and this whore's to blame." Note that he starts by blaming himself, but rationalizes later about how it was all that hooker's fault. Then, there's a media scandal, as there always is when a guy preaching family values gets caught with his pants down. I'm thinking Michael Jackson's "Leave me Alone."
As most of you guys know, I hate fast food, and I consider it immoral to prepare it, or to serve it to human beings -- hell, I consider it immoral to feed it to your cat. Ergo, I do not work in fast food. Further, if I did, I would be fired for refusing to serve it to customers and encouraging them to eat real food. This is a fact of life.
Also, as most of you know, I consider it immoral to put a television in a small child's bedroom. If one of my customers wants to but a giant screen TV to put in his new nursery, I have a choice: I can either do my job and sell him the TV, or I can get sacked. This is also a fact of life.
Unfortunately, I don't have a god I can blame for all my moral beliefs -- one of the weaknesses of being an atheist is that I -- and ONLY I -- am responsible for my own actions. If I did, I could be a muslim taxi driver and refuse service to women if they have any skin showing. I could refuse to give out marriage licenses entirely, because if I give them out any more, I'd have to give them to those filthy queer folk, too, and that's immoral. Or, if I were opposed to basic women's health care, I could be a doctor and refuse to provide it. Or I could become an anesthesiologist and refuse to take part in surgery I consider immoral, effectively vetoing the doctor's decision. Or I could become a pharmacist, and refuse medications that I consider immoral. Or I could become an EMT, and prevent a woman from even seeing a doctor, because after all, abortion is immoral!
(Sadly, all of these have happened. And incidents like these are becoming more common.)
And then I could scream "OPPRESSION!" whenever someone has the gall to insist that I do my fucking job, never mind the fact that more and more often, I went into that line of work with the very intent of forcing my morality on other people.
As it is, I can't. As an atheist, I'm responsible to myself, and for myself. As a result, I'm stuck in the position of never applying for certain jobs in the first place. Oh, if only that applied to everyone else!
If you are one of these people, you need to be sacked, and your name needs to be plastered all over the internet, so that any medical establishment that considers hiring you knows that you used your position to inflict your beliefs on other people. If you run one of these medical establishments that makes a point of pretending that only whores ask for abortions, or that God's Will leaves no room for any sort of family planning beyond dozens and dozens of babies that the parents can't afford to feed, you need to be closed down. I don't care if you have money, or even the Catholic Church, standing behind your decisions.
If you believe strongly in something, you should be prepared to make sacrifices for it. You should NOT be able to force other people to make sacrifices to suit you.
Do your fucking job, or get the hell out of the way.
You guys have heard of the movie Expelled, haven't you?
I haven't seen it, myself, and if I do see it, I will do it in such a way that I am not putting money in the pockets of the people who produced it. I've heard a lot about it, though. It seems to be a bit of Creationist propaganda, mixed with an unhealthy dose of "waaaah, they won't let us teach creationism in science classes, even when we pretend it's a science! Waaaaah!"
Obviously, I'm biased. So-called "Intelligent Design" does not belong in a science class. The whole point of scientific inquiry is to learn how things are. I'd have more respect for ID if its process were something like "okay, an intelligent designer made the universe. How did he do it, and what were the processes involved?" As it is, ID seems to be more like, "okay, God an intelligent designer made the universe. Mystery solved. The end." That's not science. That's theology dressed up in one of science's old suits, and the suit doesn't fit.
But I digress.
Back to the main point... a well-known biologist and blogger was recently told that he was not welcome at a showing of this movie. His wife, daughter, and guest, on the other hand, were all allowed in. I don't want to ruin the surprise, but I will say that it's very funny, and you should go read it.
For the link-phobic, I offer the punchline. Highlight it to read.
The people running the theater recognized -- and denied entrance -- to a well-known blogger, no doubt afraid that he'd savage the movie later. The funny part is that they let his family and guest in, and they didn't realize that his guest was RICHARD FUCKING DAWKINS!
I'd like you to meet [Martin]. He's a gay friend of mine. Aside from not lithping and thwishing and being thtereotypically effeminate, he's your worst nightmare. He thinks about teh hawt ghey buttsecks all the time. He's a good-looking dude, and very well-built, so he attracts lots of opportunities for teh hawt ghey buttsecks. He's also an incredibly horny bastard¹, so he generally avails himself of every opportunity he gets. I could go on, but I think I've established that he thinks about teh hawt ghey buttsecks an awful lot. Have I accomplished this? Good.
The Old Testament is filled with prohibitions against all kinds of behavior, and yet, you pretty much ignore them all, except for Leviticus 20:13. That one, you push with great zeal, even desperation. This leads me to believe that you people are more obsessed with teh hawt ghey buttsecks than [Martin] is. Well, he's gay and testosterone-addled. What's your excuse?
(I really need to stop reading FSTDT. It's bad for my blood pressure.)
This was the person who first warned me that if I got into bodybuilding, my libido would go through the roof. At the time, I didn't quite believe him. In retrospect, he was obviously speaking from experience.
In a move that almost seems calculated to try to increase ticket sales, a Christian organization is trying to use an outdated law to prosecute the producer of Jerry Springer: the Opera. Oh, and they're trying to nail the director general of the BBC for having broadcast it.
Christian Voice wants to bring a case against Mark Thompson, the director general of the BBC, and Jonathan Thoday, producer of the award-winning musical, for blasphemous libel, but was refused permission by City of Westminster magistrates court. The group is hoping to launch what would be only the third prosecution in more than 80 years for an offence which carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Y'know, there's an awful lot of stuff out there in the world that offends me. I cope with it by either not watching it (like the Hostel films), or by watching it and then skewering it for my own amusement (like the Saw films). I don't try to get people put in prison for it, since I view that particular avenue as belonging to third-world dictators, not civilized human beings.
But then, we're talking about Christianity's 15% asshole quota, who are out to remake the world in their own image.
Stephen Green, national director of Christian Voice, said in 2005 that the show portrayed Jesus as a "coprophiliac sexual deviant". A coprophiliac is someone who is sexually aroused by faeces.
Um, no. I have the CDs. Unless there was a lot going on onstage that the lyrics didn't touch upon, Jesus was depicted as nothing of the kind. Several of the performers in this musical played two roles: one woman played both Eve and a would-be stripper; one man played Adam and a KKK member; one man played Satan and Jerry's warm-up artist; one man played God and a philandering pig... and one man played Jesus and a guy into autonepiophilia, not coprophilia. Granted, he did like shitting his diapers, so perhaps that's a trivial distinction for our purposes here...
But then, it's not like they have to watch something to know it's obscene. They have this God-given mutant power that just tells them so!
For those of you unfamiliar, CAP Movie Ministry rates movies according to how exactly they conform to the strictest, most unreasonable Christian Ideals they can come up with. Presumably, they do this by taking a clipboard into the theater, and furiously scribbling notes and tally-marks as they watch. Anyway, they threw a fit over Beowulf. Now, knowing what we all know about they who protest too much, I thought I'd translate some excerpts of their little review from Bullshit into Standard English. Here goes...
"I sorely wish I could have gotten this report to you before the first showing."
"I saw this movie the day it came out because I was hoping to see Angeline Jolie's tits."
"With a final score of seven out of 100, there is no fact or extrapolation of fact, no rationalization, no wishing that can make the content of this film anything but equivalent to R-rated programming."
"Go see this movie. Today! Yes, today! But hire a sitter first."
"I am not going to spend any time trying to write a summary of the story or plot of this film. The individual investigation area discussions below and the itemized listings in the Findings/Scoring section say enough. To present anything about the story/plot might generate interest in it."
"It's really an excellent movie, and I hope not to make you want to see it. Oh, who am I kidding? Go see it!"
"• animal attack; fantasy/demon gore of varying intensities, repeatedly; vicious cruelty; action violence of varying intensities, repeatedly; dragging bodies like rag dolls; piling bodies..."
"I always thought that war was a much less bloody business than that! I never expected it to be so... well, brutal!"
"• six uses of the three/four letter word vocabulary"
(Does an impression of a six-year-old in a sing-song voice:) "You said the F-word, you said the F-word...!"
"• self mutilation (cutting off arm)"
"I felt really sorry for Wormtail, and... oops, wrong movie."
"• sexual assault, three times"
"This turned me on more than I care to admit."
"• saturation of large parts of film time with full male and full female nudity, all sides and angles, male-specific anatomy always in the shadows or hidden by convenience objects with only the pubic hair missing in the female nudity, but in all cases all other anatomy and tissues visible"
"Speaking of tissues, I could really use a few right now."
"• excessive breast exposure, repeatedly"
"I came for Angelina Jolie, and I was not disappointed. My God, her tits are glorious."
"• vulgar innuendo re: intercourse"
"To the best of my knowledge, men and women speak of sex in gentle terms at all times. 'Forsooth, fair wife, I would dearly love to visit your beautiful flower garden tonight.' 'Forsooth-eth, dear husband, nothing would please me more than for you to plant a handsome tree among my rosebushes.' I'm shocked -- shocked, I tell you! -- that some people do not use properly delicate language when speaking of the act."
"• offers and requests for sex, repeatedly..."
"...which is more than I've gotten in a long time. Damn, I need to get laid. Oh well. I'll lay back tonight and think of Angeline Jolie's tits. I just need to find some tissues first."
"• attention to male crotch"
"...wow, that guy is really packing¹... and what in God's name am I thinking? I'm a Christian! Christian men don't go around admiring male crotches!² Out, demon, out! Think of Angelina Jolie, think of Angelina Jolie, think of Angelina Jolie... oh, no, that's also a sinful thought! Out, demon, out!"
"• drunken revelry"
"Hmm, that looks like fun. No, that's a sin. Too bad. It looks like fun. Out, demon, out!"
"• praying to and praising a false god, repeatedly"
"...which is to say 'any God other than mine'."
"• Christian Cross and Christian family targeted by demon, portraying "Christian" as weak"
"Y'know, I hate to admit it, but I've been having my doubts about the meek inheriting the Earth."
Congratulations, CAP. Before I read your review, I was merely interested in seeing Beowulf. Now, I'm committed to seeing it.
In his own rant on this subject, cuddlycthulhu states that there's actually no male junk on display in Beowulf, but there is some nudity, and some very creative uses of props to hide it.
Yes, I know. Accusing a right-wing Christian evangelist of being a homosexual in denial is both clichéed and a cheap shot. Now, if I only had the heart to delete that...
Every now and then, I feel the need to dust off my "Holidays Only Have As Much Power As You Give Them" speech. Well, today's Halloween, so bear with me...
Halloween is a holiday. That's it. It isn't an attempt on Satan's part to steal the souls of OMFG your pweshus childwen, exclamation point, exclamation point, one one one. All it is -- or all it need be -- is one night of the year on which kids can go extort candy from all their neighbors, and one night of the year where adults can behave like children if they feel like it.
It's fun, dammit. It's like Christmas, except without the stress of holiday shopping, maxing out all your credit cards, and psychotic family members who are out to completely ruin the holiday by insisting that everything has to be perfect, because "this is going to be the BEST CHRISTMAS EVER!!!" And personally, I think that's why you object to it -- you try to suck all the fun out of life on general principle. You're trying to turn the whole of our culture into something like the Badger-Badger-Badger song, except a good deal less interesting:
Every year, for the last few years, I cope with annoying, insipid, Christian music for forty hours a week, for at least a month. Though I may joke with friends about wishing that Vanessa Williams had stuck to centerfolds, when I'm not among friends, I accept it with good grace, which is more than can be said for some morons who, like me, also happen to be atheists. (And I complain about these morons making atheists look bad. Well, you make Christians look bad!)
I put up with that noise for at least a month. The least you nutjobs can do is accept a single evening with the same grace. It's one day a year, and most kids don't know its religious significance. Or care. They just like the costumes and the candy. Hell, I'm in my thirties, and I don't care! It's enough that the holiday gives me an excuse to hand out candy to children, and maybe scare them a little first.
So lighten the hell up.
Peace, Love, toilet paper, and soapy windows, flamingchords
I love you so much right now. You've finished your last Potter book, and still, you provide me with no end of entertainment. By announcing that Dumbledore was gay, you've set the internet on fire, and provided me with millions of people to point and laugh at.
When book seven first came out, I was disappointed at the lack of wank on the net, and I was afraid that there would be no long-awaited Earth Shattering Kaboom. But now? You've parted the heavens and said, "Let there be WANK."
Yes, Dumbledore was gay. Ain't it a bummer when that happens, when such a great person turns out to be one of them filthy homos? Isn't it terrible when someone has your respect, only to turn out to be completely unworthy of it by being queer?
Here's a list. I suggest you look it over, so that one of them dirty faggots can never pull one over on you again. They're like the CIA -- they're EVERYWHERE!!!!111 I'm surprised at some of the people on the list, too, but hey, why shouldn't I be?
Seriously, grow the hell up. On second thought, don't. I love you just the way you are -- stupid, and fun to watch.
Yes, Dumbledore was gay. I'm surprised it took you this long to figure it out. I figured it out, and I'm terrible at that sort of thing; being straight, I had to buy my gaydar Army Surplus, and it doesn't always work. It was bloody obvious that Dumbledore loved Grindelwald, and here you are screeching that JKR should have made it more clear. As it is, she "missed a good opportunity" to include a real gay person in her books, and you don't consider Dumbledore to actually be gay, because she never said so in the books. She's just a bitch and a cunt with straight privilege, isn't she?
What the fucking fuck did you expect her to do, include a scene with Dumbledore sucking Grindelwald's cock? Yeah, that would go over well in a kid's book. It would have taught Harry to be very careful with other people's pensieves, though!
Seriously, grow the hell up. On second thought, don't. I love you just the way you are -- stupid, and fun to watch.
As I'm sure most of you have guessed, I consider fast food to be evil. Don't get me wrong -- I was pleasantly surprised to find that Carl's Jr. actually served something close to real food, and if I had no other options, I would consider Wendy's to be acceptable (for fast food, at least). Still, most fast food is utter shit that slowly kills people who eat it regularly. Even when I was still using meth, I had more respect for my body than to eat anything from McShitholes, or Toxic Hell, or Booger Fling. Does this make me one of the people who've read books like Fast Food Nation and taken them far too seriously? Perhaps.
If (Gods forbid!) I found myself working in one of these establishments, and if I were more of a preachy asshole, I would probably be tempted to refuse service to people, and suggest that they go obtain real food instead of a Big Mac and fries... at which point I would immediately find myself in need of a new job. The fact that I have strong beliefs on this subject -- or even that my beliefs are right! -- is completely irrelevant.
Also, as some of you know, I hate television. I'll admit that there are occasionally worthwhile things on TV, but for the most part it exists to turn the viewing public into docile, braindead consumers. "Buy our stupid product." "Watch our dumb-ass sitcoms." "Believe everything about the world that we tell you." "Pay attention to that dumb brat Britney Spears, instead of what the President is doing."
And yet, I sell consumer electronics -- and this includes televisions. If I were more of a preachy asshole, I would probably be tempted to refuse to sell televisions to people, and suggest that they go read a book... at which point I would immediately find myself in need of a new job. Again, my strong beliefs, and the rightness of those beliefs, are irrelevant. Part of my job description includes selling TVs.
Another part of my job description includes knowing the subject -- for example, that the United States is going HD-only in mid-February 2009. This means that, if you have an older TV, it will completely cease to work as a TV at that time, though it will continue to work with other things plugged into it, like VCRs or DVDs. I am required to know this. I don't get an exemption just because TV offends me.
And yet, medical students are refusing to learn about alcohol, drugs, or venereal diseases on "religious grounds," some plan to refuse to treat people of the opposite sex altogether, and some will no doubt be refusing to give women emergency contraception.
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