SharQubus

A small church in Pike County, Kentucky voted not to accept interracial couples as members or allow them to take part in some worship activities, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader. Melvin Thompson, minister at Gulnare Freewill Baptist Church, explained that the resolution “is not intended to judge the salvation of anyone, but is intended to promote greater unity among the church body and the community we serve.” Thompson issued the ban after a white woman and her black fiance, a native of Zimbabwe, performed at the church in August.

What is this fuckery? You want to promote the unity of your community by excluding people? And basing that exclusion on race?

Religion: providing a great excuse to promote your own ridiculous agenda as the will of god since man first invented gods.

nonplussedbyreligion:

religiousragings:

Oh my…this is SOOOOOO perfect!

Play God Day

Bwahahahahaha!!!!

October 1 is … World Vegetarian Day and Magic Circles Day.  Magic Circles Day!!!!   LOL.  As I looked through this list I could not believe some to the things that we celebrate.  I want to play god for a day too Steve, why is your day cooler than mine?  :(     ~ Kim

Mine is Winston Churchill day. Which is, of course, awesome.

carnivaloftherandom:

keepyourboehneroutofmyuterus:

If you want to have a passionate discussion about this topic, go to Shakesville NOW. That is a perfect place to do it. 

Anyhow, SPOILER ALERT for the latest episode of The Walking Dead.

And this will (probably) be the last time I post about this. But I can’t NOT post Melissa McEwan’s brilliant take on this problematic episode:

First, let us start with the elephant in the oven: Lori is pregnant and she doesn’t know what to do! She sends Glenn for some “morning after pills” to terminate the pregnancy. Whoooooooops that is not how Plan B works. (Little pills labeled “Morning After Pill” is also not what Plan B looks like.) Plan B prevents fertilization within 72 of unprotected PIV sex. What Lori would need is RU-486, which wouldn’t be sitting around a pharmacy.

Of course, getting the medical basics of reproductive choice totally fucking wrong is hardly the biggest problem with this episode EVEN THOUGH THAT IS A VERY BIG PROBLEM. Even Glenn pointedly lecturing Lori on not making “this choice” on her own and Maggie sneeringly referring to Plan B as “abortion pills” are not the biggest problems with this episode EVEN THOUGH THOSE ARE VERY BIG PROBLEMS. 

The biggest problem with this episode is that every single character treats abortion as axiomatically A Terrible, Regrettable, Horrible Choice, and insists to Lori that they know she REALLY wants this baby and should totes have it, irrespective of the zombiepocalypse engulfing the planet. 

There is literally not one character who voices the eminently reasonable opinion, “Well, yes, abortion is an option worth considering, given that it will be difficult to flee from murderous zombies while you are nine months pregnant and/or carrying an infant, and given that pregnancy and childbirth can carry with them significant medical risks, even in the best of circumstances, like available hospitals staffed with trained medical personnel and a reliable source of food and clean water and a lack of murderous zombies—which is to say nothing of the fact that Alan Alda will make you SMOTHER YOUR CHICKENBABY when its wailing alerts every murderous zombie within a 10-mile radius to our whereabouts.”

Every piece of readily available literature on abortion-seeking women has found that self-preservation (i.e. one’s own health and ability to survive), ability to care for existing children, and ability to care for potential child are of prime concern to women contemplating termination. But none of that even makes the discussion on The Walking Dead. Nope—Lori waxes philosophical to Dale about wells of joyful memories, and never voices a modicum of concern for her capacity to provide sustenance (beyond a reservoir of happiness) to her potential child. Nor does she express any worry about her own health and safety.

And neither does anyone else: Everyone seems to feel just fine about risking Lori’s life on behalf of a baby.

All of which ultimately combined into a swirling morass of gross anti-choice bullshit.

McEwan goes on to talk about the dangerous and unproductive disablism in the episode. It’s a great post, like always (have I mentioned my love of Shakesville yet?). I recommend you go read the whole thing if you have time and/or inclination.

#walkingdead #didnotdotheresearch

This.

“Recent research suggests that heterosexual men’s (but not heterosexual women’s) cognitive performance is impaired after an interaction with someone of the opposite sex…”

Well, that explains a lot.

Charles J. Kelly, a former Baltimore Police Department lieutenant who wrote the department’s use of force guidelines, said pepper spray is a “compliance tool” that can be used on subjects who do not resist, and is preferable to simply lifting protesters.

“When you start picking up human bodies,…

Assault? Standard police procedure.
Corporation? Person.
Money? Speech.
Pizza? Vegetable.
America? Fuck yeah.

Devin Graham’s friend Lindsey arranged a jaunty tune based off Nintendo’s Legend of Zelda, had some friends help with sound mixing and background orchestration, and tada! They had a LARP-like romp through the forest in the spirit of the famous game. If you love it as much as we do, you can download it on iTunes.

wilwheaton:

Google knows it. Viacom knows it. The Chamber of Commerce knows it. Internet democracy groups know it. BoingBoing knows it. But, the Internet hasn’t been told yet — we’re going to get blown away by the end of the year. The worst bill in Internet history is about to become law. Law is very real here in the United States and legal language is often different than stated intentions — this law would give government and corporations the power to block sites like BoingBoing over infringing links on at least one webpage posted by their users. Believe the EFF, Public Knowledge, Google when they say this bill is about much more than copyright, it’s about the Internet and free speech everywhere.

The MPAA, RIAA, Hollywood knows that they have been flying in CEOs of as many companies as possible, recruiting people to get petition signups at malls in California, and here’s the big point— they know they have gotten their message through to Congress — the worst bill in Internet history, the one where government and their corporations get unbelievable power to take down sites, threaten payment processors into stopping payment to sites on a blacklist, and throw people in jail for posting ordinary content is about to pass before the end of this year. The only thing that is going to stop Hollywood from owning the Internet and everything we do, is if there is a big surprise Internet backlash starting right now.

PROTECT IP (S. 968)/SOPA (HR. 3261) creates the first system for Internet censorship - this bill has sweeping provisions that give the government and corporations leeway and legal cover for taking down sites “by accident,” mistakenly, or for NOT doing “enough” to protect the interests of Hollywood. These bills that are moving very quickly through Congress and can pass before Christmas aim to give the US government and corporations the ability to block sites over infringing links posted by their users and give ISPs the release to take any means to block peoples’ sites, including slowing down your connection. That’s right, some say this bill is a workaround to net neutrality and is bigger than net neutrality.

This is the worst piece of Internet legislation in history - the lawmakers who have been sponsoring (Leahy, Lamar Smith, Conyers) this bill need to be shamed by the Internet community for wasting taxpayer dollars on a bill that would break the very fabric of the Internet, create an Internet blacklist, kill jobs and great startup companies, huge blogs, and social networks.

occupyonline:

HUXLEY FEARED

There would be no one who wanted to read book.
Those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism.  
The truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.
We would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy.

As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.”

In Brave New World, people are controlled by inflicting pleasure.

In short, Huxley feared that our desire will ruin us.

ORWELL FEARED:

Those who would ban books.
Those who would deprive us of information.
That the truth would be concealed from us.
WE would become a captive culture.

In 1984, people were controlled by fear of pain.

In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us.

Really interesting article - click through to read. 

abaldwin360:

Here they are!

Available as a single card or in packs of 10 or 20.

Even if you aren’t interested, or can’t afford to buy any, please re-blog this if you think any of your followers might be interested, and share this link for any of your atheist or agnostic friends and family members.

I make…