Yep, pretty much

From Unshelved

I don't do St. Patrick's Day

I am currently wearing blue (I'm just trying to be neutral, though blue was the national color of Ireland for centuries), and I will not be drinking today.

For the religious aspects of St. Paddy's day, I can't justify celebrating the idea of a man who drive out some snakes off an island... oh wait, that's right, they weren't actually snakes, they were the Druidic Pagans and other undersirables of Ireland including atheists, homosexuals, and probably Romani and Jews.

Even beyond that, in the modern sense anyone who wears green is really just saying they support the Catholic side of the clan wars that have been going on in Ireland for centuries. If you're Protestant, you're supposed to wear Orange today stupid.

Lastly, there are all those who say "Oh, just celebrate the secular parts." Oh, what, like drinking? Because that's "What Irish people do" Nice stereotype. Yeah, that's surely something I can get behind. Besides that, beer's gross.

At least I can find something in some of the other religious holidays (and there origianl intent) to get behind.
Christmas - Yeah, the days are finally getting longer, winter's almost over, lets exchange presents and try to be happy in the midst of this crap.
Easter - Yeah, the sun finally fucking came back, it's warm again, there's food to hunt, let's celebrate.
Valentine's Day - Even this one is okay, at least St. Valentine was trying to (supposedly) marry people who wouldn't normally be allowed to marry under pagan laws because they were Christian. Now, this was when Christians actually were a repressed minority, and good for him for standing up to it. If only Christians could think of this today and see the homosexual POV.

Anyway. I don't do St. Patrick's Day. If anyone can find something actually whorthwhile in the secular stance, let me know.

World Nut Daily update

Holy flaming Christ on a Pogo-stick! The world atheist community and World Net Daily are actually in agreement on something. For completely different reasons of course, but still; someone check the themometer for Hell, is it getting drafty down there?

The UNs "ban" on blasphemy had finally caught the attention of the religious media. Now, they think this is bad because, of course, then they think they won't be able to "preach tha' gospe' and th' name o' the lawd" in them heathen countries anymore. Really, they aren't welcomed there anyway (but neither are atheists). This won't change much.

Whatever. The more people up in arms over this retarded shit the better. It just feels a little icky to be on the same side about something.

"World Builder" by Bruce Branit

Filmed in one day, then took two years in post.




If it's not loading well, you can always go to the actual page here http://vimeo.com/3365942
World Builder from Bruce Branit on Vimeo.

Librarians Playing at work is, apparently, stealing from the taxpayers

Ok, first, here's the "news" item.

http://www.action3news.com/Global/story.asp?S=9900719&nav=menu550_2

With the video if you really want to watch, they're just playing Guitar Hero or Rock Band or something...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7I84RvK7LuE

“Action” 3 News is so stupid. And so was this guy who “turned them in.”

Oh nos, librarians were playing a video game… just like our own librarians did not too long ago in the basement here at Kent. Oh nos, they bought a game system to help bring the teens in, like hundreds of other libraries have done for years; yeah, it’s sitting in a closet. It was expensive, they’ll only bring it out for special programs.

Oh wait, there’s more.

Oh nos, they spent money on land in Second Life, you mean just like the Library of Congress and countless other government agencies have done, including the FBI, CIA, WHITEHOUSE.

And that last one is just idiotic, they spent money to go to a conference!!!! They’re complaining about that?! Really?!

Nebraska: No, we don’t want any of our state employees to learn anything new, how dare they.

When this idiot Kevin first saw this, he should have turned to his son and asked his opinion. When his son said, "Hey, that looks cool, let's go to the Library" then he would have known why it was happening. When his son actually asked, "Is that bad?" should have been the tip. His son didn't think it was bad, AND IT ISN'T.

Stupid, fucking, Nebraskians. No... that's not fair. Stupid fucking Kevin Paladino; stupid fucking State Auditor Mike Foley, and stupid fucking Liz Dorland and Action 3 News for actually thinking this is news.

New fossil found

HOLY FUCKING SHIT!! IT'S AN ACTUAL CROCODUCK!!

Well, no, not really. It's a fossil of a giant toothy bird from the Pelagornithidae family. Paleontologists have known about them for decades, but they're hard to find because the bones are hollow like a bird. Look at the jaw on that thing though.

Tiktaalik

This is Tiktaalik. He is an example of a true Transitional Fossil. He has both fishy and lizardy parts. I really don't know what more fundies want.

Boy Scout Oath and Law

First of all, yes, I am an Eagle Scout. I was in scouting for 16 years, and just recently let my registration lapse. I have also been an atheist almost as long. How did I reconcile being an atheist and a scout? Well, it was much easier considering there were all kinds of homosexuals and atheists in my council and troop (and our scout master in general was a super reformed Jew).

Anyway, I was reading an article recently about the Scouts of England (haven't been Boy Scouts since 1992 when it became completely co-ed) and the fact that they've adopted a new Oath for Muslim scouts who are not allowed to swear an oath to a King or Queen; apparently some fundies over in England hate this idea. I'm sure there are plenty of crazies in this country who also hate the idea. But....

Doing some more digging around, apparently Baden-Powell (he's the guy who started scouting in England and spread it all over the world) didn't really care one wit about religion (he may have even been... whisper it real quiet now... GAY). The original Scout Law, from 1908, didn't mention "reverent" like it does today. And, while the original Scout Promise (Oath) did say god in it...

On my honor I promise that I will do my best:
To do my duty to God and my country;
To help other people at all times;
To obey the Scout Law

...There is also, according to tradition, an alternative oath written by Baden-Powell himself called the "Outlander's Promise" for "Scouts who could not, for reasons of conscience, recognize a duty to a King (the norm in the USA), for individuals or members of religions (such as Buddhism, Taoism, and others) that do not worship a deity, and for members of orthodox religions that do not use the name of God in secular settings." 1

The Outlander's Promise is as follows...

On my honor I promise to do my best:
To render service to my country;
To help other people at all times;
To obey the Scout Law.

Hmmmmm, I could follow that, especially since the Law it's refering to doesn't mention "Reverent."

This is what Baden-Powell originally wanted; he didn't care if you were Christian, Jewish, Buddhist or Atheist. He just wanted to help kids love and respect nature and learn to be self-sufficient and decent people.

On a side note, there was a program created in 1925 as an alternative to Scouts called "Woodcraft Folk" who don't care who or what you are, what gender you are, or where you're from. Scouts of England is pretty much like this now though, so that's probably why Woodcraft hasn't expanded outside of England, Wales and Scotland. Like I said, this whole post started because the Scouts of England are allowing Muslim Scouts to say a different Oath, even though their own Scouts (including Muslims) have been allowed to say the Outlander's Oath all along.

Maybe I should just move to England and help the Scouts there...

Trying to Ban Atwood in Canada

A parent is trying to seek justification for a school using A Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood in his son's senior English class in Toronto, Canada. He doesn't want to ban books, says the father, he just wants to know how such a vulgar book can be used in a school...

Maybe because it's one of the best damn books in the English language that everyone should read... oh, and it was written by a Canadian.

This idiot objects to the same crap that lots of the "moral christians" object to. It has sex, it has violence, it denegrates christians (okay, that parts pretty funny to me), blah blah blah. It also teaches a lot of good points about what happens when a bunch of crazy fundamentalist fucks do when they get full control of a situation.

The funniest part of the whole situation to me... "After Edwards complained, his son was assigned another book, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, and will step out of class during any discussions on The Handmaid's Tale."

Really? Seriously? What the hell? BNW instead of Handmaid's? The father's going to fucking flip when he reads that one and the first scene depicts two 8 year having sex behind a bush.

All I can say is HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

I think the school is just screwing with the guy by doing that.

Anyway, take a gander at the article, and if someone can tell me who the picture of the old woman is (with proof), I'll buy you a cookie. I think it's Atwood herself, but I'm not sure.

*Update: It has been confirmed that the old lady is in fact Atwood. The winner is the girlfriend. Sorry everyone else, better luck next time.

Apple iTunes and DRM free content

As everyone's probably aware of by now, Apple will now be allowing their customers on iTunes to download their music without the Digital Rights Management (DRM) on them.

Basically what this means is that when you download a song from iTunes and put it on your computer, your iPod, your phone, your Zune, your other computer, your other computer, your other computer (I'm not the only person with like four computers right?)

It doesn't matter. People were stripping the DRM off the songs anyway so they could move them around. Apple finally got smart. Gee, you bought something? You should be able to do whatever the hell you want with it then? Good for Apple for finally standing up to the recording industry.

Trust me, I still hate Apple almost as much as Micro$oft, but at least they're selling music for a buck. They're at least trying to help with all the piracy instead of just complaining about it and sueing people. And they're usually the ones to realize that if something isn't working, maybe we should try something different.

Maybe Microsoft will learn something from this, or even Apple will learn from themselves and take some of the restrictive DRMs off their softwares. Yeah! Right! Well, here's hoping.

Religulous - Completely Illegal

Hello anyone out there. It seems that "someone" (no, seriously, not me - do not come knocking on my door FBI) has put up, on Google Video, the entire Religulous movie . Now, I'm not saying you should download it. I'd much rather people actually support this movie by renting or buying it... now if I could find a copy of Expelled out there somewhere... but I digress.

If someone really is interested in watching the movie on your computer (in on your iPod or PSP or something since it is downloadable in MP4 format) go right ahead, but be quick about it; it'll probably be taken down once Google finds out about it.

Now, if for some reason someone has problems playing MP4s on their computer (no, I'm not saying this video, it's an illegal copy remember), but would still like to watch MP4s, there is a super player out there that plays everything... seriously, everything. It's called VLC Media Player and it's part of the VideoLAN project, a completely open source project that thinks proprietary video and audio files are stupid ideas. They're open source so they want you to download their product for free and use it, use it, use it.

Have fun.

*Update: Apparently, this is all perfectly legal to have up online. For some reason it's allowed to be circulating the internet, some big sites have it on their pages. Now, it's still illegal to download it, but with a lot of the nice computers out there, it's not too bad to watch a movie online anymore.

Opposing Viewpoints

I just found a great site. It's called Opposing Views and it has discussions about everything. Then, verified experts about the subject post short articles about each side of an issue. There's a culture section, health section and best of all, a whole section devoted to religion. There are some big names on the site too, FFRF, American Atheists, etc. Some individuals, but I don't really recognize many of them, let me know if you do.