Buy Starschmucks, Attack God?

Apparently evangelical Christian and right-wing conservative 'historian' David Barton and I have something in common: we kind of hate Starschmucks. Our reasons, however, differ. My antagonism is based on the condescending pretentiousness of the brand and many of its 'baristas,' and on the fact they have driven many humble mom-n-pop coffee shops into the ground. Barton's problem, however, is that StarBucks believes in marriage equality.

It's typical of right-wing conservative fundamentalist Christians like Barton to be obsessed with questions of sexuality (especially other people's) while ignoring questions of poverty, social justice and loving our neighbors. After all, given everything Jesus said about homosexuality... oh wait, he never said a word about it! He only wasted his time trying to make people kinder and more accepting and forgiving of others...

In any case, while the following analysis by The Young Turks commits a bunch of logical mistakes of its own, they do manage to drive home the point regarding the arbitrary double-standard on which most religion-based objections to homosexuality are based and what the consequences of taking their own reasoning seriously entails...

And I've never understood this, but how exactly do beards have corners???

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Michelle Obama's Speech at the DNC

There are some things about President Obama's first term that we may find infuriating and disappointing, even though his record, though vilified by the opposition, actually shows some amazing improvements that aren't sufficiently touted in the mainstream media. So yeah, there are some disappointments, especially given the promise and the hope that he awoke in us when he first decided to run . That idealism, unfortunately, was on a head-on collision course with the harsh reality of "bipartisan cooperation" (a word that, thanks to Republicans' obsession with not letting a half black man have a second term in the White House, has become an oxymoron) and the reality of having to make difficult ethical, political, strategic and practical choices under pressure from multiple sides.

But as First Lady Michelle Obama reminds us in the following incredible speech, "being president doesn't change who you are, it reveals who you are." And although there are multiple areas for improvement, over the past few years Barack Obama has demonstrated his character, his authenticity, his willingness to work with others (even to the point of frustration for most of us), his compassion for the downtrodden, his undying belief that we should extend opportunities to those who need them, his sympathy for those whose medical bills or college loans would otherwise prevent them from fulfilling their dreams, etc.

What are the odds that for 2016, Barack Obama may become the very first First... what would you call it, First Gentleman? First man? First Sir? First male First Lady? Anyway, look out Hilary! :p

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Breaking the Code - The Biography of Alan Turing

Computers don't grow on trees, and even though they are ubiquitous today, that wasn't always the case. In fact, they've only been around for less than a hundred years, and although there are certain folks to whom we owe a huge debt of gratitude for laying down the conceptual foundations (the philosopher Leibniz for inventing the binary language system upon which programming depends, for instance, or the enchantress of numbers Ada Lovelace's brilliant insight into the power of computation rather than mere calculation), the individual most directly responsible for modern computation is Alan Turing.

His was a remarkable life, full of genius, insight, inspiration, courage and intellectual creativity. His contributions during World War II (like the fact he broke the Nazi code and was privy to the information sent in secret messages to Hitler and his thugs even before they received it) may be directly responsible for saving hundreds of thousands of lives, and of accelerating the end of the war.

For all of his importance, however, his life was also very tragic. Because of the top-secret nature of his mathematical work during the war, he was never officially recognized. And to add insult to injury, his homosexuality was used to ban him from his own work, to treat him worse than a common criminal, and eventually it led to his suicide. This is his life:

For more on Turing's mathematical and philosophical importance, check out two of my favorite documentaries in this whole blog: Dangerous Knowledge with David Malone, and The Secret Life of Chaos with Jim Al-Khalili.

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This Is the Best Sermon You'll Hear Today. Amen!

I know I sometimes tend to rant against religious dogmatism and bigotry, but credit has to be given where it's due, and the following sermon by Pastor Frederick Haynes III absolutely deserves props, so kudos!

Why? Well, consider this... he's a black man and a Christian Baptist minister. So if he's talking about homosexuality, you'd think he'd go the double-whammy homophobic route and preach to the intolerant choir (sorry, but come on, you know that's how it goes).

Instead, however, he delivers one of the clearest, bravest and most eloquent articulations of the idea behind the separation of church and state I've seen religious commentators make, all before getting into the theological question of what Christian attitudes ought to be toward homosexuality given what Jesus said about it. If you declare Jesus Christ to be your lord and savior, you might want to pay attention to his teachings before you start passing judgment or throwing stones at other people  Can I get an Amen!? :)

Hallelujah!

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Dan Savage - Standing Up to the Bible

Here in America, we loves our cognitive dissonance. If you ever watch The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, or The Colbert Report, you know that these are two industries based primarily on pointing out, with great humor and wit, how often we contradict ourselves on a daily basis.

One of those areas in which we collectively seem to be somewhere off in self-contradictory la-la land is the widespread belief that our moral values come from scripture, but as Dan Savage explains in the short video below, that can't be right.

Why not? Because we are perfectly comfortable ignoring, or even outright rejecting, various biblical injunctions. We don't execute women who lose their virginity pre-maritally, we don't stone to death children who disrespect their parents, we are not trying to pass constitutional amendments banning the consumption of shrimp and lobster, we think slavery is morally wrong, and we certainly do not condone holocaust or the annihilation of entire nations. And since we are happy to reject these scriptural injunctions (and they're there, look it up), then, wherever else they come from, our moral values do NOT come from the Bible (or pick your favorite holy book).

But if that's the case, then we can't justify our condemnation of homosexuality (or anything else, for that matter) simply on the basis that there is some biblical injunction against it. What we need is REASONS that justify such a view, and that requires that we do the work necessary to achieve such conclusions instead of simply assuming their truth from the outset.

Did you also get a sense that the walk-out may have been pre-emptively planned?

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Unhate

Contrary to what the majority of people all over the world believe, I'm pretty sure this is the only life we will ever know. To some, that is a depressing prospect, and an indication of the futility and meaninglessness of human existence.

To me, however, it underscores the responsibility each of us has to make it count, to make it meaningful, and to make sure we have some sense of perspective and proportion with regard to the things that matter to us. Are our pride, convictions, resentments, race, differences, disagreements, history, ideology, etc. worth hating each other?

I seriously hope not. And hopefully it's not too late for any of us to open our hearts, make amends, forgive and enter into communion with others.

How will we know when things are really getting better: when we get to see an unphotoshopped picture of the Pope kissing Sheik Mohamed Ahmed el-Tayeb

Amen!

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Rick Perry - Swrong

You may have seen, and been shocked by, the recent Rick Perry ad in which he came out (get it?) and made his religious lunacy and homophobia explicit on national television. Many people originally thought this had to be some sort of joke: no sane person would ever be dumb enough to publicly announce the basis of his candidacy on the outright intolerant bigotry inherited from a bunch of barely literate goat herders. Then again, Perry is not sane, or smart (here's proof of his idiocy).

Of course, his latent and repressed homosexuality was betrayed by his fashion statement, as he was wearing--and you just can't make shit up like this: a jacket almost identical to one of the gay characters from Brokeback Mountain, which was just fabulous :)

Anyway, here's the now infamous ad that became a meme machine:

Those statements about faith are just what you would expect from the same idiot who decided, when his state was confronted with a massive drought, to pray for rain. That's what he did. I kid you not, and how well did that work out? Oh, right...

Anyway, maybe we should give him the benefit of the doubt. Here he is engaging in a little thoughtful introspection and self-reflection:

And yes, while the message seems to be all backwards, maybe you missed the more subtle points. Pay attention again and see if you can find the subliminal message this time:

Regardless of his real position, pretending to represent Christianity kind of doesn't work when Jesus can speak for himself:

And if we really want to generalize as to who's responsible for the real problems, well, you're probably not going to like the truth, you god-fearing vagina penetrators...

And talking about disenfranchised groups, who's standing up for dinosaurs? This guy:

There may be a lot of stupidity on the internet, but thankfully there's also great opportunity for individuals to stand up and make fun of the retarded ideas of a guy who wants access to 21st century state-of-the-art weaponry while having backward stone-age beliefs...

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Michigan's Children Speak Out Against Republican Pro-Bullying Legislation

As we learned recently from Stephen Colbert, an anti-bullying bill in Michigan is sparking controversy. The bill was originally inspired by the tragic story of Matt Epling, a teen who committed suicide in 2002 after falling victim to anti-gay bullying. The fact he wasn't gay doesn't change anything.

The controversy surrounding the bill arose because Republican Senator Rick Jones introduced a clause that made an exception for bullying perpetrated due to "a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction."

The problem, of course, is that instead of protecting the victims of hate and bigotry, this nominally "anti-bullying" bill actually provides license to promote bullying, and a blueprint to teach bullies exactly what excuses to use to get away with their hatred.

Luckily, many have seen through the smokescreen, including children, and they are writing their representatives to let their voices be heard:

And here is Senator Gretchen Whitmer responding to this pro-bullying legislation:

Obviously, this is the wrong time to say this, but she's kind of cute, huh? :)

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The Word - Bully Pulpit

Everyone agrees that bullying is a problem (ok, maybe bullies don't agree... ah, fuck'em), but it's hard to blame children and teens for engaging in that kind of reprehensible behavior when they're just following in the example set by bigoted adults and institutions who hide behind the sorry excuse of 'morality' set by their stone-age homophobic religious beliefs.

So, Stephen Colbert reports, when the state of Michigan tried to pass an anti-bullying bill, it should come as no surprise that fundamentalists agreed to pass the bill on condition that kids still be allowed to behave like total assholes only if they could use religious conviction as their lame excuse.

In other words, bullying is wrong, unless our backward religion says it's all right...

The Colbert Report
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Of course, my first reaction would be to say that the upside of this bill is that it would now give smart kids license to freely bully religious idiots on perfectly moral grounds (for being douchebags), but it probably wouldn't be a good idea to solve the problem of bullying by allowing more bullying, tempting as it might be...

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Back in Black - Threats to America's Children

So, "Dr." Oz, quack-alternative-medicine peddler, started a fear mongering campaign about a week ago scaring parents all over the country with the idea that apple juice is loaded with 'lethal' amounts of arsenic. As it turns out, Oz didn't distinguish between inorganic arsenic, which really is toxic, and organic arsenic, which isn't toxic.

Now, you might think "innocent mistake, anyone could have failed to make the distinction," and that would be right. The problem, however, is that Oz was made aware of this fact by the FDA almost a whole week before he aired his show, so we're not dealing with ignorance and incompetence here (well, we are...) but also with deceitful manipulation and corruption. Lewis Black has some choice words for this and other fear-mongering assholes:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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By the way, if you ever find yourself competing in Dancing with the Stars, that's a pretty good indication that you're not a star... you're a has-been... or a never-was :)

Anyway, talking about possible threats to children's fragile psyches, guess what happened in Dancing with the Stars:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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Wow... those Fox & Friends people are uptight :)

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A Few Gay Men - The Gayest Penetration

I just don't get people sometimes. Religious conservatives base their opposition to homosexuality primarily on the Old Testament, where you can easily find injunctions and orders to kill the gays. So, you would think that if gays wanted to serve in the military (and run the risk of possibly getting killed in action protecting the same country that denies them many rights most of us take for granted) conservatives would be happy to let them run that risk...

Instead, for the last two decades we've decided to discriminate against them. Fortunately, the dark history of Don't Ask, Don't Tell is finally over, and Jon Stewart has a few things to share:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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And so does Colbert:

The Colbert Report
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Gay Parents Bashed in Texas

When a pair of lesbian mothers are harassed in front of their children by a homophobic waitress at a Texas restaurant, will other patrons come to their defense or just add on to the hatred? And don't forget, this is Texas we're talking about: Jesus land...

The following video clip will likely shock you, make you sick to your stomach, then make you proud of our Texan brethren... and finally hopeful that there is a light at the end of the tunnel :)

Hat tip to Charlie for this one!
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