Jim Piculas of Florida has been fired as a substitute teacher for practicing wizardry for a toothpick disappear, then reappear.

Substitute teacher Jim Piculas does a 30-second magic trick where a toothpick disappears then reappears.

But after performing it in front of a classroom at Rushe Middle School in Land ‘O Lakes, Piculas said his job did a disappearing act of its own.

“I get a call the middle of the day from the supervisor of substitute teachers. He says, ‘Jim, we have a huge issue. You can’t take any more assignments. You need to come in right away,’” he said.

When Piculas went in, he learned his little magic trick cast a spell that went much farther than he’d hoped.

“I said, ‘Well Pat, can you explain this to me?’ ‘You’ve been accused of wizardry,’ [he said]. Wizardry?” he asked.

Tampa Bay’s 10 talked to the assistant superintendent with the Pasco County School District who said it wasn’t just the wizardry and that Picular had other performance issues, including “not following lesson plans” and allowing students to play on unapproved computers.

Florida’s been a source of amusement for quite some time now as it seems to always be doing something that’s a bit on the nutty side of things, but this does take the cake doesn’t it?

Just ask my five year old. Where’d she hear that gem? At school and it’s the truth because her teacher said so.

We should have known that something like this was bound to happen sooner or later. The teacher has made it extremely obvious she’s one of those Christians who assumes everyone else is also.

For example, we recently watched in shock as she led the students in two god soaked pledges and a god soaked song which she followed up by telling the children to bow their heads and say their prayers.

I’ve been hoping that we wouldn’t have to deal with this until our daughter was older and more capable of understanding what’s going on, but it appears that’s not going to be possible.

What’s gets me though is that I feel like the bad guy for even considering making a complaint about this.

I’m also quite worried about what will happen to our daughter if we do. A lot of Christians simply can’t handle not being allowed to use their official positions to promote their personal beliefs. They tend to turn into vicious bullies who make life hell for the only party can reasonably get to - the kid(s).

Our daughter is just coming out her shell and I’m afraid that if there is a backlash, she’ll retreat back into it - permanently.

What’s a parent to do?

If you guessed anyone besides Vladimir Putin, you’re better qualified to be president than John McCain (via “m” in the comments“):

Since moving to Houston from El Paso about six or seven years ago I swear a month hasn’t went by without me spending a few days with some moderate to severe congestion.  It’s so bad that I like to say I’m allergic to Houston.

So it’s with great displeasure that I announce that Houston, Texas has taken first place for releasing 18.625 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere barely beating out Los Angeles (another place I’m allergic to) which took 2nd place with 18.595 million tons.

As you may be aware both of these cities are obsessed with pubic “morality” in that they’ve declared war on smokers and other domestic sources of air pollutants (aka: things that we can pretend are worse than the actually worse things the government is involved in).

Both earned their medals by allowing their moneymakers to run wild with Los Angeles paving the entire area and Houston saying “what industrial pollution?!?” while really cranking up the “leave no ground unpaved” industry.

Yesterday I wrote about various Christian groups that don’t seem to understand that anti-discrimination laws protect them not just from non-Christians, but from each other due in part to their constant battles over who’s a True Christian and the like.

Today I find a post over at A Whore in the Temple of Reason about an editorial in her home state that starts with this line:

They can’t be real Christians. They must be part of an atheist cabal.

Though this “they” is the Westboro Baptist Church which is virulently anti-gay, this is how a lot of individual Christians and sects act. No one but them and their own are the real deal. Everything else is either fake or a plot by the most hated group around which in this case happens to be atheists.

And this is exactly why all Christians should be thankful for anti-discrimination laws. Christians seem to hate each other more than any other group as their favorite sport is seriously attacking each other.

As someone who grew up in fundamentalism, let me put it this way. I was taught that there is more than one hell. I’ve forgotten how many, but I do remember that one of the worst of the hells is specially reserved for fake Christians. The Christian god is supposed to hate them with such a passion that he set up a special hell just for them.

Barack Obama is getting on my nerves. First he gave that asinine interview in The Advocate where he pretty much told the gay community that explicitly fighting for equal rights via marriage was a bad political move that could upset the bigots on this side of the sexual identity fence. Now he’s went and decided that those of us who have the weird idea that women are entitled to make their own reproductive decisions have made a “mistake”.

“It may be that those who have opposed abortion get a sense that I’m listening to them and respect their position even though where we finally come down may be different,” he told reporters at a news conference.

“The mistake that pro-choice forces have sometimes made in the past, and this is a generalization so it has not always been the case, has been to not acknowledge the wrenching moral issues involved in it,” he said.

“Most Americans recognize that what we want to do is avoid, or help people avoid, having to make this difficult choice. That nobody is pro-abortion, abortion is never a good thing.”

This is total bullshit. We do acknowledge that individual women have their own opinions on abortion and that there are women who consider abortion to be a serious moral issue. We have never made the mistake of not acknowledging that.

What we do not acknowledge much to the dismay of the anti-choice gangs is that their gangs have the right to practice their opinion on the bodies of women. In a fact a lot of us have had the audacity to publicly repudiate this made up right .

The dispute over abortion is not about “wrenching moral issues” and it never has been. It is about the very humanity of women. “Respecting” the view that women should be treated, both legally and socially, in the same manner as our pets is a slap in the face to every woman on the planet.

As for his remark that “abortion is never a good thing” - what planet/reality does he live on/in? This is yet another slap in the face to the women of the world. It might blow his mind, but women do have abortions because they consider them a “good thing”.

His statement completely repudiates their opinion that they made a good decision and buys into the anti-choice/faux-choice framing that only irresponsible sluts who want to avoid the consequence of sex get abortions and call them “good”.

Kate Harding said Obama is not a progressive and this is true, but I swear it seems that every time the man open his mouth in an unscripted situation he comes off not as a liberal with conservative leanings, but a conservative with liberal undertones who merely comes off as a liberal because the GOP has been hi-jacked by the worst of the worst.

And for those of you about to screech about this post - Barack Obama is running on the Democratic ticket. The last time I checked the Democratic Party was a liberal party thus making it completely acceptable to hold any politician running for office under it’s banner to liberal standards which includes the “wacky” idea that we women are entitled to make own reproductive decisions without interference from the state or the public.

Monique Davis has apologized citing that she was upset and was, according to another Illinois representative, having a “bad day”.

Well, I’m having a bad day myself.

I’m catching a cold or something and I’m pretty sure I’ve managed to break one of my toes. My five year old is home sick and is doing her best to mimic Velcro. One of the cats decided to use a pair of jeans for a litter box and the other puked on sick kid’s discarded but now “favourite” piece of schoolwork.

Did I mention the mountain of laundry that needs doing? It’s huge and I swear on the life of both cats that’s it’s growing as I type this. I’m also having a really bad period that hurts almost as bad as my toe. What I’d like to do is pop a Midol or two and lock myself in the bathroom for the rest of the day.

So, I’m not quite sure how I managed to do it, but I went outside for a smoke and did not scream at the nun visiting next door.

In fact, I simply smiled at her and said “hi” just like I always do, bad day or not.

Maybe it has something to do with me not actually believing that Christianity is such an abhorrent belief system that it is imperative that the children not know of it existence to the point where Christians should be kicked out of public meetings thus sparing myself the embarrassment of being caught saying what I actually don’t believe.

But, what do I know? I’m having a bad day. I’ll apologize next week after Keith Olbermann says I’m a bad person for not using my bad day to say exactly what I don’t think about Christianity and Christians.

Now, where’d I put that Midol?

Recently there’s been several articles about various supporters of both Obama and Clinton plan to vote for McCain should their candidate fail to cinch the nomination for the Democratic party. So, I’d like to share a list of things that *you* should know about John McCain that I picked up from Moveon.Org (the sources are after the jump):

1. John McCain voted against establishing a national holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Now he says his position has “evolved,” yet he’s continued to oppose key civil rights laws.¹
2. According to Bloomberg News, McCain is more hawkish than Bush on Iraq, Russia and China. Conservative columnist Pat Buchanan says McCain “will make Cheney look like Gandhi.”²
3. His reputation is built on his opposition to torture, but McCain voted against a bill to ban waterboarding, and then applauded President Bush for vetoing that ban.³
4. McCain opposes a woman’s right to choose. He said, “I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned.”⁴
5. The Children’s Defense Fund rated McCain as the worst senator in Congress for children. He voted against the children’s health care bill last year, then defended Bush’s veto of the bill.⁵
6. He’s one of the richest people in a Senate filled with millionaires. The Associated Press reports he and his wife own at least eight homes! Yet McCain says the solution to the housing crisis is for people facing foreclosure to get a “second job” and skip their vacations.⁶
7. Many of McCain’s fellow Republican senators say he’s too reckless to be commander in chief. One Republican senator said: “The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He’s erratic. He’s hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me.”⁷
8. McCain talks a lot about taking on special interests, but his campaign manager and top advisers are actually lobbyists. The government watchdog group Public Citizen says McCain has 59 lobbyists raising money for his campaign, more than any of the other presidential candidates.⁸
9. McCain has sought closer ties to the extreme religious right in recent years. The pastor McCain calls his “spiritual guide,” Rod Parsley, believes America’s founding mission is to destroy Islam, which he calls a “false religion.” McCain sought the political support of right-wing preacher John Hagee, who believes Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment for gay rights and called the Catholic Church “the Antichrist” and a “false cult.”⁹
10. He positions himself as pro-environment, but he scored a 0—yes, zero—from the League of Conservation Voters last year.¹⁰

SOURCES:
1. “The Complicated History of John McCain and MLK Day,” ABC News, April 3, 2008
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/04/the-complicated.html

“McCain Facts,” ColorOfChange.org, April 4, 2008
http://colorofchange.org/mccain_facts/

2. “McCain More Hawkish Than Bush on Russia, China, Iraq,” Bloomberg News, March 12, 2008
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aF28rSCtk0ZM&refer=us

“Buchanan: John McCain ‘Will Make Cheney Look Like Gandhi,‘” ThinkProgress, February 6, 2008 http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/06/buchanan-gandhi-mccain/

3. “McCain Sides With Bush On Torture Again, Supports Veto Of Anti-Waterboarding Bill,” ThinkProgress, February 20, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/20/mccain-torture-veto/

4. “McCain says Roe v. Wade should be overturned,” MSNBC, February 18, 2007
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17222147/

5. “2007 Children’s Defense Fund Action Council® Nonpartisan Congressional Scorecard,” February 2008
http://www.childrensdefense.org/site/PageServer?pagename=act_learn_scorecard2007

“McCain: Bush right to veto kids health insurance expansion,” CNN, October 3, 2007
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/03/mccain.interview/

6. “Beer Executive Could Be Next First Lady,” Associated Press, April 3, 2008
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h-S1sWHm0tchtdMP5LcLywg5ZtMgD8VQ86M80

“McCain Says Bank Bailout Should End `Systemic Risk,’” Bloomberg News, March 25, 2008
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aHMiDVYaXZFM&refer=home

7. “Will McCain’s Temper Be a Liability?,” Associated Press, February 16, 2008
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=4301022

“Famed McCain temper is tamed,” Boston Globe, January 27, 2008
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/01/27/famed_mccain_temper_is_tamed/

8. “Black Claims McCain’s Campaign Is Above Lobbyist Influence: ‘I Don’t Know What The Criticism Is,‘” ThinkProgress, April 2, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/04/02/mccain-black-lobbyist/

“McCain’s Lobbyist Friends Rally ‘Round Their Man,” ABC News, January 29, 2008
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4210251

9. “McCain’s Spiritual Guide: Destroy Islam,” Mother Jones Magazine, March 12, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3519

“Will McCain Specifically ‘Repudiate’ Hagee’s Anti-Gay Comments?,” ThinkProgress, March 12, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/03/12/mccain-hagee-anti-gay/

“McCain ‘Very Honored’ By Support Of Pastor Preaching ‘End-Time Confrontation With Iran,’” ThinkProgress, February 28, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/28/hagee-mccain-endorsement/

10. “John McCain Gets a Zero Rating for His Environmental Record,” Sierra Club, February 28, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/environment/77913/

After an interview with Bernard Lewis about the “clash of civilizations” (aka: my god vs. your god) on the 700 Club, Pat Robertson went on to espouse that “Islam is not a religion”, but a “political system bent on world domination” that disguises itself as religion.

Methinks ole Pat is getting soft with age as anyone with half a brain should immediately realize that his description of Islam is, in fact, a near-perfect description of his own brand of Christianity. Even more amusing he ends by stating that we atheists should align ourselves with the likes of him because the big scary Muslims are worse than his kind. Isn’t this the first time Pat has implicitly admitted that his brand of Christianity is in fact a bad thing?

(via: Right Wing Watch)

Here’s something to chew on. An atheist man has sued his Catholic ex-wife. At issue is the school their 14 year old son will attend. Mom and the son have chosen a Catholic school, but Dad wants him to attend a public school:

As a practicing Catholic whose eighth-grade son, Michael, has always attended parochial schools, Susan Bisig says it would be best for him to attend St. Xavier High School.

The 144-year-old Catholic secondary school also happens to be Michael’s first choice.

But Bisig’s ex-husband, David Ryan, an atheist who has joint custody of their 14-year-old son, wants Michael to attend a nonreligious high school.

And he says the Kentucky Constitution is on his side because it says no one shall be “compelled to send his child to any school to which he may be conscientiously opposed.”

The battle between Ryan and Bisig, both commercial pilots, has landed in Oldham County Family Court, where Judge Tim Feeley has said he will decide within the next couple of weeks where 14-year-old Michael Ryan will attend high school next year.

Whichever parent wins will pay Michael’s tuition, Feeley said.

As the mother of a five year old, I’m quite grateful her father and my husband is also an atheist. I can’t see either of us ever converting to any religious belief short of a lobotomy so I doubt we’ll ever have to walk that tightrope.

That said, Michael is 14 years old and should have the final say as it is his life we’re talking about here. Sure, there’s the issue of the judge postponing this battle (the judge from the divorce case told them to wait until Michael was a teenager) and going with leaving the then young Michael in the religious school, but that’s water under the bridge in my opinion.

As for Michael being taught that Dad’s a big ole sinner, I don’t think that holds much water. For starters, the school doesn’t appear to be a nutball training facility as it lists as goals these things which appear to be consistent among all the St. Xavier schools in America:

• Provide a school that nurtures spiritual and humanitarian values.
• Promote self-disciplined, conscience-based and personally accountable young men.
• Prepare students for critical thinking and responsible decision making in an interdependent world.
• Recognize the importance of exposure to and respect for the Catholic faith expressed in word and deed.
• Recognize the importance and dignity of each individual.
• Affirm a commitment to academic excellence and further develop a curriculum that challenges each unique individual.
• Expand instructional techniques in recognition of the diversity of the world today.
• Promote active involvement within the community through extensive extracurricular and service programs.

If you happen to actually know the difference between shit and shinola you probably also know that everything I’ve bolded is largely considered to be sinful by the nutball brigade. Chief among these sins is critical thinking and academic excellence. Heaven forbid a nutball actually thinking about much of anything or - worse - considering it important that children should know that pi does not equal 3.

I do take one issue with the article though. A law professor states that forcing Michael to attend a public school would be “establishing atheism”:

Stenger, who previously taught in the school of religion at University of Iowa and has a doctorate of theology from Catholic University of America, also noted that the father’s constitutional argument cuts both ways.

“The mother has equal constitutional rights not to have the court forbid a school because it is religious,” he said.

“If the father were to win, it would put the authority of the court against religion, which both the federal and state constitution forbid,” Stenger said.

“It could be called establishing atheism.”

This is just wrong. For a public school to be atheistic in it’s teaching it would have to actively teach it’s students that (all) theistic belief systems are wrong. It is ridiculous to argue that failing to instruct children to believe in (a) god(s) is the same as instructing children that there is(are) no god(s).

Furthermore, as America is a country that is dominated not just by the religious in general, but by the Christians who also have a controlling share of the nutball brigade, I’m quite sure we’d have heard about such a school by now what with “happy holidays” being solid evidence that America is out to get Christians.  They’d actually have a “war” to bitch about, wouldn’t they?

I bet you’re thinking “priceless”. Well, you’d be wrong. Just ask the parents of Tressa Gross. You see, Tressa went to a club back in April of 2002 where she met a man by the name of John Berger.

He raped her and killed her with a fatal dose of GHB. He admitted that he had done this and that he had drugged and raped other women to reach his goal of “having sex” with at least 100 women.

His punishment?

Five years in prison of which he only has to serve four, another four years of probation and that’s it.

That’s how much your daughter’s worth.

(via The Curvature)

Here’s some statistics about atheists to brighten your day:

Alternet recently kicked off a fundraising event and having apparently registered with the site at some point I received an email asking for money. Having fallen far behind on my reading this past month  or so I decided to check out what Alternet had up that I may have missed. Well, I apparently missed the earth shattering event of Chris Hedges discovering that someone, presumably an atheist, had taken a piss in his cheerios.

The author of American Fascists has a new book out titled “I don’t believe in Atheists” and Alternet decided to publish an article by Hedges that’s just a stone’s throw from being completely unhinged. Well, that’s a lie actually. There’s not a trace of anything that suggests the article was ever hinged to begin with.

Did you know that we modern atheists “embrace a belief system as intolerant, chauvinistic and bigoted as that of religious fundamentalists” who want to see to the “silencing or eradication” of those who disagree with us?

Yes, it was news to me also.   I suppose we should notify the leaders of the Gay Agenda that they aren’t the only ones out to destroy civilization itself.

(more…)

As far as Hillary and Barack are concerned I’ve been of the mind that there is nothing radically different between them to justify being a near zealot for one or the other. However, a post about Barack’s position on abortion recently landed in my gmail that seems to show that while Barack may be for unity, he’s not for compromising on things he considers to be right.

The subject in question is abortion/reproductive rights and Barack seems to have went above and beyond the call of duty by voting against various bills that seek to undermine abortion rights. One such bill was SB1093 which would have resulted in pre-viable fetuses being called children which would entitle them with constitutional rights (the right to life and due process would essentially bar women from obtaining abortions). Barack had this to say (PDF):

Number one, whenever we define a previable fetus as a person that is protected by the equal protection clause or the other elements in the Constitution, what we’re really saying is, in fact, that they are persons that are entitled to the kinds of protections that would be provided to a — a child, a nine-month-old — child that was delivered to term.

That determination then, essentially, if it was accepted by a court, would forbid abortions to take place. I mean, it — it would essentially bar abortions, because the equal protection clause does not allow somebody to kill a child, and if this is a child, then this would be an anti-abortion statute.

Barack has also come out against parental notification laws and the funding of abstinence only sex “education”. He considers reproductive health care to be basic health care and supports OTC emergency contraception for both adult women and minors. He also supports having insurance companies cover birth control.

If that wasn’t enough to kiss him over, he also opposes the Hyde Amendment, doesn’t think public money should be spent on Crisis Pregnancy Centers and would get rid of the global gag rule reinstated by George Bush when he took office.

I find this quite unusual for a politician who speaks about uniting us as such unity is normally achieved by undermining the rights of women, people of colour and gay people. Granted, Barack does not support marriage equality and this is a negative to be sure and one I’m personally disappointed with him over, but he doesn’t seem like the type who’s going to compromise by backing down as has been quite common with democratic politicians lately.

I think that’s what we really need.  Someone who isn’t going to compromise on what’s right, just on things that are little more than superficial differences (ie, “you say po-tay-to, I say po-tah-to”).  We’ve been compromising on the former for nearly eight years now and look where it’s gotten us.

You may be dazzled by Barack and think McCain is the last surviving member of the GOP Clown Car, but what about your lizard brain? Does it agree? Take the test and find out.

I was pleasantly surprised to find out that while my lizard brain agrees that McCain and Huckabee suck, it hadn’t been suckered into thinking Barack was worse than Hillary due to the misdeeds of some of his followers. Hillary and Barack came out dead even at the top of the list.