Tex's chainsaw massacre

WARNING: THIS BLOG IS HIGHLY OFFENSIVE. DO NOT READ IF SENSITIVE, PISS WEAK, EASILY HURT, OR A TALK BACK RADIO LISTENER.

Have a look, have a laugh, don't take it seriously, why would you let me spoil your day?

"why would you let an idiot spoil your day?": an idiot.

Well, I'm a talk-back radio listener (NPR) but I still read on (when I drag my lazy ass over to read and comment).

I know I'm preaching to the choir about this, as almost all of my readers (on Ungodly Cynic) go to Tex's blog anyway, but if anybody trips up and stumbles here...go there. It's a much better read than the shit I come up with.

Here's my take: A blog is essentially a "web log"; an online journal; a diary that you open up to whatever douche-bag deems to grace your pages with whatever bullshit they want to share with you. Sometimes these douche-bags aren't really douche-bags after all. Sometimes they become "friends" of a sort. People across the globe who just so happen to be interested in what you are spew...saying.
I'm not immune from spew...saying shit or posting shit that I know might offend some people. It's an art form though and I am but a dabbler (a novice) compared to the likes of Tex.

Mostly I just post news articles and "snippets" from other posts and rarely air the laundry out to dry, so-to-speak. There really is something to be admired for those who do.

As you can see off to the right here I have enshrined some quotes from the man himself. If I hadn't put them there then I would think that his opinion is just that...a mere opinion.

Cheers to Tex. Blog on my "friend".

Schools are in recess this time of year, so busloads of girls using "like" as a verbal crutch and wise cracking, baggy pants boys are wending their way through the cherry blossoms of America's capital. In these security-conscious times it is harder than ever to get a tour of the White House or Capitol, so parents and chaperones are quick to steer the young to the Mall.

A traditional favorite is the National Museum of Natural History, where for several years now Darwinian fairytales have been presented in an exhibit on mammals that encourages our offspring to have a family reunion with their "relatives", including chimps, dogs, and mice. Here are strange just-so stories proposed as fact, telling the gullible, for example, how the giraffe evolved its neck. Presto-change-o. At the core of the exhibit is a tiny rodent whom the adorable, if naïve, teens are supposed to venerate as their direct ancestor. It cost a lot of money to bamboozle the folks this way. And you taxpayers paid for it.

Yes, this is the same Natural History museum where an affiliated scientist
bragged in one of the emails the House of Representatives found a couple of years ago that her own son uses "under dog" instead of "under God" when saying the
Pledge of Allegiance.

For the more discerning visitors, a trip to Mt. Vernon is recommended. Thank goodness for old-fashioned philanthropy and a non-ironic perspective. George Washington's home boasts a lavish new visitors' center and education program that puts government museums to shame. The heroic history of the Revolution is evoked in a stirring orientation film written by Lionel Chetwynd.

Mt. Vernon is not hesitant to hail our true ancestor-in-patriotism as the hero he was, the flesh-and-blood Father of his Country. It's a lot easier for a kid to look up to George than down to a rodent.

Posted by Bruce Chapman on April 7, 2008

This is the whole article so you all don't have to go to their shitty ass web site and give them traffic. Can't comment there anyway....no intelligence allowed

I caught this on NPR and initially was thinking: "This guy (Michael Heller) seems kinda cool."

I am at issue with the media in general for reporting on "morality issues".

So-and-so politician is apparently hypocritical in their moral position...namely Elliot Spitzer for his involvement as a john in a prostitution ring.

Why not spell it out!? Rather than obfuscating what is really meant by a "lapse in morality"? Say plain as day that they SINNED. Meaning, that these god-fearing shysters have fallen from the grace of a god. Does this mean they have forfeited their moral high-ground? Maybe. Have they sinned against God? Most likely, (in the eyes of their religious constituents).

This causes me to reflect on the whole morality/sin rhetoric/issue. For one; I don't believe in any god that prescribes punishment for sin (as I don't even believe in the prescribed punishment...aka HELL). Immorality though? This I look at as more of a societal bane. Yet, what we as a society base our opinion on as to what is right and wrong relying almost exclusively on whatever "Christian" values/mores have been "instituted" as the just cause for judgment in mainstream circles of society has limited our outlook as to what IS right and wrong. If we base our concept of morality in a two-thousand-year-old book than I think we have serious issues to contend with. Time and change moves on...progress...the otherwise catch-phrase for liberalism. If you want to believe in the bible then I suppose you had better be a conservative because in essence you are believing in something that tells you that [morality] is set in stone so to speak. You would have to want things to remain the same or otherwise revert change in society back to whatever era you deem was the "good" era.
To this I say: "Gimme a break!" Essentially I think the religious debate is not about God, but about the norms of society and whether or not these norms comport with whatever religion has the clamp down on "morality". This in quotes because it should really be replaced by "sin".
When you look at it that way [morality vs. sin] then you have a very different picture about the state of human society. The notion of morality should lie solely in the hands of the secularist, while the notion of sin should lie solely in the hands of the religionist. You can have morality without sin, but you can't have sin without morality. Get it? Essentially what I am saying is that sin involves punishment from a god and morality involves punishment from society. What matters most to you? It's a no-brainer for me.

Why is it that whenever I stumble onto a conservative/right-wing blog there hardly ever is a comment section? This only means one thing to me. That these type of blogs are strictly propaganda sign-posts. Pointing the way to some ideological agenda without affording any type of real discourse.

Blog in point: Dave Daubenmire

He claims that the anti-slavery movement was heralded in by the "true" Christian establishment. "The feminized-preachers of today cannot hold a candle to those who ushered in The Great Awakening which led to the American Revolution, and the abolition of slavery -- two world-changing events spearheaded by the pulpit."

Whatever! Think about it. What rock has the bible-thumping mania of today crawled out from under? The south. Who the fuck (in the 1860s) declared that abolition of slavery was NOT okay? The south. The only people who had the nads to step up and take a stance on the abolition of slavery were the Quakers and secular humanists, whose movement originated in the north. This fuck job is NO Quaker and NO humanist.

I like how he uses "Great Awakening" in place of "Enlightenment". Fucking shitheads attempting to rewrite history.

Dave needs to get edumacated.

CityWatch - An insider look at City Hall - Same-Sex Marriage Debate Looking for a Court Date
The California Supreme Court scheduled a March 4 hearing Wednesday for the long-awaited clash between gay-rights advocates, the state and religious conservatives over the constitutionality of banning same-sex marriage. The case, to be heard at the court’s chambers in San Francisco, is a consolidation of four lawsuits by same-sex couples and the city of San Francisco, challenging the marriage restriction, and two countersuits by private organizations defending the law.

Lockheed Paid Lobbyist $140,000 in 2007 - Forbes.com
Lockheed Martin Corp. paid Ervin Technical Associates $120,000 to lobby the federal government in the second half of 2007.

The firm lobbied Congress on the Defense Department's budget and other defense-related spending bills, according to a form posted online Feb. 4 by the Senate's public records office. Lockheed, the world's largest defense contractor, paid the firm $20,000 in the first six months of 2007 to lobby on the same issues.

The Dangers of Political Islam
I'm of the conviction that Islam is the solution as a creed, as a government, and as a way of life, but according to the ways of our Prophet, God's prayer and peace be upon him.

Today, I will be brave to the extent of sounding a voice of advice to my Islamist brethren in the Islamist movement. I will set courtesy aside until I finish writing this article.

McCain Plays Nice With Huckabee - The Caucus - Politics - New York Times Blog
Senator John McCain continued his campaign of congeniality with former Gov. Mike Huckabee today when he said that it was fine with him if Mr. Huckabee challenged the results of Saturday’s Washington State caucuses. Party officials have declared Mr. McCain the winner by several hundred votes, but the Huckabee campaign says that 1,500 votes went uncounted.

Out of Our Past | Battle Creek Enquirer - www.battlecreekenquirer.com - Battle Creek, Mich.
25 years ago today, 1983: Calhoun County dairy farmers, whose silos are contaminated with toxic PCB, report no problems with selling milk or meat, but those who still are using such silos to store feed intend to stop the practice. A new tentative state ruling orders that the silos, blamed for putting small amounts of PCB in Michigan milk, be destroyed and buried.

Flashing red left-turn lights to be phased out | Battle Creek Enquirer - www.battlecreekenquirer.com - Battle Creek, Mich.
Michigan drivers for years have been making left turns from lanes where the signal light is flashing red. We've become accustomed to the flashing red light preceding a green light. Under state law, the flashing red light means oncoming traffic and pedestrians have the right of way, but a left turn is permissible if traffic is clear.

Let me begin by saying that the person who asked me this is one of the sweetest, nicest people I've met.

"Well, this one is Atheism: a Reader," I say.

"You're an atheist?"

"Yep."

"Oh no, but you're such a nice person," almost disparagingly.

"...atheists can't be nice people?"

That was the end of the conversation, by which we moved on to discuss the weather.

What does this say to how misunderstood atheism is? I also wonder how and where she comes by information to suggest that atheists are bad people to begin with.

When a set of people are vilified and demonized; it's no wonder they get outraged and angry.

“If I order a book from Amazon.com, it seems to me from the time I place the order, Amazon can tell me exactly where that book is…” Huckabee said. “I’ve determined that when I become president if the people in the federal government continue to make excuses that they can’t figure out how to find people they let in, we will outsource it to FedEx and UPS.”

Okay, I hear (read) quite a bit in the blogosphere about how evolution is a fraud and such nonsense. Fine, if people want to believe it's a fraud so be it (it's a side issue really). Those of the faith have a conviction that there "good" book is the one and only truth to go by and lambaste atheists/agnostics/secularists/humanists/"evolutionists" as being in the same category as their dogmatic counterparts. I find this hard to reconcile and agree with. To a degree it could be said that the camp on the opposite side of the divide does hold such hard as nails convictions, but I would hope my fellow freethinkers would hold true to the freethought principles implied. Are atheists dogmatic? I don't think so. As the saying goes, "...it's like herding cats." A dogma implies that there are rules and codes to live by a certain ideology. I don't think atheists have such rules...ideas about how the world works and passions about how these ideas can be made real for the betterment of humanity, but not dogmatic, fear-mongering tactics you find underlying the works found in the "good" books of the world. Atheists don't say "do this" or else you are going to suffer. Atheists don't prescribe a set code of morals to live by in order to appease the whim of somebody else we've never met (and believe we never will meet).

The religious process has gone on so long that the questioning of it has flown out the window. Those who read this and feel that faith and religion deserve some kind of respect are deluding themselves. I know I'm sounding like I contradict myself with the above statement "so be it", but "so be it" only applies in the sense that personal beliefs are kept as just that---personal. When we venture out into the public sphere and seek to impose personal beliefs onto the public at large then we have a problem. Oh! Isn't that what atheists/secularists have been doing for so many years? Imposing their ideas into the public square? This is actually a tough question, but not that tough. If we define secularist and/or atheist ideals as the free-flow of information and ideas then yes. If we define secularist and/or atheist ideals as being contradictory to the belief systems of so many faithful...yes again.
Why? Because in my opinion secularism is very easy to understand. Don't fucking push your fucking religious agenda onto the rest of us! The rest of us who don't particularly subscribe to said agenda. Be you Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist or whatever all secularists invariably respect and are inclusive of ALL religions (just not in the public sphere and policy making aspects of government). Secularists are not against religion (atheists on the other hand....probably).
That said. What, after so much civil progress in the last two century do these radical Christians have to bitch about? Seriously!?!?
Let's start with the abolition of slavery. How often have I heard the chest-pounding and righteous platitudes of the religious in the role that religious moralists had played in this movement? Too many times. The secularist and the atheist is left out in the history books altogether. I never knew what atheism was until I became old enough to even think about it on my own.
We think that Christian fundamentalism is rearing it's ugly head? It's been snarling at society and public policy since I don't know when. Long before the founding of this fine country. Why didn't I know about Elizabeth Cady Stanton and her position on slavery and the Womens Suffrage movement? To know that she preceded Susan B. Anthony and was indeed Anthony's muse. History gets re-written Stanton was an atheist and a true feminist. That's why she was relegated to the dust-bin of history. Why are atheists pissed off again? Society (US) at large is controlled by a Christian elite (however innocuously) to uphold their "good" book as a standard by which to live by. True, most people of faith and most people of inquiry may not know or even grasp the notion that our society has been MOLDED into a frame-work that supports the status-quo of centuries. Christians bitch and complain about how things are getting out of hand and we need to go back to the good-ole-days. What "good-ole-days"? Were the good-ole-days all that good?

Personally I say, "Fuck no!"

Anybody who thinks (outside of any ideology) that women and blacks should not have been allowed to vote. That slavery was okay. That your run-of-the-mill atheists were (and are) communist, unpatriotic faith-haters (the Red Scare), then you are really fucked in the head, because this is what religion has propagated for centuries. And don't tell me that the Christian mind-set is different; now that it is more liberalized. It might be in some circles, but to the best of my knowledge these liberalized Christians are the ones who take their faith "personally" and see no reason to infuse their own beliefs upon those who do not wish it. These Christians probably understand and have a true respect for secularism and how it benefits them personally. Those Christians who think they can revert and destroy the progress that secularism has made in this country (and the world, however marginally) only seek to roll-back the rights (real rights) of humanity. To think for oneself. To have choices. To enable and empower all of us to believe what we want to believe and HOW we want to believe it.
This very concept goes against the grain of organized religion. And I know it is an uphill battle to have such claims, but it's there. I truly think the modern Christian is really confused about the role humanity really plays in the grand scheme of things and by ascribing the guiding hand of a god can only circumvent free-will. This is at the heart of what worries people of faith about the nature of their beliefs and about the role their beliefs play in the future that humanity is moving forward into.
Am I being optimistic? Right now I am. Sometimes I'm not so optimistic, in that I think we will destroy ourselves because so very many people are looking for the end of the world that it just may come to pass.

What are the faithful worried about? Faith. Plain and simple. If less people believe then it's a sure sign that what they believe is incompatible with what society bases its foundation upon. That little by little the notion that religion and it's tenants are becoming increasingly irrelevant. Implying that they are wrong in what they believe. It's a scary thought and it's not so hard to wrap my brain around. This is what gets true-believers freaked out and up in arms. It's essentially what gets me up in arms as well. Yet there is a difference in beliefs. What is right and wrong about either one? I'd say that society as a whole dictates what particular belief system shall benefit the whole of society; what, in essence, shall help progress humanity into its future identity. To me the religious mind embodies stagnation of a sort (particularly the religious mind that shrugs off modernity). Change is needed to move humanity forward into the future in perpetuity. Yet with the mindset that the apocalypse is forever upon us and a Second Coming is inevitable; how can we as a human species look beyond such calamitous revelation and truly think beyond such "foretold" endings? We must simply shrug off these ingrained, preconceived notions of nihilism on earth and "think outside the box". Personally I don't believe in an after-life, I don't think that I will go to a heaven where I can forever forget about this dust mote we live on. I'd prefer to think about the future generations that I know will be present beyond whatever Armageddon is foretold.

Wash. chaplain badges lose crosses
12/5/2007, 12:18 p.m. EST
The Associated Press

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — The city's Police Department will remove crosses from its chaplain badges to settle a lawsuit filed by a Lutheran pastor-turned-atheist.

"It's a milestone," said Ray Ideus, 75, who volunteers eight hours a week for the department, and filed the lawsuit in 2006.

"It's very important that they'll have to take that cross off. It's not a Christian police department. The chaplains have to minister to all faiths and non-faiths."

Ideus was a Lutheran pastor for 30 years before he became an atheist. His volunteer duties do not including work as a chaplain.

Chaplains' badges up to now have included the city seal and a Christian-Latin cross. Chaplains may still wear lapel pins with crosses or other insignia showing personal religious preferences, said Police Chief Anne E. Kirkpatrick. She announced the settlement to the City Council Monday night.

According to Ideus' lawsuit, putting the cross on police chaplain badges is an "impermissible incorporation of a particular religious symbol in a government insignia."

He was countersued by Assistant City Attorney Rocco N. "Rocky" Treppiedi, who claimed the lawsuit was "false, and unfounded, malicious and without probable cause." The countersuit also is being dismissed under the settlement.