2009-04-29

Interesting

The first criminal prosecution arising from Twitter posts began in April 2009 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Daniel Knight Hayden, a supporter of the Tea Party protests against the policies of President Barack Obama. Hayden was allegedly sending tweets threatening violence in connection with his plan to attend the Tea Party protest in Oklahoma City.


Wikipedia

2009-04-24

more tests

Maemo WordPy info

testing out Maemo WordPy

using this application for N810 its a blogging app. You can write posts offline etc. gotta figure out how to add photos looks like you add them separately. Sorry for punctuation mistakes... its late

2009-04-13

Wal Mart cleaning music lyrics

Wal Mart had a policy whereby they would take an artists work, and demand a "clean" version of the music. Cause hearing the occasional "fuck" or "shit" or "bitch" was too harsh for their prudish ears. They wanted to make Wal Mart a more family friendly place. They blocked out COSMO magazines talking about "how to drive him wild in bed" and an occasional boob poking through a dress on the cover of Redbook.

So what sort of books do you think they would allow / disallow to be sold in Wal Mart? Yes they do sell Christian books. They also sell Dr. Phil Books. They sell Self help books, and the "Purpose Driven Life".

They also think its perfectly OK to sell this:

WalMart goes out of its way to edit out music lyrics but sells this shit

I don't have a problem with trashy romance novels but what was the point of them editing out an Eminem Album. When a book like the above describes in great detail sex acts that would make the prudes blush.

The Alabama christian strikes back

ShockCampaign

Here

Proudly in Alabama and SAVED by the Lord's grace! says:

The Bible specifically says the death penalty is to be applied in certain cases as punishment for horrific crimes. These babies committed no crimes, unlike the long line of child-rapists and murderers sitting on death row.

Applying the death penalty is definitely killing, but it is not murder. Murder is non-justified killing (i.e. one person killing another out of petty personal rage, which is a sin). The death penalty is justified since God specifically commands that it be carried out (and gives the specific crimes for which it is to be done). The Bible is God's word, and God is perfect and makes no mistakes, hence there are no contradictions in the Bible...and any "interpretation" thereof which would lead to there being contradictions is therefore logically incorrect on its face (something you'd know had you actually read a Bible before spouting off about it - or had an IQ higher than a pop-tart).

You think silence would be better than this sign, which is a form of protected peaceful speech and an expression of conscious objection? Who would you have to be an advocate - a non-violent voice - for these babies which have done nothing wrong, and are defenseless, yet are killed anyway?


My response:

"The Bible specifically says the death penalty is to be applied in certain cases as punishment for horrific crimes"

Yeah, like

If you are gay - Leviticus 20:13
If you are a rebellious child - Deuteronomy 21:21
If you are a "false" prophet - Deuteronomy 13:6
If you try to entice your family to "worship other gods" - Deuteronomy 13:8-9
If you are a stranger and tell people to "worship other gods" - Deuteronomy 13:15-16
Practice magic - Leviticus 20:27
Drink Blood - Leviticus 7:27
If you don't get your son circumcised - Exodus 4:24-26
Needlessly slaughtering innocent CHILDREN - Exodus 11:5
If your son hits and curses you the bible says you should kill them - Exodus 21:15


And God decides to kill everything on earth for no particular reason - everything from newborns to Koala Bears - Genesis 7:21-23


There are over 900 instances of cruelty and violence in the bible. And yes in the New testament too. It would take me all night to type out every single one. So the question is, what are you doing in the 21st century reveling in a book that is so violent?


I honestly typed that out before even reading about his "pop tart" comment. I don't think he has room to talk. If he believes that the earth was flooded and covered with water and that the earth is only 6000 years old.

2009-04-11

I don't mean to sound critical, but...


Photo by RussSwift

There were several deadly tornadoes that blasted through middle Tennessee on Friday. Two people died including a nine week old newborn. (Apologies for the resource-hogging website from Channel 5) This was a tragedy for the surviving husband and father. I cannot even imagine what it must be like for him to lose his wife and his newborn like that. My thoughts are certainly with him though I don't know him.

I heard a lot of delusional talk from people whom I would call friends. Disclaimer: these people are religious. They said things like "I just got home and am SO thankful to say that we don't even have a trashcan turned over. Thank you, God." and "I prayed hard that there wouldn't be many deaths." and this doozy: "Well God must be looking after us because there were only two deaths"

After doing a spit-take on that last one, I thought to myself, out of respect, and as a part of my lets-bend-over-backward-to-respect-other-people's-religion policy.

I thought: If God existed wouldn't it be better to simply pray for no more tornadoes? How about no more hurricanes? Or How about no more earthquakes? No more tsunami's? No more famine? No more slaughter of the innocent? No more malaria deaths (currently 1-3 Million per year from a parasite. A parasite the creationists would have you believe God himself designed.)? No more child murder? In which a Sunday School Teacher killed an 8-year-old girl whose body was found in a suitcase dumped in an irrigation pond. Give it up for that Christian Morality We always hear about!

Or how about ending Child rape? (More of that Christian Morality I have been nagged about because us atheists don't get our morality from anywhere, if we don't get it from the bible)

If god does exist, doesn't this just show how much of a sick bastard he is? That woman and that nine week old newborn did not deserve to die from an "Act of God". You have to sit and think for a minute of why God would allow 25,000 children to die every single day of starvation. How is this in any way demonstrable of "God's Love"?

The world is full of suffering. In the animal kingdom, which includes us - yes we used to hunt and be hunted -more on this in a later blog post, the creationists would have you believe God "designed" the cruel day-to-day occurrence of predator hunting prey. And the incredibly cruel goings on of parasite and host. Why would God design a cruel system of perpetual suffering? Why would God design organisms that can experience pain and suffering and will all eventually die when he himself is immortal? For fun? Because he is one sick bastard?

It may seem tough to question these poor desperate people's faith. But isn't bracing truth better than false hope?

2009-04-09

Stuff you should know



Hat tip to Cameron Reilly

Lucilio Vanini

Lucilio Vanini was extremely brave to "come out" as an atheist. After which he was arrested and tortured to death.

On wikipedia:

In November 1618 he was arrested, and after a prolonged trial was condemned, as an atheist, to have his tongue cut out, and to be strangled at the stake, his body to be after wards burned to ashes. The sentence was executed on the 9th of February 1619.


Isn't intolerance wonderful? From the religion of peace™ -Christianity.

2009-04-08

Hard to blog

Its hard to blog, esp. with a full time job and other duties. Its now 23:17 as I type this. With all the tools available to me, mobile web, the S10, offline blogging, I still find it hard to make posts.

So now I am going to bed as the end of another day. Here is a video of an old favorite song of mine. Sound quality is not tops but the music is flawless.

2009-04-07

Poor Guy

CarpenterBee (34)

Or I don't know if this was a male or female. Any help is appreciated. More on flickr.

I ran into this bee on my truck and it was moving very slowly (probably cause it was cold and got caught out thinking it was going to warm up. Notice in the other flickr photos I use my leatherman to pick it up (because again, I didn't know if it was male or female and did not want to get stung). So I got it and took photos, and then placed it back on the ground to maybe warm up in the sun. (maybe it will survive tonight's freezing temperatures and live on into the summer. I believe it was fooled by Sunday's warm temps, then got a shock after the storms blew through.

So I guess it makes up for my Velvet Ant Murder, that I let this one live.

Hey I also captured a house centipede and released it outside without killing it. So I guess 1 for 3 is a good start eh?