The Greatest Letter Ever Printed On NFL Team Letterhead (from the Cleveland Scene)
In November of 1974, a Browns fan and season ticket holder sent a letter to the team regarding his concern over fans throwing paper airplanes and implied the team might be sued.
The Cleveland Browns (specifically, their general counsel) sent back an absolutely epic response.
You HAVE to watch this and marvel at the 3-ring circus of oblivious stupidity required for a priest on Bizarro Foxy and Friends to reach a point he didn't mean to make.
Of course, you all know who I pray to, for all the good He does:
"I have no choice, Clyde Squid; I can't meet supplications of that magnitude!"
Atheists are shrill, mean-spirited bullies whose heart is filled with nothing but hate. Or so we're told by theists whose only mastered skills are self-delusion and projection.
So far, this fully armed and operation battle-resort is not targeting what's really important: the nearby stunning, gravity-defying Veer Towers by Helmut Jahn.
As great as they are, I still prefer Jahn's 600 North Fairbanks residential building in Chicago, which also seems to give the middle finger to Newton.
The ex-wife of the Atlanta mega-church pastor accused of sex abuse by four young men once claimed the exalted church leader had a "vicious and violent temper" and beat her while she was pregnant with his son.
Can this get better? Yes:
Wait, do I agree with her or am I disgusted by her too?
Modern Family makes me laugh until I hurt. In spite of the Emmy nominations and wins, Ed O'Neil is a fucking genius. And the second season is just as, if not more, brilliant than the first.
NOVA's What Darwin Never Knew should be shown in every elementary classroom across this country. I put it on to casually view what I already knew; instead, I got sucked in and watched it from middle to end.
Sean B. Carroll is, in my opinion, one of the greatest science educators of our time. His books, and his explanations in this documentary, are simple and sublime.
I think I'm going to have to buy this one.
The religious always get evolution wrong: evolutionary theory explains the changes in biodiversity we observe in the past through the present. Every new post-Darwinian scientific discovery--from the rediscovery of Mendelian genetics, to the discovery of DNA as the molecule of inheritance, to the modern understanding of developmental biology--had every chance of overturning Darwin's theory. Instead, each of those monumental scientific breakthroughs modified his theory to make it more accurate.
Evolution is a fact; the theory of evolution is, to date, incontrovertible. Gods are, to date, controvertible.
Outdated mores and bigotry are, once again, upheld and preserved by dated, ossified politicians. My generation is being ruled from the living tomb, just like Jefferson warned...
Why is a Catholic obliged to vote for the parliamentary list of Adolf Hitler? Because in the National Socialist state intrinsically and through the Reichskonkordat
1. the Faith is protected,
2. peace with the Church is assured,
3. public morality is preserved,
4. Sunday is hallowed,
5. Catholic schools are maintained,
6. the Catholic conscience is no longer burdened,
7. a Catholic has equal rights before the law and in the life of the nation,
8. Catholic organisations and associations, insofar as they exclusively serve religious, charitable and cultural purposes, can operate freely.
Therefore a Catholic is obliged on 12 November [1933] to vote thus:
Referendum: yes
Parliamentary election: Adolf Hitler
I'll expect my apology in a century, when there are 5 Catholics left.
No one need take such insolent, deceitful, vacuous bullshit from the likes of that wheezing octogenarian in his blood-soaked Versace mu-mu. Least of all Richard Dawkins, who gave a firebrand speech so electrifying and damning that it will make you cheer.
Andrew Shirvell is an assistant attorney general in Michigan. And he is CRAZY obsessed with the University of Michigan's student assembly president, who is gay. Watch this video; it's pretty clear what's going on here.
I've been recording Will & Grace to watch when I get bored. I forgot how much I hated Will and Grace (who were truly awful characters), but loved Jack and Karen. And here is the funniest Karen ever:
This Statue of Liberty was gifted to us by foreign leaders, really as a warning to us, it was a warning to us to stay unique and to stay exceptional from other countries. Certainly not to go down the path of other countries that adopted socialist policies.
I tell my parents all the time there is no better gift that they could have given me than besides such an appreciation for family and for faith and patriotism, it's been an upbringing in America in this most perfect state in America - Alaska, where we are independent and we have the pioneering spirit that more of America should hopefully get to look into the state and understand and really try to emulate because it's that pioneering spirit that America needs more of.
I get more coherent sentences out of the illegal immigrants around here.
Jets To Brazil's Orange Rhyming Dictionary is still one of my top 5 albums ever. I just listened to it all the way through, twice. I forgot how crazy fun it is.
Naturally, I dislike the idea of constructing religious buildings anywhere, since they are a colossal waste of community resources, typically represent unproductive holes in the tax base, and promote stupid thinking — but guess what? Those aren't legal cause to interfere with people's right to waste their time and money. Also, if we accept the privilege of individual autonomy and personal freedom, we don't have moral cause to interfere.
I get spooked out by any religion claiming "insensitivity." It's a building, nothing more, nothing less. Let's not add to what it is until those who occupy it do so. Then, we can point and laugh, or rally and protest, or let the government raid it for terrorism.
The first amendment is hard, and insensitivities are not its standard.
Thank you, authoritarian Christian nationalists, for compromising our national security. We now have video for al Queda' recruiting propaganda:
When I joined the protest of "Draw a Mohammad Day," I didn't do so to bully a religious class. I did so to stand up against an assertion that religious sentiments trumped free speech (and could do so with threats of violence).
The same applies to my support of the "Ground Zero Mosque;" or, as I like to call it, the "Ground Zero YMMA." I will not accept crazy, non-realist arguments ("this slaps the 9/11 victims in the face"), nor the insistence that tolerance has a radius.
The first amendment to our Constitution is hard; it's not for the weak of mind, but it protects us from them. And I am weary of Christians throwing bibles in glass houses.
Forget about Ground Zero and use your noggin to think back to the bloodiest event in American history. Was it the Confederacy of Muslims, Atheists, and Homosexuals whose bloodthirsty hordes converged on the goodly Christian Yankee Army of the Union North at Antietam and Gettysburg?
I am the first to say that Islam is a wicked religion: but they all are. And our great republic doesn't win by pretending that the arguments that work in theocracies apply here. Or by pretending that sentiments trump rights.
I am deeply disturbed by this rhetorical Jabberwocky. What do you think will happen when some Muslim Americans go to the completed Ground Zero Memorial, pull out their prayer rugs, and pray that the families of the victims have an iota of grief lifted off of them; and that Muslims around the world will unite against those who would commit violence against our republic?
Now, we all know what will happen: they will likely be castigated and harassed, if not beaten and kicked and spit upon.
We are better than that, and I won't have it any other way.
I'll defer to another Alabama graduate:
Roll Tide Joe! Were the Republican Party as decent, and thoughtful, and principled, and grown up as you.
And the musicians who beat Richard Cheese for the best cover of Radiohead's "Creep?" Scala and the Kolancy Brothers, which is apparently a Belgian girls choir.
"Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury" is transcendentally hilarious. But before that, back when I was in college, a great punk musician wrote a song that covered the same topic.
Ray Bradbury is mad at President Obama, but it's not about the economy, the war or the plan to a construct a mosque near Ground Zero in New York City.
“He should be announcing that we should go back to the moon,” says the iconic author, whose 90th birthday on Aug. 22 will be marked in Los Angeles with more than week's worth of Bradbury film and TV screenings, tributes and other events. “We should never have left there. We should go to the moon and prepare a base to fire a rocket off to Mars and then go to Mars and colonize Mars. Then when we do that, we will live forever."
I have always thought the name Ariadne to be lovely & have used it in various games. When I realized it was Ellen Page's character's name I was intrigued: Why pick a name from Greek antiquity? Ah, Christopher Nolan, you scamp, you are truly a thinking man's director.
Ariadne helped Theseus get out of the Minotaur's labyrinth by trailing string. Obviously this can refer to Inception's Ariadne's abilities as a dream architect, but can it also be a sly way of Christopher Nolan telling us what really happened to Cobb?
That's all the thinking I can do today. Now, back the to The Sims.
Arcade Fire's Funeral was inspired, and Neon Bible was brilliant (and both were suggestively atheistic). But their new album, The Suburbs, is exquisite.
I don't understand people who don't own and love Arcade Fire's albums. You might as well worship some god....
The freedom to marry is recognized as a fundamental right protected by the Due Process Clause. See, for example, Turner v Safely, 482 US 78, 95 (1987)...
Uh oh, it's the Republican/Tea Party's new worst enemy: Amendment XIV!!! But what about "traditional marriage" in the US?
The evidence shows that the movement of marriage away from a gendered institution and toward an institution free from state-mandated gender roles reflects an evolution in the understanding of gender rather than a change in marriage. The evidence did not show any historical purpose for excluding same-sex couples from marriage, as states have never required spouses to have an ability or willingness to procreate in order to marry. FF 21. Rather, the exclusion exists as an artifact of a time when the genders were seen as having distinct roles in society and in marriage. That time has passed.
Don't tell that to the fussbudgets over at Concerned Women for America. Those pious, submitting broads might rend their maternity aprons and stomp on them in disgust with their bare feet.
After going on about how the government must have a very compelling reason to restrict rights of a group of people--or some communist French nonsense like that--up comes my favorite part (which is a header, no less):
PROPOSITION 8 IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL BECAUSE IT DENIES PLAINTIFFS A FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT WITHOUT A LEGITIMATE (MUCH LESS COMPELLING) REASON
The whole thing is a scathing page-turner. Early in the ruling, Chief Judge Walker describes how the defendants only called two witnesses, one of whom was not qualified to enter expert testimony. It's as riotous as dry legalese can get, and it reminds me of Judge Jone's ruling in Kitzmiller vs. Dover.
Cheers to Gov. Schwarzenegger for refusing to defend Prop 8. And cheers to Chief Judge Walker for including this nugget:
That the majority of California voters supported Proposition 8 is irrelevant, as “fundamental rights may not be submitted to [a] vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.” West Virginia State Board of Education v Barnette...
Six Feet Under had one of the best endings of any series ever, transcending from a modern show exploring death to a sci-fi celebration of our inevitable end.
In 1995, in an effort to parody the way the American Psychiatric Association’s hugely influential Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders medicalizes every excessive behavior, psychiatrist Ivan Goldberg introduced on his website the concept of “Internet Addiction Disorder.” Last summer Ben Alexander, a 19-year-old college student obsessed with the online multiplayer game World of Warcraft, was profiled by CBS News, NPR, the Associated Press, and countless other media outlets because of his status as client No. 1 at reSTART, the first residential treatment center in America for individuals trying to get themselves clean from Azeroth, iPhones, and all the other digital narcotics of our age.
A Drug Raid Goes Viral A violent police raid posted on YouTube sparks outrage—but the only thing unusual was that it was caught on video.
In May a Missouri police raid that was captured on video went viral. As of this writing, the video had been viewed more than 1.2 million times on YouTube. It lit up message boards, blogs, and discussion groups around the Web, unleashing anger, resentment, and, regrettably, calls for violence against the officers involved. I’ve been writing about these raids, including some that claimed the lives of innocent people, for five years. There’s never been a reaction like this one. (You can see the video at youtube.com/watch?v=RbwSwvUaRqc.)
Ru Paul's Drag U is fucking brilliant! Best spin-off show ever. We gotta get a certain someone onto season 2. I'm talking about you, Miss Tobermory Thang....
David Bowie's Space Oddity is a great example of a science fiction short story in song form (albeit one about an acid trip). One of my favorite songs ever, by one of my favorite rockers ever, is equally great. Writing a great sci-fi short story is hard. Writing a song that is a great sci-fi short story is brilliance.
The song is Billy Radcliffe. It's by Frank Black and the Catholics, from their album Pistolero.
Billy Radcliffe didn't go to town And when we looked up He was looking right down Catching blue in his eyes that were brown Billy Radcliffe (Billy Radcliffe)
Billy Radcliffe owned by the state From his first breath To the cemetery gate He was the first boy born in space Billy Radcliffe (Billy Radcliffe)
Billy Radcliffe very first one He really had lived just a cursed son A split in half man sang the cherubim Billy Radcliffe (Billy Radcliffe)
Billy Radcliffe saw what the Devil man saw He saw a spot of blue in black of the eye of the Lord Such a cruel love Is the kind that has wrought oh Billy Billy Radcliffe
Billy sadly didn't live long He had to stay there Because he wasn't too strong He's stepping out the door Blowing up like bomb Billy Radcliffe (Billy Radcliffe)
Billy Radcliffe very first one Really a hatched man a light switch son A split in half man sang the cherubim
Billy Radcliffe very first one A split in half man sang the cherubim I bet you cried when he died now didja Now didja ?
Now Billy Radcliffe saw what the Devil man saw A spot of blue in black of the eye of the Lord Oh Billy Billy Radcliffe saw what the Devil man had And I feel very bad for William Radcliffe
For the next 2 months, I will be eating only noodles and peanut butter sandwiches: Books-A-Million is selling some relatively cheap books on modernism, Case Study houses, progressive architecture, surrealism, and Bauhaus. I browsed through a few, and I have to have them all.
The book on the Case Study houses left two stains in my underwear, but I still managed to stop myself from buying it. I was conflicted when I saw a compelling book about my photographer-hero Man Ray. My brain went into overdrive; I didn't know where to spend my cash. So, until tomorrow...
We've all drooled over Aqua, master architect Jeanne Gang's masterpiece of organic pageantry that fuses mid-century modernism with contemporary, energy-efficient construction.
Watch the video here, although you have to give it several minutes to load up and play. It's worth the wait: it's so fucking pretty I can't stand it.
Today, I drove across Florence's old Art Deco dam, and I drove past Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian Rosenbaum house. How it pains me to see our progressive architectural heritage cast away by Americans who think that convenience and slack is comforting.
I believe that God has been in this from the beginning and because of that when he has a plan and a purpose for your life and you fit into that, what he calls you to he always equipped you for.
Do these people even listen to what they say? And what religious monster hasn't said something similar? I bet if you search the rantings of Bin Laden, you'll find similar drivel.
Google ranks Pakistan No.1 in the world in searches for pornographic terms, outranking every other country in searches per person for certain sex-related content, FOXNews.com said.
Pakistan has ranked No.1 in searches per-person for "horse sex" since 2004, "donkey sex" since 2007, "rape pictures" between 2004 and 2009, "rape sex" since 2004, "child sex" between 2004 and 2007 and since 2009, "animal sex" since 2004 and "dog sex" since 2005, according to Google Trends and Google Insights, features of Google that generate data based on popular search terms.
The country has also been No.1 in searches for "sex", "camel sex", "rape video" and "child sex video".
The octopus who has correctly predicted the results of all of Germany's World Cup games has picked a winner for Germany v Argentina in the World Cup quarter-final match on Saturday.
Redux: The new Scissor Sisters album is inspired madness. I never hated/loved the 80's so much/more.
It's like listening to Sirius XM's 1st Wave channel but not recognizing the songs; it's a Prince album before he went all Jehovah's Witness. It's when gay was straight, but totally gay.
The Scissor Sisters have their first totally great album.
Unless we (and by we, I mean NATO, Israel, and those Gulf allies who want to remain nameless) have special ops and civilian intelligence in place to do the dirty work that smart bombs can't, any preemptive strike on Iran's nuclear centrifuges could be a disaster.
Or, it all could be nothing: a show of force whose political implications will be, in my opinion, nothing but stupid. Bombastic, insincere bullying should be left with the previous administration's 2nd-term failures. And sincere, not-thought-out military actions should be left to its 1st-term debacles. We should not lend our support to such wearying, unproductive nonsense now: all military actions should be approved by Congress (per our constitution).
Either bomb them right or get away. Doing either would make Obama demonstrably better than Bush the Younger.
When I was in Chicago last year, I was on a bus tour with my parents (against my protestations). And I saw, 2 streets off where we were driven, a building that warmed by mind.
By accident, I happened upon what it was. It's called The Contemporaine; and it won multiple awards. It's a residential building, which makes me both happy and ill. Why are such buildings so rare?