"Well, I'm dying, since you asked," Hitchens replied. "So are you, but I'm doing it faster and in more rich and fecund detail."
Christopher Hitchens, on his battle with cancer. I recommend the whole article: Hitchens--even in his poisoned, withered state--is as sharp as always.
A dignified death is hard to come by, but we must all strive for it. My sci-fi hero did:
9.08.2010
9.02.2010
PZ Makes My Argument Better
"I don't like the Manhattan mosque, but they've got the right — as long as I've got the right to point and laugh"
The first amendment is hard, and insensitivities are not its standard.
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.
9.01.2010
8.30.2010
8.27.2010
Religion Is Evil; And Your Shit Stinks As Bad As Theirs, So SHUT THE FUCK UP
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.
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.
It Would Be Uninteresting If It Weren't David Fincher
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.
I don't think I'll skip this one.
8.26.2010
8.21.2010
8.18.2010
"People, They're No Fun"
"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.
8.17.2010
I'd forgotten how much I love his work
Helping the Ennis House
Doing the mural at the Atlanta Aquarium
AND appearing at Dragon Con this year!
Doing the mural at the Atlanta Aquarium
AND appearing at Dragon Con this year!
Strangely (In)Appropriate
This is a bad bit of boobala pop, but the subject and a slap near the end are worth it (from Upright Citizens Brigade).
Per aspera ad astra
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."
and from Reason hit & run:
Ray Bradbury Hysterical Theater: We Got Too Much Gummint, Too Many Internets, But Not Enough Moon Colonies!
8.13.2010
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