Monthly Archives: September 2011

Quote: Ricky Gervais

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Ricky Gervais (born 25 June 1961)
English Comedian, Actor, Director, Producer,
Musician, Writer, and Outspoken Atheist

I always expect some people to be offended. I know I ruffle feathers but some people’s feathers need a little ruffling. And remember: just because someone is offended doesn’t mean they’re in the right. [emphasis added] Some people are offended by multiculturalism, homosexuality, abortion, atheism – what should we do? Ban all those things? You have the right to be offended, and I have the right to offend you. But no one has the right to never be offended. I never actively try to offend though. That’s churlish, pointless and frankly too easy. But I believe you should say what you mean. Be honest. No one should ever be offended by truth.

GOP Leaders Stop Taking Credit for Job Data

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When the jobs reports were looking quite good in the early spring, Republican leaders were eager to take credit for the positive numbers they had nothing to do with . . . But if Republicans demanded credit for the job totals in the spring, these same Republicans are desperate to avoid blame for job totals in the summer. . . I can appreciate why the GOP wouldn’t want the blame, even though it’s conservative policies standing in the way of improving the economy. But if Republicans want to claim credit for the job market in April, they should expect responsibility for the same job market in September. Read more . . .  

Tea Baggers are Christian Theocrats

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Apologists for the Tea Party like to claim that it’s a new, grass-roots movement aimed at reducing the size of government and promoting a non-partisan, American political agenda. The truth is radically different: it’s just a warmed-over version of the usual white, conservative, evangelical, Christian Right political agenda . . . The Tea Party’s generals may say their overriding concern is a smaller government, but not their rank and file, who are more concerned about putting God in government . . . So the primary concern of Tea Baggers is to mix religion and government — which means getting their brand of Christianity injected into government in more ways. In short, their Christian Dominionists to one extent or another. Read more . . .  

Millions of taxpayer dollars used to convert soldiers and their children to Christianity

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My education, health, salary, and pension are shrinking… How about we lose all of this Spiritual Fitness stuff instead? In a time when national debt is relatively common discussion, it seems that unconstitutional spending of hundreds of millions of dollars would be a natural choice for the chopping block. Read more . . . 

Robert Redford, “Is the Obama Administration Putting Corporate Profits Above Public Health?”

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Since early August, three administration decisions—on Arctic drilling, the Keystone XL pipeline and the ozone that causes smog—have all favored dirty industry over public health and a clean environment. . . What’s going on here? . . . Putting corporate profits above public health is unconscionable . . . Instead of going to the ends of the earth to feed our national addiction to oil, and putting irreplaceable waters, habitat and even the American breadbasket at risk, we need to invest in the clean energy strategies of tomorrow. That’s the way to put Americans back to work, developing renewable sources of power and fuel and building the next generation of energy efficient cars, homes and workplaces. Read more . . . 

Aphorism: “On Private-Sector Callousness”

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By Madison S. Hughes (09.03.2011)

Am I the only one that noticed how, the probabilistically nearly impossible, latest jobs report showed that 17,000 private-sector jobs were created, while government payrolls were cut by an exact equal 17,000? Seriously, an EXACT inverse relationship . . .

Is this just irony? It could certainly be interpreted as such, and maybe I just have a warped way of interpretation. Nevertheless, I don’t see it as irony, but instead take it as insult. The “Haves” have been incessantly attempting to privatize the public sector for private profit since government’s genesis. Of course this comes with a blatant disregard for the “Have-nots” that they so easily exploit. However, in the past the “Haves” would at least go through the gyrations of herd concealment so that only the helpless minority of politically astute would realize its happening.

The zero sum of private-sector gain at the total expense of public-sector loss is reprehensible. It is yet another outwardly demonstration of the unfettered callousness of which the “Haves” regularly display.

In Solidarity!

Richard Dawkins, “Children are indoctrinated. I want to open their minds”

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Dawkins continues to argue not just against faith but — as an evolutionary biologist — for inheritance, in terms of the chemical genes we are born with and the cultural “memes” that may be transmitted from generation to generation . . . “I’m very aware that people try to get their hands on children and indoctrinate them and I want to open their eyes, open their minds, show them the thrill of science — of really understanding so much of why we exist, why the universe exists, what life is .” . . . It was from his father, Dawkins says, that he learnt a “scientific attitude”. I ask him to define that. He replies: “Ceaseless questioning, scepticism, wanting to know what the evidence is, understanding what evidence means.” Read more . . .