My Decision Has Been Made, and It Is Final

I did not watch the royal nuptials a week ago today. However, I did watch several of the "Royal Wedding in 2 minutes" videos. Since then, I have been struck with love for this hat! Nigel hates it. My mother hates it. The Princess hates it. I am going on record forever to say that I LOVE THIS HAT! I LOVE IT! THIS HAT IS ABSOLUTELY THE MOST WONDERFUL HAT EVAR! Thank you, Princess Beatrice of York, for wearing this fantastic hat! I love you! That is all. Have a great weekend. Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there, especially my own! Thanks for shoving me out all those years ago! And to my kids, a gift idea. For Mother's Day, no breakfast in bed, please. Just THIS HAT!

Helpful Hint for the Superstitious

If you want to do it right, like Texas Gov. Rick Perry did when he scheduled a "Pray for Rain" day on April 29th, be sure to check the Texas weekend weather report. It makes taking credit for things you had nothing to do with much easier, and helps keep the Kool-Aid nice and fresh for those who love to drink it!

Holiday Re-gifting Hint

I am all about re-gifting! If I receive something nice, but have no use for it, I will pass it along to someone who will love it more than I do. However, this past holiday season, re-gifting went wrong!

My mom always writes something in the front of books she gives as gifts. This year, her habit was my father-in-law's downfall!

In 2008, my mom and step-dad gave my FIL a hardcover book in which he had expressed interest. This past Christmas, my MIL's partner received a book from my FIL and his wife. Interestingly, the book had an inscription which read "Merry Christmas 2008 to [FIL's name] from [mom and step-dad's name] - ENJOY." Most of us have had a good laugh about it, but my mom is a bit miffed.

The lesson here is to be careful about re-gifting. If you are re-gifting secretly, be sure to remove inscriptions or messages from the previous gifter.

Lovely Quotes From Men Series Opener

Simon Jones is a git.

Dude doesn't want to get married. Dude claims Frances railroaded him into marriage. Dude doesn't want children. Dude claims Frances railroaded him into fatherhood. Dude's true feelings about women in general come out:

And it’s not only Frances who’s become a boring frump — it’s depressingly common to see clever, attractive women become parenting bores. You can spot them at parties, in baggy clothes and making no effort to be interesting to men. Surely the ultimate mummy could still be a sex cat, if no longer a sex kitten?

Never forget, fellow women, that you are required by the patriarchy to continually be interesting to men at all times and in all places. Whether that interests you or not. Twisty has it right(though the subject of the linked post is much more disgusting than Simon's sad saga):

The sex class is responsible for maintaining its perpetual availability for the use of males.

She points out that women who do not feel obligated to conform to the requirements of patriarchical femininity will be punished. By being castigated and maligned by some git in the Times Online, for example.

Simon, however, for all of his whine-worthy suffering, did not learn from his experience with boring, frumpy Frances. He soon left Frances for Maria and repeated the whole ridiculous performance again. Git. I'm going to mail him a box of tissues.

Christmas Rant

I don’t give a crap about Christmas. There. Call me Scrooge, I don’t care.

I also don’t give a crap about my birthday, my wedding anniversary, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Thanksgiving, or, really, any day that has been set aside as something special, but seems to actually be set aside in order to encourage profligate and unnecessary spending.

Every day I am alive is as special as the day on which I was born. Every day I am married to my wonderful Nigel is as special as the day on which we married. Every day on which I have enough to eat is as special as Thanksgiving. Every day on which I act as a good citizen and enjoy the fruits of democracy is as special as Independence Day.

But I digress. Back to Christmas. Both my family and Nigel’s family are populated by several poor planners and spendthrifts. Without going into boring detail and a 40 page rant, let’s just say that my brother and his family, Nigel’s brother and his girlfriend, and Nigel’s mom and her boyfriend have planned their finances very poorly and can’t control their impulses to spend money they do not have to buy luxury items. We have given Nigel’s mom large amounts of money twice within the past year, simply to allow her to eat and pay her bills. My brother and Nigel’s brother generally leech off of my mom and Nigel’s dad respectively.

At any rate, the tale continues as we plan for our trip back to the US for Christmas. Nigel got an e-mail from his brother recently saying that he and his girlfriend have no money but that their mom has helped him get presents for us and for the kids. This pisses me off on several levels:
1) His mom doesn’t have any money. How does Nigel’s brother have the nerve to leech off her? Why give gifts at all?
2) Again, his mom doesn’t have any money. Why give gifts at all?
3) When we give his mom money to allow her to pay bills and eat food, why would she think it is okay to use that money to buy crap for our kids!? We can buy crap for our own kids without her as the middle man. Why would she think it is okay to buy crap for our kids for Nigel’s BROTHER to give them?
4) Why can’t we just have a nice dinner and stay up all night talking and laughing and listening to music? Why do there have to be gifts at all when nobody has the money to pay for them?

We have asked them NOT to give presents they can’t afford. Why do they insist on it? Especially when they can’t even buy themselves the requirements for life without subsidization? I understand the desire to give things to your grandchildren, nieces, and nephews. I do not begrudge them wanting credit for getting things for the kids. They want the kids to love them the most and apparently think that unless they buy crap for them, the kids won’t love them. Whatever – we’re trying to raise the kids not to think that way. We’re trying to raise them to be responsible and productive members of society, neither dependent on others nor with others dependent on them. We’re trying to raise them knowing that PEOPLE are more important than THINGS, and that love is better displayed through everyday kindnesses than through the occasional giving of things.

There is an additional angle here, too, in that MY mom spent her whole life planning for retirement. She invested the maximum allowable into her retirement fund, made sure she did not spend money she didn’t have, and hired a financial planner to help her maximize her money and prepare for the earliest possible retirement date. Because of her good planning, she actually has disposable income, not as much as in the recent past, due to the current economic crisis, but she does well for herself – through her own hard work and thoughtful planning. This is a bone of contention between her and MIL. MIL feels competitive. While she can’t buy the kids one expensive toy or other gift, as my mom has done in the past, she tries to outdo my mom in quantity, with bags and bags of crappy crap from the Dollar Store.
In addition, Nigel’s dad recently remarried a woman with seemingly bottomless reserves of cash. So there’s competition there as well.

Nigel and I have also been actively planning for the time when we either don’t want to work anymore or cannot work anymore. We have invested and planned for ourselves and for our kids’ futures. We have pinched pennies and minimized spending on non-necessities for the past 15 years and have built up a nice nest egg.

Am I wrong to be offended? Am I a bitch for thinking that the $100.00 my MIL spent on bags of Dollar Store crap that will be broken within 24 hours of Christmas would have been better spent on my MIL’s household heating bill, or that Nigel’s brother would be better off using any money MIL gives him to pay off one of his credit card bills instead of buying crap for my kids? Am I stingy for thinking that if she has the nerve to ask for financial help from Nigel and I this Christmas, I will put my foot down and tell her to piss off until she can swear on a stack of WalMart circulars that she will not buy a single thing for us or our kids during the year? I fear that Nigel and I will not benefit from our hard work and penny pinching because of the profligacy of our families. Will we have to continue working until we die so that our families can buy Christmas presents for people? Fuck that.

I need to think of some sort of solution for the dilemma. My first thoughts are that I need to get Nigel’s support and tell everyone, my family AND his, that next year, for the kids’ birthday and for Christmas, if they MUST give presents, they will contribute to a central pool of money and that money will be used by the kids to buy something they want or need. Nobody will know how much any other person put into the pool, thus removing the competition angle. Also, any additional gifts given will be returned and the money will be given back to the giver or applied to the giver’s utility bill or mortgage/rent. This should also apply to any gifts given to me or to Nigel. We do not need socks or sweaters or potpourri, and if we do, we can get it ourselves.

Can’t we make Christmas, which I hate anyway, into a simple day, one to spend with our family eating and talking and laughing and having fun? Now, THAT, I wouldn’t hate.

Jerusalem to Be Capital of Despotic World Government!

I have been reading Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman's excellent book, Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It?, published in 2000. It is an excellent and fascinating read, not only for the hard work and research the authors did in order to provide the facts, but also for the section about freedom of speech and why it is not necessarily an abridgment of that freedom for an institution to refuse to provide an outlet for lies and distortions.

One example given is that of Holocaust deniers purchasing ad space in college newspapers whose editors then cried, "Freedom of speech! Freedom of speech!" when the shit hit the fan. The authors wrote:

We must never pass a law that says Holocaust deniers may not publish their own literature. But we are not obligated to facilitate that expression.

Too many people do not see this distinction. I think Shermer and Grobman are right on about this.

Segue...

One quote from the book that stood out to me, in that I burst out laughing when I read it, is from white supremacist and historical revisionist (a.k.a. Holocaust Denier) Jack Wikoff from his 1990 Remarks newsletter:

Revolutionary communism and International Zionism are twin forces working toward the same goal: a despotic world government with the capital in Jerusalem.

Oh, ha ha ha ha!! He may be entirely serious! But he's obviously not been to Jerusalem. It is impossible to find a parking place just to go to the grocery store or the post office, much less for the entire world's population of supposed revolutionary communists and Zionists to come here to set up a despotic world government capital! Plus, in local politics, it is impossible to even get the people from different neighborhoods in Jerusalem to agree on anything. Good luck with that World Government, I say. Batshit crazy that Wikoff is!

Now They're Poaching People!

An article in yesterday's IOL News says that ignorant fools who somehow believe that the blood and body parts of albinos can attract gold and despicable fools who claim the power to make magic charms from such material have opened up a new and lucrative market in Burundi and Tanzania: A market for dead albino parts. I'm not talking about albino tigers like these, or even albino apes like Snowflake. I am talking about albino HUMANS.

Rhinos, apes, monkeys, elephants, leopards, and many other animals have been threatened with extinction through poaching, and often for ridiculous reasons. Are we now to add humans with no melanin in their skins to the list?

A province official has opened his home to albinos who can get there, in order to protect them from roving gangs seeking to kill them for profit.

The report illustrates the path from discrimination to destruction that sometimes happens to minorities. Albinos have been ostracized,actively discriminated against, and mistreated in Africa. But now it has escalated to murder.

I have to wonder where this idea came from. Surely nobody just happened to kill an albino and then happened to notice that his/her blood or body part made gold come up from the ground. Some fishermen think using albino meat to bait their hooks will catch fish with bellies full of gold. Did this actually happen once? Where the hell did the idea originate?

I guess it could be similar to those who used to (and perhaps still do, in some places) blame Jews for things such as plague or financial collapse, leading others to first ostracize and eventually murder Jews. To the ignorant native "sorcerer/doctors", encouraging people to kill albinos and bring the blood and parts to be transformed into gold-attractor charms, it solidifies their power within communities, is lucrative for them, and rids the area of individuals they claim deserve death. Three birds with one stone.

Terrible and stupid! Hopefully the official who is protecting some of these people can find a way to stop this barbarism.

People are so bizarre. In some parts of Africa, people, even children and babies, are being killed because they have been accused of witchcraft. In other parts, people claiming to be sorcerers encourage killing albino people to make magic charms. What if the two groups met? Would they kill each other off?

Yom Kippur Riots in Acre

I was not at all surprised to read about the attempted stoning and subsequent riots in Acre on Yom Kippur. And it is still going on!

Even Acre’s Arab leaders are now caving in and saying that the driver should not have done whatever it was he did (allegations vary). Maybe not, and my family didn’t drive that day, not out of respect, but out of self-preservation, since we have accidentally driven near religious neighborhoods in Jerusalem and have been threatened with stones before we frantically backed away, but it is still ridiculous to expect non-Jews to follow specifically Jewish traditions.

A mayoral candidate is quoted in the article above as saying that this was a planned Islamic pogrom. What a terrible use of weighted words to raise anger and hostility. He also said that it wasn’t fair because Jews respected Ramadan for a whole month. What does that even mean? To disrespect Ramadan, what would they do? Hold some Muslims down and force them to eat during the day? Try to take away all their Qurans so they can’t read them?

In another stupid use of words, an Arab Israeli MK has called the riots a pogrom against Arabs.

There is no law saying no driving on Yom Kippur. It is considered bad form, but is not illegal, and I saw several dozen drivers on Road 1 during the day. It would be easy to make such a law if the people here wanted to. There is no separation of church and state here.

Or perhaps the Jews who want everyone to follow their traditions should move to the barricaded Haredim neighborhoods in Jerusalem where it is considered praise-worthy to throw stones at cars on Shabbat. But I’ll bet that would cramp their style.

So, we have Day Five of the riots today. Will Acre's Jews have a little something extra to atone for next year on Yom Kippur? If they take their book as a guide, they may not think they've done anything requiring atonement, since their god often commands them to wipe out non-Jews living in their promised land.

No Patriarchy in Southern Sudan - YET

I'm really tired of typing "When Patriarchy Makes the Rules." Can we just do away with the patriarchy now, please?

From MSNBC comes this tale from Juba, a town in southern Sudan. It seems several dozen women were arrested for "disturbing the peace" by wearing tight pants. Deputy Dawg, I mean Deputy Police Commissioner Raiman Lege said the trousers were just too darned tight!

The women were not charged, and were released the following day without charges (good!) after having been thrown into the back of a truck and spending the night in a Sudanese jail (bad!).

So, whose peace was disturbed? Let's see. The article mentions that south Sudan is a more liberal area than "the largely Muslim north" of Sudan. Juba is indeed in the south. The dateline of the article is quite confusing, since Juba is nowhere near Khartoum, which sits smack dab in the middle of the north, while the story location is "Juba, Khartoum." Northern Sudan is under a combination of British-style common law side-by-side with Islamic law (Sharia). Southern Sudan is nominally different, and is supposedly not required to comply with Sharia Law.

The majority of the population in southern Sudan practice animist or other indigenous religions, with small groups of both Christians and Muslims. Many citizens were angry with the arrest of the women, so one would logically want to know upon what authority the arrests were made. Is Deputy Dawg Christian or Muslim? Is there a "conquer from within" agenda among patriarchy supporters in southern Sudan? Have Sharia/patriarchy supporters infiltrated law enforcement in southern Sudan? Do some of the local religions require modest dress for women? I don't know.

If some law enforcement officials support Sharia, then the answer to "whose peace was disturbed" is: that of the child-like and impulsive Muslim men, who are, as usual, unable to control themselves at the sight of a woman's hips or legs and must be protected like babies from such a sight. If not, then perhaps the arresting officers or whoever gave the order to arrest the women has a problem with self-control and would blame women instead of their own personal failings. Either way it is fortunate that the court released the women without charges, though reprehensible that they had to spend the night in jail at all.

Still - Southern Sudan citizens, while I applaud your attempts to separate yourselves from the northern Sharia-infested legal system, your patriarchy is showing!

Photo credit: The Juba Post online

When Patriarchy Makes the Rules IV: Equal Opportunity

My last two posts addressed various patriarchal idiocies within specific Muslim and Jewish sects. Here, I would like to highlight a variety, well, just two for now, since this started to get pretty long, of patriarchal idiocies within various Christian sects.

On Sarah Palin:

Some group of christo-fascist freaks' blog, which also includes a section entitled "God's Hitlist [sic]":

You can’t call a woman who wants to be President a “lady”. That just ain’t gonna happen. I don’t mean to be a broken record but Sarah Palin’s gotta stay home with that poor little retard child of hers. Ain’t much else you can say about it. - Billy Bob Neck

From the same blog, having nothing to do with Sarah Palin, but I saw it and snorted tea out of my nose:

I noticed [on Conservapaedia] this astute and sobering observation concerning Hussein Obama’s birth certificate:
It’s interesting that they finally give the, so-called authentic, birth certificate number in this supposedly unfaked photo. It is 151 1961 - 010641. The reason I bring this up, and I think the REAL reason this was masked, is because numerological analysis shows something very disturbing. If you add up the three sets of digits thus:

151 + 1961 + 010641 = 12753

and then add the individual digits of the result thus:

1 + 2 + 7 + 5 + 3 = 18

the final result, 18, is the product of three sixes (3 x 6 = 18). Three sixes, or 666, sort of speaks for itself. I just thought this was interesting.

It’s not just interesting… it blows the whole Obama conspiracy wide open. Do the Demoncrats think that we wouldn’t notice that their candidate was the anti-Christ foretold in the book of Revelation? All it took was the god-given intellect of one Conservapedia reader to bust Obama’s devil-code wide open.

Yours in Christ,

Jimmy Goddard

Oh dear! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!

NOTE: I do not recommend you go to this blog. It is mostly just bizarre, and in addition to the numerology crap above, also has a post about Senator Obama being a secret Voodoo practitioner. However, it is also an anti-choice blog and has some nasty photos.

********

From the LA Times:

"The Palin selection is the single most dangerous event in the conscience of the Christian community in the last 10 years at least," said Doug Phillips, president of Vision Forum, a Texas-based ministry. "The unabashed, unquestioning support of Sarah Palin and all she represents marks a fundamental departure from our historic position of family priorities -- of moms being at home with young children, of moms being helpers to their husbands, the priority of being keepers of the home."

and

Some of the debate centers on whether the Bible allows women to serve as civil leaders. Vision Forum leaders argue that it does not. They cite passages in Genesis, Isaiah, Ephesians and elsewhere that they say establishes male headship over women and are critical of female leadership.

I'll leave it there for now since this is long. Readers be aware that I do not support McCain/Palin. I have many, many, many reasons for this (no room here to list - maybe later), though, and Gov. Palin's womanhood is most definitely NOT one of them. She can work where ever she wants as far as I'm concerned, and she has plenty of money to hire nannies and housekeepers. It would be nice, though, if she would at least publicly recognize her privilege, instead of the bogus folksy aw-shucks crap.

When Patriarchy Makes the Rules III

Who'd a thunk there would be two of these brought to my attention in one day?

My previous post was in regard to a Muslim cleric in Saudi Arabia who has decided that women wearing black bags over their heads and bodies with only a slit for their eyes is insufficient and that women should cover all but one eye.

Now I've seen this article which includes descriptions of a man breaking into a woman's apartment and violently beating her while hurling death threats for being divorced(this is old news, and one article claims there were at least six other men involved in the beating,) a young woman from Bet Shemesh attacked with pepper spray by a group of men for walking around with some boys in Jerusalem, and rocks, curses, and spit being thrown at another young woman, also from Bet Shemesh, for wearing a red shirt.

As an extra, a Jerusalem store was vandalized by groups of men several times, and finally was torched, but not completely destroyed by a man or group of men, for selling MP4 players.

The divorced woman was under suspicion from the local modesty patrol for possibly having contact with men. Her attackers stole her cell phone, possibly to try to find out who she had called.

The girl attacked with pepper spray horrified the modesty patrol by walking with a group of young men.

The girl in the red shirt was attacked because red shirts draw attention.

The MP4 players might have been purchased and used to access the internet (forbidden!) and download porn.

The store that was vandalized and burned now has signs announcing that it no longer sells MP4 players and is under rabbinical supervision.

In addition to these tales of stupidity, chattelization of women, and haredi men's inability to control themselves, this article adds that stores selling clothing considered immodest have also been vandalized by these modesty patrols whose members throw bleach or otherwise destroy the merchandise.

The photo above, if you can't read it, says the following, transcribed without histrionic capitalization, bolding, and font size:

To women and girls who pass through our neighborhood
We beg you with all our hearts
Please do not pass
Through our neighborhoods in
Immodest clothes
Modest clothes include Closed blouse with long sleeves
Long skirt, no trousers, no tight fitting clothes
Please do not disturb the sanctity of our neighborhood
And our way of life as Jews committed to G-D and his Torah

What it doesn't say is:
Our men are unable to control their impulses
They are like children
Or 19th century sexually repressed Victorian men
Who could go batshit crazy with lust
Upon viewing a woman's ankle
Or wrist
Or arm or shoulder
Or leg or even the shape of a leg
If you tempt our men in such a fashion
We will hurt you
And it will be YOUR fault.

Stupid gits.

Photo credit: Kansas City e-Star, Sebastian Scheiner

When Patriarchy Makes the Rules II

What can one do but laugh to keep from crying:

One Saudi Muslim cleric has called for women to COVER ALL BUT ONE EYE! It seems that allowing two eyes to be seen is just too seductive, or rather, it tempts women to put makeup on those eyes, making them too seductive.

Ya know, if you are a man and you see two female eyes through a slit in a black bag over a woman's head and you just can't control your lust, it is not the problem of the woman.

Ya know, women wearing black bags over their heads and bodies, as required in Saudi Arabia, has not, not, not stopped rape from being a common occurrence in that country.

I could go on and on and on about just Saudi Arabia alone, and its backassward WOMEN = PROPERTY crap. And now dude says showing two eyes is too seductive. What the fuck ever, dumbass. Learn to control yourself.

It seems that Islam, at least in this particular sect, makes children of men, unable to control their childish and barbaric impulses. And of course, it's the women's fault! Even when they're wearing black bags.

Ridiculous and sad.

MSM Has A Story!

I've been lax in keeping up with my regular news reads lately. So, I'm a bit behind the times, but had to share this!

While perusing a site I read regularly, Feministing.com, I ran across this, in the September 14th Weekly Feminist Reader post.

In a previous episode of When Patriarchy Makes the Rules, I had expressed dismay at the apathy of the US mainstream media in regard to "honor" killings and wondered when they would cover such things.

Now they have! And the story now seems to match the original "now with even more disgusting behavior" tale. MSNBC reports that, yes, FIVE women were murdered. A government vehicle WAS used in the murders.

Of note: in the article, notice the "elderly woman" in the photo near the end. I have to wonder just how old this "elderly woman" is. Is she really old or has the oppressive patriarchy she has lived in all of her life aged her prematurely? Just curious.

Also of note: see the photo of "frail shepherd," Ali Baksh. His eyes twinkle and he grins happily as he says, "I am proud of our Balouch traditions and it was the right punishment for those girls who defied the will of their fathers." Nice.

Fuck these fucking barbarians. And for those who say I am not culturally sensitive and ask who I am to judge them, FUCK YOU, TOO. I am me, and I judge them based on my own moral compass, which says "killing people not in self-defense = extremely bad."

Priorities, Priorities

A Catholic priest has been jailed and suspended from his job for selling cocaine out of his church.

He is now in jail with a $50,000 bail. He's not FIRED or DEFROCKED, just suspended.

Still, that's more than the penalty for child molestation when Catholic priests are involved. That particular penalty is usually being inconvenienced by having to move and find new victims.

Because we all know it's better to be a child raper (traumatized victim) than to SELL DRUGS (victimless)!

When Patriarchy Makes the Rules I - UPDATE

Pakistani police have disinterred two bodies of murdered women, whose plight is detailed here.

The two murdered women are:
Izzat Khatoon and Mai Siyani.

Four men have been arrested, two of whom pointed police to the shallow graves.

Investigators have conflicting reports in regard to the number of women killed. The Asian Human Rights Commission originally stated that five women were killed, but it is now suspected that either the two whose bodies have been found were the only victims, or that one more woman was murdered, or that the two were murdered while a third escaped.

Investigations confirm that the women were kidnapped using a government vehicle, which adds to the suspicion that Pakistani People's Party Minister Sadiq Umrani's brother, Abdul Sattar Umrani was involved. Abdul Sattar Umrani is suspected by some to have been involved in another murder in January, 2006, under similar circumstances in that the three murdered were a couple on their way to be married in civil court and their taxi-driver.

I can only say that at least this is being investigated, though I have little faith that justice will prevail. I am also disgusted as usual, but never surprised that things of this nature are not followed in the international, and especially the US, press. I would love to be proven wrong.

Ignorance vs Willful Ignorance

Greta Christina has a post today called CSI: Deuteronomy, that reminded me of a discussion I had with Nigel one night in which I claimed that religious people today are actually MORE stupid than religious people of ancient times. Nigel disagreed and it ended up being one of the few times I've gone to sleep angry and frustrated with him.

Consider the following from GC's post:

...I have to remember the time and place this was written, and not judge people with a Bronze Age view of the world from my own modern perspective. They didn't have the information or understanding about how the world works that we have today, but that didn't necessarily make them stupid or crazy. Grossly mistaken, yes, but not stupid or crazy.

This was exactly what I was trying to say in my discussion with Nigel, but didn't phrase well enough to make my point.

People today have information and the ability to find information that just wasn't around 2000 plus years ago, or even just 100 years ago. I can understand and sympathize with those who invented gods to explain the mysteries of their world. They weren't idiots. They weren't delusional. They were simply ignorant. This is not an insult, simply a statement that they did not have the tools needed to reach an informed conclusion.

Today, however, the religious seem to have embraced willful ignorance. The information is there. It is easily accessible. Yet many, if not most, of them deliberately choose to remain ignorant and continue using goddidit as an acceptable explanation for the way our world works, even though many of these ways are no longer mysteries, but have been adequately explained using scientific methods. There are still many mysteries, but the only thing that can be said of them by science is that we cannot YET explain them.

Willful ignorance in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence of natural explanations for the working of the world is worse than simple ignorance due to a lack of information. Therefore, I stand firm in my claim that today's religious folk who very deliberately choose to remain ignorant are MORE idiotic than those of centuries and millenia past, who had no such choice.

What Is It With Ballot Proposition Language?

Every time I vote and there are Propositions or Amendments or other extras besides voting for actual people, I notice that these are so wordy and convoluted and confusing that I have to read them several times before I can figure out exactly what they mean and what a Yes or No vote will actually accomplish.

As a college-educated person, I get very frustrated with this and often think of how difficult it must be for the majority of US voters to figure out just what the hell they're voting on.

Most often, I get the handy voter guide from the local newspaper and go through it with a fine-toothed comb well-before the election, write comments on it, and take it with me into the voting booth. This saves me lots of time. I recommend this method.

But wouldn't it be nice if they said things like this:
Library Funding Mill-Levy: This measure will add 1/10 of 1 cent to each dollar collected by the state as sales tax to be specifically used to purchase books for libraries in the state.
Or:
Senior Center Purchase Authorization: This measure will not add any new taxes, but will continue to use an existing tax of 2/10 of 1 cent collected by the county as sales tax to purchase the following for senior centers throughout the county if the senior centers do not already have them: One handicapped accessible van; New furniture for lounge areas; One DVD player per senior center and a copy of Cocoon for each.

Often, I have thought that the unnecessary complication and obfuscation in real life is deliberate. Today, I got proof of that.

In California, as many know, there will be a proposition on the ballot in November regarding same-sex marriages. The current wording on the ballot is as follows:

Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry

Then one would vote YES if one wants to eliminate the right or NO if one wants the right to remain.

This is nicely clear and says exactly what it should. Wow! I love it!

But guess what? Supporters of the elimination of the right of same-sex couplies to marry are suing the State of California over the wording!

One spokesperson claims that the language is inflammatory and could prejudice voters against the proposition! Because it shouldn't be called what it ACTUALLY IS, my goodness, the IDEA!

Here are some ideas for what it should be called instead:

1) Eliminates Fear Of Catching Teh Gey. Because if same-sex couples are allowed to marry, it turns all of us married couples into gays and lesbians! And our children, too!

2) Saves Heterosexual Marriage From Destruction. Because if same-sex couples are allowed to marry, all heterosexual marriages instantly become meaningless! Because I can testify that as soon as those dirty gays started getting married in Massachusetts a while back, I immediately stopped having feelings for my husband and just didn't give a shit about our marriage anymore!

3) Codifies God's Statement That Gays (Not Lesbians, But That's Beside The Point) Are Abominations And Should Stay In The Closet Where They Belong. Because if we let them marry each other, what will be next? Wearing two kinds of fabric? Men looking at or speaking to their wives when they are menstruating? Eating shellfish? Not killing our children when they are disrepectful? What kind of end will that bring us to? Why, The End Of The World, of course!

4) Reserves Marriage Benefits For Couples Who Can Reproduce With Each Other. Because you know people only marry in order to have children! Like my father-in-law, who is getting married in two weeks to another 60-something-year-old woman! I'm sure they'll be popping out babies as soon as they can! And my mom and step-father, who already have 4 kids between them - I'm sure they are trying long and hard to have more! Or even me! I am still (barely) of childbearing age! Why am I not popping them out? Maybe my infertility means that I shouldn't even BE married!

Maybe they should add an addendum to the proposition: Any same-sex couple attempting to marry shall be sent to the nearest Pray-Away-The-Gay center for deprogramming.

At any rate, it's a sad statement about the way politics and public relations get in the way of informed voting. And it pisses me off.

Fox on Michelle Obama - Fair and Balanced?

Please watch the video above and consider signing the on-line petition at foxattacks.

One thing that stood out to me was the statement by some WOMAN who said that Senator Obama's statement that people "lay off my wife," meant that he expects OTHER MEN to PROTECT HIS WIFE. Huh?? I guess because a real 'Merican would call out people like Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity for a duel - pistols at 100 paces or something. After all, Zell Miller did it to Chris Matthews.

I personally would enjoy seeing a film loop of Senator Obama smacking Michelle Malkin in the face with a leather gauntlet. I would watch that over and over and over and...

Lesson For the Kiddies

We all know the rules about strange animals, right? Do not approach a strange animal. Do not pet a strange dog or cat, even if the owner is present. Yeah, we all know.

So, this is the tale of a cat rescue gone wrong: When Pets Attack.

A cat had been living on and around our balcony for the past week. This cat, of indeterminate sex and age, had a collar, not just a flea collar, but a very nice, studded, green leather job. The cat had occasionally come over to torment our cat and dog through the screen when our windows were open.

Two nights ago, a man walking two dogs behind our house asked if we had seen a cat with a collar. We told him that we had indeed seen such a cat and pointed out exactly where we had seen it. I asked if it was a nice cat and if I should try to bring it in if I saw it again. He said, "Yes, please." Naturally, we did not see the cat again that day.

Yesterday, all day long, the cat lounged about on our balcony and on the wall of our next door neighbors. So, when I saw the man, four stories below, walking a different dog (maybe that's what he does), I hollered out to him, "Hey, here's your cat!" He continued walking after giving me a wave. Later, I saw him on a balcony next door and hollered again. This time, the cat was actually on our balcony and was sitting in the gutter.

I reached down to the cat to let it smell my hand, and began to gingerly pet it on the head after it rubbed against my hand. It seemed to like it. It let me scratch it round its ears and the top of its head, but got tense if I tried to touch any other area, so I confined my attentions to its head.

Once the cat was calm and the man appeared about to come our way, I stupidly picked up the cat. It tolerated it for a minute, but then, suddenly, lashed out with a forepaw and slashed a long cut down the left side of my nose. I was actually lucky not to have lost my left eye. It began to bleed pretty badly and I put the cat down as gently as I could and calmly walked back into the house. Our man had disappeared.

Cursing myself, I tried to rush to the bathroom without seeming to panic, since the kids were all downstairs at the time. The Princess, though, saw the blood and came running over. This brought her brothers, and I had to clean my face up and apply pressure while trying to explain that everything was okay and that Mommy was fine.

I got the bleeding stopped and went upstairs to wash and disinfect my nose better, telling the kids not to follow me. Have been cleaning the wound and slathering it with Neosporin every couple of hours ever since, and it looks horrible, but probably won't be infected. It will, though, leave a nice scar down my nose - a souvenir of Israel, I suppose.

This morning, after I returned from dropping the kids at camp, Dude and his (?) girlfriend/wife/whatever knocked on the door. They apologized for my nose and I showed them where the cat was hiding out. The woman called the cat and spoke baby talk to it, and it came out of hiding. I went back inside to keep from frightening it, and saw it follow her out of our patio area and downstairs. Thank goodness, no more cat.

So, all the stories we know about strange animals are true. Do NOT approach a strange animal. Now, unfortunately, my kids know why - first hand.

God: "Uh, I forgot."

Got this from Pharyngula and it's teh awesome. I don't know who this guy is, but he did a very nice job putting in a nutshell the many reasons I never could summon up any belief in my church's teachings, the teachings of various bible classes I attended in college, or any other creation myth I learned about.