30 November 2014

Link round-up for 30 November 2014

Need something to be thankful for? Think of home.

This is a spectacular sight I hope I never see coming toward me (found via GoodShit).

Pwned! -- by a fish!

Cats rule!

Maybe this is why we don't get visitors.

Here's some eldritch horror and madness for your Lego sets (found via Mendip).

Don't hire this architect or this one.

This is the kind of dumbass a right-wing "news" site sends to a science museum.

The Barbie doll has finally been dethroned as the most sought-after girls' toy.

STFU, Schumer.

Chatpilot remembers the arrogant nonsense he once believed.

We need more tell-it-like-it-is Democrats like Biden.

Here's a man who truly follows the Bible.

I can't think of a comment on this either.

Politics Plus has a detailed report on the Tamir Rice shooting.

After a series of bungled executions, Ohio Republicans push a law to.....keep details of executions secret.

This is what tyranny is and isn't.

Green Eagle reads the right-wing internet so you don't have to.

Black Friday just gets worse and worse.  But one item sold very well.

Republicans plot against the will of the people in DC.

Gay-friendly subtexts aside, Frozen had a few other progressive touches.  But teabaggers take heart, no doubt this new conservative film-making venture will soon bury the competition.

If only we'd listened to this guy.

Republicans are poised to throw away their last traces of Hispanic support.

Squatlo makes an important point about the Ferguson riots.  Here's another.  But here's a side to the protests the media haven't said much about.

Hay-on-Wye, Wales, is known as the town of books (found via GoodShit).

British and Americans have outdated stereotypes of each other.

Our translations of the New Testament get the tone wrong.

2,200-year-old mosaics from a flooded ancient Greek city look good as new (found via GoodShit).

Must-read post of the week: Kaveh Mousavi explains why the existence of good and decent religious people is all the more reason to oppose religion.

Sounds like ISIS is getting desperate (found via Green Eagle).

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has emerged as something of a Middle Eastern teabagger with his recent remarks on women's equality and the discovery of America, but protest so far has been muted.  More gravely, Erdoğan needs to be held accountable for this.

In India, standards must be upheld!

Isn't this what Jesus would do?  Oh, wait.....

It's dropped off the US media's radar, but the Ebola epidemic is still raging.

A treasure trove of hominid fossils from South Africa reminds us again of how science differs from religion.

8 Comments:

Blogger Shaw Kenawe said...

Re: The Kaveh Mousavi link:

What is it about fundamentalist religions? I'm reading a bio of Cotton Mather and his life-long struggle with not being "worthy" of his particular fundamentalist Puritan god. He spent a good deal of his time mentally flagellating himself for his "filthy sins" and for what these types never understant -- being human.

For groups of people who are so into pleasing god and being perfect vessels of purity of faith, these types live in constant self-hatred and fear of displeasing their "loving" gods and being cast into lakes of fire and unending suffering.

None of them, of course, ever stops to question this contradiction.

This sort of religious blindness is a plague even we non-believers have to deal with.

30 November, 2014 08:13  
Anonymous Zosimus the Heathen said...

That tornado was indeed a spectacular sight, though, as you say, it's not the sort of thing you really want to see with your own eyes! I remember once knowing this girl from the States (Indiana to be precise), who came out here once, and said that, during her stay, she had to disabuse a few people of the misguided notion that she was lucky to come from a part of the world where tornadoes were a not infrequent occurrence - she said there was nothing fun about experiencing one in real life! (She said she also had to school a few people on the reality of drive-by shootings, which also weren't as "fun" or "cool" as a lot of naive kids here thought they were.)

01 December, 2014 03:57  
Anonymous Zosimus the Heathen said...

Re Shaw Kenawe:

I recently came across a quote by some fundamentalist (though I can't remember where I found it), which seemed to perfectly encapsulate the messed-up religious mentality you described. Someone asked this person the question, "When do we sin?" and got a response that pretty much boiled down to "Whenever we do anything, because God demands perfection, yet knows we can never attain it." Which led me to think that: a) God sounds like a bit of a dick, to put it mildly; and b) even if someone did somehow manage to do something perfectly, they'd probably still be in deep shit with God, for acting like they were his equal or something!

01 December, 2014 04:08  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

Shaw: They have to make people feel dirty and unworthy because that maximizes the demand for what religion is selling -- absolution, a ticket into the ranks of the saved and the elect. Get everyone afraid of going to Hell, and there's no limit to the power of the priest.

Zosimus: People thought drive-by shootings were "fun" or "cool"? What do they do on vacation, go swimming with sharks after pouring blood in the water? They'd probably be disappointed if they came here and found out this country is nothing like as violent as its reputation (the Republicans are working on increasing the number of tornadoes, though).

02 December, 2014 01:52  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

People thought drive-by shootings were "fun" or "cool"?

Yeah. It was probably a combination of listening to too much gangsta rap (which tends to glorify that kind of thing), and having the blithe belief that they'd be the ones pulling the trigger (not the poor guy getting cut down in the hail of gunfire).

They'd probably be disappointed if they came here and found out this country is nothing like as violent as its reputation[...]

I can attest to that from personal experience. So far, I've been to the States twice myself (each time for more than a month), and I encountered no dramas whatsoever either time.

[...](the Republicans are working on increasing the number of tornadoes, though).

I thought that was all Obama's fault (at least it is according to that gibbering crank, Alex Jones, who, from the (mercifully) little I know about him, apparently never met a conspiracy theory he didn't like)!

03 December, 2014 01:51  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

Actually I was referring to the Republicans' opposition to doing anything about global warming, which contributes to the increase in tornadoes -- but hell, they blame Obama for everything else, so why not that too.

I've been to the States twice myself (each time for more than a month), and I encountered no dramas whatsoever either time.

Glad to hear it. I've lived here 54 years without ever encountering serious violence or crime, but during a visit to Mexico lasting just a few hours, I was robbed in broad daylight by a group of police (that was years ago, though, and things may have improved there).

03 December, 2014 05:05  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Boy, do you need Jesus Christ.

02 January, 2015 05:29  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

Anon: No, but thanks for the giggle.

02 January, 2015 06:26  

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