World News Korner

Courtesy of The Washington Post:

An Alaska initiative to legalize recreational marijuana qualified Wednesday for the August primary ballot after gathering more than 36,000 valid signatures.

Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell signed off on the petition after the Alaska Division of Elections found that the campaign had reached 36,030 signatures, nearly 6,000 more than required.

If approved by voters in the Aug. 19 primary, the legalization initiative would make Alaska the third state to allow retail pot sales for adults 21 and over. Colorado and Washington voters passed similar measures in November 2012.

“A bipartisan tidal wave of public support for regulating marijuana like alcohol in Alaska has pushed this initiative onto the ballot, and we will be running an aggressive campaign designed to build on that momentum,” said Taylor Bickford, spokesman for the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol in Alaska.

A Public Policy Polling survey released Feb. 5 found that 55 percent of Alaskans surveyed in favor of legalizing marijuana for recreational use, with 39 percent against.

I think this is it.

I think after this vote that we will have marijuana sold out of storefronts downtown just like they do in Colorado.

I don't smoke pot, and have not been high for more than forty years now, but I have to tell you that I am kind of curious about the pot brownies and marijuana lollipops.

Once its legal I might give those a try.

You know, for science.

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From the You Tube page:

President Obama had some fun during a White House manufacturing innovation event.

Okay that may seem kind of silly to some people, or beneath the office of the President, but let me just tell you that to thirteen year olds and comic book and movie geeks everywhere this man just jumped to top of their list of favorite Presidents of all time. (I, by the way, have been both.)


Okay now I want an Iron Man suit.

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Courtesy of Brancy's blog:

Do you guys watch Patricia Heaton’s great show The Middle?

Well, she’s one of the only Hollywood stars who has the guts to speak out against abortion.

Last week, Heaton shared a National Review article about how more black babies are aborted than born in New York City. Alec Torres writes:

In 2012, black women in New York City aborted over 6,500 more children than they gave birth to. Data from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene shows that, among non-hispanic black women, there were 31,328 “induced terminations” to 24,758 live births, according to a CNS News report.

Heaton tweeted this article, by adding: “Margaret Sanger gets her wish.” Sanger was the founder of Planned Parenthood and actually believed in ethnic cleansing.

I’m so proud of Patricia for having the courage to speak out against the evils of abortion!

Ah yes, the old Margaret Sanger was a racist, therefore Planned Parenthood hates black people approach. I thought after Herman Cain got shamed for using this that the conservatives might leave it alone.

Here is the quote, in context, that allows conservatives to use this line of attack:

Sanger, who was arrested several times in her efforts to bring birth control to women in the United States, set up her first clinic in Brooklyn in 1916. In the late 1930s, she sought to bring clinics to black women in the South, in an effort that was called the "Negro Project." Sanger wrote in 1939 letters to colleague Clarence James Gamble that she believed the project needed a black physician and black minister to gain the trust of the community.

Sanger says that a minister could debunk the notion, if it arose, that the clinics aimed to "exterminate the Negro population." She didn't say that she wanted to "exterminate" the black population. The Margaret Sanger Papers Project at New York University says that this quote has "gone viral on the Internet," normally out of context, and it "doesn't reflect the fact that Sanger recognized elements within the black community might mistakenly associate the Negro Project with racist sterilization campaigns in the Jim Crow south, unless clergy and other community leaders spread the word that the Project had a humanitarian aim."

In other words, while Sanger was trying to deliver control of the female reproduction system to women, regardless of ethnicity or social standing, she was cognizant of the fact that she as a white woman could be seen as encouraging genocide among the black community.

Funny how seeing things in context pretty much changes everything about what the Right wants you to believe about them, don't you think?

Here's what else I find interesting about the conservative's love for this attempt to smear Planned Parenthood.

On the one hand they want to vilify Planned Parenthood for killing black babies, but then on the other hand they want to condemn black mothers for having so many babies in order to defraud Federal welfare programs out of millions of dollars, the so-called "Welfare Queen" scenario that Ronald Reagan made popular.

You would think that you could not argue one side while also arguing the other, but of course that's because you are not a Right Wing lunatic.

Speaking of lunatics, everybody's favorite terrible mother has been helping Levi with his court case, first by posting this video of Tripp laughing hysterically at the use of some mildly inappropriate language.

And then with this montage that Joey Junker put up of Tripp and Bristol playing house with the latest trial daddy.

The caption said "Miss my little fam just a few more weeks."

Now these on their own would not be a big deal, but placed alongside footage of Tripp using inappropriate language on the reality show, and Bristol kicking Gino Paoletti out of her car while assuring Tripp she would get him a new daddy, it certainly doesn't help.

I mean yes of course it DOES help, but it's certainly not her that it helps.

P.S. By the way Patricia Heaton is the reason I can't watch reruns of "Everybody Loves Raymond" anymore.

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Courtesy of the New York Post:

China’s military hackers are back, more brazen than ever. You can thank Edward Snowden.

A year ago, the Internet security firm Mandiant went public with what cyber-war watchers had known for some time: Unit 61398, a secret branch of the Chinese military, had been behind more than 1,000 cyber attacks on Western targets since 2006. Employing thousands of trained cyber warriors housed in a 12-story building in Shanghai — and backed by an enormous militia of part-time hackers — Unit 61398 had been waging a constant war on foreign banks, infrastructure, defense firms and government agencies, including one spectacular 2007 raid on the Pentagon that shut down 1,500 different Defense Department networks.

The resulting international sensation forced a reluctant President Obama to confront the Chinese premier on the issue. Beijing issued its usual furious denial — but the attacks stopped and Unit 61398 fell from the headlines.

But now we know they didn’t stop for long — and the West and the Obama administration are looking as ill-prepared and impotent as ever in dealing with the threat. China’s usual attacks on banks, weapons manufacturers and other juicy targets are now back to almost daily.

The first big attack came as early as late May, when Chinese hackers raided networks at top US defense firms, swiping information on more than two dozen weapons systems.  

In October, they hit the Federal Electoral Commission, suggesting the People’s Liberation Army is looking at ways to interfere in the US electoral process.

In December, they launched a series of attacks on the foreign ministries of five countries ahead of the G-20 summit, using an infected e-mail attachment that was supposed to provide updates on the Syria crisis. (Not as clever as Unit 61398’s similar 2011 attack, which used an e-mail promising nude photos of then French President Nicholas Sarkozy’s wife, Carla Bruni.)  

The latest outrage came Feb. 11, when evidence revealed Chinese cyber warriors had cracked open the Veterans of Foreign Wars computer system — itself not an obvious security threat, but part of what experts believe was a much broader attack on US military personnel records and files, both past and current.

Most striking is how bold the attacks have grown. The Chinese are apparently so confident we can’t (or won’t) stop them that they’ve gotten sloppy. Examining hacker codes left behind on US military and commercial networks, Internet-security engineers have been finding bits of code identical to Chinese commercial software sold for export by companies with contracts with the People’s Liberation Army.

What has emboldened the Chinese military hackers?

Well that would be Edward Snowden.

The Snowden defection back in June was a double gift for China’s hackers (as well as for Russian ones — the State Department even issued a warning that any cellphone or laptop brought to the Sochi Olympics would almost certainly be hacked there, and its passwords stolen).

The data Snowden brought with him to Hong Kong included a wealth of information about how our intelligence agencies fight and trace hackers, as well as on the NSA’s own hacking efforts in China.

Not only has the information that Snowden carried into China given them the blueprint for how our data gathering system work, but the fact that we have data gathering systems has allowed China, who hacks into American businesses to sell the information to Chinese businesses, to play the moral equivalency game.

If the US does it, how can they point the finger at us?

Here is more from a Newsweek article from November:

"Snowden couldn't have played better into China's strategy for protecting its cyber activities if he had been doing it on purpose,'' one American intelligence official says.

Snowden's revelations quickly veered away from what he called the NSA's "domestic surveillance state" to overseas espionage by the United States. After fleeing to Hong Kong, he provided local reporters with NSA documents and told them the United States was hacking major Chinese telecommunications companies, a Beijing university and the corporate owner of the region's most extensive fiber-optic submarine cable network. That information, government officials and industry experts say, is now used by the Chinese to deflect criticisms of their hacking, both in meetings with the administration and at cyber security conferences.

The activities of the two sides, however, are vastly different in scope and intent. The United States engages in widespread electronic espionage, but that classified information cannot legally be handed over to private industry. China is using its surveillance to steal trade secrets, harm international competitors and undermine American businesses.

In Snowden's zeal to be the next Daniel Ellsberg he has instead become perhaps the worst American traitor since Aldrich Ames.

If Snowden had released his information to journalists here in the country, and kept the stolen data within American borders, he could rightfully be called a hero.

But taking such sensitive material out of the country, and reporting on our data gathering process to nations with an adversarial relationship with America, Snowden has not only placed our state secrets in jeopardy, he has also irrevocably damaged out ability to deal with cyber attacks, or hold those who do them accountable.

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Courtesy of the Chicago Tribune:

As it continues to modify strict disciplinary policies in an effort to keep students in the classroom, Chicago Public Schools on Tuesday released data showing privately run charter schools expel students at a vastly higher rate than the rest of the district.

The data reveal that during the last school year, 307 students were kicked out of charter schools, which have a total enrollment of about 50,000. In district-run schools, there were 182 kids expelled out of a student body of more than 353,000.

That means charters expelled 61 of every 10,000 students while the district-run schools expelled just 5 of every 10,000 students.

It's the first time the district has released student suspension data for every school and also the first time it has released data on expulsions for charters. For charter critics, the numbers will buttress long-standing complaints that the privately run operations push out troubled students, allowing their schools to record stronger academic performances.

Sure must be easy to keep those test scores high when you can kick all of the disruptive or academically challenged kids to the curb whenever they threaten to bring them down.

In public schools expelling children is the last resort, and there are all kinds of modifications made to a struggling students education plan, or behavioral plan to help them to be successful.

I know I have helped to develop these, and implement these.

To put it bluntly, if I had been a student in a charter school it is highly likely that I would have been expelled in the tenth grade. If not before.

Instead I graduated with honors, and was considered a leader in my school.

You cannot turn behaviors around, and help make successful those who are a challenge, if your bottom line is a dollar sign.

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I am kind of a big fan of Seth Rogen's and have laughed long and hard at many of his movies.

However I was struck by how seriously he takes this topic.

As do I as I myself am a prime candidate for Alzheimer's and worry about it with some regularity.

I had my IQ tested when I was a young man and the number was rather embarrassingly high, however my ability to utilize it to do classwork or problem solve is greatly undermined by my terrible memory. Even as a young man I often dropped names, forgot dates, and had trouble remembering the sequence of events. Of course that has only grown worse with the passage of time.

So someday I may well benefit from the research done today concerning Alzheimer's disease and applaud Seth Rogen's commitment to the cause.

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Courtesy of Yahoo News:

A federal judge has struck down Texas' ban on gay marriage, but is leaving it in place pending a ruling by an appeals court later this year.

Judge Orlando Garcia issued a preliminary injunction on the ban Wednesday, then suspended his ruling. Two gay couples had challenged the state's constitutional amendment and a longstanding law banning gay marriage.

Under federal court rules, a judge may suspend a law if he or she believes the plaintiffs have a strong case and will suffer if the law is enforced.

Garcia said his injunction against Texas enforcing its ban will take effect once an appeals court has a chance to rule on the issue.

I think the tea leaves are indicating that the issue of gay marriage is headed to the Supreme Court.

I am not sure if we should view that as a good thing, or a terrible thing.

In my mind the Court would have no choice but to strike down a ban on gay marriage as unconstitutional, but then again my mind is not cluttered with the likes of Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, or Samuel Alito.

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Courtesy of Public Religion:

Among Americans who left their childhood religion and are now religiously unaffiliated, about one-quarter say negative teachings about or treatment of gay and lesbian people was a somewhat important (14%) or very important (10%) factor in their decision to disaffiliate. Among Millennials who no longer identify with their childhood religion, nearly one-third say that negative teachings about, or treatment of, gay and lesbian people was either a somewhat important (17%) or very important (14%) factor in their disaffiliation from religion.

And yet many Right Wing conservatives continue to believe that denying marriage rights to the LGBT community is going to benefit them in future elections, and Fundamentalists continue to stubbornly cling to an outdated view of morality simply because some desert dweller wrote about it in the Bible.

You know it is not often that you can actually watch the last desperate gasps of a prejudicial mindset playing out in real time.

And yet at this moment in time, that is exactly what we are witnessing.

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This is breaking news, but I just watched Jan Brewer announce that she vetoed the bill, and then walk away without taking any reporter's questions.

Update: Here is the CNN report:

Brewer said she made the decision she knew was right for her state.

"I call them as I see them, despite the cheers or the boos from the crowd," she said, calling the bill "broadly worded" and saying it could have unintended consequences.

Her announcement spurred cheering and hugs by protesters of the bill in Phoenix.

The measure, known as SB 1062, would have given Arizona businesses that assert their religious beliefs the right to deny service to gay and lesbian customers.

I just told my daughter that with all of these pro-gay decisions happening right now it almost makes me feel left out just being a boring old straight guy.

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So this Everest Wilhelmsen guy has a blog on which he has called for the capture of the President, and apparently he is not concerned in what condition he is delivered to him either.

To demonstrate his seriousness, he has listed not only the amount being offered, but a list of names of those who contributed to the bounty.

This courtesy of Freakout Nation:

The total REWARD is now $4,302.00

To increase the REWARD click on “Pledge” seen in blue above. Then click on “Edit” in the upper right hand corner, add your name and the amount you are pledging. Finally, scroll down and “Save” the document. ______________________________________________________

I hereby acknowledge that Obama is NOT the President of the United States, but a foreign and domestic enemy who has usurped the Office of President during a time of war, that this makes him a spy and that he is is levying war on the United States. I therefore pledge the amount I have put next to my name as a REWARD FOR THE CAPTURE OF OBAMA, DEAD OR ALIVE. My pledge will be given to the person or persons who capture Barack Hussein Obama II and permanently remove him from the White House and Washington DC.

I also acknowledge with my pledge that this REWARD is in accordance with my Natural God Given Right to defend myself, my family, the Constitution of the United States, and our posterity, as accounted for in the United States Declaration of Independence and supported by the 2nd Amendment of the United States Constitution.

Everest Wilhelmsen — $100.00
Michael Taylor — $100.00
Ernie Shaw — $100.00
Beth Owens — $100.00
James R. (Jim) Mines — $100.00
Valerie Denny — $300.00
Mark Kenny — $100.00
Cliff Rideout — $50.00
Dale Shackelford — $200.00
DeAnna DeMarco — $100.00
Randy Couch — $50.00
Liam Clayton — $500.00
Mike Staples — $1,302.00
Tess Gardner — $100.00
Tammy Wagner — $100.00
Brian Derkacz — $200.00 and My Complete Loyalty (Unless I’m the one who collects the reward.)
Jason Mullins — $500.00
Candido J. Colon — $300.00

Okay I don't which move is the more ignorant, asking somebody to kidnap or kill the President of the United States for so little money, or listing the names of every moron ignorant enough to donate to the cause?

Later over at Freakout Nation somebody asked him the logical question:

“I’m sorry, but… is this a contract for a hit???”

To which Mr. "I'm totally not a birther, except of course I am" replied:

No, it is not a contract for a hit. It is an act of self-defense against a person who is ineligible to assume the Office of President and is threatening to murder and imprison American citizens without charges and without due process. Every American citizen has the Natural God Given Right to defend himself/herself, family, the United States, and our posterity from Obama.

You see so it is NOT actually a contract for the murder of the President of the United States, it is more like a group of people paying somebody else to "stand their ground" in self defense against the fact that the President is soon going to start murdering American citizens in their sleep.

Nothing nutty, or COMPLETELY illegal, about that.

Gee I wonder if the Secret Service will see it that way?

P.S. I spared you much of the insanity that this lunatic posted over at his blog, because that kind of crazy can really have long term side effects. However if you really want to see it for yourself just click the link to his blog at the top and take a trip down the rabbit hole.

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Courtesy of Think Progress:

On Wednesday — two years to the day after George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin — Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) placed a hold on President Barack Obama’s nominee for Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, over Murthy’s view that gun violence represents a significant public health threat.

“In his efforts to curtail Second Amendment rights, Dr. Murthy has continually referred to guns as a public health issue on par with heart disease and has diminished the role of mental health in gun violence,” wrote Paul in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

“As a physician, I am deeply concerned that he has advocated that doctors use their position of trust to ask patients, including minors, details about gun ownership in the home… Dr. Murthy has disqualified himself from being Surgeon General because of his intent to use that position to launch an attack on Americans’ right to own a firearm under the guise of a public health and safety campaign.”

Yes how could ANYBODY assert that firing metal projectiles out of a gun that can tear flesh and destroy internal organs should be considered a health threat?

I mean it just defies all logic.

Later in the Think Progress article it is pointed out that Dr. Vivek Murphy's opinions about gun violence are in step with those of most physicians, and that the AMA has fought for the right of physicians to ask about the presence of guns in the home, and that the AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics) has issued guidelines recommending that the households of children diagnosed with depression remove all firearms altogether.

This is yet another attempt to pander to the mouth breathers and gun fetishists who believe that the most important American right in the Constitution is the right to shoot your neighbor in the face if he dumps his leaves in your yard.

By the way Rand Paul calling himself a physician is almost on par with Sarah Palin calling herself a journalist.

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As you may remember young Kalei wanted to start an Atheist group in her high school.

Initially she was rejected, but eventually the school acquiesced and said that she could.

However yesterday this was posted on Reddit from her Go Fund Me page.

Here is more of an explanation provided by the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science:

Fearing for the safety of her family, Kalei Wilson has just announced on her Gofundme page that she is backing down after just last week winning a 4 month battle with Pisgah High School to create a Student Secular Association club, winning several awards, and being asked to speak at numerous conferences. This is what she wrote three hours ago:

"It saddens us to report that due to the numerous threats and the verbal attacks on Kalei along with the vindictive which-hunt to hurt the reputations of affiliated local groups and our own family , Kalei will not be continuing with the group.

We have contacted GoFundMe and requested they return your generous donations. They have assured us that your funds will show back up in your respective accounts within 3 to 5 days.

Your love and support are priceless and we apologize in letting you down. It was our single goal to support Kalei in her efforts to start the much needed SSA club.

However, we never expected our family and friends to be sought out and demonized. Please know that we recognize the importance of the club but we can not justify our involvement with the risk of our families safety and well being."

It's just a club.

When I was in high school there was a chess club, a business club, a club for African American students, and more than a few Christian clubs.

I wasn't a member of any of them, however I had no problem with their existence.

What is it that Christians fear so much about a club like this that they would be willing to harass and even threaten this young girl's family until they were frightened into shutting it down?

Actually I think we already know that, don't we?

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Courtesy of Facebook

This showed up over at Court View on Monday:

Motion for Order to Show Cause Why Bristol Palin Should Not Be Held In Contempt And Sanctioned And Motion For The Return of Child To Alaska

Now we're talking!

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Courtesy of Think Progress:

A Florida man who was granted Stand Your Ground immunity after he claimed he fatally shot his friend in self-defense will get his guns back. Judge John Galluzzo ruled that shooter John Wayne Rogers was entitled to the return of his guns under the law, even though Galluzzo thinks it’s a bad idea. “I have to return property that was taken under the circumstance,” he said, according to a WESH Orlando report.

“I have researched and haven’t found case law to say otherwise.” Rogers shot 34-year-old James T. DeWitt after a night of drinking at Rogers’ home. DeWitt stayed the night, and the incident occurred the following morning after they returned from an errand to buy more beer.

Rogers, who is legally blind, said he felt threatened by DeWitt, so he went into his bedroom and retrieved his assault rifle. Rogers said DeWitt charged at him and he shot; DeWitt’s girlfriend says they were “play fighting” when Rogers went into his bedroom to get the gun and then shot at DeWitt without provocation.

A Florida court granted Rogers immunity from criminal charges under the state’s Stand Your Ground law, which authorizes deadly force without any duty to retreat anywhere a person has a legal right to be.

So to be clear, according to the witness, this guy was "standing his ground" against a play fight attack launched by his friend. (Well you can imagine his terror.)

And now this individual is going to get his guns back so that he is protected in case anybody assaults him with a pillow during a pillow fight, or anything dangerous and life threatening like that.

I swear it is like the whole country has lost its fucking mind and has no idea what self defense actually means.

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Courtesy of The Nerve:

The Spreadsheets App, a mobile app that uses your phone's accelerometer and speakers to provide statistical feedback about your duration, thrusts, and decibel peak, is taking big data to the bedroom.

"Spreadsheets was created to approach sex in a way that is both light-hearted and improvement oriented," says Danny Wax, Co-founder of the app. "We wanted to create an app that entices users to have some fun with their partner and share in that afterglow experience, while encouraging open dialog and feedback." Whereas some couples might have problems approaching topics like the frequency or quality of their sex lives, fun visual and logical feedback, including 30 earned "achievements" (like Seven in Heaven for a seven-minute rendezvous and Quick Spread for three-minute trysts), feels like a low-pressure way of checking in. Of course, with all wearable and quantified tech comes a gamification component.

Spreadsheets shared the stats of its 10,000 early adopters so we could investigate who has cross-country endurance and who's a one-minute wonder. Averaging the intercourse time of all users in the United States (the app doesn't cover foreplay), we've provided a ranking of duration in minutes for all 50 states and the District of Columbia as a little bonus. While finishing times of under three minutes may surprise you, remember that these are just the averages among two-pump chumps and Lotharios alike. Besides, previous research has shown that, despite the hubbub about hours-long tantric sessions, intercourse itself usually only lasts for about 3 to 13 minutes.

Okay well it is all good fun until somebody's state comes in dead last in the pump per session category.

Check this crap out:

According to an obviously flawed study Alaskans spend less time pleasuring their partners in bed than any other state. Oh, that is SO wrong.
1. New Mexico - (7:01)

2. West Virginia - (5:38)

3. Idaho - (5:11)

4. South Carolina - (4:48)

5. Missouri - (4:22)

6. Michigan -(4:14)

7. Utah - (3:55)

8. Oregon - (3:51)

9. Nebraska - (3:47)

10. Alabama - (3:38)

11. Delaware - (3:33)

12. Hawaii - (3:28)

13. Wisconsin - (3:22)

14. North Dakota - (3:18)

15. Arizona - (3:17)

16. Maryland - (3:15)

17. Mississippi - (3:10)

18. Rhode Island - (3:09)

19. Connecticut - (3:07)

20. Texas - (3:06)

21. New Hampshire - (3:04)

22. Wyoming - (3:03)

23. New York - (3:01)

24. Pennsylvania - (2:58)

25. Maine - (2:58)

26. Washington - (2:51)

27. Iowa - (2:50)

28. Illinois - (2:49)

29. North Carolina - (2:47)

30. Tennessee - (2:46)

31. Kansas - (2:38)

32. California - (2:38)

33. Massachusetts - (2:31)

34. Florida - (2:29)

35. New Jersey - (2:28)

36. Indiana - (2:26)

37. Virginia - (2:23)

38. Oklahoma - (2:21)

39. Colorado - (2:21)

40. Minnesota - (2:19)

41. Ohio - (2:18)

42. Louisiana - (2:17)

43. Kentucky - (2:14)

44. Arkansas - (2:08)

45. District of Columbia - (2:08)

46. Nevada - (2:07)

47. Georgia - (2:07)

48. Montana - (2:03)

49. Vermont - (1:48)

50. South Dakota - (1:30)

51. Alaska - (1:21)

Okay look I don't want to get too graphic here (I mean I just turned 54 years old and talking about middle age sex is universally viewed as icky), but I can tell you that I have NEVER had any encounter in my life that would meet these low numbers, in ANY of the states, much less the pitiful one minute twenty one seconds averaged in Alaska. (What, are all the Alaskans who contributed to this thing sixteen year old boys?)

I have always believed that Alaskan men were probably on the upper levels of endurance. After all it's cold up here so why would we be in a hurry to leave such a warm place?

Personally I am offended by this report, and if any of the female members of the team would like to fly up here I can assure them the experience will not be measured in seconds, or even minutes. (Okay, well technically yes all time can be broken down into minutes and seconds but you get my drift. )

And just as a public service message to the men out there, if your bedroom sessions only last long enough for the commercial break, you might want to start exercising before or thinking about baseball during.

No wonder women are so fed up with men these days.

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So this was posted on Brancy's blog earlier today:

I came across this Scripture and wanted to pass it along.

“The blessing of The Lord brings wealth, and he adds no trouble to it.” Proverbs 10:22

This reminds me of that old saying “you’re either sleeping well, or eating well.”

Well, the good news is that you can have both with God’s blessing!

It reminds me of when I was on Dancing with the Stars, especially the first time. I knew God’s plan for my life would always be bigger and better than a reality show. I knew whatever was to happen, would happen.

There’s freedom in that.

God has given me so much! That means I’m able to “sleep well,” and ”eat well” with all of his blessings.

Okay I am not exactly sure what this means because I am, what do you call it, sane.

Wonkette tried to make sense of it, but I think they might have hurt themselves in the attempt.

However what jumped out at me were these portions:

“you’re either sleeping well, or eating well.”

And....

It reminds me of when I was on Dancing with the Stars, especially the first time. I knew God’s plan for my life would always be bigger and better than a reality show.

Now that of course cannot help but remind all of us of these pictures.

Bristol 11-23-10 right after the end of DWTS

11-24-10

Now why would Bristol's ghostwriter type up a post about eating well that mentions her first go around on DWTS when the whole country was trying to figure out how somebody supposedly training for up to seven hours a day could gain 30 to 40 pounds, when every contestant previously, and since, lost weight at a dramatic rate?

I mean is she TRYING to invite ridicule?

Or perhaps Nancy French is trying to tell us something about Bristol's current condition.

Things that make you go, hmmm.

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So the above graphic is currently posted over at the Facebook home of the addle-brained albatross from Arizona.

There is in fact so much stupid about this that I hardly know where to start.

Should I start with the fact that an AR-15 can fire 700 rounds per minute, while a musket can fire only.....one? (Okay maybe two if you are Fess Parker.)

Or that the Colonial army was fighting for the right to form a government that would represent their interests, and create laws to protect them from the kinds of people who might someday want to own an arsenal of weapons which could include a 700 round per minute firing AR-15?

Or that in colonial times long rifles were the only weapons owned by the majority of Americans and these were not something easily concealed or used to mug pedestrians on the street?

I can tell you with some certainty that if the Founding Fathers had been dealing with a reality which included the possibility of the average citizen owning hundreds of automatic weapons, grenade launchers, and easily concealed handguns, they would have dramatically tightened up that language in the 2nd Amendment. Or possibly done away with it altogether.

By the way the inspiration for this post was nothing more than the opportunity to pimp Brancy's post from the other day, about the Connecticut gun owners refusal to register their military style weapons, that I already ridiculed here.

My assumption is that with the SarahPAC funds running low there is only so much money available for ghostwriters. So instead of having two separate Facebook posts written, this way they can have one and then share it.

They're wasting their time really, I think that at this point everybody recognizes that the Palins as a unit are against ANY laws which might protect citizens from having bits of their body shot off, believe that the 2nd Amendment was written by Jesus while riding a dinosaur, and that anybody who introduces any gun legislation is probably an America hating communist Nazi.

Or something like that.

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So as you all know Nugent cancelled a planned interview with Burnett the night that his "mongrel" reference concerning President Obama got national attention, and he was called out for using language similar to what the Nazis used to dehumanize the Jews during the Holocaust by Wolf Blitzer.

Apparently being called a coward by just about everybody, and having even many former conservative supporters turn on him, proved too much for Nugent and he decided to risk showing his hateful mug on cable news again.

The interview starts off with Burnett asking him if he really meant his apology to the President.

Of course Nugent cannot bring himself to give a straight answer so he starts off by suggesting that Burnett's ability to comprehend English is flawed:

Erin, come on. You've got this English language down really well. I bet you understand when the question is, do you apologize and I answer yes.

You don't really have to ask that question again, do you?

Burnett then plays a tape of, first Ted Nugent using the term "mongrel" to insult the President, and then Obama using the word to describe how ethnically mixed the American people are these days, because Nugent had used that comparison to defend his racist remarks.

As the interview proceeds Nugent continues to demonstrate an adversarial attitude and at one point claims to have been responsible for getting Piers Morgan thrown off CNN and essentially threatens Burnett with the same:

NUGENT:But for anyone to claim that I am a racist or it had racist overtones is the typical crap that the propaganda ministry and the media, particularly most of your cohorts there, even though I got Piers Morgan's ass thrown out, and I'll do the same with Don Lemon and Wolf Blitzer when I can...

BURNETT: All right, don't...

NUGENT: But you might be able to stay on...

BURNETT: - just do me a favor, don't talk about my colleagues that way...

NUGENT: - because I appreciate that.

BURNETT: I respect them both greatly. But let me...

NUGENT: Well, I just - I just did. They don't deserve respect.

God this guy is an arrogant prick.

Later Burnett shows a clip of Nugent referring to the President as a "chimpanzee" to which Nugent claims he calls everybody a chimpanzee:

Do you really think that I referenced any race as a primate?

I call my buddies in my band chimpanzees when they miss a good guitar lick. Come on, give me a break on that. Now, I referenced no racial overturns there whatsoever. I was referencing people who would look in the camera with those four dead Americans in Benghazi and refuse to be accountable and say, what difference does it make?

Yeah, okay.

Burnett next calls Nugent out for calling Hillary Clinton the C word, to which Poopy pants decides to compare himself to the great Richard Pryor, and says it should be okay because Bill Maher called "the great" Sarah Palin the same thing.

However he then claims that in deference to the wishes of his family he is no longer going to call people names.

Oh yeah, does anybody think that is even a possibility for this trash talking racist has been?

I will hand it to Erin Burnett however, she did an excellent job of holding Nugent's feet to the fire concerning several of his racist and misogynistic remarks.

Well done.

(You can read the entire transcript here.)

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Courtesy of The Times-Picayune:

Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast has not been using government funds to provide or recommend abortions in Louisiana, according to a report released Monday morning by the Louisiana Legislative Auditor.

"We found no indication that Planned Parenthood had recommended that a patient have an abortion or had performed an abortion for patients in our sample," said Legislative Auditor Daryl Purpera in a letter to state Sen. Danny Martiny, R-Metairie, and state Rep. Frank Hoffman, R-West Monroe.

Martiny and Hoffman sponsored legislation last year that called for a widespread investigation and monitoring of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast to see if it was using public funding to recommend or provide abortions. The Legislature passed Martiny and Hoffman's resolutions overwhelmingly.

Planned Parenthood does not currently offer abortions at its sites in Louisiana, but the organization is building a new facility in New Orleans, where it has said it will provide the procedure.

Martiny and Hoffman pushed their legislation, in part, because Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast had been accused of using Medicaid funds inappropriately in Texas. The organization settled in a civil suit over the matter last summer, but has continued to deny any wrongdoing in that case.

The Louisiana auditor's office examined 26,000 Planned Parenthood claims that qualified for Medicaid reimbursements and found that all the payments were made for allowable procedures. Within the 26,000 claims, the auditor identified 22 patients who suffered miscarriages and reviewed six of those cases, where no abortion counseling was offered.

"Based on the file reviews, we did not find any indication that Planned Parenthood recommended an abortion or performed an abortion for these patients," Purpera wrote in his letter to state legislators.

What? Does this mean that Planned Parenthood was actually telling the truth and using government funds to do things such as provide birth control, educate women about STD's, and provide cancer screenings?

This is very important as it is part of the conservative's coordinated efforts to undermine Planned Parenthood, because in their mind it is an abortion mill even though providing termination of pregnancies only accounts for 3% of the services they provide.

The conservatives have successfully used misinformation and scare tactics in places like Texas to support slashing funds and essentially driving clinics out of business.

The truth is that Planned Parenthood has had a dramatic effect on the number of unintended pregnancies, and therefore greatly reduced the number of abortions in this country.

IF the conservatives were really interested in keeping the number of abortions to a minimum, instead of forcing pregnant women to give birth to children they are unprepared to raise, they would be working to provide Planned Parenthood with all they funds they could possibly use and trumpeting their successes far and wide.

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Courtesy of Oakland Press News:

A 36-year-old Independence Township man is dead after he shot himself in the head while demonstrating the gun, deputies reported.

The Oakland County Medical Examiner has ruled his death a suicide.

The man’s girlfriend was performing CPR on the victim when deputies from the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office arrived at the residence on Pinedale — off of Sashabaw Road south of Maybee Road - at 9 p.m. on Sunday.

The girlfriend, who also lived at the Independence Township residence, told deputies the victim had been drinking most of the day. She told authorities that he had begun showing her how to use his three handguns and demonstrating how safe they were when they were empty, which he did by placing the gun to his head and pulling the trigger, officials said.

After doing this twice, he demonstrated the third handgun and the gun fired, striking him in the head.

The man was pronounced dead at the scene.

You know I would like to applaud this gun owner. At least he only killed himself.

By the way I don't want to judge his girlfriend too harshly, after all she just lost a loved one, but you would think she might have said something the first time he put a gun to his head, or at the very least the second time, and not just sat there and let him blow his stupid brains all over the walls.

Well at least this guy demonstrated how safe guns are to his girlfriend.

They're not. Especially when pressed against your skull.

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Courtesy of The Washington Post:

With the stroke of his pen, President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda defied science and world opinion to make lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people outlaws in his country.

“Homosexuals are actually mercenaries,” he said. “They are heterosexual people, but because of money they say they are homosexuals. These are prostitutes because of money.” Museveni added, “There’s now an attempt at social imperialism, to impose social values. We’re sorry to see that you (the West) live the way you live, but we keep quiet about it.” The “anti-homosexuality” law carries a penalty of 14 years for a first-time offense and life imprisonment for those convicted of “aggravated homosexuality.”

The world isn’t keeping quiet about the latest travesty against LGBT people in Africa. Denmark and Norway announced they were delaying or diverting aid. Secretary of State John Kerry announced that the United States was reviewing its relationship with the central African country, including $400 million in aid.

“This is a tragic day for Uganda and for all who care about the cause of human rights,” Kerry said in a statement. Museveni’s signature on the law and the motivation behind it show he doesn’t care at all.

Being thrown into prison for daring to love.

It does not get much more oppressive than that.

By the way if you are unaware as to the source of this hatred, then look no further.

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Yeah the Right Wing can keep right on hating those intellectual elites, but you just can't beat'em for getting the facts straight and doing a butt load of research before going on the air.

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Courtesy of Facebook

Caption: waiting for karate to start

You know I think martial arts training is really good for kids. IF they get a good instructor.

Not sure what the dojo situation is like in Arizona.

By the way I thought I might take this opportunity to reveal that a little birdie told me a certain reality show might play an important part in an upcoming court case.

Hmm, I wonder which parts will be of the most interest to the judge?

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Courtesy of Salon:

The small city of Missoula, Montana recently grabbed headlines after the Department of Justice sent a letter to the Missoula County Attorney’s Office, asserting it had “substantial evidence” that the county has completely failed at the job of dealing with sexual assault. A lot of details of the allegations against Missoula officials were disturbing, including a prosecutor who allegedly told the mother of a 5-year-old rape victim that “boys will be boys,” but another thing that jumps out is the role religion played in justifying the minimizing of rape allegations. According to the Justice Department, a deputy county attorney responded to one rape victim by reading her Bible verses “in a way that the victim interpreted to mean that the Deputy County Attorney was judging her negatively for have made the report.”

Sadly, this kind of reaction from Christian conservatives to sexual assault—blame the victim and make it about sex, not violence—is surprisingly common.

Kiera Feldman, writing for the New Republic, captured this problem perfectly in her piece about the sexual assault problem at the hyper-Christian university Patrick Henry. She chronicles one case where the alleged assailant attacked the victim in her sleep, which should be a clear-cut case of non-consent. But, since Patrick Henry is a school focused on preventing and punishing all sexual contact between students, the criminal and abusive aspects appear to have been ignored in favor of seeing this mainly as a sexual transgression. The assailant kept referring to his behavior as “taking liberties,” as if the problem with what he did was that it was sexual, not that it was violent. The dean decided therefore that both the victim and the assailant were to blame, reportedly telling the victim, “You are in part responsible for what happened, because you put yourself in a compromising situation,” and adding, “Actions have consequences.” Both students were given counseling, and the victim reported that her counseling was just more blaming her for the assault through lessons in “modesty.”

This is not just a problem for Patrick Henry College. The other big name in fundamentalist universities, Bob Jones University, reportedly has the same problem. Writing for Al Jazeera America, Claire Gordon reports similar stories coming from rape victims at BJU. One alleged victim reported that the dean asked her, “Is there anything that you did that made him do that?” and also that the content of her counseling sessions, which she thought were private, were shared with the administration. The counselor herself claims that the school then terminated the sessions because they felt she was becoming too sympathetic toward the victim, which suggests that from the get-go, the intention was to get dirt on the victim to discredit her claims. Shortly thereafter, the victim was expelled from the university.

Things only have grown uglier since then, as BJU recently terminated, rather abruptly, a contract with a firm it hired to help improve its responses to sexual abuse on campus. As the New York Times reported, critics of this decision suspect it was because BJU didn’t like the firm’s findings. Victims of abuse told the Times various horror stories about the administration’s response to their reports. “They said not to go to the police because no one will believe you, to defer to authority like your father or especially someone in the church,” said one woman who reported abuse.

“The person who supposedly counseled me told me if I reported a person like that to the police, I was damaging the cause of Christ, and I would be responsible for the abuser going to hell,” another victim reported.

You know I was raised with very little religion in my life, but with a great deal of focus on personal responsibility. Early in my life my mother made me responsible in caring for my younger siblings when she was at work, and hammered home the importance of treating people with respect and not simply as objects.

Of course I was also never raised to think that sex was anything to be ashamed of, or that having it outside of wedlock meant you were a bad person.

Sex was considered a healthy part of relationships, and not something that was given away or used for barter.

However rape was an entirely different matter altogether. If I had been accused of rape my mother would have gladly led the police right to my door, and if I had the audacity to blame what I had done on the victim my mother would have slapped me across the face.

To that point if anybody had been ignorant enough to violate my sister my mother would have insisted that I find that person and punish them severely. Which I would have done gladly.

And as I have said repeatedly on this blog, rape is NOT sex. It is violence.

Blaming a woman for her own rape is the kind of response you might expect from those who believe that everything wrong with the world today can be traced back to Eve's transgression in the Garden of Eden. No rational person would blame a child for their own abuse, nor should they blame a woman for the violence done to them.

In Saudi Arabia a female rape victim was sentenced to 200 lashes for the crime of being unable to fend off her attacker.

One would think that in America we had progressed past this kind of antiquated thinking, but apparently in some areas of the country they would be wrong. And that should shame us all.



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Courtesy of Liberals Unite:

“Dear Arizona,

Congratulations. You are now the first state actually to pass a bill permitting businesses–even those open to the public–to refuse to provide service to LGBT people based on an individual’s “sincerely held religious belief.” This “turn away the gay” bill enshrines discrimination into the law. Your taxi drivers can refuse to carry us. Your hotels can refuse to house us. And your restaurants can refuse to serve us.

Kansas tried to pass a similar law, but had the good sense to not let it come up for a vote. The quashing came only after the Kansas Chamber of Commerce and other traditional conservative groups came out strongly against the bill.

But not you, Arizona. You’re willing to ostracize and marginalize LGBT people to score political points with the extreme right of the Republican Party. You say this bill protects “religious freedom,” but no one is fooled. When I was younger, people used “God’s Will” as a reason to keep the races separate, too. Make no mistake, this is the new segregation, yours is a Jim Crow law, and you are about to make yourself ground zero.

This bill also saddens me deeply. Brad and I have strong ties to Arizona. Brad was born in Phoenix, and we vacation in Show Low. We have close friends and relatives in the state and spend weeks there annually. We even attended the Fourth of July Parade in Show Low in 2012, looking like a pair of Arizona ranchers.

The law is breathtaking in its scope. It gives bigotry against us gays and lesbians a powerful and unprecedented weapon. But your mean-spirited representatives and senators know this. They also know that it is going to be struck down eventually by the courts. But they passed it anyway, just to make their hateful opinion of us crystal clear.

So let me make mine just as clear. If your Governor Jan Brewer signs this repugnant bill into law, make no mistake. We will not come. We will not spend. And we will urge everyone we know–from large corporations to small families on vacation–to boycott. Because you don’t deserve our dollars. Not one red cent.

And maybe you just never learn. In 1989, you voted down recognition of the Martin Luther King holiday, and as a result, conventions and tourists boycotted the state, and the NFL moved the Superbowl to Pasadena. That was a $500 million mistake.

So if our appeals to equality, fairness, and our basic right to live in a civil society without doors being slammed in our face for being who we are don’t move you, I’ll bet a big hit to your pocketbook and state coffers will.

George Takei”

Damn, that's a good letter.

And Takei makes a very powerful point.

If Arizona wants to discriminate against gay people then perhaps all of them, and all people who support them, should avoid Arizona and leave it to the narrow minded folks like Sarah Palin and Jan Brewer.

You know ultimately it really doesn't matter, gay acceptance is coming. And these states that are digging in their heels and threatening to hold their breath until they are allowed to gay bash again, just show themselves to be stubbornly prejudicial.

Remember it was Arizona Senator John McCain who voted AGAINST declaring Martin Luther King Jr's birthday a federal holiday back in 1983, so the state has a long history of being intolerant and behind the times.

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Courtesy of Raw Story:

In an interview that aired on Sunday, ABC’s Martha Raddatz asked the former president if the new initiative helped him cope with the 6,800 service members killed, and 51,000 wounded.

“No question it helps,” Bush stuttered. “I have a duty.”

“I obviously get slightly emotional talking about our vets because I’m in there with them,” he added with a single tear spilling down his right cheek.

“But my spirit is also uplifted when I visit with vets. As I say, there is no self-pity… They don’t say, ‘Woe is me.’ They say, ‘What can I do to continue to serve?’”

There are NO amount of tears this asshole could shed that would ever match the number shed by the families of the soldiers that he sent to their deaths based on a lie.

A lie by the way that I believe he knew about all along.

There were too many people telling him that Saddam Hussein did not have nuclear weapons,and lacked the capability to manufacture them, for Bush to claim he was ignorant of that fact.

He used the terror from 9-11 to wage a war of choice, to get revenge for his daddy, that sent thousands of trusting soldiers, and hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis, to their deaths.

No he is a POS and there should be NOBODY who wastes an ounce of their precious sympathy on the likes of him.

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Courtesy of Addicting Info:

Audio of outrageous comments made by Frank Taaffe, on a weekly podcast called ‘Stand Our Ground,’ prove that in spite of denials to the contrary, Taaffe is a full blown white supremacist. Taaffe’s podcast was produced and distributed by ‘The White Voice Network.‘

Here are just a few of Taaffe’s podcast comments:

‘The only time a black life is validated is when a white man kills him.’

“That minority group, they don’t do anything productive for this country, except for the NBA.”

“If it wasn’t for the NBA Joe like I always say, the country would have the tallest garbage men. Thank God for the NBA.”

“I always say if you lie down with dogs, you’re going to get up with fleas – especially if they’re black dogs.”

“Yeah she’s a nigg** (Oprah Winfrey). She keeps spewing out all that bullshit. She Keeps defending her boy Obama, who can do no wrong. You know it’s birds of a feather they flock together and stick together and to me she’s a NIGG**, Oprah Winfrey is a NIGG**.”

Seriously which respectable news outlet would put this guy on their show.

Well apparently quite a few, including Dr. Drew, CNN, and Nancy Grace.

Why? Well as it turns out he is apparently a friend of George Zimmerman.

Taaffe, supposedly a neighbor and close friend of George Zimmerman, became a regular on cable TV stations during the Zimmerman trial. He is best known for his many appearances on CNN and HLN’s ‘Nancy Grace,’ and ‘Dr. Drew.’ As a guest on the Nancy Grace show, Taaffe argued in defense of George Zimmerman, during the Trayvon Martin murder trial.

A "close friend" to George Zimmerman? Now why doesn't that surprise me?

Now you would think, considering what a pig this guy is, that after the Zimmerman trial this guy would be cut lose immediately. But you would be wrong.

Even after the Zimmerman trial ended, however, cable programs continue to give Taaffe air time. During the trial of Michael Dunn, a white man, who, like Zimmerman, shot and killed an unarmed black teenager, Taaffe was invited on cable tv shows, to share his views on the Dunn case.

Gee I wonder what a white supremacist believes about a man who shot an unarmed teenager over the issue of loud music?

It is pretty much what you would expect:

Taaffe's task is defending Dunn, who shot 17-year-old Jordan Davis outside of a Jacksonville gas station after arguing with the teen and his friends over loud music. Dunn claims he saw Davis holding what looked like a shotgun and that he fired at the boys in self-defense, but witnesses maintain that Davis was unarmed. On air, Taaffe has argued that the killing was justified, even if Davis wasn't pointing a firearm, because young black men are prone to violence.

Yes of course "everybody" knows that black men are violent, so apparently simply shooting them dead to prevent that violence from occurring makes perfect sense.

Frank Taaffe, was the man that George Zimmerman stayed with while he was waiting to be arrested for the shooting of Trayvon Martin, and he was the one that he asked to go to the media and speak on his behalf.

I think that speaks volumes as to who Gerorge Zimmerman is, and how he views people like Trayvon Martin.

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Courtesy of Alternet:

Atheists want the benefits of a secular society, but too many refuse to do the work. They are more concerned with a dictionary definition of atheism that they forget what is at stake.

Without atheists united in some form of community, the US would be lost overnight to a theocratic right. Ready to overturn whatever secular laws remain in the constitution.

While some atheists are worried about definitions, the right is worried about overturning women's rights, ending marriage equality and enforcing bad economic policies that drive more Americans into poverty. While we are busy infighting claiming, "no one speaks for me", the right is speaking and gathering followers. If we continue to run around unorganized, they will overtake this nation.

So there is, and should be a strong atheist movement, groups like American Atheists, American Humanist Association, Secular Coalition for America, Freedom From Religion, The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science and countless others are atheist based organizations all fighting to enforce secular laws in this country and around the world.

These are the groups who put the weight on their shoulders to make sure the theocratic right do not overtake the US and anyone who believes in upholding the secular history of this nation and the further secularization that rebuilds the wall that separates church and state that the right has spent decades taking apart. We should be thanking these groups and individuals in this fight, not chastising them for being "the face" of atheism as many have.

We may not elect atheist leaders, but many people shine through and stand up for all of us. We don't have to claim to agree with what every group does or says all the time either. Just as each atheist is unique in many of their own ways, so are groups.

Just so you know I am the king of the non-joiners.

Sure I can work as a part of a group for short periods of time, but after awhile things like clashing egos, mismatched ambitions, and attempts to define ourselves always force me to reevaluate why I joined and typically I walk away.

I identify as an Atheist simply becasue it is the label that best reflects my view of God, mankind, and the universe.

I have never formally joined any Atheist group and never really planned to in the future.

However there is some sense in what the author of this piece, Dan Arel, is saying.

As a group we are woefully unorganized, and we are often dealing with a group that is not only organized, but also well funded and with vast political connections.

As much as I hate to say it, the time may have come for those of us who want to keep religion from infiltrating our schools, and fight the oppressive laws that are dictating what women can do with their own bodies, as well as whose love is worthy of marriage, to get off our asses and start working together to help shape the world that we want our children to inherit.

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And you know she's right. Just wait for it.

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Courtesy of the Tundra turdslinger's Facebook page:

Congratulations Iron Dog champs Team #16 Minnick/Olstad! It was great seeing racers cross the finish line on the frozen Chena River in Fairbanks yesterday.

Team #11 Palin/Huntington had to leave the hunt early due to a rarely seen crank shaft bearing failure (yes, these racers are mechanics speaking their own language), so they jumped in support mode for others in the extended family of hardcore endurance racers.

They jumped into "support mode?"

Didn't they simply run right back to Wasilla?

How exactly was that supportive to the other teams?

Okay I have a silly question. How is it that there was a crank shaft bearing failure so quickly along the trail with this group of guys supposedly working to make the snowmachine race ready?

Here is how Palin described this photo right before the race:

The guys doing last minute wrenching before the start of the 2000-mile long Iron Dog race tomorrow! And taking a break to "fuel up" on (the usual) moose chili and blueberry pie.

So that "last minute wrenching" did not include checking the crank shaft bearings? How odd.

Well on the plus side I understand that the Sportsman Channel got all the footage they needed for the first episode of Amazing America.

And really once you have that what's the point in actually finishing the race?

Especially when you know there is no way to win?

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