Once a legitimate blog. Now just a collection of memes 'n menz.
"I guess it comes down to deciding which you find more offensive:
1) Using profanity to point out that there are plenty of things in the Bible we all ignore, or
2) Calling the Bible the absolute, unerring, infallible word of God, and then only obeying the chunks that let you feel superior to other human beings.
I say #2."~ Dave Holmes
"It's a saying from thousands of years ago, written in a language called Latin about a place called Rome," he explains. "'Panem et Circenses' translates into 'Bread and Circuses.' The writer was saying that in return for full bellies and entertainment, his people had given up their political responsibilities and therefore their power." ~ Suzanne Collins in her book "Mockingjay" pg. 223
"Life is but a momentary glimpse of the wonder of the astonishing universe, and it is sad to see so many dreaming it away on spiritual fantasy." ~ Carl Sagan (1934-1996), American astronomer, astrophysicist, and author
"It seems all religion now has a fixation with homosexuality. This is because religion has not done the hard work of evolving and accepting modern day reality. So, they look for a reason to reject modernity and a scapegoat for the gullible to blame. Religion really needs to look within and ask why thousand year old myths trump truth, science and reality. They need to ask themselves why religion increasingly only appeals to the desperate, fearful and retarded. They need to ask why any conscious non-sociopathic human these days will reject everything religion stands for." ~ Sampy, in a comment left at Joe.My.God.
"The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why." ~ Mark Twain
"Everyone has the right to believe in anything they want. And everyone else has the right to find it fucking ridiculous." ~ Ricky Gervais
"Long ago, homosexuality was something refined, sublimated. Concerned with reaching for the greatest heights of artistic expression and often achieving them. Now it's just a bunch of musclebound idiots running around in t-shirts." ~ Fred, in Damsels In Distress.
Stolen in its entirety From Bill in Exile:
"All those people who supported the war, and most especially all those who voted for it, bear the moral responsibility for the results of the war. At least 100,000 dead Iraqis (and probably closer to a million). 4,000 and rising dead US soldiers. Rape. Murder. Torture. Orphans who got to watch their parents being killed. Husbands who saw their wives die, or wives who watched their husbands gunned down or blown into bloody carrion. Families who have buried multiple children.
All because members of Congress didn't care and because they were gutless. Because they thought to themselves "I might have to face attack ads if I vote against this war." Can you think of anything more weak, anything more pathetically evil, than to care more about your reelection than about thousands dying? Than about the certainty that from your vote will come rape and torture and murder?
And can you think of anything more pathetic, more redolent of bad judgment than to say "but I didn't know. I trusted George Bush?"
As far as I am concerned most of Congress doesn't just have blood on their hands, they are in it up to their chins. Their gutlessness, cupidity and selfishness is such that most of them, in a just world, would be preparing their defenses for a Nuremburg trial. They attacked a country which had not attacked the US, based on lies that were debunked at the time, for petty personal reasons of political ambition or cowardice.
We all know that won't happen, but what I will tell you is this. Without the Iraq war, the financial crisis happening right now either wouldn't be, or would be much less harsh. It is quite likely that Iraq is the last mistake of the American century and marks the end of America as a superpower.
This is only fitting. Those who have proven they cannot be trusted with power must have that power taken away. America had its chance, in 2004, to take that power away from the worst of its elites. It didn't. For an outsider, whether the election was stolen in 2004 or not is irrelevant, all that matters was the lesson of the result—that Americans are no longer capable of disciplining their own elites."
Ian Welsh in a re-posted blog post from 2008 titled It is in Blood that Empires, Like Humans, Are Born, It is in Blood That They Die.
Go read it.
Because I think Ian is absolutely correct: America can no longer be trusted with the power and influence it has wielded since the end of World War II.
And therefore we must have it taken from us.
We've abrogated our responsibilities as a nation and as a people and are therefore now no longer deserving of the leadership position we once held.
We allow war criminals to run free — and make a good living as tee vee pundits on Fox.
We normalize torture as a legitimate means of interrogation.
We have a president who claims for himself the right to order the murder of American citizens without trial or even charges being brought.
We see trillions of dollars stolen by malefactors of great wealth who not only get off without even so much as a slap on the wrist but who then get paid billions in bonus money from the pockets of the very citizens that they robbed, while the people whom they defrauded lose their homes and their life savings.
I adore the idea of the country we were supposed to be, and perhaps one day we'll find our way back from the wilderness that we now inhabit.
But I have little respect for the country we've become for what we have become is toxic.
I will live out my life here deeply saddened that we all, every single one of us, allowed it to come to this.
We are, in a word, spent.
"The churches used to win their arguments against atheism, agnosticism, and other burning issues by burning the ismists, which is fine proof that there is a devil but hardly evidence that there is a God." ~ Benjamin Barr Lindsey (1869-1943), American judge and social reformer
"Listen, smile, agree, and then do whatever the fuck you were going to do anyway." ~ Robert Downey Jr.
"Just because you're offended, doesn't mean you're right." ~ Ricky Gervais
Left at Joe. My. God. in response to this.
"Little Ricky Frothy Mix stamping his widdle teabagger feet, hoping the wingnuts will save his now dead and rotting campaign. What is clearer than clear is this sad pathetic self-hating closet case is gay—very, very, very, very gay. And it scares the froth out of him every waking moment of his hateful little life. Spew all the hate you want Ricky; it won't make those glorious images of all those naked men you dream of go away. Barracade your closet door all you want. It won't change the fact that you are what you fear most, and what you clearly desire most." ~ DaveinSF
"Now, you can call this class warfare all you want, but asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense." ~ Barack Obama SOTU
"I worry that the focus on Gingrich's adultery will distract us from the fact that he's also a racist asshole." ~ Andy Borowitz
"Already done. To 'rick' is to remove something with your tongue—the 'r' from 'remove,' the 'ick' from 'lick'— which makes 'rick santorum' the most disgusting two-word sentence in the English language after 'vote Republican.'" ~ Dan Savage, responding to a reader who asked after his successful Google campaign to redefine "Santorum" when he was going to redefine the Senator's first name
"People who dismiss the unemployed and dependent as "parasites" fail to understand economics and parasitism. A successful parasite is one that is not recognized by its host; one that can make its host work for it without appearing as a burden. Such is the ruling class in a capitalistic society." ~ Jason Read
"And, suddenly, the dogwhistles have turned into air-raid sirens.
I think, maybe, it's time for the nation to rise up and point out to the Republican party that, root and branch, it is a racist embarrassment to democracy and a blight on this nation that all the world can see." ~ Charles Pierce
"The universe has to move forward. Pain and loss, they define us as much as happiness or love. Whether it's a world or a relationship. Everything has its time. And everything ends." ~ Sarah Jane Smith, Doctor Who School Reunion
Sorry for the kind of depressing quote. Just thinking about our country. More than even during the horrific Bush years (when I started blogging) I believe we are witnessing the decline and fall of the United States, and it saddens me to see what we've become.
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity." ~ William Butler Yeats
We may be able to slow the process down somewhat by making good, progressive choices in November, but I really have no hope that we'll be able to reverse course completely. This is not the dream of the 21st Century that we were presented with as children…
Where is that man in the blue box when you need him?
"I don't see anyone in the GOP majority demanding drug testing for folks who receive oil and gas subsidies." ~ Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC)
"A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in." ~ Greek Proverb
"Good fiction's job is to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable." ~ David Foster Wallace
"You know, when you're a kid, they tell you it's all: Grow up, get a job, get married, get a house, have a kid…and that's it. But the truth is, the world is so much stranger than that. It's so much darker…and so much madder…and so much better" ~ Elton, from the Doctor Who episode Love & Monsters
"I wish Android had an Instagram app so I could post pictures of food too!" — my wonderfully snarky and adorable Ben
"Other countries care for their mentally ill. Making them debate on TV is just cruel." — Andy Borowitz