Titan’s Ethane Lake Confirmed

It is now confirmed that one of multiple dark spots on Saturn’s moon Titan is a liquid lake of ethane, an organic compound.  The lake might also contain nitrogen and several other hydrocarbon molecules.

Pigmonkey > Crocoduck

For those of you retards creationists retards who are still searching for the crocoduck in your misguided mockery of the search for real transitional species, look no further.

Out of China, Pigmonkey.  Clearly, pigs are evolving into monkeys and we have proof.

Pretty Pictures

I started a photoblog yesterday and I’ve been constantly uploading pictures.

http://gaytheistphoto.wordpress.com/

Go look and let me know what you think!

That asshole that opened fire in a Unitarian church…

Jeffrey Rowland’s Overcompensating saw the irony.

Click for full comic.

Media Silence

Has anyone seen any of this on the news?  I certainly haven’t.

Florida’s Rep. Robert Wexler:

It’s apparently news when Wexler jokingly tells Stephen Colbert that he likes coke and hookers but not when he addresses the House, calling for the impeachment of the President.

Patriotism Run Amok

Why does the world hate America?  That’s a question I’ve been pondering a lot lately… but I can stop pondering now.  I found the answer in the middle of an otherwise unremarkable episode of South Park.

Cult of Mac

Hemant posted a picture of kids praying to the iPhone that was, “in dire need of a caption.”

Well, here’s my dig at the iPhone and my dig at U.S. Cellular’s dumb new ad campaign… rolled up into one spiffy image:

Cult of Mac logo stolen from the header on CultofMac.com.

Rare Support From Roanoke’s Op-Ed

This came from Friday’s Op-Ed in the Roanoke Times:

Gay-bashers trot out tired arguments

Steven Kranowski

Kranowski is a bookkeeper for a construction company in Blacksburg.

It seems the gay-bashers have been running rampant on The Roanoke Times’ letters and opinion pages lately. Jim Ludington started off the whole mess with the hateful, hurtful and unenlightened tirade he inflicted on these pages back on June 29 (“Gay marriage threatens our culture,” commentary), which encouraged some of his fellow homophobes to write some equally mean-spirited and ignorant letters in his support.

Elvis is Alive and in Roanoke

I haven’t been writing much since I came back from hiatus (hiding).  I’ve been running follow-spot for Mill Mountain Theatre’s Idols of the King.  The show is a musical revue of Elvis’ songs (yes, there are a few annoying gospel numbers near the end) scattered with scenes of his fans going to his last Vegas concert and immediately following his death.  If you’re in the Roanoke area between now and August 24, get liquored up and come see the show.

Our Elvis, a certified Elvis impersonator (whatever that means), is pretty damn good in spite of being a tan, Jewish man with a receding hairline… the wig is really convincing.

Obama’s Speech in Berlin

Following today’s precedent-setting speech by Barack Obama in Berlin today, criticism and praise has come from all sides, so I in turn offer you my opinion of the speech (link is to The Huffington Post, w/ full transcript and video, 25m). I think Barack Obama did an incredible job summing up in words the thoughts and feelings of many Americans who want to scream at the rest of the world “That’s not us, please ignore the residents of D.C.”, and he touched on some issues (very bravely) that are delicate in Germany, such as NATO’s increased involvement in Afghanistan. His speech covered a broad spectrum of topics, from AIDs to Iraq, drug trafficking, to genocide and religious freedom and political freedom and fredom of speech and, well you get the point. Give it a browse, a peruse, a read, or thorough analysis. Or ignore it. But it is important.

-CJ

Cracker’s Gone

PZ desecrated his cracker.

The post has a great history of the Eucharist… but who am I kidding… all we wanted was the picture:

The carnage!  The carnage!

Wait… is that a page from The God Delusion??? I guess you’ll have to read the post to find out why.

Parasites: Friend or Menace?

Sometimes my Google Reader juxtaposes the weirdest articles. Last month I giggled incessantly at the grouping of “Just so you don’t get the wrong impression of Louisiana…” and “Louisiana: Epically Doomed.”

Now I have two back-to-back articles by Wired Science that I find somewhat ironic in their placement next to each other.

Power to the Parasites

The findings, published today in Nature, can’t be directly extrapolated to other ecosystems — but they’re greater by a full order of magnitude than previous parasitic biomass estimates, suggesting that parasites might be widely underappreciated.

Everyone go hug a parasite!  (But not too close now.)

Parasites May Fuel AIDS Epidemic

RUN!  RUN!  Parasites with AIDS!

Atheist Comic in the Newspapers

Diesel Sweeties, and online comic that recently started in print newspapers, published a comic in print that portrays Atheism in a good (as in, not negative) light.

Click for full comic:

How many butthurt letters to the editor do you think the papers running Diesel Sweeties will get?

Emo Kid Religions

Emo kids get ripped on a lot here on the Interwebnets.  Mostly, those ripping on emo kids don’t take the time to delve into the religious nuttery of many emos.  That’s what I want to tackle here: specifically, Satanism, Vampirism, and Wicca (and Faeries).

I’ve noticed a lot of emos pretend that they are one or more of these in an effort to flip the bird to the establishment, while only making themselves look almost as stupid (and in several cases) actually dumber than Young-Earth Creationshits.

Mixing Myths

I just watched a History Channel special on the Mayan civilisation.  It’s almost impossible to find a documentary on the Mayans that does not succumb to woo-woo fantasies.  This one was no exception.

Example:

“The ancient Mayans were experts in mathematics, architecture and astrology.”

Wait… what?  Experts in astrology?  You say that as if it’s something to be admired!

What hurts me most about these documentaries is the theory that the Earth will be destroyed on 21 December 2012 because that’s when the Mayan calendar “runs out.”

The History Channel documentary spent over 5 minutes of my valuable time explaining how and why modern Christians adopted the 2012 bullshit into their own end times theology.

Fuck this. I’m back. With more snarky.

I was planning on being away from the blog and forums and other such nonsense until every bit of personal drama was resolved.  I had even considered paying for personal security.

Then I realised… WHAT THE FUCK AM I DOING?!

I always wrote for the blog when drama got rough.  It was either about the drama to let off steam or I let off steam at other morons because of moron drama irrelevant to the blog.  Why would I put off blogging just because there was an epic amount of drama piling up?  Would that not increase the snarkiness (and, to some, the awesomeness) of this blog tenfold?

It wasn’t until I resolved much of the drama until I realised this, so don’t expect ten times the snarky.  I left my theatre group and temporarily fixed my finance problems, so that will take away at least 40% of the drama load.  It will take a lot more death threats and collapsing projects to get me back up to full snarkiness capacity.  Maybe I can do six times the snarky.  Will you settle for six times the typical snarky?

So… fuck this hiding and bitching and moaning shit. (Actually, some moaning is good… I just need to find someone to help me.  Moaning alone is getting boring.)  I’m back and in full force.  Staying silent just lets the Catholic terrorists win.  (Picture turbans and rosary beads and a CRT monitor and we’ll be on the same page.)

(And to those who say that I’m addicted to blogging–that I can’t stop blogging–maybe you’re right… and maybe you can shove a katana up your asshole.)

hav u seen my comunion wafr – BXVI

I was awestruck when a friend linked me this. Apparantly texting isn’t breaking the sabbath’s holiness?

Pope Benedict XVI, enjoying a final day of rest before joining the events, sent a daily text message to pilgrims’ cell phones: “The Holy Spirit gave the Apostles and gives u the power boldly 2 proclaim that Christ is risen! – BXVI.”

Nuff said.

-CJ

Change of address

I have received a noticeable increase in personal threats by email.  Two of the messages gloated about finding my address in the phone book.  All but one of the emails came from people who have stumbled onto this blog through various religious forums.  I have decided to err on the side of caution and move to another location to keep my family out of danger.  I’m currently living with a friend and I have plans to move to my own apartment soon.  It will not be listed in any public directory.  The address listed in the phone book no longer leads to where I live. Anyone who shows up at that address without a personal invitation from my family may be subject to prosecution.

I don’t know how serious these threats were intended, but I am interpreting them as serious.

Thank you.

- Reed

Bullying is Wrong, Unless He’s Gay!

Friendly Atheist has the story of an interesting little dilemma going on just south of me, in North Carolina. Apparantly, there are people who are opposed to a bill that would put stricter guidelines on anti-bullying initiatives in schools. Our kids get beaten up less, and learn more? Sounds like an all around good idea, you’d think it would pas s with no opposition, right? That is, until the bill specifically says you can’t bully people based on sexual preference.

The main opponent of the bill Mark Creech, says this:

“The evil of the legislation is that it elevates sexual orientation and gender identity or expression on the same levels with the enumerations of race, color, ancestry, national origin, gender, physical appearance, mental, physical or sensory disability — which are all immutable or unchangeable characteristics.”

Why are people like this even allowed public forums? The man honestly believes that a student who is homosexual has less right to equal protection than an African American student, because while the African American can’t choose to be white, the homosexual student could choose to be straight, and therefore avoid the problem.

WHAT

THE FUCK

IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE!?

- CJ

Piss Off The Catholics Month Rant

I’m coming back temporarily to give Thrawn some support.

There’s been a lot of negative chatter in the blogosphere about Thrawn’s Piss Off The Catholics Month.  Hemant offered a rather unsupportive post about it on Friendly Atheist.  Elles, the main author of Thrawn’s blog, is half-heartedly distancing herself from Thrawn’s campaign.

We’re finally getting people to talk about this shit!