Is this Justice?

Posted on by

Consider the following scenario:

An African-American restaurant owner in New York City learns that one of his white employees was born in Alabama.  He calls that employee to his office.

Owner: “Is it true you came from Alabama, a southern state?”

Employee:  “Yes. But I moved to New York four years ago.”

Owner:  “Then you are FIRED!  I won’t have racists working for me. More than half of our customers are African-American and I won’t risk you offending them with racist remarks.”

Employee: “What?! But have I done anything wrong?  If I was a racist, I would not be here!”

Owner:  “I used to live in the south. And virtually every white person I dealt with there was racist, constantly looking down on me and other black kids. I finally got out of that situation, and I’ll be damned if the bigotry follows me up here.”

Employee: “Well, don’t you think I am also sick of the bigotry of my fellow whites? I also left the south to live here because of the culture. YOU are the one being racist against ME because of both my skin color and where I was born.  I’m not responsible for either of those things!”

Owner: “You still benefited from the racism you grew up in, just as I suffered from it. Now you are going to learn how it feels to be discriminated against!  GET OUT!”

Rape Apologists!

Posted on by

I would occasionally see the term “rape apologist” thrown around by feminists and I assumed for a long time that this was merely hyperbole. What man, in his right mind, would publicly defend the act of forcing a woman to have sex with him? Instead, I figured the only proper definition of a rape apology would be a rapist saying to his victim months or years later, “I’m sorry that I violated your dignity as a fellow human being and I promise I will never do that again to anyone.”

Boy was I mistaken! Continue reading →

Celebrating Black History Month, Stupidly

Posted on by

Read this embarrassing article:

http://www.ktvu.com/news/news/local/black-history-month-inspired-school-lunch-menu-cau/ndGPD/
Black History Month inspired school lunch menu causes outcry

menuNoelle Walker and KTVU.com

CONCORD, Calif. —

A student effort to come up with a special menu for Black History Month backfired at Carondelet High School in Concord.

Interim President, Sister Ann Bernard, said students who were members of the Black Student Union club at neighboring De La Salle High School planned a special lunch to celebrate the month.  The menu included fried chicken, corn bread and watermelon.

“They thought this was a very clever way, in their own way, of celebrating Black History Month. It was as simple, and naive as that,” Sister Bernard explained.

On Thursday Bernard publicly apologized for the event she said was planned without following procedures to get staff approval.

“It was the parents who thought, rightfully so, we were being insensitive to African American culture, which is not who we are or what we profess,” Bernard said, shaking her head.

The first staff or administration heard of the proposed menu was when it was announced over the loudspeaker Monday morning.

“Most people were laughing, but they were laughing nervously because they knew it wasn’t right,” said sophomore, Dom Carpenello.

While Carpenello admitted the menu sounded tasty, she admitted, “The menu really doesn’t have anything to do with black history.”

The chief curator at Oakland’s African American Museum and Library, Rick Moss, agreed.

“I guess there’s an impression that all black people eat this kind of food, which of course is false,” Moss said.

He said the menu came from a place of ignorance about what Black History Month means, but says the reaction to the students’ misstep was also wrong.

“So this is wonderful opportunity to actually inform people, not something to react to,” Moss said.

Carondelet High School is using the incident as a “teachable moment,” Sister Bernard said there will be teacher sensitivity training and a student assembly this month.

“There’s education needed on every single level, not just for students, but also for faculty and staff,” she said.

As for the menu, Bernard said, “I can assure you that fried chicken and the rest of it is not part of it.”

I cannot believe the sheer ignorance being displayed here! This issue is about misrepresenting the culture of an entire race. Fried chicken, corn bread. and watermelon are not and have never been “black” foods, but were among the cheap foods served to the enslaved ancestors of most African-Americans by slaveowners. It would be like showing pictures of Nazi concentration camps as part of celebrating Jewish History Month!

For more details on the incredible stupidity of it all, read this:

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/02/07/fried-chicken-lunch-black-history-month-really/

Economic Abuse of a Little Girl

Posted on by

Read this article:

http://gma.yahoo.com/cupcake-business-run-11-old-shuttered-illinois-health-202621307–abc-news-topstories.html

HT_cupcake_girl_1_jtm_140205_16x9_992
Cupcake Business Run By 11-Year-Old Shuttered By Illinois Health Officials

By ALYSSA NEWCOMB

The cupcake empire Chloe Stirling built out of her home kitchen has come crumbling down after Illinois health officials said the sixth-grader wasn’t in compliance with local laws.

Chloe, 11, said she was told by health officials in Madison County, Ill., that if she wants to continue selling cupcakes she will need to buy a bakery or build a separate kitchen.

“It bummed me out because I wanted to keep baking,” Chloe told ABCNews.com. “I had a bunch of orders and they said I had to cancel them all.”

Stirling, who is in sixth grade, has operated “Hey Cupcake” out of her family’s kitchen in Troy, Ill., for the past two years. And it appears her success may have invited the scrutiny of regulators.

The cupcake mogul said she’s raked in some serious dough for a kid her age, charging $10 for a dozen cupcakes and $2 each for the more elaborate treats, such as cakes that look like high heel shoes.

“It felt good because with all my money I could buy stuff I wanted and didn’t have to wait until my birthday or Christmas,” Chloe said, adding that she was also saving money for a car.

Her mother, Heather Stirling, told ABCNews.com she’s meeting with officials from the health department and the state attorney next week in hopes of finding a way to help Chloe re-open Hey Cupcake.

“This is her niche. You have kids who are good at baseball and soccer and this is what they pursue,” Stirling said. “Chloe is one of a kind. No one else does this at her age. There are a lot of hoops we’re going to have to jump through.”

Toni Corona, a spokeswoman for the Madison County Department of Health, told ABCNews.com in a statement that the laws are “applied uniformly and without discrimination.”

She said the department “applauds the entrepreneurial spirit” of Chloe and “joins with her many fans in hoping she will find a location for her cupcake enterprise that complies with state laws.”

Do you see something missing in this article?  How about any evidence that anyone was sickened by any of the products produced by this girl’s baking business?

Shutting down her business for failing to comply with state health regulations even with no complaint from customers about her products serves one purpose:  Eliminating competition with the corporations that dominate our economy and both force people to work for them instead of working for themselves and force them to buy their products instead of creating their own. This is bullying of the worst sort and it goes against our legal standard of “innocent until proven guilty”. The State of Illinois and the officials of Madison County should be ashamed of themselves!

Truth in Advertising: Photoshopping must be outlawed.

Posted on by

Photoshopping is using a special computer program that manipulates a photo to alter its appearance. Models that appear on magazine covers often have their pictures photoshopped to make them look more attractive than they really are (according to some standard of beauty held in most of the Western world, but not a universal one).

This unethical practice has been criticized for giving most girls a terrible self image by making them compare their imperfect bodies to what they see in magazines. A similar  argument has been made about Barbie dolls, with their unrealistic body proportions, but at least pictures of Barbie dolls are not photoshopped. Doing that to actual human models should be considered fraud. And fraud IS illegal, so it is not a stretch to outlaw photoshopping and require all magazines, newspapers, and news websites to only publish pictures that are not photoshopped. We should be able to see what is real, not someone’s idea of beauty that is not real!

Thou shalt not steal!

Posted on by

Imagine my shock at the sheer stupidity and arrogance of this group of radical “Christians”:

http://www.jesusradicals.com/calendar-grrlz/

On the weekend of Black Friday, a group of three people emptied a calendar stand of its entire stock of sexist and objectifying products.

Every day on the way to work, we had to walk by this kiosk.  Each passing encounter forced a specific sexuality and beauty standard upon us, and we couldn’t take it anymore.  We were sick of being told that our worth is equivalent to what aesthetic pleasure our bodies can afford someone else (typically a man).

If your environment disturbs you, disturb it.

Or even better, disturb it with your friends.  Together, we formulated a plan and decided upon roles that we were all comfortable with: the distraction, the bagger, and the lookout.  The area was scoped out beforehand for cameras, number of employees, and general foot traffic, and escape routes were elaborated.  We created placards with anti-sexist rhetoric to replace the calendars, being cautious to touch them only with gloves on.

The distraction pretended to shop until the other two entered separately, and then began to engage the sole employee in conversation.  The bagger stashed the product in a trash bag, while the lookout stood beside watching for passersby and police.  After the product had been replaced with the placards, the bagger took the trash out through a side door, appearing as a mall employee.  Once sure the bagger hadn’t been followed, the lookout exited and headed to the meetup spot.  The distraction ended the conversation with the employee and walked away without incident.  We all left laughing.

A big part of any action is strengthening bonds of trust with those whom you already know and love.  We invite you to disturb your own environments, with these suggestions:

– Always use gloves for everything you handle (no fingerprints)

– Make sure you have enough bags/baggers (we had to make several trips, and the employee at your kiosk may not be so inattentive)

– Wear a very different change of clothes underneath your outfit–if followed, you can hide and remove the outer clothing.

– Wear something to obscure your face from cameras and passersby (if a hat, look down at the ground while passing a camera)

Be cautious, but don’t be paranoid.  This was (and should be) easy and fun!

I would have expected this sort of crap from a group of radical atheists and feminists, not Christians!  But then again, we do have Christian bigots that have murdered abortion doctors too, even though the Bible says “Thou shalt not kill.”

If these people were at all sincere, they would have  destroyed the calendars in front of the store employees and customers and allowed themselves to be arrested and proceed afterwards to take a stand for their cause in court. Instead, they are just cowards, thieves and self-righteous @$$holes. In any case, I would put them in jail for a long time and/or fine them thousands of dollars!

Insanity on the Telephone

Posted on by

One of the most hilarious videos I’ve ever seen is this:

In only 1 1/2 minutes, this caller spits out plenty of bullcrap. What is really ironic is that there is also so much bullcrap out there that is Republican party dogma, such as that President Obama is a Socialist, that socialism is bad for America, that Obamacare must be repealed, that ultra-high military spending is good for Americans instead of spending more on our infrastructure, and that keeping taxes low on the rich helps our economy. ALL of those claims are baseless too! So why tolerate any of it?  Just because a lie is popular does not make it any less false!

How to Fight Gerrymandering

Posted on by

Gerrymandering is the unethical process by which one party which is currently dominant in a state attempts to maintain its dominance by drawing districts for state legislators or Congressmen to favor that party and its candidates. It is the very antithesis of democracy, in which the people are to elect their leaders and representatives; instead, in gerrymandering, the representatives choose what people they want to have voting for them. This allows certain extremist nutcases like Rep. Michelle Bachmann to be elected over and over again without fear of losing their seats to a more moderate opposing candidate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering

Illustrated in that Wikipedia entry are some particular examples of gerrymandering, but the most obvious one of all seems to be:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois%27s_4th_congressional_district

GerrymanderingThere is simply no excuse for this, no matter what party commits it!  If Republicans filed a lawsuit to change or eliminate this district, I would support them too.

I have come up with an idea on how to identify gerrymandered districts.

CircleUsing the circle and the point indicating its center, I propose that any district that touches at least three points 45 degrees apart from each other and also contains the point at the center of the circle may be considered a fairly drawn district. By this test, the 4th Congressional District in Illinois would certainly not qualify. Nor would:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Carolina%27s_12th_congressional_district

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California%27s_23rd_congressional_district

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois%27_17th_congressional_district

All those districts should be opposed. I would lobby for a bill to be passed by Congress and in every state legislature mandating my standard for all congressional and state legislative districts. I would also ask for the federal courts to intervene. Indeed, I would strongly recommend that only federal courts, not state legislatures, be allowed to draw districts. Otherwise, it is like the fox guarding the hen-house.

Related articles

Guilt by Association Among Religions

Posted on by
The version of the flaming chalice currently u...

The version of the flaming chalice currently used as the logo of the Unitarian Universalist Association. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It is no secret that the Unitarian and Universalist movements, which have merged in the United States into the Unitarian Universalist Association, had their origins in Christianity. Therefore, people who are inclined to reject Christianity will often reject the UUA too, without considering that non-Christians have been welcome in it since it was founded in 1961. Continue reading →

Rape, School Sports and Small Town Insanity

Posted on by

P Z Myers put the spotlight on a teenage rapist yesterday:

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/10/14/matthew-barnett-sleazebag-and-rapist

The story is sadly typical of small towns and their pathetic bigotries, but what really drew my attention later was a comment below it. (Emphasis mine.)

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/10/14/matthew-barnett-sleazebag-and-rapist/comment-page-1/#comment-705351

39
MarkM1427

15 October 2013 at 1:04 am (UTC -5)

Anonymous? That scumbag will wish he only had the cops to deal with. If only they’d go after the media for not calling this shit what it is: an inexcusable, unforgivable act of violence against another human being. I didn’t see a word of this until ThinkProgress shared it on Facebook. I wonder why no one else seems to give a shit about the actual victims here. Ever since I first read this story it’s been stuck in the back of my head. It obviously pisses me off, but it also hits close to home in several ways for me.

As outraged as I am about this, I’m not at all surprised. It’s not the first time I’ve heard about a small town demonizing the victims who dared to put the town through the trauma of dealing with the fact that a heinous crime happened in their neighborhood instead of, you know, the actual criminal. A similar story of what happened to my grandmother has stuck with my family for nearly 50 years. (I’m not going to derail the thread with the whole story, but a small town covered up the murder of her mother since the guy who did it was close to powerful people in the town.) Why can’t this shit ever change?

And this has finally done it. I thought I would never say this, but I can’t go on believing that athletic programs are a positive influence for students. Even though I benefited from sports myself, I can’t support them anymore. I was an athlete in high school, and to this day I believe that being part of the football team did a lot to make me more social then. I have Asperger’s and I might not have as much as spoken a word the whole four years if I didn’t join one group or another. For so long I defended these sports programs as something that could be a great influence on the athletes if the coaches actually gave a damn about that like the ones I had did.

But no more. I now see that my experience was the exception, not the rule. School sports, much like religion, corrupts the adults who are involved in it, you know, the ones that are supposed to ACT LIKE ADULTS. If sports programs warp peoples’ minds to the point that they are consistently willing to enable rape by athletes in the name of winning a fucking ball game, they are toxic to society and we should cast them out of schools.

I don’t intend to derail the thread with the tangent I know I went off on, but this story has had my mind spinning faster than a centrifuge ever since I read it. I can’t wait for the town to finally have the wrath of the rest of the country descend on them for the scumbags they are.

And that led me to ask what, if anything, do sports programs have to do with the actual process of education? Nothing that I can see. Yet almost every school and college out there has a sports program which no doubt costs money to maintain. Perhaps it is time to start putting pressure on schools to eliminate funding for sports programs before they even think of eliminating anything else from a school’s budget!

Related articles

A Family of Enablers

Posted on by

This is a true story, with names changed for privacy’s sake. Before you read it, read this definition of an “enabler”.

http://www.asktheinternettherapist.com/articles/enabler-definition/

An enabler is a person who by their actions make it easier for an addict to continue their self-destructive behavior by criticizing or rescuing. The term codependency refers to a relationship where one or both parties enable the other to act in certain maladaptive ways. Many times, the act of the enabler satisfies a need for the codependent person because his or her actions foster a need from the other person or persons in the relationship.

There was once a girl named Suzanne. When she was 15, she became pregnant, but the father was completely unknown; it was rumored that he was an illegal immigrant. So she gave birth to her son Darren.  Her family, rather than force her to take care of Darren full time, allowed Suzanne to dump the baby on her mother and sister Cathy while she continued to party all the time. As a result, Suzanne became pregnant again at the age of 17, this time giving birth to a daughter, Cindy, whose father was also unknown. As the years went by, the extended family of Suzanne showered gifts to Suzanne’s children on their birthdays as well as every Christmas, rather than have Suzanne be the chief provider for those children. Then at age 20, Suzanne became pregnant yet again, and her 16 year old sister Cathy also became pregnant at the same time. Both sisters gave birth to babies that year, Suzanne to a boy named Charles and Cathy to a girl named Penny. Finally, Suzanne had a fourth baby, a girl named Millie, at age 24. In all Suzanne’s cases, the fathers never took responsibility for their children, instead, the family continued to enable her by showering all the children with gifts every year, thus rewarding Suzanne by proxy for having them.

Suzanne only responded to the love shown to her children by continuing to screw up. Last I heard, she was addicted to drugs and had gone to jail over it.

Did it ever occur to Suzanne’s family that if they had disowned Suzanne after she got pregnant the second or third time and forced her to live strictly on her own with her as the only support for her kids, she might have come to her senses and stopped having babies out of wedlock and avoided partying and drugs? That maybe her sister might also have not gotten pregnant?  That the family as a whole would be much more functional than they ended up being? Love is a wonderful thing, but it is possible to have too much love for someone and end up failing them.

“Classical” Atheism vs. “Contemporary” Atheism

Posted on by

Once again, I find myself dealing with the tiresome issue of the competing definitions of Atheism. See my previous blog entries on this subject for references:

https://dalehusband.wordpress.com/2010/06/24/atheism-is-a-dogma-get-over-it/

https://dalehusband.wordpress.com/2010/08/09/misdefining-terms-for-purposes-of-propaganda/

https://dalehusband.wordpress.com/2011/07/26/make-up-your-minds-atheists/

https://dalehusband.wordpress.com/2012/09/01/richard-dawkins-is-an-agnostic/

https://dalehusband.wordpress.com/2012/10/05/is-agnostic-an-obsolete-term/

Now I learn that Aron-Ra, a fellow Texan and activist against promoting Creationist bigotry and lies in public schools, has not only accepted the “contemporary” definition of atheism, he asserts that the “classical” definition of it was a lie all along! Really??? Continue reading →

An Open Letter to President Barack Obama

Posted on by
To Barack Obama, the President of the United States of America:

The Affordable Care Act is the LAW OF THE LAND, passed by both Houses of Congress (yes, even the Republican controlled House of Representatives), signed by you, and affirmed as constitutional by the U. S. Supreme Court. Therefore, attempts by Republicans in Congress to DEFUND what is federal law is criminal behavior, just as disobedience to any other law is criminal behavior. We should allow no exceptions here. By engaging in criminal behavior, the Republicans sitting in Congress, even going so far as to shut down the government rather allow what is federal law to be funded have forfeited their right to be representatives of the people, like anyone else who commits a federal crime. I call upon you, as the elected Chief Executive of the United States, to direct the Department of Justice to issue arrest warrants against every Republican in Congress and charge them all with CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT SEDITION! END THE GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN BY REMOVING THE ONES RESPONSIBLE FROM OFFICE NOW!

Dale Husband, the Honorable Skeptic

Related articles

Racism among Atheists too?

Posted on by

Jen McCreight, author of the blog Blag Hag, now finds herself having to confront the ugly issue of racism among her fellow atheists after she and other women dealt so much and for so long with sexism among them. I will provide links to her blog entries in question along with excerpts from them.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/blaghag/2013/08/on-silencing-anger-to-silence-minority-voices/

My favorite thing to wake up to in the morning is white straight cis men insisting they get to decide who your allies are and that you should not ever get angry, but rather calmly explain basic topics to hostile questions from every person that wanders across your path as if it were your personal duty on this earth. Continue reading →

300 teens should be LOCKED UP!

Posted on by

I find this incredible!

http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/brian-holloway-former-nfl-star-reacts-teens-trash-house-twitter-091813

Ex-NFL player reacts to trashed house

An estimated 300 teenagers threw a party at the house of Brian Holloway over Labor Day weekend, authorities say, causing a reported $20,000 in damage to the property of the former New England Patriots and Los Angeles Raiders left tackle.

That sentence might normally make Holloway sound like the coolest irresponsible uncle ever, except there’s a catch: Holloway spends most of his time these days in Florida and wasn’t at the Stephentown, N.Y., vacation home at the time of the rager.

Continue reading →

Weapons of Mass Destruction

Posted on by

OK, let me get this straight.

  1. We Americans are opposed to Iran gaining nuclear weapons.
  2. We went to war against Iraq in 2003 over claims that it had chemical and biological weapons and was even trying to get nuclear weapons. Those claims were debunked after the invasion.
  3. We may soon be going to war with Syria over the claim that its government used chemical weapons against the rebels in its own civil war.

And yet the facts are that:

  1. The United States is the ONLY nation that has EVER used nuclear weapons in wartime (1945 against Japan).
  2. The United States has THOUSANDS of nuclear weapons and can launch them to anywhere else in the world.
  3. The United States has no plans to disarm its nuclear weapons program.
  4. Other nations, including Russia, China, France, Great Britain, India and Pakistan, have developed nuclear weapons and the world civilization has not (yet) destroyed itself in a nuclear war.

Why aren’t the nations of the world demanding that WE give up our weapons of mass destruction? How can we condemn others for wanting such weapons to protect themselves from invasion when we have had them for many decades? Can you spell H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-S-Y?!

It would be like a man armed at his home with dozens of machine guns being alarmed that his neighbors want to get themselves a few pistols. We Americans really do seem like a bunch of chickenshit cowards, don’t we?

Related articles

There is NO default position on religion

Posted on by

P Z Myers wrote an essay for the Washington Post that reads as follows:

Atheism is the default position. You don’t have to do anything to be an atheist, but you have to work awfully hard to not be one…..

I consider this to be a falsehood, based on my own personal experience. I was raised in a conservative Protestant family, so I naturally adopted the basic Christian beliefs of my parents and other relatives. It required no work at all to simply believe in God and to accept the Bible as the Word of God. So for me, evangelical Protestantism WAS the default position; it was not until I was attending college that I decided to stop believing in God and it was at the end of a long internal struggle that involved some emotional wrangling that I never would have experienced had I simply chosen to ignore the contradictions I had discovered and remain a Christian. Thus I had to work very hard to deprogram myself and think freely from the dogmas of any religion. And I had to undergo this process TWICE, since I later was seduced to join the Baha’i Faith and then deprogram myself from that as well.

From a universal perspective, there cannot be a default position on religion, politics, or any other subject involving dogmas (and yes, atheism is properly classed as a dogma). There are only defaults with regards to family upbringings.  The only way atheism can be a default position is if a child is raised in a family of atheists.

An Open Letter to the American People

Posted on by

August 3, 2013

To the concerned citizens of the United States of America,

The Republicans in the House of Representatives have tried dozens of times to repeal Obamacare and every time they have failed. They will always fail as long as the Democrats have a majority in the Senate and Obama, or any other Democrat, is President. So why do they bother?  If anyone else was caught wasting as much time at their jobs as the Republicans have, they would be fired. So the obvious solution is to vote at least some of the Republicans out of the House next year.

The truth is that the Republicans are living on borrowed time. It is a given that they will never capture the Presidency again; George W. Bush will be the last Republican ever to hold it. But once Obamacare is fully implemented and its benefits become obvious, the insane opposition the Republicans have shown to it will cause them to never be able to hold a majority in either chamber of Congress and their status as a major party in the United States will be finished.

If you really want limited government, vote for Libertarians. Most of them are not hypocrites. They are indeed the only true followers of the U S Constitution left. No, not even the “Tea Party” bigots among Republicans. The Tea Party was just another right-wing scam to get votes from people who were scared out of their wits by the election of a black man to the Presidency. Ironically, I think Obama has not been liberal enough and that we need to push government even more to the left over the next few decades.

Indeed, if we were true to the ideals of the Declaration of Independence (“we hold there truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights…..”) there would be absolutely NO place in American politics for Conservatism. Why? Because Conservatism by its very nature is based on trying to maintain some sort of social inequality; some traditionally privileged class seeking to maintain its exalted status as opposed to some other disadvantaged class. It could be rich vs. poor, whites vs. blacks, men vs. women, Christians vs. non-Christians, or heterosexuals vs. homosexuals. Conservatism works by constantly appealing to the irrational prejudices of those who are in power and seek to keep the power to themselves rather than share power with those who do not have it. Both the Democrats in the late 19th Century and the Republicans in the late 20th Century to today were infested by Conservatism.

The Republicans today have caved in so deeply to bigotry that they are not even capable of representing the real needs of the people anymore; they are controlled by giant corporations that have been holding most of our economy hostage for decades and own media outlets like FOX News to lie to the American people constantly. These same corporations that outsourced so much of our manufacturing to China, but blame illegal immigrants for taking jobs from real Americans. Those same corporations that make vast profits from wars overseas and a military budget at least six times greater than that of any other nation while causing us to drown in public debt. Hypocrites! They are the real parasites and traitors to our nation, not welfare recipients or those who dare to blow the whistle on the corruption and abuses of our government!

So let us destroy the Republican Party! The madness must end!

Sincerely,

Dale Husband, the Honorable Skeptic

 

Random thoughts about the George Zimmerman/Treyvon Martin case

Posted on by

1. Since both the victim and the defendant in the case were male, why was there an all female jury? How is that different from an all-white jury judging a black person having killed another black person?

2. It does not matter who attacked whom first, the fact remains that Treyvon Martin was unarmed and George Zimmerman had a gun, giving him an overwhelming advantage. The fact that Martin was shot in the heart shows that Zimmerman meant to kill him, rather than merely disable him to stop the fight. He should have been convicted of manslaughter, at least.

3. “Stand your ground” laws might as well be called “permission to use violence as a first option rather than a last resort”. What do we call societies in which that is commonly accepted? Barbaric anarchies, which America should be anything but!

4. The jury probably did not want to convict Zimmerman of anything because doing so would have been a virtual death sentence for him. He’d go to a prison, and prisons across the USA are known to have a disproportionate number of African-American men, most of whom would be more than happy to kill Zimmerman. A possible solution would have been to sentence Zimmerman to house arrest for many years instead of prison. Indeed, why not sentence most convicted felons to house arrest instead of prison?

5. Neighborhood watch groups are supposed to call the police and alert them to possible crimes being committed as they occur, not take the law into their own hands like Zimmerman clearly did!

6. I was just as outraged when O. J. Simpson was found not guilty of those murder charges he faced. It makes NO difference to me whether a person of any race gets off after killing a person of any race.

7. Treyvon Martin’s family could still sue Zimmerman for wrongful death of the victim. Unlike criminal trials where the prosecution is expected to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt, civil court cases are decided based on how much the evidence is weighed on each side. By that standard, Zimmerman should lose badly, just as O J Simpson did.

Related articles

No, Marion Bartoli is not a Barbie doll

Posted on by

When an average looking man wins a major sporting event, how often do you see anyone commenting on his looks? Yet if a woman wins one, that’s all some sexist jerks can think of!

http://publicshaming.tumblr.com/post/54864863081/womens-wimbledon-champion-marion-bartoli-deemed

Does this woman look “fat” or “ugly” to you?! WHY? She looks NORMAL!

marion-bartoli-5http://tennis.si.com/2013/07/07/bbc-commentator-marion-bartoli-not-a-looker/

WIMBLEDON, England — The BBC apologized after one of its commentators criticized newly crowned Wimbledon champion Marion Bartoli’s looks.

The Telegraph reported that after Bartoli defeated Sabine Lisicki in Saturday’s final, John Inverdale asked listeners on BBC Radio, “Do you think Bartoli’s dad told her when she was little, ‘You’re never going to be a looker? You’ll never be a [Maria] Sharapova, so you have to be scrappy and fight.’”

The comment created a firestorm on social media and the BBC was inundated with complaints. Inverdale attempted a halfhearted apology, according to The Telegraph, saying, “We poked fun, in a nice way, about how she looks … but Marion Bartoli is an incredible role model.”

Yeah, that’s not an apology.

The BBC later issued a statement apologizing for Inverdale’s remarks.

“We accept that this remark was insensitive and for that we apologize,” a spokesman said.

Bartoli’s father, Walter, who served as her coach from childhood until this year, was told of the remarks and responded with class.

“I am not angry,” Bartoli said, according to The Telegraph. “She is my beautiful daughter.”
<snip>

As for Inverdale, he appeared to face no immediate sanction from the BBC. Later Saturday, he was back hosting the BBC’s nightly Wimbledon wrap-up show.

UPDATE: Inverdale said Sunday that he wrote Bartoli a letter of apology. In response to his on-air comments, Bartoli reportedly said: ”It doesn’t matter, honestly. I am not blonde, yes. That is a fact. Have I dreamt about having a model contract? No. I’m sorry. But have I dreamed about winning Wimbledon? Absolutely, yes. And to share this moment with my dad was absolutely amazing and I am so proud of it.”

Look, I am in favor of freedom of speech as much as anyone else, but when you are on a public broadcasting outlet and you make sexist remarks that millions of people can hear, you should face some consequences. Inverdale should have been fired. I’m sure a lot of people out there never want to hear from him again and the BBC needs to clean up its tarnished image.

Related articles

Truth in Advertising: The Staffmark and Exel screwup

Posted on by
Corporate Logo of Exel Logistics (now a subsid...

Corporate Logo of Exel Logistics (now a subsidiary of DHL) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A couple of weeks ago, I was looking for a new job and so I responded to an ad on Craigslist:

http://dallas.craigslist.org/ftw/lab/3855558236.html

Want to beat the heat while working? (North Fort Worth)

Looking for energetic, sharp assemblers that build special packaging for food products to work in a logistics warehouse with opportunity to advance to team leads for second shift (6:00pm – 2:30am). The work week is Sunday through Thursday. Need to have great attendance and strong safety habits to be eligible for bonus. This is a long term assignment – 40 current openings! After verification of employment will start immediately.
If interested, please contact Jacob Holsinger at jacob.holsinger@staffmark.com

The employment agency that put out the ad was Staffmark. I visited their office and after orientation I started work at a nearby warehouse that was owned by a company called Exel and distributed General Mills products. So I went out there and found:

1. The actual work at night schedule was 6:00 PM to FOUR AM, not 2:30 AM.

2. We were told by the Exel managers at the work site that we may be working SEVEN DAYS A WEEK for several weeks, maybe even a month!

3. Beating the heat was not an issue. In fact, the warehouse was very HOT inside and we were told to keep ourselves hydrated constantly with water bottles due to our sweating so much. That we worked at night was little help: even after sunset, summer nights in Texas are often very warm. I cannot imagine anyone working at such a warehouse in the daytime when the temperatures outside may soar to 100 degrees F for weeks!

I went back to the Staffmark people and complained about the schedule changes bitterly, feeling like I’d been lied to. But I proceeded to work at the warehouse anyway for a week.

This morning, I was awakened by a call from Staffmark:  I’d been terminated because I’d not been “agreeable” to the changes that were made to my work. Uh, right, because I remember what I see and I insist as a matter of integrity that companies KEEP THEIR WORD! No one should be working seven days a week at anything, period!

But this is what happens when you live in a “right-to-work” state where labor unions have almost no power.

Creation Museum Running Out of Cash and Going Extinct?

Posted on by

The Creation Museum may be declining, but as long as it turns even a slight profit, the Creationist bigots will keep it running for many years to come.

Related articles

 

mattusmaximus's avatarThe Skeptical Teacher

[**Update (6-25-13): It seems this blog post has come to the attention of none other than Ken Ham himself, who runs the Creation Museum.  If you are interested, you can read his response on his Facebook page.]

In an interesting, though not very surprising, development, it seems the Creation Museum in Kentucky is running out of money.  And it seems the problem is that, like creationism itself, there is nothing new or different about the exhibits at this “museum”. The irony is that Ken Ham and other creationists claim the Creation Museum is doing scientific work which proves creationism to be true, yet since the place opened 5 years ago nothing has changed and no new “creation science” research has appeared.

Creation_museum_triceratops_saddleNo actual scientific research, but your kids can “ride a dinosaur” just like Fred Flintstone did!  No wonder these morons are going out of business. Image source

View original post 613 more words

The Skepchicks vs. the Asses of Evil

Posted on by

With this blog entry, I intend to put all the past references to the battles Rebecca Watson and her allies have fought against sexism in the secular communities into one place. This will be a work in progress.

https://dalehusband.wordpress.com/2011/07/05/the-downfall-of-richard-dawkins-credibility/

https://dalehusband.wordpress.com/2011/08/01/rebecca-watson-vs-stef-mcgraw/

https://dalehusband.wordpress.com/2012/10/01/beware-of-justin-vacula/

https://dalehusband.wordpress.com/2013/05/08/destroy-the-atheist-movement/

https://dalehusband.wordpress.com/2013/06/18/atheists-on-facebook/

https://dalehusband.com/2015/12/31/buckley-gets-what-rebecca-watson-bashers-do-not-want-to-admit/

Continue reading →

Atheists on Facebook

Posted on by

The Center for Inquiry hosted a conference for women in which it’s CEO, Ron Lindsay, made a total idiot of himself and offended a LOT of the women (and enlightened men) for whom the conference was made by implying that feminists who wanted men to listen to them were no better than the men who were being disrespectful to them.

Continue reading →

Vaccines and the failure of doing research on the internet

Posted on by

Reality trumps any number of fallacious arguments made to support a preconceived position based on one or more lies. This is why I am a hard-core empiricist and reject the philosophical school of rationalism, which claims that human reason alone can produce truth. Instead, it has only produced conflict.

Continue reading →

Logic fail in a comment

Posted on by

Someone made a comment below one of my oldest blog entries here and it ended up in my spam folder. I not only pulled it out of that folder and approved it, I wish to respond directly to it here to make sure that it gets maximum exposure, because I found it to be sheer nonsense! The original parts of the statement will be in red italics and my responses will be in green bold.

Continue reading →

Michele Bachmann is finished, but…..

Posted on by

…..by being willing to simply stop running for re-election, she is making it likely that another Republican will inherit her seat in Congress rather than her being defeated by a Democrat, as she deserves.

Bachmann Won’t Seek Re-election Next Year

Continue reading →