This is Important

Why does this simple image seem like such an ironic metaphor?

Pat Condell

I admire Pat's courage to take on the Christians, and boldly point out the elephant in the room:

In Jesus' Name



Unholy Scripture



Why Does Faith Deserve Respect



Hello Angry Christians



Hello America

Das Rad (the wheel)

A fantastic Stop-Motion animation with a profound message cleverly delivered.

Billy's Balloon

Billy's Balloon is one the best animated short of all time -- by my current favorite animator Don Hertzfeldt.

A 13 year-old chimes in on Privacy in the U.S.

This is an actual essay written by a 13 year old boy for his English class. This kid has an amazing amount of awareness.

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Privacy? You see a lot more cameras everywhere these days. You hear that the government is tapping your phones, reading your mail and even going to the trouble of following what you buy at the store and the books you read at the library. For national security, they say. Bush has changed many of our privacy related laws and some of our Constitutional rights have been disregarded. My privacy is important to me because my beliefs of what "the right thing to do" may be different than those who are checking up on me. Who makes the decision of what is right and what is wrong? It is freedom to think for yourself and freedom to be yourself.

We are told that it is to keep us safe. However, the facts don’t lie. In the year 2001, there were 3,000 people supposedly killed by terrorists. In that year, 11 times more people killed themselves. A person was 145 times more likely to die by smoking, 133 times more likely to eat them self to death, 28 times more likely to die from alcoholism, 100 times more likely to be killed in a car accident and 145 times more likely to die by misdiagnoses by their doctor. Heart attacks are the #1 killer in America.That was 2001. In the years since 2001 your chances of death by obesity has been 499,000 times more likely than being killed by a terrorist! We don’t need more security and less privacy. Security is almost useless. Who is going to invade us? Unless we go into Iran and then there is a possibility of WWIII. If someone invades us Bush sends a bunch of nukes everywhere- were dead from nuclear winter. If someone shoots at us we shoot at them- everyone’s dead either way. Nukes now are something like a hundred times more powerful than what landed on.

If we were to have no privacy at all we would loose all that America stands for. When the early immigrants came to the US from England, they wanted to get away from their King. That King could imprison them without a trial, control their beliefs, and basically manipulate their lives. To lose our privacy is the first step to lose control of our lives. In our country the Bushies want to convince us that homosexuals are inferior, that the blacks of New Orleans didn’t need to be saved, and that greed is more valuable than life. To me the US under Bush is becoming like England under the King.

Bottom line: We do not need so many cameras. In banks maybe. But we do not need all of this tracking stuff. By the way there are tracking devices in credit cards so you don’t need to buy stuff anymore for them to be able to track you. Same with clothing, if you buy it with a credit card. If something is really important someone can always get a Court order or bring in a bunch of witnesses, and if Bush doesn’t want you to know about something you won’t. When the pentagon was annihilated the gas stations, banks, hotels etc. that had video surveillance pointing outwards from the buildings, was quickly and discreetly raided by Secret Service so that Bush could say that it was a plane. But if it was a plane why wasn’t there any parts left on the ground? Why were all of the Pentagons anti-missile and anti-aircraft weapons removed from where the “plane” struck? In 2001 when the twin towers went down,(plane actually did hit that) a lot of people said they heard something that sounded like successive gunshots, demolition experts say that it was charges that detonated in succession. Maybe. One point that leads to this conclusion is that all the security crews were changed before 9/11 and that all the dogs that could smell explosives were removed from the towers. That’s kind of strange. Could it also mean that people new that it was going to happen before it did?

That pretty much sums up my ideas about privacy. I think it is much more important than security if security is going to be used how I wrote about earlier. If security is being used I think people should be careful which is chosen over the other. Like the law Habeas Corpus was recently abolished. That said that an individual is now longer entitled to a trial. Or what about the new law saying that the US troops now for the first time ever are allowed to shoot and kill US citizens. Scary. A lot like that was an awesome movie. Maybe the government is getting ready for an uprising.I wonder which side the army will take. Throughout time we have gone through many wars and many casualties and never before have we lost so many important rights in the name of security. Why should we now?

"The power of the executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious, and the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist."

-- Winston Churchill

The US government is collecting electronic records on the travel habits of millions of Americans who fly, drive or take cruises abroad, retaining data on the persons with whom they travel or plan to stay, the personal items they carry during their journeys, and even the books that travelers have carried, according to documents obtained by a group of civil liberties advocates and statements by government officials."

--The Washington Post

Tattoo Care Guide

Just got a tattoo? Here's a one-sheet guide to help guide you to proper care and healing.

Click on the image to enlarge and/or print

Running the Numbers

These are the works of Chris Jordan being displayed at the Paul Kopeikin Gallery in Los Angeles opening September 8th of 2007.

In these pieces Jordan shows us American life through the austere lens of statistics. How many kids go without health insurance? How may trees are harvested are to make mail order catalogs? How many plastic bottles are discarded every five minutes (it reaches into the horizon, by the way). What do 30,000 hand guns look like (the number of gun-related deaths in the US in 2004).

Nod to Nancy.

Teacher fired for stating bible story not literal

This is the story of a community college professor who was fired for daring to state that the Adam and Eve story in the Hebrew bible was not literal -- that it was a myth.

The comments after the story are also fascinating and worth a read.

Praise the Lord Jesus Christ! Rejoice!

Imagine a world where we can actually make progress toward eliminating global warming, pollution, and environmental destruction. Imagine an explosion in the popularity of organic foods, solar and wind power, sustainable buildings, organic fabrics, fair-trade goods, clean energy, CLF's and urban recycling. Imagine "Simple Living" becoming the way of the land, rather than the grotesque and wasteful consumerism that grips the USA.

Dare I dream of such a blessing?

Yes, I dare dream. But the only way there would be if there would be if there was an implosion of the evangelical Christian right and if the fall of the Godmongers.

And yes, my friends, it's finally happening. Praise Jesus!

Finally an end to the anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-sex, pro-abstinence, anti-women, anti-science, pro-war, God-hates-Islam idiocy that's destroyed America's credibility internationally, bankrupted our treasury, put us into generations of debt, and made us the laughingstock of the world.

Maybe, just maybe, I can be proud to be an American again.

More Perfect Feet

The response I've gotten from my post Perfect Feet has been remarkable. Thank you to all of you for your wonderful comments and for sharing my love of women's feet.

I've got a surprise for you -- a surprise I think you'll really like; but first, let me suggest that you explore the rest of my Blog. There are a lot of great posts and I think you'll love them. Also, please spend a moment to spread the word! Tell your friends! Mention my blog on other websites or link to it! You know that's the right thing to do, don't you?

Well, now that the begging is over, let me get to the surprise. I've been collecting fantastic pictures for many years, and I'm posting another 25 of my very favorites. Enjoy them, and spread the word!



















































Oh, and don't forget to leave a comment. I love to hear from you.

Rainbow and Angry-Sky Time-Lapse

This is a very cool time-lapse movie of cloudy skies, a rainbow, then dusk falling. Nice -- I didn't realize that rainbows formed that way.

Onion Radio News -- Karl Rove

Onion Radio News about Karl Rove recent "lean times".

Little Red Wagon

The Radio Flyer "little red wagon" is 90 years old. Here's the story of Antonio Pasin, the creator of the wagon.

Welcome to Amerika

Naomi Wolf's 10 steps to Fascism.

The Skeptics Guide to the Universe Presents Top 20 Logical Fallacies

I just adore the fact that these illogical tools used by fools in arguments actually have been analyzed, categorized, and named.

When these are used against me, I feel like my opponent had thrown sand in my eyes.

However, when they are used by the media, or special interests, to sway the opinion of the less educated members of the population, it becomes a type of brain-washing.

Read and enjoy.

Critical Analysis of "Case for a Creator"

This is a "science" program by the Discovery Institute, a well funded "Christian" group that is responsible for the idea of "Intelligent Design". Their techniques involve making scientific sounding claims, false scientific sounding claims, to bolster the case for creationism.

A group called Extant DoDos has taken on the challenge to bring real science and rational thought to this "program".

Why, why are these supposedly "moral" Christians so eager to lie outright?


Part One



Part Two

Don Hertzfeldt

This guy is an animation genius. Here are three of my favorites:

Intermission



Rejected



End of Show

Kiss Freedom of Speech Good-bye

Innocent student tazed at a John Kerry speech.

Why didn't anyone rise up to defend this guy?

Have we lost? Already?