Feminist O'Donnell

Clicking on the image will open a new window and take you to a Christine O’Donnell Greatest Hits compilation by Keith Olbermann

“I was an English major, so break it down: ‘-ist’ means ‘one who celebrates’… As a femin-ist, I celebrate my femininity.”

No it doesn’t.  According to Mirriam-Webster, the suffix “-ist” is defined as:

Also according to Mirriam-Webster, the definition of feminism is:

Christine O’Donnell – as someone who thinks that women in the military are a distraction, that co-ed dorms will lead to orgy rooms, and that women should submit to their husbands – is not a feminist.

Of course, the fact that candidate O’Donnell is lying to herself and her audience about being a feminist, and her misconception of the meaning of the suffix “-ist”, are some of the lesser icky moments in this video.

Feminist O'Donnell
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Feminist O’Donnell

Clicking on the image will open a new window and take you to a Christine O’Donnell Greatest Hits compilation by Keith Olbermann

“I was an English major, so break it down: ‘-ist’ means ‘one who celebrates’… As a femin-ist, I celebrate my femininity.”

No it doesn’t.  According to Mirriam-Webster, the suffix “-ist” is defined as:

Also according to Mirriam-Webster, the definition of feminism is:

Christine O’Donnell – as someone who thinks that women in the military are a distraction, that co-ed dorms will lead to orgy rooms, and that women should submit to their husbands – is not a feminist.

Of course, the fact that candidate O’Donnell is lying to herself and her audience about being a feminist, and her misconception of the meaning of the suffix “-ist”, are some of the lesser icky moments in this video.

Feminist O’Donnell

Xmas Wars

This is not an SNL skit or other parody group’s work.  This is fo’ real.

This movie will be loved by some people, but in the light of recent events and the us vs them mentality going on with the Ground Zero “Mosque”, the planned burning of the Koran,  the Pope’s visit to UK, Tea Party candidates calling for less church-state separation, et cetera, et cetera, I think the majority of people will see this for this movie for the divisive piece of crap that it looks to be.  And since this Christmas with a Capital C is straight-to-DVD, I don’t think the majority of the mainstream will ever even know about this movie.

Go go gadget optimism!

And to be clear, Christmas with a Capital C is the movie’s official title.  But I think How the Atheist Stole Christmas is more appropriate and filled with truthiness.  Or, as Balk from The Awl suggested Bullshit Resentments Fomented To Somehow Convince The Practitioners Of America’s Most Widely-Followed Faith That They Are Under Siege: The Movie

Via BlagHag, Joe My God, and a gazillon billion other rationality, atheism and skeptical websites.

Oh, and check out the movie’s namesake – a video about Go Fish, the Christian rock band that wrote and performed the song “Christmas with a Capital C”.  It’s pretty great when the lead singer says that Christmas didn’t used to be about religion, it was about culture and everyone used to participated in the holiday even if they disagreed with the religion because it was good for all of us.  Say what?  And I love the part where they make fun of people who say Happy Holidays by lisping the “s” and speaking in a soft voice (read: speaking like The Gays).  It’s FAB-ulous!

Xmas Wars

Restoring Sanity Rally

Do want! I must check cheapflights.com for flights to D.C. immediately!

Everything below is copy-pasted from CNN – click the link for the full article at CNN.com

Via CNN:

[cnnvideo url=’http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2010/09/17/am.stewart.colbert.rally.cnn’ inline=’true’]

Two Comedy Central funnymen are apparently entering into the partisan political fray with rallies of their own in the nation’s capital.

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have set October 30 as the date for their respective rallies.

On Thursday night’s airing of “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,” the comedian announced plans for a “Rally to Restore Sanity.”

“See you October 30 on the National Mall to spread the timeless message, ‘Take it down a notch for America,’ ” he said.

Stewart dubbed the event a “clarion call for rationality.”

“A million moderate march, where we take to the streets to send a message to our leaders and our national media that says, ‘We are here! We … are only here until 6 though, because we have a sitter,'” he said.

On “The Colbert Report,” which airs immediately after Stewart’s show, Colbert fired back with plans for his “March to Keep Fear Alive.”

“Now is not the time to take it down a notch. Now is the time for all good men to freak out for freedom,” Colbert said.

Stewart said on his Thursday show that he had reserved a spot on the National Mall.

“The forms have been filled out, the checks have been written,” he said.

[portion of original article omitted]

The announcements come less than three weeks after conservative talk-show host Glenn Beck hosted a much-publicized “Restoring Honor” rally on the National Mall, urging large crowds to “turn back to God” and return America to the values on which it was founded.

That event drew criticism for its timing and location — on the 47th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, delivered in the same place.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson told CNN at the time that Beck was mimicking King and “humiliating the tradition.” And other civil rights activists gathered nearby with the Rev. Al Sharpton and his National Action Network in a “Reclaim the Dream” rally.

Stewart first publicly floated the idea of a counter-rally in a profile in the September 12 edition of New York magazine.

“Maybe we would do a ‘March of the Reasonable,’ on a date of no particular significance,” Stewart says in the article.

The website logos and icons created for the Colbert and Stewart rallies mimic Beck’s, using identical typography and similar stylized images.

“We’re looking for the people who think shouting is annoying, counterproductive, and terrible for your throat; who feel that the loudest voices shouldn’t be the only ones that get heard,” the website for the “Rally to Restore Sanity” says.

The “March to Keep Fear Alive” site takes a more alarmist approach: “Never forget — ‘Reason’ is just one letter away from ‘Treason.’ Coincidence? Reasonable people would say it is, but America can’t afford to take that chance.”

Restoring Sanity Rally

JFK Separation of Church and State

Thanks to Freethought Radio (9/11/10 episode) for reminding me of this wonderful speech, given by John F. Kennedy to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in Houston, Texas on September 12, 1960. 

This is just one excerpt, but there is a wonderful page completely devoted to this speech at the American Rhetoric website*, where you can find the speech in its entirety, as well as video, audio and several different downloadable document types of JFK’s speech.

“I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute; where no Catholic prelate would tell the President — should he be Catholic — how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference, and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him, or the people who might elect him.

I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accept instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials, and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.”

~~~~~

The American Rhetoric website has an awesome tagline: “Rationalize rhetoric and it speaks to your mind; personify her and she speaks to your soul.”

JFK Separation of Church and State

This election term, what's in your wallet?

These statistics predict….more money than last election term.

This graph came out of the Washington Post.  It is called a Bartels Chart (Larry Bartels is a political scientist and author of several books), and it was shown on the Rachel Maddow Show.

Income percentile – This is roughly how much money you make compared to the rest of Americans.  If you’re in the 95th percentile, you make a LOT.  If you’re in the lower 20th, you don’t make as much.

Income Growth Rate – This is how much more or less money you make over some time or event.

Another way to look at this data is this:

I found this chart on Dani Rodrik’s weblog American political economics in one picture.  In his article he explains the chart and its implications.

When a Republican president is in power, people at the top of the income distribution experience much larger real income gains than those at the bottom–a difference of 1.5 percent per year going from the bottom to the top quintile in the income distribution. The situation is reversed when a Democrat is in power: those who benefit the most are the lower income groups.

And then I found this graph on the Rachel Maddow Show Blog.  It goes a few steps further than the first two Bartel’s charts because it breaks the data down into President and Congressional majorities.

This graph shows the average income growth rate on the y-axis and the income percentile on the x-axis.  Each bar of the graph describes growth under either a Republican majority

  1. Senate
  2. House
  3. Senate AND House
  4. President
  5. Senate AND House AND President.

Under a Republican majority of ANY of these groups, the income percentile on the right (i.e., the richest Americans) usually experienced the largest growth rate over all other brackets.  The exception appears to be when a Republican President is governing with a Democratic majority in both the House and Senate.

The second graph (blue) shows that when there’s a Democrat President plus a Democrat majority in the House and/or Senate, the income percentile on the left (i.e., the poorest Americans) experience the largest growth rate over all other brackets.  ALSO, when ANY Democrat majority holds sway in the House or Senate or White House, EVERYONE has at least a 0.5 positive growth rate over any Republican majority.


Food for thought as we go into the next election in less than two months.
This election term, what's in your wallet?

This election term, what’s in your wallet?

These statistics predict….more money than last election term.

This graph came out of the Washington Post.  It is called a Bartels Chart (Larry Bartels is a political scientist and author of several books), and it was shown on the Rachel Maddow Show.

Income percentile – This is roughly how much money you make compared to the rest of Americans.  If you’re in the 95th percentile, you make a LOT.  If you’re in the lower 20th, you don’t make as much.

Income Growth Rate – This is how much more or less money you make over some time or event.

Another way to look at this data is this:

I found this chart on Dani Rodrik’s weblog American political economics in one picture.  In his article he explains the chart and its implications.

When a Republican president is in power, people at the top of the income distribution experience much larger real income gains than those at the bottom–a difference of 1.5 percent per year going from the bottom to the top quintile in the income distribution. The situation is reversed when a Democrat is in power: those who benefit the most are the lower income groups.

And then I found this graph on the Rachel Maddow Show Blog.  It goes a few steps further than the first two Bartel’s charts because it breaks the data down into President and Congressional majorities.

This graph shows the average income growth rate on the y-axis and the income percentile on the x-axis.  Each bar of the graph describes growth under either a Republican majority

  1. Senate
  2. House
  3. Senate AND House
  4. President
  5. Senate AND House AND President.

Under a Republican majority of ANY of these groups, the income percentile on the right (i.e., the richest Americans) usually experienced the largest growth rate over all other brackets.  The exception appears to be when a Republican President is governing with a Democratic majority in both the House and Senate.

The second graph (blue) shows that when there’s a Democrat President plus a Democrat majority in the House and/or Senate, the income percentile on the left (i.e., the poorest Americans) experience the largest growth rate over all other brackets.  ALSO, when ANY Democrat majority holds sway in the House or Senate or White House, EVERYONE has at least a 0.5 positive growth rate over any Republican majority.


Food for thought as we go into the next election in less than two months.
This election term, what’s in your wallet?

Godless Morning Reading

Who doesn’t love a little god with their Corn Pops and grapefruit juice?

Two excellent (and decently short) articles from The Guardian.  Via the Religious Kooks and Other Superstitious Nonsense Facebook page.

Is God scraping the barrel for miracles? – Martin Robbins.  As Mr. Robbins puts it:

God used to be able to part seas and flood planets. By the end of the Old Testament he was turning people into pillars of salt and Aaron’s rod into a snake. At the time of Jesus, God our omnipotent deity was basically down to party tricks, and now, what, easing an old man’s backache for a few months?

Sex and death lie at the poisoned heart of religion – Polly Toynbee.  This article has a more serious tone to it.  Toynbee explains how the church’s controlling grip on reproduction, our bodies and sexuality,  and how we perceive and handle death are the seat of the church’s power.  My favorite snippet from the article:

As Ben Goldacre pointed out in this paper on Saturday, while this pope claims condoms “aggravate the problem” of HIV/Aids, two million die a year. Ann Widdecombe’s riposte that the Catholic church runs more Aids clinics than any single nation was like suggesting the Spanish Inquisition ran the best rehab clinics for torture victims.

And now for something on the lighter side: This video of Steve Martin performing “Atheists Ain’t Got No Songs” with the Steep Canyon Rangers at MerleFest 2010 has been out for a while, but it’s always good fun.

Godless Morning Reading

We're not all nerds.

Last Thursday I was working in the lab, and so I was wearing my prescription safety goggles.  I worked all morning long, and went to lunch at 1:45 – 15 minutes after the cafeteria closed and me with no bag lunch that day.  No problem, I figured I’d drive over to Taco Bell* to pick up a late lunch.

I arrive at Taco Bell and walk up to the counter.  The register clerk gives me a strange double-take and asks “Are you wearing safety glasses?”  I reach up and touch my face, and sure enough I’d forgotten to swap out my lab goggles for my regular frames.  “Oh yeah, they’re prescription and I forgot my other glasses at work.  Guess they’ll have to do for now.”  I give the guy a sheepish grin and open my mouth to place my order, but he interrupts me and says in an incredulous, semi-disgusted voice, “How could you forget that you were wearing safety glasses?  They’re huge!” 

And I’m thinking “You’re weird and need to stop obsessing over my glasses and please take my order now, k?” but I decide to insert a little humor into the situation so I look at him and say – with a conspiratorial (sexy spy) grin and a completely joking voice – “Actually, I always wear safety glasses when I leave my house; it’s a dangerous world out there and ya gotta be safe.”  And then I give him one of these used-car salesman double guns gestures and wink broadly at him and giggle (dammit, yes, I actually giggled). 

He rolls his eyes at me and (finally) asks “Sooooooo… what can I get you today?” 

How high school “I’m-so-way-cooler-than-you-and-can’t-believe-we’re-stuck-in-the-same-place” is that?  But happily, I am no longer in high school, so instead getting my order to go, running to my car and dying of embarrassment, I thought “what a douche this guy is”, ordered my food and enjoyed a leisurely lunch while reading a copy of “A Tour of the Calculus”.

*Mmmm…Taco Bell with it’s salty goodness!  Ooo, and now they have these “cantina tacos”, double corn softshell tacos served in foil with a lime slice on the side – finally!  I’ve had tacos like this before at the traveling lunch trucks that specialize in Mexican food and they are the best!  Taco Bell’s cantina tacos can’t hold a candle to the lunch trucks, but they’re tasty for chain fast food.

This post was inspired by Jen from Blag Hag’s “Sometimes I forget that not everyone is a nerd“, although her article is much more fun and light-hearted and there are no jerky Taco Bell employees involved.

We're not all nerds.