Thibaulting is the new Tebowing

February 11, 2012 Jason Thibeaulthockey, Jocelyn Thibault, religion, Tebowing, Tim Tebow10 Comments

Via @artologica on Twitter, evidently someone caught a snapshot of French Canadian goalie Jocelyn Thibault on one knee. This is, of course, meme-worthy.

Jocelyn Thibault in a one-knee pose quite similar to Tim Tebow's praying pose

One of these days I’m going to have to give in and ape Tebow’s prayer pose myself. Only, maybe, picking up a penny. Or petting a cat. Certainly, catching me in something like a prayer is honestly no worse and no less hypocritical than a faithful Christian violating Matthew 6 blatantly like Tim Tebow keeps doing.

(Yes, all three of our surnames are pronounced the same.)

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The best thing you’ll see on the internet today. Period.

February 10, 2012 Jason Thibeaultdancing, geekery, humour, music, world tour4 Comments

Yella – Comme Une Enfant (Freaks Remix). With Nathan Barnatt dancing. Oh so much dancing.

I really want that Space Invaders sculpture now.

Betty Bowers on Traditional Christian Marriage

February 10, 2012 Jason ThibeaultBetty Bowers, gay marriage, marriage, morality3 Comments

Yup, pretty much spot on. Considering the full-throated Republican and evangelical assault on gay marriage claiming that “traditional marriage” is between one man and one woman, Betty Bowers, “America’s Best Christian”, goes back to the source materials to show that the common conception of traditional marriage is one that is very much at odds with the one written in everyone’s favorite source for morality.

Of Skyrimming, overzealous Christianity, and reading comprehension

February 9, 2012 Jason ThibeaultChristianity, fundamentalism, games, geekery, gender, homophobia, homosexuality, humour, parody, Poe's Law, Pokémon, Skyrim18 Comments

One of my absolute favorite theist parody sites is ChristWire. They are, for all intents and purposes, a proving ground for Poe’s Law. There, the most ridiculous parodies of fundamentalist or evangelical Chrsitian reactions to everyday occurrences or aspects of pop culture are mimicked to such a high degree that, all too often, real Christians believe the parody and act according to their consciences.

In this case, ChristWire took aim at the recent Bethesda game Skyrim.

Right off the bat, the gay supporting software company Blizzard, shows the player images of decapitations and after the third of forth head chopping, a necromatic dragon appears and sets the player free from righteous punishment. Now that the player is free, they will spend the next 400 hours robbing people, killing villagers, crafting sexual items, fornicate with elves and other Harry Potter style animals and also learn how to conjure up black magic.

Emphasis mine.
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The man who could not see his own reflection, but thinks he looks Amazing nonetheless

February 8, 2012 Jason Thibeaultfreedom of speech, gender, offense as a virtue, privilege, slurs, wordcraft37 Comments

Obligatory trigger warning because HOLY FUCK.

There is, suddenly, a lot of to-do about TJ Kincaid, also known as The Amazing Atheist, a provincial and prejudiced man who believes himself to be superior to others by virtue of having figured out the question of God (e.g., “there isn’t one”). A lot of people who have otherwise ignored his rants are tuning in now that he’s flamed out so spectacularly over at Reddit, you know, like you do. And most of the criticism is, as it turns out, about the fact that he appears to be suffering from a bigotry version of the Dunning Kruger effect. I think this is close to the mark, but does not go quite far enough.

Russell Glasser of The Atheist Experience passed around the Freethought Blogs back channel a preview of his most recent post, where the events over at Reddit are covered in excruciating detail. Among other things, he said the following to a rape victim (below the fold):
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The Worldwide Copyfight

February 8, 2012 Jason ThibeaultACTA, content middleman industry, copyright, copyright infringement, CRIA, ESAC, MPAA, PIPA, piracy, RIAA, SOPA7 Comments

The Internet won a blow for sanity in defeating SOPA/PIPA, the content middleman industry’s latest salvo in the fight to keep the old ways of making money off content profitable. And yet, the content middleman industry lumbers on, as only a dying cash cow can.

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Gay marriage doesn’t threaten our marriage

February 7, 2012 Jason ThibeaultCanada, gay marriage, gay rights, human rights, marriage, social causes21 Comments

I’m reblogging a post in full by an esteemed fellow Canuck, George Waye, who has asked for help in spreading the word on this laudable cause.

Derek and Tessie Forgie

I’d like you to meet Derek Forgie. I’ve known Derek for almost twenty years- we were both involved in the arts community here in North Bay for many years before Derek moved down to Toronto in search of fame and fortune. Well, mostly fame.

Derek is the most motivated guy I know. When he wants to do something, he just does it. When he moved to Toronto he started HSSE, Heterosexuals for Same Sex Equality, a group whose mission statement is to advocate for LGBT issues from a heterosexual angle- and to get the message out that human rights are everyone’s rights.

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16 year old girl Hacks the Tube almost into space to get into MIT

February 6, 2012 Jason Thibeaulteducation, gender roles, MIT, space13 Comments

Via Boing Boing, this is absolutely awesome. As part of their Early Action Admits, MIT challenges prospective students to hack the tube the enrollment letter came in into something cool. So one 16-year-old girl put a camera, a GPS, and two Ham radio transmitters, strapped it to an 800 gram helium balloon, and sent it nearly 91,000ft from Earth’s surface. That’s well into the stratosphere. 90% of the mass of the atmosphere is below the 52,000ft mark, and very nearly 100% below the 330,000ft mark, so that’s above a significant proportion of the atmosphere — as good as into space, as far as I’m concerned.

She’s of course been admitted. And she’s going to make one damn fine engineer, I expect.

Happy anniversary, dear

February 6, 2012 Jason Thibeaultart, Ben Zvan, Jodi, life, Soni Alcorn-Hender, wedding7 Comments

A day late, but yesterday was spent on cuddles and sushi so I hope you’ll forgive me for posting this today. My wife Jodi and I just celebrated our second wedding anniversary. Video of the ceremony is available, and of course, if you’re interested in the proposal, visit Stephanie’s, where she very much played Cupid, with an assist from that old softie PZ Myers himself.

Stephanie’s husband Ben helped take a picture that we never got on our wedding, of the necklace that the amazing, talented and amazingly talented Bohemian Weasel, Soni Alcorn-Hender, made for her. Considering all of the artistic talent, and the model, of course I feel the need to highlight it here.

Professional photograph of Jodi wearing Soni's necklace — Photo © Ben Zvan Photography, used with permission (for obvious reasons)

Real genuine proof the moon landing (simulation) was a hoax!

February 4, 2012 Jason Thibeaultantiscience, denialism, hoaxes, moon landing, pseudoscience4 Comments

What do you get when you stitch together footage from NASA’s moon landing simulations prior to the Apollo project, with footage from the actual moon landing, with an audio track meant to make you pee with laughter?

Well, you get a Youtube comments thread so full of facepalmingly poor logic and conspiracy theory that you just have to weep for humanity. While laughing. It’s a very painful emotion.

We’ve been to the moon. There’s a mirror up there, planted by us at the Apollo landing site, that we can bounce lasers off of, to accurately measure Earth’s distance to the moon. This is evidence. That, and Buzz Aldrin will sock you one if you’re still a ridiculous conspiracy theorist.

Lousy Canuck

… Because I don't watch enough hockey, drink enough beer, or eat enough bacon.

Month: February 2012