Fundie watch

Sarah Palin is using the “mama grizzly” theme in her new ad, big female protector of her children, however where are her cubs? Why are her children never around her except for when she wants to prop them up for a photo shoot? I’m not against working moms at all, but I am against someone being hypocritical and using her offspring for her own gain and pretending to be something she is not. Someone else is raising her kids while she is on the road and her husband is working, and she has money to pay nannies, sitters, whoever to care for her little darlings. All she really cares about is her own political gain.

And of course there is the question of what a quitter she is. She walked away from her term as governor and did not fulfill her elected promises and obligations. Why would anyone believe she will make a loyal and strong president? Because she loves Jeebus and has conservative imaginary friend beliefs?

While many would not consider Palin a serious threat in the 2012 Presidential election, I don’t think we can take the stupidity of the conservative fundamentalists for granted. They elected Dubya…twice! And don’t underestimate their desire and ability to elect someone even dumber.

Palin touts ‘mama grizzlies’ in new ad

The video of the ad

If she did by some bad luck get elected, that would really suck. We cannot allow that to happen.

Doesn't matter how bad marriage is, as long as it's heterosexual (snark)

Prehistoric Frilled Shark found...living fossil

It will be amusing to hear what explanations creationists invent to explain this prehistoric specimen.

Fast Gas Bullet from Cosmic Blast N49

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Penn State/S. Park et al.; Optical: NASA/STScI/UIUC/Y. H. Chu & R. Williams et al.

Explanation: What is that strange blue blob on the far right? No one is sure, but it might be a speeding remnant of a powerful supernova that was unexpectedly lopsided. Scattered debris from supernova explosion N49 lights up the sky in this gorgeous composited image based on data from the Chandra and Hubble Space Telescopes. Glowing visible filaments, shown in yellow, and X-ray hot gas, shown in blue, span about 30 light-years in our neighboring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud. Light from the original exploding star reached Earth thousands of years ago, but N49 also marks the location of another energetic outburst -- an extremely intense blast of gamma-rays detected by satellites about 30 years ago on 1979 March 5. The source of the March 5th Event is now attributed to a magnetar - a highly magnetized, spinning neutron star also born in the ancient stellar explosion which created supernova remnant N49. The magnetar, visible near the top of the image, hurtles through the supernova debris cloud at over 70 thousand kilometers per hour. The blue blob on the far right, however, might have been expelled asymmetrically just as a massive star was exploding. If so, it now appears to be moving over 7 million kilometers per hour.

Respect ?

Companion of a Young, Sun-like Star Confirmed

Credit: Gemini Observatory, D. Lafreniere, R. Jayawardhana, M. van Kerkwijk (Univ. Toronto)

Explanation: The first direct image of an extrasolar planet orbiting a star similar to our Sun has been confirmed. Located just 500 light-years away toward the constellation Scorpius, the parent star, cataloged as 1RXS J160929.1-210524, is only slightly less massive and a little cooler than the Sun. The star is, however, much younger, a few million years old compared to the middle-aged Sun's 5 billion years. This sharp infrared image shows the young star's planetary companion positioned above and left of center. The planet is estimated to have a mass about 8 times the mass of Jupiter, and orbit a whopping 330 times the Earth-Sun distance from its parent star. The young planetary companion is still hot and relatively bright in infrared light, likely due to the heat generated during its formation by gravitational contraction. In fact, such newborn planets are easier to detect before they age and cool and become much more faint. The discovery image, shown above, was taken in 2008 but confirmed only recently by noting that the planet stayed with its parent star as background stars slightly shifted over time.

Catholics say light the Empire State Building to honor Mother Teresa, or else!

Mother Teresa is considered by many to be a saint for her supposed selfless dedication in the service of humanity. However, some have accused her of being a rather mean and ghoulish character and running an orphanage where children were maltreated and abused. Some also accuse her of taking money that was meant for the poor and funneling it back to the Vatican for her own personal recognition.(Abusing Children Mother Teresa Style by Atuna Dey)

In Christopher Hitchens opinion, the reason that Mother Teresa is so highly revered amongst not only the Catholic community, but also other religious and even non-religion groups and individuals is:

Partly because that impression is so widespread. But also because the sheer fact that this is considered unquestionable is a sign of what we are up against, namely the problem of credulity. One of the most salient examples of people’s willingness to believe anything if it is garbed in the appearance of holiness is the uncritical acceptance of the idea of Mother Teresa as a saint by people who would normally be thinking – however lazily – in a secular or rational manner. In other words, in every sense it is an unexamined claim.

In his book The Missionary Postion, Hitchens labels Mother Teresa ” the “Ghoul of Calcutta” a “fanatic, a fundamentalist, and a fraud” amongst other things, and there are others who share that same viewpoint for good reasons. Unfortunately most sheeple people will not even bother to listen to or consider these accusations.

In his above-mentioned post on his blog Atanu Dey on India’s Development, Dey writes:

What exactly is my main grouse with M. Teresa? I think that she was evil. She manipulated others and cheated them, and she did so on the backs of Kolkata’s miserable. She was the most famous “beggar lord” – a person who makes a living by taking the money that people give to beggars and using that money for some other purpose. In her case, it is suspected that the money is funneled to the Vatican so that she would get on the fast tract to being canonized.

And now we have this story reported in the news recently:

Light the Empire State Building to honor Mother Teresa, or else?

Catholic forces in New York City are not-so-quietly mobilizing a massive petition drive, protest, lobbying effort and media campaign to attempt to force the owner of the Empire State Building to light the building blue and white on August 26 in honor of Mother Teresa’s 100th birthday. Their efforts have even infiltrated the City Council of New York City, in the form of a resolution which was referred to committee at the council meeting on June 9.

The City Council resolution introduced by Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. would force the building owner to honor the New York City Catholic League’s lighting request.

According to the New York Post, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn was infuriated by the owner’s refusal to light the building to honor Teresa. Quinn said: “I just think it’s a really wrongheaded decision.”

Anthony E. Malkin, who privately owns the Empire State Building, said the building “has a specific policy against any other lighting for religious figures or requests by religions and religious organizations.”

The New York Post (June 9) featured a full-page cover story and photo of the Empire State Building with a huge headline: “THE EVIL EMPIRE.” The Catholic League plans to demonstrate outside the Empire State Building on August 26 and has collected 40,000 signatures for a petition in support of the Mother Teresa lighting.

These Catholics are as bad, if not worse than the evangelical protestants when it comes to their lack of consideration for freedom of and freedom from religion. The building is privately owned. The owner can choose to do whatever he wants with this demand. He can honor it, or ignore it. And we know when there is “religious uprising” when they can’t have their way, there could be violence. They say so themselves.

The president of the Catholic League griped: “I think that too many Catholics have fallen asleep at the wheel. It’s time for people, the rank and file to say enough is enough. I hope it’s going to be nonviolent, I wouldn’t encourage violence but I know there’s a lot of anger.”

So they are pissed off because a private building owner will not light his building to honor a certain denominations religious icon, and a ghoulish one at that. What’s really mind-boggling is that the city hall is getting involved instead of just standing firm that it is not their business to promote or make special accommodations for any religion.

Speaker Quinn has additionally joined with Mayor Michael Bloomberg to declare August 26 a “day of service in honor of Mother Teresa.”

Quinn said: “The Empire State Building does not have final say on how Mother Teresa’s life should be honored. That’s why we in the Council are inviting all New Yorkers on August 26th, light up their own windows, homes, businesses in blue and white as a tribute to her. Lighting up the Empire State Building as a tribute to her would be great. But honoring such an inspiring woman does not have to be limited to a single building.”

Fine, light up your own damn windows any way you choose, honor and worship the Ghoul of Calcutta if you choose to on your own property, in your own deluded way. But should the city council be promoting or encouraging such a thing?

“It is inappropriate and unseemly for city council representatives to use their office to promote a denominational religious figure such as the nun, Mother Teresa,” the Freedom From Religion Foundation said.

I agree, it is inappropriate. Once again, a religious community has no respect for the separation of church and state and is trying to bully a private citizen to get its way using elected government officials.

As the article states, “August 26 has long been celebrated as Women’s Equality Day by feminists as the date in 1920 when U.S. women finally won the right to vote, enshrined as the suffrage amendment — the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”

Let’s keep August 26th “Celebrate Women’s Equality Day”, Not birth of Mother Teresa, Ghoul of Calcutta day.

Halo of the Cat's Eye

Click on image to enlargeCredit & Copyright: R. Corradi (Isaac Newton Group), Nordic Optical Telescope

Explanation: The Cat's Eye Nebula (NGC 6543) is one of the best known planetary nebulae in the sky. Its haunting symmetries are seen in the very central region of this stunning false-color picture, processed to reveal the enormous but extremely faint halo of gaseous material, over three light-years across, which surrounds the brighter, familiar planetary nebula. Made with data from the Nordic Optical Telescope in the Canary Islands, the composite picture shows extended emission from the nebula. Planetary nebulae have long been appreciated as a final phase in the life of a sun-like star. Only much more recently however, have some planetaries been found to have halos like this one, likely formed of material shrugged off during earlier active episodes in the star's evolution. While the planetary nebula phase is thought to last for around 10,000 years, astronomers estimate the age of the outer filamentary portions of this halo to be 50,000 to 90,000 years.

Heart and Soul Nebulas in Infrared

Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, WISE Team

Explanation: Is the heart and soul of our Galaxy located in Cassiopeia? Possibly not, but that is where two bright emission nebulas nicknamed Heart and Soul can be found. The Heart Nebula, officially dubbed IC 1805 and visible in the above right, has a shape in optical light reminiscent of a classical heart symbol. The above image, however, was taken in infrared light by the recently launched WISE telescope. Infrared light penetrates well inside the vast and complex bubbles created by newly formed stars in the interior of these two massive star forming regions. Studies of stars and dust like those found in the Heart and Soul Nebulas have focussed on how massive stars form and how they affect their environment. Light takes about 6,000 years to reach us from these nebulas, which together span roughly 300 light years.

Thou shalt make no graven images!

Lightning levels 6-story-tall Jesus statue

Before

After

I wrote about this "Touchdown Jesus" some time ago. There is even a song about “Big Butter Jesus” on YouTube. Well, it’s now rubble. I guess Zeus must have been jealous.

MONROE, Ohio – A six-story-tall statue of Jesus Christ with his arms raised along a highway was struck by lightning in a thunderstorm Monday night and burned to the ground, police said.

The “King of Kings” statue, one of southwest Ohio’s most familiar landmarks, had stood since 2004 at the evangelical Solid Rock Church along Interstate 75 in Monroe, just north of Cincinnati.

The lightning strike set the statue ablaze around 11:15 p.m., Monroe police dispatchers said.

The sculpture, 62 feet tall and 40 feet wide at the base, showed Jesus from the torso up and was nicknamed Touchdown Jesus because of the way the arms were raised, similar to a referee signaling a touchdown. It was made of plastic foam and fiberglass over a steel frame, which is all that remained early Tuesday.

The fire spread from the statue to an adjacent amphitheater but was confined to the attic area, and no one was injured, police Chief Mark Neu said. The fire department would release a monetary damage estimate Tuesday, he said.

Travelers on Interstate 75 often were startled to come upon the huge statue by the roadside, but many said America needs more symbols like it. So many people stopped at the church campus that church officials had to build a walkway to accommodate them.

The 4,000-member, nondenominational church was founded by former horse trader Lawrence Bishop and his wife. Bishop said in 2004 he was trying to help people, not impress them, with the statue. He said his wife proposed the Jesus figure as a beacon of hope and salvation and they spent about $250,000 to finance it.

I wonder what imaginative stories the builders, financiers and worshipers of this statue will make up to explain this one. I bet they will blame it on the debbil.

The video:

The Galactic Center in Infrared from 2MASS

Credit: 2MASS Project, U. Mass., IPAC/Caltech, NSF, NASA

Explanation: The center of our Galaxy is a busy place. In visible light, much of the Galactic Center is obscured by opaque dust. In infrared light, however, dust glows more and obscures less, allowing nearly one million stars to be recorded in the above image. The Galactic Center itself appears glowing on the lower left and is located about 30,000 light years away towards the constellation of Sagittarius. The Galactic Plane of our Milky Way Galaxy, the plane in which the Sun orbits, is identifiable by the dark diagonal dust lane. The absorbing dust grains are created in the atmospheres of cool red-giant stars and grow in molecular clouds. The region directly surrounding the Galactic Center glows brightly in radio and high-energy radiation. The Galactic Center is thought to house a large black hole.

Vatican reaches out to atheists/agnostics?

The pope and these creepy ghouls at the Vatican are claiming they want to “improve he church’s relationship with non-believers”, but as we all know, what this really is is a sneaky, underhanded attempt to convert us and bring what they perceive as lost sheep back into the fold. Well, I say, no thanks!

The Vatican is planning a new initiative to reach out to atheists and agnostics in an attempt to improve the church’s relationship with non-believers. Pope Benedict XVI has ordered officials to create a new foundation where atheists will be encouraged to meet and debate with some of the Catholic Church’s top theologians.

But the ones who can really make points and take the church theologians to task, like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, will not be invited.

The Vatican hopes to stage a series of debates in Paris next year. But militant non-believers hoping for a chance to set senior church figures straight about the existence of God are set to be disappointed: the church has warned that atheists with high public profiles such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens will not be invited.

Perhaps that is because the Pope and his delusional entourage feel that they will not be able to stand up to such “militant atheists” or perhaps they feel such “militant atheists” are a lost cause for conversion.

“We, as believers, must have at heart even those people who consider themselves agnostics or atheists,” he said. “When we speak of a New Evangelization, these people are perhaps taken aback. They do not want to see themselves as an object of mission or to give up their freedom of thought and will. Yet the question of God remains present even for them, even if they cannot believe in the concrete nature of his concern for us.”

And they still try, try, try to make it like we really do believe, we just don’t know it. If they were really truly interested in our viewpoints they would understand that the “question of God” is only present for us because god believers always have an underlying evangelistic plot to bring us to their beliefs. Well, Dawkins and Hitchens or not, we will still ask the difficult questions…the first one being why the hell don’t you get your own house in order before attempting to reach out to anyone?

Dark Filament of the Sun

Credit: NASA / Goddard / SDO AIA Team

Explanation: Suspended by magnetic fields above a solar active region this dark filament stretches over 40 earth-diameters. The ominous structure appears to be frozen in time near the Sun's edge, but solar filaments are unstable and often erupt. The detailed scene was captured on May 18 in extreme ultraviolet light by cameras on board the Solar Dynamics Observatory. While the cooler plasma of the filament looks dark, hotter, brighter plasma below traces magnetic field lines emerging from the active region. When seen arcing above the edge of the Sun, filaments actually look bright against the dark background of space and are called prominences.

Clouds and Stars over Cotopaxi Volcano in Ecuador

Fascinating time-lapsed video

Iguaçu Starry Night

Image Credit & Copyright: Babak Tafreshi (TWAN)

Explanation: The arc of the southern Milky Way shone brightly on this starry night. Captured on May 4, in the foreground of this gorgeous skyview is the rainforest near the spectacular Iguaçu Falls and national park at the border of Brazil and Argentina. Looking skyward along the Milky Way's arc from the left are Alpha and Beta Centauri, the Coalsack, the Southern Cross, and the Carina Nebula. Sirius, brightest star in planet Earth's night sky is at the far right. Brilliant Canopus, second brightest star in the night, and our neighboring galaxies the Large and Small Magellanic clouds, are also included in the scene. For help finding them, just slide your cursor over the image. Much closer to home, lights near the center along the horizon are from Argentina's Iguazú Falls International Airport.

Milky Way Over Ancient Ghost Panel

Credit & Copyright: Bret Webster

Explanation: Long before Stonehenge was built, well before the Dead Sea Scrolls were written, ancient artists painted life-sized figures on canyon walls in Utah, USA -- but why? Nobody is sure. The entire panel of figures, which dates back about 7,000 years, is called the Great Gallery and was found on the walls of Horseshoe Canyon in Canyonlands National Park. The humans who painted them likely hunted Mammoths. The unusual fuzziness of largest figure led to this mural section's informal designation as the Holy Ghost Panel, although the intended attribution and societal importance of the figure are really unknown. The above image was taken during a clear night in March. The oldest objects in the above image are not the pictographs, however, but the stars of our Milky Way Galaxy far in the background, some of which are billions of years old.

On Commenting

I apologize for not keeping up to date with comment moderation. I will try to do a better job at checking my queue. Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment here.

"We either have free speech or we do not."

Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks, who sparked controversy by drawing Prophet Mohammed with the body of a dog, was physically attacked on Tuesday while giving a lecture at the university of Uppsala, north of the Stockholm.

“The man was sat in the first row and suddenly he rushed at me. He punched me in the head and I lost my glasses,” said Vilks, adding that at the very most he was “a little bruised”.

The Muslims who showed up to protest knew ahead of time what the lecture was going to be about. Why attend if you know that what is going to be shown will offend you? Because, they don’t want anyone insulting their imaginary friend. Nevermind that Vilks spent time making fun of other religions. That does not matter to the protesters, because they believe that Islam is the only “true beliefs” and if no one else protests so violently, well…that just proves to them that Christianity, Buddhism, and all other religions are untrue but Mohammad and Islam are true and according to extremist Muslims, the right to free speech does not apply to Islam.

I was a bit frustrated to see Swedish non-Muslims just sit there there doing nothing at all during the whole ordeal. No one stood up in defense of free speech. It’s like our friend Pat Condell says, people are afraid to stand up to Muslims because of the risk of violent retaliation. The actions against Vilks shows that the fear is not unjustified. Because of the violent threats by Muslim extremists (which are carried out all too often), groups and organizations choose to just back down and let them have their way.

For Mr. Vilks, who has booby-trapped his own house and says he sleeps with an ax beside his bed, the right to unfettered speech – regardless of whether it offends Muslims – is a point of principle. “This must be carried through. You cannot allow it to be stopped,” he told the Associated Press, saying he wouldn’t hesitate to give the address again.

But the university apparently disagrees. Officials said they would “not likely” invite Vilks again because of the incident. In some quarters, the university’s reponse is adding to concerns that violence and threats from some members of the Muslim community are effectively muzzling free speech.

Last month, Comedy Central edited a “South Park” episode showing Mohammed in a bear suit in response to veiled threats by a New York-based Muslim group.

Earlier this year, the Metropolitan Museum of Art pulled a collection of art of Mohammed to avoid offending Muslims, who believe that the depiction of any of the prophets is a form of idolatry.

And Brandeis University professor Jytte Klausen says that Yale University Press prohibited her from using several 2005 Danish newspaper caricatures depicting Mohammed with a bomb on his head in her book “The Cartoons That Shook the World.”

“When it comes to depicting the Prophet, this has nothing to do with social issues or integration,” says Professor Klausen. “This is about a political movement by sectarian groups where [depicting Mohammed] has now become a primary trigger for political contention. The university pretty much told [Vilks] to shut up and go talk somewhere else, and I find that reaction very dangerous and problematic. It means that the extremists have achieved what they wanted.”

Here is the video of what happened after the attack on Vilks:

Unusual Starburst Galaxy NGC 1313

Credit & Copyright: Robert Gendler

Explanation: Why is this galaxy so discombobulated? Usually, galaxies this topsy-turvy result from a recent collision with a neighboring galaxy. Spiral galaxy NGC 1313, however, appears to be alone. Brightly lit with new and blue massive stars, star formation appears so rampant in NGC 1313 that it has been labeled a starburst galaxy. Strange features of NGC 1313 include that its spiral arms are lopsided and its rotational axis is not at the center of the nuclear bar. Pictured above, NGC 1313 spans about 50,000 light years and lies only about 15 million light years away toward the constellation of the Reticle (Reticulum). Continued numerical modeling of galaxies like NGC 1313 might shed some light on its unusual nature.

Falwell's Mini-Me carries on

I don’t have enough time to write a decent commentary on this, but thought it needed to be posted. You can read the article and discuss amongst yourselves.

Chancellor Falwell Is Trying To Turn Tax-Exempt Liberty University Into A Partisan Political Machine – And Dominate Lynchburg Elections. Will The IRS Step In?

Will the IRS step in? They damn well better!

Binary Black Hole in 3C 75

Credit: X-Ray: NASA / CXC / D. Hudson, T. Reiprich et al. (AIfA);
Radio: NRAO / VLA/ NRL

Explanation: What's happening in the middle of this massive galaxy? There, two bright sources at the center of this composite x-ray (blue)/radio (pink) image are thought to be co-orbiting supermassive black holes powering the giant radio source 3C 75. Surrounded by multimillion degree x-ray emitting gas, and blasting out jets of relativistic particles the supermassive black holes are separated by 25,000 light-years. At the cores of two merging galaxies in the Abell 400 galaxy cluster they are some 300 million light-years away. Astronomers conclude that these two supermassive black holes are bound together by gravity in a binary system in part because the jets' consistent swept back appearance is most likely due to their common motion as they speed through the hot cluster gas at 1200 kilometers per second. Such spectacular cosmic mergers are thought to be common in crowded galaxy cluster environments in the distant universe. In their final stages the mergers are expected to be intense sources of gravitational waves.

Health Overhaul Signed

It’s the law of the land: Health overhaul signed

Many people are quite unhappy and have their panties in a knot that now they will have to pay taxes so that all people may obtain health care coverage. It’s interesting that the richer and more religious the person is, the louder the complaining. The ones who are bitching the most have the least to lose. Some relentlessly witness for Jesus of their Bible, and at the same time they vehemently oppose helping others with basic things such as health care. On the discussion boards and social networks the religious ones are in a tizzy, crying “socialism has come to America!” Yet at the same time they do not want to part with their cherished Medicare, forgetting that too is a “social” program. The fundamentalist Christians who are retired will fight to keep their Social Security and are quite upset if there is talk about money not being there to fund Social Security for their children and grandchildren.

Religious folks love to tell and retell the Bible stories of Jesus, like when he fed all those people with a few fish and loaves of bread. Jesus owned nothing and went day to day taking handouts from other people because he didn’t own anything of his own. Yet this is the character they follow and worship at the same time speaking against what their “good book” says about the central character of their own faith and helping your fellow human beings who are not as fortunate as you are.

Regardless of their displeasure, the new health care bill is now the law of the land. I am not totally happy with the new bill. I remain skeptical of how it’s all going to “evolve”. At the same time I am thrilled that I won’t have to worry about being denied coverage for my pre-existing conditions if my husband should lose his job and insurance coverage from work. I do understand that there is still much work to do and will take years to work out. What I don’t understand is how those who oppose this bill want to just chuck the whole thing, just dump it and not even want to discuss a plan to work together in order to help make this reform a success for the good of all the American people. It would be amazing if the two parties could work together on anything instead of this just be about one side winning and the other side losing all the time.

Virginia House Passes Bill To Ward Off Antichrist

I had to re-read this a few times to make sure it wasn’t satire, but it’s for real.

The Virginia House of Delegates has just passed a bill that supporters hope will keep the Antichrist at bay.

You hear a loud whirring noise, you say? That would be Thomas Jefferson and James Madison spinning like tops in their Virginia graves.

Yes, it’s true. Yesterday House members approved a measure that would prohibit employers and insurance companies from requiring people to implant microchips in their bodies.

*snip*

. . . according to The Washington Post, there are some fundamentalist Christians out there whose analysis of end-times biblical prophecy leads them to believe that the Antichrist will appear soon and force everyone to accept the “mark of the Beast” in their persons. That “mark,” they think, could easily be the microchip.

The Post reports that Del. Mark L. Cole (R –Fredericksburg), the bill’s sponsor, has both privacy and religious concerns. He thinks the microchips could someday be used as the “mark of the beast” described in the Book of Revelation.

I was LMAO at this paragraph:

So let me get this straight: the Antichrist – the personification of Evil itself – is going to show up in America and start imposing the mark of Beast. He rolls through states such California, Kansas and Delaware, but when he gets to the Virginia line, he and his legions of demons just have to stop dead in their sulfurous tracks.

“Sorry, boys,” he’ll say. “Virginia’s got a law that says we can’t mess with the good folks there.”

While this sort of thing isn’t very important since it’s concerning something imaginary that is never going to happen anyway, it is taking time away from important REAL issues like unemployment, education and state budgets.

And as Joseph Conn states:

And most importantly, it does enormous harm when legislators get the idea that it’s perfectly okay for them to enact laws based on religion.

Why Obama’s ‘Faith-Based’ Agenda Must Change

In a recent article at Huffington Post, American’s United for Separation of Church and State’s executive director Rev. Barry Lynn writes:

Speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast on February 4, President Barack Obama asserted that his administration has “turned the faith-based initiative around,” implying that his policies represent a sharp break from past practices.

That’s news to me. In fact, from where I’m sitting, the core of Obama’s faith-based initiative looks pretty much identical to the deeply problematic one created by President George W. Bush. A few tweaks on the margins don’t amount to real change.

One year after Obama announced his version of the faith-based office, civil rights and civil liberties groups such as mine are still fighting Bush-era battles over tax funding to religious groups that proselytize, job discrimination on religious grounds in public programs and lack of accountability. It’s disheartening.

I, like Barry Lynn, am growing impatient with Obama for “leaving the odious Bush faith-based scheme in place unchanged.” And I stand by Barry Lynn when he says:

Mr. President, this is not “change,” and I am losing “hope.” Please set your “faith-based” house in order. Shut down the Faith-based Council and issue executive orders and regulations clearly banning hiring bias and proselytizing by faith-based groups that take public funds.

Happy Valentine" Day

click on image to enlarge

Field of Rosette
Credit & Copyright: Rogelio Bernal Andreo (Deep Sky Colors)

Explanation: What surrounds the florid Rosette nebula? To better picture this area of the sky, the famous flowery emission nebula on the far right has been captured recently in a deep and dramatic wide field image that features several other sky highlights. Designated NGC 2237, the center of the Rosette nebula is populated by the bright blue stars of open cluster NGC 2244, whose winds and energetic light are evacuating the nebula's center. Below the famous flower, a symbol of Valentine's Day, is a column of dust and gas that appears like a rose's stem but extends hundreds of light years. Across the above image, the bright blue star just left and below the center is called S Monocerotis. The star is part of the open cluster of stars labelled NGC 2264 and known as the Snowflake cluster. To the right of S Mon is a dark pointy featured called the Cone nebula, a nebula likely shaped by winds flowing out a massive star obscured by dust. To the left of S Mon is the Fox Fur nebula, a tumultuous region created by the rapidly evolving Snowflake cluster. The Rosette region, at about 5,000 light years distant, is about twice as far away as the region surrounding S Mon. The entire field can be seen with a small telescope toward the constellation of the Unicorn (Monoceros).

We take this too much for granted nowadays

Night Launch of the Space Shuttle Endeavour

Credit: NASA

Explanation: Sometimes, the space shuttle launches at night. Pictured above, the space shuttle Endeavour lifted off in yesterday's early morning hours from Launch Pad 39A in Kennedy Space Center, Florida, USA, bound for the International Space Station (ISS). A night launch, useful for reaching the space station easily during some times of the year, frequently creates vivid launch imagery. The shuttle, as pictured above, is framed by an enormous but typical exhaust plume ejected as the shuttle's powerful rockets began lifting the two million kilogram space bus into Earth orbit. Endeavour's mission, labeled STS-130, includes the delivery of the Tranquility module to the space station. Tranquility will provide extra room for space station astronauts and includes a large circular set of windows designed to bestow vastly improved views of the Earth, the night sky, and the space station itself.

Prayer requests and the atheist . . . .

Since I have been a member of a certain semi-private social network website, I can’t tell you how many times I have read “please pray for . . . ” or “we will pray for you”, “we will keep you in our prayers”, etc. Just today someone posted that her little baby grandson is going to be having heart surgery on Friday and requested prayers. A good friend is awaiting a kidney transplant so that she will not die. She requests prayers. The list of comments that follow is quite long with extreme deity invoking that somehow makes my “you’re in my thoughts” seem insufficient. It would be terribly inappropriate for me to say what I want to say….if your god is willing to help you now, then why did he not prevent you from getting these diseases and problems in the first place?

I truly and genuinely care about my god-believing family and friends, and I want to offer support but I always feel that language fails me at such moments, and that I end up not really knowing what to say that sounds as concerned or caring as the magical incantations. There’s often a very fine line between appropriate and offensive which we must be careful of in people’s “time of need”. What we really want to say would be cruel when people are worried, sick and needing their god crutch.

So, what is an appropriate thing for the atheist to say? I try to direct my comments to the doctors and staff, that I am sure they will do all they can for the person who is ill. If a person is going through some sort of life crisis, financial or otherwise, all I can say is “I hope things work out” and that would be the honest truth. There is no way I could ever bring myself to be a hypocrite and write that they are in my prayers or whatever like everyone else.

What should an atheist offer instead of prayers?

Masochistic for Jesus

It’s not only the muslims who are into self-flagellation and masochistic acts, many Christians do it too. Many of them love being a martyr for their imaginary friend. And it’s all so utterly unnecessary. When religion isn’t involved when people hurt themselves, they are usually put away in a mental institution for their own protection. When a person hurts himself in the name of religion, they are recommended for “sainthood” instead of the funny farm.

This story caught my eye when browsing the headlines. Respected leader of the Catholic Church, John Paul II used a belt to whip himself:

VATICAN CITY – Pope John Paul II whipped himself with a belt, even on vacation, and slept on the floor as acts of penitence and to bring him closer to Christian perfection, according to a new book by the Polish prelate spearheading his sainthood case.

*snip*

At a news conference Tuesday, Oder defended John Paul’s practice of self-mortification, which some faithful use to remind them of the suffering of Jesus on the cross.

“It’s an instrument of Christian perfection,” Oder said, responding to questions about how such a practice could be condoned considering Catholic teaching holds that the human body is a gift from God.

In the book, Oder wrote that John Paul frequently denied himself food — especially during the holy season of Lent — and “frequently spent the night on the bare floor,” messing up his bed in the morning so he wouldn’t draw attention to his act of penitence.

“But it wasn’t limited to this. As some members of his close entourage in Poland and in the Vatican were able to hear with their own ears, John Paul flagellated himself. In his armoire, amid all the vestments and hanging on a hanger, was a belt which he used as a whip and which he always brought to Castel Gandolfo,” the papal retreat where John Paul vacationed each summer.

While there had long been rumors that John Paul practiced self-mortification, the book provides the first confirmation and concludes John Paul did so as an example of his faith.

Unbelievable the things humans believe and the things they do based on those beliefs.