I had to post this, I couldn’t help myself. You just have to watch it - that’s all I’m saying.

A lot of folks are posting this video and adding bits of fodder to the creationist’s argument against evolution, which is fine and even damned entertaining. This is circulating on the heels of Bill Donohue’s latest crusade purporting Christian/Catholic persecution (I just made myself lol on that one) in the form of an artist’s rendering of a chocolate Jesus. I wonder if you stick a spear in his side if he bleeds raspberry goo… mmmm… raspberry goo… *dreamy look* Anyway, you can enjoy him getting PWNED by comedian Louis C.K. here.

According to a Newsweek Poll, 91 percent of American adults surveyed believe in God—and nearly half reject the theory of evolution. Which is fine, because most people are unquestioning sheep with Kool-Aid moustaches, baying about one thing or another that they have never even investigated, let alone seriously questioned. Who am I or anyone else to suggest that people have no right to remain adverse to philosophy or secular academia? Besides, let’s not confuse something being common with being ‘normal’ - heterosexuality is a perfect example for this.

Richard Dawkins (YouTube page), science professor and author of The God Delusion asserts that belief in god is irrational and inflicts great harm upon societies (see second video at right)

which supposes many of the same arguments as Sam Harris and others before him - that not only is the probability for the existence of God an extreme unliklihood, but that it is dangerous and destructive idealism that invariably leads to mass hysteria, global atrocity, and a means of justifying these issues as well as scores of other ones. He argues not a case for atheism, but rather to defend atheists in this video clip. Teller (of Penn & Teller) said, “If a god existed, this video would make him wish he were dead.” Also, the song used in this video is track 3 of the soundtrack to the film “The God Who Wasn’t There”, available for download here.

My sister recently asked me to give faith a try, proposing that I choose to believe for a few months and see if anything changed in my life due to the Lord’s intervention. I told her that the only way this would be possible if I were game (which I am not) would be if this were a quid pro quo arrangement, wherein she would be required to renounce God as farce to everyone she knows and live accordingly for the duration of the time. It was dismissed as ignorance, not even a hint of “Okay, I get it, nevermind”. I just laughed and shook my head. When asked why I didn’t believe, I cited logic as my primary reason. When asked the same qu
estion conversely, she explained that she would feel so sad and lonely without God in her life. I didn’t bite that hook at all.

Not more than a few months ago, I asked those readers of this blog who are faithful to explain to me why they chose to believe and to define a reason or reasons for that faith. I got some interesting and illuminating answers. There is a wealth of information in the philosophy section of any bookstore or public library if you are questioning religion, and even if you are not questioning it might serve to reaffirm your faith.

I’ve given up on the notion that one day someone was going to successfully and credibly explain how faith was more than mere self delusion to me, it is far better I reserve my right to agree to disagree and do so as respectfully as is required of the situation.

I made some new brushes, got some new stock pictures, and framed out new palettes. These are the first pieces in the series, which is called Myopiate. The first three manipulation treatments are behind the cut.

Who’s the bane of YOUR existence? Surely there’s someone who pisses you off in such a huge way that it merits flogging, at least. ‘Round here, we call that person a RAT BASTARD. Who is the person you most want to rip a new asshole for whatever reason? Go ahead - now’s your chance to put them on blast. Start commenting, and have fun gettin’ your hate on - and out. IP logging is off and anonymous commenters WERE welcome, but I’ve had to disable it since I’ve gotten six tons of bullshit spam comments lately. Sorry about that.

Go on - vent your spleen…

Also, check out/participate in the Friday Confessional and the subsequent Sunday Stoning, brought to you by the fantastic .

The Unkindest Cut
Although it is illegal in many countries, female genital mutilation persists in the Global North, too — even the United States.

Female genital mutilation (FGM) has inflicted pain, illness and death for 2,000 years. Today, nearly 140 million women and girls globally have endured this so-called cultural tradition. The pain lasts, intensifies, recurs: at the cutting, at sexual contact, at childbirth. And that’s if the woman doesn’t die first, as 35 percent do, from such immediate- or long-term complications as fistulas. Those who survive suffer emotional trauma as drastic as the physical pain.

Sometimes euphemized as “female circumcision,” FGM is defined by the World Health Organization as procedures removing the entirety or parts of the external female genitalia. Attributed to various faiths but transcending religious/social/ethnic traditions, FGM is prevalent in Somalia, where approximately 98 percent of women undergo cutting, often by untrained practitioners. It’s also common in some other African countries, and sporadically practiced in the Middle East.

Less known is that FGM was common in the United States and United Kingdom until the 1950s, prescribed as a cure for such “female deviancies” as lesbianism, masturbation, nymphomania and even epilepsy. In 1996, after decades of feminist lobbying, Congress passed legislation making it a crime to perform FGM on a minor.

But some immigrant populations are reviving the practice. It’s estimated that in one year, nearly 200,000 women in the U.S. will be cut, plus 22,000 in the U.K. Laws must be strengthened, and better enforced (in the U.S., those performing FGM can receive a maximum of five years’ imprisonment and/or a fine). Furthermore, women in these communities sometimes defend the procedure, so there is need for support and education about FGM’s health-destroying, even fatal, effects.

For decades, Ghanaian activist Efua Dorkenoo, founder of FORWARD (Foundation for Women’s Health Research & Development), a London-based NGO, has campaigned to eradicate FGM. Awarded an Order of the British Empire in 1994, her greatest success has been in the U.K., where a law prohibits FGM and has greatly increased awareness among health professionals. Following Dorkenoo’s lead, nurse ComfortMomoh — chair of London’s Black Women’s Health and Family Support — counsels survivors.

She warns that it is delicate, yet critical, to address immigrant communities about the procedure, while using language understood in their cultures. Momoh compiled Female Genital Mutilation, a book of information and personal stories. “[M]y friends … said that they did not want to play with me because I was not done; or that I was unclean,” wrote one anonymous Somali woman, “so I put pressure on my mother to have myself done.”

Attitudes are changing about FGM, especially on the African continent. But there’s a long way to go — including in the U.S. This past November, Khalid Adem, an Ethiopian immigrant in Lawrenceville, Ga., was convicted of having scissored off his 2-year-old daughter’s clitoris in 2001. Although federal law bans FGM, many states lack laws addressing it directly. Georgia legislators, prodded by the girl’s mother and women’s groups, passed an anti-mutilation law in 2005. But since that law hadn’t existed when his daughter was cut, Adem was convicted of aggravated battery and cruelty to children, and sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment. It is believed to be the first such criminal case in the United States.

More on FGM:

• Rising Daughters Aware

• Wiki
• World Health Organization | Female genital mutilation
• The Female Ge
  nital Cutting Education and Networking Project

• Religious Tolerance | FGM
• UNICEF
• Female Genital Mutilation Information Pack Amnesty International
• Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in Africa (Link to new Web site by noted author Hanny Lightfoot-Klein)
• Prisoners of Ritual: An Odyssey Into Female Genital Circumcision in Africa by Hanny Lightfoot-Klein
• World Medical Association, Statement on Condemnation of Female Genital Mutilation, Adopted by the 45th World Medical Assembly, Budapest, Hungary, October 1993.
• American Medical Association, Council on Scientific Affairs, Report 5 (I-94): Female Genital Mutilation, Chicago, 1994.
• Committee On Medical Ethics, Guidance for doctors approached by victims of female genital mutilation. London: British Medical Association, 1996.
• Committee on Bioethics, American Academy of Pediatrics, Female Genital Mutilation (RE9749). Pediatrics 1998; 102(1):153-156.
• American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists Female Circumcision/Female Genital Mutilation (FC/FGM) Fact Sheet
• Female Genital Mutilation Research Home Page
• The Tahara Project From filmmaker Sara Rashad
• Research, Action, and Information Network for the Bodily Integrity of Women (RAINBO)
• Deutsch-Afrikanische Frauen Initiative
• PATH Female Genital Mutilation page
• FGM Network
• Women’s International Network

Also in Rights & Liberties on Alternet:

• Quality of Life: Who Should Decide for Disabled People? by Patricia Williams

• Creation “Science” Is the Christian Right’s Trojan Horse Against Reason by Chris Hedges
• Debunking Bush Administration Bull About Afghanistan by Katherine Spillar
• The War on Drugs Is Really a War on Minorities by Arianna Huffington
• Ted Haggard’s Hell on Earth by Sarah Posner

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Dear Mother Nature,

You ragged fucking whore. You, you, you absolute nightmare bitch trollop from hell.

YOU.

You and your fucking tree sperm can kiss my big, white, hairy faggot ass - and I hope a hair gets stuck in your teeth.

Thanks to you, I’m having to double up on my allergy medication so that I don’t turn the goddamned loft into a sea of snotty, phlegmy, saliva-y ooze like it was telemarketer quota time on Pavlov’s day out. You, Madam, are a raging menace to membranes everywhere and if there is any justice in the world, any at all, then the horny rape vines from The Evil Dead shall find you and have their beastly way with your seething, vacuous, dried up old cooze.

Also, fuck your hurricane handiwork too. Because in a few of months, after I’ve sneezed and coughed my cranium inside out and sustained a thousand nosebleeds, I’ll have that bullshit to contend with.

You are SO not invited to my birthday party.

Just but hate,

I’m just sayin’.