I’m not opposed to the use of marijuana, but I am opposed to just saying “it’s part of my religion” and everyone is suddenly “Oh, sorry, go right ahead, then.”

Your “truth” is a self-delusion. You reject any rationale that leads to a contrary conclusion that the bible may not be truth and that god may not exist. Instead of reconciling and addressing contrary conclusions, you reject them out of hand because they don’t fit your deeply held belief.

Your “love” is a coin into the vending machine of redemption. Your purpose for “saving souls” is to save yourself. Your concern is not for your neighbor, but for your own advancement.

Your god is the stillborn idea of a primitive mind. Insofar as primitive minds could not understand the workings of the natural world, the explanation of a mythical god was sufficient to assuage the human fear of the unknown.

Your god is a comical, simplistic caricature of the worst aspects of human nature. This is the god that embodies pettiness, egotism, pride, and jealousy by reserving his most vengeful wrath for those who don’t believe in him or would speak ill of him. This is the god that demands daily worship. This is the god that demands offerings. This is the god that is greedy to want more souls, more belief, more supplication.

Your god is an excuse for you to treat your fellow man with inhumanity. Man’s inhumanity to man is somehow justified when one can find a rationalization within the pages of whatever dusty script one calls “holy.”

Your beliefs make everything smaller, more contaminated, more poisoned. This isn’t about Christianity only: Islam, Judaism, Hinduism … the whole lot … they are all equally a pestilence of the mind.

“‘Do not flatter your benefactor.’ Say this in a church and it immediately clears the air of everything Christian.” –F.W. Nietzsche, Die Fröliche Wissenschaft

But instead, with “The Book of Eli,” that is what we get: Violence. Post-apocalyptic violence justified by the Bible. “Some will kill to have it. He will kill to protect it.” Killing and violence justified simply for the sake of religion.

The question is thus begged: How far should you go to advance your beliefs? What violence should you enact to defend your faith? How important is faith (knowledge in the absence of evidence) in enacting violence? How far from this story do we find crusading knights, the Spanish Inquisition, doomsday cults, Islamic terrorists, and anti-abortion assassins? If the Bible is meant to be a book of peace, “The Book of Eli” seems a bit hypocritical.

Perhaps I’m the only one that sees some measure of irony in that the article upon which the world will be resurrected after succumbing to its self-destructive impulses, is the very same article which has already caused so much needless and senseless violence and suffering. It doesn’t matter if the holy tome is the Bible, the Q’uran, or the Torah. The best thing that could happen to humanity in a post-apocalyptic world is to finally be free of the institutionalized ignorance of religion

I’m at a bit of a loss to understand why Lombard allows the Bible to be included in the repository of all pre-war knowledge. Because, simply put, the BIble contains no knowledge. There is no science, there is no knowledge or information which cannot be gleaned from other sources without having to wade through all of the religious drivel.

But that shouldn’t be a difficult issue for an intellectual or scholar to overcome. There are plenty of updated translations of Nietzsche’s works today which update the mistranslations and perversions wrought by Nazi Germany.

However, that doesn’t seem to stop Todd Herman of the conservative, libertarian, special-ed sect of Glenn Beckistan:

First: Spelling! Jimminy-freaking-christmas. It’s not like it isn’t written down somewhere that you could check. And there really isn’t any controversy about how it’s spelled. Get a fucking encyclopaedia you fucking twit. Oh, and don’t forget that punctuation, spelling, and basic grammar are all relevant.

Second: From where does the justification come to argue that Nietzsche advocated for an authoritarian state? Nietzsche was, above all, and advocate for the self and the individual. But he was not an advocate for the unrestrained, animalistic, emotional, impulsive ego—which is what Mr. Herman seems to be a student of. Instead, Nietzsche advocated for development of the self through self-discipline, introspection, and continuous reinvention and evolution of thought.

Scanning headlines over at Yahoo! News, I saw this headline:

Conservatives will go ape-shit over the high unemployment rate under the Obama administration and ignore that St. Ronnie had the same high unemployment on his watch.

“But that was because of Carter, not St. Ronnie!” they’ll inevitably scream.

Indeed. 3 years into his term of office, no less.

And then they’ll blame Bush for the current unemployment numbers … oh wait, no they won’t. They’ll blame Obama.

The stupid is so loud, you can hear it.

I flew into Istanbul, Turkey last night. 3 taxi trips. 3 sessions of WTF?

From the airport to the hotel, the driver kept telling me about various sights and points of interest. At least that’s what I think he was doing. It was all in Turkish, which I, as a white, European, female, with wildly flailing hand gestures and constantly repeating “what?” do not understand one bit. For all I know he was pointing out where Salim’s car broke down last week.

Oh, and it was dark, so I could see very little. Nice sightseeing tour.

Meanwhile, he’s alternating between driving at 200 kph and 50 kph, weaving all over the road. Everyone’s honking driving by.

Whee!

Today, after leaving the client meeting, we were headed to a restaurant to get lunch. It was raining. The driver was driving too fast. On a downhill slope. We came around a curve and I watched the slo-mo footage unfold as we slid into the car in front of us. CRASH!! Hard enough to launch me out of my seat and smack my head on the roof of the car.

After the obligatory session of getting out of the car and everyone yelling at each other, we proceeded onwards to the restaurant. BTW, the car we hit—a Toyota—came away with barely a scratch. The taxi—a Renault—had a crumpled hood, creased front bumper, and a smashed headlight. Not saying anything, but keep it in mind next time you go car shopping.

After all that, the asshole had the nerve to still charge us full fare for the ride.

Finally, leaving the restaurant, I gave myself just over 2 hours to get to Ataturk Airport for my 17:30 return flight to London. No problem, right? Wrong.

First, the driver drives way out of the way to go somewhere and … switch drivers. We’re 20 min. into the trip at this point. The guy who takes over is the all time champion of indifferent taxi drivers. He drives into single lane roads of gridlock, turns back to me, and says in broken English, “traffic.” Fucking muppet.

Time ticks on. We’ve been on the road for well over an hour and I still don’t see anything that looks familiar from the trip the night before.

Meanwhile, indifferent taxi driver is driving slowly while being passed by just about every other driver on the road. When he comes to curves in the road, he suddenly will sit upright, grip the steering wheel with both hands, and steer through the curve. Then he resumes his laid back cruising style. Time ticks on.

He’s digging in the glove compartment for a CD, which he puts into the car stereo. Then he uses a remote—a fucking remote!—to change selection on the CD.

Finally, with 20 min. to spare before my gate closes, we arrive at the terminal … but he just keeps going. I tell him to stop. He does not seem to be familiar with the term “stop.” I tell him stop several more times and he keeps saying it back to me but keeps on driving. Finally, I just yell “Stop!” That apparently makes him understand the meaning of stop, because he does. I shove 65 Turkish Lira at him. He’s utterly clueless. Based on our previous conversations, I highly doubt he’ll understand if I tell him that this money is for the fare. I futilely tell him anyway, as if it would somehow make a difference, lay the money on the front seat, and jump out of the car.

Running around to the back of the car, I’m waiting for taxi driver dude to come around and open the trunk so I can get my bag and be on my way. He comes around to the back of the car, strolling, as though there are no concerns. He opens the trunk with the same indifference as his driving. He look stupidly at me and slowly reaches for my bag. Fed up, I finally just physically push him aside, grab my bag and run off to the terminal.

The good news is that I made my flight with a couple minutes to spare.

The taxi guy is probably still waiting in front of the terminal for me to return.

The U.S. Senate voted on an amendment which was proposed to the recent Defense Appropriations Act which would prohibit awarding of funds to any contractor which requires employees to sign mandatory arbitration clauses for specific claims.

This amendment was offered specifically in response to an arbitration requirement of KBR-Halliburton employees which prohibited bringing claims of sexual assault. That requirement prevented a woman who was sexually assaulted by KBR-Halliburton employees while stationed in Iraq from bringing suit against the company.

And the roll call vote? 30 Republicans voted against it.

And let’s make it clear—this is not a case of someone mistaking the nature of this legislation for something else. It was not a procedural vote. It was not an interim vote, or any other dodge. This legislation was offered in response to the actions of KBR-Halliburton:

Here’s the list of the GOP who opposed the amendment.

• Alexander (R-TN)
• Barrasso (R-WY)
• Bond (R-MO)
• Brownback (R-KS)
• Bunning (R-KY)
• Burr (R-NC)
• Chambliss (R-GA)
• Coburn (R-OK)
• Cochran (R-MS)
• Corker (R-TN)
• Cornyn (R-TX)
• Crapo (R-ID)
• DeMint (R-SC)
• Ensign (R-NV)
• Enzi (R-WY)
• Graham (R-SC)
• Gregg (R-NH)
• Inhofe (R-OK)
• Isakson (R-GA)
• Johanns (R-NE)
• Kyl (R-AZ)
• McCain (R-AZ)
• McConnell (R-KY)
• Risch (R-ID)
• Roberts (R-KS)
• Sessions (R-AL)
• Shelby (R-AL)
• Thune (R-SD)
• Vitter (R-LA)
• Wicker (R-MS)

Names in bold are up for reelection in 2010.

Among those voting “no” were the standard-bearers for the GOP “family values” bullshit, Jim DeMint (R-NC) and Sam Brownback (R-KS). I wonder how they square their position with their so-called Christian values? This issue needs to be front and center in opposing the campaign of the degenerate human beings. Every time they mention “family,” “morality,” “American values,” or some other such tripe, there needs to be a loud rejoinder where someone screams, “Except sexual assault!”

Best analysis of American stupidity. Evar.

In the process of making mountains out of molehills on Sunday by trying to insinuate that the VA is trying to kill vets, Chris Wallace tried to make a federal case out of the use of an end-of-life planning manual used by the VA. h/t Crooks and Liars

Chris, from those of us who actually went to school and got an education, I’ll let you in on a little clue: “e.g.” stands for “exempli gratia,” which is Latin for “for example.”

As in: “Some newscasters are total douchebags, e.g., Chris Wallace.” Now that isn’t saying you are the only douchebag out there. But he’s certainly one who could be used as an example.

This morning, this AP headline came across my radar:

Oh really? Seems to me that the only way to find agreement with the GOP is to abandon health-care reform altogether.

Since when? Almost the entire process so far has been about Democrats making concessions to get Republicans on board. Yet the only response they’ve had from Republicans so far is “No” and unadulterated obstructionism.

To date, there is not one Republican who has signed on to any version of health-care reform legislation. Not one. No matter what concessions have been made. Not a single one.

When McCain is talking about the GOP, it’s really just bullshit.