Count Four

No Apologies

Screw freedom of religion. Take these nut cases, lock the adults up for the rest of their miserable lives, and relocate the children back to reality. Any “religion” that forces sex on minors, enforces the wearing of antiquated clothing, incest and statutory rape on its adherents deserves nothing but contempt from civilized society. It’s a cult, pure and simple, and should be shut down post-haste.

Stick it to ‘em

Legal quote of the day, from Slate:

It looks like a [legal] memo. Notes Kerr, “It cites tons of authority, hedges arguments, discusses counterarguments, and generally reads like a careful lawyer’s work.” That’s because in law school, they teach you to take out the bits that say, “Stick ‘em in the eye with the shrimp fork!”

Spring is here

A Markedly Less Pleasant Piece Of Mail

I love this quote from a Slate article about why Easter has never quite caught on with marketers of presents quite like Christmas has. In comparing the two:

Despite the awesome theological implications (Christians believe that the infant lying in the manger is the son of God), the Christmas story is easily reduced to pablum. How pleasant it is in mid-December to open a Christmas card with a pretty picture of Mary and Joseph gazing beatifically at their son, with the shepherds and the angels beaming in delight. The Christmas story, with its friendly resonances of marriage, family, babies, animals, angels, and—thanks to the wise men—gifts, is eminently marketable to popular culture. It’s a Thomas Kinkade painting come to life.

On the other hand, a card bearing the image of a near-naked man being stripped, beaten, tortured, and nailed through his hands and feet onto a wooden crucifix is a markedly less pleasant piece of mail.

The other comparisons of the crucifiction to Abe Ghraib are completely over the top, but aside from that the article itself is a pretty good examination of why it’s not the gift-giving holiday it might be if Madison Avenue had its way.

Upgraded

I’ve upgraded WordPress, and all appears to be working now.

Where Your Garbage Goes

Ever wonder where those plastic bags and bottles people just toss out often end up? In the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, aka the North Pacific Gyre, evidently.

Innovations in Energy

This would be laughable, if it weren’t so true.

(Flash required)

Unreason Versus Reason

Sam Harris takes the journal Nature to task for their review of a religious book, and their general, overly accomodating attitude toward religion.

Link via Doubting Thom.

Coming to a City Near You

This could so easily apply to DC, too.

Shame and Feminization

I’ve been meaning to write about the Thai cops and their new “Hello Kitty armband” punishment regime, but as usual Morford has beaten me to the punch and written a lovely bit of satire about this ridiculous practice. I especially love his introduction of the cutest kitty around:

We speak, quite naturally, of Hello Kitty, perhaps the most unspeakably evil icon of horrific cuteness since that time My Little Pony and Smurfette had a dirty threesome with a Cabbage Patch Kid at Circus Circus back in ’98, resulting in a mutant bastard offspring so repulsively adorable the U.S. government must now keep it locked away in an ironclad Area 51 bunker lest humans see it and instantly explode into bloody piles of candy canes and glitter and 2 billion pink Swarovski crystals.

Go read the rest here.

The thing he doesn’t mention explicitly is the inherent sexism at work in this “punishment.” The sexism that declares that somehow having to wear a Hello Kitty armband will make these (male) cops less manly, more feminine, and that this is somehow a bad thing. It’s a ludicrous practice, and it deserves every bit of ridicule it’s receiving.