Having lived and worked in Orlando for over 40 years I've thought I've seen it all. Yet last night was a new one for me, surprise, surprise, surprise.

The shooting of at the gay night club called Pulse was not just a religious or gay hate crime. Many of the people who were killed were a mix of bi, homo, trans and heterosexual. I know. I've been to these clubs. I was often out late at night bar hopping with friends and one of the best clubs in Orlando was always the gay clubs. They had great music, lots of straight women and if you had a date, it was an awesome place to go with out having to deal with drunk egotistical rednecks.

So as if Orlando wasn't already on the map, we now have two senseless nights of murder. Two nights previously a young singer from The Voice, Christina Grimmie, dies because some deflated obsessive fan decided that killing her was a better idea than moving on with their life with confidence and control over their ego.

I know some where that some one is going to bring up gun control or gun reform but that isn't the answer to this problem. It isn't about the guns. It is about the mind and health of others. Learning to control your emotions is a key to all humans bettering their personal life and the lives of others. Improving our communities by learning to control those impulses of violence and hatred. It is necessary for the entire community to teach their young that harming others is not the answer.

http://news.yahoo.com/kindergarten-trip-to-visit-santa-1326217319448630.html


christmas is for christians. hanukkah is for jews. diwali is for hindus. ramadan is for muslims.

except only at the dawn of the millennium have things become so deliciously (read: alarmingly) simple. political correctness, at least in this instance, is a perfect example of western cultural imperialism, in the form of essentialism. for those of you who don't know, essentialism is basically the idea that any construct--religion, culture, nationality, political ideology, etc.--has some sort of core or "essence" that makes it what it is. so, in this case, christmas, with all its attendent traditions, including santa claus, is, in essence, a christian holiday. ergo, a christian is someone who celebrates christmas, and a christmas celebration will always be at odds with the values of anyone who is not a christian.

the logical problems with essentialism should be obvious to anyone. beyond the inherent logical problems, once a person begins to look at the historical details of how religions have interacted, the essentialist view falls apart quickly. to preserve it, one has to look at religions in a vacuum, apart from their historical contexts, in which case we're looking at religions that literally no one follows.

I went to see The Force Awakens today and while visually stimulating the script is a complete fuck job. I'm really disappointed in the overall story and characters. Also the script lacks any originality. It's a complete rip off from the original story in Ep4 through Ep7. WTF? Did they just want to ensure that they took in a fucking boat load of money and through quality right out the door?

I'll refrain from post more as I don't want to post spoilers for those who haven't seen it.

I was at my daughter's school waiting to see one of the teachers when I picked up a flyer in a make shift dispenser. It had cotton stuffing glued around it and the original use for it was covered up by paper marked as "After School Beach Party".

I picked up a flyer and the cover spoke about fun and games after school. It was tri folded. Printed on a home printer. It was cheap looking.

When I opened the flyer there was a application for the parents to fill out but on the opposite side I found a section saying "every day a staff member will read a bible chapter... will discuss Jesus... sharing god's will... etc etc etc." I showed it to my wife and we both looked and said we thought it was misleading. Why not call it "Jesus After School Party" or "Bible Study Beach Party"

I found the entire thing stinking of deceitful practices. I was at first going to object but then found dozens of other after school activities from cheer-leading to martial arts. If you block one you'd have to block all of them.

I took one and thought of emailing the owner of it but I knew my child would never attend.

This was in response to a 'discussion' on another page....

Oh, for fucks sake...we ABSOLUTELY know what 'happens' when we die. We KNOW the composition and physical attributes of the brain. We KNOW there is NO 'energy' or force, down to the quantum level that in ANY way keeps the information stored in the biochemical pathways that constitute our thought, memory and personality whole. Our consciousness is not a 'thing', it's a process that ENDS, shuts off when it's physical matrix, the 1300 grams of goo that we call the brain dies. What's it like? Exactly like that point in time before the sperm and egg that joined to make you ever hooked up.

I get tired of nit wits of the theistically challenged variety piously intoning that we 'just don't know' what happens when we die, when we damned well DO.

I did not put my hand over my heart during the pledge of allegiance this past celebration. I did not put my hand over my heart during the singing of the Star Spangled Banner. For this I was given glaring stares and reprimanded by others.

My reply was, "I've already taken the pledge several thousand times before and during my life in the military. I do not need to continue to randomly take the pledge over and over and over again. I've already proved that I'm an American and I'm a patriot (even though often cynical to the politics involved)."

"I do not and I am not required to put my hand over my heart while singing the Star Spangled Banner. It is optional and it is suggested that you do so and also face the flag or the music if no flag is present. If I were in the military you bet I would do so, especially if I were in uniform. But since I am neither in the military nor am I in uniform I choose not to do so."

Now I know I'm being picky here. It is purely an issue with the words used in the 36 US Code 301 which states specifically the word 'should' ranther than say 'required' or 'must'.

I present the following article as support for my view.

http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2014/03/must-should-ought/

If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter you know by now that last week we were hit with an intense DDoS attack.  I've created a fundraiser so that you can send hackers (likely religious) a message: Your attacks on RRS, Celebatheists, AtheismUnited and the other atheist sites we manage only serve to make us stronger.  

We incurred costs to mitigate the effects of a DDoS attack however there is more we can do.  Please show me that you have my back and chip in a few dollars.  It's the first time I've asked in 2 or 3 years.  

Donate via GiveForward

or Donate via Paypal

A new game is starting to make the rounds in the media, and it is unique.

The first interesting thing to note is that once a sufficient number of players has been killed, the game ceases to exist. The concept has never been attempted before, and it will be interesting to see how it pans out. I could write a whole article on this concept alone. The one thing I will predict is that if the game becomes a hit, someone won't let it die.

The gameplay is also unique. The world is inhabited by The Flock, monstrous hunting creatures (you). The objective is to acquire the light artifact. Acquiring the light artifact, however, is only the beginning. The beam of light will destroy any Flock that moves, but it makes you slow and easy to find. It makes you the prey.

http://www.vogelsap.com/theflock/

http://theflock.gamepedia.com/The_Flock_Wiki

I'd be very interested in giving this game a try. It sounds fun. And freaky, like Doom was back in 1994. Only worse, because it's people hunting you. Not an easily confused AI that knows as much about strategy as a rock.

I've about had enough of all this Confederate flag bs.

Ever hear of freedom of speech? I don't care what flag someone wants to fly, I say let them. Let them fly the Nazi flag if they want to. Every minute the politicians waste on this should see them locked up for a year for wasting taxpayer money.

Does it have ties to racism? Sure. So do a lot of other flags. Like the US flag, which was waved around while committing genocide. Like the Union Jack, which was a symbol of oppression for hundreds of years. I doubt there's ever been a flag that wasn't stained with blood.

There's more important issues than a bloody piece of cloth. Education has gone to hell, infrastructure is crumbling, there's at least two dozen wars going on right now, schools get shot up every few months, and Russia and the US are chest beating like it was still 1970. Shut up about the damn flag and let people fly it if they want to. There's more important things to deal with.

Nooooooo,  fuck shit cocksucker!

I wasn't paying attention and fully opened the lid of the white pepper shaker instead of just opening that top part with the little holes in it and accidentally dumped way too much white pepper onto my fried rice. Omg, it ended up being a sucess too...............except that it's got so much white pepper in it now that it's fucking spicy, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's a white pepper spicy, which means that it tastes weird now.