MY LIFE

The temps have been in the 80’s most of the day, but sweeping bands of rain and storm cells have continued passing throughout the day.   The humidity has been up near 90%, which is disgusting.  But I’ve been keeping the A/C to just 30 minutes at a time 3 hours apart.  I would LOVE to have a dehumidifier, but I don’t know if that would be cheaper than the A/C.   Does any body know?  I just HATE this icky-sticky wetness, and it’s worse if I have to get dressed to go outside.

VOICES OF SCIENCE: PZ Myers - Buy it now on DVD

Richard Dawkins, Steven Weinberg, Lawrence Krauss, PZ Myers, Davis Buss

I would like to have this 2-DVD set where Richard Dawkins chats with several leading scientists.   From the Website blurb:

DURING HIS U.S. TOUR in 2008, Biologist and bestselling author Richard Dawkins met with some of the world’s leading scientists to discuss topics such as Quantum Physics, Biology, Evolutionary Psychology, Science education, religion, atheism and more. This video brings you the fascinating unedited discussions between Richard Dawkins and Nobel Prize-winning Physicist Steven Weinberg, Physicist Lawrence Krauss, Biologist and blogger PZ Myers, and Evolutionary Psychologist David Buss.

From a public conversation at Stanford University to private conversations in Austin and Minneapolis, this collection offers a rare and inspirational opportunity to observe some of today’s top scientists as they discuss some of the big issues without interruption.

Actually there are several different CD/DVD sets at richarddawkins.net and I would enjoy having them all.

I’m not a scientist, nor do I have a college-level education, but I find it fascinating listen to those who know what they are discussing, and can present their opinions in a rational manner, usually.

Fortunately, there a video clips available on the Web site for most of it, but it would be nice to NOT have to sit here at the computer for it.  I’d like to be able to sit over there and knit while I listen, as I do for the Point of Inquiry podcast, or the Freedom From Religion podcasts.   Both of these podcasts (which I listen to online, since I don’t have and DO NOT WANT an iPod device) are excellent for spreading one’s mind and exploring different perspectives.

Anyway, back to work.

I was just alerted to a review by Paul Gross  “Lying for God: the Dover Debacle” covering the book The Devil in Dover by Lauri Lebo.  Interesting perspective, since Lebo is from that part of Pennsylvania and had more than a detached journalist’s view of the goings-on.

But, as always, the battle for science continues.  Intelligent Design is nothing more than Creationism in science drag, but it is not and cannot ever be real science and it should not be taught in schools, and now even the courts recognize ID is religion not science.  Evolution has been proven over and over and over, and it just boggles the mind that people still want to teach Genesis as history, as science, and as reality.

In other news “CrackerGate” continues to draw all manner of religious idiots into the fray over at Pharyngula.  it is amazing (to me) how invested people become in their little rituals.  Apparently in the Catholic tradition, you aren’t supposed to take the cracker, but once consecrated it must immediately be eaten, and you’re also  supposed to fast 4 hours prior to taking communion and 1 hour after, so as not to … uhh… “contaminate” and sacred host now dissolving in your belly?   The whole idea that the cracker actually becomes the body of Jesus just smacks of cannibalism, y’know.  There is not even a Biblical basis for taking communion, other than tradition to commemorate the Last Supper, which didn’t even really happen, by the way — remember the entire New Testament, and especially the four Gospels, is not history but fiction).

Star Trek fans recognize their object of adoration is just fiction, and at the conventions they dress up in costumes and act out various scenes from movies and blah blah blah.  All in good fun, and then everybody goes home, goes back to work, and they are no worse for wear.   Christianity is not much different, except the Christians believe their stories are true, and those who manage to get out of it bear scars for life of the psychological abuse happening inside churches.

Which is worse:  failing to consume a dry cracker immediately after the priest blesses it, or having surgery to correct anal fissures from when the priest raped you as a child?   Yup, people have some really fucked up priorities.

Do I believe the world would be better off without Christians, Muslims, and Jews?   Not really.  But I definitely believe we’d better off without all the damage foisted on society by Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.

Nevermind he’s rather old for the job, he’s got his essential facts all fucked up.  Go check it out, then come back here.

Granted, I don’t know all the facts and chronologies, and I bet you didn’t either.  But then, neither you nor I are actively seeking to become the President of the United States.  It would seem to make sense that the man or woman elected to the highest office in the country would have his facts right about an issue so vital, so current, so immediate, as the situation in Iraq — the situation his predecessor(s)  helped instigate.

McCain is certainly entitled to his opinions, but he is not entitled to just make up facts to fit them.

Please, do NOT vote for McCain in November.  Our country has suffered enough under Bush.

Bill Maher has a movie/documentary coming out in a few months.   Go get ready for it.   It is not only fun but highly appropriate to take a critical, and sometimes sarcastic look at religion — some of the ridiculous beliefs held by millions of people.    I can hardly wait for Maher’s documentary to come to DVD.  There’s nothing wrong with people having faith or exercising faith during their daily lives.  The problem is what they are having faith in.  It’s nonsense.

This morning Hurricane Dolly will be coming onshore near the Texas/Mexico border.  We’re only getting feeder bands of rain here, but it’s enough to make me look at the news a lot.   I just get rather fidgety about big storms now.   And I know it’s not entirely rational.  I know I’m going to be fine.   It’s just that having lived through one storm I’m more conscious of storms now.

Lots of handwork to do today.   See ya!

This is a GREAT PIECE!!!  Legend of a Heretic, in the NYT.     Robert G. Ingersoll was a great man in SO MANY ways (take note, dear daughter!) not the least of which was that he was unafraid to speak his opinion.  Internet Infidels includes many of his writings in their Historical Library.  You can also visit the Ingersoll Museum.   And you can read “Robert G. Ingersoll - An Intimate View” to learn more about him.

Or you could just Google him and fill a couple weeks with learning.

We need more men like him today.  I cannot compare to his stature in the annals of history, but I do what I can.

Another odd day.  I posted on Knitterman the progress of my daughter’s scarf.  It’s coming along well, although it is rather boring.  Because it is triple-stranded lace-weight yarn I have to actually LOOK at what I’m doing every stitch, every row.  If it were a thicker yarn, I could just knit along and look at movies or whatever else might be on television.   But it’s a simple enough pattern, not much of a challenge, so I guess the lace-weight yarn add enough challenge.

Apparently we’re supposed to be watching TS Dolly, which is expected to become a hurricane around Tuesday aiming for the bottom tip of Texas, upper part of Mexico.  There is a bit of money hitting the bank tomorrow (YAYYYYY) so I’ll go pick up some extra food stuff tomorrow.   I don’t have a lot of money at the moment, but enough to (finally) cover the electric bill.

I’ve been doing pretty good about not running the A/C until the temps reach into the 90s OR if the humidity gets up higher than I can deal with.   Living in a mobile home, it’s usually hotter inside than outside — living in a tin can does that — but having doors and windows open, plus the 2 floor fans running, does help.

Heck, people lived for thousands of years without air conditioning, so it’s not like it can’t be done.

What’s really interesting is how this heat treats my laundry — everything dries so fast.   Yes, I know the rational reasons for it and all that, and I’m not surprised.   I just find it to be one of life’s quirks that most of the year my laundry takes most of the day to dry, but lately my early morning load is dried by mid-day, even before the sun is fully passed over.   Plus, since the clothelines are strung between heavy-laden shade trees, it’s not like the clothes are getting direct sunlight.  AND, it usually feels 15-20 degrees cooler back there.

Anyway, it’s bedtime.   See ya.

weird day.   stayed up until around 11:00, woke a little before 4:00.   Dammit.

I’m feeling a bit in a crappy mood.  No particular reason.  Just generic stress, I guess.

I’ve had a couple days of good sales volumes, and that’s nice, and I appreciate it completely.  But it’s difficult to let myself be too happy about it because it isn’t steady.  The last couple of months I’ve gotten $40-50 each month from T-shirt sales at CafePress.  But they hold commissions for 60 days, so the few items sold this month won’t show up in monetary form until September 15.

Weird thing about “income streams” — you turn on the tap but things don’t flow right away, even when you can look at the reports and see that things are happening.  The money trickle is delayed.   Once it is started and continues, that’s a nice thing, of course, and in some cases is almost self-perpetuating.  I need to set up several little income streams.

We’re in the 90s again this weekend, and I’ve turned off the A/C.  I have some packing to do, and orders to ship out, but otherwise, it looks to be a quiet weekend.

Curiously, just after my previous post, I received this in email; please follow the links and add your name to the growing list of people unhappy with what George W. Bush, and the Bush Administration, is doing to our rights. I added my name already

************************
>From the desk of Anthony D. Romero, ACLU
Add your name to our ad!
http://action.aclu.org/site/R?i=jNSIZCLa0DA39q3OuRMJiQ
************************
Dear ACLU Supporter,

On FISA, Congress and President Bush betrayed their commitment to protecting the Constitution — and people all over the country are expressing their outrage.

From the moment the ACLU announced our lawsuit challenging the new FISA law as a violation of the Constitution, we’ve seen a remarkable outpouring of pubic support.

The next step in our all-out campaign is a dramatic show of public outrage in this Thursday’s edition of the New York Times.

Stand with us: add your name to our July 17th New York Times ad.
http://action.aclu.org/site/R?i=T0xOtXlxfhaxurnloE1FSA

Our ad will show thousands upon thousands of names streaming across a full page of the New York Times — making it clear just how determined people all across the nation are to keep fighting for our freedom.

The ACLU is challenging this dangerous new law directly in the courts. But, equally important, we must let Congress know that when they betray the trust of the American voters, they’ll hear from you in the court of public opinion.

Send Congress and President Bush a powerful message: democracy is about the government listening, not listening in. And next time, stand up for our rights.

Add your name to our ad!
http://action.aclu.org/site/R?i=apon6SM7rxkA-xkuuKrvuQ

The deadline for submitting our ad to the New York Times is only 24 hours away. We’ll do our best to get as many names as possible in the ad, but may not be able to fit every one. Act quickly. Sign up now in support of our lawsuit.

In defense of freedom,

Anthony D. Romero
Executive Director
ACLU

P.S. This is one of those times when passing on an email to others
really counts. Please get as many friends as possible to sign this ad.
The broader our support, the sooner we reclaim our freedom.

© ACLU, 125 Broad Street, 18th Floor New York, NY 10004

To unsubscribe from all future email, paste the following URL into your browser:
http://action.aclu.org/site/CO?i=bCURXofm0_KmaIO0u4QO5xIkqjNV7A8c&cid=0

And then feel free to cut-and-paste that quoted section and forward it to your friends as well. There’s simply no excuse for allowing our Constitutional rights to be stripped away out of fear.

Here, check out this news report from the UK about a Canadian youth being held at Guantánamo.  It is disgusting and unacceptable.   There’s a video attached at the top of the article, but after reading the text, I couldn’t bring myself to view the shameful treatment of a young man held in captivity by the United States since he was 15 years old (he’s 21 now and still being detained).  This is bullshit.

Over and over again, the Bush Administration is committing war crimes, violating our own Constitution, and repeatedly taking steps to deliberately destroy our country.  Why ANYone but a money-grubbing power-monger would have voted for him is beyond me.  The guy is a fucking clueless idiot, on so many levels.

I am proud to be an American, but I am very much ashamed of what my country is doing to its own people, AND to people in other countries.  It is an embarrassment, and the United States continues to be a laughingstock in most corners of the world.

If I had the funds and the means, I would move to Canada or the UK or some other place where I wouldn’t have to live in fear of what might come next.   And most of it is because our American government has been hijacked by religious fundamentalists who are no better than the Taliban in how they approach controlling the population.

Our economy is down the tubes, the middle class is disappearing, and most people I know are struggling to survive on what they have.  More and more jobs are disappearing and being given away to people in other countries just to save some corporate tax dollars.  That’s utter bullshit.   Why isn’t the government giving tax breaks to companies who will bring their jobs back home and get all our citizens back working again?

Over and over again, the news from Washington, D.C. is horrible, and getting worse all the time.   I do not believe this is anything apocalyptic, certain nothing prophetic, or anything like the religious nutcases would like to believe.   It is almost entirely all coming as self-fulfilling prophecy of the idiots in charge.  They believe the end is near, and by God they’re going to help it get here sooner.   What a bunch of fucktards.

Geez, I’ve not been posting here much.

It’s Saturday, and I’ve been up since before 4:00 AGAIN DAMMIT.  Don’t know why.  And it’s weird because I was up until after 11:30.

At 9:00 I HAD to watch the new show called “Bikini or Bust” on TLC.  It’s about this crazy ditzy broad named Ashley Paige.  I was alerted to it on one of the machine knitting lists, because Ashley’s main production person makes her bikinis on a knitting machine!  How cool is that?   That was the cool part.   The rest of the show is simply a train wreck, all the way around.   If you aren’t a knitter, designer, or somehow related to the fashion industry, or don’t know Ashley Paige (I didn’t), my comments won’t make a lot of sense.  If you are “in the know”, the you probably watched the same mess I did, and probably have the same comments that I would make.   I can’t imagine watching the show regularly, so fuck it, I won’t waste your time.

Now that I’ve been up a good long while, and done a load of laundry (already hanging on the line), I’m starting to get one of the damnable not-enough-sleep headaches.  Dammit.

For those who want to know… the rent check was covered by the bank, but I got a NSF charge for that.  OUCH!  Sadly, an anticipated electronic deposit didn’t get there before the check, else it would have been fine.   More sadly, the deposit that hit was just enough to cover the NSF, so it didn’t help much at all.   But there’s just barely almost not quite enough funds headed to the bank to cover the electric bill.  <*whew*>   But I”m going to wait until I see the balance before making the electronic payment.

Meanwhile, I need to sell a BUNCH more yarns and patterns this weekend, in order to send more money to the bank to hit on Mon or Tues, in order that I can get some groceries this week, since the house is nearly empty.  Dang, it just never ends, huh?

There’s been a few sales on the CafePress side, but I don’t get those commissions until 60 days after the sale, so all the sales there, while they are quite nice, aren’t helping me this week.   No matter, eventually it will catch up.   Have you gotten your Victorian Manners magnents/mugs/tote bags yet?  Or the Journey shirts and bags?   Every little bit helps.   Eventually I’ll have more to post there.

Onward into the day.

Yup… Victorian Manners

is now available on T-Shirts, mugs, stickers, and even a magnet for the refrigerator!   Get yours TODAY (please)

Okay, here I sit… I’ve put out notices and ads in as many places as I could.  And I know everyone else is feeling a pinch these days as well.  I get plenty of “it’s lovely”, but it’s always followed by “but I’m on a yarn diet right now” or “I can’t afford it.”

But the reality is that if I don’t have a certain level of sales, consistently,  and starting this week, I will have to shut down and go do something else, which really wasn’t in my plan.  The rent check will likely bounce tonight and I don’t have the $250+ for the current electric bill (due last Tuesday, so now there’s a late-charge on top of it, and next month doesn’t promise to be any better).   I don’t know how to increase my sales sufficiently, and quickly enough to cover everything.  It’s not like I spend money frivolously, either — my one lone frivolous expense in the last month or more was about $30.

I’m disgusted and depressed about it.

I’m also sorta perturbed that even with a mention at the Yarn Harlot, I got all of ONE SALE from nearly 2000 visits from her page.   I don’t understand that at all.   I really don’t.  Everyone talks about “The Harlot Effect”, and how a mere mention on her blog results in overwhelming sales volumes.  IT doesn’t always happen.   I sent her a couple sample skeins last year, which she said privately that she liked, but there was no mention of it on her blog.  That sort of bothered me.   I really need someone with a much larger voice, because people aren’t listening to me.  I need someone with a larger appropriate (knitterly) audience.

I know, I know …. this too shall pass.  But in the meantime, I need more sales.  A LOT more sales, and I don’t know how to tap into the larger market quickly enough to make it happen.   This is one of those days when I want to just walk away.   I mean, I LIKE what I’m doing, but it’s not paying the bills because people aren’t spending money in my direction.  I am really trying hard NOT to give in to fear and isolation, because that just makes it worse.   I need bigness not smallness.

One must always strive to do all things with elegance, with pride, and with proper decorum, regardless of any degree of ill-mannered slovenliness round about.

Therefore, I give you… Victorian Manners:

I need to find an image of an even more uptight proper lady, but this will do for now.

Yup, I’m still here.  Just haven’t had a lot to say the last few days, and I apologize if anyone was worried about my absence.

After the last shocker electric bill ($250.00+) I’ve been wondering what the hell has been running, because I am sooooo careful.   I even avoid using the A/C except when company comes over, or when I just can’t take the humidity.  But even then I have it set roughly between 80 and 85 — it runs a while and reduces the humidity so I can breathe.  But it’s definitely not cold indoors.

Anyway, so FINALLY, this evening, on the news I heard that EVERYone has been shocked out of their gourds over this month’s electricity bill.  Apparently the price of gasoline is also having this tremendously fucked up increase in my (and everyone’s) electric bill.  Man, that is seriously fucked up, y’know?  I don’t have that kind of money, even in a good month, but this month, with everyone seriously hurting financially, my sales are drastically down.   <*sigh*>

I don’t know about you, but if this weren’t an election year, I would absolutely look the other way if someone just sorta kinda accidentally offed the guy responsible for driving this country into the dirt.  Know what I mean?  I’m surprised nobody has tried to kill him yet, but at this point, with  just a few months left in office, it’s a bit late.  The guy is just plain fucked in the head and should not have even run for office, much less bought the election the way he did.  Oh well, it will take 10-20 years to clean up the shit he’s created.

OH!  Speaking of which… did y’all hear that out in California they are thinking of naming a sewage treatment plant for him?    How cool is that?  Totally fitting and proper, considering the way he’s shat upon the entire country, don’tcha think?

OH! And guess what else I read about today?    The American Family Association (which has absolutely no concern for what America stands for or cares one whit about “family”) has decided they are going to boycott McDonald’s.   WTF?   Wanna know why?    It’s because McDonalds have $20,000 to the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce.    Chris Kelly’s fun review of this has been posted over at RichardDawkins.net.   Some of the insane comments posted by Christians in support of this ridiculous boycott display exactly how ignorant and foolish some fundagelical fuckards are.  It boggles the mind, doesn’t it?

One of the first clues to dissecting any fundagelical fucktardianism is their use of language.  In complaining about McDonald’s giving $20K (which is like giving away one Happy Meal out of a whole week of profits), they say:  “McDonald’s has chosen not to remain neutral but to give the full weight of their corporation to promoting the homosexual agenda.” See that phrase “homosexual agenda”??  It means NOTHING in real life, but fundagelical fucktardians use that phrase (often in unison with the other famous nonsense phrase “homosexual lifestyle”) as if there is some huge conspiratorial agenda.   FUCK THAT SHIT.   It isn’t real.    We have no organized agenda, we don’t get a badge and ‘gay user manual’, and we have no goddamned “lifestyle”.   This has already been discussed here at length, but if you honestly believe there is such a thing as a “homosexual agenda” or a “homosexual lifestyle”, or if you don’t understand why these phrases are so false and so hurtful and so damaging and so offensive, please let me know.   I’ll be happy to educate you. People who use those phrases are NOT your friends.  At all.  Ever.

Here’s one of many informative places to learn about the Religious Right and why they are dangerous.   You can also look up Dominionism and Christian Reconstructionists for more information.  Most of them actually applaud the troubles in the Middle East, and truly believe they have the power to spark a major crisis to bring about Armageddon and thus hasten the return of Jesus, bring about the Rapture and other such nonsense.  And that’s just one of their fucked up goals.

Anyway….  much to do before bed, so I’d best get to it.

I woke this morning after a really good nights sleep (yippeeee), with my legs mostly obeying my command … uhhh… mostly.

After the older girls left, and my DD1 was working on her paper, her daughter, my youngest GD exploring around my living room/kitchen.   There is an open counter between the two.  I had my dye jars on the counter, with the shower curtain neatly rolled up around it so we could use the counter top for fixing snacks and such.  Anyway, she was on the back of the little futon i use as a couch, looking very intently at the dye jars.  I saw a little hand start to reach up, so I went and told her to move back.  Then I moved the jars and shower curtain to the center of the counter, all the while talking to her about the colors and so forth.  No hard scolding, mostly just a warning, and her mom reminded her of the time all the grands came and painted their own yarns.

Anyway, she just kept her gaze on the jars, totally entranced.   I stood off to the side, extended my arm and drew little circles in the air with my finger, just trying to get her attention.   She didn’t break her gaze at all, or acknowledge me one iota (she doesn’t most of the time anyway).     Then I stopped and starting coming back toward the living room.   And I’ll be damned but if her little finger didn’t reach up and do the exact same twirly motion!   She saw me and processed it in her own time and space.

Then a little later she was lying down on the couch, I sat on the floor with a giant pad of paper, took a crayon in my right hand, and traced around my left hand, and made a goofy little picture of it (eye and mouth on the thumb, and the fingers are like turkey tail feathers… whatever).   I put the crayons back, and scooched back a little bit.  She crawled down from the couch, picked a crayon in her right hand and traced around her own left hand.   There weren’t any words or talking or anything.   She watched exactly what I did, and in her own time and space mimicked it exactly.  Crayon right hand, trace around left hand.   Which (I think) is significant because earlier I had noticed she is left handed, and should have (?) used the left hand to hold the crayon and trace around the right.   Very interesting.

I get frustrated sometimes that she isn’t as openly vocal as the other grandkids, and at her age she has plenty of vocabulary to do so.   But this was the first time I’d actually gotten opportunity to spend a few hours observing.

Clearly, she has a LOT going on inside her brain.    I sense she gets a lot of information through her eyes as much as (or perhaps more than) from her ears.   And she spits it back out not by talking but by doing.   This is really important for me to know.  Most kids learn by modeling behaviors they observe in others, of course, but she seems to be doing this at a different level somehow — sitting back, observing the details, and then when she’s ready she just does it without much hesitation, once she gets it in her head to do it.  This is cool.

Since I’m not around the grandkids as often as other people in their lives, I need to know that my time with each of them is not only enjoyable and fun for them, but that we are actually communicating.   I need to hear and learn from them as much as they from me, which is why I need to pay attention to how they take in information as well as how they turn it around and express it back outwardly.  Fortunately this granddaughter’s dad also likes to draw and is creative in several ways, so she has plenty of creativity genes floating around in her system, and I’m already familiar with that mode of communicating.

Also, this granddaughter is being raised in an environment that is different from the other grands, and it is fascinating to me to see how those environmental differences are shaping the kids in different ways.  Thankfully they are all fairly good kids, just different, with different learning styles, communication styles, behaviors, mannerisms, and so forth.

OH!  And the whole time the kids were here, until late in the afternoon when they were edging on boredom (Animal Planet to the rescue!), I had a set of 5 classical music CDs playing in the background.  No wild rock, no country, just classical music.   Für Elise began, and the oldest GD spontaneously identified it correctly as Beethoven.   I was impressed, since I don’t think her household listens to classical.   But I’m fairly confident having quiet classical music helped to keep the kids from turning into screaming banshees. :-)      (Yaaayyy for Smart Grampa!)

Anyway, into the day I go, doing what didn’t get done yesterday.  

Three of my granddaughters came over today.   For some weird reason my Bond knitting machine just simply refused to cooperate, and we finally agreed I’d finish that project on my own later.  Really hard to be trying to teach something AND fight with a machine that isn’t working right.  And then we got busy making other, smaller projects.

It was a good day, but 4-5 hours is plenty enough before I start running out of ideas to keep little kids busy.  And my body definitely hurts. Mostly my knees. OMG my knees hurt!   Too much standing up (and a good amount of sit-down-stand-up-sit-down-stand-up  as is typically required when dealing with kids needing constant attention), leaning over helping kids with projects, and all sorts of not-normal activity … it all adds up, and now it just hurts.  Throbs.  Very ouch.

And while they were still here, DD#1 and her daughter also came over, so that I could help her with an essay assignment that has to be turned in by email tonight by midnight.  We worked a good several hours on it, but it got done. 

The bunch of grandkids left around 7:30, and DD1 got her paper done around 9:30.   <*whew*>  And I’m completely bushed.   If I don’t sleep tonight, I’ll be surprised!

Tomorrow will be a busy day, packing and shipping orders and things I didn’t get done today.  I set aside today as Grampa Time and that what it was for.   There’s always work to be done, of course, but I need to make it a priority to have some Grampa Time as much as I can.  It’s therapeutic for me, even when they wear me out.  I like it.

And now… off to bed. 

The world is FULL of questions, about almost any subject.   One of the most frequently questioned topics is the notion of God.   And one can only imagine the length and breadth and depth of such questions.

And nearly every topic in the world has an available registry of Frequently Asked Questions — this not only saves time for the author(s), who don’t have to go about researching and writing appropriate answers all the time, but for those who have questions, they can simply look on the relevant FAQ to see if someone asked their question already and perhaps filed a suitable response.

I always wondered if there was an Official GOD F.A.Q.  — and now there is!   I am supremely grateful to know that this has now been done, and all the important questions about God have been answered.    The world should be forever indebted to this invaluable resource.

I got up this morning and got into the morning tasks (rinsing yesterday’s dyes), and trying to get things in order for my walk to Sam’s Club.    Uhhhh…. maybe not today.   High chance of rain, plus high temperatures.  Not a good combination for a long walk.   I would do better doing that on Saturday.

The funny thing is that I did a search on their website for the plastic wrap I need, and it indicated “item not available”.   Well, that’s bullshit, I’ve bought it there twice before, they just don’t have it listed at this one.  Harrumph.   Maybe I can find it online somewhere else and not have to walk so far anyway.

Anyway, plenty enough other stuff to do today.  Slept well, feeling pretty good, so I’d better do all I can while I can.   See ya!

James Dobson, the head of the infamous Focus on the Family, is a fundagelical fucktardian of the worst sort. “Dr.” James Dobson, that is. But he’s NOT A FUCKING DOCTOR. He’s a sociologist. He’s not a medical doctor, and he’s definitely not a minister, but he runs one of the largest fundamentalist religious groups in the country, with a following of millions who hang on his every word.  He wrote a few screwy books about child-rearing (which have been heavily revised along the way) and now his followers thinks he’s just soooo right about everything.  Fuck him.  He’s an ass, trying to push his personal religious agenda on everyone else.   (Did you know that eHarmony is closely linked with FofT??  that’s why eHarmony doesn’t accept gays and other folks — they only want certain kinds of people and everybody else can take a flying leap because they only want to focus on their own kind of family.  FUCK THEM TOO!)

He recently lit into Barak Obama, after Obama said in a speech,

“Even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools?” Obama said. “Would we go with James Dobson’s or Al Sharpton’s?” referring to the civil rights leader.

That’s a fair and valid question. There are now several thousand different registered Christian denominations in this country, each holding a slightly different interpretation of the Bible, or they have a different take on the social implications of the Gospel, or some other variation. So even if all the non-Christians left the country, how could anybody decide which version of Christianity was the right one?

But Dobson accuses Obama of “distorting the Bible”.

And in another, similar article Dobson says,

“I think he’s deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology,” Dobson said.

Are you fucking kidding me?   Are you telling me that Dobson himself isn’t taking the Bible and making it fit into his own theology and fucked up worldview??    The audacity and arrogance is astounding.   Why the fuck should those GODDAMNED FUCKING FUNDAGELICAL FUCKTARDIANS think THEY can twist the Bible to their own ways, but get all bent out of shape and accuse others of doing exactly the same thing?

I think Obama had it absolutely right when he referred to the Sermon on the Mount as “a passage that is so radical that it’s doubtful that our Defense Department would survive its application.”    Amen.

Apparently Dobson seems to have difficulty understanding that it is NOT RIGHT to be framing national policy around particular religious principles, and that people of faith are morally required to find the broader language that will include the concerns of all people.  If you run around telling people they should do thus-and-so “because the Bible teaches…..”, you are losing ground because the Bible doesn’t mean shit to rational, intelligent people who know how to think for themselves.  If you want to run health care programs, or whatever, do it because it is the right thing to do, upon which people of all faiths (or NO faith) can agree, and you’ll have a lot more success and less ignorant bickering.

James Dobson is a fucked-up fucking fundagelical fucktardian who deserves to be put out of his (and our) misery.  (I’m not telling people to go shoot the mother-fucker or do anything stupid — just make him shut the fuck up already).  And his followers need to stop drinking the goddamned Kool-Aid and start thinking for themselves.   Don’t read the Bible.  Read the Constitution that our country was founded on.