Darwin Bio Pic too Controversial for U.S.

The new film “Creation” has yet to find a distributor in the United States.

The Telegraph says:

However, US distributors have resolutely passed on a film which will prove hugely divisive in a country where, according to a Gallup poll conducted in February, only 39 per cent of Americans believe in the theory of evolution.

Movieguide.org, an influential site which reviews films from a Christian perspective, described Darwin as the father of eugenics and denounced him as “a racist, a bigot and an 1800s naturalist whose legacy is mass murder”. His “half-baked theory” directly influenced Adolf Hitler and led to “atrocities, crimes against humanity, cloning and genetic engineering”, the site stated.

Wowzers.  Only 39% of Americans believe in evolution?  What is it about education that scares so many Americans?  Maybe it is just easier to believe whatever the book says – typical lazy American idiots.

I hope the movie gets released here because I want to see it.  I also hope it gets released here because that would show that at least one company isn’t too scared of the nut jobs to release a simple bio pic.

Obama Speaks on Healthcare

Left —— Medium —— Right

The political spectrum according to Obama.

Jolly jeepers it would be nice if Obama kept one of his campaign promises.  Just one.  He did get a dog, but that one doesn’t count.  Evidently insurance will now be mandatory under Obama’s healthcare reform.  He says he favors a public option, but stops short of saying it is a requirement.  One reason I liked Obama more than Clinton in the primaries is that he didn’t favor making insurance mandatory.  One of the reasons I liked him better than McCain, among many, was his strong support of a public option.

Oh well, I guess I should have voted for Clinton and McCain’s love child.  I guess I did.

But what is key here is that the Obama camp left themselves with no room for compromise.  Those of us actually on the left wanted a single payer system – we have compromised.  The public option seemed like a good middle ground between us and the right.  But by starting with the public option, Obama has given the right the ability to try to reach a compromise from the public option.

Oh well, I guess healthcare REFORM will have to wait for the next president.  Obama has got some good ideas but ultimatly is leaving healthcare in the hands of insurance companies. . . and we’ve all seen how that works out.

Dysfunction’s Role in Religion

From Newsweek (believe it or not):

In brief, the number of American non-believers has doubled since 1990, a 2008 Pew survey found, and increased even more in some other advanced democracies. What’s curious is not so much the overall decline of belief (which has caused the Vatican to lament the de-Christianization of Europe) as the pattern. In a paper last month in the online journal Evolutionary Psychology, Gregory Paul finds that countries with the lowest rates of social dysfunction—based on 25 measures, including rates of homicide, abortion, teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease, unemployment, and poverty—have become the most secular. Those with the most dysfunction, such as Portugal and the U.S., are the most religious, as measured by self-professed belief, church attendance, habits of prayer, and the like.

What is also disturbing about this is that the US is considered a country with more dysfunction.

Orly Taitz – Lawyer, Dentist, Real-estate Agent, and Crazy Person

Orly Taitz – Lawyer, Dentist, Real-estate Agent, and crazy person.

I’ll give MSNBC that it is entertaining – but it is hardly news or news – worthy.  Let’s just drop it.

Stomp out Atheists in America

Obama Accomplishes Nothing

My thoughts exactly almost exactly.

Chief Justice Roberts – Model Conservative

From the New Yorker:

In every major case since he became the nation’s seventeenth Chief Justice, Roberts has sided with the prosecution over the defendant, the state over the condemned, the executive branch over the legislative, and the corporate defendant over the individual plaintiff.  Even more than Scalia, who has embodied judicial conservatism during a generation of service on the Supreme Court, Roberts has served the interests, and reflected the values, of the contemporary Republican Party.

This is a very interesting and frightening article by Jeffrey Toobin, exploring John Roberts’ career so far as Chief Justice.  It’s a thoughtful article about Roberts and well worth the read.

Camping with Jesus

So I’ll admit it – in 1990 I was a cub scout.  I recently stumbled upon my old ‘Wolf’ book and found something that I have no recolection of – the section about a cub scout’s duty to god:

Here is the Boy Scout of America website that details how and why they don’t let atheists be boyscouts.

More scans after the jump . . .

Golden Rule Evidently Taken more as a Suggestion

From CNN:

The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey.  More than half of the people who attend services at least once a week — 54 percent — said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is “often” or “sometimes” justified.  Only 42 percent of people who “seldom or never” go to services agreed, according to the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified — more than six in 10 supported it.  People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it.  Only four in 10 of them did.

Perhaps it is because one of the most common things found at a religious service is:

But then again, I don’t really buy the argument that images of violence beget violence – so maybe it is just their fucked up morals.

Republican Teabagging Threesomes

From what I hear the Tea-bagging parties held this past April 15th were somewhat of a let-down.  Which is surprising because while I have never been to or seen a tea-bagging orgy party, I can’t imagine how they would fail to be at least more popular than they reportedly were. 

Jon Stewart’s take on teabagging.

Ok, so whomever decided that encouraging people to teabag Obama was a perfectly benign slogan – well, it may be compared to the conservatives next great campaign – 2m4m.

Limbaugh Doesn’t Know ANYONE who has died from torture.

A republican calls into Rush Limbaugh’s show and calls Limbaugh a brain-washed nazi.  True story – take a listen:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/07/republican-caller-tells-l_n_184244.html

But what I find most amusing is Limbaugh’s comment:

LIMBAUGH: I don’t know of anybody who died from torture.

Is that his defense of torture?  That makes no sense on so many levels.  I don’t listen to his show ridiculousness so I don’t know if this is an argument he has made in the past . . . but sweet jesus.  Now I remember why I don’t listen to his show.

Critisize Israel, I Dare You!

This cartoon is sparking many claims of antisemitism according to The Raw Story.

For far too long anyone who criticizes Israel is demonized as an antisemitic asshole.  If some people have trouble separating Israel’s politics with Israel’s religion maybe that is because so does Israel.  If there are things in this world that are beyond criticism than we have a very serious problem.  Unquestioned support of anything is a dangerous thing and has the power to erode the moral fiber of any civilization.  Just ask the Nazis that were ‘just following orders’. 

And no, this post does not mean I’m antisemitic.

Expelled – Ben Stein’s Pro Creationist “Documentary”

So I got Expelled – No Intelligence Allowed from Netflix.  I’m watching it as I write this.  The beginning is what you would expect, a long and tedious trek to find professors who have been shunned for expressing support of intelligent design.  A lot of ignorance about what evolution actually is, and a lot of pointing out that ID has good points (without ever actually making them so we can judge for ourselves how good they are).  But the best part so far is the long bit about Nazi Germany and eugenics.  What place do the Nazis have in this “documentary”?  Evidently the Nazis became Nazis because they were Darwinists.  Stein also manages to imply that Planned Parenthood is an organization guided by the principles of eugenics!

Stein spends a lot of time talking about how it isn’t the American way to suppress a viewpoint – we are the land of freedom and inclusiveness.  What he never does is make an argument of why we should listen to ID.  What is the evidence?  He says it is just as valid but never bothers to show us why.

And that is because its a bunch of bullshit.

United States Increasingly Claiming ‘No Religion’

From the Huffington Post:

A wide-ranging study on American religious life found that . . . the percentage of Christians in the nation has declined and more people say they have no religion at all.

Fifteen percent of respondents said they had no religion, an increase from 14.2 percent in 2001 and 8.2 percent in 1990, according to the American Religious Identification Survey.

Secularism, is it the next big thing?  What do you think?

Beyond the Gates – Rwanda Genocide at its Finest

Last weekend I received the film Beyond the Gates from Netflix.  I watched, I laughed, I cried.  Except for the laughed part.  Based on a true story this film was an amazing eye opener.  No matter how much you know about Rwanda in 1995, what happened there is something you can never really get your mind around.  I highly recomend this film as both a history lesson and a study of what people are capable of.  I don’t know how I missed it when it came out to theatres, but I’m glad that I didn’t miss it on DVD.