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Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:17:57 -0800

OMG. Want. So bad.

She &Him - You Really Got a Hold On Me MTV Canada

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 19:19:47 -0800

So I'm convinced that Zooey Deschanel, who is also in my top style crush list, is almost the Anna Karina of our generation. (And it's not just because of the bangs.) And by saying that she is "almost Anna Karina," I truly mean it in the best possible way, because the fact remains true to this day: that Anna Karina is still THE Anna Karina of all time, of every generation, and of generations to come. But still, I see this video (as if I don't already check her and her flair for fashion regularly in dozens of who-wears-what fashionista blogs), and....

I dig it. Love, actually.

The Avett Brothers I and Love and You Official Video

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:54:17 -0700

My favorite song of the moment.

YouTube - schmoyohos Channel

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 16:16:49 -0700

Auto-Tune the News simply works. Not just because it's funny (and it is!), but because nothing quite excites the brain like audio, besides text. The only difference is that audio enables some layering of cut-ups in a way that text can't quite reach. Auto-tuning, of course, does not fit with rap or vocal music like the horrid trend that we have now in our current pop culture. But, you know what, it seems to work with the news, with the vibrational reinforcement through the principle of heterodyning. Auto-tuning the news works because it is rooted in the very questionable but seemingly effective nature of disseminating and presenting the traditional news format: it delivers the recursive reinforcement of the material to an increased effect.

The Symphony of Science - Spreading scientific knowledge and philosophy through music

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 15:51:42 -0700

Because our material world is founded on vibrations in a vacuum.

Richard Carrier - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 15:50:07 -0700

Richard Carrier has one of the best, most moving answers to Pascal's Wager type of questions. I just have to give him a thumbs up for sharing this line of thought, which struck a chord with my own sentiments. See the dialogue below:

Question: "Let me give you a scenario. You're dead. [...] And you find yourself in hell, and you're being roasted on a pit. [...] Don't you wish you would've believed? It would've been so easy just to believe."

Richard Carrier: "Well, no, because it wouldn't really be any better. If I had to sit in heaven forever knowing that there are these people -- millions and millions and, probably, billions of people --- suffering these eternal horrible torments, and there was nothing I could ever do for them...that to me would be hell."

- interview excerpt from The God Who Wasn't There documentary

Atheism 3.0 finds a little more room for religion - USATODAY.com

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:56:17 -0700

Just read this article, and the first thing that ran through my head was that this is COMPLETE UTTER IDIOCY. Talk about getting the point of atheism entirely ass-backwards. This is NOT the way to go about this at all.

Was it the belief in god or organized religion -- which gave birth to the words "Jihad" and "Crusade"? Was it the belief in god or organized religion -- which has constantly turned its back on the suffering and death of all those who believe differently?

Was it the belief in god which infected the conquistadors with greedy gold lust? Was it the belief in god which told them the natives they found in uncharted territories were not human and thus be subject to any treatment the Europeans and Americans felt like doing (the two most common activities being rape and enslavement)? No, that was not merely a belief in god; rather, it was their church that funded these missions of exploitation and savagery. It was their church that needed gold and glory above anything else, and they didn't care what was done to their "God's children" to get it.

It was organized religion that destroyed the fragile written record of entire continents, even stone temples and monuments.

I'm mostly citing examples from my own religious heritage (that I have long given up on) and limited knowledge of world history, but my general impression is that history is littered with millions of examples of just about every religion doing this to every other in the name of their god, gods, or lack thereof.

I am a thousand times more respectful of an individual's private right to believe what ever they wish to believe, than I am a hypocritical "house/church of god" that spreads hatred and scorn for everyone not from the same congregation (or at least even the same denomination), while claiming to serve a god of infinite love who in turn punishes humans for being human.

In fact, I would much prefer that atheists be anti-theists, and that they should simply respect people's right to believe while fighting the unholy perversion of belief that is organized religion.

I believe private belief does more good and less harm for our entire species as a family than has ever been achieved by organized religion, especially when we are honest about the damage churches have done instead of giving them a free pass for their intentions. For example, you have the Catholic church sex scandals which everyone and the media would rather forget about than deal with.

After all, it is belief which unites the theist and atheist in their perpetual struggle for a dominant narrative structure. I think that should be a fairly good argument for tolerance of the other, and NOT the idiocy of these new religion-friendly atheists who don't believe in a god but see intrinsic value in religion. This is not the way at all.

Now, this is not to say that I don't believe good things can come from organized religion. Just that at the end of the day, the good and the bad come from the individual choices made on the street level.

Though it is worth examining which inspires what choices. Does the Judeo-Christian God really tell mankind to shun others? No, but the man speaking for God at the pulpit does. Does God tell mankind he needs money? No, the request for money is at the level of the guy in the pulpit once again. Does God tell people to destroy other entire peoples and their surviving records? No, someone leading the pack with the motive of claiming power does.

While the exploitation of belief fuels it, the agenda to claim power, money and other people's lives does not come from the belief. It comes from the organization built around the belief. So the bigger an organization gets, the less it should be trusted with money, power, agenda and their ideas.

Because at the end of the day, it's imperfect human nature running them AND NOT infallible absolute god/gods.

Rape Victims Choice: Risk AIDS or Health Insurance?

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 11:40:52 -0700

Sure, let's just add yet another reason to why victims of sexual assault should not report rape.

This is such bullshit, and it angers me so. Let's face it. These corporations will never give up profit for compassion, and that's a fact and has always been that way. Of course the crime of rape would need more than just compassion, but in this society, the police are already not at all equipped to deal with these situations. Women and men who've been raped already lie when they've been attacked. ("How did you get that bruise on your stomach?" "Uh, I fell down the stairs and landed on my belly.") So when they do seek out mental help and speak out about their experience, it's a very big step for them, practically a milestone in the wretched wreck their life has become -- and now they have to prove it, when they've already faced difficulty in talking about it and proving it? And to be deemed ineligible for health insurance because they had a pre-existing condition as a result of the rape or that the rape itself is a pre-existing condition -- it ensures that if you've been raped and can not afford to pay out of your own pocket for treatment, then forget about seeking mental/medical help, because you'll have a difficult time proving it anyway to your insurance. And having to justify what happened to you over and over again? That's trauma, the second time around.

Such bullshit. These days, I do try to avoid reviewing anything remotely political in my blog, but THIS I cannot stay silent on. If you're not angry nor the least bit disturbed about this story, something's wrong with you.

This is why the public option in health care is so important. You want to government to be able to step in and say: "How about we come up with a plan that will most certainly cover you? Because we're the government. We're not here to make a profit. We're here to make sure that you get health insurance." This health care system is severely rotten and sick, and the only way to fix this would be to implement the public option and make it accessible to every one.

Philip Spooner - www.EqualityMaine.org

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 18:44:15 -0700

"What do you think I fought for in Omaha Beach?"
- World War II veteran Philip Spooner, 86 years old

I could not help it. I cried.

Somewhere way outside Glenn Beck's right-wing homophobic America, this man -- Mr. Philip Spooner -- defines what it means to be a true patriot.

Symphony of Science - We Are All Connected (ft. Sagan, Feynman, deGrasse Tyson &Bill Nye)

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 18:37:44 -0700

A sequel to this. This time around, we've got Carl Sagan, RICHARD FEYNMAN (from his 1983 [what a great year, btw - lol] interviews), Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Bill Nye the Science Guy. Thank you, John Boswell, make more, make some more.