Cultural War.

As much as many will claim up and down that I am just engaging in hyperbole, there is in fact a cultural war being waged in America. It is manifested in the fact that homosexuals are having to fight tooth and nail for basic rights, women are being denied basic choices about their own bodies, and everywhere we look the religious are screaming persecution without understanding the first thing about persecution.

This cultural war is usually manifested most directly in the so called "war on religion." This is where us mean old atheist are busy attempting to get christianity outlawed because we are fearful of it and can't be nice and allow others to have their beliefs. This is just, wrong. There is no easier way of saying it. First off, atheism is not a religion. "But wait, if you say you don't believe in something then that must mean you do, because otherwise why would you have to say you don't believe in it?", they cry. Fantastic, convoluted logic is convoluted. Those that use this arguement you do realize that it is the exact same as if you had a roommate that made up an imaginary friend and all these rules that went along with it and expected you to follow those rules. You'd say "Fuck off, I don't believe in Sweven the homosexual unicorn." He would say, "Well you must, because you said you don't believe in him, so that means you must because otherwise you wouldn't have to say you don't believe in him" At this points you would call the men with the butterfly nets out. You understand that just because it is christianity it makes it no different than any other thing that is intangible and imaginary yes?

Now for my other little favorite argument, "Why can't you mean old Atheist just keep your beliefs to yourself and not comment on our various religious posting etc." The answer to that is simple, as soon as you get your various gods and supernatural trinkets out of public life and stop posting your comments about how this country is falling apart because of the lack of jesus all over the place. To sit there posting about how people who don't believe in god are ruining this country and then cry foul when we comment defending our viewpoints is just unfair. I'm sorry your arguments are shown to be hollow when held against the keen light of logic and reason. This is no reason to attempt to get that light put out.

Healthcare reform.

It does not mean that the elderly are going to have to fret about going before some "Death Council". It does not mean that sex changes are going to be handed out like candy. It does not mean that women are going to be forced to get an abortion. It means that people in a country that has 11 Essex class carrier groups can now finally be able to get health care. Why do I mention the aircraft carriers? Those represent huge sums of money, labor, and combat power. Our navy is bigger than any other countries, to the point of being ridiculous. Republicans have no problem pouring yet more money into this, but when you start talking about spending a bit of money on health care, like other fucking countries already do!, you get nothing but incoherent spittle flying rage and the above lies.

The neo-cons have really warmed up their fear-mongering machine on this one. The want the average person to think that this health care bill will make them stand before a council that will tell them they can't get the treatment they need but will force them to not only get a sex change but and abortion as well. While we are on that topic neo-cons, can we please stop focusing on abortions? They are a small part of a very comprehensive medical bill, yet you are doing your best to kill the bill by throwing the word abortion around. We wouldn't want women to be able to make informed choices about their own body huh? I mean, they are just meant to get pregnant and then surrender their bodies to the fetus aren't they? Honestly, the views on womens health held by many in the right are misinformed at best.

Dear Republicans.

Do you ever stop and listen to yourselves? Do you ever actually hear the inane shit coming out of your mouths? The mere fact of you saying something does not automatically make it true. Really really really really believing in something does not mean it is right and doesn't trample all over the rights of others.

Obama is not a Muslim, nor he is not an American. He does not have to prove to you that he isn't either of those. You can not have negative proof. Let me explain it to you. You want Obama to prove the he isn't a Muslim and that his birth certificate isn't faked. This is the same as me walking up to you and asking you to prove that you didn't eat my ham sandwich when I wasn't looking. Do you see how inane that is? Do you see how impossible it is to prove a negative?

Oh, you say that you weren't the ones that officially started all those rumors? Well neither did you do anything to stop them coming out of those that claimed to be part of your party. You never said, "Despite what some think, the official view of the Republican party is that Obama is neither an illegal alien nor Muslim." But you didn't, because that's how you guys work. If you can just find the right combination of scare words that get your way, so be it. Doesn't matter if it is true or not, as long as it gets what you want done, there isn't a thing wrong with it.

For example, abortions. There is so much fucking disinformation out there about them that it is ridiculous. You don't like abortions, fine no one is saying that you have to. But you do not have the right to attempt to keep others from exercising their choice, especially when that choice is legally protected. I don't care if your magical sky daddy says it's wrong, that doesn't mean that you should block the door to abortion clinics and scream at the women going in there. I found this blog, http://everysaturdaymorning.wordpress.com/ , and the things he has experienced in there are just sad. Is it really necessary to attempt to demoralize the women in there with things like a crucified baby? I think it is safe to assume that these women for the most part are not experiencing a high point in their life and they really don't need your shit on top of it.

One final note, Stephen Colbert. He might say things that you like, and you might think he is a good Republican, but guess what? He's fucking making fun of you. The way he acts is how you come off in the general media and life in general. He is parodying you, and the sad part of it is that your viewpoint requires such stringent adherence to dogmatic and often oppressive principles that it is hard to tell when someone is parodying you and when someone is being true.

In conclusion, I find your total ignorance of facts, your attack on things that are even slightly different than your viewpoints, and you overstated insistence that America do the "Christian" thing because for some nebulous reason all chaos would break out if we didn't all believe in an imaginary zombie friend that talks to us in our heads, repulsive. Your viewpoints are often ones of intolerance, hatred, and discrimination. Your treatment of the LBGT community, women in general, minorities, and really anyone who is not a rich white male makes me angry. One can only hope that in your heart you know that you are being mean and petty and that you don't really think you are right in all the inane, hateful things you say.

Words.

I love them. Be they arranged in a sentence, paragraph, paper, magazine, book, or just a witty little phrase. Words can convey everything, nothing, and both at the same time. That last part is my favorite usage of words. I like the surreal, the strange, and the just plain out there. There in lies the beauty of words. With just a little practice and thought you can make them do what you want them to do. Whole worlds can spring forth from your pen, pencil, keyboard! So, go out there and make something. String together random words, invent new ones, or simply incorrectly use existing ones to make English majors cringe!

Harry Potter and the long overdue update.

First thing before I start out with this overdue update. Micheal Jackson. He is dead, as in, the biological processes of his body have halted leading to him no longer experiencing what we call sentience. I don't know what happens to his "soul" anymore than I do with anyone else's. His life of full of controversy, tragedy, and some music that you secretly listen to when you think no one else is around. Now, let us all move on. Yes, you too Fox news, you fucking republican shitheads.

Did everyone have a great Fourth? Nothing shows that you love your country more than by blowing up small pieces of it. I like to think that the rest of the world tolerates our boisterous Fourth of July celebrations because we are a young country. As such, each of our birthdays is exciting, unlike Britain who has toilets older than us. Still at least this year there are things to celebrate about. LGBT's rights are coming about, slowly, but still. Universal health care may be a reality before to long. Oh, and our President can both safely eat pretzels and not look like an huge inbreed hillbilly ass if front of the world. So, that's good.

And now for that which lent its name to this update's title. Harry Potter and the half-blood prince. Yes, I am going to go see it, quite possibly on the midnight showing. No I do not care who knows it or how much shit I receive for that. Now I usually don't like things that have this much hype surrounding them, but with Harry Potter I make an exception. You can say that's merely because I enjoy the books, and that's your right. However, I fully admit that Harry Potter does have a lot of hype that surrounds it. I think that this hype is different for one very important reason. Harry Potter got kids to read and use their imagination. It gave them something to pretend at, something to believe in, and more importantly taught them a bit of morals along the way. I would now rant and rave about the stupid fundie christians and how they think Harry Potter is some great evil designed to destroy them, but I don't have all day and I ran out of aspirin.

Doctor Who, What, When?

So I downloaded the Easter special of Doctor Who and watched it last night. Now the actual downloading poses an interesting question. I used utorrent to get it from the internet. This is pirating and raises the question, "Would the Doctor approve?" I think not, but more important to me, "Would The Master approve?" Yes, I am a fan of The Master. I also like Daleks. If The Master were ever to march at the head of a Dalek army I would nerdgasm all over place.

I liked the episode. It was some classic Doctor Who problem solving. I was a bit disappointed that the plot was very complicated, but still it was a good little injection of the Doctor in what is proving to be a very barren year for him. Yeah, I know that they are just doing the specials this year, that doesn't stop me from wanting more though. I will say this about the episode, the Doctor without a companion is a bit depressing. Okay, sort of a lot depressing. He gets all frowny and doesn't have his usual energy.

Speaking of which, what will the new doctor be like? I've seen the video of the new doctor. Don't know what I think yet. I'll give him a fair chance, cause this is how we all felt when Tenant took over. Honestly though, I still hold out hope for Eccelston to return.

We can still stop it people!

Twittering that is. Leave it to Americans to take something like that internet that gives you the freedom to express yourself for others to share in and make it as mind numbingly simple as they can. What was the thought process behind this? No one can be sure what vile form of douchbaggery spawned it, but it might have gone something like this.

Blogging? You mean I have to actually write things in paragraph form, what is this school? Myspace, Facebook, I'm more familiar with this as it's just a giant popularity contest, but downloading ass loads of stupid applications just takes so much time. If only there was a way to share inane text messages about the stupid shit I'm doing every minute of the day with tons of people. At this point a light bulb went on over the theoritical persons head, only to cause a massive anourism. Unfortunatly, there must have been another idiot around that picked up on the idea, and since they didn't have to form it themselves, survived.

Now, I mean, I'm all for expressing yourself. Freedom of speech is one of the greatest things ever. I also understand that not everyone is good at writing. You know what though? You don't have to be! It does not take a literary giant to post in a blog, or a journal. Even if all you are doing is writing down what happened to you that day it's better than twitter. If you can't sit down at the end of the day and take the highlights of what you did and put them into a vaguely coherent form, please get off the internet. There is no for the sheer laziness of wanting to be able to post 140 characters of what you are doing in a stupid attempt to "express" yourself.