[+/-] Atheists live for today

A great read:

"How do [atheists] survive challenges and unhappiness?" I wrote. "How do they face death?"

I got answers, lots of them.

[+/-] Today's quote: Eisenhower

"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."

~ President Dwight D. Eisenhower

[Ed. note: How prophetical!]

[+/-] What the Chimperor won't tell you tonight

Top Ten things Bush won't Tell you About the State of the Nation

1. US economic growth during the last quarter was an anemic 1.1%, the worst in 3 years.

2. The US inflation rate has jumped to 3.4 percent, the highest rate in 5 years.

3. The number of daily attacks in Iraq rose from 52 in December, 2004 to 77 in December, 2005.

4. A third of US veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, some 40,000 persons, exhibit at least some signs of mental health disorders. Some 14,000 were treated for drug dependencies, and 11,000 for depression.

5. Increases in American consumer spending come from borrowing.

6. The $320 - $400 bilion deficits run by the Bush administration may push up the cost of mortgages and loans.

7. 58% of Americans think Bush is painting Iraq as rosier than it is. A majority thinks we should never have invaded the country.

8. The US military is at a breaking point.

9. In fact, The US and Iran are tacit allies in Iraq.

10. More money would be needed to finish the US reconstruction projects begun in Iraq.

Link

[+/-] State of the Union?

This year, both Groundhog Day and the State of the Union Address fall on the same day.

As Air America Radio pointed out, "It is an ironic juxtaposition: one involves a meaningless ritual in which we look to a creature of little intelligence for prognostication, and the other involves a groundhog."

[+/-] Today's quote: Roosevelt

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."

~ Theodore Roosevelt

[+/-] Jesus on Alito

[+/-] Is religion the root of all evil?

Yup:

If a social engineer set out to devise a system for perpetuating our most vicious enmities, he could find no better formula than sectarian education. The main point of faith schools is that the children of 'our' tribe must be taught 'their own' religion. Since the children of the other tribe are simultaneously being taught the rival religion with, of course, the rival version of the vendetta-riven history, the prognosis is all too predictable.

But what can it mean to speak of a child's 'own' religion? Imagine a world in which it was normal to speak of a Keynesian child, a Hayekian child, or a Marxist child. Or imagine a proposal to pour government money into separate primary schools for Republican children and Democrat children. Everyone agrees that small children are too young to know whether they are Keynesian or monetarist, Democrat or Republican, too young to bear the burden of heavy parental labels. Why, then, is almost our entire society happy to privilege religion, and slap a label like Catholic or Protestant, Muslim or Jew, on a tiny child? Isn't that a form of mental child abuse?

[+/-] Today's quote: Bagley

"When will the public cease to insult the teacher's calling with empty flattery? When will men who would never for a moment encourage their own sons to enter the work of the public schools cease to tell us that education is the greatest and noblest of all human callings?"

~ William C. Bagley

[+/-] Climate expert says NASA trying to muzzle him

The latest battle in BushCo's war on science:

NASA's top climate scientist said the Bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture in December calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases, The New York Times said on Saturday.

In an interview with the newspaper, James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said that officials at the space agency's headquarters had ordered the public affairs staff to review his lectures, papers, postings on the Goddard Web site and requests for interviews from journalists.

'They feel their job is to be this censor of information going out to the public,' the Times quoted Hansen as saying, adding that the scientist planned to ignore the new restrictions.

[+/-] Today's quote: Hazlitt

"Perhaps the best cure for the fear of death is to reflect that life has a beginning as well as an end. There was a time when we were not: this gives us no concern - why then should it trouble us that a time will come when we shall cease to be? To die is only to be as we were before we were born."

~ William Hazlitt

[+/-] Poll finds Bush presidency is a failure

A majority of Americans said the presidency of George W. Bush has been a failure and that they would be more likely to vote for congressional candidates who oppose him, according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll:

Fifty-two percent of adults said Bush's administration since 2001 has been a failure, down from 55 percent in October. Fifty- eight percent described his second term as a failure. At the same point in former President Bill Clinton's presidency, 70 percent of those surveyed by Gallup said they considered it a success and 20 percent a failure.

Failure? Nay, I would say it is a miserable failure.

[+/-] Today's quote: Shaw

"I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live."

~ George Bernard Shaw

[+/-] Today's quote: Kennedy

"I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute--where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote--where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference--nd where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him."

~ John F. Kennedy

[+/-] Baptist pastor guilty in mortgage scam

Ah, yes... the pious following the 10 Commandments:

A Baptist pastor faces up to five years in prison for his role in a real estate scheme that bilked $1.5 million from lenders and home buyers, including some members of his congregation.

[+/-] Carnival Of The Godless #31

The 31st Carnival Of The Godless has been posted at Buridan's Ass. Get your dose of godless goodness and heathenism while it lasts!

The next COTG will be held On January 22, 2006 at A Pixelated Mind. Send in your COTG submissions to cotg-submission@brentrasmussen.com. Include the words "COTG Submission" in the subject line, and the following info in the body of the email:

• The name of the blog where the post is from
• The post's title
  
• The post author's name or handle.
• The post's permanent link.
• A short description of the post.

If you would like to host a future COTG, simply email your hosting request to cotg-host@brentrasmussen.com.

[+/-] Today's quote: Nietzsche

"In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point."

~ Friedrich Nietzsche

[+/-] Make small talk to the TSA, or else!

Next time you go to the airport be sure to pop your feel-good pills::

As if being asked to strip off shoes, coats, belts and other clothing before going through a metal detector and getting your personal belongings x-rayed is not enough, the TSA will begin psychoanalyzing air travelers in 40 major airports next year. TSA screeners, who are not even fully trained law enforcement personnel, let alone professional psychologists, will perform behavior analysis screening on all passengers. The screeners will look for "suspicious" signs that might indicate a passenger could be a terrorist: having dry lips or a throbbing carotid artery (I’m not kidding), failure to make eye contact with or say hello to the screener, or evasive or slow answers to casual questions asked by the screener. Travelers who exhibit such nefarious characteristics will undergo extra physical searches—the infamous "pat down" frisk and bag rummage—and could even face police questioning.

[+/-] New CDC warning!

The Center for Disease Control has issued a warning about a new virulent strain of a transmitted disease. The disease is contracted through dangerous and high-risk behavior. The disease is called Gonorrhea Lectim and pronounced "gonna re-elect him." Many victims contracted it in 2004, after having been screwed for the past four years.

Cognitive characteristics of individuals infected include: anti-social personality disorders, delusions of grandeur with messianic overtones, extreme cognitive dissonance, inability to incorporate new information, pronounced xenophobia and paranoia, inability to accept responsibility for own actions, uncontrolled facial smirking, ignorance of geography and history, tendencies towards evangelical theocracy, categorical all-or-nothing behavior.

Naturalists and epidemiologists are amazed at how this destructive disease originated only a few years ago from a bush found in Texas.

[+/-] Prove Christ exists, judge orders priest

Whoa:

An Italian judge has ordered a priest to appear in court this month to prove that Jesus Christ existed.

The case against Father Enrico Righi has been brought in the town of Viterbo, north of Rome, by Luigi Cascioli, a retired agronomist who once studied for the priesthood but later became a militant atheist.

Signor Cascioli, author of a book called The Fable of Christ, began legal proceedings against Father Righi three years ago after the priest denounced Signor Cascioli in the parish newsletter for questioning Christ’s historical existence.

[+/-] Faith-based forecast