March 7, 2010

Sunday Funnies - Atheist News

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Via Atheistcartoons.com

March 6, 2010

New Toyota Simulator

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Click here to try it out

(Via Dvorak Online)

Chat Roulette

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The media has been a buzz recently over a fairly new "social media" site supposedly started by a 17 year old Russian kid. The site called Chat Roulette mixes the old school type messenger program with your web cam to allow you to anonymously meet people over video chat and when you get bored you just hit next and go on to the next randomly chosen person.

Of course this is a idea great for the pervs to exploit and makes for a perfect story for Jon Stewart to look into.

March 4, 2010

Former Presidents Advise Obama

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Funny or Die has produced a video bringing together former and current Saturday Night Live stars reprising their Presidential roles plus a visit by Jim Carey as Ron Reagan. The video pokes fun at the current and former Presidents who attempt to give advice to Obama on the importance of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency.

March 2, 2010

When Words Are Just Words

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Yesterday I wondered where the outrage was from the Tea Party "Constitutional scholars" whom were strangely silent after 3 of the more intrusive provisions of the Patriot Act were renewed by Congress. I would be remiss though by not also voicing my displeasure at Barack Obama over this as just being approved by Congress didn't mean that the provisions would get renewed. President Obama also had to sign the legislation which for some reason he did on Saturday not 3 years removed from this statement on the Patriot Act:
This is legislation that puts our own Justice Department above the law. When National Security Letters are issued, they allow federal agents to conduct any search on any American, no matter how extensive or wide-ranging, without ever going before a judge to prove that the search is necessary.

Stupid Headline Alert

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My old home town paper, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, had an interesting headline this afternoon about an intra-squad game the Cleveland Indians played today in Arizona.





They have since changed the headline but it does make one ask the question, how does one not win a game you play against yourself?

Though i guess if there was a way, the Indians would find it...

March 1, 2010

The Silence Is Deafening

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While Tea Party members continue to rail against heath care reform often citing Constitutionality concerns (despite strangely remaining silent on Medicare and Medicaid), real threats to the Constitution continue to be ignored by these same "Constitutional scholars" people. The latest happened just last week when Congress voted to renew 3 expiring provisions of the Patriot Act which among other things, allows "John Doe" wiretaps of individuals with no ties to terrorism and warrantless access to private records.
Yesterday evening, the U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to renew three expiring provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act, after the Senate abandoned the PATRIOT reform effort and approved the extension by a voice vote on Wednesday night.

Disappointingly, the government's dangerously broad authority to conduct roving wiretaps of unspecified or "John Doe" targets, to secretly wiretap of persons without any connection to terrorists or spies under the so-called "lone wolf" provision, and to secretly access a wide range of private business records without warrants under PATRIOT Section 215 were all renewed without any new checks and balances to prevent abuse. Despite months of vigorous debate, when PATRIOT renewal bills providing for greater oversight and accountability were approved by the Judiciary Committees of both the House and the Senate, Democratic leaders' push for reform fizzled in the face of staunch Republican opposition buoyed by recent hot-button events such as the attempted bombing of an airliner on Christmas Day and the shooting at Fort Hood.
4th Amendment anyone? Democrats, Republicans, McFly, anyone?

Liberals And Atheists Have Higher IQ's On Average

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So says a soon to be published study.
Evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa at the the London School of Economics and Political Science correlated data on these behaviors with IQ from a large national U.S. sample and found that, on average, people who identified as liberal and atheist had higher IQs. This applied also to sexual exclusivity in men, but not in women. The findings will be published in the March 2010 issue of Social Psychology Quarterly.

The IQ differences, while statistically significant, are not stunning -- on the order of 6 to 11 points -- and the data should not be used to stereotype or make assumptions about people, experts say. But they show how certain patterns of identifying with particular ideologies develop, and how some people's behaviors come to be.

The reasoning is that sexual exclusivity in men, liberalism and atheism all go against what would be expected given humans' evolutionary past. In other words, none of these traits would have benefited our early human ancestors, but higher intelligence may be associated with them.

February 28, 2010

Coffee Or Tea?

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Most would agree that our Government hasn't been doing much to endear themselves to their constituents for quite some time. In response fringe and not so fringe groups have been sprouting up all over the place, the biggest of course being the Tea Party movement.

But say you are someone that is not happy with the way our government is being run but don't want to necessarily be associated with the Tea Party lunatic fringe, the leader of which can't even spell his racial slurs? There is a new group that might meet your need to express your displeasure, The Coffee Party.
It all started with documentary filmmaker Annabel Park venting her frustrations on her Facebook page about media coverage that made it seem that the Tea Parties were representative of the “real America.” She vehemently disagreed and her comments on Facebook got a lot of feedback from people who similarly felt pent-up and frustrated.

Their name the “Coffee Party” directly references the Tea Party movement and presents itself as an alternative. Park argues elected officials who represent us should work towards positive solutions to the problems the country faces instead of adopting obstructionist political tactics that play on peoples’ fears and which are driven by deliberate misinformation.


The Coffee Party is currently organizing nationwide. It is stressing the message that its members are voters who intend to hold elected officials accountable to holding up progress. Its members will participate and be engaged in the political process.

In addition, the Coffee Party values diversity, is, itself, diverse and completely comfortable with the changing ethnic demographics of the US. Park argues that politicians are exploiting the anxieties people feel regarding these changing demographics for political gain and that it is wrong.
(Coffee Party USA)

UPDATE: Blogging the first DC Coffee Party Meeting

Sunday Funnies - Changing Of Beliefs

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(via Calamities of Nature)