Alright, so because gays won the right to marry the world is going to end (when the Large Hadron Collider is turned on). But what does it mean to get married?
A 50% chance that you will lose 50% of your stuff (unless you get your prenups done right).
Some people insist that marriage is founded in the “good book;” but why not take a closer look at what the bible says — like the parts about forcing one’s daughter to marry some guy who killed your enemies. Sounds like a great idea! I will give my daughter to the first girl to get Hillary to finally give up.
So what is marriage besides being a reward for a favor?
Making sure your fuck spawn is really your fuck spawn.
Marriage comes from the same holier-than-thou mentality that demands you save yourself for your wedding night. It’s designed to ensure that your first-born boy (and only boys really matter) gets all your stuff. Thanks to the “sanctity” of marriage you “know” the woman you knocked up is holding “your” kid (but people forget that the size of human testicles are a direct result of our tendency to cheat [more info about that under cut- because it goes way off topic but is fun to read I promise]).
People seem to have this evil idea that:
Woman + Man= OK
Man + Man = FUCKING END OF THE WORLD (quickly turn on the Large Hadron Collider)
Man + Dog = apparently alright according to bible thumper logic
And leaving the best for last-
Woman + Woman = every guy’s dream / an accurate description of my love life (don’t ask- I’m just very, very lucky!)
Truthfully, marriage is about rights — originally the succession of property rights, but now legal rights as well. For example, if a gay person is hospitalized, as things stand currently, their life partner would not have the right to visit them, much less have any say about their care.
Some insist that civil unions are the same thing by a different name, but gays who have suffered from lack of legal standing know better, and the courts in California finally recognized that and corrected it.
In summation (never thought I would use that once I left high school), marriage is not the sanctimonious romantic ideal that our society represents it to be. Listen up, you people who have been vigorously thumping those bibles, please, please, please, wake the [tirade of expletives that even I refrain from putting on the web] up! Two same-sex people getting married are not going to “ruin marriage” — Britney Spears already beat those “damn dirty gays” to that.
So if any gay couple wants to have a nice wedding, go for it; just don’t let me catch the garter (or bouquet, for that matter) — I tend to be bad luck when I do.
-Magus-
Feel free to assemble? To associate with whatever activist group supports a cause near and dear to your heart? To sound off in your blog about corporate greed, evil oil cartels, and genetically modified food? Prepare to be boarded! Ex-CIA agents may steal the subscription lists of your favorite magazines, get your name and address and go through your trash. Is the U.S. Government blatantly breaking the law by invading our privacy yet again? No, this time it’s Corporate America hiring the government’s discarded spooks to trample our rights as citizens.
James Ridgeway at Mother Jones broke the story. A corporate spying outfit staffed by ex-Secret Service, ex-CIA, and ex-police personnel — Beckett Brown International, a/k/a S2i (”BBI”) — has been utilized by corporations like Halliburton, Wal-Mart, even the Carlyle Group (what a boon to conspiracy theorists!) to spy on their worst enemy: activist America. So far, Greenpeace and other environmental groups have been targeted; who knows which progressive organizations will be next? Air America? The Huffington Post? The Interfaith Alliance? After all, if Halliburton and Wal-mart can hire BBI to go after Greenpeace, what’s to stop Pat Robertson or John Hagee from hiring such a firm to go through the trash at the Interfaith Alliance or steal the membership lists of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, so they can start harrassing you or me?
“The company paid private spies to collect phone records and other private information on prominent activists, to root through dumpsters and infiltrate the staffs of environmental organizations,” says the FreePress. Mother Jones noted that “[R]ecords include[d] internal and confidential financial reports of a local bank that had been the subject of a takeover.” One of the firms BBI targeted suffered a break-in that included the theft of laptops and file boxes.
The unethical, immoral propietors of BBI bascially killed the company while snapping at each other, but they have since been snapped up by other security firms and are presumbably still doing essentially the same illegal things. And let us not be fooled by the fact that corporate espionage is pervasive, even expected — it is still illegal. Did BBI have limits, ops that were too black even for them? “On the advice of Cannistraro and Bresett, BBI turned down a $1 million job with the Church of Scientology, according to Dodd.” So I guess even they have their limits. Thank Xenu for small favors.
So if you’re ever daring enough to have an independent thought for yourself and <shudder> actually share it with another human being, congratulations — apparently you have just invited corporate America to go dumpster-diving in your organization’s parking lot, or to go on a panty raid in your daughter’s dorm. Meet the love of your life at your local ACLU meeting? Watch out — he may be an ex-spook assigned to infiltrate. Start campaining for net neutrality? Comcast has got your number, baby! Your credit card number, your pin number, your social security number…. Invested in that paper shredder for your mail yet?
BB,
Vivienne
Alright, to catch you up from the last time we had this conversation,
We have figured out that religion has struck down:
Evolution
Stem cell research
Nanotechnology
So what next? How about opposing a cure for cancer?
Yep, they are against preventing cancer!
And not just some obscure cancer that no one’s ever heard of; this one affects half a million people.
The good news about this type of cancer is that there is a vaccine against it — or rather, against the virus that is the leading cause of it — genital human papillomavirus (HPV), which causes cervical cancer.
But back to why Americans are against it. Are you ready?
Because (gasp!) vaccination “might encourage premarital sex!”
How so, you ask?
Because, for the vaccine to be effective, you need to use it before there is any risk of contact with HPV, which means before someone becomes sexually active. (Though men can’t get cervical cancer, they can still catch HPV, become an asymptomatic carrier, and thus unknowingly pass it to their sexual partners). So the best strategy is, as the cigarette companies say, ” get them while they’re young.”
Unfortunately, here in America we blindly follow abstinence-only “education” policies. The proponents of such policies erroneously but fervently believe that if we vaccinate children against this virus, they’ll take that as a signal that it’s OK to go have sex, instead of waiting until marriage “like God wants you to.” (Apparently the sacrament of marriage is some kind of miraculous vaccine against HPV and a cure for cancer — wait ’til the pharmaceutical companies hear of this, and figure out a way to patent it and make a fortune off of overcharging for it!)
Well, FUCK THAT!
No, really — FUCK THAT!
This is a very personal issue for me. I have a friend who is dying from cervical cancer, not because she had consensual premarital sex, but because she was raped. If she had been given this vaccine before that horrid incident, maybe she would not be dying now, when she’s still too young to legally drink!
Use some common sense, people! Are you going to go find some rusty nails and jab yourself with them, just because you’ve been vaccinated against tetanus? Are you really looking forward to rejoicing at your 18 year-old daughter’s funeral because “the little slut got what she deserved for sinning against God?”
What worries me most about this kind of twisted logic is a big “what if ” scenario: What if we discover a vaccine that successfully prevents HIV and AIDS? HIV is also sexually transmitted (among other methods), and it’s widely believed among the religious right to have been “created by God to kill fags.”
So, how much do you want to bet that if an HIV vaccine becomes available, the religious “wrong” will try to squash that, too?
Personally, I can’t afford to take that bet. I apparently need to save every penny, just so I’ll be able to buy the life-saving vaccines I need on the black market.
-Magus-
This morning (Wednesday, March 12, 2008) NPR aired a story that salvia divinorum may soon be made illegal. For those of you who don’t know what salvia is, it’s a form of sage that has some psychoactive effects. Salvia is currently an uncontrolled substance, because its chemical makeup and effects are too dissimilar to drugs that are already banned — the law says that a drug has to be similar to a drug already on a particular schedule or class of illicit substances, in order to be included in that list. However, a substance can be added to this list based on analysis of 8 factors:
…. Based on the results of the analysis, the DEA may recommend that Salvia divinorum be scheduled as a controlled substance.
Salvia has been used by shamans and other spiritual seekers for “out of body” experiences and similar meditative practices. It does not have a market as a social drug, because the mental states it creates in the user are not conducive to social interaction, but rather, introspection. Just as with alcohol or tobacco, the user must act responsibly, and know enough not drive or operate heavy machinery while under the influence of any mind altering substance. However, NPR is reporting suicides that have supposedly been linked to salvia, thus causing a renewed push for criminalization.
Salvia divinorum is currently illegal in several states in America and in many countries around the world, and more states are jumping on the banning bandwagon every day. The DEA considers it “a drug of concern.” “The majority of the pending legislation would add the plant ‘Salvia divinorum’ to the states’ lists of controlled substances.”
In G. Pagan’s March 12, 2007 bill analysis of California AB259, he quotes information that
The effects produced by Salvia divinorum are not comparable to any other effects produced by the other psychoactive substances (i.e., peyote, psilocybin, LSD, etc.). This also includes variables of the user, such as body weight, sensitivity, strength, and dose taken and method used. The effects can range from subtle to extremely strong, causing an individual to have out-of-body experiences and create a real potential for physical danger to oneself and others.
Pagan’s analysis also discusses the fact that prisons are already overflowing because so many people are being incarcerated on drug charges because of substances that are already banned.
Salvia’s reputation suffers from “the current lack of laboratory and clinical research into its potential therapeutic properties.” So of course, rather than do responsible research, fear mongers are instead gunning to criminalize it so they can seize yet more control over their “subjects” — otherwise known as American citizens. Never mind that there are freedom of religion issues, that salvia “was used for both medicinal and religious purposes by the Mazatec Indians in Oaxaca well before the arrival of European colonial powers” and that it is currently in use by modern day shamans pursuing that freedom of religion. Never mind that we are supposed to have the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” in this country; if the pharmaceutical companies can’t charge an arm and a leg to sell us chemical happiness, Whhhhyyyy, it’s a danger to society! Ban it! Burn it! Throw the witches in prison! Never mind that the prisons are already stuffed to the gills, that just means more money for the companies that build prisons and hire out guards and supply weapons!
“Salvia divinorum is a valuable medicinal herb that is rarely abused…. It is not habit-forming, not addictive, and does not present a significant risk to public health or safety. Because it is a powerful consciousness-altering herb, some regulation of sales is sensible and appropriate, but criminalizing possession certainly is not.”
So why can’t we use common sense, people? Why is that so frikkin hard????
While surfing around the local TV networks, I happened to stumble upon a show that depicts characters that if my children (if I had any) emulated their behavior, would cause a destructive downward spiral in their life. This dreadful show depicts people with no redeeming factors becoming famous after being dreadfully cut down by those they wish to impress at all odds. It shows that by being good at one very limited thing you can become a “great” person, adored by millions. What needs to be taught is that one needs to strive for knowledge, and to help others, instead of being some golden calf worshiped by America. I would rather children learn that knowledge and helping others will help them to move forward in life.
For example, look at Dexter Morgan from the show appropriately titled Dexter, that I recently caught on CBS. Dexter is a forensic scientist who works in Miami Florida as a blood spatter expert, helping the police catch murders. He follows his own personal code in doing his work — catching the villains of Miami and bringing them to proper justice.
So compared to Dexter, American Idol is worthless filth that fills childrens’ minds with unrealistic expectations that they can slack off, learn nothing, and still become rich and famous. Thusly I demand that people and advertising sponsors boycott this vile show to protect our children from its harmful influence.
I’m looking at you Parents Television Council! Go out and demand it! Because after all, who is a better influence — a vapid air head who teaches kids to give up their life for the falsity of fame, or a serial killer who kills other serial killers to help the world around them and make it a better place? I’d take the latter.
For further reading: New York Times
-Magus-
Alright so we already know that the U.S. has a moral stance against using stem cell research because the killing of the unborn. But now what would you say about Nanotechnology?
Well only 29.5% of people in a recent survey say that it is morally just. Now compared to other countries like the UK at 54.1% or even better the French with 72.1%.
29.5%! Now you would think maybe the people surveyed did not know what nanotechnology?
Nope.
The survey respondents are well-informed about nanotechnology and its potential benefits. So you cannot fault for them not understand what it was (but then with the all child left behind act maybe the word science has been deluded).
So why do they not want to accept this valuable science?
Because we would be playing god.
So once again religion beats science.
Evolution
Stem cell Research
And now
Nanotechnology
Once again the American public as a whole follows what it believes to be the word of god, because a book that was finished 2000 years ago is always correct (like what it says about how the earth travels around the sun, or maybe gravity, just some thoughts).
For the original article go to: Science Daily
-Magus-