Merry Christmas to All(ah)!

Dr. Sardonic, enjoying a country music Christmas at his mother's house (Noel, y'all), and I were talking on the phone, and we found that we were both doing the same thing this year. To virtually anyone who says "Happy Holidays," we respond with "Merry Christmas." Just for the sheer delight of watching their social discomfort, not for any sympathy to the people who buy into the "War on Christmas."

But speaking of wars, and Christmas...

I sat through a Catholic mass yesterday with the Sysmistress and children. The deacon was offering the usual litany of prayers, asking for divine protection for health care providers, law enforcement, and "especially our service people defending our freedoms in Iraq and Afghanistan."

Especially? Really? Shouldn't the most protection go out to the poor? The sick? The elderly? Those battling with drugs or alcohol? For that fact, everyone on a hard road, saint and sinner alike? There should be no "especially". Ever. I have sympathy and compassion for the troops. I don't agree with how they've been deployed. And I certainly don't agree with the idea that the aggressive actions that they've been charged with our defending or protecting us.

And then I heard this thing on the radio. No. Fuck no. Make that shit stop.

Military force should never, ever, ever, ever, ever be linked to religious expression, no matter how fucked up (Santa = God = USA = Military = Sunshine = Lollipops) . Nothing could be more secular.

Santa, Meet Jesus; Jesus, Santa

So what exactly was it that Santa did in the years before Jesus was born?

Enemies of reason

"I want to believe" Mulder had that on a poster of a 'UFO' if I remember correctly - and that's the whole thing right there isn't it? If you really want there to be aliens/deities/zombies then that'll be the first place you go to...

Derren Brown will be familiar to most Britons - he performs illusions, acts of mentalism and so forth, rather brilliantly too. One of Brown's most admirable characteristics is his insistence that its all a trick, the result of various techniques expertly applied. Here he's in conversation with Richard Dawkins about how so-called psychics work...



Oh by the way, it's clip 1 of 6.

Holy Decapitation!

OK, so God Almighty hasn't quite mastered navigating old men, but he's still excellent at parallel parking.

Fred Phelps Sr. is also a poet now.

“You’d better watch out, get ready to cry, You’d better go hide, I’m telling you why ‘cuz Santa Claus will take you to hell. He is your favorite idol, you worship at his feet, but when you stand before your God He won’t help you take the heat. So get this fact straight: you’re feeling God’s hate, Santa’s to blame for the economy’s fate, Santa Claus will take you to hell.”

Happy Heathendays!

Isaac Newton Christmas Card!

Atheists sue to take God out of state's terrorism law

In the suit, American Atheists argues that Homeland Security should focus on public-safety threats rather than promote religion. The suit notes that the federal and state homeland security agencies were created as a result of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks by Muslim fundamentalists, and it refers to those attacks as "a faith-based initiative."

The plaintiffs ask for the homeland security law to be stripped of its references to God. They also ask for monetary damages, claiming to have suffered sleeping disorders and "mental pain and anguish."

"Plaintiffs also suffer anxiety from the belief that the existence of these unconstitutional laws suggest that their very safety as residents of Kentucky may be in the hands of fanatics, traitors or fools," according to the suit.