Unions: Not As Progressive As You Think

In the past few years this myth has surfaced about unions. The myth is that they’re full of liberals. They’re not.

This is contrary to what the Glenn Becks of the world would have you believe. But those of us who are actually in labor unions (I’ve been a Teamster for the past 10 years) know otherwise. We know it because we go to work with people with Republican bumper stickers on their trucks and who wear T-shirts that say things like, “It’s not a bald spot, it’s a solar panel for a sex machine.” Some of them are even so conservative that they are against the union itself even though they’ve been voluntarily working there for decades and could easily have gone into management at any time.

5 Atheists Who Need To Just Find The Jesus Already

You can pick  your friends, you can pick your nose, and if you’re sneaky you can pick your friends’ noses while they’re sleeping. But you can’t pick the most prominent atheists who get lots of media attention.

The thing about atheism is that it barely tells you anything at all about a person. Atheists can believe in ghosts, demons, racism, sexism, alien abductions, or any other number of other weird things just as well as theists. I once had a conversation with a young woman who told me, all in the same conversation, that she knew for certain that God didn’t exist and that fairies were real. Like, they have a type of habitat and certain environment where they thrived and there are foods they prefer and all that. In another conversation I learned that organized religion was horrible, but also that astrology wasn’t total bullshit.

Short of untimely deaths, there’s really nothing stopping bad proponents from speaking out on atheist issues on major media networks except for conversion. So here are some prominent atheists who would do better work making the other side look like idiots instead of doing the same for us.

Ophelia Benson Interview

Ophelia Benson is the co-author of books like The Dictionary of Fashionable Nonsense, Does God Hate Women?, and Why Truth Matters. She also blogs at Butterflies & Wheels, which is on the Freethought Blogs Network. We talk about what happened in the past, what will happen in the future, theocracy in the Middle East, creationism, postmodernism, and how America is doomed in 2012 but not necessarily because of the ancient Mayan apocalypse prophecy.

Hindus and Hindon’ts

We’re getting to that time of year again when the snow starts falling and we all come together in the spirit of harmony and goodwill to wage War On Christmas. But as we get into the serious anti-Christmas fighting over the next few week, we might take a moment or two to consider the less fortunate among us who might not have a Christmas to wage war against. And by that, I mean Hindu and Buddhist fundamentalists.

Not many of us here in the West get too worked up about these two religions. Liberals want to be ecumenical, inclusive, and multicultural, so they tend to withhold harsh criticism of minority (in America, at least) religious views. Conservatives believe Hinduism and Buddhism are just different forms of Islam, so they figure they’ve already got it covered. But what both groups miss is that these religions make claims which are just plain wrong. And those wrong beliefs can lead to some terrible actions.

A Day on Twitter With Bryan Fischer

Mark Twain said, “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” This makes no fucking sense because truth is a quality of a statement which describes its factual accuracy and isn’t a human being which might wear shoes. But he might have been trying to point out how easily it is to make false statements and misrepresent the truth compared to the effort required to correct the lies.

Bryan Fischer is a living case study of this phenomenon. He’s the Director of Issues Analysis for the American Family Association, which is the organization which collaborated with Texas Governor Rick Perry in throwing their little rain dance / prayer rally last month. He’s also very active on The Twitter, spending maybe an hour or two every day typing out the most dishonest possible way to attack the gays, Muslims, liberals, moderate Republicans, and bears. That’s actual bears, not big gay dudes. He might be the inspiration for Stephen Colbert’s character’s fear and hatred of the godless killing machines.

My Apostate Dog and Me

How I Won The War On Terror For America By Adopting A Dog (You’re Welcome)

I don’t want to be one of those internet writers who write about their pets and do “Sundog” blog posts, but there’s a pretty weird story which needs to be told about how I got her. This is my new friend Darwin:

“Allahu Akbar!”

Even though Darwin sounds more like a name for guys, she’s a mixed beagle so I thought it was appropriate. Sometimes I call her a muggle.

Anyway, I got this dog from a lady who works with my sister. She was dog-sitting her for a friend of her’s who went to Afghanistan. Apparently he isn’t in the military and didn’t go to work for a contractor. He just decided to go to Afghanistan. And now he’s decided he’s not coming back, so this friend of my sister wanted to get rid of this dog since she already has two others.

Election 2008: An Exclusive preview

Only four people so far have officially announced their candidacy for the next Presidential campaign. Two are Republicans and two are Democrats, and one from each party warrants some special attention.

Both believe they are the messiah sent to redeem humanity during the End Times, which just happens to coincide with their own lifetimes. Both hate and/or fear communists. It is very doubtful that either of them has had what we might call a normal conversation with another human being in the past decade. Their political writings are patently insane. In other words, all that’s stopping them from being considered “serious candidates” are campaign funds and media exposure.