When in doubt look up...but it won't help

Another annoying religious slogan one sees all the time is "When in doubt, look up".  Gee, if it was that easy then doubt would be extremely rare, since every single human who has ever lived looks at the sky, usually multiple times per day.  It still doesn't seem to resolve any significant issues, however. Looking up still doesn't convince atheists that there is a God up there in the sky, and looking up doesn't do anything to address whether Muslim, or Hindus, or Catholics, or Mormons are correct on matters of theology.

What this slogan really appears to be saying is that, when we doubt a religious idea we should "look to God" for answers, but that appears to be rather circular.  If we are doubting a particular religious belief, why would the answer be to introduce even more religion into mix.  That would be like saying that, if you break your leg that you should "look up" and perhaps try to break your neck as well.  Perhaps a better prescription would be to stop doing the thing that was creating the problem in the first place.

When all else fails...follow the instructions...or not!

There is a typical religious slogan that presents itself as clever by saying, "when all else fails, follow the instructions...The Holy Bible".  Of course, it conveniently omits the fact that most people don't bother with the directions because they are terribly written by someone who doesn't speak English natively, and following the directions often gets people even more confused than if they just attempted to figure it out themselves. This is certainly true, to the extreme, in the case of the Bible, as an "instruction manual", which is so terribly written, vague, and nonsensical that much of it is completely meaningless anymore, and certainly will not serve as an effective instruction manual for you to live your life in the modern world.  Following any random advice from the Bible would have you bathing in a dirty pool of water to cure your leprosy, or declaring your own private holy wars and slaughtering your neighbors, or kidnapping women and using them as sex slaves, all of which are routinely depicted in the Bible.  One certainly hopes that people don't follow these "instructions", and to the extent that they actually do as the Bible depicts, one hopes that they are arrested, tried, and imprisoned.

Dumbf*ck Dynasty Dimwit Phil Robertson Prevails

In case you thought that stupidity might not prevail, remember that this is reality TV we are talking about.  Most people watching Duck Dynasty, like the individuals on it themselves, are proud of being stupid.  That, more than anything, is their IDENTITY.  Of course they expected A & E to back down from the phony, contrived controversy that was ginned up in the GQ interview.  That was just for ratings anyway.  A & E never intended to actually enforce its contractual rights and make a redneck like Phil Robertson behave like anything other than...you guessed it, a redneck.  Now get out there and shoot at ducks that are probably smarter and more productive lifeforms than the ones aiming at them and pulling the trigger with blank stares on their id1ot faces.

Duck Dynasty Duckhead Lies Again about Fake Persecution

Duck Dynasty Duckhead Phil Lying about Just Quoting Scriptures
Phil Robertson, the fake yuppie poser who pretends to be a "redneck" for TV, was busy pretending again, this time claiming that he was being persecuted when  "all I did was quote from the scriptures" .  But, of course, that is a lie.  It's a lie because I'm pretty there is no scripture that says, "a vagina — as a man — would be more desirable than a man's anus".  What is that, the Book of PhilMeUp 2:69?  And how was he just "quoting scripture" when he claimed that he had never witnessed black people being mistreated in the South.  I think a guy named Martin Luther King, who knew the scripture far better than Robertson, would have disagreed.  So Phil is a liar, and according to his own scripture that means that he will not inherit the Kingdom of God.
And if he wants to get all technical, then he has a CONTRACT with A&E and Christians are supposed to keep their oaths.  Remember what happens to oathbreakers, Phil.
He knows perfectly well that his contract, that he agreed to in exchange for millions of dollars, doesn't allow him to just say and do whatever he wants in public, since it can damage the brand, viewership, and reputation of the show as well as cost producers a lot of money -- which is precisely what has happened. Most of the right-wingers defending him right now would normally be defending the absolute right of employers to fire employees for any reason, without cause, without union representation, and without appeal to courts or lawsuits. Furthermore, based on the article cited above, Phil is apparently continuing to break that contract, and continuing to make public statements that further damage potential viewership and his employer and believes that his employer has no recourse.  The rest of his family has similarly stated that they intend to violate their contracts as well.
If A&E were smart, they would cancel the show now, sue him for breach of contract, take back all the money they have paid to him and get a real show about hunting that actually involves people hunting and not just sitting around reading cue-cards that involve anything but actually hunting.

Daffy Duck Dynasty Fanatic Phil Supended for Bigotry

I must admit that I'm one of those who never thought they should have put Duck Dynasty on the air in the first place.  I have tried to watch an episode, and tried to read some of the books and articles about these guys, but it frankly isn't that interesting.  They want to talk about everything except Duck Hunting, it seems.
A case in point would be Phil Robertson who wanted to has made no secret of thumping the Bible that he knows little or nothing about.  His recent comments, which are the standard fare that could be found in about 99% of all evangelical churches across this country, have apparently taken A & E by "surprise" and resulted in his indefinite suspension from the show after he decided to shoot his mouth off in an interview with GQ. Why should A & E be surprised that a bible-thumping religious bigot would thump his bible and express bigotry?  Perhaps if the show was really about hunting ducks then there would not be much opportunity for such issues to arise, but there wouldn't be much to the show if all they did was shoot a few ducks.  It's not like it's that hard a thing to do.

For course Mr. Robertson also took an opportunity to claim that he never witnessed black people being mistreated in the South, and to spout other random Bible nonsense, condemning not just homosexuals, but drunks, and swindlers, and a host of the usual suspects that the bible claims to be against, but somehow doesn't tend to single out nearly as much as homosexuals.  For that matter, the Bible condemns all kinds of additional things, like eating shrimp and crayfish, but I kinda doubt that Robertson is overly concerned with those esoteric matters of biblical dietary law.

Nope.  He's mainly just worried about the good bits like sex, and drinking, and owning slaves, all of which is heartily indulged in when you read about "godly men" like King David, for example.

Westboro Baptists Picket Paul Walker Funeral

In yet another classy move, the "God Hates Fags" Westboro Baptist  Church is announcing that they intend to picket the funeral of Paul Walker.  Of course, their so-called "pickets" have nothing to do with anything that the individual might have done, but are just an increasingly desperate attempt to grab publicity by an ultra-rightwing fanatic religious group in the US that can't understand why nobody listens to them.   If Westboro Baptists weren't so crazy one would almost think that they were secretly being funded by Atheists or the Illuminati, just to make Christian Fundamentalists look like a bunch of raving loonies.  Fortunately, no shadowy organizations have to waste a penny to fake such a thing, because the genuine fundy nutcases do a so much more authentic job of looking crazy all by themselves.

Funny How Syrian chemical attacks stopped

Isn't it strange that there have been no more chemical weapons attacks in Syria.  That is highly mysterious, because Republican apologists for Assad absolutely insisted that it was the rebels who carried out the attack on their own people to draw in Western support.  See Republicans in the US were terrified that Obama would pull a "George Bush" and bomb Syria, thus gaining a boost in wartime popularity.  They couldn't allow that.  The freepers and  tea party loonies even did their usual mouth frothing about how Obama staged the whole thing.  But if the rebels or Obama had staged chemical attacks in Syria then why did they stop all of a sudden when Obama finally put his foot down and told Assad, "Do it again and I will personally F**k you up".  Once Obama said that, Assad aggreed to turn over his stockpile and "miraculously" there have been no more chemical weapons attacks for the Republicans, or the Russians for that matter, to try to blame on the rebels or Obama. But you would think, if the rebels or Obama had been staging these that the attacks would have continued.  Then they would have said, "look you can't trust Assad.  He's still committing genocide, and the West needs to intervene."  That didn't happen because the rebels and/or Obama were never behind the numerous chemical weapons attacks that were correctly blamed on the Assad regime.  That's called using your brain, and political/religious fanatics should try it once in a while.

Supreme Court to Hear Hobby Lobby Religious Lunacy

The Supreme Court has announced that they will hear the case of Hobby Lobby, which argues that they should have the constitutional "right" to impose their religious beliefs of their employees, by denying them medical coverage, on things like contraception, even if insurers offer it at no additional cost.  By their argument, a company run by a Jehovah's Witness should be able to tell employees that they cannot get blood transfusions.  A company run by Scientologists should be able to tell employees that they can't get psychological counselling.  Does the Supreme Court really want to do something this supremely stup!d and open the door to this boundless kind of superstitious lunacy?  We can only hope that a sane majority prevails on the court, despite the presence of some complete religious nutjobs like Thomas, Scalia, and Alito.

Obama Responsible for Broken Condoms

In a typical piece of broken logic, right-wing cartoonist A.F. Branco has decided that Obama is responsible for broken condoms everywhere.  That's right, in a recent cartoon that apparently is supposed to be "funny" if you're a republican, he actually tries to blame Obamacare for a guy getting an STD on the grounds that all the free birth control is going to make women sleep around more, and therefore contract more STDs.  Of course, if the guys were using condoms in the first place then these women wouldn't be getting STDs or be able to pass it on to men if they did have them.  But let's forget medical science, because it clearly has a "liberal bias". Clearly, Obama must be using the NSA to sabotage condom factories, so that more condoms will break, creating more STDs, so that more people will want to enroll in Obamacare.  Only, the cartoon has already anticipated that, because it complains that the healthcare.gov website doesn't work.  So it is also Obama's fault that this guy has never had government subsidized healthcare, which republicans fought against tooth and nail, but now he needs.  I seem to recall Mitt Romney trying to argue that you can't wait until your house burns down to buy fire insurance.  When even Mitt Romney makes more sense than the current batch of republicans then you know that their political philosophy is in trouble.

By the way, Mr. Branco also complains that the healthcare.gov website is not working, but then how did these women in his cartoon get their free birth control.  Furthermore, why are they complaining about not being able to get on the website when they opposed any kind of government healthcare in the first place.  If you work at a job that already provides healthcare, or if you make more than four times the poverty limit then you can't even qualify for this government healthcare.  So if republicans weren't all a bunch of trailer trash losers, and had real jobs then they wouldn't be worried about buying health care on the exchanges.  If republicans really were rich, as opposed to just always voting to give tax breaks to the rich and ship their own jobs overseas, then they would also be able to afford healthcare themselves without going to any federal website to buy it.

Historic Iranian Deal...with the Devil

A short-term deal, brokered by the US and UN, with the Iranian government over their nuclear program has been announced.  This marks the first time in over 30 years, that the US and the Iranian government have successfully engaged in formal diplomatic relations of any substance, and decreases the likelihood of an eminent military showdown.

Of course, a lot depends on whether Iran will be serious about complying. The usual complement of rightwing, chickenhawk, blowhards lined up instantly to condemn the deal before they had even read it, insisting that Iran can't be trusted, no matter what.  Similarly, even more rightwing theocratic blowhards in the Iranian legislature are similarly skeptical about a deal with the "Great Satan".  And, of course, nutty Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, immediately said he wouldn't recognize the agreement.  No kidding, considered that you weren't invited to the negotiations nor asked to sign it.  It seems that religious extremists in the US, Israel, and Iran all prefer conflict to diplomatic solutions, and seem to have vested interests in keeping their little holy wars going.

Student Body Prez at Northwest Christian U Is An Atheist

The Student Body President, Eric Fromm, at Northwestern Christian University admitted in the student newspaper that he is an atheist and has been one for a long time.  Predictably, some of his fellow students have complained, but so far, the school has not forced him to resign his position or to disenroll.  Certainly there are some "christian" universities that would run him out on a rail.  The school leadership doesn't sound happy either, but are expressing a grudging tolerance with condescending remarks like, "If we all had our wishes, we wish Eric would be a strong Christian man". 

Interestingly, Fromm indicates that he has found some support on campus, and that there may be a few closeted atheists like himself on the campus.  I suspect that, in actuality, there are huge numbers of people who don't believe in God, but realize that it is more advantageous to pretend.

In fact, I propose that many rational atheists are living a modified version of  Pascal's Wager, that I will dub Aaron's Wager. In my version, it is a safer bet, if you truly don't believe in God, to pretend publically that you believe at least superficially, because of the advantages that religiosity confers.  There is little or nothing to be gained from a rational Game Theory perspective, by professing your true atheistic views, by and large, unless you are trying to write a book like Richard Dawkins.  But for every Richard Dawkins, there are a ten thousand people who might think like him, but pretend to be religious anyway, because, for them it confers more advantages.  I would venture to say that many televangelists are actually atheists, but, if they admitted that, they would have to get a real job.  Instead, they can live on easy street, exploiting the gullible.  And is it really such a big deal to pretend to believe something that you know is nonsense.  You know what you actually think.  But it makes believers happy for you to pretend that you are one of them.  All kinds of people pretend to be religious in order to keep peace in the family.  And if you actually admitted your beliefs, all it would do is upset people for no reason.  You would not change any minds by admitting your views.  If there really is no afterlife then atheists still benefit more by pretending to be religious, and enjoying the benefits in this one and only physical world. 

HappyWeen Movement: a call to embrace the positive side of Halloween

I realize that Fall can be a gloomy time of year, with winter just around the corner.  Perhaps that is why many traditional cultures reflected on death and sorrow at this time of year, in events like Samhain (pronounced sow-ween--it's Gaelic), or Dia de los Muertos.  Yet even those festivals were not a time to give in to despair, but rather, a time to find new hope for the living while honoring the memory of those no longer here.

It is with that in mind that I say, I would prefer to emphasize and embrace the happier, more positive side of Halloween, where people do not transform themselves into scary, demonic looking beings, but rather transform into radiant, heroic, better versions of themselves. Halloween can be a time where we shed our limitations and aspire to more, instead of gazing into the pit of impending demise and forsaking hope.  I choose not to live my life with the dread of death circling my head like a bird of carrion.  I choose to be a happy person in general, and even at a dark time of year with winter nipping at our heels, I make my own sunlight.  Therefore, I recommend that people look for ways to be more positive this Halloween and choose not to consume the gloom.  Tell those around you that you would rather celebrate the life and vitality that you still have, precisely because it will not last forever.

Sarah Palin Sponsored Tea Party Nut Steve Lonegan Loses Senate Race to Corey Booker

Sarah Palin tried to jump into the New Jersey senate race recently and told Corey Booker "not to measure the drapes just yet", because she was going to help tea party nutjob Steve Lonegan pull a come from behind victory.  As usual, Sarah's false prophecy has failed to materialize, since Booker beat her pants off last night. Of course, crazy Steve had his own false prophecy that he had a plan to single-handedly defeat Obamacare and that "Obama would fold" in the government shutdown.  How's that working out for you, Steve?

Antichrist Paul Ryan Fails To Save Republicans From Shutdown Fiasco

Yet again we were told that Antichrist Paul Ryan was going to save Republicans by working some kind of deal with Obama that would avoid ignominious defeat for the GOP in their latest budget showdown.   Yet today the GOP, with their tail between their legs, accepted defeat and voted to reopen government, admitting that the whole shutdown had been for nothing.  I guess Paul Ryan is used to defeat at the hands of Obama, however.  Some antichrist he's turning out to be.  One would think that he could have at least worked a little voodoo magic on Obama or something.  I guess he primarily specializes in Voodoo economics though, not voodoo in general.

Mall Seige Continues. I hope Kenyan Army Kicks Somalian Rump

I can't believe that this military seige at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi is still going on.  It is great that some of the hostages have been rescued.
I hope that the Kenyan Army goes back into Somalia and kicks some major a$$ this time.  That is always the deal that should be made with arrogant terrorist extremists.  These Somalian scumbags claims they performed this attack in "revenge" for previous Kenyan military operations.  I would put them on notice that any action you take will be paid back 100 fold. You can't reason with them.  You can only demonstrate to them that they have no monopoly on the use of violence.  They are not the only people who can figure out how to pull a trigger or a grenade pin.  Perhaps next time they will at least know that the consequences of their actions will be disproportionately punitive against themselves and their backers.

Nairobi Mall Terrorists Need To Be Bombed Flat. No Negotiation.

Everyone says, "we don't negotiate with terrorists", when in fact they do.  Everyone tries to negotiate with terrorists, just like the Kenyan government tried to do with this mass-murdering Muslim mob of Somalian scum-bags who attacked a shopping mall in Nairobi.  If they really didn't negotiate then these "standoffs" would be over in 5 minutes.  They would just bomb the godd*mn mall flat and be done with it.  Of course we want to "save the hostages", but the fact is that these people are probably as good as dead anyway.  The odds that they will be successfully freed is remote at best.  We all know that the government won't let the terrorists get away, just as we know that the terrorists won't let their hostages get away.  There comes a point where you just have to write off some of those losses as unavoidable.

NeoCons Say Syria Was a False Flag But 9/11 Wasn't an Inside Job

It's kind of funny that, after 9-11 right-wingers insisted that anybody who claimed that Bush might have "Let It Happen On Purpose" (LIHOP) or that it had some of the trappings of a False Flag, Inside Job, meant to justify a "War on Terror" were *ABSOLUTELY INSANE*.  Yet within hours of Syria's equivalent of 9/11, where thousands of civilians were killed by chemical weapons, these same right wingers were screaming that this was-- wait for it -- a Setup, a False Flag, an Inside Job committed by the rebels against their own people (probably with help by Obama himself) to justify war with Syria.  Of course, the difference was that Bush did use 9/11 to justify a decade long "War on Terror" involving multiple wars, the passing of the Patriot Act, and the NSA surveillance that we are only learning about now.  Obama, on the other hand, resolved the situation without firing a single shot.  So which one seems more likely to have been the real False Flag....?

Obama Gets Syrian Victory Without Firing A Shot

A lot of dumba$$es are doing their mumble-mouth gloating about how "Obama sure screwed up on Syria...blah, blah, blah", but actually Obama got what was after without firing a shot.  Granted, it is unlikely that they will turn over everything they have, but the reality is that airstrikes probably only would have eliminated a small amount of the Syrian stockpile anyway.  As it is, larger quantities will probably be eliminated now, and any that is held back can always be used as a justification for further action later on, on the grounds that they broke the deal.  So it's really undebatable that Obama managed to come out of this otherwise no-win situation. Plus, he made it look like he actually did something in Syria without having to do much.  The actual implementation can be turned over to the UN, now that the Russians won't c*ckblock it.  In the mean time, he lets both sides of the Syrian conflict, neither one of which is friendly to the US, continue to duke it out and kill each other for us.

John McCain is America's Putin

Rage-aholic John McCain wants to write a column in Pravda dissing Putin.  I didn't know they accepted stick figure crayon drawings as columns.  Perhaps he will draw a picture of Sarah Palin watching Putin from her house in Alaska with an itchy trigger finger.  Boy, we really dodged a bullet when McCain/Palin lost by a landslide against Obama.  In many ways Putin and McCain have the same temperament.  Both are known to fly into rages and lash out at their opponents.  Both are tiny little blowhards who think they are far bigger and tougher than they really are.  Can we say Napoleon complex.  More like Napoleon Dynamite, but if the shoe fits.    Seriously though, what the hell is McCain doing writing to Putin.  If anyone should be writing anything it should be an actual world leader like Obama, not a washed up joke like John McCain.

Putin Your Footin Your Mouth. Vlad makes Obama's Plan Sound Good Again.

Perhaps if Vladimir Putin spelled his name Puttin', as in "Puttin' your Foot in your mouth" then he would be appropriately named.  As it stands, Obama's proposed Syrian intervention was pretty unpopular, but leave it to a guy like Putin to change that with his latest missive about how Americans aren't exceptional and should just look the other way when chemical weapons are used to commit genocide.  The man truly puts the *offensive* in "charm offensive".

And have you ever seen someone so self-consciously in love with himself, BTW?  Given is rather marked lack of diplomatic tact, it seems more than a little inappropriate for him to have such a high opinion of himself. Maybe if the guy spend less time staring the in mirror and more time working on his character then we might believe he cared about anything other than himself.

Furthermore, if he truly cares about preventing further chemical weapons genocide then why did he furnish these to Syria in the first place?  Of course he denies this, but he denied that the attack happened in the first place, or that Assad was responsible.  Now, he suddenly has maps of all the Syrian chemical weapons depots and is volunteering to turn them over.  Gee, I wonder how he got such precise information.  Maybe he saved the delivery receipts from when he shipped them to Assad.

I have to re-iterate this, so that people are sure to get it.  The Russians denied that chemical weapons were being used at all.  But it turns out they knew that was a lie.  They knew there were tons of chemical weapons all over the place in Syria.  And they knew exactly where to find them.  How else would they have been able to pledge to turn them over so quickly?  And why truly believes that they will turn over the really good stuff that they probably have in reserve.  They need that for survival, so what are the chances that Assad will give away that last ace up his sleeve?  

Oh, and if the rebels are the ones who are using the chemical weapons it sure is curious that none of Assad's soldiers have been killed by them.  What a lucky coincidence.  Syrian civilians haven't been so lucky.

War Criminal Vladimir Putin Says US Not Exceptional, Shouldn't Attack Syria

A man like Vladimir Putin who conducted brutal and illegal wars in Chechnya and Georgia now wants us to believe that he stands for "international law".  A man who ordered the poisoning of his own former FSB agent with radioactive Polonium 210, and the person who almost certainly supplied chemical weapons to Syria in the first place, now wants us to believe that he cares about these weapons not being used on civilians.  According to Alexander Litvinenko, the man Putin had killed, the Russia Apartment Bombings were orchestrated to bring Putin back to power. Yet, now he tells us that attacking Syria could unleash more terrorism.

But what really isn't believable is that Putin invokes an alleged belief in God, yeah right, and says that's why we are all created equal, in response to "American Exceptionalism".  Of course, Obama didn't say that Americans were created better than anyone else, but that we are different because of the choices we make, like when we intervene to stop genocide in Libya, or chemical genocide in Syria.

Hypocritical Opponents of Syria Strike Complicit In Genocide, Appeasement, and War Crimes

Newt Gingrinch, a man famous for his utter disconnection from reality, has predictably and hypocritically expressed his cowardly opposition to punishing genocidal maniac Bashar Assad, and holding him accountable for his multiple uses of chemical weapons against civilians that have causes thousands of deaths. This is tantamount endorsing his activities and will certain encourage him to redouble his genocidal efforts. Almost as if they were on ASSAD'S PAYROLL, or at least getting CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS, Republicans have almost universally lined up to endorse ASSAD'S war-crimes and thrown in with VLADIMIR PUTIN and IRAN in opposition to Syrian intervention, all because they hate Obama.  They hate Obama so much that they are willing to betray our national interests in order to score a political cheap shot.  It is clearly in the US national interest to knock Syria and their Iran Hezbollah stooges in the dirt.  The fact that Iran and Russia are Syria's biggest allies and are completely opposed to intervention is sufficient proof that the present Syrian regime needs to be toppled.  If Romney were president then they would be whole-throatedly screaming for an full-scale ground invasion.  But Romney got his a$$ kicked in the last election and Republican prostituted their souls to the highest bidder, who appears to be the Syrian despot. Even more ironically and hypocritically, Gingrich has previously been a cheerleader of attacking "islamofascism" where ever it could found, and if Assad and his Iranian Hezbollah buddies aren't Islamofascists then nobody is.

Their aid and comfort to the enemy Assad regime not only sells out our national security, but it stands in stark contrast to their knee jerk endorsement of reckless military adventurism in Iraq and Afghanistan. Man they couldn't get enough of ill-conceived military operations when Bush Jr was in the Whitehouse, and "the evidence was fixed around the policy" to achieve it, as the Downing Street memo famously noted. Now the little cowards are hiding behind Rand Paul's toupee saying lets give peace with a genocidal maniac a chance. As suddenly as they discovered "fiscal responsibility" after a decade long spending and tax-cut for the wealthy bender, they have likewise discovered isolationism and appeasement, despite their recent "kick their a$$ and take their ga$" cowboy foreign policy.  Of course, one of the major differences here is that Syria doesn't have massive oil reserves like Iraq did.  So they don't care to intervene.  It was the same reason that they coddled and appeased Libyan despot Mohamar Qaddafi under the Bush regime as well.  It fell to Obama to depose Qaddafi, and Republicans were so angry at the demise of their cash-cow dictator friend that they initiated the laughable Benghazi Witchhunt that persists to this day.  Recall that Qaddafi threatened genocide against the people of Benghazi, which is why we intervened, despite vehement and vociferous Republican objections.  If Republicans had their way then Benghazi would have just been the site of another major massacre of civilians, rather than the name they give to made up scandal because a few militants succeeded in killing our ambassador in the chaos of post-liberation.

Hopefully, Obama will take military action against Syria anyway, in spite of the small-minded, and utterly incompetent political games of "gotcha" politics that Republicans are attempting to play. Not punishing Assad is equivalent to telling him "keep up the good work" of murdering your countrymen.  If we don't stand against the use of chemical weapons in Syria then we can expect that, soon enough, emboldened Islamists like Assad's Hezbollah allies will attempt to unleash them on US soil.  With the anniversary of September 11th drawing near it is truly disheartening to see a betrayal of that memory on the part of Gingrich and the Teabagger extremists he represents.

Ariel Castro Kills Himself, Doing World a Favor

Ohio kidnapper and sexual predator Ariel Castro, who held three women captive for over a decade in his house, apparently hanged himself in his prison cell.  One person in Castro's family wondered if his victims, would "be glad or angry at Castro's death".  Duh.  Of course they will be happy.  Even the members of his own family all cut their ties with him and planned to never visit him in prison.  How is this situation any different, except that it spares the state and everyone else the burden of taking care of him.  Castro actually did a favor to his victims and the world in general by removing himself from it.  The only thing left to say is...you're welcome.

Idiotic Zombie Survivalism Needs to Die

Selling a moronic idea like Doomsday Prepping has never been easy.  Therefore, fictional surrogates like "zombies" have recently been "brought back from the dead" as a plot device to justify this kind of nonsense on a stealth level.  Thus we get movies like World War Z, where ironically enough, we can't tell if Brad Pitt is the zombie or the human.  

I think that this motif has become popular precisely because it appeals to people who know that they cannot possibly justify their incoherent and irrational fears in the real world.  Therefore, it becomes appealing to political and religious extremists who are increasingly out of touch with reality.  Naturally, religious extremists will not officially endorse the genre, but they can still support it on some level, because they believe in a version of apocalyptic thinking.  They simply adopt a different version of the apocalypse that is decidedly more low-tech and bloody. 

Likewise, the tea party and their assorted kooky, conspiratorial brethren are so out of touch with the real world that they cannot possibly justify their beliefs in the light of day.  But perhaps they can still escape to the fantasy of menace like "zombies" as a surrogate for "communists" or more generally the "liberal bogeyman" par excellence.  Their defeat in recent elections, and their more general loss of control in society seems to motivate them to fantasize about a world simple enough for them to understand and where every problem really can be solved just by pulling a trigger. In that world you really do need guns 24/7 bristling from every orifice.  

Of course this is not the real world.  It's so far from it that, even on a fictional level, this story line needs to be entombed again, perhaps to be resurrected again a few decades later by some other group that feels beseiged by the cruel realities of life.  

Hannah Montana aka Twerking Girl always had a stripper name anyway

Obviously a lot of people are slow on the uptake when it comes to Justin Beaver, I mean Hannah Montana, I mean Miley Gyrus, the hardest twerking girl in show business.  Even when Miley was hiding behind her corporate-crafted "Hannah Montana" brand, some of us weren't fooled by her faux innocence.  We knew that Montana and Dakota were the two most common names for strippers. If Miley were not the daughter of Billy Ray Cyrus then she probably would be working in a strip club and her name would be Hannah "the Banana" Montana.  And she would probably have to do more than wear flesh-colored short-shorts to make a living.

Now I will be the first to admit that I found vile Miley's performance a bit disturbing, mainly because of her bizarre reptilian tongue and the silly little devil horn hairdo.  But it was a PERFORMANCE for an equally disturbing, ridiculously bad song by Robin Gaye, I mean Marvin Thicke, I mean Robin Thicke ripping off Marvin Gaye. Not that Marvin Gaye's musical compositions were any great masterpiece of subtlety either. Both men seem to have tapped into the same well-spring nympho-maniacal mediocrity.  

In any event Miley has been burnishing her skank credentials for some time, posing topless here, leaking pictures there, and generally spreading herself around more a tub of "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter".  We can only imagine the "hot mess" that will assuredly follow, within the next year or two.  She even has the same manager as Brittany Spears.  I think I've seen this reality TV show before and I'm changing the channel.  

Muslim Terrorist and Traitor Nidal Hassan Gets Well-Deserved Death Sentence

Human piece of excrement Nidal Hassan, a muslim extremist coward, who attacked and killed fellow service members at Fort Hood in 2009, has finally been sentenced to DEATH .  He already sentenced 13 others to death due to his murderous rampage, so it is truly a shame that we can only him once.  However, in true religious extremist fashion, he insists that his execution will bring about "martyrdom".  Perhaps he dies a martyr to the cause of being a treasonous, back-stabbing, nutjob, but I would hope that even many Muslims wouldn't want to be associated with that cause.  I just hope that they will execute him by firing squad, and the sooner, the better.

Pope Frankie Forgets Who He Is. Asks Other "Who Am I...."

Don't get me wrong.  The current Pope Francis is clearly better than the pompous little peacock otherwise known as Pope Benedict XVI.  Pope Frankie is actually embarrassed by all the pageantry and aristocratic silliness of the Papal office.  For example, not many people remember that, before the "Popemobile", the pope was carried on a cushion seat with poles and 12 people acting as human horses.  In that sense Pope Frank may be OK.
But when he tries to spin the church's position on homosexuality by saying, "Who am I to judge..." one is tempted to ask, did Pope Frankie really just forget who he was right now or what?  Either he forgot his name tag at home or he thinks the rest of us are dumb enough to buy this transparent dodge.  Clearly the Catholic Church judges homosexuals, and as his leader is the the Judger-in-Chief.  So don't give us that B.S. line about not judging them, especially when you go on, in the same interview to talk about it being a sin, and how they need to be forgiven for being born to be attracted to the same sex, just like straight people are born to be attracted to the opposite sex.  All the rest of his sideshow of carrying his own luggage and being a man of the people can't distract from 1600 year record of the Church being very judgmental indeed.
Who am I to judge...yeah right and I bet the check's in the mail too and I won't cum in your mouth....

Texas women using $2 miscarriage pill to get around new anti-abortion laws

Anti-abortion theocrats have passed new copycat laws anti-abortion laws in Texas designed to restrict womens' access to abortions.  As critics have pointed out, this will not stop women from seeking to end unwanted pregnancies.  Instead, they will probably use a pill that is available in Mexico and Latin America for about $2 called cytotec or "star pills".  Its technical name is misoprostol, and it's usually used in combination with mifeprestone, which together is commonly known as RU486.  By itself Cytotec is only 30% effective at inducing abortions, but it is cheap and easily available.  More importantly, it can be used to make it look like a miscarriage took place, in which case the woman can go to the emergency room and get taken care of, most likely on the taxpayer's dime.  It's popular in Latin America where abortion is largely illegal due to sharia-style restrictions demanded by the Roman Catholic Church.  However, even the RCC can't put every woman in jail who has a miscarriage.  While insurance will not pay for abortions, even under Obamacare, insurance will pay for "miscarriages".  So all Rick Perry and Co have effectively done is forced women to game the system and potentially created even more expense, and more big government than ever before.

Zimmerman Acquitted! Prayer Fails Again. Trayvon no Angel Either.

The Zimmerman trial was a ridiculous farce from start to finish, but news reports finally say the farce is over and that Zimmerman has been acquitted of all charges, including manslaughter.  Every clear-thinking person could see that he never should have been charged with murder of any kind.  Everyone could see that the influences of the media circus, and racial political agendas were distorting and exaggerating a fairly clear cut case of self-defense.  We all knew it was Zimmerman's voice on the 911 call too.  Even Trayvon Martin's mother knew it, but she refused to admit it, because it would require that she accept the obvious fact that her son was the aggressor, and unfortunately ended up paying for his poor decision with his life.

But this case had an even more absurd element, which was the over-the-top, in-your-face, holier-than-thou religious histrionics of Trayvon Martin's mother Sybrina Fulton, "pleading the blood of Jesus" on the witness stand.  She almost certainly does not recognize how self-righteous and phony she comes across, but delusional true-believers seldom are capable of seeing themselves as the rest of the world does.   The facts, of course, speak for themselves.  All her praying and invoking of Jesus could not convince anyone (including herself) that Trayvon was an "angel" or that Zimmerman acted any differently than anyone else would have if someone jumped you in the middle of the night.

I know that, if anyone tried to jump me in the middle of the night, like Trayvon Martin jumped George Zimmerman, and I had a gun that I would have emptied my magazine into that stupid punk before he could take a second swing.  Most of you all would have done the exact same thing, regardless of your skin color.  Trayvon Martin picked the wrong person to attack, thinking that this person couldn't defend himself.  If course he was a teenager, and teenagers don't always make smart decisions, especially when they are rich, spoiled jocks, and pot heads with a history of such things.  Trayvon is hardly the only teenager pay for his poor decision-making skills with his life.  It happens to teens all the time, who think they are invincible until reality suddenly reminds them that they are not.

Of course, we all hope it wouldn't come to that.  Presumably when Trayvon first jumped out and yelled "what's your problem", Zimmerman should have shouted, "I have a gun and I'll defend myself!", followed by drawing it in rapid order.  That too is perfectly legal according to several retired cops that I know.  It is not "brandishing" a firearm, because you are not making an illegal threat when you draw it in self-defense.  It is possible, that, at that stage, pulling the gun would have prevented further escalation.  But it may not have, because some teens, like Trayvon, from the sound of things, probably still would have acted in a menacing manner, and unfortunately for Trayvon, he lived in Florida, the redneck capital of "stand your ground" laws.  It wasn't because of the skittles.  It wasn't because of his hoodie, and it wasn't because of his skin color.  It was because he believed that he could physically assault someone with impunity.  Most of the time such confrontations don't lead to death, but you have to consider the worst case scenario.  It's the same thing that we tell people about road rage.  You never know if the other person might be crazy, or might be armed.  It's just not worth it to find out.  Your best bet is to get away as quickly as possible, get to a public place, and call 911 yourself.  Of course, that's what an adult would do.  Kids usually don't think that way.  Because they think they are invincible, sometimes right up to that moment where they discover they're not.

Proof that John 9 and other blind/deaf Jesus "miracle" cures were frauds

We have all heard the stories of the gospel claiming that Jesus could cure people who were blind or deaf since birth.  But science has yet again demonstrated that these stories are nonsense.  Here is the problem.  Now that we really can fix the problems that cause many people to be born blind or deaf, as in the case of this article in _Scientific American_ about Project Prakesh, we are confirming that a person who is born blind can't just start "seeing" right away and be as good as new, like the blindness never happened.  That is, just causing the "scales to fall away" from one's eyes, as the Bible frequently depicts the cure for blindness, would not result in  a person with functional vision.  Indeed, research reveals that when we do remove the "scales" (or cataracts in actual fact) from some of these Indian children, and allow them to see for the first time, that they lack the ability to make sense of the shapes and colors all around them.  In other words, they have never learned how to see, and the longer they have gone through life without learning how to recognize shapes and patterns, the more difficulty they will have being able to function, if ever, in a normal way.  They have missed a critical period of brain development and learning, and it is a similar phenomena when it comes to hearing.  Indeed, now that we have cochlear implants, we can let adults hear for the first time, when they have been deaf for their whole lives.  However, cochlear implants are generally not indicated for adults who were born deaf, because again, the outcomes are often not good.  Just as with the congenitally blind whose brains have never learned to make sense of visual patterns, the congentially deaf adult has never had an opportunity to learn how to recognize and make sense out of auditory patterns.  As a consequence, even though the cochlear implants allow these individuals to "hear", they often find it difficult to understand the world around them through sound or even to master normal speaking.  They too have missed a critical period of development.

Now, of course, we can invoke yet more miracles and say that, behind the scenes, without telling anyone, Jesus also magically altered the brains of these individuals so that they could instantly learn how to understand the sights and sounds around them. But if Jesus was just going to magically alter people's brains then he wouldn't have needed to do any preaching in the first place.  He could have just magically altered everyone's brain so that they agreed with him.  No, sorry, it doesn't pass the smell test.

What seems more likely is that Jesus never cured anyone of blindness or deafness, especially those born with the condition, since the gospels seem unaware that these secondary difficulties might develop as the result of restored vision or hearing.

Supreme Court Strikes Down DOMA lets Prop. 8 Stand

In what is being called two big wins for gay rights, the Supreme Court has struck down key provisions of the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), and also let stand a lower court's decision invalidating California Proposition 8 that defined marriage as between a man and woman only.  Gay marriage is something of a barometer that measures the social progressiveness of a culture, which is why  religious bigots and so-called "social conservatives" actually fight so hard against it.  The reality is that gay people have always been present in every culture in history, regardless of attempts to repress it.

Born in the wrong time

We live in a time of high technology, and this inherently means that rapid changes will occur.  Yet some people, primarily motivated  by mental laziness, have adopted a worldview that almost automatically rejects change.  Every time something  changes we have to listen to these people endlessly bitch about how they don't like it and think things would be better if this or that technology were banned or never invented.  But realistic people know that you can't uninvent things.  You can't even hope to regulate most technologies, except on the roughest levels.  So people who are philosophically opposed to change and who want to return to the past are not just living in a world of fantasy--they have unfortunately also been born at the wrong time in history.  There has never been another era of such rapid change.  Therefore opponents of  change, generally know as conservatives, have one of the most maladaptive outlooks that it is possible to hold at present.  Of course it would be different if the rest of us didn't have to hear their constant' deusional BS, pretending that it is possible to turn back the clocks and calendars to some mythical yesteryear that is gone forever.

God's grace or chance in oklahoma tornado tragedy

I here people in Oklahoma City unwittingly indicting God of murder by saying "but for the grace of God I was spared from the tornado".  It sounds pious, but if God intentionally spared these people then he also intentionally refused to spare all those school children crushed in the rubble.  I think what these people mean is "there but for fortune" it could have been them instead.  But substituting the word "fortune" with "God's grace" is not an equivalent cut-and-paste replacement.  Fortune means it's an accident, but if God was pulling the puppet strings then it happened on purpose.  It makes a huge difference if something is merely bad luck, as opposed to a psychopath intentionally plotting an act of mass murder. And if we wouldn't accept such behavior from a human psychopath, why would God be held to a lower standard? Think about it.

Why would God murder oklahoma elementary school kids?

The flip side of the standard evangelical assertion that "god is in control" of everything is that he would have to be responsible when things go wrong, like when tornados rip through oklahoma city and kill dozens of children at their elementary school.  See, it doesn't work to say that it's just a natural disaster that is out of God's hands if he created the universe and everything in it, and constantly pulls strings to influence other minute details, like whether you get a parking space at the mall.  Furthermore, the standard "free will" excuse doesn't work too well with children in an elementary school in the suburbs of "God-fearing" Oklahoma City.  And the notion that god purposely created the tragedy to allow "greater good" to come through the rescue efforts, etc would be like excusing a mass-murderer like Adam Lanza, on the grounds that good things might ultimately result from his act of evil.

Sylvia Brown Wrong As Usual

Browne had a 50% chance of being right, when she wrongly claimed Amanda Berry was dead, and was clearly playing the odds that someone who hadn't been heard from in 10 years is already considered "legally dead" for purposes like insurance.  But, she was wrong, as usual.  It's hardly the first time that her coin flips have been wrong.  She also predicted that Obama wouldn't be re-elected.  In fact, as CSICOP notes, of 115 cases in which she has offered her "psychic detective services", 90 have been unsolved and in the other 25 that have been solved, she has been wrong in her predictions.   Thus, so far she is batting zero in terms of her crime solving services.

Terrorist Mom Says Boston Bombing Staged With Red Paint

Zubeidat Tsarnaev, the mother of Boston bombers Tamarlan and Dzokhar Tsarnaev, is as dumb as they come.  It's one thing to be deluded, but this woman thinks that everyone in the Boston Marathon was in the conspiracy to make HER kids look bad.  That's right, 180 people just pretended to be injured and intentionally smeared "red paint" on themselves, she insists, so that they could claim they were injured by her kids.  Gosh, one would think that self-respecting conspiracists would have at least gotten to animal blood from the butcher shop, or maybe even from the blood bank, if they are part of some grand governmental conspiracy

She also complains that police shouldn't have shot her son, who stopped his car and opened fire on the police first.  But apparently he has her own problems with the law, having fled the country after being accused of felony shoplifting.  

It just shows you the kind of delusions that these kids likely grew up with on a daily basis.

Tamarlan Tsarnaev said 9-11 was plot to make muslims look bad

It turns out that the terrorist Tamarlan Tsarnaev was a 9-11 conspiracy theorist too.  Unlike fringe whackos such as Alex Jones, however, he didn't believe it was done by the Illuminati, or the New World Order.  He believed that it was done by the US government, according to friends and relatives, to make Islam look bad and to make Americans hate or distrust Muslims.  So what did he do?  He went out and actually performed terrorism himself, that even by his own conspiratorial thinking, would have the effect of making Islam look bad, and making Americans hate or distrust Muslims.  Mission Accomplished.  I mean, what did he THINK the effect was going to be?  Did he think his actions would make us respect raving jihadi murderers like himself?  Did he think that his actions would accomplish anything other than to make Americans distrustful of Muslims?  I'm sure that Muslims in the US are feeling frustrated by all of this, because it puts them back to square one again, in terms of bad publicity, and public mistrust.  It makes it harder for them to practice their religion in peace and carry on with their lives as usual, which were probably just getting back to normal.  This seems to be something that terrorists seldom ever consider.  That their actions will actually be more harmful and counterproductive for the very group of people they claim to champion.

Muslim Terrorist Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Captured Alive...But For How Long

Wannabe Muslim terrorist Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured alive, hiding in a boat in the backyard of a Watertown residence.  Dzhokhar has to be one of the stupidest terrorists since the Shoe Bomber and the Underwear bomber, since the dumb pot-head, jacka$$ didn't even attempt to conceal his face behind sunglasses like his brother did.  What kind of a dip$hit thinks that he could get away with an attack like this when he doesn't even hide his identity?  I would certainly have to agree with his uncle Ruslan who described both brothers as "losers" and ungrateful haters, "who don't deserve to live on this Earth", and who lashed out at the very country that took them in and gave them opportunities after they fled Chechnya.  Maybe their own dumb asses would have been blown apart with bombs if they had stayed in Chechnya.  And this is how they thank the people who were nothing but kind to them?  It truly is amazing some times to see this level of ingratitude.  I highly doubt that Dzhokhar is going to make it prison, given his expressed antipathy for the US in general.  In some ways it truly is too bad that he didn't have the courage to at least try to shoot it out with cops, like his older brother, and then we could have been spared from dealing with him further.

religious extremists bombed Boston as predicted.

It's hard being right so much, as when I predicted that the bombing in Boston was probably done by religious extremists or right-winger, or both.  It turns out that it was both.  Tamarlan Tsarnaev and Dzhokar Tsarnaev were radicalized Muslim Chechens making them religious extremists.  As religious extremists of the Islamic variety, they are necessarily right-wing conservatives, because they oppose most things in the modern world and want us to go back to the way things were in the 7th  century.  That's pretty conservative. Those who predicted it would turn out to be Occupy Wall Streeters, atheists, progressives, etc are wrong as usual.  Tamarlan has already thankfully died and discovered that there ain't no 70 virgins waiting for him. His brother is likely to join him shortly.  And good riddance to them.  If they hated free society so much, its not clear why they couldn't have gone back to Chechnia.  What did the people of Boston ever do except to help and shelter these ungrateful jerks?

Boston Bombing Suspects: One Dead, One Trapped

Fortunately, the brothers who committed the Boston Marathon bombing appear to have been positively identified.  One is believed dead, in a shootout with police last night, and the other appears to be trapped in a house in Watertown.  Both men, Tamarlan Tsarnaev, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev are Russian immigrants from Khazakstan, though it is not known if they are radicalized due to Chechen origins, or if they had some other grievances. 
I long noted that this act has the stamps of amateurism all over it, and it that would likely turn out to be either foreign terrorists or right-wing extremists.  It will remain to be seen what political philosophy these inidividuals follow, but it doesn't particularly matter.  The important thing is that the situation will be resolved soon.

Massive Explosion at Fertilizer Plant in West, Texas

A fire at the West Fertilizer Company has resulted in a massive explosion that virtually flattened homes and commercial buildings in a five to six block radius, throwing up a mushroom cloud, and causing evacuation.  Currently, about 200 people have been hospitalized and between 5 and 15 fatalities are believed likely.  There is no indication of what may have caused the fire, or whether foul play may have been involved.

In all likelihood this is just the kind of industrial accident that periodically happens at facilities like this.  It is amazing though that a middle school and nursing home were close enough to be significantly damaged and require evacuation.  I don't know who would think it was a desirable thing to build in close proximity to a fertilizer plant to begin with.  In many small Texas towns, however, there is perhaps just one industry that dominates, and fertilizer appears to be the thing in West.

I am sure there will be lots of praying and soul searching in the aftermath, but it's doubtful than any answers will come of it. Was it really necessary to God's Divine Master Plan that this fertilizer plant blow up? Of course, good can often come out of tragedies, but any good that results from this most likely could have resulted without the need for these injuries and calamities in the first place.

Boston Bombing is Modern Day Boston Massacre. No Obama did NOT do it.

Right-wing blowhards don't seem to get this, so I'll spell it out for them.  The Boston Massacre was a *bad thing* that turned people *against* the *perpetrators*.  The original perpetrators were the British, but the current perpetrators are most likely right-wing, anti-tax TEA Party traitors.  There is no conceivable way that this incident will generate sympathy *for* their cause.  Some are claiming that it will be another "shot heard round the world", but it's more like "you guys just shot yourself in the head". 

Of course, after realizing this, then they will insist that OBAMA did it to make them LOOK BAD/STUPID.  Oh, that dirty dog.  If he wanted them to LOOK BAD/STUPID he could just stand back and DO NOTHING. 

As far as Obama orchestrating a low rent incident like this, no this one has rank amateur attention seeker written all over it.  Given all the other things Obama has been accused of, he would have to be anything but an amateur, and the Leader of the Free World can get people's attention whenever he pleases without having to pull some crazy stunt like this. 

Boston Bomb Massacre Update. 132 injured.

As the rest of the world continues to process the insanity of the April 15th terrorist bomb attack on the Boston Marathon that has left 2 dead, and 132 injured, the Boston Marathon has now become a modern day Boston Massacre.  While it is too early to known anything definitely, the likelihood that this date was picked coincidentially, given that every American knows it is the deadline for filing federal taxes, is so remote as to non-existent.  Instead, it seems very likely that this was the work of right-winger "tax protesters", who have staged many "tax protests" in the past, albeit mainly non-violent.  However, IRS and federal buildings have been targetted by right-wing extremists in the past.  The notion that this would be the work of a left-wing group like Occupy Wall Street, is extremely out of character for that organization who would probably put a bomb on ....you know....Wall Street, not a race course in Boston.  Of course, this could still be the work of foreign terrorists, but again, they seem obsessed with New York City, not Boston.  On the other hand the Taxed Enough Already (TEA) Party fanatics are very much associated with Boston.  Time will tell, but the odds make it an easy prediction that right-wing conspiratorial nutjobs were behind this one.

Boston Marathon Bomber. Guess the Lunatic.

An explosion near the finish line of the Boston Marathon has killed two people and injured around 28 more.  We are now left to wonder what precise type of lunatic is responsible.  It goes without saying that people who think that setting off a bomb in a public area like this have some sort of serious mental defect, or some equally defective political agenda.  Naturally, everyone picks opponents of their own political, religious, and ethnic agendas as the "usual suspects".  Still, if history is any guide, it is much more likely than not that these individuals will be either religious fanatics and/or political right-wingers, since they are the ones who have most commonly resorted to these actions in the past and seem to still advocate for them right now.  For example, the usual militant, anti-government, IRS-hating, anti-tax, TEA party types would likely pick April 15th, being the deadline for federal taxes.  Of course the right-wingers are insisting that it must be Occupy Walstreet, but it's unlikely that Occupy people particularly care about taxes, since they probably don't pay any, or the Boston Marathon.

Pint-sized Antichrist Kim Jung Un

Is it just me, or does Kim Jung Un just need to shave his head, and get a white cat in order to be Dr. Evil?  He's certainly short enough.  Heck he's short-enough to be the mini-me version of Dr. Evil. And he comes up with plots that are every bit as silly.  I'm sure that he has already been working feverishly at putting lasers on sharks to aid in his amphibious invasion of South Korea.
So what are the odds that Kim Jung Un is the antichrist?   Well he clearly has set himself up as a false idol for his people to worship as a bite-sized Buddha on Earth.  The only question is whether he has the ability to pull off the whole Armageddeon thing.  Sure he talks tough about "smashing the imperialists", etc.  However, the only thing this porky little potentate seems capable of smashing is the floor if he falls out of his overstuffed chair.  He would probably more accurately be classified as an antichrist wannabe.

Should Rick Warren Kill Himself to be with his son?

Rick Warren has had a good life.  That's an understatement.  He is the quintessential fat, extremely dumb, and extremely happy person.  He has made a fortune out of selling simple-minded nostrums to people.  But now he claims to be "overwhelmed" with grief about the death of his son, and both he and his son believe in the Christian afterlife.  Therefore, I have the perfect solution.  Since he still thinks his son will go to heaven after committing suicide, I am sure that god will allow Rick Warren the same largesse.  Apparently his son spoke to his dad specifically about this issue and argued that there is no reason that people should have to wait around on earth when they "know they are saved" and can go straight to heaven.  Anyone who is truly a christian and truly believes that heaven waits in the afterlife must agree.  After all this is basically what the founder of their religion did.  Of course, he committed suicide by centurion, provoking others to kill him, but the aim was the same.  In fact, many early christians reportedly did similar things, picking fights with others to get themselves killed, so that they could go their eternal reward.   If the only thing you have to do is mouth the words, "I wuv you jebus" to get eternal bliss why would anyone want to pass up this sweet deal.  If Warren is against killing himself then I am sure he can find some gang banger to do the deed for him for a couple hits of crack.

Rick Warren's Son finally escapes dad's "Purpose-driven Life"

Rick Warren can wear his goofy Hawaiian shirts, and blather childishly about how the purpose of life is for God to love you, but apparently his son saw through the ridiculous charade.  Matthew Warren realized that it's not 100% about what God wants, as his father, god's self-appointed representative on Earth, would have you believe.  Therefore he escaped from his torments the only way he ultimately could, by taking his own life.
The purpose of my life is not for some other being to determine.  The purpose of Matthew was not be a tool for mythical god figure, or a tool for his earthly father figure.  Of course, I am sure that Matthew was a constant source of vexation for his father's simple-minded philosophy and his simple-minded creed.  Why would god intentionally make matthew's brain in such a way that he would constantly experience depression?  The go-to explanation for everything bad in the world for Christian is to blame "free will", but one cannot claim, with a straight face these days, that mental illness is all a result of free will.  Even Rick Warren acknowledges that his son seems to have been afflicted since birth with these issues.  So what are we to make of this purpose drivel that Warren has peddled like snake oil to so many millions.  What was the purpose of Matthew's life?  Did god really need Matthew to suffer for 27 years just so that he could allegedly "love" him, but not lift a finger to cure the maladies that he could effortlessly fix?
Oh many will insist that this is unfair and that I am exploiting death. But his father is in the ultimate business of exploiting death.  Religion was invented, in large part, to exploit people's fear of death and it's what his father does as a full time profession.  So I am not the one exploiting his son's death, nor am I crowing about it.  I think it's better for Matthew that he be released from his agony. I don't think for a minute that he is really in heaven, but even the oblivion of death means a laying down of all burdens.  Even that is better than the hell on earth of his apparently uncurable depression, which Warren acknowledges all the religion, and the best doctors in the world were unable to dent.
Rick Warren claims that is son told him over a decade ago that he knew he was saved, so he didn't see why he shouldn't be able to end his suffering and kill himself.  Apparently the pastor had no adequate answer for his son, and indeed Christianity has no answer for it either, since would seem like a great idea to get to heaven as soon as possible.  Their only attempt at an answer thus far has been to claim that "God said not to...that's why", like a frustrated parent to a toddler.  Such answers never satisfy even toddlers, and apparently don't satisfy the sons of pastors either.

Its 3/13/13. Will new pope be elected at 13:13 pm

It's double 13 day today, since the day and the year end in 13.  I'm not a superstitious person, but 13 is considered an unlucky number.  Judas was the 13th apostle.  Add to this the fact that medieval prophecies attributed to Saint Malachy say that there will be 112 popes before "doomsday" and Ratzinger was number 111.  Like I say, I don't believe in superstitions, but it would be a numerologically unlucky coincidence for the pope to be elected today, especially if the hour or minute includes a 13.  That would be doubly true if the Catholic church elects their first ever black pope, since cardinal Turkson, is a well-liked and viable candidate for pope this time.   As some people have heard it is now popular to claim that the Anti-christ will be a dark-skinned man.  This pretty  preposterous interpretation was heavily used against Barack Obama during both elections in the US, and we can expect that some will use it against Turkson as well in the papal elections.

Last Pope Prophecy Another Doomsday Prediction

With the previous pope now stepping down (sort of) and the cardinals meeting to pick his replacement, the usual suspects have emerged to claim that all of this silliness is part of vague and strange prophecies dating back to the middle ages.  Of course there is the go to prophet of Dumbassery, NostraDumbass himself, who can always be counted on to furnish something vague and undated.  But there is also the alleged writings of Saint Malachy, which many believe are a late forgery.  The text attributed to him names 112 popes from his day in the 1100's up to judgment day.  Benedict XVI is supposedly the 111th.  But most of the one line descriptions of the popes are very vague after the late 1500's, when the forgery was written.  But what's one more failed prophecy and one more holy forgery in a religion chock full of them?  After the Mayan prophecy,  I noted that this would have no effect on the superstitious, who will keep churning out new nonsense as though the previous nonsense didn't even exist.

Besides, if this next pope (allegedly named peter) is the last pope, we don't know how long he will be pope before doomsday.  He could live a very long time, or he could have a heart attack five minutes after being elected.

Hugo Chavez Dead. God Couldn't Save Him

Unlike other Marxists, like his atheist buddy Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez insisted that he remained devoutly Christian, in keeping with his Roman Catholic upbringing.  His religiosity seems only to have intensified since his battle with cancer began.  However, apparently all that praying couldn't cure his disease.  Indeed the 87-year-old atheist Fidel Castro is still around and kicking and Chavez is not.  So much for the power of prayer.

Former Pope Benny No Longer Infallible?

So, now that Pope Benedict has resigned and returned to just being plain old Joseph Ratzinger, what of his former Papal Infallibility.  He used to have a direct line to God, or so we have been told, on important matters of faith.  Has his long-distance account been terminated now?  Has told Benny that he no longer has any minutes left on his plan, and changed the access code?  Maybe without the papal decoder ring and staff and funny hat he can't receive the proper transmissions any more.
What if the new pope does say things that Benny disagrees with.  I know that right now the former Pope Benedict claims that he will be "obedient" to his new successor.  But why should he even need to say that unless there is a possibility that they will disagree?  Don't they talk to the same God?  Oh, right the new pope has the decoder ring now.  But don't you think that Pope Benny already downloaded God's answers on all the important issues of the day when he was pope all the way up to yesterday?  Are we really to believe that,  if the new pope is installed next month, and he then proceeds to abolish some policy that Ratzinger set up, that the Almighty changed his mind?
In short, isn't it time to admit that Popes are nothing but normal men (except in the alleged case of Pope Joan)?  Isn't it time to admit that they have no special access to God and that they are anything but infallible?

Pope Benny is Pope No More

Well Pope Benny is finally no longer the pope again, and they are not even sure when a new one will be selected, despite initial promises that it would be before Easter.  So Benny will go back to just being Ratty old Ratzinger.  He was a cardinal, but presumably he is retired from that as well.  I wonder if he will still dress up like a pimp or not.  I bet he will still wear a cross dress in the little man-skirts that Catholic priests and monks are wont to wear.

Why being pope is the easiest job in the world (part 2)

OK, so I get that Benedict is like 100 years old.  But you could be 150 year old  chimp and still do that job reasonably well.  First off, with enough funny hats and robes and a little bit of makeup (alright, maybe a little plastic surgery too), nobody would be able to tell you were a chimp.  Oh and you might need a few voice lessons, but John Paul II proved that you don't need much of a speaking voice.  Grunting is more than sufficient.
As with most things, the problem is that most people "over-think" it.  Now suppose that someone asks you some ridiculously tough question with no obvious right answer.  You don't have to be a genius to respond.  Here's all you gotta do.  Say, "Good question my son/daughter!  Let's pray together and see what God's answer is."  This will be enough for most people, because they will answer their own question and then say it's what God told them.  But for those who come back you can be like, "Oh, you again, eh?  Still didn't get an answer?  Did you read the Bible?  Twice?  And no skipping the boring parts!  That's what I thought!"  Note that actually, no matter how many times the person says he or she read the Bible, you will say, "Go back and read it ONE MORE TIME.  Oh, and make sure to pray (A LOT) for your answer while you're doing it."  If they still come back after that then you can lay some super-vague fortune cookie wisdom on them or quote them the lyrics of a pop song and if they still say, "How do you know that?" you just tell them, "Because I'm the Pope, that's why.  Next!"
Aside from that, being pope is just like being one of those mascot guys who get paid to dress in a costume outside some low rent business and dance around until people come inside.  Of course, if you're 150, you'll hire a "Pope double" or a "stunt Pope" to do those parts for you.

Pope Benedict Quits Easiest Job in World

OK, let me get this straight.  Pope Benedict has the absolute easiest, softest job in the world and he thinks its too hard, so we wants to resign.  I mean, let's get real, how hard is it really to be the Pope?  Is holding your gold and jewel encrusted scepter really that tough?  Does wearing the goofy hat make your neck muscles hurt? Is it that hard to live in palaces filled with priceless artwork and sit on the softest pillows atop your thrones and pulpits?

You are basically a king -- one of the last divine right monarchs in Europe -- and have people to do absolutely everything for you including wipe. That's why nobody has resigned the job in the last 600 years.

Now, I know people are still going to say that it must be "stressful" and compare it to being President of the US (POTUS), or some other head of state.  However, really, it is nowhere near as hard as being the POTUS.  For one thing, they can't vote you out of office no matter what you do.  Secondly, you don't have to convince anyone of anything.  It might be like the Supreme Court, but there is only one of you, and your word is law.  Plus, your decisions don't have to make a lick of sense.  In fact, it's better if nobody understands them.

You ain't gonna find an easier or better paid job, and it's not like Benedict had a lot of other marketable job skills.

Ding Dong Benedict Resigns. Term Limits for Popes?

Pope BeenADick has been the pope now for 8 years, but is now doing perhaps the most beneficial thing of his entire career, which is to resign from it.  He is quoted as saying, "I recognize my incapacity", but many of the rest of us recognized this before Ratzinger even elevated himself to this ill-considered position.  He was clearly far beyond retirement age even when he started as the Pope.  Granted he may have been more mentally functional than John Paul II.  However, so were most carrots on an average day.

As expected, his abortive little stint in the bully (literally) pulpit of Church was one last ditch effort to turn the clock back in many ridiculous ways.  Fortunately it failed.

However, his 8 year reign of errors does bring up a point about the terms that popes serve.  Even American presidents only serve 8 years.  Surely we shouldn't have to suffer popes even longer than that.

BTW, we can only hope that the Catholic leadership will seize this opportunity to find a progressive leader, though I wouldn't hold my breathe.  One could be waiting for a lot more than 8 years for that.

Travis Alexander and Mormon Virginity Farce

It is being reported that Travis Alexander, they estranged lover of Jodi Arias, whom she admits to brutally killing, wanted  to conceal his relationship with Arias from his Mormon friends, not because she was a CRAZY F*(KING B1T(H, but because he was a professed "virgin" and didn't want to his buddies in the local ward to know what he was tapping. This cult of virginity would be inappropriate in this century for just about any person over the age of about 16.  But it is even more inappropriate when coming from a religion that glorifies screwing as many women as you can convince to be your "wives", and the younger/dumber the better.  This is from a religion where chief figures in its foundation were legendary for their unrestrained excesses in the kinky, naughty department, with pretty much anything that moved, livestock included.

Therefore, while Mormon-boy certainly didn't deserve to be cut to pieces by his deranged paramour, one can't help but marvel at the bizarre beliefs that his church tried to force upon him, and he tried to pretend to uphold.  Of course, with all the pictures of Jodi and him on the internet, his "dirty little secret" seems to have been about as secure as the secret formula for Coca Cola (corn syrup + water).

Of course, they accepted Arias as a convert to mormonism, even though it was probably clear from day one that she had been banged on more times than the Book of Mormon and the Bible combined.

Also, what can really be said about the fact that Alexander was into watching UFC and mixed martial arts, and yet he gets offed by some 95 pound, mousy little waif.  I guess actually being able to fight is a lot harder than watching it on TV, eh?

Will Westboro Baptist Hate Group Picket in Brazil

The Westboro Baptist Hate group that normally pickets the funerals of american soldiers, and who wanted to picket the funerals of the children massacred at Sandy Hook elementary now has an opportunity to go international with the recent night club fire in Brazil that has claimed hundreds of lives.  Perhaps they can fly down there and see if Brazilian families will put up with their hateful antics.  I suspect that Mr. Phelps and his crew are far too chicken$h1t to do that, however. They're probably afraid that nobody would want to let them back in the country again, once they left.  But here is their opportunity.  Here's a little something to get them started.  In Portuguese, "God hates fags" is "Deus odeia bichas".

Brazil Nightclub Fire Not God's Wrath Just Pyrotechnics

When there is a fire in an over-crowded nightclub, as there inevitably will be, every few years, one can expect the various holy rollers to come out of the woodwork insisting that God has visited a "Sodom and Gomorrah" style fire and brimstone judgment upon the approximately 230 people who died there.  However, it appears that the real reason was the pyrotechnics that the band was using and the lack of adequate fire suppression.  I know that answer isn't as titillating to the Westboro Baptist jacka$$es who want to spin everything as an opportunity to play God and pass judgment on others.  By the way, I hope they go down and try to picket some of those funerals.  We shouldn't have to see their faces anymore.  Of course they would have to get their signs printed in Portuguese.  How does one say, "God hates fags" in Portuguese, anyway.

Arias Holy Ghost Sex and Whoredom Email

Just in case you weren't sure of how crazy Jodi Arias was, or whether her religious beliefs were at the root of her craziness, the ex-girlfriend of Travis Alexander, the guy Arias admits to killing, has an email that almost certainly came from Arias where who lays out the crazy for all to see. This is what the email said in part:
"You are a shameful whore. Your Heavenly Father must be deeply ashamed of the whoredoms you’ve committed with that insidious man. If you let him stay in your bed one more time or even sleep under the same roof as him, you will be giving the appearance of evil. You are driving away the Holy Ghost, and you are wasting your time..."  Of course, Jodi Arias resembles those remarks in just about every respect.  My theory is that perhaps the "Holy Ghost" originally wrote that email to Jodi, but just forgot to CC it to all of Travis's other girlfriends.  So Jodi rectified that little error by forwarding it to the various other bimbos Travis had been boffing in addition to her.

Quintuple Mass-murder in Albquerque NM

It is being reported that 15-year-old Nehemiah Griego, nephew of State Senator Eric Griego, murdered his father, prison chaplain Greg Griego, and four other family members, three of who were children.  An assault-weapon style rifle appears to be the primary weapon that was used.  Reporting of this last fact immediate drew the ire of lunatic gun nuts everywhere, who predictably trotted out every straw man fallacy in the book such as, "guns don't kill people..." and "you could kill someone with a tennis racket, so let's ban that and not the device that was actually used".
At least it will be difficult to argue that this kid killed because of lack of the Ten Commandments being taught, given that his father was a preacher.  Naturally, some other bogeyman, like violent movies will have to be blamed, even though they have the same violent movies in Canada and Australia, but don't have as many gun massacres, due to stricter GUN REGULATIONS.  How was this 15-year-old able to obtain ready access to a rapid-firing, high power assault style weapon?

Islamic Militants Murder 35 Westerners

Current reports indicate that Islamic militants who claim association with Al Qaeda had killed as many as 35 hostages, after attacking a BP plant in Algeria.  These individuals apparently are lead by a one-eyed smuggler and kidnapper called "Mr. Marlboro".  However, they nonetheless use the trappings and rhetoric of militant Islam to attempt to justify their actions.  Thus they have labelled the BP workers as "Crusaders" despite the fact that they hail from many countries, including Japan, and therefore are not likely to all be Christian.  Then again, Mr. Marlboro is about as much of a muslim as Saddam Hussein was, which is to say, in name only.

Jury in Arias Case Apparently Retarded

Jodi Arias has ADMITTED KILLING Travis Alexander, after radically changing her story completely, multiple times before.  To any intelligent person this would at least indicate perjury.  However, the Arizona jury, now in deliberation is asking questions like, "Dur.....ummm....did police check the alibis of Alexander's friends" (OK, they didn't have the "Dur" or the "ummm" part, but probably only because the questions have to be written, and they couldn't figure out how to spell "Dur" or "ummm", and didn't have a dictionary handy.  That's right, Arizona is one of three states where juries can ask questions of witnesses on their own, independent of those asked by attorneys.  HELLO, she is officially pleading guilty to being the killer, but is merely making an extremely unpersuasive argument that she did it in "self-defense".  Why do they need to check the alibis of friends if she now says that she is the one who did it?  Not only that, but there are F*CKING pictures of her dragging Travis's body, recovered from the camera.  Has the AZ school system really gotten this bad?  Is it something in the water?  Or are they really incapable of thinking that a pretty, dainty little thing like Jodi could do such a thing, even when she ADMITS it?

Mormon murderess Jodi Arias A Real Piece of Work

It seems that Jodi Arias is determined to be the next Casey Anthony.  Poor little Jodi is always depicted in a perpetual state of feeling sorry for herself (for getting caught, at least).  Poor little me.  I've only changed my story a dozen times about what actually happened.  As despicable as Holmes is, at least he has the honesty to crack a grin when looking at the evidence against him now and then, if to say, "effin A I did it, and enjoyed it too".  Not that any mentally sound person could enjoy that sort of thing.  By definition you would have to be perfectly OK with such things.  But whereas Holmes seems certifiably out to lunch and as calm as if he were watching his favorite TV show, apparently Jodi wants to put on Soap Opera theatrics.

On and, as far as the fact that she converted to Mormonism, yes it is technically correct, but she does seem to be way less of a Mormon than Mitt Romney, assuming that such a thing is possible for a man who took both sides of every conceivable issue.  But then along comes Jodi to lower the bar still farther.  She's the kind of Mormon who apparently sleeps around a lot and can casually kill people like it's all in a days work.  Mitt Romney only wanted to outsource your job and steal your grandma's social security, but at least he didn't want to stab you 27 times.  That would be too much work and he might have to momentarily remove that plastic smile from his face while doing it.

James Holmes and the Dangers of Delusion

The well known critic of religion, Friedrich Nietzsche famously commented that "A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith proves nothing".  Indeed, we have only to look to the example of Aurora mass-murderer James Holmes, who is (or at least was) convinced that the world was Batman comic book and that he was the Joker.  Current reports describe the elaborate, though somewhat Rube Goldberg booby trap contraption that he set up at his apartment, hoping it would kill whoever entered it to investigate the loud music. For those who insist that Mr. Holmes is "faking" mental illness, this device clearly demonstrates that he was the "real deal" in terms of being a sociopath, anyway.  

The question of whether we should execute a violent sociopath like James Holmes or Ander Brevik, etc is a separate matter.  I think it would be hard for any reasonable person who knew what Holmes did to ever feel safe around him, even if he were somehow declared "cured" of his illness.  Because of the threat that he would represent to society I think that society could quite easily argue that executing him was a simple matter of self-defense.  Then the issue of his mental state isn't even relevant, because it only matters that he is dangerous, and not whether he is acting out of insanity versus depravity.  

However, what most people refuse to confront in a case such as this, is the clear danger of holding absurd beliefs.  At the very least, the mere act of believing highly paranoid and nonsensical things often forces one to distort ones view of the rest of the world.  When the world is constantly telling you one thing, but you desperately want to believe something else, such as that you live in a comic book, then you will have no choice but to distort the information from the world around you to conform to your agenda.  Of course, it helps if you have a neurological disorder that generates your delusions "naturally", but delusions can come from the outside as well.  

People who actually believe elaborately paranoid claims about the Illuminati and the New World Order, under the secret leadership of Muslim Marxist Kenyan-born Barrack Obama, coming to confiscate your gun and your Bible so they can throw you in a concentration camp are holding a belief just as insane as Holmes, even though they may not have the neurologic disorder that Holmes does.  Of course, most right-wingers don't literally believe all of these things.  They just don't like Obama and therefore they are potentially sympathetic to almost anything other people say that is critical of him, even if it's way out there.  

However, the ones we have to be careful of are the ones who that that seriously, because they are the future Timothy McVeighs and James Holmes's of the world.  

christaholic justin bieber caught ogling victorias secret models

On more than one occasion Justin Bieber has been observed ogling and fraternizing with the Victorias Secret models who are part of his stage act.  Any man with a penis would do the same thing, but Justin isn't supposed to be man or have a penis.  That's right, he loves Jebus so much that he wants to take it up the butt from the jay man.  Plus he just broke up with Selena.  So apparently he is having some temptations of the flesh and Jesus would not be happy about that at all.  In fact Jesus would recommend that Justin chop off his shrivelled little boy wee-wee and cast it into the fire, instead of going to hell for being a fornicator.  So I wonder what Justin will do.  My money is that he will succumb to temptation and then expect to be forgiven later. 

Wishful weight loss resolutions Part 2

As noted in part 1, the bottom line to why most people won't lose weight or succeed in their other resolutions is because they approach it from the perspective of magical, wishful thinking.  They want the result, but they aren't really willing to do anything of substance to accomplish it.  They think that wanting something is all that it take to accomplish it, but they have no realistic plan.

It's like a person saying, "I want to climb Mount Everest", who knows nothing about climbing mountains.   We wouldn't take such a person seriously, because we know that it takes experience, and training, and planning to climb Mount Everest. Of course, it sounds rather rude to tell an over-weight person that he or she will similarly not succeed in weight loss because that person doesn't have a plan, and doesn't have the training to know how to lose weight effectively.  Rude or not, however, it happens to be the unvarnished truth.

Also, if your "plan" is to "hire a trainer" or "join a gym" then that is just pretending to have a plan and hoping that the act of wasting money will somehow burn calories.  Nobody ever got thin just by spending money. And if they aren't even willing to do something simple, like change what they drink, they they certainly aren't going to change how they eat or exercise.

As far as exercise, this needs to be addressed too. Many people who aren't even willing to give up sugars and fried foods still vow that they will undertake Herculeanian exercise routines, and that this will allow them to lose weight, while still eating garbage.  It is yet another urban myth that you can exercise weight off without changing your diet.  You can't burn enough calories with exercise to make up for eating all those double-quarter pounders and super-sized fries.  Those few who even try will be too sore to move the next day and that defeat will provide a ready excuse to return to one's old food addictions.

BTW, you may be wondering what the hell I could possibly know about this subject.  Well, I have never been overweight, but I put on a few pounds a year for almost 20 years after high school until I was right on the verge of being obese.  Then, this summer, I decided to do what I know I always should have been doing, which was to cut out carbs, eat way more salads (no dressing) and drink water or tea only.  The result is that I lost 40 pounds.

Everyone I knew was shocked.  "How did you do it", they all wanted to know.  The answer sounds boring, because all I did is what every health professional has always said to do.  I did happen to know some things about health, as it turns out.  My parents always made sure I ate healthy, organic food growing up and I have been a health teacher.  I have tried diets in the past, so I know what the popular systems were, but I never really stuck to them or felt that I needed them.

That's actually the second thing that everyone told me.  "You didn't even need to lose weight".  Well, technically that's not true.  I was way over the weight that I needed to be.  Besides, should I really wait until I put on another 40 pounds and I feel too old and fat to deal with losing 80 pounds.  There isn't a special moment that one needs to wait for to start being healthy.  You can start it any time.

Furthermore, it's not really about weight.  It's just about eating things that contribute to your health and not eating more than you need.  Even though my cholesterol wasn't too high, and my blood pressure was borderline, and my glucose levels were good, I didn't want to wait until they got bad in order to get off my butt and do something.

Of course, the hardest part isn't losing the weight, it's keeping it off.  I may address that in Part 3.

Wishful weight loss resolutions Part 1

Magical thinking is the problem that most people have.  Far and away the top so-called "resolution" of people polled is to "lose weight" .... so long as they have to do absolutely NOTHING to accomplish it.
When people tell me that they want to lose weight I usually advise that they start by drinking nothing but water (or unsweetened tea).  That right there is usually enough to deter most people from losing weight.  "But I LIKE soda...", they tell me.  I don't even bother to explain to them that they don't actually know what they like because they have been programmed by thousands of hours of television advertisement to believe that they "like" whatever Coca Cola and Pepsi tells them they should like.  So, as an alternative, I tell them "then only drink diet sodas".  "But I DON'T LIKE diet sodas".  That's why you're fat.  Because you're not even willing to do something as simple as drink water or diet soda.  Of course some of them repeat the "artificial sweeteners give you cancer" bull$hit urban legends constantly repeated by the sugar and corn syrup industries.  First off, there are sweeteners like Stevia that are completely natural (not that this proves its healthy), but even sweeteners like sucralose or aspartame, no matter how bad you might believe they are, are better for you than the alternative which is obesity causing, calorie rich sugar and corn syrup.  Oh, I know people want to believe that "natural" cane sugar is "better" than corn syrup, and maybe it is on some level, but you still don't want either one.  There will still be the equivalent of 16 teaspoons of sugar or corn syrup in your average "Big Gulp" and you shouldn't be eating that amount of sugar all day, not to mention just at one meal, or several times a day.

Bottom line, if you want to lose weight then you will have to do something.  You have to give up something.  You have to make some kind of sacrifice, compared to your normal routine.  If you can't even give up drinking high calorie sodas, then you will never have the discipline to take things any further and lose real amounts of weight.