Ooh!!! Those Damned Canucks are Getting Rather Uppity!!!!

All right Toaster, we need to step this shit up... Time to head into that super secret laboratory on the bottom of Lake Superior and start cranking out some Canuck asswooping!!!!

You want to play tough with US, Canada?!?!? It's on motherfuckers!!!!11!!1111!!!!! This plan for world domination is staring with your motherfucking polite little asses there, eh!!!!!!11!!!!!!!

Time for some motherfucking moose casserole!!!!!1!111!!!!

You violated the conventions against torture, by giving us Celine Dione, now were bringing it back with a vengeance!!!1!!1!11!

(Thanks for Neil Young though, just to be fair)

(Not that we're going to fight fair, we're going to DESTROY, DESTROY, DESTROY!!!!!1!!11!!!1!)

(And we won't be setting up a moosemincontrol ray on Mackinaw Island - Nor will we be engaging in psychological warfare involving impoliteness, littering and bumping into you until you lose your mind from repeatedly apologizing*)

(*See Toaster, now they don't know the plans anymore)

Fuck Homogenized Atheism

Over at Greg Laden's blog (he often has some of the best conversations), I have gotten into a rather heated exchange with a Nathan Myers (my response starting after this comment) and intended on posting about the baseline question/assertion I made - and I still do. But then another commenter, Volcanoman, made a rather impassioned plea that I can appreciate, while thinking it's a really bad (not to mention impossible) fucking idea. I rather spent more time than I probably should have on my response and realized that it is a rather important point, so I am posting it here. And because I have three tests in the next two days (the two hardest tomorrow) and really need to study some more, I am not going to muck about with it...

The world is an increasingly nasty place and its rational people, although naturally fractious and irritable it seems, need to come to common understanding and present a unified message of intelligent discourse, robust information, and moral superiority.

LOLWTF?

What you don't seem to understand, Volcanoman, is that there isn't some common understanding and never will be. The fact that we happen to agree that religion is a bad idea, does not imply any sort of common understanding - many of us think religion is a bad thing for very different reasons in the first place.

Take the rather heated interaction between Nathan and myself - whichever one of us might be right, we absolutely do not have a common understanding and given the general tenor that our exchange took, it is unlikely that we ever will. If we do come to a common understanding of the issue we're discussing here, it won't be because of each other - I don't generally find myself deciding to agree with assholes who talk smack and I doubt he tends to decide suddenly he agrees with people who call him a complete and utter fucking moron. So if we ever do find ourselves on common ground in this, it will be because others convinced one or both of us that another position is the correct one.

And a lack of religious belief is not a reasonable foundation on which to build any unified message, nor is it inherently a precursor to intelligent discourse. Like I said, people decide that religion is bad, or that they simply don't believe, for a vast array of reasons - not all of them intelligent and by definition not unified.

Chris Mooney, for example, is not religious because he grew up without religion. He was never inundated with Faith and therefor it is perfectly natural for him to be an atheist. Me on the other hand - I struggled and fought for the vast majority of my life to desperately cling to the remnants of the very profound, very deep seated, absolute Faith of my childhood. It was only after a nearly thirty year odyssey through Faith and conflicting reason, that I finally lost the war of attrition and became an atheist. It took even longer and was only after my interactions with people who were damaged even more than I was by Faith and then with people who's experience was far less intense but just as nefarious, that I came to believe that religious indoctrination of children is inherently abusive and moreover, that it was intensely abusive to me personally.

Chris Mooney, OTOH, hates it when people say the sorts of things I said in my last sentence. Comfortable enough position to take, when one has never experienced the abusive nature of religious indoctrination. And you think that I am even capable of joining a unified message with Chris, or anyone else who believes it would be better if people with opinions such as mine, kept them to ourselves?

And quite frankly (and honestly no offense intended), you can take your moral superiority and shove it up your ass. Atheism does not make anyone morally superior to anyone else, nor does theism make anyone morally inferior to anyone else. I know a whole hell of a lot of people I would judge morally superior to others - and religion has absolutely nothing to do with that judgment. There are a lot of people, theists and otherwise, who follow a moral framework that is similar to my own and many of them manage better than I do. There are also a lot of people who behave and even fundamentally conduct their lives in a way that goes hard against the most important aspects of my moral framework - many of them theists and many of them atheists.

Never mind that those folks feel quite the same about me and my moral framework. Though that does shoot us back to the last point. Because if I can't show a unified front with Chris Mooney, who in spite of our significant difference of opinion is probably living a lifestyle that is closely aligned to my moral framework, can I be expected to be unified with someone who's moral framework is fundamentally different than my own? I disagree with Chris and cannot come to a consensus with him on some fundamental issues, but I rather like Chris and would probably enjoy hanging out with him and having dinner.

I cannot say the same about an atheist who believes that social safetynets are an infringement of their rights, that torture is ok, if it is making us safer, that the rule of law can be thrown under the bus, when push comes to shove - I could go on and on. People like this I wouldn't want to have dinner with, even if they happen to have virtually identical views to my own on religion.

But the bottom line, absolutely fundamentally fatal flaw to your line of reasoning here, is in the functional fulfillment of this goal. Because while I am sure that there are people who have made positive changes in their lives, due to the way Chris Mooney deals with religion, it wasn't a Chris Mooney who helped push me past the final blocks. Likewise, there are people who appreciate my condor and general attitude about Faith - people who are, or recently were theists, who find themselves rather intrigued by my attitude and where it comes from - they, like me, are unlikely to make the choices we would like them to, because of what a Chris Mooney - or for that matter, a PZ Myers has to say about it.

There are a lot of assholes in the world, who are assholes in much the same way that I am an asshole. And guess what? They appreciate assholes like themselves and the way we put things.

I like you and appreciate your position - I really do. But I have no interest in your homogenized, "Kumbaya," campfire fucking bullshit. We need all of us, being who we are, to affect positive change. Because when the positive change in question is an end to religion and lack of religion is the only common thread, homogenization isn't going to get us very far.

And btw, Motherfucking Canadians are going Down Eh!!!!!!!!!11!!11111!!!!!

I love to be loved...

Not sure exactly who is sending it - it may even be the company that makes them, but I am extremely grateful to whoever decided that I should have the newer generation e-cigarette. I got an email from the company a couple days ago, confirming the order to my address. Kind of freaked at first, because the order is for the E9 with several cartridges - an order totaling about $100 including shipping, thinking there was a mistake that I was going to get charged for.

There wasn't. I emailed them and was simply told that it was not charged to my account. They didn't say that they actually sent it, but given the language issues and that they use a third party for "help" questions, that doesn't rule it out. And I had mentioned to them that I have been writing about their E9m, which is a very different model, they may have decided they wanted me to write about the new generation nicotine vaporizer.

In any case, I will have the opportunity to write about the E9 within the week.

But if one of my readers decided I should have one, I would like to say thank you ever so much. And just in case anyone was wondering, I really love books. I am all about the books really. Especially books by people who want to send them to me and find out what I think about their books. In fact, if anyone sends me their book to review - I would be all about reading and reviewing it.

I almost forgot to give an update on the smoking, while I am on the topic...

I am still smoking, having steadied at about 3-5 cigarettes a day, sometimes only two. I had a couple of days that went to six, but have been doing less far more than more. I do seem rather stuck on the last few, but that is far better (and cheaper) than the average of 20+ I was on before. Mine does seem to be a common experience with the e-cig, though there are plenty of folks who manage to quit tobacco altogether rather quickly.

Can any of my readers tell me about Glucosamine/chondroitin supplements?

Yet another supplement that I would really love to see studied further. It is maddening to find that there is a great deal of information out there - almost uniformly positive, yet be unable to find more than a couple of NIH studies that are cautiously optimistic. One of them was pretty much focused on the actual amount of these substances in various products, compared to the amount the label claimed they contain.

I am going to try it since my doctor let me know that there is no reason to think it would mix badly with my meds, but I would love to know if anyone can give me some more information. I didn't actually get to talk directly with my doctor, but his head nurse let me know that he has recommended it to patients and thought it might be helpful for me. At the same time, she emphasized that it's unlikely that he knows of more information about these supplements than I am (they know how I tend to be about this sort of thing).

I have spent a while on medline and pubmed. I have yet to spend much time in the databases of full papers I have access to. If any of you know of something you would point me to, please feel free.

Thanks for all the fish!!!

One would think that a bunch of Educated Scientists...

...Would recognize the rising of old ones from the depths of time and space - but apparently they want to find a more "normal" explanation for the sewer blob that portends the rise of Cthuluh!!! Juniper sent me a link to this hellish video...PZ Meyers and Dr. M seem to think it's just some sort of worm...

I hope they get eaten first - after the loons...



Yet another thing to love about my partner - she recognizes OUR DOOM!!! for what it is...

For the record...

...I have the absolute greatest girlfriend and partner ever.

Not only does she put up with, well, me, she is also in love with me. I love not being alone. I love knowing that no matter what kind of day I have, I have Juniper to make it better - and she has me.

No matter how much life sucks sometimes...

...Life is fucking good!!!

Juxtaposition 235: Cthuluh, Jack Chick and Child Abuse

Update: Dan J, in his total awesomeness, managed to find a link to a PDF of the Cthuluh tract at the artist's web site... Thanks Dan. I would also like to heartily recommend giving his latest post a read - I can't help but be terribly pleased to find that someone else came up with a rather more "profane" rant than I did - and a very good one at that. He makes several points that I will delve into at some point in the relatively near future - I am more than a little fucking tired of this bullshit notion that we should accept dangerous behaviors and decision making from people, that we wouldn't accept under any other circumstances, simply because there is religion involved.

As Dan so eloquently puts it; Fuck Them!!!

It is terribly amusing to me, that at the same time I managed to get into an argument with someone about Tiamat and the fact that Cthuluh is really cause for far more concern, because frankly Cthuluh wouldn't kick Tiamat's ass - h'd jst fckng eat hr, I also noted this delicious little tidbit posted at Pharyngula. I found it while perusing a few blogs that were involved in the crushing of my hopes for Canadian healthcare. I have a rather dark sense of humor, so I thought it was more than a little amusing. But when I was talking about it with my dearest Juniper, I realized that there is an element to the humor that one is likely to miss, if they never experienced Chick Tracts when they were a child. In a most unfortunate turn, it seems that the old tracts aren't available online and the new ones aren't quite on a par with the ones I was exposed to as a child, but I did find a couple that provide a decent taste. "The Beast" shows a common theme that runs through many of these tracts, providing up with a glimpse of what we can expect in these "end times." There were a lot of scenes that showed us what hell was like, showed Satan as a deceiver and even several that talked about specific demons and types of demons.

Juniper just didn't find the Cthuluh tract nearly so amusing at the end - it is, I will grant, rather disturbing. But honestly, it is not the least bit more disturbing than a lot of the Chick tracts are and were even moreso when I was growing up. And when I was four, five and six, I read Chick tracts all the time. There were scads of them at church and I happened to be rather adept at ferreting about in the sorts of places they got stored. They were comics, which are just lovely fun for a child and no one thought anything of seeing any of us kids reading these abominations. Never mind the demons and souls and brutal destruction of life and property - it was all for the greater biblical good of raising good Christian children. It was also a hell of a indoctrination tool. And it is ever so useful for a small child to get a headstart in understanding demonology.

During this same conversation, Juniper and I got to discussing my parochial school experience - it actually came up when I casually mentioned being paddled by the principle fairly regular like. It occurred to her that this was a very good expression of this concept of arationality that I have been on about, since I first noted it's use by that albino gorilla, John Wilkins. Because I think it's important to recognize that a great deal of creationist and general religious thinking falls outside the purview of the rational/irrational dichotomy - though my opinion about the value of that understanding would probably differ fairly significantly from John's. So picture a bit of my life, if you will and see just how irrational my thinking was as a child and how irrational much of my adult life has been...

Fast forward to the third grade - I have been steeped in such brilliance as those older Chick Tracts. I am firmly entrenched in the terrorizing Belief that my dad and other people I love quite dearly are bound for eternal torment in hell, unless they accept my god in their lives. I am already a "Royal Ranger," the scout group that is part of the Pentecostal, fundamentalist church my mom and I are attending. And now I am getting set to start school at the same church. Without five days a week of elementary school, I am spending the vast majority of my time in this church. I'm in the choir, I am there on Weds for Royal Rangers, I am often there on Sat, for events involving both and there are a lot of activities happening throughout the summer. And now I am going to be there for school. Where I will learn some academics - and a whole lot more of the religious nonsense - six, often seven days a fucking week.

I was rather cleverer than the average bear, no question. But all the cleverness in the world is for naught, when all that is going in is filtered through rather extreme dogma. I was, at one point, taught that intellectualism was another religion - much like evolution - a tool of Satan. I was taught that I needed to focus all of that intellectual acuity on things that fostered my faith and the faith of others. My dad ran a strong counterpoint to the notion that focusing much of my intellectual acumen on anything not within the purview of my faith was wrong. But that didn't stop me from developing some rather deep seated shame - shame that would ease up from the recesses of my mind, to make me rather frustrated with myself - possibly even ashamed of myself, whenever I allowed my intellect to be wasted on anything that didn't bring glory to my god. After all, God had given me this intellect - how dare I ever waste it on the world...

Chris Mooney wonders, in his reply to me, why the realm of moderate faith isn't a reasonable place for fundies like I was to end up - at least for a while. Why I shouldn't, in spite of my anger, recognize that this is better for that person than being a fundie. Well here's the problem with that...

I have always been an insatiably curious person - I was curious before my infant eyes could clearly view the world around me, I was curious when my brother taught me to read at two, I was curious and I was clever. I was also pervasively lied to for many years - lies made no less egregious because those inundating me with them believed the lies themselves. I was taught to be ashamed of too much curiosity, unless that curiosity was firmly focused on the dogma I was constantly and consistently hammered with - day in and day out. I was taught that the majority of the humanity that I was commanded to love, were going to suffer for all of eternity in hell, because they didn't worship the right god, didn't worship the right god properly or didn't worship any god at all. I spent subsequent decades trying to make reality fit within the confines of dogma - tried to shift the dogma to accommodate reality - became increasingly desperate to find some way to hold onto my Faith, because that was right and critically important.

Please, if you don't see it as such - please explain to me how that experience of mine wasn't child abuse that led to decades of hell. Drug abuse, self-loathing and unrelenting depths of despair, masked by extremes of sensory overload from sex, drugs, writing and music.

More importantly, why should I sit back and pretend that this moderation that Chris speaks so highly of is any better for some of those people, than it was for me. At least when I was a fundie, I was somewhat content. I wasn't desperate to make it all make sense, because it made sense - I didn't need to question, because the answers were there and beyond those answers was minutia that I could parse easily, through prayer and study. Yes, I was occasionally angry and ashamed by my inability to focus everything on my god - but it was unquestionably easier than the suffering of the last eighteen to twenty years of my life.

I am certain that there are many people who are more than happy to live in that realm of moderate faith - I don't really care. Because for many people, that moderate faith is merely fundamentalism tainted and broken by doubts. A desperate place where the reality is an increasingly desperate need to make the absolutely incompatible weave into the fresh whole cloth of a coherent worldview.

I am for helping them, helping people like me - period. If some moderates and fundies get hurt, angry or offended along the way - well honestly, I'm not even really sorry about it. Both groups and those in between and outside on the fringes foster an environment of absolutely hellish agony.

That is what I am combating and will continue to combat. And I am not going to apologize for it - no one who fostered my personal hell has, or has even shown any remorse for my experience there.

Frakking Statistics Hurt My Head

I love science, I really do. But statistics are just bloody painful - there should be easier ways to do this...Statistics are starting to make the magical thinking more attractive again.

Not really, but the least they could do is give us fucking pain killers with our statistics...

Help Vaccinate a Child...

Times are really tough - I know that about as well as one can. Though there are those who have been suffering worse financial woes than I have, having lost my family's home in Portland, I know all too well how bad things are. But there are those here in the U.S., who could really use your help - and if it helps to shame anyone into donating, I made a donation myself, even though I am a student without income.

I was shocked this afternoon, when I read over at Respectful Insolence, that Nevada has abysmal vaccination rates. Not because of the anti-vax loon brigade, but because the economy is bad there and apparently the state doesn't have enough funding to ensure that all kids get vaccines. The state recently managed to put together the funding for the actual vaccines, but not enough that they don't have to charge for the actual administration of the shots. They must charge $16 for a single vaccine or $25 for more than one.

I have been where a lot of those families are. While $25 may not seem like a hell of a lot to most people, when you are to the point where you have to ration your eating to five or six meals a week, to ensure your children get enough to eat, that works out to being a lot of meals you will miss that month. And I can also attest, trying to functionally work when you're only eating one meal, ever day or so is not easy and certainly not healthy. These are folks who cannot afford to lose a single damned dime. And so there are a lot of kids not getting the vaccines that will not only keep them safe - they keep their communities safe too.

And so as bad as things are right now, I managed to throw down $25 dollars and will sleep somewhat more soundly tonight, knowing that I just ensured that a child in Nevada who wouldn't have been vaccinated will be now. And dammit, if I can manage that, what can you manage?

Here is a link to the page where one can register for a James Randi Education Foundation event. If you scroll down the page, you will see a line that allows you to donate $16 or $25 to help vaccinate a child. I would ask you to ignore that $16 bullshit and help a child get the whole shebang. Further, I would ask that you give until it fucking hurts, because this is not just for them, it's for all of us. Here is a direct link to the $25 donation slot. Please vaccinate as many kids as you can....

On Strip-searches in Schools: What About Boys? And other questions...

I think a great many of us are aware that SCOTUS ruled the other day, on a case involving the strip search of an eighth grade girl, by school faculty.  As Ed put it, it is indeed a partial victory for sanity, given that the majority opinion explicitly stated that such a search might have been reasonable had the faculty suspected that she had illicit drugs on her person, rather than the Advil they were looking for.  Several people have weighed in on the ruling, including Greg Laden, who's blog is so very often a starting point for very interesting conversations.  So I don't feel all that compelled to throw much into the legal discussion, except to say that I strongly feel faculty should not be performing strip searches - ever.  If there is a reasonable assumption that a child has contraband secreted in their underwear, the school should call the police in to deal with it - period.  If the police don't believe there is adequate reason to search, then the search should not happen.

But I do want to weigh in on a discussion that got started over on Greg's thread - namely the question of how outraged we might be if it were a boy who was strip searched instead.  I am not at all fond of the commenter who got that ball rolling - he and I have butted heads way to harshly for that.  But he raises a very important question and one that is indicative of far more than just the implications of strip searches. 

I am going to go into a great deal more detail on this, when I don't have three tests between now and Tuesday that I really need to study for.  However, I would like to refer you to my paper on masculine social gender constructs and help-seeking in men.  And I would also pose the question to you:

How would you feel about this situation if it had been a boy who was strip searched, instead of a girl?  Would you feel any different about it?  If so, why?  And please try to be objective in your thinking and honest with yourself.  Moreover, if you are comfortable doing so, drop your answers in comments or an email.  And on this post only, I am willing to accept completely anonymous comments, because I want to know what you really think.  I figure that some people might not want to be associated with their real feelings on this and I will respect that.

And while I am asking questions, I would also be interested to hear from some skeptics who were raised without religion. Stemming from an earlier discussion about cannabis, I am inclined to think that there is some tendency amongst those who never went in for particularly pervasive forms of magical thinking, to discount their skeptical nature when it comes to certain topics they hold dear - or dare I say, sacred. The lovely Juniper and I were discussing this the other night and it occurred to me that it might be a very good topic to write about. So if you were raised a free-thinker, or at least without Faith, these are for you.

Do you believe that you are pretty much immune to magical thinking - that you have some innate ability to think rationally about anything and everything? (discounting inherently arational notions, like love) Do you feel that you don't really have to be careful about how you approach topics that you may have strong personal feelings about? Do you ever find yourself questioning the evidence for something, not because you have seen more compelling evidence to the contrary, but because you don't like the conclusions implied by the evidence you discount?

Again, please be as objective and honest as possible. And again, feel free to email me answers or leave them anon. Any emails I receive about this will remain confidential.

Seriously, these Damned Canadians!!!1!11!!!1!

Apparently get up more than a little fucking early (that, and I slept late today). So yes, my friend* Jason was proposed to online, through several blogs, by Jodi - who was until quite recently his girlfriend. Part of me was holding out hope that, in spite of neither of us being particularly gay, he might marry me so I could get access to that Canuck healthcare - but I suppose I can go off and befriend some other Canadian now...

Seriously though, congratulations Jason and Jodi and thank you for making me a small part of your odyssey march toward pre-marital bliss...

*In spite of him being one of those. You know, a Canadian.

Bloody Damned Canadian!!!1!11!!

Updated...

It is something only the lousiest of canucks can provide, though.

The rumors are true - Jason did say yes...

Cannabis is Magical!!1!11!!!!

Context. And more context.

Or at least seems to induce a fair amount of magical thinking.  And that would be magical thinking not a hell of a lot different than claims of magical gods, psychic phenomena or the belief that vaccines, cancer drugs and many other medicines are actually poisons being peddled to unwitting consumers by the evile of Big Pharma.  People who rightly mock conspiracy theories about 9/11 and new world order, secret governments, turn around and make the base assumption that none of the evidence showing that cannabis has more than negligible deleterious effects can be true, because there's a government conspiracy to hide the truth and scare the masses.

There is fairly exhaustive evidence that indicates the legal status of cannabis is absolutely absurd and that the scare tactics engaged by most public agencies is vastly overblown.  That is not to say that there isn't risk and evidence for harm stemming from cannabis use, on many different levels. 

There is no question that smoking anything causes respiratory damage and damages cilia in the upper throat.  Anyone who has ever cleaned a pot pipe knows that the tar left behind is impossible to clean off with water alone, unless it's boiling - this same tar mattes the cilia in the esophagus and like tobacco, coats the lungs.  While the average cannabis smoker, smokes less than the average tobacco smoker, thus lessening the overall damage of smoking it, the tar that is formed is actually worse weight to weight, than the tar from tobacco.  There is a great deal of evidence indicating that cannabis smokers who do not smoke tobacco have a higher incidence of  bronchitis and chronic bronchitis, than non-smoking populations.

No links have been found between cannabis smoking and lung cancer or emphysema - though there is evidence of proteins that are thought to be precursors to cancer in cannabis smokers, there is also evidence that cannabis use may inhibit the development of those proteins into cancer.  It is important to note however, that there is no evidence that it impacts the incidence of cancer in concurrent tobacco smokers.

Reproduced studies have indicated that the incidence of cannabis addiction in cannabis smoking populations is around fifteen percent.  Addiction being defined by the DSM IV criteria, a conjunction of pervasive use, in spite of significant personal harm.  Cut that by a third to be certain you've weeded out biased diagnosis - cannabis is magical you know - and you still have one out of every twenty cannabis smokers addicted at some point in their life.  When we look at populations that use cannabis and also have concurrent neurological issues, the percentage skyrockets.  And it is very common for people with neurological issues such as ADHD, bipolar, schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders to use tobacco, use cannabis and other illicit drugs. 

I could go on and on, but here are some articles that do a much better job than I.  I am way too busy at the moment and will get to more evidence - recent studies and the like, when I can.  These peer reviewed journal articles and reports are not protected by pay walls and easier to throw out there, because you can read them and I don't have to summarize anything.  I don't have the time to summarize material that is paywall protected, I'll get to it asap, but I am trying to get through a lot of credits this summer and it's more than a little stressful.

A Lancet Seminar.

The 2001 Australian study on the health effects of cannabis use.  I suggest looking at the summaries of each section and then looking at the body of each section, if you have questions.

The British Journal of Anesthesia. 

The British Journal of Psychiatry. 

This wasn't hard to find folks.  And this is just what I looked for to throw something up that isn't paywalled.  Are we to believe that there is some conspiracy that is trying to toe the usual line of most public agencies in the U.S.  Oh shit, I'm sorry but are we to believe that there is some government conspiracy to contradict the usual line of said public agencies?

Of course there is, because I just keep forgetting that cannabis is fucking magical.  Sorry, I'll try better to keep that in mind from now on.

Cannabis, Links from my sidebar

Erowid - scroll down.

Erowid - again, scroll down.

Erowid - yet again...

MAPS database.

Took me less than five minutes.

Yes, I am alive...

It's nice to know that I'm loved...Seriously - I appreciate emails from people wondering if I'm alright - especially from people who have never actually communicated with me before. So yes, I am alive and mostly alright.

I am currently in TN with my boys for the weekend--eldest wanted me here for fathers day. I am also brutally fucking busy and will probably be too busy to get a lot written over the next few weeks. I am going to do what I can, but I have been really stressed and honestly, reading the blogs has been making it worse lately, so avoidance has been key for the last week.

I am fucking pissed at our fucking government, which I expected to be. I just didn't expect to be angry about the things that I am. I was honestly hopeful that I would be pissed because things that I happen to believe in would be done badly or halfassed. Never - never in a million fucking years did I expect to actually be considering whether we might not be better off with a president McCain, tempered by an opposition congress.

But I am.

Not even his first motherfucking SCOTUS pick is looking any better than someone that a president McCain would have picked. And given everything else that this sick fucking excuse for an administration has fucked us up the ass without lube about, that was about all I had left.

I am grateful that he has made science a priority. But that is hard to weigh against the outright destruction that this motherfucker has done to our justice system - a system already fucking broken. But hey, we really didn't need to protect the rights of suspects to be free from the pressure of law enforcement to waive their right to counsel during questioning - as long as they've been charged and are now considered a defendant.

Obama is a fucking disgrace and our circle jerk fucking congress is absolutely fucking pointless. These shit eating bastards are no better than the fucking republicans. At least the republicans actually throw their constituency more fucking bones than these fucking scumbags do...