Childhood: shat on

Since this weekend was evidently about destroying more of our childhood...

I think I was talking to someone here about the Orson Scott Card rant against gay marriage, which pretty much ruined every happy memory I had of reading his books as a kid. So here's some infuriating, head-exploding examples of his propaganda/fear mongering, "logic", and bigotry, in that order:

"Already in several states, there are textbooks for children in the earliest grades that show 'gay marriages' as normal. How long do you think it will be before such textbooks become mandatory -- and parents have no way to opt out of having their children taught from them?"

"If a court declared that from now on, 'blind' and 'sighted' would be synonyms, would that mean that it would be safe for blind people to drive cars?"

"With 'gay marriage,' the last shreds of meaning will be stripped away from marriage, with homosexuals finishing what faithless, selfish heterosexuals have begun."

My childhood hero is fucking dead to me.



On a happier note, I'm not even a parent and I found this to be an awesome alternative to the horribleness we watched on Sunday!

Both via GeekDad

If you're going to pray to someone...

...Pray to Him. Here is a thorough accounting of His miracles.

^_^ Those wacky debate coaches...

In this episode...

Butt Cancer

Here's one on science and religion. Or, you might say, religion ignoring science.

Audrey Toguchi of Aiea is miraculously cured of cancer after praying to Father Damien at Kalaupapa. The Vatican is now going to canonize Damien, making him a saint.

I'm fascinated this may prompt throngs of pilgrims to visit Hawaii in hopes of having their cancer cured. And that the Hawaii, Maui, and Molokai visitor bureaus are all gearing up to exploit this.

But aside from that, it's amazing how the Vatican sends a team to study this woman's medical files and then concludes, yes, Damien helped cure this lady because there is no other explanation! The Vatican folks just have a different way of using the brain.

(As promised, I titled this "Butt Cancer," but technically she had liposarcoma, a tumor in deep fat tissue. The tumor happened to be in her butt but presumably it could have shown up in deep fat tissue elsewhere.)

Let's go here!!!

If we're going to dress up for cosplay, I think we should go here.

Finding Paths through the World’s Photos (...FPTTWP?)

Initially they did photosynth, now they've gone and done this:

what I hate/love about cosplay.

<---What I hate about these is that the person gives up at some critical point and thus makes the entire ensemble look lazy. This is like especially a double fail for the steampunk guys. A top hat awith a watch on it?? FUCK YOU! The GIR isn't bad, it's the two douches next to it I hate.

<---My love for these is that the cosplayer is either very brave or very thorough about their costume choices. You can tell they really love what they are doing.
Of course, then there's the TIE fighter guys who in a weird way address the whole ship/environment as character issue we had a few weeks back. Yay! I love tie-ins! It's like going to a dungeons & dragons con dressed as a dungeon.