H/T to Naomi for this one. Ara from E Pluribus Unum writes:

“The War Prayer,” a short story or prose poem by Mark Twain, is a scathing indictment of war, and particularly of blind patriotic and religious fervor as motivations for war. The piece was left unpublished by Mark Twain at his death, largely due to pressure from his family, who feared that the story would be considered sacrilegious. Twain’s publisher and other friends also discouraged him from publishing it. Twain instructed for it to be published after his death, however, and is said to have quipped “I don’t think the prayer will be published in my time. None but the dead are permitted to tell the truth.“

The War Prayer Pt. 1

The War Prayer Pt. 2

To quote from Naomi’s email, “Even cartoon blood can give one pause…”

Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

This quote is now in dispute; Franklin denied it, in a letter to David Hume, saying he only published a book that contained it. However, no matter who coined it – the sentiment is consistent with the Founders’ values.

Surveillance Cameras Win Broad Support

Crime-fighting beats privacy in public places: Americans, by nearly a 3-to-1 margin, support the increased use of surveillance cameras — a measure decried by some civil libertarians, but credited in London with helping to catch a variety of perpetrators since the early 1990s.

Given the chief arguments, pro and con — a way to help solve crimes vs. too much of a government intrusion on privacy — it isn’t close: 71 percent of Americans favor the increased use of surveillance cameras, while 25 percent oppose it.

It looks like Bush has conditioned a generation of “fraidy-cats”. Or is it just “technological progress” and I’m the “spinster peering under the bed”?

“Camera on every corner”: Protection? Or Invasion?

…The roving electronic eyes, which Chicago began installing four years ago and are now going up at the rate of 15 per week, are powerful enough to read vehicle license plates and even the ticket prices listed on a sign outside the Chicago Cubs’ Wrigley Field box office.

And they listen as well as look. Some of the cameras, which cost up to $30,000 apiece, are equipped with gunshot detectors that can alert police when bullets start flying. Eventually, they may even be able to sniff out biological or chemical agents in the event of a terrorist attack.

“I think it contributes to people’s sense of well-being,” said Lewin of the highly-visible cameras, many of which have blue flashing lights. “We can record video from the cameras and if something happens, we can go back and use the video as evidence in court.” [...]

“The Brits have got something smart going in England,” Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., who chairs the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, told ABC News earlier this summer. “I think it’s just common sense to do that [in the U.S.] much more widely.” [...]

At the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York, a police helicopter’s night vision camera that was trained on protestors also recorded a couple’s intimate rendezvous on a terrace. That same year, a San Francisco cop used airport cameras to ogle female air travelers. And in 2006, New York’s police union sued the city for what it considered excessive monitoring during a contract dispute…

London has 4-million cameras; the UK has one camera for every 14 people!

• “Big Brother” plan for police to use new road cameras
• Watchdog warns over number plate snooping
• A fairy-tale for the surveillance age

They’ve been hidden in the belly of “teddy-bears”; in the “love-nest” of a Zimbabwean Archbishop critical of Mugabe; an armored-car heist featured a mini-cam in the belt-buckle of its architect. MySpace and Facebook have been criticized for allowing webcams and videos for “sexual-networking”. Cameras in cell-phones have caught both the good and the bad…

When both sides have the technology, whose rights trump whose? Do we give law-enforcement all the power and add penalties for using cameras for planning – just as we give the police the right to carry guns and penalize the felon for using a gun during the commission of a felony?

Big Brother is watching you! And for some reason, that doesn’t bother you? That may well be the scariest part: Americans crave security at any cost – even at the loss of the concept of “privacy”. But, hey, since Gord keeps a 24/7-eye on us, we should be used to it, huh? (Whew! I finally got my god-dig in!) “We don’t need no stinking privacy!”

Who will watch-dog the watchers?

The religious are a very sick and despicable part of any free society. The following is a very real and disturbing video that will make your skin crawl. Get the full dose and watch it through to the end. Explain why we tolerate them. The title of this post is the answer to the question that I had when I first saw this. What kind of believers are they?

They are steeped in the blood letting and sacrifice that has led to so many wars and purges throughout history. Based on the writings of a 3rd century drunk’s hallucinations. They wage war and expect the rest of us to come along. I won’t be among them and I hope we can get them out of our government. When the current crop of representatives say that impeachment is off the table and this is going on? I must conclude that the lot of them are guilty of complicity. Each of them with few exceptions have Kowtowed to the religious and their madness and superstitions. That includes the darlings of progressive America, Hillary and Obama.

So what kind of Xians are they? The Un-Kind.
What kind of Jews are they? The Un-Kind
What kind of representatives do we have? The Un-Kind
And what kind of believers are they , Really? The Un-Kind.

They are examples of the “God Sickness” in full bloom. They are void of any love or compassion. They lack even the most basic of societies graces. They are dooming themselves to the punishment fitting all those who give in to the madness of their disease. They really need to be put into protective custody and isolated from rational society. They have more in common with Osama in Laden than they do with any American. And they expect RESPECT?

Watch the video here.

More proof that superstition (especially that of the alleged ‘afterlife’) is hazardous to life and limb.

From the Scotsman:

‘Ghost bride’ returns to haunt Chinese trio

CHINESE police have arrested three men for killing two young women and selling their corpses as “ghost brides” for dead, single men.

The women were victims of a belief dating back to before the Han dynasty in the highlands of western China that young men and women who die unmarried should go to their graves accompanied by a recently deceased partner to be their spouse in the afterlife.

Yang Donghai, 35, a peasant of Shaanxi province, confessed to killing a woman bought from a poor family for 12,000 yuan (£785) last year, China’s Legal Daily reported yesterday. Yang said he was “tricked” into buying the girl, who was mentally handicapped and unable to care for herself.

Realising she was not marriage material for himself, Yang hatched a plan to recover his losses with Liu Shengha, who reportedly told Yang: “Who wants a living person? A dead woman’s body still gets a great price in Shanxi.”

The two men went to Shanxi to find a buyer, making contact with Li Longsheng, an undertaker whom police said was known for buying and selling dead women for “ghost weddings”. Yang and Liu poisoned and then strangled the girl, selling her to Li for 16,000 yuan.

Emboldened by their success, Yang and two accomplices lured a prostitute to an abandoned courtyard where they strangled her and sold her to Li for 8,000 yuan. “I did it for the money; it was a quick buck,” Yang said, according to the paper. “I planned to do a few more.”

Zhang Zhangyan, the Yan Chuan county police officer, said: “It’s a good thing we broke this case when we did, otherwise who knows how many women would have been murdered? These guys found a get-rich-quick scheme.”

People on mainland China and Taiwan, and Chinese people throughout Asia, still carry out “ghost marriages”.

According to superstition, the unmarried dead will often haunt the living in dreams and can ruin the prosperity of future generations unless their ghosts are wed.

When the Communist Party took control of mainland China in 1949, it sought to eliminate “feudal customs” such as foot-binding and arranged marriages that relegated women.

However, despite decades of rapid political and economic change, many old superstitions persist. And in China – where no method for getting rich is beyond the pale, from the organ trade to mass production of fake medicines – cases such as these may not be rare.

Police in Yanan, the poor and dusty corner of Shaanxi where Chairman Mao Zedong nurtured his Communist revolution, believe there may be many more ghost brides acquired by murder.

Tai Jianlin, the journalist who interviewed Yang, believes this case reveals a dangerous gap between the rich and modernising cities and the poor and often backward countryside.

This is just so incredibly wrong on so many levels, it boggles the mind. For one, it relegates women to property, whether alive or dead. For another, superstition enables the greedy to prey upon the ignorant. For yet another, it allows greed to overcome anything resembling a modicum of decency.

The Asia Times reports, from the same story:

An investigation by Southern Weekly uncovered similar cases of women murdered to be sold as brides in marriages in the afterlife in the provinces of Shanxi and neighboring Shaanxi.

Some have speculated that the murders have been prompted by the mounting death toll in China’s mining industry, which has pushed up demand for ghost wives for casualties. In many of the interior provinces where coal is produced in small and unsafe mines, deadly accidents have been happening weekly. China’s official tally of coal miners’ deaths for 2006 stood at 4,746, or an average of 13 each day.

With so many male miners dying prematurely, there is a booming market for ghost wives, one middleman told Xinjingbao. “If the groom has died in a coal-mine accident, my commission for finding a bride is higher,” the man, identified as Wang Zengxi, told the paper.

Coupled with the madness of killing girl children, China will soon be a sausage fest, and the population will drop rapidly.

I call this spiritual necrophilia, which, in truth, extends to the morbid fascinations that enable folks to not only have physical  relations with the deceased, but allow them to baptise the dead, mutilate the dead, and yes, even murder innocent bystanders in the name of death.

Each time I read some grotesque new spin on an old scam, the words of Dorothy Parker spring to mind: “What fresh hell is this?”

(’Hell’, by the way, is another word I refuse to surrender to the theist.)

The sooner we are free of this madness, the better off all of humanity will be.

Because life is too short, and there is no hereafter. Best then, not to run smiling into the arms of mortality.

This is the Apostate, signing off.

Jesuits say, “Take word of Gord to Second Life”

Catholic missionaries have always trekked to dangerous parts of the Earth to spread the word of God — now they are being encouraged to go into the virtual realm of Second Life to save virtual souls.

In an article in Rome-based Jesuit journal La Civilta Cattolica, academic Antonio Spadaro urged fellow Catholics not to be scared of entering the virtual world which may be fertile ground for new converts wishing to better themselves.
“It’s not possible to close our eyes to this phenomenon or rush to judge it,” Spadaro said. “Instead it needs to be understood … the best way to understand it is to enter it.”

Second Life is a simulation game where players can create a virtual version of themselves — an avatar — and interact with other people in the three-dimensional world. According to its Web site, it has a population of more than 8 million residents and millions of dollars change hands there every month.

“Is there (cyber) space for God?” Spadaro aaka [sic] in his article which says there are already virtual churches and temples serving countless religions. He quotes a Swedish Muslim who says his avatar prays regularly as he prays in real life.

Spadaro warns the uninitiated that “the erotic dimension is very present” in Second Life, that people can buy genitalia for their avatars in a world that is “open to any form of erotic stimulation from prostitution to pedophilia.” [They should feel right at home; do you wonder when the first priest will be caught diddling a child?]

While the virtual world might be a refuge for some people seeking to flee the real one, it is also full of people seeking something more from life, including, possibly, religious enlightenment, he said.

“Deep down, the digital world can be considered, in its way, mission territory,” he said. “Second Life is somewhere where the opportunity to meet people and to grow should not be missed, therefore, any initiative that can inspire the residents in a positive way should be considered opportune.”

(*retching*) They find a way to ruin everything they touch! They’ve taken over pagan festivals and made them their own “holy days”.

Now they want to proselytize to virtual people? How much crazier can they get?

Wait! Maybe this IS the end. What if we encourage them to go off-planet and then we slam the door? Could it really work?

I don’t watch television very often, so missed this segment that was shown on ABC’s 20/20. Many of you, particularly those who live in Kansas, Oklahoma and southern states can relate to what this atheist family has had to deal with being surrounded and far outnumbered by fundies. Raindogzilla wrote about this story last year in a post titled Very Small Rocks.

Many of us atheists pay a price for being open and honest about our atheism. I have been judged and even cut off from communication in some cases, simply because I refused to just shut up and pretend to be someone I am not. I was supposed to allow others “of faith” to say whatever they wanted to me or in my presence and to just bite my tongue and keep my own non-belief to myself. If I refused to participate in prayer, it was viewed as an attack against the believers, when in fact it wasn’t that at all. It would be dishonest and disrespectful to myself and others to pretend and go along with something I did not believe in. However, Christians and most believers want non-believers to pretend for their sake, maybe because many of them are pretending themselves since they want so much for their fantasy to be true. They want to live forever. We are a threat to that fantasy because we dare to not believe it.

My heart goes out to the girl in this video report. Christians can be quite heartless, cruel and downright vindictive when they encounter those who do not share their personal beliefs.

Ed. note: One of our regulars, remy, has found a first hand report from Mr. Smalkowski at Democratic Underground.com. Yes indeed, you do have to admire the courage of this man.

‘Coz that’s how I feel right now about these exciting times we live in, and as Meat Loaf says, “I’ve been trying for hours just to fill up all the holes with some sense.”

To recap:

• Declaring war upon “terror” has allowed the theocratic dominionist-fueled Bush Administration (BA) to frame the US government and its actions in militaristic and thus non-democratic terms.

• Framing the US government in militaristic terms encourages thinking that begins with “everything and anything goes because we’re fighting for our survival” and soon reaches “it’s OK to do/say/stop that; we’re at war.”

• Fostering that thinking amidst militaristic framing permits the BA to introduce, for example, the militaristic term “enemy combatant;” define it any way it wishes – and thus apply it to anyone it wants.

• Introducing terms such as “enemy combatant” allows it to spy upon anyone it chooses without bothering with the usual legal niceties, such as warrants, that would protect that person if the BA were wrong – after all, “we’re at war.”

• Wielding terms such as “enemy combatant” also permits it to dispense with all civil liberties for that person, which means it can now:

o Seize their assets without any warning or notification whatsoever.
o Seize the assets of anyone seen as helping that person in any way (said “help” to be defined and applied by, again, the BA) without any warning or notification whatsoever.
o Pick that person up anywhere, anytime.
o Hold them indefinitely without even informing them why, not to mention without letting them notify anyone else, not even a lawyer to represent them.
o Hold them indefinitely without letting anyone else know they’re even being held.
o Torture them while they’re being held.
o Escape any and all legal or political consequences for having done this.

• In other words, it now has absolute power over any and all persons within its jurisdiction, which technically includes non-residents and -citizens on US territory (also including consulates and embassies) and US citizens living in other countries.

• Once again, “absolute power” means no civil rights or liberties; it can target and treat you any way the BA likes – “after all, we’re at war.”

• In addition, all of the above allows it to assume total control of the government of the United States of America when it and it alone wishes to do so – it is the only entity permitted to designate an emergency “catastrophic” enough to justify its assumption of absolute power.

• But that’s all OK. “Everything and anything goes because we’re fighting for our survival,” remember? “We’re at war.” The people telling us so are the good guys, the religious, the True Believers (TM), those superior to us because unlike us, they have faith. The man himself who who made this infamous declaration of war (on, of all things, a feeling) actually talks directly to God.

And that’s just for starters.

I’ll leave you for the weekend with a quote from Marvel Comics:

“Hail HYDRA! Immortal HYDRA! We will never be destroyed! Cut off a limb and two more shall take its place!”

Keep cutting…

By the time you finish this video, you will have forgotten the beginning! (Don’t bail after just a few seconds – trust me on this…)

The year was 1944:

…Never before has the human body been twisted into such extraordinary positions, in service to the American Potato Salad Industry…

WWII and Hollywood brought us some (*ahem*) “unique” talent!

Strangely enough, it’s on YouTube but no search engine I’ve tried turns up any info on “the mysterious Ross Sisters – Aggie, Maggie and Elmira – in footage from the 1944 MGM musical Broadway Rhythm.”

Is the human body supposed to be able to do that?

(h/t BoingBoing)