And A Good Night To All

Have some sympathy and some taste

Total Randomness

Screw it, I don’t need to make sense.

We could make our world a paradise if we really wanted to. There really is no need for war and oppression. We just need to throw out the religions and ideologies and get down to it.

The U.S. is a colonial settler state. We Europeans came here and committed genocide against the first nations to steal their land.

I’m Gender Queer so I try to embrace all gender expressions by all people. Let a thousand genders bloom!

Thoughts For A Dying Empire

An occasional series, which I hope, will illuminate the twilight of the American Empire

Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country. - Hermann Göring

And that is how we got dragged into two losing wars so far this century.

Yes I am an Anarchist.

A Musical Interlude

It gets depressing blogging about the hate and violence directed towards Gender Queer and Transgendered people. On the other hand enus De Mars and hir band All The Pretty Horses always makes me feel better so here a re a couple from the band.

They Hate Me, They Really Hate Me!

Well not me personally just any one like me, you know transgender people. The ‘they’ in this case are cis gay men. Don’t believe me? Well how about this quote;

Ron Gold wishes the State to intervene to forbid "discrimination against cross-dressers or post-op transsexuals in employment...." I disagree. Employers should not be forced to hire individuals who are delusional or otherwise inappropriate for a job. A man who believes that he is Napoleon or Jesus Christ, or that castration has changed him into a woman, may not make a desirable employee

Nice isn’t it. We are being compared to the clinically delusional not to mention the old ‘they’re juts castrated men’ trope when referring to trans-women. But wait there’s more!

Who gives a sh*t? Stop pretending like there is some equivalence between gay and "trans". One is a sexual orientation, the other is a gender. They are 2 different things, but we have been forced to consider them as part of one "LGBT" whole because of a politically correct gay leadership. I don't have gender issues and I don't want to wear dresses or cut off my d*ck. Stop lumping me and millions of other men and women with trannies.

Hateful scum the lot of them. It’s almost enough to make me rethink my ‘A injury to one is a injury to all’ philosophy that leads me to fight for their rights as well as my own. But I refuse to let these vile little bigots drive me off my principals.

Atheist Quote Of A Random Day

A continuing feature of this blog brought to you by just another atheist

Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-o, and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have – Penn Jillette

Friday Random Thirteen Strikes Again

Hey Hey What Can I Do by Led Zeppelin
Pilate And Christ by Andrew Lloyd Webber
Down To The Sea by Robert Plant
The Black Angel’s Death Song by The Velvet Underground & Nico
Black Magic by Slayer
The Night Time Is The Right Time by Creedence Clearwater Revival
Bring Her Down (To Crippletown) by Rob Zombie
Just You And Me, Darling by The Who
Down On Me by Big Brother & The Holding Company
The Day Begins by The Moody Blues
The Hell of it by Paul Williams
Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy by Queen
Sing This All Together (See What Happens) by The Rolling Stones

Atheist Quote Of A Random Day

A continuing feature of this blog brought to you by just another atheist

When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, "Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don't believe? – Quentin Crisp

Religion is like a huge dog. When it's yours it feels comforting and safe, but it scares the hell out of everyone else and the least you can do is keep it away from the kids. - Nick Doody

Another twofer

I Am Not A Good Person

I do try to do the whole forgive my enemies thing but it just isn’t in me. But at hart I’m a vindictive bitch who would happily kneecap most of the trans-misogynist bastards out there. Hatefull scum like Paul Scott a candidate for Michigan Secretary of State who’s number three priority if elected is to

..ensure transgender individuals will not be allowed to change the sex on their driver's license in any circumstance

Well fuck you Scott, I would happily kick you in the balls hard enough to rupture them.

Then there are perennial idiots and hate mongers ‘Porno’ Pete LaBarbera and Matt ‘Bam Bam’ Barber two men who will hopefully die of cholesterol induced hart attacks soon.

And let’s not forget cis gay jerk off Ron Gold who says I don’t exist. Well I’d say fuck him but he would probably like it.

See, I am not a nice person and do not wish my enemies well. I am tired of them shitting on me and telling me it’s for my own good. So Fuck Off And Die the lot of you.

Atheist Quote Of A Random Day

A continuing feature of this blog brought to you by just another atheist

A man is accepted into a church for what he believes and he is turned out for what he knows. – Mark Twain,

How To Speak Tea Bag

Hey learn a new language kids!



Be careful though, watching this may get you death threats just like the artist has. Seems like the tea bagers and radical Muslims have something in common, they hate any criticism.

Friday Random Thirteen

The Arrest by Andrew Lloyd Webber
Shout At The Devil by Mötley Crüe
Raw Power by The Stooges
The Last Merry Go Round by The Deep Fix
Green Instrument by Afro Celt
Serenade #10 by Mozart
Angry Again by Megadeth
Nobody’s Fault But Mine by Page & Plant
Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath
Welcome To The Jungle by Guns ‘N’ Roses
The Ocean by Lead Zeppelin
The Kids by Bob Rivers
Violence Of Summer by Duran Duran

Running Scared

As proved by Brown’s win in Massachusetts people are running scared right now and with good reason. The economy may have recovered for Wall Street but it most defiantly has not for Main Street. Unemployment is still at an official rate of 10% with the real rate at nearly twice that, that’s enough to scare any but the very rich. When people are scarred they will follow any one who offers them hope of a solution. That is what, as the economy plunged into deep recession, propelled Obama into the white house. The problem is that while Trillions of Dollars where thrown at Wall Street workers got a watered down to uselessness stimulus bill. Now people watch as any hope of real health care reform is compromised to the point of making things worse. Is it any wonder that desperate people will vote for any yahoo who promises them a quick solution? Even when those solutions are a repackaged version of the polices that got us into this mess in the first place. It’s discouraging that people will fall for this shallow crap but not at all surprising.

Random In The Night

So the Democrats lost a Senate race in Massachusetts to a vapid pretty boy Republican. Now their health care reform legislation is in danger of crashing and burning and they have only themselves to blame. If they had been anywhere as focused and ruthless as the Republicans under Bush were they could have had some sort of health care plan passed by now. But they dithered and tried to comprise with people who only wanted their failure and fail they have.

Firefox used to be my favorite browser but the latest version is slow and buggy. It is constantly locking up and to get Gmail or Yahoo mail to work requires constant page reloads. I use Google Chrome for work because we have Google hosting our email and It’s pretty good. I may have to make it my primary browser.

The shuttle stops flying this year and it will be 2015 before the U.S. can put people into orbit if then. The Aries rocket is way behind its original schedule and needs lots more money if it’s not going to slp even further behind. With the deficit hawks stiring up a stink and the privatization mania still in vogue I would say the chances for the Aries do not look good. If the Chinse economic bubble bursts we may see the end of the space age. It was a nice dream while it lasted.

Some Thoughts On Haiti

Haiti is the only nation that gained its independence as a result of a successful slave revolt. It also gained its independence from its European overlords with out outside help. Haiti then went on to provide arms and soldiers to Bolivar in his fight to oust the Spanish from South America. For all this the Haitians have been punished ever since. They have been plagued by trade blockades and armed intervention time and again. The U.S. Marines, ever the U.S. imperial enforcers, supported a coup in 1888, occupied the country from 1915 to 1934 and kidnapped the elected president in 2004. France, Germany, Great Britain and the U.S. have all literally looted the Haitian national bank at one time or another.

So when you see the awful poverty in earthquake ravaged Haiti where U.S. troops are once again occuping the country and shooting Haitians for the crime of trying to survive think of the history of imperial violence Haiti has had to endure.

Atheist Quote Of A Random Day

A twofer for today

I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of confidence– Doug McLeod,

Let me make the superstitions of a nation and I care not who makes its laws or its songs either– Mark Twain,

Fear Is The Key

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. – Frank Herbert

A very true saying from mister Hebert, fear is the mind killer. Fearful people do stupid things and are easily led by someone who seems to have the power to make what they fear go away. Fear is the weapon wielded by terrorists and is so effective that even a botched attempt like the Christmas crotch bomber can through the U.S. into a tizzy. Fear is also the major weapon used by theocrats against queers, fear that we will rape their follower’s children and then recruit them into our ‘lifestyle’. Fear that our very existence will somehow bring society crashing down. Fear is irrational so rational and reasoned arguments will not stand against it. Fear most of all is the weapon of the coward and the bully.

Dancing With The Green Fairy After A Long Day

I always seem to be tired, I think I need rest but first I must write.

Why does any one give a loon like Pat Robertson any credence when he constantly makes statements like this ? The man is a hateful lying idiot but because he is a pastor people actually listen to him. Robertson is another reason I’m glad I’m a atheist.

Have you noticed that being gay or transgender is a very seductive thing? Well at least according to theocratic idiots it is. They say again and again that if we queers are granted any legal rights it will open floodgates and people will be seduced into the ‘homosexual lifestyle’. Isn’t nice to know we are so damned seductive?

Thoughts For A Dying Empire

An occasional series, which I hope, will illuminate the twilight of the American Empire

Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it. - Noam Chomsky

Yes I am an Anarchist.

Late Night Headache Thoughts

Tired and have a headache so this should be fairly incoherent.

The U.S. has something like 750 plus overseas military bases and yet has the gall or self-blindenes to say we are not an empire. We spend nearly as much as the rest of the world combined on arms. We want to be the world hegemon and have bankrupted ourselves doing it. Welcome to the decline and fall part of our history, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

I Need Some New Terms

I used to consider myself a feminist, after all the basic premise of feminism that woman are human beings entitled to full human rights and opportunities seems uncontroversial to me. All right there are some right wing trolls like Limbaugh and Vox Day who seem to view women as a alien species not deserving of any rights but they and their followers are fucking idiots. The problem is a lot of feminists seem to want me to disappear or die, whichever would be more convenient for them. They are willing to deny women like me any services and indeed any rights at all. So I need a new term for the fight for full rights for all women, no make that all people.

While the progressive movement champions many of the causes I support I can’t really use the term progressive. There are too many progressive’s willing to use trans women's bodies/lives/identities to take cheap shoots at Ann Coulter showing a complete lack of concern for my life or safety. That really doesn’t surprise me because the progressives of the early Twentieth Century were incredibly racist. Noted progressive Jack London wrote an approving novel about the genocide of the Chinese. So I can’t in good conscience use the term progressive.

So I need some new terms, any ideas?

Atheist Quote Of A Random Day

Religion easily has the best bullshit story of all time. Think about it. Religion has convinced people that there’s an invisible man…living in the sky. Who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn’t want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer, and burn, and scream, until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you. He loves you and he needs money – George Carlin,

Late Night Randomness

Just saw Avatar, the plot is beyond predictable but the visuals are like nothing you’ve ever seen before. It really needs to be seen in 3D preferably on a IMAX screen, it will submerge you in another world. As this technology gets down to a reasonable price I would love to see what a director like Guillermo del Toro could do with it.

Privilege, You’re Soaking In It

I know I went on a rant recently about how oppressors don’t get to define what is an appropriate response by a oppressed group to some remark or action by a member of the oppressor class. I now have to add being a member of an oppressed group does not give you the right to tell another oppressed group that they are overreacting.

I bring this up because of a dust up on twitter today, an atheist told some trans-woman they were over reacting to a routine by Colbert on his show. I have not seen the bit and only followed part of the conversation but the content of the bit is not the point. You do not get to tell a member of an oppressed group they are over reacting and then fall back on the ‘but I’m oppressed to!’ whine when called on your lack of knowledge of the other person’s situation. But that is exactly what happened.

The atheist should have been able to empathize with the trans-women given all the shit atheists take from the theists. But he was blinded by his white male privilege. As a white former male person I recognize the arrogance that comes from having your ideas and opinions valued over all others. No life experience or ideas are valid unless you validate them. I took me a long time to figure out how to take the blinders off and really see the world. Being a progressive or a would be ally does not absolve you from confronting your own privilege. A white, straight cis-male, no matter how good his intentions, is still a total jerk when insisting he knows what should or should not piss off trans-women.

From The Lavender Menace To Trans Misogyny

When the National Organization of Women had just been founded in 1969 Betty Friedan called for expelling lesbians from the organization calling them a Lavender Menace who would stand in the way of NOW achieving it’s goals. In her 1978 book Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism Mary Daly called trans-women ‘Frankenstein’ while ignoring trans-men’s existence entirely. This to me is not progress. It is a formally excluded group deciding to exclude a even more marginalized group. This sort of crap happens all too often and I’m sick of it. We either liberate everyone or we’re all still trapped in a hierarchy of oppression.

The Return Of The Friday Random Thirteen

Because I have a fascination with Music and Prime Numbers

Space Oddity by David Bowie
Stupid Girl by The Rolling Stones
Hurry On Sundown by Hawkwind
Shout It Out Loud by Kiss
Bad Reputation by Joan Jet & The Blackhearts
Dragons & Fables by Hawkwind
Flight Of The Rat by Deep Purple
Bottom Of The Sea by George Thorogood & The Destroyers
Words by Missing Persons
City Don’t Cry by Page & Plant
Is There Something I Should Know by Duran Duran
God Save The Queen by Sex Pistols
Charles Atlas Song (reprise) by Tim Curry

The last thirteen songs that iTunes DJ mode called up

What Some Feminists, Gays And Theocrats Have In Common

What you may ask could feminists, gays and christian theocrats have in common? A refusal to view trans-men and women as anything other than mentally ill people who should be denied any medical help but coercive therapy to ‘cure’ them of their delusions. What with Ron Gold claiming we don’t exist, the late Mary Daly calling us ‘Frankensteinian’ and the Family Research Council throwing a snit fit over Federal Government banning employment discrimination based on gender identity this attitude has been more obvious than it usually is. They all ignore the growing medical consensus that transgender identity is a medical condition not a mental illness. The other thing they all have in common is that sense we are mentally ill we need NO legal protections. That this is a death sentence for many of us doesn’t bother them in the least for none of them consider us really human. I would just like to say to them in the kindest way possible FUCK OFF AND DIE

Genderqueer 101 A Definition

I can only give the definition that works for me. The clearest is that gender queer is not fitting into even the broadest definition of the gender binary of male/female as the only choices. For me personally it means that I am currently male bodied but my sense of self is far more female but there are aspects of me that are still quite male and others that are gender neutral. My sense of gender is not fixed and though I would love to use hormones to alter my body my sense of my gender does not depend on my physical appearance. For me gender identity is not a point on a line but a probability cloud like a electron.

Does thus definition help or is it too ambiguous

Atheist Quote Of A Random Day

A continuing feature of this blog brought to you by just another atheist

If God kills, lies, cheats, discriminates, and otherwise behaves in a manner that puts the Mafia to shame, that's okay, he's God. He can do whatever he wants. Anyone who adheres to this philosophy has had his sense of morality, decency, justice and humaneness warped beyond recognition by the very book that is supposedly preaching the opposite. — Dennis McKinsey

With a hat tip to Doggy Style

A Injury To One Is A Injury To All

That is a motto of my union, The Industrial Workers Of The World. It’s a motto I believe in and try to live by. Unless we stand up for the rights of everybody, even those who do not support us, we open ourselves to a dived and rule strategy. If the bosses can get us competing with each other for position in a hierarchy of oppression and some recognition and legal protections they know we will be too busy to fight them.

So I will always strive to practice solidarity. That does not mean I won’t call out groups and individuals I see willing to sell out others for some small gain for themselves. Also while I might actively support your goals I won’t support your organization if I see you practicing exclusionary bullshit *cough hrc cough*

So if you call yourselves a social justice group fucking fight for EVERONES rights or admit you’re a bunch of privileged wana be’s

Atheist Quote Of A Random Day

A continuing feature of this blog brought to you by just another atheist

The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as His father, in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter..- Thomas Jefferson,

And for the New Year a tripple header

In the affairs of the world, men are saved, not by faith, but by the want of it.- Benjamin Franklin,

This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.- John Adams,

All from our founding fathers, a ‘Christian’ nation indeed.