Yeah, I guess Christmas really is under attack

So what do:

A)

and

B)

both have in common? Apparently, they're both under attack.

At least that's the story if you ask any conservative republican. Yes, when December rolls around it can only mean one thing: Conservative Christians complaining about not being able to put Baby Jesus in the town square. Ever since it was designated as a federal holiday in 1870 by Ulysses S. Grant, Christians have been claiming it has a deserved place at the forefront of American culture, especially since "the United States was founded by Christians" and based on "Christian" values. However, I think these people could use a history lesson on the origins of all the customs we've come to associate with Christmas.

Let's take the most recognizable symbol of Christmas: The Christmas Tree. This really has little to do with Christianity (although it's never stopped Christians from making up myths) and, like most Christmas customs, is taken from Pagan traditions revolving around the celebration of the Winter Solstice. We can credit the invention of this custom to the Brotherhood of the Blackheads, specifically the children of the Latvian town of Riga, who, in the early 15th century, decorated a fir tree that was originally planned to be burned (it was tradition to burn a giant log for the Winter Solstice. Why? I don't know, they're Pagans.), but in the end wasn't because of it's large size and safety concerns. Some historians though think this Christmas tree business dates back as far as the Egyptians, Romans, and Druids.

Well, how about the other, much more awesome part of Christmas: PRESENTS. Even if you're a lonely hermit with no friends or family to receive gifts from (Man, what a horrible life you must have), people can at least splurge on gifts and call it a Christmas gift for themselves. Plus, there's really nothing more American than spending hundreds of dollars and going into debt every year (Woo! Debt!). Except that's another thing taken from Pagan tradition. The Romans had this celebration called Saturnalia held in recognition of the god Saturn that lasted from December 17th to December 23rd. December 25th is believed to have come from the recognition of a few other gods like Mithra and Angerona. Anyway, a part of Saturnalia was the exchange of gifts. What's funny is that the Catholic church banned gift giving for awhile until they realized they could lure in Pagans to their religion by bringing back the gift giving, making up some justification (because when doesn't that work?) and pretty much stealing the Winter Solstice celebration and claiming it as their own.

Wait, so, if Christians don't get a Christmas tree, presents, or even the holiday itself, what do they have? Nothing. What does this mean? Christmas is pretty much a secular holiday that doesn't belong to any particular religion.

Except for those weird nativity scenes that show Baby Jesus on a camping trip. That's definitely religious and the government doesn't have the right to erect any religious symbol, with or without tax-payer money. Don't like it? Then repeal the First Amendment. That'll go over well.

My point with all this is, nobody is attacking Christians. Christians are just mad because people recognize that the government shouldn't be erecting any religious symbols that could be interpreted as an establishment of religion. My only problem would be if any government uses tax dollars to put up a nativity scene. That's clearly linked to a specific religion. A Christmas tree however, I really have no problem with. I actually think of Christmas as more of a secular holiday anyway. To me, Christmas has pretty much entered into the mainstream mostly through the heavy amount of advertising and classic Christmas movies (of which A Christmas Story is the best). The Supreme Court seems to agree with me as well (or is it I who agrees with them? Nope, they always agree with me.). So go ahead and put up those Christmas trees and holiday wreaths, just keep those nativity scenes on your own property and stop thinking anybody is attacking you.

What do you think? Is Christmas really under attack by godless heathens? Are people who say it is whiny bitches? Lemme know in the comments section!

Sources: http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/11/26/atheist-billboard-christmas-is-a-myth/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/07/stewart-gretchen-christmas_n_792998.html

http://video.foxnews.com/v/4442813/war-on-christmas-comes-to-pennsylvania/

Yeah, I guess people who keep the U.S. honest should die

I really didn't plan on writing anything about the Wikileaks cable release, but then I read this story from the Huffington Post. Apparently, the State Department advised students at Columbia University not to discuss or post anything about the Wikileaks documents on the internet. (Columbia University has since retracted this statement and is in full support of freedom of speech. So, that's nice.) Right about then is when I decided now was a good time to talk about Wikileaks.

I'll go ahead and be upfront: I support what Wikileaks has done and is doing. I support their decision to leak the 250,000 cables and I also support pretty much everything else they've ever done. There needs to be an organization of people who can keep the government honest and accountable. Wikileaks is that organization. Unfortunately, a few prominent government officials and television hosts don't share this same point of view.

Take good ol' Bill O'Reilly. Surely he would support someone sticking it to the government and keeping them honest. Nope. Actually quite the opposite. In fact his exact words were: "Whoever leaked all those State Department documents to the WikiLeaks website is a traitor and should be executed or put in prison for life." Apparently he doesn't understand that a non-citizen of the United States (Julian Assange is from Australia) can't technically be a "traitor" to the United States. He never had any alleigance to the U.S. in the first place.

The U.S. government really isn't a fan of the Wikileaks community's work either. They're looking into prosecuting Julian Assange. I guess it bothers them that there's organization with the ability to expose the government provide the transparency that the U.S. government currently lacks. But I'd like to refer back to the argument that the U.S. Government often gives for any kind of privacy-violating law or measure that has ever been enacted: If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to worry about.

I really think the U.S. Government shows just how naive it is when they think they can suppress the flow of information when the Internet exists. If anything is written down, it can and most likely will be on the Internet (there's probably even some kind of weird, kinky Wikileaks porn, per Rule 34). In fact, the only way to prevent this would be to create some kind of telepathic form of communication between secret agents (MOVIE IDEA!).

If the United States is staying absolutely clean and honest and not doing anything that contradicts any statements made or goes back on a promise, then everything should be just dandy. But it should be obvious then that this isn't the case with the United States. There really isn't any foundation-shaking information in these cables though. It's mostly just catty descriptions of other world leaders. But the fact that the U.S. Government is trying to suppress any secret or confidential information should be cause for concern.

If you need any other excuse to justify the work and existance of Wikileaks, here's an awesome website that works in the same way as "WTF Has Obama Done So Far?" called "So Why Is Wikileaks A Good Thing Again?"

What do you think of Wikileaks? Are you a tyrannical dictator who hates the very notion of a whistleblower organization existing to expose your flaws? Are you an intelligent person who understands the need for an unbiased organization to keep governments honest? Lemme know!

Sources: I really didn't state anything specific in this post. This story is actually a little dated so there's about 50 articles online about this thing. Here's a wikipedia link to Wikileaks. Is it insulting to your intelligence when I give you a link to wikipedia? Probably.

Yeah, I guess agnosticism makes you an unfit parent

Meet Craig Scarberry. Craig is from the great state (my state!) of Indiana and a U.S. Navy veteran. Craig is a divorced dad who used to share 50/50 custody of his children. That was until a court said that his time with his children would be cut down to just 4 hours a week and every other weekend.

But why would this happen?

Was Craig beating his kids?

Was he taking them to wild sex parties?

Was he a drunkard and a meth dealer?

Nope. None of those things. Not even close. Craig wanted to find out why his time was cut down and it turns out the court commissioner who presided over his case, George C. Pancol, wrote that it was because he was Agnostic and because his ex-wife was a Christian he and his wife could no longer communicate effectively (Craig used to be a Christian as well). To be exact, the Judge wrote:

• "...The father did not participate in the same religious training as the mother...father was agnostic."
• "...When the father considered himself a Christian, the parties were able to communicate effectively."

What a bunch of bullshit.

Right off the bat, alarms should be going off when you see a Judge, a representative of the State, make any mentions of religion in regards to his decision over a case. Why would Craig's time with his kids be cut short? Why not his ex-wife's time? One could assume that because the Judge cut Craig's time and not his ex-wife's that the State favors the Christian religion. That it sees one as "better" than the other. That it prefers that particular religion. Wouldn't that be a violation of an amendment? Hmm, which amendment is that...oh yes. The First Amendment. That whole separation of church state thing. That no establishment of religion jibber jabber. It's obvious that there's a bias here in the case that skewed the ruling towards Craig's ex-wife.

But what's odd to me at this point is how little coverage this story has received. This story came out a little over a week ago, yet there are hardly any news outlets that want to pay any attention to it (MSNBC was one that did). And so I have to ask (although I'm not a fan of when news shows set up these hypotheticals): What if it was a Christian woman being denied custody rights?

The media would have an abosolute field day with this. But you have an Agnostic man being denied custody, and nobody really cares. They just kind of shuffle off to the side and hope for the best. This story makes it clear to me once again that here in the United States it's still okay to discriminate against Agnostics (and even Atheists). If anything it's encouraged. Nobody really sees anything wrong with it because the majority of society views them as "Godless heathens" (their words, not mine).

What makes this story even more sad is that Craig never tried to push his beliefs onto his children. He actually was submissive to the demands of the court and his wife and took his kids to church, church-related activities (like church camp) and even to a Christian daycare. Craig gave in to these demands yet he is still reprimanded for having a different set of beliefs. There is absolutely no basis for the Judge's decision that Craig shouldn't be allowed with his children because of his Agnosticism. For a Judge to make the inference that Craig and his ex-wife can no longer communicate because of his beliefs and because of that Craig's time should be reduced and not his ex-wife's is ridiculous and appalling. Fortunately Craig is appealing the Judge's decision and hopefully he will be able to get back his time with his kids. As for the Judge, he clearly violated the First Amendment and should be punished with a suspension at the very least, although I'd call for his removal based on this example of his sound reasoning.

What do you think about this? Was the Judge correct in his ruling? Should Craig be allowed full custody of his kids because he looks like a cool dad? Let me know in the comments section!

Sources:

http://www.fox59.com/news/wxin-father-claims-he-lost-children-112210,0,5638516.story

http://heraldbulletin.com/breakingnews/x1293919477/Custody-ruling-raises-legal-concerns

Yeah, I guess you do understand how the TSA makes us feel

Yesterday in Lisbon, Portugal, President Barack Obama said he's talked to the TSA about their new security screening procedures and discussed other alternative ways of screening. However, he said supports the new security procedures saying that their necessary to ensure airline passenger safety.

Obama even said "I understand people's frustrations"

But here's the thing: You don't. You know how I know?

Because, besides the fact that Obama himself has never personally undergone the new TSA grope-and-grab security procedures, if he really understood people's frustrations he'd call on the TSA to revert back to older screening methods. The truth is, we have ways of screening people for explosives that are far less

a) humililating

b) intrusive

c) degrading.

We have puffer machines that can detect explosives and we have dogs that are trained to detect chemicals used in making bombs. The TSA says there is no other way of ensuring the safety for passengers, that there is no other less intrusive way, but that's false. Plain and simple. In addition to the new TSA procedures being legalized sexual assault, the backscatter scanners also pose a potential health risk to frequent airline travelers. Some scientists (like these guys) are worried that the full-body scanners could cause cancer in some passengers. Of course, even though the TSA said the scanners are safe it wouldn't be the first time they've lied. Remember how they said the scanners couldn't store images? Yeah, that turned out to be false. Some of the pictures were even leaked to the internet. It's also been shown that you can invert the colors of the picture to get a nearly perfect naked picture of someone.

The excessive amount of security in airports only serves to provide passengers with the illusion of safety, but it doesn't make airports any safer and it doesn't make the United states any safer. If a terrorist wants to kill a large number of people, then they'll do it. Nothing stops a terrorist from blowing themselves up in a movie theatre, on a bus, in a mall, etc. Should we have full-body scanners and patdowns there too? Of course not. So why do we concentrate so much money into airport security?

I suppose one of the most alarming ways we know that the new TSA procedures are entirely unnecessary is the effect it's having on Americans. Cathy Bossi, a flight attendant and breast cancer survivor, was forced to remove her prosthetic breast and show it to the TSA agent during a patdown. Even pilot's unions like the U.S. Airline Pilots Association have said they're against the new procedures. What's the point of even screening a pilot? If a pilot really wanted to kill the people in the plane they wouldn't need a bomb. They're the pilot.They could just crash the plane. Honestly, whose idea was it to screen pilots?

I also hate the argument the TSA tries to make to people that "They don't have to fly. You have a choice not to." Okay, so I guess I'll just drive my car across the ocean to go to New Zealand. I'll just swim the distance to Japan. I'll row a fucking boat to Iceland. What do you expect the average traveler to do? When it comes to long-distance traveling people certainly don't have a choice when it comes to transportation and people shouldn't have to be groped and shot with radiation if they want to go outside the country.

So, I encourage all who read this to opt-out of the full-body scanner machines and to instead go for the public patdown to show the other passengers exactly how we're treating our own citizens. Oh, and if you're a guy who's getting a patdown, try to get the biggest boner you can just before you get patted down. I mean, if you're going to get groped down there, you might as well try and get a free handy while the agent's at it.

There are at least 10 more arguments I could make against these procedures, but I want you to let me know your thoughts on these new TSA security procedures in the comments section!

Sources:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TRAVEL/11/20/obama.tsa/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_cnn

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/20/obama-on-tsa-screening-anger-_n_786473.html

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40278427/ns/travel-news/

Yeah, I guess a pro-life stance is realistic

In Thailand, abortions are illegal except in cases where:

-The woman is raped

-The pregnancy affects her health

-Or the fetus is abnormal

Recently, (or I guess as recent as today?) roughly 2,000 aborted fetuses (fetusi?) were found in the mortuary of a Buddhist temple as an attempt to conceal illegal abortions.

So, yeah I guess people with a pro-life stance have a realistic outlook and plan for the way the United States should regulate abortions.

Except...we've just seen a case where abortions are illegal and, yet abortions still happened. The conditions of the abortions were probably totally unsafe and were more than likely performed by a less-than-qualified doctor. All too often, people confuse being pro-choice with being pro-death, but people need to understand that there is probably nothing more "American" than believing in the freedom of people to choose between getting an abortion or not. From looking at this case in Thailand it's clear that even if abortions are made illegal, abortions are going to happen. Instead of sweeping abortions under the welcome mat (or hiding them in a buddhist temple), we need to be more realistic and understand that if abortions are going to happen no matter what, there should at least be safe and sterile conditions for abortions to be performed under, and qualified doctors to perform them.

The arguments for abortion have pretty much been made over and over and if you'd just look at the issue reasonably and realistically it would be pretty obvious that being pro-choice is the right choice.

But nobody is going to make you choose that position. Fortunately you have the freedom of choosing a position on the matter. Pretty crazy.

What do you think of this whole "abortion" thing?

Here to stay or just a fad (like snap bracelets)?

Let me know in the comments section!

Sources:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/19/2000-fetuses-found-at-tha_n_785893.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11769269 (The British spell "fetus" strangely. Check it out.)