President Obama's Comments on Prolonged Detention

I'm actually asking for some comments and feedback on the subject of this video where I talk about President Obama's recent comments about the proposal of "prolonged detention" of suspected terrorist detainees. Please let me know what you think...........


Also, click here to hear Rachel Maddow calling Obama out on this....but come back and let me know what you think :-). And if you are a YouTuber, leave a video comment to this video on YouTube as well.

Laters.............................................

Atheist Bus Ads

"In The Beginning, Man Created God"...

...My latest video is concerning the atheist bus ads placed last week on the city of Chicago's buses. As many of you may remember, I think it was last year, there were similar ads placed on buses in Europe saying something like, "There's Probably No God, So Stop Worrying And Enjoy Your Life", and in Indiana recently, adspace was purchased to display a similar message on city buses there, which was never allowed to go up......

PZ Meyers Take on the Developments in the Daniel Hauser Case

This is a recent post from PZ Meyers blog, Pharyngula, entitled "Modern Day Isaacs"....I wanted to post it here in my blog because i think that he put it extremely well, and I would like to share with you all what he wrote. I completely agree with his take on the matter. So everyone check out pharyngula some time, there is also a link to it at the beginning of this paragraph and also in the left hand column here under the title "My Blog List"....

Colleen Hauser has flown the coop. She has defied a court order to bring her sick son, Daniel Hauser, to a qualified doctor for essential medical care. The boy has Hodgkins lymphoma, a disease with a very good prognosis if treated soon, but is a painful death sentence within a few years if neglected. His mother, though, is fervently religious, and no doubt smug in her righteousness, has bundled her son into a car and is devoutly driving to Mt. Moriah. I hope she's not expecting an angel of the lord to appear and spare her son.

What she has done has gone even deeper. Daniel is 13 years old; he has been tested for his competency, and has been found to be completely illiterate. He was homeschooled. Colleen Hauser has been wielding the sacrificial dagger of her faith on her son for years, crippling his brain and rendering him unable to evaluate the real-world consequences of their decisions. I wonder how many Daniel Hausers there are in this country, living lives of quiet ignorance, unexposed by the trauma of a physical disease?

And here's the real tragedy: Colleen Hauser almost certainly loves her son and believes she is doing what is best for him, every step of the way. I can identify with her in that regard — I can understand that deep, gut-wrenching love a parent can have for her children, the kind that can put you to your knees with agony at every little hurt they suffer…and Daniel Hauser faces deeper pain and an imminent threat of death that my kids have never had. But Colleen Hauser is so afflicted with the poison of religion that she has lost sight of reality, and is going to kill her son with her ignorance.

Here's another case: Leilani Neumann watched her daughter Madeline die of diabetes.

A mother accused of homicide for only praying while her 11-year-old daughter died of untreated diabetes knew the girl was gravely ill at least a day before she died, her sister-in-law testified Monday.

Susan Neumann of rural Merrill was the first witness to testify in the trial of Leilani Neumann, 41, who is charged with second-degree reckless homicide in her daughter Madeline's March 23, 2008, death.

Susan Neumann said Leilani Neumann told her that she came home from work at the family's coffee shop on March 22 and "felt the spirit of death" when she reached for the knob to open the door to the house.

"She was afraid," the sister-in-law said. "She ran upstairs to Kara (Madeline's nickname) and felt her and was relieved to feel warmth in her arm. Then she said they started praying and praying and praying and didn't stop praying until supper time."

Prosecutors contend any reasonable parent would have known something was wrong and Neumann, who believes healing comes from God, recklessly killed her daughter by praying instead of rushing her to a doctor as the girl became so weak she couldn't walk or talk.

I read that story, and it's heartbreaking. These were not uncaring parents, and you can tell that they are wracked with grief and loss — their little girl is dead. That pain is real.

But then look what they have done. Juvenile onset diabetes is easily treatable; I know healthy, successful 70 year olds who have lived with it for most of their lives, who have gone on to worthy careers and raised happy families, all things denied to Kara Neumann because her family was infected with the deadly taint of dogmatic superstition. Her parents killed her as certainly as if they had put a knife to her neck on the altar of their faith. Religion turned love into a death sentence.

And they haven't learned from this tragedy.

Before the start of the trial Monday, Leilani Neumann read from her Bible and circled the defense and prosecution tables several times in prayer.

That, I confess, hardened my heart. I hope her prayers in the courtroom are as effective as the prayers by her dying daughter's bedside.

These are cases of religion gone pathological, of belief so absurd and so deep that it denies truth and has overt negative consequences. Moderate Christian believers will read about this and dismiss it as irrelevant to their faith; sure, they'd pray, but they'd also get their children in to legitimate doctors who would give them effective treatment.

I have to say something that is heartfelt, and is also meant to offend. I do not absolve you mealy-mouthed moderates, I do not regard your beliefs as harmless. If Colleen Hauser or Leilani Neumann were in your church, you'd tell them to get medical care, but you'd also validate their belief in prayers. You would provide the soothing background muzak that says prayer is good, prayer is virtuous, prayer will connect you to the great lord who can do anything, prayer will give you solace in your time of worry. You would not raise your voice to say that prayer is useless, prayer is self-defeating, that while prayer might make you feel better while your child is suffering, that is no virtue. You pray yourselves. You think it is a noble and generous act for your representatives to prowl the corridors of hospitals, preying on the desperation of the sick. You abase yourselves before false hopes, and sacrifice human dignity on an altar built from the bones of the dead. You would spread the poison, piously excusing yourselves because you only want to administer sub-lethal doses.

You are Abraham's enablers. I hope you all feel a small tremor of guilt when you sit your own children down at bedtime to beg a nonexistent being for aid, when you plant the seed of futile supplication and surrender to delusions in their trusting minds. Damn you all.

Again...just to give credit where credit is due...this post was originally written and posted on PZ Meyers Blog "Pharyngula", which I also have a link to in the left hand column....I just thought it was well written, and wanted to share it with those of you who may not be regular readers of Pharyngula

PRESIDENT PLANET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here is the newest video addition to my video blog......I hope you like it, and I hope that it can spark some comments. Topics include President Obama's new emissions plan, the Daniel Hauser case, Don't Ask Don't Tell, the retarded republican representative from Texas, Joe Barton, and my hurt foot. Hope you enjoy it, and please feel free to post any comments, suggestions, or other random thoughts..........................................


Also....Click here for a link to a CNN special about this case, talking about this Daniel Hauser case with the mother and son on the run, as well as the father who is asking for them to come home.

Sick of the Complaining

I know that the video quality is not up to par yet and as good as I would like it to be, however I am still learning and it will get better with time. Also, I know that my speaking needs work, which I will try to work on improving and planning the content of these posts a little better as I go...so, bear with me, and please leave comments with your thoughts.............

If Atheists Ruled the World!

Some of you may have seen this before, but I thought I'd share for those of you who haven't. I think that this video is hilarious, and sad at the same time, both of which because all of the lines in the video are from text taken directly from online Christian fundamentalist forums. So, enjoy...

Damn it!

Well shit! I made a new video, then had to wait like an hour for YouTube to process it, then got the message that it was removed because it was too long (over ten minutes). So, I'm rather annoyed right now....I found out that I can upload longer videos to YouTube, but I have to change to a "Directors" account, and when I do that all of my fucking data will be removed and I will have to re-upload my videos....incedently, that means that I will have to edit my posts on this blog and in other places to insert the re loaded videos from my new status account! So...I plan on doing that, but not tonight. It's 4am, and I'm tired!

I will take care of all of this tomorrow, laters.............

Just sayin hi.......

Daniel Choi and the Gay Problem......

I am so f**king sick of hearing about the whining, bitching, complaining, and outright discrimination against homosexuals in this country....one such topic that pisses me off is the ordeal with Daniel Choi and the whole retarded "don't ask, don't tell" situation in the military. What happened to Lt. Daniel Choi, and the on going discrimination against every other gay service man/woman in the armed forces, is a complete disgrace to all Americans.
Danial Choi is a Westpoint graduate, with a degree in ARABIC! Arabic translators being something we desperately need right now, considering the situation in the middle east. As stated on the Rachel Maddow show (linked above), This week, after coming out earlier this spring, he has received a letter from the U.S. Army informing him that he is being dismissed, it says, in part, quote, "this is to inform you that sufficient basis exists to initiate action for withdrawal of federal recognition in the Army National Guard for moral or professional dereliction. Specifically, you admitted publicly that you are a homosexual, which constitutes homosexual conduct. Your actions negatively affected the good order and discipline of the New York Army National Guard".
I don't know about you but, at a time when we desperately need Arabic translators and tensions are so high, as well as desperately needing good soldiers to lead our military units, this kind of action is just downright f**king retarded!! If they want to be such biggots as to who can risk his life for this country, they might as well go back to not allowing African Americans to serve in the military as well whoever else these homophobic, biggoted assholes making these types of decions think is not good enough to protect, serve, and die for me, you, and this country.
It's just f**ked up that, in this day and age, we still have this kind of s**t going on in this supposedly free country. We need to seperate church and state, stop using the buybull to dictate the laws in this culturally diverse country, and make this country a place for the persuit of life, liberty, and happiness that it is intended to be for ALL AMERICANS, not just white, christian, a**holes that dislike anyone different different than themselves. We've spent the last 8 years going through hell, lets not continue it!

Here is the clip from the Rachel Maddow show that explains it all, as well as containing the interview with Daniel Choi immediately following his dismissal letter:

Some thoughts on Single Payer......

Well....first off...sorry it's been a couple days since my last post, but I've been busy and haven't had much time. Also, I'll try to get another video posted in the next couple of days.
As for what's been going on lately...one thing I'm curious about is the healthcare situation. I know it was a hot topic on the campaign trail, and leading up to election day for President Obama. And now they're going over what to do. One topic (and arguably the ideal topic that many of us bleeding heart liberals would love to see) is Single Payer, which is basically the ultimate idea of universal healthcare, of which I myself would love to see some variant of this type of plan in effect. A recent article in Democracy Now covered a resident of New Mexico asking President Obama:

My question is, so many people go bankrupt using their credit cards to pay for healthcare. Why have they taken single payer off the plate?

And President Obama's answer was:

If I were starting a system from scratch, then I think that the idea of moving towards a single-payer system could very well make sense. That’s the kind of system that you have in most industrialized countries around the world. The only problem is that we’re not starting from scratch. We have historically a tradition of employer-based healthcare. And although there are a lot of people who are not satisfied with their healthcare, the truth is, is that the vast majority of people currently get healthcare from their employers, and you’ve got this system that’s already in place. We don’t want a huge disruption as we go into healthcare reform, where suddenly we’re trying to completely reinvent one-sixth of the economy.

I don't know where many others stand on this issue, but I for one am saddened to see Single Payer brushed aside so quickly. And even though I can understand why President Obama answered in the way he did, I would really like to see this issue discussed more, or at least left on the table for a while longer....

"Evolutionary Leaders"? ...more like Spiritual Kooks!

Well....I was cruising around the internets, doin my thing, when I came across one of those things that just annoys the shit outa me. It was something that was mentioned on
pharyngula, that has been sent tyo people all around the internet, especially around the blogosphere, titled "A Call to Conscious Evolution".And, even though PZ Meyers already typed up a good response to this "woo" and "fluff", spiritual divinity nonsense, crap that groups like this peddle.
I guess that one of the things that piss me off so much about groups like this is how they take superstitious nonsense, and try to make it sound like science. For example, I think that PZ Meyers said it best, when he said "these loons seem to like the word "evolution" an awful lot, abusing the term to the point where I want to just slap it out of their hands and tell them "NO! Not until you learn what it actually means".
These people are just peddling new age crap disguised as science as a way to sell their books which really have nothing to do with anything. It's just a fucking business, and they are no better than a chruch when they peddle their fluff about "prayer" and "elevating consciousness". Things like this just slow down our ability to fix real problems in this world. Here is an example of what these retard fluff peddlers push to the masses:

We now realize that we are affecting our own evolution by everything we do. This knowledge awakens in us the aspiration to become more conscious through subjective practices including meditation, reflection, prayer, intuition, creativity, and conscious choice making that accelerate our evolution in the direction of unity consciousness and inspire us to deeply align our collective vision.

These are nothing but "new age priests", peddling their superstitious nonsense packaged to appear to be in some way related to actual science (of which none of it really is), and it's an insult to anyone who actually gives a damn about really fixing the problems we face in reality.
In closing, I think that PZ Meyers said it best in his answer to their nonsence, where they asf for your recommendations for what they can do to promote "consciousness evolution":

Teach critical thinking. Laugh at woo-meisters who push vapid idiocy like meditation and prayer and spirituality. Turn away from the lies of religion. Point out the bullshit in the empty noises of people like Deepak Chopra. Learn something about evolution, which has nothing to do with the fuzzy, sloppy, lazy goo these so-called "evolutionary leaders" are babbling about.

Second entry to my video blog.....

Here the topics are introducing my pets and also the recent court rulings in the case of 13 year old Daniel Hauser, where his mother refused medical care for his cancer on the basis of their religious beliefs. Click here to see the first story that I read about the subject sometime last week

An introduction to my video blog....

I decided to start a video blog, which I'll be posting to my blog here....forgive me at the beginning, as I am learning how to do this and how to use my new webcam. This is my first webcam, so I have a lot to learn. Thanks for watching.......