Offence and plastic bricks

Lego is anti-Islamic. Who knew?

Why marriage equality has been an important issue for reasons beyond same-gendered folk getting married

A look at some of the broader ramifications of the marriage equality issue.

Bob Katter forms party of like-minded bigoted simpletons

For readers outside of Australia, we have an independent MP known as Bob Katter, aka The Katt in the Hat, The Mad Katter, or simply The Mad Hatter, for his penchant for wearing his cowboy hat everywhere. It's been a little while since he went off to form his 'Australian Party'. Let's see what the crazy old coot is up to.

Human Rights - you keep saying these words. I don't think they mean what you think they mean.

A quick boot into the soft nuts of Australia's proposed religious exemptions to the draft Human Rights Bill.

Burchill, Moore and Transphobia, a sitcom where no-one laughs

A piece about the relatively recent transphobic tirades of Suzanne Moore and Julie Burchill.

My last words on God

Throughout this blog I have occasionally directed ire and venom at the zealot and the religious idealogue. The lazy pragmatism of politics, when combined with the fanaticism of the religious zealot can be frightening. I have been an atheist for a long time now. It is that worldview that informs my distrust and sometimes outright loathing of organised religion. I would like to explain why.

The following post outlines my reasons for being an atheist. It is not a description of every atheist, nor intended to be an authoritative guide to why atheists think the way they do. It is simply my reasoning, and why, when faith collides with governance, science, history or human rights, I find the religious model a sometimes absurd hindrance to finding a better way of doing things.

It's the end of the world as we know it

A small post about all things apocalyptic.

Nibiru. An artist's interpretation, not a photo. Sadly some people - usually the ones who think the moon landing was faked - probably think this is an actual photo.

How to Write: The Andrew Bolt Way

For the 9 or so people reading this from elsewhere in the world, Australia has a pundit named Andrew Bolt. He writes for Melbourne's Herald Sun newspaper. Like conservative pundits everywhere, he's there to push a contrarian agenda. It's not about facts or right and wrong for Andrew, it's purely about left and right. Right is good, noble and pure. Left is corrupt, whiny and stupid.

Well, for this post I thought I'd give socially awkward mouth-breathers everywhere a helping hand on their road to professional punditry, and teach you to write like Andrew Bolt. To keep things timely and topical, I have chosen for this lesson, Andy-Pandy's recent article on the re-election of Barack Obama.

Warning: Andrew's article contains about as much white entitlement whining as this page does but in written form.

A walk in someone else's shoes

In a first world democracy, you get comfortable, protected by enshrined laws and rights that protect your dignity, your freedom of expression. This can blind you to the fact that elsewhere, things are not quite so rosy. Amnesty International have recently released a Facebook app that scans your timeline and tells you how many times you may have been incarcerated, tortured or beaten for your opinions or actions in other parts of the world. It's well worth a look if you're on Facebook. Link.

See my results after the jump.

A policy

I've been away from the blog for a long time, and have only come back to it because of a comment out of the blue on an article many months old. After a long and surreal back and forth, I've decided to introduce a comments policy. And here it is...

He's got a fan club that one

It's funny, call someone out as a homophobe, and all the weird folk come creeping out of the woodwork with bananas arguments to justify the original word or deed of hatred.

I've got a few real class acts here.

It's been a while

I've been absent from the blog for a good long time, sadly the world continues to be replete with dickery regardless.

This post concerns recent protests in Sydney and the US in response to some dicky film that poked fun at Islam. I want to find a middle point between the us and them that has characterised most responses.

The madness deepens

It has been a good while since I posted here with any regularity. Part of it was a need for a break, a de-tox from global horror, and part of it was a plethora of topics to cover. Even my latest post, the thing on Kony and Invisible Children seems like an age ago, so fast do events move these days.

Today however, I'm going to return to an old favourite - the study of conservative thinking.

Kony, the LRA and Invisible Children

I've been a bit lax on this blog lately (the unmanageable kerfuffle called 'life' getting in the way) but this is something I really should discuss. If you in any way interact with the broad social networking/blogosphere arena, then you've probably heard about the 'KONY 2012 Invisible Children' campaign. If you want to know what's going on, having heard coflicting opinions, then see more after the jump.

Live and let live huh?

One of the things we are often told when it comes to the role of organised belief in society is that it is an inalienable right to hold personal belief (which I more or less agree with), and that faith is personal.

Organised belief is not personal. No-one seems particularly content to just get on with life and mind their own business. Here is one example;

Fighting Back dammit!

So, a few days ago I wrote this, a seething tirade against Old White Christian Men Who Want Their Bitches To Do What They're Told.

Fortunately, I'm not the only one who's sick to the back teeth with this shit. Virginia's invasive ultrasound has been rendered non-mandatory, and after being pilloried and lampooned in the media, Darryl Issa's all-cock hearing on women's contraception is now being replaced with a more gyno-friendly one.

About damn time.

Homophobia, Hypocrisy, the Social Poison that is Faith

I don't think it's just me noticing this, but religion seems to be marching loudly at the forefront of the 'We hate everyone and everything parade' lately. Still, religion doesn't cause every evil. Some of it is championed by spoiled meatheads.

Get religion out of politics now

If this comes across as prejudicial or intolerant, I'm sorry. I'm not sorry for causing offence, rather I'm sorry that you find yourself defending any of the vile crap I'm about to show you. I'm sorry because if you defend this, you fail at being a tolerant and compassionate human being.

Pointless debates #5: Whose ideology produced the biggest arsehole?

If you hang around atheist forums, as I do, then you'll know that eventually you're bound to see a stupid argument crop up. It's very common, and I've seen it everywhere.

Outrage Button #12: Big Numbers

This is something you've got to watch out for - the Big Numbers trick. News media like to use it, and I know the Chaser have pointed it out before. Never let anyone tell you Uncle Old Angry Guy isn't keeping an eye out for frauds, liars and conmen for ya.