Blah Blah Flowers

Oh Mr Deity I've missed you!

Labels: atheism, atheists, Christianity, Fundamentalists- Christian, humour, religion, YouTube

I seem to be arguing with fascists on-line this morning. In more cheerful news, trying to check in on fundamentalist wackos Christian Voice, I get a 404. I haven't looked at their site for a while so I don't know how long this has been like this. Founder and complete membership of CV Stephen Green is supposed to be paying money to the BBC for wasting their, and indeed, the country's time, maybe he's run out of pennies.

Labels: Christian Voice, Fundamentalists- Christian, Stephen Green

Following on from here I've found, thanks to Skepchick, another mickeytaking video, presenting The Darwin Finches!


They've also linked to Slacktivist who has explained that when a Christian complains that two men marrying breaks his or her freedom you can just point out that Fred Phelps has not been arrested for his outrageous anti-humanity and so win the argument.

Labels: Fundamentalists- Christian, gay marriage, humour, skepticism, YouTube

I don't know if, like me, you were disappointed when the giant Flupocalypse of 2003 didn't wipe out all the life on the planet that had worked out how to get the fire out of the rocks. We weren't prepared, we didn't have enough vaccines, Osama Bin Laden was working out how to teach ducks with a cough to hijack planes, and yet, we survived, we go on, and we wonder whether Joss Whedon will ever make another TV show that goes beyond a series. But don't worry, just because Avian Bird Flu didn't get us, those dirty birds have teamed up with pigs and, it would seem, Mexicans? to give us a new killer virus to worry about. This does lead to the interesting question: Has Michelle Malkin already reached the maximum that she can hate Mexicans or will this enable her to take her racism to new heights? We'll wait and see.

The comments on this article are typical of the great minds of the world vomiting forth into the electro-ether.

I strongly feel that children and elderly people will be at risk from this killer flu the most.

Harpreet, Stafford.

Everyone seems to have decided to ignore the second page of the article, where it says:

Avian flu, which has killed 250 people since 2003

Look at that. The media went batshit-mental back then, convincing us we were all going to die and, like the MMR vaccine scare, it turned out not to be the case. Two hundred and fifty people? That's nothing. Somali pirates have killed more than that, and they bankrupt themselves in millet seed for their parrots. So I see no reason for keeping on keeping on and not worry that we're going to all be killed until, perhaps, people start falling ill?

These medical sounding scares based on absolutely no evidence are one of the many reasons why I don't bother to pay for news any more.

Meanwhile Tory MP Nadine Dorries sues someone over something. Nadine Dorries is a fairly obscure MP only well known to followers of the Westminster soap opera that is the House of Commons for her Sarah Palin-like ability to seize and repeat the stupid in any subject that gets her interest. She's normally pretty quiet between bouts of conservative Christian sponsored attempts to get the date by which a woman can have an abortion put back to eight months before her own birth. I'm not sure if she can successfully sue someone over suggesting to someone else that they spread a rumour she had an affair if they don't do it, even if the only reason they didn't might be because they were revealed to be thinking about it, but her primary reason for this bout of legal action is presumably to keep it in the news as long as possible in the lead up to the next general election. Of course, one doesn't need to tell lies in order to recognise them...

The Sindy has more positive news, namely that the BNP is as equally messed up a party as the proper political groups full of burned-out members who are just bitter and more likely to fight with one another than the vast majority of people who they think shouldn't be in the country. Less comforting is the comments, in which it seems that a cadre of BNP supporters have taken up residence, you might need the Independent Livejournal thread if you want to see them though, they have a tendency to keep vanishing from the 'proper' website.

Labels: abortion, BNP, Conservatives, Fundamentalists- Christian, media, media scares, newspapers, science

We should remember that only two of them are intentionally amusing.

First there was:

Then there was:

Best yet:

[via Feministing.]

UPDATE: Heh, someone's snapped up that domain name: Giant Gay Repellent Umbrella.

Labels: Fundamentalists- Christian, gay marriage, humour, YouTube

To complain to youtube follow this link;
YouTube complaints (needs a YouTube account)

Scroll to the very bottom and click on "new issue"

Select "suspended account" from the options and express your opinion.

The mediafire link to download the video is;
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=4d77967b07dff9ac8c9e7c56ba37815f99433de67f37e9e4.

Labels: atheism, atheists, Fundamentalists- Christian, religion, skepticism

Westboro Church protest met with laughter, sarcasm, mickey-taking and charity.

Over 100 students gathered on South University Avenue and in Hutchinson Courtyard Monday to demonstrate against six protesters from the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) advocating against the University of Chicago, the Chicago Theological Seminary (CTS), and the University of Chicago Law School’s employment of Barack Obama...

They were accompanied down the street by a group of students mocking the WBC’s message. The students held a sign reading "Figs Doom Nations" and planted themselves across the street from the WBC, drawing from a Biblical passage in which Jesus disparages a fig tree. "If you need scanty biblical evidence for anything, we’ve got it," said fourth-year Carmel Levy...

On the eastern side of the quad, students who had been waiting for the group waved signs mocking the WBC’s trademark "God Hates Fags" poster. The signs bore slogans such as "God <3’s internet porn," "God hates the new Facebook," and "God hates dial-up."...

Deputy Dean of Students for Student Affairs Martina Munsters came away with a positive impression of the counter-protest. "From what I’m hearing, it sounds like things went really well. There was no confrontation...[and] students seemed to be pretty upbeat," she said. "They even raised about $500 for charity, which I think is tremendous."

Labels: comedy, demonstrations, Fundamentalists- Christian, hate speech, United States

A threatened mass protest by an anti-gay US church failed to materialise when only one demonstrator turned up. Fred Phelps and his daughter Shirley Phelps-Roper from the Westboro Baptist Church were banned from entering the UK to protest against a play in Hampshire. They had urged a picket of Queen Mary's College in Basingstoke over the staging of The Laramie Project, a play about a man killed for being gay. But only one protester arrived and was heckled away by counter-demonstrators...

Westboro preacher Mrs Phelps-Roper had said the decision to ban her and her father from entering the UK would "bring great wrath upon your heads".

Yeah, yeah, yeah...

"We will picket them, and see if they actually believe those lies they tell about how tolerant and accepting Brits are."

Who exactly has been spreading these vicious lies about us being tolerant and accepting? When we find them we'll take away their ID Cards and pretend they are asylum seekers from Iraq.

Labels: Fundamentalists- Christian, gay, homophobia, humour, theatre

Christians plan response to Atheist bus adverts.

A trinity of Christian groups have created their own series of advertisements to run across London buses... The new campaign is organsied by the Christian Party, the Trinitarian Bible Society and the Russian Orthodox Church... In a somewhat cheeky move, the Rev George Hargreaves of the Christian Party has created a bus advert which proclaims: "There definitely is a God. So join the Christian Party and enjoy your life."

Now, I definitely have no problem with this. My one concern is that the Humanists had to put the 'probably' into 'there probably isn't a God' in order to cover themselves from complaints by any fundamentalist wackos that happened to be passing. Will there be any double standard if an atheist complains about the definitive nature of these pro-imaginary being statements? What if we have atheist bus drivers too 'shocked' and 'horrified' to drive buses with those advertisements on?

It's unclear whether the charmless bigots have a position on this yet as they are busy helping to advertise the University of Saint Andrews' amateur performance of Jerry Springer The Opera for them. Isn't that the very spirit of Christian charity?

Labels: adverts, atheism, atheists, Christian Voice, Fundamentalists- Christian, Jerry Springer The Opera, religion, Stephen Green

An atheist UK bus campaign which uses the slogan "There's probably no God" does not breach the advertising code, a watchdog has ruled.

Yes, the complaints that tedious bankrupt Stephen Green encouraged people to send from charmless bigots HQ, otherwise known as the Christian Voice website, have been turned down, on the grounds they were dumb. I wait to see whether Green will now try to sue the ASA or whether he'll go back to begging in the street for the money to pay the BBC's bill.

Labels: adverts, atheism, Christian Voice, Flickr, Fundamentalists- Christian, religion, Stephen Green

Christian bus driver claims to be too offended by Atheist bus advert to work. I'm sorry, but I'm calling shenanigans.

Ron Heather, from Southampton, Hampshire, responded with "shock" and "horror" at the message and walked out of his shift on Saturday in protest...

Mr Heather told BBC Radio Solent: "I was just about to board and there it was staring me in the face, my first reaction was shock horror. "I felt that I could not drive that bus, I told my managers and they said they haven't got another one and I thought I better go home, so I did. Mr Heather said he was shocked at the "starkness" of the advert. "I think it was the starkness of this advert which implied there was no God."

There might be no God. For his own sake, pay attention. But I can't believe that anyone, even a committed Christian, would genuinely feel they were too offended to do this job.

First Bus said it would do everything in its power to ensure Mr Heather does not have to drive the buses.

Now get back to work Heather!

Labels: atheism, atheists, Christianity, Fundamentalists- Christian

Some good news in the whole arena of 'Religious people discriminating against gay people and then claiming that they are the ones being discriminated against when they are taken to court or dismissed from their jobs' (hmmm, I need something catchier for that): Christian ex-registrar did not lose her job for her religious beliefs, she lost them for being an intolerant fool, tribunal decides.

Labels: Fundamentalists- Christian

After the ridiculous climb-down by Waterstones in the face of of the bankrupt one-man Christian demonstrator Stephen Green, members of the Welsh Assembly have organised a reading of Patrick 'Nicky Wire's brother' Jones for tonight. The charmless bigots, Christian 'No, our membership is bigger than just Stephen Green, sitting in his bedroom, weeping bitter tears at the futility of his life' Voice, are predictably unhappy.

The poems aren't actually much good, they hardly rhyme, they rarely scan or have rhythm, but they possibly have enough profanity and references to female genitalia to get the literati excited. One of them, to which Christians are taking the greatest exception, includes the blasphemous assertion of sex between the poet and someone Jones calls 'mary magdelene' (sic), and Jesus.

Maybe Stephen figures that the best way to pay back the money he owes the BBC for wasting their time is to get a job reviewing poetry on Newsnight Review?

Labels: Christian Voice, Fundamentalists- Christian, poetry, Stephen Green

HE MADE IT.

The pictures on the telly this morning are amazing, street parties in Washington, Jesse Jackson with tears in his eyes, the new First Family standing on stage.

Cynicism glands are already starting to do their stuff so I've probably got about another thirty minutes before I remember how fucked the United States is and how Barack Obama is probably going to be spending the bulk if not all of his Presidency sorting out the absolute mess that the Republicans have made of the country in the last fifteen years.

One of the most striking differences between the United Statesian and British modes of politics is that when failure encourages a party to head out to it's extreme that impulse doesn't tend to achieve much in Britain whereas it reaps dividends in America. William Hague, Iain Duncan-Smith and Michael Howard all proposed going further and further to the Right after the Tories were ejected from power in '97 and it didn't do them much good, David Cameron has swung left and it's working, though it's equally that people are sick of the party in charge. But in the United States, ALL the Republicans who were standing to be their candidates were various degrees of batshit insane.

What has been depressing over the last week is that people have been even talking about Sarah Palin standing in 2012. Really? It's the Religious thing that I don't think secular people can understand, but the misadventures of Shrubya in office I would have hoped would have taught the Religious Right that God doesn't help you make up for an incuriosity about the world around you and an ignorance of how things work. If the Republicans had any sense they'd try to find a member of their party who actually knows what a conservative is and has conservative values rather than looking for a holy fool so devout they have stigmata. Leave them for the Catholics.

But yeah, good news last night. The United States can finally stop being embarrassed on the world stage (think of that Simpsons episode where Bart and Lisa strain their neck muscles because they've never had to hold their heads high before with respect for their father) and rededicate itself to actually trying to help make the world a better place again.

Labels: American Presidency, Barack Obama, Fundamentalists- Christian, George 'Shrubya' Bush

It turns out that God hates the UK. Who knew? Yes, Fred Phelps's tech-savy grandson has helped him create a definitive list of why God hates the UK and, wouldn't you know it, it's all about the bumming. What seems odd in all this is that God has been half-hearted in expressing his dislike of the United Kingdom's supposed relaxed attitude toward the gays, or perhaps he's been so angry that his punishments have actually travelled back in time to affect the UK before homosexuality was decriminalised.

If you want to find out why God hates your country (hint: It may have something to do with man-on-man action) check out http://www.godhatestheworld.com/">God Hates The World, although you might have to wait until Fred works out how to spell most of the countries.

Labels: Fundamentalists- Christian, gay, homophobia, humour, lesbian, lesbians, queer

Stephen Green, the solo Christian protester who masquerades under the name 'Christian Voice', an imaginary coterie of charmless bigots, takes time out of his busy schedule of looking in gutters and down the back of chairs for loose change to pay off his massive legal costs to call for the restoration of the death penalty. Yep, he's one of those Christians that pay more attention to the Old Testament than the New.

'In the Christian understanding, upon which our laws are or should be based, the death penalty was given to mankind for perpetuity under God's covenant with Noah. That covenant was sealed with the sign of the rainbow (Genesis 9:12-13). 'The Bible verse says: "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed" (Genesis 9:6, AV) and it goes on to explain why: "for in the image of God made He man."

As ever, the strain of making a logical argument proves too much for Green:

'In fact we set the value of a human life even lower. In the sixties, with the abolition of the death penalty in 1965 and the Abortion Act 1967, our politicians took away the death penalty from the guilty, by the state, where it belongs, and imposed it upon the innocent, within the family, where it does not. The result is a society with no compassion for the victims of crime and their families or for the weaker members of society. We see this today in the callous nature of crimes committed by teenagers on each other and in the increasing brutality of Britain.

Yes, we need to get rid of women's access to safe abortion services and bring back the death penalty to make the United Kingdom a less brutal place.

'The death penalty should not be available to judges for all convicted murderers, just for those convicted by overwhelming evidence: that is on the testimony of two or three eye-witnesses, or the equivalent in forensics.

Why do judges need 'two or three eyewitnesses' before Green lets them do what his God is so keen for them to do? And what about soldiers or police marksmen?

It's worth reading to see how Green doesn't really understand the legal system, which possibly explains why he's in the mess he's in at the moment.

'The Governments' proposed 'seriously wronged' defence will not command public confidence, as most people would agree that the commission of adultery is a serious wrong; yet that is to be specifically excluded.

As I understand it, should someone kill their partner due to discovering they were being adulterous, they will not be able to use the 'seriously wronged' defense to get a lesser charge. So this would be a good thing.

However, it would be right to abolish the defence of diminished responsibility - no-one has the right to diminish another's responsibility.

A plea of 'diminished responsibility' is usually used by someone pleading guilty in the hopes of receiving a less severe sentence. I've never heard of someone diminishing another's responsibility and would love to hear Green's explanation for this.

It all just shows how wrong we can get it when man presumes to make laws which should be made by Almighty God.'

Hmmm, sounds like this Jehova chappy should be arrested and prosecuted for Incitement if you ask me.

Labels: Christian Voice, Fundamentalists- Christian, law, Stephen Green

Previously.

Stephen Green, sole creator of the unpopular soap opera consisting purely of charmless bigots Christian Voice, let's us know how things are going for him at the moment:

BBC GO FOR POUND OF FLESH OVER SPRINGER COSTS.

So, that suggestion that they should pay for his decision to take them to court didn't work then?

The BBC have just sent a bailiff to serve a statutory demand on Christian activist Stephen Green in respect of Mark Thompson's costs of £55,000 in the Jerry Springer the Opera case.

The demand could see Green made bankrupt and homeless.

The High Court ruled last December that Stephen Green could not prosecute Mark Thompson, the Director General of the BBC, and Jonathan Thoday of Avalon over the BBC2 broadcast of Jerry Springer the Opera and its subsequent theatre tour. The Court ordered costs against him.

Mark Thompson and Jonathan Thoday were awarded costs totalling £90,000 against Green, who is the National Director of the prayer and lobby group Christian Voice. The BBC's solicitors were awarded £55,000 and Olswangs Solicitors, who acted for Thoday, got an order for £35,000.

Still, there is a bright-side:

The costs order is better than it could have been; the BBC originally demanded almost £78,000 after instructing David Pannick QC, probably the most expensive barrister they could find, while Thoday wanted over £58,000.

Last month, Stephen Green wrote to both Mark Thompson and Jonathan Thoday inviting them to waive their costs in the interests of goodwill and justice. The appeal to the better nature of Thompson has fallen on deaf ears.

Funny that. It's almost as though they were angry at having their reputations, and that of the businesses they worked for, being impugned by one hubristic runner-up from a Master lookalike contest.

It should be enough for Mark Thompson and Jonathan Thoday that they got away with blasphemy, insulting God and the Lord Jesus Christ, at least in this life. For these rich, powerful men to pursue me into the bankruptcy courts over money I don't have would be vindictive.'

Both sets of solicitors have also threatened to chase the donors who gave the money for the original action, but it is far from clear that a court would allow that. Even if it did, Green is adamant that he will protect the donors' identity, even if that puts him in contempt of court.

'I should go to prison rather than reveal their names, even if I could remember who they were,' he told both Thompson and Thoday.

Labels: BBC, Christian Voice, Fundamentalists- Christian, Jerry Springer The Opera, Stephen Green

We may not get the film sequels to The Golden Compass. This is, apparently, because of nasty Christian fundamentalists and not that the first film wasn't very good.

What? Me defending the Christians? These really must be the End Times...

Still, it's a shame if these films don't get made. Seeing as the third book has two under-age protagonists recapitulate the Fall From Grace of Adam and Eve only with more sex, if that got made it might have made a gratifying number of heads explode like an all-night Scanners broadcast.

Labels: Fundamentalists- Christian, movies, Philip Pullman

Labels: Christianity, Fundamentalists- Christian, Fundamentalists- Islamic, humour, Islam, religion, YouTube

In hilarious news, after losing his court case Stephen Green, founder and sole member of charmless bigots Christian Voice, faces declaring bankruptcy in the face of court awarded damages against him. Of course, this sort of thing is never nice to happen to anyone, but then on the other hand Green is a deeply, deeply unpleasant individual.

He's basically arguing that because the BBC and Avalon are so rich they should let him off this money, right after they wasted money defending themselves against his ridiculous time and money-wasting prosecutions in court.

'It should be enough for Mark Thompson and Jonathan Thoday that they got away with blasphemy, insulting God and the Lord Jesus Christ, at least in this life. For these rich, powerful men to pursue me into the bankruptcy courts over money I don't have would be vindictive.'

He links to a petition asking those who have lost money due to the actions of Stephen Green to let him off paying them, there's a second petition calling on the BBC and Avalon to insist on receiving the money in full. The 'please pay' petition has about three hundred more votes so far but the bulk of them seem to be people insulting Stephen.

I wonder if Stephen Green will be picketing Pride this year? If he does, perhaps people could help him out by tossing any coppers they have his way?

Labels: Christian Voice, Fundamentalists- Christian, Jerry Springer The Opera, Stephen Green