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How I discovered DeCadence

A glance through my Hotmail –>

leads me to an email from sister –>

of the video Bitches Ain’t Shit (NSFW, duh)–>

While watching this video, I saw a related video in the sidebar that caught my interest –>

which was this video (also NSFW) –>

which was okay, but what really caught my attention was this video in the new sidebar –>

because I LOVE the Mortal Kombat song, especially for the damned elliptical machine at the YMCA at 5:30 in the morning.  And anyway, that video was this (this one is fine for work) –>

and I loved this video because it was sort of flash mob.  I noticed that it was done by a group called DeCadence, so I followed the link to their youtube channel, on which I found that they had done an a cappella version of one of my favorite songs by Madonna, Like A Prayer –>

They’re goofy, and I love vocal harmony, and so now I’m completely smitten with this group, and excuse me I have to go purchase a CD from their website nao, kthxbai.

How I discovered DeCadence

DADT Fails in Senate

Damn it.

From Ed O’Keefe at the Washington Post:

Efforts to repeal the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” suffered a near-fatal blow on Tuesday as senators fell short of earning the 60 votes necessary to start debate on the annual defense policy bill by a vote of 56 to 43.

Tuesday’s vote does not end efforts to lift the military’s 17-year ban on gays serving openly in uniform, but makes it almost impossible to ensure a repeal is included in the final House-Senate compromise version of the defense bill that lawmakers may vote on during a lame-duck session after November’s midterm elections.

The vote’s fate was sealed early Tuesday, when Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who supports repealing “don’t ask,” said she disagreed with Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid’s decision to restrict the number of amendments to the bill.

This is an except from a larger article.  Read the full article here.

If you’re not familiar with DADT, or if you only know that Lady Gaga seems really interested with it, I encourage you to visit the ServiceMembers Legal Defense Network.  They explain what DADT is, the controversy around DADT, and they lay out why repealing DADT is a crucial matter of national security as well as a civil rights issue.

~~~~~

UPDATE: Check out Joe.My.God for a very good collection of reporting and video about the defeat of the Senate DADT vote.

DADT Fails in Senate

Feminist O'Donnell

Clicking on the image will open a new window and take you to a Christine O’Donnell Greatest Hits compilation by Keith Olbermann

“I was an English major, so break it down: ‘-ist’ means ‘one who celebrates’… As a femin-ist, I celebrate my femininity.”

No it doesn’t.  According to Mirriam-Webster, the suffix “-ist” is defined as:

Also according to Mirriam-Webster, the definition of feminism is:

Christine O’Donnell – as someone who thinks that women in the military are a distraction, that co-ed dorms will lead to orgy rooms, and that women should submit to their husbands – is not a feminist.

Of course, the fact that candidate O’Donnell is lying to herself and her audience about being a feminist, and her misconception of the meaning of the suffix “-ist”, are some of the lesser icky moments in this video.

Feminist O'Donnell

Feminist O’Donnell

Clicking on the image will open a new window and take you to a Christine O’Donnell Greatest Hits compilation by Keith Olbermann

“I was an English major, so break it down: ‘-ist’ means ‘one who celebrates’… As a femin-ist, I celebrate my femininity.”

No it doesn’t.  According to Mirriam-Webster, the suffix “-ist” is defined as:

Also according to Mirriam-Webster, the definition of feminism is:

Christine O’Donnell – as someone who thinks that women in the military are a distraction, that co-ed dorms will lead to orgy rooms, and that women should submit to their husbands – is not a feminist.

Of course, the fact that candidate O’Donnell is lying to herself and her audience about being a feminist, and her misconception of the meaning of the suffix “-ist”, are some of the lesser icky moments in this video.

Feminist O’Donnell

Xmas Wars

This is not an SNL skit or other parody group’s work.  This is fo’ real.

This movie will be loved by some people, but in the light of recent events and the us vs them mentality going on with the Ground Zero “Mosque”, the planned burning of the Koran,  the Pope’s visit to UK, Tea Party candidates calling for less church-state separation, et cetera, et cetera, I think the majority of people will see this for this movie for the divisive piece of crap that it looks to be.  And since this Christmas with a Capital C is straight-to-DVD, I don’t think the majority of the mainstream will ever even know about this movie.

Go go gadget optimism!

And to be clear, Christmas with a Capital C is the movie’s official title.  But I think How the Atheist Stole Christmas is more appropriate and filled with truthiness.  Or, as Balk from The Awl suggested Bullshit Resentments Fomented To Somehow Convince The Practitioners Of America’s Most Widely-Followed Faith That They Are Under Siege: The Movie

Via BlagHag, Joe My God, and a gazillon billion other rationality, atheism and skeptical websites.

Oh, and check out the movie’s namesake – a video about Go Fish, the Christian rock band that wrote and performed the song “Christmas with a Capital C”.  It’s pretty great when the lead singer says that Christmas didn’t used to be about religion, it was about culture and everyone used to participated in the holiday even if they disagreed with the religion because it was good for all of us.  Say what?  And I love the part where they make fun of people who say Happy Holidays by lisping the “s” and speaking in a soft voice (read: speaking like The Gays).  It’s FAB-ulous!

Xmas Wars

Restoring Sanity Rally

Do want! I must check cheapflights.com for flights to D.C. immediately!

Everything below is copy-pasted from CNN – click the link for the full article at CNN.com

Via CNN:

[cnnvideo url=’http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2010/09/17/am.stewart.colbert.rally.cnn’ inline=’true’]

Two Comedy Central funnymen are apparently entering into the partisan political fray with rallies of their own in the nation’s capital.

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have set October 30 as the date for their respective rallies.

On Thursday night’s airing of “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,” the comedian announced plans for a “Rally to Restore Sanity.”

“See you October 30 on the National Mall to spread the timeless message, ‘Take it down a notch for America,’ ” he said.

Stewart dubbed the event a “clarion call for rationality.”

“A million moderate march, where we take to the streets to send a message to our leaders and our national media that says, ‘We are here! We … are only here until 6 though, because we have a sitter,'” he said.

On “The Colbert Report,” which airs immediately after Stewart’s show, Colbert fired back with plans for his “March to Keep Fear Alive.”

“Now is not the time to take it down a notch. Now is the time for all good men to freak out for freedom,” Colbert said.

Stewart said on his Thursday show that he had reserved a spot on the National Mall.

“The forms have been filled out, the checks have been written,” he said.

[portion of original article omitted]

The announcements come less than three weeks after conservative talk-show host Glenn Beck hosted a much-publicized “Restoring Honor” rally on the National Mall, urging large crowds to “turn back to God” and return America to the values on which it was founded.

That event drew criticism for its timing and location — on the 47th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, delivered in the same place.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson told CNN at the time that Beck was mimicking King and “humiliating the tradition.” And other civil rights activists gathered nearby with the Rev. Al Sharpton and his National Action Network in a “Reclaim the Dream” rally.

Stewart first publicly floated the idea of a counter-rally in a profile in the September 12 edition of New York magazine.

“Maybe we would do a ‘March of the Reasonable,’ on a date of no particular significance,” Stewart says in the article.

The website logos and icons created for the Colbert and Stewart rallies mimic Beck’s, using identical typography and similar stylized images.

“We’re looking for the people who think shouting is annoying, counterproductive, and terrible for your throat; who feel that the loudest voices shouldn’t be the only ones that get heard,” the website for the “Rally to Restore Sanity” says.

The “March to Keep Fear Alive” site takes a more alarmist approach: “Never forget — ‘Reason’ is just one letter away from ‘Treason.’ Coincidence? Reasonable people would say it is, but America can’t afford to take that chance.”

Restoring Sanity Rally

JFK Separation of Church and State

Thanks to Freethought Radio (9/11/10 episode) for reminding me of this wonderful speech, given by John F. Kennedy to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in Houston, Texas on September 12, 1960. 

This is just one excerpt, but there is a wonderful page completely devoted to this speech at the American Rhetoric website*, where you can find the speech in its entirety, as well as video, audio and several different downloadable document types of JFK’s speech.

“I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute; where no Catholic prelate would tell the President — should he be Catholic — how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference, and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him, or the people who might elect him.

I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accept instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials, and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.”

~~~~~

The American Rhetoric website has an awesome tagline: “Rationalize rhetoric and it speaks to your mind; personify her and she speaks to your soul.”

JFK Separation of Church and State

This election term, what's in your wallet?

These statistics predict….more money than last election term.

This graph came out of the Washington Post.  It is called a Bartels Chart (Larry Bartels is a political scientist and author of several books), and it was shown on the Rachel Maddow Show.

Income percentile – This is roughly how much money you make compared to the rest of Americans.  If you’re in the 95th percentile, you make a LOT.  If you’re in the lower 20th, you don’t make as much.

Income Growth Rate – This is how much more or less money you make over some time or event.

Another way to look at this data is this:

I found this chart on Dani Rodrik’s weblog American political economics in one picture.  In his article he explains the chart and its implications.

When a Republican president is in power, people at the top of the income distribution experience much larger real income gains than those at the bottom–a difference of 1.5 percent per year going from the bottom to the top quintile in the income distribution. The situation is reversed when a Democrat is in power: those who benefit the most are the lower income groups.

And then I found this graph on the Rachel Maddow Show Blog.  It goes a few steps further than the first two Bartel’s charts because it breaks the data down into President and Congressional majorities.

This graph shows the average income growth rate on the y-axis and the income percentile on the x-axis.  Each bar of the graph describes growth under either a Republican majority

  1. Senate
  2. House
  3. Senate AND House
  4. President
  5. Senate AND House AND President.

Under a Republican majority of ANY of these groups, the income percentile on the right (i.e., the richest Americans) usually experienced the largest growth rate over all other brackets.  The exception appears to be when a Republican President is governing with a Democratic majority in both the House and Senate.

The second graph (blue) shows that when there’s a Democrat President plus a Democrat majority in the House and/or Senate, the income percentile on the left (i.e., the poorest Americans) experience the largest growth rate over all other brackets.  ALSO, when ANY Democrat majority holds sway in the House or Senate or White House, EVERYONE has at least a 0.5 positive growth rate over any Republican majority.


Food for thought as we go into the next election in less than two months.
This election term, what's in your wallet?