Hell's Handmaiden Politics, philosophy, religion... and their collisions with the real world. Statistics Unique Visitors: Total Unique Visitors: Outgoing: Total Outgoing: 88 2914 1 2530

Articles from Hell's Handmaiden

Red States and Gay States 2007-05-31 13:37:05 It appears that despite my efforts, a number of US States still feel compelled, with the President, to deny some of their citizens equal rights under the law. Apparently the governments of these states believe that marriage equals one man plus one woman, that gay marriage would be the end of marriage, that it undercuts the very fabric of society, resulting, certainly, in the collapse of western civilization if not in the end of civilization as a whole. Certainly the lawmakers in these states believe that they are saving the children from the gay rapists– and other gay troublemakers– who’ve used Hollywood to sell their agenda to the unsuspecting public and who’ve infiltrated the mental health fields in order to maliciously and covertly remove their sickness from the list of officially recognized illnesses. Keep on truckin’, Red States. Show the world what ‘civil rights’ and ‘human dignity’ really mean. ...

Since I?ve been posting about guns? 2007-05-31 11:57:59 … here is a link to a very pro-gun site: LibertyNews.org - Liberty and Freedom for All ...

Heard about this guy yet? 2007-05-31 07:48:30 The Questionable Authority’s headline is apt,Thou Shalt Not Be Bloody Stupid: His story has been all over the news lately - he’s the idiot with extensively drug resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) who took two intercontinental flights after being diagnosed with the disease because he didn’t want to mess up his long-planned wedding in Greece, or honeymoon in Rome. ...

Radiometric dates don?t match, oh my! 2007-05-30 11:37:17 It is very common for creationists to complain that various radiometric dating methods– radio-carbon, potassium-argon, etc– don’t give the same dates. Thus, the misguided argument goes, radiometric dates can’t be trusted and let’s jsut scrap ‘em all. I found, buried in a comment to an old post, possible the best response I’ve ever made to that objection. Have you ever worked in a lab? Or been in a classroom where students did a lot of lab work? I ask because you seem not to realize how these things work. Let?s take the example I mentioned earlier about determining how fast cars go on the freeway. We have several different methods of addressing this question. One, we can place sensors on the road at a given distance, take some measurments and use various statistical means to determine speeds. Two, we can have police officers stand on the side of the road at use radar guns to take readings for us. Three, we can call people randomly and ask how ...

Guns, guns, and more guns 2007-05-30 11:01:05 Shoot a few, knock ?em down, cost you half a buck now– The Guess Who. An article– well worth reading– in the New Yorker closes with “There is no reason that any private citizen in a democracy should own a handgun. At some point, that simple truth will register. Until it does, phones will ring for dead children, and parents will be told not to ask why.” An article in the World Net Daily opens with “While it is an article of faith among gun-control proponents that government restrictions on firearms reduces violence and crime, two new U.S. studies could find no evidence to support such a conclusion. … The National Academy of Sciences issued a 328-page report based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, a survey of 80 different gun-control laws and some of its own independent study. In short, the panel could find no link between restrictions on gun ownership and lower rates of crime, firearms violence or even accidents with ...

Several New Carnivals are Up 2007-05-30 08:32:38 Marketing Whore presents the latest Carnival of the Capitalists. A favorite, the Carnival of the Decline of Democracy has edition 2.11. The latest black sabbath Carnival of the Godless– always rich and creamy– is up at Letters from a Broad. And a new carnival, a pro and con creationist– oh, damn, sorry ;)– Intelligent Design carnival called Carnival of Design of Oops kicks off at Global Conservative. ...

We Hold These Truths 2007-05-29 11:30:58 We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. ? That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed… The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America Sound familiar? Hmmm… maybe not. If I hadn’t already given it away, I’d wager that half the people in the nation couldn’t identify the source of that quote. But I’d probably lose that bet for being too optimistic. No matter. The citizenry in general, and especially the neocon faction, has given up the ideals embodied therein anyway. But I like the document. Idealogically, it is the founding stone of the Nation, not to dismiss the Constitution. The Constitution is the blueprint for the machinery of government, but the Declaration is the nation’ ...

Philosopher vs. Fundamentalist 2007-05-29 09:03:18 There is a very good post titled, The Philosopher vs. the Biblical Fundamentalist (Round Two), over at The Space of Reasons. Interested in Jesus? The Trinity? Prophecy? Have a read. ...

There are abortion arguments 2007-05-28 11:08:07 There are arguments against abortion. And then there is this. Intellectuals these days often argue that a woman has a right to choose. Our holy spirit says if she knew what was really going on beneath all surface appearances, a woman would not have a question of choice. Abortion or Birth? Who Believes There is a Choice? And the anti-intectuals argue what? “Oh look at the cute baby! Such a cutie. Yes you are.” Some literary examples? “Izzum’s ickle heart a-beatin’ so floppity! Um’s own mumsy make ums all right, um’s p’eshus Flopit!” — Booth Tarkington ./a> “A Peke, the ickle angel pet, wiv his gweat big soulful eyes and his ickle black nosie ? oh so ducky-duck!” — George Orwell. By the way, I really love when people use ‘intellectual’ as a pejorative. The implication is what? That you have no respect for the intellect? For education? For intelligence? For reason? ...

Goddamn I love America!! 2007-05-27 18:51:50 If this site isn’t satire… He would give you the Wet off his back I tells ya….he is one of the “good ones”… ... America

O?Leary asks another dumb question 2007-05-27 16:06:11 Denyse O’Leary, “Toronto-based journalist, grandmother, Roman Catholic Christian”, and I add, “comedian, pinball wizard, rising ID star, big fish in Dembski’s very dirty pool” has raised another non-issue. Specifically, she asks: Would genome mapper Francis Crick be permitted to suggest that intelligent aliens seeded the universe today? Would Crick be allowed to suggest such a thing? Well, of he would. He could suggest anything he wants. He could suggest it then; he could suggest it now. The problem isn’t in suggesting it. Scientists suggest all kinds of bizarre things. No one censors suggestion, though it is standard creationist rhetoric to suggest that good wholesome creationist science is quashed by the bad scientific cabal. Nonsense. The problem ID faces isn’t in suggesting that there might be some kind of intelligent agency at work. Haven’t the ID theorists been suggesting that for decades now? And the creationists before the ...

An American Terrorist 2007-05-27 15:42:02 Uhl waited until he was offline, however, to reveal his plot to kill the family of itinerant Calvinist provocateur Fred Phelps… Max Blumenthal Probably a godless atheist freak. He was arrested soon after and charged with manufacturing explosives. Max Blumenthal How come he don’t have no A-Rab name? But there is a crucial difference between Uhl and Cho… Max Blumenthal I knew it. Here comes the part about Islam! Its just like ‘em. … Uhl was an a devout evangelical Christian… Max Blumenthal Uh-oh… …. who advocated religious violence in the name of American nationalism…. Uhl implores Christians to die on the battlefield for ?Uncle Sam? … quoting several Biblical passages and reminding his readers that the ?gift of God? is eternal life. Max Blumenthal Wait… reminds me of… oh, who is that guy… the one with the turban… Uhl?s imploration sounds eerily like the battle-cries of another, more notorious religio ...

Membership of the Congresses of the United States 2007-05-27 15:10:57 A very nice resource ...

Soldiers and Moral Duty 2007-05-27 14:18:20 Nuremberg settled, legally, the issue of the responsibility that rests on soldiers. Following orders does not mean that criminal activity is excused. Just a Girl in short shorts, though, suggests that “the left” does often take such a view. Speaking of Rosie O’Donnell, she writes: Rosie was trying to make a false distinction, which is often made by the left. She wants us to believe the politicians are the criminals and the troops just following orders. The problem is if an order is criminal the solider who carries it out is also a criminal. The military has a legal and moral duty not to follow illegal orders. The point is to make a version of the “attack the administration, attack the troops” argument. Its a limited version. To her credit she writes that “You can think, like me, that the war was incredibly stupid, its execution has been incompetent, and it has resulted in a horrifying, unnecessary waste of life.” However, Just a Girl does thin ...

Picking another fight 2007-05-26 12:06:33 And when Iran reacts it will somehow be their fault. It will somehow be Iran who provoked us. The US will be innocent and Bush will be the ‘defender’ not the attacker. Please. The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the subject, say President Bush has signed a “nonlethal presidential finding” that puts into motion a CIA plan that reportedly includes a coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation of Iran’s currency and international financial transactions. The Blotter Hat-tip: Dyre Portents: Bush Authorizes Ops Vs Iran. ...