News Roundup On Follow Atheist Friday

Why is it that when Team Atheist is in the news...it is always a bad negative thing. Oh well, any publicity is good publicity, right(?). Any who, Elevatorgate was the feature article in my favorite religion news aggregator, Religion News Service. The awesome sauce thingy about elevatrogate is that as a community, Team Atheist did address sexism and we are game to combat it within our own ranks. We need the ladies so much in the sciences, in the atheist blogosphere and in skepticism movements. BTW, RNS has a pretty fair amount of ladies writers reporting the news, so bully for them. Check it out.

Yesterday I wrote about how Islamophobia is being taught to the F.B.I., the armed forces and law enforcement. Today the F.B.I. has announced that it is dropping those programs (should never have happened in the first place). Check out yesterdays posts there are good links to Mother Jones and Slate. For those keeping track of the Christians that want to take over the world, known as dominionist, there is lot's of info for your score cards.

So, it is totally bad for authorities to teach Islamophobia and it is also super bad and wrong for uneducated and super stupid citizens to go old school and try their hand at vigilante violence. 9/11 is also the anniversary of stupid heads that attacked a peaceful Sikh dude because they thought he was...Muslim. So frackin' stupid, but I geuss that is what bigotry is-stupid. It is like when a loser calls me a 'chink' or a 'Jap' when I'm 100% brown hunky Filipino. At least get it right.

In the City by the Bay, the city that brought us OJ Simpson and your truly, 2,000 dirty stinky unimmunized kids were sent home from school because they did not receive the whooping cough vaccine. Gee I wonder if the deadbeat parents subscribe to the Jenny "I've killed many kids" McCarthey's philosophy of vaccines are bad bad bad, or are they not versed in the understanding of science, medicine (hello, herd mentality), or is it...all of the above. Regardless, keep your dirty stinky not-immunized kids away from me. I don't want to die of a disease that is easily preventable. Really.

Keeping with the pseudoscience-y stuffs...Dr. Oz, the multimillionaire that thrives off of selling bogus products with no medicinal value to people that really need help, has been called out for yelling "fire in a crowded theatre." Oz said that apple juice has too much arsenic in it and is hazardous to children. Basically the test he used was for something else (wastewater) therefore the results are no good, arsenic occurs naturally in lot's o' things, like, water, and I don't know this fo sho, but dude is probably selling the cure to apple juice arsenic (phobia) poisoning. Dude, scam much. Sheez.

I don't have too much info on this one, but my skeptic meter is going off. Authorities report that a young boy has emerged from the woods in Germany...speaking English. I don't know if this is a case of mysteriously speaking a foreign  language (skeptics dictionary) or an Ishi thing. I just know it sounds fishy and is a job for Team Skeptic.

Lastly, Christians at Vanderbilt U infiltrated a frat party with hidden microphones demanding that they repent.

That is all folks.

Really, honestly, I'm not attracted to stupidity. I don't care what the 'packaging' is. Awesome, sweetheart, atheist, skeptic lady, that is totally smart-n-stuffs...I'm still waiting and still available (and I don't care what the 'packaging' looks like. I way better than that. Hope to c'ya soon...whoever you are, Kriss.

Pointing The Finger

It's slate...get it.

Ok then, let's see if I can squeeze a quickie post in before I go to the #atheistcafe. I was reading the super good Slate magazine online. There is an article about how the F.B.I. is teaching Islamophobia in some of it's training courses and how there is one dude in particular that is very Muslim Hate-y-ish.

Slate is reporting on a piece from  Wired's Danger Room Blog, who reported that American mainstream Muslims, or Joe Average Muslim (really it should be Muhammad Average Muslim) is a terrorist. Yes, it's true. The F.B.I. is teaching hate-y hate to it's agents specifically directed at lay American Muslims (if the same happened to an average lay Christian there would be outrage). The agents are taught that normal average peeps that happen to be
Muslim that give donations to their temple...are probably funding terrorism. Once again, if that accusation was made against Christians, that when they give to the church it automatically funds really bad stuffs, then there would be outrage. To complete the Islamophobia the agents are shown a "pseudoscientific" chart that clearly shows how Christians and Jews are peaceful peoples, while as history progresses the Islamic peeps has become more and more violent (brainwashing anyone.sheez).

One dude was singled out by the name of William Gawthrop. He has important credentials and perhaps the only thing that the prog-lib crowd needs to know is that he occasionally writes for the World Nut Daily, err, The World Net Daily (if you have never been there then go...and be shocked). What dude is all about is learning the mindset of Islamic warfare through the understanding of Islam, Qu'ran, the splinter books that are popular...It's a good strategy and all, but the thing about it is that it comes packaged with Islamophobia.

So far I haven't made a religious connection other than this Gawthrop guy was involved in the Birther movement (remember them). I'm going to go out on a limb and say that he is one of those dominionists that the atheist blogosphere and religious news sites keep talking about (we'll see, and if I'm wrong, I'll admit it).

Ok I have to go to work so let's recap: The F.B.I is teaching agents Islamophobia, if the same actions were expressed towards Christians then there would be outrage, a dude that taught these classes was also associated with the failed Birther movement and writes for WND, I9 suspect that there is a dominionist connection but I haven't explored that much yet and finally, I have to go to work at the #athesitcafe.

Kind gentle and very good looking readers...even opossums think you're awesome.

* Slate

* Article on Gawthrop

Update: Awesome, jsut got off of work and guess what I'm doing...wrong, I'm drinking beer. Also, I'm updating Pointing the Finger.

So Slate is really awesome, but ya know what...Mother Jones is awesome also. Mo Jo says that Islomophobia training is not just for the F.B.I., oh noz, it's for the local police and the armed forces too. what are they learning, only that all Muslims are terrorist and if you dress all Islamic-y, ya know in the haji, then that person is more likely to fund terrorism (really, I can't make this stuff up).

"When you have a Muslim that wears a headband, regardless of color or insignia, basically what that is telling you is 'I am willing to be a martyr," one trainer blathers (Washington Monthly)."

I really really really hope that the above picture is a joke...but it is not. This is from an actual slideshow during a training session (sessions paid for by tac dollars). So law enforcement, the armed forces and the F.B.I. are all getting dookie training that basically teaches that all Muslims are bad and out to get you. Ya think ten years into the War on Terror 'we' would know more, culturally, about the people we are engaging. Instead we are brainwashing recruits, officers and agents to hate hate hate.


Fo sho on the other side they are telling their people that NATO and the U.S. of A. are all weirdo Christians that want to take their land and whitewash (pun intended because I'm funny like that) their culture. Not all Americans are American Taliban and doninionist, but ya know what...some are, so they are not totally incorrect. 


It goes both ways. I can (kinda) see the other side spewing hate and teaching about the "imperial dogs" and their attempts at world domination, but not us. I thought we were supposed to be the good guys.


* Mother Jones article


* How We Train Our Cops to Fear Islam

* Why do the gad-darn fonts and spacing keep changing...why why why...one more time with feeling...why.