After several emails and more than a few Tweets, I’ve decided that I will participate in this year’s Blogathon. Taking my inspiration from ***Dave’s choice of charity I’ve decided that I will be blogging for the Humane Society of Huron Valley which is the shelter we adopted Beanie from. They’ve been around for 110 years and are the only shelter in Washtenaw Country that takes in all types of unwanted, injured, lost, stray, abandoned and abused animals helping over 10,000 yearly. They are in the middle of building a new shelter as the old one dates from the 1950’s and as such is woefully inadequate in this day and age. Given the rise in abandoned animals in this economic climate it seems like they could use all the help they can get. Plus they have a number of different ways to donate which allows some flexibility on the part of folks who want to help out.

Here’s what this is all about: A whole bunch of us bloggers will be getting up early on Saturday July 25, 2009 and staying up for the next 24 hours blogging a new entry every 30 minutes or so. Some of us, like ***Dave and his comic books, will have a specific topic they’ll be focusing on and others, like me, will court disaster by relying on our ADD afflicted attention spans to find topics to blog about. ***Dave’s approach is more practical, but mine is more exciting. OK, not really, but there is a certain level of drama involved. The Blogathon will start at 0600 PDT/1300 UTC which translates roughly to 9AM local time for me. That is a bit later than in year’s past, but I’m not complaining. At that time I’ll sit down at my computer and try to be entertaining and/or informative for the next 24 hours straight.

What I’m hoping you will do is to sponsor my attempt at marathon blogging. To do that you just need to click here and register an account with the Blogathon folks and tell them how much you’re sponsoring me for. This registration is strictly so they can keep track of who’s sponsoring me and to be able to send out a reminder to donate after the event is over. While you’re there you can also sponsor other bloggers if you wish. There are a number of them already blogging for many worthwhile charities. If you’re a blogger yourself you can also sign up to participate for your favorite charity as well. Keep in mind that no money is sent to me or to the Blogathon folks! You’ll be donating directly to the Humane Society of Huron Valley. They are a 501(c) 3 not-for-profit organization and as such donations to HSHV are tax-deductible.

Now you may be asking yourself why should you go through all that trouble if you’re just going to donate directly to the HSHV anyway. Why not just donate to them directly and eliminate the middle man? Sure you could do that and if you’re more comfortable that way then please do so, but by doing this through the Blogathon you motivate me to try and blog coherently at 3 o’clock in the morning. Plus I’ll be on Twitter and Facebook this year and I’m looking at ways to stream a live feed from my webcam while I’m at it. No doubt I’ll be looking forward to hearing from you guys as I blog and I’ll be encouraging you to participate by sending me Burning Questions or topics you’d like to hear from me on. In short I’ll become a virtual puppet dancing for your entertainment all in hopes you’ll toss a few bucks towards a very worthy cause. You can check out past performances from 2003 and 2006 to get an idea of what’s in store. In 2003 I raised $193.25 for the Association for International Cancer Research and in 2006 it was $474.00 for Americans United for Separation of Church and State. It would be really cool if we could break the $500 mark this year.

We’ve got three weeks before the main event, but don’t let that stop you getting an early start. Go sign up and make your pledge and I’ll dig out my dancing shoes.

It might look a little bit like this:

I dunno, but I think I’ll stick with the old-fashioned hospitals were they use real medicine.

Found via Bad Astronomy who notes that sometimes simple mockery makes the strongest point.

Update: Apparently That Mitchell and Webb Look is a series that takes on all sorts of topics that appeal to me. The Friendly Atheist found another clip by them takes on something we’ve discussed here many times before:

I think I may need to track down a few full episodes of this series!

Not much going on here this weekend. Anne has been working doubles the past couple of days and tonight will be more of the same, which means I’m flying solo this weekend. As such I have no big plans and will probably spend most of it lazing about the house like a big lazy thing. Michigan’s laws regarding fireworks means the only things we have to play with are all wussy ass sparklers and shit so I won’t be bothering to set any fireworks off either. Still it’s a nice three day weekend for me so I can’t complain too much.

What are you folks doing for the 4th?

Yeah, I’m going to beat on that “What’s the harm in religious belief?” meme again. This time the harm befell a 15-month-old girl named Ava Worthington who died from a combination of a benign cystic hygroma on her neck that impeded her breathing and pneumonia. Both of her parents are on trial charged with criminal mistreatment and manslaughter for failing to provide their daughter with adequate medical care. When detectives asked the father why he didn’t take his baby girl to a doctor he gave them the following explanation:

“I don’t believe in them,” Carl Worthington said of doctors. “I believe in faith healing.”

Raylene Worthington said that her religious beliefs do not encompass medical care and that she would not have done anything different for her - daughter, who died at home of pneumonia, a blood infection and other complications.

Here’s what they did instead:

Ava’s father, who goes by Brent, his middle name, described what happened:

Ava came down with what appeared to be a cold or the flu on a Tuesday. By Saturday, her breathing became labored and the family turned to its traditional faith-healing rituals, praying, fasting, anointing the body with oil, administering diluted wine and laying on of hands.

By Sunday, Brent Worthington said he thought there was “a possibility” his daughter was so sick she could die. Then, after a final session of laying on of hands at about 5 p.m., “she perked up,” he said. She grabbed her bottle and “took some food.”

“She was peaceful; she was rested,” Worthington said.

She died two hours later. Suddenly their religious beliefs don’t seem so harmless anymore. Unfortunately the harm didn’t befall the people who held the beliefs, but to their innocent child. When you buy into your delusion so much that you abandon proven techniques for pointless rituals this is the result you end up with. The really sad part is that Worthington doesn’t think he’s done anything wrong:

Brent Worthington said that forgoing medical treatment is probably difficult for outsiders to understand. For him, medical treatment “is not a question. It’s not even thought.”

When the detectives told Worthington that the law requires a parent to provide adequate medical care, he said he had provided care.

“I did everything I could do for her,” Worthington said. “What I was doing was working,” he said. “She was getting relief.”

The fact that she’s dead in no way interferes with this man’s belief that what he was doing was working. Facts don’t tend to influence the delusional.

Believe whatever nonsense you want, pray all you want, but try to keep enough common sense in your head to take your kids to the doctor when they get sick. Otherwise don’t be surprised if you end up in jail for your idiocy.

The semi-annual charity event for bloggers is almost upon us again. Yes, the Blogathon is back and scheduled to take place on July 25th. For those of you who are uninitiated, the blogathon is just like a bowlathon except instead of getting people to sponsor you to wear loud shoes and throw heavy balls at little pins you get people to sponsor you to stay awake for 24 hours writing an entry every half-hour. That may not sound all that hard, but as someone who has participated in the project twice previously I can honestly say that it’s tougher than you might think. Around about 3 or 4 in the morning your entries are often barely coherent.

As I said I’ve done it twice before, have sat out a couple of times, and a couple of years they didn’t do one. So I’m thinking about doing it again this year, but the problem is that I don’t know if I can come up with enough things to blog about. You’ve probably noticed that my daily blogging has been sporadic and short as of late and that’s largely to do with the writer’s block I’ve been suffering from. If I can’t manage a couple of posts in a day at the point then how the hell am I going to do a couple of posts an hour? With the time limit in effect it’s difficult enough to put up anything of substance and it’s even more difficult when you haven’t had anything of substance to say for awhile.

So I’m wavering on it. I’d like to do it, but I don’t know if I’m in intellectual shape to do it. What do you guys think? Would you be willing to sponsor me if I decide to do 24 hours of semi-intelligent blathering? Let me know in the comments.

Update: It just occurred to me that it might be fun to see if I could do it as either a partial or full video blog or maybe multiple short podcasts where I talk about whatever topics folks send my way. That could be fun. Hmmmmm…..

Someone at work sent out a link to this bizarre music video by an electronica group called The Avalanches. The song is called “Frontier Psychiatrist” and it’s stuck in my head. So I thought I would share the wonderful pain:

Apparently this hails from all the way back in 2001. I may have to seek out a copy of the CD if the rest of the songs are as fun as this one.

My mother called last night with word that her youngest brother had died around noon that day. He was 65 years-old. His death wasn’t entirely unexpected as he’s been battling cancer for some time and had been in and out of the hospital more than once recently. Still that doesn’t make hearing the news any easier to take.

Of the three uncles I had on that side of the family my Uncle Dan was my favorite. Uncle Bob died when I was fairly young and I barely remember him. My Uncle Gene, who passed away two years ago, always scared the hell out of me as a kid so I never got particularly close to him. So my Uncle Dan was the one I got to know the best. He was the goofy uncle who was always laughing and making jokes. So much so that when he occasionally became serious about some topic it was always a bit of a shock to me. Growing up ADD without knowing it I always felt like a bit of a goof-ball outsider myself and my Uncle Dan was the first person to show me that it was OK to be a bit of a goof-ball. As a result my Uncle Dan’s passing will probably be the hardest of the three for me emotionally.

I didn’t react with any grief at first hearing the news—it always takes a couple of hours before it really sinks in for me—but I could hear the emotion in my mother’s voice. She’s the oldest of four and she’s now outlived all of her younger brothers. I grieve not just for myself, but for the pain I know she must be going through. There seems to be a commonality among oldest children that they often feel responsible for their younger siblings. It’s a role they never seem to grow out of, my problems with my own older brother are probably rooted in that very issue, and I know my mother often saw herself as being responsible for her brothers. Not that there’s anything she could have done in this situation, my Uncle succumbed to cancer, but rationality often takes a flying leap in the face of strong emotions.

Needless to say I didn’t sleep well last night so it’s going to be a long day at work today. I doubt I’ll be able to make it down to Florida for the funeral due to financial issues, but I wish I could be there. I’d been meaning to take a trip down to see my aunt and uncle and cousins for years, but time and money just didn’t line up to make it possible. That only makes me feel worse about not making it to the funeral. This is the part of the entry where I would normally close with some pithy insight into the nature of life and death, but I don’t have anything to offer on the front.

Farah, MJ, Ed McMahon, and now Billy Mays. If I were prone to conspiracy theories I might start to think something was afoot. Two of the four deaths—Farah and Ed—aren’t unexpected and, honestly, Michael’s isn’t a huge surprise given all the surgery he’s subjected himself to over the years. May’s death may be the result of a head injury after a rough landing when the plane he was on lost its front wheels during a landing.

In all honesty none of these passings stirs any deep feelings in me. I’m probably one of the few guys who grew up in the 70’s and 80’s who didn’t have that iconic Farah poster on his wall. I didn’t watch the Tonight Show enough to care about Ed McMahon so most of my exposure to him was through those stupid Publisher’s Clearing House Sweepstakes ads. I’ll confess to singing along with a couple of Michael Jackson’s songs back in the 80’s, but I was never enough of a fan to buy an album and while I have nothing personal against Billy Mays I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that it’s somewhat of a relief that he won’t be making commercials anymore.

So, yeah, lots of folks dropping dead out there and the only real emotion I’ve experienced so far is annoyance at all the networks falling all over themselves to do Michael Jackson memorial shows. Though those are probably going to be less annoying in the long run than all the kiss-and-tell exposes that I’m sure we’ll be hearing about now that he’s dead and can’t sue the hell out of people he was paying to keep quiet. Already we’ve got his baby momma telling the tabloids that Michael isn’t the biological father of his kids and she doesn’t want to take custody of them. Next up will probably be the Nanny. Oh joy!

So I probably won’t be watching much television until this all dies down, if you’ll pardon the expression.
 

Where else can a Dwarven Hunter with a cat-like Spirit Beast run around with a pole arm and rifle while driving one of these:

Click to embiggen!

My main character, Balfour, would fit right in with any biker gang. Best of all it has a fold-out sidecar so I can take folks for a ride.

The really sad part is that instead of just saving up the 15,000 to 18,000 gold they go for and buying one off the game’s Auction House I opted instead to take up the Engineering trade skill and level it all the way up to 450 (maximum), do hundreds of quests needed to get the reputation with a certain faction just to buy the plans, then spent 12 days making the titansteel bars (can only make ONE A DAY), and still had to spend 12,500G for the parts that I can’t make myself, just to have that silly mount. That says you can pretty much count me out for ever helping to find a cure for cancer.

Still, the ladies do like a man on a motor bike!

... and also kind of sad.

The good news is that the FBI is finally cracking down on Conservative talk show hosts who call for violent actions against people they disagree with. The bad news is they busted some nobody you’ve never heard of:

Prosecutors say Hal Turner allegedly posted the threatening Internet messages on June 2. They say the 47-year-old declared his “outrage” over a decision by the three judges in upholding bans on handguns in Chicago and suburban Oak Park.

They quoted Turner’s posting as saying: “Let me be the first to say this plainly: These judges deserve to be killed.”

OK, so not a bad start, but when are they going to go after Bill “Douchebag” O’Reilly or Rush Limbaugh or, best of all, Ann Coulter? All have said similarly outrageous things, though they tend to aim them at liberals in general and not particular individuals. Which is probably why they can get away with it. This idiot’s mistake was getting too specific about who he thinks should be killed.

Burger King’s ads aren’t known for their subtlety, but they’ve reached a new low with this one for a new sandwich they’re calling the Super Seven Incher:

Click to embiggen!

The ad copy reads as follows:

Fill your desire for something long, juicy and flame-grilled with the NEW BK SUPER SEVEN INCHER. Yearn for more after you taste the mind-blowing burger that comes with a single beef patty, topped with American cheese, crispy onions and the A1 Thick and Hearty Steak Sauce.

Maybe it’s just me, but after seeing a not-so-subtle image of a woman giving a sandwich a blow job it made me cringe to read the words “fill your desire for something long, juicy, and flame-grilled.” It’s the same cringe I got after Quiznos’ talking oven suggested that it somehow talked “Scott” into having sex with it. I’ve not had a big desire to eat at a Quiznos since they planted the idea that their employees might be having illicit sex with the ovens they cook the food in.

OK, in all honesty I should admit that I generally didn’t have a desire to eat at Quiznos even before they put that ad out, but the ad certainly isn’t helping to change my mind.
As it turns out we may never see this ad here in America, outside of the millions of blog entries like this one it’ll inspire, as according to the folks at Sociological Images the ad was created for a Singapore franchisee. Maybe it’s a much more subtle message in Singapore. I wouldn’t know as I’ve never been there, but it’s hard to see how anyone could miss the suggestion being put forth.

I don’t agree with everything Bill Maher says, but I do agree with the following:

The more I watch him in action the more I realize Obama is hardly a liberal and the Democrats even less so. Which is why I remain an independent.

The folks at the Richard Dawkins Foundation have started putting out videos on YouTube. The first has Michael Sherman explaining how to put together your own Baloney Detection Kit for use when considering what the truth of a particular claim might be:

Good stuff and I’m looking forward to their future productions.

Found via Atheist Media Blog.

People on the terrorist watch list can’t fly on airplanes, but they can still buy guns and explosives?!?

From February 2004 to February 2009, 963 background checks using the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System “resulted in valid matches with terrorist watch list records; of these matches, approximately 90 percent were allowed to proceed because the checks revealed no prohibiting information,” the GAO report says. About 10 percent were denied.

“Under current law, there is no basis to automatically prohibit a person from possessing firearms or explosives because they appear on the terrorist watch list,” wrote the GAO’s director of homeland security and justice issues, Eileen R. Larence.

“Rather, there must be a disqualifying factor (i.e., prohibiting information) pursuant to federal or state law, such as a felony conviction or illegal immigration status.”

Does this seem stupid to anyone other than me? Granted a lot of folks are on the TWL that shouldn’t be, but what’s the point of not letting them fly if you’re going to let them buy guns and explosives?