Freethinkers' Convention

Hypocrisy Meters Explode All Across Britain

Birmingham, England - There has recently been a hypocrisy meter crisis across Britain, the repercussions still being felt in the most severely affected areas. "It was terrible." one affected woman said earlier today, "It was about 11.50 on Tuesday night and suddenly, that highly prized hypocrisy meter I'd bought just exploded." In a production plant in Aldershot, two workers were killed in a mass explosion of the latest shipment of meters.
The crisis has been linked to a showing on the British Channel 4 of the film Jesus Camp. One commentator said "My meter could take it when I read about Eliot Spitzer, but it just couldn't handle Haggard."

The Thrilling New Sequel To "Bend It Like Beckham" Finally Released!

The classic DVD "Hoof It Like Birmingham" out now!

Watch in awe as long balls go straight through to the opposition 'keeper or defender!

Gasp as a pass goes all the way out of play for an opposition throw in!

Hold your head in your hands as another good chance for an attack goes begging!

See ya in the Championship next season!

Another cartoon

Hint: If you don't get it, try reading the opening few sentences of Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene.

Still doesn't make it funny, but alas...

Birmingham City Vs. Arsenal - Match Report

I suppose I should explain what the premise of this whole thing is. One of my faviourite websites is a cartoon match report website called HTFC-World(www.htfc-world.com), which does match reports for Huddersfield Town. I have fancied having a bit of a go for a while(though mine will be nowhere NEAR as technical) and after the Arsenal match I thought that it would be the perfect match to do for reasons that will become apparent, as well as the reason that it was up first on Match of the Day so there was actually decent highlights for once. Oh, and when you have a guy with Sagna's haircut in the opposing team, there's endless oppotunities for comedy! :)
I'd just like to say that although for some of these incidents I had the benefit of match highlights, others I did not. I may be wrong about some of these incidents, but I'm just callin' em as I see em from where I sit in the ground...so don't kill me, Arsenal fans! I bet there's lots of errors in this too...you're just going to have to live with it, human memory is fallible...
The game starts off and Wenger settles in for a good afternoon...

...a perfectly logical and cogent explanation as to why Wenger actually saw the incidents this week!
He looks up just in time to see this, THE Martin Taylor tackle on Eduardo:

The ref reaches for his pocket...

Bugger!
Eduardo had to be substiuted, with what we later found out was a broken leg. Just another person who would like to wish a quick recovery to Eduardo here, it really was a sickening injury and they refused to show the replays on Sky Sports.
I think that everybody has been a bit quick to vilify Taylor over this tackle. It was bad, and mistimed, but people have been talking as if Taylor lunged in two-footed with the intent to injure Eduardo, which I can confirm he did not. The tackle did not look that bad in real-time at the ground and while I was there I was surprised to see a red, although I obviously could not see how badly Eduardo was injured. Taylor has also recieved death threats from Croatian fans annoyed at the fact Eduardo will be out for the Euro Championships...

Presumbaly that's what they looked like!
Some Craotian journalists also tried to get into Martin's car when he was leaving training. I mean, this chap has just seriously injured a fellow professional, are you SURE it's a good idea to be breaking into his car?!
Arsenal had a very lacklustre first half. They really did not look intent on having a go, even though we had ten men. We changed the formation to 4-4-1, taking off Forssell for Parnaby. McFadden looked a bit lonely up there but he was prepared to have a go, and wins a free kick on the edge of the area.
Can't score from here, surely?

Haha! One-nil up with 10 men against the Arsenal! Another McFadden chance...2-0?

...Guess not. We managed to keep it 1-0 until half time. Just one more notable incident from the half...

Same old Arsenal, always cheating! i think Senderos was going for a last minute nomination for the Oscars...

Second Half
Arsenal came out looking a lot better than before in the second half. Taylor was forced into 2 great saves from a couple of Arsenal shots:

From the resulting corner, Taylor comes off his line and...

Arse...nal! Ridgewell then makes an ass out of himself...chests the ball down from a wayward pass only to chest it into the path of Theo Walcott...

Then...

Adeboyor comes through on goal... pass to Bendtner for 3-1, surely? No, apparently not, as Adebayor takes the shot(and doesn't score).
Feud or just striking selfishness...you decide!

After a while, Arsenal rested on their laurels a bit at 2-1. It seems they flicked into, "It's only Birmingham with 10 men" mode, very similar to Birmingham's "It's only bloody Derby at home" mode. They could have come out and murdered us, if they had really wanted to, but near the end of the game it seemed like they had a lot of possession but couldn't quite be arsed. We, by this point, were looking very tired(pretty understandable). Then, in the last 5 mins of the game, we decide to go an the attack, and we discover that Gael Clichy definetly has gone into "it's only Birmingham with 10 men" mode, as well as "that chap I've been marking has disappeared off the face of the planet" mode...

Parnaby thinks, "well, I'll have that mate"...

Parnaby gets the ball and then Clichy sticks a foot out to try and get possession back...penalty given! McFadden steps up to take it...

2-2! In the last minute of the game! What a result!

(NB. I think the above diagram of the McFadden penalty is incorrectly drawn, but I'm lazy).

Not to mention Gallas, who'd stormed off after the penalty was given, presumably to chuck a few toys around. He sat on the pitch at the end of the game looking pissed off.

Arsene Wenger then made some comments at the end of the game which made him look like a complete arse...

Let's also bear in mind that Tiny Taylor, in his career previous to this match had only been sent off once before(and his tally of bookings was also very low especially for a centre defender)...he ain't a dirty player.
Fair enough, he later rescinded his comments, calling them "excessive". So what DO you actually think about Taylor(Tiny) then?

The rest of his match comments were a load of arse too. Whining about the ref? I can understand where Wenger is coming from, but BOTH sides could have grievances with the ref: although Wenger would argue that our set pieces shouldn't have been, I could say that Adebayor fouled the goalkeeper for Arsenal's first, and that Taylor shouldn't have been sent off because his tackle was only one footed and mistimed one footed challenges don't usually warrant a red.(For example in the Johnstone's Paint Trophy one Swansea player did one a bit similar to Taylor's(in fact the commentator referred to it as such, too) and only got booked. "One of the Swansea players" shows the high level of research I put into this, doesn't it?)

As for "To beat Arsenal, you have to kick Arsenal", let's have a look at some match stats:

So, Mr. Wenger, I vote you're talking crap.

In my humble opinion, Arsenal have themselves to blame that they didn't win. If they'd have wanted to, they could have slaughtered us second half. But they didn't. Maybe the ref didn't help much, but Arsenal are supposed to be top of the league!

A great point off Arsenal, then, and we were to play their Larrrndon rivals next...Tottenham Hotspur. We won that game 4-1 courtesy of a Forssell hattrick. That's the double we've done over Spurs, then. Cheers for the points, Londoners! See you in the Premier League again next season(I hope).

There were so many incidents in this match it would have taken an age to cover them all, and I actually wanted to get the report up sometime within remembering time of the match. Incidents no covered here included: Adebayor chance in the first half, some more Arsenal second half chances, one they had going just past the post, Nafti pulling Adebayor's shirt in the box, 2 other great saves by Not Tiny Taylor.

God Strikes Again!

A rather crappy earthquake that occured in Britain last night has been linked with the omnipotent deity of all, God. Religious leaders have speculated that God sent the earthquake as a punishment for Britain's legalisation of same-sex civil unions. "God is annoyed at Britain's tolerance for the sodomites," said one religious preacher, "and I just know that this was a punishment. Yes, I know same sex civil perversions were legalised in 2004, but sometimes it takes God a while to catch up on current events, being as he's got to keep an eye on the whole world 'n' all."
Prominent atheists have criticised the religious rhetoric as being plain wrong at full of hot air. A spokesperson for the British Atheists said that "God is supposed to be omnipotent, and all he can do is send a pathetic little earthquake that didn't even wake me up in the night. Honestly, they criticise us for pigeonholing their God into big, bad vengeance man in the sky but do the same thing themselves. The hypocrisy is, as always, breathtaking."
The Anglican Church has been split into warring factions over the incident. Although the main group is convinced that this was God's punishment for homosexuals, a faction of Anglicans are convinced that the incident was related to God's dislike of equality between the different races on Earth. "White men are of God," said a prominent Anglican and B.N.P.* member, "but these depraved negroes can go back where they belong."

*British National[istic] Party, for any non-Brits who don't know what I'm on about.

Kansas Votes For Huckabee

The Republicans of Kansas have come out with overwhelming support for the intolerant Baptist preacher candidate, Mike Huckabee. This has cemented fears among the slightly more reasonable Republican base that they believe McCain to be too liberal. "Seriously, he's not that liberal, folks." a McCain spokesman said today.
The populace of Kansas obviously disagree. "McCain is far too liberal. I mean, he only wants to stay in Iraq for a million years. That is just nowhere near conservative enough." Another Huckabee supporter had this to say: "Despite the fact that God's messenger on Earth Fred Phelps protested a recent speech by Huckabee, he is still by far the most Godly candidate on the ballot. I mean, who else wants to protect us from the AIDS menace by segregating the sodomites?!"
McCain has tried to beef up his conservative image by getting positive remarks from George "Dubya" Bush. "He stands for military intervention and action and admits he knows nothing about the economy. He is a true conservative." said Bush at a recent speech.

Video Games Are Evil!

I'm sure you've heard it before: a violent video game caused some previously doe-eyed child to grow up to be a horribly violent, sadistic psychopath. Well, if video games generally considered to be violent can affect people's behaviour, why not ordinary video games, too?

Need For Speed - involves driving in illegal street races and trying to escape pursuits with the cops. Needless to say, I can't drive.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Nightmare Troubadour - involves saving the world by playing children's card games. Except I don't even own any yu-gi-oh cards in real life, let alone use them to save the world or anything heroic like that.

Final Fantasy Tactics - In this game, you move characters around a board and perform actions such as attack, magic, etc with them. Clearly a bad influence.

Guitar Hero series - Devil's music. Enough said.

And anyway, how broadly are we to define "violent video game"? Many video games are "violent" in the sense that they involve killing people, even if they're not gory. Eg:

Age of Empires - a historical game where you can be different civilisations who pillage other civilisations. Oh, wait, usually people who are againt violent video games want to drag us back through history and think imperialism is good. My bad.

In my view, even if there is a correlation between violent video games and violence, it's like saying there's a correlation between who plays FIFA and football fans. Well, you're less likely to want to play FIFA if you're a non-football fan!

The Vegetarian Agenda

The Vegetarian Agenda is incredibly pervasive in our society. They all hope to convince us that animals are equal to human beings - the ultimate in blasphemy against our Lord Jesus Christ, as the Bible tells us that we have utter dominion over the animal kingdom, in the same way a man has dominion over his helpmeet. Their agenda has never been more clear then in the recent spate of children's films containing anthropomorphic animals. Films such as this aim to present a misleading image of animals to children.
In these films, animals are able to talk and display rationality. Every adult knows that this view isn't true, but children are indoctrinated into this viewpoint by the pretty graphics and animation made possible by modern technology.
Their portrayal of human nature is also highly inaccurate. For example, in the film Open Season, which is about hunting of a bear released into the wild, a "hick" Southern American hunter was displayed as cruel and stupid when every good Christian knows that this man is a moral citizen upholding his right to bear arms. On the other hand, the bear's trainer, a woman who refused to submit to a man and wore ungodly shorts was portrayed as a moral person. This woman is obviously a tool--not just of the vegetarian agenda but of the lesbian agenda.
Another recent film with this kind of theme was Ratatouille, a movie about a rat who wanted to cook in exquisite kitchens. Firstly, to display mere animals as having any sort of thing called "desire" is absurd. What next, are the liberals going to tell us that machines can "want" to use the internet and run word programs? Secondly, everybody knows that rats are vile and carry germs --they're almost as disease-ridden as those depraved homosexuals are. Call me a speciesist, but I don't want either rats or AIDS-plagued homos anywhere near anything on my plate.
Another prominent example was the film Over The Hedge, an immoral flick which promotes stealing as a moral activity. I mean, it's not like the animals were televangelists providing a wonderful service to their flock! Over and over again, they ransack human dwellings. This film, as well as promoting the vegetarian agenda of equality for animals, also promotes the liberal agenda of the welfare state -- take what you want, we'll just tax hardworking American citizens to pay for your out-of-wedlock children. This film will lead to an increase in crime as children are taught that stealing things is just fine, when in reality they should be put to death for crimes against the Lord.

What can YOU do? Well, firstly, boycott these films and all cinemas that show them. Secondly, pass this article on to family and friends, but be careful - the liberals are watching you. Don't let your child see one of these films -- it may change them, not only into hippie do-gooder liberals, but into every parent's worst nightmare - a homosexual. Before you realise what's happened your kid will be taking it up the ass from dirty old men and going to anti-war and anti-vivisection rallies while living off the welfare state before finally dying of AIDS. Consider yourself warned, and make sure that your child sees not even a trailer of any debauched film like these.

This article has two comments:

Barbara, Texas
I'm a little worried -- once I let my child see Chicken Run. Is the decline into depravity inevitable?

Bob, Alabama
Preach on in the name of the LORD! you knows what's goin on. i think that the libbies have been watchin my house and monioring my foxnews watrching habits, theyre out dere alrite.

The Homosexual Recruitment Agency

Daily Mail and/or Express Bingo

THis is a Bingo chart to see how "mailesque" your Mail is today. (for the benefit of any readers from countries other than the UK, the Daily Mail is a right-wing paper that is constantly bitching about immigrants).

From left to right:
Row 1
Dead white woman corner
Destruction of Christian Values
Evils of smoking pot - even better if pot can be blamed for some horrible crime in some way
"And YOU'RE paying for it!" - the slogan of the Mail eg. "Gay Muslim Minority rapes children - and you're paying for it!"
Scare story eg Maddie McCann - basically this is any case where a innocent, cute white girl goes missing and that is constantly reported on by the media

Row 2
Video Games are evil - again, best if they can be blamed for a murder
Soft on crime
Free Shit - The Mail always has some DVD free with it
Taxes are too high
Jingoism

Row 3
Terrorists - particularly if they complain along the lines of "We let em into our country and how do they repay us?" type rant
Immigrants steal our jobs
Diana, Princess of Wales - some reason the Mail has a HUGE obsession with Diana, she's been dead 10 years, get over it.
Teens: binge drinking, ASBO teens etc, basically any "teens are evil" shtick, best if accompanied with a "Back in MY day..." rant.
Weather Scare

Row 4
Health Scare or NHS Mistake - eg. "Could eating too much fruit give you cancer" or anything like that.
Pic of good looking woman with cleavage(on the front cover) - more the domain of the Express, though the Mail does it on occasion.
Labour Are Evil
Evils of birth control and/or abortion - eg. recently there's been a "the pill allowed for teens!" sacre story
Gypsies

Row 5
Immigrants scrounge on welfare - yes this contradicts "immigrats here to steal our jobs!!" but the Mail does both
Health tips
PC Culture
Muslims are evil
Losing our freedoms.

A Game Moral Enough For Fundies!

I(ndependent)F(undamentalist)B(aptist)opoly! IFBopoly is a game where you go around the squares and buy up all the "immoral" places like the ACLU, gay bars and Walmart so you can bulldose them and make them into houses of the Lord! Amen!

Start Path To Godliness!
£400 - Local Gay Bar
£2,000 - Utility Company That Panders to The Gay Community
£500 - The Shrine to Cthulhu
£900 - Satanic Record Companies(1)
£1,200 - Porn Producers
£1,000 - Alcohol Companies
Lose a Turn...But Not Your Soul!
£1,400 - Walmart
£1,500 - Hollywood Cinema(2)
£1,700 - Violent Video Games Producers
£1,800 - Librul "Christian" Churches
£1,900 - Schools that don't teach Creationism
£2,000 - The Carbon Trust
Time For Prayer(Free Space)
£2,100 - EVILushyn Supporters(3)
£2,300 - Harry Potter's Publishers(4)
£2,500 - Wizards Of The Coast Company(D&D)
£2,600 - Abortion Clinic
£2,700 - Feminist Activists HQ
£2,800 - Gay Rights Activists HQ(5)
£2,900 - The Catholic "Harlot"
£3,100 - Islam
£3,200 - The LIEberal Media
£3,600 - The A(nti) C(hristian) L(ibrul) U(nion).
£2,000 - Planned Parenthood
£4,000 - The DEMONcrat Party

Here are the Good News cards and the Bad News ones. Enjoy --and watch out for Satan!

NB: I got the software to do this from a make-your-own-opoly disc I got for Christmas one year.

Pic Sources
(1) I scanned this pic in
(2) Pic from here NB: It's from the film "Transamerica" which fundies would no doubt consider immoral, as the two main characters are a transsexual woman and a gay prostitute.
(3) I got the picture from someone's av on richarddawkins.net Robert Maynard I believe. I thought it was pretty cool.
(4) pic from here
(5) pic from here

Replies to the God Delusion

One probably very blasphemous cartoon

As a response to this story, Muhammad Teddy teacher arrested which states:

"A British schoolteacher has been arrested in Sudan accused of insulting Islam's Prophet, after she allowed her pupils to name a teddy bear Muhammad.

Colleagues of Gillian Gibbons, 54, from Liverpool, said she made an "innocent mistake" by letting the six and seven-year-olds choose the name.

Ms Gibbons was arrested after several parents made complaints.

The BBC has learned the charge could lead to six months in jail, 40 lashes or a fine. "

I drew this cartoon:

The New Muslim Automobile

This is based on this thread and comments: http://richarddawkins.net/article,1872,Malaysia-firms-Muslim-car-plan,BBC



NB: Perfectly aware that this doesn't represent all Muslims and is based on stereotyping, though stereotypes that are pretty much true for a lot of Muslims in the Middle East...Did it anyway.

I'm not an artist, but...

...I drew a little cartoon for you people. Here it is:

More on The Gop Logo

Sums up what the GOP members have been up to recently, at least.

(Yes. Yes, I know. It's an insult to the rainbow flag.)

Lost In Translation?

Recently, the good ol' GOP unveiled their new logo...

http://www.gopconvention2008.com/media/logo/logo_600.jpg

Hilarity ensues on liberal blogs after this, of course. Top 10 Conservative Idiots points out that although this logo has some rather amusing connotations, it was perhaps better than "the Vitter" or "the Craig".

Me? I reckon they made a mistake. I think the message was supposed to read Minneapolis Bathroom Stall, rather than Minneapolis-Saint Paul. Kind of like this(edited version of "the Craig" from above link):

Easy to get those two mixed up, isn't it?

Tinky Winky Goes Ex-Gay; Supports Religious Right's Agenda

Famous gay icon Tinky Winky has renounced his former "gay lifestyle" and thrown away his handbag, according to prominent anti-gay activists. "Tinky Winky has abandoned his abominable lifestyle," said a spokesman for Focus on the Family. "He has come to repentance and finally come to the side of God."

Tinky Winky himself was asked to comment on the issue. "Ever since the death of Reverend Falwell, I have been wondering about the truth of his comments about me. I did not like to think as myself as an awful influence on children, but after thinking about the issue, I realised that Rev. Jerry was right all along. As soon as I realised, I went to the nearest church and repented. I'm sure Jerry is smiling upon my change of heart in heaven."

Gay activists have criticised the move. One spokesperson for a pro-gay group commented, "Let's be honest here, Tinky Winky is about as straight as John Paulk in a gay bar or Senator Larry Craig in a men's toilet."

Tinky Winky will now be available to speak at ex-gay events across the nation under the slogan "How One Teletubby Threw His Handbag Away." Gay activists have approached Spongebob Squarepants as a replacement speaker for gay events.

The Homosexual Agenda

Our favourite factmine, Conservapedia(which really is very liberal...with its bullshit ;)) identifies 6 things proponents of the "Homosexual Agenda" supposedly do.


http://www.conservapedia.com/Homosexual_agenda

1. "Talk about gays and gayness as loudly and as often as possible."


Yep, I'm gay. Did you get that the first time?! I'm GAY. Maybe I should put it in pretty colours. I am a L-E-S-B-I-A-N. And i talk about how gay I am all the time. Me and my queer friends just sit there talking about our latest motorbikes and how many sports matches we've watched recently.

Seriously though, I think I've had at least one blog post where I haven't mentioned my sexual orientation. I can't be that obsessed with it can I?

2. "Portray gays as victims, not as aggressive challengers."

Perhaps that's because a lot of gays are victims, idiot.

3. "Give homosexual protectors a just cause."


"Homosexual protectors"?

4. "Make gays look good."


I don't want to make all gays unquestionably look good. Some gays are assholes. But some gays are also great people, and most features of gays don't have anything to do with their "gayness" anyway.

5. "Make the victimizers look bad."


I don't need to make them look bad, they do a good enough job of that by themselves. Though admittedly I do join in with mockery and fact correction. They actually refer to themselves as "victimisers". Love it.

6. "Get funds from corporate America."

Well, that would be nice.

Here's our evil, Satanic aims...

"censoring biblical condemnations of homosexuality"

Actually, no. You're wrong. Say what you want about gays. I don't want to censor you.

"establishing affirmative action for homosexuals"

If it is nesarcary, fine. If it's not, not.

"expand hate crimes legislation to include sexual orientation"

Well, yes. But you can disagree with homosexuality without wanting to kill "them thar queers".

"ending the military's and Boy Scout's restrictions on homosexuality"

Again, yeah. Why shouldn't gays serve in the military? It's a waste of time and money attempting to discharge gay soldiers, for a start. I bet Conservapedia is all up its own ass about "supporting the troops" but obviously this means support our heterosexual troops.

"promote homosexuality in schools"

Define "promote homosexuality".

"in places like Massachusetts and California — where the gay lobby is the strongest — it starts as early as pre-school. They tell seven- or eight-year-old boys — "If you only like boys, there's a chance you may be homosexual." Or — "If you only like girls, maybe you are lesbian." Well, at that age, all members of the opposite sex "have cooties.""

Pre-school and 7/8 year olds aren't really the same thing, now are they?

"You're planting a seed that can totally mess up the normal development process later, when at 12 or 14, kids enter the age of sexual confusion and discovering the opposite sex."

Oh no! some gay kid might actually accept themselves as normal now! What a tragedy![/sarcasm]

"promote science that legitimizes homosexuality, such as claims of a never-identified gay gene"

Most gay activists, if they did comment on this, would say something like "Well, we don't know for sure what causes homosexuality, but the evidence suggests that thee may be some biological factors involved." It's the fundies who bring up the dumbass argument of "they can change, thus they don't need rights". Gay activists don't argue from the premise that "it's genetic, thus it's good" because we're(on the whole) not as stupid as fundies.

"force businesses to accommodate their lifestyle "

What the hell does this mean? If it means "get rid of discrimination in the workplace" than I totally agree.

"Suing an online dating website for discrimination"

Look, that might be an aside, but it's not part of the main agenda. Get with the program.

"getting more rights in prison"

If you mean "getting the same rights as straights" here, then yeah.