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May 19, 2013

The Skepchick 12 Steps

Posted by franc under cranks, cults, drugs, education, new new atheism, pseudo-science | Tags: , , , , , , , , , |
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serenity_prayer

The Skepchick Serenity Prayer – click to embiggen

A twelve-step program is a set of guiding principles (accepted by members as ‘spiritual principles,’ based on the approved literature) outlining a course of action for recovery from addiction, compulsion, or other behavioral problems. Originally proposed by Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) as a method of recovery from alcoholism, the Twelve Steps were first published in the book Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More Than One Hundred Men Have Recovered from Alcoholism in 1939. The method was then adapted and became the foundation of other twelve-step programs. — the cesspit of lies

Powerlessness, Twelve-Stepism, and the Siege Mentality

    “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol–that our lives had become unmanageable.”

The idea that he is powerless over alcohol lets the user off the hook by absolving him from personal responsibility for his addiction while simultaneously granting ultimate power to the addiction itself, power so great as to be invincible by human standards. (more…)

 

January 9, 2012

Marijuana Never Did Anything To Me

Posted by franc under culture, drugs, education | Tags: , , , , , |
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You have to be stoned to fully appreciate it.

The tornado has passed. The last of the hordes that descend from mid December have departed. Orthodox crassmass, celebrated using the older Julian calendar, is on the 7th of January for most (6th for some). They have left; there is glorious silence.

The last high/low-light was a testament to the joys of the ubiquitous $2 shops that largely support the bulk of sweatshop labour in the third world. Ma pulled apart a crassmass bonbon with my 3 yo nephew and it exploded with an anticlimactic pop and the usual tissue paper hat and junk gift fell out which junior gleefully grappled and pulled apart. The “gift” fell out – a flimsy plastic case full of sewing needles. I thought one of the others was a bit dangerous for kids, a cork screw. But fucking sewing needles? In children’s crassmass crackers? Those wacky Chinese sweatshop entrepreneurs. No harm was done in this case – Ma was paying attention. But the lesson of the day is never trust anything you buy at those junk shops, especially where kids are involved.

Another gem fell into my lap a few days ago in digitised format. A copy of Bill Cosby’s contribution to the War on Drugs – the 1972 Grammy Award winning (best kids album) Bill Cosby Talks to Kids About Drugs, which I actually do possess on vinyl. (more…)

 

August 20, 2011

Who Becky Watson Needs To Meet

Posted by franc under education, social sites | Tags: |
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Moser is so awesome, I need to rot-13 the url – uggc://jjj.irebavpn-zbfre.pbz/

She’s in control. And chances are, she hates you.

Love you V. Just don’t breathe on me.

 

August 5, 2011

Flogging The Enamel Off The Skeleton Of The Dead Horse

Posted by franc under cranks, education, ethics, fascism, government, great idiots of the world, politics, propaganda, religion, theocracy | Tags: , , , |
[6] Comments 

So how many little boys did Hitler bugger then Fred?

There is a relentless battle being waged in the 21st century for who can rightly claim the crown as the most outrageous abusers of reality for petty personal agenda – between the new breed of gender feminists and old school evangelical demagogues. And in fact, if you take god out of the equation there is bugger all difference in style, substance or methodology.

While the new kids on the block may have the element of surprise and roulette wheel style irrationality, they lose out by chasing trivia. On the other hand, seasoned dinosaurs like Fred Nile have no lack of either ambition or confidence in the selection of their targets. That’s why they still reign supreme. And you can see why, courtesy of Fred Nile’s latest contribution in our national newspapers –

Godless ethics led to Nazism: Nile (more…)

 

July 5, 2011

Access Ministries: More Poll Bombing Spam – And Why It’s Not OK

Posted by franc under education, ethics, Evonne Paddison, hyperreality, media, politics, propaganda, religion | Tags: , , , , , , , |
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Latest Access poll stacking spam, click to enlarge

As predicted, yes there was a spam doing the rounds for the newest poll held at Yahoo! News. It was picked up by Mike Stuchbery about a week ago – and its inevitable existence elicited a largely ho-hum reaction from me and didn’t really motivate me enough to even update the previous blog. There really isn’t that much to be excited about – a bunch of deceitful dirt-bags just conducting business-as-usual, banal to the point of dullness.

But kudos to Mike for capturing and documenting it, because it does need to be recorded and added to the list of Access Ministries abuses against everyone non-Access.

But what the spam does is confirm, yet again, that what Access Ministries and the Australian Christian Lobby really, really, really hate is that the general public so continuously refuses to give them the unanimous fawning love they without doubt deserve. In fact, it peeves them no end that they don’t seem to be very popular with the public at all. Reality conflicts with delusion. There is dissonance. (more…)

 

June 28, 2011

Access Ministries: Poll Bombing (Again), The Saga Continues

Posted by franc under education, ethics, Evonne Paddison, hyperreality, politics, propaganda, religion, theocracy | Tags: , , , , , |
[7] Comments 

[Yes there was poll bombing spam captured – link]

If you can’t win, cheat. Another example of Access Ministries impeccable honesty and ethical integrity for the world to see. When reality does not conform to delusion, the only possible, rational course of action is to undermine and corrupt it. It is the modus operandi for all of Access’ interactions with our detestable society – we are such low life, godless scum that it’s the least that we deserve anyway. (more…)

 

June 21, 2011

Access Ministries: Staggering Public Support

Posted by franc under education, ethics, Evonne Paddison, hyperreality, nonsense, politics, propaganda, religion, theocracy | Tags: , , , , |
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The main theme throughout all of the nonsense that Access Ministries have been peddling, the one constant, immutable “fact” has been their claim to overwhelming public endorsement and support of their SRI and chaplaincy programs. In fact, their favourite number seems to be 98% – they even print glossy brochures about it (via SUQLD, 764kb .pdf). They throw all sorts of bogus numbers at you, but the magic 98% is by far their favourite.

These extraordinary boasts require extraordinary evidence, and Access have already thrown large amounts of cash at professional data torturers to extract the truth out of selectively harvested factoids – both Edith Cowan University and Social Compass, as previously discussed here. And to reiterate, I hold neither of these organisations to blame – they simply delivered product as defined by the customer scope, just a simple business transaction. Access wanted confirmation bias support, and that is what they got.

So let’s revisit this issue of the alleged massive support that Access have from the public then. Just over a month ago, with much hoopla, when the shit started hitting the fan, Access announced a new, improved Facebook Causes page and urged the masses to rise up and voice their disgust at the evil, child hating secularists. As observed at the time, this was hardly a roaring success. But never mind, it was probably a slow boil, and the people’s obvious support would arrive once the grass roots word of mouth campaign got in full swing. Wouldn’t it? (more…)

 

June 20, 2011

Access Ministries: Dissent Is Prohibited

Posted by franc under education, ethics, Evonne Paddison, fascism, millennialists, politics, propaganda, religion, theocracy | Tags: , , , , |
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The antics of Access Ministries alternate between comedic and genuinely disturbing – and the degree to which they appear to have permeated all levels of government and public service, both state and federal, is something that requires some serious scrutiny.

The relentlessness of the disinformation and misguided, railroaded policy not representative of community requirements does not happen by itself. There are serious resources at work amongst professional lobbyists and advisors forcing the hands of our governments, as well as the high likelihood of government ministers that are not disclosing their true levels of interest in promoting the current school chaplaincy and SRI programs.

This is no trivial matter – we are heading towards the half billion dollar mark of public funding being siphoned off into these programs and there is active deception to conceal the content of these programs from the parents of the children entrapped in them, usually with no alternative.

Even so, there is a level of perversity above and beyond anything to date displayed in this article in Sunday’s Age – (more…)

 

June 13, 2011

Access Ministries: Why It Should Concern Everybody

Posted by franc under education, ethics, Evonne Paddison, millennialists, politics, propaganda, puritanism, religion | Tags: , , , , , |
[2] Comments 

I could be accused of monomania given the pit-bull and rabbit focus on Access Ministries. But in my defense, I have no recent memory of such a corrosive and noxious issue apart from Conroy and his censorship scheme – and it’s an issue for Christian and non-Christian alike.

The efforts by Access Ministries to hijack the education system and turn it into a baby Christian Taliban factory, all paid for by you, is not something that can be under-exaggerated. All religions1, especially the dust religions, are fascist by nature and any drive towards theocracy, no matter how subtle, has to be resisted by any means available. There is no precedent anywhere, any time, of a theocratic state being of any benefit to anyone other than the priest classes – who are essentially Mafioso running a “spiritual protection” racket. Access Ministries, in the face of all their denials and deceptions, are very much in the theocracy business and this attempted coup d’état in our schools is designed to build a vanguard for their Dominionist / Reconstructionist fantasies.

Access Ministries, despite the charades, do not even represent mainstream christianity. Not by a longshot. A quick perusal of the churches that support them, which has been sanitised, nevertheless shows exactly the kind of creature we’re looking at – (more…)

 

June 8, 2011

To The Person Who Tried The Contact Form Today

Posted by franc under education | Tags: , , , , |
[2] Comments 

Slight, unscheduled break from regular programming…

The webform here is just a bit of a joke I slapped together, it does work, but does not verify your details if you made a typo. My contact details are available via the gravatar top right as well, and my direct email is no secret – franc.hoggle@gmail.com

I penned a fairly lengthy response to you and would be interested to pursue the points you have raised, and I assume you want confidentiality because you didn’t comment here – but your email address bounced. I would appreciate it if you could contact me again. This is the time stamp of your message –

Time: Wednesday June 8, 2011 at 8:29 am

Gratuitous amusing graphic for anyone else that may have clicked in here – (more…)

 

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