Californians, Please Vote Yes on Prop 50

American democracy is quicky crumbling under the threat of fascist authoritarianism. It’s time to take measures to protect the freedoms we have left.

Woodland, California is a Blue Town

There is a common misconception that the small-ish, central valley Ag town I live in leans republican. It doesn’t. In fact, this centry in the Democrat and Republican races, it’s averaged 60% blue in every election since Obama beat McCain in 2008. Sure, we have a vocal MAGA minority, but miserable people are loud.

I Deleted My Facebook Account

I joined Facebook back in 2006 when it first opened to the general public. I did this mostly because I was involved in building a social network platform to help artists, record labels, and management companies take their web presence back from MySpace. Fast-forward 11 years: I’m focusing more on my own music, Facebook is the new MySpace, and here I am trying to take back ownership of my web presence from them.

Battle for the Net

Net neutrality is good. It means all websites on the internet get the same bandwidth. Netflix.com loads as fast as thebigreason.com. The new FCC Chairman plans to overturn regulations that keep the internet neutral and allow internet providers (telecoms ie. Comcast, Charter, AT&T, Verizon, etc.) to charge more money for increased bandwidth. It also has some very ominous implications for free speech.

How To Turn Off Rockin’ With The Cross In OnSong

Save yourself the embarrassment of accidentally hitting the Remote button in the song menu and calling up a bunch of contemporary Christian music in front of your band.

Dot

Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there—on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

—Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994

The audio of the original Pale Blue Dot video on YouTube has been muted for copyright violations. There are other versions, but they use additional images of Earth which completely deminishes the message.

Look at this single photograph—the most amazing of our planet ever taken—by Voyager 1 at over 6 billion kilometers away while you play the audio track.

Carl Sagan Day is November 9th.

Red And Black And White All Over

I “watched” (from Twitter) as Anti-Fascist (ANTIFA) and Traditionalist Youth Network (TYN) clashed on the capital steps of Sacramento yesterday in an childish display of sticks and stones and breaking bones and lots of name calling. Both sides are claiming victory.

Man Made Does Not Imply Poorly Made

Implying that something is flawed by stating it is man made does not compute. At least not to a humanist.

Libby Anne vs. AiG

I found this exchange between a former fundimentalist Christian and Answers in Genesis pretty riveting. Follow along in order for maximum enjoyment:

April Fools

Vintage Park Community Church in Sacramento put a reminder on their marquee this week that April 1st is international atheist day. This is a popular Christian joke this time of year. They are referring to Psalm 14:1.

Jerry Coyne vs. Neil deGrasse Tyson

I love a good mash-up! When two or more of your favorite things collide, there is amazing potential for awesome. In this case, two of my favorite scientists/science advocates mildly butt heads on the topic of science and religion.

Lent

Rather than give up something frivolous for the sake of paying tribute to an extremely self destructive act performed thousands of years ago by a person who claimed to be an omnipotent sky monster, why not take on something useful instead?

Christopher Hitchens Has Died

A hero, contrarian, and defender of free speach is gone. We knew it was imminant, but this makes it no less easy. These are my thoughts on the great man which I regret not making public before his death.

Words that make questions may not be questions at all

Stephen Colbert interviews Neil deGrasse Tyson. This is worth every second of your time. 5,082 seconds of your time specifically.