Boobquake, God, and earthquakes

What does it all mean?

Omar Sacirbey, at Religion News Service, parses that out. He proposes that calling natural disasters punishment from God is actually a recruitment tool.

And it renders the person doing the pronouncing powerful — at least in that person’ eyes.

For more on Boobquake, go here. And check out the crowd’s reaction to this Vancouver woman. Have they never seen a pair before?

Your sofa can burn you

Chinese sofas injurned the British citizens who bought them.

How do you have a global market if everyone isn’t playing by the same rules? I don’t have the answer. I hope you do.

And thanks, Sis. Gina, for the link.

Among other issues, Washington has a gender problem

Better not mess with the lady politician.

And thanks, Feministing, for the link.

Do please read the whole thing

Ross Douthat’s ruminations are at New York Times, but Sis. Sharon points out this one paragraph, which is interesting to me, too. He’s quoting someone else, but:

I’m reminded of something that John Podhoretz said many years ago: The great advantage that conservatives have over liberals is that we are bilingual. We can speak our language and we also know theirs. They however even now still don’t know ours and cannot be bothered to learn.

Do you think that’s true? That liberals don’t tend to learn the conservative’s language, but conservatives do tend to learn the liberals’?

Hey! I use this kind of language, too!

Why does this not bother me one single bit?

Have my standards really sunk so low? Or is it because I admire plain speech, especially when it’s coming from a fellow Missourian?

Noah’s ark may have been found

And it’s supposed to have been found resting atop Mt. Ararat in Turkey, right where it’s supposed to have come to rest after the Great Flood.

There are, of course, some skeptics/heathens/scientists. This’ll be interesting, to see if it’s true.

There’s no such thing as New Atheism

So says Tom Flynn at Council for Secular Humanism. He writes:

Something new was afoot, but it was only this: for the first time, uncompromising atheist writing was coming from big-name publishers and hitting best-seller lists. You could buy it at the airport. In consequence, people who had never before experienced atheist rhetoric got their first exposure to arguments that had formerly been published only by movement presses. One of these newcomers was Wired’s Gary Wolf. Encountering sledgehammer assaults upon religion that he had never seen before, knowing nothing of freethought’s rich, enclaved history, he thought he was seeing something genuinely new. And the New Atheism was born—out of ignorance, ironically enough.

And thanks, Bro. Leftover, for the link.

Everything you need to know about Goldman Sachs

From Andy Borowitz, courtesy of Bro. Cliff.

U.S. military goes native with Afghanistan ads

A former Procter & Gamble marketer has created an Afghanistan ad campaign as part of the U.S. military’s PSYOP operation there.

The print, radio, and television campaign uses culturally-sensitive messages, says Advertising Age.

And thanks, Common Dreams, for the link.

And now? Just for giggles?

Revirginate yourself, ladies! Revive your vagina, repair your hymen! Because:

The virginity of a woman is valued for religious, social, and even economic reasons. Hymen gets disrupted after the first intercourse or even after strenuous physical activity or tampon use. Anyway, you wouldn’t want your boyfriend / future husband feel ashamed because your hymen no longer existed.

Do you think something similar exists for the boys?! I mean, no hymen, but some form of revirgination?! And why can’t I stop using exclamation points?!

(Frankly, once I finally handed over the tattered flag that was my virginity, I felt mostly relief. Not guilt. Not joy. Relief, a kind of “Phew. Glad that’s over.” And then I toddled forward to enjoy free-sex-for-life.)

And thanks, Jezebel, for the link.