Grandma Kills Grandkids, Mom Thinks They're With God

http://news.yahoo.com/cops-grandma-shot-self-young-grandsons-car-145334468.html

PRESTON, Conn. (AP) — A woman who picked up her two young grandsons from daycare and was supposed to bring them home so the 2-year-old could open his birthday presents instead drove them to a neighboring town and shot and killed the children and herself, state police and family members said.

The bodies of 47-year-old Debra Denison and her grandsons, 2-year-old Alton Perry and 6-month-old Ashton Perry, were found Tuesday night in a car parked near Lake of Isles in Preston, in the southeastern part of the state.

...Family members said Denison, the boys' maternal grandmother, had a history of mental health problems.

...Denison also had a 13-year-year-old son and, in her suicide note, she said in part that God was watching over him on Tuesday, White [the other grandparent] said.

In Facebook postings late Tuesday and Wednesday morning, Brenda Perry [the mom] thanked people for their prayers and said she loved her sons.

"God (has) two beautiful angels helping him now," the postings said. "My boys are in an amazing place we got a few great angels watching over us. love you Ashton and alton."

Well naturally you're going to go right into the God-talk when you yourself allowed your mentally ill mother to be on the approved list of people to pick up your kids even though the kids overwhelmed her.  And did mom know that grandma had access to a gun?  How did that happen?

Guilt and grief are terrible things, but how does imagining that God has enslaved a toddler and infant make things better?

Grandma left a suicide note, acknowledging that she is leaving her youngest child motherless.  God is watching over him?  God couldn't prevent her from offing the toddler and the baby, what good will God do for the teenager?

I seriously hope for the teen's sake that he gets placed in a foster home far, far away from his nutty Christian family.  As crazy as they are, he'd be better off being sent to a Catholic boarding school and being fucked up the ass by a pedophile priest.  At least those priests aren't murderers.

My interview at Deity Shmeity

http://deityshmeity.blogspot.com/2013/02/an-interview-with-lady-atheist.html

There are quite a few interesting interviews there (besides my scintillating one).  We atheists are a diverse bunch.

CNN Interviews: The Amazing Atheist & William Lane Craig

William Lane Craig wants Dawkins to debate him.  Dawkins won't.

CNN has WLC on, and who is the opposition?  Not someone with a Ph.D., but a vlogger who has a propensity to rant.  No offense to Mr. Amazing, but I wonder what Mr. I-want-to-debate-Dawkins felt when he found out CNN was putting up an unlettered vlogger against him.  Yes, even CNN knows that WLC's arguments are so weak that he's on the level with someone who rants in front of a webcam.  What's that in the background?  Could the disciples be carving up some Humble Pie for WLC?

WLC & The Amazing Atheist on the pope's retirement and the rise of atheism in the U.S.:

Links 2/23

Cut the shit and vaccinate your kids!  This means YOU, Catholics.

That Awkward Moment When Anti-Immigration Protesters Realize They're Immigrants too.  Priceless.

Arizona's attempt to take Medicaid funding away from Planned Parenthood patients gets the axe.  I wonder what would happen if Medicaid were withheld from Catholic hospitals.

CNN offers its Ten Rules of the Internet

Stumbled onto the improbably titled blog, Experimental Theology, which has some posts on something called "Christian A/Theism."   This blog reminds me of the Upton Sinclair quote:
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."   The corollary could be "It is difficult to get a theologian to admit to being an atheist when his salary is paid by a religious institution."  This poor soul is twisting into knots trying to craft a theology he can believe in.

Huffpo blogger thinks sciency atheists should be nicer to sciency religionists.  As a politically expedient tactic, maybe.  But does religion have a role in science?  uhhh NO!

The Anti-Science Left:  Author Alex Berezow on Why Both Parties Fail at Science.

Salon's list of 10 Celebs You Didn't Know Were Atheists.  I knew about Seth McFarlane and Angelina Jolie & Harry Potter.  Hugh Hefner being on the list is just what we need for the "You just want to sin" argument.  How about "You just want to adopt brown-skinned babies?"   Don't hear that one much.

How the U.S.'s five most numerous denominations view homosexuality (with promo of show about Methodists' dilemma)

George Costanza look-alike neo-nazi opens a yeshiva in Ohio.

Anti-Semitism is up in France.  Do the French like anybody?  Jews are leaving France, and they're also leaving Hungary.  In Tunisia, anti-semitic activity is on the rise.  What year is this?  1933?

Meanwhile, a film documents how The Philippines rescued 1300 Jews during the Holocaust.

New Video: "Sophia Investigates the Good News Club"

hat tip: The Thinking Atheist podcast. He interviews Katherine Stewart, who wrote The Good News Club: The Christian Right's Stealth Assault on America's Children.  She also has a blog.  The Good News Club (not a club, really fundamentalist education with a five-year curriculum aimed at elementary children in public schools, even kindergartners) came to her hometown of Santa Barbara, California.  They're probably in your town too, or they want to be.  They're in 3500 schools nationwide.

She's not the only one drawing attention to this menace.  Check out "Good News Club: A Critique."

Saturday Night Live: "DJesus Uncrossed" Movie Trailer

Hilarious!

Random Links

7 Habits of Marginally Effective People  I've known a few of these


Wisconsin Republicans tell fundies that transvaginal ultrasound is their top priority.   Total lack of imagination.  I'm sure every unemployed undereducated Wisconsite would be happy to know this... if they could afford the interwebs or could read long words.

Cruise ship is study in dystopia society.  Christians get credit for being the good guys.  I'd love to know how many of the food-hoarding drunkards were Christians and how many of the good guys were atheists.

...and in dystopian India, where drugs are manufactured for American companies, there is only one school of pharmacy, and a government program gives six menstrual pads per cycle to rural teens.  When I was that age, those would have lasted me two days, max... or maxi.

The Vatican is full of old Italian men who don't like change.  And being sent to the United States is punishment.  *lol*

And in more Vatican news, they stonewalled a bishop who tried to get rid of a pedophile priest.

Perhaps they were unconcerned because a Buddhist teacher in L.A. is also a sex offender.

Emory University president praises the slavery-era decision to value blacks as 3/5 the value of whites.  It was a compromise "both" sides could agree on, but if I recall correctly, black people were not consulted on this.

The 30 y.o. pentecostal who headed the Office of Faith-based (and Community-based wink wink) Initiatives, is on his way out.  He e-mailed daily devotional passages to the president... as part of his job duties?  How was any of that Constitutional?  Or for that matter the whole office.  It should close.

Teenage girl gets thousands of dollars for obeying one stupid line in Deuteronomy.

In Missouri, a bill proposes to redefine "science" in a way that permits "intelligent" design in schools.