Blogs I am reading 10 September 2010

Yes, it is once again time for another installment of "blogs I have been reading lately."

The first item is not actually a blog post, but I am going to share it anyways.

Republican claims that Girl Scouts breed pro-abortion lesbians

Seriously, you can't make this type of stuff up...or at least, my imagination fails in this department. Having known some former Girl Scouts, I will admit that all of them are strong-willed and stand up for themselves; but off the top of my head, I do not know any lesbian Girl Scouts. As for their pro-abortion stance, I believe that the current Republican definition of pro-abortion is believing in exceptions for abortion on the grounds of medical reasons, incest and rape. Of course, the real issue here is not that Girl Scouts are god-less lesbians who are pro-abortion; it is the fact that former Girl Scouts do not mindlessly vote Republican.

(As always, feel free to yell at me in the comment section.)

Oh and by the way, this politican should know that you should be buying your cookies elsewhere...have you figured out the markup on these cookies? If someone cannot figure that out, perhaps they should not be sent to Washington in the first place. For the record, the high markup is NOT going to stop me from buying a couple of boxes next cookie season; after all, Girl Scouts make great Wiccans and ceremonial magicians.

Pagan Soccer Mom: Inviting a household guardian into your home

You got to love this post just for the picture of Mrs B's household guardian. Personally, I have a couple of guardian spirits around my house. But none as cute as hers---and yes, cute is relative (that guardian willl bite your arm off). My offerings tend to be mugwort and milk.

Mary Greer: Regulating Fortune Tellers

In Warren, Michigan, you must now pay for a ten dollar background check, get finger-printed and pay a $150 dollar annual license fee if you are a fortune teller. In theory, this law is supposed to cut down on the number of scammers in the field (those who charge outrageous fees to cast spells and remove hexes)...as a friend of mine noted it might be simply that people going to fortune tellers are cutting into lottery sales (the tax against people who do not understand the math of probability theory). I have mixed feelings about this type of law.

Elysia: Witches and Liability

In the vein of the previous mentioned blog post, Elysia (Llewellyn Books acquistition editor) talks about laws and regulations governing fortune tellers. Regarding a rejected tax on fortune tellers in Romania, she notes that the law would have included a provision holding fortune tellers responsible for false predictions. I know a lot of people would love to see this type of law enforced; but as Elysia pointed out, think about where this type of law leads.

"If we [held fortune tellers, witches, and magicians liable for their false predictions], we’d have to hold the medical profession to account (‘false positive’ being an oft-used medical term, of course), then the weather forecasters, then the business journalists, then the high school counselors, then the Las Vegas bookies… everyone who’s ever attempted to make a prediction about anything."

Essentially, all of us (including the non-magical folks) would be subject to fines and jail time...on the bright note, we might have less politicans and doomsday prophets and priests.

The Malkuth of Me: On book burning

In this news cycle, I lost count of how many articles and blogs I read about book burning, thanks to the actions of the loud mouth in Florida trying to convince someone not to open a Muslim culture center in New York City (it is not really near the 9/11 site) by threatening to burn copies of the Quran. This blog post became my favorite because the blogger came out and said that it was ok to burn books provided that you brought them in the first place.

If you are a writer or publisher, think about this. In order to burn a book, someone had to buy a copy of the book in the first place. Maybe we should be encouraging people to burn copies of the books we write. It is not like it is a new idea---Aliester Crowley instructed people to burn their copy of the Book of the Law after reading it only once (I am not sure anyone ever actually did so, but that is what Crowley suggested).

Now, on a personal note, because someone is sure to ask, I believe that it is one short step from burning books to burning people. And I believe that the lunatic in Florida is exactly the type of person who would think that it was a good idea to burn people of my ilk.

(I did mention that you can yell at me in the comment section, right?)

Donald Michael Kraig: Labels, Cults, and Politics

And finally this week, I must mention how Kraig blogged about one of my own blog posts. I would rack this up to it being a slow news day, except that we are in the silly season of politics. Kraig's point was made by the Republican claiming that the Girl Scouts are a breeding ground for pro-abortion god-less lesbians.

In my case, I stand by my blog post (about someone else's blog post and comments made about their post). In the situation that I was talking about, I believe that the word "cult" was the correct technical term (provided of course, that the story being told about that organization was true...one can never be sure when it comes to stories told about Golden Dawn lodges and Orders). I was talking about using the term "cult" in the sense of "your mind belong to us and your decisions are no longer yours to make."

It is obvious that me and Kraig are going to continue to disagree on this issue (as will I and the original blogger, and the organization that he was talking about). But I am glad that both of us managed to figure out a way to blog about the same subject.

(I would tell members of the organization to consider defriending me on Facebook and to quit following this blog, but that boat sailed months and months ago already.)

Anyways, this ends another installment of blogs that I have been reading lately. As always, feel free to leave your poison ink letters in the comment section (I read all the comments even if I do not hit the "publish" button).