More Duggar hijinks!

Josh Duggar after Ashley Madison hack: ‘I have been the biggest hypocrite ever’
Dana Ford-Profile-Image
By Dana Ford, CNN
Updated 10:46 AM ET, Fri August 21, 2015 | Video Source: CNN

(CNN)Reality TV star Josh Duggar is apologizing after being outed as one of the 32 million people who used the cheating website Ashley Madison.

Hackers stole customers’ information from the website and released it to the public this week, exposing something Duggar tried to keep secret.

“I have been the biggest hypocrite ever. While espousing faith and family values, I have secretly over the last several years been viewing pornography on the internet and this became a secret addiction and I became unfaithful to my wife,” Duggar said in a statement Thursday.

The Duggar family

He did not specifically address Ashley Madison in his statement, which was issued in the wake of the hackers’ data dump and later modified to omit the reference to pornography.

“I brought hurt and a reproach to my family, close friends and the fans of our show with my actions that happened when I was 14-15 years old, and now I have re-broken their trust,” Duggar said.

Earlier this year, Duggar was forced to apologize after reports emerged alleging he molested girls as a teenager, including his sisters. He said then that he “acted inexcusably.”

Duggar, 27, is the oldest of the children who appeared on TLC’s hit show “19 Kids and Counting.” The show has since been canceled.

According to an analysis from the cybersecurity company Trustify, Duggar paid Ashley Madison some $986 between 2012 and 2015. He used the name, josh_the_man, and described himself as an “attached male seeking female,” according to the analysis.

Duggar reportedly listed some of his desires as: conventional sex, experimenting with sex toys and one-night stands. He listed travel and photography as personal interests. He said he was turned on by professional, confident women who dislike routine and have a secret love nest.

Reality star Josh Duggar: ‘I acted inexcusably’ 01:00
“As I am learning the hard way, we have the freedom to choose to our actions, but we do not get to choose our consequences. I deeply regret all hurt I have caused so many by being such a bad example,” Duggar said in his Thursday statement. “I humbly ask for your forgiveness.”

The Duggars are known for being devout Christians who don’t believe in practicing birth control and whose children follow strict courtship rules.

Ashley Madison, which is owned by Avid Life Media, is designed to help married people cheat on their spouses. Its slogan is “Life is short. Have an affair.”

CNN’s Steve Almasy and Laurie Segall contributed to this report.

Again, we are assailed with more inappropriate behavior by science-denying home schooled revisionist historians. The Lord their God sure dwelt in them to elevate their oldest son to the pinnacle of purity as evidenced by how these assholes bragged about their ultra-conservative hate-mongering as though it were legitimate, and scoffed at those who were actually being honest and forthright in their lives. 

The Duggars have had to learn some hard life lessons about how their throwback myth worship has completely degraded their family foundation and called everything that they have espoused into question. I can only shake my head in wonderment as to how the sheeple of America could elevate these idiots to a top rated show on a popular network, and be so oblivious as to the stupidity of what they believed in! These idiots believe that the Earth is only 6,000 years old for Christ sake! Jim Bob,(oh my fucking god, Jim Bob! What kind of fucking name is that?), was actually present at the prison release of the tax criminal Kent Hovind who is one of the biggest science deniers around along with his idiot son Eric!

I wouldn’t send this asshole toilet paper if he was wiping his ass with his fingers let alone be seen with this crackpot! Finally, the truth revealed about these people and the damage that their Quiverfull bullshit causes when taught as fact! It is high time that the Duggars, as well as their poisonous teachings, fall out of the limelight before they damage any more people into believing in extreme mythology. 

Separate the church and the state, you mullet wearing asshole!

Mississippi school district fined $7500 for opening assembly with prayer
Published July 27, 2015FoxNews.com

Brandon High School where the assembly in May 2014 took place. (City of Brandon)
Allowing a school assembly honoring high-achievers to open with a prayer made one Mississippi school district $7,500 poorer – and a student who sued $2,500 richer.

The Rankin, Miss., public school district was hit with the fine after U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves said it defied his prior order barring prayers school events. According to the judge, the prayer violated a 2013 court settlement that ordered the district to stop “proselytizing Christianity.” The alleged violation, which came at an assembly last year for students who scored above 22 on their ACT college admissions test, prompted the judge to apply fines for that and another incident, in which Gideons International was permitted to hand out Bibles to elementary school students.

“The district’s breach did not take very long and it occurred in a very bold way,” Reeves wrote in his judgment. “Its conduct displays that the district did not make any effort to adhere to the agreed judgment.”

Reeves also ordered the district to pay the student’s legal fees, an amount that will be determined at a later date, and threatened a $10,000 fine for any future infractions of the order.

The assembly at Brandon High School in May 2014 began with a prayer led by local Methodist pastor Rev. Rob Gill. Although not mandatory, the assembly honored the district’s students who scored higher than a 22 on their ACT college tests

The school district first came under legal fire when the same student took the school district and the school’s then-principal, Charles Frazier, to court in 2013 for forcing him to attend a series of assemblies that promoted Christianity.

Attorneys for the school district have argued that Gill’s prayer did not violate the 2013 orders or the student’s First Amendment rights because attendance at the assembly was optional. Reeves, however, believes the district has been trying to indoctrinate students with Christianity.

“From the accounts detailed in the record, it appears that incorporating religious script and prayers with school activities has been a long-standing tradition of the district,” the judge argued.

In a statement issued by an attorney, Rankin County Superintendent Lynn Weathersby said that despite the court’s ruling, students and teachers will continue to pray. However, district staff will have to adjust in order to comply with the ruling.

-Awesome ruling. Separation of church and state people, period, no explanation necessary! School children should not have their scientific minds stunted by being told that mythology is to be believed as real. The reality is is that we do not know what exactly is beyond this life, if anything. A narrow view shouldn’t demand superior advertisement when there are so many other myths to choose from. The ham-handed doctrine of Christianity speaks for itself, if the god of Abraham is as incompetent as the literal bible describes, than it might be a better bet to worship the My Little Ponies!

If he could have only been allowed to jerk off……

Sisters Jill, Jessa open up about Josh Duggar’s abuse

Jessica Durando, USA TODAY Network8:08 p.m. PDT June 5, 2015

Two of Josh Duggar’s sex-abuse victims, sisters Jill Dillard and Jessa Seewald, told their stories in the second part of an exclusive interview with Fox News. VPC

(Photo: Fox News screengrab)

CONNECT 79TWEETLINKEDINCOMMENTEMAILMORE

Two of Josh Duggar’s sex-abuse victims — sisters Jill Dillard, 24, and Jessa Seewald, 22 — told their stories in the second part of an exclusive interview with Megyn Kelly on Fox’s The Kelly File.

The interview, which was previously recorded, aired Friday night on Fox.

Seewald defends her 27-year-old brother, who inappropriately touched four of his sisters and a family friend during his teen years.

USA TODAY

Timeline: Duggar sex-abuse allegations

“I do want to speak up in his defense against people who are calling him a child molester or pedophile or a rapist, some people are saying,” Seewald told Kelly. “I’m like, ‘That is so overboard and a lie really.’ I mean, people get mad at me for saying that, but I can say this because I was one of the victims.”

USA TODAY does not usually name victims, but in this case, they have named themselves.

Dillard, who was 12 at the time of the molestation, said, “I was shocked. And I’m sad because this is my older brother who I love a lot. I was angry at first. I was like, ‘How could that happen?’ ”

Seewald said she was 9 or 10 years old during the situation. “In Josh’s case, he was a young boy in puberty and a little too curious about girls. And that got him into some trouble,” she said.

The women said that their parents put up safeguards in the home, including not allowing the boys to babysit, locking doors at night, not playing hide-and-seek or being alone with each other.

Both sisters said that they were unaware of Duggar’s actions until their parents sat them down individually. “It wasn’t like we were keeping a secret,” Dillard said.

Seewald got teary-eyed when she spoke about the InTouch article that came out last month. “I was in tears. I couldn’t believe what was going on.” She said she called her husband. “How do they have a right to do this? We’re victims, they can’t do this to us.” They both told Kelly that they felt victimized again by having the story appear in a tabloid years after it had happened.

The InTouch story, which included pictures of 2006 police documents it was based on, reported in May that Duggar was investigated for multiple sex offenses, including forcible fondling of breasts and genitals, against five underage girls. Some of the alleged offenses investigated were felonies.

In his statement, Duggar said he confessed to his parents and they “took several steps” to address the situation. He also apologized to the victims.

“We spoke with the authorities where I confessed my wrongdoing, and my parents arranged for me and those affected by my actions to receive counseling,” he said. “I understood that if I continued down this wrong road that I would end up ruining my life.”

Duggar was never charged with a crime, and the statute of limitations has now expired.

InTouch reported that his father took Duggar to an Arkansas state trooper who was a personal friend, who took no action other than a “very stern talk.” That officer is now serving a 56-year term in prison for child pornography, the magazine reported, and no case was ever brought against Duggar.

During the first interview, which aired Wednesday, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, the Christian conservative reality-TV stars of 19 Kids and Counting, talked about how son Josh approached them and told them that he had “improperly touched” some of their daughters. Josh was a teen at the time.

Megyn Kelly interviews Jim Bob Duggar and Michelle Duggar at their home in Tontitown, Ark. (Photo: Fox News/Getty Images)

USA TODAY

Explore the Duggar family tree

USA TODAY

Duggars open up on family sex scandal

“We were shocked, we were devastated,” Michelle Duggar told Kelly in the first interview. “As parents, we felt we’re failures. We tried to raise our kids to do what’s right — to know what’s right. And yet one of our children made really bad choices.” The pair were interviewed at their home in Tontitown, Ark.

The Duggars said that in 2002 and 2003, when he was 14 and 15, Josh had groped the girls while they slept (the girls slept in the same room), and that he did this more than once even after his first confession to his parents.

They got him out of the house and sent him to a non-professional Christian-based counseling program in Little Rock, Ark. Jim Bob Duggar said it was “the best decision” they made, because Josh became “closer to God” as a result. “It was a turning point in his life,” he said.

The TLC network has pulled the show’s reruns from its schedule but has not decided whether to cancel the series entirely. Meanwhile, advertisers, including General Mills, Payless Shoes and Choice Hotels, have cut ties with the family of the popular show.

In the aftermath of the first interview, folks have come out for and against the family.

On Twitter, viewers slammed the Duggars for defending their actions as parents. They also took shots at Kelly for how she conducted the interview.

Montel Williams tweeted, “What the hell is the point of interviewing ANYONE if you aren’t asking questions that matter? Not asking #Duggars tough questions=stupid.”

Dear #lgbt America: On behalf of us straight people, I apologize for #Duggars and#DuggarInterview ~ how dare they say ur dangerous to kids

— Montel Williams (@Montel_Williams) June 4, 2015

Piers Morgan agreed.

‘You abused 4 of your sisters & another young girl, Josh? Great! We’ll make you a TV star!’ #TheDisgustingDuggars

— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) June 4, 2015

Sarah Palin posted a diatribe on her Facebook page on Thursday, defending the Duggar family and attacking Girls star Lena Dunham.

“Hey Lena, why not laugh off everyone’s sexual ‘experiments’ as you haughtily enjoy rewards for your own perversion? You pedophile you,” Palin wrote. She was referring to when Dunham came under fire for a passage in her memoir, Not That Kind of Girl, where the actress said at age 7 she would bribe her little sister with candy for kisses and to see her genitals.

-I actually believe that this kid suffered from complete oppression and suppression of natural behavior and urges arising from puberty and was shamed by his parents into never showing his budding sexual urges. Hell, this kid could get into hot water just for beating off! How do you develop healthy sexual urges when a bunch of fools raise you to believe that a monstrous mythological being will damn you to rot and burn forever for having the natural urge to flog your dick?

Right-Wing Christianity IS about hate speech!

Rubio: Gay marriage proponents pose ‘danger’ to Christianity

By Alexandra Jaffe, CNN

Updated 2:49 PM ET, Wed May 27, 2015

Marco Rubio respects courts on gay marriage in Florida 02:59

Washington (CNN)Florida Sen. Marco Rubio took a decidedly conservative turn on same-sex marriage in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network this week, warning that “there’s a real and present danger” that gay marriage proponents will cast the teachings of mainstream Christianity as “hate speech.”

“If you think about it, we are at the water’s edge of the argument that mainstream Christian teaching is hate speech. Because today we’ve reached the point in our society where if you do not support same-sex marriage, you are labeled a homophobe and a hater,” the Republican presidential candidate said.

RELATED: Rubio: ‘We’re going to abide’ by gay marriage rulings

Marco Rubio on immigration, economics, same-sex marriage02:39

PLAY VIDEO

Rubio defends experience, legislative record 08:29

PLAY VIDEO

“After they are done going after individuals, the next step is to argue that the teachings of mainstream Christianity, the catechism of the Catholic Church, is hate speech and there’s a real and present danger,” Rubio warned.

Rubio has always been personally opposed to same-sex marriage and has argued the issue should be left up to the states.

But his comments to CBN Tuesday mark a notable shift in tone for a candidate who told CNN earlier this year that if the Supreme Court ruled in favor of same-sex marriage, “that would be the law of the land that we would have to follow until it’s somehow reversed.”

His choice to sound the alarm on a possible attack on Christianity aligns him more closely with the evangelicals he’ll be courting in the early primary states of Iowa and South Carolina. But Rubio’s statement comes at a time that Republicans increasingly see themselves losing the battle for public opinion over gay marriage.

In a sign of how fraught the issue has become, a prominent Christian conservative group just announcedthat it’s eliminating its “marriage pledge,” a 14-point credo the Family Leader circulated to candidates in 2012 that required them to pledge to back the definition of traditional marriage as between one man and one woman, among other things.

-Hey Marco, Hitchens67 here! What you spew from your myth-believing pie hole IS hate speech and not in line with what most logical people call, “Reality.” In 2015, in the U.S, we STILL have a large amount of people that believe an imaginary figure guides their lives, that, I find, is disturbing indeed!

Wake up and take control of your own lives! If you need a sky fairy to keep you on the straight and narrow then you just lack a REAL conscience to guide you! I just do good things because it’s the right thing to do, not because of the threat of some mythological Hell in the afterlife! Get fucking real and ditch the fairy tales Marco!

Seriously?!!

Religion

I.V. Hilliard: Pastor Asks Congregation to Finance New Helicopter Blades

By Craig Malisow Tue., Jun. 25 2013 at 7:00 AM

7 Comments

Categories: Religion

What would Jesus fly? Airwolf. He’d fly motherfucking Airwolf.

Just imagine how many more souls Jesus Christ could have saved if he had a helicopter. That would’ve cut the commute from Tiberias to Jericho by at least a fortnight. So there’s no reason that, in 2013, a preacher of the gospel shouldn’t be able to spread the word as quickly and efficiently as possible.Enter Bishop I.V. Hilliard of Houston’s New Light Christian Center, who’s asking his flock to kick in $52 a piece to help pay for new helicopter blades. Strangely enough, the recommendation for a blade “upgrade” did not come from On High, but from the church’s “Aviation Department,” which we assume is adjacent to the “Bling Unit.”

In a humble letter to his followers, ol’ I.V. explains how this is actually a cost-saving measure — very reassuring, because at first blush it appeared to be an ostentatious, greedy money-grab by a hypocrite (in the Biblical sense) with no real understanding of what J.C. was all about.

Here’s some of the letter:

Dear Friend of Jesus,Do you need better transportation? Does your car need repair or total replacement? Do you have a dream vehicle or luxury automobile you long to purchase? Are you trying to sale a car, truck or SUV? If you answered “yes” to any of these please carefully read the rest of this letter! It could change your life…

….Our Aviation Department has an opportunity that will save the ministry well over $50K if we will move on it right away. My Aviation Manager stated that while repairing our helicopter they discovered that if we upgrade our blades today, it will save thousands in the days to come. As I pondered and looked at the situation, I heard that still small voice of the Holy Spirit say tell your special partners who have special transportation needs and their obedience will release favor for their needs and desires. I got excited and set down to write you!…..

Hilliard also writes: “Send me the transportation need or dream you have…when you sow a $52 transportation favor seed believing in 52 days or 52 weeks you will experience breakthrough favor!”

Hey, Bishop — you know what else would “save thousands”? Not owning a fucking helicopter!

Phred Phelps is dead!! ( all due respect to Nathan Phelps, our man!!).

Ducking Fuggars!

More than 80,000 people havesigned a petition to cancel the TLC reality show “19 Kinds and Counting” for what the petition says is an anti-LGBT stance. According to the petition, Michelle Duggar’s voice can be heard on a recorded call from this past summer urging the citizens of Fayetteville, Arkansas, to vote to repeal a law that forbids business owners and landlords from evicting and firing people based on gender identity.

HIDE CAPTION

Mouthing off: Celebs said what?!

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• As of Thursday the petition had more than 80,000 signatures
• The Duggars are known as devout Christians
• The petition also mentions their son’s new job

(CNN) — TLC’s reality show “19 Kids and Counting” has tons of fans, but more than 80,000 can’t be counted in that number.

That’s the amount who have signed a Change.org petition to have the show canceled in light of what the petition calls the Duggar family’s anti-LGBT stance.

According to the petition, Michelle Duggar’s voice can be heard on a recorded call from this past summer urging the citizens of Fayetteville, Arkansas, to vote to repeal a law that forbids business owners and landlords from evicting and firing people based on gender identity.

Duggars expecting 20th child

“The Fayetteville City Council is voting on an ordinance this Tuesday night that would allow men — yes I said men — to use women’s and girls’ restrooms, locker rooms, showers, sleeping areas and other areas that are designated for females only,” the petition reports Duggar as saying on the robocall. “I don’t believe the citizens of Fayetteville would want males with past child predator convictions that claim they are female to have a legal right to enter private areas that are reserved for women and girls.”

The petition says Duggar’s words “reek of ignorance and fear mongering.”

“Just because someone is transgendered doesn’t mean they are a child predator or a rapist,” the petition says. “The claim that this ordinance would provide predators with access to women’s restrooms in order to assault or leer at girls or women is nothing more than fear-mongering and spreading ignorance and hatred.”

The Duggars are known for being devout Christians who don’t believe in practicing birth control and whose children follow courtship rules that include no kissing until their wedding day.

The petition also says that the Duggars’ oldest son, Josh, has taken a job with the Family Research Center, which the petition says “is such a hate-filled, anti-gay organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2010 labeled it a ‘hate group’ for its ‘dissemination of false and demonizing propaganda about gays and lesbians.’ “

The movement comes on the heels of controversy about a recent posting on the Duggars’ “official” Facebook page.

After their newly married daughter Jessa was criticized for sharing an Instagram photo of herself kissing her husband Ben Seewald, Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar posted an image of themselves kissing and challenging others to do the same.

John Becker, who blogs about LGBT issues at The Bilerico Project,wrote that pictures of same-sex couples were deleted.

A counter petition to support the Duggars has been started and as of Friday had more than 6,000 signatures.

-Duck these stinking Fuggars and their incredibly irresponsible vagina as clown car family of genetic throwbacks! How backward and stupid do you have to be to post and support the shit that these people do. I personally get pissed at the rabid masses that watch these shitty shows and comment on the people as if they have just shared dinner at their house yesterday. “Oh, I know that that’s a lot of kids but Jim Bob and Michelle are sooo great with the kids and they are so well taken care of.” Fucking REALLY? These assclowns are Quiverfull religious nutcases who believe that a magic Jew turned water into wine AND that he actually walked on it without fucking sinking, and if that’s not enough proof that these idiots’ plane overshot the runway, they have absolutely NO fucking clue as to how real science works and are Young Earth Creationists as well!

Believing that the Earth is 8,000 years old definitely qualifies as grossly misinformed if not down right ignorant! I have rocks in my back yard that are way older than 8,000 years and any basic science class taught at the 4th grade level can easily prove this. You don’t need to be Sheldon fucking Cooper to figure this out, you just have to read one peer reviewed article in a science journal to have all the proof that you need, but if you are a religious zealot intent on oppressing further generations of mouth breathing inbreeds than I guess the Duggars are the retards to deliver the message! Their brand of bigotry and misogyny is as outdated as supporting the child-diddling Catholic money laundering system in Rome and needs to be swept into the dustbin of revisionist history from whence it came! The very fact that these assholes ignore sound healthcare advice regarding having stair step kids repels me from listening to any of the twaddle that issues forth from their collective ignorant pie holes, let alone the irresponsible willful act of fucking the environment with an extremely huge genetically flawed footprint, you fucking missing link motherfuckers!

One can only hope that these inbred shitbirds slide back into their morally tepid swamp and leave us all with only the foul taste in our mouths that hate and bigotry bring.  

 

Disturbing human bondage statistics!

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
The Global Slavery Index 2014 report finds that globally, almost 36 million people are subject to modern slavery
India is home to the largest number of enslaved, with over 14 million people living in bondage
Mauritania has the highest percentage, with 4% of the population enslaved
Iceland and Luxembourg have the lowest number, both in prevalence and in absolute numbers

(CNN) — The second annual edition of the Walk Free Foundation’s Global Slavery Index has found that globally, almost 36 million people are subject to modern slavery.
While incidences of slavery were found in every one of the 167 countries surveyed, five countries — India, China, Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Russia — accounted for nearly 22 million people (61%) suffering in bondage. The worst offender, India, accounted for an estimated 14.29 million people.
Human slavery, the report states, is defined as “human trafficking, forced labor, debt bondage, forced or servile marriage, or commercial sexual exploitation.”
Surge in cases
The report found an increase of 20% on the foundation’s findings a year ago, although it attributed the rise to more sophisticated data collection and analysis.
Former slaves find simple sanctuary in Pakistan ‘Haitian Idol’ aims to stop child slavery
“There is an assumption that slavery is an issue from a bygone era. Or that it only exists in countries ravaged by war and poverty,” Andrew Forrest, Chairman and Founder of the Walk Free Foundation, said in a statement.
“The first step in eradicating slavery is to measure it. And with that critical information, we must all come together — governments, businesses and civil society — to finally bring an end to the most severe form of exploitation.”
Highest percentages
While some of the world’s most populous nations were home to the bulk of the incidences of modern slavery, other countries had higher percentages of their populations enslaved.
The West African nation of Mauritania, the report found, had the highest prevalence, with an estimated 4% of its population in bondage. Other offenders include Uzbekistan (3.97%), Haiti (2.3%) and Qatar (1.35%).
The Emirate, which will play host to the World Cup in 2022, has faced numerous questions concerning its labor laws and the kafala sponsorship system, which limits foreign workers’ rights of movement.
“Qatar hosts significant numbers of foreign workers, and has risen in the ranking due to improved survey data, giving better insight into the high number of enslaved migrant workers in the nation,” Gina Dafalia, the foundation’s policy and research manager, told CNN. “It is ranked fourth with an estimated 1.4% of the population in modern slavery. We consider this to be a conservative estimate.”
There is an assumption that slavery is an issue from a bygone era. Or that it only exists in countries ravaged by war and poverty.
Andrew Forrest, Walk Free Foundation
Qatar has promised to address criticisms and expects to make announcements concerning repeal of the kafala system in early 2015.
Refugees most vulnerable to slavery
Kevin Bales, lead author of the report, told CNN’s Kristie Lu Stout that vulnerability is a key factor in the prevalence of slavery in a country, and that refugees are particularly susceptible to modern enslavement.
“It’s not a surprise that many of the countries where we see large proportions of the population in slavery are also those countries that are beset by conflict, like Syria, and by other economic and environmental problems,” he said.
The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that forced labor generates more than $150 billion in illicit profits every year, making it the second largest source of profits for international organized crimes behind the drugs trade.
Bright spots
Iceland and Luxembourg, the report finds, have fewer than 100 people each living in slavery, the lowest number both in prevalence and in absolute numbers.
While it acknowledges the efforts made by some countries, such as the Netherlands, Sweden, the U.S. and Australia to tackle the global issue, the report also reprimands some rich countries for not doing more.
Hong Kong, Singapore and Brunei, along with Qatar and Kuwait are singled out for mention.
The Walk Free Foundation, a global human rights organization with a mission to end modern slavery in a generation, was founded by Australian philanthropists, Andrew and Nicola Forrest.

-I know that I have excoriated people in the recent past for being greedy selfish sheeple assisting in the sale of our country to the highest bidder, but my efforts to save children will continue to become more complex. I hold adults responsible for their actions but also must realize that if 90% of them are sheep, then personal responsibility actually IS not the best course of thought in which to follow. Those of us who pride ourselves on not following the latest fads or for thinking outside of the box actually have a greater level of responsibility to our fellow humans to protect them from themselves, and if that takes exerting more control over them for their own good than so be it.

Too many people are having children that they cannot support due to their own stupidity in following their most base animal urges. These children are brought into a world that is very unforgiving and that is filled with evil people who don’t hesitate to exploit them. All children deserve a chance and until we can force people to use birth control, we need to protect the children that are already here. My children come home from school every night into a bed that I have worked my ass off to provide for them, many kids never return home from the days of slave labor that they are forced into. As long as there are little ones who do not return home, I will continue to write, donate, pontificate, march and dig my hands in to help these faceless innocents return from brutality. 

These kids are not a world away, they are as close as your front doorstep in many areas. I post flyers on signs to look for, I post links on this blog to guide people to resources. I am venturing deeper into this world and learning more effective ways to assist because I detest an armchair quarterback who sits on his/her lazy ass and tells everyone else how the world should run but never tries to make a difference. Please pay attention, and please realize that the problem only gets worse with population increase. I mention this because if we don’t start examining the bigger picture the problems of this planet will never be solved. Most of our problems are created by too many rats in the maze and a bunch of bigger rats hoarding resources. If we fail to control our populations than the governments will surely damage personal freedoms a lot more than anyone can imagine. So please, help those in bondage out there now but think of the things that actually lend to these problems. 

 

 

Atheist Experience

Gimme that Crocoduck Kirk!

Fossils Reveal Truth About Darwin’s Theory

Robin Lloyd   |   February 11, 2009 04:42am ET

Nichollsia borealis on display at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta. This plesiosaur swam in the Cretaceous seas over what is now part of North America. Credit: Royal Tyrrell Museum View full size image

With the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin this week, people around the world are celebrating his role as the father of evolutionary theory. Events and press releases are geared, in part, to combat false claims made by some who would discredit the theory.

One frequently cited “hole” in the theory: Creationists claim there are no transitional fossils, aka missing links. Biologists and paleontologists, among others, know this claim is false.

As key evidence for evolution and species’ gradual change over time, transitional creatures should resemble intermediate species, having skeletal and other body features in common with two distinct groups of animals, such as reptiles and mammals, or fish and amphibians.

 

 

 

These animals sound wild, but the fossil record — which is far from complete — is full of them nonetheless, as documented by Occidental College geologist Donald Prothero in his book “Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters” (Columbia University Press, 2007). Prothero discussed those fossils last month at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, along with transitional fossils that were announced since the book was published, including the “fishibian” and the “frogamander.”

At least hundreds, possibly thousands, of transitional fossils have been found so far by researchers. The exact count is unclear because some lineages of organisms are continuously evolving.

Here is a short list of transitional fossils documented by Prothero and that add to the mountain of evidence for Charles Darwin’s theory. A lot of us relate most to fossils of life closely related to humans, so the list focuses on mammals and other vertebrates, including dinosaurs.

Mammals, including us

• It is now clear that the evolutionary tree for early and modern humans looks more like a bush than the line represented in cartoons. All the hominid fossils found to date form a complex nexus of specimens, Prothero says, but Sahelanthropus tchadensis, found in 2001 and 2002, threw everyone for a loop because it walked upright 7 million years ago on two feet but is quite chimp-like in its skull size, teeth, brow ridges and face. It could be a common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees, but many paleoanthropologists will remain unsure until more fossils are found. Previously, the earliest ancestor of our Homo genus found in the fossil record dated back 6 million years.
• -Most fossil giraffes have short necks and today’s have long necks, but anatomist Nikos Solounias of the New York Institute of Technology’s New York College of Osteopathic Medicine is preparing a description of a giraffe fossil, Bohlinia, with a neck that is intermediate in length.
• Manatees, also called sea cows, are marine mammals that have flippers and a down-turned snout for grazing in warm shallow waters. In 2001, scientists discovered the fossil of a “walking manatee,” Pezosiren portelli, which had feet rather than flippers and walked on land during the Eocene epoch (54.8 million years ago to 33.7 million years ago) in what is now Jamaica. Along with skull features like manatees (such as horizontal tooth replacement, like a conveyor belt), it also had heavy ribs for ballast, showing that it also had an aquatic lifestyle, like hippos.
• Scientists know that mastodons, mammoths and elephants all share a common ancestor, but it gets hard to tell apart some of the earliest members of this group, called proboscideans, going back to fossils from the Oligocene epoch (33.7 million years ago to 23.8 million years ago). The primitive members of this group can be traced back to what Prothero calls “the ultimate transitional fossil,” Moeritherium, from the late Eocene of Egypt. It looked more like a small hippo than an elephant and probably lacked a long trunk, but it had short upper and lower tusks, the teeth of a primitive mastodon and ear features found only in other proboscideans.
• The Dimetrodon was a big predatory reptile with a tail and a large sail or fin-back. It is often mistaken for a dinosaur, but it’s actually part of our mammalian lineage and more closely related to mammals than reptiles, which is seen in its specialized teeth for stabbing meat and skull features that only mammals and their ancestors had. It probably moved around like a lizard and had a jawbone made of multiple bones, like a reptile.

Dinosaurs and birds

• The classic fossil of Archaeopteryx, sometimes called the first bird, has a wishbone (fully fused clavicle) which is only found in modern birds and some dinosaurs. But it also shows impressions from feathers on its body, as seen on many of the theropod dinosaurs from which it evolved. Its body, capable of flight or gliding, also had many of dinosaur features — teeth (no birds alive today have teeth), a long bony tail (tails on modern birds are entirely feathers, not bony), long hind legs and toes, and a specialized hand with long bony fingers (unlike modern bird wings in which the fingers are fused into a single element), Prothero said.
• Sinornis was a bird that also has long bony fingers and teeth, like those seen in dinosaurs and not seen in modern birds.
• Yinlong is a small bipedal dinosaur which shares features with two groups of dinosaurs known to many kids — ceratopsians, the beaked dinosaurs like Triceratops, and pachycephalosaurs, known for having a thick dome of bone in their skulls protecting their brains. Yinlong has the thick rostral bone that is otherwise unique to ceratopsians dinosaurs, and the thick skull roof found in the pachycephalosaurs.
• Anchisaurus is a primitive sauropod dinosaur that has a lot of lizard-like features. It was only 8 feet long (the classic sauropods later on could be more than 100-feet long), had a short neck (sauropods are known for their long necks, while lizards are not), and delicate limbs and feet, unlike dinosaurs. Its spine was like that of a sauropod. The early sauropods were bipedal, while the latter were stood on all fours. Anchisaurus was probably capable of both stances, Prothero wrote.

Fish, frogs, turtles

• Tiktaalik, aka the fishibian or the fishapod, is a large scaled fish that shows a perfect transition between fins and feet, aquatic and land animals. It had fish-like scales, as well as fish-like fin rays and jaw and mouth elements, but it had a shortened skull roof and mobile neck to catch prey, an ear that could hear in both land and water, and a wrist joint that is like those seen in land animals.
• Last year, scientists announced the discovery of Gerobatrachus hottorni, aka the frogamander. Technically, it’s a toothed amphibian, but it shows the common origins of frogs and salamanders, scientists say, with a wide skull and large ear drum (like frogs) and two fused ankle bones as seen in salamanders.
• A creature on the way to becoming a turtle, Odontochelys semistestacea, swam around in China’s coastal waters 200 million years ago. It had a belly shell but its back was basically bare of armor. Odontochelys had an elongated, pointed snout. Most modern turtles have short snouts. In addition, the roof of its mouth, along with the upper and lower jaws, was equipped with teeth, which the researchers said is a primitive feature for turtles whose mugs are now tipped with beaks but contain no teeth.

 

• Charles Darwin’s Legacy
• Gallery: Drawing Dinosaurs
• All About Evolution