books and more books

Literally read 8 books this weekend and bought around 14. I have an addiction and I think it is as powerful as crack. At least my new book buying trends are cheap. I go in to barnes and nobels or books a million and I just buy any book in clearance that looks like it could be interesting. I want to start writing my book but I am afraid that without my escape into the plots of novels my life outside of work along with the monotony of my job with come in to stark contrast and I will feel like I am dying on the inside. I have a problem where it is impossible for me to be pleased with anything ever because I am such a perfectionists that nothing and no one can live up to my high standards even myself. I am already having trouble getting out of bed most days, but perhaps if I write a book it will be enough distraction that I won't feel as worthless and bored all the time like I currently do.

my political side.

In keeping with my previous post about idiots in Alabama, I have another one, and this one is a congressman.

"Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) has put an extraordinary "blanket hold" on at least 70 nominations President Obama has sent to the Senate"

This just makes me angry to the nth degree.

"While holds are frequent," CongressDaily's Dan Friedman and Megan Scully report (sub. req.), "Senate aides said a blanket hold represents a far more aggressive use of the power than is normal."

and the reason for his hold..

"Shelby is holding Obama's nominees hostage until a pair of lucrative programs that would send billions in taxpayer dollars to his home state get back on track. The two programs Shelby wants to move forward or else:

- A $40 billion contract to build air-to-air refueling tankers. From CongressDaily: "Northrop/EADS team would build the planes in Mobile, Ala., but has threatened to pull out of the competition unless the Air Force makes changes to a draft request for proposals." Federal Times offers more details on the tanker deal, and also confirms its connection to the hold.

- An improvised explosive device testing lab for the FBI. From CongressDaily: "[Shelby] is frustrated that the Obama administration won't build" the center, which Shelby earmarked $45 million for in 2008. The center is due to be based "at the Army's Redstone Arsenal."

I know I am not a congresswoman myself, but I know this isn't the way you get out of an economic recession. It makes me so mad that these stupid senators are dithering while people are losing their jobs. For example my parents who used to make a lot of money (200,000+) are now unemployed and underemployed. I also am mad because this guy is a republican. He is trying to get all kinds of money for Alabama projects, but in my opinion he shouldn't want these money wasters because it all eventually leads to bigger government and higher taxes which I though republicans were opposed to.

nicole.

eww really?

I am sitting at my desk at work and just heard two of my colleagues talking about a masters class they have. They were talking about the telomeres on cancer cells and how the cancer cells never have apoptosis. The girl said I am not sure why is it that way, and the guy said, well god made them like that..... ahhhh living in the bible belt sucks my non existent balls.

God is not Great

So I read God is Not Great this weekend, and it was a rather good read. (I also read Wild Things by Dave Eggers which was good too) I was rather surprised though when looking on reviews about it today on GoodReads how stupid people can be. Here is a quote from one of the reviews, and I will explain why it is upsetting me.

"Simply stated, Hitchens puts into words all the reasons I shy away from organized religion. The prejudices, sexism, the overall foolishness... At the same time, he seems oblivious to the fact that there are religious people out there doing great things; feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, building for the homeless. " (review by ring my bell on goodreads)

Okay now I will explain my problems with this. For one, Hitchens addresses this in his book. The reason why religion is bad is because even the nice chrisitians, muslims, jewish people ect. foster extremism. I guess the person who wrote this review just ignored that part. The problem with religion is that certain things are sacrosanct and people will not address them, and this leads to extremist views being left unchecked. Hitchens admits that he has seen religious people helping with charity work, orphanages, ect in other countries, but he thinks that secular charities are actually more helpful because they don't waste any time or money proselytizing.
Here is another quote from the review

"Mr. Hitchens, may I suggest a few new titles for your book?
Try "God Can Be Great, But Freaks Poison Religion" or "How Jerks Screw Up Religion"."

As you can see, this person who appears to believe they are an atheist or agnostic totally missed the entire point of the book and thought that Hitchens was just trying to be snooty or something. Yes your grandma may be a great christian who does a lot of good work for charity and donates a lot of money. The thing Hitchens is trying to point out is that your grandma would probably do the exact same thing if she was an atheist and wouldn't be so politically correct when is comes to not criticizing extremist behavior that should be criticized.

woohoo!!!

stupid doctor killer gets convicted of 1st degree murder after just 40 minutes of deliberation. I am very proud of this jury in Kentucky. Now Roeder faces life in prison, which I hope he gets. You can't kill someone just because they provide a service that you personally disagree with. If you could, there would be rampant killing everywhere. Abortions are really helpful to some women, and it is not up to Roeder to decide to kill the doctor who provides them.

J.D. Salinger

Yesterday my literary hero died. This makes me quite sad. Catcher in the Rye is one of the reasons that I love to read so much. I also love like Franny and Zooey and Nine stories. I read Catcher in the Rye again last night as a tribute.

On another note it is snowing right now in Alabama, always a weird occurrence. I have about 1 hour worth of work to do today because I finish everything I need to do by Thursday. This weekend I hope to finish watching season 1 of arrested development, read at least four books, study for at least two hours, and sleep a lot. It will be a great weekend.

I joined the atheist nexus, add me from my badge on the side if you so please.

nicole.

a question of mine

In my experience with undergraduate studies, I have noticed a significant range in beliefs between different types of students. For example, normal biology students who plan on going on to graduate school seemed to be less godless than biology students who were getting the degree for pre-med. It seems as if the majority of pre-med students were really religious at least at my school. I wonder why and how such religious people attend classes that prove their dogma wrong daily, but still stay religious. I even had a Mennonite who was pre-med in my classes and I believe they are young earth believers. It almost seems as if an inclination towards god makes you want to know less about biology. I mean once you get past undergrad if you are going to med school, you mainly learn things about the human body so you won't be hearing about evolution constantly. wow I am really rambling today. Quite possibly because I feel like shit, I am starving, and I am really tired.

nicole.