by Aaron Colter

The first time I saw Che Smith was in the basement of the Purdue Student Union in West Lafayette, Indiana. The Malcontents, a local ska band, were playing a free show in the student center on what was hopefully a weekend night, given the amount of substances I consumed. That evening, while The Malcontents were jamming out a reggae-vibe number called “We Make Profits,” and I was three-quarters into a bottle of Captain Morgan, someone started free-styling over the song – Rhymefest.

Despite starting the night in the basement of a Purdue building and waking up some sixty miles away at Butler University, I remember that song. It was, and remains, one of the single greatest live music moments in my life. But the reason I’m writing about Rhymefest, or rather Che Smith, isn’t because of his music, it’s because Che Smith is running for Alderman of Chicago’s 20th Ward.

Most of the media has defined Che Smith as a childhood friend of Kayne West, a Grammy-winner for “Jesus Walks With Me,” and the winner of a hip-hop battle with Eminem. All of these things are true, but that’s not the entire story.

[..]

by Keith Daniels

The Bible is often presented by believers as a monolithic creation, as if it descended from Heaven whole, perfect, and in King James’ English. The truth, as in so many things, is so much more complicated and interesting. The text of the Hebrew Tanakh which became what Christians dismissively call the “Old Testament” began as an oral tradition that was eventually written down in Hebrew and Aramaic by unknown scribes over hundreds of years in what’s called “abjad” script – a system of writing in which only the consonants are set down and the reader is intended to fill in the vowels. These individual writings were eventually collected into a generally accepted canon by around 400 BCE and finally codified at a later but unknown date, probably by 100 CE.

And that’s just the “Old Testament”.

Similarly, the New Testament is a disparate collection of texts from numerous and mostly unknown authors – despite traditional ascriptions – writing from between around 50 to 200 CE. None of the books of the New Testament were written during the lifetime of a historical Jesus. And according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the popular conception of one singular ancient council of the Church that decided what books were in and what were out is inaccurate:

[..]

by Blogbot

A column which highlights Suicide Girls and their fave groups.

This week we commune with Tarion Suicide and get the gospel on her fave SG group: Atheists.

• WHY DO YOU LOVE IT?: I have no idea where people find half this stuff but it’s always good for a laugh or at very least a good vent. This group is the A-Z or atheist topics and jokes and is extremely active. It’s full of very interesting individuals and is a fantastic group if you are like-minded.


• DISCUSSION TIP: Always have your facts straight!


• BEST RANDOM QUOTE: “I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of confidence.”


• MOST HEATED DISCUSSION THREAD: At the moment it’s “Prayer caused the Japan earthquake???“


• WHO’S WELCOME TO JOIN?: Come all ye unbelievers, freethinkers, blasphemers, doubters, heathens, heretics, infidels, scoffers, skeptics – hell even you wishy washy agnostics.

by Sash Suicide

[..]

by Fred Topel

We all know product placement happens in movies. You see the results when a can of Coke is seen in a shot instead of a generic soda, or a corporate logo comes into focus in a scene played out in Times Square.

The existence of product placement is not a mystery or scandal, but Morgan Spurlock wanted to put it to a real test. Big budget movies like Iron Man can command huge numbers for fast food endorsement deals. But could Spurlock finance an indie documentary on product placement alone?

[..]

by Blogbot

[..]

by Greg Palast

I need to speak to you, not as a reporter, but in my former capacity as lead investigator in several government nuclear plant fraud and racketeering investigations.

I don’t know the law in Japan, so I can’t tell you if Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) can plead insanity to the homicides about to happen.

But what will Obama plead? The Administration, just months ago, asked Congress to provide a $4 billion loan guarantee for two new nuclear reactors to be built and operated on the Gulf Coast of Texas — by Tokyo Electric Power and local partners. As if the Gulf hasn’t suffered enough.

Here are the facts about Tokyo Electric and the industry you haven’t heard on CNN:

The failure of emergency systems at Japan’s nuclear plants comes as no surprise to those of us who have worked in the field.

Nuclear plants the world over must be certified for what is called “SQ” or “Seismic Qualification.” That is, the owners swear that all components are designed for the maximum conceivable shaking event, be it from an earthquake or an exploding Christmas card from Al Qaeda.

The most inexpensive way to meet your SQ is to lie. The industry does it all the time. The government team I worked with caught them once, in 1988, at the Shoreham plant in New York. Correcting the SQ problem at Shoreham would have cost a cool billion, so engineers were told to change the tests from ‘failed’ to ‘passed.’

[..]