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Search teams have given up the search for fellow bloggers Doc and AT, but I will NEVER LET GO!

...oops, bad movie quote. I forgot she actually did let go. But you get my my point!

When I first saw this article, I was outraged.

Take a look:

MYSpace Exiles Atheists

By Wendy Kaminer

MYSpace has deleted the 35,000 member “Atheist and Agnostic Group” in response to complaints from people who are offended by atheism, according to a press release posted by the Secular Student Alliance. Group Moderator Bryan Pesta stressed that the atheist and agnostic group had not violated any terms of service, adding, “when the largest Christian group was hacked, MYSpace’s founder, Tom Anderson, personally restored the group, and promised to protect it from future deletions.”

What in the hell. How dare they delete a huge group on the basis that it "offends people". They have 42,521 gay related groups. When you search for "sex", there are 5,000 results. Why choose this one group?!
And what the hell for deleting a group simply on the basis that it offended someone!?
"I'm sorry, your beliefs may have offended a few people, therefore we must now delete them"? I mean, it's not like deleting the group with make them, or their beliefs, go away, it's just taking it away from those who have chosen to go and look at it.

So, I was shocked when I read it. And then, I remembered. MySpace is owned by Rupert Murdoch. That's right, centrist, fairness and equality (Oh, and balance!) loving Rupert Murdoch of Fox News fame.

I was remarkably less surprised after that.

Rupert Murdoch, who owns MySpace, is not the government: he is not constrained by constitutional strictures against religious discrimination, which include discrimination against atheists, (although he could conceivably be bound by a contract or civil statute;) and while the non-theist movement is growing and becoming more visible, it’s not exactly a market force worthy of Murdoch’s notice. So, if he can delete atheists from his social networking site, he can delete any religious, racial, ethnic, or demographic group that he doesn’t need to cultivate. The exiling of atheists should not be a concern for atheists alone.

Obviously, it demonstrates the perils of encouraging people to believe that they have a right not to be offended. I can’t think of a good reason for anyone but atheists to care that atheists have a presence on MySpace, but people are entitled to their sensibilities, however foolish they appear to me. The trouble is, they feel entitled to impose their sensibilities on others by restricting speech; and even, or especially, our higher education system seems partly devoted to imbuing students with this anti-libertarian sense of entitlement (a trend we often decry here at thefreeforall.)

(emphasis mine)

There are still a few Atheist/Agnostic groups on MySpace (One called "Atheist Agnostic Group III, making me wonder "Hmm...Why the III?") However, there are a lot less than any I searched for.
And just so you know, when I search for "Christian" in groups, I came up with 5,000 results. When I searched for Atheist, I came up with 359, and many of those were repeats of the same group.

I'm not trying to cry wolf here. I'm not pissed off because it's an Atheist group being removed (However, that is how I found out about it), I'm angry because a group was removed because their beliefs (or lack of beliefs) "offended" people. How inconvenient of them to have beliefs that could be perceived as offensive.

But really, could imagine all 35,000 of those people getting together and complaining about a Christian Group, and the Christian group getting deleted? Somehow, I find that slightly harder to see happening.

Time for this week's edition of Amazing Feats of Stupidity. In Detroit, a 46 year old man pleaded guilty to crashing his car into a woman's health care center lobby, lighting a Gatorade bottle filled with gasoline, and walked away from his car. Did I mention that the clinic only provides care and medical services to low-income and underprivileged women? It's not an abortion clinic.

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In Dallas, a woman proves that she should be sterilized paying the first person in line $800.00 for his spot so that she could be first. She planned to buy out the store of iPhones. Should have paid closer attention to the "buy then sell on eBay" trade. They impose limits because of idiots like you. I hope you choke.

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A Chicago woman was twice denied service at the drive through because she had no arms and attempted to grab the food with her feet. McDonald's, ever famous for "lovin' it," denies any harassment and said that they have heard nothing of the case.

Well, Aric Bahrin has rost it.

Look, I'm not saying that Global Warming isn't happening, but it isn't. At least, not in my views. Let me put it to you this way; I know a lot of meteorologists. I know more meteorologists than any one man should. I know about 60. None of them really seem to think that "Global Warming" is anything more than the Earth's natural life cycle.

They're scientists, I'm not. Basically, I think it's preposterous to think that we, as humans, have no effect on the climate, but I don't think we're the big bad baby seal killers (if the baby seals were actually the ozone layer) that we're made out to be. Look at all the solar radiation. This has been one of the most active Solar Flare seasons that I can remember in my life. Is that our fault? Did we piss off the sun, too?

Anyway, back to the top Baldwin.

"There is no winter in the East right now. No snowfall in NY in December for the first time since 1877." I sneer at your pompus and incredulous attitude and ego-manicism to think that we know the Earth's patterns. 1877? That was but a moment ago in the life of the Earth.

Don't get me wrong, I think we should definitely take steps to be more environmentally conscious... Not so much for climactic reasons, but moreso for preserving this beautiful blue ball floating in space. You see what I mean?

Source "I mean, if you want to believe in psychics, fine. You're a dangerous idiot and I wouldn't trust you to operate a spoon without putting an eye out ... but fine. Your choice. Delude yourself silly. Your world is probably more fun than the real one." "Creationism, simply put, is the heartfelt conviction that man was created by God, using some kind of celestial putty. This is perhaps the most arrogant belief a human skull can contain without exploding." I love this article.

http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~cameron/cv/pubs/04-01.pdf

In a surprise move, Toys for Tots decides to accept the donation of 4,000 Jesus dolls... From the Toys for Tots Website: "The talking Jesus doll issue has been resolved. Toys for Tots has found appropriate places for these items. We have notified the donor of our willingness to handle this transaction." Toys for Tots, however, will not discuss what this "appropriate place" is. My guess? City dump. (At least that's where I'd put them) This is outrageous. They can't give these dolls away, as the present giving process is completely random. No one knows who is getting what. Once they're wrapped, they're put aside and sent away.

Laura Ingraham has asked her listeners to call the Dem Voter protection hotline -- and they are now being flooded with calls from crank callers. Please call Laura and tell her what you think about this: 800.876.4123. You can e-mail her here. Apparently, voter intimidation and fraud are a joke to Laura Ingraham. Let's let her know that it is no joke

Source.

Source Programming errors and inexperience dealing with electronic voting machines frustrated poll workers in hundreds of precincts early Tuesday, delaying voters in Indiana, Ohio and Florida and leaving some with little choice but to use paper ballots instead. ... But voting equipment companies said they hadn't seen anything beyond the norm and blamed the problems largely on human error. If you watched the video, you have to wonder if the problem is the people. I tend to think not so much.

I, for some reason, wasn't able to get the "Report problems at the polls" flash on the right to work. Since I'm at work, I can't really do much about fixing it if it's on my end, however, I figured in case there were others who coulnd't access it, I'd post this link:

Click Here to report problems at the polls.

Also, you can find out where voter concerns have been reported and read about them here.