Archive for Politics

News blurb: Sarah Palin says so long, for now . . .

3 July 2009

Is it really any surprise?

Sarah Palin resigning as Governor of Alaska

Palin has stated:

“We know we can affect positive change outside government at this moment in time on another scale and actually make a difference,”

However, this move raises speculations that this decision will free up her time to allow her to travel about the country without the responsibilities as governor. She would be better able to focus on a run for the White House in the 2012 race. Will she be back, or is she gone from the political arena for good? We can hope for the latter, but I think we haven’t seen the last of her.

Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell will be inaugurated at the governor’s picnic in Fairbanks at the end of the month, Palin spokesman Dave Murrow said.

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Holy Land Experience theme park receives property tax exemption

1 July 2009

I read this over at You Made Me Say It and really ticks me off. How does The Holy Land Experience theme park retain its tax exempt status? By offering free admission just one day a year, however, they won’t tell what day is free. The Trinity Broadcast Network which owns the park and the ministry rather not publicize the whole free day deal. And this isn’t a church, is it? It’s an amusement park with a religious theme!

Holy Land free day still a mystery

Holy Land Experience doesn’t want you to know when it schedules its required free day each year out of concern over a possible “uncontrollable situation.”

At least that’s the conclusion to be drawn by a letter the religion-based theme park sent to the office of Orange County Property Appraiser Bill Donegan.

Donegan asked the park for documentation of its free days after I reported earlier this month that the park gave out conflicting information about the day.

Holy Land, owned by Trinity Broadcasting Network, is required to drop its normal $35 ticket price and offer free admission one day each year in exchange for a property-tax exemption that saves it about $300,000 annually, according to a 2006 state law designed to guarantee the exemption.

Pretty sweet deal for TBN, huh?

this legislation smacks of the exact kind of catering to special interests that keeps property off the tax rolls while taxpayers get nothing in return.

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Protests in Iran

17 June 2009

In the aftermath of the recent Iranian “election”, young people and women are rising up in protest. This is amazing to see happen in a country where anti-government sentiment is not looked upon kindly by the “supreme leader” and those in power. In the following video which was taken with a cell phone, street protesters and riot police engaged in running battles, throwing stones, setting of fires in garbage cans and people shouting “death to the dictatorship!” These are some of the biggest protests Iran has seen in more than 30 years.

The Iranian theocracy is now doing the typical thing of blaming the U.S. and the west for the uprisings. Story from Associated Press:

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran accused the United States on Wednesday of “intolerable” meddling in its internal affairs, alleging for the first time that Washington has fueled a bitter postelection dispute. Opposition supporters marched in Tehran’s streets for a third straight day to protest the outcome of the balloting.

The Iranian government summoned the Swiss ambassador, who represents U.S. interests in Iran, to complain about American interference, state-run Press TV reported.

The English-language channel quoted the government as calling Western interference “intolerable.”

The theocratic rulers find it “intolerable” that their young people dare protest and demand a fair election?

This leaves Obama with a policy dilemma:

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is in a box over Iran, caught between affinity for emboldened reformists and caution about further alienating a hard-line Islamic regime he wants to dissuade from seeking nuclear weapons.

The president’s dilemma showed clearly on Tuesday, when he said he shared the world’s “deep concerns about the election” but asserted that it was “not productive, given the history of U.S.-Iranian relations, to be seen as meddling.”

But here is an excerpt from Tehran Bureau website asking the world for our help:

The international community must refuse to recognize the legitimacy of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s re-election, demand cancellation of the elections, and holding new fair and democratic elections that can be monitored by international monitors.

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Allegories Gone Wild – More Xenubites In The News, And Some Good News Sprinkled In With Some Rogue Clambake

14 June 2009

Scientologyinternet

We all Wiki to some extent, do we not? (Personally, my favorite is Answers.com – it provides far more multiple cross-references to different sources than the wiki version, and besides, it provides some pretty nifty tools to add to your browser and right-click menu.) Now it can’t be considered a primary source, mostly due to the fact that anyone can go in and edit sections. (Hey, I’ve done it myself on occasion, mostly to correct egregious errors, like an old Wiki page for the Negative Proof fallacy that claimed that believers and atheists shared the burden of proof.) The honor system principle is much like the concept of communism – they’d both work well if people understood the concept of sharing.

So the latest news is that the Xenubites have officially been excommunicated from the Wiki site. I (of course) don’t agree with the author’s article for the most part – Scientology is a vicious viral meme, and should be treated with iron fists, no velvet gloves allowed. There’s  rumors that they’ll try to start their own Wiki (think Conservapedia, only a lot crazier with the martyr complex), but we’ll see.

Norway is considering prosecuting Scientology for fraud. Another smart nation, France, is also following suit (pun intended)

An online opinion survey released by the White House this week ranks legalizing pot, playing online poker and cracking down on Scientologists as far more important issues.

And (no surprise here) Axiom 10 productions is actually policing the wimps at YouTube, demanding that any videos unfairly persecuting providing incriminating evidence against their religion cult be removed.

And in other news (not necessarily good), there are now schisms in the cult, and there are actually splinter sects known as Free Zones (and the folks that belong to these are called…you guessed it, Free Zoners). So now I’m guessing it won’t be long before there’ll be a ‘No True Scientologist’™ fallacy making the rounds.

On a different note, there is now a Freethought Pedia – definitely worth a look see.

Till the next post, then. Read more »

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Progress? Or just “Next time, use the back door, please”

13 June 2009

The Secular Coaliton for America was invited to the White House. Call me a cynic… but, if atheist-billboard-laDobson/Robertson/Warren, et.al., get face-time with President Obama, why didn’t the SCA?

White House Meeting Marks New Milestone for Nontheists (June 1, 2009)

The nontheist movement reached a new milestone when the Secular Coalition for America had its first individual meeting with White House officials last week. Although the Secular Coalition had met with White House officials before, this meeting was significant as it was the first private meeting focused solely on nontheists’ interests.

The discussion, held with White House Associate Director of Public Engagement Paul Monteiro, gave Secular Coalition representatives the opportunity to highlight what policy issues concern nontheists most. Specifics topics addressed were coercive religious proselytizing in the military, the faith-based initiatives, and employment discrimination.

As the broadest and most diverse advocacy group for nontheists, the Secular Coalition has the credibility to provide our nation’s leaders with an understanding of nontheists’ political and cultural interests. More importantly, this meeting is evidence that nontheists are becoming an influential and increasingly organized constituency, and that elected officials want to take our concerns into account.

The goal of the Secular Coalition has always been to increase the visibility of and respect for nontheists in America. This meeting was one small step for the Secular Coalition, but it was a significant leap for nontheists everywhere.

Come on, folks!  Is Ron Millar, acting SCA director, completely ga-ga over Obama?  Just another “crusher”?

I am not black but I’ve been around long enough to know that pre-Civial Rights battles, good little black folk were advised on advancement:  Sit down, shut up and don’t rock the boat — and you’ll get along real well.  Doctors, educators — hell, even Jackie Robinson! — and anyone else who aspired to something better and higher than the little niche whites approved for them were convinced by parents and peers to become invisible.  Conventional wisdom swore that that was the road to success.  That was why they “got” their own colleges and fraternities/sororities:  so that whites didn’t have to associate with them or (*gasp*) worry about them wanting to be your “frat-brother”.

Of course, it was harder to be invisible when your skin wasn’t white.  And whites were watching the “ladders” just to make sure only white feet were on the rungs.

And don’t you dare marry a white person!

Gays?  It’s easier to stay in the closet and get by — no worries about skin tones.  Ask any gay who wants to run for office.  Only Barney Franks and Tammy Baldwin are openly gay.  The Democratic Party is not ashamed of them.  The GOP is rumored to have several gays; I’m sure you’ve heard the same names I have.  Notwithstanding Michael Steele, the Republican Party is made up of, almost exclusively, Old White Rich Fundamentalist-Christian Men.

So, back to Millar and his meetup:   How much progress can we look forward to, based on his gushing press-release?  White House Associate Director of Public Engagement Paul Monteiro?  In DC-speak, Monteiro is nothing:  if you’re not the Director or the Deputy Director, you can assume “associate director” is a jumped-up file clerk.

This, mi compadres, is NOT progress.

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Open mic at the GifS Cafe

11 June 2009

I can’t tackle Dr. Tiller, VonBrunn v Holocause Museum or DHS report on wingnut hate.  At least not tonight.  Religulously-speaking, not much fun-die is going on today.

So, tackle these.  Or talk about whatever.  Everything is on-topic.badreligion-thenewamerica

From my clipboard, Bad Religion:

News of the Weird, 04.05.09

The Homeland Is Secure

The U.S. Transportation Security Administration ruled in January that a post-9-11 federal maritime law, which requires comprehensive background credentials for mariners holding U.S. Coast Guard authorization on U.S. waters, applies even to the two “mule skinners” who work, in tourist season, dressed in colonial costumes at the Hugh Moore Historical Park in Easton, Pa. The park’s lone mule-pulled boat is operated in a 2-mile-long canal that is near nothing of strategic significance, said the park director. [CNN, 2-25-09]

In addition to addressing the usual state homeland-security concerns, Kentucky’s statute requires anyone licensed as a first responder to disasters to take an oath against dueling (”I, being a citizen of this state, have not fought a duel with deadly weapons … nor have I sent or accepted a challenge (to duel), nor have I acted as second in carrying a challenge (to duel), so help me God”). Another provision requires the state Homeland Security Office’s executive director to “publicize” a legislative finding that “reliance upon Almighty God” is necessary to homeland security. [Kentucky Statutes Section 39G.010(2)(a), as reported in the lawyers' blog LoweringTheBar.net, 2-23-09]

Recurring Themes

That Sacred Institution (as practiced in villages in India): To prevent mysterious illnesses in the village, two 7-year-old girls were married, separately, to frogs (Pallipudupet, Tamil Nadu state; January). [The Times of India, 1-17-09]

To bring prosperity to the village, an elder married off two trees to each other (Subhasnagar, West Bengal state; February). [The Times of India, 2-9-09]

To overcome the effect of a baby’s odd-looking tooth, which is said to portend death by a tiger unless remedied, the 18-month-old boy was married off to a female dog (Jaipur District, Orissa state; February). [Agence France-Presse, 2-18-09]

For KA:

In November, the Swedish national newspaper Expressen revealed a 30-person bestiality ring operating out of a farm in southern Sweden, but the 45-year-old man who allegedly headed the group said his members were always respectful of animals: “Any of the times I did anything with (the dog), she was the one who backed into me and provoked it. She was in heat and made herself available. … There were also times later when she didn’t want to and then I backed out immediately.” [The Local (Stockholm), 11-11-08]

This is why bitches need  back-up alarms.  Beeh-beeh-beeh-beeh…

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What is an atheist to think?

9 June 2009

After the Eight-Year-National-Nightmare-that-was-George-Walker-Bush(TM),  I was looking large_obamachurch2forward to a respite from xian gobbledy-gook and dog-whistle code.  It seems my hopes are dashed.

President Obama is a xian, NOT a muslim.  I was satisfied on that subject very early on.  In fact, I heard it said by wingnut-pundits and ignored it.  Desperate fool/tools lie.  The greater the desperation, the balder the lie.  Duh.

For whatever it is worth, I’ve never felt “teh love” for Obama among atheists.  Liberals and liberal xians, yes.  They give off a sort of RockStarGroupie aura, “crushing” on him in shameful ways.  I like him but I feel a deeper kinship with his wife.  And, there again, we find a big “crush” factor.  Her clothes, her shoes, her bare-arms (awesome!) — but, still,  many are obsessed with her.  I just like her.  After dowdy Laura-Librarian, she is refreshing.  As for touching the QofE, Liz seemed less fazed than the media.  (Shades of Georgie’s casual manner with Ratzi!)

So, two articles arrive in one morning that are somewhat at odds.  First, Politico runs Atheists keep faith with Barack Obama.

…But while atheist advocates railed against Bush, they seem willing to give Obama a pass on his God talk — at least for now.

Nathan Bupp, director of communications for the Center for Inquiry, says that many nonbelievers view Obama’s invocations of faith as nothing more than a “symbolic gesture” used to aid his quest for social justice.

“There is a sense where secularists are politically savvy enough to do this,” says Bupp. “They realize [Obama] is not doing what he’s doing for Pat Robertson-type reasons.”

Politico then presents a companion piece, Obama invokes Jesus more than Bush.  But, again, they dissect the issue and find that there may be complex political reasons:  spike the muslim issue, soothe the national community (especially the MiddleEast), disarm the fundies, re-empower the liberal xians and more.

Guess who likes it?  Tony Perkins, Family Research Council’s rectal-spokesman(TM).

Obama’s invocation of the Christian Messiah is more overt than Americans heard in the public rhetoric of Bush in his time in the White House — even though Bush’s victories were powered in part by evangelical voters.

“I don’t recall a single example of Bush as president ever saying, ‘Jesus’ or ‘Christ,’” said Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Christian group Family Research Council. “This is different.

To Perkins, Obama’s overtly Christian rhetoric is a welcome development from an administration that he largely disagrees with on the issues, though Perkins sees a political motive behind it, as well.

“I applaud that. It gives people a sense of comfort,” Perkins said. “But I think it’s a veneer, a facade that covers over a lot of policies that are anti-Christian.” That includes, in his view, Obama’s stance in favor of abortion rights.

And guess who DOESN’T like it?  Rev. Barry Linn, AmericansUnited.

“I don’t need to hear politicians tell me how religious they are,” Lynn said. “Obama in a very overt way does what Bush tended to do in a more covert way.”

Also, David Kuo, …

…a former official in Bush’s faith-based office who later became disillusioned with the president he served, worries that both men have exploited religious phraseology for political gain. “From a spiritual perspective, that’s a great and grave danger,” he said. “When God becomes identified with a political agenda, God gets screwed.”

Screw David Kuo.  I want Obama to be an atheist,  Failing that, I want him to be a liberal xian.  After all, wasn’t his mother a secular-humanist?  Since he was brought up by his maternal grandmother, I wonder how infected he is.  Granny might  have been of a Rock-of-Ages, Old-Time-Religion faithful.  We do know that he was a regular congregant at the church of his media-whore pastor, Rev.Wright.  Does that tell us anything?  Nope.  A man’s thoughts are his own.

I, too, professed to a belief I never had…

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When Philosophy Fails: The Futility Of Utility

7 June 2009

calvin_happy2

I have been made aware of Peter Singer and his utilitarianism, through blogversations with atheists and theists alike – I cannot say I approve enthusiastically. In fact, I’d go as far as saying I disagree, with a slight curl of the lip. Of all the –isms to choose from, I find this one less than satisfactory.

Just because I agree with his take on religion, is not an agreement in toto.

Utilitarianism:

Utilitarianism is the idea that the moral worth of an action is determined solely by its contribution to overall utility: that is, its contribution to happiness or pleasure as summed among all people. It is thus a form of consequentialism, meaning that the moral worth of an action is determined by its outcome. Utility, the good to be maximized, has been defined by various thinkers as happiness or pleasure (versus suffering or pain), although preference utilitarians like Peter Singer define it as the satisfaction of preferences. It may be described as a life stance, with happiness or pleasure being of ultimate importance.

Utilitarianism is described by the phrase "the greatest good for the greatest number of people". Therefore, it is also known as "the greatest happiness principle". Utilitarianism can thus be characterised as a quantitative and reductionist approach to ethics. It can be contrasted with deontological ethics (which do not regard the consequences of an act as the sole determinant of its moral worth) and virtue ethics (which focuses on character), as well as with other varieties of consequentialism. Adherents of these opposing views have extensively criticised the utilitarian view, but utilitarians have been similarly critical of other schools of thought. And like any ethical theory, the application of utilitarianism is heavily dependent on the moral agent’s full range of wisdom, experience, social skills, and life skills.

Easily dissected, I cannot agree. As human beings (both on an individual basis as well as collective) have proven multitudinous times, the strong swim towards pleasure can often lead towards disastrous results. The sexual revolution, for instance, came about because of the ability to treat STDs like gonorrhea and syphilis with the pop of a pill (there are other reasons of course, but I consider that a primary). Decades later, penicillin-resistant strains of these poxes bedevil us still.

Singer is the foremost proponent of animal liberation:

In Animal Liberation, Singer argues against what he calls speciesism: discrimination on the grounds that a being belongs to a certain species. He holds the interests of all beings capable of suffering to be worthy of equal consideration, and that giving lesser consideration to beings based on their having wings or fur is no more justified than discrimination based on skin color. He argues that animals should have rights based on their ability to feel pain more than their intelligence. In particular, he argues that while animals show lower intelligence than the average human, many severely retarded humans show equally diminished, if not lower, mental capacity, and intelligence therefore does not provide a basis for providing nonhuman animals any less consideration than such retarded humans. He also points out that many primates have learned to communicate with American sign language (ASL) or symbol languages. These include chimpanzees, gorillas, bonobos and an orangutan. Primates that have learned ASL or symbol languages include Washoe, Koko, Chantek, and Kanzi. Likewise, pigs, birds, primates and cetaceans can rank as being as intelligent as children. Singer does not specifically contend that we ought not use animals for food insofar as they are raised and killed in a way that actively avoids the inflicting of pain, but as such farms are uncommon, he concludes that the most practical solution is to adopt a vegetarian or vegan diet. Singer also condemns vivisection except where the benefit (in terms of improved medical treatment, etc.) outweighs the harm done to the animals used.

I am foursquare and unapologetically a speciesist. Because of the commonality of biology I share with my fellow human beings, I will likely rate them higher on the value scale (there would be exceptions: people who would prey upon animals for the mere enjoyment may incite me to some level of anger, and devalue themselves). So I would still value a human being (mentally challenged) higher than a primate. I am not in favor of animal suffering: I see that as irrational.

Abortion:

Singer states that arguments for or against abortion should be based on utilitarian calculation which weighs the preferences of a mother against the preferences of the fetus. A preference is anything sought to be obtained or avoided; all forms of benefit or harm caused to a being correspond directly with the satisfaction or frustration of one or more of its preferences. Since a capacity to experience suffering or satisfaction is a prerequisite to having any preferences at all, and a fetus, at least up to around eighteen weeks, says Singer, has no capacity to suffer or feel satisfaction, it is not possible for such a fetus to hold any preferences at all. In a utilitarian calculation, there is nothing to weigh against a mother’s preferences to have an abortion, therefore abortion is morally permissible.

Similar to his argument for abortion, Singer argues that newborns similarly lack the essential characteristics of personhood — "rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness" — and therefore "killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living."

I would go along with the first paragraph, but no to the second – again, my speciesist tendencies revolt. This is an evolutionary mechanism built into us. It is not the only yardstick. There is the potential future folded into the infant – it is a (non-supernatural) wonder waiting to blossom, a flowering of a new being…I could go on some rhetorical flourish, but the short version is I’d likely give my life to save a baby. Hard to argue with that, I think.

I have no argument with his stand on poverty – it’s sensible.

Zoophilianow I have an issue.

In a 2001 review of Midas Dekkers’s Dearest Pet: On Bestiality,[35] Singer stated that "mutually satisfying activities" of a sexual nature may sometimes occur between humans and animals and that writer Otto Soyka would condone such activities. Singer explains Dekker’s belief that zoophilia should remain illegal if it involves what he sees as "cruelty", but otherwise is no cause for shock or horror. However, Singer does not claim to endorse the views of either Dekker or Soyka, merely to be explaining them. Singer believes that although sex between species is not normal or natural, it does not constitute a transgression of our status as human beings, because human beings are animals or, more specifically, "we are great apes". Some religious individuals and animal rights groups have condemned this view.

This is a major problem – where one can indeed be too liberal. It may not ‘constitute a transgression of our status as human beings’, but regardless of the fact that we are animals, bestiality is rated as a mental disorder, and for good reason. An inability to form a sexual liaison with another adult, a frisson for something that’s not human, is decidedly abnormal. I am not committing the naturalistic fallacy when I state that animals are incapable of granting consent – so are children, because when it comes to human beings, either you can communicate, or you can’t. Silence as assent was bogus when Plato said as much, and it still is. And really, how many dumb animals can actually say no?

I would go as far to say – that the application of bioethics vis-a-vis utilitarianism lends itself to a breakdown of moral universalism (of which I’m a proponent). Consider:

It is widely considered that infants are a high value to any society at large, regardless of level (we shall grant this a high degree of universality, shall we?). It’s a survival mechanism to breed in numbers. By applying the above principles (i.e., giving animals a higher value rating than infants, despite the ability of the latter to develop cognition incrementally), we lose fundamental values we normally ascribe to potential moral agents. One might argue that the word ‘potential’ is meaningless, but we live in a society (and indeed a world) that is built on the concept of potentiality. Potentiality has value. “The children are our future!”, while somewhat trite and cliché, still stands.

The slippery slope is not my favorite specter to invoke -  I see it abused gratuitously on the internet. But there is merit in it sometimes. If we change the moral value of an infant in society’s eyes, it stands to reason the infant will become more abused. If we grant the non-human animal greater status than we grant our own children (a sentence that I personally never dreamed I would write or speak), then it is my opinion that we lose – both in the short term as well as the long term.

As to the zoophilia angles – well, I’m sorry, but there is such a thing as being TOO liberal. With the rising tide of pandemics (from the Avian flu to the Swine flu), this option is anything but viable.

Anyways, that’s my nickel’s worth. Flip it or spend it, it’s up to you.

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