Empty Policymaking

Here's a funny editorial comic. It's sad what passes as an acceptable argument these days -- no evidence, no reasoning, no justification at all -- just make a statement and say "I know this to be true. Why? Because that's *my* opinion!"

It's amazing how many people find that an acceptable form of debate. Maybe we should make debate class another mandatory class in my long list of "things people must know to get the license to be an adult, live in society and vote:"

1. logic, critical thinking & problem solving
2. basic science (at least until they understand evolution)
3. Civics
4. manners, and all other things you should have learned in Kindergarten
5. comparative religions
6. basic computer use including typing, Internet, and basic maintenance
7. how to drive -- being consciencious of others while still being safe (watch the road)
8. debate, or at least how to make a rational argument without using common logical fallacies

Until they pass the test they can't hold any job managing people or money. Maybe they should also not be allowed to speak until spoken to so perhaps they'll listen to others and learn a thing or two. Add your suggestions in the Comments section.

Science Good, Ignorance Bad

Here's yet another reason why ignorance of science is bad -- and also why comets are so damn scary!

Thanks 1gm.

NOVA - Intelligent Design on Trial

PBS has posted this program online in 12 short chapters so you can skip around. There also are transcripts. Good stuff on evolution, Intelligent Design, what is science, and the long-running attempts by Christian fundamentalists to insert religion into public science education.

But is it really true that between 35-50% of Americans don't believe in evolution? Wow! How sad that so many are so poorly informed or so willing to ignore facts when they conflict with how they wish the world was. Hey, I agree that it would be nice if the entire universe was created for our benefit -- but it wasn't. I'm sure that we all can imagine hundreds of ways that things could be better than they are. But wishing it true doesn't make it so; no matter how much wishing or praying is done. In fact, some studies show that praying may actually make things worse.

After much denying, most now accept that we're not the center of the universe, either literally or figuratively. So yes, it is a bit humbling to know that we're just an insignificant spec of life on a spec of a planet in some remote corner of a spec of a galaxy. But just like we grow up and acknowledge that there's no Santa Claus, we must also acknowledge all that we find to be true about life, the universe and everything.

If you want to continue believing that there's God who created the cosmos and is watching over you, go ahead. Just don't foist your unsupported beliefs on others and you can then expect that they'll do the same. Kind of like the Golden Rule. It's also called "freedom of religion" and is one of the basic rights that make our country so great. Let's keep it that way and drop this nonsense.

TheRealNews.com

This site appears to have some promise. It says "beta" so hopefully, it will get better and provide us some much-needed REAL information that isn't filtered by big-media and the bum rush to the bottom in search of a dollar. The interviews with Noam Chomsky and Gore Vidal are good.

Are We Safer?

It's been 6 years since we've been told that our government is working tirelessly to make us all safer. Other than having to fly barefoot & fluid-free and being told to tape plastic bags over our windows, I haven't seen any evidence of any improvements at our ports, chemical factories, water supplies, nuclear plants, etc. The LA Times published this recent report summarizing figures from the government's own sources -- it's not pretty.

Wake Up and Smell the Coffee - Global Warming is Real and it's HERE

Really, people; is there *anyone* still out there doubting that we need to do something big and act fast if we want to avoid fucking up the planet? The data keeps coming in from the world's top scientists and some still want to live in denial. First it was, "it's not real." Piles of data later, "okay, it's real but it's not man-made." From the new report:

The report leaves no doubt that man-made emissions from the burning of fossil fuels (and, to a lesser extent, deforestation) have been responsible for the steady rise in atmospheric temperatures.

Okay, both man-made. Next it will be, "oh but nothing can be done" or "it wont be enough" or "we're not going to tighten our carbon-footprint belt unless China does too" or some other sort of petty squabbling while we continue to ignore the problem. They've already told us what we need to do, so let's do it. What happened to the Americans who kicked ass and got things done. What, are we all too busy going to the mall and worrying about Britney Spears custody?

Sure, whatever we do may still not be enough but any improvement is for the better. It's not a win or lose proposition -- it's a sliding scale of how much are we going to lose. I vote for less! And yes, if China doesn't join in it will be harder; but again, better is better. We can't wait for everyone to join in before we start making improvements.

Sure it's going to be painful in the short run but it's going to be much worse in the long run if we don't! And as someone wisely pointed out -- we don't have another planet to run the test on or to move to when we ruin this one!

Another common bit of denial is that it won't be that bad. "The Earth probably has some way of adjusting that we just don't understand." Maybe, but since we don't know we really can't take that risk. Oh, and the Earth doesn't really give a hill of beans about little ol' homo sapiens so it has no interest in keeping things cozy for us. It would probably be better off if we were gone.

"Besides, what's a few degrees?" Well, our best estimates are that a 3 degree change will cause the loss of about 25% of all plants and animal species, while a 6 degree change could wipe out about 50% of all species. This sounds serious to me! Plus, if the Greenland ice sheet melts then we'll also lose the reflective benefit from the white ice and the planet will absorb even more heat. Should that happen, scientists aren't even sure what this would do to sea levels and overall weather patterns. If we're having trouble feeding everyone today and already have numerous unsustainable practices that are depleting our food supply (suggesting that we already have a resource problem), what will we do when the weather and the bees and the refuse to cooperate? We may have to learn to love Soylent Green.

“What we do in the next two or three years will define our future.”

Hillary is Scary!

I think that Bill Clinton was a great President but even then, his wife was a bit of a harpy. Now, even more so. I think that people are hoping that she'll follow in Bill's footsteps, which would be great -- but it's not going to happen. From her record, she's more likely to follow in Bush's footsteps. In fact, if it wasn't for Bill she could probably run as a Republican. Check out this recent article. And please don't vote for Hillary! The best candidates on either party right now appear to be Gore, Kucinich, Edwards, Obama, Ron Paul and everyone else before Giuliani. Hell, I'd take Ross Perot over Giuliani!

Hillary Clinton in her remarkable senate career has blamed Canada for 9/11, supported the patriot act, wiretapping, an bill to ban flag burning, war against Iraq, blamed the Iraqis for the disaster afterwards, approved the Kyle-lieberman resolution which was hatched in Cheney’s office, takes more money from lobbyists than all the other candidates combined and now is lying again about Iran. It’s pretty clear that Hilary is the logical successor to Bush in terms of the military industrial complex. Anyone expecting different is in denial or just not informed.

Is the Church really this blind?

Wow -- according to this LA Times article, the Catholic Church not only needs to clean house of certain "unsaintly" priests but needs to get rid of all those who *continue* to shelter those predatory priests, directly violating their own "youth protection charter." I can't believe that these people still haven't learned their lesson. This is what happens to those whose ego has been stoked over too many years thinking that they can communicate directly with the creator of the universe and that He is on their side.

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops released data showing that they had identified about 4,400 abusive U.S. priests. Not four hundred but four thousand and four hundred! That's nearly 90 abusive priests per state -- holy crap! And this is according to their own numbers, which are bound to be a low estimate.

What does it take to get through to these guys?? And what does it take to get through to the flock who follow these unethical and immoral felons? It makes you wonder why people think that they need organized religion at all. Why must it be "organized?" Just do your own thing and stop being a follower. Think about it, what would Jesus do?

Mark Your Calendars -- Bush Death Watch!

Mark Morford, the SF Gate columnist, pens another great article. You should read the whole thing but here's a tasty morsel:

It is now less than one calendar year until the next presidential election. It is less than one year until the country finally takes a deep breath and flexes its atrophied muscles and opens its bloody, Cheney-punched mouth and lets it be known to the world, to the universe, to its own numb and dejected soul just exactly how unwell it has felt, how much pain has raked its heart, lo, these past seven (eight, by then) years, by ushering in an entirely new political era, as we all exhale a massive sigh of long overdue relief that — praise Jesus, Allah, Buddha and the devil all at once — the long national nightmare of George W. Bush is finally over.

It is now safe to imagine. It is now becoming increasingly easy to actually dare to think that, in less than one year's time, Dubya will begin packing his bags, jamming into his Spongebob duffel his map of the world coloring book, English-to-English translation dictionaries, mangled pocket edition of the U.S. Constitution, Bibleman action figure set and a "Mission Accomplished!" sweatshirt, and heading off to face his destiny as one of the bleakest, most morally repellent chapters in all of American history.

And please, let's not forget the entire parade of incompetent clowns that GW is taking with him. Hallelujah!

Writers strike

In case it's not clear that we should all be supporting the writers in their quest to get paid a fair share of that which they create (but the mega corporation then owns) ... have a good laugh watching this and this and this.

Thanks 1gm.

Balls *and* Brains

It's too bad that we can't get a president with brains of a Democrat and the balls of a Republican -- you know, like Kucinich.

Some 9/11 Perspective

Good article from a reporter speaking to Richard Dawkins at Ground Zero, "celebrating" its 6th anniversary last month. Two important points that bear repeating since they're not comfortable to many religious folks:

"The people who did this terrible thing were sincere, deeply religious, believed they were right, believed they were doing the will of their god, firmly believed they were going straight to heaven for doing what they thought of as a wonderful deed," Dawkins says. "They had just one thing wrong with them. They believed. They had faith. And it was their faith that drove them to it."

"I wouldn't for a moment suggest the majority of people would do anything remotely so terrible, indeed anything terrible at all, but there is a logical pathway that leads from religious faith to doing the most appalling deeds." Accept that there is a God. Accept that He is involved in the world's affairs. Accept that the Bible or the Koran is His holy word. "Once you've got that in your head, then a reasonable person can progress step by step to the conclusion that the right thing to do, the righteous thing to do, is to destroy thousands of lives."

Fanaticism -- i.e. unquestioning faith -- is possibly the greatest threat to our delicate balance of international relations and most likely to trigger WWIII. Here's a tip: if the real world of empirical evidence doesn't agree with some ancient belief, drop the belief and join the rest of us in the real world!

Remember the surplus?

Speaking of our shrinking pool of critical engineers and scientists -- this is only the tip of our iceberg of problems -- most thanks to our illustrious non-leader, GWB. It's sad that our kids and grandkids will be paying for today's mistakes and financial disasters for long after we're all gone. Let me start apologizing now (not that I voted for this buffoon but we're all complicit).

As usual, PZ "gets it"

This is why I like many of the ScienceBlogs post -- scientific minds are trained to cut through the crap. And today there is less time and possibly more crap than we've ever had to deal with since the Dark Ages. We need every bright person pushing our collective knowledge forward if we hope to figure out a way not to obliterate ourselves through famine, religious wars, pollution, corrupt governments, greed or any host of reasons predicated on overpopulation and shrinking resources, ignited through ignorance and fueled by fanaticism.

The dearth of American scientific minds and the failing of our science and math curriculum might be a harbinger of the coming idiocracy.

So back to PZ, here are a couple of good quotes from his critique of a recent New Humanist article:

Personally, I'm fired up by the fact that religions have been spending millennia hammering the brains of thinking human beings into a dopey stupefaction like that of domesticated sheep.

Religion claims to be a method that maps the human heart, that produces stability and contentment and soul-fulfilling reverence, and leads to immortality in an afterlife where the good are rewarded and the evil are punished. It fails in its own terms. None of what it promises can be demonstrated, and the plethora of different religions all make different and often contradictory promises. It certainly doesn't seem to be promoting peace, love, and understanding, and those conflicting claims are often barriers to reconciliation.

I don't condemn religion because it causes extremism or evil actions. I condemn it because it is so bloodily and thrice-damned ineffectual at doing what it claims to do. Religion is an incompetent guiding philosophy, unifying principle, source of solace and wisdom, whatever screwy virtue you want to imagine it represents. All it seems to excel at is driving people to make excuses for its failures.

Financial Wizardry

I'd always thought that the smoke and mirrors financial industry was a crock. Apparently, this is also true in GB.

Robertson backs Giuliani - Lord have mercy

I couldn't have said it better:

It is truly a match made in Heaven: a long-time dictator-coddler, blood diamond merchant, Jew-hater and milkshake shiller – who dabbles in religious flim-flammery on the side – endorsing a torture-loving, warmongering, serially adulterous, gender-confused, compulsively lying authoritarian to lead God's own country.

Verily I say unto you: we live in blessed times.

Technology doesn't *always* further education

This is why we've disabled Internet access during class:
Thanks Doonesbury.

Led Zeppelin Lost Performances

I hope that they beat the odds and are unbelievable at their upcoming reunion concert in December -- even just a fraction of their former glory -- not just so I can enjoy the rock-godness of the moment but so they can give current fans a glimpse of perfection and light a fire under the many mediocre rock bands today in order that they have a greater height to aspire to.

Waterboarding is Torture… Period

In case you're still not convinced.

The Mendacity Index

Which recent president has told the biggest whoppers?

Poor scientists

The presidency is now a criminal conspiracy

Keith Olbermann hits another homer pointing out all that is wrong with the current administrations attempt to drum up enough fear that we allow them to turn America into a fascist state.

If, say, a president simply needed a constant supply of terrorist threats to keep a country scared. If, say, he needed phony plots to play hero during, and to boast about interrupting, and to use to distract people from the threat he didn't interrupt. If, say, he realized that even terrorized people still need good ghost stories before they will let a president pillage the Constitution, Well, Mr. Bush, who better to dream them up for you than an actual terrorist? He'll tell you everything he ever fantasized doing in his most horrific of daydreams, his equivalent of the day you "flew" onto the deck of the Lincoln to explain you'd won in Iraq. Now if that's what this is all about, you tortured not because you're so stupid you think torture produces confession but you tortured because you're smart enough to know it produces really authentic-sounding fiction — well, then, you're going to need all the lawyers you can find … because that crime wouldn't just mean impeachment, would it? That crime would mean George W. Bush is going to prison.

Why media matters

It makes me sick when people are not held accountable. It's gotten so bad that even the media not only doesn't check the facts, they don't report it when someone else has checked them and shown them to be wrong. In this case, the Repbulican front-runner is lying, knows he's lying, and is continuing to use the lie -- and it's not news!?! WTF? Remember when the news media was the publics attack dog who had politicians quaking in their boots at being caught with both fists in the candy jar? What happened? When did they get neutered?

Memo to editors: If a candidate says something completely false, it’s not “in dispute.”

America - land of the bubble-babies

I've always thought that Americans have an unhealthy fascination with cleanliness -- and no, this is not just because I'm an occasional slob. Turns out, I'm probably right.

We all do this, right?

Ten Reasons Why American Health Care Is so Bad

If you aren't yet CERTAIN that we need a major overhaul of our healthcare system, read this. Here's the 25-cent tour:
1. We spend the most. (actually twice as much)
2. We don't pay doctors according to the quality of their care.
3. Our wait times are low because many of us aren't getting care at all.
4. Most of us don't have a regular physician. One might expect, given what we pay, that our care would at least be more central and convenient.
5. Our care isn't particularly convenient. Nor is medical service more convenient for Americans to access.
6. Our doctors don't listen to us.
7. We have high rates of chronic conditions. Aside from the surprisingly unhealthy Australians, Americans have the highest rate of chronic disease.
8. … But we're not treating them properly.
9. We're frequent victims of medical, medication, and lab errors.
10. Most of us are dissatisfied with our current system.

Read the full article for all of the gory details.

Job hunting - the worst job in the world

I've always said that; primarily because it weighs so heavily on your sense of self-worth. Well, who knew that it had gotten this bad? Wow, the middle-class in general and white collar jobs in particular are being gutted from within. American citizens need to stand up and collectively vote out the corporate shills in our goverment and get some people in there that will stop selling our country to the highest bidder.

This book reviewer has a few tips:

White-collar employees should expect that everything, especially their career, is temporary and will disappear from their lives suddenly and when they are most vulnerable. Once they are unemployed, they should expect to remain so for a long period of time (at least for six months and probably for two or more years) at least once in their working lives, and they should plan accordingly. My advice is to always save as much money as possible to keep yourself from having to live on the streets. Even if you manage to get a good job that pays well, keep your living expenses as low as possible and NEVER go into debt for anything, including your education and housing. Even after you have a "real job", continue learning new (and marketable) skills, such as bookkeeping or a new computer language. And -- as a reserved and self-effacing person, I have particular trouble with this one -- always market yourself for your next position to your family, friends and colleagues.

Commander of plane that dropped Hiroshima bomb, dies at 92

Paul Warfield Tibbets Jr., the Army Air Forces pilot whose bombing run over Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945 introduced nuclear war, died today at his home in Columbus, Ohio. He was 92.

Good LA Times article. Not everyone agrees that it was necessary but either way, it's a horrifying responsibility to bear. Let's hope that no one else ever has to accept this burden.

The Golden Compass

The trailer looks good. You can also create your own Daemon. Here's mine:

I'm not sure how accurate their 20-question assessment is, but the tiger is cool.

John Edwards appeals to us all to take back the power

Thanks 1gm! I wish all politicians talked like this. Perhaps they wont live up to their promises but how long has it been that they've even *promised* to do these things?

Eat the rich!

A World Without the Rich:

If Americans examined the deeper damage that the rich do to society, perhaps they might be willing to try cutting the rich down to size.

Your ARE being watched

Here's another major lurch forward on our downward spiral into becoming an Orwellian dictatorship. Once again, our congresscritters are working against our best interests.

With the disbanding of Fourth Amendment protections against search and seizure without court warrants or probable cause, no Americans, not even those who are apolitical and believe they have nothing to hide, are safe. Under this judicially unregulated Orwellian system of total information awareness, all Americans who use the Internet and/or the telephone (which means virtually all Americans) are suspects in a massive, nationwide (and global) government dragnet.

Some conquering music, please