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We don’t know, but they should do something:
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Sometimes you just have to back away from the insanity and indulge yourself in the joys of life. This is one of those joys of life — so stay up tonight, go outside, and, as the man from NASA says, enjoy the show:
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And you thought my Ken Ham joke was in bad taste.
Be afraid. Be very afraid:
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Yeah, I know — my rule is to pretty much ignore anything Barack Obama does that doesn’t directly impact LGBTs, because, you know, like… What can I do about it? Obama’s married to the military-industrial complex mob, and that’s that.
But when it comes to the environment, my take is this: All the equality in the world isn’t going to do any of us a bit of good if we’re dead before we can enjoy it.
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When Sarah Palin Praises
Your “Sound Science,”
You Know You’ve
Lost All Sense of Reality
Unbelievable. Un-farking— Wait, what am I saying? Nothing The Smartest Guy in the Room does surprises me anymore. But this… this… this is so far beyond the pale, even I’m at a loss for words:
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The role of religion in the presidential campaign tops the 2008 “Top Ten” list of top church-state stories, according to the editors of Church & State.
The monthly magazine, published by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, is the nation’s only news periodical devoted exclusively to the intersection of religion and government.
Said Church & State publisher Barry W. Lynn, “It was a wild and crazy year. To tell you the truth, I’m glad it’s coming to a close. I’m hopeful 2009 will be a lot better.”
After studying the past 12 months of news, the editors selected the following 10 stories as the most important and most interesting church-state developments for the year.
1. The Role of Religion in the Presidential Campaign: Not since 1960 when John F. Kennedy the first Roman Catholic president was elected, has religion played such a large role in a presidential campaign. News media representatives grilled candidates on what sins they had committed and what their favorite Bible verses were. Barack Obama fought false rumors that he is secretly a Muslim, and Mitt Romney’s Mormonism became a controversial topic. Candidates were held accountable for the incendiary comments of their pastors and their clergy supporters, such as the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and TV preacher John Hagee. Many observers thought the whole thing was an unholy mess, especially in a nation that separates religion and government.
2. The Resurgence of the Religious Right: While pundits and progressives have proclaimed the demise of the Religious Right, the fundamentalist political movement remained extraordinarily powerful. Republican John McCain found it necessary to name evangelical Sarah Palin as his running mate to mollify the GOP’s restive religious base, and Religious Right forces rammed through bans on same-sex marriage in California, Florida and Arizona. Moderate evangelical Richard Cizik was forced out as government affairs representative at the National Association of Evangelicals after coming under fire from Religious Right forces.
3. The Battle Over Gay Marriage: Bans on same-sex marriage were approved in California, Florida and Arizona with conservative religious forces leading the drive. California’s approval of Proposition 8, with massive funding from members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was particularly contentious. The Mormons, joined by the Roman Catholic hierarchy and evangelical Protestant congregations, were successful in passing a constitutional amendment that takes away the right of same-sex couples to marry and reflects church doctrine in civil law. The issue now moves back to the state Supreme Court.
4. The Ascendancy of Rick Warren: Once known primarily as a mega-church pastor and best-selling author (The Purpose Driven Life), the Rev. Rick Warren has rapidly moved into position as the nation’s most prominent preacher, despite right-wing views on reproductive freedom, gay rights and church-state separation. Warren, a Southern Baptist who heads Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., is viewed by progressives as Jerry Falwell in a Hawaiian shirt with an ace PR team. After hosting a presidential debate stacked toward John McCain and being asked to give the invocation at Barack Obama’s inauguration, many think Warren seems destined to be the new Billy Graham.
5. Religious Right Influence at Justice Department: Religious Right influence at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) was exposed this year. According to an internal DOJ investigation reported in the media in July, senior aides in the department used religious and political criteria to hire staff members for non-political positions. Monica Goodling, a top adviser to the attorney general, checked to see if job applicants were “pro-God in public life” and held right-wing views on abortion, homosexuality and other issues. (Goodling is a graduate of TV preacher Pat Robertson’s Regent University.) DOJ also posted a legally dubious memorandum this year insisting that the federal government may give grants to “faith-based” social service agencies that discriminate in hiring, even if Congress has explicitly banned such bias.
6. Battles Over Creationism in Public Schools: New battles have erupted over the teaching of evolution in public schools. Blocked by the courts from teaching fundamentalist religious concepts directly in biology classes, Religious Right forces are trying a backdoor strategy. They are demanding that schools teach the “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution, a euphemism for creationist ideas. Over the heated objections of educators, scientists and civil liberties activists, the Louisiana legislature approved an “academic freedom” law encouraging such instruction in the state’s schools. Now the Texas State Board of Education is debating a similar proposal as part of its 10-year review of science standards.
7. Church Politicking Plot: The Religious Right’s dream of building a fundamentalist church-based political machine took a big step forward in 2008 when more than 30 pastors used their pulpits to endorse Republican political candidates. They acted at the behest of the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), a wealthy Religious Right legal outfit that wants to challenge the federal tax law ban on partisan politicking by tax-exempt groups. The ADF, which was founded by TV preachers and other religious broadcasters, hopes the Internal Revenue Service will revoke participating churches’ tax exemptions leading to a court showdown.
8. Defeat of Jeb Bush Referenda: Florida Gov. Jeb Bush saw his school voucher subsidies for religious and other private schools overturned by the state Supreme Court in 2006. Undeterred, the now former governor’s allies on an obscure tax commission engineered two measures onto the November 2008 ballot that would have repealed the state constitution’s ban on public funding of religion as well as diluted its provision for a strong system of public schools. To Bush’s dismay, the state Supreme Court on Sept. 3 struck the referenda from the ballot, derailing the scheme.
9. Blocking of ‘Christian’ License Plate: The South Carolina legislature unanimously approved a special “Christian” license plate featuring a bright yellow cross, a stained-glass church window and the words “I Believe.” Backed by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, four local clergy and two minority faith groups challenged the government favoritism toward one faith. On Dec. 11, a federal district court blocked issuance of the plates. The judge’s action may forestall similar sectarian plates under consideration in other states.
10. The Christmas Wars: It has become an annual holiday tradition Religious Right groups and their allies in the right-wing media launch a yearly crusade to stop the alleged secularization of Christmas and to pressure government to include Christian symbols in the holiday mix. They rail against stores’ use of the term “Happy Holidays” and insist that advertisements say “Merry Christmas” instead. This year, much of the attention focused on a Washington State battle where an atheist Winter Solstice sign was positioned near a Christian Nativity scene in the state capital. Fox News pundit Bill O’Reilly and an array of Religious Right scolds lambasted Gov. Christine Gregoire for allowing the anti-religious sentiment. Ironically, credit for the atheist display actually should go to the Alliance Defense Fund, a Religious Right legal group that sued Gregoire last year, insisting that the Capitol is an open forum where a Nativity scene (and all other forms of speech) must be allowed.
Americans United is a religious liberty watchdog group based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1947, the organization educates Americans about the importance of church-state separation in safeguarding religious freedom. Americans Unitied for Separation of Church and State Links: Homepage; Americans United (Press Center); Americans United (Action Center)
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Or at least gay boys. (Lesbians are always left out of the fun research, damn it!)
Or, as Dan Savage summarizes a most interesting new piece on the “fraternal birth order effect,” because “the Mormon ‘lifestyle’ pumps out more gay boys while the Mormon religion pumps those gay boys full of self-hatred.”
Or, as author Alice Dreger herself explains in “Womb Gay” (and if you don’t already know all about the fraternal birth order effect to begin with, she explains it for you):
Well, given the relatively large size of Mormon families, on average, it is highly likely that gay men are relatively more common among Mormons than among the general population, where family size is, on average, smaller. It’s not just that each Mormon family would have, on average, more sons than the average American family; it’s that the population of Mormons would include more gay men per capita than the general American population. Hmmm….Put that fact together with a study that purported to show that men who are homophobic are more likely to be sexually aroused to homosexual stimuli….and another purporting to show that homophobic men are more likely to be aggressive towards gay men…and imagine, in turn, that gay (Mormon) men who are forced to be closeted are more likely to become homophobic….
Well, it’s just hard not to wonder if the Mormon declaration of war over Prop. 8 doesn’t have a little something to do with womb-gayness. …
More of a most interesting theory at the link.
And if it’s true, then the solution is simple: Stop overbreeding, Mormons! You’re not only making babies you end up driving to suicide, but you’re killing the planet. So keep those magic underpants laced up for a change — we’d all appreciate it.
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“Despite this being a biological impossibility for this couple, the natural desire is still there.”
No, this isn’t some made-up junk from a British tabloid; it’s true — I checked it out with numerous reputable news sources. It’s truly a sad story — but raises questions about the decision of officials to segregate the pair from the rest of the population (which doesn’t surprise us; this is China, after all).
In any case, do try to have some sympathy:
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As usual, the world is quiet at 2:39 in the morning, which is why it’s my best time to work (that, and I’m an incurable night owl). As is my norm, I’ve got the tube playing in the background to get me through some really tedious grunt work that comes with the territory of what I do, and tonight there’s a rerun of a movie Buffy and I saw a while back — The Reaping. (Yes, I know: It does sound like The Re-Deadening.)
The Reaping is not a great movie — it’s got more plot holes than Jocelyn Wildenstein has surgical scars — but it’s an acceptable time-passer (especially when you’re working, and can’t give the attention you’d like to the subtitled horror film on FLIX right now), and, anyway, I like religious-type movies. No, really, I do — from Ben Hur to junk food like The Reaping, which has Hillary Swank investigating some End-O’-Times plagues going on in some backwater town. You know, frogs falling from the sky and rivers of blood and all that cool stuff that keeps you from slipping into a permanent coma while reading the Bible.
So, it’s not a great movie, but it’s kind of fun. What I like most about it — and was lucky enough to tune in on right in time for it — is Swank’s perfectly logical explanation for all the plagues in the Old Testament. When I first heard it, I decided to put it on my list of Things to Memorize (right after re-memorizing the parts of Jabberwocky and Annabel Lee I’ve forgotten; I think I’m still good on the whole of Sonnets from the Portuguese and I know I’ll never forget a word of Disobedience, even if I forget my own name first), just for that day I run into Tim LaHaye, or Ben Stein, or that whackadoodle in Alaska who thinks Jesus rode to school on Dino Flintstone, and end the entire debate (or spark an entirely new debate) with it.
Here it is — but you’ve got to do it like Hillary Swank does it in the movie, with complete conviction, at lightning speed and without taking a breath:
In 1400 B.C., a group of nervous Egyptians saw the Nile turn red. But what they thought was blood was actually an algae bloom which killed the fish, which prior to that had been living off the eggs of frogs. Those uneaten eggs turned into record numbers of baby frogs who subsequently fled to the land and died. Their little rotting frog bodies attracted lice and flies. The lice carried the bluetongue virus, which killed 70% of Egypt’s livestock. The flies carried glanders, a bacterial infection which in humans causes boils. Soon afterwards, the Nile River Valley was hit with a three-day sandstorm otherwise known as the plague of darkness. During the sandstorm, intense heat can combine with an approaching cold front to create not only hail, but also electrical storms which would have looked to the ancient Egyptians like fire from the sky. The subsequent wind would have blown the Ethiopian locust population off course and right into downtown Cairo. Hail is wet, locusts leave droppings spread both on grain, and you have got mycotoxins. Dinnertime in ancient Egypt meant the first-born child got the biggest portion which in this case meant he ate the most toxins, so he died. Ten plagues. Ten scientific explanations.
Granted, I have to research each and every one of these claims before I bother to memorize this, much less launch it on a sputtering fundy. But, as one of those people who knows a little bit about everything (no, that’s not arrogance talking; that also means I also don’t know everything about anything), it sounds pretty plausible to me.
Have fun with it! And let me know if you ever use it to end (or begin) a discussion.
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ARLINGTON, VA — The Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association, the world’s largest organization of anthropologists, the people who study culture, releases the following statement in response to President Bush’s call for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage as a threat to civilization.
“The results of more than a century of anthropological research on households, kinship relationships, and families, across cultures and through time, provide no support whatsoever for the view that either civilization or viable social orders depend upon marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution. Rather, anthropological research supports the conclusion that a vast array of family types, including families built upon same-sex partnerships, can contribute to stable and humane societies.
“The Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association strongly opposes a constitutional amendment limiting marriage to heterosexual couples.”
Media Coverage Includes:
Multicultural marriage, by Joshua Glenn, Boston Globe, Feb. 29, 2004
Scientists counter Bush view Families varied, say anthropologists by Charles Burress, AAA member Laura Nader was quoted, The San Francisco Chronicle, Feb 27, 2004
Gay Marriages Fit into This Adaptable Institution op-ed by Robert Myers, USATODAY, March 14, 2004
An Elastic Institution, op-ed by anthropologists John Borneman and Laurie Kain Hart discussing marriage, Washington Post, April 14, 2004
Anthropologists Debunk “Traditional Marriage” Claim, by Adrian Brune, features AAA statement, Roger Lancaster and Dan Segal, Washington Blade, April 16, 2004
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SANTA CLARA, CA — October 30 —The leadership of the nation’s high-tech industry feels so strongly that Prop 8 is wrong and unfair, that a coalition of key leaders is running a full page advertisement in a major daily newspaper urging Californians to vote NO on Prop 8. The ad, running in Friday’s San Jose Mercury News, includes a list of “Who’s Who of the Silicon Valley”, including the founders and CEOs of Google, Yahoo!, Adobe Systems and Cisco Systems.
Prop 8 would eliminate the fundamental right to marry for same-sex couples in California by amending the state’s Constitution.
Jerry Yang, co-Founder of Yahoo! Inc. said, “Silicon Valley has always been an example for the rest of the country of how diversity and openness help to drive innovation and value creation. This divisive measure is the antithesis of those values that make Silicon Valley so unique.”
Chuck Geschke, Founder & Chairman, Adobe Systems Inc, said, “Equal rights under the law is one of the cornerstones of our California constitution and one of the guiding values for Silicon Valley leaders. Prop 8 would take the extreme step of amending our constitution to strip rights away from one group of people.”
“Today prominent leaders from across California — and around the nation — have become part of the NO on Prop 8 campaign,” said Geoff Kors, a NO on Prop 8 Executive Committee Member. “We welcome the support and leadership of these technology and business leaders who believe Prop 8 is unfair and must be defeated and we look forward to seeing that number grow.”
Below is the text of the ad:
As Silicon Valley leaders, we are committed to equality and fairness. We are opposed to Proposition 8 because it would change our state constitution to take away rights from one group of people. It would set our state, and our country, back in the fight for fundamental fairness and equal rights.
Please join us by reaching out to friends and neighbors and asking them to stand for fairness: Vote No on Proposition 8 on November 4th.
(titles are for identification purposes only)
HONORARY CO-CHAIRS:
• Sergey Brin, Founder, Google, Inc.
• Bill Campbell, Chairman, Intuit Inc.
• David Filo, Founder, Yahoo! Inc.
• Chuck Geschke, Founder & Chairman, Adobe Systems, Inc.
• John Morgridge, Former CEO & Chairman, Cisco Systems, Inc.
• Pierre Omidyar, Founder and Chairman, eBay Inc., Founding Partner, Omidyar Network
• Sheryl Sandberg, COO, Facebook
• Eric Schmidt, CEO, Google, Inc.
• Jerry Yang, Founder, Yahoo! Inc.
LEADERS (partial list):
• Deborah Barber, Principal, Jackson Hole Group
• John Battelle, Chairman & CEO, Federated Media
• Larry Birenbaum, Former Senior Vice President, Cisco Systems, Inc.
• Lorna Borenstein, President, Move, Inc.
• Larry Brilliant, Executive Director, Google.org
• Owen Byrd, President, Byrd Development
• John Chisholm, Chairman & CEO, CustomerSat, Inc.
• Barry Cinnamon, CEO, Akeena Solar
• Tod Cohen, Director of Government Affairs, eBay Inc.
• LaDoris Cordell, Administrator, Stanford University
• Sue Decker, President, Yahoo! Inc.
• Jack Dorsey, Chairman, Twitter
• David Drummond, SVP, Corporate Development & Chief Legal Officer, Google, Inc.
• Donna Dubinsky, CEO, Numenta, Inc.
• Alan Eustace, SVP, Engineering and Research, Google, Inc.
• Naomi Fine, President & CEO, Pro-Tec Data, Inc.
• Rachel Glaser COO/CFO, Reunion.com
• Carl Guardino, President & CEO, Silicon Valley Leadership Group
• Andre Haddad, CEO, Shopping.com
• Jeff Hawkins, co-Founder Palm, Handspring, and Numenta
• David Karnstedt, Investor
• Scott Kaspick, Managing Director, Kaspick & Co.
• Steve Kirsch, Serial Entrepreneur
• John Koza, CEO, Third Millennium
• Ross LaJeunesse, Head of State Policy Western US, Google, Inc.
• Gary Lauder, Managing Partner, Lauder Partners Venture Capital
• Laura Lauder, General Partner, Lauder Partners Venture Capital
• Len Lehman, Investor
• John Luongo, Former CEO, Vantive Corporation
• Roger McNamee, Managing Director & co-Founder, Elevation Partners
• Ken McNeely, President, AT&T California
• Michael Moritz, Partner, Sequoia Capital
• Susan Packard Orr, CEO, Telosa Software, Inc.
• Randy Pond, Executive Vice President, Cisco Systems, Inc.
• Amy Rao, Founder & CEO, Integrated Archive Systems
• Jana Rich, Managing Director, Russell Reynolds
• Miriam Rivera, Former Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, Google, Inc.
• Dan Rosensweig, Investor
• Dan Rubin, Partner, Alloy Ventures
• Hilary Schneider, Executive Vice President US Region, Yahoo! Inc.
• Len Shustek, Chairman, Computer History Museum
• Jeff Skoll, Former President, eBay Inc.
• Stephanie Tilenius, SVP, eBay North America
• Joy Weiss, President & CEO, Dust Networks
• Steve Westly, former California State Controller & former SVP eBay Inc.
• Evan Williams, CEO, Twitter
For a complete list of NO on 8 endorsements, visit www.noonprop8.com.
Related:
San Diego Biotech Execs Agree: Proposition 8 = Bad for High-Tech Industry, October 30, 2008
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Proposition 8 would blunt
biotech edge, execs sayA group of San Diego biotechnology executives have banded together to oppose Proposition 8, saying the proposed constitutional ban on gay marriage would be bad for business.
Proposition 8, which would overturn a state Supreme Court ruling that legalized same-sex marriages, would put California at a competitive disadvantage to Massachusetts, where gay marriage is allowed, said Laurent Fischer, chief executive of Ocera Therapeutics. The Boston/Cambridge area has a dense and thriving cluster of biotechnology companies.
San Diego and the San Francisco Bay Area account for more than 50 percent of the world’s biotechnology might. The California biotech industry competes with other regions for funding, employees and companies that bring in millions of dollars annually in revenue and high-paying salaries.
The proposition could be the impetus for people working here to pack up and leave for friendlier environs, said Fischer, who is also chairman of the AIDS Healthcare Network, a Los Angeles nonprofit that provides medical care to AIDS patients around the globe.
“The governor of Massachusetts has made it very clear that he recognizes this is a competitive and lucrative industry and he’d do everything he can to attract companies,” Fischer said. “And this is a sure opportunity for Massachusetts to feature its benefits that are not available in California should Proposition 8 pass.”
In San Diego, biotechnology companies and those that provide services to them employ nearly 40,000 people at 710 companies. Biotechnology is the state’s second largest high-tech industry, generating $73 billion in revenue annually and employing more than 267,000 people.
Companies in other high-paying and globally competitive industries also oppose Proposition 8. They include Silicon Valley giants Google and Apple and San Diego’s Qualcomm, which donated $5,000 to the opposition campaign, according to state records. …
The San Diego biotechnology executives are trying to persuade the local industry trade group, Biocom, to join in opposing it. Fischer and 21 other executives sent letters to Biocom and their friends and family, outlining how the proposition would hurt California. …
More at the link.
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TUCSON, Arizona — September 17, 2008 — The Center for Biological Diversity today awarded Alaska Governor Sarah Palin the 2008 Rubber Dodo Award. Last year’s award, which inaugurated the prize, went to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne for setting a new record in refusing to add imperiled plants and animals to the endangered species list. This year’s award goes to Governor Palin for fighting Kempthorne’s designation of the polar bear as a threatened species.
“Governor Palin has waged a deceptive, dangerous, and costly battle against the polar bear,” said Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity. “Her position on global warming is so extreme, she makes Dick Cheney look like an Al Gore devotee.”
Palin has waged a deceptive public relations campaign, asserting that the polar bear is increasing. But many populations (including Alaska’s southern Beaufort Sea) are in decline and two-thirds (including all Alaska bears) are projected to disappear by 2050 by the U.S. Geological Survey.
Palin has repeatedly asserted that Alaska Department of Fish and Game scientists found fatal flaws in the sea ice models used by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to determine the polar bear is threatened. When challenged, Palin refused to release the alleged state review. Independent scientists eventually obtained a summary through the federal Freedom of Information Act, revealing that Palin had lied: The state mammalogists concurred with the Fish and Wildlife Service determination that Arctic sea ice is melting at an extraordinary rate and threatens the polar bear with extinction.
“All global warming deniers are eventually forced to suppress scientific studies, and Palin is no different,” said Suckling. “To maintain her ludicrous opposition to protecting the polar bear in the face of massive scientific consensus, Palin stepped over the line to lie about and suppress government science.”
Palin has since filed a frivolous lawsuit against the Bush administration to have the threatened listing overturned. Meanwhile, the U.S. Geological Survey announced on September 16th that the 2008 summertime Arctic sea-ice melt was the second greatest on record, nearly matching the extraordinary melt of 2007.
“Palin’s insistence that Arctic melting is ‘uncertain’ is like someone debating the theory of gravity as they plunge off a cliff,” said Suckling. “It’s hopeless, reckless, and extremely cynical.”
Background
In 1598, Dutch sailors landing on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius discovered a flightless, three-foot-tall, extraordinarily friendly bird. Its original scientific name was Didus ineptus. (Contemporary scientists use the less defamatory Raphus cucullatus.) To the rest of the world, it’s the dodo — the most famous extinct species on Earth. It evolved over millions of years with no natural predators and eventually lost the ability to fly, becoming a land-based consumer of fruits, nuts, and berries. Having never known predators, it showed no fear of humans or the menagerie of animals accompanying them to Mauritius.
Its trusting nature led to its rapid extinction. By 1681, the dodo was extinct, having been hunted and out-competed by humans, dogs, cats, rats, macaques, and pigs. Humans logged its forest cover and pigs uprooted and ate much of the understory vegetation.
The origin of the name dodo is unclear. It likely came from the Dutch word dodoor, meaning “sluggard,” the Portuguese word doudo, meaning “fool” or “crazy,” or the Dutch word dodaars meaning “plump-arse” (that nation’s name for the little grebe).
The dodo’s reputation as a foolish, ungainly bird derives in part from its friendly naiveté and the very plump captives that were taken on tour across Europe. The animal’s reputation was cemented with the 1865 publication of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Based on skeleton reconstructions and the discovery of early drawings, scientists now believe that the dodo was a much sleeker animal than commonly portrayed. The rotund European exhibitions were accidentally produced by overfeeding captive birds.
The Center for Biological Diversity is a nonprofit conservation organization with more than 180,000 members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
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Or: Just how A) stupid are creationists, and B) behind-the-times are freepers? Answer: Very, and very.
There’s not a thing we can say about this delusion from the “young earth” idiots that Ed Brayton hasn’t said already (he links to the freeper thread mentioned, which we won’t do):
You have to see this thread at Free Republic about a school in Malta called the Accelerated Christian Academy that teaches young earth creationism. Accelerated, you say? Well of course. Just look at what their director says is taught:
But the curriculum of the Accelerated Christian Academy in Mosta is not exactly free of such fanciful reinventions of history. Fenech reiterates the basic Evangelist tenet that the entire universe was created in 4004 BC… and this time, he also supplies “proof”. “When man landed on the moon (in 1969), they expected the landing module to sink in a deep layer of dust. But the layer was only a few inches deep. This proves that the universe is still young!”. . .
But my favorite part of the article is when Fenech, the head of this “accelerated” school, says that the dinosaurs were alive with human beings and helped the Egyptians build the pyramids. No, seriously:
This is the word of Vince Fenech, Evangelist pastor and director of a fully licensed, State-approved Creationist institution which admits children aged between four and 18. “Of course the ‘dinoceros’ existed (as Fenech pronounces the word). It is mentioned in the Book of Job. They were used to help build the pyramids,” he says, adding that this latter observation is only “his personal belief”, and that it does not form part of the school’s curriculum.. . .
Please don’t forget to read the comments. I love the argument about how ancient drawings that look like dinosaurs proved they must have lived with dinosaurs. Yet we don’t live with dinosaurs today and we draw pictures of them all the time. Amusing.
By the way, the article the freepers have been discussing since August 22, 2008, was written nearly a year ago.
Well, the freepers always have been a day late and a dollar short. They probably won’t notice The Rapture has happened until after one of their co-horts posts a year-old headline about it.
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Oh, no, I’m not being flippant about a death — I really do wonder what St. Peter had to say to Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, the Vatican’s poster boy for a Dark-Ages mentality on same-sex marriage, stem cell research, and a woman’s right to choose, and who, most
Not, mind you, that I really believe in the whole St. Peter/Pearly Gates thing; I don’t. But I’m a happy little agnostic quite content with the idea that wherever we end up, it’s of our own making: If you expect to see St. Peter, or some Pearly Gates, then you will.
But I digress, as usual.
Serendipity flowing freely this week, it was ironic, but rather satisfying in a mean, Schadenfreude kind of way, to hear that the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform (chaired by one of our few remaining heroes in the Democratic Party, Henry Waxman [D-Calif.]) is holding a hearing today to re-open the issue of whether or not abstinence-only programs work.
The reality is: They don’t. But as long as Radical Righteous Religionists exist — and as long as they maintain their stranglehold on our government — the reality of the situation needs to be hammered into many thick skulls before the U.S. gives up this killer (and I do mean killer) notion that if you withhold contraceptives and fact-based sex education, people will stop getting STDs, and stop having abortions.
What needs to stop is handing over taxpayer dollars to “faith-based” institutions that do nothing to decrease the spread of STDs or unwanted pregnancies, and in fact only serve to exacerbate the situation(s).
Sometimes it seems the only way to a new Age of Englightenment is to outlive the troglodytes who think they can pray the AIDS away. And so it is with an uncomfortable mixture of both sadness and relief that we mark the passing of Cardinal Trujillo: There was a man who stood no hope of being enlightened and reborn into a healthy, helpful, reality-based way of thinking, and now he’s gone. That’s the sad part. The relief (which troubles me to admit to) comes with the knowledge that there is one less powerful person on this planet standing in the way of countless millions being equipped with the knowledge and tools they need to save their own lives, and the lives of many others.
I’ll leave you with that thought, and with the ACLU’s writeup on today’s abstinence-only hearing — so my “faith-based” readers might understand that I’m not some sort of heartless ghoul celebrating the death of an “enemy.”
You see, Cardinal Trujillo called every struggle for control over our own lives and our own bodies, from same-sex marriage to euthanasia, a “culture of death,” when the truth is that lying about condoms and stem cell research and all the rest kills people. It is the Cardinal Trujillos of this world who propagate a “culture of death.”
Evidence Once Again Shows Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Programs Don’t Work
WASHINGTON, DC — April 23 — The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will hold a hearing today titled “Domestic Abstinence-Only Programs: Assessing the Evidence.” The ACLU applauds Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) for bringing new attention to this deeply troubling policy and the committee’s willingness to examine the public health policy implications of abstinence-only programs. We look forward to the testimony of scientists, clinicians, researchers and youth activists who will report on the failures of abstinence-only education programs.
Their testimony is supported by research which has repeatedly shown that, at best, abstinence-only programs do not delay sexual initiation and, at worst, may actually cause harm by providing young people with dangerously inadequate and inaccurate information. A troubling recent report found teens in Florida, a state that relies on abstinence-only programs, who believed drinking a can of Mt. Dew would prevent unintended pregnancy, or drinking a capful of bleach would prevent HIV/AIDS.
In addition to the clear and compelling public health concerns of abstinence-only programs, the ACLU has submitted a statement to the committee addressing the civil liberties concerns raised by these programs. Abstinence-only programs censor information, reinforce gender stereotypes, provide inaccurate and misleading information, promote religion, serve a narrow ideological agenda, stigmatize lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth, and jeopardize the well-being of young people.
“The evidence leads to only one conclusion: abstinence-only programs represent a failed policy,” said Vania Leveille, legislative counsel at the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. “They are driven by ideology and politics, rather than by science or good public health policy, and our young people are suffering as a result. Most troubling, they represent a purposeful campaign to mislead, distort, stifle and censor, and are part of a disturbing trend to politicize science. The ACLU urges congressional action to bring this failed policy to an end.”
Since 1996, the U.S. government has poured more than a billion dollars into abstinence-only education programs so ineffective and dangerous that seventeen states have refused funding. At a time when the administration emphasizes accountability in funding only programs with demonstrated success, the continued funding of unproven abstinence-only programs is unacceptable.
The ACLU’s statement to the committee is available here
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An individual’s body motion and body type can offer subtle cues about their sexual orientation, but casual observers seem better able to read those cues in gay men than in lesbians, according to a new study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
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Johnson and colleagues at New York University and Texas A&M measured the hips, waists and shoulders of eight male and eight female volunteers, half of whom were gay and half straight. The volunteers then walked on a treadmill for two minutes as a three-dimensional motion-capture system similar to those used by the movie industry to create animated figures from living models made measurements of the their motions, allowing researchers to track the precise amount of shoulder swagger and hip sway in their gaits.
Based on these measurements, the researchers determined that the gay subjects tended to have more gender-incongruent body types than their straight counterparts (hourglass figures for men, tubular bodies for women) and body motions (hip-swaying for men, shoulder-swaggering for women) than their straight counterparts.
In addition, 112 undergraduate observers were shown videos of the backsides of the volunteers as they walked at various speeds on the treadmill. The observers were able to determine the volunteers’ sexual orientation with an overall rate of accuracy that exceeded chance, even though they could not see the volunteers’ faces or the details of their clothing. Interestingly, the casual observers were much more accurate in judging the orientation of males than females; they correctly categorized the sexual orientation of men with more than 60 percent accuracy, but their categorization of women did not exceeded chance.
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The findings also are part of mounting evidence suggesting that sexual orientation may actually be what social scientists call a “master status category,” or a defining characteristic that observers cannot help but notice and which has been scientifically shown to color all subsequent social dealings with others.
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The L.A. Times reports:
Brain study finds political divideScientists at New York University and UCLA showed through a simple experiment to be reported Monday in the journal Nature Neuroscience that political orientation is related to differences in how the brain processes information.
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Participants were college students whose politics ranged from “very liberal” to “very conservative.” Scientists instructed them to tap a keyboard when an M appeared on a computer monitor and to refrain from tapping when they saw a W.
M appeared four times more frequently than W, conditioning participants to press a key in knee-jerk fashion whenever they saw a letter.
Each participant was wired to an electroencephalograph that recorded activity in their anterior cingulate cortex, the part of the brain that detects conflicts between a habitual tendency (pressing a key) and a more appropriate response (not pressing the key). Liberals had more brain activity and made fewer mistakes than conservatives when they saw a W, researchers said. Liberals and conservatives were equally accurate in recognizing M.
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Analyzing the data, Sulloway said liberals were 4.9 times more likely than conservatives to show activity in the brain circuits that deal with conflicts and were 2.2 times more likely to score in the top half of the distribution for accuracy.
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Based on the results, he said, liberals could be expected to more readily accept new social, scientific or religious ideas.
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