Why I'm a progressive...

This wonderful and clear-eyed contrast between progressive and conservative ideologies offered at Huffington Post by Mike Lux.
Conservatives' answer to the question "Am I my brother's keeper?" is a resounding Hell NO. And that is the essential divide between them and the progressivism which Beck describes as a cancer: progressives believe that all of us are in this together. When our child is weakened by a chronic illness, or our parent by old age, we don't abandon them in the wilderness so that the lion can eat them up (and then laugh about it). When our brother stumbles and hits bottom, we don't stand back and see if he can pull himself up by his own bootstraps, we lend him a helping hand. When our sister is abused and treated unfairly by an employer, we don't tell her she's on her own, we work with her to make things fairer. We believe in a community that helps each other survive and prosper, because we don't want to live in a world where only the strongest and wealthiest and -- yes -- luckiest survive. We don't have fantasies that all our success is of our own making because we know that without good families, good neighbors, good school and libraries and roads and bridges paid for by public dollars, that without all that, we'd be much less likely to make it on our own. In spite of Beck's paranoia, we have no problem with people being successful. I have never once heard any progressive attack Steve Jobs or Eric Schmidt for their success, or attack the local small businessperson making a good living because he or she is supplying products a community wants. But what we do believe is that those lucky enough to be successful have a responsibility to give something back to their fellow citizens.
That just about sums it up.

Hak-Shing William Tam, Prop. 8 Backer, Claims Gays More Likely To Be Pedophiles

This trial reminds me of nothing so much as the 2005 Kitzmiller vs. Dover School Board evolution case. In that instance you once again had Christians going into courtrooms and 'lying for Jesus' trying to disguise their *obvious* religious motivations. I expect that the judge in this case will deliver the kind of epic legal smackdown that was delivered by Judge Jones in the Dover case who commented that he was stunned 'at the breathtaking inanity' of the school board.



I understand WHY the pro-Prop 8 side of this case didn't want their positions broadcast, it's not because they thought they would be subject to ridicule it's because they realized that if they testified under oath their bigotry would be made plain and clear for all to see.



Cheers

LF
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Can a Science-minded Child be Raised Religious?

Metalboi:



I think you are taking the word 'faith' and stretching it to its breaking point. Let me try to explain. I'm a biologist. I recognize that, ultimately, my field is predicated upon chemistry 'working' and that chemistry working is predicated upon physics working. Now, I know the chemistry I need but nowhere near as much as a chemist. I know the physics I need to know and maybe a little bit more but that is nothing compared to a physicist. I *trust* that my colleagues in chemistry and physics have got their sums right and so, on a day-to-day basis, don't think about, for instance, quantum mechanics as it relates to populations even though, at the most fundamental level of understanding, populations of organisms are made of quantum mechanical systems.



Now, let's say that physics *consistently* failed to error correct or that chemistry consistently failed to understand the properties of various compounds. If, after consistent failures, I STILL insisted that physics and chemistry were sound THEN I would be acting on faith that *eventually* those disciplines would get their collective acts together.
About Religion
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Of COURSE it's not racist

A new professional basketball league called the All-American Basketball Alliance (AABA) sent out a press release on Sunday saying that it intends to start its inaugural season in June, with teams in 12 U.S. cities. However, the AABA is different from other sports leagues because only players who are “natural born United States citizens with both parents of Caucasian race are eligible to play in the league.” AABA commissioner Don “Moose” Lewis insists that he’s not racist, but he just wants to get away from the “street-ball” played by “people of color” and back to “fundamental basketball.” Lewis cited the recent incidents of bad behavior by NBA players, implying that such actions would never happen with white players:
“There’s nothing hatred about what we’re doing,” he said. “I don’t hate anyone of color. But people of white, American-born citizens are in the minority now. Here’s a league for white players to play fundamental basketball, which they like.” [...]
He pointed out recent incidents in the NBA, including Gilbert Arenas’ indefinite suspension after bringing guns into the Washington Wizards locker room, as examples of fans’ dissatisfaction with the way current professional sports are run.
“Would you want to go to the game and worry about a player flipping you off or attacking you in the stands or grabbing their crotch?” he said. “That’s the culture today, and in a free country we should have the right to move ourselves in a better direction.”

What he means to say, of course, is that he doesn’t go out of his way to burn crosses on lawns or anything like that. Since racism is burning a cross on a lawn and he hasn’t done that (lately) he can’t be a racist. See how easy a post-racial society is?

Bush Waited Six Days To Discuss Shoe Bomber With No GOP Complaints

Look, the universe will undergo heat death before conservative Republicans will grant ANYTHING to a Democratic President. Consistency is not something they give a tinker's damn about. If Obama didn't get a dog then the conservatives would say "you know, I just can't trust a President who doesn't own a dog. Oh and don't Muslims consider dogs unclean". He gets a dog and conservatives complain that the dog will pee on the White House carpets. If Obama came on TV and said that we should wipe every Muslim from the face of the Earth, then the conservatives would suddenly claim that 'we're all Muslims now' and 'I have always loved and respected Muslims and can't we just let bygones be bygones on the whole 9/11 thing...' Since he hasn't said 'kill all the Muslims' the conservatives take the tact of "we should adopt a policy of 'shoot Muslims on sight'".



Part of me wishes that conservative Republicans would fully grasp that Obama (and liberal Democrats generally) breath oxygen and drink water JUST so they could try holding their breaths so that they weren't doing anything that a liberal Democrat might do.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Geek wall art

So I received my EMF poster from ThinkGeek today! Yes of all the things I could use geek points on this is what I chose.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Another long day of training

I'm in Scrum/Agile training. Sitting in the world's least comfortable chair. This is day two. Will it never end?


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The Side-Hug: Youth Group Puts Down Sinful "Front-Hugs" With Rap (VIDEO)

Eye bleach please! I want to un-see it!!!!



Oh sweet and sour Jesus that was, perhaps, the cheesiest thing I've seen since I watched Plan 9 From Outer Space 25 years ago. One can only wonder if these "rappers" realize how completely and utterly pathetic they look.



Cheers

LF
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Large Hadron Collider Smashes Its First Protons

One cannot help but note that, all the hype that was going on here a year ago on the day of the Great On-Turning (sorry couldn't help the Douglas Adams reference) not-with-standing about the LHC creating a mini-black hole and destroying the Earth, the planet is still here.



Cheers

LF
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Large Hadron Collider Smashes Its First Protons

What, precisely, do you want to know?



Cheers

LF
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Dems To Vitter: Denounce Glenn Beck's Landrieu-Prostitute Analogies

While I understand the offense (and am offended by it) I think that the Democrats are making yet another tactical error. It's a well-worn one for Democrats and it is this: they are showing that language like this bothers them. While the Dems are *correct* that the comments are out-of-line and offensive, they make the twinned mistakes of a) believing that the conservatives will *care* (they won't) and b) that this makes the conservatives look bad.



What it does is make Democrats look *weak* and one thing we should all have learned on the playground is that you never, ever, show weakness to the bully. Never. Should Vitter apologize? Of course he should! Will he? Of course he won't! And every request for apology will simply make Limbaugh, Beck, et. al. gleeful at the perceived distress which will only spur them on.



Cheers

LF
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Kirk Cameron Confronted Over Evolution (VIDEO)

Who are these evolutionists who dismiss evolution? There's debate in the biology community on how powerful of an engine natural selection is as opposed to, say, sexual selection (which was also first articulated by Darwin) or what (if any) role group selection plays but I know of not a single evolutionary biologist who doubts that evolution *happened*. Names, please. I want to know who these evolutionary biologists are who deny evolution happened.



Cheers

Lf
About Evolution
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Kirk Cameron Confronted Over Evolution (VIDEO)

Watched it. The movie is simply riddled with errors. In fact, I'm surprised that they managed to avoid getting Ben Stein's name wrong.



Cheers

LF
About Evolution
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Richard Tisei, Openly Gay Republican, Picked As GOP Gubernatorial Candidate's Running Mate

This will be interesting. Will the GOP base actually *support* someone who has an openly gay running mate OR will this person be put in the same category as the rest of us who are 'threats to traditional families'. The man, by the accounts I've read so far, is pro-gay--meaning that he's in favor of gays and lesbians having full and equal civil rights in this country (and not in that cheeky sense of "well, no heterosexual can marry someone of the same gender either so it's fair" or "well, people can lose their jobs for any number of reasons, losing your job because you are gay is the same as losing your job because you are incompetent").



This means that the GOP base has to make a choice now. How much do they REALLY mean their anti-gay rhetoric? If they mean it, then they cannot want and will not tolerate this man being a heartbeat away from the governorship. If they don't mean and can support him, then that means that they don't actually *mean* what they say about gays. If it's the latter case, then the Democratic party could find itself in serious trouble because if the GOP does *not* mean the anti-gay rhetoric, then it would behoove gays and lesbians to split their allegiances and try to move the GOP in a more inclusive direction. If, of course, they mean their rhetoric then it's the status quo ante.



Cheers

LF
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

The things we do for love and science

I’m writing a paper on how New Agers misuse scientific language to bolster their claims of quantum flapdoodle. To do so, I am going to focus on What the Bleep Do We Know. I saw this at the Bagdad Theatre when it was first released in 2006. Not knowing what it was going to be, I thought it would be a very high-produc tion value version of “The Elegant Universe” by Brian Greene. I was wrong. I almost walked out of the movie but had to stay through the trainwreck.

Now I am watching it again. If I have to do this--then I’m sharing this with the rest of the world. Others have, I know. These are mine.

So Fred Alan Wolf has just proclaimed that even though his idiosyncratic view of quantum physics doesn’t allow for changing chairs into trucks but you can change how you feel about things. What a revelation!

So they just made the specious (and racist) claim that coastal Native Americans could not see the European’s ships because they had no idea what they were.

Interestingly they never identify their experts. I’m listening to some guy, with a guy who ‘looks like a scientist’ in a very ‘scientific looking’ environment.

Okay, so now we have Fred Alan Wolf as his super-hero Dr. Quantum alter-ego.

And Wolf butchers the double-slit experiment and he’d been doing so well!

There is liberal use of the word ‘super-position’ and very little on the value of h-bar. (the planck constant)

Intention imprinted electrical devices?


And now the Secret DVD

The first invocation of physics is how we can send rockets to the moon.

The second invocation of physics

Thoughts become things.

‘Thoughts have a frequency’

Thoughts are sending out that magnetic signal. (Joe Vitale)

Most people are thinking about what they don’t want. (John Assaraf)

Fred Alan Wolf, you can’t have a universe without the mind shaping it.

No one knows what electricity is. Bob Proctor.

“It has been proven scientifically that positive thoughts are more powerful than negative thoughts.” (Bob Proctor) Oh really Bob?

“Researchers tell us that we have 60,000 thoughts a day.” (Which researchers.)

Trust your feelings above and beyond all else.

Poor gets poorer. (Bob Proctor) Really? So the poor really are at fault for their own poverty.

Palin Booed By Book Tour Crowd

I fear Sarah, not because she says what she feels (although I would prefer she say what she thinks) but because of WHAT she espouses.



In Sarah Palin's America, gays and lesbians would be fired for being gay or lesbian and there would be no legal recourse.



In Sarah Palin's America, being a Muslim would be prima facie cause for profiling.



In Sarah Palin's America, pagans would be considered 'witches' and witches would not be tolerated.



In Sarah Palin's America, science would take a back seat to religion.



In Sarah Palin's America, educators would be beholden to the most radical religious beliefs.



These are based NOT upon some paranoia, simply upon her *own* statements.



She is in favor of profiling Muslims because they are Muslims.

She belongs to a church that engages in 'spiritual warfare' against 'witches'.

She believes the Earth has been around less than 10,000 years

She believes that research on fruit flies is a waste of time.

She believes that we can drill our way out of an energy crunch.

She believes that creationism should be taught in schools.



Yes, that scares me. There are conservatives I disagree with but they dont' scare me (John McWhorter and Shelby Steele leap to mind). Then there are Sarah Palin and her supporters--they scare me and that fear is justified.



Cheers

LF
About Bestsellers
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Chaz Bono On GMA: Gender Is Between Your Ears, Not Between Your Legs (VIDEO)

I *really* wish HuffPo would stop running these articles about Chaz. He has, at no small amount of struggle, come to peace with himself. His chosen path to that inner-peace harms no one and, in fact, effects no one here directly. Yet, there are people here who see fit to dehumanize him (calling him 'it' is dehumanizi­ng---human­s, no matter WHAT you might think of them, are never, ever 'it') because they think that they know better what it is to be Chaz Bono than Chaz does himself.



It reminds me, a great deal, of the flack I get as a butch lesbian. Some feel that my being butch is license for them to ask me "why do you want to be a man", when that is not what being butch is. Some feel free to erase my relationship with my wife by calling her my 'friend' or my 'roommate'. This is why, whenever there is an article about transgender folks, I go into the thread to defend these queer brothers and sisters.



For those of you using the wrong pronoun--it is not for you to say what Chaz's gender is, it is for HIM to say. For those who are stating that transgendered people don't exist, again this is not for you to say.



Just because you cannot empathize with someone does not mean that they are unworthy of empathy.



Cheers

LF
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Jon Stewart, Lou Dobbs Discuss CNN, Argue Over Health Care Reform (VIDEO)

Okay, so, let's say that we were going to get rid of all of the people here without documentation. How would you go about it? Should they be rounded up? If so, how would you go about that? Who should we be looking for? (These are very practical questions which, I'm sure, you have given great thought to)



Should there be checkpoints in the U.S. where some guy in a uniform and mirrored sunglasses asks "papers please"? If so, should they be checking EVERYONE's papers or just SOME people's papers? If the latter, what characteristics should they use to determine if that person is suspicious?



Your honest answers are, of course, appreciated.



Cheers

LF
About Daily Show
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Palin Suggests Evolution Not Real In "Going Rogue"

Let me also suggest that you go to your local library and find a Nova program on the 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover School Board decision. You might find it very enlightening. If Kitzmiller were an isolated incident, then you might have a point but it isn't isolated. Kansas perennially has a move by the state education authorities to insert the teaching of creationism in public schools. A Texas university offers a graduate degree in Creation Science. Texas schools are constantly trying to teach creationism in school.



I worry because there's a large number of people who *would* have creationism taught in public school and a lot of other folks, whom I otherwise politically agree with, who in the name of 'fairness' dismiss the creationists as nothing more than a few hundred people scattered throughout the country.



cheers

LF
About Bestsellers
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Gay Married Couples Suing The Government Over DOMA

As I said to someone else on this thread. When we weren't talking about same-sex marriage but just domestic partnership, the SAME people (perhaps even you yourself) were opposed to domestic partnership because it would grant "special rights" to homosexuals and was a "threat to the traditional family". When it was civil unions the SAME people were opposed to CUs because they would (sing it with me, you all know the chorus) "grant special rights" to homosexuals and was a "threat to the traditional family". It doesn't matter WHAT we call it, if it grants legal standing to same-sex couples conservatives will oppose it as being a threat to the traditional family.



Cheers

LF
About Marriage
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