When they say Biden had a gaffe…

Posted on December 24, 2010 by Michael

…what everyone really means is he said something true that a lot of people don’t want to hear.

Vice President Joe Biden predicted Friday the evolution in thinking that will permit gays to soon serve openly in the military eventually will bring about a national consensus for same-sex marriage.

Changes in attitudes by military leaders, those in the service and the public allowed the repeal by Congress of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, Biden noted in a nationally broadcast interview on Christmas eve.

“I think the country’s evolving,” he said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.:” And I think you’re going to see, you know, the next effort is probably going to be to deal with so-called DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act). He said he agreed with Obama that his position in gay marriage is “evolving.”

Here are the basic facts that support Biden:

  • The U.S. Constitution does not give the states or feds the ability to discriminate against gays as a group.
  • The U.S. Constitution, in fact, bans such discrimination.
  • The point of marriage as sanctioned by the government is to provide a framework of rights to two individuals.
  • As more and more people come out as gay, more and more people realize that they never had anything to fear.
  • Christianity is losing its grip. I mean, let’s not get crazy and feed into the persecution complex so common among Christians: the religion is still extremely strong and to be a Christian in America is to have an overall advantage in so many ways (sort of like how being white is an overall advantage).

    • But it hasn’t the grip it once did.

  • Old people tend to be bigots at a higher rate than young people. They also tend to die at a much higher rate. And if we add 1 and 1…

Now sit back and wait for the bigot organizations to use Biden’s statements as a source of fear; they’ll use his words to try and thwart lesser efforts than gay marriage, all the while claiming that their concern is to prevent a slippery slope to equality in marriage. Of course, that will be one of their concerns, but their bigger concern will be to prevent gays from enjoying any civil rights whatsoever.

Filed under: News, Rights | Tagged: , , , , , | 4 Comments »

Another two quick things

Posted on December 24, 2010 by Michael

First, I was recently discussing with a friend Sean Penn’s movie “Milk”, an excellent film about civil rights activist Harvey Milk. One of the points Penn’s character made again and again was that in order to advance equality for gays was (and is) to get people to realize that they know and care for someone who is gay. Once people know that anti-gay stances actually hurt real human beings, they will be less likely to cause harm to others (such as through voting against civil rights measures for gays).

And it’s true.

Watch the movie. Like I say about “Brokeback Mountain”, even people who don’t like gays can appreciate this film for its qualities as a piece of art.

Second, I’m interested to give a listen to the new stuff Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic have in the works.

According to a report by Spin Magazine, the surviving members of Nirvana regrouped for the first time in more than a decade at a “secret” Foo Fighters show in Los Angeles on Tuesday night. Of course, being that Nirvana was officially just a trio, all that means is that Foo Fighters’ frontman Dave Grohl (pictured) was joined by original Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic. However, the duo were also joined by Nirvana’s touring guitarist Pat Smear. Grohl, who sings and plays guitar for the Foos, played drums for Nirvana. The hugely influential group disbanded in 1994 following leader Kurt Cobain’s suicide.

To those paying close attention, Tuesday night’s reunion, while unexpected, should come as little surprise — it’s been widely reported that Grohl recently employed his old bassist’s services for a track which will appear on the new, forthcoming Foo Fighters album. That album, incidentally, is also being produced by Butch Vig, who masterminded Nirvana’s 1991 seminal breakthrough, ‘Nevermind.’

While the Foo Fighters used the intimate show to showcase some of their new material, the short Nirvana segment saw Novoselic and Smear join Grohl on stage to perform ‘Marigold’ — originally a b-side for the hit single ‘Heart Shaped Box,’ it’s the only original composition that Grohl contributed to Nirvana. While many celebrities were allegedly spotted in the audience, we’re guessing that Courtney Love was not one of them.

I am not, however, excited that Pat Smear is involved. He really hurt a lot of the vocals on many of Nirvana’s live songs.

Anyway. Here’s “Marigold”.

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Thought of the day

Posted on December 22, 2010 by Michael

The power of science has never been matched in human endeavors.

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I love Ricky Gervais

Posted on December 22, 2010 by Michael

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The dishonest fool

Posted on December 22, 2010 by Michael

I really didn’t want to make another post about this guy. Really. I promise. But I can’t stand dishonesty. And I literally have never encountered a more fundamentally dishonest person than Jack Hudson. I don’t need to recount the details; we’ve seen it before from this guy. I’m just going to quickly point out what happened, show you the evidence, and move on.

I recently made a post where the Catholic Church said it prefers that a real, living human being face certain death rather than let doctors do the ethical thing and end a sure-to-be-deadly pregnancy. The Church disassociated itself from an Arizona hospital as a result. I would have just ignored the incident if it didn’t constitute a textbook case of Double Effect. But since I love philosophy (having recently completed all the credits needed for the part of my degree that is in it), I felt compelled to write about it.

What I also felt compelled to do was link back to a post by Jack where he completely misunderstood a basic-as-hell thought experiment known as the Trolley Problem. He claimed that one issue with the thought experiment was that it was unrealistic. In fact, he said it all really came down to a logistical problem. Anyone familiar with philosophical thought experiments knows they often are supposed to be unrealistic. The big point is to see how far we’re willing to go with our ethical positions and theories. And anyone specifically familiar with the Trolley Problem knows logistics has nothing to do with it. This doesn’t even rise to the stuff of Phi 101.

And what was Jack’s response to the link-back? Well, I’ve outed him for a lot of his dishonest doings, including when he became upset over a public Facebook discussion and texted my cousin dozens of times. It’s only natural that he has an interest in people not finding their way back to my blog from his. (Let’s ignore that 15-30% of his blog hits have come from FTSOS in the first place.) So his first response was to delete the pingback that showed up on his blog from here. Fine. I expected that, it’s his blog, and it isn’t important. But his next action? He deleted every single one of his posts where we had discussed his philosophical shortcomings.

But you say, “Drats, Michael! You claim he deleted all his posts, but how do we know that’s true?” Well, I’m glad you asked. As it turns out, he put my comments in moderation, failing to or choosing not to delete them. (I’m sure they’ll disappear quickly – I’ve got the screen shots.) What this means is that while Jack’s readers are unable to see anything, all my posts are still visible to me. And here’s the proof.

The circled part in the second picture is where I was quoting Jack when he claimed that the Trolley Problem was one of logistics. And in case anyone has any trouble reading it:

You are actually confusing a moral problem with a logistical problem, as I said before – it would be morally right to save everyone if it were in my power to do so. It would be morally evil to intentionally harm people – logistically I do what I can to help as many people as possible, and as one person is intent on hanging out on a train track where he has the possibility of getting hit by a train, he gets harmed in my attempt to help others.

I guess the entire field of philosophy has been confused on this one for about 35 years. Thank goodness Jack Hudson rolled on up to let us all know where the error stood.

Okay, so maybe this wasn’t the quick post I promised, but it needs to be here. As I said, I can’t stand dishonesty. But I like to think I’m a pretty nice guy, so I’m going to give Jack the same advice I gave a certain ‘doctor’ about a million times (I just hope it takes for Jack): If you stop doing dishonest things, I will stop making a spectacle of them. It’s really that simple. Just as with that ‘doctor’, my posts are responses. Don’t like them? Then don’t give me anything to which to respond.

This isn’t that hard.

Update: With the weird exception of the comments in moderation (thanks for making it easy to expose your lies, Jack!), it appears that Jack Censorship Hudson has actually deleted all my posts (or at least all I have checked). As a prize, here are some of the things Jack Dishonest Hudson (he wears many hats) has said.

On making physical threats over a joke:

You know Michael, I almost never feel compelled to deal with anyone physically, but you are very lucky your puny little bank teller body is in Maine, because i would kick your butt from one side of the room to the other if you said that to my face. Of course you wouldn’t because you are a coward.

Jack Dishonest Hudson later claimed that he never makes personal attacks. I’m pretty sure threatening to physically attack someone counts as a “personal”.

On a family member of mine (read each line as being separate from the next):

I mean Ty is a pitiable figure who incites disgust and perhaps some concern about his mental stability,

It appears this is a pathetic bid for publicity for your failing comedy career

Oh, and anytime you are in Minnesota (not that anyone here would be so incredibly stupid to hire you) – stop on by, and we will have a little talk about who the coward is here.

What people would I have that would want to call a pathetic drug addled excuse for a comedian?

Tyler is a Chris Farley wanna-be, except not as funny, and not nearly in as good a shape.

Fact is, it doesn’t matter, because since he couldn’t afford to come to Minnesota anyway – and he would have to figure out where it is. So I am not too worried, and the fact that you are concerned about humanism while enabling your cousin’s lifestyle is fiairly pathetic.

Dream on Chris Farley, dream on.

So Ty, I have always heard the best comedy is the product of lonliness and poverty. Is that a myth, or are you just an exception to that rule?

So, given all the incredible accomplishments in your life, to what do you attribute the current need to don a clown suit and work the neighborhood birthday parties?

Two things. First, Jack Dishonest Hudson made a claim in that same thread that he was civil. I guess he couldn’t access dictionary.com that day. Second, what I really hated about the direction of that whole debacle was the chest-thumping contest Jack Insecure Hudson was trying to have. Aside from it being an awful show of school yard boyishness, it wasn’t even credible. If you don’t work out, if you aren’t in shape, if you don’t regularly play sports, and you’re middle aged, you are not healthy enough to show any young whippersnapper what’s-what. And I say that out of a disdain for the immorality of not trying to be healthy, not from the well of immaturity from which Jack LittleKid Hudson was drawing that day.

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Barney Frank embarrasses conservative reporter

Posted on December 22, 2010 by Michael

Barney Frank has a habit of embarrassing people who ask him bad questions. For example, take this gem:

Now he has another great moment. This time he humiliates an amateur (or at least amateurish) reporter who thought Frank might be caught when asked about gay men showering together in the military now that DADT has been repealed.

The Distinguished Gentleman from Massachusetts, our favorite defender of the “radical homosexual agenda,” immediately goes on the offensive and dismisses the question with mock horror and then says that gay men and straight men have already been showering together for years, including when “don’t ask, don’t tell” was in effect. Can we finally put this lame defense to rest for good now?

This little account doesn’t do the exchange justice. Click the link below to take a look at the video.

Barney Frank Makes a Fool Out of Conservative Reporter Over 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'

I actually feel bad for the reporter. Not because he got logically eviscerated; I’m happy that happened. I just feel bad that he is so awful at his job.

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Jon Stewart passes 9/11 First Responders bill

Posted on December 22, 2010 by Michael

Because let’s be honest, it was Jon Stewart who got everyone’s ass in gear.

The 9/11 legislation provides money for monitoring and treating illnesses related to Ground Zero and reopens a victims’ compensation fund for another five years to cover wage and other economic losses of sickened workers and nearby residents. Schumer and Gillibrand had sought $6.2 billion and keeping the compensation fund open for 10 years.

They ended up getting $4.2 billion. Good for them and even better for the 9/11 First Responders. I’m glad the Republicans backed down on their opposition to giving health care to anyone.

In other great news, the bill repealing DADT has been signed by President Obama.

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Catholic Church: Double Effect is wrong

Posted on December 21, 2010 by Michael

Well, they didn’t really say that. But they effectively stated as much when they stripped an Arizona hospital of its affiliation with the church.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix stripped a major hospital of its affiliation with the church Tuesday because of a surgery that ended a woman’s pregnancy to save her life.

Bishop Thomas Olmsted called the 2009 procedure an abortion and said St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center — recognized internationally for its neurology and neurosurgery practices — violated ethical and religious directives of the national Conference of Catholic Bishops.

In fact, the woman was virtually guaranteed to die if she continued to carry the 11 week old fetus much longer. Now keep that in mind:

Double effect is the ethical principle which says something is ethical so long as it conforms to these four conditions:

1. The nature-of-the-act condition. The action must be either morally good or indifferent.
2. The means-end condition. The bad effect must not be the means by which one achieves the good effect.
3. The right-intention condition. The intention must be the achieving of only the good effect, with the bad effect being only an unintended side effect.
4. The proportionality condition. The good effect must be at least equivalent in importance to the bad effect.

This case in Arizona is textbook. The first condition is satisfied because the act was to save the mother’s life. The second condition is satisfied because the means is the removal of a physical condition, not the explicit murder of another person. The third condition is satisfied because the doctors only want to save the mother’s life, not destroy the fetus. The fourth condition is satisfied because even if the fetus is a human, the mother’s life must be equally considered.

In fact, double effect isn’t really important here because the fetus is not a human being, but I digress.

The church stripped the hospital of its status (and, really, that’s a good thing anyway) because it thinks the woman should have risked certain death (which isn’t really a risk, now is it?). We know the end result would be the death of her and her fetus. How that is considered good is a mystery.

And that raises another point, doesn’t it? What methodology, what guidelines, what anything does the Bible (or any holy book) offer in this situation? One person unfamiliar with basic, classic philosophical examples couldn’t come up with an answer. (In fact, he might say the problem here was just logistics.) It doesn’t look like the Catholic Church has an answer either.

It’s unfortunate that the hospital says it will still follow Catholic Church guidelines (not Biblical guidelines…since they do not exist), but this is an overall good incident. While I hate to see the sort of irrational arguments that say the saving of one life is really just abortion of another, it’s fantastic that the Church has severed its formal ties with an institution committed to actually helping people. I hope that whenever necessary the hospital will not hesitate to continue saving living humans.

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Can I call a bigot a bigot?

Posted on December 21, 2010 by Michael

Because I’m thinking about writing a letter to the editor in response to this bigot.

In a Dec. 12 column, Richard Connor criticizes Sen. John McCain for opposing repeal of the military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy on homosexuality and writes it “has outlived its usefulness” and that “We need to do away with it.”

To justify his position, Connor writes about “cultural and social changes” and advancing gay marriage. Political correctness run amok.

Social acceptance doesn’t necessarily make something right. Furthermore, a behavior that is socially acceptable in a civilian environment does not necessarily make it right in a military environment.

Can anyone imagine the military maintaining unisex sleeping quarters and unisex bathing facilities with group showers? I cannot.

Similarly, I cannot imagine homosexuals serving openly in the military. A barracks will house 80-plus men and have group bathrooms and showers. As I can’t image a military environment where men and women take group showers because animal instincts may surface, I cannot image the military maintaining group showers where men with a known sexual attraction for men taking group showers with men.

What I write may invite the PC police to charge me with homophobia and intolerance. In my defense, I love the relatives I have who are gay and the gays I know in business.

They know I don’t agree with their lifestyle, but to love someone does not mean you have to agree with them. True love is often tough love and means having to tell those you love the truth.

Failure to practice tough love in our families may have contributed to the growth and social acceptance of homosexuality in society. I don’t believe homosexuality is normal. I believe it is a personal choice from someone who has tasted the proverbial forbidden fruit. Society’s sexual preferences don’t justify overhauling military standards.

Harold Alexander

Augusta

I also find “dolt” to be a fair and accurate label.

Let’s do this one quickly, shall we?

  • Being gay does not mean being obsessed with sex or unable to control sexual desires. Assumptions like that is how we get those horribly bigoted comparisons of gays to pedophiles. And “animal instincts”? How sexually immature is Harold Alexander? While where evolution and taxonomy are concerned I have to agree we absolutely are animals (though I’m not so sure about the instincts part), we have the ability to be rational and critical and thoughtful.
  • Does this guy really think that gay sex in showers is going to be an issue? I don’t really see anyone trying that, much less getting away with it.
  • No, Alexander does not love the gays he knows. If he did, he wouldn’t try to make their lives worse. I’ll grant that he sorta, kinda, maybe loves them. A little.
  • Gays have loving families.
  • No one wakes up and decides one day, “Gee, I think I’m going to start liking people with the same genitalia I have. That will surely make my life better. And probably socially easier…right? Right.”
  • What justifies overhauling military standards is the exhaustive study that found that most service members are fine with the repeal of DADT. And let’s not forget the 13,500 qualified individuals who have been kicked out – only to the detriment of the effectiveness of the U.S. military.

Filed under: Politics and Social, Rights | Tagged: , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Two quick things:

Posted on December 21, 2010 by Michael

First, I find it hilarious that conservatives are still whining about the child nutrition bill that was recently passed. Some jamoke filling in for the odious Glenn Beck said on the radio today that the bill takes control from the hands of parents, apparently countering a debate point that said otherwise. He’s wrong. The bill prevents kids from being able to buy as much crap at school. This empowers good parents who give their children lunch money for the purpose of buying substantial food, not snacks and soda. The only people who are having their control restricted are kids who want to buy junk. And if any crappy parents want to fill their kids with fat, they can buy it themselves. The government is not required to provide shitty food to children. Oh, and the bill also does all these other great things:

• The bill expands eligibility for lunch programs and sets nutrition standards for school meals.

• It is the first increase in school lunch funding since 1973.

• The act will allocate an additional $4.5 billion over 10 years to school meal programs, boosting the federal reimbursement rate for school lunches by 6 percent. Maine would receive about $1.1 million annually.

• The number of children eligible for those school meals will increase.

• The U.S. Department of Agriculture will use Medicaid data to certify students who meet income requirements, providing 115,000 new children with meals, and census data to determine schoolwide income eligibility.

• The act will allow program providers, such as day-care centers, at-risk after-school programs and emergency shelters, to be reimbursed for providing after-school meals.

• The act will allow the USDA to set nutrition standards for all school meals and require schools to make nutritional information readily available to parents.

Oh, the horror.

Second, it looks like the New START treaty with Russia is going to pass when it comes to a vote.

Eleven Republicans joined Democrats in a 67-28 proxy vote to wind up the debate and hold a final tally on Wednesday. They broke ranks with the Senate’s top two Republicans and were poised to give Obama a win on his top foreign policy priority.

“We know when we’ve been beaten,” Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah told reporters hours before the vote.

I’m just glad Obama doesn’t trust Russia as much as the Republicans do.

This one is really a no-brainer. In fact, as anyone who has bothered following this story knows, these treaties routinely get passed without much fuss; everyone recognizes that they are necessary and good. The only reason this one has become an issue is because Republicans either simply don’t want to give Obama any sort of victory or they want to wait until they hold power in the House and are stronger in the Senate so they can pass it and claim at least partial credit. It’s political pettiness run amok.

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