No highway through the Serengeti

Posted on January 13, 2011 by Michael

The Tanzanian government has plans to build a road through the Serengeti. And it sounds like it’s going to be pretty ugly. But the only reason I even know about this is that someone wrote a letter to the editor of my local paper.

Why can’t we leave anything alone? Why put a major highway through the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania?

Majestic animals such as elephants, wildebeests and zebras, use this region as their major means of getting around. The plains have been here for millions of years without human interference.

Why change it? These animals will be killed daily if a road is put through there. Let alone human life. I don’t believe you can run an elephant over and live to tell about it.

I don’t believe for one minute that God wants this to happen, either.

In America, we have taken most of the woodlands away from our animals, including moose and deer, and we wonder why these animals move into town. Then we end up killing the animals because they are interfering with humans.

Children often pay the price because they are easy targets for predators. This is not fair to the animals. Please leave the Serengeti alone.

Beverly Brickett

Manchester

I agree with the writer, though I’m not sure what any of this is doing in a letter to the editor of a Maine newspaper.

But she’s right in her sentiment (as for facts…well, I doubt there will be a lot of dead elephants on the side of the road). There is no good reason for destroying a place as special as the Serengeti. It seems to me the money allocated to a road project could be better spent on all that abject poverty I saw during my time in Tanzania.

But maybe I’m just crazy.

Filed under: Local | Tagged: , , , , | 12 Comments »

Thought of the day

Posted on January 13, 2011 by Michael

We may not be able to stop all evil in the world, but I know that how we treat one another is entirely up to us.

~President Obama

Filed under: Misc | Tagged: , | 1 Comment »

The rising cost of cancer

Posted on January 12, 2011 by Michael

Cancer costs more and more every year for a couple of key reasons. First, people are always getting tested and diagnosed at higher rates. This is a big reason why cancer rates were seemingly so low just 100 years ago. Second, cancer is most prevalent as we age. As the baby boomers grow older, we are going to find more and more incidences of cancer. (There are, of course, more reasons, including inflation and other economic factors.)

Government researchers have recently figured several estimates for the cost of cancer care in 2020. They include:

* Using data from a 2005 national database, the team estimated medical costs associated with cancer were $127.6 billion in 2010.

* Assuming stable costs and survival rates, cancer costs will reach $158 billion in 2020.

* If the costs of cancer diagnostic tests and treatments rise 2 percent per year, the cost of treating cancer could rise to $173 billion by 2020.

* If treatment costs rise 5 percent per year, treating cancer in the United States could jump to $207 billion a year.

* In 2010, breast cancer was the most costly to treat at an estimated $16.5 billion, followed by colorectal cancer at $14 billion, lymphoma at $12 billion, lung cancer at $12 billion and prostate cancer at $12 billion.

* If cancer incidence and survival rates remain stable, the number of cancer survivors in 2020 will increase by 31 percent to about 18.1 million.

* Because of the aging of the U.S. population, the largest increase in cancer survivors over the next 10 years will be among Americans age 65 and older.

Short of a cure, the best way we can reduce these numbers will be to do all we can to avoid known carcinogens. That means doing everything we can to limit smoking. (I favor an outright ban.) It means discouraging tanning booths. (I favor an outright ban.) It means encouraging people to use sunscreen. (A requirement would be far from anything practical, thus I do not favor it.) It means getting kids to eat healthier. It means getting adults to eat healthier. It means doing a whole lot of things we all know we ought to be doing.

I expect a continued rise in costs.

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Blood libel

Posted on January 12, 2011 by Michael

After claiming her rhetoric has nothing to do with violence – one wonders why she took down her violent images and tweets, no? – Sarah Palin has gone and done something else stupid.

Sarah Palin today accused her opponents of manufacturing a “blood libel” by suggesting her rhetoric and campaign tactics had anything to do with the Arizona shootings.

…

Palin’s bizarre use of language is sure to provoke further controversy. A blood libel refers to a notorious passage in St Matthew where Jews said of the crucifixion: “Let his blood be on our heads.” Later it referred to a medieval myth that Jews killed Christian children as part of a religious ritual. Giffords is Arizona’s first Jewish congresswoman.

I’m more than willing to admit a lack of familiarity with the term “blood libel” before now. But then, I’m not the one using it in a rhetorically correct, but politically horrendous fashion.

Filed under: Politics and Social | Tagged: , , | 5 Comments »

I get angry when…

Posted on January 12, 2011 by Michael

Via another blog, I have come across an old post by Greta Christina that explains so-called atheist anger. You should read the whole post.

I get angry when believers accuse atheists of being intolerant for saying things like, “I don’t agree with you,” “I think you’re mistaken about that,” “That doesn’t make any sense,” “I think that position is morally indefensible,” and “What evidence do you have to support that?”

Except instead of being called intolerant, the charge is usually “closed-minded” or even “bigoted”, the latter of which is a massive misunderstanding of what bigotry is.

Filed under: Atheism/Humanism | Tagged: , , | 1 Comment »

Tom shoots Carlos

Posted on January 12, 2011 by Michael

Four times.

A pistol-packing jogger in Florida won’t be charged for shooting and killing a teenager who attacked him during a midnight run.

Prosecutors said Tuesday they are convinced Thomas Baker acted in self defense when he fired eight shots at 18-year-old Carlos Mustelier near Tampa in November .

Prosecutors say Florida’s “stand-your-ground” law was a factor in their decision. The law, passed in 2005, gives people the right to use deadly force as long as they “reasonably believe” it is necessary to stop another person from hurting them.

Baker told police he reached for his gun when the teen punched him in the face. Baker has a concealed weapons permit.

The teen was hit four times in the chest, back and buttocks. He died at the scene.

Ignoring Florida’s shoot-first-ask-questions-later law, one has to wonder if it was a Carlos who shot a Tom if the law would be applied in the same way – especially if it was an older Tom shooting a younger Carlos. Since there were four gunshots involved, I’m guessing the law would be viewed just a little differently.

Filed under: News | Tagged: , , , , | 5 Comments »

Christians deep down

Posted on January 12, 2011 by Michael

Christians say that all we need to believe is faith. We need to have faith that God is there, that he loves us. If we let him into our hearts, he will enter and it will be glorious.

But this isn’t what Christians really believe. They aren’t motivated by their so-called love or belief in their particular, cultural god. No. What motivates them is a hatred for science and rationality and reason. They refuse to let any of these things into their minds. They don’t want to have to answer to known facts or complicated ethical problems or fundamental errors in their belief system.

Deep down Christians know there is no God. They know that science has shown the world, for all intents and purposes, to be an atheistic one. They really do know that the Universe is 13.7 billion years old, that it is governed by understandable laws, that because of quantum mechanics and a law like gravity, there must be a Universe. They really do know that life is 3.9 billion years old, that it came from a simple replicator, that the why behind life is that genes will necessarily replicate as a population so long as they are able to do so. They really do know that humans are incidental, that natural selection does not demand we ever exist, and in fact, that it says our odds of being here would virtually disappear if the tape of life were to be re-run. They really do know that all that matters is what we do with the lives we have now because these are the only lives we will ever have. They really do know that things like love and sympathy and empathy and values and morality and all those special connections so many of us have with one another are what drive our goodwill. They really do know all these things and more.

But Christians will deny. They will deny it until the very end. The idea that science and reason and rationality have prevailed – not may prevail or will prevail, but have prevailed – hits at their very core. It destroys them to know that what they fundamentally hate is king of all. As H. L. Mencken once said,

The truth that survives is simply the lie that is pleasantest to believe.

How many Christians are likely to find this post highly objectionable and wholly offensive? Perhaps all? Good. Now maybe we can stop hearing about how much atheists really deep down just hate God.

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If evolution worked like homeopathy

Posted on January 12, 2011 by Michael

via xkcd

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Thought of the day

Posted on January 12, 2011 by Michael

I’m sitting here giving quite a bit of thought to something. But I just can’t seem to find the answer. Perhaps FTSOS readers can help:

When has the right-wing ever been right about anything?

Filed under: Misc | Tagged: , | 2 Comments »

Richard “Dick” Winters dies at 92

Posted on January 11, 2011 by Michael

Major Richard “Dick” Winters, best known for his heroism in WW2, has died.

Winters began his career in the Army shortly before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, and he volunteered to become a paratrooper, according to his wartime memoirs “Beyond Band of Brothers.”

He was assigned to E Company, more commonly known as Easy Company, of the 2nd Battalion of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the Army’s 101st Airborne Division.

After months of training in the new tactic of soldiers dropping by parachute behind enemy lines, Winters and the men of Easy Company parachuted into Normandy hours before the first troops hit Omaha and Utah beaches on D-Day, June 6, 1944.

When he landed he discovered he’d lost his “leg bag,” the satchel carrying all his weapons, when he jumped out of the plane.

He was behind enemy lines on the most decisive day of World War II with nothing but a knife.

“I later discovered that in our small contingent from Easy Company, we all lost our leg bags and ended up using whatever weapons he could scrounge,” Winters wrote in his memoirs. “This was a hell of a way to begin a war.”

Still, within hours he organized a small group of troopers to attack a German artillery position. They took out nearly two dozen Nazi soldiers and four large cannons which had been firing on American troops landing on the beaches.

I find it upsetting that I am just finding this news. Winters, recently portrayed in the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers, is a notable figure and his death on January 2nd should have been more widely reported. (Another war hero, Ray Holmes, had his death reported seemingly more promptly.)

I could have gone on quoting the article to show all the tremendous feats Winters accomplished, but then I would just be re-publishing virtually every bit of it. Do read the whole thing yourself. Find out about this man.

Filed under: News | Tagged: , , , , | 2 Comments »

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