The moral elite

Posted on June 3, 2009 by Michael

“Elite” is a term that generally gets bandied about when someone is stupid. Obama was elite and McCain and Palin were Real America. In other words, they were amazingly stupid and Obama was intelligent. This applies to many conservative-liberal dynamics. So in essence, this dynamic changes the definition of elite. Put bluntly, it makes faux connotations to a word which is a positive attribute or characteristic. Unfortuntely, I’m going to delve into this bastardization of the English language, too.

We have a moral elite in the world. They are the righteous religious, the men and women (but mostly men) who believe they are right because they have always been told by their dogma they are right. In truth, they are moral scum. In 2008 campaign rhetoric, they are the most elite of the elite.

We recently had the killing of the abortion doctor in Kansas. The irony should not be lost on anyone. A pro-life man killed someone. In reality, he was actually pro-some-life. He went about picking and choosing. Religion is the engine which allows this. It is the wrong model for morality. It allows – nay, often encourages – itself to be subverted for evil. If it isn’t actively advocating for evil acts (i.e., telling people to murder rape victims), then it’s propping itself up for people to be immoral. The abortion doctor was killed because a religious man believed he was defending life. Religion leads to this conclusion, unavoidably.

Locally, religion has been a motivator in my hometown. A few years back we had a lingerie shop with live models. Women stood in the window downtown and showed off some underwear. Small acts of vandalism against the owner eventually built up to the slashing of her tires. She soon moved to another part of the state out of fear bred by religion. Years later another business opened up with the same idea, though with a focus on latex. Given that reality has a huge liberal bias, people apparently recognized that window models harm no one. It turns out the religious motivations were wrong. Again.

Now we have this incident. A man opened up a topless coffee shop in the next town over. He had plans of opening a stripclub, but recently announced he planned on just having dancing waittresses (pending board approval), sans the alcohol and lap dances. Sure enough, we have an act of vandalism. I use that word very, very lightly. In truth, this was an act of arson. A person, ‘morally’ motivated, burned down a building because it housed harmless activity of which he or she did not approve. The culprit is still unknown, but is there any doubt religion has its filthy hand in this?

Oh, and just to make matters worse:

An ambulance crew from Belfast was driving by at around 1:00 a.m. and spotted the fire. They woke the building’s occupants, which included owner Donald Crabtree, four other adults and two four-month old babies. They all got out safely.

Religion makes people do inane, dangerous things for which there is no secular basis.

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Finally, a little victory

Posted on May 28, 2009 by Michael

Creationist dentists Don McLeroy’s confirmation failed. He’s apparently still on the school board, damaging education as much as he possibly can, but he is no longer the chairman.

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Drugs

Posted on May 3, 2009 by Michael

Is this surprising at all?

The question is, does the new policy work? At the time, critics in the poor, socially conservative and largely Catholic nation said decriminalizing drug possession would open the country to “drug tourists” and exacerbate Portugal’s drug problem; the country had some of the highest levels of hard-drug use in Europe. But the recently released results of a report commissioned by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, suggest otherwise.

The paper, published by Cato in April, found that in the five years after personal possession was decriminalized, illegal drug use among teens in Portugal declined and rates of new HIV infections caused by sharing of dirty needles dropped, while the number of people seeking treatment for drug addiction more than doubled.

“Judging by every metric, decriminalization in Portugal has been a resounding success,” says Glenn Greenwald, an attorney, author and fluent Portuguese speaker, who conducted the research. “It has enabled the Portuguese government to manage and control the drug problem far better than virtually every other Western country does.”

This is no surprise. Making criminals out of people who aren’t criminals will cost you money, not manage any actual problems, and, well, create criminals. That is what the U.S. prison system’s goal has become. There is no interest in humans, just procedure.

Compared to the European Union and the U.S., Portugal’s drug use numbers are impressive. Following decriminalization, Portugal had the lowest rate of lifetime marijuana use in people over 15 in the E.U.: 10%. The most comparable figure in America is in people over 12: 39.8%. Proportionally, more Americans have used cocaine than Portuguese have used marijuana.

The Cato paper reports that between 2001 and 2006 in Portugal, rates of lifetime use of any illegal drug among seventh through ninth graders fell from 14.1% to 10.6%; drug use in older teens also declined. Lifetime heroin use among 16-to-18-year-olds fell from 2.5% to 1.8% (although there was a slight increase in marijuana use in that age group). New HIV infections in drug users fell by 17% between 1999 and 2003, and deaths related to heroin and similar drugs were cut by more than half. In addition, the number of people on methadone and buprenorphine treatment for drug addiction rose to 14,877 from 6,040, after decriminalization, and money saved on enforcement allowed for increased funding of drug-free treatment as well.

At every turn, decriminalization works for society as a whole. Things like this are why Europe is lightyears ahead of the U.S.

I’ve never personally tried any drugs beyond the (very) occasional drink or celebratory cigar (which was pointless), so I can’t say I have a direct personal interest in decriminalization, but I certainly have a very slightly less direct interest. Namely, I pay taxes. I’d rather not pay the government to create criminals which help to support mobs, gangs, pimps, and other nefarious individuals and groups.

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Good call

Posted on April 23, 2009 by Michael

Another anti-science Bush position falls.

The Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday it would accept, not appeal, a federal judge’s order that lifts Bush administration restrictions limiting over-the-counter sales of “Plan B” to women 18 and older. U.S. District Judge Edward Korman ruled last month in a lawsuit filed in New York that President George W. Bush’s appointees let politics, not science, drive their decision to restrict over-the-counter access.

This is good news. Bush’s wholly wrong politics were harming what should have been yet another good result of good science.

Plan B is emergency contraception that contains a high dose of birth control drugs and will not interfere with an established pregnancy. It works by preventing ovulation or fertilization. In medical terms, pregnancy begins when a fertilized egg attaches itself to the wall of the uterus.

If taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex, it can reduce a woman’s chances of pregnancy by as much as 89 percent.

Critics of the contraceptive say Plan B is the equivalent of an abortion pill because it can prevent a fertilized egg from attaching to the uterus. Recent research suggests that’s possible but not likely.

Plan B prevents fertilization. Abortion is defined as acting after fertilization. For instance, God should be known as the number 1 abortionists by those who believe he exists.

Conservatives, as usual, get this wrong. They suggest that this is about parental rights while, again, asserting an exalted state of reverence for a grouping of a few differeniated cells. I personally think the walking, breathing, thinking, highly conscious women should have rights, not a couple cells, but hey, I’m just reasonable. I know that isn’t the conservative motif.

In reality, parents should have no place in making these decisions with their children who are of age to have sex. The state says they’re responsible enough to do that, then they must be responsible enough to deal with all the surrounding factors that come with it. Of course, going beyond that, this medicine is approved for over-the-counter use. As long as parents have no say in their children’s ability to buy Tylenol, they should have no say in their ability to buy Plan B.

Opponents, including prominent conservatives, counter that it would encourage promiscuity and might even become a tool for criminals running prostitution rings, as well as for sexual predators.

These people are eminently stupid. Let’s ban condoms, the pill, and the pull-out method, too. Clearly, the pimp business should dictate science.

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Petty revenge in Germany

Posted on April 14, 2009 by Michael

Germany is once again acting out of revenge, not reason or rationality.

The return of alleged Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk to Germany for trial on war crimes was delayed again Tuesday by a federal court, shortly after six immigration officers removed the retired autoworker from his suburban Cleveland home in a wheelchair.

A three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay until it could further consider Demjanjuk’s motion to reopen the U.S. case that ordered him deported, in which he says painful medical ailments would make travel to Germany torturous.

…

“If he is deported, if this madness and inhumane action is not stopped by the 6th Circuit, he will live out his life in a (German) hospital. He will never be put on trial,” he said. “It makes absolutely no sense that the Germans, after nearly killing him in combat, would try to kill him once again.”

The Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Center said it was undeterred.

“We remain confident that John Demjanjuk will be deported and finally face the bar of justice for the unspeakable crimes he committed during World War II when he was a guard at the Sobibor death camp,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier, Wiesenthal Center founder.

This absolutely is not about making someone “finally face the bar of justice” for anything. It is purely about revenge. This man may very well have done horrific things to many thousands of people, but putting him on trial and imprisoning him for the last few years of his life does nothing. It does not increase the safety of others. If the point of a judicial system is to simply punish, then we’re just being euphemistic about a desire for revenge.

People should only be brought to justice if doing that serves some actual purpose. If the ‘purpose’ is simply for the sake of justice, then there is no real reason beside either rule internalization or revenge. (It’s revenge in this case.) People need to rise above this pettiness – no matter how emotionally difficult – and work from principles. Anger, distress, sadness, and other emotions just take the blindfold off Lady Justice and threw dust and grime in her eyes.

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Beautiful Hubble image

Posted on April 12, 2009 by Michael

It completely slipped my mind that the winner of the Hubble contest had been released until I saw the absurd number of searches for “Hubble” on my stats page. The winner is ARP 274.

On April 1-2, the Hubble Space Telescope photographed the winning target in the Space Telescope Science Institute’s ‘You Decide’ competition in celebration of the International Year of Astronomy (IYA).

The winner is a group of galaxies called Arp 274. The striking object received 67,021 votes out of the nearly 140,000 votes cast for the six candidate targets.

Arp 274, also known as NGC 5679, is a system of three galaxies that appear to be partially overlapping in the image, although they may be at somewhat different distances. The spiral shapes of two of these galaxies appear mostly intact. The third galaxy (to the far left) is more compact, but shows evidence of star formation.

Two of the three galaxies are forming new stars at a high rate. This is evident in the bright blue knots of star formation that are strung along the arms of the galaxy on the right and along the small galaxy on the left.

The largest component is located in the middle of the three. It appears as a spiral galaxy, which may be barred. The entire system resides at about 400 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Virgo.

Hubble’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 was used to image Arp 274. Blue, visible and infrared filters were combined with a filter that isolates hydrogen emission. The colors in this image reflect the intrinsic color of the different stellar populations that make up the galaxies. Yellowish older stars can be seen in the central bulge of each galaxy. A bright central cluster of stars pinpoint each nucleus. Younger blue stars trace the spiral arms, along with pinkish nebulae that are illuminated by new star formation. Interstellar dust is silhouetted against the starry population. A pair of foreground stars inside our own Milky Way are at far right.

The International Year of Astronomy is the celebration of the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s first observations with a telescope. People around the world came together to participate in the IYA’s 100 Hours of Astronomy, April 2 to 5. This global astronomy event was geared toward encouraging as many people as possible to experience the night sky.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and M. Livio and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

ARP 274

ARP 274

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More victory

Posted on April 7, 2009 by Michael

The conservatives get knocked down – hard – and all of a sudden, bigotry starts to peel away.

Vermont on Tuesday became the fourth state to legalize gay marriage — and the first to do so with a legislature’s vote.

The House recorded a dramatic 100-49 vote, the minimum needed, to override Gov. Jim Douglas’ veto. Its vote followed a much easier override vote in the Senate, which rebuffed the Republican governor with a vote of 23-5.

Douglas called override “not unexpected.” He had called the issue of gay marriage a distraction during a time when economic and budget issues were more important.

If this is a distraction, that means it must be taking valuable time away from other, pressing issues. So why did Gov. Douglas veto the legislation? That means that all the work done to get it to him in the first place was wasted. Of course, one could argue that a bill coming to him is largely beyond his control. But he claims he expected an override. In other words, he knew what he was doing was going to take up more time while 123 total non-bigots fixed his error in moral judgement.

“What really disappoints me is that we have spent some time on an issue during which another thousand Vermonters have lost their jobs,” the governor said Tuesday. “We need to turn out attention to balancing a budget without raising taxes, growing the economy, putting more people to work.”

More stable couples help to grow the economy. Idiot.

Among the celebrants in the lobby were former Rep. Robert Dostis, D-Waterbury, and his longtime partner, Chuck Kletecka. Dostis recalled efforts to expand gay rights dating to an anti-discrimination law passed in 1992.

“It’s been a very long battle. It’s been almost 20 years to get to this point,” Dostis said. “I think finally, most people in Vermont understand that we’re a couple like any other couple. We’re as good and as bad as any other group of people. And now I think we have a chance to prove ourselves here on forward that we’re good members of our community.”

I have to disagree with the notion that any married couple needs to prove themselves to anyone. This is about principles of equality. If they are contigent upon being good members of a community, they are not principles.

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Your kid is a reflection of you

Posted on April 7, 2009 by Michael

It looks like Huntington, Virginia may be losing its title of most disgusting place in America. The new title holder will be…the rest of America.

A striking new study says almost 1 in 5 American 4-year-olds is obese, and the rate is alarmingly higher among American Indian children, with nearly a third of them obese. Researchers were surprised to see differences by race at so early an age.

Overall, more than half a million 4-year-olds are obese, the study suggests. Obesity is more common in Hispanic and black youngsters, too, but the disparity is most startling in American Indians, whose rate is almost double that of whites.

The lead author said that rate is worrisome among children so young, even in a population at higher risk for obesity because of other health problems and economic disadvantages.

“Economic disadvantages” is the biggest cop-out. It is wholly possible to eat healthy without spending a load of money on food. Beside that, it’s really quite easy for most people to go for a fucking walk, even if they do decide to have that diarrhea-inducing chalupa from Taco Bell.

Dr. Glenn Flores, a pediatrics and public health professor at University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, said the research is an important contribution to studies documenting racial and ethnic disparities in children’s weight.

“The cumulative evidence is alarming because within just a few decades, America will become a ‘minority majority’ nation,” he said. Without interventions, the next generation “will be at very high risk” for heart disease, high blood pressure, cancers, joint diseases and other problems connected with obesity, said Flores, who was not involved in the new research.

The thing is, the numbers released are alarming no matter the ethnicity or race. They are all absurd. No 4 year old should be obese. In fact, no person without an uncontrollable medical condition should be remotely close to obese.

Willingly fat and obese people are immoral monsters. They are willfully throwing away a human life due to laziness. This is hardly any different from being able to prevent a person from being shot in the face but deciding that the re-run of Seinfeld is just too good to pass up. Both instances are wastes of human lives due to being a lazy fuck-up. Overweight people who do not put forth any effort to become healthy and thus save a human life (their own) deserve absolutely no respect. These people should be helped as much as possible until it becomes clear they have no desire to be good individuals. At that point, they deserve all the scorn we would give an attempted murderer. If they die due to their obesity – without ever having attempted a healthy lifestyle – they deserve to be remembered as killers.

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Another victory

Posted on April 3, 2009 by Michael

People who aren’t blatant, proud bigots got another victory.

Iowa’s Supreme Court legalized gay marriage Friday in a unanimous and emphatic decision that makes Iowa the third state — and first in the nation’s heartland — to allow same-sex couples to wed.

Iowa joins only Massachusetts and Connecticut in permitting same-sex marriage. For six months last year, California’s high court allowed gay marriage before voters banned it in November.

The Iowa justices upheld a lower-court ruling that rejected a state law restricting marriage to a union between a man and woman.

The county attorney who defended the law said he would not seek a rehearing. The only recourse for opponents appeared to be a constitutional amendment, which could take years to ratify.

“We are firmly convinced the exclusion of gay and lesbian people from the institution of civil marriage does not substantially further any important governmental objective,” the Supreme Court wrote.

I guess Iowa isn’t part of “real America” anymore.

This is very good. Religious bigots oppose gay marriage because they believe their sexual desires are superior to those of others. They have no good reasons for such inane beliefs. They have no place in the ever-increasing morality of an ever-increasing secular culture.

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Troopers troopers

Posted on April 1, 2009 by Michael

I have updates for two previous posts. The first is about that Dallas cop – Robert Powell – that stopped a family from seeing their dying relative. He pulled a gun on these people. Think about that: a vehicle slowly runs red lights, puts on its hazards, and pulls into a hospital parking lot. What’s your first thought? Well, if you’re normal, it’s that there’s an emergency. If you’re an almost surely racist, hillbilly cop, it’s to pull a gun out on t’em t’ere niggers. That’s what Powell did, among other things. He has resigned.

“I made this decision in the hope that my resignation will allow the Dallas Police Department, my fellow officers and the citizens of Dallas to better reflect on this experience, learn from the mistakes made, and move forward,” Powell said in a statement issued through his lawyers.

No, he wants to ease his legal situation as best as possible and he knows he’s going to be fired anyway. Understandable move, but he’s lying.

My second update is about my run-in with some officer at the Augusta Police Department who had no idea how the Maine Freedom of Information Access Act works. The Capital Weekly (a local, weekly paper) has asked me to do a first person write-up of the incident. It will not be kind to the offending officer – Lt. J. Christopher Read.

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