SCA conference call

Posted on September 14, 2012 by Michael

As I mentioned I would, I dialed into the Secular Coalition for America’s conference call yesterday afternoon. A good number of other people were on the line, including a few from the group Downeast Humanists (for those of you outside the state, this is the what Downeast means in Maine). A lot of what was discussed was the basic mission of SCA state chapters (lobbying), but there was also emphasis on the need for volunteers. The thing that makes any lobbying group successful is its ability to get people to pay attention; small or big, the way a group does that is with strong infrastructure and support from its people. Beside that, the bigger a talent pool we get, the better. For anyone interested in hearing the call, the SCA will have it up on the Maine page soon. If you’re really an eager beaver, an outline of the matters discussed is already up.

I’ve got to say I’m pretty excited about all this. Between the Downeast Humanists and those at Atheists of Maine, I think we’re already well positioned to get a strong grassroots movement going; it shouldn’t be long before we’re able to establish an official lobbying group.

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NYC approves soda ban

Posted on September 13, 2012 by Michael

I’ve been bothered over the past several months by people who have been claiming that NYC has had soft drinks over a certain size outlawed for some time now. That just hasn’t been true. [/rant] Now a ban has been put in place:

New York City passed the first U.S. ban of oversized sugary drinks on Thursday in its latest controversial step to reduce obesity and its deadly complications in a nation with a weight problem.

By an 8-0 vote with one abstention, the mayoral-appointed city health board outlawed sugary drinks larger than 16 ounces nearly everywhere they are sold, except groceries and convenience stores. Violators of the ban, which does not include diet sodas, face a $200 fine.

Opponents, who cast the issue as an infringement on personal freedom and called Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who proposed the ban in May, an overbearing nanny, vowed to continue their fight. They may go to court in the hopes of blocking or overturning the measure before it takes effect in March.

When I first heard about this, I figured it was a publicity stunt – the desired publicity being to draw attention to the obesity problem. I didn’t think anyone would follow through with this, but here we are. So that said, I’m not sure how I feel about this. I’m all for calories being listed on menus (because informed consumption is important), but I’m not entirely convinced this will make any difference in fighting obesity. I see people buying their oversized drinks elsewhere, such as in grocery stores where they are still legal. Alternatively, businesses may just offer free refills more often. One thing, however, of which I am convinced is that this lady is wrong:

“It’s sad that the board wants to limit our choices,” Liz Berman, a business owner and chairwoman of New Yorkers for Beverage Choices, a beverage industry-sponsored group, said in a statement. “We are smart enough to make our own decisions about what to eat and drink.”

Perhaps people should be allowed to buy what they want, but it’s absolutely clear that most Americans are not smart enough to make their own decisions about what to eat and drink.

Filed under: News, Politics and Social | Tagged: , , , , | 6 Comments »

In which I agree with Nate

Posted on September 12, 2012 by Michael

Every once in awhile Nate and I will agree on something. Most often that something is beer, but sometimes that something is more political/social in nature:

I saw this on Facebook recently:

Aside from being completely devoid anything even like cleverness, I have a few issues…

First, I’m not interested in what any woman wants to do with her vagina. I may feel that abortion is wrong, I may feel that birth control is wrong, I might feel that abortion should be mandatory, or I may feel that birth control should be, but really I feel like the state should keep it’s nose out of it and you can do whatever you want. Lets be clear on one thing though, I have just as much of a right to have an opinion and express it as you, whether or not either of us have a vagina or not. If you think otherwise you are either an asshole or an idiot.

If you truly think that the chart has it right, lets apply this to a few other things and see what we get:

Do you own a gun? No? Shut up about guns.
Do you own a car? No? Shut up about cars (texting, etc).
Do you have a kid in school? No? Shut up about education.
Do you live in (whatever state is restricting abortion this week)? No? Shut your mouth about their abortion laws.

Nate then makes his point more about when the government is involved with spending money on abortion and other services rather than about what a women should and should not be allowed to do under the law. I’m less concerned about that and more concerned about the idiocy of telling half the population that any opinions any of its members may hold are invalid on reproductive rights because they have a member. Let’s work this out.

Presumably the picture isn’t trying to imply that women’s opinions are inherently more valuable than the opinions of men. That would be horribly sexist and wrong. So what is it saying? (This is the point where I accurately describe what it is necessarily saying, only to have some random person on the Internet incorrectly nitpick.) It is saying that the reproductive rights of women are only the concern of women because we’re talking about their bodies; it is taking the libertarian position that one’s body is sovereign and should not be subject to the whims of others. That raises the interesting issue of whether or not a woman is allowed, under the rules of the picture, to have an opinion about other women’s reproductive rights, but I’ll skip that here because the point that interests me is, Are women who cannot reproduce entitled to have an opinion on women’s reproductive rights?

Let’s review real quick: Presumably, the picture is not implying that women’s opinions are inherently more valuable than the opinions of men. And why is that important? It’s important because it means having a vagina isn’t the real crux of ‘How to Have an Opinion on Women’s Reproductive Rights’. The real crux is that, following along with the position I described earlier, what matters is a woman’s ability to reproduce. It is her body, a sovereign place. Not only should no one else be able to tell her what to do with it, but she’s the only one who knows best. And why? Because, aside from it being her own body, she’s the one who will be doing the reproduction. It isn’t, per se, that she is a woman. It’s that she’ll be reproducing.

So where are we now in this argument? Simple: Women who cannot reproduce should “shut up”. It isn’t about being a woman – if it was, that would mean that the opinions of men are inherently less valuable, a surely sexist and idiotic position. No, it’s about the ability to reproduce. If you can’t do it, you aren’t allowed an opinion on that matter. Got it?

I wish I could say this was simple reductio ad absurdum, but I’ve barely gone anywhere with what the picture has presented us. All I’ve done is summarize what it said and taken a single step to what it concludes: The ability to reproduce entitles one to an opinion on women’s reproductive rights, so women past menopause or who are otherwise infertile do not enjoy such an entitlement.

Now, back to where people think things through before writing them down, the reality is that anyone who gathers their facts together, thinks about said facts, and then forms a reasoned opinion is doing it right. The person’s sex isn’t relevant in the least. And if you think it is, well, I’ll let Nate say it:

Don’t have a blog? Shut up about what I put on mine.

That goes double for those of you who don’t have my blog.

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

When FOX Noise calls a Republican a liar, he’s really a liar

Posted on August 30, 2012 by Michael

Unless the writer of this article has large breasts and blonde hair, I don’t see a bright future for her at FOX Noise:

[T]o anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to facts, [Paul] Ryan’s [convention] speech was an apparent attempt to set the world record for the greatest number of blatant lies and misrepresentations slipped into a single political speech. On this measure, while it was Romney who ran the Olympics, Ryan earned the gold.

The good news is that the Romney-Ryan campaign has likely created dozens of new jobs among the legions of additional fact checkers that media outlets are rushing to hire to sift through the mountain of cow dung that flowed from Ryan’s mouth. Said fact checkers have already condemned certain arguments that Ryan still irresponsibly repeated.

Fact: While Ryan tried to pin the downgrade of the United States’ credit rating on spending under President Obama, the credit rating was actually downgraded because Republicans threatened not to raise the debt ceiling.

Fact: While Ryan blamed President Obama for the shut down of a GM plant in Janesville, Wisconsin, the plant was actually closed under President George W. Bush. Ryan actually asked for federal spending to save the plant, while Romney has criticized the auto industry bailout that President Obama ultimately enacted to prevent other plants from closing.

Fact: Though Ryan insisted that President Obama wants to give all the credit for private sector success to government, that isn’t what the president said. Period.

Fact: Though Paul Ryan accused President Obama of taking $716 billion out of Medicare, the fact is that that amount was savings in Medicare reimbursement rates (which, incidentally, save Medicare recipients out-of-pocket costs, too) and Ryan himself embraced these savings in his budget plan.

Oh, pesky facts.

Filed under: Politics and Social | Tagged: , , | 11 Comments »

Romney picks Ryan

Posted on August 11, 2012 by Michael

I’m happy with this:

Against the flag-draped backdrop of the USS Wisconsin, Mitt Romney formally introduced Paul Ryan, the House Budget Committee chairman from Wisconsin, as his vice presidential running mate on Saturday. Ryan’s budget-cutting ideas have the potential to transform the presidential race. Support for his proposed mix of spending cuts and tax cuts has become a litmus test on the right–and opposing them has become a rallying cry on the left.

Instead of going with the only guy who could help him with the Latino vote in a crucial swing state – Marco Rubio – Romney picked the guy who wants to slash and cut and change everything that impacts the lives of seniors, women, minorities, and poor people.

Perfect.

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UC Davis cop off the force

Posted on August 1, 2012 by Michael

The cop who used excessive force on peaceful UC Davis students no longer works for the force:

A UC Davis official confirmed Tuesday night to KOVR-TV that Lt. John Pike separated from the university’s police force Tuesday. The university declined to comment further, citing privacy concerns.

When reached by The Sacramento Bee, Pike declined to comment.

The 39-year-old Pike had been on paid leave since the incident last November when video images showed him and another officer spraying demonstrators who were seated on a sidewalk and refused police orders to disperse during an Occupy protest.

It looks like everyone took a step back, let things calm down, and cool heads prevailed.

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Good job, Democrats

Posted on July 31, 2012 by Michael

The Democratic Party is getting up to date with the 14th Amendment:

The Democratic Party is aiming to include support for gay marriage in its party platform this year for the first time in its history, a Democratic source said on Monday.

The platform drafting committee unanimously approved language on Sunday endorsing same-sex marriage among the policy positions that will be presented to the convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, where President Barack Obama will formally accept the party’s nomination in early September to run for re-election.

No official word yet on when the GOP will do away with its bigotry, but experts estimate it will occur roughly sometime between 2013 and when Satan gets Hitler and the boys together for a game of ice hockey.

Filed under: Politics and Social, Same-sex marriage | Tagged: , | Leave a comment »

Dishonest politics

Posted on July 30, 2012 by Michael

I really despise when politicians refuse to understand the point of the opponent. It isn’t merely an inability to respect a different perspective because it may be so foreign or opposed to some long-held point of view that gets me. No, it’s when someone expresses a point in clumsy language and the other side pounces, being an absolute bitch about actually listening to the real point. Take, for example, when Mitt Romney said he wasn’t concerned about poor people. Of course he cares about them. He just happens to believe that they currently have a relatively adequate safety net, a net which can be improved (and made unnecessary in many lives) via certain economic policies. (That isn’t to say he really understands them, nor that his policies would actually work, but I do not think he is quite as callous as his original comment might suggest.) Or, even worse, look at John Kerry’s treatment a few years ago. He tried to say that we’re stuck in Iraq because Bush is dumb. The way it came out, though, made it sound like he thinks soldiers are stupid. It was an absurd distraction that was dishonest to its core. I hated every second of it and I think it’s terrible that he had to apologize at all.

Fast forward to the present campaign season and we have the President saying this:

If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that.

Whoa! Holy smokes, Batman! The President of the United States just said that small business owners – especially mom and pop shops that have been in the neighborhood for 43 years, giving out free meals to needy orphans and puppies every Thanksgiving – deserve zero credit. Zero. Rumor has it that once off camera, he even went so far as to grab the head of a struggling business owner, pull the guy’s face right up to his ass, and fart. I bet he laughed and laughed. Communist.

Oh…wait. I guess there’s more to the quote:

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

Oh, snap. Shitty, amirite conservatives? I guess what the President meant was that everyone has had help from others at one point or another. He then gave teachers as one example. Then he says that somebody helped to create the system in which businesses thrive. Then he uses roads and bridges as an example of what has helped businesses thrive. Next we have the big doozie of the whole thing: He says that businesses – gasp! – didn’t build our roads and bridges. For the reading impaired, let me reword the President’s sentences in a way which conveys the exact same meaning with a little more clarity:

Somebody invested in roads and bridges, and if you have a business, you didn’t build that.

Or how about this?

Somebody invested in roads and bridges, and if you have a business, you didn’t build that stuff.

Or maybe this?

Somebody invested in roads and bridges, and if you have a business, you didn’t build those.

Okay, here we go:

Somebody invested in roads and bridges, and if you have a business, you didn’t build those roads and bridges I just mentioned. In fact, the transcript of my speech should be written with a semi-colon so as to show what I am saying about businesses not building roads and bridges. For example, “Somebody invested in roads and bridges; if you have a business, you didn’t build that.”

And despite all this context, there’s even more to the speech:

The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.

Nothing the President has said is remotely remarkable here. He was simply making the point that everyone needs help in life, and a lot of that help comes from government-funded programs, works, etc. Most teachers are paid by the government. Most bridges are built by acts of Congress and state legislatures. That isn’t to say that businesses deserve zero credit. He outright says that one of the reasons businesses see success is individual initiative. That just isn’t the only reason they see success, is all. But hey, I know how to end this argument with one simple question:

Did Wal-Mart build the Interstate it uses to truck its goods around the country? No? Argument over.

Filed under: Politics and Social | Tagged: , , , , | 3 Comments »

Should we still hunt Nazis?

Posted on July 29, 2012 by Michael

This story came out a week or two ago, but I’ve been chewing on it since then: Ladislaus Csizsik-Csatary was recently arrested in Budapest for war crimes against Jews and others dating to WW2:

Csatary was the chief of an internment camp, in the Slovakian town of Kassa, now Kosice, from where Jews were deported to Auschwitz and other Nazi death camps.

He as a “commander” in the Royal Hungarian Police, was present in 1944 when the trains were loaded and sent on their way, say prosecutors. He declined a request by one of the 80 Jews crammed into a wagon to cut holes in the walls to let air in.

Csatary “regularly” used a dog whip against the Jewish detainees “without any special reasons and irrespective of the assaulted people’s sex, age or health condition”.

There is no doubt that this man is guilty of his crimes – he was convicted in abstenia after the end of the war – but I’m not sure that is the most pressing question here. It isn’t in the least bit difficult to understand how so many people would want this man to spend time in prison for the atrocities he committed, but what purpose does that serve? Is it in the interest of justice? I don’t mean merely equally the scales (at least insofar as they can be equaled in a circumstance like this). Rather, I mean, does sending this person to prison at the age of 97 make society a safer, better place?

I’ve written several times in the past that the U.S. justice and prison system has significant problems. We put people behind bars for incredibly long periods sometimes, but all we create are people who are better, bitter criminals. Our motivation for doing this, in addition to a general distaste for crime, is often revenge. That feeling traverses the pond. When someone has wronged us, we want to equally hurt that person. It usually doesn’t matter if doing so will result in a better world. We convict and punish people on emotion, not just rationality.

So my question here is, Can justice be justice if it is driven by emotion? How can it be blind if its motivation is not rational in nature?

Again, I understand the desire to punish this ex-Nazi for the crimes he committed, but I don’t see the purpose it serves any longer. Would this be a deterrent against future war crimes? Would it make the world a safer place? Is this man still a threat?

Filed under: Politics and Social | Tagged: , , , , | 10 Comments »

Good job, Jim Henson Company

Posted on July 24, 2012 by Michael

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

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