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A brand, spankin’ new site devoted to bringing together the atheists of Maine has just launched. Appropriately, it can be found at atheistsofmaine.com. I know, crazy.
Join up. It’s free and pretty simple to do, and more importantly, early membership is important in helping new sites like this to thrive.
So do it. Visit atheistsofmaine.com and sign yourself up.
Filed under: Atheism/Humanism, Local | Tagged: Atheists of Maine, atheistsofmaine.com | Leave a comment »
I’m sure the nation is grateful for your efforts.
The sheriff blamed the vitriolic political rhetoric that has consumed the country, much of it occurring in Arizona.
“When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous,” he said. “And unfortunately, Arizona, I think, has become the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry.”
Giffords expressed similar concern, even before the shooting. In an interview after her office was vandalized, she referred to the animosity against her by conservatives, including Sarah Palin’s decision to list Giffords’ seat as one of the top “targets” in the midterm elections.
“For example, we’re on Sarah Palin’s targeted list, but the thing is, that the way that she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they have to realize that there are consequences to that action,” Giffords said in an interview with MSNBC.
Filed under: News | Tagged: Gabrielle Giffords, Health care reform, Sarah Palin, Shooting | 12 Comments »
Tobacco is a deadly Class A carcinogen that has no place in a pragmatic, rational society. Unfortunately, a lot this country is rather ideological. For that reason I offer a new national motto, borrowed and modified from the fine state of New Hampshire:
Live free and die.
I’m still waiting for the ideologues to explain how they’re able to spread the liberty they love so much to people who are dead.
Filed under: Misc | Tagged: Thought of the day, Tobacco | 3 Comments »
Here is what Section 1 of the 14th Amendment says:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Contrast this with what Justice Scalia believes.
Certainly the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn’t. Nobody ever thought that that’s what it meant. Nobody ever voted for that. If the current society wants to outlaw discrimination by sex, hey we have things called legislatures, and they enact things called laws.
Actually, someone did vote for that: the 1971 Supreme Court. But then Scalia, in a purely political effort to support his all-around bigotry, is an originalist. For those paying attention, that’s just code that lets him pretend the principles espoused in the Constitution are only to apply to the times when they were first written. But then if that was true, we wouldn’t really be talking about principles anymore, now would we?
Worst. Justice. Ever.
Filed under: Politics and Social | Tagged: 14th Amendment, Discrimination, Justice Scalia | 10 Comments »
At least they are if you’ve been an Obama-hating conservative over the past two years.
Filed under: Politics and Social | Tagged: Jobs, Jobs chart, Obama compared to Bush, Statistics | 2 Comments »
Where are all the jobs?! This is a Republican economy now! They’ve been in power for over two days! Come on!
Or does the ridiculous impatience of pundits and even Americans at large not apply to this Congress?
Filed under: Misc | Tagged: Republicans, Thought of the day | 1 Comment »
I am going to concur with so many other bloggers out there and recommend that people go to this poll on the best webcomic and vote for Jesus and Mo.
And visit Jesusandmo.net.
Filed under: Humor | Tagged: Jesus and Mo, Webcomic | 1 Comment »
There exists this popular argument about morality that I just detest. It goes like this: If morality is to exist at all, it must be objective. The reason this is complete junk is that it assumes morality is objective in the first place. In fact, just add “objective” in front of “morality” and absolutely nothing changes about the point – the tautological flaw just becomes more obvious.
Filed under: Misc | Tagged: morality, Thought of the day | 1 Comment »
Andrew Wakefield is the disgraced research who claimed to have found a link between vaccines and autism in a 1998 study. This resulted in many deaths, increased illness, and his removal from the medical register in the U.K. Now a little investigative journalism has found that Wakefield outright made up a lot of his data.
A new examination found, by comparing the reported diagnoses in the paper to hospital records, that Wakefield and colleagues altered facts about patients in their study.
The analysis, by British journalist Brian Deer, found that despite the claim in Wakefield’s paper that the 12 children studied were normal until they had the MMR shot, five had previously documented developmental problems. Deer also found that all the cases were somehow misrepresented when he compared data from medical records and the children’s parents.
And then children died because of Andrew Wakefield. I wonder when the public will get an apology from the media for promoting this pure horseshit? I’m not holding my breath.
In an accompanying editorial, BMJ editor Fiona Godlee and colleagues called Wakefield’s study “an elaborate fraud.” They said Wakefield’s work in other journals should be examined to see if it should be retracted.
I only include this because I had a different original source, so I hadn’t read this part of the article when I made the title to this post. I guess it’s just the most accurate way of describing the work of Andrew Wakefield.
Update: via PZ, watch Anderson Cooper engage in some responsible journalism by not letting Wakefield off the hook.
Filed under: News, Science | Tagged: An elaborate fraud, Anderson Cooper, Andrew Wakefield, Anti-vax, Brian Deer, Fiona Godlee, Lancet, Measles, mumps, rubella, Vaccines | Leave a comment »
For the Sake of Science 