Live Blogging the "Health Care Summit"

So I decided to watch it. Yeah, it'll mostly be political theatre, but it'll at least be entertaining. Who knows? Maybe the dems and the repubs will actually hash out a workable plan...in one day? Yeah, that'll happen.

Anyway, it's started, so I'll get started.

Obama is making his opening remarks. Personal anecdotes about his daughters and his mom, regarding his experiences with them and health care. He says "everyone here has stories like that" but I have a hard time believing that a lot of the bluebloods among them have never had to go without, never had to face the hardship of dealing with a sickness without insurance.

Says he's read the opposition's plans. "Politics ended up trumping common sense." Too true.

He's going over some common ground regarding the ideas between the two parties: pre-existing conditions, fostering competition, etc.

Closing up, he is reiterating the four themes he wants to focus on: controlling costs, lowering deficits, expanding coverage, and

Says he wants a "discussion," not just trading talking points, that he hopes it doesn't turn into political theatre (we'll see).

Republicans' turn, delivered not by McConnell, but by Lamar Alexander.

Claims that the repubs represent a big chunk of the people, who are opposed to the health care bill, which he calls a "mistake" and makes the expected call to "start over."

Says he wants Obama to "succeed," but change directions.

Alexander is repeating the old criticisms: taxes, fees, cuts in medicare, etc.

Repeats the call to "start over."

He claims that a "comprehensive bill" won't work, ever. Cites failures of immigration and other comprehensive bills that failed despite "bipartisan" support.

He's listing off ideas...ideas that could only be part of a (DUH!) comprehensive bill!

Calls for a renunciation of the threat of using reconciliation to pass the bill. Where was he in 2005?

(Obama looks like he's a little annoyed at being lectured)

Start over, start over, don't jam it through. For pity's sake, it's been the longest debated bill in decades!


Now it's Pelosi's turn.

She's going back to March 5, when the whole process started, recalling the "bipartisan way" in which Obama brought them together...not sure, but I don't think they were that nice to the republicans.

"We cannot afford to start over" she says, as too many people already have waited too long, and suffered too much. Offers anecdotes.

Talks about John Dingell and the fight over Medicare back in the day.

We have a "moral obligation" to fix this. Pre-exisiting conditions stifles the "entrepreneurial spirit" by forcing people to stay in dead-end jobs because they can't leave for fear of losing their insurance and not being able to get new insurance because of pre-existing conditions.

The bill will create jobs, almost 400k right off the bat...we'll see.

Unless we pass this, she says, medicare is doomed.

Invokes Kennedy, "Health care is a right, not a privelege."

Reid's turn.

Starts off right off the bat with an anecdote about a constituent who had a baby with a cleft palate, and was denied insurance because that was considered a "pre-existing condition." Outrageous if true.

He's chiding Alexander that he's "entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts."

Most people, including repubs, want us to reform health care.

Talks about the "donut hole" problem with medicare prescription drug plans.

Talks about reconciliation, defending its use.

The bill already has significant input from republicans, so why start over?

Cites Harvard studies: 45,000 people die a year because they're without health care. 70% of bankruptcies in 2008 were due to health care costs.

Calls on the republicans, "let's hear your ideas." Defends deficit cuts in the bill.

There's a huge stack by Boehner, how much you wanna bet he's gonna throw down with the
"2700 pages" critique.
Obama again, critiquing Alexander's interpretation of the "process."

He wants them to talk about the substance, not the process. "We might surprise ourselves that we agree more than we disagree." Novel idea.

Everyone agrees on costs. It's true that expanding a "broken system" is bad, but part of what we need to do is fix that system. We can't just leave it broken.

Cites small business numbers who are dealing with soaring costs, forcing many to drop coverage, reduce incomes, and forgo new hiring.

So how do we control costs? One bipartisan idea: health care exchanges.

(Damn CNN, going to commercial. Assholes. Switching to Fox. Wish I had CSPAN-3, but oh well. )

Alexander disputes Obama's CBO numbers, Obama responds that it is, offers justification that Lamar is not being fair, citing different numbers.

Oh! He just cut Lamar off. Here's that "muscle" that we've needed to see for too long.

Obama says he wants every possible cost-saving measure to be in the bill, challenges repubs to add their ideas. Asks them to focus on what's good in the bill, as well as bad, instead of just the bad.

McConnell's turn. Cites polls that show people overwhelmingly oppose the bill in its current form.

Turns floor over to Dr. No...er, Coburn.

Says we need to adress the disease, not symptoms. Let's see what he means.

He says prevention is important, and he couldn't be more right. But what's his idea??

Claims there is too much waste in government-run health care, as 20% of money spent is fraudulently awarded. Says cutting fraud would save 7.5% of costs.

Says the tort system, the "extortion system", needs to be reigned in. Fear of litigation forces docs to waste money on redundant or unnecessary tests. Says it would be worth a 7.5% in savings.

Conflict of interest in the medical field, huh?

Change food stamps and school lunches to make it meet people's nutritional needs, to incentivize prevention.

We need to attack "where the money is" referring to fraud.

Don't need government programs, just incentives.

Obama says that there is plenty in the bill that deals with fraud, which Coburn acknowledges, but points out that it only extends to government health care.

There are plenty of measures for prevention in the bill.
Steny Hoyer's turn.

Every American should be covered.

More anecdotes of the misery people suffer.

Cost containment is key, as all agree. The "how" is the problem, of course.

Wants an open, free market that's transparent, whatever that means.

He's paying Coburn compliments on his suggestions. Says the bill does most of what he said, so what's to disagree on?

Says he's trying to drive down costs by giving everyone access to "large group" insurance rates, which of course are cheaper.

Cracking down on redundant tests.

First mention of the public option so far, mentioned in passing as a way to incentivize competition and cover people who cannot afford private insurance.

Obama addresses Coburn's points, says there are things we can do at the state level, invites republicans to voice their objections to specific dem provisions to drive down costs, gives example of increasing access to large group insurance, doesn't mention whether it's through exchanges or the public option.
John Boehner, who cedes his time to John Kline.

Says that one idea is to allow small businesses to group together like large companies. Good idea! Where were you last year?

Says this is better than the idea of exchanges, but doesn't say why other that to claim it will save more money.

Max Baucus is up.

Says we are actually quite close, there's not a lot that keeps us apart.

Says most of what Alexander suggested is already in the bill.

People can buy across state lines. No tort reform, but states will be able to settle disputes. Small businesses can pool together to get better insurance, through the SHOP act, which allows businesses to run their own exchanges to shop and compare insurance plans. Tax credits for employer insurance, 35-50%.

We're not that far apart.

Changes the way we reimburse doctors, rewarding quality vs. quantity.

(Fox is showing the new taxes in the senate bill, vs. CNN which is repeating the speaker's main points. way to stay classy Fox).
Boehner cedes to Dave Kemp.

Oh, this guy is a twit. "How can you say you're saving money when you spend 1 trillion over 10 years?" Gee, I guess he really thinks it will be cheaper to do nothing.

Lawsuit reform, again. OK, but what else?

Mentions that there is a provision in the bill that would create an un-elected board which would make recommendation to congress on medicare cuts, then claims if congress does not act, then the board would have to "look elsewhere" in medicare to cut. If it's up to congress, what power does this board have that this guy is so afraid of?

Obama cuts in to re-address the same points raised previously by Coburn, namely the CBO report.
Rob Andrews.

Talks about exchanges again. Disagreement erupts between him and John Kyl(?).

McConnell protests that dems have had more time.
Paul Ryan's turn. Says that federal regulation of insurance will cut off competition. Ho hum, same old lie.

Kline responds asking Ryan if he supports consumer protections, which he does, making him squirm to justify why he opposes regulation.

Obama is using this opportunity to address the philosophical differences. Says both parties would agree that certain protections need to be implemented. The disagreement is how much should government set as a baseline for people's insurance, how much they are entitled/required to have.

Songs ruined by commercials

I really hate it when ad agencies try to use popular music to hawk their wares, and I really really hate it when artists sell-out to them and allow them to use their songs.

It's not a new practice, and from the ad agency's point of view, I suppose it beats keeping a jingle-writer on the payroll. But it ruins the song for me, because then whenever I hear that song, I inevitably think about the commercial, which is the whole point of using the song in the ad to begin with.

But all it does is make me angry at the artist and the ad company they sold out to.

I love Ray LaMontagne, but I lost a lot of respect for him when he let his song "Trouble" be used to sell insurance for Traveler's. And I won't be using Traveler's anytime soon, if I can help it.

There's also "She Sells Sanctuary" by The Cult, one of the few rock bands of the 1980s that actually rocked, but unfortunately sold their best known single to Nissan to sell Altimas in the early 2000s. I've always been a Ford man, anyway.

My wife and I both love Death Cab For Cutie, but it took me a long time to get into Ben Gibbard's other band, The Postal Service, because the two singles I was most familiar with when it came out in 2003 were also used in commercials. "We Will Become Silhouettes" was used by Honda to sell Civics, and "Such Great Heights" is featured in those UPS "whiteboard" commercials. So it was almost six years before I really listened to the album, "Give Up," and it's gorgeous. Too bad two of the best songs were wasted as ambient filler for commercials.

I also a huge fan of Wilco, but I was so bummed when I heard "You Are My Face" in a Volkswagen commercial, which apparently was only one track of many that they sold from their magnificent 2007 album "Sky Blue Sky." I wanted to kick Jeff Tweedy in the nuts.

Thankfully, sometimes an ad agency has trouble getting the rights to a song, and so instead they'll hire a cover act to do the song. So it's easier to ignore the Blackberry commercial which uses the Beatles' "All You Need Is Love" to sell phones.

But the worst is when I hear a song for the first time in a commercial, and then hear it on the radio, which makes me want to turn the station. Such is the case with the new commercial for the Cadillac SRX, which uses a song I first thought sounded like Ben Gibbard and Death Cab For Cutie, but is actually a new band called Phoenix, the song being "1901." Too bad for them than I've been completely turned off by the song, because I originally thought it was catchy, but now every time I hear that riff and the chorus, all I can think about is that smug voice talking about a luxury car that's guaranteed to "reignite the soul."

Too bad it sucked the soul out of a decent sounding band and ruined them for me, and probably others, as I can't imagine I'm the only person who gets annoyed when good music is used to hawk cheap, useless crap.

Of course, it's kind of hard to blame the artists when the business model for making money off music so disfavors the artist. Selling CDs is a joke, for the most part, because who buys em? And digital downloads, even if paid for, don't bring the bacon, and even then the distributor probably keeps the lion's share of the proceeds. Live shows bring in money, but you have to already have made it somewhat big if you think you support yourself by touring. So I understand why artists would sell their songs to be used in commercials: it brings in money and it puts the music out there where it can be noticed. The only problem is that when I notice, it doesn't make me want to listen to more, it makes me change the channel. 

People are just like cars, doncha know?

My dedication to civility and respect is going to be tested right off the bat, I see.

I'd never heard of Neal Boortz before, but apparently he thinks that society should value people in the same way it values automobiles when it comes to fixing damaged ones, and who should pay.

I had just walked into my local ABC store to pick up some brandy for the wife and some vodka for myself, and this guy's radio show was blaring through the speakers.

He started by presenting a hypothetical: if you crashed your car and didn't have insurance, and then go to an insurance company to apply for coverage with the added demand that they pay for the crash, even though it happened before coverage started, you would rightly be denied coverage for that car.

From there, he takes the analogy to health care with a particular harshness that I felt was uncalled for, and I'll paraphrase what he said to as close as I can remember it:

"So let's say that you don't have health insurance, and you contract diabetes because you're a fat pig, and then you decide you need insurance to help pay for the disease you contracted. Why should anyone insure you at all? You didn't have coverage prior to the disease you contracted."

He said "fat pig" with such vitriol I could practically hear the spittle pelting his microphone.

I was pretty disgusted, obviously, because this man seems to think that people are no different than cars, and should be "totalled out" if they're "wrecked" and are unable to pay for "repairs."

I took my purchase up to the counter and asked the clerk who it was that was on the radio.

"Boortz," he said simply.

"Well, it's kind of silly to treat people and cars as being the same, isn't it?"

The clerk, a man in his 40s, simply shrugged, looked away and curtly replied, "Have a nice day, sir." He obviously did not want to talk politics, though I can't fairly say whether it was him or another employee who appreciated Boortz's "insightful commentary."

So I took my bag and left.

Perusing Boortz's site, he keeps a blog where he posted pretty much the same argument:

...my "talking point," as you put it, is that it makes no logical sense whatsoever to require an insurance company to sign someone up for an insurance policy to provide coverage for an even that has already taken place. If you applied for homeowner's insurance after your house burned down it is a pretty safe bet that you're application will be declined. If you call Geico and try to insure your car after you've wrecked it, you're unlikely to get coverage for that wreck. Can someone please explain to me then just why it is generally accepted that a person ought to be permitted to contract a disease first, and then buy insurance to cover the costs of that disease after the fact? If that's the routine, they why would anyone ever buy insurance until they're actually sick?

Of course, that isn't how it happens in the real world. In general, there are only two reasons why people go without health insurance: either they cannot afford the premiums or they're stupid.

Now, there are plenty of stupid people in the world, and the American electorate has more than its fair share, but among the nearly 40 million who go without, affordability is the reason, not because they want to be Evel Knievel when it comes to their own health. There are plenty of stories of people who have to choose between feeding their family, paying their mortgage, or paying their insurance premiums. And the number keeps rising.

But that's just a minor mistake when taken against the assertion that people are to be treated like houses and cars. One wonders what kind of world it would be where Boortz's pragmatism ruled, cetainly not the kind that values human life: "What's that? You say you've got a debilitating illness that is life-threatening? Sorry brother, it's not cost-effective to save your life, doesn't matter if it was your own fault or not. I got mine, so sod off."

Here's the second part of his argument, where he stretches things way beyond reality.

Now .. here are some hard truths that are going to anger some of you. First, you have no right to health care. To obtain health care you must have access to the services of a health care practitioner and the products manufactured by drug and medical implement companies. To claim a right to health care you are claiming a right to the time and property of some other person. How do you then balance your claim of a right to a portion of that person's life against their own right to protect their lives and property? The argument for a right to health care simply cannot be sustained until you are willing to accept the idea that one individual in our society has a right to the life and property of another.

But that's bollocks, of course. This is the same kind of reasoning that would demolish such "socialist" government programs like fire and police departments. Fire and police are paid through community taxes (i.e. everyone's "lives and property" as Boortz puts it), so that if one person's house is burglarized or catches fire, that person can rely on the government for help. It's part of our social contract, we take care of each other for things that happen which are beyond our control. We cannot control whether or not a certain exposed wire is going to spark the insulation into a fire anymore than we can control whether or not a criminal will choose to burglarize our home.

The same is true of most diseases, we cannot control, and diabetes is included, even type 2 adult-onset, which doesn't just happen to fat people.

Anyway, this is rather moot because their is no comparison between the fire and police departments and health insurance, precisely because health insurance is not a government program (not yet, at least, and not anytime soon). No one is going to take Mr. Boortz's "life and property" by insuring someone with a disease that is expensive to manage. The problem is not, as Boortz seems to think, with people who want insurance to give them a free ride on someone else's dime, but rather that people who would like to be able to buy into the system, to contribute what they can for their own health.

Sure, such people do cost more to insure, but Boortz is far off-base from the reality. If someone with, say, cystic fibrosis, were to try and buy into a large health giant like one of the BC/BS "non-profits," I doubt the rest of everyone else's premiums would change. Of course, add a whole bunch and the picture changes, but as long as those with the pre-existing conditions are paying their fair share, no-one has any right to complain, because the alternative, already a reality, is that those people are left out in the cold, either to live in misery or, just as likely, die in misery. And if the measure of a society is how well it takes care of the least of its members, then ours falls far short of even being called "decent."

But let's let Boortz finish his point (here's where he alludes to the "fat pig" with diabetes from his radio show):

Second point: Your medical misfortune does not constitute a lien on my life or property unless I have voluntarily entered into a contract with you. Yes .. if you have diabetes or some disease that is going to cost you $20,000 a year, or more .. that's sad. Less sad if you ate yourself into that situation .. but sad nonetheless. As sad as it is your medical condition gives you no claim on my bank account. You can rely on your own resources, your family, your church, a charity or the voluntary goodness of strangers all you want; but to use the government as an instrument of plunder to seize the property of another for your health care needs is immoral .. no matter how grave your condition may be.

This is libertarianism at it's most vacuous, because the logic applied here also can be applied to the aforementioned fire and police departments. The fact is that we all must sacrifice something for the benefit of all (including Mr. Boortz, whether he likes it or not) when it comes to issues that affect us all.

We all contribute to taxes that pay for fire departments, because we want the benefit of our community's protection in case our house catches fire.

We all contribute to taxes that pay for police departments, because we want the benefit of our community's protection in case we're robbed.

We do this not only to protect ourselves, but because we value our neighbors and countrymen. We value their lives and happiness, which is why we protect their safety, so why wouldn't we want to protect their heath?

What Boortz is trying to claim smacks of Jane Fonda's ill-advised attempt to not pay her taxes during the Vietnam War, her reasoning being that because she did not support the war, she should not have to see her tax money used to pay for it. Of course, that argument failed because, as the judge pointed out, she benefits from national defense regardless of whether she agrees with what the military does or does not do. She lives in safety and enjoys her rights because of the protection afforded by the military through her taxes.

The same can be true of health insurance. It won't, of course, as a national health plan will not pass congress, not in its current state of partisan gridlock where lies, rumours, and hearless "logic" like Boortz's tend to get the most attention. But a small justice can be done by requiring that insurers accommodate those with pre-existing conditions. Because we value our fellow citizens enough to bring them in from the cold, even if it means we have to spare a few cents extra overall on our insurance premiums. To do otherwise is downright inhuman.



Update: I noticed that Boortz also writes a column for the WorldNetDaily, which if I recall, is run by fundamentalist Christian Joseph Farah. How "Christian" is Boortz if he advocates letting people suffer and die to save his own bottom line? Well, no one ever accused the WorldNetDaily of being consistent...or honest...or accurate...or fair...or, well, you get the idea.

Resurrection and Rededication

It's been a long time since I blogged, since I wrote anything in fact. The past year has been...interesting to say the least: marriage, moving, unemployment, depression and despair, agony and ecstasy, blah blah blah, etc.

I want to start writing again, and I've been putting it off far too long, obsessing over details of what to write about and how. A gridlock of my own creation, I could see no way out until I chanced upon an essay in the AHA's "Perspectives" weekly newsletter titled "How Writing Leads to Thinking (and not the other way around)." I felt kind of stupid when I read the title, the simple truth of it illustrated for myself in the way that I used to do freewriting to jumpstart my brain.

Like I said, I stopped writing, and now I regret having done so. I also regret the way I was writing in the past on this blog, it seems like I was trying to sound like every other blogger out there instead of myself, which itself may have contributed to my stopping.

To thine own self be true.

So, in the interest of saving what little sanity I have left, and to follow DaVinci's exhortation to exercise the most important "muscle" in my body (lest it atrophy from disuse), I'm going to write about any and everything that engages my mind. There will be fluff, of course, but important fluff I promise. Well, important to me anyway. :P

So here is my rededication: this blog will be a forum for expression of my thoughts and opinions, my musings and meanderings, my beliefs and hopes. Though it always was thus, I have not always been the best writer, nor have I been as charitable or as nice as I know I am in person. Well, it is the internet...but no, the discourse in this nation, indeed the world, is already too rancorous. It's time that I went back to being the civil, rational human being on the internet as well as in real life, because such people are becoming an endangered species. So that's my rededication: to express myself and add my voice to the chorus, but to do so in a way that reflects well upon myself and shows a respect for the discourse.

No other word for it: This is *fucked* up.

So it's been roughly a month since I posted, and a lot has happened in that time: I got engaged, then my fiancee's mother died of lung cancer, then I started the new semester. I might post about some of that stuff; seeing my fiancee's mother pass away before my eyes is an experience that I will never forget.

But for now, I'd like to jump right back into things. First off: Minneapolis Police at the RNC. What are they doing?

Well, it seems that the Republican Nat'l Convention is going on and they don't want the rabble (i.e. ordinary Americans) to be heard voicing their dissatisfaction with the last eight years during which the Republicans have run this country into the ground.

So here's what we've come to:




WHAT. THE. FUCK.

[via Pharyngula]

Fundies get rick-rolled in real life!

From Friendly Atheist we have the video evidence of a real-life rick-rolling outside a gay club in Florida...



It's almost as good as the Anonymous protest against Scientology in London earlier this year. LONG CAT IS LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG!

Short take with a Facebook fundie

I like to go on the Christian groups on Facebook from time to time. It's fun to discuss things like morality and the history of early Christianity (one of my favourite subjects as an undergrad). There are some Christians who are amenable to discussing things rationally without automatically resorting to scripture. But occasionally it's also fun to tease the fundies who also prowl these boards.

So I posted the video from my previous blog entry (see it here). And sure enough, my bear-baiting snagged a fundie.

Fundie: "Why try and convince believers that God is bad? All you're doing is trying to convince yourself there is no God so that you can go through life without fear of being punished for evil acts. Kind of gives you a license to do whatever you like, huh?"

Me: "Yep, in fact I'm eating an aborted fetus while we speak. Mmmmmm....it's like eating an omelette!!!"

Fundie: "God rebuke you, Satan!!"

Me:

Fundie: "God says not to be drug into endless debates by satan. We are to love and worship God."

Me: "Yep, you wouldn't want to end up in Hell simply for not believing in the right God."

I love it when he called me "satan." I rarely get that and it just gives me constant giggles when I do! Hehehehe! Fundies are so clueless!

Believe in me....OR ELSE!!!

Here's a fun little video that pretty accurately depicts how petty and capricious the Christian God must be if all those fundamentalist nutbars are right. Ever heard anything like this?

"If you live your life and don't confess your sins to God Almighty through the authority of Christ and His blood, I'm going to say this very plainly, you're going straight to hell with a nonstop ticket."
-John Hageee, 6/11/06

Enjoy.



[via Pharyngula]

An excellent peek into how the rest of the world views US policial life

Here's a REALLY good short-take from the BBC on the art of the "U-Turn," or flip-flopping as it's commonly known here in the states. The article gives a nice run-down on the major "about faces" that both Barack Obama and John McCain have done on specific issues life campaign finance, immigration, as well as the one flip-flop that means I will very likely NOT be voting for John McCain this year.

Another McCain, quote, shift was in his relationship with the religious right of his party.

During his 2000 bid for the Republican nomination, relations between Mr McCain and Christian Coalition founder Jerry Falwell were notoriously fractious.

The Arizona senator memorably described Mr Falwell and fellow members of the religious right as "agents of intolerance".

But in 2006, ahead of his second presidential run, Mr McCain delivered the commencement address at Mr Falwell's Liberty University, after which he attended a small private party hosted by his former political adversary.

He's simply changed too much since 2000 when I wrote his name in on my ballot.

I say we help them out

Ok, sit down for this one.

Seriously, sit down, I'm not paying for your ER visit when you split your head open from the *headdesk* that I'm about to lay on you.

Some people want to write-in George W. Bush in the 2008 election, they want four more years of "God's president."

Stay the Course

Under the strong leadership of God's President we've been safe for 7 years. But if we abandon God now, we could be hit again.

We don't need to worry about the details, we just trust in God and vote our faith. When we step out in faith and leave the details to God, there's no limit to what can be accomplished.

There is a lot of Poe's Law-induced confusion with this; it could be a clever attempt at satire, and it most likely is, but let's say for the moment it's real.

So what should we do about this? I say we help them out.

I'm being completely serious. Even if Bush was actually running, and even if there wasn't that pesky little 22nd Amendment, there is no way Bush could get elected again. These morons seem to think that there's enough latent support (through evangelical dissatisfaction with McCain and a screeching fear of the "Islamic-Atheistic-Hindu" Barack Obama) for Dubya to get a write-in campaign going and re-elect the Decider.

So I say let them throw away their votes, because it's assholes like these who subjected the rest of us to 8 years of failed policies.

Bush is a failure in so many ways, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are only the most visible. The environment, the economy, civil liberties and human rights, health care, and on and on and on.

So yeah, let's help these poor folks out. Print out a couple copies and post them on the bulletin board of your local Baptist church, maybe we'll be able to keep a few rubes from fucking up yet another election.

[H/T to Dispatches from the Culture Wars]

Oh, this is too rich...

So there's a another new "marriage protection" amendment that's been introduced in the Senate, and the hypocrisy parade is in full swing. Just have a guess at who two of the Republican sponsors are...

Yep. It's the two Senators who have shown the LEAST concern for the "sanctity" of marriage: Sen. Bob "Dress me up in Diapers" Vitter and Sen. Larry "Tap Dancing Daisy" Craig.

Jesus' General has already lampooned them thoroughly:

"If we allow homosexuals to marry, who's going to take care of the needs of the many straight, married men who like to blow guys in public restrooms?"
---Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID)

"Being diapered by a prostitute didn't end my marriage. But if my wife knew homosexuals were marrying each other, she'd divorce me in a minute."
--- Sen. Bob Vitter (R-LA)

Ya gotta love the transparent, unabashed crassness of this bill. It's 2004 all over again, and the Republicans are once again trying to mobilize all the bible-thumping, gay-hating, slack-jawed yokels which make up their base. "Da Gayz R gettin married! Oh noes!"

On a related note, someone tried to convince me that James Dobson, one of the consummate Liars for Jesus, doesn't have anything against gays, even after I showed him this quote:

"Homosexuals are not monogamous. They want to destroy the institution of marriage. It will destroy marriage. It will destroy the Earth."
---On gay marriage, from The Daily Oklahoman, Oct. 23rd, 2004

Apparently, accusing your opponent of being bent on the willful destruction of the whole world doesn't mean you hate them. Yeah right, and I'm supposed to believe that Hitler didn't really hate the Jews, even though he accused them of, well, pretty much the same thing Dobson is saying of homosexuals.

The best characterization is provided by the product of this religious education, the Jew himself. His life is only of this world, and his spirit is inwardly as alien to true Christianity as his nature two thousand years previous was to the great founder of the new doctrine. Of course, the latter made no secret of his attitude toward the Jewish people, and when necessary he even took the whip to drive from the temple of the Lord this adversary of all humanity, who then as always saw in religion nothing but an instrument for his business existence. In return, Christ was nailed to the cross, while our present-day party Christians debase themselves to begging for Jewish votes at elections and later try to arrange political swindles with atheistic Jewish parties-- and this against their own nation.
---Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

For Hitler, Jews were interested only in money and domination through political power, and that would lead to the destruction of civilization. For Dobson, the homosexuals are only interested in sex, though they only seek power insofar as it allows them to have more sex, as Dobson implies here:

"The state legislature here in Colorado has frankly become just about as radical and extreme as the California Legislature, in an effort that was designed to obviously appease the homosexual community give access to all public restrooms by people of the opposite gender," Dr. Dobson said on his radio program last week.

It's all part of a huge conspiracy. The homosexuals want to control everything so they can destroy civilization.

Sorry to have broken Godwin's Law, but they're just too similar. Not that Dobson is advocating the wholesale murder of homosexuals, though his opposition to anti-discruminatory and hate-crime legislation which includes protections for homosexuals suggests that he doesn't mind if other people take the task on their own. He's perfectly content to play his role as a Julius Streicher with his own verson of Der Sturmer in the form of his daily radio broadcasts.

Seriously, it's nuts like Dobson that enable Republican hypocrites like Vitter and Craig to mobilize the legions of the ignorant so that they can continue to treat America like their own personal ATM. But it's not the nuts like Dobson or the Republican shills who parrot his shit, it's the credulous fools who vote for those shills.

We can't let 2004 happen again.

[H/T to Dispatches for the Culture Wars]

EPIC WIN!

Hahahahahahahahaha!!!!!

It would seem that Dobson isn't as relevant as he used to be! A group of Christian pastors has repudiated James Dobson over his remarks on Obama, and what's more, they started a website with a title that just too rich not to type out in full caps:

JAMESDOBSONDOESNTSPEAKFORME.COM

And just LOOK at their statement! It's so much win!

James Dobson doesn't speak for me.

He doesn't speak for me when he uses religion as a wedge to divide;

He doesn't speak for me when he speaks as the final arbiter on the meaning of the Bible;

James Dobson doesn't speak for me when he uses the beliefs of others as a line of attack;

He doesn't speak for me when he denigrates his neighbor's views when they don't line up with his;

He doesn't speak for me when he seeks to confine the values of my faith to two or three issues alone;

What does speak for me is David's psalm celebrating how good and pleasant it is when we come together in unity;

Micah speaks for me in reminding us that the Lord requires us to act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with Him;

The prophet Isaiah speaks for me in his call for all to come and reason together and also to seek justice, encourage the oppressed and to defend the cause of the vulnerable;

The book of Nehemiah speaks for me in its example to work with our neighbors, not against them, to restore what was broken in our communities;

The book of Matthew speaks for me in saying to bless those that curse you and pray for those who persecute you;

The words of the apostle Paul speak for me in saying that words spoken and deeds done without love amount to nothing.

The apostle John speaks for me in reminding us of Jesus' command to love one another. The world will know His disciples by that love.

These words speak for me. But when James Dobson attacks Barack Obama, James Dobson doesn't speak for me.

In addition, there's a run-down of what Barack has said in comparison with the distortions of Dobson.

Finally, people of faith are starting to wake up and smell the bullshit of these bigoted asshats.

(H/T to The Friendly Atheist)

lolphilosophers: Schrodinger's retort

Hehehehehehehehe!!! Although Schrodinger's kitteh looks more like Basement Cat! Oh noes!!!

Hello Pot? This is Kettle...YOU'RE BLACK!!!

Hehehe, ya gotta love the irony of sectarian bickering.

It was only a matter of time before one of the fundies-in-chief, this time the "reverend" James Dobson (head of a mass organization of religious bigots known as Focus on the Family), to formally attack Barack Obama as not being "Christian" enough. He's taking issue with a speech Obama made two years ago about the role of faith in democracy.

Now, Obama takes a very rational, pragmatic view of Biblical scripture, taking into account that we live in a secular, pluralistic nation and that in order for us to co-exist, we have to translate religion-specific morals and values into universals so that they are, in Obama's words, "subject to argument and amenable to reason." Further, Obama had the audacity to point out that using "god told me" as a justification for anything is totally unacceptable in our democracy.

But as is the case with most fundies, this painfully obvious fact flies clear over Dobson's head. Whatever, he said he wouldn't vote for McCain anyway, so he's just flailing about trying to still look relevant.

lolphilosophers: Nietzche

Oh noes!

I get email

So imagine my surprise when I get an email in my box this morning with the subject heading "Press Release for the Reckoner."

Eh? Who's making press releases for my blog?

Well, no one, it's just someone named Victor Senchenko plugging their own thing, but wait til you see what it is.

Looking over your website, you seem to present yourself as a rational thinker with liberal, humanist views. It is for this reason that the following Press Release may be of interest to you.

Ok, it seems to start off innocently enough...I like to think I'm rational, somewhat liberal on some issues, and definitely humanist (though in the traditional sense of the word, not the strawman definition from the 1970s that fundies still mistakenly use today as a term of derision).

In your personal pursuit of knowledge, you may have come across an interesting phenomena: every year there are millions of children born, of whom many parents become aware that their children are very intelligent. These smart children are often given the chance – by either their parents or the society in which they live – to develop that intelligence, so that it could be used to enhance and improve human existence. This has been occurring, more or less, throughout human existence. Currently we find that never before in human existence has literacy been so wide spread. Never before in human existence have humans possess so much knowledge on how to communicate, heal, and duplicate. Never before in human existence have humans achieved feats of intellectual brilliance and physical endeavors, such as that of a space program, and sending of probes to other planets, so as to learn exactly what our Solar System comprises of. And yet, for all the widespread literacy, numeracy, and vast range of intellectual application advances in all forms of industries and fields of research, a simple but irrefutable fact remains: that humans, as a species, are no more humanely civilized today than they were thousands of years ago.

Ok, he contradicts himself in the first paragraph...not good. If we've "never before" seen such advancements as those he lists, how can he claim that we are still "no more humanely civilized today than [we] were thousands of years ago"? We are definitely more humane than we were 1000 years ago, and this guy is being silly. Are we still keeping slaves? Do we not fight for human rights on daily basis? Do we not have a worldwide organization whose mission is to promote peace and human rights between and within all the nations of the world? It is true that we are still violent and can be generally horrible to each other, but to say we haven't made any progress is just stupid. Moving on...

Human species, made up of races and societies, remains divisive, unjust and ignorant – prone to inflict suffering both on humans and other species – due to human selfishness, greed, and love of brutality. Take a random look at any part of this planet today, and there shall be a presence of human misery: death from hunger; suppressions and oppressions by military juntas and dictators; revolutions; mindless wars waged by bully nations – including those that claim to be democracies – and other military aggressions; retaliatory terrorism; crime with or without violence; degradation and theft of natural resources by desperate or greedy individuals; destruction and pollution of environment by uncaring populations and business companies. Lately, such human behavior has been so bad it has resulted in a vast and rapid degradation of living conditions on this planet, not just for humans but for all life forms.

Yes, all this may be true, but, again, in order for his previous claim to be true, we have to ignore all the good things that have improved life dramatically for human beings. One metric to consider is life expectancy. Do you think it nearly doubled in the last 150 years just on accident? But he's identified his target problem, let's see how he goes about suggesting a solution.

So how can it be that at the period of being so intellectually advanced in knowledge of technical and chemical applications, this, the very brightest and the most educated generation of humans have brought upon themselves the most dangerous situation concerning their existence, the likes of which had never occurred to any earlier human generations?

Ok, I'll bite: how?

The reason for this current human dilemma is that humans replicate the behavior and thinking of those before them. A younger generation accepts the teachings of the older generations, who teach the younger generation what they themselves had experienced at the hands of their own older generation who taught them. In this way, a perpetuation of the ideals held by older generation is guaranteed, so that when an older generation embraces lies, prejudices, and delusions, these lies, prejudices, and delusions are certain to be passed on to the younger generation, who then shall pass the very same lies, prejudices, and delusions onto their own offsprings. In this way, no matter how clever, smart, or intelligent the young generation may be, they are sure to be no wiser than their predecessors.

Ah. He thinks we're all indoctrinated with lies, which is true enough: most of us are raised to believe some pretty crazy shit. But the problem with his argument is that it's too simplistic. Not only does he ignore that not everyone is raised in the same culture with the same beliefs, but he also ignores that there have always been revolutionaries and rebels who continuously challenge the status quo. Besides, it's almost like this guy somehow got through childhood without actually being a teenager! Did he go straight from 12 to 20 and skip his entire adolescence? Viva la revolucion! :P

Needless to say, there are many well-intentioned humans who claim to seek the truth through reason, by exposing human misguided notions of superstition and other delusions connected with religions. The irony is that these individuals are also participants in delusions, without even being aware of this. This occurs because current humans, irrespective of their intellectual pursuits and endeavors, continue to accept the erroneous notions they were taught by their teachers; the very same erroneous notions their teachers were taught by those before them: notion based on misconceptions and fabrications rather than physical reality, but which they all accepted as being factual, and therefore, presumably requiring no examination. This is exactly how science became, and remains flawed: where principles invented by someone, continue to be accepted with no authentication by others.

Uh oh. It would seem he's not just after superstitious religious beliefs, he's after science. So what exactly is it that he thinks are the "misconceptions and fabrications" that have invaded modern science? Evolution? Abiogenesis? What is he after?

Take ‘time’, for example. ‘Time’ was, and remains, an early human invention: a notion intending to explain the physical process of change, which inevitably includes a deterioration – or ‘dispersal’ – of every physical object or body. This includes a physical process that can be observed in humans as an aging of the body, leading to death. This physical process of change can also be witnessed in the continuous rotation of Earth on its axis (by that producing a day and night effect), and the planet’s ongoing orbit of the Sun (producing seasons on Earth’s surface). But instead of understanding that change physically occurs from all the surrounding physical influences of all the surrounding objects and bodies, early humans gave in to a presumption that change was caused by an unseen and unfelt force of mysterious ‘time’. A supposedly, powerful, mysterious entity very much like those of gods; an entity capable of manifesting itself in all that it influences to age and deteriorate.

If you just did a jaw-agape double-take, you're not alone! Time is an entity???? Are you fucking kidding me?? It's almost enough to call "Poe's Law" on this guy, if he wasn't arguing against religion at the same time. But still, let's roll with it and see if there aren't some lulz to be had...

With the development of science, scientists did not bother to examine the notion of ‘time’ seriously. They simply accepted it blindly. After all, were they not taught to accept ‘time’ to be an integral companion of space: a togetherness of time-space continuum? From that blind acceptance, the non-existent entity of ‘time’ had become a valuable commodity to aid the expanding imaginations of scientists and academics. So instead of ‘time’ being simply a ‘measure’ of any duration of the physical process of change, (not unlike a mile or kilometer being merely a measure of distance between two separate points in space, or on Earth’s surface) ‘time’ had been awarded flexible qualities, making it supposedly capable, in its own mysterious way, of fracturing, warping, accelerating and slowing.

Oh, yes, there have been some paltry experiments conducted to establish the physical existence of ‘time’, by examining the effects produced on some elements with a constant rate of decay. But all that these experiments could show, if examined properly, is that physical change can and does occur according to the levels of physical influence imposed upon the decaying elements, causing a speeding-up or slowing-down of decay. This does not, in any way, shape, or form, provide any physical proof to existence of ‘time’, but mere that physical change occurs from other physical change.

Were ‘time’ to physically exist, then, a simple experiment would have long ago provided physical proof to physical existence of ‘time’. That experiment would consist of a refrigerating unit standing exposed to the Sun and the elements of the weather, and of two leaves being removed from the same branch of a tree. One of the two leaves would be placed on top of the refrigerating unit, exposed to the Sun and the elements. The other leaf would be placed inside the refrigerating unit. Were ‘time’ to exist, then the two leaves, few centimeters or inches apart (one on the outside and one on the inside) would be affected at a similar rate by the surrounding-them same speed of ‘time’. As ‘time’ does not exist, but the physical process of change does, the exposed leaf on top of the refrigerating unit would soon disintegrate – disperse – while the leaf incased in the refrigerating unit would remain virtually unchanged indefinitely, for as long as the refrigerating unit continues to function, despite that the refrigerating unit itself is exposed to the Sun and the elements.

Wow. Just let that soak in. It's like bathing in pure inanity, isn't it? I especially love the setup for his proposed "experiment!" ROFL! Apparently, this guy read a little bit on wikipedia about the theory of relativity and the accompanying principle of spacetime, but failed to grasp that spacetime itself doesn't exist, but rather everything exists within spacetime. Things exists in a certain space during a certain time, and no two objects can exist in the same space at the same time. Spacetime is a context for existence, it is not an object in existence nor is it existence itself. It's not a hard concept to grasp, but this guy just took it in a whole new direction it was never supposed to go.

There are other such flaws to the current understanding of science. But despite them being flaws, delusions, or simply lies, it will not be easy for current humans – be they also scientists and academics or not – to acknowledge them as such. Having based their sciences on such delusions, the full scope of human knowledge depends for those non-existent entities to exist. So much like theists depending on their non-existent gods to exist. For that reason, blinded by their faith – despite proclaiming their allegiance to logic and reason – those in sciences shall (and do), belligerently refuse to admit their delusions, just like theists who refuse to acknowledge the non-existence of their gods.

Despite such opposition to physical reality, sooner or later humans will have to recognize and admit that their current delusions apply not just to religions, but to sciences as well. They shall also be required to admit that the reason why they find themselves, as a species, in such dire straits, is totally due to them structuring ABSOLUTELY ALL of their societies on their flawed, erroneous, and deluded perceptions of themselves and all that surrounds them, despite of their individual high intelligence. Humans had devised their societies according to their own, flawed perceptions of physical existence, rather than doing so based on absolute rational of reason.

Ugh, he just compared science to a religious belief, with time as its "god." Notice how he also set it up so that he can call you "delusional" if you don't agree with him? Classic denialism. So then what, pray tell, is the "absolute rational [sic] of reason" we should be following?

There is, however, an alternative to this situation. It is now possible for anyone to learn all there is to know about humans, the reasons for their behavior, and all that physically surrounds them. A book, “Revelations of a Human Space Navigator", by Victor Senchenko, discloses all the human delusions, which continue to afflict human existence. This book reveals the very basics of who and what humans actually are, and why they behave as they do. It explains exactly from what all that is physical is physically made of, and why in the process of being they produce resultant physical functions, such as gravity and electromagnetic fields. By providing all this information, it becomes quite simple to understand exactly why ‘time’ and gods not only do not physically exist, but exactly why they cannot physically exist.

Aha! Finally we cut to the chase! He's plugging a book! Let's just let get that title by itself so we can have a proper look at it:

Revelations of a Human Space Navigator

Oh my. So he's proving that something which we already know doesn't exist physically, doesn't exist physically? Wow. Not only that, but he claims he can explain everything! Did he come across this knowledge while he was "navigating" through "space?" ROFL!

Of course, there is no compulsion for you to either accept the claims made in the book, or to purchase the book. The only important factor is that of your awareness: should you ever choose to acquire the knowledge humans had always claimed to want, without any illusions, delusions, fabrications and lies, then you should know that such information is available to you.

Oh, don't worry, I won't purchase it. And it's not because I'm not without "illusions, delusion, fabrications and lies," but rather because I'm not without incredulity when it comes to the claims of cranks who don't understand the first thing about what it is they're arguing against. Time is an "entity?" LMAO!!!

But now we're coming to the really funny part...

Wait for it...

Wait for it...

Furthermore, in defending the uniqueness and originality of the information presented in the book, the author issues a challenge to Any and Every person on the planet who purchases this book: were that person to provide the author with a physical proof that his revelations
had already existed at any period of the Human Age, (as knowledge not derived or sourced from this book), then the author, himself, will refund that person the full purchase price of the book.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! He's already shown how fucked up his understanding of spacetime is, so how much you wanna bet he wouldn't know it if anyone actually bothered to refute any of his other "claims?" It's just put there to give the credulous fools who do end up buying his book the illusion that his positions are intellectually defensible. But judging just from the content of this "press release," I'd say anyone who bought the book and decided to challenge it should be guaranteed to get his money back...that's if this guy not only understands how he's wrong but actually admits it, which is exactly what these guys DON'T do. Remember Kent Hovind's $250,000 Challenge? Yeah, it's like that, only not as big.


Anyway, here's the guy's website for those of you who are actually interested in pwning this crank. www.victorsenchenko.com

That whole site earns Victor his own special cap. Thanks for the lulz Vic! :P

Rest in Peace: George Carlin

It was the first thing I saw this morning when I logged on. George Carlin is dead at 71.

One of the funniest, and smartest men of the last generation has passed. I'm really going to miss his incisive mocking of religion, among other issues that American go crazy over for the wrong the reasons.

I'll never forget this one...

"The God excuse: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument, 'It came from God! Anything we can't describe must've come from God!'"



He had religion nailed a long time ago. He'll be missed.

Update on Freshwater: FINALLY DOIN IT RITE

Well, finally sanity prevails over the town of Mt. Vernon, as we receive word from Ed over at Dispatches from the Culture Wars that the school board voted UNAMINOUSLY to terminate John Freshwater from his teaching position at the middle school.

Hooray.

I know there should normally an exclamation point after that "hooray" but I just feel like this isn't a victory for reason. This guy was able to spew his bullshit in students' minds for TWENTY-ONE FUCKING YEARS!!!

Why? Why so long to fire such a blatantly obvious religious ideologue who had no business whatsoever being in a position of authority over children?

What's more, John is probably going to be taken care of by one of the nutjob creationist/dominionist groups out there who are looking to help him "sell" his story of being fired for merely "keeping a Bible on his desk," which is the lie his local defenders are telling right now.

Such a waste.

Update on Freshwater: It's worse than we thought

How this mother fucker wasn't fired YEARS ago I'll never understand. Apparently, he's been burning crosses into his students' arms for almost two decades, and his colleagues at the high school level have complained about having to "re-educate" his students after they've had him for 8th grade science, so thorough have his methods of indoctrination in naked creationism been.

The complete summary of the investigation is out. You can read it here.

There's word that the board is going to fire him soon. They should add a few more names to that list, like whoever shielded Freshwater from criticism over his 21 years of "teaching." Seriously, the damage that he's done over the years...outrageous!!! Of course, prepare for the usual wailing and gnashing of teeth from the religious right for "viewpoint discrimination" or some such non-sense.

(H/T to Dispatches from the Culture Wars)

History: UR DOIN RONG!!! pt. 2

Ok, so apparently the religious right went digging around and they finally found what they were looking for: a 150 year old tome that purports to “prove” that the United States actually was founded as a Christian nation.

Is anyone else laughing at this? Instead of doing there own research into primary source material, doing their own analysis and work, what do they do? They go to an ancient tome! Sound eerily familiar?

Anyway, it’s available online both at Google books and ScienceBlogs has a downloadable pdf of it if you care to look, just head over to Greg Laden’s blog for the link. (H/T to Greg for the lulz!)