Moderate Believers are the Least Happy

Interesting study results:

http://epiphenom.fieldofscience.com/2011/12/moderate-believers-might-benefit-from.html

Why the Republican Crackup is Bad for America

http://www.nationofchange.org/why-republican-crackup-bad-america-1324566424

The Biological Differences Between Republican and Democrat Brains

http://www.livescience.com/17534-life-extremes-democrat-republican.html?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=LS_12192011

Paleontologist Plans to Create a Dinosaur

Paleontologist Jack Horner hopes to create a dinosaur by activating dormant genes in a chicken:

http://www.livescience.com/17642-chickenosaurus-jack-horner-create-dinosaur.html?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=LS_12272011

Does Trickle-Down Economics Really Work?

In short, no:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/geoffrey-r-stone/obama-reaganomics_b_1150669.html?ref=daily-brief?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=121511&utm_medium=email&utm_content=BlogEntry&utm_term=Daily%20Brief

How Capitalism Destroys Competition

http://www.nationofchange.org/wal-mart-larger-norway-exposing-myth-capital-competition-1322835390

Fox News Viewers Know Less Than Those Who Watch NO News

An official study result of something we've known for years....

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/21/fox-news-viewers-less-informed-people-fairleigh-dickinson_n_1106305.html?utm_source=Triggermail&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Daily%20Brief&utm_campaign=daily_brief

The Top 0.1% Of The Nation Earn Half Of All Capital Gains

http://news.yahoo.com/top-0-1-nation-earn-half-capital-gains-172647859.html;_ylc=X3oDMTNrNWs4am1iBF9TAzc2NjM1MzYEYWN0A21haWxfY2IEY3QDYQRpbnRsA3VzBGxhbmcDZW4tVVMEcGtnAzc0N2JkNGI2LTc5MTQtM2E5NC1hN2FlLTI5Nzg1ZGFmNzk0NQRzZWMDbWl0X3NoYXJlBHNsawNtYWlsBHRlc3QD;_ylv=3

An Irishman's Assessment of Wall Street

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVlNZ3SIPbo&feature=youtu.be

:-)

Penn Jillette's Guide to the 2012 Election

Jillette's a pretty smart cookie:

http://bigthink.com/ideas/41032

Regulations Do Not Kill Jobs

From Time Magazine:

Overregulation has been a persistent economic bogeyman this year. Presidential candidate and Texas Governor Rick Perry says government regulations are "strangling the American entrepreneurship out there." House Speaker John Boehner says cutting regulation is the best way to boost jobs. Even President Barack Obama has talked about eliminating some government rules. In mid-October the World Bank released its annual ranking of countries on the basis of ease of doing business; it took into account the number of regulations, tax rates, the time it takes to start a business and other factors. Out of 183 countries, the U.S. was deemed the fourth easiest place in the world to do business, unchanged from the year before. What's more, a number of lower-ranked nations--including South Africa, China and Brazil--have had much faster-growing economies than the U.S. in the past five years. Neil Gregory, a deputy director for indicators at the World Bank, says regulations kill some jobs but create others. He says rules that promote small-business lending are essential. The search for the true job killer continues.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2098583,00.html#ixzz1dckS9AhR

The Super-Wealthy Hold over $25 trillion in Reserve

Applying an INSIGNIFICANT (i.e., unnoticeable) tax to the super-rich would easily more than close up the deficit without requiring cuts to services the less fortunate depend upon:

http://www.nationofchange.org/global-super-rich-stash-now-25-trillion-1321201867

Islamic Hatred of Women Causes Rampant Homosexuality

This woman is too funny!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKXKol263WE&feature=player_embedded

She appears to sincerely believe this, and her irony meter failed to go off when she compared Islamic crazy with Catholicism.

Republican Economic Plans Don't Work

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/31/gop-candidates-plans-on-economy-housing_n_1066949.html

Study Shows Conservatives are More Squeamish Than Liberals

http://www.livescience.com/16746-conservatives-disgust-political-views.html?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=LS_10272011

Why a Flat Tax is Inherently Unfair

This is a much more comprehensive analysis than my simple version, and it better clarifies the disparity:

http://www.nationofchange.org/cain-s-plan-minimum-wage-earners-pay-460-times-more-taxes-millionaires-1319649531

Powerful Occupy Wall Street Video

This gets the message out nicely:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wK1MOMKZ8BI

A few companies control the world economy

A recent Zurich study reveals only 147 companies control the world economy:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228354.500-revealed--the-capitalist-network-that-runs-the-world.html

Climate Change and the Burden of Proof

David Mitchell's amusing take on the burden of proof:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SI5ulKiZAoE&feature=youtube_gdata_player

The Creepiness of Dominionism

Palin, Bachmann and Perry, the three biggest nutjobs in politics today, are dominionists...fundamentalist Christians who believe it's their god-given right to take over the world:

http://godsownparty.com/blog/2011/08/from-one-change-agent-to-another-um-yeah-you-are-a-dominionist/

If Obama disillusions enough people, we could have one of these whackos leading our country. Ack.

Disbelief is not a Choice

I've been saying this for years, only as "belief is not a choice":

http://richarddawkins.net/articles/643068-disbelief-is-not-a-choice

Robert Reich on the Economy and the Middle Class

The Limping Middle Class

By ROBERT B. REICH

Published: September 3, 2011

Robert B. Reich is the former secretary of labor, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of “Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future.” 

THE 5 percent of Americans with the highest incomes now account for 37 percent of all consumer purchases, according to the latest research from Moody’s Analytics. That should come as no surprise. Our society has become more and more unequal.

When so much income goes to the top, the middle class doesn’t have enough purchasing power to keep the economy going without sinking ever more deeply into debt — which, as we’ve seen, ends badly. An economy so dependent on the spending of a few is also prone to great booms and busts. The rich splurge and speculate when their savings are doing well. But when the values of their assets tumble, they pull back. That can lead to wild gyrations. Sound familiar?

The economy won’t really bounce back until America’s surge toward inequality is reversed. Even if by some miracle President Obama gets support for a second big stimulus while Ben S. Bernanke’s Fed keeps interest rates near zero, neither will do the trick without a middle class capable of spending. Pump-priming works only when a well contains enough water.

Look back over the last hundred years and you’ll see the pattern. During periods when the very rich took home a much smaller proportion of total income — as in the Great Prosperity between 1947 and 1977 — the nation as a whole grew faster and median wages surged. We created a virtuous cycle in which an ever growing middle class had the ability to consume more goods and services, which created more and better jobs, thereby stoking demand. The rising tide did in fact lift all boats.

During periods when the very rich took home a larger proportion — as between 1918 and 1933, and in the Great Regression from 1981 to the present day — growth slowed, median wages stagnated and we suffered giant downturns. It’s no mere coincidence that over the last century the top earners’ share of the nation’s total income peaked in 1928 and 2007 — the two years just preceding the biggest downturns.

Starting in the late 1970s, the middle class began to weaken. Although productivity continued to grow and the economy continued to expand, wages began flattening in the 1970s because new technologies — container ships, satellite communications, eventually computers and the Internet — started to undermine any American job that could be automated or done more cheaply abroad. The same technologies bestowed ever larger rewards on people who could use them to innovate and solve problems. Some were product entrepreneurs; a growing number were financial entrepreneurs. The pay of graduates of prestigious colleges and M.B.A. programs — the “talent” who reached the pinnacles of power in executive suites and on Wall Street — soared.

The middle class nonetheless continued to spend, at first enabled by the flow of women into the work force. (In the 1960s only 12 percent of married women with young children were working for pay; by the late 1990s, 55 percent were.) When that way of life stopped generating enough income, Americans went deeper into debt. From the late 1990s to 2007, the typical household debt grew by a third. As long as housing values continued to rise it seemed a painless way to get additional money.

Eventually, of course, the bubble burst. That ended the middle class’s remarkable ability to keep spending in the face of near stagnant wages. The puzzle is why so little has been done in the last 40 years to help deal with the subversion of the economic power of the middle class. With the continued gains from economic growth, the nation could have enabled more people to become problem solvers and innovators — through early childhood education, better public schools, expanded access to higher education and more efficient public transportation.

We might have enlarged safety nets — by having unemployment insurance cover part-time work, by giving transition assistance to move to new jobs in new locations, by creating insurance for communities that lost a major employer. And we could have made Medicare available to anyone.

Big companies could have been required to pay severance to American workers they let go and train them for new jobs. The minimum wage could have been pegged at half the median wage, and we could have insisted that the foreign nations we trade with do the same, so that all citizens could share in gains from trade.

We could have raised taxes on the rich and cut them for poorer Americans.

But starting in the late 1970s, and with increasing fervor over the next three decades, government did just the opposite. It deregulated and privatized. It cut spending on infrastructure as a percentage of the national economy and shifted more of the costs of public higher education to families. It shredded safety nets. (Only 27 percent of the unemployed are covered by unemployment insurance.) And it allowed companies to bust unions and threaten employees who tried to organize. Fewer than 8 percent of private-sector workers are unionized.

More generally, it stood by as big American companies became global companies with no more loyalty to the United States than a GPS satellite. Meanwhile, the top income tax rate was halved to 35 percent and many of the nation’s richest were allowed to treat their income as capital gains subject to no more than 15 percent tax. Inheritance taxes that affected only the topmost 1.5 percent of earners were sliced. Yet at the same time sales and payroll taxes — both taking a bigger chunk out of modest paychecks — were increased.

Most telling of all, Washington deregulated Wall Street while insuring it against major losses. In so doing, it allowed finance — which until then had been the servant of American industry — to become its master, demanding short-term profits over long-term growth and raking in an ever larger portion of the nation’s profits. By 2007, financial companies accounted for over 40 percent of American corporate profits and almost as great a percentage of pay, up from 10 percent during the Great Prosperity.

Some say the regressive lurch occurred because Americans lost confidence in government. But this argument has cause and effect backward. The tax revolts that thundered across America starting in the late 1970s were not so much ideological revolts against government — Americans still wanted all the government services they had before, and then some — as against paying more taxes on incomes that had stagnated. Inevitably, government services deteriorated and government deficits exploded, confirming the public’s growing cynicism about government’s doing anything right.

Some say we couldn’t have reversed the consequences of globalization and technological change. Yet the experiences of other nations, like Germany, suggest otherwise. Germany has grown faster than the United States for the last 15 years, and the gains have been more widely spread. While Americans’ average hourly pay has risen only 6 percent since 1985, adjusted for inflation, German workers’ pay has risen almost 30 percent. At the same time, the top 1 percent of German households now take home about 11 percent of all income — about the same as in 1970. And although in the last months Germany has been hit by the debt crisis of its neighbors, its unemployment is still below where it was when the financial crisis started in 2007.

How has Germany done it? Mainly by focusing like a laser on education (German math scores continue to extend their lead over American), and by maintaining strong labor unions.

THE real reason for America’s Great Regression was political. As income and wealth became more concentrated in fewer hands, American politics reverted to what Marriner S. Eccles, a former chairman of the Federal Reserve, described in the 1920s, when people “with great economic power had an undue influence in making the rules of the economic game.” With hefty campaign contributions and platoons of lobbyists and public relations spinners, America’s executive class has gained lower tax rates while resisting reforms that would spread the gains from growth.

Yet the rich are now being bitten by their own success. Those at the top would be better off with a smaller share of a rapidly growing economy than a large share of one that’s almost dead in the water.

The economy cannot possibly get out of its current doldrums without a strategy to revive the purchasing power of America’s vast middle class. The spending of the richest 5 percent alone will not lead to a virtuous cycle of more jobs and higher living standards. Nor can we rely on exports to fill the gap. It is impossible for every large economy, including the United States, to become a net exporter.

Reviving the middle class requires that we reverse the nation’s decades-long trend toward widening inequality. This is possible notwithstanding the political power of the executive class. So many people are now being hit by job losses, sagging incomes and declining home values that Americans could be mobilized.

Moreover, an economy is not a zero-sum game. Even the executive class has an enlightened self-interest in reversing the trend; just as a rising tide lifts all boats, the ebbing tide is now threatening to beach many of the yachts. The question is whether, and when, we will summon the political will. We have summoned it before in even bleaker times.

As the historian James Truslow Adams defined the American Dream when he coined the term at the depths of the Great Depression, what we seek is “a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone.”

That dream is still within our grasp.

Why I left the Republican Party

Long but terrific article by ex-Republican Congressional staffer of 30 years Mike Lofgren on why he left the Republican party in disgust:

http://www.truth-out.org/goodbye-all-reflections-gop-operative-who-left-cult/1314907779

He summarizes my position on the evil bastards they've become perfectly....

The Day America's Decline Began...

Rupert Cornwell: THE DAY AMERICA'S DECLINE BEGAN

Wednesday, 7 September 2011

Ten years. An eyeblink in the eternal march of history - yet sufficient
distance to gauge the impact of America's most dreadful day, one that no one
old enough to remember will ever forget. After 10 years, winners and losers
can be declared. And in the case of 9/11, it becomes more evident by the
day, both sides are losers.

The most obvious one of course is Osama bin Laden. The organisation that he
founded has been not only decapitated, but decimated. Hardly a week passes
now without the death or capture of top al-Qa'ida commanders, their security
presumably compromised by the documents seized during the raid in Pakistan
in which Bin Laden was killed. Touch wood, there seems scant chance of the
spectacular 10th anniversary attack for which, those documents show, he was
desperately trying to organise. 

As for his notion that violent Islamic jihad might create a new caliphate
stretching from Indonesia to Spain - that seems even more far-fetched than
it did 10 years ago. Even the "Arab Spring" of uprisings against the secular
Middle Eastern dictators that Bin Laden hated is no vindication of his
warped ideology. 

The protest reflects far more a popular yearning to enjoy the simple rights
of political freedom and economic opportunity that we take for granted, than
any answer of 9/11's call to strike down a decadent yet overbearing West.
And yet my guess is that Bin Laden would be fairly pleased right now, even
though by any standard measure, he's lost the fight he started. 

But what about the ledger on the other side. Yes, America's leaders can
claim that, contrary to every prediction at the time, there has been no
terrorist attack on the US mainland since. And yes, the particular group
that carried out the attacks on New York and Washington DC has been largely
destroyed. But it took the mightiest military on earth almost 10 years to
track down and eliminate its most wanted single target, while the terrorist
movement for which he was the inspiration has become a Hydra. Chop off one
head in Pakistan, Afghanistan or Yemen and others start to grow elsewhere.
And in almost every other sense, these past 10 years have been a tale of
mistakes made, opportunities missed and lessons not learned. 

Consider first the opportunities missed. In the aftermath of 9/11, the US
enjoyed an outpouring of global support and sympathy unmatched since the
Second World War: "We Are All Americans Now," proclaimed that headline in Le
Monde, speaking on behalf of the European country that has more hang-ups
about America than most. 

Within a couple of years, however, that sympathy had been utterly
squandered. George W Bush and Dick Cheney were Ugly Americans reborn,
loathed across the Arab world and beyond. Barack Obama has repaired much of
the damage among traditional US allies. But in Islamic countries America's
reputation remains in tatters, despite its deliberately low profile in the
campaign to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi. ("Leading from behind," one White
House aide injudiciously described the approach, provoking scorn and anger
from the president's Republican foes, insulted that the US was not visibly
heading this latest Western military foray against an Arab land.) But at
least Obama had tried to take the mistakes to heart. 

And even setting aside Libya, America remains bogged down in two wars in
Islamic countries, as a result of 9/11. The October 2001 invasion of
Afghanistan to remove the Taliban government that not only sheltered
al-Qa'ida but was literally of a piece with it, was absolutely justifiable -
though Bin Laden and his cohorts should have been eliminated within months
at Tora Bora. But why did everything take so much longer than it should
have? The answer of course lies in that other mistake of the Bush
administration, arguably the biggest single foreign policy blunder in all US
history: the war of choice against Iraq that has succeeded only in
strengthening the position of America's arch enemy Iran across the entire
region. 

According to one estimate, Iraq and Afghanistan may end up costing $4
trillion between them, an outlay covered thus far not by raising taxes as
most wars are covered, but by borrowing. To that extent, 9/11 has
contributed to the current economic crisis, helping create the mountain of
debt that now ties Obama's hands. 

And that borrowing continues. America is still in Iraq and may retain a
presence there for decades. The same goes for Afghanistan, even though the
killing of Bin Laden and the dispersal of al-Qa'ida to other countries mean
there is no sane reason why tens of thousands of US troops should remain
there, on a nation-building mission impossible. Afghanistan has already
provided its own grim 10th anniversary of the 2001 attacks: August 2011 was
the deadliest month ever for US forces deployed there. 

Contributing to the two longest wars in the country's history were two more
pervasive errors. The first was the "Global War on Terror" itself. At the
time, the Bush administration's decision to treat 9/11 as an act of war
seemed to make sense; the country after all had suffered something that
neither Hitler nor the Soviet Union could manage, a devastating foreign
attack on its own soil. 

But declaration of the war on terror was the slippery slope that led to so
much that proved disastrous to America's reputation: torture, Abu Ghraib,
rendition, Guantanamo Bay, the denial of basic defendants' rights to
captured "enemy combatants" (many of whom, it belatedly transpired, were
innocent.) How much better to have treated the attacks as a criminal matter,
monstrous to be sure, but which could have been handled by civilian courts. 

But the US strategy post-9/11 contained an even greater mistake: a refusal
to face up to the basic dilemma at the core of its policy - that some of its
main allies in the "War on Terror" were in fact accomplices or even
instigators of that terrorism. One of them, Pakistan, sheltered Bin Laden.
Another, Saudi Arabia, provided 15 of the 19 hijackers. 

September 11, 2001 was a chance for Bush to take a real hack at the Gordian
knot of oil and security that distorts US policy in the Middle East, by
increasing the gasoline tax, reducing its addiction to imported oil, and
boosting alternative sources of energy. But next to nothing was done. The
world was told, you are either with us or against. For the 99 per cent of
the population not involved with the armed forces, Bush's rallying cry was:
"Keep on driving, keep on spending." 

The real world, however, moved on. Amid Washington's obsession with terror,
China has stepped up its economic challenge. The present moment has odd
echoes of the past - a whiff of the frivolity of those carefree days before
the real September 11, when the fuss was about shark attacks in Florida, and
whether a California Congressman was having an affair with a missing
Washington intern. 

And here we are 10 years on, amid a gathering economic crisis far more
obvious than the clues back then to an impending terrorist attack, wondering
if the magnificently absurd Sarah Palin will run for the White House,
watching in disbelief as the two parties squabble over the timing of a
presidential speech. 9/11 is not the cause of American decline. But it's as
good a marker as any of when that decline began. 

Natural Disasters From God

Class Warfare

The Republicans think taxing the rich is class warfare? The numbers don't add up:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-womack/30-years-of-real-class-warfare_b_932279.html

Who Will Win the Next Presidential Election?

Amusing but well thought out analysis:

http://www.care2.com/causes/who-exactly-will-president-obama-beat-in-2012.html#ixzz1VNyC3sNW

Teabaggers Are Less Popular Than Atheists and Muslims

Amusing results of a recent poll:

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/survey-surprising-finding-tea-party-less-popular-atheists-160220531.html

How the Rich Differ Mentally From the Poor

Fascinating comparison:

-------------

The rich are different - and not in a good way, studies suggest

The 'Haves' show less empathy than 'Have-nots'

By Brian Alexander msnbc.com contributor

Psychologist and social scientist Dacher Keltner says the rich really are different, and not in a good way: Their life experience makes them less empathetic, less altruistic, and generally more selfish.

In fact, he says, the philosophical battle over economics, taxes, debt ceilings and defaults that are now roiling the stock market is partly rooted in an upper class "ideology of self-interest."

"We have now done 12 separate studies measuring empathy in every way imaginable, social behavior in every way, and some work on compassion and it's the same story," he said. "Lower class people just show more empathy, more prosocial behavior, more compassion, no matter how you look at it."

In an academic version of a Depression-era Frank Capra movie, Keltner and co-authors of an article called "Social Class as Culture: The Convergence of Resources and Rank in the Social Realm," published this week in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science, argue that "upper-class rank perceptions trigger a focus away from the context toward the self.."

In other words, rich people are more likely to think about themselves. "They think that economic success and political outcomes, and personal outcomes, have to do with individual behavior, a good work ethic," said Keltner, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley.

Because the rich gloss over the ways family connections, money and education helped, they come to denigrate the role of government and vigorously oppose taxes to fund it.

"I will quote from the Tea Party hero Ayn Rand: "'It is the morality of altruism that men have to reject,'" he said.

Whether or not Keltner is right, there certainly is a "let them cake" vibe in the air. Last week The New York Times reported on booming sales of luxury goods , with stores keeping waiting lists for $9,000 coats and the former chairman of Saks saying, "If a designer shoe goes up from $800 to $860, who notices?"

According to Gallup, Americans earning more than $90,000 per year continued to increase their consumer spending in July while middle- and lower-income Americans remained stalled, even as the upper classes argue that they can't pay any more taxes. Meanwhile, the gap between the wealthiest and the rest of us continues to grow wider, with over 80 percent of the nation's financial wealth controlled by about 20 percent of the people.

Unlike the rich, lower class people have to depend on others for survival, Keltner argued. So they learn "prosocial behaviors." They read people better, empathize more with others, and they give more to those in need.

That's the moral of Capra movies like "You Can't Take It With You," in which a plutocrat comes to learn the value of community and family. But Keltner, author of the book "Born To Be Good: The Science of A Meaningful Life," doesn't rely on sentiment to make his case.

He points to his own research and that of others. For example, lower class subjects are better at deciphering the emotions of people -- http://bodyodd.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/12/13/5624389-rich-people-have-no-id ea-what-youre-thinking -- in photographs than are rich people.

In video recordings of conversations, rich people are more likely to appear distracted, checking cell phones, doodling, avoiding eye contact, while low-income people make eye contact and nod their heads more frequently signaling engagement.

In one test, for example, Keltner and other colleagues had 115 people play the "dictator game," a standard trial of economic behavior. "Dictators" were paired with an unseen partner, given ten "points" that represented money, and told they could share as many or as few of the points with the partner as they desired. Lower-class participants gave more even after controlling for gender, age or ethnicity.

Keltner has also studied vagus nerve activation. The vagus nerve helps the brain record and respond to emotional inputs. When subjects are exposed to pictures of starving children, for example, their vagus nerve typically becomes more active as measured by electrodes on their chests and a sensor band around their waists. In recent tests, yet to be published, Keltner has found that those from lower-class backgrounds have more intense activation.

Other studies from other researchers have not produced the clear-cut results Keltner uses to advance his argument. In surveys of charitable giving, some show that low-income people give more, but other studies show the opposite.

"The research regarding income and helping behaviors has always been little bit mixed," explained Meredith McGinley, a professor of psychology at Pittsburgh's Chatham University.

Then there is the problem of Tea Partiers' own class position. While they are funded by the wealthy, many do not identify themselves as wealthy (though there is dispute on the real demographics). Still, a strong allegiance to the American Dream can lead even regular folks to overestimate their own self-reliance in the same way as rich people.

As behavioral economist Mark Wilhelm of Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis pointed out, most people could quickly tell you how much they paid in taxes last year but few could put a dollar amount on how they benefited from government by, say, driving on interstate highways, taking drugs gleaned from federally funded medical research, or using inventions created by people educated in public schools.

There is one interesting piece of evidence showing that many rich people may not be selfish as much as willfully clueless, and therefore unable to make the cognitive link between need and resources. Last year, research at Duke and Harvard universities showed that regardless of political affiliation or income, Americans tended to think wealth distribution ought to be more equal.

The problem? Rich people wrongly believed it already was.

Understanding Bachmann and Perry

To understand what kind of America Bachmann and Perry want to create...

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/08/14/dominionism-michele-bachmann-and-rick-perry-s-dangerous-religious-bond.html?obref=obinsite

Air Force Training Manual

This is supposedly the US Air Force's previous training manual, thick with Christian justification for nuking people:

https://selectra.co.uk/sites/selectra.co.uk/files/pdf/nuclear_ethics.pdf

(from http://www.dodbuzz.com/2011/08/02/af-suspends-jesus-loves-nukes-training/#ixzz1U4jjhmmV)

Gov. Rick Perry and Abstinence-Only Education

Perry is an anti-science politician. Here's a great example of why such people should be banned from making policy:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shawn-lawrence-otto/rick-perry-abstinence_b_904115.html

Al Franken Eviscerates Anti-Gay Marriage Claim

I think his comedy experience helped give him great delivery and timing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZyAueltLsa4

Liberal vs. Conservative States

Apart from binge drinking, it appears conservatives fail pretty much every category:

http://godlesspaladin.com/2010/08/10/liberal-states-vs-conservative-states-which-are-better/

Ironically, liberals pay MORE taxes than conservatives. The bastards!

Religions Fight Back Against Fundies

This is nice to see:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20522-american-muslim-clerics-sign-up-for-evolution.html

American Muslim clerics sign up for evolution
From Science News

Almost 13,000 Christian clergy have done it. Nearly 500 Jewish rabbis have too. Now, Islamic teachers, or imams, have begun signing an open letter declaring that there is no clash between their religious faith and evolution.

The Imam Letter, launched this week in the US, is the latest challenge to fundamentalists of the three Abrahamic religions who reject evolution in favour of creationism. The Clergy Letter was launched in 2006 and now has 12,725 signatures, followed three years ago by the Rabbi Letter, which has 476 signatures.

Like its predecessors, the Imam Letter explains why it's OK for believers to accept the truth of evolution. It also calls for a ban on creationist teaching in science classes. "As imams, we urge public school boards to affirm their commitment to the teaching of the science of evolution," says the letter, written by T. O. Shanavas, a doctor in Michigan and member of the Islamic Center of Greater Toledo in Perrysburg, Ohio.

"It shows that evolution and science can transcend what some people see as quite deep religious divisions, providing a unifying factor representing common ground between them," says Michael Zimmerman of Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana, the architect of the Clergy Letter Project. "Christians are really excited about the Muslim letter," he says. "They realise that Islam is just as fractured as Christianity, with just as many people who take their scriptures out of context to deny the truth of evolution."

Recently, for example, an imam in London was hounded out of his mosque and has suffered death threats for openly declaring support for Darwinism. Likewise, in Christian communities, especially in the US, fringe fundamentalists continue to push for teaching of creationism in science classes.

Understanding the Economy in 2 Minutes

Nicely and succinctly put by former Labor Secretary Robert Reich:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTzMqm2TwgE&feature=player_embedded

The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere

Palin edition:

http://FunnyOrDie.com/m/5qh1

The Optimism Bias

Fascinating stuff:

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2074067,00.html

It appears our memories may have evolved to help us plan and manage the FUTURE, not recall the past accurately, which would explain why we're so vulnerable to editing our memories.

The Good Lord Loves a Blowjob

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Another Politician Who Thinks Prayer Works

This is just plain creepy:

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/06/06/rick_perry_prayer?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews

Watch the video. These people act as if problems are suddenly happening only now, instead of throughout all human history, and as if they aren't human problems with human solutions....

Jon Stewart’s Ratings Are Now Higher Than All Of Fox News

Hey, there's hope for us yet!

http://www.politicususa.com/en/jon-stewart-fox-ratings

The Rapturists Keep On Hurting People

Lovely:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Doomsday-believer-donates-cnnm-2627911146.html

Doomsday believer donates entire inheritance to Family Radio
Blake Ellis, On Wednesday June 1, 2011, 5:07 pm EDT

When the world didn't end on May 21, many people who had given up their earthly possessions were left with nothing.

But one believer never lived to see the day. She left nearly her entire estate -- around $300,000 -- to the group behind the failed prediction, leaving some family members out in the cold.

Eileen Heuwetter was shocked to find out that her aunt left the majority of her estate to Family Radio, the group responsible for the doomsday warnings that the world would end on May 21. She and her sister were each left $25,000 from their aunt's estate. The rest is going to Family Radio.

The network of Christian radio stations based in Oakland, Ca., is almost entirely funded by donations. According to IRS filings, the group brought in $18 million in contributions in 2009 alone.

Heuwetter, the executor of the will, knew how much her aunt loved the radio station and admired its leader, Harold Camping, who is viewed as a prophet by many of his followers.

While other family members insisted it was crazy to let her aunt give all that money to a radio station, Heuwetter didn't initially contest the conditions of the will. She knew little about the Christian radio station, but knew her aunt, Doris Schmitt, found comfort in it.

Schmitt had lived a tough life, struggling with alcoholism and losing her two children to drug addictions before dying alone at 78 on May 2, 2010 in her small home in Queens, New York.

"This was not a woman who had anything. She literally had Family Radio on day and night -- she went to bed with it and woke up to it," said Heuwetter. "That was all she had."

It wasn't until recently that Heuwetter learned who was really getting her aunt's bequest. She said she first realized this was the same group when she saw buses driving around New York City the weekend before the supposed end of the world, spreading the doomsday message. "I'm looking at these brand new buses drive around with Family Radio's name on them, saying 'Doomsday is May 21', and I said, 'Oh my god, this is who my aunt gave all of her money to," Heuwetter said. "I didn't know he was so crazy, and at this point I was incensed that this man was going to get everything my aunt had left."

While Heuwetter says she didn't necessarily need the extra cash, other family members were struggling and could have used a little help, she said.

Even worse, Heuwetter said, was that Camping's prediction never came to fruition. Heuwetter's family members were just as angry when they learned about Family Radio's failed prophecy, so they brought the case to several lawyers, who sympathized with the family, but agreed they had no case. Family Radio did not respond to requests for comment.

The estate is within weeks of closing, and Heuwetter knows it's a lost cause.

"It's just so frustrating because I know there's nothing I can do about it -- this man is going to get hundreds of thousands of dollars from my aunt," she said. "And she wasn't a rich woman."

Though Camping later clarified that his prediction actually extends until October, many followers were disappointed when the rapture didn't happen on May 21. Heuwetter said there is no way her aunt would have given the money to Family Radio, had she lived to see Camping's doomsday-gone-wrong.

"She would have been devastated," Heuwetter said. "Listening to him say things would be better in paradise made her feel better -- she totally believed she would leave this world on May 21, and she needed to believe that."

If she were here to watch the world continue after May 21, she would have likely given her money to other family members, said Heuwetter.

"It was a good amount of money that would have helped a lot of people live better today -- but now it's not helping anyone."

--CNNMoney staff reporter Annalyn Censky contributed to this report.

Follow up to Rapture Day

I should have posted this sooner, but...

As expected, Camping found a way to weasel out of his utterly failed prediction. Now he says God's arrival to Earth was SPIRITUAL, not physical, and that...

"The great earthquake didn’t happen on May 21 because no-one will be able to survive it for more than a few days or let alone five months to suffer God’s wrath because everything will be leveled and destroyed after that earthquake and there will be no food or water to keep everyone alive."

So God's going to destroy everything in one day instead:

"The finish five months from now – we’re not changing the date, we’re just learning we have to look at this more spiritually. The Bible clearly teaches on October 21 that the world will be destroyed, but it will be very quick. When you study the Bible, you’re always learning. We had all of our dates correct."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1390268/Rapture-Harold-Camping-explains-wrong--says-God-bring-Rapture-OCTOBER-21.html?ITO=1490

I think the most important lesson here is not that he's interpreted the Bible incorrectly, but that this is the danger of faith-based belief--it can lead to absolute certainty yet you can be absolutely wrong.

Happy Judgement Day!

In honor of fundies everywhere, here's the anthem for National Judgement Day (May 21st):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0GFRcFm-aY&feature=player_embedded

And enjoy some of the best tweets on the subject:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/21/rapture-2011-end-of-the-world-may-21-live-blog_n_864893.html

My favorites: "So are people going to just start floating into the sky? This is my first rapture... so i'm trying to figure out what to wear."

and

"I think it's beginning! Ten minutes ago there was a group of people waiting at the bus stop outside my house. Now, they're all gone!"

Judgement Day!

Well, tomorrow is Judgement Day, according to fundies:

http://www.ebiblefellowship.com/outreach/tracts/may21/

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_end_times_prediction

Harold Camping is the fundie who calculated with absolute certainty that the world will end Saturday May 11 at 6 p.m. Local time, no less! Rolling fundie-outs going from time zone to time zone!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/20/harold-camping-judgment-day-may-21_n_864507.html?utm_source=Triggermail&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Daily%20Brief&utm_campaign=daily_brief

Oh, how I would love to park a lawn chair in front of a bunch of these buffoons and watch as 7 p.m. rolls around and nothing's happened. Then watch the backpedaling begin! :-)

Bigger Government = Happier Citizens?

http://www.livescience.com/14156-government-size-happiness.html

Florida Legislature Illegalizes Sex!

Too funny and too sad:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/11/floridas-bestiality-law_n_860836.html#s277665&title=Josh_Chambers

This is what happens when people don't get a decent science education.

CEO Pay Above Crash Levels

Ack. Unbelievable...the guys who fucked up the world economy have paid for it not at all:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/06/ceo-pay-high-pre-recession_n_858430.html?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=050611&utm_medium=email&utm_content=FeatureTitle&utm_term=Daily%20Brief

Atheists ARE Better Than Theists

Well, duh:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-do-americans-still-dislike-atheists/2011/02/18/AFqgnwGF_story.html

Follow this link for the support material:

http://www.epjournal.net/filestore/EP07398441_c.pdf

Scroll down to Figure 1-6 to see the start of the graphs showing societal health vs. religiosity. Eye-opening!

Obama's Birth Certificate...

...through the eyes of a birther:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/27/birthers-still-have-quest_n_854591.html?utm_source=Triggermail&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Daily%20Brief&utm_campaign=daily_brief

:-)

The Super Rich Pay Only 17 Percent Tax Rate

This is ridiculous:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110417/ap_on_bi_ge/us_no_taxes

Make it no less than 30% TOTAL and there'd be no more deficit spending.

How much corporations don't pay in taxes:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/usuncut/USuncut-infographic-big.jpg

Republicans redefine the value of pi

Wow...Republicans believing they can LEGISLATE what math is correct:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ian-squires/republicans-introduce-leg_b_837828.html?utm_source=Triggermail&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Daily+Brief&utm_campaign=daily_brief

Well, they've already tried legislating what science is correct by condemning evolutionary theory, but math? Seriously?

Jesus Light Switch

Epic fail....

http://www.dailyfunnystuff.net/the-jesus-light-switch-now-available-at-a-church-near-you

Balance the Budget Yourself!

Most Americans actually want Congress to budget a lot like how the progressives want:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/03/deficit-public-sentiment_n_830986.html?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=030411&utm_medium=email&utm_content=NewsEntry&utm_term=Daily+Brief

Go to http://public-consultation.org/exercise/ to try balancing the budget yourself. I ended up with a $109 billion surplus, mostly by cutting military-related spending mostly in half, increasing science and alternative energy budgets significantly, and raising taxes on the richest Americans by 5-15%, I think. And I made Social Security balanced with a 12% extra payment with just a few tweaks.

It makes you realize how ridiculous Congress is being by trying to cut little things like fuel oil subsidies for the poor to save only a few tens of billions.

Christian Pastor Caught Masturbating at a Children's Playground

Whenever Christians claim they have the moral high ground and we're the degenerates, remember instances like these:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/01/grant-storms-arrested-masturbating_n_830000.html

The Gap Between the Rich and the Poor

This series of charts starkly illustrates the growing chasm between the rich and the poor:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110223/ts_yblog_thelookout/separate-but-unequal-charts-show-growing-rich-poor-gap

Kepler Finds 1200+ Possible New Planets

Just because this is too cool not to mention:

http://www.universetoday.com/83012/kepler-discovers-first-earth-sized-planets-inside-habitable-zone/

"The first planets beyond our solar system were discovered in 1995. Up to today there were just over 500 known extrasolar planets.

We have found over twelve hundred candidate planets – that’s more than all the people have found so far in history.

Even more significant is that 54 of the planet candidates are located within the ‘habitable zone’ of their host stars and 5 of those are Earth-sized. Before today we knew of exactly ZERO Earth-sized planets within the habitable zone. Now there are 5."

GOP already in hot water

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_theticket/20110107/ts_yblog_theticket/house-gop-tries-to-fix-mess-started-by-lawmakers-who-voted-without-being-sworn-in

Religion Dying in America

A HUGE NEWS STORY, BARELY NOTICED
The Charleston Gazette - Nov. 9, 2010
By James A. Haught

Philosopher-historian Will Durant called it "the basic event of modern
times." He didn't mean the world wars, or the end of colonialism, or the
rise of electronics. He was talking about the decline of religion in
Western democracies.
The great mentor saw subsiding faith as the most profound occurrence of the
past century -- a shift of Western civilization, rather like former
transitions away from the age of kings, the era of slavery and such epochs.

Since World War II, worship has dwindled starkly in Europe, Canada,
Australia, Japan and other advanced democracies. In those busy places, only
5 or 10 percent of adults now attend church. Secular society scurries along
heedlessly.
Pope Benedict XVI protested: "Europe has developed a culture that, in a
manner unknown before now to humanity, excludes God from the public
conscience." Columnist George Will called the Vatican "109 acres of faith in
a European sea of unbelief."

America seems an exception. This country has 350,000 churches whose members
donate $100 billion per year. The United States teems with booming
megachurches, gigantic sales of "Rapture" books, fundamentalist attacks on
evolution, hundred-million-dollar TV ministries, talking-in-tongues
Pentecostals, the white evangelical "religious right" attached to the
Republican Party, and the like.

But quietly, under the radar, much of America slowly is following the path
previously taken by Europe. Little noticed, secularism keeps climbing in the
United States. Here's the evidence:

| Rising "nones." Various polls find a strong increase in the number of
Americans -- especially the young -- who answer "none" when asked their
religion. In 1990, this group had climbed to 8 percent, and by 2008, it had
doubled to 15 percent -- plus another 5 percent who answer "don't know."
This implies that around 45 million U.S. adults today lack church
affiliation. In Hawaii, more than half say they have no church connection.

| Mainline losses. America's traditional Protestant churches -- "tall
steeple" denominations with seminary-trained clergy -- once dominated U.S.
culture. They were the essence of America. But their membership is
collapsing. Over the past half-century, while the U.S. population doubled,
United Methodists fell from 11 million to 7.9 million, Episcopalians dropped
from 3.4 million to 2 million, the Presbyterian Church USA sank from 4.1
million to 2.2 million, etc. The religious journal First Things -- noting
that mainline faiths dwindled from 50 percent of the adult U.S. population
to a mere 8 percent -- lamented that "the Great Church of America has come
to an end." A researcher at the Ashbrook think-tank dubbed it "Flatline
Protestantism."

| Catholic losses. Although Hispanic immigration resupplies U.S. Catholicism
with replacements, many former adherents have drifted from the giant church.
The 2008 American Religious Identification Survey found that 20 million
Americans have quit Catholicism -- thus one-tenth of U.S. adults now are
ex-Catholics.

| Fading taboos. A half-century ago, church-backed laws had power in
America. In the 1950s, it was a crime to look at the equivalent of a Playboy
magazine or R-rated movie -- or for stores to open on the Sabbath -- or to
buy a cocktail or lottery ticket -- or to sell birth-control devices in some
states -- or to be homosexual -- or to terminate a pregnancy -- or to read a
sexy novel -- or for an unwed couple to share a bedroom. Now all those
morality laws have fallen, one after another. Currently, state after state
is legalizing gay marriage, despite church outrage.

Sociologists are fascinated by America's secular shift. Dr. Robert Putnam of
Harvard, author of "Bowling Alone," found as many as 40 percent of young
Americans answering "none" to faith surveys. "It's a huge change, a stunning
development," he said. "That is the future of America." He joined Dr. David
Campbell of Notre Dame in writing a new book, "American Grace," that
outlines the trend. Putnam's Social Capital site sums up: "Young Americans
are dropping out of religion at an alarming rate of five to six times the
historic rate."

Oddly, males outnumber females among the churchless. "The ratio of 60 males
to 40 females is a remarkable result," the 2008 ARIS poll reported. "These
gender patterns correspond with many earlier findings that show women to be
more religious than men."

Growing secularism has political implications. The Republican Party may
suffer as the white evangelical "religious right" shrinks. In contrast,
burgeoning "nones" tend to vote Democratic. Sociologist Ruy Teixeira says
the steady rise of the unaffiliated, plus swelling minorities, means that
"by the 2016 election (or 2020 at the outside) the United States will have
ceased to be a white Christian nation. Looking even farther down the road,
white Christians will be only around 35 percent of the population by 2040,
and conservative white Christians, who have been such a critical part of the
Republican base, will be only about a third of that -- a minority within a
minority."

Gradually, decade by decade, religion is moving from the advanced First
World to the less-developed Third World. Faith retains enormous power in
Muslim lands. Pentecostalism is booming in Africa and South America. Yet the
West steadily turns more secular.

Arguably, it's one of the biggest news stories during our lives -- although
most of us are too busy to notice. Durant may have been correct when he
wrote that it is the basic event of modern times.

Haught, editor of the Charleston Gazette, West Virginia's largest newspaper,
can be reached by phone at 304-348-5199 or e-mail at haught@wvgazette.com.
This essay is adapted from his ninth book, Fading Faith: The Rise of the
Secular Age. To order, click:
http://tinyurl.com/22mj74n

Liberals and Atheists are Smarter Than Conservatives and Theists?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100224132655.htm