Political Fallacies

http://www.nationofchange.org/top-12-political-fallacies-2012-1356865713

Bills Republicans Sank

http://www.nationofchange.org/what-could-have-been-most-important-bills-blocked-republicans-2012-1356797972

Revamped Voting System

I started a petition on the White House website for improving the voter system to discourage extremists (read whackjob Republicans, but it works both ways):

http://wh.gov/QAQt

It won't become public without 150 votes, so I hope you vote for it (assuming you're for it) and pass it on. A marketer I am not!

The Pagan Roots of Christmas

http://www.livescience.com/25779-christmas-traditions-history-paganism.html

New Jesus Sermon

For our times:

http://americamagazine.org/content/all-things/more-parables-our-time

Atheist Discrimination?

http://www.alternet.org/belief/6-outrageous-incidents-discrimination-against-nonbelievers?page=0%2C1&paging=off

Almost 40% of US citizens blame extreme weather on the "End Times"

http://news.yahoo.com/nearly-four-10-u-residents-blame-weather-end-200603898.html

Interestingly, that same percentage of US citizens also suffer from intrarectocephalicitis (aka Headupyourass Syndrome)....

Robert Reich Explains the Fiscal Cliff

Some good points:

http://www.youtube.com/embed/gMuA8I2M5l0

A WOMAN'S RESPONSE TO HER SENATOR....

 Alan Simpson, the Senator from Wyoming, calls senior citizens the Greediest 
Generation as he compares Social Security to a Milk Cow with 310 million teats.
 
 Here's a response in a letter from PATTY MYERS in Montana ... I think those 
Montana women have a lot of spunk.  She is a little ticked off and she tells it 
like it is! 
________________________________

 
Hey Alan, let's get a few things straight!!!!!
 
 1. As a career politician, you have been on the public dole (tit) for FIFTY 
YEARS.
 
 2. I have been paying Social Security taxes for 48 YEARS (since I was 15 years 
old. I am now 63).
 
 3. My Social Security payments, and those of millions of other Americans, were 
safely tucked away in an INTEREST BEARING ACCOUNT for decades until you 
political pukes decided to RAID the account and give OUR money to a bunch of 
zero losers in return for votes, thus bankrupting the system and turning Social 
Security into a Ponzi scheme that would make Bernie Madoff proud.
 
 4. Recently, just like Lucy & Charlie Brown, you and "your ilk" pulled the 
proverbial football away from millions of American seniors nearing retirement 
and moved the goalposts for full retirement from age 65 to age, 67. NOW, you and 
your "shill commission" are proposing to move the goalposts YET AGAIN.
 
 5. I, and millions of other Americans, have been paying into Medicare from Day 
One, and now "you morons" propose to change the rules of the game. Why? Because 
"you idiots" mismanaged other parts of the economy to such an extent that you 
need to steal our money from Medicare to pay the bills.
 
 6. I, and millions of other Americans, have been paying income taxes our entire 
lives, and now you propose to increase our taxes yet again. Why? Because you 
"incompetent bastards" spent our money so profligately that you just kept on 
spending even after you ran out of money. Now you come to the American taxpayers 
and say you need more to pay off YOUR debt.
 
 To add insult to injury, you label us "greedy" for calling attention to your 
incompetence. Well, Captain Bumblehead, I have a few questions for YOU:
 
 1. How much money have you earned from the American taxpayers during your 
pathetic 50-year political career?
 
 2. At what age did you retire from your pathetic political career, and how much 
are you receiving in annual retirement benefits from the American taxpayers?
 
 3. How much do you pay for YOUR government-provided health insurance?
 
 4. What cuts in YOUR retirement and healthcare benefits are you proposing in 
your disgusting deficit reduction proposal, or -- as usual -- have you exempted 
yourself and your political cronies?
 
 It is you, Captain Bumblehead, and your political co-conspirators called 
Congress, who are the "greedy" ones. It is you and your fellow nutcase thieves 
who have bankrupted America and stolen the American dream from millions of 
loyal, patriotic taxpayers. And for what? For votes and for your personal job 
and retirement security, at our expense, you lunk-headed leech.
 
 That's right, sir: You and yours have bankrupted America for the sole purpose 
of advancing your pathetic, political careers. You know it, we know it, and you 
know that we know it.  And you can take that to the bank.
 
 
P.S. And stop calling Social Security benefits "entitlements." WHAT AN 
INSULT!!!! I have been paying in to the SS system for 45 years. It's my money -- 
give it back to me the way the system was designed to, and stop patting yourself 
on the back like you are being generous by doling out these monthly checks!

We Won the Culture War

http://www.nationofchange.org/victory-culture-war-1354708842

That may be a bit hyperbolic, but it fits with my claim that progressive social positions always win in the long run:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFM3LYsND50

Africa Aid to Norway!

:-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=oJLqyuxm96k

Why Climate Change Deniers Have No Scientific Credibility

http://www.nationofchange.org/why-climate-deniers-have-no-scientific-credibility-one-pie-chart-1354370613

Mega-Institutions Harm Society

Intriguing TED talk on why smaller businesses are more healthy and efficient for society:

http://www.nationofchange.org/stacy-mitchell-we-can-t-shop-our-way-better-economy-1354289284

Bill O'Reilly thinks Christianity is a philosophy

Why can't theists even look up the definitions they use?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=dlApGy4WP-8

Religion:

1. 1. Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.
   2. A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.

The Tax Rate Myth

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/tax-reform/news/2011/06/20/9841/the-myth-of-the-lower-marginal-tax-rates/

10 Numbers the Rich Would Like Fudged

http://www.nationofchange.org/ten-numbers-rich-would-fudged-1353335225

I like to think my Evil God video series has had a small part in this:

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

An 'Evangelical Disaster': What Happened to the Religious Vote?

...79 percent of white evangelicals voted for Romney on Tuesday. That's the same percentage that Bush received in 2004, and more than Sen. John McCain received in 2008. The evangelical vote was 27 percent of the overall electorate -- the highest it's ever been for an election.

Their support wasn't enough. Not only did President Obama win soundly, but four states voted to allow same-sex marriage.

Mohler blamed the loss on a "seismic moral shift in culture." Americans' values are indeed changing, but more seems to be at work here.

First, the size of the evangelicals' base is a limitation. While white evangelicals comprised a quarter of the electorate, other religious groups that lean Democratic have grown substantially. Hispanic-American Catholics, African-American Protestants, and Jewish-Americans voted Democratic in overwhelming numbers. Additionally, the "nones" -- those who claim no religious affiliation -- are now the fastest growing "religious" group, comprising one-fifth of the population and a third of adults under 30. Seven out of 10 "nones" voted for Obama.

Second, evangelicals' influence is waning. Conservative Christian ideas are failing to shape the broader culture. More than 3,500 churches close their doors every year, and while Americans are still overwhelmingly spiritual, the institutional church no longer holds the sway over their lives it once did. The sweeping impact of globalization and the digital age has marginalized the church and its leaders.

 

Full Article Here:

http://news.yahoo.com/evangelical-disaster-happened-religious-vote-135118940--politics.html

Why Gay Marriage Should Be Legal

If we don't legalize gay marriage, gays will marry our girlfriends!

http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6846855/gay-men-will-marry-your-girlfriends

Fox News Under Fire After GOP Losses

http://www.nationofchange.org/fox-news-relationship-gop-under-fire-after-electoral-losses-1352650319

"Fox News feeds its viewers a line of bull about the way the world is. Viewers buy this line of bull. Misinformed viewers become misinformed voters. And then misinformed voters are shocked when Obama wins."

Republican Reaction to Their Asses Being Whupped

For a little dose of schadenfreude:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/09/conservatives-mitt-romney-presidential-election_n_2099504.html?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=110912&utm_medium=email&utm_content=FeaturePhoto&utm_term=Daily%20Brief

The 10 Guiding Principles of Romneyism

http://www.nationofchange.org/romneyism-1352038966

On Being a Republican in 2012

http://www.nationofchange.org/being-republican-2012-1351774843

Tax Policy Center in Spotlight for Its Romney Study

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/tax-policy-center-spotlight-romney-173604062.html;_ylc=X3oDMTNuYm1vZnFxBF9TAzExODMzMDAyNTAEYWN0A21haWxfY2IEY3QDYQRpbnRsA3VzBGxhbmcDZW4tVVMEcGtnAzJhYzdiOTljLTliZTQtMzA4NC1iM2I0LTc5ZDU0MmUxZjgxMgRzZWMDbWl0X3NoYXJlBHNsawNtYWlsBHRlc3QD;_ylv=3

The conclusion:

Mr. Sullivan of Tax Analysts said: “I like tax reform. I want to broaden the base. It’s something I’ve devoted my life to. And I welcome Governor Romney and the Republicans’ strong push, but the plan doesn’t work out. It’s not mathematically possible.”

Helpful Graphs to Compare With Candidate Debate Claims

2nd Debate:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/10/17/the-second-presidential-debate-in-graphs/

3rd Debate:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/10/23/the-third-presidential-debate-in-graphs/?tid=pm_business_pop

Judge rules that paranoid schizophrenic beliefs are the same as Christianity

Of course, the more obvious verdict should be that BOTH the defendant AND his beliefs are insane. ;-)

-------

Subject: [AU] Florida judge holds that paranoid schizophrenic beliefs are the same as Christianity

http://truth-out.org/news/item/12222

The Florida Supreme Court has ruled that the state can proceed with the execution of 64-year-old John Erroll Ferguson, despite its finding that he is a paranoid schizophrenic. The Justices upheld the ruling of a lower court, which found that Ferguson's "Prince of God" delusions, while "genuine", are not "significantly different than beliefs other Christians may hold." Gov. Rick Scott has since signed a new death warrant with the execution scheduled for Tuesday, October 23 at 6 p.m.

...........

Ferguson was sentenced to death for a 1977 mass murder in Miami Dade, which he committed shortly after the state released him from a mental hospital against the warnings of several state-appointed psychiatrists. During his incarceration, state appointed experts have continued to diagnose him with paranoid schizophrenia.

The prosecution initially argued that Ferguson was faking his symptoms. But that was shot down last week by Bradford County Eighth Judicial Circuit Judge David Glant who found the testimony of Ferguson's experts "credible and compelling" and ruled that Ferguson's delusions are "genuine." Nevertheless, Glant ruled that Ferguson is competent for execution because his beliefs are in keeping with Christian teachings.

Ferguson expresses the belief, among other things, that he is the "Prince of God" chosen to fight two antichrists alongside Jesus - after which he will rule the world with multiple wives. In his mind, his incarceration is part of a "hardening" process designed by God to prepare him to return to earth after his execution and save America from a communist plot.

Ferguson's delusions represent a "relatively normal Christian belief, albeit a grandiose one," concluded Glant. "There is no evidence in the record that Ferguson's belief as to his role in the world and what may happen to him in the afterlife is so significantly different from beliefs other Christians may hold so as to consider it a sign of insanity."

Ferguson's attorneys immediately appealed Glant's decision to the Florida Supreme Court, which upheld the lower court's ruling, though they ditched the "his delusions are totally normal Christian beliefs" part. 

Romney's 31 Myths in 41 Minutes

http://www.nationofchange.org/last-night-s-debate-romney-told-31-myths-41-minutes-1350487385

Five Ways Deregulation is Ripping America Apart

http://www.nationofchange.org/five-ways-deregulation-ripping-america-apart-1350308251

Republican Senator Endorses Obama

Unusual:

----------

Yesterday, I proudly endorsed President Obama.

As a combat veteran of two tours of Vietnam with 22 years of service as a Republican member of the U.S. House and Senate, the choice was not easy.

But it is clear: President Obama recognizes that our sacred trust with those who serve starts when they take their oath, and never ends.

That's why he's enacted tax credits to spur businesses to hire unemployed veterans and wounded warriors. He implemented and improved the post-9/11 GI Bill, the largest investment in veterans education since the original GI Bill more than 60 years ago. He's proposing a Veterans Jobs Corps that would help put returning service members to work as police officers, firefighters, and first responders.

President Obama ended the war in Iraq, and has a plan to responsibly end the war in Afghanistan. He's laid out a clear plan that would reduce the deficit and prevent the mandatory arbitrary military spending cuts that no one wants.

And something that hits close to home: President Obama secured the largest increase in VA investments in decades, so veterans get the care and benefits they earned, like treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury. As someone with service-related PTSD, I meet with younger veterans weekly to help them through the treatment and transition. It makes a difference for them knowing their president has their back.

And let me be clear: Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan would be disastrous for America's service members, veterans, and military families.

When you fail to mention an ongoing war in accepting your party's nomination to be president, or veterans in a so-called jobs plan, the public praise rings hollow.

Mitt Romney has time and again failed the test to be commander-in-chief of our nation's military. When he politicized the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other brave Americans in Libya, he demonstrated that he lacks the required resolve and steadiness. He sowed division between "us" and "them" when he wrote off 47 percent of Americans, including any veteran collecting disability like myself. He has still failed to outline any plan to end the war in Afghanistan or bring our troops home.

He has not proven himself fit to serve as commander-in-chief of this nation.

That's the difference in this election. Candidates might praise our service members, veterans, and their families, but President Obama supports them in word and deed. He never forgets that standing by those who serve is one of the core values of this country.

Even as a life-long Republican, I stand by him as he stands by all of us, putting national allegiance ahead of party affiliation.

Please take a look at my full endorsement, then pass it along to your friends and family:

http://my.barackobama.com/Proud-to-Support-President-Obama

Thank you,

Senator Larry Pressler
South Dakota

Number of Godless Continues to Rise

Latest Pew Forum Research Shows Number of 

Godless Continues to Rise

Secularism On The Rise--Protestantism Lowest In History

Cranford, NJ-American Atheists celebrate the latest Pew Research Center poll showing that, once again, the number of people in the U.S. who do not believe in any god, or who are non-religious (aka "nones") is on the rise. The results indicate a 4.8% increase in the number of "nones" in the last year, with a total increase of 25% over the last five years. This continual rise is contrasted by a steady decline, across the board, in the number of people who are religious. For the first time in history, Protestants no longer hold the majority. 

This report is a confirmation of the social shift occurring in the U.S., allowing scores of atheists to come out openly, and moving the U.S. from a predominantly religious nation to a more secular nation. 

David Silverman, President of American Atheists said, "We're seeing a marked shift in the religion bias of our country. Many atheists are 'coming out' and openly declaring their non-belief to friends, family, and co-workers. The prejudice still exists, but the statistics prove that the stranglehold of religion is quickly fading away, and being replaced by a more tolerant, secular society."

The term "nones" comprise a demographic of Americans who classify their religion as "nothing in particular" or simply "none". According to the report:

* From 2007-2012, the "nones" have risen from just over 15% to just under 20% of all U.S. adults.

* Eighty-eight percent of the "nones" say they are not looking for a religion indicating their ties with religion are permanently broken.

* The "nones" are comprised of: atheists (12%), agnostics (17%), and nothing in particular (71%). 

American Atheists has seen tremendous growth over the past 50 years. There has been a marked change in the numbers of atheists 'coming out' as displayed by the Reason Rally held on the National Mall in Washington D.C. on March 24, 2012, drawing a crowd of nearly 30,000 non-believers.

The report can be found online: http://www.pewforum.org/Unaffiliated/nones-on-the-rise.aspx

Five Practical Reasons Not to Vote Republican

http://www.nationofchange.org/five-practical-reasons-not-vote-republican-1349704598

Another Sad Republican Ignoramus

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/10/rep-paul-broun-r-ga-evolution-big-bang-lies-straight-from-the-pit-of-hell.php?ref=fpb

Stephen King on why the wealthy should pay more

Obsceneloquently put:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/30/stephen-king-tax-me-for-f-s-sake.html

Science & God: Will Biology, Astronomy, Physics Rule Out Existence Of Deity?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/18/science-god-biology-astronomy-physics-deity_n_1894010.html#slide=988734

Fox News Climate Coverage 93% Wrong, Report Finds

No surprise here!

-----------

Fox News Climate Coverage 93% Wrong, Report Finds

Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer

 

Primetime coverage of global warming at Fox News is overwhelmingly misleading, according to a new report that finds the same is true of climate change information in the Wall Street Journal op-ed pages.

Both outlets are owned by Rupert Murdoch's media company News Corporation. The analysis by the science-policy nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) finds that 93 percent of primetime program discussions of global warming on Fox News are inaccurate, as are 81 percent of Wall Street Journal editorials on the subject.

"It's like they were writing and talking about some sort of bizarre world where climate change isn't happening," study author Aaron Huertas, a press secretary at UCS, told LiveScience.

"It's clear that we're not having a fact-based dialogue about climate change," Huertas added.

The report, available online, focused on Fox News and the Journal because of both anecdotal and academic reports suggesting high levels of misleading climate chatter in each. UCS researchers combed through six months of Fox News primetime programs (from February 2012 to July 2012) and one year of Wall Street Journal op-eds (from August 2011 to July 2012), for discussions of global warming.

Fox's climate problems

The researchers found that Fox News and the Journal were consistently dismissive of the established scientific consensus that climate change is happening and that human activities are the main driver. For example, a statement aired on a primetime Fox News show on April 11 says, "I thought we were getting warmer. But in the '70s, it was, look out, we're all going to freeze."

The statement refers to some research in the 1970s that suggested a cooling trend, exacerbated by pollutants called aerosols (also known as smog). However, a greater number of papers, which represented consensus in the science community, in the 1970s predicted warming, according to Skeptical Science, a climate change communication website maintained by University of Queensland physicist John Cook. Temperature records have since improved, revealing the cooling trend was confined to northern landmasses. [10 Climate Myths Busted]

The most common climate mistakes on Fox News involved misleading statements on basic climate science, or simple undermining and disparaging of the field of climate science. For example, on March 23, one on-air personality referred to global warming as a "hoax and fraud." (The analysis did not look at non-primetime broadcasts or FoxNews.com.)

Misleading opinions

The misrepresentations in Wall Street Journal op-eds similarly twisted the science and disparaged the field, UCS said, though there were also examples of disparaging individual scientists, including calling NASA climate scientist James Hansen a "global-warming alarmist."

One March 9 column by Robert Tracinski called global warming a "bubble" and decried the "failure of the global warming theory itself" and "the credibility of its advocates."

Fox News and the Wall Street Journal did not respond to LiveScience's requests for comment. The organizations have not responded to UCS either, Huertas said, though they were informed of the report before it was made public.

The goal of the report, according to the UCS, is not to shut down legitimate debate on the appropriateness of various climate policies.

"It is entirely appropriate to disagree with specific actions or policies aimed at addressing climate change while accepting the clearly established findings of climate science," the authors wrote. "And while it is appropriate to question new science as it emerges, it is misleading to reject or sow doubt about established science — in this case, the overwhelming body of evidence that human-caused climate change is occurring."

The organization called on News Corp. to examine their climate-change reporting standards and to help their staff differentiate between opinions on global warming and scientific fact.

"This is happening no matter what, so we can have a sober adult conversation about it and figure out what to do, or we can turn it into another hot-button ideological issue," Huertas said. "Frankly, we already have enough hot-button ideological issues. I don't think we need another one."

Romney Poem

A surprisingly well done poem by a WWII vet:

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

(Skip ahead to the poem at 2:25 if you don't want to hear his back story.)

More Mitt Romney Leaks

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/a7124bd817/more-leaked-mitt-romney-fundraiser-footage?utm_campaign=newsletter20120920&utm_content=fv2&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=fd

:-)

Media should go easy on Romney — for their own sake

Media should go easy on Romney — for their own sake
By Dana Milbank, Published: September 18
“The media wants to beat up Mitt Romney,” Sean Hannity told his Fox News viewers this week, “which is driving me nuts.”
Me too, Sean. Much as I’d like to see Hannity driven nuts, I agree that we in the media have been far too rough on the Republican presidential nominee. In fact, I send this urgent appeal to my fellow members of the lamestream media: Please go easy on the guy — for our own sake.
First, Romney was pounded for his false and tone-deaf statements about the attacks on U.S. embassies in Libya and Egypt; in a weak moment, I joined in the criticism.
Then Politico came out Sunday night with an article titled “Inside the campaign: How Mitt Romney stumbled,” discourteously detailing all sorts of infighting and missteps.
Worst of all was Monday, when my friend David Corn had the temerity to post on Mother Jones a surreptitiously recorded video of Romney dismissing nearly half the country as moochers.
At this rate, Romney will surely lose the election — and for journalism, this would be a tragedy.
At these times of declining revenue, we in the media need to stay true to our core interests. As the old saying goes, we should “vote the story.” And the better story in this election is clearly President Romney.
Romney’s hit parade — insulting the British, inviting Clint Eastwood to the Republican convention, flubbing Libya and now dismissing half the nation as parasites — may make good copy for the next seven weeks. But if we go easy on the man, we could have four years of gaffes instead of just seven more weeks. Admittedly, this may not be the best outcome for the country, or for the world. But in this race, there is no denying that one man will give us much better material.
President Obama has many talents, but he is not good copy. He speaks grammatically, in fully formed paragraphs. He has yet to produce a scandal of any magnitude. He is maddeningly on message, and his few gaffes — “you didn’t build that,” “the private sector is doing fine” — are inflammatory only out of context. If it weren’t for the occasional relief offered by Joe Biden, the Samaritans would have installed a ­suicide-prevention hotline in the White House press room by now.
Romney, by contrast, showed his potential for miscues in his first presidential run (see: varmints, hunting of), but he truly blossomed in the gaffe department this cycle, when he became a one-man blooper reel:
“Corporations are people, my friend.”
“I like being able to fire people.”
“I’m not concerned about the very poor.”
“I’m also unemployed.”
“Ann drives a couple of Cadillacs.”
“Ten thousand bucks? $10,000 bet?”
“I have some great friends that are NASCAR team owners.”
“There were a couple of times I wondered whether I was going to get a pink slip.”
“I’m running for office, for Pete’s sake; we can’t have illegals.”
In addition, Romney frequently gives the media fresh opportunities to rerun the blooper reel with his attempts to explain the original mistakes. This goes back to his explanation for why he strapped his dog Seamus to the top of the family car: The dog “enjoyed himself” up there.
More recently, Romney offered this explanation for his claim that Obama was making America a less Christian nation. “I’m not familiar precisely with what I said, but I’ll stand by what I said, whatever it was,” he said.
Saying zany things and then standing by them: From a presidential nominee, this is newsworthy. From a president, it could be sensational.
Romney caused an international incident when he went to London and spoke of “disconcerting” signs that the Brits weren’t prepared to host the Olympics. Were he to do that as president, he could bring transatlantic relations back to War of 1812 levels — and that would be a big story.
At home, likewise, he has caused consternation with his remark that 47 percent of Americans “believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name it” and won’t “take personal responsibility and care for their lives.” If he governed that way as president, he could stir up social unrest not seen in half a century — and that, too, would be quite a story.
Usually, reporters have little trouble recognizing our self-interest. For all of Newt Gingrich’s complaints about media bias during his primary candidacy, reporters fantasized about a Gingrich presidency.
We should do the same now as we consider prospects for a Romney presidency: gaffes in news conferences, diplomatic slights at state dinners or ham-handed attempts to placate conservatives in Congress. This is exactly the man our industry needs. Be gentle.
I’m from the mainstream media, and I approve this message.
danamilbank@washpost.com

East Coast vs. West Coast Cultural Differences

Not exactly political, but interesting nevertheless:

http://www.livescience.com/23283-east-vs-west-coast-culture-differences.html

That's why I much prefer the West coast: no wearing ties and no need to follow tradition.

Dalai Lama says religion inadequate for ethics

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/13/dalai-lama-facebook-religion-is-no-longer-adequate-science_n_1880805.html

"Any religion-based answer to the problem of our neglect of inner values can never be universal, and so will be inadequate. What we need today is an approach to ethics which makes no recourse to religion and can be equally acceptable to those with faith and those without: a secular ethics," he wrote.

Wise words, m'man....

Penn Jilette Waxing on Politics and Religion

He's entertaining and perceptive:

http://bigthink.com/ideas/41033

Are we getting smarter?

I stumbled across this book review that notes absolute IQ scores have increased in the US by 3 points per decade:

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/05/16/050516crbo_books

Its take on the increasing complexity of TV shows and video games reflects (or causes?) this, according to the author. Interesting.

Legitimate Rape Birth Control

:-)

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/056ffa6b76/legitimate-rape-pharmaceutical-ad?utm_campaign=newsletter20120906&utm_content=fv3&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=fd

Government and Vaginas

http://FunnyOrDie.com/m/6t29

The Party of No

The depressing history of the Party of No:

It was December 2008, Barack Obama had just been elected--and the Republican Party had just followed George W. Bush off a political cliff. After preaching small government, balanced budgets and economic growth while producing bigger government, exploding deficits and economic collapse, they had gotten pasted for the second straight election. Publishers were rushing out titles like The Strange Death of Republican America and 40 More Years: How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation. "We were in disarray," recalls Representative Pete Sessions of Texas. "People were comparing us to cockroaches, saying we weren't even relevant. We had to change the mind-set."

With the economy in free fall and Obama's approval rating in the stratosphere, the Beltway believed chastened Republicans would have to cooperate with him. But Eric Cantor of Virginia, the new House minority whip, believed chastened Republicans should start acting like Republicans. He summoned his whip team to his condo building to plot strategy, and the strategy was: Fight. He invited two pollsters to the meeting, but no policy experts because he wanted Republicans to be communicators, not policymakers. They lacked the power to block the Obama agenda, but they could win the battle for public opinion if they could stick together, so Obama couldn't claim bipartisan victories.

"We're not here to cut deals and get crumbs and stay in the minority for another 40 years," Cantor said. "We're not rolling over. We're going to fight these guys. We're down, but things are going to change."

A few weeks later, Sessions began his presentation at a House Republican leadership retreat in Annapolis, Md., with an existential political question: "If the purpose of the majority is to govern ... What is our purpose?" The answer was not to promote Republican policies, or stop Democratic policies, or even make Democratic bills less offensive to Republicans. "The purpose of the minority is to become the majority," Sessions wrote. "That is the entire conference's mission."

Mission accomplished. In the 2010 elections, the GOP reclaimed the House, ushering in two years of bitter stalemate with Obama and the Democratic Senate. But they still haven't done much legislating. They've defined themselves politically by their opposition to Obama, papering over tensions between the Republican Party establishment and Tea Party activists. They've defined themselves ideologically by their tentative embrace of Paul Ryan's ambitious budget plan. So if Mitt Romney wins the White House with Ryan at his side, how would the Party of No try to govern?

To make an educated guess, it helps to go back to the start of the Obama era.

'IF OBAMA WAS FOR IT ...'

Senate republicans held their own retreat in January 2009 at the Library of Congress, and they were even gloomier than their House counterparts. "We might find ourselves in the minority for generations," groaned Utah Senator Bob Bennett. Five of the 41 surviving GOP Senators would soon announce their retirement.

"We were discouraged, dispirited and divided," Bennett recalls. "The one guy who recognized that it need not be so was Mitch McConnell."

The owlish, studiously bland Senate minority leader from Kentucky was the unlikeliest of motivational speakers. He was a strategy guy, cynical and clinical; he reminded his members to stay calm, stay on message and stay united. Obama had promised postpartisanship, and Republicans could turn him into a promise breaker by withholding their support. "We got shellacked, but don't forget we still represent half the population," McConnell said. "Republicans need to stick together as a team." Or as Ohio Senator George Voinovich summarized the strategy: "If Obama was for it, we had to be against it."

The first major Obama initiative would be his stimulus plan, an $800 billion package of tax cuts and spending programs designed to resuscitate an economy that was hemorrhaging 800,000 jobs a month. Who could oppose a jobs bill during a jobs crisis? Every presidential candidate had proposed a stimulus during the 2008 campaign. Romney's plan was actually the biggest.

But McConnell believed Republicans had nothing to gain from me-too-ism. He reminded his caucus that Republicans wouldn't pay a price for opposing Obama's plan if it succeeded, because politicians get re-elected in good times. But if the economy didn't revive, they could return from the political wilderness in 2010. "He wanted everyone to hold the fort," Voinovich later explained. "All he cared about was making sure Obama could never have a clean victory."

The Republican strategy on the stimulus was as simple as it was clever. The Obama plan had $300 billion worth of tax cuts, plus all kinds of spending that had enjoyed some bipartisan support: unemployment benefits, infrastructure, research and much more. It even included the Race to the Top education reforms, anathema to Democratic teachers' unions. But the GOP message never wavered: Big Government, big spending, big mess.

Inside the leadership team, though, there were tensions between Cantor, who wanted to put Republican politics first, and GOP conference chairman Mike Pence of Indiana, who wanted to put ideological conservatism first. Ultimately, the Republicans fell off both sides of the horse. The official $478 billion GOP alternative was a Pence-style ideological bill, consisting entirely of tax cuts and unemployment benefits. But Republicans also crafted a Cantor-style political bill, a $715 billion substitute with even more traditional infrastructure than the Democratic bill. Most House Republicans--including Ryan--voted for both. They never did explain how their stimulus could be good public policy while Obama's similar $787 billion stimulus was freedom-crushing socialism, but their no vote was unanimous. "The caucus had decided we weren't going to give Obama a bipartisan victory on this," recalls moderate Republican Mike Castle of Delaware.

But three moderate GOP Senators voted yes, so Obama won a huge policy victory, a down payment on his campaign promises to reform energy, health care, education and the economy. And one of those moderate Republicans, Arlen Specter, faced such a backlash that he defected to the Democrats, giving Obama the filibuster-proof majority he needed to pass his health reforms.

Nevertheless, Republicans were jubilant. The stimulus was unpopular, so they believed they had won by losing. At a caucus retreat at a Virginia resort, House minority leader John Boehner replayed the video of the vote, prompting a standing ovation. "We'll have more to come!" Cantor said. Pence showed a clip from Patton of the general rallying his troops against their Nazi enemy: "We're going to kick the hell out of him all the time and we're going to go through him like crap through a goose!"

The stimulus debate established the pattern for the next four years. Republicans opposed the entire Obama agenda--a health care plan based on Romney's, a cap-and-trade regime that McCain had supported in 2008, financial reform after a financial meltdown. Obama squeezed his health care and Wall Street reform bills through Congress anyway, but the quest for 60 votes in the Senate forced him to cut deals that made his initiatives look ugly. And the Tea Party--which held its first rally 10 days after Obama signed the stimulus--became a powerful force opposing the Obama agenda, and a double-edged sword for Washington Republicans.

CAN THEY GOVERN?

Senator Bennett was a loyal soldier in McConnell's army of No, voting against the stimulus and Obamacare. He had been just as loyal a soldier in Bush's army of Yes. But to the Tea Party, that was no longer a point in "Bailout Bob's" favor. Utah's GOP convention didn't even let him defend his seat in a primary in 2010, choosing two Tea Partyers to run instead. "It was just, 'You betrayed us! You voted with Bush!'" Bennett says. "I remember being at Republican conventions where people would say, 'Stand firm with Bush!' So I did, and now you hate me?"

Bennett says his friend Romney commiserated with him about the Tea Party's ingratitude, telling a presumably apocryphal story about getting bitten by a ferret he had tried to rescue from a dishwasher. "Mitt said the Tea Party people are like that ferret in the dishwasher," he says. "They're so frightened and angry, they'll even bite Bob Bennett, who's trying to get the country out of this mess."

Insufficient anti-Obama fervor had become politically fatal in the GOP. Tea Partyers won rage-a-thon Republican primaries against less dogmatic candidates in Delaware, Colorado, Connecticut, Nevada, Kentucky and Alaska, which ultimately cost the GOP control of the Senate in 2010.

As the party comes together in Tampa, it's still not clear whether it can unite behind an agenda. Since the midterms, Washington Republicans have struggled to ride the Tea Party tiger. They've crusaded against spending and debt, threatening to shut down the government if Obama wouldn't agree to their austerity demands. They have pushed--although less vigorously after it polled terribly--the Ryan plan of massive tax cuts for "job creators," a controversial overhaul of Medicare for future generations and dramatic but unspecified cuts in other nondefense spending.

Romney has already distanced himself from some of the few draconian specifics of Ryan's plan. But he has proposed even more-aggressive tax cuts for businesses and investors, which have defined the GOP agenda for decades. Would the Republicans also cut spending? That's harder to say. They haven't in the past; history suggests their concern about deficit reduction mostly emerges when they're out of power. There's a reason Romney won't specify what he wants to cut beyond NPR and Amtrak. It's the same reason Ryan trashed the stimulus as a "wasteful spending spree" while seeking stimulus dollars for his district. Government spending--on Medicare, defense and even the actual contents of the stimulus--remains popular, even though "the government" is not.

And while "deficit reduction" is popular, the spending cuts that actually reduce the deficit are not.

In 2008, Republicans said they were done with Bush-style Big Government conservatism. But the temptation to cut taxes and keep spending remains. Romney will have to decide how fully to embrace the Tea Party vision. And then the ferret will have to decide whether to bite.

Adapted from The New New Deal, copyright 2012 by Michael Grunwald. Published August 2012 by Simon & Schuster Inc. Reprinted by permission

Fact checking for thee, but not for me

Fact checking for thee, but not for me

By Greg Sargent

Get this: The Romney campaign’s position is now that the Obama camp should pull its ads when fact checkers call them out as false — but that Romney and his advisers should feel no such constraint. 

This is not an exaggeration. This is really the Romney campaign’s position. 

As Buzzfeed reports this morning, top Romney advisers say their most effective ads are the ones attacking Obama over welfare, and that they will not allow their widespread denunciation by fact checkers as false slow down their campaign one little bit: 

“Our most effective ad is our welfare ad,” a top television advertising strategist for Romney, Ashley O’Connor, said at a forum Tuesday hosted by ABCNews and Yahoo! News. “It’s new information.”... 

 

The Washington Post’s “Fact Checker” awarded Romney’s ad “four Pinocchios,” a measure Romney pollster Neil Newhouse dismissed. 

 

“Fact checkers come to this with their own sets of thoughts and beliefs, and we’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers,” he said.

That’s a very interesting admission. But it gets better. Reading this brought to mind Romney’s own remarks about fact-checking and political advertising not long ago. Needless to say, he has a different standard for the Obama campaign: 

“You know, in the past, when people pointed out that something was inaccurate, why, campaigns pulled the ad,” Romney said on the radio. “They were embarrassed. Today, they just blast ahead. You know, the various fact checkers look at some of these charges in the Obama ads and they say that they’re wrong, and inaccurate, and yet he just keeps on running them.”

 

The upshot is that Romney doesn’t have an intellectual objection to fact checking’s limitations in a general sense, at least when it’s applied to the Obama campaign. In that case, fact checking is a legitmate exercise Obama should heed. But at the same time, the Romney campaign explicitly says it doesn’t see it as legitimate or constraining when it’s applied to him. 

By the way, this isn’t the first time the Romney camp has insisted that it is not beholden to the standards it expects the Obama campaign to follow. For the better part of a year, Romney has hammered Obama over the “net” jobs lost on his watch, to paint him as a job destroyer, a metric that factors the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of jobs lost at the start of Obama’s term, before his policies took effect. Yet Romney advisers have argued, with no apparent sense of irony, that his own record should not be judged by one net jobs number. 

In this sense, the Romney campaign continues to pose a test to the news media and our political system. What happens when one campaign has decided there is literally no set of boundaries that it needs to follow when it comes to the veracity of its assertions? The Romney campaign is betting that the press simply won’t be able to keep voters informed about the disputes that are central to the campaign, in the face of the sheer scope and volume of dishonesty it uncorks daily. 

Paul Krugman’s question continues to remain relevant: “Has there ever been a candidacy this cynical?”

Anti Obama Movie Just Makes Shit Up

http://news.yahoo.com/fact-check-anti-obama-film-muddy-facts-072153385--politics.html

Signs of divine intervention for Republicans?

Signs of divine intervention for Republicans?

By Dana Milbank, Published: August 21

Has God forsaken the Republican Party?

Well, sit in judgment of what’s happened in the past few days:

●A report comes out that a couple dozen House Republicans engaged in an alcohol-induced frolic, in one case nude, in the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus is believed to have walked on water, calmed the storm and, nearby, turned water into wine and performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes.

●Rep. Todd Akin, Missouri’s Republican nominee for Senate, suggests there is such a thing as “legitimate rape” and purports that women’s bodies have mysterious ways to repel the seed of rapists. He spends the next 48 hours rejecting GOP leaders’ demands that he quit the race.

●Weather forecasts show that a storm, likely to grow into Hurricane Isaac, may be chugging toward . . . Tampa, where Republicans will open their quadrennial nominating convention on Monday.

Coincidence? Or part of some Intelligent Design?

By their own logic, Republicans and their conservative allies should be concerned that Isaac is a form of divine retribution. Last year, Rep. Michele Bachmann, then a Republican presidential candidate, said that the East Coast earthquake and Hurricane Irene — another “I” storm, but not an Old Testament one — were attempts by God “to get the attention of the politicians.” In remarks later termed a “joke,” she said: “It’s time for an act of God and we’re getting it.”

The influential conservative broadcaster Glenn Beck said last year that the Japanese earthquake and tsunami were God’s “message being sent” to that country. A year earlier, Christian broadcaster and former GOP presidential candidate Pat Robertson tied the Haitian earthquake to that country’s “pact to the devil.”

Previously, Robertson had argued that Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment for abortion, while the Rev. John Hagee said the storm was God’s way of punishing homosexuality. The late Jerry Falwell thought that God allowed the Sept. 11 attacks as retribution for feminists and the ACLU.

Even if you don’t believe God uses meteorological phenomena to express His will, it’s difficult for mere mortals to explain what is happening to the GOP just now.

By most earthly measures, President Obama has no business being reelected. No president since World War II has won reelection with the unemployment rate north of 7.4 percent. Of the presidents during that time who were returned to office, GDP growth averaged 4.7 percent during the first nine months of the election year — more than double the current rate.

But instead of being swept into office by the worst economic recovery since the Great Depression, Republicans are in danger of losing an election that is theirs to lose. Mitt Romney, often tone-deaf, has allowed Obama to change the subject to Romney’s tax havens and tax returns. And congressional Republicans are providing all kinds of reasons for Americans to doubt their readiness to assume power.

The Politico report Sunday about drunken skinny-dipping in the Sea of Galilee gave House Republicans an unwanted image of debauchery — a faint echo of the Capitol page scandal that, breaking in September 2006, cemented Republicans’ fate in that November’s elections. The 30 Republican lawmakers on the “fact-finding” mission to Israel last summer earned a rebuke from Majority Leader Eric Cantor and attracted the attention of the FBI. The naked congressman, Rep. Kevin Yoder (R-Kan.), admitted in a statement: “[R]egrettably I jumped into the water without a swimsuit.”

A boozy frolic at a Christian holy site might have been a considerable embarrassment for the party, but it was eclipsed by a bigger one: Akin’s preposterous claim on a St. Louis TV program that pregnancy is rare after a “legitimate rape” because “the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

Republican leaders spent the next 48 hours trying to shut Akin’s whole thing down, but after a period of panic (a no-show on Piers Morgan’s show led the CNN host to show his empty chair and call him a “gutless little twerp”), Akin told radio host Mike Huckabee on Tuesday that he would fight the “big party people” and stay in the race.

The big party people had a further complication: In Tampa on Tuesday, those drafting the GOP platform agreed to retain a plank calling for a constitutional amendment banning abortion without specifying exceptions for cases of rape. In other words, the Akin position.

For a party that should be sailing toward victory, there were all the makings of a perfect storm. And, sure enough: Tuesday afternoon, the National Weather Service forecast that “Tropical Depression Nine” would strengthen into a hurricane, taking a northwesterly track over Cuba on Sunday morning — just as Republicans are arriving in Florida.

What happens next? God only knows.

Religiosity declining sharply, atheism on the rise

This is encouraging:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/08/religiosity-plummets-ireland-declines-worldwide-atheism_n_1757453.html?utm_hp_ref=daily-brief?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=080912&utm_medium=email&utm_content=NewsEntry&utm_term=Daily%20Brief

But I believe Islam is growing faster than atheism, and that's a big problem.

Underground sect charged with abuse

http://news.yahoo.com/russia-underground-sect-charged-abuse-124809004.html

Russia: Underground sect charged with abuse
By MANSUR MIROVALEV | Associated Press - 24 mins ago

MOSCOW (AP) - A reclusive sect that literally went underground to stop contact with the outside world kept 27 children in dark and unheated cells, many of them for more than a decade, prosecutors said Wednesday. The children have been freed and the parents charged with child abuse.

Some of the children, aged between 1 and 17, have never seen daylight, health officials said. The sect's 83-year-old founder Faizrakhman Satarov, who declared himself a Muslim prophet in contradiction with the principles of Islam, has also been charged with negligence, Irina Petrova, deputy prosecutor in the provincial capital of Kazan, told The Associated Press.

No members of the sect, who call themselves "muammin" after the Arabic term that means "believers," have been arrested, she said.

The children were discovered last week when police searched the sect grounds as part of a probe into the recent killing of a top Tatarstan Muslim cleric, an attack local officials blame on radical Islamist groups that have mushroomed in the oil-rich, Volga River province.

Satarov, a former top imam in the neighboring province of Bashkortostan, declared his house outside Kazan an independent Islamic state. He ordered some 70 followers to live in cells they dug under the three-story building topped by a small minaret with a tin crescent moon. Only a few sect members were allowed to leave the premises to work as traders at a local market, Russian media reported.

The children have been placed in local hospitals for observation and will temporarily live in an orphanage, pediatrician Tatyana Moroz said in televised remarks.

The cramped cells, without ventilation, heating or electricity, form eight levels under a decrepit three-story brick house on a 700-square-meter (7,530 sq. foot) plot of land. The house was built illegally and will be demolished, Tatarstan police told local media.

"They will come with bulldozers and guns, but they can demolish this house over our dead bodies!" sect member Gumer Ganiyev said on the Vesti television channel. The ailing Satarov appointed Ganiyev as his deputy "prophet," according to local media.

Satarov had followers in several other cities in Tatarstan and other Volga River provinces, local media reported.

In a 2008 interview with the Komsomolskaya Pravda daily, Satarov said that he fell out with other clerics and authorities in the Communist era, when the KGB sent him to Muslim nations with stories about religious freedom in the officially atheist Soviet Union. Government-approved Orthodox Christian, Muslim and Jewish clerics routinely traveled abroad on Soviet publicity trips.

"That's how I became Satan's servant, a traitor," the white-bearded and turbaned man was quoted as saying. "When I understood that, I repented and started preaching."

Muslim leaders in Tatarstan said Satarov's views contradict their dogma.

"Islam postulates that there are no other prophets after Mohammad," Kazan-based theologian Rais Suleimanov told the Gazeta.ru online publication Tuesday. "The teachings of Sattarov, who declared himself a prophet, have been rejected by traditional Muslims."

The sect members stopped accepting new members and are "only dangerous to themselves and their children," Suleimanov was quoted as saying.

Police entered Satarov's house last Friday as part of an ongoing investigation into the killing of Valiulla Yakupov, Tatarstan's deputy chief mufti, who was gunned down in mid-July as he left his house in Kazan. Minutes later, chief mufti Ildus Faizov was wounded in the legs after an explosive device ripped through his car in central Kazan.

Both clerics were known as critics of radical Islamist groups that advocate a strict and puritan version of Islam known as Salafism.

The emergence of Salafist groups in Tatarstan and other Volga River provinces with a sizable Muslim population has been fueled by the influx of jihadists and clerics from Chechnya and other provinces of Russia's Caucasus region, where Islamic insurgency has been raging for years.

Last year, Doku Umarov, the leader of the embattled Chechen separatists, issued a religious decree calling on radical Islamists from the Caucasus to move to the densely-populated Volga River region that includes Tatarstan.

Prosecutors have named two suspects in the cleric's killing who remain at large and arrested five others in the case. Islamist youth groups have staged rallies in Kazan demanding the detainees' release.

More than half of Tatarstan's 4 million people are Sunni Muslims. Tatars converted to Islam more than a thousand years ago, and the province became an important center of Muslim learning and culture under Tatar-Mongol rulers who controlled Russia and parts of Eastern Europe.

Islamic radicals from the Caucasus have called for the establishment of a caliphate, an independent Islamic state under Shariah law that includes the Caucasus, Tatarstan and other parts of Russia that were once part of the Golden Horde - a medieval Muslim state ruled by a Tatar-Mongol dynasty.