John Ashcroft on Torture

John Ashcroft gave a speach at the University of Colorado.  This comes from ThinkProgress.com:

Ashcroft also responded to questions from the audience. The first question came from a woman who asked if Ashcroft would be willing to be subjected to waterboarding.

“The things that I can survive, if it were necessary to do them to me, I would do,” he said.

I’m not really sure what he means by that – does he mean that if it doesn’t kill him, it’s not torture?  Does he mean that he’ll try anything that doesn’t kill him?  Does it mean I can torture him?  I’d like that.

The Dilemma of the Religious Moderate

Religious moderation is nothing more than a bastardization of religion.  It is religion that accepts that it is not infallible (which creates quite the paradox).  It is religious zeal that has been beaten down by secular advancements.  Every time science learns something new about the function of the universe, the religious have one less thing to call their own – with every move toward social progressiveness, those so called religious moderates concede more and more to the secular forces.  This is why few Christians stone adulterers, rape strangers, or keep slaves (as their Bible instructs them to do).  It is not because their Bible stories have changed, but because the secular social movement has made them see how awful these things actually are.  As social morals develop it is interesting how more and more stories from the bible are shoved out of the realm of reality and to the realm of metaphor.  (Is the metaphor of stoning adulterers any better than the act?)

And so what do we do with these so called ‘religious moderates’?  People who by their very beliefs demonstrate the fallibility of their doctrine.  These are the people that make it just that much harder to speak out against the amorality of faith.  We can’t blame religion for the Israeli/Palestinian conflict because there are both ‘good’ Jews and ‘good’ Muslims in the world – and we don’t want to upset them.  We can’t admonish the evangelical Christian movement in this country for teaching abstinence only (who knows how many have died from sexually transmitted diseases simply because their church taught them that condoms were evil?), because there are ‘good’ Christians that we don’t want to offend. 

It is hard not to offend when the basis of the liberal Protestant’s faith comes from the exact same place as the orthodox Catholic’s, Jew’s, or Pat Robertson’s.  At best, faith of the religious moderate is simply unnecessary.  At worst, it is paving the way for more violence done in the name of religion. 

The plummet this country has taken into the depths of Christian evangelicalism has had devastating consequences.  These people are walking proof that if you’re willing to believe that a man two thousand years ago was born of a virgin, than you’re capable of believing anything.  Precious resources, namely time and money, are wasted by school districts in order that their science teachers can continue to teach science.  Critical research for many chronic and life threatening diseases has stagnated because some people are worried about the ‘soul’ of a ball of ten cells.

So where did this madness originate?  You guessed it – the Bible.  The same book that millions of so called ‘religious moderates’ look to for answers.  It seems to me the very definition of a slippery slope. 

Parables and Paradox – The Stories of Jesus

Matthew 14:44

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.

Matthew 20:1-16 

The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

“About the third hour he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, `You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went.

“He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing. About the eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, `Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’ ‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered. “He said to them, `You also go and work in my vineyard.’

“When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, `Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’

“The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. `These men who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, `and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’

“But he answered one of them, `Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ So the last will be first, and the first will be last”

Matthew 13:31-32

The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field.  Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches.

For those of you not paying attention, the mustard seed grows into a fairly modest plant, not a tree.  These are only some of the examples of how Jesus makes little to no sense.  When it comes to instructing people on how to live their lives, I usually find that ambiguousness is not the best way to go – but hey, I’m not Jesus.  But the good news is that Jesus says that if you don’t understand – you’re screwed.  Jesus’ words are laden with paradox and contradiction – making it impossible to simply ‘live by the bible’.  In order to follow one commandment you must ignore several others.  Therefore there is no definitive understanding of the bible, everything is interpretation. 

Therefore to say that Jesus was a great moral teacher means that the words of Jesus you’ve cherry-picked out of the new testament make him a good moral teacher.  Which, ultimately, says more about you than about Jesus – If you pay attention to only the things which you think are good than the goodness is coming from you, not from him.  The only reason any goodness has come out of that evil book is because people have picked their passages to conform to their own world view – proving once again that morality does not spring from religion.

Trent Lott to Step Down

Trent Lott is leaving the Senate at the end of the year!  He’s going to have a news conference later today, and if there is any new information I’ll update this post.  Here is the link to the NYT story.  For those of you who don’t remember, Lott may or may not be a horrible racist – but he probably is.

Scott McClellan Lied – Who Knew?

From the Huffington Post:

In an excerpt from his forthcoming book, McClellan recounts the 2003 news conference in which he told reporters that aides Karl Rove and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby were “not involved” in the leak involving operative Valerie Plame.

“There was one problem. It was not true,” McClellan writes, according to a brief excerpt released Tuesday. “I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president’s chief of staff and the president himself.”

It is never too early to build up buzz about your book, even though it isn’t due out until April.

This is kind of like the Santa Claus at Macy’s standing up, taking off his fake beard, and announcing that he isn’t actually santa clause.  We know that.  But he puts on a little show and we suspend our disbelief. 

No one has ever confused Scott McClellan with someone who was telling them the truth.  I mean honestly.  The only revelation here is that McClellan is making some un-confirmable accusations to boost book sales.

Hillary Clinton is a Fear Monger

From the democratic debate in Las Vegas (transcript):

BLITZER: You say national security is more important than human rights. Senator Clinton, what do you say?

CLINTON: I agree with that completely. The first obligation of the president of the United States is to protect and defend the United States of America.

Wow.  It is that kind of thinking that lead to the patriot act.  It is that kind of thinking that lead to the dystopic vision Orwell put forth in 1984.  What is worth defending if not our human rights?  Without human rights we have nothing.  Clinton’s answer (she’s not the only one, Dodd answered the same) exposes a serious flaw in her way of thinking.  That’s an easy question – and she got it wrong.  It is also a very serious question.  AND SHE GOT IT WRONG.  Because of that answer, we should be very afraid of another Clinton in the white house.

STDs on the Rise

The CDC is reporting that this year the number of cases of Chlamydia, Gonorrhea, and Syphilis in the United States all went up.  From the Huffington Post:

Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said they think better and more intensive screening accounts for much of the increase, but added that chlamydia was not the only sexually transmitted disease on the rise.

Gonorrhea rates are jumping again after hitting a record low, and an increasing number of cases are caused by a “superbug” version resistant to common antibiotics.

Syphilis is rising, too. The rate of congenital syphilis _ which can deform or kill babies _ rose for the first time in 15 years.

And yet Catholics still think that condoms are evil.  I’m sure that their god is more worried about a rubber than about human lives.

 Syphilis

Ben Stein is a Creationist

Salon has an article about the battle between intelligent design and evolution in which they report:

I.D. will also be striking back in “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” a pro-I.D. documentary, to be released in February. Featuring conservative writer and political commentator Ben Stein, it portrays I.D. proponents as a group of iconoclastic firebrand scientists with the guts to go after the dogmatic Darwinists who have, the I.D.ers say, grown lazy and corrupt sitting atop a monopolistic theory with zero tolerance for dissent, within or outside of their ranks.

Stein told the New York Times that Darwin may well have been onto something with his theory of evolution, but that it is isn’t up to explaining the origins and diversity of life on its own. Plus, he thinks Darwinism leads to racism and genocide. If Stein had his way, he said, the documentary would have been called “From Darwin to Hitler.”

I always enjoyed Ben Stein on his quiz show, Win Ben Stein’s Money.  I knew he was a political conservative, but I never took him as someone who would accept such bullshit as intelligent design.

I can’t wait to see the documentary – expect a long list of logical fallacies posted here after I do.

 

Huffington Post takes on the Onion

The Huffington Post has just launched a new satire site á la The Onion.  It’s called 23/6 and their motto is: Some of the News / Most of the Time.

It made me laugh; I suggest you check it out.

Bush: Iraqis Love their new Freedom

George W. Bush once again proves that he may be the most arrogant ignorant person alive:

I don’t — you know quagmire is an interesting word. If you lived in Iraq and had lived under a tyranny, you’d be saying: God, I love freedom, because that’s what’s happened.

You can watch the clip at Think Progress. 

 Just the other day he told the Pakistani president that he couldn’t be president and head of the military at the same time . . .

Keith Olbermann’s Special Comment on Torture

OneGoodMove.org has the video of Keith Olbermann’s Special Comment in which he discusses water-boarding, and the plight of the United States.  He’s right on – definitely worth a listen.

 

Watch it here. 

Scientists Can Turn Appetite On and Off

From Reuters:

“Our bodies send complex chemical signals to our brains, which interpret them and send back responses, in this case eat or don’t eat. Our research indicated that MIC-1 is a previously unrecognized molecule sending a don’t eat signal to the brain,” Herzog said.

The researchers said it was hoped that in the near future, the MIC-1 findings will prevent a sizeable proportion of advanced cancer patients from “literally wasting away”.

The Australian scientists have found a way to turn on and off a person’s desire to eat.  While this will inevitably show up on the black market of people with eating disorders – it does have great potential for helping people – and god damn it, that’s just plain ole great.

Cognitive Dissonance Observed in Monkeys

The New York Times has an article about a recent study at Yale University:

Once a monkey was observed to show an equal preference for three colors of M&M’s — say, red, blue and green — he was given a choice between two of them. If he chose red over blue, his preference changed and he downgraded blue. When he was subsequently given a choice between blue and green, it was no longer an even contest — he was now much more likely to reject the blue.

The monkey seemed to be coping the same way humans do. When you reject the toaster, you could spend a lot of time second-guessing yourself, and that phenomenon, much less common, is called buyer’s remorse. (For more on that, go to www.tierneylab.com).

But in general, people deal with cognitive dissonance — the clashing of conflicting thoughts — by eliminating one of the thoughts. The notion that the toaster is desirable conflicts with the knowledge that you just passed it up, so you banish the notion. The cognitive dissonance is gone; you are smug.

Another jab at creationists?  Interesting nonetheless.

Feed the Hungry While Learning Vocabulary

Proving once again that you don’t have to be me to have a good idea -

FreeRice.com is a great little vocab trivia game.  It gives you a word and four possible one word definitions.  You choose the right definition and they donate 10 grains of rice to help stop hunger.  See what level you can get to, donate some rice.  Sure, 10 grains of rice is a paltry amount, but it adds up.

The rice is distributed by the United Nations’ World Food Program, and is paid for by the companies you see advertised on the bottom of the vocab screen.

As of right now, they’ve donated a total of 729,030,460 grains of rice.

Halloween is Turning Children into Liberals!

From MediaMatters:

On the October 31 edition of Fox News’ Hannity & Colmes, co-host Sean Hannity claimed that “Halloween is a liberal holiday” and “is teaching our kids to be liberals.” Hannity explained that “we’re teaching kids to knock on other people’s doors and ask for a handout.” Co-host Alan Colmes responded by asking if that meant that Christmas is a “liberal holiday.” Colmes asserted that Halloween represents “the act of giving,” and asked: “Isn’t that a Christian thing, to give, to share with your community?” Hannity replied: “Not to teach your kids to beg for a handout.”

An October 22 “editorial cartoon” in The Onion, a satirical newspaper, asks, “Halloween: What is it teaching our kids?” The cartoon depicts a costumed child receiving candy under the words: “Everyone deserves hand-outs!” The child carries a sack with the words “something for nothing” printed on it, while a depiction of the cartoonist declares: “Scariest night of the year.”

Wow.  It is frightening when the Onion predicts conservative behavior.  Is it still satire if it just reports what people actually believe?

Here’s the cartoon from the Onion: