Dysfunction’s Role in Religion

From Newsweek (believe it or not):

In brief, the number of American non-believers has doubled since 1990, a 2008 Pew survey found, and increased even more in some other advanced democracies. What’s curious is not so much the overall decline of belief (which has caused the Vatican to lament the de-Christianization of Europe) as the pattern. In a paper last month in the online journal Evolutionary Psychology, Gregory Paul finds that countries with the lowest rates of social dysfunction—based on 25 measures, including rates of homicide, abortion, teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease, unemployment, and poverty—have become the most secular. Those with the most dysfunction, such as Portugal and the U.S., are the most religious, as measured by self-professed belief, church attendance, habits of prayer, and the like.

What is also disturbing about this is that the US is considered a country with more dysfunction.

That’s How They Get You!

The Ethiopian Review has a great article listing the top ten reasons why we should hate cell phone companies.  I’ve always thought that I was getting screwed, and evidently I was right:

For example, Verizon plays: “At the tone, please record your message. When you have finished recording, you may hang up, or press 1 for more options. To leave a callback number, press 5.”

Everyone already knows how to leave a voicemail message. Apple required AT&T to drop the requirement, for example, and somehow iPhone users are still communicating with each other.

Pogue estimates that Verizon, for example, takes $620 million a year away from customers for all the collective “minutes” required to listen to these messages. That’s just one carrier, and just one example of how carriers make money by optimizing what they call Average Revenue Per User (ARPU).

I’d love to hear a rebuttal to this article from the cell phone companies.

The Sexual Orientation of the Earth-Worm

Lesbian worms.  Need I say more?

By altering a gene in the brain of a female worm, scientists were able to change its sexual orientation so that it was attracted to other females. Scientists activated the gene that makes male structures develop in the body, but only turned it on in the brain.

Here’s a dirty picture:

 

Oh sure, you laugh now, but wait until my army of lesbian worms is complete.  World domination my friend, world domination.

The Necessity of Cable News Quacks

When one thinks of people like Glenn Beck, Keith Olberman, Bill O’Reily, and Rush Limbaugh, one often finds oneself wanting to stab ice picks in one’s ears. These people are commentators, not newsmen, but this distinction is not understood by a lot of people.

But let’s imagine a world in which these vitriolic opinionated ass-hats didn’t exist.  It would be a world of reporting only the facts.  “People gathered outside the capitol today and protested the legality of President Obama’s birth certificate.”  “Some republicans are upset about the death panels that would be created under the congress’ health care reform bill.”

The point is that there are some truly crazy people out there and perhaps it takes some crazy people to cover them.  I’ve seen the so called serious news cover these events and with only a few exceptions they are far more interested in not offending anyone that they don’t say anything at all.  They’re afraid that if they point out that there is no way that Obama isn’t a citizen they’ll be accused of being left wing and biased.  The right has embraced so many lies that it is impossible to report the truth without appearing to be leftist.

When we have actual US Congressmen (I’m looking at you, Michele Bachmann) who think that the census leads to internment camps, who receives huge amount of campaign donations from the insurance companies and proceeds to act as their puppet, who has consistently worked to incite violence against those who oppose her, who thinks CO2 is natural and therefore harmless to the environment, and who thinks  that we need to go through and purge the congress of all of those with what she has determined to be “anti-american” philosophies – why shouldn’t we have crazy people on tv talking about them?

Until we start electing serious people there will be no possibility of serious news.  This is not to say that there are not good news sources out there, and it is not to say that all cable news commentators were created equal.  But it is to say that the serious news should spend less time complaining about the so-called “fake” newsmen on cable news and start complaining more about the “fake” people who are deciding our fate.

USSA – No Way!

This comparison brought to you by Rush Limbaugh.  Coincidence?  I think not.

With all the allegations being tossed around by the right wing nut jobs I find myself wondering where it all comes from.  What does it say about American culture that this seemingly large number of people are so unabashedly ignorant?  Just today I came upon some people with signs protesting the health reform currently being considered in congress.  One of their signs pointed out that the plan we all about killing old people, and another preached against socialism.  Both of the people were what I would consider to be elderly and it was entirely likely that they were receiving medicare benefits.

Someone told them that these things were true and they didn’t care to look into it for themselves.  They want to hate it so bad that they will latch onto anything, regardless of how ridiculous it is.  When did reason stop being a virtue?  Was it the rise of consumerism that was the demise of intelligence?

I don’t think Glenn Beck should be fired for calling Obama a racist.  I find it utterly depressing however that he isn’t taken off the air because of low ratings.  The fact that there is a market for him – that people like to hear what he has to say regardless of how many times he has proved himself a clown.

Does Canada have any vacancies?

APA Can’t Treat the Gay Out of You!

From the Huffington Post:

In a resolution adopted on a 125-to-4 vote by the APA’s governing council, and in a comprehensive report based on two years of research, the 150,000-member association put itself firmly on record in opposition of so-called “reparative therapy” which seeks to change sexual orientation.

No solid evidence exists that such change is likely, says the report, and some research suggests that efforts to produce change could be harmful, inducing depression and suicidal tendencies.

Some validation for something I could have told you years ago.  I heard a rumor that you can’t get the black out of people either.  What is this world coming to?

75% Believe Bible Literally True

A recent Rasmussen poll of likely voters found that 75% of respondents in Arkansas and Alabama think the Bible is literally true.  West Virginia came in at 70% and Tennessee at 68%.

In Vermont and Massachusetts evidently only 22% are complete whack-jobs.

I would like to think that these numbers only reflect the amount of people who regularly misuse (and therefore have forgotten the definition of) the word ‘literally’.  Maybe when asked if they think the Bible is literally true they thought it was being used in the same way as when I say I’m going to literally kill myself because so many Americans are sheep (and stupid sheep at that).

 

Orly Taitz – Lawyer, Dentist, Real-estate Agent, and Crazy Person

Orly Taitz – Lawyer, Dentist, Real-estate Agent, and crazy person.

I’ll give MSNBC that it is entertaining – but it is hardly news or news – worthy.  Let’s just drop it.

Stomp out Atheists in America

Alternative Medicine an Alternative to Effective

Salon has a great piece about the somewhat more than sketchy health articles on the Huffington Post.

 

I get a lot of news from the Huffington Post.  It is even my homepage on my computer.  But I’ve also learned never to venture into the “Living” section – as it is full of almost nothing but metaphysical homeopathic bullshit.

While I admit that the drug companies have too much pull over health-care in this country, I also know that they are not ones to turn down a profit.  The drug companies are not engaged in a conspiracy in which they convince the American people that only their drugs work for any given illness.  If drinking wormwood tea made cancer go away they wouldn’t try to cover it up, they would try to sell it.

I often hear people say we just need to give homeopathy a chance – that we are too biased to traditional western medicine.  What they don’t understand is that we did give alternative treatments a chance.  We gave all treatments a chance, and those that worked became medicine and those that didn’t became “alternative medicine”. 

The scientific method applies the same to western medicine as it applies to gravity or to the nature of matter.  Just because you want Aloe Vera Gel to cure your arthritis doesn’t mean it will.  Either accept everything that the scientific method gives us or accept none of it.  If you pick and choose than you undermine it’s very usefulness as a system.

The government is spending an increasing amount of money by investigating the legitimacy of so-called alternative medicine.  And so far all they’ve found is that they are simply an alternative to effective.  And yet they through more money down the well. 

Like the family that was recently held responsible for the death of their child (for not taking her to the hospital in lieu of prayer) people put themselves and others at risk when they turn away from western medicine.

Our culture’s growing appetite for natural and organic foods cannot be allowed to spread to far.  Soon there will be a movement against penicillin and the very plastic that makes the syringes that carry it.

Our intellects enable us to create things from other things – it is why we’re on the top of the food chain, it is what makes us human.  Homeopathy is a move away from progress, from evolution.  It is a move to simpler times, with simple remedies, simple sickness, and simple death.