Obama Speaks on Healthcare

Left —— Medium —— Right

The political spectrum according to Obama.

Jolly jeepers it would be nice if Obama kept one of his campaign promises.  Just one.  He did get a dog, but that one doesn’t count.  Evidently insurance will now be mandatory under Obama’s healthcare reform.  He says he favors a public option, but stops short of saying it is a requirement.  One reason I liked Obama more than Clinton in the primaries is that he didn’t favor making insurance mandatory.  One of the reasons I liked him better than McCain, among many, was his strong support of a public option.

Oh well, I guess I should have voted for Clinton and McCain’s love child.  I guess I did.

But what is key here is that the Obama camp left themselves with no room for compromise.  Those of us actually on the left wanted a single payer system – we have compromised.  The public option seemed like a good middle ground between us and the right.  But by starting with the public option, Obama has given the right the ability to try to reach a compromise from the public option.

Oh well, I guess healthcare REFORM will have to wait for the next president.  Obama has got some good ideas but ultimatly is leaving healthcare in the hands of insurance companies. . . and we’ve all seen how that works out.

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.

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.

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?

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.

Obama Accomplishes Nothing

My thoughts exactly almost exactly.

Quiverfull

Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD:
and the fruit of the womb is his reward.
As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man;
so are children of the youth.
Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them:
they shall not be ashamed,
but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.

Psalm 127:3-5 (KJV)

Morning Edition had a piecetoday about the Quiverfull movement in which Christian families keep having children until God tells them to stop (no word yet on that ever happening). 

Why would you have so many children that you can only afford to live in squaler?  God – obviously.

If you’re up for a laugh I recomend visiting Quiverfull.com:

We exalt Jesus Christ as Lord, and acknowledge His headship in all areas of our lives, including fertility. We exist to serve those believers who trust the Lord for family size, and to answer the questions of those seeking truth in this critical area of marriage.

It seems that these people take things from the bible that speak of children way too seriously.  Which makes me wonder what they do when they come across passages like this one:

  When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are.  If she does not please the man who bought her, he may allow her to be bought back again.  But he is not allowed to sell her to foreigners, since he is the one who broke the contract with her.  And if the slave girl’s owner arranges for her to marry his son, he may no longer treat her as a slave girl, but he must treat her as his daughter.  If he himself marries her and then takes another wife, he may not reduce her food or clothing or fail to sleep with her as his wife.  If he fails in any of these three ways, she may leave as a free woman without making any payment.   (Exodus 21:7-11 NLT)

Actually, that might not be a bad money making scheme – and if ever prosecuted you could just say it was all religious observance.  Have a lot of children so that you can sell the daughters as sex slaves!  It’s bible-condoned!

Pope Hates Africans – Wants them to DIE!

From the AFP:

Benedict told reporters Tuesday aboard the plane taking him to Cameroon that AIDS was a tragedy “that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems.”

The solution lies in a “spiritual and human awakening” and “friendship for those who suffer,” he said on his first trip to Africa.

In response, Spain is pledging 1 million condoms for those countries worst hit by the AIDS epidemic.  So thank you, Spain . . . but can’t you spare a few more than that?

In any case, only have unprotected sex with the pope, because apparently his condoms are lubed with AIDS.

Two people that could have been avoided if their parents had only used a condom.

New Mexico Bans Death Penalty

From the Huffinton Post:

SANTA FE, N.M. — Gov. Bill Richardson signed legislation Wednesday repealing New Mexico’s death penalty, making it the second state to ban executions since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

There was a time when I was a supporter of the death penalty.  But now we must realize that the death penalty is only viable when it is used by an infallible system.  No system will ever be infallible.

I’m also not convinced anymore that the death penalty is moral even within our theoretical perfect justice system.  I believe in rehabilitation instead of punishment.  Surely a society is judged by how it treats the worst of itself – and mayhaps we should keep that in mind.

Hans Rosling on Making Data Accessible

Here’s another fascinating talk from Ted Talks: