Donald Rumsfeld is a Fascist

Donald Rumsfeld, in his address at the American Legion’s national convention, said that those who oppose the administrations tactics in Iraq and Afghanistan were “morally and intellectually confused”.  The obvious absurdities of that comment are pointed out and responded to by Keith Olbermann on MSNBC who said:

But, to date, this government has proved little besides its own arrogance, and its own hubris. Mr. Rumsfeld is also personally confused, morally or intellectually, about his own standing in this matter. From Iraq to Katrina, to flu vaccine shortages, to the entire “Fog of Fear” which continues to envelope this nation – he, Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and their cronies, have – inadvertently or intentionally – profited and benefited, both personally, and politically. And yet he can stand up in public, and question the morality and the intellect of those of us who dare ask just for the receipt for the Emporer’s New Clothes. In what country was Mr. Rumsfeld raised? As a child, of whose heroism did he read? On what side of the battle for freedom did he dream one day to fight? With what country has he confused… the United States of America?

A video of Mr. Olbermann’s statement (and transcript) can be found here.  A video of Mr. Rumsfeld’s speech can be found here. 

I don’t think a country that holds civilians captive without trial or even being charged with a crime can really make claims of fascism among other governments.  Then again, it takes one to know one.

Adam & Eve Ate Escargot

Here’s a link to a sample chapter from Zoo Guide: A Bible-Based Handbook to the Zoo.

It truly is terrific reading.  But it makes one think.  My new rule? 

You can’t accept any science if you don’t accept all science.

Evolution is a theory which has come about out of scientific research – the scientific method so to speak.  If you don’t accept the results of so many reputable scientists (the near unanimous support of evolution as a working theory) you obviously have a problem with the scientific method, and therefore you shouldn’t accept anything derived from it. 

Creationists call evolution bad science.  Here’s a little quote from the above mentioned book:

To gain a better understanding that there was no “living creature death” before the Fall of Adam, we must interpret the Bible correctly and read what God has written. God’s Word plainly teaches that death is the result of sin. Therefore, there was no human or animal (nephesh chayyâh) death before sin. Adam, Eve, and all the animals ate plants and probably lower invertebrates before the Fall.

Yeah.  That’s good science.  It also shows that God HATES invertebrates.  I always thought a slug’s antennas looked a lot like horns.  And if any creationist out there needs proof that we descended from monkeys, just look at George W. Bush.

Poor and Uninsured Vouch for Strong Economy

President Bush says “the foundation of our economy is solid, and it’s strong.” That’s true, for some: corporate profits have now climbed to their highest share of GDP since the 1960’s.

But new Census Bureau data show the real state of the current economy. The Bush record on combating poverty and insuring more Americans is an undisputed failure.

Link to the charts.

Charter is not what Children Need

The New York Times has an article about a new study that shows that charter schools arn’t all they’re cracked up to be.

The study, based on data from 2003 on students’ performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, found charter school students significantly behind their non-charter-school counterparts.

The article points out that:

They should instead home in on the all-important but largely neglected issue of teacher training and preparation — which trumps everything when it comes to improving student achievement.

The No Child Left Behind Act emphasises highly qualified teachers.  What it does not address sufficiently is that there is a huge gap between knowing the subject matter and being a good teacher.  As someone who’s been through both public and private schools, I know first hand that having a good teacher is the single biggest factor in the education of children. 

While many school districts have ‘proffesional development’ programs, I don’t think any of them recieve the time or funding needed.

God’s Existence Proved by the Existence of God

My favorite website – http://www.answersingenesis.com has a new article entitled “God and Natural Law“.  The article explains how it is impossible to say that God is not responsible for all the natural laws that bind our universe together.

The most fundamental laws of nature exist only because God wills them to; they are the logical, orderly way that the Lord upholds and sustains the universe He has created. The atheist is unable to account for the logical, orderly state of the universe. Why should the universe obey laws if there is no law-giver? But laws of nature are perfectly consistent with biblical creation. In fact, the Bible is the foundation for natural laws.

Ah yes.  The classic circular argument.  God is the creator of natural laws because God created them.  I also like the question, “Why should the universe obey laws if there is no law-giver?”  Do Christians really believe that a rock doesn’t spontaneously explode because it is afraid of divine retribution? 

Since we have been made in God’s image, we instinctively know the laws of logic. We are able to reason logically (though because of finite minds and sin we don’t always think entirely logically).

Perhaps it’s believing every word you read in a dusty old book that makes YOU unable to think logically. 

We have seen that the laws of nature depend on other laws of nature, which ultimately depend on God’s will. Thus, God created the laws of physics in just the right way so that the laws of chemistry would be correct, so that life can exist.

Laws depend on god’s will.  Thus god created the laws.  HOLY CRAP I don’t understand how anyone could accept that argument!  Can anyone explain this to me?

Dear god – make it stop – some people are so ignorant it hurts.

Education Brought to Standstill as Other Countries are Discovered

In Colorado news, a geography teacher has been put on paid administrative leave for refusing to remove several foreign flags from his classroom. 

This guy should be fired.  Period.  I don’t want the next generation knowing that there are other countries out there!  Think of what kind of devastating foreign policy that would lead to.  Link

Homosexuality and Christianity

The Human Rights Campaign website has a new feature – “Out in Scripture”  Yes, it is what you think. 

I’ve always thought of gay and christian as almost contradictory.  To be gay and christian means you need to edit out the parts of scripture that you don’t like.  That begs the question, what makes the edited parts any less valid than the unedited parts?  It’s like reading World War II literature and choosing not to believe in the Holocaust.  Alright, I know that’s an unfair analogy – but what I’m trying to ask is if you feel you can ignore certain parts of a belief system, doesn’t that sort of also invalidate the parts that you do believe in? If you can’t take the bible’s word on homosexuality how can you take its word on anything else?

People grow up in church – they get comfortable in church – they rely on it as a staple of their lives and therefore they don’t question it.  Maybe their afraid of losing that part of their lives, something they’ve grown to find comforting.  For some reason people think of athiests of being immoral.  People think that if they reject the church they’ll be immoral.  Morality isn’t a christian exclusive.

I would like to hear the viewpoint of someone who is both gay and religious.  I’d like to hear how they deal with the contradictions – how they find peace with it.  Any thoughts?

Van Taylor is a Poser

Onegoodmove has an excellent clip of Van Taylor doing an interview. Taylor is evidently a republican who doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Surprise surprise. This is evidenced by the fact that he refuses to directly answer the questions posed him, but only goes off onto what sound like memorized sound bites.

I don’t understand why you would run for office – or go on TV to defend something you know nothing about. What happened to being afraid of intellectual scrutiny? When did it become OK to be completely ignorant of what you claim to know everything about?

AOL – The Black Hole of Privacy

The New York Times has a piece that raises a good question.  Since AOL made its user’s query logs for a three month period publicly available – researchers don’t know if they should use the data or not because of its blatant privacy infringements.

It seems clear that the data should never have been released in the first place – but now that it has, we might as well take advantage of it.  The truth is that people will draw their own conclusions from the data – there will be a lot of bad science out there.  Legitimate research would at least ensure that there would be some legitimate conclusions drawn from the data. 

I think it is foolish to pretend like the data doesn’t exist.  The damage has already been done – let’s see what we can learn.

Nightmares Take Hold: Creating the Culture of Fear

I just finished watching the first part of this three part BBC documentary called “The Power of Nightmares”.  It talks about how the neoconservative movement and the Muslim fundamentalist movement were born out of the same concepts.  Very interesting, and you can watch it here.

Little Black Box

Car manufacturers are now obliged to tell you if the car you’re about to buy has a black box recorder in it.

EDRs, similar to “black boxes” used in commercial airliners, record data about what a car is doing in the moments just before and after a crash. They do not record the voices of occupants but they do record things like speed, steering wheel movement, how hard the brakes are being pressed and the actual movement of the car itself.

Link to CNN

Searching for Privacy

There’s an opinion column on the NYT website which raises the questions of privacy in search terms. Recently, AOL made public the search terms that its users have used. Often people search for things on the Internet that they don’t want being public knowledge. Things such as: “what is this weird growth on my ass?” or “rape counseling”. Search engines like Google, Yahoo, AOL, MSN, etc store search queries indefinitely. This practice is infringing on your privacy. One of the fundamentally great things about the Internet is its anonymity. As technology grows we need to take steps to insure that users retain their privacy. You wouldn’t like it if Qwest or AT&T recorded all of your phone conversations, so why do we allow search engines to record our searches?

There are some Firefox extensions that hide your identity when using search engines by routing your searches through a dynamic IP address. There’s also some freeware available for Windows, Linux, or Mac (TOR).

George Bush is Obsessed with September 11th

Here’s a snippet from Bush’s recent press conference:

Q: A lot of the consequences you mentioned for pulling out seem like maybe they never would have been there if we hadn’t gone in. How do you square all of that?

Bush: You know, I’ve heard this theory about, you know, everything was just fine until we arrived and —- you know, the stir-up-the-hornet’s- nest theory. It just doesn’t hold water, as far as I’m concerned.

The terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East. They were …

Q: What did Iraq have to do with that?

Bush: What did Iraq have to do with what?

Q: The attacks upon the World Trade Center.

Bush: Nothing. Except for it’s part of —- and no body’s ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack. Iraq was a —- Iraq —- the lesson of September the 11th is: Take threats before they fully materialize, Ken.

Nobody’s ever suggested that the attacks of September the 11th were ordered by Iraq. I have suggested, however, that resentment and the lack of hope create the breeding grounds for terrorists who are willing to use suiciders to kill, to achieve an objective. I have made that case.

It appears that in Bush’s mind the attacks of September 11th is linked with the invasion of Iraq. A reporter points out to him that he is using Sept 11th as justification for going into Iraq and then he starts back peddling.

It raises the question: What does Bush actually believe? Does he believe what is true or what he wants to be true . . .? Here is the transcript.

Write Online With Writely

Google recently purchased the free online word processor – Writely . Writely (supposedly) does everything word does and you can output your document to your blog, to a file, or to a PDF file which is a nice option. In fact, I’m using writely right now to make this post.

Another great feature is the collaboration feature which lets multiple users edit the same document.

Word to the wise: if you’re a terrorist, don’t use writely to plot your next attack – it’s a great free website but I’m not sure how private it actually is.

And another thing. Writely’s spell check doesn’t recognize ‘writely’ as a word.

George Bush Claims Constitution Unconstitutional

The administration has vowed to win the appeal to the recent ruling that said that the warrant-less surveillance program was unconstitutional:

“It is an appallingly bad opinion, bad from both a philosophical and technical perspective, manifesting strong bias,” said David B. Rivkin, an official in the administrations of President Ronald Reagan and the first President Bush. “It is guaranteed to be overturned.”

Rivkin has a point. Philosophically it’s bad because the decision upheld freedom, which as we all know, is a flawed concept to begin with. Technically its bad because the decision upholds that old ratty constitution instead of the new presidential memos printed on fancy paper. The decision is also biased – I mean – a court that would dare weigh so heavily on the side of truth, right, and legality is disgraceful. Every decision should contain an equal amount of bull, mistakes, and omissions for it to be unbiased.

Link to NYT