From cectic.com (via UTI):
Author: Michael Koppelman
Catholics not allowed to pray for GLBT people
Uproar over prayer service for gays grows
The archdiocese is now dictating to people who they can and cannot pray for.
WWJD? Seriously, what the fuck would Jesus do? He would be at this prayer service.
As an ex-Catholic atheist, I see St. Joan of Arc Church as one of the few good Catholic churches left in the world.
Let's have a good, clean Presidential campaign
We have 2 good presidential candidates in Barack Obama and John McCain. I like John McCain more than I ever liked Bush and I like Barack Obama better than either Al Gore or John Kerry. These are two good candidates and two good men.
Now it’s inevitable that the extremists in either party will sling mud and pull all sorts of dirty tricks. All they need to do is hide behind empty shell companies and buy advertising. Given the current laws we have, we can’t stop these assholes from playing dirty. Thus we must do our best to ignore it. The candidates on both sides should denounce it emphatically and ask people who are supporting them to not do it.
The fair game, in my opinion, is 2 issues:
1. What qualities does the candidate have as a person and a leader.
2. What are his positions on the issues.
Those are the only two valid discussions we should have.
Now to the issue of guilt by association — it’s a gray one, in a sense, because whom you choose to associate with does lend insight into #1 above. On the other hand, we should never take some other person’s views as a proxy for the candidate’s views. The candidates can speak for themselves! So if some advisor to Obama is a racist, for example, we cannot infer something about Obama’s views from this. If McCain has a supporter who is an ardent theocrat, we can’t assume that McCain shares that view.
If McCain, though, goes to Bob Jones University (or Obama goes to, say, The Sierra Club) and proclaims what a great institution it is, then he is inviting assumptions.
Above all I’m praying to God (and that from an atheist) that the candidates themselves take the moral high ground. Both campaigns will be looking for every advantage, but being above the pissing match should be an advantage. Let’s pick the candidate who stays on the issues, has intelligent views on the issues and who avoids the slash and burn bullshit of “Swift Boat” politics.
The War on Science
The folks at Effect Measure have a great post on the war on science and they make a very tangible point:
The attack on the science has two components. The first is the most obvious: to use what appear to be scientific arguments to cast doubt on what the scientific community deems valid arguments about climate change. But the second may be the most important: to do it in a way that casts aspersions on all kinds of scientific argument. The attackers don’t care if they are accused of political or economic bias in making their own scientific arguments because one of their objectives is to establish a covert narrative that says science is always biased and tainted by political corruption. The aim is to destroy the moral authority of science, not its factual basis. They then erect a new standard based on economic promise and the virtues of “progress” and modernity.
I’ve said before that scientists tend to be liberals. It’s just a fact, just like big business guys tend to be conservatives. I don’t think either side needs to apologize for this. But the Right Wing hates this because science does hold a special place in our debates. You can’t argue about issues like climate change, embryonic stem cell research or natural selection without involving science and the fact that all the scientists are on the Left makes it seem, to some, that “science” is just a political tactic to win debates. The above quoted paragraph makes quite clear how the Right Wing has chosen to fight this: just claim that all science is biased!
I interviewed a particle physicist lately (which I will soon post over at Slacker Astronomy) and he said, and I quote, “I don’t believe anything.”. He has trained himself as a scientist to not believe things — he either knows or he doesn’t know and “knowing” involves a file cabinet full of data and research. He has purged himself of belief because it is a liability as a scientist.
So, I’m sorry, you sad little Righties. Science is not a tactic and when your beliefs are in opposition with science your beliefs needs to be modified.
Tim Russert
This sucks. Tim Russert was one of the best guys out there.
God damn you divorced people
I called the doctor today because my infant son was exposed to chicken pox. The person on the phone, after verifying my identify thoroughly (which I appreciate) proceeded to tell me that someone else had already called the doctor on behalf of my son but she could not tell me who it was.
So…the hospital can’t tell me, the father of my son, who called the hospital about my son? That is fucking insane.
It’s probably related to all you divorced people who hate your ex. If this was a rational world, not only would they be able to tell me who is calling the hospital on behalf of my son, they would fucking call me and tell me about it. Apparently being the legal parent and guardian of my son doesn’t give me the privilege of knowing who is getting medical care for my son? Again, that is fucking insane.
Not on their budget
I realize that MNDot and DOT’s around the country are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. We hate road construction but we also hate under-maintained or under-capacity roads. The pain is impossible to avoid.
But I think that people in charge of these projects vastly underestimate the amount of economic potential that they waste because the time that people waste in traffic jams is not on their budget. There is no one at the table looking after the interest of commuters. Especially in these times of high fuel costs, it is irresponsible and negligent to assume that there is no cost associated with inconveniencing drivers. There are very, very high costs — lost productivity, wasted fuel and increased air pollution, not to mention the human cost in terms of stress and reduction of family time.
These people are pissed off about it and they should be. MNDot has made tons of shitty decisions in the wake of the 35W bridge collapse. They completely ignore the impact on drivers of these shitty decisions and we should throw the bums out.
It just cracks me up that on the Internet engineers get woken up by pagers if there is congestion or outages. On the roadways, it is just expected that the system totally breaks down several times per day. It’s unsafe, it reduces the quality of life, it wastes energy and we have to prioritize modernization of our urban roadways. But our governor is too much of an ideological chicken shit to raise the money to get it done.
Playboy wanna-be's on YouTube
This is entertaining in so many ways.
Money
Here, listen to this in the background while you read this: Play Music
It occurs to me that people go through 3 stages in their life:
- Having no money.
- Having negative amounts of money.
- Having positive amounts of money.
That’s how it went for me, anyway. I had no money during high school and college. I had debt after college. Then I had a little money for a while during my Prince years and then I went into debt again when I started my first business. After I sold that business it was the first time I had the opportunity to think about saving money.
I’m not cheap and I’m not particularly frugal but at the same time, I have very modest tastes. Luxury and exclusivity are abhorrent concepts to me. The things I want, for the most part, money can’t buy.
Still…all of us get old someday and we’d all like to retire to a comfortable life of some sort. It’s foolish not to take care of business. I’m actually quite jealous of academics who get tenure and can look forward to a paycheck until the day they die. That’s not the life I lead. The only way I get to a comfortable retirement is to put it away now.
The song I linked above (which you aren’t listening to) I wrote a long time ago when I had more money than time. When you are in that situation, it does not seem worth it. I will not become one of those people who put money before my kids or my family or my own interests and desires (and maybe even a vice or two). Money is a utility. It’s has no value in and of itself. I’m going to take care of business but I’m not going to whore my life out for money.
That’s actually why I’m so proud of my business, Clockwork. We put a lot of value on quality of life and we have a lot of fun as a result.
I want to make a nice living and earn a nice retirement but I want to do it honorably.
Speaking of annoying
The Liberal Debutante posted Why Atheists Annoy Me. I’m sure she is a very nice, smart person but I find that article completely annoying because it repeats all the same, lame criticisms that atheists are constantly barraged with by theists. It gets even worse in the comments.
It’s annoying because the other side of this little debate is full of ridiculously self-righteous people who believe they are going to heaven and we are going to hell. They, in their weird little minds, literally have God on their side. If you take as your initial premise that your actions are sanctioned by God and those on the other side are damned by God, we are not going to have a real conversation. Thus, we don’t. Atheists do a great job of talking to other atheists and theists do a great job of talking to other theists. We virtually never really talk to each other. (I’ll point out as an exception my excellent interview with Ernan McMullin.)
So, to quickly run down her list, lectures are not annoying, conferences are not annoying, Dawkins is not annoying, intelligence should not even be on that list, atheists are probably the most open minded people on earth, to a degree that is shocking to many theists, atheists are positive and spirituality is a feeling that is always better explained with non-supernatural explanations.
Dear Katie, if your life is a monoculture of atheism, yes, you should be annoyed. If it’s not, please go back and delete this post! 🙂 It’s the equivalent of writing a post called “Why Women Annoy Me”. Some women are annoying. Some men are annoying. Some theists are annoying. Some atheists are annoying. The list goes on and nothing good comes from it.
lolife 
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